CHAPTER III

LITERATURE AND ART

The earliest transcribers of MSS., that is to say, publishers of books, the monks, not only transcribed MSS., but they sold their copies, the sale of books forming part of the monastic revenues. These books were either plain copies for common use, as the service books and the school books, or they were illuminated, bound with decorations of gold and silver, costing very large sums. When, however, as happened in the fifteenth century, the demand for books increased, while the revenues, and therefore the numbers, of the religious in the monasteries decreased, the multiplication of books fell into the hands of laymen. In some cases the monks themselves employed laymen as transcribers. There grew up various branches of the book trade: the maker of parchment, pens, ink, colours for illumination; the writers, the binders, the illuminators, and the sellers. As regards the value of books at any time, it is impossible to estimate it, because we must first learn the purchasing power of money, which is very difficult to ascertain; _e.g._ the price of wheat, sheep, fowls, etc., is a very fallacious test, because we do not know the standards of the time. The wage test is the safest guide. For instance, six pounds a year was thought sufficient pay for the maintenance of a chantry priest—a man considered superior to the ordinary craftsman, yet not very high in the social scale. In addition we must know the whole conditions of production; the cost of materials, the time taken by transcribers for a page or a sheet, the demand, the competition, and everything else connected with the work. Some of these points have been cleared up, but most of them can never be cleared up. It must be sufficient to understand that there was a large demand for books, and that many collections of books were formed by princes and prelates and monasteries. It was a providential circumstance that the art of printing was well advanced at the time of the Dissolution of the Religious Houses. Otherwise the losses, which were great indeed, might have been very much greater, even irreparable.

The first printers in the City of London were Caxton’s workmen, Wynkyn de Worde and Richard Pynson. The former set up his press in Fleet Street, “over against the Conduit,” which stood at the end of Shoe Lane; the latter, outside Temple Bar. In the course of the century, however, the number of printers rapidly increased, and in the reign of Elizabeth the number of books published in any branch was extraordinary. Nothing can show more conclusively the general avidity for learning and for the possession of books in every branch of knowledge. When, indeed, we consider that the yearly output of books in Great Britain and America now amounts to some 10,000 (a large number of them new editions), which at an average of 1000 each means 10,000,000 volumes among a population of 120,000,000, who nearly all read, without counting India, which alone contains millions of readers, and when we remember that the whole reading public of England amounted to a few thousands, it is clear that the Elizabethan output was beyond comparison greater in proportion than our own.

It could not be long before a censorship of the Press was established. In 1526 the printing of books against the Catholic Faith was prohibited. Later on, that of books defending the Catholic Faith was in turn prohibited.

It was in 1557 that the very singular powers were conferred upon the Company of Stationers of suppressing and prohibiting books either seditious or heretical. These powers were absolute and subject to no appeal. Why the Company of Stationers was entrusted with powers which belonged to the Bishop of London and the Ecclesiastical Courts does not appear. However, the Company exercised this authority for two years, when Queen Elizabeth ordered that no book should be printed without a license being first obtained. She then, illogically, granted monopolies to certain printers and booksellers for the sale of certain books specified: to one for the sale of Bibles; to another for sale of catechism; to a third for that of music-books; and so on. To the Stationers she granted the monopoly of psalters, primers, almanacks, A B C, the “little Catechism,” and Nowell’s English and Latin Catechism. The printer, however, was already separating from the bookseller. As yet there was no such thing recognised as the author’s rights over his own property. In many cases he did not wish his name to appear; the publisher did what he pleased with the MS.

Among the early booksellers was Richard Grafton, who was printer, bookseller, and author as well. He reprinted and continued Hall’s _Chronicles_. Other publishers and booksellers of the sixteenth century were Robert Redman, who quarrelled with Richard Pynson; Henry Pepwell, who died in 1539; John Day, for whom John Foxe, who wrote the _Book of Martyrs_, worked. He issued a Church music book. He also published Bibles, Sermons, and A B C’s. Day had shops successively in Holborn, Aldersgate Street, and St. Paul’s Churchyard. William Middleton, whose shop was in Fleet Street, near St. Dunstan’s Church, was both printer and bookseller. He published Heywood’s _Four P’s_, and an edition of Froissart.

