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Untitled Article
' em ; and their fingers are as stiff and hard with their pedlery knavish writing , as any bishop ' s are with chalk-stones won honestly from the gout . " ' Sir Thomas took the paper up from the table on which I had laid it , and said , after a while , * " The man may only have swooned . I scorn to play the critic , or
to ask any one the meaning of a word ; but , sirrah . " * Here he turned in his chair from the side of Master Silas , and said unto Willy , * " William Shakspeare ! out of this thraldom in regard to popery , I hope , by God's blessing-, to deliver thee . If ever thou repeatest the said verses , knowing the man to be to all intents and purposes a dead man , prythee read the censurable line as thus corrected ,
' Pray for our Virgin Queen , gentles ! whoe ' you be / although it is not quite the thing that another should impinge so closely on her skirts . ' " By this improvement , of me suggested , thou mayest make some amends—a syllable or two—for the many that are weighed in the balance and are found wanting . "
' Then turning unto me , as being conversant by my profession in such matters , and the same being not very worthy of learned and staid clerks the like of Master Silas , he said , * " Of all the youths that did ever write in verse , this one verily is he who hath the fewest flowers and devices . But it would be loss of
time to form a border , in the fashion of a kingly crown , or a dragon , or a Turk on horseback , out of buttercups and dandelions . 1 Master Ephraim ! look at these badgers ! with a long leg on one quarter and a short leg on the other . The wench herself might well and truly have said all that matter without the poet , bating the rhymes and metre . " '—p . 49—54 .
Our readers will perceive hy this time , if indeed they have not been beforehand with us at the book itself , what a mirror of magistrates and jewel of knighthood Sir Thomas is ; how profound his theology , and how polished his poetry ; a perfect model of the accomplished country gentleman and county representative of those days . But let the justice have justice , and the author too , for dealing gently with him . There are passages which make us feel the good heart of Savage Landoras well as of Sir Thomas Lucy .
* And then did Sir Thomas call unto him Master Silas , and say , * " Walk ye into the bay-window . And thou mayest come , Ephraim . " ' And when we were there together , I , Master Silas , and his worship , did his worship say unto the chaplain , but oftener looking towards me , 4 I am not ashamed to avouch that it goeth against me to hang this
young fellow , richly as the offence in its own nature doth deserve it , he talketli so reasonably ; not indeed so reasonably , but so like unto what a reasonable man may listen to and reflect on . There is so much , too , of compassion for others in hard cases , and something so very near in semblance to innocence itself in that airy swing of lightheartedness
Untitled Article
Examination of Shakspeare . / 49
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1835, page 49, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2641/page/49/
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