Selected imaginary conversations

Henry. Dost thou know me, Nanny, in this yeoman's dress? 'S blood! does it require so long and vacant a stare to recollect a husband after a week or two? No tragedy-tricks with me! a scream, a sob, or thy kerchief a trifle the wetter, were enough. Why, verily the little fool faints in earnest. These whey faces, like their kinsfolk the ghosts, give us no warning. (Sprinkling water over her) Hast had water enough upon thee? take that then . . . art thyself again?

Anne. Father of mercies! do I meet again my husband, as was my last prayer on earth! do I behold my beloved lord . . . in peace . . . and pardoned, my partner in eternal bliss! It was his voice. I can not see him . . . why can not I? O why do these pangs interrupt the transports of the blessed!

Henry. Thou openest thy arms: faith! I came for that: Nanny, thou art a sweet slut: thou groanest, wench: art in labour? Faith! among the mistakes of the night, I am ready to think almost that thou hast been drinking, and that I have not.

Anne. God preserve your highness: grant me your forgiveness for one slight offence. My eyes were heavy; I fell asleep while I was reading; I did not know of your presence at first, and when I did I could not speak. I strove for utterance; I wanted no respect for my liege and husband.

Henry. My pretty warm nestling, thou wilt then lie! Thou wert reading and aloud too, with thy saintly cup of water by thee, and . . . what! thou art still girlishly fond of those dried cherries!

Anne. I had no other fruit to offer your highness the first time I saw you, and you wore then pleased to invent for mc some reason why they should ho acceptable. I did not dry these: may I present them, such as they are? We shall have fresh next month.

Henry. Thou art always driving away from the discourse. Ono moment it suits thee to know me, another not.

Anne. Remember, it is hardly three months since I miscarried; I am weak and liable to swoons.

Henry. Thou hast however thy bridal cheeks, with lustre upon them when there is none elsewhere, and obstinate lips resisting all impression: but now thou talkest about miscarrying, who is the father of that boy?

Anne. The father is yours and mine; he who hath taken him to his own home, before (like me) he could struggle or cry for it.

Henry. Pagan, or worse, to talk so! He did not come into the world alive: there was no baptism.

Anne. I thought only of our loss: my senses are confounded. I did not give him my milk, and yet I loved him tenderly; for I often fancied, had he lived, how contented and joyful he would have made you and England.

Henry. No subterfuges and escapes. I warrant, thou canst not say whether at my entrance thou wert waking or wandering.

Anne. Faintness and drowsiness came upon me suddenly.

Henry. Well, since thou really and truly sleepedst, what didst dream of?

Anne. I begin to doubt whether I did indeed sleep.

Henry. Ha! false one. . . never two sentences of truth together. . . but come, What didst think about, asleep or awake?

Anne. I thought that God had pardoned mo my offences, and had received me unto him.

Henry. And nothing more?

Anne. That my prayers had been heard and my wishes were accomplishing: the angels alone can enjoy more beatitude than this.

Henry. Vexatious little devil! she says nothing now about me, merely from perverseness. Hast thou never thought about me, nor about thy falsehood and adultery?

Anne. If I had committed any kind of falsehood, in regard to you or not, I should never have rested until I had thrown myself at your feet and obtained your pardon but if ever I had been guilty of that other crime, I know not whether I should have dared to implore it, even of God's mercy.

Henry. Thou hast heretofore cast some soft glances upon Smeaton; hast thou not?

Anne. He taught me to play on the virginals, as you know, when I was little, and thereby to please your highness.

Henry. And Brereton and Norris, what have they taught thee?

Anne. They are your servants, and trusty ones

Henry. Has not Weston told thee plainly that he loved thee?

Anne. Yes; and . . .

Henry. What didst thou?

Anne. I defied him.

Henry. Is that all?

Anne. I could have done no more if he had told me that he hated me. Then indeed I should have incurred more justly the reproaches of your highness: I should leave smiled.

Henry. We have proofs abundant: the fellows shall one and all confront thee . . . ay, clap thy bands and kiss my sleeve, harlot!

Anne. O that so great a favour is vouchsafed me! my honour is secure; nay husband will be happy again; he will see my innocence.

Henry. Give me now an account of the monies thou hast received from me within those nine months: I want them not back: they are letters of gold in record of thy guilt. Thou hast had no fewer than fifteen thousand pounds in that period, without even thy asking; what hast done with it, wanton?

Anne. I have regularly placed it out to interest.

Henry. Where? I demand of thee,

Anne. Among the needy and ailing. My lord archbishop has the account of it, sealed by him weekly: I also had a copy myself: those who took away my papers may easily find it, for there are few others, and they lie open.

Henry. Think on my munificence to thee; recollect who made thee. Dost sigh for what thou hast lost?

Anne. I do indeed.

Henry. I never thought thee ambitious; but thy vices creep out one by one.

Anne. I do not regret that I have been a queen and am no longer one; nor that my innocence is called in question by those who never knew me: but I lament that the good people who loved me so cordially, hate and curse me; that those who pointed me out to their daughters for imitation, check them when they speak about me; and that, he whom next to God I have served with most devotion, is my accuser.

Henry. Wast thou conning over something in that dingy book for thy defence? Come, tell me what wast thou reading?

Anne. This ancient chronicle. I was looking for some one in my own condition, and must have missed the page. Surely in so many hundred years, there shall have been other young maidens, first too happy for exaltation, and after too exalted for happiness: not perchance doomed to die upon a scaffold, by these they ever honoured and served faithfully: that indeed I did not look for nor think of: but my heart was bounding for anyone I could love and pity. She would be unto me as a sister dead and gone, but hearing me, seeing me, consoling me, and being consoled. O my husband, it is so heavenly a thing . . .

