Chapter X: Book III: Letter III (1)

SIDONIUS TO HIS ECDICIUS--HEALTH

If ever, now you are longed for by my Arvernians, whose love for you subdues them remarkably, and indeed for all sorts of reasons. First, because a man's native land has the greatest part in creating affection for him.[66] Then, because in your time you are about the only mortal who was longed for before his birth as much as he was rejoiced in after it.... I say nothing of such things--common to all, but no mean incitement to affection--as that you crawled as a child on the same turf with them. I pass over the grass which you first trod, the river you first swam, the woods you broke through in hunting. I leave out the fact that it was here you first played ball[67] and backgammon,[68] that you hawked, coursed, rode, shot with the bow. I omit the fact that for the sake of your boyish presence students of letters came hither from all parts; and that it was due to you as an individual that our nobility, anxious to shed the slough of Celtic speech, imbued itself now with the style of oratory, now with the measures of the Muse. And this specially kindled the love of the community[69] that you forbade those whom you had already made Latins[70] to remain barbarians.[71] For it could never slip the memory of our citizens what and how great you seemed, to every age and rank and sex on the half-ruined mounds of our walls, when, accompanied by scarcely eighteen horsemen, you cut your way through some thousands of Goths in full daylight and (which posterity will hardly believe) in the open field. A well trained army stood aghast at the sound of your name and the sight of your person: so that the leaders of the enemy, in their astonishment, hardly knew how many were their followers, how few yours. Their line was then withdrawn to the brow of a steep hill; it had before been gathered together to storm, but on your appearance was not deployed for battle. Meanwhile you, having slain some of their best men whom not sloth but courage had made the rearmost of the troop, occupied the level ground alone, though such a fight gave you not so many comrades as your table is wont to contain guests. And when you returned to the town at your leisure what came to meet you in the way of official compliments, applause, tears, rejoicings can be better guessed than described. One might see in the crammed halls of the spacious palace that happy ovation for your thronged return. Some caught up the dust of your footsteps to kiss it: others took out the horses' curbs stained with blood and foam; others prepared the stands for the saddles drenched with the horses' sweat; others, when you were about to put off your helmet, unbuckled the clasps of its plated chin-straps, or busied themselves with unlacing your greaves. Yet others counted the notches on the swords, blunted with slaughter, or measured with livid[72] fingers the rings of the corslets, slashed or pierced by weapons.[73]

EARLY MEDIAEVAL LETTER (TWELFTH CENTURY)

Of the other persons mentioned in this letter besides the
widowed Duchess and King Louis VII., the first is Ralph,
Count of (Peronne and) Vermandois, a leper. The lady's name
was Eleanor, and she also was probably a widow; the
Duchess's son Hugh was third of that name as Duke of
Burgundy. Ivo, Count of Soissons, was the guardian of the
Count of Vermandois, incapacitated legally by his plague.
The proposed marriage did not come off. The business-like
tone of the letter will only surprise those who do not
really know the "Ages of Romance." I owe the selection of it
to my friend the Rev. W. Hunt, D.Litt., who came to my aid
in the dearth of books of this period which circumstances
imposed on me.

To Louis[74] most excellent King of the Franks by the grace of God, and her most beloved Lord, Mary, Duchess of Burgundy--health and due respect. It is known to your Majesty that my son is your liegeman, and, if it please you, your kinsman also. Whatsoever he can do is yours: and if he could do more it were yours. And so I all the more confidently ask your highest affection for my son. For it has been told me that Count Ralph of Peronne has a certain marriageable sister who, as has been reported to me and her own people, would be a suitable wife for my son. For this reason, most beloved Lord, I and he ask that you would look to this matter yourself and speak about it to the Count of Soissons, and settle how this marriage may be contracted. You must know that though my son might marry in another kingdom, I greatly prefer that he should take a wife in yours, rather than in any other. The nearer he becomes connected with you the more will he be yours and altogether a profit to you.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It may of course be "illustrated" in the other sense by a second use of the pen; and we shall have instances of this kind to notice.

[2] As has often been pointed out Ben Jonson's exquisite "Drink to me only with thine eyes" is a verse-paraphrase or mosaic from this writer's prose.

[3] Pliny, if he did not always "write for publication," deliberately "published," as we should say, his letters. Indeed, he is one of the first to use the word in this sense, even if he uses it immediately of an oration not a letter. Some think Cicero meant publication; and he was very likely to do so.

[4] The Latin statesman, like the Greek bishop, condescends to write about wine and even more fully. One of the most interesting and informing things on the subject is his discourse on _vinum acinaticium_, a sort of Roman Imperial Tokay made from grapes kept till the frost had touched them.

[5] Genuine letters of Sappho would have been of the first interest to compare with those of Heloise, and the "Portuguese Nun" and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. Diotima's might have been as disappointing as George Eliot's: but by no means must necessarily have been so. Aspasia's, sometimes counterfeited, ought to have been good.

