continued: “This testimony corroborates the testimony of the officers
that the prisoner came out of the church despite his statements to
them to the contrary, but it appears that he was in no way connected
with the burglary. He was not an associate of the two robbers tried
yesterday, nor of the boy.”
At this the boy suddenly inquired: “Have Pento and Badly been tried?”
“Yes, and found guilty. What of it?”
The boy collected his faculties. To secure his own liberty, the
prisoner must be convicted. So far he had stuck to the truth, but
he was ready to add fiction. The turnkey of his ward in Newgate had
intimated that if he turned state’s evidence he might possibly go free.
So it seemed that the two other robbers had been tried and found guilty
without his appearance as a witness. This he had not suspected. So
there would be no chance for him to tell how he had seen Pento light
the first torch, and Badly tugging and wrenching at the ornaments
about the altar. They were already under sentence of death. If he said
nothing more about the man at the bar, the latter would be acquitted,
and the Tyburn rope would be around his own neck. Had he been of the
order of dangerous reasoners, who consider no act wrong so long as the
prosperity of the State is secured or advanced by it, he might have
felt that the perjured testimony he was about to give was justifiable
because the prisoner should be hung on the general principles spoken
of by his attorney. But this was not his incentive. If he were to say
anything, he must say it quickly, for all eyes were upon him, and again
no whispers were heard in the great hall. His life experience, in which
he had had to use falsehood, bravado and cunning against human foes
and starvation, stood him in good stead. He spoke, but his voice was
scarcely above a whisper, and he kept looking at his manacles:
“That is not all.”
“Go on then.”
“The door of the chantry opened before all the torches were lighted,
and the prisoner came out.”
“He lies!” exclaimed Bame.
“Let the prisoner remain quiet,” said the judge. “The witness must not
be intimidated.”
Bame had arisen with his own exclamation and looked as though he
intended jumping from the dock. The ready testimony and coolness of the
perjuring witness had startled him; and he recognized his own peril.
The boy looked upward at the judge, and then his eyes followed a narrow
strip of sunlight to the windows through which it came. There was a
streak of blue sky visible, and from it the boy let his eyes fall upon
the manacles around his wrists. The distressed look that came into
his pinched face was followed by a determined expression; and then,
although he knew there was nothing to fear from Bame at that moment, he
cunningly said:
“You will not let him harm me if I tell the truth? In the church he
made me swear to tell no one. He came out alone with his sword in his
hand. It was red with blood.”
“Stop!” exclaimed the excited prisoner, rising from his chair. “The
boy is giving perjured--”
“Sit down,” thundered the judge. Eliot remonstrated with the prisoner,
and the prosecutor asked: “Could you see it?”
“Yes, your Honor, for I was on the floor close before the chantry, and
he paused there to wipe his sword on a black cloak which he had dragged
out with him. The other man did not come out with him and the chantry
was too dark for me to see within it. One of the ruffians recognized
the prisoner, and they entered the sacristry together. I saw them both
come out with vestments in their arms.”
“You did not so testify upon your preliminary examination,” said the
judge.
“No, your Honor, I did not think it necessary.”
“Why do you now? Do you bear him ill will?”
“No.”
“Have any promises been made you, if the prisoner should be found
guilty?”
The witness hesitated, and then said: “No, your Honor.”
“Take the witness,” said the prosecutor to Eliot.
Pence wondered where he was to be taken. He hoped that it was not to be
back to his cell. “However,” he thought, “I am not to go yet.”
“Where were you just brought from?” asked Eliot.
“A cell in the prison.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Confined to await my trial.”
“For what?”
“Burglary of St. Olave.”
“By what means do you live?”
“Begging, I suppose.”
“And what else?”
“Nothing.”
“Where have you been living?”
“Anywhere. Wherever night found me.”
“Ever been arrested before?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“Twice.”
“For what?”
“Stealing.”
“Why weren’t you hung?”
“The judge pitied my youth, and knew that I could not take advantage of
the benefit of clergy and so must hang if he sentenced me. I could not
con the neck verse” [note 39].
