Biography 
 
 Charles Whibley
 
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 THE PAGEANTRY OF LIFE 
 
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 BY 
 
 CHARLES WHIBLEY 
 
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 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY— I .... 3 
 
 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY— II .... 25 
 
 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY— III .... 52 
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 79 
 
 EDWARD HALL m 
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT .145 
 
 JOHN STOW— I 173 
 
 JOHN STOW— II 193 
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON .... 213 
 
 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 249 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 277
 
 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY
 
 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY— I 
 
 RISE AND FALL 
 
 THOMAS OVERBURY, whose haggard ghost 
 still walks in the secret places of the 
 Tower, was born a squire's son, in 158 1. He was 
 educated in grammar-learning at Compton-Scorfen 
 in Warwickshire, and at the age of fourteen 
 entered Queen's College, Oxford, as a gentleman 
 commoner. There he devoted himself to the study 
 of polite letters. He cultivated his brilliant talent with 
 assiduity, and when, in 1598, he took his degree by 
 right of birth, he had won the golden praises of his 
 contemporaries. A finished scholar, a poet of just 
 pretension, a wit whose fame far outran his years, 
 he left Oxford with high hopes of preferment, and, 
 like many another youth of promise, took up his 
 abode in the Temple — not to unravel the mysteries 
 of law, but to conquer London. For this conquest 
 an acquaintance with foreign countries was still 
 necessary, and Overbury for a while deserted the 
 tranquil courts of the Temple to learn what lessons 
 of elegance France and Italy might teach him. 
 The Grand Tour of Europe inculcated in his facile 
 nature a knowledge of the arts of life. But it was a 
 journey to Scotland, taken near the time of King
 
 4 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 James's coronation, that had the deepest influence 
 on his career. 
 
 *When Sir Thomas Overbury was a little past 
 twenty years old,' — it is thus that his father, Sir 
 Nicholas, told the tale many years afterwards, — 'he 
 and John Guilby, his father's chief clerk, were sent 
 (upon avovage of pleasure) to Edinburgh, with _^6o 
 between them. There Thomas met with Sir 
 William Cornwallis, one who knew him in Queen's 
 College at Oxford. Sir William commended him to 
 divers, and among the rest to Robin Carr, then page 
 to the Earl of Dunbar : so they two came along to 
 England together, and were great friends.'^ It is 
 easy to imagine the spirit of raillery with which 
 Overbury described the rough life and uncleanliness 
 of the Scottish capital : these were the common- 
 places of English travellers, and assuredly the young 
 Templar found them a whetstone for his merry wit. 
 But wit and raillery are as nothing if we set them 
 by the side of the meeting with Robin Carr, whose 
 rise to wealth and glory Overbury shared, and whose 
 ruin followed the disgrace and murder of his friend 
 with tragical swiftness. 
 
 ' In a manuscript in tlie British Museum is a set of notes to 
 which the following memorandum is affixed: 'that I, Nicholas 
 Oldisworth, who wrote this book, . . . did deliberately read it 
 over, on Thursday the IXth of Oct. 1637, in the hearing of my 
 old grandfather. Sir Nicholas Overbury, &c., who affirmed the 
 truth of its contents.' It is from these notes that I have cited 
 the testimony of Sir Nicholas Overbury.
 
 RISE AND FALL 5 
 
 'So they two came along to England together,' 
 and it was not long before they found at Court a 
 theatre worthy their design. Nor could any twain 
 be better fitted to play there a foremost part. The 
 talent of the one marvellously supplemented the 
 enterprise of the other. Carr was endowed with 
 the very genius of success. He was born for pro- 
 sperity and advancement. He had been bred in 
 France, and had there learned those tricks of 
 manner and address which win the favour of kings 
 and ministers. None possessed in larger measure 
 than he the tact of presentation. His handsome 
 face and stately figure were embellished by the 
 natural grace of his movements. He understood 
 the niceties of ruffs and frills. He showed an equal 
 taste in the cut of his doublet and in the colour 
 of his hose. In brief, he was master of all those 
 qualities which should easily endear him to the 
 wisest fool in Christendom. His deficiencies, 
 cunningly disguised, were as conspicuous as his 
 gifts. He had as little talent for affairs as for 
 scholarship. In any other Court, save that of 
 James, he would have remained a mere gentleman 
 of the household, and done his best to still the 
 voices of ambition and avarice. 
 
 So ill-educated was he, that at his first promotion 
 the king himself taught him Latin, thus flattering 
 his own vanity and ensuring the rapid triumph of his 
 pupil. His insensitive ear was never attuned to the 
 English speech, and he spoke broad Scots unto the
 
 6 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 end of his life. But his vivid temperament lifted 
 him high above his faults. He stood in need of one 
 thing only — a brain, and that was supplied him 
 by Thomas Overbury. Already the fame of the 
 young Templar had spread beyond the Inns of 
 Court. The friend of poets, he could boast of his 
 acquaintance to the young lavi^yers about him. 
 Early was he sealed of the tribe of Ben, and though 
 he presently fell out with that magnanimous tyrant 
 of letters, time was he lived with him on terms of 
 easy familiarity, ' Ben Jonson, the poet,' wrote 
 Manningham in his Diary in i6o2, *now lives upon 
 one Townsend, and scornes the world. So Over- 
 bury,' — a simple statement, which proves that the 
 Templar spoke with authority, even then, of his 
 mighty friend. 
 
 But it was not merely Overbury's culture that 
 stood Carr in good stead. Overbury's sense of 
 affairs and aptitude for politics were yet more 
 valuable to the favourite of the king. Well skilled 
 in the expedition of business, he was able to shield 
 the idle Carr from failure and detection. It was not 
 for him to play the sycophant ; his pride stood in the 
 way of that adventure ; it amused him vastly to aid 
 and abet the sycophancy of his ally. Pride, indeed, 
 was Overbury's dominant quality. Friends and foes 
 alike bear witness to his haughty temper, which 
 forbade him to stoop even to a king, and which 
 persuaded him, while he undervalued others, to 
 overvalue himself. Bacon, in throwing discredit
 
 RISE AND FALL 7 
 
 upon him, says that he was 'of an insolent and 
 thrasonical disposition,' and Aubrey's gossip goes 
 beyond the censure of the King's Attorney. ' Old 
 Sir Robert Harley of Brampton-Brian,' he wrote, 
 ' would say 'twas a great question who was the 
 proudest. Sir Walter Raleigh or Sir Thomas Over- 
 bury, but the difference that was was judged on Sir 
 Thomas's side,' and the mere coupling of the two 
 names is the highest possible tribute to Overbury's 
 arrogance. 
 
 And Overbury was at no pains to conceal his 
 sense of superiority. He had learned from Ben 
 Jonson, together with a fine taste in poetry, the 
 fatal lesson that it was better to lose a friend than a 
 jest, and not a few men and women at Court were 
 scarred by his mordant tongue. Moreover, there 
 went with his insolence that cynicism that is bred of 
 contempt. He put but a light value upon human 
 morals and human intelligence. A set of maxims, 
 ascribed to him, and published after his death, 
 sufficiently explain the philosophy of his life. Every 
 man, he held, is weak in his own humours, and a 
 little beyond himself is a fool. The loves of men 
 were for him their afflictions. Titles of honour, 
 he thought, were no better than rattles to still 
 ambition ; and he put down man, woman, and the 
 devil, as the three degrees of comparison. It is not 
 strange, therefore, that, looking down from this 
 altitude of scorn, he made for himself an eager 
 band of enemies, and that when he tumbled from
 
 8 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 his high estate few friends were found to break his 
 fall. 
 
 The alliance knit between Carr and Overbury 
 seemed at the outset irresistible, and the society 
 in which they lived eagerly ministered to their 
 ambitions. A sudden change had overtaken the 
 English capital. With the death of Elizabeth had 
 died the spirit of austerity and empire which had 
 placed upon her reign the laurel wreath of renown. 
 London was packed with an eager crowd of 
 adventurers, resolved to succeed by the easy paths of 
 flattery and chicane. Money was the universal 
 quest, and those who sought it cared little what 
 means they used. When the name of * beggarly 
 Scots' was thrown at the favourites of James I., 
 ' Content yourselves,' he cried, ' I will soon make 
 the English as beggarly as you, and so end that 
 controversy.' A vulgar magnificence, a squalid 
 recklessness, seemed the proper end and aim of life. 
 The chain of tradition was snapped in twain, and 
 whatever was new seemed praiseworthy for no better 
 reason than that it was new. The upstarts about 
 the Court flung away their easily gathered gains 
 with a careless hand ; they shod their horses with 
 silver ; they hung precious jewels about their necks, 
 thinking to please their monarch by an ill-bred 
 extravagance of attire. Those who missed their 
 mark, and incurring vast expense found not where- 
 withal to discharge their debts, formed themselves 
 into sects of Roaring Boys, Bonaventers, and
 
 RISE AND FALL 9 
 
 Bravados, who were no better than highwaymen, 
 and who plundered the peaceful citizens with so 
 shameful an effrontery and with so small a chance of 
 punishment, that after nine at night scarce any durst 
 walk the streets. Gulls and gallants brawled in 
 taverns, dicing-houses, and ordinaries, and, as an eye- 
 witness said, there were *as many ways to spend 
 money as the windings and turnings in towns and 
 streets.' It was, moreover, the first and general 
 article of faith that all difficulties might be resolved 
 by witchcraft. Sorcerers were ready at a word to 
 cast spells or fling figures, and it is characteristic of 
 the time that when Sir Edward Coke examined in 
 court the papers of Simon Forman, he found his 
 wife's name at the head of the necromancer's list. 
 Yet, ' like a fool that laughs when he is putting on 
 her fetters,' London was merry in the height of her 
 misfortunes, and of this sinister merriment none had 
 a greater share than Overbury. 
 
 The gaiety of his temper was a pleasant contrast 
 to Carr's more sombre ambition. He turned to 
 scorn the serious things of statecraft, and he fitted 
 the gravest of the Ministers with nicknames of 
 contempt. Once upon a time, at Greenwich, his 
 humour led him into disgrace. He and Carr were 
 walking in the garden, and the queen, espying them, 
 said, 'There goes Carr and his governor.' Presently 
 Overbury laughed, and the queen, thinking that he 
 laughed at her, had him committed to jail. For 
 whistling in the presence of Marie Antoinette, a
 
 10 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 hapless Frenchman passed forty years cloistered in 
 a 77iaison de sante. Overbury was more fortunate. 
 He swore that he did but laugh at a jest of the 
 king's, and was instantly set at liberty. The queen, 
 forced to forgive, did not forget, and presently made 
 the affront, in which she still believed, one excuse 
 for his ruin. But for Overbury life, death, and the 
 State were food for laughter, and he laughed though 
 the shadow of the Tower hung over him. And, if 
 we may believe the voice of adulation, he taught the 
 king and his favourites to think as well as to laugh. 
 He carried to the Court the appreciation of poetry 
 and the trick of criticism, which he had picked up 
 from Ben Jonson and his compeers in the taverns ot 
 Fleet Street. Before he became his mortal enemy, 
 Jonson dedicated some lines to Overbury, in which 
 praise outran even the behests of friendship. ' I 
 think,' he wrote — 
 
 ' I think, the fate of court thy coming craved, 
 That the wit there and manners might be sav'd : 
 For since what ignorance, what pride Is fled ! 
 And letters, and humanity in the stead ! ' 
 
 But whatever the Court craved, Overbury's real 
 purpose in coming thither was to be in earnest, what 
 the queen called him in jest, Carr's governor. He 
 wrote the letters for which the young Scot got 
 credit ; he despatched the business which the 
 courtier whose fortunes he followed was powerless to 
 despatch. And Carr's fortune was indeed worth 
 following. From the day when, in the king's
 
 RISE AND FALL ii 
 
 presence, he rode in the tiltyard with Lord Dingwall 
 and fell under his horse, his progress was ominously- 
 rapid. James's solicitude drew all men to the 
 minion's side. All the great ones of the nation 
 flocked to see him. Henceforth to win his favour 
 was the first step on the road of ambition, and as in 
 those days nothing was achieved that was not paid 
 for, few men obtained any office in Court or Parlia- 
 ment without paying toll to Carr. And from the 
 very outset Overbury played Phintias to Carr's 
 Damon. He shared his influence and emoluments, 
 as was but just, since, united, the two men were all- 
 powerful, divided they would have been naught. 
 His father was made a judge at the son's demand, 
 and there were those who did not disdain to pay 
 obeisance to the fiither that they might win the 
 favour of the son. Sir Nicholas, indeed, did himself 
 confess 'that Sir Fran. Bacon used heretofore to 
 stoop and crouch to Sir Tho. Overbury, in hope of 
 Carr's favour to be Master of the Court of Wards : 
 for which place he offered much ; and Sir Thomas 
 his father might once have had ;^iooo if he would 
 have spoken effectually to his son. But Sir Thomas 
 knew Bacon to be corrupt.' 
 
 What a dark picture is here painted of bribery and 
 intrigue ! Bacon stooped and crouched, though not 
 for long, and then took a bitter revenge upon 
 Overbury, whose favour he had asked in vain. Sir 
 Thomas knew him to be corrupt, and doubtless 
 Bacon well remembered the rejection of his suit
 
 12 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 when, as King's Attorney, he prosecuted Sir 
 Thomas's murderer. 'Overbury,' said he, 'was 
 naught and corrupt ; the ballads must be mended for 
 that point,' Thus by chance the two men imputed 
 to one another the same vice, and both were in the 
 right of it. For a while, however, the adventurers, 
 Carr and Overbury, suffered no check, and looked 
 upon the great affairs of which they had the conduct 
 as a profitable joke. ' They made a play of all the 
 world besides themselves,' said an enemy, ' so as they 
 had cyphers and jargons for the king and queen and 
 the great men of the realm.' From Carr no matter of 
 State was concealed by his doting master, and Carr 
 hastened to reveal all the mysteries of the council 
 chamber to his eager friend. Is it strange, then, 
 that their arrogance increased, that they believed 
 themselves the sole repositories of the king's power 
 and the king's favour ? Of the two Overbury's 
 position seemed the stronger. He enjoyed influence 
 without responsibility, and firm in the conviction 
 of his intellectual superiority, he thought he had 
 Carr's head under his girdle, since Carr had never 
 scrupled to betray to him the secrets of State, or, as 
 he called them in his pleasant jargon, ' the secrets 
 of nature.' 
 
 The king rewarded them for the services he 
 supposed they had rendered him after his kind. 
 Carr was first knighted, then made Viscount 
 Rochester, was presently appointed private secretary 
 to his majesty, and received the Garter. Overbury
 
 RISE AND FALL 13 
 
 was granted the honour of knighthood in 1608, 
 a year later than his friend, and obtained the office 
 of Sewer to the King. His father, with the pride of 
 memory and old age, treasured up a story of this 
 office whose pointlessness is its point. ' When Sir 
 Thomas was made Sewer to the King,' said he, ' his 
 Majesty walking in the privy garden, showed him to 
 the Queen, saying, Look you, this is my new Sewer ; 
 and Queen Anne answered, 'Tis a pretty young 
 fellow.' The pretty young fellow had died in misery 
 and disgrace five and twenty years before the trivial 
 tale was told, and the father could still look back 
 proudly and without anger at his son's superb career. 
 If he lacked Sir Thomas's humour, he had a fair share 
 of his haughty spirit. He could even take pleasure 
 in the reflected glory which shone about his own 
 head. 'Himself,' said he, 'being of the Middle 
 Temple, was often pointed at by way of honour in 
 the streets : There goes Sir Tho. Overbury's 
 father.' 
 
 The lofty humbleness of this confession not merely 
 proves the amiable temper of Sir Nicholas, but 
 shows to what a pinnacle of power and notoriety 
 Sir Thomas had attained. From this pinnacle he 
 was thrust with a suddenness which, if it appalled, 
 should not, as it did, have surprised him. His shrewd 
 intelligence might long before have recognised the 
 truth that he who rises by fortune, falls by fortune. 
 He had gratified a vaulting ambition not by the 
 exercise of his own conspicuous talent, but by taking
 
 14 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 advantage of the shifts and chances which perplex 
 the life of a courtier. Nevertheless, he did not 
 expect ruin, least of all from that quarter of the sky 
 whence it was hurled upon him like a thunderbolt. 
 At any rate, he believed the friendship of Rochester 
 secure, and overlooked in that security the vengeful 
 cunning of such a woman as rarely disturbs the 
 course of history. 
 
 In 1606, Frances Howard, a Messalina in temper, 
 if not in enterprise, was married to the Earl of Essex 
 with all the pomp and splendour that belonged to the 
 time. James smiled approval on the union. Ben 
 Jonson, with the aid of Inigo Jones, devised the 
 finest masque that ever had been seen at Court. 
 Though the bride was thirteen, the bridegroom but 
 a year older, the marriage seemed to be made under 
 the happiest auspices and with the best hopes of 
 felicity. The children parted, and some five years 
 later returned to Court, still children, as we should 
 account them to-day. But no sooner had Lady Essex 
 beheld her husband again than she refused to live 
 with him. He neither flattered her eye nor 
 ministered to her ambition. Determined to rid 
 herself of an encumbrance at all costs, she followed 
 the habit of her age and consulted the sorcerers. 
 And first of all she asks counsel of Mistress Turner, 
 ' sweet Turner ' she calls her, a monster of profligacy, 
 from whom the art of science and poisoning held no 
 secrets. The widow of a disreputable doctor, she 
 had been bred to a knowledge of drugs and magic,
 
 RISE AND FALL 15 
 
 and she was ready for any enterprise which would 
 bring her fame and profit. By a strange perversity 
 she was of a haunting beauty. 'It seemed that she 
 had been some gentle dame,' says the poet of 
 ' Overbury's Vision,' who praises most eloquently 
 her crystal eye, her ivory brow, her globe-like head, 
 her hair like threads of gold ; indeed it is clear that, 
 with all her crimes, she had not forgotten the 
 practical value of coquetry and display. She it was 
 who first set the fashion of stiffening with yellow 
 starch the frills and ruffs then worn, a fashion 
 presently killed by the scandal of her life and 
 death. 
 
 Such was the woman into whose hands Lady 
 Essex wilfully confided her destiny, and Mistress 
 Turner did not fall below the occasion. Calling in 
 the aid of Simon Forman, whom Antony a Wood 
 calls 'a very able astrologer and physician,' and whom 
 others knew by worse names, she set herself by the 
 black arts of sorcery to do the bidding of Lady Essex. 
 And first by her enchantments she must alienate 
 Essex from his wife and so bewitch him out of his 
 manhood. To this end she bade Forman make 
 many pictures of wax, crosses, and other uncouth 
 things, and at last the couple seemed to achieve their 
 purpose by sticking a thorn from a tree that bore no 
 leaves into a waxen image. Meanwhile Lady Essex 
 had fallen in love with Rochester, at the encourage- 
 ment of her kinsman. Lord Northampton, the most 
 sinister figure in a sinister age, and either by the
 
 i6 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 magic of Mistress Turner or by her own charm had 
 inspired him with a passion as violent as her own. 
 
 To Northampton, an ancient courtier, who 
 thought no villany incompatible with his rank, 
 and whose hands had long been stained with Spanish 
 gold, the intrigue promised nothing but advantage. 
 Its success would bind Rochester to him with the 
 bonds of gratitude, and at the same time might 
 remove from his path the dangerous rival that 
 Overbury was fast becoming. Therefore he set no 
 hindrance in the path of the lovers, and so well did 
 his plot prosper that nothing but an annulment of 
 the former marriage and a legal union would please 
 either Rochester or the Lady Essex. Overbury 
 behaved himself with the honesty and indiscretion 
 which he had never been at the pains to check. So 
 long as the intrigue remained an intrigue, he uttered 
 no protest. When he saw his friend drifting to the 
 hapless marriage which a divorce would make 
 possible, he did what he could with speech and pen 
 to save him from the pit. With all his eloquence 
 he urged him not to cast away his honour and glory 
 on a woman ; he told him roundly that he might 
 expect no better requital at her hands than she had 
 shown her husband ; and when Rochester answered 
 him harshly, he gave him back angry word for angry 
 word, demanding at last what portion of money was 
 due to him, and declaring that he would no longer 
 endure his quarrels and insults. 
 
 He did more than this. With a simplicity of
 
 RISE AND FALL 17 
 
 mind admirable and unexpected, he attempted to turn 
 Rochester aside from his purpose by writing the 
 poem — 'A Wife' — which with his ' Characters ' is 
 his best title to literary fame. His father's evidence 
 is clear enough on the point. ' Sir Thomas,' says he, 
 'wrote his poem called "A Wife" to induce 
 Viscount Rochester to make a better choice than 
 of the divorced Countess.' So little it seems to 
 achieve so much ! It is like attempting to stem a 
 torrent with a withered leaf. Nevertheless, the 
 poem, published after Overbury's death, with many 
 sets of commendatory verses, the best of them from 
 the hand of John Ford, in which poets and 
 Templars conspired to do him honour, is packed 
 with good, sound commonplace. The poet asks of 
 a perfect wife neither birth nor beauty. As to 
 portion, ' nor will I shun,' says he, 'nor my aim it 
 make.' Indeed, ' rather than these the object of my 
 love,' he writes, 
 
 ' Let it be good ; when these with virtues go, 
 They (in themselves indifferent) virtues prove, 
 For good, like fire, turns all things to be so. 
 God's image in her soul, O let me place 
 My love upon ! not Adam's in her face.' 
 
 It is, in truth a prudent rather than a lofty view 
 of matrimony that Overbury expounds. Though 
 he gives the best advice he can to his friend, he is 
 no idealist. He asks understanding, not knowledge, 
 of a woman. 'Domestic charge,' he is sure, 'doth 
 
 B
 
 i8 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 best befit that sex,' and he would grant it neither 
 leisure nor books. Learning he deplores : 
 
 ' Learning and pregnant wit in womankind 
 What it finds malleable makes frail, 
 And doth not add more ballast, but more sail.' 
 
 Above all, of woman's frailty he holds a harsh 
 opinion. She is to blame, he thinks, who has been 
 tried without consent. ' He comes too near,' he 
 says in the best-known line, ' who comes to be 
 denied.' For the rest the poem may boast a kind of 
 epigrammatic elegance. It suggests Donne at a 
 discreet distance and in an interval of studied plain- 
 ness. It presents the complete antithesis of the 
 society in which its author lived, and if it be sincere 
 it throws a strange cross-light upon a wayward 
 character. That Overbury thought well enough of 
 it to wish it brought before the woman he loved, we 
 are assured by Ben Jonson. ' The Countess of 
 Rutland was nothing inferior to her father, Sir P. 
 Sidney, in poesie,' Jonson told Hawthornden. 
 ' Sir Thomas Overbury was in love with her, and 
 caused Ben to read his " Wife " to her, which he with 
 an excellent grace did, and praised the author. The 
 morn thereafter he discorded with Overbury, who 
 would have him intend a suit that was unlawful. The 
 lines the lady kept in remembrance : " He comes too 
 near who comes to be denied." ' 
 
 'Tis a strange story this of Overbury's love for 
 the Countess of Rutland and of his sending so un-
 
 RISE AND FALL 19 
 
 couth a ruffler as Ben Jonson on an embassy of 
 adoration. But in the dark tragedy of Overbury's 
 life it is a mere interlude. If the poem were read to 
 Sir Philip Sidney's daughter, who was well able to 
 appreciate its beauties, it was read also to the 
 Moabitish woman who was filling the Court with 
 evil thoughts and the promise of evil deeds. Lady 
 Essex took fire at the simple verses, which she 
 thought designed to rob her of Rochester's affection. 
 As before she had been intent to bewitch Essex, 
 so she was now resolved upon the ruin and murder 
 of Overbury. Not only had he written a persuasive 
 poem — he had done far worse than that ; he had 
 taxed her with a name of plain Saxon sound, which 
 is not acceptable to polite ears. Up and down she 
 denounced him, calling him 'that negro, that scum 
 of men, that devil incarnate.' Her first plan was to 
 hire a ruffian to kill him outright, or with the mere 
 pretence of a duel ; and the ruffian she elected to 
 do her bidding was Sir David Wood, whom Sir 
 Nicholas Overbury calls ' a boisterous and atheisti- 
 cal soldier.' 
 
 The plot was made, the amount of blood-money 
 agreed upon, and then the wayward Countess 
 changed her mind. Her enemy should be removed 
 by a more subtle contrivance, and again she sought 
 the aid of her familiar friend, Mistress Turner. 
 For this queen of poisoners to think was to act. 
 The means and the instrument were speedily 
 devised. There was one Weston, a rope-ripe
 
 20 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 scoundrel who shrank from no crime, and was bold 
 to encounter the last danger. Once a servant of 
 Dr. Turner, he also well understood the practices, 
 and was eager to obey the behests, of the sorceress. 
 His outward look betrayed the cold cruelty of his 
 temper. A meagre fellow, with a bloodless face 
 pallid as death and a grisled beard, he was cast by 
 nature for the part he was called to play. His price 
 was more modest than his intent, and he promised 
 that he would put Sir Thomas out of the way for a 
 poor ;^200. There remained only to appoint to the 
 Tower a governor pliant and sympathetic, and to find 
 a good excuse for sending the victim thither a close 
 prisoner. The plan was less hazardous than it 
 appears to-day. Few obstacles lay in the path of 
 Rochester and Northampton. Their baleful influ- 
 ence was enough to drive Sir Thomas Waad, an 
 honourable gentleman, from his office, and to 
 replace him in the governorship of the Tower by 
 Sir Gervase Helwes, a grave and trusted friend of 
 the conspirators. 
 
 The arrest of Sir Thomas was a masterpiece of 
 calculated treachery, in which the king himself 
 most certainly had a hand. With all the pomp and 
 circumstance of honour, an embassy was proposed 
 to Ovcrbury. He could go, as a free choice led 
 him, either to France, where the Ambassador was 
 soon to be changed, or to the Archduke's Court, 
 where the office was even now vacant. The 
 proposal might well have flattered an older and
 
 RISE AND FALL 21 
 
 more distinguished man than he. But life at Court 
 had thrown its spell upon him, and made him loth 
 to leave his friends, or to lose in foreign exile the 
 chance of a higher preferment at home. Even in 
 this matter a solace was given to his ambition. If 
 he would accept the mission, he was promised the 
 Treasurership of the Chamber on the death of my 
 Lord Stanhope. Still he hesitated, and at last took 
 the fatal step of consulting Rochester. The 
 favourite outwardly amiable, yet now resolved upon 
 the ruin of Overbury, gave him the advice of a false 
 friend. Reject the offer, said he in effect, and 
 stay at home. Overbury, blinded by pride, did as 
 Rochester bade him. He refused to go abroad, and 
 his answer was interpreted by the Council as ' preg- 
 nant of contempt.' 
 
 In excuse for Overbury it may be said that he 
 was ignorant of the conspiracy which had been 
 made against him. The plot had been framed with 
 so profound a secrecy that even Sir Henry Wotton, 
 an accomplished man of affairs, knew not ' whether 
 this were done without the participation of my 
 Lord of Rochester,' and the bird is always the last 
 to see the fowler's net spread before him. By this 
 time too, as I have said, Overbury was friendless 
 and alone. King and Court were alike weary of 
 him and his bitter tongue. The parasites of the 
 favourite had long been irked by the too stiff 
 carriage of his fortune. James himself was deter- 
 mined to be rid of this turbulent counsellor, not
 
 22 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 merely for his own sake but for the sake of 
 Rochester. He had not forgotten 'the scandalous 
 offence of the Queen at Greenwich, which was 
 never but a palliated case,' and it was commonly 
 rumoured that Sir Thomas Overbury had vented 
 some stinging sarcasms upon the Court, which 
 came to the king's hearing. So great an evil is a 
 sharp and thoughtless wit. The many jests, which, 
 when Sir Thomas spoke them, had raised a laugh, 
 were now remembered to the discredit of the falling 
 star. Northampton, too, had his reasons, and very 
 cogent ones, for wishing the ruin of Overbury. 
 Old in years, he was yet young in hope ; nor could 
 he easily forgive the slur that had been thrown upon 
 Lady Essex, his kinswoman and a Howard. 
 
 As for Lady Essex, her acrimony needs no 
 explanation. How could she do other than hate 
 the man who had scorned her pretensions and cast 
 a slur upon her honour ? And Rochester, now 
 confident that he could stand alone, made no 
 scruple of kicking down the man upon whose 
 intelligence he had climbed to power. Resentment, 
 rather than gratitude, is the common reward of 
 unrequited service, and Overbury did but pay the 
 debt exacted of those who in making the career of 
 others foolishly believe themselves indispensable. 
 There was another reason, also, why Rochester had 
 turned him from love to hatred. Overbury was the 
 repository of all his secrets. No intrigue, no disrepu- 
 table bargain had been hidden from the favourite's
 
 RISE AND FALL 23 
 
 Governor. One or other of them, then, must die, 
 and Rochester was resolved that his should not be 
 the blood that was spilt. 
 
 Thus the trap was set ; thus the victim was 
 snared. Overbury disdained the ambassage, and his 
 disdain, as one of the craft said, was thought 'an 
 eternal disgrace to their occupation.' The king, in 
 ignorance of the baleful part played by Rochester, 
 ordered Overbury's arrest, and on 2ist April 1613 
 he was ' from the council chamber conveyed by a 
 clerk of the council and two of the guard to the 
 Tower, and there by warrant consigned to the 
 lieutenant as a close prisoner.' Sir Henry Wotton, 
 who has left us an account of this memorable 
 episode, describes it as 'both by the suddenness like 
 a stroke of thunder, and more by the quality and 
 relation of the persons, breathing in the beholders 
 (whereof by chance I was one) very much amaze- 
 ment.' And upon none did the thunderclap come 
 more suddenly than upon Overbury himself. He 
 stood in the second degree of power at Court ; only 
 Rochester was above him ; and two hours before the 
 catastrophe he had described himself as ' never 
 better than at the present of his own fortunes and 
 ends.' 
 
 And when he was gone, one wonder possessed all 
 the world. Had Rochester a hand in it ? That 
 was the question murmured on every side. If the 
 arrest were made without Rochester's knowledge, 
 said the gossips, then we must expect of himself
 
 24 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 either a decadence or a ruin. If he were participant 
 in the affair, then was the future dark indeed. 
 To Sir Henry Wotton's optimism a few days seemed 
 sufficient to clear the doubts away. Two weary 
 years were to pass before any light was cast upon 
 the sinister drama of poison and death. In the 
 meantime, said Wotton, * I dare pronounce of Sir 
 Thomas Overbury, that he shall return no more to 
 this stage.' Here the ambassador was in the right 
 of it. Sir Thomas Overbury returned to this stage 
 no more. The Court was governed by no new 
 philosophy, and the old principles would not bear 
 his restoration. Thus the gates of the Tower were 
 shut upon the hapless prisoner, for whom nothing 
 was left, as we shall see, but desertion, torture, and 
 a creeping death.
 
 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY— II 
 IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH 
 
 NO sooner was Sir Thomas Overbury safely- 
 locked up in the Tower, no sooner was the 
 inflexible Sir Thomas Waad replaced by the greedy, 
 complaisant Sir Gervase Helwes, than the hapless 
 man's enemies began to devise their dark and dismal 
 plot for his destruction. Once more Mrs. Turner, 
 ' the lay-mistress of the poisons,' was summoned to 
 weave her spells. Though Forman, her ancient ally 
 and gossip, was dead, she found in Thomas Franklin 
 of Tower Hill an instrument yet readier to her hand. 
 Now, Franklin was monstrous alike in fame and face. 
 He looked ill-favouredly as though he could raise 
 a devil. Withal he was not without a certain vanity. 
 He took a pride in his ruddy beard, and he grew 
 a wanton curl, which fell upon his back, and which 
 he called his ' elf-lock.' It was the only elfish thing 
 about him. For the rest he was a ruthless sorcerer, 
 so well skilled in the compounding of powders, that 
 he could hasten or protract the death of his victim 
 as he would. To a contemporary he 'appeared to 
 have been a professed atheist, drenched with disease 
 both bones and marrow, and to have poisoned his 
 own wife.' And this was 'the groom who had
 
 26 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 access to the Countess's bed-chamber at all hours, 
 though she was in bed.' 
 
 Such were the plotters. The plot was worthy of 
 them. Mrs. Turner and Franklin procured the 
 drugs, Weston, the suborned jailer, administered 
 them, and the Countess eagerly paid the bill. Many 
 were the poisons they employed, at first without 
 effect — roscetre, arsenic, and mercury sublimate. 
 These failing, the Countess bade Franklin purchase 
 some powder of diamonds, and gave him four angels 
 to that end, which, said he, to him proved to be 
 four devils. Sometimes the poison was concealed in 
 tarts, sometimes in jellies, sent to the captive by 
 sympathetic friends without. As the days passed, 
 the conspirators grew in courage and recklessness. 
 ^ I was bid to tell you,' wrote Lady Essex to Helwes, 
 ' that in the tarts and jellies there are letters^ but in 
 the wine none. And of that you may take your- 
 self, and give your wife and children ; but of the 
 other not. Give him these tarts and jelly this night, 
 and all shall be well.' It seems that letters signified 
 poison, and so thin was the word of disguise that it 
 was scarcely worth using. 
 
 To Lady Essex, Lord Northampton, and other 
 sharers in the plot, Overbury was known as *■ the 
 scab,' and openly discussed. ' This scab,' said Sir 
 Gervase, ' is like the fox, who the more he is cursed 
 the better he fareth ' ; and so well did Sir Thomas 
 fare that for awhile his strength baffled all the evil 
 designs of his enemies. Either he was proof against
 
 IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH 27 
 
 poison, or the aurum potabile which he took as an 
 antidote saved him from death. At any rate, he 
 lingered on alive in his prison, until Weston was 
 roundly told that he would get no more pay until 
 Overbury was dead. ' 1 have already given him as 
 many poisons,' he retorted, ' as would poison twelve 
 men.' 
 
 While the wizard and sorceress were doing their 
 utmost to compass his ruin, Overbury was not idle 
 in the Tower. There he sate in his chamber and 
 wrote letters to his family, and to those whom he 
 vainly thought were his friends. Silence would have 
 profited him better, and he was not without warning. 
 * As you love me, burn this,' wrote his brother-in- 
 law Lydcote, 'and forbear writing all you can,Tor 
 it never was so dangerous.' Alas ! he could not 
 forbear. Condemned to inaction, stripped of com- 
 panions, he found his only solace in writing, and his 
 indiscretion will appear the less if we remember that 
 he knew not what was being contrived against him, 
 nor that his former friends were most eagerly bent 
 upon his death. A bundle of his letters, still pre- 
 served, marks the sad progress of his tragedy. There 
 is not a line of them all that is not written in agony 
 and distress. As you read them you seem to be 
 looking over the dying man's shoulder, as his 
 shaking hand pens the bitter words. 'Good my 
 Lord,' he says in one place, ' excuse my blotting by 
 reason of my weakness at this time.' It is the last 
 expression of pathos, and hard, indeed, must have
 
 28 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 been the hearts of those who read, and who, having 
 read, left a gallant gentleman to die, whose worse 
 faults were pride and indiscretion. 
 
 At the outset he enjoins cunning and secrecy 
 upon his friends, and shows something of his ancient 
 spirit in devising nicknames for those whose aid he 
 entreats. ' Look well to your seals and mine,' he 
 writes, 'and mark them well. My letter yesterday 
 was sealed with soft wax ill-favouredly three seals ; 
 this is sealed with hard wax and my little seal. 
 Never write but upon some hope coming, then 
 darkly and shortly. Call Rochester hereafter Similis, 
 because he is like Henry VUI. ; call the King Julius, 
 Remember these two changes. Call Pembroke 
 Niger.' With the eloquence of despair he implores 
 that he may be sent into the country to save his life, 
 ' for,' he tells Rochester, ' 'tis not the close air but the 
 apprehension of the place that hurts me.' Again 
 and again he lifts up his voice to the same purport. 
 ' If you leave me here,' he writes to Rochester, ' I 
 shall never see you more, and that I fear my enemies 
 understand well enough, and hope so to come by my 
 office, but do not you be accessory to my death, 
 though you could not conceive my body should have 
 over-lived thus much.' 
 
 Then he promises that if ever he be restored he 
 will never engage in faction again, and still believing 
 Rochester his ally, prays him to use his influence 
 with the king. ' Thursday is a month close 
 prisoner ! ' he exclaims. 'Since the reason he keeps
 
 IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH 29 
 
 me close so long is to try all ways upon you alone, 
 whether he can work your consent to a separation, 
 for after the doors are open, then he thinks we will 
 mingle thoughts again. . . . Therefore lose no hour 
 to declare your resolution that God forsake you if 
 ever you forsake me for any hope or fear. . . . For 
 me I shall be reformed according to his instructions, 
 never to transgress, which he cannot but accept.' 
 And if all this fail, he adjures Rochester, feigning 
 illness, not to recover till he be out, and to be so 
 dangerously sick that he much desires to speak with 
 him before he dies, or to fall in talk about him at 
 Windsor, that the king may know his suffering 
 and his loyalty. Weston, the cynical jailer, well 
 knew the vanity of his purpose. 'They say Sir 
 Thomas Overbury hath wit,' this he confided to 
 a friend, ' but I think he is not so wise as the world 
 takes him to be, for he sues only to my Lord of 
 Rochester to get him his liberty, and I know that 
 Lord does but mock him, and means never to effect 
 it for him.' Scrupulously he hid the truth from his 
 victim, and every line that Overbury writes proves 
 his complete ignorance of what was done outside the 
 walls of the Tower. He was punished, he thought, 
 for the jealousy of the king, who brooked not, it 
 should be said, that he ruled Rochester and 
 Rochester the king, or for the malice of those 
 who were angry that he should have made a stranger 
 so great an actor in the State. 
 
 Thus, emboldened by his faith in a dead friendship.
 
 30 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 he demands not merely enlargement but a warranty 
 that he shall not go abroad. If the king would 
 have him go overseas for two or three months, the 
 answer to that is, ' that nothing helps the spleen so 
 much as our native air, and foreign, though better, 
 hurts it.' He gravely cites the case of Mr, Burges, 
 the famous preacher, who ' having the spleen though 
 otherwise of a strong body, was fain to leave his 
 charge at The Hague, only to come to London, his 
 native air, for the ease of his sickness,' and he de- 
 clares that he himself ' whiles he was abroad was 
 never well one hour, as Mayerne knew, which made 
 him return so soon.' This, then, is the constant 
 burden of his prayer : obtain the king's forgiveness, 
 let him know ' the intent of my letter both before 
 and now, which was to desire his pardon, that my 
 heart was far from offending him.' And to all his 
 plaints and prayers he receives no answer but deceits, 
 no hope but promises made to be broken. 
 
 And then the agony of increasing sickness drives 
 him to despair. 'This morning,' he writes, 'not- 
 withstanding my fasting all day yesterday I find 
 a great heat continue in all my body and the same 
 desire of drink and loathing of meat.' He is con- 
 sumed with heat ; he can endure no clothes on him ; 
 his thirst is unquenchable. 'This distemper,' he 
 writes, 'contrary to my constitution, makes me fear 
 some fever at the last, and such disease, meeting 
 with so weak a body, will quickly I doubt end it, 
 and in truth I never liked myself worse.' He feels
 
 IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH 31 
 
 that his end approaches, and demands that he may 
 have leave to go to his ovi'n chamber after nine 
 o'clock this very night, in the Lieutenant's carriage, 
 unknovv^n and unseen. Then by neglect the first of 
 many threats is vi^rung from him : 'This is my last 
 request to you, which if you will deny me you will 
 tempt me far.' Still not a word of help ; still either 
 contemptuous silence or a subtle treachery. One 
 more attempt he makes to move Rochester's pity 
 and to invoke their ancient friendship. * My fever 
 grows so upon me anew,' he exclaims, ' that by God 
 if you leave me here a week longer, I think I shall 
 never see you more, for the fever will never leave me 
 while I am here.' Full well did Rochester know 
 that he would never see him again. He was deaf to 
 threat and entreaty alike. Why should he fear the 
 enmity of one whose words he confidently believed 
 would never reach the eye or ear of king or friend ? 
 So Overbury grew daily worse and worse. His 
 hand is weak, and he writes in much pain. There is 
 not a letter, to friend or foe, which does not prove 
 his agony and distress. Then a few broken words 
 come as a cry from the heart : ' I was let blood 
 Wednesday ten o'clock, to the Friday morning my 
 heat slackens not ; my thirstiness the same, the same 
 loathing of meat, having eat not a bit since Thursday 
 was sennight to this hour, the same seworring and 
 vomiting, for yesternight about eight o'clock after 
 Mr. Mayerne was gone I fainted and vomited : the 
 very same dryness . . .' Then it ceases suddenly.
 
 32 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 as though the poor wretch's strength failed it, and 
 the words, which might have melted a stone, did 
 but increase the vengeance of Rochester and the 
 cunning treachery of Northampton. 
 
 The fever which destroyed his body broke his 
 pride, and in this tragedy of blood and tears there is 
 no episode so grimly tragical as the proud man's 
 surrender of his arrogance. He who had stooped to 
 no man now fell upon his knees in abject supplication 
 to Lord Suffolk, who had promised his mediation 
 with the king. 'If it would please your Lordship,' 
 he writes, * to add again your Lordship's hand, to 
 perfect this work so successfully begun,' — there is 
 a great irony in these words — 'and to be a means 
 first for my present liberty and after for the recovery 
 of his Majesty's favour, I protest before the living 
 God I will ever hereafter be as faithful to you as 
 your Lordship's own heart, and when 1 digress from 
 this protestation let this letter be a testimony to 
 convince me of dishonesty to all the world.' 
 
 He is still but weak, he says, 'which will make 
 the benefit for his liberty more precious'; yet the 
 very thought of Suffolk's intercession cheers his 
 mind. For a while his letters assume a tone of 
 sanguine humility which is doubly sad — sad because 
 it implies a wavering spirit, sad also because it was 
 unrequited. In his buoyancy he promises Suffolk 
 the friendship of Rochester, which he declares he 
 will continue firm and inviolable. With all the 
 eagerness of reviving hope he implores Suffolk to
 
 IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH 33 
 
 hasten the hour of his freedom for his health's sake. 
 He complains that the piercing air and solitariness 
 of the Tower will not suffer his streng-th to o;row, 
 and he looks forward with impatience to the moment 
 when he shall speak with his lordship in any private 
 place he may appoint. He concludes his letter with 
 such words as he could have written to none before 
 his captivity. 'This request I was bold,' he says, 
 * to impart to your Lordship, knowing that your 
 noble nature would have some care of a weak man 
 added to that of a prisoner. So with all taking leave 
 I rest yours faithfully to death.' His fidelity was 
 not long tried. Even as he wrote the words the 
 hand of death was upon him. 
 
 There was one further step in humility which he 
 was destined to take. It still remained for him to 
 ask the pardon of Lady Essex, the woman who was 
 sending him by the path of torture to the grave, and 
 he asked it in a letter addressed to her kinsman and 
 accomplice. Lord Northampton. Truly his adver- 
 saries were determined that he should taste the 
 bitterness of shame as well as of death. ' Riaht 
 Honourable and my very good Lord,' thus runs the 
 letter, ' I received an advertisement yesterday from 
 your Lordship by Mr. Lieutenant that my Lady of 
 Essex had been informed of some speeches of mine 
 wherein I should wrong her in her honour. 'Tis 
 true, my very good Lord, that I have heard from 
 many, yea from my Lord Rochester himself, with 
 what bitterness her Ladyship would often speak of 
 c
 
 34 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 me, and out of the sense of that 'tis possible I may 
 have spoken with less respect of her than was fit, 
 but that ever I touched her in point of her honour, 
 far be it from me. For I protest 'twas never in my 
 words nor in my belief, and this I will profess to all 
 the world. And if either my Lady of Suffolk or the 
 Lady herself shall rest unsatisfied, I will be ready to 
 tender as much to their Ladyships and to say the 
 same which now I write to your Lordship ; and for 
 mv Lady of Essex, if I might be only freed from her 
 ill-will for time to come, there shall be no man 
 readier to respect and honour her than myself.' In 
 this passage there is a true and bitter irony. Over- 
 bury prays to be delivered from the ill-will which in 
 the very moment of his prayer was compassing his 
 death, and promises to honour and respect the im- 
 placable woman whose hatred neither pity nor 
 suffering could appease. 
 
 Once and once only did his ancient courage revive, 
 his ancient insolence break out again. Stung by 
 the desertion of Rochester, enraged by the complaint 
 that he had addressed him in an irreverent style, he 
 let loose the flood of his fury and overwhelmed the 
 false friend with a torrent of vituperation, which 
 even to-day it is good to contemplate. In words of 
 pitiless logic he reminded Rochester that it was to 
 him he owed his fortune, his understanding, and his 
 reputation. He tells him that he has no more 
 human affection or compassion than the colt in 
 Enfield Chase, and he promises him that he will bring
 
 IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH 35 
 
 him to a public trial before all the friends he has. 
 He pictures him visiting Lady Essex, frizzling his 
 hair, solicitous about his clothes, while he himself is 
 lying miserably upon the rack. He shows the ruin 
 that has been brought upon him and upon his family 
 — his father and mother languishing, his brother 
 Lvdcote overthrown ; and then describes the author 
 of it all, who should perish rather than see him perish, 
 as losing not a jot of anything that concerns him. 
 Fiercely he insists that he can no longer conceal the 
 bitterness of his spirit ; and boasts, as he is not free 
 to speak his last words to his friends, that he has 
 spent his leisure in writing the story betwixt 
 Rochester and himself from the first hour unto this 
 dav — how he found him, how many hazards he rah 
 for him, what secrets passed between them, and how 
 when Rochester had won that woman by the letters 
 which he wrote, he caught him mercilessly in a 
 trap. 
 
 *So then,' he says in the last words that ever he 
 penned, ' if you will deal thus wickedly with me, I 
 have provided that, whether I die or live, your name 
 shall never die, nor you leave to be the most odious 
 man alive.' ^ That which Overbury prophesied has 
 come to pass, though not by the road the hapless 
 victim intended. The story, as he wrote it, is lost, 
 but the hand of justice has stripped the disguise of 
 friendship from the dishonoured Rochester, and sent 
 
 * This letter is printed in full in Winwood's ' Memorials/ vol. 
 uL p. 4-S.
 
 36 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 him down the ages in the dark colours of shame and 
 treachery. 
 
 When Overbury wrote this last letter, he must have 
 known full well that his end was approaching. His 
 weakness increased upon him. He passed his tedious 
 and sorrowful hours with many discontents, suffering 
 and alone. For the last fortnight of his life, says 
 his cousin Rawlins, he was not to be seen as usual at 
 his window. Yet his ardent spirit was not easily 
 extinguished, and the governor records that, receiv- 
 ing a hopeful message from Suffolk, 'he could not 
 contain himself for joy.' This was written eight 
 days before his death, and the very obstinacy with 
 which he clung to life did but fill his enemies with 
 the greater fury. It was even feared that the king 
 might be persuaded to a premature clemency, and, 
 lest so untoward an accident should interrupt the 
 course of vengeance, on 14th September 1613 Over- 
 bury received his coup dc grace. A poisoned clyster, 
 administered by an apothecary's boy, drove the last 
 breath from the worn-out body, and Lady Essex's 
 purpose was achieved. 
 
 Sir Gervase Helwes sent the first news of the 
 welcome event to Lord Northampton, as in duty 
 bound, and his lordship's replies are an eloquent proof 
 that, as Bacon said, he was deep in the business. In 
 one letter, meant for publication, he assures Sir 
 Gervase that Rochester, desiring to do the last 
 honour to his deceased friend, would have the body 
 of Sir Thomas Overbury delivered to any friend of
 
 IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH 37 
 
 his that claims it, and declares that Rochester pro- 
 claims the constancy of his affection for the dead, 
 and the intention which he harboured at this time of 
 procuring his liberty when the king was at Tibbald's. 
 So much was written for the public eye. In Sir 
 Gervase's private ear he had another tale to tell. 
 ' Worthy Mr. Lieutenant,' said he, ' let me intreat 
 you to call Lydcote and three or four of his friends, 
 if so many come, to view the body. . . . If they have 
 viewed, then bury it by-and-by ; for it is time, con- 
 sidering the humours of that damn'd crew, that only 
 desire to move pity and raise scandals. Let no man's 
 influence move you to make stay in any case, and 
 bring me these letters when I next see you. Fail 
 not a jot herein, as you love your friends.' Here is 
 no shadow of uncertainty. The Lieutenant did as 
 he was bid ; the poor wretch's body was buried with 
 haste in the chapel of the Tower, and then for many 
 months was silence. 
 
 The death of Overbury was well timed by the 
 conspirators. Ten days after he had been hurried 
 into his tomb Lady Essex triumphantly procured 
 an annulment of her marriage. That which the 
 sorceries of 'sweet Turner' failed to achieve was 
 easily compassed by the sycophancy of bench and 
 bar. Four bishops and three doctors of law were 
 found ready to obey the king and to do the behests 
 of the favourite. The Archbishop of Canterbury 
 and the Bishop of London, to their great glory, 
 refused to bow the knee at the bidding of an unjust 
 
 282771
 
 38 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 mon^iich, and are absolved from complicity in the 
 most cynical act of a cynical age.i 
 
 No obstacle now remained in the path of her who 
 was once Lady Essex. Overbury, whom his enemies 
 had paid him the compliment of believing an in- 
 superable impediment, was removed. Rochester, 
 raised, as Earl of Somerset, to a rank equalling the 
 adventurous lady's own, was impatient until he might 
 protect her with the aegis of his name and fame. 
 The king, delighted in the pleasure of his favourites, 
 eagerly mistook a squalid intrigue for a pure romance 
 of joyousness and youth, and resolved that the cere- 
 mony which united the lovers should be of a noble 
 and ingenious splendour. Never before had the 
 court, well used as it was to brilliant spectacles, 
 witnessed so fine a display. The bride, to emphasise 
 the virginal purity of her mind, was married 'in her 
 hair.' The king, the queen, and Prince Charles 
 witnessed the union in the chapel of Whitehall 
 
 ^ The letter which James I. wrote to the Archbishop, who 
 had refused to sacrifice his conscience to the humour of his king, 
 is so intimately characteristic of the time and the man that it is 
 worth quoting. ' I will conclude therefore with inverting the 
 argument,' wrote James, 'that if a judge should have a prejudice 
 in respect of persons, it should become you rather to have a 
 kind of faith implicit in my judgment, as well in respect of some 
 skill I have in divinity, as also that I hope no honest man 
 doubts of my conscience ; and the best thankfulness that you, 
 that are so far my creature, can use towards me, is to reverence 
 and follow my judgment, and not to contradict it, except where 
 you may demonstrate unto me that I am mistaken, or wrong 
 informed, and so farewell. James R.'
 
 IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH 39 
 
 Palace. Courtiers and poets vied with one another 
 in heaping flatteries upon the handsome couple. 
 Donne himself did not disdain to compose an 
 epithalamium in the loftiest strain of adulation. 
 ' Blest pair of swans,' he wrote — 
 
 * Blest pair of swans, O may you interbring 
 Daily new joys, and never sing : 
 Live till all grounds of wishes fail. 
 
 Till honour, yea, till wisdom grow so stale 
 That new great heights to try, 
 
 It must serve your ambition to die.' 
 
 The unconscious irony of this poem gives it an 
 interest, unconnected with the ingenuity of its 
 images and the elegance of its expression. Nor is 
 it necessary to bring charges of insincerity against 
 Donne. Though he had eagerly sought preferment 
 from Rochester, and had done his best to further the 
 suit of nullity, he wrote in complete ignorance of 
 Overbury's murder, an ignorance which he shared 
 with the vast majority of his countrymen, and he 
 exercised his gracious art for those whom he believed 
 a beautiful woman and a brave courtier. He was 
 not alone in this ardour of flattery. Thomas 
 Campion made a 'Gallant Masque of Lords' which 
 was given on the wedding-day. And Ben Jonson, 
 who some seven years before had with his eloquence 
 added lustre to the nuptials of Lady Frances Howard 
 and Lord Essex, devised two Masques — 'A Challenge 
 at Tilt' and an 'Irish Masque' — for this more 
 august occasion.
 
