Chapter XIII: Part 13

We set to work, therefore, with all earnestness, feeling our way first with fear and delicacy, as conscious of our own delinquency, to gather judgments which should be wiser than our own, and correct ourselves, if it proved that we required correction, with whatever severity might be necessary. The result of which labour of ours was not a little surprising; we found that women invariably, with that clear moral instinct of theirs, at once utterly reprobated and detested our poor Reynard; detested the hero and detested the bard who sang of him with so much sympathy; while men we found almost invariably feeling just as we felt ourselves, only with this difference, that we saw no trace of uneasiness in them about the matter. It was no little comfort to us, moreover, to find that the exceptions were rather among the half-men, the would-be extremely good, but whose goodness was of that dead and passive kind which spoke to but a small elevation of thought or activity; while just in proportion as a man was strong, and real, and energetic, was his ability to see good in Reineke. It was really most strange, one near friend of ours, a man who, as far as we knew (and we knew him well) had never done a wrong thing, when we ventured to hint something about roguery, replied, "You see, he was such a clever rogue, that he had a right." Another, whom we pressed more closely with that treacherous cannibal feast at Malepartus, on the body of poor Lampe, said, off-hand and with much impatience of such questioning, "Such fellows were made to be eaten." What could we do? It had come to this,-- as in the exuberance of our pleasure with some dear child, no ordinary epithet will sometimes reach to express the vehemence of our affection, and borrowing language out of the opposites, we call him little rogue or little villain, so here, reversing the terms of the analogy, we bestow the fulness of our regard on Reineke because of that transcendantly successful roguery.

When we asked our friends how they came to feel as they did, they had little to say. They were not persons who could be suspected of any latent disposition towards evil doing, and yet though it appeared as if they were falling under the description of those unhappy ones who, if they did not such things themselves, yet "had pleasure in those who did them," they did not care to justify themselves. The fact was so: arche to hoti: it was a fact--what could we want more? Some few attempted feebly to maintain that the book was a satire. But this only moved the difficulty a single step; for the fact of the sympathy remained unimpaired, and if it was a satire we were ourselves the objects of it. Others urged what we said above, that the story was only of poor animals that, according to Descartes, not only had no souls, but scarcely even life in any original and sufficient sense, and therefore we need not trouble ourselves. But one of two alternatives it seemed we were bound to choose, either of which was fatal to the proposed escape. Either there was a man hiding under the fox's skin, or else, if real foxes have such brains as Reineke was furnished withal, no honest doubt could be entertained that some sort of conscience was not forgotten in the compounding of him, and he must be held answerable according to his knowledge.

What would Mr. Carlyle say of it, we thought, with his might and right? "The just thing in the long run is the strong thing." But Reineke had a long run out and came in winner. Does he only "seem to succeed?" Who does succeed, then, if he no more than seems? The vulpine intellect knows where the geese live, it is elsewhere said; but among Reineke's victims we do not remember one goose, in the literal sense of goose; and as to geese metaphorical, at least the whole visible world lies down complacently at his feet. Nor does Mr. Carlyle's expressed language on this very poem serve any better to help us--nay, it seems as if he feels uneasy in the neighbourhood of so strong a rascal, so briefly he dismisses him. "Worldly prudence is the only virtue which is certain of its reward." Nay, but there is more in it than that: no worldly prudence would command the voices which have been given in to us for Reineke.

Three only possibilities lay now before us: either we should, on searching, find something solid in this Fox's doings to justify success; or else the just thing was not always the strong thing; or it might be, that such very semblance of success was itself the most miserable failure; that the wicked man who was struck down and foiled, and foiled again, till he unlearnt his wickedness, or till he was disabled from any more attempting it, was blessed in his disappointment; that to triumph in wickedness, and to continue in it and to prosper to the end, was the last, worst penalty inflicted by the divine vengeance. Hin' athanatos e adikos on--to go on with injustice through this world and through all eternity, uncleansed by any purgatorial fire, untaught by any untoward consequence to open his eyes and to see in its true accursed form the miserable demon to which he has sold himself,--this, of all catastrophes which could befal an evil man, was the deepest, lowest, and most savouring of hell, which the purest of the Grecian moralists could reason out for himself,--under which third hypothesis many an uneasy misgiving would vanish away, and Mr. Carlyle's broad aphorism be accepted by us with thankfulness.

It appeared, therefore, at any rate, to have come to this--that if we wanted a solution for our sphinx enigma, no OEdipus was likely to rise and find it for us; and that if we wanted help, we must make it for ourselves. This only we found, that if we sinned in our regard for the unworthy animal, we shared our sin with the largest number of our own sex; and, comforted with the sense of good fellowship, we went boldly to work upon our consciousness; and the imperfect analysis which we succeeded in accomplishing, we here lay before you, whoever you may be, who have felt, as we have felt, a regard which was a moral disturbance to you, and which you will be pleased if we enable you to justify--

Si quid novisti rectius istis, Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum.

