The Town Part 41

He perfectly understood in his art, what is the most difficult in ours, the conduct of the back-ground, by which the design and invention are set off to the greatest advantage. What the back-ground is in painting, in architecture is the real ground on which the building is erected; and no architect took greater care that his work should not appear crude and hard; that is, that it did not abruptly start out of the ground without expectation or preparation. This is a tribute which a painter owes to an architect who composed like a painter, and was defrauded of the due reward of his merit by the wits of his time, _who did not understand the principles of composition in poetry better than he, and who knew little or nothing of what he understood perfectly--the general ruling principles of architecture and painting_. Vanbrugh's fate was that of the great Perrault. Both were the objects of the petulant sarcasms of factious men of letters, and both have left some of the fairest monuments which, to this day, decorate their several countries;--the facade of the Louvre; Blenheim, and Castle Howard."[333] Perrault, however, had a worse fate than Vanbrugh, for the Frenchman was ridiculed not only as an architect but as a man of letters, whereas our author's pretensions that way were acknowledged.

In the front of Scotland Yard an extraordinary adventure befell Lord Herbert of Cherbury--(_see_ Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields), who relates it in a strain of c.o.xcombry (particularly about the ladies) which would have brought discredit upon such a story from any other pen. There is no doubt, however, that the story is true.

"There was a lady," says his lords.h.i.+p, "wife to Sir John Ayres, knight, who finding some means to get a copy of my picture from Larkin, gave it to Mr. Isaac, the painter, in Blackfriars, and desired him to draw it in little, after his manner; which being done, she caused it to be set in gold and enamelled, and so wore it about her neck so low that she hid it under her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which I conceive, coming afterwards to the knowledge of Sir John Ayres, gave him more cause of jealousie than needed, had he known how innocent I was from pretending to anything that might wrong him or his lady, since I could not so much as imagine that either she had my picture, or that she bare more than ordinary affection to me. It is true, that as she had a place in court, and attended Queen Anne, and was beside of an excellent wit and discourse, she had made herself a considerable person. Howbeit, little more than a common civility ever pa.s.sed betwixt us; though I confess I think no man was welcomer to her when I came, for which I shall allege this pa.s.sage:--

"Coming one day into her chamber, I saw her through the curtains lying upon her bed with a wax candle in one hand, and the picture I formerly mentioned in the other. I coming thereupon somewhat boldly to her, she blew out the candle and hid the picture from me: myself thereupon being curious to know what that was she held in her hand, got the candle to be lighted again, by means whereof I found it was my picture she looked upon with more earnestness and pa.s.sion than I could easily have believed, especially since myself was not engaged in any affection towards her. I could willingly have omitted this pa.s.sage, but that it was the beginning of a b.l.o.o.d.y history which followed: howsoever, yet I must before the eternal G.o.d clear her honour. And now in court a great person sent for me divers times to attend her; which summons, though I obeyed, yet G.o.d knows I declined coming to her as much as conveniently I could without incurring her displeasure; and this I did, not only for very honest reasons, but, to speak ingenuously, because that affection pa.s.sed between me and another lady (who I believe was the fairest of her time) as nothing could divert it. I had not been long in London, when a violent burning fever seized upon me, which brought me almost to my death, though at last I did by slow degrees recover my health. Being thus upon my amendment, the Lord Lisle, afterwards Earl of Leicester, sent me word, that Sir John Ayres intended to kill me in my bed; and wished me to keep guard upon my chamber and person.

The same advertis.e.m.e.nt was confirmed by Lucy, Countess of Bedford, and the Lady Hobby, shortly after. Hereupon I thought fit to entreat Sir William Herbert, now Lord Powis, to go to Sir John Ayres, and tell him that I marvelled much at the information given me by these great persons, and that I could not imagine any sufficient ground hereof; howbeit, if he had anything to say to me in a fair and n.o.ble way, I would give him the meeting as soon as I had got strength enough to stand on my legs. Sir William hereupon brought me so ambiguous and doubtful an answer from him, that, whatsoever he meant, he would not declare yet his intention, which was really, as I found afterwards, to kill me any way that he could." The reason, Lord Herbert tells us, was, that Sir John, though falsely, accused him of having seduced his wife. "Finding no means thus to surprise me," continues the n.o.ble lord, "he sent me a letter to this effect; that he desired to meet me somewhere, and that it might so fall out as I might return quietly again. To this I replied, that if he desired to fight with me on equal terms, I should, upon a.s.surance of the field and fair play, give him meeting when he did any way specify the cause, and that I did not think fit to come to him upon any other terms, having been sufficiently informed of his plots to a.s.sa.s.sinate me.

