thought it needful to say so in my sermon, I should have affronted the
seniors of the University, since many claim them, and some peradventure
would fain transpose them into higher places, and giving up all right and
title to them, would accept in lieu thereof the poor recompense of a
mitre.’
“I wished (unworthy wish for a Sunday!) I had Matthew Atterend in the
midst of them. He would have given them skulls mitre-fashioned, if
mitres are cloven now as we see them on ancient monuments. Matt is your
milliner for gentles, who think no more harm of purloining rich saws in a
mitre than lane-born boys do of embezzling hazel-nuts in a woollen cap.
I did not venture to expound or suggest my thoughts, but feeling my
choler rise higher and higher, I craved permission to make my obeisance
and depart.
“‘Where dost thou lodge, young man?’ said the preacher.
“‘At the public,’ said I, ‘where my father customarily lodgeth. There,
too, is a mitre of the old fashion, swinging on the sign-post in the
middle of the street.’
“‘Respectable tavern enough!’ quoth the reverend doctor; ‘and worthy men
do turn in there, even quality,—Master Davenant, Master Powel, Master
Whorwood, aged and grave men. But taverns are Satan’s chapels, and are
always well attended on the Lord’s day, to twit him. Hast thou no friend
in such a city as Oxford?’
“‘Only the landlady of the Mitre,’ said I.
“‘A comely woman,’ quoth he, ‘but too young for business by half.
“‘Stay thou with me to-day, and fare frugally, but safely.
“‘What may thy name be, and where is thy abode?’
“‘William Shakspeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, at your service, sir.’
“‘And welcome,’ said he; ‘thy father ere now hath bought our college
wool. A truly good man we ever found him; and I doubt not he hath
educated his son to follow him in his paths. There is in the blood of
man, as in the blood of animals, that which giveth the temper and
disposition. These require nurture and culture. But what nurture will
turn flint-stones into garden mould? or what culture rear cabbages in the
quarries of Hedington Hill? To be well born is the greatest of all God’s
primary blessings, young man, and there are many well born among the poor
and needy. Thou art not of the indigent and destitute, who have great
temptations; thou art not of the wealthy and affluent, who have greater
still. God hath placed thee, William Shakspeare, in that pleasant
island, on one side whereof are the sirens, on the other the harpies, but
inhabiting the coasts on the wider continent, and unable to make their
talons felt, or their voices heard by thee. Unite with me in prayer and
thanksgiving for the blessings thus vouchsafed. We must not close the
heart when the finger of God would touch it. Enough, if thou sayest
only, _My soul_, _praise thou the Lord_!’”
Sir Thomas said, “_Amen_!” Master Silas was mute for the moment, but
then quoth he, “I can say amen too in the proper place.”
The knight of Charlecote, who appeared to have been much taken with this
conversation, then interrogated Willy:—
“What farther might have been thy discourse with the doctor? or did he
discourse at all at trencher-time? Thou must have been very much abashed
to sit down at table with one who weareth a pure lambskin across his
shoulder, and moreover a pink hood.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Faith! was I, your honour! and could neither utter nor gulp.”
SIR THOMAS.
“These are good signs. Thou hast not lost all grace.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“With the encouragement of Dr. Glaston—”
SIR THOMAS.
“And was it Dr. Glaston?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Said I not so?”
SIR THOMAS.
“The learnedst clerk in Christendom! a very Friar Bacon! The Pope
offered a hundred marks in Latin to who should eviscerate or evirate
him,—poisons very potent, whereat the Italians are handy,—so apostolic
and desperate a doctor is Doctor Glaston! so acute in his quiddities, and
so resolute in his bearing! He knows the dark arts, but stands aloof
from them. Prithee, what were his words unto thee?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Manna, sir, manna! pure from the desert!”
SIR THOMAS.
“Ay, but what spake he? for most sermons are that, and likewise many
conversations after dinner.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“He spake of the various races and qualities of men, as before stated;
but chiefly on the elect and reprobate, and how to distinguish and know
them.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Did he go so far?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“He told me that by such discussion he should say enough to keep me
constantly out of evil company.”
SIR THOMAS.
“See there! see there! and yet thou art come before me!—Can nothing warn
thee?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“I dare not dissemble, nor feign, nor hold aught back, although it be to
my confusion. As well may I speak at once the whole truth for your
worship could find it out if I abstained.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Ay, that I should indeed, and shortly. But, come now, I am sated of thy
follies and roguish tricks, and yearn after the sound doctrine of that
pious man. What expounded the grave Glaston upon signs and tokens
whereby ye shall be known?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Wonderful things! things beyond belief! ‘There be certain men,’ quoth
he—”
SIR THOMAS.
