The Glory of English Prose | Page 6

by the goodness and sufferance of Almighty God with plenary whole
and entire power pre-eminence authority prerogative and jurisdiction to
render and yield justice and final
determination to all manner of folk
residents or subjects within this his realm, in all causes matters debates
contentions happening to occur insurge or begin within the limits
thereof without restraint or provocation to any foreign princes or
potentates of the world ... all causes testamentary, causes of matrimony
and divorces, rights of tithes, oblations and obventions ... shall be from
hence-forth heard examined licenced clearly finally and definitely
adjudged and determined within the King's jurisdiction and authority
and not elsewhere."
The words "Empire" and "Imperial" are in the present day degraded
from their ancient high estate by an appropriation of them to advertise

soap or cigarettes or what not; and we even are confronted with the
"Imperial" Cancer Research Fund, the money of which has been
employed in artificially inflicting cancer on hundreds of thousands of
living animals--a performance utterly repugnant to a great many of the
inhabitants in the "Empire"!
But people indifferent to the dictates of mercy are not likely to have
much reverence for words, however august.
Henry VIII., we may be sure, would never have allowed these solemn
words to be used by people with something to sell, or by scientific
disease-mongers.
They were great people who could draw up their statutes in splendid
passages of sustained nobility.
Let us, Antony, salute them across the centuries.
Your loving old
G.P.
5
MY DEAR ANTONY,
One of the great creators of English prose who lived at the same time as
Ralegh and Shakespeare was Richard Hooker, who is generally known
as "the Judicious Hooker."
He was born in Devon, two years after Ralegh, in 1554.
He must very early in life have made his mark as a man of learning and
piety, for when he was only thirty-one he was made Master of the
Temple. The controversies in which he there found himself involved
induced him to retire when he was only thirty-seven into the country,
for the purpose of writing his famous books, _The Laws of
Ecclesiastical Polity_.
It is the first great book on the English Church, and it is full of

magnificent prose. It was divided into eight parts; and in the first one,
before he had got far into it, he penned the exclamatory description of
law which will live as long as the language:--
"Her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all
things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her
care, the greatest as not exempted from her power."
And in the same first part will be found a passage on the Deity which
portrays faithfully for us the humble wisdom of both the man and his
age:--
"Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the
doings of the Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to
make mention of His name; yet our soundest knowledge is to know that
we know Him not as indeed He is, neither can know Him; and our
safest eloquence concerning Him is our silence, when we confess
without confession that His glory is inexplicable, His greatness above
our capacity to reach. He is above and we upon earth; therefore it
behoveth our words to be wary and few."
Shakespeare was born ten years later than Hooker, in 1564, and his
share in founding English prose as we know it is, of course, not
comparable with that of Hooker, for of Shakespeare's prose there
remains for us but little. Whenever he rose to eloquence he clothed
himself in verse as with an inevitable attribute, but on the rare
occasions when he condescended to step down from the great line to
"the other harmony of prose" he is as splendid as in all else. In Hamlet
we have this sudden passage:--
"I have of late, (but wherefore I know not), lost all my mirth, foregone
all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my
disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile
promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,
why, it appears no other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent
congregation of vapours.

"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in
faculty! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action,
how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet to me what is this quintessence
of dust?"
And the most beautiful letter in the world is that written by Antonio to