Amenities of Literature Part 23

They were even rendered more attractive by the expressive woodcuts which palpably appealed to a sense which required no "cunning" to comprehend.

Their piety and their terror were long excited by that variety of Satan and his devils, which were exhibited to their appalled imaginations--the the mouth of h.e.l.l gaping wide, and the crowd of the d.a.m.ned driven in by the flaming pitchforks. "The Calendar of Shepherds," originally a translation from the French, was a popular handbook, and rich were its contents--a perpetual almanac, the saints' days, with the signs of the zodiac, a receptacle of domestic receipts, all the wisdom of proverbs, and all the mysteries of astrology, divinity, politics, and geography, mingled in verse and prose. It was the encyclopaedia for the poor man, and even for some of his betters.

The courtly favourites of a former age descended from the oriel window to the cottage-lattice; perpetuated in our "chap-books," sold on the stalls of fairs, and mixed with the wares of "the chapman," they became the books of the people. "The Gestes" of Guy of Warwick and Sir Bevis of Hampton, and other fabulous heroes of chivalry, have been recognised in their humble disguise of the "Tom Thumb," and "Tom Hickathrift," and "Jack the Giant-Killer" of the people.

In France their "bibliotheque bleue," books now in the shape of pamphlets, deriving their name from the colour of their wrappers, preserves the remains of the fugitive literature of the people; and in Italy to this day several of the old romances of chivalry are cut down to a single paul's purchase, and delight the humble buyers.[7] Guerin Meschino, of native origin, still retains his popularity. In Germany some patriotic antiquaries have delighted to collect this household literature of the illiterate. The Germans, who, more than any other nation, seem to have cherished the hallowed feelings of the homestead, have a term to designate this cla.s.s of literature; they call these volumes _Volksbucher_, or "the people's books."

There existed a more intimate intercourse between the vernacular writers of Germany and our own than appears yet to have been investigated. "The Merry Jests of Howleglas," most delectable to the people from their grossness and their humour, is of German origin; and it has been recently discovered that "The History of Friar Rush," which perplexed the researches of Ritson, is a literal prose version of a German poem, printed in 1587.[8] "Reynard the Fox"--a most amusing aesopian history--an exquisite satire on the vices of the clergy, the devices of courtiers, and not sparing majesty itself--an intelligible manual of profound Machiavelism, displaying the trickery of circ.u.mventing and supplanting, and parrying off opponents by sleights of wit--was translated by Caxton from the Dutch.[9]

This political fiction has been traced in several languages to an earlier period than the thirteenth century. The learned Germans hold it to be a complete picture of the feudal manners; and Heineccius, one of the most able jurists, declares that it has often a.s.sisted him in clearing up the jurisprudence of Germany, and that for the genius of the writer the volume deserves to be ranked with the cla.s.sics of antiquity.

The writer probably had good reasons for concealing his name, but his intimacy with a Court-life is apparent. He has dexterously described the wiles of Reynard, whose cunning overreached his opponents; his wit, his learning, his humour, and knowledge of mankind, are of no ordinary degree; and this favourite satire contributed, no less than the works of Erasmus, of Rabelais, and of Boccaccio, to pave the way for the Reformation. It was among the earliest productions of the press in Germany and in England, and became so popular here that on the old altar-piece of Canterbury cathedral are several paintings taken from this pungent satire. The modern Italian poet, CASTI, seems to have borrowed the plan of his famous political satire "Gl' Animali Parlanti"

from Reynard the Fox.

The Germans have occasionally borrowed from us, as we also from the Italian jest-books, many of our "tales and quick answers;" the facetiae of Poggius and Domenichi, and others, have been a fertile source of our own.

All tales have wings, whether they come from the east or the north, and they soon become denizens wherever they alight. Thus it has happened that the tale which charmed the wandering Arab in his tent, or cheered the Northern peasant by his winter-fire, alike held on its journey toward England and Scotland. Dr. Leyden was surprised when he first perused the fabliaux of "The Poor Scholar," "The Three Thieves," and "The s.e.xton of Cluni," to recognise the popular stories which he had often heard in infancy. He was then young in the poetical studies of the antiquary, or he would not have been at a loss to know whether the Scots drew their tales from the French, or the French from their Scottish intercourse; or whether they originated with the Celtic, or the Scandinavian, or sometimes even with the Orientalists.

