No More Learning

From Rabelais we learn that the passion of play was so
strongly implanted in the students of his day, that they would
frequently stake the points of their doublets at tric-trac or trou-
madame; and but little improvement had taken place in their
morals or manners some half-century afterward. The buckle at
their girdle
the mantle on their shoulders — the shirt to their
back — often stood the hazard of the die; and hence it not unfre-
quently happened, that a rusty pour point and ragged chaussés
were all the covering which the luckless dicers could enumerate,
owing, no doubt, “to the extreme rarity and penury of money in
their pouches. ”
Round or square caps, hoods and cloaks of black, gray, or
other sombre hue, were, however, the prevalent garb of the mem-
bers of the university; but here and there might be seen some
gayer specimen of the tribe, whose broad-brimmed, high-crowned
felt hat and flaunting feather; whose puffed-out sleeves and exag-
gerated ruff — with starched plaits of such amplitude that they
had been not inappropriately named plats de Saint Jean-Baptiste,
from the resemblance which the wearer's head bore to that of the
saint, when deposited in the charger of the daughter of Herodias
were intended to ape the leading mode of the elegant court of
their sovereign, Henri Trois.
To such an extent had these insolent youngsters carried their
license of imitation that certain of their members, fresh from the
fair of Saint-Germain, and not wholly unacquainted with the
hippocras of the sutlers crowding its mart, wore around their
throats enormous collars of paper, cut in rivalry of the legitimate


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240
WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH
(
plaits of muslin, and bore in their hands long hollow sticks from
which they discharged peas and other missiles, in imitation of the
sarbacanes or pea-shooters then in vogue with the monarch and
his favorites.
Thus fantastically tricked out, on that same day -- nay, only
a few hours before, and at the fair above mentioned — had these
facetious wights, with more merriment than discretion, ventured
to exhibit themselves before the cortége of Henri, and to exclaim
loud enough to reach the ears of royalty, "à la fraise on connoit
le veau ! ” a piece of pleasantry for which they subsequently paid
dear.
Notwithstanding its shabby appearance in detail, the general
effect of this scholastic rabble was striking and picturesque. The
thick mustaches and pointed beards with which the lips and
chins of most of them were decorated, gave to their physiogno-
mies a manly and determined air, fully borne out by their unre-
strained carriage and deportment.
To a man,
almost all were
armed with a tough vine-wood bludgeon, called in their language
an estoc volant, tipped and shod with steel - a weapon fully
understood by them, and rendered, by their dexterity in the use
of it, formidable to their adversaries. Not a few carried at
their girdles the short rapier, so celebrated in their duels and
brawls, or concealed within their bosom a poniard or a two-
a
edged knife.
The scholars of Paris have ever been a turbulent and ungov-
ernable race; and at the period of which this history treats, and
indeed long before, were little better than a licensed horde of
robbers, consisting of a pack of idle and wayward youths drafted
from all parts of Europe, as well as from the remoter provinces
of their own nation. There was little in common between the
mass of students and their brethren, excepting the fellowship
resulting from the universal license in which all indulged. Hence
their thousand combats among themselves— combats almost inva-
riably attended with fatal consequences — and which the heads of
the university found it impossible to check.
Their own scanty resources, eked out by what little they could
derive from beggary or robbery, formed their chief subsistence;
for many of them were positive mendicants, and were so denom- **
inated: and being possessed of a sanctuary within their own
quarters, to which they could at convenience retire, they sub-
mitted to the constraint of no laws except those enforced within


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WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH
241
the jurisdiction of the university, and hesitated at no means of
enriching themselves at the expense of their neighbors. Hence
the frequent warfare waged between them and the brethren of
Saint-Germain des Prés, whose monastic domains adjoined their
territories, and whose meadows were the constant battleground of
their skirmishes; according to Dulaure — "presque toujours un
théâtre de tumulte, de galanterie, de combats, de duels, de débauches
et de sédition. ” Hence their sanguinary conflicts with the good
citizens of Paris, to whom they were wholly obnoxious, and who
occasionally repaid their aggressions with interest. In 1407 two
of their number, convicted of assassination and robbery, were con-
demned to the gibbet, and the sentence was carried into execution;
but so great was the uproar occasioned in the university by this
violation of its immunities that the Provost of Paris, Guillaume de
Tignonville, was compelled to take down their bodies from Mont-
faucon and see them honorably and ceremoniously interred. This
recognition of their rights only served to make matters worse, and
for a series of years the nuisance continued unabated.
It is not our purpose to record all the excesses of the uni-
versity, nor the means taken for their suppression. Vainly were
the civil authorities arrayed against them. Vainly were bulls
thundered from the Vatican. No amendment was effected. The
weed might be cut down, but was never entirely extirpated.
Their feuds were transmitted from generation to generation, and
their old bone of contention with the abbot of Saint-Germain (the
Pré-aux-Clercs) was, after an uninterrupted strife for thirty years,
submitted to the arbitration of the Pope, who very equitably
refused to pronounce judgment in favor of either party.
Such were the scholars of Paris in the sixteenth century -
such the character of the clamorous crew who besieged the por-
tals of the College of Navarre.
The object that summoned together this unruly multitude
was, it appears, a desire on the part of the scholars to be pres-
ent at a public controversy or learned disputation, then occur-
ring within the great hall of the college before which they were
congregated; and the disappointment caused by their finding the
gates closed, and all entrance denied to them, occasioned their
present disposition to riot.
It was in vain they were assured by the halberdiers stationed
at the gates, and who, with crossed pikes, strove to resist the
onward pressure of the mob, that the hall and court were already
1-16