[6] It is part of the plan to give, as a sort of Appendix to the Introduction, and extension of it towards the main body of text, some specimens of Greek, Roman (classical and post-classical) and Early Mediaeval letter-writing, translated for the purpose by the present writer. The _continuity_ of literary history is a thing which deserves to be attended to, especially when there is an ever-growing tendency to confine attention to things modern--albeit so soon to be antiquated! I owe the last of these specimens, in the Latin from which I translate it, to the kindness of my friend the Rev. W. Hunt, D.Litt., to whom I had recourse as not myself having access to a large library at the moment, and who has assisted me in other parts of this book.

[7] Yet others, as to authenticity, have, I believe, been rejected by all competent scholarship.

[8] Benjamin Constant and Madame de Charriere.

[9] Some of us think Blake a great poet; but this is scarcely a general opinion, and he does not appear till the century was three parts over. Burns (whose own letters by the way do him little justice) hardly comes in.

[10] Especially the most popular and voluminous if not the most important of all--the periodical and the novel.

[11] The danger being of many sorts--usually in the direction of various kinds of _excess_. A _quietly_ tragic letter may be a masterpiece: perhaps there is no finer example than one to be again referred to, of Mrs. Carlyle's.

[12] Mr. Paul thinks that "the baby language" is terribly out of character, and that there is "too much of it"; that Swift "would try to make love though he did not know what love meant"; and that the whole rings hollow and insincere. Others, women as well as men, have held that the "little language" is only less pathetic than it is charming; that Swift was one of the greatest, if one of the unhappiest lovers of the world; and that the thing is as sincere as if it had been written in the Palace of Truth and only hollow as is the space between Heaven and Hell.

[13] It should never be, but perhaps sometimes is, forgotten that "Stella" was a lady of unusual wits, and of what Swift's greatest decrier called in his own protegee Mrs. Williams "universal curiosity," that is to say not "inquisitiveness" but "intelligent interest." The politics etc. are not mere selfish attention to what interests the writer only.

[14] It must not be forgotten that she was Fielding's cousin. And after the remark above on Swift it is pleasant and may be fair to say that Mr. Paul is a hearty "Marian."

[15] Johnson is again the chief and by no means trustworthy witness for this "insolence." But in the same breath he admitted that Chesterfield was "dignified." Now dignity is almost as doubtfully compatible with insolence as with impudence.

[16] It is difficult to think of anyone who has combined statesmanship (Chesterfield's accomplishments in which are constantly forgotten), social gifts and literary skill in an equal degree.

[17] Excluding of course purely historical and public things like the trials of the '45 and the riots of '80.

[18] They were travelling together (always rather a test of friendship) in Italy, and Horace, as he confesses, no doubt gave himself airs. But it is pretty certain that Gray had not at this time, if he ever had, that fortunate combination of good (or at least well-commanded) temper and good breeding which enables a gentleman to meet such conduct with conduct on his own side as free from petulant "touchiness" as from ignoble parasitism.

[19] Gray was not, like Walpole, a richly endowed sinecurist. But to use a familiar "bull" he seems never to have had anything to do, and never to have done it when he had. His poems are a mere handful; his excellent _Metrum_ is a fragment; and as Professor of History at Cambridge he never did anything at all.

[20] They do not seem to have known each other personally. But (for reasons not difficult to assign but here irrelevant) Johnson was on the whole, though not wholly, unjust to Gray, and Gray seems to have disliked and spoken rudely of Johnson.

[21] The varieties of what may be called literary _exercise_ which have been utilised for educational or recreative purposes, are almost innumerable. Has anyone ever tried "breaking up" a letter (such as those to be given hereafter) into a conversation by interlarded comment, questions, etc.?

[22] As far as the accidents are concerned. The essentials vary not. Marianne is eternal, whether she faints and blushes, or jazzes and--does not blush.

[23] One unfortunate exception, the _ex-post facto_ references to the split with Lady Austin, may be urged by a relentless prosecutor. But when William has to choose between Mary and Anna it will go hard but he will _have_ to be unfair to one of them.

[24] This "swan's" utterances in poetry were quite unlike those of Tennyson's dying bird: and her taste in it was appalling. She tells Scott that the Border Ballads were totally destitute of any right to the name.

[25] For a singular misjudgment on this point see Prefatory Note _infra_.

[26] Particularly when he is able to apply the _Don Juan_ mood of sarcastic if rather superficial life-criticism in which he was a real master.

[27] _I.e._ "violently and vulgarly absurd."

[28] It may, however, be suggested that the extraordinary _bluntness_ (to use no stronger word) of both is almost sufficiently evidenced in the fact that in his last edition of Keats Mr. Forman committed the additional outrage of distributing these letters according to their dates among the rest. The isolation of the agony gives almost the only possible excuse for revealing it.

[29] It is of course true that Shelley himself did not at first quite appreciate Keats. But _Adonais_ cancels the deficit and leaves an almost infinite balance in favour. One can only hope that, had the circumstances been reversed, Keats would have set the account right as triumphantly.

[30] This tendency makes it perhaps desirable to observe that in the _particular_ context of the _Belle Dame_ there is nothing whatever to cavil at.

[31] The recent centenary saw, as usual, with much welcome appreciation some uncritical excesses.