 40 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 But it was Bacon who with the ease of genius 
 outpaced all flatterers. His exquisite ' Masque of 
 Flowers,' in which with a pompous lack of humour 
 the learned and bewigged gentlemen of Gray's Inn 
 transformed themselves into dainty blossoms, was 
 designed for the pleasure of Lord and Lady Somerset. 
 That it was a beautiful spectacle there is no doubt. 
 Bacon, whose vigilance nothing escaped, was curious 
 about Masques and Triumphs. 'These things are 
 but toys,' he said, ' . . . but yet since Princes will 
 have such things, it is better they should be graced 
 with elegancy than daubed with cost.' The cost 
 wherewith this particular masque was daubed was no 
 less than ^^2000, a sum which one is sure did not 
 disgrace its elegancy. It is possible, indeed, to 
 surmise from the learned lawyer's own words the 
 fair effect of his dainty device. If he followed the 
 dictate of his own taste, it was all brilliance and 
 gaiety. ' The colours that show best by candle- 
 light,' said he, 'are white, carnation, and a kind of 
 sea-water green,' for the use of which his procession 
 of flowers was very apt. 
 
 Thus it was that youth and gravity, princedom 
 and learning, did honour to bride and bridegroom. 
 Nothing was omitted from the ceremonies which 
 might win the favour of the fortunate courtier. It 
 is as though time and history stood still for the joy 
 of these happy souls, and yet it was less than three 
 months ago that the miserable and tortured Overbury 
 had paid the brutal penalty of pride. That poets and
 
 IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH 41 
 
 attorneys should be lavish in the praise of those who 
 basked in the smile of chance is not surprising. We 
 cannot but wonder whether the murderers, as they 
 climbed the topmost pinnacle of courtly fame, were 
 haunted by the emaciated spectre of him who had 
 once been his friend, and was the victim of them both. 
 For a while Lord Somerset and his wife sunned 
 themselves in the royal pleasure. The king still 
 confessed that he took * more delight and content- 
 ment' in Somerset's company than in any man's 
 living. But presently there began murmurings of 
 suspicion. It was whispered to Somerset's discredit 
 that Overbury did not come honestly by his death. 
 The flattery lavished upon the favourite seemed to 
 the colder eye of reflection somewhat exaggerated. 
 No man can keep the first place in a jealous court 
 by the cut of a doublet and the mere exercise of the 
 grand manner, and Somerset, if he delighted in his 
 escape from thraldom, missed the counsel of Over- 
 bury, who had been not merely his governor, as they 
 said, but his brain. A yet heavier blow was struck 
 at his power and influence by the sudden rise of 
 Villiers. James had neither place nor inclination 
 for two favourites at once, and the triumph of 
 Villiers meant nothing less than the ruin of Somer- 
 set. When, therefore, the half-forgotten name of 
 Overbury was mentioned, it fell upon the ears of 
 those whose policy chimed with the discovery of the 
 truth. How the secret was first revealed is uncertain ; 
 possibly it was never very profound, and when its
 
 42 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 betrayal seemed expedient there were not a few who 
 could speak with a knowledge of the foul deed. 
 
 Sir Ralph Winwood was the channel whereby 
 the strange story reached the royal ears, and Sir 
 Ralph heard it from Lady Shrewsbury, who, her- 
 self a prisoner, had picked up the gossip of the 
 Tower. Presently another rumour came from 
 Trumbull, the British Minister at Brussels, that 
 an apothecary's boy, one Reeve, had related the 
 whole history to his servant.^ The gossip spread up 
 and down the city. Everywhere there was a re- 
 action in Overbury's favour. Those, who had been 
 the loudest in denunciation, now insisted most 
 clamantly upon vengeance. The king would not 
 lift a hand to shield Somerset. With a fine show of 
 justice he declared that the evil-doers should be 
 punished. ' Lord, in what a miserable condition 
 shall this Kingdom be ( the only famous nation for 
 hospitality in the world) if our tables should become 
 
 1 There is a strong and undesigned piece of evidence that 
 Reeve told the truth out of his own knowledge. Lobell was an 
 apothecary, who prepared the prescriptions of Dr Mayerne, the 
 famous physician to the king, who attended Overbury in the 
 Tower, and doubtless knew far more of the tragedy than he 
 thought it prudent to acknowledge, and the fatal clyster is said to 
 have been of Lobell's making. A witness called Edward Ryder 
 says that he saw Lobell in October 1615, and 'told him that it 
 was now manifest Overbury was poisoned by an apothecary's boy 
 in Lime Street. Madame Lobell explained to her husband, 
 " That must be William, whom you sent in to France " ; on 
 which he trembled violently, and said that as William was leav- 
 ing his master he gave him a letter of recommendation to Paris. '
 
 IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH 43 
 
 such a snare as none could eat without danger of his 
 life,' said he, and thus saying called down God's 
 curse upon himself and his posterity for ever if he 
 spared any that were found guilty. 
 
 The sword of justice fell first upon the heads of 
 the guilty hirelings, against whom the prosecution 
 was conducted with a zeal and energy inspired by 
 the king himself. Weston went to the gallows, 
 having expressed a hopeless hope that ' they would 
 not make a net to catch the little fishes, and let the 
 great go.' The infamous Franklin murmured so 
 many confessions in jail that none would give them 
 credit. At the tree he behaved with a strange levity, 
 boxed the hangman's ears, and persuaded all present 
 that he was either mad or drunk. 1 Mrs. Turner was 
 
 ' An unsigned letter, printed in the Egerton Papers, describes 
 Franklin's demeanour at Tyburn. ' His Doctor Whiting told 
 him,' says the unknown writer, ' he should do well to give the 
 world some testimony of the manner of his death : No says he, I Ml 
 testimony nothing ( I use his own words) ,• my confessions are 
 all true that are under my hand : I did not know of this bloody 
 act at the first, but afterwards ( I cannot deny ) but I had my 
 hands very deep in it. There are some yet left behind, and 
 great ones too with whom (and then he clapped his hands twice 
 or thrice upon the coffin that lay upon the cart before him ) — 
 but let that pass. . . . He was put in mind that it was his own 
 desire to have his confessions put in print. . . It is true, (said he) 
 I desire indeed that it may be put in print; . . . and then the 
 cart was driven away and thus he died, never heard to pray one 
 word. The best word he used was that he hoped to sup with 
 Christ that night.' For the rest when he was told he was to die 
 he danced corantoes up and down his chamber, and talked in 
 agony of ' three great ones.'
 
 44 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 accompanied to Tyburn by a vast concourse of 
 courtiers and their ladies, and died most decently, as 
 became so elegant a sorceress. It is said that she 
 spent the last days of her life in denouncing the 
 errors of papistry, and by wearing a yellow-starched 
 rufF on the fatal day put an end for ever to an ugly 
 fashion. Helwes, whom Somerset ungratefully de- 
 scribed as the worst deserver in this business, 
 followed her to the scaffold. In the meantime the 
 chief criminals set their wits at work to avert 
 suspicion. Lady Somerset did her best to destroy 
 the traces of her guilt, while her lord, in Bacon's 
 memorable phrase, instantly began to 'sew fig- 
 leaves.' He had already asked and obtained a 
 general pardon. Now he searched Weston's house ; 
 now he bade his servants lay hands upon Mrs. 
 Turner's papers — and all in vain. The king, 
 firmly set upon justice, left his haughty favourite to 
 his fate; and if we may believe Weldon, took fare- 
 well of him with as fine a treachery as ever Somer- 
 set had shown to his friend. It was at Royston, 
 whence, as the king well knew, Somerset was 
 summoned to arrest and doom. ' " For God's sake," 
 asked the king, "when shall I see thee again ? On 
 my soul, I shall neither eat nor sleep until you come 
 again." The Earl told him on Monday, this being 
 Friday. "For God's sake let me," said the king; 
 "shall I, shall I?" Then lolled about his neck; 
 then, " for God's sake, give thy lady this kiss for 
 me ; " in the same manner at the stairs' head, at the
 
 IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH 45 
 
 middle of the stairs, and at the stairs' foot. The 
 Earl was not in his coach when the king used these 
 very words ( in the hearing of four servants ), " I 
 shall never see his face more." ' It is true that 
 Somerset deserved no better at the hands of his king ; 
 but so sudden and callous a forsaking can hardly be 
 found within the scope of history. 
 
 On 24th May 1616 the Countess of Somerset was 
 called in Westminster Hall to answer the charge 
 of having murdered Overbury. It was not much 
 more than two years since her marvellous beauty 
 had dazzled the beholders in the Royal Chapel. 
 Now she was bidden to play another part, and she 
 assumed a becoming modesty of garb and demeanour. 
 She was dressed in ' black tammel, a cypress chaperon, 
 a cobweb lawn ruff, and cuffs.' She had come 
 thither to confess her fault and to ask for mercy. 
 She pleaded guilty ' with a low voice, but wonderful 
 fearful,' and when asked why the sentence of death 
 should not be pronounced on her, ' I can much 
 ao-wravate ' she answered, ' but cannot extenuate my 
 fault. I desire mercy, and that the lords will inter- 
 cede for me to the king.' The Earl, who was tried 
 on the following day, assumed a prouder carriage. 
 Refusing to put in a plea of guilty, he maintained 
 his innocence with an obstinate fortitude. He 
 turned a deaf ear to the eloquent persuasion of his 
 sovereign. The king was in a fever of apprehension 
 and anxiety. So many secrets had he shared with 
 Somerset, so openly had he abandoned him, that he
 
 46 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 feared betrayal even in Westminster Hall. He 
 believed unto the last minute that Somerset would 
 cast some aspersion upon him, that he was in some 
 sort accessory to his crime, and some days before 
 the trial was held he wrote such a letter to the 
 Governor of the Tower as plainly shows the sleep- 
 less timidity of his mind. 'You know Somerset's 
 day of trial is at hand,' said he, 'and you know also 
 what fair means I have used to move him by con- 
 fessing the truth to honour God and me, and leave 
 some place for my mercy to work on.' 
 
 The note of unconscious humour which is heard 
 in these words docs not silence the murmurings of 
 fear. Some have assumed, therefore, that James 
 was indeed accessory j it is far more probable that 
 his natural nervousness had got the better of him, 
 and that he saw in a pica of guilty the only sure 
 method of avoiding scandal. But Somerset was 
 obdurate. He was resolved to assert his own 
 innocence at all costs, and never in an unworthy 
 career did he bear himself with so fine dignity as 
 when he fought for his life before his peers. He 
 brought no charge against any one ; he was content 
 to defend himself. The sense of drama, which was 
 always his, did not desert him in the supreme crisis. 
 He put upon him all the marks of honour : he wore 
 the cloak, the George, and the other insignia of the 
 Garter, as if to prove that he still held himself 
 worthy of the noble order to which he belonged. 
 Imprisonment and dread had already set their mark
 
 IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH 47 
 
 upon him. His pale visage, his long beard, his eyes 
 sunk in his head, demanded the sympathy of all 
 beholders. He was dressed, with a severity which 
 became the occasion, ' in a black satin suit, laid 
 with two white laces in a seam, a gown of orient 
 velvet, lined with unshorn, all the sleeves lain with 
 satin lace, a pair of gloves with satin tops, his hair 
 curled.' 
 
 Such was the guise in which he presented himself 
 to the court, and when by the flickering light of 
 many torches, at the end of a long and weary day, 
 he rose to address his peers, there was none present 
 who was not moved by the tragedy and picturesque- 
 ness of the scene. All the forces of chance and 
 nature were arrayed against him. His wife had 
 mournfully confessed her guilt, and it seemed (and 
 seems) impossible to the impartial mind that he 
 should not have shared it.^ He was fighting single- 
 handed against the serried ranks of bench and bar, 
 with no practice in the law and no lawyer to aid 
 him. And truly an unlettered courtier, opposed by 
 Sir Edward Coke upon the bench, and by Francis 
 Bacon, the King's Attorney, had no more chance 
 
 1 If Simcox, a friend of Weston's and ' a man of fashion and 
 of some understanding,' is to be believed, then Somerset's guilt 
 is clear. For Simcox declared 'that in the league of friendship 
 that was between Weston and him, Weston told him that the 
 Earl of Somerset did often give him money with his own hand, 
 and bade him keep Sir Thomas Overbury safe, for, says he, if 
 ever he get out, he or I must die for it.'
 
 48 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 of escape than a rat in a trap. Somerset did not 
 escape, and yet he spoke with a strength and clarity 
 which surprised his hearers. His hearers were sur- 
 prised, and not persuaded. By a unanimous verdict 
 he was adjudged guilty and sentenced to be hanged. 
 As was but natural, Lord and Lady Somerset 
 escaped the gallows. There was still place, though 
 Somerset had not confessed, for the icing's mercy 
 to work upon. They were committed to the 
 Tower, where they spent many weary years, and 
 they were stripped of all the wealth and lands which 
 were the fruit of the royal bounty. How lavish 
 was this bounty the inventory of their possessions 
 is an eloquent testimony. We read of bedsteads 
 with gilt pillars, and purple velvet furniture; of 
 large Persian, Turkey, and Egyptian carpets; of 
 pavilions of cobweb lawn, embroidered with silk 
 flowers; of tapestries representing the wars of Troy 
 and Roman story ; of many pictures, described as 
 'great tables,' and whole-length portraits. The 
 jewels and plate, with which they embellished their 
 courtly lives, were of a splendour which might well 
 have lit the spark of jealousy even in a royal breast, 
 and it is easy to imagine what was their destiny. 
 Not even the Earl's horses were forgotten. A list 
 of them was made by the groom of his stable, and 
 the best distributed according to the king's command. 
 Bay Minion was delivered to his Prince's Highness, 
 Black Denny to Lord Danvers, and White Steward 
 to Sir Charles Howard.
 
 IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH 49 
 
 The partition was pitiless and complete. And 
 the popular verdict followed the king's displeasure. 
 Lord Somerset, once the favourite, presently became 
 the mock of the balladmonger.^ He was scoffed 
 and laughed at in many a halting rhyme, until he 
 suffered what is worse even than contempt — forget- 
 fulness. Buried alive in the Tower, he was as dead 
 as Overbury, the victim of his perfidy. He makes 
 but one or two furtive reappearances, as one speaking 
 from the grave. The last letter that has come down 
 to us from his hand is addressed to King James, and 
 is an ardent appeal that his estate should be returned 
 to him. He fell, he declares, rather for want of 
 well defending than by the force and violence of any 
 proofs, and he urges that he, like the family of 
 Helwes, might be given his estate — a greater gift 
 than life, because it extends to posterity. 
 
 Was he conscious, I wonder, in writing to James, 
 
 1 The ballads, songs, and doggerel verse which describe the 
 death of Overbury and the rise and fall of Robin Carr, Lord 
 Somerset are many and various. The following passage, taken 
 from a manuscript at Belvoir Castle, clearly shows the con- 
 temporary opinion of the disgraced courtier : — 
 
 'Thou wast a man but of compounded part ; 
 Nothing thy own but thy aspiring heart 5 
 Thy house Raleigh's, Westmoreland's thy land, 
 Overbury's thy wit, Essex' thy wife. So stand 
 By .^sop's law, each bird may pluck his feather, 
 And thou stript naked art to wind and weather. 
 Yet care of friends, to shelter thee from cold. 
 Have mewed thee up in London's strongest hold. 
 Summer is set, and winter is come on, 
 Yet Robin Redbreast's chirping voice is gone.' 
 D
 
 50 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 that he was using the same argument which Sir 
 Walter Raleigh, whose house and lands he had 
 usurped, had once urged to him ? 'After many losses, 
 and many years' sorrows,' wrote Raleigh to Carr, . . . 
 ' it is come to my knowledge, that yourself (whom 
 I knew not but by an honourable favour) hath been 
 persuaded to give me and mine my last fatal blow, 
 by obtaining from His Majesty the Inheritance of 
 my Children and Nephews, lost in Law for want of 
 a word. This done, there remaineth nothing with 
 me but the name of life.' With a better eloquence 
 than Somerset's he pleaded to Sir Robert Carr the 
 cause of his descendants. ' And for you. Sir,' said 
 he, 'seeing your fair day is but in the dawn, mine 
 drawn to the setting ... I beseech you begin not 
 your first building upon the ruins of the innocent, 
 and let not my sorrows and theirs attend your first 
 plantation.' Raleigh spoke to a deaf ear, and had 
 the grim satisfaction, before his death, of seeing the 
 despoiler despoiled. Intent upon his own misfortunes, 
 Somerset forgot, perchance, how deeply he had 
 wronged others. 
 
 'It is not I who thus put your Majesty in mind 
 importunely,' he wrote, full of self-pity. 'It is he 
 that was your creature, it is Somerset, with all your 
 honours and envious greatness, that is now in ques- 
 tion ' ; and even in the extremity of disgrace he 
 confesses to the king that he is ' the workmanship 
 of his hands, and bears his stamp deeply imprinted 
 in all the characters of favour.' The letter availed
 
 IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH 51 
 
 him nothing. He died a landless and unhappy 
 man. 
 
 Though, when they emerged from the Tower, 
 he lived beneath the same roof which sheltered his 
 wife, the two accomplices are said never again to 
 have exchanged a word of amiable greeting. And 
 to prove that in this drama of Greek intensity the 
 hand of Nemesis was far-reaching, the daughter 
 whom Lady Somerset bore in the Tower did not 
 escape the curse. Brought up in complete ignorance 
 of her mother's crime, she grew to womanhood in 
 beauty and innocence, and was wooed by the Earl 
 of Bedford. Despite the opposition of his friends, 
 he married her, and still she knew nothing of 
 Overbury's death. Then one day, not long after 
 her son had perished on the scaffold, she discovered, 
 by an unhappy chance, a time-worn account of the 
 trial, and the reading of it broke her heart. Surely 
 Overbury was avenged. Surely his bitter prophecy 
 was fulfilled that Somerset's name should never die, 
 nor he himself leave to be the most odious of men.
 
 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY— III 
 
 HIS 'CHARACTERS' 
 
 BEFORE Sir Thomas Overbury was sent to the 
 Tower he had never suffered, said his servant, 
 from any disease save the spleen, caused by too much 
 study ; and true it is that his ' Characters,' to which 
 his tragic fate has given a sinister interest, smell 
 pleasantly of a well-trimmed lamp. They are but a 
 faint reflection of his romantic life and of his dissolute 
 ao^e. There is not the bustle of court or camp in 
 their quiet pages. Though their author is clearly a 
 man of the world, he is also a scholar, prevented by 
 the natural timidity of learning from betraying his 
 thoughts and sensibilities too wantonly. After the 
 chastened expression of his malice, his dearest ambi- 
 tion is the perfection of his phrase. He looks at the 
 world through a minifying glass, and sees no one at 
 greater length than two pages. In the modest scale 
 of his portraiture he reveals a natural reaction. He 
 could not match the spacious masterpieces of Shake- 
 speare and Ben Jonson. They planned their heroes 
 of a larger size than life, and hewed them out of 
 colossal blocks of marble. He was content to carve 
 cherry-stones. 
 
 But Sir Thomas Ovcrbury's 'Characters' claim 
 our interest on other grounds than the scandal of his
 
 HIS 'CHARACTERS' 53 
 
 life or the deftness of their handling. For well-nigh 
 a century they exercised a wide and deep influence 
 upon our writers. They form a chapter in the history 
 of literature as well as in the history of manners. If 
 they were not the first of their kind to be composed 
 in English, they were the first to win a general 
 popularity, and it is from Overbury, and not from 
 Hall, his one English predecessor, that we must mark 
 the beginning of the 'Character' as a literary con- 
 vention. Though Theophrastus was the father of 
 them both, Overbury speedily became an inspiration 
 to many who had no Greek, and to whom the gravity 
 of Hall seemed austere and forbidding. Nor will it 
 detract from his merit, if before we examine his work 
 and its efi^'ect we look back for a moment upon its 
 origins. 
 
 The ' Character,' as understood by Theophrastus, 
 is of an engaging simplicity. The author chooses 
 the victim of this vice or that weakness, and explains, 
 with a humour which never galls, what the victim 
 will do and say in the circumstances of a homely life. 
 Each phrase is an independent example of a generalised 
 quality. The Flatterer is a person ' who will say as 
 he walks with another, " Do you observe how people 
 are looking at you ? " ' The Complaisant Man will 
 assert 'that foreigners speak more justly than his 
 fellow-citizens.' The Late -Learner 'will study 
 passages for recitation when he is sixty and break 
 down in repeating them.' When a servant has 
 smashed a jug or a plate the Penurious Man 'will
 
 54 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 take the value out of his rations.' Thus will these 
 men behave in all times and under all skies. Theo- 
 phrastus deals not in differences but in similarities. 
 He writes not of individuals, but of classes. He 
 drives mankind into separate pens, according to the 
 temper and complexion of each bunch. And his 
 ' Characters ' are as true to-day as they were in the 
 day when they were written, because he is careful 
 always to choose for comment the bare, plain facts of 
 life, and never loses himself in subtle distinctions. 
 The background of his tale is as shadowy as the 
 appearance of his victim. Were it not for a refer- 
 ence here and there to the market-place and the 
 gymnasium, you might be in some doubt as to 
 where he chose his examples of vice or folly. And 
 these accidental touches of local colour do not dis- 
 turb his air of detachment. He reflects : he does 
 not observe. He is drawing men, not Athenians. 
 
 The first deviser of 'Characters' in English, Joseph 
 Hall,^ was a faithful disciple of Theophrastus. Not 
 
 1 Characters of Vertues and Vices : In Two Bookes. By 
 Jos. Hall. London: 1608. There are two books, earlier in 
 date than this, which look like books of ' Characters,' and are 
 not. One is Harman's Ca-ueat for Commen Cursetors, 'vulgarly 
 called Vagaboiies {1^6'j'); the other is The Fraternitye of Vac a- 
 bondes (1575). The purpose of these books is the same: to 
 warn the honest man against the rogues that lie in wait for him, 
 and to explain to those who understand not Pedlar's French the 
 names by which the rogues know one another. Both authors 
 tell us what is an Abraham Man and what is a Ruffler, what is 
 an Upright Man and wliat a Whip-jack. Neither is concerned 
 with character as Theophrastus and Overbury understood it.
 
 HIS 'CHARACTERS' 55 
 
 merely does he prove on every page that he holds 
 imitation better than invention, but he frankly and 
 freely acknovi^ledges his debt. He has trod in the 
 paths of the ancient philosophers, he says, ' but with 
 a higher and wider step.' Especially he follows 
 Theophrastus, ' that ancient master of morality, 
 who thought this the fittest task for the ninety- 
 and - ninth year of his age, and the profitablest 
 monument that he could leave for a farewell to 
 his Grecians.' Thus, in consonance with the 
 master's theory. Hall's characters are mere abstrac- 
 tions. He does not write with his eye upon this or 
 that specimen. He attributes to each virtue and 
 to each vice the qualities and manifestations which 
 he thinks each ought to reveal. His Wise Man and 
 his Busy-Body, his Hypocrite and his Malcontent 
 are the same, wherever he found them. They were 
 the same in the time of Theophrastus ; they are the 
 same to-day — the same in essence, different only in 
 phrase. 
 
 Though he speak of Cales and Nieuport ; though 
 he speculate of Holland's peace and the Guiana 
 voyage. Hall's personages, good or ill, inhabit a 
 shadowland of morality, not the England of his 
 day. And Hall reveals other ambitions, of which 
 Theophrastus knew nothing. Before all things he 
 is a man of letters, not writing with the careless ease 
 of the Greek, but striving busily and consciously 
 after a literary effect. Here he is in the right of it. 
 Brilliant finish and a fine surface are the essentials
 
 56 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 of work composed on so small a scale as is the 'Char- 
 acter,' and in Hall's pages you will never find a wry 
 or ill-considered word. He delights in imagery, like 
 the artist that he was. 'He is a lowly valley,' he 
 says of the Humble Man, ' sweetly planted and well- 
 watered : the proud man's earth, whereon he tram- 
 pleth ; but secretly full of wealthy mines, more 
 worth than he that walks over them : a rich stone 
 set in lead : and lastly a true Temple of God, built 
 with a low roof.' He replaces the just and common- 
 place humour of Theophrastus with a kind of mysti- 
 cism. He is metaphysical, like Crashaw and Donne. 
 He enwraps his simple virtues in phrases of fantasy. 
 Of the Faithful Man he says : ' He walks every day 
 with his Maker ; and talks with Him familiarly. . . . 
 If his own parents lie on his way to God, his holy 
 carelessness makes them his footsteps. . . . He hath 
 white hands and a clean soul, fit to lodge God in ; 
 all the rooms whereof are set apart for his Holiness.' 
 Even at his plainest, he has the tact to choose the 
 right word, to fashion a comely sentence. What 
 can be better than this of the Valiant Man : ' He 
 hath often looked death in the face, and passed it 
 bv with a smile'? Or of the Honest Man, who 
 ' scorneth to gain by orphans, or ransack graves : 
 and therefore will be true to a dead friend, because 
 he sees him not'? All the resources of antithesis 
 and epigram are his. He has a grave wit, and thinks 
 it no shame to set a fine point even on moral exhorta- 
 tion. The Patient Man, he tells us, 'goes with the
 
 HIS * CHARACTERS' 57 
 
 same mind to the shambles and the fold.' And again, 
 * Superstition is godless religion, devout impiety.' 
 The few flashes of humour which light up the book 
 are turned upon the vices. In describing the Vain- 
 glorious Man he steps down from his pedestal. 'A 
 bare head in the street' — thus he writes — 'doth him 
 more good than a meal's meat. He swears big at 
 an ordinary ; and talks of the Court with a sharp 
 accent. . . . He picks his teeth when his stomach 
 is empty, and calls for pheasants at a common inn.' 
 In brief, though Hall's book is made up of moral 
 generalisations, it is yet a mirror in which every 
 man may find his counterfeit. And happy is he, or 
 vain, who seeks it among the virtues. 
 
 That Hall's book escaped notice is not wonderful. 
 It came, modest and inobtrusive, into the heyday of 
 our literature. But Overbury knew it, and with Hall 
 and Theophrastus — whom he read in Latin, if not in 
 Greek — as examples, he sat him down to sketch char- 
 acters for himself. From his masters he borrowed 
 not much more than a technical process. He, too, 
 got his effects by an accumulation of traits and 
 habits. And there he left them. Their cold ab- 
 stractions did not satisfy his quick eye and ardent 
 soul. It was not for him to classify and arrange. 
 Even though he could not pack into words all that 
 he did and thought ; even though, being better 
 adapted to intrigue than to letters, he wrote as an 
 amateur, — he did not shut out from his book the 
 fruits of his experience. He replaced the reflection
 
 58 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 of Hall and Theophrastus by a vivid observation of 
 his ow^n. He drew^ alw^ays from the life, and fixed his 
 gaze upon concrete examples. At his book's end 
 he set dow^n his own definition of a character. ' It 
 is a picture (real or personal),' said he, 'quaintly 
 draw^n, in various colours, all of them heightened 
 by one shadowing. It is a quick and soft touch of 
 many springs, all shutting up in one musical close: 
 it is wit's descant on anv plain song.' Thus he lets 
 us into his secret. His pictures are real or personal. 
 There was not one of his models with whom he had 
 not an intimate acquaintance. They are one and all 
 of his own time and place, and they light up for us 
 those darker corners of the past which serious history 
 holds still in obscurity. 
 
 That the 'Characters' are the work of a scholar 
 and a courtier writing to amuse his friends is evident 
 in every page. As I have said, it was not for Over- 
 bury wholly to express the life that he had led. The 
 faculty of expansiveness was not his. It is equally 
 evident that he castigated his prose with the greatest 
 severity. His sketches are models of concision and 
 economy. He aims at producing an effect in every 
 sentence, and he does not often fail. He devises 
 phrases and constructs epigrams with a zeal and 
 artistry which cannot elude his readers, and as he 
 was the first to paint the ' Characters ' of individuals 
 he may claim all the credit which belongs to origin- 
 ality. Moreover, despite the impersonality of his 
 style, despite the reticence of his method, Overbury
 
 HIS 'CHARACTERS' 59 
 
 and his friends emerge now and then from the 
 measured prose, and for those who know his story 
 it is impossible not to detect the traces of auto- 
 biography. His Courtiers, his Glory-Hunters, his 
 Flatterers are the men whom best he knew, and as 
 you contemplate their portraiture you think in- 
 stinctively of Overbury himself and of Rochester. 
 When he calls the Flatterer ' the shadow of a fool,' 
 was he not thinking of the ungrateful part he had 
 taken for his own ? By accident or design, that 
 which follows is surely Rochester delineated : ' He 
 knows no man that is not generally known. His 
 wit, like the marigold, openeth like the sun, and 
 therefore he riseth not before ten of the clock. He 
 puts more confidence in his words than meaning, 
 and more in his pronunciation than his words. He 
 follows nothing but inconstancy, admires nothing 
 but beauty, honours nothing but fortune. Loves 
 nothing.' 
 
 Look at the 'Amorist' and picture to yourself 
 Rochester's intrigue with Lady Essex, the intrigue 
 which for a while Overbury assisted : ' Her favour 
 lifts him up as the sun moisture; when she dis- 
 favours, unable to hold that happiness, it falls down 
 in tears. . . . He answers not, or not to the purpose ; 
 and no marvel, for he is not at home. . . . His imagi- 
 nation is a fool, and it goeth in a pied coat of red and 
 white ; shortly he is translated out of a man into folly j 
 his imagination is the glass of lust, and himself the 
 traitor to his own discretion.' If this and other
 
 6o SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 portraits were recognised in the manuscripts, which we 
 may suppose Overbury handed from friend to friend, 
 there is another clear reason for his unpopularity, for 
 they are drawn with a truth and bitterness which 
 would at once enrage and disconcert his victims, and 
 they help to explain though not to condone the in- 
 difference wherewith his friends looked upon the 
 fallen courtier. 
 
 But it is not only upon the Court that Overbury 
 showers his invective. He expected more of life 
 than life had to give, and thus was constantly out 
 of humour with his surroundings. He contemned 
 always that which was nearest to him, and detected 
 with the quick eye of criticism the weakness and folly 
 of his intimate companions. The University, which 
 lay not far behind, seemed to his memory a place of 
 desolation and pedantry. For him ' the mere fellow 
 of an house' was rescued from shame neither by 
 virtue nor by intelligence. He represents him as 
 small-minded, greedy, improvident, and penurious, 
 as one who commits more absurdities in maintaining 
 talk with a gentleman than a clown in the eating 
 of an egg, who 'thinks himself as fine when he is 
 in a clean band, and a new pair of shoes, as any 
 courtier doth, when he is first in a new fashion,' who, 
 in brief, 'respects no one in the University, and is 
 respected by no man out of it.' 
 
 Earle, Overbury's successor in this craft of char- 
 acters, was of another and a better mind. If he was 
 not blind to the scholar's faults he did not close his
 
 HIS 'CHARACTERS' 6i 
 
 eyes to the scholar's virtues. 'Practise him a little 
 in men,' said he, 'and brush him over with good 
 company, and he shall outbalance those glisterers as 
 much as a solid substance does a feather, or gold 
 gold-lace.' The Inns of Court came ofF no better 
 in Overbury's esteem than the University. His 
 sojourn in the Temple had not softened to his heart 
 the traits of his colleagues. He saw little difference 
 between the Inns of Court of Man and the Scholar, 
 save a pair of silk stockings and a beaver hat. He 
 thought the Templar was as far behind the Courtier 
 in fashion, as the Scholar is behind the Templar ; 
 and he despised the meanness, which bade him forget 
 his acquaintance, and his shame to be seen in any 
 man's company that wore not his clothes well. 
 
 Like many another satirist, Overbury, scorning 
 thus the society which he knew best, pretended an 
 admiration for the amiable simplicity which was 
 beyond his reach. By temperament and habit he 
 was fitted to live in the great world. The intrigue 
 and trappings of the court were essential to his 
 happiness. His quick brain and ready tongue gave 
 him a confident superiority in the battle of the wits. 
 He felt that he was born to shine in splendid 
 assemblies, and he was not one to hide his light 
 under the bushel of obscurity. But he followed the 
 ancient models in affecting a love of the golden 
 mean and a country life. If we may believe his 
 words, he found nothing that was noble and of good 
 report within the boundaries of London. So Horace,
 
 62 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 constant in his love of Rome, would have us know 
 that he was never happy save in the seclusion of his 
 Sabine farm. It is a pleasant weakness to vaunt 
 simplicity and to cultivate elegance — a weakness 
 which inspired Overbury to his best pages. This 
 haunter of courts, this favourite of favourites, writes 
 with the keenest zest of 'a fair and happy milkmaid, 
 who makes her hand hard with labour and her heart 
 soft with pity,' all whose care is that 'she may die 
 in springtime, to have store of flowers stuck upon 
 her winding-sheet ' ; or of an honest Franklin, the 
 pattern and example of plain and decent living, an 
 ancient yeoman, who ' with his own eye doth both 
 father his flock and set forward all manner of 
 husbandry.' 
 
 For such simple folk as he had known in the 
 Gloucestershire of his boyhood, and as still lingered 
 in his memory, Overbury kept a sentimental corner 
 of his heart. His sentiment did not excuse the 
 country gentleman, who, in his view, was an ignorant 
 bumpkin, insolent to his tenants, amongst his equals 
 full of doubt, out of his element at court, and with 
 no more eloquence than would save him twopence. 
 On the other hand, his loftiest panegyric is reserved 
 for the Noble and Retired Housekeeper, whose 
 bounty is limited by reason, not ostentation, whose 
 word and meaning never shake hands and part, 
 whose great houses bear in their front more durance 
 than state, and whose mind is so secure that thunder 
 rocks him asleep. Thus by his preferences you may
 
 HIS 'CHARACTERS' 63 
 
 detect the theory, not the practice, of his life. Thus 
 by the variety of his portraiture you may measure 
 the breadth of his curiosity. Though he is seldom 
 impartial, he excludes from his survey little that is 
 human. His sympathy, it is true, was never as wide 
 as his interest, but he is not guilty of narrow^-minded- 
 ness who gravely sate him down to delineate a 
 Buttonmalcer of Amsterdam or a Drunken Dutch- 
 man resident in England. 
 
 The 'Characters,' published a year after their 
 author's cruel murder, achieved a large and rapid 
 popularity. In 1614 no less than five editions were 
 demanded, and the book was reprinted twenty times 
 within half a century. The scandal of its author's life 
 and death no doubt excited a general curiosity, but 
 we must look beyond the tragedy in the Tower if 
 we would find a reason for the book's success. It 
 chimed with the temper of the moment. The 
 artifice of its style, which he who ran could imitate, 
 made it acceptable to the Temple, the Tavern, and 
 the Court. A world overwhelmed with the splendour 
 of the drama sought to express its intelligence after 
 a more modest fashion, to escape as far as possible 
 from a hopeless competition. And the ' Character,' 
 widely as it was separated in manner and method 
 from the drama, touched the art of the theatre at 
 one essential point. It also aspired to delineate man, 
 not at his full stature nor with the courage of crea- 
 tion, but with a minute analysis and quick intro- 
 spection. In other words, a book of ' Characters '
 
 64 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 was the drama reduced to its lowest terms. 
 The playwright set men and women on their feet 
 and bade them speak for themselves. Overbury and 
 his imitators put men and women on the dissecting- 
 table and described their features and their qualities. 
 The object was the same, though the process was 
 reversed, and it was Overbury's insight or good 
 fortune to hit upon a kind of literature which his 
 century could understand with sympathy and turn 
 to its own purpose with imitative zeal. 
 
 Indeed, no better vehicle for the criticism of life, 
 which is the grave business of prose and poetry 
 alike, than the 'Character,' as Overbury designed 
 it, could be found, and there is no end which it was 
 not destined to serve. The satirist found in it a 
 means of invective, the politician a means of argu- 
 ment, the idealist a means of expressing the hope 
 that was in him. Characters tumbled from the press 
 in hundreds. There were characters of plain men 
 and women, characters of statesmen — magnanimous 
 and servile, characters of cutthroats and pick- 
 pockets, characters of states and countries. And 
 perhaps, if the seventeenth century had not worn 
 the artifice to detrition, we might still express our- 
 selves by the same method that seemed good to Sir 
 Thomas Overbury. 
 
 The authors of 'Characters' were of many kinds 
 and many ambitions. Nicholas Breton and Henry 
 Parrott, Wye Saltonstall and Lord North all tried 
 their hands at the new craft. The common hack
 
 HIS 'CHARACTERS' 65 
 
 vied with the person of quality in explaining his 
 fellow-men. The Projector and the Trimmer, the 
 Reformado and the Fanatick, the Tory and the 
 Prince, were one and all put under the microscope. 
 The titles of the books are some measure of 
 their nature and eccentricity. The Good and the 
 Bad^ Cures for the Itch^ Pictures Loquentes^ — these 
 are some of them. The most are mere echoes. 
 Many who had nothing to say could still learn the 
 trick of characterisation, and hope with the sanguine 
 temper of the imitator that they would not be found 
 out. One of them, gravelled for matter, thought 
 it worth while to travesty the noble prose of Hall 
 in heroic verse, to destroy a masterpiece that he 
 might build a trivial monument for himself.^ 
 
 But among them are a few who knew well how 
 to profit by a good example, and who could put some 
 substance of their own into a borrowed form. Here, 
 for instance, is Geoffrey MynshuU, turning a bitter 
 experience to the best account. Who and what he 
 was is still uncertain. We know little more of him 
 than that he belonged to a good family in Cheshire, 
 that in 161 7 he lay in the King's Bench Prison in 
 
 ^ This was Nahum Tate, whose Characters of Vertue and 
 Vice . . . Attempted in Verse from a Treatise of the Reverend 
 Joseph Hall, Late Lord Bishop of Exeter, is a marvel of in- 
 eptitude. Here is a specimen of his misplaced zeal : — 
 
 ' The Hypocrite to sadness can convert 
 His looks, while Mirth is Rev'Uing in his Heart, 
 Then Jugler-like with Pleasure does retreat. 
 To think how smoothly he has pass'd the cheat.' 
 E
 
 66 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 Southwark, and that his Essay cs and Characters of a 
 Prison and Prisoners (i6i8) ill merit the oblivion 
 into which they have fallen. It is a brave and tragic 
 little book, the work of an ingenious scholar and a 
 high-minded gentleman. The author does not tell 
 us by what misfortune or improvidence he was 
 brought within the rules, but clearly he bore his 
 punishment with a quiet courage, and he wrote of 
 the underworld into which he had been thrust with 
 a vividness of style and imagery that never fails. 
 For him, 'a prison is a grave to bury men alive, it is 
 a microcosmos, a little world of woe, it is a map of 
 misery, it is as intricate a place as Rosamund's 
 Labyrinth, and it is so full of blind meanders, and 
 crooked turnings, that it is impossible to find the 
 way out, except he be directed by a silver clue, and 
 can never overcome the Minotaur without a golden 
 ball to work his own safety.' Such is the place, and 
 what are the inhabitants? 'A prisoner,' says 
 MynshuU, Ms an impatient patient, lingering under 
 the rough hands of a cruel physician ; ... he is 
 fortune's tossing-ball, an object that would make 
 mirth melancholy : to his friends an abject, and a 
 subject of nine days' wonder in every barber's shop.' 
 Then he pictures him as 'a poor weather-beaten 
 bird, who, having lost the shore, is driven by tempest 
 to hang upon the sails and tacklings of a prison.' 
 
 But in whatever likeness you see him, the prisoner 
 lies in his dungeon, neglected and forgotten, the 
 victim of a rascal creditor, ' who hath two pairs of
 
 HIS 'CHARACTERS' 67 
 
 hands, one of flesh and blood, and that nature gave 
 him J another of iron, and that the law gives him : 
 but the one is more predominant than the other, 
 for mercy guides the one and mammon the other.' 
 And if the creditor gives no hope, little solace may 
 be got of visitants, w^ho are men, for the most part 
 ' composed of all protesting promises, and little or 
 no performance ; vv^ho are like your almanacks, 
 which, when they prognosticate fair weather, it is 
 a million to a mite if it prove not contrary.' 
 Thus he sketches, with the eloquence of anger, 
 the jailers, the lockers-up of nights, and the other 
 masters of cruelty, who made the life of a debtor's 
 prison intolerable. Yet, though he rise to the 
 height of Juvenal's invective, he knows that his 
 duty is to preserve a tranquil mind in the bitterest 
 adversity, and when he draws the character of a noble, 
 understanding Prisoner, he shows to his reader the 
 ideal of life, which he himself would hope to realise. 
 ' A noble understanding Prisoner,' says he, ' is a 
 book so truly printed that Fortune (with all her 
 mistakings) cannot find in him any errata. He 
 comes to prison, as a great ship in a storm to shore, 
 showing more noble emblems of constant sufferings 
 than the seas could stick upon it of their tyranny. 
 He beholds jailers as a valiant soldier looks upon his 
 wounds, which how dangerous soever, yet he smiles 
 upon his surgeon, and will endure dressing with 
 an undaunted countenance, because he knows it is 
 to fetch him off from danger.' Above all, though
 
 68 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 he does not underrate the miracle of his freedom, he 
 knows that good and evil come alike from himself, 
 that oppression cannot break his magnanimous soul. 
 He asks, in one of his loftiest passages, why the 
 name of prisoner is distasteful. ' Is it because thou 
 art cooped under lock and key ? Is it because 
 thou feelest wants ? ... Is it because thy friends 
 look strangely on thee, or forsake thee ? Is it 
 because thou art disgraced and holden in scorn ? 
 . . . Yet let not all these dismay thee, for hadst 
 thou the whole country to walk in, yet thy soul is still 
 imprisoned in thy corrupted body. . . . Look into 
 thy own bosom, and learn but a short rule, yet very 
 difficult, viz. Nosce teipsum, and thou shalt find that 
 it is not imprisonment that afflicts thee, but the evil 
 that is in thyself.' From all which it is clear that 
 Mynshull mingled reflection with his portraiture, 
 and showed us not merely what manner of men 
 infected a prison, but how a hero might bear 
 himself though he lay fast bound under lock and 
 key. 
 
 To Mynshull's exotic purpose the convention of 
 Overbury was perfectly adapted. Artifice well 
 becomes that which lies outside our commonplace 
 experience. The poor Cheshire gentleman shows 
 us but one corner of life, and that a dingy corner, 
 but he shows it us with a gravity and a verisimilitude 
 which none will contest. John Earle, whose Micro- 
 cosmographie^ or a Piece of the World Characterized^ was 
 published in 1628, had an ampler design. He set out to
 
 HIS 'CHARACTERS' 69 
 
 paint the personages whom he had encountered on 
 his earthly journey, and the colours and the brushes 
 which he employs are Sir Thomas Overbury's. 
 In some respects he is superior to his master. While 
 his observation is as keen as Overbury's, he shows a 
 finer sense of impartiality and a happier sentiment. 
 He does not see his subjects either all black or all 
 white. He does not make characterisation an excuse 
 for invective, nor attempt under a general head to 
 castigate a particular enemy. He was content to 
 look about him, and write down his impressions. 
 If his world was circumscribed, he knew it all the 
 better for that, and it is the University, the Church, 
 and the countryside which inspire his happiest 
 efforts. 
 
 When he touches the court, and the rufflers who 
 frequented there, he does but echo the voice of the 
 dramatist. His gallant is the gallant of convention, 
 'one that was borne and shaped for his clothes,' 
 whose 'main ambition is to get a knighthood, and 
 then an old lady, which, if he be happy in, he fills 
 the stage and a coach so much larger. Otherwise 
 himself and his clothes grow stale together, and he 
 is buried commonly ere he dies in the gaol, or the 
 country.' That is the gallant of many a comedy, 
 who has wandered into Earle's notebook, not by 
 observation, but by accident. Nor can we accept 
 as sincere his vision of Paul's walk, the land's 
 epitome, the lesser Isle of Great Britain. If we 
 would find its stale knights and captains out of
 
 70 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 service, its men of long rapiers and long breeches, 
 we would rather seek them in the plays of Jonson 
 and Dekker, who knew them well, than in the book 
 of this amiable country parson, who viewed them 
 from the pit of a theatre. On the other hand, Earle 
 paints those that inhabit his own world with a rare 
 tact and rarer humour. He gives them their right 
 professions, and he decks them out with the trap- 
 pings that belong to each. You may know his 
 young raw Preacher, as he knew him, ' by his 
 narrow velvet cape, and his serge facing, and his 
 rufF next his hair, the shortest thing about him.' 
 His plain country fellow stands before you, house 
 and all. ' His habitation is some poor thatched roof, 
 distinguished from his barn by the loopholes that let 
 out smoke, which the rain had long since washed 
 throrow, but for the double ceiling of bacon on the 
 inside, which has hung there since his grandsire's 
 time, and is yet to make rashers for posterity.' Is it 
 any wonder that such a man should think ' Noah's 
 flood the greatest plague that ever was, not because 
 it drowned the world, but spoiled the grass ? ' 
 
 The chief lesson of Earle's book also is the uni- 
 formity of human nature, and nowhere does he 
 teach this lesson more clearly than in his sketches 
 of the University. How well we know the mere 
 young gentleman ' who comes there to wear a gown, 
 and to say hereafter he has been at the University, 
 whose companion is ordinarily some stale fellow that 
 has been notorious for an ingle to gold hatbands,
 
 HIS 'CHARACTERS' 71 
 
 which he admires at first and afterwards scorns' ! 
 With how kind a sympathy does he show us an old 
 coUeo-e butler, who is 'none of the worst students in 
 the house, for he keeps the set hours at his book 
 more duly than any,' and who 'domineers over the 
 Freshmen when they first come to the hatch ' ! 
 And the University Dun, is he not the same to-day 
 as when he sat for his portrait to the ingenious 
 Earle ? ' He is very expensive of his time,' we are 
 told, ' for he will wait upon your stairs a whole 
 afternoon, and dance attendance with more patience 
 than a gentleman usher. . . . He grumbles at the 
 ingratitude of men that shun him for his kindness, 
 but indeed it is his own fault, for he is too great 
 an upbraidcr. No man puts them more to their 
 brain than he, and by shifting him off they learn to 
 shift in the world.' With equal justice Earle 
 describes the hangers-on of scholarship — the Anti- 
 quary, who loves all things as Dutchmen love cheese, 
 ' the better for being mouldy and worm-eaten ' ; 
 the Pot-Poet, the dregs of wit, 'a man now much 
 employed in commendation of our Navy, and a 
 bitter inveigher against the Spaniard'; and best of 
 all, the Pretender to Learning, that gentleman 
 whom we all know, a great nomenclator of authors, 
 which he has read in the catalogue, ' who never 
 talks of anything but learning, and learns all from 
 talking.' In conclusion, when Earle writes of that 
 which comes within the circuit of his experience, 
 he writes with a truth, a humour and a skill of
 
 72 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 phrase which few of his rivals surpass, and which, if 
 we forget the claims of invention, entitle him to 
 as high a place as Overbury's in the history of the 
 * Character.' 
 
 As I have said, the drawing of * Characters' was 
 for the idealist a means of expressing the hope that 
 was in him. Nor did George Herbert disdain to 
 employ, for his own purpose, the literary form 
 handled with equal skill and to another end by 
 Overbury and MynshuU. A Priest to the Temple^ 
 or the Country Parson^ his Character and Rule of 
 Holy Life (1632), is a sanguine sketch of what the 
 Parson's Character should be. It is a vision of 
 excellence, not a picture of reality, and it is seen 
 by a devout and simple soul. Different as Herbert's 
 aim was, his method is precisely the method of his 
 predecessors. His sentences have the same arrange- 
 ment ; they rise and fall to the same cadences. 
 Each chapter begins with a brief enumeration of 
 qualities, and if it ends in exhortation, that is exacted 
 by its subject. For instance : ' The Country Parson 
 is full of all knowledge. They say it is an ill Mason 
 that refuseth any stone : and there is no knowledge, 
 but, in a skilful hand, serves either positively as it is, 
 or else to ilUustrate some other knowledge. He 
 condescends even to the knowledge of tillage and 
 pasturage. . . . But the chief and top of his know- 
 ledge consists in the Book of Books, the storehouse 
 and magazine of life and comfort, the Holy Scrip- 
 tures. There he sucks and lives.' And again :
 
 HIS 'CHARACTERS' 73 
 
 ' The Country Parson, as soon as he wakes on Sunday 
 morning, presently falls to work, and seems to him- 
 self so as a Market man is when the Market-day 
 comes, or a shopkeeper when customers use to come 
 in. His thoughts are full of making the best of the 
 day and contriving it to his best gains.' 
 
 In these two passages it is not difficult to recog- 
 nise the technical processes of other and secular 
 writers, and George Herbert's adoption of the 
 ' Character ' best proves its elasticity. And no more 
 violent contrast could be found, in matter, though 
 the manner is the same, to Herbert's quiet idealism, 
 which calls up before our eyes the tranquil places 
 of the earth, the grave church, the homely parson- 
 age, the yew-shadowed churchyard of a remote and 
 pleasant village, than the 'Characters' of Samuel 
 Butler, which are full of strife and violence, and 
 which on every page provoke discussion and chal- 
 lenge to the fray. It was not for the author of 
 Hudibras to use any other than a boisterous 
 humour. He was a fighter who never shrank from 
 the field, and who struck at his foes as fiercely in the 
 prose of his 'Characters' as in the inspired doggerel 
 of his verse. Their wit is as turbulent as their 
 temper, and if in the end we find them tedious, that 
 is because we cannot dine off sauces, and because 
 Butler refuses to mitigate his bitter seasonings with 
 a morsel of bread or a plain piece of beefsteak. 
 Nevertheless it is a curiosity of literature that 
 George Herbert and Samuel Butler, each in a single
 
 74 SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 
 
 work, should confess a common ancestry, that Hall 
 and Overbury should divide the credit of having 
 been examples to talents so diverse as these. 
 
 Butler was neither the first nor the last to see the 
 value of the 'Character' in political controversy. 
 The pamphleteers of a militant age took it in hand, 
 and fashioned it valiantly to their use. The ardent 
 discussions of the seventeenth century found in the 
 unconscious following of Theophrastus the quickest 
 outlet for their malignant humours. There was 
 scarce a statesman who was not pilloried in the 
 name of the class to which he was supposed to belong. 
 And from the hustings the fashion of character- 
 drawing passed into history. Clarendon and Burnet, 
 to give but two instances, were not content to 
 record events, to cite the mere names of soldiers and 
 politicians. They must fit each hero, each villain, 
 with an appropriate character ; and so well did they 
 practise the art, that we know their contemporaries 
 as well as we know our own. Thus it is by an irony 
 of chance that they too owed something to the 
 ingenuity of a poor hapless courtier, who fell a 
 victim many years before their time to the fierce 
 passions of love and hate. As he lay dying in the 
 Tower, Sir Thomas Overbury thought only of that 
 last letter, which he prayed would involve Nor- 
 thampton in the net of eternal shame. And by one 
 of the accidents which defeat the settled purposes 
 of men, the letter was speedily forgotten, to be 
 remembered long after only by the curious, and the
 
 HIS * CHARACTERS' 75 
 
 book of Characters which doubtless their author 
 thought scattered to the winds of heaven, was 
 sent down the stream of Time to make him famous 
 in the eyes of those, who knew not the scandal of 
 his life, and to be an example to a vast number of 
 writers and pamphleteers, hardly conscious of the 
 debt they owed.
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 I 
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN was the type and 
 exemplar of the wandering Scot. He was of 
 the adventurous band which once made its country's 
 name glorious for arms and arts from one end of 
 Europe to another. If the hard life of an inhospi- 
 table land sent forth the many profound scholars 
 and brave soldiers who taught and fought wherever 
 there was a professor's rostrum or a field of battle, 
 the kindlier soil of France or High Germany 
 encouraged the growth both of learning and 
 courage. The Scots abroad proved themselves as 
 nimble with their swords as with their brains. 
 They were as ready to enter a quarrel as to begin 
 an argument. Fier comme ung Escossois passed into 
 a commonplace ; and it is not surprising, when we 
 remember how quick to anger and valiant in combat 
 were the heroes of the sixteenth century. There 
 was Thomas Dempster, for instance, who not only 
 professed the humanities at Toulouse and Paris, 
 at Pisa and Bologna, but who was so stout a man 
 of his hands that he once made prisoners three 
 soldiers sent to castigate him. And there was 
 Francis Sinclair, who fought mathematically, and
 
 8o GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 mathematicised like a soldier. And there was 
 James Crichton, Scotus Admirabilis^ whose prowess 
 in the schools and in the tourney has been celebrated 
 by the most eloquent of his compatriots, and who 
 for three centuries has inhabited the gracious realm 
 of romance. 
 