And so the questioning went on through every phase of the boy’s life to
the night of the crime. Then he was drawn back and forth, in and out,
through every sentence he had uttered, but all to no purpose. Every
answer he made only served to strengthen his story. Bame felt that
his fate was sealed unless his own testimony could offset the boy’s
perjury. The case was closed for the prosecution, and the prisoner took
the stand. He told of the events of the night the church was sacked and
burnt, but he carefully refrained from stating that the man with him
at the church was Marlowe, although he was still of that opinion.
From his first consultation with his client, Eliot had rejected this
opinion; for against it was the reported coroner’s verdict of Marlowe’s
death. Was it not possible that this unknown man was the suspected
murderer? Anne had stated to Bame that the person whom he was to meet
that night was a friend of her husband. It was more than probable,
thought Eliot, that this man was the husband himself, and as Bame did
not know him by sight, his confounding him with Marlowe was natural. An
inquiry was instituted for Anne, but she had escaped from the sheriff’s
house. The identity of this witness lay with her, and possibly the
knowledge of his whereabouts; but her whereabouts could not be
ascertained. Thus stood the case when called for trial. Therefore Eliot
advised that a statement according to the prisoner’s opinion would cast
a doubt upon the narrative. The rumor of Marlowe’s death at a time
prior to the burning of St. Olave was already public, and it would be
said: “The prisoner is a self-convicted perjurer, if nothing more. He
depends for proof of his innocence upon one who was dead before the
night of the fire. This is his only witness, and besides, the boy Pence
says that the man who was with the prisoner in the chantry remained
there after Bame came out with dripping sword.”
So Bame testified that the man was a stranger, and had undoubtedly met
his death in the flames. It was a vile falsehood that he had harmed
this man, as Pence had sworn. No one had seen such a person coming
from the church. In all other particulars Bame held to the truth. The
jury believed him, but the judge did not. Five brethren from the Lime
House swore to his good character. Then Mr. Attorney General and Mr.
Barrister Eliot thundered for one short hour at the jury, and during
their arguments the audience and the jurors wept and applauded in
turns; but the judge held scales that were moved no more on the side of
justice than his own heart, or his own face.
In those good old days, it was seldom that an accused person, placed
on trial at the bar of the Old Bailey, escaped conviction. Even though
the jury might fail to discover his guilt, they were such puppets in
the hands of the judge that his will was their will; and as he charged
both as to the facts and the law they found as he instructed. There had
been cases where they had returned verdicts of acquittal, but in many
of these they had been ordered to retire and again deliberate. Such
deliberation always brought about the desired change. As Bame’s trial
drew to a close, the prisoner had reason to tremble, for contumely
had been heaped upon him at every point by the judge, whose hatred of
dissenters was well known. Here it had been so violently expressed that
two of the jurymen, who were Presbyterians, felt as though on trial for
their own lives. It was upon these two men that Bame placed his faint
hope of an acquittal. But they were the last men to run counter to the
wishes of the court. They feared that all his wrath would be directed
against them, and a confiscation of their estates might follow [note
40].
The judge charged in the same spirit in which he had ruled during the
taking of testimony. Bame had showed himself a liar; he was given to
ruining innocent men with false charges; he had entered the church
without permission and probably with force; he had drawn a weapon in
the church; it was possible that he had killed a man there, and then
joined the lawless crew of thieves. The jury must not be influenced
because he was a devout Brownist. That sect was to be despised. It was
already growing too strong in the community, and the members merited
a rebuke. He would have instructed the jury to bring in a verdict of
guilty, but he saw that it was unnecessary. He proved himself a shining
example for the later Jeffreys, and raised a precedent for the latter
to follow in the bloody assizes. The jury were faithful to his charge,
not their own, and returned a verdict of guilty.
THE MASTER HAND IS HERE.
_O what a world of profit and delight,_
_Of power, of honor, of omnipotence_
_Is promised to the studious artisan._
--_Faustus, i._
_Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me,_
_From my own library, with volumes that_
_I prize above my dukedom._
--_Tempest, i, 2._
The secret oratory of the king held no shadows within its square walls
on a most memorable night several months after the trial of Bame. The
lamp near the iron-latticed window was burning, and a fire blazed in
the chimney-basket. Besides the light, other late additions to the
room, contributed to dispel its inborn air of austereness. One of the
tapestries from the main chamber had been removed from its hangings,
and lay here upon the floor, a violent appropriation to rude uses of a
trapping of royalty. Two of the easiest chairs, which had added to the
luxuriousness of the same chamber, had also been brought in. But the
articles which rendered most assistance in changing the room from a
cell to a study, were the books shelved below the square window. These
had been contributed, one at a time, by Tamworth and Peele, until a
goodly library of Greek and Latin, English, French and Italian books
stood against the wall.
