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.