"After this, finding he could take no advantage against me, then in a treacherous way he resolved to a.s.sa.s.sinate me in this manner;--hearing I was to come to Whitehall on horseback with two lacqueys only, he attended my coming back in a place called Scotland Yard, at the hither end of Whitehall, as you come to it from the Strand, hiding himself here with four men armed to kill me. I took horse at Whitehall Gate, and, pa.s.sing by that place, he being armed with a sword and dagger, without giving me so much as the least warning, ran at me furiously, but instead of me, wounded my horse in the brisket, as far as his sword could enter for the bone; my horse hereupon starting aside, he ran him again in the shoulder, which, though it made the horse more timorous, yet gave me time to draw my sword: his men thereupon encompa.s.sed me, and wounded my horse in three places more; this made my horse kick and fling in that manner, as his men durst not come near me, which advantage I took to strike at Sir John Ayres with all my force, but he warded the blow both with his sword and dagger; instead of doing him harm, I broke my sword within a foot of the hilt; hereupon, some pa.s.senger that knew me, observing my horse wounded in so many places, and so many men a.s.saulting me, and my sword broken, cried to me several times, 'Ride away, ride away;' but I scorning a base flight upon what terms soever, instead thereof alighted as well I could from my horse; I had no sooner put one foot upon the ground than Sir John Ayres, pursuing me, made at my horse again, which the horse perceiving, pressed on me on the side I alighted, in that manner, that he threw me down, so that I remained flat upon the ground, only one foot hanging in the stirrup, with that piece of a sword in my right hand. Sir John Ayres hereupon ran about the horse, and was thrusting his sword into me, when I, finding myself in this danger, did with both my arms reaching at his legs pull them towards me, till he fell down backwards on his head; one of my footmen hereupon, who was a little Shrops.h.i.+re boy, freed my foot out of the stirrup, the other, who was a great fellow, having run away as soon as he saw the first a.s.sault; this gave me time to get upon my legs and to put myself in the best posture I could with that poor remnant of a weapon; Sir John Ayres by this time likewise was got up, standing betwixt me and some part of Whitehall, with two men on each side of him, and his brother behind him, with at least twenty or thirty persons of his friends, or attendants on the Earl of Suffolk; observing thus a body of men standing in opposition against me, though to speak truly I saw no swords drawn but Sir John Ayres' and his men, I ran violently against Sir John Ayres, but he, knowing my sword had no point, held his sword and dagger over his head, as believing I could strike rather than thrust, which I no sooner perceived but I put a home thrust to the middle of his breast, that I threw him down with so much force, that his head fell first to the ground and his heels upwards; his men hereupon a.s.saulted me, when one Mr. Mansel, a Glamorgans.h.i.+re gentleman, finding so many set against me alone, closed with one of them; a Scotch gentleman also, closing with another, took him off also: all I could well do to those that remained was to ward their thrusts, which I did with that resolution that I got ground upon them.