 Thus from the Netherlands to Muscovy the 
 Scots met the scholars of all nations on equal terms. 
 The world, sharply divided by politics, knew no 
 boundaries of intelligence, and as Latin was the 
 universal language, human intercourse was not 
 hindered by diversity of speech. There was no 
 essential difference, save in the quality of the 
 professors, between the colleges of Scotland and 
 France. And George Buchanan, in leaving his 
 own land, changed neither his tongue nor the 
 course of his instruction. Born in 1506, of a family 
 that was more ancient than rich, he lost his father in 
 early youth, and was sent by an uncle to Paris in 
 1520 ; and thus he began the life of a wandering 
 scholar, which ceased only with his final return 
 to Scotland after forty adventurous years. The 
 Paris to which he came was the last stronghold 
 of scholasticism. The new learning had not yet 
 crossed the Alps, and the study of Greek, which 
 Erasmus had carried to Cambridge twenty years 
 before, was still regarded in Paris as pestilent and 
 heretical. But Buchanan was not checked on the 
 road of scholarship by the scruples of faith. Already 
 profoundly versed in the reading and writing of
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 8i 
 
 Latin, he presently taught himself Greek, and, 
 when the years had matured his talent, his know- 
 ledge of the classical tongues was unrivalled in 
 France. 
 
 Meanwhile his ardour for learning had suffered 
 a check. In 1522 his uncle died, and poverty sent 
 him back to Scotland for a while. Here he took 
 part in the Duke of Albany's hapless expedition 
 against England, and won that acquaintance with 
 warfare which well became the scholars of his 
 time. A year later he visited St. Andrews, that he 
 might sit at the feet of John Major, who, to cite 
 Buchanan's own words, 'turn ibi dialecticen, aut verius 
 sophisticen, in extrema senectute docebat.' That 
 Buchanan ever had much sympathy with the system 
 of John Major, the last and greatest of the school- 
 men, is unlikely, and before long he became one 
 of the old professor's bitterest opponents. But his 
 sojourn at St. Andrews taught him the worst of 
 the ancient method, and inspired the lines which, 
 together with Rabelais' contemptuous reference, 
 keep alive the fame and name of Major. Among 
 the books which Pantagruel found in the library of 
 St. Victor was Major's treatise De modo faciendi 
 boudinos. Buchanan is more highly elaborate in his 
 satire than Rabelais. Here is his epigram : 
 
 ' Cum scateat nugis solo cognomine Major, 
 Nee sit in immense pagina sana libro: 
 Non mirum, titulis quod se veracibus ornat: 
 Nee semper mcndax fingere Creta solet.'
 
 82 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 Buchanan, however, did not remain long in 
 Scotland. In a few years he was back in Paris, 
 living the hard life of a beggar-student, picking up 
 a crust where he might, and engaged in a fierce 
 tussle with fortune. And then increasing renown 
 brought him prosperity. Not merely was he Regent 
 at Ste. Barbe, the most highly enlightened college 
 in Paris, but he held the honourable office of Pro- 
 curator in the German Nation. Yet none knew 
 better than he the penalties of scholarship. In 
 the sixteenth as in the eighteenth century the 
 reward of learning and poetry was ' toil, envy, want, 
 the patron, and the jail.' The deepest erudition 
 was not enough to save a professor from neglect. 
 Devotion to the classics was powerless against the 
 indifference of loafing students. In an elegy on the 
 miserable lot of those who taught the humanities in 
 Paris, George Buchanan has described with much 
 feeling the hardships which he himself suffered. At 
 four o'clock a watchman aroused the college from 
 a tardy and broken slumber. At five a bell sum- 
 moned the scholars to their work. Then there 
 enters the master in cap and gown, his cane in one 
 hand, his Virgil in the other : in vain he insists 
 upon silence ; in vain he expounds the text of the 
 poet ; the scholars sleep or look about them, 
 complain of sickness or write their letters home. 
 Then the master must needs use his rod, and the 
 day, begun in sloth, is passed in tears. 
 
 So the foolish round of sleep and toil is complete.
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 83 
 
 with hardly an hour for dinner. And, even if the 
 master ensures a moment's tranquillity, he is soon 
 disturbed by a racketing crowd of idlers from the 
 city, under whose iron-bound shoes the very earth 
 trembles. And how is the wretch repaid ? By the 
 ingratitude of scholars, the discontent of parents, 
 and by grinding poverty : 
 
 ' Denique quicquid agis, comes assidet improba egestas, 
 Sive poema canis, sive poema doces.' 
 
 Buchanan both sang and taught, with small profit to 
 himself, and his farewell to the Muses, said when he 
 left the college of Ste. Barbc, was doubtless sincere, 
 despite its formality. ' Ite leves nugae,' said the 
 poet in bitterness of heart, 
 
 ' Ite leves nugse, sterilesque valete Camoens, 
 Gratacpie Phoebaso Castalis unda choro. 
 Ite, sat est : piimos vobiscum absumpsimus annos, 
 Optima pars vita: depenit(]ue meaf.' 
 
 Nevertheless, Buchanan's vocation was loud and 
 imperious. Like many a college don before and 
 since, he clung to the office which he affected to 
 despise. Born to scholarship, he could not avoid his 
 destiny ; and his happiness was complete if only he 
 were permitted the privilege of complaint. After 
 all, were there not compensations in a life of study ? 
 What mattered it that he got up early, sat up late, 
 and ate the bread of sorrow, if he might surprise the 
 secrets of the past and echo in his numbers the voice 
 of Virgil and Horace ? Nor must it be forgotten
 
 84 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 that Buchanan's profession summoned him to the 
 land he loved best in the world. To him, indeed, 
 as to countless others, France was at once a solace 
 and an inspiration. Three centuries after Buchanan, 
 Thackeray paid his tribute of respect. ' I never 
 landed at Calais pier,' said he, 'without feeling that 
 a load of sorrow was left on the other side of the 
 water.' And when Buchanan had deserted the arid 
 wastes of Lusitania and the pasturage fertile only in 
 poverty, he sang so noble a paean to France as proved 
 that the horror of the watchman's bell was not 
 always in his ear. In his best iambics he greets the 
 happy land of Gaul, ' bonarum blanda nutrix artium.' 
 He celebrates her nimble air and fertile soil, 
 her wooded glades and sheep-covered downs, her 
 mountain streams, her stately rivers, and her 
 hospitable ports. He pays homage to her splendid 
 cities, her modest life, her easy converse, her polished 
 manners. But, declares he, if she be amiable in 
 peace, she is unconquerable in war — an amiable 
 friend and a gallant enemy. What wonder, then, if 
 he pay the allegiance of a son ? ' Ni patrio te amore 
 diligam,' he writes, 
 
 ' et colam 
 Duin vivo, rursus non reciiso visere 
 Jejuna niiserae tesqua Lusitanix, 
 Glebas(jue tantum fertiles penuriae.' 
 
 His fidelity to France severed him for many a 
 year from his native land. But in 1535 he returned 
 thither with the Earl of Cassilis for a pupil, and, as
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 85 
 
 is proved by the Treasurer's Accounts,^ was closely 
 bound for some years to the Court. On i6th February 
 1535, by the king's gracious precept and special 
 command, George Buchanan received so many ells 
 of 'paries blak' for the making of a gown and 
 other liveries — viz. hose, bonnets, hocquetons, and 
 doublets. And three years later the munificent gift 
 was repeated. But, confident in the friendship of 
 the Court, Buchanan had grossly offended the rulers of 
 the Church. Inspired, one likes to think, by the 
 example of Rabelais, he had attacked the Franciscans 
 in a set of bitter, rasping satires. He had held up to 
 the general ridicule their sloth, their greed, their 
 ignorance. His verses, courageous as they were 
 sincere, won the approval of the king ; but not even 
 the king could save the poet from punishment, and 
 he was thrown into prison under suspicion of 
 harbouring Lutheran doctrines. On his enlarge- 
 ment nothing remained save flight, and after a brief 
 sojourn in England he once more found refuge in 
 the kindly city of Paris. 
 
 Here a bitter disappointment awaited him. The 
 worst of all his enemies. Cardinal Beaton, was there 
 on an embassy, and lost no time in stirring up 
 the French Government to avenge the insulted 
 Franciscans. Unwilling to offend the Scottish 
 Ambassador, Paris threatened Buchanan with ex- 
 pulsion or imprisonment ; and he, like many another 
 
 1 These are quoted in Mr. Hume Brown's erudite Life of 
 George Buchanan.
 
 86 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 persecuted scholar, bowed to the storm. Discreetly 
 leaving the capital, he made his way to Bordeaux, 
 where his friend, Andre de Gouvea, presided over 
 the College de Guyenne, and where a chair was 
 speedily found for him. Fortunate in his colleagues, 
 he was fortunate also in his pupils. Among them 
 he numbered Montaigne, who amply repaid the 
 debt of gratitude he owed his master by such a 
 meed of praise as was sufficient of itself to confer 
 immortality. 'The famous Scottish Poet' — thus he 
 described him, and after this handsome tribute we 
 cannot grudge the Essayist the trifling boast, where- 
 with he capped it. George Buchanan and his other 
 domestic tutors often told him, said he, 'that in 
 his infancy he had the Latin tongue so ready and 
 perfect that themselves feared to take him in hand,' 
 Nor was this all : he further declared that when 
 Buchanan — whom afterward he saw attending the 
 Mareschal de Brissac — was about to write a treatise 
 on the instruction of children, he took the model 
 and pattern from him. For this statement there is 
 no support, yet it matters not, since Montaigne has 
 explained his own method with a fulness of eloquence 
 and illustration afcer which Buchanan, his master, 
 might have limped in vain. 
 
 Such was Buchanan's good fortune, even in times 
 of stress, to be honoured in the honour of his pupils. 
 And his sojourn at Bordeaux, by knitting more 
 closely the ties of friendship which bound him to 
 Andre de Gouvea, persuaded him to the adventure
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 87 
 
 which he regarded as the unhappiest of his career, 
 but which the eye of romance may contemplate 
 without displeasure. In 1547 ^'"g John of 
 Portugal desired to restore the University of 
 Coimbra to eminence, and he invited Andre de 
 Gouvea to undertake the task. De Gouvea, con- 
 senting, enrolled such of his ancient colleagues as 
 were willing to teach humane letters and the rudi- 
 ments of Aristotle's philosophy. Buchanan, as he 
 tells us, needed little inducement to accept de 
 Gouvea's proposal. The whole of Europe was at 
 war or on the verge of war ; and the scholar, who 
 had now passed his eighth lustrum, confesses that he 
 saw in Portugal the one corner likely to remain 
 undisturbed. Moreover, he was invited not so much 
 to travel as to live among friends and neighbours, 
 and so hopefully did he view the prospect that he 
 asked his brother Patrick to be of the party. 
 
 Alas, for human hopes ! Within a year de 
 Gouvea was dead, the College of Coimbra had 
 closed its doors, and Buchanan and his colleagues 
 were handed over to the Inquisition. Upon 
 Buchanan the misfortune fell most heavily. The 
 Church had an ancient score to settle with the 
 scourger of monks, though the king had promised 
 to overlook the offence ; and the voice of detraction 
 was soon busy. He had eaten meat in Lent, said 
 one, which, in fact, was the general habit of Spain. 
 He had declared, said another, that Augustine's 
 views on the Eucharist were heretical. It was
 
 88 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 affirmed by more than one witness that he was not 
 a sound Cathoh'c. And his persecutors, in zeal for 
 their faith, shut him up in a monastery, that he 
 might be taught the true doctrine by a set of monks 
 who, as he confesses, were not inhuman nor evilly- 
 disposed, but merely ignorant. That the scholar 
 chafed at the impertinence is plain enough. But he 
 solaced his leisure by turning the Psalms into Latin 
 verse, and he took the first chance, offered by a 
 Cretan ship, to make his way to England.^ 
 
 II 
 Such are some of the adventures which befell this 
 travelling Scot on his journey through the world. 
 
 ' Buchanan's hardship, great as it was for a sensitive scholar 
 to bear, was not unprovoked nor wholly unjust. It has been 
 involved by partisans in a mist of prejudice. The truth is 
 simple enough, if we remember the state of opinion and 
 Buchanan's own love of free speech. He was clearly treated 
 with consideration, and he himself made no complaint. 
 Neither Cardinal Beaton nor the Franciscans had a hand in 
 the prosecution as has been pretended. Beaton was dead, and 
 the chief witness against Buchanan was a Dominican. The 
 Inquisition does not seem to have acted harshly. Buchanan at 
 his trial confessed that he had vacillated and had been per- 
 suaded at one moment to embrace Lutheranism — a confession 
 which could not in the Portugal of the sixteenth century be 
 lightly passed over. His conduct throughout the discussion was 
 absolutely correct, and he showed both wisdom and courage in 
 confronting his judges. His imprisonment was never close, 
 and he was soon put on his parole and ' permitted to quit the 
 monastery in which he was, and go to the city.' See George 
 Buchanan in the Lisbon Inquisition, by G. J. C. Hennriques, 
 Lisbon: 1906.
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 89 
 
 With Latin for a key to unlock the gates of learn- 
 ing, he taught and lectured wherever his destiny 
 placed him. And all the while he had pursued his 
 true craft of letters with zeal and success. During 
 his sojourn in France the triumph of Humanism had 
 been complete, and few scholars had made them- 
 selves better masters of the New Learning than 
 George Buchanan. Wherever scholasticism found 
 an enemy, Buchanan found a friend. He fought 
 against the folly of Duns Scotus and the superstitions 
 of the monks with as keen a blade as any of them. 
 His literary fame made him a citizen of the whole 
 world. Nor is it a wild conjecture to suppose that 
 he lived on terms of easy friendship with the leaders 
 of the school. Guillaume Bude and Vinet were" his 
 intimates, and surely Bude must have made him 
 acquainted with the great Rabelais himself. That 
 Rabelais frequented the society of Scots has been 
 proved by the fact, ingeniously demonstrated by 
 Professor Ker, that Panurge, in displaying his 
 knowledge of the English tongue, used the dialect 
 of North Britain,^ Nor was Bude the only link 
 
 ^ Is it too fantastic to suggest that Rabelais learned the 
 little English (or Scots) that he had from Buchanan himself? 
 The careers of the two men were parallel, and the legendary 
 Buchanan owed not a little to Rabelais. All the chapbooks 
 describe George Buchanan's encounter with a French or Italian 
 professor of signs, and it is clear where he came from. If 
 Buchanan was not Rabelais' master of Scots, then surely it was 
 Florence Wilson, another friend and secretary of Cardinal du 
 Bellay.
 
 90 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 which might have united Buchanan and Rabelais. 
 Briand de Vallee was the friend of both, and 
 while Buchanan addressed to this Senator of 
 Bordeaux a witty and characteristic elegy, pro Lena 
 Apologia^ to Rabelais he was ' le tant bon, tant 
 vertueux, tant docte et equitable president Briand 
 de Vallee, Seigneur du Douhet.' There remains 
 Cardinal du Bellay, who knew them both, and 
 doubtless extolled to each the virtues of the 
 other. 
 
 But there is a yet graver reason why Buchanan 
 and Rabelais should have been well acquainted. The 
 end and purpose of their writings was the same. 
 They assailed the same abuses, they preached the 
 same gospel. If you may compare dissimilar things, 
 it might be said that Buchanan was the Scottish 
 Rabelais. His early works were designed, like 
 Gargantua and Pantagruel^ for the encouragement of 
 sound learning and good-humour, and for the dis- 
 comfiture of idle friars and other squint-minded 
 persons. Though nothing could be farther apart 
 than Buchanan's trim Latin and the coloured, 
 authentic speech of Rabelais, Somnlutn^ Palinodia^ 
 and Franchcanus are a genuine, if frugal, rendering 
 of Pantagruelism. Buchanan was as little devoted 
 to a cloistered life as Rabelais. He, too, lived freely 
 in the world ; he, too, enjoyed the sounds and sights 
 of the open airj he, too, refused to pass his days in 
 the idle mortification of the flesh ; and it is difficult 
 to believe that the two evangelists of learning and
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 91 
 
 merriment, sharing the same friends, did not also 
 frequent the same taverns. 
 
 And during his many years of wandering, 
 Buchanan met with all the respect that is shown 
 to a master. He was poor ; perhaps he was hungry ; 
 but he always preserved the dignity of his calling. 
 If literature was not lucrative, at least it was dis- 
 tinguished ; and if the writer's pockets were empty, 
 his profession skilled him in the writing of begging- 
 letters. Though he was no rival to Erasmus in the 
 delicate art of extracting money from the rich man's 
 pocket by cunning words, he was not without pro- 
 ficiency, as many an epigram remains to show. It 
 was his amiable practice to flatter his patron in verse, 
 and to hide the serious object of his quest beneath 
 the sheltering cloak of humour. On one occasion 
 he suggests to Lennox that he will gladly receive 
 anything he may give him except his gout ; and it is 
 thus that he persuades Mary to benevolence, in the 
 days before he assailed her with bitter words : 
 
 ' Do quod adest : opto quod abest tibi : dona darentur 
 Aurea, sors animo si foret aequa meo. 
 Hoc leve si credis, paribus me ulcisceie donis : 
 Et quod abest, opta tu mihi : da quod adest.' 
 
 To-day the patron is dead, and the client is 
 despised. It is not surprising, therefore, that 
 Buchanan's importunity has appeared disgraceful 
 to many. But without reason. In the sixteenth 
 century there was no eager public to dictate what 
 should be written for its amusement, and the man of
 
 92 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 letters thought it as little shame to ask for money as 
 kings and nobles to give it. And who should demand 
 these honourable alms, if not George Buchanan ? 
 By common consent he was regarded as the first 
 poet of his time. Montaigne's tribute has already 
 been quoted — ' ce grand poete escossois,' — and it 
 does not stand alone. Estienne, in a preface to the 
 poet's version of the Psalms, described him as ' poet- 
 arum nostri saeculi facile princeps.' Guy Patin, 
 using the very language of hyperbole, declared that 
 Virgil wrote no better verses than Buchanan, and 
 that it took fifteen centuries to make another Virgil. 
 And Joseph Scaliger, not to be outdone, composed 
 an epigram of equal happiness and extravagance to 
 the one poet who, as he said, left all others in Europe 
 behind : 
 
 ' Namque ad supremum perducta Poetica culmen 
 In te Stat, nee quo progrediatiir habet. 
 Imperii fiierat Romani Scotia limes: 
 Romani eloquii Scotia finis erit.' 
 
 In these four lines are all the qualities of the lapidary 
 style. They are not too long to be cut upon stone, 
 and it is evident that Scaliger, in writing them, was 
 not upon oath. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Thus the chorus of praise was swelled, and we 
 cannot but ask, Was it justified ? At the outset, let 
 it be said that we must not judge the poets and 
 critics of the sixteenth century by the standards of
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 93 
 
 to-day. Latin was then the universal language of 
 cultivated Europe, and scholars wrote, as they 
 thought, in what is now a dead language. Where 
 Erasmus, the greatest man of letters among them all, 
 led the way, why should not Buchanan follow ? By 
 avoiding his own vernacular he put the polish of 
 culture on his verse and immeasurably increased his 
 audience. He knew not that thus he was bartering 
 the chance of immortality for an immediate fame. 
 Great in his own age, he is but the shadow of a name 
 in ours. He added nothing to the sum of human 
 expression. He did not extend the boundary stone 
 of poetry by a single hand's-breadth. He put on the 
 style of others, as a man may wear a borrowed 
 overcoat, and though the style fitted him it was not 
 his own. 
 
 Now, convention is the essence of all the arts. 
 Conventionality, which is the vice of convention, as 
 sentimentality is the vice of sentiment, is their bane. 
 Poets, like runners, ' vitai lampada tradunt.' And 
 Buchanan did not take the lamp from him who 
 went before ; he rummaged in the dust-heap of 
 antiquity for an ancient lantern. Though the 
 lantern which he found had once been bright, the 
 choice was arbitrary. In other words, he used 
 phrases, the coinage of a broken and revived tradi- 
 tion, which were more nearly allied to the lecture- 
 hall than to literature. His poems were written not 
 because Buchanan was forced to write them, but 
 because somebody else had written something which
 
 94 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 he thought worthy of imitation. Such is the road 
 not of life but of death, and he who follows it is an 
 antiquary rather than a poet. And thus it is that 
 two lines written in the white heat of inspiration by 
 Robert Burns are worth the complete works of him 
 who, in Scaliger's eyes, had reached the top and 
 pinnacle of poetic eminence. 
 
 It is, therefore, not among the authentic poets of 
 the world that we must ranlc Buchanan. He did 
 but compose exercises of unrivalled wit and elegance. 
 Not even his Calendce Malce^ which won the ad- 
 miration of Wordsworth, entitles him to wear the 
 bays. But his Muse, as he called her, was apt for 
 every enterprise, grave or joyous, complimentary or 
 satiric. Her ease was as conspicuous as her variety. 
 Wherever Horace or Virgil, Seneca or Martial, gave 
 the lead, she followed with spirit and address. As 
 a Latin versifier, indeed, Buchanan deserved all the 
 praise that has been heaped upon him by the lavish 
 hand of Scaliger and others. Though he was not 
 guiltless of false quantities, the fact that he allowed 
 himself certain freedoms forbidden to schoolboys 
 proves that he handled his material like a man of 
 letters, and not like a pedant. Whether he excelled 
 in satire or in drama, in epigram or in elegy, in epic 
 or in song, the curious may dispute. It is the dead 
 level of excellence which appears ominous to the 
 critic. 
 
 His mastery of many forms is equalled by his skill 
 in the treatment of the classic metres. Hexameters,
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 95 
 
 elegiacs, hendecasyllabics, iambics, sapphics, alcaics, 
 asclepiads, — he uses them with licence and facility. 
 He was an adept in all the arts of honour and 
 compliment. Of the many kings who ruled in his 
 time, there are few at whose feet he did not lay the 
 tribute of his praise, Charles V., ' Vasconidis reg- 
 nator aquae'; Mary Stuart and Francis, ' fortunati 
 ambo, et felici tempore nati, et thalamis juncti'; 
 Elizabeth, 'regina, princeps optima principum'; 
 Henry VIII., whom ' virtus Diis immortalibus aequum 
 efficit,' — he hymned them all in terms of elegant 
 extravagance. It need not be supposed that in these 
 exercises Buchanan's loyalty was deeply engaged. 
 It is the man of letters, not the patriot, who speaks 
 in their well-turned lines. And he was as eloquent 
 in satire as in encomium. It has already been said 
 how he followed the same road as Rabelais in de- 
 nouncing the monks : his Franciscanus and his Fratres 
 Fraterrimi will remain models of their kind so long 
 as they find readers. In his tragedies Jephthes and 
 Baptistes he set himself to rival Seneca ; in his 
 translations from Euripides, wherein Montaigne 
 acted a part, he broke a lance with Erasmus himself. 
 That he did all these things well is beyond cavil or 
 dispute. Were they worth doing ? Time has given 
 a melancholy answer to the question. 
 
 When Buchanan was imprisoned in Portugal, he 
 beguiled his leisure, as has been said, by making his 
 celebrated paraphrase of the Psalms, the best-known 
 and ir some respects the most skilful of his works.
 
 96 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 It is not a translation in the literal sense, but a 
 collection of poems, composed in various metres, on 
 the themes of the Psalms. Read wherever the 
 Latin tongue was understood, Buchanan's paraphrase 
 gave him a universal fame, and it is only a growing 
 ignorance of the dead languages that has thrust it 
 back into tlic bundle of literary curiosities. And, 
 by a coincidence that lias surprised some, Buchanan 
 was addressing verses to Ne;era, Leonora, and the 
 rest at the very moment that he was composing his 
 version of the Psalms. The coincidence is not 
 surprising. As Paul Vcrlaine, a poet of our own 
 times, has insisted, man is a duplex creature, whom 
 it amuses to express both sides of his genius at the 
 same time. So Verlaine himself wrote Parullelcment 
 as a relief to the austerity of Sagcsse and Bonheur. 
 So Buchanan took refuge from the Psalms in such 
 love-poems as his rugged temper could devise. And 
 the conjunction is less remarkable in Buchanan, 
 because Leonora and Nci-ra were no more to him 
 than were |ulia and Anthca to the author of the 
 1 Iisfwritlt's. 
 
 His Muse, like llcrritk's, was iloubtlcss more 
 jocund than his life i and the biographer who lias 
 been at the pains to clear him of a moral taint is 
 merely ploughing the sands. Had not Catullus 
 reproached his Leshi.i wiili infulclity in sincere and 
 immortal verse, Buchanan would have found no fault 
 with the ladies of Portugal. But he was not one to 
 shrink from his duty, and without diflidence he
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 97 
 
 attempted to rival the greatest poet of them all. 
 His courage, indeed, outran his discretion. Catullus 
 puts no word upon paper at which he has not 
 writhed and bled. Buchanan, in obedient pupilage, 
 turns the armoury of rhetorical abuse upon Leonora, 
 who was bred and li\'ed in his fancy. With her for 
 excuse, he exhausts the terms of obloquy and reproach. 
 '■ Matre impudica filia impudicior,' — thus he addresses 
 her, conscious, as you are, of the phrase's origin. 
 With the candour of one who has never known or 
 respected women, he catalogues her imperfections : 
 
 ' Miniata labra, sordid.e creta genae, 
 Hiatus oris indecens 
 Rictu canino.' 
 
 And so on with wearisome iteration. He declares 
 that she is as false as her painted face, her lying 
 tongue, her brazen ring, and her gem that is but 
 glass. And the declaration is made with so frank 
 a brutality, that she is obviously no more than an 
 exercise in Latin versification. Neasra is the in- 
 vention of a finer subtlety. Though she, too, is 
 the child of letters, not of experience, she is nearer 
 to human life than her erring sister. One epigram 
 there is, dedicated to her name, which s+iould hold 
 a place in every anthology : 
 
 'Ilia mihi semper prssenti dura Neaera. 
 Me quoties absuin semper abesse dolet ; 
 Non desiderio nostri, non mseret amore, 
 Sed se non nostro posse dolore frui.' 
 
 Ingenious as they are, these lines have been 
 
 G
 
 98 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 turned into English with equal ingenuity by James 
 
 Hannay : 
 
 ' Neasra is harsh at our every greeting 5 
 
 Whene'er I am absent, she wants me again ; 
 'Tis not that she loves me, or cares for our meeting — 
 She misses the pleasure of seeing my pain/ 
 
 And Nesra has yet another claim to our gratitude. 
 Did not the tangles of her hair suggest to Milton 
 an exquisite phrase ? 
 
 IV 
 
 In 1 56 1 Buchanan, after many years of absence, 
 returned to Scotland. He returned in an evil hour. 
 Hitherto he had lived the tranquil life of a scholar 
 and poet. It was now his destiny to mingle in the 
 bitter fray of politics and theology. That he 
 should have come badly out of it was foregone. As 
 he had not been bred to affairs, so he had escaped, 
 with a single bruise, the religious persecutions which 
 had disgraced the continent of Europe. He was 
 made of the same stuff as Erasmus and Rabelais, 
 who thought that scholars might better serve the 
 cause of learning than by being burnt alive. And 
 he came to a country devastated by the passion of 
 fanatical divines. His humanism could not endure 
 the strain of Knox's friendship. He descended from 
 the professor's chair to the stool of the pamphleteer, 
 and ever since his reputation has suffered. At first 
 fortune smiled upon him. He found employment 
 about the Court. He became a favourite of Queen
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 99 
 
 Mary, with whom he read Livy, and to whom he 
 addressed verses of ecstatic adulation. And then 
 Darnley was murdered, and for Buchanan all was 
 changed. Turned in an instant to a bitter partisan, 
 he dipped his pen in the gall of gossip and slander, 
 and in his famous Dctectio he assailed Mary without 
 ruth or scruple. For so doing his enemies have 
 reproached him with ingratitude and inconsistency, 
 and they have reproached him, it seems, unjustly. 
 
 No man is compelled to hold with unwavering 
 tenacity the opinion which once he thought prudent. 
 A crime may absolve the blandest courtier from the 
 duty of continued devotion. The death of Darnley 
 may have been for Buchanan a sufficient reason for 
 opposing Mary and her policy with all his strength. 
 We cannot blame him for transferring his allegiance. 
 What is unpardonable in Buchanan is the method 
 of his attack. A scholar and a humanist should not 
 stoop to collect the tittle-tattle of the kitchen. He 
 should not listen with an avid ear to the voice of 
 malice. It is consonant neither with learning nor 
 chivalry to insult a woman and a queen. The guilt 
 or innocence of Mary does not palliate or enhance 
 the crime of Buchanan. Whoever was right, he 
 was wrong ; and he may not even plead the poor 
 excuse of religious fanaticism. Nevertheless, as we 
 read the Detectio^ we cannot but admire the skill of 
 its author. It is a masterpiece of violent, calculated 
 invective. So well arranged is it, so faithfully does 
 it obey the laws of controversy, that Buchanan's
 
 100 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 head seems more deeply engaged than his heart 
 And the kindest view to take of the episode is that 
 Mary was to his imagination as unreal a personage 
 as the shameful, shameless Leonora herself. 
 
 But while the manner of the work is an evident 
 disgrace, it did no violence to the author's political 
 creed. Now, Buchanan, who believed in the pagan 
 world as devoutly as his pupil Montaigne, derived 
 his opinions concerning governors and government 
 from the same source as the Essayist. It was 
 Plutarch and the classics from whom he learnt the 
 familiar lesson of liberty and of the popular control 
 of kings. He was no believer in the doctrine of 
 divine right. Harmodios and Aristogeiton were 
 doubtless among his heroes, and he, too, would have 
 approved by word, if not by deed, the supreme act 
 of tyrannicide. He held, in brief, that a king might 
 rule only so long as he retained the confidence and 
 respect of the people ; and if his point of view was 
 philosophic rather than political, he did not change 
 it in the course of a long life. In verse and prose 
 he taught the same lesson. A king, said he, must 
 be wise, or his subjects have the right of vengeance : 
 and it is interesting to note that, while he himself 
 trained the most foolish king that ever sat upon the 
 throne, his treatise De Jure Regni helped to prepare 
 the way for the Great Rebellion and the Deposition 
 of Charles i. 
 
 Buchanan's attack upon Mary was rewarded by 
 more than thirty pieces of silver. Though wealth
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN loi 
 
 escaped him, he lived henceforth in dignity and 
 esteem. He was of the Commission which carried 
 the indictment against Mary to London. He was 
 appointed tutor to James vi., and thereafter he held 
 many distinguished and honourable posts. As 
 Director of the Chancery and Keeper of the Privy 
 Seal, he could exert an influence which never had 
 been his in the Universities of Europe. But his 
 career lay not in the field of politics. Being a 
 theorist and a man of letters, he was more at ease 
 in making the best of King James's intellect, and 
 in composing his last work — Rerum Scoticarum 
 Htstoria^ — a vast tome, which is shut off from the 
 general reader by its excellent Latinity, and which, 
 composed before the days of historical criticism', does 
 not carry a heavy weight of authority. 
 
 V 
 
 It is not easy to discover the essential character of 
 George Buchanan. This one episode in his career 
 — the attack upon Queen Mary — has aroused so 
 thick a cloud of controversy, that the man himself 
 has been obscured. But it was a mere episode, and 
 though it has coloured the popular opinion with 
 prejudice, it cannot diminish Buchanan's services 
 to humanism and literature. When he wrote the 
 Detectto he had passed his sixtieth year, and he may 
 fairly be judged by what he achieved before ever he 
 soiled his hands with politics. As has been said, 
 he was a scholar of liberal understanding and vast
 
 102 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 erudition. If he was neither so witty as Erasmus nor 
 so humorous as Rabelais, the spirit of those great men 
 breathed within him. Though he did not possess 
 the same originality of mind which persuaded 
 Master Alcofribas to discard Latin and to discover a 
 noble, genuine prose of his own, though he erred in 
 believing that classical Latin was the universal 
 language of scholarship, he erred with Erasmus and 
 Boccaccio and many another greater man than him- 
 self. 
 
 And assuredly he was all untainted by the sin of 
 pedantry. No man was ever more fitted by temper 
 and breeding to live in the larger, fresher air of life. 
 Ronsard, a witness of truth, said that there was 
 nothing of the pedant in him save the cap and 
 gown ; and had it not been for the strife of politics 
 the charge of pedantry would never have been 
 brought against him. As he bitterly opposed John 
 Major and the Schoolmen, so for the greater part of 
 his life he kept aloof from the murderous quarrels 
 of the theologians. He was neither Catholic nor 
 Lutheran. While he fortified himself with reasons 
 why he should not become a Franciscan, he had 
 never even a momentary intention of taking the 
 vows. His portraits suggest that he was a man of 
 a dry, sardonic humour, contemptuous of fools, and 
 absolute in courage. Yet in the ruggedness of his 
 unkempt features there is a touch of kindliness, an 
 evident love of banter, which make us regret that 
 we know little of him that is not revealed in his
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 103 
 
 work. How shall elegy or epigram be a true index 
 of character ? The rarest humanist may be forgiven 
 if he cannot express his soul in classical Latin. 
 
 And for the most part Buchanan's contemporaries 
 are silent concerning him. James Melville in his 
 ' Diary ' gives us a sketch, which we gladly accept 
 in default of a better. Now, Melville visited him 
 with some friends a year before his death, when his 
 History was under the press. ' When we cam to 
 his chalmer ' — thus writes the diarist — ' we fand 
 him sitting in his chaire, teatching his young man 
 that servit in his chalmer to spell a, b, ab ; e, b, eb. 
 Efter salutation, Mr Andro sayes, " I sie, sir, yie are 
 nocht ydle." " Better this," quoth he, "nor stelling 
 sheipe, or sitting ydle, quhilk is als ill." Therefter 
 he schew us the Epistle Dedicatorie to the King ; 
 the quhilk, when Mr Andro had read, he tauld him 
 that it was obscure in some places, and wanted 
 certean words to perfyt the sentence. Sayes he, " 1 
 may do na mair for thinking on another mater." 
 " What is that ? " sayes Mr Andro. " To die," quoth 
 he ; " bot I leave that and manie ma things for you 
 to help." ' 
 
 It is not much, but it is the sole authentic utter- 
 ance of George Buchanan, and if it does nought else, 
 it proves him to have been abrupt in utterance and 
 parsimonious of speech. Another Melville — Sir 
 James — has drawn a character of Buchanan which is 
 at once truthful and ingenious, and which is perhaps 
 the justest estimate left us by a contemporary.
 
 104 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 ' Mester George,' says he, contrasting him with 
 Peter Young, ' laith till offend the King at any tym,' 
 
 ' was a stoik philosopher, and looked not far before the hand ; a 
 man of notable qualities for his learning and knawledge in Latin 
 poesie, mekle maid accompt of in other contrees, plaisant in 
 company, rehersing at all occasions moralities short and fecful, 
 whereof he had aboundance, and invented wher he wanted. He 
 was also of gud religion for a poet, bot he was easily abused, and 
 sa facill that he was led with any company that he hanted for the 
 tyme, quhilk maid him factious in his auld dayes ; for he spak 
 and wret as they that wer about him for the tym infourmed him. 
 For he was become sleperie and cairles, and followed in many 
 thingis the vulgair oppinion, for he was naturally populaire, and 
 extrem vengeable against any man that had offendit him, quhilk 
 was his gretest fault.' 
 
 Here are summed up the diverse qualities of the man. 
 Here, also, is explained the sorry figure he cut in 
 the political strife of his day. He spoke and wrote 
 as he was told to write and speak by those about him. 
 Surely that is the kindest construction to put upon 
 the Detectio. ' He was become sleperie and cairles ' 
 — is that not a sufficient reason, and a wholly in- 
 adequate excuse, for his violence and scurrility .? In 
 brief, Buchanan, like all great men, was guilty of 
 mistakes in conduct and policy. But when the 
 death on which he long had pondered overtook him, 
 he might depart with the happy reflection that only 
 one gross sin burdened his soul, and that he had 
 played an honourable part on the stage not only of 
 Scotland but of Europe.
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 105 
 
 VI 
 
 As in life Buchanan most nearly resembled Rabelais 
 of all his contemporaries, so after death he shared the 
 same fate as the author of Pantagruel^ and for the 
 same reason. He passed into a legend of infamy and 
 contempt. He became the hero of a chapbook,i tj^e 
 protagonist in many a foolish farce. That the greater 
 injury might be done to his character, he was endowed 
 by the authors of these scurrilous gibes with a ready 
 understanding and a cunning wit. He is represented 
 not merely as the teacher of King James, but as his 
 private counsellor and his public fool. An adept in 
 the selling of bargains and other kindred sports, he 
 plays his silly games and cuts his coarse jests beneath 
 many a rough woodcut. It may be said that this 
 confusion of learning and folly symbolises the popular 
 view of things. To know is to be an ass. Wisdom 
 is but jesting. But that does not wholly explain the 
 Buchanan of the chapbooks. He was born, as the 
 legendary Rabelais was born, of monkish spite. What 
 Puy-Herbault and the friars did for the reputation of 
 Rabelais, the champions of the Catholic Church did 
 for Buchanan. There was many an old score to be 
 paid off. The satire of Franciscanus still rankled, and 
 the attack upon Queen Mary merited revenge. And 
 
 1 The cliapbooks containing The Witty and Entertaining 
 Exploits of George Buchanan have been popular in Scotland 
 for several centuries, and are doubtless still to be purchased ot 
 book-pedlars and others.
 
 io6 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 it is not difficult to see when and how the infamous 
 legend was constructed. 
 
 Buchanan, as Melville tells us, was ' plaisant in 
 company, rehersing at all occasions moralities short 
 and fecful, whereof he had aboundance, and invented 
 wher he wanted.' That was enough for a beginning. 
 Granted a ready wit, the rest was easy. At first be 
 was painted as merely vicious, or as a miscreant, 
 * convicted of a design to eat the Paschal Lamb, after 
 the manner of the Jews.' ^ But he soon vied with the 
 Rabelais of Puy-Herbault in being 'never praised but 
 for drunkenness.' Garasse, the eminent divine, assailed 
 him while James i. was still upon the throne. 'I will 
 tell our Atheists,'- said he, 'the wretched end of a 
 Man of their Belief and Humour, as to eating and 
 drinking. It was George Buchanan, a perfect Epi- 
 cure during his Life, and a perfect Atheist at his 
 Death.' According to Garasse, then, Buchanan was 
 told by his doctors that if he abstained from wine he 
 might live five or six years, and that if he continued 
 to drink he could hold out three weeks at longest. 
 ' Get you gone,' he exclaimed, ' with your Prescrip- 
 tions and your course of Diet, and know that I would 
 rather live three weeks and be drunk every day, than 
 six years without drinking wine.' He was as good 
 as his word. ' Having discharged his physicians like 
 
 1 This charge was unfortunate, for, as he said at Lisbon, ' in 
 his country there were no Jews/ 
 
 2 This story and many others to the same purpose are cited 
 in Bayle's Dictionary.
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 107 
 
 a desperate man, he ordered a Hogshead of Graves 
 Wine to be set at his Bed's-head, resolved to see 
 the bottom of it before he died, and he carried him- 
 self so valiantly that he emptied it to the lees.' And 
 the worst is not yet told. Having death and the 
 glass between his lips, he was exhorted to pray. 
 ' "As for me," said he, still in his undisturbed and 
 perfect senses, "I never knew any other prayer than 
 this : 
 
 Cinthia prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis, 
 Contactum nullis ante cupidinibus.''' 
 
 And scarce had he repeated ten or twelve verses of 
 that Elegy of Propertius, when he expired among 
 the glasses and pints.' 
 
 It is a good story, and sufficient for a whole library 
 of slanders. It is vicious, it is valiant, it is quick in 
 repartee ; and the makers of the legend had soon a 
 solid foundation whereon to build. But it cannot be 
 said that the priestly enemies of Buchanan were rich 
 in invention. Not content with subjecting him to 
 the process of detraction to which they had subjected 
 Rabelais, they thought that the same stories might 
 serve for both. Of Rabelais it is told how once he 
 wished to get from Montpellier to Paris without en- 
 croaching on his own pocket. And so he wrote 
 upon packets of dust ' Poison for the King,' ' Poison 
 for the Queen,' and straightway being arrested made 
 his journey at the public expense. Buchanan, if we 
 may believe the chapbooks, played the same prank.
 
 io8 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 and travelled from Cornwall to London under a 
 welcome arrest. These slanders touch Buchanan as 
 lightly as they touch Rabelais. Poor in fancy, they 
 are chiefly memorable because they prove the limits 
 of the human intellect and the unchanging stupidity 
 of revenge. As for Buchanan, so grave a scholar 
 was he, so elegant a poet, that he can wear the fool's 
 cap and jingle the fool's bells in the ears of the people 
 without plucking a leaf from his crown of glory, with- 
 out besmirching by a single blot the white shield of 
 his fame.
 
 EDWARD HALL
 
 EDWARD HALL 
 
 EDWARD HALL, the eloquent panegyrist of 
 Henry viii,, was born in London towards the 
 end of the fifteenth century. His parents,^ of gentle 
 birth and affluent circumstances, gave their son 
 the best education that the time afforded, and from 
 Eton he proceeded, in 15 14, to King's College, 
 Cambridge, where he took his degree in due course. 
 In the spurious edition of Wood's Athena it is claimed 
 that he also studied at Oxford, but there is no evidence 
 that he visited the other University, and the credit of 
 his nurture is due to Cambridge alone. After leaving 
 Cambridge, he entered Gray's Inn, where he speedily 
 became eminent in the practice of the law. John 
 Bale praises his eloquence and erudition, as well he 
 might, since they were of the same side both in 
 
 1 His father was John Hall, of Noithall, in Shropshire, while 
 his mother was Catherine, the daughter and heiress of Thomas 
 Gedding. Herbert, quoted in Ames's Typographical Antiquities, 
 gives him an august ancestry. ' These Halles,' says he, ' were 
 of Kinnersley and Northall, in the county of Salop, and descended 
 from Sir Francis Halle, a natural son of Albert, Archduke of 
 Austria, King of the Romans, so called from being borne at the 
 city of Halle in Tyrol.' The statement is improbable and un- 
 supported.
 
 112 EDWARD HALL 
 
 politics and theology. *Edvvardus Hallus,' says the 
 historian of English writers, ' politioribus a tenera 
 aetate literis adornatus, ex longo Brytannicarum 
 legum studio, peritissimus evasit.' Nor did his 
 industry and learning go without their reward. 
 In 1532 he was appointed Common Serjeant of 
 the City of London, and presently became a judge 
 in the Sheriff's Court. Though, like many a greater 
 man than himself, he has baffled the biographer, his 
 name occurs now and again in the records of the 
 time, and it is safe to conclude that his career was 
 successful as well as prudent. He was, as Fuller 
 says, ' well-affected to the Reformation ' : he ad- 
 hered, in prosperity as in disaster, to the king's 
 party ; and he was not allowed to suffer for his 
 faithful allegiance. That the king can do no wrong 
 was the maxim of his life, as of his book ; and he 
 followed Henry viii. through the twists and turns 
 of his tortuous policy with a patient submissiveness 
 which was safe, if not always creditable. Not 
 merely did he approve the 'abolishing' of the papal 
 power and the declaration of the king's supremacy ; 
 he made a speech in the Commons in favour of the 
 Six Articles, that whip with six strings, as the people 
 called it, which relentlessly undid the work of reform. 
 His argument was characteristic : ' To be short,' said 
 he, ' in chronicles it may be found that the most part 
 of ceremonies now used in the Church of England 
 were by princes either first invented, or at the least 
 established ; and, as we see, the same do till this day
 
 EDWARD HALL 113 
 
 continue.' Thus he would permit neither the clergy 
 to propound and defend its doctrines, nor his fellow- 
 citizens to exercise their private judgment. More- 
 over, he closed his harangue with a text wherewith 
 he was ready to justify the last cruelties of his 
 sovereign. 'For it is written,' exclaimed he, 'obey 
 your King.' And he obeyed his king with a zeal, 
 which he esteemed more highly than the truth, and 
 which ensured his employment on many delicate 
 occasions. He was one of the London Commis- 
 sioners appointed in 1540 for the suppression of 
 heresy ; he visited Anne Askew in her cell, in the 
 hope of hearing her recantation ; and by way of 
 recompense for his many services he received a 
 grant of Abbey lands, which doubtless was a solace 
 to his later years. We last hear of him as Member 
 of Parliament for Bridgnorth, and in 1547 he died, 
 thus escaping from the vengeance of Mary, which, 
 had he survived, would surely have fallen upon him. 
 The punishment which he avoided fell upon his 
 family and his book. In 1555 his father and mother 
 were in Newgate, receiving letters from John 
 Bradford, ' for the testimony of the gospel,' while 
 in the same year his book was burned by the queen's 
 command, and thus rendered a rarity for ever. 
 
 And perhaps it was fitting that the book should 
 be punished rather than the man, for the book is by 
 far the more important. The deeds that were done 
 by Edward Hall are uncertain and fall short of fame. 
 His Chronicle of England is a possession for all time. 
 
 H
 
 114 EDWARD HALL 
 
 The title justly indicates the scope and purpose of 
 the boolc. ' The Union of the two noble and illus- 
 trate famelies of Lancastrc and Yorkc,' thus it runs 
 in the high-sounding terms of Tudor prose, ' beeyng 
 long in coiitimial disccnsion for the crounc of this 
 noble realme, with all the actcs done in bothc the 
 tymes of the Princes, both of the one linage, and of 
 the other, beginnyng at the tyme of Kyng Henry 
 the Fowerth, the first aucthor of this devision, and 
 so successively proceadyng to the reigne of the high 
 and prudent prince, King Henry the Eight, the 
 indubitate flower, and very heire of both the sayd 
 linages ' : such is the true and only hero of his book 
 — King Henry viii. The lives of this sovereign's 
 predecessors do but lead on to his nobler renown. 
 The deeds which they accomplished are memorable 
 only because they prepared the way for the mighty 
 achievements of the most, splendid monarch that ever 
 sat upon a throne. In brief, the Chronicle, so far as 
 the death of Henry vii,, is but a preface. And the 
 author has marked the distinction with perfect clarity 
 both in style and measure. He did not handle the 
 facts which he learned from others with the same 
 fulness and circumstance wherewith he described 
 the events of his own time, and The Triumphant 
 Reign of Henry VIll.^ as Hall proudly styles it, is 
 in all respects a separate and coherent biography. 
 
 The twofold nature of the work is illustrated also 
 by the diverse opinions which the critics have held 
 concerning its style. It is Roger Ascham, in his
 
 EDWARD HALL 115 
 
 Scholemastcr who put the case against Hall with the 
 greatest ingenuity. He points out in a well-known 
 passage that some kind of Epitome may be profitably 
 used by men of skilful judgment : ' as if a wise man,' 
 says he, ' would take Halle's Chronicle, where moch 
 good matter is quite marde with Indenture Englishe, 
 and first change strange and inkhorne tearmes into 
 commonlic used words : next, specially to wede out 
 that, that is superfluous and idle, not onelie where 
 words be vainlic heaped one upon an other, but also 
 where many sentences, of one meaning, be so clowted 
 up together as though M. Hall had bene, not writing 
 the storie of England, but varying a sentence in 
 Hitching schole.' Thus Ascham ; and then on the 
 other hand we find Hearne, the Antiquary, and many 
 another critic praising the 'masculine style' and direct 
 utterance of the Chronicle. At first sight it would 
 seem impossible to reconcile the opposing judgments, 
 but a little thought will show that both are fair. 
 Until he came to the reign of Henry viii.. Hall 
 * compiled and conjoyned' his work out of widely- 
 gathered materials. He overlooked none of the 
 familiar authorities. The French and Latin 
 chronicles, Hector Boetius, Johannes Major, Jean 
 Bouchet, Polydore Vergil, who presently equalised 
 the debt by borrowing from Hall, Trevisa, the 
 author of the Life of Richard IIL, which, like the 
 rest, he ascribed to Sir Thomas More — he knew and 
 quoted them all ; but, in order to make their matter 
 his own, he marred it with what Ascham rightly
 
 ii6 EDWARD HALL 
 
 calls 'Indenture Englishe.' Restless to contribute 
 something of himself, he tricked out the facts of 
 others in strange terms and bombastic periods. If 
 you compare his Life of Richard III. with that called 
 Sir Thomas More's, you will easily discern the pro- 
 cess. The history is the same ; the very phrases are 
 echoed; but Hall gives you the impression, in Ascham's 
 excellent words,that he is'varying a sentence in Hitch- 
 ing schole.' He could, when he chose, compose in 
 pedantic English as well as any of his contempor- 
 aries. He could clowt up his sentences with unsur- 
 passed elaboration, and the early part of his Chronicle 
 assuredly smells too much of the schools. He had 
 not yet freed his style from the Latin which was 
 spoken and written in Gray's Inn. The opening 
 passage of his book is as good an example as another 
 of the faults which spoiled his narrative. 'What 
 mischief hath insurged,' thus the passage runs, 'in 
 realmes by intestine devision, what depopulacion hath 
 ensued in countries by civil discencion, what detest- 
 able murder hath been committed in cities by separate 
 factions, and what calamitee hath ensued in famous 
 regions by domesticall discord and unnatural contro- 
 versy : Rome hath felt, Italic can testifie, Fraunce 
 can bear witnes, Beame can tell, Scotland may 
 write, Denmarke can shewe, and especially thys 
 noble realme of Englande can apparauntly declare 
 and make demonstracion.' Here, indeed, is work 
 for the writer of Ascham's epitome, who, by cutting 
 away words and sentences, might have left the matter
 
 EDWARD HALL 117 
 
 half as much in quantity, and twice as good as it was, 
 ' for pleasure and commodity.' 
 
 But Ascham's censure touches but one side of the 
 Chronicler's talent. No sooner did Hall write of 
 what he saw and knew, than his style justifies 
 Hearne's epithet, and becomes ' masculine.' He 
 says good-bye at once to the stale artifices of repe- 
 tition and decoration. He describes the shifting 
 scenes of life, not in 'inkhorne tearmes,' but in 
 vivid words, which were then, if not now, commonly 
 used. And his style is neither dry nor timid. He 
 can enrich his prose with precisely the true colour, 
 the proper dignity ; and he has made the language 
 of pageantry his own. No more do you smell the 
 oft-trimmed lamp ; you are in the open air, mingling 
 with the loyal crowd in Chepe, or watching the 
 king's procession, as it passes majestically through 
 Gracious Street. In truth, when once he touches 
 upon his own time. Hall writes like an inspired 
 reporter ; not like the reporter of to-day, who shuts 
 his eye, and sees in phrases ; but like a man of letters, 
 unperplexed by the tricks of journalism, who goes 
 out into the street to see, and writes down the 
 result with sincere simplicity. Thus he gives you 
 an impression of life and movement, for which you 
 may ransack the most of historians in vain. And 
 his sense of picturesqueness never deserts him. Turn 
 his pages where you will, and you will find a living 
 scene perfectly realised. Thus, in a few lines is 
 described Anne Boleyn's appearance at her corona-
 
 ii8 EDWARD HALL 
 
 tion : ' Then came the quene in a litter of white 
 cloth of golde not covered nor bayled whiche was 
 led by ii. palferies clad in white damaske doune to 
 the ground head and all, led by her foetemen. She 
 had on a circot of white clothe of Tyssue and a 
 mantle of the same furred with Ermyne, her heere 
 hanged doune, but on her head she had a coyfFe 
 with a circlet about it ful of riche stones. Over 
 her was borne a Canopie of clothe of golde with iiii. 
 gilte staves and iiii. silver belles. For bearyng of 
 whiche Canapye were appointed xvi. knightes, iiii. 
 to bear it one space on foote and other iiii. another 
 space accordyng to their owne appointment.' Hall, 
 in truth, has the rare tact of finding the right word, 
 even in the simplest phrases, and of giving an air of 
 distinction to plain facts. In deploring the im- 
 pertinences of the king's minions, they ' were so 
 familiar and homely with hym,' says he, 'and plaied 
 such light touches with hym that they forgat them- 
 selves.' And when the English fleet sets sail against 
 the French, the king, as Hall tells us, 'caused Sir 
 Edwarde Hawarde his Admirall with all diligence 
 to take the sea, whiche, with all spede possible made 
 ready diverse goodly and tal shippes.' The effect 
 is produced not by Latinisms nor fantastic terms, 
 but by the right use of a simple, yet dignified, 
 English, the secret of which was long since lost. 
 Hall, in brief, was the master of two distinct 
 styles, and Ascham's criticism leaves unscathed The 
 Triumphant Reign of Henry Fill.
 