For more than a year, in voluntary exclusion from the world, Marlowe
had pursued the occupation which he had years since adopted, but
in which fate now compelled him to render exclusive and unwavering
service. Although he was drinking from the inexhaustible wells of
inspired masters in all the provinces of thought, it was the jealous
muse of dramatic poetry that alone sat beside him and commanded his
powers. The alternating spaces of light and darkness in the flight
of time had cut no figure in his moods for work and rest; and thus
while the night had fallen upon a day of unflagging industry, he still
continued working at his table. While thus engaged, a narrow space of
the wall opposite the exedra swung inward, and a familiar face showed
itself in the dark opening. It was that of Peele, the dramatist, and
with a hearty salutation he entered, closely followed by Shakespere.
“Thou art doubly welcome,” said Marlowe, rising and grasping the
outstretched hands of his unexpected visitors.
“So?” questioned Peele, “but I fear that before you hear the news and I
advise with thee, this welcome may be thought inappropriate.”
“Never while I am of enough concern to bring thee here,” said Marlowe,
feelingly.
“And I, on my part, am here with a message of no pleasing import,” said
Shakespere, seriously.
“What! croaking ravens, both of thee?” exclaimed Marlowe, with a smile
which in no way tended to scatter their apparent gloom.
“Is the landlord of the Boar’s Head pressing thee, Peele, for two pence
for thy last draughts of Malmsey; and has thy absent wife demanded thy
immediate return to the foul alleys of Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespere?
Or if not, why these sad presaging countenances, more like those of the
worshipers at the Tribulation than of honest and fearless men? Would
you bring blue devils into this glorious place of mirth to provoke
moaning where nothing but laughter prevails? Am I--”
“Come, come,” interrupted Shakespere, “withhold thy attempts at
sarcasm. We are not here to get thee to condole with us.”
“But to give thee friendly advice,” continued Peele.
“It is for thy interest,” added Shakespere.
“Ah!” said Marlowe, “why not then begin it with a song?”
“Of course singing is out of the question,” responded Peele, “and song
without wine is like meat without salt, so we can have neither, for the
nonce at least. But now let me ask: what progress have you made since I
was here?”
“I am deep in the third act,” answered Marlowe, picking up a page of
the manuscript of Romeo and Juliet, which lay scattered over the top
of the table “And what think you of this as the speech of a love-lorn
maiden?
Gallop apace you fiery-footed steeds
Toward Phoebus’ mansion; such a waggoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the West,
And-bring in cloudy night immediately.”
He would have continued, but Peele interrupted: “Hold! you have put
similar language in the mouth of Edward II, descriptive of his desire
for the shortening of time before battle. I recollect it well; thus:
‘Gallop apace, bright Phoebus, through the sky;
And dusky night in rusty iron car,
Between you both shorten the time, I pray,
That I may see that most desired day.’”
“Well?” exclaimed Marlowe.
“You must change it,” said Shakespere.
“Why should I?” retorted Marlowe, “a man cannot commit plagiary on his
own writings; and, although the style of composition is similar, and
the figure is used in both places to rail against the slowness of time,
you must acknowledge that they are both appropriate in their places.”
“Now this has brought me to the very subject which I came here to talk
over with you,” responded Peele.
“Ah, so you are the first one to draw the sword? Has the presentment of
my latest drama at the Rose awakened thy unfavorable opinion? Was the
fault with the players or with myself?”
“Your work improves with every line you write,” said Peele,
enthusiastically, “but still with all the increase of learning
displayed, the growing compactness of expression, the sustained fire,
the maturity of thought, the diverseness of opinion, the wondrous
expanse of human horizon disclosed,--thy style is stamped indisputably
upon every passage.”
“So! I have labored to change it.”
“Marry, but thou hast not” [note 41].
“Then it is like my skin, a part of me.”
“No more to be changed than thy countenance, it seems, which with age
and experience may get new lines and grow wiser looking, but still
shows the old familiar expressions with every change of feeling.”