Henry Smyth, Redman’s son-in-law, was the publisher of Littleton’s _Tenures_. Richard Tottell, whose shop was within Temple Bar, published Tusser’s _Hundred Good Points of Agriculture_, Grafton’s _Abridgment of the Chronicles of England_, and Stow’s _Summary of the Chronicles of England_. Harrison of St. Paul’s Churchyard published Shakespeare’s _Venus and Adonis_ in 1593, but it was printed by Richard Field, a fellow-townsman of the poet. In 1594 Harrison published _The Rape of Lucrece_. The publication of the plays, however, belongs mostly to the seventeenth century. But _Romeo and Juliet_, _Richard II._, _Richard III_, _Henry IV._ Part I., _Love’s Labours Lost_, were published at this time, and in 1600 _Henry IV._ Part II., _Much Ado About Nothing_, _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, _The Merchant of Venice_, _Titus Andronicus_, and _Henry V._ all came out. In all, eleven of the plays were published in the sixteenth and the rest in the seventeenth century.

There was an astonishing number of printers and booksellers. Thus, in addition to the names mentioned above, we may note those of Middleton, Richard Field, Harrison, father and son, William Leake, Wise, Aspley, Ling, and Nathaniel Butler, Ponsonby, Edward White, Cadman, Burby, Warde, William Barley, Humphrey Hooper, John Budge, Thorpe, and Norton.

Already the bitterness of the author against the publisher has begun. Drayton speaks of the booksellers as “a company of base knaves, whom I scorn and kick at.” Complaint was made concerning a book called _A Petite Palace of Petties his Pleasure_ (1576), that the printer had suppressed the name of the author, and his preface, and had substituted his own name with a preface by himself. Again, the authors complained of the advertising tricks employed to increase the sale of a book. Thus, Ben Jonson addresses his bookseller:—

“‘Thou, that mak’st gaine thy end, and wisely well Call’st a book good, or bad, as it doth sell, Use mine so, too: I give thee leave. But crave For luck’s sake it thus much favours have, To lie upon thy stall till it be sought; Not offer’d, as it made suit to be bought: Nor have my title-leaf on post, or walls, Or in cleft-sticks, advanced to make calls For termers or some clerk-like serving-man, Who scarce can spell th’ hard names: whose knight scarce can; If, without these vile arts it will not sell, Send it to Bucklersbury, there ‘twill well.’”

Unfortunately, also, the bitterness of the author against the bookseller was accompanied by bitterness against his fellow-craftsmen. Thus Barnaby Rich says:—

“‘One of the diseases of this age is the multitude of books, that doth so overcharge the world that it is not able to digest the abundance of idle matter that is every day hatched and brought into the world, that are as divers in their forms as their authors be in their faces. It is but a thriftless and a thankless occupation, this writing of books: a man were better to sit singing in a cobbler’s shop, for his pay is certain a penny a patch, but a book-writer, if he gets sometimes a few commendations of the judicious, he shall be sure to reap a thousand reproaches of the malicious.’” (W. Roberts, _Earlier History of English Bookselling_.)

This brief view of bookselling in the sixteenth century may be taken to include also the first twenty years of the seventeenth, after which certain changes appear in the trade and in the relations of author and publisher.