Following the clue which was thrust into our hand by the marked difference of the feelings of men upon the subject from those of women, we were at once satisfied that Reineke's goodness, if he had any, must lay rather in the active than the passive department of life. The negative obedience to prohibitory precepts, under which women are bound as well as men, as was already too clear, we were obliged to surrender as hopeless. But it seemed as if, with respect to men whose business is to do, and to labour, and to accomplish, this negative test was a seriously imperfect one; and it was quite as possible that a man who unhappily had broken many prohibitions might yet exhibit positive excellencies, as that he might walk through life picking his way with the utmost assiduity, risking nothing and doing nothing, not committing a single sin, but keeping his talent carefully wrapt up in a napkin, and get sent, in the end, to outer darkness for his pains, as an unprofitable servant; and this appeared the more important to us, as it was very little dwelt upon by religious or moral teachers; and at the end of six thousand years, the popular notion of virtue, as far as it could get itself expressed, had not risen beyond the mere abstinence from certain specific bad actions.

The king of the beasts forgives Reineke on account of the substantial services which at various times he has rendered. His counsel was always the wisest, his hand the promptest in cases of difficulty; and all that dexterity, and politeness, and courtesy, and exquisite culture had not been learnt without an effort or without conquering many undesirable tendencies in himself. Men are not born with any art in its perfection, and he had made himself valuable by his own sagacity and exertion. Now, on the human stage, a man who has made himself valuable is certain to be valued. However we may pretend to estimate men according to the wrong things which they have done, or abstained from doing, we in fact follow the example of Nobel, the king of the beasts, and give them their places among us according to the serviceableness and capability which they display. We might mention not a few eminent public servants, whom the world delights to honour-- ministers, statesmen, lawyers, men of science, artists, poets, soldiers, who, if they were tried by the negative test, would show but a poor figure; yet their value is too real to be dispensed with; and we tolerate unquestionable wrong to secure the services of eminent ability. The world really does, and it always has really done so from the beginning of the human history; and it is only indolence or cowardice which has left our ethical teaching halting so far behind the universal and necessary practice. Even questionable prima donnas, in virtue of their sweet voices, have their praises hymned in drawing-room and newspaper, and applause rolls over them, and gold and bouquets shower on them from lips and hands which, except for those said voices, would treat them to a ruder reward. In real fact, we take our places in this world not according to what we are not, but according to what we are. His Holiness Pope Clement, when his audience-room rang with furious outcries for justice on Benvenuto Cellini, who, as far as half-a-dozen murders could form a title, was as fair a candidate for the gallows as ever swung from that unlucky wood, replied, "All this is very well, gentlemen: these murders are bad things, we know that. But where am I to get another Benvenuto, if you hang this one for me?"

Or, to take an acknowledged hero, one of the old Greek sort, the theme of the song of the greatest of human poets, whom it is less easy to refuse to admire than even our friend Reineke. Take Ulysses. It cannot be said that he kept his hands from taking what was not his, or his tongue from speaking what was not true; and if Frau Ermelyn had to complain (as indeed there was too much reason for her complaining) of certain infirmities in her good husband, Penelope, too, might have urged a thing or two, if she had known as much about the matter as we know, which the modern moralist would find it hard to excuse.

After all is said, the capable man is the man to be admired. The man who tries and fails, what is the use of him? We are in this world to do something-- not to fail in doing it. Of your bunglers--helpless, inefficient persons, "unfit alike for good or ill," who try one thing, and fail because they are not strong enough, and another, because they have not energy enough, and a third, because they have no talent--inconsistent, unstable, and therefore never to excel, what shall we say of them? what use is there in them? what hope is there of them? what can we wish for them? to mepot' einai pant' ariston. It were better for them they had never been born. To be able to do what a man tries to do, that is the first requisite; and given that, we may hope all things for him. "Hell is paved with good intentions," the proverb says; and the enormous proportion of bad successes in this life lie between the desire and the execution. Give us a man who is able to do what he settles that he desires to do, and we have the one thing indispensable. If he can succeed doing ill, much more he can succeed doing well. Show him better, and, at any rate, there is a chance that he will do better.

We are not concerned here with Benvenuto or with Ulysses further than to show, through the position which we all consent to give them, that there is much unreality, against which we must be on our guard. And if we fling off an old friend, and take to affecting a hatred of him which we do not feel, we have scarcely gained by the exchange, even though originally our friendship may have been misplaced.

Capability no one will deny to Reineke. That is the very differentia of him. An "animal capable" would be his sufficient definition. Here is another very genuinely valuable feature about him--his wonderful singleness of character. Lying, treacherous, cunning scoundrel as he is, there is a wholesome absence of humbug about him. Cheating all the world, he never cheats himself; and while he is a hypocrite, he is always a conscious hypocrite--a form of character, however paradoxical it may seem, a great deal more accessible than the other of the unconscious sort. Ask Reineke for the principles of his life, and if it suited his purpose to tell you, he could do so with the greatest exactness. There would be no discrepancy between the profession and the practice. He is most truly single-minded, and therefore stable in his ways, and therefore as the world goes, and in the world's sense, successful. Whether really successful is a question we do not care here to enter on; but only to say this--that of all unsuccessful men in every sense, either divine, or human, or devilish, there is none equal to old Bunyan's Mr. Facing-both-ways --the fellow with one eye on Heaven and one on earth --who sincerely preaches one thing, and sincerely does another; and from the intensity of his unreality is unable either to see or feel the contradiction. Serving God with his lips, and with the half of his mind which is not bound up in the world; and serving the devil with his actions, and with the other half, he is substantially trying to cheat both God and the devil, and is, in fact, only cheating himself and his neighbours. This, of all characters upon the earth, appears to us to be the one of whom there is no hope at all--a character becoming, in these days, alarmingly abundant; and the abundance of which makes us find even in a Reineke an inexpressible relief.

