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diff --git a/old/54168-0.txt b/old/54168-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ff9d356..0000000 --- a/old/54168-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7986 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, English Lands Letters and Kings: From Celt to -Tudor, by Donald Grant Mitchell - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: English Lands Letters and Kings: From Celt to Tudor - - -Author: Donald Grant Mitchell - - - -Release Date: February 15, 2017 [eBook #54168] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH LANDS LETTERS AND KINGS: -FROM CELT TO TUDOR*** - - -E-text prepared by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team -(http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by -Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/englishlandslett01mitc - - - Project Gutenberg has the other three volumes of this work. - II: From Elizabeth to Anne - see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54142 - III: Queen Anne and the Georges - see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37226 - IV: The Later Georges to Victoria - see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54143 - - - - - -ENGLISH LANDS LETTERS AND KINGS - -From Celt to Tudor - - - * * * * * * - -ENGLISH LANDS LETTERS AND KINGS - -_By Donald G. Mitchell_ - - I. From Celt to Tudor - II. From Elizabeth to Anne -III. Queen Anne and the Georges - IV. The Later Georges to Victoria - -_Each 1 vol., 12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.50_ - -AMERICAN LANDS AND LETTERS - -From the Mayflower to Rip Van Winkle - -_1 vol., square 12mo, Illustrated, $2.50_ - - * * * * * * - - -ENGLISH LANDS LETTERS AND KINGS - -From Celt to Tudor - -by - -DONALD G. MITCHELL - -[Illustration] - - - - - - -New York -Charles Scribner’s Sons -MDCCCXCVII - -Copyright, 1889, by -Charles Scribner’S Sons - -Trow’S -Printing and Bookbinding Company, -New York. - - - - -_PREFACE._ - - -This little book is made up from the opening series of a considerable -range of “talks,” with which--during the past few years--I have -undertaken to entertain, and (if it might be) instruct a bevy of friends; -and the interest of a few outsiders who have come to the hearings has -induced me to put the matter in type. I feel somewhat awkwardly in -obtruding upon the public any such panoramic view of British writers, in -these days of specialists--when students devote half a lifetime to the -analysis of the works of a single author, and to the proper study of a -single period. - -I have tried, however, to avoid bad mistakes and misleading ones, and -shall reckon my commentary only so far forth good--as it may familiarize -the average reader with the salient characteristics of the writers -brought under notice, and shall put these writers into such a swathing of -historic and geographic enwrapments as shall keep them better in mind. - -When I consider the large number of books recently issued on similar -topics, and the scholarly acuteness, and the great range belonging to -so many of them, I am not a little discomforted at thought of my bold -scurry over so wide reach of ground. Indeed, I have the figure before me -now--as I hint an apology--of an old-time country doctor who has ventured -with his saddle-bags and spicy nostrums into competition with a half -score of special practitioners--with their microscopy and their _granules -dosimetriques_; but I think, consolingly, that possibly the old-time -mediciner--if not able to cure, can at the least induce a pleasurable -slumber. - - EDGEWOOD, 1889. - - - - -_CONTENTS._ - - - PAGE - CHAPTER I. - - PRELIMINARY, 1 - - EARLY CENTURIES, 5 - - CELTIC LITERATURE, 7 - - BEGINNING OF ENGLISH LEARNING, 9 - - CÆDMON, 13 - - BEDA, 15 - - KING ALFRED, 17 - - CANUTE AND GODIVA, 22 - - WILLIAM THE NORMAN, 25 - - HAROLD THE SAXON, 29 - - CHAPTER II. - - GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, 37 - - KING ARTHUR LEGENDS, 39 - - EARLY NORMAN KINGS, 46 - - RICHARD CŒUR DE LION, 50 - - TIMES OF KING JOHN, 53 - - MIXED LANGUAGE, 56 - - SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE, 59 - - EARLY BOOK-MAKING, 62 - - RELIGIOUS HOUSES, 66 - - LIFE OF A DAMOISELLE, 72 - - CHAPTER III. - - ROGER BACON, 77 - - WILLIAM LANGLANDE, 84 - - JOHN WYCLIF, 90 - - CHAUCER, 97 - - CHAPTER IV. - - OF GOWER AND FROISSART, 127 - - TWO HENRYS AND TWO POETS, 132 - - HENRY V. AND WAR TIMES, 141 - - JOAN OF ARC AND RICHARD III., 146 - - CAXTON AND FIRST ENGLISH PRINTING, 149 - - OLD PRIVATE LETTERS, 154 - - A BURST OF BALLADRY, 158 - - CHAPTER V. - - EARLY DAYS OF HENRY VIII., 167 - - CARDINAL WOLSEY, AND SIR THOMAS MORE, 173 - - CRANMER, LATIMER, KNOX, AND OTHERS, 182 - - VERSE-WRITING AND PSALMODIES, 189 - - WYATT AND SURREY, 193 - - A BOY-KING, A QUEEN, AND SCHOOLMASTER, 197 - - CHAPTER VI. - - ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND, 204 - - PERSONALITY OF THE QUEEN, 207 - - BURLEIGH AND OTHERS, 210 - - A GROUP OF GREAT NAMES, 214 - - EDMUND SPENSER, 217 - - THE FAERY QUEEN, 221 - - PHILIP SIDNEY, 230 - - CHAPTER VII. - - JOHN LYLY, 245 - - FRANCIS BACON, 250 - - THOMAS HOBBES, 261 - - GEORGE CHAPMAN, 266 - - MARLOWE, 269 - - A TAVERN COTERIE, 274 - - CHAPTER VIII. - - GEORGE PEELE, 284 - - THOMAS DEKKER, 287 - - MICHAEL DRAYTON, 291 - - BEN JONSON, 295 - - SOME PROSE WRITERS, 303 - - THE QUEEN’S PROGRESSES, 312 - - - - -_ENGLISH LANDS, LETTERS, & KINGS._ - - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -I have undertaken in this book a series of very familiar and informal -talks with my readers about English literary people, and the ways in -which they worked; and also about the times in which they lived and -the places where they grew up. We shall have, therefore, a good deal -of concern with English history; and with English geography too--or -rather topography: and I think that I have given a very fair and honest -descriptive title to the material which I shall set before my readers, in -calling it a book about ENGLISH LANDS AND LETTERS AND KINGS. - -It appears to me that American young people have an advantage over -British-born students of our History and Literature--in the fact that the -localities consecrated by great names or events have more illuminating -power to us, who encounter them rarely and after voyage over sea, than to -the Englishman who lives and grows up beside them. Londoners pass Bolt -Court, Fleet Street, and Dr. Johnson’s tavern a hundred times a year with -no thought but of the chops and the Barclay’s ale to be had there. But -to the cultivated American these localities start a charming procession, -in which the doughty old Dictionary-maker, with his staff and long brown -coat and three cornered hat, is easily the leader. - -For my own part, when my foot first struck the hard-worked pavement of -London Bridge, even the old nursery sing-song came over me with the force -of a poem,-- - - As I was going over London Bridge - I found a penny and bought me a kid. - -So, too--once upon a time--on a bright May-day along the Tweed, I was -attracted by an old square ruin of a tower--very homely--scarcely -picturesque: I had barely curiosity enough to ask its name. A -stone-breaker on the high-road told me it was Norham Castle; and -straightway all the dash and clash of the poem of “Marmion”[1] broke -around me. - -Now I do not think our cousins the Britishers, to whom the loveliest -ruins become humdrum, can be half as much alive as we, to this sort of -enjoyment. - -I shall have then--as I said--a great deal to say about the topography -of England as well as about its books and writers; and shall try to tie -together your knowledge of historic facts and literary ones, with the yet -more tangible and associated geographic facts--so that on some golden -day to come (as golden days do come) the sight of a mere thread of spire -over tree-tops, or of a cliff on Yorkshire shores, or of a quaint gable -that might have covered a “Tabard Tavern,” shall set all your historic -reading on the flow again--thus extending and brightening and giving -charm to a hundred wayside experiences of Travel. - -One other preliminary word:--On that great reach of ground we are to -pass over--if we make reasonable time--there must be long strides, and -skippings: we can only seize upon illustrative types--little kindling -feeders of wide-reaching flame. It may well be that I shall ignore and -pass by lines of thought or progress very lively and present to you; may -be I shall dwell on things already familiar; nay, it may well happen that -many readers--young and old--fresh from their books--shall know more of -matters touched on in our rapid survey than I know myself: never mind -that; but remember,--and let me say it once for all--that my aim is not -so much to give definite instruction as to put the reader into such ways -and starts of thought as shall make him eager to instruct himself. - - -_Early Centuries._ - -In those dreary early centuries when England was in the throes of its -beginnings, and when the Roman eagle--which had always led a half-stifled -life amongst British fogs, had gone back to its own eyrie in the -South--the old stock historians could and did find little to fasten -our regard--save the eternal welter of little wars. Indeed, those who -studied fifty years ago will remember that all early British history was -excessively meagre and stiff; some of it, I daresay, left yet in the -accredited courses of school reading; dreadfully dull--with dates piled -on dates, and battles by the page; and other pages of battle peppered -with such names as Hengist, or Ethelred and Cerdic and Cuthwulf, or -whoever could strike hardest or cut deepest. - -But now, thanks to modern inquiry and to such men as Stubbs and Freeman -and Wright, and the more entertaining Green--we get new light on those -old times. We watch the ribs of that ancient land piling in distincter -shape out of the water: we see the downs and the bluffs, and the -fordable places in the rivers; we know now just where great wastes of -wood stood in the way of our piratical forefathers--the Saxons, the -Jutes, and the Angles; these latter either by greater moral weight in -them, or by the accident of numbers (which is the more probable), coming -to give a name to the new country and language which were a-making -together. - -We find that those old Romans did leave, besides their long, straight, -high-roads, and Roman villas, and store of sepulchral vases, a germ -of Roman laws, and a little nucleus of Roman words, traceable in the -institutions and--to some slight degree--in the language of to-day. - -We see in the later pages of Green through what forests the rivers -ran, and can go round about the great Roman-British towns (Roman first -and then adopted by Britons) of London[2] and of York; and that other -magnificent one of Cirencester (or Sisister as the English say, with a -stout defiance of their alphabet). We can understand how and why the fat -meadows of Somersetshire should be coveted by marauders and fought for -by Celts; and we behold more clearly and distinctly than ever, under the -precise topography of modern investigators, the walls of wood and hills -which stayed Saxon pursuit of those Britons who sought shelter in Wales, -Cumberland, or the Cornish peninsula. - - -_Celtic Literature._ - -Naturally, this flight of a nation to its fastnesses was not without -clamor and lament; some of which--if we may trust current Cymric -traditions--was put into such piercing sound as has come down to our own -day in the shape of Welsh war-songs. Dates are uncertain; but without -doubt somewhat of this Celtic shrill singing was of earlier utterance -than anything of equal literary quality that came from our wrangling -Saxon or West-Saxon forefathers in the fertile plains of England. - -Some of these Celtic war strains have been turned into a music by -the poet Gray[3] which our English ears love; Emerson used to find -regalement in the strains of another Welsh bard; and the Mabinogion, a -pleasant budget of old Cymric fable,[4] has come to a sort of literary -resurrection in our day under the hands of the late Sidney Lanier. If -you would know more of things Celtic, I would commend to your attention -a few lectures read at Oxford in 1864-65 by Matthew Arnold in which he -has brought a curious zeal, and his wonted acumen to an investigation -of the influences upon English literature of that old Celtic current. -It was a wild, turbulent current; it had fret and roar in it; it had -passion and splendor in it; and there are those who think that whatever -ardor of imagination, or love for brilliant color or music may belong to -our English race is due to old interfusion of British blood. Certainly -the lively plaids of the Highlander and his bagpipes show love for much -color and exuberant gush of sound; and we all understand that the Celtic -Irishman has an appetite for a shindy which demonstrates a rather lively -emotional nature. - - -_Beginning of English Learning._ - -But over that ancient England covered with its alternating fens and -forests, and grimy Saxon hamlets, and Celtic companies of huts, there -streams presently a new civilizing influence. It is in the shape of -Christian monks[5] sent by Pope Gregory the Great, who land upon the -island of Thanet near the Thames mouth (whereabout are now the bustling -little watering places of Ramsgate and Margate), and march two by -two--St. Augustine among them and towering head and shoulders above -the rest--bearing silver crosses and singing litanies, up to the halls -of Ethelbert--near to the very site where now stands, in those rich -Kentish lands, the august and beautiful Cathedral of Canterbury. There, -too, sprung up in those earlier centuries that Canterbury School, where -letters were taught, and learned men congregated, and whence emerged -that famous scholar--Aldhelm,[6] of whom the great King Alfred speaks -admiringly; who not only knew his languages but could sing a song; a -sort of early Saxon Sankey who beguiled wanderers into better ways by -his homely rhythmic utterance. I think we may safely count this old -Aldhelm, who had a strain of royal blood in him, as the first of English -ballad-mongers. - -From the north of England, too, there was at almost the same date, -another gleam of crosses, coming by way of Ireland and Iona, where St. -Columba,[7] commemorated in one of Wordsworth’s Sonnets, had established -a monastery. We have the good old Irish monk’s lament at leaving his home -in Ireland for the northern wilderness; there is true Irish fervor in -it:--“From the high prow I look over the sea, and great tears are in my -gray eyes when I turn to Erin--to Erin, where the songs of the birds are -so sweet, and where the clerks sing like the birds; where the young are -so gentle, and the old so wise; where the great men are so noble to look -at, and the women so fair to wed.” - -Ruined remnants of the Iona monastery are still to be found on that -little Western island--within hearing almost of the waves that surge -into the caves of Staffa. And from this island stand-point, the monkish -missions were established athwart Scotland; finding foothold too all down -the coast of Northumberland. Early among these and very notable, was the -famous Abbey of Lindisfarne or the Holy Isle, not far southward from -the mouth of the Tweed. You will recall the name as bouncing musically, -up and down, through Scott’s poem of “Marmion.” A little farther to -the south, upon the Yorkshire coast, came to be established, shortly -afterward, the Whitby monastery; its ruins make now one of the shows of -Whitby town--one of the favorite watering places of the eastern coast -of England, and well known for giving its name to what is called Whitby -jet--which is only a finer sort of bituminous coal, of which there are -great beds in the neighborhood.[8] The Abbey ruin is upon heights, from -which are superb views out upon the German Sea that beats with grand -uproar upon the Whitby cliffs. To the westward is the charming country of -Eskdale, and by going a few miles southward one may come to Robinhood’s -bay; and in the intervening village of Hawsker may be seen the two stones -said to mark the flight of the arrows of Robinhood and Little John, when -they tried their skill for the amusement of the monks of Whitby. - - -_Cædmon._ - -Well, in the year of our Lord 637, this Whitby Abbey was founded by -the excellent St. Hilda, and it was under her auspices, and by virtue -of her saintly encouragements, that the first true English poet, -Cædmon, began to sing his Christian song of the creation. He was but -a cattle-tender--unkempt--untaught, full of savagery, but with a fine -phrenzy in him, which made his paraphrase of Scripture a spur, and -possibly--in a certain imperfect sense, a model for the muse of John -Milton. - -Of the chaos before creation, he says:-- - - Earth’s surface was - With grass not yet be-greened; while far and wide - The dusky ways, with black unending night - Did ocean cover. - -Of the great Over-Lord God-Almighty, he says-- - - In Him, beginning never, - Or origin hath been; but he is aye supreme - Over heaven’s thrones, with high majesty - Righteous and mighty. - -And again,--that you may make for yourselves comparison with the -treatment and method of Milton,--I quote this picture of Satan in hell:-- - - Within him boiled his thoughts about his heart; - Without, the wrathful fire pressed hot upon him-- - He said,--‘This narrow place is most unlike - That other we once knew in heaven high, - And which my Lord gave me; tho’ own it now - We must not, but to him must cede our realm. - Yet right he hath not done to strike us down - To hell’s abyss--of heaven’s realm bereft-- - Which with mankind to people, he hath planned. - Pain sorest this, that Adam, wrought of Earth - On my strong throne shall sit, enjoying Bliss - While we endure these pangs--hell torments dire, - Woe! woe is me! Could I but use my hands - And might I be from here a little time-- - One winter’s space--then, with this host would I-- - But these iron bands press hard--this coil of chains-- - … - -There is but one known MS. copy of this poem. It is probably of the -tenth, certainly not later than the eleventh century, and is in -the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It is illuminated, and some scenes -represented seem to have been taken from the old miracle plays.[9] It was -printed in 1655: in this form a copy is said to have reached the hands -of Milton, through a friend of the printer: and it may well be that the -stern old Puritan poet was moved by a hearing of it,--for he was blind at -this date,--to the prosecution of that grand task which has made his name -immortal. - - -_Beda._ - -We might, however, never have known anything of Cædmon and of Saint -Hilda and all the monasteries north and south, except for another worthy -who grew up in the hearing of the waves which beat on the cliffs of -north-eastern England. This was Beda,--respected in his own day for his -industry, piety, straightforward honesty--and so followed by the respect -of succeeding generations as to get and carry the name of the _Venerable_ -Beda. Though familiar with the people’s language,[10] and with Greek, -he wrote in monkish Latin--redeemed by classic touches--and passed his -life in the monastery at Jarrow, which is on the Tyne, near the coast -of Durham, a little to the westward of South Shields. An ancient church -is still standing amid the ruins of the monastic walls, and a heavy, -straight-backed chair of oak (which would satisfy the most zealous -antiquarian by its ugliness) is still guarded in the chancel, and is -called Beda’s Chair. - -Six hundred pupils gathered about him there, in the old days, to be -taught in physics, grammar, rhetoric, music, and I know not what besides. -So learned and true was he, that the Pope would have called him to -Rome; but he loved better the wooded Tyne banks, and the gray moorlands, -and the labors of his own monastery. There he lived out an honest, a -plodding, an earnest, and a hopeful life. And as I read the sympathetic -story of its end, and of how the old man--his work all done--lifted up -a broken voice--on his last day--amidst his scholars, to the _Gloria -in Excelsis_--I bethink me of his last eulogist, the young historian, -who within a few months only after sketching that tender picture of his -great forerunner in the paths of British history, laid down his brilliant -pen--his work only half done, and died, away from his home, at Mentone, -on the shores of the Mediterranean. - - -_King Alfred._ - -A half century after the death of Beda began the Danish invasions, -under which, monasteries churches schools went down in a flood of blood -and fire. As we read of that devastation--the record covering only a -half-page of the old Saxon Chronicle (begun after Beda’s time)--it seems -an incident; yet the piratic storm, with intermittent fury, stretches -over a century and more of ruin. It was stayed effectively for a time -when the great Alfred came to full power. - -I do not deal much in dates: but you should have a positive date for -this great English king: a thousand years ago (889) fairly marks the -period when he was in the prime of life--superintending, very likely, -the building of a British fleet upon the Pool, below London. He was born -at Wantage, in Berkshire, a little to the south of the Great Western -Railway; and in a glade near to the site of the old Saxon palace, is -still shown what is called Alfred’s Well. In the year 1849 his birthday -was celebrated, after the lapse of a thousand years--so keen are these -British cousins of ours to keep alive all their great memories. And -Alfred’s is a memory worth keeping. He had advantages--as we should -say--of foreign travel; as a boy he went to Rome, traversing Italy and -the Continent. If we could only get a good story of that cross-country -trip of his! - -We know little more than that he came to high honor at Rome, was anointed -king there, before yet he had come to royalty at home. He makes also a -second visit in company with his father Ethelwolf: and on their return -Ethelwolf relieves the tedium of travel by marrying the twelve-year old -daughter of Charles the Bald of France. Those were times of extraordinary -daring. - -The great king had throughout a most picturesque and adventurous life: he -is hard pushed by the Danes--by rivals--by his own family; one while a -wanderer on the moors--another time disguised as minstrel in the enemy’s -camp; but always high-hearted, always hopeful, always working. He is -oppressed by the pall of ignorance that overlays the lordly reach of his -kingdom: “Scarce a priest have I found,” says he, “south of the Thames -who can render Latin into English.” He is not an apt scholar himself, but -he toils at learning; his abbots help him; he revises old chronicles, and -makes people to know of Beda; he has boys taught to write in English; -gives himself with love to the rendering of Boëthius’ “Consolation of -Philosophy.” He adopts its reasoning, and plants his hope on the creed-- - -1st. That a wise God governs. - -2d. That all suffering may be made helpful. - -3d. That God is chiefest good. - -4th. That only the good are happy. - -5th. That the foreknowledge of God does not conflict with Free-will. - -These would seem to carry even now the pith and germ of the broadest -theologic teachings. - -It is a noble and a picturesque figure--that of King Alfred--which we -see, looking back over the vista of a thousand years; better it would -seem than that of King Arthur to weave tales around, and illumine with -the heat and the flame of poesy. Yet poets of those times and of all -succeeding times have strangely neglected this august and royal type of -manhood. - -After him came again weary Danish wars and wild blood-letting and -ignorance surging over the land, save where a little light played -fitfully around such great religious houses as those of York and -Canterbury. It was the dreary Tenth Century, on the threshold of which -he had died--the very core and kernel of the Dark Ages, when the wisest -thought the end of things was drawing nigh, and strong men quaked with -dread at sight of an eclipse, or comet, or at sound of the rumble of an -earthquake. It was a time and a condition of gloom which made people -pardon, and even relish such a dismal poem as that of “The Grave,” -which--though bearing thirteenth century form--may well in its germ have -been a fungal outgrowth of the wide-spread hopelessness of this epoch:-- - - For thee was a house built - Ere thou wert born; - For thee was a mold meant - Ere thou of mother cam’st. - But it is not made ready - Nor its depth measured, - Nor is it seen - How long it shall be. - Now I bring thee - Where thou shalt be - And I shall measure thee - And the mold afterward. - Doorless is that house - And dark is it within; - There thou art fast detained - And death hath the key - Loathsome is that earth-house - And grim within to dwell, - And worms shall divide thee. - -From the death of Alfred (901) to the Norman Conquest (1066) there was -monkish work done in shape of Homilies, Chronicles, grammars of Latin -and English--the language settling more and more into something like a -determined form of what is now called Anglo-Saxon. But in that lapse -of years I note only three historic incidents, which by reason of the -traditions thrown about them, carry a piquant literary flavor. - - -_Canute and Godiva._ - -The _first_ is when the famous Canute, king of both England and Denmark, -and having strong taste for song and music and letters, rows by the -towers of a great East-England religious house, and as he drifts with the -tide, composes (if we may trust tradition) a snatch of verse which has -come down to us in a thirteenth century form, about the pleasant singing -of the Monks of Ely. Wordsworth has embalmed the matter in one of his -Ecclesiastic Sonnets (xxx.): - - A pleasant music floats along the mere, - From monks in Ely chanting service high, - While as Canute the king is rowing by; - My oarsman, quoth the mighty king, draw near - That we the sweet songs of the monks may hear. - He listens (all past conquests and all schemes - Of future vanishing like empty dreams) - Heart-touched, and haply not without a tear, - The royal minstrel, ere the Choir is still, - While his free barge skims the smooth flood along - Gives to the rapture an accordant Rhyme - O suffering Earth! be thankful; sternest Clime - And rudest Age are subject to the thrill - Of heaven-descended piety and song. - -I think you will never go under the wondrous arches of Ely Cathedral--and -you should go there if you ever travel into the eastern counties of -England--without thinking of King Canute and of that wondrous singing of -the monks, eight hundred years ago. - -The _second_ historic incident of which I spoke, is the murder of King -Duncan by Macbeth in the year 1039, some twenty-five years before the -Norman Conquest. I don’t think you want any refreshing about Macbeth. - -The _third_ incident is of humbler tone, yet it went to show great -womanly devotion, and lifted a tax from the heads of a whole -towns-people. I refer to the tradition of Earl Leofric of Mercia and the -Lady Godiva of Coventry, based in the main, without doubt, upon actual -occurrence, and the subject for centuries of annual commemoration.[11] -Tennyson tells, in his always witching way, how - - She rode forth clothéd on with chastity: - The deep air listened round her as she rode, - ----the barking cur - Made her cheek flame; her palfry’s foot-fall shot - Light horror thro’ her pulses: - One low churl compact of thankless earth - Peep’d--but his eyes, before they had their will - Were shrivelled into darkness in his head, - And she, that knew not, pass’d; and all at once - With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon - Was clash’d and hammered from a hundred towers, - One after one: But even then she gained - Her bower; whence re-issuing, robed and crowned, - To meet her lord, she took the tax away - And built herself an everlasting name. - -Observe--that I call up these modern writers and their language, out of -their turn as may seem to you, only that I may plant more distinctly in -your thought the old incidents to which their words relate. It is as -if I were speaking to you of some long-gone line of ancestors, and on a -sudden should call up some delicate blond child and say--This one is in -the line of direct descent; she bears the same old name, she murmurs the -same old tunes; and this shimmer of gold in her hair is what shone on the -heads of the good Saxon foreparents. - - -_William the Norman._ - -We now come to a date to be remembered, and in the neighborhood of which -our first morning’s talk will come to an end. It is the date of the -Norman Conquest--1066--that being the year of the Battle of Hastings, -when the brave Harold, last of the Saxon kings went down, shot through -the eye; and the lithe, clean-faced, smirking William of Normandy “gat -him” the throne of England. These new-comers were not far-away cousins of -our Saxon and Danish forefathers; only so recently as the reign of Alfred -had they taken permanent foothold in that pleasant Norman country. - -But they have not brought the Norse speech of the old home land with -them: they have taken to a Frankish language--we will call it Norman -French--which is thenceforth to blend with the Saxonism of Alfred, -until two centuries or more later, our own mother English--the English -of Chaucer and of Shakespeare--is evolved out of the union. Not only -a new tongue, do these conquerors bring with them, but madrigals and -ballads and rhyming histories; they have great contempt for the stolid, -lazy-going Latin records of the Saxon Chroniclers; they love a song -better. In the very face of the armies at Hastings, their great minstrel -_Taillefer_ had lifted up his voice to chant the glories of Roland, about -which all the histories of the time will tell you. - -It was a new civilization (not altogether Christian) out-topping the -old. These Normans knew more of war--knew more of courts--knew more of -affairs. They loved money and they loved conquest. To love one in those -days, was to love the other. King William swept the monasteries clean of -those ignorant priests who had dozed there, from the time of Alfred, and -put in Norman Monks with nicely clipped hair, who could construe Latin -after latest Norman rules. He new parcelled the lands, and gave estates -to those who could hold and manage them. It was as if a new, sharp eager -man of business had on a sudden come to the handling of some old sleepily -conducted counting-room; he cuts off the useless heads; he squares the -books; he stops waste; pity or tenderness have no hearing in his shop. - -I mentioned not far back an old Saxon Chronicle, which all down the -years, from shortly after Beda’s day, had been kept alive--sometimes -under the hands of one monastery, sometimes of another; here is what its -Saxon Scribe of the eleventh century says of this new-come and conquering -Norman King: It is good Saxon history, and in good Saxon style:-- - - “King William was a very wise man, and very rich, more - worshipful and strong than any of his foregangers. He was mild - to good men who loved God; and stark beyond all bounds to those - who withsaid his will. He had Earls in his bonds who had done - against his will; Bishops he set off their bishoprics; Abbots - off their abbotries, and thanes in prison. By his cunning he - was so thoroughly acquainted with England, that there is not - a hide of land of which he did not know, both who had it, and - what was its worth. He planted a great preserve for deer, and - he laid down laws therewith, that whoever should slay hart or - hind should be blinded. He forbade the harts and also the - boars to be killed. As greatly did he love the tall deer as if - he were their father.… He took from his subjects many marks - of gold, and many hundred pounds of silver; and _that_ he - took--some by right, and some by mickle might for very little - need. He had fallen into avarice; and greediness he loved - withal. Among other things is not to be forgotten the good - peace that he made in this land; so that a man who had any - confidence in himself might go over his realm, with his bosom - full of gold, unhurt. Nor durst any man slay another man had he - done ever so great evil to the other.… Brytland (Wales) was in - his power, and he therein wrought castles, and completely ruled - over that race of men.… Certainly in his time men had great - hardship, and very many injuries.… His rich men moaned, and - the poor men murmured; but he was so hard that he recked not - the hatred of them all. For it was need they should follow the - King’s will, if they wished to live, or to have lands or goods. - Alas, that any man should be so moody, and should so puff up - himself, and think himself above all other men! May Almighty - God show mercy to his soul, and grant him forgiveness of his - sins.” - -There are other contemporary Anglo-Saxon annalists, and there are the -rhyming chroniclers of Norman blood, who put a better color upon the -qualities of King William; but I think there is no one of them, who even -in moments of rhetorical exaltation, thinks of putting William’s sense of -justice, or his kindness of heart, before his greed or his self-love. - - -_Harold the Saxon._ - -The late Lord Lytton (Bulwer) gave to this period and to the closing -years of Harold one of the most elaborate of his Historic Studies. He -availed himself shrewdly of all the most picturesque aspects (and they -were very many) in the career of Harold, and found startling historic -facts enough to supply to the full his passion for exaggerated melodrama. -There are brilliant passages in his book,[12] and a great wealth of -archæologic material; he shows us the remnants of old Roman villas--the -crude homeliness of Saxon house surroundings--the assemblage of old -Palace Councils. Danish battle-axes, and long-bearded Saxon thanes, and -fiery-headed Welshmen contrast with the polished and insidious Normans. -Nor is there lacking a heavy and much over-weighted quota of love-making -and misfortune, and joy and death. Tennyson has taken the same subject, -using the same skeleton of story for his play of Harold. It would seem -that he has depended on the romance of Bulwer for his archæology; and -indeed the book is dedicated to the younger Lord Lytton (better known in -the literary world as “Owen Meredith”). As a working play, it is counted, -like all of Tennyson’s--a failure; but there are passages of exceeding -beauty. - -He pictures the King Harold--the hero that he is--but with a veil of -true Saxon gloom lowering over him: he tells the story of his brother -Tostig’s jealous wrath,--always in arms against Harold: he tells of -the hasty oath, which the king in young days had sworn to William in -Normandy, never to claim England’s throne: and this oath hangs like a -cloud over the current of Harold’s story. The grief, and noble devotion -of poor Edith, the betrothed bride of the king, whom he is compelled by -a devilish diplomacy to discard--is woven like a golden thread into the -woof of the tale: and Aldwyth, the queen, whom Harold did not and can -never love, is set off against Edith--in Tennyson’s own unmatchable way -in the last scenes of the tragedy. - -We are in the camp at Hastings: the battle waits; a vision of Norman -saints, on whose bones Harold had sworn that dreadful oath, comes to him -in his trance:--They say--(these wraiths of saints)-- - - O hapless Harold! king but for an hour! - Thou swarest falsely by our blessed bones, - We give our voice against thee out of Heaven! - And warn him against the fatal _arrow_. - -And Harold--waking--says-- - - Away! - My battle-axe against your voices! - -And then--remembering that old Edward the Confessor had told him on his -deathbed that he should die by an arrow--his hope faints. - - The king’s last word--“the arrow,” I shall die: - I die for England then, who lived for England. - What nobler? Man must die. - I cannot fall into a falser world-- - I have done no man wrong.… - -Edith (his betrothed) comes in-- - - Edith!--Edith! - Get thou into thy cloister, as the king - Will’d it: … There, the great God of Truth - Fill all thine hours with peace! A lying Devil - Hath haunted me--mine oath--my wife--I fain - Had made my marriage not a lie; I could not: - Thou art my bride! and thou, in after years, - Praying perchance for this poor soul of mine - In cold, white cells, beneath an icy moon. - This memory to thee!--and this to England, - My legacy of war against the Pope, - From child to child, from Pope to Pope, from Age to Age, - Till the sea wash her level with her shores, - Or till the Pope be Christ’s. - -Aldwyth, the queen, glides in, and seeing Edith, says-- - - Away from him! Away! - -Edith says (we can imagine her sweet plaintiveness)-- - - I will.… I have not spoken to the king - One word: and one I must. Farewell! - -And she offers to go. - -But Harold, beckoning with a grand gesture of authority-- - - Not yet! - Stay! The king commands thee, woman! - -And he turns to Aldwyth, from whose kinsmen he had expected aid-- - - Have thy two brethren sent their forces in? - - _Aldwyth_--Nay, I fear not. - -And Harold blazes upon her-- - - Then there’s no force in thee! - Thou didst possess thyself of Edward’s ear - To part me from the woman that I loved. - … - Thou hast been false to England and to me! - As--in some sort--I have been false to thee. - Leave me. No more.--Pardon on both sides.--Go! - - _Aldwyth_--Alas, my lord, I loved thee! - O Harold! husband! Shall we meet again? - - _Harold_--After the battle--after the battle. Go. - - _Aldwyth_--I go. (_Aside._) That I could stab her standing there! - (_Exit Aldwyth._) - - _Edith_--Alas, my lord, she loved thee. - - _Harold_-- Never! never! - - _Edith_--I saw it in her eyes! - - _Harold_-- I see it in thine! - And not on thee--nor England--fall God’s doom! - - _Edith_--On _thee_? on me. And thou art England! Alfred - Was England. Ethelred was nothing. England - Is but her king, as thou art Harold! - - _Harold_-- Edith, - The sign in Heaven--the sudden blast at sea-- - My fatal oath--the dead saints--the dark dreams-- - The Pope’s Anathema--the Holy Rood - That bow’d to me at Waltham--Edith, if - I, the last English King of England---- - - _Edith_-- No, - First of a line that coming from the people, - And chosen by the people---- - - _Harold_-- And fighting for - And dying for the people---- - Look, I will bear thy blessing into the battle - And front the doom of God. - -And he did affront it bravely; and the arrow did slay him, near to the -spot where the Saxon standard flew to the breeze on that fateful day. - -The play from which I have quoted may have excess of elaboration and an -over-finesse in respect of details: but there are great bold reaches of -descriptive power, a nobility of sentiment, and everywhere tender and -winning touches, which will be very sure to give to the drama of Tennyson -permanence and historic dignity, and keep it always a literary way-mark -in the fields we have gone over. The scene of that decisive contest -is less than a two hours’ ride away from London (by the Southeastern -Railway) at a village called Battle--seven miles from the coast line at -Hastings--in the midst of a beautiful rolling country, with scattered -copses of ancient wood and a great wealth of wild flowers--(for which the -district is remarkable) sparkling over the fields. - -The Conqueror built a great abbey there--Battle Abbey--whose ruins are -visited by hundreds every year. A large portion of the old religious -house, kept in excellent repair, and very charming with its growth of ivy -and its embowering shade, is held in private hands--being the occasional -residence of the Duke of Cleveland. Amid the ruins the usher will guide -one to a crypt of the ancient chapel--whose solid Norman arches date back -to the time of the Conqueror, and which is said to mark the very spot -on which Harold fell, wounded to the death, on that memorable day of -Hastings. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -I recur a moment to what was said in our opening talk--as a boy will -wisely go back a little way for a better jump forward. I spoke--the -reader will remember--of ringing, Celtic war-songs, which seemed to be -all of literature that was drifting in the atmosphere, when we began: -then there came a gleam of Christian light and of monkish learning thro’ -St. Augustine in Southern England; and another gleam through Iona, and -Lindisfarne, from Irish sources; then came Cædmon’s Bible singing,--which -had echo far down in Milton’s day; next the good old Beda, telling the -story of these things; then--a thousand years ago,--the Great Alfred, -at once a book-maker and a King. Before him and after him came a dreary -welter of Danish wars; the great Canute--tradition says--chirping a song -in the middle of them; and last, the slaughter of Hastings, where the -Saxon Harold went down, and the conquering Norman came up. - - -_Geoffrey of Monmouth._ - -We start to-day with an England that has its office-holding and governing -people speaking one language--its moody land-holders and cultivators -speaking another--and its irascible Britons in Wales and Cumbria and -Cornwall speaking yet another. Conquered people are never in much mood -for song-singing or for history-making. So there is little or nothing -from English sources for a century or more. Even the old Saxon Chronicle -kept by monks (at Peterboro in this time), does not grow into a stately -record, and in the twelfth century on the year of the death of King -Stephen, dies out altogether. - -But there is a Welsh monk--Geoffrey of Monmouth[13]--living just on -the borders of Wales, and probably not therefore brought into close -connection with this new Norman element--who writes (about one hundred -years after the Conquest) a half-earnest and mostly-fabulous British -Chronicle. He professes to have received its main points from a -Walter--somebody, who had rare old bookish secrets of history, derived -from Brittany, in his keeping. You will remember, perhaps, how another -and very much later writer--sometimes known as Geoffrey Crayon--once -wrote a History of New York, claiming that it was made up from the MSS. -of a certain Diedrich Knickerbocker: I think that perhaps the same sense -of quiet humor belonged to both these Geoffreys. Certainly Geoffrey of -Monmouth’s Chronicle bears about the same relation to British matters -of fact which the Knickerbocker story of New York bears to the colonial -annals of our great city. - -The fables which were told in this old Monmouth Chronicle are more -present in men’s minds to-day than the things which were real in it: -there was, for instance, the fable about King Lear (who does not know -King Lear?): then, there were the greater fables about good King Arthur -and his avenging Caliburn (who does not know King Arthur?). These two -stories are embalmed now in Literature, and will never perish. - - -_King Arthur Legends._ - -Those Arthur legends had been floating about in ballad or song, but -they never had much mention in anything pretending to be history[14] -until Geoffrey of Monmouth’s day. There is nothing of them in the Saxon -Chronicle: nothing of them in Beda: King Alfred never mentions King -Arthur. - -But was there ever a King Arthur? Probably: but at what precise date is -uncertain: probable, too, that he had his court--as many legends run--one -time at Caerleon, “upon Usk,” and again at Camelot.[15] Caerleon is -still to be found by the curious traveller, in pleasant Monmouthshire, -just upon the borders of Wales, with Tintern Abbey and the grand ruin -of Chepstow not far off; and a great amphitheatre among the hills (very -likely of Roman origin) with green turf upon it, and green hillsides -hemming it in--is still called King Arthur’s Round Table. - -Camelot is not so easy to trace: the name will not be found in the -guide-books: but in Somersetshire, in a little parish, called “Queen’s -Camel,” are the remains of vast entrenchments, said to have belonged to -the tourney ground of Camelot. A little branch of the Yeo River (you will -remember this name, if you have ever read Charles Kingsley’s “Westward, -Ho”--a book you should read)--a little branch, I say, of the Yeo runs -through the parish, and for irrigating purposes is held back by dykes, -and then shot, shining, over the green meadows: hence, Tennyson may say -truly, as he does in his Idyls of the King-- - - “They vanished panic-stricken, like a shoal - Of darting fish, that on a summer’s morn - Adown the crystal dykes at _Camelot_, - Come slipping o’er their shadow, on the sand.” - -There are some features of this ancient fable of King Arthur, which are -of much older literary date than the times we are now speaking of. Thus -“the dusky barge,” that appears on a sudden--coming to carry off the -dying King,-- - - “----whose decks are dense with stately forms, - Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream--by these - Three queens with crowns of gold, and from them rose - A cry that shivered to the tingling stars----” - -has a very old germ;--Something not unlike this watery bier, to carry -a dead hero into the Silences, belongs to the opening of that ancient -poem of Beowulf--which all students of early English know and prize--but -which did not grow on English soil, and therefore does not belong to -our present quest.