-, f V >■> -••r:; ;;,JV'* II yuif ".,^ ^ pKr- l^yf; ■•.;:* ?.^^'' ibW I* ^^ '^„/i.^ or ESTATE OF CAROLINE E. LE CONTE ¥IT AND HUMOR, SELECTED FROM THE ENGLISH POETS; WITH AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY, AND CKITICAL COMMENTS. BY LEIGH HUNT NEW YORK: WILEY & P U 1' N A M , 1 G 1 B R A D W A Y 1846. ^;// ^^*^' p.. Cbaioqead's I'ower Press, Ua Fulton Street PEEFACE. This book was announced for publication last autumn ; and it would have appeared at that time but for a severe illness which the editor underwent during the progress of his Stories fi^om the Italian Poets, and the consequences of which conspired with other untoward circumstances to delay- it till now. ¥/hat additional amount of indulgence there- fore may be required by his portion of the work, the good- natured reader will not withhold. Luckily, the far greater part of the volume cannot fail to amuse ; and in order to make amends for that absence of prose wit and humor which its limitation to verse rendered at once unavoidable and provoking (considering how much some of the best of the writers excelled in prose, often to the far greater ad- vantage of their pleasantry), the Introductory Essay has been plentifully supplied Avitli examples of both sorts. Comedy, indeed, has had comparatively little to say for itself in verse, even in Shakspeare. Wit and satire, and the ob- servation of common life, w^ant, of necessity, the enthusiasm of poetry, and are not impelled by their nature into musical utterance. They may call in the aid of verse to concentrate their powers and sharpen their effect ; but it will never be of any high or inspired order. It will be pipe and tabor music ; not that of the organ or the orchestra. Juvenal n7i:> *> t Q^n vi PREFACE. ssometimcs gives us stately hexameters ; but then he was a very serious satirist, and worked himself up into a lofty indignation. One of the perplexities that beset the Editor in his task was the superabundance of materials. They pressed upon him so much, and he overdid his selections to such an ex- tent in the first instance, that he was obliged to retrench two-tliirds of them, perhaps more ; and plenty of matter re- mains for an additional volume, should the public care to have it. x\t the same time, he unexpectedly found himself imable to extract a great deal of what is otherwise excellent, on account of the freedom of speech in which almost all the wits have indulged, and which they would in all probability have checked, could they have foreseen the changes of custom in that respect, and the effect it would have in bounding their admission into good company. It was la- mentable and provoking to discover what heaps of admirable passages the Editor was compelled to omit on this account, from the works of Beaumont and Fletcher down to Do?i Juan. It was as if the greatest wits had resolved to do the foolishest things, out of spite to what was expected of them by common sense. But excess of animal spirits helps to account for it. Should health enough be spared him (as change of air and scene has enabled him to hope), it is the Editor's in- tention to follow up this volume next year with the third of tlie series announced in the preface to Imagination and Fancy ; namely, a selection, edited in the like manner, from the Narrative and Dramatic Poets, under the title of Action and Passion. The reason why so much of the book is printed in italics, was explained in the Preface above mentioned ; but to those PREFACE. vii who have not seen the explanation, it is proper to s-tate, that it originated in a wish expressed by the readers of a periodical work, who liked the companionship which it im- plied between reader and editor. Otherwise, the necessity of thus pointing out particular passages for admiration in the writings of men of genius is rapidly decreasing, espe- cially in regard to wit and humor ; faculties, of which, as well as of knowledge in general, of scholarship, deep think- ing, and the most proved abilities for national guidance, more evidences are poured forth every day in the newspaper press, than the wits of Queen Anne's time, great as they were, dreamed of compassing in a month. And the best of it is, — nay, one of the great reasons of it is, — that all this surprising capacity is on the side of the Great New Good Cause of the World,— that of the Rights of the Poor ; for it is only from the heights of sympathy that we can perceive the universal and the just. Meantime, he is preparing for pubhcation a volume apart from the series, and on quite another plan ; its object being to produce such a Selection from Favorite Authors, both in prose and verse, as a lover of books, young or old, might like to find lying in the parlor of some old country-house, or in the quietest room of any other house, and tending to an impartial, an unlimited, and yet entertaining and tranquilliz- ing review of human existence. It is a book, he hopes, such as Mrs. Radcliflfe would have liked in her childhood ; Sir Roger de Covcrley in his old age ; or Gray and Thomson at any time. And all those interesting persons will have their part in it. Wimbledon, Sept. 22, 1846. CONTENTS. PACK AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY ON WIT AND HUMOR 1 SELECTIONS FROM CHAUCER, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 50 CHARACTERS OF PILGRIMS 54 THE friar's tale; or, the summoner and the devil 69 THE pardoner's WAY OF PREACHING 79 THE merchant's OPINION OF WIVES 4 SO GALLANTRY OF TRANSLATION 82 THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE FAIRIES S3 SELECTIONS FROM SHAKSPEARE, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE S5 THE COXCOMB S7 UNWITTING SELF-CRIMINATION SS THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 89 SELECTIONS FROM BEN JONSON, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE lOS TO MY MUSE I OS THE FOX 110 SELECTIONS FROM BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 1-4 THE PHILOSOPHY OF KICKS AND BEATINGS 12'j DUKE AND NO DUKE 132 ANONYMOUS- • l-ia THE OLD AND YOUNG COURTIER 142 CONTENTS. ^^ PAOE SELECTIONS FROM RANDOLPH, AtlTHTOTTlCAL NOTICE 145 FEAR, RASHXESS, AND FOLLY 146 PRETENDED FAIRIES ROBBING AN ORCHARD 150 SELECTIONS FROM SUCKLING, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 15G THE CONSTANT LOVER 157 THE REMONSTRANCE 157 A SESSION OF THE POETS ] 5S THE BRIDEGROOM 163 THE BRIDE 161 SELECTIONS FROM BROME, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 166 OLD MEN GOING TO SCHOOL. .*. 166 SELECTIONS FROM MARVEL, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 1G9 ON BLOOD STEALING THE CROWN 170 DEs^CaiPTION OF HOLLAND 171 FLECNOE, AN ENGLISH PRIEST AT ROME 172 SELECTIONS FROM BUTLER, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 175 DESCRIPTION OF HUDIBRAS AND HIS EQUIPMENTS 177 SAINTSHIP versus CONSCIENCE ! 181 THE ASTROLOGERS 1S3 A statesman's CONVERSATION 133 HEROES OF ROMANCE IS 1 SELF-POSSESSION 184 MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES 185 CAUTION AGAINST OVER-REFORM 187 LOFTY CARRIAGE OF IGNORANCE 187 CAUTION AGAINST PROSELYTISM 187 HOLLAND AND THE DUTCH ISS SELECTIONS FROM DRYDEN, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 1S!> CHARACTER OF LORD SHAFTESBURY. 191 CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM 104 FOPPERIES OF THE TIME 195 THE CATHOLIC AND THE PROTESTANT CLERGY 196 SELECTIONS FROM PHILIPS, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 199 THE SPLENDID SHILLING 199 SELECTIONS FROM POPE, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 204 THE SYLPHS AND THE LOCK OF HAIR 205 TROUBLES FROM BAD AUTHORS 212 # CONTENTS. • - v^ •j|^ PAGE CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF^HARTON 214 CHARACTER OF ADDISON 215 CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM 217 CHARACTER OF THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH 218 CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF CHANDOS 219 CHARACTER OF NARCISSA 221 CHARACTER OF CHLOE 222 THE RULING PASSION 223 SELECTIONS FROM SWIFT, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 225 THE GRAND QUESTION DEBATED 226 MARY THE COOK-MAID's LETTER TO DR. SHERIDAN 232 AN CIENT DRAMATISTS 233 ABROAD AND AT HOME 234 VERSES ON THE DEATH OF DR. SWIFT 235 SELECTIONS FROM GREEN, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 242 REMEDIES FOR THE SPLEEN 243 SELECTIONS FROM GOLDSMITH, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 247 THE RETALIATION 248 THE HAUNCH OF VENISON 252 SELECTIONS FROM WOLCOT, WITH CRITICAL NOTICE 25G CONVERSATION ON JOHNSON, BY MRS. PIOZZI (tHRALE), AND MR. BOSWELL 257 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSA3& ON WIT AND HUMOR. The facetious Dr. King, the civilian, one of the minor, or rather the minim poets, who have had the good luck to get into the Col- lections, tells us, that he awoke one morning, speaking the fol- lowing words " out of a dream," — Nature a thousand ways complains, A thousand words express her pains ; But for her laughter has but three. And very small ones, Ha, ha, he ! This seems to be a very tragical conclusion for " poor human nature ;" but the Doctor had probably been taking his usual potations over-night, and so put his waking thoughts into plain- tive condition ; for had he reflected on that " art of wit " which he professed, and opposed pleasures to pain^', instead of " laugh- ter," as the correct wording of his propositibn required, he would have discovered that laughable fancies have at least as many ways of expressing themselves as those which are lachrymose ; gravity tending to the fixed and monotonous, like the cat on the hearth, while levity has as many tricks as the kitten. I confess I felt this so strongly when I began to i*eflect on the present subject, and found myself so perplexed with the demand, 2 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY that I was forc<!i(i;to reject plan after plan, and^eared \ should never be able to give any tolerable account or tlie maj^ter. I experienced no such difhculty with the concentrating seriousness and sweet attraction of the subject of " Imagination atid Firicy ;" but this laughing jade of a topic, with her endless whims and faces, and tlie legions of indefinable shapes that she brought about ' me, seemed to do nothing but scatter my faculties, or bear them offderidingly into pastime. I felt as if I was undergoing a Saint Anthony's Temptation reversed. — a laughable instead of a fright- ful one. Thousands of merry devils poured in upon me from all sides, — doubles of Similes, buffooneries of Burlesques, stalk., ings of Mock-heroics, stings in the tails of Epigram, glances of Inuendoes, dry looks of Ironies, corpulences of Exaggerations, ticklings of mad Fancies, claps on the back of Horse-plays, com- placencies of Unawarenesses, flounderings of Absurdities, irresist- ibilities of Iterations, significancies of Jargons, wailings of pre- tended Woes, roarings of Laughters, and hubbubs of Animal Spirits ; — all so general yet particular, so demanding distinct recognition, and yet so baffling the attempt with their numbers and their confusion,, that a thousand masquerades in one would have seemed to threaten less torment to the pen of a reporter. Nor has this difficulty been unfelt before, even by the pro- foundest investigators. The famous Dr. Barrov/, who was one of the writers of all others from whom a thoroughly searching account of Wit might have been expected, both as he was a wit himself and remarkable for exhausting the deepest subjects of reflection, has left a celebrated passage on the subject, in which indeed much is said, and a great many definite things glanced at, but which still includes a modest confession of incompleteness. " It may be demanded," says he, " what the thing we speak of is, and what this facetiousness doth import; 1o which question I might reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man — 7?.s that ivhich we all see and know: and one better apprehends what it is by acquaint- ance, than I can inform him by description. It is indeed a thing so versa- tile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgments, that it seemetli no less hard to settle a clear and certain notice thereof, tlian to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of fleeting air. Some- times it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable applicatioHj ON WIT AND. HUMOR. df^a trn'ial sayin§, or in forging an apposite tale ; sometimes it playeth in words ^nd phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound ; sometimes it is wapped in a dress of luminous ej^ression ;. sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude. Sometimes it is lodged in^ sly question ; in a smart answer ; in a quirkish reason ; in a shrewd intimation ; in cunningly diverting or cleverly restoring an objec- tion ; sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech ; in a tart irony ; in a lusty hyperbole ; in a startling metaphor ; in a plausible re- conciling of contradictions ; or in acute nonsense. Sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture, passeth for it. Sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness, gives it being. Sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange ; sometimes from a crafty wresting ob- vious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language. It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the sim- ple and plain way (such as reason teacheth and knoweth things by), which by a pretty surprising uncouthness in conceit or expression doth affect and amuse the fancy, showing in it some wonder, and breathing some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying a nimble sagacity of appre- hension, a special felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit more than vulgar ; it seeming to argue a rare quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote conceits applicable ; a notable skill that he can dexterously accommodate them to a purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of humor not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagi- nation. Whence in Aristotle such persons are termed tTTiSe^ioi, dexterous men, and evr^onoi, men of facile and versatile manners, who can easily turn themselves to all things, or turn all things to themselves. It also pro- cureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness or semblance of difficulty (as monsters, not for their beauty but their rarity — as juggling tricks, not for their use but their abstruseness — are beheld with pleasure) ; by diverting the mind from its road of serious thoughts ; by instilling gaiety and airiness of spirit ; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of emulation or compliance ; and by seasoning matter, otherwise dis- tasteful or insipid, with an unusual and thence grateful tang." — Bar- row's Works, Sermon 14. It is obvious that many of the distinctions here so acutely made are referable to the same forms of Wit, and therefore are but dis- tinctions of mode without difference of matter. Yet so abundant, nevertheless, are the varieties which he has intimated, that had the writer followed them up with illustrations, and so have been tempted to endeavor at completing the subject, one almost fancies AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY he might have done so. But he was truly in a state of embarras des richesses — of perplexity with his abundance. Locke followed Barrow; and was the "first to discern in Bar- row's particulars the face of a general proposition. He described Wit as " lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures, and agreeable visions in the fancy." (Hainan Understanding, book ii., cliap. x.) But the necessity of fetching congruity out of incongruity itself is here scarcely hinted at, perhaps not at all. Addison first pointed it out in his papers on Wit in the Spectator : where, in commenting on this passage of Locke, he heightens the properties pointed out by the philosopher, by adding to them the re- quirements of Delight and Surprise ; and completes them, or at least intimates their completion, by the demand of Disshnilitude. " Every resemblance in the ideas," he observes, " is not that wliich we call Wit, unless it be such an one that irives Delisht and iSwrpme to the reader" — " particularly the last;" and " iif is necessary that the ideas should not lie too near one another in the nature of things ; for where the likeness is obvious, it gives no surprise." — No. 62. Upon this hint of the great master, all the subsequent critics have spoken ; such as Campbell in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, Beattie in his Essay on Laughter and Ludicrous Composition, and Hazlitt in the remarks on " Wit and Humor," prefixed to his Lectures on the English Comic Poets. The last in particular has entered into the metaphysical portion of the subject, or the in- quiry into the causes of our laughter and entertainment, with so much of his usual acuteness and gusto, that I gave up, in modes- ty, all attempt to resume it, beyond what a different treatment might require. I resolved to confine myself to what was in some measure a new, and might at all events be not an undesirable or least satisfactory, mode of discussion : namely, as thorough an account as I could give of the principal forms both of Wit and Humor, accompanied with examples. In order to prepare the way, however, for the readier acceptance of tlie definition of Wit, it may be as well to state the cause of Laughter itself, or of our readiness to be agreeably influenced by ON WIT AND HUMOR. this kind of exercise of the fancy. We are so constituted that the mind is willingly put into any state of movement not actually pain- ful ; perhaps because we are then made potentially alive to our exist- ence, and feel ourselves a match for the challenge. Hobbes refers all laughter to a sense of triumph and " glory;" and upon the prin- ciple here expressed, his opinion seems to be justifiable ; though I cannot think it entirely so on the scornful ground implied by him.* His limitation of the cause of laughter looks like a satur- nine self-sufficiency. There are numerous occasions, undoubt- edly, when we laugh out of a contemptuous sense of superiority, or at least when we think we do so. But on occasions of pure mirth and fancy, we only feel superior to the pleasant defiance which is given to our wit and comprehension ; we triumph, not insolently but congenially ; not to any one's disadvantage, but simply to our own joy and reassurance. The reason indeed is partly physical as well as mental. In proportion to the vivacity of the surprise, a check is given to the breath, different in degree, but not in nature, from that which is occasioned by dashing against some pleasant friend round a corner. The breath re- cedes only to re-issue with double force ; and the happy convul- sion which it undergoes in the process is Laughter. Do I tri- umph over my friend in the laughter ? Surely not. 1 only triumph over the strange and sudden jar, which seemed to put us for the moment in the condition of antagonists. Now this apparent antagonism is the cause, -per se, of the laughter occasioned by Wit. Our surprise is the consequence of a sudden and agreeable perception of the incongruous ; — sud- den, because even when we laugh at the recollection of it, we undergo, in imagination, a return of the suddenness, or the liveli- ness of the first impression (which is the reason why we say of a good thing that it is always " new") ; and agreeable, because the jar against us is not so violent as to hinder us from recurring * " The passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly : for men laugh at the fol- lies of themselves past, when they come suddenly to remembrance, except they bring with them any present dishonor." — Treatise on Human A''a- ture, chap. ix. AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY to that habitual idea of fitness, or adjustment, by which the shock of the surprise is made easy. It is in these reconcilements of jars, these creations and re-adjustments of disparities, that the delightful faculty of the wit and humorist is made manifest. He at once rouses our minds to action ; suucests, and saves us the trouble of a dilliculty ; and turns the help into a compliment, by implying our participation in the process. It does not follow that everything witty or humorous excites laughter. It may be accompanied with a sense of too many other things to do so; with too much thought, with too great a perfection even, or with pa- thos and sori'ow. All extremes meet ; excess of laughter itself runs into tears, and mirth becomes heaviness. Mirth itself is too often but melancholy in disguise. The jests of the fool in Lear are the sichs of knowledo;e. But as far as Wit and Humor affect us on their own accounts, or unmodified by graver considerations, laughter is their usual result and happy ratification. The nature of Wit, therefore, has been well ascertained. It takes many forms ; and the word indeed means many things, some of them very grave and important ; but in the popular and prevailing sense of the term (an ascendency which it has usurp, ed, by the help of fashion, over that of the Intellectual Faculty, or Perception itself). Wit may be defined to be the Arbitrary jux- taposition of Dissimilar Ideas, for some lively purpose of Assimila- tion or Contrast, generally of both. It is fancy in its most wilful, and strictly speaking, its least poetical state ; that is to say, Wit docs not contemplate its ideas for their own sakes in any light apart from their ordinary prosaical one, but solely for the purpose of producing an effect by their combination. Poetry may take up tlie combination and improve it, but it then divests it of its arbi- trary character, and converts it into something better. Wit is the clash and reconcilement of incongruities ; the meeting of ex- tremes round a corner ; the flashing of an artificial light from one object to another, disclosing some unexpected resemblance or connection. It is the detection of likeness in unlikeness, of sym- patiiy in antij)athy, or of the extreme points of antipathies them- solves, made friends by the very merriment of tlieir introduction. The mode, or form, is comparatively of no consequence, provided it give no trouble to the apprehension ; and you may bring as ON WIT AND HUMOR. many ideas together as can pleasantly assemble. But a single lone is nothing. Two ideas are as necessary to Wit, as couples are to marriages ; and the union is happy in proportion to the agreeableness of the offspring. So Butler, speaking of marriage itself : — — What security's too strong To guard that gentle heart from wrong, That to its friend is glad to pass Itself away, and all it has, And like an ancharite gives over This world for the heav'n of a lover. Hudibras, Part iii., Canto 1. This is Wit, and something more. It becomes poetry by the feeling ; but the ideas, or images, are as different as can be, and their juxtaposition as arbitrary. For what can be more unlike than a lover, who is the least solitary of mortals, or who desires to be so, and a hermit, to whom solitude is everything ? and yet at the same time what can be more identical than their sacrifice ■of every worldly advantage for one blissful object ? This is the clue to the recognition of Wit, through whatever form it is arrived at. The two-fold impression is not in every case equally distinct. You may have to substantiate it critical- ly ; it may be discerned only on reflection ; but discernible it is always. Steele in one of the papers of the Spectator, and in the character of that delightful observer, thinks that a silent man might be supposed freer than all others from liabilities to misin- terpretation ; " and yet," adds he, " I remember I was once taken up for a Jesuit, for no other reason but my profound taciturnity." — No. 4. There appears in this sentence, at first sight, to be nothing but what is exclusively in character with the mute and single-minded Spectator : for even the Jesuit seems to be rendered harmless bv the charo;e of dumbness. Yet as ex- tremes meet, and a Jesuit is always supposed to mean something different from what he pretends, a contrast of the greatest kind is first suggested between that crafty professor and our honest coun- tryman, and then doubly and ludicrously impressed by a sense of the unmerited, noisy, and public danger, to which the innocent essayist was subjected in being taken before a magistrate. AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY The case, I think, is the same with Humor. Humor, considered as the object treated of by the humorous writer, and not as the power of treating it, derives its name from the prevailing quality of moisture in the bodily temperament ; and is a tendency of the mind to run in jmrticuiar directions of thought or feeling more amusing tJian accountable ; at least in the opinion of society. It is therefore, either in reality or appearance, a thing inconsistent. It deals in incongruities of character and circumstance, as Wit does in those of arbitrary ideas. The more the incongruities the better, provided they are all in nature ; but two, at any rate, are as necessary to Humor, as the two ideas are to Wit ; and the more strikingly they differ yet harmonize, the more amusing the result. Such is the melting together of the propensities to love and war in the person of exquisite Uncle Toby ; of the gullible and the manly in Parson Adams ; of the professional and individual, or the accidental and the permanent, in the Canterbury Pilgrims ; of the objectionable and the agreeable, the fat and the sharpwitted, in FalstafF; of honesty and knavery in Gil Bias; of pretension and non-performance in the Bullies of the dramatic poets ; of folly and wisdom in Don Quixote ; of shrewdness and doltish- ness in Sancho Panza ; and it may be added, in the discordant yet harmonious co-operation of Don Quixote and his attendant, considered as a pair ; for those two characters, by presenting! themselves to the mind in combination, insensibly conspire to! give us one compound idea of the whole abstract human being^ divided indeed by its extreme contradictions of body and soul, but at the same time made one and indivisible by community of error and the necessities of companionship. Sancho is the fleshy looking after its homely needs ; hisjnaster, whois also hisdupe, is the spirit, starving on sentiment^ Sancho himself, being a compound of sense and absurdity, thus heaps duality on duality, contradiction on contradiction ; and the inimitable associates con- trast and reflect one another. •' The reason, Sancho," said his master, " why thou feelest that pain all down thy back, is, that the stick which gave it thee was of a length to that extent." " God's my life !" exclaimed Sancho, impatiently, " as if I could not g^ess that, of my own head ! The question is, how am I to get rid of it ?" ^^ , . , . >fl /^ '-/ r 1 \. ^vv^n/g ^^(Aj <lrVlL*V ^-* " 'v^-^J ON WIT AND HUMOR. I quote from memory ; but this is the substance of one of their dialogues. This is a sample of Humor. Don Quixote is always refining upon the ideas of things, apart from their requirements. He is provokingly for the abstract and immaterial, while his squire is laboring under the concrete. The two-fold impression requisite to the effect of Humor is here seen in what Sancho's master says, contrasted with what he ought to say^; and Sancho redoubles it by the very justice of his complaint ; which, how- ever reasonable, is at variance with the patient courage to be expected of the squire of a knight-errant. I have preceded my details on the subject of Wit by defining both Wit and Humor, not only on account of their tendency to coalesce, but because, though the one is to be found in perfection apart from the other, their richest effect is produced by the com- bination. Wit, apart from Humor, generally speaking, is but an element for professors to sport with. In combination with Humor it runs into the richest utility, and helps to humanize the world. In the specimens about to be quoted, I propose to bring the two streams gradually together, till nothing be wanting to their united fulness. It must be remembered at the same time (to drop this metaphor), that the mode, as before observed, is of no consequence, compared with what it conveys. The least form of Wit may contain a quintessence of it ; the shallowest pun, or what the ignorant deem such, include the profoundest wisdom. The principal forms of Wit may perhaps be thus enumerated. 1st. The direct Simile, as just given ; which is the readiest, most striking, and therefore most common and popular form. Thus Swift in his Rhapsody on Poetry : — -Epithets you link In gaping lines to fill a chink ; Like stepping stones, to save a stride In streets where kennels are too wide ; Or like a heel-piece, to support A cripple with one foot too short ; Or like a bridge, that joins a marish To moorland of a different parish. So have I seen ill-coupled hounds Drag different ways in miry grounds. So geographers in Afric maps 2* 10 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY With savajG^e pictures fill their gaps ; And o'er unhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns. One of the happiest similes to be met with is in Green's poem on the Spleen. It is an allusion to the imposture practised at Naples by the exhibition of the pretended head of St. Januarius, at which a phial full of congealed blood is made to liquefy. Green applies it to the melting of Age at the sight of Beauty, and gallantly turns it into a truth. Shine but on age, you melt its snow ; Again fires long extinguished glow, And charm'd by witchery of eyes, Blood, long congealed, liquefies ! True miracle, and fairly done, By heads which are ador'd while on. 2d, Tlie Metaphor, which is but another form of the Simile, or, as Addison has defined it, " A Simile in a Word ;" that is to say, an Identification instead of Comparison. Green is remarkable for his ambitious, and, generally speak- ing, his successful use of this figure of speech : — To cure the mind's wrong bias. Spleen, Some recommend the bowling-green ; Some hilly walks — all exercise ; Fling but a stone, the giant dies : Laugh and be well. Monkeys have been Extreme good doctors for the spleen : % And kitten, if the humor hit. Has harlequin'd away the fit. So in his picture of the sourer kind of dissenters -, — a descrip- tion full of wit. Nor they so pure and so precise, Immaculate as their whites of eyes, Who for the spirit hug the spleen, Phylacter'd throughout all their mien ; Who their ill-tasted home-brew'd prayer To the State's mellow forms prefer ; ON WIT AND HUMOR. 11 Who doctrines as infections fear Which are not steep'd in vinegar ; And samples of heart-chested grace Expose in show-glass of the face. 3d, What may be called the Poetical Process, the Lecq) to a Conclusion, or the Omission of Intermedicde Particulars in order to bring the Two Ends of a Thought or Circumstance together ; — as in one of Addison's papers above mentioned, where he is speak- ing of a whole Book of Psalms that was minutely written in the face and hair of a portrait of Charles the First \ — " When I was last in Oxford, I perused one of the whiskers ; and was reading the other, but could not go so far in it as I would have done," &c. — Spectator, No. 58. That is to say, he perused that portion of the book which was written in one of the whiskers ; but the omission of this common- place, and the identification of the whisker itself with the thing read, strike the mind with a lively sense of truth abridged, in guise of a fiction and an impossibility. This is the favorite form of Wit with Addison ; — " There is scarce any emotion in the mind which does not produce a suitable agitation in the fan ; insomuch, that if I only see the fan of a dis- ciplined lady, I know very well whether she laughs, frowns, or blushes. I have seen a fan so very angry, that it would have been dangerous for the absent lover who provoked it to have come within the wind of it ; and at other times so very languishing, that I have been glad, for the lady's sake, the lover was at a sufficient distance from it." — lb.. No. 102. In Addison's time it was a fashion for ladies to patch tkeir faces, by way of setting off the fairness of their skin ; and at one time they took to wearing these patches politically ; or so as to indicate, by the sides on which they put them, whether they were Tories or Whigs. Accordingly, by an exquisite intimation of the superficiality of the whole business, he transfers the politi- cal feeling from the mind to the face itself; — ** Upon inquiry (as he sat at the opera), I found that the body of Ama- zons on my right hand were Whigs, and those on my left Tories ; and that those who had placed themselves in the middle boxes were a neutral party, 12 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY whose faces had 7wt yet declared themselves. * * * i must here take notice, that Rosalinda, a famous Whig partizan, has most unfortunately a very beautiful mole on the Tory part of her forehead ; which being very conspicuous, has occasioned many mistakes, and given an handle to her enemies to misrepresent her face, as though it had revolted from the Whig interest:'— lb. y No. SI. A fop, who had the misfortune to possess a fine set of mastica- tors, and who was always grinning in order to show them, was designated by Horace Walpole as " the gentleman with the fool- ish teeth." Nothing of the kind can be better than this. It is painting the man at a blow, quick as the " flash" of his own " ivories." It reminds us of the maxim, that " brevity is the soul of wit ;" — a questionable assertion, however, unless by " soul " is meant a certain fervor apart from mind ; otherwise the soul of wit is fancy.* 4th, Irony {Eipwveia, Talk, in a sense of Dissimulation), or Say- ing one thing and Meaning another, is a mode of speech generally adopted for purposes of satire, but may be made the vehicle of the most exquisite compliment. On the other hand, Chaucer, with a delightful impudence, has drawn a pretended compliment out of a satire the most outrageous. He makes the Cock say to the Hen, in the fable told by the Nun's Priest, that " the female is the confusion of the male ;" but then he says it in Latin, gravely quoting from a Latin author a sentence to that effect about wo- mankind. This insult he proceeds to translate into an eulogy : — But let us speak of mirth, and stint all this, Madame Fertelote, so have I bliss. Of one thing God hath sent me large grace ; For when I see the beauty of your face. Ye ben so scarlet red about your eyen. It maketh all my drede for to dyen ; For all so siker {so surely) as In principio Mulier est hominis confusio ; (That is, " for as it was in the beginning of the world, woman is the confusion of man.") * Voltaire says, in his happy manner, " All pleasantries ought to be short ; and, for that matter, gravities too." — Art. Prior, &c., in the Diction' naire Philosophique. ON WIT AND HUMOR. 13 Madam, the sentence of this Latin is, " Woman is mannes joy and mannes bliss." Canterbury Tales, v. 15,163. The famous piece of flattery addressed by his victimizer to Gil Bias is an irony in all its glory. Nothing can beat it as an effu- sion of impudence, and a lesson. But it is surpassed in depth and dryness by Swift's banter on the Protestant Nunnery, a pro- ject meditated in his time by a literary lady, or, as he calls her, a " Platonne." It is more impudent than the other, inasmuch as it was a banter on a living person, and inflicted, moreover, through the medium of Steele, who would probably have rejected such an attack on the fair pietist, had he not been overpowered by the wit and assumption of his contributor. It is in The Tatler, then newly set up (No. 32) ; and is so masterly a piece of ef- frontery that I must here give the greater part of it. " Every man," says the author, " that has wit, and humor, and raillery, can make a good flatterer for woman in general: but a Platonne is not to be touched with panegyric : she will tell you it is a sensuality in the soul to be delighted that way. You are not therefore to commend, but silently consent to all she does and says. You are to consider, in her the scorn of you is not humor but opinion. " There were, some years since, a set of these ladies who were of quali- ty, and gave out, that virginity was to be their state of life during this mortal condition, and therefore resolved to join their fortunes and erect a nunnery. The place of residence was pitched upon ; and a pretty situa- tion, full of natural falls and risings of waters, with shady coverts, and flowery arbors, was approved by seven of the founders. There were as many of our sex who took the liberty to visit their mansions of intended severity ; among others, a famous rake of that time, who had the grave way to an excellence. He came in first ; but upon seeing a servant coming to- wards him, with a design to tell him this was no place for him or his com- panions, up goes my grave impudence to the maid ; ' Young woman,' said he, ' if any of the ladies are in the way on this side of the house, pray carry us on the other side towards the gardens. We ai"e, you must know, gentlemen that are travelling England ; after which we shall go into for- eign parts, where some of us have already been.' Here he bows in the most humble manner, and kissed the girl, who knew not how to behave to such a sort of carriage. He goes on : ' Now you must know we have an ambition to have it to say, that we have a protestant nunnery in England : but pray, Mrs. Betty—' ' Sir,' she replied, ' my name is Susan, at your service.' « Then I heartily beg your pardon — ' ' No offence in the least/ said she, 'for I have a cousin- german whose name is Betty. ^ M AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY ' Indeed,' said he, ' I protest to you that was more than I knew ; I spoke at random. But since it happens that I was near in the right, give me leave to present this gentlcmari to the favor of a civil salute.' His friend advances, and so on, until they had all saluted her. By this means the poor girl was in the middle of the crowd of these fellows, at a loss what to do, without courage to pass through them ; and the Platonics at several peep- holes, pale, trembling, and fretting. Rake perceived they were observed, and therefore took care to keep Sukey in chat with questions concerning their way of life ; when appeared at last Madonnella, a lady who had writ a fine book concerning the recluse life, and was the projectrix of the foundation. She approaches into the hall ; and Rake, knowing the dignity of his own mien and aspect, goes deputy from the company. She begins ; — ' Sir, I am obliged to follow the servant, who was sent out to know what affair could make strangers press upon a solitude, which we, who are to inha- bit this place, have devoted to heaven and our own thoughts ?' ' Ma- dam,' replies Rake, with an air of great distance, mixed with a certain in- difference, by which he could dissemble dissimulation, ' your great inten- tion has made more noise in the world than you design it should ; and we travellers, who have seen many foreign institutions of this kind, have a cu- riosity to see, in its first rudiments, the seat of primitive piety ; for such it must be called by future ages, to the eternal honor of the founders : I have read Madonnella's excellent and seraphic discourse on this subject.' The lady immediately answered, ' If what I have said could have con- tributed to raise any thoughts in you that may make for the advancement of intellectual and divine conversation, I should think myself extremely happy.' He immediately fell back with the prof oundest veneration ; then advancing, ' jfre you then that admiredlady 1 If I may approach lips that have uttered things so sacred'— Ho salutes her. His friends followed his example. The devoted within stood in amazement where this would end, to see Madonnella receive their address and their company. But Rake goes on—' We would not transgress rules ; but if we may take the liberty to see the place you have thought fit to choose for ever, we would go into such parts of the gardens as is consistent with the severities you have imposed on yourselves.' " We need not accompany Rake any further. The reader will have observed that this story of Swift's is full of Humor as well as Wit. The best irony is apt to be so, because it is concerned with human nature. Wit may be wholly turned on things inani- mate ; but when you come to sarcasm and scorn, you come (as a misanthropist would say) to mankind. There is another form of irony more surprising than this, or at least more startling ; for the surprise in Swift may bo said to be constant. It is when the writer gives a comic turn to an appa- ON WIT AND HUMOR. 15 rently grave passage. It is a favorite with the Italians, from whom it has been imitated by a writer who has equalled their satirists in wit, and surpassed them in poetry. I need not say that I allude to the author of Don Juan. I will usher in a sam- ple or two from that work by a well-known passage from Tasso- ni, the author of the mock-heroic poem entitled the Rape of the Bucket. (Secchia Rapita.) The blow aimed in the concluding line is at the pretended Petrarchists, or herd of writers of love- verses, with which Italy was then overrun ; — Del celeste Monton gia il Sole uscito Saettava co' rai le nubi algenti ; Parean stellati i campi, e il ciel fiorito, E sul tranquillo mar dormiano i venti ; Sol Zefiro ondeggiar fece sul lito L'erbetta molle, e i fior vaghi e ridenti ; E s'udian gli usignuoli al primo albore, E gli asini cantar versi d'amore. Canto i., st. 6. Now issuing from the Ram, the sun forth showers On the cold clouds his radiant archery ; Earth shone in turn like heav'n, the skies like flowers, And every wind fell sleeping on the sea ; Only the Zephyr with his gentle powers Mov'd the soft herbage on the flowery lea : Nightingales murmur'd still their loves and pities. And jackasses commenced their amorous ditties The author of Don Juan is not so merely abrupt as this ; the step into which he beguiles you is not so jarring ; but what he loses in violence of surprise, he gains in agreeableness. Thus, in speaking of the pedantic Spanish lady ; — Her favorite science was the mathematical ; Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity ; Her wit (who sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all ; Her serious sayings darken'd to sublimity : In short, in all things she was fairly what I call A prodigy ; — her morning dress was dimity. Canto i., st. 12. He pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers. And heard a voice in all the winds ; and then He thought of wood-nymphs and immortal bowers. And how the goddesses came down to men : AN ILLUSTPxATIVE ESSAY He miss'd the pathway, he forj^ot the hours ; And wlien he look'd upon his watch again, He found how much old Time had been a winner — He also found that he had lost his dinner. Canto i., st. 94. Epigrammatic Wit may be held to belong to this form ; though in general it announces itself by its title and brevity, and thus substitutes expectation for surprise ; — a higher principle in great things, but not in small. Here follows, however, an epigram of a very startling kind. It is a remonstrance addressed to a lady : — When late I attempted your passion to prove. Why were you so deaf to my prayers ? Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love ; But why did you kick me down stairs 7 This kind of surprise, in its preceding form, is connected with another species of irony, the Mock-heroic in general, or Raillery in the shape of Poetic Elevation. This nymph, to the destruction of mankind ^ Nourished two locks. Rape of the Lock, Canto 2. Here thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey. Dost sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea. Ibid., Canto 3. Happy the man, who void of care and strife, In silken or in leathern purse retains A splendid shilling. Philips. Drayton, in his Nymphidia, or Court of Faery, lias an amusing description of a rider, who turns and winds a fiery -' earwig,'''' The best mock-heroical epigram I am acquainted with is one to a similar purpose on an ant. I quote from memory : — High mounted on an ant. Nanus the tall Dared its whole fire, and got a dreadful fall. Under th' unruly beast's proud feet he lies. All torn ; but yet with generous ardor cries, •* Behold mo, gods ! and thou, base world, laugh on, For thus I fall, and thus fell Phaeton. ON WIT AND HUMOR. 17 But this species of wit is too well known to need dwelling up- on. It may be useful, however, to observe, by way of caution against the mistakes of such students in poetry as think " classi- cality " everything, and who write a great deal of mock-heroic without knowing it, that one of its secrets consists in an applica- tion of old metaphors, inversions, and other conventional and an- cient forms of speech to modern languages. Much wit in prose is enhanced by a scholarly acquaintance with Greek and Latin etymology, and a corresponding use of words in their primitive and thoroughly applicable senses — an accomplishment turned to special account by Sydney Smith. But take away inversions, the metaphorical habit, and other Virgilianisms from conventional poetry, and you destroy two-thirds of the serious verses of the last century. They are sometimes admirably used, for purposes of banter, by wits who are guilty of the very fault when they become grave. Thus Peter Pindar, who is as dull in his serious poetry as he is laughable in his comic : — Once at our house, amidst our Attic feasts. We likened our acquaintances to beasts ; (It is Boswell, speaking of Johnson.) As, for example, some to calves and hogs. And some to bears and monkeys, cats and dogs, We said (which charm'd the Doctor much, no doubt) His mind was like of elephants the snout ; That could pick pins up, yet possess'd the vigor For trimming well the jacket of a tiger. Bony and Piozzy. And Dr. King, on the perils of brown-paper plasters attendant upon athletic exercises : — He that of feeble nerves and joints complains. From nine-pins, coits, and from tvap-ball abstains ; Cudgels avoids, and shuns the wrestling-place, Lest vinegar resound his loud disgrace. Art of Cookery. " Vinegar resounding " is very ridiculous ; but not more so than the use of the same classical metaphor on a thousand occa- 18 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY sions, where the presence of Fame's trumpet or the ancient lyre is out of tlic question. But the most agreeable form of irony, especially when carried to any length, is that which betrays the absurdity it treats of (or wiiat it considers such) by an air of honlwmie and good faith, as if the thing ridiculed were simplest matter of course, and not at all exposed by the pretensions with which it is artfully set on a level. It is that of Marot and La Fontaine ; of Pulci, Berni, and Voltaire. In the elder of these Italians, and in the two oldest of the Frenchmen, it is best assumed, as far as regards simplicity ; but in Berni and Voltaire it is most laughable, be- cause by a certain excess and caricature of indifference it gives its cue to the reader, and so makes him a party to the joke, as rich comic actors do with their audiences. Such is Voltaire's ex- quisite banter on War, in which he says, that a monarch picks up a parcel of men " who have nothing to do, dresses them in coarse blue cloth at two sliilJhigs a yard, binds their hats with coarse white worsted, turns them to the right and left, and marches away with them to Glory." — Dictionnaire Philosophique, Art. Guerre. Thus also, speaking of the Song of Solomon (to the poetry of which, and the oriental warrant of its imagery, he was too much a Frenchman of that age to be alive, notwithstanding his genius), he says of it, that it is not in the style of the Greeks and Ro- mans ; but then he adds, as if in its defence, that Solomon was " a Jew ;" and " a Jew is not obliged to write like Virgil." ("Un Juif n'est pas oblige d'ecrire comme Virgile." — Id., Art. Salo- mon.) It is impossible to help laughing at this, however uncritical. Very lucky was it for the interest and varieties of poetry, that the East was not obliged to write like the West ; and much less to copy a copyist ? Voltaire was a better Christian than he took himself for, and the greatest wit that ever lived ; but Solomon had more poetry in his little finger — at least, of the imaginative sort — than the Frenchman in his whole mocking body. 5lh Burlesque, or Pure Mockery, from burlare, Ital., to jest with, to jeer. The word, I take it, comes from the same imita- tive root as hurrasca and hurberia (storm and swelling), and ON WIT AND HUMOR. 19 originates in the puffing and blowing of the cheeks of the old comedians. This is the caricature and contradiction of the serious in pretension, as the mock-heroic is the echo and the mis- application of the dignified in style. It farcically degrades, as the other playfully elevates; and is a formidable exhibition, when genius is the performer. Aristophanes, by means of it, confounded Socrates with the Sophists, and prepared the way for his murder. Its greatest type in the English language is Hudi- bras, which reversed the process of Aristophanes, and rescued good sense and piety out of the coarse hands of the Puritans. Plentiful specimens of it from that poem will be found in the present volume. The work of Rabelais is a wild but profound burlesque of some of the worst abuses in government and reli- gion, and has had a corresponding effect on the feelings, or un- conscious reasonings, of the world. This must be its excuse for a coarseness which was perhaps its greatest recommendation in the " good old times," though at present one is astonished how people could bear it. Rabelais' combination of work and play, of merriment and study, of excessive animal spirits with prodi- gious learning, would be a perpetual marvel, if we did not re- flect that nothing is more likely to make a man happy, particu- larly a Frenchman, than his being able to indulge his genius, and cultivate the task he is fit for. Native vivacity and suitable occupation conspire to make his existence perfect. Voltaire is a later instance. Thus there can be no doubt that the mirth of Rabelais was as real as it seems. Indeed it could not otherwise have been so incessant. It is a pity somebody does not take up the wonderful translation of him by Urquhart, and make a good single volume of it, fit for modern readers. It would include all the best points, and even what Barrow would have called its most " acute nonsense," — jargon, which sometimes is the only perfect exhibition of the nonsense it ridicules. Such, for instance, is the gibberish so zealously poured forth by the counsel for plaintiff and defendant in the court of law (Book the Second), and the no less solemn summing up, in the same language, by the learned judge. A little correction* would soon render that passage admissible into good company. What, too, could be more easily retained in like manner, than the account of the gi- 20 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY gantic despot Gargantua, who " ate six pilgrims in a salad ?" of the Abbey of the Theleniites, or people who did as they pleased (natural successors of the prohibited) ? of the reason " why monks love to be in kitchens?" of the Popemania and the decretals ? of the storm at sea, and how Panurgc would have given^ anything to have been out of it on dry land, even to the permission to somebody to kick liim ? Admirable things have the wits and even the gravest reformers (the wits themselves are sometimes the gravest) got out of this prince of buffoons, whom the older I grow (always excepting the detestable coarseness taught him by the monks) the more I admire ; for I now think that his Oracle qf the bottle meant the sincerity which is to be found in wine, and that his despair of " extracting water out of pumice-stones," and of " washing asses' heads without losing his soap " pointed only at things that ought to be impossible, and not at those hopes for the world which his own heartiness tended to animate. Steele, Swift, Sterne, nay the Puritans themselves, as far as they were men of business, got wisdom out of Rabelais ; and so perhaps has the noble Society of his modern countrymen, whose motto is, '* Help yourself, and Heaven will help you." " Put your trust in God," said the Cromwellite, " and keep your powder dry." " Pantagruel," says Rabelais, " having first implored the assist- ance of Heaven, held fast, by the pilot's advice, of the mast of the ship" (book iv., chap. 19). " We must implore, invoke, pray, beseech and supplicate Heaven," quoth Epistemon ; " but we mtistn't stop there ; we must, as holy writ says, co- operate with it." "Devil take me," said Friar John, "but the close of Seville would all have been gathered, 'vintasced, gleaned, and swallowed up, if Ihad only sung ' From the snares of the enemy, ^ like the rest of the scoundrelly monks ; and hadn't bestirred myself to save the vineyard as I did." Friar John had stripped himself to his waistcoat to help the seamen, E})istemon, Ponocrates, and the rest did as much. Panurge alone sat on ihe deck, weeping and howling. " Odzooks !" cried Friar Jolin: "What! Panurge playing the calf ! Panurge whining ! Panurge braying ! Would it not become thee much bdtter to lend us a helping hand, than to keep sitting there like a baboon and lowing like a cow?" ^' Be, be, be, bous, bous, bous," returned Panurge (he was blubbering and swallowing the water that broke over them) ; — " Friar John, my friend, my good father, ON WIT AND HUMOR. 21 Vjn drowning; I drown ; /';n a dead man, my deai- father in God; I'm a dead man, my friend ; your valor cannot save me from this ; alas ! alas ! vve're above E la (a term in music), above the pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges. Be, be, be, bous. Alas ! we're above G Sol Re Ut. I sink, Isink. my father, my uncle, my all. The water's got into me. I pash it in my shoes — bous, bous, bous, pash — I drown — alas ! alas ! hu, hu, hUt. hu, bous, bous, bobous, ho, ho, alas ! Would to Heaven I were in com- pany with those good holy fathers we met this morning going to council, — so godly, so comely, so fat and happy, my friend. Holos, holos, holos, alas ! ah, see there ! This devilish wave (God forgive me) / mean this wave of Providence, will sink our vessel. Alas, Friar John, my father, tny friend ; — confess me. I'm down on my knees. I confess my sins — your blessing." " Go to the devil," said Friar John ; " will you never leave off whining md snivelling ? Come and help us." " Don't swear," said Panurge, " don't swear, holy father, my friend, I Deseech you. To-morrow as much as you please. I drown. I'll give eighteen hundred thousand crowns to any one that will set me on shore. 3h, my dear friend, I confess : hear me confess : a little bit of a will or ;estament at any rate." " His will !" said Friar John. " Stir your stumps, now or never, you Ditiful rascal. The poor devil's frightened out of his wits." " Bous, bous, bous," continued Panurge. " I sink ; I die, my friends. I lie in charity with all the world. Farewell. Bous, bous, bousowwan- •joaus. St. Michael ! St. Nicholas ! now or never. Deliver me from this ianger, and I here make a solemn vow to build you a fine large little ihapel or two between Conde and Monsoreau, wiiere neither cow nor calf shall feed. Oh, oh ! pailfuls are getting down my throat— 6om5, bous. How devilish bitter and salt it is ! Oh, you sinn'd just now. Friar John, ^ou did indeed ; you sinn'd when you swore ; think of that, my FORMER CROJVY / former, I say, because it's all over with us; with you as well 13 with me. Oh, I sink, I sink. Oh to be but once again on dry ground ; aever mind how or in what condition ; oh, if I was but on firm land, vith somebody kicking me."* But I must get out of the company of Rabelais, or I shall never 3ce land in this essay. The above is a hasty specimen of the sort of abridgment which I think mi^ht be made of this immor- tal jester ; and after the fashion of the disinterestedness which he and other scholars have taught me, I here make a present of the * This extract is abridged from two different editions of the variorum translation of Rabelais ; or rather the concluding passage is added, and quoted from memory, out of the one I first met with ; which I take to be the best. 22 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY notion to the booksellers. It is good to be brought up in the company of tlio cheerful. Parody (JlapoiSia, Side-song ? — song turned from its purpose) is sometimes pure burlesque, and sometimes a species of compli- mental irony, hovering between burlesque and mock-heroic. Dr. King's Art of Cookery, quoted in the foregoing section, is a parody on Horace's Art of Poetry, and commences like its origi- nal with remarks on the fault of incongruity : — Ingenious Lister, were a picture drawn With Cynthia's face, but with a neck like brawn, With wings of turkey, and with feet of calf, Though drawn by Kneller, it would make you laugh. (I do not think it would, any more than the like monstrosity in Horace. It would be simply shocking. But the rest is good, both as to books and dishes.) Such is, good sir, the figure of a feast By some rich farmer's wife and sister drest ; Which, were it not for plenty and for steam. Might be resembled to a sick man's dream : Where all ideas huddling run so fast, That syllabubs come first, and soups the last. Not but that cooks and poets still were free To use their power in nice variety ; Hence, mackerel seem delightful to the eyes, * Though dress'd with incoherent gooseberries : Crabs, salmon, lobsters, are with fennel spread. Who never toucb'd that herb till they were dead : Yet no man lards salt pork with orange-peel. Or garnishes his lamb with spitch-cock'd eel. Parody is not only a compliment instead of a satire, as some people think it, but a compliment greater than it is thought by others, for it is a greater test of merit. Sometimes it is so close, yet amusing, as to become almost identical ; in which case it betrays the existence of something too much like itself in the original ; that is to say, unintentionally subject to a derisive echo. Mr. Crabbe, an acute though not impartial observer of common life, a versifier of singular facility, and a genuine wit, had nevertheless a style so mixed up with conventionalisms and ON WIT AND HUMOR. 23 antithetical points, that the happy parody of him in the Rejected Addresses seems abnost identical with wliat he himself would have written on the same theatrical subject, not intending to make so much game of it. The parody is like the echo of an eccentric laugh . o John Richard William Alexander Dwyer Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire ; But when John Dwyer listed in the Blues, Emmatiuel Jennings polisli'd Stubbs's shoes. Emmanuel Jennings brought his younger boy Up as a corn-cutter, a safe employ ; — Pat was the urchin's name, a red-hair'd youth. Fonder of purl and skittle grounds than truth. Backs with pockets empty as their pate. Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait. The Splendid Shilling (see it in the present volume) is an ex- cellent parody of the style of Milton. So is Isaac Hawkins Browne's Pipe of Tobacco, of the styles of Pope and Ambrose Philips. Come let me taste thee, unexcis'd of kings — and (alluding to an anti-climax in Pope's praise of Murray) — Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks, And he has lodgings in the King's Bench Walks. But Parody, I think, sooner palls upon the reader than most kinds of Wit. In truth, it is very easy ; and, in long instances, tiresome from its easiness, sometimes from its vulgarity. I re- member in my youth trying in vain to read Cotton's Travestie of Virgil. It revolted me with its coarseness. I retained only the following four indifferent lines : — Thus spoke this Trojan heart of oak, And thundered through the gate like smoke : His brother Paris followed close, Resolv'd to give the Greeks a dose. There is some excellent parody, however, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, in the Duke of Buck- 24 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY ingham's Rehearsal, Sheridan's Critic, and Fielding's Tom Thumb, particularly, 1 think, the last. It has more gaiety as well as good nature than the other satires. The speech of Tom Thumb, when desired by the king to name his reward for the victories he has gained him, is a banter on the high flights in the plays of Dryden and others, some of which are literally given — King. Oh Thumb, what do we to thy valor owe ? Ask some reward, great as we can bestow. Thumb. I ask not kingdoms ; — / can conquer those ; I ask not money ; — money Fve enough. For what I've done, and what I mean to do, For giants slain, and giants yet unborn. Which I will slay, — if this be called a debt, Take my receipt in full : — I ask but this, — To sun myself in Huncamunca's eyes. (Huncamunca is the princess royal.) King, (aside) Prodigious hold request .' And the simile of the Dogs is too good to omit, for the solem- nity of its triviality and the stately monosyllabic stamp of its music : — So when two dogs are fighting in the streets. With a third dog one of the two dogs meets ; (" Dogs vieets " is an exquisite hiss, and punnmg intimation) — With angry tooth he bites him to the bone ; And THIS dog smarts for what that dog had done. This simile reminds me of a happy one of poor Kit Smart, in whom a good deal of real genius seems to have wasted itself away in complexional weakness. I quote it from memory : — Thus when a barber and a collier fight. The barber beats the luckless collier white ; In comes the brick-dustman with rouge bespread, And beats the barber and the collier red ; The rallying collier whirls his empty sack, And beats the brick-dustman and barber black , Black, white, and red in various clouds are toss'd. And in the dujit they raise the combatants are lost. ON WIT AND HUMOR. 