“Little or nothing, sir.”
Sir Thomas.
“Well, give us that little or nothing.”
William Shakspeare was obedient to the commands of Sir Thomas, who had spoken thus kindly unto him, and had deigned to cast at him from hislordly dish(as the Psalmist hath it) a fragment of facetiousness.
William Shakspeare.
“Alas, sir! may I repeat it without offence, it not being doctrine but admonition, and meant for me only?”
“Speak it the rather for that,” quoth Sir Thomas.
Then did William give utterance to the words of the preacher, not indeed in his sermon at St. Mary’s, but after dinner.
“‘Lust seizeth us in youth, ambition in midlife, avarice in old age; but vanity and pride are the besetting sins that drive the angels from our cradle, pamper us with luscious and most unwholesome food, ride our first stick with us, mount our first horse with us, wake with us in the morning, dream with us in the night, and never at any time abandon us. In this world, beginning with pride and vanity, we are delivered over from tormentor to tormentor, until the worst tormentor of all taketh absolute possession of us for ever, seizing us at the mouth of the grave, enchaining us in his own dark dungeon, standing at the door, and laughing at our cries. But the Lord, out of his infinite mercy, hath placed in the hand of every man the helm to steer his course by, pointing it out with his finger, and giving him strength as well as knowledge to pursue it.
“‘William! William! there is in the moral straits a current from right to wrong, but no re-flux from wrong to right; for which destination we must hoist our sails aloft and ply our oars incessantly, or night and the tempest will overtake us, and we shall shriek out in vain from the billows, and irrecoverably sink.’”
“Amen!” cried Sir Thomas most devoutly, sustaining his voice long and loud.
“Open that casement, good Silas! the day is sultry for the season of the year; it approacheth unto noontide. The room is close, and those blue flies do make a strange hubbub.”
William Shakspeare.
“In troth do they, sir; they come from the kitchen, and do savour woundily of roast goose! And, methinks—”
Sir Thomas.
“What bethinkest thou?”
William Shakspeare.
“The fancy of a moment,—a light and vain one.”
Sir Thomas.
“Thou relievest me; speak it!”
William Shakspeare.
“How could the creatures cast their coarse rank odour thus far?—even into your presence! A noble and spacious hall! Charlecote, in my mind, beats Warwick Castle, and challenges Kenilworth.”
Sir Thomas.
“The hall is well enough; I must say it is a noble hall,—a hall for a queen to sit down in. And I stuffed an arm-chair with horse-hair on purpose, feathers over it, swan-down over them again, and covered it with scarlet cloth of Bruges, five crowns the short ell. But her highness came not hither; she was taken short; she had a tongue in her ear.”
William Shakspeare.
“Where all is spring, all is buzz and murmur.”
Sir Thomas.
“Quaint and solid as the best yew hedge. I marvel at thee. A knight might have spoken it, under favour. They stopped her at Warwick—to see what? two old towers that don’t match,[105a]and a portcullis that (people say) opens only upon fast-days. Charlecote Hall, I could have told her sweet Highness, was built by those Lucys who came over with Julius Cæsar and William the Conqueror, with cross and scallop-shell on breast and beaver.”
“But,honest Willy!?—”
Such were the very words; I wrote them down with two signs in the margent,—one a mark of admiration, as thus (!), the other of interrogation (so we call it) as thus (?).
“But, honest Willy, I would fain hear more,” quoth he, “about the learned Doctor Glaston. He seemeth to be a man after God’s own heart.”
William Shakspeare.
“Ay is he! Never doth he sit down to dinner but he readeth first a chapter of the Revelation; and if he tasteth a pound of butter at Carfax, he saith a grace long enough to bring an appetite for a baked bull’s[106a]—zle. If this be not after God’s own heart, I know not what is.”
Sir Thomas.
“I would fain confer with him, but that Oxford lieth afar off,—a matter of thirty miles, I hear. I might, indeed, write unto him; but our Warwickshire pens are mighty broad-nibbed, and there is a something in this plaguy ink of ours sadly ropy—”
“I fear there is,” quoth Willy.
“And I should scorn,” continued his worship, “to write otherwise than in a fine Italian character to the master of a college, near in dignity to knighthood.”
William Shakspeare.
“Worshipful sir! is there no other way of communicating but by person, or writing, or messages?”
Sir Thomas.
“I will consider and devise. At present I can think of none so satisfactory.”
And now did the great clock over the gateway strike. And Bill Shakspeare did move his lips, even as Sir Thomas had moved his erewhile in ejaculating. And when he had wagged them twice or thrice after the twelve strokes of the clock were over, again he ejaculated with voice also, saying,—
“Mercy upon us! how the day wears! Twelve strokes! Might I retire, please your worship, into the chapel for about three quarters of an hour, and perform the service[108a]as ordained?”
Before Sir Thomas could give him leave or answer, did Sir Silas cry aloud,—
“He would purloin the chalice, worth forty-eight shillings, and melt it down in the twinkling of an eye, he is so crafty.”
But the knight was more reasonable, and said, reprovingly,—
“There now, Silas! thou talkest widely, and verily in malice, if there be any in thee.”
“Try him,” answered Master Silas; “I don’t kneel where he does. Could he have but his wicked will of me he would chop my legs off, as he did the poor buck’s.”
Sir Thomas.
“No, no, no; he hath neither guile nor revenge in him. We may let him have his way, now that he hath taken the right one.”
Sir Silas.
“Popery! sheer popery! strong as harts-horn! Your papists keep these outlandish hours for their masses and mummery. Surely we might let God alone at twelve o’clock! Have we no bowels?”
William Shakspeare.
“Gracious sir! I do not urge it; and the time is now past by some minutes.”
Sir Thomas.
“Art thou popishly inclined, William?”
William Shakspeare.
“Sir, I am not popishly inclined; I am not inclined to pay tribute of coin or understanding to those who rush forward with a pistol at my breast, crying, ‘Stand,or you are a dead man.’ I have but one guide in faith,—a powerful, an almighty one. He will not suffer to waste away and vanish the faith for which he died. He hath chosen in all countries pure hearts for its depositaries; and I would rather take it from a friend and neighbour, intelligent and righteous, and rejecting lucre, than from some foreigner educated in the pride of cities or in the moroseness of monasteries, who sells me what Christ gave me,—his own flesh and blood.