“Then there is no help.”
“But thou must change thy methods of treatment of some subjects.”
“Again I ask, why should I?”
Peele surveyed him like a father might his recreant son, and Shakespere
slowly shook his head as though the case were one beyond all cure,
exclaiming as he did so: “Why, man, for thine own safety.”
“Is that in danger?”
“It will be,” continued Peele, “Gabriel Harvey and George Chapman were
in my hearing discussing the drama of Titus Andronicus as presented by
the Earl of Sussex’ actors at the Rose, a week since; and, although the
play was sold to Henslowe, as one written by Shakespere, Harvey swore
it must be thine.”
“And what said Chapman,” interrupted Marlowe.
“He said, ‘Most damnably like Marlowe’s, but certain it is that it was
not among his posthumous effects, and it was never presented under his
name, nor before his death.’”
“And what said Harvey?”
“He said truly that if thou didst not write it, then this fellow
Shakespere had caught thy very trick of hand.”
At this remark, Shakespere laughed so heartily that even the others had
to join with him.
“Apt critics, these,” said Marlowe, “’tis strange that they should see
resemblances between that play and any of my acknowledged works.”
“Bah,” returned Peele, “no one so blind as a mother to the faults of
her child. Strange? Why that play is full of thine old spirit. Here,
give me thy copy of it, and of thy Jew of Malta.”
Marlowe turned to a chest beside his table and drew forth two rolls of
manuscript. He handed them to Peele, who opened the Jew of Malta at the
second act, and read:
“As for myself I walk abroad o’ nights
And kill sick people groaning under walls:
Sometimes I go about and poison wells:
* * * * *
And always kept the sexton’s arms in ure
With digging graves and ringing dead men’s knells:
* * * * *
And every moon made some or other mad,
And now and then one hang himself for grief.
Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll
How I with interest tormented him.”
“And now,” he continued, “see how thou hast imitated thy early and
immature work almost to an echo.”
He unrolled the manuscript of Titus Andronicus at the fifth act, and
read:
“Oft have I digged up dead men from their graves
And set them upright at their dear friends’ doors,
Even when their sorrows almost were forgot;
And on their skins as on the bark of trees,
Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,
‘Let not your sorrow die though I am dead.’
Tut! I have done a thousand dreadful things,
As willingly as one would kill a fly.”
“Now in this same play, thou hast given us the very echo of Tamburlaine
and his queen Zenocrate. The scene where Tamora first appears to the
emperor is couched in identical language with the one where Zenocrate
is given the crown by the king; and again in the first act of the
first part of Henry VI you treat the death of Joan in the same manner
as you do the death of Zenocrate. No servile imitator could have more
carefully copied his master.”
“His very trick of hand,” drawled Shakespere.
Marlowe did not reply, but continued a rapt listener while his friend
went on with increasing ardor:
“In act II of Titus Andronicus you write of the golden sun galloping
‘the zodiac in his glistening coach,’ as though in your ears still
rattled ‘ugly darkness with her rusty coach,’ as you have described the
night in act V of the first part of Tamburlaine and again in Edward
II. If thou must take the most striking passages of thy Tamburlaine,
and cut from them scraps and pieces upon which to pad out these later
dramas, thou should be more circumspect in their use. If thou art not,
one of two things will surely follow, thy friend here, who stands as
thy mask, will be dubbed a plagiarist of vilest sort, or all these
plays will be proclaimed thine.”
“Save me from such a calumny,” exclaimed Shakespere, “and Peele speaks
truth, for a tempest has already begun to brew. But that is my story,
and I must not break the thread of Peele’s argument.”
“Well! And what if the plays are proclaimed mine as you mention?” asked
Marlowe.
“Why, thy existence will be discovered, for both Chapman and Nash know
the full list of your works. Perhaps more know it. The report of thy
death is loose and has not been widely circulated. Harvey attributed it
to the plague.”
“Yes,” said Shakespere, “he wrote that ‘gogle-eyed sonnet’ about you
in September, 1593, containing the line, ‘He and the plague contended
for the game,’ and how the ‘graund disease’ smiled at your ‘Tamburlaine
contempt,’ and ‘sternly struck home.’”
“Enough of that!” exclaimed Marlowe, impatiently, “I shall yet get even
with that villainous sonneteer.”
