|And now, Eugenio, ere we cross the ferry, and mingle with the 'roaring
boyes and swashbucklers' of St. Bartholomew, let us halt at the
_Tabard_, and snatch a brief association with Chaucer and his Pilgrims.
The localities that were once hallowed by the presence of genius we
ardently seek after, and fondly trace through all their obscurities,
and regard them with as true a devotion as does the pilgrim the sacred
shrine to which, after his patiently-endured perils by sea and land, he
offers his adoration. The humblest roof gathers glory from the bright
spirit that once irradiated it; the simplest relic becomes a precious
gem, when connected with the gifted and the good. We haunt as holy
ground the spot where the muse inspired our favourite bard; we treasure
up his hand-writing in our cabinets; we study his works as emanations
from the poet; we cherish his associations as reminiscences of the man.
Never can I forget your high-toned enthusiasm when you stood in the
solemn chancel of Stratford-upon-Avon, pale, breathless, and fixed like
marble, before the mausoleum of Shakspeare!”
“An honest and blithesome spirit was the Father of English Poetry!
happy in hope, healthful in morals, lofty in imagination, and racy in
humour,--a bright earnest of that transcendent genius who, in an
after age, shed his mighty lustre over the literature of Europe. The
_Tabard!_--how the heart leaps at the sound! What would _Uncle Timothy_
say if he were here?”
“All that you have said, and much more, could he say it as well.” And
instantly we felt the cordial pressure of a hand stretched out to us
from the next box, where sat solus the middle-aged gentleman. “To
have passed the Tabard, * would have been treason to those beautiful
associations that make memory of the value that it is!
* “Befelle that in that seson, on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,
Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Canterbury, with devoute corage,
At night was eome into that hostellerie
Wei nine-and-twenty in a compagnie,
Of sondry folk, by a venture yfalle,
In felawship, and pilgrimes were they alle,
That toward Canterbury wolden ride.
The chambres and the stables weren wide,
And wel we wreren csed atte beste.”
One of the most rational pleasures of the intellectual mind is to escape
from the present to the past. The contemplation of antiquity is
replete with melancholy interest. The eye wanders with delight over the
crumbling ruins of ancient magnificence; the heart is touched with
some sublime emotion; and we ask which is the' most praiseworthy--the
superstition that raised these holy temples, or the piety (?) that
suffers them to fall to decay? This corner is one of my periodical
resting-places after a day's solitary ramble; for I have many such, in
order to brush lip old recollections, and lay in fresh mental fuel for a
winter evening's fireside.'Tis a miracle that this antique fabric should
have escaped demolition. Look at St. Saviour's! *
* The ancient grave-yard of St. Saviour's contains the
sacred dust of Massinger. All that the Parish Register
records of him is, “March 20, 1639-40, buried Philip
Massinger, a Stranger.” John Fletcher, the eminent dramatic
poet, who died of the Plague, August 19,1625, was buried in
the church.
With all due respect for Uncle Timothy's opinion, we think
he is a little too hard upon the citizens, who are not the
only Vandals in matters of antiquity. The mitre has done its
part in the work of demolition. Who destroyed the ancient
palace of the Bishops of Ely, (where “Old John of Gaunt,
time-honour'd Lancaster,” breathed his last, in 1398,) with
its beautiful Chapel and magnificent Gothic Hall? The site
of its once pleasant garden in Holborn, from whence Richard
Duke of Gloucester requested a dish of strawberries from the
Bishop on the morning he sent Lord Hastings to execution, is
now a rookery of mean hovels. And the Hospital of Saint
Catherine, and its Collegiate Church,--where are they? Not
one stone lies upon another of those unrivalled Gothic
temples of piety and holiness, founded by the pious Queen
Matilda. And the ancient Church of St. Bartholomew, where
once reposed the ashes of Miles Coverdale, and which the
Great Fire of London spared, is now razed to the ground!
De Gustibusf Alderman Newman, who had scraped together out
of the grocery line six hundred thousand pounds, enjoyed no
greater luxury during the last three years of his life than
to repair daily to the shop, and, precisely as the clock
struck two (the good old-fashioned hour of city dining), eat
his mutton with his successors. The late Thomas Rippon,
Chief Cashier of the Bank of England, was a similar oddity.
Onee only, in a service of fifty years, did he venture to
ask for a fortnight's holiday. He left town, but after a
three days' unhappy ramble through beautiful green fields,
he grew moping and melancholy, and prematurely returned to
the blissful regions of Threadneedle Street to die at his
desk!
