Sir Anthony

“ In 1590 commissioners were sent from London to inquire into the grievances of the islanders against Sir Anthony and his uncle George. Both officers were fully exonerated from blame. Sir Anthony, who was also captain of the guard to Queen Elizabeth, died on 22 July 1600, and was buried in the church of Hinton St. ”

“ And he pushes Anthony forward to a golden throne approached by five steps, whereon—surrounded by ninety-five disciples, all very thin and pale, and anointed with oil—sits the prophet Manes. He is beautiful as an archangel, immobile as a statue; he is clad in an Indian robe; carbuncles gleam in his plaited hair; at his left hand lies a book of painted images; his right reposes upon a globe. The images represent the creatures that erst slumbered in Chaos. Anthony bends forward to look upon them. ”

“ It was, no doubt, the fact that age and good living had made Sir Anthony altogether incapable of enjoying the kind of life which he desiderated, and that he would probably have eaten and drunk himself into his grave long since had that kind of life been within his reach. ”

“ Anthony did not reply. He turned to the monks of Antinoë those eyes whose looks no man could sustain. He gazed for a long time at Paul, called the Fool; then he made a sign to him to approach. And, as all were astonished that the saint should address himself to a man who was not in his senses, Anthony said —
"God has granted to him more grace than to any of you. Lift thy eyes, my son Paul, and tell me what thou seest in heaven." ”

“ Anthony is at first deafened by the billowy sound of voices. From the summit of the hippodrome to its lowest tiers, he sees only faces painted with rouge, garments checkered and variegated with many colors, flashing jewelry; and the sand of the arena, all white, gleams like a mirror.
The Emperor entertains him. He confides to him many matters of high importance, many secrets; he confesses the assassination of his son Criopus, and even asks Anthony for advice regarding his health. ”

“ Sir Anthony was preceptor, or governor, to Edward VI. Cheke was the king's tutor, to which office he was appointed in July 1544. Roger Ascham pronounced Lady Mildred and Lady Jane Grey the two most learned women in England; but Sir Anthony's second daughter, Ann, became eventually even more celebrated than her sister, and, by her marriage with Sir Nicholas Bacon, was the mother of the illustrious Sir Francis. With the accession of Edward VI a new direction was given to Cecil's ambition. ”

“ He comes and throws at him more talk than he had ever heard boomed out in an hour, and certainly touching the deepest things Anthony had ever discovered in himself, and flings words like "unfair" whose very sound is abhorrent to him. ”

“ He halted, and surveyed Anthony with a lowered, searching curiosity, clenching with a strained and surprising force the knob of a black stick. Anthony met his scrutiny with the salutation of youth and the road; but the other made no reply; his countenance was as blank as though no word had been spoken. Then a sudden flicker of hot light burned in the dull depths of his gaze, his worn face quivered with a swift malignancy, an energy of suspicion, of hatred, that touched Anthony's heart with a cold finger of fear. ”

“ Anthony himself did not care for royalty. He and his wife arranged that they would return to the place where he had first found the princesses. So they departed for that land, but a storm drove them on shore near to the place where he had met the old crone. She gave him welcome.
"So you are back again," she said.
They explained to her that what they wished was to go back to that palace beneath the fountain.
"Well," she said, "I will show you the way to the other world, and I will let you down the well." ”

“ That same night he and John Bent, being abroad together, see you cross the road from this Chapel Lane, that leads direct from your house, you know, and enter the Friar's Keep; young Anthony runs over in your wake, and enters it also: and from that blessed moment he is never seen by mortal eyes again. People outside hear a shot and a scream--and that's all. Look dispassionately at the circumstances for yourself, and see if they do not afford grounds for suspicion. ”