25 Dr. Johnson's mimicry of the simple style of the old ballads is good : — As with my hat upon my head I walk'd along the Strand, I there did meet another miin With his hat in his hand. Nevertheless this jest is an edifying instance of a wit's not being always aware of the beauty contained in what he parodies. Johnson would have been fifty times the " poet ''' he was, had he been alive to the simplicity which he saw only in its abuse. 6th. Exaggeration, Ultra-Continuity, and Extravagance in Gene- ral. — These heads might be thought to belong to the preceding section ; but there is generally satire in Burlesque, which is not perhaps the case with Exaggeration. You may exaggerate in order to eulogize, and sincerely too ; the excess in that case be- ing but the representation of the good spirits and gratitude with which you do it, and an intimation that justice is not to be done niggardly. Thus FalstafF, himself an exaggeration, overflows both in praise and blame. Love exaggerates as well as spleen. Everything exaggerates which has a natural tendency to make the best or the worst of what it feels. We " feed fat a grudge :" we pamper a predilection. The voluptuous is the expatiatory and the continuous. " Another bottle," makes lis appearance, because the last was one too much, and it is three in the morn- ing. But in regard to Wit and Humor, it must be confessed that Exaggeration is generally on the side of objection, though seldom illnaturedly. When otherwise, it becomes revolting, and defeats its purpose. Ben Jonson's attacks on Inigo Jones are not so good as his Epicure Mammon. The two best pieces of comic exaggeration I am acquainted with (next to whole poems like Hudibras) are the Descriptions of Holland by the author of that poem, and Andrew Marvel. The reader will find passages of them in the present volume. Holland and England happened to be great enemies in the time of Charles the Second, and the wits were always girding at the Dutchmen and their "ditch." Butler calls them a people 3 26 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY That feed, like cannibals, on other fishes, A7id serve their cousins- gcnnan up in dishes ; — and Marvel, in the same strain, says. The fish oft-times ^he burgher dispossess'd. And sat, not as a meat, hut as a guest. Hazlitt, in his observations on Marvel {Lectures, ut sup. Tem- pleman's edition, p. 105), cannot see the jest in this line. He thinks it "forced" and "far-fetched." I remember he made the same observation once to Charles Lamb and myself, and was entering into a very acute discourse to prove that we ought not to laugh at such exaggerations, when we were forced to inter- rupt him by a fit of laughter uncontrollable. The exaggerations, no doubt, are extremely far-fetched, but they are not forced ; Marvel could have talked such by the hundred, ad lihiiiwi ; and it is this easiness and flow of extravagance, as well as the rela- tive truth lurking within it, that renders it delightful to those who have animal spirits enough to join the merriment ; which Hazlitt had not. His sense of humor, strong as it was, did not carry him so far as that. Had it done so, I doubt whether, on the very principle of extremes meeting, he would have enumerat- ed among his provocatives to laughter " a funeral," "a wedding," or even " a damned author, though he may be our friend." What he says about the difficulty of bearing demands on our gravity is very true. I would not answer for my own upon oc- casions of common formal solemnity, or even at " a sermon," if the preacher was very bad. But the same liability to sympathy with the extremest present emotion, which would have made him laugh heartily with Marvel, would probably have absorbed him in the troubles and griefs of the other occasions, and so pre- vented his having a thought of laughter : for he was a very good- natured man at heart. But the risibilities of the serious are not always to be accounted for. Spinoza found something excess- ively droll and diverting in the combats of spiders.* * See, in Mr. Knight's " Weekly Volumes," the Biographical History of Philosophy by my friend G. H. Lewes ; — the most lucid and complete summary of philosophical opinion, which the language possesses. ON WIT AND HUMOR. 27 FalstafF exaggerates admirably on the subject of Bardolph's nose : — If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face. My oath should be, " By this fire:' But thou art altogether given over ; and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran'st up Gad's-hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus , or a ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. 0, thou art a perpetual triumph, and everlasting honfire-Ught ! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night between tavern and tavern ; but the sack that thou hast drank me would have bought me lights as good cheap, at the dearest chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that sala- mander of yours with fire, any time this two and thirty years. Heaven reward me for it ! King Henry IV., Part i., Act 3. Of laudatory exaggeration there is a beautiful specimen put into the mouth of the Dauphin, in the play of King Henry the Fifth. Shakspeare probably intended it to be nationally as well as individually characteristic. It is spoken the night before the battle of Agincourt. But if it has all the confidence and animal spirits of our gallant neighbors, it is no less well intended towards their wit and eloquence. Constable of France. Tut ! I have the best armor of the world. Would it were day. Duke of Orleans. You have an excellent armor ; but let my horse have his due. Constable. It is the best horse of Europe. Orleans. Will it never be morning ? Dauphin. My Lord of Orleans, and my Lord High Constable, you talk of horse and armor. Orleans. You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world. Dauphin. What a long night is this ! I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Ha, ha ! He bounds from the earth as if his entrails were hairs ; le cheval volant, the Pegasus qui a les na- rines de feu ! (He is the flying horse, that has nostrils of fire.) When I bestride him I soar, I am a hawk; he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it ; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes. Orleans. He is of the color of the nutmeg. Dauphin. And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus ; he is pure air and fire ; and the dull elements of earth and water never ap- 28 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY pear in him, hut only in a patient stillness, iiiltjle his rider^ mounts him : lie is, indeed, a horse ; and all other jades -yoinJTiay call beasts. Constable. Indeed, my lord, he is a most absolute and excellent horse. Dauphin. It is the prince of palfreys ; his neigh is like t\c bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage. There is more of it and greater ; but I stop ; for the ,wit, like the thing it speaks of, has taken wings, and carried us into the liiglicst region of poetry. The spirit of Continuity arises from the same excess of plea- santry, and enjoyment of the subject in hand, as that of Exagge- ration, and is to be found in the same writers. Rabelais will repeat a mere list of things, till the reader is conquered into laughter ; just as we see people forced out of a grave face by the like kind of pertinacity in the repetition of some unmeaning word or grimace. The absence of very warrant for laughter in the first instance compels it to come at last by dint of the sense of contrast, and the importunity of the idea which is to be avoided. We think of nothing but the joke, because there is no joke to think of. Perhaps there is something of the same kind of under- stood dulness on occasions that seem altogether of a different sort. Thus when we laugh at the repetition of the words " Pauvre hojn?ue,'^ in a celebrated passage in Moliere, it is because of the stupid simplicity of the speaker, who turns the very selfishness and enjoyments of his idol into grounds of adoring pity. Tar- tuffe is a scoundrelly hypocrite and pretended saint, who has got the ascendency in the house of his dupe, and repays him for it by every species of villainy. The lady's-maid has found him out, and would fain enlighten her master, but to no purpose. Organ. Well, Dorina, has everything been going on as it should do these two days ? How do they all do .' And what have they been about ? Dorine. My mistress was ill the day before yesterday with a fever. She had a headache quite dreadful to think of Orgon. Dorine — Tout s'est-il, ces deux jours, passe de bonne sorte .' Qu'est-ce qu'on fait ceans ? Comme est-ce qu'on s'y porte .'' Dorine. Madame eut avant hier la fievre jusqu'au soir Avec un mal de tete etrange a concevoir. ON WIT AND HUMOR. 29 Org. And Tartuffe 7 Dor. Tartuffe ! Oh he is wonderfully well ; fat and hearty , with a fresh complexion, and a mouth as red as a rose. Org. {turning about with an air of fondness). Poor soul .' Dor. In the evening my mistress was taken ill, and couldn't touch a bit at supper, her head was so bad. Org. And Tartuffe ? Dor. Oh, seeing she couldn't eat, he ate by himself; and very devoutly swallowed two partridges, with a good half of a hashed leg of mutton. Org. Poor soul ! Dor. My mistress didn't shut her eyes all night. The fever hindered her from getting a wink of sleep ; so that we were obliged to watch by her till morning. Org. And Tartuffe 7 Dor. Tartuffe, happy gentleman, with a comfortable yawn, goes right from table to bed, where he plunges into his warm nest, and sleeps soundly till morning. Org. Poor soul ! Dor. At last we prevailed upon madame to be bled, which gave her great relief. Org. Et Tartuffe .' Dor. Tartuffe.! il se porte a merveille, Gros et gras, le teint frais, et la bouche vermeille. Org. Le pauvre homme ! Dor. Le soir, elle eut un grand degout, Et ne put, au souper, toucher a rien du tout : Tant sa douleur de tete etoit encor cruelle ! Org. Et Tartuffe ? Dor. II souper, lui tout seul, devant elle ; Et fort devotement il mangea deux perdrix, Avec une moitie de gigot en hachis. Org. Le pauvre homme ! Dor. La nuit se passa tout entiere Sans qu'elle put fermer un mom.ent la paupiere ; Des chaleurs I'empechoient de pouvoir sommeiller Et, jusqu'au jour, pres d'elle il nous fallut veiller. Org. Et Tartuffe.' Dor. Presse d'un sommeil agreable, II passa dans sa chambre au sortir de la table ; Et dans son lit bien chaud il se mit tout soudain, Ou sans trouble il dormit jusques au lendemain. Org. Le pauvre homme ! Dor. A la fin, par nos raisons gagnee, Elle se resolut a souffrir la saignee : Et le soulagement suivit tout aussitot. 30 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY Org. And Tartuffc 7 Dor. Monsieur TartulTe was very much relieved also. He found himself charming; and to repair the loss of blood which madame had sustained, took four good swigs of wine with his breakfast. Org. Poor soul/ Dor. In short, they are botli very well now ; so I'll go and tell my mis- tress you are coming, and how happy you are to hear she is recovered. Org. EtTartuffe.' Dor. II reprit courage comme il faut; Et, contre tous les maux fortifiant son ame, Pour reparer le sang qu'avoit perdu madame, But, a son dejeune, quatre grands coups de vin. Org. Le pauvre homme ! Dor. Tous deux se portent bien enfin : Et je vais a madame annoncer, par avance, La part que vous prenez a. sa convalescence. But I must try to get over my ground a little faster, or this Es- say will take up the whole volume, and become an overture with no play to it. 7 th. Any kind of Juxtaposition of Ideas having a Pleasant Ef- fect, down to tJiose depending on Sound ; such as Puns, Macaronic Poetry, Haf-Jargon Burdens of Songs, and even Nonsense Verses. — This is a wide range, ?ind is intended to include every- thing in Barrow's account of Wit, which is omitted in the fore- going sections. The reader will have observed that we have for some time been in the region of Humor as well as Wit. I shall endeavor to show the distinct remaining portions of the former presently. The section before us is a kmd of play-ground com- mon to both. Animal spirits are here in their most fugitive pas- sages and most arbitrary freaks of caprice. But I must endeavor not to let them detain me. Contempt expressed of one person by praise of another : — With him came mighty Davies.— On my life, That Davies hath a very pretty wife. Churchill of the Actors. Extravagant imputation against a character, producing a true general impression of it : — ON WIT AND HUMOR. 31 Narcissa's nature, tolerably mild. To make a wash would hardly stew a child. Pope. Subtle and confounding contradiction of appearances : — Zara resembles Etna crown'd with snows ; Without she freezes, and within she glows ; Twice ere the sun descends, with zeal inspir'd, From the vain converse of the world retir'd. She reads the psS,lms and chapters for the day In — Cleopatra, or the last new play. Thus gloomy Zara, with a solemn grace, Deceives mankind, and hides behind her face. Young's Love of Fame. One excessive conceit refuted by greater excess in another : — My wound is great, because it is so small. {^JDry den's lover {in one of his plays), lamenting an unworthy passion. '\ Then 'twould be greater, were it none at all. [Buckingham^ from the side boxes. 1 An exception without one : — The Germans in Greek Are sadly to seek ; Not one in five-score. But ninety-nine more ; All save only Herman, And — Herman's a German. Person, of the Oerman Professors. The monotonous jingle in the last line of this epigram on the words Herman and German gives doubFe effect to its air of indif- ference or nullification. Contemptuous mimicry. Sound echoing to the sense : — Hear the pretty ladies talk, Tittle tattle, tittle tattle : Like their pattens when they walk ; Pittle pattle, pittle pattle. Dr. Darwin. This is very ungallant of the Doctor j but he was a ladies' man 32 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY not of the most senlinicntal order ; and such are always ready to become their satirists. Hear a greater genius of the same class, crowning his love with the king of rhymes : — But oh ! ye lords of ladies intellectual. Inform us truly, — haven't tho.y hen-pecked you all? Don Juan, Canto i. Butler is so profuse of good and astounding rhymes, that they become a part of his wit, by the increase and gaiety of the sur- prise. The best of them are brought together in the present volume. Here are two excellent ones of Prior's, the latter ren- dered perfect in its application by its imitating the language of the school-divines : — Egyptian gard'ners thus are said to Have set the leeks they after praifd to ; And Romish bakers praise the deity They chipp'd while yet in its paneity ; that is to say, its state of being bread. Swift is famous for his rhymes. They are often admirable, but in general not so happy as Butler's. He forces them too much for their own sakes. Butler brings them out of the words before him, as they natu- rally present themselves in the flow of composition. He is re- solved that nothing shall baulk him ; and nothing does. Swift, however, often wrote forced verses as a pastime, for the avowed purpose of forcing them ; and they are sure to be clever and amusing. He is not content with triple rhymes. He quadruples, and even quintuples them. I thought the lady at St. Catherine's (pronounced Catiern's) Knew how to set you better patterns. For this I will not dine with Agmondinham ; And for his victuals, let a ragman dish 'em. JJnswcr to Sheridatt. Dear Tom,— This verse, which, however the beginning may appear, yet in the end's good metre, ON WIT AND HUMOR. 33 Is sent to desire, that when your August vacation comes, your friends you'd meet here : For why should you stay in that filthy hole, I mean the city so smoky. When you've not one friend left in town, or at least not one that's witty to joke to' ye. Invitation to Sheridan. There is a good forced rhyme in Drunken Barnahy^s Journal, almost the only good thing in it. It was suggested by the writer's Latin (for he was the author both of the original and the version), but it is not the worse for that. Indeed the passage is much bet- ter in the English than in the Latin. &' Veni Banbury, profanum, Ubi vidi Puritanum Felem facientem furem, Quia Sabbatho stravit murem. To Banbury came I, O profane one, Where I saw a Puritane one Hanging of his cat on Monday For killing of a mouse on Sunday. Ludicrous panegyric and climax, out of a Poem in praise of the Horn-Book. This might have come under the head of Ex- aggeration. Thy heavenly notes, like angel's music, cheer Departing souls, and soothe the dying ear. An aged peasant on his latest bed Wish'd for a friend some godly book to read : The pious grandson thy known handle takes, - And (eyes lift up") this savory lecture makes ; — * " Great A," he gravely read. Th' important sound The empty walls and hollow roof rebound ; TK expiring ancient reared his drooping head. And thank' d his stars that Hodge had learned to read " Great B," the younker bawls. O heavenly breath ! What ghostly comforts in the hour of death ! What hopes I feel !— " Great C," pronounc'd the boy ; The grandsire dies with ecstasy of Joy. TickcU. Ludicrous association of ideas, and aspect of solemnity. 3* 34 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY My hair I'd powder in the woman's way, And dress, and talk of dressing, more than they. I'll please (he Maids of Honor, if I can : Without black velvet breeches what is man ? • Bramston's Man of Taste. Bramston was a facetious clergyman and minor poet, wliose verses are to be found in Dodsley. They would be worth reprint- ing in some selection, especially with notes explaining the allusions. He has considerable spirit and ease ; and with more attention to the structure of his verse, might have gone nigh to rival a portion of the D unclad. One of his poems is an Art of Politics. The Ma7i of Taste ends with the following convincing summary of arguments : — This is true Taste ; and whoso likes it not. Is blockhead, coxcomb, j)yppy, fool, and sot. A great prose wit, Arbuthnot (who, by the way, left some interesting serious verses on the subject of Self-Knowledge, which are to be found in the same Collection), tells a friend in a letter, that the following thought came into his head one day, as he was gettins; into his chariot. It is a banter on the subtleties of the schools, and the metaphysical poets. The dust in smaller particles arose Than those which fluid bodies do compose. Contraries in extremes do often meet : It was so dry, that you inight call it wet. Burdens of songs have been rendered jovial and amusing not only by mere analogies of sound, like those of Darwin, such as the glou glou of the French bacchanalian poets (imitating the decantering of wine), and Chaulieu's parrots in a masquerade calling to the waiters, — (Tot, tot,— tot, tot,— tot, tot,— Du rot, du rot, da rot, Hola, hola, laquais, Du vin aux perroquets) but a man of genius, the best farcical writer in our language, ON WIT AND HUMOR, 35 O'Keefe, has made them epitomes of character and circumstance, and filled them with a gaiety and a music the most fantastical and pleasant. It is hardly fair to quote them apart from the whole context of the scene ; and readers are warned off, if their own animal spirits cannot enter heartily into an extravagance. But such as are not afraid to be amused, will be. I shall give, however, but one taste of such excessive pickle. The following is a part of a song sung by a schoolmaster, whose animal spirits triumph over his wig and habiliments : — Amo, amaSi I love a lass As cedar tall and slender ; Sweet Cowslip's grace Is her nominative case, And she's of the feminine gender, (Pleasant bit of superfluous information !) Rorum, corum, Sunt Divorum, Harum scarum Divo ; Tag-rag, 7nerry-derry, periwig, and hat-band. Hie hoc horum, genitive. A collection of songs, particularly street songs, good and bad (that is to say, very bad, or unintentionally absurd), remains to be made by some " competent hand," and would be a rich exhi- bition of popular feeling. A distinguished living writer and statesman, who is great enough to be a thorough humanist, and to think nothing beneath him which interests his fellow-creatures, is in possession of some such collection, and might perhaps allow it to be used. Materials for such things have influenced the fate of kingdoms ; and what is more, or at least no anti-climax. Uncle Toby patronized them. Everybody knows how fond he was of the tune of LillibuUero ; his comfort under all afflictions, — con- troversy, surgery, and Dr. Slop. The late Mr. Mathews, a man of genius in his way, an imitator of mind as well as manner, and a worthy corttributor to the wit which he collected from friends and kindred, was a disburser of much admirable " acute nonsense," which it is a pity not to 36 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY preserve. What could be better than his Scotchwoman ? or his foreigners ? or the gentleman who, " with infinite promptitude of mind, cut off the lion's head ?" or the Englishman, who after contemplating Mount Vesuvius, and comparing it with its fame (and himself), exclaimed, snapping his fingers at it, " You're a humbug !" Endless are the "quips and cranks" of Wit and Humor. Puns (Pointes ?) are banished from good company at present, though kings once encouraged and Csesar and Bacon recorded them, and Cicero and Shakspeare seem to have thought them part of the common property of good spirits. They are tiresome when engrossing, and execrable, if bad ; at least, if not very and elaborately bad, and of malice prepense. But a pun may contain wit of the first water. Those of Hood are astonishing for their cleverness, abundance, and extravagance. Ben Battle was a soldier bold, And us'd to war's alarms ; But a cannon-ball took off his legs, So he laid down his ar7ns. Now as they bore him off the field, Said he, " Let others shoot ; For here I leave my second leg. And the Forty-second Foot." And in another song, with an astounding confusion of ideas, natural in one sense, and impossible in the other ; — And then he tried to sing " All's well," But couldn't though he tried ; His head was turn'd, and so he chewed His pigtail till he died. The court-fool's pun upon Archbishop Laud was a good one : — Great praise to God, and little Laud to the devil. Good Macaronic verses are laughable from the combination of the familiar and unfamiliar in the mixture of the two languages, especially if one of them be Greek or Latin. It is like forcing a solemn schoolmaster to join in the antics of his boys. In Dr. ON WIT AND HUMOR. 37 King's Anglo-Greek version of the children's song, " Boys, boys, come out to play," the schoolmaster himself seems to have volun- teered his services. The doctor is bantering the pedantries of his time, and gives it as a passage from a Greek author.* It is here printed in English characters, " for the benefit (as authors used to say) of the country gentlemen," but in truth, for the amusement of the numerous clever readers now-a-days, who have not happened to be taught Greek. Kummete, Mei-boies ; Meiboies, kummete plaiein : Mone isasbritas theberei topa nouna diai : (the moon is as bright as the very top o' noon-day) , Kummete sun houpo, sun loudo gummete kaulo : Leusete supperan, Mei-boies, leusete beddon, Sun tois komraidoisin enri stretessi plaontes. There is good English-Latin writing mixed with baser matter, in Ruggle's comedy of Ignoramus, which was twice played at Cambridge before James I., and made his Majesty hardly know how to endure himself for laughing. Ignoramus, who talks Law- Latin and French, is a barrister answering to his name, and in love with the fair Rosabella, to whom he promises Farthingales biggos, kirtellos, et periwiggos. He complains of the heat and the press of suitors in court, and calls his clerks about him when he returns to chambers. f O valde caleor ; chaud, chaud, chaud. In nomine Dei, ubi sunt clerici mei jam ? Dulman, Dulman. Dul. Hie, Magister Ignoramus, vous avez Dulman. * I learn this from " Specimens of Macaronic Poetry" (Svo., 1831), which originally appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine. t As the passage is worth something for its pleasantry apart from the jargon, it is here translated, with the retention only of the French and an occasional law phrase. Igno. I'm terribly hot, O chaud, chaud, chaud. In the name of God, where have my clerks got to ? Dulman, Dulman ? Dulman (entering). Here am I, sir. Vous avez Dulman. 38 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY I^no. Meltor, Dulman, meltor. Rubba me cum tovvallio, rubba. Ubi est Pec us ? Pec. Hie, sir. Igno. Fac ventum, Pecus, Ita, sic, sic. Ubi est Fledwit ? Dul. Non est inventus. Jgno. Ponite nunc chlamydes vestras super me, ne capiam frigus. Sic, sic. Ainsi bien faict. Dill. Juvo, magister, titillasti punctum legis hodie. Igno. Ha, ha, he ! Puto titillabam. Si le nom del granteur ou grante soit rased ou interlined en faict pol, le faict est grandement suspicious. Dul. Et nient obstant, si faict pol, &c., &c. Oh illud etiam in Covin. Jgno. Ha, ha, he ! Pec. At id, de au faict pendu en le smoak, nunquam audivi titillatum melius. Igno. Ah, ha, he ! Quid tu dicis, Musaee ? Mus. Equidem ego parum intellexi. Igno. Tu es gallicrista, vocatus a coxcomb : — nunquam faciam te Legis- tam. Dul. Nunquam, nunquam ; nam ille fuit universitans. Igno. .Sunt magni idiotae, et clerici nihilorum, isti universitantes. Miror quomodo spendisti tuum tempus inter eos. Igno. I melt, Dulman, I melt. Rub me with the towel. Where's Pe- cus .' Pecus. (entering) Here, sir. Igno. Air, Pecus, air. So, so. Where's Fledwit ? Dul. JX'b/i est inventus. Igno. Now put your cloaks over me, that I mayn't catch cold. So, so. Ainsi bicn faict. Dul. Faith, sir, you tickled 'em prettily to-day with that point of law. Igno. Ha, ha, he ! I think I did. Si le nom del granteur ou grante soit rased ou interlined en faict pol, le faict est grandement suspicious. Dul. Et nient obstant, si faict pol, &c., &c. Oh,— and that also in Co- vin. Igno. Ah, ha, he ! Pec. And that about the faict pendu en le smoak! I never heard any- thing tickled better. Igno. Ah, ha, he .' What's your opinion, Musaeus } Mus. I can't say I quite understood it. Igno. You're a gallicrista, as we say ; to- wit, a coxcomb. I shall never make a lawyer of you. Dul. Never, never. He was at college. Igno. They're devilish ignorant, all those college people. I wonder how you spent your time among 'em. ON WIT AND HUMOR. 39 Mu$. Ut plurimum versatus sum in Logica, Igno. Logica ? qua villa, quod burgum est Logica ? Mils. Est una artium liberalium. Igno. Liberalium ? Sic putabam. In nomine Dei, stude artes parcas et lucrosas : non est mundus pro artibus liberalibus jam. Mus. Deditus etiam fui amori Philosophiae. Igno. Amori ? Quid ! Es pro bagaschiis et strumpetis ? Si custodis malam regulam, non es pro me. Sursum reddam te in manus parentum iterum, Mus. Dii faxint. Mus. In making myself a master in Logic. • Igno. In Logic .' Where's that ? I never heard of the place. Mus. 'Tis one of the liberal arts. Igno. Oh, the liberal arts, is it ? I thought so. In the name of God, study some art that will get you a livelihood. This is no v^'orld nowadays for liberal arts. Mus. I was also given to the love of Philosophy. Igno. The devil you were ! In love, too ! Oh, you'll never do for me. A pretty fellow, to talk to me of his jades and baggages ! If those are the sort of terms you keep, I must send you back to your parents. Mus. (aside) God grant it ! Macaronic poetry (Maccaronea) originated, like most literary novelties, in Italy ; and is understood to have derived its name from the compound called Maccaroni. It is surprising, consi- dering the multitude of scholarly wits, that more of it has not been written, and better. Drummond of Hawthornden appears to have introduced it into this island. He is the author of a Ma- caronic poem on a rustic fight, called Polemo-Middinia, singularly coarse for a poet so elegant, but showing a considerable feeling for humor. " Grinning like the devil " is ^' girnans more divel- li ;" and of a man whose name he cannot recollect, he says, " Deil stick it, ignoro nomen.'^ The names have a ludicrous effect. Hie aderant Geordy Akinhedius, et little Johnus, Et Jamy Richaeus, et stout Michel Hendersonus, Qui jolly trippas ante alios dansare solebat, Et bobbare bene, et lassas kissare bonceas ; Duncan Olyphantus, valde stalvartus, et ejus Filius eldcstus jolyboyus, atque oldmoudus (old mouthed ?) Qui pleugham longo gaddo drivare solebat, Et Rob Gib wantonus homo, atque Oliver Hutchin. 40 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY Among other combatants is " Jamy Tomsonus," perhaps an ancestor of the poet, and a certain " Norland-born" man, whose opinions in church and state were the same as the author's ; — Et unus Norland-bornus homo, valde valde anti-covenanter. Drummond's is the best Macaronic we possess. The next in celebrity is one by Dr. Geddes on a political meeting at the Lon- don Tavern. It seems impossible to help being ludicrous now and then in compositions of this nature : but the Doctor is not without genuine drollery. Thick-shortus sed homo, cui nomen credo Bevellus, Upstartans medio, &c. Iratus Adairus Surgit ; et, aptato periwig, grandi ore profatur, Quis furor, O cives ? Subsequitur plausus magnus, sed non generalis : Nam quidem expressly venerc, ut speechificarent. Hos inter juvenis fervens Mancastrius unus, Nomine Cooperus, tales dedit ore loquelas. Shall homines, Chairman, hiberno tempore longum Carpere iter, longam atque insomnes ducere noctem, Et nil say, nil do 7 Proh Juppiter ! baud ita ; no, no. Ergo egomet, mecum et plus centum millia more, sir, Dicimus omnimodo passandas esse Resolvas. Non adeo multum. Chairman, potavimus usque Ut non possimus de magnis thinkere rebus. Ergo iterum dico, passandas esse Resolvas ! Dico passandas, passandas esse Resolvas ! Geddes, who was a very irritable good Christian, must have written this passage con amore. But I must hasten out of his company. Of Nonsense Verses I am acquainted with no good specimens, or indeed with any beyond a line or two, though wits disburse them occasionally. I am surprised that many have not been written, considering the opportunities they afford, not only for <' acute nonsense," but the safest yet most galling satire. In proportion, however, to the safety, would be the meanness ; so ON WIT AND HUMOR. 41 that the best wits are not likely to use them for that purpose. Still they might produce amusement of other kinds, and display combinations of fancy the most opposite and unlooked for. As to Acrostics, Anagrams, Altars, and other mechanical shapes of wit, and to false wit in general, nothing need be said on the former subjects, and I have room but for a word on the last. You may know false wit as you may know any other kind of falsehood. It pretends to be natural, and is affected ; to be at its ease, and is laborious ; to be uttering a series of truths, and is only hampering itself with contradictions. Or if it runs chat- tering on, and does not mean to be false, the effect is not true to the intention. It has all the mirth to itself, hard as you may try to laugh with it. There is just the same sort of difference be- tween a flow of false wit and of true, as between buffo music like that of Mozart or Rossini and the melancholy merriments of a fiddle-scraper in the streets. In the former the most capricious notes have their reason and their relations, and you feel the bar- monious result. In the latter, every hit is a miss, and discord the consequence, and you only wonder how the poor man can " go on." 8th. Cross-Purposes ; or Contradictory Intentions mistaken hy their Entertainers for Identical Ones. We have hitherto been considering Wit by itself, or as paramount in its connexion with Humor. I now come to Humor paramount over Wit ; for per- sons are invariably concerned, as well as ideas ; and where this is the case, and the humor is of the best kind, the wit as natu- rally becomes subordinate to it as words are to things. Cross-purposes, however, may with impunity develope the smallest amount of humor, compared with any other of its forms, because the amusement produced by their mere action is irre- sistible. The reason is, that while the parties are conscious of nothing but their respective intentions, or mystified by the doubts arising with regard to those of one another, the spectator is in the secrets of both. He is triumphing over their ignorance, and an- ticipating their discoveries. Admirable scenes of this kind are to be found in the little comedy from the Spanish, entitled Three and the Deuce ; in the farce of Blue Devils ; the comedy of the Beaux'' Stratagem ; and in the Mock-Doctor, or Medicin Malgre 42 . AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY Lui of Molierc. In this farce a wood-cutter has had a dispute with liis wife, which she is resolved to make him pay for. Two fbotincn happen to ask her the way to the residence of a famous phy- sician, wiiose attendance is required by their master. She tells them that the physician, though a great man, has some remarka- ble eccentricities, among which is a fancy for cutting his own wood, and for persisting, if surprised during the employment, in the pretence of being a very wood-cutter and peasant ; a folly, she adds, from which nothing can rouse him but a drubbing. The footmen, grasping their sticks at this news, out of zeal for their master's service, courteously thank the good woman, and proceed in search of the involuntary physician. They find him singing and drinking during his work ; and after vainly endea- voring, in the most respectful manner, to recall him to a proper sense of his profession, proceed, with many apologies, to cudgel him into the acknowledgment. Sganarelle (writhing, and rubbing his shoulders). And so I'm a phy- sician, am I ? Valers. The greatest in the world. Lucas. There's nobody like you. Sga. Well ; devil take me if I was aware of it. Val. You're to have whatever you ask. Sga. You don't say so ? Oh, I am a physician, there can be no doubt of it. I had forgotten ; but now I recollect. But it is an injustice to this laughable scene to quote only a fragment of it ; nor is the one here given by any means the cream of the jest. The whole is a masterpiece of art and drollery. I had translated the greater part of it for these pages ; but found that I was extending them beyond all feasible bounds. 9th. Unconscious Ahsurdiiy in a man's character^ apart from mere circumstances. — Half the humor in the world may be said to be owing to this fertile source of the ridiculous ; perhaps, in a high and pathetic sense, all of it, saving one exquisite class, in which by most people it is most thought to abound. "Nay, if you mean me by that," said Sir Godfrey Kneller to a man at whose imitations of his friends he had been laughing, " there you are out." He saw the likeness, yet saw it not. But I am here speaking of it in its form the least mixed, as in ON WIT AND HUMOR, 43 Moliere's Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, and his Femmes Sgavantes, in which latter play a set of people expose, in themselves, the ab- surdities which they charge on others. One immortal little pas- sage in particular is worth a thousand instances. I have been told that whenever the actors come to it on the Parisian stage, the audience are sure to listen with breathless attention, and to laugh as if they had not heard it a thousand times. An author is ha- ranguing on the folly of authors, who pester people with reading their compositions to them : — « Le defaut des auteurs, dans leurs productions, C'est d'en tyranniser les conversations, &c. It is the vice of authors to become absolute tyrants in private, and pre- vent all conversation. Meet with them where you will, at court, out of doors, or at table, there they are, reading their detestable verses. For my part, I can see nothing so ridiculous in the whole world as a fellow going about with this kind of petition in his hand for praise ; seizing on the first ears he meets with, and nailing them down to martyrdom. I 'm of the opinion of the Greek, who expressly forbids such absurdity, and holds it to be utterly unworthy of a man of sense. {He takes (m paper out of his pocket.) By-the-by, here are some little verses of mine * * * Audience roar with laughter. loth. Conscious Humors Indulged ; as in the characters of FalstafF and Lord Foppington, of Matthew Bramble in Smollett, and of Sir Walter Scott's Antiquary. 11th. Humors of Nations and Classes ; as Irishmen and French- men, Englishmen, Spaniards, Beggars, Lawyers, Physicians, Friars, Actors, &;c. Chaucer is famous for them ', so are Le Sage and Boccaccio, Addison and Fielding. I regret that I can- not quote passages out of the exquisite Tory Foxhunter of Addi- son ] especially as he is still pretending to be alive among us. Everybody knows the no less admirable Squire Western of Field- ing. Lawyer Dowling in Tom Jones, who had so much to attend to that he wished he could " cut himself into a thousand pieces," had his prototype in Chaucer's Lawyer, of whom we are told that No where so busy a man as he there n'as 44 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY (was not) And yet he seemhl busier than he was. I quote a few sallies from Sydney Smith, perfect in wit, and exquisite for the scholarly precision of style before mentioned : — Classically-uiorded Banter and Simile. — " Whoever has had the good fortune to see Dr. Parr's wig, must have observed, that while it trespasses a little on the orthodox magnitude of perukes in the anterior parts, it scorns even episcopal limits behind, and swells out into boundless convex- ity of frizz, the jieya Oav/ia* of barbers, and the terror of the literary world. After the manner of his wig the Doctor has constructed his sermon, giving a discourse of no common length, and subjoining an immeasurable mass of notes, which appear to concern every learned thing, every learned man, and almost every unlearned man, since the beginning of the world." — Works, vol. i., p. l.f Great Writers cantingly criticised by small Writers — " Of whom Dr. Parr might be happy to say, that they have profundity without obscurity — perspicuity without prolixity — ornament without glare — terseness without barrenness — penetration without subUety — comprehensiveness without di- gression — aiid a great number of other things without a great number of other things." — 1^., p. 8, Phenomena of Botany Bay. — " In this remote part of the earth, nature (having made horses, oxen, ducks, geese, oaks, elms, and all regular and useful productions, for the rest of the world) seems determined to have a bit of play, and amuses herself as she pleases. Accordingly she makes cherries with the stone on the outside, and a monstrous animal as tall as a grenadier, with the head of a rabbit, a tail as big as a bedpost, hopping along at the rate of five hops to a mile, with three or four young kanga- roos looking out oi its false uterus to see what is passing. Then comes a quadruped as big as a large cat, with the eyes, color, and skin of a mole, and the bill and web-leet of duck — puzzling Dr. Shaw, and rendering the latter half of his life miserable, from the utter inability to determine whether it was a bird or a beast. Add to tliis a parrot, with the eyes of a sea-gull ; a skate, with the head of a shark ; and a bird of such monstrous * Marvel. t In excuse for thus sporting with the Doctor's wig while he was living, Sydney Smith added the following note respecting him to the passage in his collected works: — "A great scholar, as rude and violent as most Greek scholars are, unless they happen to be bishops. He has left nothing behind him worth leaving: he was rather fitted for the law than the church, and would have been a more considerable man if he had been more knocked about among his equals. He lived with country gentlemen and clergymen, who flattered and feared him." ON WIT AND HUMOR. 45 dimensions, that a side bone of it will dine three real carnivorous English- men; — together with many other productions that agitate Sir Joseph,* and fill him with mingled emotions of distress and delight." — Works, vol, i., p. 322. A Contrast.— " A picture is drawn of a clergyman with £J30 per an- num, who combines all moral, physical, and intellectual advantages ; a learned man, dedicating himself intensely to the care of his parish ; of charming manners and dignified deportment ; six feet two inches high, beautifully proportioned, ivith a magnificent coufitenayice, expressive of all the cardinal virtues and the ten comynandments ; — and it is asked with an air of triumph, if such a man as this will fall into contempt on account of his poverty ? But substitute for him an average, ordinary, un- interesting minister ; obese, dumpy ; neither ill natured nor good natured ; neither learned nor ignorant ; striding over the stiles to church with a second-rate wife, dusty and deliquescent, and four parochial children, full of catechism and bread and butter; or let him be. seen in one of those Shem-Ham-and-Japhet buggies made on Mount Ararat soon after the subsidence of the waters, driving in the High-street of Edmonton, among all his penurious, sapohaceous, oleagineous parishioners. Can any man of sense say that all these outward circumstances of the ministers of religion have no bearing on religion itself?" — Vol. iii., p. 200. It might be answered, that these two are not the only descrip- tions of people from whom the choice of a Christian pastor might be made ; but the writer's wit ran away with his argument. Wants of Ireland. — " W^hat is the object of all government ? The object of all government is roast mutton, potatoes, claret, a stout consta- ble, an honest justice, a clean highway, a free chapel. What trash to be bawling in the streets about the Green Isle, and the Isle of the Ocean ; the bold anthem of Erin go bragh ! A far better anthem would be, Eriii go bread and cheese ; Erin go cabins that keep out the rain; Erin go pantaloons without holes in them!" — Id., p. 466. Very ludicrously turned, this ; irresistibly comic ; very sen- sible ; though, after all, it does not quite settle the question be- tween the two countries. Nations do not live entirely by bread and cheese alone, or even by the clerical comforts of roast mut- ton and claret. Sydney Smith, like Swift, ought to have been a statesman instead of a clergyman. He had a genuine Chris- tian sympathy with his fellow-creatures, and far more serious intentions in almost all he wrote than the gravest of his oppo- nents could well imagine ; but the habit of wit subjected him to * Banks. 46 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY the charge of levity ; consciousness of his powers tempted him to defy the charge ; and it must be owned tliat when profession- al interests came into play, he ceased to exhibit his customary greatness of motive, lie was an extraordinary man, however, and did a great deal of good. 12t]i. Humors of Mere Tem-perament ; as Moliere's Malade Imaginaire, Sheridan's Sir Anthony Absolute, &c. 13tli. Moral or Intellectual Incongruities ; as in all humors more or less, conventionally considered, or with regard to ap- pearances ; but particularly in Don Quixote, who is the repre- sentative of the most affecting struggles of society itself, if socie- ty did but know it. And indeed society seems to be finding it out, and to be at once restoring Don Quixote to his reason, and giving him hopes of his island. Veniat regnum. A delicious minor character of the incongruous order, is that of Major Bath in Fielding's novel of Amelia ; a poor and pompous but noble- minded gentleman, who swears " by the honor and dignity of man," and is caught cooking some gruel in a saucepan for his ailing sister. 14th and last, and above all, not only as far as delight and hope go, but wisdom and success itself (for they are Don Quix- ote's descendants without his madness or hollow cheeks, and are possessed by anticipation of his island), Genial Contradictions of the Conventional, as exemplified in the Sir Roger de Coverleys, Parson Adamses, and the prince of them all, Uncle Toby. The people in the' Vicar of Wakefield are related to them, especially Moses ; but they are for the most part as sophisticate in the com- parison, as Goldsmith was conscious and uneasy. Nothing can surpass Addison's treatment of Sir Roger de Coverley ; but for the honor of Nature's first fresh impulses, and with the leave of an admirable living writer before mentioned (whom I have the honor to call my friend) let it never be forgotten that Steele invent- ed him. Steele invented all the leading characters in the Spec- tator, all those in the Taller and Guardian ; and is in fact the great inventive humorist of those works, as well as its most pa- thetic story-teller; though Addison was the greater worker out of the characters, and far surpassed hiin in wit and style. One little trait related of Sir Roger on his first appearance — his ON WIT AND HUMOR. 47 talking all the way up stairs with the footman, — contains the germ of the best things developed by Addison. As to Parson Adams, and his fist, and his good heart, and his JEschylus which he couldn't see to read, and his rejoicing at be- ing delivered from a ride in the carriage with Mr. Peter Pounce, whom he had erroneously complimented on the smallness of his parochial means, let everybody rejoice that there has been a man in the world called Henry Fielding to think of such a character, and thousands of good people sprinkled about that world to answer for the truth of it ; for had there not been, what would have been its value ? We are too apt to suspect ill of one another, from the doubt whether others are as honest as our- selves, and will not deceive us ; forgetting, in common modesty, that if we ourselves are honest people, so must be thousands more. But what shall I say to thee, thou quintessence of the milk of human kindness, thou reconciler of war (as far as it was once necessary to reconcile it), thou returner to childhood during peace, thou lover of widows, thou master of the best of corporals, thou whistler at excommunications, thou high and only final Christian gentleman, thou pitier of the devil himself, divine Uncle Toby ! Why, this I will say, made bold by thy example, and caring nothing for what anybody may think of it who does not in some measure partake of thy nature, that he who created thee was the wisest man since the days of Shakspeare ; and that Shakspeare himself, mighty reflector of things as they were, but no anticipator, never arrived at a character like thine. No master of honhomie was he. No such thing, alas ! did he find in the parson at Stratford-upon-Avon, or in the tap-rooms on his way to town, or in those of Eastcheap, or in the courts of Elizabeth and James, or even in the green-rooms of the Globe and Black- friars, though he knew Decker himself, and probably had heard him speak of such a man as Signer Orlando Friscobaldo. Let him afford to lose the glory of this discovery ; let Decker be enriched with it ; and let Fielding and Sterne have the renown of finding the main treasure. As long as the character of Toby Shandy finds an echo in the heart of man, the heart of man is noble. It awaits the impress of all good things, and may pre- 48 AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY pare for as many surprises in tlio moral world, as science has brought about in the pliysical. I will close this Essay (would that it had been worthier of the subject !) with a few disconnected passages from Tristram Shandy, worthy to be had in everlasting remembrance. Corporal Trhn about to read a sermon. — " If you have any objection," said my father, addressing himself to Dr. Slop. " Not in the least," re- plied Dr. Slop : " for it does not appear on which side of the question it is wrote — it may be a composition of a divine of our church, as well as yours ; so that we run equal risques." " ' Tis wrote upon neither side," quoth Trim ; "for ^tis only upon conscience, an* please your honors." Passage of an Excommunication, tvith the comment upon it. — " May the holy and eternal Virgin Mary, mother of God, curse him ! May St. Michael, the advocate of holy souls, curse him ! May all the angels and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the heavenly armies, curse him." " Our ar/nies swore terribly iti Flanders," cried my uncle Toby, " but nothing to this. I couldn't find it in my heart to curse my dog so." Memento and Money. — " I have left Trim my bowling-green," cried my uncle Toby. — My father smiled. — "I have left him, moreover, a pen- sion," continued my uncle Toby. — My father looked grave. " Is this a fit time," said my father to himself, " to talk of pensions and grenadiers .'" Unconscious Self-betrayal. — " I am at a loss. Captain Shandy," quoth Dr. Slop, " to determine in which branch of learning your servant shines most ; whether in physiology or divinity." Slop had not forgot Trim's comment upon the sermon. " This poor fellow," continued Dr. Slop, " has had the misfortune to have heard some sujjerficial empiric discourse upon this point." " That he has," said my father, " Very likely," said my uncle. " Pm sure of it," quoth Yorick. War and the Fly. — " I wish the whole science of fortification, with all ifs inventors, at the devil," said my father, '• It has been the death of thousands, and it will be mine in the end, I would not, I would not, brother Toby, have my brain so full of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, palli- sadoes, ravelins, half-moons, and such trumpery, to be the proprietor of Namur, and of all the towns in Flanders with it." (Tristram's father, who afterwards apologizes for this sally of impatience, was not aware that the occupation of his brother Toby's head with all this scientific part of war was the very reason why he did not think of it's being the " death of thou- sands.") " My uncle Toby was a man patient of injuries ; not from want of cour- age ; I have told you, in a former chapter, that he was a man of courage; ON WIT AND HUMOR. 49 and will add here, that where just occasions presented, or called it forth, I know no man under whose arm I would have sooner taken shelter ; nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness of his intellectual parts ; for he felt this insult of my father's as feelingly as a man could do ; but he was of a peaceful, placid nature,— no jarring elements in it,— all was mixed up so kindly within him : my uncle Toby had scarcely a heart to retaliate upon a fly. " Go," says he, one day at dinner, to an overgrown one which had buzz- ed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time, and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him ; " I'll not hurt thee," says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going across the n)Gm with the fly in his hand ; " I'll not hurt a hair of thy head. Go," s.iys he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape ; " go, poor devil ! get thee gone, why should I hurt thee ? — this loorld surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me." People think they are in no want of such lessons as these nowadays ; but to say nothing of their flattering themselves too much on that point (for there are " flies " of many sizes), it is greatly because Sterne has taught them. This illustrious Irish- man (I have a " Shandean " reason for speaking of him under that title) is Rabelais, reborn at a riper period of the world, and gifted with sentiment. To accuse him of cant and sentimental- ity, is itself a cant or an ignorance ; or at least, if neither of these, it is but to misjudge him from an excess of manner here and there. The matter always contains the solidest substance of truth and duty. It is a thousand pities he retained something of the coarseness of Rabelais, because it prevents his book from being put into everybody's hands ; though upon his own princi- ple of turning evil to good, perhaps even this blemish has served to draw attention to it. Among passages which are supposed to be connected with that coarseness, but really are not so, are some which are yet destined to be of important service to mankind ; and if I were requested to name the book of all others, which combined Wit and Humor under their highest appearance of levity with the profoundest wisdom, it would be Tristram Shandy. 4 50 CHAUCER CHAUCER, BORN, 1324 ?— DIED, 1400 ? The graver portion of the genius of this great poet will be more fitly noticed in the volume to be entitled Action and Passion. He is here only in his gayer mood. I retain the old spelling for three reasons : — first, because it is pleasant to know the actual words of such a writer, as far as they can be ascertamed ; second, because the antiquity is part of the costume ; and third, because I have added a modern prose version, which removes all difficulty in the perusal. I should rather say I have added the version for the purpose of retaining the immortal man's own words, besides being able to show perhaps how strongly every word of a great poet tells in the most modern prose version, provided his ideas are not absolutely misrepresented. At all events, the reader may go uninterruptedly, if he pleases, through the version, and then turn to the original for the finer traits, and for a music equally correct and beautiful. I wish I could have given more than one comic story out of Chaucer ; but the change of manners renders it difficult at any time, and impossible in a book like the present. The subjects with which the court and gentry of the times of the Henries and Edwards could be entertained, are sometimes not only indecorous but revolting. It is a thousand pities that the unbounded sympa- thy of the poet with everything that interested his fellow-crea- tures did not know, in this instance, where to stop. Yet we must be cautious how. we take upon ourselves to blame him. Even Shakspeare did not quite escape tlie infection of indecency in a CHAUCER. 51 much later and highly refined age ; and it may startle us to sus- pect, that what is readable in the gravest and even the most scru- pulous circles in our own day, may not be altogether so a hundred years hence. Allusions and phrases which are thought harmless now, and that from habit really are so, may then appear in as different a light as those which we are astonished to think our ancestors could endure. Nay, opinions and daily practices exist, and are treated with respect, which may be regarded by our pos- terity as the grossest and cruellest barbarisms. We may, there- fore, cease to wonder at the apparently unaccountable spectacle presented by such writers as Chaucer, who combine a license the most indelicate with the utmost refinements of thought and feeling. When Chaucer is free from this taint of his age, his humor is of a description the most thoroughly delightful ; for it is at once entertaining, profound, and good-natured. If this last quality be thought a drawback by some, as wanting the relish of personality, they may supply even that (as some have supplied it), by suppos- ing that he drew his characters from individuals, and that the individuals were very uncomfortable accordingly. I confess I see no ground for the supposition beyond what the nature of the case demands. Classes must of course be drawn, more or less, from the individuals composing them ; but the unprofessional particulars added by Chaucer to his characters (such as the Mer- chant's uneasy marriage, and the Franklin's prodigal son), are only such as render the portraits more true., by including them in the general category of human kind. The gangrene which the Cook had on his shin, and which has been considered as a remarkable instance of the gratuitous, is, on the contrary (besides its masterly intimation of the perils of luxury in general), pain- fully in character with a man accustomed to breathe an unhealthy atmosphere, and to be encouraging bad humors with tasting sauces and syrups. Besides, the Cook turns out to be a drunkard. Chaucer's comic genius is so perfect, that it may be said to include prophetic intimations of all that followed it. The liberal- thinking joviality of Rabelais is there ; the portraiture of Cer- vantes, moral and external ; the poetry of Shakspeare ; the learn- ing of Ben Jonson ; the manners of the wits of Charles the 62 CHAUCER. Second ; the bonhomie of Stcrno ; and the insidiousness, without the malice, of Voltaire. One of its characteristics is a certain tranquil detection of particulars, expressive of generals ; as in the instance just mentioned of the secret infirmity of the Cook. Tiius the Prioress speaks French ; hut it is " after the school of Stratford at Bow." Her education was altogether more showy than substantial. The lawyer was the busiest man in the world, and yet he " seemed busier than he was." He made something out of nothing, even in appearances. Another characteristic is his fondness for seeing the spiritual in the material ; the mind in the man's aspect. He is as studious of physiognomy as Lavater, and far truer. Observe, too, the poetry that accompanies it, — the imaginative sympathy in the matter of fact. His Yeoman, who is a forester, has a head "like a nut." His Miller is as brisk and healthy as the air of the hill on which he lives, and as hardy and as coarse-grained as his conscience. We know, as well as if we had ridden with them, his oily-faced Monk ; his lisping Friar (who was to make confession easy to the ladies) ; his carbuncled Summoner or Church-Bailiff, the grossest form of ecclesiastical sensuality ; and his irritable money-getting Reve or Steward, with his cropped head and calf-less legs, who shaves his beard as closely as he reckons with his master's tenants. The third great quality of Chaucer's humor is its fair play , — the truth and humanity which induces him to see justice done to good and bad, to the circumstances which make men what they are, and the mixture of right and wrong, of wisdom and of folly, which they consequently exhibit. His worst characters have some little saving grace of good-nature, or at least of joviality and candor. Even the Pardoner, however impudently, acknow- ledges himself to be a " vicious man." His best people, with one exception, betray some infirmity. The good Clerk of Oxford, for all his simplicity and singleness of heart, has not escaped the pedantry and pretension of the college. The Good Parson seems without a blemish, even in his wisdom ; yet when it comes to his turn to relate a story, he announces it as a " little" tale, and then tells the longest and most prosing in the book, — a whole ser- monizing volume. This, however, might be an expression of CHAUCER. 53 modesty ; since Chaucer uses the same epithet for a similar story of his own telling. But the Good Parson also treats poetry and fiction with contempt. His understanding is narrower than his motives. The only character in Chaucer which seems faultless, is that of the Knight ; and he is a man who has been all over the world, and bought experience with hard blows. The poet does not spare his own person. He describes himself as a fat, heavy man, with an "elvish" (wildish ?) countenance, shy, and always " staring on the ground." Perhaps he paid for his genius and his knowledge with the consequences of habits too sedentary,, and a vein, in his otherwise cheerful wisdom, of hypochondriacal wonder. He also puts in his own mouth a fairy-tale of chivalry, which the Host interrupts with contempt, as a tiresome common- place. I take it to have been a production of the modest poet's when he was young ; for in the midst of what looks like inten- tional burlesque, are expressions of considerable force and beauty. This self-knowledge is a part of Chaucer's greatness ; and these modest proofs of it distinguish him from every other poet in the language. Shakspeare may have had as much, or more. It is difficult to suppose otherwise. And yet there is no knowing what qualities, less desirable, might have hindered even his mighty insight into his fellow-creatures from choosing to look so closely into himself. His sonnets are not without intimations of personal and other defects ; but they contain no such candid talking as Chaucer. The father of English poetry was essentially a modest man. He sits quietly in a corner, looking down for the most part, and meditating; at other times eyeing everything that passes, and sympathizing with everything ; — chuckling heartily at a jest, feeling his eyes fill v/ith tears at sorrow, reverencing virtue, and not out of charity with vice. When he ventures to tell a story himself, it is as much under correction of the Host as the hum- blest man in the company ; and it is no sooner objected to, than he drops it for one of a different description. I have retained the grave character of the Knight in the selec- tion, because he is leader of the cavalcade. The syllables that are to ba retained in reading the verses are marked with the brief accent "^ . The terminating vowels thus 54 CHAUCER. distinguished were certainly pronounced during one period of our language, otherwise they would not have been written j though, by degrees, the comparative faintness of tlieir utterance, and dis- use of them in some instances, enabled writers to use them as they pleased ; just as poets in our own day retain or not, as it suits them, the c's in the final syllable of participles and past tenses ; — such as belov'd, beloved ; siverv^d, swerved, 6lc. The French in their verses use their terminating: vowels at this mo- ment precisely as Chaucer did ; though they drop them in conver- sation. I have no living Frenchman at hand to quote, but he writes in this respect as Boileau did : — • Elle dit ; et du vent de sa bouche profane Lui souffle avec ces mots I'ardeur de la chicane ; Le Prelat se reveille ; et, plein d'emotion, Lui donne toutefois la benediction. (Discord waking the Dean in the Lutrin.) CHARACTERS OF PILGRIMS. Whanne that April with his shourts sote The droughte of Marche hath perced to the rote. And bathed every veine in siviche Hcbur, Ofvihiche vertiie engendred is the flour ;' Whan Zephirus eke with his sote brethe Enspired hath in every holt and hethe The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne, And smale foules maken melodie, That slepen alle night with open eye, So priketh hem nature in her corages, Than longcn folk to gon on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken strange strondes To serve halwes couthe in sundry londos; When April with his sweet showers has pierced the drought of March to the root, and bathed every vein in the balm that produces flowers ; when Zephyr too, with his sweet breath, has animated the tender green buds in the woods and on the heaths ; and the young sun has run half his course in the Ram ; and the little winged creatures, that sleep all nia;ht with their eyes open, begin their music (so irresistible in their hearts is Nature), then do people long to go on pilgrimages, and palmers to seek foreign shores in CHAUCER. 