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CHORUS OF PAUPERS.

Soup for the poor in all its meagre stages

Ye give, and then deduct their hard-earned wages;
Soon will our skeletons be made

Tools for rough music, if your trade
Persist in deafness to our pain?

GRAND CLERICAL CHORUS.

Your words fall on us like the rain,
Just as before we now remain.

Our honesty is unimpeachable,

But ye are ignorant, and unteachable !

POPULAR CHORUS.

Why not share out the briny wave,
Make tides, by floating turnpikes, pay their pence?
Off with the window tax! who gave

The glorious light for your inheritance?
Kings, nobles, tell us, if beside

Being landlords of the earth so wide,
A patent also has been given

As fire-lords of the sun in heaven?

GRAND POPULAR CHORUS.

Off with all taxes on life's humble wants!

FAT JAQUES, loudly.

Huzza! huzza! well done-huzza !

GRAND POPULAR CHORUS.

Then give us free-trade, and 'twill soon be shown
How national industry can quell the vaunts

Of foreign markets!

FAT JAQUES, loudly.

We can stand alone!

GRAND POPULAR CHORUS.

We want no ignorant civil war,
But labour's rights!

FAT JAQUES, bawling.

Huzza! huzza!

GRAND POPULAR CHORUS.

Let Garter, Coronet, and Star

Act but like men-we want no more!

THE AUDIENCE, rising up;

Be men!-Fat Jaques will ask no more!

GRAND POPULAR CHORUS.

Give o'er your airs of fierce sky-rockets,
They hide no fact of emptying pockets;
Be honest men, your hearts unbar,
And we'll work on!

THE AUDIENCE vociferously.
Huzza! huzza!

EXAMINATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE TOUCHING
DEER STEALING.*

MOST truly saith the author of Imaginary Conversations,' Mr. Walter Savage Landor, in his preface to this delightful volume, that there is little of real history, excepting in romances.

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of these are strictly true to nature; while histories in general give a distorted view of her, and rarely a faithful record either of momentous or of common events.' Sundry professed biographers of Shakspeare might be exhibited, if needful, in confirmation of the negative portion of the above proposition, while its positive averment is exemplified in the work before us. Your true poet is evermore the best historian of all that is finest and grandest in human nature; that is to say, of all that most merits the chronicling. When the documentary evidence of the plodding annalist fails him, he is brought to a dead stand; while he whose documents are in the inexhaustible treasure-chest of his own soul, goes onward, with a living impulse, in the delineation of the character which he has studied, appreciated, and felt. The poet is nature's logician. Like the mere historical critic, he traces causes and consequences, but those of the former are rough and material; he investigates the crumbling wall, and from the appearances of the dilapidated and ponderous ruin, extracts the date of erections and repairs; while the latter feels the connexion of subtler essences, and, as the air of heaven breathes upon his face, tells whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.' Greatly are they mistaken, who suppose logic to be the only, or always the best instrument for the attainment of truth. Many there be who belong to the wisest of mankind, and yet handle that instru

Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare, Euseby Treen, Joseph Carnaby, and Silas Gough, Clerk, before the Worshipful Sir Thomas Lucy, Knight, touching Deer-stealing, on the 19th day of September, in the year of Grace 1582. Now first published from original papers. To which is added, a Conference of Master Edmund Spencer, a Gentleman of note, with the Earl of Essex, touching the State of Ireland, A.D. 1595. London: Saunders and Otley, 1834.

ment with little skill; and some of its ablest masters have often sadly failed. Those who reason and feel, will surely know; and so will they also who feel and reason; nor will there be any mighty disparity in the amount of their knowledge, or its certitude. Logic is not so much the instrument of acquirement as of defence. It is a good armour to buckle on when compelled to do battle for our heritage, but a poor implement for its cultivation. The sword cannot do the work of the ploughshare. To beat it. into a ploughshare, may perhaps prefigure the mental, no less than the national millennium. But we are idly prating, whilst Shakspeare stands at the gate.' More of his youth has Mr. Landor told than antiquarianism has ever yet poked out of mouldy records; and more truly, we will be sworn. Let any one judge, who can really read Shakspeare without spelling; which is more than many can, notwithstanding the play-bills. 'It is tough work,' as Fuseli said to the breeches maker, who threatened to go home and read Paradise Lost, after he had seen all the pictures in the Milton Gallery.

The opening scene of the Examination is thus narrated by Ephraim Barnett, the worthy clerk of Sir Thomas Lucy:

'About one hour before noontide, the youth William Shakspeare, accused of deer-stealing, and apprehended for that offence, was brought into the great hall at Charlecote, where, having made his obeisance, it was most graciously permitted him to stand.

The worshipful Sir Thomas Lucy, Knight, seeing him right opposite, on the farther side of the long table, and fearing no disadvantage, did frown upon him with great dignity; then, deigning ne'er a word to the culprit, turned he his face towards his chaplain, Sir Silas Gough, who stood beside him, and said unto him most courteously, and unlike unto one who in his own right commandeth,

"Stand out of the way! What are those two varlets bringing into the room?"

"The table, sir," replied Master Silas, "upon the which the consumption of the venison was perpetrated."

The youth, William Shakspeare, did thereupon pray and beseech his lordship most fervently, in this guise:

"O, sir! do not let him turn the tables against me, who am only a simple stripling, and he an old cogger."

But Master Silas did bite his nether lip, and did cry aloud,

"Look upon those deadly spots!"

