Chapter XIV: Preface: And Critical List of Authors From Select British Poets 365 (14)

‘This devil and I walked arm in arm
So far, ‘till he had brought me thither,
Where all the devils of hell together
Stood in array in such apparel,
As for that day there meetly fell.
Their horns well gilt, their claws full clean,
Their tails well kempt, and as I ween,
With sothery butter their bodies anointed;
I never saw devils so well appointed.
The master-devil sat in his jacket,
And all the souls were playing at racket.
None other rackets they had in hand,
Save every soul a good fire-brand;
Wherewith they play’d so prettily,
That Lucifer laugh’d merrily.
And all the residue of the fiends
Did laugh thereat full well like friends.
But of my friend I saw no whit,
Nor durst not ask for her as yet.
Anon all this rout was brought in silence,
And I by an usher brought to presence
Of Lucifer; then low, as well I could,
I kneeled, which he so well allow’d
That thus he beck’d, and by St. Antony
He smiled on me well-favour’dly,
Bending his brows as broad as barn-doors;
Shaking his ears as rugged as burrs;
Rolling his eyes as round as two bushels;
Flashing the fire out of his nostrils;
Gnashing his teeth so vain-gloriously,
That methought time to fall to flattery,
Wherewith I told, as I shall tell;
Oh pleasant picture! O prince of hell!’ &c.

The piece concludes with some good wholesome advice from the Pedlar, who here, as well as in the poem of the Excursion, performs the part of Old Morality; but he does not seem, as in the latter case, to be acquainted with the ‘mighty stream of Tendency.’ He is more ‘full of wise saws than modern instances;’ as prosing, but less paradoxical!

‘But where ye doubt, the truth not knowing,
Believing the best, good may be growing.
In judging the best, no harm at the least:
In judging the worst, no good at the best.
But best in these things it seemeth to me,
To make no judgment upon ye;
But as the church does judge or take them,
So do ye receive or forsake them.
And so be you sure you cannot err,
But may be a fruitful follower.’

Nothing can be clearer than this.

The RETURN FROM PARNASSUS was ‘first publicly acted,’ as the title-page imports, ‘by the Students in St. John’s College, in Cambridge.’ It is a very singular, a very ingenious, and as I think, a very interesting performance. It contains criticisms on contemporary authors, strictures on living manners, and the earliest denunciation (I know of) of the miseries and unprofitableness of a scholar’s life. The only part I object to in our author’s criticism is his abuse of Marston; and that, not because he says what is severe, but because he says what is not true of him. Anger may sharpen our insight into men’s defects; but nothing should make us blind to their excellences. The whole passage is, however, so curious in itself (like the Edinburgh Review lately published for the year 1755) that I cannot forbear quoting a great part of it. We find in the list of candidates for praise many a name—

‘That like a trumpet, makes the spirits dance:’

there are others that have long since sunk to the bottom of the stream of time, and no Humane Society of Antiquarians and Critics is ever likely to fish them up again.

‘Read the names,’ says Judicio.

_‘Ingenioso._ So I will, if thou wilt help me to censure them.

Edmund Spenser,
Henry Constable,
Thomas Lodge,
Samuel Daniel,
Thomas Watson,
Michael Drayton,
John Davis,
John Marston,
Kit. Marlowe,
William Shakespear;’ and one Churchyard [who is consigned to an
untimely grave.]

‘Good men and true, stand together, hear your censure: what’s thy
judgment of Spenser?

_Jud._ A sweeter swan than ever sung in Po;
A shriller nightingale than ever blest
The prouder groves of self-admiring Rome.
Blithe was each valley, and each shepherd proud,
While he did chaunt his rural minstrelsy.
Attentive was full many a dainty ear:
Nay, hearers hung upon his melting tongue,
While sweetly of his Faëry Queen he sung;
While to the water’s fall he tuned her fame,
And in each bark engrav’d Eliza’s name.
And yet for all, this unregarding soil
Unlaced the line of his desired life,
Denying maintenance for his dear relief;
Careless even to prevent his exequy,
Scarce deigning to shut up his dying eye.

_Ing._ Pity it is that gentler wits should breed,
Where thick-skinn’d chuffs laugh at a scholar’s need.
But softly may our honour’d ashes rest,
That lie by merry Chaucer’s noble chest.

But I pray thee proceed briefly in thy censure, that I may be proud of
myself, as in the first, so in the last, my censure may jump with
thine. Henry Constable, Samuel Daniel, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Watson.

_Jud._ Sweet Constable doth take the wondering ear,
And lays it up in willing prisonment:
Sweet honey-dropping Daniel doth wage
War with the proudest big Italian,
That melts his heart in sugar’d sonnetting.
Only let him more sparingly make use
Of others’ wit, and use his own the more,
That well may scorn base imitation.
For Lodge and Watson, men of some desert,
Yet subject to a critic’s marginal:
Lodge for his oar in every paper boat,
He that turns over Galen every day,
To sit and simper Euphues’ legacy.

_Ing._ Michael Drayton.

_Jud._ Drayton’s sweet Muse is like a sanguine dye,
Able to ravish the rash gazer’s eye.

_Ing._ However, he wants one true note of a poet of our times; and
that is this, he cannot swagger in a tavern, nor domineer in a
hot-house. John Davis—

_Jud._ Acute John Davis, I affect thy rhymes,
That jerk in hidden charms these looser times:
Thy plainer verse, thy unaffected vein,
Is graced with a fair and sweeping train.
John Marston—

_Jud._ What, Monsieur Kinsayder, put up man, put up for shame,
Methinks he is a ruffian in his style,
Withouten bands or garters’ ornament.
He quaffs a cup of Frenchman’s helicon,
Then royster doyster in his oily terms
Cuts, thrusts, and foins at whomsoe’er he meets,
And strews about Ram-alley meditations.
Tut, what cares he for modest close-couch’d terms,
Cleanly to gird our looser libertines?
Give him plain naked words stript from their shirts,
That might beseem plain-dealing Aretine.