Henry. To whine and whimper, no doubt, is vastly heavenly.

Anne. I said not so: but those, if there be such, who never weep, have nothing in them of heavenly or of earthly. The plants, the trees, the very rocks and unsunned clouds, show us at least the semblances of weeping: and there is not an aspect of the globe we live on, nor of the waters and skies around it, without a reference and a similitude to our joys or sorrows.

Henry. I do not remember that notion anywhere. Take care no enemy rake out of it something of materialism. Guard well thy empty hot brain: it may hatch more evil. As for those odd words, I myself would fain see no great harm in them, knowing that grief and frenzy strike out many things, which would else lie still, and neither spirt nor sparkle. I also know that thou hash never read anything but bible and history, the two worst books in the world for young people, and the most certain to lead astray both prince and subject. For which reason I have interdicted and entirely put down the one, and will (by the blessing of the Virgin and of holy Paul) commit the other to a rigid censor. If it behoves us kings to enact what our people shall eat and drink, of which the most unruly and rebellions spirit can entertain no doubt, greatly more doth it behove us to examine what they read and think. The body is moved according to the mind and will: we must take care that the movement be a right one, on pain of God's auger in this life and the next.

Anne. O my dear husband! it must be a naughty thing indeed that makes him angry beyond remission. Did you ever try how pleasant it is to forgive anyone? There is nothing else wherein we can resemble God perfectly and easily.

Henry. Resemble God perfectly and easily! Do vile creatures talk thus of the Creator?

Anne. No, Henry, when his creatures talk thus of him, they are no longer vile creatures! When they know that he is good they love him, and when they love him they are good themselves. O Henry! my husband and king! the judgments of our Heavenly Father are righteous: on this surely we must think alike.

Henry. And what then? speak out: again I command thee, speak plainly: thy tongue was not so torpid but this moment. Art ready? must I wait?

Anne. If any doubt remains upon your royal mind of your equity in this business; should it haply seem possible to you that passion or prejudice, in yourself or another, may have warped so strong an understanding, do but supplicate the Almighty to strengthen and enlighten it, and he will hear you.

Henry. What! thou wouldst fain change thy quarters, ay?

Anne. My spirit is detached and ready, and I shall change them shortly, whatever your highness may determine. Ah! my native Bickling is a pleasant place. May I go back to it? Does that smile say yes? Do the hounds ever run that way now? The fruit-trees must be all in full blossom, and the gorse on the hill above quite dazzling. How good it was in you to plant your park at Greenwich after my childish notion, tree for tree, the very same as at Bickling! Has the hard winter killed them? or the winds loosened the stakes about them?

Henry. Silly child! as if thou shouldst see them any more.

Anne. Alas! what strange things happen! But they and I are nearly of the same age; young alike, and without hold upon anything.

Henry. Yet thou appearest pale and resolute, and (they tell me) smirkest and smilest to everybody.

Anne. The withered leaf catches the sun sometimes, little as it can profit by it; and I have heard stories of the breeze in other climates, that sets in when daylight is about to close, and how constant it is, and how refreshing. My heart indeed is now sustained strangely: it became the more sensibly so from that time forward, when power and grandeur and all things terrestrial were sunk from sight. Every act of kindness in those about me gives me satisfaction and pleasure, such I did not feel formerly. I was worse before God chastened me; yet I was never an ingrate. What pains have I taken to find out the village-girls who placed their posies in my chamber ere I arose in the morning! how gladly would I have recompensed the forester who lit up a brake on my birthnight, which else had warmed him half a winter! But these are times past: I was not Queen of England.

Henry. Nor adulterous, nor heretical.

Anne. God be praised!

Henry. Learned saint! thou knowest nothing f the lighter, but perhaps canst inform me about the graver of them.

Anne, Which may it be, my liege?

Henry. Which may it be, pestilence! I marvel that the walls of this tower do not crack around thee at such impiety.

Anne. I would be instructed by the wisest of theologians: such is your highness.

Henry. Are the sins of the body, foul as they are, comparable to those of the soul?

Anne. When they are united they must be worst.

Henry. Go on, go on: thou pushest thy own breast against the sword: God hath deprived thee of thy reason for thy punishment. I must hear more; proceed, I charge thee.

Anne. An aptitude to believe one thing rather than another, from ignorance or weakness, or from the more persuasive manner of the teacher, or from his purity of life, or from the strong impression of a particular text at a particular time, and various things beside, may influence and decide our opinion; and the hand of the Almighty, let us hope, will fall gently on human fallibility.

Henry. Opinion in matters of faith! rare wisdom! rare religion! Troth! Anne, thou hast well sobered me. I came rather warmly and lovingly; but these light ringlets, by the holy rood, shall not shade this shoulder much longer. Nay, do not start; I tap it for the last time, my sweetest. If the church permitted it, thou shouldst set forth on thy long journey with the eucharist between they teeth, however loth.

Anne. Love your Elizabeth, my honoured lord, and God bless you! She will soon forget to call me: do net chide her: think how young she is.

Henry. Could I, could I kiss her, but once again! it would comfort my heart ... or break it.