In the contemplation of that impressive scene--amidst the everlasting
freshness of nature and the decay of time--I have been taught more
rightly to estimate the works of man and his Creator,--the one, like
himself, stately in pride and beauty, but which pass away as a shadow,
and are seen no more; the other, the type of divinity, infinite,
immutable, and eternal.”
“But surely--may I call you Uncle Timothy?” Uncle Timothy
good-humouredly nodded assent. “Surely, Uncle Timothy, the restoration
of the Ladye Chapel and Crosby Hall speak something for the good taste
of the citizens.”
“Modestly argued, Eugenio!”
“An accident, my young friend, a mere accident, forced upon the Vandals.
Talk of antiquity to a Guildhall Magnifico I * Sirs, I once mentioned
the 'London Stone' to one of these blue-gown gentry, and his one idea
immediately reverted to the well-known refectory of that venerable
name, where he stuffs himself to repletion and scarletifies his nasal
promontory, without a thought of Wat Tyler, * the Lord of the Circle!
An acquaintance of mine, one Deputy Dewlap, after dining with the
Patten-makers on the 9th of November, was attacked with a violent fit of
indigestion.
* Small was the people's gain by the insurrection of Wat
Tyler. The elements of discord, once put in motion, spread
abroad with wild fury, till, with the ignoble blood of base
hinds, mingled the bravest and best in the land. The people
returned to their subjection wondering and dispirited. For
whose advantage had all these excesses been committed? Was
their position raised? Were their grievances redressed,
their wants alleviated? Did their yoke press lighter? Were
they nearer the attainment of their (perhaps ''reasonable)
wishes, by nobility and prelates cruelly slaughtered,
palaces burned down, and the learning and works of art that
humanise and soften rugged natures piled in one vast,-
indiscriminate ruin? If aught was won by these monstrous
disorders, they were not the winners. The little aristocrats
of cities, who have thrown their small weight into popular
insurrections, may have had their vanity gratified and their
maws temporarily crammed; but the masses, who do the rough
work of resistance for their more cunning masters, are
invariably the sufferers and dupes. Hard knocks and hanging
have hitherto been their reward; and when these shall grow
out of fashion, doubtless some equally agreeable substitute
will be found. “It is not an obvious way (says Wyndham) for
making the liquor more clear, to give a shake to the cask,
and to bring up as much as possible from the parts nearest
to the bottom.”
His lady sent for the family doctor,--a humorist, gentlemen. 'Ah!' *
cried Mr. Galen, 'the old complaint, a coagulation in the lungs. Let me
feel your pulse. In a high fever! Show me your tongue. Ay, as white as
a curd. Open your mouth, wider, Mr. Deputy--you caw open it wide enough
_sometimes!_--wider still. Good heavens! what do. I see here?'--'Oh!
my stars!' screamed the Deputy's wife, 'What, my dear doctor, do
you--see?'--'Why, madam, I see the leg of a turkey, and a tureen of
oyster-sauce!' 'Ha! ha! ha!--gluttons all; gluttons all!'
[Illustration: 0154].
“A pise on Benjamin Bosky! the cunning Lauréat, having a visitation
from sundry relatives of his cousin's wife's uncle's aunt's sister, hath
enjoined me the penance, _malgré moi-même!_ of playing showman to
them among the Lions of London. Now I have no antipathy to poor
relations--your shabby genteel--provided that, while they eat and drink
at my expense, they will not fail to contradict ** me stoutly when they
think I am in the wrong; but your purse-proud, half-and-half,
* When Justice Shallow invited Falstaff to dinner, he issued
the following orders:--“Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of
short-legged hens; a joint of mutton; and any pretty little
tiny kickshaws, tell William Cook.” This is a modest bill of
fare. What says Massinger of City feasting in the olden
time?
“Men may talk of Country Christmasses,
Their thirty-pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carp's
tongue, Their pheasants drench'd with ambergris, the
carcases Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to Make
sauce for a single peacock; yet their feasts were fasts,
compared with the City's.”
** A friend of Addison's borrowed a thousand pounds of him,
which finding it inconvenient to repay, he never upon any
occasion ventured to contradict him. One day the hypocrisy
became so offensively palpable, that Addison, losing all
patience, exclaimed, “For heaven's sake contradict me, sir,
or pay me my thousand pounds!”
Brummagem gentlefolks, shabby, without being-genteel!--your pettifoggers
in small talk and etiquette, that know everything and nothing--listening
to and retailing everybody's gossip, meddling with everybody's
business,--and such are the Fubsys, Muffs, and Flumgartens,--are sad
provocatives to my splenetic vein.
His spirits rallied when the talk was of Chaucer, whose memory we drank
in a cup of sack prepared, as mine host assured us, from a recipe that
had belonged to the house as an heir-loom, time out of mind, and of
which Dick Tarlton had often tasted.