But what we most thoroughly value in him is his capacity. He can do what he sets to work to do. That blind instinct with which the world shouts and claps its hand for the successful man, is one of those latent forces in us which are truer than we know; it is the universal confessional to which Nature leads us, and, in her intolerance of disguise and hypocrisy, compels us to be our own accusers. Whoever can succeed in a given condition of society, can succeed only in virtue of fulfilling the terms which society exacts of him; and if he can fulfil them triumphantly, of course it rewards him and praises him. He is what the rest of the world would be, if their powers were equal to their desires. He has accomplished what they all are vaguely, and with imperfect consistency, struggling to accomplish; and the character of the conqueror--the means and appliances by which he has climbed up that great pinnacle on which he stands victorious, the observed of all observers, is no more than a very exact indicator of the amount of real virtue in the age, out of which he stands prominent.

We are forced to acknowledge that it was not a very virtuous age in which Reineke made himself a great man; but that was the fault of the age as much as the fault of him. His nature is to succeed wherever he is. If the age had required something else of him, then he would have been something else. Whatever it had said to him "do, and I will make you my hero," that Reineke would have done. No appetite makes a slave of him--no faculty refuses obedience to his will. His entire nature is under perfect organic control to the one supreme authority. And the one object for which he lives, and for which, let his lot have been cast in whatever century it might, he would always have lived, is to rise, to thrive, to prosper, and become great.

The world as he found it said to him--Prey upon us, we are your oyster; let your wit open us. If you will only do it cleverly--if you will take care that we shall not close upon your fingers in the process, you may devour us at your pleasure, and we shall feel ourselves highly honoured. Can we wonder at a fox of Reineke's abilities taking such a world at its word?

And let it not be supposed that society in this earth of ours is ever so viciously put together, is ever so totally without organic life, that a rogue, unredeemed by any merit, can prosper in it. There is no strength in rottenness; and when it comes to that, society dies and falls in pieces. Success, as it is called, even worldly success, is impossible, without some exercise of what is called moral virtue, without some portion of it, infinitesimally small, perhaps, but still some. Courage, for instance, steady self-confidence, self-trust, self-reliance-- that only basis and foundation-stone on which a strong character can rear itself--do we not see this in Reineke. While he lives he lives for himself; but if it comes to dying, he can die like his betters; and his wit is not of that effervescent sort which will fly away at the sight of death and leave him panic-stricken. It is true there is a meaning to that word courage, which was perhaps not to be found in the dictionary in which Reineke studied. "I hope I am afraid of nothing, Trim," said my uncle Toby, "except doing a wrong thing." With Reineke there was no "except." His digestive powers shrank from no action, good or bad, which would serve his turn. Yet it required no slight measure of courage to treat his fellow-creatures with the steady disrespect with which Reineke treats them. To walk along among them, regardless of any interest but his own; out of mere wantonness to hook them up like so many cock-chafers, and spin them for his pleasure; not like Domitian, with an imperial army to hold them down during the operation, but with no other assistance but his own little body and large wit; it was something to venture upon. And a world which would submit to be so treated, what could he do but despise?

To the animals utterly below ourselves, external to our own species, we hold ourselves bound by no law.

We say to them, vos non vobis, without any uneasy misgivings. We rob the bees of their honey, the cattle of their lives, the horse and the ass of their liberty. We kill the wild animals that they may not interfere with our pleasures; and acknowledge ourselves bound to them by no terms except what are dictated by our own convenience. And why should Reineke have acknowledged an obligation any more than we, to creatures so utterly below himself? He was so clever, as our friend said, that he had a right. That he could treat them so, Mr. Carlyle would say, proves that he had a right.

But it is a mistake to say he is without a conscience. No bold creature is ever totally without one. Even Iago shows some sort of conscience. Respecting nothing else in heaven or earth, he respects and even reverences his own intellect. After one of those sweet interviews with Roderigo, his, what we must call, conscience takes him to account for his company; and he pleads to it in his own justification--

"For I mine own gained knowledge should profane Were I to waste myself with such a snipe But for my sport and profit."

And Reineke, if we take the mass of his misdeeds, preyed chiefly, like our own Robin Hood, on rogues who were greater rogues than himself. If Bruin chose to steal Rusteviel's honey, if Hintze trespassed in the priest's granary, they were but taken in their own evildoings. And what is Isegim, the worst of Reineke's victims, but a great heavy, stupid, lawless brute?--fair type, we will suppose, of not a few Front-de-Boeufs and other so-called nobles of the poet's era, whose will to do mischief was happily limited by their obtuseness; or that French baron, Sir Gilbert de Retz, we believe, was his name, who, like Isegrim, had studied at the universities, and passed for learned, whose after-dinner pastime for many years, as it proved at last, was to cut children's throats for the pleasure of watching them die--we may well feel gratitude that a Reineke was provided to be the scourge of such monsters as they; and we have a thorough pure, exuberant satisfaction in seeing the intellect in that little weak body triumph over them and trample them down. This, indeed, this victory of intellect over brute force is one great secret of our pleasure in the poem, and goes far, in the Carlyle direction to satisfy us that, at any rate, it is not given to mere base physical strength to win in the battle of life, even in times when physical strength is apparently the only recognised power.

