daughter of Squire Fulke Nanfan, of Worcestershire, at that time on a visit to the worshipful family of Compton at Long Compton. We were young creatures; I but twenty-four and seven months (for it was written on the 14th of May), and she well-nigh upon a twelvemonth younger. My own verses (the first) are neither here nor there; indeed they were imbedded in solid prose, like lampreys and ram's-horns in our limestone, and would be hard to get out whole. What they are may be seen by her answer, all in verse: Faithful shepherd! dearest Tommy! I have received the letter from ye, But mother, she says, "Nanny! Nanny! Sir Shepherd! I held down my head, All I could say would not content her; And not a crumb more innocenter." I know not how it happeneth, but a poet doth open before a poet, albeit of baser sort. It is not that I hold my poetry to be better than some other in time past, it is because I would show thee that I was virtuous and wooed virtuously, that I repeat it. Furthermore, I wished to leave a deep impression on the mother's mind that she was exceedingly wrong in doubting my innocence. Shakspeare. Gracious Heaven! and was this 500 doubted? Sir Thomas. May-be not; but the whole race of men, the whole male sex, wanted and found in me a protector. I showed her what I was ready to do. Shakspeare. Perhaps, sir, it was for that very thing that she put the daughter back and herself forward. Sir Thomas. I say not so, but thou mayest know as much as befitteth, by what follows: Worshipful lady! honoured madam! I at this present truly glad am And who must come at sound of horn, And who is bound to keep a whelp, And which do need the leech's help. Enough (God willing) to content ye; Jim Yates must go; he's one day very hot And poorly, poorly's Jacob Burgess. Of anthelminticals and purges. Fillpots blows hot and cold like Jim, And, sleepless lest the boys should plunder His orchard, he must soon knock under; Death has been looking out for him. He blusters; but his good yard-land Thy epitaph is ready; "Here The cullion past the town of Dover. Madam, I am always, &c. SIR THOMAS LUCY, Knight. I did believe that such a clear and conscientious exposure of my affairs would have brought me a like return. My letter was sent back to me with small courtesy. It may be there was no paper in the house, or none equalling mine in whiteness. No notice was taken of the rent-roll; but between the second and third stanza these four lines were written, in a very fine hand: Most honor'd knight, Sir Thomas! two She will bring more herself than that. I have reason to believe that the worthy lady did neither write nor countenance the same, perhaps did not ever know of them. She always had at her elbow one who jogged it when he listed, and, although he could not overrule the daughter, he took especial care that none other should remove her from his tutelage, even when she had fairly grown up to woman's estate. Now, after all this condescension and confidence, promise me, good lad, promise that thou wilt not edge and elbow me. Never let it be said, when people say, Sir Thomas was a poet when he willed it; so is Bill Shakspeare! It beseemeth not that our names do go together cheek by jowl in this familiar fashion, like an old beagle and a whelp, in couples, where if the one would, the other would not. Sir Silas. Sir, while these thoughts are passing in your mind, remember there is another pair of couples out of which it would be as well to keep the cur's neck. Sir Thomas. Young man! dost thou understand Master Silas ? Shakspeare. But too well. Not those couples in which it might be apprehended that your worship and my unworthiness should appear too close together; but those sorrowfuller which peradventure might unite Master Silas and me in our road to Warwick and upward. But I resign all right and title unto these as willingly as I did unto the other, and am as ready to let him go alone. Sir Silas. If we keep wheeling and wheeling, like a flock of pigeons, and rising again when we are within a foot of the ground, we shall never fill the craw. Sir Thomas. Do thou then question him, Silas. Sir Thomas was angered, and cried tartly, "Your honour, as wrongfully I fancied." "I protest," went he on to say, "I protest it was the wind of the casement; and if I live another year I will put a better in the place of it. Whistle indeed! for what? I care no more about her than about an unfledged cygnet a child,* a chicken, a mere kitten, a