Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare, Euseby Treen, Joseph Carnaby, and Silas Gough, Clerk. Walter Savage Landor

out of the kitchen, to my mind, take him only at the pheasant’s size, and don’t (upon your life) overdo him.

      “Never be cast down in spirit, nor take it too ‘grievously to heart, if the colour be a suspicion of the pinkish,—no sign of rawness in that; none whatever. It is as becoming to him as to the salmon; it is as natural to your pea-chick in his best cookery, as it is to the finest October morning,—moist underfoot, when partridge’s and puss’s and renard’s scent lies sweetly.”

      Willie Shakspeare, in the mean time, lifted up his hands above his ears half a cubit, and taking breath again, said, audibly, although he willed it to be said unto himself alone,—

      “O that knights could deign to be our teachers! Methinks I should briefly spring up into heaven, through the very chink out of which the peacock took his neck.”

      Master Silas, who like myself and the worshipful knight, did overhear him, said angrily,—

      “To spring up into heaven, my lad, it would be as well to have at least one foot upon the ground to make the spring withal. I doubt whether we shall leave thee this vantage.”

      “Nay, nay! thou art hard upon him, Silas,” said the knight.

      I was turning over the other papers taken from the pocket of the culprit on his apprehension, and had fixed my eyes on one, when Sir Thomas caught them thus occupied, and exclaimed,—

      “Mercy upon us! have we more?”

      “Your patience, worshipful sir!” said I; “must I forward?”

      “Yea, yea,” quoth he, resignedly, “we must go through; we are pilgrims in this life.”

      Then did I read, in a clear voice, the contents of paper the second, being as followeth:—

      “THE MAID’S LAMENT.

      “I loved him not; and yet, now he is gone,

       I feel I am alone.

       I check’d him while he spoke; yet, could he speak,

       Alas! I would not check.

       For reasons not to love him once I sought,

       And wearied all my thought

       To vex myself and him: I now would give

       My love could he but live

       Who lately lived for me, and when he found

       ’T was vain, in holy ground

       He hid his face amid the shades of death!

       I waste for him my breath

       Who wasted his for me! but mine returns,

       And this loin bosom burns

       With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep,

       And waking me to weep

       Tears that had melted his soft heart. For years

       Wept he as bitter tears!

       Merciful God! such was his latest prayer, These may she never share! Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold, Than daisies in the mould, Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate, His name and life’s brief date. Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe’er you be, And, oh! pray too for me!”

      Sir Thomas had fallen into a most comfortable and refreshing slumber ere this lecture was concluded; but the pause broke it, as there be many who experience after the evening service in our parish-church. Howbeit, he had presently all his wits about him, and remembered well that he had been carefully counting the syllables, about the time when I had pierced as far as into the middle.

      “Young man,” said he to Willy, “thou givest short measure in every other sack of the load. Thy uppermost stake is of right length; the undermost falleth off, methinks.

      “Master Ephraim, canst thou count syllables? I mean no offence. I may have counted wrongfully myself, not being born nor educated for an accountant.”

      At such order I did count; and truly the suspicion was as just as if he had neither been a knight nor a sleeper.

      “Sad stuff! sad stuff, indeed!” said Master Silas, “and smelling of popery and wax-candles.”

      “Ay?” said Sir Thomas, “I must sift that.”

      “If praying for the dead is not popery,” said Master Silas, “I know not what the devil is. Let them pray for us; they may know whether it will do us any good. We need not pray for them; we cannot tell whether it will do them any. I call this sound divinity.”

      “Are our churchmen all agreed thereupon?” asked Sir Thomas.

      “The wisest are,” replied Master Silas.

      “There are some lank rascals who will never agree upon anything but upon doubting. I would not give ninepence for the best gown upon the most thrifty of ’em; and their fingers are as stiff and hard with their pedlary, knavish writing, as any bishop’s are with chalk-stones won honestly from the gout.”

      Sir Thomas took the paper up from the table on which I had laid it, and said after a while,—

      “The man may only have swooned. I scorn to play the critic, or to ask any one the meaning of a word; but, sirrah!”

      Here he turned in his chair from the side of Master Silas, and said unto Willy,—

      “William Shakspeare! out of this thraldom in regard to popery, I hope, by God’s blessing, to deliver thee. If ever thou repeatest the said verses, knowing the man to be to all intents and purposes a dead man, prythee read the censurable line as thus corrected,—

      ‘Pray for our Virgin Queen, gentles! whoe’er you be.’

      although it is not quite the thing that another should impinge so closely on her skirts.

      “By this improvement, of me suggested, thou mayest make some amends—a syllable or two—for the many that are weighed in the balance and are found wanting.”

      Then turning unto me, as being conversant by my profession in such matters, and the same being not very worthy of learned and staid clerks the like of Master Silas, he said,—

      “Of all the youths that did ever write in verse, this one verily is he who hath the fewest flowers and devices. But it would be loss of time to form a border, in the fashion of a kingly crown, or a dragon, or a Turk on horseback, out of buttercups and dandelions.