We are insensibly failing from our self-assumed judicial office into that of advocacy; and sliding into what may be plausibly urged, rather than standing fast on what we can surely affirm. Yet there are cases when it is fitting for the judge to become the advocate of an undefended prisoner; and advocacy is only plausible when a few words of truth are mixed with what we say, like the few drops of wine which colour and faintly flavour the large draught of water. Such few grains or drops, whatever they may be, we must leave to the kindness of Reynard's friends to distil for him, while we continue a little longer in the same strain.

After all it may be said, what is it in man's nature which is really admirable? It is idle for us to waste our labour in passing Reineke through the moral crucible unless we shall recognise the results when we obtain them; and in these moral sciences our analytical tests can only be obtained by a study of our own internal experience. If we desire to know what we admire in Reineke we must look for what we admire in ourselves. And what is that? Is it what on Sundays and on set occasions, and when we are mounted on our moral stilts, we are pleased to call goodness, probity obedience, humility? Is it? Is it really? Is it not rather the face and form which Nature made--the strength which is ours, we know not how--our talents, our rank, our possessions? It appears to us that we most value in ourselves and most admire in our neighbour not acquisitions, but gifts. A man does not praise himself for being good. If he praise himself he is not good. The first condition of goodness is forgetfulness of self; and where self has entered, under however plausible a form, the health is but skin-deep, and underneath there is corruption--and so through everything We value, we are vain of, proud of, or whatever you please to call it, not what we have done for ourselves, but what has been done for us--what has been given to us by the upper powers. We look up to high-born men, to wealthy men, to fortunate men, to clever men. Is it not so? Who do we choose for the county member, the magistrate, the officer, the minister? The good man we leave to the humble enjoyment of his goodness, and we look out for the able or the wealthy. And again of the wealthy, as if on every side to witness to the same universal law, the man who with no labour of his own has inherited a fortune, ranks higher in the world's esteem than his father who made it. We take rank by descent. Such of us as have the longest pedigree, and are therefore the farthest removed from the first who made the fortune and founded the family, we are the noblest. The nearer to the fountain the fouler the stream; and that first ancestor, who has soiled his fingers by labour, is no better than a parvenu.

And as it is with what we value, so it is with what we blame. It is an old story, that there is no one who would not in his heart prefer being a knave to being a fool; and when we fail in a piece of attempted roguery, as Coleridge has wisely observed, though reasoning unwisely from it, we lay the blame not on our own moral nature, for which we are responsible, but on our intellectual, for which we are not responsible. We do not say what knaves, we say what fools, we have been; perplexing Coleridge, who regards it as a phenomenon of some deep moral disorder; whereas it is but one more evidence of the universal fact that gifts are the true and proper object of appreciation, and as we admire men for possessing gifts, so we blame them for their absence. The noble man is the gifted man; the ignoble is the ungifted; and therefore we have only to state a simple law in simple language to have a full solution of the enigma of Reineke. He has gifts enough: of that, at least, there can be no doubt; and if he lacks the gift to use them in the way which we call good, at least he uses them successfully. His victims are less gifted than he, and therefore less noble; and therefore he has a right to use them as he pleases.

And after all, what are these victims? Among the heaviest charges which were urged against him was the killing and eating of that wretched Scharfenebbe-- Sharp-beak--the crow's wife. It is well that there are two sides to every story. A poor weary fox, it seemed, was not to be allowed to enjoy a quiet sleep in the sunshine but what an unclean carrion bird must come down and take a peck at him. We can feel no sympathy with the outcries of the crow husband over the fate of the unfortunate Sharpbeak. Wofully, he says, he flew over the place where, a few moments before, in the glory of glossy plumage, a loving wife sate croaking out her passion for him, and found nothing--nothing but a little blood and a few torn feathers--all else clean gone and utterly abolished. Well, and if it was so, it was a blank prospect for him, but the earth was well rid of her: and for herself, it was a higher fate to be assimilated into the body of a Reineke than to remain in a miserable individuality to be a layer of carrion crows' eggs.

And then for Bellyn, and for Bruin, and for Hintze, and the rest, who would needs be meddling with what was no concern of theirs, what is there in them to challenge either regret or pity. They made love their occupation.

'Tis dangerous when the baser nature fails Between the pass and fell incensed points Of mighty opposites: They lie not near our conscience:

Ah! if they were all .... But there is one misdeed, one which outweighs all others whatsoever--a crime which it is useless to palliate, let our other friend say what he pleased; and Reineke himself felt it so. It sate heavy, for him, on his soul, and alone of all the actions of his life we are certain that he wished it undone--the death and eating of that poor foolish Lampe. It was a paltry revenge in Reineke. Lampe had told tales of him; he had complained that Reineke under pretence of teaching him his lesson, had seized him, and tried to murder him; and though he provoked his fate by thrusting himself, after such a warning, into the jaws of Malepartus, Reineke betrays an uneasiness about it in confession; and, unlike himself, feels it necessary to make some sort of an excuse.