[32] In not a few cases they may be said to have been deliberately _un_prepared--intended though not labelled as "private and confidential."

[33] In which, be it remembered, the "Life-and-Letters" system only came in quite late.

[34] At the very moment when this is being written a considerable new body of them is announced for sale.

[35] The word "restraint" may be misunderstood: but it is intended to indicate something of the general difference between "classical" ages on the one side and "romantic" or "realist" on the other.

[36] Chesterfield's deafness might, without frivolity, be brought in. It is a hindrance to conversation, but none to letter-writing.

[37] Or at least expression of themselves.

[38] Idly: because he himself expressly and repeatedly disclaims _mere_ "translation."

[39] Dryden, in reference to Shadwell.

[40] "The Great God Pan" piece ("A Musical Instrument"), one of the last, was perhaps her _very_ best. But he may have been thinking of _Poems before Congress_, which are poor enough.

[41] Lucy, daughter of that curious Quaker banker's clerk Bernard Barton, whose poetry is negligible, but who must have had some strong personal attraction. For he was a favourite correspondent of two of the greatest of contemporary letter-writers, Lamb and FitzGerald, though he constantly misunderstood their letters; he received from Byron--on an occasion likely to provoke one of the "noble poet's" outbursts of pseudo-aristocratic insolence--a singularly wise and kindly answer; and having as a perfect stranger lectured Sir Robert Peel he was--invited to dinner!

[42] Some have attempted to make a distinction, alleging that there are Franceses who can be called "Fanny" and others who can not. But it is doubtful whether this holds. Of two great proficients of "letter-stuff" in overlapping generations Fanny Burney was eminently a "Fanny." Fanny Kemble, though always called so, was not.

[43] She was the niece of Mrs. Siddons and of John Kemble, generally considered the greatest tragic actor and actress we have had; the daughter of Charles Kemble, a player and manager of long practice and great ability; while she had yet another uncle and any number of more distant relations in the profession.

[44] See Prefatory Note on her letters _infra_, for an illustration of what is said of her here and of Mrs. Carlyle a little further.

[45] Gray may not produce this effect of slight repulsion on everyone: but on the other hand it is pretty generally admitted that the more you read Walpole the more does the prejudice, which Macaulay and others have helped to create against him, crumble and melt.

[46] They grow more and more numerous; a fresh batch having been announced while this Introduction was being written.

[47] I see that Mr. Paul also has made special reference to this letter and no wonder. From the time of its first publication I have regarded it as matchless. But it seems to me that while it is lawful to mention it, it should not have been published and that to republish it here would be at least questionable.

[48] The present writer remembers as a boy reading (he supposes in the newspaper to which it was addressed but is not sure) this very remarkable epistle of Reade's to an editor: "Sir, you have brains of your own and good ones. Do not echo the bray of such a very small ass as the...." There was more, but this was the gist of it. Whether it has ever reappeared he cannot say.

[49] Anthony Trollope did not choose to make his Autobiography a "Life-and-Letters." But he has used the inserted letter very freely and sometimes with great effect in his novels, for instance Mr. Slope's to Eleanor Harding in _Barchester Towers_.

[50] In his Essay mentioned in Preface.

[51] The "Answer to the Introductory Epistle" of _The Monastery_.

[52] This plan was older than the "novel _by_ letters," and had, as noticed above, been largely used in the sixteenth and seventeenth century "heroic" romance.

[53] There is of course a class exactly opposite to the love-letter--that of more or less modified hate or at least dislike. Johnson's epistle to Chesterfield is an example of the dignified form of this; Hazlitt's to Gifford of the undignified. But considering our deserved reputation for humour we are less strong than might be expected in letters which make the supposed writer make _himself_ ridiculous. Sydney Smith's "Noodle's Oration" is the sort of thing in another kind: and some of the letters in the _Spectator_ class of periodical are fun in the kind itself. Defoe's _Shortest Way with the Dissenters_ comes near. But we have nothing like the famous _Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_, which are the very triumph of the style.

[54] See the extensive classification of the Greeks, as noticed and reproduced before.

[55] The "Letter to Sir W. Windham" of the one and the "Letter to a noble Lord" of the other, have ample justification. _Letters on a Regicide Peace_, great as they are in themselves, have less claim to their title. But it was a favourite with both writers.

[56] The King was William and the Queen Mary, which limits considerably the otherwise rather illimitable "concerning the kingdom."

[57] This word is of course a _vox nihili_, being neither French nor English. But it has usage in its favour, and I do not see that it is improved by writing it "_dis_habille." If anyone prefers the actual French form he can add the accents.

[58] The account of the journey with Lintot the publisher is sometimes quoted in disproof of this. It is amusing, but has still to some tastes Pope's factitiousness without the technical charm of his verse to carry it off.

