Part 5

Sir Thomas then said unto William, “It behooveth thee to stand clear of yon Joseph, unless when thou mayest call to thy aid the Matthew Atterend thou speakest of. He did then fight valiantly, eh?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“His cause fought valiantly; his fist but seconded it. He won,—proving the golden words to be no property of our lady’s, although her Highness hath never disclaimed them.”

SIR THOMAS.

“What art thou saying?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“So I heard from a preacher at Oxford, who had preached at Easter in the chapel-royal of Westminster.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Thou! why, how could that happen? Oxford! chapel-royal!”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“And to whom I said (your worship will forgive my forwardness), ‘_I have the honour_, _sir_, _to live within two measured miles of the very Sir Thomas Lucy who spake that_.’ And I vow I said it without any hope or belief that he would invite me, as he did, to dine with him thereupon.”

SIR THOMAS.

“There be nigh upon three miles betwixt this house and Stratford bridge-end.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“I dropt a mile in my pride and exultation, God forgive me! I would not conceal my fault.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Wonderful! that a preacher so learned as to preach before majesty in the chapel-royal should not have caught thee tripping over a whole lawful mile,—a good third of the distance between my house and the cross-roads. This is incomprehensible in a scholar.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“God willed that he should become my teacher, and in the bowels of his mercy hid my shame.”

SIR THOMAS.

“How camest thou into the converse of such eminent and ghostly men?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“How, indeed?—everything against me!”

He sighed, and entered into a long discourse, which Master Silas would at sundry times have interrupted, but that Sir Thomas more than once frowned upon him, even as he had frowned heretofore on young Will, who thus began and continued his narration:—

“Hearing the preacher preach at Saint Mary’s (for being about my father’s business on Saturday, and not choosing to be a-horseback on Sundays, albeit time-pressed, I footed it to Oxford for my edification on the Lord’s day, leaving the sorrel with Master Hal Webster of the _Tankard and Unicorn_)—hearing him preach, as I was saying, before the University in St. Mary’s Church, and hearing him use moreover the very words that Matthew fought about, I was impatient (God forgive me!) for the end and consummation, and I thought I never should hear those precious words that ease every man’s heart, ‘_Now to conclude_.’ However, come they did. I hurried out among the foremost, and thought the congratulations of the other doctors and dons would last for ever. He walked sharply off, and few cared to keep his pace,—for they are lusty men mostly; and spiteful bad women had breathed {89a} in the faces of some among them, or the gowns had got between their legs. For my part, I was not to be balked; so, tripping on aside him, I looked in his face askance. Whether he misgave or how, he turned his eyes downward. No matter—have him I would. I licked my lips and smacked them loud and smart, and scarcely venturing to nod, I gave my head such a sort of motion as dace and roach give an angler’s quill when they begin to bite. And this fairly hooked him.”

“‘Young gentleman!’ said he, ‘where is your gown?’

“‘Reverend sir!’ said I, ‘I am unworthy to wear one.’

“‘A proper youth, nevertheless, and mightily well-spoken!’ he was pleased to say.

“‘Your reverence hath given me heart, which failed me,’ was my reply. ‘Ah! your reverence! those words about the devil were spicy words; but, under favour, I do know the brook-side they sprang and flowered by. ’T is just where it runs into Avon; ’t is called Hogbrook.’

“‘Right!’ quoth he, putting his hand gently on my shoulder; ‘but if I had thought it needful to say so in my sermon, I should have affronted the seniors of the University, since many claim them, and some peradventure would fain transpose them into higher places, and giving up all right and title to them, would accept in lieu thereof the poor recompense of a mitre.’

“I wished (unworthy wish for a Sunday!) I had Matthew Atterend in the midst of them. He would have given them skulls mitre-fashioned, if mitres are cloven now as we see them on ancient monuments. Matt is your milliner for gentles, who think no more harm of purloining rich saws in a mitre than lane-born boys do of embezzling hazel-nuts in a woollen cap. I did not venture to expound or suggest my thoughts, but feeling my choler rise higher and higher, I craved permission to make my obeisance and depart.

