Chapter XII: Part 2: , 1896 (9)

Various as were the characters that composed it, not less diversified were the costumes of this heterogeneous assemblage. Subject to no particular regulations as to dress, or rather openly infracting them, if any such were attempted to be enforced--each scholar, to whatever college he belonged, attired himself in such garments as best suited his taste or his finances. Taking it altogether, the mob was neither remarkable for the fashion, nor the cleanliness of the apparel of its members.

From Rabelais we learn that the passion of play was so strongly implanted in the students of his day, that they would frequently stake the points of their doublets at _tric-trac_ or _troumadame_; and but little improvement had taken place in their morals or manners some half-century afterward. The buckle at their girdle--the mantle on their shoulders--the shirt to their back--often stood the hazard of the die; and hence it not unfrequently happened, that a rusty _pourpoint_ and ragged _chaussés_ were all the covering which the luckless dicers could enumerate, owing, no doubt, "to the extreme rarity and penury of money in their pouches."

Round or square caps, hoods and cloaks of black, gray, or other sombre hue, were, however, the prevalent garb of the members of the university; but here and there might be seen some gayer specimen of the tribe, whose broad-brimmed, high-crowned felt hat and flaunting feather; whose puffed-out sleeves and exaggerated ruff--with starched plaits of such amplitude that they had been not inappropriately named _plats de Saint Jean-Baptiste_, from the resemblance which the wearer's head bore to that of the saint, when deposited in the charger of the daughter of Herodias--were intended to ape the leading mode of the elegant court of their sovereign, Henri Trois.

To such an extent had these insolent youngsters carried their license of imitation that certain of their members, fresh from the fair of Saint-Germain, and not wholly unacquainted with the hippocras of the sutlers crowding its mart, wore around their throats enormous collars of paper, cut in rivalry of the legitimate plaits of muslin, and bore in their hands long hollow sticks from which they discharged peas and other missiles, in imitation of the _sarbacanes_ or pea-shooters then in vogue with the monarch and his favorites.

Thus fantastically tricked out, on that same day--nay, only a few hours before, and at the fair above mentioned--had these facetious wights, with more merriment than discretion, ventured to exhibit themselves before the cortege of Henri, and to exclaim loud enough to reach the ears of royalty, "_à la fraise on connoit le veau_!" a piece of pleasantry for which they subsequently paid dear.

Notwithstanding its shabby appearance in detail, the general effect of this scholastic rabble was striking and picturesque. The thick mustaches and pointed beards with which the lips and chins of most of them were decorated, gave to their physiognomies a manly and determined air, fully borne out by their unrestrained carriage and deportment. To a man, almost all were armed with a tough vine-wood bludgeon, called in their language an _estoc volant_, tipped and shod with steel--a weapon fully understood by them, and rendered, by their dexterity in the use of it, formidable to their adversaries. Not a few carried at their girdles the short rapier, so celebrated in their duels and brawls, or concealed within their bosom a poniard or a two-edged knife.

The scholars of Paris have ever been a turbulent and ungovernable race; and at the period of which this history treats, and indeed long before, were little better than a licensed horde of robbers, consisting of a pack of idle and wayward youths drafted from all parts of Europe, as well as from the remoter provinces of their own nation. There was little in common between the mass of students and their brethren, excepting the fellowship resulting from the universal license in which all indulged. Hence their thousand combats among themselves--combats almost invariably attended with fatal consequences--and which the heads of the university found it impossible to check.

Their own scanty resources, eked out by what little they could derive from beggary or robbery, formed their chief subsistence; for many of them were positive mendicants, and were so denominated: and being possessed of a sanctuary within their own quarters, to which they could at convenience retire, they submitted to the constraint of no laws except those enforced within the jurisdiction of the university, and hesitated at no means of enriching themselves at the expense of their neighbors. Hence the frequent warfare waged between them and the brethren of Saint-Germain des Prés, whose monastic domains adjoined their territories, and whose meadows were the constant battleground of their skirmishes; according to Dulaure--"_presque toujours un théâtre de tumulte, de galanterie, de combats, de duels, de débauches et de sédition_." Hence their sanguinary conflicts with the good citizens of Paris, to whom they were wholly obnoxious, and who occasionally repaid their aggressions with interest. In 1407 two of their number, convicted of assassination and robbery, were condemned to the gibbet, and the sentence was carried into execution; but so great was the uproar occasioned in the university by this violation of its immunities that the Provost of Paris, Guillaume de Tignonville, was compelled to take down their bodies from Montfaucon and see them honorably and ceremoniously interred. This recognition of their rights only served to make matters worse, and for a series of years the nuisance continued unabated.

It is not our purpose to record all the excesses of the university, nor the means taken for their suppression. Vainly were the civil authorities arrayed against them. Vainly were bulls thundered from the Vatican. No amendment was effected. The weed might be cut down, but was never entirely extirpated. Their feuds were transmitted from generation to generation, and their old bone of contention with the abbot of Saint-Germain (the Pré-aux-Clercs) was, after an uninterrupted strife for thirty years, submitted to the arbitration of the Pope, who very equitably refused to pronounce judgment in favor of either party.

Such were the scholars of Paris in the sixteenth century--such the character of the clamorous crew who besieged the portals of the College of Navarre.

The object that summoned together this unruly multitude was, it appears, a desire on the part of the scholars to be present at a public controversy or learned disputation, then occurring within the great hall of the college before which they were congregated; and the disappointment caused by their finding the gates closed, and all entrance denied to them, occasioned their present disposition to riot.

It was in vain they were assured by the halberdiers stationed at the gates, and who, with crossed pikes, strove to resist the onward pressure of the mob, that the hall and court were already crammed to overflowing, that there was not room even for the sole of a foot of a doctor of the faculties, and that their orders were positive and imperative that none beneath the degree of a bachelor or licentiate should be admitted, and that a troop of martinets and new-comers could have no possible claim to admission.