Little has been said, so far, concerning the connection of London with literature. The history of literature belongs to the nation, not to London. Yet London could even before the Elizabethan age boast of Chaucer, Gower, Skelton, Lydgate, all of whom, at some time in their lives, resided in London. And what a list, what a splendid list, is presented of the London poets in the reign of Gloriana! This list alone, without counting the poets who went before or the poets who came after, is sufficient in itself to place England in the forefront of modern literature. Consider some of the names. Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Marlowe, Massinger, Beaumont, Fletcher, Ford, Peele, Marston, Sackvile, Sylvester, Spenser, Raleigh—one could go on till the page became a catalogue. I have counted two hundred and forty Elizabethan poets whose names, with many of their works, have survived to the present day. In the same proportion we, who can hardly number sixty poets, ought to have now 5000. But in that time expression assumed the form of poetry first and the drama afterwards; men who had a thing to say, or a theory to state, said it in poetry, just as a man who had a tale to tell presented it in the form of a drama. Not that poetry or the drama were the only things. The Elizabethan age was rich in every form and branch of literature; it had books of chivalry, as _The Seven Champions_; story books, as _The Gesta Romanorum_; jest books, as Skogan’s, Tarleton’s, Skelton’s, Peele’s; pastoral romances, as _The Arcadia_; “picaresque” novels, as those of Nash and Dekker; histories, as those of Holinshed, Stow, Grafton; essays, as those of Bacon, Ascham, Sir Thomas Browne; satires, as those of Hall and Marston; translations from the French and the Italian. Not even in these days is there a better, larger, fresher supply of new literature. It was above all fresh; everything was new; people did not look backwards in literature; they lived in the present; at no other time in the history of the world was the present more delightful; more full of hope, more full of joy, more full of daring. There was a new religion, not yet crystallised into Puritanism: a religion in which every man, for the first time after more than a thousand years, stood up before his Maker without an interposing priest; there was a new learning, full of wonder and of delight; there were new arts; there was a new world, a larger world, full of mysteries and monsters and undiscovered marvels; there was a new pride sprung up among the people; new adventures were possible; there were new roads to riches; England held a nobler place among the nations; everything seemed possible; the wildest extravagance was permitted in talk, in song, in the drama, in enterprise. Companies could be formed to go anywhere, and to do everything. Countries there were everywhere to be conquered, or, at least, to trade with; no longer did ocean set bounds, no longer did continents stretch forth forbidding capes: the nobler spirits were arriving at a clearer grasp and understanding of what lay before them; the machinations of Spaniard, Pope, and Priest were, it seemed, finally defeated; everything was ready for the work of such men as Raleigh and Drake. Then, alas! Gloriana died, and the world of poetry sank sadly back into prose, and that for the most part of the tamest and the most creeping; an age followed when King and people were no longer in touch; when foreign politics were a betrayal and a surrender; when the whole dream of the King was not to extend and enrich his realm, but to encroach upon the people’s liberties, and the whole power of the people was required to resist the encroachments of the King. How mean and miserable is the policy of Charles compared with that of Elizabeth! How paltry are the pretensions of King and Archbishop! How wretched, save for the figure of the great Protector, is the history of the seventeenth century, compared with the history of the sixteenth under the great Queen!

Harrison furnishes a contemporary opinion on “the new veine of writing”:—

“This further is not to be omitted, to the singular commendation of both sorts and sexes of our courtiers here in England, that there are verie few of them, which have not the use and skill of sundrie speaches, beside an excellent veine of writing before time not regarded. Trulie it is a rare thing with us now, to hear of a courtier which hath but his owne language. And to saie how many gentlewomen and ladies there are, that beside sound knowledge of the Greeke and Latine toongs, are thereto no lesse skilful in the Spanish, Italian, and French or in some one of them, it resteth not in me; sith I am persuaded, that as the noblemen and gentlemen do surmount in this behalfe, so these come verie little or nothing at all behind them for their parts, which industrie God continue, and accomplish that which otherwise is wanting.”... “The ladies of the court employ themselves in continuall reading either of the holie scriptures, or histories of our owne or forren nations about us, and diverse in writing volumes of their owne, or translating of other mens into our English and Latine toongs.”... “Finallie, to avoid idlenesse, and prevent sundrie transgressions, otherwise likelie to be committed and doone, such order is taken, that everie office hath either a bible, or the booke of the acts and monuments of the church of England, or both, beside some histories and chronicles lieing therein, for the exercise of such as come into the same; whereby the stranger that entereth into the court of England upon the sudden, shall rather imagine himselve to come into some public schools of the universities, where manie give eare to one that readeth, than unto a princes palace if you conferre the same with those of other nations. Would to God all honorable personages would take example of hir graces godlie, dealing in this behalfe, and shew their conformitie unto these hir so good beginnings which if they would, then should manie grievous offenses (wherewith God is highlie displeased) be cut off and restreined, which now doo reigne exceedinglie, in most noble and gentlemen’s houses, whereof they see no paterne within hur graces gates.” (Holinshed’s _Chronicles_.)