Sir John Ayres was now got up a third time, when I making towards him with intention to close thinking, that there was otherwise no safety for me, put by a thrust of his with my left hand, and so coming within him, received a stab with his dagger on my right side, which ran down my ribs as far as my hips, which I feeling, did with my right elbow force his hand, together with the hilt of the dagger, so near the upper part of my right side, that I made him leave hold. The dagger now sticking in me, Sir Henry Carey, afterwards Lord of Faulkland, and Lord Deputy of Ireland, finding the dagger thus in my body, s.n.a.t.c.hed it out; this while I, being closed with Sir John Ayres, hurt him on the head and threw him down a third time, when kneeling on the ground and bestriding him, I struck at him as hard as I could with my piece of a sword, and wounded him in four several places, and did almost cut off his left hand; his two men this while struck at me, but it pleased G.o.d even miraculously to defend me, for when I lifted up my sword to strike at Sir John Ayres, I bore off their blows half a dozen times; his friends now finding him in this danger, took him by the head and shoulders and drew him from betwixt my legs, and carrying him along with them through Whitehall, at the stairs whereof he took boat, Sir Herbert Croft (as he told me afterwards) met him upon the water vomiting all the way, which I believe was caused by the violence of the first thrust I gave him; his servants, brother, and friends, being now retired also, I remained master of the place and his weapons, having first wrested his dagger from him, and afterwards struck his sword out of his hand.

"This being done, I retired to a friend's house in the Strand, where I sent for a surgeon, who, searching my wound on the right side, and finding it not to be mortal, cured me in the s.p.a.ce of some ten days, during which time I received many n.o.ble visits and messages from some of the best in the kingdom. Being now fully recovered of my hurts, I desired Sir Robert Harley to go to Sir John Ayres, and tell him, that though I thought he had not so much honour left in him, that I could be in any way ambitious to get it, yet that I desired to see him in the field with his sword in his hand; the answer that he sent me was (repeating the charge above mentioned) 'that he would kill me with a musket out of a window.'

"The Lords of the Privy Council, who had at first sent for my sword, that they might see the little fragment of a weapon with which I had so behaved myself, as perchance the like had not been heard in any credible way, did afterwards command both him and me to appear before them; but I, absenting myself on purpose, sent one Humphrey Hill with a challenge to him in an ordinary, which he refusing to receive, Humphrey Hill put it upon the point of his sword, and so let it fall before him and the company then present.

"The Lords of the Privy Council had now taken order to apprehend Sir John Ayres, when I, finding nothing else to be done, submitted myself likewise to them. Sir John Ayres had now published everywhere that the ground of his jealousie, and consequently of his a.s.saulting me, was drawn from the confession of his wife, the Lady Ayres. She, to vindicate her honour, as well as free me from this accusation, sent a letter to her aunt, the Lady Crook, to this purpose: that her husband, Sir John Ayres, did lie falsely, ... but most falsely of all did lie when he said he had it from her confession, for she had never said any such thing.

"This letter the Lady Crook presented to me most opportunely, as I was going to the Counsell table before the Lords, who, having examined Sir John Ayres concerning the cause of his quarrel with me, found him still to persist on his wife's confession of the fact; and now, he being withdrawn, I was sent for, when the Duke of Lennox, afterwards of Richmond, telling me that was the ground of his quarrel, and the only excuse he had for a.s.saulting me in that manner, I desired his lords.h.i.+p to peruse the letter, which I told him was given me as I came into the room; this letter being publicly read by a clerk of the Counsell, the Duke of Lennox then said, that he thought Sir John Ayres the most miserable man living, for his wife had not only given him the lie, as he found by the letter, but his father had disinherited him for attempting to kill me in that barbarous fas.h.i.+on, which was most true, as I found afterwards;--for the rest, that I might content myself with what I had done, it being more almost than could be believed, but that I had so many witnesses thereof; for all which reasons, he commanded me in the name of his Majesty, and all their lords.h.i.+ps, not to send any more to Sir John Ayres, nor to receive any message from him, in the way of fighting, which commandment I observed: howbeit, I must not omit to tell, that some years afterwards Sir John Ayres, returning from Ireland by Beaumaris, where I then was, some of my servants and followers broke open the doors of the house where he was, and would, I believe, have cut him into pieces, but that I, hearing thereof, came suddenly to the house and recalled them, sending him word also that I scorned to give him the usage he gave me, and that I would set him free of the town, which courtesie of mine (as I was told afterwards) he did thankfully acknowledge."[334]

FOOTNOTES:

[319] Page 143.

[320] Pennant, p. 112. He quotes Archenholz's Tableau d'Angleterre, 183.

[321] State Trials, _ut supra_, vol. v., p. 1236.

[322] Id. pp. 1284, 1286.

