Chapter III: Part 3

_Helen_--Rather say you have lost sight of nature and passion, between bombast on one hand and conceit on the other. Shall one of the cold temperament of France teach a Grecian how to love? Greece, the parent of fair forms and soft desires, the nurse of poetry, whose soft climate and tempered skies disposed to every gentler feeling, and tuned the heart to harmony and love!--was Greece a land of barbarians? But recollect, if you can, an incident which showed the power of beauty in stronger colors--that when the grave old counselors of Priam on my appearance were struck with fond admiration, and could not bring themselves to blame the cause of a war that had almost ruined their country;--you see I charmed the old as well as seduced the young.

_Maintenon_--But I, after I was grown old, charmed the young; I was idolized in a capital where taste, luxury, and magnificence were at the height; I was celebrated by the greatest wits of my time, and my letters have been carefully handed down to posterity.

_Helen_--Tell me now sincerely, were you happy in your elevated fortune?

_Maintenon_--- Alas! Heaven knows I was far otherwise: a thousand times did I wish for my dear Scarron again. He was a very ugly fellow, it is true, and had but little money: but the most easy, entertaining companion in the world: we danced, laughed, and sung; I spoke without fear or anxiety, and was sure to please. With Louis all was gloom, constraint, and a painful solicitude to please--which seldom produces its effect; the king's temper had been soured in the latter part of life by frequent disappointments; and I was forced continually to endeavor to procure him that cheerfulness which I had not myself. Louis was accustomed to the most delicate flatteries; and though I had a good share of wit, my faculties were continually on the stretch to entertain him,--a state of mind little consistent with happiness or ease; I was afraid to advance my friends or punish my enemies. My pupils at St. Cyr were not more secluded from the world in a cloister than I was in the bosom of the court; a secret disgust and weariness consumed me. I had no relief but in my work and books of devotion; with these alone I had a gleam of happiness.

_Helen_--Alas! one need not have married a great monarch for that.

_Maintenon_--But deign to inform me, Helen, if you were really as beautiful as fame reports? for to say truth, I cannot in your shade see the beauty which for nine long years had set the world in arms.

_Helen_--Honestly, no: I was rather low, and something sunburnt; but I had the good fortune to please; that was all. I was greatly obliged to Homer.

_Maintenon_--And did you live tolerably with Menelaus after all your adventures?

_Helen_--As well as possible. Menelaus was a good-natured domestic man, and was glad to sit down and end his days in quiet. I persuaded him that Venus and the Fates were the cause of all my irregularities, which he complaisantly believed. Besides, I was not sorry to return home: for to tell you a secret, Paris had been unfaithful to me long before his death, and was fond of a little Trojan brunette whose office it was to hold up my train; but it was thought dishonorable to give me up. I began to think love a very foolish thing: I became a great housekeeper, worked the battles of Troy in tapestry, and spun with my maids by the side of Menelaus, who was so satisfied with my conduct, and behaved, good man, with so much fondness, that I verily think this was the happiest period of my life.

_Maintenon_--Nothing more likely; but the most obscure wife in Greece could rival you there.--Adieu! you have convinced me how little fame and greatness conduce to happiness.

LIFE

Life! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when or how or where we met,
I own to me's a secret yet.
But this I know, when thou art fled,
Where'er they lay these limbs, this head,
No clod so valueless shall be,
As all that then remains of me.
O whither, whither dost thou fly,
Where bend unseen thy trackless course,
And in this strange divorce,
Ah, tell where I must seek this compound I?
To the vast ocean of empyreal flame,
From whence thy essence came,
Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed
From matter's base encumbering weed?
Or dost thou, hid from sight,
Wait, like some spell-bound knight,
Through blank oblivion's years th' appointed hour,
To break thy trance and reassume thy power?
Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be?
O say what art thou, when no more thou'rt thee?
Life! we've been long together,
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
'Tis hard to part when friends are dear;
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not good-night, but in some brighter clime
Bid me good-morning.

PRAISE TO GOD

Praise to God, immortal praise,
For the love that crowns our days--
Bounteous source of every joy,
Let Thy praise our tongues employ!

For the blessings of the field,
For the stores the gardens yield,
For the vine's exalted juice,
For the generous olive's use;

Flocks that whiten all the plain,
Yellow sheaves of ripened grain,
Clouds that drop their fattening dews,
Suns that temperate warmth diffuse--

All that Spring, with bounteous hand,
Scatters o'er the smiling land;
All that liberal Autumn pours
From her rich o'erflowing stores:

These to Thee, my God, we owe--
Source whence all our blessings flow!
And for these my soul shall raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise.

Yet should rising whirlwinds tear
From its stem the ripening ear--
Should the fig-tree's blasted shoot
Drop her green untimely fruit--

Should the vine put forth no more,
Nor the olive yield her store--
Though the sickening flocks should fall,
And the herds desert the stall--

Should Thine altered hand restrain
The early and the latter rain,
Blast each opening bud of joy,
And the rising year destroy:

Yet to Thee my soul should raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise,
And, when every blessing's flown,
Love Thee--for Thyself alone.

ALEXANDER BARCLAY

(1475-1552)

Barclay's reputation rests upon his translation of the famous 'Ship of Fools' and his original 'Eclogues.' A controversy as to the land of his birth--an event which happened about the year 1475--has lasted from his century to our own. The decision in favor of Scotland rests upon the testimony of two witnesses: first, Dr. William Bullim, a younger contemporary of Barclay, who mentions him in 'A Dialogue Both Pleasaunt and Pietifull Wherein is a Godlie Regement Against the Fever Pestilence with a Consolation and Comforte Against Death,' which was published in 1564; and secondly, Barclay himself.

