Walter Savage Landor

“ Yea, Silas! and thou wouldst give him eternity!”
“What, sir! would you let him go?” said Master Silas. “Presently we shall have neither deer nor dog, neither hare nor coney, neither swan nor heron; every carp from pool, every bream from brook, will be groped for. The marble monuments in the church will no longer protect the leaden coffins; and if there be any ring of gold on the finger of knight or dame, it will be torn away with as little ruth and ceremony as the ring from a butchered sow’s snout.” ”

“ William Shakspeare.
“Do I live to hear Charlecote Hall called a brothel-pulpit? Alas, then, I have lived too long!”
Sir Silas.
“We will try to amend that for thee.”
William seemed not to hear him, loudly as he spake and pointedly unto the youngster, who wiped his eyes, crying,—
“Commit me, sir! in mercy commit me! Master Ephraim! Oh, Master Ephraim! A guiltless man may feel all the pangs of the guilty! Is it you who are to make out the commitment? Dispatch! dispatch. I am a-weary of my life. If I dared to lie, I would plead guilty.”
Sir Thomas. ”

“ Sir Thomas.
“Hast thou done describing?”
Joseph Carnaby.
“Yea, an please your worship.”
Sir Thomas.
“God’s blessing be upon thee, honest Carnaby! I feared a moon-fall. In our days nobody can think about a plum-pudding but the moon comes down upon it. I warrant ye this lad here hath as many moons in his poems as the Saracens had in their banners.”
William Shakspeare.
“I have not hatched mine yet, sir. Whenever I do I trust it will be worth taking to market.”
Joseph Carnaby.
“I said all I know of the stars; but Master Euseby can run over half a score and upward, here and there. ”

“ God hath placed thee, William Shakspeare, in that pleasant island, on one side whereof are the sirens, on the other the harpies, but inhabiting the coasts on the wider continent, and unable to make their talons felt, or their voices heard by thee. Unite with me in prayer and thanksgiving for the blessings thus vouchsafed. We must not close the heart when the finger of God would touch it. Enough, if thou sayest only, My soul, praise thou the Lord!’”
Sir Thomas said, “Amen!” Master Silas was mute for the moment, but then quoth he, “I can say amen too in the proper place.” ”

“ This is the only kindness I ever heard of Master Silas toward 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!” ”

“ But Sir Silas, like the prophet, came to curse, and was forced to bless me, even me, a sinner, a mutton-eater!”
Sir Thomas.
“Thou urgedst him. He beareth no ill-will toward thee. Thou knewedst, I suspect, that the blackness in his mouth proceeded from a natural cause.”
William Shakspeare.
“The Lord is merciful! I was brought hither in jeopardy; I shall return in joy. Whether my innocence be declared or otherwise, my piety and knowledge will be forwarded and increased; for your worship will condescend, even from the judgment-seat, to enlighten the ignorant where a soul shall be saved or lost. ”

“ William Shakspeare.
“I perceive that Master Silas doth verily believe I have been guilty of suborning the witnesses, at least the last, the best man (if any difference) of the two. No, sir, no. If my family and friends have united their wits and money for this purpose, be the crime of perverted justice on their heads! They injure whom they intended to serve. Improvident men!—if the young may speak thus of the elderly; could they imagine to themselves that your worship was to be hoodwinked and led astray?”
Sir Thomas. ”

“ But Master Silas answered not.
William Shakspeare.
“Must I swear, sirs?”
Sir Thomas.
“Yea, swear; be of good courage. I protest to thee by my honour and knighthood, no ill shall come unto thee therefrom. Thou shalt not be circumvented in thy simpleness and inexperience.”
Willy, having taken the Book of Life, did kiss it piously, and did press it unto his breast, saying,
“Tenderest love is the growth of my heart, as the grass is of Alvescote mead. ”

“ Essex.
“Pastoral poetry, my dear Spenser, doth not require tears and lamentations. Dry thine eyes; rebuild thine house. The queen and council, I venture to promise thee, will make ample amends for every evil thou hast sustained. What! does that enforce thee to wail yet louder?”
p. 215Spenser.
“Pardon me, bear with me, most noble heart! I have lost what no council, no queen, no Essex can restore.”
Essex.
“We will see that! There are other swords, and other arms to wield them, besides a Leicester’s and a Raleigh’s. Others can crush their enemies and serve their friends.” ”

“ From the higher heavens of poetry, it is long before the radiance of the brightest star can reach the world below. We hear that one man finds out one beauty, another man finds out another, placing his observatory and instruments on the poet’s grave. The worms must have eaten us before it is rightly known what we are. It is only when we are skeletons that we are boxed and ticketed, and prized and shewn. ”