[59] There is one small but rather famous class of letters which perhaps should receive separate though brief notice. It is that of laconic and either intentionally or unintentionally humorous utilisations of the letter-form. Of one sort Captain Walton's "Spanish fleet taken and destroyed as per margin" is probably the most noted type: of another the equally famous rejoinder of the Highland magnate to his rival "Dear Glengarry, When you have proved yourself to be my chief, I shall be happy to admit your claim. Meanwhile I am Yours, Macdonald." In pure farce of an irreverent kind, the possibly apocryphal interchange between a Royal Duke and a Right Reverend Bishop, "Dear Cork, Please ordain Stanhope, Yours, York," and "Dear York, Stanhope's ordained. Yours, Cork," has the palm as a recognised "chestnut." But these things are only the frills if not even the froth of the subject; and those who imitate them should exercise caution in the imitation. The police-courts, and even more exalted, but still more unwholesome abodes of Justice, have sometimes been the consequences of misguided satire in letters. Even in Captain Walton's case the Spaniards are said to have endeavoured to show that his ironical laconism (which, moreover, tradition has perhaps exaggerated in form) was not strictly in accordance with fact.

[60] Wild olive, with more peaceful uses, was also the usual material for the _un_peaceful club, or quarter-staff, often iron-shod, of the ancients. It was probably like the _lathi_ which the mild Hindoo takes with him to political meetings. The [Greek: pelekys] of the ancients was generally double-bladed, hence the limitation here. This would be lighter and more convenient to carry in the belt.

[61] Of course "the enemies'."

[62] Synesius addresses his letters to Hypatia [Greek: te philosopho]--"To _the_ Philosophess." This contains at least two of the unapproachable "portmanteau" words in which Greek, and especially late Greek abounds--[Greek: philochoron], "loving one's country," and [Greek: metanasteuein], a rare and complicated compound in which I have ventured to see a hint of ironic intention. He feels that he will be a sort of shirker or deserter ([Greek: meta] often imparts this meaning) but he will be coming to _her_.

[63] This necessity of annotating beyond suitable limits was what prevented me, after due re-reading for the purpose, from giving any letter of Cicero's.

[64] _Admoneo_ in Latin not unfrequently has our commercial sense of "advise" = inform, or remind of a fact. It will be remembered that in Elizabethan English this sense was not limited to business, as in "Art thou avised of that."

[65] The younger Pliny's full name was C. Plinius _Secundus_.

[66] Among other natives of course.

[67] Doubtless the game still played in Italy (_pallone_) and the South of France, with a wooden hand-guard strapped to the arm.

[68] _Pyrgus_ is not exactly backgammon. The Romans had a sort of combined dice-box and board--the latter having a kind of tower fixed on the side with interior steps or stops, among which the dice tumbled and twisted before they fell out.

[69] _Universitas_: but though the context seems tempting, it is too early for "university" as a translation.

[70] _I.e._ in citizenship.

[71] _I.e._ in speech.

[72] Why _livescentibus_ I am not sure. "Bruised by the rough mail"? But Lucretius has _digiti livescunt_: and Sidonius, like other poets of other decadences, is apt to borrow the phrases of his great predecessors.

[73] Sidonius has nearly as much more of this curious story: but the picture of the excitable Celts mobbing their heroes is vivid enough to make a good stopping-place. If things really went as described, one must suppose that a sudden panic came on the Goths, and that they took Ecdicius and his handful of troopers as merely _eclaireurs_ of a sally in force, and drew back to the higher ground to resist it.

[74] His own experience of marriage cannot have made the subject wholly agreeable to him: for he was, it may not be quite impertinent to remind the reader, the first husband of Eleanor of Guienne.

ENGLISH LETTERS

THE PASTONS. FIFTEENTH CENTURY

Few families in England have achieved a permanent "place i'
the story" after such a curious fashion as the Pastons of
Paston (Pastons "of that ilk") in Norfolk. They were not
exactly "great people" and no member of the family was of
very eminent distinction in any walk of life, though they
had judges, soldiers, and sailors etc. among them, and
though, some time before the house became extinct, its
representative attained the peerage with the title of Earl
of Yarmouth. But they were busy people in the troublesome
times of the Roses, and they obtained a good deal of
property, partly by the death of Sir John Fastolf, noted in
the French wars and muddled by posterity (there seems to
have been no real resemblance between them except an
accusation of cowardice, probably false in both cases, and
an imperfectly anagrammatised relation of names) with
Shakespeare's "Falstaff." But they produced, received, and
kept a great mass of letters which, despite the extinction
of the family in 1732 survived, were partially printed later
in the century by Fenn, and more fully a hundred years after
by the late Mr. Gairdner. Although (see Introduction) of no
particular literary merit they are singularly varied in
subject and authorship, and they give us perhaps a more
complete view of the domestic experiences of a single family
(not dissociated from public affairs) than we have from any
period of English history till quite modern times. Indeed,
it would not be easy to put the finger on an exact parallel
to them at _any_ time. I have selected from a great mass of
documents two--one of love and one of war according to the
good old division. John Jernyngan's letter to Margaret
Mauteby--wife of John Paston, and one of the most notable
and businesslike, though not the least affectionate of wives
and mothers--is interesting for its combination of the two
motives (were there also _two_ "Mistress Blanches"?) and for
the delightfully English frankness of its confession that
"we were well and truly beat." On the other hand, that of
Miss Margery Brews to John Paston the youngest (the John
named above had two sons of his own name) is one of the most
agreeable pieces of "plain and holy innocence," as Miranda
calls it, on record. It is immediately preceded in the
collection by another in which she is equally loving, and
quotes some of the shockingly bad fifteenth century verse.
One regrets to say that her "Valentine" had, apparently,
more than one string to his bow at the moment. However,
after vicissitudes in the "matter," as she delicately calls
it, John and Margery did marry, and from them proceeded the
later stages of the family. Whether things went equally well
with Mr. Jernyngan and his Blanche (or either of his
Blanches) does not seem to be recorded. (It has been thought
better, though the taste of the moment seems to go rather
the other way, not to encumber the reader with the original
spelling, but there is no further modernisation.)