In vain they were told this was no ordinary disputation, no common controversy, where all were alike entitled to license of ingress; that the disputant was no undistinguished scholar, whose renown did not extend beyond his own trifling sphere, and whose opinions, therefore, few would care to hear and still fewer to oppugn, but a foreigner of high rank, in high favor and fashion, and not more remarkable for his extraordinary intellectual endowments than for his brilliant personal accomplishments.

In vain the trembling officials sought to clinch their arguments by stating, that not alone did the conclave consist of the chief members of the university, the senior doctors of theology, medicine, and law, the professors of the humanities, rhetoric, and philosophy, and all the various other dignitaries; but that the debate was honored by the presence of Monsieur Christophe de Thou, first president of Parliament; by that of the learned Jacques Augustin, of the same name; by one of the secretaries of state and Governor of Paris, M. René de Villequier; by the ambassadors of Elizabeth, Queen of England, and of Philip the Second, King of Spain, and several of their suite; by Abbé de Brantôme; by M. Miron, the court physician; by Cosmo Ruggieri, the Queen Mother's astrologer; by the renowned poets and masque writers, Maîtres Ronsard, Baïf, and Philippe Desportes; by the well-known advocate of Parliament, Messire Étienne Pasquier: but also (and here came the gravamen of the objection to their admission) by the two especial favorites of his Majesty and leaders of affairs, the seigneurs of Joyeuse and D'Epernon.

It was in vain the students were informed that for the preservation of strict decorum, they had been commanded by the rector to make fast the gates. No excuses would avail them. The scholars were cogent reasoners, and a show of staves soon brought their opponents to a nonplus. In this line of argument they were perfectly aware of their ability to prove a major.

"To the wall with them--to the wall!" cried a hundred infuriated voices. "Down with the halberdiers--down with the gates--down with the disputants--down with the rector himself!--Deny our privileges! To the wall with old Adrien d'Amboise--exclude the disciples of the university from their own halls!--curry favor with the court minions!--hold a public controversy in private!--down with him! We will issue a mandamus for a new election on the spot!"

Whereupon a deep groan resounded throughout the crowd. It was succeeded by a volley of fresh execrations against the rector, and an angry demonstration of bludgeons, accompanied by a brisk shower of peas from the _sarbacanes_.

The officials turned pale, and calculated the chance of a broken neck in reversion, with that of a broken crown in immediate possession. The former being at least contingent, appeared the milder alternative, and they might have been inclined to adopt it had not a further obstacle stood in their way. The gate was barred withinside, and the vergers and bedels who had the custody of the door, though alarmed at the tumult without, positively refused to unfasten it.

Again the threats of the scholars were renewed, and further intimations of violence were exhibited. Again the peas rattled upon the hands and faces of the halberdiers, till their ears tingled with pain. "Prate to us of the king's favorites," cried one of the foremost of the scholars, a youth decorated with a paper collar: "they may rule within the precincts of the Louvre, but not within the walls of the university. _Maugre-bleu!_ We hold them cheap enough. We heed not the idle bark of these full-fed court lapdogs. What to us is the bearer of a cup and ball? By the four Evangelists, we will have none of them here! Let the Gascon cadet, D'Epernon, reflect on the fate of Quélus and Maugiron, and let our gay Joyeuse beware of the dog's death of Saint-Mégrin. Place for better men--place for the schools--away with frills and _sarbacanes_."

"What to us is a president of Parliament, or a governor of the city?" shouted another of the same gentry. "We care nothing for their ministration. We recognize them not, save in their own courts. All their authority fell to the ground at the gate of the Rue Saint Jacques, when they entered our dominions. We care for no parties. We are trimmers, and steer a middle course. We hold the Guisards as cheap as the Huguenots, and the brethren of the League weigh as little with us as the followers of Calvin. Our only sovereign is Gregory the Thirteenth, Pontiff of Rome. Away with the Guise and the Béarnaise!"

"Away with Henri of Navarre, if you please," cried a scholar of Harcourt; "or Henri of Valois, if you list: but by all the saints, not with Henri of Lorraine; he is the fast friend of the true faith. No!--No!--live the Guise--live the Holy Union!"

"Away with Elizabeth of England," cried a scholar of Cluny: "what doth her representative here? Seeks he a spouse for her among our schools? She will have no great bargain, I own, if she bestows her royal hand upon our Duc d'Anjou."

"If you value your buff jerkin, I counsel you to say nothing slighting of the Queen of England in my hearing," returned a bluff, broad-shouldered fellow, raising his bludgeon after a menacing fashion. He was an Englishman belonging to the Four Nations, and had a huge bull-dog at his heels.

"Away with Philip of Spain and his ambassador," cried a Bernardin.

"By the eyes of my mistress!" cried a Spaniard belonging to the College of Narbonne, with huge mustaches curled half-way up his bronzed and insolent visage, and a slouched hat pulled over his brow. "This may not pass muster. The representative of the King of Spain must be respected even by the Academics of Lutetia. Which of you shall gainsay me?--ha!"

"What business has he here with his suite, on occasions like to the present?" returned the Bernardin. "_Tête-Dieu!_ this disputation is one that little concerns the interest of your politic king; and methinks Don Philip, or his representative, has regard for little else than whatsoever advances his own interest. Your ambassador hath, I doubt not, some latent motive for his present attendance in our schools."

"Perchance," returned the Spaniard. "We will discuss that point anon."

"And what doth the pander of the Sybarite within the dusty halls of learning?" ejaculated a scholar of Lemoine. "What doth the jealous-pated slayer of his wife and unborn child within the reach of free-spoken voices, and mayhap of well-directed blades? Methinks it were more prudent to tarry within the bowers of his harem, than to hazard his perfumed person among us."