Godiva. There is a dearth in the land, my sweet Leofric! Remember how many weeks of drought we have had, even in the deep pastures of Leicestershire; and how many Sundays we have heard the same prayers for rain, and supplications that it would please the Lord in his mercy to turn aside his anger from the poor pining cattle. You, my dear husband, have imprisoned more than one malefactor for leaving his dead ox in the public way; and other hinds have fled before you out of the traces, in which they and their sons and their daughters, and haply their old fathers and mothers, were dragging the abandoned wain homeward. Although we were accompanied by many brave spearmen and skilful archers, it was perilous to pass the creatures which the farm-yard dogs, driven from the hearth by the poverty of their masters, were tearing and devouring; while others, bitten and lamed, filled the air either with long and deep howls or sharp and quick barkings, as they struggled with hunger and feebleness or were exasperated by heat and pain. Nor could the thyme from the heath, nor the bruised branches of the fir-tree, extinguish or abate the foul odour.

Leofric. And now, Godiva my darling, thou art afraid we should be eaten up before we enter the gates of Coventry; or perchance that in the gardens there are no roses to greet thee, no sweet herbs for thy mat and pillow.

Godiva. Leofric, I have no such fears. This is the month of roses: I find them everywhere since my blessed marriage: they, and all other sweet herbs, I know not why, seem to greet me wherever I look at them, as though they knew and expected me. Surely they cannot feel that I am fond of them.

Leofric. O light laughing simpleton! But what wouldst thou? I came not hither to pray; and yet if preying would satisfy thee, or remove the drought, I would ride up straight-way to Saint Michael's and pray until morning.

Godiva. I would do the same, O Leofric! but God hath turned away his ear from holier lips than mine. Would my own dear husband hear me, if I implored him for what is easier to accomplish? what he can do like God.

Leofric. How! what is it?

Godiva. I would not, in the first hurry of your wrath, appeal to you, my loving lord, in behalf of these unhappy men who have offended you.

Leofric. Unhappy! is that all?

Godiva. Unhappy they must surely be, to have offended you so grievously. What a soft air breathes over us! how quiet and serene and still an evening! how calm are the heavens and the earth! shall none enjoy them? not even we, my Leofric? The sun is ready to set: let it never set, O Leofric, on your anger. These are not my words; they are better than mine; should they lose their virtue from my unworthiness in uttering them?

Leofric. Godiva, wouldst thou plead to me for rebels?

Godiva. They have then drawn the sword against you! Indeed I knew it not.

Leofric. They have omitted to send me my dues, established by my ancestors, well knowing of our nuptials, and of the charges and festivities they require, and that in a season of such scarcity my own lands are insufficient.

Godiva. If they were starving, as they said they were. .

Leofric. Must I starve too? Is it not enough to lose my vassals?

Godiva. Enough! O God! too much! too much! may you never lose them! Give them life, peace, comfort, contentment. There are those among them who kissed me in my infancy, and who blessed me at the baptismal font. Leofric, Leofric! the first old man I meet I shall think is one of those; and I shall think on the blessing he gave, and (ah me!) on the blessing I bring back to him. My heart will bleed, will burst. . and he will weep at it! he will weep, poor soul! for the wife of a cruel lord who denounces vengeance on him, who carries death into his family.

Leofric. We must hold solemn festivals.

Godiva. We must indeed.

Leofric. Well then.

Godiva. Is the clamorousness that succeeds the death of God's dumb creatures, are crowded halls, are slaughtered cattle, festivals? are maddening songs and giddy dances, and hireling praises from parti-coloured coats? Can the voice of a minstrel tell us better things of ourselves than our own internal one might tell us; or can his breath make our breath softer in sleep? O my beloved! let everything be a joyance to us: it will, if we will. Sad is the day, and worse must follow, when we hear the blackbird in the garden and do not throb with joy. But, Leofric, the high festival is strown by the servant of God upon the heart of man. It is gladness, it is thanksgiving; it is the orphan, the starveling, pressed to the bosom, and bidden as its first commandment to remember its benefactor. We will hold this festival; the guests are ready: we may keep it up for weeks, and months, and years together, and always be the happier and the richer for it. The beverage of this feast, O Leofric, is sweeter than bee or flower or vine can give us: it flows from heaven; and in heaven will it abundantly be poured out again, to him who pours it out here unsparingly.

Leofric. Thou art wild.

Godiva. I have indeed lost myself. Some Power, some good kind Power, melts me (body and soul and voice) into tenderness and love. O, my husband, we must obey it. Look upon me! look upon me! lift your sweet eyes from the ground! I will not cease to supplicate; I dare not.

Leofric. We may think upon it.

Godiva. Never say that! What! think upon goodness when you can be good? Let not the infants cry for sustenance! The mother of our blessed Lord will hear them; us never, never afterward.

Leofric. Here comes the bishop: we are but one mile from the walls. Why dismountest thou? no bishop can expect it. Godiva! my honour and rank among men are humbled by this: Earl Godwin will hear of it: up! up! The bishop hath seen it: he urgeth his horse onward: dost thou not hear him now upon the solid turf behind thee?

Godiva. Never, no, never will I rise, O Leofric, until you remit this most impious tax, this tax on hard labour, on hard life.

Leofric. Turn round: look how the fat nag canters, as to the tune of a sinner's psalm, slow and hard-breathing. What reason or right can the people have to complain, while their bishop's steed is so sleek and well caparisoned? Inclination to change, desire to abolish old usages. . . Up! up! for shame! They shall smart for it, idlers! Sir bishop, I must blush for my young bride.

Godiva. My husband, my husband! will you pardon the city?

Leofric. Sir bishop! I could not think you would have seen her in this plight. Will I pardon? yea, Godiva, by the holy rood, will I pardon the city, when thou ridest naked at noontide through the streets.

Godiva. O my dear cruel Leofric, where is the heart you gave me! It was not so! can mine have hardened it?

