Chapter II: Introduction (1)

MUCH of Douglas Jerrold’s writing took essay form although he only applied the title to five short pieces which were added as _Essays_ to _The Chronicles of Clovernook_ in 1846. Those five pieces are included in this volume along with others from his collected works, and from among those scattered contributions to periodicals which have been brought together at various times since his death.

Born in London on January 3rd, 1803, Douglas William Jerrold was the youngest son of a theatrical manager then of the Kent circuit. His baby years were passed at Cranbrook, his childhood at Sheerness, and then, not having quite attained the mature age of eleven, he was entered as a first-class volunteer on board the _Namur_, guardship at the Nore, on December 22, 1813. Here in the ship’s school his education was continued, and here the midshipman was allowed privileges dear to the boyish heart; he was permitted to keep pigeons, and not the least of his privileges was the being permitted the use of the captain’s collection of books—that captain, it is pleasant to recall, being a brother of Jane Austen. About fifteen months after joining the _Namur_ he was transferred to the brig _Ernest_, engaged in convoying transports and in bringing home wounded soldiers from the Continent. Then came Waterloo and Peace. In October 1815 the _Ernest_ was paid off and the boy-officer returned to civil life. At the end of the year the Jerrold family left Sheerness for London, and Douglas made a new start as printer’s apprentice, and perseveringly pursued a rigorous plan of self-education. Then he began writing verses and plays, and when he was eighteen his first piece was represented on the stage. Play-writing and slight journalism were combined with the compositor’s work for a few years before, throwing aside the composing stick, he relied entirely on the pen. Numerous plays—of many of which nothing beyond the names is now recoverable—were written before Douglas Jerrold made his “hit” with _Black-eyed Susan_ in 1829. Thenceforward he was a busy playwright and a constant contributor to the magazines, annuals and newspapers. In 1841 the advent of _Punch_ introduced him to a medium peculiarly suited to his genius, and to that periodical he contributed his most popular work, _Mrs Caudle’s Curtain Lectures_, and one of his best novels, _The Story of a Feather_. To the _Illuminated Magazine_ (1843-4) and _Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine_ (1845-8), both of which he edited, he contributed many characteristic essays and stories, but later he devoted himself more particularly to political writing as editor of _Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper_ (1846-8), and of _Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper_ (1852-7). He died on June 8th, 1857.

We have heard much within recent years for and against fiction “with a purpose,” as though this was some new literary manifestation. Among the best remembered writers of the early Victorian era are just those who had a purpose other than that of merely amusing their readers—Thackeray and Dickens are of course the two most striking examples. The author’s purpose is often the salt not only flavouring his work for immediate contemporaries, but also preserving it for future readers. That with Douglas Jerrold this purpose counted for much we have his own words to show. Prefacing one of his serial ventures he said: “It will be our chief object to make every essay—however brief, and however light and familiar in its treatment—breathe _with a purpose_. Experience assures us that, especially at the present day, it is _by a defined purpose alone_, whether significant in twenty pages or in twenty lines, that the sympathies of the world are to be engaged, and its support insured.” That this conviction was at the back of the greater part of Douglas Jerrold’s writings no student of his work can fail to recognise. The fact is perhaps answerable for much of his work having enjoyed but a temporary popularity, for there are two ways of writing “with a purpose”—the first the topical or journalistic way, and the second the general or more philosophical. Yet if Douglas Jerrold expended himself to a considerable extent over the particular, he by no means neglected the general, of which there is abundant testimony in this volume, as well as in _St Giles and St James_, _The Story of a Feather_, _Punch’s Letters_, and that little book of golden philosophy, _The Chronicles of Clovernook_.

The essays collected into this volume are, as has been hinted, from various sources; the earliest dates from the late ’twenties, the latest from the last year of the author’s life. No attempt has been made to place them chronologically. It has seemed well to keep the five Shakespearean essays together, representing as they do a life-long interest of their author’s. In the early ’thirties Douglas Jerrold and a number of other young Shakespeare enthusiasts—William Godwin the Younger, Laman Blanchard, Kenny Meadows, etc.—formed the Mulberry Club, at the gatherings of which essays and verses were read by the members; some certainly of the following papers formed part of the club’s “Mulberry Leaves,” as also did the same writer’s song on _Shakespeare’s Crab Tree_, a song which may be quoted here, as it is not widely known, to complete Jerrold’s “leaves.”

To Shakespeare’s mighty line
Let’s drink with heart and soul;
’Twill give a zest divine,
Though humble be the bowl.
Then drink while I essay,
In slipshod, careless rhyme,
A legendary lay
Of Willy’s golden time.

One balmy summer’s night,
As Stratford yeomen tell,
One Will, the royst’ring wight,
Beneath a crab tree fell;
And, sunk in deep repose,
The tipsy time beguiled,
Till Dan Apollo rose
Upon his greatest child.

Since then all people vowed
The tree had wondrous power:
With sense, with speech endowed,
’Twould prattle by the hour;
Though scattered far about,
Its remnants still would blab:
Mind, ere this fact you doubt,—
It was a female crab.

“I felt,” thus spoke the tree,
“As down the poet lay,
A touch, a thrill, a glee,
Ne’er felt before that day.
Along my verdant blood
A quick’ning sense did shoot,
Expanding every bud,
And rip’ning all my fruit.

“What sounds did move the air,
Around me and above!
The yell of mad despair,
The burning sigh of love!
Ambition, guilt-possessed,
Suspicion on the rack,
The ringing laugh and jest,
Begot by sherris-sack!

