Thomas Halliwell

“ Mr. Hawley had been an actor, under the name of Haywell, and he was the author of more than one tragedy, in blank verse. Mr. A. H. Wall, who succeeded him as librarian, [31] is a learned antiquary and an admired writer. [156] To him the readers of the Stratford-upon-Avon Herald are indebted for instructive articles,—notably for those giving an account of the original Shakespeare quartos acquired for the Memorial library at the sale of the literary property of J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps. Those quartos are the Merchant of Venice, the Merry Wives of Windsor, and a first edition of Pericles. ”

“ It is bad enough to be, as Marston was, one of those middling poets whom neither gods nor men nor columns (Horace had never seen a newspaper) tolerate; but, really, even they do not deserve the frightful retribution of being reprinted by a Halliwell.
We have said that we could not feel even the dubious satisfaction of knowing that the blunders of the old copies had been faithfully followed in the reprinting. We see reason for doubting whether Mr. Halliwell ever read the proof-sheets. In his own notes we have found several mistakes. ”

“ XLV. HEREAFTERTHIS
Source.—Sent me anonymously soon after the appearance of English Fairy Tales. From a gloss in the MS. "vitty" = Devonian for "decent," I conclude the tale is current in Devon. I should be obliged if the sender would communicate with me.
Parallels.—The latter part has a certain similarity with "Jack Hannaford" (No. viii.) . Halliwell's story of the miser who kept his money "for luck" (p. 153) is of the same type. Halliwell remarks that the tale throws light on a passage in Ben Jonson:
Say we are robbed ”

“ They reach him that themselves must envy at:
<47.1> This was the theatre in Salisbury Court. See Collier, H. E. D. P. iii. 289, and Halliwell's DICTIONARY OF OLD PLAYS, art. SCHOLAR. From the terms of the epilogue it seems to have been a piece occupying two hours in the performance. Judging, I presume, from the opening lines, Mr. Halliwell supposes it to have been originally acted at Gloucester Hall. Probably Mr. Halliwell is right. ”

“ Halliwell should be remembered as the first person to collect in a scientific way the folk literature of England. He gathered these rhymes and tales from the mouths of the folk, from chapbooks, and from many other sources and endeavored to tell them as they had been told by the folk.
"The Old Woman and Her Pig" is perhaps the most familiar of all nursery stories. It belongs to the type of story known as the "accumulative," of which "The House That Jack Built" is the purest model. ”

“ God calling this good man, the father, to his rest, his mother, being tender of him, maintained him by her hard labour as well as she could; but this was no easy matter, for Tom would sit all day in the chimney-corner, instead of doing anything to assist her, and although at the period we are speaking of, he was only ten years old, he would eat more than four or five ordinary men, and was five feet and a half in height, and two feet and a half broad. ”

“ At length he was espied by the giant, who was indignant at his boldness, but consoled himself with the reflection that Tom and the beer would soon become his prey. "Sirrah," said the monster, "who gave you permission to come this way? Do you not know how I make all stand in fear of me? and you, like an impudent rogue, must come and fling my gates open at your pleasure! How dare you presume to do so? Are you careless of your life? Do not you care what you do? ”

“ Dare felt secure of him at those words. Havill had much at stake; the slightest rumour of his trick in bringing about the competition, would be fatal to Havill’s reputation.
‘The permanent absence of Somerset then is desirable architecturally on your account, matrimonially on mine.’
‘Matrimonially? By the way—who was that captain you pointed out to me when the artillery entered the town?’
‘Captain De Stancy—son of Sir William De Stancy. He’s the husband. O, you needn’t look incredulous: it is practicable; but we won’t argue that. ”

“ These settlements have always been refuges for the oppressed and outlawed slave. The character of Rachel Halliday was a real one, but she has passed away to her reward. Simeon Halliday, calmly risking fine and imprisonment for his love to God and man, has had in this country many counterparts among the sect.
The writer had in mind, at the time of writing, the scenes in the trial of Thomas Garret, of Wilmington, Delaware, for the crime of hiring a hack to convey a mother and four children from Newcastle jail to Wilmington, a distance of five miles. ”