_Ing._ Christopher Marlowe—

_Jud._ Marlowe was happy in his buskin’d Muse;
Alas! unhappy in his life and end.
Pity it is that wit so ill should dwell,
Wit lent from heaven, but vices sent from hell.

_Ing._ Our theatre hath lost, Pluto hath got
A tragic penman for a dreary plot.
Benjamin Jonson.

_Jud._ The wittiest fellow of a bricklayer in England.

_Ing._ A mere empirick, one that gets what he hath by observation, and
makes only nature privy to what he endites: so slow an inventor, that
he were better betake himself to his old trade of bricklaying, a blood
whoreson, as confident now in making of a book, as he was in times
past in laying of a brick.

William Shakespear.

_Jud._ Who loves Adonis’ love, or Lucrece’ rape,
His sweeter verse contains heart-robbing life,
Could but a graver subject him content,
Without love’s lazy foolish languishment.’

This passage might seem to ascertain the date of the piece, as it must be supposed to have been written before Shakespeare had become known as a dramatic poet. Yet he afterwards introduces Kempe the actor talking with Burbage, and saying, ‘Few (of the University) pen plays well: they smell too much of that writer Ovid, and of that writer Metamorphosis, and talk too much of Proserpina and Jupiter. Why here’s our fellow Shakespear puts them all down; aye, and Ben Jonson too.’—There is a good deal of discontent in all this; but the author complains of want of success in a former attempt, and appears not to have been on good terms with fortune. The miseries of a poet’s life form one of the favourite topics of The Return from Parnassus, and are treated, as if by some one who had ‘felt them knowingly.’ Thus Philomusus and Studioso chaunt their griefs in concert.

‘_Phil._ Bann’d be those hours, when ‘mongst the learned throng,
By Granta’s muddy bank we whilom sung.

_Stud._ Bann’d be that hill which learned wits adore,
Where erst we spent our stock and little store.

_Phil._ Bann’d be those musty mews, where we have spent
Our youthful days in paled languishment.

_Stud._ Bann’d be those cozening arts that wrought our woe,
Making us wandering pilgrims to and fro....

_Phil._ Curst be our thoughts whene’er they dream of hope;
Bann’d be those haps that henceforth flatter us,
When mischief dogs us still, and still for aye,
From our first birth until our burying day.
In our first gamesome age, our doting sires
Carked and car’d to have us lettered:
Sent us to Cambridge where our oil is spent:
Us our kind college from the teat did tent,
And forced us walk before we weaned were.
From that time since wandered have we still
In the wide world, urg’d by our forced will;
Nor ever have we happy fortune tried;
Then why should hope with our rent state abide?’

‘Out of our proof we speak.’—This sorry matter-of-fact retrospect of the evils of a college-life is very different from the hypothetical aspirations after its incommunicable blessings expressed by a living writer of true genius and a lover of true learning, who does not seem to have been cured of the old-fashioned prejudice in favour of classic lore, two hundred years after its vanity and vexation of spirit had been denounced in the Return from Parnassus:

‘I was not train’d in Academic bowers;
And to those learned streams I nothing owe,
Which copious from those fair twin founts do flow:
Mine have been any thing but studious hours.
Yet can I fancy, wandering ‘mid thy towers,
Myself a nursling, Granta, of thy lap.
My brow seems tightening with the Doctor’s cap;
And I walk gowned; feel unusual powers.
Strange forms of logic clothe my admiring speech;
Old Ramus’ ghost is busy at my brain,
And my skull teems with notions infinite:
Be still, ye reeds of Camus, while I teach
Truths which transcend the searching schoolmen’s vein;
And half had stagger’d that stout Stagyrite.[28]

Thus it is that our treasure always lies, where our knowledge does not; and fortunately enough perhaps; for the empire of imagination is wider and more prolific than that of experience.

The author of the old play, whoever he was, appears to have belonged to that class of mortals, who, as Fielding has it, feed upon their own hearts; who are egotists the wrong way, ‘made desperate by too quick a sense of constant infelicity;’ and have the same intense uneasy consciousness of their own defects that most men have self-complacency in their supposed advantages. Thus venting the dribblets of his spleen still upon himself, he prompts the Page to say, ‘A mere scholar is a creature that can strike fire in the morning at his tinder-box, put on a pair of lined slippers, sit reuming till dinner, and then go to his meat when the bell rings; one that hath a peculiar gift in a cough, and a licence to spit: or if you will have him defined by negatives, he is one that cannot make a good leg, one that cannot eat a mess of broth cleanly, one that cannot ride a horse without spur-galling, one that cannot salute a woman, and look on her directly, one that cannot——’

If I was not afraid of being tedious, I might here give the examination of Signor Immerito, a raw ignorant clown (whose father has purchased him a living) by Sir Roderick and the Recorder, which throws considerable light on the state of wit and humour, as well as of ecclesiastical patronage in the reign of Elizabeth. It is to be recollected, that one of the titles of this play is A Scourge for Simony.

‘_Rec._ For as much as nature has done her part in making you a
handsome likely man—in the next place some art is requisite for the
perfection of nature: for the trial whereof, at the request of my
worshipful friend, I will in some sort propound questions fit to be
resolved by one of your profession. Say what is a person, that was
never at the university?

_Im._ A person that was never in the university, is a living creature
that can eat a tythe pig.

_Rec._ Very well answered: but you should have added—and must be
officious to his patron. Write down that answer, to shew his learning
in logic.

