Once upon a time, very long ago, when the world was younger and more
wicked than it is now, there lived in the West Country a man called
Peter the Schoolmaster. But he was very different from ordinary
schoolmasters, for he was a scholar and a man of letters; he was
consequently very poor. All his life he had pored over old books and
musty parchments; but from them he had acquired little wisdom, for one
bright spring-time he fell in love with a farmer's daughter--and married
her. The farmer's daughter was a buxom wench, and, to the schoolmaster's
delight--he had a careless, charming soul--she presented him in course
of time with a round dozen of sturdy children. Peter compared himself
with Priam of Troy, with Jacob, with King Solomon of Israel and with
Queen Anne of England. Peter wrote a Latin ode to each offspring in
turn, which he recited to the assembled multitude when the midwife put
into his arms for the first time the new arrival. There was great
rejoicing over the birth of every one of the twelve children; but, as
was most proper in a land of primogeniture, the chiefest joy was the
first-born; and to him Peter wrote an Horatian ode, which was two
stanzas longer than the longest Horace ever wrote. Peter vowed that no
infant had ever been given the world's greeting in so magnificent a
manner; certainly he had never himself surpassed that first essay. As he
told the parson, to write twelve odes on paternity, twelve greetings to
the new-born soul, is a severe tax even on the most fertile imagination.
But the object of all this eloquence was the cause of the first and only
quarrel between the gentle schoolmaster and his spouse; for the learned
man had dug out of one of his old books the name of Amyntas, and Amyntas
he vowed should be the name of his son; so with that trisyllable he
finished every stanza of his ode. His wife threw her head back, and,
putting her hands on her hips, stood with arms akimbo; she said that
never in all her born days had she heard of anyone being called by such
a name, which was more fit for a heathen idol than for a plain,
straightforward member of the church by law established. In its stead
she suggested that the boy be called Peter, after his father, or John,
after hers. The gentle schoolmaster was in the habit of giving way to
his wife in all things, and it may be surmised that this was the reason
why the pair had lived in happiest concord; but now he was firm! He said
it was impossible to call the boy by any other name than Amyntas.
'The name is necessary to the metre of my ode,' he said. 'It is its very
life. How can I finish my stanzas with Petrus or Johannes? I would
sooner die.'
His wife did not think the ode mattered a rap. Peter turned pale with
emotion; he could scarcely express himself.
'Every mother in England has had a child; children have been born since
the days of Cain and Abel thicker than the sands of the sea. What is a
child? But an ode--my ode! A child is but an ordinary product of man and
woman, but a poem is a divine product of the Muses. My poem is sacred;
it shall not be defiled by any Petrus or Johannes! Let my house fall
about my head, let my household gods be scattered abroad, let the Fates
with their serpent hair render desolate my hearth; but do not rob me of
my verse. I would sooner lose the light of my eyes than the light of my
verse! Ah! let me wander through the land like Homer, sightless,
homeless; let me beg my bread from door to door, and I will sing the
ode, the ode to Amyntas.' ...
He said all this with so much feeling that Mrs Peter began to cry, and,
with her apron up to her eyes, said that she didn't want him to go
blind; but even if he did, he should never want, for she would work
herself to the bone to keep him. Peter waved his hand in tragic
deprecation. No, he would beg his bread from door to door; he would
sleep by the roadside in the bitter winter night.
Now, the parson was present during this colloquy, and he proposed an
arrangement; and finally it was settled that Peter should have his way
in this case, but that Mrs Peter should have the naming of all
subsequent additions to the family. So, of the rest, one was called
Peter, and one was called John, and there was a Mary, and a Jane, and a
Sarah; but the eldest, according to agreement, was christened Amyntas,
although to her dying day, notwithstanding the parson's assurances, the
mother was convinced in her heart of hearts that the name was papistical
and not fit for a plain, straightforward member of the church by law
established.