“I can repeat by heart what I read above a year agone, albeit I cannot bring to mind the title of the book in which I read it. These are the words,—
“‘The most venal and sordid of all the superstitions that have swept and darkened our globe may, indeed, like African locusts, have consumed the green corn in very extensive regions, and may return periodically to consume it; but the strong, unwearied labourer who sowed it hath alway sown it in other places less exposed to such devouring pestilences. Those cunning men who formed to themselves the gorgeous plan of universal dominion were aware that they had a better chance of establishing it than brute ignorance or brute force could supply, and that soldiers and their paymasters were subject to other and powerfuller fears than the transitory ones of war and invasion. What they found in heaven they seized; what they wanted they forged.
“‘And so long as there is vice and ignorance in the world, so long as fear is a passion, their dominion will prevail; but their dominion is not, and never shall be, universal. Can we wonder that it is so general? Can we wonder that anything is wanting to give it authority and effect, when every learned, every prudent, every powerful, every ambitious man in Europe, for above a thousand years, united in the league to consolidate it?
“‘The old dealers in the shambles, where Christ’s body is exposed for sale in convenient marketable slices,[111a]have not covered with blood and filth the whole pavement. Beautiful usages are remaining still,—kindly affections, radiant hopes, and ardent aspirations!
“‘It is a comfortable thing to reflect, as they do, and as we may do unblamably, that we are uplifting to our Guide and Maker the same incense of the heart, and are uttering the very words, which our dearest friends in all quarters of the earth, nay in heaven itself, are offering to the throne of grace at the same moment.
“‘Thus are we together through the immensity of space. What are these bodies? Do they unite us? No; they keep us apart and asunder even while we touch. Realms and oceans, worlds and ages, open before two spirits bent on heaven. What a choir surrounds us when we resolve to live unitedly and harmoniously in Christian faith!’”
Sir Thomas.
“Now, Silas, what sayest thou?”
Sir Silas.
“Ignorant fool!”
William Shakspeare.
“Ignorant fools are bearable, Master Silas! your wise ones are the worst.”
Sir Thomas.
“Prithee no bandying of loggerheads.”
William Shakspeare.
“Or else what mortal man shall sayWhose shins may suffer in the fray?”
Sir Thomas.
“Thou reasonest aptly and timest well. And surely, being now in so rational and religious a frame of mind, thou couldst recall to memory a section or head or two of the sermon holden at St. Mary’s. It would do thee and us as much good asLighten our darkness, orForasmuch as it hath pleased; and somewhat less than three quarters of an hour (maybe less than one quarter) sufficeth.”
Sir Silas.
“Or he hangs without me. I am for dinner in half the time.”
Sir Thomas.
“Silas! Silas! he hangeth not with thee or without thee.”
Sir Silas.
“He thinketh himself a clever fellow; but he (look ye) is the cleverest that gets off.”
“I hold quite the contrary,” quoth Will Shakspeare, winking at Master Silas from the comfort and encouragement he had just received touching the hanging.
And Master Silas had his answer ready, and shewed that he was more than a match for poor Willy in wit and poetry.
He answered thus:—
“If winks are wit,Who wanteth it?
Thou hadst other bolts to kill bucks withal. In wit, sirrah, thou art a mere child.”
William Shakspeare.
“Little dogs are jealous of children, great ones fondle them.”
Sir Thomas.
“An that were written in the Apocrypha, in the very teeth of Bel and the Dragon, it could not be truer. I have witnessed it with my own eyes over and over.”
Sir Silas.
“He will take this for wit, likewise, now the arms of Lucy do seal it.”
Sir Thomas.
“Silas, they may stamp wit, they may further wit, they may send wit into good company, but not make it.”
William Shakspeare.
“Behold my wall of defence!”
Sir Silas.
“An thou art for walls, I have one for thee from Oxford, pithy and apposite, sound and solid, and trimmed up becomingly, as a collar of brawn with a crown of rosemary, or a boar’s head with a lemon in the mouth.”
William Shakspeare.
“Egad, Master Silas, those are your walls for lads to climb over, an they were higher than Babel’s.”
Sir Silas.
“Have at thee!”
“Thou art a wallTo make the ballRebound from.
“Thou hast a backFor beadle’s crackTo sound from, to sound from.
The foolishest dolts are the ground-plot of the most wit, as the idlest rogues are of the most industry. Even thou hast brought wit down from Oxford. And before a thief is hanged, parliament must make laws, attorneys must engross them, printers stamp and publish them, hawkers cry them, judges expound them, juries weigh and measure them with offences, then executioners carry them into effect. The farmer hath already sown the hemp, the ropemaker hath twisted it; sawyers saw the timber, carpenters tack together the shell, grave-diggers delve the earth. And all this truly for fellows like unto thee.”
William Shakspeare.
“Whom a God came down from heaven to save.”
Sir Thomas.
“Silas! he hangeth not. William, I must have the heads of the sermon, six or seven of ’em; thou hast whetted my appetite keenly. How! dost duck thy pate into thy hat? nay, nay, that is proper and becoming at church; we need not such solemnity. Repeat unto us the setting forth at St. Mary’s.”
Whereupon did William Shakspeare entreat of Master Silas that he would help him in his ghostly endeavours, by repeating what he called thepreliminaryprayer; which prayer I find nowhere in our ritual, and do suppose it to be one of those Latin supplications used in our learned universities now or erewhile.
I am afeard it hath not the approbation of the strictly orthodox, for inasmuch as Master Silas at such entreaty did close his teeth against it, and with teeth thus closed did say, Athanasiuswise, “Go and be damned!”
Bill was not disheartened, but said he hoped better, and began thus:—
“‘My brethren!’ said the preacher, ‘or rather let me call you my children, such is my age confronted with yours, for the most part,—my children, then, and my brethren (for here are both), believe me, killing is forbidden.’”
Sir Thomas.
“This, not being delivered unto us from the pulpit by the preacher himself, we may look into. Sensible man! shrewd reasoner! What a stroke against deer-stealers! how full of truth and ruth! Excellent discourse!”
William Shakspeare.
“The last part was the best.”
Sir Thomas.
