C '^ y- U^h^ J*) 2- FROM CHAUCER TO SPENSER. 1350 TO 1550. X. Telling of some of the Men who wrote in Chaucer's Time ; and of the Vision of Piers Ploughman. I THINK we have now an idea of the way in which Hter- ature began in England, and of its struggles to be heard in the language native to the people, from the coming of the English to the islands of Britain, down to the reign of Edward III. In this reign appeared a group of writers who firmly established the language in literature. These men were Geoffrey Chaucer, John Wvcliffe, John Gower, and William Langland. From the time of these authors, written English took on such form that you can read it to-day with little difficulty. Before their time you would find even Robert of Brunne, who said he wrote no strange English, rather hard to understand. You have seen that since the coming of the first Christian priests to England, literature owes its life to the Church and to the labors of the Churchmen, who, from the Venerable Beda onward, had devoted themselves to the spread of learning and literature. There seem to have been pure and pious men in these early days of the Church, who, sincerely religious, devoted themselves to good works. But during the years that followed the establishment of the religion of Rome in England the Christian Church was gradually growing corrupt. What taint there was in it of corruption and hypocrisy had spread through the whole body, and at the time we have now reached, many of the religious teachers of the people had become so bad that the good men among the priests, and the more intelligent part 62 FAMILIAR TALKS of the people had their eyes open to the abuses practised by the clergy, and not frowned upon by the Church. And in the beginning of the fourteenth century the discontent felt on account of these abuses made itself heard through two powerful mouthpieces, — the poem of William Langland, and the preaching of John Wycliffe. Let me tell you first about William Langland's poem called the Vision of Ficrs Plough- man, which up to the end of the fourteenth century was the most popular poem — perhaps we might call it the first great popular poem — ever written in English. William Langland was a priest, but one who loved good- About ness and hated hypocrisy, and his lines are full of 1362 satire against the falsehood and the vices of the religious teachers. The Vision of Piers Ploughman is a dream, or a succession of dreams, in the course of which the writer wakes up, goes about his business, then falls into another nap, and takes up the thread of his dream again. The poem is an allegory, which will remind you a little of The Pilgrim's Progress. At the opening of it the writer sees the world in his dream like a great Vanity Fair, in which mingle priests, merchants, soldiers, and husbandmen, each busy in his own way. Conscience, Pity, Reason, Law, and other abstract qualities are also represented as persons, and form some of the chief characters in the dream ; but as in most other allegories, if you leave the story only to follow the meaning that lies underneath, the brain will be be- wildered and the interest lost. In the second sleep Piers Ploughman, a type of the poor and simple of the earth, to whom God reveals himself rather than to the rich and mighty, comes upon the scene. Ploughman was a happy name to catch the ear of the classes among whom it was meant this poem should be heard. Those who study Piers Ploughman will find in its lines the dawn-gleams of democracy, the recognition of certain rights belonging to the lowest man, which first found expression in poetry. Remember this, and the utterance of Langland will take on a fresh interest and a new life. The poem begins thus: — ON ENGLISH LITER A TURE. ^l " In a jummer reason, When j-oft was the jun, I put me into clothes, As I a shepherd were ; In /izhit as a /permit, Un/ioly of works, IFent wide in this world, Jf'onders to hear, And on a AIa.y woruing. On J/alvern hills. Me befell a wonder. I was jfeary with (C/andering, And went me to rest Under a broad bank. By a burn's side. And as I lay, and leaned, And looked in the waters, I j-lumbered into a sleeping, It swayed so merry i Then gan I to dream A marvellous dream That I was in the wilderness. Wist I never where. As I beheld unto the east On high to the sun, I saw a tower on a hill Wondrously built. . . . A fair field of folk Found I there between, Of all manner of men. The mean and the rich, Working and wandering As the world asketh. Some put them to the plough, Playing full seldom. In setting and sowing Working full hard. In prayers and penance Many took part For love of our Lord, Living full strict In hopes to have after Heavenly bliss. . . . I found there friars. All the four orders. Preaching to the people For profit to themselves; Closed the gospel As it seemed good to them. "^ From these few lines you may get some idea of the style of the poem; but you cannot, from so brief an extract, form any idea of the influence it exercised against the cor- ruption of priests and pardoners, who sold absolutions for sins which they committed themselves without caring to be absolved. And you can hardly imagine, even if you read it entire, what an interest this old poem was capable of excit- ing in its day. The Viswn was followed, in the opening of the fifteenth century, by Piers PloHi^hman's Crede, which was written by some unknown poet later than Langland, in imitation of his style. This is even more severe against the abuses of religion than the first poem, and its hero is still the poor 1 It stvaycd so inerry, — The waters flowed on with such a murmuring sound, ■^ I have given these extracts from Pins Ploits^hman in modern spelling, sometimes modernizing words, that they may be readily under- stood. 64 FAMILIAR TALKS ploughman, who is able to teach truths to which his betters are blind. He is introduced bending over the plough, in ragged garments, with clouted shoes through which his toes thrust themselves, slobbered with mud, driving lean and hungry oxen. His wife walks beside him, with bare feet, which track their way with blood, and in their work about the field they sing a song " that sorrowful is to hear." Yet from the lips of this poor ploughman come words of wis- dom and consolation such as the rich and powerful might gladly hear. In its teachings, and in the picture the poem gives of the misery of the English peasant who tilled the land, there was a spirit of reform and of philanthropy which shows that the reformer was abroad in England at the open- ing of the fifteenth century. In structure, the Vision of Piers Ploughman goes back to the early form of English poetry. It is in short, un- rhymed lines, words nearly all of one syllable, and in the alliterative style of the Beowulf. Simple and direct in diction, it was made to speak from the heart of the writer to the common heart of the English people, and it deserved to be, as it was, the most popular poem, up to that time, ever written in English. XL On Three Great Contemporaries of Chaucer, — John WvcLiFFE, John Mandeville, and John Gower. ABOUT the time of the author of Piers Ploughman came John Wycliffe, who stands as the first English Reformer, and who ought to take a place beside Martin \bout Luther, the sturdy German Reformer of a later 1324 time. Wycliffe, like Luther, was a monk, and like to him a sincere and pious man. His eyes were early opened to the cheats practised by mendicant friars, who went about begging from the people already ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 65 too heavily taxed for the Church, peddhng the bones of some old saint, or some bits of wood which they pre- tended were pieces of the true cross, or other relics which they declared would insure the soul's salvation of the per- son who possessed them. Wycliffe preached boldly against all these abuses of religion, till the noble thought came to him to make a translation of the Bible for the common people, that, reading for themselves, they might under- stand the true meaning of the Scriptures and be freed from the impositions of unworthy priests. And thenceforward he made it his lifework, through persecution and abuse which followed him beyond the grave, to give the simple teachings of Jesus to the people. Shortly before his death he was summoned to the papal bar at Rome to answer for his heresies ; but his bodily strength had failed, and he died before he could meet his accusers. Forty years after his death the Pope ordered that his bones should be dug up from the grave in which they had rested so many years, and should be burned and scattered abroad. This was done, and his ashes were cast into a stream which empties into the Avon. "Thus," says the old historian, Thomas Fuller, " this brook did convey his ashes into Avon ; Avon into Severn ; Severn into the narrow sea ; and this to the wide ocean. And so the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which is now dispersed the wide world over." Wycliffe's translation of the Bible into simple, spoken English made the grand and poetic diction of the Scrip- tures common to all ears. It wrought almost as great an influence on language as the first introduction of Hebrew poetry had worked on literature. After opening up such a well of pure English, from which all who chose could drink freely, the language could not be again choked up and obscured by any foreign speech. The thirst of the people for the simple teachings of the gospels, so easily understood, that for so long a time had come to them mixed with all sorts of superstitions, can hardly be realized by us in this age of freedom. " A poor yeoman," says 5 66 FAMILIAR TALKS John Foxe, the author of the Book of Martyrs, " has been known to give a load of hay for a few leaves of Paul or the gospels." Often the parchment was read till scarce a shred of it remained. You must fancy, since I have not time to tell you all about it, how the idea of liberty of thought and conscience among the people must have quickened the workings of that spirit which always breathes best in free air, — the true genius of English literature. In the same age with Fiers Ploughman came also John Ab ut Mandeville, who wrote excellent English prose. 1300 His great work is an account of his travels in to Palestine, and thence to India and China. No ^^'^^ modern tourist can rival the charm of these oldest books of travels, such as were written by John Mande- ville, by the Italian traveller Marco Polo, and by the early voyagers to our own country, who came two centuries after Mandeville, In those days the traveller saw and heard with the eyes and ears of a child, — he told all he saw, and believed all he heard. Sir John Mandeville has been accused of exaggeration because he told many incred- ible stories, — indeed, some now go so far as to deny his existence ; but I think that he existed, and that he wrote nothing that he did not believe. We must remember that in his time fact seemed much stranger than fiction ; the truest things he told were often received with greatest incredulity, while a story hke the following was sure of full belief. He says, — "Bethlehem is a little city, long and narrow and well-walled, and on each side enclosed with good ditches. . . . And toward the east end of the city is a very fair and handsome church with many towers, pinnacles, and corners strongly and curiously made. . . . And l^etween the city and the church is the field Floridus, — that is to say, the field T'lourislied. For a fair maiden was blamed with wrong and slandered, and was con- demned to be burned in that place; and as the fire began to burn about her, she made her prayers to our Lord, that as truly as she was not guilty, he would of his merciful grace help her and make it known to all men. And when she had thus said, she entered into the fire, and immediately the fire was ON ENGLISH LITER A TURE. 6"^ extinguished, and the fagots that were burning become red rose- bushes, and those that were not kindled became white rose- bushes, full of roses. And these were the first rose-trees and roses, both red and white, that ever any man saw.'" This was considered by pious readers a good, sensible story ; but when Mandeville began to write out his ideas about the shape of the earth, men began to jeer at him, and laugh at his absurd notions. He gives at some length his ideas of geography and astronomy, derived from his extensive travel and observation, and finally says he be- lieves this earth is round. '' Nay, more," he says, " I tell you certainly that men may go all around the world, as well under as above, and might return so again to their own country if they had shipping and guides ; and always they would find men, land, and isles as well as in our part of the world. For they who are of the antarctic are di- rectly feet opposite of them who dwell under the polar star, as well as we and they who dwell under us are feet opposite feet." As even in the time of Columbus, a hundred and fifty years later, the theory of the roundness of the earth was not generally received, I think this argues very well for Mandeville's understanding. " Of Paradise," says the old traveller, simply, " I cannot speak properly, for I was not there. . . . The earthly paradise, as wise men say, is the highest place of the earth, and it is so high that it nearly touches the circle of the moon there as the moon makes her turn. And it is so high that the flood of Noah might not come to it. . . . And this Paradise is enclosed all about with a wall, and men know not whereof it is, for the wall is covered all over with moss, as it seems, and it seems not that the wall is natural stone. . . . And you shall understand that no man that is mortal may approach to that Paradise, for by land no man may go, for wild beasts that are in the deserts, and for the high mountains and great huge rocks that no man may pass by for the dark places that are there ; and by the rivers may no man go, for the water runs so roughly and so sharply, because it comes down so outrageously from the high places above that it runs in so great waves that no ship may row or sail against it. . . . Many lords have assayed with great will many times to pass by those rivers towards Paradise, with full great com- 68 FAMILIAR TALKS panics, but they might not speed in their voyage, and many died for weariness of rowing against the strong waves, and many of them became blind, and many deaf by the noise of the water, and some perished and were lost in the waves; so that no mortal man may approach that place without special grace of God ; so that of that place I can tell you no more." Yoti will more fully understand how slightly English was esteemed as the language of literature when 1 tell you that Mandeville, according to his own account, first wrote his Travels in Latin, then translated them into French, and lastly put them into English, so as to be sure every man of his nation might be able to read them. The extracts I have given are in more modern English than he wrote ; but his English is hardly more difficult that Chaucer's, and he is generally spoken of as the first prose writer in our language who can be read by a modern reader unac- quainted with old English. Last of the group before Chaucer comes John Gower, a very tiresome old poet whom nobody reads nowadays. . ,^^ Chaucer gave him the title of " Moral Gower," 1320—1402 which has stuck to him from that time to this. He wrote three books, one in Latin, one in French, and one in English. The English book has the Latin title of Confessio Amantis (the Confessions of a Lover). But although these Confessions are illustrated by a great many stories, many of which are interesting and have been used over again with much better effect by later poets, yet, on the whole, Gower is so dull that we will leave him for a much more interesting man, his friend and superior, Geoffrey Chaucer. ON ENGLISH LITERA TURE. 69 XIL On Geoffrey Chaucer, his Life and Poetry. GEOFFREY CHAUCER, the Father of Enghsh Poetry — what a proud title to wear for so gorn 1328 many hundred years ! — is a different sort of poet or 1340. from John Gower, whom I have just mentioned. ^^^^ ^^'^• The two men seem to have been good friends, however, and in the Confessions of a Lover, the goddess Venus tells the lover to — " Grete wel Chaucer when ye mete, As my disciple and my poete," — which is a compliment that Chaucer might well have re- turned by his epithet of "Moral Gower." We do not know with certainty the date of Chaucer's birth. Some of his biographers think it is 1328 ; others, 1340. The first date is the one which has been the long- est believed to be the true one ; the last is that accepted by several modern scholars. For my part, I think the exact date really makes very little difference, so long as we know the great events amid which his life was surely passed, the great ideas which were current in the age during which he must have lived in full mental vigor, and the fact that this group of literary men of whom I have spoken were his contemporaries. We know that he died in 1400, and lived in the reigns of three kings, — Edward III., Richard II., and Henry IV. We do not know much about the early part of his life. He was born in London, the son of a wine-dealer. One of the first certain facts in his life, after the uncertain date of his birth, is that he was a member of a noble family as one of the pages of the household, which, in those days, was a respectable, indeed an honorable, capacity. He was with the army of Edward III. when it went to invade France in 70 FAMILIAR TALKS 1359, and Chaucer was then made prisoner, and ransomed afterwards by the king. After this we hear of him fre- quently in the court records, — once as having a pitcher of wine sent him every day from the royal wine-cellars ; another time as getting a pension from the Crown for services rendered ; again as one of the ambassadors who went to France to arrange the marriage of Richard II. ; and as concerned in other diplomatic missions. We know that his friend and patron was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lan- caster, called by Shakespeare " time-honored Lancaster," whose son became King Henry IV. Chaucer married a Lady Philippa, and it is claimed by several writers that John of Gaunt married a sister of this very lady. If this was so, Chaucer and his noble patron were brothers- in-law. John of Gaunt was at one time the head of the Wy- cliffe party, and although he did not follow so far as Wycliffe led, he aided him in his earlier fight against papal power by his strong influence. It is probable that Chaucer also sympathized with Wycliffe, and that he took the generous side in religion and politics. I am sure I hope so, for I like to associate the " Father of English Poetry " with freedom of thought and speech, and to be- lieve that he was as much of a man as a poet, or the better poet that he was a liberal, outspoken man. Almost at the close of his century, and near the end of his life, Chaucer took a house on the lands of Westminster Abbey, and sat down there to spend his latest days. When he died, he was buried in the Abbey, and you may there read his name on the stones of the wall in the " Poet's Comer," the first of that long line of great names which adorns that sacred spot in the grand old building. Chaucer wrote many works, sometimes in prose, although most commonly in verse. Many of his earlier poems are little more than translations. The Roman dc la Rose, which first made him known as a poet, was a translation from two French writers, although we may be sure Chaucer could not handle anything without leaving a good deal of himself ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 71 in it. He never made any pretence of originality, and al- ways shows himself a sincere man and without affectation in his work. Others of his principal poems are The House of Fame, The Book of the Duchess, The Legend of Good Women, The Assetnbly of Fowls, Troilus and Cressida. We have not time to look at these, but must come at once to his great work, The Canterbury Tales, the only one of his poems which is much read nowadays. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories told by a party of men and women who meet at the Tabard Inn, which was situated in the High Street of Southwark, near London, to set out on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket in Canterbury cathedral, about fifty miles distant. They are a tompany taken from all ranks of life, and almost every condition is represented. Their number is nine-and-twenty, when they are joined by the poet and the host of the Tabard Inn. In the Prologue, which forms the preface of the stories, nearly every person in the party is described in an easy and familiar style, as if Chaucer was introducing you in a manner to make you perfectly well acquainted with his character. Each figure drawn by his pen seems like a real person whom we see, rather than read about. The modern novelist, who prides himself on drawing life-like pictures of the men and women of this day, has never succeeded bet- ter than the old poet, who gives so perfect an idea of a group of every-day persons of the fourteenth century. First of all comes the Knight, " who from the time he first began to riden out, he loved chivalry, truth, honor, freedom, and courtesy." He had been in many wars in the South and East, at the taking of Alexandria, at the siege of Grenada, and in wars against the heathen Turk. Yet, like other truly brave men, he is gentle and unassuming, " as meek of port as is a maid." " In truth," says Chaucer, " a very perfect, gentle knight." The next character, that of the Knight's son, the Squire, is a very different sort of person. He is a dashing young fellow, with curling hair and fair com- plexion ; a fine horseman, who can also dance gracefully, 72 FAMILIAR TALKS write songs and sing them, " and play the flute like a lover." Then comes Madame Eglantine, the prioress of a convent, a sweet gentlewoman, who, although the bride of the Church, wears as tlie motto on her brooch, " Love conquers all." Here is her picture as Chaucer gives it : — " Ful wel she sang the service devine, Entuned in hire nose ful swetely ; And Frenche she spoke ful fayre and fetisly, After the schole of Stratford-attc-Bowe, For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe. At mete was she wel ytaughte withalle; She let no morsel from hire lippes falle, Ne wette hire fingires in hire sauce depe. Wel coude she carie a morsel and wel kepe Thatte no droppe ne fell upon hire brest. . . . " But for to speken of hire conscience, She was so charitable and so pitous, She wolde weep 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 rested flesh and milk and wastel brede ; But sore wept she if on of hem were dede. . . . Hire nose was stretis ; hire eyes as grey as glas; Hire mouth ful smale, and therto soft and red, But sickerly she had a fayre forehed. . . . " Full fetise was hire cloke, as I was ware. Of small corale aboute hire arm she bare A pair of bedcs, gauded all with grcnc , And thcron hcng a broche of gold ful shene, On whiche was ywriten a crouncd A, And after 'Amor vincit omnia.