“He began well. This promises. But why canst not thou go on?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“‘There be certain men, who, rubbing one corner of the eye, do see a
peacock’s feather at the other, and even fire. We know, William, what
that fire is, and whence it cometh. Those wicked men, William, all have
their marks upon them, be it only a corn, or a wart, or a mole, or a
hairy ear, or a toe-nail turned inward. Sufficient, and more than
sufficient! He knoweth his own by less tokens. There is not one of them
that doth not sweat at some secret sin committed, or some inclination
toward it unsnaffled.
“‘Certain men are there, likewise, who venerate so little the glorious
works of the Creator that I myself have known them to sneeze at the sun!
Sometimes it was against their will, and they would gladly have checked
it had they been able; but they were forced to shew what they are. In
our carnal state we say, _What is one against numbers_? In another we
shall truly say, _What are numbers against one_?’”
Sir Thomas did ejaculate, “_Amen_! _Amen_!” And then his lips moved
silently, piously, and quickly; and then said he, audibly and loudly,—
“_And make us at last true Israelites_!”
After which he turned to young Willy, and said, anxiously,—
“Hast thou more, lad? give us it while the Lord strengtheneth.”
“Sir,” answered Willy, “although I thought it no trouble, on my return to
the _Mitre_, to write down every word I could remember, and although few
did then escape me, yet at this present I can bring to mind but scanty
sentences, and those so stray and out of order that they would only prove
my incapacity for sterling wisdom, and my incontinence of spiritual
treasure.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Even that sentence hath a twang of the doctor in it. Nothing is so
sweet as humility. The mountains may descend, but the valleys cannot
rise. Every man should know himself. Come, repeat what thou canst. I
would fain have three or four more heads.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“I know not whether I can give your worship more than one other. Let me
try. It was when Doctor Glaston was discoursing on the protection the
wise and powerful should afford to the ignorant and weak:—
“‘In the earlier ages of mankind, your Greek and Latin authors inform
you, there went forth sundry worthies, men of might, to deliver, not
wandering damsels, albeit for those likewise they had stowage, but
low-conditioned men, who fell under the displeasure of the higher, and
groaned in thraldom and captivity. And these mighty ones were believed
to have done such services to poor humanity that their memory grew
greater than they, as shadows do than substances at day-fall. And the
sons and grandsons of the delivered did laud and magnify those glorious
names; and some in gratitude, and some in tribulation, did ascend the
hills, which appeared unto them as altars bestrown with flowers and
herbage for heaven’s acceptance. And many did go far into the quiet
groves, under lofty trees, looking for whatever was mightiest and most
protecting. And in such places did they cry aloud unto the mighty who
had left them, “_Return_! _return_! _help us_! _help us_! _be blessed_!
_for ever blessed_!”
“‘Vain men! but had they stayed there, not evil. Out of gratitude,
purest gratitude, rose idolatry. For the devil sees the fairest, and
soils it.
“‘In these our days, methinks, whatever other sins we may fall into, such
idolatry is the least dangerous. For neither on the one side is there
much disposition for gratitude, nor on the other much zeal to deliver the
innocent and oppressed. Even this deliverance, although a merit, and a
high one, is not the highest. Forgiveness is beyond it. Forgive, or ye
shall not be forgiven. This ye may do every day; for if ye find not
offences, ye feign them; and surely ye may remove your own work, if ye
may re-remove another’s. To rescue requires more thought and wariness;
learn, then, the easier lesson first. Afterward, when ye rescue any from
another’s violence, or from his own (which oftentimes is more dangerous,
as the enemies are within not only the penetrals of his house but of his
heart), bind up his wounds before ye send him on his way. Should ye at
any time overtake the erring, and resolve to deliver him up, I will tell
you whither to conduct him. Conduct him to his Lord and Master, whose
household he hath left. It is better to consign him to Christ his
Saviour than to man his murderer; it is better to bid him live than to
bid him die. The one word our Teacher and Preserver said, the other our
enemy and destroyer. Bring him back again, the stray, the lost one bring
him back, not with clubs and cudgels, not with halberts and halters, but
generously and gently, and with the linking of the arm. In this posture
shall God above smile upon ye; in this posture of yours he shall
recognize again his beloved Son upon earth. Do ye likewise, and depart
in peace.’”