“I always find it so. The softest of the cheesecake is left in the platter when the crust is eaten. He kept the best bit for the last, then? He pushed it under the salt, eh? He told thee—”
William Shakspeare.
“Exactly so.”
Sir Thomas.
“What was it?”
William Shakspeare.
“‘Ye shall not kill.’”
Sir Thomas.
“How I did he run in a circle like a hare? One of his mettle should break cover and off across the country like a fox or hart.”
William Shakspeare.
“‘And yet ye kill time when ye can, and are uneasy when ye cannot.’”
Whereupon did Sir Thomas say, aside unto himself, but within my hearing,—
“Faith and troth! he must have had a head in at the window here one day or other.”
William Shakspeare.
“‘This sin cryeth unto the Lord.’”
Sir Thomas.
“He was wrong there. It is not one of those that cry; mortal sins cry. Surely he could not have fallen into such an error! it must be thine; thou misunderstoodest him.”
William Shakspeare.
“Mayhap, sir! A great heaviness came over me; I was oppressed in spirit, and did feel as one awakening from a dream.”
Sir Thomas.
“Godlier men than thou art do often feel the right hand of the Lord upon their heads in like manner. It followeth contrition, and precedeth conversion. Continue.”
William Shakspeare.
“‘My brethren and children,’ said the teacher, ‘whenever ye want to kill time call God to the chase, and bid the angels blow the horn; and thus ye are sure to kill time to your heart’s content. And ye may feast another day, and another after that—’”
Then said Master Silas unto me, concernedly,
“This is the mischief-fullest of all the devil’s imps, to talk in such wise at a quarter past twelve!”
But William went straight on, not hearing him,
“‘—upon what ye shall, in such pursuit, have brought home with you. Whereas, if ye go alone, or two or three together, nay, even if ye go in thick and gallant company, and yet provide not that these be with ye, my word for it, and a powerfuller word than mine, ye shall return to your supper tired and jaded, and rest little when ye want to rest most.’”
“Hast no other head of the Doctor’s?” quoth Sir Thomas.
“Verily none,” replied Willy, “of the morning’s discourse, saving the last words of it, which, with God’s help, I shall always remember.”
“Give us them, give us them,” said Sir Thomas.
“He wants doctrine; he wants authority; his are grains of millet,—grains for unfledged doves; but they are sound, except thecrying.
“Deliver unto us the last words; for the last of the preacher, as of the hanged, are usually the best.”
Then did William repeat the concluding words of the discourse, being these:—
“‘As years are running past us, let us throw something on them which they cannot shake off in the dust and hurry of the world, but must carry with them to that great year of all, whereunto the lesser of this mortal life do tend and are subservient.’”
Sir Thomas, after a pause, and after having bent his knee under the table, as though there had been the church-cushion, said unto us,—
“Here he spakethrough a glass,darkly, as blessed Paul hath it.”
Then turning toward Willy,—
“And nothing more?”
“Nothing but theglory,” quoth Willy, “at which there is always such a clatter of feet upon the floor, and creaking of benches, and rustling of gowns, and bustle of bonnets, and justle of cushions, and dust of mats, and treading of toes, and punching of elbows, from the spitefuller, that one wishes to be fairly out of it, after the scramble forthe peace of Godis at an end—”
Sir Thomas threw himself back upon his armchair, and exclaimed in wonderment, “How!”
William Shakspeare.
“—and in the midst of the service again, were it possible. For nothing is painfuller than to have the pail shaken off the head when it is brim-full of the waters of life, and we are walking staidly under it.”
Sir Thomas.
“Had the learned Doctor preached again in the evening, pursuing the thread of his discourse, he might, peradventure, have made up the deficiencies I find in him.”
William Shakspeare.
“He had not that opportunity.”
Sir Thomas.
“The more’s the pity.”
William Shakspeare.
“The evening admonition, delivered by him unto the household—”
Sir Thomas.
“What! and did he indeed shew wind enough for that? Prithee out with it, if thou didst put it into thy tablets.”
William Shakspeare.
“Alack, sir! there were so many Latin words, I fear me I should be at fault in such attempt.”
Sir Thomas.
“Fear not; we can help thee out between us, were there a dozen or a score.”
William Shakspeare.
“Bating those latinities, I do verily think I could tie up again most of the points in his doublet.”
Sir Thomas.
“At him then! What was his bearing?”
William Shakspeare.
“In dividing his matter, he spooned out and apportioned the commons in his discourse, as best suited the quality, capacity, and constitution of his hearers. To those in priests’ orders he delivered a sort of catechism.”
Sir Silas.
“He catechise grown men! He catechise men in priests’ orders!—being no bishop, nor bishop’s ordinary!”
William Shakspeare.
“He did so; it may be at his peril.”
Sir Thomas.
“And what else? for catechisms are baby’s pap.”
William Shakspeare.
“He did not catechise, but he admonished the richer gentlemen with gold tassels for their top-knots.”
Sir Silas.
“I thought as much. It was no better in my time. Admonitions fell gently upon those gold tassels; and they ripened degrees as glass and sunshine ripen cucumbers. We priests, forsooth, are catechised! The worst question to any gold tasseller is, ‘How do you do?’ OldAlma Matercoaxes and would be coaxed. But let her look sharp, or spectacles may be thrust upon her nose that shall make her eyes water. Aristotle could make out no royal road to wisdom; but this old woman of ours will shew you one, an you tip her.
“Tilley valley![124a]catechise priests, indeed!”
Sir Thomas.
“Peradventure he did it discreetly. Let us examine and judge him. Repeat thou what he said unto them.”
William Shakspeare.