^ " Can we not see Madame Eglantine as plainly as if she stood before us in broad day, with her gray eyes, her little soft red mouth, her fair forehead, and her dainty ways when she sits at the table ? The only other woman of the party, except a nun attendant on the Prioress, who passes without description, was the Wife of Bath, — a great con- trast to the delicate Madame Eglantine : — "She was a worthy woman all hire live, Housbondcs at the chirche doore had she had five." ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 71 And besides her matrimonial experiences, she had trav- elled much, having been in Jerusalem, Rome, Germany, and France. She had a fair face, though somewhat red and bold \ her shoes were shining new, and her stockings of fine scarlet ; she rode her ambling nag easily, and wore spurs like a man. Next comes a Monk, in a fur-trimmed mantle, his hood fastened under his chin with a curious pin of gold, and his scarf tied in a love-knot. His companion is a merry Friar, who gives easy penance to his parishioners, and administers absolution " ful swetely." " Somwhat he lisped for his wantonnesse, To make his English swete upon his tonge." The Clerk of Oxford, who follows, is lean, like his horse ; his coat is threadbare ; he might be twin-brother to the poor student of the present day. He would rather have a shelf full of books at his bed's head than rich clothes or any other pleasures. What a contrast to him is the Frank- lin, an English squire of the fourteenth century, with a beard white as a daisy, a full red face, and all the marks of a gourmand, — " Withouten bake mete never was his hous ; Of fish and flesh, and that so plenteous, It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke." Then come a quartet of mechanics, all dressed in the livery of their orders, each with well-filled purses, "and shaped to have been an alderman." The Miller, the Cook, the Doctor, the Lawyer, the Merchant, the poor Parson, and his brother, the Ploughman, — these last two, in our judg- ment, the only really pious persons in this company of religious pilgrims, — make up the party. Such is a Httle glimpse of that group who set out on a soft April day on that immortal pilgrimage to Canterbury, 74 FAMILIAR TALKS XIII. On the Stories of the Cani'erbury Pilgrims. WHEN the Canterbury travellers first set out upon their journey, the jolly host of the Tabard proposes that they shall beguile the way by telling stories, each doing his share in turn. This is agreed upon, and it falls to the Knight to begin. He tells the story of Palanion and Arcite, two noble kinsmen who are sworn brothers in friendship till they both fall in love with the same lady, the fair Emelie, sister of Duke Theseus, who holds the two noble- men as his prisoners of war. I think you will find this, the Knight's Tale, the most interesting of all the stories. It is made gorgeous by the description of a tournament, — a description so vivid that we seem to see the waving of plumes, the glitter of armor, and the very dust that rises from the field of conflict when the knights spur towards each other with raised lances. Emelie, the heroine of this story, is one of the loveliest of all Chaucer's women. We see her first in a garden, where the birds arc singing and the flowers blossoming under the shadow of the great stone tower where the knights who love her are shut up in prison. These are the lines in which Chaucer describes her : — " Till it felle ones in a morwc of May That Emelie, that fayrer was to scnc Than is the lilic upon his stalkc grcnc, And fresher than the May, with floiircs newe (For with the rose colour strof hire hewe, I n'ot which was finer of hem two). Er it was day, as she was wont to do, She was arisen, and al redy dight, For May woll have no slogardie a-night. The seson priketh every gentil herte, And maketh him out of his slepe to sterte. . . . Hire yelwe here was broided in a tresse, Behind hire back a yerdc long, I gesse, And in the gardin as the somie uprist She walkcth up and doun wher as hire list, ON ENGLISH LITER A TURE. 75 She gathereth floures, partie white and red, To make a sotile gcrlond for hire hed, And as an angel hevenliche she song." Meantime the two prisoners, Palamon and Arcite, en- closed in the great stone tower over the garden, get their first sight of Emelie. " Bright was the sonne and clere that morwening, And Palamon, tliis woful prisoner, As was his wone, by leve of his gayler, Was risen, and romed in a chambre on high, In which he all the noble citee sigh. And eke the gardin, ful of branches grene. Ther as this freshe Emelie, the shene. Was in hire walk, and romed up and down. This sorweful prisoner, this Palamon, Goth in his chambre, roming to and fro. And to himself complaining of his woe. . . . And so befell, by aventure or eas. That through a window thikke of many a barre Of yren grete and square as any sparre, He cast his eyen upon Emelia, And therewithal he blent and cried, " A ! " As though he stungen were unto the herte. And with that crie Arcite anon upsterte, And saide, 'Cosin min, what eyleth thee .-' That art so pale and dedly for to see .'' Why criedst thou ? Who hath thee don offense ? For goddes love take all in patience Our prison, for it may none other be, Fortune hath yeven us this adversite.' . . . This Palamon answerde, and sayd again : 'This prison caused me not for to crie, But I was hurt right now, thrughout min eye Into min herte ; that woll my bane be. The fayrnesse of a lady that I see Yond in the gardin, roming to and fro, Is cause of all my crying and my wo. I n'ot whe'r she be woman or goddess. But Venus is it sothly, as I gesse.' . . . And with that word Arcita gan espie, Wher as this lady romed to and fro. And with that sight hire beantee hurt him so, That if that Palamon were wounded sore, Arcite is hurt as moche as he, or more, And with a sigh he saye pitously, 'The freshe beautee sleth me sodenly 76 FAMILIAR TALKS Of her that romcth in the yonder place, And but I have hire mercy and hire grace. That I may seen hire at the leste way, I n'am but ded, ther n'is no more to say.' This Palamon, when he these wordes herd, Dispitously he looked and answerd : ' Whether sayst thou this, in erncst or in play ?' •Nay,' said Arcite, ' in erncst, by my fay.' . . . This Palamon gan knit his browcs twey, ' It were,' quod he, ' to thee no grct honour For to be false, ne for to be tray tour To me, that am thy cosin and thy brother, Vsworn ful depe and cche of us to other. . . . Thus art thou of my counseil out of doute, And now thou woldest falsly ben aboute To love my lady, whom I love and serve, And ever shal til that man herte sterve. Now, certes, false Arcite, thou shalt no so. I loved hire firste, and toldc thee o my woe.' . . . This Arcita full proudly spake again, 'Thou shalt,' quod he, 'be rather false than I. And thou art false, I tell thee utterly, For, par amour, I loved hire first or thou. What wolt thou sayn } Thou wistcd nat right now W^hether she were a woman or a goddesse. Thin is affection of holiness, And min is love as to a creature. For which I tolde thee min aventure. As to my cosin and my brother sworne; I pose that thou lovcdst hire bcforn. Wost thou not wel the old clerkes sawc. That who shall give a lover any lawc ? . . . A man moste necdes love maiigre his hod, He may not fleen though he shuldc be ded. . . . And therfore at the kinges court, my brother, Eche man for himself, ther is non other. Love if thee lust, for I love, and ay shal. And soth, leve brother, this is al.'" And on this throwing down of the gauntlet on the part of Arcite, the quarrel between the two kinsmen gets hotter and hotter, while in the garden below faire Emelie goes on pick- ing her flowers, quite unconscious of all this pother over her head. I will not tell you all the story, because it is the one of all The Canterbury Tales which I should most strongly advise you to read. ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 77 The story of pious Custance is told by the Man of Law. It is of a beautiful princess of Rome who has wedded the Sultan of Syria, and on her nuptial eve is set adrift in an enchanted ship by her wicked mother-in-law. She floats over the ocean for many years till the vessel strands on the coast of Britain. Here she is succored by the governor of the port and his wife, Dame Hermegilde, till a false knight, who hates Custance because she has refused his love, slays Dame Hermegilde and accuses Custance of the murder. She is taken for trial before the king, and must die unless she can find a champion who will prove her innocence in a contest of arms with the accusing knight. The king, touched with pity at sight of Custance, asks if she has no champion. She falls on her knees and answers that she has no defender but God, and then, rising, looks piteously about her : — " Have ye not seen somtime a pale face Among a pres of him that hath ben lad Toward his deth, wher as he geteth no grace, And swiche a colour in his face hath had, Men mighten know him that was so bestad ? Amonges all the faces in that route So stant Custance, and loketh hire about." Is it any wonder that at sight of that pale, innocent face the king is almost ready to get down from his throne and fight as her champion? He calls at once for a Breton book of the gospels, and as the knight swears on this that Custance is guilty, an unseen hand smites him, so that his neck is broken and his "eyes burst out of his flice, in sight of everybody in that place." The British King Alia then marries pious Custance, so wonderfully protected, and in course of time, when the king is away on some foreign wars, a son is born to them. Custance falls a victim to the plots of her second mother-in-law, who manages to have her sent back on the wonderful ship again, where she miraculously floats about till her boy grows to manhood, when she is restored to her husband, and the tale ends happily. The picture of Custance 78 FAMILIAR TALKS when she is sent to the ship with her baby is in Chaucer's tenJerest vein : — " Hire litel child lay weping in hire arm, And kncling, pitously to him she said, ' Pees, litel sone, I wol do thee no harm.' With that hire couverchief of her hed she braid, And over his litel eyen she it laid, And in hire arme she lulleth it full fast, And into the heven hire eyen up she cast. . . . Thervvith she loketh backward to the lond, And saide, ' P'arewel, housbond rutheles ; ' And up she rist, and walkcth doun the strond. Toward the ship hire foloweth all the prees, And ever she praieth hire child to hold his pees; And taketh hire leve, and with a holy cntent. She blesscth hire, and into the ship she went." Another of the most beautiful of all these stories, and the one which is, I think, most read, is the story of patient Griselda, told by the Oxford student. This tale, which Chaucer says he got from the Italian poet Petrarch, is of a meek woman who has married a man above her in rank, and is put to all sorts of cruel trials by her husband to prove her virtuous patience. She triumphs over all these tests, and is happy at last. We are so indignant at her treatment that we can hardly read the poem with patience ; and even Chaucer says, — " This story is said, not for that wives shuld Folwe Grisildc, as in humilitee. For it were importable, tho they wold, — But for that every wight in his degree Shulde be constant in adversitee As was Grisilde ; therforc Petrark writeth This storie, which with high stile he enditeth." If you do not care to read all TJic Cantcrhury Tales, those I have mentioned are the three I would advise you to read first. A few of the stories are too coarse for modern taste, — those of the Miller, the Merchant, the Reeve, and one or two others. Chaucer, at the outset, declares he is not responsible for the moral of the stories, and only tells them as he heard them. I regret that he should have thought ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 79 it worth while to tell all he heard. But it is easy enough for us to keep out of the way of the gross persons of the company, and most of the . tales are pure enough for any time. Chaucer's quaint old English deters many students now- adays from the attempt to read him. But a very little familiarity with him will make his language plain, with the occasional aid of a glossary to look up a word which has now become obsolete. And once mastered, the elder English of Chaucer is delightful, and close knowledge of it will help to revive many dear and homely words that are fast disappearing from our language, and aid to make clear the meanings of other words which we use without a full consciousness of their worth and richness. If we want to appreciate the beauty of our English tongue, we shall be greatly helped by an acquaintance with Chaucer, and shall learn what a debt we owe the Father of English poetry. And so we leave our good old poet reluctantly, as one with whom we should like to be better acquainted, to enter upon a century which is notable for two of the greatest events in the world's history. Let us see what these events are, and what influence they will be likely to work on literature. XIV. Telling of some of the Great Events of the Fifteenth Century, — of Caxton and his Printing- Press ; and of the Romance of the Morte d'Arthur. CHAUCER died in the opening year of the fifteenth cen- tury. With him literature seemed for a time to die also. The reign of the house of Lancaster brought in the hosts of bloody war ; insurrections at home and battles abroad filled up the first half of the century ; and when the house of York took the throne, there was little quiet in So FAMILIAR TALKS which to hear the voice of poet or scholar. Two names that closely follow that of Chaucer are all that we meet with of any consequence till the close of the century. The first is that of John Lyugate, a monkish schoolmaster who spent his leisure in writing poetry which we should pronounce very dull indeed ; the second is that of a lawyer, Thomas Occleve, who wrote verse duller even than Lydgate's. In the hundred years and more after Chaucer no such genius blazed out as we have seen in Wyclifife's prose and Chaucer's verse. But although few new books were written, the old books grew more and more into demand, and in no previous cen- tury were handsomer copies made of the great master- pieces of literature than during this period. So great was the increase in the making of books that manuscript copying was no longer done wholly by monks, but became the work of men in every-day life. This change led naturally to the invention of printing ; for as soon as book-making came to be a business of life, and not the pastime of scholars and priests, it passed into the hands of practical men, who would cast about to do the work more easily and rapidly than by the tedious way of handwriting. AA'ooden blocks as large as a book page were first made, which were soon superseded by single letters of movable type ; and from that time books could be made quickly, although at first they were not beautiful books, like those made by the painstak- ing monks, with their many colored inks and slow, patient pens. William Caxton, the first English printer, was a young man when he went to live in Belgium, as appren- tice to a London merchant. He stayed there till past middle life, and prospered in business. He was al- ways of a book-loving turn, and in his spare time copied manuscripts for his own delight. It was thus natural that he should have become interested in the new art of print- ing which had begun in Germany, and flourished all about him ; and when he was able to do so, he gladly dropped the ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 8 1 pen and took up the quicker mode of type-setting. In 1474 he came home to England with a printing-press of his own, and began business in one of the buildings belong- ing to Westminster Abbey. Here, under the walls that had sheltered Chaucer when he finished The Canterbury Tales, Caxton invited all who desired to come and buy his books or give orders for printing. All sorts of people answered this invitation ; noble ladies and gentlemen of the realm were ready and glad to lend him their precious manuscript books to be copied by the printing-press, and his work was honored as ought to be the work of a man who adds faithfully to the knowledge and progress of the world. The list of the books which Caxton printed, shows good taste on the part of our first printer and publisher. They are from all sources, — a miscellaneous, but very interesting library. The first book issued was a work on Chess, soon followed by a translation of the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece. He also published the first edition of Chaucer's works, and the first edition of those of Gower and John Lydgate. From his press came translations of Virgil's ^neid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and the Consolation of Boethius. He printed the tales of Reynard the Fox so famous even to this day ; he gave to the English reader the fables of ^sop, and also the Book of Good Manners, and The Craft to Knoiu well hotu to Die. Caxton de- serves to be considered more than a mere craftsman in book-making. Many of these works he translated him- self, and by using, whenever he could, the simple spoken English, he did good work in helping to form and make stable our language. One of the most important books to our literature of all the number issued from his press was the Morte d' Arthur, — the old stories of Arthur and his Knights, which were translated by Sir Thomas Malory from the French. In this book we have again the stories which belong to the Arthurian romance, woven into one. Here we see, more fully than ever before, the forms of King 6 82 FAMILIAR TALKS Arthur, Merlin, Sir Launcelot du Lake, Sir Percivale, Sir Gawaine, Sir Tristram, and the peerless and perfect Gala- had. Here figure the beautiful Queen Guenever, Isoud the fair and Isoud the white-handed, Elaine the mother of Galahad, and Elaine the lily maid of Astolat ; and many other knights and ladies who form part of this fascinating romance. This Alorte (T Arthur, a collection of the same stories, added to and enlarged, that had been made by Walter Map and his contemporaries, is the old book from which the modern poet Tennyson has drawn some of the beautiful stories which he tells in his Idyls of the Ki/ii:;. The whole of Malory's book is a prose poem, so beautiful that I am going to quote for you one chapter, — that which tells of the beautiful Elaine as she floats down to Camelot in her funeral barge. " So by fortune King Arthur and the Queen Guenever were speaking together at a window, and so as they looked into Thames they espied this black barget, and had marvel what it meant. Then the King called Sir Kay, and showed it him. 'Sir,' said Sir Kay, 'wit you well, there is some new tidings.' * Go thitlier,' said the King to Sir Kay, ' and take with you Sir Brandiles and Agravaine, and bring me ready word what is there.' Tlien these three knights departed, and came to the barget, and went in ; and there they found the fairest corpse lying in a rich bed, and a poor man sitting in the barget's end, and no word would he speak. So these three knights returned unto the King again, and told him what they found. " ' That fair corpse will I sec,' said the King. And so then the King took the Queen by the hand and went thither. Then he made the barget to be holden fast, and the King and tlie Queen entered, witli certain knights with them. And there he saw the fairest woman lie in a rich bed, covered unto her middle with many rich clothes, and all was of cloth of gold, and she lay as though she had smiled. Then the Queen espied a letter in her right hand, and told it to the King. Then the King took it, and said : ' Now I am sure this letter will tell what she was and why she is come hither.' . . . And so when the King was come within his chamber he called many knights about him, and said he would wit openly what was written within that ON ENGLISH LITER A TURE. 83 letter. Then the King brake it, and made a clerk to read it, and this was the intent of the letter: — '■'■ Most Noble Knight, Sir Laicncelot : Now hath death made us two at debate for your love j I was your lover, that men called the fair Maiden of Astolatj therefore, unto all ladies I make my moan; yet pray for my soul, atid bury tne at the least, and offer ye my mass-penny. This is my last request. . . . Pray for my soul, Sir Launcelot, as thou art peerless, " This was all the substance of the letter. And when it was read, the King, the Queen, and all the knights wept for pity of the doleful complaints. Then was Sir Launcelot sent for. And when he was come, King Arthur made the letter to be read to him ; when Sir Launcelot heard it, word by word, he said, ' My Lord Arthur, wit ye well, I am right heavy of the death of this fair damsel. God knoweth, I was never causer of her death by my willing, and that will I report me to her own brother. . . . I will not say nay, but she was both fair and good, and much was I beholden to her; but she loved me out of measure.' 