“Dick Tarlton, Uncle Timothy,--was not he one of the types of Merrie
England?”
“A mad wag! His diminished nose was a peg upon which hung many an odd
jest. His 'whereabouts' were hereabouts at the Bear Garden; but the
Bull in Bishopsgate Street; the Bel-Savage, without Ludgate; and his own
tavern, the Tabor, in Gracious (Gracechurch) Street, came in for a share
of his drolleries. Marvellous must have been the humour of this 'allowed
fool, when it could 'undumpish' his royal mistress in her frequent paroxysms
of concupiscence and ferocity! He was no poll-parrot retailer of other
people's jokes. He had a wit's treasury of his own, upon which he drew
liberally, and at sight. His nose was flat; not so his jests; and, in
exchanging extemporal gibes with his audience, * he generally returned a
good repartee for a bad one.”
* Tarlton having to speak a prologue, and finding no
cessation to the hissing, suddenly addressed the audience in
this tetrastie:--
I lived not in the golden age,
When Jason won the fleece;
But now I am on Gotham's stage,
Where fools do hiss like geese.
On the authority of an old play, “The Three Lords and Three Ladies of
London,” published two years after his death, he was originally “a,
water-bearer.” Among England's merry crew in the olden time were Will
Summers, jester to King Henry the Eighth; Patch, Cardinal Wolsey's fool;
Jack Oates, fool to Sir Richard Hollis; and Archibald Armstrong, jester
to King Charles the First. There was a famous jester, one Jemy Camber,
“a fat foole,” who enlivened the dull Court of James the Sixth of
Scotland. The manner of his death, as recorded in “A Nest of Ninnies,”
by Robert Armin, 4to. 1608, is singular. “The Chamber-laine was sent
to see him there,” (at the house of a laundress in Edinburgh, whose
daughter he was soliciting, and who had provided a bed of nettles for
his solace,) “who when he came found him fast asleep under the bed
starke naked, bathing in nettles, whose skinne when hee wakened him, was
all blistered grievously. The King's Chamberlaine bid him arise and come
to the King. 'I will not,' quoth he, 'I will go make my grave.' See how
things chanced, he spake truer than he was awar. For the Chamberlaine
going home without him, tolde the King his answere. Jemy rose, made him
ready, takes his horse, and rides to the church-yard in the high
towne, where he found the sexton (as the custom is there) making nine
graves--three for men, three for women, and three for children; and
who so dyes next, first comes, first served, * 'Lend mee thy spade,' says
Jemy, and with that, digs a hole, which hole hee bids him make for his
grave; and doth give him a French crowne; the man, willing to please him
(more for his gold than his pleasure) did so: and the foole gets upon
his horse, rides to a gentleman of the towne, and on the so-daine,
within two houres after, dyed: of whom the sexton telling, hee was
buried there indeed. Thus, you see, fooles have a gesse at wit sometime,
and the wisest could have done no more, nor so much. But thus this fat
foole fills a leane grave with his carkasse; upon which grave the King
caused a stone of marble to bee put, on which poets writ these lines in
remembrance of him:
'He that gard all men till jeare,
Jemy a Camber he ligges here:
Pray for his Sale, for he is geane.
And here a ligges beneath this steane.
The following poetical picture of him is exact and curious.
“This Fat Foole was a Scot borne, brought up
In Sterlin, twenty miles from Edinborough;
Who being but young, was for the King caught up,
Serv'd this King's father all his lifetime through.
A yard high and a nayle, no more his stature,
Smooth fac't, fayre spoken, yet unkynde by nature.
Two yards in compassé and a nayle I reade
Was he at forty yeeres, since when I heard not;
Nor of his life or death, and further heede,
Since I never read, I looke not, nor regard not,
But what at that time Jemy Camber was
As I have heard, lie write, and so let passe.
His head was small, his hayre long on the same,
One eare was bigger than the other farre:
His fore-head full, his eyes shinde like a flame,”
His nose flat, and his beard small, yet grew square;
His lips but little, and his wit was lesse,
But wide of mouth, few teeth I must confesse.
His middle thicke, as I have said before,
Indifferent thighes and knees, but very short;
His legs be square, a foot long, and no more,
Whose very presence made the King much sport.
And a pearle spoone he still wore in his cap,
To eate his meate he lov'd, and got by hap
A pretty little foote, but a big hand,
On which he ever wore rings rich and good:
Backward well made as any in that land,
Though thicke, and he did eome of gentle bloud;
But of his wisdome, ye shall quickly heare,
How this Fat Foole was made on every where.”
