we must search and find. Persuade.. thou canst persuade, Essex! say anything; do anything. We must talk gold and give iron. Dost understand me?" The earl did kiss the jewels upon the dread fingers, for only the last joint of each is visible: and surely no mortal was ever so fool-hardy as to take such a monstrous liberty as touching it, except in spirit! On the next day there did arrive many fugitives from Ireland; and among the rest was Master Edmund Spenser, known even in those parts for his rich vein of poetry, in which he is declared by our best judges to excell the noblest of the ancients, and to leave all the moderns at his feet. Whether he notified his arrival unto the earl, or whether fame brought the notice thereof unto his lordship, Jacob knoweth not. But early in the morning did the earl send for Jacob, and say unto him, "Eldridge! thou must write fairly and clearly out, and in somewhat large letters, and in lines somewhat wide apart, all that thou hearest of the conversation I shall hold with a gentleman from Ireland. Take this gilt and illumined vellum, and albeit the civet make thee sick fifty times, write upon it all that passes! Come not out of the closet until the gentleman hath gone homeward. The queen requireth much exactness; and this is equally a man of genius, a man of business, and a man of worth. I expect from him not only what is true, but what is the most important and necessary to understand rightly and completely; and nobody in existence is more capable of giving me both information and advice. Perhaps if he thought another were within hearing he would be offended or overcautious. His delicacy and mine are warranted safe and sound by the observance of those commands which I am delivering unto thee." It happened that no information was given in this conference relating to the movements or designs of the rebels. So that Master Jacob Eldridge was left possessor of the costly vellum, which, now Master Spenser is departed this life, I keep as a memorial of him, albeit oftener than once I have taken pounce-box and pen-knife in hand, in order to make it a fit and proper vehicle for my own very best writing. But I pretermitted it, finding that my hand is no longer the hand it was, or rather that the breed of geese is very much degenerated, and that their quills, like men's manners, are grown softer and flaccider. Where it will end God only knows; I shall not live to see it. Alas, poor Jacob Eldridge! he little thought that within twelve months his glorious master, and the scarcely less glorious poet, would be no more! In the third week of the following year was Master Edmund buried at the charges of the earl; and within these few days hath this lofty nobleman bowed his head under the axe of God's displeasure; such being our gracious queen's. My kinsman Jacob sent unto me by the Alcester drover, old Clem Fisher, this among other papers, fearing the wrath of that offended highness, which allowed not her own sweet disposition to question or thwart the will divine. Jacob did likewise tell me in his letter, that he was sure I should be happy to hear the success of William Shakspeare, our townsman. And in truth right glad was I to hear of it, being a principal in bringing it about, as those several sheets will show which have the broken tile laid upon them to keep them down compactly. Jacob's words are these: "Now I speak of poets, you will be in a maze at hearing that our townsman hath written a power of matter for the playhouse. Neither he nor the booksellers think it quite good enough to print: but I do assure you, on the faith of a Christian, it is not bad; and there is rare fun in the last thing of his about Venus, where a Jew, one Shiloh, is choused out of his money and his revenge. However, the best critics and the greatest lords find fault, and very justly, in the words, "Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?' "Surely this is very unchristianlike. Nay, for supposition sake, suppose it to be true, was it his business to tell the people so? Was it his duty to ring the crier's bell and cry to them, the sorry Jews are quite as much men as you are? The church, luckily, has let him alone for the present; and the queen winks upon it. The best defence he can make for himself is, that it comes from the mouth of a Jew, who says many other things as abominable. Master Greene may over-rate him; but Master Greene declares that if William goes on improving and taking his advice, it will be desperate hard work in another seven years to find so many as half-a-dozen chaps equal to him within the liberties. "Master Greene and myself took him with us to see the burial of Master Edmund Spenser in Westminster Abbey, on the 19th of January last. The halberdmen pushed us back as having no business there. Master Greene told them he belonged to the queen's company of players. William Shakspeare could have said the same, but did not. And I, fearing that Master Greene and he might be halberded back into the crowd, showed the badge of the Earl of Essex. Whereupon did the serjeant ground his halberd, and say unto me, "That badge commands admittance everywhere: your folk likewise may come in.' "Why! would not you, if you were in my place?' " He replied, "I am an half inclined to do worse; to bring him before the audience some spare hour.' "At the close of the burial-service all the poets of the age threw their pens into the grave, together with the pieces they had composed in praise or lamentation of the deceased. William Shakspeare was the only poet