 EDWARD HALL 119 
 
 The date of the book's appearance is still a matter 
 of controversy. Tanner declares, in his Bibliotheca 
 Britannica^ that the first edition was printed by 
 Berthelet, and published in 1542; if that were so, 
 the burning of the book, in 1555, was so effectively 
 performed that no perfect specimen of the first 
 edition survived. A supposed fragment of it, how- 
 ever, has been found in a composite copy belonging 
 to the University of Cambridge, and pieced together 
 from three separate editions.^ But, with the scanty 
 evidence before us, it is impossible to arrive at a 
 dogmatic conclusion, whether Berthelet's edition 
 ever saw the light or not. On the other hand, 
 concerning Richard Grafton's two editions there is 
 neither doubt nor difficulty. They appeared in 
 1548 and 1550, being printed in part, not from the 
 finished manuscript, for Hall left his work in- 
 complete, but from the author's notes. Now Hall, 
 as Grafton tells us, was a man ' in the later time of 
 his life not so painful and studious as before he had 
 
 1 Another fragment of this mysterious first edition (1542) 
 has been detected in a copy bequeathed by Grenville to the 
 British Museum. The colophon bears the date of 15+8, but 
 the main body of the book varies both in text and decoration 
 from the familiar edition of that year, and it has been suggested 
 that Grafton used up some of Berthelet's unfinished sheets. It 
 is possible, indeed, that Berthelet did not complete his edition, 
 and that Grafton acquired, along with HalFs notes, whatever 
 sheets had been struck from Berthelet's press. However, here 
 is a puzzle for the bibliographers, hitherto unsolved, and perhaps 
 insoluble.
 
 120 EDWARD HALL 
 
 been.' But, in spite of Hall's imperfections, the 
 editor did not presume to do more than arrange the 
 Chronicler's own materials. ' For as much as a 
 dead man is the author thereof,' says he, with laud- 
 able candour, 'I thought it my duty to suffer his 
 work to be his own, and therefore have altered 
 nothing therein.' And so well has Grafton performed 
 his humble office, that we may detect Hall's hand 
 as easily in the last years of Henry's reign as in the 
 first. There is still the same love of pageants, the 
 same obedience to the royal will, the same ardent 
 protestantism in the pages finished by Grafton, as 
 in those which came fresh from the hand of Hall, 
 and we may acknowledge that for once the editor 
 has not betrayed his trust. 
 
 The life of Henry viii. is a sincere picture of 
 Hall's mind and fancy. The Chronicler reveals 
 himself to his readers as well by his expressed 
 opinions, as by the relative importance which he 
 gives to passing events. Above all he is a hero- 
 worshipper ; and, when the necessity of worship is 
 satisfied, he proves himself a student of society rather 
 than of politics. The wars, which were the peculiar 
 glory of the reign, interest him chiefly as they throw 
 a lustre upon the courage and martial ardour of 
 Henry. It is true that, as in duty bound, he 
 describes the taking of Terouenne, and the siege 
 of Tournay ; he does not forget ' the old pranks of 
 the Scots, which is ever to invade England when 
 the King is out, or within age'; he relates with
 
 EDWARD HALL 121 
 
 some circumstance the intrigues of the emperor and 
 the French king. But his heart is not in battles 
 nor in foreign policy. The trumpet does not stir 
 his blood ; the signing of a treaty does not, in his 
 eyes, decide the destiny of nations. A rabble of 
 citizens, on the other hand, arouses his sympathy at 
 once ; and it is characteristic of him that the military 
 exploit in which he takes the profoundest interest 
 is the raid of the Adventurers in the marches of 
 Calais. Now these Adventurers, or Krekers, as 
 Hall calls them, were a body of wild persons, men 
 out of service and fugitive apprentices, who offered 
 their arms and their lives to the Lord Admiral. 
 ' My lord,' said a tall yeoman, their spokesman, ' here 
 be many good felowes that with your favour would 
 jeopard to get or lose, for their mynde is to be 
 revenged on the Frenchemen, enemies to the Kyng 
 and his realme.' And the Admiral gave them a 
 pennon of St. George, assuring them that if they 
 got any booty and brought it to the army they 
 should be paid to the uttermost. Therewith he 
 supplied them also with money and weapons, and 
 for many a long day they harried the French. 
 * These men,' says Hall, 'were light, hardy, and 
 politike, and by their manhood and hardines had 
 robbed many tounes, and taken many prisoners, with 
 great boties.' Again and again their exploits are 
 commemorated in the Chronicle^ and their death, for 
 they died together, was yet more glorious than their 
 life. Surrounded at last and outnumbered by the
 
 122 EDWARD HALL 
 
 French, they resolved to die, and each promised his 
 fellow to slay him if he took to flight. 'Then 
 every man cryed God mercie,' thus vi^rites Hall, 
 ' and kneled doune and kissed the earth, and strake 
 handes eche wyth other, in token not to depart, and 
 then made themselfs prest to the defence.' And so 
 stout was their defence that not one escaped with 
 his life, and they deserved, these citizen-soldiers, the 
 immortality magnanimously bestowed upon them. 
 
 But they were citizens first, and soldiers after, and 
 therefore claimed Hall's ungrudged sympathy. For 
 in his eyes London was dearer even than England, 
 and whenever the rights of her citizens were 
 threatened, he was their loyal champion. To cite 
 one instance of many : he relates indignantly how 
 in 1 5 13 the fields about Islington, Hoxton, and 
 Shoreditch were enclosed by hedges and ditches, so 
 that neither the young men of the city might shoot, 
 nor the ancient persons might walk for their pleasure 
 in the fields. Whereupon a great number of the 
 city, led by a turner in a fool's coat, went forth with 
 shovels and spades, ' and within a short space all the 
 hedges about the townes were cast doune, and the 
 diches filled, and every thyng made plain, the worke- 
 men were so diligent.' Neither king nor mayor 
 could withstand such enthusiasm as this ; and Hall, 
 lawyer though he was, not merely applauds the 
 licence of the people, but notes with satisfaction that 
 the access of young or old to the fields was never 
 afterwards hindered by hedge or ditch.
 
 EDWARD HALL 123 
 
 But, it is in describing the fierce warfare, which 
 raged for many years between the city and Wolsey, 
 that Hall most clearly shows his sympathy. The 
 Cardinal's vast enterprises could not be carried to 
 a successful issue, nor the king's lavish expenses be 
 defrayed without money. And where should money 
 be obtained if not in the city ? So taxes were 
 levied unrelentingly, now as tithes, now under the 
 more amiable title of benevolences. In 1522 the 
 king demanded ^20,000, which sore chafed the 
 citizens, but the money was found : ' howbeit the 
 craftes solde much of ther plate.' Two months 
 later the Cardinal demanded that every man should 
 swear of what value he was in movables, and 
 render a tenth unto the king. The Aldermen 
 protested, as well they might. ' For Goddes sake,' 
 they said to Wolsey, ' remembre this, that riche 
 merchauntes in ware be bare of money.' But bare 
 or not, they paid, and some even declared them- 
 selves of more worth than they were from pride. 
 The king and his Cardinal, however, were still 
 unsatisfied, and in the next year they proposed that 
 a fifth part of the substance of the realm should be 
 paid as a war-tax. The murmurings grew louder 
 on every side. If all the coin were in the king's 
 hands, how, it was asked, should men live ? Hall, 
 of course, makes no attempt to hide his opinion. 
 He is on the side of the people. 'The Merchaunt 
 that is ryche,' says he, 'of Sylke, WoUe, Tynne, 
 Clothe, and such Merchaundise, hath not the fifth
 
 124 EDWARD HALL 
 
 parte in money ; the husbande man is ryche in corne 
 and cattel, yet he lacketh of that some.' But the 
 Cardinal was deaf to argument ; he detected on 
 every hand the signs of great abundance — rich 
 apparel, servants, fat feasts, and delicate dishes. 
 And thus the dispute increased in rancour and 
 bitterness. On the one hand the Cardinal renewed 
 his exaction ; on the other, the people cursed the 
 Cardinal, saying that, if men should give their goods 
 by a commission, 'then wer it worse than the taxes 
 of Fraunce, and so England should be bond and not 
 free.' 
 
 At last, in 1525, the quarrel culminated. Lord 
 Cobham, the commissioner of the tax in Kent, 
 handled the men roughly, 'and by reason one Jhon 
 Skudder answered hym clubbishly, he sent hym to 
 the Towre of London.' From Kent the disaffection 
 spread throughout the realm. Women wept, young 
 folks cried, and men that had no work began to rage, 
 and assembled themselves in companies. The Duke 
 of Norfolk sent to the rebellious commons of his 
 shire to know their intent, asking them who was 
 their captain. Then a well-aged man begged 
 licence to speak, which was granted. ' My Lorde,' 
 said he, ' sythe you aske who is our capitain, for soth 
 hys name is Povertic, for he and his cosyn Necessitie 
 hath brought us to this doyng.' The whole of this 
 popular movement is sketched with a fulness and 
 insight which we should seek elsewhere in vain, and 
 it clearly marks the difference between Hall and
 
 EDWARD HALL 125 
 
 those historians whose chief interest lies in the 
 movements of opposing armies. That, in truth, is 
 Hall's chief merit : he records the simple episodes 
 of every day, which are too often overshadowed 
 by the intrigues of ministers or parliament. Thus 
 he takes delight in a 'goodly disguisyng' played 
 at Gray's Inn, and set forth with rich and costly 
 apparel, and strange devices of masks and morrises ; 
 nor was his pleasure decreased by the fact that the 
 play was an allegory of the quarrel between the 
 people and the Cardinal, and that all men laughed 
 thereat save only Wolsey himself. Thus he notes 
 that the proclamation made in 1526 against unlaw- 
 ful games had an unexpected effect. When the 
 young men were forbidden bowls and such other 
 games, 'some fell to drinkyng, and some to ferretyng 
 of other mennes Conies, and stealing Dere in Parkes, 
 and other unthriftines.' In the same spirit he 
 records the variation of the price of wheat, deplores 
 the rains of 1527 which destroyed both crops and 
 beasts, and, in brief, gives us such a picture of life 
 in town and country as could have been drawn only 
 by an eager contemporary. 
 
 Being ever a staunch champion of the citizens, 
 Hall harboured a bitter dislike of all foreigners. He 
 hated a Frenchman as bitterly as did the Duke 
 of Buckingham himself, and looked with a wise 
 suspicion upon any interloper, who threatened the 
 trade of London. In those days the popular policy 
 was not protection but exclusion, and the free entry
 
 126 EDWARD HALL 
 
 of foreign goods more than once roused the city 
 to rebellion. In 1517,38 Hall tells us, the multi- 
 tude of strangers was so great in London, that the 
 English artificers could scarce get a living. Worse 
 still, the strangers, not content with ousting the 
 citizens from their crafts, mocked and oppressed 
 them, trusting always in the protection of the 
 Cardinal. At last an accident set the whole of 
 London ablaze. A carpenter, named Williamson, 
 bought two stockdoves in Chepe, and was about 
 to pay for them, when a Frenchman snatched them 
 from his hands, and said they were no meat for a 
 carpenter. The French ambassador defended the 
 effrontery of his countryman, and the carpenter was 
 sent to prison. But the triumph was short-lived. 
 Within a few days John Lincoln, a broker, had 
 persuaded Dr. Beale to preach the Easter sermon 
 at St. Mary's, Spittle, against the aliens, and the 
 Doctor, with Pugna pro patria for his text, had no 
 difficulty in inflaming the citizens. Foreigners 
 were buffeted in the streets, or thrown into the 
 canal. A general rebellion was prophesied for May 
 Day, and the Cardinal bade the Mayor set a watch 
 upon all suspected persons. But the watch was set 
 in vain : a trivial incident led to so fierce a riot, 
 that the day was known as Evil May Day ever 
 
 after. 
 
 Two young men were playing at buckerels in 
 Chepe when by the command of an alderman one 
 was arrested. Instantly the cry was raised of
 
 EDWARD HALL 127 
 
 ''prentices and clubs,' and out at every door they 
 came, weapons in hand. The rioters marched 
 through the streets, sacking the foreign quarters, 
 and putting the lives of all the aliens in jeopardy. At 
 three o'clock the Lieutenant of the Tow^er turned 
 his ordnance upon the citv, and the rioters, who 
 escaped capture, dispersed with what speed they 
 might. Of those arrested, Lincoln alone suffered 
 death, and some others, 'younglinges and olde false 
 knaves,' as Hall calls them, were brought to trial at 
 Westminster Hall, in their shirts and with halters 
 about their necks. There the king pardoned them 
 all, and when the general pardon was pronounced, 
 'the prisoners shouted at once, and al together cast 
 up their halters into the hal rofFe, so that the King 
 might pcrceave thei were none of the discretest 
 sorte.' While Hall rejoices that the ringleaders 
 remained undiscovered, he praises both their courage 
 and discretion. The citizens might, had they 
 chosen, have taken a fierce revenge upon the 
 soldiers. 'But like true subjects they sufered 
 paciently.' 
 
 The French, however, did not profit by the 
 lesson of May Day, and but a year later the public 
 indignation broke out again. An Embassy, sent to 
 London by the French king, brought in its train a 
 vast mob of pedlars and jewellers with 'diverse 
 merchaundise uncustomed, under the coloure of 
 the trussery of the Ambassadors.' A riot seemed 
 imminent, but once more the people's anger was
 
 128 EDWARD HALL 
 
 appeased, although calm was not wholly restored to 
 the city until, in 1526, an Act was passed which so 
 bridled the strangers that they came to 'a reasonable 
 conclusion.' Nor was it only in commerce that 
 Hall resented the competition of the aliens. He 
 had an equally sturdy contempt for the manners 
 which certain young Englishmen brought 'back 
 from the Court of Francis I. When they returned 
 to England, says he, 'they were all Frenche, in 
 eatyng, drynkyng and apparel, yea, and in French 
 vices and bragges, so that all the estates of 
 Englande were by them laughed at.' Indeed for 
 exclusive patriotism, it would be hard to find Hall's 
 match, and no historian has ever uttered the cry of 
 ' England for the English ' with more eloquence and 
 justice. 
 
 And he would no more willingly permit the 
 Church to be trammelled by foreign influence than 
 the trade of London. In other words he was, as 
 I have said, an ardent protestant. His dislike of 
 the Pope is profound and unconcealed, nor does he 
 ever lose a chance of avowing his antipathy to Rome, 
 an antipathy which colours his history and intensifies 
 his alert distrust of Cardinal Wolsey. He notes 
 with satisfaction the growing disputes between the 
 ' Catholics' and ' Evangelicals,' which he knew must 
 end in the forsaking of the Pope ; he welcomes the 
 proclamation against bulls : he proudly hails the 
 king supreme head of the Church, whereafter, says 
 he, with undisguised enthusiasm, ' the Pope with
 
 EDWARD HALL 129 
 
 all his College of Cardinalles with all their Pardons 
 and Indulgences was utterly abolished out of this 
 realme. God be everlastyngly praysed therefore.' 
 Where his religion is touched, he does not scruple 
 to interrupt his history with tedious digressions, as 
 when he relates the case of Richard Hun, who, 
 being imprisoned in the Lollards' Tower for heresy, 
 was found hanging by the neck in a girdle of silk. 
 The Bishop of London declared that the man had 
 hanged himself, but it was proved that William 
 Horsey, the Bishop's Chancellor, had murdered him, 
 and Hall, to justify an unfortunate heretic, forgets 
 the king and his pageants, and wearies the reader 
 with long-drawn depositions. His protestantism, 
 indeed, knew only one check : when the king in 
 his arrogance, brought forward the Bill of the Six 
 Articles, Hall, as I have said, supported them against 
 his conscience. Much as he loved the reformed 
 religion, he loved his king more. And he had his 
 revenge in his Chronicle ; for before it was published 
 the Bill was repealed, and the historian could 
 describe it in the words of the common people as 
 'the bloody statute,' without incurring the charge 
 of disloyalty. 
 
 Yet, protestant as he was. Hall had no love of a 
 dismal life. His delight in the pageantry of the 
 Court, and in the masks and mummeries, which 
 Henry viil.'s ingenuity designed, is most eloquently 
 expressed. His style was perfectly adapted for the 
 description of splendid processions and imposing 
 I
 
 130 EDWARD HALL 
 
 spectacles. For once historian and monarch were 
 well met ; as Hall had at the tip of his pen all the 
 words of magnificence, so Henry nourished a never- 
 failing joy in dressing-up, and in devising brilliant 
 festivals. Nor would he exclude the people from 
 his pompous revelries, and time was when at 
 Richmond the mob rent and spoiled the pageant, 
 stripping even their sovereign and his companions to 
 their doublet and hose. But the king's good 
 humour was undisturbed. He turned the incident 
 to mirth and laughter, and let the plunderers go off 
 with their booty. Thus in war as in peace the 
 jousts and merrymakings continued. Once upon a 
 time the Scot's Ambassadors were amazed that King 
 Henry should disport himself, when he was at war 
 with France, and were shortly told by a gentleman 
 of the Court that they did not set by the French 
 king one bean. And if the spirit of revelry was 
 unchanging, the devices were as various as cunning 
 and extravagance could make them. Now the 
 pageant was shaped like a mountain, with a tree of 
 gold set upon the top ; now it was a castle, 
 garnished after the most warlike fashion, with ' la 
 forteresse dangereuse ' written upon its front. Or the 
 garden of Esperance, with roses and pomegranates of 
 silk and gold was presented ; or wild men apparelled in 
 green moss rushed suddenly from an artificial wood ; 
 or a fair lady sat upon a rock with a dolphin on her 
 lap ; or an allegory of ships passed before the king and 
 queen. The gay and joyous Court always found an
 
 EDWARD HALL 131 
 
 excuse for a pageant. Christmas and Twelfth Night 
 each had their gorgeous festivals, while on May 
 Day, his Grace, ' beyng yonge, and wyllyng not to 
 be idell,' would rise in the morning very early to 
 fetch may or green boughs. Or he would take the 
 queen into the greenwood to see how Robin Hood 
 and the outlaws lived, and to breakfast on venison. 
 Then there were jousts and tournaments at which 
 the king, the bravest knight of his time, always 
 bore away the prize, happy to receive it at the 
 gracious hands of Katherine. For it was an age of 
 chivalry, in which the customs and titles of knight- 
 hood were still preserved ; and even when the king 
 went to war, it was but a joust fought to the death ; 
 challenges were given and received ; and great 
 captains donned their armour as much for display 
 as for policy. 
 
 But the culmination of glory and splendour was 
 the Field of the Cloth of Gold, whereon Henry and 
 Francis took the sound advice of Comines, whose 
 maxim it was that princes should not meet, except 
 to share their pleasures. Never was so noble a 
 spectacle seen before. The palace of gold, which 
 sparkled in the plain of Guisnes, rose as by enchant- 
 ment. Before the gate stood old Bacchus, fashioned 
 in gold, * birlyng the wine,' and over his head was 
 the motto, which Rabelais adapted to his own 
 purpose : ' faictes bonne chere quy vouldra.' To those 
 who crossed the large court, ' fayre and beautifull ' 
 there was presented a scene of dazzling beauty
 
 132 EDWARD HALL 
 
 The roofs were covered with cloth of silk, which 
 showed like fine burned gold. Gold was the arras, 
 'compassed of many ancient stones'; gold the 
 chairs, gold the cushions. The chapel was a still 
 greater marvel. Over the altar stood twelve golden 
 images. The crucifix in the king's closet was gold, 
 gold were the candlesticks ; even the roof was 
 gilt 'with fine golde and Senapar and Bice.' And 
 the trees which shone in this wondrous plain — the 
 Hawthorn for Henry, the Raspberry for Francis — 
 they, too, were wrought of silver and Venice gold, 
 until nature was eclipsed by artifice, and the very 
 flowers and fruits were golden symbols of friendship 
 and alliance. Thus in reciting the glories of this 
 encounter Hall sings a paean to the precious metal, 
 and the burden of his song is always the same — gold, 
 gold, gold ! The knights themselves did not fall 
 below the splendour of the landscape. ' To-day the 
 French,' as Shakespeare wrote, 
 
 'All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods. 
 Shone down the English; and to-morrow they 
 Made Britain India : every man that stood 
 Show'd like a mine.' 
 
 And the bravest sight of all was the king himself 
 — 'the moste goodliest Prince that ever reigned over 
 the realme of Englande' — apparelled in a garment of 
 ' Clothe of Silver, of Damaske, ribbed with Clothe of 
 Golde, so thicke as might bee,' and bravely did he 
 bear himself against the rufflcrs and gallants of the 
 French Court. There, in the golden field, the
 
 EDWARD HALL 133 
 
 kings ran course after course, breaking their spears 
 like valiant princes, and presently went each his own 
 way, eager to efface this memory of joyance in envy 
 and hatred. Such was the pageant, which Hall, 
 doubtless a spectator, described with all his curious 
 knowledge of trappings, and which was the noblest 
 spectacle of an age renowned above all others for its 
 noble pageantry. 
 
 But not even the splendour of his life could endear 
 Wolsey to the Chronicler, and it is evident from his 
 first appearance in Hall's pages that the great 
 Cardinal is to play the sinister part. He was a good 
 philosopher, very eloquent and full of wit — so much 
 Hall admits ; but ' for pride, covetous, and ambition 
 he excelled all other.' No sooner, indeed, is Wolsey 
 advanced to the Archbishopric of York, than Hall 
 declares that henceforth he studied day and night to 
 be a Cardinal ; and in the least of his actions the 
 historian detects a limitless, insensate ambition. 
 The brilliant services which he rendered to the 
 king, the respect for England which he imposed 
 upon all Europe, were as nothing in Hall's eyes. 
 The king's loyal worshipper could only see in the 
 Cardinal's masks and banquets a stumbling-block of 
 offence, for he thought that the king should engross 
 the dignity and magnificence of his age; and he 
 looked with a kind of jealousy upon the lavish 
 grandeur of York Place. Moreover, while he 
 delighted in all the golden triumphs of peace and 
 war, which his eager eye witnessed, he flouted the
 
 134 EDWARD HALL 
 
 Cardinal as a thief, when he asked the people to pay 
 the bill. In brief, he intensified in his book the 
 fierce hatred, which the people expressed as loudly 
 as they dared against the omnipotent Chancellor. 
 Was it not a disgrace that this butcher's dog should 
 lie in the Manor of Richmond ? ^ And when 
 Wolsey fell into disgrace, Hall was not content to 
 repeat the articles in the Cardinal's indictment. He 
 must needs turn and shift them to his victim's 
 prejudice. From Hall, through Shakespeare, it has 
 gone to the ends of the earth that Wolsey, in 
 documents addressed to the Pope and foreign princes, 
 was wont to write ' Ego et Meus Rex.' With this 
 arrogance he was never charged, the worst hinted 
 against him being that he added his own name to 
 his master's — ' my King and L' Nor does the 
 
 1 Shakespeare echoed this taunt : ' this butcher's cur is venom- 
 mouthed,' says Buckingham in the play. Shakespeare, indeed, 
 found not a little inspiration in Hall. The episodes of his 
 Henry Fill, follow the Chronicle with curious fidelity. The 
 drama gives you the same sense of pageantry and magnificence 
 which is always present in Hall's pages, while in many a passage 
 there is a verbal similarity which cannot be gainsaid. The 
 clamours of the people against the Cardinal's exaction is trans- 
 lated directly from the prose of Hall into the verse of Shake- 
 speare, and even the king's angry speech to the faithful Wolsey 
 is but an accurate paraphrase. Nor does the contempt which 
 Hall hurls at the gallicised minions of the English Court lose 
 its force in the phrase of Shakespeare. Buckingham's sad protest 
 after his condemnation is another echo of Hall. The barge is 
 ready and 'fitted with furniture as suits the greatness of his 
 person.' Then says Buckingham :
 
 EDWARD HALL 135 
 
 Cardinal's tragic death persuade Hall to relent. He 
 cannot find the same excuses for his enemy, as 
 Shakespeare in his magnanimity puts in the mouth 
 of honest Griffith. He only remembers that Wolsey 
 was of a great stomach, that he counted himself 
 equal with princes, and that by crafty suggestion got 
 into his hands innumerable treasure. He did all this 
 and more, and yet deserves our pardon and respect. 
 Masterful as he was, he would let none master 
 England but himself, and Henry's decay in honour 
 and happiness began only with his minister's death. 
 
 But Hall was so jealous a champion of the king, 
 that he could bear no rival near the throne. Henry 
 w as his only hero, and at the outset of his reign no 
 finer hero could be found for epic or history. He 
 was young, he was fair to look upon, he was accom- 
 
 ' Nay, Sir Nicholas, 
 Let it alone ; my state now will but mock me. 
 When I came hither, I was lord high constable 
 And Duke of Buckingham; now, poor Edward Bohun.' 
 
 Thus Shakespeare, and, if you turn to Hall, you will find the 
 same thought set in prose. 'Sir Thomas LovelT— thus runs 
 the passage — 'desired him to sytte on the cusshyns and carpet 
 ordeined for him, he sayd nay, for when I went to Westminster 
 I was Duke of Buckyngham, now I am but Edwarde Bowhen 
 the moste caitiffe of the worlde.' The famous speech of 
 Katherine too is borrowed from the Chronicle, even in its 
 metaphor. ' It is you,' says the queen to Wolsey, 'have blown 
 this coal betwixt my lord and me.' Or as Hall puts it : ' there- 
 fore of malice you have kindled thys fyre, and set this matter a 
 broche.' These are but a few parallels of many which add not 
 a little to the value and interest of the book.
 
 136 EDWARD HALL 
 
 plished. 'The features of his body,' says Hall with 
 the true accent of adulation, ' his goodly personage, 
 his amiable vysage, princely countenaunce, and the 
 noble qualities of his royall estate, to every man 
 knowen, nedeth no rehersall, consideryng that for 
 lacke of cunnyng I cannot express the gifts of grace, 
 and of nature, that God hath endowed hym with 
 all.' Katherine in the days of her unclouded state 
 assured Wolsey that ' with his health and life nothing 
 could come amiss to him.' In the eyes of Giustiniani, 
 the Venetian envoy, he was far handsomer than any 
 sovereign in Christendom. 'It was the prettiest 
 thing in the world,' said this enthusiast, ' to see him 
 play tennis, his fair skin glowing through a shirt of 
 the finest texture.' And like all the princes of his 
 house, Henry was infinitely vain of his appearance. 
 When Pasquilijo was in England the king called 
 him to a summer-house, and questioned him narrowly 
 about the French king. ' Is he as tall as I am ?' he 
 asked first. Pasquilijo assured him there was little 
 difference. ' Is he as stout ? ' demanded Henry, and, 
 hearing that he was not, gravely inquired, 'What 
 sort of a leg has he ? ' ' Spare,' replied the envoy. 
 Then said the king, opening the front of his doublet, 
 and placing his hand upon his thigh, 'Look here; I 
 also have a fine calf to my leg.' ^ And not merely 
 
 1 In precisely the same fashion did Henry's daughter Elizabeth 
 question Sir James Melville concerning Mary, tlie Queen of the 
 Scots, and in his answers Sir James proved himself a more 
 cunning diplomatist than the Venetian.
 
 EDWARD HALL 137 
 
 was Henry handsome, he excelled all the chivalry of 
 his time in manly exercises. In the tournament there 
 was no knight who could withstand his onset, and 
 the many prizes which he won were not awarded 
 him out of mere courtesy. As in war he knew no 
 fear, so in sport he knew no fatigue. He never went 
 a-hunting without tiring eight or ten horses; he 
 loved hawking and shooting as he loved the joust ; 
 and if he lost vast sums in the tennis-court, it was 
 when an encroaching corpulence hindered his activity. 
 Moreover, as has been said, he had a rare genius for 
 parade. He surpassed all his contemporaries in the 
 lavish accoutrement of his court and person. Nor 
 did this taste for grandeur leave him with the 
 joyousness of youth. Even when he- went to meet 
 Anne of Cleves, he was still magnificent. His 
 courser was stately as ever ; his trappings of gold 
 and pearl had lost none of their splendour. And, if 
 we may believe Hall, in comparison of his person, 
 his rich apparel was on that day little esteemed. 
 
 Yet he was no mere sportsman, proud of his 
 golden beard and sturdy arm. By temperament 
 a scholar, he had become by training learned in all 
 the learning of his time. Erasmus not merely 
 applauded his erudition, but hailed him as a true and 
 generous patron of poets, who had brought back the 
 golden age, and had illustrated in his own life the 
 splendid gifts of ancient heroes. His speeches and 
 letters prove him the master of a style, vigorous and 
 his own ; and he possessed a power of argument
 
 138 EDWARD HALL 
 
 which, if in age it declined to sophistry, was the 
 terror of all antagonists. In the midst of his sedulous 
 amusements, he still had time to play the statesman, 
 and even after he was deprived of Wolsey's counsel, 
 he was a match for the best of his contemporaries in 
 policy. Nor did the smallest detail escape him that 
 might benefit his kingdom. He suppressed vaga- 
 bondage, and vastly improved the breed of horses. 
 Above all, his zest of life was unquenchable. There 
 was no pursuit, either gay or serious, which could 
 not arouse his enthusiasm. He danced, he wrestled, 
 he cast the bar, he leapt with a pole — a sport at 
 which he once jeopardised his life, he made ballads, 
 he set songs, he composed two goodly masses in five 
 parts, ' whiche were song often times in hys chapel, 
 and afterwards in diverse other places.' He spoke, 
 besides English, French, Spanish, and Latin, and he 
 collected books. Now it amused him to devise a new 
 harness, such as no armourer had ever seen. Now 
 medicine engrossed him, and you hear that he 
 invented a plaster, a sovereign remedy for sores. In 
 brief, he was the most highly gifted, most handsome, 
 and most aftable monarch that ever graced the throne 
 of England, and, until ruin overtook his character, 
 he deserved the most eloquent panegyric that Hall 
 himself could indite. 
 
 And when he tired of tournaments and books, he 
 fell to gambling, and hazarded his wealth with 
 reckless prodigality. His private accounts show 
 how much he lost to his minions at dice and
 
 EDWARD HALL 139 
 
 imperial, while the French hostages are said to have 
 taken from him six or eight thousand ducats a day, a 
 profit which doubtless lightened their enforced sojourn 
 in a foreign country. His fame as a gambler even 
 spread abroad, and certain Frenchmen and Lombards 
 were brought to London to make wagers with him, 
 and a rich harvest they reaped until their craft was 
 discovered. And then, that he might leave nothing 
 untried, he was constant in piety ; he heard five 
 masses a day, besides vespers and compline in the 
 queen's chamber ; or he would indulge that love of 
 theological disquisition which never left him. 
 
 Such was Hall's hero in his youth, and such in 
 Hall's fancy he remained unto the end. The faith- 
 ful chronicler could discern no spot nor blemish in 
 his king, and if the people justly cried out against 
 him, he was still eloquent in excuse. In all sim- 
 plicity of heart he believed that 'a certain scrupulo- 
 sity pricked his master's conscience,' when Henry 
 was minded to put Katherine away ; and though it 
 was murmured that the king's conscience had 'crept 
 too near another lady,' Hall stoutly maintained that 
 the murmur was slanderous and contrary to truth. 
 Alas for Hall's loyalty ! Long before the Univer- 
 sities had supported the king's cause, Henry was 
 already buying purple velvet for Mistress Anne, 
 who was so vastly increased in dignity that the 
 Mayor of London deemed it prudent to send her 
 a gift of cherries ; he was already writing impas- 
 sioned love-letters to his sweetheart, promising that
 
 I40 EDWARD HALL 
 
 ' shortly you and I shall have our desired End, 
 which should be more to my Hearts Ease and more 
 Quietnesse to my Minde, than any other Thing 
 in this World.' The truth is that in spite of Hall's 
 championship, a dark shadow had fallen across the 
 brain of Henry viii. The death of Wolsey had 
 removed the last hindrance from his path of wilful- 
 ness, and after the divorce of Katherine, he set no 
 restraint upon his actions. The very virtues which 
 hitherto had distinguished him, changed, by a kind 
 of excess, into vices. His learning turned to 
 casuistry, his accomplishment became cunning, his 
 bravery fell away into an implacable cruelty. He 
 who had been open with all men, grew into a 
 monster of suspicion. While his eyes, sunk deeper 
 into his head, overlooked nothing, his tongue refused 
 to speak what his eyes saw. * If I thought that my 
 cap knew my counsel,' said he to Cavendish, ' I 
 would throw it in the fire and burn it.' But in 
 nothing would he be thwarted. He ruled the 
 Church, and overrode the law. It is said that he 
 was better skilled in the law of divorce than any 
 wiseacre in Christendom, and his profound knowledge 
 of theology, which he might wisely have left to 
 others, converted him into that worse of men — a 
 pedant, who was also bloodthirsty and omnipotent. 
 Grimly determined upon matrimony, yet always un- 
 fortunate in his dealings with women, he murdered 
 the wives whom once he had loved, and decreed his 
 children bastards. He saw the closest of his friends,
 
 EDWARD HALL 141 
 
 such as Francis Weston, go to the scaffold without 
 a whisper of regret. He received Anne Boleyn's 
 eloquent letter ' from her doleful prison in the 
 Tower,' begging him not to ' touch the innocent 
 souls of these poor gentlemen,' and in a few days 
 openly showed Jane Seymour as queen. With 
 flattery and obeisance his ferocity of temper 
 increased, and neither man nor woman was safe 
 who thwarted his will. It was a cruel century, 
 which did not shrink from boiling a man alive, 
 nor from burning a child of fifteen at the stake ; ^ 
 yet Henry outdid the worst of his contemporaries in 
 cruelty. Whoever refused to acknowledge him the 
 supreme head of the Church, died upon the block : 
 thus fell Fisher and Thomas More, the wisest spirits 
 of the time. And if his enemies did not flout his 
 theological supremacy, a frivolous pretext was always 
 found for their destruction. So Surrey, the most 
 accomplished poet of an accomplished age, perished, 
 a victim to the royal displeasure, which neither 
 genius nor grace sufiiced to conciliate. In truth, 
 history records nothing more pathetic than this ruin 
 of a noble mind ; and through all the ruin Hall's 
 loyalty never wavered. In his faithful eyes the king 
 could still do no wrong, and he was able to inspire 
 
 > In the twenty-second year of Henry's reign, one Richard 
 Roose was boiled alive for poisoning divers persons; and ten 
 years later a child named Richard Mekins perished at Smithfield 
 for repeating what he had heard some other folks speak against 
 the Sacrament of the Altar.
 
 142 EDWARD HALL 
 
 others with his own splendid fidelity. Many of the 
 later historians were persuaded by Hall's eloquence 
 to reject the legend that Henry viii. was an English 
 Bluebeard, and to regard him as an amiable and 
 kindly monarch. 'Of persone he was tall and 
 mightye, and in his later yeres somewhat grosse, 
 in witte and memory excellent. Of such majestie 
 tempered with humanitie and gentlenesse, as was 
 comely in so great and noble a Prince. In know- 
 ledge of good letters, he farre passed all the Kings of 
 this realme that had bene before him, and for his 
 mao-nificence and liberalitie he was renowned 
 throughout the world.' Thus writes Grafton after 
 Hall, in recording the death of Henry viii., and you 
 wonder whether any king, who had not dipped his 
 hands in innocent blood, was ever graced with 
 a nobler epitaph.
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT 
 
 WHEN civil war threatened England, and the 
 opposing forces of York and Lancaster first 
 met in the field, John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, 
 prudently betook himself to the Holy Land. So 
 closely was his sympathy engaged on either side, 
 that he knew not for whom he should draw the 
 sword. If the Duke of York held the higher place 
 in his regard, he could not persuade himself as yet 
 to show discourtesy to Henry vi. That amiable 
 prince had advanced him beyond the measure of his 
 years and birth. ^ He was not far past his youth 
 when (in 1449) he was made Earl of Worcester. 
 At twenty-five he was Treasurer of the Exchequer, 
 and two years later he was appointed Captain to 
 guard the Sea. The contest between gratitude and 
 inclination, which raged in his mind, might have 
 had another issue, had not Somerset, the king's 
 counsellor, dismissed him from the Court. The 
 
 * He was of noble birth, being the son of John, Baron de 
 Tiptoft, and Joyce, his * incomparable ' wife, but not of so high 
 a family as to justify his rapid rise to fortune. 
 K
 
 146 JOHN TIPTOFT 
 
 way, then, lay open before him. Wisdom and 
 desire pointed to the same end. He determined, 
 with a moderation which presently deserted him, to 
 prefer peace before war, to hold himself aloof from 
 the strife of faction, to avoid the contamination of 
 turbulence and conspiracy. Thus it was that — to 
 cite the language of interested adulation — he imi- 
 tated the lofty-souled heroes whom the good ship 
 Argo bore eastwards, enavigated all the seas of the 
 earth, and conferred upon all nations the benefit of 
 his presence, manifesting everywhere the divinity of 
 his soul, and leaving behind him the immortal 
 memory of his name. In plainer prose, he travelled 
 with becoming state to Jerusalem, he visited the 
 holy places, as in pious duty bound, and when the 
 Orient had lost its hold upon him he came with 
 what speed he might to Venice. 
 
 II 
 
 No man of his time was better fitted to appreciate 
 the newly-discovered treasures of Italy. Englishman 
 though he was, he was the true child of the 
 Renaissance. He had learned at Balliol all that 
 Oxford could teach him, and not even his sojourn at 
 the Court had checked his ardent love of the 
 Humanities. Few scholars or Churchmen of his age 
 surpassed him in knowledge of the classics or in 
 felicity of expression ; and so little did the natural 
 arrogance of his temper show itself in his studies,
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT 147 
 
 that with all the modesty of a pupil he frequented 
 the famous schools of Italy, and sat at the feet of the 
 masters. He visited Ferrara, that he might hear the 
 lectures of the renowned Guarino, whose method of 
 discipline attracted students from every corner of 
 Europe, even from Britain itself, a country 'situate 
 beyond the confines of the earth.' There in 
 Guarino's house he met many a wandering scholar, 
 such as John Free, who with the characteristic 
 courage of his kind, had set out from Oxford to 
 conquer the learning of Italy with no more than 
 ten pounds in his pocket;^ William Grey, erudite 
 and disinterested as Tiptoft himself, presently ap- 
 pointed in Rome to the bishopric of Ely ; and 
 John Gunthorpe, who studied the Humanities with 
 such success that he was rewarded with the deanery 
 of Wells. 
 
 1 The career of John Free — or Phreas as he was called 
 — was typical of his time and class. He was a fellow of Balliol, 
 and became, says his biographer, 'an admirable Philosopher, 
 Lawyer, and Physician.' He was public reader ot physic at 
 Ferrara, and afterwards at Florence and Padua. He seems to 
 have been half scholar, half pedant. His letters and odes were 
 alike elegant. He composed a set of fluent verses, in which 
 Bacchus expostulates with a goat tor gnawing a vine, he trans- 
 lated Synesius' treatise concerning baldness, and dedicated botli 
 works to his patron Tiptoft. Another work, which he laid at 
 the feet of Pope Pius ii., procured him the bishopric of Bath 
 and Wells ; ' a month after he went to Rome, where he died be- 
 fore he could be consecrated but not without suspicion of poison 
 from some competitor, 1465.' The story is wholly suitable to 
 the Italy of the Renaissance, where the manuscript and the 
 poisoned cup were always near neighbours.
 
 148 JOHN TIPTOFT 
 
 These three he had known at Balliol — a college 
 which did more than any other to restore in Eng- 
 land the wisdom of the ancients, and which may still 
 take a just pride in its nurslings, who lived, learned, 
 and taught in the cities of Italy. Of this company 
 John Tiptoft was the natural sovereign. He dis- 
 pensed his princely favours with a large and generous 
 hand. Whatever was asked of him he gave, — to 
 this one his friendship, to that the support of a well- 
 filled purse, to all sympathy and encouragement. 
 By general consent he was acclaimed the Maecenas 
 of his age, and learning has rarely found a nobler 
 patron. So for three years he wandered up and 
 down Italy — from Ferrara to Padua, from Padua to 
 Florence, from Florence to Rome, — gathering 
 treasures in manuscript and storing his head with 
 the knowledge and policy of the time. Of his life 
 at Florence Vespasiano has left us an amiable sketch. 
 Now Vespasiano, courtliest of booksellers, humanest 
 of scholars, a mediaeval scribe who witnessed the 
 triumph of the black art which came from across the 
 mountains, had the fairest opportunity of observing 
 the character of Tiptoft, to whom he gave a place 
 among his ' Illustrious Men,' and we accept his 
 account in the best of good faith. ' He had a great 
 abundance of books,' says Vespasiano, 'and in 
 Florence he bought what more he could find, and 
 also had a goodly number made for him. While 
 certain books were being made which his lordship 
 desired, he abode some days in Florence, and wished
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT 149 
 
 to see the whole place. Without attendants, alone 
 and empty-handed, he went about ; and if he was 
 told to go to the right hand, he went to the left,' — 
 an excellent method of sight-seeing truly, which 
 may be commended to the idly obedient traveller of 
 to-day. 'And having heard of the fame of Messer 
 Giovanni Argiropoulo,' thus Vespasiano continues, 
 ' he desired to hear one of his lectures at the school ; 
 and he came thither unknown, in the said manner, 
 and he was well satisfied with the teaching of 
 Messer Giovanni.' 
 
 A man of letters and of exceeding wisdom — thus 
 it is that Vespasiano sums him up after his simple 
 fashion, sending him on to Rome, where ' he visited 
 the Pontiff and the Cardinals and the other prelates 
 who were there.' It was at Rome, indeed, that 
 Tiptoft won his highest triumph and gave the best 
 proof of his eloquence. In vain would he have 
 visited Italy if he had not seen Rome, which, 
 says Leland, had not for many centuries received 
 so noble and so welcome a guest, and which 
 thought that a god had descended from heaven, so 
 much did it marvel at his humanity, his splendour, 
 and the Ciceronian abundance of his discourse. The 
 effect of his oratory upon Pius 11. — that learned 
 Pontiff who, fifteen years before, had wondered that 
 the Latin tongue had penetrated as far as Britain — 
 was the highest tribute that could have been paid 
 to Tiptoft's attainments. John Free who may have 
 been a witness of the scene, describes how the Pope
 
 I50 JOHN TIPTOFT 
 
 burst into tears of joy as he listened to Tiptoft's 
 eloquence. If only time had spared the oration, 
 we might form a clearer judgment. But the 
 centuries have dealt hardly with the orator, and we 
 must accept a verdict at second-hand. 
 
 Harshly, too, have the centuries treated the 
 collections of books, the divers choice and 
 rare manuscripts which Tiptoft sent to Duke 
 Humphrey's library at Oxford. The skill wherewith 
 he hunted for the masterpieces of ancient litera- 
 ture, the munificence wherewith he purchased 
 them, were legendary in his day. Ludovico Carbo, 
 his friend of Ferrara, whom he would have carried 
 with him to England, adds his testimony to the sure 
 knowledge of Vespasiano. ' He despoiled the 
 libraries of Italy,' says Carbo, 'that he might 
 make England a treasure-house of beautiful books.' 
 If his books ever reached the University, they were 
 long since dispersed. One alone has escaped in 
 the general rout — a Commentary on Juvenal, 
 written in an Italian hand, and bearing upon the 
 cover the arms of the Earl of Worcester. Thus 
 Italy was despoiled in vain, and England is the 
 richer but by a single volume for Tiptoft's zeal and 
 generosity. 
 
 Though much that Tiptoft wrote and said is lost, 
 the art and diligence of Caxton have preserved for 
 us some excellent specimens of his translations. 
 Inspired by the Renaissance, he too did what he 
 might to recapture the ancient classics, and to enrich
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT 151 
 
 his country and his country's language with some 
 works of Caesar and Cicero. His choice of originals 
 was wise. The treatise ' De Amicitia' is packed 
 with the splendid commonplaces which the revival 
 of learning had made already popular. And or 
 Caesar's 'Commentaries' he Englished only so 
 'much as concernyth thys realm of England callyd 
 Bretanyne ; which is the eldest hystoryes of all 
 other that can be found that ever wrote of thys 
 realm of England.' Thus was his patriotism as 
 well as his scholarship engaged. He thought at one 
 blow to sing the praise of England and to give Caesar 
 an ampler life in another tongue. His version is 
 marked by a workmanlike simplicity. It is an 
 accurate representation in style as in sense of the 
 original. Free from the opulence and curiosity of 
 speech which was presently to stamp Elizabethan 
 prose with a character of its own, Tiptoft's English- 
 ing of Caesar is far nearer to our modern method 
 than Golding's. Indeed, were it not for the use of 
 a word here and there — such as ' affyed ' for probabat^ 
 and ' brute ' in the sense of noise — which suggests 
 the close relationship still existing between French 
 and English, Tiptoft's 'Caesar' might have been 
 written yesterday.^ But, apt as he was for learning, 
 
 1 The following passage, chosen at hazard, and modernised 
 only in its spelling, will prove how closely Tiptoft approached 
 both his original and the English of our time : ' Now, the side 
 of the river, where his enemies stood, was pitched full ot sharp 
 piles; and beside it, at the brink of the river, were other piles
 
 152 JOHN TIPTOFT 
 
 Tiptoft regarded literature as the interlude of an 
 active life, and he was destined soon to lay it aside 
 for the clash of arms and the conflict of policies. 
 
 His sojourn in Italy gave him far more than a 
 knowledge of the Humanities. He brought back to 
 England with him those lessons of statecraft which 
 were taught only on the other side of the Alps. 
 He learned from the despots with how nice a 
 cynicism cruelty and learning might be combined. 
 He discovered from a hundred illustrious examples 
 that it was in no disaccord with sovereignty to carry 
 a cup of poison in one hand and a manuscript of 
 Plato in the other. Though Machiavelli was not 
 born until a year before Tiptoft lost his head, 
 Machiavellism in act was already plain to see. The 
 pitiless dramas of lust and craft, which the wise 
 Florentine resumed in his stern theory of life and 
 government, were enacted, many of them, before 
 the eyes of Tiptoft. He might, perchance, have 
 known the famous Lord of Rimini, Sigismundo 
 Pandolfo Malatesta,who engrossed in his single person 
 the vices and virtues of his age. Scholar and savage, 
 Sigismundo studied the classics and listened to the 
 
 covered with water. Of the which things, when Caesar was 
 advertised by the report of the prisoners, and by them which 
 had left the Britons and were come to Caesar, he sent first his 
 men of arms, and commanded the legions should follow them 
 without delay.' There is not a touch of archaism in these lines. 
 Plainness is their quality — a quality, above all others, necessary 
 to the interpreter of Cjesar, who wrote as though his hand held 
 not a pen but a sword.
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT 153 
 
 lecturesof learned menwiththesame ardour wherewith 
 he killed his wives, or betrayed, tricked, and tortured 
 his enemies. Trained in such a school, with such 
 models constantly before him, Tiptoft easily acquired 
 the hard, ruthless doctrines of the Renaissance. He 
 arrived at the same ends by the same paths as the 
 despots. He drove from his mind what to Malatesta 
 would have seemed the cant of mercy and justice. 
 Henceforth he knew but one god — success, and no 
 other methods of worship than force, pride, and 
 passion. The moral aspect of things no longer 
 attracted his vision. He approved onlv such courses 
 as flattered his own ambition or prospered his prince. 
 But he was no ogre — at any rate, in his own regard. 
 He encouraged culture and luxury like the best of 
 the despots, he did something no doubt to soften the 
 barbarity of English manners, and if, in obeying the 
 behests of the king, he showed himself as graciously 
 cynical as his Italian exemplars, he did not shirk the 
 reprisal which he knew must come. A terror to 
 others, he watched without terror his own approach- 
 ing doom. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Tiptoft returned from Italy in the nick. The 
 battle of Towton, which had devastated the houses 
 of the nobles, had brought a grateful peace to the 
 kingdom. On no field had ever been poured forth 
 so much English blood. Victors and vanquished 
 were of one nation, many of them near in alliance.
 
 154 JOHN TIPTOFT 
 
 As an eloquent historian says, not a single 'stranger 
 of name was present at our battles, as if we had 
 disdained to conquer or perish by other weapons 
 than our own.' The carnage which had established 
 Edward iv. firmly on the throne left many gaps in 
 the ranks of his advisers, and Tiptoft was abundantly 
 justified of his prudence. Absent in Italy, he had 
 been spared the necessity of taking this side or that, 
 he had borne no burden in council-chamber or on 
 the field of battle. He was, therefore, free to accept 
 the reward ofabstinence without jealousy or suspicion. 
 At a Court which he had not frequented he might 
 expect to find few enemies. Moreover, he was 
 called to serve a prince who, unconsciously perhaps, 
 had formed himself upon the Italian model. If 
 guiltless of the crimes which blackened the fame of 
 Malatesta, Edward iv. was in other respects the fine 
 flower of despotism. Courageous and cruel, munifi- 
 cent and pleasure-loving, he too held firmly by the 
 precepts which Machiavelli was presently to formu- 
 late. He believed, at any rate in practice, that the 
 only way to render his foes innocuous was to 
 extirpate them, that it was no part of a king's 
 honour to keep faith with an adversary, that promises 
 might be given without intent of performance, and 
 that vows might be forsworn for profit or revenge. 
 
 If Tiptoft found in Edward iv. an apt pupil for 
 the lessons of Italian diplomacy, Edward iv. 
 welcomed Tiptoft as a willing instrument of his 
 schemes. He advanced him with an ominous
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT 155 
 
 rapidity. A bitter Nemesis could but await this 
 sudden favourite of fortune. Honours were 
 showered upon him. Chief-Justice for life of 
 North Wales, Constable of the Tower, Constable 
 of England, Knight of the Garter, Lord Steward of 
 the King's Household, Commissioner to keep guard 
 by Sea, Chancellor and Deputy of Ireland, — these 
 are some of the titles conferred upon him by a 
 generous sovereign. Above all, it was his duty to 
 execute the summary justice of the king, and this 
 duty he performed with a truculent severity which 
 won him the hatred of the people, even when no 
 fault might be found with his sentences. He was 
 accused of substituting the Paduan for the English 
 law, and, as he did not scruple to send many a noble 
 rebel to the scaffold without the formality of trial 
 before their peers, his accusers had right on their 
 side. His long sojourn abroad, his intimate acquaint- 
 ance with the practices of Italy, gave him a sinister 
 aspect in the popular regard, and he soon became 
 a legend of lawless ferocity. 
 
 Wherever he went, he was hailed as the Butcher 
 of England, and though he did much to earn the 
 title, it is not easy to separate his responsibility from 
 the king's.^ What he did, he did it by the king's 
 
 1 In The Mirror of Magistrates the case is put as leniently 
 as possible for Tiptoft : — 
 
 ' And for my goods and livinges were not small. 
 The gapers for them bare the world in hand 
 For ten years space, that I was cause of all 
 The executions done within the land :
 
 156 JOHN TIPTOFT 
 
 command, which he dared not disobey, and with 
 the king he reaped the harvest of hate, sown by the 
 hand of tyranny. It is not plain that he and the 
 king could have taken any other course. If they 
 spared the lives of their adversaries, these adversaries 
 speedily armed themselves again. If they punished 
 them by death, they incurred the hatred of peaceable 
 men. But it was Tiptoft's fault that he passed his 
 sentences with alacrity and saw them carried out 
 with a merciless cruelty. 
 