_Sir Rad._ Yea, boy, write that down: very learnedly, in good faith. I
pray now let me ask you one question that I remember, whether is the
masculine gender or the feminine more worthy?

_Im._ The feminine, Sir.

_Sir Rad._ The right answer, the right answer. In good faith, I have
been of that mind always: write, boy, that, to shew he is a
grammarian.

_Rec._ What university are you of?

_Im._ Of none.

_Sir Rad._ He tells truth: to tell truth is an excellent virtue: boy,
make two heads, one for his learning, another for his virtues, and
refer this to the head of his virtues, not of his learning. Now,
Master Recorder, if it please you, I will examine him in an author,
that will sound him to the depth; a book of astronomy, otherwise
called an almanack.

_Rec._ Very good, Sir Roderick; it were to be wished there were no
other book of humanity; then there would not be such busy state-prying
fellows as are now a-days. Proceed, good Sir.

_Sir Rad._ What is the dominical letter?

_Im._ C, Sir, and please your worship.

_Sir Rad._ A very good answer, a very good answer, the very answer of
the book. Write down that, and refer it to his skill in philosophy.
How many days hath September?

_Im._ Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November, February
hath twenty-eight alone, and all the rest hath thirty and one.

_Sir Rad._ Very learnedly, in good faith: he hath also a smack in
poetry. Write down that, boy, to shew his learning in poetry. How many
miles from Waltham to London?

_Im._ Twelve, Sir.

_Sir Rad._ How many from New Market to Grantham?

_Im._ Ten, Sir.

_Sir Rad._ Write down that answer of his, to shew his learning in
arithmetic.

_Page._ He must needs be a good arithmetician that counted [out] money
so lately.

_Sir Rad._ When is the new moon?

_Im._ The last quarter, the 5th day, at two of the clock, and
thirty-eight minutes in the morning.

_Sir Rad._ How call you him that is weather-wise?

_Rec._ A good astronomer.

_Sir Rad._ Sirrah, boy, write him down for a good astronomer. What day
of the month lights the queen’s day on?

_Im._ The 17th of November.

_Sir Rad._ Boy, refer this to his virtues, and write him down a good
subject.

_Page._ Faith, he were an excellent subject for two or three good
wits: he would make a fine ass for an ape to ride upon.

_Sir Rad._ And these shall suffice for the parts of his learning. Now
it remains to try, whether you be a man of a good utterance, that is,
whether you can ask for the strayed heifer with the white face, as
also chide the boys in the belfry, and bid the sexton whip out the
dogs: let me hear your voice.

_Im._ If any man or woman—

_Sir Rad._ That’s too high.

_Im._ If any man or woman—

_Sir Rad._ That’s too low.

_Im._ If any man or woman can tell any tidings of a horse with four
feet, two ears, that did stray about the seventh hour, three minutes
in the forenoon, the fifth day—

_Sir Rad._ Boy, write him down for a good utterance. Master Recorder,
I think he hath been examined sufficiently.

_Rec._ Aye, Sir Roderick, ’tis so: we have tried him very thoroughly.

_Page._ Aye, we have taken an inventory of his good parts, and prized
them accordingly.

_Sir Rad._ Signior Immerito, forasmuch as we have made a double trial
of thee, the one of your learning, the other of your erudition; it is
expedient, also, in the next place, to give you a few exhortations,
considering the greatest clerks are not the wisest men: this is
therefore first to exhort you to abstain from controversies; secondly,
not to gird at men of worship, such as myself, but to use yourself
discreetly; thirdly, not to speak when any man or woman coughs: do so,
and in so doing, I will persevere to be your worshipful friend and
loving patron. Lead Immerito in to my son, and let him dispatch him,
and remember my tythes to be reserved, paying twelve-pence a-year.’

Gammer Gurton’s Needle[29] is a still older and more curious relic; and is a regular comedy in five acts, built on the circumstance of an old woman having lost her needle, which throws the whole village into confusion, till it is at last providentially found sticking in an unlucky part of Hodge’s dress. This must evidently have happened at a time when the manufacturers of Sheffield and Birmingham had not reached the height of perfection which they have at present done. Suppose that there is only one sewing-needle in a parish, that the owner, a diligent notable old dame, loses it, that a mischief-making wag sets it about that another old woman has stolen this valuable instrument of household industry, that strict search is made every where in-doors for it in vain, and that then the incensed parties sally forth to scold it out in the open air, till words end in blows, and the affair is referred over to the higher authorities, and we shall have an exact idea (though perhaps not so lively a one) of what passes in this authentic document between Gammer Gurton and her Gossip Dame Chat, Dickon the Bedlam (the causer of these harms), Hodge, Gammer Gurton’s servant, Tyb her maid, Cocke, her ‘prentice boy, Doll, Scapethrift, Master Baillie his master, Doctor Rat, the Curate, and Gib the Cat, who may be fairly reckoned one of the _dramatis personæ_, and performs no mean part.

‘Gog’s crosse, Gammer’ (says Cocke the boy), ‘if ye will laugh, look in but at the door, And see how Hodge lieth tumbling and tossing amidst the floor, Raking there, some fire to find among the ashes dead’ [That is, to light a candle to look for the lost needle], ‘Where there is not a spark so big as a pin’s head: At last in a dark corner two sparks he thought he sees, Which were indeed nought else but Gib our cat’s two eyes. Puff, quoth Hodge; thinking thereby to have fire without doubt; With that Gib shut her two eyes, and so the fire was out; And by and by them open’d, even as they were before, With that the sparks appeared, even as they had done of yore: And even as Hodge blew the fire, as he did think, Gib, as he felt the blast, strait way began to wink; Till Hodge fell of swearing, as came best to his turn; The fire was sure bewitch’d, and therefore would not burn. At last Gib up the stairs, among old posts and pins, And Hodge he hied him after, till broke were both his shins; Cursing and swearing oaths, were never of his making, That Gib would fire the house, if that she were not taken.’