"Well said," rejoined the scholar of Cluny--"down with René de Villequier, though he be Governor of Paris."

"What title hath the Abbé de Brantôme to a seat among us?" said the scion of Harcourt: "faith, he hath a reputation for wit, and scholarship, and gallantry. But what is that to us? His place might now be filled by worthier men."

"And what, in the devil's name, brings Cosmo Ruggieri hither?" asked the Bernardin. "What doth the wrinkled old dealer in the black art hope to learn from us? We are not given to alchemy, and the occult sciences; we practice no hidden mysteries; we brew no philtres; we compound no slow poisons; we vend no waxen images. What doth he here, I say! 'Tis a scandal in the rector to permit his presence. And what if he came under the safeguard, and by the authority of his mistress, Catherine de' Medicis! Shall we regard her passport? Down with the heathen abbé, his abominations have been endured too long; they smell rank in our nostrils. Think how he ensnared La Mole--think on his numberless victims. Who mixed the infernal potion of Charles the Ninth? Let him answer that. Down with the infidel--the Jew--the sorcerer! The stake were too good for him. Down with Ruggieri, I say."

"Aye, down with the accursed astrologer," echoed the whole crew. "He has done abundant mischief in his time. A day of reckoning has arrived. Hath he cast his own horoscope? Did he foresee his own fate? Ha! ha!"

"And then the poets," cried another member of the Four Nations--"a plague on all three. Would they were elsewhere. In what does this disputation concern them? Pierre Ronsard, being an offshoot of this same College of Navarre, hath indubitably a claim upon our consideration. But he is old, and I marvel that his gout permitted him to hobble so far. Oh, the mercenary old scribbler! His late verses halt like himself, yet he lowereth not the price of his masques. Besides which, he is grown moral, and unsays all his former good things. _Mort Dieu!_ your superannuated bards ever recant the indiscretions of their nonage. Clément Marot took to psalm-writing in his old age. As to Baïf, his name will scarce outlast the scenery of his ballets, his plays are out of fashion since the Gelosi arrived. He deserves no place among us. And Philip Desportes owes all his present preferment to the Vicomte de Joyeuse. However, he is not altogether devoid of merit--let him wear his bays, so he trouble us not with his company. Room for the sophisters of Narbonne, I say. To the dogs with poetry!"

"_Morbleu!_" exclaimed another. "What are the sophisters of Narbonne to the decretists of the Sorbonne, who will discuss you a position of Cornelius à Lapide, or a sentence of Peter Lombard, as readily as you would a flask of hippocras, or a slice of botargo. Aye, and cry _transeat_ to a thesis of Aristotle, though it be against rule. What sayst thou, Capéte?" continued he, addressing his neighbor, a scholar of Montaigu, whose modest gray capuchin procured him this appellation: "are we the men to be thus scurvily entreated?"

"I see not that your merits are greater than ours," returned he of the capuch, "though our boasting be less. The followers of the lowly John Standoncht are as well able to maintain their tenets in controversy as those of Robert of Sorbon; and I see no reason why entrance should be denied us. The honor of the university is at stake, and all its strength should be mustered to assert it."

"Rightly spoken," returned the Bernardin; "and it were a lasting disgrace to our schools were this arrogant Scot to carry off their laurels when so many who might have been found to lower his crest are allowed no share in their defense. The contest is one that concerns us all alike. We at least can arbitrate in case of need."

"I care not for the honors of the university," rejoined one of the Écossais, or Scotch College, then existing in the Rue des Amandiers, "but I care much for the glory of my countryman, and I would gladly have witnessed the triumph of the disciples of Rutherford and of the classic Buchanan. But if the arbitrament to which you would resort is to be that of voices merely, I am glad the rector in his wisdom has thought fit to keep you without, even though I myself be personally inconvenienced by it."

"Name o' God! what fine talking is this?" retorted the Spaniard. "There is little chance of the triumph you predicate for your countryman. Trust me, we shall have to greet his departure from the debate with many hisses and few cheers; and if we could penetrate through the plates of yon iron door, and gaze into the court it conceals from our view, we should find that the loftiness of his pretensions has been already humbled, and his arguments graveled. _For la Litania de los Santos!_ to think of comparing an obscure student of the pitiful College of Saint Andrew with the erudite doctors of the most erudite university in the world, always excepting those of Valencia and Salamanca. It needs all thy country's assurance to keep the blush of shame from mantling in thy cheeks."

"The seminary you revile," replied the Scot, haughtily, "has been the nursery of our Scottish kings. Nay, the youthful James Stuart pursued his studies under the same roof, beneath the same wise instruction, and at the self-same time as our noble and gifted James Crichton, whom you have falsely denominated an adventurer, but whose lineage is not less distinguished than his learning. His renown has preceded him hither, and he was not unknown to your doctors when he affixed his programme to these college walls. Hark!" continued the speaker, exultingly, "and listen to yon evidence of his triumph."

And as he spoke, a loud and continued clapping of hands proceeding from within was distinctly heard above the roar of the students.

"That may be at his defeat," muttered the Spaniard, between his teeth.

"No such thing," replied the Scot. "I heard the name of Crichton mingled with the plaudits."

"And who may be this Phoenix--this Gargantua of intellect--who is to vanquish us all, as Panurge did Thaumast, the Englishman?" asked the Sorbonist of the Scot. "Who is he that is more philosophic than Pythagoras?--ha!"

"Who is more studious than Carneades!" said the Bernardin.

"More versatile than Alcibiades!" said Montaigu.

"More subtle than Averroës!" cried Harcourt.

"More mystical than Plotinus!" said one of the Four Nations.

"More visionary than Artemidorus!" said Cluny.

