Cecil. Your Highness must remember he carouseth fully for such deserts: fifty pounds a-year of unclipped moneys, and a butt of canary wine; not to mention three thousand acres in Ireland, worth fairly another fifty and another butt, in seasonable and quiet years. Elizabeth. The moneys are not enough to sustain a pair of grooms and a pair of palfreys, and more wine hath been drunken in my presence at a feast. The moneys are given to such men, that they may not incline nor be obligated to any vile or lowly occupation; and the canary, that they may entertain such promising wits as court their company and converse; and that in such manner there may be alway in our land a succession of these heirs unto fame. He hath written, not indeed with his wonted fancifulness, nor in learned and majestical language, but in homely and rustic wise, some verses which have moved me, and haply the more in as much as they demonstrate to me that his genius hath been dampened by his adversities. Read them. Cecil. "How much is lost when neither heart nor eye Rosewinged Desire or fabling Hope deceives; When, rising from the turf where youth reposed, When the huge book of Faery-land lies closed, And those strong brazen clasps will yield no more." Elizabeth. The said Edmund hath also furnished unto the weaver at Arras, John Blanquieres, on my account, a description for some of his cunningest wenches to work at, supplied by mine own self, indeed, as far as the subject-matter goes, but set forth by him with figures and fancies, and daintily enough bedecked. I could have wished he had thereunto joined a fair comparison between Dian-no matter- he might perhaps have fared the better for it; but poets' wits, God help them! - when did they ever sit close about them? Read the poesy, not over-rich, and concluding very awkwardly and meanly. - "Where forms the lotus, with its level leaves On its pure bosom, on each bright-eyed flower, Hither she fled, nor fear'd she sight or sound. Unhappy youth, whom thirst and quiver-reeds Drew to these haunts, whom awe forbade to fly! Forth sprang his favorite with her arrow-hand And dashed upon the bank the waters wide. Far be, chaste goddess, far from me and mine The stream that tempts thee in the summer noon ! Elizabeth.-Pshaw! give me the paper: I forewarned thee how it ended, pitifully, pitifully. Cecil. I cannot think otherwise than that the undertaker of the aforecited poesy hath chosen your Highness; for I have seen painted - I know not where, but I think no farther off than Putney the identically same Dian, with full as many nymphs, as he calls them, and more dogs. So small a matter as a page of poesy shall never stir my choler nor twitch my purse-string. Elizabeth. I have read in Plinius and Mela of a runlet near Dodona, which kindled by approximation an unlighted torch, and extinguished a lighted one. Now, Cecil, I desire no such a jetty to be celebrated as the decoration of my court: in simpler words, which your gravity may more easily understand, I would not from the fountain of honor give luster to the dull and ignorant, deadening and leaving in its tomb the lamp of literature and genius. I ardently wish my reign to be remembered: if my actions were different from what they are, I should as ardently wish it to be forgotten. Those are the worst of suicides, who voluntarily and propensely stab or suffocate their fame, when God hath commanded them to stand on high for an example. We call him parricide who destroys the author of his existence: tell me, what shall we call him who casts forth to the dogs and birds of prey its most faithful propagator and most firm support? Mark me, I do not speak of that existence which the proudest must close in a ditch,- the narrowest, too, of ditches and the soonest filled and fouled, and whereunto a pinch of ratsbane or a poppyhead may bend him; but of that which reposes on our own good deeds, carefully picked up, skillfully put together, and decorously laid out for us by another's kind understanding: I speak of an existence such as no father is author of, or provides for. The parent gives us few days and sorrowful: the poet, many and glorious; the one (supposing him discreet and kindly) best reproves our faults; the other best remunerates our virtues. A page of poesy is a little matter: be it so; but of a truth I do tell thee, Cecil, it shall master full many a bold heart that the Spaniard cannot trouble; it shall win to it full many a proud and flighty one that even chivalry and manly comeliness cannot touch. I may shake titles and dignities by the dozen from my breakfast-board; but I may not save those upon whose heads I shake them from rottenness and oblivion. This year they and their sovereign dwell together; next year, they and their beagle. Both