Diccon the strolling beggar (or Bedlam, as he is called) steals a piece of bacon from behind Gammer Gurton’s door, and in answer to Hodge’s complaint of being dreadfully pinched for hunger, asks—

‘Why Hodge, was there none at home thy dinner for to set?

_Hodge._ Gog’s bread, Diccon, I came too late, was nothing there to
get:
Gib (a foul fiend might on her light) lick’d the milk-pan so clean:
See Diccon, ’twas not so well wash’d this seven year, I ween.
A pestilence light on all ill luck, I had thought yet for all this,
Of a morsel of bacon behind the door, at worst I should not miss:
But when I sought a slip to cut, as I was wont to do,
Gog’s souls, Diccon, Gib our cat had eat the bacon too.’

Hodge’s difficulty in making Diccon understand what the needle is which his dame has lost, shows his superior acquaintance with the conveniences and modes of abridging labour in more civilised life, of which the other had no idea.

‘_Hodge._ Has she not gone, trowest now thou, and lost her neele?’ [So
it is called here.]

‘_Dic._ (_says staring_). Her eel, Hodge! Who fished of late? That was
a dainty dish.’

_Hodge._ Tush, tush, her neele, her neele, her neele, man, ’tis
neither flesh nor fish:
A little thing with a hole in the end, as bright as any siller
[silver],
Small, long, sharp at the point, and strait as any pillar.

_Dic._ I know not what a devil thou meanest, thou bring’st me more in
doubt.

_Hodge._ (_answers with disdain_). Know’st not with what Tom tailor’s
man sits broching through a clout?
A neele, a neele, my Gammer’s neele is gone.’

The rogue Diccon threatens to shew Hodge a spirit; but though Hodge runs away through pure fear before it has time to appear, he does not fail, in the true spirit of credulity, to give a faithful and alarming account of what he did not see to his mistress, concluding with a hit at the Popish Clergy.

‘By the mass, I saw him of late call up a great black devil.
Oh, the knave cried, ho, ho, he roared and he thunder’d;
And ye had been there, I am sure you’d murrainly ha’ wonder’d.

_Gam._ Wast not thou afraid, Hodge, to see him in his place?

_Hodge_ (_lies and says_). No, and he had come to me, should have laid
him on his face,
Should have promised him.

_Gam._ But, Hodge, had he no horns to push?

_Hodge._ As long as your two arms. Saw ye never Friar Rush,
Painted on a cloth, with a fine long cow’s tail,
And crooked cloven feet, and many a hooked nail?
For all the world (if I should judge) should reckon him his brother:
Look even what face Friar Rush had, the devil had such another.’

He then adds (quite apocryphally) while he is in for it, that ‘the devil said plainly that Dame Chat had got the needle,’ which makes all the disturbance. The same play contains the well-known good old song, beginning and ending—

‘Back and side, go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold:
But belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.
I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good;
But sure I think, that I can drink
With him that wears a hood:
Though I go bare, take ye no care;
I nothing am a-cold:
I stuff my skin so full within
Of jolly good ale and old.
Back and side go bare, &c.

I love no roast, but a nut-brown toast,
And a crab laid in the fire:
A little bread shall do me stead,
Much bread I not desire.
No frost nor snow, no wind I trow,
Can hurt me if I wolde,
I am so wrapt and thoroughly lapt
In jolly good ale and old.
Back and side go bare, &c.

And Tib, my wife, that as her life
Loveth well good ale to seek;
Full oft drinks she, till ye may see
The tears run down her cheek:
Then doth she troll to me the bowl,
Even as a malt-worm sholde:
And saith, sweetheart, I took my part
Of this jolly good ale and old.
Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold:
But belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.

Such was the wit, such was the mirth of our ancestors:—homely, but hearty; coarse perhaps, but kindly. Let no man despise it, for ‘Evil to him that evil thinks.’ To think it poor and beneath notice because it is not just like ours, is the same sort of hypercriticism that was exercised by the person who refused to read some old books, because they were ‘such very poor spelling.’ The meagreness of their literary or their bodily fare was at least relished by themselves; and this is better than a surfeit or an indigestion. It is refreshing to look out of ourselves sometimes, not to be always holding the glass to our own peerless perfections: and as there is a dead wall which always intercepts the prospect of the future from our view (all that we can see beyond it is the heavens), it is as well to direct our eyes now and then without scorn to the page of history, and repulsed in our attempts to penetrate the secrets of the next six thousand years, not to turn our backs on old long syne!

The other detached plays of nearly the same period of which I proposed to give a cursory account, are Green’s Tu Quoque, Microcosmus, Lingua, The Merry Devil of Edmonton, The Pinner of Wakefield, and the Spanish Tragedy. Of the spurious plays attributed to Shakespear, and to be found in the editions of his works, such as the Yorkshire Tragedy, Sir John Oldcastle, The Widow of Watling Street, &c. I shall say nothing here, because I suppose the reader to be already acquainted with them, and because I have given a general account of them in another work.

