INTERCHAPTER XVIII.

APPLICATION OF THE LAY. CALEB D'ANVERS. IRISH LAW. ICON BASILIKE. JUNIUS. THOMAS À KEMPIS. FELIX HEMMERLEN. A NEEDLE LARGER THAN GAMMER GURTON'S AND A MUCH COARSER THREAD. THOMAS WARTON AND BISHOP STILL. THE JOHN WEBSTERS, THE ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAMS, AND THE CURINAS AND THE STEPHENS.

                         Lo que soy, razona poco
Porque de sombra a mi va nada, o poco.
                                                   FUENTE DESEADA.

The sagacious reader will already have applied the Lay of the Little Woman to the case of Dr. Dove's disciple and memorialist, and mentally apostrophizing him may have said,—

                de te
Fabula narratur.

Even so, dear reader, the Little Woman was a type of me, and yet but an imperfect one, for my case is far more complicated than hers. The simple doubt which distressed her, (and a most distressing one it must be admitted that it was) was whether she were herself or not; but the compound question which has been mooted concerning me is whether I am myself or somebody else, and whether somebody else is himself or me.

When various conjectures were formed and assertions hazarded concerning the Author or Editor of the Craftsman, some representing Caleb D'Anvers as an imaginary person, a mere fictitious character made use of to screen the performances of men in the dark, that formidable opponent of Sir Robert Walpole's administration said, “I hope it will not be expected that I should stand still and see myself reasoned out of my existence.”

Every one knows that it is possible to be reasoned out of our rights and despoiled in consequence of our property in a court of law; but every one may not know that it is possible to be reasoned out of our existence there: I do not mean condemned to death, and executed accordingly upon the testimony of false witnesses, as those who suffered for the Popish plot were; or upon circumstantial evidence, honestly produced, and disproved when it was too late; but that an individual may be judicially declared to be not in existence, when actually present in the Court to give the Lawyers and the Law the lie.

On the 2d of March, 1784, the Irish Attorney General was heard before the Irish House of Lords in the case of Hume and Loftus. In the course of his argument he contended that judgements were of the most sacred nature, and that to reverse one was in effect to overturn the law and the constitution; the record was binding, and a bar to all other evidence being produced to the Court. “He instanced a case wherein a judgement had been given on the presumed death of a man's wife, who as afterwards appeared was not dead, but was produced in person to the Court and was properly identified, and it was prayed to the Court to reverse the judgement given on supposition of her death which had been pronounced by the same Court, as in the pleading stated. Nevertheless the Court with the Woman before their eyes, pronounced her dead, and confirmed the judgement, saying, that the verdict was not that which was binding, but the judgement in consequence of the verdict having become a record, could not be reversed.”

This woman upon hearing such a decision concerning herself pronounced, might well have called in question not her identity but the evidence of her senses, and have supposed that she was dreaming, or out of her wits rather than that justice could be so outraged, and common sense so grossly insulted in a Court of Law.

Happily my case is in no worse court than a Court of Criticism, a Court in which I can neither be compelled to plead nor to appear.

Dr. Wordsworth rendered good service to English History when he asked who wrote Εικων Βασιλικη, for it is a question of great historical importance, and he has shown, by a careful investigation of all the evidence which it has been possible to collect, that it is the work of Charles himself, confirming thus that internal evidence which is of the most conclusive kind.

Who was Junius is a question which is not likely ever to be determined by discussion after so many fruitless attempts; but whenever the secret shall by any chance be discovered, considerable light will be thrown upon the political intrigues of the earlier part of a most important reign.

But who or what I am can be of no importance to any but myself.

More than one hundred and fifty treatises are said to have been published upon the question whether Thomas a Kempis was the Author of the well known book de Imitatione Christi. That question affects the Augustinians; for if it were proved that this native of Kemp near Cologne, Thomas Hammerlein by name, were the transcriber only and not the writer of that famous treatise, they would lose the brightest ornament of their order. This Hammerlein has never been confounded with his namesake Felix, once a Doctor and Precentor Clarissimus, under whose portrait in the title page of one of his volumes where he stands Hammer in hand, there are these verses.