55 And specially from every shire's ende Of Englelond to Canterbury they wende, The holy blissful martyr for to seke.a That hem hath holpen whan that they were seke. Befelle that in that seson on a day, In South werk at the Tabard' as I lay, Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage To Canterbury with devoute courage. At night was come into that hostelrie Wei nine-and-twenty in a compagnie Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle In felawship, and pilgrimes were they alle That toward Canterbury wolden ride. The chambres and the stables weren wide. And wel we weren esed atte beste. And shortly, when the sonne was gon to reste. So hadde I spoken with hem everich on, That I was of hir felawship anon. And made forword erly for to rise. To take oure way ther, as I you devise. But natheles while I have time and space. Or that I forther in this tale pace. Me thinketh it accordant to reson To tellen you alle the condition Of eche of hem, so as it semed me. And whiche they weren, and of what degre; And eke in what araie that they were inne ; And at a knight than wol I firste beginne. order to worship at famous shrines; and^ above all, people crowd from every shire's end in England to that of the holy martyr at Canterbury, who has helped them when they were sick. Now, at this season, it happened one day, while I was at the Tabard in Southwark, ready to set forth on my own devout journey to Canterbury, that there came into the inn a matter of nine-and-twenty people, who had joined company, and were all bound on the same visit. There was plenty of room in the place both for man and horse, and we were all very com- fortable. By sunset I had spoken with every one of these persons, and become one of the party : so I agreed to be up early in the morning, in order to lose no time. While thus waiting between sunset and sunrise, it is but reason, methinks, that the reader should be told what sort of people my fellow-travellers were ; of what rank in life, what characters, and even how they were dressed. And I will begin first with a knight. 56 CHAUCER. A Knight ther was, and that a worthy man, That fro the time that he lirste began To riden out, he loved chivalrie, Trouthe and honour, fredom and courtesie. Ful worthy was he in liis lordes wcrre. And thereto haddc he ridden, no man ferre. As well in Cristendom as in Hethenesse, And ever honored for his worthinesse. At Alisandre he was whan it was wonne. Ful often time he hadde the bord begonnc Aboven alle nations in Pruce : In Lettowe hadde he reysed, and in Ruce, No Cristen man so ofte of his degre : In Gernade at the siege eke hadde he be Of Algesir, and ridden in Belmarie : At Leyes was he, and at Satalie, Whan they were wonne ; and in the Grete See At many a noble armee had he be. At mortal batailles hadde he ben fiftene. And foughten for our faith at Tramaissene In listes thries, and ay slain his fo. This ilke worthy Knight hadde ben also Some time with the Lord of Palatie Agen another hethen in Turkie, And evermore he hadde a sovereigne pris, And though that he was worthy, he was wise, And of his port as meke as is a mayde. He never yet no vilanie ne sayde In alle his lif unto no manere wight: He was a veray parfit gentil knight .' The Knight was a man of great worth, who from the first moment of his setting out on his adventures, loved his profession with all his heart, and was an honor to it. He was full of truth, liberality, and courtesy. He was at Alexandria when it was taken. He had many times been placed at the head of the table in Prussia; had commanded oftener in Russia and Lithuania than any other man of his standing; had been at the siege of Algeziras in Granada ; had served in Bellemarin ; had assisted at the taking of Layas and Satalie ; and been with many a noble armament in the Greek Sea. He had fought in fifteen mortal battles, and slain his combatant thrice in the lists at Thrasimene for the Christian faith. He had also been against the heathens in Turkey, with the lord of Palathia. Wherever he went, his services were rated at the highest price ; yet his discretion was equal to his worth, and he was as meek in his carriage as a maiden. He never spoke a discourteous word in his life to a human being. He was a very perfect gentle Knight CHAUCER. 57 But for to tellen you of his araie ; His hors was good, but he ne was not gaie. Of fustian he wered a gipon Mle besmotred with his habergeon. For he was late y come fro his viage, And wente for to don his pilgrimage. With him ther was his sone, ayonge Squikr, A lover and a lusty bacheler, With lockts crull as they were laide in presse f Of twenty yere of age he was, I gesse. Of his stature he was of even lengthe. And wonderly deliver, and grete of strengthe , And he had be sometime in chevachie In Flaunders, in Artois, and in Picardie, And borne him wel, as of so litel space. In hope to stonden in his ladies grace. Embrovded was he, as it were a mede Jill full of freshe floures white and rede : Singing he was, orfloyting all the day : He was as freshe as is the moneth of May : Short was his goune, with sieves long and wide ; Wel coude he sitte on hors, and fayre ride ; He coude songes make, and wel endite. Juste and eke dance, and wel pourtraie and write : So hote he loved, that by nightertale He slept no more than doth the nightingale : Curteis he was, lowly and servisable. And carf before his fader at the table.^ As to his equipments, he had a good horse, but he made no show. His doublet was of fustian ; and it was all smutted with his armor ; for he was just come from abroad, and was bound on his pilgrimage. With him there was his son, a young Squire, who was a fine fellow, and in love. His locks were in as good curl as if they had been put in papers. I should take his age to have been twenty. He was well made, and of won- derful strength and activity. He had been out with the troopers in Flanders, Artois, and Picardy ; and got up no little repute in a short space of time, in hope to cut a figure in the eyes of his mistress. He was like a meadow to look at, he was so embroidered with flowers. He used to be singing or playing the flute from morning to night. He was as fresh as the month of May. He had a short vest on, with big sleeves ; and well could he sit his horse, and put it to its paces. He could compose a song too, and tell a good story, joust and dance, and take portraits, and write. He was such a serenader, that he slept no more than the nightingale. But he was courteous withal, deferential and attentive ; and was the carver at his father's table. 4* 5S CHAUCER. A Ykman hadde he, and servantes no mo At that time, for him luste lo ride so, And he was cladde in cote and hode of grene ; A shefe of peacock arwcs, bright and kene. Under his belt he bare full thriftily : Wei coude he dresse his takel yemanly : His arwes drouped not with fetheres lowe, And in his hond he bare a mighty bowe. A not-hed had he, with a hroune visage : Of wood-craft coude he wel alle the usage; Upon his arme he bare a gaie bracer, And by his side a sword and a bokeler. And on that other side a gaie daggere, Harneised wel, and sharp as point of spere : A Cristofre on his brest of silver shene. An home he bare, the bandrik was of grene ; A forster was he sothely, as I gesse, Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse, That of hir smiling wasful simjyle and coy ; Hire gretest othe n'as but by Seint Eloy, And she was cleped Madame Eglentine ; Ful wel she sange the service divine, JEntuned in hire nose ful swetcly ; And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly, After the scale of Stratford attt Bowe, For French of Paris was to hire unknowe. At mete was she we] ytaughte withalle ; She lette no morsel from hire lippes falls. It pleased the Knight to have no servant with him on this occasion but a Yeoman. He was dressed in a green coat and hood, and had a sheaf stuck in his belt full of arrows with peacock feathers. Bright and keen were they. He had a right yeomanly hand at such tackle. His arrows never looked as if they were moulting. And in his hand he carried a mighty bow. His head was shaped like a nut, and his face sunburnt. He knew all about woods. His arm was defended by a showy bracer ; he had a sword and buckler on one side ; a fine dagger on the other, in capital con- dition ; a bright silver image of St. Christopher on his breast; and he wore a horn by a green belt. A proper forester was he, you might be certain. There was also a nun among us, a Prioress, who was very careful how she smiled, and did it with wonderful simplicity. Her strongest affirma- tion was by St. Elias. They called her iVIadame Eglantine. She sang divine service in the sweetest of nasal tones ; and spoke French to a nicety, after the fashion of the school of Stratford-at-Bow ; for she didn't know Paris French. She was so well brought up, that she never let anything CHAUCER. 59 Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe ; Wei coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe, Thatte no drope ne fell upon hire brest. In curtesie was sette full moche hire lest : Hire over lippe wiped she so clene. That in hive cujipe was no ferthing sene Of grese when she dronken hadde hire draught ; Full semely after hire mete she raught : And sikerly she was of grete disport. And ful pleasant and amiable of port, And peine d hire to contrefeten there Of court, and hen estatelich of manere^ And to ben holden digne of reverence. But for to speken of hire conscience. She was so charitable and so pitous She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous Caughte in a trappe, if it were ded, or bledde. Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde With roasted flesh, and milk, and wastel brede. But sore wept she, if on of hem were dede. Or if men smote it with a yerde smert ; And all was conscience and tendre herte.^ Ful semely hire wimple ypinched was. Hire nose tretis, hire eyen grey as glas ; Hire mouth full smale and thereto soft and red: But sikerly she had a fayre forehed : It was almost a spanne brode, I trowe. For hardily she was not undergrowe. slip out of her mouth at table, nor wetted her fingers with the sauce. Admirably could she achieve the morsel. Not a particle of it fell on her bosom. She delighted to show her good breeding. She was particularly careful in wiping her lips before she drank ; and took up her meat in a style the most decorous. To say the truth, she was an amiable creature, full of goodwill to everybody ; and it cost her a great deal of trouble to give herself the airs of her condition, and obtain people's reverence. As to her conscience, she was so full of tenderness and charity, that she would weep if she saw a mouse hurt in a trap. She kept delicate little hounds, which she fed with milk, roast meat, and fancy-bread; and sorely did she lament when any one of them died, or if anybody struck it. She was all conscience and tender heart. Her neckerchief was plaited in the nicest manner. She had a delicate straight nose, eyes of a clear grey, a small, soft, red mouth, and a hand- some forehead. I think it must have been a span broad. In truth she was no way stinted in her growth. 60 CHAUCER. Ful fetise was hire cloke, as I was ware. Of smale corall about hire arm she bare A pair of bedes gauded all with grene, And thereon heng a broche of gold ful shene On whiche was first ywritten a crouned A, And after Amor vincit omma. Another Nonne also with hire hadde she That was hire chapelleine, and Preestes thre.* A Monk ther was, a fayre for the maistrie, An out-rider that loved venerie ; (hunting) A manly man to hen an abbot able ; Ful many a deinte hors hadde he in stable. And whan he rode, men niighte his bridel here Gingeling in a whistling wind, as clere, And eke as loude as doth the chapell belle Ther as this lord was keper of the celle. The reule of Seint Maure and of Seint Beneit, Because that it was olde and somdele streit. This ilke monk lette olde thinges pace. And helde after the newe world the trace. He yave not of the text a pulled hen That saith that hunters ben not holy men, Ne that a monk whan he is rekkeles Is like to a fish that is waterles ; This is to say, a monk out of his cloistre ; This ilke text held he not worth an oistre ; And I say his opinion was good. What shulde he studie and make himselven wood, The cloak she wore was extremely well cut. She had a chaplet of coral beads about her arm, ornamented with green ; and to the chaplet was appended a fine gold trinket made into a crowned letter A, with the device. Amor vincit omnia. She had a Nun with her, who was her chaplain ; and three Priests, A Monk may come next, a masterly specimen of his order ; a lover of hunting, always foremost of the horsemen ; a manly man, fit to be an abbot. Many a dainty horse had he in his stable ; and when he was on the road, men might hear his bridle jingling in the wind as loud and clear as the chapel bell. He had no great regard, this Monk, for the rules of Saint Maur and Saint Benedict. He thought them old and too particular; and he was for letting old things go their ways, and taking after the new. The notion that sportsmen are no saints, he valued no more than a plucked hen ; and he set as little store by the saying, that a monk out of his cell is like a fish out of water. He swallowed it as easily as he would an oyster. And in my opinion he was right. Why should a man study, and turn his CHAUCER. 61 Upon a book in cloistre alway to pore, Or swinken with his hondes, and laboure, As Austin bit ? how shall the world be served ? Let Austin have his swink to him reserved : Therefore he was a prickasoure a right. Greihoundes he hadde as swift as foul of flight. Of pricking and of hunting for the hare Was all his lust ; for no cost wolde he spare. / saw his sieves purfiled at the bond With gris, and that the finest of the lond ; And for to fasten his hood under his chinne He hadde of gold ywrought a curious pinne ; A love-knotte in the greter ende ther was : His hed was balled, and shone as a?iy glas ; And eke his face, as it hadde ben anoint ; He was a lord ful fat, and in good point : His eyen stepe, and rolling in his hed. That stenied as aforneis of a led ; His bootes souple, his hors in gret est at ; JVow certainly he was a fayre prelat : He was not pale as a forpined gost ; A fat swan loved he best of any rost : His palfrey was as broune as is a bery. A Frere ther was, a wanton and ameryy A limitour, a ful solempne man :^^ In all the ordres foure is non that can brains, and be always poring over a book, mewed up in a cloister, and labor and toil with his hands, because Austin bade him .'' How is the world to be served at that rate .' Let Austin be accommodated with as much labor as he pleases. Our monk preferred good riding. He had a pack of greyhounds as swift as birds, and cared for nothing but horses and the chase. It was no matter what they cost him. I beheld with my own eyes his sleeves bordered with fur, and that too the finest in the land. To fasten his hood under the chin he had a gold pin, curiously wrought into a love-knot. His head was bald, and shone as if it had been glazed. So did his face, as if it had been anointed. He was a glorious jolly personage. There was not a point about him but was perfect. His eyes were sunk in fat, and his head smoked like a furnace His boots were supple, his horse in the highest condition : in short, he was the model of a dignified clergyman. He was no ghost of a man, pale and wasted away. The dish he loved best was a fat swan. His palfrey was as brown as a berry. A Friar was there too, a very facetious fellow ; wonderfully solemn withal. He was one of the friars that are licensed to beg. In all the 62 CHAUCER. So moche of daliance and fayre langage : He hadde ymade fill many a mar'iage Of yongt wiininen at his owtn cost : Until his ordre he was a noble post. Ful wel beloved and familier was he With frankeleins over all in his contree, And eke with worthy wimmen of the toun, For he had power of confession, As saide himself e, more than a curat ; For of his ordre he was a licentiat. Ful swetely heard he confess'iony And plesant was his absolution. He was an esy man to give penance Ther as he wiste to han a good pitance, For unto a poure ordre for to give Is signe that a man is wel yshrive ; For if he gave he dorste make avdnt He wiste that a man was rlpentant ; For many a man so hard is of his herte. He may not wepe although him sore smerte ; Therefore in stede of weping and praihres JHen mote give silver to the poure freres. His tippet was ay farsed ful of knives And pinnes for to given fayre wives ; And certainly he hadde a mery note ; Wel coude he singe and plaien on a rote. Four Orders he had not his match for an affectionate approach and wheed- ling speeches. He had read the marriage-service to heaps of young women for nothing. He was an amazing support to his order; quite a pillar. There was not a rich farmer in his county with whom he was not a favorite. And as much might be said of the good women in the towns : for (as he used to observe) he had license to hear confession wherever he pleased, and was not confined to one spot like a poor curate. Sweet was his mode of hearing confession, and pleasant was his absolution. He was an easy man at ordering penance, where he expected a just return ; for he was of opinion, that to give handsomely to the poor friars was a sign that a man had confessed to some purpose. He would grow quite exalted on this point, and swear that such a man must be a true penitent : for (argued he) weeping proves nothing ; a man may be very sorry, yet not able to weep ; therefore the way to make his repentance manifest is neither to weep nor pray, but to come down with his money to the poor friars. His tippet was always stuffed full of knives and pins, to give to pretty women. It is astonishing what a pleasant tongue he had. He could sing, CHAUCER. 63 Of yeddinges he bare utterly the pris ; His nekke was white as the flour-de-lis ; Thereto he strong was as a champioun, And knew wel the tavernes in every tonn. And every hosteler and gay tapstere. Better than a lazar or a beggere ; For unto swiche a worthy man as he Accorde'th nought, as by his faculte To haven with sike lazars acquaintance : It is not honest, it may not avance, ^s for to delen with no swiche j^oiirdille. But all with riche and sellers ofvitaille. And over all, ther as profit shuld arise, Curteis he was, and lowly of servise : Ther n'as no man no wher so vertuous ; He was the beste begger in all his hous. And gave a certaine ferme for the grant Non of his bretheren came in his haunt : For though a widewe hadde but a shoo, {So plesant was his " In principio") Yet wold he have a ferthing or he went ; His pourchas was wel better than his rent. A Clerk ther was of Oxenford also. That unto logike hadde long ygo. As lene was his hors as is a rake, >dnd he was not right fat^ I undertake. But loked holwe, and therto soberly. Ful thredbare was his overest courtepy. and play on the rote. There was nobody to be compared with him for a good story. His neck was as white as a lily , but that did not hinder his being a very champion for strength. He knew every tavern-keeper, tapster, and ostler about the country, better than he did any beggar, sick or well. Indeed, it is not proper for such as he to go herding with sick beggars. It would not be respectable or useful. The friar's duty lies among the rich, and with people who keep eating-houses. Where any profit could come of it, who could humble himself as he did ? who show so much activity ? He was the best beggar of his house, and rented the district he went about in, so that none of his brethren might interfere. If a widow had but an old shoe, he would get a farthing out of it ere he left her ; so pleasant was his in principio. He made a great deal more of his lease than he paid for it. An Oxford Scholar was among us, who had long passed his examin- ation. His horse was as lean as a rake, and he himself was not much fatter. He had hollow cheeks, a grave expression of countenance, and a £^ 64 CHAUCER. For he hadde goten him yet no benefice Ne was nought worldly to liavc an oflTice ; For him was lever han at his beddcs hcd Twenty bokes, clothed in blake or red, Of Aristotle and his philosophic Then robes riche, orfidel or sautrie : But all be that he was a philosophre. Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre,^^ But all that he might of his frendes hente On bokes and on learning he it spente, And besily gan for the soules praie Of hem that yave him wherewith to scolaie, Of studie toke he moste cure and hede ; Not a word spake he more than was nede, And that was said in form and reverence. And short and quike, and ful of high sentence. Souning in moral vertue was his speche, And gladly wold he lerne and gladly teche.^"^ A Sergeant of the Lawe ware and wise, That often hadde yben at the paruis, Ther was also, ful riche of excellence ; Discrete he was, and of grete reverence ; He semed swiche, his wordes were so wise : For his science and for his high renoun Of fees and robes had he many on : So grete a pourchasour was no wher non : All was fee simple to him in effect ; His pourchasing might not ben in suspect : coarse threadbare cloak ; for he had got no living yet, and he was not the man to push for one. The finest clothes and the merriest playing on the fiddle were nothing in his estimation compared with a score of old books at his bed's head, of Aristotle and his philosophy, bound in red or black. His philosophy was no philosopher's stone. All the money that friends gave him, he laid out on books and learning ; and the moment he received it, he would begin praying for their souls. Study, study was what he cared for. He never used more words than were necessary, and they were all according to form and authority, very emphatical and sententious. Every- thing which he uttered tended to a moral purpose ; and gladly would he learn, and gladly teach. We had a Sergeant-at-Law with us, a very wary and knowing gen- tleman Many a consultation had been held with him. You might know what authority he had, his words were so oracular. His knowledge and fame together had brought liim a prodigious number of fees and fine things. Everything in fact turned to fee-simple in his hands, and all with a justice CHAUCER. 65 A'o wher so besy a man as he ther n' as ; Jlnd yet he semed hesier than he was.^^ In termes hadde he cas and domes alle That fro the time of King Will, weren falle ; Thereto he coude endite and make a thing ; Ther coude no wight pinche at his writing ; And every statute coude he plaine by rote. He rode but homely in a medlee cote Girt with a saint of silk with barres smale. A Shtpman was ther, woned fer by west ; For ought I wote he was of Dertemouth : He rode upon a rouncie, as he couthe, All in a goune of falding to the knee. A dagger hanging by a las hadde hee About his nekke under his arm adoun ; The hole summer hadde made his hewe all hroun , And certainly he was good felaw ; Ful many a draught of win he hadde draw From Burdeux ward while that the chapman slepe : Of nice conscience toke he no kepe. If that he faught and hadde the higher hand. By water he sent hem home to every land. But of his craft to reken wel his tides. His stremes and his strandes him besides, His herberwe, his mone, and his lodemanage. There was non swiche from Hull unto Cartage. and propriety that nobody could think of disputing. There wasn't such a busy man in existence ; and yet he seemed busier than he was. He knew every case and judgment that had been recorded since the time of King William ; and could draw out a plea with such perfection, not a flaw was to be found in it. As to the statutes, he knew them all by heart. He was dressed plainly enough in a suit of mixed colors, with a silken sash all over small bars. There was a Captain of a Ship there, who came a long way out of the West. I think he was from Dartmouth. He had got a horse upon hire, which he rode as well as he was able. He wore a falding that reached to his knee, with a dirk hanging under his arm from a string round the neck ; and his skin was all tanned with the sun. A jovial companion was he. He had helped himself to many a swig of wine at Bourdeaux, while the merchant was asleep. Conscience was not in his line. If he got the bet- ter of a vessel at sea, he always sent the men home by water. As to his seamanship and his pilotage, his knowledge of rivers and coasts, of sun and moon, and his heavings of the lead, there wasn't such another from Hull to Carthage. He was both audacious and cautious. With many a tempest 6<3 CHAUCER. Hardy he was, and wise, I undertake ; JVit/i many a tempest hadde his herd be shake He knew wel alle the havens as they were Fro Gotland to the Cape de Finistere, And every creke in Bretagne and in Spaine : His barge ycleped was the Magdelaine." had his beard been shaken. He knew the soundings of every harbor from Gothland to Cape Finisterre, and every creek in Brittany and Spain. His vessel was called the Magdalen. \ " Whanne that April," &c.— What freshness and delicacy in this exordium ! It seems as if the sweet rains entered the ground, purely to reappear, themselves as flowers. 8 " The holy blissful mar^y/-."— Thomas a Becket — the great pan- tomimic shifter from a favorite into a saint. 3 " In Southwerk at the Ta6arc?."— Readers hardly need be told, that this Tabard inn is still extant, under the misnomer of the Talbot. It is worthy of any gentleman's " pilgrimage," from the remotest regions of May-Fair. The Borough is one of the most classical spots in England. It has Chaucer at one end, and Shakspeare at the other (in the Globe Theatre) ; besides Gower, and Fletcher, and Massinger, lying in the churches. * " He was a veray parfit getitil knight." — And a very perfect line is it that so describes him. It would be a pity it did not conclude the portrait, but for the good sense and sobriety of what follows, and the smutted state of the knight's doublet, caused by his coat of mail. This renders the conclusion still better, by showing the crowning point of his character, which is the preference of sub- stance to show, and action before the glory of it. He is a man who would rather conclude with being a perfect knight than with being called one. 6 " With lockis crull ds they were I aide in presse."— And perhaps the sly poet meant us to understand that they were ; for manliness in youth is not always above the little arts of foppery. 8 " Jlnd car/ before his fader at the table." — A custom of the time, and a far more civilized one than that of assigning the office to old gentlemen and delicate ladies. ' *' And all was conscience and tendre herte." — A lovely verse. CHAUCER. 67 8 " Amor vincit omnia" — Love conquers all things. We are to take this quotation from Ovid in a religious sense ; whatever charitable thoughts towards others the good nun might combine with it. 9 " Preestes i/ir^,"— The Prioress, for all her fine boarding-school breeding, fed heartily as well as nicely, and was in good buxom condition. We are not to suppose that the " Preestes thre" were less so, or fared ill at her table. One of them, indeed, who is called a " sweete Preest," and a " goodly man," is described as having a " large breast," and looking like "a sparrow-hawk with his eyen." It is he that tells the pleasant fable of the Cock and the Fox. 10 « ^ Frere ther was, a wanton and a mery, A limitour, a ful solempne man." This audacity of style, making the Friar at once merry and solemn, is in the richest comic taste. He is a '■'■ful solempne man ;" that is to say, excessively and ultra solemn, while he is about it ; so much so, that you see the lurking merriment in the excess. He shakes his head and cheeks, speaks hollow in the throat, and in a nasal tone of disapprobation. He particularly excels in deprecating what he approves. Next to money-getting, he would object to luxury. He had joined numbers of young women in marriage " at his own cost ;" that is to say, for no better pay than being the merriest fellow at the wedding-dinner, and looking forward to every possible good thing in the household. If a widow had but a " shoe" left, he would get a farthing out of it. I have seen such jolly beggars in Italy. One of them, a fine handsome young man, who was having his paoniers filled at a farmer's door (for he went about with a donkey), invited me to a pinch of snufF with all the unaffected grace of his country ; and on my praising the beauty of the place (it was at Maiano, on the Fiesolan hills, looking towards Florence), he acquiesced with a sort of deprecating admission of the fact, worthy of his brother in Chaucer ; observing, while he piously turned up his eyes, that it was " good enough for t^iis world." 11 " Litel gold in cofre." — A hit at the philosopher's stone ; or, by inference, at the poverty of philosophy in general. 68 CHAUCER. Povera e nuda vai, Filosofia. Petrarch. Naked and poor-goest thou, Philosophy. But the twenty books at the bed's head pay for all. " " And gladly wold he lerne and gladly teche." — The consumma- tion of a real unaffected lover of knowledge. Yet I cannot help being of opinion with Warton, that the three lines beginning "not a word spake he," are intended to imply a little innocent pedantry. Tyrwhitt supposes the credit of good letters to be concerned in our thinking otherwise. (Moxon's edition of Chau- cer, p. 175.) But Chaucer thought that good letters could bear a little banter, without losing their credit. All purely serious scholars in those times had a tendency to pedantry and formality. Chaucer only escaped it himself by dint of the gayer part of his genius. '3 <' JVo wher so hesy a man as he ther n'as ; And yet he semtd besier than he was." One is never tired of repeating this exquisite couplet. So Lawyer Dowling, in Tom Jones, wishes he could cut himself into I forget how many pieces, in order that he might see to all the affairs which he had to settle. '■* " His barge ycleptd was the Magdelaine." — This gentle peniten- tial name has a curious effect in connection with a man who had no nicety of conscience. Was it meant to show the frequently irrelevant nature of the names of ships ? or to imply that the rough seaman had a soft corner in his heart for penitents of the fair saint's description ? The line about the tempest-shaken beard is an effusion of the finest poetry. It invests the homely man with a sudden grandeur ; as though a storm itself had risen in the horizon, dignifying his rude vessel with danger. CHAUCER. 69 THE FRIAR'S TALE ; OK, THE SUMMONER AND THE DEVIL. A Summoner finds himself riding in company with a Devil, and makes an agreement with him which turns out to be of an unexpected nature. A Summoner was a church officer, who cited offenders into the ecclesiastical court. The friars and the dignified clergy were at great variance in Chaucer's time ; and therefore it is a friar who relates the following anmsing and exquisitely complete story, in which I have omitted nothing but a superfluous exor- dium. — And so befell, that ones on a day This Sompnour, waiting ever on his prey. Rode forth to sompne a widewe, an old ribibe,* Feining a cause, for he wold ban a bribe. And happed, that he saw beforn him ride A gay yeman under a forest side ; A bow he bare ; and arwes bright and kene He had upon a courtepy of grene. And hat upon his bed with frenges blake. Sire, quod the Sompnour, haile and wel atake. Welcome, quod he, and every good felaw. Whider ridest thou under this grene shaw ? (Saide this yeman) wolt thou fer to-day ? A summoner, who was ever on the watch for prey, rode forth one morn- ing to cheat a poor old woman, against whom he pretended to have a com- plaint. His track lay by a forest-side ; and it chanced, that he saw before him, under the trees, a yeoman on horseback, gaily equipped with a bow and arrows. The stranger was in a short green cloak : and he had a hat with a black fringe. " Good-morrow, sir," quoth the summoner, overtaking him. " The same to you," quoth the yeoman, " and to every other jolly com- panion. What road are you bound upon to-day through the green wood ? Are you going far ?" * Ribibe was a word for the musical instrument called also a rebec (a sort of guitar). Why it was applied to old women the commentators can- not say ; Tyrwhitt thinks, perhaps on account of its sharp tone. 70 CHAUCER This Sompnour him answerd, and saide, Nay, Here faste by (quod he) is min entent To ridcn, for to reiscn up a rent That longeth to my lordes duetee. A ! art thou than abaillif ? Ye, quod he. {He dorsth not, for vcray filth and shame. Say that he was a Sompnour, for the name). Depar Dieux, quod this yeman, leva brother, Thou art a baillif, and I am another ; I am unknowen as in this contree ; Of thin acquaintance I wol prayen thee. And eke of brothered, if that thee list. I have gold and silver lying in my chist; If that thee hap to come into our shire, Al shal be thin, right as thou w^olt desire. Grand mercy, qaod this Sompnour, by my faith. Everich in others bond his trouthe laith For to be sworne brethren til they dey. In daliaunce they riden forth and pley. This Sompnour, which that was as ful of jangles. As ful of venime ben thise wariangles,* And ever enguering upon everythi?ig, Brother, quod he, wher is now your dwelling, Another day if that I shuld you seche ? This yeman him answerd in softe speche, " No," replied the summoner. "My business is close at hand. I'm only going about a rent that's owing to my master." " Oh, what, you are a bailiff", then ?" quoth the yeoman. " Just so," returned the summoner. He had not the face to own him- self what he was ; the very name of summoner was such a disgrace. " Well now ; that's good," said the stranger ; " for I'm a bailiff" myself; and as I am not very well acquainted with this part of the country, I shall be glad of your good offices, if you have no objection to my company. I have plenty of money at home ; so if you travel into our parts, you shall want for nothing." " Many thanks," cried the summoner ; " I 'm yours, with all my heart." The new friends gave their hands to one another, and pushed on their horses merrily. The summoner, who always had an eye to business, and was besides of an inquisitive nature, and as fond of poking his nose into everything as a wood-pecker, lost no time in asking the stranger where he lived, in case he should come to see him. The yeoman, in a tone of singular gentleness, answered, that he should * Wariangles, wood-peckers. CHAUCER. 71 Brother, quod he, fer in the north contree,* Wher as I hope sometime I shall thee see. Or we depart I shall thee so wel wisse, That of min hous ne shalt thou never misse. Now brother, quod this Sompnour, I you pray Teche me, while that we riden by the way (Sith that ye ben a baillif as am I) Som subtiltee, and tell me faithfully In min office how I may moste winne ; And spareth not for conscience or for sinne. But, as my brother, tell me how do ye. Now by ray trouthe, brother min, said he. As I shal tellen thee a faithful tale. My wages ben ful strait and eke ful smale ; My lord is hard to me and dangerous. And min office is ful laborious. And therefore by extortion I leve ; Forsoth I take all that men wol me yeve : Al gates by sleighte or by violence Fro yere to yere I win all my dispence : I can no better tellen faithfully. Now certes (quod this Sompnour) so fare I ; I spare not to taken, God it wote, But if it be to hevy or to hote. What I may gete in conseil prively, No maner conscience of that have 1. N'ere min extortion I might not liven, Ne of swiche japes wol I not be shriven. be very glad of his visit ; that he lived indeed a great way off, in the north ; but that before they parted, he would instruct him so well in the locality, that it should be impossible for him to miss it. " Good," returned the summoner. " And now, as we are of one accord and one occupation, pray let me into a secret or two, how I may prosper in my employment. Don't mince the matter as to conscience or sin, or any of that kind of nonsense ; but tell me plainly how you transact busi- ness yourself " Why, to say the truth," answered the yeoman, " I have a very hard master and very little wages ; and so I live by extortion. I take all that people give me, and a good deal more besides. I couldn't make both ends meet else ; and that's the plain fact." " Precisely my case," cried the summoner. " I take everything I can lay my hands on, unless it be too heavy or too hot. To the devil with The supposed locality of devils. 72 CHAUCER. Stomak ne conscience know I non ; I shrew thisc sliriftc fadcrs cvcrich on : Wei be we met, by God and by Seint Jame. But, leve brother, tell me than thy name, Quod this Sompnour. Right in this menh V'hile This yeman gan a litel for to smile. Brother, quod he, wolt thou that I thee tell ? I am a fend, my dwelling is in hell ; And here I ride about my pourchasing To wote wher men wol give me anything : My pourchas is th' effect of all my rent ; Loke how thou ridest for the same entent : To winnen good thou rekest never how : Right so fare I, for riden wol I now Unto the worldes ende for a praye. A, quod this Sompnour, benedicite ! what say ye 7 I wend ye were a yeman trewely ; Ye have a mannes shape as wel as I : Have ye then a figure determinat In helle, ther ye ben in your estat ? Nay, certainly, quod he, ther hrve we non ; But whan us liketh we can take us on, Or elles maUe you wene that we ben shape Sometime like a man, or like an ape, Or like an angel can I ride or go ; It is no wonder thing though it be so; A lousy jogelour can deceiven thee. And parde yet can I more craft than he. conscience and repentance, say I. Catch me at confession who can. Well are we met, by the Lord. What is your name, my dear fellow ?" The yeoman began smiling a little at this question. " Why, if you must know," quoth he, " my name, betwixt you and me, is Devil. I am a fiend, and live in hell ; and I am riding hereabouts to see what I can get. Your business and mine is precisely the same. You don't care how you get anything provided you succeed ; nor do I. I'll ride to the world's end, for instance, this very morning, sooner than not meet with a prey." " God bless me," cried the summoncr, crossing himself, " a * devil' do you say ? I thought you were a man like myself. You have a man's shape. Have you no particular shape then of your own .-"' " Not a bit of it," quoth the stran'.;er. " We take what likeness we please ; sometimes a man's, sometimes a monkey's ; nay, an angel's, if it suits us. And no marvel. For a common juggler can deceive your eyes in such matters ; and it is hard if a devil can't do it better than a juggler." CHAUCER. 73 Why, quod the Sompnour, ride ye than or gon In sondry shape, and not alway in on ? For we, quod he, wol us swiche forme make As most is able our preye for to take. What maketh you to han al this labour ! Ful many a cause, leve Sire Sompnour, Saide this fend. But alle thing hath time ; The day is short, and it is passed prime. And yet ne wan I nothing in this day ; I wol entend to winning if I may. And not intend our thinges to declare ; For, brother min, thy wil is al to bare To understand, although I told hem thee. But for thou axest why labouren we ? For sometime we be Goddes instruments, And menes to don his commandements Whan that him list, upon his creatures In divers actes and in divers figures : Withouten him we have no might certain. If that him list to stonden theragain. And sometime at our praiere han we leve Only the body and not the soul to greve ; Witnesse on Job, whom that we diden wo ; And sometime han we might on bothe two This is to sain, on soule and body eke : And sometime be we suffered for to seke Upon a man, and don his soule unrest Anc" not his body, and all is for thebeste. Whan he withstandeth our temptation, It is a cause of his salvation ; " But why," inquired the summoner, " not be content with some one shape in particular ?" " Because," replied the other, " the more disguises, the more booty." " That is taking a great deal of trouble, is it not ?"' asked the summoner. " Why couldn't you take less ?" *' For many reasons, good Master Summoner," quoth the devil. " But all in good time. The day wears, and I have got nothing yet, so I must attend to business. Besides, you couldn't understand the matter, if I told it. You haven't wit enough for its comprehension. But if you ask why we trouble ourselves at all, you must know, that God wills it, and that devils themselves are but instruments in his hands. We can do nothing at all if he doesn't choose it ; and do what we may, we can sometimes go no further than the body. We are not always permitted to touch the soul. Witness the case of Job. Sometimes, on the other hand, we are permitted to torment a man's soul, and not his body : and all is for the best. Our very temptations are the cause of a man being saved, if he resists them. 5 74 CHAUCER. Al be it that it was not our entente He shuld be sauf, but that we wold him hente. And sometime be we servants unto man, As to the Archebishop Seint Dunstan, And to the Apostle servant eke was I. Yet tell me, quod this Sompnour, faithfully. Make ye you newe bodies thus alway Of elements ? The fend answered. Nay. Sometime we feine, and sometime we arise With dede bodies, in ful sondry wise. And speke as re'nably, and faire, and wel. As to the Phitonesse did Samuel ; And yet wol som men say it was not he : I do no force of your divinitee. But o thing warne I thee, I wol not jape ; Thou wolt algates wete how we be shape ; Thou shalt hereafterward, my brother dere. Com wher thee nedeth not of me to lere. For thou shalt by thin owen experience Conne in a chaiere rede of this sentence Bet than Virgile, while he was on live. Or Dant also. Now let us riden blive. For I wol holden compagnie with thee Til it be so that thou forsake me. Nay, quod this Sompnour, that shal never betide. I am a yeman knowen is ful wide ; My trouthe wol I hold to thee, my brother. As I have sworne, and ache of us to other, Not that we have any such good intention. Our design is to carry him away with us, body and soul. Sometimes we are even compelled to be servants to a man. Archbishop Dunstan had a devil for a servant ; and I served an Apostle myself." " And have you a new body every time you disguise yourselves," in- quired the summoner ; " or is it only a seeming body .'" " Only a seeming body sometimes," answered the devil. " Sometimes also we possess a dead body, and give people as good substantial words, as Samuel did to the witch ; though some learned persons are of opinion that it was not Samuel whom she raised, but only his likeness. Be all this as it may, of one thing you may be certain, my good friend ; and that is, that you shall know more of us by-and-by, and be able to talk more learnedly about it, than Virgil did when he was living, or Dante himself. At pre- sent, let us push on. I like your company vastly ; and will stick to you, as long as you do not choose to forsake mine." *' Nay," cried the summoner, " never talk of that. I am very well known for respectability; and I liold myself as firmly pledged to you, as CHAUCER. 75 For to be trewe brethren in this cas, And bothe we gon abouten our pourchas. Take thou thy part, what that men wol thee yeve. And I shall min, thus may we bothe leve ; And if that any of us have more than other, Let him be trewe, and part it with his brother. I graunte, quod the devil, by my fay ; And with -that word they riden forth her way ; And right at entring of the tounes ende To which this Sompnour shope him for to wende, They saw a cart that charged was with hay. Which that a carter drove forth on his way. Depe was the way, for which the carte stood ; The carter smote, and cried as he were wood, Hcit, Scot ; heit, Brok ; what, spare ye for the stones ? The fend (quod he) you fecche, body and bones, As ferforthly as ever ye were foled. So mochel wo as I have with you tholed. The devil have al, bothe hors, and cart, and hay. The Sompnour sayde, Here shal we have a praye ; And nere the fend he drow, as nought ne were, Ful prively, and rouned in his ere ; Herken, my brother, herken, by thy faith ; Herest thou not how that the carter saith ? Hent it anon, for he hath yeve it thee. Both hay and cart, and eke his caples three. Nay, quod the devil, God wot, never a del ! It is not his entente, trust thou me wel : Axe him thyself, if thou not trowest me ; Or elles stint awhile, and thou shalt see. you do yourself to me. We are to ride and prosper together. You are to take what people give you ; I am to take what I can get ; and if the profits turn out to be unequal, we divide them." *' Quite right," said the devil ; and so they push forward. They were now entering a town ; and before them was a hay-cart which had stuck in the mud. The carter, who was in a rage, whipped his horses like a madman. " Heit, Scot ! heit, Brok !" cried he to the beasts ; " What ! it's the stones, is it, that make you so lazy .-' The devil take ye both, say I. Am I to be thwacking and thumping all day.? The devil take you, hay, cart, and all." " Ho, ho !" quoth the summoner, " here's something to be got." He drew close to his companion, and whispered him : " Don't you hear ?" said he. " The carter gives you his hay, cart, and three horses." *' Not he," answered the devil. " He says so, but he doesn't mean it. Ask him, if he does. Or wait a little, and you'll see." 76 CHAUCER. This carter thakketh his hors upon the croupe, And tht'if begoiine to drawen and to stot/pe. Heit tiow, quod he ; ther, Jesu Crist you hiesse. And all his hondes werk, bothe more and Icsse ! That was Wtl twight, mine owtn Liard hoy : I pray God save thy body and Seint Eloy. Now is my cart out of the slough, parde. Lo, brother, quod the fend, what told I thee. Here may ye seen, mine owen dere brother. The cherl spake o ining, but he thought another^ Let us go forth abouten our viage ; Here win I nothing upon this cariage. Whan that they comen somwhat out of toun. This Sompnour to his brother gan to roune ; Brother, quod he, here woneth an old rebekke, That had almost as lefe to lese hire nekke As for to yeve a peny of hire good : I wol have twelf pens, though that she be wood. Or I wol somone hire to our office; And yet, God wot, of hire know I no vice ; But for thou canst not as in this contree Winnen thy cost, take here ensample of me. This Sompnour clappeth at the widewes gate ; Come out, he sayd, thou olde very trate ; I trow thou hast som frere or preest with thee. Who clappeth .' said this wif, benedicite ! The carter thwacked his horses again, and they began to stoop and to draw. "Heit now; — gee up; — matthy wo; — ah, — God bless 'em — there they come. That was well twitched, Grey, my old boy. God bless you, say I, and Saint Elias to boot. My cart's out of the slough at last." " There," said the devil ; " You see how it is. The fellow said one thing, but he thought another. We must e'en push on. There's nothing to be got here. The companions continued their way through the town, and weie just quitting it, when the summoner, pulling his bridle as he reached a cottage door, said, " There's an old hag living here, who would almost as soon break her neck as part with a halfpenny I'll get a shilling out of her, for that, though it drive her mad. She shall have a summons else, and that'll be worse for her. Not that she has committed any ollence, God knows. That's quite another business. But mark me now : and see what you must do, if you would get anything in these parts." The summoner rattled the old woman's gate, crying, *' Come out, old trot ; — come out ; — you've got some friar or priest with you I" " Who's there .'" said the woman. " Lord bless us ! God save you, sir ! What is your will ?" CHAUCER. 77 God save you, sire, what is your swete will ? I have, quod he, of somons here a bill : Up peine of cursing loke that thou be To-morwe before the archedekenes knee, To answere to the court of certain thinges. Now Lord, quod she, Christ Jesu, King of kinges, So wisely helpe me as I ne may, I have been sike, and that full many a day : I may not go so fer (quod she") ne ride But I be ded, so priketh it my side. May I not axe a libel, Sire Sompnour, And answere ther by my procuratour To swiche thing as men wold apposen me ? Yes, quod this Sompnour, pay anon, let see, 'Twelf pens to me, and I will thee acquite : I shall no profit han therby but lite ; My maister hath the profit and not I. Come of, and let me riden hastily ; Yeve me twelf pens, I may no lenger tarie. Twelf pens ! quod she ; nov/ Lady Seint Marie So wisly helpe me out of care and sinne. This wide world though that I shuld it winne, Ne have I not twelf pens within my hold. Ye knowen wel that I am poure and old ; Kithe your almesse upon me, poure wretche. Nay then, quod he, the foule fend me fetche " I've a summons for you," said the man. " You must be with the archdeacon to-morrow, on pain of excommunication, to answer to certain charges." " Charges !" cried the poor woman. " Heaven help me ! there can be no charges against a poor sick body like me. How am I to come to the archdeacon .' I can't even go in a cart, it gives me such a pain in my side. Mayn't I have a summons on paper, and so get the lawyer to see to it ?" " To be sure you may," answered the summoner, " provided you pay me down — let me see— ay, a shilling. That will be your quittance, and all. I get nothing by it, I assure you. My master has all the fees. Come, make haste, for I must be going. A shilling. Do you hear .'" " A shilling ?" exclaimed she. " Heaven bless us and save us ! Where, in all the wide world, am I to get a shilling .' You know I haven't a pen- ny to save my life. It's myself, that ought to have a shilling given to me, poor wretch !" " Devil fetch me then, if you won't be cast," said the summoner ; " for I shan't utter a syllable in your favor." 7S CHAUCER. If I thee excuse, though thou shuldest be spilt. Alas ! (juod she, God wot I have no gilt. Pay me, qu^d he, or by the swetc Seinte Anne As I wol here away thy newe panne For dette which thou owest me of old, Whan that thou madest thyn husbond cokewold, I paied at home for thy correction. Thou liest, quod she, by my salvation ; Ne was I never or now, widow ne wif, Sompned unto your court in all my lif, Ne never I n'as but of my body trevre. Unto the devil rough and blake of hew^e Yeve I thy body and my panne also. And whan the devil herd hire cursen so Upon hire knees, he sayd in this manere ; A'^ow, Mabily, min oiven moder dere. Is this your will m earnest that ye say 7 The devil, quod she, so fetche him or he dey, And panne and all, but he wol him repent. Nay, olde stot, that is not min entent. Quod this Sompnour, for to repenten me For anything that I have had of thee : I wold I had thy smok and every cloth. J\''ow, brother, quod the devil, be not wroth ; Thy body and this panne ben min by right : Thou shalt with me to helle yet to-night, " Alas !" cried she, "God knows I'm innocent ! I've done nothing in the world." " Pay me," interrupted the summoner, " or I'll carry away the nev/ pan I 866 yonder. You have owed me as much years ago, for getting you out of that scrape about your husband." " Scrape about my husband !" cried the old widow. " What scrape ! You are a lying wretch. I never was in any scrape about my husband, or anything ; nor ever summoned into your court in all my born days. Go to the devil yourself. May he take you and the pan together." The poor old soul fell on her knees as she said these words, in order to give the greater strength to the imprecation. " Now, Mabel, my good mother," cried the devil, " do you speak this in earnest .'" " Ay, marry do I," cried she " May the devil fetch him, pan and all ; that is to say, unless he repents." " Repent !" exclaimed the summoner : " I'd sooner take every rag you have on your bones, you old reprobate." " Now, brother," said the devil, " calm your feelings. I'm very sorry, but you must e'en go where the old woman desires. You and the pan are CHAUCER. 79 WTier thou shall knowtn of our privetee More than a maister of divinitee. And with that word the foule fend him hent Body and soule : he with the devil went Wher as thise Sompnours han hir heritage. THE PARDONER'S WAY OF PREACHING. Lordings, quod he, in chirche whan I preche, I peine me to have an hautein speche, And ring it out as round as goth a belly For I can all by rote that I tell. My teme is always on, and ever was, ** Radix malorum est cupiditas."^ ***** Than peine J me to stretchen forth my necke. And est and west upon the peple I becke. As doth a dove sitting upon a berne : Myn hondes and my tonge gon so yerne. That it is joye to see my besinesse. Of avarice and swiche cursednesse Is all my preching, for to make hem free To yeve hire pens, and namely, unto me ; For min entente is not but for to winne. And nothing for correction of sinne : mine. We must arrive to-night ; and then you'll know more about us all and our craft, than ever was discovered by Doctor of Divinity," And with these words, sure enough, the devil carried him off. He took him to the place where summoners are in the habit of going. Gentlemen (said the pardoner), whenever I preach in the pulpit, I make a point of being as noisy as possible, ringing the whole sermon out as loud as a bell ; for which purpose I get it by heart. My text is always the same, and ever was : — "Radix maloriira est cupiditas.'' I stretch forth my neck and nod on the congregation right and left, like a dove sitting on a barn ; and my hands and my tongue go so busily together, that it is a pleasure to see me. I preach against nothing but avarice, and cursed vices of that sort; for my only object is to make the people disburse freely ; videlicet, unto myself. My sermon has never any other purpose. 80 CHAUCER. I recke never whan that they be beried, Though that hire soules gon a blake-beried. * * * ^e * Therefore my teme is yet, and ever was. Radix malorum est cupjditas. ' •' Radix malorum est cupiditas." — Covetousness is the root of all evil. — Those critics who supposed that Chaucer, notwithstanding his intimacy with the Latin and Italian poets, and his own hatred of " mis-metre," had no settled rules of versification, would have done well to consider the rhythmical exactitude with which he fits Latin quotations into his lines. See another instance in the extract entitled Gallantry of Translation. He is far more particular in this respect than versifiers of later ages. THE MERCHANT'S OPINION OF WIVES. A wif is Goddes yefte veraily ; All other maner yeftes hardely, As londes, rentes, pasture, or commune, Or mebles, all ben yeftes of Fortune, TJiat passen as a shadow on the wall : But drede thou not if plainly speke I shal ; A wif wot last and in thin hous endure Wei lenger than thee list — paraventure. I care nothing for the amendment of the disbursers. When the sexton is ready for them, I have done with them. They may go where they please for me, by millions, like black-berries. Therefore my only text, I say, is still, and always was, " Radix malorum est cupiditas.^' A wife is the gift of Heaven : — there's no doubt of it. Every other kind of gift, such as lands, rents, furniture, right of pasture or common, — these are all mere gifts of fortune, that pass away like shadows on a wall ; but you have to apprehend no such misfortune with a wife. Your wife will last longer, perhaps, even than you may desire. CHAUCER. 81 A wif ? A ! Seinte Marie, benedicite ! How might a man have any adversite That hath a wif 7 certes I cannot seye. The blisse the which that is betwix hem tweye Ther may no tonge telle or herte thinke. If he be poure, she helpeth him to swinke ; She kepeth his goods, and wasteth never a del ; All that hire husbond doth, hire liketh wel : She saith not ones, JVay, whan he saifh, Ye • Do this, saith he ; Al redy, sire, saith she. O blissful ordre, o wedlok precious ! Thou art so mery and eke so vertuous. And so commended and approved eke, That every man that holt him w^orth a leke. Upon his bare knees ought, all his lif, Thanken his God that him hath sent a wif. Or elles pray to God him for to send A wife to last unto his lives end ; For than his lif is set in sikerness, He may not be deceived, as I gesse. So that he werche after his loives rede ; Than may he boldly beren up his hede, They ben so trewe, and therwithal so wise ; For which, if thou wilt werchen as the wise, Do alway so as women wol thee rede. A wife ? Why, bless my soul, how can a man have any adversity that has a wife ? Answer me that. Tongue cannot tell, nor heart think, of the felicity there is between a man and his wife. If he is poor, she helps him to work. She takes care of his money for him, and never wastes anything. She never says " yes," when he says " no." " Do this," says he. " Di- rectly," says she. blessed institution ! precious wedlock ! thou art so joyous, and at the same time so virtuous, and so recommended to us all, and so approved by us all, that every man who is worth a farthing should go down on his bare knees, every day of his existence, and thank Heaven for having sent him a wife ; or if he hasn't got one, he ought to pray for one, and beg that she may last him to his life's end ; for his life, in that case, is set in security. Nothing can deceive him. He has only to act by his wife's advice, and he may hold up his head with the best. A wife is so true, — so wise. Oh! ever while you live, take your wife's advice, if you would be thought a wise man. 5* S2 CHAUCER. . GALLANTRY OF TRANSLATION. In the fable of the Cock and the Fox, the Cock, who has been alarmed by a dream, and consulting about it with his wife Dame Partlet, quotes a Latin sentence which tells us, that " woman is man's confusion," but he contrives at once to retain the satire, and make the lady feel grateful for it, by the following exquisite version : — But let us speke of mirthe, and stinte all this. Madame Pertelot, so have I blis, Of o thing God hath sent me large grace : For whan I see the bcautee of your face, '"' Ye ben so scarlet red about your eyeii. It maketh all my drede for to dien ; For, al so sicker as In principio, MULXER EST HOMINIS CONFUSIO. Madame, the sentence of this Latine is, JVoman is mannesjoye and niannps blis} ' " Woman is mannes joy and mannes blis." — Or as the same words would have been written at a later day : — Woman is m.an his joy and man his bliss. The Latin quotation is from the writings of a Dominican friar, Vincent de Beauvais. Sir Walter Scott was much taken with this wicked jest of Chanticleer's. " The Cock's polite version," says he, " is very ludicrous." (Edition of Drydon, vol. xi., p. 340.) Dryden's translation of the passage is very inferior to the oritrinal : — O' *' Madam, the meaning of this Latin is, That woman is to man his sovereign bliss." But let us speak of mirth, and put an end to all .this. Madame Partlet, as I hope to be saved, Heaven has shown me special favor in one respect ; for when I behold the beauty of your face, you are so scarlet red about the eyes, it is impossible for me to dread anything. There is an old and a true saying, the same now as it was in the beginning of the world, and that is, Mulier est hominis confusio. Madam, the mean- ing of this Latin is, — Woman is man's joy and man's bliss. CHAUCER S3 The conventional phrase " sovereign bliss," is nothing compared with the grave repetition and enforcement of the insult in Chaucer : — Woman is mannes /oy and mannes blis. ' THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE FAIRIES. In olde dayes of the King Artour, Of which that Bretons speken gret honour. All was this lond fulfilled of Faerie ; The Elf queue with hire joly compagnie Danced ful oft in many a grene niede ; This was the old opinion, as I rede ; I speke of many hundred yeres ago, . But now^ can no man see non elves me; For now the grete charitee and prayeres Of limitoures and other holy freres, That serchen every land and every streme. As thikke as motts in the sonne heme, Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures, Citees and burghes, castles highe and toures, Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies. This maketh that ther ben no Faeries : For ther as wont to walken was an elf^ Ther walketh now the limitour himself In undermeles and in morweninges, And sayth his matines and his holy thinges As he goth in his limitati'oun. Women may now go safely up and down ; In the old days of King Arthur, which the Bretons hold in such high estimation, this land was all full of fairies. The Elf-Queen, with her merry attendants, was always dancing about the green meads. Such at least was the opinion a long time ago, — many hundred years. Nowadays we see them no longer ; for the charity and piety of the begging friars, and others of their holy brethren, who make search everywhere by land and water, as thick as the motes in the sun-beams, blessing our halls, chambers, kitchens, bowers, cities, boroughs, towers, castles, villages, barns, dairies, and sheep-folds, have caused the fairies to vanish ; for where the fairy used to be, there is now the friar himself. You are sure to meet him before breakfast and dinner, saying his matins and holy things, and going about with his wallet. Women may now go up and down in 84 CHAUCER. In every hush, and under every tree, Ther is non other Incubus but Ac' safety ; for though they may see things in the bushes and under the trees, it's only the friar. There is no other incubus but he. > " Ther is non other incubus hut Ac"— The incubus was the suc- cessor of the ancient Faun ; and, though a mischievous spirit, was supposed to be sometimes in love. Hence a twofold satire in the allusion. SHAKSPEARE. 