[16] The brand Excalibur, too, which is thrown into -the sea by King Arthur’s friend, and which is caught by an arm clothed -in white samite, rising from the mere, and three times brandished, has -its prototype in the “old mighty sword” which is put into the hands of -Beowulf before he can slay the great sea-dragon of the Scandinavian fable. - -Now, these Arthurian stories, put into book by Geoffrey--a Latin book, -for all the monks wrote in Latin, though they may have sung songs -in English, as good father Aldhelm did--were presently caught up by -a romance-writer, named Wace, who was living at Caen, in Normandy, -and whose knightly cousins (some say father and titled baron) had -come over with William the Conqueror,--the name being long known -in Nottinghamshire. This Wace put these Arthur stories into Norman -verse--adding somewhat and giving a French air, which made his book -sought after and read in royal courts; and fragments of it were chanted -by minstrels in castle halls. - -Then, this Arthur mine of legends was explored again by another priest -and Welshman, who came to have some place at Oxford, where the beginnings -of the great university were then a-brew. This writer, Walter Map[17] by -name--or Mapes, as he is sometimes called--lived just about the meeting -of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the crusades were in full -blast, and when dreams about the Holy Sepulchre hovered round half the -house roofs of England. People saw in visions the poor famished pilgrims, -fainting with long marches toward the far-away Jerusalem, and shot down -by cruel Saracen arrows, within sight of the Holy of Holies. So Walter -Map, the priest (they say he was one while chaplain to Henry II.), -writing under light of that fierce enthusiasm, puts a religious element -into the Arthur stories; and it is from him--in all probability--comes -that Legend of the Holy Graal--the cup which caught the sacred blood, and -which saintly knights were to seek after, the pure Sir Galahad being the -winning seeker. - -Nor did the Arthur legends stop here: but another priestly man, -Layamon[18]--he, too, living on the borders of Wales, in the foraging -ground of Arthur’s knights, not far from the present town of -Kidderminster (which we know carpet-wise)--set himself to turning the -Legends, with many additions, into short, clanging, alliterative Saxon -verses, with occasional rhyme--the first English (or Teutonic) wording -of the story; Map’s version being in Latin and French. He copies very -much from Wace (_Le Brut d’Angleterre_), but his book is longer by a -half. It has its importance, too--this Layamon version--in the history -of the language. Of the why and the how, and of its linguistic relations -to the Anglo-Saxon, or the modern tongue, I shall leave discussion in -the hands of those more instructed in the history of Early English. We -know this Layamon in our present writing, only as a simple-minded, good, -plodding, West-of-England priest, who asked God’s blessing on his work, -and who put that quaint alliterative jingle in it, which in years after -was spent in larger measure over the poem of Piers Plowman, and which, -still later, comes to even daintier usage when the great master--Spenser - - “----fills with flowers fair Flora’s painted lap.” - -Even now we are not through with this story of the Arthurian legends: -it does not end with the priest Layamon. After printing was invented, -and an easier way of making books was in vogue than the old one of -tediously copying them upon parchment--I say in this new day of printing -a certain Sir Thomas Mallory, who lived at the same time with Caxton, -the first English printer, did, at the instance, I think, of that -printer--put all these legends we speak of into rather stiff, homely -English prose--copying, Caxton tells us, from a French original: but no -such full French original has been found; and the presumption is that -Mallory borrowed (as so many book-makers did and do) up and down, from -a world of manuscripts. And he wrought so well that his work had great -vogue, and has come to frequent issue in modern times, under the hands -of such editors as Southey, Wright, Strachey and Lanier. In the years -following Mallory, succeeding writers poached frequently upon the old -Arthur preserve--bit by bit[19]--till at last, in our day, Tennyson told -his “Idyl of the King”-- - - “----and all the people cried, - Arthur is come again: he cannot die. - And those that stood upon the hills behind - Repeated--Come again, and thrice as fair.” - - -_Early Norman Kings._ - -We come back now from this chase of Arthur, to the time of the Early -Norman Kings: Orderic Vitalis,[20] of Normandy, William of Malmsbury,[21] -Matthew Paris,[22] William of Newburgh,[23] (whose record has just now -been re-edited and printed in England,) and Roger of Hoveden,[24] were -chroniclers of this period; but I am afraid these names will hardly be -kept in mind. Indeed, it is not worth much struggle to do so, unless one -is going into the writing of History on his own account. Exception ought -perhaps to be made in favor of Matthew Paris, who was a monk of St. -Albans, who won his name from studying at Paris (as many live students -of that day did), who put a brave and vehement Saxonism of thought into -his Latin speech--who had art enough to illustrate his own Chronicle -with his pencil, and honesty enough to steer by God’s rule only and -not by the King’s. One should remember, too, that this was about the -period of the best Provençal balladry (in which Richard Cœur de Lion -was proficient);--that strain of mediæval music and love regaling the -Crusader knights on their marches toward Judea, and that strain of music -and love waking delightful echoes against Norman castle-walls on their -return. Again, one should keep note of the year when _Magna Charta_ was -granted by King John (1215), and remember, furthermore, that within ten -years of the same date (1205) Layamon probably put the finishing touches -to his _Brut_, and the Arthurian stories I was but now speaking of. - -Throughout these times--we will say the twelfth century and early in the -thirteenth,--England was waxing every day stronger, though it grew strong -in a rough and bloody way; the great Norman castles were a-building -up and down the land--such as Conway and Rochester and Cardiff and -Kenilworth: the older cathedrals, too, such as Durham and Winchester and -Canterbury and Ely were then piling column by column and vault by vault -toward the grand proportions which amaze us to-day. It was the time -of growing trade too: ships from Genoa and Venice lay off the Thames -banks, and had brought thither cargoes of silks and glass, jewels, -Milanese armor, and spices. Cloth-makers came over from Flanders and made -settlements in England. - -Perhaps you have read Scott’s story of the “Betrothed.” If so, you will -remember his description of just such a Flemish settlement in its earlier -chapters, with its Wilkin Flammock and its charming Rose. The scene is -laid in the time of Henry II., that sturdy King, who had such woful -trouble with his wild sons, Richard and John, and still larger trouble -with Thomas à Becket, (known now, as Harold is known, by Tennyson’s -tender music) who came to his death at last by the King’s connivance, -under the arches of Canterbury Cathedral; and so made that shrine sacred -for pilgrims, whether they came from the “Tabard Inn,” or otherwheres. - -That story of the “Betrothed” puts in presence winningly, the threefold -elements of English population in that day--the Britons, the Saxons, and -the Normans. The Britons are pictured by a scene of revel in the great -rambling palace of a Welsh King, where the bard Cadwallon sings, and that -other bard, Caradoc--both historic characters; and it is upon a legend -in the chronicle of the latter, Southey has based his poem of “Madoc.” -The Normans are represented, in the same romance, by the men-at-arms, or -knights of the Castle of _La Garde Doloureuse_, and the Saxons by the -fierce old lady in the religious house of Baldringham, where Eveline the -heroine, had such fearful experiences with hobgoblins over night. There -may be lapses in the archæology--as where Scott puts a hewn fireplace -upon the wall of the dining-room of the Lady Ermengarde--antiquarians -being pretty well agreed that chimneys of such class were unknown up to -the fourteenth century; but still the atmosphere of twelfth-century life -in England is better given than in most of our histories.[25] - - -_Richard Cœur de Lion._ - -In the same connection and with same commendation, may be named those -other romances, “The Talisman” and “Ivanhoe,” both relating to epochs -in the life of King Richard I. I suppose that of all English people, -who have any figure in their minds of Richard Cœur de Lion, his bearing -and character, four-fifths will have derived the larger part of their -impressions from these two books of Scott. It is a painting by a friendly -hand: Scott loved kings; and he loved the trace of Saxonism that was in -Richard’s blood; he loved his bravery, as every Englishman always had -and should. Is it quite needful that the friendly painter should put in -all the bad birth-marks, or the bristling red beard? M. Taine scores him -savagely, and would have him a beast: and Thackeray, in his little story -of Rebecca and Rowena, uses a good deal of blood in the coloring. - -No doubt he was cruel: but those were days of cruelty and of cruel kings. -At least he was openly cruel: he carried his big battle-axe in plain -sight, and if he met a foe thwacked him on the head with it, and there -was an end. But he did not kill men on the sly like his brother King -John, nor did he poison men by inches in low dungeons, as did so many of -the polite and courteous Louis’ of France. - -As people say now--in a good Saxon way--you knew where to find him. -He was above-board, and showed those traits of boldness and frankness -which almost make one forgive his cruelties. He was a rough burr; and I -daresay wiped his beard upon the sleeve of his doublet, besides killing -a great many people he should not have killed, at Ascalon. At any rate, -we shall not set to work here to gainsay or discredit those charming -historic pictures of Scott. We shall keep on going to the pleasant -tournament-ground at Ashby-de-la-Zouche every time the fanfare of those -trumpets breaks the silence of a leisure day; and so will our children; -and so, I think, will our children’s children. We shall keep on listening -to Wamba’s jokes, and keep on loving Rebecca, and keep on--not thinking -much of the airy Rowena, and keep on throwing our caps in the air -whenever the big knight in black armor, who is Richard of England, rides -in upon the course--whatever all the Frenchmen in the world may say about -him. - -This Cœur de Lion appears too in the “Talisman”--one of Scott’s tales -of the crusaders: and here we see him set off against other monarchs of -Europe; as we find England, also, set off against the other kingdoms. The -King came home, you will remember, by the way of Austria, and was caught -and caged there many months--for a time none of his people knowing where -he was: this is good romance and history too. A tradition, which probably -has a little of both, says his prison was discovered by a brother -minstrel, who wandered under castle-walls in search of him, and sang -staves of old Provençal songs that were favorites of the King’s. Finally -Richard responded from the depths of his dungeon. Howsoever this be, he -was found, ransomed, and came home--to the great grief of his brother -John; all which appears in the story of Ivanhoe, and in the chronicles of -the time--based upon the reports of the King’s chaplain, Anselm. - - -_Times of King John._ - -King John--a base fellow every way--has a date made for him by the grant -of _Magna Charta_, A.D. 1215, of which I have already spoken, and of its -near coincidence with the writing of the _Brut_ of Layamon. His name and -memory also cling to mind in connection with two other events which have -their literary associations. - -First, this scoundrelly King could only keep power by making away with -his little nephew Arthur, and out of this tragedy Shakespeare has woven -his play of John--not very much read perhaps, and rarely acted; but -in the old, school reader-books of my time there used to be excerpted -a passage--a whole scene, in fact--representing the interview between -Arthur and his gaoler Hubert, who is to put out the poor boy’s eyes. I -quote a fragment:-- - - _Arthur_--Must you with irons burn out both mine eyes? - - _Hubert_--Young boy, I must. - - _Arthur_--And will you? - - _Hubert_--And I will. - - _Arthur_--Have you the heart? When your head did but ache, - I knit my handkerchief about your brows. - -And again, when the ruffians come in with the irons, Hubert says-- - - “Give me the irons, I say, and bind him here.” - - _Arthur_--Alas, what need you be so boisterous rough? - I will not struggle; I will stand stone still; - For Heaven’s sake, Hubert, let me not be bound. - -I don’t know how young people are made up nowadays; but in the old times -this used to touch us and almost set us upon the “weep” and make us rank -King John with Beelzebub and--the Schoolmaster. - -Second: In King John’s day Normandy was lost to England--the loss growing -largely, in fact, out of the cruelty just named, and its ensuing wars. -Losing Normandy had a vast influence upon the growing speech of England. -Hitherto the cherished mother-land had been across the channel. Sons of -the well-born had been sent over to learn French on French ground: young -ladies of fashion ordered, without doubt, their best cloaks and hats from -Rouen: the English ways of talk might do for the churls and low-born: but -it was discredited by the more cultivated--above all by those who made -pursuit of the gayeties and elegancies of life. The priest fraternity and -the universities of course kept largely by Latin; and the old British -speech only lived in the mountains and in the rattling war-songs of the -Welsh bards. But when Norman nobles and knights found themselves cut off -from their old home associations with Normandy, and brought into more -intimate relations with the best of the English population, there grew up -a new pride in the land and language of their adoption. Hence there comes -about a gradual weaning from France. London begins to count for more than -Rouen. The Norman knights and barons very likely season their talk with -what they may have called English slang; and the better taught of the -islanders--the sons of country franklins affected more knowledge of the -Norman tongue, and came to know the French romances, which minstrels sang -at their doors. So it was that slowly, and with results only observable -after long lapse of years, the nation and language became compacted into -one; and the new English began to be taught in the schools. - - -_Mixed Language._ - -Of the transition stage, as it was called, there are narrative poems of -record, which were written with a couplet in Norman French, and then a -couplet in English. There were medleys, too, of these times, in which -the friars mingled the three tongues of Latin, French, and English.[26] -Blood mingled as languages mingled; and by the middle of the fourteenth -century a man was no longer foreign because he was of Norman descent, and -no longer vulgar because he was of Saxon. - -To this transition time--in Henry III.’s day (who had a long reign of -fifty-six years--chiefly memorable for its length), there appeared the -rhyming Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester;[27]--what we should call a -doggerel story of England from fabulous times down, and worthy of mention -as the first serious attempt at an English-written history--others -noticed already being either merely bald chronicles, or in scholastic -Latin, or in French metric form. I give you a little taste of his wooden -verse-- - - ----Lyncolne [has] fairest men, - Grantebrugge, and Hontyndon most plente ò deep fen, - Ely of fairest place, of fairest site Rochester, - Even agen Fraunce stonde ye countre ò Chichester, - Norwiche agen Denemark, Chestre agen Irelond, - Duram agen Norwei, as ich understonde. - -Yet he tells us some things worth knowing--about every-day matters--about -the fish and the fruits and the pastures, and the things he saw with his -own eyes. And we learn from these old chroniclers how much better a -story a man can make, and how much more worth it is--in telling of the -things he has really seen, than of the things he has not seen. Most of -these old writing people must needs begin at the beginning--drawling over -the ancient fables about the Creation and Siege of Troy, keeping by the -conventional untruths, and so--very barren and good for nothing, until -they get upon their own days, when they grow rich and meaty and juicy, in -spite of themselves, and by reason of their voluble minuteness, and their -mention of homely, every-day unimportant things. They cannot tell lies, -without fear of detection, on their own ground: and so they get that -darlingest quality of all history--the simple truth. - -But if a man wanders otherwheres and makes report, he may tell lies, -and the lies may amuse and get him fame. Thus it happened with another -well-known but somewhat apocryphal writer of this Transition English -epoch; I mean Sir John Mandeville, whose book of travels into distant -countries had a very great run. - - -_Sir John Mandeville._ - -We know little of Mandeville except what he tells us;--that he was born -at St. Albans--twenty miles from London, a place famous for its great -abbey and its Roman remains--in the year 1300:--that he studied to be -a mediciner--then set off (1322) on his travels into Egypt, Tartary, -China, and Persia--countries visited by that more famous Venetian -traveller, Marco Polo,[28] a half century earlier;--also, at other dates -by certain wandering Italian Friars[29] of less fame. From some of these -earlier travellers it is now made certain that Sir John pilfered very -largely;--so largely, in fact, and so rashly, that there is reason to -doubt, not only his stories about having been in the service of a Sultan -of Egypt or of the Khan of Kathay--as he avers--but also to doubt if he -visited at all the far-away countries which he pretends to describe. - -Nay, so deflowered is he of his honors in these latter days, that recent -critics[30] are inclined to question his right to the title of Sir John, -and to deny wholly his authorship of that English version of the tales of -travel, which have been so long and pleasantly associated with his name. - -This seems rather hard measure to mete out to the garrulous old voyager; -nor does the evidence against his having Englished his own _Romance_ -stories, appear fully conclusive. What we may count for certain about -the matter is this:--There does exist a very considerable budget of -delightfully extravagant travellers’ tales, bearing the Mandeville name, -and written in an English which--with some mending of bygone words--is -charming now: and which may be called the first fair and square book of -the new English prose;--meaning by that--the first book of length and of -popular currency which introduced a full measure--perhaps over-running -measure--of those words of Romance or Latin origin, which afterward came -to be incorporated in the English of the fifteenth century. The book has -no English qualities--beyond its language; and might have been written -by a Tartar, who could tell of Munchausen escapes and thank God in good -current dialect of Britain. - -I give a specimen from the description of his descent into the Valley -Perilous--which he found beside the Isle of Mistorak, nigh to the river -Phison: - - This Vale is all full of devils, and hath been always. And - men say there that it is one of the entries of hell. In that - Vale is plenty of gold and silver; wherefore many misbelieving - men, and many Christians also, oftentimes go in, to have of - the treasure.… And in midplace of that Vale is an head of the - visage of a devil bodily--full horrible and dreadful to see. - But there is no man in the world so hardy, Christian man, - ne other, but that he would be drad [afraid] for to behold - it. For he beholdeth every man so sharply with dreadful eyen - that ben evermore moving and sparkling as fire, and changeth - and steereth so often in divers manner, with so horrible - countenance, that no man dare not nighen toward him. - -The author says fourteen of his party went in, and when they came -out--only nine: “And we wisten never, whether that our fellows were lost -or elles turned again for dread. But we never saw them never after.” -He says there were plenty of jewels and precious stones thereabout, but -“I touched none, because that the Devils be so subtle to make a thing -to seem otherwise than it is, for to deceive mankind.” He tells us also -of the giants Gog and Magog, and of a wonderful bird--like the roc of -Arabian Nights’ fable--that would carry off an elephant in its talons, -and he closes all his stupendous narratives with thanks to God Almighty -for his marvellous escapes. - -I have spoken of its popularity. Halliwell--who edits the London edition -of 1839--says that of no book, with the exception of Scriptures, are -there so many MSS. of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries existing; -showing that for two centuries its fables were either not exploded, or at -least lost not their relish. - - -_Early Book-making._ - -And now what do we mean by books and by popularity at the end of the -thirteenth century? The reader must keep in mind that our notion of -popularity measured by thousands of copies would then have been regarded -as strange as the most monstrous of Sir John Mandeville’s stories. There -was no printing; there was no paper, either--as we understand. The art, -indeed, of making paper out of pulp did exist at this date with the -Oriental nations--perhaps with the Moors in Spain, but not in England. -Parchment made from skins was the main material, and books were engrossed -laboredly with a pen or stylus. It was most likely a very popular book -which came to an edition of fifty or sixty copies within five years -of its first appearance: and a good manuscript was so expensive an -affair that its purchase was often made a matter to be testified to by -subscribing witnesses, as we witness the transfer of a house. A little -budget of these manuscripts made a valuable library. When St. Augustine -planted his Church in Kent--he brought nine volumes with him as his -literary treasure. - -Lanfranc, who was one of the Norman abbots brought over by the Conqueror -to build up the priesthood in learning, made order in 1072 that at Lent -the librarian should deliver to the worthiest of the brotherhood each a -book; and these were to have a year to read them. At the commencement of -the fourteenth century there were only four classics in the royal library -of Paris; and at the same date the library of Oxford University consisted -of a few tracts kept in chests under St. Mary’s Church.--Green, in his -“Making of England,”[31] cites from Alcuin a bit of that old Churchman’s -Latin poem--“_De Pontificibus_”--which he says is worthy of special note, -as the first catalogue which we have of any English Library. - - “Quidquid Gregorius summus docet, et Leo Papa; - Basilius quidquid, Fulgentius atque, coruscant, - Cassiodorus item, Chrysostomus atque Johannes - Quidquid et Athelmus docuit, quid Beda magister.” - -Beda and Aldhelm are the only English writers represented; and the -catalogue--if we call it such--could be written on a half-page of note -paper--Metaphors and Geography and Theology and decorative epithets -included. - -Thus in these times a book was a book: some of them cost large sums; the -mere transcription into plain black-letter or Old English was toilsome -and involved weeks and months of labor; and when it came to illuminated -borders, or initials and title-pages with decorative paintings, the labor -involved was enormous. There were collectors in those days as now--who -took royal freaks for gorgeous missals; and monkish lives were spent -in gratifying the whims of such collectors. In the year 1237 (Henry -III.) there is entry in the Revenue Roll of the costs of silver clasps -and studs for the King’s _great book of Romances_. Upon the continent, -in Italy, where an art atmosphere prevailed that was more enkindling -than under the fogs of this savage England, such work became thoroughly -artistic; and even now beautiful _motifs_ for decoration on the walls of -New York houses are sought from old French or Latin manuscripts of the -thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. - -And where was this work of making books done? There were no book-shops -or publishers’ houses, but in place of them abbeys or monasteries--each -having its _scriptorium_ or writing-room, where, under the vaulted Norman -arches and by the dim light of their loop-holes of windows, the work of -transcription went on month after mouth and year after year. Thus it is -recorded that in that old monastery of St. Albans (of which we just now -spoke) eighty distinct works were transcribed during the reign of Henry -VI.; it is mentioned as swift work; and as Henry reigned thirty-nine -years, it counts up about two complete MSS. a year. And the atmosphere -of St. Albans was a learned one; this locality not being overmuch given -to the roisterings that belonged to Bolton Priory--of which you will -remember the hint in a pleasant picture of Landseer’s. - - -_Religious Houses._ - -If you or I had journeyed thither in that day--coming from what land -we might--I think we should have been earnest among the first things, -to see those great monasteries that lay scattered over the surface -of England and of Southern Scotland;--not perched on hills or other -defensible positions like the Norman castles of the robber Barons--not -buried in cities like London Tower, or the great halls which belonged -to guilds of merchants--but planted in the greenest and loveliest of -valleys, where rivers full of fish rippled within hearing, and woods -full of game clothed every headland that looked upon the valley; where -the fields were the richest--where the water was purest--where the sun -smote warmest; there these religious houses grew up, stone by stone, -cloister by cloister, chapel by chapel, manor by manor, until there was -almost a township, with outlying cottages--and some great dominating -abbey church--rich in all the choicest architecture of the later Norman -days--lifting its spire from among the clustered buildings scarce less -lovely than itself. - -Not only had learning and book-making been kept alive in these great -religious houses, but the art of Agriculture. Within their walled courts -were grown all manner of fruits and vegetables known to their climate; -these monks knew and followed the best rulings of Cato, and Crescenzius -(who just now has written on this subject in Northern Italy, and is heard -of by way of Padua). They make sour wine out of grapes grown against -sunny walls: they have abundant flocks too--driven out each morning from -their sheltering courts, and returned each night; and they have great -breadth of ground under carefullest tillage. - -Of such character was Tintern Abbey--in the valley of the Wye--now -perhaps the most charming of all English ruins. Such another was Netley -Abbey, on Southampton water, and Bolton Priory, close by that famous -stream, the Wharfe, which you will remember in Wordsworth’s story of -the “White Doe of Rylstone.” Fountain’s Abbey, in Yorkshire, was yet -another, from whose ruin we can study better perhaps than from any other -in England, the extent and disposition of these old religious houses. -Melrose was another; and so was Dryburgh, where Scott’s body lies, and -Abingdon, close upon Oxford--where was attached that Manor of Cumnor, -which Scott assigns for a prison to the sad-fated Amy Robsart, in the -tale of “Kenilworth.” Glastonbury was another: this too (once encircled -by the arms of the river Brue), was the “Isle of Avalon” in Arthurian -romance; - - “Where falls not hail, or rain or any snow, - Nor ever wind blows loudly.” - -Here (at Glastonbury) is still in existence the abbot’s barn of -the fourteenth century, and here, too, a magnificent abbot’s -kitchen--thirty-three feet square and seventy-two feet high: Think what -the cooking and the meats must have been in a kitchen of that style! - -Now, these shrewd people who lived in these great monasteries, and built -them, and enjoyed the good things kept in store there--made friends of -the vassals about them; they were generous with their pot-herbs and -fruits; they were the medicine-men of the neighborhood; they doled out -flasks of wine to the sick; they gave sanctuary and aid to the Robin -Hoods and Little Johns; and Robin Hood’s men kept them in supply of -venison; they enlivened their courts with minstrelsy. Warton says that -at the feast of the installation of Ralph, Abbot of St. Augustine’s, -Canterbury, in 1309, seventy shillings was expended for minstrels in the -gallery, and six thousand guests were present in and about the halls. -Many abbeys maintained minstrels or harpers of their own; and we may be -sure that the monks had jolly as well as religious ditties. - -They made friends of all strong and influential people near them; their -revenues were enormous. They established themselves by all the arts of -conciliation. Finding among their young vassals one keener and sharper -witted than his fellows, they beguiled him into the abbey--instructed -him--perhaps made a clerk of him, for the transcription of the MSS. we -have spoken of (it was thus Cædmon was brought into notice); if very -promising, he might come to place of dignity among the monks--possibly -grow, as Thomas à Becket did, from such humble beginnings to an -archbishopric and to the mastership of the religious heart of England. - -These houses were the fat corporations of that day, with their lobby-men -and spokesmen in all state assemblages. Their representatives could -wear hair shirts, or purple robes and golden mitres, as best suited the -needs of the occasion. They could boast that their institutions were -established--like our railways--for the good of the people, and in the -interests of humanity; but while rendering service, waxing into such -lustiness of strength and such habits of corruption and rapacity, that -at last, when fully bloated, they were broken open and their riches -drifted away under the whirlwind of the wrath of King Henry VIII. Great -schemes of greed are very apt to carry an avenging Henry VIII. somewhere -in their trail. But let us not forget that there was a time in the early -centuries of Christian England when these great religious houses--whose -ruins appeal to us from their lovely solitudes--were the guardians of -learning, the nurses of all new explorations into the ways of knowledge, -the expounders of all healing arts, and the promoters of all charities -and all neighborly kindliness.[32] Whatever young fellow of that day -did not plant himself under shadow of one of these religious houses for -growth, or did not study in the schools of Oxford or Cambridge, must -needs have made his way into favor and fame and society with a lance and -good horse--just as young fellows do it now with an oar or a racket. - - -_Life of a Damoiselle._ - -But what shall be said of a young person of the other sex of like age and -tastes--to whose ambitions war and knight-errantry and the university -cloisters are not open? Whither should the daughters of the great -houses go, or how fill up the current of their young lives in that old -thirteenth-century England? - -It is true, there are religious houses--nunneries--priories--for these, -too, with noble and saintly prioresses, such as St. Hilda’s, St. -Agatha’s, St. Margaret’s; all these bountiful in their charities, strict -for most part in their discipline. To these cloistered schools may go -the cousins, sisters, nieces of these saintly lady superiors; here they -may learn of music, of embroidery, of letter-writing, and Christian -carols--in Latin or English or French, as the case may be. If not an -inmate of one of these quiet cloisters, our young thirteenth-century -damsel will find large advantage in its neighborhood; in the interchange -of kindly offices--in the loan of illuminated missals, of fruits, of -flowers, of haunches of venison, and in the assurance that tenderest of -nurses and consolers will be at hand in case of illness or disaster; and -always there--an unfailing sanctuary. At home, within the dingy towers -of a castle or squat Saxon homestead, with walls hung in tapestry, or -made only half bright with the fire upon the hearthstone--with slits of -windows filled with horn or translucent bits of skin--there must have -been wearisome _ennui_. Yet even here there were the deft handmaids, -cheery and companionable; the games--draughts of a surety (in rich houses -the checkers being of jasper or rock crystal); the harp, too, and the -falcons for a hunting bout in fair weather; the little garden within the -court--with its eglantine, its pinks, its lilies fair. Possibly there may -be also transcripts of old _chansons_ between ivory lids--images carven -out of olive wood--relics brought to the castle by friendly knights from -far-away Palestine. And travelling merchants find their way to such -homes--bringing glass beads from Venice, and little dainty mirrors, just -now the vogue in that great City by the Sea; and velvet and filigree -head-dresses, and jewels and bits of tapestry from Flemish cities. -Perhaps a minstrel--if the revenues of the family cannot retain one--will -stroll up to the castle-gates of an evening, giving foretaste of his -power by a merry snatch of song about Robin Hood, or Sir Guy, or the Nut -Brown Maid. - -Some company of priests with a lordly abbot at their head, journeying up -from St. Albans, may stop for a day, and kindle up with cheer the great -hall, which will be fresh strown with aromatic herbs for the occasion; -and so some solitary palmer, with scollop shell, may make the evening -short with his story of travel across the desert; or--best of all--some -returning knight, long looked for--half doubted--shall talk bravely of -the splendors he has seen in the luxurious court of Charles of Anjou, -where the chariot of his Queen was covered with velvet sprinkled with -lilies of gold, and men-at-arms wore plumed helmets and jewelled collars; -he may sing, too, snatches of those tender madrigals of Provence, and -she--if Sister Nathalie has taught her thereto--may join in a roundelay, -and the minstrel and harpist come clashing in to the _refrain_. - -Then there is the home embroidery--the hemming of the robes, the trimming -of the mantles, the building up of the head pieces. Pray--in what age and -under what civilization--has a young woman ever failed of showing zeal in -those branches of knowledge? - - * * * * * - -So, we will leave England--to-day--upon the stroke of thirteen hundred -years. When we talk of life there again, we shall come very swiftly -upon traces of one of her great philosophers, and of one of her great -reformers, and of one of her greatest poets. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -In our last chapter I spoke of that Geoffrey of Monmouth who about the -middle of the twelfth century wrote a history--mostly apocryphal--in -which was imbedded a germ of the King Arthur fables. We traced these -fables, growing under the successive touches of Wace and Map and Layamon -into full-fledged legends, repeated over and over; and finally, with -splendid affluence of color appearing on the literary horizon of our own -day. I spoke of King Richard I. and of his song loving, and of his blood -loving, and of his royal frankness: then of John, that renegade brother -of his--of how he granted _Magna Charta_, killed poor Prince Arthur, and -stirred such a current of war as caused the loss of Normandy to England. -I spoke of the connection of this loss with the consolidation of the -language; of how Robert of Gloucester made a rhyming history that was -in a new English; of how the name of Sir John Mandeville was associated -with great lies, in the same tongue; how the religious houses made books, -and fattened on the best of the land, and grew corrupt; and last--of how -we, if we had lived in those days, would have found disport for our idle -hours and consolation for our serious ones. - - -_Roger Bacon._ - -Starting now from about the same point in time where we left off, our -opening scene will take us to the old University town of Oxford. It is -a rare city for a young American to visit; its beautiful High Street, -its quaint Colleges, its Christ Church Hall, its libraries, its Magdalen -walks and tower, its charming gardens of St. John’s and Trinity, its near -Park of Blenheim, its fragrant memories--all, make it a place where one -would wish to go and long to linger. But in the far-away time we speak of -it was a walled city, with narrow streets, and filthy lodging houses; yet -great parliaments had been held there; the royal domain of Woodstock was -near by with its Palace; the nunnery was standing, where was educated -the Fair Rosamund; a little farther away was the great religious house -of Abingdon and the village of Cumnor; but of all its present august and -venerable array of colleges only one or two then existed--Merton, and -perhaps Balliol, or the University.[33] - -But the schools here had won a very great reputation in the current of -the thirteenth century, largely through the scholarship and popularity -of Grosseteste, one while Bishop of Lincoln, who held ministrations -at Oxford by reason of his connection with a Franciscan brotherhood -established here; and among those crop-haired Franciscans was a -monk--whom we have made this visit to Oxford to find--named Roger Bacon. -He had been not only student but teacher there; and a few miles south -from the King’s Arms Hotel in Broad Street, Oxford, is still standing -a church tower, in the little parish of Sunningwell, from which--as -tradition affirms--Roger Bacon studied the heavens: for he believed in -Astrology, and believed too in the transmutation of metals; and he got -the name of magician, and was cashiered and imprisoned twice or thrice -for this and other strange beliefs. But he believed most of all in the -full utterance of his beliefs, and in experimenting, and in interrogating -nature, and distrusting conventionalisms, and in search for himself into -all the mysteries, whether of nature or theology. - -He had sprung from worthy and well-to-do parents in the Western County -of Somersetshire. He had spent very much money for those days on his -education; had obtained a Doctorate at Paris; his acuteness and his -capacity for study were everywhere recognized; he knew more of Greek than -most of his teachers, and more of Hebrew than most of the Rabbis, and -more of Chemistry and Physics generally than probably any other man in -England. He took a Friar’s vows, as we have said; but these did not save -him from interdiction by the Chief of his Order, by whom he was placed -under ten years of surveillance at Paris--his teachings silenced, and he -suffering almost to starvation. A liberal Pope (for those days), Clement -IV., by his intervention set free the philosopher’s pen again; and -there came of this freedom the _Opus Majus_ by which he is most worthily -known. Subsequently he was permitted to return to his old sphere of study -in Oxford, where he pursued afresh his scientific investigations, but -coupled with them such outspoken denunciations of the vices and ignorance -of his brother Friars, as to provoke new condemnation and an imprisonment -that lasted for fourteen years--paying thus, in this accredited mediæval -way, for his freedom of speech. - -It is not improbable that we owe to him and to his optical studies--in -some humble degree--the eye-glasses that make reading possible to old -eyes: and his books, first of any books from English sources, described -how sulphur and charcoal and saltpetre properly combined will make -thunder and lightning (_sic facies tonitrum et coruscationem_). We call -the mixture gunpowder. In his _Opus Majus_ (he wrote only in Latin, and -vastly more than has appeared in printed form) scholars find some of -the seeds of the riper knowledges which came into the _Novum Organum_ -of another and later Bacon--with whom we must not confound this sharp, -eager, determined, inquiring Franciscan friar. He is worthy to be kept -in mind as the Englishman who above all others living in that turbid -thirteenth century, saw through the husks of things to their very core. - -He died at the close of the century--probably in the year 1294; and -I have gone back to that far-away time--somewhat out of our forward -track--and have given you a glimpse of this Franciscan innovator and -wrestler with authorities, in order that I might mate him with two other -radical thinkers whose period of activity belonged to the latter half of -the succeeding century: I mean Langlande and Wyclif. And before we go on -to speak of these two, we will set up a few way-marks, so that we may not -lose our historic bearings in the drift of the intervening years. - -Bacon died, as we have said, in 1294. William Wallace fought his great -battle of Cambuskenneth in 1297. Those who have read that old favorite -of school-boys, Miss Porter’s “Scottish Chiefs,” will not need to have -their memories refreshed about William Wallace. Indeed, that hero will be -apt to loom too giant-like in their thought, and with a halo about him -which I suspect sober history would hardly justify. Wallace was executed -at Smithfield (Miss Porter says he died of grief before the axe fell) -in 1305; and that stout, flax-haired King Edward I., who had humbled -Scotland at Falkirk--who was personally a match for the doughtiest of -his knights--who was pious (as the times went), and had set up beautiful -memorial crosses to his good Queen Eleanor--who had revived King Arthur’s -Round Table at Kenilworth, died only two years after he had cruelly -planted the head of Wallace on London Bridge. Then came the weak Edward -II., and the victories of Bruce of Bannockburn, and that weary Piers -Gaveston story, and the shocking death of the King in Berkeley Castle. -The visitor to Berkeley (it is in Gloucestershire, and only two miles -away from station on the Midland Railway) can still see the room where -the murder was done: and this Castle of Berkeley--strangely enough--has -been kept in repair, and inhabited continuously from the twelfth century -until now; its moat, its keep, and its warders walks are all intact. - -After this Edward II. came the great Edward III.--known to us through -Froissart and the Black Prince[34] and Crécy and Poitiers, and by -Windsor Castle--which he built--and by Chaucer and Wyclif and Langlande -and Gower, who grew up while he was king; known to us also in a worse -way, for outliving all his good qualities, and becoming in his last days -a peevish and tempestuous voluptuary. - -Some few foreign way-marks I also give, that the reader may have more -distinctly in mind this great historic epoch. Dante died in exile at -Ravenna, six years before Edward III. came to power. Boccaccio was then a -boy of fourteen, and Petrarch nine years his elder. And on the year that -Crécy was fought and won--through the prowess of the Black Prince, and -when the Last of the Tribunes, as you see him in Bulwer Lytton’s novel, -was feeling his way to lordship in Rome,--there was living somewhere in -Shropshire, a country-born, boy poet--not yet ripened into utterance, -but looking out with keen eyes and soreness of heart upon the sufferings -of poor country folk, and upon the wantonness of the monks, and the -extravagance of the rich, and the hatefulness of the proud--all which was -set forth at a later day in the Vision of Piers Plowman. - - -_William Langlande._ - -This was William Langlande[35] (or Langley, as others call him), reputed -author of the poem I have named. It makes a little book--earliest, I -think, of all books written in English--which you will be apt to find -in a well-appointed private library of our day. I won’t say that it is -bought to read, so much as to stand upon the shelves (so many books are) -as a good and sufficient type of old respectabilities. Yet, for all -this, it is reasonably readable; with crabbed alliterative rhythm;--some -Latin intermixed, as if the writer had been a priest (as some allege); -and such knowledge of life and of current shortcomings among all sorts -of people as showed him to be a wide-awake and fearless observer. It is -in the form of an Allegory, Christian in its motive; so that you might -almost say that the author was an immature and crude and yet sharper -kind of John Bunyan who would turn _Great-Heart_ into a _Plowman_. The -nomenclature also brings to mind the tinker of the Pilgrim’s Progress; -there is a Sir _Do-Well_ and his daughter _Do-Better_: then there is _Sir -In-wit_ with his sons _See-well_ and _Say-well_ and _Hear-well_, and the -doughtiest of them all--_Sir Work-well_. We may, I think, as reasonably -believe that Bunyan hovered over this book, as that Milton took hints -from the picture of Pandemonium attributed to Cædmon. - -Langlande is a little mixed and raw oftentimes; but he is full of -shrewdness and of touches of a rough and unwashed humor. There is little -tenderness of poetic feeling in his verse; and scarcely ever does it rise -to anything approaching stateliness; but it keeps a good dog-trot jog, -as of one who knew what he was doing, and meant to do it. What he meant -was--to whip the vices of the priests and to scourge the covetousness of -the rich and of the men in power. It is English all over; English[36] in -the homeliness of its language; he makes even Norman words sound homely; -English in spirit too; full of good, hearty, grumbling humor--a sort of -predated and poetic kind of Protestantism. Plums might be picked out of -it for the decoration of a good radical or agrarian speech of to-day. - -Of his larger religious and political drift no extracts will give one a -proper idea; only a reading from beginning to end will do this. One or -two snatches of his verse I give, to show his manner: - - And thanne cam coveitise, - Kan I hym naght discryve, - So hungrily and holwe - Sire Hervy hym loked. - He was bitel-browed, - And baber-lipped also - With two blered eighen - As a blynd hagge; - And as a letheren purs - Lolled his chekes, - Well sidder [wider] than his chyn - Thei chyveled [shrivelled] for elde; - And as a bonde-man of his bacon - His berd was bi-draveled, - With an hood on his heed. - A lousy hat above - And in a tawny tabard - Of twelf wynter age. - - --2847 _Pass. V._ - -And again, from the same _Passus_ (he dividing thus his poem into _steps_ -or _paces_) I cite this self-drawn picture of Envy: - - Betwene manye and manye - I make debate ofte, - That bothe lif and lyme - Is lost thorugh my speche. - And when I mete hym in market - That I moost hate, - I hailse hym hendely [politely] - As I his frend were; - For he is doughtier than I, - I dar do noon oother: - Ac, hadde I maistrie and myght. - God woot my wille! - And whanne I come to the kirk - And sholde kneel to the roode, - And preye for the peple … - Awey fro the auter thanne - Turne I myne eighen - And bi-holde Eleyne - Hath a newe cote; - I wisshe thanne it were myn, - And al the web after. - For who so hath moore than I - That angreth me soore, - And thus I lyve love-lees, - Like a luther [mad] dogge; - That al my body bolneth [swelleth] - For bitter of my galle. - - --_vers._ 2667. - -It is a savage picture; and as savagely true as was ever drawn of Envy. -Those who cultivated the elegancies of letters, and delighted in the -pretty rhyming-balance of Romance verse, would hardly have relished -him; but the average thinker and worker would and did. It is specially -noteworthy that the existing MSS. of this poem, of which there are very -many, are without expensive ornamentation by illuminated initial letters, -or otherwise, indicating that its circulation was among those who did -not buy a book for its luxuries of “make-up,” but for its pith. A new -popularity came to the book after printing was begun, and made it known -to those who sympathized with its protesting spirit;--most of all when -the monasteries went down and readers saw how this old grumbler had -prophesied truly--in saying “the Abbot of Abingdon and all his people -should get a knock from a king”--as they did; and a hard one it was. - -Langlande was born in the West, and had wandered over the beautiful -Malvern hills of Worcestershire in his day but he went afterward to live -in London, which he knew from top to bottom; had a wife there, “Kytte,” -and a daughter, “Calote;”[37] shaved his head like a priest; was tall--so -tall he came to be called “Long Will.” He showed little respect for fine -dresses, though he saw them all; he was in London when Chaucer was there -and when the greater poet was writing, and had higher-placed friends -than himself; but he never met him,--from anything that appears; never -met Wyclif either, with whom he must have had very much thinking in -common, and who also must have been in London many a time when tall Will -Langlande sidled along Fenchurch Street, or Cornhill. Yet he is worthy to -be named with him as representing a popular seam in that great drift of -independent and critical thought, which was to ripen into the Reformation. - - -_John Wyclif._ - -In the year when gunpowder was first burned in battle, and when Rienzi -was trying to poise himself with a good balance on the rocking shoulders -of the Roman people, John Wyclif, the great English reformer and the -first translator of the Bible, was just turned of twenty and poring over -his books, not improbably in that Balliol College, Oxford--of which in -the ripeness of his age he was to become Master. - -We know little of his early personal history, save that he came from -a beautiful Yorkshire valley in the North of England, where the Tees, -forming the border line of the County of Durham, sweeps past the little -parish of Wyclif, and where a manor-house of the same name--traditionally -the birthplace of the Reformer--stands upon a lift of the river hank. -Its grounds stretch away to those “Rokeby” woods, whose murmurs and -shadows relieve the dullest of the poems of Scott. - -But there is no record of him thereabout: if indeed he were born upon -that lift of the Tees bank, the proprietors thereof--who through many -generations were stanch Romanists--would have shown no honor to the -arch-heretic; and it is noteworthy that within a chapel attached to the -Wyclif manor-house, mass was said and the Pope reverenced, down to a very -recent time. John Wyclif, in the great crowd of his writings, whether -English or Latin, told no story of himself or of his young days. We have -only clear sight of him when he has reached full manhood--when he has -come to the mastership of Balliol Hall, and to eloquent advocacy of the -rights and dignities of England, as against the Papal demand for tribute. -On this service he goes up to London, and is heard there--maybe in -Parliament; certainly is heard with such approval that he is, only a few -years thereafter--sent with a commission, to treat with ambassadors from -the Pope, at the old city of Bruges. - -This was a rich city--called the Venice of the North--and princes and -nobles from all Europe were to be met there; its great town-house even -then lifted high into the air that Belfry of Bruges which has become in -our day the nestling-place of song. But Wyclif was not overawed by any -splendors of scene or association. He insisted doggedly upon the rights -of Englishmen as against Papal pretensions. John of Gaunt, a son of the -king, stood by Wyclif; not only befriending him there, but afterward when -Papish bulls were thundered against him, and when he was summoned up to -London--as befell in due time--to answer for his misdeeds; and when the -populace, who had caught a liking for the stalwart independence of the -man, crowded through the streets (tall Will Langlande very probably among -them), to stand between the Reformer and the judges of the Church. He did -not believe in Ecclesiastic hierarchies; and it is quite certain that he -was as little liked by the abbots and the bishops and the fat vicars, as -by the Pope. - -I have said he was befriended by John of Gaunt: and this is a name which -it is worth while for students of English history to remember; not only -because he was a brother of the famous Black Prince (and a better man -than he, though he did not fight so many battles), but because he was -also a good friend of the poet Chaucer--as we shall find. It will perhaps -help one to keep him in mind, if I refer to that glimpse we get of him in -the early scenes of Shakespeare’s tragedy of Richard II., where he makes -a play upon his name: - - O, how that name befits my composition! - Old Gaunt, indeed! and gaunt in being old. - Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast - And who abstains from meat, that is not gaunt? - -A good effigy of this John, in his robes, is on the glass of a window in -All-Souls’ College, Oxford. - -But such great friends, and Wyclif numbered the widow of the Black Prince -among them, could not shield him entirely from Romish wrath, when he -began to call the Pope a “cut-purse;” and his arguments were as scathing -as his epithets, and had more reason in them. He was compelled to forego -his teachings at Oxford, and came to new trials,[38] at which--as -traditions run--he wore an air of great dignity; and old portraits show -us a thin, tall figure--a little bent with over-study; his features -sharp-cut, with lips full of firmness, a flowing white beard and piercing -eyes--glowing with the faith that was in him. This was he who blocked out -the path along which England stumbled through Lollardry quagmires, and -where Huss, the Bohemian, walked in after days with a clumsy, forward -tread, and which Luther in his later time put all alight with his torch -of flame. - -The King--and it was one of the last good deeds of Edward III.