William had ended, and there was silence in the hall for some time after,
when Sir Thomas said,—
“He spake unto somewhat mean persons, who may do it without
disparagement. I look for authority, I look for doctrine, and find none
yet. If he could not have drawn us out a thread or two from the coat of
an apostle, he might have given us a smack of Augustin, or a sprig of
Basil. Our older sermons are headier than these, Master Silas! our new
beer is the sweeter and clammier, and wants more spice. The doctor hath
seasoned his with pretty wit enough, to do him justice, which in a sermon
is never out of place; for if there be the bane, there likewise is the
antidote.
“What dost thou think about it, Master Silas?”
SIR SILAS.
“I would not give ten farthings for ten folios of such sermons.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“These words, Master Silas, will oftener be quoted than any others of
thine; but rarely (do I suspect) as applicable to Doctor Glaston. I must
stick unto his gown. I must declare that, to my poor knowledge, many
have been raised to the bench of bishops for less wisdom and worse than
is contained in the few sentences I have been commanded by authority to
recite. No disparagement to any body I know, Master Silas, and
multitudes bear witness, that thou above most art a dead hand at a
sermon.”
SIR SILAS.
“Touch my sermons, wilt dare?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Nay, Master Silas, be not angered; it is courage enough to hear them.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Now, Silas, hold thy peace and rest contented. He hath excused himself
unto thee, throwing in a compliment far above his station, and not
unworthy of Rome or Florence. I did not think him so ready. Our
Warwickshire lads are fitter for football than courtesies; and, sooth to
say, not only the inferior.”
His worship turned from Master Silas toward William, and said, “Brave
Willy, thou hast given us our bitters; we are ready now for any thing
solid. What hast left?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Little or nothing, sir.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Well, give us that little or nothing.”
William Shakspeare was obedient to the commands of Sir Thomas, who had
spoken thus kindly unto him, and had deigned to cast at him from his
_lordly dish_ (as the Psalmist hath it) a fragment of facetiousness.
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Alas, sir! may I repeat it without offence, it not being doctrine but
admonition, and meant for me only?”
“Speak it the rather for that,” quoth Sir Thomas.
Then did William give utterance to the words of the preacher, not indeed
in his sermon at St. Mary’s, but after dinner.
“‘Lust seizeth us in youth, ambition in midlife, avarice in old age; but
vanity and pride are the besetting sins that drive the angels from our
cradle, pamper us with luscious and most unwholesome food, ride our first
stick with us, mount our first horse with us, wake with us in the
morning, dream with us in the night, and never at any time abandon us.
In this world, beginning with pride and vanity, we are delivered over
from tormentor to tormentor, until the worst tormentor of all taketh
absolute possession of us for ever, seizing us at the mouth of the grave,
enchaining us in his own dark dungeon, standing at the door, and laughing
at our cries. But the Lord, out of his infinite mercy, hath placed in
the hand of every man the helm to steer his course by, pointing it out
with his finger, and giving him strength as well as knowledge to pursue
it.
“‘William! William! there is in the moral straits a current from right to
wrong, but no re-flux from wrong to right; for which destination we must
hoist our sails aloft and ply our oars incessantly, or night and the
tempest will overtake us, and we shall shriek out in vain from the
billows, and irrecoverably sink.’”
“Amen!” cried Sir Thomas most devoutly, sustaining his voice long and
loud.
“Open that casement, good Silas! the day is sultry for the season of the
year; it approacheth unto noontide. The room is close, and those blue
flies do make a strange hubbub.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“In troth do they, sir; they come from the kitchen, and do savour
woundily of roast goose! And, methinks—”
SIR THOMAS.
“What bethinkest thou?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“The fancy of a moment,—a light and vain one.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Thou relievest me; speak it!”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“How could the creatures cast their coarse rank odour thus far?—even into
your presence! A noble and spacious hall! Charlecote, in my mind, beats
Warwick Castle, and challenges Kenilworth.”
SIR THOMAS.