1. LETTER 317 (GAIRDNER)

Date June 1, 1458

Right worshipful and my most best beloved mistress and cousin, I recommend me to you as lowly as I may, ever more desiring to hear of your good welfare; the which I beseech almighty Jesus to preserve you and keep you to his pleasure and to your gracious heart's desire. And, if it please you to hear of my welfare, I was in good heal(th) at the making of this letter, blessed be God.

Praying you that it please you for to send me word if my father was at Norwich with you at this Trinitymas or no, and how the matter doth between my mistress Blanche Witchingham and me and if ye suppose that it shall be brought about or no, and how ye feel my father, if he be well willing thereto or no; praying you lowly that I may be recommend(ed) lowly to my mistress Arblaster's wife, and to my mistress Blanche her daughter specially.

Right worshipful cousin, if it please you for to hear of such tidings as we have here, the embassy of Burgundy shall come to Calais the Saturday after Corpus Christi day, as men say, 500 horse of them. Moreover on Trinity Sunday in the morning came tidings unto my Lord of Warwick that there were 28 sails of Spaniards on the sea, and whereof there was 16 great ships of forecastle. And then my Lord[75] went and manned 5 ships of forecastle and three carvells, and four pinnaces, and on the Monday, in the morning after Trinity Sunday, we met together afore Calais at 4 at the clock in the morning and fought that (_sic_) gether till 10 at the clock. And there we took six of their ships and they slew of our men about four twenties and hurt a two hundred of us right sore; and there were slain on their part about twelve twenties and hurt a five hundred of them.

And (it) happened me at the first aboarding of us, we took a ship of three hundred ton, and I was left therein and 23 men with me; and they fought so sore that our men were fain to leave them, and then come they and aboarded[76] the ship that I was in and there I was taken, and was prisoner with them 6 hours, and was delivered again for their men that were taken before. And as men say, there was not so great a battle upon the sea this forty winters. And forsooth we were well and truly beat: and my Lord hath sent for more ships, and like to fight together again in haste.

No more I write unto you at this time, but that it please you for to recommend me unto my right reverend and worshipful cousin your husband, and mine uncle Gurney, and to mine aunt his wife and to all good masters and friends where it shall please you; and after the writing I have from you, I shall be at you in all haste. Written on Corpus Christi day in great haste by your own humble servant and cousin,

JOHN JERNYNGAN.

2. LETTER 784 (GAIRDNER)

Date Feb. 1477

Right worshipful and well-beloved Valentine, in my most humble wise I recommend me unto you. And heartily I thank you for the letter which that ye send me by John Beckerton, whereby I am informed and know that ye be purposed to come to Topcroft in short time, and without any errand or matter but only to have a conclusion of the matter between my father and you. I would be most glad of any creature in life so that the matter might grow to effect. And there as ye say, an ye come and find the matter no more towards you than ye did aforetime, ye would no more put my father and my lady my mother to no cost nor business, for that cause, a good while after--which causeth mine heart to be full heavy: and if that ye come, and the matter take to none effect, then should I be much more sorry and full of heaviness.

And as for myself I have done and understood in the matter that I can and may, as good[77] knoweth: and I let you plainly understand that my father will no more money part withal in that behalf but L100 and one mark which is right far from the accomplishment of your desire.

Wherefore if that ye could be content with that good, and my poor person, I would be the merriest maiden on ground. And if ye think not yourself so satisfied, or that ye might have much more good, as I have understood by you afore--good, true, and loving Valentine,[78] that ye take no such labour upon you as to come more for that matter but let it pass and never more be spoken of, as I may be your true lover and bedeswoman[79] during my life.

No more unto you at this time but Almighty Jesus preserve you both body and soul.

By your Valentine,

M. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] It is to be feared that "My Lord's" action was rather piratical. The "Spanish Fleet" was of merchantmen ("convoyed" perhaps) on their way to the North with iron etc. for fish, silk, etc., and we were not definitely at war with Spain. But Henry the IV. of Castile was an ally of France. Warwick had just been appointed "Captain of Calais," and it was a general English idea that anything not English in the Channel was fair prize. Warwick's conduct was warmly welcomed in London.

[76] This use of "abord" and that just before are slightly different derivatives of the French _aborder_, which means to "approach," "accost," "come together with" as well as to "board" in the naval sense. The first use here is evidently of the more general, the second of the particular kind.

[77] This may be a mere mis-spelling of "God," or a sort of euphemism like the modern "thank _goodness_!" to avoid the more sacred name.