who abstained from throwing in either pen or poem; at which no one marvelled, he being of low estate, and the others not having yet taken him by the hand. Yet many authors recognised him, not indeed as author, but as player; and one, civiler than the rest, came up unto him triumphantly, his eyes sparkling with glee and satisfaction, and said consolatorily, "In due time, my honest friend, you may be admitted to do as much for one of us.' "After such encouragement,' replied our townsman, I am bound in duty to give you the preference, should I indeed be worthy.' "This was the only smart thing he uttered all the remainder of the day; during the whole of it he appeared to be half lost, I know not whether in melancholy or in meditation, and soon left us." Here endeth all that my kinsman Jacob wrote about William Shakspeare, saving and excepting his excuse for having written so much. The rest of his letter was on a matter of wider and weightier import, namely, on the price of Cotteswolde cheese at Evesham fair. And yet, although ingenious men be not among the necessaries of life, there is something in them that makes us curious in regard to their goings and doings. It were to be wished that some of them had attempted to be better accountants; and others do appear to have laid aside the copybook full early in the day. Nevertheless, they have their uses and their merits. Master Eldridge's letter is the wrapper of much wholesome food for contemplation. Although the decease (within so brief a period) of such a poet as Master Spenser, and such a patron as the earl, be unto us appalling, we laud and magnify the great Disposer of events, no less for his goodness in raising the humble than for his power in extinguishing the great. And peradventure ye, my heirs and descendants, who shall read with due attention what my pen now writeth, will say with the royal Psalmist, that it inditeth of a good matter, when it showeth unto you that, whereas it pleased the queen's highness to send a great lord before the judgment-seat of Heaven, having fitted him by means of such earthly instruments as princes in like cases do usually employ, and deeming (no doubt) in her princely heart, that by such shrewd tonsure his head would be best fitted for a crown of glory, and thus doing all that she did out of the purest and most considerate love for him. . it likewise hath pleased her highness to use her right hand as freely as her left, and to raise up a second burgess of our town to be one of her company of players. And ye also, by industry and loyalty, may cheerfully hope for promotion in your callings, and come up (some of you) as nearly to him in the presence of royalty, as he cometh up (far off indeed at present) to the great and wonderful poet, who lies dead among more spices than any phoenix, and more quills than any porcupine. If this thought may not prick and incitate you, little is to be hoped from any gentle admonition or any earnest expostulation of EXAMINATION, &c. &c. ABOUT one hour before noontide, the youth | awhile, and discomfited; then, turning toward William Shakspeare, accused of deer-stealing, and Sir Thomas, and looking and speaking as one apprehended for that offence, was brought into submiss and contrite, he thus appealed unto the great hall at Charlecote, where, having made him : his obeisance, it was most graciously permitted him to stand. The worshipful Sir Thomas Lucy, Knight, seeing him right opposite, on the farther side of the long table, and fearing no disadvantage, did frown upon him with great dignity; then, deigning ne'er a word to the culprit, turned he his face toward his chaplain, Sir Silas Gough, who stood beside him, and said unto him most courteously, and unlike unto one who in his own right commandeth, "Worshipful sir! were there any signs of venison on my mouth, Master Silas could not for his life cry out upon it, nor help kissing it as 'twere a wench's." Sir Thomas looked upon him with most lordly gravity and wisdom, and, said unto him in a voice that might have come from the bench, "Youth! thou speakest irreverently;" and then unto Master Silas, "Silas! to the business on hand. Taste the fat upon yon boor's table, which the constable hath brought hither, good And declare upon oath, being "Stand out of the way! What are those two Master Silas ! varlets bringing into the room?" "The table, sir,” replied Master Silas, "upon the which the consumption of the venison was perpetrated." The youth, William Shakspeare, did thereupon pray and beseech his lordship most fervently, in this guise: "O sir! do not let him turn the tables against me, who am only a simple stripling, and he an old cogger." sworn in my presence, first, whether said fat do proceed of venison; secondly, whether said venison be of buck or doe." Whereupon the reverend Sir Silas did go incontinently, and did bend forward his head, shoulders, and body, and did severally taste four white solid substances upon an oaken board; said board being about two yards long, and one yard four inches wide; found in, and brought thither from, the tenement or messuage of Andrew Haggit, But Master Silas did bite his nether lip, and who hath absconded. Of these four white solid did cry aloud, substances, two were somewhat larger than a groat, and thicker; one about the size of King Henry the Eighth's shilling, when our late sovran lord of blessed memory was toward the lustiest; and the other, that is to say the middlemost, did resemble in some sort a mushroom, not over fresh, turned upward on its stalk. "And what