Felicis si te juvat indulsisse libellis
    Malleoli, presens dilige lector opus.
Illius ingenium variis scabronibus actum
    Perspicis, et stimulos sustinuisse graves.
Casibus adversis, aurum velut igne, probatus
    Hostibus usque suis Malleus acer erat.
Hinc sibi conveniens sortitus nomen, ut esset
    Hemmerlin dictus, nomine, reque, statu.
At Felix tandem, vicioque illæsus ab omni
    Carceris e tenebris sydera clara subit.

This Hemmerlin in his Dialogue between a Nobleman and a Rustic, makes the Rustic crave license for his rude manner of speech saying, si ruralis consuetudine moris ineptissime loquar per te non corripiar, quia non sermonis colorum quoque nitorem, sed sensus sententiarumque requiro rigorem. Nam legitur quod Demon sedebat et braccam cum reste suebat; et dixit, si non est pulchra, tamen est consucio firma. The needle must have been considerably larger than Gammer Gurton's, which is never-the-less and ever will be the most famous of all needles.

Well was it for Hodge when Diccon the Bedlam gave him the good openhanded blow which produced the catastrophe of that Right Pithy, Pleasant, and Merry Comedy entitled Gammer Gurton's Needle, well was it I say for Hodge that the Needle in the episcopal comedy was not of such calibre as that wherewith the Auld Gude Man, as the Scotch, according to Sir Walter, respectfully call the Old Wicked One, in their caution never to give any unnecessary offence,—Well, again I say, was it for Hodge that his Gammer's Neele, her dear Neele, her fair long straight Neele that was her only treasure, was of no such calibre as the Needle which that Old One used, when mending his breeks with a rope he observed that though it was not a neat piece of sewing it was strong,—for if it had been such a Needle, Diccon's manual joke must have proved fatal. Our Bishops write no such comedies now; yet we have more than one who could translate it into Aristophanic Greek.

Wherefore did Thomas Warton (never to be named without respect and gratitude by all lovers of English literature,) say that when the Sermons of Hugh Latimer were in vogue at Court, the University might be justified in applauding Gammer Gurton's Needle? How could he who so justly appreciated the Comedy, disparage those sermons? He has spoken of the play as the first in our language in which a comic story is handled with some disposition of plot and some discrimination. “The writer,” he says, “has a degree of jocularity which sometimes rises above buffoonery, but is often disgraced by lowness of incident. Yet in a more polished age he would have chosen, nor would he perhaps have disgraced, a better subject. It has been thought surprizing that a learned audience could have endured some of these indelicate scenes. But the established festivities of scholars were gross, nor was learning in that age always accompanied by gentleness of manners.” Nor is it always now, nor has it ever been O Thomas Warton! if it had, you would not when you wore a great wig, had taken the degree of B.D., been Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, and was moreover Poet Laureate, most worthy of that office of all who have held it since Great Ben, you would not in your mellow old age, when your brother was Master of Winchester School, have delighted as you did in hunting rats with the Winchester Boys.

O Thomas Warton! you had and could not but have a hearty liking for all that is properly comic in the pithy old episcopal comedy! but that you should even seem to disparage Latimer's Sermons is to me more than most strange. For Latimer would have gained for himself a great and enduring name in the pulpit, if he had not been called upon to bear the highest and holiest of all titles. The pithy comedy no doubt was written long before its author was consecrated Bishop of Bath and Wells, and we may be sure that Bishop Still never reckoned it among his sins. If its language were rendered every where intelligible and its dirtiness cleaned away, for there is nothing worse to be removed, Gammer Gurton's Needle might succeed in these days as a farce.

Fuller says he had read in the Register of Trinity College, Cambridge, this commendation of Bishop Still that he was αγαθος κουροτροφος nec Collegio gravis aut onerosus. Still was Master of that College, as he had been before of St. Johns.