85 SHAKSPEARE. [See the volume entitled ^^Imagination and Fancy, ^^ page 106.] Shakspeare had as great a comic genius as tragic ; and every, body would think so, were it possible for comedy to impress the mind as tragedy does. It is true, the times he lived in, as Hazlitt has remarked, were not so foppish and ridiculous as those of our prose comic dramatists, and therefore he had not so much to laugh at : and it is observed by the same critic, with equal truth, that his genius was of too large and magnanimous a description to delight in satire. But who doubts that had Shakspeare lived in those inferior times, the author of the character of Mercutio could have written that of Dorimant ? of Benedick and Beatrice, the dialogues of Con- greve 1 or of Tioelfth Night and the Taming of the Shrew, the most uproarious farce ? I certainly cannot think with Dr. Johnson, that he wrote comedy better than tragedy ; that " his tragedy seems to be skill, and his comedy instinct." I could as soon believe that the instinct of Nature was confined to laughter, and that her tears were shed upon principles of criticism. Such may have been the Doctor's recipe for writing tragedy ; but Irene is not King Lear. Laughter and tears are alike born with us, and so was the power of exciting them with Shakspeare ; because it pleased Nature to make him a complete human being. Shakspeare had wit and humor in perfection ; and like every possessor of powers so happy, he rioted in their enjoyment. Mo- liere was not fonder of running down a joke : Rabelais could not give loose to a more " admirable fooling." His mirth is com- mensurate with his melancholy : it is founded on the same know- ledge and feeling, and it furnished him with a set-ofF to their op- 86 SHAKSPEARE. prcssion. When he had been too thoughtful with Hamlet, he " took it out" with FalstalT and Sir Toby. Not that he was ha- bitually melancholy. He had too healthy a brain for that, and too great animal spirits ; but in running the whole circle of thought, he must of necessity have gone through its darkest as well as brightest phases ; and the sunshine was welcome in pro- portion. Shakspeare is the inventor of the phrase, " setting the table in a roar ;" of the memory of Yorick ; of the stomach of FalstafT, stuffed as full of wit as of sack. He " wakes the night- owl with a catch;" draws "three souls out of one weaver ;" passes the " equinoctial of Queubus" (some glorious torrid zone, lying beyond three o'clock in the morning) ; and reminds the " unco righteous" for ever, that virtue, false or true, is not incom- patible with the recreations of " cakes and ale." Shakspeare is said to have died of getting out of a sick-bed to entertain Tiis friends Drayton and Ben Jonson, visitors from London. He might have died a later and a graver death, but he could not well have had one more genial, and therefore more poetical. Far was it from dishonoring the eulogizer of "good men's feasts;" the recorder of the noble friends Antonio and Bassanio ; the great thorough-going humanist, who did equal justice to the gravest and the gayest moments of life. It is a remarkable proof of the geniality of Shakspeare's jest- ing, that even its abundance of ideas does not spoil it ; for, in comedy as well as tragedy, he is the most reflective of writers. I know but of one that comes near him in this respect ; and very near him (I dare to affirm) he does come, though he has none of his poetry, properly so called. It is Sterne ; in whose Tristram Shandy there is not a word without meaning, — often of the pro- foundest as well as kindliest sort. The professed fools of Shak- speare are among the wisest of men. They talk ^Esop and Solomon in every jest. Yet they amuse as much as they in- struct us. The braggart Parolles, whose name signifies words, as though he spoke nothing else, scarcely utters a sentence that is not rich with ideas ; yet his weakness and self-committals hang over them all like a sneaking infection, and hinder our laughter from becoming respectful. The scene in which he is taken blindfold among his old acquaintances, and so led to SHAKSPEARE. S7 vilify their characters, under the impression that he is gratifying their enemies, is ahuost as good as the screen-scene in the School for Scandal. I regret that I can give nothing of it in this volume, nor even of FalstafF, and Sir Toby, nor Benedick, nor Autolycus, &c., &c., almost all the most laughable comedies of Shakspeare being writ- ten in prose. But if it could have been given, how should I have found room for anything else ? The confinement to verse luckily does not exclude some entertaining specimens both of his humor and wit. THE COXCOMB.! Hotspur gives an account of a noble coxcomb, who pestered him at an unseasonable moment. Hotspur. My liege, I did deny no prisoners. But, I remember, when the fight was done, When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress'd. Fresh as a bridegroom ; and his chin, new reap'd, Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest home ; He was perfumed like a milliner : And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose, and took 't away again ; — Who, therewith angry, when it next came there, Took it in snuff" ;2 — and still he smil'd and talk'd: And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, He called them — untaught knaves, unmannerly, To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse Betwixt the wind and his nobility. With many holiday and lady terms He questioned me ; among the rest demanded My prisoners, in your Majesty's behalf. I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold. To be so pestered with a popinjay. Out of my grief and my impatience, Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what ; 88 SHAKSPEARE. He should, or he should not ;— for he made me mad. To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet. And talk so lUxc a waiting gentlewoman. Of guns, and drums, and wounds {God save the mark!). And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth Was parmaceti, for an inward bruise ; And that it was great pity, so it was. That villainous saltpetre should be digg'd Out of the bowels of the harmless earth. Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd So cowardly ; and, but for these vile guns, He would himself have been a soldier. This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord, I answer'd indirectly, as I said ; And, I beseech you, let not his report Come current for an accusation, Betwixt my love and your high m?ijesty. 1 " The Coxcomb."— One fancies an ancient Brummell described in this picture, and is led to give Hotspur's contemptuous mimicry a corresponding tone of voice, and doubtless with propriety. For coxcombry, like greater qualities, is the same in all ages, — a compound affectation of exquisiteness, indifference, and hollow superiority. Hotspur's nobleman, Rochester's Jack Hewitt, Etheredge's Flutter, Vanbrugh's Lord Foppington, Pope's Sir Plume, &c., &c., down to Brummell himself, all, we may rest assured, spoke in the same instinctive tone of voice, fleeting modes apart. 2 " Took it in snuff." — A pun ; meaning, in the phraseology of the time, in dudgeon. But the pettiest of figures of speech ac- quires here a singular force of propriety, from its conveyance of contempt. UNWITTING SELF-CRIMINATION. In this pleasant specimen of the way in which a complainant may be led into self-committals by the apparent good faith of leading questions, I have stopped short of the lecture which the Abbess proceeds to give the wife. The remark with which she SHAKSPEARE. 89 commences it, includes the whole spirit of it in one epigram, matic sentence. The passage is in the Comedy of Errors ; a play, I think, which would be more admired, if readers were to give its perplexities a little closer attention. Enter the Abbess, Abb. Be quiet, people. Wherefore throng you hither .' Adriana. To fetch my poor distracted husband hence. Let us come in, that we may bind him fast, And bear him home for his recovery. Angela. I knew he was not in his perfect wits. Merchant. I am sorry now that I did draw on him. Abb. How long hath this possession held the man ? Adr. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad, And much, much different from the man he was ; But, till this afternoon, his passion Ne'er brake into extremity of rage. Abb. Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck at sea ? Buried some dear friend ? Hath not else his eye Stray'd his affection in unlawful love ? A sin prevailing much in youthful men, Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing. Which of these sorrows is he subject to ? Adr. To none of these, except it be the last ; Namely, some love, that drew him oft from home. Abb. You should for that have reprehended him. Adr. Why, so I did. Abb. Ay, but not rough enough. Adr. As roughly as my modesty would let me. Abb. Haply in private. Adr. And in assemblies too. Abb. Ay, but not enough. Adr. It was the copy of our conference : In bed, he slept not for my urging it ; At board, he fed not for my urging it ; Alone, it was the subject of my theme ; In company, I often glanc'd at it ; Still did I tell him it was vile and bad. Abb. And therefore came it that the man was mad. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. All the scenes, actual or implied, in which the Shrew under- 90 SHAKSPEARE. oroes her course of taming, are brought together in these extracts ; so that, as in the instance of the Fairy Drama, selected from the Midsummer Nighl^s Dream, in the volume entitled Imagination and Fancy, they present a little play of themselves. The Taming of the Shrew, for its extravagance, ought rather to be called a farce than a comedy ; but it is none the worse for. tliat. A farce, in five acts, full of genius, may stand above a thousand comedies. The spirit of comedy is in it, with some- thin fr more. Several of Moliere's comedies are farces ; and so are those of Aristophanes. People whose will and folly are generally in such equal portions as those of shrews, may be frightened and kept down by wills equal to their own, accompa- nied with greater understandings ; but they are not to be tamed in the course of two or three weeks, even supposing them to be tameable at all, or by anything short of the severest rebukes of fortune. Shakspeare knew this, and has poetized his farce and put it in verse, the better to carry off the high and jovial fancy of Petruchio ; who, it muSl be allowed, was the man to succeed in his project, if ever man could. He is a fine, hearty compound of bodily and mental vigor, adorned by wit, spirits, and good na- ture. He does not marry Katharine merely for her dowry. He likes also her pretty face; and, in the gaiety of his animal spirits, he seems to have persuaded himself, that one pretty woman is as good as another, provided she be put into a comfortable state of subjection by a good husband. Let the reader, however, note the concluding line of the play. I think Shakspeare meant to intimate by it, that even the gallant Petruchio would find his victory not so complete as he fancied. Scene, in front of the house of the Bride's father, Baptista. Enter Baptista, Gremio, Tranio, Katharina, Bianca, Lucen- Tio, and Attendants. Baptista. Signior Lucentio \to Tranio], this is the 'pointed day That Katharine and Petrucliio should be married. And yet we hear not of our son-in-law : SHAKSPEARE. 91 What will be said ? What mockery will it be, To want the bridegroom, when the priest attends To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage ? What says Lucentio to this shame of ours ? Katharine. No shame but mine : \ must, forsooth, be forc'd To give my hand, oppos'd against my heart. Unto a mad-brain'd rudesby, full of spleen ; Who woo'd in haste, and means to wed at leisure. I told you, I, he was a frantic fool. Hiding Jiis bitter jests in blunt behavior : And, to be noted for a merry man. He'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage. Make friends, invite, yes, and proclaim the banns ; Yet never means to wed where he hath woo'd. Now must the world point at poor Katharine, And say, — " Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife, If it would please him come and marry her." Tranio. Patience, good Katharine, and Baptista too ; Upon my life, Petruchio means but well. Whatever fortune stays him from his word. Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise ; Though he be merry, yet withal he's honest. Kath. 'Would Katharine had never seen him though ! [Exit, weeping, followed hy Bianca and others. Bap. Go, girl ; I cannot blame thee now to weep ; For such an injury would vex a saint. Much more a shrew of thy impatient humor. Enter Biondello. Bion. Master, master ! News, old news, and such news as you never heard of. Bap. Is it new and old too ? how may that be ? Bion. Why, is it not news to hear of Petruchio's coming ? Bap. Is he come ? Bion. Why, no, sir. Bap. What then .' Bion. He is coming. Bap. When will he be here ? Bion. When he stands where I am, and sees you there. Tra. But say, what : — To thine old news. Bion. Why, Petruchio is coming, in a new hat and an old jerkin; a pair of old breeches, tKrice turned ; a pair of boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled and another laced ; an old rusty sword ta'en out of the town armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless ;* with two broken points ;t his * Chapeless^ without a catch to hold it. f Points, tags. !92 SHAKSPEARE. horse hipped* with an old mothy saddle, the stirrups of no kindred ; be- sides, possessed with the glanders, and like to mose in the chine ; troubled with the lanipass,* infected with the fashions,! full of wind-galls, sped with spavins, raied with tlie yellows, past cure of the fives, stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots ; swayed in the back, and shoul- der-shotten ; ne'er-legged before ; and with a half-checked bit, and a head- stall of sheep's leather ; which, being restrained to keep him from stum- bling, hath been often burst, and now repaired with knots : one girth six times pierced, and a woman's crupper of velure, which hath two letters for her name, fairly set down in studs, and here and there pieced with pack- thread.* Bap. Who comes with him ? Bio7i. 0, sir, his lackey, for all the world caparisoned like the horse ; with a linen stock on one leg, and a kersey boot-hose on the other, gartered with a red and blue list; and old hat and The Humor of Forty Fanciest pricked in't for a feather : a monster, a very monster in apparel ; and not like a Christian foot-boy, or a gentleman's lackey. Tra. 'Tis some odd humor pricks him to this fashion !— Yet oftentimes he goes but mean apparell'd. ****** Enter Petruchio and Grtjmio. Pet. Come, where be these gallants ? who is at home ? Bap. You are welcome, sir. P(;t, Where is my lovely bride .' How does my father ? Gentles, methinks you frown : And wherefore gaze this goodly company, As if they saw some wondrous monument, Some comet, or unusual prodigy .' Bap. Why, sir, you know this is your wedding-day : First were we sad, fearing you would not come ; Now sadder, that you come so unprovided. Fye ! doff this habit, shame to your estate, An eye-sore to our solemn festival. Tra. And tell us, what occasion of import Hath all so long detain'd you from your wife. And sent you hither so unlike yourself ? Pet. Tedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear ; Sufficeth, I am come to keep my word. Though in some part enforced to disgress,§ Which, at more leisure, I will so excuse * Lamp ass y a lump in the mouth. t The fashions, the farcy, a species of leprosy. X The Humor of Forty Fancies, supposed to be a collection of songs. § Disgress, deviate from the ordinary course. SHAKSPEARE. 93 As you shall well be satisfied, withal. But where is Kate ? I stay too long from her ; The morning wears, 'tis time we were at church. T7'a. See not your bride in these unreverent robes : Go to my chamber, put on clothes of mine. Pet. Not I, believe me ; thus I'll visit her. Bap. But thus, I trust, you will not marry her. Pet. Good sooth, even thus ; therefore have done with words; To me she's married, not unto my clothes. Could I repair what she will wear in me. As I can change these poor accoutrements, 'Twere well for Kate, and better for myself. But what a fool am I to chat with you, When I should bid good-morrow to my bride, And seal the title with a lovely kiss ? lExeunt Petruchio, Grumio, and Biondello. Ty-a. He hath some meaning in his mad attire. We will persuade him, be it possible. To put on better ere he go to church. Bap. I'll after him, and see the event of this. \_Exit. The rest discourse of other matters, and then follow Baptista. The wedding ensues ; the particulars of which are thus gathered from one of the persons present : — Enter Gremio. Tranio. Signior Gremio ! come you from church ? Gre. As willingly as e'er I came from school. Tra. And is the bride and bridegroom coming home .' Gre. A bridegroom, say you ? 'tis a groom, indeed, A grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find, Tra. Curster than she ? why, 'tis impossible. Gre. Why, he's a devil, a devil, a very fiend. Tra. Why, she's a devil, a devil, the devil's dam. Gre. Tut ! she's a lamb, a dove, a fool to him, I'll tell you. Sir Lucentio : When the priest Should ask, if Katharine should be his wife, Ay, by gogs-wouns, quoth he ; and swore so loud, That, all amaz'd, the priest let fall the book ; And, as he stoop'd again to take it up. The mad-hrained bridegroom took him such a cuff. That down fell priest and book, and book and priest : "Now take them up," quoth he, "if any list." Tra. What said the wench, when he arose again ? 94 SHAKSPEARE. Gre. Trembled and shook; for why, he stamp'd and swore, As if the vicar meant to cozen him. But after many ceremonies done,' He calls for wine : " A health,"" quoth he ; as if He had been aboard carousing to his mates After a storm ; quafled off the muscadel, And threw the sops all in the sextants face ; Having no other reason. But that his beard greiv thin and hungerly. And seemed to ask him sops as he was drinking. This done, he took the bride about tho neck, And kissed her lips with such a clamorous smack. That, at the parting, all the church did echo. I, seeing this, came thence for very shame ; And after me, I know, the rout is coming : Such a mad marriage never was before ; Hark, hark ! I hear the minstrels play. {Music Enter Petruchio, Katharina, Bianca, Baptista, Hortensio, Grumio, and Train. Pet. Gentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains : I know you think to dine with me to-day. And have prepar'd great store of wedding cheer : But so it is, my haste must call me hence. And therefore here I mean to take my leave. Bap. Is't possible you will away to-night ? Pet. I must away to-day, before night come ; — Make it no wonder ; — if you knew my business, You would entreat me rather go than stay. And, honest company, I thank you all, That have beheld me give away myself To this most patient, sweet, and virtuous wife. Dine with my father, drink a health to me ; For I must hence, and farewell to you all. Tra. Let us entreat you stay till after dinner. Pet. It may not be. Gre. Let me entreat you. Pet. It cannot be. Kath. Let mo entreat you. Pet. 1 am content. Kath. Are you content to stay .' Pet. J am content you shall entreat me stay ; But yet not stay, entreat me how you can. Kath. JVow, if you love me, stay. Pet. Grumio, my horses. SHAKSPEARE. 95 Gru. Ay, sir, they be ready ; the oats have eaten the horses. Kath. Nay, then, Do what thou canst, I will not go to-day ; No, nor to-morrow, nor till I please myself. The door is open, sir, there lies your way. You may be jogging while your boots are green ; For me, I'll not be gone, till I please myself: — *Tis like you'll prove a jolly surly groom, That take it on you at the first so roundly. Pet. 0, Kate, content thee, pr'ythee, be not angry. Kath. I will be angry ; What hast thou to do .'' Father, be quiet ; he shall stay my leisure. Gre. Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work. Kath. Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner : I see a woman may be made a fool. If she had not a spirit to resist. Pet. They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command : Obey the bride, you that attend on her : Go to the feast, revel and domineer. Be mad and merry, — or go hang yourselves ; But for my bonny Kate, she must with ine. Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret ; I will be master of what is mine own : She is my goods, my chattels ; she is my housCy My household stuff, my field, my barn. My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything ; And here she stands, touch her whoever dare; I'll bring my action on the proudest he That stops my way in Padua. — Grumio, Draw forth thy weapon, we're beset with thieves ; Rescue thy mistress, if thou be a man : — Fear not, sweet wench, they shall not touch thee, Kate ; I'll buckler thee against a million. lExeunt Petruchio, Katharina, and Grumio, Bap. Nay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones ! Gre. Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing. Tra. Of all mad matches, never was the like ! Scene. — A Hall in Petruchio^s Country House. Enter Grumio. Gru. Fye, fye on all tired jades ! on all mad masters ! and all foul ways ! Was ever man so beaten ? was ever man so rayed ?* was ever man so weary ? * Rayed, bewrayed, bemired. 96 SHAKSPEARE. I am sent before to make a fire, and they are coming after to warm them. Now, were not I a little pot, and soon hot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth, ere I should come by a fire to thaw me. Holla! hoa! Curtis. Curt. Who is that, calls so coldly ? Giu. A piece of ice. If thou doubt it, thou may'st slide from my shoulder to my heel, with no greater ruti but my head and my neck. A fire, good Curtis. Curt. Is my master and his wife coming, Grumio .' G7U. 0, ay, Curtis, ay, and therefore fire, fire ; cast on no water. Curt. Is she so hot a shrew as she's reported ? Gru. She was, good Curtis, before this frost : but thou knowest, winter tames man, woman and beast ; for it hath tamed my old master, and my new mistress, and myself, fellow Curtis. We came down a foul hill, my mas- ter riding behind my mistress. Curt. Both on one horse .'' Gru. What's that to thee ? Curt. Why, a horse. Gru. Tell thou the tale. — But had'st thou not crossed me, thou should'st have heard how her horse fell, and she under her horse ; thou should'st have heard, in how miry a place : how she was bomoiled, how he left her with the horse upon her ; how he beat me because her horse stumbled ; how she waded through the dirt to pluck him off me ; how he swore ; how she prayed — that never prayed before ; how I cried ; how the horses ran away, how her bridle was burst, how I lost my crupper ; — with many things of worthy memory which now shall die in oblivion, and thou return inex- perienced to thy grave. Curt. By this reckoning, he is more shrew than she. Gru. Ay, and that thou and the proudest of you all shall find, when he silence ! 1 hear my master. Enter Petruchio and Katharina. Pet. Where be these knaves ? What, no man at the door, To hold my stirrup, nor to take my horse ! Where is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip .' All Serv. Here, sir ; Here, sir. Pet. Here, sir! here, sir ! here, sir ! here, sir ! — You logger-headed and unpolish'd grooms ! What, no attendance .'' no regard .' no duty .' — Where is the foolish knave I sent before ? Gru. Here, sir ; as foolish as I was before. Pet. You peasant swain ! Did I not bid thee meet me in the park. And bring along these rascal knaves with thee.' Grti. Nathaniel's coat, sir, was not fully made, SHAKSPEARE. 97 And Gabriel's pumps were all unpink'd i' the heel ; There was no link to color Peter's hat. And Walter's dagger was not come from sheathing : There were none fine, but Adam, Ralph, and Gregory ; The rest were ragged, old, and beggarly ; Yet, as they are, here are they come to meet you. Pet. Go, rascals, go, and fetch my supper in. — lExeunt some of the Servants. " Where is the life that late I led"— [ Sings. Where are those Sit down, Kate, and welcome. Soud, soud, soud, soud !* Re-enter Servants, with supper. Why, when, I say ? — JVay, good sweet Kate, be merry. Off with my boots, you rogues, you villains ; when ? " It was the friar of orders grey [ Sings. As he forth walked on his way : — " Out, out, you rogue ! You pluck my foot awry : Take that, and mend the plucking off the other. IStrikes him. Be 7nerry, Kate : — Some water here ; what, ho ! Where's my spaniel Troilus .' — Sirrah, get you hence, And bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither : [^Exit Serv. One, Kate, that you must kiss, and be acquainted with. — Where are my slippers ? — Shall I have some water .-' [^ bason is presented to him. Come, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily I Servant lets the ewer fall. You villain ! will you let it fall .' {Strikes him. Kath. Patience, I pray you ; 'twas a fault unwilling. Pet. A beetle-headed, flat-ear'd knave ! Come, Kate, sit down ; I know you have a stomach. Will you give thanks, sweet Kate ; or else shall I .' — What is this ? mutton ? 1st Serv. Ay. Pet. Who brought it ? 1st Serv. I. Pet. 'Tis burnt, and so is all the meat : What dogs are these ? — Where is the rascal cook ? How durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser. And serve it thus to me that love it not ? There, take it to you, trencher, cups, and all. {Throws the meat, ^c, about the stage. * Soud, Soud, an expression of heat and weariness. 6 98 SHAKSPEARE. Yon heedless joltheads and unmanner'd slaves ! What, do you grumble ? I'll he with you straight. Kath. I pray you, husband, be not so disquiet ; The meat was well, if you were so contented. Pet. I tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away; And I expressly am forbid to touch it, For it engenders cholcr, planteth anger ; And better 'twere that both of us did fast, Since, of ourselves, ourselves are cholerick, — Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh. Be patient ; to-morrow it shall be mended. And, for this night, we'll fast for company : — Come, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber. {^Exeimt Petruchio, Katharina, and Curtis. A^'ath. {adva7icing). Peter, didst ever see the like ? Peter. He kills her in her own humour. Re-enter Curtis. Grum. Where is he .' Curt. In her chamber, Making a sermon to her., And rails, and swears, and rates ; that she, poor soul, Knows not which way to stand, to look, to speak ; And sits as one new risen from a dream. Away, away ! for he is coming hither. ^Exeunt. Re-enter Petruchio. Pet. Thus have I politickly begun my reign, And 'tis my hope to end successfully. My falcon now is sharp, and passing empty ; And, till she stoop, she must not be full-gorg'd. For then she never looks upon her lure. Another way I have to man my haggard,* To make her come, and know her keeper's call, That is, — to watch her, as we watch the kites That bate,t and beat, and will not be obedient. She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat ; Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not ; As with the meat, some undeserved fault I'll find about the making of the bed ; ^7id here Vll fling the pillow, there the holster. This ivay the coverlet, another way the sheets : — * To tame my wild hawk. f Bate, flutter. SHAKSPEARE. 99 Ay, and amid this hurly, I intend That all is done in reverend care of her : And, in conclusion, she shall watch all night: And, if she chance to nod, I'll rail and brawl, And with the clamor keep her still awake. This is the way to kill a wife with kindness ; And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour. — He that knows better how to tame a shrew, Now let him speak ; 'tis charity to shew. {Exit Scene, a Room in the same House. Enter Katharina and Grumio. Gru. No, no ; forsooth, I dare not, for my life. Kath. The more my wrong, the more his spite appears : * What, did he marry me to famish me ? Beggars that come unto my father's door. Upon entreaty, have a present alms ; If not, elsewhere they meet with charity : But I, — who never knew how to entreat, — Am starv'd for meat, giddy for lack of sleep : With oaths kept waking, and with brawling fed : And that which spites me more than all these wants. He does it under nayne of perfect love ; As who should say, — if I should sleep, or eat, ^Twere deadly sickness, or else present death. I pr'ythee go and get me some repast, I care not what, so it be wholesome food. Gru. What say you to a neafs foot ? Kath. ' Tis passing good : I pr'ythee let me have it. Gru. I fear it is too cholerick a jneat : How say you to a fat tripe, finely broiled ? Kath. I like it well ; good Grumio, fetch it me. Gru. I cannot tell ; I fear, 'tis cholerick. What say you to a piece of beef and mustard ? Kath. A dish that I do love to feed upon. Gru. Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little. Kath. Why, then the beef, and let the mustard rest. Gru. JVay, then I will not ; you shall have the mustard. Or else you get no beef of Grumio. Kath. Then both, or one, or anything thou wilt. Gru. Why then the rnustard without the beef. Kath. Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave. That feed' st me with the very name of meat : [Beats him. 100 SHAKSPEARE. Sorrow on thee, and all the park of you. That triumph thus upon my misery ! Go, get thee gone, I say. Enter Petruchio, with a dish of meat, and Hortensio. Pet. How fares my Kate ? What, sweeting, all amort?* Hor. Mistress, what cheer ? Kath. 'Faith, as cold as can be. Pet. Pluck up thy spirits ; look cheerfully upon me. Here, love ; thou see'st how diligent I am. To dress thy meat myself, and bring it thee. [Sets the dish on a table. I'm sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks. What, not a word ? Nay, then, thou lov'st it not ; And all my pains is sorted to no proof : — Here, take away this dish. Kath. ' Pray you, let it stand. Pet. The poorest service is repaid with thanks ; And so shall mine, before you touch the meat. Kath. I thank you, sir. Hor. Signior Petruchio, fye ! you are to blame ! Come, Mistress Kate, I'll bear you company. Pet. {aside to Hortensio). Eat it up all, Hortensio, if thou lov'st me. — {Aloud to Katharina.) Much good do it unto thy gentle heart ! Kate, eat apace : — and now, my honey love. Will we return unto thy father's house ; And revel it as bravely as the best, With silken coats, and caps," and golden rings, With ruffs, and cuffs, and farthingales, and things ; With scarfs, and fans, and double change of bravery. With amber bracelets, beads, and all this knavery. What, hast thou din'd ? The tailor stays thy leisure, To deck thy body with his ruffling treasure. Enter Tailor. Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments ; Enter Haberdasher. Lay forth the gown. — What news with you, sir .' Hab. Here is the cap your worship did bespeak. Pet. Why, this was moulded on a porringer ! A velvet dish ; — fye, fye ! Why, 'tia a cockle, or a walnutshell, * Dead in spirit. SHAKSPEARE. 101 A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap ; Away with it ; come, let me have a bigger, Kaih. I'll have no bigger ; this doth fit the time, And gentlewomen wear such caps as these. Pet. When you are gentle, you shall have one too, And not till then. Hor. {aside). That will not be in haste. Kath. Why, sir, I trust, I may have leave to speak ; And speak I will ; I am no child, no babe : Your betters have endured me say my mind ; And, if you cannot, best you stop your ears. My tongue will tell the anger of my heart ; Or else, my heart, concealing it, will break ; And, rather than it shall, I will be free Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words. Pet. Why, thou say'st true ; it is a paltry cap, A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie ; Hove thee well, in that thou lik'st it not. Kath. Love me, or love me not, I like the cap : And it I will have, or I will have none. Pet. Thy gown 7 why, ay : — come, tailor, let us see't. mercy, God ! what masking stuff is here ? What's this ? a sleeve .'' 'tis like a demi-cannon : What! up and down, carv'd like an apple-tart? Here's snip, and nip, and cut, and slish, and slash Like to a censer in a barber's shop : — Why, what, o' devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this ? Hor. I see, she's like to have neither cap nor gown. {Aside.) Tai. You bid me make it orderly and well. According to the fashion and the time. Pet. Marry, and did ; but if you be remember'd, 1 did not bid you mar it to the time. Go, hop me over every kennel home. For you shall hop without my custom, sir; I'll none of it; hence, make your best of it. Kath. I never saw a better-fashioned gown. More quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable : Belike, you mean to make a puppet of me. Pet. Why, true ; he means to make a puppet of thee. Tai. She says, your worship means to make a puppet of her. Pet. O monstrous arrogance ! Thou liest, thou thread. Thou thimble. Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail. Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter cricket thou : — Brav'd in mine own house with a skein of thread .' Away, thou ragy thou quantity, thou remnant ; 102 SHAKSPEARE. Or I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard, As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv'st ! I tell thoe, I, tlrat tliou hast marred her gown. ****** Hortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor paid ;— {aside). Go, take it hence ; be gone, and say no more. Hor. {aside). Tailor, I'll pay thee for thy gown to-morrow. Take no unkindness of his hasty words ; Away, I say ; commend me to thy master. {Exit Tailor. Pet. Well, come, my Kate ; we will unto your father's, Even in these honest mean habiliments ; Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor : • For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich ; And as the sun breaks through the darkest cloud. So honor peereth in the meanest habit. What, is the jay more precious than the lark, Because his feathers are more beautiful ? Or is the adder better than the eel. Because his painted skin contents the eye ? 0, no, good Kate ; neither art thou the worse For this poor furniture, and mean array. If thou account'st it shame, lay it on me : And therefore, frolick ; we will hence forthwith. To feast and sport us at thy father's house : — Go, call my men, and let us straight to him ; And bring our horses unto Long-lane end ; There will we mount, and thither walk on foot — Let's see ; I think, 'tis now some seven o'clock. And well we may come there by dinner time. Kate. I dare assure you, sir, 'tis almost two : And 'twill be supper-time, ere you come there. Pet. It shall be seven, ere I go to horse : Look, what I speak, or do, or think to do. You are still crossing it, — Sirs, left alone : I will not go to-day ; and ere I do, Jt shall be what o'clock I say it is. Hor. Why, so ! This gallant will command the sun. {Exeunt. Scene. — A Public Bead. Enter Petruchio, Katiiarina, and Hortensio. Pet. Come on, o' God's name ; once more toward our father's. Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon ! Kath. The moon ! the sun ; it is not moonlight now. SHAKSPEARE. 103 Pet. I say it is the moon that shines so bright. Kath. I know it is the snn that shines so bright. Pet. Now, by my mothei-'s son, and thafs myself. It shall be moon, or star, or what I list. Or ere I journey to your father's house : — Go on, and fetch our horses back again, — Evennoi'e crossed, and cross'd ; nothing but cross'd .' Hor. Say as he says, or we shall never go. Kate. Forward, I pray, since we have come so far. And be it moon, or sun, or what you please : And if you please to call it a rush candle. Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me. Pet. I say, it is the moon. Kath. I know it is the moon. Pet. Nay, then you lie ; it is the blessed sun. Kath. Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun : — But sun it is not, when you say it is not ; And the moon changes, even as your mind. What you will have it named, even that it is ; And so it shall be so, for Katharine. Hor. {to himself) Petruchio, go thy ways ; the field is won. Pet. Well, forward, forward : thus the bowl should run. And not unluckily against the bias. But soft; what company is coming here ? Enter Vincentio, in a travelling dress. Good-morrow, gentle mistress ; Where away ? — [To Vijvcentio. Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too. Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman ? Such war of white and red within her cheeks ! What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty, As those two eyes become that heavenly face i* — Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee : — Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake. Hor. 'A will make the man mad, to make a woman of him. Kath. Young budding virgin, fair, and fresh, and sweet. Whither away : or where is thy abode .' Happy the parents of so fair a child ; Happier the man, whom favorable stars Allot thee for his lovely bed-fellow ! Pet. Why, how now, Kate ! I hope thou art not mad ; This is a. man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither'd ; And not a maiden, as thou say'st he is, Kath. Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes. That have been so bedazzled with the sun. 104 SHAKSPEARE. That evcrythina; I look on scemeth green : JVow I perceive thou art a reverend father ; Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking. The bride and bridegroom have now arrived at their place of destination, and the gentlemen of the party are talking in a room by themselves : — Scene. — A Room in Lucentid's house. Bap. Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio, I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all. Pet. Well, I say — no ; and therefore, for assurance. Let's each one send unto his wife ; And he, whose wife is most obedient To come at first when he doth send for her. Shall win the wager which we will propose. Hor. Content : What is the wager .' Luc. Twenty crowns. Pet. Twenty crowns ! I'll venture so much on my hawk, or hound. But twenty times so much upon my wife. Luc. A hundred, then. Hor. Content. Pet. A match ; 'tis done. Hor. Who shall begin ? Luc. That will I. Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me. Bion. I go. [Exit. Bap. Son, I will be your half, Bianca comes, Luc. Pll have no halves ; Pll bear it all myself, Re-enter Biondello. How now ! what news .' Bion. Sir, m.y mistress sends you word That she is busy, and she cannot come. Pet. How, she is busy, and cannot come ! Is that an answer .' Gre. Ay, and a kind one too. Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse. Pet. I hope, better. Hor. Sirrah Biondello, go, and entreat my wife To come to me forthwith. {Exit BiondelIiO. Pet. Oho! entreat Acr.' JVay, then she nvust needs come. SHAKSPEARE. 105 {Exit Grumio. Hor. I am afraid, sir, Do what you can, your's will not be entreated. Re-enter Biondello. Now, Where's my wife ? Bion. She says you have some goodly jest in hand ; She will not come ; she bids you come to her. Pet. Worse, and worse ; she will not come ! vile. Intolerable, not to be endur'd ! Sirrah, Grumio, go to your mistress. Say, I COMMAND her come to me. Hor. I know her answer. Pet. What ? Hor. She will not Pet. The fouler fortune mine, and there an end. Enter Katharina. Bap. Now, by my holidame, here comes Katharina ! Kath. What is your will, sir, that you send for me ? Pet. Where is your sister, and Hortensio's wife .' Katli. They sit conferring by the parlor fire. Pet. Go, fetch them hither ; if they deny to come. Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands : Away, I say, and bring them hither straight. Luc. Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder. Hor. And so it is ; I wonder what it bodes. Pet. Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life. An awful rule, and right supremacy ; And, to be short, what not, that's sweet and happy. Bap. Now fair befall thee, good Petruchio ! The wager thou hast won ; and I will add Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns, Another dowry to another daughter. For she is chang'd, as she had never been. Pet. Nay, I will win my wager better yet ; And show more sign of her obedience ; Her new-built virtue and obedience. Re-enter Katharina, with Bianca and Widow, See where she comes ; and brings your froward wives As prisoners to her womanly persuasion. — Katharine, that cap of yours becomes you not ; Off with that bauble ; throw it under foot. [Katharina pulls off her cap and throws it down, Wid. Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh. Till I be brought to such a silly pass ! 6* \_Exit Katharina 106 SHAKSPEARE. Bian. Fye ! what a foolish duty call you this ? Luc. I would your duty were as foolish too; The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca, Hath cost me a hundred crowns since supper time. Bian. The more fool you for laying; on my duty. Pet. Katharine, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women Wliat duty they do owe their lords and husbands. Wid. Come, come, you're mocking ; we will have no telling. Pet. I say she shall ; and first begin with her. Kath. Fye, fye ! unknit that threat'ning unkind brow ; And dart not scornful glances from those eyes, To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor : It blots thy beauty, as frosts do bite the meads : Confounds thy fame, as whirlwinds shake fair buds ; And in no sense is meet or amiable. A woman ynov'd is like a fountain troubled, Muddy, iU-seeming, thick, her eft of beauty : And, while it is so, none so dry or thirsty Will deign to sip, or touch one drop of it. Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, Thy head, thy sovereign ; one that c-ares for thee, And for thy maintenance : commits his body To painful labor, both by sea and land ; To watch the night in storms, the day in cold. While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe , And craves no other tribute at tl)y hands, But love, fair looks, and true obedience ; — Too little payment for so great a debt. Such duty as the subject owes the prince. Even such a woman oweth to her husband : And, when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour. And not obedient to his honest will, What is she, but a foul contending rebel, And graceless traitor to her loving lord .' — I am asham'd, that women are so simple To offer war, where they should kneel for peace ; Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway, When they are bound to serve, love, and obey. Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth, Unapt to toil and trouble in the world. But that our soft conditions and our hearts Should well agree with our external parts .' Come, come, you froward and unable worms ! My mind hath been as big as one of yours. My heart as great ; my reason, haply, more. To bandy word for word, and frown for frown ; SHAKSPEARE. 107 But now, I see our lances are but straws ; Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare, — That seeming to be most, which we indeed least are. Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot, And place your hands below your husbands' foot : In token of which duty, if he please. My hand is ready, may it do him ease. Pet. Why, there's a wench ! — Come on, and kiss me, Kate. Luc. Well, go thy ways, old lad, for thou shalt ha't. Pet. Come, Kate, we'll to bed ; We three are married, but you two are sped. Hor. Now go thy ways, thou hast tam'd a curst shrew. Luc. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam'd so. 2 \_Exeunt. 1 ''His horse hipped," &c., &c.— If Ben Jonson had poured forth this profusion of horse-dealer's knowledge (a little overdone, it must be confessed, even for farce), it would have been charged against him as ostentation. ^ " 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will he tani'd so." — He means to intimate that he does not think her tamed after all. A woman, by the way, like Katharine, could never have uttered those beau- tiful words about "a fountain troubled," &c. But this is the constant exception to Shakspeare's otherwise perfect nature. He makes all his characters, unless they are downright fools, talk as well as himself. JOS BEN JONSON. BEN JONSON. (See Imagination and Fancy,'" p. 140.) The greatest portion of Ben Jonson's comic writing is in prose ; but the reader is here presented with a striking specimen in verse, — indeed, the best scene of his best production. Ben Jonson's famous humor is as pampered, jovial, and dicta- torial as he was in his own person. He always gives one the idea of a man sitting at the head of a table and a coterie. He carves up a subject as he would a dish ; talks all the while to show off both the dish and himself; and woe betide difference of opinion, or his " favorite aversion," envy. He was not an envious man himself, provided you allowed him his claims. He praised his contemporaries all round, chiefly in return for praises. He had too much hearty blood in his veins to withhold eulogy where it was not denied him ; but he was somewhat too willing to can- cel it on offence. He complains that he had given heaps of praises undeserved ; tells Drayton that it had been doubted whether he was a friend to anybody (owing, doubtless, partly to this caprice) : and in the collection of epigrams printed under his own care, there are three consecutive copies of verse, two of them addressed to Lord Salisbury in the highest style of pane- gyric, and the third to the writer's muse, consisting of a recanta- tion, apparently of the same panegyric, and worth repeating here for its scorn and spleen : — TO MY MUSE. Away, and leave me, thou thing most abhorr'dy That hast betrayed me to a worthless lord : BEN JONSON. 109 Made me commit most fierce idolatry To a great image through thy luxury. Be thy next master's more unlucky Muse, And, as thou'st mine, his hours and youth abuse. Get him the time's long grudge, the court's ill will. And, reconcil'd, keep him suspected still. Make him, lose all his friends ; and, which is worse. Almost all ways to any better course, (This is melancholy.) With me thou leav'st an happier Muse than thee. And which thou brought'st me, welcome Poverty. She shall instruct my after thoughts to write Things manly, and not smelling parasite. But I repent me : — stay. Whoe'er is raised For worth he has not, he is tax'd, not praised. This is ingenious and true ; but from a lord so " worthless," it hardly became the poet to withdraw the alms of his panegyric. He should have left posterity to do him justice ; or have reposed on the magnanimity of a silent disdain. Lord Salisbury was the famous Robert Cecil, son of Burleigh. Ben Jonson had proba- bly found his panegyric treated with neglect, perhaps contempt ; and it was bold in him to return it ; but it was proclaiming his own gratuitous flattery. It has been objected to Ben Jonson's humors, and with truth, that they are too exclusive of other qualities ; that the characters are too much absorbed in the peculiarity, so as to become per- sonifications of an abstraction. They have also, I think, an amount of turbulence which hurts their entire reality ; gives them an air of conscious falsehood and pretension, as if they were rather acting the thing than being it. But this, as before inti- mated, arose from the character of the author, and his own wil- ful and flustered temperament. If they are not thoroughly what they might be, or such as Shakspeare would have made them, they are admirable Jonsonian presentations, and overflowing with wit, fancy, and scholarship. no BEN JONSON. THE FOX. Scene, — A Room in Volpone's House. Enter Volpone and Mosca. Volp. Good morning to the day : and next, my gold ! — Open the shrine, that I may see my saint. [Mosca withdraws the curtain, and discovers piles of gold, 2>late, jewels, Sfc."] Hail the world's soul, and mine ! more glad than is The teeming earth to see the long'd-for sun Peep through the horns of the celestial Ram, Am I, to view thy splendor darkening his ; That, lying here, amongst my other hoards, Show'st like aflame by night, or like the day Struck out of chaos, when all darkness fled Unto the centre. thou son of Sol, But brighter than thy father, let me kiss, With adoration thee and every relic Of sacred treasure in this blessed room. Well did wise poets, by thy glorious name, Title that age which they would have the best; Thou being the best of things, and far transcending All style of joy, in children, parents, friends. Or any other waking dream on earth. Thy looks when they to Venus did ascribe. They should have given her twenty thousand Cupids : Such are thy beauties and our loves ! Dear saint. Riches, the dumb god, that giv'st all men tongues. Thou canst do naught, and yet mak'st men do all things ; The price of souls ; even hell, with thee to boot, Is made worth heaven. Thou art virtue, fame. Honor, and all things else. Who can get thee. He shall be noble, valiant, honest, wise Mas. And what he will, sir. Riches are in fortune A greater good than wisdom is in nature. Volp. True, my beloved Mosca. Yet I glory More in the cunning purchase of my wealth, Than in the glad possession, since I gain No common way ; I use no trade, no venture ; I wound no earth with ploughshares, fat no beasts To feed the shambles ; have no mills for iron, Oil, corn, or men, to grind them into powder : BEN JONSON. Ill I blow no subtle glass, expose no ships To threafnings of the furrow-faced sea ; I turn no monies in the public bank, Nor usure private. Mas. No sir, nor devour Soft prodigals. You shall have some will swallow A melting heir as glibly as your Dutch Will pills of butter ; Tear forth the fathers of poor families Out of their beds, and coffin them alive In some kind clasping prison, where their bones May be forthcoming, when the flesh is rotten : But your sweet nature doth abhor these courses ; You lothe the widow's or the orphan's tears Should wash your pavements, or their piteous cries Ring in your roofs, and beat the air for vengeance. Volp. Right, Moses ; I do lothe it. Mos. And besides, sir. You are not like the thresher that doth stand With a huge flail, watching a heap of corn. And, hungry, dares not taste tiie smallest grain. But feeds on mallows, and such bitter herbs ; ^ Nor like the merchant, who hath fill'd his vaults With Romagnia, and rich Candian wines. Yet drinks the lees of Lombard's vinegar : You will lie not in straw, whilst moths and worms Feed on your sumptuous hangings and soft beds ; You know the use of riches, and dare give now From that bright heap, to me,- your poor observer. Volp. (^Gives him money.) Take of my hand ; thou strik'st on truth in all, And they are envious term thee parasite. I have no w^ife, no parent, child, ally. To give my substance to ; but whom I make Must be my heir : and this makes men observe me : This draws new clients daily to my house, Women and men of every sex and age. That bring me presents, send me plate, coin, jewels, With hope that when I die (which they expect Each greedy minute) it shall then return Ten-fold upon them ; whilst some, covetous Above the rest, seek to engross me whole. And counter-work the one unto the other. Contend in gifts, as they would seem in love : All which I suffer, playing with their hopes. And am content to coin them into profit. 112 BEN JONSON. And look upon their kindness, and take more, And look on that ; still hearing them in hand, Letting the cherry knock against their lips. And draw it by their mouths, and back again. IKhocking without. Volp. Who's that ? Mos. 'Tis signior Voltore, the advocate ; I know him by his knock. Volp. Fetch me my gown. My furs and night-caps ; say, my couch is changing. And let him entertain himself awhile. Without i' the gallery. {Exit Mosca.) Now, now, my clients Begin their visitation ! Vulture, kite. Raven, and gorcrow, all my birds of prey, That think me turning carcase, now they come ; I am not for them yet Re-enten Mosca, tjoith the gown, 8fc. How now ! the news .' Mos. A piece of plate, sir. Volp. Of what bigness .' Mos. Huge, Massy, and antique, with your name inscribed, And arms engraven. Volp. Good ! and not a fox Stretch'd on the earth, with fine delusive sleights. Mocking a gaping crow ? ha, Mosca ! Mos. Sharp, sir. Volp. Give me my furs. (Puts on his sick dress.) Why dost thou laugh so, man .' Mos. I cannot choose, sir, when [ apprehend What thoughts he has without now, as he walks : That this might be the last gift he should give ; That this would fetch you ; if you died to-day, ^ And gave him all, what he should be to-morrow ; What large return would come of all his ventures ; How he should worshipp'd be, and reverenced ; Ride with his furs, and foot-cloths ; waited on By herds of fools, and clients ; have clear way Made for his mule, as letter'd as himself; Be call'd the great and learned advocate : And then concludes, there's naught impossible. Volp. Yes, to be learned, Mosca. Mos. O, no : rich Implies it. Hood an ass with reverend purple. BEN JONSON. 113 So you can hide his two ambitious ears Jlnd he shall pass for a cathedral doctor. Volp. My caps, my caps, good Mosca. Fetch him in. Jifos. Stay, sir ; your ointment for your eyes. Volp. That's true ; Dispatch, dispatch : I long to have possession Of my new present, J\fos. That, and thousands more, I hope to see you lord of. Volp. Thanks, kind Mosca. Jfos. And that, when I am lost in blended dust. And hundred such as I am, in succession Volp. Nay, that were too much, Mosca. Mos. You shall live. Still, to delude these harpies. Volp. Loving Mosca ! 'Tis well : my pillow now, and let him enter. {Exit Mosca. Now, my feign'd cough, my phthisic, and my gout, My apoplexy, palsy, and catarrhs. Help, with your forced functions, this my posture, Wherein, this three year, I have 7nilk'd their hopes. He comes ; I hear him — Uh ! {coughing) uh ! uh ! uh ! — Re-enter Mosca, introducing Voltore, witli a piece of plate. Mos. {to Volt.) You still are what you were, sir. Only you, Of all the rest, are he commands his love ; And you do wisely to preserve it thus, With early visitation, and kind notes Of your good meaning to him, which, I know, Cannot but come most grateful. Patron ! sir ! Here's signior Voltore is come, [Speaking loudly in his ear. Volp. {faintly) What say you ? Mos. Sir, signior Voltore is come this morning To visit you. Volp. I thank him, Mos. And hath brought A piece of antique plate, bought of St. Mark, With which he here presents you, Volp. He is welcome. Pray him to come more often. Mos. Yes. Volt. What says he ? Mos. He thanks you, and desires you see him often. Volp. Mosca. Mos. My patron ! 114 BEN JONSON. Volp. Bring him near, where is he ? I long to feel his hand, Mos. The plato is here, sir. Volt. How fare you, sir ? Volp. I thank you, signior Voltore ; Where is the plate ? mine eyes are bad. Volt {putting it into his hafids) I'm sorry To see you still thus weak. Mas. (aside) That he's not weaker. Volp. You are too munificent. Volt. No, sir ; would to heaven, I could as well give health to you, as that plate ! Volp. You give, sir, what you can : I thank you. Your love Hath taste in this, and shall not be unanswered : I pi- ay you see me often. Volt. Yes, I shall, sir. Volp. Be not far from me. Mos. Do you observe that, sir ? Volp. Hearken unto me still ; it will concern you. Mos. You are a happy man, sir ; know your good. Volp. I cannot now last long Mos. You are his heir, sir. Volt. Am I .' Volp. I feel me going : Uh ! uh ! uh ! I'm sailing to my port. Uh ! uh ! uh ! uh ! And I am glad I am so near my haven. Mos. Alas, kind gentleman ! Well, we must all go Volt. But, Mosca Mos. Age will conquer. Volt. 'Pray thee, hear me Am I inscribed his heir for certain ? Mos. Jire you ! 1 do beseech you, sir, you will vouchsafe To virite me in your family. All my hopes Depend upon your worship : I am lost. Except the rising sun do shine on me. Volt. It shall both shine and warm thee, Mosca. Mos. Sir, I am a man that hath not done your love All the worst offices: here I wear your keys. See all your coffers and your caskets locked. Keep the poor inventoi'y of your jewels. Your plate and monies ; am your steward, sir, HusbaJid your goods here. Vol. But am I sole heir ? Mos. Without a partner, sir ; confirm'd this morning : BEN JONSON. 115 The wax is warm yet, and the ink scarce dry Upon the parchment. Volt. Happy, happy, me ! By what good chance, sweet Mosca ? Mos. Your desert, sir ; J k7iow no second cause. Volt. Thy modesty Is not to know it ; well, we shall requite it. Mos. He ever liked your course, sir; that first took him. I oft have heard him say, how he admired Men of your large profession, that could speak To every cause, and things mere contraries. Till they were hoarse again, yet all be law ; That, with most quick agility could turn. And [re-] return ; [could] make knots, and undo them ; Give forked counsel ; take provoking gold On either hand, and put it up : these men, He knew, would thrive with their humility. And, for his part, he thought he should be blest To have his heir of such a suffering spirit. So wise, so grave, of so perplex'd a tongue, And loud withal, that would not wag, nor scarce Lie still, without a fee : when every word Your worship but lets fall, is a chequin ! \_Knocking without. Who's that ? one knocks ; I would not have you seen, sir. And yet — pretend you came, and went in haste : I'll fashion an excuse and, gentle sir. When you do come to swim in golden lard. Up to the arms in honey, that your chin Is borne up stiff with fatness of the flood. Think on your vassal ; but remember me : I have not been your worst of clients. Volt. Mosca Mos. When will you have your inventory brought, sir ? Or see a copy of the will ? Anon ! — I'll bring them to you, sir. Away, begone. Put business in your face. \_Exit Voltore. Volp. {springing up). Excellent Mosca ! Come hither, let me kiss thee. Mos. K^eep you still, sir. Here is Corbaccio. Volp. Set the plate away ; The vulture's gone, and the old raven's come ! Mos. Betake you to your silence, and your sleep. Stand there and multiply. {Putting the plate to the rest.) Now shall we see 116 BEN JONSON. A wretch who is indeed more impotent Thau this c^ia feign to be ; yet hopes to hop Over his grave Enter Corbaccio. Signior Corbaccio ! You're very welcome, sir. Corb. How does your patron ? Mos. Troth, as he did, sir, no amends. Corb. What ! mends he ? Mos. No, sir ; he's rather worse. Corb. Thafs well. Where is he ? Mos. Upon his couch, sir, newly fall'n asleep. Corb. Does he sleep well ? Mos. JVo wink, sir, all this night. JYor yesterday ; but slumbers. Corb. Good! he should take Some counsel of physicians : I have brought him An opiate here, from mine own doctor. Mos. He will not hear of drugs. Corb. Why I myself Stood by while it was made, saw all the ingredients : And know, it cannot but most gently work : My life for his, 'tis but to make him sleep. Volp. {aside) Ay, his last sleep, if he would take it. Mos. Sir, He has no faith in physic. Corb. Say you, say you ? Mos. He has no faith in physic : he does think Most of your doctors are the greater danger. And worse disease, to escape. I often have Heard him protest, that your physician Should never be his heir. Corb. Not I his heir .' Mos. Not your physician, sir. Corb. 0, no, no, no, I do not mean it. Mos. No, sir, nor their fees He cannot brook : he says, they flay a man Before they kill him. Corb. Right, I do conceive you. Mos. And then they do it by experiment ; For which the law not only doth absolve them. But gives them great reward : and he is loth To hire his death, so. BEN JONSON. 