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The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 written by Charles Lamb

C >> Charles Lamb >> The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4




[_Addressing them both_.

O you most worthy,
You constant followers of a man proscribed,
Following poor misery in the throat of danger;
Fast servitors to crazed and penniless poverty,
Serving poor poverty without hope of gain;
Kind children of a sire unfortunate;
Green clinging tendrils round a trunk decay'd,
Which needs must bring on you timeless decay;
Fair living forms to a dead carcass joined;--
What shall I say?
Better the dead were gather'd to the dead,
Than death and life in disproportion meet.--
Go, seek your fortunes, children.--

_Simon_. Why, whither should we go?

_Sir W_. _You_ to the court, where now your brother John
Commits a rape on Fortune.

_Simon_. Luck to John!
A light-heel'd strumpet when the sport is done.

_Sir W_. _You_ to the sweet society of your equals,
Where the world's fashion smiles on youth and beauty.

_Marg_. Where young men's flatteries cozen young maids' beauty.
There pride oft gets the vantage hand of duty,
There sweet humility withers.

_Simon_. Mistress Margaret,
How fared my brother John, when you left Devon?

_Marg_. John was well, sir.

_Simon_. 'Tis now nine months almost,
Since I saw home. What new friends has John made?
Or keeps he his first love?--I did suspect
Some foul disloyalty. Now do I know,
John has proved false to her, for Margaret weeps.
It is a scurvy brother.

_Sir W_. Fie upon it.
All men are false, I think. The date of love
Is out, expired; its stories all grown stale,
O'erpast, forgotten, like an antique tale
Of Hero and Leander.

_Simon_. I have known some men that are too general-contemplative for
the narrow passion. I am in some sort a _general_ lover.

_Marg_. In the name of the boy God, who plays at hoodman blind with
the Muses, and cares not whom he catches: what is it _you_ love?

_Simon_. Simply, all things that live,
From the crook'd worm to man's imperial form,
And God-resembling likeness. The poor fly,
That makes short holiday in the sunbeam,
And dies by some child's hand. The feeble bird
With little wings, yet greatly venturous
In the upper sky. The fish in th' other element,
That knows no touch of eloquence. What else?
Yon tall and elegant stag,
Who paints a dancing shadow of his horns
In the water, where he drinks.

_Marg_. I myself love all these things, yet so as with a
difference:--for example, some animals better than others, some men
rather than other men; the nightingale before the cuckoo, the swift
and graceful palfrey before the slow and asinine mule. Your humor
goes to confound all qualities. What sports do you use in the
forest?--

_Simon_. Not many; some few, as thus:--
To see the sun to bed, and to arise,
Like some hot amorist with glowing eyes,
Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him,
With all his fires and travelling glories round him.
Sometimes the moon on soft night clouds to rest,
Like beauty nestling in a young man's breast,
And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep
Admiring silence, while those lovers sleep.
Sometimes outstretcht, in very idleness,
Nought doing, saying little, thinking less,
To view the leaves, thin dancers upon air,
Go eddying round; and small birds, how they fare,
When mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn,
Filch'd from the careless Amalthea's horn;
And how the woods berries and worms provide
Without their pains, when earth has nought beside
To answer their small wants.
To view the graceful deer come tripping by,
Then stop, and gaze, then turn, they know not why,
Like bashful younkers in society.
To mark the structure of a plant or tree,
And all fair things of earth, how fair they be.

_Marg_. (_smiling_.) And, afterwards, them paint in simile.

_Sir W_. Mistress Margaret will have need of some refreshment. Please
you, we have some poor viands within.

_Marg_. Indeed I stand in need of them.

_Sir W_. Under the shade of a thick-spreading tree,
Upon the grass, no better carpeting,
We'll eat our noontide meal; and, dinner done,
One of us shall repair to Nottingham,
To seek some safe night-lodging in the town,
Where you may sleep, while here with us you dwell,
By day, in the forest, expecting better times,
And gentler habitations, noble Margaret.