Green’s Tu Quoque, by George Cook, a contemporary of Shakespear’s, is so called from Green the actor, who played the part of Bubble in this very lively and elegant comedy, with the cant phrase of _Tu Quoque_ perpetually in his mouth. The double change of situation between this fellow and his master, Staines, each passing from poverty to wealth, and from wealth to poverty again, is equally well imagined and executed. A gay and gallant spirit pervades the whole of it; wit, poetry, and morality, each take their turn in it. The characters of the two sisters, Joyce and Gertrude, are very skilfully contrasted, and the manner in which they mutually betray one another into the hands of their lovers, first in the spirit of mischief, and afterwards of retaliation, is quite dramatic. ‘If you cannot find in your heart to tell him you love him, I’ll sigh it out for you. Come, we little creatures must help one another,’ says the Madcap to the Madonna. As to style and matter, this play has a number of pigeon-holes full of wit and epigrams which are flying out in almost every sentence. I could give twenty pointed conceits, wrapped up in good set terms. Let one or two at the utmost suffice. A bad hand at cards is thus described. Will Rash says to Scattergood, ‘Thou hast a wild hand indeed: thy small cards shew like a troop of rebels, and the knave of clubs their chief leader.’ Bubble expresses a truism very gaily on finding himself equipped like a gallant—‘How apparel makes a man respected! The very children in the street do adore me.’ We find here the first mention of Sir John Suckling’s ‘melancholy hat,’ as a common article of wear—the same which he chose to clap on Ford’s head, and the first instance of the theatrical _double entendre_ which has been repeated ever since of an actor’s ironically abusing himself in his feigned character.

‘_Gervase._ They say Green’s a good clown.

_Bubble._ (_Played by Green, says_) Green! Green’s an ass.

_Scattergood._ Wherefore do you say so?

_Bub._ Indeed, I ha’ no reason; for they say he’s as like me as ever
he can look.’

The following description of the dissipation of a fortune in the hands of a spendthrift is ingenious and beautiful.

‘Know that which made him gracious in your eyes,
And gilded o’er his imperfections,
Is wasted and consumed even like ice,
Which by the vehemence of heat dissolves,
And glides to many rivers: so his wealth,
That felt a prodigal hand, hot in expence,
Melted within his gripe, and from his coffers
Ran like a violent stream to other men’s.’

Microcosmus, by Thomas Nabbes, is a dramatic mask or allegory, in which the Senses, the Soul, a Good and a Bad Genius, Conscience, &c. contend for the dominion of a man; and notwithstanding the awkwardness of the machinery, is not without poetry, elegance, and originality. Take the description of morning as a proof.

‘What do I see? Blush, grey-eyed morn and spread
Thy purple shame upon the mountain tops:
Or pale thyself with envy, since here comes
A brighter Venus than the dull-eyed star
That lights thee up.’

But what are we to think of a play, of which the following is a literal list of the _dramatis personæ_?

‘NATURE, a fair woman, in a white robe, wrought with birds, beasts,
fruits, flowers, clouds, stars, &c.; on her head a wreath of flowers
interwoven with stars.

JANUS, a man with two faces, signifying Providence, in a yellow robe,
wrought with snakes, as he is _deus anni_: on his head a crown. He
is Nature’s husband.

FIRE, a fierce-countenanced young man, in a flame-coloured robe,
wrought with gleams of fire; his hair red, and on his head a crown
of flames. His creature a Vulcan.

AIR, a young man of a variable countenance, in a blue robe; wrought
with divers-coloured clouds; his hair blue; and on his head a wreath
of clouds. His creature a giant or silvan.

WATER, a young woman in a sea-green robe, wrought with waves; her hair
a sea-green, and on her head a wreath of sedge bound about with
waves. Her creature a syren.

EARTH, a young woman of a sad countenance, in a grass-green robe,
wrought with sundry fruits and flowers; her hair black, and on her
head a chaplet of flowers. Her creature a pigmy.

LOVE, a Cupid in a flame-coloured habit; bow and quiver, a crown of
flaming hearts &c.

PHYSANDER, a perfect grown man, in a long white robe, and on his head
a garland of white lilies and roses mixed. His name ἀπο τῆς φύσεος
καὶ τῶ ἀνδρος.

CHOLER, a fencer; his clothes red.

BLOOD, a dancer, in a watchet-coloured suit.

PHLEGM, a physician, an old man; his doublet white and black; trunk
hose.

MELANCHOLY, a musician: his complexion, hair, and clothes, black; a
lute in his hand. He is likewise an amorist.

BELLANIMA, a lovely woman, in a long white robe; on her head a wreath
of white flowers. She signifies the soul.

BONUS GENIUS, an angel, in a like white robe; wings and wreath white.

MALUS GENIUS, a devil, in a black robe; hair, wreath, and wings,
black.

The Five Senses—SEEING, a chambermaid; HEARING, the usher of the hall;
SMELLING, a huntsman or gardener; TASTING, a cook; TOUCHING, a
gentleman usher.

SENSUALITY, a wanton woman, richly habited, but lasciviously dressed,
&c.

TEMPERANCE, a lovely woman, of a modest countenance; her garments
plain, but decent, &c.

A Philosopher,│all properly habited.
An Eremite, │
A Ploughman, │
A Shepherd, │

Three Furies as they are commonly fancied.

FEAR, the Crier of the Court, with a tipstaff.

CONSCIENCE, the Judge of the Court.

HOPE and DESPAIR, an advocate and a lawyer.

The other three Virtues, as they are frequently expressed by painters.

The Heroes, in bright antique habits, &c.

The front of a workmanship, proper to the fancy of the rest, adorned
with brass figures of angels and devils, with several inscriptions;
the title is an escutcheon, supported by an Angel and a Devil.
Within the arch a continuing perspective of ruins, which is drawn
still before the other scenes, whilst they are varied.

THE INSCRIPTIONS.

_Hinc gloria._ _Hinc pœna._
_Appetitus boni._ _Appetitus Mali._’

Antony Brewer’s Lingua (1607) is of the same cast. It is much longer as well as older than Microcosmus. It is also an allegory celebrating the contention of the Five Senses for the crown of superiority, and the pretensions of Lingua or the Tongue to be admitted as a sixth sense. It is full of child’s play, and old wives’ tales; but is not unadorned with passages displaying strong good sense, and powers of fantastic description.