Leaving the great masters, let us consider a little the more popular literature of the day; the kind which has its run among the people and is forgotten; the current literature, the books of the time, the works which were bought and read by those of the citizens who read at all, probably as large a proportion as we should find at the present day, when the newspaper is the only reading of multitudes. It is not difficult to arrive at what constituted a library. There were religious books, such as Hooper’s _Sermons_; there were collections of songs, such as _The Court of Venus_, against which the clergy spoke vehemently; books of chivalry and novels in great numbers, such as _Bevis of Hampton_, _Guy of Warwick_, _Arthur of the Round Table_, _Huon of Bordeaux_, _Oliver of the Castle_, _Four Sons of Aymon_, _The Witless Devices of Gargantua_ and _Howleglas_. There were the English stories, _Robin Hood_, _Adam Bell_, _Friar Rushe_, _The Foole of Gotham_. There were satires and fables; _Æsop_, Erasmus’s _Praise of Folly_, _The Schoolhouse of Women_, _The Defense of Women_, _Piers Plowman_, _Raynolde the Fox_, _The Palace of Pleasure_. There were translations, as _Virgil_, _Seneca_, and _Apulosius_; there were books of instruction, as _The Boke of Carvynge_, _The Boke of Cokerye_, _The Boke of Nurture for Men servants_, _The Boke of Fortune_, _The Boke of Curtesey_, _The Boke of Chesse_, and _The Hundred Points of Good Husserye_. These titles are taken from actual lists before me; the presses were extremely active and the output of books was very considerable during the whole of Elizabeth’s long reign. In a word, there was as great a variety of books for the reader’s choice as there is now, setting aside the modern books in science; there were poets by the hundred, dramatists, novelists of all kinds, historians, preachers, moralists, and essayists. It would take too much space and time were I to attempt an estimate or an account of the Elizabethan literature.

There was, however, one form of literature then playing a very important part in the education of the people which has been too much neglected by those who write of the sixteenth century. It was the ballad. In the last century, if a man had a thing to say, he wrote a pamphlet; at present if he has a thing to say and desires that the people at large should hear it, he either casts it into the form of a novel, or he sends it to the papers as a letter or as a communication. The Elizabethan, on the other hand, cast it into the form of verse; the ballad expressed the popular opinion; by means of the ballad that opinion was formed and taught; by means of the ballad events were recorded and remembered. Every event produced its own ballad. I have before me a list of a hundred ballads, taken at random from the registers of the Stationers’ Company, published for the Shakespeare Society in 1849 by Payne Collier. From these registers it is evident that the ballad, as sung in private houses, in taverns, at fairs, and where people congregated; in the streets, in the markets, and at the Carrefours where stood the Cross and the Conduit, taught and led the people as the Press now teaches and leads them. There was a great competition in the production of new ballads; the printers vied with each other in getting the latest or the most striking event turned into ballad form and put upon the market. These ballads were written on every conceivable subject. In order to illustrate their importance I have compiled the following list roughly classified. The titles in almost all cases indicate the contents and aim of the ballad. Some of them are very well written.

I.—RELIGIOUS

O Lord who harte in Heaven so high. The XV. Chapter of St. Paule. Blessed are the Dead which dye in the Lord. King Joseas. Lo! here I lye a sinner. The Just and Patient Job. Godly, constant, wyse, Susannah. Wisdom would I wish to have. The Lamentation of a Damned Soul. The Woman taken in Adultery. Mercy’s Fort.

II.—MORAL

Persuading Men from Swearing. Against Covetousness. Old Age and Youth. The House of a Harlot. Rustrius and Sapience. Manners for Matrons. The Cuckoo. A Rule for Women to bring up their Daughters. Have Pity on the Poor. The Abuses of Wyne, Dyce, and Women.

III.—POLITICAL

Lady Jane’s Lament (_i.e._ Lady Jane Grey). Guyn the chefe of that greedy garrison. How a Mayde should sweep your House Clean (the “Mayde” is Queen Elizabeth). News out of Kent. Lady Englonde.

IV.—TOPICAL

On the Loss of the _Greyhound_ (with Sir T. Finch and two hundred men). Burnyng of Paule’s.

“Lament each over the blazing fire That downe from Heaven came, And burned S. Powles his lofty spyre With lightning’s furious flame. Lament, I say, Both night and day, Sith London’s sin did cause the same.”

V.—GENERAL

Tom Long the Carrier. Come merry home, John. Patient Grissel. The Bachelor.

“Hough! For the Bachelor! Merry doth he live, All the day long he can daunce sing and playe: His troubles are like to water in a sieve, The more it floweth in, the more it will away: This is the verie truth I doe declare and saye. Maryed men for him may sit, sighe, and grone, He is well content and letteth well alone.”

Give place ye Ladies.

“Her rosial colour comes and goes With such a comely grace! More ruddie, too, than doth the rose, Within her lively face.”

Cruelness of Wicked Women. A Fairing. The Hunt is Up. The Ballad of Broomes.

“New broomes, greene broomes, will you buy any? Come, maidens, come quickly, let me take a penny.”

The Ballad of Milkmaids.