“Since then, my branches full
Of Shakespeare’s vital heat,
My fruit, once crude and dull
Became as honey sweet;
And when, o’er plain and hill,
Each tree was leafless seen,
My boughs did flourish still
In everlasting green.”

And thus our moral food
Doth Shakespeare leaven still,
Enriching all the good
And less’ning all the ill;—
Thus, by his bounty shed
Like balm from angel’s wing,
Though winter scathe our head,
Our spirits dance with spring.

With reference to the first of the following essays there recently came into my hands an interesting letter from the author, which may well be quoted here. Walter Savage Landor’s _Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare_ had been published in 1834, and apparently Jerrold’s correspondent had pointed out the similarity of theme:—

“11 THISTLE GROVE, LITTLE CHELSEA,
“_August 6th (1835)_.

“MY DEAR SIR,—_The Trial of Shakespeare_ was, I think, published
by Bentley. I have only read extracts from it in reviews; and
though therein I recognised _nothing similar to my little
sketch_, nevertheless the publication of the book does, on
consideration, seem to preoccupy the subject. I concluded that
you had seen something of the volume, or should before have
pointed it out to you. If you please—for I confess myself
somewhat thin-skinned under any charge of plagiary, the more
especially when unmerited—you may omit the first legend.

“For the second, it has never yet seen the light; nor am I aware
of the existence of any essay to which even the uncharitableness
of criticism might imagine a resemblance.

“It struck me, on reading it, that were it broken up more into
paragraphs—as new objects are introduced—it would be more
effective. As it is the images crowding so closely upon each
other—(whilst the spirit of the essay depends upon the
distinctness with which they represent the several plays)—may
confuse, and thus fail to satisfy the reader. If you think with
me, and will again favour me with the proof, I will make the
alterations with as little trouble as possible to the printer.
There being now only one legend, I should call the paper
_Shakespeare at Bank-side_.—I am, my dear Sir, yours truly,

“DOUGLAS JERROLD.”

“W. H. HARRISON, Esq.”

Beyond the fact that they both deal with the tradition of Shakespeare’s deer-stealing escapade and departure from Stratford-on-Avon, there is but little similarity between Douglas Jerrold’s brief essay and Landor’s much longer work. With reference to _Shakespeare in China_ it may be of interest to point out—the author in satirising his fellow countryman later used the fiction of describing English characters from the Chinese point of view in _Punch_ of May 25th, 1844.

If the first few essays testify to the author’s loving homage to Shakespeare, others in no uncertain voice proclaim his political radicalism, his detestation of war, and his sense of the truth that man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn. In _Recollections of Guy Fawkes_ the references to the Isle of Sheppy “some five and twenty years ago” are reminiscences of Jerrold’s boyhood at Sheerness. The pleasant little homily on human consistency, _The Manager’s Pig_, is said to have been founded in fact; the manager in question being Davidge of the Coburg Theatre, to whom Jerrold was for a time “household author” at a weekly salary. The series of _Cat-and-Fiddle Moralities_ so auspiciously begun with _The Tale of a Tiger_ was not pursued any further. _The Drill Sergeant_ and _The Greenwich Pensioner_ formed part of a series of _Full Lengths_, contributed to the _Monthly Magazine_ in 1826-7; there were at least six of them, but as I have not been able to consult a complete set of the magazine, I have only been able to trace three—the two given and one on _The Ship Clergyman_.

In the closing item of this collection we have a satiric essay of a sort, which seems to have been in the air at the time; it was published originally in 1839 with illustrations by Phiz, at the same time that Thackeray by contributing his _Catherine_ to _Fraser’s_ was also seeking to discredit “the Newgate school” of fiction. Later, in _Punch_, Douglas Jerrold reverted to the “Newgate novel-mongers,” mentioning them as still a power, and showing that satire had not stopped the demand for their productions; and in one of the most popular of his comedies a character is made to say, “When I was young, girls used to read _Pilgrim’s Progress_, _Jeremy Taylor_, and such books of innocence; now, young ladies know the ways of Newgate as well as the turnkeys. Then, books gave girls hearty, healthy food; now, silly things, like larks in cages, they live upon hemp-seed.”

W. J.

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SHAKESPEARE AT CHARLECOTE PARK

IT was a fine May morning when the bailiff of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, attended by some half-dozen serving men, rode quickly through the streets of Stratford, and halted at the abode of his worship the Mayor. The children in the street stood mute, and stared; gossips ran to door and casement; Thrums, the tailor, mechanically twitched off his cap, and for a moment forgot the new bridal jerkin of Martin Lapworth, the turner, of Henley Street; John-a-Combe, the thrifty money-scrivener, startled from a sum of arithmetic, watched the horsemen with peering eyes and open mouth; and every face expressed astonishment and surmise as the horses’ hoofs tore up the road, and the arms of the riders rang and clattered; and their visages, burly and glowing, showed as of men bearing mighty tidings. Had a thunderbolt fallen in the market-place, it could not more suddenly have broken the tranquillity of Stratford than had the sudden visit of Sir Thomas Lucy’s retainers. Every one pressed to the Mayor’s house to learn the tidings, and in a brief time one, taking up the fears of his neighbour for the truth, told an inquiring third that the swarthy Spaniard, with a thousand ships, had entered the Thames; that her gracious highness the Queen was a close prisoner in the Tower, and that the damnable papists had carried the host through the city, and had performed High Mass in the Abbey of Westminster. This rumour was opposed by another, averring that the Queen had drunk poison in a quart of sherris (a beverage much loved by her highness)—whilst a fourth story told of her private marriage with the Master of the Horse. Great wonderment followed on each tale. Some vowed they would never be brought to speak Spanish, others religiously called for fire upon all Catholics—whilst more than one good housewife hoped that in all reasonable time her Majesty would bring forth a prince. Stratford was the very court-place for rumour; old, yellow Avon paused in his course, astonished at the hum and buzz that came with every wind.

