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 William Shakspeare, accused of deer-stealing, and apprehended for that offence, was brought into the great hall at Charlecote, where, having made 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, "Stand out of the way! What are those two 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." But Master Silas did bite his nether lip, and did cry aloud, 46 Look upon those deadly spots!" And his worship did look thereupon most staidly, and did say in the ear of Master Silas, but in such wise that it reached even unto mine, “Good honest chandlery, methinks!" "God grant it may turn out so!" ejaculated Master Silas. The youth, hearing these words, said unto him, "I fear, Master Silas, gentry like you often pray God to grant what he would rather not; and now and then what you would rather not." Sir Silas was wroth at this rudeness of speech about God in the face of a preacher, and said, reprovingly, 64 Out upon thy foul mouth, knave! upon which lie slaughter and venison." Whereupon did William Shakspeare sit mute awhile, and discomfited; then, turning toward Sir Thomas, and looking and speaking as one submiss and contrite, he thus appealed unto him : "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 Master Silas ! And declare upon oath, being 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, who hath absconded. Of these four white solid 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!" 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 "As different as thine is from a Christian's," side I was sitting. "Why, he talks like a man of said the youth. forty-seven, or more!" 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." "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. "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! It is but of late years that dignities have come to be reviled; the other parts of the Gospel were broken long be fore; 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 * 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 were thinned then; two or three crops a year of that rank squitch-grass which it has become the +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, 1 inkling of the cause, or not, he rubbed his right hand along his face and lips, and, looking upon it, cried aloud, "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!" "Cast we off here, or we shall be at fault. quoth the youngster, with indiscreet merriment, 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, 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, 66 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 "Let me entreat your worship to ponder. guiltless man may feel all the pangs of the What black does the fellow talk of? My blood guilty! Is it you who are to make out the and bile rose up against the rogue; but surely I commitment? Dispatch! dispatch! I am a-weary did not turn black in the face, or in the mouth, as of my life. If I dared to lie, I would plead the fellow calls it?" guilty." Whether Master Silas had some suspicion and Sir Thomas. Heyday! No wonder, Master Ephraim, thy entrails are moved and wamble. Dost weep, lad? Nay, nay; thou bearest up bravely. Silas! I now find, although the example come before me from humble life, that what my mother said was true; 'twas upon my father's demise. In great grief there are few tears.' Upon which did the youth, Willy Shakspeare, jog himself by the memory, and repeat these short verses, not wide from the same purport. "There are, alas, some depths of woe Sir Thomas. Let those who are sadly vexed in spirit mind that notion, whoever indited it, and be men: I always was; but some little griefs have pinched me woundily. Master Silas grew impatient, for he had ridden hard that morning, and had no cushion upon his seat, as Sir Thomas had. I have seen in my time, that he who is seated on beech-wood hath very different thoughts and moralities from him who is seated on goose-feathers under doe-skin. But that is neither here nor there, albeit, an I die, as I must, my heirs, Judith and her boy Elijah, may note it. Master Silas, as above, looked sourishly, and cried aloud, "The witnesses! the witnesses! testimony! testimony! We shall now see whose black goes deepest. There is a fork to be had that can hold the slipperiest eel, and a finger that can strip the slimiest. I cry your worship to the witnesses." Sir Thomas. Ay indeed, we are losing the day it wastes toward noon, and nothing done. Call the witnesses. How are they called by name? Give me the paper. : .. The paper being forthwith delivered into his worship's hand by the learned clerk, his worship lid read aloud the name of Euseby Treen. Whereupon did Euseby Treen come forth through the great hall-door, which was ajar, and answer most audibly, "Your worship!" Lastly did Sir Thomas turn the light of his countenance on William Shakspeare, saying, "Thou seest these good men deponents against thee, William Shakspeare." And then did Sir Thomas pause. And pending this pause did William Shakspeare look stedfastly in the faces of both; and stroking down his own with the hollow of his hand, from the jaw-bone to the chin-point, said unto his honour, "Faith! it would give me much pleasure, and the neighbourhood much vantage, to see these two fellows good men. Joseph Carnaby and Euseby Treen! Why! your worship! they know every hare's form in Luddington-field better than their own beds, and as well pretty nigh as any wench's in the parish." Then turned he, with jocular scoff, unto Joseph Carnaby, thus accosting him, whom his shirt, being made stiffer than usual for the occasion, rubbed and frayed. "Ay, Joseph! smoothen and soothe thy collarpiece again and again! Hark-ye ! I know what smock that was knavishly cut from." Master Silas rose up in high choler, and said unto Sir Thomas, "Sir! do not listen to that lewd reviler: I wager ten groats I prove him to be wrong in his scent. Joseph Carnaby is righteous and discreet." Shakspeare. By daylight and before the parson. Bears and boars are tame creatures and discreet in the sunshine and after dinner. Treen. I do know his down-goings and uprisings. Shakspeare. The man and his wife are one, saith holy Scripture. Treen. A sober-paced and rigid man, if such there be. Few keep Lent like unto him. Shakspeare. I warrant him, both lent and stolen. Sir Thomas. Peace and silence! Now, Joseph Carnaby, do thou depose on particulars. Carnaby. May it please your worship! I was returning from Hampton upon Allhallowmas eve, between the hours of ten and eleven at night, in company with Master Euseby Treen; and when we came to the bottom of Mickle Meadow, we heard several men in discourse. I plucked Euseby Treen by the doublet, and whispered in his ear, Euseby! Euseby! let us slink along in the shadow of the elms and willows.' Treen. Willows and elm-trees were the words. Shakspeare. See, your worship! what discordances! They can not agree in their own story. Sir Silas. The same thing, the same thing, in the main. Shakspeare. By less differences than this, estates have been lost, hearts broken, and England, our country, filled with homeless, helpless, destitute orphans. I protest against it! Sir Silas. Protest, indeed! He talks as if he were a member of the House of Lords. They alone can protest. Sir Thomas. Your attorney may object, not protest, before the lord judge. Proceed you, Joseph Carnaby. Carnaby. In the shadow of the willows and elm-trees then.. Shakspeare. No hints, no conspiracies! Keep to your own story, man, and do not borrow his. Sir Silas. I over-rule the objection. Nothing can be more futile and frivolous. Shakspeare. So learned a magistrate as your worship will surely do me justice by hearing me attentively. I am young: nevertheless, having more than one year written in the office of an attorney, and having heard and listened to many discourses and questions on law, I can not but remember the heavy fine inflicted on a gentleman of this county, who committed a poor man to prison for being in possession of a hare, it |