Bullim groups the Muses at the foot of Parnassus, and gathers about them Greek and Latin poets, and such Englishmen as Chaucer, Gower, Skelton, and Barclay, the latter "with an hoopyng russet long coate, with a pretie hood in his necke, and five knottes upon his girdle, after Francis's tricks. He was borne beyond the cold river of Twede. He lodged upon a sweetebed of chamomill under the sinamone-tree: about him many shepherdes and shepe, with pleasaunte pipes; greatly abhorring the life of Courtiers, Citizens, Usurers, and Banckruptes, etc., whose daies are miserable. And the estate of shepherdes and countrie people he accompted moste happie and sure." Deprived of its poetic fancy, this passage means that Barclay was a monk of the order of St. Francis, that he was born north of the Tweed, that his verse was infused with such bitterness and tonic qualities as camomile possesses, and that he advocated the cause of the country people in his independent and admirable 'Eclogues,' another title for the first three of which is 'Miseryes of Courtiers and Courtes of all Princes in General.'

Barclay was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and upon his return to England after several years of residence abroad, he was made one of the priests of Saint Mary Ottery, an institution of devout practice and learning in Devonshire. Here in 1508 was finished 'The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde translated out of Laten, Frenche, and Doche into Englysshe tonge by Alexander Barclay, Preste, and at that time chaplen in the sayd College.'

After his work was completed Barclay went to London, where his poem was "imprentyd ... in Fleet Street at the signe of Saynt George by Rycharde Pyreson to hys Coste and charge: ended the yere of our Saviour MDIX. the XIII. day of December." That he became a Benedictine and lived at the monastery of the order at Ely is evident from his 'Eclogues.' Here he translated at the instance of Sir Giles Arlington, Knight, 'The Myrrour of Good Maners,' from a Latin elegiac poem which Dominic Mancini published in the year 1516.

"It was about this period of his life," says Mr. Jamieson in his admirable edition of the 'Ship of Fools,' "probably the period of the full bloom of his popularity, that the quiet life of the poet and priest was interrupted by the recognition of his eminence in the highest quarters, and by a request for his aid in maintaining the honor of the country on an occasion to which the eyes of all Europe were then directed. In a letter to Wolsey dated 10th April, 1520, Sir Nicholas Vaux--busied with the preparation for that meeting of Henry VIII and Francis I called the Field of the Cloth of Gold--begs the Cardinal to send them ... Maistre Barkleye, the Black Monke and Poete, to devise histoires and convenient raisons to florisshe the buildings and banquet house withal."

He became a Franciscan, the habit of which order Bullim refers to; and "sure 'tis," says Wood, "that living to see his monastery dissolv'd, in 1539, at the general dissolution by act of Henry VIII, he became vicar of Much Badew in Essex, and in 1546, the same year, of the Church of St. Matthew the Apostle at Wokey, in Somersetshire, and finally in 1552, the year in which he died, of that of All Saints, Lombard Street, London. In his younger days he was esteemed a good poet and orator, but when years came on, he spent his time mostly in pious matters, and in reading the histories of Saints."

'The Ship of Fools' is the most important work associated with Barclay's name. It was a translation of Sebastian Brandt's 'Stultifera Navis,' a book which had attracted universal attention on the Continent when it appeared in 1494. In his preface, Barclay admits that "it is not translated word by word according to the verses of my actor. For I have but only drawn into our mother tongue in rude language the sentences of the verses as near as the paucity of my wit will suffer me, sometime adding, sometime detracting and taking away such things as seemeth me necessary." The classes and conditions of society that Barclay knew were as deserving of satire as those of Germany. He tells us that his work was undertaken "to cleanse the vanity and madness of foolish people, of whom over great number is in the Realm of England."

The diction of Barclay's version is exceptionally fine. Jamieson calls it "a rich and unique exhibition of early art," and says:--"Page after page, even in the antique spelling of Pynson's edition, may be read by the ordinary reader of to-day without reference to a dictionary; and when reference is required, it will be found in nine cases out of ten that the archaism is Saxon, not Latin. This is all the more remarkable that it occurs in the case of a priest translating mainly from the Latin and French, and can only be explained with reference to his standpoint as a social reformer of the broadest type, and to his evident intention that his book should be an appeal to all classes, but especially to the mass of people for amendment of their follies."

As the original work belonged to the German satirist, the extract from the 'Ship of Fools' is placed under the essay entitled 'Sebastian Brandt.' His 'Eclogues' show Barclay at his best. They portray the manners and customs of the period, and are full of local proverbs and wise sayings. According to Warton, Barclay's are the first 'Eclogues' that appeared in the English language. "They are like Petrarch's," he says, "and Mantuans of the moral and satirical kind; and contain but few touches of moral description and bucolic imagery." Two shepherds meet to talk about the pleasures and crosses of rustic life and life at court. The hoary locks of the one show that he is old. His suit of Kendal green is threadbare, his rough boots are patched, and the torn side of his coat reveals a bottle never full and never empty. His wallet contains bread and cheese; he has a crook, and an oaten pipe. His name is Cornix, and he boasts that he has had worldly experience. The other shepherd, Coridon, having seen nothing, complains of country life. He grumbles at the summer's heat and the winter's cold; at beds on the flinty ground, and the dangers of sleeping where the wolves may creep in to devour the sheep; of his stiff rough hands, and his parched, wrinkled, and weather-beaten skin. He asks whether all men are so unhappy. Cornix, refreshing himself at intervals with his bottle and crusts, shows him the small amount of liberty at court, discourses upon the folly of ambition, lays bare the rapine, avarice, and covetousness of the worldly-minded, and demonstrates that the court is "painted fair without, but within it is ugly and vile." He then gives the picture of a courtier's life, which is cited below. He tells how the minstrels and singers, philosophers, poets, and orators are but the slaves of patronizing princes; how beautiful women deceive; describes to him, who has known nothing but a diet of bread and cheese, the delights of the table; dilates on the cups of silver and gold, and the crystal glass shining with red and yellow wine; the sewers bearing in roasted crane, gorgeous peacocks, and savory joints of beef and mutton; the carver wielding his dexterous knife; the puddings, the pasties, the fish fried in sweet oils and garnished with herbs; the costumes of the men and women in cloth of gold and silver and gay damask; the din of music, voices, laughter, and jests; and then paints a picture of the lords and ladies who plunge their knives into the meats and their hands into platters, spilling wine and gravy upon their equally gluttonous neighbors. He finishes by saying:--