Bishop. Earl, thou abashest thy spouse; she turneth pale and weepeth. Lady Godiva, peace be with thee.

Godiva. Thanks, holy man! peace will be with me when peace is with your city. Did you hear my lord's cruel word?

Bishop. I did, lady.

Godiva. Will you remember it, and pray against it?

Bishop. Wilt thou forget it, daughter?

Godiva. I am not offended.

Bishop. Angel of peace and purity!

Godiva. But treasure it up in your heart: deem it an incense, good only when it is consumed and spent, ascending with prayer and sacrifice. And now what was it?

Bishop. Christ save us! that he will pardon the city when thou ridest naked through the streets at noon.

Godiva. Did he not swear an oath?

Bishop. He sware by the holy rood.

Godiva. My Redeemer! thou hast heard it! save the city!

Leofric. We are now upon the beginning of the pavement: these are the suburbs: let us think of feasting: we may pray afterward: to-morrow we shall rest.

Godiva. No judgments then to-morrow, Leofric?

Leofric. None: we will carouse.

Godiva. The saints of heaven have given me strength and confidence: my prayers are heard: the heart of my beloved is now softened.

Leofric (aside). Ay, ay. . they shall smart, though.

Godiva. Say, dearest Leofric, is there indeed no other hope, no other mediation?

Leofric. I have sworn: beside, thou hast made me redden and turn my face away from thee, and all the knaves have seen it: this adds to the city's crime.

Godiva. I have blushed too, Leofric, and was not rash nor obdurate.

Leofric. But thou, my sweetest, art given to blushing; there is no conquering it in thee. I wish thou hadst not alighted so hastily and roughly: it hath shaken down a sheaf of thy hair: take heed thou sit not upon it, lest it anguish thee. Well done! it mingleth now sweetly with the cloth of gold upon the saddle, running here and there, as if it had life and faculties and business, and were working thereupon some newer and cunninger device. O my beauteous Eve! there is a Paradise about thee! the world is refreshed as thou movest and breathest on it. I cannot see or think of evil were thou art. I could throw my arms even here about thee. No signs for me! no shaking of sunbeams! no reproof or frown or wonderment. . . I will say it . . . now then for worse . . I could close with my kisses thy half-open lips, ay, and those lovely and loving eyes, before the people.

Godiva. To-morrow you shall kiss me, and they shall bless you for it. I shall be very pale, for to-night I must fast and pray.

Leofric. I do not hear thee; the voices of the folk are so loud under this archway.

Godiva. (to herself). God help them! Good kind souls! I hope they will not crowd about me so to-morrow. O Leofric! Could my name be forgotten! And yours remembered! But perhaps my innocence may save me from reproach! And how many as innocent are in fear and famine! No eye will open on me but fresh from tears. What a young mother for so large a family! Shall my youth harm me! Under God's hand it gives me courage. Ah, when will the morning come! Ah, when will the noon be over!

Brooke. I come again unto the woods and unto the wilds of Penshurst, whither my heart and the friend of my heart have long invited me.

Sidney. Welcome, welcome! How delightful it is to see a friend after a length of absence! How delightful to chide him for that length of absence, to which we owe such delight.

Brooke. I know not whether our names will be immortal; I am sure our friendship will. For names sound only upon the surface of the earth, while friendships are the purer, and the more ardent, the nearer they come to the presence of God, the sun not only of righteousness but of love. Ours never has been chipt or dimmed even here, and never shall be.

Sidney. Let me take up your metaphor. Friendship is a vase which, when it is flawed by heat or violence or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after. The more graceful and ornamental it was, the more clearly do we discern the hopelessness of restoring it to its former state. Coarse stones, if they are fractured, may be cemented again; precious ones never. And now, Greville, seat yourself under this oak; since, if you had hungered or thirsted from your journey, you would have renewed the alacrity of your old servants in the hall.

Brooke. In truth I did; for no otherwise the good household would have it. The birds met me first, affrightened by the tossing up of caps; and by these harbingers I knew who were coming. When my palfrey eyed them askance for their clamorousness, and shrank somewhat back, they quarrelled with him almost before they saluted me, and asked him many pert questions. What a pleasant spot, Sidney, have you chosen here for meditation! a solitude is the audience-chamber of God. Few days in our year are like this: there is a fresh pleasure in every fresh posture of the limbs, in every turn the eye takes.

Youth! credulous of happiness, throw down
Upon this turf thy wallet, stored and swoln
With morrow-morns, bird-eggs, and bladders burst,
That tires thee with its wagging to and fro:
Thou too wouldst breathe more freely for it, Age!
Who lackest heart to laugh at life's deceit.

It sometimes requires a stout push, and sometimes a sudden resistance, in the wisest men, not to become for a moment the most foolish. What have I done? I have fairly challenged you, so much my master.

Sidney. You have warmed me: I must cool a little and watch my opportunity. So now, Greville, return you to your invitations, and I will clear the ground for the company; for Youth, for Age, and whatever comes between, with kindred and dependencies. Verily we need no taunts like those in your verses: here we have few vices, and consequently few repinings. I take especial care that my young labourers and farmers shall never be idle, and I supply them with bows and arrows, with bowls and nine-pins, for their Sunday evening, lest they drink and quarrel. In church they are taught to love God; after church they are practised to love their neighbour; for business on workdays keeps them apart and scattered, and on market-days they are prone to a rivalry bordering on malice, as competitors for custom. Goodness does not more certainly make men happy then happiness makes them good. We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment: the course is then over; the wheel turns round but once; while the reaction of goodness and happiness is perpetual.

