CHAPTER VII.

'And now, Eugenio, ere we cross the ferry, and mingle with the "roaring boyes and swash-bucklers" of St Bartholomew, let us halt at the Tabard, and snatch a brief association with Chaucer and his Pilgrims. The localities that were once hallowed by the presence of genius we ardently seek after, and fondly trace through all their obscurities, and regard them with as true a devotion as does the pi!grim the sacred shrine to which, after his patiently-endured perils by sea and land, he offers his adoration. The humblest roof gathers glory from the bright spirit that once irradiated it; the simplest relic becomes a precious gem, when connected with the gifted and the good. We haunt as holy ground the spot where the muse inspired our favourite bard; we treasure up his hand-writing in our cabinets; we study his works as emanations from the poet; we cherish his associations as reminiscences of the man. Never can I for. get your high-toned enthusiasm when you stood in the solemn chancel of Stratford-upon-Avon, pale, breathless, and fixed like marble, before the mausoleum of Shakspeare!'

'An honest and blithesome spirit was the Father of English Poetry! happy in hope, healthful in morals, lofty in imagination, and racy in humour, a bright earnest of that transcendent genius who, in an after age, shed his mighty lustre over the literature of Europe. The ancient Tabard !-how the heart leaps at the sound! What would Uncle Timothy say if he were here?'

'All that you have said, and much more, could he say it as well!' And instantly we felt the cordial pressure of a kind hand stretched out to us from the next box, where sat solus the middle-aged gentleman. I half expected to meet you here, guessing your road to the "Rounds" lay through Romanum Londinum; for to have passed the Tabard, and not looked in, would have been treason to those beautiful associations that make memory of the value that it is. One of the most rational pleasures of the intellectual mind is to escape from the present to the past. The contemplation of antiquity is replete with melancholy interest. The eye wanders with delight over the crumbling ruins of ancient magnificence; the heart is touched with some sublime emotion; and we ask which is the most praiseworthy -the superstition that raised these holy temples, or the piety(?) that suffers them to fall to decay? This corner is one of my periodical resting-places after a day's solitary ramble; for I have many such, in order to brush up old recollections, and lay in fresh mental fuel for a winter evening's fireside. 'Tis a miracle that this antique fabric

should have escaped demolition. Look at St. Saviour's! and refrain from cursing, if you can, its sacrilegious despoilers. In the contemplation of that impressive scene-amidst the everlasting freshness of nature and the decay of time-I have been taught more rightly to estimate the works of man and his Creator,-the one, like himself, stately in pride and beauty, but which pass away as a shadow, and are seen no more; the other the type of divinity, infinite, immutable, and eternal.'

But surely-may I call you Uncle Timothy ? Uncle Timothy good humouredly nodded assent. Surely, Uncle Timothy, the restoration of the Lady Chapel and Crosby Hall speak something for the good taste of the citizens.'

'Modestly argued, Eugenio!'

'An accident, my young friend, a mere accident forced upon the Vandals against their will. Talk of antiquity to a Guildhall Magnifico! Sirs, I once mentioned the "London Stone" to one of these blue gown gentry, and his one idea immediately reverted to the wellknown refectory of that venerable name, where he stuffs himself to repletion and scarletifies his nasal promontory, without a thought of Wat Tyler, the Lord of the Circle! An acquaintance of mine, one

The ancient grave-yard of St. Saviour's contains the sacred dust of Massinger. All that the Parish Register records of him is, "March 20, 1639-40, buried Philip Massinger, a Stranger." John Fletcher, the eminent dramatic poct, who died of the Plague, August 19, 1625, was buried in the church.