“ But while the giant was gone for his club, Tom bethought himself, and turning his cart upside down, adroitly takes out the axletree, which would serve him for a staff, and removing a wheel, adapts it to his arm in lieu of a shield; very good weapons indeed in time of trouble, and worthy of Tom's ingenuity. When the monster returned with his club, he was amazed to see the weapons with which Tom had armed himself, but uttering a word of defiance, he bore down upon the poor fellow with such heavy strokes, that it was as much as Tom could do to defend himself with his wheel. ”

“ Havill replied in the affirmative, beginning to perceive the manoeuvre. ‘Perhaps you would like to see them?’ he said to the creditor.
The latter offered no objection, and all three went into the drawing-office.
‘It will certainly be a magnificent structure,’ said the creditor, after regarding the elevations through his spectacles. ‘Stancy Castle: I had no idea of it! and when do you begin to build, Mr. Havill?’ he inquired in mollified tones.
‘In three months, I think?’ said Dare, looking to Havill. ”

“ Dare!"
"I suppose you will take in Halliburton?"
"It is very probable. Whoever I take must be a man of probity and honour: and a gentleman," he added, with a stress upon the word. "William Halliburton is all that."
Anthony Dare rose with a groan. He could contend no longer.
"My sons have been my bane," he uttered from between his bloodless lips. "I wonder, sometimes, whether they were born bad."
"No," said Thomas Ashley. "The badness has come with their training." ”

“ Now in the course of time, Tom was thoroughly tired of going such a roundabout way, and without communicating his purpose to any one, he was resolved to pass through the giant's domain, or lose his life in the attempt. This was a bold undertaking, but good living had so increased Tom's strength and courage, that, venturesome as he was before, his hardiness was so much increased that he would have faced a still greater danger. ”

“ Some specimens of Harley's poetry are in print. The best, I think, is a stanza which he made on his own fall in 1714; and bad is the best.
"To serve with love, And shed your blood, Approved is above; But here below The examples show 'Tis fatal to be good."
[485] The character of Harley is to be collected from innumerable panegyrics and lampoons; from the works and the private correspondence of Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, Prior and Bolingbroke, and from multitudes of such works as Ox and Bull, the High German Doctor, and The History of Robert Powell the Puppet Showman. ”

“ De Stancy went into the hall, and on to the gallery, where Dare was standing as still as a caryatid.
‘I have heard every word,’ said Dare.
‘Well, what does it mean? Has that fool Havill done it on purpose to annoy me? What conceivable reason can the man have for throwing up an appointment he has worked so hard for, at the moment he has got it, and in the time of his greatest need?’
Dare guessed, for he had seen a little way into Havill’s soul during the brief period of their confederacy. ”

“ But Tom made him this impudent answer, "A dishclout in your teeth for your news, for you shall not find me to be one of them!" "No!" said the giant, in astonishment and indignation; "and what a fool you must be if you come to fight with such a one as I am, and bring never a weapon to defend yourself!" ”

“ One evening the way in which Honey Fair rather liked to spend its Sundays was under discussion; namely, the men in smoking; the women slatternly and dirty; the children fighting and quarrelling in the dirt outside.
William Halliburton was asking them in a half-earnest, half-joking manner, what particular benefit they found in it, that it should not be remedied? Could they impart its pleasures to him? If so——
His voice suddenly faltered and stopped. Standing just inside the door of the room, a quiet spectator and listener of the proceedings, was Thomas Ashley. ”

“ Havill, it must be very provoking to a well-established professional man to have a rival sprung at him in a grand undertaking which he had a right to expect as his own.’
Professional sympathy is often accepted from those whose condolence on any domestic matter would be considered intrusive. Havill walked up and down beside Dare for a few moments in silence, and at last showed that the words had told, by saying: ‘Every one may have his opinion. ”

“ Harwell, I soon forgot both Thomas and the doubts his last movement had awakened, in the interest which the examination of so important a person as the secretary and right-hand man of Mr. Leavenworth was likely to create.
Advancing with the calm and determined air of one who realized that life and death itself might hang upon his words, Mr. Harwell took his stand before the jury with a degree of dignity not only highly prepossessing in itself, but to me, who had not been over and above pleased with him in our first interview, admirable and surprising. ”