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WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH
242
>
crammed to overflowing, that there was not room even for the
sole of a foot of a doctor of the faculties, and that their orders
were positive and imperative that none beneath the degree of a
bachelor or licentiate should be admitted, and that a troop of mar-
tinets and new-comers could have no possible claim to admission.
In vain they were told this was no ordinary disputation, no
common controversy, where all were alike entitled to license of
ingress; that the disputant was no undistinguished scholar, whose
renown did not extend beyond his own trifling sphere, and
whose opinions, therefore, few would care to hear and still
fewer to oppugn, but a foreigner of high rank, in high favor and
fashion, and not more remarkable for his extraordinary intel-
lectual endowments than for his brilliant personal accomplish-
ments.
In vain the trembling officials sought to clinch their arguments
by stating, that not alone did the conclave consist of the chief
members of the university, the senior doctors of theology, med-
icine, and law, the professors of the humanities, rhetoric, and phi-
losophy, and all the various other dignitaries; hut that the debate
was honored by the presence of Monsieur Christophe de Thou,
first president of Parliament; by that of the learned Jacques
Augustin, of the same name; by one of the secretaries of state
and Governor of Paris, M. René de Villequier; by the ambassa-
dors of Elizabeth, Queen of England, and of Philip the Second,
King of Spain, and several of their suite; by Abbé de Brantôme;
by M. Miron, the court physician; by Cosmo Ruggieri, the
Queen Mother's astrologer; by the renowned poets and masque
writers, Maîtres Ronsard, Baïf, and Philippe Desportes; by the
well-known advocate of Parliament, Messire Étienne Pasquier:
but also (and here came the gravamen of the objection to their
admission) by the two especial favorites of his Majesty and lead-
ers of affairs, the seigneurs of Joyeuse and D'Epernon.
It was in vain the students were informed that for the pres-
ervation of strict decorum, they had been commanded by the rector
to make fast the gates. No excuses would avail them. The
scholars were cogent reasoners, and show of staves
brought their opponents to a nonplus. In this line of argument
they were perfectly aware of their ability to prove a major.
“To the wall with them — to the wall! ” cried a hundred infu-
riated voices. “Down with the halberdiers - down with the gates
down with the disputants — down with the rector himself!
a
soon


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WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH
243
Deny our privileges! To the wall with old Adrien d'Amboise -
exclude the disciples of the university from their own halls! -
curry favor with the court minions! — hold a public controversy
in private! - down with him! We will issue a mandamus for a
new election on the spot! ”
Whereupon a deep groan resounded throughout the crowd.
It was succeeded by a volley of fresh execrations against the
rector, and an angry demonstration of bludgeons, accompanied by
a brisk shower of peas from the sarbacanes.
The officials turned pale, and calculated the chance of a broken
neck in reversion, with that of a broken crown in immediate
possession. The former being at least contingent, appeared the
milder alternative, and they might have been inclined to adopt
it had not a further obstacle stood in their way. The gate was
barred withinside, and the vergers and bedels who had the cus-
tody of the door, though alarmed at the tumult without, positively
refused to unfasten it.
Again the threats of the scholars were renewed, and further
intimations of violence were exhibited. Again the peas rattled
upon the hands and faces of the halberdiers, till their ears tingled
with pain. "Prate to us of the king's favorites, cried one of the
foremost of the scholars, a youth decorated with a paper collar:
"they may rule within the precincts of the Louvre, but not
within the walls of the university. Maugre-bleu! We hold them
cheap enough. We heed not the idle bark of these full-fed court
lapdogs. What to us is the bearer of a cup and ball? By the
four Evangelists, we will have none of them here! Let the Gas-
con cadet, D'Epernon, reflect on the fate of Quélus and Maugiron,
and let our gay Joyeuse beware of the dog's death of Saint-
Mégrin. Place for better men — place for the schools - away with
frills and sarbacanes. ”
«What to us is a president of Parliament, or a governor of the
city ? " shouted another of the same gentry.
« We care nothing
for their ministration. We recognize them not, save in their own
courts. All their authority fell to the ground at the gate of the
Rue Saint Jacques, when they entered our dominions. We care
for no parties. We are trimmers, and steer a middle course. We
hold the Guisards as cheap as the Huguenots, and the brethren
of the League weigh as little with us as the followers of Calvin.
Our only sovereign is Gregory the Thirteenth, Pontiff of Rome.
Away with the Guise and the Béarnaise ! »


