enter into by the town, and at the other end, towards Wales, a mighty strong tower, to prohibit enemies to enter into the bridge" (as described by old Leland), has its associations of border hostilities. Sidney's mind is formed to luxuriate in the poetry of history. The young men take their course into the country by the Castle Foregate. They are in earnest talk. "What a monster these players make of Richard the Third," says Sidney. "Maugre my loyal reverence for her Highness's grand-father, I have a liking for the venomous little Yorkist. Even the players couldn't show him as a coward." "Not when they make him whimper about revenge, suns, moons, and planets; silly lambs and croaking ravens-all crying for revenge upon him? Heavens what stuff!" "Rare stuff! How is it that these play writers cannot make their people talk like Englishmen and Christians? When the board is up-'Bosworth Field—and two armies fly in, represented by four swords and bucklers-and the usurper dashes about, despite his wounds, - hear how he wastes his prerious time. Do you remember?" "Yes, yes 66 6 'I have it-"” Fly, villain! look I as though I would fly? Yon watery heavens scowl on my gloomy day, There's a Richard for you." 66 Bravo, Philip! You should join a fellowship of players. You would beat the varlet with the hump that mouthed it on Tuesday. But why so hard upon the rhetoric of the vagabonds? Your favourite Gorboduc is full of such trash!" "Yes, and faulty even as this True tragedy of Richard the Third, in time and place. In two hours of the Mayor's play, we had Shore's wife in Cheapside, and poor dead Richard about to be drawn through Leicester on a collier's horse." Suppose there were painted scenes, as some of the playhouses have, instead of the door painted in great letters-couldn't the imagination go from Cheapside to Leicester in spite of Aristotle? and can't it, even with the help of the painted board? But here we are at Battlefield." "I never walk over these meadows," exclaimed Sidney, "without deep emotion. I was reading Hall just before my father came. How graphic these chroniclers are, compared with the ranting players." "What you read, I read, Philip.” "As we walked through the Eastgate, I could not but think of that day when Henry came with his host into Shrewsbury, and being advertised that the earls were at hand with banners displayed and battles ranged, marched suddenly out by the Eastgate, and there encamped.” "An evening of parley and defiance, followed by a bloody morning." "The next day, in the morning early, which was the vigil of Mary Magdalene, the king set his battle in good order—and so his enemies. There, on that gentle rise, Greville, must the rebel hosts have been arrayed. Then suddenly the trumpets blew. The cry of St. George went up on the King's part-and that cry was answered by Esperancé Percy. By Heaven, the tale moves me like the old song of Percy and Douglas !" "Here is a theme for the players. Write the tragedy of Hotspur, Philip." "Nonsense. What could I do with it, even if I were a maker. The story begins with the deposition of Richard. It is an epic, and not a tragedy. And yet, Fulke, when I see the effect these acted histories produce upon the people, I am tempted, in spite of Aristotle, to wish that some real poet would take in hand our country's annals. The teaching of our day is taking that form. The Players are the successors of the Bards." "What a character is that young Harry of Monmouth-the profligate and the hero! Something might be made of these contending elements." "Yes, the players would do it bravely. How they would make him swagger and bully-strike the chief justice, and slaughter the Welshmen. Harry of Monmouth was a gentleman, and the players could not touch him." "If the stage is to teach the people, surely right teachers will arise. Look at our preachers. They stir the dull clowns and the sleepy burgesses with passionate eloquence, and yet they preach as scholars. They never lower themselves to their audiences. And why should the stage be the low thing which we see, when it addresses the same classes ?" "There may be a change some day; but not through any theorick about it. England may have her Eschylus-when the man comes; perchance in our age-more likely when all the dust and cobwebs of our semi-barbarism are swept away- for we are barbarians yet, Greville." "Come, come-your fine Italian reading has spoiled you for our brave old English. We have poetry in us if we would trust to nature. There is the ancient blind crowder that sits at our schoolgate, with his ballads of love and war, which you like as much as I do. Has he no poetry to tell of? As good, I think, as the sonnets of Master Francis Petrarch." "Don't be a heretic, Greville. But see; the sun is sinking behind that bosky hill, from which Hotspur, looking to the east, saw it rise for the last time. We must be homeward.” “ And here, where the chapel bell is tolling a few priests to even-song, forty thousand men were fighting, a century and a half ago—for what?" "And for the same doubtful cause went on fighting for three quarters of a century. What a sturdy heart must our England have to bear these things and yet live?" "Times are changed, Philip! Shall we have any civil strife in our day?" Papist and Puritan would like to be at it. But the rule of the law is too strong for them. Yet my father says that the fighting days will come over again-not for questions of sovereign lineage, but of vulgar opinion. The reforms of religion have produced sturdy thinkers. There is a beast with many heads called the Commonalty, growing stronger every day; and it is difficult to chain him or pare his claws." Well, well, Philip, we are young politicians, and need not trouble our heads yet about such matters. You are going to Oxford. What will the good mother make of you-a statesman, a soldier, or a scholar ?" "Must the characters be separable? Whatever I am, dear Fulke, I will not shame my ancestry." "And I, dear Philip, will never abate my love for you; and that will keep me honest." |