(The Milkmaids did not like being called Malkins. The name Malkin is a diminutive of Mary, and was used in the sense of slattern or country wench.)

“Passe not for rybalds which mylke maydes defame, And call them not Malkins, poor Malkins by name: Their trade is as good as anie we knowe And that it is so I will presently showe. Downe & Downe &c.”

A Merry Rhyme concerning Butchers, Graysors, Schole maisters and Tankard Bearers. Ruffle, Sleeves and Hose. The Nut Brown Mayd. Row well ye marynors. God send me a wyfe that will do as I say.

This list might be multiplied indefinitely. Enough has been given to show that the ballad was the principal medium by which the people were moved and taught. One would not underrate the power of the sermon. At no time, not even in the seventeenth century, was the sermon more powerful than under Elizabeth; but the sermon chiefly treated of doctrine and the ballads taught morals and the conduct of life. Nay, in these cases, which were many, when a ballad secular, amatory, scandalous, or immoral, had become popular, the clergy took it in hand and moralised it: _i.e._ presented a religious parody of it, which they persuaded the people to sing instead of the first version. For example, here is part of a “moralised” ballad:—

“To pass the place where pleasure is It ought to please one fantasie, If that the pleasure be amis, And to God’s Work plaine contrarie, Or else we sinne, we sinne, And hell we winne, Great panic therein All remedie gone. Except in Christ alone, alone.”

We must not forget to take account in this brief review of the topical writings of the day of the difference of dialect. It is not too much to say that a Norfolk countryman would not understand a Kentish lad; and that a Yorkshire man would talk a strange tongue to a man of the Midlands. Caxton says, writing a little earlier:—

“Englishe that is spoken in one shire varyeth from another; insomuch, that in my dayes happened, that certain merchaunts were in a ship in Tamyse, for to have sailed over the see into Zelande, and for lacke of wynde they taryed att Forland, and went to land for to refresh them; and one of them, named Sheffelde, a mercer, came into a hows, and axed for mete, and specially he axed for egges; the good wyfe answerde that she could speke no French. And the merchaunt was angry, for he also could speake no French; but wolde have egges, and she understode hym not. And thenne at last another sayd, that he would have ceyren; thenne the good wyfe said, that she understode him.”

In the year 1592 was published a book in prose and verse by Richard Johnson, entitled _The Nine Worthies of London_, inscribed to Sir William Webbe, Lord Mayor of London. Its wide popularity proves that it presents some, at least, of the ideas current among the people. To begin with, the “Nine Worthies” are not by any means, with one exception, those ancient citizens whom we should now consider of the greatest renown. We do not find here the names of Thomas à Becket, Whittington, Philpot, or Gresham. The things worthy to be remembered are neither enterprise in trade, nor vigilance in guarding the liberties of the City, nor the acquisition of wealth, nor charities and endowments. The only thing worthy to be remembered, even among citizens of London, is prowess of arms. The “Nine Worthies” come out, one after the other, and relate their own achievements. It is certain that Richard Johnson did not himself select these men for honourable mention, because they are clearly referred to in a passage of the _Paradise of daintie Devices_:—

“The Worthies nine that were of might, By travaile wonne immortal praise; If they had lived like carpet knights, Consuming idly all their dayes, Their praises had been with them dead, Where now abroad their fame is spread.”

The work is reprinted in the _Harleian Miscellany_, vol. viii., from which I take the following extracts: first, William Walworth (p. 443):—

“But when I saw the rebells’ pride encrease, And none controll and counterchecke their rage; ’Twere service good (thought I) to purchase peace, And malice of contentious brags asswage; With this conceyt, all fear had taken flight. And I alone prest to the traitor’s sight.

Their multitude could not amaze my minde, Their bloudie weapons did not make me shrink; True valour hath his constancie assignde, The eagle at the sunne will never winke; Amongst their troupes, incenst with mortall hate, I did arest Wat Tiler on the pate.

The stroke was given with so good a will, I made the rebell coutch unto the earth; His fellows that beheld (’tis strange) were still; It mar’d the manner of their former mirth; I left him not, but, ere I did depart, I stab’d my dagger to his damned heart.”

Second, Henry Picard, or Pilchard, who entertained the four kings of England, Scotland, France, and Cyprus, with the Black Prince (p. 445):—

“When Edward triumpht for his victories, And held three crownes within his conquering hand, He brought rich trophies from his enemies, That were erected in this happie land; We all rejoyc’d and gave our God the praise, That was the authour of those fortunate dayes.