And some capital jokes are recorded of him in this same “Nest of
Ninnies.” There was another fool, “leane Leonard,” who belonged to
“a kinde gentleman” in “the merry Forrest of Sherwood,” a gluttonous
fellow, of unbounded assurance and ready wit. “This leane, greedy foole,
having a stomaeke, and seeing the butler out of the way, his appetite
was such, as loath to tarry, he breakes open the dairy-house, eates and
spoiles new cheeseeurds, cheesecakes, overthrowes creame bowles, and
having filled his belly, and knew he had done evill, gets him gone to
Mansfield in Sherwood, as one fearefull to be at home: the maydes came
home that morning from milking, and finding such a masaker of their
dairie, almost mad, thought a yeares wages could not make amends: but
'O the foole, leane Leonard,' they cryed, 'betid this mischiefe!' They
complayned to their master, but to no purpose, Leonard was farre inough
off; search was made for the foole, but hee was gone none new whither,
and it was his pro-pertie, having done mischiefe, never to come home of
himselfe, but if any one intreated him, he would easy be won.
“All this while, the foole was at Mansfield in Sherwood, and stood
gaping at a shoomaker's stall; who, not knowing him, asked him what he
was? 'Goe look,' says hee; 'I know not my selfe.' They asked him where
he was borne? 'At my mother's backe,' says he.--'In what country?' quoth
they.--'In the country,' quoth he, 'where God is a good man.' At last one
of the three journeymen imagined he wras not very wise, and flouted him
very merrily, asking him if he would have a stitch where there was a
hole? (meaning his mouth.) 'Aye,' quoth the foole, 'if your nose may bee
the needle.' The shoomaker could have found in his heart to have tooke
measure on his pate with a last in steede of his foote; but let him goe
as he was.
“A country plow-jogger being by, noting all this, secretly stole a piece
of shoomaker's ware off the stall, and coming be-hinde him, clapt him
on the head, and asked him how he did. The foole, seeing the piteh-ball,
pulled to have it off, but could not but with much paine, in an envious
spleene, smarting ripe, runs after him, fais at fistie cuffes with,
but the fellow belaboured the foole cunningly, and got the foole's head
under his arme, and bobb'd his nose. The foole remembering how his head
was, strikes it up, and hits the fellowes mouth with the pitcht place,
so that the haire of his head, and the haire of the clownes beard were
glued together. The fellow cryed, the foole exclaimed, and could not
sodanely part. In the end the people (after much laughing at the jest)
let them part faire; the one went to picke his beard, the other his
head. The constable came, and asked the cause of their falling out, and
knowing one to be Leonard the leane foole, whom hee had a warrant for
from the gentleman to search for, demaunds of the fellow how it hapned?
The fellow hee could answere nothing but 4 um--um,' for his mouth was
sealed up with wax, 'Dost thou scorne to speake V says hee. 41 am the
King's officer, knave!' 6 Um--um,' quoth hee againe. Meaning hee would
tell him all when his mouth was cleane. But the constable, thinking hee
was mockt, clapt him in the stocks, where the fellow sate a long houre
farming his mouth, and when hee had done, and might tell his griefe,
the constable was gone to carry home Leonard to his maister; who, not at
home, hee was enforced to stay supper time, where hee told the gentleman
the jest, who was very merry to heare the story, contented the offieer,
and had him to set the fellow at liberty, who betimes in the morning was
found fast asleep in the stocks. The fellow knowing himselfe faulty, put
up his wrongs, quickly departed, and went to work betimes that morning
with a flea in his eare.”
“Jacke Oates was “a fellow of infinite jest,” and took to the fullest
extent the laughing licence that his coat of motley allowed him. His
portrait, contained in “A Nest of Ninnies,” is quite as minute and
interesting as the true effigie of Leane Leonard, which follows it.
“This Foole was tall, his face small,
His beard was big and blacke,
His necke was short, inclin'd to sport
Was this our dapper Jacke.
Of nature curst, yet not the worst,
Was nastie, given to sweare;
Toylesome ever, his endeavour
Was delight in beere.
Goutie great, of conceit
Apt, and full of favour;
Curst, yet kinde, and inclinde
To spare the wise man's labour.
Knowne to many, loude of any,
Cause his trust was truth!
Seene in toy es, apt to joy es,
To please with tricks of youth.
Writh'd i' th' knees, yet who sees
Faults that hidden be?
Calf great, in whose conceit
Lay much game and glee.
Bigge i' th' small, ancle all,
Footed broad and long,
In Motley cotes, goes Jacke Oates,
Of whom I sing this song.”