sayest thou, Master Silas?" quoth the knight. In reply whereunto Sir Silas thus averred: "Venison! o' my conscience! Buck! or burn me alive! The three splashes in the circumference are verily and indeed venison; buck, moreover, and Charlecote buck, upon my oath!" Then carefully tasting the protuberance in the centre, he spat it out, crying, "Pho! pho! villain! villain!" and shaking his fist at the culprit. Whereat the said culprit smiled and winked, and said off-hand, "Save thy spittle, Master Silas ! It would supply a gaudy mess to the hungriest litter; but it would turn them from whelps into wolvets. "Tis pity to throw the best of thee away. Nothing comes out of thy mouth that is not savory and solid, bating thy wit, thy sermons, and thy promises." It was my duty to write down the very words, irreverent as they are, being so commanded. More of the like, it is to be feared, would have ensued, but that Sir Thomas did check him, saying shrewdly, Young man! I perceive that if I do not stop thee in thy courses, thy name, being involved in thy company's, may one day or other reach across the county; and folks may handle it and turn it about, as it deserveth, from Coleshill to Nuneaton, from Bromwicham to Brownsover. And who knoweth but that, years after thy death, the very house wherein thou wert born may be pointed at, and commented on, by knots of people, gentle and simple! What a shame for an honest man's son! Thanks to me, who consider of measures to prevent it! Posterity shall laud and glorify me for plucking thee clean out of her head, and for picking up timely a ticklish skittle, that might overthrow with it a power of others just as light. I will rid the hundred of thee, with God's blessing! nay, the whole shire. We will have none such in our county: we justices are agreed upon it, and we will keep our word now and for evermore. Woe betide any that resembles thee in any part of him!" Whereunto Sir Silas added, "We will dog him, and worry him, and haunt him, and bedevil him; and if ever he hear a comfortable word, it shall be in a language very different from his own." "As different as thine is from a Christian's," said the youth. "Boy! thou art slow of apprehension," said Sir Thomas, with much gravity; and, taking up the cue, did rejoin: "Master Silas would impress upon thy ductile and tender mind the danger of evil doing; that we, in other words, that justice, is resolved to follow him up, even beyond his country, where he shall hear nothing better than the Italian or the Spanish, or the black language, or the language of Turk or Troubadour, or Tartar or Mongle. And forsooth, for this gentle and indirect reproof, a gentleman in priest's orders is told by a stripling that he lacketh Christianity! Who then shall give it ?" Shakspeare. Who, indeed? when the founder of the feast leaveth an invited guest so empty! Yea, sir, the guest was invited, and the board was spread. The fruits that lay upon it be there still, and fresh as ever; and the bread of life in those capacious canisters is unconsumed and unbroken. Sir Silas (aside). The knave maketh me hungry with his mischievous similitudes. Sir Thomas. Thou hast aggravated thy offence, Will Shakspeare! Irreverent caitiff! is this a discourse for my chaplain and clerk? Can he or the worthy scribe Ephraim (his worship was pleased to call me worthy) write down such words as those, about litter and wolvets, for the perusal and meditation of the grand jury? If the whole corporation of Stratford had not unanimously given it against thee, still his tongue would catch thee, as the evet catcheth a gnat. Know, sirrah, the reverend Sir Silas, albeit ill appointed for riding, and not over-fond of it, goeth to every house wherein is a venison feast for thirty miles round. Not a buck's hoof on any stable-door but it awakeneth his recollections like a red letter. This wholesome reproof did bring the youth back again to his right senses; and then said he, with contrition, and with a wisdom beyond his years, and little to be expected from one who had spoken just before so unadvisedly and rashly, "Well do I know it, your worship! And verily do I believe that a bone of one, being shovelled among the soil upon his coffin, would forthwith quicken him. Sooth to say, there is ne'er a buckhound in the county but he treateth him as a godchild, patting him on the head, soothing his velvety ear between thumb and fore-finger, ejecting tick from tenement, calling him fine fellow, noble lad, and giving him his blessing, as one dearer to him than a king's death to a debtor,+ or a bastard to a dad of eighty. This is the only kindness I ever heard of Master Silas toward his fellow creatures. Never hold me unjust, Sir Knight, to Master Silas. Could I learn other good of him, I would freely say it; for we do good by speaking it, and none is easier. Even bad men are not bad men while they praise the just. Their first step backward is more troublesome and wrenching to them than the first forward.” "In God's name, where did he gather all this?" whispered his worship to the chaplain, by whose side I was sitting. 