_Simon_. _Allons_, young Frenchman----

_Marg_. _Allons_, Sir Englishman. The time has been

I've studied love-lays in the English tongue,
And been enamor'd of rare poesy:
Which now I must unlearn. Henceforth,
Sweet mother-tongue, old English speech, adieu;
For Margaret has got new name and language new.

[_Exeunt_.


* * * * *


ACT THE THIRD.

SCENE.--_An Apartment of State in Woodvil Hall_.

_Cavaliers drinking_.

JOHN WOODVIL, LOVEL, GRAY, _and four more_.

_John_. More mirth, I beseech you, gentlemen--Mr. Gray, you are not
merry.--

_Gray_. More wine, say I, and mirth shall ensue in course. What! we
have not yet above three half-pints a man to answer for. Brevity is
the soul of drinking, as of wit. Despatch, I say. More wine.
(_Fills_.)

_1st Gent_. I entreat you, let there be some order, some method, in
our drinkings. I love to lose my reason with my eyes open, to commit
the deed of drunkenness with forethought and deliberation. I love to
feel the fumes of the liquor gathering here, like clouds.

_2nd Gent_. And I am for plunging into madness at once. Damn order,
and method, and steps, and degrees, that he speaks of. Let confusion
have her legitimate work.

_Lovel_. I marvel why the poets, who, of all men, methinks, should
possess the hottest livers, and most empyreal fancies, should affect
to see such virtues in cold water.

_Gray_. Virtue in cold water! ha! ha! ha!

_John_. Because your poet-born hath an internal wine, richer than
lippara or canaries, yet uncrushed from any grapes of earth,
unpressed in mortal wine-presses.

3_rd Gent_. What may be the name of this wine?

_John_. It hath as many names as qualities. It is denominated
indifferently, wit, conceit, invention, inspiration, but its most
royal and comprehensive name is _fancy_.

3_rd Gent_. And where keeps he this sovereign liquor?

_John_. Its cellars are in the brain, whence your true poet deriveth
intoxication at will; while his animal spirits, catching a pride from
the quality and neighborhood of their noble relative, the brain,
refuse to be sustained by wines and fermentations of earth.

3_rd Gent_. But is your poet-born always tipsy with this liquor?

_John_. He hath his stoopings and reposes; but his proper element is
the sky, and in the suburbs of the empyrean.

3_rd Gent_. Is your wine-intellectual so exquisite? henceforth, I, a
man of plain conceit, will, in all humility, content my mind with
canaries.

4_th Gent_. I am for a song or a catch. When will the catches come
on, the sweet wicked catches?

_John_. They cannot be introduced with propriety before midnight.
Every man must commit his twenty bumpers first. We are not yet well
roused. Frank Lovel, the glass stands with you.

_Lovel_. Gentlemen, the Duke. (_Fills_.)

_All_. The Duke. (_They drink_.)

_Gray_. Can any tell, why his Grace, being a Papist--

_John_. Pshaw! we will have no questions of state now. Is not this
his Majesty's birthday?

_Gray_. What follows?

_John_. That every man should sing, and be joyful, and ask no
questions.

2_nd Gent_. Damn politics, they spoil drinking.

3_rd Gent_. For certain, 'tis a blessed monarchy.

2_nd Gent_. The cursed fanatic days we have seen! The times have been
when swearing was out of fashion.

3_rd Gent_. And drinking.

1_st Gent_. And wenching.

_Gray_. The cursed yeas and forsooths, which we have heard uttered,
when a man could not rap out an innocent oath, but straight the air
was thought to be infected.

_Lovel_. 'Twas a pleasant trick of the saint, which that trim puritan
_Swear-not-at-all Smooth-speech_ used, when his spouse chid him with
an oath for committing with his servant-maid, to cause his house to
be fumigated with burnt brandy, and ends of scripture, to disperse
the devil's breath, as he termed it.

_All_. Ha! ha! ha!

_Gray_. But 'twas pleasanter, when the other saint
_Resist-the-devil-and-he-will-flee-from-thee Pureman_ was overtaken
in the act, to plead an illusio visus, and maintain his sanctity upon
a supposed power in the adversary to counterfeit the shapes of
things.