Grimbart had been obliged to speak severely of the seriousness of the offence. "You see," he answers:--

To help oneself out through the world is a queer sort of business: one can not Keep, you know, quite altogether as pure as one can in the cloister. When we are handling honey we now and then lick at our fingers. Lampe sorely provoked me; he frisked about this way and that way, Up and down, under my eyes, and he looked so fat and so jolly, Really I could not resist it. I entirely forgot how I loved him. And then he was so stupid.

But even this acknowledgment does not satisfy Reineke. His mind is evidently softened, and it is on that occasion that he pours out his pathetic lamentation over the sad condition of the world--so fluent, so musical, so touching, that Grimbart listened with wide eyes, unable, till it had run to the length of a sermon, to collect himself. It is true that at last his office as ghostly confessor obliged him to put in a slight demurrer:--

Uncle, the badger replied, why these are the sins of your neighbours; Yours, I should think, were sufficient, and rather more now to the purpose.

But he sighs to think what a preacher Reineke would have made.

And now, for the present, farewell to Reineke Fuchs, and to the song in which his glory is enshrined--the Welt Bibel, Bible of this world, as Goethe called it, the most exquisite moral satire, as we will call it, which has ever been composed. It is not addressed to a passing mode of folly or of profligacy, but it touches the perennial nature of mankind, laying bare our own sympathies, and tastes, and weaknesses, with as keen and true an edge as when the living world of the old Swabian poet winced under its earliest utterance.

Humorous in the high pure sense, every laugh which it gives may have its echo in a sigh, or may glide into it as excitement subsides into thought; and yet, for those who do not care to find matter there either for thought or sadness, may remain innocently as a laugh.

Too strong for railing, too kindly and loving for the bitterness of irony, the poem is, as the world itself, a book where each man will find what his nature enables him to see, which gives us back each our own image, and teaches us each the lesson which each of us desires to learn.

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THE COMMONPLACE BOOK OF RICHARD HILLES

In the Library at Balliol College, Oxford, there is a manuscript which, for want of a better name, I may call a Commonplace Book of an English gentleman who lived in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Its contents display, beyond any other single volume which I have met with, the mental furniture of an average-educated man of the time. There are stories in prose and verse, collections of proverbs, a dissertation on Horticulture, a dissertation on Farriery, a treatise of Confession, a Book of Education, a Book of Courtesy, a Book of "the Whole Duty" of Man; mercantile entries, discourses of arithmetic, recipes, prescriptions, marvels of science or pseudo-science, conundrums, tables of the assize of food; the laws respecting the sale of meat, bread, beer, wine, and other necessaries; while above and beyond all are a collection in various handwritten of ballads, songs, hymns, and didactic poems of a religious kind, some few of which have been met with elsewhere; but of the greater number of them no other copy, I believe, exists.

The owner and compiler was a certain Richard Hilles. From the entries of the births and deaths of his children on a fly-leaf, I gather that in 1518 he lived at a place called Hillend, near King's Langley, in Hertfordshire. The year following he had removed to London, where he was apparently in business; and among his remarks on the management of vines and fruit trees in his "Discourse on Gardens," he mentions incidentally that he had been in Greece and on the coast of Asia Minor. A brief "Annual Register" is carried down as far as 1535, in which year he perhaps died. One of his latest entries is the execution of Bishop Fisher and of Sir Thomas More. Some other facts about him might perhaps be collected; but his personal history could add little to the interest of his book, which is its own sufficient recommendation. It will be evident, from the description which I have given, that as an antiquarian curiosity this manuscript is one of the most remarkable of its kind which survives.

The public, who are willing to pay for the production of thousands of volumes annually, the value of which is inappreciable from its littleness, may perhaps not be unwilling to encourage, to the extent of the purchase of a small edition, the preservation in print of a relic which, even in the mere commonplace power of giving amusement, exceeds the majority of circulating novels: while readers whose appetites are more discriminating, and the students of the past, to whom the productions of their ancestors have a memorial value for themselves, may find their taste gratified at least with some fragments of genuine beauty equal to the best extant specimens of early English poetry.

In the hope of contributing to such a result, I am going to offer to the readers of Fraser a few miscellaneous selections from different parts of the volume; and as in the original they are thrown together without order--the sacred side by side with the profane; the devotional, the humorous, and the practical reposing in placid juxtaposition--I shall not attempt to remedy a disorder which is itself so characteristic a feature.

Let us commence, then, as a fitting grace before the banquet, with a song on the Nativity. The spirit which appears in many of the most beautiful pictures of mediaeval art is here found taking the form of words:--

Can I not sing Ut Hoy, When the Jolly shepherd made so much joy.

The shepherd upon a hill he sat, He had on him his tabard and his hat; His tar-box, his pipe, and his flat hat, His name was called Jolly, Jolly Wat, For he was a good herd's boy, Ut Hoy, For in his pipe he made so much joy.

The shepherd upon a hill was laid, His dogge to his girdle was tied; He had not slept but a little brayd When Gloria in Excelsis to him was said. Ut Hoy! For in his pipe he made so much joy.