“‘Where dost thou lodge, young man?’ said the preacher.

“‘At the public,’ said I, ‘where my father customarily lodgeth. There, too, is a mitre of the old fashion, swinging on the sign-post in the middle of the street.’

“‘Respectable tavern enough!’ quoth the reverend doctor; ‘and worthy men do turn in there, even quality,—Master Davenant, Master Powel, Master Whorwood, aged and grave men. But taverns are Satan’s chapels, and are always well attended on the Lord’s day, to twit him. Hast thou no friend in such a city as Oxford?’

“‘Only the landlady of the Mitre,’ said I.

“‘A comely woman,’ quoth he, ‘but too young for business by half.

“‘Stay thou with me to-day, and fare frugally, but safely.

“‘What may thy name be, and where is thy abode?’

“‘William Shakspeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, at your service, sir.’

“‘And welcome,’ said he; ‘thy father ere now hath bought our college wool. A truly good man we ever found him; and I doubt not he hath educated his son to follow him in his paths. There is in the blood of man, as in the blood of animals, that which giveth the temper and disposition. These require nurture and culture. But what nurture will turn flint-stones into garden mould? or what culture rear cabbages in the quarries of Hedington Hill? To be well born is the greatest of all God’s primary blessings, young man, and there are many well born among the poor and needy. Thou art not of the indigent and destitute, who have great temptations; thou art not of the wealthy and affluent, who have greater still. God hath placed thee, William Shakspeare, in that pleasant island, on one side whereof are the sirens, on the other the harpies, but inhabiting the coasts on the wider continent, and unable to make their talons felt, or their voices heard by thee. Unite with me in prayer and thanksgiving for the blessings thus vouchsafed. We must not close the heart when the finger of God would touch it. Enough, if thou sayest only, _My soul_, _praise thou the Lord_!’”

Sir Thomas said, “_Amen_!” Master Silas was mute for the moment, but then quoth he, “I can say amen too in the proper place.”

The knight of Charlecote, who appeared to have been much taken with this conversation, then interrogated Willy:—

“What farther might have been thy discourse with the doctor? or did he discourse at all at trencher-time? Thou must have been very much abashed to sit down at table with one who weareth a pure lambskin across his shoulder, and moreover a pink hood.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Faith! was I, your honour! and could neither utter nor gulp.”

SIR THOMAS.

“These are good signs. Thou hast not lost all grace.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“With the encouragement of Dr. Glaston—”

SIR THOMAS.

“And was it Dr. Glaston?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Said I not so?”

SIR THOMAS.

“The learnedst clerk in Christendom! a very Friar Bacon! The Pope offered a hundred marks in Latin to who should eviscerate or evirate him,—poisons very potent, whereat the Italians are handy,—so apostolic and desperate a doctor is Doctor Glaston! so acute in his quiddities, and so resolute in his bearing! He knows the dark arts, but stands aloof from them. Prithee, what were his words unto thee?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Manna, sir, manna! pure from the desert!”

SIR THOMAS.

“Ay, but what spake he? for most sermons are that, and likewise many conversations after dinner.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“He spake of the various races and qualities of men, as before stated; but chiefly on the elect and reprobate, and how to distinguish and know them.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Did he go so far?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“He told me that by such discussion he should say enough to keep me constantly out of evil company.”

SIR THOMAS.

“See there! see there! and yet thou art come before me!—Can nothing warn thee?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“I dare not dissemble, nor feign, nor hold aught back, although it be to my confusion. As well may I speak at once the whole truth for your worship could find it out if I abstained.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Ay, that I should indeed, and shortly. But, come now, I am sated of thy follies and roguish tricks, and yearn after the sound doctrine of that pious man. What expounded the grave Glaston upon signs and tokens whereby ye shall be known?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Wonderful things! things beyond belief! ‘There be certain men,’ quoth he—”

SIR THOMAS.

“He began well. This promises. But why canst not thou go on?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“‘There be certain men, who, rubbing one corner of the eye, do see a peacock’s feather at the other, and even fire. We know, William, what that fire is, and whence it cometh. Those wicked men, William, all have their marks upon them, be it only a corn, or a wart, or a mole, or a hairy ear, or a toe-nail turned inward. Sufficient, and more than sufficient! He knoweth his own by less tokens. There is not one of them that doth not sweat at some secret sin committed, or some inclination toward it unsnaffled.