“What style,” says Sir John Harrington “shall I use to set forth this Still, whom (well nigh thirty years since) my reverend tutor in Cambridge styled by this name, ‘Divine Still,’ who, when my self came to him to sue for my grace to be bachelor, first examined me strictly, and after answered me kindly, that ‘the grace he granted me was not of grace but of merit;’ who was often content to grace my young exercises with his venerable presence; who, from that time to this, hath given me some helps, more hopes, all encouragements, in my best studies; to whom I never came, but I grew more religious; from whom I never went, but I parted better instructed: Of him therefore, my acquaintance, my friend, my instructor, and last my diocesan; if I speak much it were not to be marvelled; if I speak frankly, it is not to be blamed; and though I speak partially, it were to be pardoned. Yet to keep within my proportion custom and promise, in all these, I must say this much of him; his breeding was from his childhood in good literature, and partly in music, which was counted in those days a preparative to Divinity, neither could any be admitted to primam tonsuram, except he could first bene le, bene con, bene can, (as they call it,) which is to read well, to construe well, and to sing well; in which last he hath good judgement, and I have heard good music of voices in his house.

“In his full time, more full of learning, he became Bachelor of Divinity, and after Doctor; and so famous for a Preacher, and especially a disputer, that the learned'st were even afraid to dispute with him; and he finding his own strength would not stick to warn them in their arguments to take heed to their answers, like a perfect fencer that will tell beforehand in which button he will give the venew, or like a cunning chess-player that will appoint beforehand with which pawn, and in what place, he will give the mate.

“One trifling accident happened to his Lordship at Bath, that I have thought since of more consequence, and I tell him that I never knew him non plus in argument, but there. There was a craft's-man in Bath, a recusant puritan, who condemning our Church, our Bishops, our sacraments, our prayers, was condemned himself to die at the assizes, but at my request Judge Anderson reprieved him, and he was suffered to remain at Bath upon bail. The Bishop conferred with him, in hope to convert him, and first, My Lord alleged for the authority of the church, St. Augustine! The Shoemaker answered, ‘Austin was but a man.’ He (Still) produced, for the antiquity of Bishops the Fathers of the Council at Nice. He answered, ‘They were also but men, and might err.’ ‘Why then, said the Bishop, thou art but a man, and must, and dost err.’ ‘No Sir, saith he, the Spirit bears witness to my spirit, I am the child of God.’ ‘Alas! said the Bishop thy blind spirit will lead thee to the gallows.’ ‘If I die, saith he, in the Lord's cause, I shall be a martyr.’ The Bishop turning to me, stirred as much to pity as impatience;—‘This man, said he, is not a sheep strayed from the fold, for such may be brought in again on the shepherd's shoulders, but this is like a wild buck broke out of a park whose pale is thrown down, that flies the farther off, the more he is hunted.’ Yet this man, that stopped his ears like the adder to the charms of the Bishop, was after persuaded by a lay-man, and grew conformable. But to draw to an end; in one question this Bishop whom I count an oracle for learning, would never yet give me satisfaction, and that was, when I asked him his opinion of witches. He saith ‘he knows other men's opinions, both old and new writers, but could never so digest them, to make them an opinion of his own.’ All I can get is ‘this, that the Devil is the old Serpent our enemy, that we pray to be delivered from daily; as willing to have us think he can do too much as to have us persuaded he doth nothing.’”

In the account of Webster and his Writings, prefixed to his Works by their able editor Mr. Dyce, that editor finds it necessary to bestow much pains in showing that John Webster the Dramatist and Player, was not John Webster the Puritan and Chaplain in the Army; but on the other hand Mr. Payne Collier, who is a great authority in our stage literature, contends that he was one and the same person, and that when in the Prefatory Address to his Saint's Guide, he speaks of the “damnable condition” from which the Lord in his wonderful mercy had brought him, he could hardly mean any thing but his condition as a player. It remained then to be argued whether either of these persons were the John Webster, Practitioner in Physic and Chirurgery, who wrote or compiled a work entitled Metalographia, a volume of Sermons entitled The Judgement set and the Books opened, and a tract called Academiarum Examen, or the Examination of Academies, wherein is discussed and examined the Matter, Method, and Customs of Academic and Scholastic Learning, and the insufficiency thereof discovered and laid open: as also some expedients proposed for the reforming of schools and the perfecting and promoting of all kind of science. A powerful Tract Mr. Dyce calls it; and it must have been thought of some importance in its day, for it provoked an answer from Seth Ward afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, and Wilkins afterwards the well known Bishop of Chester, (from whom Peter Wilkins may perhaps have been named) wrote in it an Epistle to the Author. One of these Websters wrote a remarkable book against the then prevalent belief in witchcraft, though he was himself a believer in astrology and held that there are great and hidden virtues in metals and precious stones, as they are by Nature produced, by mystical Chemistry prepared and exalted, or commixed and insculped in their due and fit constellation. Which of the John Websters was this? If it has not been satisfactorily ascertained, whether there were one, two, three or four John Websters after so much careful investigation by the most eminent bibliologists, though it is not supposed that on the part of any John Webster there was any design to conceal himself and mystify the public, by whom can the question be answered concerning the authorship of this Opus, except by me the Opifex, and those few persons trusted and worthy of the trust, who are, like me, secret as the grave?