“Curled locks on idiot's heads,
Yeallow as the amber,
Playes on thoughts, as girls with beads,
When their masse they stamber.
Thicke of hearing, yet thin ear'd,
Long of neck and visage,
Hookie nosde and thicke of beard,
Sullen in his usage.
Clutterfisted, long of arme,
Bodie straight and slender'd,
Boistious hipt motly warm'd,
Ever went leane Leonard.
Gouty leg'd, footed long,
Subtill in his follie,
Shewing right, but apt to wrong,
When a'pear'd most holy.
Understand him as he is,
For his marks you cannot misse.”
Eugenio.--“'Tis said that he died penitent.” Uncle Tim.--“I hope he did.
I hope all have died penitent. I hope all will die penitent. Alas! for
the self-complacent Pharisees of this world; they cannot forgive the
poor player:' little reflecting of how many, not laughing but crying
sins they will require to be forgiven. The breath of such hearts would
wither even the flowers of Paradise.”
Could we sit at the Tabard, and not remember the Globe, * with its flag
floating in the air, the Boar's Head, and the Falcon!
* “Each playhouse,” says W. Parkes, in his Curtain-drawer
of the World, 4to. 1612, “advaneeth its flag in the air,
whither, quickly, at the waving thereof, are summoned whole
troops of men, women, and children.” And William Rowley, in
“A Search for Money, 1609,” whilst enumerating the many
strange characters assembled at a tavern in quest of “The
Wandering Knight, Monsieur L'Argent,” includes among them
four or five flag-falne plaiers, poore harmlesse merrie
knaves, that were now neither lords nor ladies, but honestly
wore their owne clothes (if they were paid for.)
In 1698 an unsuccessful attempt was made by the puritanical
vestry of Saint Saviour's to put down the Globe Theatre, on
the plea of the “enormities” practised there. But James the
First, when he came to the throne, knocked their petitions
on the head by granting his patent to Shakspere and others
to perform plays, “as well within their usuall house called
the Globe, in Surry,” as elsewhere. It was what Stowe calls
“a frame of timber,” with, according to John Taylor, the
water-poet, “a thatched hide.” Its sign was an Atlas bearing
a globe. It was accidentally burnt down on St. Peter's day,
June 29, 1613. “And a marvaile and fair grace of God it
was,” says Sir Ralph Win wood in his Memorials, “that the
people had so little harm, having but two little doors to
get out.”
Sir Henry Wootton's relation of this fire is exceedingly
interesting. “Now, to let matters of state sleep, I will
entertain you at the present with what hath happened this
week at the Banks side. The King's players had a new play,
called All is true, representing some principal pieces of
the raign of Henry 8 which was set forth with many
extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the
matting of the stage, the knights of the order, with their
Georges and garters, the guards with their embroidered
coats, and the like: sufficient, in truth, within a mile to
make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now King
Henry making a masque at the Cardinal Woolsey's house, and
certain canons being shot off at his entry, some of the
paper, or other stuff wherewith one of them were stopped,
did light on the thatch, where, being thought at first but
an idle smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it
kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming
within less than an hour the whole house to the very ground.
“This was the fatal period of that vertuous fabrique,
wherein nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few
forsaken cloaks; only one man had his breeches set on fire,
that would perhaps have broyled him if he had not, by the
benefit of a provident wit, put it out with bottle-ale. The
rest when we meet.”--Reliquio Woottonio.
Suddenly the strings of a harp were struck. “Listen!” said Uncle
Timothy, “that is no everyday hand.”
The chords were repeated; and, after a symphony that spoke in exquisite
tones a variety of passions, a voice melodious and plaintive sang--
THE OLD HARPER'S SONG.
Sound the harp! strike the lyre!--Ah! the Minstrel is
old;
The days of his harping are very nigh told;
Yet Shakspere, * sweet Shakspere! thy name shall expire
On his cold quiv'ring lips--Sound the harp! strike the
lyre!
Its music was thine when his harp he first strung,
And thou wert the earliest song that he sung;
Now feeble and trembling his hand sweeps the wire--
Be thine its last note!--Sound the harp I strike the
lyre!
I've wander'd where riches and poverty dwell;
With all but, the sordid, thy name was a spell.
Love, pity, and joy, in each bosom beat higher;
Rage, madness, despair I--Sound the harp! strike the lyre!
The scenes of thy triumphs are pass'd as a dream;
But still flows in beauty, sweet Avon--thy stream.
Still rises majestic that heaven-pointed spire,
Thy temple and tomb!--Sound the harp! strike the
lyre!”
