Chapter 10

“Some attribute to the Irish all sorts of excesses; others tell us that these are old stories; that there is not a more inoffensive race of merry creatures under heaven, and that their crimes are all hatched for them here in England, by the incubation of printers’ boys, and are brought to market at times of distressing dearth in news. From all that I myself have seen of them, I can only say that the civilized (I mean the richer and titled) are as susceptible of heat as iron, and as impenetrable to light as granite. The half-barbarous are probably worse; the utterly barbarous may be somewhat better. Like game-cocks, they must spur when they meet. One fights because he fights an Englishman; another because the fellow he quarrels with comes from a distant county; a third because the next parish is an eyesore to him, and his fist-mate is from it. The only thing in which they all agree as proper law is the tooth-for-tooth act. Luckily we have a bishop who is a native, and we called him before the queen. He represented to her majesty that every thing in Old Ireland tended to re-produce its kind,—crimes among others; and he declared, frankly, that if an honest man is murdered, or what is dearer to an honest man, if his honour is wounded in the person of his wife, it must be expected that he will retaliate. Her Majesty delivered it as her opinion that the latter case of vindictiveness was more likely to take effect than the former. But the bishop replied that in his conscience he could not answer for either if the man was up. The dean of the same diocese gave us a more favorable report. Being a justice of the peace, he averred most solemnly that no man ever had complained to him of murder, excepting one who had lost so many fore-teeth by a cudgel that his deposition could not be taken exactly,—added to which, his head was a little clouded with drunkenness; furthermore, that extremely few women had adduced sufficiently clear proofs of violence, excepting those who were wilful and resisted with tooth and nail. In all which cases it was difficult, nay impossible, to ascertain which violence began first and lasted longest.

“There is not a nation upon earth that pretends to be so superlatively generous and high-minded; and there is not one (I speak from experience) so utterly base and venal. I have positive proof that the nobility, in a mass, are agreed to sell, for a stipulated sum, all their rights and privileges, so much per man; and the queen is inclined thereunto. But would our parliament consent to pay money for a cargo of rotten pilchards? And would not our captains be readier to swamp than to import them? The noisiest rogues in that kingdom, if not quieted by a halter, may be quieted by making them brief-collectors, and by allowing them first to encourage the incendiary, then to denounce and hang him, and lastly to collect all the money they can, running up and down with the whining ferocity of half-starved hyenas, under pretence of repairing the damages their exhausted country hath sustained. Others ask modestly a few thousands a year, and no more, from those whom they represent to us as naked and famished; and prove clearly to every dispassionate man who hath a single drop of free blood in his veins that at least this pittance is due to them for abandoning their liberal and lucrative professions, and for endangering their valuable lives on the tempestuous seas, in order that the voice of Truth may sound for once upon the shores of England, and Humanity cast her shadow on the council-chamber.

“I gave a dinner to a party of these fellows a few weeks ago. I know not how many kings and princes were amongst them, nor how many poets, and prophets, and legislators, and sages. When they were half-drunk, they coaxed and threatened; when they had gone somewhat deeper, they joked, and croaked, and hiccoughed, and wept over sweet Ireland; and when they could neither stand nor sit any longer, they fell upon their knees and their noddles, and swore that limbs, life, liberty, Ireland, and God himself, were all at the queen’s service. It was only their holy religion, the religion of their forefathers— Here sobs interrupted some, howls others, execrations more, and the liquor they had ingulfed, the rest. I looked down on them with stupor and astonishment, seeing faces, forms, dresses, much like ours, and recollecting their ignorance, levity, and ferocity. My pages drew them gently by the heels down the steps; my grooms set them upright (inasmuch as might be) on their horses; and the people in the streets, shouting and pelting, sent forward the beasts to their straw.

“Various plans have been laid before us for civilising or coercing them. Among the pacific, it was proposed to make an offer to five-hundred of the richer Jews in the Hanse-towns and in Poland, who should be raised to the dignity of the Irish peerage, and endowed with four thousand acres of good forfeited land, on condition of each paying two thousand pounds, and of keeping up ten horsemen and twenty foot, Germans or Poles, in readiness for service.