"Shepherds have not so wretched lives as they:
Though they live poorely on cruddes, chese, and whey,
On apples, plummes, and drinke cleree water deepe,
As it were lordes reigning among their sheepe.
The wretched lazar with clinking of his bell,
Hath life which doth the courtiers excell;
The caytif begger hath meate and libertie,
When courtiers hunger in harde captivitie.
The poore man beggeth nothing hurting his name,
As touching courters they dare not beg for shame.
And an olde proverb is sayde by men moste sage,
That oft yonge courters be beggars in their age."

The third 'Eclogue' begins with Coridon relating a dream that he went to court and saw the scullions standing

"about me thicke
With knives ready for to flay me quicke."

This is a text for Cornix, who continues his tirade, and convinces Coridon of the misery of the court and his happier life, ending as follows:--

"Than let all shepheardes, from hence to Salisbury
With easie riches, live well, laugh and be mery,
Pipe under shadowes, small riches hath most rest,
In greatest seas moste sorest is tempest,
The court is nought els but a tempesteous sea;
Avoyde the rockes. He ruled after me."

The fourth 'Eclogue' is a dialogue on the rich man's treatment of poets, by two shepherds, Codrus and Menalcas, musing in "shadowe on the green," while their snowy flocks graze on the sweet meadow. This contains a fine allegorical description of 'Labour.'

The fifth 'Eclogue' is the 'Cytezen and the Uplondyshman.' Here the scene changes, and two shepherds, Faustus and Amyntas, discourse in a cottage while the snows of January whirl without. Amyntas has learned in London "to go so manerly." Not a wrinkle may be found in his clothes, not a hair on his cloak, and he wears a brooch of tin high on his bonnet. He has been hostler, costermonger, and taverner, and sings the delights of the city. Faustus, the rustic, is contented with his lot. The 'Cytezen and the Uplondyshman' was printed from the original edition of Wynkyn de Worde, with a preface by F. W. Fairholt, Percy Society (Vol. xxii.).

Other works ascribed to Barclay are:--'The Figure of Our Holy Mother Church, Oppressed by the French King'; 'The Lyfe of the Glorious Martyr Saynt George,' translated (from Mantuan) by Alexander Barclay; 'The Lyfe of the Blessed Martyr, Saynte Thomas'; 'Contra Skeltonum,' in which the quarrel he had with his contemporary poet, John Skelton, was doubtless continued.

Estimates of Barclay may be found in 'The Ship of Fools,' edited by T. H. Jamieson (1874); 'Sibbald's Chronicle of Scottish Poetry,' from the thirteenth century to the union of the crowns (1802); 'The History of English Poetry,' by Thomas Warton (1824); 'The History of Scottish Poetry,' by David Irving (1861); and 'Chips from a German Workshop,' by F. Max Müller (1870).

THE COURTIER'S LIFE

Second Eclogue

CORNIX

Some men deliteth beholding men to fight,
Or goodly knights in pleasaunt apparayle,
Or sturdie soldiers in bright harnes and male,
Or an army arrayde ready to the warre,
Or to see them fight, so that he stand afarre.
Some glad is to see those ladies beauteous
Goodly appoynted in clothing sumpteous:
A number of people appoynted in like wise
In costly clothing after the newest gise,
Sportes, disgising, fayre coursers mount and praunce,
Or goodly ladies and knightes sing and daunce,
To see fayre houses and curious picture,
Or pleasaunt hanging or sumpteous vesture
Of silke, of purpure or golde moste oriente,
And other clothing divers and excellent,
Hye curious buildinges or palaces royall,
Or chapels, temples fayre and substantial,
Images graven or vaultes curious,
Gardeyns and medowes, or place delicious,
Forestes and parkes well furnished with dere,
Cold pleasaunt streams or welles fayre and clere,
Curious cundites or shadowie mountaynes,
Swete pleasaunt valleys, laundes or playnes,
Houndes, and such other things manyfolde
Some men take pleasour and solace to beholde.

But all these pleasoures be much more jocounde,
To private persons which not to court be bounde,
Than to such other whiche of necessitie
Are bounde to the court as in captivitie;
For they which be bounde to princes without fayle
When they must nedes be present in battayle,
When shall they not be at large to see the sight,
But as souldiours in the middest of the fight,
To runne here and there sometime his foe to smite,
And oftetimes wounded, herein is small delite,
And more muste he think his body to defende,
Than for any pleasour about him to intende,
And oft is he faynt and beaten to the grounde,
I trowe in suche sight small pleasour may be founde.
As for fayre ladies, clothed in silke and golde,
In court at thy pleasour thou canst not beholde.
At thy princes pleasour thou shalt them only see,
Then suche shalt thou see which little set by thee,
Whose shape and beautie may so inflame thine heart,
That thought and languor may cause thee for to smart.
For a small sparcle may kindle love certayne,
But skantly Severne may quench it clene againe;
And beautie blindeth and causeth man to set
His hearte on the thing which he shall never get.
To see men clothed in silkes pleasauntly
It is small pleasour, and ofte causeth envy.
While thy lean jade halteth by thy side,
To see another upon a, courser ride,
Though he be neyther gentleman nor knight,
Nothing is thy fortune, thy hart cannot be light.
As touching sportes and games of pleasaunce.
To sing, to revell, and other daliaunce:
Who that will truely upon his lord attende,
Unto suche sportes he seldome may entende.
Palaces, pictures, and temples sumptuous,
And other buildings both gay and curious,
These may marchauntes more at their pleasour see,
Men suche as in court be bounde alway to bee.
Sith kinges for moste part passe not their regions,
Thou seest nowe cities of foreyn nations.
Suche outwarde pleasoures may the people see,
So may not courtiers for lacke of libertie.
As for these pleasours of thinges vanable
Whiche in the fieldes appeareth delectable,