* The Duke of Marlborough, on being asked in the house of a
titled lady from what history of England he was quoting,
answered, “the only one I have ever read--Shakspere!”
“Gentlemen,” said Uncle Timothy, and his eye glistened and his lip
trembled, “the old minstrel must not depart hence without a full purse
and a plentiful scrip. But first to bespeak him the best bed that this
hostelrie affords, and compound a loving cup to warm his heart as he
hath warmed ours. This chimney-corner shall be his harp's resting-place
for the night, as perchance it hath been of many long since silent and
unstrung.”
The middle-aged gentleman rose to usher in the minstrel; but paused as
the harp and voice were again attuned, but to a livelier measure.
“THE PEDLAR'S PACK.
“Needles and pins! Needles and pins!
Lads and lasses, the fair begins!
Ribbons and laces
For sweet smiling faces;
Glasses for quizzers;
Bodkins and scissors;
Baubles, my dears,
For your fingers and ears;
Sneeshing for sneezers;
Toothpicks and tweezers;
Garlands so gay
For Valentine's day;
Fans for the pretty;
Jests for the witty;
Songs for the many
Three yards a penny!
I'm a jolly gay pedlar, and bear on my back,
Like my betters, my fortune through brake and
through briar;
I shuffle, I cut, and I deal out my pack;
And when I play the knave,'tis for you to play
higher!
In default of a scrip,
In my pocket I slip
A good fat hen, lest it die of the pip!
When my cream I have sipp'd,
And my liquor I've lipp'd,
I often have been, like my syllabub--whipp'd.
But a pedlar's back is as broad as its long,
So is his conscience, and so is his song!”
“An arrant Proteus!” said Uncle Timothy, “with the harp of Urien, and
the knavery of Autolicus. But we must have him in, and see what further
store of ballads he hath in his budget.”
And he rose a second time; but was anticipated by the Squire Minstrel,
who entered, crying, “Largess! gentles, largess! for the poor harper of
merry Stratford-upon-Avon.”
The personage making this demand was enveloped in a large, loose camlet
cloak, that had evidently passed through several generations of his
craft till it descended to the shortest. His complexion was of a
brickdust rosiness, through which shone dirtiness visible; his upper-lip
was fortified with a huge pair of sable mustachios, and his nether
curled fiercely with a bushy imperial. His eyes, peering under his
broad-brimmed slouched beaver, were intelligent, and twinkled with good
humour. His voice, like his figure, was round and oily; and when he
doffed his hat, a shock of coal-black wiry hair fell over his face, and
rendered his features still more obscure.
“Well, goodman Harper,” cried Uncle Timothy, after viewing attentively
this singular character, “what other Fittes, yet unsung, have you in
your budget?”
“A right merry and conceited infinity!” replied the minstrel. “_Nutmegs
for Nightingales!_ a Balade of a priest that loste his nose for saying of
masse, as I suppose; a most pleasant Ballad of patient Grissell; a merry
new Song how a Brewer meant to make a Cooper cuckold, and how deere the
Brewer paid for the bargaine; a merie newe Ballad intituled the pinnyng
of the Basket; the Twenty-Five orders of Fooles; a Ditty delightful of
Mother Watkin's ah; A warning well wayed, though counted a tale; and A
prettie new Ballad, intytuled
'The crowe sits upon the wall,
_Please one, and please all!_
written and sung by Dick Tarlton! * Were it meet for you, most reverend
and rich citizens, to bibo with a poor ballad-monger, I would crave your
honours to pledge with me a cup to his merry memory.”
“Meet!” quoth Uncle Timothy. “Grammercy! Dick Tarlton is meat, ay, and
drink too, for the best wit in Christendom, past, present, and to come!
* Tarlton was a poet. “Tarlton's Toys” (see Thomas Nash's
“Terrors of the Night,” 4to. 1594,) had appeared in 1586. He
had some share in the extemporal play of “The Seven Deadly
Sins.” In 1578, John Allde had a licence to publish
“Tarlton's device upon this unlooked-for great snowe.” In
1570, the same John Allde “at the long shop adjoyning unto
Saint Mildred's Church in the Pultrye,” published “A very
Lamentable and Wofull Discours of the Fierce Fluds, which
lately Flowed in Bedford Shire, in Lincoln Shire, and in
many other Places, with the Great Losses of Sheep and other
Cattel, the 5th of October, 1570.” We are in possession of
an unique black-letter ballad, written by Tarlto. It has
a woodcut of a lady dressed in the full court costume of the
time, holding in her right hand a fan of feathers.
“A prettie newe Ballad, intytuled:
The crowe sits upon the wall,
Please one and please all.