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WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH
« Away with Henri of Navarre, if you please," cried a scholar
of Harcourt; "or Henri of Valois, if you list: but by all the
saints, not with Henri of Lorraine; he is the fast friend of the
true faith. No! — No! — live the Guise — live the Holy Union ! »
"Away with Elizabeth of England,” cried a scholar of Cluny:
«what doth her representative here? Seeks he a spouse for her
among our schools ? She will have no great bargain, I own, if
she bestows her royal hand upon our Duc d'Anjou. '
"If you value your buff jerkin, I counsel you to say nothing
slighting of the Queen of England in my hearing,” returned a
bluff, broad-shouldered fellow, raising his bludgeon after a men-
acing fashion. He was an Englishman belonging to the Four
Nations, and had a huge bull-dog at his heels.
« Away with Philip of Spain and his ambassador,” cried a
Bernardin.
« By the eyes of my mistress! ” cried a Spaniard belonging to
the College of Narbonne, with huge mustaches curled half-way
up his bronzed and insolent visage, and a slouched hat pulled
over his brow. “This may not pass muster. The representative
of the King of Spain must be respected even by the Academics
of Lutetia. Which of you shall gainsay me? - ha! ”
“What business has he here with his suite, on occasions like
to the present ? ) returned the Bernardin. « Tête-Dieu! this dispu-
tation is one that little concerns the interest of your politic king;
and methinks Don Philip, or his representative, has regard for
little else than whatsoever advances his own interest. Your
ambassador hath, I doubt not, some latent motive for his present
attendance in our schools. ”
“Perchance,” returned the Spaniard. “We will discuss that
point anon. ”
“And what doth the pander of the Sybarite within the dusty
halls of learning ? ” ejaculated a scholar of Lemoine. “What
doth the jealous-pated slayer of his wife and unborn child within
the reach of free-spoken voices, and mayhap of well-directed
blades ? Methinks it were more prudent to tarry within the
bowers of his harem, than to hazard his perfumed person among
(
((
us. »
“Well said,” rejoined the scholar of Cluny — down with
«
René de Villequier, though he be Governor of Paris. ”
“What title hath the Abbé de Brantôme to a seat among
us? ” said the scion of Harcourt: “faith, he hath a reputation for


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WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH
245
wit, and scholarship, and gallantry. But what is that to us?
His place might now be filled by worthier men. ”
« And what, in the devil's name, brings Cosmo Ruggieri
hither? ” asked the Bernardin. «What doth the wrinkled old
dealer in the black art hope to learn from us? We are not
given to alchemy, and the occult sciences; we practice no hidden
mysteries; we brew no philtres; we compound no slow poisons;
we vend no waxen images. What doth he here, I say! 'Tis a
scandal in the rector to permit his presence. And what if he
came under the safeguard, and by the authority of his mistress,
Catherine de' Medicis! Shall we regard her passport? Down
with the heathen abbé, his abominations have been endured too
long; they smell rank in our nostrils. Think how he ensnared
La Mole — think on his numberless victims. Who mixed the
infernal potion of Charles the Ninth ? Let him answer that.
Down with the infidel — the Jew — the sorcerer! The stake were
too good for him. Down with Ruggieri, I say. ”
"Aye, down with the accursed astrologer, echoed the whole
crew. He has done abundant mischief in his time. A day of
reckoning has arrived. Hath he cast his own horoscope ? Did
he foresee his own fate? Ha! ha! ”
“And then the poets,” cried another member of the Four
Nations-"a plague on all three. Would they were elsewhere.
In what does this disputation concern them? Pierre Ronsard,
being an offshoot of this same College of Navarre, hath indubi-
tably a claim upon our consideration. But he is old, and I
marvel that his gout permitted him to hobble so far. Oh, the
mercenary old scribbler!
His late verses halt like himself, yet
he lowereth not the price of his masques. Besides which, he is
grown moral, and unsays all his former good things. Mort
Dieu ! your superannuated bards ever recant the indiscretions
of their nonage.
Clément Marot took to psalm-writing in his
As to Baïf, his name will scarce outlast the scenery
of his ballets, his plays are out of fashion since the Gelosi
arrived. He deserves no place among us. And Philip Desportes
owes all his present preferment to the Vicomte de Joyeuse.
However, he is not altogether devoid of merit - let him wear
his bays, so he trouble us not with his company. Room for the
sophisters of Narbonne, I say. To the dogs with poetry! ”
Morbleu ! exclaimed another. “What are the sophisters
of Narbonne to the decretists of the Sorbonne, who will discuss
old age.