[323] State Trials, vol. v., p. 1282.

[324] Scott's Edition of "Dryden," vol. ix., p. 270.

[325] See the life of him by his retainer Fairfax, and the account of him on his deathbed in the "Collection of Letters of several Persons of Quality and others."

[326] MSS. Birch, 4221, quoted in the Notes of the Tatler, _ut supra_, vol. i., p. 208.

[327] Life of Prior in the "Lives of the Poets."

[328] New Monthly Magazine, vol. xvii., p. 140.

[329] Memoirs of the Life and Writings of De Foe, 1829, vol. ii., p.

116.

[330] Pennant, p. 110.

[331] Extracted from Salisbury's Flying Post, of October 27, 1696, in Malcolm's Manners and Customs of London to the year 1700, vol. i., p.

396.

[332] See State Trials, _ut supra_, "Egerton's Memoirs of Mrs.

Oldfield;" "Swift's Great and Mean Figures," vol. xvii., 1765; and the "History of Orlando the Fair, in the Tatler," as above, Nos. 50 and 51. "The author of Memoirs of Fielding in the Select Trials," says a note on the latter number, "admits, that for all the ludicrous air and pleasantry of this narration (Steele's), the truth of facts and character is in general fairly represented."

[333] Discourses delivered at the Royal Academy. Sharpe's Edition, vol. ii., pp. 113, 115.

CHAPTER X.

WOLSEY AND WHITEHALL.

Regal Character of Whitehall -- York Place -- Personal and Moral Character of Wolsey -- Comparison of him with his Master, Henry -- His Pomp and Popularity -- Humorous Account of his Flatterers by Sir Thomas More -- Importance of his Hat -- Cavendish's Account of his household State, his goings forth in Public, and his entertainments of the King.

The whole district containing all that collection of streets and houses, which extends from Scotland Yard to Parliament Street, and from the river side, with its wharfs, to St. James's Park, and which is still known by the general appellation of Whitehall, was formerly occupied by a sumptuous palace and its appurtenances, the only relics of which, perhaps the n.o.blest specimen, is the beautiful edifice built by Inigo Jones, and retaining its old name of the Banqueting House.

As this palace was the abode of a series of English sovereigns, beginning with Henry the Eighth, who took it from Wolsey, and terminating with James the Second, on whose downfall it was destroyed by fire, we are now in the very thick of the air of royalty; and so being, we mean to lead a princely life with the reader for a couple of chapters,--whether he take the word "princely" in a good or ill sense, as first in magnificence and authority, or in wilfulness and profusion. Cavendish, Holinshed, and the poets, will enable us to live with Wolsey, with Henry, and with Elizabeth; Wilson and the poets, with James the First; Clarendon, Pepys, and others with Charles the First, Cromwell, Charles the Second, and his brother. We shall eat and drink, and swell into most unapostolical pomp, with the great Cardinal; shall huff and fume with Henry, and marry pretty Anne Bullen in a closet (Lingard says in a "garret"); send her to have her head cut off as if nothing had happened; be an everlasting young old gentlewoman with Queen Elizabeth, enamouring people's eyes at seventy; drink and splutter, and be a great baby, with King James; have a taste, and be henpecked, and not very sincere, yet melancholy and much to be pitied, with poor Charles the First; be uneasy, secret, and energetic, and like a crowned Methodist preacher, or an old dreary piece of English oak (choose which you will) with Oliver Cromwell; saunter, squander, and be gay, and periwigged, and laughing, and ungrateful, and liked, and despised, and have twenty mistresses, and look as grim and swarthy, and with a face as full of lines, as if we were full of melancholy and black bile, with Charles the Second; and, finally, have all his melancholy, and none of his wit and mirth, with his poor, dreary, bigoted brother James.

"Now, this is wors.h.i.+pful society."

Whether it be happy or not, or enviable by the least peasant who can pay his way and sleep heartily, will be left to the judgment of the reader.