“ And then asked his worship,—
“Who should it be if not the rogue?” and his lips turned as blue as a blue-bell. Then Sir Thomas left the window, and again took his chair, and having stood so long on his legs, groaned upon it to ease him. His worship scowled with all his might, and looked exceedingly wroth and vengeful at the culprit, and said unto him,—
“Harkye, knave! I have been conferring with my learned clerk and chaplain in what manner I may, with the least severity, rid the county (which thou disgracest) of thee.” ”

“ What are these bodies? Do they unite us? No; they keep us apart and asunder even while we touch. Realms and oceans, worlds and ages, open before two spirits bent on heaven. What a choir surrounds us when we resolve to live unitedly and harmoniously in Christian faith!’”
Sir Thomas.
“Now, Silas, what sayest thou?” ”

“ No Christian can hate; no Christian can malign. Nevertheless, do we not often both hate and malign those unhappy men who are insensible to God’s mercies? And I fear this unchristian spirit swells darkly, with all its venom, in the marble of our hearts, not because our brother is insensible to these mercies, but because he is insensible to our faculty of persuasion, turning a deaf ear unto our claim upon his obedience, or a blind or sleepy eye upon the fountain of light, whereof we deem ourselves the sacred reservoirs. ”

“ Sir Thomas.
“What said he?”
William Shakspeare.
“He said, ‘The Greeks conveyed all their wisdom into their theatre,—their stages were churches and parliament-houses; but what was false prevailed over what was true. They had their own wisdom, the wisdom of the foolish. Who is Sophocles, if compared to Doctor Hammersley of Oriel? or Euripides, if compared to Doctor Prichard of Jesus? Without the Gospel, light is darkness; and with it, children are giants.
“‘William, I need not expatiate on Greek with thee, since thou knowest it not, but some crumbs of Latin are picked up by the callowest beaks. ”

“ The spit was never cold; the cook’s sleeve was ever above the elbow. Countrymen came down from distant villages into towns and cities, to see perverters whom they had never heard of, and to learn the righteousness of hatred. When heretics waxed fewer the religious began to grumble that God, in losing his enemies, had also lost his avengers.
“Do not thou, William Shakspeare, dig the hole for thy own stake. If thou canst not make men wise, do not make them merry at thy cost. We are not to be paganised any more. ”

“ Let us preachers, who are sufficiently liberal in bestowing our advice upon others, inquire of ourselves whether the exercise of spiritual authority may not be sometimes too pleasant, tickling our breasts with a plume from Satan’s wing, and turning our heads with that inebriating poison which he hath been seen to instil into the very chalice of our salvation. Let us ask ourselves in the closet whether, after we have humbled ourselves before God in our prayers, we never rise beyond the due standard in the pulpit; whether our zeal for the truth be never over-heated by internal fires less holy ”

“ Hereupon did Master Silas jerk me with his indicative joint, the elbow to wit, and did say in my ear,—
“He means deanery. Give me one of those bones so full of marrow, and let my lord bishop have all the meat over it, and welcome. If a dean is not on his stilts, he is not on his stumps; he stands on his own ground; he is a noli-metangeretarian.”
“What art thou saying of those sectaries, good Master Silas?” quoth Sir Thomas, not hearing him distinctly. ”

“ William Shakspeare.
“Nay, Master Silas, be not angered; it is courage enough to hear them.”
Sir Thomas.
“Now, Silas, hold thy peace and rest contented. He hath excused himself unto thee, throwing in a compliment far above his station, and not unworthy of Rome or Florence. I did not think him so ready. Our Warwickshire lads are fitter for football than courtesies; and, sooth to say, not only the inferior.”
His worship turned from Master Silas toward William, and said, “Brave Willy, thou hast given us our bitters; we are ready now for any thing solid. What hast left?” ”

“ Silas!” replied the knight, impatiently, “prithee keep to thy divinity, thy strong hold upon Zion; thence none that faces thee can draw thee without being bitten to the bone. Leave poetry to me.”
“With all my heart,” quoth Master Silas, “I will never ask a belt from her, until I see she can afford to give a shirt. She has promised a belt, indeed,—not one, however, that doth much improve the wind,—to this lad here, and will keep her word; but she was forced to borrow the pattern from a Carthusian friar, and somehow it slips above the shoulder.”
“I am by no means sure of that,” quoth Sir Thomas. ”

“ Sir Silas.
“Tut, tut! your worship! Her Majesty’s deputy hath matchlocks and halters at a knight’s disposal, or the world were topsyturvy indeed.”
Sir Thomas.
“My mental ejaculations, and an influx of grace thereupon, have shaken and washed from my brain all thy last words, good Joseph! Thy companion here, Euseby Treen, said unto thee—ay—”
Joseph Carnaby.
“Said unto me, ‘What a number of names and voices! And there be but three living men in all! And look again! Christ deliver us! all the shadows save one go leftward; that one lieth right upon the river. ”

“ that which moveth the heart most is the best poetry; it comes nearest unto God, the source of all power.’”
Sir Thomas. ”