_All_. Ha! ha! ha!

_John_. Another round, and then let every man devise what trick he
can in his fancy, for the better manifesting our loyalty this day.

_Gray_. Shall we hang a puritan?

_John_. No, that has been done already in Coleman Street.

2_nd Gent_. Or fire a conventicle?

_John_. That is stale too.

3_rd Gent_. Or burn the Assembly's catechism?

4_th Gent_. Or drink the king's health, every man standing upon his
head naked?

_John (to Lovel)_. We have here some pleasant madness.

3_rd Gent_. Who shall pledge me in a pint bumper, while we drink to
the king upon our knees?

_Lovel_. Why on our knees, Cavalier?

_John_ (_smiling_). For more devotion, to be sure. (_To a servant_.)
Sirrah, fetch the gilt goblets.

[_The goblets are brought. They drink the King's health, kneeling.
A shout of general approbation following the first appearance
of the goblets._

_John_. We have here the unchecked virtues of the grape. How the
vapors curl upwards! It were a life of gods to dwell in such an
element: to see, and hear, and talk brave things. Now fie upon these
casual potations. That a man's most exalted reason should depend upon
the ignoble fermenting of a fruit, which sparrows pluck at as well as
we.

_Gray_ (_aside to Lovel_). Observe how he is ravished.

_Lovel_. Vanity and gay thoughts of wine do meet in him and engender
madness.

[_While the rest are engaged in a wild kind of talk_, JOHN _advances
to the front of the stage, and soliloquizes_.

_John_. My spirits turn to fire, they mount so fast.
My joys are turbulent, my hopes show like fruition.
These high and gusty relishes of life, sure,
Have no allayings of mortality in them.
I am too hot now, and o'ercapable,
For the tedious processes, and creeping wisdom,
Of human acts, and enterprises of a man.
I want some seasonings of adversity,
Some strokes of the old mortifier Calamity,
To take these swellings down, divines call vanity.

1_st Gent_. Mr. Woodvil, Mr. Woodvil.

2_nd Gent_. Where is Woodvil?

_Gray_. Let him alone. I have seen him in these lunes before. His
abstractions must not taint the good mirth.

_John_ (_continuing to soliloquize_). O for some friend, now,
To conceal nothing from, to have no secrets.
How fine and noble a thing is confidence,
How reasonable, too, and almost godlike!
Fast cement of fast friends, band of society,
Old natural go-between in the world's business,
Where civil life and order, wanting this cement,
Would presently rush back
Into the pristine state of singularity,
And each man stand alone.

(_A servant enters_.)

_Servant_. Gentlemen, the fireworks are ready.

1_st Gent_. What be they?

_Lovel_. The work of London artists, which our host has provided in
honor of this day.

2_nd Gent_. 'Sdeath, who would part with his wine for a rocket?

_Lovel_. Why truly, gentlemen, as our kind host has been at the pains
to provide this spectacle, we can do no less than be present at it.
It will not take up much time. Every man may return fresh and
thirsting to his liquor.

_3rd Gent_. There's reason in what he says.

_2d Gent_. Charge on then, bottle in hand. There's husbandry in that.

[_They go out, singing. Only_ LOVEL _remains, who observes_ WOODVIL.

_John_ (_still talking to himself_).
This Lovel here's of a tough honesty,
Would put the rack to the proof. He is not of that sort
Which haunt my house, snorting the liquors,
And when their wisdoms are afloat with wine,
Spend vows as fast as vapors, which go off
Even with the fumes, their fathers. He is one,
Whose sober morning actions
Shame not his o'ernight's promises;
Talks little, flatters less, and makes no promises;
Why this is he, whom the dark-wisdom'd fate
Might trust her counsels of predestination with,
And the world be no loser.
Why should I fear this man? [_Seeing_ LOVEL.
Where is the company gone?

_Lovel_. To see the fireworks, where you will be expected to follow.
But I perceive you are better engaged.