"More infallible than the Pope!" added Lemoine.

"And who pretends to dispute _de omni scibili_," shouted the Spaniard.

"_Et quolibet ente!_! added the Sorbonist.

"Mine ears are stunned with your vociferations," replied the Scot. "You ask me who James Crichton is, and yourselves give the response. You have mockingly said he is a _rara avis_; a prodigy of wit and learning: and you have unintentionally spoken the truth. He is so. But I will tell you that of him of which you are wholly ignorant, or which you have designedly overlooked. His condition is that of a Scottish gentleman of high rank. Like your Spanish grandee, he need not doff his cap to kings. On either side hath he the best of blood in his veins. His mother was a Stuart directly descended from that regal line. His father, who owneth the fair domains of Eliock and Cluny, was Lord Advocate to our bonny and luckless Mary (whom Heaven assoilzie!) and still holds his high office. Methinks the Lairds of Crichton might have been heard of here. Howbeit, they are well known to me, who being an Ogilvy of Balfour, have often heard tell of a certain contract or obligation, whereby--"

"_Basta!_" interrupted the Spaniard, "heed not thine own affairs, worthy Scot. Tell us of this Crichton--ha!"

"I have told you already more than I ought to have told," replied Ogilvy, sullenly. "And if you lack further information respecting James Crichton's favor at the Louvre, his feats of arms, and the esteem in which he is held by all the dames of honor in attendance upon your Queen Mother, Catherine de' Medicis--and moreover," he added, with somewhat of sarcasm, "with her fair daughter, Marguerite de Valois--you will do well to address yourself to the king's buffoon, Maître Chicot, whom I see not far off. Few there are, methinks, who could in such short space have won so much favor, or acquired such bright renown."

"Humph!" muttered the Englishman, "your Scotsmen stick by each other all the world over. This James Crichton may or may not be the hero he is vaunted, but I shall mistrust his praises from that quarter, till I find their truth confirmed."

"He has, to be sure, acquired the character of a stout swords-man," said the Bernardin, "to give the poor devil his due."

"He has not met with his match at the _salle-d'armes_, though he has crossed blades with the first in France," replied Ogilvy.

"I have seen him at the Manége," said the Sorbonist, "go through his course of equitation, and being a not altogether unskillful horseman myself, I can report favorably of his performance."

"There is none among your youth can sit a steed like him," returned Ogilvy, "nor can any of the jousters carry off the ring with more certainty at the lists. I would fain hold my tongue, but you enforce me to speak in his praise."

"Body of Bacchus!" exclaimed the Spaniard, half unsheathing the lengthy weapon that hung by his side, "I will hold you a wager of ten rose-nobles to as many silver reals of Spain, that with this stanch Toledo I will overcome your vaunted Crichton in close fight in any manner or practice of fence or digladiation which he may appoint--sword and dagger, or sword only--stripped to the girdle or armed to the teeth. By our Saint Trinidad! I will have satisfaction for the contumelious affront he hath put upon the very learned gymnasium to which I belong; and it would gladden me to clip the wings of this loud-crowing cock, or any of his dunghill crew," added he, with a scornful gesture at the Scotsman.

"If that be all you seek, you shall not need to go far in your quest," returned Ogilvy. "Tarry till this controversy be ended, and if I match not your Spanish blade with a Scottish broad-sword, and approve you as recreant at heart as you are boastful and injurious of speech, may Saint Andrew forever after withhold from me his protection."

"The Devil!" exclaimed the Spaniard. "Thy Scottish saint will little avail thee, since thou hast incurred my indignation. Betake thee, therefore, to thy paternosters, if thou has grace withal to mutter them; for within the hour thou art assuredly food for the kites of the Pré-aux-Clercs--sa-ha!"

"Look to thyself, vile braggart!" rejoined Ogilvy, scornfully: "I promise thee thou shalt need other intercession than thine own to purchase safety at my hands."

"Courage, Master Ogilvy," said the Englishman, "thou wilt do well to slit the ears of this Spanish swashbuckler. I warrant me he hides a craven spirit beneath that slashed _pourpoint_. Thou art in the right, man, to make him eat his words. Be this Crichton what he may, he is at least thy countryman, and in part mine own."

"And as such I will uphold him," said Ogilvy, "against any odds."

"Bravo! my valorous Don Diego Caravaja," said the Sorbonist, slapping the Spaniard on the shoulder, and speaking in his ear. "Shall these scurvy Scots carry all before them?--I warrant me, no. We will make common cause against the whole beggarly nation; and in the meanwhile we intrust thee with this particular quarrel. See thou acquit thyself in it as beseemeth a descendant of the Cid."

"Account him already abased," returned Caravaja. "By Pelayo, I would the other were at his back, that both might be transfixed at a blow--ha!"

"To return to the subject of difference," said the Sorbonist, who was too much delighted with the prospect of a duel to allow the quarrel a chance of subsiding, while it was in his power to fan the flame; "to return to the difference," said he, aloud, glancing at Ogilvy; "it must be conceded that as a wassailer this Crichton is without a peer. None of us may presume to cope with him in the matter of the flask and the flagon, though we number among us some jolly topers. Friar John, with the Priestess of Bacbuc, was a washy bibber compared with him."

"He worships at the shrines of other priestesses besides hers of Bacbuc, if I be not wrongly informed," added Montaigu, who understood the drift of his companion.

"Else, wherefore our rejoinder to his cartels?" returned the Sorbonist. "Do you not call to mind that beneath his arrogant defiance of our learned body, affixed to the walls of the Sorbonne, it was written, 'That he who would behold this miracle of learning must hie to the tavern or bordel?' Was it not so, my hidalgo?"