[78] "I would" or "take care" or something similar to be supplied to make a somewhat softened imperative.

[79] One who prays for you.

ROGER ASCHAM (1515-1568)

Although the old phrase about "the schoolmaster being
abroad" has never before had anything like the amount of
applicableness which it now possesses, there is perhaps
still a certain prejudice against schoolmasters. Indeed even
some who have more than served time in that capacity will
admit that it is a dangerous employment, profession, or
vocation. But if all of us had been ever, or ever would try
to be, like Roger Ascham, our class would never have
deserved, or would victoriously wiped off, any obloquy. It
was extraordinary good quality, or more extraordinary good
fortune, that made the same man write _Toxophilus_ and _The
Schoolmaster_. And there need hardly be any admission of
possible good luck as causing, though some certainly helped,
his performance as a letter-writer. Something was said
before as to the importance of his "getting to English" in
this matter. But it may be permissible to remind, or perhaps
even inform, some readers of the curious combination which
made this importance. As a Renaissance scholar; as a College
tutor before the middle of the sixteenth century; as a
Secretary of Embassy on the Continent; and as Latin
Secretary at Court, he was positively _un_likely to favour
the vernacular. Nor could anyone be a warmer or wiser lover
of the classics than he was. But what he, being all these
things, did for English was all the more influential, while
the manner of his doing it could hardly be bettered.

Ascham's letters being partly in English and partly in
Latin, there is a certain temptation to translate one of the
latter and put it side by side with one of the former. But
the process might not be fair: and to give the fairer chance
of comparison between originals in the two tongues would be
out of the scheme of this book. I therefore choose a part of
one of his long letters of travel to Cambridge friends--one
of the earliest of the many "Up the Rhines" in English
literature--and another part of his letters to Cecil. He has
been reproached with the "begging" character of these, but
it was the way of the time with Renaissance scholars. In the
first "ioney" (Giles's text) must be wrong and towards the
end "vile" is an amusing blunder for "_o_ile." "Peter
Ailand" a Cambridge friend's child. "Brant" = "steep." In
the second "Denny" is Sir Anthony D., a great favourite of
Henry VIII. and Edward VI. who was now dead. "Cheke" the
still better known "Sir John" had "taught Cambridge and King
Edward Greek," and so raised the "goodly crop" but had taken
to politics, which were to bring him into trouble.[80]

3. TO MR. EDWARD RAVEN [EXTRACT]

AUGSBURG Jan. 20 1551

13 Octob. We took a fair barge, with goodly glass windows, with seats of fir, as close as any house, we knew not whether it went or stood. Rhene is such a river that now I do not marvail that the poets make rivers gods. Rhene at Spires having a farther course to rin into the ocean sea than is the space betwixt Dover and Barwick is broader over a great deal than is Thames at Greenwich when it is calm weather. The Rhene runs fast and yet as smooth as the sea water stands in a vessel.

From Colen this day we went to Bonna, the bishop's town, the country about Rhene here is plain and ioney. We were drawn up Rhene by horses. Little villages stand by Rhene side, and as the barge came by, six or seven children, some stonenaked, some in their shirts, of the bigness of Peter Ailand, would run by use on the sands, singing psalms, and would rin and sing with us half a mile, whilst they had some money.

We came late to Bonna at eight of the clock: our men were come afore with our horse: we could not be let into the town, no more than they do at Calise, after an hour. We stood cold at the gate a whole hour. At last we were fain, lord and lady, to lie in our barge all night, where I sat in my lady's side-saddle, leaning my head to a malle, better lodged than a dozen of my fellows.

14 Octob. We sailed to Brousik: 15 miles afore we come to Bonna begin the vines and hills keeping in Rhene on both sides for the space of five or six days journey as we made them almost to Mayence, like the hills that compass Halifax about, but far branter up, as though the rocks did cover you like a pentice (pent-house): on the Rhene side all this journey be pathways where horse and man go commonly a yard broad, so fair that no weather can make it foul: if you look upwards ye are afraid the rocks will fall on your head; if you look downwards ye are afraid to tumble into Rhene, and if your horse founder it is not seven to six that ye shall miss falling into Rhene, there be many times stairs down into Rhene that men may come from their boats and walk on his bank, as we did every day four or five miles at once, plucking grapes not with our hands but with our mouths if we list.

The grapes grow on the brant rocks so wonderfully that ye will marvel how men dare climb up to them, and yet so plentifully, that it is not only a marvel where men be found to labour it, but also almost where men dwell that drink it. Seven or eight days journey ye cannot cast your sight over the compass of vines. And surely this wine of Rhene is so good, so natural, so temperate, so ever like itself, as can be wished for man's use. I was afraid when I came out of England to miss beer; but I am more afraid when I shall come into England, that I cannot lack this wine.