“ It is only he who is so ardent. She is only lukewarm. If we had any spirit, a bargain would be struck between us: you would appropriate his design; I should cause the coolness.’
‘How could I appropriate his design?’
‘By copying it, I suppose.’
‘Copying it?’
‘By going into his studio and looking it over.’
Havill turned to Dare, and stared. ‘By George, you don’t stick at trifles, young man. You don’t suppose I would go into a man’s rooms and steal his inventions like that?’
‘I scarcely suppose you would,’ said Dare indifferently, as he rose. ”

“ There are nine Scenes in two Acts, with a Prologue and Epilogus. The characters are almost wholly allegorical. Idleness is ‘the vice’. The stage-directions mention a ‘stage’. Halliwell prints the mutilated word left blank in the title above as ‘Contract’, no doubt rightly. Conceivably the play was in fact printed in 1579, as ‘Mariage of wit and wisdome’ is in Rogers and Ley’s play-list of 1656 (Greg, Masques, lxxxvii) .
The play might be identical with the lost Paul’s moral of The Marriage of Mind and Measure (cf. App. B) , which also belongs to 1579. Fleay, ii. ”

“ Woodwell’s address on the uncertainty of life involved considerations of conduct on earth that bore with singular directness upon Havill’s unprincipled manoeuvre for victory in the castle competition. He wished he had not been so inadvertent as to take his customary chair in the chapel. People who saw Havill’s agitation did not know that it was most largely owing to his sense of the fraud which had been practised on the unoffending Somerset ”

“ There's not a man in the world half as worthy."
But still Mr. Ashley made no rejoinder. Henry scarcely gave him time to make one.
"I have seen it a long time. I have seen how Halliburton kept down his feelings, not being sure of the ground with you. I fear that to-day they must have overmastered him; for he has certainly spoken out. Dear father, don't make two of the best spirits in the world miserable, by withholding your consent!"
"Henry," said Mr. Ashley, turning to him with a smile, "do you fancy William Halliburton is one to have spoken out without my consent?"
Henry's thin cheek flushed. ”

“ The master fixed his expressive eyes on Anthony Dare. "Halliburton's birth is, at any rate, as good as your family's and mine. His father's mother and your wife's father were brother and sister."
Old Anthony looked taken by surprise. "I don't know anything about it," said he, somewhat roughly. "I know a little of how he has been bred, he and his brothers."
"So do I," said Mr. Ashley. "I wish a few more in the world had been bred in the same way."
"Why! they have been bred to work!" exclaimed old Anthony, in astonishment. "They have not been bred as gentlemen. They have not had enough to eat." ”

“ Sleep had cleared Havill’s mind from the drowsing effects of the last night’s sitting, and he thought of Dare’s mysterious manner in speaking of himself. This lad resembled the Etruscan youth Tages, in one respect, that of being a boy with, seemingly, the wisdom of a sage; and the effect of his presence was now heightened by all those sinister and mystic attributes which are lent by nocturnal environment. He who in broad daylight might be but a young chevalier d’industrie was now an unlimited possibility in social phenomena. ”

“ When Havill got into the open air his morbid excitement calmed down, but a sickening self-abhorrence for the proceeding instigated by Dare did not abate. To appropriate another man’s design was no more nor less than to embezzle his money or steal his goods. The intense reaction from his conduct of the past two or three months did not leave him when he reached his own house and observed where the handbills of the countermanded sale had been torn down, as the result of the payment made in advance by Paula of money which should really have been Somerset’s. ”

“ William Halliburton; to attempt to eat would choke me!"
She sat there and entered on her grievances. How they had long been without money, had lived by credit, and by pledging things out of their house; how they owed more than she could tell; how a "horrible man" had come into their house that morning, as an emissary of the landlord.
"What are we to do?" she wailed. "Will you help us? Mr. Ashley, will you?—your wife is my husband's cousin, you know. Mr. Halliburton, will you help us? Don't you know that I have a right to claim kindred with you? ”