And as from Dover, with the prince his sonne, The king of Cypres, France, and Scots, did passe, All captive prisoners to this mightie one, Five thousand men and I the leader was; All well prepared as to defend a fort; Went forth to welcome him in martiall sort.

The riches of our armour, and the cost, Each one bestows in honour of that day, Were here to be exprest but labour lost; Silke coates and chaines of golde bare little sway; And thus we marcht accepted of our king To whom our comming seem’d a gracious thing.

But when the citie pearde within our sights, I carv’d a boune submisse upon my knee; To have his grace, those kings, with earles and knights, A day or two to banquet it with me; The king admirde, yet thankfully replide, ‘Unto my house both I and these will ride.’”

Third, William Sevenoake, who went over to France with Henry V. as a lad just out of his apprenticeship, and there fought with the Dauphin (p. 447):—

“The Dolphyne then of France, a comelie knight, Disguised, came by chaunce into a place, Where I, well wearied with the heate of fight, Had layd me downe, for warre had ceast his chace; And with reproachful words, as layzie swaine He did salute me, ere I long had layne.

I, knowing that he was mine enemie, A bragging French-man (for we tearm’d them so) Ill brookt the proud disgrace he gave to me And therefore, lent the Dolphyne such a blowe, As warm’d his courage well to lay about, Till he was breathlesse, though he were so stout.

At last the noble prince did aske my name, My birth, my calling, and my fortunes past; With admiration he did heare the same, And so a bagge of crownes to me he cast; And when he went away, he saide to mee, ‘Sevenoake, be prowd, the Dolphyne fought with thee.’”

Fourth, Thomas White, who founded schools and almshouses (p. 449):—

“I cannot sing of armes and blood-red warres, Nor was my collur mixt with Mars his hew; I honour those that ended countrey jarres, For herein subjects shew that they are trew; But privately at home I shewde my selfe, To be no lover of vaine worldly pelfe.

My deedes have tongues to speak, though I surcease, My orators the learned strive to bee, Because I twined paulmes in time of peace, And gave such gifts, that made faire learning free; My care did build them bowers of sweet content, Where many wise their golden time have spent.

A noyse of gratefull thankes within mine eares, Descending from their studies, glads my heart, That I began to wish with private teares, There lived more that were of White’s desert; But now I looke, and spie that time is balde, And Vertue comes not, being seldome calde.”

Fifth, John Bonham, citizen and mercer, who went to Denmark with his merchandise, there was received at Court and distinguished himself at a tournament—the only occasion on record of a merchant fighting in a tournament—and finally led an army to victory over the Great Solyman, who made him a knight after the defeat of the Turk:—

“Then, at a parley he admirde me so; He made me knight and let his armie go.”

Sixth, Christopher Croker. Alas! the world has forgotten Christopher. He was a vintner’s ’prentice. He was loved by Doll Stodie, his master’s daughter; and he burned to give her a better position; he joined the army of the Black Prince in France; distinguished himself there; went with him to Spain, and returned a knight:—

“And when Don Peter, driven out of Spaine, By an usurping bastard of his line, He craved some helpe his crowne to re-obtaine, That in his former glorie he might shine; Our king ten thousand sever’d from his host; My selfe was one, I speake it not in boast.

With these Don Peter put the bastard downe, Each citie yielded at our first approch; It was not long ere he had got the crowne; And taught his wicked brother to encroch; In these affaires so well I shewed my might, That for my labour I was made a knight.

Thus labour never looseth his reward; And he that seeks for honour sure shall speed; What craven mind was ever in regard? Or where consisteth manhood but in deed? I speake it, that confirm’d it by my life, And in the end, Doll Stodie was my wife.”

Seventh, John Hawkwood, the Prince of Mercenaries. He, too, belonged to the Black Prince and was knighted by him.

Eighth, Hugh Caverley, silk weaver, who also became a knight in France and signalised himself afterwards by slaying a monstrous wild boar which devastated Poland.

Ninth, and last, Henry Maleverer, grocer, Knight Crusader and Custodian of Jacob’s Well:—

“And thus with love, with honour, and with fame, I did return to London whence I came.”