The genealogy of many a tale, as well as the humours of native jesters, from the days of Henry the Eighth to those of Joe Miller, who, as somebody has observed, now, too, begins to be ancient, may be traced not only to France, to Spain, and to Italy, but to Greece and Rome, and at length to Persia and to India. Our most familiar stories have afforded instances. The tale of "Whittington and his Cat," supposed to be indigenous to our country, was first narrated by Arlotto, in his "Novella delle Gatte," in his "Facetie," which were printed soon after his death, in 1483; the tale is told of a merchant of Genoa. We must, however, recollect that Arlotto had been a visitor at the Court of England. The other puss, though without her boots, may be seen in Straparola's "Piacevoli Notti." The familiar little Hunchback of the "Arabian Nights" has been a universal favourite; it may be found everywhere; in "The Seven Wise Masters," in the "Gesta Romanorum," and in Le Grand's "Fabliaux." The popular tale of Llywellyn's greyhound, whose grave we still visit at Bethgelert, Sir William Jones discovered in Persian tradition, and it has given rise to a proverb, "As repentant as the man who killed his greyhound." In "Les Maximes des Orientaux" of Galland, we find several of our popular tales.

"Bluebeard," "Red-riding Hood," and "Cinderella," are tales told alike in the nurseries of England and France, Germany and Denmark; and the domestic warning to the Lady Bird, the chant of our earliest day, is sung by the nurse of Germany.[10] All nations seem alike concerned in this copartnership of tale-telling; borrowing, adulterating, clipping, and even receiving back the identical coin which had circulated wherever it was found. Douce, one of whose favourite pursuits was tracing the origin and ramification of tales, to my knowledge could have afforded a large volume of this genealogy of romance; but that volume probably reposes for the regale of the next century, that literary antiquary being deterred by caustic reviewers from the publication of his useful researches.

The people, however, did not advance much in intelligence, even after the discovery of printing, for new works, which should have been designed for popular purposes, were still locked up in a language which none spoke and only the scholar read; and this, notwithstanding a n.o.ble example had been set by the Italians to the other nations of Europe. In the early days of our printing, the vernacular productions of the press were thrown out to amuse the children of society, fashioned as their toys. We have an abundance of poetical and prose facetiae, all of which were solely adapted to the popular taste, and some of the writers of which were eminent persons. Few but have heard of "The Merry Tales of the Madmen of Gotham," and of "Scogin's Jests, full of witty mirth and pleasant shifts." These facetious works are said to be "gathered" by Andrew Borde,[11] a physician and humorist of a very original cast of mind, and who professedly wrote for "the Commonwealth," that is, the people, many other works on graver topics, not less seasoned with drolleries. He was the first who composed medical treatises in the vernacular idiom. His "Breviarie of Health" is a medical dictionary, and held to be a "jewel" in his time, as Fuller records. In this alphabetical list of all diseases, his philosophy reaches to the diseases of the mind, whose cure he combines with that of the body, the medicine and the satire often pleasantly ill.u.s.trating each other. From the "Dietarie of Health" the modern apostles of regimen might expand their own revelations; it contains many curious matters, not only on diet, but on the whole system of domestic economy, even to the building of a house, regulating a family, and choosing a good air to dwell in, &c. Another of his books, "The Introduction of Knowledge," is a miscellany of great curiosity, describing the languages and manners of different countries; in it are specimens of the Cornish, Welsh, Irish, and Scotch languages, as also of the Turkish and Egyptian, and others, and the value of their coins. The apt yet concise discrimination of the national character of every people is true to the hour we are writing.

The writings of Borde incidentally preserve curious notices of the domestic life and of the customs and arts of that period. Whitaker, in his history of Whalley, has referred to his directions for the construction of great houses, in ill.u.s.tration of our domestic architecture. In all his little books much there is which the antiquary and the philosopher would not willingly pa.s.s by.

Andrew Borde was one of those eccentric geniuses who live in their own sphere, moving on principles which do not guide the routine of society.

He was a Carthusian friar; his hair-shirt, however, could never mortify his unvarying facetiousness; but if he ever rambled in his wits, he was a wider rambler, even beyond the boundaries of Christendom, "a thousand or two and more myles;" an extraordinary feat in his day. He took his degree at Montpelier, was incorporated at Oxford, and admitted into the College of Physicians in London, and was among the physicians of Henry the Eighth. His facetious genius could not conceal the real learning and the practical knowledge which he derived from personal observation.