'Ye might have showed her,' said the Queen, 'some bounty and gentleness that might have preserved her life.' ' Madam,' answered Launcelot, ' she would none other way be answered but that she would be my wife, or else my love ; and of these two I would not grant her. . . . For, madam, I love not to be constrained to love, for love must arise out of the heart, and not by no constraint.' 'That is true,' said the King and many knights; 'Love is free in himself, and never will be bounden, for where he is bounden he loseth himself.' ' Then,' said the King to Sir Launcelot, ' it will be your worship that ye oversee that she be interred worshipfully.' ' Sir,' said Launcelot, ' that shall be done as I can best devise.' . . . And so upon the morn she was interred richly, and Sir Launcelot offered her mass-penn}', and all at that time the knights of the Table Round that were there with Sir Launcelot offered.^ Malory's Morte a'' Arthur was the last great book, and the most famous, that the fifteenth century produced. But although this century had given to the world so little litera- ture, it had seen two great events which influenced the whole future of literature. Of one of these, the invention of print- ing, I have already spoken. The second was the discovery 1 Mortc if Arthur, chap, xx., book xviii. $4 FAMILIAR TALKS of the New ^Vorld by Columbus, — an event so strange and full of mystery that it must have stimulated the imagination of the dullest and most commonplace man, and made for the time a place for poetry in the most matter-of-fact brain. Early in the sixteenth century, books of voyages to the New World began to appear in Italy and Germany, and the stories of men who had sailed in unknown seas, under skies glittering with new stars, excited the wonder of all who read them. English sailors who had voyaged with Sebastian Cabot to these new lands, brought back to home-ports tales rich in wonders. Thus the discovery of America was sure to work upon literature, although, in an age without tele- graphs or steam-engines or newspapers, the strongest forces must work more slowly than in our time, and the immediate results of such discoveries as those of printing and the New World were not seen in a day. XV. On Literature in the Reign of Henry VIII. ; More's Utopu; Tyndale's Bible; Skelton, the Court Poet; THE Sonnets of Surrey and Wvatt. TPIE reign of Henry VIII. covers nearly the first half of the sixteenth century ; yet although the last half of this century is perhaps the most glorious of any period in our literature, its first years do not shine with the promise of that after-glory. There are a few great names, but not that crowd of rare spirits that make the age of Queen Elizabeth so resplendent. The great event of Henry's reign, however, — the separation of the Church of England from that of Rome, — did much to inspire the thought of the age which followed. Although Henry did not greatly care for the freedom of any man except himself, and meant to hold a tight rein over other men's actions and con- sciences, still he took a great stride towards freedom when ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 8$ he made the Church of England independent of that of Rome ; and all advances towards freedom are sure to quicken the spirit of fine literature, which is the free ex- pression of the highest thought of the best men of the age. Let me tell you briefly of the greatest men and the best work done in literature from the opening of the century to the time when the great Queen Elizabeth took her father's seat as an English sovereign. The noblest and most memorable work of the age was done by Willla.m Tyndale, who undertook the translation of the Bible. His name deserves to be set high in the annals of English literature and language. Tyndale was only a poor tutor in the house of a nobleman in Glou- cestershire, when one day as they sat at table, a religious discussion arose, in which a bigoted priest who was present said dogmatically, " Better be without God's laws than the Pope's." Tyndale took fire at this, and rising, grandly said : ''In the name of God I defy the Pope and his laws ; and if God spares my life, I will cause the boy who drives the plough to know more of God's laws than either you or the Pope." A few years later, in spite of persecution, he published his translation of the New Testament into English. I think that we may decide that this was the greatest literary work between the time of Chaucer and Spenser. The Bible, made accessible to the common people, was not only a religious book, but a fountain-head of literature. The daily speech of men and women was made rich by the introduction into it of the phraseology of the Scriptures rendered into the homely and eloquent Eng- lish which Tyndale used ; and from that day to this, apt and fitting quotations from the ]>ible have been so imbedded in common speech that we use them often with- out being aware of their source. Tyndale died in Holland at the stake, a martyr for the work he did, and the opinions he held. Another noble gentleman, who also died for loyalty to his opinions, very near the time of Tyndale's martyrdom. S6 FAMILIAR TALKS was Sir Thomas More, one of the saintliest and most lov- able characters in all this time. He did not follow the king in his separation from the Church of Rome, but remained a stanch Catholic, and avowed his religious scruples against the divorce of the king from Queen Katharine, and the marriage with Anne Boleyn. He was executed on Tower Hill, dying with the serenity which became such a noble and true man. As he laid his head upon the block, he carefully put away his long full beard from under the axe, saying simply, " This should not be cut; it has never committed treason." His great book, Utopia, was written in Latin, — a language which was still, and for a long time after, used by scholars in prose writings. Utopia was an imaginary land, a won- derful country whose society and laws were ideally per- fect. A sailor, sunbrowned and strange as Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, who says he has been on voyages to the New World with the great discoverer Amerigo Vespucci, gives the account of this wonderful country and its ro- mantic discovery. In this fabled Utopia, More could em- body all his ideas of a perfect commonwealth, and so show by contrast the defects in laws and social conditions in England. And his ideas of religious charity and social reform are so generous and grand that this nineteenth century has not yet excelled them. But when he pictures an ideal city, and his highest conception of the material comforts of life, we shall find that we have to-day out- stripped his best imaginings. For instance, he thus de- scribes Amaurote, the chief city of the Utopians : — " The city is compassed about with a high and thick stone wall full of turrets and bulwarks. A dry ditcli, but deep and broad and overgrown with bushes, briers, and thorns, goeth about three sides or quarters of the city. To the fourth side the river itself serveth for a ditch. . . . The streets be twenty feet broad. On the l)ack side of the houses, through the whole Icn.L,nh of the street, lie large gardens. . . . The houses be curi- ously buildcd after a gorgeous and gallant sort, with three stories, one over another. The outsidcs of the walls l)c made of hard plaster, or else of brick, and the inner sides well ON ENGLISH LITER A TURE. 87 strengthened with timber-work. . . . They keep the wind out of their windows with glass, for it is there much used, and some here also with fine hnen cloth dipped in oil or amber, and that for two commodities, for by this means more light Cometh in, and the wind is better kept out." This picture of the city and its houses, while it may surpass in comfort those in More's day, does not excite any special envy in us ; but when he speaks of justice among men, and religious tolerance, then he rises to heights as grand as we have attained. And at the close he makes a noble plea for laboring men, whose rights at that time had been little heard of. " What justice is this," he bursts out, " that a goldsmith, a usurer, or, to be short, any of those which do nothing at all, or else what they do is such as is not necessary to the commonwealth, should have a pleasant and a wealthy living either by idleness or by unnecessary business, while in the mean time poor laborers, carters, ironsmiths, carpenters, and plough- laborers, by so great and continual toil as drawing and bearing beasts be scant able to sustain, and again so necessary toil that without it no commonwealth were able to continue and endure one year, should yet get so hard and poor a living, and live so wretched and miserable a life that the state and condition of the laboring beasts may seem much better and wealthier. . . . Is this not an unjust and unkind public weal which gives great fees and rewards to gentletncn, as they call them, and to gold- smiths and to such other which be either idle persons, or else only flatterers and devisers of vain pleasures, and of the con- trary part maketh no gentle provision for ploughmen, colliers, laborers, carters, ironsmiths, and carpenters ? . . . Therefore, when I consider and weigh in my mind all these common- wealths which nowadays anywhere do flourish, so God help me, I can perceive nothing but a conspiracy of rich men, procuring their commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth." These generous words from the pen of a man in high position, who might easily have been blind to the misery of those who were poorer and weaker than he, give Sir Thomas More a warm place in my liking, and the Utopia a high place among the books of the world. 88 FAMILIAR TALK'S John Skelton comes in as court poet of Henry VIII., although I fancy him fitter for a bar-room than the court, — a man of coarse manners and gross wit, al- 1460-1529 , , , , , • , , J J J , though he had spnghthness and a good deal of humor. He had been tutor to Henry VIII. before Henry became king, and was high in favor at court. He was a clever rhymester, and wrote verses full of sparkling vi- vacity. Nobody before his time had shown how flexible the English language was, and how it could be twisted hither and thither in rhyme. But we should not now read Skelton's verses with much interest. This is partly because he was a writer of satire, and satire, however clever, is rarely interesting in any time but that in which it is written. One of his satires was a scorching attack upon the great Cardinal Wolsey, called Why come ye not to Court? The Book of Philip Sparrow is generally considered his most poetical work. It is a lament for a dead sparrow, which has so much ease and grace in rhyming that it has never lost its charm. But the most entertaining of his poems, to me, is The Crown of Laurel. In this the author goes to sleep under an oak, and in his dream hears an argu- ment between the Goddess Pallas and the Queen of Fame as to whether Skelton shall have a place in the court of the latter. After a long discussion, all the great poets of the world are summoned to decide the matter. They come in stately train, led by Apollo. Among them, says the poem, — " I saw Gower, that first garnished our English rude; And Master Chaucer, that nobly cnterprized How that our English might freshly be ennewed; The monk of Bury after them ensued, Dan John Lydgate : these English poets three, As I imagined, repaired to me." The author is admitted into the House of Fame on an equality with these three great poets, and shortly after is called upon to praise a bevy of fair ladies, attendants of the Countess of Surrey. He praises these ladies in different ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 89 odes, dedicated to each by name. Some of tliese verses are very pretty. He writes in this way to Lady Isabel Pennell. He begins by comparing her to — " The fragrant camomile, The columbine, the nepte, The ruddy rosary, The gillyflower well set, The sovereign rosemary, The proper violet." The pretty strawberry, And tells her : — " Your color Star of the morrow gray. Is like the daisy flower The blossom of the spring, After the April shower, The freshest flower of May." Mistress Margaret Hussey is also addressed as — • " Merry Margaret, Her demeaning, As midsummer flower. In everything Gentle as falcon Far, far passing Or hawk of the tower. That I can endite. With solace and gladness, Or suffice to write, Much mirth and no madness, Of merry Margaret All good and no badness ; As midsummer flower. So joyously, Gentle as falcon So maidenly, Or hawk of the tower. " So womanly I know no other instance of a poet so cleverly exalting himself as Skelton does in this poem of The Crown of Laurel, Two gallant and courtly figures come next in sight. They are Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and his friend, 1518-1547 Sir Thomas Wv ait. These gentlemen, familiar 1503-1542 with all the polite learning of their time, were masters of verse-making. They introduced the form of the Italian sonnet, and have the credit of having polished and improved poetic expression, introducing, more than it ever before had prevailed, the melody of the Southern poetry into English verse. Wyatt wrote many songs and sonnets. The titles to some of these are ludicrously senti- mental. There is one "On my love that pricked her finger with a needle ; " another, " On my love from whom he had her gloves ; " and still another, " The lover compareth his 90 FAMILIAR TALKS heart to an overcharged gun." Could anything in poetry be more overstrained ? Poor Surrey was another of the victims of Henry VIII., and was beheaded on Tower Hill ; while Wyatt, who died a little earlier than Surrey, narrowly escaped the same fate, and lay for a time in prison, in great danger from that dreadful axe in the Tower. Of these two poets, Surrey writes the better verses. A great many of them are dedi- cated to Geraldine, to whom he writes love-verses ; although as this Geraldine was only thirteen years old, and probably could not understand what the poet meant by his protesta- tions of devotion, there can be nothing very serious in the compliments he pays. Probably Surrey thought Geraldine was as pretty a name to figure in his verses as were the Lauras or Beatrices of the Italian poets whom he imitates. We will close this Talk by reading one of his songs to Geraldine : — A PRAISE OF HIS LADY, WHEREIN HE REPROVETII THEM THAT COMPARE THEIR LADIES WITH HIS. Give place, ye lovers, here before That spent your boasts and brags in vain; My lady's beauty passcth more The best of yours, I dare well sayn. Than doth the sun the candle light, Or brightest day the darkest night. And thereto hath a troth as just As had rcnelo])c the fair, For what she saith ye may it trust As it by writing sealed were; And virtues hath she many moe Than I with pen have skill to show. I could rehearse, if that I would, The whole effect of Nature's plaint, When she had lost the perfect mould The like to whom she could not paint ; With wringing hands how she did cry J And what she said, I know it, I. I know she swore with raging mind, Her kingdom only set apart ; ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 9 1 There was no loss by law of kind That could have gone so near her heart ; And this was chiefly all her pain, She could not make the like again. Since Nature thus gave her the praise To be the chiefest work she wrought, In faith, methink some better ways On your behalf might well be sought Than to compare, as ye have done, To match the candle with the sun. PART III. FROM SPENSER AND SHAKESPEARE TO MILTON. 1550 TO 1608. THE GOLDEN AGE OF ENGLISH POETRY. INTRODUCTORY. IN this third division of my Talks, I am going to tell you about the principal writers who appeared from the time Queen Elizabeth ascended the English throne, until the end of the reign of James I. There is no period of our literature which includes so many great names. Within the limits of a little more than half a century, Spenser, Shakspeare, Bacon, and Milton were born. And besides these four names that shine with such immortal lustre, are other names of poets, scholars, soldiers, discoverers, states- men, and orators, who form a group unequalled before or since, in England's history. Queen Elizabeth herself is a fitting central figure in this age. When she came to the throne, a young and beautiful woman, after the stormy struggles between Catholic and Protestant in her father's and sister's reigns, she seemed to bring peace and prosperity to the land. Her court and her people welcomed her as if she had been a creature almost divine. From the first this ideal sovereign inspired the poet's pen, and she appears in his verse as a being glorified by all that myth or legend or his own fancy can suggest. Elizabeth had been educated by one of the most famous of schoolmasters, good Roger Ascham, who had trained her in Greek and Latin and other branches of learning. She could speak the principal court languages of Europe, and, better than that, could use her own language forcibly and well; she was well read in the current literature of her time ; interested in the rising poets who sought her pat- ronage ; and, indeed, had tried her own fair hand at verse- making, and on occasion could turn a clever epigram in rhyme. 96 FAMILIAR TALK'S It was the tendency of Elizabeth's reign to bring in luxury of living and all kinds of elegancies in dress and manners. The queen was passionately fond of fine clothes and fine surroundings. She had in her wardrobe, for one item of dress alone, throe thousand gowns, and her lords and ladies were not far behind her in extravagance. One gets in his- tory some idea of the splendid dresses of her courtiers. One of Sir Walter Raleigh's portraits was painted in a white satin doublet richly embroidered, " with a great string of pearls round his neck, each big as a robin's egg," and a hat with a long feather, f^istened by a great blazing ruby. Walter Scott, who writes the romance of history, but always keeps close to the fact, tells us of the Earl of Leicester's handsome clothes in his novel of Kcnilworth. The young Englishman when he left college was sent to France or Italy to finish his education and to polish and re- fine his manners, and he brought back with him all sorts of new fashions. The young travellers from England were noted for following all the extravagances then in vogue. Old John Lyly advises the young man, " T>et not your minds be carried away with vain delights, as with travelling into far and strange countries, where you will see more wickedness than learn virtue and wit. Neither with costly attire of the new cut, the Dutch hat, the French hose, the Spanish rapier, and the Italian hilt." And Shakespeare hits off this weakness of the time in Portia's merry description of the English lord : " How oddly he is suited ! