Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

they are read and not seen. One of the most delightful is the Hymn to Diana:

Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair,

Now the sun is laid to sleep,

Seated in thy silver chair
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart

And thy crystal-shining quiver;

Give unto the flying hart

Space to breathe, how short soever;
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright!

Another is the song from "Underwoods"

Oh, do not wanton with those eyes,
Lest I be sick with seeing;

Nor cast them down, but let them rise,
Lest shame destroy their being.

Oh, be not angry with those fires,
For then their threats will kill me;

Nor look too kind on my desires,
For then my hopes will spill me.

Oh, do not steep them in thy tears,

For so will sorrow slay me;

Nor spread them as distraught with fears;

Mine own enough betray me.

The "Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke" was long attri

buted to Jonson, and it may be quoted here as quite in his man

ner, though it was written by William Browne (1591-1643), the author of Britannia's Pastorals:

Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,—
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death, ere thou hast slain another,
Learn'd and fair and good as she,

Time shall throw a dart at thee.

And Jonson lives for us all with the immortal song "To Celia”: Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup

And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise

Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not wither'd be;

But thou thereon didst only breathe

And sent'st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

Not of itself but thee.

Jonson's friendly relations with Shakespeare have been alluded to. In January, 1619, he visited William Drummond, the Scottish poet, in his home at Hawthornden, and in his conversations, which his host fortunately recorded, he remarked that "Shakespeare wanted Art," and that "Shakespeare, in a play, brought in a number of men saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where there is no sea near by some hundred miles." These casual remarks have been perhaps too often quoted; standing alone they would not represent Jonson's attitude toward the dramatist of whom in his own time he was the greatest rival. In his Discoveries (first published in 1641) occurs his far more adequate portrait of his friend:

I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he

penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, "Would he had blotted a thousand," which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was indeed honest and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped.

Jonson's most famous praise of Shakespeare, however, is the
poem entitled To the Memory of My Beloved Master William
Shakespeare, of which the following lines are the most important:
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

A little further, to make thee a room;
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,
I mean with great but disproportioned Muses;
For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou dost our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.

And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honor thee I would not seek

For names; but call forth thundering Eschylus,
Euripides and Sophocles to us;

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,

To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,

And shake a stage, or when thy socks were on
Leave thee alone for the comparison

Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe!
He was not for an age, but for all time.

VOL. II-5

Of the other Elizabethan dramatists we can do no more than mention the names of Beaumont and Fletcher, authors of The Knight of the Burning Pestle and many beautiful lyrics; John Webster, the author of the blood-curdling Duchess of Malfi; Heywood, whom Lamb called the prose Shakespeare; Massinger, the author of A New Way to Pay Old Debts; Chapman, the first English translator of Homer; and Dekker, whom we remember for the beautiful lines:

the best of men

That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.

§ 3

FRANCIS BACON

The Great Scholar

Francis Bacon was statesman, lawyer, wit, philosopher, and man of letters; and in each of these several capacities he won a pre-eminent place. Bacon was the last scholar who could say in his own chosen words, and with but slight exaggeration, that he had taken all knowledge for his province. He lived in the early dawn of the age of specialisation while it was still just possible for an able and industrious man to make himself master of the whole body of knowledge in existence. Many others had rivalled him in the mere acquisition of learning; but none since Aristotle had so succeeded in impressing the whole with his own mental stamp, and in inspiring a new campaign against ignorance and disorder.

Bacon had the good fortune to live in one of the great ages in the world's history, in the "spacious days" of Queen Elizabeth. He was born in 1560, two years after the accession of that great sovereign; and he died in 1626. As a boy he entered into the rich and glorious intellectual heritage of the Renais

[ocr errors]

sance. In middle life he would see the publication of the masterpieces of Spenser, Montaigne, Cervantes, and Shakespeare. Before he died the supreme age of French literature was dawning. There was a new stir in the scientific world, the mediæval belief in mystery and magic was giving place to experienced and rational induction. Copernicus had died in 1543; but his work was being carried on by Kepler and Galileo. Not since the days of Socrates had men been so keenly interested in the things of the mind; and this interest Bacon shared to the full.

His own career displays all the grave defects as well as the excellencies of the sixteenth century. In the pursuit of knowledge he was indefatigable; but he was equally indefatigable in the pursuit of ambition. He cheerfully laid down his life in the interest of science; but he had been just as willing to sacrifice the life of his friend and benefactor when it stood in the way of his own worldly achievement. Indeed, Bacon is a curious and most unpleasing mixture of greatness and littleness, of magnanimity and baseness. His published writings were those of a sage; his private letters are only too frequently those of a mean time-server.

The Blot on Bacon's Name

Pope's well-known line, "The greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind," is only a poet's licence, but it is based upon undoubted facts. At the same time, the graver charge of corruption has been overstated. That Bacon had accepted gifts from suitors, a common practice at that time, for which he stood his trial, he did not deny; but in his appeal to the King and to his peers he did, most proudly and emphatically, deny all guilt, and spurned the notion that the fountain of pure justice had been defiled by any act of his.

The case of Essex demands a few words of consideration. The headstrong folly of Essex had brought him within the limits of the law of treason, and his numerous enemies determined to

« VorigeDoorgaan »