Borde has received hard measure from our literary historians. This ingenious scholar has been branded by Warton as a mad physician. To close the story of one who was all his days so facetious, we find that this Momus of philosophers died in the Fleet. This was the fate of a great humorist, neither wanting in learning or genius.

It is said that such was his love of "the commonwealth," that he sometimes addressed them from an open stage, in a sort of gratuitous lecture, as some amateurs of our own days have delighted to deliver; and from whence has been handed down to us the term of "MERRY-ANDREW."

In the limited circles which then divided society, the taste for humour was very low. We had not yet reached to the witty humours of Shakspeare and Jonson. Sir Thomas More's "Long Story," in endless stanzas, which Johnson has strangely placed among the specimens of the English language, was held as a tale of "infinite conceit," a.s.suredly by the great author himself, who seems to have communicated this sort of taste to one of his family. Rastall, the learned printer, brother-in-law of More, and farther, the grave abbreviator of the statutes in English, issued from his press in 1525, "The Widow Edith's Twelve Merrie Gestys."

She was a tricking widow, renowned for her "lying, weeping, and laughing," an ancient mumper, who had triumphed over the whole state spiritual, and the temporality: travelling from town to town in the full practice of dupery and wheedling, to the admiration of her numerous victims. The arts of cheatery were long held to be facetious; most of the "Merrie Jests" consist of stultifying fools, or are sharping tricks, practised on the simple children of dupery. There is a stock of this base coinage. This taste for dupery was carried down to a much later period; for the "Merrie conceited jests of George Peele," and of Tarleton, are chiefly tricks of sharpers.

"The Hye Way to the Spyttel Hous," or as we should say, "the road to ruin," exposes the mysteries and craft of the venerable brotherhood of mendicancy and imposture; their ingenious artifices to attract the eye, and their secret orgies concealed by midnight; all that flourishes now in St. Giles's, flourished then in the Barbican. Not long after we have the first vocabulary of cant language of "The Fraternitye of Vacabondes:" whose honorary t.i.tles cannot be yet placed in Burke's Extinct Peerage.

There were attacks on the fair s.e.x in those days which were parried by their eulogies. We seem to have been early engaged in that battle of the s.e.xes, where the perfections or the imperfections of the female character offered themes for a libel or a panegyric. From the days of Boccaccio, the Italians have usually paid their tribute to "ill.u.s.trious women," notwithstanding the free insinuations of some malicious novelists; that people preceded in the refinement of social life the tramontani. England and France, in their ruder circle of society, contracted a cynicism which appears in a variety of invectives and apologies for the beautiful s.e.x.

One of the most popular attacks of this sort was "The School-house of Women," a severe satire, published anonymously. One of the heaviest charges is their bitter sarcasm on the new dresses of their friends. The author, one Edward Gosynhyll, charmed, no doubt, by his successful onset, and proud in his victory, threw off the mask; mending his ambidextrous pen for "The Praise of all Women," called "Mulierum Pean,"

he acknowledged himself to be the writer of "The School-house." Probably he thought he might now do so with impunity, as he was making the _amende honorable_. Whether this saved the trembling Orpheus from the rage of the Bacchantes, our scanty literary history tells not; but his defence is not considered as the least able among several elicited by his own attack.

"The Wife lapped in Morels' Skins, or the Taming of a Shrew," was the favourite tale of the Petruchios of those days, where a haughty dame is softened into a degrading obedience by the brutal command of her mate; a tale which some antiquaries still chuckle over, who have not been so venturous as this hero.[12]

All these books, written for the people, were at length consumed by the hands of their mult.i.tudinous readers; we learn, indeed, in Anthony a Wood's time, that some had descended to the stalls; but at the present day some of these rare fugitive pieces may be unique. This sort of pamphlet, Burton, the anatomist of melancholy, was delighted to heap together: and the collection formed by such a keen relish of popular humours, he actually bequeathed to the Bodleian Library, where, if they are kept together, they would answer the design of the donor; otherwise, such domestic records of the humours and manners of the age, diffused among the general ma.s.s, would bear only the value of their rarity.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mr. Ellis has preserved it entire, with notes which make it intelligible to any modern reader.

[2] Percy's "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," ii. 1.--"The liberty of abasing their kings and princes at pleasure, a.s.sumed by the good people of this realm, is a privilege of very long standing."