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behavior everywhere." But the graduates from Oxford and Cambridge brought back from Italy more than fine clothes and polished man- ners, they brought the knowledge of a literature which worked a perceptible change on their own. Italian poetry, even in Chaucer's time, had exerted an influence over Eng- lish poetry ; later, Surrey and Wyatt, as we have just seen, had been disciy)les of the Italian school. But never was this influence so strongly marked as in this era we are now entering. A flood of romances, in prose and verse, from ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 97 the rich fountain of Italian literature, poured into England. It seemed as if all the elements that could gratify the taste, stimulate the imagination, and enrich the fancy were brought all at once to bear upon the age that produced both Shakespeare and Spenser. In an age so crowded with great writers, both in prose and poetry, it is hard to decide which we shall begin to talk about. But in my imagination the great figures of the time divide themselves into groups : Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Walter Raleigh, with one or two minor poets, form a circle about their grand central figure, Edmund Spenser ; next to this group, apart in solitary greatness, stands Lord Bacon ; then follows Shakespeare, towering hke a Colossus above the crowd of dramatic poets that surround him ; and last come the lyric poets, the singers whose gay music is heard all through the century from the time of Elizabeth to that of Charles II. So, beginning with Spenser and the figures that attend upon him, we will enter upon the Golden, or, as it is generally called, the Elizabethan, Age of English poetry. XVI. On Edmund Spenser. EDMUND SPENSER is the second great English poet in the line which begins with Geoffrey Chaucer. It was almost two hundred years after Chaucer 15501 egg had laid down his pen, when Spenser's great poem. The Fairy Queen, was published. It is not every generation, not every century, even, that produces a great poet. About the events of Spenser's early life there is the same vagueness and uncertainty that we find when we come to study the biographies of all our great poets. Most of the writers who undertake to tell us of the lives of Chaucer, 7 98 FAMILIAR TALKS Spenser, or Shakespeare, make tiresome researches into fam- ily history, without much result. ICvidently Genius is quite independent of genealogies, and the great poet does not, like the snail, carry his house on his back. Spenser was born in London in 1552, or very near that date, and began his education at a I>ondon grammar-school. He went to Cambridge early, but left before his studies were completed, — forced to do so, some of his biographers think, by the poverty of his purse. From college he went to the North of England, and fell in love there with a beautiful Rosalinde (her last name no one has been able to find out with certainty), who seems to have been unable to love him in return ; and to give vent to his disap- pointment, he wrote The ShephcnVs Calendar, which first proved that he was a poet. Let us be grateful to the fair Rosalinde that she was indifferent to the poet, since we reap the benefit of her indifference. The Shepherd's Calendar is dedicated to Sir Philip Sid- ney, who was one of Spenser's best friends and patrons. Sidne}', Raleigh, and Spenser were very near each other in age, Sidney being about a year younger, and Raleigh less than a year older than the great poet. One of the finest things about these two men is that they were generous friends of Spenser : and there can be no better proof of Spenser's friendship for them than his dedication of The Fairy Queen to Walter Raleigh, and Astrophel, a lament which he wrote on Sidney's death. When Spenser was about twenty-eight, he went to Ireland as secretary to the Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Arthur Grey. There, after a time, a castle and some lands were given him, the share of a confiscated estate of a famous Irish rebel. In this castle — Kilcolman, on the banks of the river Mulla — he lived happily, working upon his great- est of poems. The Fairy Queen. He had been more for- tunate in a second love than in the affair with Rosalinde, and was married to a lovely wife, to whom he wrote an Epithalamion, which is one of the grandest wedding hymns ever written. Here in his beautiful retirement, Sir Walter ON ENGLISH LITER A TURE. 99 Raleigh, then one of the officers in the English army in Ireland, paid him a visit. I fancy the two friends lying at ease on the green banks under the trees that bordered the Mulla, while Spenser read extracts from The Fairy Queen, and Raleigh praised it and answered with bits of verse of his own making. There, doubtless, they discussed poetry, politics, their common friends in London, and all the gos- sip of the time. It was not long after Raleigh's visit that Spenser published the first part of The Fairy Queen. He went to London, and Queen Elizabeth gave him a pension for his verses, which they richly deserved for the fine praises of her which the poem contains. Spenser kept his home in Ireland for twelve years, although he was in England during that period for a year or two at a time. Towards the end of the year 1597 his affairs looked prosperous ; the queen had recommended him to a good appointment, the first half of The Fairy Queen was published, and the last half begun, when a fresh rebellion broke out in Ireland. Spenser's house was burned, and he and his family were forced to fly. It is reported that his new-born infant was left in the castle in this hurried flight, and perished in the flames. He came to London over- whelmed by all these troubles, and died a few months later, broken-hearted and in poverty, and was laid in Westminster Abbey, near Chaucer. Besides The ShepheriVs Calendar and Tiie Fairy Queen, Spenser wrote many other poems. The most beautiful among these shorter works is Muiopotnios, or the Tale of a Butterfly. This is like a picture, for brilliancy of color and description. If you want, with little study, to know Spenser's quality as a poet, read this poem, Astrophel, and a few extracts from The Fairy Queen, and you will get an excellent idea of him. His poem of poems, The Fairy Queen, stands as one of the monuments of literature. There are few persons who have read it through, and their number is likely to grow less as the years go by. It is useless for any one to read poetry merely for the sake of saying he has read it, and lOO FAMILIAR TALKS I certainly should advise no one to take up this poem unless he reads it purely for the enjoyment of it. To those who do enjoy it, there is no need to say anything in its praise. To those who would find the entire poem tedious, — and I think perhaps these will form the larger number, — I will briefly tell its plan, and give a few extracts as illustra- tions of the style. In his dedication to Raleigh, Spenser himself gives his design. This was to write a poem in twelve books, each book representing some high virtue. Thus the Red-Cross Knight, in the first book, is Holiness ; in the second book, Sir Guyon is Temperance ; in the third book, Britomart, the heroine, illustrates Chastity ; Cambell and Triamond are the heroes of the fourth book, the Legend of Friendship ; Sir Artegall, in the fifth book, represents Justice ; and Sir Cal- idore, in the sixth and last, is the embodiment of Courtesy. Spenser had planned to write twelve books, but finished only the first six, leaving a few fragments towards the last half of his work. The stanza in which the poem is written has since his time been called Spense7-ian. It was the eight-line stanza used by the poets of Italy, to which a ninth line was added by Spenser, which gave it its name. The poem is an allegory, and you will find in some editions of the work an explanation of the real events which are told in allegorical form, and the names of the real per- sons who are meant under the names of Arthur, Sir Guyon, Timeas, Amoret, Belphoebe, and the rest. For my part, I prefer to read Spenser for his poetry, and not for his allegory, and therefore I attempt no explanation of it here. The first book of The Fairy Queen tells the story of Una, one of the most beautiful figures in all the poem. The picture of the gentle knight "pricking on the plain," while a gentle lady rides close beside him upon a lowly ass " more white than snow," is the very first picture that catches our eyes as we open the book. Soon after we see Una separated from her knight, who has been drawn away ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. lOI from his true lady by an enchantress who assumes her shape, and Una is described as in search of him : — "Yet she, most faithfull ladie, all this while, Forsaken, woeful), solitarie mayd. Far from all peoples' preace, as in exile, In vvildernesse and wastfull deserts strayd To seeke her knight, who subtily betrayd, Through that late vision which th' enchaunter wrought, Had her abandoned ; she, of naught afrayd, Through woods and wastnes wide him daily sought, Yet wished tydinges none of him unto her brought. " One day, nigh wearie of the yrkesome way, From her unhastie beast she did alight. And on the grasse her dainty limbs did lay, In secrete shadow, far from all men's sight. From her fayre head her fillet she undight And layd her stole aside ; her angel's face, As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, And made a sunshine in the shady place : Did never mortall eye behold such heavenly grace. " It fortuned, out of the thickest wood A ramping lyon rushed suddeinly. Hunting full greedy after salvage blood. Soone as the royall virgin he did spy. With gaping mouth at her ran greedily, To have at once devourd her tender corse ; But to the pray, when as he drew more ny, His bloody rage asvvaged with remorse, And with the sight amazd, forgat his furious forse. "Instead thereof he kist her wearie feet, And lickt her lilly hands with fawning tong, As he her wronged innocence did weet. O, how can beautie maister the most strong. And simple truth subdue avenging wrong ! Whose yielded pryde and proud submission, Still dreading death, when she had marked long, Her hart gan melt in great compassion. And drizling teares did shed for pure affection. " The lyon would not leave her desolate, But with her went along, as a strong gard Of her chast person, and a faythfull mate Of her sad troubles and misfortunes hard. 102 FAMILIAR TALKS Still when she slept, he kept both watch and ward ; And when she waked, he wayiccl diligent, With humble service to her will prcpard. From her fair eyes he took commandement, And ever by her lookes conceived her intent." The story of the fair Una ends happily, and we see her, at the end of the first book, united to her knight on a happy wedding day, when she lays her sad garments aside and appears in a gown — " All lilly white, withoutten spot or pride, That seemed like silke and silver woven neare, But neither silke nor silver therein did appeare. "The blazing brightnesse of her beautie's beame. And glorious light of her sunshyny face To tell, were as to strive against the streame : My ragged rimes are all too rude and bace Her heavenly lineaments for to enchase. Ne wonder for her own dear-loved knight, All were she daily with himselfe in place, Did wonder much at her celestial sight ; Oft had he scene her fairc, but never so faire dight. "And ever, when his eie did her behold, His heart did sccmc to melt in pleasures manifold." XVII. On Spenser's " Fairy Queen." THE story of Florimel — a musical name made out of flowers and honey — is another of the interesting episodes in The Faiiy Queen. She appears first in the third book, a beautiful picture of fright, fleeing on a white palfrey from a monster who seeks to devour her. She re- aj)pears in many cantos, m all sorts of romantic adventures, until the fifth book, when all her troubles are ended amid the festivities that attend her marriage to the handsome Prince Marinell. ON' ENGLISH LITERATURE. 103 The women in Spenser's poem are a constant delight to the imagination. They Hve in his pages Uke creatures in some land of enchantment, and while they are not like real women in a real world, they are so natural to their sur- roundings that we cannot help believing in them as much as if they had actually existed. The heroine of the third book is Britomart, a royal maid of Britain, who puts on a helmet and armor, and in dis- guise of a knight goes forth to seek her lover, Sir Artegall. In her course Britomart meets with all sorts of romantic adventures; yet Spenser has managed to preserve for his heroine all the sweet charm of womanliness, in spite of her Amazonian equipment. Here are some stanzas which give an account of her battle with the scornful Marinell, afterwards the bridegroom of Florimel. The fourth canto of the third book begins with this description of the battle : — " Where is the antique glory now become That whylom wont in wemen to appeare ? Where be the brave atchievements doen by some ? Where be the batteilles, where the shield and speare, And all the conquests which them high did reare That matter made for famous poet's verse And boastful men so oft abasht to hear ? Beene they all dead, and laide in doleful hearse, Or doen they onely sleepe, and shall againe reverse ? . . . " Yet these, and all that els had puissaunce Cannot with noble Britomart compare, As well for glory of great valiaunce As for pure chastitee and vertue rare. That all her goodly deedes doe well declare Well worthie stock from which the branches sprong, That in late yeares so faire ablossome beare, As thee, O queene, the matter of my song. Whose lignage from this lady I derive along. . . . " But Britomart kept on her former course, Ne ever doft her arms. . . . So forth she rode, without repose or rest, . . . Till that to the sea coast at length she her addrcsst . . . I04 FAMILIAR TALKS " There she alighted from licr light-foot beast, And sitting down upon the rocky shore, 15add her old squyre unlace her lofty creast : Tho having vewd awhile the surges hore That 'gainst the craggy cliffs did loudly rore, And in their raging surquedry disdayned That the fast earth affronted them so sore, And their devouring covetizc restraynea ; Thereat she sighed deepe, and after thus complayned: " ' Huge sea of sorrow and tempestuous griefe Wherein my feeble barkc is tossed long, Far from the hoped haven of reliefe, Why doe thy cruel billowes beat so strong, And thy moyst mountaines each on others throng, Threatning to swallow u]) my fearefuU lyfe ? O, doe thy cruell wrath, and spightfull wrong At length allay, and stint thy stormy strife, Which in thy troubled bowels raignes and rageth ryfe. . " ' Thou God of winds, that raignest in the seas, That raignest also in the continent, At last blow up some gentle gale of ease, The which may bring my ship, ere it be rent, Unto the gladsome port of her intent ! Then when I shall myselfe in safety see, A table for eternall moniment Of thy great grace and my great jeopardee, Great Neptune, I avow to hallow unto thee.' . . . " Thus as she her recomforted, she spyde Where, far away, one all in armour bright, With hasty gallop towards her did ryde. Her dolour soone she ceast, and on her dight Her helmet, to her courser mounting light; Her former sorrow into sudden wrath (Both coosen passions of distroubled spright) Converting, forth she bcates the dusty path ; Love and despight attonce her corage kindled hath. " As when a foggy mist hath overcast The face of hcven and the cleare ayre cngrosste. The world in darknes dwels ; till that at last The watry south winde from the sea-borde coste Upblowing, doth disperse the vapour loste. And poures itselfe forth in a stormy showre, — So the fayre I'ritomarte, having discloste Her clowdy care into a wrathfull stowre. The mist of griefe dissolv'd did into vengeance powre. ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 105 " Eftsoones, her goodly shield addressing fayre, That mortall speare she in her hand did take, And unto battaill did herselfe prepayrc. The knight, approaching, sternely her bespake : ' Sir knight, that doest thy voyage rashly make By this forbidden way, in my despight, Ne doest by others' death ensample take, I rede thee now retyre whiles thou hast might. Least afterward it be to late to take thy flight.' " Y-thrild with deepe disdaine of his proud threat, She shortly thus : ' Fly they, that need to fly. Wordes fearen babes ; I mean not thee entreat To passe, but maugre thee will pass or dy.' Ne lenger stayd for th' other to reply. But with sharpe speare the rest made dearly knowne. Strongly the straunge knight ran, and sturdily Strooke her full on the breast, that made her downe Decline her liead, and touch her crouper with her crown. " But she againe him in the shield did smite With so fierce furie and great puissaunce, That, through his three-square scuchin percing quite. And through his mayled hauberque, by mischaunce. The wicked Steele through his left side did glaunce. Him so transfixed she before her bore Beyond his croupe, the length of all her launce ; Till sadly soucing on the sandy shore. He tombled on an heape, and wallowd in his gore. "Like as the sacred oxe, that carelesse stands With gilden homes and flowry girlonds crownd, Proud of his dying honor and deare bandes, Whiles th' altars fume with frankincense arownd, All suddeinly with mortall stroke astownd Doth groveling fall, and with his streaming gore Distaines the j^illours and the holy grownd. And the fair flowres that decked him afore, — So fell proud Marinell upon the pretious shore." The second book, which gives the adventures of Sir Guyon, has some of the finest contrasts, from Spenser's grandest style to his most beautiful and poetic. The visit to Mammon's Cave is one of the strongest pieces of de- scription, and the account of Guyon's entrance into the gardens of the Bower of Acrasia is one of the most beau- tiful things in all the book. No other poet could describe I06 FAMILIAR TALKS a garden as Spenser could. His description of the garden in the Fate of the Ikitterfly is as good as a painting of it, and the gardens of this Lower of BUss are no less per- fectly portrayed. Sir Guyon enters these gardens through a gate framed of interlacing vines, whose luscious bunches of fruit seem to offer themselves to the hands of all who pass under it. Within this gate lies the bower of Acrasia, the mistress of the enchanted place. We will begin just where Guyon passes through the gateway : — " There the most daintic paradise on ground Itselfe doth offer to his sober eye, In which all pleasures plenteously abownd, And none does other's happinesse envye ; The painted flowres ; the trees upshooting hie; The dales for shade ; the hilles for breathing space; The trembling groves ; the christall running by; And that which all faire workes doth most aggrace, The art which all that wrought, appeared in no place. . . . "And in the midst of all a fountaine stood. . . . "Infinit streames continually did well Out of this fountaine, sweete and faire to see. The which into an ample laver fell, And shortly grew to so great quantitee That like a litle lake it seemed to bee, Whose depth exceeded not three cubits hight. That through the waves one might the bottom see, All pav'd beneath with jaspar shining bright, That seemd the fountaine in that sea did sayle upright. . . . "Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound, Of all that mote delight a daintic eare. Such as attonce might not on living ground, Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere. Right hard it was for wight which did it heare To read what manner musicke that mote bee, For all that pleasing is to living earc Was there consorted in one harmonice : Birdes, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all agree. "The joyous birdes, shrouded in chcarefull shade, Their notes unto the voice aftemprcd sweet; The angelicall soft trembling voyces made To th' instruments, divine respondence meet; ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. IO7 The hilvcr-sounding instruments did meet Witli the base murmur of the waters fall; The waters fall with difference discreet, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call ; The gentle warbling wind low answered to all. . . . " The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay: ' Ah, see, whoso fayre thing dost fayne to see, In springing flowre the image of thy day! Ah, see the virgin rose, how sweetly shea Doth first peepe foorth with bashful modestee ; That fairer seemes the lesse ye see her may ! Lo ! see soon after, how more bold and free Her bared bosome she doth broad display, Lo! see soone after how she fades and falls away.' " But it is not by such extracts as these that we can hope to get any full idea of the riches of The Fairy Queen. Only by reading for yourselves can you get any fair con- ception of the numberless figures that move on to the stately music of Spenser's stanza. The lovely Amoret, the spirited Belphoebe, the delicate Florimel, the learned Canacee, the bold Satyrane, Braggadochio, whose name tells his character, Sir Calidore, of exquisite courtesy, the noble Sir Scudamour, the magnanimous Arthur, — these are a few only of the graceful, chivalrous, and fascinating crea- tions of our poet's unwearied fancy. Add to these the elfin beings conjured by his magic pen, — the giants, dwarfs, monsters ; the sprites, composed of snow and wax, of fire and dew. Then transport the mind to the scenery in which he places his characters, — the fair green woods, the sea grottoes, the noble castles, the subterranean caves, the fairy gardens, — • and you will just begin to fathom the in- exhaustible depths of his fancy. Spenser's poetry has always been a delight to young ver- sifiers. Probably no other poet has ever inspired so many men, great and little, to write verses. And that is quite natural. He is so stimulating to the imagination, his verse is such a store-house of fancy, that I can think of the younger poets settling on it as the bees of Mount Hybla on a flower-garden. None of our poets have so exuberant I08 FAMILIAR TALKS an imagination, and of them all, Shakespeare's description fits Spenser best, — He is a creature of imagination all compact. " And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name." XVIII. On Sir Philip Sidney and the "Arcadia." TO ALMOST every one who looks back in imagination upon the age of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Philip Sidney will appear one of the most interesting figures 1554-1586 -jj^Qjjg all those that graced her court. He was noble in birth, gifted in mind, handsome in person, a favorite courtier of the queen, a gallant soldier in the field, beloved by all who knew him, yet withal so modest, gentle, full of noble humanity, that he seems to have had all the virtues as well as all the graces of manhood. Nothing but good has ever been said of him, and one of the last acts of his life crowns gloriously all that goes before. He died of a wound which he got at Zutphen, where he was fighting in the cause of the Netherlands, in their wars with Spain. Just as he was to be taken from the field after he had re- ceived his death-wound, a bottle of water was brought him to drink. As he was about to put it to his lips he saw a wounded soldier carried by, who cast wistfully at the water his dying eyes. This Sir Philip seeing, gave the bottle to the poor man, saying simply, " Thy necessity is yet greater than mine." What fame of authorship could outshine the lustre of such a deed as this? Yet although writing was not the pursuit of his life, he had great gifts as a writer. He died at thirty-two, and his brief day was full of other affairs than those of literature, which in him seems only the amusement of an idle hour. ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. I09 If he had made it his first following, one can fancy he might have risen to great heights. His principal works are his sonnets from Astrophel to Stella, in verse ; and the Arcadia, and Defence of Poetry, in prose. The Arcadia is a romance inspired largely by the ideas of love and chivalry which belong to the Middle Ages. The plot is very simple. Sidney calls it " an idle work, which, like the spider's web, will be thought fitter to be swept away than worn to any other purpose." Two young princes, in disguise, wander into the kingdom of Arcadia, where King Basilius keeps his court, with his wife Gynecia and his two daughters Pamela and Philoclea. The two young strangers naturally fall in love with the two princesses ; and the various adventures of these princely persons, with the stories of other heroes and heroines woven into the narrative, and occasional passages in verse, make up the Arcadia. In spite of its faults — and it has sometimes even the fault of dulness — it is rich in fine sentences, and lines that are almost a poem by themselves. You can see the nobihty and the wisdom of Sidney's thoughts in such sentences as meet the eye when one turns over the leaves at random : " I am no herald to inquire of men's pedigrees; it sufficeth me if I know their virtues." " They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts." " Provision is the foundation of hospitality, and thrift the fuel of magnificence." " Oh, imperfect proportion of reason, which can too much fore- see, and too little prevent ! " " Condemning all men of evil because his mind had no eye to espy goodness." "There is no service like his that serves because he loves." "What's mine, even to my soul, is yours; but the secret of my friend is not mine." Of women he says, — "Nature is no step-mother to that sex, how much soever some men, sharp-witted only in evil speaking, have sought to disgrace them." no FAMILIAR TALKS The Arcadia contains many episodes, which, taken out from their context, would form complete and interesting sto- ries by themselves. The best of these is the tale of Argalus and Parthenia, whose story appears at intervals throughout the book. These are two lovers, who after many haps and mishaps are united in wedlock. A beautiful passage describes them in their married estvite as they are visited by a mes- senger who comes to summon Argalus to go to war in aid of the two princesses who have been taken prisoner by their foes : — "The messenger made speed and found Argalus at a castle of his own, sitting in a parlor with his fair Parthenia, he reading in a book the stories of Hercules, she by him as to hear him read ; but while his eyes looked on the book, she looked on his eyes, and sometimes staying him with some pretty question, not so much to be resolved of the doubt, as to give him occasion to look upon her. A happy couple ! he joying in her, she joying in her- self, but in herself, because she enjoyed him ; both increased their riches by giving to each other, each making one life double because they made a double life one ; where desire never wanted satisfaction, nor satisfaction ever bred satiety ; he ruling because she would obey, or rather because she would obey, she therein ruling. " But when the messenger came in, with letters in his hand and haste in his countenance, though she knew not what to fear, yet she feared, because she knew not, but rose and went aside while he delivered his letters and message, and afar off she looked now at the messenger, and then at her husband, the same fear which made her loth to have cause of fear, yet making her seek cause to nourish her fear. And well she found tliere was some serious matter, for her husband's countenance figured some resolution between loathsomeness and necessity, and once his eye cast upon her, and finding hers upon him, he blushed, and she blushed because he blushed, then straight grew pale, because she knew not why he had blushed. But when lie had read and heard, and despatched away the messenger, like a man in whom honor could not be rocked asleep by affec- tion, with promise quickly to follow, he came to Parthenia ; and as sorry as might be for parting, and yet more sorry for her sorrow, he gave her tlie letter to read. She with fearful slowness took it, and with fearful quickness read it, and having read it, ' Ali, my Argalus,' said slie, 'and have you ON ENGLISH LITER A TURE \ \ \ made such haste to answer, and are you so soon resolved to leave me? ' " But he discoursing unto her how much it imported his honor, which, since it was dear to him, he knew it would be dear unto her, her reason, overclouded with sorrow, suffered her not pres- ently to reply, but left the charge thereof to tears and sighs, which he, not able to bear, left her alone, and v.ent to give order for his present departure. " But by that time he was armed and ready to go, she had recovered a little strength of spirit again, and coming out, and seeing him armed, and wanting nothing for his departure but her farewell, she ran to him, took him by the arm, and kneeling down, without regard who either heard her speech or saw her demeanor: ' My Argalus, my Argalus,' said she, 'do not thus forsake me. Remember, alas ! remember that I have an inter- est in you which I will never yield shall be thus adventured. Your valor is already sufficiently known ; sufficiently have you already done for your country; enow, enow there are beside you to lose less worthy lives. Woe is me! what shall become of me if you thus abandon me ? Then was it time for you to fol- low these adventures when you adventured nobody but yourself, and were nobody's but your own. But now, pardon me that now or never I claim mine own ; mine you are, and without me you can undertake no danger; and will you endanger Parthenia ? Parthenia shall be in the battle of your fight, Parthenia shall smart in your pain, and your blood must be bled by Parthenia ! ' " ' Dear Parthenia,' said he, ' this is the first time that ever you resisted my will ; I thank you for it, but persever not in it, and let not the tears of those most beloved eyes be a presage of that which you would not should happen. I shall live, doubt not ; for so great a blessing as you are, was not given unto me so soon to be deprived of it. Look for me, therefore, shortly, and victorious, and prepare a joyful welcome, and I will wish for no other triumph.' She answered not, but stood, as it were, thunder-stricken with amazement, for true love made obedience stand up against all other passions. But when he took her in his arms, and sought to print his heart on her sweet lips, she fell in a swound, so as he was fain to leave her to her gentle- women; and carried away by the tyranny of honor, though with many a back-cast look and hearty groan, went to the camp." The story follows Argalus to the field, where he is killed in combat with his enemy Amphialus, dying in the arms of his Parthenia, who arrives upon the field only to 112 FAMILIAR TALK'S receive his dying farewell, but not in time to save his life by her entreaties to his foe. Soon after this, Parthenia, dressing herself like a knight, in black armor, challenges Amphialus, and from him receives her own death-wound. Amphialus does not discover that it is Parthenia in disguise with whom he is fighting, until he has fatally wounded her ; and then he is overcome with grief and shame at what he has done. "Therefore [Amphialus], putting off his head-piece and gauntlet, kneeling down unto her, and with tears testifying his sorrow, he offered his, by himself accursed, hands to help lier, protesting his life and power to be ready to do her honor. But Parthenia, who had inward messengers of the desired death's approach, looking upon him, and straight turning away her feeble sight as from a delightless object, drawing out her words, which her breath, loath to depart from so sweet a body, did faintly deliver : ' Sir,' said she, ' I pray you, if prayers have place in enemies, to let my maids take my body un- touched by you. . . . Argalus made no such bargain with you that the hands that killed him should help me. I have of them — and I not only pardon, but thank you for it — the service which I desired. There rests nothing now, but that I go live with him, since whose death I have done nothing but die.' Then pausing, and a little fainting, and again coming to herself, ' O sweet life, welcome ! ' said she. ' Now feel I the bands untied of the cruel death which so long hath held me. And, O life, O death, answer for me that my thoughts have, not so much as in a dream, tasted any comfort since they were deprived of Argalus. I come, my Argalus, I come. And, O God, hide my faults in thy mercies, and grant, as I feel thou dost grant, that in thy eternal love we may love each other eternally.' . . . With that, casting up her hands and eyes to the skies, the noble soul departed, one might well assure him- self, to heaven, which left the body in so heavenly a demeanor." Thus ends the story of Argalus and Parthenia, which is only one of the many episodes of the Arcadia. Although it is a little stilted for our modern taste, and many sen- tences are involved and over-full of words, there are touches of nature and of feeling in it that will go straight to the heart. ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. II3 Close beside Sidney should come the name of his biog- rapher and bosom friend, Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, who desired to have for his epitaph that he had been " Servant to Queen Elizabeth, counsellor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip Sidney." He was a courtier-poet, who wrote plays and sonnets in verse, and a life of his friend Sidney in prose, which is most to be valued of all his works. It is said that Sidney intended the princes in the Arcadia, Pyrocles and Musidorus, for himself and Lord Brooke. The two gentlemen were very dear friends during Sidney's short life. Lord Brooke long outlived his friend, dying at an advanced age. One of the writers of the time says of him that of all Queen Elizabeth's favorites " he had the longest lease and the smoothest time without rub," and that " he came to court backed with a plentiful fortune, which, as he was wont to say, was better held to- gether by a single life, wherein he lived and died, a con- stant courtier of the ladies." He would hardly have gained mention in the present as a literary man if it were not for his biography of Sidney, which gives him an honorable place among this group of worthies. XIX. On Sir Walter Raleigh, Samuel Daniel, and Michael Drayton. LIKE Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh was a man of large gifts, and so versatile that what he did in literature seems only the diversion of his leisure hours. Hardly less full of beauty and charm than Sidney, Raleigh holds our interest to the end of his long life. Sidney died in early manhood, but Raleigh oudived his generation. Spenser, Essex, Shakespeare, all were dead, when, at sixty-six, he laid his noble head under the axe of King James's headsman. He was not only a poet, 8 114 FAMILIAR TALKS a scholar, and a man of scientific attainments, but also a clear-headed statesman, an adventurous sailor, a skilful military leader, and a polished orator. Raleigh wrote the first part of a great History of the World. He never finished the work, and all there is of it is in one great, ponderous folio, which we should find dull reading. There is also a little volume of his poems col- lected, though it is disputed whether or not he wrote some of the best included in this handful. I like best of all his writings, or of any that have been ascribed to him, his pri- vate letters, which are written in vigorous English, in the style of a master of language. Here is an extract from one that he wrote to Robert Cecil, who had just lost his wife, a kinswoman of Raleigh. He begins, — " There is no man sorry for death itself, but only for the time of death, every one knowing that it is a bond never forfeited to God. If, then, we know the same to be certain and inevitable, we ought to take the time of his arrival in as good part as the knowledge, and not to lament on the instant of every seeming adversity, which has been on the way to us from the beginning. " It pertaineth to every man of a wise and worthy spirit to draw together into sufferance the unknown future to the known present. ... It is true that you have lost a good and virtuous wife, and myself an honorable friend and kinswoman ; but there was a time when she was unknown to you, for wiiom you then lamented not. She is now no more yours, nor of your acquaint- ance, but immortal, and not needing or knowing your love and sorrow. Therefore you do but grieve for that which now is as then it was, when not yours, only bettered, with this difference) that she hath past the wearisome journey of this dark world> and hath possession of her inheritance. " I believe that sorrows are dangerous companions, convert- ing bad into evil, and evil into worse. They are the treasures of weak hearts and foolish. . . . The mind of man is that part of God in us which, by so much as it is subject to any passion, by so much is it farther from him that gave it us. Sorrows draw not the dead to life, but the living to death." Such noble and serene i)hilosophy as this, Raleigh might not always be able to live up to, and, indeed, there were times when his own great troubles aroused in him passions ON ENGLISH LITER A TUKE. \ 1 5 of grief such as he argues against. Eut lie lived a life full of useful activity, and met death bravely on the scaffold. Americans owe him remembrance because he did more than any other one man of his time to further the colonizing of America, — worked and planned for it till his fortunes failed. And w^ien he was arrested for treason by King James, and imprisoned in the Tower, he still said, in a spirit of prophecy, — for American affairs never looked more hopeless, — "I shall yet live to see that an English nation." When he ascended the scaffold, the little colony at Jamestown, Virginia, was eight years old, and the Puritans in Holland were just forming their plans for emigration to the New World. As he closed his eyes upon the world, is it just possible that Raleigh may have seen, in that one struggling offshoot from the parent State just fastened on the shores of Virginia, a dim foreshadowing of that great nation of English stock which in two centuries and a half should cover America from ocean to ocean ? The name of Samuel D.aniel has taken a place in my mind among the friends of Spenser, perhaps be- cause some one has ventured a guess that the Rosalinde with whom Spenser fell in love when he wrote the Shcpherd^s Calendar was Rose Daniel, a sister of this poet. He was a musician's son, which has given his biog- rapher reason to say that the poet inherited his father's talent and put it into his verse. He wrote such flowing, pure English that he was called " well-languaged Daniel," and some of his little songs are very graceful and musical. It is a pity that instead of writing lyrics, he should have taken a dry subject in history for the theme of his most ambitious poem. This was The History of the Civil Wars, in which he puts the Wars of the Roses into verse. It speaks well for his genius that he has managed to infuse a little breath of poetry into so prosaic a recital. A subject even more prosaic than this of Daniel was used by another poet of this group. The Pollyolbion, written by Michael Dr.a.yton, is nothing less than a geo- Il6 FAMILIAR TALK'S grapliical description of England, written in about thirty thousand lines of twelve-syllabled verse. There is a great deal that is interesting in the Pollyolbiofi, and in so much verse there must be some poetry ; but I am sure even the genius of Spenser could not have made anything but a dull poem out of such a dull theme, and, in consequence, nobody ever reads the Follyolbion nowadays. XX. On Francis Bacon, Baron Verui.am, Viscount St. Albans. FRANCIS BACON is the great philosopher, the most profound thinker, of his age. His system of philos- ophy, which is called, from him, the Baconian system, wrought a revolution in thought, and has had a great influ- ence on human action from his time to ours. I shall not attempt to explain his philosophy, because philosophy and science do not come within the province of these Talks, but will simply tell you that all his efforts were to make philosophy of practical benefit to humanity, rather than to keep men wandering in a vague region of inquiry upon points that the mind never has been able to solve. He taught men to reason from experience, to found their knowledge on results gained by experience, applying it to works really useful to mankind. Hitherto, the philosopher had been a man occupied with abstract questions, carrying his head aloft in the clouds ; Bacon occupied himself with questions that bore upon the comfort of humnn beings and the im- provement of human conditions. As Macaulay has said, in few words, " Bacon taught that philosophy was made for man, not man for philosophy. ' Francis Bacon was the youngest son of Sir Nicholas 1S61-162G I^''^^°"> Lord Keeper of the Seal under Queen Elizabeth. His uncle, Lord Burleigh, was Eng- land's minister of finance for nearly half a century, and ON ENGLISH LITER A TUNE. 1 1 7 Robert Cecil, Bacon's cousin, was one of the ablest and most powerful politicians of the later years of Queen Eliz- abeth and the first half of the reign of James I. Surrounded by kinsfolk so great, it might be fancied that Bacon's for- tunes were assured ; but it seems to be the fact that the help he met from Burleigh or his other relatives of influence was small and grudgingly given, and it is certain that he owed his success to his own great ability. That Bacon's was the greatest intellect of his age is hardly doubted ; but of the greatness and nobility of his character there are many doubts. The chief stain upon his name is that of ingratitude, which has never been wiped out. During his earlier life he had no friend more generous than the Earl of Essex, who befriended him when he most needed friend- ship. But when Essex was accused of treason. Bacon was chief counsel for the Crown, prosecuted the charge against the unhappy earl, proved it, and gained the sentence of death against his former friend and patron ; and finally, after the death of tlie earl, he wrote an account of his treason which still further blackened the character of the unfortunate Sussex. Bacon's apologists plead that, as Queen's Counsel, it was his duty to his queen and his country to pursue this course ; but I think every generous spirit will condemn Bacon, and will rate higher the obliga- tions of gratitude and friendship than those of political duty such as this. Bacon rose rapidly in the reign of James I. He held his father's office of Lord Keeper, was then made Lord Chancellor, and finally was created Viscount St. Albans. Near the close of his life he was accused of corruption in his high office, was tried for this charge, made an abject confession, and was sentenced to be expelled from the House of Lords, to be heavily fined, and to be im- prisoned in the Tower. His sentence was not carried out. The king released him from prison in two days, his fine was remitted, and he finally resumed his seat in the House of Peers; but he never recovered from his disgrace, and it sullies to this day his character as a statesman. Il8 FAMILIAR TALKS His zeal for science caused liis death. He was re- volving in his mind a theory about the arrest of decay in animals by means of cold ; and when driving one severe winter's day he alighted from his carriage antl stuffed a dead fowl with snow. He thus took the cold of which he died. His will contains the following appeal to the judgment of the future, and shows that he foresaw that his intellectual greatness would overshadow the actions that marred the nobleness of his life and character : " For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and to my own country after some time has passed over. " Of all Bacon's writings, his Essays belong most to litera- ture, and so most concern us. They were his first publica- tion, and were at once widely read in his own country, and translated into both French and Italian. Thirty years afte) their first appearance. Bacon carefully revised them, added to their number, and republished them, with a preface, in which he says: "These, of all my works, have been most current, — for that, as it seems, they come home to men's businesse and bosomes. " This is indeed the true secret of the immortality of any man's written words, that they should " come home to men's business and bosoms." The Essays, which altogether make only one little vol- ume, are brief dissertations on a great variety of subjects, running through the gamut of human interests, as Death, Adversity, Riches, Love, Friendship, Marriage, Gardens, Building, and the Regimen of Health. These little papers say more in brief space, and contain more practical wisdom, than anything else I know, of their length, or even a good many times their length, in the English language. 