"I have myself seen him at the temulentive tavern of the Falcon," returned Caravaja, "and at the lupanarian haunts in the Champ Gaillard and the Val-d'Amour. You understand me--ha!"

"Ha! ha! ha!" chorused the scholars. "James Crichton is no stoic. He is a disciple of Epicurus. _Vel in puellam impingit, vel in poculum_--ha! ha!"

"'Tis said that he hath dealings with the Evil One," observed the man of Harcourt, with a mysterious air; "and that, like Jeanne d'Arc, he hath surrendered his soul for his temporal welfare. Hence his wondrous lore; hence his supernatural beauty and accomplishments; hence his power of fascinating the fair sex; hence his constant run of luck with the dice; hence, also, his invulnerableness to the sword."

"'Tis said, also, that he has a familiar spirit, who attends him in the semblance of a black dog," said Montaigu.

"Or in that of a dwarf, like the sooty imp of Cosmo Ruggieri," said Harcourt. "Is it not so?" he asked, turning to the Scot.

"He lies in his throat who says so," cried Ogilvy, losing all patience. "To one and all of you I breathe defiance; and there is not a brother in the college to which I belong who will not maintain my quarrel."

A loud laugh of derision followed this sally; and, ashamed of having justly exposed himself to ridicule by his idle and unworthy display of passion, the Scotsman held his peace and endeavored to turn a deaf ear to their taunts.

The gates of the College of Navarre were suddenly thrown open, and a long-continued thunder of applause bursting from within, announced the conclusion of the debate. That it had terminated in favor of Crichton could no longer be doubted, as his name formed the burden of all the plaudits with which the courts were ringing. All was excitement: there was a general movement. Ogilvy could no longer restrain himself. Pushing forward by prodigious efforts, he secured himself a position at the portal.

The first person who presented himself to his inquiring eyes was a gallant figure in a glittering steel corselet crossed by a silken sash, who bore at his side a long sword with a magnificent handle, and upon his shoulder a lance of some six feet in length, headed with a long scarlet tassel, and brass half-moon pendant. "Is not Crichton victorious?" asked Ogilvy of Captain Larchant, for he it was.

"He hath acquitted himself to admiration," replied the guardsman, who, contrary to the custom of such gentry (for captains of the guard have been fine gentlemen in all ages), did not appear to be displeased at this appeal to his courtesy, "and the rector hath adjudged him all the honors that can be bestowed by the university."

"Hurrah for old Scotland," shouted Ogilvy, throwing his bonnet in the air; "I was sure it would be so; this is a day worth living for. _Hoec olim meminisse juvabit_."

"Thou at least shalt have reason to remember it," muttered Caravaja, who, being opposite to him, heard the exclamation--"and he too, perchance," he added, frowning gloomily, and drawing his cloak over his shoulder.

"If the noble Crichton be compatriot of yours, you are in the right to be proud of him," replied Captain Larchant, "for the memory of his deeds of this day will live as long as learning shall be held in reverence. Never before hath such a marvelous display of universal erudition been heard within these schools. By my faith, I am absolutely wonder-stricken, and not I alone, but all. In proof of which I need only tell you, that coupling his matchless scholarship with his extraordinary accomplishments, the professors in their address to him at the close of the controversy have bestowed upon him the epithet of 'Admirable'--an appellation by which he will ever after be distinguished."

"The Admirable Crichton!" echoed Ogilvy--"hear you that!--a title adjudged to him by the whole conclave of the university--hurrah! The Admirable Crichton! 'Tis a name will find an echo in the heart of every true Scot. By Saint Andrew! this is a proud day for us."

"In the mean time," said Larchant, smiling at Ogilvy's exultations, and describing a circle with the point of his lance, "I must trouble you to stand back, Messieurs Scholars, and leave free passage for the rector and his train--Archers advance, and make clear the way, and let the companies of the Baron D'Epernon and of the Vicomte de Joyeuse be summoned, as well as the guard of his excellency, Seigneur René de Villequier. Patience, messieurs, you will hear all particulars anon."

So saying, he retired, and the men-at-arms, less complaisant than their leaders, soon succeeded in forcing back the crowd.

MARK AKENSIDE

(1721-1770)

Mark Akenside is of less importance in genuine poetic rank than in literary history. He was technically a real poet; but he had not a great, a spontaneous, nor a fertile poetical mind. Nevertheless, a writer who gave pleasure to a generation cannot be set aside. The fact that the mid-eighteenth century ranked him among its foremost poets is interesting and still significant. It determines the poetic standard and product of that age; and the fact that, judged thus, Akenside was fairly entitled to his fame.

He was the son of a butcher, born November 9th, 1721, in Newcastle-on-Tyne, whence Eldon and Stowell also sprang. He attracted great attention by an early poem, 'The Virtuoso.' The citizens of that commercial town have always appreciated their great men and valued intellectual distinction, and its Dissenters sent him at their own expense to Edinburgh to study for the Presbyterian ministry. A year later he gave up theology for medicine--honorably repaying the money advanced for his divinity studies, if obviously out of some one's else pocket.

After some struggle in provincial towns, his immense literary reputation--for at twenty-four he was a star of the first magnitude in Great Britain--and the generosity of a friend enabled him to acquire a fashionable London practice. He wrote medical treatises which at the time made him a leader in his profession, secured a rich clientage, and prospered greatly. In 1759 he was made physician to Christ's Hospital, where, however valued professionally, he is charged with being brutal and offensive to the poor; with indulging his fastidiousness, temper, and pomposity, and with forgetting that he owed anything to mere duty or humanity.