--gave -to the old man who was railed at by Popes and bishops, a church living -at Lutterworth, a pleasant village in Leicestershire, upon a branch of -that Avon, which flows by Stratford Church; and here the white-haired old -man--some five hundred years ago (1384) finished his life; and here the -sexton of the church will show one to-day the gown in which he preached, -and the pulpit in which he stood. - -Even now I have not spoken of those facts about this early Reformer, -which are best kept in memory, and which make his name memorable in -connection with the literature of England. In the quiet of Lutterworth -he translated the Latin Bible (probably not knowing well either Greek or -Hebrew, as very few did in that day); not doing all this work himself, -but specially looking after the Gospels, and perhaps all of the New -Testament. - -The reader will, I think, be interested in a little fragment of this work -of his (from Matthew viii.). - - “Sothely [verily] Jhesus seeynge many cumpanyes about hym, - bad _his disciplis_ go ouer the watir. And oo [one] scribe or - _a man of lawe_, commynge to, saide to hym--Maistre, I shall - sue [follow] thee whidir euer thou shalt go. And Jhesus said - to hym, Foxis han dichis _or borrowis_ [holes] and briddes of - the eir han nestis; but mannes sone hath nat wher he reste his - heued. Sotheli an other of his disciplis saide to hym--Lord, - suffre me go first and birye my fadir. Forsothe Jhesus saide to - hym, Sue thou me, and late dede men birye her dead men.” - -It is surely not very hard reading;--still less so in the form as revised -by Purvey,[39] an old assistant of his in the Parish of Lutterworth; -and it made the groundwork of an English sacred dialect, which with its -_Thees_ and _Thous_ and _Speaketh_ and _Heareth_ and _Prayeth_ has given -its flavor to all succeeding translations, and to all utterances of -praise and thanksgiving in every English pulpit. - -Not only this, but Wyclif by his translation opened an easy English -pathway into the arcana of sacred mysteries, which in all previous -time--save for exceptional parts, such as the paraphrase of Cædmon, or -the Ormulum, or the Psalter of Aldhelm and other fragmentary Anglo-Saxon -versions of Scripture--had been veiled from the common people in -the dimness of an unknown tongue. But from the date of Wyclif’s -translation--forward, forever--whatever man, rich or poor, could read an -English ordinance of the King, or a bye-law of a British parish, could -also--though he might be driven to stealthy reading--spell his way back, -through the old aisles of Sacred History, where Moses and the prophets -held their place, and into the valleys of Palestine, where Bethlehem lay, -and where Christ was hung upon the tree. - - -_Chaucer._ - -Now we come to a Poet of these times; not a poet by courtesy, not a -small poet, but a real and a great one. His name is Chaucer. You may -not read him; you may find his speech too old-fashioned to please you; -you may not easily get through its meaning; but if you do, and come to -study him with any warmth, the more you study him the more you will -like him. And this--not because there are curious and wonderful tales -in his verse to interest you; not because your passion will be kindled -by any extraordinary show of dramatic power; but because his humor, and -gentleness, and grace of touch, and exquisite harmonies of language will -win upon you page by page, and story by story. - -He was born--probably in London--some time during the second quarter of -the fourteenth century;[40] and there is reason to believe that an early -home of his was in or near Thames Street, which runs parallel with the -river,--a region now built up and overshadowed with close lines of tall -and grimy warehouses. But the boy Chaucer, living there five hundred and -more years ago, might have caught between the timber houses glimpses -of cultivated fields lying on the Southwark shores; and if he had -wandered along Wallbrook to Cheapside, and thence westerly by Newgate to -Smithfield Common--where he may have watched tournaments that Froissart -watched, and Philippa, queen of Edward III., had watched--he would -have found open country; and on quiet days would have heard the birds -singing there, and have seen green meadows lying on either side the river -Fleet--which river is now lost in sewers, and is planted over with houses. - -On Ludgate Hill, in that far-off time, rose the tall and graceful spire -of old St. Paul’s, and underneath its roof was a vista of Gothic arches -seven hundred feet in length. The great monastery of the Templars--and -of the Knights of St. John--where we go now to see that remnant of it, -called the Temple Church,--had, only shortly before, passed into the -keeping of the Lawyers; the Strand was like a country road, with great -country-houses and gardens looking upon the water; Charing Cross was a -hamlet midway between the Temple and a parish called Westminster, where a -huge Abbey Church stood by the river bank. - -Some biographers have labored to show that Chaucer was of high -family--with titles in it. But I think we care very little about -this; one story, now fully accredited, makes his father a vintner, -or wine-dealer, with a coat-of-arms, showing upon one half a red bar -upon white, and upon the other white on red; as if--hints old Thomas -Fuller--’twas dashed with red wine and white. This escutcheon with its -parti-colored bars may be seen in the upper left corner of the portrait -of Chaucer, which hangs now in the picture-gallery at Oxford. And--for -that matter--it was not a bad thing to be a vintner in that day; for we -have record of one of them who, in the year after the battle of Poitiers, -entertained at his house in the Vintry, Edward King of England, John King -of France, David King of Scotland, and the King of Cyprus. And he not -only dined them, but won their money at play; and afterward, in a very -unking-like fashion--paid back the money he had won. - -Chaucer was a student in his young days; but never--as old stories -ran--at either Cambridge or Oxford; indeed, there is no need that we -place him at one or the other. There were schools in London in those -times--at St. Paul’s and at Westminster--in either of which he could -have come by all the scholarly epithets or allusions that appear in his -earlier poems; and for the culture that declares itself in his riper -days, we know that he was more or less a student all his life--loving -books, and proud of his fondness for them, and showing all up and down -his poems traces of his careful reading and of an observation as close -and as quick. - -It is the poet’s very self, who, borne away in the eagle’s clutch amongst -the stars, gets this comment from approving Jove[41]: - - Thou hearest neither that nor this, - For when thy labor all done is, - And hast made all thy reckiningës - In stead of rest and of new thingës, - Thou goest homë to thine house anon - And all so dombe as any stone, - Thou sittest at another bokë - Till fully dazed is thy lokë. - -But though we speak of Chaucer as bookish and scholarly, it must not be -supposed that he aimed at, or possessed the nice critical discernment, -with respect to the literary work of others, which we now associate -with highest scholarly attainments; it may well happen that his bookish -allusions are not always “by the letter,” or that he may misquote, or -strain a point in interpretation. He lived before the days of exegetical -niceties. He is attracted by large effects; he searches for what may -kindle his enthusiasms, and put him upon his own trail of song. Books -were nothing to him if they did not bring illumination; where he could -snatch that, he burrowed--but always rather toward the light than toward -the depths. He makes honey out of coarse flowers; not so sure always--nor -much caring to be sure--of the name and habitudes of the plants he -rifles. He stole not for the theft’s sake, but for the honey’s sake; and -he read not for cumulation of special knowledges, but to fertilize and -quicken his own spontaneities. - -Nor was this poet ever so shapen to close study, but the woods or the -birds or the flowers of a summery day would take the bend from his back, -and straighten him for a march into the fields: - - ----There is gamë none, - That from my bookës maketh me to gone, - Save certainly whan that the month of Maie - Is comen, and that I heare the foulës sing, - And that the flowris ginnen for to spring-- - Farewell my booke, and my devocion! - -And swift upon this in that musical “Legende of Good Women,” comes his -rhythmical crowning of the Daisy--never again, in virtue of his verse, to -be discrowned-- - - ----above all the flowris in the mede - Thanne love I moste these flowris white and rede; - Soche that men callin Daisies in our toun - To ’hem I have so grete affectionn - As I said erst, whan comin is the Maie, - That in my bedde there dawith me no daie - That I n’ am up, and walking in the mede - To sene this floure ayenst the sunnë sprede, - As she that is of all flowris the floure, - Fulfilled of all vertue and honoure - And evir alikë faire and freshe, of hewe, - And evir I love it and ever alikë newe. - -These lines of his have given an everlasting perfume to that odorless -flower. - -How it befell that this son of a vintner came first to have close -association with members of the royal household--household of the great -Edward III.--we cannot tell; but it is certain that he did come at an -early day to have position in the establishment of the King’s son, Prince -Lionel, Duke of Clarence; he was sometime valet, too, of Edward III., and -in other years a familiar _protégé_ of John of Gaunt--putting his poet’s -gloss upon courtly griefs and love-makings. - -It is certain, moreover, that in the immediate service of either Prince -or King, he went to the wars--as every young man of high spirit in -England yearned to do, when war was so great a part of the business of -life, and when the Black Prince was galloping in armor and in victory -over the fields of Guienne. But it was a bad excursion the poet hit -upon; he went when disaster attended the English forces; he was taken -prisoner, and though ransomed shortly thereafter--as the record shows--it -is uncertain when he returned; uncertain if he did not linger for years -among the vineyards of France; maybe writing there his translation of the -famous _Roman de la Rose_[42]--certainly loving this and other such, and -growing by study of these Southern melodies into graces of his own, to -overlap and adorn his Saxon sturdiness of speech. - -There are recent continental critics[43] indeed, who claim him as French, -and as finding not only his felicities of verse, but his impulse and -his motives among the lilies of France. He does love these lilies of a -surety; but I think he loves the English daisies better, and that it -is with a thoroughly English spirit that he “powders” the meadows with -their red and white, and sets among them the green blades of those island -grasses, which flash upon his “morwenyngs of Maie.” To these times may -possibly belong--if indeed Chaucer wrote it--“The Court of Love.” Into -the discussion of its authenticity we do not enter; we run to cover under -an ignorance which is more blissful than the wisdom that wearies itself -with comparison of dates, with laws of prosody, with journeyman-like -estimate of the tinklings of this or that spurt of rhyming habit. If -Chaucer did not write it, we lift our hat to the unknown melodist--who -can put the birds in choir--and pass on. - -When our poet does reappear in London, it is not to tell any story of the -war--of its hazards, or of its triumphs. Indeed, it is remarkable that -this lissome poet, whose words like bangles shook out all tunes to his -step, and who lived in the very heart of the days of Poitiers--when the -doughty young Black Prince kindled a martial furor that was like the old -crusade craze to follow _Cœur de Lion_ to battle--remarkable, I say, that -Chaucer, living on the high tide of war--living, too, in a court where -he must have met Froissart, that pet of the Queen, who gloried in giving -tongue to his enthusiasm about the deeds of knighthood--wonderful, I say, -that Chaucer should not have brought into any of his tales or rhymes the -din and the alarums and the seething passions of war. There are indeed -glimpses of fluttering pennons and of spear thrusts; maybe, also, purple -gouts of blood welling out from his page; but these all have the unreal -look of the tourney, to which they mostly attach; he never scores martial -scenes with a dagger. For all that Crécy or its smoking artillery had -to do with his song, he might have sung a century earlier, or he might -have sung a century later. Indeed, he does not seem to us a man of -action, notwithstanding his court connection and his somewhile official -place;--not even a man of loudly declared public policy, but always the -absorbed, introspective, painstaking, quiet observer, to whom Nature in -the gross, with its humanities now kindled by wanton appetites, and now -lifted by reverence and love (with the everlasting broidery of flowers -and trees and sunshine), was always alluring him from things accidental -and of the time--though it were time of royal Philip’s ruin, or of a -conquest of Aquitaine. - -Yet withal, this Chaucer is in some sense a man of the world and -courtier. The “Boke of the Duchesse” tells us this. And he can weave -chaplets for those who have gone through the smoke of battles--though his -own inclination may not lead him thither. To a date not very remote from -that which belongs to the “Duchesse” must in all probability be assigned -that other well-known minor poem of Chaucer’s, called the “Parlament of -Foules.”[44] There are stories of his love-lornness in his young days, -and of marriage delayed and of marriage made good--coming mostly from -those who paint large pictures with few pigments--and which are exceeding -hazy and indeterminate of outline: his “Troilus and Cresseide” make -us know that he could go through the whole gamut of love, and fawning -and teasing and conquest and forgetting, in lively earnest as well as -fancy--if need were. - -We have better data and surer ground to go upon when we come to score his -official relations. We know that when not very far advanced in age (about -1370) he went to the continent on the King’s service; accomplishing it -so well--presumably--that he is sent again, very shortly after, with a -commission--his journey calling him to Genoa and Florence; Italy and the -Mediterranean, then, probably for the first time, with all their glamour -of old story, coming to his view. Some biographers make out, from chance -lines in his after-poems, that he went over to Padua and saw Petrarch -there, and learned of him some stories, which he afterward wrought into -his garland of the Canterbury Tales. Possibly;[45] but it was not an -easy journey over the mountains to Padua in those days, even if Petrarch -had been domiciled there,--which is very doubtful; for the Italian poet, -old and feeble, passed most of the latter years of his life at Arqua -among the Euganean hills; and if Chaucer had met him, Petrarch would have -been more apt to ask the man from far-away, murky England, about his -country and King and the Prince Lionel (dead in those days), who only a -few years before had married, at Milan, a daughter of the Visconti--than -to bore him with a story at second hand (from Boccaccio) about the -patient Griselda. - -However this may be, it is agreed by nearly all commentators, that by -reason of his southward journeyings and his after-familiarity with -Italian literature (if indeed this familiarity were not of earlier date), -that his own poetic outlook became greatly widened, and he fell away, in -large degree, from his old imitative allegiance to the jingling measures -of France, and that pretty - - “Maze of to and fro, - Where light-heeled numbers laugh and go.” - -Through all this time he is in receipt of favors from the -Government--sometimes in the shape of direct pension--sometimes of an -annual gift of wine--sometimes in moneys for payment of his costs of -travel;--sometime, too, he has a money-getting place in the Customs. - -John of Gaunt continues his stalwart friend. Indeed this Prince, late in -life, and when he had come to the title of Duke of Lancaster, married, -in third espousals, a certain Kate Swynford (_née_ Roet), who, if much -current tradition may be trusted, was a sister of Chaucer’s wife; it was, -to be sure, looked upon by court people (for various reasons) as a match -beneath the Duke; and Froissart tells us with a chirrupy air[46] of easy -confidence (but there is no mention of the poet) that the peeresses of -the court vowed they would have nothing to do with the new Duchess of -Lancaster--by which it may be seen that fine ladies had then the same -methods of punishing social audacities which they have now. The tradition -has been given a new lease of life by the memorial window which under -rule of Dean Stanley was set in Westminster Abbey;[47] and, however -the truth may be, Chaucer’s life-long familiarity in the household of -Lancaster is undoubted; and it is every way likely that about the knee of -the poet may have frisked and played the little Hal. (b. 1367), who came -afterward to be King Henry IV. It is to this monarch, newly come to the -throne, that Chaucer addresses--in his latter days, and with excellent -effect--that little piquant snatch of verse[48] about the lowness of his -purse: - - I am so sorrie now that ye be light, - For certes, but ye make me heavy cheere, - Me were as lief be laid upon my bere - For which unto your mercie thus I crie - Be heavie againe, or ellës mote I die. - -Yet he seems never to lose his good humor or his sweet complacency; -there is no carping; there is no swearing that is in earnest. His -whole character we seem to see in that picture of him which his friend -Occleve painted; a miniature, to be sure, and upon the cover of a MS. of -Occleve’s poems; but it is the best portrait of him we have. Looking at -it--though ’tis only half length--you would say he was what we call a -dapper man; well-fed, for he loved always the good things of life--“not -drinkless altogether, as I guess;” nor yet is it a bluff English face; no -beefiness; regular features--almost feminine in fineness of contour--with -light beard upon upper lip and chin; smooth cheeks; lips full (rosy red, -they say, in the painting); eye that is keen,[49] and with a sparkle -of humor in it; hands decorously kept; one holding a rosary, the other -pointing--and pointing as men point who see what they point at, and make -others see it too; his hood, which seems a part of his woollen dress, -is picturesquely drawn about his head, revealing only a streak of hair -over his temple; you see it is one who studies picturesqueness even in -costume, and to the trimming of his beard into a forked shape;--no lint -on his robe--you may be sure of that;--no carelessness anywhere: dainty, -delicate, studious of effects, but with mirth and good nature shimmering -over his face. Yet no vagueness or shakiness of purpose show their weak -lines; and in his jaw there is a certain staying power that kept him firm -and active and made him pile book upon book in the new, sweet English -tongue, which out of the dialects of Essex and of the East of England he -had compounded, ordered, and perfected, and made the pride of every man -born to the inheritance of that Island speech. - -And it is with such looks and such forces and such a constitutional -cheeriness, that this blithe poet comes to the task of enchaining -together his Canterbury Tales, with their shrewd trappings of -Prologue--his best work, getting its last best touches after he is fairly -turned of middle age, if indeed he were not already among the sixties. Is -it not wonderful--the distinctness with which we see, after five hundred -years have passed, those nine and twenty pilgrims setting out on the -sweet April day, to travel down through the country highways and meadows -of Kent! - -The fields are all green, “y-powdered with daisies;” the birds are -singing; the white blossoms are beginning to show upon the hedge-rows. -And the Pilgrims, one and all, are so touched and colored by his -shrewdness and aptness of epithet that we see them as plainly as if they -had been cut out, figure by figure, from the very middle of that far-away -century. - -There goes the Knight-- - - And that a worthy man, - That from the timë that he first began - To ryden out, he lovéd chyvalrie - Trouth and honoúr, freedom and courtesie. - -And after him his son, the Squire, the bright bachelor, who - - Was as fresh as is the month of May; - Schort was his goune, with sleevës long and wide, - Well coude he sit on hors, and fairë ride. - He coudë songës make and wel endite, - Joust and eke dance, and wel portray and write. - -Then there comes the charming Prioress-- - - Ycleped Madame Eglantine. - Ful well she sang the servicë divine, - Entunëd in hir nose ful semëly: - And Frensch she spak ful fair and fetisly, - After the scole of Stratford attë Bowe, - For Frensch of Paris was to hir unknowe. - … - Full fetys was her cloke, as I was waar - Of smal coral aboute hir arme she baar - A paire of bedës gauded all with grene, - And thereon heng a broch of gold ful schene - On which was first y-writ a crownéd A, - And after--_Amor Vincit Omnia_! - -Then comes the Monk, who has a shiny pate, who is stout, well fed, -pretentious; his very trappings make a portrait-- - - And when he rood, men might his bridel heere - Gingling in a whistlyng wynd as cleere - And eek as loude as doth the chapel belle. - -Again, there was a Friar--a wanton and a merry one--rollicksome, and -loving rich houses only, - - ----who lispéd for his wantonnesse, - To make his Englissch swete upon his tunge; - His eyen twinkled in his hed aright - As do the starrës in the frosty night. - -And among them all goes, with mincing step, the middle-aged, vulgar, -well-preserved, coquettish, shrewish Wife of Bath: - - Hir hosen weren of fyn scarlet reed, - Ful streyte y-tied, and schoos ful moiste and newe, - Bold was her face, and faire and reed of hewe. - -And so--on, and yet on--for the twenty or more; all touched with those -little, life-like strokes which only genius can command, and which keep -the breath in those old Pilgrims to Canterbury, as if they travelled -there, between the blooming hedge rows, on every sunshiny day of every -succeeding spring. - -I know that praise of these and of the way Chaucer marshals them at the -Tabard, and starts them on their way, and makes them tell their stories, -is like praise of June or of sunshine. All poets and all readers have -spoken it ever since the morning they set out upon their journeyings; and -many an American voyager of our day has found best illumination for that -pleasant jaunt through County Kent toward the old towers of Canterbury -in his recollections of Chaucer’s Pilgrims. It is true that the poet’s -wayside marks are not close or strong; no more does a meteor leave other -track than the memory of its brightness. We cannot fix of a surety upon -the “ale-stake” where the Pardoner did “byten on a cake,” and there may -be some doubt about the “litel” town - - which that y-cleped is, Bob-up-and-Down. - -But there is no doubt at all about the old Watling Road and Deptford, and -the sight of Greenwich Heights, which must have shown a lifted forest -away to their left; nor about Boughton Hill (by Boughton-under-Blean), -with its far-off view of sea-water and of sails, and its nearer view of -the great cathedral dominating Canterbury town. Up to the year 1874 the -traveller might have found a Tabard[50] tavern in Southwark, which at -about 1600 had replaced the old inn that Chaucer knew; but it repeated -the old quaintness, and with its lumbering balconies and littered court -and droll signs, and its saggings and slants and smells, carried one -back delightfully to fourteenth-century times. And in Canterbury, at the -end of the two or three days’[51] pilgrim journey, one can set foot in -very earnest upon the pavement these people from the Tabard trod, under -the cathedral arches--looking after the tomb of the great Black Prince, -and the scene of the slaughter of Thomas à Becket. In that quaint old -town, too, are gables under which some of these story-tellers of the -Pilgrimage may have lodged; and (mingling old tales with new) there are -latticed casements out of which Agnes Wickfield may have looked, and -sidewalks where David Copperfield may have accommodated his boy-step -to the lounging pace of the always imminent Micawber. Yet it is in -the country outside and in scenes the poet loved best, that the aroma -of the Canterbury Tales will be caught most surely; and it is among -those picturesque undulations of land which lie a little westward of -Harbledown--upon the Rochester road, which winds among patches of wood, -and green stretches of grass and billowy hop-gardens, that the lover of -Chaucer will have most distinctly in his ear the jingle of the “bridel” -of the Monk, and in his eye the scarlet hosen and the wimple of the Wife -of Bath. - -Yet these Canterbury Tales convey something in them and about them -beside delicacies; the host, who is master of ceremonies, throws mud -at a grievous rate, and with a vigorous and a dirty hand. Boccaccio’s -indecencies lose nothing of their quality in the smirched rhyme of the -Reeve’s tale;[52] the Miller is not presentable in any decent company, -and the Wife of Bath is vulgar and unseemly. There are others, to be -sure, and enough, who have only gracious and grateful speech put into -their mouths; and it is these we cherish. The stories, indeed, which -these pilgrims tell, are not much in themselves; stolen, too, the most -of them; stolen, just as Homer stole the current stories about Ajax and -Ulysses; just as Boccaccio stole from the _Gesta Romanorum_; just as -Shakespeare stole from the Cymric fables about King Lear and Cymbeline. -He stole; but so did everyone who could get hold of a good manuscript. -Imagine--if all books were in such form now, and MSS. as few and sparse -as then, what a range for enterprising authors! But Chaucer stole nothing -that he did not improve and make his own by the beauties he added. - -Take that old slight legend (everywhere current in the north of England) -of the little Christian boy, who was murdered by Jews, because he sang -songs in honor of the Virgin; and who--after death--still sang, and so -discovered his murderers. It is a bare rag of story, with only streaks of -blood-red in it; yet how tenderly touched, and how pathetically told, in -Chaucer’s tale of the Prioress! - -It is a widow’s son--“sevene yeres of age”--and wheresoe’er he saw the -image - - Of Christe’s moder, had he in usage, - As him was taught, to knele adown and say - His _Ave Marie!_ as he goth by the way. - Thus hath this widowe hire litel son y-taught - To worship aye, and he forgat it naughte. - -And the “litel” fellow, with his quick ear, hears at school some day the -_Alma Redemptoris_ sung; and he asks what the beautiful song may mean? He -says he will learn it before Christmas, that he may say it to his “moder -dere.” His fellows help him word by word--line by line--till he gets it -on his tongue: - - From word to word, acording with the note, - Twiës a day, it passed thro’ his throte. - -At last he has it trippingly; so--schoolward and homeward, - - as he cam to and fro - Full merrily than would he sing and crie, - O _Alma Redemptoris_ ever mó, - The sweetnesse hath his hertë perced so. - -Through the Jews’ quarter he goes one day, singing this sweet song that -bubbles from him as he walks; and they--set on by Satan, who “hath in -Jewe’s herte his waspës nest”--conspire and plot, and lay hold on him, -and cut his throat, and cast him into a pit. - -But--a wonder--a miracle!--still from the bleeding throat, even when life -is gone, comes the tender song, “_O Alma Redemptoris!_” And the wretched -mother, wandering and wailing, is led by the sweet, plaintive echoes, -whose tones she knows, to where her poor boy lies dead; and even as she -comes, he, with throte y-carven, his - - _Alma Redemptoris_ gan to sing - So loude that al the placë gan to ring. - -Then the Christian people take him up, and bear him away to the Abbey. -His mother lies swooning by the bier. They hang those wicked Jews--and -prepare the little body for burial and sprinkle it with holy water; but -still from the poor bleeding throat comes “evermo’” the song: - - _O Alma Redemptoris mater!_ - -And the good Abbot entreats him to say, why his soul lingers, with his -throat thus all agape? - - “My throte is cut unto my nekkë bone,” - Saidë this child, “and as by way of kynde, - I should have dyed, ye longë time agone, - But Jesu Christ, as ye in bookës finde, - Wol that his glory laste, and be in minde, - And for the worship of his moder dere, - Yet may I sing, ‘_O Alma!_’ loud and clere.” - -But he says that as he received his death-blow, the Virgin came, and - - “Methoughte she leyde a greyn upon my tongue, - Wherefore I singe and singe; I mote certeyn - Til from my tonge off-taken is the greyn; - And after that, thus saidë she to me, - ‘My litel child, then wol I fecchen thee!’” - [Where at] This holy monk--this Abbot--him mene I, - His tonge out-caughte, and tok away the greyn, - And he gaf up the goost full softëly. - … - And when the Abbot had this wonder sein - His saltë teres trillëd adown as raine, - And graf he fell, all platt upon the grounde, - And stille he lay as he had been y-bounde. - -After this they take away the boy-martyr from off his bier-- - - And in a tombe of marble stonës clere - Enclosen they his litel body swete; - Ther he is now: God leve us for to mete! - -How tenderly the words all match to the delicate meaning! This delightful -poet knows every finest resource of language: he subdues and trails after -him all its harmonies. No grimalkin stretching out silken paws touches so -lightly what he wants only to touch; no cat with sharpest claws clings -so tenaciously to what he would grip with his earnester words. He is a -painter whose technique is never at fault--whose art is an instinct. - -Yet--it must be said--there is no grand horizon at the back of his -pictures: pleasant May-mornings and green meadows a plenty; pathetic -episodes, most beguiling tracery of incidents and of character, but never -strong, passionate outbursts showing profound capacity for measurement -of deepest emotion. We cannot think of him as telling with any adequate -force the story of King Lear, in his delirium of wrath: Macbeth’s stride -and hushed madness and bated breath could not come into the charming, -mellifluous rhythm of Chaucer’s most tragic story without making a -dissonance that would be screaming. - -But his descriptions of all country things are garden-sweet. He touches -the daisies and the roses with tints that keep them always in freshest, -virgin, dewy bloom; and he fetches the forest to our eye with words that -are brim-full of the odors of the woods and of the waving of green boughs. - - * * * * * - -In our next talk we shall speak of some who sang beside him, and of some -who followed; but of these not one had so rare a language, and not one -had so true an eye. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -In our last chapter we went back to the latter edge of the thirteenth -century and to the City of Oxford, that we might find in that time and -place a Franciscan Friar--known as Roger Bacon, who had an independence -of spirit which brought him into difficulties, and a searchingness of -mind which made people count him a magician. I spoke of Langlande and -Wyclif: and of how the reforming spirit of the first expressed itself in -the alliterative rhythm of the Piers Plowman allegory; and how the latter -declared against Papal tyranny and the accepted dogmas of the Church: -he too, set on foot those companies of “pore priests,” who in long -russet gowns reaching to their heels, and with staff in hand, traversed -the highways and byways of England, preaching humility and charity; he -gave to us moreover that Scriptural quaintness of language, which from -Wyclif’s time, down to ours, has left its trail in every English pulpit, -and colored every English prayer. - -Then we came to that great poet Chaucer, who wrote so much and so well, -as--first and most of all contemporary or preceding writers--to make -one proud of the new English tongue. He died in 1400, and was buried at -Westminster--not a stone’s throw away from the site of his last London -home. His tomb, under its Gothic screen, may be found in the Poet’s -Corner of the Abbey, a little to the right, on entering from the Old -Palace Yard; and over it, in a window that looks toward the Houses of -Parliament, has been set--in these latter years, in unfading array--the -gay company of Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims. - -In the same year in which the poet died, died also that handsome and -unfortunate Richard the Second[53] (son of the Black Prince) who promised -bravely; who seemed almost an heroic figure when in his young days, -he confronted Wat Tyler so coolly; but he made promises he could not -or would not keep--slipped into the enthralment of royalties against -which Lollard and democratic malcontents bayed in vain: there were court -cabals that overset him; Shakespeare has told his story, and in that -tragedy--lighted with brilliant passages--John of Gaunt, brother to the -Black Prince, appears, old, and gray and near his grave; and his son--the -crafty but resolute Henry Bolingbroke--comes on the stage as Henry IV. to -take the “brittle glory” of the crown. - - -_Of Gower and Froissart._ - -But I must not leave Chaucer’s immediate times, without speaking of -other men who belonged there: the first is John Gower--a poet whom I -name from a sense of duty rather than from any special liking for what -he wrote. He was a man of learning for those days--having a good estate -too, and living in an orderly Kentish home, to which he went back and -forth in an eight-oared barge upon the Thames. He wrote a long Latin poem -_Vox Clamantis_, in which like Langlande he declaimed against the vices -and pretensions of the clergy; and he also treated in the high-toned -conservative way of a well-to-do country gentleman, the social troubles -of the time, which had broken out into Wat Tyler and Jack Straw -rebellions;--people should be wise and discreet and religious; then, such -troubles would not come. - -A better known poem of Gower--because written in English--was the -_Confessio Amantis_: Old Classic, and Romance tales come into it, and -are fearfully stretched out; and there are pedagogic Latin rubrics at -the margin, and wearisome repetitions, with now and then faint scent of -prettinesses stolen from French _fabliaux_: but unless your patience -is heroic, you will grow tired of him; and the monotonous, measured, -metallic jingle of his best verse is provokingly like the “Caw-caw” of -the prim, black raven. He had art, he had learning, he had good-will; -but he could not weave words into the thrush-like melodies of Chaucer. -Even the clear and beautiful type of the Bell & Daldy edition[54] does -not make him entertaining. You will tire before you are half through the -Prologue, which is as long, and stiff as many a sermon. And if you skip -to the stories, they will not win you to liveliness: Pauline’s grace, and -mishaps are dull; and the sharp, tragic twang about Gurmunde’s skull, and -the vengeance of Rosemunde (from the old legend which Paul the Deacon -tells) does not wake one’s blood. - -In his later years he was religiously inclined; was a patron and, for a -time, resident of the Priory which was attached to the church, now known -as St. Saviour’s, and standing opposite to the London Bridge Station in -Southwark. In that church may now be found the tomb of Gower and his -effigy in stone, with his head resting on “the likeness of three books -which he compiled.” - -Perhaps I have no right to speak of Froissart, because he was a Fleming, -and did not write in English; but Lord Berners’ spirited translation -of his Chronicle (1523) has made it an English classic:[55] moreover, -Froissart was very much in London; he was a great pet of the Queen of -Edward III.; he had free range of the palace; he described great fêtes -that were given at Windsor, and tournaments on what is now Cheapside; -a reporter of our day could not have described these things better: he -went into Scotland too--the Queen Philippa giving him his outfit--and -stayed with the brave Douglas “much time,” and tells us of Stirling and -of Melrose Abbey. Indeed, he was a great traveller. He was at Milan when -Prince Clarence of England married one of the great Visconti (Chaucer -possibly there also, and Petrarch of a certainty); he was at Rome, at -Florence, at Bordeaux with the Black Prince, when his son Richard II. -was born; was long in the household of Gaston de Foix: we are inclined -to forget, as we read him, that he was a priest, and had his parochial -charge somewhere along the low banks of the Scheldt: in fact, we suspect -that he forgot it himself. - -He not only wrote Chronicles, but poems; and he tells us, that on his -last visit to England, he presented a copy of these latter--beautifully -illuminated, engrossed by his own hand, bound in crimson velvet, and -embellished with silver clasps, bosses, and golden roses--to King -Richard II.; and the King asked him what it was all about; and he -said--“About Love;” whereat, he says, the King seemed much pleased, and -dipped into it, here and there--for “he could read French as well as -speak it.” - -Altogether, this rambling, and popular Froissart was, in many points, -what we should call an exquisite fellow; knowing, and liking to know, -only knights and nobles, and flattering them to the full; receiving -kindly invitations wherever he went; overcome with the pressure of his -engagements; going about in the latest fashion of doublet; somewhiles -leading a fine greyhound in leash, and presenting five or six of the same -to his friend the Comte de Foix (who had a great love for dogs); never -going near enough to the front in battle to get any very hard raps; ready -with a song or a story always; pulling a long bow with infinite grace. -Well--the pretty poems he thought so much of, nobody knows--nobody cares -for: they have never, I think, been published in their entirety:[56] But, -his Journal--his notes of what he saw and heard, clapped down night by -night, in hostelries or in tent--perhaps on horseback--are cherished -of all men, and must be reckoned the liveliest, if not the best of all -chronicles of his time. He died in the first decade of that fifteenth -century on which we open our British march to-day; and, at the outset, -I call attention to a little nest of dates, which from their lying so -close together, can be easily kept in mind. Richard II. son of the Black -Prince, died--a disgraced prisoner--in 1400. John of Gaunt, his uncle, -friend of Chaucer, died the previous year: while Chaucer, Froissart and -John Gower all died in less than ten years thereafter; thus, the century -opens with a group of great deaths. - - -_Two Henrys and Two Poets._ - -That Henry IV. who appears now upon the throne, and who was not a very -noticeable man, save for his kingship, you will remember as the little -son of John of Gaunt, who played about Chaucer’s knee; you will remember -him further as giving title to a pair of Shakespeare’s plays, in which -appears for the first time that semi-historic character--that enormous -wallet of flesh, that egregious villain, that man of a prodigious humor, -all in one--Jack Falstaff. And this famous, fat Knight of Literature -shall introduce us to Prince Hal who, according to traditions (much -doubted nowadays), was a wild boy in his youth, and boon companion of -such as Falstaff; but, afterward, became the brave and cruel, but steady -and magnificent Henry V. Yet we shall never forget those early days of -his, when at Gad’s Hill, he plots with Falstaff and his fellows, to -waylay travellers bound to London, with plump purses. Before the plot -is carried out, the Prince agrees privately with Poins (one of the -rogues) to put a trick upon Falstaff: Poins and the Prince will slip -away in the dusk--let Falstaff and his companions do the robbing; then, -suddenly--disguised in buckram suits--pounce on them and seize the booty. -This, the Prince and Poins do: and at the first onset of these latter, -the fat Knight runs off, as fast as his great hulk will let him, and goes -spluttering and puffing to a near tavern, where--after consuming “an -intolerable deal of sack”--he is confronted by the Prince, who demands -his share of the spoils. But the big Knight blurts out--“A plague on -all cowards!” He has been beset, while the Prince had sneaked away; the -spoils are gone: - - “I am a rogue, if I was not at half a sword with a dozen of - them two hours together; I have scaped by a miracle; I am eight - times thrust thro’ the doublet--four thro’ the hose. My sword - is hacked like a hand-saw. If I fought not with fifty of them, - then am I a bunch of radish. If there were not two or three and - fifty on poor old Jack, then am I no two-legged creature.” - - “Pray God, [says the Prince, keeping down his laughter] you - have not murdered some of them!” - - _Falstaff._ Nay, that’s past praying for; for I peppered two - of them--two rogues in buckram. Here I lay, and thus I bore my - sword. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me. - - _Prince._ What, four?; thou said’st two. - - _Falstaff._ Four, Hal; I told thee four. - -And Poins comes to his aid, with--“Ay, he said four.” Whereat the fat -Knight takes courage; the men in buckram growing, in whimsical stretch -to seven, and nine; he, paltering and swearing, and never losing his -delicious insolent swagger, till at last the Prince declares the truth, -and makes show of the booty. You think this coward Falstaff may lose -heart at this; not a whit of it; his eye, rolling in fat, does not blink -even, while the Prince unravels the story; but at the end the stout -Knight hitches up his waistband, smacks his lips:-- - - “D’ye think I did not know ye, my masters? Should I turn upon - the true Prince? Why thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules; - but beware instinct: I was a coward on instinct.” - -So runs the Shakespearean scene, of which I give this glimpse only as a -remembrancer of Henry IV., and his possibly wayward son. - -If we keep by the strict letter of history, there is little of literary -interest in that short reign of his--only fourteen years. Occleve, a poet -of whom I spoke as having painted a portrait of Chaucer (which I tried to -describe to you) is worth mentioning--were it only for this. Lydgate,[57] -of about the same date, was a more fertile poet; wrote so easily indeed, -that he was tempted to write too much. But he had the art of choosing -taking subjects, and so, was vastly popular. He had excellent training, -both English and Continental; he was a priest, though sometimes a naughty -one; and he opened a school at his monastery of St. Edmunds. A few -fragments of that monastery are still to be seen in the ancient town of -Bury St. Edmunds:--a town you may remember in a profane way, as the scene -of certain nocturnal adventures that befel, in our time, Mr. Pickwick and -Sam Weller. - -Notable amongst the minor poems of this old Bury monk, is a jingling -ballad called _London Lickpenny_, in which a poor suitor pushing his way -into London courts, is hustled about, has his hood stolen, wanders hither -and yon, with stout cries of “ripe strawberries” and “hot sheepes feete” -shrilling in his ears; is beset by taverners and thievish thread-sellers, -and is glad to get himself away again into Kent, and there digest the -broad, and ever good moral that a man’s pennies get “licked” out of him -fast in London. Remembering that this was at the very epoch when Nym and -Bardolph frequented the Boar’s Head, Eastcheap, and cracked jokes and -oaths with Dame Quickly and Doll Tearsheet, and we are more grateful for -the old rhyming priest’s realistic bit of London sights, than for all his -classics,[58] or all his stories of the saints. - -But at the very time this Lydgate was writing, a tenderer and sweeter -voice was warbling music out of a prison window at Windsor; and the music -has come down to us:[59] - - “Beauty enough to make a world to doat, - And when she walkèd had a little thraw - Under the sweet grene bowis bent, - Her fair freshe face, as white as any snaw - She turnèd has, and forth her way is went; - But then begun my achès and torment - To see her part, and follow I na might; - Methought the day was turnèd into night.” - -There is a royal touch in that, and it comes from a royal hand--that of -Prince James of Scotland, who, taken prisoner by Henry IV., was held fast -for sixteen years in the keep of Windsor Castle. Mr. Irving has made -him the subject of a very pleasant paper in the Sketch-book. Though a -prince, he was a poet by nature, and from the window of his prison did -see the fair lady whose graces were garnered in the verse I have cited; -and oddly enough, he did come to marry the subject of this very poem (who -was related to the royal house of England, being grand-daughter of John -of Gaunt) and thereafter did come to be King of Scotland and--what was a -commoner fate--to be assassinated. That queen of his, of whom the wooing -had been so romantic and left its record in the _King’s Quair_--made -a tender and devoted wife--threw herself at last between him and the -assassins--receiving grievous wounds thereby, but all vainly--and the -poor poet-king was murdered in her presence at Perth, in the year 1437. - -These three poets I have named all plumed their wings to make that great -flight by which Chaucer had swept into the Empyrean of Song: but not one -of them was equal to it: nor, thenceforward all down through the century, -did any man sing as Chaucer had sung. There were poetasters; there were -rhyming chroniclers; and toward the end of the century there appeared a -poet of more pretension, but with few of the graces we find in the author -of the Canterbury Tales. - -John Skelton[60] was his name: he too a priest living in Norfolk. His -rhymes, as he tells us himself, were “ragged and jagged:” but worse -than this, they were often ribald and rabid--attacking with fierceness -Cardinal Wolsey--attacking his fellow-priests too--so that he was -compelled to leave his living: but he somehow won a place afterward -in the royal household as tutor; and even the great Erasmus (who had -come over from the Low Countries, and was one while teaching Greek at -Cambridge) congratulates some prince of the royal family upon the great -advantage they have in the services of such a “special light and ornament -of British literature.” He is capricious, homely, never weak, often -coarse, always quaint. From out his curious trick-track of verse, I pluck -this little musical canzonet:-- - - “Merry Margaret - As midsummer flower; - Gentle as falcon - Or hawk of the tower: - With solace and gladness - Much mirth and no madness, - All good and no badness, - So joyously, - So maidenly, - So womanly - Her demeaning - In everything - Far, far passing - That I can indite - Or suffice to write - Of merry Margaret - As midsummer flower - Gentle as falcon - Or hawk of the tower: - Stedfast of thought - Well-made well-wrought; - Far may be sought - Ere you can find - So courteous--so kind - As merry Margaret - This midsummer flower.” - -There is a pretty poetic perfume in this--a merry musical jingle; but it -gives no echo even of the tendernesses which wrapped all round and round -the story of the Sad Griselda. - - -_Henry V. and War Times._ - -This fifteenth century--in no chink of which, as would seem, could any -brave or sweet English poem find root-hold, was not a bald one in British -annals. There were great men of war in it: Henry V. and Bedford[61] and -Warwick and Talbot and Richard III. all wrote bloody legends with their -swords across French plains, or across English meadows. - -Normandy, which had slipped out of British hands--as you remember--under -King John, was won again by the masterly blows Henry V. struck at -Agincourt and otherwheres. Shakespeare has given an historic picture of -this campaign, which will be apt to outlive any contemporary chronicle. -Falstaff disappears from sight, and his old crony the dissolute Prince -Hal comes upon the scene as the conquering and steady-going King. - -Through all the drama--from the “proud hoofs” of the war-horses, -prancing in the prologue, to the last chorus, the lurid blaze of battle -is threatening or shining. Never were the pomp and circumstance of war -so contained within the pages of a play. For ever so little space--in -gaps of the reading--between the vulgar wit of Nym, and the Welsh jargon -of Fluellen, you hear the crack of artillery, and see shivered spears -and tossing plumes. In the mid scenes, vast ranks of men sweep under -your vision, and crash against opposing ranks, and break, and dissolve -away in the hot swirl of battle. And by way of artistic contrast to -all this, comes at last, in the closing pages, that piquant, homely, -strange coquettish love-scene, which--historically true in its main -details--joined the fortunes of England and of France in the persons -of King Henry and Katharine of Valois. You will not be sorry to have a -glimpse of this Shakespearean and historic love-making: The decisive -battle has been fought: the French King is prisoner: Henry has the -game in his own hands. It is a condition of peace that he and the fair -Katharine--daughter of France--shall join hands in marriage; and Henry in -his blunt war way sets about his wooing:-- - - “O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with your French - heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your - English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?” - - _Kate._ _Pardonnez moi_; I cannot tell vat is--_like me_. - - _King._ [Explosively and deliciously.] An angel is like you, - Kate; and you are like an angel: faith, I’m glad thou can’st - speak no better English: for if thou could’st thou would’st - find me such a plain King, that thou would’st think I had - sold my farm to buy my crown. If you would put me to verses, - or to dance for your sake, Kate, why you undid me. I speak - plain soldier. If thou can’st love me for this--take me: if - not--to say to thee that I shall die, is true: but--for thy - love--by the Lord, no. Yet I love thee too. And whil’st thou - livest, Kate, take a fellow of a plain uncoined constancy: a - straight-back will stoop; but a good heart, Kate, is the sun - and the moon; or rather the sun and not the moon, for it shines - bright and never changes. If thou would’st have such a one, - take me! - - _Kate._ Is it possible dat I should love de enemy of France? - - _King._ No, it’s not possible, Kate: but in loving me you would - love the friend of France, for I love France so well, that I - will not part with a village of it: I will have it all mine: - and, Kate, when France is mine, and I am yours, then yours is - France and you are mine. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus - much English--Can’st thou love me? - - _Kate._ I cannot tell. - - _King._ Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate? - - _Kate._ I do not know dat. - - _King._ By mine honor, in true English, I love thee, Kate: by - which honor, I dare not swear thou lovest me: yet my blood - begins to flatter me, that thou dost. Wilt thou have me Kate? - - _Kate._ That is as it shall please _le roy mon Père_. - - _King._ Nay it will please him well, Kate. It _shall_ please - him, Kate, and upon that, I kiss your hand and call you “my - Queen.” - - _Kate._ Dat is not de fashion _pour les ladies_ of France--to - kiss before marriage. - - _King._ O Kate, [loftily] _nice customs courtesy to great - Kings_:--here comes your father. - -And these two _did_ marry; the Queen being--as Shakespeare represents--in -a large sense, the spoil of war. Out of this union sprung the next King, -Henry VI., crowned when an infant. But this does not close the story -of Katharine: three years after the King’s death, she married a Welsh -knight--named Sir Owen Tudor. (He, poor man, lost his head, some years -after, for his temerity in marrying a King’s widow.) But from the second -marriage of Katharine, was born a son who became the father of that -Henry VII., who sixty years later conquered Richard III. on Bosworth -field--brought to an end the wars of York and Lancaster, and gave his own -surname of Tudor to his son Henry VIII., to the great Elizabeth and to -bloody Mary. - -Seeing thus how the name of Tudor came into the royal family, through -that Katharine of Valois, whose courtship is written in the play of Henry -V., I will try on the same page to fasten in mind the cause of the great -civil wars of York and Lancaster, or of the white and red roses, which -desolated England in the heart of the fifteenth century.[62] - -You will recall my having spoken of Chaucer as a favorite in the -household of John of Gaunt, and as an inmate also in the household of -John’s older brother, Lionel. You will remember, too, that Henry IV., -son of John of Gaunt, succeeded the hapless and handsome Richard II. -on the throne; but his right was disputed, and with a great deal of -reason, by the heirs of the older brother, Lionel (who had title of -Duke of Clarence). There was not however power and courage enough to -contest the claim, until the kingship of young Henry VI.--crowned when -an infant--offered opportunity. Thereafter and thereby came the broils, -the apprehensions, the doubts, the conspiracies, the battles, which made -England one of the worst of places to live in: all this bitterness -between York and Lancaster growing out of the rival claims of the heirs -of our old acquaintances Lionel and John of Gaunt, whom we met in the -days of Chaucer. - - -_Joan of Arc and Richard III._ - -If we look for any literary illumination of this period, we shall scarce -find it, except we go again to the historic plays of Shakespeare: The -career of Henry VI. supplies to him the groundwork for three dramas: the -first, dealing with the English armies in France, which, after Henry V.’s -death are beaten back and forth by French forces, waked to new bravery -under the strange enthusiasm and heroic leadership of Joan of Arc. Of -course she comes in for her picture in Shakespeare’s story: but he gives -us an ignoble one (though not so bad as Voltaire’s in the ribald poem of -_La Pucelle_). - -No Englishman of that day, or of Shakespeare’s day, could do justice to -the fiery, Gallic courage, the self-devotion, the religious ennoblement -of that earnest, gallant soul who was called the Maid of Orleans. A far -better notion of her presence and power than Shakespeare gave is brought -to mind by that recent French painting of Bastien-Lepage--so well known -by engraving--which aims to set forth the vision and the voices that -came to her amid the forest silence and shadows. Amid those shadows she -stands--startled: a strong, sweet figure of a peasant maiden; stoutly -clad and simply; capable of harvest-work with the strongest of her -sisterhood; yet not coarse; redeemed through every fibre of body and -soul by a light that shines in her eye, looking dreamily upward; seeing -things others see not; hoping things others hope not, and with clenched -hand putting emphasis to the purpose--which the hope and the vision -kindle; pitying her poor France, and nerved to help her--as she did--all -the weary and the troublesome days through, till the shameful sacrifice -at English hands, on the market-place of Rouen, closed her life and her -story. - -The two closing portions of the Henry VI. dramas relate to home concerns. -There is much blood in them and tedium too (if one dare say this), and -flashes of wit--a crazy tangle of white and red roses in that English -garden--cleared up at last in Shakespeare’s own way, when Richard -III.[63] comes, in drama of his own, and crookedness, and Satanry of his -own, and laughs his mocking laugh over the corpses he makes of kings -and queens and princes; and at last in Bosworth field, upon the borders -of Warwickshire and near to the old Roman Watling Street, the wicked -hunchback, fighting like a demon, goes down under the sword-thrust of -that Henry (VII.) of Richmond, who, as I have said, was grandson to -Katharine of Valois, of the coquettish courtship. - -No chronicler of them all, commonplace or painstaking as he might be, -has so planted the image of the crooked Richard III. in men’s minds as -Shakespeare: though it is to be feared that he used somewhat too much -blood in the coloring; and doubtful if the hump-backed king was quite the -monster which Garrick, Booth, and Macready have made of him. - - -_Caxton and First English Printing._ - -In the midst of those draggling, dreary, dismal war-times, when no poet -lifted his voice in song, when no chronicler who has a worthy name wrote -any story of the years, there came into vogue in Europe and in England, -a trade--which in its issues had more to do with the life and spread of -good literature, than any poet, or any ten poets could accomplish. You -will guess at once what the trade was; it was the trade of Printing. - -Bosworth field dates in 1485: in the middle of the century (or 1444) -John Gutenberg began the printing of a Bible; and a little after, Faust -began to dispose of wonderful copies of books, which the royal buyers -thought to be manuscripts: and Faust did not perhaps undeceive them: yet -copies were so wonderfully alike--one to the other--that book lovers were -puzzled, and pushed inquiry, and so the truth of the method came out. - -In 1477 William Caxton set up the first English printing press--in an old -building, close upon Westminster Abbey--a building, which, if tradition -is to be trusted, was standing down to near the middle of the present -century; and on its demolition in 1846 its timbers were converted into -snuff-boxes and the like, as mementos of the first printer. It was in -1477 that William Caxton issued the first book, printed with a date, in -England.[64] - -This Caxton was a man worth knowing about on many counts: he was a -typical Englishman, born in Kent; was apprenticed to a well-to-do -mercer in the Old Jewry, London, at a time when, he says, many poor -were a-hungered for bread made of fern roots;--he went over (while yet -apprentice) to the low countries of Flanders, perhaps to represent his -master’s interests; abode there; throve there; came to be Governor of the -Company of English merchant adventurers, in the ancient town of Bruges: -knew the great, rich Flemings[65] who were patrons of letters;--became -friend and protégé of that English Princess Margaret who married Charles -Duke of Burgundy; did work in translating old books for that great lady; -studied the new printing art, which had crept into Bruges, and finally, -after thirty odd years of life in the busy Flemish city sailed away -for London, and set up a press which he had brought with him, under -the shadow of Westminster towers. Fifteen years and more he wrought on -there, at his printer’s craft--counting up a hundred issues of books; -making much of his own copy, both translation and original, and dying -over seventy in 1492. A good tag to tie to this date is--the Discovery of -America; Columbus being over seas on that early voyage of his, while the -first English printer lay dying. - -And what were the books, pray, which Master Caxton--who, for a wonder, was -a shrewd business man, as well as inclined to literary ways--thought it -worth his while to set before the world? Among them we find _A Sequell -of the Historie of Troie_--_The Dictes and Sayings of Philosophers_--a -history of Jason, the _Game and Plays of Chesse_, Mallory’s King -Arthur (to which I have previously alluded), a _Book of Courtesie_, -translations from Ovid, Virgil and Cicero--also the Canterbury Tales of -Chaucer (of whom he was great admirer)--coupling with these latter, poems -by Lydgate and Gower; many people in those days seeming to rank these -men on a level with Chaucer--just as we yoke writers together now in -newspaper mention, who will most certainly be unyoked in the days that -are to come. - -The editions of the first English books ranged at about two hundred -copies: the type was what we call black letter, of which four varieties -were used on the Caxton press, and the punctuation--if any--was of the -crudest. An occasional sample of his work appears from time to time on -the market even now; but not at prices which are inviting to the most -of us. Thus in 1862, there was sold in England, a little Latin tractate -printed by Caxton--of only ten leaves quarto, with twenty-four lines to -the page, for £200; and I observe upon the catalogue of a recent date of -Mr. Quaritch (the London bibliopole) a copy of _Godefroi de Bouloyne_, of -the Caxton imprint, offered at the modest price of £1,000. - -Very shortly after the planting of this first press at Westminster, -others were established at Oxford and also at the great monastery of -St. Albans. Among the early books printed at this latter place--say -within ten years after Caxton’s first--was a booklet written by a certain -Dame Juliana Barnes;[66] it is the first work we have encountered -written by a woman; and what do you think may have been its subject? -Religion--poesy--love--embroidery? Not one of these; but some twenty -odd pages of crude verse “upon the maner of huntyng for all maner of -bestys” (men--not being included); and she writes with the gusto and -particularity of a man proud of his falcons and his dogs. Warton says -blandly: “The barbarism of the times strongly appears in the indelicate -expressions which she often uses; and which are equally incompatible with -her sex and profession.” The allusion to her “profession” has reference -to her supposed position as prioress of a convent; this, however, is -matter of grave doubt. - - -_Old Private Letters._ - -But this is not the only utterance of a female voice which we hear -from out those years of barrenness and moil. In 1787 there appeared in -England a book made up of what were called Paston Letters[67]--published -and vouched for by an antiquarian of Norfolk, who had the originals in -his possession--and which were in fact familiar letters that had passed -between the members and friends of a well-to-do Norfolk family in the -very years of the War of the Roses, of Caxton, of King Richard, and of -Wynkyn de Worde. - -Among the parties to these old letters, there is a John Paston senior -and a Sir John Paston, and a John Paston the younger and a good Margery -Paston; there is a Sir John Fastolf too--as luck would have it. Was this -the prototype[68] of Shakespeare’s man of humors? Probably not: nor can -we say of a certainty that he was the runaway warrior who was of so bad -repute for a time in the army of the Duke of Bedford: but we do know from -these musty papers that he had a “Jacket of red velvet, bound round the -bottom with red leather,” and “Another jacket of russet velvet lyned with -blanket clothe;” also “Two jackets of deer’s leather, with a collar of -black velvet,” and so on. - -We do not however care so much about this Fastolf inventory, as for what -good Margaret Paston may have to say: and as we read her letters we seem -to go back on her quaint language and her good wifely fondness to the -very days when they were written--in the great country-house of Norfolk, -near upon the city of Norwich, with the gentle east wind from the German -Ocean, blowing over the Norfolk fens, and over the forests, and over the -orchards, and over the barns, and into the hall-windows, and lifting the -very sheets of paper on which the good dame Margery is writing. And what -does she say? - -“Ryte worshipful husband, I recommend me unto you”--she begins; and -thereafter goes on to speak of a son who has been doing unwise things, -and been punished therefor as would seem:-- - - “As for his demeaning, syn you departed, in good faith, it - hath been ryt good, I hope he will be well demeaned to please - you hereafterward; and I beseche you hartily that you would - vouchsafe to be hys good fader, for I hope he is chastyzèd, and - will be worthier. As for all oder tyngges at home, I hope that - I, and oder shall do our part therein, as wel as we may; but as - for mony it cometh in slowly, and God hav you in his keeping, - and sen you good speed in all yr matters.” - -Again, in another note, she addresses her husband,-- - - “Myn oune sweethert [a good many years after marriage too!] in - my most humble wyse I recommend me to you; desiring hertly to - her of your welfare, the which I beseche Almighty God preserve - and kepe.” - -And a son writes to this same worthy Margaret:-- - - “Ryght worshipful and my moste kynde and tender moder, I - recommend me to you, thanking you of the great coste, and of - the grete chere that ye dyd me, and myn, at my last being with - you. _Item_: As for the books that weer Sir James [would] it - like you that I may have them? I am not able to buy them; but - somewhat wolde I give, and the remnant with a good devout - hert, by my truthe, I will pray for his soule. - - “Also, moder, I herd while in London ther was a goodly young - woman to marry whyche was daughter to one Seff, a mercer, and - she will have 200 pounds in money to her marriage, and 20 £ by - year after the dysesse of a stepmoder of hers, whiche is upon - 50 yeeres of age: and fore I departed out o’ Lunnon, I spak - with some of the mayd’s friends, and hav gotten their good - wille to hav her married to my broder Edmond. Master Pykenham - too is another that must be consulted--so he says: Wherefore, - Moder, we must beseeche you to helpe us forward with a lettyr - to Master Pykenham, for to remember him for to handyl this - matter, now, this Lent.” - -A younger son writes:-- - - “I beseeche you humbly of your blessing: also, modyr, I - beseeche you that ther may be purveyed some meane that I myth - have sent me home by the same messenger that shall bring my - Aunt Poynings answer--two paire hose--1 payr blak and another - russet, whyche be redy for me at the hosers with the crooked - back next to the Blk Friars gate, within Ludgate. John Pampyng - knoweth him well eno’. And if the blk hose be paid for, he - will send me the russet ones unpaid for. I beseeche you that - this geer be not forgot, for I have not an whole hose to do - on. I pray you visit the Rood of St. Pauls, and St. Savior at - Barmonsey whyls ye abide in London, and let my sister Margery - go with you to pray to them that she may have a good husband - ere she come home again. Written at Norwich on holyrood day, by - yr - - “Son and lowly Servant - - “JNO: PASTON THE YOUNGEST.” - -This sounds as home-like as if it were written yesterday, and about one -of us--even to the sending of two pair of hose if one was paid for. And -yet this familiar, boy-like letter was written in the year 1465: six -years before Caxton had set up his press in Westminster--twenty-seven -before Columbus had landed on San Salvador, and at a time when Louis XI. -and barber Oliver (whose characters are set forth in Scott’s story of -Quentin Durward) were hanging men who angered them on the branches of the -trees which grew around the dismal palace of Plessis-les-Tours, in France. - - -_A Burst of Balladry._ - -I have brought my readers through a waste literary country to-day; but we -cannot reach the oases of bloom without going across the desert spaces. -In looking back upon this moil and turmoil--this fret and wear and -barrenness of the fifteenth century, in which we have welcomed talk about -Caxton’s sorry translations, and the wheezing of his press; and have -given an ear to the hunting discourse of Dame Juliana, for want of better -things; and have dwelt with a certain gleesomeness on the homely Paston -Letters, let us not forget that there has been all the while, and running -through all the years of stagnation, a bright thread of balladry, with -glitter and with gayety of color. This ballad music--whose first burst we -can no more pin to a date than we can the first singing of the birds--had -lightened, in that early century, the walk of the wayfarer on all the -paths of England; it had spun its tales by bivouac fires in France; it -had caught--as in silken meshes--all the young foragers on the ways of -Romance. To this epoch, of which we have talked, belongs most likely that -brave ballad of Chevy Chase, which keeps alive the memory of Otterbourne, -and of that woful hunting which - - “Once there did, in Chevy Chase befal. - - “To drive the deare with hounde and horne - Erle Percy took his way; - The child may rue, that is unborn - The hunting of that day.” - -Hereabout, too, belongs in all probability the early English shaping of -the jingling history of the brave deeds of Sir Guy of Warwick; and some -of the tales of Robin Hood and his “pretty men all,” which had been sung -in wild and crude carols for a century or more, now seem to have taken -on a more regular ballad garniture, and certainly became fixtures in -type. This is specially averred of “Robin Hood and the Monk,” beginning:-- - - “In summer when the shawes be sheyne - And levès be large and long, - Hit is full merry, in feyre forést, - To here the foulé’s song; - To see the dere draw to the dale, - And leve the hillés hee, - And shadow them in the levés green, - Under the grenwode tree.” - -But was Robin Hood a myth? Was he a real yeoman--was he the Earl of -Huntington? We cannot tell; we know no one who can. We know only that -this hero of the folk-songs made the common people’s ideal of a good -fellow--brave, lusty--a capital bowman, a wondrous wrestler, a lover of -good cheer, a hater of pompous churchmen, a spoiler of the rich, a helper -of the poor, with such advices as these for Little John:-- - - “Loke ye do no housbande harme - That tylleth with his plough; - No more ye shall no good yeman - That walketh by grenewode shawe, - Ne no knyght, ne no squyèr, - That wolde be a good felawe.” - -That very charming ballad of the Nut-Brown Maid must also have been -well known to contemporaries of Caxton: She is daughter of a Baron, and -her love has been won by a wayfarer, who says he is “an outlaw,” and a -banished man, a squire of low degree. He tries her faith and constancy, -as poor Griselda’s was tried in Chaucer’s story--in Boccaccio’s tale, and -as men have tried and teased women from the beginning of time. He sets -before her all the dangers and the taunts that will come to her; she must -forswear her friends; she must go to the forest with him; she must not be -jealous of any other maiden lying _perdue_ there; she must dare all, and -brave all,-- - - “Or else--I to the greenwood go - Alone, a banished man.” - -At last, having tormented her sufficiently, he confesses--that he is not -an outlaw--not a banished man, but one who will give her wealth, and -rank, and name and fame. And I will close out our present talk with a -verselet or two from this rich old ballad. - -The wooer says-- - - “I counsel you, remember howe - It is no maydens law - Nothing to doubt, but to ren out - To wed with an outlaw: - For ye must there, in your hand bere - A bowe ready to draw, - And as a thefe, thus must you live - Ever in drede and awe - Whereby to you grete harme might growe; - Yet had I lever than - That I had to the grenewode go - Alone, a banished man.” - - _She_: “I think not nay, but as ye say - It is no maiden’s lore - But love may make me, for your sake - As I have say’d before, - To come on fote, to hunt and shote - To get us mete in store; - For so that I, your company - May have, I ask no more, - From which to part, it maketh my hart - As cold as any stone; - For in my minde, of all mankinde - I love but you alone.” - - _He_: “A baron’s child, to be beguiled - It were a cursèd dede! - To be felawe with an outlawe - Almighty God forbid! - Yt better were, the poor Squyère - Alone to forest yede, - Than ye shold say, another day - That by my cursed dede - Ye were betrayed; wherefore good maid - The best rede that I can - Is that I to the grenewode go - Alone, a banished man.” - - _She_: “Whatever befal, I never shall - Of this thing you upraid; - But if ye go, and leve me so - Then have ye me betrayed; - Remember you wele, how that ye dele - For if ye, as ye said - Be so unkynde to leave behinde - Your love the Nut Brown Mayd - Trust me truly, that I shall die - Soon after ye be gone; - For in my minde, of all mankinde - I love but you alone.” - - _He_: “My own deare love, I see thee prove - That ye be kynde and true: - Of mayd and wife, in all my life - The best that ever I knewe - Be merry and glad; be no more sad - The case is chaunged newe - For it were ruthe, that for your truthe - Ye should have cause to rue; - Be not dismayed, whatever I said - To you when I began; - I will not to the grenewode go - I am no banished man.” - - _And she, with delight and fear_-- - “These tidings be more glad to me - Than to be made a quene; - If I were sure they shold endure - But it is often seene - When men wyl break promise, they speak - The wordes on the splene: - Ye shape some wyle, me to beguile - And stele from me I wene; - Then were the case, worse than it was - And I more woebegone, - For in my minde, of all mankynde - I love but you alone.” - - _Then he--at last_,-- - “Ye shall not nede, further to drede - I will not disparàge - You (God defend!) syth ye descend - Of so grate a linèage; - Now understand--to Westmoreland - Which is mine heritàge - I wyl you bring, and with a ryng - By way of marriàge - I wyl you take, and lady make - As shortely as I can: - Thus have you won an Erly’s son - And not a banished man.” - - * * * * * - -In our next chapter we shall enter upon a different century, and -encounter a different people. We shall find a statelier king, whose name -is more familiar to you: In place of the fat knight and Prince Hal, we -shall meet brilliant churchmen and hard-headed reformers; and in place of -Otterbourne and its balladry, we shall see the smoke of Smithfield fires, -and listen to the psalmody of Sternhold. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -When we turned the leaf upon the Balladry of England, we were upon -fifteenth century ground, which, you will remember, we found very barren -of great writers. Gower and Froissart, whom we touched upon, slipped off -the stage just as the century began--their names making two of those -joined in that group of deaths to which I called attention, and which -marked the meeting of two centuries. Next we had glimpse of Lydgate and -of King James (of Scotland), who, at their best, only gave faint token of -the poetic spirit which illuminated the far better verses of Chaucer. - -We then passed over the period of the Henrys, and of the War of the -Roses, with mention of Shakespeare’s Falstaff--of his Prince Hal--his -Agincourt--his courtship of Katharine of Valois--his inadequate -presentment of the Maid of Orleans--his crabbed and crooked Richard -III.--all rounded out with the battle of Bosworth field, and the coming -to power of Henry of Richmond. - -We found the book-trade taking on a new phase with Caxton’s press: -we gave a tinkling bit of Skelton’s “Merry Margaret;” we put a -woman-writer--Dame Juliana Barnes--for the first time on our list; we -lingered over the quaint time-stained Paston Letters, which smelled so -strongly of old English home-life; and we summed up our talk with a -little bugle-note of that Balladry which made fitful snatches of music -all through the weariness of those hundred years. - - -_Early Days of Henry VIII._ - -To-day we front the sixteenth century. Great names and great deeds crop -out over it as thickly as leaves grow in summer. At the very outset, -three powerful monarchs came almost abreast upon the scene--Henry VIII. -of England, Francis I. of France, and Charles V. of Spain, Germany, and -the Low Countries. - -Before the first quarter of the century had passed, the monk Luther had -pasted his ticket upon the doors of the church at Wittenberg; and that -other soldier-monk, Loyola, was astir with the beginnings of Jesuitism. -America had been planted; the Cape of Good Hope was no longer the outpost -of stormy wastes of water with no shores beyond. St. Peter’s church was -a-building across the Tiber, and that brilliant, courteous, vicious, -learned Leo X. was lording it in Rome. The Moors and their Saracen faith -had been driven out of the pleasant countries that are watered by the -Guadalquivir. Titian was alive and working; and so was Michael Angelo -and Raphael, in the great art-centres of Italy: and Venice was in this -time so rich, so grand, so beautiful, so abounding in princely houses, -in pictures, in books, in learning, and in all social splendors, that -to pass two winters in the City of the Lagoon, was equal to the half -of a polite education; and I suppose that a Florentine or Venetian -or Roman of that day, thought of a pilgrimage to the far-away, murky -London, as Parisians think now of going to Chicago, or Omaha, or San -Francisco--excellent places, with delightful people in them; but not the -centres about which the literary and art world goes spinning, as a wheel -goes spinning on its hub. - -We have in the contemporary notes of a well-known Venetian chronicler, -Marini Sanuto--who was secretary to the famous Council of Ten--evidence -of the impression which was made on that far-off centre of business -and of learning, by such an event as the accession of Henry VIII. to -the throne of England. This Sanuto was a man of great dignity; and by -virtue of his position in the Council, heard all the “relations” of the -ambassadors of Venice; and hence his Diary is a great mine of material -for contemporary history. - - “News have come,” he says, “through Rome of the death of the - King of England on April 20th [1509]. ’Twas known in Lucca on - the 6th May, by letters from the bankers Bonvisi. The new King - is nineteen years old, a worthy King, and hostile to France. He - is the son-in-law of the King of Spain. His father was called - Henry, and fifty odd years of age; he was a very great _miser_, - but a man of vast ability, and had accumulated so much gold - that he is supposed to have [had] more than wellnigh all the - other Kings of Christendom. The King, his son, is liberal and - handsome--the friend of Venice, and the enemy of France. This - intelligence is _most_ satisfactory.” - -Certainly the new king was most liberal in his spending, and as certainly -was abundantly provided for. And money counted in those days--as it does -most whiles: no man in England could come to the dignity of Justice of -the Peace--such office as our evergreen friend Justice Shallow holds -in Shakespeare--except he had a rental of £20 per annum, equivalent to -a thousand dollars of present money--measured by its purchasing power -of wheat.[69] By the same standard the average Earl had a revenue of -£20,000, and the richest of the peers is put down at a probable income of -three times this amount. - -What a special favorite of the crown could do in the way of expenditure -is still made clear to us by those famous walks, gardens, and gorgeous -saloons of Hampton Court, where the great Cardinal Wolsey set his -armorial bearings upon the wall--still to be seen over the entrance of -the Clock Court. If you go there--and every American visitor in London -should be sure to find a way thither--you will see, may be, in the lower -range of windows, that look upon the garden court--the pots of geranium -and the tabby cats belonging to gentlewomen of rank, but of decayed -fortune--humble pensioners of Victoria--who occupy the sunny rooms from -which, in the times we are talking of, the pampered servants of the great -Cardinal looked out. And when the great man drove to court, or into the -city, his retinue of outriders and lackeys, and his golden trappings, -made a spectacle for all the street mongers. - -Into that panorama, too, of the early days of Henry VIII., enters with -slow step, and with sad speech, poor Katharine of Aragon--the first in -order of this stalwart king’s wives. Mrs. Fanny Kemble Butler used to -read that queen’s speech with a pathos that brought all the sadnesses -of that sad court to life again: Miss Cushman, too, you may possibly -have heard giving utterance to the same moving story; but, I think, with -a masculinity about her manner she could never wholly shake off, and -which gave the impression that she could--if need were--give the stout -king such a buffet on the ears as would put an end to all chaffer about -divorce. - -Shakespeare, writing that play of Henry VIII., probably during the -lifetime of Elizabeth (though its precise date and full authenticity are -matters of doubt), could not speak with very much freedom of the great -queen’s father: She had too much of that father’s spirit in her to -permit that; otherwise, I think the great dramatist would have given a -blazing score to the cruelty and _Bluebeardism_ of Henry VIII. - -I know that there be those acute historic inquirers who would persuade us -to believe that the king’s much-marrying propensities were all in order, -and legitimate, and agreeable to English constitutional sanction: but I -know, too, that there is a strong British current of common-sense setting -down all through the centuries which finds harbor in the old-fashioned -belief--that the king who, with six successive wives of his own choice, -divorced two, and cut off the heads of other two, must have had--vicious -weaknesses. For my own part, I take a high moral delight--Froude to -the contrary--in thinking of him as a clever, dishonest, good-natured, -obstinate, selfish, ambitious, tempestuous, arrogant scoundrel. Yet, -withal, he was a great favorite in his young days;--so tall, so trim, -so stout, so rich, so free with his money. No wonder the stately and -disconsolate Queen (of Aragon) said:-- - - “Would I had never trod this English earth, - Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it; - Ye’ve angels faces, but Heaven knows your hearts!” - -And this wilful King befriended learning and letters in his own wilful -way. Nay, he came to have ambitions of his own in that direction, when he -grew too heavy for practice with the long-bow, or for feats of riding--in -which matters he had gained eminence even amongst those trained to sports -and exercises of the field. - - -_Cardinal Wolsey and Sir Thomas More._ - -It was with the King’s capricious furtherance that Cardinal Wolsey -became so august a friend of learning. The annalists delight in telling -us how the great Cardinal went down to St. Paul’s School to attend -upon an exhibition of the boys there, who set afoot a tragedy founded -upon the story of Dido. And at the boys’ school was then established -as head-master that famous William Lilly[70] who had learned Greek in -his voyaging into Eastern seas, and was among the first to teach it in -England: he was the author too of that _Lilly’s Latin Grammar_ which -was in use for centuries, and of which later editions are hanging about -now in old New England garrets, from whose mouldy pages our grandfathers -learned to decline their _pennæ--pennarum_. Wolsey wrote a preface for -one of the earlier issues of this Lilly’s Grammar; and the King gave -it a capital advertisement by proclaiming it illegal to use any other. -The Cardinal, moreover, in later years established a famous school at -his native place of Ipswich (a rival in its day to that of Eton), and -he issued an address to all the schoolmasters of England in favor of -accomplishing the boys submitted to their charge in the most elegant -literatures. - -The great Hall of Christ’s Church College, Oxford, still further serves -to keep in mind the memory and the munificence of Cardinal Wolsey: it -must be remembered, however, in estimating his munificence that he had -only to confiscate the revenues of a small monastery to make himself -full-pocketed for the endowment of a college. ’Tis certain that he loved -learning, and that he did much for its development in the season of his -greatest power and influence; certain, too, that his ambitions were too -large for the wary King, his master, and brought him to that dismal fall -from his high estate, which is pathetically set forth in Shakespeare’s -Henry VIII.: - - “----Farewell to all my greatness! - This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth - The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms - And bears his blushing honors thick upon him; - The third day comes a frost--a killing frost; - And--when he thinks, good easy man, full surely - His greatness is a ripening--nips his root - And then he falls as I do. I have ventured, - Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, - This many summers in a sea of glory; - But far beyond my depth; my high-blown pride - At length broke under me; and now has left me, - Weary, and old with service, to the mercy - Of a rude stream that must forever hide me.” - -Another favorite of Henry in the early days of his kingship, and one -bearing a far more important name in the literary annals of England -than that of Wolsey, was Sir Thomas More. He was a Greek of the very -Greeks, in both character and attainment. Born in the heart of London--in -Milk Street, now just outside of the din and roar of Cheapside, he -was a scholar of Oxford, and was the son of a knight, who, like Sir -Thomas himself, had a reputation for shrewd sayings--of which the old -chronicler, William Camden,[71] has reported this sample:-- - - “Marriage,” said the elder More, “with its chances, is like - dipping one’s hand into a bag, with a great many snakes - therein, and but one eel; the which most serviceable and - comfortable eel might possibly be seized upon; but the chances - are largely in favor of catching a stinging snake:” - -But, says the chronicler--this good knight did himself thrust _his_ hand -three several times into such a bag, and with such ensuing results as -preserved him hale and sound to the age of ninety or thereabout. The son -inherited this tendency to whimsical speech, joining with it rare merits -as a scholar: and it used to be said of him as a boy, that he could -thrust himself into the acting of a Latin comedy and extemporize his -part, with such wit and aptness, as not to break upon the drift of the -play. He studied, as I said, at Oxford; and afterward Law at Lincoln’s -Inn; was onewhile strongly inclined to the Church, and under influence -of a patron who was a Church dignitary became zealous Religionist, and -took to wearing in penance a bristling hair-shirt--which (or one like -it) he kept wearing till prison-days and the scaffold overtook him, as -they overtook so many of the quondam friends of Henry VIII. For he had -been early presented to that monarch--even before Henry had come to the -throne--and had charmed him by his humor and his scholarly talk: so -that when More came to live upon his little farm at Chelsea (very near -to Cheyne Row where Carlyle died but a few years since) the King found -his way thither on more than one occasion; and there are stories of his -pacing up and down the garden walks in familiar talk with the master. - -There, too, came for longer stay, and for longer and friendlier -communings, the great and scholarly Erasmus (afterward teacher of Greek -at Cambridge)--and out of one of these visitations to Chelsea grew the -conception and the working out of his famous Praise of Folly, with its -punning title--_Encomium Moriæ_.[72] - -The King promised preferment to More--which came in its time. I think he -was in Flanders on the King’s business, when upon a certain day, as he -was coming out from the Antwerp Cathedral, he encountered a stranger, -with long beard and sunburnt face--a man of the “Ancient Mariner” stamp, -who had made long voyages with that Amerigo Vespucci who stole the honor -of naming America: and this long-bearded mariner told Sir Thomas More of -the strange things he had seen in a country farther off than America, -called _Utopia_. Of course, it is something doubtful if More ever really -encountered such a mariner, or if he did not contrive him only as a good -frontispiece for his political fiction. This is the work by which More is -best known (through its English translations); and it has given the word -Utopian to our every-day speech. The present popular significance of this -term will give you a proper hint of the character of the book: it is an -elaborate and whimsical and yet statesmanlike forecast of a government -too good and honest and wise to be sound and true and real. - -Sir Thomas smacked the humor of the thing, in giving the name _Utopia_, -which is Greek for _Nowhere_. If, indeed, men were all honest, and women -all virtuous and children all rosy and helpful, we might all live in a -Utopia of our own. All the Fourierites--the Socialists--the Knights of -Labor might find the germs of their best arguments in this reservoir of -the ideal maxims of statecraft. In this model country, gold was held -in large disrespect; and to keep the scorn of it wholesome, it was -put to the vilest uses: a great criminal was compelled to wear gold -rings in his ears: chains were made of it for those in bondage; and a -particularly obnoxious character put to the wearing of a gold head-band; -so too diamonds and pearls were given over to the decoration of infants; -and these, with other baby accoutrements, they flung aside in disgust, -so soon as they came to sturdy childhood. When therefore upon a time, -Ambassadors came to Utopia, from a strange country, with their tricksy -show of gold and jewels--the old Voyager says:-- - - “You shᵈ have sene [Utopian] children that had caste away their - peerles and pretious stones, when they sawe the like sticking - upon the Ambassadours cappes;--digge and pushe theire mothers - under the sides, sainge thus to them,--‘Loke mother how great a - lubbor doth yet were peerles, as though he were a litel child - stil!’ ‘Peace sone,’ saith she; ‘I thinke he be some of the - Ambassadours fooles.’” - -Also in this model state industrial education was in vogue; children -all, of whatsoever parentage, were to be taught some craft--as “masonrie -or smith’s craft, or the carpenter’s science.” Unlawful games were -decried--such as “dyce, cardes, tennis, coytes [quoits]--do not all -these,” says the author, “sende the haunters of them streyghte a -stealynge, when theyr money is gone?” - -The Russian Count Tolstoi’s opinion that money is an invention of Satan -and should be abolished, is set forth with more humor and at least equal -logic, in this Latin tractate of More’s. - -In the matters of Religion King Utopus decreed that - - “it should be lawful for everie man to favoure and folow what - religion he would, and that he mighte do the best he could - to bring other to his opinion, so that he did it peaceablie, - gentelie, quietlie and sobelie, without hastie and contentious - rebuking.” - -Yet this same self-contained Sir Thomas More did in his after -controversies with Tyndale use such talk of him--about his “whyning -and biting and licking and tumbling in the myre,” and “rubbing himself -in puddles of dirt,”--as were like anything but the courtesies of -Utopia. Indeed it is to be feared that theologic discussion does -not greatly provoke gentleness of speech, in any time; it is a very -grindstone to put men’s wits to sharpened edges. But More was a most -honest man withal;--fearless in advocacy of his own opinions; eloquent, -self-sacrificing--a tender father and husband--master of a rich English -speech (his _Utopia_ was written in Latin, but translated many times -into English, and most languages of Continental Europe), learned in -the classics--a man to be remembered as one of the greatest of Henry -VIII.’s time; a Romanist, at a date when honestest men doubted if it were -worthiest to be a King’s man or a Pope’s man;--not yielding to his royal -master in points of religious scruple, and with a lofty obstinacy in what -he counted well doing, going to the scaffold, with as serene a step as he -had ever put to his walks in the pleasant gardens of Chelsea. - - -_Cranmer, Latimer, Knox, and Others._ - -A much nobler figure is this, to my mind, than that of Cranmer,[73] who -appears in such picturesque lights in the drama of Henry VIII.