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a
you a position of Cornelius à Lapide, or a sentence of Peter
Lombard, as readily as you would a flask of hippocras, or a slice
of botargo. Aye, and cry transeat to a thesis of Aristotle,
though it be against rule. What sayst thou, Capéte ? ” continued
he, addressing his neighbor, a scholar of Montaigu, whose
modest gray capuchin procured him this appellation: "are we the
men to be thus scurvily entreated ? ”
“I see not that your merits are greater than ours," returned
he of the capuch, “though our boasting be less. The followers
of the lowly John Standoncht are as well able to maintain their
tenets in controversy as those of Robert of Sorbon; and I see no
reason why entrance should be denied us. The honor of the
university is at stake, and all its strength should be mustered to
assert it. ”
“Rightly spoken,” returned the Bernardin; "and it were
lasting disgrace to our schools were this arrogant Scot to carry
off their laurels when so many who might have been found
to lower his crest are allowed no share in their defense. The
contest is one that concerns us all alike. We at least can arbi-
trate in case of need. ”
«I care not for the honors of the university,” rejoined one
of the Écossais, or Scotch College, then existing in the Rue des
Amandiers, but I care much for the glory of my countryman,
and I would gladly have witnessed the triumph of the disciples of
Rutherford and of the classic Buchanan. But if the arbitrament
to which you would resort is to be that of voices merely, I am
glad the rector in his wisdom has thought fit to keep you with-
out, even though I myself be personally inconvenienced by it. ”
«Name o' God! what fine talking is this ? ” retorted the Span-
iard. « There is little chance of the triumph you predicate for
your countryman. Trust me, we shall have to greet his departure
from the debate with many hisses and few cheers; and if we
could penetrate through the plates of yon iron door, and gaze
into the court it conceals from our view, we should find that the
loftiness of his pretensions has been already humbled, and his
arguments graveled. Por la Litania de los Santos! to think of
comparing an obscure student of the pitiful College of Saint
Andrew with the erudite doctors of the most erudite university
in the world, always excepting those of Valencia and Salamanca.
It needs all thy country's assurance to keep the blush of shame
from mantling in thy cheeks. ”


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WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH
247
«The seminary you revile,” replied the Scot, haughtily, "has
been the nursery of our Scottish kings. Nay, the youthful James
Stuart pursued his studies under the same roof, beneath the same
wise instruction, and at the self-same time as our noble and gifted
James Crichton, whom you have falsely denominated an advent-
urer, but whose lineage is not less distinguished than his learn-
ing. His renown has preceded him hither, and he was not
unknown to your doctors when he affixed his programme to these
college walls. Hark! ” continued the speaker, exultingly, “and
listen to yon evidence of his triumph. ”
And as he spoke, a loud and continued clapping of hands pro-
ceeding from within was distinctly heard above the roar of the
students.
“That may be at his defeat," muttered the Spaniard, between
his teeth.
«No such thing,” replied the Scot. “I heard the name of
Crichton mingled with the plaudits. ”
“And who may be this Phoenix — this Gargantua of intel-
lect - who is to vanquish us all, as Panurge did Thaumast, the
Englishman ? ” asked the Sorbonist of the Scot. “Who is he that
is more philosophic than Pythagoras ? — ha! »
“Who is more studious than Carneades! ” said the Bernardin.
More versatile than Alcibiades! ” said Montaigu.
More subtle than Averroës ! » cried Harcourt.
"More mystical than Plotinus! ” said one of the Four Nations.
More visionary than Artemidorus! ” said Cluny.
« More infallible than the Pope! ” added Lemoine.
"And who pretends to dispute de omni scibili,” shouted the
Spaniard.
« Et quolibet ente! ” added the Sorbonist.
«Mine ears are stunned with your vociferations,” replied the
Scot. “You ask me who James Crichton is, and yourselves give
the response.
You have mockingly said he is a rara avis, a
prodigy of wit and learning: and you have unintentionally spoken
the truth. He is so. But I will tell you that of him of which
you are wholly ignorant, or which you have designedly over-
looked. His condition is that of a Scottish gentleman of high
rank. Like your Spanish grandee, he need not doff his cap to
kings. On either side hath he the best of blood in his veins.
His mother was a Stuart directly descended from that regal line.
His father, who owneth the fair domains of Eliock and Cluny,