'Why, he talks like a man of forty-seven, or more!" I doubt his sincerity, sir!" replied the chaplain. "His words are fairer now "Devil choke him for them!" interjected he in an undervoice. and almost book-worthy; but out of place. What the scurvy cur yelped against me, I forgive him as a Christian. Murrain upon such varlet vermin! that dignities have come to be reviled; the other parts of the Gospel were broken long before; this was left us; and now this likewise is to be kicked out of doors, amid the mutterings of such mooncalves as him yonder." "Too true, Silas!" said the knight, sighing deeply. Things are not as they were in our It is but of late years * Quicken, bring to life. † Debtors were often let out of prison at the coronation of a new king, but creditors never paid by him. glorious wars of York and Lancaster. The knaves | inkling of the cause, or not, he rubbed his right were thinned then; two or three crops a year hand along his face and lips, and, looking upon of that rank squitch-grass which it has become the it, cried aloud, fashion of late to call the people. There was some difference then between buff doublets and iron mail; and the rogues felt it. Well-a-day! we must bear what God willeth, and never repine, although it gives a man the heart-ache. We are bound in duty to keep these things for the closet, and to tell God of them only when we call upon his holy name, and have him quite by ourselves." Sir Silas looked discontented and impatient, and said snappishly, Cast we off here, or we shall be at fault. Start him, sir! prythee, start him." Again his worship, Sir Thomas, did look gravely and grandly, and, taking a scrap of paper out of the Holy Book then lying before him, did read distinctly these words: "Providence hath sent Master Silas back hither this morning to confound thee in thy guilt." Again, with all the courage and composure of an innocent man, and indeed with more than what an innocent man ought to possess in the presence of a magistrate, the youngster said, pointing toward Master Silas, "The first moment he ventureth to lift up his visage from the table, hath Providence marked him miraculously. I have heard of black malice. How many of our words have more in them than we think of! Give a countryman a plough of silver, and he will plough with it all the season, and never know its substance. 'Tis thus with our daily speech. What riches lie hidden in the vulgar tongue of the poorest and most ignorant! What flowers of Paradise lie under our feet, with their beauties and parts undistinguished and undiscerned, from having been daily trodden on! O sir, look you! but let me cover my eyes! look at his lips! Gracious Heaven! they were not thus when he entered: they are blacker now than Harry Tewe's bull-bitch's!" Master Silas did lift up his eyes in astonishment and wrath; and his worship Sir Thomas did open his wider and wider, and cried by fits and starts, "Gramercy! true enough! nay, afore God, too true by half! I never saw the like! Who would believe it! I wish I were fairly rid of this examination! my hands washed clean thereof! Another time! anon! We have our quarterly sessions! We are many together at present I remand... And now indeed, unless Sir Silas had taken his worship by the sleeve, he would mayhap have remanded the lad. But Sir Silas, still holding the sleeve and shaking it, said hurriedly, "Let me entreat your worship to ponder. What black does the fellow talk of? My blood and bile rose up against the rogue; but surely I did not turn black in the face, or in the mouth, as the fellow calls it?" Whether Master Silas had some suspicion and "Ho! ho! is it off? There is some upon my finger's end, I find. Now I have it; ay, there it is. That large splash upon the centre of the table is tallow, by my salvation! The profligates sat up until the candle burned out, and the last of it ran through the socket upon the board. We knew it before. I did convey into my mouth both fat and smut!" "Many of your cloth and kidney do that, good Master Silas, and make no wry faces about it," quoth the youngster, with indiscreet merriment, although short of laughter, as became him, who had already stepped too far, and reached the mire. To save paper and time, I shall now, for the most-part, write only what they all said, not saying that they said it, and just copying out in my clearest hand what fell respectively from their mouths. Sir Silas. I did indeed spit it forth, and emunge my lips, as who should not? Shakspeare. Would it were so! Sir Silas. Would it were so! in thy teeth, hypocrite! Sir Thomas. And truly I likewise do incline to hope and credit it, as thus paraphrased and expounded. Shakspeare. Wait until this blessed day next year, sir, at the same hour. You shall see it forth again at its due season: it would be no miracle if it lasted. Spittle may cure sore eyes, but not blasted mouths and scald consciences. Sir Thomas. Why! who taught thee all this? Then turned he leisurely toward Sir Silas, and placing his hand outspredden upon the arm of the chaplain, said unto him in a low, judicial, hollow voice, Every word true and solemn! I have heard less wise saws from between black covers." Sir Silas was indignant at this under-rating, as he appeared to think it, of the church and its ministry, and answered impatiently, with Christian freedom, "Your worship surely will not listen to this wild wizard in his brothel-pulpit!" Shakspeare. Do I live to hear Charlecote Hall called a brothel-pulpit? Alas then I have lived too long! Sir Silas. We will try to amend that for thee. .. William seemed not to hear him, loudly as he spake and pointedly unto the youngster, who wiped his eyes, crying, "Commit me, sir! in mercy commit me! Master Ephraim ! O Master Ephraim ! A guiltless man may feel all the pangs of the guilty! Is it you who are to make out the commitment? Dispatch! dispatch! I am a-weary of my life. If I dared to lie, I would plead guilty." Sir Thomas. Heyday! No wonder, Master |