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.