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WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH
»
was Lord Advocate to our bonny and luckless Mary (whom
Heaven assoilzie! ) and still holds his high office. Methinks the
Lairds of Crichton might have been heard of here.
How-
beit, they are well known to me, who being an Ogilvy of
Balfour, have often heard tell of a certain contract or obliga-
tion, whereby — »
"Basta ! ” interrupted the Spaniard, “heed not thine own
affairs, worthy Scot. Tell us of this Crichton — ha! ”
"I have told you already more than I ought to have told,”
replied Ogilvy, sullenly. “And if you lack further information
respecting James Crichton's favor at the Louvre, his feats of
arms, and the esteem in which he is held by all the dames of
honor in attendance upon your Queen Mother, Catherine de'
Medicis, and moreover,” he added, with somewhat of sarcasm,
«with her fair daughter, Marguerite de Valois - you will do well
to address yourself to the king's buffoon, Maître Chicot, whom I
see not far off. Few there are, methinks, who could in such
short space have won so much favor, or acquired such bright
renown.
“Humph! ” muttered the Englishman, "your Scotsmen stick
by each other all the world over. This James Crichton may or
may not be the hero he is vaunted, but I shall mistrust his
praises from that quarter, till I find their truth confirmed. ”
“He has, to be sure, acquired the character of a stout swords-
man," said the Bernardin, “to give the poor devil his due. ”
“He has not met with his match at the salle-d'armes, though
he has crossed blades with the first in France,” replied Ogilvy.
"I have seen him at the Manége,” said the Sorbonist, "go
through his course of equitation, and being a not altogether
unskillful horseman myself, I can report favorably of his per-
formance. ”
« There is none among your youth can sit a steed like him,"
returned Ogilvy, “nor can any of the jousters carry off the ring
with more certainty at the lists. I would fain hold my tongue,
but you enforce me to speak in his praise. ”
Body of Bacchus! ” exclaimed the Spaniard, half unsheathing
the lengthy weapon that hung by his side. “I will hold you a
wager of ten rose-nobles to as many silver reals of Spain, that
with this stanch Toledo I will overcome your vaunted Crichton
in close fight in any manner or practice of fence or digladiation
which he may appoint — sword and dagger, or sword only —


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WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH
249
stripped to the girdle or armed to the teeth. By our Saint
Trinidad! I will have satisfaction for the contumelious affront
he hath put upon the very learned gymnasium to which I
belong; and it would gladden me to clip the wings of this loud-
crowing cock, or any of his dunghill crew,” added he, with a
scornful gesture at the Scotsman.
“If that be all you seek, . you shall not need to go far in your
quest,” returned Ogilvy. “Tarry till this controversy be ended,
and if I match not your Spanish blade with a Scottish broad-
sword, and approve you as recreant at heart as you are boastful
and injurious of speech, may Saint Andrew forever after with-
hold from me his protection.
«The Devil! ” exclaimed the Spaniard. «Thy Scottish saint
will little avail thee, since thou hast incurred my indignation.
Betake thee, therefore, to thy paternosters, if thou has grace
withal to mutter them; for within the hour thou art assuredly
food for the kites of the Pré-aux-Clercs-sa-ha! ”
"Look to thyself, vile braggart! ” rejoined Ogilvy, scornfully:
"I promise thee thou shalt need other intercession than thine
own to purchase safety at my hands. ”
"Courage, Master Ogilvy,” said the Englishman, “thou wilt
do well to slit the ears of this Spanish swashbuckler. I war-
rant me he hides a craven spirit beneath that slashed pourpoint.
Thou art in the right, man, to make him eat his words. Be
this Crichton what he may, he is at least thy countryman, and
in part mine own. "
« And as such I will uphold him," said Ogilvy, "against any
odds. ”
"Bravo! my valorous Don Diego Caravaja," said the Sorbon-
ist, slapping the Spaniard on the shoulder, and speaking in his
ear. "Shall these scurvy Scots carry all before them ? -1 war-
rant me, no. We will make common cause against the whole
beggarly nation; and in the meanwhile we intrust thee with this
particular quarrel. See thou acquit thyself in it as beseemeth a
descendant of the Cid. ”
"Account him already abased,” returned Caravaja. “By Pe.
layo, I, would the other were at his back, that both might be
transfixed at a blow -- ha! ”
“To return to the subject of difference,” said the Sorbonist,
who was too much delighted with the prospect of a duel to allow
the quarrel a chance of subsiding, while it was in his power to