It is a curious list, and shows what legends of former citizens had grown up in the minds of the people. They had clean forgotten the old Patron Saints of London, St. Erkenwald and St. Thomas à Becket; they had forgotten Philpot and his splendid achievement over the pirates of the North Sea; they had forgotten Waleys, Mayor of Bordeaux and of London; they had forgotten Dick Whittington; they had even forgotten Gresham, and in place of the men who had made London and brought wealth, prosperity, and freedom to the town, they remembered mythical adventures and traditions of battle and of victory. One would like to know more about the popular belief in “London Worthies.”

The wholesale destruction of MSS. and mediæval libraries, at the Suppression of the Religious Houses, though doubtless a heavy loss from an artistic point of view, considering the loss of illuminated books, may be considered as compensated by the increased activity of the press and the reconstruction of the library. What was actually lost to literature? John Bale tells us, Manuscripts of the Fathers, Schoolmen, and Commentators. Was this a loss? It is quite certain that the monkish commentators regarded their text from a point of view no longer held: the Holy Scriptures, they said, were lost. The manuscript copies were very likely lost, but the press multiplied copies. I think that the greatest loss to literature was the loss of certain chronicles, of which we have so many left, which relate the history of current events as the monkish scribe heard and understood them. In any case, the destruction of so many books made it impossible, henceforward, to consider a library as made up chiefly of manuscripts; the press rapidly restored the books that were wanted; and gave the world a library filled with printed books, while the old commentators were clean forgotten.

The age of great folios and mighty scholars was the seventeenth, rather than the sixteenth, century. In the sixteenth, scholars were busy in putting forth new editions of the classics. Men like Dolet and Rabelais were not ashamed to correct for the press. The voluminous commentator came afterwards. Meantime, it is remarkable that we had no Rabelais among our writers. He, formerly a friar, came out of the cloister, his head filled with the old learning and eager for the new. His great book became at once popular, and was eagerly passed from hand to hand. The origins of his chapters have quite recently been explored and discovered in Mr. W. F. Smith’s excellent translation. They are shown to be chiefly extracts from gloss and commentary, burlesqued, imitated, and held up to the ridicule and scorn of scholars. The common people understood only the bubbling mirth and laughter, coupled with the spontaneous unseemliness of the page; the scholar understood the allegory and the purpose of the writer; the ecclesiastic alone, and one of the older type, understood the true nature of the overwhelming contempt and hatred of the order that was passing away—contempt and hatred thinly veiled and concealed except for those who knew the gloss and commentary of the past. We have no Rabelais; among all our friars there was no scholar; among our ejected monks, if there were scholars, they stuck by their order; among all the priests, monks, and friars, who joined in the Reformation, there was not one who so despised the old faith as to make it the theme of such a book as that of Rabelais. Hatred there was in plenty, after the fires of Smithfield: hatred which continued to flourish in our literature and still lingers; but not the full bitterness of hatred, fear, contempt, and restlessness which fill the pages of Rabelais, Étienne Dolet, and Bonaventure des Periers.

Painting in London practically began with the Tudors, and was brought over to the City by Flemish and Dutch painters. Among these we find the names of Lucas and Gerard Horenbout, Volpe, Gerbud Flick, Johannes Corvus, Levina Terling, Susanna Horenbout, and Alice Carmillion. But the great name of Holbein towers above all the rest. This painter was born at Augsburg about 1497, went to Basle in 1516, and came to London in 1526. He continued in London, with the exception of three visits to Basle, until his death in 1543, residing first in a lodging on London Bridge, and next in a house in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft, where he died.

As regards his contemporaries and successors, we are indebted to the researches of the late John Gough Nichols for information on this point. They are embodied in a paper published by the Society of Antiquaries (xxxix. p. 19).

The earliest Court Painter to Henry VIII. was one John Browne. He was appointed in 1511 a Serjeant Painter with a salary of twopence a day and four ells of cloth, valued at 6s. 8d. an ell, annually. Three pounds a year is not a large salary, but probably he was paid in addition for any work which he might do; thus, he was paid forty shillings for a painted tabard of sarsenet provided by him for Nottingham Pursuivant. In 1522 he was elected Alderman for Farringdon Without, and in 1525 he was discharged from office without having been either Sheriff or Mayor. He gave by will to the Painter Stainers’ Company his house for their hall: the present Hall stands upon the site of Browne’s bequest.

John Browne was succeeded as Serjeant Painter by Andrew Wright. This painter received £30 for painting and decorating the King’s barge. He had a manufactory of “pink,” a vegetable pigment used by painters at that time; it was the Italian _giallo santo_ and the French _stel de grain_. Wright died in 1543.

