Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare | Page 5

in those capacious canisters is unconsumed and unbroken,"
SIR SILAS (aside).

"The knave maketh me hungry with his mischievous similitudes."
SIR THOMAS.
"Thou hast aggravated thy offence, Wil Shakspeare! Irreverent caitiff!
is this a discourse for my chaplain and clerk? Can he or the worthy
scribe Ephraim (his worship was pleased to call me worthy) write down
such words as those, about litter and wolvets, for the perusal and
meditation of the grand jury? If the whole corporation of Stratford had
not unanimously given it against thee, still his tongue would catch thee,
as the evet catcheth a gnat. Know, sirrah, the reverend Sir Silas, albeit
ill appointed for riding, and not over-fond of it, goeth to every house
wherein is a venison feast for thirty miles round. Not a buck's hoof on
any stable-door but it awakeneth his recollections like a red letter."
This wholesome reproof did bring the youth back again to his right
senses; and then said he, with contrition, and with a wisdom beyond his
years, and little to be expected from one who had spoken just before so
unadvisedly and rashly, -
"Well do I know it, your worship! And verily do I believe that a bone
of one being shovelled among the soil upon his coffin would forthwith
quicken {8a} him. Sooth to say, there is ne'er a buckhound in the
county but he treateth him as a godchild, patting him on the head,
soothing his velvety ear between thumb and forefinger, ejecting tick
from tenement, calling him 'fine fellow,' 'noble lad,' and giving him his
blessing, as one dearer to him than a king's debt to a debtor, {8b} or a
bastard to a dad of eighty. This is the only kindness I ever heard of
Master Silas toward his fellow-creatures. Never hold me unjust, Sir
Knight, to Master Silas. Could I learn other good of him, I would freely
say it; for we do good by speaking it, and none is easier. Even bad men
are not bad men while they praise the just. Their first step backward is
more troublesome and wrenching to them than the first forward."
"In God's name, where did he gather all this?" whispered his worship to
the chaplain, by whose side I was sitting. "Why, he talks like a man of
forty-seven, or more!"
"I doubt his sincerity, sir!" replied the chaplain. "His words are fairer
now--"
"Devil choke him for them!" interjected he, with an undervoice.
"--and almost book-worthy; but out of place. What the scurvy cur
yelped against me, I forgive him as a Christian. Murrain upon such

varlet vermin! It is but of late years that dignities have come to be
reviled. The other parts of the Gospel were broken long before,- -this
was left us; and now this likewise is to be kicked out of doors, amid the
mutterings of such mooncalves as him yonder."
"Too true, Silas!" said the knight, sighing deeply. "Things are not as
they were in our glorious wars of York and Lancaster. The knaves were
thinned then,--two or three crops a year of that rank squitch- grass
which it has become the fashion of late to call the people. There was
some difference then between buff doublets and iron mail, and the
rogues felt it. Well-a-day! we must bear what God willeth, and never
repine, although it gives a man the heart-ache. We are bound in duty to
keep these things for the closet, and to tell God of them only when we
call upon his holy name, and have him quite by ourselves."
Sir Silas looked discontented and impatient, and said, snappishly, -
"Cast we off here, or we shall be at fault. Start him, sir!-- prithee, start
him."
Again his worship, Sir Thomas, did look gravely and grandly, and
taking a scrap of paper out of the Holy Book then lying before him, did
read distinctly these words:-
"Providence hath sent Master Silas back hither, this morning, to
confound thee in thy guilt."
Again, with all the courage and composure of an innocent man, and
indeed with more than what an innocent man ought to possess in the
presence of a magistrate, the youngster said, pointing toward Master
Silas, -
"The first moment he ventureth to lift up his visage from the table, hath
Providence marked him miraculously. I have heard of black malice.
How many of our words have more in them than we think of! Give a
countryman a plough of silver, and he will plough with it all the season,
and never know its substance. 'T is thus with our daily speech. What
riches lie hidden in the vulgar tongue of the poorest and most ignorant!
What flowers of Paradise lie under our feet, with their beauties and
parts undistinguished and undiscerned, from having