“‘Many,’ said he, ‘are ingenuous, many are devout, some timidly, some strenuously, but nearly all flinch, and rear, and kick, at the slightest touch, or least inquisitive suspicion of an unsound part in their doctrine. And yet, my brethren, we ought rather to flinch and feel sore at our own searching touch, our own serious inquisition into ourselves. Let us preachers, who are sufficiently liberal in bestowing our advice upon others, inquire of ourselves whether the exercise of spiritual authority may not be sometimes too pleasant, tickling our breasts with a plume from Satan’s wing, and turning our heads with that inebriating poison which he hath been seen to instil into the very chalice of our salvation. Let us ask ourselves in the closet whether, after we have humbled ourselves before God in our prayers, we never rise beyond the due standard in the pulpit; whether our zeal for the truth be never over-heated by internal fires less holy; whether we never grow stiffly and sternly pertinacious, at the very time when we are reproving the obstinacy of others; and whether we have not frequently so acted as if we believed that opposition were to be relaxed and borne away by self-sufficiency and intolerance. Believe me, the wisest of us have our catechism to learn; and these, my dear friends, are not the only questions contained in it. No Christian can hate; no Christian can malign. Nevertheless, do we not often both hate and malign those unhappy men who are insensible to God’s mercies? And I fear this unchristian spirit swells darkly, with all its venom, in the marble of our hearts, not because our brother is insensible to these mercies, but because he is insensible to our faculty of persuasion, turning a deaf ear unto our claim upon his obedience, or a blind or sleepy eye upon the fountain of light, whereof we deem ourselves the sacred reservoirs. There is one more question at which ye will tremble when ye ask it in the recesses of your souls; I do tremble at it, yet must utter it. Whether we do not more warmly and erectly stand up for God’s word because it came from our mouths, than because it came from his? Learned and ingenious men may indeed find a solution and excuse for all these propositions; but the wise unto salvation will cry, “Forgive me, O my God, if, called by thee to walk in thy way, I have not swept this dust from the sanctuary!”’”
Sir Thomas.
“All this, methinks, is for the behoof of clerks and ministers.”
William Shakspeare.
“He taught them what they who teach others should learn and practise. Then did he look toward the young gentlemen of large fortune; and lastly his glances fell upon us poorer folk, whom he instructed in the duty we owe to our superiors.”
Sir Thomas.
“Ay, there he had a host.”
William Shakspeare.
“In one part of his admonition he said,—
“‘Young gentlemen! let not the highest of you who hear me this evening be led into the delusion, for such it is, that the founder of his family wasoriginallya greater or a better man than the lowest here. He willed it, and became it. He must have stood low; he must have worked hard,—and with tools, moreover, of his own invention and fashioning. He waved and whistled off ten thousand strong and importunate temptations; he dashed the dice-box from the jewelled hand of Chance, the cup from Pleasure’s, and trod under foot the sorceries of each; he ascended steadily the precipices of Danger, and looked down with intrepidity from the summit; he overawed Arrogance with Sedateness; he seized by the horn and overleaped low Violence; and he fairly swung Fortune round.
“‘The very high cannot rise much higher; the very low may,—the truly great must have done it.
“‘This is not the doctrine, my friends, of the silkenly and lawnly religious; it wears the coarse texture of the fisherman, and walks uprightly and straightforward under it. I am speaking now more particularly to you among us upon whom God hath laid the incumbrances of wealth, the sweets whereof bring teazing and poisonous things about you, not easily sent away. What now are your pretensions under sacks of money? or your enjoyments under the shade of genealogical trees? Are they rational? Are they real? Do they exist at all? Strange inconsistency! to be proud of having as much gold and silver laid upon you as a mule hath, and yet to carry it less composedly! The mule is not answerable for the conveyance and discharge of his burden,—you are. Stranger infatuation still! to be prouder of an excellent thing done by another than by yourselves, supposing any excellent thing to have actually been done; and, after all, to be more elated on his cruelties than his kindnesses, by the blood he hath spilt than by the benefits he had conferred; and to acknowledge less obligation to a well-informed and well-intentioned progenitor than to a lawless and ferocious barbarian. Would stocks and stumps, if they could utter words, utter such gross stupidity? Would the apple boast of his crab origin, or the peach of his prune? Hardly any man is ashamed of being inferior to his ancestors, although it is the very thing at which the great should blush, if, indeed, the great in general descended from the worthy. I did expect to see the day, and although I shall not see it, it must come at last, when he shall be treated as a madman or an impostor who dares to claim nobility or precedency and cannot shew his family name in the history of his country. Even he who can shew it, and who cannot write his own under it in the same or as goodly characters, must submit to the imputation of degeneracy, from which the lowly and obscure are exempt.
“‘He alone who maketh you wiser maketh you greater; and it is only by such an implement that Almighty God himself effects it. When he taketh away a man’s wisdom he taketh away his strength, his power over others and over himself. What help for him then? He may sit idly and swell his spleen, saying,—Who is this?who is that? and at the question’s end the spirit of inquiry dies away in him. It would not have been so if, in happier hour, he had said within himself,Who am I?what am I? and had prosecuted the search in good earnest.
“‘When we ask whothisman is, or whothatman is, we do not expect or hope for a plain answer; we should be disappointed at a direct, or a rational, or a kind one. We desire to hear that he was of low origin, or had committed some crime, or been subjected to some calamity. Whoever he be, in general we disregard or despise him, unless we discover that he possesseth by nature many qualities of mind and body which he never brings into use, and many accessories of situation and fortune which he brings into abuse every day. According to the arithmetic in practice, he who makes the most idlers and the most ingrates is the most worshipful. But wiser ones than the scorers in this school will tell you how riches and power were bestowed by Providence that generosity and mercy should be exercised; for, if every gift of the Almighty were distributed in equal portions to every creature, less of such virtues would be called into the field; consequently there would be less of gratitude, less of submission, less of devotion, less of hope, and, in the total, less of content.’”
Here he ceased, and Sir Thomas nodded, and said,—
“Reasonable enough! nay, almost too reasonable!”
“But where are the apostles? Where are the disciples? Where are the saints? Where is hell-fire?”
“Well! patience! we may come to it yet. Go on, Will!”
With such encouragement before him, did Will Shakspeare take breath and continue:—
“‘We mortals are too much accustomed to behold our superiors in rank and station as we behold the leaves in the forest. While we stand under these leaves, our protection and refuge from heat and labour, we see only the rougher side of them, and the gloominess of the branches on which they hang. In the midst of their benefits we are insensible to their utility and their beauty, and appear to be ignorant that if they were placed less high above us we should derive from them less advantage.’”
Sir Thomas.
“Ay; envy of superiority made the angels kick and run restive.”
William Shakspeare.
“May it please your worship! with all my faults, I have ever borne due submission and reverence toward my superiors.”
Sir Thomas.