Vincent Volpe, a contemporary of the two preceding, supplied, in 1514, streamers and banners for the King’s great ship, the _Henry Grace à Dieu_. He is called in 1530 the “King’s Painter.” It is suggested that it was Volpe who painted some of the military pictures at Hampton Court. He also received money for the decoration of the King’s barge. The “King’s Painter” seems to have held a higher rank than the Serjeant Painter, for Volpe’s salary was £10 a year.

Two other Flemish artists, Lucas and Gerard Horenbout, were also in the receipt of salaries from the King; their father was also, perhaps, a painter and a Fleming. Their sister Susanna was a painter of miniatures. She was the wife, first, of Henry Parker the King’s bowman, and, secondly, of a sculptor named Worsley.

An Italian named Antonio Toto was a native of Florence, the son of a painter and the pupil of Ridolpho. He was architect as well as painter. His principal building was the strange palace of Nonsuch (see p. 89). Toto was, like Andrew Wright, a Serjeant Painter. For the coronation of Edward VI. he provided the tabards for the heralds; he also took charge of the masques.

Another Italian attached to Henry’s Court was Bartolomo Penni. The names of three women have been given above: Alice Carmillion was in Henry’s service; Levina Terling in Edward’s, Mary’s, and Elizabeth’s successively.

Holbein’s most illustrious successor among his contemporaries was Guillim Streets, or Strettes. Among other paintings by this admirable artist was one of the marriage of Queen Mary. The picture, however, is lost.

Nicholas Lyzarde was Serjeant Painter to Queen Elizabeth. He died in 1571.

The names Antonio Moro and Joost van Cleef may also be added to those of the painters who lived in London during the sixteenth century.

The decay of the London schools and of learning in general, which undoubtedly began in the fifteenth century and continued until far into the following century, is difficult to understand. One can only form theories and make guesses. The fact cannot be disputed. There were forces at work which have not been recorded. The Lollardry of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries seems to have been in great measure forgotten. Yet, as I have pointed out and proved, the custom of making bequests to the Religious Houses declined and decayed until it quite died away, long before the Reformation. The old spirit of revolt left behind it a steady and persistent and growing spirit of dissatisfaction. Perhaps this spirit was shown in the decay of the monastic schools. We have seen how, in 1477, four of the London clergy asked, and obtained, permission to found additional schools in four parishes. The new schools could do little; the Reformation accelerated the decay of learning partly by the abolition of the monastic schools; partly by the vast reduction in the number of ecclesiastics; partly by the loss of the endowments by which learning had been encouraged and maintained: an increased trade, with foreign enterprise, also attracted the younger men in numbers continually increasing. So few were the undergraduates of Oxford that in Queen Mary’s reign only three took a degree in Divinity during the space of six years; in Civil Law only eleven; in Physic six; in Arts an average of about twenty-three. Anthony à Wood writes: “There were none that had any heart to put their children to any school, any farther than to learn to write—to make them Apprentices or Lawyers.”

I would enumerate among the causes of the general decay in learning: (1) the unsettled nature of religious opinions; (2) the changed ideas concerning education; (3) the destruction of the Houses, which, if they turned out few scholars, offered a quiet home for the studious; (4) the advance in trade and enterprise, which attracted the youth of London far more than study; (5) the contempt into which the mass of the Protestant clergy had fallen; (6) a feeling of uneasiness about scholarship, lest it should bring one to the stake, of which there had been presented many terrifying examples.

Of music there is a much nobler record. Never before had the people been such great lovers of music, and such admirable proficients. In every barber’s shop was hung a zither or a guitar; anybody played; everybody sang. Henry VIII. himself was a composer of no mean capability, and a performer equal to any. Elizabeth upon the virginals was unequalled. Many of the anthems and madrigals of the period survive to this day and are still sung. The music of the Chapel Royal was held to be better than anything of the kind in Western Europe. Would that the musical tastes and traditions of London had been preserved! They were destroyed by the Puritans. They were destroyed slowly but effectively. At the Restoration it was still the custom for gentlemen to play and sing; but not, apparently, for the trading and lower classes; during the last century, neither gentlefolk nor any other folk could play or sing; music ceased to be cultivated by the people. Nor have we yet, even, begun to be a people given to music; it is still comparatively rare to find boys who are taught to play any instrument; at no public school is it thought to be an essential part of education. Perhaps the twentieth century may witness a revival of the national love for music.