And his worship did look thereupon most staidly, and did say in the ear of Master Silas, but in such wise that it reached even unto mine, "Good honest chandlery, methinks!"

"God grant it may turn out so!" ejaculated Master Silas. The youth, hearing these words, said unto him,

"I fear, Master Silas, gentry like you often pray God to grant what he would rather not; and now and then what you would rather not."

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Sir Silas was wroth at this rudeness of speech about God in the face of a preacher, and said, reprovingly,

"Out upon thy foul mouth, knave! upon which lie slaughter and venison."

'Whereupon did William Shakspeare sit mute awhile, and discomfited; then, turning toward Sir Thomas, and looking and speaking as one submiss and contrite, he thus appealed unto him:

""Worshipful sir! were there any signs of venison on my mouth, Master Silas could not for his life cry out upon it, nor help kissing it as 'twere a wench's."

'Sir Thomas looked upon him with most lordly gravity and wisdom, and said unto him, in a voice that might have come from the bench, "Youth! thou speakest irreverently;" and then unto Master Silas, "Silas! to the business on hand. Taste the fat upon yon boor's table, which the constable hath brought hither, good Master Silas ! And declare upon oath, being sworn in my presence, first, whether said fat do proceed of venison; secondly, whether said venison be of buck or doe."

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'Young man! I perceive that if I do not stop thee in thy courses, thy name, being involved in thy company's, may one day or other reach across the country; and folks may handle it and turn it about, as it deserveth, from Coleshill to Nuneaton, from Bromwicham to Brownsover. And who knoweth but that, years after thy death, the very house wherein thou wert born may be pointed at, and commented on, by knots of people, gentle and simple! What a shame for an honest man's son ! Thanks to me, who consider of measures to prevent it! Posterity shall laud and glorify me for plucking thee clean out of her head, and for picking up timely a ticklish skittle, that might overthrow with it a power of others just as light. I will rid the hundred of thee, with God's blessing!-nay, the whole shire. We will have none such in our county: we justices are agreed upon it, and we will keep our word now and for evermore. Wo betide any that resembles thee in any part of him!"

"Whereunto Sir Silas added,

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We will dog him, and worry him, and haunt him, and bedevil him; and if ever he hear a comfortable word, it shall be in a language very different from his own."

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As different as thine is from a christian's," said the youth.

Boy! thou art slow of apprehension," said Sir Thomas, with much gravity: and, taking up the cue, did rejoin:

"Master Silas would impress upon thy ductile and tender mind the danger of evil doing; that we, in other words, that justice, is resolved to follow him up, even beyond his country, where he shall hear nothing better than the Italian or the Spanish, or the black language, or the language of Turk or Troubadour, or Tartar or Mongle. And, forsooth, for this gentle and indirect reproof, a gentleman in priest's orders is told by a stripling that he lacketh Christianity! Who then shall give it ?"

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE." Who, indeed? when the founder of the feast leaveth an invited guest so empty! Yea, sir, the guest was invited, and the board was spread. The fruits that lay upon it be there still, and fresh as ever; and the bread of life in those capacious canisters is unconsumed and unbroken,"

'SIR SILAS (aside.)-" The knave maketh me hungry with his mischievous similitudes."

'SIR THOMAS.-"Thou hast aggravated thy offence, Will Shakspeare! Irreverent caitiff! is this a discourse for my chaplain and clerk? Can he or the worthy scribe Ephraim (his worship was pleased to call me worthy) write down such words as those, about litter and wolvets, for the perusal and meditation of the grand jury? If the whole corporation of Stratford had not unanimously given it against thee, still his tongue would catch thee, as the evet catcheth a gnat. Know, sirrah, the reverend Sir Silas, albeit ill-appointed for riding, and not over-fond of it, goeth to every house wherein is a venison feast for thirty miles round. Not a buck's hoof on any stable-door, but it awakeneth his recollections like a red letter.”

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This wholesome reproof did bring the youth back again to his right senses; and then said he, with contrition, and with a wisdom beyond his years, and little to be expected from one who had spoken just before so unavoidably and rashly,

"Well do I know it, your worship! And verily do I believe, that a bone of one being shovelled among the soil upon his coffin would forthwith quicken him. Sooth to say, there is ne'er a buckhound in the county but he treateth him as a godchild, patting him on the head, soothing his velvety ear between thumb and fore-finger, ejecting tick from tenement, calling him fine fellow, noble lad, and giving him his blessing, as one dearer to him than a king's death to a debtor,† or a bastard to a dad of eighty. This is the only kindness I ever heard of Master Silas towards his fellow-creatures. Never hold me unjust, Sir Knight, to Master Silas. Could I learn other good of him, I would freely say it; for we do good by speaking it, and none is easier. Even bad men are not bad men while they praise the just. Their first step backward is more troublesome and wrenching to them than the first forward."

"In God's name, where did he gather all this?" whispered his worship to the chaplain, by whose side I was sitting. "Why, he talks like a man of forty-seven or more!"'—p. 1-11.

Shakspeare conducts himself, as worthy Ephraim observes, 'with all the courage and composure of an innocent man, and indeed with more than what an innocent man ought to possess in the presence of a magistrate.' And now the knight, the chaplain, the witnesses, and the culprit, are admirably played off for many a page, the record itself serving as the running commentary of the scribe.

The usual operation of searching the pockets of the accused is not forgotten: we are favoured with their contents, amongst which is,

* Quicken, bring to life.'

+ 'Debtors were often let out of prison at the coronation of a new king, but creditors not paid by him.'

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