Unfortunately, too, Akenside availed himself of that mixture of complaisance and arrogance by which almost alone a man of no birth can rise in a society graded by birth. He concealed his origin and was ashamed of his pedigree. But the blame for his flunkeyism belongs, perhaps, less to him than to the insolent caste feeling of society, which forced it on him as a measure of self-defense and of advancement. He wanted money, loved place and selfish comfort, and his nature did not balk at the means of getting them,--including living on a friend when he did not need such help. To become physician to the Queen, he turned his coat from Whig to Tory; but no one familiar with the politics of the time will regard this as an unusual offense. It must also be remembered that Akenside possessed a delicate constitution, keen senses, and irritable nerves; and that he was a parvenu, lacking the power of self-control even among strangers. These traits explain, though they do not excuse, his bad temper to the unclean and disagreeable patients of the hospital, and they mitigate the fact that his industry was paralyzed by material prosperity, and his self-culture interfered with by conceit. His early and sweeping success injured him as many a greater man has been thus injured.

Moreover, his temper was probably soured by secret bitternesses. His health, his nerves, an entire absence of the sense of humor, and his lack of repartee, made him shun like Pope and Horace Walpole the bibulous and gluttonous element of eighteenth-century British society. For its brutal horseplay and uncivil practical joking which passed for wit, Akenside had no tolerance, yet he felt unwilling to go where he would be outshone by inferior men. His strutty arrogance of manner, like excessive prudery in a woman, may have been a fortification to a garrison too weak to fight in the open field. And it must be admitted that, as so often happens, Akenside's outward _ensemble_ was eminently what the vulgar world terms "guyable." He was not a little of a fop. He was plain-featured and yet assuming in manner. He hobbled in walking from lameness of tell-tale origin,--a cleaver falling on his foot in childhood, compelling him to wear an artificial heel--and he was morbidly sensitive over it. His prim formality of manner, his sword and stiff-curled wig, his small and sickly face trying to maintain an expression impressively dignified, made him a ludicrous figure, which his contemporaries never tired of ridiculing and caricaturing. Henderson, the actor, said that "Akenside, when he walked the streets, looked for all the world like one of his own Alexandrines set upright." Smollett even used him as a model for the pedantic doctor in 'Peregrine Pickle,' who gives a dinner in the fashion of the ancients, and dresses each dish according to humorous literary recipes.

But there were those who seem to have known an inner and superior personality beneath the brusqueness, conceit, and policy, beyond the nerves and fears; and they valued it greatly, at least on the intellectual side. A wealthy and amiable young Londoner, Jeremiah Dyson, remained a friend so enduring and admiring as to give the poet a house in Bloomsbury Square, with £300 a year and a chariot, and personally to extend his medical practice. We cannot suppose this to be a case of patron and parasite. Other men of judgment showed like esteem. And in congenial society, Akenside was his best and therefore truest self. He was an easy and even brilliant talker, displaying learning and immense memory, taste, and philosophic reflection; and as a volunteer critic he has the unique distinction of a man who had what books he liked given him by the publishers for the sake of his oral comments!

The standard edition of Akenside's poems is that edited by Alexander Dyce (London, 1835). Few of them require notice here. His early effort, 'The Virtuoso,' was merely an acknowledged and servile imitation of Spenser. The claim made by the poet's biographers that he preceded Thomson in reintroducing the Spenserian stanza is groundless. Pope preceded him, and Thomson renewed its popularity by being the first to use it in a poem of real merit, 'The Castle of Indolence.' Mr. Gosse calls the 'Hymn to the Naiads' "beautiful,"--"of transcendent merit,"--"perhaps the most elegant of his productions." The 'Epistle to Curio,' however, must be held his best poem,--doubtless because it is the only one which came from his heart; and even its merit is much more in rhetorical energy than in art or beauty. As to its allusion and object, the real and classic Curio of Roman social history was a protégé of Cicero's, a rich young Senator, who began as a champion of liberty and then sold himself to Caesar to pay his debts. In Akenside's poem, Curio represents William Pulteney, Walpole's antagonist, the hope of that younger generation who hated Walpole's system of parliamentary corruption and official jobbing. This party had looked to Pulteney for a clean and public-spirited administration. Their hero was carried to a brief triumph on the wave of their enthusiasm. But Pulteney disappointed them bitterly: he took a peerage, and sunk into utter and permanent political damnation, with no choice but Walpole's methods and tools, no policy save Walpole's to redeem the withdrawal of so much lofty promise, and no aims but personal advancement. From Akenside's address to him, the famous 'Epistle to Curio,' a citation is made below. Akenside's fame, however, rests on the 'Pleasures of the Imagination.' He began it at seventeen; though in the case of works begun in childhood, it is safer to accept the date of finishing as the year of the real composition. He published it six years later, in 1744, on the advice and with the warm admiration of Pope, a man never wasteful of encomiums on the poetry of his contemporaries. It raised its author to immediate fame. It secures him a place among the accepted English classics still. Yet neither its thought nor its style makes the omission to read it any irreparable loss. It is cultivated rhetoric rather than true poetry. Its chief merit and highest usefulness are that it suggested two far superior poems, Campbell's 'Pleasures of Hope' and Rogers's 'Pleasures of Memory.' It is the relationship to these that really keeps Akenside's alive.

In scope, the poem consists of two thousand lines of blank verse. It is distributed in three books. The first defines the sources, methods, and results of imagination; the second its distinction from philosophy and its enchantment by the passions; the third sets forth the power of imagination to give pleasure, and illustrates its mental operation. The author remodeled the poem in 1757, but it is generally agreed that he injured it. Macaulay says he spoiled it, and another critic delightfully observes that he "stuffed it with intellectual horsehair."

The year of Akenside's death (1770) gave birth to Wordsworth. The freer and nobler natural school of poetry came to supplant the artificial one, belonging to an epoch of wigs and false calves, and to open toward the far greater one of the romanticism of Scott and Byron.