Mr. Lamb has quoted two passages from it—the admirable enumeration of the characteristics of different languages, ‘The Chaldee wise, the Arabian physical,’ &c.; and the striking description of the ornaments and uses of tragedy and comedy. The dialogue between Memory, Common Sense, and Phantastes, is curious and worth considering.

‘_Common Sense._ Why, good father, why are you so late now-a-days?

_Memory._ Thus ’tis; the most customers I remember myself to have,
are, as your lordship knows, scholars, and now-a-days the most of them
are become critics, bringing me home such paltry things to lay up for
them, that I can hardly find them again.

_Phantastes._ Jupiter, Jupiter, I had thought these flies had bit none
but myself: do critics tickle you, i’faith?

_Mem._ Very familiarly: for they must know of me, forsooth, how every
idle word is written in all the musty moth-eaten manuscripts, kept in
all the old libraries in every city, betwixt England and Peru.

_Common Sense._ Indeed I have noted these times to affect antiquities
more than is requisite.

_Mem._ I remember in the age of Assaracus and Ninus, and about the
wars of Thebes, and the siege of Troy, there were few things committed
to my charge, but those that were well worthy the preserving; but now
every trifle must be wrapp’d up in the volume of eternity. A rich
pudding-wife, or a cobbler, cannot die but I must immortalize his name
with an epitaph; a dog cannot water in a nobleman’s shoe, but it must
be sprinkled into the chronicles; so that I never could remember my
treasure more full, and never emptier of honourable and true heroical
actions.’

And again Mendacio puts in his claim with great success to many works of uncommon merit.

‘_Appe._ Thou, boy! how is this possible? Thou art but a child, and
there were sects of philosophy before thou wert born.

_Men._ Appetitus, thou mistakest me; I tell thee three thousand years
ago was Mendacio born in Greece, nursed in Crete, and ever since
honoured every where: I’ll be sworn I held old Homer’s pen when he
writ his Iliads and his Odysseys.

_Appe._ Thou hadst need, for I hear say he was blind.

_Men._ I helped Herodotus to pen some part of his Muses; lent Pliny
ink to write his history; rounded Rabelais in the ear when he
historified Pantagruel; as for Lucian, I was his genius; O, those two
books _de Vera Historia_, however they go under his name, I’ll be
sworn I writ them every tittle.

_Appe._ Sure as I am hungry, thou’lt have it for lying. But hast thou
rusted this latter time for want of exercise?

_Men._ Nothing less. I must confess I would fain have jogged Stow and
great Hollingshed on their elbows, when they were about their
chronicles; and, as I remember, Sir John Mandevill’s travels, and a
great part of the Decad’s, were of my doing: but for the Mirror of
Knighthood, Bevis of Southampton, Palmerin of England, Amadis of Gaul,
Huon de Bourdeaux, Sir Guy of Warwick, Martin Marprelate, Robin Hood,
Garagantua, Gerilion, and a thousand such exquisite monuments as
these, no doubt but they breathe in my breath up and down.’

The Merry Devil of Edmonton which has been sometimes attributed to Shakespear, is assuredly not unworthy of him. It is more likely, however, both from the style and subject-matter to have been Heywood’s than any other person’s. It is perhaps the first example of sentimental comedy we have—romantic, sweet, tender, it expresses the feelings of honour, of love, and friendship in their utmost delicacy, enthusiasm, and purity. The names alone, Raymond Mounchersey, Frank Jerningham, Clare, Millisent, ‘sound silver sweet like lovers’ tongues by night.’ It sets out with a sort of story of Doctor Faustus, but this is dropt as jarring on the tender chords of the rest of the piece. The wit of the Merry Devil of Edmonton is as genuine as the poetry. Mine Host of the George is as good a fellow as Boniface, and the deer-stealing scenes in the forest between him, Sir John the curate, Smug the smith, and Banks the miller, are ‘very honest knaveries,’ as Sir Hugh Evans has it. The air is delicate, and the deer, shot by their cross-bows, fall without a groan! Frank Jerningham says to Clare,

‘The way lies right: hark, the clock strikes at Enfield: what’s the
hour?

_Young Clare._ Ten, the bell says.

_Jern._ It was but eight when we set out from Cheston: Sir John and
his sexton are at their ale to-night, the clock runs at random.

_Y. Clare._ Nay, as sure as thou livest, the villainous vicar is
abroad in the chase. The priest steals more venison than half the
country.

_Jern._ Millisent, how dost thou?

_Mil._ Sir, very well.
I would to God we were at Brian’s lodge.’

A volume might be written to prove this last answer Shakespear’s, in which the tongue says one thing in one line, and the heart contradicts it in the next; but there were other writers living in the time of Shakespear, who knew these subtle windings of the passions besides him,—though none so well as he!

The Pinner of Wakefield, or George a Greene, is a pleasant interlude, of an early date, and the author unknown, in which kings and coblers, outlaws and maid Marians are ‘hail-fellow well met,’ and in which the features of the antique world are made smiling and amiable enough. Jenkin, George a Greene’s servant, is a notorious wag. Here is one of his pretended pranks.

_Jenkin._ This fellow comes to me,
And takes me by the bosom: you slave,
Said he, hold my horse, and look
He takes no cold in his feet.
No, marry shall he, Sir, quoth I,
I’ll lay my cloak underneath him.
I took my cloak, spread it all along,
And his horse on the midst of it.

_George._ Thou clown, did’st thou set his horse upon thy cloak?

_Jenk._ Aye, but mark how I served him.
Madge and he was no sooner gone down into the ditch
But I plucked out my knife, cut four holes in my cloak, and made his
horse stand on the bare ground.’