[3] The Political Songs of England have been recently given by Mr.

Thomas Wright, to whom our literature owes many deep obligations. [In the series of volumes published by the Camden Society.]

[4] _Lewed_ Mr. Campbell interprets _low_, which is not quite correct. Hearne explains the term as signifying "the laity, laymen, and the illiterate."--The _layman_ was always considered to be _illiterate_, by the devices of the monks.

[5] It is to be regretted that Mr. JAMIESON, in his "Popular Ballads," was unavoidably prevented enlarging this cla.s.s of his songs. He has given the carols of the _Boatmen_, the _Corn-grinders_, and the _Dairy-women_.--Jamieson's "Popular Ballads," ii. 352. [See also "Curiosities of Literature," vol. ii., p. 142, for an article on Songs of Trades, or Songs of the People. A volume of "Songs of the English Peasantry" was published by the Percy Society; and several others are given with the tunes in Chappell's "Popular Music of the Olden Time."]

[6] Hearne's "Preface to Peter Langtoft's Chronicle," x.x.xvii.

[7] The curious researches of a French antiquary in this cla.s.s of literature are given in the two octavo volumes ent.i.tled "Histoire des Livres Populaires, ou de la Litterature du Colportage," (Paris, 1854,) by M. Chas. Nisard, who was appointed to the task by a Royal Commission.--ED.

[8] "Foreign Quarterly Review," vol. 18. [It is reprinted in the first Volume of Thoms' "Early English Prose Romances."]

[9] It has been frequently reprinted, and recently in Germany, as a _livre de luxe_, ill.u.s.trated with admirable designs by Kaulbach.--ED.

[10] Weber. "Brit. Bib.," vol. iv.--The German song of the Ladybird is beautifully versified in the preface to "German Popular Stories,"

by the late Edgar Taylor.

[11] A calamity to which wits are incident is that of having their names prefixed to collections to give them currency. I do not know whether this has not happened to our author. "The Merry Tales of the Madmen of Gotham" are no doubt of great antiquity; they are characterised by a peculiar simplicity of silliness. "Scogin's Jests," of the sixty which we have, a very few tradition may have preserved, but they must have received in the course of time the addition of pointless jests, tales marred in the telling, and some things neither jest nor tale; and it is remarkable that these are always accompanied by an inane moralisation, while the more tolerable appear to be preserved in their original condition. Some future researcher may be so fortunate as to compare them with the first editions if they exist.

John Scogin was a gentleman of good descent, who was invited to court by Edward the Fourth for the pleasantry of his wit; he was a caustic Democritus, and gave rise to a proverbial phrase, "What says Scogin?"

If he usually said two-thirds of what is ascribed to him in this volume, he had never given rise to a proverb. "The Merry Tales of the Madmen of Gotham" have been recently reprinted by Mr. Halliwell.

[12] Several of these pieces are preserved in Mr. Utterson's "Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry." This attack on women proved not a theme less fertile among our neighbours; how briskly the skirmish was carried on the notice of a single writer will show:--"Alphabet de l'Imperfection et Malice des Femmes, par J. Olivier, licencier aux loix, et en droit-canon," 1617; three editions of which appeared in the course of two years. This blow was repelled by "Defense des Femmes contre l'Alphabet de leur pretendue Malice," by Vigoureux, 1617; the first author rejoined with a "Reponse aux Impertinences de l'Aposte Capitaine Vigoureux," by Olivier, 1617. The fire was kept up by an ally of Olivier, in "Replique a l'Anti-Malice du Sieur Vigoureux," by De la Bruyere, 1617. At a period earlier than this conflict, the French had, as well as ourselves, many works on the subject.

THE DIFFICULTIES EXPERIENCED BY A PRIMITIVE AUTHOR.

Sir Thomas Elyot is the first English prose writer who avowedly attempted to cultivate the language of his country. We track the prints of the first weak footsteps in this new path; and we detect the aberrations of a mind intent on a great popular design, but still vague and uncertain, often opposed by contemporaries, yet cheered by the little world of his readers.

ELYOT for us had been little more than a name, as have been many retired students, from the negligence of contemporaries, had he not been one of those interesting authors who have let us into the history of their own minds, and either prospectively have delighted to contemplate on their future enterprises, or retrospectively have exulted in their past labours.