FROM THE EPISTLE TO CURIO

[With this earlier and finer form of Akenside's address to the unstable Pulteney (see biographical sketch above) must not be confused its later embodiment among his odes; of which it is 'IX: to Curio.' Much of its thought and diction were transferred to the Ode named; but the latter by no means happily compares with the original 'Epistle.' Both versions, however, are of the same year, 1744.]

Thrice has the spring beheld thy faded fame,
And the fourth winter rises on thy shame,
Since I exulting grasped the votive shell.
In sounds of triumph all thy praise to tell;
Blest could my skill through ages make thee shine,
And proud to mix my memory with thine.
But now the cause that waked my song before,
With praise, with triumph, crowns the toil no more.
If to the glorious man whose faithful cares,
Nor quelled by malice, nor relaxed by years,
Had awed Ambition's wild audacious hate,
And dragged at length Corruption to her fate;
If every tongue its large applauses owed,
And well-earned laurels every muse bestowed;
If public Justice urged the high reward,
And Freedom smiled on the devoted bard:
Say then,--to him whose levity or lust
Laid all a people's generous hopes in dust,
Who taught Ambition firmer heights of power
And saved Corruption at her hopeless hour,
Does not each tongue its execrations owe?
Shall not each Muse a wreath of shame bestow?
And public Justice sanctify the award?
And Freedom's hand protect the impartial bard?

There are who say they viewed without amaze
The sad reverse of all thy former praise;
That through the pageants of a patriot's name,
They pierced the foulness of thy secret aim;
Or deemed thy arm exalted but to throw
The public thunder on a private foe.
But I, whose soul consented to thy cause,
Who felt thy genius stamp its own applause,
Who saw the spirits of each glorious age
Move in thy bosom, and direct thy rage,--
I scorned the ungenerous gloss of slavish minds,
The owl-eyed race, whom Virtue's lustre blinds.
Spite of the learned in the ways of vice,
And all who prove that each man has his price,
I still believed thy end was just and free;
And yet, even yet believe it--spite of thee.
Even though thy mouth impure has dared disclaim,
Urged by the wretched impotence of shame,
Whatever filial cares thy zeal had paid
To laws infirm, and liberty decayed;
Has begged Ambition to forgive the show;
Has told Corruption thou wert ne'er her foe;
Has boasted in thy country's awful ear,
Her gross delusion when she held thee dear;
How tame she followed thy tempestuous call,
And heard thy pompous tales, and trusted all--
Rise from your sad abodes, ye curst of old
For laws subverted, and for cities sold!
Paint all the noblest trophies of your guilt,
The oaths you perjured, and the blood you spilt;
Yet must you one untempted vileness own,
One dreadful palm reserved for him alone:
With studied arts his country's praise to spurn,
To beg the infamy he did not earn,
To challenge hate when honor was his due,
And plead his crimes where all his virtue knew.

* * * * *

When they who, loud for liberty and laws,
In doubtful times had fought their country's cause,
When now of conquest and dominion sure,
They sought alone to hold their fruit secure;
When taught by these, Oppression hid the face,
To leave Corruption stronger in her place,
By silent spells to work the public fate,
And taint the vitals of the passive state,
Till healing Wisdom should avail no more,
And Freedom loath to tread the poisoned shore:
Then, like some guardian god that flies to save
The weary pilgrim from an instant grave,
Whom, sleeping and secure, the guileful snake
Steals near and nearer thro' the peaceful brake,--
Then Curio rose to ward the public woe,
To wake the heedless and incite the slow,
Against Corruption Liberty to arm.
And quell the enchantress by a mightier charm.

* * * * *

Lo! the deciding hour at last appears;
The hour of every freeman's hopes and fears!

* * * * *

See Freedom mounting her eternal throne,
The sword submitted, and the laws her own!
See! public Power, chastised, beneath her stands,
With eyes intent, and uncorrupted hands!
See private life by wisest arts reclaimed!
See ardent youth to noblest manners framed!
See us acquire whate'er was sought by you,
If Curio, only Curio will be true.

'Twas then--O shame! O trust how ill repaid!
O Latium, oft by faithless sons betrayed!--
'Twas then--What frenzy on thy reason stole?
What spells unsinewed thy determined soul?--
Is this the man in Freedom's cause approved?
The man so great, so honored, so beloved?
This patient slave by tinsel chains allured?
This wretched suitor for a boon abjured?
This Curio, hated and despised by all?
Who fell himself to work his country's fall?

O lost, alike to action and repose!
Unknown, unpitied in the worst of woes!
With all that conscious, undissembled pride,
Sold to the insults of a foe defied!
With all that habit of familiar fame,
Doomed to exhaust the dregs of life in shame!
The sole sad refuge of thy baffled art
To act a stateman's dull, exploded part,
Renounce the praise no longer in thy power,
Display thy virtue, though without a dower,
Contemn the giddy crowd, the vulgar wind,
And shut thy eyes that others may be blind.