But seldome season mayest thou obtayne respite.
The same to beholde with pleasour and delite,
Sometime the courtier remayneth halfe the yere
Close within walls muche like a prisonere,
To make escapes some seldome times are wont,
Save when the powers have pleasour for to hunt,
Or its otherwise themselfe to recreate,
And then this pleasour shall they not love but hate;
For then shall they foorth most chiefely to their payne,
When they in mindes would at home remayne.
Other in the frost, hayle, or els snowe,
Or when some tempest or mightie wind doth blowe,
Or else in great heat and fervour excessife,
But close in houses the moste parte waste their life,
Of colour faded, and choked were with duste:
This is of courtiers the joy and all the lust.

CORIDON

What! yet may they sing and with fayre ladies daunce,
Both commen and laugh; herein is some pleasaunce.

CORNIX

Nay, nay, Coridon, that pleasour is but small,
Some to contente what man will pleasour call,
For some in the daunce his pincheth by the hande,
Which gladly would see him stretched in a bande.
Some galand seketh his favour to purchase
Which playne abhorreth for to beholde his face.
And still in dauncing moste parte inclineth she
To one muche viler and more abject then he.
No day over passeth but that in court men finde
A thousande thinges to vexe and greve their minde;
Alway thy foes are present in thy sight,
And often so great is their degree and might
That nedes must thou kisse the hand which did thee harm,
Though thou would see it cut gladly from the arme.
And briefly to speake, if thou to courte resorte,
If thou see one thing of pleasour or comfort,
Thou shalt see many, before or thou depart,
To thy displeasour and pensiveness of heart:
So findeth thy sight there more of bitternes
And of displeasour, than pleasour and gladnes.

RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM

(1788-1845)

The author of the 'Ingoldsby Legends' belonged to a well-defined and delightful class of men, chiefly found in modern England, and indeed mostly bred and made possible by the conditions of English society and the Anglican Church. It is that of clergymen who in the public eye are chiefly wits and diners-out, jokers and literary humorists, yet are conscientious and devoted ministers of their religion and curators of their religious charges, honoring their profession and humanity by true and useful lives and lovable characters. They are men of the sort loathed by Lewis Carroll's heroine in the 'Two Voices,'

"a kind of folk
Who have no horror of a joke,"

and indeed love it dearly, but are as firm in principle and unostentatiously dutiful in conduct as if they were leaden Puritans or narrow devotees.

By far the best remembered of this class, for themselves or their work, are Sydney Smith and Richard Harris Barham; but their relative repute is one of the oddest paradoxes in literary history. Roughly speaking, the one is remembered and unread, the other read and unremembered. Sydney Smith's name is almost as familiar to the masses as Scott's, and few could tell a line that he wrote; Barham's writing is almost as familiar as Scott's, and few would recognize his name. Yet he is in the foremost rank of humorists; his place is wholly unique, and is likely to remain so. It will be an age before a similar combination of tastes and abilities is found once more. Macaulay said truly of Sir Walter Scott that he "combined the minute learning of an antiquary with the fire of a great poet." Barham combined a like learning in different fields, and joined to a different outlook and temper of mind, with the quick perceptions of a great wit, the brimming zest and high spirits of a great joker, the genial nature and lightness of a born man of the world, and the gifts of a wonderful improvisatore in verse. Withal, he had just enough of serious purpose to give much of his work a certain measure of cohesive unity, and thus impress it on the mind as no collection of random skits could do. That purpose is the feathering which steadies the arrows and sends them home.

It is pleasant to know that one who has given so good a time to others had a very good time himself; that we are not, as so often happens, relishing a farce that stood for tragedy with the maker, and substituting our laughter for his tears. Barham had the cruel sorrows of personal bereavement so few escape; but in material things his career was wholly among pleasant ways. He was well born and with means, well educated, well nurtured. He was free from the sordid squabbles or anxious watching and privation which fall to the lot of so many of the best. He was happy in his marriage and its attendant home and family, and most fortunate in his friendships and the superb society he enjoyed. His birth and position as a gentleman of good landed family, combined with his profession, opened all doors to him.

But it was the qualities personal to himself, after all, which made these things available for enjoyment. His desires were moderate; he counted success what more eager and covetous natures might have esteemed comparative failure. His really strong intellect and wide knowledge and cultivation enabled him to meet the foremost men of letters on equal terms. His kind heart, generous nature, exuberant fun, and entertaining conversation endeared him to every one and made his company sought by every one; they saved much trouble from coming upon him and lightened what did come. And no blight could have withered that perennial fountain of jollity, drollery, and light-heartedness. But these were only the ornaments of a stanchly loyal and honorable nature, and a lovable and unselfish soul. One of his friends writes of him thus:--

"The profits of agitating pettifoggers would have materially
lessened in a district where he acted as a magistrate; and
duels would have been nipped in the bud at his regimental
mess. It is not always an easy task to do as you would be
done by; but to think as you would be thought of and thought
for, and to feel as you would be felt for, is perhaps still
more difficult, as superior powers of tact and intellect are
here required in order to second good intentions. These
faculties, backed by an uncompromising love of truth and fair
dealing, indefatigable good nature, and a nice sense of what
was due to every one in the several relations of life, both
gentle and simple, rendered our late friend invaluable,
either as an adviser or a peacemaker, in matters of delicate
and difficult handling."