_John_. I have been meditating this half hour,
On all the properties of a brave friendship,
The mysteries that are in it, the noble uses,
Its limits withal, and its nice boundaries.
_Exempli gratia_, how far a man
May lawfully forswear himself for his friend;
What quantity of lies, some of them brave ones,
He may lawfully incur in a friend's behalf!
What oaths, blood-crimes, hereditary quarrels,
Night brawls, fierce words, and duels in the morning,
He need not stick at, to maintain his friend's honor, or his cause.

_Lovel_. I think many men would die for their friends.

_John_. Death! why,'tis nothing. We go to it for sport,
To gain a name or purse, or please a sullen humor,
When one has worn his fortune's livery threadbare,
Or his spleen'd mistress frowns. Husbands will venture on it,
To cure the hot fits and cold shakings of jealousy.
A friend, sir, must do more.

_Lovel_. Can he do more than die?

_John_. To serve a friend this he may do. Pray, mark me.
Having a law within (great spirits feel one)
He cannot, ought not, to be bound by any
Positive laws or ord'nances extern,
But may reject all these: by the law of friendship
He may do so much, be they, indifferently,
Penn'd statutes, or the land's unwritten usages,
As public fame, civil compliances,
Misnamed honor, trust in matter of secrets,
All vows and promises, the feeble mind's religion,
(Binding our morning knowledge to approve
What last night's ignorance spake;)
The ties of blood withal, and prejudice of kin.
Sir, these weak terrors
Must never shake me. I know what belongs
To a worthy friendship. Come, you shall have my confidence.

_Lovel_. I hope you think me worthy.

_John_. You will smile to hear now--
Sir Walter never has been out of the island.

_Lovel_. You amaze me.

_John_. That same report of his escape to France
Was a fine tale, forged by myself--
Ha! ha!
I knew it would stagger him.

_Lovel_. Pray, give me leave.
Where has he dwelt, how lived, how lain conceal'd?
Sure I may ask so much.

_John_. From place to place, dwelling in no place long,
My brother Simon still hath borne him company,
('Tis a brave youth, I envy him all his virtues).
Disguised in foreign garb, they pass for Frenchmen,
Two Protestant exiles from the Limousin
Newly arrived. Their dwelling's now at Nottingham,
Where no soul knows them.

_Lovel_. Can you assign any reason why a gentleman of Sir Walter's
known prudence should expose his person so lightly?

_John_. I believe, a certain fondness,
A childlike cleaving to the land that gave him birth,
Chains him like fate.

_Lovel_. I have known some exiles thus
To linger out the term of the law's indulgence,
To the hazard of being known.

_John_. You may suppose sometimes
They use the neighb'ring Sherwood for their sport,
Their exercise and freer recreation.--
I see you smile. Pray now, be careful.

_Lovel_. I am no babbler, sir; you need not fear me.

_John_. But some men have been known to talk in their sleep,
And tell fine tales that way.

_Lovel_. I have heard so much. But, to say truth, I mostly sleep
alone.

_John_. Or drink, sir? do you never drink too freely?
Some men will drink, and tell you all their secrets.

_Lovel_. Why do you question me, who know my habits?

_John_. I think you are no sot
No tavern-troubler, worshipper of the grape;
But all men drink sometimes,
And veriest saints at festivals relax,
The marriage of a friend, or a wife's birthday.

_Lovel_. How much, sir, may a man with safety drink?
[_Smiling_.

_John_. Sir, three half-pints a day is reasonable;
I care not if you never exceed that quantity.

_Lovel_. I shall observe it;
On holidays two quarts.

_John_. Or, stay; you keep no wench?

_Lovel_. Ha!

_John_. No painted mistress for your private hours?
You keep no whore, sir?

_Lovel_. What does he mean?

_John_. Who for a close embrace, a toy of sin,
And amorous praising of your worship's breath,
In rosy junction of four melting lips,
Can kiss out secrets from you?

_Lovel_. How strange this passionate behavior shows in you
Sure, you think me some weak one.