The first part of Jeronymo is an indifferent piece of work, and the second, or the Spanish Tragedy by Kyd, is like unto it, except the interpolations idly said to have been added by Ben Jonson, relating to Jeronymo’s phrensy ‘which have all the melancholy madness of poetry, if not the inspiration.’

LECTURE VI
ON MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, F. BEAUMONT, P. FLETCHER, DRAYTON, DANIEL, &C.
SIR P. SIDNEY’S ARCADIA, AND OTHER WORKS.

I shall, in the present Lecture, attempt to give some idea of the lighter productions of the Muse in the period before us, in order to shew that grace and elegance are not confined entirely to later times, and shall conclude with some remarks on Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia.

I have already made mention of the lyrical pieces of Beaumont and Fletcher. It appears from his poems, that many of these were composed by Francis Beaumont, particularly the very beautiful ones in the tragedy of the False One, the Praise of Love in that of Valentinian, and another in the Nice Valour or Passionate Madman, an Address to Melancholy, which is the perfection of this kind of writing.

‘Hence, all you vain delights;
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly:
There’s nought in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see ‘t,
But only melancholy,
Oh, sweetest melancholy.
Welcome folded arms and fixed eyes,
A sight that piercing mortifies;
A look that’s fasten’d to the ground,
A tongue chain’d up without a sound;
Fountain heads, and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves:
Moon-light walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly hous’d, save bats and owls;
A midnight bell, a passing groan,
These are the sounds we feed upon:
Then stretch our bones in a still, gloomy valley;
Nothing so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.’

It has been supposed (and not without every appearance of good reason) that this pensive strain, ‘most musical, most melancholy,’ gave the first suggestion of the spirited introduction to Milton’s Il Penseroso.

‘Hence, vain deluding joys,
The brood of folly without father bred!...
But hail, thou Goddess, sage and holy,
Hail, divinest melancholy,
Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight, &c.’

The same writer thus moralises on the life of man, in a set of similes, as apposite as they are light and elegant.

‘Like to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are,
Or like the fresh spring’s gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
Even such is man, whose borrow’d light
Is straight call’d in and paid to night:—
The wind blows out, the bubble dies;
The spring intomb’d in autumn lies;
The dew’s dried up, the star is shot,
The flight is past, and man forgot.’

‘The silver foam which the wind severs from the parted wave’ is not more light or sparkling than this: the dove’s downy pinion is not softer and smoother than the verse. We are too ready to conceive of the poetry of that day, as altogether old-fashioned, meagre, squalid, deformed, withered and wild in its attire, or as a sort of uncouth monster, like ‘grim-visaged comfortless despair,’ mounted on a lumbering, unmanageable Pegasus, dragon-winged, and leaden-hoofed; but it as often wore a sylph-like form with Attic vest, with faery feet, and the butterfly’s gaudy wings. The bees were said to have come, and built their hive in the mouth of Plato when a child; and the fable might be transferred to the sweeter accents of Beaumont and Fletcher! Beaumont died at the age of five and twenty. One of these writers makes Bellario the Page say to Philaster, who threatens to take his life—

——‘’Tis not a life;
’Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.’

But here was youth, genius, aspiring hope, growing reputation, cut off like a flower in its summer-pride, or like ‘the lily on its stalk green,’ which makes us repine at fortune and almost at nature, that seem to set so little store by their greatest favourites. The life of poets is or ought to be (judging of it from the light it lends to ours) a golden dream, full of brightness and sweetness, ‘lapt in Elysium;’ and it gives one a reluctant pang to see the splendid vision, by which they are attended in their path of glory, fade like a vapour, and their sacred heads laid low in ashes, before the sand of common mortals has run out. Fletcher too was prematurely cut off by the plague. Raphael died at four and thirty, and Correggio at forty. Who can help wishing that they had lived to the age of Michael Angelo and Titian? Shakespear might have lived another half-century, enjoying fame and repose, ‘now that his task was smoothly done,’ listening to the music of his name, and better still, of his own thoughts, without minding Rymer’s abuse of ‘the tragedies of the last age.’ His native stream of Avon would then have flowed with softer murmurs to the ear, and his pleasant birthplace, Stratford, would in that case have worn even a more gladsome smile than it does, to the eye of fancy!—Poets however have a sort of privileged after-life, which does not fall to the common lot: the rich and mighty are nothing but while they are living: their power ceases with them; but ‘the sons of memory, the great heirs of fame’ leave the best part of what was theirs, their thoughts, their verse, what they most delighted and prided themselves in, behind them—imperishable, incorruptible, immortal!—Sir John Beaumont (the brother of our dramatist) whose loyal and religious effusions are not worth much, very feelingly laments his brother’s untimely death in an epitaph upon him.

‘Thou should’st have followed me, but death to blame
Miscounted years, and measured age by fame:
So dearly hast thou bought thy precious lines,
Their praise grew swiftly; so thy life declines.
Thy Muse, the hearer’s Queen, the reader’s Love,
All ears, all hearts (but Death’s) could please and move.’

Beaumont’s verses addressed to Ben Jonson at the Mermaid, are a pleasing record of their friendship, and of the way in which they ‘fleeted the time carelessly’ as well as studiously ‘in the golden age’ of our poetry.

[_Lines sent from the Country with two unfinished Comedies, which
deferred their merry meetings at the Mermaid._]

‘The sun which doth the greatest comfort bring
To absent friends, because the self-same thing
They know they see, however absent is,
(Here our best hay-maker, forgive me this,
It is our country style) in this warm shine
I lie and dream of your full Mermaid wine:
Oh, we have water mixt with claret lees,
Drink apt to bring in drier heresies
Than here, good only for the sonnet’s strain,
With fustian metaphors to stuff the brain:—
Think with one draught a man’s invention fades,
Two cups had quite spoil’d Homer’s Iliads.
’Tis liquor that will find out Sutclift’s wit,
Like where he will, and make him write worse yet:
Fill’d with such moisture, in most grievous qualms[30]
Did Robert Wisdom write his singing psalms:
And so must I do this: and yet I think
It is a potion sent us down to drink
By special providence, keep us from fights,
Make us not laugh when we make legs to knights;
’Tis this that keeps our minds fit for our states,
A medicine to obey our magistrates.