“But to return to that description of night in act V of the first part
of Tamburlaine,” said Peele, “there, the horses that drag the night,
‘from their nostrils breathe rebellious winds and dreadful thunder
claps;’ while in the second part of Henry VI, the same old horses ‘from
their misty jaws breathe foul contagious darkness in the air.’ The
method of description and the figures of speech are the same, and you
personify the same objects.”
“Well, it is a favorite description of mine for night, and as my
attention is called to it, I now remember that in my Hero and Leander,
‘the night * * * heaved up her head and breathed darkness forth.’[28]
This is the last time that I shall use the figure.”
“Well, that passage from Henry VI,” resumed Peele, “that I have just
alluded to is also like another in Tamburlaine, beginning: ‘Black is
the beauty of the brightest day’” [note 42].
“Possibly they are open to criticism. I shall revise, and in future
labor toward perfection in word condensation,” said Marlowe, “but
I cannot destroy all the well turned lines. For instance, there is
the same spirit breathing through the verses for the friar Laurence,
beginning ‘The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning light;’ but how
can I curtail, how remodel with hope of preserving their beauty? You
may assert that such lines echo with the music of Hero and Leander, and
with them draw a close parallel to the passage in the latter, where
Apollo’s golden harp aroused Hesperus, but I shall not change them. The
critics may have food for thought and they may grow strong enough upon
it to be formidable, but so long as I write of love, the lines must be
cast in the purest mould that I am capable of using.”
“Then destroy thy Ovid and Homer, and go back to Seneca; read Plutarch
and Holinshed. Thou hast written love tragedies and historical plays;
take thy Faustus for the model of a drama of stern and darkened life.”
“Shall it be tragedy?”
“Yes, the darkest picture of thy mind.”
“My own bitter experiences.”
“Have it so if thou wilt,” returned Peele, “it is only he who has
drained the cup of deepest sorrow and felt the tooth of adversity, that
can draw such a picture.”
And so the figure of the melancholy Dane arose, the perfect embodiment
at that period of the oppressed writer. Not at one stroke did it rise
into its present almost palpable form, but under the labor of years in
which the less intense plays were produced.
It was now suggested that the remainder of the evening be spent in
Tamworth’s room, and as it then appeared too late for any of the
lawyer’s friends to seek admittance, the three men passed into the
king’s chamber. It was empty, but the burning lamp showed that Tamworth
had withdrawn for a short time only. After having admitted Peele and
Shakespere, he had gone to a neighboring ordinary for a late repast.
The fire had smoldered to ashes on the hearth, but its recent blaze had
so cut the chill of the room that it was on an even temperature with
that of the fire-lighted oratory. They gathered around the black table
below the suspended lamp.
“Now,” said Marlowe, addressing Shakespere, “what is thy report from
Henslowe upon the two acts of Romeo and Juliet and its proposed
completion?”
“Unfavorable,” answered Shakespere, “he has flatly refused to accept
it.”
“Why, ’tis surely stronger and more dramatic than Titus Andronicus, for
which he paid us ten pounds, and that has now been on the boards of the
Rose for two months. It must be that Henslowe is not only losing the
little ability of criticism he once possessed, but his business sense
as well. What has brought about the change? Hast thou any idea?”
“I went in to him, as heretofore,” began Shakespere, “and in great
easy chairs, where full the blazing light of a crackling chimney-fire
fell upon them, sat Henslowe and the late strolling-player, Jonson. I
know not by what means Jonson hath the ear, and aye, the heart, of the
manager of the Rose; but clear proof of it was shown. Henslowe waved
me to a chair, but Jonson ignored my presence.” ‘Mr. Shakespere,’ said
Henslowe, nodding to Jonson, and then the latter said, ‘I have heard
of him,’ and I, ‘Ben Jonson, late returned from the Low Countries,’
and at that Jonson glared at me as though my presence were scarcely
sufferable and my voice intolerable.
“‘Prut!’ exclaimed Henslowe, noticing the ill manner of his companion
and showing disapproval. Then turning his attention to the servant, he
said, ‘Fill one more. Our friend must crush a cup of wine with us.’
This the servant did from a bottle of finest canary from the sideboard
which blazed with gilded, silver and gold ware.