The shepherd upon a hill he stood, Round about him his sheep they yode; He put his hand under his hood, He saw a star as red as blood, Ut Hoy! For in his pipe he made so much joy.

Now Farewell, Matt, and also Will, For my love go ye all still Unto I come again you till, And evermore Will ring well thy bell; Ut Hoy! For in his pipe he made so much joy.

Now I must go where Christ was born; Farewell! I come again to morn: Dog keep will my sheep from the corn, And warn well warrock when I blow my horn, Ut Hoy! For in his pipe he made so much joy.

When Wat to Bethlehem come was, He swat: he had gone faster than a pace. He found Jesu in a simple place, Between an oxe and an asse; Ut Hoy! For in his pipe he made so much joy.

Jesu! I offer to thee here my pipe, My skirt, my tar-box, and my scrip; Home to my fellows now will I skippe, And also look unto my shepe, Ut Hoy! For in his pipe he made so much joy.

Now Farewell, myne own Herdsman Watt; Yea, for God, Lady, and even so I had; Lull well Jesu in thy lappe, And farewell, Joseph, with thy gown and cap; Ut Hoy! For in his pipe he made so much joy.

Now may I well both hop and sing, For I have been at Christ's bearing; Home to my fellows now will I fling, Christ of Heaven to his bliss us bring. Ut Hoy! For in his pipe he made so much joy.

Hilles was perhaps himself a poet, or so I gather from the phrase, "Quoth Richard Hilles," with which more than one piece of great merit terminates. He would scarcely have added his own name to the composition of another person. Elizabeth, queen of Henry VII., died in childbirth in February, 1502-3.

The following "Lamentation," if not written by Hilles himself, was written in his life-time:--

THE LAMENTATION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH

Ye that put your trust and confidence In worldly riches and frail prosperity, That so live here as ye should never hence; Remember death, and look here upon me; Insample I think there may no better be: Yourself wot well that in my realm was I Your Queen but late; Lo, here I lie. Was I not born of worthy lineage: Was not my mother Queen, my father King; Was I not a king's fere in marriage; Had I not plenty of every pleasant thing? Merciful God! this is a strange reckoning; Riches, honour, wealth, and ancestry, Hath me forsaken; Lo, here I lie.

If worship might have kept me I had not go; If wealth might have me served I needed not so; If money might have held I lacked none. But oh, good God, what vaileth all this year! When death cometh, thy mighty messenger Obey we must, there is no remedy; He hath me summoned--lo, here I lie.

Yet was I lately promised otherwise This year to live in wealth and in delice, Lo, whereto cometh the blandishing promise? Oh, false astrology diminatrice Of Goddes secrets, making thee so wise! How true is for this year the prophecy; The year yet lasteth, and lo, here I lie.

Oh, brittle wealth--aye full of bitterness, Thy singular pleasure aye doubled is with pain. Account my sorrow first, and my distress Sundry wise, and reckon thee again The joy that I have had, I dare not feign, For all my honour, endured yet have I More woe than wealth; Lo, here I lie.

Where are our castles now, and our towers, Goodly Richmond, soon art thou gone from me; At Westminster, that goodly work of yours, Mine own dear lord, now shall I never see. Almighty God, vouchsafe to grant that ye, Ye and your children, well may edify, My place builded is; Lo, here I lie.

Adieu, my true spouse, and my worthy lord; The faithful love that did us two combine In marriage and peaceable concord, Into your hands here do I clean resign, To be bestowed unto your children and mine; Erst were ye father, now must ye supply The mother's part also; Lo, here I lie.

Farewell, my daughter, Lady Margaret,(1) God wot full sore it grieved hath my mind That ye should go where we should seldom meet; Now am I gone and have you left behind. Oh mortal folk! What be we weary blind! That we least fear full off it is full nigh, Fro you depart I first; Lo, here I lie.

Farewell, madame, my Lordes worthy mother,(2) Comfort your son and be ye of good cheer. Take all in worth, for it will be none other. Farewell my daughter,(3) late the fere To Prince Arthur mine own child so dear, It booteth not for me to weep or cry, Pray for my soul, for now lo here I lie.

Adieu, dear Harry, my lovely son, adieu, Our Lord increase your honour and your estate Adieu, my daughter Mary,(4) bright of hue, God made you virtuous, wise, and fortunate. Adieu sweetheart, my lady daughter Kate,(5) Thou shalt, good babe, such is thy destiny, Thy mother never know; Lo, here I lie.

Oh Lady Cecil, Anne, and Catherine, Farewell my well-beloved sisters three; Oh Lady bright, dear sister mine; Lo here the end of worldly vanity; Lo well are you that earthly folly flee, And Heavenly things do love and magnify. Farewell and pray for me; Lo, here I lie.