“ Is Anthony, or we in fault for this?
Eno. Anthony onely, that would make his will
Lord of his Reason. What though you fled,
From that great face of Warre, whose seuerall ranges
Frighted each other? Why should he follow?
The itch of his Affection should not then
Haue nickt his Captain-ship, at such a point,
When halfe to halfe the world oppos'd, he being
The meered question? 'Twas a shame no lesse
Then was his losse, to course your flying Flagges,
And leaue his Nauy gazing
Cleo. Prythee peace.
Enter the Ambassador, with Anthony.
Ant. Is that his answer?
Amb. I my Lord
Ant. ”

“ Constantly in his correspondence with Essex in 1596 he implores his patron to secure for Francis the mastership of the rolls. Francis, who had the highest opinion of Anthony's political abilities, partially reciprocated these kindnesses, but the fraternal sentiment was certainly better developed in Anthony than in his brother. At one time Francis was endeavouring, through his friend Sir John Fortescue, to bring Anthony's diplomatic services to the notice of the queen, but the scheme met with no success. ”

“ It is not surprising that Miss Anthony writes in her journal at the beginning of the New Year, 1893: "The clouds do not lift from my spirit. I am simply overwhelmed with the feeling that I can not make my way through the work before me." Never a year in all her crowded life opened with such a mountain of things to be attended to—suffrage conventions, council meetings, the great Woman's Congress at the World's Fair, State campaigns, Industrial School matters, lecture engagements—the list seemed to stretch out into infinity, and it is no wonder that it appalled even her dauntless spirit. ”

“ Then the old man told Anthony other stories of his earlier life, how he had been educated at the university and been at Court in King Henry’s reign and Queen Mary’s, but that he had lost heart at Elizabeth’s accession, and retired to his hills, where he could serve God according to his conscience, and study God’s works too, for he was a keen naturalist. ”

“ The women raise their tearful eyes and lift their naked arms to heaven. In hope of moving the Solitaries they embrace their knees; the men cast them off and fling them down, and the blood gushes to the ceilings, falls back upon the walls like sheets of rain, streams from the trunks of decapitated corpses, fills the aqueducts, forms huge red pools upon the ground.
Anthony is up to his knees in it. He wades in it; he sucks up the blood-spray on his lips; he is thrilled with joy as he feels it upon his limbs, under his hair-tunic which is soaked through with it. ”

“ Then suddenly appears—An Aged Woman. Anthony starts to his feet in affright. It seems to him that he beholds his mother arisen.
But this woman is far older, and prodigiously thin.
A shroud, knotted about her head, hangs down, together with her white hair, so as to cover her legs, slender as crutches. The brilliancy of her ivory-coloured teeth make her earthy skin darker still. The orbits of her eyes are full of shadow; and far back within them two flames vacillate, like the lamps of sepulchres. ”

“ The sublime conceit of a boy of fifteen made him of course think that she had detected in him a nobility that others overlooked, and so Anthony began a gorgeous course of day-dreaming, in which he moved as a kind of king, worshipped and reverenced by this splendid creature, who after a disillusionment from the empty vanities of a Court life and a Queen’s favour, found at last the lord of her heart in a simple manly young countryman. These dreams, however, he had the grace and modesty to keep wholly to himself. ”

“ A groom took his horse off to the stable, and Anthony himself followed the servant to a little oak-parlour looking on to a lawn with a yew hedge and a dial. He felt as one moving in a dream, bewildered by the rush of interviews, and oppressed by the awful burden that he bore at his heart. Nothing any longer seemed strange; and he scarcely gave a thought to what it meant when he heard the sound of trumpets in the court, as the Queen left the Hall. ”

“ Anthony, a little awed, as one is by a range of feelings stretching beyond one’s grasp, comforted himself by the thought that probably the old fellow would have little to say. He wouldn’t want to talk about it. No man would. It must have been a real hell to him.
And then Anthony, at the end of the day in which he had gone through a marriage ceremony with Flora de Barral, ceased to think of Flora’s father except, as in some sort, the captive of his triumph. ”

“ Old Anthony did never see, my lord,
A swelling show'r, that did continue long:
A climbing tower that did not taste the wind:
A wrathful man not wasted with repent.
I speak of love, my Sylla, and of joy,
To see how fortune lends a pleasant gale
Unto the spreading sails of thy desires;
And, loving thee, must counsel thee withal:
For, as by cutting fruitful vines increase,
So faithful counsels work a prince's peace.
SYLLA. Thou honey-talking father, speak thy mind. ”