117 Corh. It is true, they kill With as much license as a judge. Mos. Nay, more ; For he but kills, sir, where the law condemns. And these can kill him too. Corb. Ay, or me ; Or any man. How does his apoplex ? Is that strong on him still ? Mos. Most violent. His speech is broken, and his eyes are set. His face drawn longer than 'twas wont ? Corh. How ! how ! Stronger than he was wont .-' Mos. No, sir .: his face Drawn longer than 'twas wont. Corh. O good ! Mos. His mouth # Is ever gaping, and his eyelids hang. Corb. Good. Mos. A freezing numbness stiffens all his joints, And makes the color of his flesh like lead. Corb. 'Tis good. Mos. His pulse beats slow, and dull. Corb. Good symptoms still Mos. And from his brain Corb. I do conceive you ; good. Mos. Flows a cold sweat, with a continual rheum, Forth the resolved corners of his eyes. Corb. Is't possible ? Yet I am better, ha ! How does he, with the swimming of his head ? Mos. O, sir, 'tis past the scotomy ;* he now Hath lost his feeling, and hath left to snort : You hardly can perceive him, that he breathes. Corb. Excellent, excellent ! sure I shall outlast him : This makes me young again, a score of years. Mos. I was a-coming for you, sir. Corb. Has he made his will .'' What has he given me ? Mos. No, sir. Corb. Nothing ! ha ? Mos. He has not made his will, sir. Corb. Oh, oh, oh ! What then did Voltore, the lawyer, here ? Mos. He smelt a carcase, sir, when he but heard Darkness coming over the eyes. 118 BEN JONSON. My master was about his testament ; As I did urge him to it for your good Corb. He came unto him, did he ? I tliought so. Mos. Yes, and presented him this piece of plate. Corh. To be his heir .' Mos. I do not know, sir. Corb. True : I know it too. Mos. {aside) By your own scale, sir. Corb. Well, I shall prevent him, yet. See, Mosca, look, Here, I have brought a bag of bright chequines, Will quite weigh down his plate. Mos. {taking the bag) Yea, marry, sir. This is true physic, this your sacred medicine ; No talk of opiates to this great elixir ! Corb. 'Tis aurum palpabile, if not potabile. Mos. It shall be minister'd to him, in his bowl. Corb. Ay, do, do, do. Mos. Most blessed cordial ! This will recover him. Corb. Yes, do, do, do. Mos. I think it were not best, sir. v Corb. What ? Mos. To recover him. Corb. O, no, no, no ; by no means. Mos. Why, sir, this Will work some strange effect, if he but feel it. Corb. 'Tis true, therefore forbear ; I'll take my venture : Give me it again. Mos. At no hand ; pardon me : You shall not do yourself that wrong, sir. I Will so advise you, you shall have it all. Corb. How ? Mos. All, sir ; 'tis your right, your own : no man Can claim a part : 'tis yours, without a rival, Decreed by destiny. Corb. How, how, good Mosca ? Mos. I'll tell you, sir. This Jit he shall recover. Corb. I do conceive you. Mos. And 071 first advantage Of his gairCd sense, will I re-importune him Unto the making of his testament : And show him this. iPointing to the money. Corb. Good, good. BEN JONSON. 119 Mos. 'Tis better yet. If you will hear, sir. Corb. Yes, with all my heart. Mos. Now, would I counsel you, make home with speed j There, frame a will ; whereto you shall inscribe My master your sole heir, Corb. And disinherit My son ! Mos. O, sir, the better : for that color Shall make it much more taking. Coi'b. O, but color ? Mos. This will, sir, you shall send it unto me. Now, when I come to inforce, as I will do. Your cares, your watchings, and your many prayers, Your more than many gifts, your this day's present. And last, produce your will ; where, without thought. Or least regard, unto your proper issue, A son so brave, and highly meriting. The stream of your diverted love hath thrown you Upon my master, and made him your heir ; He cannot be so stupid, or stone-dead. But out of conscience, and mere gratitude Co7'b. He must pronounce me his ? Mos. 'Tis true. Corb. This plot Did I think on before. Mos. I do believe it. Corb. Do you not believe it ? Mos. Yes, sir. Corb. Mine own project. Mos. Which, when he hath done, sir — Corb. Publish'd me his heir ? Mos. And you so certain to survive him — Co?'b. Ay. Mos. Being so lusty a man Corb. 'Tis true. Mos. Yes, sir Corb. I thought on that too. See, how he should be The very organ to express my thoughts ! Mos. You have not only done yourself a good Corb. But multiplied it on my son. • Mos. 'Tis right, sir. Corb. Still, my invention. Mos. 'Las, sir ! heaven knows, It hath been all my study, all my care, (I e'en grow grey withal) how to work things 120 BEN JONSON. Corb. I do conceive, sweet Mosca. Mos. You are he, For whom I labor here. Corb. Ay, do, do, do : I'll straight about it, \_Going. Mos. Rook go with you, raven ! Corb. I know thee honest Mos. {aside) You do lie, sir ! Corb. And Mos. Your knowledge is no better than your ears, sir. Corb. I do not doubt, to be a father to thee. Mos. Nor I to gull my brother of his blessing. Corb. I may have my youth restored to me, why not ? Mos. {ill an under tone) Your worship is a precious ass ! Corb. What say'st thou ? Mos. I do desire your worship to make haste, sir. Corb. 'Tis done, 'tis done ; I go, \Exit. Volp. {leaping froni his couch) O, I shall burst ! Let out my sides, let out my sides — Mos. Contain Your flux of laughter, sir : you know this hope Is such a bait, it covers any hook. Volp. 0, but thy working, and thy placing it ! I cannot hold ; good rascal, let me kiss thee : I never knew thee in so rare a humor. Mos. Alas, sir, I but do as I am taught ; Follow your grave instructions ; give them words ; Pour oil into their ears, and send them hence, Volp. 'Tis true, 'tis true. What a rare punishme7it Is avarice to itself ! Mos. Ay, with our help, sir. Volp. So many cares, so many maladies^ So many fears attending on old age. Yea, death so often caWd on, as no wish Can be more frequent with them, their limbs faint. Their senses dull, their seeing, hearing, going, All dead before them ; yea, their very teeth. Their instruments of eating, failing them; Yet this is reckon' d life ! nay, here was one. Is now gone home, that wishes to live longer ! Feels not his gout, nor palsy : feigns himself Younger by scores of years, flatters his age With confident belying it, hopes he may. With charms, like .Mson, have his youth restored : And with these thoughts so battens, as if fate — BEN JONSON. ]21 Would be as easily cheated on, as he. And all turns air ! \_Kno eking within. "] Who's that there, now ? a third ! Mos. Close, to your couch again; I hear his voice : It is Corvino, our spruce merchant. Volp. {lies down as before) Dead. Mos. Another bout, sir, with your eyes. [^Anointing them.'] — Who's there ? Enter Corvin^o. Signior Corvino ! come most wish'd for ! 0, How happy were you, if you knew it, now ! Corv. Why .' what ? wherein ? Mos. The tardy hour is come, sir. Corv. He is not dead .' Mos. Not dead, sir, but as good : He knows no man. Corv. How shall I do then ? Mos. Why, sir .' Corv. I have brought him here a pearl. Mos. Perhaps he has So much remembrance left, as to know you, sir : He still calls on you ; nothing but your name Is in his mouth. Is your pearl orient, sir ? Corv. Venice was never owner of the like, V^olp. {faintly) Signior Corvino ! Mos. Hark. Volp. Signior Corvino ! Mos. He calls you ; step and give it him. — He's here, sir, \_Bawling to Volpone. And he has brought you a rich pearl. Corv. How do you, sir ? Tell him, it doubles the twelfth caract. Mos. Sir, He cannot understand, his hearing's gone ; And yet it comforts him to see you Corv. Say, I have a diamond for him, too, Mos. Best show it, sir ; Put it into his hand ; ^tis only there He apprehends : he has his feeling, yet. See how he grasps it .' Corv. 'Las, good gentleman ! How pitiful the sight is ! Mos. Tut ! forget, sir, The weeping of an heir should still be laughter Under a visor. Corv. Why, am I his heir ? 7 123 BEN JONSON. Mos. Sir, I am sworn, I may not show the will Till he be dead : but here has been Corbaccio, Here has been Voltore, here were others too, I cannot number 'em, they were so many ; All gaping here for legacies : but I, Taking the vantage of liis naming you, Signior Corvino, Signior Corvino, took Paper, and pen, and ink, and there I asked him. Whom he would have his heir ? Corvino. Who Should be executor ? Corvino. And, To any question he was silent to, I still interpreted the nods he made. Through weakness, for consent ; and sent home th' others^ Nothing bequeath'd them, but to cry and curse. Corv. O, my dear Mosca \ \_They embrace.'] Does he not perceive us ? Mos. No more than a blind harper. He knows no man,. No face of friend, nor name of any servant. Who 'twas that fed him last, or gave him drink ; Not those he hath begotten, or brought up, Can he remember. Corv Has he children ? Mos. Bastards ; Some dozen, or more ; but he has given them nothing. Corv. That's well, that's well ! Art sure he does not hear us ? Mos. Sure, sir ! why, look you, credit your own sense. \_Shouls in Vol.'s ear The pox approach, and add to your diseases,. If it would send you hence the sooner, sir, For your incontinence, it hath deserv'd it Thoroughly, and thoroughly, and the plague to boot ! — You may come near, sir. — Would you would once close Those filthy eyes of yours, that flow with slime. Like two frog-pits ; and those same hanging cheeks, Cover'd with hide instead of skin — Nay, help, sir — That look like frozen dish-clouts set on end ! Coi-v. {aloud) Or like an old smoked wall, on ivhich the rain Ran douyn in streaks ! Mos. Excellent! I could stifle him. Corv. Do as you will ; but I'll be gone. Mos. Be so : It is your presence makes him last so long. Corv. I pray you, use no violence. Mos. No, sir ! why .' Why should you be thus scrupulous, pray you, sir ? Corv. Nayj^ at your discretion. Mos. Well, good, sir, begone. BEN JONSON. 123 Corv. I will not trouble him now, to take my pearl. J\fos. Puh ! nor your diamond. What a needless care Is this afflicts you ? Is not all here yours ? Am not I here, whom you have made your creature, That owe my being to you ? Corv. Grateful Mosca ! Thou art my friend, my fellow, my companion, My partner, and shalt share in all my fortunes. ^Exif Corv. Mos. Now is he gone : we had no other means To shoot him hence, but this. Volp. {leaping from his couch) My divine Mosca ! Thou hast to-day outgone thyself. — Prepare Me music, dances, banquets, all delights ; The Turk is not more sensual in his pleasures, Than will Volpone. 124 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER [See •' Imagination and Fancy, ^^ page 150.] Since expressing, in the above volume, the surprise which every- body feels at the astounding mixture of license and refinement displayed by these poets (for the grossness of earlier writers is but a simplicity compared with it), I have come to the conclusion that it was an excess of animal spirits, encouraged by the demand of the times, and the intoxication of applause. They were the sons of men of rank : they had been thrown upon the town in the heyday of their blood, probably with a turn for lavish expenditure ; they certainly wanted money as they advanced, and were glad to get it of gross audiences ; they had been taught to confound loyalty with servility, which subjected them to the dissolute influence of the court of James the First ; they came among the actors and the playwrights, with advantages of position, perhaps of education and accomplishments, superior to them all : their confidence, their wit, their enjoyment was un- bounded ; everybody was glad to hear what the gay gentlemen had to say ; and forth they poured it accordingly, without stint or conscience. Beaumont died young; but Fletcher, who went writing on, appears to have taken a still greater license than his friend. The son of the bishop had probably been tempted to go farther out of bounds than the son of the judge ; for Dr. Fletcher was not such a bishop as Grindall or Jewel. The poet might have been taught hypocrisy by his father ; and, in despising it as he grew up, had gone to another extreme. The reader of the following scenes will observe the difference between the fierce weight of the satire of Volpone, in which BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 125 poison and suffocation are brought in to aggravate, and the gayer caricature of Beaumont and Fletcher. It is equally founded on truth — equally wilful and superabundant in the treatment of it, but more light and happy. You feel that the writers enjoyed it with a gayer laugh. The pretended self-deception with which a coward lies to his own thoughts, — the necessity for support which induces him to apply to others as cowardly as himself for the warrant of their good opinion, and the fascinations of vanity which impel such men into the exposure which they fancy they have taken the subtlest steps to guard against, are most entertain ingly set forth in the interview of Bessus with the two bullies, and tlie subsequent catastrophe of all three in the hands of Bacurius. The nice balance of distinction and difference in which the bullies pretend to weigh the merits of kicks and beat- ings, and the impossibility which they affect of a shadow of imputation against their valors, or even of the power to assume it hypothetically, are masterly plays of wit of the first order. The scenes entitled Buke and No Bake are less perfect writing, but they would be still more effective in representation. The folly is " humored to the top of its bent ;" and the idea of Ma- rine's being deprived of his titles by the whisk of a sword, be- sides being a good practical jest, is a startling reduction of such honors to their first principles THE PHILOSOPHY OF KICKS AND BEATINGS. From the play of " King and No King." Bessus, a beaten poltroon, applies to a couple of professional bullies, also poltroons, to sit in judgment on his case, and testify to his character for valor. They accompany him to the house of Bacurius to do so, and bring an unexpected certificate on the whole party. Scene, a room in the house of Bessus. Enter Besstjs, two Swordmen, and a Boy. Bes. You're very welcome, both ! Some stools there, boy ; And reach a table. Gentlemen o' th' sword, 126 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. Pray sit, without more compliment. Begone, child ! I liavc been curious in the searching of you. Because I understand you wise and valiant. 1 Sw. We understand ourselves, sir. Bes. Nay, gentlemen, and dear friends o' the sword. No compliment, I pray; but to the cause I hang upon, which, in few, is my honor. 2 Sw. You cannot hang too much, sir, for your honor. But to your cause. £cs. Be wise and speak the truth. My first doubt is, mp beating by my prince. 1 Sw. Stay there a little, sir ; Do you doubt a beating? Or, have you had a beating by your prince ? Bes. Gentlemen o' th' sword, my prince has beaten me. 2 Sw. Brother, what think you of this case ? 1 Sw. If he has bcateti him, the case is clear. 2 Sw. If he have beaten him, I grant the case. But how ? we cannot be too subtle in this business. I say, but how ? Bes. Even with his royal hand 1 Sw. Was it a blow of love, or indignation ? Bes. ' Twas twenty blows of indignation, gentlemen ; Besides tivo blows o' th' face. 2 Sw. Those blows o' tli' face have m.ade a new cause on H ; The rest were but anhonorable rudeness. 1 Sw. Two blows o' th' face, and given by a worse man, I must confess, as the swordmen sdij, had turned The business: Mark me, brother, by a worse man: But, being by his prince, had they been ten. And those ten drawn ten teeth, besides the hazard Of his nose for ever, all this had been but favors. This is my flat opinion, which I '11 die in. 2 Sw. The king may do much, captain, believe it ; For had he crack'd your skull through, like a bottle. Or broke a rib or two with tossing of you. Yet you had lost no honor. This is strange. You may imagine ; but this is truth now, captain. Bes. I will be glad to embrace it, gentlemen. But how far may he strike me .' 1 Sw. There's another ; A new cause rising from the time and distance. In which I will deliver my oj)inion. He may strike, beat, or cause to be beaten ; For these are natural to man : Your prince, I say, may beat you .so far forth Jis Im dominion reaches ; that 's for the distance ; BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 127 The time, ten miles a day, I take it. 2 Sw. Brother, you err, 'tis fifteen miles a day ; His stage is ten, his beatings are fifteen. Bes. ' Tis of the longest, but we subjects must — 1 Sio. Be subject to it. You are wise and virtUGUs. Bes. Obedience ever makes that noble use on't. To which I dedicate my beaten body. I must trouble you a little further, gentlemen o' th' sword. 2 Sw. No trouble at all to us, sir, if we may Profit your understanding. We are bound. By virtue of our calling, to xitter our opinion Shortly and discreetly. Bes. My sorest business is, I've been kick'd. 2 Sw. How far, sir ? Bes. J^^ot to flatter myself, all over : My sword lost, but not forced ; for discreetly I render'd it, to save that imputation. 1 Sw. It show'd discretion, the best part of valor. 2 Sw. Brother, this is a pretty cause ; pray ponder on't : Our friend here has been kick'd. 1 Sw. He has so, brother. 2 Sw. Sorely, he says. Now, had he set down here Upon the mere kick, 't had been cowardly. 1 Sw. I think, it had been cowardly, indeed. 2 Sw. But our friend has redeem'd it, in delivering His sword without compulsion ; and that man That took it of him, I pronounce a weak one, J[nd his kicks nullities. He should have kick'd him after the delivering. Which is the conJirniatio7i of a coward ? 1 Sw. Brother, I take it you mistake the question; For say, that I were kick'd. 2 Sw. I must not say so : JVor I must not hear it spoke by th' tongue of man. You kick'd, dear brother ! You are merry 1 Sw. But put the case, I were kick'd. 2 Sw. Let them put it^ That are things weary of their lives, and know Not honor ! Put the case, you were kick'd ; 1 Sw. I do not say I was kick'd 2 Sw. No ; nor no silly creature that wears his head Without a case, his soul in a skin coat. You kick'd, dear brother ! Bes. Nay, gentlemen, let us do what we shall do. Truly and honestly. Good sirs, to the question. 1 Sw. Why, then, I say, suppose your boy kick'd, captain 12S BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 2 Sw. The boy, may be supposed, is liable. But, kick my brother ! 1 Sw. A foolish forward zeal, sir, in my friend. But to the boy : Sujijwse the boy were kick'd. Bes. I do suppose it. 1 Sw. Has your boy a sword ? Bes. Surely, no ; I pray, suppose a sword too. 1 Sw. I do suppose it. You grant, your boy was kick'd then. 2 Sw. By no means, captain ; let it be supposed still. The word " grant" makes not for us. 1 Sw. I say, this must be granted. 2 Sw. This must be granted, brother ? 1 Sw. Ay, this must be granted. 2 Sw Still, this must 1 1 Sw. I say, this must be granted. 2 Sw. Ay ! give me the must again ! Brother, you palter, 1 Sw. I will not hear you, wasp. 2 Sw. Brother, I say you palter ; the must three times together ! I wear as sharp steel as another man. And my fox bites as deep. Musted, my dear brother ! But to the cause again. Bes. Nay, look you, gentlemen ! 2 Sw. In a word, I ha' done. 1 Sw. A tall man, but intemperate ; 'tis great pity. Once more, suppose the boy kick'd. 2 Sw. Forward. 1 Sw. And, being thoroughly kicked, laughs at the kicker. 2 Sw. So much for us. Proceed. 1 Sw. And in this beaten scorn, as I may call it. Delivers up his weapon ; where lies the error ? Bes. It lies i' the beating, sir ; I found it four days since. 2 Sw. The error, and a sore one, as I take it. Lies in the thing kicking. Bes. I understand that well ; 'tis sore indeed, sir. 1 Sw. That is according to the man that did it, 2 Sw. There springs a new branch : Whose was the foot .' Bes. A lord's. 1 Sw. The cause is mighty ; but, had it been two lords. And both had kick'd you, if you laugh'd, 'tis clear. Bes. I did laugh ; but how will that help me, gentlemen ? 2 Sw. Yes, it shall help you, if you laugh'd aloud. Bes. As loud as a kick'd man could laugh, I laugh'd, sir 1 Sw. My reason now : The valiant man is known By suffering and contemning : you have had Enough of both, and you are valiant. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 129 2 Sw. If he be sure he has been kic/t^d enough : For that brave sufferance you speak of, brother. Consists not in a beating and away. But in a cudgelTd body, from eighteen To eight afid thirty ; in a head rebuked With pots of all size, daggers, stools, and bedstaves: < This shows a valiant man. Bes. Then I atn valiant, as valiant as the proudest ; For these are all familiar things to me : Familiar as my sleep, or want of money ; All my whole body's but one bruise, with beating. I think I have been cudgell'd with all nations, Jind almost all religions. 2 Sw. Embrace him, brother! this man is valiant; I know it by myself, he's valiant. 1 Sw. Captain, thou art a valiant gentleman. To bide upon, a very valiant man. Bes. My equal friends o' th' sword, I must request Your hands to this. 2 Sw. 'Tis fit it should be. Bes. Boy, Get me some wine, and pen and ink, within. — Am I clear, gentlemen ? 1 Sw. Sir, when the world Has taken notice of what we have done. Make much of your body ; for I'll pawn my steel. Men will be coyer of their legs hereafter. Bes. I must request you go along, and testify To the lord Bacurius, whose foot has struck me. How you find my cause. 2 Sw. We will ; and tell that lord he must be ruled ; Or there be those abroad will rule his lordship. [Exeunt. ScEjvE. — The house of Bacurius. Enter Bacurius and a Servant. Bac. Three gentlemen without, to speak with me ? Sei'v. Yes, sir. Bac. Let them come in. Enter Bessus, with the two Swordmen. Serv. They are enter'd, sir, already. Bac. Now, fellows, your business ? Are these the gentlemen ? Bes. My lord, I have made bold to bring these gentlemen. My friends o' th' sword, along with me. 7* 130 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. Bac. I am Afraid you'll fight, then. Bes. My good lord, I will not ; Your lordship is mistaken ; fear not, lord. Bac. Sir, I am sorry for' t. Be^. I ask no more III ho7ior. — Gentlemen, you hear my lord Is sorry. Bac. Not that I have beaten you. But beaten one that will be beaten ; One whose dull body will require a lamming. As surfeits do the diet, spring and fall. Now, to your swordmen : What come they for, good Captain Stockfish ? Bes. It seems your lordship has forgot my name. Bac. No, nor your nature neither ; though they are Things fitter, I must confess, for anything Than my remembrance, or any honest man's : What shall these billets do ? be piled up in my wood-yard ! Bes. Your lordship holds your mirth still, heaven continue it ! But, for these gentlemen, they come Bac. To swear you are a coward ? Spare your book ; I do believe it. Bes. Your lordship still draws wide ; They come to vouch, under their valiant hands, I am no coward Bac. That would be a show, indeed, worth seeing. Sirs, Be wise and take money for this motion, travel with't : And where the name of Bessus has been known. Or a good coward stirring, 'twill yield more than A tilting. This will prove more beneficial to you. If you be thrifty, than your captainship, And more natural. Men of most valiant hands. Is this true ? 2 Sw. It is so, most renowned. Bac. 'Tis somewhat strange. 1 Sw. Lord, it is strange, yet true. We have examined, /row your lordship's foot there To this man's head, the nature of the beatings ; And we do find his honor is come off Clean and sufficient. This, as our swords shall help us. Bac. You are much bounden to your bilbo-men ; I am glad you're straight again, captain. 'Twere good You would think some way how to gratify them ; They have undergone a labor for you, Bessus, Would have puzzled Hercules with all his valor. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 131 2 Sw. Your lordship must understand we are no men Of the law, that take pay for our opinions ; It is sufficient we have cleared our friend. Bac. Yet there is something due, which I, as touch'd In conscience, will discharge. — Captain, I'll pay This rent for you. Bes. Spare yourself, my good lord ; My brave friends aim at nothing but the virtue. Bac. That's but a cold discharge, sir, for the pains. 2 Sw. Oh, lord ! my good lord ! Bac. Be not so modest ; I will give you something. Bes. They shall dine with your lordship, that's sufficient. Bac. Something in hand the while. You rogues, you apple -squires. Do you come hither, with your bottled valor. Your windy froth, to limit out my beatings ? IKicks them. 1 Sw. I do beseech your lordship. 2 Sw. Oh, good lord ! Bac. 'Sfoot, what a bevy of beaten slaves are here! — Get me a cudgel, sirrah, and a tough one. {^Exit servant. 2 Sw. More of your foot, I do beseech your lordship. Bac. You shall, you shall, dog, and your fellow beagle. 1 Sw. 0' this side, good my lord. Bac. Off with your swords ; For if you hurt my foot, I'll have you flead. You rascals. 1 Sw. Mine's off, my lord. \,They take off their swords. 2 Sw. I beseech your lordship, stay a little ; my strap 's tied. Now, when you please. Bac. Captain, these are your valiant friends ; You long for a little too ? Bes. I am very well, I humbly thank your lordship. Bac. What's that in your pocket hurts my toe, you mungrel ? 2 Sw. {takes out a pistol). Here 't is, sir ; a small piece of artillery. That a gentleman, a dear friend of your lordship's. Sent me with to get it mended, sir ; for, if you mark, The nose is somewhat loose. Bac. A friend of mine, you rascal ? I was never wearier of doing nothing, Than kicking these two foot-balls. Enter Servant. Serv. Here's a good cudgel, sir. Bac. It comes too late ; I am weary ; pr'ythee, Do thou beat them. 2 Sw. My lord, this is foul play, I'faith, to put a fresh man upon us : Men are but men^ sir. 132 BEAUMONT AND FLP^TCHER. Bac. That jest shall save your bones. — Captain, rally up your rotten regi- ment, and begone. — I had rather thresh than be bound to kick these rascals, till they cried, " ho !" Bcssus, you may put your hand to them now, and then you are quit.— Farewell ! as you like this, pray visit me again ; 't will keep me in good health. {^Exit. 2 Sw. He has a devilish hard foot ; I never felt the like. 1 Sw. JVor /,- a7id yet, I am sure, I have felt a hundred. 2 Stv. If he kick thus i' the dog-days, he will be dry-foundred. What cure now, captain, besides oil of bays .' Bes. Why, well enough, I warrant you : you cayi go 7 2 Sw. Yes, Heaven be thank'd ! but I feel a shrewd ache ; Sure, he's sprang my huckle-bone. 1 Sw. I ha' lost a haunch. Bes. A little butter, friend, a little butter ; Butter and parsley is a sovereign matter : Prohatum est. 2 Sw. Captain, we must request Your hand now to our honors. Bes. Yes, marry, shall ye. And then let all the world come ; we are valiant To ourselves, and there's an end. 1 Sw. Nay, then, we must be valiant. Oh, my ribs ! 2 Sw. Oh, my inside ! A plague upon these sharp-toed shoes ; they're murderers. [Exeunt, DUKE AND NO DUKE.* . An intriguing wife and her companions persuade Mount-Ma- rine, a foolish gentleman (for the purpose of keeping him in town and spending his money), that the king, besides conferring on him a variety of other titles, has made him a duke. Afterwards, in prosecution of the same design, they pretend they have been ordered to unmake him. Scene — A room in the house of Marine. Enter LoNGUEviHiE to Marine and others. Long. Where's Monsieur Mount-Marine .' Gentleman. Why, there he stands ; will ye aught with him ? * Taken from the play entitled " The Noble Gentleman." BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 133 Long. Yes. Good-day, Monsieur Marine ! Mar. Good-day to you. Long. His majesty doth recommend himself Most kindly to you, sir, and hath, by me. Sent you this favor : kneel down ; rise a knight ! Mar. I thank his majesty ! Long. And he doth further Request you not to leave the court so soon ; For though your former merits have been slighted, After this time there shall no office fall Worthy your spirit (as he doth confess There's none so great) but you shall surely have it. Gent, {aside to Mar.) Do you hear ? If you yield yet, you are an ass. Mar. I'll show my service to his majesty In greater things than these : but for this small one I must entreat his highness to excuse me. Long. I'll bear your knightly words unto the king, And bring his princely answer back again. \^Exit. Gent. Well said ! Be resolute a while ; I know There is a tide of honors coming on ; I warrant you ! Enter Beaufort. Beau. Where is this new made knight ? Mar. Here, sir. Beau. Let me enfold you in my arms, Then call you lord ! the king will have it so : Who doth entreat your lordship to remember His message sent to you by Longueville. Gent. If you be dirty, and dare not mount aloft. You may yield now ; I know what I would do. Mar. Peace ! I will fit him. — Tell his majesty I am a subject, and I do confess I serve a gracious prince, that thus hath heap'd Honors on me without desert ; but yet As for the message, business urgeth me, I must begone, and he must pardon me. Were he ten thousand kings and emperors. Beau. I'll tell him so. Gent. Why, this was like yourself ! [Aside. Beau. As he hath wrought him, 'tis the finest fellow That e'er was Christmas-lord ! he carries it So truly to the life, as though he were One of the plot to gull himself. [Exit, 134 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. Gent. Why, so! You sent the wisest and the shrewdest answer Unto the king, I swear, my honor'd friend, That ever any subject sent his liege. Mar. Nay, now I know I have him on the hip, I'll follow it. Enter Longueville. Long. My honorable lord ! Give me your noble hand, right courteous peer. And from henceforward be a courtly earl ; The king so wills, and subjects must obey : Only he doth desire you to consider Of his request. Gent. Why, faith, you are well, my lord ; Yield to him. Mar. Yield? Why, 'twas my plot — Gent. Nay, 'Twas your wife's plot. Mar. To get preferment by it. And thinks he now to pop me in the mouth But with an earldom .^ I'll be one step higher Gent. It is the finest lord ! I am afraid anon He will stand upon't to share the kingdom with him. [^^side. Enter Beaufort. Beau. Where's this courtly earl ? His majesty commends his love unto you, And will you but now grant to his request, He bids you be a duke, and choose of whence. Gent. Why, if you yield not now, you are undone ; What can you wish to have more, but the kingdom 1 Mar. So please his majesty, I would be duke Of Burgundy, because I like the place. Beau. I know the king is pleased. Mar. Then will I stay, And kiss his highness' hand. Beau. His majesty Will be a glad man when he hears it. Long, {aside to the Gent.) But how shall we keep this from the world's ear. That some one tell him not, he is no duke ? Gent. We'll think of that anon. — Why, gentlemen, Is this a gracious habit for a duke .' Each gentle body set a finger to, BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 135 To pluck the clouds (of these his riding weeds) From off the orient sun, off his best clothes ; I'll pluck one boot and spur off, \_They pluck him. Long. I another. Beau. I'll piuck his jerkin off. Getit. Sit down, my lord. — Both his spurs off at once, good Longueville ! Andj Beaufort, take that scarf off, and that hat. Now set your gracious foot to this of mine ; One pluck will do it ; so ! Off with the other ! Long. Lo, thus your servant Longueville doth pluck The trophy of your former gentry off. — Off with his jerkin, Beaufort ! Gent. Didst thou never see A nimble tailor stand so in his stockings, Whilst some friend help'd to pluck his jerkin off, To dance a jig .' Enter Jaqxjes. Long. Here's his man Jaques come, Booted and ready still. Jaques. My mistress stays. Why, how now, sir ? What does your worship mean, To pluck your grave and thrifty habit off? JUar. My slippers, Jaques ! Long. O, thou mighty duke ! Pardon this man, that thus hath trespassed, In ignorance. Mar. I pardon him. Long. Jaques ! His grace's slippers ! Jaques. Why, what's the matter ? Long. Footman, he's a duke : The king hath rais'd him above all his land. Enter Lady in plain apparel. Gent. See, see my mistress ! Long, {aside.) Let's observe their greeting. Lady. Unto your will, as every good wife ought, I have turn'd all my thoughts, and now am ready. Mar. Oh, wife, I am not worthy to kiss The least of all thy toes, much less thy thumb. Which yet I would be bold with ! All thy counsel Hath been to me angelical ; but mine 136 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. To thee hath been most dirty, like my mind. Dear duchess, I must stay. Lady. What ! are you mad, To make me dress and undress, turn and wind me, Because you find me pliant ? Said I not The whole world should not alter me, if once I were resolved ? and now you call me duchess : Why, what's the matter ? Mar. Lo ! a knight doth kneel. Lady. A knight ? Mar. ' A lord. Lady. A fool. Mar. I say doth kneel An earl, a duke. Long. In drawers. Beau. Without shoes. Lady. Sure you are lunatic ! Gent. No, honor'd duchess, If you dare but believe your servant's truth, I know he is a duke. Lady. Your grace's pardon. » « * * * Long. The choicest fortunes wait upon our duke ! Gent. And give him all content and happiness ! Beau. Let his great name live to the end of time ! Mar. We thank you, and are pleased to give you notice We shall at fitter times wait on your loves ; Till when, be near us. Long. May it please your grace To see the city ? 't will be to the minds And much contentment of the doubtful people. Mar. I am determined so. Till my return, I leave my honor'd duchess to her chamber. Be careful of your health .' I pray you be so. Gent. Your grace shall suffer us, your humble servants, To give attendance, fit so great a person, Upon your body ? Mar. I am pleased so. — Long, {aside) Away, good Beaufort ; raise a guard sufficient To keep him from the reach of tongues ; be quick ! And, do you hear ? remember how the streets Must be disposed for cries and salutations — Your grace determines not to see the king .' Mar. Not yet ; I shall be ready ten days hence To kiss his highness' hand, and give him thanks. As it is fit I should, for his great bounty. Set forward, gentlemen ! BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 137 Groom. Room for the duke there ! IT/iey issue forth. Room there afore ; sound ! Room, and keep your places, And you may see enough ; keep your places ! Long. These people are too far unmanner'd, thus To stop your grace's way with multitudes. Mar. Rebuke them not, good monsieur : ' Tis their loves. Which I will answer, if it please my stars To spare me life and health. 2 Gent. God bless your grace ? Jkfar. And you, with all my heart. 1 Ge7it. Now Heaven preserve you 1 Mar. I thank you too. 2 Gent. Now Heaven save your grace ! Mar. I thank you all. Beau. On there before ! Mar. Stand, gentlemen ! Stay yet a while ; I'm minded to impart My love to these good people, and my friends, Whose love and prayers for my greatness Are equal in abundance. Note me well. And with my words my heart ; for as the tree Long. Your grace had best beware ; 't will be inform'd Your greatness with the people. Mar. I had more, My honest and ingenuous people : but The weight of business hath prevented me ; 1 am caW d from you ; But this tree I speak of Shall bring forth fruit, I hope, to your content. And so, I share my bowels amongst you all. All. A noble duke ! a very noble duke ! {^Exeunt. Scene. — A Hall in Marine's House. Enter Marine and Jaques. Mar. Not gone unto my tenants, to relate My grace, and honor, and the mightiness Of my new name, which would have struck a terror Through their coarse doublets to their very hearts ? Jaques. Alas, great lord and master, I could scarce With safety of my life return again Unto your grace's house : and, but for one That had some mercy, I had sure been hang'd. Mar. My house ? Jaques. Yes, sir, this house ; your house i' th' town. Mar. Jaques, we are displeased ; hath it no name ? 138 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. Jaques. What name ? Mar. Dull rogue ! what, hath the king bestow'd So many honors, open'd all his springs, And shower'd his graces down upon my head, And has my house no name ? no title yet ? Bvrgundy-honse, you ass ! Jaques. Your grace's mercy ! And when I was come off, and had recover'd Burgundy-house, I durst not yet be seen, But lay all night, for fear of pursuivants, In Burgundy wash-house. Mar. Oh, sir, 'tis well ; Can you remember now ? But, Jaques, know, Since thy intended journey is so crost, I will go down myself this morning. Jaques. Sir ? Mar. Have I not said this morning ? Jaques. But consider That nothing is prepared yet for your journey ; Your grace's teams not here to draw your clothes. And not a carrier yet in town to send by. Mar. I say, once more, go about it. You're a wise man ! you'd have me linger time. Till I have worn these clothes out. Will you go ? lExit Jaques. Make you ready, wife ! Enter Lady. Lady. I am so, mighty duke. Mar. Nay, for the country. Lady. How, for the country ? Mar. Yes ; I am resolved To see my tenants in this bravery. Make them a sumptuous feast, with a slight show Of Dives and Lazarus, and a squib or two. And so return. Lady. Why, sir, you are not inad ? Mar. How many dukes have you known mad 7 Pray speak. Lady. You are the first, sir, and I hope the last : But you are stark horn-mad. Mar. Forbear, good wife. Lady. As I have faith, you're mad ! Sir, you shall know There is a greater bond that ties me here. Allegiance to the king. Has he not heap'd Those honors on you to no other end, BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 139 But to stay you here ? and shall I have a hand In the offending such a gracious prince ? Enter Beaufort, Longueville, Gentleman, and Maria. Lady. Oh, gentlemen, we are undone ! Long. For what ? Lady. This gentleman, the lord of Lome, my husband, Will be gone down to show his playfellows Where he is gay. Beau. What, down into the country ? Lady. Yes, 'faith. Was ever fool but he so cross .-' I would as fain be gracious to him. As he could wish me ; but he will not let me. Speak faithfully, will he deserve my mercy .' Long. According to his merits, he should have A guarded coat, and a great wooden dagger. Lady. If there be any woman that doth know The duties 'twixt a husband and his wife. Will speak but one word for him, he shall 'scape : Is not that reasonable .' But there's none. {.Aside) Be ready therefore to pursue the plot We had against a pinch ; for he must stay. Long, {aside) Wait you here for him, whilst I go. And make the king acquainted with your sport, For fear he be incensed for your attempting Places of so great honor. lExit. Lady. Go ; be speedy. Mar. What, are you ready, wife ! Lady. An hour ago. Mar. I cannot choose but kiss thy royal lips, Dear duchess mine, thou art so good a woman. Beau. You'd say so, if you knew all, goodman Duckling ! \^Jlsid€. Clerimont. {a foolish kinsman) This was the happiest fortune could be- fall me ! [^Jlside. Now, in his absence, will I follow close Mine own preferment ; and I hope, ere long. To make my mean and humble name so strong As my great cousin's ; when the world shall know I bear too hot a spirit to live low. The next spring will I down, my wife and household ; I'll have my ushers, and my four lacqueys. Six spare caroches too : But mum, no more ! What I intend to do, I'll keep in store. Mar. Montez, montez ! Jaques, be our querry ! . Groom. To horse there, gentlemen, and fall in couples ! Mar. Come, honor'd duchess ! 140 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER Enter Longuevelle. Long. Stand, thou proud man ! Mar. Thieves, Jaques ! raise the people ! Lo7ig. No ; raise no people ! 'Tis the king's command Which bids thee once more stand, thou hutighty man ! Thou art a monster ; for thou art ungrateful ; And, like a fellow of a rebel nature. Hast flung from his embraces : not return'd So much as thanks; and, to oppose his will. Resolved to leave the court, and set the realm A-fire, in discontent and open action . Therefore he bids thee stand, thou proud man, Whilst, with the whisking of my sword about, J take thy hotwrs off: This first sad whisk Takes off thy dukedom ; thou art but an earl. Mar. You are mistaken, Longueville. Lono-. Oh, 'would I were ! This second whisk divides Thy earldom from thee ; thou ait yet a baron. Mar. JVo more ivhisks, if you love me, Longueville! Long. Two whisks are jftist, and two are yet behind Yet all must come : but not to linger time. With these two whisks I end. Now, Mount-Marine, For thou art now no more, so says the king ; And I have done his highness' will with grief. Mar. Degraded from my honors ? £,on^. 'Tis too certain. Lady. Oh, my poor husband ! what a heavy fortune Is fallen upon him ! Beau. Methinks 'tis strange. That, Heaven forewarning great men of their falls With such plain tokens, they should not avoid 'em : For the last night, betwixt eleven and twelve, Two great and hideous blazing stars were seen To fight a long hour by the clock, the one Dress'd like a duke, the other like a Mng ; Till at the last the crowned star o'ercame. Gent. Why do you stand so dead, Monsieur Marine ? Mar. So Caisarfell, when in the capitol They gave his body two-and-thirty wounds. Be warned, all ye peers ; and, by my fall. Hereafter learn to let your wives rule all ! Marine is finally permitted to think himself a Duke, but only in secret. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 141 Gent, {aside to Marine) Hark ye, sir ; The king doth know you are a duke. Mar. No ! does he ? Gent. Yes ; and is content you shall be ; with this caution — That none know it but yourself ; for, if you do HeUl take H away by act of parliament. Mar. Here is my hand ; and whilst I live or breathe, JVb living wight shall know I am a duke. Gent. Mark me directly, sir ; your wife may know it. Mar. Mayn't Jaques ? Gent. Yes, he may. Mar. Mayn't my cousin ? Gent. By no means, sir, if you love life and state. Mar. {out loud) Well then, know all, I'm no duke. Gent. No, I'll swear it. Mar. Know all, I am no duke. Lady. What say you .' Mar. Jaques, \_Aside to him Jaques. Sir ? Mar. I am a duke. Both. Are you ? Mar. Yes, 'faith ; yes, 'faith, But it must only run amongst ourselves. Lady, {aside) As I could wish. {Aloud) Let all young sprightly wives, That have dull foolish coxcombs to their husbands. Learn by me all their duties, what to do. Which is, to make 'em fools, and please 'em too ! 142 ANONYMOUS. ANONYMOUS. THE OLD AND YOUNG COURTIER. This is a banter by some " fine old Queen Elizabeth gentleman" (or somebody writing in his character) on the new and certainly far less respectable times of James the First ; an age in which a gross and unprincipled court took the place of a romantic one, and greatness became confounded with worldliness ; an age in which a lusus naturcE was on the throne, — in which Beaumont and Fletcher were spoilt, the corruption and ruin of the great Bacon completed, Sir Walter Raleigh murdered, and a pardon given to Lord and Lady Somerset. However, I must not injure the pleasant effect of an old song by pitching the critical prelude in too grave a tone. It is here printed, as given with corrections in Percy's Reliques^ from an ancient black-letter copy in the Pepys collection of Ballads, Garlands, &;c., preserved at Magdalen College in Cam- bridge. This Pepys is " our fat friend" of the Memoirs, — now a man of as jovial a reputation, as he was once considered staid and formal. He must have taken singular delight in the song before us ; for though a lover of old times, and an objector upon princi- ple to new, he had an inclination to the pleasures of both. The song is admirable ; full of the gusto of iteration, and exquisite in variety as well as sameness. It repeats the word " old " till we are enamored of antiquity, and prepared to resent the impertinence of things new. What a blow to retiring poverty is the " thump on the back with the stone !" and what a climax of negative merit is that of the waiting-gentlewoman, who, when her lady has dined, " lets the servants not eat !" ANONYMOUS. 143 I should not wonder if it had been written by Decker. It has all his humor, moral sweetness, and flow. An old song made by an aged old pate Of an old worshipful gentleman, who had a great estate. That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate, And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate ; Like an old courtier of the queen's. And the queen's old courtier. With an old lady, whose anger one word assuages, That every quarter paid their old servants their wages. And never knew what belong'd to coachmen, footmen, nor pages. But kept twenty old fellows with blue coats and badges ; Like an old courtier, &c. With an old study fiU'd full of learned old books ; With an old reverend chaplain, you might know him by his looks ; With an old buttery hatch, worn quite off' the hooks ; And an old kitchen, that maintain'd half a dozen old cooks ; Like an old courtier, &c. With an old hall hung about with pikes, guns, and bows ; With old swords, and bucklers, that had borne many shrewd blows, And an old frieze coat to cover his worship's trunk hose ; And a cup of old sherry to comfort his copper nose ; Like an old courtier, &c. With a good old fashion, when Christmas was come, To call in all his old neighbors with bagpipe and drum, With good cheer enough to furnish every old room. And old liquor able to make a cat speak and a man dumb ; Like an old courtier, &c. With an old falconer, huntsman, and a kennel of hounds. That never hawk'd, nor hunted, but in his own grounds. Who, like a wise man, kept himself within his own bounds. And when he died, gave every child a thousand good pounds ; Like an old courtier, &c. But to his eldest son his house and land he assign'd, Charging him in his will to keep the old bountiful mind. To be good to his old tenants, and to his neighbors be kind ; But in the ensuing ditty you shall hear how he was inclin'd : Like a young courtier of the king's. And the king's young courtier. 144 ANONYMOUS. Like a flourishing young gallant, newly come to his land. Who keeps a brace of painted madams at his command, And takes up a thousand pounds upon his father's land. And gets drunk in a tavern, till he can neither go nor stand ; Like a young courtier, &c. With a new-fangled lady, that is dainty, nice, and spare. Who never knew what belong'd to good house-keeping, or care, Who buys gaudy-color'd fans to play with a wanton air. And seven or eight different dressings of other women^s hair ; Like a young courtier, &c. With a new^-fashion'd hall, built where the old one stood. Hung round with new pictures, that do the poor no good ; With a fine marble chimney, wherein burns neither coal nor wood. And a new smooth shovel-board, whereon no victuals ne'er stood ; Like a young courtier, &c. With a new study, stuft full of pamphlets and plays, And a new chaplain, that swears faster than he prays ; With a new buttery hatch, that opens once in four or five days. And a new French cook, to devise fine kickshaws and toys ; Like a young courtier, &c. With a new fashion, when Christmas is drawing on, On a new journey to London straight w^e all must begone, And leave none to keep house but our new porter John, Who relieves the poor with a thump on the back with a stone , Like a young courtier, &c. With a new gentleman usher, whose carriage is complete ; With a new coachman, footmen, and pages to carry up the meat; With a waiting gentlewoman, whose dressing is very neat. Who, when her lady has din^d, lets the servants not eat ; Like a young courtier, &c. With new titles of honor bought with his father's old gold. For which sundry of his ancestors' old manors are sold ; And this is the course most of our new gallants hold. Which makes that good house-keeping is now grown so cold, Among our young courtiers of the king, Or the king's young courtiers. RANDOLPH. 145 RANDOLPH. BORN, 1605 DIED, 1634. Thomas Randolph, who died fellow of Trinity College, Cam- bridge, aged twenty-nine, was one of the favorite disciples of Ben Jonson. He had a vein of comedy gayer and more natural than his master's, which might have rendered him a favorite with posterity, had he outlived the influence of his training. He had as much learning for his time of life, more animal spirits, and appears to have been very amiable. His brother collected and published his writings, with an introduction full of love and re- spect. He lost a finger once in endeavoring to part two combat- ants ; and, instead of bewailing the mishap, turned it into a sub- ject for epigram, and said he hoped to " shake hands with it in heaven." Randolph's best known play, the Muses^ Looking- Glass, which is to be found in late collections of the old drama, is singularly full of life, considering it is one continued allegory, and didactic withal. And his dramatic pastoral, called A7nyntas, or the Im- possihle Dowry (from an imaginary fairy investiture), deserves to be known quite as well, for its gaiety and graceful fancy. If he had but understood " the art of arts, the art to blot," he would have been popular to this day. But who did, in his time, even the greatest ? Who thoroughly understands it any time ? And what heaps of inferior poets have since gone, and are going, to oblivion, who took him doubtless for some obsolete gentleman, oppressed with a quaint love of talking, while they fancied their own garrulity to be the right " soul of wit ?" In the following scene from the Muses^ Looking-GIass, the poet, under the Greek names of Deilus, Aphobus, and Colax, 8 146 RANDOLPH. presents us with caricatures of Fear, Rashness, and Flattery. The excessive double-dealing of Flattery, in his asides to the two others, is very ludicrous ; and the extravagances of Fear have a foundation in truth, not unworthy to stand side by side with the honest poltrooneries of the heroin John Paul."^ FEAR, RASHNESS, AND FLATTERY. Deilus undergoes jiaroocysyns of terror from the near conversation of Aphobus. — C01.AX {aside) adulates them both ,• but ultimately rids himself of their company, on finding that he gets nothing by it. Deilus. Good Aphobus, no more such terrible stories : I would not for a world lie alone to-night : I shall have such strange dreams ! Aphobus. What can there be That I should fear .' The gods .' if they be good, 'Tis sin to fear them : if not good, no gods ; And then let them fear me. Or are they devils That must affright me ! Deil. Devils ! where, good Aphobus .•' I thought there was some cotifuring abi'oad ; ' Tis such a terrible wind ! here it is ; Now it is here again ! still, still, still. Apho. What is the matter .' Deil. Still it follows me ! The thing in black, behind ; soon as the sun But .shines, it haunts tne ? Gentle spirit, leave me ! Cannot you lay him ? What ugly looks it has ! With eyes as big as saucers, nostrils wider Than barbers' basons ! Apho. It is nothing, Deilus, But your weak fancy that from every object Draws arguments of fear. This terrible black thing ■ Deil. Where is it, Aphobus .' Apho. Is but your shadow, Deilus. Deil. And should we not fear shadows 7 Apho. ' No, wliy should we .'' Deil. Who knows but they come leering after us. To steal away the substance .?' Watch him, Aphobus. Apho. I fear nothing. Colax. {aside to Aphobus) / do commend your valor. That fixes your great soul fast as a centre. Not to be mov'd with dangers. Let slight cock-boats * FtdeMr. Carlyle's admirable translation of Tales from the German. 1 RANDOLPH. 147 Be shaken with a wave, while you stand firm Like an undaunted rock, whose constant hardness Reheats the fury of the raging sea, Dashing it into froth. Base fear doth argue A low degenerate soul. Deil. {In answer to x\phobus) Now 1 fear everything. Colax. {aside to Deilus) ' Tis your discretion. Everything has dan- ger, And therefore everything is to he feared. I do applaud this wisdom. 'Tis a symptom ^ Of wary providence. His too confident rashness [ Secretly making a gesture towards Aphobus. Argues a stupid ignorance in the soul, A blind and senseless judgment. Give me fear To 7nan the fort ; 'tis such a circumspect And wary sentinel ; but daring valor, Uncapable of danger, sleeps securely. And leaves an open entrance to his enemies. Deil. What, are they landed 7 Apho. Who ? Deil. The enemies That Colax talks of. Apho. If they be, I care not ; Though they be giants all, and arm'd with thunder. Deil. Why, do you not fear thunder 7 Apho. Thunder ? No ! No more than squibs and crackers. Deil. Squibs and crackers ! I hope there he none here! s'lid, squibs and crackers ! — The mere epitomes of the gunpowder treason .' Faux in a lesser volume !^ Apho. Let fools gaze At bearded stars. It is all one to me, As if they had been shav'd. Thus, thus would I Out-beard a meteor ; for I might as well Name it a prodigy when my candle blazes. Deil. Is there a comet, say you ? Nay, I saw it ; It reach' d from Paul's to Charing, and portends Some certain imminent danger to the inhahitants 'Twixt those two places. I'll go get a lodging Out of its influence.^ Colax. Will that serve you ? — I fear It threatens general ruin to the kingdom. Deil. I'll to some other country. Colax. There is danger To cross the seas. 148 RANDOLPH. Deil. Is there no way, good Colax, To cross the sea by land 7 O the situation^ The horrible situatio7i of an island ! Colax. {aside to Aphobus) You, sir, are far above such frivolous thoughts. You fear not death. Apho. Not I. Col. Not sudden death. Apho. No more than sudden sleeps. Sir, I dare die. Deil. I dare not. Death to me is terrible. J will not die.* Apho. How can you, sir, prevent it ? Deil. Why, I will kill myself. Col. A valiant course ; And the right way to prevent death indeed. Your spirit {aside to Deilus) is true Roman ! — But yours {aside to Apho- bus) greater. That fears not death, nor yet the manner of it. {Aloud) Should heaven fall Apho. Why, then we should have larks. Deil. I shall never eat larks again while I breathe. Col. Or should the earth yawn like a sepulchre. And with an open throat swallow you quick ? Apho. ' Twould save me the expenses of a grave. Deil. I had rather trouble my executors by th' half. Apho. Cannons to me are pop-guns. Deil. Pop-guns to me Are cannons. The report will strike me dead. Apho. A rapier's but a bodkin. Deil. But a bodkin / Jfs a most dangerous weapon. Since I read Of Julius Csesar's death, I durst not venture Into a tailor's shop for fear of bodkins. Apho. that the valiant giants should again Rebel against the gods, and besiege heaven, So I might be their leader. Col. {aside to Aphobus) Had Enceladus Been half so valiant, Jove had been his prisoner. Apho. Why should we think there be such things as dangers ? Scylla, Charybdis, Python, are but fables ; Medea's bull and dragon very tales ; Sea-monsters, serpents, all poetical figments ; Nay, hell itself, and Acheron, mere inventions ; Or were they true, as they are false, should I bo So tim'rous as to fear these bug-bear Harpies, Medusas, Centaurs, Gorgons .-* Deil. O good Aphobus, RANDOLPH, 149 Leave conjuring, or take me into the circle. What shall I do, good Colax ? Col. Sir, walk in. There is, they say, a looking-glass, a strange one Of admirable virtues, that will render you Free from enchantments. Deil. How ! a looking-glass 7 Dost think I can endure it 1 Why there lies A man within'' t i?i ambush to entrap me. I did but lift my hand np, and he presently Catch" d at it. Col. 'T was the shadow, sir, of yourself; Trust me, a mere reflection. Deil. {mustering up all his forces) I will trust thee. Apho. What glass is that .-' Col. {aside to Aphobus) A trick to fright the idiot Out of his wits ; a glass so full of dread, Rend'ring to the eye such horrid spectacles As would amaze even you, sir. I do think Your optic nerves would shrink in the beholding. This if your eye endure, I will confess you The prince of eagles. Apho. Look to it, eyes : if ye refuse this right. My nails shall damn you4o eternal night. Col. {aside to himself) Seeing no hope of gain, I pack them hence. 'Tis gold gives flattery all her eloquence. ^ Who knows but they come leering after us To steal away the substance ? A very poetical apprehension, and very poetically expressed. The word leering has a fine comic mystery in it ; which is always an aggravation of horror, upon the principle of extremes meet- ing ; — malice in benevolence. 3 Squibs and crackers ! The mere epitomes of the gunpowder treason ! Faux in a lesser volwne ! The wording of this extravagance is just as if Charles Lamb had written it. But indeed, in the pregnancy as well as coloring of his style, he was one of our old wits come back again. ^ Til go get a lodging Out of its influence. 150 RANDOLPH. The caricatures of Fear, after all, are not caricatures. It is the only passion lliat cannot be overdrawn. Multitudes of people in civilized countries have been known to do things as ridiculous as this ; liave believed in the end of the world because a mad- man announced it, and gone out of town to avoid an earthquake next Wednesday ! « " I will not </«e."— Here aojain there is no caricature. These ridiculous words have too often become terrible to the hearers, in the mouth of poor angry mortality. What Deilus also says after- wards of his killing himself to avoid death, has not only the authority of Ovid — Morte fugit- Mortisque timorem And from the fear of Death Flies into death's own arms ; but is founded in the depths of the secret of terror. PRETENDED PRAIRIES ROBBING AN ORCHARD. DoRYLAs has induced Jocastus, a foolish country gentleman, to believe him to be Oberon, Prince of the Fairies ; and, in company with some other young rogues, takes advantage of his credulity to rob his orchard. Enter Dorylas, with a bevy of Fairies. Dor. {to his companions) How like you my Grace ? Is not my coun- tenance Royal and full of majesty ? Walk I not Like the young Prince of Pygmies ? Ha, my knaves ! We'll fill our pockets. Look, look yonder, elves : Would not yon apples tempt a better conscience Than any we have to rob an orchard .' Ha ! Fairies, like nymphs with child, must have the things They long for. You sing here a fairy catch In that strange tongue I taught you, wliile myself Do climb the trees. {He climbs.) Thus princely Oberon Ascends his throne of state. RANDOLPH. 151 Chorus of Fairies. JVos beata Fauni proles,^ Quibus non est magna moles, QuaTnvis Luriam incolamus, Hoi'tos scBpe frequentam,us. Furto cuncta magis bella., Furto dulcior piiella, Furto omnia decora, Furto poma dulcior a. Cum mortales lecto jacent, JVobis poma node j^lacent ; Ela tamen sunt ingrata, JVisi furto sint parata. Enter Jocastus and his servant Bromius. Joe. What divine noise, fraught with immortal harmony. Salutes mine ears ! Bronx. Why, this immortal harmony Rather salutes your orchard. These young rascals {jlside). These peascod shellers, do so cheat my master, We cannot have an apple in the orchard, But straight some fairy longs for 't. {To his master.) Well, if I Might have my will, a whip again should jerA; 'em Into their old mortality. Joe. Dar'st thou, screech-owl. With thy rude croaking interrupt their music. Whose melody has made the spheres to lay [We, the Fairies, blithe and antic. Of dimensions not gigantic, Though the moonshine mostly keep us. Oft in orchards frisk and peep us. Stolen sweets are always sweeter. Stolen kisses much completer. Stolen looks are nice in chapels. Stolen, stolen be your apples. When to bed the world are bobbing, Then's the time for orchard robbing ; Yet the fruit were scarce w^orth peeling Were it not for stealing, stealing.] 152 RANDOLPH. Their heavenly lutes aside, only to listen To their more charming notes ? Bronx. Say what you will, I say a cudgel now were excellent music. Chorus of Fairies. Oberon, descende citus, JVe cogaris hi?ic invitus. Canes audio lairantes, Et mortalcs vigilantes. Joe. Prince Oberon ! I heard his Grace's name. Broin. ho ! I spy his Grace. Most noble Prince, Come down, or I'll so pelt your Grace with stones. That I believe your Grace was ne'er so pelted, Since Hwas a Grace. Dor. Bold mortal, hold thy hand. Bronx. Immortal thief, come down, or I will fetch you.^ Methinks it should impair your Grace's honor To steal poor mortals' apples. Now, have at you. Dor. Jocastus, we are Oberon ; and we thought That one so near to us as you in favor. Would not have sufFer'd this profane rude groom Thus to impair our royalty. Joe. Gracious Prince, The fellow is a fool, and not yet purg'd From his mortality. Dor. Did we, out of love And our entire affection, of all orchards Choose yours, to make it happy by our dances. Light airy measures and fantastic rings, And you, ungrateful mortal, thus requite us. All for one apple ! Joe. {to Bromius) Villain, thou hast undone me ! His Grace is much incens'd. Dor. You know, Jocastus, Our Grace have orchards of our own, more precious Than mortals can have any ; aud we sent you A present of them t'other day. Joe. 'Tis right : Your Grace's humble servant must acknowledge it. [Oberon, descend, we pray thee. Lest a swift stick over-lay thee. Dogs are on the watch, and barking, Eyes of mortals anti-larking.] RANDOLPH. 