At length the truth became manifest. No Spanish bottom poisoned the Thames; no Spanish flag blasted the air of England. Elizabeth yet gripped her sceptre—yet indulged in undrugged sack and cold virginity. Still it was no mean event that could thrust seven of Sir Thomas Lucy’s men into their saddles, and send them galloping, like so many St Georges, to the Mayor of Stratford. Thus it was then; the park of Sir Thomas had been entered on the over-night, and one fine head of fallow deer stolen from the pasturage, whilst another was found sorely maimed, sobbing out its life among the underwood. The marauders were known, and Sir Thomas had sent to his worship to apprehend the evil-doers, and despatch them under a safe guard to the hall of Charlecote. This simple story mightily disappointed the worthy denizens of Stratford, and, for the most part, sent them back to their various business. Many, however, lingered about his worship’s dwelling to catch a view of the culprits—for they were soon in custody—and many a head was thrust from the windows to look at the offenders, as, mounted on horseback, and well guarded on all sides by Sir Thomas Lucy’s servants and the constables of Stratford, they took their way through the town, and, crossing the Avon, turned on the left to Charlecote.

There were four criminals, and all in the first flush of manhood; they rode as gaily among their guards as though each carried a hawk upon his fist and were ambling to the sound of Milan bells. One of the culprits was specially distinguished from his companions, more by the perfect beauty of his face than by the laughing unconcern that shone in it. He seemed about twenty-two years of age, of somewhat more than ordinary stature, his limbs combining gracefulness of form with manly strength. He sat upon his saddle as though he grew there. His countenance was of extraordinary sweetness. He had an eye, at once so brilliant and so deep, so various in its expression, so keenly piercing, yet so meltingly soft—an eye so wonderful and instant in its power as though it could read the whole world at a glance—such an eye as hardly ever shone within the face of man; it was not an eye of flesh—it was a living soul. His nose and chin were shaped as with a chisel from the fairest marble; his mouth looked instinct with thought, yet as sweet and gentle in its expression as is an infant’s when it dreams and smiles. And as he doffed his hat to a fair head that looked mournfully at him from an upper casement, his broad forehead bared out from his dark curls in surpassing power and amplitude. It seemed a tablet writ with a new world.

The townspeople gazed at the young man, and some of them said, “Poor Will Shakespeare!” Others said, “’Twas a sore thing to get a child for the gallows!” and one old crone lifted up her lean hands and cried, “God help poor Anne Hathaway, she had better married the tailor!” Some prophesied a world of trouble for the young man’s parents; many railed him as a scapegrace given to loose companions, a mischievous varlet, a midnight roysterer; but the greater number only cried, “Poor Will Shakespeare!” It was but a short ride to the hall, yet ere the escort had arrived there Sir Thomas Lucy with some choice guests were seated at dinner.

Hereupon the constables were ordered to take especial care of the culprits, who were forthwith consigned to the darkest and strongest cellar at Charlecote. Here, at least, it was thought that Will Shakespeare would abate somewhat of his unseemly hardihood, for all the way to the mansion he had laughed and jested and made riddles on the constables’ beards, and sang snatches of profane songs, and kissed his fingers to the damsels on the road, and, indeed, “showed himself,” as a discreet, observing nun declared, “little better than a child of Satan.” In the cellar he and his co-mates, it was thought, would mend their manners. “As they do not learn to respect God, and worship Sir Thomas, and honour deer’s flesh, as good Christians ought—and they learn not these things in the dark—’tis to waste God’s gifts upon ’em to let ’em see the light of day.” Thus spoke Ralph Elder, constable of Stratford, to one of the grooms of Charlecote. “I tell you, John,” continued the functionary, “Will Shakespeare’s horse didn’t stumble for nothing at the field of hemp. God saves poor babes born to be hanged, for ’tis no constable’s affair——Hush! mercy on us, they laugh—laugh like lords!”

To the shame of the prisoners be it spoken, the discourse of Ralph was broken by a loud shout from the cellar. To add to the abomination, the captives trolled forth in full concert a song—“a scornful thing,” as Ralph afterwards declared it, “against the might and authority of Sir Thomas Lucy.” The men, the maids—all flocked to the cellar door, while the dungeon of the prisoners rang with their shouting voices. “It was thus they glorified,” as Ralph avowed, “in their past iniquities”:—

“’Twas yester morning, as I walked adown by Charlecote Meads,
And counting o’er my wicked sins, as friars count their beads;
I halted just beside a deer—a deer with speaking face,
That seem’d to say, ‘In God’s name come and take me from this place!’

“And then it ’gan to tell its tale—and said its babe forlorn
Had butcher’d been for Lucy’s dish soon after it was born;
‘I know ’tis right!’ exclaimed the dam, ‘my child should form a feast,
But what I most complain of is, that beast should dine off beast!’

“And still the creature mourn’d its fate, and how it came to pass
That Lucy here a scarecrow is, in London town an ass![1]
And ended still its sad complaints with offers of its life,
twenty hundred times exclaimed, ‘Oh! haven’t you a knife?’

“There’s brawny limbs in Stratford town, there’s hearts without a fear,
There’s tender souls who really have compassion on a deer;
And last night was without a moon, a night of nights to give
Fit dying consolation to a deer that may not live.