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WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH
fan the flame; "to return to the difference,” said he, aloud,
glancing at Ogilvy: "it must be conceded that as a wassailer this
Crichton is without a peer. None of us may presume to cope
with him in the matter of the flask and the flagon, though we
number among us some jolly topers. Friar John, with the
Priestess of Bacbuc, was a washy bibber compared with him. ”
"He worships at the shrines of other priestesses besides hers
of Bacbuc, if I be not wrongly informed,” added Montaigu, who
understood the drift of his companion.
«Else, wherefore our rejoinder to his cartels ? » returned the
Sorbonist. “Do you not call to mind that beneath his arrogant
defiance of our learned body, affixed to the walls of the Sor-
bonne, it was written, That he who would behold this miracle
of learning must hie to the tavern or bordel ? '
Was it not so,
my hidalgo ? »
“I have myself seen him at the temulentive tavern of the
Falcon,” returned Caravaja, and at the lupanarian haunts in the
Champ Gaillard and the Val-d'Amour. You understand me — ha! ”
“Ha! ha! ha! » chorused the scholars. "James Crichton is
no stoic. He is a disciple of Epicurus. Vel in puellam impingit,
vel in poculum — ha! ha! ”
« 'Tis said that he hath dealings with the Evil One,” observed
the man of Harcourt, with a mysterious air; "and that, like
Jeanne d'Arc, he hath surrendered his soul for his temporal wel.
fare. Hence his wondrous lore; hence his supernatural beauty
and accomplishments; hence his power of fascinating the fair sex;
hence his constant run of luck with the dice; hence, also, his
invulnerableness to the sword. ”
« 'Tis said, also, that he has a familiar spirit, who attends him
in the semblance of a black dog,” said Montaigu.
«Or in that of a dwarf, like the sooty imp of Cosmo Rug-
gieri,” said Harcourt. “Is it not so? ” he asked, turning to the
Scot.
«He lies in his throat who says so, cried Ogilvy, losing all
patience. « To one and all of you I breathe defiance; and there
is not a brother in the college to which I belong who will not
maintain my quarrel. ”
A loud laugh of derision followed this sally; and, ashamed of
having justly exposed himself to ridicule by his idle and unworthy
display of passion, the Scotsman held his peace and endeavored
to turn a deaf ear to their taunts.
-
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WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH
251
The gates of the College of Navarre were suddenly thrown
open, and a long-continued thunder of applause bursting from
within, announced the conclusion of the debate. That it had
terminated in favor of Crichton could no longer be doubted, as
his name formed the burden of all the plaudits with which the
courts were ringing. All was excitement: there was a general
movement. Ogilvy could no longer restrain himself. Pushing
forward by prodigious efforts, he secured himself a position at
the portal.
The first person who presented himself to his inquiring eyes
was a gallant figure in a glittering steel corselet crossed by a
silken sash, who bore at his side a long sword with a magnificent
handle, and upon his shoulder a lance of some six feet in length,
headed with a long scarlet tassel, and brass half-moon pendant.
“Is not Crichton victorious ? ” asked Ogilvy of Captain Larchant,
for he it was.
«He hath acquitted himself to admiration,” replied the guards-
man, who, contrary to the custom of such gentry (for captains of
the guard have been fine gentlemen in all ages), did not appear
to be displeased at this appeal to his courtesy, and the rector
hath adjudged him all the honors that can be bestowed by the
university. ”
«Hurrah for old Scotland,” shouted Ogilvy, throwing his
bonnet in the air; “I was sure it would be so; this is a day
worth living for. Hæc olim meminisse juvabit. ”
« Thou at least shalt have reason to remember it,” muttered
Caravaja, who, being opposite to him, heard the exclamation -
"and he too, perchance," he added, frowning gloomily, and draw-
ing his cloak over his shoulder.
« If the noble Crichton be compatriot of yours, you are in
the right to be proud of him," replied Captain Larchant, for
the memory of his deeds of this day will live as long as learn-
ing shall be held in reverence. Never before hath such a mar-
velous display of universal erudition been heard within these
schools. By my faith, I am absolutely wonder-stricken, and not
I alone, but all. In proof of which I need only tell you, that
coupling his matchless scholarship with his extraordinary accom-
plishments, the professors in their address to him at the close
of the controversy have bestowed upon him the epithet of
Admirable -- an appellation by which he will ever after be dis-
tinguished. ”


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252
MARK AKENSIDE
« The Admirable Crichton! ” echoed Ogilvy - hear you that!
- a title adjudged to him by the whole conclave of the univer-
sity — hurrah! The Admirable Crichton! 'Tis a name will find
an echo in the heart of every true Scot. By Saint Andrew! this
is a proud day for us. ”
In the mean time,” said Larchant, smiling at Ogilvy's ex-
ultations, and describing a circle with the point of his lance, "I
must trouble you to stand back, Messieurs Scholars, and leave
free passage for the rector and his train - Archers advance, and
make clear the way, and let the companies of the Baron D'Eper-
non and of the Vicomte de Joyeuse be summoned, as well as the
guard of his excellency, Seigneur René de Villequier. Patience,
messieurs, you will hear all particulars anon. ”
So saying, he retired, and the men-at-arms, less complaisant
than their leaders, soon succeeded in forcing back the crowd.
MARK AKENSIDE
(1721-1770)
M
ARK AKENSIDE is of less importance in genuine poetic rank
than in literary history. He was technically a real poet;
but he had not a great, a spontaneous, nor a fertile poeti-
cal mind. Nevertheless, a writer who gave pleasure to a generation
cannot be set aside. The fact that the mid-eighteenth century ranked
him among its foremost poets is interest-
ing and still significant. It determines the
poetic standard and product of that age;
and the fact that, judged thus, Akenside
was fairly entitled to his fame.
He was the son of a butcher, born No-
vember 9th, 1721, in Newcastle-on-Tyne,
whence Eldon and Stowell also sprang.
He attracted great attention by an early
poem, "The Virtuoso. ' The citizens of that
commercial town have always appreciated
their great men and valued intellectual dis-
tinction, and its Dissenters sent him at
MARK AKENSIDE
their own expense to Edinburgh to study
for the Presbyterian ministry. A year later
he gave up theology for medicine — honorably repaying the money