1 do not know a better book to pick up and read two or three sen- tences to set one thinking wholesomely. It seems as if the wisdom of a good many ages had been garnered here, ripe and ready for the use of all fiiture generations. I shall quote one of the shorter essays entire, and then give ex- tracts from two or three others. First, we will read this, on Revenge : — ON ENGLISH LITER A TURE. 119 " Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which, the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For, as to the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior, for it is a prince's part to pardon. And Solomon, I am sure, saith : '// is the glory of a man to pass by an offence.'' That which is past, is gone and irrevocable, and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come. Therefore, they do but trifle with themselves that labor in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake, but thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honor, or the like. Therefore, why should I be angry with a man for lov- ing himself better than me? And if any man should do wrong, merely out of ill nature, why? Yet it is but like the thorn or brier, which prick and scratch, because they can do no other. The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there is no law to remedy. But then let a man take heed the revenge be such as there is no law to punish, else a man's enemy is still beforehand, and it is two to one. Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh. This is the more generous, for the delight seemeth to be, not so much in doing the hurt, as in making the party re- pent ; but base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark. " Cosmos, Duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were un- pardonable. ' You shall read, ' he said, ' that we are com- manded to forgive our enemies, but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends.' But yet the spirit of Job was in better tune. ' Shall we,' saith he, ' take good at God's hands, and not be content to take evil also ?' And so of friends in a proportion. " This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. Public revenges are for the most part fortunate, . . . but in private revenges it is not so. Nay, rather, vindictive persons live the life of witches, who, as they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate." Here are a few sentences from his Essay of Death : "Men fear Death as children fear to go in the dark. And as that natural fear in diildren is increased with tales, so is the other. . . . I20 FAMILIAR TALKS " It is worthy the observing that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak but it mates and masters the fear of Death. And therefore Death is no such terrible enemy when a man hath so many attendants about him that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumplis over death ; Love shghts it; Honor aspireth to it; Grief flieth to it; Fear pre-occupa- teth it. . . . " It is as natural to die as to be born, and to a little infant perhaps the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot blood, who for the time scarce feels the hurt. And, therefore, a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the dolors of death. But above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is A'tmc dimi{tis, when a man has obtained worthy ends and expectations. " These Essays have also many sentences which are a text for a whole sermon, as these : — " A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he have lost no time." " Virtue is like a rich stone, — best plain set." " They are happy men whose natures sort with their voca- tions." And we will end these extracts from Bacon's Essays — which I hope will give you such a taste as shall make you desire to read them in full — with a sentence or two from his Essay on Studies, which every student should commit lo memory : — " Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. . . . " Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, lie had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. Nay, there is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies." ON ENGLISH LITER A TURE. 1 2 1 I think after reading these extracts you will agree that there is much riches in small space in these Essays, and that this is a book which is to be " chewed and digested." XXI. On the English Drama and some of the Play-Writers WHO cai\ie before Shakespeare. ONE of the most wonderful things to note in this six- teenth century is the sudden growth of the English drama. Until after the middle of the century there are few plays worth mentioning as literature. All peoples have some sort of drama early in their history, just as children will act out in their plays that which they see done by grown-up people, — the affairs of the household, the Church service, the wedding, or the funeral. The early English drama was very like this sort of child's-play. The drama was usually under the direction of the Church, the plays be- ing nearly all written by priests, and generally representing some scene from the Old or New Testament. These plays (called miracle-plays, or mysteries) had such subjects as the feast of Belshazzar, the raising of Lazarus, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden ; and it was not felt irreverent to show the most sacred scenes and characters on the stage. If you have heard or read any account of the Passion Play, still represented in Germany, in which the trial and cruci- fixion of Christ is dramatized, you will have some idea of what these old plays were like. One sometimes finds these early dramas very amusing. For instance, in the play of Noah's Flood, Mrs. Noah is a high-tempered scold, who refuses to go into the ark unless all her neighbor-gossips are saved as well as herself, and when carried into the ark by main force by her sons, she boxes Noah's ears, in a towering rage, on entering. The play of Lucifer's Fall represents Lucifer as a stage viUain 122 FAMILIAR TALK'S of the deepest dye ; and all sacred incidents are treated in the homeliest, most matter-of fact manner. Up to the middle of the sixteenth century, the century in which Shakespeare was born, the literature of the drama was almost all of this crude sort. I shall not weary you with a history of the early drama, or enumerate the old plays written before Shakespeare's time. Let me tell you only that the first comedy that had the form and spirit of English comedy was Roister Doistcr, written by an Eton schoolmaster, Nicholas Udall, and that the oldest tragedy was written by Thomas Sackville, and had for its subject Fenex and Par rex, two British princes descended from the great Brutus. Their story was told by Layamon, in the Brut, whence later poets took it. Passing by most of the plays and play-writers who came before Shakespeare, I will touch brieily upon the four most remarkable men who preceded him in writing for the stage. These are George Peele, Robert Greene, John Lyly, and Christopher Marlowe. George Peele bore a bad reputation even in his time, which was not so fastidious as our own. He seems to have been a ragged fellow, indifferent to fame or fortune, not caring whether he got his dinner by a song, a jest, or even beggary or fraud. Yet he wrote plays in which there is a good deal of poetic merit, and he was a scholar of classical training, as his poetry shows. The Arraignment of Paris, The Old Wives' Tale, David and Bethsabe, The Battle of Alcazar, are titles of his plays. The Arraignment of Paris tells the classic story of the Judgment of Paris and the award of the golden apple. With the characteristic flattery of the age, Peele ends this drama by bringing in Diana to present the apple to Queen Elizabeth, who is judged to possess the beauty of Venus, the majesty of Juno, and the wisdom of Miner\a, all com- bined in her own royal person. Peele has a delicate, poetic touch, although he has less dramatic power than any of the four poets I have men- ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. I 23 tioned. His allusions to Nature are in the spirit of a true poet. He speaks of — " The primrose and the purple hyacinth, The dainty violet and the wholesome minth, The double daisy, and the cowslip, queen Of summer flowers, do ovcrpeer the green, And round about the valley as ye pass, Ye may ne see, for peeping flowers, the grass." We can hardly believe that the man who was familiar with such blossoms could be a frequenter of miserable taverns and a low fellow given to coarse jests and rude buffoonery. Robert Greene's life is not more pleasant to read of than that of George Peele, his friend and associ- ate. Greene was a man of education, and says he had a degree from both Oxford and Cambridge. He travelled on the Continent, and wasted his time in bad com- pany, until finally he lost his health and his credit with his friends. " Then," he says, " I became an author of plays and of penny-a-line pamphlets, so that I soon grew famous in that quality, that who for that trade known so ordinary about London as Robin Greene." His death was caused by a supper in which he ate and drank too much of pickled herring and Rhenish wine. He died in a wretched lodging, where the wife of a poor shoe- maker tended him in his last moments, and after death crowned him, at his request, with the poet's garland of bay- leaves. Can you imagine anything more grim than the dead poet in his miserable garret, crowned with the green wreath of bays? Greene wrote a very large number of novels, poems, plays, and a great many pamphlets or shorter works, which, in that day, were called prose tracts. Of these prose tracts, the two most notable are The Triumph of Time — a very pretty story, and well told, used by Shakespeare for the plot oi The Wijifcr's Talc — and The Groat's Worth of Wit, bought with a Million of Repentance, written in his last illness, in which he recounts the chief facts of his life, 124 FAMILIAR TALKS and gives vent to his penitence for his bad and useless career. This last tract has been much talked about, be- cause there is an ill-natured allusion in it to Shakespeare, which makes it seem as if Greene and his companions were rather jealous of Shakespeare's success as a play-writer, and accused him of using some of their works as the foundation for his more popular plays. Greene wrote five plays known to be his. He may have written a good many more which have not come down to us. The best of his plays, I think, is The Honorable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. The plot of this is varied ; one part of it turns on the loves of Prince Edward and his friend Ned Lacy, tlarl of I>incoln, for Margaret, a gamekeeper's fliir daughter ; the other part of the plot relates to the great friar, Iiacon, the most learned Englishman of the thirteenth century, of whom many won- derful fables were told in English legend and ballad. Bacon and Bungay have made a brass head, which, it has been predicted, will speak, and tell them how to make a wall to surround England, and render her proof against all foes. When the head is done, the friar, worn out with sleepless work, sets his servant. Miles, to watch it while he gets a little sleep. Here is the scene in which Miles is set to watch : — [EnU-r Friar Bacon, with a lighted lamp and a hook in his hand ; Miles folloTuing him, artned in a ridiculous manner, from head to foot. \ Bacon {ilrawiiig the curtains and revealing the brazen head). Miles, where are you .'' Miles. Here, sir. Bacon. How chance you tarry so long ? Miles. Think you that the watching of the brazen head craves no furniture? I warrant you, sir, I have so armed myself that if all your devils come, I will not fear them an inch. Bacon. Miles, thou know'st that I have dived into hell, And sought the darkest palaces of the fiends; That with my magic spells great lielcephon Hath left his lodge and kneeled at my cell ; The rafters of the earth rent from the poles, And three-formed Luna hid her silver looks, Trembling upon her concave continent, When Bacon read ui)on his magic book. ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 12$ With seven years tossing necromantic charms. Poring upon dark Hecate's principles, I have framed out a monstrous head of brass, That, by tlie enchanting forces of the devil, Shall tell out strange and uncouth aphorisms. And girt fair England with a wall of brass. Bungay and I have watched these threescore days, And now our vital spirits crave some rest. . . . Now, Miles, in thee rests Friar Bacon's weal ; The honor and renown of all his life Hangs in the watching of this brazen head. . . . This night thou watch, for ere the morning star Sends out his glorious glister in the north. The head will speak; then. Miles, upon thy life, Wake me, for then, by magic art, I '11 work To end my seven years' task with excellence. . . . Draw close the curtains, Miles ; now, for thy life, Be watchful and — \He falls asleep. Miles- So ! I thought you would talk yourself asleep anon, and 'tis no marvel.for Bungay on the days, and he on the nights, have watched just these ten and fifty days. Now this is the night, and 't is my task and no more. Heaven bless me ! what a goodly head it is, and a nose ! You talk of nos mitem glorificare, but here'^ a nose that I warrant may be called iios antem populare, — for the people of the parish. Well, I am furnished with weapons; now, sir, I will set me down by a post, and make it as good as a watchman to wake me if I chance to slum- ber. . . . [A great noise of thunder heard.'] Up, Miles, to your task; here 's some of your master's hobgoblins abroad. yrhiinder — The head speaks.] Head. Time is. Miles. Time is. Why, Master Brazen-head, have you such a capi- tal nose and answer you with syllables, " Time is " ? Is this all my mas- ter's cunning to spend seven years study about time is.'' Well, sir, it may be we shall have better some orations of it anon. I '11 watch you as narrowly as ever you were watched. . . . [ T'ln.'.der and lightning^ The Head. Time was. Miles. Well, Friar Bacon, you have spent your seven years' study well, that can make your head speak but two words at once, " Time was." Yea, marry, time was when my master was a wise man, but that was before he began to make the brazen head. . . . What! a fresh noise! Take thy pistols in hand, Miles. [ Thunder again."] The Head. Time is past. [Flash of lightning, iti which a hand appears with hammer that breaks the head.] 126 FAMILIAR TALKS Miles {ill iiffright]. Master! master I Up! your head speaks! There's such atliunder and lightning that I warrant all Oxford is up in arras. Out of your bed; the latter day is come. Bacon (uroitsiiig). Mites, I come. Oh, passing warily watched! Bacon will make thee nc.\t himself in love. When spake the head.' Miles. When spake the head.' Did you not say that it should tell strange principles of philosophy .' Why, sir, it speaks but two words at a time. Bacon. Why, villain, hath it spoken oft? Miles. Oft? Ay, marry hath it, — thrice; but in all these three times it hath uttered only seven words. Bacon. As how ? Miles. Marry, sir, the first lime he said, " Time is," as if Fabius Commentator should have pronounced a sentence ; then he said, "Time was ;" and the third time, with thunder and lightning, as in great choler, he said, " Time is past." Bacon. "Y is past, indeed! Ay, villain, time is past ! My life, my fame, my glory, — all are past! Bacon, the turrets of thy hope are ruined down. Thy seven years' study lieth in the dust, Thy brazen head lies broken, through a slave That watched and would not when the head did will. There is a near approach to the brightness and wit of later English comedy in Greene ; and although there is a great deal of rubbish in his writings, there is also much poetry, and much ingenuity in the construction of his plots. I have always felt a sympathy with his fate since I read this sentence in some old biography : " It is reported that he was the first English poet tvlio ever wrote for bread.'" We could not pass John Lvi.y by without mention. He >- -- seems to have been more respectable in manners 1553-1601 , . , . . , * - , . - and social position than most of this group of play-writers, and he wrote one book, fashionable beyond all others in its day, which gave a new word to the language. This is the romance of Euphites, from which the word euphuism is derived. One hardly knows how to define euphuism. The dictionary says it is " a fastidious delicacy of language ; " but that does not fully express it. It was a style of speaking and writing full of stilted and affected phrases, redundant in con-.parisons, crowded with foreign ON ENGLISH LITER A TUKE. \ 27 and classical allusions, — a simple meaning wrapped up in a mass of words. We wonder that it could have been popular with people of sturdy English common-sense at any time. Yet in the court of Elizabeth euphuism was so fashionable that all the lords and ladies talked in this affected way, and one of the historians says : " That beauty in court which could not parley euphuism was as little regarded as she which now there speaks not French." Yet, in spite of its absurdities, Lyly's book has merit, and does not deserve the abuse that has been thrown upon it by critics who seem to believe it as absurd as the speech of those who imitated it. It is full of good sense, although sometimes expressed in such a roundabout manner ; and better advice than he gives for the rearing and education of youth has rarely been written. And the book is full of noble sentences, like these : — " It is not descent of birth thatmaketh gentlemen, — not great manors, but good manners, that express the image of dignity. There is copper coin of the same stamp that gold is, yet is it not current." " The wise man liveth as well in a far country as in his own home. It is not the nature of the place, but the disposition of the person, that maketh life pleasant." " The greatest harm you can do to the envious is to do well." " If you will be cherished when you be old, be courteous when you be young." These sentences, gleaned at random from Euphties, show how much there is fine in it ; and when I hear it spoken of as a book " which did incalculable mischief by vitiating the taste and corrupting the language," I feel like saying, in the words of a modern writer, Charles Kingsley, " Have these critics ever read it? If they have, I pity them if they have not found it, in spite of occasional tediousness and pedantry, as brave, righteous, and pious a book as a man need look into." Euphues must be classed among works of fiction, although it hardly meets any of our ideas of a novel. The chief character in the book is Euphues, a young gentleman of 128 FAMILIAR TALK'S Athens, who writes long letters and keeps up interminable conversations with the other characters, but chiefly with the heroine, Lucilla, with whom he is in love. By and by Lucilla jilts him, which gives him an opportunity to inveigh in the following style against women, in one of his letters to his friend Philautus : — " It is a world to see how conimoiily we are blinded with the collusions of women, and more enticed by their ornaments being artificial than their proportions being natural. I loathe almost to think on their ointments and apothecary drugs, the sleeking of their faces and all their slibber sauces, which bring queasiness to the stomach, and disquiet to the mind. "Take from them their periwigs, their paintings, their jewels, their rolls, their bolsterings, and thou shalt soon perceive a woman is the least part of herself. When they once be robbed of their robes, then will they appear so odious, so ugly, so monstrous that thou wilt rather think them serpents than saints, and so like hags that thou wilt fear rather to be en- chanted than enamoured. Look in their closets, and there shalt tliou find an apothecary's shop of sweet confections, a surgeon's box of sundry salves, a pedlar's pack of new fangles. Besides all this, their shadows, their spots, their lawns, their ruffs, their rings. If every one of these things severally be not of force to move thee, yet all of them jointly should mortify thee. . . . And yet, Philautus, I would not that all women should take pepper in the nose, in that I have disclosed the legerdemains of a few, for well I know none wince except she be galled, neither any be offended unless she be guilty."' Although Euphues is the most famous of Lyly's works, yet he was noted in his time as a writer of plays. Several of these had appeared before Shakespeare began to be known as a dramatist. The best of his plays is Campaspe. Its principal characters are Alexander of Macedon and the painter Apelles. Alexander is in love with a beautiful young girl, Campaspe, whom he has taken captive in war, and employs Apelles to paint her portrait. The artist also loves Campaspe, and when the monarch discovers this, he hesitates for a moment between jealousy and generosity, but at last resigns her to Apelles. It is a very pretty plot, although simple and without strong dramatic interest. It ON ENGLISH LITER A TURE. 1 29 is written, not in blank verse, but in prose, in sentences that remind one of Eiiphues ; but Lyly proved that he was a poet by the beautiful lyrics found in his plays. One of the most perfect of these is the song of Cupid and Ca?n- paspe, sung by the painter Apelles as he works at his easel on the portrait of Campaspe : — " Cupid and my Campaspe played At cards for kisses : Cupid paid. He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows, His mother's doves and team of sparrows : Loses them, too. Then down he throws The coral of his lip, the rose Growing on 's cheek (but none knows how). With these the crystal of his brow, And then