It is wonder to see how many castles stand on the tops of these rocks unwinable. The three bishops electors, Colen, Trevers and Mayence; be the princes almost of whole Rhene. The lansgrave hath goodly castles upon Rhene which the emperor cannot get. The palatine of Rhene is also a great lord on this river, and hath his name of a castle standing in the midst of Rhene on a rock. There be also goodly isles in Rhene, so full of walnut trees that they cannot be spent with eating, but they make vile of them. In some of these isles stand fair abbeys and nunneries wonderfully pleasant. The stones that hang so high over Rhene be very much of that stone that you use to write on in tables; every poor man's house there is covered with them.

4. TO CECIL [EXTRACT]

BRUSSELS March 24. 1553

If I should write oft, ye might think me too bold: and if I did leave off, ye might judge me either to forget your gentleness, or to mistrust your good will, who hath already so bound me unto you, as I shall rather forget myself, and wish God also to forget me, than not labour with all diligence and service to apply myself wholly to your will and purpose; and that ye shall well know how much I assure myself on your goodness, I will pass a piece of good manners, and be bold to borrow a little of your small leisure from your weighty affairs in the commonwealth. Therefore, if my letters shall find you at any leisure, they will trouble you a little in telling you ate length, as I promised in my last letters delivered unto you by Mr. Francis Yaxeley, why I am more desirous to have your help for my stay at Cambridge still than for any other kind of living elsewhere. I having now some experience of life led at home and abroad, and knowing what I can do most fitly, and how I would live most gladly, do well perceive there is no such quietness in England, nor pleasure in strange countries, as even in St. John's college, to keep company with the Bible, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Tully. Which my choice of quietness is not purposed to lie in idleness, nor constrained by a wilful nature, because I will not or can not serve elsewhere, when I trust I could apply myself to mo kinds of life than I hope any need shall ever drive me to seek, but only because in choosing aptly for myself I might bring some profit to many others. And in this mine opinion I stand the more gladly, because it is grounded upon the judgment of worthy Mr. Denny. For the summer twelvemonth before he departed, dinner and supper he had me commonly with him, whose excellent wisdom, mingled with so pleasant mirth, I can never forget: emonges many other talks he would say oft unto me, if two duties did not command him to serve, the one his prince, the other his wife, he would surely become a student in St. John's, saying, "The Court, Mr. Ascham, is a place so slippery, that duty never so well done, is not a staff stiff enough to stand by always very surely, where ye shall many times reap most unkindness where ye have sown greatest pleasures, and those also ready to do you most hurt to whom you never intended to think any harm." Which sentences I heard very gladly then, and felt them soon after myself to be true. Thus I, first ready by mine own nature, then moved by good counsel, after driven by ill fortune, lastly called by quietness, thought it good to couch myself in Cambridge again. And in very deed, too many be pluckt from thence before they be ripe, though I myself am withered before I be gathered, and yet not so for that I have stood too long, but rather because the fruit which I bear is so very small. Yet seeing the goodly crop of Mr. Cheke is almost clean carried from thence, and I in a manner alone of that time left a standing straggler, peradventure though my fruit be very small, yet because the ground from whence it sprung was so good, I may yet be thought somewhat fit for seed, when all you the rest are taken up for better store, wherewith the king and his realm is now so nobly served. And in such a scarcity both of those, that were worthily called away when they were fit, and of such as unwisely part from thence, before they be ready, I dare now bolden myself, when the best be gone, to do some good among the mean that do tarry, trusting that my diligence shall deal with my disability, and the rather because the desire of shooting is so well shot away in me, either ended by time or left off for better purpose. Yet I do amiss to mislike shooting too much, which hath been hitherto my best friend, and even now looking back to the pleasure which I found in it, and perceiving small repentence to follow after it, by Plato's judgment I may think well of it. No, it never called me to go from my book, but it made both wit the lustier, and will the readier, to run to it again, and perchance going back sometimes from learning may serve even as well as it doth at leaping, to pass some of those which keep always their standing at their book.

FOOTNOTES:

[80] The allusions to the writer's own _Toxophilus_ at the end require, it is to be hoped, no annotation.

LADY MARY SIDNEY (?[81]-1586)

This "old Molly," as she so agreeably calls herself, was
very unfortunate in her father (that intrusive holder for a
short time of the title of Northumberland, who was offensive
in success and abject in adversity) and not too lucky in her
brother, Leicester. But she must have been far too good for
her own breed; she had an excellent husband, Sir Henry
Sidney, Deputy of Ireland and President of Wales, one of
Elizabeth's best deserving and worst treated servants, and
she was the mother of "Astrophel" and Astrophel's sister.
"One has known persons more unfortunate," as a famous phrase
of a French poem not very long after her own time has it.
And she must have thoroughly deserved good fortune: for her
letters show her as one of the best of wives and mothers (if
not of spellers): though it is quite possible that she might
not have made a good jurywoman or a good member of
parliament. As her husband was not merely governor
(repeatedly and with such success as was possible) of
Ireland, but "President of Wales," they usually, when in
England but not at Court or at Penshurst, lived at Ludlow
Castle and so enjoyed two of the most beautiful homes in the
country. But Sir Henry in these and other functions had seas
of trouble, great expenses, and according to "Gloriana's"
wont, very small thanks for it all. He is said, indeed, to
have had his life shortened by weariness and worry. But his
son and daughter[82] may have been a comfort to him: and his
wife must have been so. The letter itself, as will be seen,
is not to himself but to his secretary: and there was more
correspondence on the subject of their lodging and its
difficulties. Lady Mary was not well, and there must be a
place to see friends, and the Queen might come in! The
original letter[83] is better spelt than others of hers, the
principal curiosity being the form "hit" for "it," which,
however, is by no means peculiar.