There is a history (and of no ordinary value) of Great Britain from the Revolution to the Accession of George I. written in Latin by Alexander Cunningham, translated from the Author's Manuscript by Dr. William Thompson, and published in two quarto volumes by Dr. Hollingbery in 1787. That the Author was Minister for George I. to the Venetian Republic is certain; but whether he were the Alexander Cunningham that lived at the same time, whose editions of Virgil and Horace are well known, and whose reputation as a critic stood high among the continental scholars of the last century is altogether doubtful. If they were two persons, each was born in Scotland and educated in Holland, each a friend and favourite of Carstares, King William's confidential secretary for Scotch affairs, each a remarkably good Chess Player, each an accomplished Latinist, and each concerned in the education of John Duke of Argyle. Upon weaker evidence, says Dr. Thompson, than that which seems to prove the identity of the two Cunninghams decisions have been given that have affected fortunes, fame, life, posterity and all that is dear to mankind; and yet notwithstanding these accumulated coincidences, he comes at length to the conclusion, that there are circumstances which seem incompatible with their identity, and that probably they were different persons.

But what signifies it now to any one whether certain books published in the seventeenth century were written by one and the same John Webster, or by four persons of that name? What signifies it whether Alexander Cunningham the historian was one and indivisible, like the French Republic, or that there were two Alexander Cunninghams, resembling each other as much as the two Sosias of the ancient drama, or the two Dromios and their twin masters in the Comedy of Errors? What signifies it to any creature upon earth? It may indeed afford matter for enquiry in a Biographical Dictionary, or in the Gentleman's Magazine, and by possibility of the remotest kind, for a law-suit. And can we wonder that an identity of names has sometimes occasioned a singular confusion of persons, and that Biographers and Bibliographers should sometimes be thus at fault, when we find that the same thing has deceived the most unerring of all Messengers,—Death himself.

Thus it was. There was a certain man, Curina by name, who lived in a village not far from Hippo in the days of St. Augustine. This man sickened and died; but because there seemed to be some faint and intermitting appearances of life, his friends delayed burying him for some days. Those appearances at length ceased; it could no longer be doubted that he was indeed dead; when behold he opened his eyes, and desired that a messenger might immediately be sent to his neighbour and namesake Curina the blacksmith, and enquire how he was. The answer was that he had just expired. The resuscitated Curina then related that he himself had verily and indeed died, and that his soul had been carried before the Judge of the Dead, who had vehemently reproved the Ministering Spirits that brought him thither, seeing it was not for him but for Curina the Blacksmith that they had been sent. This was not only a joyful surprize for the reprieved or replevied Curina, but a most happy adventure in other respects. He had not only an opportunity of seeing Paradise in his excursion, but a friendly hint was given him there, that as soon as his health was restored he should repair to Hippo and there receive baptism from St. Augustine's hands.

When the wrong soul happens thus to be summoned out of the body, Pope St. Gregory the Great assures us that there is no mistake; and who shall question what the Infallible Pope and Saint affirms? “Peter,” saith he, “in one of his Dialogues, when this happeneth, it is not if it be well considered, any error, but an admonition. For God of his great and bountiful mercy so disposeth, that some after their death do straightways return again to life, in order that having seen the torments of Hell, which before when they heard of they would not believe, they may at least tremble at them after they have with their own eyes beheld them. For a certain Sclavonian who was a Monk, and lived with me here in this city, in my Monastery, used to tell me, that at such time as he dwelt in the wilderness, he knew one Peter, a Monk born in Spain, who lived with him in the vast desert called Evasa, which Peter, (as he said) told him how before he came to dwell in that place, he by a certain sickness died, and was straightway restored to life again, affirming that he had seen the torments and innumerable places of Hell, and divers who were mighty men in this world hanging in those flames; and that as himself was carried to be thrown also into the same fire, suddenly an Angel in a beautiful attire appeared, who would not suffer him to be cast into those torments, but spake unto him in this manner: ‘Go thy way back again, and hereafter carefully look unto thyself how thou leadest thy life!’ after which words his body by little and little became warm, and himself waking out of the sleep of everlasting death, reported all such things as had happened about him; after which time he bound himself to such fasting and watching, that though he had said nothing, yet his life and conversation did speak what torments he had seen and was afraid of; and so God's merciful providence wrought in his temporal death that he died not everlastingly.