+ De Gustibus! Alderman Newman, who had scraped together out of the gro. cery line six hundred thousand pounds, enjoyed no greater luxury during the last three years of his life than to repair daily to the shop, and, precisely as the clock struck two (the good old-fashioned hour of city dining), eat his mutton with his succissors. The late Thomas Rippon, Chief Cashier of the Bank of England, was a similar oddity. Once only, in a service of fifty years, did he venture to ask for a fort. night's holiday. He left town; but after a three days' unhappy ramble through beautiful green fields, he grew moping and melancholy, and prematurely returned to the blissful regions of Threadneedle Street to die at his desk!

With all due respect for Uncle Timothy's opinion, we think he is a little too hard upon the citizens, who are not the only Vandals in matters of antiquity. The mitre has done its part in the pious work of demolition. Who destroyed the ancient palace of the Bishops of Ely (where Oid John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster,' breathed his last, in 1398) with its beautiful Chapel and magnificent Gothic Hall? The site of its once pleasant garden in Holborn, from whence Richard Duke of Glou. cester requested a dish of strawberries from the Bishop on the morning he sent Lord Hastings to execution, is now a rookery of mean hovels. And the Hospital of Saint Catherine, and its Collegiate Church,-where are they? Not one stone lies upon another of those unrivalled Gothic temples of pity and holiness founded by the pious Queen Matilda. And the ancient Church of St. Bartholomew, where once reposed the ashes of Miles Coverdale, and which even the Great Fire of London spared, will very soon die level with the ground!

Small was the people's gain by the insurrection of Wat Tyler. The elements of discord, once put in motion, spread abroad with wild iury, till, with the ignoble blood of base hinds, mingled the bravest and best in the land. The people returned to their subjection wondering and dispirited. For whose advantage had all these cx. cesses been committed? Was their position raised? Were their grievances redressed, their wants alleviated? Did their yoke press lighter? Were they nearer the attain. ment of their (perhaps reasonable) wishes, by nobility and prelates cruelly slaugh tered, palaces burned down, and the learning and works of art that humanise and soften rugged natures piled in one vast, indiscriminate ruin? If aught was won by these monstrous disorders, they were not the winners. The little aristocrats of cities, who have thrown their small weight into popular insurrections, may have had their vanity gratified and their maws temporarily crammed; but the masses, who do the rough work of resistance for their more cunning masters, are inva. riably the sufferers and dupes. Hard knocks and hanging have hitherto been

Deputy Dewlap, after dining with the Patten-makers on the 9th of November, was attacked with a violent fit of indigestion. His good lady sent for the family doctor,-a humorist, gentlemen. "Ah!" cried Mr. Galen, " the old complaint, a coagulation in the lungs. Let me feel your pulse. In a high fever! Show me your tongue. Ay, as white as a curd. Open your mouth wider, Mr. Deputy-you can open it wide enough sometimes!-wider still. Good heavens! what do I see here?"-" Oh! my stars!" screamed the fat Deputy's lady. "What, my dear doctor, do you see?"-"Why, madam, I see the leg of a turkey, and a tureen of oyster-sauce!" Ha! ha! ha!-glut tons all! gluttons all!'

Uncle Timothy was in a crotchetty mood.

The heart that is soonest awake to the flower

Is always the first to be touched by the thorn!

A pise on Benjamin Bosky!' he continued; the cunning Laureat, having a visitation from sundry relatives of his brother's wife's uncle's aunt's sister, hath enjoined me the penance, molgré moi-même ! of playing showman to them among the Lions of London. Now I have no antipathy to poor relations-your shabby genteel-provided that, while they eat and drink at my expense, they will not fail to contradict me stoutly when they think I am in the wrong; but your purse-proud, half-and-half Brummagem gentlefolks, shabby, without being genteel!-your pettifoggers in small talk and etiquette, that know everything and nothing-listening to and retailing everybody's gossip, meddling with everybody's business, and (with a liberal number of loose screws in their own circle) prying into, exposing, and exaggerating family peccadillos,-and such are the Fubsys, Muffs and Bumgartens,-are sad provocatives to my splenetic vein.'