“The Catholics bear no where such ill-will toward Jews as toward Protestants. Brooks make even worse neighbours than oceans do.

“I myself saw no objection to the measure; but our gracious queen declared she had an insuperable one—_they stank_! We all acknowledged the strength of the argument, and took out our handkerchiefs. Lord Burleigh almost fainted; and Raleigh wondered how the Emperor Titus could bring up his men against Jerusalem.

“‘Ah!’ said he, looking reverentially at her Majesty, ‘the star of Berenice shone above him! and what evil influence could that star not quell? what malignancy could it not annihilate?’

“Hereupon he touched the earth with his brow, until the queen said,—

“‘Sir Walter! lift me up those laurels.’

“At which manifestation of princely goodwill he was advancing to kiss her Majesty’s hand, but she waved it, and said, sharply,—

“‘Stand there, dog!’

“Now what tale have you for us?”

SPENSER.

“Interrogate me, my lord, that I may answer each question distinctly, my mind being in sad confusion at what I have seen and undergone.”

ESSEX.

“Give me thy account and opinion of these very affairs as thou leftest them; for I would rather know one part well than all imperfectly; and the violences of which I have heard within the day surpass belief.

“Why weepest thou, my gentle Spenser? Have the rebels sacked thy house?”

SPENSER.

“They have plundered and utterly destroyed it.”

ESSEX.

“I grieve for thee, and will see thee righted.”

SPENSER.

“In this they have little harmed me.”

ESSEX.

“Howl I have heard it reported that thy grounds are fertile and thy mansion {211} large and pleasant.”

SPENSER.

“If river, and lake, and meadow-ground, and mountain, could render any place the abode of pleasantness, pleasant was mine, indeed!

“On the lovely banks of Mulla I found deep contentment. Under the dark alders did I muse and meditate. Innocent hopes were my gravest cares, and my playfullest fancy was with kindly wishes. Ah! surely, of all cruelties the worst is to extinguish our kindness. Mine is gone: I love the people and the land no longer. My lord, ask me not about them; I may speak injuriously.”

ESSEX.

“Think rather, then, of thy happier hours and busier occupations; these likewise may instruct me.”

SPENSER.

“The first seeds I sowed in the garden, ere the old castle was made habitable for my lovely bride, were acorns from Penshurst. I planted a little oak before my mansion at the birth of each child. ‘My sons,’ I said to myself, ‘shall often play in the shade of them when I am gone, and every year shall they take the measure of their growth, as fondly as I take theirs.’”

ESSEX.

“Well, well; but let not this thought make thee weep so bitterly.”

SPENSER.

“Poison may ooze from beautiful plants; deadly grief from dearest reminiscences.

“I _must_ grieve, I _must_ weep; it seems the law of God, and the only one that men are not disposed to contravene. In the performance of this alone do they effectually aid one another.”

ESSEX.

“Spenser! I wish I had at hand any arguments or persuasions of force sufficient to remove thy sorrow; but really I am not in the habit of seeing men grieve at any thing except the loss of favour at court, or of a hawk, or of a buck-hound. And were I to swear out my condolences to a man of thy discernment, in the same round, roll-call phrases we employ with one another upon these occasions, I should be guilty, not of insincerity, but of insolence. True grief hath ever something sacred in it, and when it visiteth a wise man and a brave one, is most holy.

“Nay, kiss not my hand; he whom God smiteth hath God with him. In his presence what am I?”

SPENSER.

“Never so great, my lord, as at this hour, when you see aright who is greater. May He guide your counsels, and preserve your life and glory!”

ESSEX.

“Where are thy friends? Are they with thee?”

SPENSER.

“Ah, where indeed? Generous, true-hearted Philip! where art thou? whose presence was unto me peace and safety, whose smile was contentment, and whose praise renown. My lord! I cannot but think of him among still heavier losses; he was my earliest friend, and would have taught me wisdom.”