--who -gave adhesion to royal wishes for divorce upon divorce; who always -colored his religious allegiances with the colors of the King; who was -a scholar indeed--learned, eloquent; who wrought well, as it proved, -for the reformed faith; but who wilted under the fierce heats of trial; -would have sought the good will of the blood-thirsty Mary; but who -gave even to his subserviencies a half-tone that brought distrust, and -so--finally--the fate of that quasi-martyrdom which has redeemed his -memory. - -He stands very grandly in his robes upon the memorial cross at -Oxford: and he has an even more august presence in the final scene of -Shakespeare’s play, where amidst all churchly and courtly pomp, he -christened the infant--who was to become the Royal Elizabeth, and says -to the assembled dignitaries: - - “This royal infant - Tho’ in her cradle, yet now promises - Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings, - Which time will bring to ripeness: She shall be - A pattern to all princes living with her, - And all that shall succeed her. Truth shall nurse her, - Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her: - She shall be loved and feared. - A most unspotted lily shall she pass - To the ground, and all the world shall mourn her.”[74] - -Tennyson, in his drama of Queen Mary (a most unfortunate choice of -heroine) gives a statuesque pose to this same Archbishop Cranmer; but -Shakespeare’s figures are hard to duplicate. He was with Henry VIII. as -counsellor at his death; was intimate adviser of the succeeding Edward -VI.: and took upon himself obligations from that King (contrary to his -promises to Henry) which brought him to grief under Queen Mary. That -brave thrust of his offending hand into the blaze that consumed him, -cannot make us forget his weaknesses and his recantations; nor will we -any more forget that he it was, who gave (1543) to the old Latin Liturgy -of the Church that noble, English rhythmic flow which so largely belongs -to it to-day. - -It is quite impossible to consider the literary aspects of the period of -English history covered by the reign of Henry VIII., and the short reigns -of the two succeeding monarchs, Edward VI. and Mary, without giving large -frontage to the Reformers and religious controversialists. Every scholar -was alive to the great battle in the Church. The Greek and Classicism of -the Universities came to have their largest practical significance in -connection with the settlement of religious questions or in furnishing -weapons for the ecclesiastic controversies of the day. The voices of the -poets--the Skeltons, the Sackvilles, the Wyatts, were chirping sparrows’ -voices beside that din with which Luther thundered in Germany, and Henry -VIII. thundered back, more weakly, from his stand-point of Anglicanism. - -We have seen Wolsey in his garniture of gold, going from court to school; -and Sir Thomas More, stern, strong, and unyielding; and Archbishop -Cranmer, disposed to think rightly, but without the courage to back up -his thought; and associated with these, it were well to keep in mind the -other figures of the great religious processional. There was William -Tyndale, native of Gloucestershire, a slight, thin figure of a man; -honest to the core; well-taught; getting dignities he never sought; -wearied in his heart of hearts by the flattering coquetries of the King; -perfecting the work of Wyclif in making the old home Bible readable by -all the world. His translation was first printed in Wittenberg about -1530:[75] I give the Lord’s Prayer as it appeared in the original -edition:-- - - “Oure Father which arte in heven, halowed be thy name. Let thy - kingdom come. Thy wyll be fulfilled, as well in erth, as hit - ys in heven. Geve vs this daye oure dayly breade. And forgeve - vs oure trespases, even as we forgeve them which treespas vs. - Leade vs not into temptacion but delyvre vs from yvell. Amen.” - -But Tyndale was not safe in England; nor yet in the Low Countries whither -he went, and where the long reach of religious hate and jealousy put its -hand upon him and brought him to a death whose fiery ignominies are put -out of sight by the lustrous quality of his deservings. - -I see too amongst those great, dim figures, that speak in Scriptural -tones, the form of Hugh Latimer, as he stands to-day on the Memorial -Cross in Oxford. I think of him too--in humbler dress than that which the -sculptor has put on him--even the yeoman’s clothes, which he wore upon -his father’s farm, in the Valley of the Soar, when he wrought there in -the meadows, and drank in humility of thought, and manly independence -under the skies of Leicestershire[76]--where (as he says), “My father had -walk for an hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine.” He kept -his head upon his shoulders through Henry’s time--his amazing wit and -humor helping him to security;--was in fair favor with Edward; but under -Mary, walked coolly with Ridley to the stake, where the fires were set, -to burn them both in Oxford. - -Foxe[77] too is to be remembered for his Stories of the Martyrs of these, -and other times, which have formed the nightmare reading for so many -school-boys. - -I see, too, another figure that will not down in this coterie of -Reformers, and that makes itself heard from beyond the Tweed. This is -John Knox,[78] a near contemporary though something younger than most -I have named, and not ripening to his greatest power till Henry VIII. -had gone. Born of humble parentage in Scotland in the early quarter of -the century, he was a rigid Papist in his young days, but a more rigid -Reformer afterward; much time a prisoner; passing years at Geneva; not -altogether a “gloomy, shrinking, fanatic,” but keeping, says Carlyle, -“a pipe of Bordeaux in that old Edinboro house of his;” getting to know -Cranmer, and the rest in England; discussing with these, changes of -Church Service; counselling austerities, where Cranmer admitted laxities; -afraid of no man, neither woman;--publishing in exile in Mary’s day--_The -first Blaste of the Trumpet against the monstrous Regiment of Women_, -and repenting this--quietly no doubt--when Elizabeth came to power. A -thin, frail man; strong no ways, but in courage, and in brain; with -broad brows--black cap--locks floating gray from under it, in careless -whirls that shook as he talked; an eye like a falcon’s that flashed -the light of twenty years, when sixty were on his shoulders; in after -years, writhing with rheumatic pains--crawling upon his stick and a -servant’s arm into his Church of St. Andrews; lifted into his pulpit by -the clerk and his attendant--leaning there on the desk, a wilted heap -of humanity--panting, shaking, quivering--till his breath came, and -the psalm and the lifted prayer gave courage; then--fierce torrents of -speech (and a pounding of the pulpit till it seemed that it would fly in -shivers), with a sharp, swift, piercing utterance that pricked ears as it -pricked consciences, and made the roof-timbers clang with echoes. - -Of all these men there are no books that take high rank in Literature -proper--unless we except the _Utopia_ of More, and the New Testament of -Tyndale: but their lives and thought were welded by stout blows into the -intellectual texture of the century and are not to be forgotten. - - -_Verse-Writing and Psalmodies._ - -And now, was there really no dalliance with the Muses in times that -brought to the front such fighting Gospellers as we have talked of? - -Yes, even Thomas More did write poems--having humor in them and grammatic -proprieties, and his Latin prosody is admired of Classicists: then -there were the versifiers of the Psalms, Sternhold and Hopkins, and the -Whittingham who succeeded John Knox at Geneva--sharing that Scotchman’s -distaste for beautiful rubrics, and we suspect beautiful verses also--if -we may judge by his version of the Creed. This is a sample:-- - - “The Father, God is; God, the Son; - God--Holy Ghost also; - Yet are not three gods in all - But one God and no mo.” - -From the Apostles’ Creed again, we excerpt this:-- - - “From thence, shall he come for to judge - All men both dead and quick. - I, in the Holy Ghost believe - And Church thats Catholick.” - -Hopkins,[79] who was a schoolmaster of Suffolk, and the more immediate -associate of Sternhold, thus expostulates with the Deity:-- - - “Why doost withdraw thy hand aback - And hide it in thy lappe? - Oh, plucke it out, and be not slacke - To give thy foes a rap!” - -As something worthier from these old psalmists’ versing, I give this of -Sternhold’s:-- - - “The earth did shake, for feare did quake, - The hills their bases shook - Removed they were, in place most fayre - At God’s right fearful looks. - He rode on hye and did so flye - Upon the Cherubins, - He came in sight, and made his flight - Upon the wings of winds,” etc. - -It may well be that bluff King Harry relished more the homely Saxonism -of such psalms than the _Stabat Maters_ and _Te Deums_ and _Jubilates_, -which assuredly would have better pleased the Princess Katharine of -Aragon. Yet even at a time when the writers of such psalmodies received -small crumbs of favor from the Court, the English Bible was by no means a -free-goer into all companies. - - “A nobleman or gentleman may read it”--(I quote from a - Statute of Henry VIII.’s time)--“in his house, or in his - garden, or orchard, yet quietly and without disturbance of - order. A merchant may read it to himself privately: But the - common people, women, artificers, apprentices, journeymen and - servingmen, are to be punished with one month’s imprisonment, - as often as they are detected in reading the Bible, either - privately or openly.”[80] - -Truly this English realm was a strange one in those times, and this a -strange King--who has listened approvingly to Hugh Latimer’s sermons--who -harries Tyndale as he had harried Tyndale’s enemy--More; who fights the -Pope, fights Luther, holds the new Bible (even Cranmer’s) in leash, who -gives pension to Sternhold, works easy riddance of all the wives he -wishes, pulls down Religious Houses for spoils, calls himself Defender -of the Faith, and maybe goes to see (if then on show) _Gammer Gurton’s -Needle_,[81] and is hilariously responsive to such songs as this:-- - - “I cannot eat but little meat - My Stomach is not good - But sure I think, that I can drink - With him that wears a hood; - Tho’ I go bare, take ye no care - I nothing am a colde, - I stuffe my skin so full within - Of jolly good ale and olde.” - - -_Wyatt and Surrey._ - -The model poets, however, of this reign[82]--those who kept alive the -best old classic traditions, and echoed with most grace and spirit -the daintiness of Italian verse, were the Earl of Surrey and Sir -Thomas Wyatt. The latter was son of an old courtier of Henry VII., and -inheritor of an estate and castle in Kent, which he made noteworthy by -his decorative treatment, and which is even now counted worthy a visit -by those journeying through the little town of Maidstone. He was, for -those times, brilliantly educated; was in high favor with the King (save -one enforced visit to the Tower); he translated Petrarch, and in his own -way imitated the Italian poet’s manner, and was, by common consent, the -first to graft the “Sonnet” upon English forms of verse. I find nothing -however in his verse one-half so graceful or gracious as this tribute to -his worth in Tennyson’s “Queen Mary:”-- - - “Courtier of many courts, he loves the more - His own gray towers, plain life, and lettered peace, - To read and rhyme in solitary fields; - The lark above, the nightingale below, - And answer them in song.” - -Surrey was well born: was son to the Duke of Norfolk who figures in the -Shakespearean play of Henry VIII., and grandson to the Surrey who worsted -the Scotch on Flodden Field: he was companion of the King’s son, was -taught at the Universities, at home and abroad. There was no gallant -more admired in the gayer circles of the court; he too loved Petrarch, -and made canzonets like his; had a Geraldine (for a Laura), half real -and half mythical. The further story once obtained that he went with a -gay retinue to Florence, where the lists were opened--in the spirit of -an older chivalry--to this Stranger Knight, who challenged the world to -combat his claims in behalf of the mythical Geraldine. And--the story -ran--there were hot-heads who contended with him; and he unhorsed his -antagonists, and came back brimming with honors, to the court--before -which Hugh Latimer had preached, and where Sternhold’s psalms had been -heard--to be imprisoned for eating flesh in Lent, in that Windsor Castle -where he had often played with the King’s son. The tale[83] is a romantic -one; but--in all that relates to the Florentine tourney--probably untrue. - -I give you a little taste of the graceful way in which this poet sings of -his Geraldine:-- - - “I assure thee even by oath - And thereon take my hand and troth - That she is one of the worthiest - The truest and the faithfullest - The gentlest, and the meekest o’ mind - That here on earth a man may find; - And if that love and truth were gone - In her it might be found alone: - For in her mind no thought there is - But how she may be true, iwis, - And is thine own; and so she says - And cares for thee ten thousand ways; - Of thee she speaks, on thee she thinks - With thee she eats, with thee she drinks - With thee she talks, with thee she moans - With thee she sighs, with thee she groans - With thee she says--‘Farewell mine own!’ - When thou, God knows, full far art gone.” - -Surrey is to be held in honor as the first poet who wrote English blank -verse; he having translated two books of the Æneid in that form. But -this delicate singer, this gallant soldier cannot altogether please the -capricious monarch; perhaps he is too fine a soldier; perhaps too free a -liver; perhaps he is dangerously befriended by some ladies of the court: -Quite certain it is that the King frowns on him; and the frowns bring -what they have brought to so many others--first, imprisonment in the -Tower, and then the headsman’s axe. In this way the poet died at thirty, -in 1547: his execution being one of the last ordered by Henry VIII., and -the King so weak that he could only stamp, instead of signing the death -warrant. - -Honest men breathed freer, everywhere, when the King died, in the same -year with Surrey: and so, that great, tempestuous reign was ended. - - -_A Boy-King, a Queen, and Schoolmaster._ - -Edward VI. succeeded his father at the age of ten years--a precocious, -consumptive boy, who gave over his struggle with life when only sixteen; -and yet has left his “Works,” printed by the Roxburgh Club. There’s a -maturity about some of the political suggestions in his “Journal”--not -unusual in a lively mind prematurely ripening under stress of disease; -yet we can hardly count him a literary king. - -The red reign of Mary, immediately following, lasted only five years, for -which, I think, all Christian England thanked God: In those five years -very many of the strong men of whom we have talked in this chapter came -to a fiery end. - -Only one name of literary significance do we pluck from the annals of her -time; it is that of Roger Ascham,[84] the writer of her Latin letters, -and for a considerable time her secretary. How, being a Protestant as -he was, and an undissembling one, he kept his head upon his shoulders so -near her throne, it is hard to conjecture. He must have studied the art -of keeping silence as well as the arts of speech. - -He was born in that rich, lovely region of Yorkshire--watered by -the River Swale--where we found the young Wyclif: his father was a -house-steward; but he early made show of such qualities as invited the -assistance of rich friends, through whose offices he was entered at St. -John’s College, Cambridge, at fifteen, and took his degree at eighteen. -He was full of American pluck, aptness, and industry; was known specially -for his large gifts in language; a superb penman too, which was no little -accomplishment in that day; withal, he excelled in athletics, and showed -a skill with the long-bow which made credible the traditions about Robin -Hood. They said he wasted time at this exercise; whereupon he wrote a -defence of Archery, which under the name of _Toxophilus_ has come down -to our day--a model even now of good, homely, vigorous English. “He that -will write well in any tongue,” said he, “must follow this counsel--to -speak as the common people do--to think as wise men do.” Our teachers of -rhetoric could hardly say a better thing to-day. - -The subject of Archery was an important one at that period; the long-bow -was still the principal war weapon of offence: there were match-locks, -indeed, but these very cumbrous and counting for less than those -“cloth-yard” shafts which had won the battle of Agincourt. The boy-King, -Edward, to whom Ascham taught penmanship, was an adept at archery, -and makes frequent allusion to that exercise in his Journal. In every -hamlet practice at the long-bow was obligatory; and it was ordered by -statute that no person above the age of twenty-four, should shoot the -light-flight arrow at a distance under two hundred and twenty yards. -What would our Archery Clubs say to this? And what, to the further -order--dating in Henry VIII.’s time--that “all bow-staves should be three -fingers thick and seven feet long?” - -This book of Ascham’s was published two years before Henry’s death, -and brought him a small pension; under the succeeding king he went to -Augsburg, where Charles V. held his brilliant court; but neither there, -nor in Italy, did he lose his homely and hearty English ways, and his -love of English things. - -In his tractate of the _Schoolmaster_, which appeared after his death, he -bemoans the much and idle travel of Englishmen into Italy. They have a -proverb there, he says, “_Un Inglese italianato é un diabolo incarnato_” -(an Italianized Englishman is a devil incarnate). Going to Italy, when -Tintoretto and Raphael were yet living, and when the great Medici family -and the Borgias were spinning their golden wheels--was, for a young -Englishman of that day, like a European trip to a young American of ours: -Ascham says--“Many being mules and horses before they went, return swine -and asses.” - -There is much other piquant matter in this old book of the -_Schoolmaster_; as where he says:-- - - “When the child doeth well, either in the choosing or true - placing of his words, let the master praise him, and say, ‘Here - ye do well!’ For I assure you there is no such whetstone to - sharpen a good wit, and encourage a will to learning as is - praise. But if the child miss, either in forgetting a word, or - in changing a good with a worse, or mis-ordering the sentence, - I would not have the master frown, or chide with him, if the - child have done his diligence and used no truantship: For I - know by good experience, that a child shall take more profit of - two faults gently warned of, than of four things rightly hit.” - -And this brings us to say that this good, canny, and thrifty Roger -Ascham was the early teacher, in Greek and Latin, of the great Princess -Elizabeth, and afterward for years her secretary. You would like to hear -how he speaks of her:-- - - “It is your shame (I speak to you all young gentlemen of - England) that one mind should go beyond you all in excellency - of learning, and knowledge of divers tongues. Point forth - six of the best given gentlemen of this court, and all they - together show not so much good will, spend not so much time, - bestow not so many hours daily, orderly, and constantly, for - the increase of learning and knowledge as doth this Princess. - Yea, I believe that beside her perfect readiness in Latin, - Italian, French and Spanish, she readeth here now, at Windsor - more Greek every day, than some prebendarys of this Church doth - read Latin in a whole week.” - -He never speaks of her but with a hearty tenderness; nor did she speak -of him, but most kindly. At his death, she said, “She would rather that -£10,000 had been flung into the sea.” And--seeing her money-loving, this -was very much for her to say. - - * * * * * - -In our next chapter we shall meet this prudent and accomplished Princess -face to face--in her farthingale and ruff--with the jewels on her -fingers, and the crown upon her head--bearing herself right royally. And -around her we shall find such staid worthies as Burleigh and Richard -Hooker; and such bright spirits as Sidney and Raleigh, and that sweet -poet Spenser, who was in that day counting the flowing measures of that -long song, whose mellow cadences have floated musically down from the far -days of Elizabeth to these fairer days of ours. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - - -In our last talk we entered upon that brilliant sixteenth century, within -whose first quarter three great kings held three great thrones:--Charles -V. of Spain, Francis I. of France, and Henry VIII. of England. New -questions were astir; Art--in the seats of Art--was blazing at its best: -the recent fall of Constantinople under the Turk had sent a tide of Greek -scholars, Greek art, and Greek letters flowing over Western Europe, and -drifting into the antiquated courts of Oxford and Cambridge. I spoke of -the magnificent Wolsey, and of his great university endowments; also, -of that ripe scholar, Sir Thomas More, who could not mate his religion, -or his statesmanship with the caprices of the King, and so, died by the -axe. We saw Cranmer--meaning to be good, if goodness did not call for -strength; we heard Latimer’s swift, homely speech, and saw Tyndale with -his English Testament--both these coming to grief; and we had glimpses of -John Knox shaking the pulpit with his frail hand, and shaking all Scotch -Christendom with his fearless, strident speech. - -We heard the quaint psalmody of Sternhold, and the sweeter and more -heathen verse of Wyatt and of Surrey; lastly, I gave a sketch of that old -schoolmaster, Roger Ascham, who by his life, tied the reigns of Henry and -of Elizabeth together, and who taught Greek and Latin and penmanship and -Archery to that proud princess--whom we encounter now--in her high ruff, -and her piled-up head-dress, with a fair jewelled hand that puts a man’s -grip upon the sceptre. - - -_Elizabethan England._ - -Elizabeth was in her twenty-sixth year when she came to the throne, -and it was about the middle of the sixteenth century; the precise year -being 1558. The England she was to dominate so splendidly was not a -quiet England: the fierce religious controversies which had signalized -the reign of Henry VIII.--who thwacked with his kingly bludgeon both -ways and all ways--and which continued under Edward VI.--who was feebly -Protestant; and which had caught new vigor under Mary--who was arrant -and slavish Papist--had left gouts of blood and a dreadful exasperation. -Those great Religious Houses, which only a quarter of a century -before, were pleasantly embayed in so many charming valleys of Great -Britain--with their writing-rooms, their busy transcribing clerks--their -great gardens, were, most of them, despoiled--and to be seen no more. -An old Venetian Ambassador,[85] writing to the Seigneury in those days, -says--“London itself is disfigured by the ruins of a multitude of -Churches and Monasteries which once belonged to Friars and Nuns.” Piers -Plowman, long before, had attacked the sins growing up in the pleasant -Abbey Courts; Chaucer had echoed the ridicule in his Abbot riding to -Canterbury, with jingling trappings: Gower had repeated the assault in -his _Vox Clamantis_, and Skelton had turned his ragged rhymes into the -same current of satire. But all would have availed nothing except the -arrogant Henry VIII. had set his foot upon them, and crushed them out. - -There was a wild justice in it--if not an orderly one. The spoils went to -fill the Royal coffers; many of those beautiful properties were bestowed -upon favorites; many princely estates are still held in England, by title -tracing back to those days of spoliation--a fact which will be called to -mind, I suspect--with unction, in case of any great social revolution -in that country. Under Mary, some of these estates had been restored -to Church dignitaries; but the restoration had not been general: and -Elizabeth could not if she would, and would not if she could, sanction -any further restitution. - -She was Protestant--but rather from policy than any heartiness of belief. -It did not grieve her one whit, that her teacher, Roger Ascham, had been -private secretary to bloody Mary: the lukewarmness of her great minister, -Lord Burleigh, did not disturb her; she always kept wax tapers burning -by a crucifix in her private chamber; a pretty rosary gave her no shock; -but she _was_ shocked at the marriage of any member of the priesthood, -always. In fact, if Spanish bigotry had not forced her into a resolute -antagonism of Rome, I think history would have been in doubt whether to -count her most a Lutheran, or most a Roman. - -Yet she made the Papists smoke for it--as grimly as ever her sister Mary -did the Protestants--if they stood one whit in the way of England’s grasp -on power. - - -_Personality of the Queen._ - -I think our friend Mr. Froude, whose history we all read, is a -little unfair toward Queen Bess, as he was a little over-fair, and -white-wash-i-ly disposed in the case of Henry VIII.: both tendencies -being attributable to a mania this shrewd historian has--for unripping -and oversetting established forms of belief. I think that he not only -bears with a greedy zeal upon her too commonly manifest selfishness and -heartlessness, but that he enjoys putting little vicious dabs of bad -color upon her picture--as when he says, “she spat, and swore like a -trooper.” Indeed it would seem that this clever biographer had carried -a good deal of his fondness for “vicious dabs” in portraiture into his -more recent _post-mortem_ exhibits; as if it were his duty and pleasure -to hang out all sorts of soiled linen, in his office of Clean-Scrubber: -Yet, I wish to speak with all respect of the distinguished -historian--whose vigor is conspicuous--whose industry is remarkable, -whose crisp sentences are delightful, but whose accuracy is not of the -surest; and whose conscience does, I think, sometimes go lame--under -strain of his high, rhetorical canter. - -The authority for all most damnatory statements with respect to the -private life of the Queen, rests upon those Spanish Relations--so minute -as to be suspicious--if they were not also so savagely bitter as to -twist everything to the discredit of the Protestant Sovereign. Signor -Soranzo--the Venetian ambassador (whom Froude does not cite--but who had -equal opportunities of observation with the Spanish informer), says of -Elizabeth (in a report--not written for publication, but lying for years -in the archives of Venice): “Such an air of dignified majesty pervades -all her actions that no one can fail to judge her a queen. She is a good -Greek and Latin scholar; and beside her native tongue she speaks Latin, -French, Spanish, and Italian _benissimo_--and her manners are very -modest and affable.”[86] - -I talk thus much--and may talk more--about the personality of Queen -Elizabeth, because she must be counted--in a certain not very remote -sense--one of the forces that went to endow what is called the English -Literature of her day--so instructed was she; so full of talent; so -keen-sighted; so exact--a most extraordinary woman. We must not think her -greatness was factitious, and attributable to her only because she was -a queen. There could be no greater mistake. She would have been great -if she had been a shoemaker’s daughter; I do not mean that she would -have rode a white horse at Tilbury, and made the nations shake: but she -would have bound more shoes, and bound them better, and looked sharper -after the affairs of her household than any cobbler’s wife in the land. -Elizabeth would have made a wonderful post-mistress--a splendid head of -a school--with perhaps a little too large use of the ferule: and she -would have had her favorites, and shown it; but she would have lifted -her pupils’ thoughts into a high range of endeavor; she would have -made an atmosphere of intellectual ambition about her; she would have -struck fire from flinty souls; and so she did in her court: She inspired -work--inspired imagination; may we not say that she inspired genius. -That auburn hair of hers (I suppose we should have called it red, if her -name had been Abigail) made an aureole, around which wit coruscated by a -kind of electric affinity. It was counted worth toil to have the honor -of laying a poem at her gracious feet, who was so royally a Queen--whose -life, and power, and will and culture, made up a quadrature of poems. - - -_Burleigh and Others._ - -And who was there of literary significance about Elizabeth in those early -days of her reign? Roger Ascham was still doling out his sagacious talk, -and his good precepts; but he was not a force--only what we might call -a good creature. There was Sackville[87] (afterward the elegant Earl -of Dorset); he was in his prime then, and had very likely written his -portion of the _Mirror for Magistrates_--a fairish poetic history of -great unfortunate people--completed afterward by other poets, but hardly -read nowadays. - -Old Tusser,[88] too--the farmer-poet--lived in these times; an Essex man, -of about the same age as Ascham, but who probably never came nearer to -the court than to sing in the choir of old St. Paul’s. He had University -experience, which, if it did not help his farming, on the banks of the -Stour, did, doubtless, enable him to equip his somewhat prosy poems with -such classic authentication and such directness and simplicities as -gave to his _Pointes of Husbandrie_ very great vogue. Many rhyming saws -about farming, still current among old-fashioned country-folk, trace -back to Master Tusser, who lived and farmed successively (tradition -says not very successfully) at Ipswich, Dereham, and Norwich. His will, -however, published in these later times, shows him to have been a man of -considerable means. - -Then there was Holinshed,[89] who, though the date of his birth is -uncertain, must have been of fair working age now--a homely, honest, -simple-hearted chronicler (somewhat thievish, as all the old chroniclers -were) but whose name is specially worth keeping in mind, because he--in -all probability--supplied Shakespeare’s principal historic reading, and -furnished the crude material, afterward beaten out into those plaques -of gold, which we call Shakespeare’s Historic Plays. Therefore, we -must always, I think, treat Holinshed with respect. Next, there was -the great Lord Burleigh,[90] the chief minister and adviser of the -Queen--whom she set great store by: the only man she allowed to sit in -her presence; and indeed he was something heavy, both in mind and in -person; but far-sighted, honest, keen, cautious, timid--making his nod -count more than most men’s words, and in great exigencies standing up -for the right, even against the caprices of the sovereign. Whoever goes -to Stamford in England should not fail to run out--a mile away only--to -the princely place called Burleigh House (now the property of the Marquis -of Exeter) which was the home of this minister of Elizabeth’s--built -out of his savings, and equipped now with such paintings, such gardens, -such magnificent avenues of oak, such great sweeps of velvet lawn, such -herds of loitering deer as make it one of the show-places of England. -Well--this sober-sided, cautious Burleigh (you will get a short, but good -glimpse of him in Scott’s tragic tale of Kenilworth) wrote a book--a sort -of earlier Chesterfield’s Letters, made up of advices for his son Robert -Cecil, who was cousin, and in early life, rival of the great Francis -Bacon. I will take out a tid-bit from this book, that you may see how -this famous Lord Burleigh talked to his son: - - “When it shall please God to bring thee to man’s estate”--he - says--“use great Providence, and circumspection in choosing - thy wife: For from thence will spring all thy future good and - evil. And it is an action of life--like unto a stratagem of - War, wherein a man can err but once. If thy estate be good, - match near home and at leisure: if weak--far off, and quickly. - Inquire diligently of her disposition, and how her parents have - been inclined in their youth. Choose not a base, and uncomely - creature, altogether for Wealth; for it will cause contempt in - others, and loathing in thee: Neither make choice of a fool, - for she will be thy continual disgrace, and it will irk thee to - hear her talk.” - - -_A Group of Great Names._ - -But the greater names which went to illustrate with their splendor the -times of Elizabeth, only began to come to people’s knowledge after she -had been upon the throne some twenty years. - -Spenser was a boy of five, when she came to power: John Lilly, the author -of _Euphues_ which has given us the word _euphuistic_, and which provoked -abundant caricatures, of more or less fairness--was born the same year -with Spenser; Sir Philip Sidney a year later; Sir Walter Raleigh a -year earlier (1553); Richard Hooker, the author of the _Ecclesiastical -Polity_, in 1554; Lord Bacon in 1561; Shakespeare in 1564. These are -great names to stand so thickly strewed over ten or twelve years of -time. I do not name them, because I lay great stress on special dates: -For my own part, I find them hard things to keep in mind--except I group -them thus--and I think a man or woman can work and worry at worthier -particularities than these. But when Elizabeth had been twenty years a -Queen, and was in the prime of her womanly powers--six years after the -slaughter of St. Bartholomew--when the first English colony had just -been planted in Virginia, and Sir Francis Drake was coasting up and down -the shores of California; when Shakespeare was but a lad of fourteen, and -poaching (if he ever did poach there--which is doubtful) in Charlecote -Park; when Francis Bacon was seventeen, and was studying in Paris--Philip -Sidney was twenty-four; in the ripeness of his young manhood, and just -returned from Holland, he was making love--vainly as it proved--to the -famous and the ill-fated Penelope Devereaux. - -Richard Hooker--of the same age, was teaching Hebrew in the University of -Oxford, and had not yet made that unfortunate London marriage (tho’ very -near it) by which he was yoked with one whom old Izaak Walton--charitable -as the old angler was--describes as a silly, clownish woman, and withal a -perfect Xantippe. - -The circumstances which led to this awkward marriage show so well the -child-like simplicity of this excellent man, that they are worth noting. -He had come up to London, and was housed where preachers were wont to -go; and it being foul weather, and he thoroughly wetted, was behoven to -the hostess for dry clothes, and such other attentions as made him look -upon her as a special Providence, who could advise and care for him in -all things: So, he accepted her proffer to him of her own daughter, who -proved to him quite another sort of Providence, and a grievous thorn -in the side; and when his friends, on visits to his homestead in after -years, found the author of the _Ecclesiastical Polity_--rocking the -cradle, or minding the sheep, or looking after the kettles, and expressed -sympathy--“My dear fellows,” said he--“if Saints have usually a double -share in the miseries of this Life, I, that am none, ought not to repine -at what my Wise Creator hath appointed for me, but labor (as indeed I do -daily) to submit mine to his will and possess my soul in patience and -peace.” - -I don’t know if any of our parish will care to read the _Ecclesiastical -Polity_; but if you have courage thereto, you will find in this old -master of sound and cumbrous English prose, passages of rare eloquence, -and many turns of expression, which for their winning grace, their -aptitude, their quality of fastening themselves upon the mind, are not -overmatched by those of any Elizabethan writer. His theology is old and -rankly conservative; but he shows throughout a beautiful reverence for -that all-embracing Law, “whose seat (as he says) is the Bosom of God, and -whose voice is the Harmony of the World.”[91] - - -_Edmund Spenser._ - -As for Edmund Spenser, he was a year older at this date--twenty-five: -he had taken his master’s degree at Cambridge and had just returned to -London from a visit to the North of England, where he had encountered -some fair damsel to whom he had been paying weary and vain suit, and whom -he had embalmed in his _Shepherd’s Calendar_ (just then being made ready -for the press) under the name of Rosalind. - - “Ah, faithless Rosalind, and voyd of grace, - That art the root of all this ruthful woe - [My] teares would make the hardest flint to flow;” - -and his tears keep a-drip through a great many of those charming -eclogues--called the _Shepherd’s Calendar_. Some of the commentators on -Spenser have queried--gravely--whether he ever forgot this Rosalind; and -whether the occurrence of the name and certain woe-worn words in some -madrigal of later years did not show a wound unhealed and bleeding. We -are all at liberty to guess, and I am inclined to doubt here. I think he -was equal to forgetting this Rosalind before the ink of the _Shepherd’s -Calendar_ was fairly dry. He loved dreams and fed on dreams; and I -suspect enjoyed the dream of his woe more than he ever suffered from a -sting of rebuff. - -Indeed, much as we must all admire his poetic fervor and fancies, I -do not find in him traces of heroic mould;--easily friendly rather -than firmly so;--full of an effusive piety, but not coming in way of -martyrdom for faith’s sake;--a tenderly contemplative man, loving and -sensing beauty in the same sure and abounding way in which Turner has -sense of color--exhaustless in his stock of brilliant and ingenious -imagery--running to similes as mountain rills run to rivers; a courtier -withal--honeyed and sometimes fulsome; a richly presentable man -(if portraits may be trusted), with a well-trimmed face, a cautious -face--dare I say--almost a smirking face;--the face of a self-contained -man who thinks allowably well of his parts, and is determined to make -the most of them. And in the brows over the fine eyes there is a bulging -out--where phrenologists place the bump of language--that shows where -his forte lies: No such word-master had been heard to sing since the -days when Chaucer sung. He is deeply read in Chaucer too; and read in -all--worth reading--who came between. His lingual aptitudes are amazing. -He can tear words in tatters, and he can string them rhythmically in -all shapes; he makes his own law in language, as he grows heated in -his work; twists old phrases out of shape; makes new ones; binds them -together; tosses them as he will to the changing level of his thought: -so that whereas one may go to Chaucer, in points of language, as to an -authority--one goes to Spenser as to a mine of graceful and euphonious -phrases: but the authority is wanting--or, at least, is not so safe. He -makes uses for words which no analogy and no good order can recognize. -And his new words are not so much the product of keen, shrewd search -after what will fullest and strongest express a feeling or a thought, -or give color to epithet, as they are the luxuriant outcropping of a -tropical genius for language, which delights in abundant forms, and makes -them with an easy show of its own fecundity, or for the chance purpose of -filling a line, or meting out the bounds of an orderly prosody. - -He came up to London, as I said, about the year 1578, at the invitation -of a prig of a classmate, who makes him known to Philip Sidney: Sidney -is the very man to recognize and appreciate the tender beauty of those -woful plaints in the _Shepherd’s Calendar_, and invites the poet down -to Penshurst, that charming home of the Sidneys, in Kent. There, such -interest is made for him that he is appointed to a secretaryship in -Ireland, where the Queen’s lieutenants are stamping out revolt. Spenser -sees much of this fiery work; and its blaze reddens some of the pages of -the _Faery Queen_. In the distribution of spoils, after the Irish revolt -was put down, the poet has bestowed upon him, amongst other plums, some -three thousand acres of wild land, with Kilcolman Castle, which stands -upon a valley spur of this domain. This castle is represented as an -uninteresting fortress--like Johnnie Armstrong’s tower in Scotland--upon -the borders of a small lake or mere, and the landscape--stretching in -unlovely waste around it--savage and low and tame. Yet he finds rich -rural pictures there--this idealist and dreamer: let him see only so much -of sky as comes between the roofs of a city alley, and he will pluck out -of it a multitude of twinkling stars; let him look upon a rood square of -brown grass-land, and he will set it alight with scores of daisies and of -primroses. - - -_The Faery Queen._ - -And it is in this easy way he plants the men and women, the hags and -demons, the wizards and dragons that figure in the phantasmagoria of the -_Faery Queen_; they come and go like twilight shadows; they have no root -of realism. - -There is reason to believe that the first cantos of this poem were -blocked out in his mind before leaving England; perhaps the scheme had -been talked over with his friend Sidney; in any event, it is quite -certain that they underwent elaboration at Kilcolman Castle, and some -portions doubtless took color from the dreary days of rapine and of war -he saw there. I will not ask if you have read the _Faery Queen_: I fear -that a great many dishonest speeches are made on that score; I am afraid -that I equivocated myself in youngish days; but now I will be honest -in saying--I never read it through continuously and of set purpose; I -have tried it--on winter nights, and gone to sleep in my chair: I have -tried it, under trees in summer, and have gone to sleep on the turf: I -have tried it, in the first blush of a spring morning, and have gone--to -breakfast. - -Yet there are many who enjoy it intensely and continuously: Mr. -Saintsbury says, courageously, that it is the only long poem he honestly -wishes were longer. It is certainly full of idealism; it is full of sweet -fancies; it is rich in dragonly horrors; it is crammed with exquisite -harmonies. But--its tenderer heroines are so shadowy, you cannot bind -them to your heart; nay, you can scarce follow them with your eyes: Now, -you catch a strain which seems to carry a sweet womanly image of flesh -and blood--of heartiness and warmth. But--at the turning of a page--his -wealth of words so enwraps her in glowing epithets, that she fades on -your vision to a mere iridescence and a creature of Cloud-land. - - “Her face so faire, as flesh it seemèd not, - But Heavenly Portrait of bright angels hew, - Clear as the skye, withouten blame or blot - Thro’ goodly mixture of Complexion’s dew! - And in her cheeks, the Vermeil red did shew, - Like Roses in a bed of Lillies shed, - The which ambrosial odors from them threw, - And gazers sense, with double pleasure fed, - Hable to heal the sick, and to revive the dead! - - “In her faire eyes two living lamps did flame - Kindled above at the Heavenly Makers Light, - And darted fiery beams out of the same - So passing persant and so wondrous bright, - That quite bereaved the rash beholders sight. - In them the blinded God--his lustful fire - To kindle--oft assay’d, but had no might, - For with dred Majesty, and awful ire - She broke his wanton darts, and quenchèd base desire! - - “Upon her eyelids many Graces sate - Under the shadow of her even brows, - Working Belgardes and amorous Retrate, - And everie one her with a grace endows, - And everie one, with meekness to her bowes; - So glorious mirror of Celestial Grace - And soveraigne moniment of mortal vowes, - How shall frail pen describe her Heavenly face - For feare--thro’ want of skill, her beauty to disgrace? - - “So faire, and thousand times more faire - She seem’d--when she, presented was, to sight. - And was y-clad, for heat of scorching aire - All in a silken _Camus_, lilly white, - Purfled upon, with many a folded plight - Which all above besprinkled was throughout - With golden Aygulets, that glistered bright - Like twinckling starres, and all the skirt about - Was hemmed with golden fringe, …” - -and so on, by dozens, by scores, by hundreds--delicate, mellifluous -stanzas--fair ladies and brazen-scaled dragons, lions and fleecy lambs, -sweet purling brooks and horrors of Pandemonium, story grafted upon -story, and dreams grafted upon these, and still flowing on--canto after -canto--until the worldlings are tempted to exclaim, “When will he stop?” -It is an exclamation that a good many lesser men than Spenser have -tempted--in class-rooms, in lecture-rooms, and in pulpits. And I am -wicked enough to think that if a third had been shorn away by the poet -from that over-full and over-epitheted poem of the _Faery Queen_, it -would have reached farther, and come nearer to more minds and hearts. But -who--save the master--shall ever put the shears into that dainty broidery -where gorgeous flowers lie enmeshed in page-long tangles, and where -wanton tendrils of words enlace and tie together whole platoons of verse? - -In brief, the Poem is a great, cumbrous, beautiful, bewildering, -meandering Allegory, in which he assigns to every Virtue a Knight to be -ensampler and defender of the same, and puts these Knights to battle with -all the vices represented by elfin hags, or scaled dragons, or beautiful -women; and so the battles rage and the storms beat. But we lose sight of -his moral in the smoke of the conflict. The skeleton of his ethics is -overlaid with the wallets of fair flesh, and with splendid trappings; his -abounding figures gallop away with the logic; his roses cumber all his -corn-ground. There are no passages of condensed meaning, or of wondrous -intuition that give one pause, and that stick by us like a burr. There is -a symphonious clatter of hammers upon golden-headed tacks, but no such -pounding blow as drives a big nail home. - -All this is the criticism of a matter-of-fact man, who perhaps has no -right of utterance--as if one without knowledge of music should criticise -its cumulated triumphs. Many a man can enjoy a burst of balladry--of -little vagrant songs--who is crushed and bored by the pretty tangles -and symphonies of an opera. Spenser was poets’ poet--not people’s poet; -hardly can be till people are steeped in that refinement, that poetic -sensibility, which only poets are supposed to possess. And I am rather -unpleasantly conscious that I may offend intense lovers of this great -singer by such mention of him: painfully conscious, too, that it may -have its source (as Saintsbury assures us must be the case) in a poetic -inaptitude to give largest and adequate relish to the tender harmonies -and the mythical reaches of his sweetly burdened song. But shall I not be -honest? - -Yet Spenser is never ribald, never vulgar, rarely indelicate, even -measured by modern standards: He always has a welcoming word for honesty, -and for bravery, and, I think, the welcomest word of all for Love, which -he counts, as so many young people do, the chiefest duty of man. - -Once upon a time, there comes to see Spenser in his Kilcolman home--that -daring adventurer, that roving knight, Sir Walter Raleigh--who is so -well taught, so elegant, so brave that he can make the bright eyes even -of Queen Bess twinkle again, with the courtliness of his adulation; he -comes, I say, to see Spenser;--for he too has a grant of some forty -thousand acres carved out of that ever-wretched and misgoverned Ireland: -and Spenser, to entertain his friend, reads somewhat of the _Faery -Queene_ (not more than one canto I suspect), and Sir Walter locks arms -with the poet, and carries him off to London, and presents him to the -Queen; and Spenser weaves subtle, honeyed flattery for this great -_Gloriana_; and his book is printed; and the Queen smiles on him, and -gives him her jewelled hand to kiss, and a pension of £50 a year, which -the stout old Burleigh thinks too much; and which Spenser, and poets all, -think too beggarly small. There are little poems that come after this, -commemorating this trip to Court, and Raleigh’s hobnobbing with him-- - - “Amongst the coolly shade - Of the green alders, by the Mulla’s shore - [Where]--he piped--I sung-- - And when he sung, I piped, - By chaunge of tunes, each making other merry.” - -Spenser has found, too, a new _Rosalind_ over amid the wilds of Ireland, -to whom he addresses a cluster of gushing _Amoretti_; and she becomes -eventually his bride, and calls out what seems to me that charmingest of -all his poems--the _Epithalamium_. You will excuse my reciting a tender -little lovely picture from it:-- - - “Behold, whiles she before the Altar stands - Hearing the Holy Priest that to her speaks, - And blesseth her with his two happy hands. - How the red roses flush up in her cheeks, - And the pure snow, with goodly vermeil stain - Like crimson dyed in grain: - That even the Angels, which continually - About the sacred altar do remain, - Forget the service, and about her fly, - Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fair, - The more they on it stare-- - But her sad eyes still fastened on the ground, - Are governèd with goodly modesty, - That suffers not one look to glance awry, - Which may let in a little thought unsound. - Why blush ye, Love, to give to me your hand? - The pledge of all our band? - Sing, ye Sweet Angels, Allelujah sing! - That all the woods may answer, and your echos ring!” - -To my mind the gracious humanity--the exquisite naturalness of this is -worth an ocean of cloying prettinesses about _Gloriana_ and _Britomart_. -Not very many years after this--just how many we cannot say--comes -the great tragedy of his life: A new Irish rebellion (that of Tyrone) -sends up its tide of fire and blood around his home of Kilcolman; his -crops, his barns, his cattle, his poor babe[92]--the last born--all are -smothered, and consumed away in that fiery wrack and ruin. He makes -his way broken-hearted to London again; his old welcome as an adulator -of the Queen is at an end; Raleigh is not actively helpful; Sidney is -dead; he has some cheap lodging almost under the shadow of Westminster: -He is sick, maimed in body and in soul; other accounts--not yet wholly -discredited--represent him as miserably poor; bread, even, hard to come -by; my Lord of Essex--a new patron--sends him a few guineas; and the poor -poet murmurs--too late--too late!