 His first victims were the Earl of Oxford, the 
 Lord Aubrey, his son, and Sir Thomas Tottenham, 
 who, after the semblance of a trial, in 1462, were 
 carried to a scaffold on Tower Hill, eight feet high, 
 and there had ' their heads smitten off, that all men 
 might see.' Though there was no doubt concerning 
 the treachery of Oxford and his friends, the swiftness 
 with which justice was done, and the public ferocity 
 of the judge, even at that turbulent time, exasperated 
 the citizens, who henceforth were ready to believe 
 that Tiptoft was a public enemy. But for the 
 execution of Sir Ralph Grey not even Tiptoft could 
 
 For this did such as did not understand 
 
 Mine enemies' drift, thinke all reports were true : 
 And so did hate me worse than any Jewe. 
 
 Through this I was King Edward's butcher named, 
 And bare the fame of all his cruell deedes : 
 I cleare me not, I worthely was blamed. 
 Though force was such I must obey him needes : * 
 
 — with much more to the same effect.
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT 157 
 
 incur reproach. Sir Ralph was a traitor, who 
 had opened the doors of Bamborough Castle to the 
 enemy. He knew that he might expect no mercy, 
 as he deserved none. The herald, who summoned 
 the Castle to surrender, reserved two persons, Sir 
 Humphrey Neville and Sir Ralph Grey, 'without 
 any redemption,' and he reserved them justly. 
 
 Tiptoft's duty, then, was clear. When the 
 Castle was taken by assault he had but to pass 
 sentence, and this he did with a pomp, eloquence, 
 and moderation which do not suggest the Butcher 
 of England. *■ Sir Ralph Grey,' said he, ' thou hast 
 taken the order of Knighthood of the Bath, and any 
 so taking that order ought to keep the faith the 
 which he takes. Therefore remember thou the 
 law ! ' After this impressive exordium Tiptoft 
 proceeds to declare that Sir Ralph had drawn arms 
 upon the king, had withstood and made fences 
 against his Majesty, that according to the royal 
 ordinance he should have had his spurs stricken off 
 by the hard heels with the hand of the master cook, 
 that his proper coat-of-arms should have been torn 
 off his body, and that he should have been degraded 
 of his worship, noblesse, and arms, as of his order of 
 knighthood. Nevertheless, he was pardoned the 
 ceremonies of degradation, ' for his noble grand- 
 father, the which suffered trouble for the king's 
 most noble predecessors.' And Tiptoft closed his 
 harangue in these familiar terms. ' Then, Sir 
 Ralph Grey,' said he, ' this shall be thy penance, —
 
 158 JOHN TIPTOFT 
 
 thou shalt go on thy feet unto the town's end, and 
 there thou shalt be laid down and drawn to a scaffold 
 made for thee, and that thou shalt have thine head 
 smitten off thy body, to be buried in the freres ; thy 
 head where it pleaseth the King.' 
 
 No fault can be found either with the manner or 
 the justice of this sentence. Not even a partisan 
 could say a word in defence of the punishment which 
 Tiptoft meted out to the friends of Warwick, who 
 in 1470 fell into the hands of the king at South- 
 ampton. Commanded to sit in judgment of such 
 men as were taken in the ships, he ordered 'twenty 
 persons of gentlemen and yeomen to be hanged, 
 drawn, quartered, and headed ; and after that they 
 hanged up by the legs, and a stake was made sharp 
 at the both ends, whereof one end was put in at the 
 buttocks, and the other end their heads were put 
 upon.' It is not surprising that this brutality horri- 
 fied the people, and that ever after the Earl of Wor- 
 cester was 'greatly behated.' His victims, no doubt, 
 deserved to die the death. They did not deserve the 
 outrage of impalement, — an outrage which was con- 
 trary to the law of England, and which suggested to 
 the popular imagination the unknown, unspeakable 
 cruelties of Italy. 
 
 IV 
 
 Harsh as Tiptoft showed himself in the judgment- 
 seat, he revealed but a slender talent on the field of 
 battle. He was not born to carry arms. When he
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT 159 
 
 accompanied the king on his northward expedition, 
 his greatest service was done in the swift punishment 
 of offenders. Appointed in 1463 to guard the sea 
 and to prevent the escape of Oueen Margaret, he 
 ordained a great army and a great navy by land and 
 water. And all in vain ! He and his crews did but 
 consume their stores and come out of the adventure 
 empty-handed and disgraced. 'O infelix successus 
 opprobrium et confusio ! ' exclaims the old Latin 
 chronicler with a shame of which Tiptoft himself 
 was insensible. He, indeed, rode arrogantly upon 
 the topmost wave of fortune, and recked not of 
 failure. His pride and influence increased in spite 
 of defeats on shore and sea. Was he not a scholar 
 and a statesman and the king's, friend ? Had he 
 not travelled to the ends of the earth, gathering 
 knowledge and experience beyond the reach of 
 common men ? And yet, had he studied his own 
 countrymen with half the zeal which he had given 
 to the study of Italy, he might have escaped the 
 unpopularity which ever awaits upon cruelty and 
 insolence. Of his cruelty something has been said. 
 No better example of his insolence may be found 
 than the slight which he put upon the city of 
 London, and which has been described in terms 
 of proper solemnity by William Gregory, chronicler 
 and skinner. Tiptoft, in fact, was guilty of an un- 
 pardonable sin : he treated the Lord Mayor of 
 London with disdain ; and though there has always 
 been a touch of ridicule in civic pomp, how should
 
 i6o JOHN TIPTOFT 
 
 a noble hope to keep a head upon his shoulders who 
 had insulted the city's head in the very fastness of 
 citizenship itself? The story may be told in the 
 chronicler's own simple words. 
 
 'This year (1464), about mid-summer,' — thus William 
 Gregory, — ' at a royal feast of the Sergeants of the Coif, the 
 Mayor of London was desired to be at that feast. And at 
 dinner-time he came to the feast with his officers, agreeing and 
 according to his degree. For within London he is next to the 
 King in all manner of things. And in time of waiting the 
 Earl of Worcester was taken before the Mayor, and set down 
 in the midst of the high table. And the Mayor, seeing that his 
 place was occupied, held him content, and went home again 
 without meat or drink or any thanks, but reward him he did as 
 his dignity required of the city. And he took with him the 
 substance of his brethren the aldermen to his place, and were 
 set and served as soon as any man could devise, both of cygnet 
 and other delicacies enough, that all the house marvelled how 
 well everything was done in so short a time, and prayed all men 
 to be merry and glad.' 
 
 If only Tiptoft had had the tact and humour to 
 decline the place of honour thus wrongfully thrust 
 upon him, he might have won, in the moment of 
 disaster, the sympathy of the citizens. But he was 
 the silent witness of an inexcusable affront. With- 
 out a word of protest he saw himself more highly 
 honoured than him to whom the chief honour was 
 due. And the Lord Mayor's victory was complete. 
 ' Thus,' says the chronicler, ' the worship of the 
 city was kept, and not lost for him. And I trust 
 that never it shall, by the grace of God.' 
 
 A sojourn in Ireland, then as now, the grave of
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT i6i 
 
 reputations, did not mitigate the unpopularity of 
 Tiptoft. Thither he went in 1467, as Clarence's 
 deputy, charged to execute swift, unquestioned 
 justice upon Thomas Earl of Desmond, the Chief 
 of the Geraldines. It is still uncertain what was 
 Desmond's oiFence. If we may believe the voice of 
 rumour, he had incurred Edward's displeasure by 
 urging him to divorce Elizabeth Woodville, and to 
 strengthen the throne by a foreign alliance. What- 
 ever was the cause, there is no doubt of the king's 
 animosity or the stern injunction which he laid upon 
 his well- trusted friend. Tiptoft, always alert to 
 carry out his master's orders, seized upon Desmond, 
 and had his head struck off at Drogheda. There is 
 a baleful legend that he treated the Geraldine's two 
 infant sons with savage cruelty, but the legend is 
 unsupported, and was perchance the invention of 
 the same Irish loyalty which in the records of the 
 Geraldines described Thomas Earl of Desmond as 
 'a martyr of Christ.' 
 
 Deputy until 1468, Tiptoft was appointed Lieu- 
 tenant of Ireland in 1470, upon the outlawry of 
 Clarence, whom the Irish were commanded, on 
 pain of death and forfeiture, not to 'comfort with 
 meat, drink, or otherwise.' He did not assume the 
 higher office. Already his career was drawing to 
 its close. When Edward iv., from whose friend- 
 ship and protection he derived all his power and 
 influence, was forced into flight, Tiptoft could have 
 had but little hope of life or pardon. His last chance 
 
 L
 
 i62 JOHN TIPTOFT 
 
 lay in concealment, and with that sense of picturesque- 
 ness and the unforeseen which accompanied him to the 
 end, he disguised himself, took refuge in Weybridge 
 Forest, and lived with the shepherds who there 
 tended their flocks. Thus another was added to 
 the many parts which he had played. The scholar, 
 the statesman, the Butcher of England prayed that 
 his peasant's garb might shield him from discovery, 
 and prayed in vain. For one day he gave a piece of 
 gold to a shepherd that he might buy bread for him 
 at a farmhouse hard by. And the people of the house, 
 seeing that the man brought more money than he 
 was wont to bring, fell instantly upon suspicion, 
 since they knew (as who did not ?) that Tiptoft 
 was sought with the greatest diligence, and forth- 
 with they sent certain men-at-arms into the wood, 
 if perchance they should there find the fugitive. 
 Their search was successful. Tiptoft was dis- 
 covered hiding in the top of a high tree, which, 
 says Habington, ' exprest the precipice of his 
 fortune,' and was carried with exultant speed to 
 London. 
 
 The pomp and pageantry of his life did not desert 
 him in his death. Tried before the Earl of Oxford, 
 whose father and brother he had sent to the block, 
 he met with as little mercy as he had been wont to 
 give. ' And upon the fifteenth day of October ' — 
 thus says the chronicler — ' was the said Earl arraigned 
 at Westminster in the White Hall ; and upon the 
 Monday following adjudged that he should go from
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT 163 
 
 the same place unto the Tower Hill, and there to 
 have his head smitten off. But as he was coming 
 from the said place of judgment toward his execution, 
 the people pressed ^ so impatiently upon him for to 
 see and behold him that the sheriff was fain to turn 
 into the Fleet, and there to borrow gaol for him 
 for that night. And upon the morrow after, at 
 afternoon, being St. Luke's day, and the eighteenth 
 day of October, he was led to the Tower Hill, where 
 he took his death full patiently,' — so patiently, 
 indeed, that few heroes have ever made a more 
 comely end. 
 
 As he went along, one of the friars who accom- 
 panied him, an Italian of the order of St. Dominic, 
 a kindly fellow and bountiful of speech, said to him, 
 *Sire, you are brought hither by your unheard 
 cruelty.' To which the Earl made answer that 
 what he had done he had done for the State. But 
 the garrulous friar gave him no peace, saying that 
 only just and honest things should be done for the 
 State, and quoting, unkindly as it seems, the words 
 of St. Jerome, that no merciful man ever dies an 
 evil death. Tiptoft bore even the friar's impertinence 
 with an equal mind, and when the time came for 
 him to lose his head he bade the executioner cut it 
 off in three strokes, as a courtesy to the Holy 
 
 * Or as the Mirror of Magistrates, with an excellent turn 
 of slang, expresses it — 
 
 ' That when I should have gone to Blockham feast, 
 I could not paasc, so sore on mc they preast.'
 
 i64 JOHN TIPTOFT 
 
 Trinity. Thus, in the words of Fuller, did the axe 
 'cut off more learning in England than any left in 
 the heads of all the surviving nobility.' And 
 Tiptoft's fiercest enemies could not but confess that 
 he died like a man of courage and of exceeding great 
 faith. Even after his shameful death Tiptoft was 
 treated with the respect which belongs to grandeur. 
 A dutiful sister saw his body honourably interred in 
 the Church of the Blackfriars, a brotherhood which 
 he had founded himself near All Hallows, Barking. 
 And William Grey, the companion of his wander- 
 ings in Italy, set up in his own Cathedral of Ely a 
 fair Gothic monument, whereon John Tiptoft lies 
 between his two wives. 
 
 John Tiptoft was not so much a man of complex 
 character as of two simple souls inhabiting one body. 
 To attempt to harmonise the gentle scholar with 
 the Butcher of England would be to lose one's 
 labour. We must accept both as faithful portraits, 
 and fall back for a parallel upon the despots of Italy. 
 The men of learning are all of one mind. In 
 Tiptoft's praise they exhaust the language of 
 panegyric. John Free, as has been said, struck the 
 first note of adulation. He declared, in his own 
 ecstatic style, that Tiptoft alone among the men of 
 his time was comparable with Alexander the Great 
 and Lucius LucuUus, and he made it plain that it 
 was not Tiptoft who suffered by the comparison.
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT 165 
 
 He praises, in terms of eloquent enthusiasm, the 
 magnitude of his mind, his prudence, his liberality, 
 his piety towards God, his humanity towards all. 
 Caxton falls not an inch behind Free in admiration. 
 He vaunts the virtues and accomplishments of ' the 
 noble, famous Earl of Worcester, son and heir to 
 the Lord Tiptoft, which in his time flowered in 
 virtue and learning, to whom I knew none like 
 among the lords of the temporality in science and 
 moral virtue.' These are the words of one well 
 acquainted with Tiptoft and the recipient of his 
 benefactions. And as Caxton praised the manner 
 of his life, so he praised the manner of his death. 
 ' And what worship had he at Rome,' thus he writes, 
 ' in the presence of our holy father the Pope ! And 
 so in all other places on to his death, at which death 
 every man that was there might learn to die and 
 take his death patiently, wherein I hope and doubt 
 not but that God received his soul into His ever- 
 lasting bliss. . . . Thus I here recommend his soul 
 ever to your prayers, and also that we at our 
 departing may depart in such wise.' So he is held up 
 as an example of kindliness and learning to all good 
 men and to all sound scholars. Leland, a century 
 after his death, echoes the praise of those who were 
 his friends. Having spent all the resources of 
 flattery, he fears that he may seem somewhat tedious 
 to a hurried reader. ' How can I help it ? ' he 
 cries. ' A peerless star such as this must not be 
 robbed of a single ray.'
 
 1 66 JOHN TIPTOFT 
 
 On the other side of the account stands the 
 Butcher of England. And as catchwords govern 
 the world, the Butcher of England has eclipsed in 
 the general memory the amiable scholar and patron. 
 Here is a manifest injustice, since if the two men 
 united in Tiptoft are of equal force and energy, 
 there is no reason why the one should survive the 
 other. And though I would not soften the traits 
 which give colour and interest to the character of 
 the famous Earl of Worcester, it is worth while to 
 ask how it is that so thick a cloud of obloquy has 
 enveloped his name. He was a cruel man, who lived 
 in a cruel age. At a time when a very low value 
 was put upon human life, he sent his adversaries to 
 the gallows without ruth, and went himself without 
 regret. But he soiled his hands with no more blood 
 than did Warwick and Montague, and so faithfully 
 did he carry out the commands of his king, that he 
 cannot be charged with the satisfaction of private 
 revenge. Why, then, should he hold a place apart 
 as the Butcher of England ? I think because he 
 came back to England with the imagined stain of 
 Italy upon him, — because those who suffered from 
 his judgments believed that there was something un- 
 English in his procedure. They suspected, as we 
 have seen, the bias of the Paduan Law. They took 
 their death from Montague with a light heart. He 
 had not wasted his years in foreign travel. While 
 Tiptoft was studying the classics, he had stood, 
 sword in hand, on English battlefields, and had every
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT 167 
 
 right to send his countrymen to the gallows. In 
 the very aspect and manner of Tiptoft there was 
 something exotic, and the prisoner of state or his 
 friends resented that sentence should be passed by 
 one who had not the bluff heartiness of his fellows. 
 And then there was the impalement at Southampton. 
 For this no excuse or palliation can be found, — a 
 wanton outrage for which Tiptoft will be pilloried 
 for all time as the Butcher of England. 
 
 VI 
 
 Thus, with his nickname to aid, Tiptoft became 
 a kind of bogey. He has been denounced as an 
 Italianate Englishman by many whose insular pride 
 ascribes England's virtues to her own soil, her vices 
 to benighted countries situate across the Channel. 
 For more than a century after Tiptoft's death a kind 
 of shame hung about those who betook themselves 
 to Italy that they might learn the lessons of life. 
 Though the Italianate Englishman went through 
 several phases, they were all phases of dishonour, and 
 his reproach is a commonplace of the sixteenth 
 century. At first it was the cunning lessons of 
 statecraft which were supposed to disgrace the 
 anxious learner. A false reading of Machiavelli 
 inflamed the public mind. Italy suggested nothing 
 save intrigue, poison, and sudden death. This, the 
 country of Tiptoft's policy, was the country also of 
 such dramatists as Webster and Cyril Tourneur.
 
 i68 JOHN TIPTOFT 
 
 Nashe apostrophised it in the conventional terms. 
 ' O Italy ! ' he exclaims, ' academy of manslaughter, 
 the sporting-place of murder, the apothecary-shop 
 of all nations ! How many kinds of weapons hast 
 thou invented for malice ! ' Even to have sojourned 
 there for a while seemed a danger and a slur. 
 Harvey accused Nashe of travelling to Italy ' to 
 fetch him twopenny worth of Tuscanism.' And 
 then there came another class which sought instruc- 
 tion in the baleful country. They went in search 
 not of lessons in statecraft, but of Circe's enchant- 
 ments. It was their purpose to kill their own souls, 
 not to destroy the bodies of others. They were no 
 Tiptofts ; they were merely curious lovers of super- 
 stition and debauchery. ' Englese Italianato,' says 
 Roger Ascham, who has left us the best picture of 
 the kind, 'e un diabolo incarnato,' and the incarnate 
 devil loses nothing of his hideous aspect when Ascham 
 has finished with him. In a famous passage he 
 sketches him and his paltry ambitions. 
 
 ' If some yet do not well understand,' says he, 
 ' what is an Englishman Italianated, I will plainly 
 tell him. He, that by living and travelling in Italy, 
 bringeth home into England out of Italy the Re- 
 ligion, the learning, the policy, the experience, the 
 manners of Italy. That is to say, for Religion, 
 Papistry or worse : for learning, less commonly than 
 they carried out with them : for policy, a factious 
 heart, a discoursing head, a mind to meddle in all 
 men's matters : for experience, plenty of new mis-
 
 JOHN TIPTOFT 169 
 
 chiefs never known in England before : for manners, 
 variety of vanities, and change of filthy lying. 
 These be the enchantments of Circe.' 
 
 And then Ascham passes from a general denuncia- 
 tion to condemn especially the merry books of Italy, 
 which he thinks are no better than the works of 
 chivalry composed in monasteries by idle monks or 
 wanton nuns. The ' Morte d'Arthur' he holds to 
 be bad enough, yet ten ' Morte d'Arthurs ' do not 
 the tenth part so much harm as one of these books 
 made in Italy by Bandello or Boccaccio, and trans- 
 lated into English. The exaggeration is a clear 
 proof of prejudice, and persuades the reader to think 
 that the enchantments of Circe did not allure young 
 wills and wits so wantonly as Ascham believed. 
 
 As the years went on the charges brought by 
 zealous Englishmen against Italy became more pre- 
 cise and less heinous. Atheism, infidelity, vicious 
 conversation, ambitious and proud behaviour — these 
 are the sins which Harrison observed in the newly- 
 returned Englishman. And presently the Italianate 
 Briton, once a devil incarnate, was whittled down 
 into a mere fop, a thing of frills and furbelows, of 
 antics and gestures, of fantastic speech and affected 
 manners, not unlike the tourist of to-day who comes 
 back from Paris with a flat-brimmed hat on his head 
 and broken English in his mouth. It is a strange 
 chapter in the history of international relations, and 
 it seems not a little stranger when we remember 
 that the Italians were quick to return the compli-
 
 I70 JOHN TIPTOFT 
 
 ment. A Venetian who visited England when 
 Henry vii, was on the throne, was astonished at the 
 lack of affection wherewith English parents regarded 
 their children, and English husbands their wives. 
 In no class could he trace real human nature or the 
 passion of love. Thus are the insults of untravelled 
 Englishmen avenged. Thus is a check given to 
 over hasty condemnation. As for the Italianate 
 Englishman, he seemed a very real monster to three 
 generations of men, and let it not be forgotten that, 
 under whatever guise he presently appeared, he owed 
 his beginning to John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, 
 accomplished scholar, munificent patron of learning, 
 and the Butcher of England.
 
 JOHN STOW
 
 JOHN STOW— I 
 
 HIMSELF 
 
 THE history of the past is revealed to us most 
 clearly in the highest and the lowest. Kings 
 and rufflers, ministers and thieves, willingly surrender 
 their secrets to the art of biography. The prowess 
 of Sir Richard Grenville is as familiar to the world 
 as the wisdom of Burleigh. There is none who may 
 not read, if he will, the life of Moll Cutpurse, or 
 delight in the fustian eloquence of many a last dying 
 speech. It is only the simple virtue of the citizen 
 which finds no place in the archives — of the citizen 
 who opens his stall, follows his craft, and prays that 
 he may become an alderman. In the career of such 
 a one there is little chance of scandal or surprise. 
 He does not play for the larger stakes of life. He is 
 not asked to rescue maidens in distress, or to batter 
 the walls of impregnable fortresses. Even if he 
 venture beyond the limit of the law, he commits his 
 robberies from the discreet shelter of a comfortable 
 office. It is not strange, then, that the Elizabethan 
 dramatists either ignore him or turn him to ridicule. 
 In their eyes he is a fair victim for the lash of the
 
 174 JOHN STOW 
 
 satirist or the greed of a broken man of pleasure. 
 The Gallipots and Yellowhammers of Middleton 
 are extravagant caricatures. Simon Eyre, Dekker's 
 famous shoemaker, is too nobly picturesque for truth, 
 and even the citizen and his wife, who pleasantly 
 interrupt ' The Knight of the burning pestal,' display 
 so vain a simplicity as to surpass belief. Indeed were 
 it not for the accident which made John Stow 
 a chronicler as well as a tailor, we might lose our 
 time in idle conjecture. But John Stow stands 
 before us, honest, pedantic, irascible, and it is our 
 own fault if we refuse his acquaintance. His own 
 habit of autobiography has stimulated a general 
 curiosity ; scholars have treated him with a respect 
 denied to others of his kind ; and the last of his 
 editors, Mr. C. L. Kingsford, has accepted the 
 injunction of Thomas Hearne, and reprinted Stow's 
 Survey of London ^ as a ' venerable original.' 
 
 Born in 1825, John Stow belonged to a family of 
 citizens. His grandfather was an honest tallow- 
 chandler, who supplied the Church of St. Michael 
 in Cornhill with lamp-oil and candles, and his father, 
 inheriting 'the great melting-pot with all instru- 
 ments belonging thereto,' inherited also the same 
 privileges. His youth, like his age, was spent in 
 the city. The wards of London were the boundaries 
 
 ' A Survey of London by John Stow. Reprinted from the 
 text of 1603, with Introduction and Notes by Charles Leth- 
 bridge Kingsford. Oxford : at the Clarendon Press. To Mr. 
 Kingsford's Introduction I am deeply indebted.
 
 HIMSELF 175 
 
 of his universe. He saw in his mind's-eye no other 
 river than the Thames. And London in the sixteenth 
 century was a real town, of narrow and absorbing 
 interests, the citizens of which knew one another by 
 sight, and joined in paying a proper deference to the 
 greatest of all citizens — the Lord Mayor. There was 
 nothing which touched the dignity and habit of this 
 great official, greater almost, within his limits, than the 
 king himself, that did not stir the imagination of his 
 subjects. For Stow the smallest innovation in civic 
 custom was a dire offence. He records sorrowfully 
 in 1563 that Sir Thomas Lodge, being Mayor of 
 London, wore a beard. He was the first that ever 
 ventured thus to defame his office, and hardly did 
 the city support the shock. That a Mayor should 
 leave the comely, ancient custom of a clean chin 
 seemed intolerable to the loyal men of London, and 
 the year of Lodge's office was marked by Stow with 
 a black stone. 
 
 And as the city was small in size and in outlook, 
 so also was it simple in its joys. It delighted in 
 pleasant shows and homely pageants. It welcomed 
 May-day with its masks and junketings ; it hung its 
 houses with holly and ivy at Christmastide ; it 
 shadowed its doors, on the vigil of St. John the 
 Baptist, with green birch, long fennel, St. John's 
 wort, orpin, and white lilies. Then there was 
 wrestling at Bartholomew Fair, and much eating of 
 pork, and cock-fighting and bear-baiting in their due 
 season. The practice of the long-bow had, alas !
 
 176 JOHN STOW 
 
 been almost forsaken in Stow's time. The closing 
 of the common grounds, so often deplored by the 
 chroniclers, had already done its work, depraving the 
 citizens, and weakening the national defence. * Our 
 Archers,' says Stow, ' for want of room to shoot 
 abroad, creep into bowling allies and ordinary dicing- 
 houses, nearer home, where they have room enough 
 to hazard their money at unlawful games : and there 
 I leave them to take their pleasures.' 
 
 And even the graver citizens, content to walk 
 abroad in decent tranquillity, found that the city was 
 encroaching upon their exercise. Hogg Lane, for 
 instance, without Bishopsgate, which now bears the 
 more pompous name of Artillery Lane, had within 
 Stow's memory fair hedgerows of elm trees on either 
 side, with bridges and easy stiles, such as even alder- 
 men might climb to pass over into pleasant fields, 
 and there to refresh their spirits, dulled with the 
 purchase of merchandise and the counting of money, 
 in the sweet and wholesome air. And within a few 
 years this country lane became nothing better than 
 one continual building of garden houses and small 
 cottages. But even though the city was merged in 
 the suburbs, as far as Houndsditch and Whitechapel, 
 London was still fair and clean, seldom oppressed by 
 poverty or exaction, and famous then, as now, for 
 a generous hospitality. Stow remembered the time 
 when two hundred persons were served daily at Lord 
 Cromwell's gate, and when the Prior of Christ Church 
 kept a bountiful house of meat and drink, both for
 
 HIMSELF 177 
 
 rich and poor. In brief, all classes seemed to be 
 inspired with a simple gaiety, and if there was 
 a reverse side to the medal, Stow takes care not to 
 show it to us. 
 
 Such was the quiet, provincial town in which 
 Stow grew up. His father's house was in Throg- 
 morton Street, and there the old man was the victim 
 of an injustice which rankled in his son's breast unto 
 the end. Thomas Cromwell was building himself 
 a large and spacious house hard by, and in his 
 arrogance made no scruple to take down the pales 
 of his neighbours and to seize their land. Now, 
 close to William Stow's south pale there stood a 
 house, and this house the miscreants loosed from the 
 ground, with the ingenuity of modern Americans, 
 and moved upon rollers some twenty-two feet into 
 the garden, without warning, and with no other 
 answer, when they were taxed, than that Master 
 Sir Thomas had so commanded it. *Thus much of 
 mine own knowledge have I thought good to note' 
 — such is Stow's comment — ' that the sudden rising 
 of some men causeth them to forget themselves.' 
 Yet in Cromwell's despite, Throgmorton Street had 
 its amenity. Thence the young Stow could walk 
 to the Nunnery of St. Clare in the Minories, and 
 fetch a halfpenny worth of milk, always hot from 
 the kine, and never less than three ale-pints for 
 a halfpenny in the summer, nor less than an ale-quart 
 in the winter. The citizen of to-day must go 
 farther afield for his milk than the Minories, and 
 M
 
 178 JOHN STOW 
 
 cannot hope to satisfy the farmer with so modest 
 a coin as a halfpenny. 
 
 Of his education Stow tells us nothing. He notes 
 only that every year on the eve of St. Bartholomew 
 the Apostle he saw the scholars of divers grammar- 
 schools repair into the churchyard of St. Bartholomew, 
 where upon a bench boarded about under a tree 
 some one scholar would oppose and answer, until he 
 were put down by a better scholar, who in turn 
 yielded to his superior. Though he praises this 
 habit of disputation. Stow does not say that he took 
 his share of the argument under the tree, and maybe 
 he was bred at a school deemed unworthy to com- 
 pete with St. Paul's in London or St. Peter's at 
 Westminster. What is certain is that he deserted 
 the craft of candlemaking, which his fathers had 
 followed, was apprenticed to a tailor, was admittted 
 to the freedom of the Merchant Tailors in 1547, 
 and remained faithful to the trade for thirty years. 
 That he was a good tailor seems improbable. He 
 who, in Aubrey's phrase, ' stitched up ' so many 
 chronicles, was not likely to be skilful with his 
 needle. However, he kept house near Aldgate 
 Pump, the object, no doubt, of his pious worship, 
 and it is a strange commentary on the manners of 
 the time that in 1549, after a commotion of the 
 commons in the Eastern Counties, the Bailiff of 
 Romford was hanged upon the pavement of his door. 
 Meanwhile he performed the duties of a citizen with 
 promptitude and loyalty. He sate upon juries, he
 
 HIMSELF 179 
 
 served as a Whiffler in the pageant of two Lord 
 Mayors, and he took as keen an interest in the affairs 
 of the city as though he had never known what 
 history was or had followed the devious paths of 
 astrology. 
 
 The most loyal of his biographers tells us that he 
 was very careless of scoffers, backbiters, and de- 
 tractors, and that he lived peacefully. This tribute 
 is wholly undeserved. Either by ill-fortune or in 
 obedience to his temperament, John Stow was 
 always plunged deep into the fiercest quarrels. 
 There was nothing that did not serve him for a 
 brawl — a book, an affront, an unjust will. Possibly 
 he sought relief in conflict from the monotony of 
 existence. The life of a citizen in Tudor England, 
 amiable though it was, knew but few excitements, 
 and when Stow's ardour was not satisfied with 
 learning, he fell to fighting. Strife, indeed, was in 
 his blood. He was not the only Stow that loved 
 quarrelling. Once upon a time, for instance, 
 there was a dispute between Thomas, his brother 
 and Thomas Holmes, 'both brethren of this 
 mystery,' which came before the Company of 
 Merchant Tailors. Now, the wife of the said 
 Holmes had used indecent words against the wife 
 of the said Stow, and the Master and Wardens 
 decreed that Holmes's wife should profess her sorrow, 
 and that Holmes should solace Stow's injured feelings 
 by twenty shillings of lawful English money. 
 
 This was a mere skirmish, if we compare it with
 
 i8o JOHN STOW 
 
 the far more desperate battle in which John Stow 
 was presently engaged with William Ditcher, alias 
 Telford, who, if we may believe Stow's own petition, 
 addressed to the Aldermen of the Ward, was a very 
 master of scurrility and abuse. At a certain Christ- 
 mas Ditcher was forbidden by the wardmote to set 
 ' his frame with fetharbends ' in the street, and 
 incontinently he charged Stow with lodging a com- 
 plaint against him. The charge was false, says 
 Stow, but its falsehood was no check to Ditcher's 
 ferocity. At the outset. Ditcher and his wife were 
 content to rail at Stow as he passed them by, and 
 when that would not serve, they stood at his door 
 hurling at him shameful and slanderous words. 
 This was hard to be borne. Still harder was it 
 when Ditcher told the parson of the parish, and any 
 other man whom he chanced to meet, that Stow 
 kept no company but that of rogues and rascals, who 
 had him from ale-house to ale-house every day and 
 every night till two o'clock in the morning. The 
 terms of abuse chosen by Ditcher increased in 
 virulence as the quarrel went unassuaged, and Stow, 
 furious at being called ' prick-louse knave,' ' rascal 
 knave,' ' beggarly knave,' felt that his enemy had 
 reached the zenith of opprobrious injustice when he 
 declared that the said John had made a chronicle 
 of lies. 
 
 From words the miserable Ditcher went to deeds. 
 He challenged Stow to fight, and when the erudite 
 tailor declined the encounter. Ditcher scratched him
 
 HIMSELF i8i 
 
 by the face, drew blood on him, and was pulled oft 
 by the neighbours. What wonder is it, then, that 
 Stow appealed to the wardmote for protection from 
 this violent ruffian, who spared his wife and his 
 apprentice as little as he spared the man himself? 
 The apprentice, indeed, came ofF badly in the affair, 
 for when he, too, declined the combat. Ditcher said 
 he would provide for him, and would accuse him 
 of killing the man at Mile End in Whitsun Week. 
 And yet Stow was worthy whatever respect the 
 wardmote could show him. Had he not published a 
 worthy chronicle ? And had he not, to cite his own 
 words, ' three daughters marriageable and in service 
 with right worshipful personages' ? 
 
 And for all his energy and eloquence. Ditcher was 
 but a man of straw, set up to frighten the tailor by 
 the tailor's real, inveterate enemy, his brother Thomas. 
 Fortunately we have Stow's own account of his family 
 quarrel, which, as vivid in style as it is frank in ex- 
 pression, is a curious chapter in the history of manners, 
 and suggests that had Stow been minded to leave the 
 chronicles to such botchers as Grafton, he might have 
 composed a journal worthy to be set side by side with 
 the masterpiece of Pepys. The beginning of the strife 
 is hidden from us. Its end came only with the death 
 of the combatants, and its vigorous conduct proves 
 that, if John was the better scholar, Thomas was 
 easily superior in savagery of temper and lack of 
 scruple. It chanced one day in June 1568 that 
 old Mrs. Stow, who lived in the house of her
 
 i82 JOHN STOW 
 
 younger son, Thomas, came on a visit to John, 
 who, as in duty bound, sent for the best ale and 
 bread, and placed a cold leg of mutton before her, 
 whereof she ate very hungrily. Presently she fell 
 to butter and cheese, and thus heartened by meat 
 and drink she promised to leave John £io in her 
 will, to look upon him as her eldest born, and if 
 any man or woman attempted to dissuade her, she 
 would cry out upon him, ' Avoid, devil.' And then 
 the best ale loosened John's tongue, who made bold 
 to say what he thought of his brother Thomas, and 
 to lament that he was matched with a harlot. 
 
 Mother and son parted well pleased with each 
 other, but no sooner was the good woman returned 
 to Thomas's house than Thomas and his wife forced 
 her to relate all that had passed between her and 
 John. When Thomas was told of the slur cast 
 upon his wife's character, his fury knew no bounds. 
 Nothing would content him than that John should 
 be struck out of the will altogether, and though the 
 overseers would not consent to this, John was be- 
 queathed no more than a poor five pounds. ' Thus,' 
 says John with a grim humour, ' I was condemned 
 and paid five pounds for accusing Thomas his wife 
 a harlot, privily only to one body (who knew the 
 same as well as I) ; but if he could so punish all 
 men that will more openly say so much, he would 
 soon be richer than any Lord Mayor of London.' 
 The injustice thus done to John was the more 
 flagrant, because a few days after Thomas not
 
 HIMSELF 183 
 
 merely brought the same charge against his wife, 
 but for her sins thrust her out of doors. And when 
 his neighbours begged him to take her back, he 
 refused, saying she would be his death, for she still 
 went to witches and sorcerers. 
 
 Then came the strangest scene in this tragi- 
 comedy of middle-class life. At ten o'clock in the 
 night the wretched woman crept back into the 
 house, and Thomas, bare-legged and indignant, 
 searched for her, and, having found her, fell to 
 beating her again. Meanwhile his mother, who 
 lay sick upon her pallet, began to look about the 
 chamber for Thomas's hosen and shoes, and carried 
 them downstairs, praying him to put them on lest 
 he should catch cold. But Thomas turned a callous 
 ear to her solicitude, and let her stand shivering for 
 more than an hour. Nor was it Thomas who 
 suffered in the end. He and his wife went to bed 
 and agreed well enough. His mother took such a 
 cold that she never rose from her pallet again. 
 
 Thus, waged with alternate cunning and fury on 
 either side, the battle was fought to the bitter end. 
 On St. James's Eve John sent his wife to Thomas's 
 house with a pot of cream and a pottle of strawberries 
 for a peace-ofFering. Thomas would have none of 
 them, and drove her forth with bitter oaths and 
 charges of witchcraft. ' I will make the villain 
 John be handled,' cried he, *or it shall cost me a 
 hundred pounds. I will make all the world to know 
 what arts he practiceth ; and get ye out of my doors,
 
 i84 JOHN STOW 
 
 or, by Peter, I will lay thee at my feet.' After this 
 outrage a sudden calm fell upon the family. Thomas 
 sought his brother out, sent for a pint of ale, and bade 
 him drink, professing sorrow for the past and friend- 
 ship in the future. And the dying mother murmured 
 from her pallet : ' The Lord be praised, for now my 
 children that were dead are alive again.' The peace, 
 unhappily, did not last long. John, still dissatisfied, 
 demanded once more his proper share of the inheri- 
 tance, and asked his mother to cause Thomas to read 
 the 133rd Psalm: 'Behold how pleasant and how 
 joyful a thing it is for brethren to dwell together 
 and be of one mind.' This was too great a demand 
 upon the old lady's courage. She dared not argue 
 with Thomas, evidently a ruffian of forcible char- 
 acter, and John would not desist from urging his 
 claim, though she lay on her deathbed. Again the 
 brethren fell a-quarrelling, even in her presence, and 
 she died to the echo of oaths, threats, and foul words. 
 On the morrow of her burial, which was Saturday, 
 there was another reconciliation. ' I met Thomas 
 Stow,' writes John, ' my sister, and Henry Johnson 
 at Leadenhall. So we went to the Maiden's Head 
 and drank a pint of wine or twain.' And then the 
 feud broke out again more fiercely than before. 
 
 Thomas Stow's last assault upon his brother might 
 have had a more dangerous result than the loss of a 
 mere five pounds. Unpacified by his triumph, he 
 laid information against him that he was a favourer 
 of the Duke of Alva, that he practised magic, and
 
 HIMSELF 185 
 
 was a friend of papistry. John Stow's books were 
 examined by Cecil's order, and he himself was 
 brought before the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. 
 That he escaped does credit to the justice of the 
 time, for Thomas was dishonest with the dishonesty 
 of the fool, and he would have stuck at nothing to 
 ruin his brother. As for the motives of this quarrel, 
 unique in our annals, they are not easy to discern. 
 It may be that differences of religion, always a 
 fertile source of argument, kept the two men 
 apart. It may be that Thomas was jealous of 
 John's superiority, that he grudged him his books 
 and the great friends that they brought him, that 
 he hoped to put him back in what he thought his 
 proper place — the tailor's stall. However that may 
 be, it must be confessed that neither side conducted 
 the dispute with dignity. There is little of the 
 scholar and nothing of the gentleman in John's de- 
 meanour. He, too, descended into the pit, clamoured 
 against Thomas, and embittered the last miserable 
 days of his mother. And though he was beaten for 
 the moment, he took a revenge which was beyond the 
 reach of his brother. Never in his Chronicle nor in 
 his Survey does he write of brotherly feuds without 
 a glance at his own sad experience. With an evident 
 zest he describes how, in 1 196, William Fitz Osbert, 
 a man of evil life and a secret murderer, and still 
 worse, a false accuser of his elder brother, was 
 righteously brought to the gallows, and thereto he 
 gravely adds in the manuscript : ' Such a brother
 
 i86 JOHN STOW 
 
 have I, God make him penitent.' Thus, after 
 thirty years, the old man cherished his anger, and 
 who shall say that he was not justified ? 
 
 These grimy quarrels, which set brother against 
 brother, this eager hankering to change an old 
 woman's will, were but interludes in the career of 
 John Stow. Many years before he came to blows 
 with Thomas he had begun the process of self- 
 education, which gave him a place in English litera- 
 ture. Studious by temperament, he had assiduously 
 cultivated his natural gifts. At the outset his taste 
 had lain in poetry and sorcery. He had always an 
 eager love of magic, and his first work was an 
 edition of Chaucer, the father of English poets, 
 whom he never quoted save with becoming reverence. 
 But gradually he was drawn away to the study of 
 history, which study he embraced with the greater 
 ardour because it gave him an excuse for quarrelling 
 with Grafton, whom he attacked sometimes with 
 injustice, and always with ferocity, and who in the 
 vigour of his hate took up almost as wide a space as 
 his false and avaricious brother. 
 
 Hearne, praising his industry, denies him scholar- 
 ship, and Hearne, no doubt, was in the right. On 
 the one hand, Stow was a late learner, and like all 
 late learners he was wont to take surprise at his own 
 erudition, and to mistrust the attainments of his 
 rivals. On the other hand, his toil and energy are 
 beyond dispute. He spared neither himself nor his 
 pocket. That he might collect manuscripts and
 
 HIMSELF 187 
 
 books, that he might understand and transcribe what 
 he had collected, the honest tailor forgot his trade 
 and recked not of fatigue. His work cost him, as 
 he confessed, ' many a weary mile's travel, many a 
 hard-earned penny and pound, and many a cold 
 winter night's study.' And his labour was the 
 greater because he could not ride, and thus was 
 forced to go on foot into divers chief places of the 
 land to search the records. Nor was he in any 
 haste to gather the fruit of his toil. He was already 
 fifty-five before the first of his serious works, A 
 Chronicle of England from Brute until the Tear 
 1580, was published. Twelve years afterwards 
 came the first edition of his Annals^ and these two, 
 with his Survey of London^ make up the literary 
 baggage of a busy life. 
 
 The baggage, rather heavy than various, is the 
 baggage not of a historian but of a chronicler. If 
 Stow was better than most of his kind, he was a 
 chronicler still. He made no pretence to combine 
 events or to divine their causes. He wrote from 
 year to year, almost from day to day, and in his 
 view all events were of an equal and separate 
 importance. If he had a preference, it was for the 
 trivial. Had he been alive now, he would have 
 made a first-rate reporter. He had learned the first 
 two lessons taught by the modern newspaper (i) 
 that the more fatuous is an episode, the more instant 
 is its 'appeal'; and (2) that you may discover 
 curiosity and even scandal in sudden changes of
 
 i88 JOHN STOW 
 
 the weather. I do not think that he ever found a 
 large gooseberry. It would have been a happy day 
 for him if he had. But turn his pages at random 
 and you will find many strange pieces of absurdity. 
 The specimen which follows, culled from the year 
 1389, will serve as well as another to illustrate the 
 Chronicler's sense of selection : 'A fighting among 
 gnats at the King's Manor of Sheen, where they were 
 so thick gathered, that the air was darkened with 
 them ; they fought and made a great battle. Two 
 parts of them, being slain, fell down to the ground ; 
 the third part, having got the victory, flew away, no 
 man knew whither. The number of the dead was 
 such, that they might be swept up with besoms, 
 and bushels filled with them.' 
 
 Though such an adventure, surely unparalleled 
 since the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, would make 
 the fortune of a morning paper, it may justly be 
 accounted beneath the dignity of history. And even 
 the fighting gnats faded in Stow's interest beside a 
 frozen river. Never, indeed, was he so happy as 
 when he might record a quick fall of temperature, 
 and seldom did he have a better chance than in 
 1564, when on the 21st of December there began 
 so hard a frost that on New Year's eve people went 
 over and along the ice as they would, from London 
 Bridge to Westminster, while some played at football 
 as boldly there as if it had been on dry land, and 
 others shot at pricks set up on the Thames. But, 
 despite his love of triviality, despite the fact that, as
 
 HIMSELF 189 
 
 Fuller said, ' he was such a smell-feast that he cannot 
 pass by Guildhall but his pen must taste of the 
 good cheer within,' Stow was a faithful chronicler. 
 * However he kept tune, he kept time very well ' ; 
 in other words, he was exact in chronology, and 
 served as an authority to many wiser historians. 
 He did his best, also, to gather knowledge from eye- 
 witnesses, and he told Sir George Buc, the biographer 
 of Richard iii., that he had spoken with those who 
 had seen that king, and who pronounced him a very 
 comely personage. In brief, his chronicles now and 
 again stray into history, and his patriotism was 
 never at fault. If he loved London like a Londoner, 
 he loved England as an Englishman should love her, 
 and he set an example of cheerful enthusiasm which 
 our historians have not always followed. 
 
 And what did he get for his toil ? If we may 
 believe him, little indeed. He rightly claimed that 
 those who ' have brought hidden Histories from 
 dusky darkness to the sight of the world ' deserve 
 some thanks for their pains. He had received, said 
 he, only ingratitude. After Stow's death, Edward 
 Howes, his faithful editor, hinted that the chroni- 
 cler's reward was an assurance of endless reproach. 
 In these complaints there is an obvious exaggeration. 
 The rivalry of chronicler's led, no doubt, to strife. 
 But who loved strife better than Stow ? His en- 
 counters with Grafton gave him more pleasure than 
 a Lord Mayor's feast, and he never lost a chance of 
 insulting his enemy. And if his toil brought him
 
 iQO JOHN STOW 
 
 small profit, surely he was not singular in that. 
 His knowledge of the city should have taught him 
 that intelligence finds its own reward. And even 
 in pocket he was the richer for his researches. 
 Master William Camden, ' his loving friend,' gave 
 him _^8 a year. It was not for his skill in their 
 craft that the Company of Merchant Tailors paid 
 John Stow, 'a loving brother of this mystery,' a 
 yearly fee of ^4, but ' for divers good considerations 
 them specially moving.' 
 
 And Stow himself made light of his misfortunes. 
 * He and I walking alone,' said Ben Jonson to 
 Drummond, 'he asked two cripples what they would 
 take to have him of their order.' He hobbled and 
 he was poor, and therefore in no better case than 
 the cripples ; but he could jest with them, and in 
 the best company. Nor was the Court wholly 
 unmindful of him. King James, recognising that 
 his Moving subject John Stow (a very aged and 
 worthy member of our city of London) this five and 
 forty years hath to his great charge, and with 
 neglect of his ordinary means of maintenance, com- 
 piled and published divers necessary books and chroni- 
 cles,' granted him Letters Patent to collect voluntary 
 contributions and kind gratuities from whom he 
 could. To our minds it seems a selfish kind of 
 largesse, but it was the custom of the time, and was 
 well understood by those to whom the appeal was 
 made. A like privilege was given to Philemon 
 Holland, another ill-requited man of letters, and it
 
 HIMSELF 191 
 
 need have brought no shame to Stow to follow so 
 illustrious an example. 
 
 One other reward was given to Stow by his 
 work — the reward of friendship. He lived on terms 
 of familiarity with the scholars and wits of his time. 
 His geniality and his learning were such as few 
 could withstand. He was well described as 'a merry 
 old man,' and he was perfectly conscious of his 
 merriment. To drink a pint of 'best ale' in an 
 Aldgate tavern with John Stow was like cracking 
 a bottle at the Mermaid ; and if his amiable humour, 
 now mellowed with the years, attracted the simple, 
 his erudition and his library brought the learned to 
 his feet. He was among the first to join Archbishop 
 Parker's famous Society of Antiquaries, at whose 
 meetings he encountered the historians of either 
 university. He was always ready to lend a manu- 
 script or to aid in the editing of a Latin text. 
 Among his correspondents were many honourably 
 distinguished men. Sir Henry Savile calling him 
 ' good old friend,' and confessing that he ' has found 
 at all times good favour of him since their first 
 acquaintance ; and other acquaintance in t/ondon has 
 he none,' beseeches him to certify 'if Wigornensis 
 is printed.' And presently, growing in intimacy, 
 Savile sends him 'a mild sixpence to drink a quart 
 of wine in your travel.' It is a strange relationship, 
 and stranger still it seems if we call to mind the 
 bare legs, the squalid household, the grim vitupera- 
 tion of Thomas Stow, and the three daughters in
 
 192 JOHN STOW 
 
 worshipful service. The Chronicler, in truth, made 
 the best of both worlds — the world of the city, 
 which was veritably his own, and the world of 
 scholarship, which was his by right of conquest. 
 
 His portraits reveal what manner of man he was, 
 and a friend has sketched him in words with a 
 kindliness beyond the scope of portraiture. ' He 
 was tall of stature,' wrote Howes, 'lean of body and 
 face, his eyes small and crystalline, of a pleasant and 
 cheerful countenance ; his sight and memory very 
 good ; very sober, mild, and courteous to any that 
 required his instructions ; and retained the true use 
 of all his senses unto the day of his death, being of 
 an excellent memory. He always protested never 
 to have written anything for malice, fear, or favour, 
 nor to seek his own particular gain or vainglory ; 
 and that his only pains and care was to write truth.' 
 He died in 1605, being four score years of age, and 
 he was buried in his parish church of St. Andrew 
 Undershaft. A monument was set up in his honour 
 by Elizabeth, his wife, whom in a moment of greedy 
 appeal he once unjustly denounced to his mother as 
 a wife that can neither get nor save. She got or 
 saved enough for his glory, and to her spirit of 
 forgiveness we owe the solemn presentment of the 
 ancient chronicler, seated at his table, and holding 
 in his hand the goose-quill wherewith he hymned 
 the praise of London, his native city, and celebrated 
 in his homely style the exploits of our kings and 
 governors.
 
 JOHN STOW_II 
 
 HIS 'LONDON' 
 
 WHEN John Stow sat him down to what he 
 called 'the discovery of London,' he ap- 
 proached his task in a spirit of loyal humility. 'It is 
 a duty,' said he, ' that I willingly owe to my native 
 mother and country,' and he discharged the duty 
 with all the zeal and intelligence that were his. 
 ' What London hath been of ancient time,' he 
 claims, 'men may here see, as what it is now every 
 man doth beholde.' Alas, we behold it no longer, 
 and it is not easy to reconstruct London's vanished 
 beauty from Stow's record. He saw it, as we see 
 it, in a moment of transition. Gothic austerity was 
 yielding to the grace and lightness of the Tudor 
 style. Timber was replacing stone. Stow is quick 
 to record the triumph of the new material. 
 ' Downe lower have ye Elbov/ lane,' says he, 
 'and at the corner thereof was one great stone 
 house, called Olde Hall, it is now taken downe and 
 diverse faire houses of timber placed there.' Con- 
 trary to the conservative habit of his mind he seems 
 to have welcomed the innovation. In a passage of 
 rare enthusiasm he acclaims the stately house of 
 
 N
 
 194 JOHN STOW 
 
 brick and timber lately raised by Sir Robert Cecil, but 
 his enthusiasm was evoked less by the elegance of 
 the design than by the paved and levelled highway, 
 which beautified the street and served for the great 
 commodity of passengers. Stow, in fact, did not 
 presume to explain or to criticise the architecture of 
 London. He was a plain man, who dealt with facts, 
 catalogued monuments, wrote down inscriptions, and 
 left the work of appreciation to others. In his eyes 
 a palace and a conduit were of equal value. A visit 
 to St. Martin's Oteswick inspired him to this re- 
 flection, ' You had of olde time a faire well with two 
 brackets, so fastened that the drawing up of the one let 
 downe the other, but now of late that well is turned 
 into a pumpe.' Herein may be discerned the true 
 spirit of the book — a book written not merely by a 
 citizen for citizens, but by an antiquary for anti- 
 quaries. 
 
 And Stow, being both a citizen and an antiquary, 
 had all the limitations of his kind. He was not 
 very observant, and he was very credulous. If he 
 was all unconscious of the city's wonderful aspect, 
 he was eager to believe in any legend that was 
 brought to his ear. He is vastly interested in the 
 strange bones that once were treasured in ancient 
 churches. He tells us little enough of St. Lawrence, 
 in the Jewry, but he does not forget the immense 
 bone which he saw there, fastened to a post of timber, 
 which most took to be the thighbone of a man, and 
 which he attributed doubtfully to ' an oliphant.'
 
 HIS * LONDON' 195 
 
 As to the larger specimen, preserved in the church 
 of St. Mary, Aldermanbury, he had no doubt. 
 'True it is,' he writes in all simplicity, ' that this 
 bone (from whence soever it came) being of a man, 
 as the form showeth, must needs be monstrous, and 
 more than after the proportion of five shanke bones 
 of any man now living amongst us.' Again, though 
 he pronounced Gerrard the giant and his mighty 
 staff to be fables, perhaps because Grafton gave 
 credit to them, and because the master of the 
 hostelry, where the staff was kept, refused to tell 
 him its history, but bade him consult a rival 
 chronicle, he put implicit faith in his father's story 
 that once, upon St. James's night, the devil appeared 
 in the church of St. Michael's, Cornhill, and left 
 the print of his claws on certain stones in the north 
 window, as if they had been so much butter. 
 