153 Broni. Some of his own, Tm sure. JJor. I must confess Their outside look'd something like yours indeed ; But then the taste more relish' d of eternity. The same with nectar Joe Your Grace is welcome To anything I have. Nay, gentlemen {to the others). Pray do not you spare neither. Elves. Tititati. Joe. What say these mighty peers, great Oberon ? Dor. They cannot speak this language, but in ours They thank you ; and they say they will have none. Elves. Tititati, Tititati. Joe. What say they now ? Dor. They do request you now To grant them leave to dance a fairy ring About your servant, and for his offence Pi?ich him. Do you, the while, command the traitor Not dare to stir, nor once presume to mutter. Joe. Traitor, for so Prince Oberon deigns to call thee, Stir not, nor mutter. Broni. To be thus abus'd ! Joe. Ha ! mutterest thou .' .Brom. I have deserv'd better. Joe. Still mutterest thou ? Brom. I see I must endure it. Joe. Yet mutterest thou ? Now, noble lords, begin, When it shall please your honors. Dor. Tititati, Our noble friend permits Tititatee ; Do you not, sir ? Joe. How should I say I do .-' Dor. Tititatee. Joe. Tititatee, my noble lords.' {Fairies dance about Bromius, and pinch and scratch him in chorus.) Quoniam per te violamur. Ungues hie experiamur : Statim dices tibi datam Cutem valde variatam. [Since by thee comes profanation Taste thee, lo ! excoriation : Thou shalt own, that in a twinkling Thou hast got a pretty crinkling.] 154 RANDOLPH. Joe. Tiiitati to your lordship for this excellent music. Brom. {aside) This 'tis to have a coxcomb for one's master. Joe. Still mutterest thou ? lExit Bromius. (DoRYLAs descends from the tree ; Joe ahtus falls on his knees.) Dor, Arise up, Sir Jocastus, our dear knight. Now hang the hallow'd bell about his neck ; We call it a jnellisonant tingle-ta?igle, {Aside) (A sheep-bell stolen from his own fat wether) The ensign of his knighthood. Sir Jocastus, We call to mind we promis'd you long since The President of our Dances' place ; we are now Pleas'd to confirm it on you. Give him there His staff of dignity. Joe. Your Grace is pleas'd To honor your poor liegeman. Dor. Now be gone. Joe. Farewell unto your Grace and eke to you. Tititatee, my noble lords ; farewell. \^Exit. Dor. Tititatee, — my noble fool ; farewell. ***** So we are clean got off. Come, noble Peers Of Faery, come attend our Royal Grace ; Let's go and share our fruits with our Queen Mab, And the other dairy-maids ; where of this theme We will discourse amidst our cakes and cream. Chorus of Fairies. Cum totpoma habeamus, Triumphos Icetijam canamus. Faunos ego credam ortos, Tantum ut frequentant hortos. I domum, Oberon, ad illas QucB nos manent nunc ancillas ; Quarum osculemiir sinum, Inter poma, lac, etvinum.* [Now for all this store of apples. Laud we with the voice of chapels. Elves, methinks, were ordain'd solely To keep orchard-robbing holy. Home, then, home ; let's recreate us With the maids, whose dairies wait us ; Kissing them, with pretty grapples. All midst junkets, wine, and apples.] RANDOLPH. 155 » *' JVos heata Fauni proles,'' &c.— There is something very charm- ing in these Latin rhymes. They make one wish (in spite of the danger of being charged with a Gothic taste) that Horace and Catullus, — say rather Ovid, — had written in rhyme as well as blank verse, and so given us a fairy music with some of his words, beyond the power of his lutes and lyres to hand down. 2 " Immortal thief, come down," &c. — It must be confessed that Bro- mius talks too well for a servant. So, for that matter, does his master, for so foolish a country-gentleman. But we are to recol- lect that the play is a pastoral with an Arcadian licence. 3 " Tititatee, my noble lords," &c.— Moliere himself would have enjoyed this extravagance. It is indeed quite in his manner. 4 " Inter poma, lac, etvinum."—A line that shuts up the scene in " measureless content." Thanks be to the witty scholar, Thomas Randolph, for an addition to the stock of one's pleasant fancies. 156 SUCKLING. SUCKLING. BORN, 1609— DIED, 1641. Sir John Suckling, son of the Comptroller of the Household to Charles the First, was so true a wit, and hit so delightful a point between the sentiment of the age of Elizabeth and the gallantry of the Stuarts, that it is provoking to be unable to give some of his best pieces at all in a publication like the present, and only one or two short ones without mutilation. He comes among a herd of scented fops with careless natural grace, and an odor of morning flowers upon him. You know not which would have been most delighted with his compliments, the dairy-maid or the duchess. He was thrown too early upon a town life ; otherwise a serious passion for some estimable woman, which (to judge from his graver poetry) he was very capable of entertaining, might have been the salvation of him. As it was, he died early, and, it is said, not happily ; but this may have been the report of envy or party-spirit ; for he was a great loyalist. It is probable, however, that he excelled less as a partizan than as a poet and a man of fashion. He is said to have given a supper to the ladies of his acquaintance, the last course of which consisted of milli- nery and trinkets. The great Nelson's mother was a Suckling of the same stock, in Norfolk. Steele, in the Taller (No. 40), not undeservedly quotes a pas- sage from Suckling, side by side with one about Eve from Mil- ton. It is in his tragedy of BrennoraU, where a lover is looking on his sleeping mistress : — *' Her face is hke the milky way i' the sky, A meeting of gentle lights without a name." SUCKLING. 157 Feelings like these enabled his fair friends to put up with such pleasant contradictions to sentiment as the following :— THE CONSTANT LOVER. Out upon it, I have lov'd Three whole days together ; And am like to love three more, If it prove fair weather. Time shall moult away his wings. Ere he shall discover In the whole wide world again Such a constant lover. But the spite on't is, no praise Is due at all to me ; Love with me had made no stays. Had it any been but she. Had it any been but she. And that very face, There had been at least ere this A dozen in her place, i 1 « A dozen in her place;'-This song is the perfection of easy, witty, light yet substantial writing. There is no straining after thoughts or images, and not a word out of its place, or more words than there ought to be, unless we except the concluding verse of the third stan°za ; and this seems to overrun its bounds with a special propriety,— besides the grace of its repetition in the stanza following. Here follows another short piece, which can also be given entire. The last line has a vivacity and novelty do- licrhtfully unexpected ; but I am afraid it was suggested by a similar turn in one of our old dramatists, though I cannot recol- lect which. THE REMONSTRANCE. Why so pale and wan, fond lover ? Prythee, why so pale ? Will, when looking well can't move her. Looking ill prevail ? Prythee, why so pale ? 158 SUCKLING. Why so dull and mute, young sinner ? Prythee, why so mute ? Will, when speaking well canH win hefy Saying nothing doH 1 Prythee, why so mute ? Quit, quit for shame ! this will not move, This cannot take her ; If of herself she will not love, Nothing can make her. The Devil take her. Suckling was the first writer (in English) of those critical Sessions J or gatherings together of the poets for the adjustment of their claims to superiority, which gave rise to similar pleasant- ries on the part of Rochester, Sheffield and others. Sir John's Sessio7is of the Poets seems to have been poured forth at a sitting, as heartily as his bottle. It has all the negligence, but at the same time spirit, of a first impulsive sketch ; and perhaps it might have been hurt by correction ; though such a verse as the second in the fifth stanza — " Prepar'd with Canary wine—" could hardly have been intended to remain. The whole poem is here given almost verbatim. A SESSION OF THE POETS.^ A session was held the other day, And Apollo himself was at it, they say. The Laurel, that had been so long reserv'd, Was now to be given to him best deserved : And therefore the wits of the town came thither, 'Twas strange to see how they flock'd together ; Each, strongly confident of his own way. Thought to bear the laurel away that day. There was Selden, and he sat close by the chair ; Wenman, not far off, which was very fair, SUCKLING. 159 Sands with Townsend, for they kept no order, Digby and Chillingworth a little further. There was Lucan's translator too, and he That makes God speak so big in his poetry ;* Selwin, and Waller, and Bartlets, both the brothers ; Jack Vaughan and Porter, and divers others. The first that broke silence was good old Ben, Prepar'd with Canary wine ; And he told them plainly he deserv'd the bays, For his were call'd " Works," where others were but Plays.' And bid them remember how he had purg'd the stage Of errors that had lasted many an age ; And he hop'd they didn't think the Silent Woman, The Fox and the Alchymist, out-done by no man. Apollo stopt him there, and bid him not go on ; 'Twas merit, he said, and not presumption Must carry it ; at which Ben turn'd about. And in great choler offered to go out. But those that were there, thought it not fit To discontent so ancient a wit ; And therefore Apollo call'd him back again. And made him mine host of his own JVew Inn. Tom Carew* was next, but he had a fault That wouldn't well stand with a Laureat ; His muse was so slow, that the issue of his brain Was seldom brought forth but with trouble and pain ; And all that were present there did agree A Laureat muse should be easy and free. Yet sure 'twas n't that ; but 'twas thought that his grace] Consider'd he was well he had a cup-bearer's place.3 Will Davenant, asham'd of a foolish mischance That he had got lately travelling in France, Modestly hoped the handsomeness of 's muse Might any deformity about him excuse. And surely the company would have been content If they could have found any precedent ; * Who was this .' * Pronounced Carey. 160 SUCKLING. But iu all their records, either in verse or prose. There was not one Laureat without a nose. To Will Bartlct sure all the wits meant well,^ But first they would see how his " Snow" would sell ; Will smil'd, and swore in their judgments they went less That concluded of merit upon success. Suddenly taking his place again, He gave way to Selwin, who straight stept in ; But alas ! he had been so lately a wit, That Apollo himself scarce knew him yet. Toby Matthews {plague on him, how came he there ?) Was whispering nothing in somebody^ s ear. When he had the honor to be nam'd in court ; But, sir, you must thank my Lady Carlisle for't ; For had not her " Character''^ furnish'd you out With something of handsome, without all doubt You and your sorry lady-muse had been In the number of those that were not let in. In haste from the court two or three came in, And they brought letters, forsooth, from the Queen ! 'Twas discreetly done, too, for if they had come Without them, they had scarce been let into the room. This made a dispute ; for 'twas plain to be seen Each man had a mind to gratify the Queen ; But Apollo himself could not think it fit ; There was difference, he said, betwixt fooling and wit.* Suckling next was call'd, but did not appear ; But straight one whisper'd Apollo i' th' ear, That of all men living he car'd not for't ; He lov'd not the Muses so well as his sport ; And priz'd black eyes, or a lucky hit At bowls, above all the trophies of wit ; But Apollo was angry, and publicly said 'Twas fit that a fine were set on's head. Wat Montagu next stood forth to his trial, And did not so much as suspect a denial ; But witty Apollo ask'd him first of all If he understood his own " Pastoral " SUCKLING. 161 For if he cou'd do it, 'twould plainly appear He understood more than any man there, And did merit the bays above all the rest, But the Monsieur was modest, J^nd silence confest. During these troubles in the court was hid One that Apollo soon miss'd,— little Sid ; And having spy'd him, call'd him out of the throng, And advis'd him in his ear not to write so strong. Murray was summon'd ; but 'twas urg'd, that he Was chief already of another company. Hales, set by himself, most gravely did smile To see them about nothing keep such a coil ; Apollo had spy'd him, but knowing his mind Past by, and call'd Falkland, that sat just behind : But he was of late so gone with divinity. That he had almost forgot his poetry ; Though to say the truth, and Apollo did know it. He might have been both his priest and his poet. At length who but an Alderman did appear, At which Will Davenant began to swear ; But wiser Apollo bade him draw nigher, And, when he was mounted a little higher, He openly declar'd, that the best sign Of good store of wit was to have good store of coin ; And without a syllable more or less said, He put the laurel on the Alderman's head. At this all the wits were in such amaze, That, for a good while, they did nothing but gaze One upon another; not a man in the place But had discontent writ at large in his face. Only the small Poets cheer'd up again Out of hope, as 'twas thought, of borrowing ; But sure they are out ; for he forfeits his "crown," When he lends to any Poet about the town.e 1 " A Session of the Poets;'— Oi the " poets" here mentioned, Selden is the famous jurist ; Sands (or Sandys) the translator of Ovid ; Digby, Sir Kenelm j Chillingworth, the controversialist ; 162 SUCKLING. " Lucan's translator," May ; Jack Vaughan, Sir John, after- wards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas ; Porter, Endymion, an accomplished courtier and loyalist ; Toby Matthews, a busy, body about town, author of a " Character'^ of Lady Carlisle, of whom he was a great admirer ; Wat Montague, Walter of the Manchester family, author of a poem called the " Sheppard's Paradise," who became a Roman Catholic, and had an abbey given him in France, whence he is called " Monsieur ;" Little Sid, Sidney Godolphin, one of the many great men of the age, who were diminutive in person ; Hales, the " ever-memorable" of Eton ; Falkland, Lord F&lkland, the romantic victim of the civil wars. Ben Jonson, Waller, Carew, and Davenant, need no explanation. Who the others were I cannot say. 2 "For his were calVd Works, where others were but Plays"— An actual boast of Jonson's. " Works" they certainly were, — the result of the greatest labor and pains. Shakspeare's plays were emanations. . But the classic Ben thought no title for his books comparable to one that was a translation of the Latin word opera. The New Inn, subsequently mentioned, is the name of one of his comedies. 3 " j3 cup-bearer's place."— Ca.rew held this office at court. 4 " How his ' Snow' would sell." — A poem, I presume, so called. 5 " There was difference, he said, betwixt fooling and wit." — This seems hardly respectful towards the Queen from the son of his Majesty's Comptroller of the Household. But perhaps Henrietta Maria was sometimes forced to give letters, which she was not unwilling to see regarded accordingly. Still the tone of the rejection, notwithstanding what is said of the wish to gratify her, seems hardly such as would have been liked by a woman of her temper. Had she ever called Suckling a fool ? and so provoked him to show the difference between a real wit like himself, and some of the pretenders in her Majesty's train ? « He forfeits his ** crown, ^^ When he lends to any Poet about the town. A pun on the word crown. Suckling's dramas are so confused and obscure, that they SUCKLING. 163 seem to have been written when he was half awake. Probably he was too impatient to fashion them properly. The construc- tion of a regular play with not enough passion in it to make it flow off at a heat, must have been a heavy task to a man accus- tomed to the excitement of the gaming-table, and with his hands full of " affairs of the heart." Sir John's most renowned effusion, therefore, was a Ballad on a Wedding ; and exquisite of its kind it is. Its only fault is that it commences in language more provincial than it goes on with. Yet times and manners are so altered, that 1 can only give the two following portraits out of it. The latter fortunately contains the most charming touches in the poem. The bridegroom is said to have been Lord Broghill, the well-known soldier and politician (afterwards Earl of Orrery), and the bride, Lady Margaret Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk. THE BRIDEGROOM. I tell thee, Dick, where I have been, Where I the rarest things have seen ; Oh ! things without compare ! Such sights again cannot be found In any place on English ground. Be it at wake or fair. At Charing-Cross, hard by the way Where we (thou know'st) do sell our hay, There is a house with stairs ; And there did I see, coming down, Such folks as are not in our town, Forty at least in pairs. Amongst the rest, one pest'lent fine (His beard no bigger though than thine), Walk'd on before the rest : Our landlord looks like nothing to him ; The king (God bless him), H would undo himy Should he go still so drest. 164 SUCKLING. At Course-a-park, without all doubt, He should have first been taken out 13y all the maids i' th' town Though lusty Roger there had been, Or little George upon the Green, Or Vincent of the Crown. THE BRIDE. Her finger was so small, the ring Wou'd not stay on, which they did bring ; It was too wide, a peck ; And to say truth (for out it must) It look'd like the great collar {just) About our young colt's neck. Her feet beneath her petticoat Like little mice, stole in and out. As if they feaf d the light ; But oh .' she dances such a way ! Wb sun upon an Easter day Is half so fine a sight. Her cheeks so rare a white was on. No daisy bears comparison (Who sees them is undone), For streaks of red were mingled there, Such as are on a Katherine pear. The side that's next the sun. Her lips were red, and one was thin Compar'd to that was next her chin, Some bee had stung it newly ; But (Dick) her eyes so guard her face, I durst no more upon them gaze. Than on the sun in July.* * With the lip described in this stanza all the world has been in love. I used to think that the accent on the first -syllable of "July" was a pleasant exercise of will on the writer's part, in order to force a rhyme with " truly ;" but on turning to the dictionary I find it is the proper one. I suppose we have got the SUCKLING. 165 habit of calling it July, from a wish to make the distinction the greater between it and June. — I beg pardon of the '•' lip" for turn- ing from it to this dry bit of criticism. It is impossible to quit the subject without turning again, to give it another glance. 166 BROME. B R M E . BORN, ? DIED, 1752. I KNOW nothing of Richard Brome, except that he once acted in some kind of capacity of " servant" to Ben Jonson ; that he wrote a number of comedies, which succeeded ; and that one of them, the Jovial Crew, or Merry Beggars, was in possession of the stage not long ago. The following laughable fancy is extracted by Charles Lamb into his " Draviatic Specimens.'' If Brome wrote many such, he deserves to be better known. The second child- hood of the old gentlemen is very ludicrous, especially of the restive one, who tells his young director that he is " none of his father." There was another Brome, Alexander, a jovial attorney and loyalist during the Civil Wars, whose bacchanalian vein is said to have done good service to his cause. I have looked through his volume, but can find little in it except noise and smartness ; though there is a tone of sincerity that does him honor. There is nothing so ready to take the will for the deed in matters of wit and song, as conviviality and good-fellowship ; and very par- donable is the mistake ; though the printed consequences are too apt to resemble the dullness " next morning." OLD MEN GOING TO SCHOOL. Scene from the comedy of tlie Antipodes, in which the " world j BROME. 167 is turned upside down," servants ruling their masters, children sending their parents to school, &c. Son, Servant, Gentleman, and Lady, natives. English Traveller. Servant {to his young master). How well you saw Your father to school to-day, knowing how apt He is to play the truant ! Son, But is he not Yet gone to school ? Servant. Stand by, and you shall see. Enter three Old Men, ivith satchels. All three {singing). Domitie, domine, duster ; 2^hree knaves in a cluster. Son. this is gallant pastime ! Nay, come on. Is this your school ? was that your lesson, hay ? 1st Old Man. Pray now, good son, indeed, indeed Son. Indeed You shall to school. Away with him ; and take Their wagships with him, the whole cluster of 'em. 2d Old Man. You sha'n't send us now, so you sha'nt 3d Old Man. We be none of your father, so we herCt. Son. Away with 'em, I say ; and tell their school-mistress What truants they are, and bid her pay 'em soundly. All three. Oh, oh, oh ! Lady. Alas ! will nobody beg pardon for The poor old boys ? English Traveller. Do men of such fair years Here go to school ? Gentleman. They would die dunces else. These were great scholars in their youth ; but when Age grows upon men here, their learning wastes, And so decays, that if they live until Threescore, their sons send them to school again ; They'd die as speechless else as new-born children. English Traveller. ' Tis a wise nation : and the piety Of the young men most rare and commendable. Yet give me, as a stranger, leave to beg Their liberty this day. Son. 'Tis granted. 168 BROME. Hold up your heads, and thank the gentleman Like scholars, with your heels now.* All three. Graiias, gratias.^ {Exeunt singing. * He means they are to scrape, and make a bow. t " Thanks, thanks." — They say it in Latin, according to school cus- tom, and to show their progress. MARVEL. 169 MARVEL. BORN, 1G20— DIED, 1678, Andrew Marvel, a thoughtful and graceful poet, a masterly prose-writer and controversialist, a wit of the first water, and, above all, an incorruptible patriot, is thought to have had no mean hand in putting an end to the dynasty of the Stuarts. His wit helped to render them ridiculous, and his integrity added weight to the sting. The enmity, indeed, of such a man was in itself a re- proach to them ; for Marvel, though bred on the Puritan side, was no Puritan himself, nor a foe to any kind of reasonable and respectable government. He had served Cromwell with his friend Milton, as Latin Secretary, but would have aided Charles the Second as willingly, in his place in Parliament, had the king been an honest man instead of a pensioner of France. The story of his refusing a carte hlanche from the king's treasurer, and then sending out to borrow a guinea, would be too well known to need allusion to it in a book like tlie present, if it did not contain a specimen of a sort of practical wit. Marvel being pressed by the royal emissary to state what would satisfy his expectations, and finding that there was no other mode of persuading him that he had none, called in his servant to testify to his dining three days in succession upon one piece of mutton. Even the wise and refined Marvel, however, was not free from the coarseness of his age ; and hence I find the same provoking difficulty as in the case of his predecessors, with regard to extracts from the poetical poition of his satire. With the prose I should not have been at a loss. But the moment these wits of old time 9 170 MARVEL. began rhyming, they seem to have thouglit themselves bound to give the same after-dinner license to their fancy, as when they were called upon for a song. To read the noble ode on Cromwelli in which such a generous compliment is paid to Chailcs the First, — the devout and beautiful one entitled Bermuda, and the sweet overflowing fancies put into the mouth of the Nymph lamenting the loss of her Faun, — and then to follow up their perusal with some, nay most of the lampoons that were so formidable to Charles and iiis brother, you would hardly think it possible for the same man to have written both, if examples were not too numerous to the contrary. Fortunately for the reputation of Marvel's wit, with those who chose to become acquainted with it, he wrote a great deal better in prose than in verse, and the prose does not take the license of the verse. Hence, as Swift for another reason observes, we can still read with pleasure his answer to his now forgotten antagonist Parker. Of his witty poems, I can only give a single one entire, which is the following. The reader knows the impudent Colonel Blood, who, in the disguise of a clergyman, attempted to steal the crown, in payment (as he said) of dues withheld from him in Ireland. Marvel had not forgotten the days of Laud, and he saw people still on the bench of bishops who were for renewing the old persecutions. Hence the bitterness of the implication made against prelates. ON BLOOD STEALING THE CROWN. When daring Blood, his rent to have regain'd. Upon the British diadem distraiii'd. He chose the cassock, circingle,* and gown. The fittest mask for one that robs the crown ; But his lay-pity underneath prevail'd, And wliilst he sav'd the keeper's life, he fail'd. With \\\c priesVs vestment had he but put on ^he prelate^ s cruelty, the crown had gone. * The girdle of a cassock ; generally spelt surcingle. MARVEL. 171 DESCRIPTION OF HOLLAND.^ Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land. As but the ofF-scouring of the British sand ; And so much earth as was contributed By English pilots, when they heaved the lead ; Or what by the ocean's slow alluvion fell, Of shipwrecked cockle and the mussel-shell. * *■ * * Glad then, as miners who have found the ore, They, with mad labor, fish'd the land to shore ; And dived as desperately for each piece Of earth, as if it had been of amber greece ; Collecting anxiously small loads of clay. Less than what building swallows bear away ; Or ^han those pills which sordid beetles rowl, Transferring into them their dunghill soul. How did they rivet with gigantic piles Thorough the centre their new-catched miles ; And to the stake a struggling country bound, Where barking waves still bait the forced ground ; Building their wat'ry Babel far more high To catch the waves than those to scale the sky. Yet still his claim the injured ocean layed. And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples played ; As if on purpose it on land had come To show them what's their mare Liberum ;* A daily deluge over them does boil ; And earth and water play at level-coyl ;t The fish oft-times the burgher dispossessed, And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest ; And oft the Tritons, and the sea-nymphs, saw Whole shoals of Dutch served up for cabillau ;% Or, as they over the new level ranged, For pickled herring, pickled Heeren changed. Nature, it seem'd, asham'd of her mistake. Would throw their land away at duck and drake : Therefore necessity, that first made kings. Something like government among them brings ; * A free ocean ; for which the Dutch jurists were then contending with the English. t I cannot discover the meaning of this word, and unfortunately am at a distance from linguists better informed. X Fresh cod. 172 MARVEL. For as witli pigmys, who best kills the crane, Among the hungry he that treasures grain, Among the blind the one-eyed blinkard reigns. So rules among the drouml'd he that drains. Not who first sees tlie rising sun, comaiands ; But who could first discern the rising lands. Who best could know to pump an earth so leak. Him they their lord and country^ s father speak. To make a bank was a great jtlot of state ; Invent a shovel, and be a magistrate. , Description of Holland.— The jest of this efTusion lies m the in- tentional and excessive exaggeration. To enjoy it thoroughly, it is necessary perhaps that the reader should be capable, in some degree, of the like sort of jesting, or at least have animal spirits enough to run willing riot with the extravagance. Mr. Hazlitt, for defect of these, could see no kind of joke in it, notwithstand- ing his admiration of Marvel. He once began an argument with Charles Lamb and myself, to prove to us that we ought not to laugh at such things. Somebody meanwhile was reading the verses ; and the only answer which they left us the power to make to our critical friend was by laughing immeasurably. But I have mentioned this in the Introductory Essay. FLECNOE, AN ENGLISH PRIEST AT ROME.^ Obliged by frequent visits of this man, Whom as a priest, poet, and musician, I for some branch of Melchizidec took (Tho' he derives himself from my Lord Brooke) I sought his lodging ; which is at the sign Of the Sad Pelican ; subject divine For poetry. There, three stair-cases high. Which signifys his triple property, I found at last a chamber, as 'twas said, But seemed a coffin set on the stairs' head. Not higher than sev'n, nor larger than three ieci : There neither was or ceiling, or a sheet. Save that th' ingenious door did, as you come, MARVEL. 173 Turn in, and show* to wainscot half the room. * * * * * Straight without further information. In hideous verse, he in a dismal tone. Begins to exercise ; as if I were Possess'd ; and sure the devil brought me there. But I, who now imagin'd myself brought To my last tryal, in a serious thought Calmed the disorders of my youthful breast. And to my martyrdom prepared rest. Only this frail ambition did remain, The last distemper of the sober brain, That there had been some present to assure The future ages how I did endure : And how I, silent, turn'd my burning ear Towards the verse ; and when that could not hear, Held him the other ; and unchanged yet, Ask'd him for more, and pray'd him to repeat ; Till the tyrant, weary to persecute. Left off, and tried to allure me with his lute. * * * * I, that perceiv'd now what his musick meant, Ask'd civilly, if he had eat this Lent ? He answered, yes ; with such, and such an one; For he has this of gen''rous, that alone He never feeds ; save only when he trys With gristly tongue to dart the passing fiies. I ask'd if he eat flesh. And he, that was So hungry, that tho' ready to say mass. Would break his fast before, said he was sick. And th' ordnance was only politick. Nor was I longer to invite him : scant Happy at once to make him Protestant, And silent. Nothing now dinner stay'd. But still he had himself a body made : I mean till he were dressed ; for else so thin He stands, as if he 07ily fed had been With consecrated wafers ; and the host Hath sure more flesh and blood than he can boast, ' This basso relievo of a man. Who as a camel tall, yet eas'ly can The needle's eye thread without any stitch. His only impossible is to be rich ; — * Seem. 174 MARVEL. Lest his too subtle body, growing rare, Should leave his soul to wander in the air, He therefore circumscribes himself in rhymes ; And swaddled in 's own papers seven times, JVears a close jacket of poetic buff. With wliich he doth his third dimension stuff. Thus armed underneath, he over all Does make a primitive Sotana fall ; And above that yet casts an antique cloak, Worn at the first council of Antioch ; Which by the Jews long hid and disesteenCd, He heard of by tradition", and redeemed. But Avere he not in this black habit deck'd, This half transparent man would soon reflect Each color that he past by ; and be seen. As the camelion, yellow, blue, or green. He dress'd, and ready to disfurnish now His chamber (whose compactness did allow No empty place for complimenting doubt. But who came last is forc'd first to go out), I met one on the stairs who made me stand. Stopping the passage, and did him demand ; I answer'd, " He is here, sir; but you see You cannot pass to him but thorow me." He thought himself affronted ; and reply'd, *' I, whom the palace never was deny'd. Will make the way here." I said, " Sir, you'll do Me a great favor, for I seek to go." ^ Flecnoe, an English Priest at i?ome.— Poor Flecnoe was the poetaster, after whom Drydeii christened Shadwell, " MacFlec- noe." See passages from the satire thus entitled in the present volume. The verses before us, which are written in the same spirit of exaggeration as the preceding, exhibit that strange rug- gedness in the versification, which was intentional in the satirists of those days when they used the heroic measure, and which they took to be the representative of the satirical numbers of Horace or his predecessors. Flecnoe luckily appears to have rendered the most good-natured poets callous, by a corresponding insensibility to the hardest attacks. BUTLER. 175 BUTLER. BORN, 1612— DIED, 1680, Butler is the wittiest of English poets, and at the same time he is one of the most learned, and what is more, one of the wisest. His Hudibras, though naturally the most popular of his works from its size, subject, and witty excess, was an accident of birth and party compared with his Miscellaneous Poems ; yet both abound in thoughts as great and deep as the surface is spark- ling ; and his genius altogether, having the additional recommen- dation of verse, might have given him a fame greater than Rabe- lais, had his animal spirits been equal to the rest of his qualifica- tions for a universalist. At the same time, though not abounding in poetic sensibility, he was not without it. He is author of the touching simile. True as the dial to the sun. Although it be not shin'd upon. The following is as elegant as anything in Lovelace or Wal- ler: — — What security's too strong To guard that gentle heart from wrong. That to its friend is glad to pass Itself away, and all it has. And like an anchorite, gives over This world, for the heaven of a lover / And ilds, if read with the seriousness and singleness of feeling that become it, is, I think, a comparison full of as much grandeur as cordiality, — 176 BUTLER. Like Indian widows, gone to bed. In flaming curtains to the dead. You would sooner have looked for it in one of Marvel's poems, than in Hudihras. Butler has little liumor. His two heroes, Hudibras and Ralph, are not so much humorists as pedants. They are as little like their prototypes, Don Quixote and Sancho, as two dreary puppets arc unlike excesses of humanity. They are not even consistent with their other prototypes, the Puritans, or with themselves, for they are dull fellows unaccountably gifted with the author's wit. In this respect, and as a narrative, the poem is a failure. No- body ever thinks of the stor}', except to wonder at its inefficiency ; or of Hudibras himself, except as described at his outset. He is nothing but a ludicrous figure. But considered as a banter issu- ing from the author's own lips, on the wrong side of Puritanism, and indeed on all the pedantic and hypocritical abuses of human reason, the whole production is a marvellous compound of wit, learning, and felicitous execution. The wit is pure and inces- sant ; the learning as quaint and out-of-the-way as the subject'; the very rhymes are echoing scourges, made of the peremptory and the incongruous. This is one of the reasons why the rhymes have been so much admired. They are laughable, not merely in themselves, but from the masterly will and violence with which they are made to correspond to the absurdities they lash. The most extraordinary license is assumed as a matter of course ; the accentuation jerked out of its place with all the indifference and effrontery of a reason " sufficing unto itself." The poem is so peculiar in this respect, the laughing delight of the reader so well founded, and the passages so sure to be accompanied with a full measure of wit and knowledge, that I have retained its best rhymes throughout, and thus brought them together for the first time. Butler, like the great wit of the opposite party. Marvel, was an honest man, fonder of his books than of worldly success, and superior to party itself in regard to final principles. He wrote a satire on the follies and vices of the court, which is most likely the reason why it is doubted whether he ever got anything by Hudihras ; and he was so little prejudiced in favor of the scholar- BUTLER. 177 ship he possessed, that he vindicated the born poet above the poet of books, and would not have Shakspeare tried by a Grecian standard. DESCRIPTION OF HUDIBRAS AND HIS EQUIPMENTS. When civil dudgeon first grew high, And men fell out they knew not why ; When hard words, jealousies, and fears. Set folks together by the ears. And made them fight, like mad or drunk. For dame Religion, as for punk^ (Whose honesty they all durst swear for. Though not a man of them knew wherefore) ; When gospel-trumpeter, surrounded With long-ear'd rout, to battle sounded ; And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic. Was beat with fist instead of a stick ; Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling. And out he rode a colonelling. A wight he was, whose very sight would Entitle him Mirror of Knighthood, That never bow'd his stubborn knee To anything but chivalry, Nor put up blow, but that which laid Right Worshipful on shoulder-blade ; Chief of domestic knights and errant. Either for chartel* or for warrant ; Great on the bench, great in the saddle. That could as well bind o'er as swaddle ;t Mighty he was at both of these. And sty I'd of war, as well as peace (So some rats, of amphibious nature. Are either for the land or water). But here our authors make a doubt, Whether he were more wise or stout : Some hold the one, and some the other. But, howsoe'er they make a pother. The difference was so small, his brain Outweigh'd his rage but half a grain ; » * Chartel is a challenge to a duel. t Swaddle, to swathe or bind in clothes ; hence ,to beat or cudgel. 118 •'^' BUTLER. Which made some take him for a tooly That knaves do work with, called a fool. For 't has been held by many, that As Montaigne, playing with his cat, Comjjlains she thought him but an ass. Much more she would Sir Hudibras (For that's the name our valiant knight To all his challenges did write) ; But they're mistaken very much ; 'Tis plain enough he was no such. We grant, although he had much wit, H' was very shy of using it, As being loth to wear it out, And therefore bore it not about, Unless on holy-days, or so. As men their best apparel do. Besides, 'tis known he could speak Greek As naturally as pigs squeak ; That Latin was no more difficile. Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle ; Being rich in both, he never scanted His bounty unto such as wanted ; But much of either would afford To many that had not one word, * * 4r * He was in logic a great critic, Profoundly skill'd in analytic ; He could distinguish and divide A hair 'twixt south and southwest side ; On either which he would dispute. Confute, change hands, and still confute. He'd undertake to prove, by force Of argument, a man's no hor^e ; He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl, And that a lord may be an owl ; A calf an alderman, a goose a justice, ^ And rooks committee-men and trustees. He'd run in debt by disputation, And pay with ratiocination. All this by syllogism, true In mood and figure, he would do. For rhetoric, he could not ope His mouth, but out there flew a trope ; And when he happen'd to break off r th' middle of his speech, or cough, H' had hard words ready to show why. « BUTLER. 179 And tell what rules he did it by ; Else, when with greatest art he spoke. You'd think he talk'd like other folk; For all a rhetorician's rules Teach nothing but to name his tools. But, when he pleas'd to show 't, his speech, In loftiness of sound, was rich ; A Babylonish dialect. Which learned pedants much affect ; It was a particolor'd dress Of patch'd and pieball'd languages ; 'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin, Like fustian heretofore on satin : It had an old promiscuous tone, As if h' had talk'd three parts in one ; Which made some think, when he did gabble, Th' had heard three laborers of Bahel, Or Cerberus himself pronounce A leash of languages at once.^ * * * * In mathematics he was greater Than Tycho Brahe or Erra Pater ;* For he, by geometric scale. Could take the size of pots of ale ; Resolve, by sines and tangents, strait. If bread or butter wanted weight : And wisely tell, what hour o' th' day The clock does strike, by algebra. * * * * For his religion, it was fit^ To match his learning and his wit : 'Twas presbyterian true blue ; For he was of that stubborn crew Of errant saints, whom all men grant To be the true church militant ; Such as do build their faith upon The holy text of pike and gun ; Decide all controversies by Infallible artillery ; And prove their doctrine orthodox. By apostolic blows and knocks ; Call fire, and sword, and desolation, A godly, thorough reformation, Which always must be carried on. And still be doing, never done ; As if religion were intended ISO BUTLER. For nothing else but to be mended : A sect whose chief devotion lies In odd perverse antipatliies; In falling out with tliat or this. And finding somewhat still amiss ; More peevish, cross, and splenetic, Than dog^ distract, or monkey sick; That with more care keep holy-day The wrong, than others the right way ; Compeund for sins they are inclin'd to. By damning those they have no mind to: Still so perverse and opposite, As if they worshipped God for spite: The self-same thing they will abhor One w^ay, and long another for : Free-will they one way disavow. Another, nothing else allow : All piety consists therein In them, in other men all sin : Rather than fail, they will defy That which they love most tenderly; Quarrel with mind' d pies and disparage Their best and dearest friend, plum porridge ; Fat pig and goose itself oppose. And blaspheme custard through the nose.' Th' apostles of this fierce religion. Like Mahomet's, were ass and widgeon, To whom our knight, by fast instinct Of wit and temper was so linkt. As if hypocrisy and nonsense Had got the advowson of his conscience. Thus was he gifted and accoutred. We mean on th' inside, not the outward : That next of all we shall discuss ; Then listen, sirs; it follows thus. His tawny beard was t/t' equal grace Both of his wisdom and his face ; In cut and dye so like a tile, A sudden view it would beguile : The upper part whereof was tvhey. The nether orange, mix'd with grey. This hairy meteor did denounce The fall of sceptres and of crowns ; Witli grisly type did represent Declining age of government ; And tell, with liieroglyphic spade, Its oivn grave and the staters were made. I BUTLER. 181 1 " For dame Religion, as for punk." — An old word for prostitute. 2 " A calf an alderman, a goose a justice." — As this is the only line overrunning the measure of the poem, and its length not at all necessary, I think it probable Butler wrote A calf an alderman, goose justice. 3 " A leash of languages."— How happy a word is this leashj which means at once three in number, and a band for a dog. 4 " Erra Pater."— The name of an obscure old astrologer, applied in those days to the impostor Lilly. 5 " For his religion," &c.— Most admirable is this description of the assumptions, perversities, and egotisms, of a fanatical creed, which identifies its will and pleasure with God's, and betrays its pretended morals and self denial by the most barbarous kind of self-indulgence. Nothing can surpass the subtle pungency of worshipping God " for spite," or that of the exquisite, never-to- be-sufficiently repeated couplet. Compound for sins they are inclin'd to. By damning those they have no mind to. « " Quarrel mith minc'd pies," &c.— The Puritans set their faces against good cheer, particularly at Christmas. You were to be as uncomfortable as themselves, on pain of being denounced by their envy. SAINTSHIP versus CONSCIENCE. " Why didst thou choose that cursed sin, Hypocrisy, to set up in ?" " Because it is the thriving'st calling, The only saints' bell that rings all in ; In which all churches are concern'd, And is the easiest to be learn'd. * * * * ♦ Quoth he, " I am resolv'd to be Thy scholar in this mystery ; And therefore first desire to know 182 BUTLER. Some principles on which you go. — What makes a knave a child of Godf And one oftts ?" — " A livelihood." " What renders beating ont ofbrainSy And murder godliness ?" — " Great gains." " What's tender conscience ?" — " 'Tis a botch That will not bear the gentlest touch ; But, breaking out, despatches more Than th' epidemical'st plague-sore." " What makes y' encroach upon our trade, And damn all others ?" — " To be paid." " What's orthodox and true believing Against a conscience ?" — " A good living." " What makes rebelling against kings A good old cause ?" — " Administrings."* " What makes all doctrines plain and clear ?" " About two hundred pounds a year." " And that which was prov'd true before, Prove false again ?" — " T\oo hundred more." " What makes the breaking of all oaths A holy duty ?" — " Food and clothes." " What, laws and freedom, persecution ?'* *' Being out of power and contribution." " What makes a church a den of thi^es ?" — '* A dean and chapter, and white sleeves." *' And what would serve, if these were gone To make it orthodox ?" — " Our own." " What makes morality a crime. The most notorious of the time ; Morality, which both the saints And wicked too cry out against ?" " 'Cause grace and virtue are within Prohibited degrees of kin ; And therefore no true saint allows They shall be suffered to espouse." ^ " What makes rebelling against kings A good old cause ?" — " Administrings." Administrings were powers given by the law to appropriate the goods of persons dying intestate. Nothing was ever wittier or better written than the whole of the passage here following, particularly the first and last four lines. I have closed the extract with the latter, in order to give it its best effect ; otherwise the author goes on capitally well, — BUTLER. • . 183 For saints can need no conscience That with morality dispense, As virtue's impious when 'tis rooted In nature only, and not imputed ; And so he proceeds to conclude, that — A large conscience is all one, And signifies the same as none. Such are the meetings of extremes in fanatical religions. And the description is no caricature. By the ridiculous doctrine of *' imputed merit," God's creatures were to be all vice, in order to compliment the Creator with the exclusive possession of all vir- tue ! The children were to be made pure scoundrels, in order to do the greater honor to the father ! Such are the flatteries of superstition ! THE ASTROLOGERS. Quoth Ralph, Not far from hence doth dwell A cunning man, hight Sidrophel, That deals in Destiny's dark counsels And sage opinions of the moori sells ; To whom all people far and near On deep importances repair ; When brass and pewter hap to stray. Or linen slinks out of the way. When geese and pullet are sedu<fd. And sows of sucking pigs are chows'd. — He made an instrument to know If the moon shine at full or no ; That would as soon as e'er she shone, straight Whether 'twere day or night demonstrate ; Tell what her diameter to an inch is. And prove that she's not made of green cheese. A STATESMAN'S CONVERSATION. — All a subtle statesman says Is half in words and half in face. 1S4 BUTLER. As Spaniards talk in dialogues Of heads and shoulders, nods and shrugs ; Intrust it under solemn vows Of " vium," and " silence," and " the rose," To be retail'd again in ivhispers For th' easy credulous to disperse. HEROES OF ROMANCE. There was an ancient sage philosopher. That had read Alexander Ross over,^ And swore the world, as he could prove. Was made of fighting and of love. Just so romances are, for what else Is in them all, but love and battles ? 0' th' first of these w' have no great matter To treat of, but a world o' the latter. In which to do the injur'd right We mean, in what concerns just fight. Certes our authors are to blame. For, to make some well-sounding name A pattern fit for modern knights To copy out in frays and fights (Like those that a whole street do raze. To build a palace in the place), They never care how many others They kill, without regard of mothers. Or wives, or children, so they can Make up some fierce, dead-doing man, Comnos'd o[ niany ingredient valors. Just like the manhood of nine tailors. ' " That had read Alexander Ross over."^X tedious and volumin- ous writer of divinity. SELF-POSSESSION. 'T is not restraint or liberty, ''■^^SSj^ That makes men prisoners or free, -^t^w- But perturbations that possess The mind, or equanimities. BUTLER. 185 The whole world was not half so wide To Alexander when he cried Because he had but one to subdue. As was a paltry narrow Uib to Diogenes, who is not said (For aught that ever I could read) To whine, put finger i' th' eye, and sob Because he had ne'er another tuh.^ ^ " Another ^tf^*."— Diogenes, who desired Alexander to " stand out of his sunshine," is here made to turn the tables a second time and in the happiest manner, on the great spoiled child of Victory. MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES AMD RHYMES. " O Heaven !" quoth she, " can that be true ? I do begin to fear 'tis you ; Not by your individual whiskers. But by your dialect and discourse." A torn beard's like a batter'd ensign ; That's bravest which there are most rents in. Th' extremes of glory and of shame. Like east and west, become the same. No Indian prince has to his palace More followers than a thief to the gallows. — Wholesale critics, that in coffee- Houses cry down all philosophy. — Antichristian assemblies To mischief bent as far 's in thlm lies. Bruis'd in body. And conjured into safe custody. That proud dame Used him so like a base rascallio7i, That old Pyg — what d' ye call him— r7i alien. 186 BUTLER. That cut his mistress out of stone. Had not so hard a hearted one. It was a question whether he Or 's horse were of a family More worshipful ; till antiquaries. After they'd almost por'd out thtir eyes. Did very learnedly decide The business on the horse's side. Have they invented tones to win The women, and make them draw in The men ; as Indians with a female Tame elephant inveigle the male ? Doctor epidemic, Stor'd with deletery med'cities, Which whosoever took is dead since. So th' Emperor Caligula, That triumph'd o'er the British sea. Took crabs and oysters prisoners. And lobsters 'stead of cuirassiers ; Engaged his legions in fierce bnstles With periwinkles, prawns, and mussels, And led his troops, witTi furious gallops. To charge whole regiments of scallops. Madame, I do, as is my duty Honor the shadow of your shoe-tie. Conven'd at midnight in outhouses. To appoint new rising rendezvouses. 'Mong these there was a politician, With more heads than a beast in vision.— So politic, as if one eye Upon the other were a spy That to trepan the one to think The other blind, both strove to blink.^ I " Strove to blitik." — This was Lord Shaftesbury. What an BUTLER. 187 idea of craft and self-deception ! a man's two eyes, the most united and friendly of all things, and which cannot stir but in unison, endeavoring to outwit one another ! PASSAGES FROM THE POSTHUMOUS POEMS. CAUTION AGAINST OVER-REFORM. Should once the world resolve f abolish All that's ridiculous and foolish^ It would have nothing left to do, T' apply in jest or earnest to ; JYo business of importance, play. Or state, to pass the time away. LOFTY CARRIAGE OF IGNORANCE. The truest characters of ignorance, Are vanity, and pride, and arrogance ; As blind men use to bear their noses higher Than those that have their eyes and sight entire. CAUTION AGAINST PROSELYTISM. More proselytes and converts use t' accrue To false persuasions than the right and true ; For error and mistake are infinite, But truth has but one way to be i' th' right. The greatest saints and sinners have been made Of proselytes of one another's trade. A convert 's but a fly, that turns about After his head's pull'd off, to find it out. ISS BUTLER. HOLLAND AND THE DUTCH. A country that draws fifty foot of water ; In which men live, as in the hold ofA'ature ; That feed, like cannibals, on other fishes, And serve their cousins- ger man vp in dishes ; — A land that rides at anchor, and is moor''d ; In which men do not live, but go aboard} ' Our great satirist is here indulging himself in one of the pleasant " extravagances " which he recommends as refresh- ments of thought : but it is impossible to take leave of extracts from such a writer without expressing a kind of transport at the perfection of his wit and good sense. DRYDEN. 189 DRYDEN. BORN, 1631 — DIED, 1701. If Dryden had been cast in a somewhat finer mould, and added sentiment to his other qualifications, he would have been almost as great a poet in the world of nature, as he was in that of art and the town. He had force, expression, scholarship, geniality, admirable good sense, musical enthusiasm. The rhymed heroic couplet in his hands continues still to be the finest in the language. But his perceptions were more acute than subtle ; more sensual, by far, than spiritual. The delicacy of them had no proportion to the strength. He prized the flower, but had little sense of the fragrance ; was gross as well as generous in his intellectual diet ; and if it had not been genuine and hearty, would have shown an almost impudent delight in doing justice to the least refined of Nature's impressions. His Venus was not the Celestial. He would as soon have described the coarsest flower, as a rose ; sooner, if it was large and luxuriant. His very repentance has more relish of sin, than regret; though, indeed, he was too honest a man to have reason to regret anything very strongly ; for his faults were those of temperament and an easy disposition. Even his enmities, powerfully as he could word them, were but those of the poet and partizan, not of the human being. They required a public cause or repeated private offence to provoke them. He had all the goodnature and placability of a child of nature. Agreeably to this character of his genius, Dryden's wit is less airy than masculine ; less quick to move than eloquent when roused ; less productive of pleasure and love than admiration and a sense of his mastery. His satire, if not so learned and univer- 190 DRYDEN. sal as Butler's, is aimed more at the individual and his public standing, and therefore comes more home to us. The titled wits of the day, who affected alternately to patronize and to correct him, he generally submitted to with his natural modesty, and with the policy of a poor man ; but when the humor or party necessity came upon him, he seized the unlucky individual, as Gulliver might have done a lord of Lilliput ; and gripping him, and holding him up by the ribs, exposed his pretensions, limb by limb, to the spectator. Still it was rather in vindication of a power derided, or of a sense of justice provoked, than from an ungenerous desire to give pain. He could bestow commendation on the offender ; and was always ready to break off into some enthusiastic strain of verse or reflection. The famous satire on Shadwell entitled Mac Flecnoe (that is to say, Flecnoe's son) is, for the most part, so coarse, that I can only quote a few lines from it, which I have accordingly put in this place. But they are the best. They are comprised in the exor- dium. Flecnoe, the bad poet indicated by Marvel (see p. 174), is supposed to abdicate the throne of Dulness in favor of its heir- apparent Shadwell. Shadwell had repeatedly intimated his own superiority compared with Dryden, as a writer of plays ; and he was newly appointed laureate to King William, who had ousted James the Second and his greater laureate ; so that Dryden had every provocation against him, political and poetical. All human things are subject to decay. And when fate summons, monarchs must obey ; This Flecnoe found, who, like Augustus, young, Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long : In prose and verse was own'd without dispute. Through all the realms of JVonsense, absolute. This aged prince, now governing in peace, And blest with issue of a large increase, Worn out with business, did at length debate To settle the succession of the state ; And, pondering which of all his sons was fit To reign, atid wage immortal war with wit, Cry'd, 'Tis resolv'd ; for nature pleads, that he Should only rule, who most resembles me. Shadwell alone my perfect image bears ; Mature in dulness from his tender years : DRY DEN. 191 Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity. The rest to some faint meaning make pretence. But Shadwell never deviates into sense. Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, Strike through, and make a lucid interval : But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray; His rising fogs prevail against the day. Besides, his goodly fabric fills the eye, And seems design'd for thoughtless m.ajesty ; Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain. And spread in solemn state supinely reign. Hey wood and Shirley were but types of thee, Thou last great prophet of tautology ! Heywood and Shirley were dramatic writers of the past age, both superior to what Dryden here intimates of them ; but he saw their tediousness and commonplace, and did not feel their sentiment. Shadwell was a great fat debauchee, who mistook will for genius ; and because he enjoyed the humor of Ben Jonson, and was not indeed altogether destitute of humor himself, poured forth a profusion of shallow dialogue, which was the very dotage of pertness. As to his " poetry," the reader may see a specimen of it in " Imagination and Fancy," p. 31. It is a curious oversight of Dryden's in this satire, that he should put the best wit of it into the mouth of Flecnoe himself. CHARACTER OF LORD SHAFTESBURY.^ From the poem of " Absalom and Achitophel."* This plot which fail'd for want of common sense,t Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence : For as when raging fevers boil the blood, The standing lake soon floats into a flood, * " Absalom and Achitophel" is a satire, under Jewish names, upon the intrigues of Lord Shaftesbury and the Duke of Monmouth against the Catholic and Court interest. t The Popish Plot, real or pretended, which was sworn to by the infa- mous Titus Oates. 192 DRYDEN. And every hostile humor, which before Slept quiet in its channels, bubbles o'er ; So several factions, from this first ferment. Work up to foam, and threat the government. Some by their friends, more by themselves, thought v^ise, Oppos'd the power to which tliey could not rise. Some had in courts been great, and, thrown from thence, Like fiends were harden'd in impenitence. Some, by their monarch's fatal mercy, grown. From pardon'd reb'els, kinsmen to the throne. Were rais'd in power, and public office high ; Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie. Of these the false Achitophel was first, — A name to all succeeding ages curst ; For close designs and crooked councils fit ; Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit ; Restless, unfix'd in principles and place. In power unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace ; Ji fiery soul, that ivorking out its way, ^ Fretted the pigmy body to decay, > And d* er -inform^ d the tenement of clay, j A daring pilot in extremity. Pleased with the danger when the loaves went high. He sought the storms ; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to show his wit. Great wits to madness surely are allied. And thin partitions do their bounds divide y' Else, why should he, with wealth and honor blest, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest ; Punish a body which he could not please. Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease. And all to leave what with such toil he won. To that unfeathefd two-legged thing, a son ,-' Got, while his soul did huddled notions try. And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy ? In friendship false, implacable in hate, Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state. To compass this the triple bond he broke, ^ The pillars of the public safety shook, > And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke ; 3 Then, seiz'd with fear, yet still affecting fame, Usurp'd a patriot's all-atoning name. So easy still it proves, in factious times. With public zeal to pancel private crimes. How safe is treason, and how sacred ill, Where none can sin against the people* s will / i DRYDEN. 193 Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known. Since in another's guilt they see their own. Yet fame deserv'd no enemy can grudge ; The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge. In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin* With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean ; Unbrib'd, unsought, the wretched to redress ; Swift of despatch, and easy of access. Oh ! had he been content to serve the crown With virtues only proper to the gown. Or had the rankness of the soil been freed From cockle that oppress'd the noble seed, David for him his tuneful harp had strung. And lieaven had wanted one immortal song. 1 " Character of Lord Shaftesbury:'— Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury, a mercurial and ambitious man, not very well principled where powder was to be obtained, but not indis- posed to be just and patriotic when possessed of it. Even the famous reply which he is said to liave made to a banter of Charles the Second, contained a sort of impudent aspiration, which must have at once disconcerted and delighted the merry monarch ; for it implied that his majesty and he stood in a very remarkable state of relationship. The King. Shaftesbury, I believe thou art the wickedest dog in my dominions. Shaftesbury (with a bow). May it please your majesty, of a subjectt I believe I am." ^ " Great wits to madness surely are allied. And thin pai'titions do their bounds divide." The truth of this striking couplet may seem to be exemplified in the history of Swii\ and others ; but it is not the greatness of the wit that is allied to the madness ; it is the weakness or vio- lence of the will. Rabelais was no madman, Moliere was none, Sterne was none, Butler none, Horace, Aristophanes, Ariosto, Berni, Voltaire, Shakspeare, Cervantes. The greater the wit, for the most part, the healthier the understanding, because it is tho- roughly wisest and well-balanced. Some physical irregularity * A Jewish word for judge. Shaftesbury had been Lord Chancellor. 