--and so he dies (1599). How glad we -should have been to help him, had we been living in that time, and all -this tale of suffering had been true;--so we think: and yet, ten to one -we should have said--“Poor fellow, what a pity!”--and buttoned up our -pockets, as we do now. - - -_Philip Sidney._ - -Meantime what has become of that Philip Sidney[93] who flashed upon us -under the eyes of Elizabeth at the age of twenty-four? You know him as -the chivalric soldier and the model gentleman. Students and young people -all, who are under the glamour of youthful enthusiasms, are apt to have a -great fondness for Philip Sidney: But if any of my young readers chance -to be projecting an essay about that courteous gentleman--and I know -they will, if they have not already--I would counsel them to forego any -mention of the story about the dying soldier and the cup of water. It -has been cruelly overworked already. Indeed it might have been matched -in scores of cases upon the battle-fields of our own war: When the last -shattering blow comes to our poor humanity, the better nature in us does -somehow lean kindly out, in glance and in purpose. Yet Philip Sidney was -certainly a man of great kindness and full of amiabilities and courtesies. - -Why, pray, should he not have been? Consider that in all his young life -he was wrapped in purple. It is no bad thing in any day to be born -eldest son of an old and wealthy and titled family of England; but it is -something more to be born eldest son of a Sidney--nephew to Leicester, -prime favorite of the Queen, cousin to the Northumberlands, the -Sutherlands, the Warwicks--heir to that old baronial pile of Penshurst, -toward which summer loiterers go now, every year, from far-away -countries--to admire its red roofs--its gray walls curtained with -ivy--its tall chimneys, that have smoked with the goodly hospitalities -of centuries--its charming wood-walks, that Ben Jonson and Spenser and -Massinger have known--its courts and parterres and terraces, where -“Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother,” gathered posies--its far-reaching -lovely landscape, with Penshurst church cropping out near by--blue, hazy -heights off by Tunbridge--lanes bowered with hedge-rows--wide-lying wavy, -grain-fields, and sheep feeding in the hollows of the hills. He was born -heir to all this, I say, and had the best masters, the tenderest and the -worthiest of mothers--who writes to him in this style, - - “Your noble Father hath taken pains, with his own hand, to give - you in this--His Letter--so wise precepts for you to follow - with a diligent mind, as I will not withdraw your eyes from - beholding, and reverent honoring the same--no, not so long a - time as to read any letter from me: Wherefor--I only bless - you--with my desire to God to plant in you his grace, and have - always before your mind the excellent councils of my Lord, your - dear Father: Farewell, my little Philip; and, once again, the - Lord bless you! - - “Your loving mother, - - “MARIE SIDNEY.” - -Ought not a boy, with such a mother, and Penshurst in prospect, and -cousinly relations with the Talbots and Howards and Stanleys to be -gentlemanly and amiable? Then--his great-uncle--Leicester (who is -Chancellor of the University) writes up to Oxford, where young Sidney -is reading for his degree--“Pray have my boy, Philip Sidney, who is -delicate, excused from fasting during Lent.” And there is a plot afoot -to marry this young Oxford man to Anne, daughter of that Lord Burleigh I -told you of, and there are letters about the negotiation still extant. -Would you like to hear how Lord Burleigh discusses his daughter’s affairs? - - “I have been pressed,” he says, “with kind offers of my lord - of Leicester, and have accorded with him, upon articles (by - a manner of A. B. C.) without naming persons--that--if P. S. - and A. C. hereafter shall like to marry, then shall H. S. - (father of P. S.) make assurances, etc., and W. C. [that’s Lord - Burleigh] father of A. C. shall pay, etc.: What may follow, - I know not: but meanwhile P. S. and A. C. shall have full - liberty.” - -What did follow was, that old Burleigh thought better of it, and married -his daughter to a bigger title--that is Lord Oxford, a learned and -elegant, but brutal man, who broke poor Anne Cecil’s heart. - -Sidney, after his Oxford course, and another at Cambridge (as some -authorities say) went--as was the further mode--upon his travels: -and goes, with the same golden luck upon him, to the great house of -Walsingham, ambassador of England, in Paris. Why not be gentle? What is -to provoke? It is quite a different thing--as many another Cambridge -man knew (Spenser among them), to be gentle and bland and forbearing, -when illness seizes, when poverty pinches, when friends backslide, -when Heaven’s gates seem shut;--then, amiability and gentleness and -forbearance are indeed crowning graces, and will unlock, I think, a good -many of the doors upon the courts, where the weary shall be at rest. - -Sidney is at Paris when that virago Catharine de’ Medici was lording -it over her sons, and over France;--there, too, as it chanced, through -the slaughter of St. Bartholomew’s day, from which bloody holocaust he -presently recoils, and continues his travel over the Continent, writing -very charming, practical letters to his younger brother Robert: - - “You think my experience,” he says, “has grown from the good - things I have learned: but I know the only experience which I - have gotten is, to find how much I _might_ have learned and how - much indeed I have missed--for want of directing my course to - the right end and by the right means.” And again he tells him, - “not to go travel--as many people do--merely out of a tickling - humor to do as other men have done, or to talk of having been.” - -He goes leisurely into Italy--is for some time at the famous University -of Padua; he is in Venice too during the great revels which were had -there in 1574, in honor of Henry III. (of France). The Piazza of San -Marco was for days and nights together a blaze of light and of splendor: -what a city to visit for this young Briton, who came accredited by -Elizabeth and by Leicester! The palaces of the Foscari and of the -Contarini would be open to him; the younger Aldus Manutius was making -imprints of the classics that would delight his eye; the temple fronts -of Palladio were in their first freshness: Did he love finer forms of -art--the great houses were rich in its trophies: the elder Palma and -Tintoretto were still at work: even the veteran Titian was carrying -his ninety-eight years with a stately stride along the Rivi of the -canal: if he loved adventure, the Venetian ladies were very beautiful, -and the masks of the Ridotto gave him the freedom of their smiles; the -escapade of Bianca Capello was a story of only yesterday; and for other -romance--the air was full of it; snatches from Tasso’s _Rinaldo_[94] -were on the lips of the gondoliers, and poetic legends lurked in every -ripple of the sea that broke upon the palace steps. It is said that -Sidney was painted in Venice by Paul Veronese; and if one is cunning -in those matters he may be able to trace the likeness of the heir of -Penshurst in some one of those who belong to the great groups of noble -men and women which the Veronese has left upon the walls of the Ducal -Palace. - -In 1575 he came home, with all the polish that European courts and -European culture could give him. We may be sure that he paid dainty -compliments to the Queen--then in the full bloom of womanhood: we may -be sure that she devoured them all with a relish that her queenliness -could not wholly conceal. He won his sobriquet of “The Gentleman” in -these times; elegantly courteous; saying the right thing just when he -should say it:--perhaps too elegantly courteous--too insistent that even -a “Good-morning” should be spoken at precisely the right time, and in -the right key--too observant of the starched laws of a deportment that -chills by its own consciousness of unvarying propriety, as if--well, I -had almost said--as if he had been born in Boston. His favorite sister -meantime has married one of the Pembrokes, and has a princely place -down at Wilton, near Salisbury (now another haunt of pleasure-seekers). -Sidney was often there; and he wrote for this cherished sister his book, -or poem--(call it how we will) of _Arcadia_; writing it, as he says, -off-hand--and without re-reading--sheet by sheet, for her pleasure: I am -sorry he ever said this; it provokes hot-heads to a carelessness that -never wins results worth winning. Indeed I think Sidney put more care to -his _Arcadia_ than he confessed; though it is true, he expressed the wish -on his deathbed, that it should never be printed. - -Shall I tell you anything of it--that it is an Allegory--shaped in fact -after a famous Italian poem of the same name--that few people now read -it continuously; that it requires great pluck to do so; and yet that -no one can dip into it--high or low--without finding rich euphuisms, -poetic symphonies, noble characters, dexterous experimentation in -verse--iambics, sapphics, hexameters, all interlaced with a sonorous -grandiloquence of prose--a curious medley, very fine, and _very_ dull? -When published after his death it ran through edition after edition, and -young wives were gravely cautioned not to spend too much time over that -cherished volume. His little book of the _Defence of Poesie_, which he -also wrote down at Wilton, appeals more nearly to our sympathies, and -may be counted still a good and noble argument for the Art of Poetry. -And Sidney gave proof of his skill in that art, far beyond anything in -the _Arcadia_--in some of those amatory poems under title of _Astrophel -and Stella_, which were supposed to have grown out of his fruitless love -for Penelope Devereux, to which I made early reference. I cite a single -sonnet that you may see his manner:-- - - “_Stella_, think not, that I by verse seek fame, - Who seek, who hope, who love, who live--but thee; - Thine eyes my pride, thy lips mine history. - If thou praise not, all other praise is shame, - Nor so ambitious am I as to frame - A nest for my young praise in laurel tree; - In truth I vow I wish not there should be - Graved in my epitaph, a Poet’s name. - Nor, if I would, could I just title make - That any laud thereof, to me should grow - Without--my plumes from other wings I take-- - For nothing from _my_ wit or will doth flow - Since all my words _thy_ beauty doth indite, - And Love doth hold my hand, and _make_ me write.” - -But it is, after all, more his personality than his books that draws -our attention toward him, amid that galaxy of bright spirits which is -gathering around the court of Elizabeth. In all the revels, and the -pageants of the day the eyes of thousands fasten upon his fine figure -and his noble presence. Though Scott--singularly enough--passes him by -without mention, he is down at Kenilworth, when the ambitious Leicester -turns his castle-gardens into a Paradise to welcome his sovereign. When -he goes as ambassador to Rudolph of Germany, he hangs golden blazonry -upon the walls of his house: Englishmen, everywhere, are proud of this -fine gentleman, Sidney, who can talk in so many languages, who can turn a -sonnet to a lady’s eyebrow, who can fence with the best swordsmen of any -court, who can play upon six instruments of music, who can outdance even -his Grace of Anjou. His death was in keeping with his life; it happened -in the war of the Low Countries, and was due to a brilliant piece of -bravado; he and his companions fighting (as at Balaclava in the Charge -of the Light Brigade) where there was little hope of conquest. All round -them--in front--in rear--in flank--the arquebuses and the cannon twanged -and roared. They beat down the gunners; they sabred the men-at-arms; -thrice and four times they cut red ways through the beleaguering enemy; -but at last, a cruel musket-ball came crashing through the thigh of this -brave, polished gentleman--Philip Sidney--and gave him his death-wound. -Twenty-five days he lingered, saying brave and memorable things--sending -courteous messages, as if the sheen of royalty were still upon him--doing -tender acts for those nearest him, and dying, with a great and a most -worthy calm. - -We may well believe that the Queen found somewhat to wipe from her cheek -when the tale came of the death of “my Philip,” the pride of her court. -Leicester, too, must have minded it sorely: and of a surety Spenser in -his far home of Kilcolman; writing there, maybe--by the Mulla shore--his -apostrophe to Sidney’s soul, so full of his sweetness and of his -wonderful word-craft:-- - - “Ah me, can so Divine a thing be dead? - Ah no: it is not dead, nor can it die - But lives for aye in Blissful Paradise: - Where, like a new-born Babe, it soft doth lie - In bed of Lilies, wrapped in tender wise - And compassed all about with Roses sweet - And dainty violets, from head to feet. - There--thousand birds, all of celestial brood - To him do sweetly carol, day and night - And with strange notes--of him well understood - Lull him asleep in angelic Delight - Whilst in sweet dreams, to him presented be - Immortal beauties, which no eye may see.” - -Two black palls fling their shadows on the court of Elizabeth in 1587: -Sidney died in October of 1586; and in the following February Mary -Queen of Scots was beheaded. The next year the Spanish Armada is swept -from the seas, and all England is given up to rejoicings. And as we -look back upon this period and catch its alternating light and shade -on the pages of the historians and in the lives of English poets and -statesmen, the great Queen, in her ruff and laces, and with her coronet -of jewels, seems somehow, throughout all, the central figure. We see -Raleigh the Captain of her Guard--the valiant knight, the scholar, the -ready poet--but readiest of all to bring his fine figure and his stately -gallantries to her court: We see Sir Francis Drake, with his full beard -and bullet-head--all browned with his long voyages, from which he has -come laden with ingots of Spanish gold--swinging with his sailor-gait -into her august presence: We catch sight of Lord Burleigh, feeble now -with the weight of years, leading up that young nephew of his--Francis -Bacon, that he may kiss the Queen’s hand and do service for favors which -shall make him in time Lord Chancellor of England. Perhaps the rash, -headstrong Oxford may be in presence, whose poor wife was once the -affianced of Sidney: And the elegant Lord Buckhurst, decorous with the -white hair of age, who, in his younger days, when plain Thomas Sackville, -had contributed the best parts to the _Mirror for Magistrates_: Richard -Hooker, too, may be there--come up from the “peace and privacy” of his -country parsonage--in his sombre clerical dress, bent with study, but -in the prime of his age and power, with the calm face and the severe -philosophy with which he has confronted a termagant of a wife and the -beginnings of Dissent. And, if not in this presence, yet somewhere in -London might have been found, in that day, a young man, not much past -twenty--just up from Stratford-upon-Avon--to take his part in playing at -the Globe Theatre; yet not wholly like other players. Even now, while -all these worthies are gathering about the august Queen in her brilliant -halls at Greenwich or at Hampton Court, this young Stratford man may -be seated upon the steps of Old St. Paul’s--with his chin upon his -hand--looking out on the multitudinous human tide, which even then swept -down Ludgate Hill, and meditating the speeches of those shadowy courtiers -of his--only creatures of his day-dreams; yet they are to carry his -messages of wisdom into all lands and languages. - -But I must shut the books where I see these figures come and go. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - - -As we open our budget to-day, we are still under kingship of the great -Queen Bess, in whose presence we saw the portentous Lord Burleigh, whose -nod has passed into history; we saw, too, in our swift way, the wise, the -judicious, the simple-minded, the mismarried Richard Hooker. We called -Spenser before us, and had a taste of those ever-sweet poems of his--ever -sweet, though ever so long. Then his friend Philip Sidney flashed across -our view, the over-fine gentleman, yet full of nobility and courage, who -wrote a long book, _Arcadia_, so bright with yellow splendor as to tire -one; and still so full of high thinking as to warrant his fame and to -lend a halo to his brave and tragic death. You may remember, too, that -I made short mention of a certain John Lyly, who was about the same age -with Spenser, and who, with his pretty euphuisms came to cut a larger -figure in the days of Elizabeth than many stronger men did. - - -_John Lyly._ - -I recur to him now and tell you more of him, because he did in his time -set a sort of fashion in letters. He was an Oxford man,[95] born down in -Kent, and at twenty-five, or thereabout, made his fame by a book, which -grew out of suggestions (not only of name but largely of intent and -purpose) in the _Schoolmaster_ of Roger Ascham; and thus it happens over -and over in the fields of literature, that a plodding man will drop from -his store a nugget, over which some fellow of lively parts will stumble -into renown. - -The book I refer to was called _Euphues, or the Anatomy of Wit_, which -came into such extraordinary favor that he wrote shortly after another, -called _Euphues and his England_. And the fashion that he set, was a -fashion of affectations--of prettinesses of speech--of piling words on -words, daintier and daintier--antithesis upon antithesis, with flavors of -wide reading thrown in, and spangled with classic terms and far-fetched -similes--so that ladies ambitious of literary fame larded their talk with -these fine euphuisms of Mr. Lyly. Something of a coxcomb I think we must -reckon him; we might almost say an Oscar Wilde of letters--posing as -finely and as capable of drawing female shoals in his wake. His strain -for verbal felicities, always noticeable, comparing with good, simple, -downright English, as a dancing-master’s mincing step, compares with the -assured, steady tread of a go-ahead pedestrian, who thinks nothing of -attitudes. Scott, you will remember, sought to caricature the Euphuist, -in a somewhat exaggerated way, in Sir Piercie Shafton, who figures in his -story of the _Monastery_; he himself, however, in the later annotations -of his novel, confesses his failure, and admitted the justice of the -criticism which declared Sir Piercie a bore. Shakespeare, also, at a -time not far removed from Lyly’s conquest, perhaps intended a slap at -the euphuistic craze,[96] in the pedant Schoolmaster’s talk of “Love’s -Labor’s Lost.” - -Yet there was a certain good in this massing of epithets, and in this -tesselated cumulation of nice bits of language, from which the more wary -and skilful of writers could choose--as from a great vocabulary--what -words were cleanest and clearest. Nor do I wish to give the impression -that there were no evidences of thoughtfulness or of good purpose, -under Lyly’s tintinnabulation of words. Hazlitt thought excellently -well of him; and Charles Kingsley, in these later times, has pronounced -extravagant eulogy of him. Indeed he had high moral likings, though his -inspirations are many of them from Plato or Boëthius; it is questionable -also if he did not pilfer from Plutarch; certainly he sugar-coats with -his language a great many heathen pills. - -In observation he is very acute. That _Euphues_ who gives name to his -book, is an Athenian youth of rare parts--“well-constituted” as the Greek -implies--who has lived long in Italy, and who talks in this strain of the -ladies he saw on a visit to England:-- - - “The English Damoiselles have their bookes tied to their - girdles--not feathers--who are as cunning in the Scriptures as - you are in Ariosto or Petrark. It is the most gorgeous court - [of England] that ever I have seene or heard of; but yet do - they not use their apparel so nicely as you in Italy, who - thinke scorne to kneele at service, for fear of wrinckles in - your silk, who dare not lift up your head to heaven, for fear - of rumpling the ruffs in your neck; yet your handes, I confess, - are holden up, rather I thinke, to show your ringes, than to - manifest your righteousness.” - -Elizabeth would have very probably relished this sort of talk, and -have commended the writer in person; nor can there be any doubt that, -in such event, Lyly would have mumbled his thanks in kissing the royal -hands: there are complaining letters of his on the score of insufficient -court patronage, which are not high-toned, and which make us a little -doubtful of a goodly manhood in him. Certainly his deservings were -great, by reason of the plays which he wrote for her Majesty’s Company -of Child-players, and which were acted at the Chapel Royal and in the -palaces. In some of these there are turns of expression and of dramatic -incident which Shakespeare did not hesitate to convert to his larger -purposes; indeed there is, up and down in them, abundance of dainty -word-craft--of ingenuity--of more than Elizabethan delicacy too, and -from time to time, some sweet little lyrical outburst that holds place -still in the anthologies. - -One of these, with which I daresay you may be over-familiar, is worth -quoting again. It is called Apelles’ Song, and it is from the play of -“Alexander and Campaspe:” - - “Cupid and my Campaspe played - At cards for kisses--Cupid paid. - He stakes his quiver, bows and arrows, - His mother’s doves, and team of sparrows: - Loses them too: then down he throws - The coral of his lip--the Rose - Growing on’s cheek (but none knows how); - With these the crystal of his brow, - And then the dimple of his chin-- - All these did my Campaspe win. - At last, he set her both his eyes-- - She won; and Cupid blind did rise. - O Love, has she done this to thee? - What shall, alas! become of me?” - -He puts, too, into imitative jingle of words the song of the -Nightingale--(as Bryant has done for the Bobolink); and of the strain of -the skylark nothing prettier was ever said than Mr. Lyly says: - - “How, at Heaven’s gate she claps her wings, - The morn not waking--till _she_ sings.” - - -_Francis Bacon._ - -We go away from singing skylarks to find the next character that I -shall cull out from these Elizabethan times to set before you: this is -Lord Bacon--or, to give him his true title, Lord Verulam--there being, -in fact, the same impropriety in saying Lord Bacon (if custom had not -“brazed it so”) that there would be in saying Lord D’Israeli for Lord -Beaconsfield. - -Here was a great mind--a wonderful intellect which everyone admired, -and in which everyone of English birth, from Royalty down, took--and -ever will take--a national pride; but, withal, few of those amiabilities -ever crop out in this great character which make men loved. He can see -a poor priest culprit come to the rack without qualms; and could look -stolidly on, as Essex, his special benefactor in his youth, walked to -the scaffold; yet the misstatement of a truth, with respect to physics, -or any matter about which truth or untruth was clearly demonstrable, -affected him like a galvanic shock. His biographers, Montagu and -Spedding, have padded his angularities into roundness; while Pope and -Macaulay have lashed him in the grave. I think we must find the real man -somewhere between them; if we credit him with a great straight-thinking, -truth-seeking brain, and little or no capacity for affection, the riddle -of his strange life will be more easily solved. Spedding,[97] who wrote -a voluminous life of Bacon--having devoted a quarter of a century to -necessary studies--does certainly make disastrous ripping-up of the seams -in Macaulay’s rhetoric; but there remain certain ugly facts relating to -the trial of Essex, and the bribe-takings, which will probably always -keep alive in the popular mind an under-current of distrust in respect to -the great Chancellor. - -He was born in London, in 1561, three years before Shakespeare, and at -a time when, from his father’s house in the Strand he could look sheer -across the Thames to Southwark, where, before he was thirty, the Globe -Theatre was built, in which Shakespeare acted. He was in Paris when his -father died; there is no grief-stricken letter upon the event, but a -curious mention that he had dreamed two nights before how his father’s -house was covered with black mortar--so intent is he on mental processes. - -He had a mother who was pious, swift-thoughted, jealous, imperious, -unreasonable, with streaks of tenderness. - - “Be not speedy of speech,” she says in one of her letters--“nor - talk suddenly, but when discretion requireth, and that soberly - then. Remember you have no father; and you have little - enough--if not too little, regarded your kind, _no-simple_ - mother’s wholesome advice.” - - And again: “Look well to your health; sup not, nor sit not up - late; surely I think your drinking near to bedtime hindereth - your and your brother’s digestion very much: I never knew any - but sickly that used it; besides ill for head and eyes.” And - again, in postscript: “I trust you, with yr servants, use - prayers twice in a day, having been where reformation is. Omit - it not for any.” - -And he responds with ceremony, waiving much of her excellent advice, and -sometimes suggesting some favor she can do him,-- - - “It may be I shall have occasion to visit the Court this - Vacation [he being then at Gray’s Inn], which I have not done - this months space. In which respect, because carriage of stuff - to and fro spoileth it, I would be glad of that light bed - of striped stuff which your Ladyship hath, if you have not - otherwise disposed it.” - -Sharpish words, too, sometimes pass between them; but he is always -decorously and untouchingly polite. - -Indeed his protestations of undying friendship to all of high station, -whom he addresses unctuously, are French in their amplitude, and French, -too, in their vanities. He presses sharply always toward the great end -of self-advancement--whether by flatteries, or cajolement, or direct -entreaty. He believed in the survival of the fittest; and that the -fittest should struggle to make the survival good--no matter what weak -ones, or timid ones, or confiding ones, or emotional ones should go -to the wall, or the bottom, in the struggle. His flatteries, I think, -never touched the Queen, though he tried them often and gave a lurid -color to his flatteries. She admired his parts as a young man; she had -honored his father; she accepted his services with thanks--even the -dreadful services which he rendered in demonstrating the treason of -the gallant and generous, but headstrong Earl of Essex. He never came -into full possession of royal confidences, however, until James I. came -to the throne: by him he was knighted, by him made Lord Chancellor, by -him elevated to the peerage; and it was under him that he was brought -to trial for receiving bribes--was convicted, despoiled of his judicial -robes, went to prison--though it might be only for a day--and thereafter -into that retirement, at once shameful and honorable, where he put the -last touches to those broad teachings of “Philosophy,” which the world -will always cherish and revere: not the first nor the last instance in -which great and fatal weaknesses have been united to great power and -great accomplishment. - -But lest you may think too hardly of this eminent man, a qualifying word -must be said of that stain upon him--of receiving bribes: it was no -uncommon thing for high judicial personages to take gifts; no uncommon -thing for all high officers of the Government--nay, for the Government -itself, as typified in its supreme head. And, strange as it may seem, -Bacon’s sense of justice does not appear to have been swayed by the -gifts he took. Spedding has demonstrated, I think, that no judgment he -rendered was ever reversed by subsequent and farther hearing.[98] He was -not in the ordinary sense a money-lover; but he did love the importance -and consideration which money gave, yet was always in straits; and -those unwise receivings of his went to supply the shortcomings in a -very extravagant and disorderly home-life. His servants plundered him; -his tradespeople fleeced him; nor do I think that the mistress of the -Chancellor’s household was either very wary or very winning. Almost the -only time there is mention of her in his letters occurs previous to his -marriage (which did not take place till he was well in middle age), and -then only as “the daughter of an alderman who will bring a good dot” with -her. His mother-in-law, too, appears to have been of the stage sort of -mother-in-law, whom he addresses (by letter) in this fashion:-- - - “Madam,” he says, “you shall with right good-will be made - acquainted with anything that concerneth your daughters, if you - bear a mind of love and concord: Otherwise you must be content - to be a stranger to us. For I may not be so unwise as to suffer - you to be an author or occasion of dissension between your - daughters and their husbands; having seen so much misery of - that kind in yourself.” - -This looks a little as if the mother-in-law found the “grapes sour” in -the Bacon gardens. I do not think there was much domesticity about him, -even if home influences had encouraged it: he was without children, -and not one to read poetry to his wife in a boudoir; yet his essays -concerning marriage and concerning children and concerning friendship and -concerning extravagance, are full of piquant truths. - -Indeed two distinct lines of life ran through the career of this -extraordinary man. In one he loved parade, ceremony, glitter; he stooped -ungraciously to those who ranked him in factitious distinctions; was -profuse and heartless in his adulation; taking great gifts with servile -acknowledgment; shunning friends who were falling; courting enemies who -were rising: and yet through all this, and looking out from the same -keen inscrutable eyes was the soul of a philosopher cognizant of all -humanities, searching sharply after the largest and broadest truths; too -indifferent to small ones; weighing his own shortcomings with bitter -remorse; alive to everything in science that should help the advancement -of the world, and absorbed in high ranges of thinking which the -animosities and cares and criminalities and accidents of every-day life -did not seem to reach or to disturb. - -In such mood he wrote those essays, of some of which I have -spoken--wonderfully compact of thought, and as wonderfully compact of -language--which one should read and read again. No private library of a -hundred English books is complete without a copy of Bacon’s Essays. The -keen sagacity and perdurable sense of his observations always engage one. -Thus of Travel, he says,-- - - “Let him [the Traveller] sequester himself from the company of - his countrymen, and diet in such places where there is good - company of the nation where he travelleth. He that travelleth - into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, - goeth to school and not to travel.” - - Of Friendship:--“This communicating of a man’s self to his - friend, works two contrary efforts; for it redoubleth joys - and cutteth griefs in halves.” Again, of the advantages of - talk with a friend:--“Certain it is, that whosoever hath his - mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do - clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with - another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth - them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned - into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself: and that - more by an hours discourse than by a days meditation.” - -Thus I could go on for page after page of citations which you would -approve, and which are so put in words that no mending or shortening -or deepening of their force seems anyway possible. And yet this book -of Essays--with all its sagacities, its ringing terseness, its stanch -worldly wisdom--is one we do not warm toward. Even when he talks of -friendship or marriage, death or love, a cold line of self-seeking -pervades it. Of sacrifice for love’s sake, for friendship’s sake, or -for charity’s sake, there is nothing; and in that Essay on “Parents and -Children”--what iciness of reflection--of suggestion! A man might talk as -Bacon talks there, of the entries in a “Herd-book.” - -As for the _Novum Organum_ and the _Augmentis Scientiarum_--you would -not read them if I were to suggest it: indeed, there is no need for -reading them, except as a literary _excursus_, seeing that they have -wrought their work in breaking up old, slow modes of massing knowledge, -and in pouring light upon new ways;--in serving, indeed, so far as their -reach went, as a great logical lever, by which subsequent inquirers have -prised up a thousand hidden knowledges and ways of knowledge to the -comprehension and cognizance of the world. - -And the two lines of life in Francis Bacon were joined by a strange -hyphen at last: He got out of his coach (which was not paid for), and in -his silk stockings walked through the snow, to prosecute some scientific -post-mortem experiment upon the body of a chicken he had secured by -the roadside, near to London. He caught cold--as lesser men would -have done; and he died of it. This date of his death (1626) brings us -beyond Elizabeth’s time--beyond James’ time, too, and far down to the -early years of Charles I. He was born, as I said, three years before -Shakespeare, three years after Elizabeth came to the throne; and the -_Novum Organum_ was published in the same year in which the Pilgrims -landed at Plymouth Rock--a convenient peg on which to hang the date of -two great events. - -He was buried in the old town of St. Alban’s, of whose antiquities I have -already spoken, and near to which Gorhambury, the country home of Bacon, -was situated. The town and region are well worth a visit: and it is one -of the few spots whither one can still go by a well-appointed English -stage-coach with sleek horses--four-in-hand, which starts every morning -in summer from the White Horse Cellar, in Piccadilly, and spins over the -twenty miles of intervening beautiful road (much of it identical with the -old Roman Watling Street) in less than two hours and a half. The drive -is through Middlesex, and into “pleasant Hertfordshire,” where the huge -Norman tower of the old abbey buildings, rising from the left bank of the -Ver, marks the town of St. Alban’s. The tomb and monument of Bacon are in -the Church of St. Michael’s: there is still an Earl of Verulam presiding -over a new Gorhambury House; and thereabout, one may find remnants of the -old home of the great Chancellor and some portion of the noble gardens -in which he took so much delight, and in which he wandered up and -down, in peaked hat and in ruff, and with staff--pondering affairs of -State--possibly meditating the while upon that most curious and stately -Essay of his upon “Gardens,” which opens thus:-- - - “God Almighty first planted a garden. And, indeed, it is the - purest of human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to - the spirits of man, without which building and palaces are but - gross handyworks: and a man shall ever see, that when ages - grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build stately, - sooner than to garden finely; as if gardening were the greater - perfection.” - -Surely, we who grow our own salads and “graff” our own pear-trees may -take exaltation from this: and yet I do not believe that the great -Chancellor ever put his hand, laboringly, to a rake-stave: but none -the less, he snuffed complacently the odor of his musk-roses and his -eglantine, and looked admiringly at his clipped walls of hedges. - - -_Thomas Hobbes._ - -There used to come sometimes to these gardens of Gorhambury, in Bacon’s -day, a young man--twenty years his junior--of a strangely subtle -mind, who caught so readily at the great Chancellor’s meaning, and was -otherwise so well instructed that he was employed by him in some clerical -duties. His name was Thomas Hobbes; and it is a name that should be -known and remembered, because it is identified with writings which had -as much influence upon the current of thought in the middle of the next -century (the seventeenth) as those of Herbert Spencer have now, and for -somewhat similar reasons. He was a very free thinker, as well as a deep -one; keeping, from motives of policy, nominally within Church lines, yet -abhorred and disavowed by Church-teachers; believing in the absolute -right of kings, and in self-interest as the nucleus of all good and -successful schemes for the conduct of life; weighing relations to the -future and a Supreme Good (if existing) with a trader’s prudence, and -counting Friendship “a sense of social utility.” His theory of government -was--a crystallization of forces, coming about regularly by the prudent -self-seeking of individuals. Of divine or spiritual influences he does -not take any sympathetic cognizance; hard, cold, calculating; not -inspiring, not hopeful; feeding higher appetites on metaphysic husks. - -Of his Deism I give this exhibit:-- - - “Forasmuch as God Almighty is incomprehensible, it followeth - that we can have no conception or image of the Deity; and - consequently, all his attributes signify our inability and - defect of power to conceive anything concerning his nature, - and not any conception of the same, except only this--that - there is a God. For the effects, we acknowledge naturally, do - include a power of their producing, before they were produced; - and that power presupposeth something existent that hath such - power: and the thing so existing with power to produce, if it - were not eternal, must needs have been produced by somewhat - before it; and that, again, by something else before that, - till we come to an eternal (that is to say, the first) Power - of all Powers, and first Cause of all Causes; and this is it - which all men conceive by the name GOD, implying eternity, - incomprehensibility, and omnipotency. And thus all that will - consider may know that God is, though not _what_ he is.” - -Cribbing his emotional nature (if he ever had any), he yet writes with -wonderful directness, perspicacity, and _verve_--making “Hobbism” talked -of, as Spencerism is talked of. Indeed, one does not see clearly how -any man, flinging only his bare hook of logic and his sinker of reason -into the infinite depths around us, can fish up anything of a helpfully -spiritual sort much better than Hobbism now. - -He was specially befriended by the Cavendishes, having once been tutor to -a younger scion of that distinguished family; and so he came to pass his -latest years in their princely home of Chatsworth, humored by the Duke, -and treated by the Duchess as a pet bear--to be regularly fed and not -provoked; climbing the Derbyshire hills of a morning, dining at mid-day, -and at candle-lighting retiring to his private room to smoke his twelve -pipes of tobacco (his usual allowance) and to follow through the smoke -his winding trails of thought.[99] - -He lived to the extreme age of ninety-two, thus coming well down into the -times of Charles II., who used to say of him that “he was a bear against -whom the Church played her young dogs to exercise them.” He lived and -died a bachelor, not relishing society in general, and liking only such -shrewd acute friends as could track him in his subtleties, who had the -grace to applaud him, and the wise policy of concealing their antagonisms. - -He is not much cited now in books, nor has his name association with any -of those felicities of literature which exude perennial perfumes. He was -careless of graces; he stirred multitudes into new trains of thought; he -fed none of them with any of the minor and gracious delights of learning. -Perhaps he is best known in literary ways proper by a close and lucid -translation of the _History_ of Thucydides, which I believe is still -reckoned by scholars a good rendering of the Greek.[100] - -He ventured, too, upon verse in praise of Derbyshire and of the valley -of the Derwent, but it is not rich or beautiful. A man who keeps -his emotional nature in a strait-jacket--for security or for other -purpose--may make catalogues of trees, or of summer days; but he cannot -paint the lilies or a sunrise. A translation of Homer which he undertook -and accomplished, when over eighty, was just as far from a success, and -for kindred reasons. - - -_George Chapman._ - -There was, however, another translation of Homer about those times, or a -little earlier, which was of much rarer quality, and which has not lost -its rare flavors even now. I speak of George Chapman’s. It is not so -true to the Greek as Hobbes’ Thucydides; indeed not true at all to the -words, but true to the spirit; and in passages where the translator’s -zeal was aflame catching more of the dash, and abounding flow, and brazen -resonance of the old Greek poet than Pope, or Cowper, Derby, or Bryant. - -The literalists will never like him, of course; he drops words that worry -him--whole lines indeed with which he does not choose to grapple; he adds -words, too--whole lines, scenes almost; there is vulgarity sometimes, and -coarseness; he calls things by their old homely names; there is no fine -talk about the chest or the abdomen, but the Greek lances drive straight -through the ribs or to the navel, and if a cut be clean and large--we -are not told of crimson tides--but the blood gurgles out in great gouts -as in a slaughter-house; there may be over-plainness, and over-heat, -and over-stress; but nowhere weakness; and his unwieldly, staggering -lines--fourteen syllables long--forge on through the ruts which the -Homeric chariots have worn, bouncing and heaving and plunging and -jolting, but always lunging forward with their great burden of battle, of -brazen shields, and ponderous war-gods. I hardly know where to cut into -the welter of his long lines for sample, but in all parts his brawny pen -declares itself. Take a bit from that skrimmage of the Sixteenth Book -where-- - - “The swift Meriones - Pursuing flying Acamas, just as he got access - To horse and chariot--overtook, and dealt him such a blow - On his right shoulder that he left his chariot, and did strow - The dusty earth: life left limbs, and night his eyes possessed. - Idomeneus his stern dart at Erymas addressed, - As--like to Acamas--he fled; it cut the sundry bones - Beneath his brain, betwixt his neck and foreparts, and so runs, - Shaking his teeth out, through his mouth, his eyes all drowned in blood; - So through his nostrils and his mouth, that now dart-open stood, - He breathed his spirit.” - -And again that wonderful duel between Patroclus and the divine Sarpedon: - - “Down jumped he from his chariot, down leaped his foe as light, - And as, on some far-looking rock, a cast of vultures fight, - --Fly on each other, strike and truss--part, meet, and then stick by, - Tug, both with crooked beaks and seres, cry, fight, and fight and cry; - So fiercely fought these angry kings, and showed as bitter galls.” - -What a description this old Chapman would have made of a tug at foot-ball! - -Another fragment I take from the Twenty-first Book, where the River God -roars and rages in the waters of Scamander against Achilles: - - ----“Then swell’d his waves, then rag’d, then boil’d again - Against Achilles, up flew all, and all the bodies slain - In all his deeps, of which the heaps made bridges to his waves - He belch’d out, roaring like a bull. The unslain yet he saves - In his black whirl-pits, vast and deep. A horrid billow stood - About Achilles. On his shield the violence of the Flood - Beat so, it drove him back, and took his feet up, his fair palm - Enforc’d to catch into his stay a broad and lofty elm, - Whose roots he tossed up with his hold, and tore up all the shore.” - -When any of us can make as spirited a translation as that, I think we can -stand a scolding from the teachers for not being literal. George Chapman -lived a very long life, and did other things worthily; wrote a mass of -dramas[101]--but not of the very best; they belong to the class of plays -those people talk of who want to talk of things nobody has read. I think -better and richer things are before us. - - -_Marlowe._ - -Did it ever happen to you to read upon a summer’s day that delightful -old book--of a half century later--called _The Complete Angler_; and -do you remember how, on a certain evening when the quiet Angler had -beguiled himself with loitering under beech-trees and watching the -lambs and listening to the birds, he did encounter, in an adjoining -field, a handsome milkmaid, who lifted up her voice--which was like a -nightingale’s--to an old-fashioned song, beginning?