“‘Certain men are there, likewise, who venerate so little the glorious works of the Creator that I myself have known them to sneeze at the sun! Sometimes it was against their will, and they would gladly have checked it had they been able; but they were forced to shew what they are. In our carnal state we say, _What is one against numbers_? In another we shall truly say, _What are numbers against one_?’”

Sir Thomas did ejaculate, “_Amen_! _Amen_!” And then his lips moved silently, piously, and quickly; and then said he, audibly and loudly,—

“_And make us at last true Israelites_!”

After which he turned to young Willy, and said, anxiously,—

“Hast thou more, lad? give us it while the Lord strengtheneth.”

“Sir,” answered Willy, “although I thought it no trouble, on my return to the _Mitre_, to write down every word I could remember, and although few did then escape me, yet at this present I can bring to mind but scanty sentences, and those so stray and out of order that they would only prove my incapacity for sterling wisdom, and my incontinence of spiritual treasure.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Even that sentence hath a twang of the doctor in it. Nothing is so sweet as humility. The mountains may descend, but the valleys cannot rise. Every man should know himself. Come, repeat what thou canst. I would fain have three or four more heads.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“I know not whether I can give your worship more than one other. Let me try. It was when Doctor Glaston was discoursing on the protection the wise and powerful should afford to the ignorant and weak:—

“‘In the earlier ages of mankind, your Greek and Latin authors inform you, there went forth sundry worthies, men of might, to deliver, not wandering damsels, albeit for those likewise they had stowage, but low-conditioned men, who fell under the displeasure of the higher, and groaned in thraldom and captivity. And these mighty ones were believed to have done such services to poor humanity that their memory grew greater than they, as shadows do than substances at day-fall. And the sons and grandsons of the delivered did laud and magnify those glorious names; and some in gratitude, and some in tribulation, did ascend the hills, which appeared unto them as altars bestrown with flowers and herbage for heaven’s acceptance. And many did go far into the quiet groves, under lofty trees, looking for whatever was mightiest and most protecting. And in such places did they cry aloud unto the mighty who had left them, “_Return_! _return_! _help us_! _help us_! _be blessed_! _for ever blessed_!”

“‘Vain men! but had they stayed there, not evil. Out of gratitude, purest gratitude, rose idolatry. For the devil sees the fairest, and soils it.

“‘In these our days, methinks, whatever other sins we may fall into, such idolatry is the least dangerous. For neither on the one side is there much disposition for gratitude, nor on the other much zeal to deliver the innocent and oppressed. Even this deliverance, although a merit, and a high one, is not the highest. Forgiveness is beyond it. Forgive, or ye shall not be forgiven. This ye may do every day; for if ye find not offences, ye feign them; and surely ye may remove your own work, if ye may re-remove another’s. To rescue requires more thought and wariness; learn, then, the easier lesson first. Afterward, when ye rescue any from another’s violence, or from his own (which oftentimes is more dangerous, as the enemies are within not only the penetrals of his house but of his heart), bind up his wounds before ye send him on his way. Should ye at any time overtake the erring, and resolve to deliver him up, I will tell you whither to conduct him. Conduct him to his Lord and Master, whose household he hath left. It is better to consign him to Christ his Saviour than to man his murderer; it is better to bid him live than to bid him die. The one word our Teacher and Preserver said, the other our enemy and destroyer. Bring him back again, the stray, the lost one bring him back, not with clubs and cudgels, not with halberts and halters, but generously and gently, and with the linking of the arm. In this posture shall God above smile upon ye; in this posture of yours he shall recognize again his beloved Son upon earth. Do ye likewise, and depart in peace.’”