Adieu my lords and ladies all; Adieu my faithful servants every one; Adieu my commons, whom I never shall See in this world; Wherefore to thee alone, Immortal God, very three in one, I me commend--thy Infinite mercy Show to thy servant now; Lo, here I lie. ____

(1) Margaret of Scotland, Queen of James IV. (2) The Countess of Richmond. (3) Catherine of Aragon. (4) Queen of France, and afterwards Duchess of Suffolk (5) Died in childhood. ____

--

Here lyeth the fresh flower of Plantagenet; Here lyeth the White Rose in the red set; Here lyeth the noble Queen Elizabeth; Here lyeth the Princess departed by death; Here lyeth the blood of our country Royal; Here lyeth the favour of England immortal: Here lyeth Edward the Fourth in picture; Here lyeth his daughter and pearle pure; Here lyeth the wife of Harry our true King; Here lyeth the heart, the joy, and the gold Ring; Here lyeth the lady so liberal and gracious; Here lyeth the pleasure of thy house; Here lyeth very love of man and child; Here lyeth ensample our minds to bild; Here lyeth all beauty--of living a mirrour; Here lyeth all very good manner and honour; God grant her now Heaven to increase; And our King Harry long life and peace.

The note changes. We come next to a hunting song:--

As I walked by a forest side I met with a forester; he bade me abide At a place where he me set-- He bade me what time an hart I met That I should let slip and say go belt; With Hay go bett, Hay go belt, Hay go bett, Now we shall have game and sport enow.

I had not stand there but a while, Yea, not the maintenance of a mile, But a great hart came running without any guile; With there he goeth--there he goeth--there he goeth; Now we shall have game and sport enow.

I had no sooner my hounds let go But the hart was overthrow; Then every man began to blow, With trororo--trororo--trororo, Now we shall have game and sport enow.

In honour of good ale we have many English ballads. Good wine, too, was not without a poet to sing its praises, the Scripture allusions and the large infusion of Latin pointing perhaps to the refectory of some genial monastery.

A TREATISE OF WINE

The best tree if ye take intent, Inter ligna fructifera, Is the vine tree by good argument, Dulcia ferens pondera.

Saint Luke saith in his Gospel, Arbor fructu noscitur, The vine beareth wine as I you tell, Hinc aliis praeponitur.

The first that planted the vineyard, Manet in coeli gaudio, His name was Noe, as I am learned, Genesis testimonio.

God gave unto him knowledge and wit A quo procedunt omnia, First of the grape-wine for to get, Propter magna mysteria.

Melchisedek made offering, Dando liquorem vineum, Full mightily sacrafying Altaris sacraficium.

The first miracle that Jesus did, Erat in vino rubeo, In Cana of Galilee it betide, Testante Evangelio.

He changed water into wine, Aquae rubescunt hydrim, And bade give it to Archetcline, Ut gustet tunc primarie.

Like as the rose exceedeth all flowers, Inter cuncta florigera, So doth wine other liquours, Dans multa salutifera.

David, the prophet, saith that wine Laetificat cor hominis, It maketh men merry if it be fine, Est ergo digni nominis.

The malicoli fumosetive, Quae generat tristitiam, It causeth from the heart to rise Tollens omnem maestitiam.

The first chapter specified, Libri ecclesiastici, That wine is music of cunning delight, Laetificat cor clerici.

Sirs, if ye will see Boyce, De disciplina scholarium, There shall ye see without misse, Quod vinum acuit ingenium.

First, when Ypocras should dispute, Cum viris sapientibus, Good wine before was his pursuit, Acumen praebens sensibus.

It quickeneth a man's spirit and his mind, Audaciam dat liquentibus, If the wine be good and well fined, Prodest sobrie bibentibus.

Good wine received moderately, Mox cerebrum laetificat, Natural heat it strengthens pardy, Omne membrum fortificat.

Drunken also soberly, Digestionem uberans, Health it lengthens of the body, Naturam humanam prosperans.

Good wine provokes a man to sweat, Et plena lavat viscera, It maketh men to eat their meat, Facitque corda prospera.

It nourisheth age if it be good, Facit ut esset juvenis, It gendereth in him gentle blood, Nam venas purgat sanguinis.

Sirs, by all these causes ye should think, Quae sunt rationabiles, That good wine should be best of all drink, Inter potus potabiles.

Fill the cup well! Bellamye, Potum jam mihi ingere, I have said till my lips be dry, Vellem nunc vinum bibere.

Wine drinkers all with great honour, Semper laudate Dominum, The which sendeth the good liquour, Propter salutem hominum.

Plenty to all that love good-wine, Donet Deus largius, And bring them soon when they go hence, Ubi non sitlent amplius.

The boar's-head catch may be added to this, similar Latin intermixtures.

Caput apri refero, Resonans laudes Domino,

The boar's head in hand I bring, With garlands gay and birds singing, I pray you all help me to sing Qui estis in convivio.

The boar's head I understand, Is chief service in all this land, Wheresoever it may be found, Servitur cum sinapio.

The boar's head, I dare well say, Anon after the Twelfth day. He taketh his leave and goeth away, Exivit tune de patria.

Four of the following verses are on a tombstone, I believe in Melrose Abbey, and are well known. Few if any persons will have seen the poem of which they form a part. So far as I am aware no other copy survives [Since this was written I have learned that a version, with important differences has been printed for the Warton Club, from an MS. in the possession of Mr. Onusby Gore.]:--

Vado mori Rex sum, quid honor quid gloria mundi, Est vita mors hominum regia--vado mori. Vado mori miles victo certamine belli, Mortem non didici vincere vado mori. Vado mori medicus, medicamine non relevandus, Quicquid agunt medici respuo vado mori. Vado mori logicus, aliis concludere novi, Concludit breviter mors in vado mori.