“The hall is well enough; I must say it is a noble hall,—a hall for a
queen to sit down in. And I stuffed an arm-chair with horse-hair on
purpose, feathers over it, swan-down over them again, and covered it with
scarlet cloth of Bruges, five crowns the short ell. But her highness
came not hither; she was taken short; she had a tongue in her ear.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Where all is spring, all is buzz and murmur.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Quaint and solid as the best yew hedge. I marvel at thee. A knight
might have spoken it, under favour. They stopped her at Warwick—to see
what? two old towers that don’t match, {105a} and a portcullis that
(people say) opens only upon fast-days. Charlecote Hall, I could have
told her sweet Highness, was built by those Lucys who came over with
Julius Cæsar and William the Conqueror, with cross and scallop-shell on
breast and beaver.”
“But, _honest Willy_!?—”
Such were the very words; I wrote them down with two signs in the
margent,—one a mark of admiration, as thus (!), the other of
interrogation (so we call it) as thus (?).
“But, honest Willy, I would fain hear more,” quoth he, “about the learned
Doctor Glaston. He seemeth to be a man after God’s own heart.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Ay is he! Never doth he sit down to dinner but he readeth first a
chapter of the Revelation; and if he tasteth a pound of butter at Carfax,
he saith a grace long enough to bring an appetite for a baked bull’s
{106a} —zle. If this be not after God’s own heart, I know not what is.”
SIR THOMAS.
“I would fain confer with him, but that Oxford lieth afar off,—a matter
of thirty miles, I hear. I might, indeed, write unto him; but our
Warwickshire pens are mighty broad-nibbed, and there is a something in
this plaguy ink of ours sadly ropy—”
“I fear there is,” quoth Willy.
“And I should scorn,” continued his worship, “to write otherwise than in
a fine Italian character to the master of a college, near in dignity to
knighthood.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Worshipful sir! is there no other way of communicating but by person, or
writing, or messages?”
SIR THOMAS.
“I will consider and devise. At present I can think of none so
satisfactory.”
And now did the great clock over the gateway strike. And Bill Shakspeare
did move his lips, even as Sir Thomas had moved his erewhile in
ejaculating. And when he had wagged them twice or thrice after the
twelve strokes of the clock were over, again he ejaculated with voice
also, saying,—
“Mercy upon us! how the day wears! Twelve strokes! Might I retire,
please your worship, into the chapel for about three quarters of an hour,
and perform the service {108a} as ordained?”
Before Sir Thomas could give him leave or answer, did Sir Silas cry
aloud,—
“He would purloin the chalice, worth forty-eight shillings, and melt it
down in the twinkling of an eye, he is so crafty.”
But the knight was more reasonable, and said, reprovingly,—
“There now, Silas! thou talkest widely, and verily in malice, if there be
any in thee.”
“Try him,” answered Master Silas; “I don’t kneel where he does. Could he
have but his wicked will of me he would chop my legs off, as he did the
poor buck’s.”
SIR THOMAS.
“No, no, no; he hath neither guile nor revenge in him. We may let him
have his way, now that he hath taken the right one.”
SIR SILAS.
“Popery! sheer popery! strong as harts-horn! Your papists keep these
outlandish hours for their masses and mummery. Surely we might let God
alone at twelve o’clock! Have we no bowels?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Gracious sir! I do not urge it; and the time is now past by some
minutes.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Art thou popishly inclined, William?”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Sir, I am not popishly inclined; I am not inclined to pay tribute of
coin or understanding to those who rush forward with a pistol at my
breast, crying, ‘_Stand_, _or you are a dead man_.’ I have but one guide
in faith,—a powerful, an almighty one. He will not suffer to waste away
and vanish the faith for which he died. He hath chosen in all countries
pure hearts for its depositaries; and I would rather take it from a
friend and neighbour, intelligent and righteous, and rejecting lucre,
than from some foreigner educated in the pride of cities or in the
moroseness of monasteries, who sells me what Christ gave me,—his own
flesh and blood.
“I can repeat by heart what I read above a year agone, albeit I cannot
bring to mind the title of the book in which I read it. These are the
words,—
“‘The most venal and sordid of all the superstitions that have swept and
darkened our globe may, indeed, like African locusts, have consumed the
green corn in very extensive regions, and may return periodically to
consume it; but the strong, unwearied labourer who sowed it hath alway
sown it in other places less exposed to such devouring pestilences.
Those cunning men who formed to themselves the gorgeous plan of universal
dominion were aware that they had a better chance of establishing it than
brute ignorance or brute force could supply, and that soldiers and their
paymasters were subject to other and powerfuller fears than the
transitory ones of war and invasion. What they found in heaven they
seized; what they wanted they forged.