The site of Whitehall was originally occupied by a mansion built by Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, and Chief Justice of England in the reign of Henry the Third, one of the ancestors of the present Marquess of Clanricarde. De Burgh bequeathed it to the Brotherhood of the Black Friars, near "Oldborne," in whose church he was buried; the Brotherhood sold it to Walter Gray, Archbishop of York, who left it to his successors in that see as the archiepiscopal residence, which procured it the name of York Place; and under that name, two centuries and a half afterwards, it became celebrated for the pomp and festal splendour of the "full-blown" priest, Wolsey, the magnificent butcher's son. Wolsey, on highly probable evidence, is thought to have so improved and enlarged the mansion of his predecessors, as to have in a manner rebuilt it, and given it its first royalty of aspect: but, as we shall see by and by, it was not called Whitehall, nor occupied anything like the s.p.a.ce it did afterwards, till its seizure by the Cardinal's master.

We have always thought the epithet of "full-blown," as applied to Wolsey, the happiest poetical hit ever made by Dr. Johnson:

"In full-blown dignity see Wolsey stand, Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand."

His ostentation, his clerical robes, his very corpulence, and his subsequent _fading_, all conspire to render the image felicitous.

Wolsey is the very flower of priestly prosperity--fat, full-blown, gorgeous, called into life by suns.h.i.+ne; the very odours he was fond of carrying in his hand, become a part of his efflorescence; one imagines his cheek florid, and his huge, silken vestments expanding about him, like bloated petals. Anon, the blast blows from the horrid royal mouth: the round flower hangs its head; it lays its dead neck on the earth; and in its room, is a loathed weed.

Wolsey, however, did not grow to be what he was with the indolence of a flower. He began his career with as much personal as mental activity, rendered himself necessary to the indolence of a young and luxurious Sovereign,--in fact, became his Sovereign's will in another shape, relieving the royal person of all trouble, and at the same time securing all his wishes, from a treaty down to a mistress; and hence, as he himself intimated, the whole secret of his prosperity. He had industry, address, eloquence, the power of pleasing, the art (till success spoilt him) of avoiding whatever was unpleasant. He could set his master at ease with himself, in the smallest points of discourse, as well as on greater occasions. Henry felt no misgiving in his presence. He beheld in his lordly and luxurious agent a second self, with a superior intellect, artfully subjected to his own, so as to imply intellectual as well as royal superiority; and he loved the priestly splendour of Wolsey, because, in setting the church so high, and at the same time carrying himself so loyally, the churchman only the more elevated the Prince. The moment the great servant appeared as if he could do without the greater master, by a fortune superior to failure in his projects, Henry's favour began to give way; and when the princely churchman, partly in the heedlessness arising from long habits of security, and partly in the natural resentment of a superior mind, expressed a doubt whether his Sovereign was acting with perfect justice towards him, his doom was sealed. Kings never forgive a wound to their self-love. They have been set so high above fellows.h.i.+p by their fellow-creatures, that they feel, and in some measure they have a right to feel, the least intimation of equality, much more of superiority, as an offence, especially when it is aggravated by a secret sense of the justice of the pretension; and all Wolsey's subsequent self-abas.e.m.e.nts could not do away with that stinging recollection, pleased as Henry was to widen the distance between them, and recover his own att.i.tude of self-possession by airs of princely pity. Wolsey was a sort of Henry, himself--wilful, worldly, and fat, but with more talents and good-nature; for he appears to have been a man of rare colloquial abilities, and, where he was not opposed in large matters, of a considerate kindliness. He was an attached as well as affable master; and his consciousness of greater merit in himself would never have suffered him to send a couple of poor light-hearted girls to the scaffold, for bringing the royal marriage-bed into some shadow of a doubt of its sacredness. He would have sent them to a nunnery, and had a new marriage, without a tragedy in it, like a proper Christian Sultan! Had Henry been in Wolsey's place, he would have proposed to set up the Inquisition; and King Thomas would have reproved him, and told him that such severities did not become two such fat and jolly believers as they.

The people appear to have liked Wolsey much. They enjoyed his pomp as a spectacle, and pitied his fall. They did not grudge his pomp to one who was so generous. Besides, they had a secret complacency in the humbleness of his origin, seeing that he rose from it by real merit.