To the tune of, 'Please one and please all.'
Imprinted at London for Henry Kyrkham, dwelling at the
little North doore of Paules, at. the Sygne of the blacke
Boys.” Tarlton's wife, Kate, was a shrew; and, if his own
epigram be sooth, a quean into the bargain.
“Woe to thee, Tarjton, that ever thou were born,
Thy wife hath made thee a cuckold, and thou must wear the
horn:
What, and if she hath? Am I a whit the worse?
She keeps me like a gentleman, with money in my purse.”
He was not always so enduring and complaisant: for on one
occasion, in a storm, he proposed, to lighten the vessel by
throwing his lady overboard!
Thy calling, vagrant though it be, shall not stand in the way of a good
toast. What say you, my friends, to a loving cup with the harper, to
Dick Tarlton, and Merrie England? The cup went round; and as the harper
brushed his lips after the spicy draught, so did his right mustachio!
Uncle Timothy did not notice this peculiarity.
“Might I once more presume, my noble masters,” said the harper. “I would
humbly----”
“Thou art Lord of Misrule for to-night,” replied Uncle Timothy. “Go on
presuming.”
“The memory of the immortal Twenty-nine, and their patron, Holy Saint
Thomas of Canterbury!”
And the minstrel bowed his head reverently, crossed his hands over his
breast, and rising to his harp, struck a chord that made every bosom
thrill again.
“Thy touch hath a finish, and thy voice a harmony that betoken
cultivation and science.”
As the middle-aged gentleman made this observation, the mustachio that
had taken a downward curve, fell to the ground; its companion, (some
conjuror's heir-loom,) played at follow my leader; and the solitary
imperial was left alone in its glory.
The harper, to hide his confusion, hummed Lo-doiska.
Uncle Timothy, espying the phenomenon, fixed his wondering eyes full in
the strange man's face, and exclaimed, “Who, and what art thou?”
“I'm a palmer come from the Holy Land.” (_Singing._)
“Doubtless!” replied Uncle Timothy. “A palmer of traveller's tales upon
such ignoramuses as will believe them. Why, that mysterious budget of
thine contains every black-letter rarity that Captain Cox * of Coventry
rejoiced in, and bibliomaniacs sigh for. Who, and what art thou?”
* Laneham, in his Account of the Queen's Entertainment at
Killingworth Castle, 1575, represents this military mason
and bibliomaniac as “marching on valiantly before, clean
trust, and gartered above the knee, all fresh in a velvet
cap, flourishing with his ton sword and describing a
procession of the Coventry men in celebration of Hock
Tuesday, he introduces “Fyrst, Captain Cox, an od man I
promiz yoo; by profession a mason, and that right skilfull;
very cunning in fens, and hardy az Gavin; for hiz ton-sword
hangs at hiz tabbz eend; great oversight hath he in matters
of storie: for az for King Arthur z book, Huon of Burdeaus,
the foour sons of Ay mon, Bevys of Hampton, the Squyre of lo
degree, the Knight of Courtesy, the Wido Edyth, the King and
the Tanner, Robin-hood, Adam Bel, Clim of the Clough and
William of Cloudsley, the Wife lapt in a Morels Skin, the
Sakfull of Nuez, Elynor Rumming, and the Nutbrown Maid.
“What should I rehearz heer, what a bunch of Ballets and
Songs, all auncient; and Broom broom on Hill, So Wo iz me
begon, troly lo, Over a Whinny Meg, Hey ding a ding, Bony
lass upon a green, My hony on gave me a bek, By a bank as I
lay: and a hundred more he hath fair wrapt up in parchment,
and bound with a whip cord. To stay ye no longer heerin, I
dare say he hath as fair a library for theez sciencez, and
az many goodly monuments both in prose and poetry, and at
after noonz can talk az much without book, az ony inholder
betwixt Brainford and Bagshot, what degree soever he be.”
“Suppose, signors, I should be some eccentric nobleman in disguise,--or
odd fish of an amateur collecting musical tribute to win a wager,--or
suppose-”
“Have done with thy supposes!” cried the impatient and satirical-nosed
gentleman.
“Or, suppose--_Uncle Timothy!_” Here, with the adroitness of a practised
mimic, the voice was changed in an instant, the coal-black wiry wig
thrown off, the bushy imperial sent to look after the stray mustachios,
the thread-bare camlet cloak and rusty beaver cast aside, and the
chaffing quaffing, loud-laughing Lauréat of Little Britain stood
confessed under a stucco of red ochre!
“Was there ever such a mountebank varlet!” shouted the middle-aged
gentleman, holding fast his two sides.