have names; but names perishable. The keeper of my privy-seal is an earl: what then? the keeper of my poultry-yard is a Cæsar. In honest truth, a name given to a man is no better than a skin given to him: what is not natively his own falls off and comes to nothing. I desire in future to hear no contempt of penmen, unless a depraved use of the pen shall have so cramped them as to incapacitate them for the sword and for the Council Chamber. If Alexander was the Great, what was Aristoteles who made him so, and taught him every art and science he knew, except three, those of drinking, of blaspheming, and of murdering his bosom friends? Come along: I will bring thee back again nearer home. Thou mightest toss and tumble in thy bed many nights, and never eke out the substance of a stanza; but Edmund, if perchance I should call upon him for his counsel, would give me as wholesome and prudent as any of you. We should indemnify such men for the injustice we do unto them in not calling them about us, and for the mortification they must suffer at seeing their inferiors set before them. Edmund is grave and gentle: he complains of fortune, not of Elizabeth; of courts, not of Cecil. I am resolved, so help me, God! - he shall have no further cause for his repining. Go, convey unto him those twelve silver spoons, with the apostles on them, gloriously gilded; and deliver into his hand these twelve large golden pieces, sufficing for the yearly maintenance of another horse and groom. Beside which, set open before him with due reverence this Bible, wherein he may read the mercies of God toward those who waited in patience for His blessing; and this pair of crimson silk hose, which thou knowest I have worn only thirteen months, taking heed that the heel-piece be put into good and sufficient restoration, at my sole charges, by the Italian woman nigh the pollard elm at Charing Cross. Wallace. God beheld it when I did it; and he knoweth, as doth King Edward, how devoutly in my heart's strength I fought for it. Edward. Robber! for what scepter? Who commissioned thee? Wallace. Edward. no king. My country. Thou liest: there is no country where there is Wallace. Sir, it were unbecoming to ask in this palace, why there is no king in my country. Edward. To spare thy modesty, then, I will inform thee. Because the kingdom is mine. Thou hast rebelled against me; thou hast presumed even to carry arms against both of these nobles, Bruce and Cummin, who contended for the Scottish throne, and with somewhat indeed of lawyer's likelihood. Wallace. They placed the Scottish throne under the Eng lish. Edward. Audacious churl! is it not meet? Wallace. In Scotland we think otherwise. Edward. Rebels do, subverters of order, low, ignorant knaves, without any stake in the country. It hath pleased God to bless my arms; what further manifestation of our just claims demandest thou? Silence becomes thee. Wallace. Where God is named. What is now to the right bank of a river, is to the left when we have crossed it and look round. Edward.-Thou wouldst be witty truly! Who was wittiest, thou or I, when thy companion Menteith delivered thee into my hands? Wallace. Unworthy companions are not the peculiar curse of private men. I chose not Menteith for his treachery, nor rewarded him for it. Sir, I have contended with you face to face; but would not here: your glory eclipses mine, if this be glory. Edward. So, thou wouldst place thyself on a level with princes! Wallace. Willingly, if they attacked my country; and above them. Edward. - Dost thou remember the Carron-side, when your army was beaten and dispersed? Wallace. By the defection of Cummin and the arrogance of Stuart. Edward. Recollectest thou the colloquy that Bruce cóndescended to hold with thee across the river? Wallace. I do, sir. Why would not he, being your soldier, and fighting loyally against his native land, pass the water, and exterminate an army so beaten and dispersed? The saddleskirts had been rather the stiffer on the morrow, but he would have hung them up and never felt them. Why not finish the business at once? Edward. He wished to persuade thee, loose reviler, that thy resistance was useless. Wallace. He might have made himself heard better if he had come across. Edward. No trifling; no arguing with me; no remarks here, caitiff! Thou canst not any longer be ignorant that he hath slain his competitor, Cummin; that my troops surround him; and that he perhaps may now repent the levity of his reproaches against thee. I may myself have said a hasty word or two; but thou hast nettled me. My anger soon passes. I never punish in an enemy anything else than obstinacy. I did not counsel the accusations and malignant taunts of Bruce. Wallace. VOL. XIII. — 20 Sir, I do not bear them in mind. |