William had ended, and there was silence in the hall for some time after, when Sir Thomas said,—

“He spake unto somewhat mean persons, who may do it without disparagement. I look for authority, I look for doctrine, and find none yet. If he could not have drawn us out a thread or two from the coat of an apostle, he might have given us a smack of Augustin, or a sprig of Basil. Our older sermons are headier than these, Master Silas! our new beer is the sweeter and clammier, and wants more spice. The doctor hath seasoned his with pretty wit enough, to do him justice, which in a sermon is never out of place; for if there be the bane, there likewise is the antidote.

“What dost thou think about it, Master Silas?”

SIR SILAS.

“I would not give ten farthings for ten folios of such sermons.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“These words, Master Silas, will oftener be quoted than any others of thine; but rarely (do I suspect) as applicable to Doctor Glaston. I must stick unto his gown. I must declare that, to my poor knowledge, many have been raised to the bench of bishops for less wisdom and worse than is contained in the few sentences I have been commanded by authority to recite. No disparagement to any body I know, Master Silas, and multitudes bear witness, that thou above most art a dead hand at a sermon.”

SIR SILAS.

“Touch my sermons, wilt dare?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Nay, Master Silas, be not angered; it is courage enough to hear them.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Now, Silas, hold thy peace and rest contented. He hath excused himself unto thee, throwing in a compliment far above his station, and not unworthy of Rome or Florence. I did not think him so ready. Our Warwickshire lads are fitter for football than courtesies; and, sooth to say, not only the inferior.”

His worship turned from Master Silas toward William, and said, “Brave Willy, thou hast given us our bitters; we are ready now for any thing solid. What hast left?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Little or nothing, sir.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Well, give us that little or nothing.”

William Shakspeare was obedient to the commands of Sir Thomas, who had spoken thus kindly unto him, and had deigned to cast at him from his _lordly dish_ (as the Psalmist hath it) a fragment of facetiousness.

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Alas, sir! may I repeat it without offence, it not being doctrine but admonition, and meant for me only?”

“Speak it the rather for that,” quoth Sir Thomas.

Then did William give utterance to the words of the preacher, not indeed in his sermon at St. Mary’s, but after dinner.

“‘Lust seizeth us in youth, ambition in midlife, avarice in old age; but vanity and pride are the besetting sins that drive the angels from our cradle, pamper us with luscious and most unwholesome food, ride our first stick with us, mount our first horse with us, wake with us in the morning, dream with us in the night, and never at any time abandon us. In this world, beginning with pride and vanity, we are delivered over from tormentor to tormentor, until the worst tormentor of all taketh absolute possession of us for ever, seizing us at the mouth of the grave, enchaining us in his own dark dungeon, standing at the door, and laughing at our cries. But the Lord, out of his infinite mercy, hath placed in the hand of every man the helm to steer his course by, pointing it out with his finger, and giving him strength as well as knowledge to pursue it.

“‘William! William! there is in the moral straits a current from right to wrong, but no re-flux from wrong to right; for which destination we must hoist our sails aloft and ply our oars incessantly, or night and the tempest will overtake us, and we shall shriek out in vain from the billows, and irrecoverably sink.’”

“Amen!” cried Sir Thomas most devoutly, sustaining his voice long and loud.

“Open that casement, good Silas! the day is sultry for the season of the year; it approacheth unto noontide. The room is close, and those blue flies do make a strange hubbub.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“In troth do they, sir; they come from the kitchen, and do savour woundily of roast goose! And, methinks—”

SIR THOMAS.

“What bethinkest thou?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“The fancy of a moment,—a light and vain one.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Thou relievest me; speak it!”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“How could the creatures cast their coarse rank odour thus far?—even into your presence! A noble and spacious hall! Charlecote, in my mind, beats Warwick Castle, and challenges Kenilworth.”

SIR THOMAS.

“The hall is well enough; I must say it is a noble hall,—a hall for a queen to sit down in. And I stuffed an arm-chair with horse-hair on purpose, feathers over it, swan-down over them again, and covered it with scarlet cloth of Bruges, five crowns the short ell. But her highness came not hither; she was taken short; she had a tongue in her ear.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Where all is spring, all is buzz and murmur.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Quaint and solid as the best yew hedge. I marvel at thee. A knight might have spoken it, under favour. They stopped her at Warwick—to see what? two old towers that don’t match, {105a} and a portcullis that (people say) opens only upon fast-days. Charlecote Hall, I could have told her sweet Highness, was built by those Lucys who came over with Julius Cæsar and William the Conqueror, with cross and scallop-shell on breast and beaver.”