Brooke. You reason justly and you act rightly. Piety, warm, soft, and passive as the ether round the throne of Grace, is made callous and inactive by kneeling too much: her vitality faints under rigorous and wearisome observances. A forced match between a man and his religion sours his temper, and leaves a barren bed.

Sidney. Desire of lucre, the worst and most general country vice, arises here from the necessity of looking to small gains; it is, however, but the tartar that encrusts economy.

Brooke. I fear Avarice less from himself than from his associates, who fall upon a man the fiercest in old-age. Avarice (allow me to walk three paces further with Allegory) is more unlovely than mischievous, although one may say of him that he at last

Grudges the gamesome river-fish its food,
And shuts his heart against his own life's blood.

Sidney. We find but little of his handywork among the yeomanry, nor indeed much among those immediately above. The thriving squires are pricked and pinched by their eagerness to rival in expenditure those of somewhat better estate; for, as vanity is selfishness, the vain are usually avaricious, and they who throw away most, exact most. Penurious men are oftener just than spendthrifts.

Brooke. Oh that anything so monstrous should exist in this profusion and prodigality of blessings! The herbs, elastic with health, seem to partake of sensitive and animated life, and to feel under my hand the benediction I would bestow on them. What a hum of satisfaction in God's creatures! How is it, Sidney, the smallest do seem the happiest?

Sidney. Compensation for their weaknesses and their fears; compensation for the shortness of their existence. Their spirits mount upon the sunbeam above the eagle; and they have more enjoyment in their one summer than the elephant in his century.

Brooke. Are not also the little and lowly in our species the most happy?

Sidney. I would not willingly try nor overcuriously examine it. We, Greville, are happy in these parks and forests: we were happy in my close winter-walk of box and laurustine. In our earlier days did we not emboss our bosoms with the daffodils, and shake them almost unto shedding with our transport? Ay, my friend, there is a greater difference, both in the stages of life and in the seasons of the year, than in the conditions of men: yet the healthy pass through the seasons, from the clement to the inclement, not only unreluctantly but rejoicingly, knowing that the worst will soon finish, and the best begin anew; and we are desirous of pushing forward into every stage of life, excepting that alone which ought reasonably to allure us most, as opening to us the Via Sacra, along which we move in triumph to our eternal country. We labour to get through the moments of our life, as we would to get through a crowd. Such is our impatience, such our hatred of procrastination, in everything but the amendment of our practices and the adornment of our nature, one would imagine we were dragging Time along by force, and not he us. We may in some measure frame our minds for the reception of happiness, for more or for less; we should however well consider to what port we are steering in search of it, and that even in the richest its quantity is but too exhaustible. It is easier to alter the modes and qualities of it, than to increase its stores. There is a sickliness in the firmest of us, which induceth us to change our side, though reposing ever so softly; yet, wittingly or unwittingly, we turn again soon into our old position. Afterward, when we have fixed, as we imagine, on the object most desirable, we start extravagantly; and, blinded by the rapidity of our course toward the treasure we would seize and dwell with, we find another hand upon the lock--the hand of one standing in the shade--Death!

Brooke. There is often a sensibility in poets which precipitates 'em hither.

The winged head of Genius snakes surround,
As erstwhile poor Medusa's.

We however have defences against the shafts of the vulgar, and such as no position could give.

Sidney. God hath granted unto both of us hearts easily contented, hearts fitted for every station, because fitted for every duty. What appears the dullest may contribute most to our genius: what is most gloomy may soften the seeds and relax the fibres of gaiety. We enjoy the solemnity of the spreading oak above us: perhaps we owe to it in part the mood of our minds at this instant: perhaps an inanimate thing supplies me, while I am speaking, with whatever I possess of animation. Do you imagine that any contest of shepherds can afford them the same pleasure as I receive from the description of it; or that even in their loves, however innocent and faithful, they are so free from anxiety as I am while I celebrate them? The exertion of intellectual power, of fancy and imagination, keeps from us greatly more than their wretchedness, and affords us greatly more than their enjoyment. We are motes in the midst of generations: we have our sunbeams to circuit and climb. Look at the summits of the trees around us, how they move, and the loftiest the most: nothing is at rest within the compass of our view, except the grey moss on the park-pales. Let it eat away the dead oak, but let it not be compared with the living one.

Poets are in general prone to melancholy; yet the most so plaintive ditty hath imparted a fuller joy, and of longer duration, to its composer, than the conquest of Persia to the Macedonian. A bottle of wine bringeth as much pleasure as the acquisition of a kingdom, and not unlike it in kind: the senses in both cases are confused and perverted.

Brooke. Merciful Heaven! and for the fruition of an hour's drunkenness, from which they must awaken with heaviness, pain, and terror, men consume a whole crop of their kind at one harvest-home. Shame upon those light ones who carol at the feast of blood! and worse upon those graver ones who nail upon their escutcheon the name of great. Ambition is but Avarice on stilts and masked. God sometimes sends a famine, sometimes a pestilence, and sometimes a hero, for the chastisement of mankind; none of them surely for our admiration. Only some cause like unto that which is now scattering the mental fog of the Netherlands, and is preparing them for the fruits of freedom, can justify us in drawing the sword abroad.

Sidney. And only the accomplishment of our purpose can permit us again to sheathe it: for the aggrandisement of our neighbour is nought of detriment to us; on the contrary, if we are honest and industrious, his wealth is ours. We have nothing to dread while our laws are equitable and our impositions light: but children fly from mothers who strip and scourge them.

Brooke.

Across the hearse where homebred Law lies dead
Strides Despotism, and seems a bloated boy,
Who, while some coarse clown drives him, thinks he drives,
Shouting, with blear bluff face, give way, give way!