Barham was born in Canterbury, England, December 6th, 1788, and died in London, June 17th, 1845. His ancestry was superior, the family having derived its name from possessions in Kent in Norman days. He lost his father--a genial _bon vivant_ of literary tastes who seems like a reduced copy of his son--when but five years old; and became heir to a fair estate, including Tappington Hall, the picturesque old gabled mansion so often imaginatively misdescribed in the 'Ingoldsby Legends,' but really having the famous blood-stained stairway. He had an expensive private education, which was nearly ended with his life at the age of fourteen by a carriage accident which shattered and mangled his right arm, crippling it permanently. As so often happens, the disaster was really a piece of good fortune: it turned him to or confirmed him in quiet antiquarian scholarship, and established connections which ultimately led to the 'Legends'; he may owe immortality to it.

After passing through St. Paul's (London) and Brasenose (Oxford), he studied law, but finally entered the church. After a couple of small curacies in Kent, he was made rector of Snargate and curate of Warehorn, near Romney Marsh; all four in a district where smuggling was a chief industry, and the Marsh in especial a noted haunt of desperadoes (for smugglers then took their lives in their hands), of which the 'Legends' are rich in reminiscences. In 1819, during this incumbency, he wrote a novel, 'Baldwin,' which was a failure; and part of another, 'My Cousin Nicholas,' which, finished fifteen years later, had fair success as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine.

An opportunity offering in 1821, he stood for a minor canonry in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, and obtained it; his income was less than before, but he had entered the metropolitan field, which brought him rich enjoyment and permanent fame. He paid a terrible price for them: his unhealthy London house cost him the lives of three of his children. To make up for his shortened means he became editor of the London Chronicle and a contributor to various other periodicals, including the notorious weekly John Bull, sometime edited by Theodore Hook. In 1824 he became a priest in the Chapel Royal at St. James's Palace, and soon after gained a couple of excellent livings in Essex, which put him at ease financially.

He was inflexible in principle, a firm Tory, though without rancor. He was very High Church, but had no sympathy with the Oxford movement or Catholicism. He preached careful and sober sermons, without oratorical display and with rigid avoidance of levity. He would not make the church a field either for fireworks or jokes, or even for displays of scholarship or intellectual gymnastics. In his opinion, religious establishments were kept up to advance religion and morals. And both he and his wife wrought zealously in the humble but exacting field of parochial good works.

He was, however, fast becoming one of the chief ornaments of that brilliant group of London wits whose repute still vibrates from the early part of the century. Many of them--actors, authors, artists, musicians, and others met at the Garrick Club, and Barham joined it. The names of Sydney Smith and Theodore Hook are enough to show what it was; but there were others equally delightful,--not the least so, or least useful, a few who could not see a joke at all, and whose simplicity and good nature made them butts for the hoaxes and solemn chaff of the rest. Barbara's diary, quoted in his son's (Life,) gives an exquisite instance.

In 1834 his old schoolmaster Bentley established Bentley's Miscellany; and Barham was asked for contributions. The first he sent was the amusing but quite "conceivable" (Spectre of Tappington); but there soon began the immortal series of versified local stories, legendary church miracles, antiquarian curios, witty summaries of popular plays, skits on London life, and so on, under the pseudonym of 'Thomas Ingoldsby,' which sprang instantly into wide popularity, and have never fallen from public favor since--nor can they till appreciation of humor is dead in the world. They were collected and illustrated by Leech, Cruikshank, and others, who were inspired by them to some of their best designs: perhaps the most perfect realization in art of the Devil in his moments of jocose triumph is Leech's figure in 'The House-Warming.' A later series appeared in Colburn's New Monthly Magazine in 1843.

He wrote some excellent pieces (of their kind) in prose, besides the one already mentioned: the weird and well-constructed 'Leech of Folkestone' and the 'Passage in the Life of Henry Harris,' both half-serious tales of mediaeval magic; the thoroughly Ingoldsbian 'Legend of Sheppey,' with its irreverent farce, high animal spirits, and antiquarianism; the equally characteristic 'Lady Rohesia,' which would be vulgar but for his sly wit and drollery. But none of these are as familiar as the versified 'Legends,' nor have they the astonishing variety of entertainment found in the latter.

The 'Ingoldsby Legends' have been called an English naturalization of the French metrical _contes;_ but Barham owes nothing to his French models save the suggestion of method and form. Not only is his matter all his own, but he has _Anglified_ the whole being of the metrical form itself. His facility of versification, the way in which the whole language seems to be liquid in his hands and ready to pour into any channel of verse, was one of the marvelous things of literature. It did not need the free random movement of the majority of the tales, where the lines may be anything from one foot to six, from spondaic to dactylic: in some of them he tied himself down to the most rigid and inflexible metrical forms, and moved as lightly and freely in those fetters as if they were non-existent. As to the astonishing rhymes which meet us at every step, they form in themselves a poignant kind of wit; often double and even treble, one word rhyming with an entire phrase or one phrase with another,--not only of the oddest kind, but as nicely adapted to the necessities of expression and meaning as if intended or invented for that purpose alone,--they produce on us the effect of the richest humor.

One of his most diverting "properties" is the set of "morals" he draws to everything, of nonsensical literalness and infantile gravity, the perfection of solemn fooling. Thus in the 'Lay of St. Cuthbert,' where the Devil has captured the heir of the house,

"Whom the nurse had forgot and left there in his chair,
Alternately sucking his thumb and his pear,"

the moral is drawn, among others,--

"Perhaps it's as well to keep children from plums,
And pears in their season--and sucking their thumbs."