“The dappled brute lay on the grass, a knife was in its side;
Another from its yearning throat let forth its vital tide.
It said, as tho’ escaping from the worst that could befall,
‘Now, thank my stars, I shall not smoke on board at Charlecote Hall!’

“Oh, happy deer! Above your friends exalted high by fate,
You’re not condemned like all the herds to Lucy’s glutton plate;
But every morsel of your flesh, from shoulder to the haunch,
Tho’ bred and killed in Charlecote Park, hath lined an honest paunch.”

Footnote 1:

“In the country a scarecrow, in London an ass!”—_Shakespeare’s Satire
on Sir Thomas Lucy._

The household were truly scandalised at this bravado. The night came on, and still the prisoners sang and laughed. In the morning Sir Thomas took his chair of state, and ordered the culprits to his presence. The servants hurried to the cellar—but the birds were flown. How they effected their escape remaineth to this day a mystery, though it cannot be disguised that heavy suspicion fell upon four of the maids. The story went that Shakespeare was a day or two afterwards passed on the London road.

This tale was corroborated by John-a-Combes. For, many years afterwards, a townsman of Stratford, who had quitted his native place for the Indies just at the time that Warwickshire rang with the deeds of the deer-stealers, returned home, and amongst other gossip was heard to ask the thrifty money-getter what became of that rare spark, Will Shakespeare, him who entered Sir Thomas’s park at Charlecote. “Marry, sir,” replied John; “the worst has become of him, for after that robbery he went to London, where he turned stage actor, and writ plays, _King Lear_, _Hamlet_, _Macbeth_, _Othello_, and such things.”

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SHAKESPEARE AT “BANK-SIDE”[2]

THE bell of St Mary Overy had struck three; the flag was just displayed from the Rose play-house; and, rustling in the wind, was like, in the words of the pious Philip Stubbes, “unto a false harlot, flaunting the unwary onward to destruction and to death.” Barges and boats, filled with the flower of the court-end and the city, crowded to the bridge. Gallants, in the pride of new cloak and doublet, leaped to the shore, making rich the strand with many a fair gentlewoman lifted all tenderly from the craft; horses pranced along Bank-side, spurred by their riders to the door of the tiring-room; nay, there was no man, woman, or child who did not seem beckoned by the Rose flag to the play,—whose ears did not drink in the music of the trumpets, as though it was the most ravishing sound of the earth. At length the trumpets ceased, and the play began.

Footnote 2:

According to Rowe’s story, related to Pope, Shakespeare’s first
employment in London was to wait at the door of the play-house and
hold the horses of those that had no servants, that they might be
ready after the performance. “But I cannot,” says Mr Steevens,
“dismiss this anecdote without observing, that it seems to want every
mark of probability.”

The Rose was crammed. In the penny gallery was many an apprentice unlawfully dispensing his master’s time—it might be, his master’s penny too. Many a husband, slunk from a shrew’s pipe and hands, was there, to list and shake the head at the player’s tale of wedded love. Nor here and there was wanting, peeping from a nook, with cap pulled over the brow, and ruff huddled about the neck, the sly, happy face of one, who yesterday gave an assenting groan to the charitable wonder of a godly neighbour—of one who marvelled that the Rose flag should flout the heavens, yet call not down the penal fire. The yard was thronged; and on the stage was many a bird of courtly feather, perched on his sixpenny stool; whilst the late comer lay at length upon the rushes, his thoughts wrested from his hose and points by the mystery of the play.

Happy, thrice happy wights, thus fenced and rounded in from the leprous, eating cares of life! Happy ye, who, even with a penny piece, can transport yourselves into a land of fairy—can lull the pains of flesh with the music of high thoughts! The play goes on, with all its influences. Where is the courtier? Ten thousand miles from the glassy floor of a palace, lying on a bank, listening to a reed piping in Arcady. Where the man of thrift? He hath shuffled off his trading suit, and dreams himself a shepherd of the golden time. Where the wife-ridden husband, doubtful of a natural right to his own soul? He is an Indian emperor, flushed with the mastery of ten thousand slaves! Where is the poor apprentice—he who hath weals upon his back for twopence lost on Wednesday? He is in El Dorado, strutting upon gold. Thus works the play—let it go on. Our business calls us to the outside.

There is scarcely a passenger to be seen on Bank-side. Three or four boys loiter about the theatre, some trying, through a deceitful crevice, to catch a glimpse of the play—some tending horses, until the show be done. Apart from these, his arms crossed, leaning against a post, his eyes fixed on the Rose flag,—stands a youth, whose face, though perfect in its beauty, has yet a troubled air. As he stands, watching the rustling beacon, it almost seems—so fixed is his look—as though he held some converse with it; as though the fortunes of his future life were woven in its web in mystic characters, and he, with his spirit straining from his eyes, were seeking to decipher them. Now—so would imagination work—there seemed voluble speech in its flapping folds, and now a visible face. The youth turned from gazing on the flag to the open river. Some spirit was upon him; and, through his eyes, gave to vulgar objects a new and startling form. He was in a day-dream of wonder and beauty; and as it is told that those doomed to the ocean with hearts yearning for the land see fields and pleasant gardens in the heaving wave,—so our hero, tricked by his errant fancy, gazed breathless at new wonders sweeping before him. A golden mist shrouded the mansions and warehouses on the strand. Each common thing of earth glowed and dilated under the creative spirit of the dreamer. The Thames seemed fixed—whilst a thousand forms moved along the silver pavement. The sky shone brighter—harmony was in the air! The shades move on.