“Very right! very scriptural! But most folks do that. Our duty is not fulfilled unless we bear absolute veneration; unless we are ready to lay down our lives and fortunes at the foot of the throne, and every thing else at the foot of those who administer the laws under virgin majesty.”
William Shakspeare.
“Honoured sir! I am quite ready to lay down my life and fortune, and all the rest of me, before that great virgin.”
Sir Silas.
“Thy life and fortune, to wit!
“What are they worth? A June cob-nut, maggot and all.”
Sir Thomas.
“Silas, we will not repudiate nor rebuff his Magdalen, that bringeth a pot of ointment. Rather let us teach and tutor than twit. It is a tractable and conducible youth, being in good company.”
Sir Silas.
“Teach and tutor! Hold hard, sir! These base varlets ought to be taught but two things: to bow as beseemeth them to their betters, and to hang perpendicular. We have authority for it, that no man can add an inch to his stature; but by aid of the sheriff I engage to find a chap who shall add two or three to this whoreson’s.”[133a]
Sir Thomas.
“Nay, nay, now, Silas! the lad’s mother was always held to be an honest woman.”
Sir Silas.
“His mother may be an honest woman for me.”
William Shakspeare.
“No small privilege, by my faith! for any woman in the next parish to thee, Master Silas!”
Sir Silas.
“There again! out comes the filthy runlet from the quagmire, that but now lay so quiet with all its own in it.”
William Shakspeare.
“Until it was trodden on by the ass that could not leap over it. These, I think, are the words of the fable.”
Sir Thomas.
“They are so.”
Sir Silas.
“What fable?”
Sir Thomas.
“Tush! don’t press him too hard; he wants not wit, but learning.”
Sir Silas.
“He wants a rope’s-end; and a rope’s-end is not enough for him, unless we throw in the other.”
Sir Thomas.
“Peradventure he may be an instrument, a potter’s clay, a type, a token.
“I have seen many young men, and none like unto him. He is shallow but clear; he is simple, but ingenuous.”
Sir Silas.
“Drag the ford again, then. In my mind he is as deep as the big tankard; and a mouthful of rough burrage will be the beginning and end of it.”
Sir Thomas.
“No fear of that. Neither, if rightly reported by the youngster, is there so much doctrine in the doctor as we expected. He doth not dwell upon the main; he is worldly; he is wise in his generation,—he says things out of his own head.
“Silas, that can’t hold! We wantprops—fulcrums, I think you called ’em to the farmers; or was itstimulums?”
Sir Silas.
“Both very good words.”
Sir Thomas.
“I should be mightily pleased to hear thee dispute with that great don.”
Sir Silas.
“I hate disputations. Saint Paul warns us against them. If one wants to be thirsty, the tail of a stockfish is as good for it as the head of a logician.
“The doctor there, at Oxford, is in flesh and mettle; but let him be sleek and gingered as he may, clap me in St. Mary’s pulpit, cassock me, lamb-skin me, give me pink for my colours, glove me to the elbow, heel-piece me half an ell high, cushion me before and behind, bring me a mug of mild ale and a rasher of bacon, only just to con over the text withal; then allow me fair play, and as much of my own way as he had, and the devil take the hindermost. I am his man at any time.”
Sir Thomas.
“I am fain to believe it. Verily, I do think, Silas, thou hast as much stuff in thee as most men. Our beef and mutton at Charlecote rear other than babes and sucklings.
“I like words taken, like thine, from black-letter books. They look stiff and sterling, and as though a man might dig about ’em for a week, and never loosen the lightest.
“Thou hast alway at hand either saint or devil, as occasion needeth, according to the quality of the sinner, and they never come uncalled for. Moreover, Master Silas, I have observed that thy hell-fire is generally lighted up in the pulpit about the dog-days.”
Then turned the worthy knight unto the youth, saying,—
“’T were well for thee, William Shakspeare, if the learned doctor had kept thee longer in his house, and had shewn unto thee the danger of idleness, which hath often led unto deer-stealing and poetry. In thee we already know the one, although the distemper hath eaten but skin-deep for the present; and we have the testimony of two burgesses on the other. The pursuit of poetry, as likewise of game, is unforbidden to persons of condition.”
William Shakspeare.
“Sir, that of game is the more likely to keep them in it.”
Sir Thomas.
“It is the more knightly of the two; but poetry hath also her pursuers among us. I myself, in my youth, had some experience that way; and I am fain to blush at the reputation I obtained. His honour, my father, took me to London at the age of twenty; and, sparing no expense in my education, gave fifty shillings to one Monsieur Dubois to teach me fencing and poetry, in twenty lessons. In vacant hours he taught us also the laws of honour, which are different from ours.
“In France you are unpolite unless you solicit a judge or his wife to favour your cause; and you inevitably lose it. In France there is no want of honour where there is no want of courage; you may lie, but you must not hear that you lie. I asked him what he thought then of lying; and he replied,—
“‘C’est selon.’
“‘And suppose you should overhear the whisper?’
“‘Ah,parbleu!Cela m’irrite;cela me pousse au bout.’
“I was going on to remark that a real man of honour could less bear to lie than to hear it; when he cried, at the wordsreal man of honour,—
“‘Le voilà,Monsieur!le voilà!’ and gave himself such a blow on the breast as convinced me the French are a brave people.
“He told us that nothing but his honour was left him, but that it supplied the place of all he had lost. It was discovered some time afterward that M. Dubois had been guilty of perjury, had been a spy, and had lost nothing but a dozen or two of tin patty-pans, hereditary in his family, his father having been a cook on his own account.
“William, it is well at thy time of life that thou shouldst know the customs of far countries, particularly if it should be the will of God to place thee in a company of players. Of all nations in the world, the French best understand the stage. If thou shouldst ever write for it, which God forbid, copy them very carefully. Murders on their stage are quite decorous and cleanly. Few gentlemen and ladies die by violence who would not have died by exhaustion. ‘For they rant and rave until their voice fails them, one after another; and those who do not die of it die consumptive. They cannot bear to see cruelty; they would rather see any image than their own.’ These are not my observations, but were made by Sir Everard Starkeye, who likewise did remark to Monsieur Dubois, that ‘cats, if you hold them up to the looking-glass, will scratch you terribly; and that the same fierce animal, as if proud of its cleanly coat and velvety paw, doth carefully put aside what other animals of more estimation take no trouble to conceal.’