_John_. Pray pardon me some fears.
You have now the pledge of a dear father's life.
I am a son--would fain be thought a loving one;
You may allow me some fears: do not despise me,
If, in a posture foreign to my spirit,
And by our well-knit friendship, I conjure you,
Touch not Sir Walter's life. [_Kneels._
You see these tears. My father's an old man.
Pray let him live.

_Lovel_. I must be bold to tell you, these new freedoms
Show most unhandsome in you.

_John_ (_rising_). Ha! do you say so?
Sure, you are not grown proud upon my secret!
Ah! now I see it plain. He would be babbling.
No doubt a garrulous and hard-faced traitor--
But I'll not give you leave. [_Draws._

_Lovel_. What does this madman mean?

_John_. Come, sir; here is no subterfuge;
You must kill me, or I kill you.

_Lovel_ (_drawing_). Then self-defence plead my excuse.
Have at you, sir. [_They fight._

_John_. Stay, sir.
I hope you have made your will.
If not,'tis no great matter.
A broken cavalier has seldom much
He can bequeath; an old worn peruke,
A snuffbox with a picture of Prince Rupert,
A rusty sword he'll swear was used at Naseby,
Though it ne'er came within ten miles of the place;
And if he's very rich,
A cheap edition of the _Icon Basilike_,
Is mostly all the wealth he dies possest of.
You say few prayers, I fancy;--

So to it again. [_They fight again._ LOVEL _is disarmed._

_Lovel_. You had best now take my life. I guess you mean it.

_John_ (_musing_). No:--Men will say I fear'd him,
if I kill'd him.
Live still, and be a traitor in thy wish,
But never act thy thought, being a coward.
That vengeance, which thy soul shall nightly thirst for,
And this disgrace I've done you cry aloud for,
Still have the will without the power to execute.
So now I leave you,
Feeling a sweet security. No doubt
My secret shall remain a virgin for you!
[_Goes out, smiling in scorn_.

_Lovel_ (_rising_). For once you are mistaken in your man.
The deed you wot of shall forthwith be done,
A bird let loose, a secret out of hand,
Returns not back. Why, then 'tis baby policy
To menace him who hath it in his keeping.
I will go look for Gray;
Then, northward ho! such tricks as we shall play
Have not been seen, I think, in merry Sherwood,
Since the days of Robin Hood, that archer good.




ACT THE FOURTH.


SCENE.--_An Apartment in Woodvil Hall_.

JOHN WOODVIL. (_Alone_.)

A weight of wine lies heavy on my head,
The unconcocted follies of last night.
Now all those jovial fancies, and bright hopes,
Children of wine, go off like dreams.
This sick vertigo here
Preacheth of temperance, no sermon better.
These black thoughts, and dull melancholy,
That stick like burrs to the brain, will they ne'er leave me?
Some men are full of choler, when they are drunk;
Some brawl of matter foreign to themselves;
And some, the most resolved fools of all,
Have told their dearest secrets in their cups.


SCENE.--_The Forest_.

SIR WALTER. SIMON. LOVEL. GRAY.

_Lovel_. Sir, we are sorry we cannot return your French salutation.

_Gray_. Nor otherwise consider this garb you trust to than as a poor
disguise.

_Lovel_. Nor use much ceremony with a traitor.

_Gray_. Therefore, without much induction of superfluous words, I
attach you, Sir Walter Woodvil, of High Treason, in the King's name.

_Lovel_. And of taking part in the great Rebellion against our late
lawful Sovereign, Charles the First.

_Simon_. John has betrayed us, father.

_Lovel_. Come, sir, you had best surrender fairly. We know you, sir.

_Simon_. Hang ye, villains, ye are two better known than trusted. I
have seen those faces before. Are ye not two beggarly retainers,
trencher-parasites, to John? I think ye rank above his footmen. A
sort of bed and board worms--locusts that infest our house; a leprosy
that long has hung upon its walls and princely apartments, reaching
to fill all the corners of my brother's once noble heart.

_Gray_. We are his friends.

_Simon_. Fie, sir, do not weep. How these rogues will triumph! Shall
I whip off their heads, father?

[_Draws_.