First passes one bearing in his hand a skull: wisdom is in his eyes, music on his tongue—the soul of contemplation in the flesh of an Apollo: the greatest wonder and the deepest truth—the type of great thought and sickly fancies—the arm of clay, wrestling with and holding down the angel. He looks at the skull, as though death had written on it the history of man. In the distance one white arm is seen above the tide, clutching at the branches of a willow “growing askant a brook.”

Now there are sweet, fitful noises in the air: a shaggy monster, his lips glued to a bottle—his eyes scarlet with wine—wine throbbing in the very soles of his feet—heaves and rolls along, mocked at by a sparkling creature couched in a cowslip’s bell.

And now a maiden and a youth, an eternity of love in their passionate looks, with death as a hooded priest joining their hands: a gay gallant follows them, led on by Queen Mab, twisting and sporting as a porker’s tail.

The horns sound—all, all is sylvan! Philosophy in hunter’s suit, stretched beneath an oak, moralises on a wounded deer, festering, neglected, and alone: and now the bells of folly jingle in the breeze, and the suit of motley glances among the greenwood.

The earth is blasted—the air seems full of spells: the shadows of the Fates darken the march of the conqueror: the hero is stabbed with air-drawn steel.

The waves roar like lions round the cliff: the winds are up, and howling; yet there is a voice, louder than theirs—a voice made high and piercing by intensest agony! The singer comes, his white head “crowned with rank fumitor”—madness, tended by truth, speaking through folly!

The Adriatic basks in the sun: there is a street in Venice; “a merry bargain” is struck—the Jew slinks like a balked tiger from the court.

Enter a pair of legs, marvellously cross-gartered.

And hark! to a sound of piping, comes one with an ass’s head wreathed with musk roses and a spirit playing around it like a wildfire.

A handkerchief, with “magic in the web,” comes like a trail of light, and disappears.

A leek—a leek of immortal green shoots up!

Behold! like to the _San Trinidad_, swims in a buck-basket labelled “to Datchet Meads.”

There gleam two roses, red and white—a Roman cloak stabbed through and through—a lantern of the watch of Messina!

A thousand images of power and beauty pass along.

The glorious pageant is over—no! fancy is yet at work.—

Yonder ship, laden with sherris, canary, and spice—see how her masts and rigging fall and melt, like metal in a furnace! Her huge hold, stowed to the deck with wine, swells and distends, and takes another form. We see no ship, but a man mountain, with a belly that “would sink a navy.” One butt of red wine is sinking in the Thames: no; it moves and shapes itself into something like a nose, which, rising like a comet, fiery red, before him of the abdomen, seems as ’twere purposed for a torch to light him “’twixt tavern and tavern.” And see——

But the day-dream of the youth is broken. A visitor, mounted, has just arrived, and would fain enter the play-house; but there is none bold or strong enough to hold his steed. At least a dozen men—it was remarkable that each had in his bosom a roll of paper, it might be the draft of a play—rushing from the Rose, strove to hold the bridle: but some the horse trod down—some he struck paralytic with his flashing eye—some ran away, half distraught at his terrible neighing. At length our dreamer approached the steed, which, as it had been suddenly turned to stone, stood still. The rider dismounted and entered the play-house, leaving his horse tended by our hero. The animal ate from out his hand—answered with its proud head the caresses of its feeder—and, as it pranced and curveted, a sound of music, as from the horny hoofs of dancing satyrs, rose from the earth. All stood amazed at the sudden taming of the horse.

The play ended—the audience issued from the doors. The story had run from mouth to mouth, touching the new-comer and his horse. All hurried about the stranger, to see him mount. He, with some difficulty, such was the crowd, leaped on his steed, when, inclining his face, radiant with smiles, towards the youth who had performed the office of his groom, he flashed like a sunbeam out of sight. All stood marble with astonishment. At length the immortal quality of the visitor was made manifest, for, in the press and hurry, a feather had fallen from one of his wings—albeit, concealed and guarded by a long cloak.

The youth who had taken charge of the horse seized, as his rightful wages, on this relic of Phœbus, and, taking his way, he fashioned it into a pen, and with it from time to time gave to the “airy nothings” of his day-dream “a local habitation and a name.”

* * * * *

It is modestly hoped that this well-authenticated story will wholly silence the sceptical objections of Mr Steevens.

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“Hearing little John Fenton lisp his Berkshire Latin”
]

THE EPITAPH OF SIR HUGH EVANS

“THERE’S pippins and cheese to come!”

Such are the hopeful words of an old divine—of one Sir Hugh Evans—a preacher distinguished in the latter part of the reign of Henry the Fourth, not so much for the ascetic asperity of his speech and bearing as for a certain household wisdom that ran like threads of gold through his most familiar sentences, enhanced and recommended by a blithe look and a chirping voice; all of which excellent gifts made him the oracle and friend of the yeomen and goodwives of Windsor. These inestimable qualities—to say nothing of his miraculous hand at bowls, and his marvellous sagacity as a brewer of sack—had, as we have already inferred, endeared him to his flock: and, living, and preaching, and gossiping in a neighbourhood of love and good fellowship, the parson grew old, his cheek mellowing to the last; when, in the year——, he fell, like an over-ripe plum from the tree, into his grave—all the singing men and maids and little children of mournful Windsor following their teacher to his couch of earth, and chanting around it the hymn best loved by him when living.