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MARK AKENSIDE
253
advanced for his divinity studies, if obviously out of some one's else
pocket.
After some struggle in provincial towns, his immense literary
reputation – for at twenty-four he was a star of the first magnitude
in Great Britain — and the generosity of a friend enabled him to ac-
quire a fashionable London practice. He wrote medical treatises
which at the time made him a leader in his profession, secured a
rich clientage, and prospered greatly, In 1759 he was made physi-
cian to Christ's Hospital, where, however valued professionally, he is
charged with being brutal and offensive to the poor; with indulging
his fastidiousness, temper, and pomposity, and with forgetting that
he owed anything to mere duty or humanity.
Unfortunately, too, Akenside availed himself of that mixture of
complaisance and arrogance by which almost alone a man of no birth
can rise in a society graded by birth. He concealed his origin and
was ashamed of his pedigree. But the blame for his flunkeyism
belongs, perhaps, less to him than to the insolent caste feeling of
society, which forced it on him as a measure of self-defense and of
advancement. He wanted money, loved place and selfish comfort,
and his nature did not balk at the means of getting them, — includ-
ing living on a friend when he did not need such help. To become
physician to the Queen, he turned his coat from Whig to Tory; but
no one familiar with the politics of the time will regard this as an
unusual offense. It must also be remembered that Akenside pos-
sessed a delicate constitution, keen senses, and irritable nerves; and
that he was a parvenu, lacking the power of self-control even among
strangers. These traits explain, though they do not excuse, his bad
temper to the unclean and disagreeable patients of the hospital, and
they mitigate the fact that his industry was paralyzed by material
prosperity, and his self-culture interfered with by conceit. His early
and sweeping success injured him as many a greater man has been
thus injured.
Moreover, his temper was probably soured by secret bitternesses.
His health, his nerves, an entire absence of the sense of humor, and
his lack of repartee, made him shun like Pope and Horace Walpole
the bibulous and gluttonous element of eighteenth-century British
society. For its brutal horseplay and uncivil practical joking which
passed for wit, Akenside had no tolerance, yet he felt unwilling to
go where he would be outshone by inferior men. His strutty arro-
gance of manner, like excessive prudery in a woman, may have been
a fortification to a garrison too weak to fight in the open field. And
it must be admitted that, as so often happens, Akenside's outward
ensemble was eminently what the vulgar world terms “guyable. He
was not a little of a fop. He was plain-featured and yet assuming


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254
MARK AKENSIDE
in manner. He hobbled in walking from lameness of tell-tale origin,
a cleaver falling on his foot in childhood, compelling him to wear
an artificial heel — and he was morbidly sensitive over it. His prim
formality of manner, his sword and stiff-curled wig, his small and
sickly face trying to maintain an expression impressively dignified,
made him a ludicrous figure, which his contemporaries never tired
of ridiculing and caricaturing. Henderson, the actor, said that "Aken-
side, when he walked the streets, looked for all the world like one
of his own Alexandrines set upright. ” Smollett even used him as
a model for the pedantic doctor in Peregrine Pickle,' who gives a
dinner in the fashion of the ancients, and dresses each dish according
to humorous literary recipes.
But there were those who seem to have known an inner and supe-
rior personality beneath the brusqueness, conceit, and policy, beyond
the nerves and fears; and they valued it greatly, at least on the
intellectual side. A wealthy and amiable young Londoner, Jeremiah
Dyson, remained a friend so enduring and admiring as to give the
poet a house in Bloomsbury Square, with £300 a year and a chariot,
and personally to extend his medical practice. We cannot suppose
this to be a case of patron and parasite. Other men of judgment
showed like esteem. And in congenial society, Akenside was his best
and therefore truest self. He was an easy and even brilliant talker,
displaying learning and immense memory, taste, and philosophic re-
flection; and as a volunteer critic he has the unique distinction of a
man who had what books he liked given him by the publishers for
the sake of his oral comments!
The standard edition of Akenside's poems is that edited by Alex-
ander Dyce (London, 1835). Few of them require notice here. His
early effort, “The Virtuoso,' was merely an acknowledged and servile
imitation of Spenser. The claim made by the poet's biographers
that he preceded Thomson in reintroducing the Spenserian stanza is
groundless. Pope preceded him, and Thomson renewed its popu-
larity by being the first to use it in a poem of real merit, “The
Castle of Indolence. ) Mr. Gosse calls the Hymn to the Naiads)
“beautiful,” _ of transcendent merit," – perhaps the most elegant
of his productions. ” The 'Epistle to Curio,' however, must be held
his best poem,
doubtless because it is the only one which came
from his heart; and even its merit is much more in rhetorical energy
than in art or beauty. As to its allusion and object, the real and
classic Curio of Roman social history was a protégé of Cicero's, a rich
young Senator, who began as a champion of liberty and then sold
himself to Cæsar to pay his debts. In Akenside's poem, Curio repre-
sents William Pulteney, Walpole's antagonist, the hope of that younger
generation who hated Walpole's system of parliamentary corruption
-