* * * * *

O long revered, and late resigned to shame!
If this uncourtly page thy notice claim
When the loud cares of business are withdrawn,
Nor well-drest beggars round thy footsteps fawn;
In that still, thoughtful, solitary hour,
When Truth exerts her unresisted power,
Breaks the false optics tinged with fortune's glare,
Unlocks the breast, and lays the passions bare:
Then turn thy eyes on that important scene,
And ask thyself--if all be well within.
Where is the heart-felt worth and weight of soul,
Which labor could not stop, nor fear control?
Where the known dignity, the stamp of awe,
Which, half abashed, the proud and venal saw?
Where the calm triumphs of an honest cause?
Where the delightful taste of just applause?
Where the strong reason, the commanding tongue,
On which the Senate fired or trembling hung!
All vanished, all are sold--and in their room,
Couched in thy bosom's deep, distracted gloom,
See the pale form of barbarous Grandeur dwell,
Like some grim idol in a sorcerer's cell!
To her in chains thy dignity was led;
At her polluted shrine thy honour bled;
With blasted weeds thy awful brow she crowned,
Thy powerful tongue with poisoned philters bound,
That baffled Reason straight indignant flew,
And fair Persuasion from her seat withdrew:
For now no longer Truth supports thy cause;
No longer Glory prompts thee to applause;
No longer Virtue breathing in thy breast,
With all her conscious majesty confest,
Still bright and brighter wakes the almighty flame,
To rouse the feeble, and the willful tame,
And where she sees the catching glimpses roll,
Spreads the strong blaze, and all involves the soul;
But cold restraints thy conscious fancy chill,
And formal passions mock thy struggling will;
Or, if thy Genius e'er forget his chain,
And reach impatient at a nobler strain,
Soon the sad bodings of contemptuous mirth
Shoot through thy breast, and stab the generous birth,
Till, blind with smart, from truth to frenzy tost,
And all the tenor of thy reason lost,
Perhaps thy anguish drains a real tear;
While some with pity, some with laughter hear.

* * * * *

Ye mighty foes of liberty and rest,
Give way, do homage to a mightier guest!
Ye daring spirits of the Roman race,
See Curio's toil your proudest claims efface!--
Awed at the name, fierce Appius rising bends,
And hardy Cinna from his throne attends:
"He comes," they cry, "to whom the fates assigned
With surer arts to work what we designed,
From year to year the stubborn herd to sway,
Mouth all their wrongs, and all their rage obey;
Till owned their guide and trusted with their power,
He mocked their hopes in one decisive hour;
Then, tired and yielding, led them to the chain,
And quenched the spirit we provoked in vain."
But thou, Supreme, by whose eternal hands
Fair Liberty's heroic empire stands;
Whose thunders the rebellious deep control,
And quell the triumphs of the traitor's soul,
O turn this dreadful omen far away!
On Freedom's foes their own attempts repay;
Relume her sacred fire so near suppressed,
And fix her shrine in every Roman breast:
Though bold corruption boast around the land,
"Let virtue, if she can, my baits withstand!"
Though bolder now she urge the accursed claim,
Gay with her trophies raised on Curio's shame;
Yet some there are who scorn her impious mirth,
Who know what conscience and a heart are worth.

ASPIRATIONS AFTER THE INFINITE

From (Pleasures of the Imagination)

Who that, from Alpine heights, his laboring eye
Shoots round the wide horizon, to survey
Nilus or Ganges rolling his bright wave
Thro' mountains, plains, thro' empires black with shade,
And continents of sand, will turn his gaze
To mark the windings of a scanty rill
That murmurs at his feet? The high-born soul
Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing
Beneath its native quarry. Tired of earth
And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft
Through fields of air; pursues the flying storm;
Rides on the volleyed lightning through the heavens;
Or, yoked with whirlwinds and the northern blast,
Sweeps the long tract of day. Then high she soars
The blue profound, and, hovering round the sun,
Beholds him pouring the redundant stream
Of light; beholds his unrelenting sway
Bend the reluctant planets to absolve
The fated rounds of Time. Thence, far effused,
She darts her swiftness up the long career
Of devious comets; through its burning signs
Exulting measures the perennial wheel
Of Nature, and looks back on all the stars,
Whose blended light, as with a milky zone,
Invests the orient. Now, amazed she views
The empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold
Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode;
And fields of radiance, whose unfading light
Has traveled the profound six thousand years,
Nor yet arrived in sight of mortal things.
Even on the barriers of the world, untired
She meditates the eternal depth below;
Till half-recoiling, down the headlong steep
She plunges; soon o'erwhelmed and swallowed up
In that immense of being. There her hopes
Rest at the fated goal. For from the birth
Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said,
That not in humble nor in brief delight,
Nor in the fading echoes of Renown,
Power's purple robes, nor Pleasure's flowery lap,
The soul should find enjoyment: but from these
Turning disdainful to an equal good,
Through all the ascent of things enlarge her view,
Till every bound at length should disappear,
And infinite perfection close the scene.

ON A SERMON AGAINST GLORY

COME then, tell me, sage divine,
Is it an offense to own
That our bosoms e'er incline
Toward immortal Glory's throne?
For with me nor pomp nor pleasure,
Bourbon's might, Braganza's treasure,
So can Fancy's dream rejoice,
So conciliate Reason's choice,
As one approving word of her impartial voice.

If to spurn at noble praise
Be the passport to thy heaven,
Follow thou those gloomy ways:
No such law to me was given,
Nor, I trust, shall I deplore me
Faring like my friends before me;
Nor an holier place desire
Than Timoleon's arms acquire,
And Tully's curule chair, and Milton's golden lyre.

PEDRO ANTONIO DE ALARCÓN

(1833-1891)

This novelist, poet, and politician was born at Guadix, in Spain, near Granada, March 10th, 1833, and received his early training in the seminary of his native city. His family destined him for the Church; but he was averse to that profession, subsequently studied law and modern languages at the University of Granada, and took pains to cultivate his natural love for literature and poetry. In 1853 he established at Cadiz the literary review Eco del Occidente (Echo of the West). Greatly interested in politics, he joined a democratic club with headquarters at Madrid. During the revolution of 1854 he published El Látigo (The Whip), a pamphlet in which he satirized the government. The spirit of adventure being always strong in him, he joined the African campaign under O'Donnell in 1859.

His next occupation was the editorship of the journals La Epoca and La Politica. Condemned to a brief period of exile as one of the signers of a protest of Unionist deputies, he passed this time in Paris. Shortly after his return he became involved in the revolution of 1868, but without incurring personal disaster. After Alfonso XII. came to the throne in 1875, he was appointed Councilor of State.