Those that quarrelled with him for his pride, were proud n.o.bles and grudging fellow-divines. It is pretty clear that Shakspeare, who was such a "good fellow" himself, had a regard for Wolsey as another. He takes opportunities of echoing his praises, and dresses his fall in robes of pathos and eloquence. As to a true feeling of religion, it is out of the question in considering Wolsey's history and times. It was not expected of him. It was not the fas.h.i.+on or the morality of the day. It was sufficient that the Church made its way in the world, and secretly elevated the interests of literature and scholars.h.i.+p along with it. A king in those times was regarded as a visible G.o.d upon earth, not thoroughly well behaved, but much to be believed in; and if the Church could compete with the State, it was hoped that more perfect times would somehow or other ensue. A good deal of license was allowed it on behalf of the interests of better things--a singular arrangement, and, as the event turned out, not likely to better itself quite so peaceably as was hoped for; but it was making the best, under the circ.u.mstances, of the old perplexity between "the shows of things, and the desires of the mind." Wolsey (as the prosperous and the upper cla.s.ses are apt to do in all ages) probably wors.h.i.+pped success itself as the final proof of all which the divine Governor of the world intended, in his dealings with individuals or society. Hence his proud swelling while possessed of it, and his undisguised tears and lamentations during his decline. He talks with his confidants about the King and good fortune, like a boy crying for a cake, and they respectfully echo his groans, and evidently think them not at all inconsistent, either with manliness or wisdom.

There was a breadth of character in all that Wolsey thought, did, and suffered--in his strength and in his weakness. In his prosperity he set no bounds to his pomp; in adversity he cries out and calls upon the G.o.ds, not affecting to be a philosopher. When he was angry he huffed and used big words, like his master; when in good humour, he loaded people with praise; and he loved a large measure of it himself, he issued forth, with his goodly bulk and huge garments, and expected a wors.h.i.+p a.n.a.logous to his amplitudes. There is a pa.s.sage written with great humour by Sir Thomas More, which, according to Dr. Wordsworth (the poet's brother), is intended, "no doubt, to represent the Cardinal at the head of his table." What reasons the doctor has for not doubting the application, we cannot say, and therefore do not think ourselves any more justified than inclined to dispute them. The supposition is highly probable. Wolsey must have offered a fine dramatic spectacle to the eyes of a genius like More. We shall therefore copy the pa.s.sage for the reader's entertainment, from a note in Mr. Singer's excellent edition of the Cardinal's Life by Cavendish:--

"_Anthony._ I praye you, Cosyn, tell on. _Vincent._ Whan I was fyrste in Almaine, Uncle, it happed me to be somewhat favoured _with a great manne of the churche, and a great state_, one of the greatest in all that country there. And in dede whosoever might spende as muche as hee mighte in one thinge and other, were a ryght great estate in anye countrey of Christendom. But _glorious_ was hee verye farre above all measure, and that was great pitie, for it dyd harme, and made him abuse many great gyftes that G.o.d hadde given him. Never was he saciate of hearinge his owne prayse.

"So happed it one daye, that he had in a great audience made an oracion in a certayne matter, wherein he liked himselfe so well, that at his dinner he sat, him thought, on thornes, tyll he might here how they that sat with hym at his borde, woulde commende it. And whan hee had sitte musing a while, devysing, as I thought after, uppon some pretty proper waye to bring it in withal, at the laste for lacke of a better, lest he should have letted the matter too long, he brought it even blontly forth, and asked us al that satte at his bordes end (for at his owne messe in the middes there sat but himself alone) how well we lyked his oracion that he hadde made that daye. But in fayth, Uncle, whan that probleme was once proponed, till it was full answered, _no manne (I wene) eate one morsell of meate more_. Every manne was fallen in so depe a studye, for the fyndynge of _some exquisite prayse_. For he that shoulde have broughte out but a vulgare and a common commendacion, woulde have thoughte himself shamed for ever. Then sayde we our sentences by rowe as wee sat, from the lowest unto the hyghest in good order, _as it had bene a great matter of the common weale, in a right solemne counsayle_. Whan it came to my parte, I wyll not say it, Uncle, for no boaste, mee thoughte, by oure Ladye, for my parte, I quytte my selfe metelye wel. And I lyked my selfe the better because mee thoughte my words beeinge but a straungyer, wente yet with some grace in the Almain tong; wherein lettyng my latin alone me listed to shewe my cunnyng, and I hoped to be lyked the better, because I sawe that he that sate next mee, and should saie his sentence after mee, was an unlearned Prieste, for he could speake no latin at all. But whan he came furth for hys part with my Lordes commendation, the wyly fox hadde be so well accustomed in courte with the crafte of flattry, that he wente beyonde me to farre.