In sooth, the funeral of the poor knight was most bravely attended. Six stout morrice-men carried the corpse from a cottage, the property of the burly, roystering Host of the “Garter”—a pretty rustic nook, near Datchet Meads, whither the worn-out parson had, for six months before his death, retired from the stir and bustle of Windsor—and where, on a summer evening, he might be seen seated in the porch, patiently hearing little John Fenton lisp his Berkshire Latin,—the said John being the youngest grandson of old Master Page, and godchild of the grey-headed, big-bellied landlord of the “Garter.” Poor Sir Hugh had long been afflicted with a vexing asthma; and, though in his gayer times he would still brew sack for younger revellers, telling them rare tales of “poor dear Sir John and the Prince,” he had, for seven years before his death, eschewed his former sports, and was never known to hear of a match of bowls that he did not shake his head and sigh,—and then, like a stout-hearted Christian as he was, soothe his discomfited spirit with the snatch of an old song. Doctor Caius had, on his death-bed, bequeathed to Sir Hugh an inestimable treasure; nothing less than a prescription—a very charm—to take away a winter cough: for three years had it been to Sir Hugh as the best gift of King Oberon; but the fourth winter the amulet cast its virtue, and from year to year the parson grew worse and worse,—when, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, on a bright May morning, in the arms of his gossip and friend, staid, sober Master Slender, with the Host of the “Garter” seated (for he was too fat to stand) in an arm-chair at the bedside, and Master Page and Master Ford at the foot, Sir Hugh Evans, knight and priest, passed into death, as into a sweet, sound sleep. His wits had wandered somewhat during the night,—for he talked of “Herne the hunter” and “a boy in white”; and then he tried to chirrup a song,—and Masters Page and Ford smiled sadly in each other’s face as the dying man, chuckling as he carolled, trolled forth—

“Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
Till candles, and starlight, and moonshine be out.”

As the day advanced, the dying man became more calm; and at length, conscious of his state, he passed away at half-past nine in the morning, with a look of serenest happiness—and “God be with you!” were the last words that fluttered from his lips.

The personal property of the dead parson was shared among his friends and servants. Master Slender inherited his “Book of Songs and Posies”; the Host of the “Garter” the sword with which Sir Hugh had dared Doctor Caius to mortal combat; and all his wardrobe, consisting of two entire suits and four shirts, somewhat softened the grief of Francis Simple—son of Simple, former retainer of Master Slender, and for three years body-servant of dead Sir Hugh. A sum of two shillings and fourpence, discovered among the effects of the deceased, was faithfully distributed to the parish poor.

“One ... who would have added weight and dignity to the ceremony”
]

There was sadness in Windsor streets as the funeral procession moved slowly towards the church. Old men and women talked of the frolics of Sir Hugh; and though they said he had been in his day something of the merriest for a parson, yet more than one gossip declared it to be her belief that “worse men had been made bishops.” A long train of friends and old acquaintance followed the body. First, came worthy Master Slender—chief mourner. He was a bachelor, a little past his prime of life, with a sad and sober brow, and a belly inclining to portliness. The severe censors of Windsor had called him woman-hater, for that in his songs and in his speech he would bear too hardly on the frailties and fickleness of the delicate sex; for which unjust severity older people might perchance, and they would, have found some small apology. For, in truth, Master Slender was a man of softest heart; and though he studiously avoided the company of women, he was the friend of all the children of Datchet and Windsor. He always carried apples in his pocket for little John Fenton, youngest child of Anne Fenton, formerly Anne Page; and was once found sitting in Windsor Park, with little John upon his knees,—Master Slender crying like a chidden maid. Of this enough. Let it now suffice to say that Master Slender—for the Host was too heavy to walk—was chief mourner. Then followed Ford and his wife; next, Mr Page and his son William,—poor Mrs Page being dead two years at Christmas, from a cold caught with over dancing, and then obstinately walking through the snow from her old gossip Ford’s. Next in the procession were Master Fenton and his wife, and then followed their eight children in couples; then Robin—now a prosperous vintner, once page to Sir John,—with Francis Simple; and then a score of little ones, to whom the poor dead parson would give teaching in reading and writing,—and, where he marked an apter wit among his free disciples, something of the Latin accidence. These were all that followed Sir Hugh Evans to his rest—for death had thinned the thick file of his old acquaintance. One was wanting, who would have added weight and dignity to the ceremony—who, had he not some few years before been called to fill the widest grave that was ever dug for flesh, would have cast from his broad and valiant face a lustrous sorrow on the manes of the dead churchman,—who would have wept tears, rich as wine, upon the coffin of his old friend; for to him, in the convenient greatness of his heart, all men, from the prince of the blood to the nimming knave who stole the “handle of Mrs Bridget’s fan,” were, by turns, friends and good fellows; who, at the supper at the “Garter” (for the Host gave a solemn feast in celebration of the mournful event), would have moralised on death and mortal accidents, and, between his tankards, talked fine philosophy—true divinity; would have caroused to the memory of the dead in the most religious spirit of sack, and have sent round whole flagons of surest consolation. Alas! this great, this seeming invincible spirit, this mighty wit, with jests all but rich enough to laugh Death from his purpose—to put him civilly aside with a quip, bidding him to pass on and strike at leaner bosoms,—he himself, though with “three fingers on the ribs,” had been hit; and he, who seemed made to live for ever, an embodied principle of fleshly enjoyment,—he, the great Sir John—

“He was dead and nailèd in his chest.”