Earth out of earth is worldly wrought; Earth hath gotten upon earth a dignity of nought; Earth upon earth has set all his thought, How that earth upon earth might be high brought.

Earth upon earth would be a king, But how that earth shall to earth he thinketh no thing. When earth biddeth earth his rents home bring, Then shall earth from earth have a hard parting.

Earth upon earth winneth castles and towers, Then saith earth unto earth this is all ours; But when earth upon earth has builded his bowers, Then shall earth upon earth suffer hard showers.

Earth upon earth hath wealth upon mould; Earth goeth upon earth glittering all in gold, Like as he unto earth never turn should, And yet shall earth unto earth sooner than he would. Why that earth loveth earth wonder I think, Or why that earth will for earth sweat and swink. For when earth upon earth is brought within the brink, Then shall earth for earth suffer a foul stink,

As earth upon earth were the worthies nine, And as earth upon earth in honour did shine; But earth list not to know how they should incline, And their gowns laid in the earth when death made his fine.

As earth upon earth full worthy was Joshua, David, and worthy King Judas Maccabee, They were but earth none of them three; And so from earth unto earth they left their dignity.

Alisander was but earth that all the world wan, And Hector upon earth was held a worthy man, And Julius Caesar, that the Empire first began; And now as earth within earth they lie pale and wan.

Arthur was but earth for all his renown, No more was King Charles nor Godfrey of Boulogne; But how earth hath turned their noblenes upside down And thus earth goeth to earth by short conclusion.

Whoso reckons also of William Conqueror, King Henry the First that was of knighthood flower, Earth hath closed them full straitly in his bower,-- So the end of worthiness,--here is no more succour.

Now ye that live upon earth, both young and old, Think how ye shall to earth, be ye never so bold; Ye be unsiker, whether it be in heat or cold, Like as your brethren did before, as I have told.

Now ye folks that be here ye may not long endure, But that ye shall turn to earth I do you ensure; And if ye list of the truth to see a plain figure, Go to St. Paul's and see the portraiture.

All is earth and shall to earth as it sheweth there, Therefore ere dreadful death with his dart you dare, And for to turn into earth no man shall it forbear, Wisely purvey you before, and thereof have no leaf.

Now sith by death we shall all pass, it is to us certain, For of earth we come all, and to the earth shall turn again; Therefore to strive or grudge it were but vain, For all is earth and shall be earth--nothing more certain.

Now earth upon earth consider thou may How earth cometh to earth naked alway, Why should earth upon earth go stout alway, Since earth out of earth shall pass in poor array?

I counsel you upon earth that wickedly have wrought, That earth out of earth to bliss may be brought.

--

Of songs, nursery rhymes, and carols, there are very many, of which the next three are specimens:--

Lulley, lulley, lulley, lulley, The falcon hath borne my mate away, He bare him up, he bare him down, He bare him into an orchard brown. Lulley, lulley, lulley, lulley, The falcon hath borne my mate away.

In that orchard there was a hall, That was hanged with purple and pall, And in that hall there was a bed That was hanged with gold so red, Lulley, lulley, lulley, lulley.

And in that bed there lyeth a knight, His wounds were bleeding day and night; By the bedside there kneeleth a may, And she weepeth both night and day, Lulley, lulley, lulley, lulley.

And by the bed side there standeth a stone, Corpus Christi is written thereon. Lulley, lulley, lulley, lulley, The falcon hath borne my mate away.

I have twelve oxen, and they be fair and brown, And they go a grazing down by the town, With haye, with howe, with hoye! Sawest thou not mine oxen, thou little pretty boy?

I have twelve oxen, and they be fair and white, And they go a grazing down by the dyke, With haye, with howe, with hoye! Sawest thou not mine oxen, thou little pretty boy?

I have twelve oxen, and they be fair and black, And they go a grazing down by the lake, With haye, with howe, with hoye! Sawest thou not mine oxen, thou little pretty boy?

I have twelve oxen, and they be fair and red, And they go a grazing down by the mead, With haye, with howe, with hoye! Sawest thou not mine oxen, thou pretty little boy?

--

Make we merry in hall and bower This time was born our Saviour.

In this time God hath sent His own Son to be present, To dwell with us in verament, God is our Saviour.

In this time that is befal, A child was born in an ox stall, And after he died for us all, God is our Saviour.

In this time an Angel bright Met three shepherds upon a night, He bade them go anon of right To God that is our Saviour.

In this time now pray we To Him that died for us on tree, On us all to have pitee, God is our Saviour.

--

And how exquisitely graceful too is this:--

There is a flower sprung of a tree, The root of it is called Jesse, A flower of price,-- There is none such in Paradise.

Of Lily white and Rose of Ryse, Of Primrose and of Flower-de-Lyse, Of all flowers in my devyce, The flower of Jesse beareth the prize, For most of all To help our souls both great and small.

I praise the flower of good Jesse, Of all the flowers that ever shall be, Uphold the flower of good Jesse, And worship it for aye beautee; For best of all That ever was or ever be shall.