“But because man's heart is passing obdurate and hard, hereof it cometh that though others have the like vision and see the same pains, yet do they not always keep the like profit. For the honourable man Stephen, whom you knew very well, told me of himself, that at such time as he was upon business resident in the City of Constantinople, he fell sick and died; and when they sought for a surgeon to bowel him and to embalm his body and could not get any, he lay unburied all the night following; in which space his soul was carried to the dungeon of Hell, where he saw many things which before when he heard of, he had little believed. But when he was brought before the Judge that sat there, the Judge would not admit him to his presence, saying, ‘I commanded not this man to be brought, but Stephen the Smith!’ upon which words he was straightway restored to life, and Stephen the Smith that dwelt hard by, at that very hour departed this life, whose death did show that the words which he had heard were most true. But though the foresaid Stephen escaped death in this manner at that time, yet three years since in that mortality which lamentably wasted this city, (and in which, as you know, men with their corporal eyes did behold arrows that came from Heaven, which did strike divers,) the same man ended his days. At which time a certain soldier being also brought to the point of death, his soul was in such sort carried out of his body that he lay void of all sense and feeling, but coming quickly again to himself, he told them that were present what strange things he had seen. For he said, (as many report who knew it very well,) that he saw a bridge, under which a black and smoaky river did run that had a filthy and intolerable smell; but upon the further side thereof there were pleasant green meadows full of sweet flowers; in which also there were divers companies of men apparelled in white; and such a delicate savour there was that the fragrant odour thereof did give wonderful content to all them that dwelt and walked in that place. Divers particular mansions also there were, all shining with brightness and light, and especially one magnifical and sumptuous house, which was a-building, the bricks whereof seemed to be of Gold; but whose it was that he knew not.

“There were also upon the bank of the foresaid river certain houses, but some of them the stinking vapour which rose from the river did touch, and some other it touched not at all. Now those that desired to pass over the foresaid bridge, were subject to this manner of trial; if any that was wicked attempted to go over, down he fell into that dark and stinking river; but those that were just and not hindered by sin, securely and easily passed over to those pleasant and delicate places. There he said also that he saw Peter, who was Steward of the Pope's family and died some four years since, thrust into a most filthy place, where he was bound and kept down with a great weight of iron; and enquiring why he was so used, he received this answer, which all we that knew his life can affirm to be most true; for it was told him that he suffered that pain, because when himself was upon any occasion to punish others, that he did it more upon cruelty than to show his obedience; of which his merciless disposition none that knew him can be ignorant. There also he said that he saw a Priest whom he knew, who coming to the foresaid Bridge passed over with as great security as he had lived in this world sincerely.

“Likewise upon the same Bridge he said that he did see this Stephen whom before we spake of, who being about to go over, his foot slipped, and half his body hanging beside the Bridge, he was of certain terrible men that rose out of the river, drawn by the legs downward, and by certain other white and beautiful persons he was by the arms pulled upward, and while they strove thus the wicked spirits to draw him downward and the good to lift him upward, he that beheld all this strange sight returned to life, not knowing in conclusion what became of him. By which miraculous vision we learn this thing concerning the life of Stephen, to wit, that in him the sins of the flesh did strive with his works of alms. For in that he was by the legs drawn downward, and by the arms plucked upward, apparent it is, that both he loved to give alms, and yet did not perfectly resist the sins of the flesh which did pull him downward; but in that secret examination of the Supreme Judge, which of them had the victory, that neither we know nor he that saw it. Yet more certain it is that the same Stephen after that he had seen the places of Hell as before was said and returned again to his body, did never perfectly amend his former wicked life, seeing many years after he departed this world leaving us in doubt whether he were saved or damned.”