· · · · ·

Methinks the little wit I had is lost
Since I saw you, for wit is like a rest
Held up at tennis, which men do the best
With the best gamesters. What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! Hard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtile flame,
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolv’d to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life; then when there hath been thrown
Wit able enough to justify the town
For three days past, wit that might warrant be
For the whole city to talk foolishly,
Till that were cancell’d; and when that was gone,
We left an air behind us, which alone
Was able to make the two next companies
Right witty, though but downright fools more wise.’

I shall not, in this place repeat Marlowe’s celebrated song, ‘Come live with me and be my love,’ nor Sir Walter Raleigh’s no less celebrated answer to it (they may both be found in Walton’s Complete Angler, accompanied with scenery and remarks worthy of them); but I may quote as a specimen of the high and romantic tone in which the poets of this age thought and spoke of each other the ‘Vision upon the conceipt of the Fairy Queen,’ understood to be by Sir Walter Raleigh.

‘Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay,
Within that temple, where the vestal flame
Was wont to burn, and passing by that way
To see that buried dust of living fame,
Whose tomb fair Love, and fairer Virtue kept.
All suddenly I saw the Faery Queen:
At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept;
And from thenceforth those Graces were not seen,
For they this queen attended, in whose stead
Oblivion laid him down on Laura’s hearse.
Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed,
And groans of buried ghosts the Heav’ns did pierce,
Where Homer’s spright did tremble all for grief,
And curst th’ access of that celestial thief.’

A higher strain of compliment cannot well be conceived than this, which raises your idea even of that which it disparages in the comparison, and makes you feel that nothing could have torn the writer from his idolatrous enthusiasm for Petrarch and his Laura’s tomb, but Spenser’s magic verses and diviner Faery Queen—the one lifted above mortality, the other brought from the skies!

The name of Drummond of Hawthornden is in a manner entwined in cypher with that of Ben Jonson. He has not done himself or Jonson any credit by his account of their conversation; but his Sonnets are in the highest degree elegant, harmonious, and striking. It appears to me that they are more in the manner of Petrarch than any others that we have, with a certain intenseness in the sentiment, an occasional glitter of thought, and uniform terseness of expression. The reader may judge for himself from a few examples.

‘I know that all beneath the moon decays,
And what by mortals in this world is wrought
In time’s great periods shall return to nought;
That fairest states have fatal nights and days.
I know that all the Muse’s heavenly lays,
With toil of spright which are so dearly bought,
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought;
That there is nothing lighter than vain praise.
I know frail beauty’s like the purple flow’r,
To which one morn oft birth and death affords:
That love a jarring is of minds’ accords,
Where sense and will bring under reason’s pow’r.
Know what I list, this all cannot me move,
But that, alas! I both must write and love.’

Another—

‘Fair moon, who with thy cold and silver shine
Mak’st sweet the horror of the dreadful night,
Delighting the weak eye with smiles divine,
Which Phœbus dazzles with his too much light;
Bright queen of the first Heav’n, if in thy shrine
By turning oft, and Heav’n’s eternal might,
Thou hast not yet that once sweet fire of thine,
Endymion, forgot, and lovers’ plight:
If cause like thine may pity breed in thee,
And pity somewhat else to it obtain,
Since thou hast power of dreams as well as he
That holds the golden rod and mortal chain;
Now while she sleeps,[31] in doleful guise her show,
These tears, and the black map of all my woe.’

This is the eleventh sonnet: the twelfth is full of vile and forced conceits, without any sentiment at all; such as calling the Sun ‘the Goldsmith of the stars,’ ‘the enameller of the moon,’ and ‘the Apelles of the flowers.’ This is as bad as Cowley or Sir Philip Sidney. Here is one that is worth a million of such quaint devices.

‘_To the Nightingale._

Dear chorister, who from these shadows sends,[32]
Ere that the blushing morn dare show her light,
Such sad lamenting strains, that night attends
(Become all ear[33]) stars stay to hear thy plight.
If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends,
Who ne’er (not in a dream) did taste delight,
May thee importune who like case pretends,
And seem’st to joy in woe, in woe’s despite:
Tell me (so may thou milder fortune try,
And long, long sing!) for what thou thus complains,[32]
Since winter’s gone, and sun in dappled sky
Enamour’d smiles on woods and flow’ry plains?
The bird, as if my questions did her move,
With trembling wings sigh’d forth, ‘I love, I love.’

Or if a mixture of the Della Cruscan style be allowed to enshrine the true spirit of love and poetry, we have it in the following address to the river Forth, on which his mistress had embarked.

‘Slide soft, fair Forth, and make a chrystal plain,
Cut your white locks, and on your foamy face
Let not a wrinkle be, when you embrace
The boat that earth’s perfections doth contain.
Winds wonder, and through wondering hold your peace,
Or if that you your hearts cannot restrain
From sending sighs, feeling a lover’s case,
Sigh, and in her fair hair yourselves enchain.
Or take these sighs, which absence makes arise
From my oppressed breast, and fill the sails,
Or some sweet breath new brought from Paradise.
The floods do smile, love o’er the winds prevails,
And yet huge waves arise; the cause is this,
The ocean strives with Forth the boat to kiss.’

This to the English reader will express the very soul of Petrarch, the molten breath of sentiment converted into the glassy essence of a set of glittering but still graceful conceits.