“But, _honest Willy_!?—”

Such were the very words; I wrote them down with two signs in the margent,—one a mark of admiration, as thus (!), the other of interrogation (so we call it) as thus (?).

“But, honest Willy, I would fain hear more,” quoth he, “about the learned Doctor Glaston. He seemeth to be a man after God’s own heart.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Ay is he! Never doth he sit down to dinner but he readeth first a chapter of the Revelation; and if he tasteth a pound of butter at Carfax, he saith a grace long enough to bring an appetite for a baked bull’s {106a} —zle. If this be not after God’s own heart, I know not what is.”

SIR THOMAS.

“I would fain confer with him, but that Oxford lieth afar off,—a matter of thirty miles, I hear. I might, indeed, write unto him; but our Warwickshire pens are mighty broad-nibbed, and there is a something in this plaguy ink of ours sadly ropy—”

“I fear there is,” quoth Willy.

“And I should scorn,” continued his worship, “to write otherwise than in a fine Italian character to the master of a college, near in dignity to knighthood.”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Worshipful sir! is there no other way of communicating but by person, or writing, or messages?”

SIR THOMAS.

“I will consider and devise. At present I can think of none so satisfactory.”

And now did the great clock over the gateway strike. And Bill Shakspeare did move his lips, even as Sir Thomas had moved his erewhile in ejaculating. And when he had wagged them twice or thrice after the twelve strokes of the clock were over, again he ejaculated with voice also, saying,—

“Mercy upon us! how the day wears! Twelve strokes! Might I retire, please your worship, into the chapel for about three quarters of an hour, and perform the service {108a} as ordained?”

Before Sir Thomas could give him leave or answer, did Sir Silas cry aloud,—

“He would purloin the chalice, worth forty-eight shillings, and melt it down in the twinkling of an eye, he is so crafty.”

But the knight was more reasonable, and said, reprovingly,—

“There now, Silas! thou talkest widely, and verily in malice, if there be any in thee.”

“Try him,” answered Master Silas; “I don’t kneel where he does. Could he have but his wicked will of me he would chop my legs off, as he did the poor buck’s.”

SIR THOMAS.

“No, no, no; he hath neither guile nor revenge in him. We may let him have his way, now that he hath taken the right one.”

SIR SILAS.

“Popery! sheer popery! strong as harts-horn! Your papists keep these outlandish hours for their masses and mummery. Surely we might let God alone at twelve o’clock! Have we no bowels?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Gracious sir! I do not urge it; and the time is now past by some minutes.”

SIR THOMAS.

“Art thou popishly inclined, William?”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

“Sir, I am not popishly inclined; I am not inclined to pay tribute of coin or understanding to those who rush forward with a pistol at my breast, crying, ‘_Stand_, _or you are a dead man_.’ I have but one guide in faith,—a powerful, an almighty one. He will not suffer to waste away and vanish the faith for which he died. He hath chosen in all countries pure hearts for its depositaries; and I would rather take it from a friend and neighbour, intelligent and righteous, and rejecting lucre, than from some foreigner educated in the pride of cities or in the moroseness of monasteries, who sells me what Christ gave me,—his own flesh and blood.

“I can repeat by heart what I read above a year agone, albeit I cannot bring to mind the title of the book in which I read it. These are the words,—

“‘The most venal and sordid of all the superstitions that have swept and darkened our globe may, indeed, like African locusts, have consumed the green corn in very extensive regions, and may return periodically to consume it; but the strong, unwearied labourer who sowed it hath alway sown it in other places less exposed to such devouring pestilences. Those cunning men who formed to themselves the gorgeous plan of universal dominion were aware that they had a better chance of establishing it than brute ignorance or brute force could supply, and that soldiers and their paymasters were subject to other and powerfuller fears than the transitory ones of war and invasion. What they found in heaven they seized; what they wanted they forged.