This amiable scholar had been introduced at Court early in life; his "great friend and crony was Sir Thomas More;" so plain Anthony a Wood indicates the familiar intercourse of two great men. Elyot was a favourite with Henry the Eighth, and employed on various emba.s.sies, particularly on the confidential one to Rome to negotiate the divorce of Queen Katherine. To his public employments he alludes in his first work, "The Governor," which "he had gathered as well of the sayings of most n.o.ble authors, Greek and Latin, as by his own experience, he being continually trained in some daily affairs of the public weal from his childhood."

A pa.s.sion for literature seems to have prevailed over the ambition of active life, and on his return from his last emba.s.sy he decided to write books "in our vulgar tongue," on a great variety of topics, to instruct his countrymen. The diversity of his reading, and an unwearied pen, happily qualified, in this early age of the literature of a nation, a student who was impatient to diffuse that knowledge which he felt he only effectually possessed in the degree, and in the s.p.a.ce, which he communicated it.

His first elaborate work is ent.i.tled, "The Boke of the Governor, devised by Sir Thomas Elyot," 1531,--a work once so popular, that it pa.s.sed through seven or eight editions, and is still valued by the collectors of our ancient literature.

"The Governor" is one of those treatises which, at an early period of civilization, when general education is imperfect, becomes useful to mould the manners and to inculcate the morals which should distinguish the courtier and the statesman. Elyot takes his future "Governor" in the arms of his nurse, and places the ideal being amid all the scenes which may exercise the virtues, or the studies which he developes. The work is dedicated to Henry the Eighth. The design, the imaginary personage, the author and the patron, are equally dignified. The style is grave; and it would not be candid in a modern critic to observe that, in the progress of time, the good sense has become too obvious, and the perpetual ill.u.s.trations from ancient history too familiar. The erudition in philology of that day has become a schoolboy's learning. They had then no other volumes to recur to of any authority, but what the ancients had left.

Elyot had a notion that, for the last thousand years, the world had deteriorated, and that the human mind had not expanded through the course of ages. When he compared the writers of this long series of centuries, the babbling, though the subtle, schoolmen, who had chained us down to their artificial forms, with the great authors of antiquity, there seemed an appearance of truth in his decision. Christianity had not yet exhibited to modern Europe the refined moralities of Seneca, and the curious knowledge of Plutarch, in the homilies of Saints and Fathers; nor had its histories of man, confined to our monkish annalists, emulated the narrative charms of Livy, nor the grandeur of Tacitus. Of the poets of antiquity, Elyot declared that the English language, at the time he wrote, could convey nothing equivalent, wanting even words to express the delicacies, "the turns," and the euphony of the Latin verse.

A curious evidence of the jejune state of the public mind at this period appears in this volume. Here a learned and grave writer solemnly sets forth several chapters on "that honest pastime of dancing," in which he discovers a series of modern allegories. The various figures and reciprocal movements between man and woman, "holding each other by the hand," indicate the order, concord, prudence, and other virtues so necessary for the common weal. The _singles_ and _reprinses_ exhibit the virtue of circ.u.mspection, which excites the writer to a panegyric of the father of the reigning sovereign. These ethics of the dance contain some curious notices, and masters in the art might hence have embellished their treatises on the philosophy of dance; for "in its wonderful figures, which the Greeks do call _idea_, are comprehended so many virtues and n.o.ble qualities." It is amusing to observe how men willingly become the dupes of their fancies, by affecting to discover motives and a.n.a.logies, the most unconnected imaginable with the objects themselves.

Long after our polished statesman wrote, the Puritan excommunicated the sinful dancer, and detected in the graceful evolutions of "the honour,"

the "brawl," and the "single," with all their moral movements, the artifices of Satan, and the perdition of the souls of two partners, dancing too well. It was the mode of that age thus to moralise, or allegorise, on the common acts of life, and to sanction their idlest amus.e.m.e.nts by some religious motive. At this period, in France, we find a famous _Veneur_, Gaston Phebus, opening his treatise on "hunting" in the spirit that Elyot had opened to us the mysteries of dancing. "By hunting, we escape from the seven mortal sins, and therefore, the more we hunt, the salvation of our souls will be the more secure. Every good hunter in this world will have joyance, glee, and solace, (_joyeusete, liesse, et deduit_,) and secure himself a place in Paradise, not perhaps in the midst, but in the suburbs, because he has shunned idleness, the root of all evil."