the dimple of his chin : All these did my Campaspe win. At last he set her both his eyes : She won, and Cupid blind did rise. O Love, has she done this to thee ? What shall, alas ! become of me ? " XXII. On Christopher Marlowe, the Great Predecessor of Shakespeare. THE greatest of all the dramatic poets who wrote be- fore Shakespeare was Christopher Marlowe, whom his friends familiarly called "Kit." He was a ,,„^ _„„ i ^ , „ , ,. , 1564-1593 boon companion of Greene and Peele, a little younger than either, — born, indeed, in the very year with our great Shakespeare. But he began to write much ear- lier, and when he died, only three or four of Shakespeare's works had appeared. As soon as Marlowe left college he went to London and began to write for the theatre ; very likely he acted too, as most of the play-writers did when they failed to earn a live- lihood by the pen alone. He must have begun to write very 9 130 FAMILIAR TALKS young, for he was the author of at least six plays, and took part, probably, in the writing of several others ; yet he was only twenty-nine when his life came to a disreputable and tragic end. A qu.urel arose between himself and a boon companion named Francis Archer in a tavern which they frequented, and as Marlowe angrily drew his dagger. Archer seized his hand and stabbed him in the head, so that, according to an old rhyme which tells the story, — " He groaned, and word spake never more, Pierced through both eye and brain." Marlowe has a bad reputation, although whether it was entirely deserved it would be difficult now to tell. The Puritans had begun in his time to wage a fierce war against the stage and all dramatic writings, and they lost no oppor- tunity to hold up to horror all persons who were concerned in plays or play-writing. The manner of Marlowe's death added to the bad odor in which he was held by his enemies, but we must remember that this was an age in which tavern quarrels and street broils were not infrequent, and better men than Marlowe were quick to draw daggers, and to use them. Although he was no better, he may have been no worse than many other men whose names have not been so roughly handled. However this may be, a strong moral was drawn from Marlowe's death by the opposers of the drama, and a ballad on the subject, called The Athi'isfs Tragedy, in which Marlowe is called Wormall, ends with this stanza : — "Take warning, ye that plays do make, And ve that them do act ; Desist in time, for Wormall's sake, And think upon this fact." The first play by Marlowe of which we have any knowl- edge is the first part of Tatnburlaitie the Great. It is claimed by the most careful students that this is the first play in which blank verse was used in a public theatre. Before this, the plays had been either in prose or rhyme, blank verse having been used only in private performances ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 131 at court, or before college societies. You will be interested, therefore, to read a little of this verse, which is thus claimed to be the beginning of English dramatic poetry. Tamburlaine, the hero of the play, is a shepherd who has taken up arms with design to become king of Persia. He is, like all Marlowe's heroes, a man of boundless ambition and courage. These lines which I quote are from his speech to Theridamas, one of the captains of the king of Persia, who has been sent to take Tamburlaine prisoner. The great warrior thus persuades the envoy of the king to desert his master and follow the fortunes of the great Tamburlaine : — Tamburlaine. In thee, thou valiant man of Persia, I see the folly of thy emperor. Art thou but captain of a thousand horse, That by characters graven in thy brows. And by thy martial face and stout aspect, Deserves to have the leading of a host ? Forsake thy king, and do but join with me, And we will triumph over all the world. I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains, And with my hand turn Fortune's wheel about; And sooner shall the sun fall from his sphere. Than Tamburlaine be slain or overcome. Draw forth thy sword, thou mighty man-at-arms. Intending but to raze my charmed skin. And Jove himself will stretch his hand from heaven To ward the blow and shield me safe from harm. If thou wilt stay with me, renowned man, And lead thy thousand horse, with my conduct, Besides thy share of this Egyptian prize. Those thousand horse shall sweat with martial spoil Of conquered kingdoms and of cities sacked ; Both we will walk upon the lofty cliffs, And Christian merchants, that with Russian stems Plough up huge furrows in the Caspian Sea, Shall rail to us as lords of all the lake ; Both wc will reign as consuls of the earth, And mighty kings shall be our senators. Jove sometimes masked in a shepherd's weed, And by those steps that he has scaled the heavens, May we become immortal like the gods. Join with me now in this my mean estate 132 FAMILIAR TALKS (I call it mean, because, being yet obscure, The nations far removed admire me not). And when my name and honor shall be spread As far as Boreas claps his brazen wings, Or fair Bootes sends his cheerful light, Then thou shalt be competitor with me, And sit with Tamburlaine in all his majesty. This speech is in a lofty spirit of boasting, but it showed the power of what Ben Jonson called " Marlowe's mighty line." Of all Marlowe's plays, none has been so famous as Faustus, which has the same plot that the great German poet, Goethe, used afterwards. There is great power in Marlowe's play, although in parts it is very weak and pu- erile. Faust sells his soul to Mephistopheles on condition that for twenty-four years Mephistopheles shall be his ser- vant and do his will. The finest passage in Faustus is the close of the play, in which he awaits the fiends who are to bear away his soul to eternal torment. As the clock slowly strikes eleven, Faust is left in his chamber alone. Faust speaks : — Ah, Faustus, Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, And then thou must lie damned perpetually I Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, That time may cease, and midnight never cornel Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make Perpetual day; or let this hour be but A year, a month, a week, a natural day, That Faustus may repent, and save his soul. \Thc clock strikes the half-hoiir\ Ah ! half the hour is past ; 't will all be past anon. O God ! If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul, Impose some end to my incessant pain ; Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years, A hundred thousand, and at last be saved I Oh, no end is limited to damned souls I Why wcrt thou not a creature wanting soul ? Oh, why is this immortal that thou hast ? . . . All beasts are happy, ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 133 For when they die, Their souls are soon dissolved in elements; But mine must live, still to be plagued in hell. \Clock strikes twelve^ It strikes ! it strikes ! now, body, turn to air, Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell ! \Stoym of thunder and lightning. \ Oh, soul, be changed to little water drops, And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found 1 \At this the devils enter and bear off Faustus^ The hero of another of Marlowe's plays, The Jew of Malta, is frequently compared with Shakespeare's Shylock, although there is really very little Hkeness between the characters in the two plays. Barabas, the Jew of Malta, is, hke Shylock, a man of intellect and power. He says of himself, " Barabas is born to better chance, and framed of finer mould than common men." But he does not excite our sympathy as Shylock does. His cruelty is overdrawn, his malignity becomes vulgar, and the heaped-up horrors of the play become at last ridiculous. But although the play is unequal, there are strong passages in it. When the gov- ernor of Malta has taken from the Jews half their property to fill the treasury of the city, and has ordered that Barabas be stripped of half his wealth, the old Israelite thus hurls curses after him : — The plagues of Egypt and the curse of Heaven, Earth's barrenness, and all men's hatred. Inflict upon them, thou great Fritnns Motor, And here, upon my knees striking the earth, I ban their souls to everlasting pains And extreme tortures of the fiery deep. That thus have dealt with me in my distress. . . . 1st yew. Yet, r>rother Barabas, remember Job. Barabas. What tell you me of Job.-* I wot his wealth Was written thus : he had seven thousand sheep. Three thousand camels, and two hundred yoke Of laboring o.xen ; but for every one of these, Had they been valued at indifferent rate, I had at home, and in mine argosy . . . As much as would have bought his beasts and him, And yet have kept enough to live upon. . . . 2d Jew. Good Barabas, be patient. 134 FAMILIAR TALKS Barabas. Ay, I pray you leave me in my patience. You, that were ne'er possessed of wealth, are pleased with want; But give him liberty at least to mourn. That in a field, amidst his enemies. Doth see his soldiers slain, himself disarmed, And knows no means for his recovery. There is, I am sure, great power in the passages I have quoted, and when we remember they were written by a man so young, when the English drama existed only in very crude forms, and without passion or dramatic interest, we must admire a genius of such originality, which blazed so highly and went out so suddenly. Besides these which I have mentioned, Marlowe wrote the Tragedy of Edward II., which has reminded some readers of Shakespeare's Richard IL, principally because the fate of these two kings has so much resemblance. There are also two other plays, of Lusfs Dominion and the Massacre at Paris, which are doubtfully ascribed to him, both of which are very much in his style. In nearly all these plays his heroes, like Barabas and Tamburlaine, are men of great thirst for power and of unbridled ambition. Perhaps Marlowe painted in them the passions that mlcd in his own breast ; perhaps, too, like Faust, he was consumed with insatiate desire for dominion over the whole realm of knowledge. In spite of his faults, none of the dramatists before Shakespeare approach him in genius, and I leave him regretfully, wishing we might dwell longer on his merits. There are several other names, well noted in their time, which meet us on the threshold of the Shakespearean age. Thomas Kvd was one of the popular play-writers in Lon- don when Shakespeare first began to try his hand at au- thorship, and Kyd's Spanish Tragedy then delighted the theatre-goers. Thomas Nash, also a play-writer, and a friend of Marlowe and Greene, had produced his play of Will Sii7nmet^ s last Will and Testament, in a barn on the outskirts of London, when the players were driven outside the city by the raging of the plague. In this play is a most Oy ENGLISH LITERATURE. 1 35 musical little spring- song, which will give you an idea of Nash's quality as a poet : — " Spring, the sweet spring, is the year'? pleasant king ; Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in ring, Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo ! " The palm and May make country houses gay, Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day, And hear we aye birds tune this merry lay, Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu-we, to witta-woo ! " The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet, Young lovers meet, old wives a sunning sit; In every street these tunes our ears do greet. Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo ! " Another poet, Thomas Lodge, wrote several plays, a number of them in conjunction with other play- g. , writers. His best work, for us, is a beautiful known, story called Rosalynd, or, Euphues' Golden Died 1625. Legacy, a really golden bequest, because Shakespeare used it for the plot of that most beautiful play, As You Like It. Lodge early gave up writing stories and dramas, and after- wards became a physician. He wrote a treatise on the plague which raged in London, but he could not have found its cure, for he died of the disease shortly afterwards. I have thus briefly touched upon the chief names among the dramatists who heralded Shakespeare, the poets who were at work for the stage when he first came to London. They were nearly all men of fiery imagination, using lan- guage with a freedom and unconvenlionality which no mod- ern poet could venture upon, and v.-hich would not, to-day, be tolerated. These men set the fashion for later poets, and helped establish the rules laid down by our grammarians and dictionary-makers ; nowadays words have each their rank and place in language, and whoever dares misuse one is arraigned by a host of verbal critics. The most fortunate thing in the beginning of the English drama is that these early writers wxre not afraid to be orig- 136 FAMILIAR TALKS inal. They adhered to no models, and did not follow the rules of the elder literature of Greece and of Rome. True, they were men of classical learning, and their verses are stuffed full of classical allusions which show this. Greene's milkmaids and farmers talk of Apollo and Diana, and other gods and goddesses, as if they were fellow-servants, and the names of ancient myth and history constantly appear in Marlowe and Peele. Yet, in spite of this, they kept dramatic poetry free from bonds. They gave it a liv- ing reality, and put into it human passion. In a word, they made a national drama. The English drama owes its best part to that sturdy Teu- tonic spirit, underlying all that is best in our literature, which resented too much innovation on its native quality, and would speak out for itself, in spite of fashions of speech regarded as more exact or more comely. These earlier dramatists were fit precursors of Shakespeare, who, great as he was, owed much to the fact that such men preceded him. XXIII. On William Shakespeare, his Life, Character, A^rD Works. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE is the greatest name in English poetry, and ranks among the greatest of the world. The Greek Homer, the Italian Dante, the English Shakespeare, are three grand figures that stand out pre-eminent in the history of the world's literature for three thousand years. Of the man Shakespeare very few facts are known ; but this concerns us less, because it is with the poet, and not with the man, that we have to deal. He was born at Strat- ford-upon-Avon, in Wanvickshire, of a respectable family, his father a well-to-do townsman who held several offices. He ON ENGL ISH LITER A TURE. 1 3 7 went to the grammar-school in his native tovm probably till he was about fourteen. Then some of his biographers think he may have been a lawyer's clerk, as that would ex- plain the close knowledge of law terms that he shows in his plays ; others argue that he taught school ; others still, that he was an apprentice to a butcher. Whether he fol- lowed any or all of these callings, is not certain ; the only fact of which we are certain, between the time of his leav- ing school and going to London, is that at eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, who lived in the village of Shottery, a mile or two from Stratford, and that after the birth of three children, and when he was about twenty- three years old, he went to London to seek his fortune. There is an old story that he went deer-poaching at Charlecote, the estate of Sir Thomas Lucy, a few miles from Stratford, and that his arrest and trial for this trespass were the direct cause of his leaving his native town. But this story has been doubted ; and so has another tradition that when he reached London he first gained a scanty liv- ing by holding horses outside the theatre for gentlemen who came to see the play. Whether either of these stories is true makes very little difference in this history. It is certain that he was not long in London before he was em- ployed in a company of players in some capacity. He was an actor as well as a play-writer ; we do not know which calling he took up first. It seems to me probable that his first plays were written in collaboration with other play-wrights, or that he first revised and adapted other men's works to meet the demands of stage action. In such kind of attempts he could prove his ability before producing any drama entirely original. In any case, his rise was rapid. He had not been in London five years before he began to be known as a writer and to be heard of in the com- pany of the best wits of the time ; in ten years he was able to buy one of the finest estates in his native town ; three or four years later, he bought more lands, gardens, and orchards in Stratford; and finally, in the year 161 6, when he was fifty-two years old, a prosperous man, in the 138 FAMILIAR TALK'S full vigor of life, he died suddenly of a fever, and was buried in the little church in his native town. This bald outline of a life is all we have of our greatest poet. There has been much question and debate about the amount of Shakespeare's learning, and allhough there are some ingenious arguments to prove him a scholar, it seems evident that his opportunities for scliolastic education were not equal to those of most literary men of his time. He was fourteen when he left the town grammar-school, and he never entered college. But we may be sure he did not miss any of his opportunities. I fancy him an eager reader of all the books he could lay hands on. I'he popular ballads, the old chronicles, the tales translated from Latin, French, and Italian, which were printed in small, paper-covered pamphlets, and called chap-books, — all these would furnish food for his devouring imagination. He had also, I can easily fancy, an eager ear, which was no less a source of culture than the eye. No speech of the clever people he met in London fell unheeded when Shakespeare was by. In the circle into which he came, com'ersations on poetry and philosophy, on the new theories in science and medicine, on all the great events of the time, must have been con- stantly going on about him. He must have heard the new l)hilosophy of Bacon discussed by the most thoughtful men of the day ; he could hear the cases of law argued by the most astute lawyers ; the literature of Greece and that of Rome were quoted from and discussed by the scholars from the university, who, like himself, were getting their bread by writing for the stage ; the brilliant actions of Queen Elizabeth's soldiers and sailors were the theme of discourse at every tavern ; the romantic voyages of English ships in the attempts at the settlement of this untried con- tinent, were recounted by men who took part in them. Never was any age richer in ideas than the age of Shake- speare ; the very air swarmed with them, and all that he heard he gathered up into the vast storehouse of his brain and reproduced in lines that have since made the world wonder at the boundless depths, the prophetic heights, of ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 1 39 his knowledge. This was genius, that could make even a commonplace suggestion that had fallen from the hps of some of his associates wear in his verse an air of prophecy. One of the most potent qualities of all the great poets of the world is this power of absorbing all that touches them, of appropriating from every channel all that can feed and enrich them ; and this quality evidently was Shakespeare's in an unusual degree. When he died, in 1616, his plays had never been col- lected in a volume, and, indeed, many of them had never been printed at all. This has been a matter of wonder among many critics, and from this some have argued that Shake- speare was quite indifferent to his own fame. I do not be- lieve this theory to be true. If we can judge anything of his personal feeling from his Sonnets, where he seems to have revealed himself as he never does in his plays, his genius had that consciousness of its own power which great genius almost always possesses. Again and again he claims the immortality of his lines, as when he says : — " Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme ; But you shall shine more bright in these contents. Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time." SO.NNET LV. " Or I shall live your epitaph to make, Or you survive, when I in earth am rotten ; From hence your memory death cannot take, Although in me each part will be forgotten. Your name from hence immortal life shall have. Though I, once gone, to all the world must die : The earth can yield me but a common grave, When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie. Yonr monument ihall be yny gentle verse. Which eyes 7tot yet created shall o'er-rcad. And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse, JVhen all the breathers of this world are dead ; You still shall live — such virtue hath my peft — Where breath most breathes, even in the rnoufhs of men." Sonnet LXXXI. In many like instances in his Sonnets docs he show that he did not esteem himself too lightly. 