ESSEX.

“Pastoral poetry, my dear Spenser, doth not require tears and lamentations. Dry thine eyes; rebuild thine house. The queen and council, I venture to promise thee, will make ample amends for every evil thou hast sustained. What! does that enforce thee to wail yet louder?”

SPENSER.

“Pardon me, bear with me, most noble heart! I have lost what no council, no queen, no Essex can restore.”

ESSEX.

“We will see that! There are other swords, and other arms to wield them, besides a Leicester’s and a Raleigh’s. Others can crush their enemies and serve their friends.”

SPENSER.

“O my sweet child! And of many so powerful, many so wise and so beneficent, was there none to save thee? None! none!”

ESSEX.

“I now perceive that thou lamentest what almost every father is destined to lament. Happiness must be bought, although the payment may be delayed. Consider; the same calamity might have befallen thee here in London. Neither the houses of ambassadors, nor the palaces of kings, nor the altars of God himself, are asylums against death. How do I know but under this very roof there may sleep some latent calamity, that in an instant shall cover with gloom every inmate of the house, and every far dependent?”

SPENSER.

“God avert it!”

ESSEX.

“Every day, every hour of the year, do hundreds mourn what thou mournest.”

SPENSER.

“Oh, no, no, no! Calamities there are around us; calamities there are all over the earth; calamities there are in all seasons; but none in any season, none in any place, like mine.”

ESSEX.

“So say all fathers, so say all husbands. Look at any old mansion-house, and let the sun shine as gloriously as it may on the golden vanes, or the arms recently quartered over the gateway, or the embayed window, and on the happy pair that haply is toying at it; nevertheless, thou mayest say that of a certainty the same fabric hath seen much sorrow within its chambers, and heard many wailings; and each time this was the heaviest stroke of all. Funerals have passed along through the stout-hearted knights upon the wainscot, and amidst the laughing nymphs upon the arras. Old servants have shaken their heads, as if somebody had deceived them, when they found that beauty and nobility could perish.

“Edmund! the things that are too true pass by us as if they were not true at all; and when they have singled us out, then only do they strike us. Thou and I must go too. Perhaps the next year may blow us away with its fallen leaves.” {217}

SPENSER.

“For you, my lord, many years (I trust) are waiting; I never shall see those fallen leaves. No leaf, no bud will spring upon the earth before I sink into her breast for ever.”

ESSEX.

“Thou, who art wiser than most men, shouldst bear with patience, equanimity, and courage, what is common to all.”

SPENSER.

“Enough! enough! enough! Have all men seen their infant burnt to ashes before their eyes?”

MEMORANDUM BY EPHRAIM BARNETT.

WRITTEN UPON THE INNER COVER.

STUDYING the benefit and advantage of such as by God’s blessing may come after me, and willing to shew them the highways of Providence from the narrow by-lane in the which it hath been his pleasure to station me, and being now advanced full-nigh unto the close and consummation of my earthly pilgrimage, methinks I cannot do better, at this juncture, than preserve the looser and lesser records of those who have gone before me in the same, with higher heel-piece to their shoe and more polished scallop to their beaver. And here, beforehand, let us think gravely and religiously on what the pagans, in their blindness, did call fortune, making a goddess of her, and saying,—

“One body she lifts up so high And suddenly, she makes him cry And scream as any wench might do That you should play the rogue unto. And the same Lady Light sees good To drop another in the mud, Against all hope and likelihood.” {221}

My kinsman, Jacob Eldridge, having been taught by me, among other useful things, to write a fair and laudable hand, was recommended and introduced by our worthy townsman, Master Thomas Greene, unto the Earl of Essex, to keep his accounts, and to write down sundry matters from his dictation, even letters occasionally. For although our nobility, very unlike the French, not only can read and write, but often do, yet some from generosity, and some from dignity, keep in their employment what those who are illiterate, and would not appear so, call an _amanuensis_, thereby meaning _secretary_ or _scribe_. Now it happened that our gracious queen’s highness was desirous of knowing all that could be known about the Rebellion in Ireland; and hearing but little truth from her nobility in that country, even the fathers in God inclining more unto court favour than will be readily believed of spiritual lords, and moulding their ductile depositions on the pasteboard of their temporal mistress, until she was angry at seeing the lawn-sleeves so besmirched from wrist to elbow, she herself did say unto the Earl of Essex,—