crab-blossom in the hedge." The dignity of his worship was wounded by Master Silas unaware, and his wrath again turned suddenly upon poor William. "Hark-ye, knave! hark-ye again, ill-looking stripling, lanky from vicious courses! I will reSir Silas. I am none of the quorum; the busi- claim thee from them: I will do what thy own ness is none of mine. father would, and can not. Thou shalt follow his Then Sir Thomas took Master Silas again into business." the bay-window, and said softly, "Silas, he hath no inkling of thy meaning: the business is a ticklish one: I like not overmuch to meddle and make therein." Master Silas stood dissatisfied awhile, and then answered, "The girl's mother, sir, was housemaid and sempstress in your own family, time back, and you thereby have a right over her unto the third and fourth generation." "I may have, Silas," said his worship, "but it was no longer than four or five years agone that folks were fain to speak maliciously of me for only finding my horse in her hovel." Sir Silas looked red and shiny as a ripe strawberry on a Snitterfield tile, and answered somewhat peevishly, "I can not do better, may it please your wor ship!" said the lad. "It shall lead thee unto wealth and respecta bility," said the knight, somewhat appeased by his ready compliancy and low gentle voice. "Yea, but not here; no witches, no wantons (this word fell gravely and at full-length upon the ear), no spells hereabout. "Gloucestershire is within a measured mile of thy dwelling. There is one at Bristol, formerly a parish-boy, or little better, who now writeth himself gentleman in large round letters, and hath been elected, I hear, to serve as burgess in parliament for his native city; just as though he had eaten a capon or turkey-poult in his youth, and had actually been at grammar-school and college When he began, he had not credit for a goat-skin "The same folks, I misgive me, may find the and now, behold ye! this very coat upon my back rogue's there any night in the week." Whereunto replied Sir Thomas, mortifiedly, "I can not think it, Silas! I can not think it." And after some hesitation and disquiet, "Nay, I am resolved I will not think it: no man, friend or enemy, shall push it into me." Worshipful sir!" answered Master Silas, "I am as resolute as anyone in what I would think and what I would not think, and never was known to fight dunghill in either cockpit. "Were he only out of the way, she might do her duty but what doth she now? "She points his young beard for him, persuading him it grows thicker and thicker, blacker and blacker; she washes his ruff, stiffens it, plaits it, tries it upon his neck, removes the hair from under it, pinches it with thumb and forefinger, pretending that he hath moiled it, puts her hand all the way round it, setting it to rights, as she calleth it... "Ah Sir Thomas! a louder whistle than that will never call her back again when she is off with him." did cost me eight shillings the dearer for him, he bought up wool so largely." Shakspeare. May it please your worship! i my father so ordereth, I go cheerfully. Sir Thomas. Thou art grown discreet and dutiful: I am fain to command thy release, taking thy promise on oath, and some reasonable security that thou wilt abstain and withhold in future from that idle and silly slut, that sly and scoffing gig gler, Hannah Hathaway, with whom, to the heart ache of thy poor worthy father, thou wantonl keepest company. Then did Sir Thomas ask Master Silas Goug for the Book of Life, bidding him deliver it int the right hand of Billy, with an eye upon hi that he touch it with both lips; it being taugh by the Jesuits, and caught too greedily out o their society and communion, that whoso touchet it with one lip only, and thereafter swearet * She was then twenty-eight years of age. Sir Thoma must have spoken of her from earlier recollections. Shai speare was in his twentieth year. falsely, can not be called a perjurer, since perjury | is breaking an oath. But breaking half an oath, as he doth who toucheth the Bible or crucifix with one lip only, is no more perjury than breaking an eggshell is breaking an egg, the shell being a part, and the egg being an integral. William did take the Holy Book with all due reverence the instant it was offered to his hand. His stature seemed to rise therefrom as from a pulpit, and Sir Thomas was quite edified. "Obedient and conducible youth!" said he. "See there, Master Silas! what hast thou