140 FAMILIAR TALK'S It seems very reasonable to believe, therefore, that the latest work of his life, when he had gained fortune and leisure, would have been to revise and edit all his works. Up to the time of his death it would have been unbusiness- like and unprofitable to interrupt his work for the theatre (a theatre in which he held a pecuniary interest) in order to print his plays, and so destroy in a measure their acting value. Shakespeare, by all the arguments we can draw from his life, was a thrifty, business-like man, interested in the accumulation of property and the building up of a name and an estate in his native Stratford. It would have been both foolish and improvident to cut off so suddenly a good mcome. l]ut when he settled down at home in Stratford, he was still in the vigor and prime of life, with leisure before him to revise and rewrite all his plays in his own careful and painstaking way, and so put them into the shape in which he would have given them to the future. I cannot doubt he meant to do this, when that churl, Death, came in, and stopped his intent ; and so we lost one of the best legacies the past could have made us, — the plays of Shakespeare edited by himself. Seven years after Shakespeare's death, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two of his fellow-actors, who had known him well during his career as player and drama- tist, published the first edition of his works in a volume containing thirty-six plays. This is known as the Folio of 1623, and is the most valuable for students of Shake- speare. Previously eighteen of these plays had been printed separately in smaller books, called Quartos. As the popu- lar plays were withheld from publication while they were performed on the stage, many of the dramas were taken down in a kind of short-hand at the theatre and printed by some publisher, who would get them by foul means if he could not by fair payment. Such copies must necessarily be full of mistakes, and as the actors, and especially the clowns, often spoke much more than was set down for them, there were often gross interpolations in these unauthorized editions. Some of these Quartos had been more than once ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 14I printed, and of the thirty- six plays eighteen had appeared in this way. Heminge and Condell, therefore, had for the basis of their work the best of these Quartos, such stage copies of the plays as they could get, and that intimate knowledge of the dramas, in which, as members of the company that first produced them, they must often have performed different parts. But even with their best care, these first editors of Shakespeare, to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude, could not avoid some mistakes in a work so full of difficulties. To these thirty-six plays Pericles was afterwards added, making thirty-seven, — the number now usually included in the collection of his works. But besides these thirty-seven, there are a number of others which have been claimed as Shakespeare's. There are three old plays still in exist- ence which were printed in quarto, with Shakespeare's name on the title-page, and there are several others, with the initials W. Sh., or W. S., which Heminge and Condell did not put in their edition. Probably these plays are not Shakespeare's, but were printed with his name by some publisher who knew Shakespeare's popularity as a writer would be likely to sell any play that bore his name, or even his initials, on the title-page. It was also a common custom, at this time, for writers for the stage to unite together to produce a play. There are some plays which have as many as five writers con- cerned in them, and two and three is a very common num- ber in this joint authorship. The Two Noble Kinsmen, a play afterwards included among Beaumont and Fletcher's works, bore the name of Fletcher and Shakespeare as authors when first published in quarto; and the ]A:\y oi Henry VIII., in Shakespeare's works, is by many critics believed to be the joint production of Shakespeare and Fletcher again. Thus you will see that it is quite probable that some plays may have been put among Shakespeare's of which he was only the writer in part, and that others may have been left out in which Shakespeare may have had some share with other writers. Some of the thirty-seven plays which we now call Shakespeare's are thus under dispute. 142 FAMILIAR TALKS First in doubtfulness comes Tiiiis Aiuironicus, of which I shall say, for my own part, I do not think he wrote any por- tion of it.^ It is also believed by many scholars that few entire scenes in Pericles are by Shakespeare, and that Timon of Athens was a sketch of a play from his hands filled out by other dramatists. The Taming of the Shrezv is certainly founded on an older play of the same title, which it follows in incident. As to the three parts of Henry VI., they are mostly all under dispute, some critics believing that Shakespeare did not write the first part, and that the second and third parts are alterations of two old plays which still exist in evidence ; while others claim that he wrote all three, and that the older plays are his own earlier version of the plays, which he afterwards finished and revised more carefully. There has been a great deal written on both sides on all these plays, and most of the disputed points must forever remain undecided, or only a matter of individual opinion, and many lines which lie within the covers of his plays will be read a little doubtfully. With regard to the sources for the plots of the plays, our knowledge is clearer. We know whence most have been derived, and from this evidence it would seem that Shakespeare rarely invented his plots. He took them wherever he found them, — in old poems, stories, transla- tions from French or Italian ; in the old Roman or current English history, — wherever he could find a dramatic inci- dent. In Holinshed's Chronicle History may be found many ^ I have for a long time believed that Titus Andronicus was written by the same poet who wrote Twist's Dominion, a play sometimes ascribed to Marlowe. The hero of both plays is a Moor, and there is a general resemblance, while some lines are strikingly alike, as, for instance : — And do not now with quarrels shake the state, Which is already too much ruinate. Lust's Dominion, Then after\vards to order well the state, That like events m.-iy ne'er it ruinate. Titus An.lronicHS. ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 1 43 a hint. There he read of the troubled reign of Duncan of Scotland, his murder by Macbeth, the appearance of the three witches, and the fight between Macduff and Macbeth. In Plutarch's Lives he read of great Caesar's assassination, the conspiracy and death of Brutus, as well as the loves of Antony and Cleopatra. In some charming novels by Greene and by Thomas Lodge he got the plots for Wiii- ter's Tale and As You Like It. Thus the eye of the dram- atist was quick to see in all places whatever would serve his purpose. The inventive pou'er of the novelist either he did not have, or did not care to use. I sometimes fancy that the lack of this power stimulated the power of the drama- tist, — that he could better work the men and women of his imagination, when, like the men and women of the real world, they were controlled by a destiny which he had not shaped for them. From this slight glance I have given you of his methods, you will see that Shakespeare was a busy, hard-working man, absorbed and interested in affairs which filled his life for over twenty years. While so many of the other poets, like Greene, Peele, and Marlowe, lived and died in dmnk- enness and misery, Shakespeare was a prosperous share- holder in the theatre where he was also an actor. While busy with his own work for the stage, he was interested in revising and criticising the works of other men; and all this time he was building up a good name and estate in his native town, which was very likely the main purpose of his life. The greatest poet of his age, he was also a practical man, with a breadth of intellect which could include the details of the petty affairs of life. In studying Shakespeare, go first of all to his works, and not to critics. To know thoroughly Shakespeare's plays with appreciative knowledge would be of itself a liberal education. Even if you should read thoroughly only four such plays as Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, Julius Cxsar, and As You Like It, you would have in your mind a treasure which would be priceless. 144 FAMILIAR TALKS XXIV. Extracts from Shakespeare's Plays, — " Richard II. ; " " Hamlet ; " " The Tempest." IN illustration of Shakespeare's poetry, I am going to give extracts from plays written at different periods. First, from Richard JI., which was written in the earlier period of his career ; then from Hamlet, which was prob- ably produced in the middle of his life as author ; and, finally, from The Tempest, which is one of the latest, if not the very latest, of his productions. The scene from Richard II. is that in which John of Gaunt, the uncle of the king, lying at point of death, calls for Richard, that he may warn him of his misgovernment, which is bringing so many troubles on the realm. As the scene opens, Gaunt lies on a couch, his brother, the Duke of York, standing near : — Gaunt. Will the king come, that I may breathe my last In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth ? York. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath ; For all in vain comes counsel to his ear. Gaunt. Oh, but they say the tongues of dying men Enforce attention like deep harmony : Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain, For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain. He that no more must say is listened more Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose ; More are men's ends marked than their lives before : The setting sun, and music at the close. As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last, Writ in remembrance, more than things long past: Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear, My death's sad talc may yet undeaf his ear. Methinks I am a prophet new inspired, And thus, expiring, do foretell of him : His fierce, rash blaze of riot cannot last. For violent fires soon burn out themselves ; Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short; ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 145 He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes ; With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder. Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, Consuming means, soon preys upon itself. This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war. This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, — Dear for her reputation through the world, — Is now leased out (I die pronouncing it) Like to a tenement or pelting farm : England, bound in with the triumphant sea. Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds : That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. This, as I have said before, is from one of Shakespeare's earher plays. You will notice, in studying his works, that when Shakespeare was younger he very often used rhymed couplets, as in this extract, instead of blank verse. As he grew older he used rhyme less and less. In Hamlet and As You Like It, which he wrote about the middle of his life, there are few rhymes, except occasionally a couplet at the close of a scene ; in The Tempest and The Winter's Tale, which are among his latest plays, he almost altogether discarded rhymes. Hamlet v?, one of Shakespeare's grandest plays, — probably no other is so much acted, read, and studied as this one. It is difficult to select from a play which is so perfect as a whole ; but as an example of Shakespeare's wonderful humor, which could touch at the same time both tears and laughter, I have selected the scene in which two gravediggers are making a grave for Ophelia, who has gone mad, and in her 146 FAMILIAR TALKS madness was drowned. The two grave-diggers enter the churchyard, spatles in hand ; the first is a jolly old man who has been so long at his business that it is pure custom with him ; the second is younger, but less active in wit than his companion. The old man begins thus : — \st Clown. Is she to be buried in Christian burial that wilfully seeks her own salvation ? zd Clown. I tell thee she is : and therefore make her grave straight : the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial. \st Clown. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence ? 2d Clown. Why, 'tis found so. 1st Cloiun. It must be se offendendo , it cannot be else. For here lies the point : If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act : and an act hath three branches ; it is, to act, to do, and to perform : argal, she drowned herself wittingly. zd Clown. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver — 1st Clown. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good : here stands the man ; good : if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes, — mark you that ; but if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life. 2d Clown. I'ut is this law ? 1st Cloiun. Ay, marry, is't; crowner's (|uest law. 2d Clown. Will you ha' the truth on 't .-' If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out of Christian burial. ij-^ Clown. Why, there thou say'st : and the more pity that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang them- selves, more than their even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers : they hold up Adam's profession. 2d Clown. Was he a gentleman ? \st Clo-iun. He was the first that ever bore arms. 2d Clown. Why, he had none. \st Clown. What, art a heathen ? How dost thou understand the Scripture ? The Scripture says Adam digged : could he dig without arms ? I '11 put another question to thee ; if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself — 2d Clozun. Go to. \st Clown. What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter .'' 2d Cloivn. The gallows-makcr, for that frame outlives a thousand tenants. \st Clown. I like thy wit well, in good faith : the gallows does well; but how does it well > It docs well to those that do ill: now OiV ENGLISH LirERATURE. 1 47 thoa dost ill to say tlie gallows is built stronger than the church : argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To 't again, come. 2d Clown. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter .'' 1st Clown. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke. 2d Clown. Marry, now I can tell. 1st Clown. To 't. 2d Clown. Mass, I cannot tell. [Enter Havilet, the Prince off Denmark, and his friend Horatio, at a distance.^ isi Clown. Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating; and when you are asked this question next, say ■a. grave-maker. The houses that he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan ; fetch me a stoup of liquor. \2d Clown exit. 1st Clown [digs and sings] — In youth, when I did love, did love, Methought 't was very sweet To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove, O, methought, there was nothing meet. Hamlet. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making .'' Horatio. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness. Hamlet. 'T is e'en so : the hand of little employment hath the dain- tier sense. \st CloT.vn [sings\. — But age, with his .stealing steps, Hath claw'd me in his clutch. And hath shipped me intil the land, As if I had never been such. [Throws up a skull. Hamlet. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once : how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jawbone, that did the first murder ! It might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now overreaches ; one that would circumvent God, might it not .'' Horatio. It might, my lord. Hamlet. Or of a courtier ; which could say, " Good morrow, sweet lord ! How dost thou, good lord ? " This might be my lord sucha- one, that praised my lord such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not .-' Horatio. Ay, my lord. Hamlet. Why, e'en so; and now my Lady Worms; chaplcss, and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade : here 's fine revolu- tion, if we had the trick to see 't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with 'em .' Mine ache to think on't. . . . [Cloven tliro7vs uf) another skull. Hamlet. There 's another ! Why might not that be the skull of a lawyer.? Where be his quiddcts now, his quillets, his cases, his ten- ures, and his tricks ? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to 148 FAMILIAR TALKS knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in 's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries : is this the tine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt ? Will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures ? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more? ... 1 will speak to this fellow. [7b the C/cnoi.] Whose grave 's this, sir ? 1st Clown. Mine, sir. . . . Hamlet. I think it be thine indeed ; for thou liest in 't. \st Clown. You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in 't, and yet it is mine. . . . Hamlet. What man dost thou dig it for? ist Cloion. For no man, sir. Hamlet. What woman, then ? 1st Clown. For none, neither. Hamlet. Who is to be buried in 't ? 1st Clown. One that was a woman, sir ; but, rest her soul, she 's dead. Hamlet. How absolute the knave is 1 We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it ; the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe. . . . 1st Clo-vn \picking up a skull]. Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth three and twenty years. Hamlet. Whose was it? . . . 1st Chnvit. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue ! 'a poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester. Hamlet. This ! \st Clown. E'en that. Hamlet. Let me sec. [ Takes ike skull.] Alas, poor Yorick I I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy : he hath borne me on his back a thousand times ; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is ! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that 1 have kissed I know not how oft. Where be vour gibes now ? your gambols ? your songs? your flashes of merri- ment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own jeering? Quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her ])aint an inch thick, to this favor she must come ; make her laugh a't that. One needs to read over this scene many times to see how mnrh there is in it, — to detect all the wit, humor, pathos, and profound moralizing. ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. 1 49 The Te^npest is one of Shakespeare's very latest works. It is a play of magic and fairy, more so than any other, ex- cept A Midsummer Night's Dream. Prospero, the Duke of Milan, who has been banished to a distant island in the seas, has there pursued the study of magic, and has for his assistant a sprite of the air, the tricksy Ariel. By the aid of Ariel, Prospero has raised a violent storm, in which he has drawn the fleet of the king of Naples into an inlet of the isle. Among the attendants of the king, on board his ship, is the unworthy brother of Prospero, who usurped his dukedom and sent him adrift on the ocean with his daugh- ter to find a home on this lonely island. By his magic, Prospero succeeds in getting back his dukedom ; and the plays ends with a marriage between his daughter and the son of the king of Naples. This is a bald outline of the beautiful story, which is more interesting to us because Shakespeare wrote it just after reading an account of a strange shipwreck, on one of the Bermuda Isles, of an English vessel which was bound for the colony of Virginia ; so that it is in that way connected with our country. The scene which I quote is that in which Prospero, after raising the tempest, tells his daughter the story of their banishment from Milan. The scene is before the cell of Prospero. He enters with his daughter Miranda : — Miranda. If by your art, my dearest father, you have Put the wild waters in this roar, alLay them. The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, Dashes the fire out. Oh, I have suffered With those that I saw suffer : a brave vessel, Which had, no doubt, some noble creature in her. Dashed all to pieces. Oh, the cry did knock Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perished. Had I been any god of power, I would Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er It should the good ship so have swallowed and The franghting souls within her. Prospero. Be collected: No more amazement : tell your piteous heart There 's no harm done. Mira. Oh, woe the day ! Tros. No harm. I50 FAMILTAR TALK'S I have done nothing but in care of thee, Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing Of whence I am, nor that I am more better Than Trospero, master of a full poor cell, And thy no greater father. Mira. More to know Did never meddle with my thoughts. Pros. 'T is time I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand, And pluck my magic garment from me. So : Lie there, my art. Wipe thou thine eyes ; have comfort. \He lays doii'u his matt tic. The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touched The very virtue of compassion in thee, I have with such provision in mine art So safely ordered that there is no soul — No, not so much j^erdition as an hair. Betid to any creature in the vessel Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. Sit down, For now thou must know farther. Mira. You have often Begun to tell me what I am, but stopped And left me to a bootless inquisition, Concluding " Stay, not yet." Pros. The hour 's now come : The very minute bids thee ope thine car ; Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember A time before we came unto this cell .'' I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not Out three years old. Mira. Certainly, sir, I can. Pros. By what ? by any other house or person ? Of any thing the image tell me that Hath kept with thy remembrance. Mira. 'T is far off, And rather like a dream than an assurance That my remembrance warrants. Had I not Four or five women once that tended me ? Pros. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. l