5. TO EDWARD MOLINEUX, ESQ.

You have used the matter very well; but we must do more yet for the good dear Lord [her husband] than let him be thus dealt withal. Hampton Court I never yet knew so full as there were not spare rooms in it, when it has been thrice better filled than at the present it is. But some would be sorry, perhaps, my Lord should have so sure a footing in the Court. Well, all may be as well when the good God will. The whilst, I pray let us do what we may for our Lord's ease and quiet. Whereunto I think if you go to my Lord Howard, and in my Lord's name also move his Lordship to shew his brother my Lord, (as they call each other)--to show him a cast of his office[84] and that it should not be known allege your former causes, I think he will find out some place to serve that purpose. And also if you go to Mr Bowyer,[85] the gentleman-Usher, and tell him his mother requireth him (which is myself) to help my Lord with some one room, but only for the dispatch of the multitude of Welsh and Irish people that follow him; and that you will give your word in my Lord's behalf and mine, it shall not be accounted as a lodging[86] or known of, I believe he will make what shift he can: you must assure him it is but for the day-time for his business, as indeed it is.

As for my brother's answer of[87] my stay here for five or six days, he knows I have ventured far already with so long absence, and am ill thought of for it,[88] so as that may not be. But when the worst is known, old Lord Harry and his old Moll will do as well as they can in parting[89] like good friends the small portion allotted our long service in Court, which as little as it is, seems something too much.[90] And this being all I can say to the matter, farewell, Mr. Ned.

In haste this Monday 1578,

your assured loving mistress and friend,

M. SYDNEY.

If all this will not serve, prove[91] Mr Huggins, for I know my Lord would not for no good be destitute in this time for some convenient place for his followers and friends to resort to him, which in the case I am in, is not possible to be in _my_ chamber till after sunset, when the dear good Lord shall be, as best becomes him, Lord of his own.

FOOTNOTES:

[81] Her birth-date does not seem to be known, but she was married in 1551.

[82] He had another, of the (for an English girl) very unusual name of "Ambros[z]ia" who died unmarried, at twenty.

[83] Most kindly copied for me by the Rev. W. Hunt from Arthur Collins's _Sydney Papers_.

[84] An agreeable phrase, not in the least obsolete, though I have known ignorant persons who thought it so. The "office" was that of Lord Chamberlain; the holder was Lord Howard of Effingham, afterwards famous in the Armada fights.

[85] See _Kenilworth_ (chap. xvi.), where Scott brings him in as experiencing Gloriana's extreme uncertainty of temper.

[86] _I.e._ a permanent one such as Hampton Court affords to some.

[87] "About"?

[88] Either by the Queen herself, whose touchiness is well known, or by jealous and mischief-making fellow courtiers.

[89] "Sharing."

[90] "Is grudged."

[91] We should say "try."

GEORGE CLIFFORD EARL OF CUMBERLAND (1558-1605)

This not very fortunate or wholly blameless but very
remarkable and representative person was the third holder of
the earldom and the sixteenth of the famous barony of
Clifford. He was great-grandson of Wordsworth's "Shepherd
Lord"; father of Anne Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and
Montgomery (pupil of Daniel the poet and a typical great
lady of her time); one of the foremost of Elizabeth's
privateering courtiers; one of the chief victims of her
caprice and parsimony; a magnificent noble, but a great
spendthrift, something of a libertine, never unkindly but
hardly ever wise. This remarkable deathbed letter (the
giving of which depended on the kindness of Dr. G. C.
Williamson of Hampstead, author of the _Life and Voyages of
G. Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland_, Cambridge University
Press, 1920, in which it appeared, p. 270-1), pretty well
explains itself. "Sweet Meg," his wife, was Lady Margaret
Russell, daughter of the Earl of Bedford. The pair were on
very affectionate terms for many years: but had latterly
been estranged by certain infidelities on the Earl's part
and by money disputes and difficulties, so that when his
last illness attacked him Lady Cumberland was not with him.
She was not, however, proof against this repentant appeal:
but returned with her daughter. Both were present at his
death in the Savoy soon after he wrote. He had made,
personally or by deputy, ten if not twelve voyages against
the Spaniards, and though there was a good deal of
mismanagement about them he took Porto Rico in one;
captured, but made little profit out of, an enormously
valuable prize, the _Madre de Dios_, in another; gave the
warning which enabled Lord Thomas Howard to escape, but
which Sir Richard Grenville refused to take "at Flores, in
the Azores"; and built at his own expense, the largest
privateer then or perhaps ever constructed, the _Malice
Scourge_--for the remarkable subsequent history of which,
see Mr. David Hannay's article, "_The Saga of a Ship_," in
_Blackwood_, May, 1921.

6.

Sweet and dear Meg,