“Essex! these fellows lie! I am inclined to unfrock and scourge them sorely for their leasings. Of that anon. Find out, if you can, somebody who hath his wit and his honesty about him at the same time. I know that when one of these paniers is full the other is apt to be empty, and that men walk crookedly for want of balance. No matter—we must search and find. Persuade—thou canst persuade, Essex!—say any thing, do any thing. We must talk gold and give—iron. Dost understand me?”

The earl did kiss the jewels upon the dread fingers, for only the last joint of each is visible; and surely no mortal was ever so foolhardy as to take such a monstrous liberty as touching it, except in spirit! On the next day there did arrive many fugitives from Ireland; and among the rest was Master Edmund Spenser, known even in those parts for his rich vein of poetry, in which he is declared by our best judges to excel the noblest of the ancients, and to leave all the moderns at his feet. Whether he notified his arrival unto the earl, or whether fame brought the notice thereof unto his lordship, Jacob knoweth not. But early in the morrow did the earl send for Jacob, and say unto him,—

“Eldridge! thou must write fairly and clearly out, and in somewhat large letters, and in lines somewhat wide apart, all that thou hearest of the conversation I shall hold with a gentleman from Ireland. Take this gilt and illumined vellum, and albeit the civet make thee sick fifty times, write upon it all that passes! Come not out of the closet until the gentleman hath gone homeward. The queen requireth much exactness; and this is equally a man of genius, a man of business, and a man of worth. I expect from him not only what is true, but what is the most important and necessary to understand rightly and completely; and nobody in existence is more capable of giving me both information and advice. Perhaps if he thought another were within hearing he would be offended or over-cautious. His delicacy and mine are warranted safe and sound by the observance of those commands which I am delivering unto thee.”

It happened that no information was given in this conference relating to the movements or designs of the rebels. So that Master Jacob Eldridge was left possessor of the costly vellum, which, now Master Spenser is departed this life, I keep as a memorial of him, albeit oftener than once I have taken pounce box and penknife in hand, in order to make it a fit and proper vehicle for my own very best writing. But I pretermitted it, finding that my hand is no longer the hand it was, or rather that the breed of geese is very much degenerated, and that their quills, like men’s manners, are grown softer and flaccider. Where it will end God only knows; I shall not live to see it.

Alas, poor Jacob Eldridge! he little thought that within twelve months his glorious master, and the scarcely less glorious poet, would be no more! In the third week of the following year was Master Edmund buried at the charges of the earl; and within these few days hath this lofty nobleman bowed his head under the axe of God’s displeasure,—such being our gracious queen’s. My kinsman Jacob sent unto me by the Alcester drover, old Clem Fisher, this, among other papers, fearing the wrath of that offended highness which allowed not her own sweet disposition to question or thwart the will divine. Jacob did likewise tell me in his letter that he was sure I should be happy to hear the success of William Shakspeare, our townsman. And in truth right glad was I to hear of it, being a principal in bringing it about, as those several sheets will shew which have the broken tile laid upon them to keep them down compactly.

Jacob’s words are these:—

“Now I speak of poets, you will be in a maze at hearing that our townsman hath written a power of matter for the playhouse. Neither he nor the booksellers think it quite good enough to print; but I do assure you, on the faith of a Christian, it is not bad; and there is rare fun in the last thing of his about Venus, where a Jew, one Shiloh, is choused out of his money and his revenge. However, the best critics and the greatest lords find fault, and very justly, in the words,—

“‘Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?’