“‘Our people,’ said Sir Everard, ‘must see upon the stage what they never could have imagined; so the best men in the world would earnestly take a peep of hell through a chink, whereas the worser would skulk away.’
“Do not thou be their caterer, William! Avoid the writing of comedies and tragedies. To make people laugh is uncivil, and to make people cry is unkind. And what, after all, are these comedies and these tragedies? They are what, for the benefit of all future generations, I have myself described them,—
‘The whimsies of wantons and stories of dread,That make the stout-hearted look under the bed.’
Furthermore, let me warn thee against the same on account of the vast charges thou must stand at. We Englishmen cannot find it in our hearts to murder a man without much difficulty, hesitation, and delay. We have little or no invention for pains and penalties; it is only our acutest lawyers who have wit enough to frame them. Therefore it behooveth your tragedy-man to provide a rich assortment of them, in order to strike the auditor with awe and wonder. And a tragedy-man, in our country, who cannot afford a fair dozen of stabbed males, and a trifle under that mark of poisoned females, and chains enow to moor a whole navy in dock, is but a scurvy fellow at the best. Thou wilt find trouble in purveying these necessaries; and then must come the gim-cracks for the second course,—gods, goddesses, fates, furies, battles, marriages, music, and the maypole. Hast thou within thee wherewithal?”
“Sir!” replied Billy, with great modesty, “I am most grateful for these ripe fruits of your experience. To admit delightful visions into my own twilight chamber is not dangerous nor forbidden. Believe me, sir, he who indulges in them will abstain from injuring his neighbour; he will see no glory in peril, and no delight in strife.
“The world shall never be troubled by any battles and marriages of mine, and I desire no other music and no other maypole than have lightened my heart at Stratford.”
Sir Thomas, finding him well-conditioned and manageable, proceeded:—
“Although I have admonished thee of sundry and insurmountable impediments, yet more are lying in the pathway. We have no verse for tragedy. One in his hurry hath dropped rhyme, and walketh like unto the man who wanteth the left-leg stocking. Others can give us rhyme indeed, but can hold no longer after the tenth or eleventh syllable. Now Sir Everard Starkeye, who is a pretty poet, did confess to Monsieur Dubois the potency of the French tragic verse, which thou never canst hope to bring over.
“‘I wonder, Monsieur Dubois!’ said Sir Everard, ‘that your countrymen should have thought it necessary to transport their heavy artillery into Italy. No Italian could stand a volley of your heroic verses from the best and biggest pieces. With these brought into action, you never could have lost the battle of Pavia.’
“Now my friend Sir Everard is not quite so good a historian as he is a poet; and Monsieur Dubois took advantage of him.
“‘Pardon! Monsieur Sir Everard!’ said Monsieur Dubois, smiling at my friend’s slip, ‘We did not lose the battle of Pavia. We had the misfortune to lose our king, who delivered himself up, as our kings always do, for the good and glory of his country.’
“‘How was this?’ said Sir Everard, in surprise.
“‘I will tell you, Monsieur Sir Everard!’ said Monsieur Dubois. ‘I had it from my own father, who fought in the battle, and told my mother, word for word.
“‘The king seeing his household troops, being only one thousand strong, surrounded by twelve regiments, the best Spanish troops, amounting to eighteen thousand four hundred and forty-two, although he doubted not of victory, yet thought he might lose many brave men before the close of the day, and rode up instantly to King Charles, and said,—
“‘“My brother! I am loath to lose so many of those brave men yonder. Whistle off your Spanish pointers, and I agree to ride home with you.”
“‘And so he did. But what did King Charles? Abusing French loyalty, he made our Francis his prisoner, would you believe it? and treated him worse than ever badger was treated at the bottom of any paltry stable-yard, putting upon his table beer and Rhenish wine and wild boar.’
“I have digressed with thee, young man,” continued the knight, much to the improvement of my knowledge, I do reverentially confess, as it was of the lad’s. “We will now,” said he, “endeavour our best to sober thee, finding that Doctor Glaston hath omitted it.”
“Not entirely omitted it,” said William, gratefully; “he did after dinner all that could be done at such a time toward it. The doctor could, however, speak only of the Greeks and Romans, and certainly what he said of them gave me but little encouragement.”
Sir Thomas.
“What said he?”
William Shakspeare.
“He said, ‘The Greeks conveyed all their wisdom into their theatre,—their stages were churches and parliament-houses; but what was false prevailed over what was true. They had their own wisdom, the wisdom of the foolish. Who is Sophocles, if compared to Doctor Hammersley of Oriel? or Euripides, if compared to Doctor Prichard of Jesus? Without the Gospel, light is darkness; and with it, children are giants.
“‘William, I need not expatiate on Greek with thee, since thou knowest it not, but some crumbs of Latin are picked up by the callowest beaks. The Romans had, as thou findest, and have still, more taste for murder than morality, and, as they could not find heroes among them, looked for gladiators. Their only very high poet employed his elevation and strength to dethrone and debase the Deity. They had several others, who polished their language and pitched their instruments with admirable skill; several who glued over their thin and flimsy gaberdines many bright feathers from the widespread downs of Ionia, and the richly cultivated rocks of Attica.
“‘Some of them have spoken from inspiration; for thou art not to suppose that from the heathen were withheld all the manifestations of the Lord. We do agree at Oxford that the Pollio of Virgil is our Saviour. True, it is the dullest and poorest poem that a nation not very poetical hath bequeathed unto us; and even the versification, in which this master excelled, is wanting in fluency and sweetness. I can only account for it from the weight of the subject. Two verses, which are fairly worth two hundred such poems, are from another pagan; he was forced to sigh for the church without knowing her. He saith,—
“May I gaze upon thee when my latest hour is come!May I hold thy hand when mine faileth me!”
This, if adumbrating the church, is the most beautiful thought that ever issued from the heart of man; but if addressed to a wanton, as some do opine, is filth from the sink, nauseating and insufferable.
“‘William! that which moveth the heart most is the best poetry; it comes nearest unto God, the source of all power.’”
Sir Thomas.