And part of the moral to the 'Lay of St. Medard' is--

"Don't give people nicknames! don't, even in fun,
Call any one 'snuff-colored son of a gun'!"

And they generally wind up with some slyly shrewd piece of worldly wisdom and wit. Thus, the closing moral to 'The Blasphemer's Warning' is:--

"To married men this--For the rest of your lives,
Think how your misconduct may act on your wives!
Don't swear then before them, lest haply they faint,
Or--what sometimes occurs--run away with a Saint!"

Often they are broader yet, and intended for the club rather than the family. Indeed, the tales as a whole are club tales, with an audience of club-men always in mind; not, be it remembered, bestialities like their French counterparts, or the later English and American improvements on the French, not even objectionable for general reading, but full of exclusively masculine joking, allusions, and winks, unintelligible to the other sex, and not welcome if they were intelligible.

He has plenty of melody, but it is hardly recognized because of the doggerel meaning, which swamps the music in the farce. And this applies to more important things than the melody. The average reader floats on the surface of this rapid and foamy stream, covered with sticks and straws and flowers and bonbons, and never realizes its depth and volume. This light frothy verse is only the vehicle of a solid and laborious antiquarian scholarship, of an immense knowledge of the world and society, books and men. He modestly disclaimed having any imagination, and said he must always have facts to work upon. This was true; but the same may be said of some great poets, who have lacked invention except around a skeleton ready furnished. What was true of Keats and Fitzgerald cannot nullify the merit of Barham. His fancy erected a huge and consistent superstructure on a very slender foundation. The same materials lay ready to the hands of thousands of others, who, however, saw only stupid monkish fables or dull country superstition.

His own explanation of his handling of the church legends tickles a critic's sense of humor almost as much as the verses themselves. It is true that while differing utterly in his tone of mind, and his attitude toward the mediaeval stories, from that of the mediaeval artists and sculptors,--whose gargoyles and other grotesques were carved without a thought of travesty on anything religious,--he is at one with them in combining extreme irreverence of form with a total lack of irreverence of spirit toward the real spiritual mysteries of religion. He burlesques saints and devils alike, mocks the swarm of miracles of the mediaeval Church, makes salient all the ludicrous aspects of mediaeval religious faith in its devout credulity and barbarous gropings; yet he never sneers at holiness or real aspiration, and through all the riot of fun in his masques, one feels the sincere Christian and the warm-hearted man. But he was evidently troubled by the feeling that a clergyman ought not to ridicule any form in which religious feeling had ever clothed itself; and he justified himself by professing that he wished to expose the absurdity of old superstitions and mummeries to help countervail the effect of the Oxford movement. Ingoldsby as a soldier of Protestantism, turning monkish stories into rollicking farces in order to show up what he conceived to be the errors of his opponents, is as truly Ingoldsbian a figure as any in his own 'Legends.' Yet one need not accuse him of hypocrisy or falsehood, hardly even of self-deception. He felt that dead superstitions, and stories not reverenced even by the Church that developed them, were legitimate material for any use he could make of them; he felt that in dressing them up with his wit and fancy he was harming nothing that existed, nor making any one look lightly on the religion of Christ or the Church of Christ: and that they were the property of an opposing church body was a happy thought to set his conscience at rest. He wrote them thenceforth with greater peace of mind and added satisfaction, and no doubt really believed that he was doing good in the way he alleged. And if the excuse gave to the world even one more of the inimitable 'Legends,' it was worth feeling and making.

Barham's nature was not one which felt the problems and tragedies of the world deeply. He grieved for his friends, he helped the distresses he saw, but his imagination rested closely in the concrete. He was incapable of _weltschmerz_; even for things just beyond his personal ken he had little vision or fancy. His treatment of the perpetual problem of sex-temptations and lapses is a good example: he never seems to be conscious of the tragedy they envelop. To him they are always good jokes, to wink over or smile at or be indulgent to. No one would ever guess from 'Ingoldsby' the truth he finds even in 'Don Juan,' that

"A heavy price must all pay who thus err,
In some shape."

But we cannot have everything: if Barham had been sensitive to the tragic side of life, he could not have been the incomparable fun-maker he was. We do not go to the 'Ingoldsby Legends' to solace our souls when hurt or remorseful, to brace ourselves for duty, or to feel ourselves nobler by contact with the expression of nobility. But there must be play and rest for the senses, as well as work and aspiration; and there are worse services than relieving the strain of serious endeavor by enabling us to become jolly pagans once again for a little space, and care naught for the morrow.

AS I LAYE A-THYNKYNGE

THE LAST LINES OF BARHAM

As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
Merrie sang the Birde as she sat upon the spraye;
There came a noble Knighte,
With his hauberke shynynge brighte,
And his gallant heart was lyghte,
Free and gaye;
As I laye a-thynkynge, he rode upon his waye.

As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
Sadly sang the Birde as she sat upon the tree!
There seemed a crimson plain,
Where a gallant Knyghte lay slayne,
And a steed with broken rein
Ran free,
As I laye a-thynkynge, most pitiful to see!

As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
Merrie sang the Birde as she sat upon the boughe;
A lovely mayde came bye,
And a gentil youth was nyghe,
And he breathed many a syghe,
And a vowe;
As I laye a-thynkynge, her hearte was gladsome now.

As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
Sadly sang the Birde as she sat upon the thorne;
No more a youth was there,
But a Maiden rent her haire,
And cried in sad despaire,
"That I was borne!"
As I laye a-thynkynge, she perished forlorne.

As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
Sweetly sang the Birde as she sat upon the briar;
There came a lovely childe,
And his face was meek and milde,
Yet joyously he smiled
On his sire;
As I laye a-thynkynge, a Cherub mote admire.