His spirits rallied when the talk was of Chaucer, whose gracious memory we drank reverently in a cup of sack prepared, as mine host assured us, from a recipe that had belonged to the house as an heir-loom, time out of mind, and of which Dick Tarlton had often tasted.

'Dick Tarlton, Uncle Timothy, was not he one of the types of Merrie England?'

'A mad wag! an incomparable clown' His diminished nose was a peg upon which hung many an odd jest. His "whereabouts" were

their reward; and when these shall grow out of fashion, doubtless some equally agreeable substitute will be found.

When Justice Shallow invited Falstaff to dinner, he issued the following orders: -Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of short-legged hens; a joint of mutton; and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William Cook.' This is a modest bill of fare. But what says Massinger of City feasting in the olden time?

. Men may talk of Country Christmasses,

Their thirty-pound buttered eggs, their pies of carp's tongue,
Their pheasants drenched with ambergris, the carcases

Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to

Make sauce for a single peacock; yet their feasts
Were fasts compared with the City's.

† A friend of Addison's borrowed a thousand pounds of him, which finding it in. convenient to repay, he never upon any occasion ventured to contradict him. One day the hypocrisy became so offensively palpable, that Addison, losing all patience, exclaimed, For heaven's sake contradict me, sir, or pay me my thousand pounds!'

hereabouts at the Bear Garden; but the Bull, in Bishopsgate Street; the Bel Savage, without Ludgate; and his own Tavern, the Tabor, in Gracious (Gracechurch) Street, came in for a share of his drolleries. Marvellous must have been the humour of this "allowed fool," when it could undumpish" his royal mistress in her frequent paroxysms of concupiscence and ferocity! He was no poll-parrot retailer of other people's jokes. He had a wit's treasury of his own, upon which he drew liberally, and at sight. His nose was flat; not so his jests; and, in exchanging extemporal gibes with his audience, he

* Tarlton being to speak a prologue, and finding no cessation to the hissing, suddenly addressed the audience in this tetrastic :

I lived not in the golden age,

When Jason won the fleece;
But now I am on Gotham's stage,
Where fools do hiss like geese.

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He was one of England's merry crew in the olden time: and, on the authority of an old play, The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London, published two years after his death, originally, a water.bearer.' Among them were Will Summers, jester to King Henry the Eighth; Patch, Cardinal Wolsey's fool; Jack Oates, fool to Sir Richard Hollis; and Archibald Armstrong, jester to King Charles the First. There was a famous jester, one Jemy Camber, ‘a fat foole,' who enlivened the dul! Court of James the Sixth of Scotland. The manner of his death, as recorded in A Nest of Ninnies,' by Robert Armin, 4to., 1608, is singular. The Chamberlaine was sent to see him there,' (at the house of a laundress in Edinburgh, whose daughter he was soliciting, and who had provided a bed of nettles for his solace,) who when he came, found him fast asleepe under the bed starke naked, bathing in nettles, whose skinne, when hee wakened him, was all blistered grievously. The King's Chamberlaine bid him arise and come to the King. "Iwill not,' quoth he, I will go make my grave." See how things charced, he spake truer than he was awar. For the Chamberlaine going home without him, tolde the King his answere. Jemy rose, made him ready, takes his horse, and rides to the church-yard in the high towne, where he found the sexton (as the custom is there) making nine graves--three for men, three for women, and three for children; and whoso dyes next, first comes, first served. Lend mee thy spade," says Jemy, and with that, digs a hole, which hole hee bids him make for his grave; and doth give him a French crowne; the man, willing to please him (more for his gold than his pleasure) did so: and the foole gets upon his horse, rides to a gentleman of the towne, and on the sodaine, within two hours after, dyed: of whom the sexton telling, hee was buried there in. deed. Thus, you see, fooles have a geese at wit sometime, and the wisest could have done no more, nor so much. But thus this fat foole fills a leane grave with his carkasse; upon which grave the King caused a stone of marble to bee put, on which pocts writ these lines in remembrance of him :

"He that gard all men till jeare,

Jemy a Camber he ligges here:
Pray for his Sale, for he is geane,

And here a ligges beneath this steane."'