-- - - “Come live with me and be my love, - And we will all the pleasures prove - That valleys, groves, or hills, or field - Or woods, or steepy mountains yield-- - - And I will make thee beds of roses - And then a thousand fragrant posies - A cap of flowers and a kirtle - Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.” - -Well, that song of the milkmaid, with its setting of verdant meads and -silver streams and honeysuckle hedges keeps singing itself in a great -many ears to-day: And it was written by Christopher Marlowe,[102] one -of the most harum-scarum young dare-devils of Elizabethan times. He was -born in the same year with Shakespeare--down in Canterbury, or near by -(whither we saw St. Augustine carrying Christian crosses)--was son of -a shoemaker who lived thereabout, yet came somehow to be a Cambridge -man, drifted thereafter to London--full of wit and words of wantonness; -developing early; known for a tragedy that caught the ear of the town -six years before Shakespeare had published the “Venus and Adonis.” He was -an actor, too, as so many of the dramatic wits of that day were--maybe -upon the same boards where Shakespeare was then certainly a mender, if -not a maker of parts. Did they hobnob together? Did they compare plots? -If we only knew: but we do not. - -The critics of the days closely succeeding said he would have rivalled -Shakespeare if he had lived: Doubtless he would have brought more -learning to the rivalry; perhaps an equal wit--maybe an even greater -rhythmic faculty and as dauntless and daring imaginative power; but -dignity and poise of character were not in him. He died--stabbed--in a -drunken brawl before he was thirty.[103] In his tragedies--if you read -them--you will find the beat and flow and rhythm--to which a great -many of the best succeeding English tragedies were attuned. He scored -first upon British theatre-walls, with fingers made tremulous by tavern -orgies, a great sampler of dramatic story, by which scores of succeeding -play-writers set their copy; but into these copies many and many a one -of lesser power put a grace, a tenderness, and a dignity which never -belonged to the half-crazed and short-lived Marlowe. You will remember -him best perhaps as the author of the pleasant little madrigal of which -I cited a verselet; and if you value the delicatest of description, you -will relish still more his unfinished version of the Greek story of “Hero -and Leander”--a pregnant line of which-- - - “who ever loved that loved not at first sight” - ---has the abiding honor of having been quoted by Shakespeare in his play -of “As You Like It.” - -I leave Marlowe--citing first a beautiful bit of descriptive verse from -his “Hero and Leander:”-- - - “At Sestos Hero dwelt: Hero the fair, - Whom young Apollo courted for her hair, - And offered as a dower his burning throne, - Where she should sit for men to gaze upon. - The outside of her garments were of lawn, - --The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn. - - Upon her head she wore a myrtle wreath - From thence her veil reached to the ground beneath; - Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves, - Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives; - Many would praise the sweet smell, as she past, - When ’twas the odor that her breath forth cast; - And there_for_ honey-bees have sought in vain - And beat from thence, have lighted there again. - About her neck hung chains of pebble stone, - Which, lighted by her neck, like diamonds shone. - She wore no gloves; for neither sun nor wind - Would burn or parch her hands, but, to her mind; - Or warm, or cool them; for they took delight - To play upon those hands, they were so white. - - Some say, for her the fairest Cupid pin’d - And, looking in her face, was strooken blind. - But this is true; so like was one the other, - As he imagined Hero was his mother: - And often-times into her bosom flew, - About her naked neck his bare arms threw, - And laid his childish head upon her breast - And, with still panting rock’t, there took his rest.” - -I think all will agree that this is very delicately done. - - -_A Tavern Coterie._ - -But let us not forget where we are, and where we are finding such men and -such poems: we are in London and are close upon the end of the sixteenth -century; there are no morning newspapers; these came long afterward; but -the story of such a death as that of Marlowe, stabbed in the eye--maybe -by his own dagger--would spread from tongue to tongue; (possibly one -of his horrific dramas had been played that very day): certainly the -knowledge of it would come quick to all his boon friends--actors, -writers, wits--who were used to meet, maybe at the Falcon on Bankside, or -possibly at the Mermaid Tavern. - -This Mermaid Tavern was a famous place in those and in succeeding days. -It stood on Cheapside (between Friday and Bread Streets) gorgeous with -three ranges of Elizabethan windows, that gave look-out upon an array -of goldsmiths’ shops which shone across the way. It was almost in the -shadow of the Church of St. Mary le Bow, burned in the great fire, but -having its representative tower and spire--a good work of Christopher -Wren--standing thereabout in our time, and still holding out its clock -over the sidewalk. - -And the literary friends who would have gathered in such a place to talk -over the sad happening to Kit Marlowe are those whom it behoves us to -know, at least by name. There, surely would be Thomas Lodge,[104] who -was concerned in the writing of plays; wrote, too, much to his honor, -a certain novel (if we may call it so) entitled _Rosalynde_, from -which Shakespeare took the hint and much of the pleasant machinery for -his delightful drama of “As You Like It.” This Lodge was in his youth -hail fellow with actors who gathered at taverns; and--if not actor -himself--was certainly a lover of their wild ways and their feastings. -He admired _Euphues_ overmuch, was disposed to literary affectations -and alliteration--writing, amongst other things, _A Nettle for Nice -Noses_. He was, too, a man of the world and wide traveller; voyaged -with Cavendish, and was said to be engaged in a British raid upon the -Canaries. In later years he became a physician of soberly habits and much -credit, dying of the plague in 1625. - -Nashe[105] also would have been good mate-fellow with Marlowe; a -Cambridge man this--though possibly “weaned before his time;” certainly -most outspoken, hard to govern, quick-witted, fearless, flinging his -fiery word-darts where he would. Gabriel Harvey, that priggish patron -of Spenser, to whom I have alluded, found this to his cost. Indeed this -satirist came to have the name of the English Aretino--as sharp as he, -and as wild-living, and wild-loving as he. - -Nashe was a native of Lowestoft, on the easternmost point of English -shore, in Suffolk, not far from those potteries (of Gurton) whose old -quaint products collectors still seek for and value. Dr. Grosart, in the -Huth Library, has built a wordy monument to his memory; we do not say it -is undeserved; certainly he had a full brain, great readiness, graphic -power, and deep love for his friends. Like Lodge, he travelled: like him -took to his wits to pay tavern bills; a sharp fellow every way. He lent -a hand, and a strong one, to that tedious, noisy, brawling ecclesiastic -controversy of his day--called the _Mar-Prelate_ one; a controversy full -of a great swash of those prickly, sharp-tasted, biting words--too often -belonging to church quarrels--and which men hardly approach for comment, -even in our time, without getting themselves pricked by contact into -wrathful splutter of ungracious language. - -One may get a true taste (and I think a surfeit) of his exuberance -in epithet, and of his coarse but rasping raillery in his _Pierce -Penilesse_. Here is one of his pleasant lunges at some “Latinless” -critic:--“Let a scholar write and he says--‘Tush, I like not these common -fellows’; let him write well, and he says--‘Tush, it’s stolen out of some -book.’” - -Then there was Robert Greene[106]--a Reverend, but used to tavern -gatherings, and whose story is a melancholy one, and worth a little more -than mere mention. He was a man of excellent family, well nurtured, as -times went; native of the old city of Norwich, in Norfolk; probably -something older than either Marlowe or Shakespeare; studied at St. -John’s, Cambridge--“amongst wags”--he says in his _Repentance_--“as lewd -as myself;” was a clergyman (after a sort); pretty certainly had a church -at one time; married a charming wife in the country, but going up to -that maelstrom of London fell into all evil ways: wrote little poems a -saint might have written, and cracked jokes with his tongue that would -make a saint shudder; deserted his wife and child; became a red-bearded -bully, raging in the taverns, with unkempt hair: Yet even thus and -there (as if all England in those Elizabethan times bloomed with lilies -and lush roses, which lent their perfume to all verse the vilest might -write) inditing poems having a tender pathos, which will live. Take -these verselets for instance; and as you read them, remember that he -had deserted his pure, fond, loving wife and his prattling boy, and was -more deeply sunk in ways of debauchery than any of his fellows; ’tis a -mother’s song to her child:-- - - “Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, - When thou art old, there’s grief enough for thee. - Streaming tears that never stint, - Like pearl-drops from a flint, - Fell by course from his eyes, - That one another’s place supplies. - Thus he grieved in every part, - Tears of blood fell from his heart - When he left his pretty boy, - Father’s sorrow--father’s joy. - The wanton smiled, father wept, - Mother cried, baby leapt; - More he crowed more we cried, - Nature could not sorrow hide; - He must go, he must kiss - Child and mother--baby bless-- - For he left his pretty boy, - Father’s sorrow, father’s joy. - Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, - When thou art old, there’s grief enough for thee.” - -And the poet who wrote this--putting tenderness into poems of the -affections, and a glowing color into pastoral verse, and point and -delicacy into his prose--wrote also _A Groates worth of Wit, bought with -a Million of Repentance_, and he died of a surfeit of pickled herring and -Rhenish wine. - -In that ‘Groat’s worth of Wit’ (published after his death) there is a -memorable line or two--being probably the first contemporary notice of -Shakespeare that still has currency; and it is in the form of a gibe:-- - - “There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that - with his Tygres heart wrapt in a players hide, supposes hee - is as well able to bombast out a blanke-verse as the best of - you; and, being an absolute Johannes-fac-totum, is in his owne - conceyt the onely Shake-Scene in a countrey.” - -How drolly it sounds--to hear this fine fellow, broken up with drink and -all bedevilments, making his envious lunge at the great master who has -perhaps worried him by theft of some of his dramatic methods or schemes, -and who gives to poor Greene one of his largest titles to fame in having -been the subject of his lampoon! - -It gives added importance, too, to this gibe, to know that it was -penned when the writer, impoverished, diseased, deserted by patrons, -saw death fronting him; and it gives one’s heart a wrench to read how -this debauched poet--whose work has given some of the best color to the -“Winter’s Tale” of Shakespeare--writes with faltering hand, begging his -“gentle” wife’s forgiveness, and that she would see that the charitable -host, who has taken him in, for his last illness, shall suffer no -loss--then, toying with the sheets, and “babbling o’ green fields,” he -dies. - -Keen critics of somewhat later days said Shakespeare had Greene’s death -in mind when he told the story of Falstaff’s. - -It is quite possible that all these men I have named will have -encountered, off and on, at their tavern gatherings, the lithe, youngish -fellow, large browed and with flashing eyes, who loves Rhenish too in a -way, but who loves the altitudes of poetic thought better; who is just -beginning to be known poet-wise by his “Venus and Adonis”--whose name is -William Shakespeare--and who has great aptitude at fixing a play, whether -his own or another man’s; and with Burbage for the leading parts, can -make them take wonderfully well. - -Possibly, too, in these tavern gatherings would be the young, boyish -Earl of Southampton, who is associated with some of the many enigmas -respecting Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and whom we Americans ought to know -of, because he became interested thereafter in schemes for colonizing -Virginia, and has left his name of Southampton to one of the Virginia -counties; and, still better, is associated with that beautiful reach of -the Chesapeake waters which we now call “Hampton Roads.” - -In that company too--familiar with London taverns in later Elizabethan -years--the beefy Ben Jonson was sure to appear, with his great shag of -hair, and his fine eye, and his coarse lip, bubbling over with wit and -with Latin: he, quite young as yet; perhaps just now up from Cambridge; -ten years the junior of Shakespeare; and yet by his bulky figure and -doughty air dominating his elders, and sure to call the attention of -all idlers who hung about the doors of the Mermaid. He may be even now -plotting his first play of “Every Man in his Humour,” or that new club of -his and Raleigh’s devising, which is to have its meeting of jolly fellows -in the same old Cheapside tavern, and to make its rafters shake with -their uproarious mirth. For the present we leave them all there--with -a May sun struggling through London fogs, and gleaming by fits and -starts upon the long range of jewellers’ shops, for which Cheapside -was famous--upon the White Cross and Conduit, whereat the shop-girls -are filling their pails--upon the great country wains coming in by -Whitechapel Road--upon the tall spire of St. Mary le Bow, and upon the -diamond panes of the Mermaid tavern, to whose recesses we have just seen -the burly figure of Ben Jonson swagger in. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - - -In opening the preceding chapter I spoke of that dainty John Lyly, who -first set a fashion in letters, and whose daintiness hid much of the -strength and cleverness that were in him: I spoke of the wonderful -twin development of the Lord Chancellor Bacon--selfish and ignoble as -a man, serene and exalted as a philosopher; and I tried to fasten in -the reader’s mind the locality of his tomb and home at the old town of -St. Alban’s--a short coach-ride away from London, down in “pleasant -Hertfordshire:” I spoke of Hobbes (somewhat before his turn) whose -free-thinking--of great influence in its day, and the sharply succeeding -days--is supplemented by more acute and subtle, if not more far-reaching, -free-thinking now. I quoted the Homer of Chapman, under whose long and -staggering lines there burned always true Homeric fire. I cited Marlowe, -because his youth and power promised so much, and the promise so soon -ended in an early and inglorious death. Then came Lodge, Nashe, and -Greene, mates of Marlowe, all well-bred, all having an itch for penwork, -and some of them for the stage; all making rendezvous--what time they -were in London--at some tavern of Bankside, or at the Mermaid, where we -caught a quick glimpse of Ben Jonson, and another of the Stratford player. - - -_George Peele._ - -I might, however, have added to the lesser names that decorated the -closing years of the sixteenth century that of George Peele,[107] of -Devonshire birth, but, like so many of his fellows, a university man: he -came to be a favorite in London; loved taverns and wine as unwisely as -Greene; was said to have great tact for the ordering of showy pageants; -did win upon Queen Elizabeth by his “Arraignment of Paris” (half masque -and half play) represented by the children of the Chapel Royal--and -carrying luscious flattery to the ready ears of Eliza, Queen of-- - - “An ancient seat of Kings, a second Troy, - Y’compassed round with a commanding sea; - Her people are y-clepéd _Angeli_. - This paragon, this only, this is she - In whom do meet so many gifts in one - In honor of whose name the muses sing.” - -Yet even such praises did not keep poor Peele from hard fare and a -stinging lack of money. - -“An Old Wives Tale,” which he wrote, has conjurers and dragons in -it, with odd twists of language which remind one of the kindred and -nonsensical jingle of “Patience” or “Pinafore:”-- - - “Phillida, Philleridos--pamphilida, florida, flortos; - Dub--dub a-dub, bounce! quoth the guns - With a sulpherous huff-snuff!” - -This play is further notable for having supplied much of the motive for -the machinery and movement of Milton’s noble poem of _Comus_. It is worth -one’s while to compare the two. Of course Peele will suffer--as those who -make beginnings always do. - -This writer is said to have been sometime a shareholder with Shakespeare -in the Blackfriars Theatre; he was an actor, too, like his great -contemporary; and besides the plays which carried a wordy bounce in -them, wrote a very tender scriptural drama about King David and the fair -Bethsabe, with charming quotable things in it. Thus-- - - “Bright Bethsabe gives earth to my desires, - Verdure to earth, and to that verdure--flowers; - To flowers--sweet odors, and to odors--wings - That carries pleasure to the hearts of Kings!” - -And again:-- - - “Now comes my lover tripping like the roe, - And brings my longings tangled in her hair - To joy her love, I’ll build a Kingly bower - Seated in hearing of a hundred streams.” - -Tom Campbell said--“there is no such sweetness to be found in our blank -verse anterior to Shakespeare.” And for his lyrical grace I cannot resist -this little show, from his “Arraignment of Paris:”-- - - _Ænone [singeth and pipeth]._ - - “Fair and fair, and twice so fair, - As fair as any may be; - The fairest shepherd on our green, - A love for any lady.” - - _And Paris._ - - “Fair and fair and twice so fair, - As fair as any may be: - Thy love is fair for thee alone - And for no other lady.” - - _Then Ænone._ - - “My love is fair, my love is gay, - As fresh as bin the flowers in May, - And of my love my roundelay, - My merry, merry, merry roundelay, - Concludes with Cupid’s curse, - They that do change old love for new, - Pray Gods, they change for worse!” - - -_Thomas Dekker._ - -Dekker was fellow of Peele and of the rest;[108] he quarrelled bitterly -with Ben Jonson--they beating each other vilely with bad words, that can -be read now (by whoso likes such reading) in the _Poetaster_ of Jonson, -or in the _Satiromastix_ of Dekker. ’Twould be unfair, however, to judge -him altogether by his play of the cudgels in this famous controversy. -There is good meat in what Dekker wrote: he had humor; he had pluck; he -had gift for using words--to sting or to praise--or to beguile one. There -are traces not only of a Dickens flavor in him, but of a Lamb flavor -as well; and there is reason to believe that, like both these later -humorists, he made his conquests without the support of a university -training. Swinburne characterizes him as a “modest, shiftless, careless -nature:” but he was keen to thrust a pin into one who had offended his -sensibilities; in his plays he warmed into pretty lyrical outbreaks, but -never seriously measured out a work of large proportions, or entered upon -execution of such with a calm, persevering temper. He was many-sided, not -only literary-wise, but also conscience-wise. It seems incredible that -one who should write the coarse things which appear in his _Bachelor’s -Banquet_ should also have elaborated, with a pious unction (that reminds -of Jeremy Taylor) the saintly invocations of the _Foure Birds of Noah’s -Ark_: and as for his _Dreame_ it shows in parts a luridness of color -which reminds of our own Wigglesworth--as if this New England poet of -fifty years later may have dipped his brush into the same paint-pot. I -cite a warm fragment from his _Dreame of the Last Judgement_;-- - - “Their cries, nor yelling did the Judge regard, - For all the doores of Mercy up were bar’d: - Justice and Wrath in wrinkles knit his forhead, - And thus he spake: You cursed and abhorred, - You brood of Sathan, sonnes of death and hell, - In fires that still shall burne, you still shall dwell; - In hoopes of Iron: then were they bound up strong, - (Shrikes [shrieks] being the Burden of their dolefull song) - Scarce was Sentence breath’d-out, but mine eies - Even saw (me thought) a Caldron, whence did rise - A pitchy Steeme of Sulphure and thick Smoake, - Able whole coapes of Firmament to choake: - About this, Divels stood round, still blowing the fire, - Some, tossing Soules, some whipping them with wire, - Across the face, as up to th’ chins they stood - In boyling brimstone, lead and oyle, and bloud.” - -It is, however, as a social photographer that I wish to call special -attention to Dekker; indeed, his little touches upon dress, dinners, -bear-baitings, watermen, walks at _Powles_, Spanish boots, tavern -orgies--though largely ironical and much exaggerated doubtless, have -the same elements of nature in them which people catch now with their -pocket detective cameras. His _Sinnes of London_, his answer to _Pierce -Pennilesse_, his _Gull’s Horne Boke_ are full of these sketches. This -which follows, tells how a young gallant should behave himself in an -ordinary:-- - - “Being arrived in the room, salute not any but those of your - acquaintance; walke up and downe by the rest as scornfully and - as carelessly as a Gentleman-Usher: Select some friend (having - first throwne off your cloake) to walke up and downe the roome - with you, … and this will be a meanes to publish your clothes - better than Powles, a Tennis-court, or a Playhouse; discourse - as lowd as you can, no matter to what purpose if you but make - a noise, and laugh in fashion, and have a good sower face to - promise quarrelling, you shall be much observed. - - “If you be a souldier, talke how often you have beene in - action: as the _Portingale_ voiage, Cales voiage, besides some - eight or nine imploiments in Ireland.… And if you perceive that - the untravellᵈ Company about you take this doune well, ply them - with more such stuffe, as how you have interpreted betweene - the French king and a great Lord of Barbary, when they have - been drinking healthes together, and that will be an excellent - occasion to publish your languages, if you have them: if not, - get some fragments of French, or smal parcels of Italian, to - fling about the table: but beware how you speake any Latine - there.” - -And he goes on to speak of the three-penny tables and the twelve-penny -tables, and of the order in which meats should be eaten--all which as -giving glimpses of something like the every-day, actual life of the -ambitious and the talked-of young fellows about London streets and -taverns is better worth to us than Dekker’s dramas. - - -_Michael Drayton._ - -We encounter next a personage of a different stamp, and one who, very -likely, would have shaken his head in sage disapproval of the flippant -advices of Dekker; I refer to Michael Drayton,[109] who wrote enormously -in verse upon all imaginable subjects; there are elegiacs, canzonets, -and fables; there are eclogues, and heroic epistles and legends and -_Nimphidia_ and sonnets. He tells of the Barons’ Wars, of the miseries -of Queen Margaret, of how David killed Goliath, of Moses in the burning -bush--in lines counting by thousands; _Paradise Lost_ stretched six -times over would not equal his pile of print; and all the verse that -Goldsmith ever wrote, compared with Drayton’s portentous mass would -seem like an iridescent bit of cockle-shell upon a sea of ink. This -protracting writer was a Warwickshire man--not a far-off countryman of -Shakespeare, and a year only his senior; a respectable personage, not -joining in tavern bouts, caring for himself and living a long life. His -great poem of _Poly-olbion_ many know by name, and very few, I think, of -this generation ever read through. It is about the mountains, rivers, -wonders, pleasures, flowers, trees, stories, and antiquities of England; -and it is twenty thousand lines long, and every line a long Alexandrine. -Yet there are pictures and prettinesses in it, which properly segregated -and detached from the wordy trails which go before and after them, would -make the fortune of a small poet. There are descriptions in it, valuable -for their utter fidelity and a fulness of nomenclature which keeps -alive pleasantly ancient names. Here, for instance, is a summing up of -old English wild-flowers, where, in his quaint way, he celebrates the -nuptials of the river Thames (who is groom) with the bridal Isis, that -flows by Oxford towers. It begins at the one hundred and fiftieth line of -the fifteenth song of the fiftieth part:-- - - “The Primrose placing first, because that in the Spring - It is the first appears, then only flourishing; - The azuréd Hare-bell next, with them they gently mix’d - T’ allay whose luscious smell, they Woodbine plac’d betwixt; - Amongst those things of scent, there prick they in the Lily, - And near to that again, her sister--Daffodilly - To sort these flowers of show, with th’ other that were so sweet, - The Cowslip then they couch, and the Oxlip, for her meet; - The Columbine amongst, they sparingly do set, - The yellow King-cup wrought in many a curious fret; - And now and then among, of Eglantine a spray, - By which again a course of Lady-smocks they lay; - The Crow-flower, and thereby the Clover-flower they stick, - The Daisy over all those sundry sweets so thick.” - -The garden-flowers follow in equal fulness of array; and get an even -better setting in one of his Nymphals, where they are garlanded about the -head of Tita; and in these pretty Nymphals, and still more in the airy, -fairy _Nymphidia_--with their elfins and crickets and butterflies, one -will get an earlier smack of our own “Culprit Fay.” Those who love the -scents of ancient garden-grounds--as we do--will relish the traces of -garden love in this old Warwickshire man. In his Heroic Epistles, too, -one will find a mastership of ringing couplets: and there are spirit and -dash in that clanging battle ode of his which sets forth the honors -and the daring of Agincourt. Its martial echoes--kept alive by Campbell -(“Battle of the Baltic”) and revived again in Tennyson’s “Balaclava,” -warrant me in citing two stanzas of the original:-- - - “Warwick in blood did wade, - Oxford the foe invade, - And cruel slaughter made - Still as they ran up; - Suffolk his axe did ply, - Beaumont and Willoughby - Bear them right doughtily, - Ferrers and Fanhope. - - “They now to fight are gone; - Armour on armour shone, - Drum now to drum did groan, - To hear, was wonder; - That, with the cries they make, - The very earth did shake, - Trumpet to trumpet spake, - Thunder to thunder.”[110] - - -_Ben Jonson._ - -I now go back to that friend of Drayton’s--Ben Jonson,[111] whom we saw -at the closing of the last chapter going into the tavern of the Mermaid. -He goes there, or to other like places, very often. He is a friend no -doubt of the landlady; he is a friend, too, of all the housemaids, -and talks university chaff to them; a friend, too, of all such male -frequenters of the house as will listen to him, and will never dispute -him; otherwise he is a slang-whanger and a bear. - -He was born, as I have said, some years after Shakespeare, but had roared -himself into the front ranks before the people of London were thoroughly -satisfied that the actor-author of “Richard III.” was a better man than -Ben. Very much of gossip with respect to possible jealousies between -Shakespeare and Ben Jonson may be found in the clumsy, bundled-up life of -the latter by William Gifford.[112] - -Jonson was born probably in the west of London--and born poor; but -through the favor of some friends went to Westminster School, near to -which his step-father, who was a bricklayer, lived: afterward, through -similar favor, he went to Cambridge[113]--not staying very long, -because called home to help that step-father at his bricklaying. But -he did stay long enough to get a thorough taste for learning, and a -thorough grounding in it. So he fretted at the bricks, and ran off and -enlisted--serving a while in the Low Countries, where poor Philip Sidney -met his death, and coming back, a swaggerer, apt with his sword and his -speech, into which he had grafted continentalisms; apt at a quarrel, too, -and comes to fight a duel, and to kill his man.[114] For this he went -to prison, getting material this way--by hard rubs with the world--for -the new work which was ripening in the mind of this actor-author. So, -full of all experiences, full of Latin, full of logic, full of history, -full of quarrel, full of wine (most whiles) this great, beefy man turned -poet. I do not know if you will read--do not think the average reader of -to-day will care to study--his dramas. The stories of them are involved, -but nicely adjusted as the parts of an intricate machine: you will grow -tired, I dare say, of matching part to part; tired of their involutions -and evolutions; tired of the puppets in them that keep the machinery -going; tired of the passion torn to tatters; tired of the unrest and lack -of all repose. Yet there are abounding evidences of wit--of more learning -than in Shakespeare, and a great deal drearier; aptnesses of expression, -too, which show a keen knowledge of word-meanings and of etymologies; -real and deep acquirement manifest, but worn like stiff brocade, or -jingling at his pace, like bells upon the heels of a savage. You wonder -to find such occasional sense of music with such heavy step--such -delicate poise of such gross corporosity. - -He helped some hack-writer to put Bacon’s essays into Latin--not that -Bacon did not know his Latin; but the great chancellor had not time for -the graces of scholastics. Ben wrote an English Grammar, too, which--for -its syntax, so far as one may judge from that compend of it which alone -remains--is as good as almost any man could invent now. Such learning -weighed him down when he put on the buskins, and made the stage tremble -with his heaviness. But when he was at play with letters--when he had -no plot to contrive and fabricate and foster, and no character to -file and finish, and file again, and to fit in with precise order and -methodic juxtaposition--when a mad holiday masque--wild as the “Pirates -of Penzance”--tempted him to break out into song, his verse is rampant, -joyous, exuberant--blithe and dewy as the breath of May-day mornings: See -how a little damsel in the dance of his verse sways and pirouettes-- - - “As if the wind, not she did walk; - Nor pressed a flower, nor bowed a stalk!” - -Then, again, in an Epithalamion of his _Underwoods_, as they were called, -there is a fragment of verse, which, in many of its delicious couplets, -shows the grace and art of Spenser’s wonderful “Epithalamion,” which we -read a little time ago:--He is picturing the bridesmaids strewing the -bride’s path with flowers:-- - - “With what full hands, and in how plenteous showers - Have they bedewed the earth where she doth tread, - As if her airy steps did spring the flowers, - And all the ground were garden, where she led.” - -Such verses do not come often into our newspaper corners, from first -hands: such verses make one understand the significance of that -inscription which came by merest accident to be written on his tomb in -Westminster Abbey--“O rare Ben Jonson!” - -I do not believe I shall fatigue you--and I know I shall keep you in the -way of good things if I give another fragment from one of his festal -operettas;--the “Angel” is describing and symbolizing Truth, in the -_Masque of Hymen_:-- - - “Upon her head she wears a crown of stars, - Thro’ which her orient hair waves to her waist, - By which believing mortals hold her fast, - And in those golden cords are carried even - Till with her breath she blows them up to Heaven. - She wears a robe enchased with eagles’ eyes, - To signify her sight in mysteries; - Upon each shoulder sits a milk-white dove, - And at her feet do witty serpents move; - Her spacious arms do reach from East to west, - And you may see her heart shine thro’ her breast. - Her right hand holds a sun with burning rays - Her left, a curious bunch of golden keys - With which Heaven’s gates she locketh and displays. - A crystal mirror hangeth at her breast, - By which men’s consciences are searched and drest; - On her coach-wheels, Hypocrisy lies racked; - And squint-eyed Slander with Vain glory backed, - Her bright eyes burn to dust, in which shines Fate; - An Angel ushers her triumphant gait, - Whilst with her fingers fans of stars she twists, - And with them beats back Error, clad in mists, - Eternal Unity behind her shines, - That Fire and Water, Earth and Air combines; - Her voice is like a trumpet, loud and shrill, - Which bids all sounds in earth and heaven be still.” - -In that line of work Shakespeare never did a better thing than this. -Indeed, in those days many, perhaps most, people of learning and culture -thought Ben Jonson the better man of the two;--more instructed (as he -doubtless was); with a nicer knowledge of the unities; a nicer knowledge -of mere conventionalities of all sorts: Shakespeare was a humble, plain -Warwickshire man, with no fine tinsel to his wardrobe--had no university -training; not so much schooling or science of any sort as Ben Jonson; had -come up to London--as would seem--to make his fortune, to get money--to -blaze his way: and how he did it! - -I suppose a Duchess of Buckingham or any lady of court consequence -would have been rather proud of the obeisance of Ben Jonson, after -that play of “Every Man in his Humour,” and would have given him a -commendatory wave of her fan, much sooner, and more unhesitatingly, -than to the Stratford actor, who took the part of Old Knowell in it. -Ben believed in conventional laws of speech or of dramatic utterance -far more than Shakespeare; he regretted (or perhaps affected to regret -when his jealousies were sleeping), that Will Shakespeare did not shape -his language and his methods with a severer art;[115] he would--very -likely--have lashed him, if he had been under him at school, for his -irregularities of form and of speech--irregularities that grew out of -Shakespeare’s domination of the language, and his will and his power to -make it, in all subtlest phases, the servant, and not the master of his -thought. - -Do I seem, then, to be favoring the breakage of customs, and of the rules -of particular grammarians? Yes, unhesitatingly--if you have the mastery -to do it as Shakespeare did it; that is, if you have that finer sense of -the forces and delicacies of language which will enable you to wrest its -periods out of the ruts of every-day traffic, and set them to sonorous -roll over the open ground, which is broad as humanity and limitless as -thought. Parrots must be taught to prate, particle by particle; but the -Bob-o-Lincoln swings himself into his great flood of song as no master -can teach him to sing. - -Even now we do not bid final adieu to Ben Jonson; but hope to encounter -him again in the next reign (that of James I.) through the whole of which -he carried his noisy literary mastership. - - -_Some Prose Writers._ - -You must not believe, because I have kept mainly by poetic writers in -these later days of Queen Elizabeth, that there were no men who wrote -prose--none who wrote travels, histories, letters of advice; none who -wrote stupid, dull, goodish books; alas, there were plenty of them; there -always are. - -But there were some to be remembered too: there was William Camden--to -whom I have briefly alluded already--and of whom, when you read good -histories of this and preceding reigns, you will find frequent mention. -He was a learned man, and a kind man, excellent antiquarian, and taught -Ben Jonson at Westminster School. There was Stow,[116] who wrote a -_Survey of London_, which he knew from top to bottom. He was born in -the centre of it, and as a boy used to fetch milk from a farm at the -Minories, to his home in Cornhill, where his father was a tailor. His -fulness, his truthfulness, his simplicities, and his quaintness have made -his chief book--on London--a much-prized one. - -Again there was Hakluyt,[117] who was a church official over in Bristol, -and who compiled _Voyages_ of English seamen which are in every -well-appointed library. Dr. Robertson says in his _History_, “England -is more indebted [to Hakluyt] for its American possessions than to any -man of that age.” Of so much worth is it to be a good geographer! The -“Hakluyt Society” of England will be his enduring monument. - -There was also living in those last days of the sixteenth century a -strange, conceited, curious travelling man, Thomas Coryat[118] by name, -who went on foot through Europe, and published (in 1611) what he -called--with rare and unwitting pertinence--_Coryat’s Crudities_. He -affixed to them complimentary mention of himself--whimseys by the poets, -even by so great a man as Ben Jonson--a budget of queer, half-flattering, -half-ironical rigmarole, which (having plenty of money) he had procured -to be written in his favor; and so ushered his book into the world as -something worth large notice. He would have made a capital showman. He -had some training at Oxford, and won his way by an inflexible persistence -into familiarity with men of rank, who made a butt of him. With a certain -gift for language he learned Arabic in some one of his long journeyings, -was said to have knowledge of Persian, and made an oration in that speech -to the Great Mogul--with nothing but language in it. His _Crudities_ are -rarely read; but some letters and fragments relating to later travels of -his, appear in Purchas’ _Pilgrims_. He lays hold upon peculiarities and -littlenesses of life in his work which more sensible men would overlook, -and which give a certain quaint piquancy to what he told; and we listen, -as one might listen to barbers or dressmakers who had just come back from -Paris, and would tell us things about cravats and hair-oil and street -sights that we could learn no otherwheres. Coryat says:-- - - “I observe a custom in all those Italian Cities, and tounes - thro’ the which I passed, that is not used in any other - countrie that I saw--nor do I think that any other nation of - Christendom doth use it, but only Italy. The Italian and most - other strangers that are _cormorant_ in Italy doe always at - their meales use a little forke, when they cut their meate. For - while, with their knife which they hold in one hand they cut - the meate out of the dish, they fasten the forke which they - hold in their other hand upon the same dish, so that whatsoever - he be that sitting in the companie of any others at meale, - should unadvisidly touch the dish of meate with his fingers - from which alle at the table doe cut, he will give occasion of - offence unto the company, as having transgressed the laws of - good manners. - - “This forme of feeding is, I understand, common in all places - of Italy--their forkes being for the most part made of iron - or steele, and some of silver--but _these_ are used only by - gentlemen. - - “I myself have thought good to imitate the Italy fashion by - this forked cutting of meate not only while I was in Italy, but - also in Germany, and oftentimes in England, since I came home.” - -Thus we may connect the history of silver forks with Tom Coryat’s -_Crudities_, and with the first reported foot-journeys of an Englishman -over the length and breadth of Europe. The wits may have bantered him in -Elizabeth’s day; but his journeyings were opened and closed under James. - -Again, there were books which had a little of humor, and a little of -sentiment, with a great deal of fable, and much advice in them; as a -sample of which I may name Mr. Leonard Wright’s _Displaie of Duties, -deck’t with sage Sayings, pythie Sentences, and proper Similes: Pleasant -to read, delightful to hear, and profitable to practice_:[119] By which -singularly inviting title we perceive that he had caught the euphuistic -ways of Mr. John Lyly. In enumerating the infelicities of a man who -marries a shrew, he says:-- - - “Hee shall find compact in a little flesh a great number - of bones too hard to digest. And therefore some doe thinke - wedlocke to be that same purgatorie which some learned divines - have so long contended about, or a sharpe penance to bring - sinful men to Heaven. A merry fellow hearing a preacher saye - in his sermon that whosoever would be saved must take up and - beare his cross, ran straight to his wife, and cast _her_ upon - his back.