The Mirror of Information in Early Modern England by James Dougal Fleming

Author:James Dougal Fleming
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Heart, tongue, pen: normative steps down an intensional ladder.

A great deal of rhetorical excitement, evidently inter-involved with the advent of shorthand, is occasioned by the 45th Psalm, where David tropes his tongue as “the pen of a ready writer.” But the Psalmist’s metaphor is typically picked apart, its halves put back into intentional and rhetorical order. “Give me the tongue of the wise, and the pen of the ready writer [my emphasis],” pleads Samuel Gardiner. 78 Andrew Willet assures the King that the ministers of his church will emulate David by putting their “tongues and pennes” to work [my emphasis]. 79 “Why doth he compare the tongue unto a pen?” asks William Burton, re: Psalm 45:Surely, for three causes. First, because as the pen sheweth what the mind thought, so the tongue should expresse the zeale of the heart. Secondly, as the penne doth his message without blushing, so the tongue must speake nothing that a man may be ashamed of, but should boldly justifie the same. And thirdly, to shew that there must be that consent between the tongue and the heart, that is betweene the pen and the mind of the writer. As the toung is compared to a pen; so also, to the pen of a swift writer: and that for three causes. First, to shew, that as swift writing is a signe of one that is well practised in writing: so the toung should not be slow, but swift, and well practised in the praises of God. Secondly, to shew, that it must dispatch much in a short time, and not a little in a long time, as the hand of a swift writer doth. Thirdly to shew, that the tongue must ever be renewed and corrected as the pen of a swift writer that writeth much, must be still renewed and corrected.

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