10 194 DRY DEN. or accident is generally at the bottom of the madness of men of genius. Lee was a drinker, and used to lie at night in the streets. Swift had a diseased blood. Poor Collins probably got the seeds of his malady in the gay life he once led " about town," a very unfit one for his sensitive and sequestered turn of mind. Cowper was driven mad through an excessive delicacy of organization frightened by Methodism ; instead of being soothed, as it ought to have been, by the liberal opinions natural to his heart and good sense. 3 " To that unfeather'd two-legg'd thing, a son." — Father of the third Earl of Shaftesbury, the philosopher ; who with all his philosophy never forgave Dryden this attack on the parental insignificance. CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. Fro7n the same poem. A numerous host of dreaming saints succeed. Of the true old enthusiastic breed : 'Gainst form and order they their power employ. Nothing to build, and all things to destroy. But far more numerous was the herd of such. Who think too little, and who talk too much. These out of mere instinct, they knew not why, Ador'd their fathers' God, and property ; And by the same blind benefit of fate, The Devil and the Jebusite did hate ; Born to be sav'd, even in their own despite. Because they could not help believing right. Such were the tools ; but a whole hydra more Remains of sprouting heads too long to score. Some of their chiefs were princes of the land. In the first rank of these did Zimri stand ; A man so various, that he seem'd to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome ; Stiff in opi7iio7i, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts, and nothing long ; " George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, son of the favorite of Jame8 and Charles the First. DRYDEN 195 But, in the course of one revolving moon. Was chemist, fiddler, statesynan, and buffoon ; Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking. Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. Blest madman, who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy ! Railing and praising were his usual themes. And both, to show his judgment in extremes ; So over violent, or over civil. That every man with him was God or Devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art ; JVothing went unrewarded hut desert. Beggar'd by fools whom still he found too late, He had his jest, and they had his estate. He laugh'd himself from court ; then sought relief By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief: For spite of him the weight of business fell On Absalom and false Achitophel Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft. He left not faction, but of that was left.^ ' " Character of the Duke of Buckingham." — The duke intrio-ued o against a giddy and unprincipled court out of pure similarity of disposition. Dryden's attack on him was partly in payment for offence received in the critical comedy of The Rehearsal. His Grace was very angry, and replied in a wretched pamphlet, which is forgotten. — See the interesting notes on Walter Scott's edition of Dryden, vol. ix., p. 272. ^ " He left not faction, but of that was left.""— See in the present volume, the rival portrait of Buckingham from the hand of Pope. FOPPERIES OF THE TIME. {Being the Epilogue to Etherege's " Man of Mode, or Sir Foplino Flutter." Most modern wits such monstrous fools have shown, They seem not of Heaven's making, but their own : Those nauseous harlequins in farce may pass. But there goes more to a substantial ass : J 96 DRYDEN. Something of man must be expos'd to view. That, gallants, he may more resemble you. Sir Fopling is a fool so nicely writ, The ladies would mistake him for a wit, And when he sings, talks loud, and cocks,* would cry, " I vow, methinks, he's pretty company ;" So brisk, so gay, so travell'd, so refin'd. As he took jiains to graff upon his kind. True fops help Nature's work, and go to school, To file and finish God Almighty's fool. Yet none Sir Fopling him, or him, can call; He'? knight o' th^ shire, and represents you all. From each he meets he culls whate'er he can ; Legion 's his name — a people in a man. His bulky folly gathers as it goes. And, rolling o'er you, like a snow-ball grows. His various modes from various fathers follow ; One taught the toss, and one the new French wallow. His sword-knot this, his cravat that design'd ; And this, the yard-long snake he twirls behind f From one the sacred periwig he gain'd, Which ivind ne'er blew, nor touch of hat profaned. Another's diving how he did adore. Which, with a shog, casts all the hair before ; Till he with full decorum brings it back. And rises with a water-spaniel shake. As for his songs, the ladies' dear delight. These sure he took from most of you who write. Yet every man is safe from what he fear'd. For no one fool is hunted from the herd. THE CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT CLERGY. From the " Hijvd and the Panther." A plain good man whose name is understood]: (So few deserve the name of plain and good) Of three fair lineal lordships stood possess'd. And liv'd, as reason was, upon the best. — * Videlicet, his hat. t I know not what he means by this. X James H. — Dry den was at this time a Catholic. DRYDEN. 197 His house with all convenience was purvey'd The rest he found, but rais'd the fabric where he pray'd.* And in that sacred place his beauteous wife Employ'd her happiest hours of holy life. Nor did their alms extend to those alone, Whom common faith more strictly made their own A sort of Devest were hous'd too near their hall, Who cross the proverb, and abound in gall. Though some, 't is true, are passively inclin'd, The greater part degenerate from their kind ; Voracious birds, that hotly bill and breed. And largely drink, because on salt they feed. Small gain from them their bounteous owner draws ; "l Yet, bound by promise, he supports their cause, > As corporations privileg'd by laws. } Another farm he had behind his house, Not overstock'd, but barely for his use • Wherein his poor Domestic Poultry fed. And from his pious hands receiv'd their bread.J Our pamper'd Pigeons, with malignant eyes. Beheld these inmates and their nurseries : Though hard their fare at evening and at morn (A cruise of water and an ear of corn),i Yet still they gvudg'd that modicum, and thought A sheaf in every single grain was brought : ^^ Fain would they filch that little food away, #^^ Wliile unrestrain'd these happy gluttons prey ; _ i^^ And much they griev'd to see so nigh their hall, "^ ^ The bird that warn'd St. Peter of his fall f That he should raise his mitred crest on high. And clap his wings, and call his family To sacred rites ; and vex the Ethereal powers With midnight matins at uncivil hours ; Nay more, his quiet neighbors should molest Just in the sweetness of their morning rest. Beast of a bird,^ supinely when he might Lie still and sleep, to rise before the light. What if his dull forefathers us'd that cry. Could he not let a bad example die ? ^ The world was faiPu into an easier way: This age knew better than to fast and pray. *• The Catholic chapel set up by James in Whitehall, t The clergy of the Church of England. It is amusing to see them re- presented as living on the " alms" of the barely tolerated king. X The Catholic clergy maintained by the king. 198 DRYDEN. Good sense in sacred worship would appear, So to begin, as they mij^ht end the year. Such feats in former times had wrought the falls Of crowing chanticleers in cloister'd walls. ExpcU'd for this, and for their lands, they fled; 1 And sister Partlet with her hooded head* > Was hooted hence because she would not pray a-bed. ) The way to win the restifl' world to God. Was to lay by the disciplining rod, Unnatural fasts, and foreign forms of prayer : Religion frights us with a mien severe. 'T is prudence to reform her into ease, And put her in undress, to make her please. A lively faith will bear aloft the mind, And leave the luggage of good works behind. * " A cruise of water and an ear of corny — The ideal monastic regimen ! very different from that of monks in general. " " The bird that warn'd St. Peter of his fall." — This verse is from Spenser : — " The bird that warned Peter of his fall." Spenser, whom chance had put on the side of the Puritans (for no mjn^ould naturally have been more for a gorgeous creed than he),^^r unwillingly omitted the title of Saint to Peter. The Catholic Dryden as willingly availed himself of the abbreviated past tense to restore it. The reader may remember Sir Roger de Coverley's perplexity at the successive rebukes he received, when a little boy, from a Catholic for asking his way to " Mary- bone," and from a Puritan for restoring the saint her title. 3 " Beast of a J/r<;."— What a happy anomaly, and vigor of alliteration ! How well it comes, too, after the fond pathos of the luxury of the line before it ! * The Nuns. PHILIPS. 199 PHILIPS. BORN, 1676 DIED, 1708. John Philips was a young and lively writer, who, having suc- ceeded in a burlesque, was unfortunately induced to attempt serious poetry, and devoted himself to it with a scholarly dulness which he would probably have seen the folly of in any one else. His serious imitations of Milton are not worth a penny ; but his burlesque of the style of Paradise Lost, though it no longer possesses the novelty which made it popular, is still welcome to the lover of wit. The low every-day circumstances, and the lofty classic manner with its nomenclatures, are happily inter- woven ; the more trivial words are brought in with unlooked-for effect; the motto is particularly felicitous ; and the comparison of the rent in the small-clothes with the ship that has sprung a leak at sea, and founders, concludes the poem with a tremendous and calamitous grandeur, only to be equalled by tlie exclamation of the Spaniard ; who said he had torn his " breeches, as if heaven and earth had come together." THE SPLENDID SHILLING. " Sing, heavenly muse. Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme ;^^ j3 shilling, breeches, and chimeras dire. Happy the man, who, void of cares and strife, In silken or in leathern purse retains A Splendid Shilling : he nor hears with pain 200 PHILIPS. New oysters cry'd, nor sighs for cheerful ale ; But with his friends, when ni!j;htly mists arise, To Juni4)er's Magpye, or Town-hall repairs ; Where, mindful of the nymph, whose wanton eye Transfix'd his soul, and kindled amorous flames, Chloe or Phyllis, he each circling glass Wisheth her health, and joy, and equal love. Meanwhile, he smokes, and laughs at merry tale, Or pun ambiguous or conundrimi quaint. But I, whom griping penury surrounds. And hunger, sure attendant upon want, With scanty offals, and fimall acid tiff ( TVretched repast /) my meagre corpse sustain : Then solitary walk, or doze at home In garret vile, and icith a unarming puff Regale chilVd fingers ; or from tube as black As winter- chimney, or well polish'd jet, Exhale inundungus, ill-perfuming scent. A'^ot blacker tube, nor of a shorter size, Smo/ces Cambro-Briton (vers'd in pedigree. Sprung from Cadtvallador and Arthur, kings Full famous in romantic tale) when he O'er many a craggy hill and barren cliff. Upon a cargo of fam'd Cestrian cheese, High over-shadowing rides, with a design To wend his wares at the Arvonian mart. Or Maridnnum, or the ancient town Fclej)\l Brechinia, or where Vaga's stream Enci rcles Jiriconium , fruitful soil ! Whence flow nectareous wines, that well may vie With Massic, Setin, or renown'd Falern. Thus, while my joyless minutes tedious flow, With looks demure, and silent pace, a Dun^ Horrible mo7ister ! hated by gods and men, ' To my aerial citadel ascends.* With vocal heel thrice thundering at my gate, With' hideous accent thrice he calls ; I know The voice ill-boding, and the solemn sound. What should I do .' or whither turn .' Amaz'd, Cunfuundrd, to the dark recess I fly Of wood-hole ; straight my bristling hairs erect Through sudden fear ; a chilly sweat bedews My shuddering limbs, and (wonderful to tell !) My tongue forgets her faculty of speech ; * To-wit, his garret. PinLIPS. 201 So horrible he seems ! His faded brow Entrench'd with many a frown, and conic beard. And spreading band, admir'd by modern saints, Disastrous acts forebode ; in his right hand Long scrolls of paper solemnly he waves. With characters and figures dire inscrib'd, Grievous to mortal eyes (ye gods avert Such plagues from righteous men !) Behind him stalks Another monster, not unlike itself. Sullen of aspect, by the vulgar call'd '' Jl Catchpole^ whose polluted hajids the gods With force incredible, and magic charms. First have endued : if he his ample palm Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay Of debtor, straight his body to the touch Obsequious (as whilom knights were wont) To some enchanted castle is convey'^d. Where gates impregnable, and coercive chains, In durance strict detain him, till, in form Of money, Pallas sets the captive free. Beware, ye debtors ! when ye walk, beware, Be circumspect; oft with insidious ken The caitiff eyes your steps aloof, and oft Lies perdue in a nook or gloomy cave. Prompt to enchant some inadvei'tent wretch With his unhallow'd touch. So (poets sing) Grimalkin to domestic vermin sworn An everlasting foe, with watchful eye Lies nightly brooding o'er a chinky gap, Portending her fell claws, to thoughtless mice Sure ruin. . So her disembowell'd web Arachne, in a hall or kitchen, spreads Obvious to vagratit flies : she secret stands Within her woven cell ; the humming prey, Regardless of their fate, rush on the toils Inextricable, nor will aught avail Their arts, or arms, or shapes of lovely hue. , ^ The wasp insidious, and the buzzing drone. And butterfly proud of expanded wings Distinct with gold, entangled in her snares. Useless resistance make ; with eager strides, She towering flies to her expected spoils : Then with envenom'd jaws the vital blood Drinks of reluctant foes, and to her cave Their bulky carcasses triumphant drags. 10* 202 PHILIPS. So pass my days. But when nocturnal shades This world envelope, and th' inclement air Persuades men to repel benumbing frosts With pleasant wines, and crackling blaze of wood , Me, lojieiy sitting, nor the glimmering light Of make-weight candle, nor the joyous talk Of loving friend, delights; distress'd, forlorn, Amidst the horrors of the tedious night, Darkling I sigh, and feed with dismal thoughts My anxious mind ; or sometimes mournful verse Indite, and sing of groves and myrtle shades, Or desperate lady near a purling stream, Or lover pendent on a willow-tree. Meanwhile I Jabor with eternal drought, And restless wish, and rave ; my parched throat Finds no relief, nor heavy eyes repose : But if a slumber haply does invade My weary limbs, my fancy, still awake. Thoughtful of drink, and eager, in a dream. Tipples imaginary pots of ale ; In vain ; — awake I find the settled thirst Still gnawing, and the pleasant phantom curse. Thus do I live, from pleasure quite debarr'd. Nor taste the fruits that the sun's genial rays Mature, john-appje, nor the downy peach. Nor walnut in rough -furrowed coat secure. Nor medlar fruit delicious in decay ; Afflictions great ! yet greater still remain. My galligaskins, that have long withstood The winter's fury and encroaching frosts, By time subdued {what will not time subdue!) An horrid chasm disclose with orifice Wide, discontinuous ; at which the winds Eurus and Auster and the dreadful force Of Boreas, that congeals the Cronian waves, Tumultuous enter with dire chilling blasts, f Portending agues. Thus a well-fraught ship. Long sails secure, or through the jEgean deep. Or the Ionian, till cruising near The Lilybean shore, with hideous crush On Scylla or Charybdis {darigerous rocks) She strikes rebounding; whence the shatter'd oak. So fierce a shock unable to withstand, Admits the sea. In at the gaping side The crowding waves gush with impetuous rage. PHILIPS. 203 Resistless, overwhelming. Horrors seize The mariners ; death in their eyes appears ; Tfiey stare, they lave, they j)ump, they swear ^ they pray. (Vain eflforts) still the battering waves rush in. Implacable, till, delug'd by the foam. The ship sinks foundering in the vast abyss. ■204 POPE. POPE. BORN, 1688 DIED, 1744. Besides being an admirable wit and satirist, and a man of the most exquisite good sense, Pope was a true poet ; and though in all probability his entire nature could never have made him a great one (since the whole man contributes to form the genius, and the very weakness of his organization was in the way of it), yet in a different age the boy who wrote the beautiful verses, Blest be the man whose wish and care, would have turned out, I think, a greater poet than he was. He had more sensibility, thought, and fancy, than was necessary for the purposes of his school ; and he led a sequestered life with his books and his grotto, caring little for the manners he drew, and capable of higher impulses than had been given him by the wits of the time of Charles the Second. It was unlucky for him (if indeed it did not produce a lucky variety for the reading world) that Dryden came immediately before him. Dryden, a robuster nature, was just great enough to mislead Pope ; and French ascendency completed his fate. Perhaps, after all, nothing better than such a honey and such a sting as this exquisite writer de- veloped, could have been got out of liis little delicate pungent nature; and we liave every reason to be grateful for vviiat they have done for us. Hundreds of greater pretensions in poetry have not attained to half his fame, nor did they deserve it; for they did not take half his pains. Perhaps they were unable to take them, for want of as good a balance of qualities. Success is generally commensurate with its grounds. POPE. 205 Pope, though a genius of a less masculine order than Dryden, and not possessed of his numbers or his impulsiveness, had more delicacy and fancy, has left more passages that have become proverbial, and was less confined to the region of matter of fact. Dryden never soared above earth, however nobly he walked it. The little fragile creature had wings ; and he could expand them at will, and ascend, if to no great imaginative height, yet to charming fairy circles just above those of the world about him, disclosing enchanting visions at the top of drawing-rooms, and enabling us to see the spirits that wait on coffee-cups and hoop, petticoats. But more of this in the notes. My limits have allowed me to give only a portion of the Rape of the Lock, but it is the best and most important, containing the two main points of the poem, — the Rape itself, and the leading operations of the sylphs. From his other poems I have also selected such passages as are at once the wittiest and of the most ordinary interest, — the cha- racters which he drew from life. THE SYLPHS AND THE LOCIv OF HAIR. From *' The Rape of the Lock." What dire ofTence from amorous causes springs. What mighty contests rise from trivial things, I sing. — This verse to Caryl, muse ! is due ; This ev'n BeUnda may vouchsafe to view : Slight is the subject, but not so the praise. If she inspire, and he a;pprove my lays. Say what strange motive, goddess! could compel A well-bred lord t' assault a gentle belle ? O say what stranger cause yet unexplor'd, Could make a gentle belle reject a lord ." In tasks so bold can little men engage ? And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage .'— Not with more glories in th' ethereal plain, The sun first rises o'er the purpled main, Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams Launch'd ou the bosom of the silver'd Thames. 20G POPE. Fair nymphs and well-dressed youths around her shone, But every eye was lix'd on her alone. On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, lllnch Jews might fciss and Infidels adore. Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose, Quick as her eyes, and as unfixed as those : Favors to none, to all she smiles extends ; Oft she rejects, but never once offends. Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike. And, like the sun, they shine on all alike. Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride. Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide : If to her share some female errors fall. Look on her face, and yoxCll forget them all. This nymph, to the destruction of mankind, Nourish'd two locks, which graceful hung behind In equal curls, and well conspir'd to deck With shining ringlets the smooth ivory neck. Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains, And mighty hearts are held in slender chains. With hairy springes we the birds betray : Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey ; Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare. And beauty draws us with a single hair. Th' adventurous Baron the bright locks admir'd ; He saw, he wish'd, and to the prize aspir'd. Resolv'd to win, he meditates the way. By force to ravish, or by fraud betray; For when success a lover's toil attends. Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends. For this, ere Phcebus rose, he had implor'd Propitious Heav'n, and every power ador'd ; But chiefly Love — to Love an altar built. Of twelve vast French romances neatly gilt. There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves. And all the trophies of his former loves. With tender billet-doux he lights the pyre. And breathes three amorous sighs to light the fire. Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes Soon to obtain, and long possess the prize. — But now secure the painted vessel glides. The sunbeams trembling on the floating tides ; While melting music steals upon the sky. And softcn'd sounds along the waters die ; Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play, Belinda smil'd, and all the world was gay, POPE. 207 All but the sylph. With careful thoughts opprest, Th' impending woe sat heavy on his breast.\ He summons straight his denizens of air ; The lucid squadrons round the sails repair ; Soft o'er the shroud aerial whispers breathe^ That seemed but zephyrs to the train beneath. Some to the sun their insect wings unfold, Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold ; * Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight. Their fluid bodies half dissolv'd in light, Loose to the wind their airy garments flew. Thin glittering textures of the filmy dew, Dipp'd in the richest tinctures of the skies. Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes. While every beam new transient colors flings, Colors that change whene'er they wave their wings. Amid the circle on the gilded mast, Superior by the head was Ariel plac'd -^ His purple pinions opening to the sun, He raised his azure wand, and thus begun : " Ye sylphs and sylphids, to your chief give ear ; Fays, fairies, genii, elves, and daemons, hear ! Ye know the spheres, and various tasks assign'd By law eternal to th' aerial kind : Some in the fields of purest aether play. And bask and whiten in the blaze of day; Some guide the course of wandering orbs on high, Or roll the planets through the boundless sky ; Some, less refin'd, beneath the moon's pale light Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night, Or suck the mists in grosser air below, Or dip their pinions in the painted bow. Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main. Or o'er the glebe distil the kindly rain : Others on earth o'er human race preside. Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide ; Of these the chief the care of nations own. And guard with arms divine the British throne. " Our humbler province is to tend the fair. Not a less pleasing, though less glorious care ; To save the powder from too rude a gale, JVor let the imprisoned essences exhale : To draw fresh colors from the vernal flowers : To steal from rainbows, ere they drop in showers, A brighter wash ; to curl their waving hairs. Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs ; 20S POPE. JVay, oft in dreams, invention loc bestoWy To change ajiouticcy or add a furbelow. " This day, black omens threat the brightest fair That e'er Jesorv'd a watchful spirit's care ; Some dire di.saster, or by force, or slight; But what, or where the fates have wrapp'd in night. Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, Or some frail China-Jar receive a flaw ; Or stain Iter honor, or her new brocade: Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade ; Or lose her heart, or necklace at a ball ; Or whether Heaven has doomhl that Shock must fall. Haste then, ye spirits ! to your charge repair ; The fluttering fan be Zephyretta's care; The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign : And, MoraentiUa, let the watch be thine; Do thou, Crispissa, tend her favorite Lock ; Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock. " To fifty chosen sylphs, of sjtecial note. We trust tic imjiortant charge, the petticoat ; Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail, Though stiff with hoops, and arm'd with ribs of whale. Form a strong line about the silver bound. And guard the wide circumference around. " Whatever spirit, careless of his charge, His post neglects, or leaves the fair at large. Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertakc his sins, Be stopped in vials, or transfix'd with jnns : Or plunged in lakes of bitter washes lie. Or wedg'd ichole ages in a bodkin''s eye ;^ Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain While clogged he beats his silken wings in vain. Or alum styptics with contracting power Shrink his thin essence like a shrivell'd flower : Or, as Ixion flx'd, the wretch shall feel The giddy motions of the whirling mill ; In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow, And tremble at the sea that froths below .'" He spoke ; t})e spirits from the sails descend ; Some, orb in orb, around the nymph extend; Some Ihrid the mazy ringlets of lier hair ; Some hang upon the pendants of her ear ; With beating hearts the dire event they wait. Anxious and trembling for the birth of fate. Close by those meads, for ever crown'd with flowers, Wliere Thames with pride surveys his rising towers. POPE. 209 There stands a structure of majestic frame, Which from the neighboring Hampton takes its name. Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom Of foreign tyrants, and of nymphs at home ; Here thou, great Anna ! whom three realms obey. Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes tea. Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort, To taste awhile the pleasures of a court; In various talk th' instructive hours Ihey past. Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last ; One speaks the glory of the British (lueen, And one describes a charming Indian screen ; A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes ; jlt evei'y word a reputation dies. Snvff, or the fan, svpply each pause of chat. With singing, laughingy ogling, and- all that.* O thoughtless mortals, ever blind to fate, Too soon dejected, and too soon elate ! For lo ! the board with cups and spoons is crown'd, The berries crackle and the mill turns round : On shining altars of Japan they raise The silver lamp ; the fiery spirits blaze : From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide, While China's earth receives the smoking tide. At once they gratify their scent and taste. And frequent cups prclong the rich repast. Straight hover round the fair her airy band ; Some, as slie sipp'd, the fuming liquor fann'd ; Some, o'er her lap their careful plumes display'd, Trem.bling, and conscious of the rich brocade. Coffee {which ??iakes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes) Sent up in vapors to the Baron's brain New stratagems the radiant Lock to gain. Ah cease, rasli youth ! desist ere 'tis too late. Fear the just gods, and think of Scylla's fate ! Chang'd to a bird, and sent to flit in air. She dearly pays for Nisus' injured hair 1^ But when to miscliief mortals bend their will. How soon they find fit instruments of ill ! Just then Clarissa drew with tempting grace A two-edg'd weapon from her shining case ; So ladies, in romance, assist their knight, Present the spear, and arm him for the flight. He takes the gift with reverence, and extends The little engine on his fingers' ends : 210 POPE. This just behind Belinda's neck he spread, As o'er the frajjjrant steams she bends her head. Swift to the Lock a thousand sprites repair, A thousand witigs, by turns, blow back the hair ; And thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear ; Thrice she look'd back, and thrice the foe drew near. Just in that instant anxious Ariel sought The close recesses of the virgin's thought. As on the nosegay in her breast reclin'd, He watch'd th' ideas rising in her mind, Sudden he view'd, in spite of all her art, An earthly lover lurking at her heart. <5 Amaz'd, confus'd, he found his power expir'd, Resign'd to fate, and with a sigh retir'd. The Peer now spreads the glittering forf ex wide, T' inclose the Lock ; now joins it, to divide. E'en then, before the fatal engine closed, A wretched sylph too fondly interposed ; Fate urg'd the shears, and cnt the sylph in twain {But airy substance soon unites again) ; The meeting points the sacred hair dissever From the fair head for ever and for ever ! Tlien flash'd the living lightning from her eyes. And screams of horror rend the affrighted skies. Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast, When husbands, or when lap-dogs breathe their last ! Or when rich China vessels, fall'n from high. In glittering dust and painted fragments lie ! " Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine (The victor cried), the glorious prize is mine ! While fish in streams, or birds delight in air, Or in a coach-and-six the British fair. As long as Atalantis shall be read,^ Or the small pillow grace a lady's head, While visits shall be paid on solemn days. When numerous wax-lights in bright order blaze. While nymphs take treats, or assignations give, So long my honor, name, and praise shall live !" I All but the Sylph, with careful thoughts opprest, Th' impending woe sat heavy on his breast. lie had appeared to Belinda in a dream, and warned lur ajjainst a lover. ] Superior by the head was Ariel plac'd. — Pope's fairy reiiioii, compared with Shakspeare's, was what a drawing-room is to the POPE. 211 universe. To give, therefore, to the sprite of the Rape of the Lock the name of the spirit in the Tempest was a bold christening. Prospero's Ariel could have puffed him out like a taper. Or he would have snuffed him up as an essence by way of jest, and found him flat. But, tested by less potent senses, the sylph spe- cies is an exquisite creation. He is an abstract of the spirit of fine life; a suggester of fashions; an inspirer of airs; would be cut to pieces rather than see his will contradicted ; takes his sta- tion with dignity on a picture-card; and is so nice an adjuster of claims, that he ranks hearts with necklaces. He trembles for a petticoat at the approach of a cup of chocolate. The punish- ments inflicted on him when disobedient have a like fitness. He is to be kept hovering over the fumes of the chocolate ; to be transfixed with pins ; clogged with pomatums, and wedged in the eyes of bodkins. Only (with submission) these punishments should have been made to endure for seasons, not " ages." A season is an age for a sylph. Does not a fine lady, when she dislikes it, call it " an eternity ?" 3 With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.— Imagine a com- mon-place poet (if some friend had written the rest of this couplet) trying to find a good pointed rhyme for the word " chat." How certain he would have been not to think of this familiar phrase, precisely because he was in the habit of using it in daily par- lance : — how certain, out of an instinct of dulness, to avoid his own conventional language, on the only occasion which could render it original. * She dearly pays for JVisus' injur'd hair. — Nisus the father of Scylla, and king of Megaris, had a lock in his hair, on the pre- servation of which depended the fate of his capital. Minos be- sieged the capital. Scylla fell in love with the besieger, cut off the lock, and was changed into a bird by the gods. See the story in Ovid, at the beginning of Book the Eighth. ^ An earthly lover lurking at her head.— He had warned her against it in a dream. ^ As long as " Atalantis" shall be read.—X book of fashionable scandal written by Mrs. Manly. Marmontel, in his translation of the Rape of the Lock (generally a very close and correct one), *ias confounded it with the Atlantis of Bacon ; concluding, per- 212 ropE. haps, according to the opinion then prevailing in Paris, that " philosopliy" was a fashionable study witli the belles of London. TROUBLES FROM LAD AUTHORS. (From the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.) Shut, shut the door, good John ! fatigued I said : Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead. The dog-star rages ! nay, 't is past a doubt, • All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out : Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide .-' They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide. By land, by water, they renew the charge ; They stop the chariot, and they board the barge. No place is sacred, not the church is free, Ev'n Sunday shines no Sabbath day to me: Then from the mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy! to catchmc—Just at dinner time. Is there a parson, much bemu.'Cd in beer, A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, A clerk, foredoom'd his father's soul to cross. Who pens a stanza, when he should engross ? Is there, who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls With desjyerate charcoal round his darken'd walls ? All fly to Twit'nara, and in humble strain Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain. Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws. Imputes to me and my damn'd works the cause : Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope. And curses vnt, and jioctry, and Pope. Friend to my life ! (which did you not prolong, The world had wanted many an idle song), What drop or nostrum can this plague remove .' Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love .•• A dire dilenmia! either way I 'm sped ; If foes they write, if friends, they read me dead. Seiz'd and ty'd down to judge, how wretched I ! Who can't be silent, and who will not lie : To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace ; And to be grave, exceeds all power efface. POPE. 213 I sit with sad civility/ I read With honest ant^uish, and an aching head ; And drop at last, but in unwilling ears. This saving counsel, " Keep your piece nine years." " Nine years !" cries he, who, high in Drury Lane, Lull'd by soft zephyrs through the broken pane, Rhymes e'er he wakes, and prints before term ends, Oblig'd by hunger, and request of friends : " The piece, you think, is incorrect ? Why take it ; I'm all submission ; what you'd have it, make it," Three things another'' s modest wishes bound. My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pound. Pitholeon se'hds to me : " You know his grace ; I want a patron : ask him for a place." Pitholeon libell'd me — " But here's a letter Informs you, sir, 't was when he knew no better. Dare you refuse him ? Curll invites to dine. He'll write a journal, or he'll turn divine." Bless me ! a packet. — " ""T is a stranger sues, A virgin tragedy, an orphan muse." If I dislike it, ^'furies, death, and rage .'" If I approve, " Commend it to the stage." There (thank my stars), my whole commission ends. The players and I are luckily, no friends. Fir'd that the liouse reject him, " 'Sdeath ! I'll print it. And shame the fools — Your interest, sir, with Lintot." " Lintot, dull rogue ! will think your price too much :" " Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch." All my demurs but double his attacks : At last he whispers, " Do ; and we go snacks." Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door ; " Sir, let me see your works, and you no more." ' Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me, just at dinner-time. The precincts of the Mint, in those clays, included a jail for debtors. It was shabby of the poor devils of authors to take advantage of the poet's dinner-hour ; but was it quite magnani- mous in the poet to say so ? If his father had not left him an independence, he might have found even himself hard pushed sometimes for a meal. Pope was a little too fond of taking his pecuniary advantages for merits. He did not see (so blind respecting themselves are the acutest satirists) that this inability 214 POPE. to forego a false ground of superiority originated in an instinct of weakness. 8 Curll invites to dmc— Curll was the chief scandalous bookseller of that time. CHARACTERS AND RULING PASSIONS. CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF WflARTON. Manners with fortunes, humors turn with climes. Tenets with books, and principles with times. Search then the Ruling Passion : there, alone, The wild are constant, and the cunning known ; The fool consistent, and the false sincere ; Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here. This clue once found, unravels all the rest, The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confest. Wharton the scorn and wonder of our days. Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise : Born with whate'er could win it from the wise. Women and fools Tnust like him, or he dies: Though wondering senates hung on all he spoke. The club must hail him master of the joke. Shall parts so various aim at nothing new .' He'll shine a TuUy and a Wilmot too. Then turns repentant, and his God adores. With the same spirit that he drinks and whores :^ Enough if all around him but admire. And now the punk applaud, and now the friar. Thus with each gift of nature and of art And wanting nothing but an honest heart ; Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt ; And most contemptible, to shun contempt ; His passion still to covet general praise ; His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways ; A constant bounty, which no friend has made ; An angel tongue, which no man can persuade ; A fool, with more of wit than half mankind ; Too rash for thought, for action too refin'd A tyrant to the wife his heart approves ; A rebel to the very king he loves ; POPE. 215 He dies, sad outcast of each church and state, And, harder still ! flagitious, yet not great. Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule ? 'Twas all for fear that knaves should call him fool.^" ® Then turns repentant, and his God adores. With the same spirit that he drinks and whores. The reader must bear in mind that all which is considered coarse language now, was not so considered in Pope's time ; and that words, which cannot any longer be read out loud in mixed company, may still have the benefit of that recollection, and be silently endured. " Ask you why Wnarton broke through every rule ? 'Twas all for fear that knaves should call him fool. Perhaps, if it were required to select from all Pope's writings the passage most calculated to have a practical effect on readers in want of it, it would be this couplet. The address of it is ex- quisite. The obvious conclusion is, that it is better to be thought a fool by a knave than by a man of genius. CHARACTER OF ADDISON. A man's true merit is not hard to find ; But each man's secret standard in his mind {That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness) Tliis, who can gratify 7 for who can guess ?" The bard whom pilfer'd pastorals renown. Who turns a Persian tale for half-a-crown ;n He, who still wanting, though he lives on theft, Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left; And he who now to sense, now nonsense leaning. Means not, but blunders round about a meaning ; And he whose fustian's so sublimely bad. It is not poetry, hut prose run mad ; All these my modest satire bade translate. And own'd that nine such poets made a Tate. How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe, Aud swear not Addison himself was safe. Peace to all such ! But were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires ; 2IG POPE. Blest witli each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease; Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear like the Turk no brother near the throne ; View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rise ; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, ^nd without sneering teach the rest to sneer ; Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike. Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike ; Alike reserv'd to blame, or to commend, A timorous foe and a suspicious friend ; Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieg'd, And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged ; Like Cato, give his little senate laws. And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise Who but must laugh, if such a man there be 7 Who would not weep, if Atticus iverc he ?'^ n — Each man's secret standard in his mind {That casting- weight pride adds to emptiness) This, who can gratify 7 for who can guess 7 Exquisite discernment, as exquisitely expressed. This is the whole secret of arrogance, and (in ninety-nine cases out of a hun- dred) of ordinary sullenness and exaction. The standard is in- visible, and no arbiter is allowed. " The bard whom pilfer' d pastorals renown. Who turns a Persian tale for half-a-crown. This was Ambrose Philips, a man of genius, whose half-jest, ing, half-serious poems in short verses were of a delicacy not sufiiciently appreciated ; and whose mistake in pastoral writing was, at all events, not so bad as Pope's, who never forgave the superiority awarded to him in that direction by Steele and others. Wliat is meant by the pastorals being "pilfered," 1 forget ; if tiiat they were imitated from Spenser and otiiers, Pope's may be said to have been all pilfered from classical common-places. The accusation of the half-crown is, of course, not true ; and if it were, would be no disgrace but to tlie accuser and tiie bookseller. Suppose Philips had described Pope as the man Who turns a page of Greek for eighteen-pence ! POPE. 217 The tales here alluded to were the delightful Persian Tales, translated from the French of Petit de la Croix. They arc of genuine Eastern origin, and worthy brothers of the enchanting Arabia?! Nights. '3 Who would not weep, if jltticus were ^e.— It is well known and obvious that this character of Atticus was meant for Addison. A doubt has existed whether Pope was right in supposing Addison to have been jealous ; and perhaps he was not : but the coldness, reserve, and management, in the disposition of the lord of Button's Coffee-house, not unnaturally gave rise to the suspicion : and the exquisite expression of the language in which it is conveyed has all the eloquence of belief. CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. Behold what blessings wealth to life can lend. And see what comfort it affords our end. In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,'* The floor of plaster, and the walls of dung, On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw. With tape-ty'd curtains never meant to drawt The George and Garter dangling from that bed Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red. Great Villiers lies — alas ! how chang'd from him. That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim ! Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love ; Or just as gay at council, in a ring Of mimick'd statesmen, and their merry king. No wit to flatter, left of all his store ! No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends, And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends. '< In the worst inn's worst room, Sfc. — It is a pity that Pope wrote this character of Buckingham after Dryden's; for, though cele- brated and worth repeating, it is very inferior, and, in the details, of very questionable truth. In fact, the superlative way of talk- ing throughout it (the " worst inn's worst room," the introduction 11 218 POPE, of the " George and Garter," &c.) is in a manifest spirit of exag^- geration, and defeats the writer's object. A gentleman of the Fairfax connexion, who was a retainer of the Duke's, and wrote a memoir of him, says that he died in his own house. CHARACTER OF THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH. But what are these to great Atossa's mind P^^ Scarce once herself, by turns all womankind ! Who with herself, or others, from her birth Finds all her life one warfare upon earth ; Shines in exposing knaves, and painting fools. Yet is, whate'er she hates and ridicules : No thought advances, but her eddy brain Whisks it about, and down it goes again. Full sixty years the world has been her trade ; The wisest fool much time has ever made : From loveless youth to unrespected age, No passion gratify'd, except her rage : So much the fury still outran the wit, The pleasure miss'd her, and the scandal hit. Who breaks with her, provokes revenge from hell. But he's a bolder man who dares be well. Her every turn with violence pursued. Nor more a storm her hate than gratitude : To that each passion turns, or soon, or late ; Love, if it makes her yield, must make her hate. Superiors .' death ! and equals ? what a curse ! But an inferior not dependant .' worse. Offend her, and she knows not to forgive ; Oblige her, and slie'll hate you while you live : But die, and she'll adore you — then the bust And temple rise — then fall again to dust. Last night her lord was all that's good and great ; A knave this morning, and his will a cheat. Strange ! by the means defeated of the ends. By spirit robb'd of power, by warmth of friends. By wealth of followers ! without one distress Sick of herself, through very selfishness ! Atossa, curs'd with every granted prayer ; Childless with all her children, wants an heir. To heirs unknown descends th' unguarded store. Or wanders, heaven-directed, to the poor. POPE. 219 15 Great Atossa's mind.— The Duchess of Marlborough, widow of the great Duke, — famous for her ambition and arbitrary temper, and the ascendency which she lost over Queen Anne. CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF CHANDOS, AND DESCRIPTION OF HtS VILLA. At Timon's villa let us pass a day ;i6 Where all cry out, " What sums are thrown away !" So proud, so grand ; of that stupendous air. Soft and agreeable come never there. Greatness with Tiraon dwells, in such a draught As brings all Brohdignag before your thought. To compass this, his building is a town, His pond an ocean, his parterre a down . Who but must laugh, the master when he sees, A puny insect, shivering at a breeze ! Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around ! The whole a labor'd quarry above ground. Two Cupids squirt before : a lake behind Improves the keenness of the northern wind. His gardens next your admiration call : On every side you look, behold the wall ! No pleasing intricacies intervene. No artful wildness to perplex the scene ; Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother. And half the platform just reflects the other The suffering eye inverted nature sees. Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees ; With here a fountain never to be play' d ; And there a summer-house that knows no shade ; Here Amphitrite sails through myrtle bowers. There gladiators fight or die in flowers ; Unwater'd see the drooping sea-horse mourn, And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn. My lord advances with majestic mien, Smit with the mighty pleasure to be seen: But soft — by regular approach — not yet — First through the length of yon hot terrace sweat ; And when up ten steep slopes you 've dreigg'd your thighs. Just at his study-door he'll bless your eyes. 220 POPE. His study ! with what authors is it stor'd ? In books, not authors, curious is my lord : To all their dated backs he turns you round ; These Aldus printed, tliosc Du Sucil has bound. Lo, some arc vellum, and the rest as good For all his lordship knows, but they arc wood ! For Locke or Milton 't is in vain to look; These shelves admit not any modern book. And now the chapel's silver bell you hear. That summons you to all the pride of prayer : Light quirks of music, broken and uneven. Make the soul dance upon a jig to heaven. On painted ceilings you devoutly stare. Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre, Or gilded clouds in fair expansion lie. And bring all paradise before your eye. To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite. Who never mentioJis hell to ears polite. But hark ! the chiming clocks to dinner call ; A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall : The rich buffet well-colored serpents grace, And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face. Is this a dinner .' this a genial room ? JVo, 't is a temple, and a hecatomb. A solemn sacrifice perform'' d in state. You drink by measure, and to minutes eat. So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear Sancho'8 dread doctor and his wand were there. Between each act the trembling salvers ring. From soup to sweet-wine, and God bless the King. In plenty starving, tantalized in state. And complaisantly help'd to all I hate. Treated, caress'd, and tir'd, I take my leave Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve ; I curse such lavish cost, and little skill. And swear no day was ever pass'd so ill. Yet hence the poor are cloth'd, the hungry fed ; Health to himself, and to his infants bread The laborer bears. What his hard heart denies, His charitable vanity supplies. Another age shall see the golden ear Imbrown the slope, and nod on the parterre. Deep harvests bury all his pride lias plann'd. And laughing Ceres re-assume the land. le ♦« At Timon's villa let us pass a day. — The character of Timon POPE. 221 (though Pope denied the application) was universally thought, and still is, to have been intended for that of James Brydges, First Duke of Chandos, whose princely buildings at Canons, and equally princely style of living, with his chapel, his choir, and Handel for his composer, — rendered the satire applicable to him alone. The prophecy at the conclusion was singularly borne out by the event ; and the pedestrian who now visits Edge- ware seldom suspects that he is on ground so famous. People in the neighborhood are still said to talk of the " Grand Duke." His locks and hinoes were of silver and gold. CHARACTER OF NARCISSA. Narcissa's nature, tolerably mild, To make a wash would hardly stew a child ;" Has e'en been prov'd to grant a lover's prayer. And paid a tradesman once to viake him stare ; Gave alms at Easter, in a Christian trim ; And made a widow happy, for a whim. Why then declare good nature is her scorn. When 'tis by that alone she can be borne ? Why pique all mortals, yet affect a name ? A fool to pleasure, yet a slave to fame : JVow deep in Taylor and the Book of Martyrs ; JVow drinking citron with his Grace and Chartres ; Now conscience chills her, and now passion burns. And atheism and religion take their turns ; A very Heathen in the carnal part. Yet still a sad good Christian at her heart. " JVarcissa's nature, tolerably mildj To make a wash would hardly stew a child. This is very ludicrous and outrageous. Can this Narcissa have been intended for Mrs. Oldfield the actress, who is under- stood, with great probability, to have been the Narcissa spoken of in a passage extracted further on 1 If so, she does not appear to have deserved the character, — at least not the worst part of it. The widow, whom she is described as making happy " for a whim," bore the most affectionate testimony to her generous 222 POPE qualities ; and she gave a pension to Savage. See her " Life," by Maynwaring ; which, thoiigli a catchpenny publication, easily shows what we are to believe in it, and what not. CHARACTER OF CHLOE. " Yet Chloe, sure, was form'd without a spot."— 1« Nature in her then err'd not, but forgot. " With every pleasing, every prudent part. Say, what can Chloe want?"— She wants a heart. She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought ; But never, never reach'd one generous thought. Virtue she finds too painful an endeavor — Content to dwell in decencies for ever So very reasonable, so unmov'd, As never yet to love or to be lov'd. She, while her lover pants upon her breast, Can mark the figures on an Indian chest ; And when she sees her friend in deep despair, Observes how much a chintz exceeds mohair. Forbid it, heaven ! a favor or a debt She e'er should cancel — but she may forget. Safe is your secret still in Chloe's ear ; But none of Chloe's shall you ever hear. Of all her dears she never slandered one. But cares not if a thousand are undone. Would Chloe know if you're alive or dead .' She bids her footman put it in her head. Chloe is prudent — (would you too be wise ?) Then never break your heart when Chloe dies. '^ Yet Chloe i sure, was formed without a spot. — Chloe is thoUf^ht to have been Lady SufTolk, the supposed mistress of George the Second. She had offended Pope by not doing something for Swift, which, according to the Dean and his friends, she had led him to believe she would. But Swift was full of fancies ; and Lady Suffolk, by consent of all that were in habits of intimacy with her, was a most amiable as well as even-tempered woman. POPK 223 THE RULING PASSION. In this one passion man can strength enjoy. As fits give vigor just when they destroy. Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand. Yet tames not this ; it sticks to our last sand. Consistent in our follies and our sins, Here honest nature ends as she begius. Old politicians chew on w^isdom past. And totter on in business to the last ; As weak, as earnest, and as gravely out. As sober Lanesb'row dancing in the gout. Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace Has made the father of a nameless race, Shov'd from the wall, perhaps, or rudely press'd By his own son, that passes by unbless'd ; Still to his wench he crawls on knocking knees, And envies every sparrow that he sees. A salmon's belly, Heiluo, was thy fate ; The doctor call'd, declares all help too late: *' Mercy !" cries Heiluo, " mercy on my soul ! Is there no help ? — alas ! — then bring the jowl." The frugal crone, whom praying priests attend. Still strives to save the hallow'd taper's end. Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires. For one puff more, and in that puff expires. *' Odious ! in woollen ! 'twould a saint provoke" (Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke), " No, let a charming chintz, and Brussels lace Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face : One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead — And, Betty, give this cheek a little red."^® The courtier smooth, who forty years had shin'd An humble servant to all human kind, Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir : *' If— where I'm going — I could serve you, sir ?" " I give and I devise" (old Euclio said. And sigh'd) " my lands "and tenements to Ned." *' Your money, sir ?" " My mone}', sir ! what, all ? Why, if I must — (then wept) — T give it Paul." " The manor, sir ?" " The manor ! hold !" he cried ; " Not that, — I cannot part with that "—and died. '9 And, Betty, give this cheek a little rfrf.— The " little red " is a 224 POPE. poetical addition ; but it really appears, from the " Life" above mentioned, that Mrs. Oldfield was handsomely dressed in her coffin, bv her own direction. The charmer of the stage could not bear to fancy herself in mortal attire. SWIFT. SWIFT. BORN, 1667 DIED, 1745. For the qualities of sheer wit and humor, Swift had no superior, ancient or modern. He had not the poetry of Aristophanes, or the animal spirits of Rabelais ; he was not so incessantly witty as Butler ; nor did he possess the delicacy of Addison, or the good nature of Steele or Fielding, or the pathos and depth of Sterne ; but his wit was perfect, as such ; a sheer meeting of the extremes of difference and likeness ; and his knowledo;e of character was unbounded. He knew the humor of great and small, from the king down to the cook-maid. Unfortunately, he was not a healthy man ; his entrance into the church put him into a false position ; mysterious circumstances in his personal history conspired with worldly disappointment to aggravate it ; and that hypochondriacal insight into things, which might have taught him a doubt of his conclusions and the wisdom of patience, ended in making him the victim of a diseased blood and angry passions. Probably there was somethino; morbid even in his excessive coarseness. Most of his contemporaries were coarse, but not so outrageously as he. When Sv/ift, however, was at his best, who was so lively, so entertaining;, so orio;inal ? He has been said to be indebted to this and that classic, and this and that Frenchman ; — to Lucian, to Rabelais, and to Cyrano de Bergerac ; but though he was ac- quainted with all these writers, their thoughts had been evidently thought by himself; their quaint fancies of things had passed through his own mind ; and they ended in results quite masterly, and his own. A great fanciful wit like his wanted no helps to 11* 2.26 SWIFT. the discovery of Brobdignag and Laputa. The Big and Little Endians were close to him every day, at court and at church. Swift took his principal measure from Butler, and he emulated liis rhymes ; yet his manner is his own. There is a mixture of care and precision in it, announcing at once power and fastidious- ness, like Mr. Dean going with his verger before him, in flowing gown and five times washed face, with his nails pared to the quick. His long irregular prose verses with rhymes at the end, are an invention of his own ; and a similar mixture is discernible even in those, not excepting a feeling of musical proportion. Swift had more music in him than he loved to let " fiddlers" sup- pose ; and throughout all his writings there may be observed a jealous sense of power, modifying the most familiar of his im- pulses. After all, however, Swift's verse, compared with Pope's or with Butler's, is but a kind of smart prose. It wants their pregnancy of expression. His greatest w^orks are GuIliver^s Travels, and the Tale of a Tub. THE GRAND QUESTION DEBATED.i WHETHER Hamilton's bawn should be turned into a barrack OR A MALT-HOUSE, 1729. Thus spoke to my lady the knight full of care : " Let me have your advice in a weighty affair. This Hamilton's bawn, whilst it sticks on my hand, I lose by the house what I get by the land. But how to dispose of it to the bast bidder, For a barrack or malt-house, we now must consider. First, lot me suppose I make it a malt-house : Here I have computed the profit will fall V us : There's nine hundred pounds for labor and grain ; I increase it to twelve, so three hundred remain ; A handsome addition to wine and good cheer, Three dishes a day, and three hogsheads a year. With a dozen large vessels my vaults; shall be stor'd ; No little scrub joint shall come on my board ; And you and the Dean no more shall combine To stint me at night to one bottle of wine ; SWIFT. 227 Nor shall I, for his humor, permit you to purloin A stone and a quarter of beef from my surloin. If I make it a barrack, the crown is my tenant^ My dear, I have ponder'd again and again on 't : In poundage and drawbacks I lose half my rent ^ Whatever they give me, I must be content. Or join with the court in every debate ; And rather than that, I would lose my estate." Thus ended the knight : thus began his meek wife : " It must, and it shall be a barrack, my life. I'm grown a mere mopus ; no company comes, But a rabble of tenants, and rusty dull rums.* With parsons what lady can keep herself clean ; I'm all over daub'd when I sit by the Dean. But if you will give us a barrack, my dear. The captain, I'm sure, will always come here : I then shall not value his deanship a straw. For the captain, I warrant, will keep him in awe ; Or should he pretend to be brisk and alert, AVill tell him that chaplains should not be so pert ; That men of his coat should be minding their prayers ^ And not among ladies to give themselves airs." Thus argued my lady, but argued in vain ; The knight his opinion resolv'd to maintain. But Hannah, who listen'd to all that was past, And could not endure so vulgar a taste. As soon as her ladyship call'd to be drest, Cry'd, " Madam, why surely my master's possest. Sir Arthur the maltster ! how fine it will sound ! I'd rather the bawn were sunk under the ground. But, madam, I guess'd there would never come good, When I saw him so often with Darby and Wood.f And now my dream's out ; for I was a-dream'd That I saw a huge rat — O dear, how I scream'd ! And after, methought, I had lost my new shoes ; And Molly, she said I should hear some ill-news. " Dear madam, had you but the spirit to tease. You might have a barrack whenever you please : And, madam, I always believed you so stout. That for twenty denials you would not give out. If I had a husband like him, I purtest. Till he gave me my will, I would give him no rest ; * A cant word in Ireland for poor country clergymen, t Two of Sir Arthur's managers. 