We are come to an age when we ought to read and speak plainly what our discretion tells us is fit: we are not to be set in a corner for mockery and derision, with our hands hanging down motionless, and our pockets turned inside-out.

Sidney. Let us congratulate our country on her freedom from debt, and on the economy and disinterestedness of her administrators; men altogether of eminent worth, afraid of nothing but of deviating from the broad and beaten path of illustrious ancestors, and propagating her glory in far-distant countries, not by the loquacity of mountebanks or the audacity of buffoons, nor by covering a tarnished sword-knot with a trim shoulder-knot, but by the mission of right learned, grave, and eloquent ambassadors. Triumphantly and disdainfully may you point to others.

While the young blossom starts to light
And heaven looks down serenely bright
On Nature's graceful form;
While hills and vales and woods are gay,
And village voices all breathe May,
Who dreads the future storm?

Where princes smile and senates bend,
What mortal e'er foresaw his end,
Or fear'd the frown of God
Yet has the tempest swept them off
And the oppressed with bitter scoff
Their silent marble trod.

To swell their pride, to quench their ire,
Did venerable Laws expire
And sterner forms arise:
Faith in their presence veiled her head,
Patience and Charity were dead,
And Hope beyond the skies.

But away, away with politics: let not this city-stench infect our fresh country-air.

Brooke. To happiness then, and unhappiness too, since we can discourse upon it without emotion. I know not, Philip, how it is, but certainly I have never been more tired with any reading than with dissertations upon happiness, which seems not only to elude inquiry, but to cast unmerciful loads of clay and sand and husks and stubble along the high road of the inquirer. Theologians and moralists, and even sound philosophers, talk mostly in a drawling so and dreaming way about it. He who said that virtue alone is happiness, would have spoken more truly in saying that virtue alone is misery, if alone means singly; for, beyond a doubt, the virtuous man meets with more opposites and opponents than any other, meets with more whose interests and views thwart his, and whose animosities are excited against him, not only by the phantom of interest, but by envy. Virtue alone cannot rebuff them; nor can the virtuous man, if only virtuous, live under them, I will not say contentedly and happily, I will say, at all. Self-esteem, we hear, is the gift of virtue, the golden bough at which the gates of Elysium fly open: but, alas! it is oftener, I am afraid, the portion of the strong-minded, and even of the vain, than of the virtuous. By the constant exertion of our best energies, we can keep down many of the thorns along the path of life; yet some will thwart us, whether we carry our book with us or walk without it, whether we cast our eyes on earth or on heaven. He who hath given the best definition of most things, hath given but an imperfect one here, informing us that a happy life is one without impediment to virtue. A happy life is not made up of negatives. Exemption from one thing is not possession of another. Had I been among his hearers, and could have uttered my sentiments in the presence of so mighty a master, I would have told him that the definition is still unfound, like the thing. A sound mind and sound body, which many think all-sufficient, are but receptacles for it. Happiness, like air and water, the other two great requisites of life, is composite. One kind of it suits one man, another kind another. The elevated mind takes in and breathes out again that which would be uncongenial to the baser, and the baser draws life and enjoyment from that which would be putridity to the loftier. Wise or unwise, who doubts for a moment that contentment is the cause of happiness? Yet the inverse is true: we are contented because we are happy, and not happy because we are contented. Well-regulated minds may be satisfied with a small portion of happiness; none can be happy with a small portion of content. In fact, hardly anything which we receive for truth, is really and entirely so, let it appear as plain as it may, and let its appeal be not only to the understanding, but to the senses; for our words do not follow them exactly; and it is by words we receive truth and express it.

I do not wonder that in the cloud of opinions and of passions (for where there are many of the one, there are usually some of the other) the clearer view of this subject should be intercepted: rather is it to be marvelled at, that no plain reasoning creature should in his privacy have argued thus:

'I am without the things which do not render those who possess them happier than I am: but I have those the absence of which would render me unhappy; and therefore the having of them should, if my heart is a sound one and my reason unperverted, render me content and blest! I have a house and garden of my own; I have competence; I have children. Take away any of these, and I should be sorrowful, I know not how long: give me any of those which are sought for with more avidity, and I doubt whether I should be happier twenty-four hours. He who has very much of his own, always has a project in readiness for some-what of another's: he who has very little, has not even the ground on which to lay it. Thus one sharp angle of wickedness and disquietude is broken off from him.'

Sidney. Since we have entered into no contest or competition, which of us shall sing or sermonize the other fast asleep, and since we rather throw out than collect ideas on the subject of our conversation, do not accuse me of levity, I am certain you will not of irreligion, if I venture to say that comforts and advantages, in this life, appear at first sight to be distributed by some airy, fantastic Beings, such as figure in the stories of the East. These generally choose a humpback slave or inconsiderate girl to protect and countenance: in like manner do we observe the ill-formed mind and instable character most immediately under the smiles of Fortune and the guidance of Prosperity; who, as the case is with lovers, are ardent and attached in proportion as they alight upon indifference and inconstancy.

Brooke. Yes, Happiness doats on her works, and is prodigal to her favourite. As one drop of water hath an attraction for another, so do felicities run into felicities. This course is marked by the vulgar with nearly the same expression as I have employed upon it: men say habitually a run of luck. And I wish that misfortunes bore no resemblance to it in their march and tendency; but these also swarm and cluster and hang one from another, until at last some hard day deadens all sense in them, and terminates their existence.