The following poetical picture of him is exact and curious.

This Fat Foole was a Scot borne, brought up
In Sterlin, twenty miles from Edinborough:
Who being but young, was for the King caught up,
Served this King's father all his life-time through.
A yard high and a nayle, no more his stature,
Smooth fac't, fayre spoken, yet unkynde by nature.
Two yards in compasse and a nayle I reade

Was he at forty yeeres, since when I heard not;

Nor of his life or death, and further heede,
Since I never read, I looke not, nor regard not.

generally returned a good repartee for a bad one, and with compound interest. Our business is not with his morals, but his mirth. Of the former little is recorded, and that ittle not over strait-laced; though I am far from thinking that a great wit must necessarily be a great sinner, or that a man who will nake a pun will pick a pocket. Of his risible powers as a stage-player, jest monger, and courtfool, unequivocal testimonies are handed down by some of his most celebrated contemporaries.'

"Tis said that he died penitent.'

'I hope he did. I hope all have died penitent! I hope all will die penitent. Alas! for the self-complacent Pharisees of this world; they cannot forgive the "poor player;" little reflecting of how many,

But what at that time Jemy Camler was,
As I have heard, Ile write, and so let passe.
His head was small, his hayre long on the same,
One eare was bigger than the other farre :

His fore-head full, his eyes shinde like a flame,

His nose flat, and his beard smill, yet grew square;

His lips but little, and his wit was lesse,

But wide of mouth, few teeth I must confessc.

His middle thicke, as I have said before,

Indifferent thighes and knees, but very short;

His legs be square, a foot long, and no inote,
Whose very presence made the King much sport.
And a pearle spoone he still wore in his cap,
To eate his meate he lov'd, and got by hap
A pretty little foote, but a big hand,

On which he ever wore rings rich and good:
Backward well made as any in that land,
Though thicke, and he did come of gentle bloud;
But of his wisdome ye shall quickly heare,

How this Fat Foole was made on every where.'

And some capital jokes are recorded of him in this same Nest of Ninnies.' There was another fool, leane Leonard,' who belonged to a kinde gentleman' in 'the merry Forrest of Sherwood,' a gluttonous fellow, of unbounded assurance and ready wit. This leane, greedy foole, having a stomacke, and seeing the butler out of the way, his appetite was such, as loath to tarry, he breakes open the dairy house, cates and spoiles new checsecurds, cheesecakes, overthrowes creame bowles, and having filled his belly, and knew he had done evill, gets him gone to Mansfield in Sherwood, as one fearefull to be at home: the maydes came home that morning from milking, and finding such a masaker of their dairie, almost mad, thought a yeares wages could not make amends: but "O the foole, leane Leonard," they cryed, "betid this mischiefe!" They complayned to their master, but to no purpose, Leonard was farre inough off; search was made for the foole, but hee was gone none knew whither, and it was his propertie, having done mischiefe, never to come home of himselfe, but if any one intreated him, he would easy be won.

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All this while the foole was at Mansfield in Sherwood, and stood gaping at a shoomaker's stall; who, not knowing him, asked him what he was? Goe look," says hee; "I know not my selfe." They asked him where he was borne? "At my mother's backe," says he.- In what country ?" they." In the country," quoth he, "where God is a good man." At last one of the three journeymen imagined he was not very wise, and flouted him very merrily, asking him if he would have a stitch where there was a hole? (meaning his mouth.) Aye," quoth the foole, "if your nose may bee the needle." The shoomaker could have found in his heart to have tooke measure on his pate with a last in steede of his foote; but let him goc as he

was.

A country plow-jogger being by, noting all this, secretly stole a piece of shoomaker's ware off the stall, and coming behinde him, clapt him on the head, and asked him how he did. The foole, sceing the pitch-ball, pulled to have it off, but could