“ Anthony cald for wine, and drawing forth his fiddle began to play, and after he had scrapte halfe a score lessons, he began thus to sing:— “When should a man shew himselfe gentle and kinde? When should a man comfort the sorrowful minde? O Anthony, now, now, now, O Anthony, now, now, now. When is the best time to drinke with a friend? When is the meetest my money to spend? O Anthony, now, now, now, O Anthony, now, now, now. When goeth the King of good fellows away, That so much delighted in dancing and play? O Anthony, now, now, now, O Anthony, now, now, now. ”

“ Anthony presses his hands to his head, and remains silent for a long time. Then, taking a step forward, he places his right hand in that of The Woman. They slowly leave the ground. As they mount in the air the few retarded rays of light utterly vanish, and blackest night confounds the jutting rock with the starless heaven. ”

“ In the north the sky is of a pearl-gray tint, while at the zenith purple clouds disposed like the tufts of a gigantic mane, lengthen themselves against the blue vault. These streaks of flame take darker tones; the azure spots turn to a nacreous pallor; the shrubs, the pebbles, the earth, all now seem hard as bronze; and throughout space there floats a golden dust so fine as to become confounded with the vibrations of the light.
Saint Anthony, who has a long beard, long hair, and wears a tunic of goatskin, is seated on the ground cross-legged, and is occupied in weaving mats. ”

“ Fear not, Anthony; that hour may be far distant. God is just. You are innocent; trust in him. Trust firmly, nothing wavering, and he will save you. I have wept for you, prayed for you; would that I could die for you! My soul has been poured forth in tears; but never for one moment have I abused our holy friendship by imagining you guilty. Weep not for me, dear Anthony; I am happy. God is taking me from the evil to come, from the anguish of seeing you the husband of another. Death has no sting; I welcome him as a friend.
"When restored to peace, to happiness, and to Juliet, think kindly of me. ”

“ The little ringlets of his black hair in which blueish tints shift symmetrically surround a protuberance upon the summit of his skull. His arms, which are very long, hang down against his sides. His two hands rest flat upon his thighs, with the palms open. The soles of his feet are like the faces of two blazing suns; and he remains completely motionless—before Anthony and Hilarion—with all the gods around him, rising in tiers above the rocks, as if upon the benches of some vast circus. ”

“ Anthony's resolution wavered; it was early; it pleased him that so fine a creature should desire his presence; an unhappy note in her voice moved him to pity. She was lonely, and he was alone—here; why should they not support each other? He leaned, close to her, upon the sloping roof. She talked little; she laughed once, a low, silvery peal whose echo ran up and down his spine.
They heard a servant closing the shutters, the doors, below them, and the sound linked Anthony to Mrs. Dallam in a feeling of pervading intimacy. ”

“ Patrick’s solution of it is more probable, and very likely to be correct.
St. Anthony is always represented by the old painters with a pig by his side. He is so accompanied in the wood-cut to his life in the Golden Legend. There are many prints of him, by early masters, in this way. Rubens painted a fine picture of the Death of St. Anthony, with his pig, or rather a large bacon hog, lying under the saint’s bed: there is a good engraving from this picture by Clouwet.
In the British Museum there is a MS. with a remarkable anecdote that would form an appendix to St. Anthony’s day. ”

“ Anthony is years too old for you, even if you loved him. And you don't love him."
"Yet I can't break a promise, can I?"
He moved restlessly.
"If you told him, he would release you, of course. But somehow I'd feel an awful cad to have Anthony think that I had taken you from him."
"How do you think I should feel?" The color flamed in her cheeks. "Don't you know that a woman has just as fine a sense of honor in such things as a man?"
As she made a movement to rise, he caught at the floating ends of her white veil, and held them, as if he would thus anchor her to himself. ”