22S SWIFT. And rather than come in the same pair of sheets With such a cross man, I would lie in the streets. But, madam, I beg you, contrive and invent. And worry him out, till he gives his consent. Dear madam, whene'er of a barrack I think. An I were to be hang'd, I can't sleep a wink : For if a new crotchet comes into my brain, I can't get it out, though I'd never so fain. I fancy already a barrack contriv'd At Hamilton's bawn, and the troop is arriv'd ; Of this to be sure Sir Arthur has warning. And waits on the captain betimes the next morning. Now see, when they meet, how their honors behave : ' A^oble captain, your servant^' — ' Sir Arthur, your slave f ' You honor me much ' — ' The honor is mine' * 'T was a sad rainy night' — ' But the morning is fine.' ' Pray how does my lady ?' — ' My wife's at your service.' ' I think J have seen her picture by Jervas,' ' Good-morrow, good captain ' — ' Vll wait on you down.' ' You sha'n't stir a foot.' — * You'll think me a clown.' ' For all the world, captain, not half an inch farther.' ' You must be obey'd ! — Your servant. Sir Arthur/ My humble respects to my lady unknown.' ' I hope you will use my house as your own.' " " Go bring me my smock, and leave off your prate. Thou hast certainly gotten a cup in thy pate." " Pray, madam, be quiet ; what was it I said ? You had like to have put it quite out of my head. Next day, to be sure, the captain will come, At the head of his troop, with trumpet and drum. JVow, madam, observe how he marches in state ; The ma7i with the kettle-drum enters the gate: Dub, dub, adub, dub. The trumpeters follow, Tantarum, taritara ; while all the boys hollow. See now comes the captain all daub'd with, gold lace : O la ! the sweet gentleman .' look in his face ; And see how he rides like a lord of the land. With the fine flaming sword that he holds in his hand ; A?id his horse, the dear creter, it prances and rears, With ribbons in knots at its tail and its ears: At last comes the troop, by the word of command. Drawn up in the court ; when the captain cries, stand ! Your ladyship lifts up the sash to be seen {For sure I had dizen'd you out like a queen). SWIFT. 229 The captain, to show he is proud of the favor. Looks up to your window, and cocks up his beaver {His beaver is cock'd, pray, madam, mark that ; For a captain of horse never takes off 7iis hat, Because he has never a hand that is idle : For the right holds the sword, and the left holds the bridle) ; Then flourishes thrice his sword in the air, As a compliment due to a lady so fair ; {How I tremble to think of the blood it has spilt /) Then he lowers down the point and kisses the hilt. Your ladyship smiles, and thus you begin : ' Pray, captain, be pleas'd to alight and walk in.' The captain salutes you with congee profound. And your ladyship curtsies half way to the ground. ' Kit, run to your master, and bid him come to us ; I'm sure he'll be proud of the honour you do us. And, captain, you'll do us the favor to stay, And take a short dinner here with us to-day ; You're heartily welcome ; but as for good cheer, You come in the very worst time in the year ; If I had expected so worthy a guest ' ' Lord, madam ! your ladyship sure is in jest : You banter me, madam ; the kingdom must grant — ' ' You officers, captain, are so complaisant!'" " Hist, hussy, I think I hear somebody coming !" " No, madam ; 'tis only Sir Arthur a-humming. To shorten my tale (for I hate a long story). The captain at dinner appears in his glory ; The Dean and the doctor have humbled their pride, For the captain's entreated to sit by your side ; And because he's their betters, you carve for him first ; The parsons for envy are ready to burst. The servants amaz'd are scarce ever able To keep off their eyes, as they wait at the table ; And Molly and I have thrust in our nose To peep at the captain in all his fine clo'es. Dear madam, be sure he's a fine-spoken man ; Do but hear on the clergy how glib his tongue ran ; And ' madam,' says he, ' if such dinners you give. You'll ne'er want for parsons as long as you live. I ne'er knew a parson without a good nose ; But the devil 's as v;-elcome wherever he goes. G — d — n me ! they bid us reform and repent,^ But z — nds ! by their looks they never keep Lent. Mister Curate, for all your grave looks, Tm afraid You cast a sheep's eye on her ladyship's maid : 230 SWIFT. I wish she would lend you her pretty white hand In mending your cassock, and smoothing your band^ (For the Dean was .so shabby, and looJf'd like a ninny. The captain supposed he was curate to Jinny).* • Whenever you see a cassock and gown, A hundred to one but it covers a clown. Observe how a parson coincs into a room ; G — d — n me ! he hobbles as bad as my groom ; A scholard, when just fiom his college broke loose. Can hardly tell how to cry bo to a goose ; Your NOVEDS, and bluturcks, and omurs, and stufF,t By G — , they dotft signify this pinch of snuff. To give a young ge7itleman right education. The army's the only good school in the nation ; My schoobnaster caWd me a dunce and a fool. But at cuffs I was always the cock of the school : I never could take to my book for the blood o' me, And the puppy coiifess'd he expected no good o' me. He caught me one morning coquetting his wife ; But he mauld me, I ne'er was so mauld in my life : So I took to the road, and, whafs very odd. The first man I robb'd was a parson, by G — . Now, madam, you'll think it a strange thing to say. But the sight of a book makes me sick to this day.' " Never since I was born did I hear so much ivit. And, madam, Ilaugh'd till I thought I should split So then you look scornful, and snift at the Dean, As who should say, JVow am I skinny and lean 7 But he durst not so much as once open his lips, And the doctor was plaguily down in the hips." Thus merciless Hannah ran on in her talk. Till she heard the Dean call, " Will your ladyship walk ?" Her ladyship answers, " I'm just coming down :" Then turning to Hannah, and forcing a frown. Although it was plain in her heart she was glad, Cry'd, " Hussy, why sure the wench is gone mad ! How could these chimeras get into your brains ? — Come hither and take this old gown for your pains ; But the Dean, if this secret should come to his ears, Will never have done with liis gibes and his jeers : For your life not a word of this matter I charge ye ; Give me but a barrack, a Jig for the clergy." * Dr. Jinny, a clergyman in the neighborhood. t Ovids, Plutarchs, and Homers. SWIFT. 231 ' The Grand Question Delated. — " Hamilton's Bawn " was a large old house belonging to Sir Arthur Acheson, Bart., ancestor of the Earls of Gosford. His lady was Anne Savage, daughter of an Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer. A merry war, perhaps not always pleasant, was in the habit of passing between her and Swift, in which he bantered her thinness, and Sir Arthur used to take his part. She is the heroine of the witty but coarse verses, beginning — " Sure never did man see A wretch like poor Nancy, So teas'd day and night By a Dean and a Knight ; To punish my sins .Sir Arthur begins, And gives me a wipe With Skinny and Snipe : His malice is plain. Hallooing the Dean. The Dean never stops. When he opens his chops. I'm quite over-run With rebus and pun." 2 G — d — n me, they hid us reform and repent, &c. — [ do not apolo- gize to the reader for repeating these oaths, because Swift's object in recording them was intended for anything but approba- tion of swearing — a practice which, though accused of having been a swearer himself, he held in special contempt, and officers of the army (it must be added) along with it. He looked upon them as a set of ignorant coxcombs ; and, doubtless, too many such persons are to be found mixed with their betters in the service, especially in the regiments raised in the provinces. The reader would be surprised if he knew how much ignorance of common writing and reading was betrayed in communications of country officers with head-quarters. Fielding seems to have had his eye on this passage when he introduced his Ensign Northerton in Tom Jones. It is one of the happiest in Swift's verses ; exquisite for its ease, its straightfor- wardness, its humor, its succession of pictures, its maid-servant tone of mind. 232 SWIFT. MARY THE COOK-MAID'S LETTER TO DR. SHERIDAN.s Well, if ever I saw such another man since my mother hound my head ? You a gentleman/ marry come up ! 1 wonder where you were bred. I'm sure such words do not become a man of your cloth ; I would not give such language to a dog, faith and troth. Yes, you call'd my master a knave : fie, Mr. Sheridan ! 'tis a shame For a parson, who should know better things, to come out with such a name. Knave in your teeth, Mr. Sheridan ! 'tis both a shame and a sin ; Ayid the Dean, my master, is an honester man than you and all your kin : He has more goodness in his little finger, than you have in your whole body : My master is a parsonable man, and not a spindle-shank'' d hoddy-doddy. And now, ivhereby I find you would fain make an excuse. Because my master one day, in anger, call'd you a goose ; Which, and lam sure I have been his servant four years since October, And he never calPd me worse than sweetheart, drunk or sober: Not that I know his reverence was ever concern'd to my knowledge, Though you and your come-rogues keep him out so late in your college. You say you will eat grass on his grave : a Christian eat grass/ Whereby you now confess yourself to be a goose or an ass : But that's as much as to say, that my master should die before ye : Well, well, that's as God pleases ; and Ido7i't believe that's a true story: And so say I told you so, and you may go tell my master ; what care I ? And I don't care who knows it ; 'tis all one to Mary ; Every one knows that I love to tell truth and shame the devil ; / am but a poor servant ; but I think gentlefolks should be civil. Besides, you found fault with our victuals one day that you was here: I remember it was oti a Tuesday of all days in the year. And Saunders the man says you are always jesting and mocking : Mary, said he (one day as I was mending my master's stocking), My master is so fond of that minister that keeps the school, I thought my master a wise man, but that man makes him a fool. Saunders, said I, I would rather tha?i a quart of ale Jj^ He would come into our kitchen, and I would pin a dismmout to his tail. And now I must go and get Saunders to direct this letter ; For I write but a sad scrawl ; but my sister Marget, she writes better.* Well, but I must run and make the bed, before my master comes from prayers ; And see now, it strikes ten, and I hear him coming up stairs ; Whereof \ could say more to your verses, if I could write written hand : And 80 I remain in a civil way, your servant to command, Mart. SWIFT. 233 3 Mary the Cookmaid's Letter — Dr. Sheridan, one of Swift's friends and butts, was a schoolmaster of considerable wit and scholarship, and progenitor of a distinguished family, in which genius is hereditary. The closing words of the preceding note will apply still more characteristically to the present effusion. Swift delighted in showing his knowledge of servants, — their phraseology, and ways of thinking: or rather, perhaps, it should be said, that he delighted in showing up every species of igno- rance and self-importance ; for he was equally au fait at the small talk of fine life, or what he called Polite Conversation ; of which he has left a record, singular for the quantity of it, and startling, nowadays, when we consider the quality of the speakers. But his satire helped to reform the mode, if it did not very much improve the matter. Common-mindedness will be common- mindedness always, whether betrayed in the proverbial slang which he drove out of the drawing-room into the kitchen, or in the better-bred common-places of the chatterers of Mrs. Gore. * For I write but a sad scrawl ; hut my sister Mar get, she writes better. — This exquisite kind of irrelevancy, which I have no doubt is taken from the life. Swift was fond of. He had used it before with equal, if not greater felicity, in the masterly satire on Nun- neries which he contributed to the Taller (No. 32). See the passage in the Essay at the beginning of this volume, p. 13. ANCIENT DRAMATISTS.^ TO DR. SHERIDAN. Wh?ite'er your predecessor taught us, I hav^ a great esteem for Plautus ; And think your boys may gather there-hence More wit and humor than from Terence. But as to comic Aristophanes, The rogue too vicious and too prbphane is. I went in vain to look for Eupolis Down in the Strand, just where the JVew Pole is ;* The fact may be true, but the rhyme cost me some trouble.— Author.-" I 234 SWIFT. For I can tell you one thing, that I can (You will not find it in the Vatican). He and Cratinus u.s'd, as Horace says, To take his greatest grandees /or asses. Poets, in those days, us'd to venture high; But these are lost full many a century. Thus you may see, dear friend, ex pede hence. My judgment of the old comedians. Proceed to tragics : first, Eurijndes (An author where I sometimes dip a-days) Is rightly censured by the Stagirite, Who says his numbers do not fadge aright. A friend of mine that author despises '1 So much, he swears the very best piece is, > For aught he knows, as bad as Thespis's ; ) And that a woman, in these tragedies. Commonly speaking, but a sad jade is. At least, I'm well assur'd, that no folk lays The weight on him they do on Sophocles. But, above all, I prefer JEschylus, Whose moving touches, when they please kill us. And now I find my muse but III able, To hold out longer in trisyllable. I chose those rhymes out for their difficulty ; Will you return as hard ones if I call t' ye? 5 Ancient Dramatists.— Swift is here emulating the rhymes of Butler. ABROAD AND AT HOME. As Thomas was cudgcl'd one day by his wife. He took to the street, and fled for his life : Tom's three dearest friends came by in the squabble. And sav'd him at once from the shrew and the rabble ; Then ventur'd to give him some sober advice ; — But I'om is a person of honor so nice, Too wise to take counsel, too proud to take warning, That he sent to all three a challenge next morning : Three duels he fought, thrice ventur'd his life; Went home, and was cudgel'd again by his wife. SWIFT. 235 VERSES ON THE DEATH OF DR. SWIFT.« As Rochefoucault his maxims drew From nature, I believe them true : They argue no corrupted mind In him ; the fault is in mankind. This maxim, more than all the rest. Is thought too base for human breast : " In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends ; While nature, kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to please us." If this perhaps your patience move. Let reason and experience prove. We all behold with envious eyes Our equals rais'd above our size. Who would not at a crowded show Stand high himself, keep others low ? I love my friend as well as you : But why should he obstruct my view 1 Then let me have the higher post ; Suppose it but an inch at most If in a battle you should find One, whom you love of all mankind. Had some heroic action done, A champion kill'd, or trophy won; Rather than thus be over-topt. Would you not wish his laurels cropt ? Dear honest JVed is in the gout. Lies racked with pain, and you without : How patiently you hear him groan ! How glad the case is not your own ! What poet would not grieve to see His brother write as well as he ? But, rather than they should excel. Would wish his rivals all in hell ! Her end when emulation misses, She turns to envy, stings, and hisses: The strongest friendship yields to pride, Unless the odds be on our side. Vain human kind ! fantastic race ! Thy various follies who can trace ? Self-love, ambition, envy, pride, Their empire in our hearts divide. Give others riches, power, and station, 'Tis all to me an usurpation 236 SWIFT. I have no title to aspire ; Yet, when you sink, I seem the higher. in Pope I cannot read a line. But U'ith a sigh I wish it mine. TVhen he can in one cmipietjix More sense than I can do in six, It gives me such a jealous jit, I cry " Pox take him and his wit /" I grieve to be outdone by Gay In my own liumorous biting way. Arbuthnot is no more my j'ritnd, Wlio dares to irony pretend. Which I was born to introduce, Refin'd it first, andshow'd its use.'' St. John, as well as Pulteney, loiows That I had some repute for prose : And, till they drove me out of date. Could maul a minister of state. If they have mortified my pride, And made me throw my pen aside, If with such talents heaven hath bless'd 'em, Have I not reason to detest 'em .' To all my foes, dear Fortune, send Thy gifts ; but never to my friend : I tamely can endure the first ; But this with envy makes me burst. Thus much may serve by way of proem ; Proceed we therefore to our poem. The time is not remote when I Must by the course of nature die ; When, I foresee, my special friends Will try to find their private ends ; And, though 't is hardly understood Which way my death can do them good. Yet thus, methinks, I hear them speak : " See how the Dean begins to break ! Poor gentleman, he droops apace ! You plainly find it in his face. That old vertigo in his head Will never leave him, till he's dead. Besides, his memory decays : He recollects not what he says ; He cannot call his friends to mind ; Forgets the place where last he din'd ; Plies you witli stories o'er and o'er ; He told them fifty times before. SWIFT. 237 How does he fancy we can sit To hear his out-of-fashion wit ? But he takes up with younger folks, Who for his wine will bear his jokes. Faith ! he must make his stories shorter. Or change his comrades once a quarter. In half the time he talks them round There must another set be found. " For poetry he's past his prime ; He takes an hour to find a rhyme ? His fire is out, his witdecay'd, His fancy sunk, his muse a jade. I'd have him throw away his pen : — But there'' s no talking to some men .'" And then their tenderness appears By adding largely to my years : " He's older than he would be reckon'd, And well remembers Charles the Second. He hardly drinks a pint of wine ; And that, I doubt, is no good sign. His stomach, too, begins to fail : Last year we thought him strong and hale ; But now he's quite another thing ; I ivish he may hold out till spring !" They hug themselves and reason thus: ^'Itis not yet so bad with us .'" In such a case, they talk in tropes, And by their fears express their hopes. Some great misfortune to portend, JVo enemy can match a friend. With all the kindness they profess, The merit of a lucky guess When daily how-d'-ye's come of course. And servants answer, " Worse and worse .'^^ Would please them better, than to tell That, " God be praised, the Dean is well." Then he who prophesy' d the best. Approves his foresight to the rest ; " You know I always fear'' d the worst. And often told you so at first." He'd rather choose that I should die, Than his predictions prove a lie. Not one foretells I shall recover ; But all agree to give me over. Yet, should some neighbor feel a pain Just in the parts where 1 complain : 23S SWIFT. How many a message would he send ! What hearty prayers that I should mend.' Int}uire what regimen I kept: Wliat gave me ease, and how I slept ? And more lament when I was dead, Than all the snivellers round my bed. Mv good companions, never fear ; For, though you may mistake a year. Though your prognostics run too fast. They must be verify'd at last. Behold the fatal day arrive ! " How is the Dean ?" — " He's just alive." Now the departing prayer is read ; He hardly breathes — The Dean is dead. Before the passing bell's begun, The news through half the town is run. " Oh ! may we all for death prepare ! What has he left ? and who's his heir ? I know no more than what the news is ; 'Tis all bequeath'd to public uses. To public uses ! there's a whim ! What had the public done for him ? Mere envy, avarice, and pride : He gave it all — but first he died. And had the Dean in all the nation, No worthy friend, no poor relation ? So ready to do strangers good. Forgetting his own flesh and blood !" Now Grub-street wits are all employ'd ; With elegies the town is cloy'd : Some paragraph in every paper. To curse the Dean, or bless the Draper.* The doctors, tender of their fame. Wisely on me lay all the blame. " We must confess, his case was nice ; But he would never take advice. Had he been rul'd, for aught appears, He might have liv'd these twenty years : For, when we open'd him, we found That all his vital parts were sound." From Dublin soon to London spread, I 'Tis told at court, " The Dean is dead ;" And Lady Suffolk, in the spleen, Runs laughing up to tell the Queen. * For the papers which he wrote on Irish affairs, under that title. SWIFT. 239 The Queen so gracious, mild, and good. Cries, " Is he gone ! 'tis time he should He's dead you say ; then let him rot. Pm glad the medals* were forgot. I promis'd him, I own ; but when ? I only was the princess then ; But now, as consort of the king. You know, 'tis quite another thing." Now, Chartres, at Sir Robert's levee, Tells with a sneer, the tidings heavy ; " Why, if he died without his shoes," Cries Bob, " I'm sorry for the news : Oh were the wretch but living still, And in his place my good friend Will If Or had a mitre on his head. Provided Bolingbroke were dead !" Now Curll his shop from rubbish drains: Three genuine tomes of Swift's remains ! And then, to make them pass the glibber, Revis'd by Tibbald, Moore, and Cibber, He'll treat me as he does my betters, Publish my will, my life, my letters ; Revive the libels born to die : Which Pope must bear as well as I. Here shift the scene, to represent How those I love my death lament. Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay A week, and Arbuthnot a day. St. John himself will scaixe forbear To bite his pen, and drop a tear. The rest will give a shrug, and cry, '• I'm sorry — but we all must die !" Indifference clad in Wisdom's guise. All fortitude of mind supplies : For how can stony bowels melt, In those who never pity felt ! When we are lash'd, they kiss the rod. Resigning to the will of God. The fools, my juniors by a year, Are tortur'd w4th suspense and fear ; ^^ Who wisely thought my age a screen, ^ When death approach'd to stand between : * "Which the Dean (he says) in vain expected, in return for a small present he had sent to the Princess." t Sir Robert Walpole's antagonist, Pulteney. I 240 SWIFT. The screen remov'd their hearts are trembling ; They mourn for me without dissembling. My female friends, whose tender hearts Have better learn'd to act their parts, Receive the news in doleful dumps : " The Dean is dead : ( Pray what is trumps ?) Then, Lord have mercy on his soul ! {Ladies, 111 venture for the vole.) Six Deans, they say, must bear the pall : (1 wish I knetv what king to call.) Madam, your husband will attend The funeral of so good a friend. No, madam, 'lis a shocking sight; And he's engag'd to-morrow night : My Lady Club will take it ill. If he should fail her at quadrille, He lov'd the Dean — (/ lead a heart) But dearest friends, they say, must part, His time was come ; he ran his race ; We hope he's in a better place." Why do we grieve that friends should die .' No loss more easy to supply. One year is past ; a different scene ! No farther mention of the Dean, Who now, alas ! no more is miss'd. Than if he never did exist. Where's now the favorite of Apollo ? Departed : — and his works must follow. Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift.— \ give these verses (which comprise about half the original) as a true specimen of Swiftian wit and humor, but not at all (some obvious banter excepted) as agreeing with the spirit of them, or counting them among the evidences of his wisdom. The Dean's prodigious discovery, as- sisted by his brother wit Rochefoucault, just amounts to this : — that Nature in her kindly wisdom has prevented mankind from feeling as much for the pangs of others as for their own ; and that when a misfortune happens to a neighbor, they cannot, in spite of their condolence, help congratulating themselves on hav- ing escaped it. There are exceptions, — many, — even to these conclusions ; and what do the conclusions prove ? Why, simply, that existence would be nothing but misery if human beings were otherwise constituted ; that the best people would have the power SWIFT. 241 neither to receive nor to give enjoyment ; and that meantime (by the same kind providence of nature against worse consequences) they do suffer and sympathize greatly on occasion, often to a far greater degree than the author chooses to think. The sick neighbor feeling for the dying man endures but half the anguish of many (I do not say of all) who are here called " snivellers round a bed," and who would sometimes gladly die instead of the sufferer ? What ? Have not millions of lives been thrown away for less things than love ; and are we to be told by a loveless misanthrope, girding his own friends, that affection never grieves for a death beyond a " month" or a " day ?" Nonsense. I mourn with, and admire Swift, who was a great man, notwith- standing what was little in him ; but (wit excepted) he fell to the level of the vulgar when he " sunk in the spleen," Yet how handsome the opportunity he takes of complimenting Pope and others at his own expense, and how pleasantly it tells both against him and for him ! 7 Refiri'd it first, and show'dits wse.— A bold claim, after Butler and all the other wits and poets who excelled in it ! and, indeed, quite unfounded. 12 242 GREEN. GREEN. BORN, IGOG DIED, 1737. The author of the Spleen, a poem admired by Pope, and quoted by Johnson, was a clerk in the custom-house, and had been bred a quaker. He was subject to low spirits, and warded them off by wit and good sense. Something of the quaker may be ob- servable in the stiffness of his versification, and its excessive en- deavors to be succinct. His style has also the fault of being oc- casionally obscure ; and his wit is sometimes more labored than finished. But all that he says is worth attending to. His thoughts are the result of liis own feeling and experience ; his opinions rational and cheerful, if not very lofty ; his warnings against meddling with superhuman mysteries admirable ; and he is re- markable for the brevity and originality of his similes. He is of the school of Butler ; and it may be affirmed of him as a rare honor, that no man since Butler has put so much wit and reflec- tion into the same compass of lines. There is an edition of Green's poems by Dr. Aikin, whicli de- serves to be the companion of all who suffer as the autiior did, and who have sense enough to wish to relieve their sufferings by the like exercise of their reason. In printing the following extracts I have not adopted the aste- risks commonly employed for the purpose of implying omission. I always use them unwillingly, on account of the fragmentary air they give to the passages; and the paragraphs closed up so well togetlier in the present instance, that I was tempted to waive them. But tiie circumstance is mentioned in order to prevent a false conclusion. GREEN. 243 REMEDIES FOR THE SPLEEN.^ To cure the mind's wrong bias, spleen, Some recommend the bowling-green ; Some hilly walks : all, exercise ; Fling but a stone, the giant dies. Laugh and be well. Monkeys have been Extreme good doctors for the spleen ; And kittens, if the humor hit. Have harlequivbd away the fit. If spleen fogs rise at close of day, ^ I clear my evening with a play, > Or to some concert take my way, 3 The company, the shine of lights, ^ The scenes of humor, music's flights, > Adjust, and set the soul to rights. } In rainy days keep double guard. Or spleen will surely be too hard ; Which, like those fish by sailors met. Fly highest while their wings are wet. In such dull weather so unfit To enterprise a work of wit, When clouds one yard of azure sky. That's fit for simile, deny, I dress my face with studious looks, And shorten tedious hours with books. But w^hen dull fogs invade the head. That mem'ry minds not what is read, I sit in window dry as ark. And on the drowning world remark ; Or to some coffee-house I stray For news, the manna of a day, And from the hipp'd discourses gather, That politics go by the weather. Then seek good-humor'd tavern chums. And play at cards, but for small sums ; Or with the merry fellows quaff', And laugh aloud with them that laugh ; Or drink a joco-serious cup With souls who've took their freedom up ; And let my mind, beguil'd by talk. In Epicurus' garden walk, TVho thought it heav'n to be serene ; Pain, hell ; and purgatory, spleen. 244 GREEN. Sometimes I dress, with women sit. And chat away the gloomy fit ; Quit the stiff garb of serious sense, And wear a gay impertinence. Permit, ye fair, your idol-form, Which e'en the coldest heart can warm, May with its beauties grace my line, While I bow down before its shrine. And your throng'd altars with my lays Perfume, and get by giving praise. With speech so sweet, so sweet a mien. You excommitnicate the spleen. Which fiend-like Jiies the magic ring You form with sound, when pleased to sing. Whate'er you say, howe'er you move, We look, we listen, and approve. Your touch, which gives to feeling bliss. Our nerves officious throng to kiss. By Celia's pat, on their report, The grave-air'd soul, inclin'd to sport, Renounces wisdom's sullen pomp, And loves the floral game, to romp. But who can view the pointed rays, That from black eyes scintillant blaze .'' Love on his throne of glory seems Encompass'd with satellite beams. But when blue eyes, more softly bright. Diffuse benignly humid light. We gaze, and see the smiling loves. And Cytherea's gentle doves. And raptur'd fix in such a face Love's mercy-seat and throne of grace. Shine but on age, you melt its snow ; Again fires long-extinguish'd glow. And charm'd by witchery of eyes, Blood long congealed liquefies ! True miracle, and fairly done By heads which arc adored tvhile on.^ Such thoughts as love the gloom of night, I close examine by the light; For who, though brib'd by gain to lie. Dare sunbea77i-written tmiths deny, And execute plain common sense On faith's mere hearsay evidence .•• GREEN. 245 That superstition mayn't create, And club its ills with those of fate, I many a notion take to task. Made dreadful by its visor mask. Thus scruple, spasm of the 7nind, Is cur'd, and certainly I find ; Since optic reason shows me plain, I dreaded spectres of the brain ; And legendary fears are gone. Though in tenacious childhood sown. Thus in opinions 1 commence Freeholder in the proper sense. And neither suit nor service do, Nor homage to pretenders show, Who boast themselves, by spurious roll. Lords of the manor of the soul ; Preferring sense, from chin that's bare. To nonsense throii'd in whisker'd hair. Thus, then, I steer my bark, and sail On even keel with gentle gale ; At helm I make my reason sit. My crew of passions all submit. If dark and blust'ring prove some nights. Philosophy puts forth her lights ; Experience holds the cautious glass. To shun the breakers, as I pass, And frequent throws the waiy lead. To see what dangers may be hid ; And once in seven years I'm seen At Bath or Tunbridge to careen. Though pleas'd to see the dolphins play, I mind my compass and my way.^ With store sufficient for belief. And wisely still prepar'd to reef. Nor wanting the dispersive bowl Of cloudy weather in the soul, I make (may Heav'n propitious send Such wind and weather to the end) JVeither becalmed nor overblown. Life's voyage to the world unknown. * The disorder here called the Spleen, was of old called Melan- choly, or Hypochondria; then it became Vapors or the Hyp^ then the Spleen, then the Nerves or Low Spirits. The designa- 240 GKKEN tion now varies between Nerves and Biliousness. Melancholy signifies Black Bile, as Hypochondria does a region of the stom- ach ; and there is no doubt that all the disorders, great and small, connected with low spirits, are traceable to the stomach and state of digestion, sometimes in consequence of anxiety or too much thought, oftener from excess, and want of exercise. Too much eating (sometimes wrongly exchanged for too little) is the unro- mantic cause of nine-tenths of the roman'rtc melancholies in exist- ence. Your pie-crust is a greater caster of shadows over this life, than all the platonical " prison houses" the poets talk of. »" % heads which are ador'd while on."— A felicitous allusion to the imposture of St. Januarius, a cheat still practised at Naples. Clotted blood is brought forward in a vial ; and at the approach of the head of the saint it is pretended to liquefy. ^ This couplet was quoted by Johnson in the course of some excellent advice given to Boswell. — See his Life, edit. 1839, vol. vii., p. 287. Boswell. By associating with you, sir, I am always getting an accession of wisdom. But perhaps a man, after knowing his own character — the limited strength of his own mind — should not be desirous of having too much wisdom, considering, quid valennt humeri, how little he can carry. Johnson. Sir, be as wise as you can ; let a man be aliis Icctus, sapiens sibi : *' Though pleas'd to see the dolphins play, I mind my compass and my way " You may be wise in your study in the morning, and gay in company at a tavern in the evening. Every man is to take care of his own wisdom and his own virtue, without minding too much what others think. GOLDSMITH. 247 GOLDSMITH. BORN, 1729. DIED, 1774, Goldsmith is so delightful a writer, that the general impression on his readers is that of his having been a perfect sort of man, at least for amiableness and honhomie, and the consequence is, that when they come to be thoroughly acquainted with his life and works, especially the critical portion, they are startled to find him partaking of the frailties of his species and the jealousies of his profession. So much good, however, and honesty, and sim- plicity, and such an abundance of personal kindness, still remain, and it seems likely that so much of what was weak in him origi- nated in a painful sense of his want of personal address and at- tractiveness, that all harsh conclusions appear as ungracious as they are uncomfortable : we feel even wanting in gratitude to one who has so much instructed and entertained us ; and hasten, for the sake of what is weak as well as strong in ourselves, to give all the old praise and honor to the author of the Vicar of Wake- field and the Deserted Village. We are obliged to confess that the Vicar, artless and delightful as he is, is an inferior brother of Parson Adams ; and that there are great improbabilities in the story. But the family manners, and the Flamboroughs, and Moses, are all delicious ; and the style of writing perfect. Again, we are forced to admit, that the Traveller and Deserted Village are not of the highest or subtlest order of poetry ; yet they are charming of their kind, and as perfect in style as his prose. They are cabinets of exquisite workmanship, which will outlast hundreds of oracular shrines of oak ill put together. Goldsmith's 248 GOLDSMITH. most thorouglily original productions are his comedies and minor poems, particularly She S/oops to Compter, and the two pieces of wit and humor extracted into this volume. His comic writing is of the class which is perhaps as much preferred to that of a staider sort by people in general, as it is by the writer of these pages, — comedy running into farce ; that is to say, truth richly colored and overflowing with animal spirits. It is that of the prince of comic writers, Moliere (always bearing in mind that Moli^re beats every one of them in expression, and is a great verse writer to boot). The English have no dramatists to compare in this re- spect with the Irish. Farquhar, Goldsmith, and Sheridan, sur- pass ihem all ; and O'Keefo, as a farce-writer, stands alone. Goldsmith, with all his imprudences, never forgot the one thing needful to a good author, — the " Porro unum necessarium,'' —style. Observe in the followinc!: poems how all the words fall in their right places, and what an absence there is of the unfit and super- fluous. RETALIATION.' Of old, when Scarron'^ his companions invited. Each guest brought his dish, and the feast was united. If our landlord supplies us with beef and with fish, Let each guest bring himself , and he brings the best dish Our Dean-^ sliall be venison, just fresh from the plains ; Our Burhe shall be tongue., with a garnish of brains : Our Will' shall be wild fowl, of excellent flavor, And Dick^ with his pepper shall heighten their savor ; Our Cumberland's sweetbread its place shall obtain. And Douglas" is pudding substantial and plain ; Our Garrick's a salad ; fur i?i him we see Oil, vinegar, sugar, a7id saltness agree ; To make out the dinner full certain I am That Ridge' is anchovy, and Reynolds is lamb, Tliat Hickcy's" a capon, and by the same rule. Magnanimous Goldsmith a gooseberry fool. At a dinner so various, at such a repast, Who'd not be a glutton, and stick to the last ? GOLDSMITH. 249 Here, waiter, more wine, let me sit while I'm able, Till all my companions fall under the table ; Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head, Let me ponder and tell what I think of the dead. Here lies the good dean, re-united to earth. Who mixt reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth : If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt ; At least in six weeks I could not find 'em out ; Yet some have declar'd, and it can't be denied 'em, That sly-boots was cursedly cunning to hide 'em. Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such, We scarcely can praise it, or blame it too much ; Who born for the universe, narrow'd his mind. And to party gave up what was meant for mankind ; Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat To persuade Tommy Townshend^ to lend him a vote ; Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining. And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining : Though equal to all things, for all things unfit. Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit ; For a patriot too cool ; for a drudge, disobedient ; And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient. In short 't was his fate, unemploy'd, or in place, sir. To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor .^'^ Here lies honest William, whose heart was a mint. While the owner ne'er knew half the good that was in 't ; The pupil of impulse, it forc'd him along. His conduct still right, with his arguments wrong; Still aiming at honor, yet fearing to roam. The coachman was tipsy, the chariot drove home : Would you ask for his merits ? alas ! he had none ; What was good was spontaneous, his faults were his own. Here lies honest Richard, whose fate I must sigh at; Alas, that such frolic should now be so quiet ! What spirits were his ! What wit and what whim, JVow breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb ! Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball ! Now teazing and vexing, yet laughing at all ! In short so provoking a Devil was Dick, That we wish'd him full ten times a day at old JVick: But, missing his mirth and agreeable vein. As often we wished to have Dick back again. Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts. The Terence of England, tlie mender of hearts ; A flattering painter, who made it his care To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are. 12* 250 GOLDSMITH. His gallants are all faultless, his women divine, And Comedy wonders at beitig so fine : Like a Tragedy Queen he has dizen'd her out. Or rather, like Tragedy giving a rout. His fools have their follies so lost in a crowd Of virtues and feelings, that folly grows proud ; And coxcombs, alike in their failings alone. Adopting his portraits, are pleas'd with their own. Say, where has our poet this malady caught ? Or, wherefore his characters thus without fault? Say, was it that vainly directing his view To find out men's virtues, and finding them few, Quite sick of pursuing each troublesome elf. He grew lazy at last, and so drew from himself.' Here Douglas retires from his toils to relax. The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks; Come, all ye quack bards, and ye quacking divines, Come and dance on the spot where your tyrant reclines When satire and censure encircled his throne, I fear'd for your safety, I fearM for my own ; But now he is gone, and we want a detector, Our Dodds" shall be pious, our Kendricks'^ shall lecture ; Macpherson'^ write bombast, and call it a style, Our Townshends make speeches, and I shall compile; New Landers and Bowers the Tweed shall cross over. No countryman living their tricks to discover : Detection her taper shall quench to a spark, A7id Scotchman meet Scotchman, and cheat in the dark. Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can. An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man; As an actor, confest without rival to shine ; As a wit, if not first, in the very first line : Yet with talents like these, and an excellent heart. The man had his failings, a dupe to his art ; Like an ill-judging beauty, his colors he spread. And beplaster'd with rouge his own natural red. On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting; 'Ihvas only that when he was off, he was acting. With no reason on earth to go out of his way, He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day : Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sicky If they were not his own by finessifig and trick. He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack. For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back. Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came. And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame ; GOLDSMITH. 251 Till his relish grown callous almost to diseasCt Who peppered the highest, was surest to please. But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys," and Woodtalls'^ so grave, What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave ? How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you rais'd. While he was be-Iioscius'd, and you were be-prais'd ? But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies. To act as an angel, and mix with the skies ; Those poets wlio owe their best fame to his skill, Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will ; Old Shakspeare, receive him with praise and withJ.ove, And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above. Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature. And slander itself must allow him good-nature ; He cherish'd his friends, and he relish'd a bumper ; Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper. Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser : I answer, no, no, for he always was wiser : Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat .' His very worst foe can't accuse him of that : Perhaps he confided in men as they go. And so was too foolishly honest ? ah no ! Then what was his failing ? come, tell it and burn ye, — He was, could he help it ? a special attorney. Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind. He has not left a wiser or better behind. His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; Still born to improve us in every part. His pencil our faces, his manners our heart ; To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering. When they judg'd without skill, he was still out of hearing : When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Correggios and stuffy He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff.^° ' " First printed in 1774, after the author's death. Dr. Gold- smith, and some of his friends, occasionally dined at St. James's Coffee-house. One day it was proposed to write epitaphs on him. His country dialect, and person, furnished subjects of witticism. He was called on for Retaliation, and, at the next meeting, pro- duced the poem." — (Note in old edition.) 252 GOLDSMITH. '■^ Scarron, the famous French wit, who was so poor that his friends made a pic-nie of their dinners at his house. ^ Dr. Barnard, Dean of Derry, in Ireland, afterwards Bishop of Limerick, and of Killaloe. * William Burke. * Richard Burke. * Dr. afterwards Bishop Douglas, who detected the forgeries of Lauder's pretended plagiarism, and Bower's History of the Popes. ' A gentleman at the Irish bar. ^ A.n eminent attorney. ' The once famous statesman. '° Burke's digestion was delicate, and cold mutton his standing dish. " Dr. Dodd, the unhappy clergyman. " Dr. Kenrick, a petty author, and troublesome critic of that day. '^ The famous compiler of Ossian. '■* Hugh Kelly, author of some clever sentimental comedies, of the success of which Goldsmith condescended to be jealous. ' William Wood fall, printer of the Morning Chronicle. ''^ Sir Joshua Reynolds was so deaf as to be under the neces- sity of using an ear-trumpet. THE HAUNCH OF VENISON. A POETICAL EPISTLE TO 1X)RD CLARE, 1765. Thanks, my lord, for your venison ; for finer or fatter Ne'er rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter ; The haunch was a picture for painters to study, The fat was so wliite, and the lean was so ruddy. Though my stomach was sharp I could scarce help regretting To spoil fixich a delicate picture bi/ eating ; I had tlioughts in my chamber to place it in view, To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtu :' As in some Irish housc-i, where thin<j;s ore so-so, One gammon of bacon hangs vp for a show: GOLDSMITH. 253 But for eating a rasher in what you take pride in , ^ iViey'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fry'd in. But hold — let me pause — don't I hear you pronounce This tale of the bacon's a damnable bounce ? Well, suppose it a bounce — sure a poet may try By a bounce now and then to get courage to fly. But, n>y lord, it's no bounce ; I protest in my turn, It's a truth, and your lordship may ask Mr. Burn.* To go on with my tale : — as I gazed on the haunch I thought of a friend that was trusty and staunch ; So [ cut it, and sent it to Reynolds undrest To paint it, or eat it, just as he lik'd best. Of the neck and the breast I had next to dispose, 'Twas a neck and a breast that might rival Monroe's. But in parting with these I was puzzled again. With the how, and the who, and the where, and the when. There's H d,and C y, and H rth, and H ff, I think they love venison — I know they love beef. There's my countryman Higgins — Oh ! let him alone For making a blunder or picking a bone : But hang it — to poets who seldom can eat. Your very good mutton's a very good treat ; Such dainties to send them their health it might hurt, IVs like sending them ruffles when wanting a shirt. While thus I debated in reverie centr'd. An acquaintance, a friend as he call'd himself, enter'd; An under-bred fine-spoken fellow was he. And he smil'd as he look'd at the venison and me. " What have we got here ? — why this is good eating ! Your own, I suppose or is it in waiting ?" " Why, whose should it be ?" cried I with a flounce, " I get these things often :" (but that was a bounce) " Some lords my acquaintance, that settle the nation. Are pleas'd to be kind ; but I hate ostentation." " If that be the case then," cried he, Very gay, " I'm glad I have taken this house in my way. To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me ; No words — T insist on't — precisely at three; We'll have Johns-on and Burke ; all the wits will be there ; My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my Lord Clare. And now that I think on"t, as I am a sinner, We wanted this venison to make out the dinner ! What say you — a pasty ; it shall, and it must ; And my wife^ little Kitty ^ is famous for c7-ust> 234 GOLDSMITH. Here, porter — this venison with me to Mile-end; No stirring, I bog, my dear friend, my dear friend." Thus snatching his hat, ho brush'd ofi'like the wind, And the porter and eatables Ibllow'd behind. Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf. And " nobody with me at sea but myself,"" Tliougli I could not help thinking my gentleman hasty, Yet Johnson, and Burke, and a good venison pasty, Were things that I never dislik'd in my life, Though clogg'd with a coxcomb and Kitty his wife. So next day in due splendor to make my approach, I drove to his door in my own hackney coach. When come to the place where we all were to dine (A chair-lumber'd closet, just twelve feet by nine). My friend made me welcome, but struck me quits dumb With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come ; " For I knew it," he cried ; " both eternally fail. The one with his speeches and t'other with Thrale ; But no matter. I'll warrant we'll make up the party With two full as clever, and ten times as hearty. The one is a Scotsman, the other a Jew, They're both of them merry, and authors like you. The one writes the ' Snarler,' the other the * Scourge ;' Some thinks he writes ' Cinna' — he owns to ' Panurge.' " While thus he described them by trade and by name, They enter'd, and dinner was serv'd as they came. At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen, At the bottom was tripe in a swinging tureen ; At the sides there was spinage and pudding made hot ; In the middle a place where the pasty was not. Now, my lord, as for tripe, it's my utter aversion. And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Persian : So there I sat stuck, like a horse in a pound, While the bacon and liver went merrily round : But what vex'd me most, was that d — n'd Scottish rogue. With his long-winded speeches, his smiles and his brogue. And " Madam," quoth he, " may this bit be my poison, A prettier dinner I never set eyes on : Pray a slice of your liver ; thougli, may I bo curst, But I've eat of your tripe till I'm ready to burst." '* The tripe !" quoth the Jew, with hi-s chocolate cheek, ** I could dine on this tripe seven days in the week : GOLDSMITH. 255 / like these here dinriers so pretty and stnall ; But your friend there, the doctor, eats nothing at all." " Oh, oh !" quoth my friend, " he'll come on in a trice, He's keeping a corner for something that's nice : There's a pasty" " A pasty !" repeated the Jew ; " I don't care if I keep a corner for't too." *' What the de'il, mon, a pasty !" re-echo'd the Scot; " Though splitting, I'll still keep a corner for that" " We'll all keep a corner,'^ the lady cried out; " We'll all keep a corner" was echo'd about. While thus we resolv'd, and the pasty delay'd. With looks that quite petrified, enter'd the maid ; A visage so sad, and so pale with affright, Wak'd Priam in drawing his curtains by night. But we quickly found out, for who could mistake her ? That she came with some terrible news from the baker : And so it turn'd out ; for that negligent sloven Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven. Sad Philomel thus — but let similes drop — And now that I think on't, the story may stop. To be plain, my good lord, it's but labor misplac'd, To send such good verses to one of your taste ; You've got an odd something — a kind of discerning — A relish, — a taste — sicken'd over by learning; At least, it's your temper, as very well known, That you think very slightly of things all your own : So, perhaps, in your habits of thinking amiss. You may make a mistake, and think slightly of this. ^ Lord Clare's nephew. ^ A passage in the love-letters of the then Duke of Cumberland (George the Third's brother) to Lady Grosvenor, which were making a great noise at the time. 2oG WOLCOT. W L C T . (PETER PINDAR.) BORN, 1738— DIED, 1819. WoLCOT was successively a clergyman, a physician, a pensioner on the booksellers, and, it is said, on government. He had a taste for painting ; introduced his countryman Opie to the world ; and lived to a hale old age, mirthful to the last in spite of blind- ness. He was a genuine man of his sort, though his sort was not of a very dignified species. There does not seem to have been any real malice in him. He had not the petty spite and peevishness of his antagonist Gifibrd ; nor, like him, could have constituted himself a snarler against his betters for the pay of greatness. He attacked greatness itself, because he thought it could afford the joke ; and he dared to express sympathies with the poor and outcast. His serious poems, however, are nothing but common-places about Delias and the Muse. Nor have his comic ones the grace and perfection which a sense of the serious only can bestow. Wolcot had an eye for little that was grave in life, except the face-makings of absurdity and pretension ; but these he could mimic admirably, putting on at one and the same lime tlieir most nonchalant and matter-of-course airs, while he fL'tchcd out into his countenance the secret nonsense. He echoes their words, witli some little comment of approval, or change in their position ; some classical inversion, or exaltation, which ex- poses the pretension in the very act of admitting it, and has an irresistibly ludicrous effect. But those points have been noticed in the Introductory Essay. WOLCOr. 207 Peter wrote a good deal of trash, even in his humorous pieces: for they were composed, like the razors in one of his stories, " to sell." But his best things are surpassed by no banter in the lano-uage. I am sorry its coarseness prevents my repeating the story of the Pilgrims and the Peas ; the same objection applies to passao-es of the Lousiad ; and there are circumstances in the history of George the Third, which would render it unbecoming to extract even the once harmless account of his Majesty's Visit to Whiibread^s Brewlwuse. I have therefore confined myself to Pindar's other very best thing, — his versification of passages in Bos well and Thrale, — masterly for its facility and straightfor- wardness, which doubles the effect of the occasional mock-heroic inversions. To compare great things with small, and show that I commend nothing strongly which has not had a strong effect on myself, I can say, that Lear does not more surely move me to tears, or Spenser charm me, than I am thrown into fits of laugh- ter when I hear these rhyming Jolinsoniana. I can hardly, now this moment, while writing about them, and glancing at the copy which lies before me, help laughing to myself in private. This is not a good preface to a joke ; but, if anybody can afford it, I think it is Peter. CONVERSATION ON JOHNSON, BY MRS. PIOZZl (THRALE) AND MR. BOSV/ELL. Madame Piozzi. — Dear Doctor Johnson was in size an ox. And from his Uncle Andrew learn'd to box, A man to wrestlers and to bruisers dear. Who kept the ring in Smithfield a whole year. The Doctor had an Uncle, too, ador''d By jumping gentry, call'd Cornelius Ford; Who jump' d in boots, which jumjyers never choose. For as a famous jumper jumped in shoes. Bozzy. — When Foote his leg, by some misfortune, broke. Says I to Johnson, all by way of joke, *' Sam, sir, \n paragraph will soon be clever. And take off Peter better now than ever."* On which, says Johnson, without hesitation, " George^ will rejoice at Foote's depeditafion." '25S WOLCOT. On which, says I, a penetrating elf.' " Doctor, Vju sure you coined that word yourself.^* The Doctor own'd to inc I liad divin'd it, For, bona Jldr, he had really coin'd it. " And yet, of all the words I've coin'd (says he), I\Iy Dictionary, sir, contains but three." .Mad. Piozzi. — The Doctor said, " hi literary matters^ A Frenchman goes not deep — ne only smatters ; Then ask'd, what could be hop'd for from the dogs, Felloivs that He'd eternally on frogs 7 Bozzy. — In grave procession to St. Leonard's College, Well stufi'd with every sort of useful knowledge, We stately walk'd as soon as supper ended ; The landlord and the waiter both attended ; The landlord, skilPd a piece of grease to handle. Before us march'd, and held a tallow candle : A lantern (some fam'd Scotsman its creator) With equal grace was carried by the waiter. Next morning from our beds we took a leap. And found o^irsclvcs much better for our sleep. Mad. Piozzi. — In Lincolnshire, a lady show'd our friend A grotto that she ivish'd him to commend. Quoth she, " How cool in summer this abode !" " Yes, madam (answered Johnson), /o/- a toad." Bozzy. — Between old Scalpa's rugged isle and Rasay's, The wind was vastly boisterous in our faces ; ^T loas glorimis Johnson'' s figure to set sight on — High in the boat he looked a noble Triton ! But lo ! to damp our pleasure Fate concurs, For Joe, the blockhead, lost his master's spurs ; This for the Rambler's temper was a rubber, V/ho wonder'd Joseph could be such a lubber. JUad. Piozzi. — I ask'd him if he knock'd Tom Osborn down,^ As such a tale was current through the town : — ' Says I, " Do tell me. Doctor, what befell."— •' Why, dearest lady, there is naught to tell : I pondcr'd on the properest mode to treat him — The dog was int2>udcnt, and so I beat him ! Tom, like a fool, proclaim'd his fancied wrongs ; Others that 1 belabored, held their tongues." WULCOT. 259 Did any one that he was happy cry — Johnson would tell him plumply, 7 was a tie. A lady told him she was really so ; On which he sternly answer'd, " Madam, no! Sickly you are, and ugly foolish, poor ; And therefore caii't be happy, I am sure. 'T would make a fellow hang lumself, whose ear Were from such creatures forc'd such stuff to hear." Bozzy. — I wonder'd yesterday, that one John Hay, Who serv'd as Cicerone on the way, Should fly a man-of-war — a spot so blest — A fool ! nine months, too, after he was prest. Quoth Johnson, " No man, sir, would be a sailor. With sense to scrape acquaintance with a jailor " Mad. Piozzi. — I said I lik'd not goose, and mention'd why ; — One smells it roasting on the spit, quoth I, " You, Madam," cry'd the Doctor, with a frown, " Are always gorging — stuffing something down. Madam, 't is very nat'ral to suppose. If in the pantry you will poke your nose. Your maw with ev'ry sort of victuals swelling, That you must want the bliss of dinner-smelling, Bozzy. — Once at our house, amidst our Attic feasts. We likened, our acquaintances to beasts ; As, for example, some to calves and hogs. And some to bears and monkeys, cats and dogs ; We said {which charmed the Doctor much no doubt). His mind was like of elephants the snout. That could pick pins up, yet possess'd the vigor For trimming well the jacket of a tiger. Mad. Piozzi. — Dear Doctor Johnson left off drinks fermented. With quarts of chocolate and cream contented ; Yet often down his tliroat's enormous gutter. Poor man ! he pour'd a flood of melted butter ! Bozzy. — With glee the Doctor did my girl behold ; Her name Veronica, just four months old. This name Veronica, a name though quaint, Belong'd originally to a saint ; But to my old great grandam it was giv'n — As fine a woman as e'er went to heav'n ,• '260 WOLCOT. And what must add to her importance, muchy This lady's genealogy was Dutch. The man wlio did espouse this dame divine Was Alexandir, Karl of Kincardijic ; JVho pour\l along my body, like a sluice. The noble, noble, noble blood of Bruce ! And who that own^d this blood could well refuse To make the icorld acquainted with the iicws 7 But to return unto my charming child — About our Doctor Johnson she was wild ; And when he left ofl" speaking, she would flutter, Squall for him to begin again, and sputter ; And to be near him a strong i/.nsh expressed. Which proves he was not such a horrid beast. Her fondness for the Doctor pleas'd me greatly, On which I loud exclaim'd, in laiiguage stately, JVay, if J recollect aright, I swore, rd to herifortu7ie add five hundred more. Mad. Piozzi. — In ghosts the Doctor strongly did believe. And pinn'd his faith on many a liar's sleeve. He said to Doctor Lawrence, " Sure I am, I heard my poor dear mother call out ' Sam,' I'm sure," said he, " that I can trust my ears ; And yet, my mother had been dead for years." JBozzy. — When young ('twas rather silly I allow), Much was I pleas'd to imitate a cow. One time at Drury Lane with Doctor Blair, My imitations made the playhouse stare ! So very charmitigwas I in my roar. That both the galleries clapp'd and cried " Encore." Blest by the general plaudit and the laugh, I tried to be di jack- ass and a calf : But who, alas ! in all things can be great ? In short, I met a terrible defeat ; So vile I bray'd and bcUow'd, I was hiss'd ; Yet all who knew me wondered that I missed. Blair whisper'd me, " You've lost your credit now ; Stick, Boswell, for the future, to the Coiv." ' Peter Garrick, who had a wooden leg. He was brother of the actor. "^ " George" was George Faulkner the printer, who prose- cuted Foote for lampooning him. WOLCOT. 261 ^ Osborne the bookseller. Johnson, while in poor circum- stances, had been employed by him. The melancholy author happened lo be guilty of one of those delays, which are some- times occasioned to conscientious men by the wish to do their best. Osborne, who had no understanding for such refmed motives, broke out into a coarse strain of abuse, such as the trade would now be ashamed of; and Johnson was so provoked, that happening to have one of the man's folios in his hands at the moment, he knocked him down with it. THE END. 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