Others, too, passed away with their great dominator, were wanting at the ceremonial. Where was he, with nose enshrining jests richer to us than rubies? Truly liberal, yet most unfortunate spirit, hapless Bardolph; where, when Sir Hugh was laid upon the lap of his mother earth, oh! where wert thou? Where was that glorious feature that, had the burying been at the dead time of night, would have outshone the torches? Where was that all-rich—all-lovely nose? Alack! it may be in the maws of French falcons; its luckless owner throttled on the plains of Agincourt for almost the smallest theft; hung up by fellest order of the Fifth Henry—of his old boon companion, his brother robber on the field of Gadshill. And could Harry march from the plain with laurel on his brow and leave the comrade of his youth—his fellow-footpad—with neck mortally cut “with edge of penny cord”? Should such a chaplet have been intertwined with such hemp? The death of Bardolph is a blot—a foul, foul blot on the ’scutcheon of Agincourt. But let us pass the ingratitude and tyranny of kings, to dwell wholly upon the burial of Sir Hugh.

Who shall say that all the spirits with whom the parson was wont to recreate himself,—to counsel, to quarrel,—who shall say that they did not all mingle in the procession, all once again pass through the streets of ancient Windsor? The broad shadow of Sir John, arm-in-arm with the spirit of Mrs Page,—Bardolph and Nym, descended from their gibbets, new from the plains of France, to make melancholy holiday in Berkshire,—learned Dr Caius, babbling Quickly, and Pistol, her broken, war-worn husband, kicked down the tavern stairs, where in his old days he served as drawer, and was killed,—and Shallow, immortal Shallow, his lean ghost fluttering with a sense of office,—who shall say that all these did not crowd about the coffin of good Sir Hugh, and, as he was laid in the grave, give him a smiling welcome to his everlasting habitation? Let us not, in this day of light, be charged with superstition, if in these pages—perpetual as adamant—we register our belief, a belief mingling in our very blood, that all these illustrious ghosts followed, and, with their dim majesty, ennobled the procession,—albeit, to the eyes of the uninitiate, none but the living did service to the dead.

Sir Hugh Evans was laid by the side of his old friend and old antagonist, Doctor Caius; and, for many years, there was a story among the good wives of Windsor, that the fairies, once a year, danced round the grave of Sir Hugh, the turf upon it growing as bright as emeralds; and, in a hawthorn bush, but a few paces from the spot, “melodious birds” did, at certain seasons, “sing madrigals.”

We have now to speak of the epitaph of the good Sir Hugh. More than four hundred years have passed away since the mortal part of that most worthy piece of Welsh divinity was consigned to dust. It may be a lesson to ambition to learn that the exact spot where he was buried cannot, at the present time, be verified: the ablest antiquarians are at odds about it. Proud, however,—and, we trust, not unbecomingly so,—are we to be the means of publishing to the world the epitaph of Sir Hugh, copied from his tombstone, in the possession of a gentleman in Berkshire, who has resisted our most earnest supplications that he would suffer us to make known his name. This favour he has resolutely refused; but has, in the most handsome manner, presented us with the use of the tombstone, together with a most voluminous, and no less satisfactory, account of its genuineness. Happy should we have been could we have found room for the history of the relic at full. Leaving it, however, for the archives of the Antiquarian Society, we must content ourselves with stating that the document fully proves that the tombstone was erected from the private munificence of Master Slender, and that the pithy and most touching epitaph inscribed upon it was selected by his happy taste, as combining all the excellences of an epitaph in the fewest words—these words having the further recommendation of being uttered, on a memorable occasion, by the deceased himself. The words were repeated to Master Slender by his servant Simple, despatched, on a certain day, by Sir Hugh with a letter touching the wooing of Anne Page. After long pondering, reviewing every circumstance of his ancient friendship with the dead Sir Hugh,—seated, one sunny afternoon, on the bench outside the “Garter,” the words came jump again into the mind of Slender; and quickly raising and emptying his tankard, he marched, like a man resolved, to the stone-cutter, and—for he cared not for Latin—bade the workman cut on the stone—(the inscription, considering its age, is in a wonderful state of preservation)—the words that follow:—

HUGH EVANS
PRIESTE
Dyed atte Datchette
MAY—ANNO DOMI 14—
AGED—
“THERE’S PIPPINS AND CHEESE—TO COME.”

How simply, yet how beautifully, does this epitaph shadow forth the fruitfulness of the future! How delicate, and yet how sufficing, its note of promise!—

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“THERE’S PIPPINS AND CHEESE—TO COME.”

Pippins! Does not the word, upon a tombstone, conjure up thoughts of Hesperian gardens—of immortal trees, laden with golden fruit; with delicious produce, the growth of a soil where not one useless weed takes root, where no baneful snake rustles among the grass, where no blight descends, no canker withers? Where we may pluck from the consenting boughs, and eat, and eat—and never, as in earthly things, find a worm at the core, a rottenness at the heart, where outside beauty tempted us to taste? “There’s pippins _to come_!” The evil and misery gathered with the apple of death will be destroyed—forgotten—by the ambrosial fruit to be plucked for ever in immortal orchards!—

“THERE’S PIPPINS AND CHEESE—TO COME!”

What a picture of plenty in its most beneficent aspect—what a prospect of pastoral abundance!

Think of it, ye oppressed of the earth! Ye, who are bowed and pinched by want—ye, who are scourged by the hands of persecution—ye, crushed with misery—ye, doomed to the bitterness of broken faith; take this consolation to your wearied souls—apply this balsam to your bruised hearts.—Though all earth be to you as barren as the sands—

“THERE’S PIPPINS AND CHEESE—TO COME!”