 Such was Stow's temper, such the criticism of 
 his time. He exercised his faith as he chose, 
 accepting this fact and rejecting that, according 
 to the whim and fancy of the moment. It is, 
 indeed, his prejudices which give life and humour 
 to his work. He cursed most heartily him who 
 removed his neighbour's landmark. Living at a 
 time when the city was greedily encroaching upon 
 the open spaces, he lost no chance of condemning 
 those who covered what once were pleasant walks 
 with bricks and timber. Sorrowfully does he record 
 that apples grew where now houses were lately 
 built, and that from Houndsditch in the west, to
 
 196 JOHN STOW 
 
 Whitechapel in the east, the fields were all turned 
 into ' Garden plottes, teynter yardes, bowling allyes, 
 and such like.' The truth is that, though as I have 
 said, he smiled upon the houses of the new fashions, 
 in all other matters he hated change with a constant 
 heart. His sentiment was anchored securely in the 
 past. Even the inns of London were little to his 
 taste. He remembered with pleasure the brave days 
 when Eastcheap was a cooks' row, and that there 
 they cried hot ribs of beef roasted, pies well baked, 
 and other victuals. ' Of olde time,' says he, 'when 
 friends did meet, and were disposed to be merrie, 
 they went not to dine and supper in taverns, but to 
 the cookes, where they called for meate what them 
 liked, which they alwayes found ready dressed at a 
 reasonable rate.' 
 
 As he loves the customs, so he loves the charity 
 and magnificence of ancient days, when the poor 
 man found a ready welcome at the rich man's gate, 
 and the rich man thought it no dishonour to display 
 his wealth. He tells us, with a reflected pride, that 
 time was when Wolsey kept 400 servants, excluding 
 his servants' servants, who were a goodly train, and 
 he was old enough to recall the grandeur and 
 generosity of the religious houses. He had seen a 
 buck brought up to the altar steps of Paul's in 
 solemn procession, and had watched the dean and 
 chapter, apparelled in copes and vestments, with rose- 
 garlands on their heads, send the body of the buck to 
 the baking. His well-stored memory carried him
 
 HIS 'LONDON' 197 
 
 back to the reign of King Henry, and as he lived to 
 see the first James mount the throne he had witnessed 
 a complete revolution in thought and manners. He 
 recked not of revolutions. He turned his eyes 
 resolutely backward : he sought in history what his 
 own age could not give him ; in pious secrecy he 
 deplored the evil influence of the reformation ; he 
 witnessed with a sad regret the influx of penurious 
 foreigners j and he descended to an honourable poverty 
 without making a single concession to the changed 
 world that lay about him. 
 
 If he was not quick in appreciation, if he knew 
 not how to describe or applaud, if he was so patient 
 a collector of facts, which he could neither contrast 
 nor combine, that he never ceased to be hampered 
 with his own collections, none was ever a more 
 constant lover of London than he. He quotes the 
 testimonies to its grandeur wherever he can find 
 them. He delights in the praise of Tacitus, that 
 London, though no colony of the Romans, was yet 
 most ' famous for the great multitude of merchants, 
 provisions, and intercourse.' But it was not for its 
 beauty and romance that he loved it. He loved it 
 because there he was born and bred, because it 
 reminded him that he was a citizen of no mean city, 
 because the tailor's stall, which brought him bread 
 and cheese, stood hard by the famous pump of Aid- 
 gate. The brilliance and colour of its streets, the 
 courage of its many-coloured life, the skill of its poets, 
 the enterprise of its adventurers, escaped him. And
 
 198 JOHN STOW 
 
 yet the vision of its splendour might have tempted 
 to enthusiasm even a citizen's pen. A city, noble 
 in its simplicity, with tortuous streets, which 
 turned and twisted by an accident of slope or 
 stream between gabled houses of fair brick and sturdy 
 timber — such was London in Stow's day. The 
 brave costume and proud bearing of the rufflers and 
 courtiers, who lived side by side with prosperous 
 merchant or thrifty shopkeeper, were worthy so 
 handsome a setting. There were met within a 
 narrow compass men of a hundred crafts and a 
 hundred talents. Travellers fresh from the wonders 
 of the new world jostled actors from the Globe and 
 the Curtain, or drank with soldiers fresh from the 
 wars in the taverns of Wallbrookor on the Bankside. 
 Like the true citizen that he was. Stow passed the 
 traveller idly by. He had no eye for strange sights, 
 no ear for strange stories. Give him a pageant or a 
 Lord Mayor's Show, and he was content. Let him 
 amuse his leisure at a bear-baiting or a fair, and he 
 did not ask exotic pleasures. 
 
 Of architecture he made but one demand : let not 
 the houses be too high. He deemed no censure, 
 no punishment excessive for those who expressed 
 their arrogance in lofty walls. The first private 
 man that ever he heard of, who built a high tower of 
 brick to overlook his neighbours, was Angell Dune, 
 grocer and Alderman of London, and the delight of 
 his eye was punished with blindness some years 
 before his death. The second citizen, who journeyed
 
 HIS 'LONDON' 199 
 
 thus far on the path of vainglory, came to no better 
 end. Richard Wcthell was his name, and having in 
 his hot youth transgressed Stow's unalterable canon, 
 he ' became in short time so tormented v^^ith goutes 
 in his joynts, of the handes and legges, that he could 
 neither feed himself, nor goe further than he w^as led, 
 much lesse was he able to climbe, and take the 
 pleasures of the height of his Tower.' Thus 
 a proper Nemesis overtook those who dared to ape 
 the impiety of Babel, and Stow's condemnation was 
 perfectly just. London is a true city of the 
 North, and cannot endure tall houses, which shut 
 out the light and cast long shadows. Nothing 
 should interrupt the rays of sun, always few and 
 furtive, which fall upon its streets, and Stow's 
 contemporaries were fortunate, in that the two 
 miscreants, who dared to darken the sky with 
 their proud roofs, were speedily overtaken by a 
 poetic justice. The London of to-day is less happy. 
 Its citizens are free to heap up mountains of bricks 
 and mortar, of stone and iron. This they do not 
 for pride but for profit, and, in order that they may 
 swell an over full pocket, the poor wayfarer must 
 walk up and down like a pigmy at the bottom of 
 a sightless, airless tank. 
 
 A far stranger limitation than his insensibility to 
 the beauty and romance of life was Stow's complete 
 ignorance of the drama. He lived in England's 
 golden age, and was all unconscious of his privilege. 
 His mind was as little picturesque as his style.
 
 200 JOHN STOW 
 
 Devoid himself of imagination, he prized it not in 
 others. The great ones of the earth made no 
 impression upon his provincial mind. To read his 
 Survey is to get an impression of a county town, 
 where nothing happened of greater importance than 
 the election of an alderman. Too old-fashioned to 
 understand the new craft of the stage, he has no 
 word to say of Shakespeare. Ben Jonson was his 
 familiar friend, and he displays less interest in the 
 poet than in last year's sheriff. The ancient plays, 
 which two hundred years before his time took three, 
 and even eight days to enact, aroused his curiosity. 
 They belonged to the realm of archaeology, in which 
 he, the studious tailor of Aldgate, was a reigning 
 monarch. The plays of his own time inspired him 
 with no more than this simple statement : ' Of late 
 time in place of these Stage playes, hath been used 
 Comedies, Tragedies, Enterludes, and Histories, both 
 true and fained : for the acting whereof certain 
 publike places have beene erected.' And then he 
 passes hastily to the more congenial topics of cock- 
 pits and tennis-courts. 
 
 The omission is remarkable, even if it proves no 
 more than that the prophet must expect no honour 
 among his contemporaries. For Stow, though a 
 citizen, was not unlettered. He gave many years 
 of his life to the making and editing of books. He 
 had done his best to bring the works of Chaucer 
 before the eyes of his countrymen. He knew some- 
 thing of Gower, whose works he possessed in
 
 HIS 'LONDON' 20I 
 
 manuscript. He quotes Lydgate and Piers the 
 Plowman. Yet he knew no more of Shakespeare 
 than of Holbein, and it is by his limitations that we 
 mark him : a fusty old tailor, to whom a Latin 
 chronicle said more than Hamlet ; a student, who 
 found more in the dullest records than in the sights 
 and sounds of London ; a writer, for whom the 
 seven deadly sins are all comprised in the one sin 
 of inaccuracy, who has a word for Aschan the fish- 
 monger, and none for Ascham the schoolmaster, 
 and who mentions Sir Francis Drake, 'that famous 
 Mariner,' for no better reason than that he once 
 inhabited a great old house, called the Erber. In 
 brief, worthy, affable, and merry as he was, he had 
 closed his ears to the Sirens' song, and it is not to him 
 that we must go for an echo of his melodious age. 
 
 Stow's London, then, is a strange dispeopled place, 
 where no footfall is ever heard and no laugh echoes. 
 Even his aldermen and sheriffs are but names to 
 which neither respect nor quality is attached. For 
 the intimacy, which divines the character of those 
 about him, Stow had neither taste nor talent. If 
 you could measure how far he fell short of his 
 opportunity, turn to the more highly gifted of his 
 contemporaries, who professed an interest in London. 
 Instantly the honest man, so great among the 
 chroniclers, is dwarfed to his proper stature. 
 Thomas Nashe, for instance, understood London 
 as well as any of his fellows, and for him it is a 
 place of amusement or repentance, according to the
 
 202 JOHN STOW 
 
 shifting of his mood and the weight of his pocket. 
 None knew better than he the life of the tavern and 
 playhouse. To none were revealed more clearly 
 London's ghostly dominations and the terrors of 
 its nights. None more eloquently deplored the 
 ambition and covetousness, the atheism and lust, 
 which beset the city to its undoing. With a 
 familiar touch he sketched the ostler that hath 
 built a goodly inn, the carman in his leather pilch, 
 the black-gowns and buckram bags of Westminster 
 Hall, the malcontents, who dined with Duke 
 Humphry at Paul's, the old straddling usurers, who 
 gave him cold comfort in his necessity. And he 
 made all these and many others real, because he had, 
 what he said the chroniclers lacked, ' the wings of 
 choice words to fly to heaven.' 
 
 Yet vividly as Nashe sees what lies about him, it 
 is denunciation which best suits his humour and his 
 style, and he falls upon London, like a prophet of 
 evil, foretelling its doom with a sinister raillery. 
 * London,' he cries, ' look to thyself, for the woes 
 that are promised to Jerusalem, are promised to thee. 
 . . . Fly from sin, take no pride or vainglory in it. 
 . . . Ah ! what is sin that we should glory in it ? 
 To glory in it is to glory that the Devil is our 
 father. Doth the peacock glory in his foul feet ? ' 
 Nashe's inspiration is literary, no doubt. We need 
 not assume that he was overcome by puritanical 
 zeal, or that he was a Bunyan, eager for the world's 
 reform. He was but painting a vision of the London
 
 HIS 'LONDON' 203 
 
 which he saw, and which was as remote from the 
 London of the chroniclers, who wrote of ' nothing 
 but mayors and sheriffs, and the dear years and the 
 great frost ' as the London of Elizabeth's reign was 
 from the well-ordered, petroleum-driven city of to-day. 
 As little shall we recognise the London of the 
 plain citizen in Dekker's masterpiece of cruel 
 observation : the Gull's Horn Book. Here, at any 
 rate, Dekker displayed not even a literary interest 
 in reformation. He was content to hold the mirror 
 of ridicule before the face of the Gull, who had not 
 the wit to see his own image reflected therein. 
 Irony and malice are the weapons wherewith he 
 attacks the insolent youth ' about town,' and we 
 admit the truth of his satire, because the traits 
 that he shows us are common to all the ages. He 
 takes his young gallant to an ordinary, where he 
 bids him discourse as loud as he can to no purpose, 
 to laugh in fashion, and not to doff his cap to the 
 gentleman, to whom, two nights since, he was 
 beholden for a supper. Then he sends him off to 
 the playhouse, and seats him on the stage, thus 
 giving him a conspicuous eminence, and 'a signed 
 patent to engross the whole commodity of censure.' 
 Here he tells him he shall be crowned with rich 
 commendation if he 'laugh aloud in the midst of 
 the most serious and saddest scene of the terriblest 
 tragedy,' and urges him, if he like not the poet, to 
 rise with a screwed face from his stool, and to distaste 
 the scenes the worse, the better they are. And so
 
 204 JOHN STOW 
 
 the gallant passes from playhouse to tavern, and 
 'after the sound of pottle-pots is out of his ears, 
 and that the spirit of wine and tobacco walks in his 
 brain, the tavern door being shut upon his back, he 
 casts about to pass through the widest and goodliest 
 streets in the city ' ; he insults the watch, talks of 
 lords if any one may approach ; and is ready at noon 
 on the morrow to begin another day in Paul's 
 Churchyard, censuring new books, mewing at the 
 old, visiting the tobacco-ordinary, or breathing in 
 a fence-school. Dekker drew from the life ; we 
 should know his gull if we met him in Piccadilly 
 to-day ; and there is a nearer approach to truth and 
 humanity in one of his pages than in all the folios of 
 honest Stow. 
 
 It is not merely the types of London which endure. 
 The ground-plan of the city still resists the shocks 
 of time and chance. Though scarce a dwelling- 
 house remains upon which John Stow cast his eyes, 
 the Londoner may use a map of the sixteenth century 
 and not find himself hopelessly at fault. With the 
 ground-plan the ancient names of the street persist 
 also. Cornhill and Lombard Street, Cheap and 
 Budge Row, Aldgate Street and Poultry — there they 
 are in Shakespeare's London as they are in ours. 
 Other buildings have risen on their fringe and are 
 put to other purposes, but the highway keeps the 
 same, and by the same signs you may trace it. And 
 the London of to-day, still breathing the air of astern 
 Conservatism, is confronted by the same problems
 
 HIS 'LONDON' 205 
 
 which perplexed the Elizabethans. Changed as it 
 is, it cherishes the same ambitions, it attempts to 
 suppress the same abuses as of yore. 
 
 A certain graduate of Oxford who, at Stow's 
 bidding, attempted to give us ' an insight' into the 
 city, would enter readily into our discussions, if he 
 came back to life. He knew full well that London's 
 first necessity was to find proper markets for its 
 merchandise. He did not think that the shortest 
 cut to the golden age was to buy all things cheap 
 and to sell nothing. He urged the city to follow 
 the counsel of that good old husband, Marcus Cato, 
 saying : ' Oportet patrem familias vendacem esse 
 non emacem,' since ruin lurked in a policy of bring- 
 ing more merchandise from beyond the sea than we 
 sent over. Again, the cry of ' back to the land' 
 was raised as loudly in the sixteenth century as it 
 is raised to-day. London was already drawing to 
 herself all the industries of the country. Artificers 
 and retailers alike were leaving the ancient cities and 
 market towns to bring their wares to the capital, 
 where they found a readier sale. And as the 
 countryside dwindled London grew, spreading out 
 its arms to embrace the suburbs, more bitterly 
 loathed then even than now, and converting great 
 houses into many tenements. In vain were laws 
 passed to check the invading city. London heeded 
 no laws ; long since she claimed the outskirts for 
 her own ; and placed them in her giant circle with 
 many a country town besides.
 
 2o6 JOHN STOW 
 
 Thus the London of Stow has disappeared, save its 
 names and its plan. And since Stow's day there 
 have been many Londons, each one of which has 
 left some trace behind. No pedantry had until 
 lately disturbed the beautiful path of accident, and if 
 Paris may vaunt the beauty of her design, it is 
 character which has separated the London which 
 yesterday we knew from all the cities of the earth. 
 The Haussmann ideal has long been reducing 
 Europe to a meaningless uniformity. A few relics 
 of old Spain are hidden away in corners of Madrid. 
 The style that is only too familiar thrusts itself upon 
 us as we travel its wider thoroughfares. It is the 
 boast of every German capital to be a little Paris. 
 But London has been resolutely conservative. Even 
 when she made up her mind to replace a tangled net- 
 work of streets with a boulevard, she was wont to do 
 it with half a heart. How long is it since Shaftes- 
 bury Avenue was planned ? And how long will the 
 dingy houses of Soho redeem its western side from 
 vulgarity ? In fact, London was not built ; it grew 
 at hazard. As you cross some of its streets you may 
 still pass from century to century. You may change 
 the Classic for the Gothic style. You may discover 
 a masterpiece of the Adams cheek by jowl with a 
 monstrous agglomeration of ' flats.' More fortunate 
 still, you might, a few years ago, have strayed 
 suddenly into an unexpected county town. West- 
 minster was once an interlude from the provinces. 
 Fulham and Kensington each had its High Street,
 
 HIS 'LONDON' 207 
 
 and kept with the old name a corporate life of its 
 own. But to-day reverence for the past is dead. 
 London is the Paradise of the County Councillor, and 
 if only the financiers are amiable, in fifty years there 
 will be no ancient stone left standing on another. 
 Not only will the houses of London disappear 
 before the greed of the speculative builder j the streets 
 themselves will be lost in straight-cut boulevards. 
 
 Speed and avarice are the enemies. The ideal 
 city, says the County Councillor, is that which en- 
 sures the greatest rapidity of traffic. To get from 
 one place to another as quickly as possible is, we are 
 told, the sole purpose of modern life. For this 
 purpose amenity and tradition must be sacrificed 
 without delay or excuse. The tortuous streets, 
 which seemed to begin nowhere and to go no- 
 whither, and which in reality followed a wise law, 
 are being swept away, that the clerk may not be 
 interrupted on the way to his office. The ancient 
 inns of court, with their clean, fresh lawns and 
 shining plane-trees, which once proved London's 
 faculty of surprise, have been torn down to make 
 room for — what ? A monstrous, void space, which 
 is not fit to hold a music-hall. The ample thorough- 
 fare, pierced at the expense of many memories, is 
 still an ample thoroughfare flanked by nothing better 
 than a bare hoarding. Our County Councillors, 
 indeed, have made a wilderness, and no doubt they 
 call it peace. They have also destroyed a fabric and 
 a feeling, which can never be restored. Once
 
 2o8 JOHN STOW 
 
 London was wayward, various, fantastic. Now it is 
 on the road to become logical, and the motor- 
 omnibuses exult in their freedom. 
 
 What speed begins is consummated by avarice. 
 The high houses, which Stow deplored, overlook 
 their neighbours curiously in every quarter of the 
 town, and they have no justification save profit. 
 Obviously eight stories pay more rent than four. 
 What matters it, then, that the eight shut out the 
 light of heaven ? Has not America proved that the 
 earth pays best when the heaviest loads are laid upon 
 it ? And why should we not follow the example of 
 America ? To give one reason among many, 
 because London is not, like New York, a southern 
 city. It is not asked to cover the passenger with 
 its shade, while it conducts him to his destina- 
 tion. As I have said, it should be the hope of our 
 architects not to exclude the sun, but to catch every 
 ray that falls athwart our streets. And this hope 
 will never be realised so long as vast masses of 
 red brick and black mortar, faced at a brief interval 
 by other masses of equal size and sombreness, are 
 accepted as an adequate definition of a street. 
 
 Thus it is that London, once triumphantly in- 
 consistent, is brought to the uniformity of a 
 surveyor's office. The mysterious hiding-places 
 and secret corners are all uncovered. Parks are 
 bisected to make a short cut. The loss caused by 
 the accidental turns and twists of ancient days is 
 estimated in miles, sovereigns, or foot-pounds.
 
 HIS 'LONDON' 209 
 
 Economy is proclaimed the constant foe of character 
 and variety. Time was when the Strand and Oxford 
 Street had each its own aspect, its own sentiment. 
 To-day they are so much alike that even a Cockney 
 may be forgiven if he mistakes the one for the other. 
 The same masses of plate-glass, the same hideous 
 shop-windows, composed in the style once called 
 ' the new art,' and now fortunately old-fashioned 
 everywhere save in London, give the wayfarer the 
 same displeasure as he might receive from travelling 
 through an unbroken line of railway stations. The 
 chequered window-panes, which of old gave so trim 
 an air to our shops, survive only in half-forgotten 
 corners. Theirs was a separate elegance, theirs 
 was an air of an older world, and they have been 
 abolished that the gaze of the idler may not be inter- 
 cepted. So presently the last traces of pleasantness 
 will pass from our streets. The relics of a happier 
 time will reveal themselves only to a devout research. 
 The London which grew by chance, and created its 
 beauty as it went along, will be replaced by a paltry 
 imitation of a foreign city. But even though it 
 cherish the ambition of Paris, it will not achieve it. 
 While it has lost the character which once belonged 
 to it, it has not gained the sense of design which 
 embellishes its neighbours. The Strand, the scene of 
 our architects' loftiest aspiration, is but a museum 
 of conflicting styles. Nothing is left us save the 
 atmosphere, which enwraps even the masterpieces 
 of modern architecture in a cloak of mystery, and 
 o
 
 210 JOHN STOW 
 
 the river, ever changing in the changing light. 
 With these we must content ourselves, until v/e are 
 crushed beneath the weight of the motor-omnibuses, 
 stealthy and immense, for whose untrammelled pro- 
 gress we have sacrificed the noble city which our 
 fathers handed down to us.
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 IN the sixteenth century, as I have said,^ no figure 
 was more familiar to the courts and colleges of 
 Europe than the travelling Scot. Cameron and 
 Blackwood, Duncan and Balfour, won a more illus- 
 trious fame abroad than at home. The glory of 
 Dempster, who was as quick to draw his sword or to 
 take up a quarrel as the most irascible of Brant6me's 
 heroes, and who carried his erudition at the steel's 
 point to Paris, Pisa, and Bologna, is still undimmed. 
 Bordeaux, Paris, and Coimbra profited by the 
 rugged talent of George Buchanan. And yet by 
 a stroke of fortune it is none of these eminent and 
 travelled Scots who holds the first place in the 
 popular imagination. That place was usurped long 
 since by James Crichton, a youth who, immeasur- 
 ably inferior in sound scholarship to Dempster, in 
 poetry to Buchanan, had the rare faculty of drawing 
 the eyes of all men upon him, and by his glittering 
 gifts of speech and person captured a renown which 
 then, as now, appeared the child of mystery and 
 daemonism. 
 
 I 
 James Crichton, the son of Robert Crichton of 
 Eliock, Lord Advocate, and of Elizabeth Stewart, 
 1 See p. 79.
 
 214 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 daughter of Sir James Stewart of Beath, was born in 
 1560, on an island, said rumour, already busy about 
 him, in the Lake of Cluny. On either side he 
 claimed royal descent, and his pretensions had a surer 
 basis in fact than those of many, his compatriots, 
 who vaunted a lofty lineage. The precocity which 
 has made him immortal was sedulously tended. 
 Buchanan, Hepburn, Robertson, and Rutherford 
 share the glory of his education, and he was but 
 thirteen when he took his first degree at St. Andrews, 
 a boy bachelor in very truth. Two years later he 
 became Master of Arts, and at seventeen, when he 
 went first upon his travels, the days of his pupilage 
 were done. By habits of invincible industry he had 
 improved a natural aptitude until he might claim, 
 without boasting, to be the most learned youth of 
 his years that ever held his own in the schools of 
 Europe. He carried in his brain all the erudition of 
 the time. If we may believe an early document, 
 doubtless inspired by himself, he was already the 
 master of ten languages. Philosophy and theology 
 held no secrets from him. He knew the works of 
 Plato and Aristotle as the merchant knows his 
 account-books. And he had studied profoundly all 
 the controversies which those masters of science had 
 inspired. There was not one of the Christian 
 Fathers whose works he had not read and pondered ; 
 and the best proof of his sincerity in these studies is 
 that, while his father had embraced the reformed 
 religion, he stood steadfast in the ancient faith, for
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 215 
 
 the sake of which he lived under foreign skies an 
 exile from his fatherland. He professed a deep skill 
 in astrology, the favourite pursuit of his age, and 
 with that independence of mind which distinguished 
 him, he was prepared to argue that the calculations of 
 his contemporaries were all erroneous. In the tradi- 
 tional mysticism of the Cabala he was especially well 
 versed, than which his ingenuity found few better 
 fields of exercise. Thomas Aquinas and Duns 
 Scotus, with their attendant trains of Thomists and 
 Scotists, were of course his familiars, and he was 
 ready to dispute in utramque partem with all comers. 
 Of this wide and multifarious knowledge he knew 
 how to make the best use. All the gifts of facile 
 presentation were his. He was of a surpassing 
 beauty, wondrous tall and fair, and the mark of 
 a red rose [rubea rosa) which nature had put about 
 his right eye marked him out as something rare 
 among men. 
 
 In brief, his face and speech, as a devout admirer 
 said, seemed the daughters of a noble mind. His 
 eloquence was quick and persuasive. He could 
 address his audiences in all languages and to all 
 purposes, and there was that suggestion of what 
 a later age calls hypnotism in his manner which 
 caught and held the attention of the least sympa- 
 thetic. But the most remarkable talent that the 
 lavish gods had bestowed upon him was the talent of 
 memory, a talent far more highly esteemed then than 
 now. ' He knew not what it was to forget,' says his
 
 2i6 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 inspired rhapsodist. Whatever he had once seen or 
 heard was his own intimate possession until the end 
 of life. Had he listened, perchance, to a long oration, 
 he could give it back word for word as it was 
 delivered. He possessed, moreover, a rapid trick of 
 improvisation. He could compose Latin verses on 
 any given subject, in any given metre. He 
 resembled those artists of the Music Hall who 
 once upon a time would sing a song on the first 
 man chosen from a delighted audience. And he 
 achieved something more which was beyond their 
 reach. Having improvised a poem, he could repeat 
 it backward, beginning at the last word, — a feat 
 which was hailed as none the less wonderful on 
 account of its uselessness. 
 
 The manifold gifts of his mind did not impede the 
 prowess of his body. He was as apt for arms as for 
 arts. His learning was nothing else than a flower to 
 be worn at the point of his lance or on the crest of 
 his helmet. He excelled in all the martial exercises 
 of his time. A formidable antagonist with sword 
 and dagger, he was invincible in the joust. Neither 
 his hand nor his tongue ever trembled in the presence 
 of any adversary. As a horseman he found few 
 rivals among the cavaliers of his time. There was 
 no steed so violently unbridled but he could break it. 
 The praise which Rabelais gives to his hero might 
 well be applied to him : ' The voltiger of Ferrara 
 was but an ape compared to him. He was singularly 
 skilful in leaping nimbly from one horse to another,
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 217 
 
 without putting foot to ground. ... He could like- 
 wise from either side, with a lance in his hand, leap 
 on horseback without stirrups, and rule the horse at 
 his pleasure without a bridle. . . . Another day he 
 exercised the battle-axe, which he so dexterously 
 wielded, both in the nimble, strong, and smooth 
 management of that weapon, and that in all the 
 feats practicable by it, that he passed knight of arms 
 in the field, and at all essays.' Moreover, he 
 wrestled, ran, jumped, and danced with the light, 
 untrammelled skill wherewith he confuted his 
 opponents in the schools. Not even did he disdain 
 to play at ball, * making it to bound in the air, both 
 with fist and foot.' In brief, he set before him the 
 high example of Gargantua, and, if we may believe 
 the testimony of friends, he fell not short of that 
 prince's giant prowess. 
 
 II 
 
 Such was James Crichton as he appeared to the 
 eulogists, inspired, as I have said, by himself. Such 
 he seemed to the schools and courts of Paris, when 
 they witnessed his feats of daring and erudition. He 
 was no more than seventeen when first he sought 
 fame and fortune abroad, and surely his gifts could 
 have found no more fitting theatre than Paris for 
 their display. For the Paris to which he came was 
 the Paris of Henri in. and Brantome, the Paris whose 
 gaiety Rabelais had enhanced, whose pedantry his 
 ridicule had not abolished. If, in joyousness of heart,
 
 2i8 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 the Parisians took for their motto, ' Do what you 
 will,' they still loved the combats of spear and 
 brain which had made them famous. Learning and 
 bravery were alike the servants of competition. Tour- 
 neys were held in the Louvre, the voice of discussion 
 was heard at the Sorbonne. An equal chance of dis- 
 tinction was given to the knights-errant of pen and 
 sword, and in Paris Crichton found himself most 
 intimately at home. Nothing had yet availed to 
 check the practice of disputation, of disputation on 
 all subjects, in all forms and languages, in accordance 
 with all rules. It was wellnigh a century since Pico 
 della Mirandola had offered to defend nine hundred 
 paradoxes against all comers, and the test of learning 
 was still the same. To us the test seems pedantic 
 and irrelevant, but it was the test of the time, and 
 by it Crichton, like many another of sounder learn- 
 ing than he, was tried and found excellent. 
 
 Arrived in Paris, Crichton, boy though he was, 
 lost no time in posting a challenge on the gates of 
 the schools, halls, and colleges of that renowned 
 University, inviting all comers to dispute with him 
 in any known language, de omni scibili} He, mean- 
 while, already prepared for the frav, busied himself 
 in the sports in which he surpassed his fellows, or 
 
 1 Our only evidence for what Crichton achieved in Paris is 
 Sir Thomas Urquhart, a witness suspect both by time and 
 temper. But his account, if not literally, is yet essentially true, 
 and may be accepted as a picture of the facts, seen through Sir 
 Thomas's romantic eyes.
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 219 
 
 diverted his leisure with singing and playing on the 
 lute, which were always his solace and delight. And 
 as he thus gained a reputation for an idleness of 
 which he was never guilty, his enemies, with more 
 malice than truth, fixed this notice upon the door of 
 the Sorbonne : 'If you would meet this monster of 
 perfection, to make search for him either in the 
 tavern or bawdy-house is the readiest way to find 
 him.' Crichton laughed at the impertinence, and 
 took a speedy revenge. The conference which he 
 held in Paris was a splendid triumph for the miracu- 
 lous youth. He proved a quicker knowledge than 
 the most learned professors possessed even of their 
 own subjects. He leapt from one language to 
 another as from his desultory horses. He turned 
 at will from prose to verse. In fine, he entertained 
 the nimble-witted Parisians from nine o'clock in 
 the morning till six at night, and there was not 
 one scholar of them all who did not acclaim him 
 worthy of the victor's wreath. As in bodily strength 
 he might have taken Gargantua for his model, so in 
 the things of the mind he followed the example of 
 Gargantua's worthy son. Of him it might have 
 been said, as it was said of Pantagruel : 'The 
 vivacity of his spirit among the books was like a 
 great fire amongst dry wood, so active it was, 
 vigorous, and indefatigable.' ^ 
 
 1 Consciously or unconsciously the accounts which we have 
 of Crichton's attainments are echoed from the text of Rabelais. 
 Gargantua's celebrated letter to his son might be accepted as
 
 220 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 Not content with his victory in the schools, 
 Crichton lost no time in displaying his valour on vi^hat 
 Brantome calls the champ clos. ' The very next day,' 
 thus it is that Urquhart tells the story, 'to refresh 
 his brains, as he said, for the toil of the former day's 
 work, he went to the Louvre in a bufF suit, more 
 like a favourite of Mars than one of the Muses' 
 minions; where, in the presence of some Princes 
 of the Court and great ladies that came to behold his 
 gallantry, he carried away the ring fifteen times on 
 end, and broke as many lances on the Saracen.' 
 
 Thus for a while all was sport to him. He lived 
 in the mimic combat of hand and brain, basking 
 happily under the cloudless sky of success. And 
 then, with what motive we know not, he exchanged 
 the tourney for the battle, lent his gallant sword to 
 France, and fought with distinction, it is said, in 
 the Religious Wars. The voice of fame, hushed 
 to a whisper in these squalid conflicts, breathes 
 no word of his achievements. For two years he 
 disappeared in a silence as of the grave, until the 
 scholar that was in him awoke again. He himself 
 
 a sketch of Crichton's education, and his final exhortation would 
 not have been uttered in vain to the eloquent Scot. ' Further- 
 more/ wrote Gargantua, * I will that very shortly thou try how 
 much thou hast profited, which thou canst not better do than 
 by maintaining publicly theses and conclusions in all arts, against 
 all persons whatsoever, and by haunting the company of learned 
 men, both at Paris and otherwhere.' This is precisely what 
 Crichton did in all the cities where he sojourned in the brief 
 course of his life.
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 221 
 
 confesses that time was when Mars held sway in 
 him, until the peaceful arts of Apollo persuaded 
 him to turn from the horrors of war.^ We 
 know not for certain the moment of conversion, 
 but in 1579 Crichton was in Genoa deploring the 
 narrow straits of poverty into which he had fallen, 
 and expressing a lachrymose gratitude to those who 
 had befriended him. In a strain of unaccustomed 
 modesty, he confesses his youth — he was nineteen 
 — and the weakness of his talent : he deplores his 
 very slender skill in speaking : he declares that, 
 if there were in him any scantlings of virtue, or 
 any mediocrity of intelligence which might have 
 persuaded the scholars of Genoa to look favourably 
 on him, they skulked in secret, oppressed by grief and 
 privation. In the lofty terms of a turgid common- 
 place, he extols the splendour of the Republic which 
 gave him hospitality,the limitless glory of her senators, 
 the wisdom of her benign prince, elected by the 
 votes of her free citizens. With these inestimable 
 blessings he contrasts the misdeeds of tyrants, 
 naming with a flattering unction the classic ex- 
 amples— Tarquin and Apollodorus, Dionysius and 
 Alexander. To justice, liberty, and virtue he pays 
 the tribute of the obvious, and closes an oration, 
 which nowhere shines with the spark of youth or 
 contains a characteristic sentence, by imploring the 
 
 most illustrious senators of Genoa to ofler, with him, 
 their thanks to the Eternal God. Genoa did not 
 
 > This is stated both in the handbill and the Aldine pamphlet.
 
 222 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 disdain his gifts ; she saw the genius of Crichton in 
 spite of Crichton's misery; and she paid him so high 
 an honour that, said he, becoming once more his 
 arrogant self, he would not exchange it for the statues 
 of Demetrius or the honours of a consul. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The first necessity of Crichton's existence was 
 prosperity. He was like a butterfly, who could not 
 live out of the sun. Overhead the sky must always 
 be clear, the applause of friends must ring in his 
 ear, he must be pointed at with an approving finger 
 in the street. The thought of Genoa, despite the 
 honour which he received, was soon wearisome to 
 him. The memory of an empty pocket and hard 
 fare irked him sorely, and he was glad to find a 
 kindlier refuge in Venice, then, as now, the wonder 
 of the Adriatic, then, as no longer, the meeting- 
 place of poets and learned men. He was not yet 
 twenty-one when he came thither, a boy still in all 
 save experience and knowledge of the world. He 
 was determined, at all hazards, to conquer fame and 
 wealth, and he set about the conquest by the only 
 method yet discovered by ambitious men — the 
 method of bold and fearless advertisement. A 
 handbill ^ was issued, obviously with his connivance, 
 
 1 This handbill, or affiche, printed by the Guerras in 1580, 
 was discovered inserted in a copy of the second AJdine edition 
 of the Cortegiano of Castiglione. It sets forth facts which
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 223 
 
 in which were celebrated his handsome person, his 
 vast learning, his invincible skill in arms and 
 horsemanship. It is an ingenious production, brief 
 and adulatory, a masterpiece of blatant and un- 
 ashamed panegyric. Yet it is of surpassing interest, 
 for not only is it an early specimen of the pre- 
 liminary puff — it is the first solid piece of evidence 
 upon which our knowledge of Crichton rests. 
 Had he lived to-day he would have confided to the 
 reporters what a very fine fellow he was. There 
 being no reporters at his hand, he inspired a hack 
 to compose a handbill, which declared his perfec- 
 tions in the simplest Janguage. And simple as it 
 was, it has been eagerly seized upon by his 
 biographers, who have echoed its crude flattery 
 to such purpose that the earliest half-dozen authori- 
 ties for the life of Crichton are not six but one. 
 
 Such was the first part of Crichton's scheme for 
 making himself known to the scholars of Venice. 
 His next step was to address a poem,^ composed in 
 hexameters, to Aldus Manutius, scholar, printer, 
 and patron of letters. The poem, like the handbill, 
 
 were known to Crichton alone in all Venice, and must 
 necessarily have been printed with his knowledge and approval. 
 It may be found with many other documents in the appendix 
 to Tytler's Life of James Crichton, 1819. 
 
 1 This poem, which plays so large a part in the romance of 
 Crichton, is a pamphlet of three leaves, bearing this title : ' In 
 appulsu ad celeberrimam urbem Venetam de proprio statu Jacobi 
 Critonii Scoti ad Aldum Manuccium Venetiis ex typographia 
 Guerraea.'
 
 224 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 is contrived after a very simple pattern. Crichton 
 pictures himself far from his fatherland, sitting on 
 the shores of the Adriatic, and w^ondering at the 
 lofty city set in the midst of the waves. He 
 laments in his mind his unhappy lot, and often 
 bedews his cheeks with tears, when presently a 
 Naiad appears to him, a Naiad most pleasing to the 
 docte Muses. At first Crichton thinks she is a 
 dream, deceiving his eyes, but she assures him with 
 burning words that she is no vain image, and that 
 she brings with her the commands of the Muses 
 and of Pallas, resonant with arms, to whom he is 
 a peculiar care. They bid him be of good cheer, 
 and promise better things. And then asks the 
 Naiad with excellent wisdom, of what have you 
 come to complain ? All the world has its miseries, 
 says she, which she enumerates in a page of much 
 eloquence. That is all very well, replies Crichton. 
 I confess I am no longer harassed by a base poverty ; 
 I do not bear the burden of a nameless slavery. 
 But who in this great town knows my wretched- 
 ness ? Who is there to solace me as I weep by 
 these sandy shores ? Instantly the Nymph promises 
 him comfort. Is it possible, she asks, that the fame 
 of the divine Aldus, sprung of God-like parents, 
 has escaped you ? He is known, she tells him, 
 to the whole world, to the discoloured Indian as 
 to the fierce Cantabrian. The long-haired Apollo 
 has confessed himself conquered by his reed and 
 lyre.
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 225 
 
 Thus after a long passage of flattery, which Aldus 
 was not slow to return, the Nymph bids Crichton 
 seek him out, and promises that all will be well. 
 Truly all was well. Aldus accepted the nymph- 
 inspired praise of Crichton with an interested 
 enthusiasm. He reprinted the handbill, with modi- 
 fications, and in a limited edition of thirty copies, 
 as a comely pamphlet of four pages. He further 
 rewarded Crichton's interested adulation with a 
 dedication, to be found in the tenth volume of his 
 Cicero, which has enhanced the reputation of the 
 Scot more generously than any other document. 
 While it repeats the lofty panegyric of the handbill 
 and pamphlet, it discovers in its hero a hundred 
 other perfections, and it will remain for ever the 
 best witness in Crichton's favour, a witness whose 
 evidence must be received with the profound sus- 
 picion of partiality. He likens the concourse of 
 nxen, who went forth to meet Crichton at Venice, 
 to the full assembly of the Athenian citizens, who, 
 when Plato returned from Sicily, left the spectacle 
 of the Olympic games to salute the philosopher. 
 He boldly calls him the miracle of the human race 
 — humani generis miracultim. In brief, Crichton and 
 Aldus addressed one another in amoebaean strains. 
 Adulatory verse was matched with panegyric prose, 
 until Venice was assured that not merely had she 
 bred a man of genius, but harboured under her 
 sheltering roof a peerless poet and philosopher. 
 And Aldus did Crichton a far greater service than 
 p
 
 226 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 mere praise. He presented him to all the learned men 
 of Venice. He gave him an opportunity for the 
 display of those brilliant gifts of oratory and dialectic 
 which shine only in the applause of vast audiences. 
 Sperone Speroni, Laurentius Massa, the eminent 
 Donati himself, became his familiar friends, and 
 the Latin odes which he addressed to the last two 
 may still be read by the curious. So under the 
 auspices of Aldus, Crichton appeared most honour- 
 ably before the Doge of Venice and the elders of 
 the State. He disputed with all his learning and 
 subtlety of Philosophy, Theology, and the Mathe- 
 matical Sciences, and it was in Mazzoni alone that 
 he met his match. He discussed the doctrines of 
 Thomists and Scotists with the erudite Padre 
 Fiamma, e con molti altri valorosi prelatl. He gave 
 a profound address on the Procession of the Holy 
 Ghost, and amazed his hearers by an unexpected 
 mastery of recondite authorities. As his skill in 
 disputation grew, the easy confidence which he had 
 shown in Paris decreased, and after his first success 
 at Venice he retired to a villa on the Brenta, there 
 to meditate in solitude and prepare himself for a 
 contest of three days, which took place at Pentecost 
 in 1 58 1 in the Chiesa san Giovanni e Paolo, and in 
 which he promised to propose and defend two 
 thousand conclusions. Even now he was but in 
 his twenty-first year, he had already lived through 
 a long life of experience, and it is not wonderful 
 that his health broke at the strain. Ill and fatigued
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 227 
 
 he retired to Padua, and there found no rest. A 
 dazzling rumour had preceded him, and it was in 
 that city, the noblest on earth, as Aldus calls it, 
 that he achieved his highest triumphs. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was by the advice of Aldus that Crichton took 
 refuo-c in Padua. He could not have found a worse 
 
 b 
 
 place of recovery or a theatre better suited to his 
 talents. It was but right, says his ecstatic eulogist, 
 that the august majesty of Padua should receive and 
 embrace this miracle of human kind. And Padua 
 lost no time in offering an appropriate welcome. 
 The very day after Crichton's arrival, Cornelius 
 Aloisius summoned to his house the most erudite 
 men of the city, together with the noble youths of 
 the University, and there and then put Crichton's 
 readiness and scholarship to the test. He stood 
 before them all prepared to accept and to embellish 
 any subject they might propose to him in prose or 
 verse. The first task they set him was to hymn 
 the praise of Padua. He hymned it in an improvised 
 poem of surpassing elegance. And then, at their 
 bidding, he turned in a moment from his suave 
 Horatian ode to a solid refutation of the errors of 
 Aristotle and his commentators, and he refuted them 
 with so fine a modesty that his hearers knew not 
 which to admire the more — the worth of his mind or 
 the suavity of his manners. Nor were the scholars
 
 228 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 of Padua content that Crichton had performed 
 triumphantly these heroic tasks. They wished to 
 close the sitting with a livelier theme, and after six 
 hours of literary colloquies, they gave him for a 
 subject the Praise of Ignorance, which he treated 
 with all the splendid irony of Erasmus, and illustrated 
 with so quick and various a fancy that they believed 
 it was no reality which passed before them but a 
 dream. The enthusiasm of Padua suggested that 
 Crichton should give a second performance to those 
 who had not been happy witnesses of his first, and 
 another day was named. But for one reason or 
 another Crichton did not answer the call, and 
 instantly the voice of detraction was heard. Certain 
 homulli^ as Aldus calls them, proving in secret hatred 
 their savage enmity, and having the will rather than 
 the power to strike, dared to impeach his courage. 
 
 This was the kind of provocation which aroused 
 the Scot to his best deeds, and straightway he replied 
 with his famous challenge, a fine specimen of the 
 scholarly insolence of the day. ' That James 
 Crichton, the Scot,' — thus runs the imperishable 
 document, — 'may show his immortal gratitude to 
 those who, excelling their fellows in virtue and true 
 nobility of mind, are wont to think well of the lovers 
 of virtue, and that he may take away from profligate 
 and abandoned men every chance of future boasting, 
 he will refute the well-nigh innumerable errors of 
 Aristotle and of all the Latin philosophers, both of 
 those who dispute of his intellect and of those who
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 229 
 
 discuss matters of theology, as well as the dreams 
 of some professors of mathematics, and he will 
 answer objections.' He made his appeal as widely 
 as possible, and promised to reply in accord with the 
 customary rules of logic, or by the secret theory of 
 numbers, or in any one of a hundred metres. The 
 challenge was taken up, and Crichton met his 
 adversaries with high courage and a candid front. 
 For three days he held his ground unvanquished, and 
 when he had finished his great feat of oratory, so 
 loud a shout of applause was raised that nothing 
 more magnificent had ever been heard by human 
 ears. So thought Aldus, who was not merely 
 the hero's zealous counsellor, but the dazzled 
 spectator of the marvellous combat. Truly it was 
 a wonderful feat : yet as we picture to ourselves the 
 valiant scholar, replying to the pedants of theology 
 in elegiac verse or in the Sapphics of Horace, we 
 cannot but bethink ourselves of Rabelais' stinging 
 satire on the Schools, and remember how Thaumast 
 the Englishman, whose name, by a whimsical co- 
 incidence, is the Greek for Crichton's own — 
 Admirabilis Scotus — was put to a non-plus by Panurge 
 when he argued by signs. 
 
 Crichton was not one to conquer the conquered, to 
 slay the slain. No sooner was the illustrious city of 
 Padua at his feet than forth he went to find another 
 battlefield. Mantua attracted him — Mantua, the
 
 230 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 cradle of poetry, the birthplace of Virgil, Prince of 
 Poets. And it was to Mars, not to the Muses, that 
 there he offered his earliest devotion. At his arrival 
 he found the Court of Mantua lying under the 
 imputation of cowardice.^ A certain Italian gentle- 
 man, a perfect master of the sword, had challenged 
 all and sundry to a combat a outrance^ the prize 
 whereof was a purse of 500 ducats. In Urquhart's 
 phrase, he had ' changed the blunt to sharp, the 
 foils to tucks,' and asking no quarter, intended to 
 give none. His purpose was the same as Crichton's 
 — to earn fame and money by his skill. Only, while 
 Crichton sought to conquer by the intellect, it was 
 his purpose to kill by the sword. Three courtiers 
 he had left dead on the field, and his ambition was 
 still unsated. Then it was that Crichton took up 
 the gage, and the two champions met in the 
 presence of the whole court. At the outset, 
 Crichton, respecting his adversary, thought it better 
 to hold himself on the defensive ; but presently, see- 
 ing the Italian's spirits damped by fatigue, he ' changed 
 his garb, fell to act another part, and from defender 
 turned assailant.' The issue was soon beyond doubt. 
 With three thrusts the Scot thrice pierced his 
 opponent's body, and thus freed Mantua of a 
 dangerous pest. 
 
 1 Sir Thomas Urquhart is our chief authority for what 
 Crichton achieved at Mantua. Despite his unbridled imagina- 
 tion, the fantastic knight is probably a witness of truth. It is 
 his form, not his matter, that is in dispute.
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 231 
 
 The Duke was loud in the expression of gratitude ; 
 he appointed Crichton tutor to his son, Vincenzo 
 Gonzaga, or, as others say, accepted him as his friend 
 and military adviser, and the prosperity of the Scot 
 seemed assured. The dread of poverty, which had 
 afflicted him at Genoa, and cast a shadow upon his 
 soul at Venice, had vanished for ever. And he took 
 his good fortune with all his amazing gaiety of heart. 
 For a while he forgot the Schools and their disputa- 
 tions. No longer would he defend Plato against the 
 attacks of the jealous Aristotelians. To prove himself 
 admirable in all things, he turned to the theatre 
 for solace. He wrote comedies, though no comedy 
 equalled the comedy of his life, and, if we may believe 
 Urquhart, he surpassed the Italians themselves in their 
 own arts of pantomime and the quick change. ' O 
 with how great liveliness,' writes Sir Thomas, ' did 
 he represent the conditions of all manner of men ! 
 How naturally did he set before the eyes of all be- 
 holders the vagaries of all professions, from the over- 
 weening monarch to the peevish swain, through all 
 the intermediate degrees of the superficial courtier 
 or proud warrior, dissembled churchman, doting 
 old man, cozening lawyer, lying traveller, covetous 
 merchant, rude seaman, pedantick scholar, the 
 amorous shepherd, envious artisan, vainglorious 
 master, and tricky servant ; he did with such 
 variety display the several humours of all these 
 sorts of people, and with a so bewitching energy, 
 that he seemed to be the original, they the
 
 232 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 counterfeit.' So sincere sounds this breathless 
 praise, that we would not have it undeserved, and 
 we accept it for fact the more readily, because in 
 the loftiest of his enterprises Crichton betrayed 
 more than a spice of the true comedian. 
 
 Thus loved and feasted, Crichton fleeted the time 
 merrily as in a golden age. He was hailed now not 
 as a mere scholar but as an arbiter of elegances. If 
 learned men still deferred to his judgment, beautiful 
 women competed for his smiles. He had wealth, he 
 had health, he was flattered by the praises of the 
 wise. And then disaster, sudden and treacherous, 
 overtook him. As Mantua had given him the life 
 he loved best, so Mantua gave him death. It was 
 at the time of Carnival, when Crichton, accompanied 
 by the Princess whom he loved, encountered Vincenzo 
 Gonzago and the rabble of his cup-shotten com- 
 panions. Some say that a street in Mantua was the 
 place of meeting, others declare that Crichton was 
 holding the courtyard of the Princess's palace 
 against the roisterers. AH are agreed as to the 
 manner of the conflict. Crichton, not knowing 
 who were his adversaries, ran one of them through 
 with his sword, and was on the point of dispatching 
 the second, when a voice cried, ' Hold, hold ! kill 
 not the prince ! ' In an instant Crichton recoiled, 
 the Prince pulled ofFhis vizard, and Crichton, sensible 
 of his mistake, dropped on his knee like a true 
 knight, and gave the Prince the hilt of his conquer- 
 ing sword. The Prince, mad with wine and rage,
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 233 
 
 grasped the preferred hilt and ran the blade through 
 the heart of the Scot. Never was a more dastardly- 
 crime committed, and as the gallant Crichton fell, the 
 Princess, ' rending her garments and tearing her hair, 
 like one of the Graces possessed with a fury,' spoke 
 thus : ' O villains, what have you done ! You vipers 
 of men, that have thus basely slain the valiant Crichton, 
 the sword of his own sex and the buckler of ours, the 
 glory of his age, and the restorer of the lost honour 
 of the Court of Mantuna : O Crichton, Crichton ! ' 
 
 The account of Crichton's death, given in the 
 Gonzaga Archives, differs in detail only from 
 Urquhart's narrative. The Italians make no 
 mention of a Princess, and she, perhaps, is the 
 mere figment of an ardent brain. For the rest, it 
 fell out something after this guise : Crichton, having 
 received the wound in the Via San Silvestro, walked 
 away as far as San Tommaso, and there seated him- 
 self upon a stone, whence he was lifted to a chair 
 and carried to the house of Hippolito Serena, where 
 he died, well-disposed. The Prince's anger, on the 
 other hand, was by no means assuaged. Not know- 
 ing that his blow had proved mortal, he hastened to 
 the palace, and bade the warden admit five of his 
 men by the postern-gate, that Crichton might not 
 climb the wall or swim the lake. The warden, 
 already assured of the Scot's death, grimly replied 
 that Crichton was in no case to escape by swimming, 
 and so closed the gate. 
 
 The news of the disaster was ill-received by the
 
 234 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 Courts of Italy, and the citizens, who loved the 
 Adnmirable Scot, were no more content with the 
 manner of his death than with the method of his 
 burial. They murmured that he should have been 
 carried to San Simone privately and as though 
 abandoned, nor did they approve the humble fashion 
 of his coffin. And so loud was the outcry, that at 
 last the Prince was urged to defend his name, and to 
 set forth at large his own version of the tragedy. 
 