“Yea; and he appeareth unto me to know more of poetry than of divinity. Those ancients have little flesh upon the body poetical, and lack the savour that sufficeth. The Song of Solomon drowns all their voices: they seem but whistlers and guitar-players compared to a full-cheeked trumpeter; they standing under the eaves in some dark lane, he upon a well-caparisoned stallion, tossing his mane and all his ribbons to the sun. I doubt the doctor spake too fondly of the Greeks; they were giddy creatures. William, I am loath to be hard on them; but they please me not. There are those now living who could make them bite their nails to the quick, and turn green as grass with envy.”
William Shakspeare.
“Sir, one of those Greeks, methinks, thrown into the pickle-pot, would be a treasure to the housewife’s young jerkins.”
Sir Thomas.
“Simpleton! simpleton! but thou valuest them justly. Now attend. If ever thou shouldst hear, at Oxford or London, the verses I am about to repeat, prithee do not communicate them to that fiery spirit Mat Atterend. It might not be the battle of two hundreds, but two counties; a sort of York and Lancaster war, whereof I would wash my hands. Listen!”
And now did Sir Thomas clear his voice, always high and sonorous, and did repeat from the stores of his memory these rich and proud verses,—
“‘Chloe! mean men must ever make mean loves;They deal in dog-roses, but I in cloves.They are just scorch’d enough to blow their fingers;I am a phœnix downright burnt to cinders.’”
At which noble conceits, so far above what poor Bill had ever imagined, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and exclaimed,—
“The world itself must be reduced to that condition before such glorious verses die!ChloeandClove! Why, sir! Chloe wants but a V toward the tail to become the very thing! Never tell me that such matters can come about of themselves. And how truly is it said that we mean men deal in dog-roses.
“Sir, if it were permitted me to swear on that holy Bible, I would swear I never until this day heard that dog-roses were our provender; and yet did I, no longer ago than last summer, write, not indeed upon a dog-rose, but upon a sweet-briar, what would only serve to rinse the mouth withal after the clove.”
Sir Thomas.
“Repeat the same, youth. We may haply give thee our counsel thereupon.”
Willy took heart, and lowering his voice, which hath much natural mellowness, repeated these from memory:—
“My briar that smelledst sweetWhen gentle spring’s first heatRan through thy quiet veins,—Thou that wouldst injure none,But wouldst be left alone,—Alone thou leavest me, and nought of thine remains.
“What! hath no poet’s lyreO’er thee, sweet-breathing briar,Hung fondly, ill or well?And yet methinks with theeA poet’s sympathy,Whether in weal or woe, in life or death, might dwell.
“Hard usage both must bear,Few hands your youth will rear,Few bosoms cherish you;Your tender prime must bleedEre you are sweet, but freedFrom life, you then are prized; thus prized are poets too.”
Sir Thomas said, with kind encouragement, “He who beginneth so discreetly with a dog-rose, may hope to encompass a damask-rose ere he die.”
Willy did now breathe freely. The commendation of a knight and magistrate worked powerfully within him; and Sir Thomas said furthermore,—
“These short matters do not suit me. Thou mightest have added some moral about life and beauty,—poets never handle roses without one; but thou art young, and mayest get into the train.”
Willy made the best excuse he could; and no bad one it was, the knight acknowledged; namely, that the sweet-briar was not really dead, although left for dead.
“Then,” said Sir Thomas, “as life and beauty would not serve thy turn, thou mightest have had full enjoyment of the beggar, the wayside, the thieves, and the good Samaritan,—enough to tapestry the bridal chamber of an empress.”
William bowed respectfully, and sighed.
“Ha! thou hast lost them, sure enough, and it may not be quite so fair to smile at thy quandary,” quoth Sir Thomas.
“I did my best the first time,” said Willy, “and fell short the second.”
“That, indeed, thou must have done,” said Sir Thomas. “It is a grievous disappointment, in the midst of our lamentations for the dead, to find ourselves balked. I am curious to see how thou couldst help thyself. Don’t be abashed; I am ready for even worse than the last.”
Bill hesitated, but obeyed:—
“And art thou yet alive?And shall the happy hiveSend out her youth to cullThy sweets of leaf and flower,And spend the sunny hourWith thee, and thy faint heart with murmuring music lull?
“Tell me what tender care,Tell me what pious prayer,Bade thee arise and live.The fondest-favoured beeShall whisper nought to theeMore loving than the song my grateful muse shall give.”
Sir Thomas looked somewhat less pleased at the conclusion of these verses than at the conclusion of the former, and said, gravely,—
“Young man! methinks it is betimes that thou talkest of having a muse to thyself; or even in common with others. It is only great poets who have muses; I mean to say who have the right to talk in that fashion. The French, I hear,Phœbusit andmuse-meit right and left; and boggle not to throw all nine, together with mother and master, into the compass of a dozen lines or thereabout. And your Italian can hardly do without ’em in the multiplication-table. We Englishmen do let them in quietly, shut the door, and say nothing of what passes. I have read a whole book of comedies, and ne’er a muse to help the lamest.”
William Shakspeare.
“Wonderful forbearance! I marvel how the poet could get through.”
Sir Thomas.
“By God’s help. And I think we did as well without ’em; for it must be an unabashable man that ever shook his sides in their company. They lay heavy restraint both upon laughing and crying. In the great master Virgil of Rome, they tell me they come in to count the ships, and having cast up the sum total, and proved it, make off again. Sure token of two things,—first, that he held ’em dog-cheap; secondly, that he had made but little progress (for a Lombard born) in book-keeping at double entry.
“He, and every other great genius, began with small subject-matters, gnats and the like. I myself, similar unto him, wrote upon fruit. I would give thee some copies for thy copying, if I thought thou wouldst use them temperately, and not render them common, as hath befallen the poetry of some among the brightest geniuses. I could shew thee how to say new things, and how to time the same. Before my day, nearly all the flowers and fruits had been gathered by poets, old and young,from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall; roses went up to Solomon, apples to Adam, and so forth.
“Willy! my brave lad! I was the first that ever handled a quince, I’ll be sworn.
“Hearken!