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BULLY BOTTOM’S BABES

THE immortal weaver of Athens hath a host of descendants. They are scattered throughout every country of the world, their moral likeness to their sage ancestor becoming stronger in the land of wealth and luxury. They are a race marked and distinguished by the characteristics of their first parent—omnivorous selfishness and invulnerable self-complacency. They wear the ass’s head, yet know it not; and heedless of the devotion, have the Titania fortune still to round their temples “with coronets of fresh and fragrant flowers.” They sleep to the watching of an enamoured fairy, and wake only to new experiences of her tenderness and beauty.

“Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries;
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs,
And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,
To have my love to bed and to arise:
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes:
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.”

Have we not here the adjuration of the fairy fortune to all her ministering delights and pleasures of the world, to render service and to do homage to the dull-brained creature of her passion? Extract the poetry, the delicious fancy, from the injunction of the Queen of Fairies, and what is it but the command of worldly luck to her many servitors, to seek all imaginable delights for the sordid lump of earth, the mere animal with an “ass’s head” her diseased and wayward affections have made an idol of? Is not the world thronged with these Bottoms? In shape, in lineament, in every moral feature, are they not the veritable descendants of the swaggering homespun Athenian? They are the very nurslings of fortune, the monstrous and uncouth objects of her blind and fickle passion; yet do they submit to her endearments with no distrust, no passing suspicion of their own worthiness. They receive her blandishments as nothing more than a just and rightful reward for excellence. They cannot conceive how it could have been otherwise. Their imagination, vassal to their self-complacency, will not allow them to change places for an instant with their less prosperous fellow. No; Fortune dotes upon them, and how can she help it? Her extravagant fondness is not excused, but justified, made inevitable by the excelling worthiness of their parts. Hence, with what serenity they issue mandates to the retainers of their fond mistress—with what lordly self-conviction of their own merits they accept their service! How they order Cobweb, Peaseblossom, and Mustardseed to do their fantastic bidding, as though their bondmaster, created with natural and inalienable right to their feudality. Nothing in the way of greatness surprises them—no flattery startles them.

“Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful!” cries Titania to her ass-headed lover, and he by no syllable disclaims the truth, the justice of the eulogy. He swallows the praise as his natural food, takes the sweet sound of his doting goddess as rightful, every-day applause. He is loved by a goddess, for the goddess—we have said it—cannot help it.

The insensibility of the sons of Bottom is one of their grand, their unerring characteristics. It is this profitable faculty that would make them task the daintiest spirits for their own poorest, vilest wants, and dream of nothing monstrous or extravagant in such application.

“I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you.”

“Scratch my head, Peaseblossom.”

“Monsieur Cobweb; good mounsieur, get you your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped bumble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag.”

Thus spoke the great progenitor, Bottom; and of a verity his children are not more shame-faced task-masters.

Next, let us contrast the power and beauty of delights placed by Queen Titania at his will, with the mean, the sordid wretchedness of Bottom’s appetite and tastes.

“_Tit._ What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?

“_Bot._ I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let’s have the tongs and bones.

“_Tit._ Or say, sweet love, what thou desir’st to eat.

“_Bot._ Truly a peck of provender: I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.

“_Tit._ I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
The squirrel’s hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

“_Bot._ I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me: I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.

“_Tit._ Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
Fairies, be gone, and be always away.
So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
Gently entwist; the female ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
_Oh, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!_”

Is this a scene of mere fairy-land? No; but a thing of hard, every-day prosaic life. Have we not about us the children, the thick-headed descendants of Bottom, with the Titania fortune tempting them to the enjoyments of the rarest and sweetest delights? and yet the coarse animal craving of

“The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,”

make answer to her dainty invitations with the poorest, coarsest desires! A goddess bids them choose music, and they are for nothing but “tongs and bones.” Fortune prays them to the banquet on immortal food, and, with asinine stubbornness, they bray for “a handful or two of dried peas.” They are warbled to by a goddess, and, unconscious of the homage, they make answer with the sense of an ass. We ask it, did Bottom die childless?

Bottom’s babes flourish in twenty paths of life. We meet his children in the stock-market; we see them sleek and smug behind the counter; we catch their faces through carriage windows; we hear their tuneful voices from the county-bench, the city-court, yea, in nobler convocations still. Sometimes, too, like their Athenian father, they are “translated.” No matter for the difference of calling, the influence of education, there is the family face—the family voice; the expression of self-blessed insensibility, the note of self-complacent gratulation. Throughout the life-teeming page of Shakespeare there is not a finer poetic rendering of a commonplace, vulgar class than Bottom.

The very heart of their mystery beats in the bosom of the weaver. His eagerness to be all things, from an assured conviction of his fitness for everything, is only their daily conceit dramatically developed. In that brief scene, what a picture have we, what a history of the ten thousand incidents of prose life! What an exhibition of the profound busy-bodies who clamorously desire to be Wall, Lion, Moonshine, and Pyramus too, not from an acquired belief, but as it would seem from a natural instinct of their own fitness for the combined charges! How triumphantly does Bottom swagger down his fellows! How small, mean, degenerate—what nobodies are they, before that giant conceit, the thick-skulled weaver![3] And in all this there is nothing that is not the severest transcript of human life. We laugh at it; and the next moment we are touched into gravity by a reflection of its serious meaning—its philosophic comments on the vulgar pretence of the every-day world.

Footnote 3:

It is impossible, we think, for the reader, if he witnessed _A
Midsummer Night’s Dream_ at Covent Garden last season (1840) to banish
from his memory the _Flute_ of Keeley in this scene. How meekly, how
resignedly he gave place to the burly consequence of _Bottom_. It was
not imbecility, but a mute absorbing sense of homage to the greatness
of the weaver, one of those subtle touches that show the sympathy of
the actor with the profoundest meanings of the poet.