Hereupon Peter the Deacon said to Pope St. Gregory the Great, “What I beseech you was meant by the building of that house in those places of delight, with bricks of gold? For it seemeth very ridiculous that in the next life we should have need of any such kind of metal.” Pope Gregory the Great answered and said, “What man of sense can think so? But by that which was shown there, (whosoever he was for whom that house was built,) we learn plainly what virtuous works he did in this world; for he that by plenty of alms doth merit the reward of eternal light, certain it is that he doth build his house with gold. For the same soldier who had this vision said also, (which I forgot to tell you before,) that old men and young, girls and boys, did carry those bricks of gold for the building of that house, by which we learn that those to whom we shew compassion in this world do labour for us in the next. There dwelt hard by us a religious man called Deusdedit who was a shoemaker, concerning whom another saw by revelation that he had in the next world an house a-building, but the workmen thereof laboured only upon the Saturday; who afterward enquiring more diligently how he lived, found that whatsoever he got by his labour all the week and was not spent upon necessary provision of meat and apparel, all that upon the Saturday he bestowed upon the poor in alms, at St. Peter's Church; and therefore see what reason there was that his building went forward upon the Saturday.”

It was a very reasonable question that Peter the Deacon asked of Gregory the Great, when he desired to know how it came to pass that certain persons who were summoned into the other world, were told when they got there that they were not the persons who had been sent for. And it was not ill answered by the Pope that if properly considered, this when it happeneth is not an error, but an admonition. Yet that there was a mistake in the two cases of Curina and Stephen and their respective namesakes and blacksmiths cannot be disputed,—a mistake on the part of the Ministering Spirits. This may be accounted for by supposing that inferior Spirits were employed in both cases, those for whom they were sent not being of a condition to be treated with extraordinary respect on such an occasion. Comets were never kindled to announce the death of common men, and the lowest Spirits might be deputed to take charge of the Blacksmiths. But Azrael himself makes no mistakes.

Five things the Mahommedans say are known to no created Beings, only to the Creator; the time of the Day of Judgement; the time of rain; whether an unborn child shall be male or female; what shall happen to-morrow, and when any person is to die. These the Arabians call the five keys of secret knowledge, according to a tradition of their Prophet, to whom questions of this kind were propounded by Al Hareth Ebnn Amru. But it may be inferred from a tradition which Al Beidâwi has preserved that one of these keys is committed to the Angel of Death, when he is sent out in person to execute the irrevocable decree.

The Arabians tell us that Solomon was exercising his horses one day when the hour for evening prayer was announced. Immediately he alighted, and would not allow either his own horse or any other in the field to be taken to the stables, but gave orders that they should be turned loose, being from thenceforth dedicated to the Almighty's service, which the Arabians we are told call Rebath fi sebil Allah. To reward the king for this instance of his piety, Allah gave him a mild and pleasant but strong wind to be at his orders from that time forth and carry him whithersoever he would.

Once on a time Azrael passed by Solomon in a visible form, and in passing looked earnestly at a certain person who was sitting with the king. That person not liking the earnestness and the expression of his look, asked Solomon who it was, and Solomon replied it was the Angel of Death. He looks as if he wanted me, said the affrighted man, I beseech you therefore order the Wind to carry me instantly to India! Solomon spake the word and no sooner was it spoken, than the Wind took him up and set him down where he desired to be. The Angel then said to Solomon I looked so earnestly at that Man out of wonder, because that being commanded to take his soul in India, I found him here with thee in Palestine.

But my good Reader you and I must make no tarriance now with Solomon Ben Daoud, wisest of men and mightiest of Magicians, nor with St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Punster, and his friend Peter the Deacon, though you and I might delight in the Pope's veracious stories as much as good Peter himself. We must wind up the volume with one Interchapter more.

Saggio e' il consigliator che sol ricorre
A quell' ultimo fin, che in cor si fisse,
Quel sol rimira, e tutto l'altro abborre,
Come al suo proprio danno consentisse;
E' chi farà in tal guisa, raro fia
Che d' incontrare il ver perda la via. 1

1 L'AVARCHIDE.