“Surely, this is very unchristianlike. Nay, for supposition sake, suppose it to be true, was it his business to tell the people so? Was it his duty to ring the crier’s bell and cry to them, _The sorry Jews are quite as much men as you are_? The impudentest thing (excepting some bauderies) that ever came from the stage! The church, luckily, has let him alone for the present; and the queen winks upon it. The best defence he can make for himself is that it comes from the mouth of a Jew, who says many other things as abominable. Master Greene may overrate him; but Master Greene declares that if William goes on improving and taking his advice, it will be desperate hard work in another seven years to find so many as half a dozen chaps equal to him within the liberties. Master Greene and myself took him with us to see the burial of Master Edmund Spenser in Westminster Abbey, on the 19th of January last. The halberdmen pushed us back as having no business there. Master Greene told them he belonged to the queen’s company of players. William Shakspeare could have said the same, but did not. And I, fearing that Master Greene and he might be halberded back into the crowd, shewed the badge of the Earl of Essex. Whereupon did the serjeant ground his halberd, and say unto me,—

“‘That badge commands admittance everywhere; your folk likewise may come in.’

“Master Greene was red-hot angry, and told me he would bring him before the _council_.

“William smiled, and Master Greene said,—

“‘Why! would not you, if you were in my place?’

“He replied,—

“‘I am an half inclined to do worse,—to bring him before the _audience_ some spare hour.’

“At the close of the burial-service all the poets of the age threw their pens into the grave, together with the pieces they had composed in praise or lamentation of the deceased. William Shakspeare was the only poet who abstained from throwing in either pen or poem,—at which no one marvelled, he being of low estate, and the others not having yet taken him by the hand. Yet many authors recognised him, not indeed as author, but as player; and one, civiller than the rest, came up unto him triumphantly, his eyes sparkling with glee and satisfaction, and said, consolatorily,—

“‘In due time, my honest friend, you may be admitted to do as much for one of us.’

“‘After such encouragement,’ replied our townsman, ‘I am bound in duty to give you the preference, should I indeed be worthy.’

“‘This was the only smart thing he uttered all the remainder of the day; during the whole of it he appeared to be half-lost, I know not whether in melancholy or in meditation, and soon left us.”

Here endeth all that my kinsman Jacob wrote about William Shakspeare, saving and excepting his excuse for having written so much. The rest of his letter was on a matter of wider and weightier import, namely, on the price of Cotteswolde cheese at Evesham fair. And yet, although ingenious men be not among the necessaries of life, there is something in them that makes us curious in regard to their goings and doings. It were to be wished that some of them had attempted to be better accountants; and others do appear to have laid aside the copybook full early in the day. Nevertheless, they have their uses and their merits. Master Eldridge’s letter is the wrapper of much wholesome food for contemplation. Although the decease (within so brief a period) of such a poet as Master Spenser, and such a patron as the earl, be unto us appalling, we laud and magnify the great Disposer of events, no less for his goodness in raising the humble than for his power in extinguishing the great. And peradventure ye, my heirs and descendants, who shall read with due attention what my pen now writeth, will say, with the royal Psalmist, that it inditeth of a good matter, when it sheweth unto you that, whereas it pleased the queen’s highness to send a great lord before the judgment-seat of Heaven, having fitted him by means of such earthly instruments as princes in like cases do usually employ, and deeming (no doubt) in her princely heart that by such shrewd tonsure his head would be best fitted for a crown of glory, and thus doing all that she did out of the purest and most considerate love for him,—it likewise hath pleased her highness to use her right hand as freely as her left, and to raise up a second burgess of our town to be one of her company of players. And ye, also, by industry and loyalty, may cheerfully hope for promotion in your callings, and come up (some of you) as nearly to him in the presence of royalty, as he cometh up (far off, indeed, at present) to the great and wonderful poet who lies dead among more spices than any phœnix, and more quills than any porcupine. If this thought may not prick and incitate you, little is to be hoped from any gentle admonition, or any earnest expostulation, of

Your loving friend and kinsman,

E. B.