“I followed close upon your skirts, and dogged you hither.”
“Dogged me, puppy!”
“Mr. Moses, the old clothesman, provided my mendicant wardrobe, and mine
host lent the harp, which belongs to an itinerant musician, who charms
his parlour company with sweet sounds. I intended, dear Uncle Timothy,
to surprise and please you.”
“And in truth, Benjamin, thou hast done both. I am surprised and
pleased!” And drawing nearer, with a suppressed voice, he added, “When
sick and sorrowful, sing me that old harper's song. When thou only art
left to smooth my pillow, and close my eyes sing me that old harper's
song!
''Twill make me pass the cup of anguish by,
Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died.
“And you, Jacob Jollyboy,to plot against me with that Israelitish
retailer of cast-off duds, Mr. Moses!” continued the satirical-nosed
gentleman, labouring hard to conceal his emotion under a taking-to-task
frown exceedingly imposing and ludicrous.
Mr. Jollyboy looked all confusion and cutlets.. “Where do you expect to
go when you die?”
“Where Uncle Timothy goes, and '_je suis content_,'as the Frenchman said
to not half so dainty a dish of smoking-hot Scotch collops as I have the
honour to set before you.” And Mr. Jollyboy breathed, or rather puffed
again.
The Lauréat,
“Neat, trimly drest,
Fresh as a bridegroom,” and his face new wash'd,
re-entered, and with his usual urbanity did the honours of the
supper-table.
The Scotch collops having been despatched with hearty good will, Uncle
Timothy restricted our future libations to one single bowl. “And mind,
Benjamin, only one!” This was delivered with peculiar emphasis. Mr.
Bosky bowed obedience to the behest; and, as a nod is as good as a wink,
he _nodded_ to Mr. Jollyboy.
The bowl was brought in, brimming and beautiful; and it was five good
acts of a comedy to watch the features of Uncle Timothy. He first gazed
at the bowl, then at the landlord, then at the lauréat, then at us, and
then at the bowl again!
“Pray, Mr. Jollyboy,” he inquired, “call you this a bowl, or a caldron?”
Mr. Jollyboy solemnly deposed as to its being a real bowl; the identical
bowl in which six little Jollyboys had been christened.
“Is it your intention, Mr. Jollyboy, to christen us too? Let it be
tipplers, then, mine host of the Tabard!”
“As to the christening, Uncle Timothy, that would be nothing very much
out of order--seeing
That some great poet says, I'll take my oath,
Man is an infant, but of larger growth.
“Besides,” argued Mr. Bosky, Socratically, the _dimensions_ of the bowl
were not in the record; and as I thought we should be too many for a
halfcrown sneaker of punch-”
“You thought you would be too many for me! And so you have been. Sit
down, Mr. Jollyboy, and help us out of this dilemma. Take a drop of your
own physic.”
Mr. Jollyboy respectfully intimated he would rather do that than break
his arm; and took his seat at the board accordingly.
“But,” said Uncle Timothy, “let us have the entire _dramatis personæ_
of the harper's interlude. We are minus his groom of the stole. Send our
compliments over the way for Mr. Moses.”
Mr. Moses was summoned, and he sidled in with a very high stock, with
broad pink stripes, and a very low bow--hoping “de gentlemensh vash
quite veil.”
“Still,” cried Mr. Bosky, “we are not all mustered. The harp!” And
instantly the lauréat “with flying fingers touched the” wires.
“A song from Uncle Timothy, for which the musical bells of St. Saviour's
tell us there is just time.” He then struck the instrument to a lively
tune, and the middle-aged gentleman sang with appropriate feeling,
“THE TABARD.
“Old Tabard! those time-honour'd timbers of thine.
Saw the pilgrims ride forth to St. Thomas's shrine;
When the good wife of Bath
Shed a light on their path.
And the squire told his tale of Cambuscan divine.
From his harem th' alarum shrill chanticleer crew,
And uprose thy host and his company too;
The knight rein'd his steed,
And a f Gentles, God speed!'
The pipes of the miller right merrily blew.
There shone on that morning a halo, a ray,
Old Tabard I round thee, that shall ne'er pass away;
When the fam'd Twenty-Nine
At the glorified shrine
Of their martyr went forth to repent and to pray.
Though ages have roll'd since that bright April morn,
And the steps of the shrine holy palmers have worn,
As, weary and faint,
They kneel'd to their saint--
It still for all time shall in memory be borne.
Old Tabard! old Tabard! thy pilgrims are we!
What a beautiful shrine has the Bard made of thee I
When a ruin's thy roof,
And thy walls, massy proof--
The ground they adorn'd ever hallow'd shall be.”