Sidney. It must be acknowledged, our unhappiness appears to be more often sought by us, and pursued more steadily, than our happiness. What courtier on the one side, what man of genius on the other, has not complained of unworthiness preferred to worth? Who prefers it? his friend? no: himself? no surely. Why then grieve at folly or injustice in those who have no concern in him, and in whom he has no concern? We are indignant at the sufferings of those who bear bravely and undeservedly; but a single cry from them breaks the charm that bound them to us. The English character stands high above complaining. I have indeed heard the soldier of our enemy scream at receiving a wound; I never heard ours. Shall the uneducated be worthy of setting an example to the lettered? If we see, as we have seen, young persons of some promise, yet in comparison to us as the colt is to the courser, raised to trust and eminence by a powerful advocate, is it not enough to feel ourselves the stronger men, without exposing our limbs to the passenger, and begging him in proof to handle our muscles? Those who distribute offices are sometimes glad to have the excuse of merit; but never give them for it. Only one subject of sorrow, none of complaint, in respect to court, is just and reasonable; namely, to be rejected or overlooked when our exertions or experience might benefit our country. Forbidden to unite our glory with hers, let us cherish it at home the more fondly for its disappointment, and give her reason to say afterward, she could have wished the union. He who complains deserves what he complains of. Religions, languages, races of men, rise up, flourish, decay; and just in the order I assign to them. O my friend! is it nothing to think that this hand of mine, over which an insect is creeping, and upon which another more loathsome one ere long will pasture, may hold forth to my fellow men, by resolution of heart in me and perseverance, those things which shall outlive the least perishable in the whole dominion of mortality? Creatures, of whom the best and weightiest part are the feathers in their caps, and of whom the lightest are their words and actions, curl their whiskers and their lips in scorn upon similar meditations.

Let us indulge in them; they are neither weak nor idle, having been suckled by Wisdom and taught to walk by Virtue. We have never thrown away the keepsakes that Nature has given us, nor bartered them for toys easily broken in the public paths of life.

Brooke. Argue then no longer about courts and discontents: I would rather hear a few more verses; for a small draught increases the thirst of the thirsty.

Sidney. To write as the ancients have written, without borrowing a thought or expression from them, is the most difficult thing we can achieve in poetry. I attempt no composition which I foresee will occupy more than an hour or two, so that I can hardly claim any rank among the poets; yet having once collected, in my curiosity, all the Invocations to Sleep, ancient and modern, I fancied it possible to compose one very differently; which, if you consider the simplicity of the subject and the number of those who have treated it, may appear no easy matter.

Sleep! who contractest the waste realms of Night,
None like the wretched can extol thy powers:
We think of thee when thou art far away,
We hold thee dearer than the light of day,
And most when Love forsakes us wish thee ours:
O hither bend thy flight!

Silent and welcome as the blessed shade
Alcestis to the dark Thessalian hall,
When Hercules and Death and Hell obey'd
Her husband's desolate despondent call.

What fiend would persecute thee, gentle Sleep,
Or beckon thee aside from man's distress?
Needless it were to warn thee of the stings
That pierce my pillow, now those waxen wings
Which bore me to the sun of happiness,
Have dropt into the deep.

Brooke. If I cannot compliment you, as I lately complimented a poet on the same subject, by saying, May all the gods and goddesses be as propitious to your Invocation, let me at least congratulate you that everything here is fiction.

Sidney. There are sensible men who would call me to an account for attempting to keep up with the ancients, and then running downhill among the moderns, and more especially for expatiating in the regions of Romance. The fastidious and rigid call it bad taste: and I am afraid they have Truth for their prompter. But this, I begin to suspect, is rather from my deficiency of power and judgment, than because the thing in itself is wrong. Chivalry in the beginning was often intemperate and inhumane: afterward the term became synonymous with valorous courtesy. Writers, and the Public after them, now turn it into ridicule. But there is surely an incentive to noble actions in the deference we bear toward our ladies; and to carry it in my bosom is worth to me all the applauses I could ever receive from my prince. If the beloved keep us from them farther than arm's length for years together, much indeed we regret that our happiness is deferred, but more that theirs is. For pride, and what is better than pride, our pure conscience tells us, that God would bestow on us the glory of creating it; of all terrestrial glory far the greatest.

Brooke. To those whose person and manners, and exalted genius, render them always and everywhere acceptable, it is pleasing to argue in this fashion.

Sidney. Greville! Greville! it is better to suffer than to lose the power of suffering. The perception of beauty, grace, and virtue, is not granted to all alike. There are more who are contented in an ignoble union on the flat beaten earth before us, than there are who, equally disregarding both unfavourable and favourable clamours, make for themselves room to stand on an elevated and sharp-pointed summit, and thence to watch the motions and scintillations, and occasional overcloudings, of some bright distant star. Is it nothing to have been taught, apart from the vulgar, those graceful submissions which afford us a legitimate pride when we render them to the worthy? Is there no privilege in electing our own sovereign? no pleasure in bending heart and soul before her? I will never believe that age itself can arrest so vivid an emotion, or that his deathbed is hard or uneasy, who can bring before it even the empty image he has long (though in vain) adored. That life has not been spent idly which has been mainly spent in conciliating the generous affections, by such studies and pursuits as best furnish the mind for their reception. How many, who have abandoned for public life the studies of philosophy and poetry, may be compared to brooks and rivers, which in the so beginning of their course have assuaged our thirst, and have invited us to tranquillity by their bright resemblance of it, and which afterward partake the nature of that vast body whereinto they run, its dreariness, its bitterness, its foam, its storms, its everlasting noise and commotion! I have known several such; and when I have innocently smiled at them, their countenance seemed to say, 'I wish I could despise you: but alas! I am a runaway slave, and from the best of mistresses to the worst of masters; I serve at a tavern where every hour is dinner-time, and pick a bone upon a silver dish.' And what is acquired by the more fortunate among them? they may put on a robe and use a designation which I have no right to: my cook and footman may do the same: one has a white apron, the other has red hose; I should be quite as much laughed at if I assumed them. A sense of inferior ability is painful: this I feel most at home: I could not do nearly so well what my domestics do; what the others do I could do better. My blushes are not at the superiority I have given myself, but at the comparison I must go through to give it.