But I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
And sadly sang the Birde as it perched upon a bier;
That joyous smile was gone,
And the face was white and wan,
As the downe upon the Swan
Doth appear,
As I laye a-thynkynge,--oh! bitter flowed the tear!

As I laye a-thynkynge, the golden sun was sinking,
Oh, merrie sang that Birde, as it glittered on her breast
With a thousand gorgeous dyes;
While soaring to the skies,
'Mid the stars she seemed to rise,
As to her nest;
As I laye a-thynkynge, her meaning was exprest:--
"Follow me away,
It boots not to delay,"--
'Twas so she seemed to saye,
"HERE IS REST!"

THE LAY OF ST. CUTHBERT

OR

THE DEVIL'S DINNER-PARTY

A LEGEND OF THE NORTH COUNTREE

Nobilis quidam, cui nomen _Monsr. Lescrop, Chivaler_, cum invitasset convivas, et, hora convivii jam instante et apparatu facto, spe frustratus esset, excusantibus se convivis cur non compararent, prorupit iratus in haec verba: "_Veniant igitur omnes dæmones, si nullus hominum mecum esse potest_!"

Quod cum fieret, et Dominus, et famuli, et ancillæ, a domo properantes, forte obliti, infantem in cunis jacentem secum non auferent, Dæmones incipiunt commessari et vociferari, prospicereque per fenestras formis ursorum, luporum, felium, et monstrare pocula vino repleta. _Ah_, inquit pater, _ubi infans meus?_ Vix cum haec dixisset, unus ex Dæmonibus ulnis suis infantem ad fenestram gestat, etc.--_Chronicon de Bolton_.

It's in Bolton Hall, and the clock strikes One,
And the roast meat's brown and the boiled meat's done,
And the barbecued sucking-pig's crisped to a turn,
And the pancakes are fried and beginning to burn;
The fat stubble-goose
Swims in gravy and juice,
With the mustard and apple-sauce ready for use;
Fish, flesh, and fowl, and all of the best,
Want nothing but eating--they're all ready drest,
But where is the Host, and where is the Guest?

Pantler and serving-man, henchman and page
Stand sniffing the duck-stuffing (onion and sage),
And the scullions and cooks,
With fidgety looks,
Are grumbling and mutt'ring, and scowling as black
As cooks always do when the dinner's put back;
For though the board's deckt, and the napery, fair
As the unsunned snow-flake, is spread out with care,
And the Dais is furnished with stool and with chair,
And plate of _orféverie_ costly and rare,
Apostle-spoons, salt-cellar, all are there,
And Mess John in his place,
With his rubicund face,
And his hands ready folded, prepared to say Grace,
Yet where is the Host?--and his convives--where?

The Scroope sits lonely in Bolton Hall,
And he watches the dial that hangs by the wall,
He watches the large hand, he watches the small,
And he fidgets and looks
As cross as the cooks,
And he utters--a word which we'll soften to "Zooks!"
And he cries, "What on earth has become of them all?--
What can delay
De Vaux and De Saye?
What makes Sir Gilbert de Umfraville stay?
What's gone with Poyntz, and Sir Reginald Braye?
Why are Ralph Ufford and Marny away?
And De Nokes and De Styles, and Lord Marmaduke Grey?
And De Roe?
And De Doe?
Poynings and Vavasour--where be they?
Fitz-Walter, Fitz-Osbert, Fitz-Hugh, and Fitz-John,
And the Mandevilles, _père et filz_ (father and son);
Their cards said 'Dinner precisely at One!'
There's nothing I hate, in
The world, like waiting!
It's a monstrous great bore, when a Gentleman feels
A good appetite, thus to be kept from his meals!"

It's in Bolton Hall, and the clock strikes Two!
And the scullions and cooks are themselves "in a stew,"
And the kitchen-maids stand, and don't know what to do,
For the rich plum-puddings are bursting their bags,
And the mutton and turnips are boiling to rags,
And the fish is all spoiled,
And the butter's all oiled,
And the soup's got cold in the silver tureen,
And there's nothing, in short, that is fit to be seen!
While Sir Guy Le Scroope continues to fume,
And to fret by himself in the tapestried room,
And still fidgets and looks
More cross than the cooks,
And repeats that bad word, which we've softened to "Zooks!"

Two o'clock's come, and Two o'clock's gone,
And the large and the small hands move steadily on,
Still nobody's there,
No De Roos, or De Clare,
To taste of the Scroope's most delicate fare,

Or to quaff off a health unto Bolton's Heir,
That nice little boy who sits in his chair,
Some four years old, and a few months to spare,
With his laughing blue eyes and his long curly hair,
Now sucking his thumb, and now munching his pear.

Again Sir Guy the silence broke,
"It's hard upon Three!--it's just on the stroke!
Come, serve up the dinner!--A joke is a joke"--
Little he deems that Stephen de Hoaques,
Who "his fun," as the Yankees say, everywhere "pokes,"
And is always a great deal too fond of his jokes,
Has written a circular note to De Nokes,
And De Styles and De Roe, and the rest of the folks,
One and all,
Great and small,
Who were asked to the Hall
To dine there and sup, and wind up with a ball,
And had told all the party a great bouncing lie, he
Cooked up, that the "_fête_ was postponed _sine die_,
The dear little curly-wigged heir of Le Scroope
Being taken alarmingly ill with the croop!"

When the clock struck Three,
And the Page on his knee
Said, "An't please you, Sir Guy Le Scroope, _On a servi_!"
And the Knight found the banquet-hall empty and clear,
With nobody near
To partake of his cheer,
He stamped, and he stormed--then his language!--Oh dear!
'Twas awful to see, and 'twas awful to hear!
And he cried to the button-decked Page at his knee,
Who had told him so civilly "_On a servi,"_
"Ten thousand fiends seize them, wherever they be!
--The Devil take _them_! and the Devil take _thee!_
And the DEVIL MAY EAT UP THE DINNER FOR ME!"

