JOHN FLETCHER, famous, and a man well known,
But using not his sirname's trade alone,[398]
Did hackney out poor jades for common hire,
Not fit for any pastime but to tire.
His conscience, once, surveying his jade's stable,
Prick'd him, for keeping horses so unable.
"Oh why should I," saith John, "by scholars thrive,
For jades that will not carry, lead, nor drive?"
To mend the matter, out he starts, one night,
And having spied a palfrey somewhat white,
He takes him up, and up he mounts his back,
Rides to his house, and there he turns him black;
Marks him in forehead, feet, in rump, and crest,
As coursers mark those horses which are best.
So neatly John had coloured every spot,
That the right owner sees him, knows him not.
Had he but feather'd his new-painted breast,
He would have seemed Pegasus at least.
Who but John Fletcher's horse, in all the town,
Amongst all hackneys, purchased this renown?
But see the luck; John Fletcher's horse, one night,
By rain was wash'd again almost to white.
His first right owner, seeing such a change,
Thought he should know him, but his hue was strange!
But eyeing him, and spying out his steed,
By flea-bit spots of his now washed weed,
Seizes the horse; so Fletcher was attainted,
And did confess the horse--he stole and painted.
To close with honour to Brooke; in his graver moments he warmly repels
the accusation Camden raised against him, as an enemy to learning, and
appeals to many learned scholars, who had tasted of his liberality at
the Universities, towards their maintenance; but, in an elevated tone,
he asserts his right to deliver his animadversions as York Herald.
"I know (says Brooke) the great advantage my adversary has over me, in
the received opinion of the world. If some will blame me for that my
writings carry some characters of spleen against him, men of pure
affections, and not partial, will think reason that he should, by ill
hearing, lose the pleasure he conceived by ill speaking. But since I
presume not to understand above that which is meet for me to know, I
must not be discouraged, nor fret myself, because of the malicious;
for I find myself seated upon a rock, that is sure from tempest and
waves, from whence I have a prospect into his errors and waverings. I
do confess his great worth and merit, and that we Britons are in some
sort beholding to him; and might have been much more, if God had lent
him the grace to have played the faithful steward, in the talent
committed to his trust and charge."
Such was the dignified and the intrepid reply of Ralph Brooke, a man
whose name is never mentioned without an epithet of reproach; and who,
in his own day, was hunted down, and not suffered, vindictive as he
was no doubt, to relieve his bitter and angry spirit, by pouring it
forth to the public eye.[399]
But the story is not yet closed. Camden, who wanted the magnanimity to
endure with patient dignity the corrections of an inferior genius, had
the wisdom, with the meanness, silently to adopt his useful
corrections, but would never confess the hand which had brought
them.[400]
Thus hath Ralph Brooke told his own tale undisturbed, and, after the
lapse of more than a century, the press has been opened to him.
Whenever a great author is suffered to gag the mouth of his
adversary, Truth receives the insult. But there is another point more
essential to inculcate in literary controversy. Ought we to look
too scrupulously into the motives which may induce an inferior
author to detect the errors of a greater? A man from no amiable
motive may perform a proper action: Ritson was useful after Warton;
nor have we a right to ascribe it to any concealed motives, which,
after all, may be doubtful. In the present instance, our much-abused
Ralph Brooke first appears to have composed his elaborate work
from the most honourable motives: the offer he made of his Notes to
Camden seems a sufficient evidence. The pride of a great man first led
Camden into an error, and that error plunged him into all the
barbarity of persecution; thus, by force, covering his folly.
Brooke over-valued his studies: it is the nature of those peculiar
minds adapted to excel in such contracted pursuits. He undertook an
ungracious office, and he has suffered by being placed by the side
of the illustrious genius with whom he has so skilfully combated
in his own province; and thus he has endured contempt, without
being contemptible. The public are not less the debtors to such
unfortunate, yet intrepid authors.[401]