… Finally, he that will live quietly in wedlock must - be courteous in speech, cheerful in countenance, provident for - his house, careful to traine up his children in virtue, and - patient in bearing the infirmities of his wife. Let all the - keys hang at her girdle, only the purse at his own. He must - also be voide of jealousy, which is a vanity to think, and more - folly to suspect. For eyther it needeth not, or booteth not, - and to be jealous without a cause is the next way to have a - cause. - - “This is the only way to make a woman dum: - To sit and smyle and laugh her out, and not a word but _mum_!” - -Quite another style of man was Philip Stubbes,[120] a Puritan -reformer--not to be confounded with John Stubbes who had his right hand -cut off, by order of the Queen, for writing against the impropriety and -villainy of her prospective marriage with a foreign prince--but a kinsman -of his, who wrote wrathily against masques and theatre-going; whipping -with his pen all those roystering poets who made dramas or madrigals, all -the fine-dressed gallants, and all the fans and ruffs of the women as so -many weapons of Satan. - - “One arch or piller,” says he, “wherewith the Devil’s kingdome - of great ruffes is under propped, is a certain kind of liquid - matter which they call _starch_, wherein the Devil hath learned - them to wash and die their ruffes, which, being drie, will - stand stiff and inflexible about their neckes.” - -And he tells a horrific story--as if it were true--about an unfortunate -wicked lady, who being invited to a wedding could not get her ruff -stiffened and plaited as she wanted; so fell to swearing and tearing, -and vowed “that the Devil might have her whenever she wore _neckerchers_ -again.” And the Evil One took her at her word, appearing in the guise of -a presentable young man who arranged her ruffs - - “--to her so great contentation and liking, that she became - enamored with him. The young man kissed her, in the doing - whereof he writhed her neck in sunder, so she died miserably; - her body being straightwaies changed into blue and black - colors, most ugglesome to behold, and her face most deformed - and fearful to look upon. This being known in the city great - preparation was made for her burial, and a rich coffin was - provided, and her fearful body was laid therein. Four men - assay’d to lift up the corps, but could not move it. Whereat - the standers-by--marvelling causing the coffin to be opened to - see the cause thereof, found the body to be taken away, and a - blacke catte, very leane and deformed, sitting in the coffin, - setting of great ruffes, and frizzling of haire, to the great - feare and wonder of all the beholders.” - -We do not preach in just that way against fashionable dressing in our -time. - -A book on the _Arte of English Poesie_ belongs to those days--supposed -to be the work of George Puttenham[121]--written for the “recreation and -service” of the Queen; it has much good counsel in it--specially in its -latter part; and the author says he wrote it to “help the gentlewomen of -the Court to write good Poetry.” As an exampler, under his discussion of -“Ornament,” he cites what he graciously calls a “sweet and sententious -ditty” from the Queen’s own hand. The reader will be curious perhaps to -see some portion of this:-- - - “The doubt of future foes, exiles my present joy, - And wit me warnes to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy, - For falsehood now doth flow, and subject faith doth ebbe, - Which would not be, if reason rul’d, or wisdome wev’d the webbe.” - -This much will serve for our republican delectation; but it is not the -only instance in which we find mention of her Majesty’s dalliance with -verse: In an old book called the _Garden of the Muses_, of the date of -1600, the author says the flowers are gathered out of many excellent -speeches spoken to her Majesty at triumphs, masques, and shows, as also -out of divers choice ditties sung to her; and “some especially proceeding -from her own most sacred selfe.” No one of them, however, would have -ranked her with any of the poets of whom we have made particular mention; -but for fine, clear, nervous, masculine English, to put into a letter, or -into a despatch, or into a closet scolding, I suspect she would have held -rank with any of them. - -If not a poet, she led poets into gracious ways of speech. Her culture, -her clear perceptions, her love of pageants even, her intolerance of -all forms of dulness or slowness, her very vanities--were all of them -stimulants to those who could put glowing thought into musical language. -Her high ruff, her jewelled corsage, her flashing eye, her swift -impulses, her perils, her triumphs, her audacities, her maidenhood--all -drew flatteries that heaped themselves in songs and sonnets. So live a -woman and so live a Queen magnetized dulness into speech. - - -_The Queen’s Progresses._ - -I spoke but now of her love of pageants; every visiting prince from -every great neighbor kingdom was honored with a pageant; every foreign -suitor to her maidenly graces--whether looked on with favor or disfavor -(as to which her eye and lip told no tales)--brought gala-days to London -streets--brought revels, and bear-baitings, and high passages of arms, -and swaying of pennons and welcoming odes. Many and many a time the -roystering poets I named to you--the Greenes, the Marlowes, the Jonsons, -the Peeles, may have looked out from the Mermaid Tavern windows upon -the royal processions that swept with gold-cloth, and crimson housings -through Cheapside, where every house blazed with welcoming banners, and -every casement was crowded with the faces of the onlookers. - -Thereby, too, she would very likely have passed in her famous -“Progresses” to her good friends in the eastern counties; or to her loved -Lord Burleigh, or to Cecil, at their fine place of Theobalds’ Park,[122] -near Waltham Cross. True, old Burleigh was wont to complain that her -Majesty made him frequent visits, and that every one cost him a matter of -two or three thousand pounds. Indeed it was no small affair to take in -the Queen with her attendants. Hospitable people of our day are sometimes -taken aback by an easy-going friend who comes suddenly on a visit with a -wife, and four or five children, and Saratoga trunks, and two or three -nursery-maids, and a few poodles and a fox-terrier; but think of the -Queen, with her tiring-women, and her ladies of the chamber, and her -ushers, and her grand falconer, and her master of the hounds, and her -flesher--who knows the cuts she likes--and her cook, and her secretary, -and her fifty yeomen of the guard, and her sumpter mules, and her -chaplain, and her laundry-women, and her fine-starchers! No wonder Lord -Burleigh groaned when he received a little notelet from his dear Queen -saying she was coming down upon him--for a week or ten days. - -And Elizabeth loved these little surprises overmuch, and the progress -along the high roads thither and back, which so fed her vanities: She was -a woman of thrift withal, and loved her savings; and the kitchen fires at -Nonsuch palace, or at Greenwich or at Richmond, might go out for a time -while she was away upon these junketings. - -I know that my young readers will be snuggling in their minds a memory -of that greatest Progress of hers, and that grandest of all private -entertainments--at Kenilworth Castle; wondering, maybe, if that charming, -yet over-sad story of Walter Scott’s is true to the very life? And -inasmuch as they will be devouring that book, I suspect, a great deal -oftener than they will read Laneham’s account of the great entertainment, -or Gascoigne’s,[123] I will tell them how much, and where it varies -from the true record. There _was_ a Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester--a -brilliant man, elegant in speech, in person, in manner--at a court where -his nephew Philip Sidney had shone--altogether such a courtier as Scott -has painted him: And the Queen had regarded him tenderly--so tenderly -that it became the talk of her household and of the world. It is certain, -too, that Leicester gave to the Queen a magnificent entertainment at -his princely castle of Kenilworth, in the month of July, 1575. There -were giants, there were Tritons, there were floating islands. Lawns -were turned into lakes, and lakes were bridged with huge structures, -roofed with crimson canopies, where fairies greeted the great guest with -cornucopias of flowers and fruits. There was fairy music too; there were -dances and plays and fireworks, that lighted all the region round about -with a blaze of burning darts, and streams and hail of fire-sparks. - -In all this there is no exaggeration in Scott’s picturing; none either -in his portraiture of the coquetries and princely graces of the Queen. It -is probable that no juster and truer picture of her aspect and bearing, -and of the more salient points of her character ever will or can be drawn. - -Thither, too, had come--from all the country round--yeomen, strolling -players, adventurous youths, quick to look admiringly after that -brilliant type of knighthood Sir Philip Sidney, then in his twenty-first -year, and showing his gay trappings in the royal retinue: amongst such -youths were, very likely, Michael Drayton and William Shakespeare, boys -both in that day, just turned of eleven, and making light of the ten or -twelve miles of open and beautiful country which lay between Kenilworth -and their homes of Atherstone and of Stratford-upon-Avon. - -It is true too, that Leicester, so admired of the Queen, and who was her -host, had once married an Amy Robsart: true, too, that this Amy Robsart -had died in a strangely sudden way at an old manor-house of Cumnor; and -true that a certain Foster and Varney, who were dependants of Leicester, -did in some sense have her in their keeping. But--and here the -divergence from history begins--this poor Amy Robsart had been married to -Sir Robert Dudley before he came to the title of Leicester, and she died -in the mysterious way alluded to, some fifteen years before these revels -of Kenilworth: but not before Elizabeth had been attracted by the proud -and noble bearing of Robert Dudley. Her fondness for him began about the -year 1559. And it was this early fondness of hers which gave color to -the story that he had secretly caused the death of Amy Robsart. The real -truth will probably never be known: there was a public inquiry (not so -full, he said, as he could have wished) which acquitted Leicester; but -his character was such that he never outlived suspicion. I observe that -Mr. Motley, in his _History of the United Netherlands_, on the faith of a -paper in the Record Office, avers Leicester’s innocence; but the tenor of -a life counts for more than one justifying document in measuring a man’s -moral make-up. - -In the year 1575, when the revels of Kenilworth occurred, the Earl of -Leicester was a widower and Amy Robsart had been ten years mouldering in -her grave: but in the year 1576 the young Countess of Essex suddenly -became a widow, and was married privately, very shortly afterward, to the -Earl of Leicester. In the next year, 1577, the story was blazed abroad, -and the Queen showed her appreciation of the sudden match by sending -Leicester straight to the Tower. But she forgave him presently. And out -of these scattered actualities, as regards the Earl, Sir Walter Scott has -embroidered his delightful romance. - -But we have already brought our literary mention up to a point far beyond -this in the Queen’s life; up to a point where Shakespeare, instead of -tearing over hedge-rows and meadows to see the Tritons and the harlequins -of Kenilworth, has put his own Tritons to swimming in limpid verse, and -has put his bloated, dying Falstaff to “babbling o’ green fields.” The -Queen, too, who has listened--besides these revels--to the tender music -of Spenser and outlived him; who has heard the gracious courtliness -of Sidney, and outlived him; who has lent a willing ear to the young -flatteries of Raleigh and seen him ripen into a gray-haired adventurer -of the seas; who has watched the future Lord Keeper, Francis Bacon, as -he has shot up from boyhood into the stateliness of middle age; who has -seen the worshipful Master John Lyly grow up, and chant his euphuism and -sing his songs and die: she too, now, is feeling the years--brilliant as -they may be in achievement--count and weigh upon her. - -Long as she could, she cherished all the illusions of youth. That poor -old face of hers was, I suspect, whited and reddened with other pigments -than what the blood made, as the years went by. Such out-of-door sports -as bear-baiting became rarer and rarer with her; and she loved better -such fun as the fat Falstaff made, in her theatre of Whitehall. But only -nicest observers saw the change; and she never admitted it--perhaps not -to herself. - -The gossiping Paul Hentzner, who had an ambassador’s chances of -observation, says of her, on her way to chapel at Greenwich:-- - - “Next came the Queen, in her sixty-fifth year, as we are - told--very majestic: her face, oblong, fair but wrinkled; her - eyes small, yet black and pleasant; her nose a little hooked. - She had in her ears two pearls with very rich drops; and she - had on a necklace of exceeding fine jewels. She was dressed in - white silk bordered with pearls of the size of beans, and over - it a mantle of black silk shot with silver threads.” - -This, observe, was over twenty years after the revels of Kenilworth: and -two years beyond this date, when the Queen was sixty-seven, a courtier -writes: “Her Majesty is well, and every second day is on horseback.” No -suitor could say a pleasanter thing to her than--“Your majesty is looking -very young!” She danced, when it made her old bones ache to dance. - -No suitor could say a more inapt thing than to express a fear that a -revel, or a play, or a hunt, or a dance might possibly fatigue her -Majesty. It would bring a warning shake of the head that made the jewels -rattle. - -But at last the days come--as like days are coming to us all--when she -can counterfeit youth no longer. The plays entice her no more. The three -thousand court dresses that she left, hang unused in her wardrobe: -weaknesses hem her in, turn which way she may. Cecil, the son of her old -favorite Burleigh, urges that she must quit her chair--which she clung -to, propped with pillows--that she _must_ take to her bed. “_Must_,” -she cries, with a kindling of her old passionate life, “little man, -little man, thy father never dared to use such a word to his Queen.” -The gust passes; and she clings to life, as all do, who have such fast, -hard grip upon it. In short periods of languor and repose, taking kindly -to the issue--going out, as it were, like a lamp. Then, by some windy -burst of passion--of hate, flaming up red and white and hot--her voice a -scream, her boding of the end a craze, her tenacity of purpose dragging -all friends, all hopes, all the world to the terrible edge where she -stands--the edge where Essex stood (she bethinks herself with a wild -tempest of tears)--the edge where Marie Stuart stood at Fotheringay, -in her comely widow’s dress; thinks of this with a shrug that means -acquiescence, that means stubborn recognition of a fatal duty: _that_ -ghost does no way disturb her. - -But there are others which well may. Shall we tell them over? - -No; let us leave her with her confessor, saying prayers maybe; her rings -on her fingers; the lace upon her pillow; not forgetting certain fine -coquetries to the last: strong-souled, keen-thoughted, ambitious, proud, -vindictive, passionate woman, with her streaks of tenderness out of which -bitter tears flowed--out of which kindlinesses crept to sun themselves, -but were quick overshadowed by her pride. - -Farewell to her! - - * * * * * - -In our next talk we shall meet a King--but a King who is less a man than -this Queen who is dead. - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] - - The breeze which swept away the smoke - Round Norham Castle rolled, - When all the loud artillery spoke, - With lightning flash and thunder stroke, - As Marmion left the hold. - -[2] London was possibly a British settlement before the Romans built -there; though latest investigators, I think, favor the contrary opinion. - -[3] - - “To Cattraeth’s vale, in glittering row, - Twice two hundred warriors go; - Every warrior’s manly neck - Chains of regal honor deck, - Wreathed in many a golden link: - From the golden cup they drink - Nectar that the bees produce, - Or the grape’s ecstatic juice, - Flush’d with mirth and hope they burn, - But none from Cattraeth’s vale return - Save Aëron brave, and Conan strong - (Bursting through the bloody throng), - And I, the meanest of them all - That live to weep and sing their fall.” - -[4] Lady CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH SCHREIBER (_née_ GUEST) made the first -translations which brought these Welsh romances into vogue. Among them -is _Geraint, the son of Erbin_, which in our day has developed into the -delightful _Geraint and Enid_. Mr. W. F. Skene has published the texts of -various poems (from original MSS.) attributed to Taliesin, Aneurin, and -others, with translations by D. Sylvan Evans and Robert Williams. - -[5] There was a sort of Christianizing of Britain in later Romish times, -but not much warmth or spending force in it; and Wright assures us that -amid all the Roman remains thus far brought to light of mosaics and -vases, only one Christian symbol has been found. This is on a tessellated -pavement of a Roman villa at Frampton, in Dorsetshire. Lysons published -an engraving of this pavement. - -See also GREEN (introduction to _Making of England_) in reference to -Christian inscriptions and ornaments of Roman date. He makes no allusion -to the Frampton symbol. - -[6] GREEN: _Making of England_, p. 337. A church he erected at -Bradford-on-Avon stands in almost perfect preservation to-day. MURRAY’S -_Alph. Eng. Handbook_. The Editor of Guide Book makes an error in date of -the erection. - -[7] _Sonnet composed or suggested during a tour in Scotland, in summer of -1833._ - - “Isle of Columba’s Cell, - Where Christian piety’s soul-cheering spark, - (Kindled from Heaven between the light and dark - Of time) shone like the morning-star,--farewell!” - -[8] Of late years, owing to the difficulty of working, the mining and -manufacture of the jet has nearly gone by--other carbon seams in Spain -offering better and more economic results; these latter, however, still -bear the name of Whitby Jet. - -[9] I ought to mention that recent critics have questioned if all the -verse usually attributed to Cædmon was really written by him: nay, there -have been queries--if the picture of Satan itself was not the work of -another hand. An analysis of the evidence, by Thomas Arnold, may be found -in _Ency. Br._ See, also, _Making of England_, Chap. VII., note, p. 370. - -[10] “During his last days verses of his own English tongue broke from -time to time from the master’s lip--rude runes that told how before the -‘need-fare,’ Death’s stern ‘must go,’ none can enough bethink him what is -to be his doom for good or ill. The tears of Beda’s scholars mingled with -his song. So the days rolled on to Ascension tide,” etc. - -[11] It is of record in MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER, a Benedictine monk of the -fourteenth century--_Flores Historiarum_--first printed in 1567. “_Nuda -equum ascendens, crines capitis et tricas dissolvens, corpus suum totum, -prater crura candidissima inde velavit._” The tradition is subject of -crude mention in the _Poly-olbion_ of DRAYTON; I also refer the reader to -the charming _Leofric and Godiva_ of LANDOR. - -[12] _Harold: the Last of the Saxon Kings_; first published in 1848 -and dedicated to the Hon. C. T. D’Eyncourt, M.P., whose valuable -library--says BULWER--supplied much of the material needed for the -prosecution of the work. - -[13] GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH (Bishop of St. Asaph), d. 1154. His _Cronicon, -sive Historia Britonum_ first printed in 1508: translated into Eng., -1718. Vid. _Wright’s Essays Arch. Sub._, 1861. - -[14] Such exception as the name warrants, must be made in favor of -NENNIUS, § 50, A.D. 452. - -[15] Other important Arthurian localities belong to the north and west of -England; and whoso is curious in such matters, will read with interest -Mr. STUART GLENNIE’S ingenious argument to prove that Scotland was the -great cradle of Arthurian Romance. _Early English Text Society, Part -iii._, 1869. - -[16] The fable is Scandinavian. The Anglo-Saxon version, dating probably -from the seventh century, makes it a very important way-mark in the -linguistic history of England. Eng. editions are numerous: among -them--those of KEMBLE, 1833-7: THORPE, 1855 and 1875: ARNOLD, 1876: also -(Am. ed.) HARRISON, 1883: Translations accompany the three first named: a -more recent one has appeared (1883) by DR. GARNETT of Md. - -[17] WALTER MAP, or MAPES, was born on the borders of Wales about 1143, -and was living as Archdeacon at Oxford as late as 1196: possibly this -was the Walter who supplied material to GEOFFREY of Monmouth; there was -however another WALTER (CALIENUS) who was also Archdeacon at Oxford. - -[18] Layamon’s work supposed to date (there being only internal evidence -of its epoch) in the first decade of the thirteenth century. Vid. MARSH: -_English Language and Early Literature_. Lecture IV. An edition, with -translation, was published by Sir Frederic Madden in 1857. - -[19] Among other direct Arthurian growths may be noted MORRIS’S _Defence -of Guinevere_; ARNOLD’S _Tristram and Issult_; QUINET’S _Merlin_, -WAGNER’S Operatic Poems, and SMITH’S _Edwin of Deira_. - -[20] ORDERIC VITALIS, b. 1075; d. 1150. Of Abbey of St. Evroult, in -Normandy. An edition of his _Ecclesiastical History of England and -Normandy_ was published in 1826, with notice of writer, by GUIZOT. - -[21] WILLIAM OF MALMSBURY: dates uncertain; his record terminates with -year 1143. - -[22] MATTHEW PARIS, 1200-1259, a monk of St. Albans. His _Historia Major_ -extends from 1235 to 1259. - -[23] WILLIAM OF NEWBURGH, b. 1136; d. 1208. New edition of his record -(_Hist. Rerum Anglicarum_), edited by RICHARD HOWLET, published in 1884. - -[24] ROGER DE HOVEDEN of twelfth century, (date uncertain.) His annals -first published in 1595. - -[25] I do not mean to say that Scott’s portraitures may be taken as -archæologic data, or that one in search of the last and minutest truths -respecting our Welsh or Saxon progenitors should not go to more recondite -sources; meantime you will get very much from the reading of Scott to -aid you in forming an image of those times; and, what is better still, -you will very likely carry from the Romancer’s glowing pages a sharpened -appetite for the more careful but duller work of the historians proper. - -[26] I give fragment of one, of the reign of Edward II., cited by MR. -MARSH: p. 247, _English Language and Early Literature_. - - “Quant honme deit parleir, videat qua verba loquatur; - Sen covent aver, ne stultior inveniatur, - Quando quis loquitur, bote resoun reste therynne - Derisum patitur, ant lutel so shal he wynne,” _etc._ - -[27] Robert of Gloucester lived in the latter part of the thirteenth -century, perhaps surviving into the fourteenth. In addition to his -_Chronicle of England_, he is thought to have written _Lives and Legends -of the English Saints_. - -[28] _Il milione di Messer Marco Polo, Veneziano._ Florence, 1827. MARCO -POLO d. 1323. - -[29] ODORIC, a priest of Pordenone in Friuli, who went on Church mission -about 1318. His narrative is to be found in the _Ramusio Col._, 2d Vol. -1574. CARPINI (JOANNES _de Plano_), was a Franciscan from near Perugia, -who travelled East about 1245. HAKLUYT has portions of his narrative: but -full text is only in _Recueil de Voyages_, Vol. IV., by M. D’AVEZAC. - -[30] Messrs. NICHOLSON and YULE, who are sponsors for the elaborate -article in the _Br. Ency._ - -[31] Page 407, chap. viii. - -[32] An abbot presided over monasteries--sometimes independent of the -bishop--sometimes (in a degree) subject. Priors also had presidence over -some religious houses--but theirs was usually a delegated authority. An -æsthetic abbot or prior was always building--or always getting new colors -for the _missal_ work in the _scriptorium_: hunting abbots were thinking -more of the refectory. At least six religious services were held a day, -and always midnight mass. It was easy, but not wholly a life of idleness. -A bell summoned to breakfast, and bells to mass. Of a sunny day--monks -were teaching boys one side of the cloister--artistic monks working at -their missals the other; perhaps under such prior as he of _Jorvaulx_ -(Scott’s Ivanhoe) some young monk would be training his hawks or dogs. An -interesting abstract of the Rule of the Benedictines may be found under -Monachism, _Br. Ency._, Vol. xvi. - -[33] College Statutes of Merton date from 1274; those of University from -1280; and of Balliol from 1282. Paper of GEORGE C. BRODERICK, _Nineteenth -Century_, September, 1882. - -[34] The story of the Black Prince meets with revival in our day, by -the recent publication of “_Le Prince Noir, Poeme du Herault d’Armes -Chandos_,” edited, translated, etc., by FRANCISQUE MICHEL, F.A.S. -Fotheringham: London, 1884. The original MS. is understood to be -preserved in the Library of Worcester College, Oxford. - -[35] Precise dates are wanting with respect to Langlande. Facts -respecting his personal history are derived from what leaks out in his -poem, and from interpolated notes (in a foreign hand) upon certain MS. -copies. Of three different texts (published by the _E. E. Text Soc._) -Mr. SKEAT dates one about 1362--a second in or about 1377, and the third -still later. The first imprint has date of 1550. - -[36] Not that he is specially free from foreign vocables: MARSH (_Lec. -VI., Eng. Language_) gives his percentage of Anglo-Saxon words in _Passus -XIV._ at only 84. See also SKEAT’S _Genl. Preface_, p. xxxiii. - -[37] In saying this I follow literal statement of the poem (_Pass._ -xviii., 12,948), as do TYRWHIT, PRICE, and Rev. Mr. SKEAT, whose opinions -overweigh the objections of Mr. WRIGHT, (_Introduction_, p. ix., note 3, -to WRIGHT’S _Piers Plowman_.) The Christian name William seems determined -by a find of SIR FREDERIC MADDEN on the fly-leaf of a MS. in the library -of Trinity College, Dublin. - -_Piers Plowman’s Creed_, often printed with the _Vision_, is now by best -critics counted the work of another hand. - -[38] Church chroniclers who were contemporaries of WYCLIF, girded at him -as a blasphemer. CAPGRAVE: _Cron. of Eng. (Rolls Series)_, speaks of him -as “the orgon of the devel, the enmy of the Cherch, the confusion of men, -the ydol of heresie,” etc. NETTER collected his (alleged) false doctrines -under title of _Bundles of Tares (Fasciculi Zizaniorum)_, Ed. by SHIRLEY, -1858. Dr. ROBT. VAUGHAN is author of a very pleasant monograph on WYCLIF, -with much topographic lore. Dr. LECHLER is a more scholarly contributor -to WYCLIF literature; and the Early Eng. Text Soc. has published (1880) -MATHEWS’ Ed. of “_hitherto unprinted Eng. works_ of WYCLIF, with notice -of his life.” RUDOLPH BUDDENSEIG, (of Dresden) has Ed. his polemical -works in Latin (old) besides contributing an interesting notice for the -anniversary just passed. Nor can I forbear naming in this connection -the very eloquent quin-centenary address of Dr. RICHARD S. STORRS, of -Brooklyn, N. Y. - -[39] Those who love books which are royal in their dignities of print and -paper, will be interested in FORSHALL & MADDEN’S elegant 4to. edition of -the Wyclifite versions of the Bible. - -[40] The biographers used to say 1328: this is now thought inadmissible -by most commentators. FURNIVAL makes the birth-year 1340--in which he -is followed by the two WARDS, and by Professor MINTO (_Br. Ency._). -Evidence, however, is not as yet conclusive; and there is an even chance -that further investigations may set back the birth-year to a date which -will better justify and make more seemly those croakings of age which -crept into some of the latter verse of the poet. For some facts looking -in that direction, and for certain interesting genealogic Chaucer -puzzles, see paper in _London Athenæum_ for January 29, 1881, by WALTER -RYE. - -[41] _House of Fame_, Book II. - -[42] There is question of the authenticity of the translation usually -attributed to Chaucer--of which there is only one fifteenth century MS. -extant. Some version, however, Chaucer did make, if his own averment is -to be credited. Prof. MINTO (_Br. Ency._) accepts the well-known version; -so does WARD (_Men of Letters_); Messrs. BRADSHAW (of Cambridge) and -Prof. TEN BRINK doubt--a doubt in which Mr. HUMPHREY WARD (_Eng. Poets_) -seems to share. - -[43] SANDRAS: _Étude sur Chaucer_. - -[44] A notable edition is that of Prof. Lounsbury (Ginn & Heath, 1877); -and it is much to be hoped that the same editor will bring his scholarly -method of estimating dates, sources, and varying texts, to some more -important Chaucerian labors. - -[45] Another possible epoch of meeting with Petrarch may have been in the -year 1368, when at the junketings attending the wedding of Prince Lionel -(in Milan), Petrarch was present; also--perhaps--Chaucer in the suite of -the Prince. FROISSART makes note of the _Feste_, but without mention of -either poet, or of his own presence. _Chap. ccxlvii., Liv. I._ - -WALTER BESANT (_Br. Ency., Art. Froissart_), I observe, avers the -presence of all three--though without giving authorities. MURATORI -(_Annali_) mentions Petrarch as seated among the princely guests--_tanta -era la di lui riputazione_--but there is, naturally enough, no naming of -Chaucer or Froissart. - -[46] “_Nous lui lairrons toute seule faire les honneurs; nous ne irons ni -viendrons en nulle place ou elle soit_,” etc.--Chroniques de SIRE JEAN -FROISSART (_J. A. Buchon_), tome iii., p. 236. Paris, 1835. - -[47] “In the spandrils are the arms of Chaucer on the dexter side, and -on the sinister, Chaucer impaling those of (Roet) his wife.”--_Appendix -III._ to FURNIVAL, _Temporary Preface_, etc. - -[48] Some MSS. have this poem with title of _Supplication to King -Richard_. - -[49] This--in the engraving; the autotype published by the Chaucer -Society gives, unfortunately, a very blurred effect to the upper part of -the face: but who can doubt the real quality of Chaucer’s eye? - -[50] The name, indeed, by some strange metonymy not easily explicable, -had become “Talbot.” There is a later “Tabard,” dreadfully new, on the -corner of “Talbot Inn Yard,” 85 High Street, Borough. - -[51] Dean Stanley, without doubt in error, in measuring the pilgrimage by -twenty-four hours. See _Temp. Pref. to Six Text Edit._ FURNIVAL. - -[52] _Nov. VI. Giorn. IX._ It may be open to question if Chaucer took -scent from this trail, or from some as malodorous _Fr. Fabliau_--as -TYRWHITT and WRIGHT suggest. The quest is not a savory one. - -[53] His dethronement preceded his death, by a twelvemonth or more. - -[54] Edited by Dr. Reinhold Pauli, London, 1857. Henry Morley (_Eng. -Writers_, IV., p. 238) enumerates a score or more of existing MSS. of the -poem. The first printed edition was that of Caxton, 1483. - -[55] A more modern and accepted translation--by a wealthy Welsh -gentleman, Thos. Johnes--was luxuriously printed on his private press at -Hafod, Cardiganshire, in 1803. - -[56] There is a manuscript copy in the (so-called) _Bibliothèque du Roi_ -at Paris. A certain number--among them, the _Espinette Amoureuse_--appear -in the _Buchon_ edition of the _Chroniques_; Paris, 1835. - -[57] John Lydgate: dates of birth and death unsettled. - -[58] _The Storie of Thebe_ and _the Troy booke_ were among his -ambitious works. Skeat gives his epoch “about 1420,” and cites _London -Lickpenny_--copying from the Harleian MS. (367) in the British Museum. - -[59] James I. (of Scotland), b. 1394 and was murdered 1437. - -_The King’s Quair_, from which quotation is made, was written in 1423. -It is a poem of nearly 1400 lines, of which only one MS. exists--in the -Bodleian Library. - -An edition by Chalmers (1824) embodies many errors: the only trustworthy -reading is that edited by the Rev. Walter Skeat for the Scottish Text -Soc. (1883-4). A certain _modernizing_ belongs of course to the citation -I make--as well as to many others I have made and shall make. - -[60] Priest at Diss in Norfolk, b. (about) 1460; d. 1529. Best edition of -works edited by Rev. A. Dyce, 1843. - -[61] Bedford (when Regent of France) is supposed to have transported to -England the famous Louvre Library of Charles V. (of France). There were -910 vols., according to the catalogue drawn up by Gilles Mallet--“the -greater number written on fine vellum and magnificently bound.” - -[62] 1455 to 1485. - -[63] Miss Halsted in her _Richard III._, chap. viii. (following the -_Historic Doubts_ of Horace Walpole), makes a kindly attempt to overset -the Shakespearean view of Richard’s character--in which, however, it must -be said that she is only very moderately successful. See also a more -recent effort in the same direction by Alfred O. Legge (_The Unpopular -King, etc._ London, 1885). - -[64] Caxton had been concerned, in company with Colard Mansion, in -printing other books, on the Continent, at an earlier date than -this. The first book “set up” in England, was probably Caxton’s -translation--entitled “_The Recuyle of the Histories of Troye_.” Vid. -Blade’s _William Caxton_: London, 1882. - -[65] Noticeable among these Louis de Bruges, Seigneur de la -Gruthuyse--afterward made (by Edward IV. of England) Earl of Winchester. - -[66] More frequently called _Juliana Berners_--supposed relative of the -Lords Berners and Abbess of Sopwell. Rev. Mr. Skeat, however--a very -competent witness--confirms the reading given. For discussion of the -question see the _Angler’s Note Book_, No. iv. (1884) and opinions of -Messrs. Quaritch & Westwood. - -[67] The authenticity of these letters, published by John Fenn, Esq., -F.A.S., has been questioned by Herman Merivale and others; James -Gairdner, however (of the Record office), has argued in their favor, and -would seem to have put the question at rest. - -[68] Fuller, in his _Worthies of England_, says “The comedian is not -excusable by some alteration of his name, seeing the vicinity of -sounds intrench on the memory of a worthy Knight; and few do heed the -inconsiderable difference in spelling their names.” - -[69] The equipment of a parsonage house in Kent in those days, is -set forth in full inventory (from MS. in the Rolls House) by Mr. -Froude.--_History of England_, chap. i, p. 47. - -[70] Not to be confounded with William Lilly the astrologer of the -succeeding century. William Lilly of St. Paul’s was b. 1468; d. (of the -plague) in 1532. His Latin Grammar was first published in 1513. - -[71] William Camden, antiquary and chronicler; b. 1551; d. 1623. _Annales -Rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha_, pub. 1615. In 1597 -he published a Greek Grammar--for the Westminster boys; he being at the -time head-master of the school. - -[72] _Erasmus_: by Robert Blackley Drummond (chap. vii.) London, 1873. - -[73] Cranmer, b. 1489; d. 1556. - -Complete edition of his works published 1834 (Rev. H. Jenkyns). Cranmer’s -_Bible_ so called, because accompanied by a prologue, written by Thomas -Cranmer, Archbishop, etc. - -[74] There are many reasons for doubting if these lines were from -Shakespeare’s own hand. Emerson (_Representative Men_)--rarely given to -Literary criticism, remarks upon “the bad rhythm of the compliment to -Queen Elizabeth” as unworthy the great Dramatist: so too, he doubts, -though with less reason--the Shakespearean origin of the Wolsey -Soliloquy. See also Trans. New Shakespere Society for 1874. Part I. -(Spedding _et al._) - -[75] William Tyndale, b. about 1480; d. (burned at the stake) 1536. G. -P. Marsh (_Eng. Language and Early Lit._) says “Tyndale’s translation -of the New Testament has exerted a more marked influence upon English -philology than any other native work between the ages of Chaucer and of -Shakespeare.” - -[76] Latimer (Hugh) b. 1491; d. (at the stake) 1555. He was educated -at Cambridge--came to be Bishop of Worcester--wrote much, wittily and -strongly. A collection of his Sermons was published in 1570-71; and there -have been many later issues. - -[77] John Foxe, b. 1517; d. 1587. He was a native of Boston, -Lincolnshire; was educated at Oxford; his _History of the Acts and -Monuments of the Church_ was first published in England in 1563. There -was an earlier edition published at Strasbourg in 1554. - -[78] Born near Haddington, Scotland, in 1505 (d. 1572); bred a friar; -was prisoner in France in 1547; resided long time at Geneva; returned to -Scotland in 1559. Life by Laing (1847) and by Brandes (1863); Swinburne’s -_Bothwell_, Act iv., gives dramatic rendering of a sermon by John Knox. -See also Carlyle’s _Heroes and Hero-worship_, Lecture IV. - -[79] In the issue of _Sternhold and Hopkins’ Psalmody_ of 1549 one year -after Sternhold’s death, there were 37 psalms by Sternhold, and 7 by -Hopkins. In subsequent editions more of Hopkins’ work was added. - -[80] 34 and 35 Henry VIII.: A.D. 1542-43. The full text (_Statutes of -the Realm_, Vol. III., pp. 895-7) gives some alleviating provisions in -respect to “Noble women and gentle women, who reade to themselves;” and -the same Statute makes particular and warning mention of the “Craftye, -false and untrue translation of Tyndale.” - -[81] A coarse comedy written (probably) by John Still, one time Bishop -of Bath. Its title on the imprint of 1575 runs thus:--“_A ryght pithy, -pleasant and merie Comedy, intytuled Gammer Gurton’s Nedle; played on the -Stage not longe ago in Christes Colledge, in Cambridge, made by Mr. S., -Master of Art._” - -[82] Sir Thomas Wyatt (or Wyat), b. 1503; d. 1542. The Earl of Surrey -(Henry Howard, and cousin to Catharine Howard, one of the wives of Henry -VIII.), b. about 1517, and beheaded 1547. - -[83] Understood to be based on the relations of a certain _Unfortunate -Traveller_ (Jack Wilton) by Nash, 1595. The story was credited by -Drayton, Winstanley, the _Athenæ Oxonienses_ of Wood (edition of 1721), -by Walpole (_Noble Authors_), and by Warton: The relations spoken of, -however, show anachronisms which forbid their acceptance. - -[84] B. 1515; d. 1568. His works (in English) were collected and edited -by Bennett in 1761. Fuller (_of the Worthies_) writes of Ascham: “He was -an honest man and a good shooter. His _Toxophilus_ is a good book for -young men; his _Scholemaster_ for old; his _Epistles_ for all men.” - -[85] Report of Giacomo Soranzo (Venetian Ambassador) under date of 1554: -Rawdon Brown’s Calendar State Papers, 1534-54. - -[86] Rawdon Brown’s Calendar State Papers, 1554. From Venetian Archives. - -[87] A Thomas Sackville, b. 1527; d. 1608, was author of a portion of -_Mirror for Magistrates_; also associated with Thomas Norton, in -production of the Tragedy of _Gorboduc_. - -[88] Thomas Tusser, b. about 1527; d. 1580. - -[89] Raphael Holinshed, d. about 1580. First edition of his Chronicle was -published in 1577. - -[90] William Cecil, b. 1520; d. 1598. Biography by Nares, 1828-31. - -[91] Richard Hooker (1553-1600). Edition of his works (by Keble) first -appeared 1836. First book of _Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_ has been -edited for Clarendon Press Series by R. W. Church, 1868. - -[92] Grosart, in his _Life of Spenser_ (pp. 236-37), gives good reasons -for doubting this story which is based mainly on the Jonson-Drummond -interviews. Grosart also questions--as Prof. John Wilson had done before -him--all the allegations of Spenser’s extreme indigence. - -[93] Philip Sidney, b. 1554; d. 1586. - -[94] The first edition of Rinaldo was printed at Venice in 1562: this -great epic was completed at Padua in 1575. - -[95] John Lyly, b. 1554; d. 1606. - -[96] The style of Lyly has been traced by Dr. Landmann, an ingenious -German critic, to the influence of Don Antonio de Guevara, a Spanish -author, who wrote _El Libro Aureo de Marco Aurelio_, 1529. It was -translated into English by Lord Berners in 1531 (published in 1534). - -[97] James Spedding, b. 1803; d. 1881. His chief work was the Bacon life; -and there is something pathetic in the thought of a man of Spedding’s -attainments, honesty of purpose, and unflagging industry, devoting thirty -of the best years of his life to a vindication of Bacon’s character. His -aggressive attitude in respect to Macaulay is particularly shown in his -_Evenings with a Reviewer_ (2 vols., 8vo), in which he certainly makes -chaff of a good deal of Macaulay’s arraignment. - -[98] We are disinclined, however, to accept the same biographer’s over-mild -treatment of the bribe-taking, as a “moral negligence”--coupling it with -Dr. Johnson’s moral delinquency of lying a-bed in the morning! See closing -pages of _Evenings with a Reviewer_. - -[99] The extraordinary habits of Hobbes are made subject of pleasant -illustrative comment in Sydney Smith’s (so-called) _Sketches of Moral -Philosophy_, Lecture XXVI. - -[100] Hobbes’ _Thucydides_ was first published in the year 1628. An -earlier English version (1550) was, in effect, only a translation of a -translation, being based upon the French of Claude de Seyssel, Bishop of -Marseilles. Hobbes sneers at this, and certainly made a better one--very -literal, sometimes tame--sometimes vulgar, but remaining the best until -the issue of Dean Smith’s (1753). - -[101] Among the best known with which Chapman’s name is connected -(jointly with Ben Jonson’s and Marston’s) is “_Eastward Hoe!_” containing -a good many satirical things upon the Scotch--which proved a dangerous -game--under James; and came near to putting the authors in limbo. - -[102] B. 1564; d. 1593. - -[103] Henceforth one who would know of Marlowe, and read what he wrote, -in text which comes nearest the dramatist’s own (for we can hardly hope -for absolute certainty) should consult the recent scholarly edition, -edited by A. H. Bullen (Nimmo, 1884), in three volumes. We doubt, -however, if such popular re-establishment of the poet’s fame can be -anticipated as would seem to be foreshadowed in the wishes and glowing -encomiums of his editor. - -[104] B. about 1556; d. 1625. - -[105] Thomas Nashe, b. about 1564; d. 1601. - -[106] B. 1560(?); d. 1592. See Grosart’s edition of his writings (in Huth -Library) where Dr. G. gives the best color possible to his life and works. - -[107] B. 1558 or thereabout; and d. 1598. - -[108] Thomas Dekker, b. about 1568; d. about 1640. Best edition of his -miscellaneous works that of Grosart (Huth Library), which is charming -in its print and its pictures--even to the poet in his bed, busy at his -_Dreame_. - -[109] Drayton, b. 1563; d. 1631. An edition of his works (still -incomplete) by Rev. R. Hooper is the most recent. - -[110] There is an exquisite sonnet usually attributed to him -beginning--“Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part;” but -this is so very much better than all his other sonnets, that I cannot -help sharing the doubts of those who question its Drayton origin. If -Drayton’s own, the sonnet certainly shows a delicacy of expression, and a -romanticism of hue quite exceptional with him. - -[111] Ben Jonson, b. 1573; d. 1637. - -[112] Prefacing the edition of Jonson’s works of 1816; also in the -elegant re-issue of the same--under editorship of Colonel Cunningham in -1875. Gifford seems to have spent his force (of a biographic sort) in -picking up from various contemporary authors whatever contained a sneer -at Jonson, and exploding it, after blowing it up to its fullest possible -dimensions;--reminding one of those noise-loving boys who blow up -discarded and badly soiled paper-bags, only to burst them on their knees. - -[113] Ward (_Ency. Br._) is inclined to doubt his going at all to -Cambridge: I prefer, however, to follow the current belief--as not yet -sufficiently “upset.” - -[114] The facts regarding this “felony” of Jonson’s have been subject of -much and varied averment: recent investigation has brought to light the -“Indictment” on which he was arraigned, and some notes of the “Clerk of -the Peace.” See _Athenæum_, March 6, 1886. - -[115] In his _Discoveries (De Shakespeare)_ Jonson says, “The players -have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing -(whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, -would he had blotted a thousand. Which they thought a malevolent speech.… -I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry as much -as any.” - -[116] John Stow, b. 1525; d. 1605. His _Survey_ published in 1598: -reprinted over and over. Edition of 1876 has illustrations. - -[117] Richard Hakluyt, b. about 1558; d. 1616. - -[118] Thomas Coryat, b. 1577; d. 1617. Full title of his book -is--_Coryat’s Crudities hastily gobbled up in Five moneths Travells -in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia, commonly called the Orisons Country, -Helvetia, alias Switzerland, and some parts of Germany and the -Netherlands_. - -[119] First published in 1589. - -[120] Dates of birth and death uncertain. His _Anatomie of Abuses_ first -published in 1583. - -[121] George Puttenham, b. about 1532: the book printed 1589. - -[122] Nichols, in his _Progresses of Queen Elizabeth_, vol. i. (Preface), -says: “She was twelve times at Theobalds, which was a very convenient -distance from London, … the Queen lying there at his Lordship’s charge, -sometimes three weeks, or a month, or six weeks together.” - -[123] George Gascoigne (b. 1530; d. 1577) published a tract, in those -days, entitled _The Princely Pleasures of Kenelworth Castle_, which -appears in Nichol’s _Progresses of Queen Elizabeth_; as does also -Laneham’s Account of the _Queen’s Entertainment at Killingworth _[sic]_ -Castle_. - - - - -INDEX. - - - Abbeys and Priories of England, 66 _et seq._ - - Aldhelm, the Saxon scholar and poet, 10, 64. - - Alfred, King, 17 _et seq._ - - Aneurin, a Welsh bard, the reputed author of Gododin, 7. - - “Arcadia” of Philip Sidney, 237. - - Archery in England, 199. - - Arnold, Matthew, on Celtic literature, 8. - - Arthur, King, the legends of, 39 _et seq._; - Geoffrey’s version of, 42; - Map’s version, 42; - Layamon’s version, 43. - - Ascham, Roger, 197; - his “Toxophilus,” 199; - his “Schoolmaster,” 199; - teacher of Queen Elizabeth, 201. - - - Bacon, Francis, 242; - his character, 250 _et seq._; - his essays, 257; - his _Novum Organum_ and _De Augmentis_, 258; - his death, 259. - - Bacon, Roger, 77 _et seq._ - - Balladry, English, 158. - - Barnes, Dame Juliana, 153. - - Battle Abbey, 35. - - Beda, 15, 64. - - Beowulf, 41. - - “Betrothed,” Scott’s novel, 48. - - Berners, Lord, his translation of Froissart, 129. - - Bible, Wyclif’s translation of, 90; - Tyndale’s translation, 185; - reading of, by the common people forbidden in reign of Henry - VIII., 191. - - Black Prince, 93, 104, 106. - - Boccaccio, 83. - - Bœthius’ “Consolation of Philosophy,” translated by King Alfred, 19. - - “Boke of the Duchesse,” Chaucer’s poem, 107. - - Books at the end of the thirteenth century, 62; - decoration of, 65. - - “Brut” of Layamon, 43. - - Burleigh, Lord, 212, 242. - - - Cædmon, 13 _et seq._; - possible influence of his paraphrase on Milton, 15. - - Camden, William, 176, 303. - - Camelot, 39, 40. - - Canute’s verse about the singing of the monks of Ely, 22. - - Canterbury School, 10. - - “Canterbury Tales,” Chaucer’s, 114. - - Caxton, 45, 149; - books from his press, 151. - - Celtic literature, early, 7 _et seq._ - - Chapman, George, and his Homer, 266. - - Chaucer, 89, 97 _et seq._; - his early life in London, 98; - a scholar, 100; - his connection with the royal household, 103; - his translation of the _Roman de la Rose_, 104; - his “Boke of the Duchesse,” 107; - his “Parliament of Foules,” 107; - his “Troilus and Cresseide,” 108; - his journeys on the Continent, 108; - his portrait, 112; - his “Canterbury Tales,” 114; - characters of the Canterbury pilgrims, 114 _et seq._; - localities of the pilgrimage, 117; - his literary thefts, 119; - example of his art, 120 _et seq._ - - Chevy Chase, ballad of, 159. - - “Comus,” Milton’s, its relation to Peele’s “An Old Wives Tale,” 285. - - _Confessio Amantis_ of Gower, 128. - - Coryat, Thomas, 304. - - Cranmer, 182, 185. - - “Crayon, Geoffrey,” 38. - - - Damoiselle, life of a, in the thirteenth century, 72. - - Danish invasions of England, 17. - - Dante, 83. - - Dekker, Thomas, 287. - - Drake, Sir Francis, 242. - - Drayton, Michael, 291; - his “Poly-olbion,” 292; - his “Nymphidia,” 293. - - - Edward I., II., and III., 82 _et seq._ - - Edward VI., 182, 197. - - Elizabeth, Queen, Roger Ascham’s encomium of her studiousness, 201; - comes to the throne, 204; - her religion, 206; - Froude’s unfavorable portrait of, 207; - Soranzo’s description of, 208; - her greatness, 209; - her literary attempts, 311; - her love of pageants, 312; - her progresses, 313; - at Kenilworth, 314; - her death, 321. - - Elizabethan authors, 214. - - Emerson, his enjoyment of Taliesin, 8. - - Erasmus, 177. - - “Euphues,” by Lyly, 245. - - - Falstaff, Jack, 133. - - Foxe, John, 187. - - Froissart, Lord Berners’ translation of, 129. - - Froude, Mr., his history characterized, 207. - - - Geoffrey of Monmouth, 37 _et seq._ - - Green’s “History of the English People,” 5, 6; - “Making of England,” 10, 17; - cited, 64. - - Greene, Robert, 277; - his relations with Shakespeare, 280. - - Godiva, Lady, tradition of, 23. - - Gower, John, 127. - - “Grave, the,” an Anglo-Saxon poem, 21. - - - Hakluyt, Richard, 304. - - Hampton Court, 171. - - Harold the Saxon, 29 _et seq._ - - “Harold,” Tennyson’s play, 29. - - Henry II., 48. - - Henry III., 56, 65. - - Henry IV., 127, 132, 145. - - Henry V., 141. - - Henry VI. and VII., 144. - - Henry VIII., 167; - character of, 172. - - Hobbes, Thomas, 261; - his translation of Thucydides, 265. - - Holinshed, Raphael, 211. - - Hooker, Richard, and the “Ecclesiastical Polity,” 215, 242. - - - “Ivanhoe,” 50. - - - James I. of Scotland, 137. - - Joan of Arc, 146. - - John, King, 53. - - John of Gaunt, 92; - a friend of Wyclif, 92; - of Chaucer, 110, 145. - - Jonson, Ben, 282, 295. - - - Katharine of Aragon, 171. - - “Kenilworth,” 68; - its picture of Queen Elizabeth’s visit, 314. - - “King’s Quair, the,” 137. - - Knox, John, 187. - - - Langlande, William, 84. - - Lanier, Sidney, his “Mabinogion,” 8; - his “King Arthur,” 45. - - Latimer, Hugh, 186. - - Layamon, 43. - - Leicester, Earl of, and Queen Elizabeth, 315. - - Libraries at the end of the thirteenth century, 63. - - Lilly, William, the head-master of St. Paul’s, 173. - - Lindisfarne Abbey, 12. - - Lodge, Thomas, 275. - - London, 6; - in Chaucer’s time, 98. - - “London Lickpenny” of Lydgate, 136. - - Longfellow’s translation of “The Grave,” 21. - - Lord’s Prayer, the, in Tyndale’s version, 185. - - Lydgate, John, 135. - - Lyly, John, 245. - - Lytton, Lord, his “Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings,” 29. - - - “Mabinogion,” the, 8. - - Macbeth, the murder of, 23. - - “Madoc,” Southey’s poem, 49. - - Mallory, Sir Thomas, 45. - - Mandeville, Sir John, 59; - doubts respecting his travels, and personality, 60. - - Map, Walter, 42. - - Marco Polo, 59. - - Marini Sanuto on the accession of Henry VIII., 169. - - Marlowe, Christopher, 269. - - “Marmion,” 3, 12. - - Mary, Queen, 182, 184, 197. - - Mary Queen of Scots, 241. - - Matthew Paris, 46. - - Mermaid Tavern, the, 274. - - Milton, 15. - - “Monastery, the,” 246. - - More, Sir Thomas, 175, 185. - - - Nashe, Thomas, 276. - - Norham Castle and “Marmion,” 3. - - _Novum Organum_, the, of Bacon, 258. - - Nut-Brown Maid, ballad of, 161. - - - Occleve, 135. - - Orderic Vitalis, 46. - - Oxford in the thirteenth century, 77. - - - “Parliament of Foules,” Chaucer’s poem, 107. - - Paston Letters, the, 154. - - Peele, George, 284; - his “Old Wives Tale,” 285. - - Petrarch, 83. - - “Piers Plowman, the Vision of,” 84. - - Printing, the rise of, in England, 149. - - Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, 312. - - Purvey, his work on Bible of Wyclif, 96. - - Puttenham’s “Arte of English Poesie,” 310. - - - Raleigh, 242. - - Religious houses, spoliation of, 205. - - Richard Cœur de Lion, 50. - - Richard II., 126, 130. - - Richard III., 148. - - Rienzi, 83, 90. - - Robert of Gloucester, 57. - - Robin Hood’s bay, 13. - - Robin Hood, 69. - - Robin Hood ballads, 159. - - Roger de Hoveden, 46. - - “Roman de la Rose,” 104. - - Roman remains in England, 6. - - “Rosalynde,” Lodge’s novel, 275. - - - Sackville, Thomas, 210, 242. - - “Saxon Chronicle, the,” 17, 27, 37. - - St. Albans, 66. - - St. Augustine in England, 10, 63. - - St. Columba, monastery of, 11. - - “Schoolmaster, the,” by Ascham, 200. - - “Scottish Chiefs, the,” 81. - - Shakespeare, his “Henry IV.,” 133; - “Henry V.,” 141; - “Henry VI.,” 146; - “Richard III.,” 148, 243; - with the wits at the Mermaid Tavern, 281. - - Sidney, Philip, 230; - his “Arcadia,” 237; - his “Defence of Poesie,” 238. - - Skelton, John, 139. - - Sonnet, the, first used in English by Wyatt, 193. - - Soranzo, Signor, his report of Queen Elizabeth, 208. - - Spedding, James, his “Life of Bacon,” 251. - - Spenser, Edmund, 217; - his “Shepherd’s Calendar,” 217; - “Faery Queen,” 221 _et seq._; - “Epithalamium,” 228. - - Sternhold and Hopkins’ versions of the Psalms, 189. - - Stow, John, 304. - - Stubbes, Philip, 308. - - Surrey, Earl of, 194; - his poetry, and story of his Florentine tourney, 195. - - - Taillefer, the Norman minstrel, 26. - - Taine’s treatment of Richard Cœur de Lion, 50. - - Taliesin, 8. - - “Talisman, the,” 51. - - Tennyson’s “Harold,” 30; - “Idyls of the King,” 40; - “Queen Mary,” 183. - - Thackeray’s treatment of Richard Cœur de Lion in “Rebecca and - Rowena,” 51. - - Thomas à Becket, 48. - - Tolstoi, Count, 180. - - Tudor, Sir Owen, and the Tudor succession, 144. - - Tusser, Thomas, 211. - - Tyndale, William, 185. - - - “Utopia,” by Sir Thomas More, 178. - - - _Vox Clamantis_ of Gower, 127. - - - Wace, 42. - - Wallace, William, 81. - - “Westward, Ho,” Kingsley’s novel, 40. - - Whitby Monastery, 12. - - Whittingham, 189. - - William the Norman, 25 _et seq._ - - William of Malmsbury, 46. - - William of Newburgh, 46. - - Wolsey, Cardinal, 170, 173. - - Wyclif, 89, 90 _et seq._; - his translation of the Bible, 95. - - Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 193. - - Wright, Leonard, 307. - - - York, 6. - - York and Lancaster, the wars of, 145. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH LANDS LETTERS AND KINGS: -FROM CELT TO TUDOR*** - - -******* This file should be named 54168-0.txt or 54168-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/4/1/6/54168 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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