"And then might I see by hym, what excellence a right meane witte may come to in one crafte, that in al his whole life studyeth and busyeth his witte about no mo but that one. But I made after a solempne vowe unto my selfe, that if ever he and I were matched together at that boarde agayne, whan we should fall to our flattrye, I would flatter in latin, that he should not contende with me no more. For though I could be contente to be out runne by an horse, yet would I no more abyde it to be out runne of an a.s.se. But, Uncle, here beganne nowe the game; he that sate hyghest, and was to speake, was a great beneficed man, and not a Doctour only, but also somewhat learned in dede in the lawes of the Churche. A worlde it was to see howe he marked every mannes worde that spake before him. And it seemed that every worde _the more proper it was, the worse he liked it, for the c.u.mbrance that he had to study out a better to pa.s.se it_. The manne even swette with the laboure, so that he was faine in the while now and than to wipe his face. Howbeit in conclusion whan it came to his course, we that had spoken before him, hadde so taken up al among us before, that we hadde not lefte him one wye worde to speake after.

"_Anthony._ Alas good manne! amonge so manye of you, some good felow shold have lente hym one. _Vincent._ It needed not, as happe was, Uncle. For he found out such a s.h.i.+ft, that in hys flatterying _he pa.s.sed us all the many_. _Anthony._ Why, what sayde he, Cosyn? _Vincent._ By our Ladye, Uncle, _not one worde_. But lyke as I trow Plinius telleth, that when Appelles the Paynter in the table that he paynted of the sacryfyce and the death of Iphigenia, hadde in the makynge of the sorrowefull countenances of the other n.o.ble menne of Greece that beehelde it, spente out so much of his craft and hys cunnynge, that whan he came to make the countenance of King Agamemnon her father, which hee reserved for the laste ... he could devise no maner of newe heavy chere and countenance--but to the intent that no man should see what maner countenance it was, that her father hadde, the paynter was fayne to paynte him, holdyng his face in his handkercher--the like pageant in a maner plaide us there _this good aunciente honourable flatterer_. For whan he sawe that he coulde fynde no woordes of prayse, that woulde pa.s.se al that hadde bene spoken before all readye, the wyly Fox woulde speake never a worde, _but as he that were ravished unto heavenwarde with the wonder of the wisdom and eloquence that my Lordes Grace had uttered in that oracyon, he fette a long syghe with an Oh! from the bottome of his breste, and helde uppe bothe hys handes, and lyfte uppe both his handes, and lyfte uppe his head, and caste up his eyen into the welkin and wept_."

But if Wolsey set store by his fine speaking, he knew also what belonged to his _hat_; he was quite alive to the effect produced by his office, and knew how to _get up_ and pamper a ceremony--to cook up a raw material of dignity for the public relish. It should be no fault of his, that any toy of his rank should not be looked up to with awe.

Accordingly, a most curious story is told of the way in which he contrived that the Cardinal's hat, which was sent him during his residence in York Place, should make its first appearance in public.

Cavendish says, that the hat having been sent by the Pope through the hands of an ordinary messenger, without any state, Wolsey caused him to be "stayed by the way," newly dressed in rich apparel, and met by a gorgeous cavalcade of prelates and gentry. But a note in Mr. Singer's edition, referring to Tindal and Fox, tells us that the messenger actually reached him in York Place, was clothed by him as aforesaid, _and sent back with the hat to Dover_, from whence the cavalcade went and fetched him. The hat was then set on a sideboard full of plate, with tapers round about it, "and the greatest Duke in the lande must make curtesie thereto."