In a terrible fume
He bounced out of the room,
He bounced out of the house--and page, footman, and groom
Bounced after their master; for scarce had they heard
Of this left-handed grace the last finishing word,
Ere the horn at the gate of the Barbican tower
Was blown with a loud twenty-trumpeter power,

And in rush'd a troop
Of strange guests!--such a group
As had ne'er before darkened the door of the Scroope!
This looks like De Saye--yet--it is not De Saye--
And this is--no, 'tis not--Sir Reginald Braye,
This has somewhat the favor of Marmaduke Grey--
But stay!--_Where on earth did he get those long nails?_
Why, they're _claws_!--then Good Gracious!--they've all of them _tails!_
That can't be De Vaux--why, his nose is a bill,
Or, I would say a beak!--and he can't keep it still!--
Is that Poynings?--Oh, Gemini! look at his feet!!
Why, they're absolute _hoofs_!--is it gout or his corns,
That have crumpled them up so?--by Jingo, he's _horns!_
Run! run!--There's Fitz-Walter, Fitz-Hugh, and Fitz-John,
And the Mandevilles, _père et filz_ (father and son),
And Fitz-Osbert, and Ufford--_they've all got them on!_
Then their great saucer eyes--
It's the Father of lies
And his Imps--run! run! run!--they're all fiends in disguise,
Who've partly assumed, with more sombre complexions,
The forms of Sir Guy Le Scroope's friends and connections,
And He--at the top there--that grim-looking elf--
Run! run!--that's the "muckle-horned Clootie" himself!

And now what a din
Without and within!
For the courtyard is full of them.--How they begin
To mop, and to mowe, and to make faces, and grin!
Cock their tails up together,
Like cows in hot weather,
And butt at each other, all eating and drinking,
The viands and wine disappearing like winking,
And then such a lot
As together had got!
Master Cabbage, the steward, who'd made a machine
To calculate with, and count noses,--I ween
The cleverest thing of the kind ever seen,--
Declared, when he'd made
By the said machine's aid,
Up, what's now called the "tottle" of those he surveyed,
There were just--how he proved it I cannot divine--
_Nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety and nine._
Exclusive of Him
Who, giant in limb,

And black as the crow they denominate _Jim_,
With a tail like a bull, and a head like a bear,
Stands forth at the window--and what holds he there,
Which he hugs with such care,
And pokes out in the air,
And grasps as its limbs from each other he'd tear?
Oh! grief and despair!
I vow and declare
It's Le Scroope's poor, dear, sweet, little, curly-wigged Heir!
Whom the nurse had forgot and left there in his chair,
Alternately sucking his thumb and his pear.

What words can express
The dismay and distress
Of Sir Guy, when he found what a terrible mess
His cursing and banning had now got him into?
That words, which to use are a shame and a sin too,
Had thus on their speaker recoiled, and his malison
Placed in the hands of the Devil's own "pal" his son!--
He sobbed and he sighed,
And he screamed, and he cried,
And behaved like a man that is mad or in liquor--he
Tore his peaked beard, and he dashed off his "Vicary,"
Stamped on the jasey
As though he were crazy,
And staggering about just as if he were "hazy,"
Exclaimed, "Fifty pounds!" (a large sum in those times)
"To the person, whoever he may be, that climbs
To that window above there, _en ogive_, and painted,
And brings down my curly-wi'--" Here Sir Guy fainted!

With many a moan,
And many a groan,
What with tweaks of the nose, and some _eau de Cologne_,
He revived,--Reason once more remounted her throne,
Or rather the instinct of Nature--'twere treason
To her, in the Scroope's case, perhaps, to say Reason--
But what saw he then--Oh! my goodness! a sight
Enough to have banished his reason outright!--
In that broad banquet-hall
The fiends one and all
Regardless of shriek, and of squeak, and of squall,
From one to another were tossing that small
Pretty, curly-wigged boy, as if playing at ball;

Yet none of his friends or his vassals might dare
To fly to the rescue or rush up the stair,
And bring down in safety his curly-wigged Heir!

Well a day! Well a day!
All he can say
Is but just so much trouble and time thrown away;
Not a man can be tempted to join the _mêlée:_
E'en those words cabalistic, "I promise to pay
Fifty pounds on demand," have for once lost their sway,
And there the Knight stands
Wringing his hands
In his agony--when on a sudden, one ray
Of hope darts through his midriff!--His Saint!--
Oh, it's funny
And almost absurd,
That it never occurred!--
"Ay! the Scroope's Patron Saint!--he's the man for my money!
Saint--who is it?--really I'm sadly to blame,--
On my word I'm afraid,--I confess it with shame,--
That I've almost forgot the good Gentleman's name,--
Cut--let me see--Cutbeard?--no--CUTHBERT!--egad!
St. Cuthbert of Bolton!--I'm right--he's the lad!
O holy St. Cuthbert, if forbears of mine--
Of myself I say little--have knelt at your shrine,
And have lashed their bare backs, and--no matter--with twine,
Oh! list to the vow
Which I make to you now,
Only snatch my poor little boy out of the row
Which that Imp's kicking up with his fiendish bow-wow,
And his head like a bear, and his tail like a cow!
Bring him back here in safety!--perform but this task,
And I'll give--Oh!--I'll give you whatever you ask!--
There is not a shrine
In the county shall shine
With a brilliancy half so resplendent as thine,
Or have so many candles, or look half so fine!--
Haste, holy St. Cuthbert, then,--hasten in pity!--"

Conceive his surprise
When a strange voice replies,
"It's a bargain!--but, mind, sir, THE BEST SPERMACETI!"--
Say, whose that voice?--whose that form by his side,
That old, old, gray man, with his beard long and wide,