 'One of these evenings,' thus he told the story to 
 the Bishop of Osino, 'as I was taking the fresh air 
 of the city at about one o'clock in the night, and 
 having with me Messer Hippolito Lanzone, a gentle- 
 man of Mantua, in whose humour I took much 
 pleasure, I encountered by chance James the Scot, 
 and believing that he was the Earl of Langosco, my 
 gentleman-in-waiting, whom he resembled in stature, 
 I was about to jostle him as a jest ; but on approach- 
 ing, I knew that it was not he, and therefore, plac- 
 ing my buckler before my face, passed by him, leaving 
 some suspicion in the Scot, who, seeing Lanzone 
 following likewise with his shield before his face, 
 turned to pass him on the side towards the wall, and 
 when he was gone by plunged his dagger into his 
 shoulder up to the hilt. Thereupon both the one 
 and the other laid hold of their weapons, but as 
 Lanzone was mortally wounded, he could not de- 
 fend himself, wherefore I, hearing the noise, turned 
 round, and pointed my sword in the direction of the 
 turmoil. The Scot, not knowing me at the first
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 235 
 
 glance, dealt me a sword-cut and thrust, which I 
 parried with my buckler, and thereupon I aimed a 
 stroke at the Scot, which he turned to parry with 
 his dagger, but for sheer impetuosity could not. It 
 wounded him in the breast, and he, having recognized 
 me, prayed for life as a gift. I left him and turned 
 to my companion, who, I found, could hardly support 
 himself on his feet, and as I tried to support him he 
 fell dead before me. The happening, in truth, was 
 pure misadventure, and had I had to deal with any 
 other than a barbarian, so much evil would not have 
 ensued. It displeases me that the Illustrious Farnese, 
 my uncle and lord, should have been vexed at this, 
 my unexpected adventure, but I hope that, hearing 
 my justification, he will thank God the affair ended 
 with the safety of my life, placed in no small jeopardy 
 bv the barbarity of that wretch, whom God assoil.' 
 
 Such is the Prince's own account, which, I think, 
 fails to justify him. In the first place it is evident 
 that the insult to Crichton was unprovoked. In the 
 second the mere presence of Lanzone, whom Donato 
 denounces as ' bestiale,' a creature ill-suited for the 
 concourse of gentlemen, is sufficient proof that the 
 Prince was not in the right of it. It stands clearly 
 also in the archives that Crichton made but one 
 thrust at the Prince before he recognised him, and 
 then it was that, handing his own sword to his 
 adversary, he received his death-blow. Nor will 
 those who have studied Crichton's career willingly 
 believe that he begged his life as a gift. The Prince,
 
 236 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 moreover, destroys his own case by the violence of 
 his speech. Crichton was no barbarian, as Vincenzo 
 Gonzaga well knew, and he would hardly have flung 
 so ill-deserved a taunt at him, had he not felt the 
 weakness of his own case. 
 
 VI 
 
 On the other side may be set not a few early 
 authorities, who support a verdict favourable to 
 Crichton. Of them the first is Fynes Moryson, who 
 visited Mantua as early as 1594, and found the Duke 
 still a young man, ' having a redde bearde, a full 
 visage, a cheareful ruddy complexion like the 
 Germans of whom he descends.' The story, as 
 told to Moryson, was in no sense doubtful. ' This 
 Duke's honour was much scandaled among the 
 Italians,' he writes, 'because in his youth while 
 his father lived, he had in following manner killed 
 a Scottish gentleman reported to have bene indued 
 with extraordinary virtues. The Prince one night 
 walked in the streets with his followers but un- 
 knowne, and by ill adventure meeting the said 
 Scottish gentleman, well-reputed in his father's 
 court, took a fancye to trye his valour, and to 
 that end commanded one of his familiar friends to 
 assault him with his drawne sword, whom he taking 
 for an enemy, in good earnest resisted valiantly, and 
 at the first encounter hapned to give him a deadly 
 wounde, whereupon the Prince much lamented, and
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 237 
 
 the Scottish gentleman, knowing him by his voyce, 
 and so humbling himselfe at his feete, with tender 
 of His Rapier, the point towards himselfe, the 
 Prince in rage killed him with his owne weapon.'^ 
 
 Lithgow, again, some twenty-five years after 
 Crichton's death, tells us that ' Crichton his worth 
 in learning and excellent memory rests admired in 
 Italy, but especially by the noble Gonzagas, and 
 dependent friends of the house of Mantua ; for 
 whose loss and accidental death they still heavily 
 bemoan, acknowledging that the race of that Princely 
 stock by God's judgment was cut off because of his 
 untimely death,' And the worthy Thomas Wright, 
 author of The Passmis of the Mind in Generall 
 (1621), gives a precise, ungrudging support to the 
 later version of Sir Thomas Urquhart. 'The Scot 
 perceiving well what he was,' thus he concludes 
 the story, 'fell down upon his knees, demanding 
 pardon at his hands, and gave the Prince his naked 
 rapier j who, no sooner had received it, but with the 
 same sword he ran him through to death ; the which 
 barbarous fact, as it was condemned of all men, so it 
 sheweth the precipitation of his passionate ireful 
 heart.' 
 
 We may take it, then, that the manner of Crichton's 
 death is well established. Praise and regret fol- 
 lowed him to the grave. In 1583, Aldus, still 
 faithful in eulogy, inscribed a book of his printing 
 
 1 For this quotation I am indebted to Mr. Charles Hughes, 
 editor of Shakespeare's Europe.
 
 238 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 to his memory. ' Who did not wonder at thee 
 living,' he writes ; ' who does not mourn thee 
 dead ? While thou livedst, I profited by my 
 judgment of thee, now thou art dead, I set no 
 limit on my grief. Thou shouldst have lived ! 
 Would that the fatherland of Virgil had never seen 
 thee ! By an unhappy chance it has fallen out that 
 the spot, which gave him birth, has robbed thee 
 forcibly of life. Forever shall I cherish thy 
 memory ; forever shall thy image haunt my eyes ; 
 ever shalt thou be the same to me, who shalt ever 
 be the same to all good men.' Thus Aldus, with 
 more to the same purpose, and Crichton being dead, 
 he chose another scholar, one Stanilas Niegoscewski, 
 a Pole, as fierce a disputant as the Scot, to take 
 Crichton's place in his heart and his prefaces. To 
 him he dedicated the verses of Aratus — malum poetam 
 bono poeta — and he confessed he knew not how to 
 describe him. 'Shall I call you the praiser of 
 Crichton,' he asks, 'or the rival, or the superior?' 
 Alas for the fickleness of scholars ! Aldus's trick of 
 euloev did not long lack an excuse. And as for 
 Crichton, it is easy to imagine the smile wherewith 
 he greeted in the shades this notice of his death and 
 the name of his supplanter. 
 
 VII 
 
 The portrait of Crichton, painted by friends and 
 by the kindly hand of tradition, is amiable rather
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 239 
 
 than characteristic. When we would know precisely 
 what manner of man he was, we are baffled at once 
 by the habit of imitation, and by the insincerity of 
 flattery. As I have said, the early panegyrics prove 
 little else than a lack of invention. The handbill 
 came first ; the others accepted its eulogy in good 
 faith. Again, the voice of adulation is always in- 
 expressive, and no man that ever lived was so keen 
 an encouragement to superlatives as Crichton. To 
 one he is a human miracle, to another he is almost 
 divine. This man finds his genius stupendous, that 
 one acclaims him a prodigy of learning and eloquence ; 
 all apply to him or to his gifts the epithet Admirabilh^ 
 which is indissolubly his. And when you have 
 marvelled at the store of adjectives poured forth by 
 the patient biographers, you are no nearer to a sane 
 appreciation of Crichton. You recognise that he 
 excelled his fellows in many arts, that his versatility 
 equalled his precocity, that he could turn from war 
 to peace with unruffled equanimity. You surmise 
 always that he possessed what Chesterfield called the 
 
 ^ There has been much discussion as to who it was that first 
 called Crichton ' the Admirable.' The credit has generally 
 been given to Urquhart, but unjustly. To Urquhart Crichton 
 owes the glamour and romance which hang about his name. 
 But he was called ' Admirable ' by earlier, less eloquent writers. 
 Aldus uses the adjective more than once, and John Johnston 
 thus describes the hero in his Heroes Scoti (1613): 'Jacobus 
 Crittonius, Clunius, musarum pariter et martis alumnus, omnibus 
 in studiis admirabilis, Mantus, a Duels Mantuani filio cx'sus, 
 1581.'
 
 240 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 graces, without which no man ever attained to the 
 mastery of an envious world. 
 
 And when all this is said, how much nearer 
 are we to a vision of the real Crichton ? Urquhart 
 tells us that never was so wonderful a prodigy- 
 witnessed since Alcibiades. Aldus, as we have seen, 
 gasping in admiration, can compare his apparition at 
 Padua with nothing less than with Plato's return to 
 Athens, when the whole population of the city left 
 the games to go forth and meet him. Obviously 
 Alcibiades and Plato are names which should not be 
 mentioned in this relation. Without underrating 
 Crichton's remarkable achievements, we must set 
 him on a far lower plane. He was, indeed, a true 
 child of his age, and it is by a mere accident that 
 he has straved into ours. His accomplishments, 
 splendid as they were, are the accomplishments of 
 youth. He was, so to say, an undergraduate raised 
 to the highest power. The learning of the time 
 was within his reach, and he knew how to turn it 
 to the best account. The disputations, which at 
 Padua and Venice seemed miracles of genius, would 
 appear to our altered consciences mere exercises in 
 pedantry. In other words, Crichton did not stray 
 one inch from the fold of conventionality. He 
 invented nothing ; he left behind him no one authen- 
 tic phrase, no one imperishable line. He played 
 the tune of his time with a greater skill than most 
 of his fellows, and that is all. Had he lived to-day, 
 he would have played another tune, and might have
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 241 
 
 composed such verses in Greek and Latin as would 
 have cast even the little masterpieces of Professor 
 Jebb into the shade of carelessness and inelegance. 
 
 And Crichton had another quality than learning. 
 As I have said, he had a genius for presenta- 
 tion. A dozen Scots surpassed him in erudition 
 and originality, and are forgotten. He filled a 
 greater space than the most of men. He had a 
 talent for attracting the eyes of others to him, and 
 thus he achieved a result which, but for him, 
 might have seemed impossible : he made pedantry 
 romantic. Out of the dry bones of dead philo- 
 sophies he produced a wonderful effect. We can 
 well believe that neither his mind nor his tongue 
 weighed heavily on abstruse subjects. They touched 
 them, and were ofF. I have likened him to a 
 butterfly, brilliant in colour and light on wing, 
 but he was a butterfly who fed on cabbages. And 
 like a butterfly he was vain of the splendid effects 
 he knew how to produce. He wished to excel at 
 all costs. He breathed most easily in an atmosphere 
 of combat. His highest happiness was to pit 
 himself against this or that adversary, to make his 
 superiority visible, and he cared not whether his 
 hand held a sword or a book. The cause of learning 
 was little to him ; it was the cause of Crichton that 
 he had at heart. He died young, and deserves an 
 amiable judgment. Yet if we accept the praises 
 of his friends, and look kindly upon his written 
 words, we cannot believe that, had he lived, he could
 
 242 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 have added a single stone to the monument of 
 human knowledge. His genius was like a block 
 of ice, clear and frozen, which the changing season 
 melts to water. 
 
 The only account of him that attempts to 
 separate him from others is Joseph Scaliger's, and 
 Scaliger, generously admitting his miraculous gifts, 
 stumbles on a phrase which brings us nearer to 
 Crichton than pages of panegyric. 'II etait,' says 
 he, 'un peu fat.' He was something of a coxcomb. 
 There is the truth in six words. None but a 
 coxcomb could have inspired the handbill which 
 fashioned his reputation. None but a coxcomb 
 could have kept himself so persistently in the eye 
 of the world. None but a coxcomb and a coxcomb 
 of heroic frame, could have pursued the goals 
 of so many excellences as did Crichton. He was 
 of those who looked upon learning as a pleasant 
 pastime, who threw off their verses while they 
 waited in the ring for a laggard armourer, who 
 practised philosophy when they were tired of the 
 fencing-school. He forgot that poetry is a jealous 
 mistress, that humane letters are the enemies of 
 leisure, and forgetting this he has left behind him 
 nothing that a later generation cares to read — only 
 a brilliant memory of daring feats daringly per- 
 formed, of gallant adversaries gallantly overcome 
 in lecture-hall and tournament.
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 243 
 
 VIII 
 
 In 1584, two years after the Admirable Crichton's 
 death, three works — an Ep'iced'ium of Cardinal Bor- 
 romeo, a Gratiilatio^ addressed to Caspar Visconti 
 and a Carmen Nuptiale^ composed in honour of Prince 
 Carolo Emanuele — were published, bearing the name 
 of James Crichton on their title-pages, and a year 
 later the same hand dedicated a collection of pieces 
 in prose and verse, including a defence of poetry, to 
 Sforza Brivius. These pamphlets have been generally 
 ascribed, in catalogues and elsewhere, to the Admir- 
 able Scot. In character, or in the lack of it, they 
 are precisely the exercises which the great Crichton 
 would have achieved, and their author is undoubtedly 
 named Jacobus Critonius Scotus. Whoever wrote 
 them had a natural love of false quantities, and his lines 
 do not always scan. That is their least defect. It is 
 far more to their discredit that they are tasteless 
 and mechanical. The author essays all the metres : 
 hexameters, elegiacs, alcaics, sapphics, bendecasyl- 
 lables, archilochians, all yield to his ingenuity; and 
 all are treated in the spirit not of the poet, but 
 of the Gradus ad Parnassum. What shall we think 
 of a poet who in an Epicediu?n can be guilty of such 
 a commonplace as this ? 
 
 * Extimiii, steteruntque comre, et timor occiipat artus. 
 Proh dolor, en veris somnia mixta noto.'
 
 244 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 He is even less happy in a gratulatory ode, addressed 
 to Caspar Vincenzo : 
 
 ' Primus in exequiis ferali carmine Scotus, 
 Pastoris dolui funera msesta pii. 
 Funera msesta pii Boroma;i Prassulis ah ah, 
 Deplanxit tristi nostra Thalia stylo.' 
 
 It is not for verses such as these that a scholar receives 
 commendation, and you turn from the verse to the 
 prose vi'ith a light heart. There, too, disappointment 
 awaits you. The writer does not go beyond the in- 
 telligence of his time. It was his to absorb, not to 
 foresee. It is not surprising therefore that he should 
 condemn the fools who in their total ignorance of 
 dialectic believe that the earth moves, or that there are 
 more worlds than one. He is more easily intelligible 
 when he eulogises grammar as the parent of the other 
 arts, and sings, in a passage of genuine enthusiasm, 
 the praise of Homer. But it is in his last work that 
 his best page may be found — a lofty panegyric of 
 Virgil — which persuades the reader to forget the 
 false quantities and ineptitudes of his verse. Virgil 
 he esteems supreme in all things. 'Would you 
 learn,' says he, ' to argue in utramque partem f 
 Consult Virgil. Would you invade the province 
 of oratory ? Approach Virgil. Would you under- 
 stand the lines, forms, spaces, and magnitudes of 
 Euclid ? Devour Maro. He will discuss with you 
 air, fire, water, earth, ad unguem^ 
 
 These sentiments might well have been expressed 
 by the Admirable Crichton himself, and when they
 
 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 245 
 
 were written he had been two years in his grave. 
 
 Here is a baffling puzzle of criticism. Nor is our 
 
 difficulty lessened by a set of verses, addressed in 
 
 1584, to James Crichton by Ludovico, Marquis of 
 
 Milan, in which you will find the lines which 
 
 follow : 
 
 ' Ast tibi larga dedit soli, quae munera multis 
 Prasbuit, et variis te dedit esse parem. 
 Namque Poetarum numeros cantusque sonoros, 
 Quamque docent magni Rlietores, ipse tenes/ 
 
 That the word soli should be applied to any other 
 Crichton than the hero, who fell to the Mantuan's 
 sword, seems incredible. Yet there is little doubt 
 that at the same time two men were writing verse 
 and pursuing scholarship in Italy, who used the same 
 name, and frequented the same society. Dead men 
 write no elegies, and it would be easier to believe in 
 the existence of two James Crichtons than in the 
 continued activity of the murdered man, even if we 
 had no clear evidence of the truth.^ Fortunately 
 the evidence is unmistakable. On the frontispiece 
 of a book, entitled Benardini Baldini Lusus (1586), 
 stand some verses addressed to Baldi by James 
 
 1 When I first wrote of Crichton I thought that the report of 
 his death had been premature, that in fact Aldus and the rest 
 had been deceived. This opinion the precise statements of the 
 Gonzaga Archives make untenable. Moreover an article in Le 
 Chasseur Bibliograpke (September 1863), which quotes the 
 verses of Bernardini Baldi, has proved clearly that there are two 
 Crichtons. Mr. Douglas Crichton, the author of The Admirable 
 Crichton ; The Real Character, takes the same view.
 
 246 THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON 
 
 Crichton, who vaunts his kinship with the hero. 
 ' Et quia,' he writes, 
 
 'et quia Critoni claro mihi sanguine juncti 
 Funera acerba doles, carior ipse mihi es.' 
 
 And Baldi to make assurance surer calls his friend 
 yacobum Critonium Superstite/n^ and does equal honour 
 to the dead and the living Crichton. 
 
 It is a strange chapter of literary history, a not 
 unfitting end of mystery to a mysterious career. 
 Little as we knew of the Admirable Scot, at last we 
 know him guiltless of much bad poetry. Though 
 the legend will still endure, surely it was not he who 
 hymned the death of Carlo Borromeo. Thus was he 
 fortunate in many things — fortunate in strength, in 
 skill, in eloquence ; fortunate also in laying a burden 
 of ineptitude upon the shoulders of a namesake. 
 And most fortunate was he in his opportune death. 
 ' The gods,' said Abernethy, ' wished only to show 
 Crichton to the world, not to give him.' He died 
 with all the laurels wreathed upon his brow ; he 
 had not time to outlive his fame ; and fate in its 
 kindly wisdom spared us the shame and regret of 
 looking upon a Phoenix of middle age.
 
 A PRINCELY WOMAN'
 
 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 
 
 IT was by a strange chance that Margaret, Duchess 
 of Newcastle, wandered out of her proper environ- 
 ment into the unquiet world of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. She might have played her part among the 
 fantastical wits of Elizabeth's age. She would have 
 been intimately at home with the Blue-stockings 
 who met at Montagu House. She would have shone 
 brilliantly in the social firmament of Seamore Place. 
 She might have contributed her verselets to Lady 
 Blessington's Book of Beauty, and taken her seat 
 without surprise in Count D'Orsay's tilbury. Above 
 all, she would have found in the London of our 
 present century a gracious and sympathetic recep- 
 tion. She was not merely a great lady — 'a princely 
 woman,' as Charles Lamb calls her ; she was also a 
 poet and philosopher. Had she been our contem- 
 porary, she might have revived the dying salon. 
 She might have won such laurels as popular re- 
 views confer. She might have gathered together 
 under one roof wit and learning, beauty and fashion. 
 And an unkind fate bade her grow to womanhood 
 under the iron rule of the Commonwealth, and with 
 the return of Charles ii. to frequent a Court where 
 gallantry was pursued with simple-minded devotion,
 
 250 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 
 
 and where frivolity was mistress of all the arts. 
 How could she sacrifice to the Muses in the per- 
 fumed atmosphere of Whitehall ? How, with all 
 her extravagance, could she hold her own against 
 Lady Castlemaine and La Belle Stewart ? It is no 
 wonder, then, that she retired with her lord, whom 
 she loved and worshipped, to the security of Wel- 
 beck, and cultivated, in the sunshine of his sympathy, 
 the heaven-sent gifts which she devoutly believed to 
 be hers. 
 
 A strayling from another time and place, she was 
 misjudged by her own age. Pepys, strong in the 
 prejudices of a light-hearted court, thought her *a 
 mad, conceited, ridiculous woman.' Later judg- 
 ments have been wiser and more kind. We are far 
 enough away to see her in a fair relation, and to refrain 
 from condemning, even to appreciate, her pleasant 
 foibles. Truly she might say that in all the mis- 
 fortunes that pursued her, her mind still preserved its 
 ascendency. Beset with disaster, ruined in fortune, 
 married to a banished man, she remained always a 
 woman of intellect. Not even poverty could tempt 
 her into the world of common realities. She sup- 
 ported life and its afflictions as though they were the 
 phantoms of a dream. Had it been her fate to live 
 in a golden age of peace, she would not have changed 
 her conduct a jot. Her inkpot would still have been 
 her constant companion. The love of ' the thrice 
 noble, high and puissant Prince, William Cavendish, 
 Duke, Marquis, and Earl of Newcastle,' would still
 
 <A PRINCELY WOMAN' 251 
 
 have engrossed her waking and her sleeping thoughts. 
 And the very unity of her character makes it easy 
 for us, who may contemplate the few simple actions 
 of her life, to understand and admire her. 
 
 Born in 1620, she was the daughter of Sir Thomas 
 Lucas, a gentleman — 'which title,' she says, 'is 
 granted and given by merit, not by princes.' Her 
 natural vanity persuaded her to interpret in the 
 terms of heroism the characters of her father and 
 mother. There was no incident or custom of her 
 childhood that did not embellish her natural pride. 
 Her upbringing was consonant with her exalted 
 estate. She was bred ' virtuously, modestly, civilly, 
 and on honest principles.' In her father's august 
 house there was neither stint nor parsimony. 'As 
 for plenty,' says she, ' we had not only for necessity, 
 convenience, and decency, but for delight and plea- 
 sure to a superfluity.' The pride which she professed 
 unto the end of her life in noble, extravagant attire, 
 was always indulged by her mother. ' As for our 
 garments,' she declares, ' my mother did not only 
 delight to see us neat and cleanly, fine and gay, but 
 rich and costly.' 
 
 With an ingenuous candour she describes the 
 irreproachable gentility of her nurture. She and 
 her sisters were surrounded always with respectful 
 attendance. They were not permitted familiarity 
 or conversation with the vulgar servants. Serving- 
 men were never permitted 'to be in the nursery 
 among the nursemaids, lest in their rude love-making
 
 252 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 
 
 they might do unseemly actions, or speak unhandsome 
 words in the presence of children' — a prohibition 
 which throws a curious light on the manners of the 
 time. Their recreations were simple and ladylike. 
 In the country they would read, work, walk, and 
 discourse with each other. The town afforded 
 livelier pastimes. ' Their customs were, in winter- 
 time,' — thus she tells the tale, — * to go sometimes to 
 plays, or to ride in their coaches about the streets to 
 see the concourse and recourse of people ; and in 
 the spring-time to visit the Spring Garden, Hyde 
 Park, and the like places ; and sometimes they would 
 have music, and sup in barges upon the water.' It 
 was an innocent and sheltered life, passed by them 
 in full contentment with each other's virtues. No 
 strangers approached their felicity, and it is not sur- 
 prising that pride and lack of habit afflicted the 
 peerless Margaret with bashfulness. 
 
 She confesses herself 'naturally bashful,' and art 
 and circumstance had enhanced the work of nature. 
 Yet the cause, she insists, lay not within her own 
 competence. She was not ashamed of mind or body, 
 birth or breeding. Conscious of her own superiority, 
 she trembled rather for others than for herself. There- 
 fore she despaired of a cure, ' unless nature as well as 
 human governments could be civilised and brought 
 into a methodical order.' Before she could regard 
 the world with confidence, the world must be re- 
 formed, and as reform was impossible, she retained 
 a certain timidity to the end of her days. Her
 
 »A PRINCELY WOMAN' 253 
 
 bashfulness, however, was concerned not with 
 qualities but with numbers. ' For were I to enter 
 among a company of Lazaruses,' she confesses, 
 ' I should be as much out of countenance as if 
 they were all Caesars or Alexanders, Cleopatras or 
 Didos.' Thus in a curious passage of self-revelation 
 she puts another facet upon the jewel of her pride, 
 and in the same breath exults that she has never met 
 with fools and unworthy persons, bold, rude, uncivil 
 in word or action, and that naturally she has the 
 same aversion to them as children have to spirits, or 
 grown men and women to devils. 
 
 When civil war broke out, she made a momentary 
 conquest of her bashfulness. Eager to prove her 
 lovalty, she enrolled herself among the Queen's Maids 
 of Honour, and cheerfully shared the exile of 
 Henrietta Maria. In thus doing, she plainly obeyed 
 the voice of fate. For it was at Paris, whither she 
 attended her Majesty, that she met and married 
 William Cavendish, then Earl of Newcastle. Never 
 was woman more highly blessed than she, if we may 
 believe her words, when she encountered this paragon 
 of grace and virtue. He was at once the worship 
 and inspiration of her life. His exploits and perfec- 
 tions she celebrated both in prose and verse. Her 
 eloquence conferred upon them both the crown of 
 immortality, which neither the sneers of their con- 
 temporaries nor the ribald laughter of a later age 
 has availed to dislodge. Truly she was no common 
 lover. Never did Muse adore hero with a purer
 
 254 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 
 
 and loftier passion. ' He was the only person I 
 ever was in love with,' said she, and only her own 
 words may express her triumph : ' Neither was 
 I ashamed to own it, but gloried therein. For it 
 was not amorous love (I never was infected there- 
 with — it is a disease, or a passion, or both, I only 
 know by relation, not by experience), neither could 
 title, wealth, power, or passion entice me to love. 
 But my love was honest and honourable, being 
 placed upon merit, which affection joyed at the 
 fame of his worth, pleased with delight in his wit, 
 proud of the respects he used to me, and triumph- 
 ing in the affections he professed for me, which 
 affections he hath confirmed to me by a deed of 
 time, sealed by constancy, and assigned by an un- 
 alterable decree of his promise, which makes me 
 happy in despite of Fortune's frowns.' Thus happily 
 won, she faced the ruin of her lord's house and hopes 
 with equanimity, and sought in exile such consolation 
 as literature might bring her. 
 
 Her books are many and treat of diverse subjects. 
 Her courage equalled her industrv. Oratory and 
 poetry, philosophy and the drama, in turn compelled 
 her energy. She composed many comedies, in which 
 all the characters spoke with her own proper style 
 and accent. In a rare piece of self-criticism she 
 defended the title of ' Plays,' which she gave to her 
 dramatic exercises. She confessed that neither had 
 she skill in ancient rules nor did she desire to be 
 agreeable to modern humour. ' But,' says she,
 
 *A PRINCELY WOMAN' 255 
 
 * having pleased my fancy in writing many dialogues 
 upon several subjects, and having afterwards ordered 
 them into acts and scenes, I will venture in spite of 
 the critics to call them 'Plays'; and if you like 
 them so, well and good ; if not, there is no harm 
 done.' In the same spirit she provided the orators 
 of her age with polished examples of their craft, and 
 if she had had her way they would have all spoken, 
 even ' the half-drunken gentleman,' whom her fancv 
 pictured, with the voice of Margaret, Duchess of 
 Newcastle. 
 
 Whatever she wrote she transfigured with the 
 pompous imagination, which never deserted her. 
 Poems and Fancies^ The World's Olio, Nature's Pictures 
 by Fancy's Pencil^ are all characteristic and her own. 
 It was not for her to check the swift facility of 
 her mind. In quick forgetfulness of the claims of 
 art, she let her pen dash away with her. She knew 
 that her words 'ran stumbling out of her mouth,' 
 yet claimed that her ' thoughts moved regularly in 
 her brain. ' With an introspection which seldom 
 afflicted her age, she made a valiant attempt to 
 analyse her ingenious method : ' I must tell my 
 readers,' said she, ' that nature, which is the best 
 and curiousest worker, hath paved my brain 
 smoother than custom hath oiled my tongue, or 
 vanity hath polished my senses, or art hath beaten 
 the paper whereon I write ; for my fancy is quicker 
 than the pen with which I write, insomuch as it is 
 many times lost through the slowness of my hand
 
 256 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 
 
 and yet I write so fast, as I stay not so long as to 
 make perfect letters.' 
 
 Like many other clever women, she knew not 
 herself. The words which came so swiftly are 
 better worth than the thoughts which she fondly 
 believed were marshalled, like an army, in her mind. 
 If we forget her matchless piece of biography, we 
 shall find little save phrases that will hold the 
 restless attention of to-day. Her experiments in 
 philosophy, which she herself prized most highly,^ 
 are of an engaging triviality. She discovered the 
 obvious with a passion of delight. It was as though 
 in pride of heart she had found out for herself that 
 two and two made four, and wished all the world to 
 share her secret. Being ignorant of the works of 
 others, writing in accord with her own natural 
 cogitations, she produced works which have ceased 
 to possess the interest even of curiosity. The web 
 of nonsense, which she spun like a spider from her 
 brain, was yet able to enmesh the fly of flattery, and 
 it is not wonderful that she treasured her own foolish 
 speculations, when they won the applause, feigned 
 or real, of learned bodies and profound scholars. 
 
 The paeans that were sung in praise of her 
 
 1 In her IVorUVs Olio (1655), she expresses her pleasure in the 
 following lines : 
 
 'Of all my works, this work that I have writ, 
 My best beloved and greatest favourite, 
 I look upon it with a pleasing eye, 
 I pleasure take in its sweet company.'
 
 *A PRINCELY WOMAN' 257 
 
 philosophy are set to the tune of a magnificent 
 insincerity. *What shall we think of your Excel- 
 lency,' wrote Bishop Pearson, 'who are both a 
 Minerva and an Athens in yourself, the Muses as 
 well as an Helicon, Aristotle as well as his Lycaeum?' 
 Nor did the Vice-Chancellor of the University of 
 Cambridge lag far behind the Master of St John's : 
 *Most excellent Princess,' he declared, 'you have 
 unspeakably obliged us all ; but not in one respect 
 alone, for wheresoever we find ourselves nonplussed 
 in our studies, we repair to you as to our oracle ; if 
 we be to speak, you dictate to us j if we knock at 
 Apollo's door, you alone open to us ; if we compose 
 a history, you are the remembrancer ; if we be 
 confused and puzzled among the philosophers, you 
 disentangle us and assoil our difficulties.' This 
 is of course, the language of pious and polished 
 exaggeration. But be it remembered that Vice- 
 Chancellors and Public Orators are not upon oath 
 when they pronounce eulogies, and that in at least 
 one province of literature — biography — the Duchess 
 of Newcastle earned the praise of all wise men, not 
 by her rank but by her achievement. 
 
 I have said that she was fantastical. A sense of 
 splendour never deserted her. Her own description 
 of Nature's Pictures shows us vividly what manner 
 of woman she was. 'In this volume,' she claims, 
 ' there are several feigned stories of natural descrip- 
 tions, as comical, tragical, and tragi-comical, poet- 
 ical, romancical, philosophical, and historical, both in 
 R
 
 258 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 
 
 prose and verse, some all verse, some all prose, some 
 mixt, partly prose and partly verse.' Thus does she 
 emulate the player in Hamlet^ and attempt to 
 convince her readers that there is no kind of 
 literature which she has left unattempted. And as 
 in style, so in life, she was full of pomp and circum- 
 stance. The lessons of rich and gay attire, which 
 her mother had taught, she treasured till the end. 
 She confesses that her serious study 'could not be 
 much, by reason I took great delight in attiring, fine 
 dressing, and fashions, especially in such fashions as 
 I did invent myself. . . . Also I did dislike any 
 should follow my fashions, for I always took delight 
 in a singularity, even in accoutrements of habits.' 
 
 Therein lay the charm of the Duchess. In life as 
 in books she was always picturesque. No other great 
 lady among her contemporaries was thus authentic and 
 of a piece. She wrote and she moved as none other 
 wrote and moved. She gave a touch of solemn 
 distinction to her century, which, rich in gaiety, 
 would have lacked something without her. And 
 her century was conscious of the obligation, though 
 it interpreted it in more senses than one. Her 
 follies, which were her virtues, made no appeal 
 to Charles ii. His quick sense of humour saw only 
 what was ridiculous in the admirable Duchess. His 
 nice conduct of life did not permit him to measure 
 the debt that the world owes to those, who are 
 brave enough to endure the ridicule of their fellows. 
 '"To increase my ill-humour, I was stopped, as I
 
 «A PRINCELY WOMAN' 259 
 
 was getting out of my chair," said Grammont to the 
 king one day, *' by the devil of a phantom in 
 masquerade, . . . However, I must tell you that it 
 is worth while to see her dress ; for she must have at 
 least sixty ells of gauze and silver tissue about her, not 
 to mention a sort of a pyramid upon her head, adorned 
 with a hundred thousand baubles." . . . " I bet," said 
 the king, " that it is the Duchess of Newcastle." ' 
 
 Pepys, following his master in dispraise, could 
 never master his curiosity. Whenever the Duchess 
 of Newcastle went forth upon a progress, he would 
 be there to see. His record of 1667 tells us more 
 clearly than all the histories how bravely fantastic 
 a figure she cut before the court of Charles. 
 Though it affected to despise her humours, all 
 the world was agog to gaze upon her. ' To 
 White Hall,' writes Pepys, * thinking there to have 
 seen the Duchess of Newcastle's coming this night 
 to Court to make a visit to the Queen ; the King 
 having been with her yesterday to make her a visit 
 since her coming to town. The whole story of 
 this lady is a romance, and all she does romantick. 
 Her footmen in velvet coats, and herself in an 
 antique dress, as they say. . . . There is as much 
 expectation of her coming to court, that so many 
 people may come to see her, as if it were the 
 Queen of Sheba, but I lost my labour for she did not 
 come this night.' 
 
 In truth the chatter of the town was all of her 
 extravagances, and her velvet cap, and her hair about
 
 26o *A PRINCELY WOMAN' 
 
 her ears, ' nalced-necked, without anything about it, 
 and a black juste-au-corps.'' Foiled again and again, 
 Pepys was still indefatigable in pursuit : he caught 
 a glimpse of her on April 26, when 'she seemed to 
 me a very comely woman,' and hoped to see more of 
 her on May-day. Once more he failed. He went 
 forth to see her, and saw her not, — 'she being 
 followed and crowded upon by coaches all the way 
 she went, that nobody could come near her : only I 
 could see she was in a black coach adorned with silver 
 instead of gold, and so white curtains, and everything 
 black and white, and herself in a cap.' The chase, 
 of course, could not end here. A few days later he 
 was again in hot pursuit. ' Drove hard towards 
 Clerkenwell,' he says, 'thinking to have overtaken 
 my Lady Newcastle, whom I saw before us in her 
 coach, with a hundred boys and girls running looking 
 upon her ; but I could not : and so she got home 
 before I could come up to her. But I will get 
 a time to see her.' 
 
 Of course he did. Pepys was not a man to be 
 foiled of his curiosity. The occasion was the 
 meeting of the Roval Society, the place was Arundel 
 House. Thither came the Duchess to see and to 
 be seen. For her entertainment the air was weighed, 
 two cold liquors by mixture were made hot, and 
 many other wonders performed, each of which was 
 sufficient to excite the Duchess's ever-bubbling 
 enthusiasm. A near view of the lady, whom he 
 had fiercely pursued through Clerkenwell, dis-
 
 *A PRINCELY WOMAN' 261 
 
 appointed the excellent Pepys. He confesses that 
 she hath been a good comely woman, ' but her dress 
 so anticlc, and her deportment so ordinary, that I do 
 not like her at all, nor did I hear her say anything 
 that was worth hearing, but that she was full of 
 admiration, all admiration.' That he did not like 
 her was but natural. She transcended the norm. 
 Hers was not the ordered elegance which Pepys 
 loved. Besides, Pepys feared that the town would 
 soon be full of ballads concerning her visit to the 
 Royal Society, an institution whose dignity he would 
 have defended with his life. Yet Pepys, for all his 
 lack of sympathy, accurately discerned her dominant 
 qualities. 'The whole story of this lady is a 
 romance,' said he, 'and all she does romantick.' 
 There she is sketched in a single line. The Duchess 
 was 'romantick,' both by conscious intent and un- 
 conscious habit. She could not move without 
 striving after a handsome effect, and in thus 
 striving she followed, not merely her desire, but 
 her natural instinct. Again, how could her pose 
 be better expressed than by the words 'all admira- 
 tion ' ? She was ready to show an appreciative 
 surprise at anything. In her eager eyes all was 
 wonderful. How she would have exulted in the 
 present age, when lion-hunting is a favourite pursuit, 
 and when she might have packed into the same 
 drawing-room a play-actor, a popular divine, and 
 a German philosopher ! 
 
 To compel the eyes of all men upon her was, in
 
 262 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 
 
 truth, the first necessity of her being. Nor was she 
 discriminating in applause. ' It will satisfy me,' she 
 says somewhere, * if my writing please the readers, 
 though not the learned ; for I had rather be praised 
 in this by the most, although not the best ; for all I 
 desire is fame, and fame is nothing but a great noise, 
 and noise lives most in a multitude.' No audience 
 ' fit but few ' for her ! She must bask in the liberal 
 sun of notoriety, and accept without disdain the 
 incense of flattery burned upon the humblest altars. 
 And she was furthered in the attainment of her end 
 by a complete lack of humour. This is said in no 
 spirit of contempt. Had she been gifted with humour 
 she could not have been Margaret of Newcastle. For 
 humour implies self-criticism, and at the touch of 
 criticism the gossamer web of her fancy would have 
 been dissipated into nothingness. 
 
 It was essential for her genius that she should 
 regard herself and her husband and her enterprises 
 with the utmost gravity. She never hesitates to 
 compare herself and her lord with the highest. She 
 hopes that her readers will not find her vain for 
 writing her life, * since there have been many that 
 have done the like as Caesar, Ovid, and many more, 
 both men and women, and I know no reason I may 
 not do it as well as they.' It was the same spirit 
 which moved her to sketch her own character in the 
 terms of panegyric. She was, as she confesses, 
 a great emulator, — not that she wished others worse 
 than they are, but that she herself endeavoured to be
 
 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 263 
 
 the best. ' I think it no crime,' she wrote, and 
 indeed it is no crime, ' to wish myself the exactest of 
 Nature's works, my thread of life the longest, my 
 chain of destiny the strongest, my mind the peace- 
 ablest, my life the pleasantest, my death the easiest, 
 and the greatest saint in heaven.' 
 
 The wish was father to the thought. She began 
 in hope ; she ended in belief. She was sure that the 
 mere freshness of her philosophical speculations 
 was a shining merit. She would be beholden to none. 
 'The best wits,' said she, 'have the worst memory' ; 
 and again, ' memory is nothing but the showers of 
 other men's wits.' Nor could she contemplate her 
 own temper without a bland enthusiasm : ' As for 
 my disposition,' she wrote in a characteristic passage, 
 'it is more inclining to be melancholy than merry, 
 but soft, melting, solitary, and contemplating memory* 
 And I am apt to weep rather than laugh, not that I 
 do often either of them. Also I am tender-natured, 
 for it humbles my conscience to kill a fly, and the 
 groans of a dying beast strike my soul. Also where 
 I place a particular affection, I love extraordinarily 
 and constantly, yet not fondly, but soberly and 
 observingly, not to hang about them as a servant. 
 . . . Likewise I am gratefull, for I never received a 
 courtesy, — but I am impatient and troubled until 
 I can return it. Also I am chaste, both by nature 
 and education, insomuch as I do abhor an unchaste 
 thought. Likewise I am seldom angry, as my ser- 
 vants may witness for me. . . . Neither am I apt to
 
 264 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 
 
 be exceptious or jealous.' And so on, until she easily 
 persuades her readers that she engrosses the virtues. 
 
 But for all her parade, for all her assumption of 
 philosophic understanding, she was a very woman, 
 feminine in charm, feminine in vanity, feminine in 
 caprice. She did not approve of the bustling spirit, 
 which would remove the proper boundaries of sex. 
 The charge that she haunted committees, and came 
 herself to petition for a share in her husband's estate, 
 she repudiated with fury. She had little love of the 
 changed customs of England, where 'women became 
 pleaders, attornies, petitioners and the like, running 
 about all their several causes, complaining of their 
 several grievances, exclaiming against their several 
 enemies.' She stood at her lord's side in his exile ; 
 she composed a deathless eulogy of his life and 
 virtues ; and he in return proved his gratitude for 
 her eloquence and fidelity by setting up such a 
 monument in his own lifetime as should com- 
 memorate the virtues of them both.^ 
 
 * So nobly does it celebrate the lady's genius, that we cannot 
 but quote it in full : ' Here lyes the Loyall Duke of Newcastle, 
 and his Dutches, his second wife, by whom he had no issue : 
 Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest sister to the Lord 
 Lucas of Colchester, a noble familie ; for all the Brothers were 
 Valiant, and all the sisters virtuous. The Dutches was a wise, 
 wittie, and Learned Lady, which her many books do well testi- 
 fie; she was a most Virtuous and a Loveing and carefull wife, 
 and was with her Lord all the time of his banishment and 
 miseries, and when he came home never parted from him in his 
 solitary retirements.'
 
 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 265 
 
 Her masterpiece, in truth, was The life of the 
 Thrice noble ^ high arid puissant Prince^ IVilliam 
 Cavendish^ Duke, Marquis, and Earl of Newcastle. 
 Published within the lifetime of them both, the 
 biography proves the Duke as happily deficient in 
 humour as the Duchess. Not otherwise could he 
 have gazed complacently upon so fine a panegyric 
 of his qualities. Pepys thought him ' an ass to sufter 
 her to write what she writes of him and to him.' 
 The University of Cambridge, more amiably minded, 
 crowned her as a classic. ' Hereafter,' gravely pro- 
 nounced its mouthpiece, * if generous and high-born 
 men shall search our library for a model of a most 
 accomplished general, they shall find it expressed to 
 the life, not in Xenophon's Cyrus, but in the Duchess 
 of Newcastle's William.' She herself thought so 
 well of her book as to set it in the same class with 
 Caesar's Commentaries ; and Charles Lamb, whose 
 confident applause renewed the waning fame of 
 the fantastical Duchess, thought that a book so 
 * good and rare ' as this deserved the most sumptuous 
 binding. *■ No casket is rich enough, no casing 
 sufficiently durable, to honour and keep s^fe 
 such a jewel.' 
 
 This praise of Lamb's subtly marks the limitations 
 of the book. It is an exotic, a fantasy, a literary 
 curiosity, which cannot be too highly decorated ; yet 
 ofitskindit is perfect. The subject is absolutely 
 consonant with the style and method of the author. 
 The Duke of Newcastle was a master of pomp and
 
 266 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 
 
 ceremony. If ever a grand seigneur was born into 
 England it was he. For him life was a spectacle, 
 and policy a show. In an age of display he displayed 
 a genius for entertainment which was unrivalled. 
 When King Charles i. visited Welbeck, Newcastle 
 prepared ' such an excess of feasting as had never 
 before been known in England.' Ben Jonson 
 devised a Masque for the royal pleasure, and his 
 majesty liked his entertainment so well that he bade 
 his loyal subject repeat it a year later at Bolsover. 
 For the delight of the king twenty thousand pounds 
 seemed but a trivial sum, and Newcastle was pre- 
 sently to prove that he would spend more than 
 money in the service of his master. 
 
 At the outbreak of the rebellion he was the first 
 to take up arms for the king. To him was 
 entrusted the defence of the northern part of the 
 kingdom. Lavish with his wealth, he not merely 
 lent money to Charles, but within a short time he 
 raised an army of 8000 foot, horse, and dragoons. 
 *Thus he stood upon his guard,' says the Duchess, 
 'and continued them upon duty j playing his game 
 with much prudence, and giving the town and 
 country great satisfaction by his noble and honour- 
 able deportment.' Deportment, perhaps, was the 
 most suitable word for his method of warfare. In 
 no stress did his dignity desert him, he never 
 forgot even in the acrimony of civil war the rules of 
 chivalry. Nor did he always choose his subordinates 
 with a wise discretion. He valued in others the
 
 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 267 
 
 qualities which he most esteemed in himself. It is 
 said that he appointed Davenant lieutenant-general 
 of his ordnance because he was a poet, and a learned 
 divine discharged for him the office of scout-master. 
 As Clarendon puts it : 'He liked the pomp and 
 absolute authority of a general well, and preserved 
 the dignity of it to the full ; and for the discharge of 
 the outward state and circumstances of it, in acts 
 of courtesy, affability, bounty, and generosity he 
 abounded ; which in the infancy of a war became 
 him, and made him for some time very acceptable to 
 ' men of all conditions. But the substantial part of it, 
 and fatigue of a general, he did not in any degree 
 understand (being utterly unacquainted with war), 
 nor could submit to.' 
 
 But it was not the advice of amateurs, nor his 
 own lack of knowledge, which hindered the success 
 of Newcastle. * There was so much treachery, 
 juggling, and falsehood in my Lord's own army,' 
 writes the Duchess, ' that it was impossible for him 
 to be successful in his designs and undertakings.' 
 And treachery was not the worst foe which he had 
 to combat. Orders from London drove him at last 
 into the very clutch of destruction. Rupert joined 
 him with a positive and absolute command from the 
 king to fight the enemy, and the result was the 
 battle fought 'on that fatal moor called Hcssom 
 Moor.' Newcastle obeyed, as he would have obeyed 
 Charles had the king bade him cut his throat, but 
 he knew that in thus putting matters to the touch
 
 268 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 
 
 he had no hope but ruin. As long as there was a 
 chance of victory, Newcastle fought with the valour 
 and courage which never deserted him. In an 
 encounter with the Scots, 'my lord himself killed 
 three with his page's half-leaden sword, for he had 
 no other left him ; and though all the gentlemen 
 in particular offered him their swords, yet my lord 
 refused to take a sword of any of them.' After the 
 crowning defeat he made his escape as best he might, 
 and resolved, ' and that justly and honourably,' to 
 forsake the kingdom. General King mournfully 
 asked Rupert and Newcastle what they would do. 
 Rupert replied, ' I will rally my men.' 'I will go 
 to Holland,' said Newcastle, and he kept his word. 
 
 Newcastle has been severely blamed for thus 
 deserting the cause of his king and country, and 
 unless we understand the limits of his character, it 
 is difficult to excuse him. Clarendon in his history 
 made an ironical defence, which is the most that 
 might be expected : ' All that can be said for 
 the Marquis,' he wrote, ' is that he was utterly 
 tired with a condition and employment so con- 
 trary to his humour, nature, and education. . . . 
 He was a very fine gentleman, active and full of 
 courage, and most accomplished in those qualities 
 of horsemanship, dancing, and fencing, which 
 accompany a good breeding — in which his delight 
 was. Besides that he was amorous in poetry and 
 music, to which he indulged the greatest part of 
 his time.'
 
 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 269 
 
 In truth, nothing save an ardent feeling of loyalty 
 would have ever tempted him from the paths of 
 pleasure, and if he failed, it speaks eloquently of his 
 devotion that he faced death and ruin in the faithful 
 service of his king. Death he escaped. Ruin held 
 him in its savage grasp for many a long year. Even 
 though he were ' as fit to be a general as a bishop,' 
 he proved in adversity an unconquerable courage. 
 Accustomed from his youth up to the lavish expendi- 
 ture of money, he crossed the seas with no more 
 than ^90 in his purse. Thenceforth until the 
 Restoration his life was one bitter fight with poverty. 
 Wherever he went the demon of want pursued him. 
 To obtain money was a plain impossibility. To 
 win the credit of his fellows was an enterprise well 
 within his compass. In Paris, as in Antwerp, he 
 was forced 'to live upon the courtesy of those who 
 would trust him.' Greatly daring, he married his 
 Margaret without a shilling in his pocket. 
 
 The story of his debts is told with perfect candour 
 and a touch of humour by his amiable spouse. One 
 day his steward assured him that he could provide 
 no dinner for him, for his creditors were resolved to 
 trust him no longer. Pleasantly he suggested that 
 the Duchess should pawn her clothes, and the 
 Duchess, answering that they were of small value, 
 bade her waiting-maid pledge some 'small toys,' which 
 she had lately given her. Thus with a light heart 
 he found a way out of every difficulty, and driven 
 to the worst straits of poverty he would call his
 
 270 *A PRINCELY WOMAN' 
 
 creditors together, and make so effectual a speech to 
 them, 'that instead of urging the payment of his debts 
 they promised him that he should not want anything 
 in whatsoever they were able to assist him.' Well 
 might the Duchess sing the praises of the citizens 
 of Antwerp, who could never resist 'his civil deport- 
 ment and persuasive arguments.' The credit which 
 they gave him she looked upon as a special blessing 
 of God ; for was he not a stranger in the land, and 
 to all appearance a ruined man ? 
 
 For men of less spirit than the Duke of Newcastle 
 it would have been easy to descend in the social 
 scale, to lead a mean life in a humble lodging. To 
 this degradation he would never consent. He could 
 not forget that he was ' a noble, high and puissant 
 prince.' Though his pocket held not a penny, still 
 would he live in the best state he might ; still would 
 he keep the finest horses in his stable, 'resolving for 
 his own recreation and divertisement, in his banished 
 condition, to exercise the art of manage, which he 
 is a great master and lover of.' In the depth of his 
 poverty his horses amounted to the number of eight. 
 Nor would the direst distress persuade him to part 
 with any of them. For he would say that good 
 horses are so rare ' as not to be valued for money, 
 and he who would buy him out of his pleasure 
 (meaning his horses) must pay dear for it.' And 
 the horses repaid eagerly the affection which he 
 lavished on them. They showed their joy, when- 
 ever he came to the stable, by their 'trampling
 
 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 271 
 
 action,' and when he rode them himself 'they 
 seemed to take much pleasure and pride in it.' 
 
 Thus his fame in Antwerp grew, and no traveller 
 who might be admitted into the presence failed 
 to pay the Duke his respects, and to admire his 
 manage of horses. One day, says the Duchess with 
 delight, she counted some seventeen coaches at the 
 door of their house, which they had hired from the 
 widow of ' Van Ruben, the famous picture-drawer.' 
 And then, as hope grew brighter in the breasts of 
 the Royalists, the Duke provided for the king and 
 all the royal race who chanced to be in Antwerp 
 a small entertainment, which, though it paled before 
 the glories of Welbeck and Bolsover, must surely 
 have reminded the Duke of his gracious past. If 
 the expense were no larger than his creditors would 
 allow, the sentiments of loyalty expressed were 
 worthy the most august occasion. ' The King was 
 brought in with music,' we are told, 'and all being 
 placed. Major Mohun, the player, in a black satin 
 robe and garland of bays, made a speech in verse 
 of his lordship's own poetry, complimenting the 
 King in his highest hyperbole.' Thus was prophesied 
 the speedy restoration of the king, and when it 
 came none rejoiced more gratefully than the loyallest 
 of Dukes, who declared that his love to his gracious 
 master. King Charles the Second, ' was above the 
 love he bore to his wife, children, and all his 
 posterity ; nay, to his own life.' Nor did the fact 
 that his gracious master did not reciprocate his love
 
 272 *A PRINCELY WOMAN' 
 
 check his ardour for a moment. ' I care not 
 whether his Majesty loves me again or not,' said he, 
 ' for I am resolved to love him.' 
 
 The Duke's enthusiasm at seeing once more his 
 native land was unbounded. ' At last,' writes the 
 Duchess in a touching passage, ' being come so far 
 that he was able to discern the smoke of London, 
 which he had not seen in a long time, he merrily 
 was pleased to desire one that was near him to jog 
 and awake him out of his dream, for surely, said he, 
 I have been sixteen years asleep, and am not 
 thoroughly awake yet. My Lord lay that night at 
 Greenwich, where his supper seemed more savoury 
 to him than any meat he had hitherto tasted, and 
 the noise of some scraping fiddlers he thought the 
 pleasantest harmony that ever he had heard.' 
 
 His sojourn in London was brief. In the general 
 joyousness of the Restoration, the services which 
 he had rendered to the king, and the sufferings 
 which he had undergone, a banished man with a 
 price upon his head, were speedily forgotten. He 
 and his Duchess were hopelessly out of fashion. It 
 was not for them to take part in the gallantry of a 
 flippant Court, and they retired to Welbeck without 
 regret, cultivated the Muses with the same pomp 
 and ceremony wherewith they had faced the sorrows 
 of exile, and made infrequent, if brilliant, appear- 
 ances in London. He shared with enthusiasm his 
 lady's love of literature. There were many for 
 whom the Duke of Newcastle was at once the
 
 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 273 
 
 Maecenas and the Horace of England, ' The best 
 lyric and dramatic poet of his age ' is the Duchess's 
 description of him. Much as she vaunted her 
 own genius, she willingly acclaimed his infinite 
 superiority : 
 
 * A Poet I am neither born nor bred, 
 But to a witty poet married, 
 Wiiose brain is fresh and pleasant as the Spring, 
 Where fancies grow, and where the Muses sing ; 
 There oft I lean my head, and listening hark, 
 T' observe his words, and all his fancies mark, j 
 And from that garden flowers of fancy take, 
 Whereof a posy up in verse I make : 
 Thus I that have no garden of my own 
 There gather flowers that are newly blown.' 
 