“Chloe! I would not have thee winceThat I unto thee send a quince.I would not have thee say unto ’tBegone! and trample ’t underfoot,For, trust me, ’t is no fulsome fruit.It came not out of mine own garden,But all the way from Henly in Arden,—Of an uncommon fine old tree,Belonging to John Asbury.And if that of it thou shalt eat,’Twill make thy breath e’en yet more sweet;As a translation here doth shew,On fruit-trees,by Jean Mirabeau.The frontispiece is printed so.But eat it with some wine and cake,Or it may give the belly-ache.[153a]This doth my worthy clerk indite,I sign,
Sir Thomas Lucy, Knight.”
“Now, Willy, there is not one poet or lover in twenty who careth for consequences. Many hint to the lady what to do, few what not to do although it would oftentimes, as in this case, go to one’s heart to see the upshot.”
“Ah, sir,” said Bill, in all humility, “I would make bold to put the parings of that quince under my pillow, for sweet dreams and insights, if Doctor Glaston had given me encouragement to continue the pursuit of poetry. Of a surety it would bless me with a bedful of churches and crucifixions, duly adumbrated.”
Whereat Sir Thomas, shaking his head, did inform him,—
“It was in the golden age of the world, as pagans call it, that poets of condition sent fruits and flowers to their beloved, with posies fairly penned. We, in our days, have done the like. But manners of late are much corrupted on the one side, if not on both.
“Willy! it hath been whispered that there be those who would rather have a piece of brocade or velvet for a stomacher than the touchingest copy of verses, with a bleeding heart at the bottom.”
William Shakspeare.
“Incredible!”
Sir Thomas.
“’T is even so!”
William Shakspeare.
“They must surely be rotten fragments of the world before the flood,—saved out of it by the devil.”
Sir Thomas.
“I am not of that mind.
“Their eyes, mayhap, fell upon some of the bravery cast ashore from the Spanish Armada. In ancienter days, a few pages of good poetry outvalued a whole ell of the finest Genoa.”
William Shakspeare.
“When will such days return?”
Sir Thomas.
“It is only within these few years that corruption and avarice have made such ghastly strides. They always did exist, but were gentler.
“My youth is waning, and has been nigh upon these seven years, I being now in my forty-eighth.”
William Shakspeare.
“I have understood that the god of poetry is in the enjoyment of eternal youth; I was ignorant that his sons were.”
Sir Thomas.
“No, child! we are hale and comely, but must go the way of all flesh.”
William Shakspeare.
“Must it, can it, be?”
Sir Thomas.
“Time was, my smallest gifts were acceptable, as thus recorded:—
“From my fair hand, O will ye, will yeDeign humbly to accept a gilly-Flower for thy bosom, sugared maid!
“Scarce had I said it ere she took it,And in a twinkling, faith! had stuck it,Where e’en proud knighthood might have laid.”
William was now quite unable to contain himself, and seemed utterly to have forgotten the grievous charge against him; to such a pitch did his joy o’erleap his jeopardy.
Master Silas in the meantime was much disquieted; and first did he strip away all the white feather from every pen in the inkpot, and then did he mend them, one and all, and then did he slit them with his thumb-nail, and then did he pare and slash away at them again and then did he cut off the tops, until at last he left upon them neither nib nor plume, nor enough of the middle to serve as quill to a virginal. It went to my heart to see such a power of pens so wasted; there could not be fewer than five. Sir Thomas was less wary than usual, being overjoyed. For great poets do mightly affect to have little poets under them; and little poets do forget themselves in great company, as fiddlers do, whohail fellow well meteven with lords.
Sir Thomas did not interrupt our Bill’s wild gladness. I never thought so worshipful a personage could bear so much. At last he said unto the lad,—
“I do bethink me, if thou hearest much more of my poetry, and the success attendant thereon, good Doctor Glaston would tear thy skirt off ere he could drag thee back from the occupation.”
William Shakspeare.
“I fear me, for once, all his wisdom would sluice out in vain.”
Sir Thomas.
“It was reported to me that when our virgin queen’s highness (her Dear Dread’s[157a]ear not being then poisoned) heard these verses, she said before her courtiers, to the sore travail of some, and heart’s content of others,—
“‘We need not envy our young cousin James of Scotland his ass’s bite of a thistle, having such flowers as these gillyflowers on the chimney-stacks of Charlecote.’
“I could have told her highness that all this poetry, from beginning to end, was real matter of fact, well and truly spoken by mine own self. I had only to harness the rhymes thereunto, at my leisure.”
William Shakspeare.
“None could ever doubt it. Greeks and Trojans may fight for the quince; neither shall have it
While a Warwickshire ladIs on earth to be had,With a wand to wagOn a trusty nag,He shall keep the listsWith cudgel or fists.And black shall be whose eyeLooks evil on Lucy.”
Sir Thomas.
“Nay, nay, nay! do not trespass too soon upon heroics. Thou seest thou canst not hold thy wind beyond eight lines. What wouldst thou do under the heavy mettle that should have wrought such wonders at Pavia, if thou findest these petards so troublesome in discharging? Surely, the good doctor, had he entered at large on the subject, would have been very particular in urging this expostulation.”
William Shakspeare.
“Sir, to my mortification I must confess that I took to myself the counsel he was giving to another; a young gentleman who, from his pale face, his abstinence at table, his cough, his taciturnity, and his gentleness, seemed already more than half poet. To him did Doctor Glaston urge, with all his zeal and judgment, many arguments against the vocation; telling him that, even in college, he had few applauders, being the first, and not the second or third, who always are more fortunate; reminding him that he must solicit and obtain much interest with men of rank and quality, before he could expect their favour; and that without it the vein chilled, the nerve relaxed, and the poet was left at next door to the bellman. ‘In the coldness of the world,’ said he, ‘in the absence of ready friends and adherents, to light thee upstairs to the richly tapestried chamber of the muses, thy spirits will abandon thee, thy heart will sicken and swell within thee; overladen, thou wilt make, O Ethelbert! a slow and painful progress, and ere the door open, sink. Praise giveth weight unto the wanting, and happiness giveth elasticity unto the heavy. As the mightiest streams of the unexplored world, America, run languidly in the night,[159a]and await the sun on high to contend with him in strength and grandeur, so doth genius halt and pause in the thraldom of outspread darkness, and move onward with all his vigour then only when creative light and jubilant warmth surround him.’