Two poets cannot walk or sit together easily while they have any poetry about them: they must turn it out upon the table or the grass or the rock or the road-side. I shall call on you presently; take all I have in the meanwhile.

Afar behind is gusty March!
Again beneath a wider arch

The birds that fear'd grim winter fly:
O'er every pathway trip along
Light feet, more light with frolic song,
And eyes glance back, they know not why.

Say, who is that of leaf so rank,
Pushing the violet down the bank
With hearted spearhead glossy-green?
And why that changeface mural box
Points at the myrtle, whom he mocks,
Regardless what her cheer hath been?

The fennel waves her tender plume;
Mezereons, cloth'd with thick perfume,
And almonds urge the lagging leaf:
Ha! and so long then have I stood
And not observ'd thee, modest bud,
Wherefrom will rise their lawful chief!

O never say it, if perchance
Thou crown the cup or join the dance,
Neither in anger nor in sport;
For Pleasure then would pass me by,
The Graces look ungraciously,
Love frown, and drive me from his court.

Brooke. Considering the chances and changes of humanity, I wish I were as certain that Pleasure will never pass you by, as I am that the Graces will never look on you ungraciously.

Sidney. So little am I ashamed of the hours I spend in poetry, even a consciousness that the poetry itself is bad never leads me to think the occupation is. Foliage, herbage, pebbles, may put in motion the finer parts of the mind; and although the first things it throws off be verses, and indifferent ones, we are not to despise the cultivator of them, but to consider him as possessing the garden of innocence, at which the great body of mankind looks only through the gate.

In the corner formed by the court-wall, sheltered and sunny, I found, earlier in the season than usual, a little rose-bud, which perhaps owed its existence to my cutting the plant in summer, when it began to intrude on the path, and had wetted the legs of the ladies with the rain it held. None but trifling poetry could be made out of this, yet other than trifling pleasure was.

Brooke. Philip, I can give you only spoiled flowers for unspoiled and unopened ones: will you accept them?

Sidney. Gladly.

Brooke. On what occasion and for whom my verses were composed, you may at once discover. Deem it enough for me to premise in elucidation, that women have no favour or mercy for the silence their charms impose on us. Little are they aware of the devotion we are offering to them, in that state whereinto the true lover is ever prone to fall, and which appears to them inattention, indifference, or moroseness. We must chirp before them eternally, or they will not moisten our beaks in our cages. They like praise best, we thanksgiving.

Sidney. Unfold the paper. What are you smiling at?

Brooke. The names of the speakers. I call one 'Poet,' the other 'Lady.' How questionably the former! how truly the latter! But judge.

Poet. Thus do you sit and break the flow'rs
That might have lived a few short hours,
And lived for you! Love, who o'erpowers
My youth and me, Shows me the petals idly shed,
Shows me my hopes as early dead,
In vain, in vain admonished
By all I see.

Lady. And thus you while the noon away,
Watching me strip my flowers of gay
Apparel, just put on for May,
And soon laid by!
Can not you teach me one or two
Fine phrases? If you can, pray do,
Since you are grown too wise to woo,
To listen I.

Poet. Lady, I come not here to teach,
But learn, the moods of gentle speech;
Alas! too far beyond my reach
Are happier strains.
Many frail leaves shall yet lie pull'd,
Many frail hopes in death-bed lull'd,
Or ere this outcast heart be school'd
By all its pains.

Sidney. Let me hope that here is only
A volant shadow, just enough to break
The sleeping sunbeam of soft idleness.

Brooke. When a woman hath ceased to be quite the same to us, it matters little how different she becomes.

Sidney. Hush! I will hear from you no sentiment but your own, and this can never be yours. Variations there are of temperature in the first season; and the truest heart has not always the same pulsations. If we had nothing to pardon or be pardoned, we might appear to be more perfect than we are, but we should in fact be less so. Self-love is ungenerous and unforgiving; love grieves and forgives. Whatever there may be lying hid under those leaves and blossoms shall rest there until our evening walk; we having always chosen the calmest hours of the most beautiful days for our discourses on love and religion. Something of emotion, I cannot doubt, arose in your breast as you were writing these simple lines; yet I am certain it was sweet and solacing. Imagination should always be the confidant, for she is always the calmer, of Passion, where Wisdom and Virtue have an equally free admittance.

Let us now dismiss until evening comes (which is much the best time for them) all these disquisitions, and let us talk about absent friends.

Brooke. We must sit up late, if I am to tell you of all yours.

Sidney. While the weather is so temperate and genial, and while I can be out-of-doors, I care not how late I tarry among

Night airs that make tree-shadows walk, and sheep
Washed white in the cold moonshine on gray cliffs.

Our last excess of this nature was nearer the sea, where, when our conversation paused awhile, in the stillness of mid-night we heard the distant wave break heavily. Their sound, you remarked, was such as you could imagine the to sound of a giant might be, who, coming back from travel unto some smooth and still and solitary place, with all his armor and all his spoils about him, casts himself slumberously down to rest.