_Lovel_. Come, sir, though this show handsome in you, being his son,
yet the law must have its course.

_Simon_. And if I tell ye the law shall not have its course, cannot
ye be content? Courage, father; shall such things as these apprehend
a man? Which of ye will venture upon me?--Will you, Mr. Constable
self-elect? or you, sir, with a pimple on your nose, got at Oxford by
hard drinking, your only badge of loyalty?

_Gray_. 'Tis a brave youth--I cannot strike at him.

_Simon_. Father, why do you cover your face with your hands? Why do
you fetch your breath so hard? See, villains, his heart is burst! O
villains, he cannot speak. One of you run for some water; quickly, ye
knaves; will ye have your throats cut?

[_They both slink off_.

How is it with you, Sir Walter? Look up, sir, the villains are gone.
He hears me not, and this deep disgrace of treachery in his son hath
touched him even to the death. O most distuned and distempered world,
where sons talk their aged fathers into their graves! Garrulous and
diseased world, and still empty, rotten and hollow _talking_ world,
where good men decay, states turn round in an endless mutability, and
still for the worse; nothing is at a stay, nothing abides but vanity,
chaotic vanity.--Brother, adieu!

There lies the parent stock which gave us life,
Which I will see consign'd with tears to earth.
Leave thou the solemn funeral rites to me,
Grief and a true remorse abide with thee.

[_Bears in the body_.


SCENE.--_Another Part of the Forest_.

_Marg_. (_alone_.) It was an error merely, and no crime,
An unsuspecting openness in youth,
That from his lips the fatal secret drew,
Which should have slept like one of nature's mysteries,
Unveil'd by any man.
Well, he is dead!
And what should Margaret do in the forest?
O ill-starr'd John!
O Woodvil, man enfeoff'd to despair!
Take thy farewell of peace.
O never look again to see good days,
Or close thy lids in comfortable nights,
Or ever think a happy thought again,
If what I have heard be true.--
Forsaken of the world must Woodvil live,
If he did tell these men.
No tongue must speak to him, no tongue of man
Salute him, when he wakes up in a morning;
Or bid "good-night" to John. Who seeks to live
In amity with thee, must for thy sake
Abide the world's reproach. What then?
Shall Margaret join the clamors of the world
Against her friend? O undiscerning world,
That cannot from misfortune separate guilt,
No, not in thought! O never, never, John.
Prepared to share the fortunes of her friend
_For better or for worse_, thy Margaret comes,
To pour into thy wounds a healing love,
And wake the memory of an ancient friendship.
And pardon me, thou spirit of Sir Walter,
Who, in compassion to the wretched living,
Have but few tears to waste upon the dead.


SCENE.--_Woodvil Hall._

SANDFORD. MARGARET. (_As from a Journey_.)

_Sand_. The violence of the sudden mischance hath so wrought in him,
who by nature is allied to nothing _less_ than a self-debasing humor
of dejection, that I have never seen anything more changed and
spirit-broken. He hath, with a peremptory resolution, dismissed the
partners of his riots and late hours, denied his house and person to
their most earnest solicitings, and will be seen by none. He keeps
ever alone, and his grief (which is solitary) does not so much seem
to possess and govern in him, as it is by Him, with a wilfulness of
most manifest affection, entertained and cherished.

_Marg_. How bears he up against the common rumor?

_Sand_. With a strange indifference, which, whosoever dives not into
the niceness of his sorrow might mistake for obdurate and insensate.
Yet are the wings of his pride forever clipt; and yet a virtuous
predominance of filial grief is so ever uppermost, that you may
discover his thoughts less troubled with conjecturing what living
opinions will say, and judge of his deeds, than absorbed and buried
with the dead, whom his indiscretion made so.

_Marg_. I knew a greatness ever to be resident in him, to which the
admiring eyes of men should look up even in the declining and
bankrupt state of his pride. Fain would I see him, fain talk with
him; but that a sense of respect, which is violated, when without
deliberation we press into the society of the unhappy, checks and
holds me back. How, think you, he would bear my presence?