“‘And so long as there is vice and ignorance in the world, so long as
fear is a passion, their dominion will prevail; but their dominion is
not, and never shall be, universal. Can we wonder that it is so general?
Can we wonder that anything is wanting to give it authority and effect,
when every learned, every prudent, every powerful, every ambitious man in
Europe, for above a thousand years, united in the league to consolidate
it?
“‘The old dealers in the shambles, where Christ’s body is exposed for
sale in convenient marketable slices, {111a} have not covered with blood
and filth the whole pavement. Beautiful usages are remaining
still,—kindly affections, radiant hopes, and ardent aspirations!
“‘It is a comfortable thing to reflect, as they do, and as we may do
unblamably, that we are uplifting to our Guide and Maker the same incense
of the heart, and are uttering the very words, which our dearest friends
in all quarters of the earth, nay in heaven itself, are offering to the
throne of grace at the same moment.
“‘Thus are we together through the immensity of space. What are these
bodies? Do they unite us? No; they keep us apart and asunder even while
we touch. Realms and oceans, worlds and ages, open before two spirits
bent on heaven. What a choir surrounds us when we resolve to live
unitedly and harmoniously in Christian faith!’”
SIR THOMAS.
“Now, Silas, what sayest thou?”
SIR SILAS.
“Ignorant fool!”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Ignorant fools are bearable, Master Silas! your wise ones are the
worst.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Prithee no bandying of loggerheads.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Or else what mortal man shall say
Whose shins may suffer in the fray?”
SIR THOMAS.
“Thou reasonest aptly and timest well. And surely, being now in so
rational and religious a frame of mind, thou couldst recall to memory a
section or head or two of the sermon holden at St. Mary’s. It would do
thee and us as much good as _Lighten our darkness_, or _Forasmuch as it
hath pleased_; and somewhat less than three quarters of an hour (maybe
less than one quarter) sufficeth.”
SIR SILAS.
“Or he hangs without me. I am for dinner in half the time.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Silas! Silas! he hangeth not with thee or without thee.”
SIR SILAS.
“He thinketh himself a clever fellow; but he (look ye) is the cleverest
that gets off.”
“I hold quite the contrary,” quoth Will Shakspeare, winking at Master
Silas from the comfort and encouragement he had just received touching
the hanging.
And Master Silas had his answer ready, and shewed that he was more than a
match for poor Willy in wit and poetry.
He answered thus:—
“If winks are wit,
Who wanteth it?
Thou hadst other bolts to kill bucks withal. In wit, sirrah, thou art a
mere child.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Little dogs are jealous of children, great ones fondle them.”
SIR THOMAS.
“An that were written in the Apocrypha, in the very teeth of Bel and the
Dragon, it could not be truer. I have witnessed it with my own eyes over
and over.”
SIR SILAS.
“He will take this for wit, likewise, now the arms of Lucy do seal it.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Silas, they may stamp wit, they may further wit, they may send wit into
good company, but not make it.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Behold my wall of defence!”
SIR SILAS.
“An thou art for walls, I have one for thee from Oxford, pithy and
apposite, sound and solid, and trimmed up becomingly, as a collar of
brawn with a crown of rosemary, or a boar’s head with a lemon in the
mouth.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Egad, Master Silas, those are your walls for lads to climb over, an they
were higher than Babel’s.”
SIR SILAS.
“Have at thee!”
“Thou art a wall
To make the ball
Rebound from.
“Thou hast a back
For beadle’s crack
To sound from, to sound from.
The foolishest dolts are the ground-plot of the most wit, as the idlest
rogues are of the most industry. Even thou hast brought wit down from
Oxford. And before a thief is hanged, parliament must make laws,
attorneys must engross them, printers stamp and publish them, hawkers cry
them, judges expound them, juries weigh and measure them with offences,
then executioners carry them into effect. The farmer hath already sown
the hemp, the ropemaker hath twisted it; sawyers saw the timber,
carpenters tack together the shell, grave-diggers delve the earth. And
all this truly for fellows like unto thee.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
“Whom a God came down from heaven to save.”
SIR THOMAS.
“Silas! he hangeth not. William, I must have the heads of the sermon,
six or seven of ’em; thou hast whetted my appetite keenly. How! dost
duck thy pate into thy hat? nay, nay, that is proper and becoming at
church; we need not such solemnity. Repeat unto us the setting forth at
St. Mary’s.”