now to say against him? who sees farthest?" "The man from the gallows is the most likely, bating his nightcap and blinker," said Master Silas peevishly. "He hath not outwitted me yet." "He seized upon the Anchor of Faith like a martyr," said Sir Thomas, "and even now his face turns red as elder-wine before the gossips." Shakspeare. I await the further orders of your worship from the chair. Sir Thomas. I return and seat myself. Joseph and Euseby; and, sooth to say, there be many worse. But William had them not in his eye; his thoughts were elsewhere, as will be evident, for he went on thus: .."If ever I forget or desert thee, or ever cease to worship* and cherish thee, my Hannah!" Sir Silas. The madman! the audacious, desperate, outrageous villain! Look-ye, sir! where he flung the Holy Gospel! Behold it on the holly and box boughs in the chimney-place, spreaden all abroad, like a lad about to be whipt! Sir Thomas. Miscreant knave! I will send after him forthwith! Ho there! is the caitiff at hand, or running off? ..Jonas Greenfield the butler did budge forward after a while, and say, on being questioned, ..And then did Sir Thomas say with great com- | faithful?" placency and satisfaction in the ear of Master Silas, "Lord love your worship," said Jonas Greenfield; a man of threescore and two may miss What civility, and deference, and sedateness catching a kite upon wing. Fleetness doth not of mind, Silas !" Here he was interrupted most lovingly by Sir Thomas, who said unto him, "Nay, nay, nay! poor youth! do not tell me so they are not such very bad men; since thou appealest unto Cæsar; that is, unto the judgmentseat." make folks the faithfuller, or that youth yonder beats us all in faithfulness. "Look! he darts on like a greyhound whelp after a leveret. He, sure enough, it was! I now remember the sorrel mare his father bought of John Kinderley last Lammas, swift as he threaded the trees along the park. He must have reached Wellesbourne ere now at that gallop, and pretty nigh Walton-hill." Sir Thomas. Merciful Christ! grant the country be rid of him for ever! What dishonour upon his friends and native town! A reputable wool-stapler's son turned gipsy and poet for life. Sir Silas. A Beelzebub; he spake as bigly and fiercely as a soaken yeoman at an election feast this obedient and conducible youth! Sir Thomas. It was so written. Hold thy peace, Silas! It is to be feared that his taste for venison outlasted Now his worship did mean the two witnesses, that for matrimony, spite of this vow. Post-Scriptum BY ME, EPHRAIM BARNETT. TWELVE days are over and gone since William Shakspeare did leave our parts. And the spinster, Hannah Hathaway, is in sad doleful plight about him; forasmuch as Master Silas Gough went yesterday unto her, in her mother's house at Shottery, and did desire both her and her mother to take heed and be admonished, that if ever she, Hannah, threw away one thought after the runagate William Shakspeare, he should swing. The girl could do nothing but weep; while as the mother did give her solemn promise that her daughter should never more think about him all her natural life, reckoning from the moment of this her promise. And the maiden, now growing more reasonable, did promise the same. But Master Silas said, "I doubt you will, though." "No," said the mother, "I answer for her she shall not think of him, even if she sees his ghost." Hannah screamed, and swooned, the better to forget him. And Master Silas went home easier and contenteder. For now all the worst of his hard duty was accomplished; he having been, on the Wednesday of last week, at the speech of Master John Shakspeare, Will's father, to inquire whether the sorrel mare was his. To which question the said Master John Shakspeare did answer, " Yea." 66 66 Enough said!" rejoined Master Silas. Horse-stealing is capital. We shall bind thee over to appear against the culprit, as prosecutor, at the next assizes." May the Lord in his mercy give the lad a good deliverance, if so be it be no sin to wish it! OCTOBER 1. A.D. 1582. LAUS DEO. E. B. THE PENTAMERON; OR, INTERVIEWS OF MESSER GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO AND MESSER FRANCESCO PETRARCA, WHEN SAID MESSER GIOVANNI LAY INFIRM AT HIS VILLETTA HARD BY CERTALDO; AFTER WHICH THEY SAW NOT EACH OTHER ON OUR SIDE OF PARADISE: SHOWING HOW THEY DISCOURSED UPON THAT FAMOUS THEOLOGIAN MESSER DANTE ALIGHIERI, AND SUNDRY OTHER MATTERS. EDITED BY PIEVANO D. GRIGI. |