 A noble tribute of one poet to another ; and 
 though the harsh world has not accepted the 
 Duchess's amiable estimate, the Duke of Newcastle 
 was a true man of letters. His New Method to 
 Dress Horses was the fruit of lifelong knowledge. 
 Dryden did not disdain to adapt his translation of 
 Moliere's U Etourdl into the famous comedy, Sir 
 Martin Mar- All; and though the Duke's original 
 pieces did not win the approval of that most 
 capricious of critics, Samuel Pepys, Shadwell 
 packed a great part of The Triumphant Widow^ 
 or the Medley of Humours^ into Bury Fair^ while 
 The Country Captain^ acted with applause in 
 1649, survived until 1661, to be condemned by 
 Pepys as the silliest play that ever he saw. But it 
 is not for their comedies that we delight to 
 s
 
 2/4 'A PRINCELY WOMAN' 
 
 remember the Duchess of Newcastle and her lord. 
 He at any rate was greater in life than in art ; and 
 if we still see him in the habit as he lived, it is 
 because the skill of the Duchess equalled her 
 devotion, and enabled her to enrich posterity with 
 the imperishable portrait of a great gentleman.
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 THOMAS BROWNE was born in 1605, the 
 son of a mercer, who came of a good family 
 long established in Cheshire. He was early dedicated 
 to the love of wisdom, for ' his father,' we are told, 
 ' used to open his breast when he was asleep, and 
 kiss it in prayers over him, as 'tis said of Origen's 
 father, that the Holy Ghost did take possession 
 there.' Educated at Winchester and at Broadgate 
 Hall, in the University of Oxford, he took his degree 
 in 1626, and forthwith devoted himself to the study 
 of medicine. For a while he practised his craft in 
 Oxfordshire, and presently, being always a fervent 
 believer in the efficacy of travel, he accompanied 
 his step-father. Sir Thomas Dutton, on a journey to 
 Ireland. Thereafter he sought what instruction he 
 might at Montpellier and Padua, was made at 
 Leyden a doctor of medicine, and after a brief sojourn 
 at Shipden Hall, near Halifax, settled, in 1637, ^^ 
 Norwich, where he married Dorothy Mileham, and 
 where he spent more than forty years in the tranquil 
 practice of physic, in the study of antiquities, and 
 in the pursuit of humane letters. 
 
 No man ever worked harder than he at his chosen
 
 278 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 profession. From the tending of the sick he spared 
 himself but a scanty leisure. He confessed that his 
 Popular Errors was * composed by snatches of time, 
 as medical vocations and the fruitless importunity of 
 uroscopy would permit him.' With a solemn sad- 
 ness he contrasted his busy life at Norwich with 
 the life of those ' whose quiet doors and unmolested 
 hours offered no such distractions.' The very uni- 
 formity of his well-filled days leaves little to be told of 
 his adventures. He wrote letters of good counsel to 
 his sons, and received from them in exchange a full 
 assurance of filial loyalty. To Honest Tom, as he 
 delights to call him, he sends much sound advice, 
 mingled with literary exhortations. When the boy, 
 at the age of fourteen, travels into France he urges 
 him to avoid puclor rusticus^ to ' put on a decent 
 boldness and learn a good garb of bodv,' and to 
 'frequent civil company.' And when Honest Tom, 
 always a gallant fellow, chose the Navy for his 
 profession, his father was eager to instruct him in 
 the many sound lessons of life and letters. ' If you 
 could quit periwigs,' says he, 'it would be more 
 to your credit,' and then in a single sentence 
 implores him 'not to forget French and Latin,' and 
 insists that there is ' no such defence against ex- 
 treme cold, as a woollen or flannel waistcoat next the 
 skin.' With the literary instinct, always active in 
 his brain, he bade his son, as a prelude to battle, read 
 'all the sea-fights of note, in Plutarch, the Turkish 
 history, and others.' He was overjoyed to know
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 279 
 
 that Tom appreciated the ardour of Lucan. 'I wish 
 more military men would read him ; in the passage 
 you mention, there are noble strains and such as 
 may well affect generous minds.' Yet for Tom he 
 would temper the ardour of Lucan. Death rather than 
 surrender he deemed a wanton maxim. ' To be made 
 prisoner,' said he, ' by one unequal and over-ruling 
 power, after a due resistance, is no disparagement.' 
 
 And Tom proved himself an apt pupil of Plutarch 
 and his father. Being ' not only Marti but Mcrcurio^ 
 he read Homer and Juvenal at sea, and never forgot, 
 in the seduction of the classics, that it was the real 
 business of his life to fight. The very spirit of war 
 breathes in his letters. ' I thank you for your 
 directions,' he wrote to his father, who had advised a 
 remedy against the rattle of cannonades, ' but I found 
 that I could endure it ; nor is it so intolerable as most 
 conceive ; especially when men are earnest and intent 
 upon their business, unto whom muskets sound but 
 like pop-guns. It is impossible to express unto 
 another how a short sea-fight elevates the spirit of 
 a man, and makes him despise all dangers. In and 
 after all sea-fights I have been very thirsty.' It is 
 easy to imagine the dissertation upon thirst and 
 courage which this brave letter provoked. I would 
 we had many such. But suddenly Honest Tom dis- 
 appears from life, as though he had never been, with- 
 out a word surviving of regret or explanation, and left 
 it to Edward, his elder brother, to take up the tale 
 of his father's quiet, studious life at Norwich.
 
 28o SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 And Edward, if further from the heart, was nearer 
 to the mind, of Sir Thomas Browne. A physician 
 like his father, and avid of curiosities, he kept a 
 keen eye, in London or abroad, upon the doings 
 at Norwich. Now he calls upon Guy Patin, 
 a critic of Rellgio Medici ; now he notes with 
 pleasure, that ' your book of Vulgar Errors is trans- 
 lated into Low Dutch, and is now in the press.' 
 So under his father's care and tuition he rose high in 
 his profession, found 'considerable practice among the 
 hio-her ranks ' and attended the famous Earl of 
 Rochester in his last illness. His letters are not 
 significant of much, yet they help us to make the por- 
 trait of a tranquil, busy man. Nor were such excite- 
 ments lacking to Browne, as his antiquarian mind 
 would appreciate. The discovery of cinerary urns at 
 Walsingham inspired him to his highest flight of elo- 
 quence. One day he found sixty coins of King Stephen 
 in a grave ; another day (Sir Robert Paston, his neigh- 
 bour and his friend) sent him his box of Saxon and 
 Roman coins. A spermaceti whale, ' cast on our coast 
 of Norfolk,' was an admirable excuse for profound re- 
 search. When whales are lacking, he is content to 
 dissect a bear, or to look for a heart without a peri- 
 cardium. He marks that day with a white stone, 
 when he hears of two ostriches brought from Tan- 
 gier. ' I saw one,' he tells Edward, ' in the latter end 
 of King James his days, at Greenwich, when I was a 
 schoolboy. King Charles the first had a cassowary, 
 whose fine green channelled egg I have, and you
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 281 
 
 have seen.' He proved by experience that seeds 
 found in wild-fowls' gizzards, have sprouted in the 
 earth. Of adipocere he was the first discoverer, 
 a 'fat concretion, where the nitre of the earth, and 
 the salt and lixivious liquor of the body, had coagu- 
 lated large lumps of fat into the consistence of the 
 hardest Castile soap, whereof part remaineth with 
 us.' 
 
 Thus it was that all was of interest to him. 
 Coins, urns, lachrimatories, bones, eggs, and fossils 
 he treasured in his house and garden, which as Evelyn 
 said, was at once 'a paradise and cabinet of rarities.' 
 It is no wonder, then, that thither the antiquaries 
 of England delighted to resort. Evelyn and he ex- 
 changed many a letter before they met at Norwich. 
 It was by the mediation of that noble person, 
 Mr. Paston, that they were made known one 
 to the other, and it was concerning the ornaments 
 of gardens, ' garlands and coronary plants,' that they 
 most willingly discoursed. Evelyn could not have 
 found a wiser counsellor than Thomas Browne, and 
 gladly he placed him among * persons of ancient 
 simplicity, — Paradisean and Hortulan saints.' Nor- 
 wich, said he, ' is a place, I understand, which is very 
 much addicted to the flowery part.' He opened his 
 heart to Browne with discernment and eloquence. 
 Perhaps it is not fanciful to suppose that he caught 
 an echo of his correspondent's pomp and circumstance. 
 He abundantly testifies his 'abhorrency of these 
 painted and formal projections of our cockney
 
 282 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 gardens and plots, which appear like gardens of 
 paste-board and marchpane, and smell more of paint 
 than of verdure.' And Browne answers him with a 
 catalogue, addressed to the Hawic and Pheasant on 
 Ludgate Hill — a catalogue of flowers, which one is 
 sure were speedily made to bloom at Wotton. 
 Their friendship was already old, indeed, when 
 Evelyn was persuaded to visit ' that famous scholar 
 and physician, Dr. T. Browne, lately knighted.' 
 Sir Thomas did the honours of his city with becom- 
 ing gravity. ' He led me,' says Evelyn, ' to see all 
 the remarkable places of this ancient city, being one 
 of the largest, and certainly, after London, one of 
 the noblest of England, for its venerable cathedral, 
 number of stately churches, cleanness of the streets, 
 and buildings of flint so exquisitely headed and 
 squared, as I much astonished at, but he told me 
 they had lost the art of squaring flints.' Hazlitt, in 
 a famous essay, put the question which of the dead we 
 would, if we could, recall to life. Were it given to me 
 to live one day in the past, I could imagine no happier 
 fate than to wander through the Norwich of the seven- 
 teenth century, already 'venerable,' with Sir Thomas 
 Browne for guide, and John Evelyn for companion. 
 Though he lived always in his paradise at Norwich, 
 no man was ever more easily accessible to his friends 
 than Sir Thomas Browne, He is known by his associ- 
 ates, and they are antiquarians and men of letters. 
 One day Dugdalc writes to him for a commentary 
 upon a passage in Tacitus, and receives a luminous
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 283 
 
 reply. Another day it is the learned Elias Ashmole, 
 who seeks information concerning Dr. John Dee, 
 and who is assured in answer that Browne had 
 often heard Arthur Dee, the doctor's son, 'affirm, 
 and sometimes with oaths, that he had seen pro- 
 jection made and transmutation of pewter dishes and 
 flagons into silver, which the goldsmiths of Prague 
 bought of them. And that Count Rosenberg played 
 at quoits with silver quoits made by projection as 
 before.' The insistent Aubrey, collecting facts for 
 Anthony a Wood, makes confident inquiry of him, 
 whose Religio Medici^ in his own phrase, ' first opened 
 my understanding.' Ever the friend of scholars, 
 on whom he lavished readily his stores of erudition, 
 and as readily displayed the treasures of his paradise, 
 he let the great world go by as it would. Publicity 
 irked him not. He eluded the strife of factions and 
 the gaze of the curious. Few men have more 
 sternly divorced themselves from aff'airs than he. 
 When Cromwell took arms against his king, Browne, 
 with the greatest resolution, closed the door of his 
 study. The years of his greatest activity in letters 
 were the years of civil war. But though he knew 
 himself as little fit to sit in the council-chamber as 
 to bear arms, he was a keen partisan. No man 
 dared doubt his loyalty. In his eyes Cromwell was 
 always the Usurper. He was one of the four hundred 
 and thirty-two citizens, who, in 1643, the year after 
 the sudden appearance of Religio Medici^ refused to 
 subscribe money for the recapture of Newcastle.
 
 284 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 'Yesterday,' he tells Tom, his son, at the king's 
 return, 'was an humiliation and fast kept to divert 
 the judgment of God upon us and our posterity for 
 the abominable murder of King Charles the First, 
 and is by act of Parliament to be kept on that day 
 for ever.' It was not strange, therefore, that, when 
 in 1671 Charles 11. visited Norwich, he should have 
 conferred upon the physician the honour of knight- 
 hood. The king had designed to distinguish 
 Thomas Thacker, the Mayor, but he, whose name 
 is ever to be remembered, begged that the knight- 
 hood should be given to Thomas Browne, the 
 philosopher, in whom Norwich already testified her 
 pride. It is not unlikely that Charles's insatiable 
 curiosity should have lighted upon Browne's work. 
 Sir William Petty told Pepys that ' the three books 
 most esteemed for wit in the world were Religio 
 Medici^ Osborne's Advice to a Son^ and Hudibras.'' 
 And all three were doubtless familiar to the Court. 
 But even if Browne's philosophy had escaped the 
 king, his loyalty had long been conspicuous, and he 
 would have earned his monarch's respect, even had 
 he never considered the errors of the people. The 
 spirit in which he accepted the honour is character- 
 istic. A single reference in his Repertorium contents 
 him. Among the visits paid by kings to Norwich, 
 he mentions the visit of Charles 11., 'of which,' says 
 he, ' I had particular reason to take notice.' 
 
 Only one other public encounter disturbed the 
 tranquillity of his life. In 1664 two women, Amy
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 285 
 
 Duny and Rose Cullender were tried for witchcraft 
 before Sir Matthew Hale, and being found guilty 
 were hanged. Sir Thomas Browne happened to be 
 in court, and the judge was minded, while the trial was 
 in progress, when, in fact, only eight witnesses had 
 been examined, to ask his opinion. He gave it as most 
 other intelligent men of his day would have given it, 
 that ' the fits were natural, but heightened by the 
 Devil's co-operating with the malice of the witches, 
 at whose instance he did the villanies.' To condemn 
 a scholar of the seventeenth century for a pious belief, 
 no longer current in our age, is to make a reckless 
 assault upon chronology. Yet it has generally been 
 accounted to Browne's discredit that he 'believed, 
 and did now know that there are witches.' He 
 went further upon what to-day seems the pathway 
 of error : he declared that those who doubted the 
 existence of witches were not only infidels but 
 atheists. If Browne erred, he erred in good com- 
 pany, and not without evidence. Though we may 
 deplore the cruelties practised on the miserable 
 women suspected of witchcraft, the fact that we 
 now suppose them to have been powerless does not 
 prove that their intention was not evil.^ In any 
 
 1 The view held by Browne and his contemporaries con- 
 cerning witchcraft, is at once explained and justified by Selden. 
 ' The law against witches does not prove there be any,' says 
 this wise man, ' but it punishes the Malice of these people, that 
 use such means to take away Men's lives. If one should pro- 
 pose that by turning his Hat thrice and crying Buz, he could 
 take away a Man's life, though in truth he could do no such
 
 286 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 case, a philosopher who sins with Sir Matthew Hale 
 and Hobbes may be acquitted, even at the bar of 
 modern omniscience, and Sir Thomas Browne's 
 memory bears no other weight of guilt than that, 
 being orthodox in his own day, he appears heretical 
 in ours. 
 
 In 1682 Sir Thomas Browne's thrice fortunate 
 life was brought to a close, Happy in the affection 
 of his wife, happy in the loyalty of his children and 
 his friends, happy in his tranquil research, he lived 
 and died, as Johnson says, *a zealous adherent to 
 the faith of Christ.' He was buried in the Church 
 of St. Peter's Mancroft,^ and it was after death that 
 his heaviest misfortune overtook him. For him 
 there was a piety in undisturbed ashes. ' But who 
 knows the fate of his bones,' he asked, 'or how often 
 he is to be buried ? Who hath the oracle of his 
 ashes, or whither they are to be scattered ? ' Not 
 Sir Thomas Browne surely. 'To be gnawed out 
 of our graves, to have our skulls made drinking- 
 
 thing, yet this was a just law made by the State, that whosoever 
 should turn his Hat thrice, and cry Buz, with an intention to 
 take away a Man's life, shall be put to death.' 
 
 1 The monument which testifies to his death and his wife's 
 devotion, bears beneath the lapidary Latin the following legend : 
 * Near the foot of this pillar lies Sir Thomas Browne Kt. and 
 Doctor in Physick, Author of 'Religio Medici,' and other 
 Learned Books, who practised Physick in this City 46 yeares, 
 and Died Oct 19. 1682, in y^ 77^^ year of his Age. In Memory 
 of whom Dame Dorothy Browne, who had been his affectionate 
 wife 41 years, Caus'd this Monument to be Erected."
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 287 
 
 bowls are tragical abominations escaped in burning 
 burials.' He did not escape them. For nearly one 
 hundred and sixty years he slept in peace, and then 
 to make room for one Mary Bowman, the wife of 
 the Rev. John Bowman, the grave of Sir Thomas 
 was roughly attacked, the coffin was opened by a 
 workman's pick, and the philosopher's skull was 
 carried ofF by an antiquary, to be a peep-show at the 
 hospital. Here in truth is an irony of untoward fate. 
 *Man is a noble animal,' said Browne, 'splendid 
 in ashes and pompous in the grave.' And so 
 savagely was his pomp outraged, that his stolen skull, 
 measured as he might have measured it, aroused the 
 curious, and not long since was fought over by 
 anxious citizens. What an eloquent threnody might 
 he have composed upon the pitiful adventures of his 
 own cranium ! 
 
 His life, said he in his Religio^ ' had been a miracle 
 of thirty years.' Whatever was marvellous lay within 
 his heart and brain. Such adventures as he met with 
 were the adventures of his soul. The castles whose 
 walls he had battered were the castles of error. That 
 he followed Erasmus and Montaigne in marvelling 
 at the miracle of his life suggests that intelligence 
 knows as keen a triumph as political cunning or war- 
 like courage. His victories, like theirs, were books. 
 And how, with Religio Medici^ his first victory was 
 won upon the field of letters is still a mystery. It was 
 written, we are told, at Shibden Hall, and was ready 
 in his wallet, when, in 1636, he came to Norwich.
 
 288 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 'Continued in his private study,' as he said, 'and as 
 an exercise unto himself rather than as an exercitation 
 for any other,' it passed from his hands in a broken and 
 imperfect shape, until one day he woke up and found 
 it hot from the press. The first edition, the fruit of 
 this piracy, fell into the hands of Lord Dorset,who bade 
 Sir Kenelm Digby comment upon it. Sir Kenelm, 
 the most fantastic of commentators, hastily put pen 
 to paper, and composed the Observations^ which have 
 long shared a binding with Rrligio Medici. The epi- 
 sode was an occasion for the usual courtesies. Sir 
 Thomas Browne amiably addressed Sir Kenelm, and 
 Sir Kenelm matched the doctor's elaborate compli- 
 ments. We need not make too much of this inter- 
 change of courtesies. There is no more reason to 
 look gravely, with Dr. Johnson, upon ' the reciprocal 
 civility of authors' as 'one of the most risible scenes 
 in the farce of life' than to suspect Sir Thomas 
 Browne, with the same critic, of employing a strata- 
 gem, ' by which an author panting for fame, may at 
 once gratify his vanity, and preserve the appearance 
 of modesty.' All that is certain is that the first copy 
 of Religio Medici^ the work of pirates, came in the 
 modest guise of a chap-book, and that Sir Thomas 
 immediately superseded it by a more accurate 
 edition. 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici is less a theo- 
 logical treatise than a work of art. Those who look 
 to its pages for guidance in religion will be dis- 
 appointed. Those whose ear is attuned to the
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 289 
 
 harmonies of our English speech will never weary of 
 its exquisite poetry. Its ostensible theme, indeed, is 
 of less interest than the style in which it is com- 
 posed, or than the ingenious epigrams which give a 
 lustre to its pages. Though the Doctor sets out to 
 tell us of his religion, he very soon wanders by the 
 way, and discourses at hazard of all things that touch 
 his curiosity, and most especially of himself. The 
 book is various and wayward. No secure thread of 
 thought holds the argument together. The author 
 turns from martyrs to miracles, from blind fortune 
 to witchcraft, without difficulty or hesitation. TJne 
 tone of pi ety which marks the opening pages pre- 
 sently gives way to a subtle irony or to the mere 
 delight in fashioning quick and vivid sentences. 
 And Sir Thomas Browne is as various as his book. 
 By profession a scientific observer, he is a pagan 
 by sentiment and a Christian by faith. He is con- 
 scious that several circumstances — 'as the general 
 scandal of my profession, the natural course of my 
 studies, the indifference of my behaviour and dis- 
 course ' — might persuade the world that he had no 
 religion at all. But in the world's despite he dares 
 ' without usurpation assume the honourable style of 
 a Christian.' And thus, narrowing his definition, 
 he confesses that he is ' of that reformed new-cast 
 religion, wherein he dislikes nothing but the name.' 
 Nor is there any Church 'whose every part so 
 squares unto his conscience ... as this whereof he 
 holds his belief— the Church of England.' And 
 
 T
 
 290 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 having once given his allegiance, he is perfect in 
 devotion. Neither knowledge nor superstition, to 
 both of which he was accessible, availed to disturb 
 the constancy of his faith. He welcomed difficulties 
 that he might prove the fidelity of his belief. A 
 prolonged study of anatomy, the patient desire to 
 pierce the mysteries of nature, did not shake his child- 
 like adherence to the religion which he had chosen. 
 * This is no vulgar part of faith,' said he, * to believe 
 a thing not only above, but contrary to reason, and 
 against the arguments of our proper senses.' With 
 a frank simplicity he blessed himself and was thank- 
 ful that he lived not in an age of miracles. ' I would 
 not,' said he, ' have been one of those Israelites that 
 passed the Red Sea ; nor one of Christ's patients on 
 whom he wrought his wonders ; then had my faith 
 been thrust upon me ; nor should I enjoy that greater 
 blessing pronounced to all that believe and saw not.' 
 Sir Thomas Browne's simple faith was thus 
 superior to the pride of knowledge and the arro- 
 gance of self. At the first word of authority, 
 science and paganism made instant submission. Sir 
 Thomas, being a truly learned man, was distin- 
 guished by a noble humility of soul. The 'sturdy 
 doubts and boisterous objections,' with which his 
 knowledge acquainted him, he conquered 'not in a 
 martial posture, but on his knees.' The supreme 
 knowledge that he knew nothing made belief easy 
 to him, and thus he taught his 'haggard and un- 
 reclaimed reason to stoop to the lure of faith.'
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 291 
 
 With a tine irony he tells us how an evil spirit 
 whispered to him that the miracles of Elias and 
 Moses were no miracles at all. *Thus,' says he, 
 * the devil played at chess with me and, yielding a 
 pawn, sought to gain a queen of me ' ; but Browne 
 was more than a match for his wily antagonist, and, 
 strengthened by faith, had no difficulty in check- 
 mating the Evil One. 
 
 But, as it has been said, it is not the main purpose 
 of Sir Thomas Browne*'s book which enthralls us. 
 Our curiosity is most vividly awakened when he 
 leads us into the devious byways of speculation. 
 To cite his own words, he 'loves to lose himself in 
 a mystery ; to pursue his reason to an O alt'ttudo.'' 
 And, thus lost, he is discursive and unexpected. 
 There, indeed, he reminds us of Montaigne, whom 
 he had most faithfully studied, not only in manner, 
 but in matter. Though he was free from the 
 Frenchman's scepticism, he was engrossed with the 
 same thoughts which held the great essayist captive 
 in his tower. Nature and death — to these he recurs 
 again and again. He worshipped the great mother 
 of us all with an equal mind. In his opinion she 
 could do nothing wrong or in vain. ' There are no 
 grotesques in nature,' said he, *■ not anything framed 
 to fill up empty cantons and unnecessary spaces.' 
 And though he piously confessed the perfect beauty 
 of all nature's works, though he held that nothing 
 was ever ugly save the chaos, he yet admitted the 
 supremacy of art. ' Now nature is not at variance
 
 292 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 with art,' says he, in a passage which reduces the 
 universe to a simple system, ' nor art with nature ; 
 they are both the servants of God's providence. 
 Art is the perfection of nature. Were the world 
 now as it was the sixth day, there were yet a chaos. 
 Nature hath made one world, and art another. In 
 brief, all things are artificial ; for nature is the art 
 of God.' The last phrase Hobbes transferred to 
 the Leviathan. With Browne it is a recurrent 
 theme. ' Nature hath furnished one part of the 
 earth' — such is his variation \n Hydriotaphia — 'and 
 man another.' 
 
 But, with Montaigne, he wondered most deeply at 
 the life of man. 'I find,' says he, 'there are many 
 pieces in this one fabric ; this frame is raised upon a 
 mass of antipathies.' Does not this recall Mon- 
 taigne's famous epithets ondoyant et divers ? And 
 so, like Erasmus and many another, as I have said, 
 he deemed his life a miracle, ' which to relate, were 
 not a history, but a piece of poetry and would sound 
 to common ears a fable,' and the fact that the 
 sentiment is borrowed need not impair its sincerity. 
 Nor, to indulge his amazement, did he need to 
 look elsewhere than to himself. 'We carry with 
 us,' he writes, ' the wonders we seek without us ; 
 there is all Africa and her prodigies in us ' ; and he 
 was as happy in the satisfaction afforded by this 
 undying curiosity as was the French philosopher 
 who found an interest in life which neither ceased 
 nor waned.
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 293 
 
 Nor did the love of life persuade liim to hate 
 death. In truth he faced the inevitable end as 
 bravely and simply as Montaigne himself, but for 
 another reason. Montaigne, sceptic as he was, had 
 in him something of an ancient stoic. He expected 
 the coming of death with equanimity because he 
 had schooled his mind to expect it. He was always 
 booted and spurred to take his last journey. Sir 
 Thomas Browne, on the other hand, looked to 
 death as to a release. He knew the joy of life ; he 
 had 'shaken hands,' to cite his own words, 'with 
 delight in his warm blood and canicular days ' ; and 
 yet his faith persuaded him to regard death as the 
 only solace of life. 'When I take a full view and 
 circle of myself,' he wrote, 'without this reasonable 
 moderator, and equal piece of justice, death, I do 
 conceive myself the miserablest person extant.' And 
 so he lived content in the conviction that we are in 
 the power of no calamity while death is in our own. 
 
 The pagan that was within him inclined him 
 naturally to superstition. He could not join the 
 others of his own Church in contemning symbols, 
 pilgrimages and processions. He put his faith in 
 tutelary angels, and turned away his mind from the 
 easy criticism of reason. And having set forth 
 the tenour of his belief, which, if it square not 
 with maturer judgments he is ready to disdain, he 
 turns, like his master Montaigne to a description 
 of himself. Though, when he wrote the Rel'tgio 
 Medicij he was not yet thirty years of age, he
 
 294 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 wrote as though he had long passed the boundaries 
 of middle life. There is a maturity in his opinion, 
 an easy mastery of language, which do not consort 
 with youth. He writes as one who is as far 
 removed from careless ardour as from vain experi- 
 ment. There is little that lies without his know- 
 ledge save himself, which he was wise enough to 
 accept as a mystery. But his interest in his own 
 character was so great, despite its imperfections, that 
 he was compelled to attempt a moral portrait. He 
 claimed, before all things, the virtue of charity. He 
 boasted that he had ' no antipathy, or rather idiosyn- 
 crasy, in diet, humour, air, anything.' His appetite 
 was as easily accommodating as his character, and he 
 could eat frogs, snails, toadstools among the PVench, 
 or locusts and grasshoppers among the Jews with 
 equal pleasure. He cared not whether his salad 
 was gathered in a churchyard or in a garden. Being 
 born in the eighth climate he was 'constellated unto 
 all,' and he knew no national repugnances. He 
 thought it as great a madness to wound a country by 
 insulting all its citizens as to rail without reason 
 against the times. ' I am in England everywhere, 
 and under any meridian,' or, in other words, he 
 changed his mind, and carried a fresh sympathy with 
 him, when he crossed the sea. 
 
 Conscious though he was of his superiority, he was 
 a democrat in the only wise sense. While he acknow- 
 ledged that there was 'a rabble even among the gentry,' 
 he applauded that nobility without heraldry, that
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 295 
 
 natural dignity, ' whereby one man is ranked with 
 another, another filed before him according to the 
 quality of his desert, and pre-eminence of his good 
 parts.' The charity which he would extend to all 
 nations and to all classes he proved also in the things 
 of the intellect. Knowing himself more deeply learned 
 than others, he would be generous in imparting what 
 he knew. ' I make not my head a grave,' said he, 
 * but a treasury of knowledge.' And he was of so 
 rare a quality that, being a scholar, he yet disliked 
 controversy. It pleased him rather to set forth and to 
 illustrate his own opinions than to attack the opinions 
 of others. He found no joy in fighting for fighting's 
 sake. And he was content if he could discover his 
 own image of the truth without conflict or loss of 
 temper. ' I had rather stand in the shock of a 
 basilisk,' said he, * than in the fury of a merciless 
 pen.' And his dislike of controversy is not strange' 
 when we remember the kindred dislike which he 
 cherished of positive judgments. He would not 
 censure nor contemn any one, because he believed 
 that no man truly knew another. For himself, he 
 was in the dark to all the world, and visible only 
 through a cloud to his most intimate friends. Why 
 then should he contemn others, or himself endure 
 another's censure ? 
 
 Being charitable and uncertain, he was perforce 
 humble. But the expression of his humility has not 
 always the true ring. It smacks of theological con- 
 vention. ' I repute myself,' says he, ' the most
 
 296 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 abject piece of mortality ' ; and this familiar phrase 
 ill accords with his conscious and declared knowledge. 
 Nor can we believe him without question when he 
 boasts that he has no pride. He asserts that not 
 even his mastery of tongues, not even his familiarity 
 with foreign countries, not even his profound know- 
 ledge of science availed to give him a good conceit 
 of himself, but in professing this humility, he seems 
 to vaunt his accomplishments too highly, and he 
 would have persuaded us more easily had his design 
 been less obvious. 
 
 It was friendship, which most easily aroused his 
 emotion, and of friendship he writes in the same 
 strain as Montaigne discoursing of La Boetie. 
 *I love my friend,' said he, ' before myself, and yet 
 methinks, I do not love him enough. . . . When 
 I am from him, I am dead till I be with him.' And 
 as he was serious in friendship, so he was easy in 
 acquaintance. His conversation was, like the sun's, 
 with all men ; and he looked upon all, both good 
 and bad, with an amiable eye. But his general 
 sympathy did not make him a boon companion. 
 He regarded the world not as an inn, but as a 
 hospital, and his common demeanour was like 
 gravity itself. ' I am no way facetious,' says he, 
 * nor disposed for the mirth and galliardise of com- 
 pany.' And so with a sombre and kindly aspect he 
 looked out upon the world, resolved already, though 
 thirty summers had not passed over his head, that 
 there was no happiness under the sun, and yet
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 297 
 
 gaining an added happiness with every increase of 
 knowledge. 
 
 Few books have enjoyed so swift a success and 
 been so thoroughly misunderstood as Religio Medici. 
 Sir Kenelm Digby's criticism is of little worth. Sir 
 Thomas Browne gives him a rhapsody, and Digby 
 urges him to read Master White's Dialogues of the 
 JVorld. In other words, he put his author's imagery 
 upon the anvil of criticism and beat it out of shape. 
 Dr. Alexander Ross, a fantastical Scots pedant, fol- 
 lowed hard upon Sir Kenelm's heels with his Medicus 
 Medicatus^ and was no nearer to comprehension than 
 Digby. He belaboured ' the physician's religion ' 
 with the zeal of one who scented Papistry in 
 innocent rhetoric. Presently, John Merryweather, 
 by translating the treatise into Latin, made it the 
 free possession of all Europe, and contrived its easy 
 passage into French, Dutch, and German. Then 
 came the annotator in the person of one Keck, who 
 attempted to explain what needed no explanation. 
 The French philosophers followed with argument. 
 Gui Patin was eloquent in approval, and even the 
 ingenious Bayle condescended to a brief notice. But 
 the early critics, from Sir Kenelm onwards, looked 
 upon Religio Medici with pedantic eyes. Not one 
 of them had the wit to consider the treatise as a 
 work of art, as a dramatic lyric, as a clear expression 
 of character and passion. It was left for Coleridge to 
 perceive the truth. ' The Religio Medici^' says he, ' is 
 a fine portrait of a handsome man in his best clothes,'
 
 298 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 and Browne's castigators, overlooking the elegance 
 of his coat, have addressed him (or his portrait) in the 
 grave language of metaphysics, and explained vv^hy 
 he should have worn a coat of another cut. 
 
 To-day we take the juster view of Coleridge. We 
 accept the masterpiece without argument. Inquiring 
 not too closely into its theology, we are content to 
 admire its noble language. And Sir Thomas himself 
 was herein keenly conscious of his aim. ' I am 
 naturally amorous,' says he, with perfect truth, 'of 
 all that is beautiful,' and it was beautif ul language 
 which most easily affected him. His Rcligio Medici 
 has survived almost alone among the treatises of the 
 seventeenth century, because it is set to perfect music. 
 For Sir Thomas Browne was a musician, who played 
 upon the instrument of speech with the skill of a 
 conscious artist. And his daring was equal to his 
 skill. He had no fear of new forms or fresh words. 
 By using Latin derivations he doubled the resources 
 of our tongue, and cunningly heightened its con- 
 trasts. Thus he would always oppose a homely 
 image to one more pompous, and by the interchange 
 of Latin and Saxon, he could obtain effects unknown 
 before. No literary or rhetorical artifice was beyond 
 his reach. And, much as we admire his quiet irony, 
 his gift of epigram, and his ingenious intelligence, 
 it is the genius of the poet., a nobl e use of words^ a 
 vivid sense of metaphor, an exquisite harmony of 
 jhr ase and cadence, which have_.given his book a 
 gracious immortality^
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 299 
 
 His 'Pseudodoxia Epideniica^ an Enquiry into 
 Vulgar Errors, which followed Religio Medici^ though 
 it wore the semblance of a scientific discourse, is still 
 a work of fancy. The real Browne is revealed in 
 every page, with his fantastic pedantries, his strange 
 ironies, his unquenchable love of whatever is rare and 
 unexpected. The book is a museum of curios, ar- 
 ranged with the same admired disorder as he brought 
 to the fashioning of his museum of bones, coins, and 
 cinerary urns. Curiosity, in truth, was his constant 
 aim ; his mind was curious, his life was curious, his 
 style was curious, he was surrounded with curiosities. 
 Yet in this book, if anywhere, he aimed at a definite 
 and intelligible plan. It is not unlikely that he found 
 an inspiration in Francis Bacon, who declared in his 
 Use of Doubts^ that ' it would be a very profitable 
 course to adjoin to the calendars of doubts and 
 non liquets a calendar of falsehoods, and of popular 
 errors.' If he accepted Bacon's hint, he interpreted 
 it after his own fashion. The duty of discovering 
 errors sat lightly on him. He was always happier in 
 gathering flowers of fancy than in searching out the 
 way of truth. 
 
 Nevertheless he was keenly alive to the gravity of 
 a work, which was ' not to be performed upon one 
 leg, and should smell of oil, if duly and deservedly 
 handled.' And he was at first minded *to propose it 
 unto the Latin republic and equal judges of Europe.' 
 Patriotism and the debt which he owed to his own 
 country, and ' especially unto its ingenuous gentry,'
 
 300 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 persuaded him otherwise, and he determined, fortun- 
 ately for us, to throw lustre on the English tongue. He 
 made the resolution in no spirit of bland compliance. 
 ' Nor have we,' said he bravely, 'addressed our pen 
 or style unto the people (whom books do not redress, 
 and who are this way incapable of reduction) but 
 unto the knowing and leading part of learning.' Thus 
 resolved, he was ' fain to wander in the America and 
 untravelled parts of truth.' And for his talisman he 
 carried a doubt of authority. He refused to establish 
 his belief upon the dictatesof antiquity. He waged war 
 indiscriminately upon all the ancients — Herodotus, 
 who deserved and has at last won a more generous 
 faith, Aristotle, Pliny, Solinus, Athenaeus, 'a delect- 
 able author, and justly styled by Casaubon, Graecorum 
 Plinius^ and many others. He tracked the common 
 errors of mankind through the intricate labyrinth of 
 their borrowings. Here you may find pleasantly 
 repeated the popular beliefs that 'a pigeon hath no 
 gall,' ' that a salamander lives in the fire,' 'that the 
 chameleon lives upon air.' The book is an encyclo- 
 paedia of refuted authorities. He was minded to 
 sweep away all the fallacies of Pliny, Solinus, and their 
 imitators, and to brush from the world of research the 
 last speck of credulity. He abolished the beliefs of 
 the Middle Ages by bringing them to the touchstone 
 of experiment. And he achieved his purpose with 
 an irony and eloquence which never grew tired. 
 
 Yet in our modern sense he was no true man of 
 science. He had not discovered the meaning of
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 301 
 
 historical criticism. He treats his authorities with 
 an even hand as though whatever stood in print was 
 of an equal value. We are not surprised that he 
 should refute Athenaeus ; we are surprised that he 
 should have thought him worth refutation. Nor 
 did he trouble to discriminate between history and 
 mythology. For him Aeneas is a real person, whose 
 words and deeds must be gravely considered. He 
 is seriously perplexed because Aeneas feasted his 
 followers with venison, and Aristotle affirms that 
 neither deer nor boar are found in Africa. In a like 
 spirit of simplicity he complains that Adam and Eve 
 are depicted with navels ' in the authentic draughts 
 of Urbin, Angelo, and others, which notwith- 
 standing, cannot be allowed.' With an equal lack 
 of humour he objects to a picture of Jerome, in the 
 backirround of which there is a clock. For ' clocks 
 or automatous organs are of late invention ' — an 
 objection which suggests that the purpose of pictorial 
 art was veiled from him. His chapter on Satan, ' the 
 great promoter of false opinions,' could best be con- 
 sidered as he considers the errors of others. He takes 
 the Father of Evil very seriously. He browbeats 
 him as a prosecuting attorney might browbeat a 
 criminal. He charges him with 'endeavouring to 
 propagate the unbelief of witches,' with deluding 
 ' us by philtres, ligatures, charms, ungrounded amu- 
 lets.' Then having accepted in good faith the activity 
 of Satan, he willingly takes pains to disprove the vain 
 legends of the Middle Ages, such as the fable of the
 
 302 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 Three Kings of Cologne. And, as if to guard himself 
 against the charge of unbelief, he cannot safely deny 
 that there is a basilisk, and he does allow that hares 
 may change their sex. He must not be judged by 
 our standard. In his own age he appeared a true 
 sceptic. There were few errors of the past which 
 he was not resolute to examine. As resolutely he 
 refused to accept new discoveries. ' He never men- 
 tions the motion of the earth,' says Johnson, ' but with 
 contempt or ridicule.' In other words, he had taken 
 up a strong position at the cross-roads, and would not 
 be dislodged. 
 
 However, the right or the wrong of Sir Thomas 
 Browne's scepticism need not perplex us. It is 
 enough that he Hghts up his treatise with flashes oi 
 noble imagery and quick irony. 'We shall not, I 
 hope, disparage the resurrection of our Redeemer,' 
 says he, ' if we say that the sun doth not dance on 
 Easter Day.' It is for such sentences as this that we 
 take pleasure in Fulgar Errors. And though his 
 fancy was never bridled, he gave it with the lapsing 
 years an ever looser rein. The Garden of Cyrus ^ for 
 instance, is pure fantasy. It opens discursively of 
 gardens, 'which were before gardeners, and but some 
 hours after the earth.' In lofty words the author 
 celebrates ' the pensile or hanging gardens of Baby- 
 lon,' and rejoices that 'the Persian gallants who 
 destroyed this monarchy maintained their botanical 
 bravery.' Then, in terms of pomp, he celebrates our 
 magnified Cyrus, who ' disposed his trees like his
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 303 
 
 armies in regular ordination.' All this is but a pre- 
 face to the main argument of his singular treatise. 
 It is the quincunx, which engrosses him, 'that is 
 the rows and orders so handsomely disposed, or five 
 trees so set together, that a regular angularity, and 
 thorough prospect was left on every side.' Hence- 
 forth he was obsessed by the quintuple number, which 
 makes up the letter X. Wherever his eye was cast, 
 he saw ' the emphatical decussation, or fundamental 
 figure.' He lays aside his humour for the moment 
 that he may loudly impress his ingenuity upon us. 
 And he detects his quincunx with so sly a vision, he 
 expands the results with so brave an eloquence, that 
 only a churl or a pedant would resent his obsession. 
 
 The enterprise is not uncommon. I have known 
 a crazy philosopher who detected a form of worship 
 in tall hats and chimney-pots. But by none has it 
 ever been carried so near to a logical conclusion as by 
 Sir Thomas Browne. Art and nature conspired to 
 yield him quincunces. Nothing, either dead or 
 living, was recalcitrant, save 'the neat retiary spider,' 
 whose method of weaving ' may still nettle Minerva, 
 the goddess of that mystery.' The quintuple figure, 
 in brief, was no mere form of practice in plantation. 
 It dominated architecture from the floor to the roof. 
 There are five parts of a structure, five orders, five 
 intercolumniations. The squared stones and bricks 
 of ancient structures were placed in hieratic quin- 
 cunces. Triumphal crowns of laurel, oak, and myrtle 
 were plaited in this order. The beds of the ancients
 
 304 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 were fine examples of the fundamental figure ; and 
 as the ancients lay in crossbeds, so they sat cross- 
 legged upon crosslegged seats. Neither in peace 
 nor in war can we escape 'these rhoimboidal decus- 
 sations.' The Roman batalia^ the Macedonian 
 phalanx, the labyrinth of Crete were composed with 
 no other end than to satisfy our quincuncial curiosity. 
 Nature comes to the aid of art. The proper 
 ordination may be observed in catkins, in sainfoin, 
 in Jupiter's beard or houseleeic, and in * the scaly 
 composure of the oak rose.' But it is the arbmtetum 
 or thicket on the head of the teazel, which, in the 
 domain of nature, most swiftly speeds his fancy. ' He 
 that considereth that frame so regularly palisadoed,' 
 says he, 'and stemmed with flowers of the royal 
 colour, in the house of the solitary maggot, may find 
 the seraglio of Solomon.' What care we, when we 
 come upon such conceits as that, what fantasy bred 
 them ? In brief, Browne looked upon the earth, and 
 he saw five. He gazed upon the heavens, and five 
 still smiled at him. Truly in his eyes five, the number 
 of justice, was all-pervading and omnipotent. Joseph 
 designed five changes of raiment for Benjamin ; 
 David took five pebbles from the brook ; it was with 
 five barley loaves that our Saviour fed five thousand 
 persons. It is five, ever five, in this divine piece of 
 madness, and as Browne writes the last page late at 
 night, he owns ' that the quincunx of heavens runs 
 low, and 'tis time to close the five parts of know- 
 ledge.' And then with a stroke of resonant humour,
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 305 
 
 he brings his speculation to a close : ' To keep 
 our eyes open longer, were but to act our Antipodes. 
 The huntsmen are up in America, and they are 
 already past their first sleep in Persia.' The life and 
 fancy of this image will explain the hold that Browne 
 keeps upon our imaginations. ' Does the whimsical 
 knight,' asks Coleridge, 'give us thus the essence of 
 gunpowder tea, and call it an opiate ? ' 
 
 In 1658 some urns were found in a field of Old 
 Walsingham. They lay, some forty or fifty, in a dry, 
 sandy soil, not a yard deep. Of themselves, they 
 were of no great worth, yet are they ever memorable, 
 for they inspired Sir Thomas Browne to the writing 
 of Hydriotaphia^ which sets out to be a treatise 
 upon urn-burial, and ends as one of the greatest 
 poems in our language. For a discussion of ancient 
 burial Sir Thomas was well-equipped. He was 
 learned, as we know, with all the learning of his 
 time. None more easily than he could embellish 
 modern thought with ancient instances. He 
 marshalled his authorities with an easy confidence. 
 When he is compelled to state a plain fact, he does not 
 shirk it, even though it wofully disturb the current 
 of his poetry. The largest of the urns, he tells us, 
 not without a shock, contained 'above a gallon.' 
 Again, speaking of other practices, he declares that, 
 ' how to keep the corpse seven days from corruption 
 by anointing and washing, without exenteration, 
 were an hazardable piece of art, in our choicest 
 practise,' and you cannot but smile as at an irrele- 
 u
 
 3o6 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 vancy. But he seldom sins after this fashion, and 
 though he discourse by the way concerning the 
 burials of all the ages, he returns speedily to the 
 proper purpose of his work. His theme, quickened 
 by the sight of the ancient urns, is life, death, and 
 immortality, the oldest and yet the newest theme of 
 man. His cadences rise and fall like the cadences 
 of noble music. The imagery of Hydriotaphia 
 equals in magnificence and variousness its sonority. 
 From beginning to end the poem is a procession of 
 splendid phrases. With the utmost skill has Browne 
 interchanged passages of simple melody with the 
 deep notes of his organ-voice. 'These are sepul- 
 chral pitchers,' he writes on one page, ' which have 
 no joyful voices; silently expressing old mortality, 
 the ruins of forgotten times.' Here is a beauty of 
 phrase, harmonious in sound, and plain in its neat- 
 ness. And then turn a i^^^ P^ges, and you will find 
 by way of contrast these sentences, which Browne 
 alone could have written : * to burn the bones of the 
 King of Edom for lime, seems no irrational ferity, 
 but to drink of the ashes of dead relations, a passionate 
 prodigality.' There we have the pomp, not un- 
 touched by the humour of the master, and wonder 
 still at the secret of his eloquence. 
 
 And then we arrive at the famous fifth chapter, 
 which to have written, brief as it is, were sufficient 
 for eternal fame. Here the world of wisdom is 
 packed into a little space; here is no sentence that does 
 not carry the weight of a folio. Shakespeare comes
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 307 
 
 to your mind as you read, for only Shakespeare has 
 achieved this pomp of phrase, this universality of 
 thought. With incomparable amplitude of mind and 
 word Browne considers youth and age, the future and 
 the past. His old curiosity has fallen from him like a 
 cloak. He is grave and sombre, as one who deals 
 with large issues. Of what profit is length of years, 
 if they be not well spent ? ' If they fell by long and 
 aged decay, yet wrapt up in the bundle of time, they 
 fall into indistinction, and make one blot with 
 infants.' Or maybe age overtook them prematurely. 
 ' Many are too early old,' again 'tis Browne who 
 speaks, *and before the date of age. Adversity 
 stretcheth our days, misery makes Alcmena's nights, 
 and time hath no wings unto it.' And if the past be 
 of small account, how shall we prize the future ? 
 *To subsist in bones, and to be pyramidally extant is 
 a fallacy in duration.' Why should we take thought 
 of our reputation, when ' Charles v. cannot hope to 
 live within two Methuselahs of Hector.' Verily, ' 'tis 
 too late to be ambitious.' Nor is there good reason 
 to cling eagerly to naked nominations. 'To be 
 nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous 
 history. The Canaanitish woman lives more 
 happily without a name than Herodias with one. 
 And who had not rather have been the good thief 
 than Pilate ? ' And thus he comes to his conclusion 
 that monuments are nothing in the metaphysics of 
 true belief, that ' to live indeed is to be again our- 
 selves,' that ' 'tis all one to lie in St. Innocent's
 
 3o8 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 churchyard as in the sands of Egypt, Ready to be 
 anything, in the ecstasy of being ever, and as content 
 with six foot as the moles of Adrianus.' 
 
 To the same themes of life and death he returns in 
 his marvellous Letter to a Friend^ and his Christian 
 Morals^ show^ing himself serene alw^ays in the presence 
 of death, courageous always in the presence of life. 
 It is characteristic that, if the natural scepticism of his 
 mind persuaded him to justify himself as a Christian in 
 Religio Medici^ he had no doubts concerning Christian 
 morals. He was firmly established upon the rock of 
 duty. It was not enough for him to be blameless. 
 He aimed at the positive not the negative good. 
 Not content with avoiding evil, he must do well. 
 ' Be chaste in thy flaming days,' says he. 'The sick 
 man's sacrifice is but a lone oblation.' He will not 
 dally with excuses ; he will admit no temptations. 
 * Put no names or notions,' says he, ' upon authentic 
 virtues and vices. Think not that morality is ambu- 
 latory.' And thus at the end of it all he bids us 
 with Montaigne to reckon not upon long life. 
 ' Think every day the last,' says he, ' and live always 
 beyond thy account.' 
 
 As I have said, it is for his style and manner that 
 Sir Thomas Browne ever will be memorable. Above 
 all, he was not merely an inventor of harmonies ; he 
 1 was an inventor of the words of which these har- 
 ] monies are composed. He set himself down con- 
 1 sciously and deliberately to this work of invention, 
 l He was acutely conscious of the effect that he wished
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 309 
 
 to produce. With a sly stroke at his own temerity, 
 he anticipated the time when we shall ^ be fain to learn 
 Latin to understand English,' and by his single 
 endeavour he brought that time sensibly nearer. 
 Nor were his coinages natural to his temper. The 
 letters which he wrote to his children are models of 
 plain talk. He was not, like George Meredith, 
 made all of one piece. It was only when he took 
 up his pen to address the world that the artifice 
 grew upon him. Then, indeed, he ransacked Greek 
 and Latin to furnish him with unheard nouns and 
 strange adjectives. His writings sparkle with exotic 
 words, fashioned with daring, and yet in good 
 accord with their origin. And it was not mere 
 curiosity that prompted this research. His tissue of 
 several languages gave him words of many lengths, 
 and ensured the varying structure and cadence of 
 his sentences. Thus by the deft use of synonyms, 
 as, for instance, ' this encyclopaedia and round of 
 knowledge,' or a 'surd and earless generation,' he 
 could play upon our speech as upon a musical instru- 
 ment. Some of his new-minted coins remain in 
 circulation,^ others were never current save in his 
 
 ' Among his inventions which have survived are hallucina- 
 tion, literary, umbrella, medical, antediluvian, and many another 
 useful word. His failures have a foreign air, which suggests 
 that they were fit only for his own management : lapidipical, 
 coadjuvancy, pedestrious, extispicious, incremable, desumed, 
 impennous — all made in accordance with the rules, yet fit only 
 for one who, in Johnson's phrase, ' had very little fear of the 
 shame of falling.'
 
 3IO SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 own works. Yet he has enriched the dictionary with 
 more words of his own fashioning than any writer that 
 ever lived, and the general acceptance of his dis- 
 coveries proves their worth and justice. Nor, despite 
 his love of antiquity, was he deaf to the common 
 speech which he heard about him in Norfolk. Fresh 
 from inventing that strange polysyllable, 'deoppila- 
 tion,' he does not disdain to tell us that ' horses will 
 knable at the wall,' or that ' men practise to make 
 long-lasting snasts out of alumen pluynosum^ 
 
 Strange words were but the bricks of his archi- 
 tecture. It was in their bold use and disposition 
 that he showed his genius. I have already said 
 something of the music and colour of his prose, of 
 the constant metaphor, which gives a sort of solemn 
 gaiety to his science and his scepticism. He was 
 one who thought in images. A plain argument, 
 a clear statement of the case could not satisfy him. 
 He must trick his thought out in a thousand fancies 
 and illumine his debate with an infinite variety of 
 conceits. And so it is that, though he writes what 
 is called prose, he is always a poet, a poet working 
 in careless disregard of the rules, yet never failing 
 to achieve the effect at which he aimed, Walter 
 Pater complains that ' he stood in need of technique^ 
 of a formed taste in literature, of a literary archi- 
 tecture.' He finds in his books ' words, phrases, 
 constructions innumerable, which remind one how 
 much the work initiated in France by Madame de 
 Rambouillet was really needed.' Was ever criticism
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 311 
 
 more sadly irrelevant ? Happily for us, Browne found 
 to his hand a prose that was still plastic and sincere, 
 a prose not yet reduced to a standard by the apostles 
 of 'good sense.' The good sense came only too 
 soon, and made for ever impossible the sonority 
 of Urn-Burial. But to wish the author of Religio 
 Medici other than he was is to condemn him utterly. 
 A true romantic, he found a keener pleasure in orna- 
 ment than in structure ; him the exquisites who 
 haunted the salon of Madame de Rambouillet could 
 have taught nothing ; yet he discovered for himself a 
 method of thought and expression far indeed from 
 ' the reasonable transparency of Hooker,' a method 
 which, as Pater himself admits, attained in Hydrio- 
 taphia a classical amplitude and serenity. 
 
 Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Press
 
 MAY 2 5 1960 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
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