## p. 255 (#285) ############################################

MARK AKENSIDE
255
and official jobbing. This party had looked to Pulteney for a clean
and public-spirited administration. Their hero was carried to a brief
triumph on the wave of their enthusiasm. But Pulteney disappointed
them bitterly: he took a peerage, and sunk into utter and perma-
nent political damnation, with no choice but Walpole's methods and
tools, no policy save Walpole's to redeem the withdrawal of so much
lofty promise, and no aims but personal advancement. From Aken-
side's address to him, the famous Epistle to Curio,' a citation is
made below. Akenside's fame, however, rests on the Pleasures of
the Imagination. ' He began it at seventeen; though in the case of
works begun in childhood, it is safer to accept the date of finishing
as the year of the real composition. He published it six years later,
in 1744, on the advice and with the warm admiration of Pope, a man
never wasteful of encomiums on the poetry of his contemporaries. It
raised its author to immediate fame. It secures him a place among
the accepted English classics still. Yet neither its thought nor its
style makes the omission to read it any irreparable loss. It is culti-
vated rhetoric rather than true poetry. Its chief merit and highest
usefulness are that it suggested two far superior poems, Campbell's
Pleasures of Hope and Rogers's Pleasures of Memory. ' It is the
relationship to these that really keeps Akenside's alive.
In scope, the poem consists of two thousand lines of blank verse.
It is distributed in three books. The first defines the sources, meth-
ods, and results of imagination; the second its distinction from phi-
losophy and its enchantment by the passions; the third sets forth
the power of imagination to give pleasure, and illustrates its mental
operation. The author remodeled the poem in 1757, but it is gener-
ally agreed that he injured it. Macaulay says he spoiled it, and
another critic delightfully observes that he “stuffed it with intel-
lectual horsehair. ”
The year of Akenside's death (1770) gave birth to Wordsworth.
The freer and nobler natural school of poetry came to supplant the
artificial one, belonging to an epoch of wigs and false calves, and to
open toward the far greater one of the romanticism of Scott and
Byron.


## p. 256 (#286) ############################################

256
MARK AKENSIDE
FROM THE EPISTLE TO CURIO
[With this earlier and finer form of Akenside's address to the unstable
Pulteney (see biographical sketch above) must not be confused its later
embodiment among his odes; of which it is (IX: to Curio. ) Much of its
thought and diction were transferred to the Ode named; but the latter by no
means happily compares with the original (Epistle. Both versions, however,
are of the same year, 1744. ]
TH
HRICE has the spring beheld thy faded fame,
And the fourth winter rises on thy name,
Since I exulting grasped the votive shell,
In sounds of triumph all thy praise to tell;
Blest could my skill through ages make thee shine,
And proud to mix my memory with thine.
But now the cause that waked my song before,
With praise, with triumph, crowns the toil no more.
If to the glorious man whose faithful cares,
Nor quelled by malice, nor relaxed by years,
Had awed Ambition's wild audacious hate,
And dragged at length Corruption to her fate;
If every tongue its large applauses owed,
And well-earned laurels every muse bestowed;
If public Justice urged the high reward,
And Freedom smiled on the devoted bard:
Say then,- to him whose levity or lust
Laid all a people's generous hopes in dust,
Who taught Ambition firmer heights of power
And saved Corruption at her hopeless hour,
Does not each tongue its execrations owe?
Shall not each Muse a wreath of shame bestow?
And public Justice sanctify the award ?
And Freedom's hand protect the impartial bard ?
There are who say they viewed without amaze
The sad reverse of all thy former praise;
That through the pageants of a patriot's name,
They pierced the foulness of thy secret aim;
Or deemed thy arm exalted but to throw
The public thunder on a private foe.
But I, whose soul consented to thy cause,
Who felt thy genius stamp its own applause,
Who saw the spirits of each glorious age
Move in thy bosom, and direct thy rage, -


## p. 257 (#287) ############################################

MARK AKENSIDE
257
I scorned the ungenerous gloss of slavish minds,
The owl-eyed race, whom Virtue's lustre blinds.
Spite of the learned in the ways of vice,
And all who prove that each man has his price,
I still believed thy end was just and free;
And yet, even yet believe it — spite of thee.
Even though thy mouth impure has dared disclaim,
Urged by the wretched impotence of shame,
Whatever filial cares thy zeal had paid
To laws infirm, and liberty decayed;
Has begged Ambition to forgive the show;
Has told Corruption thou wert ne'er her foe;
Has boasted in thy country's awful ear,
Her gross delusion when she held thee dear;
How tame she followed thy tempestuous call,
And heard thy pompous tales, and trusted all
Rise from your sad abodes, ye curst of old
For laws subverted, and for cities sold !
Paint all the noblest trophies of your guilt,
The oaths you perjured, and the blood you spilt;
Yet must you one untempted vileness own,
One dreadful palm reserved for him alone:
With studied arts his country's praise to spurn,
To beg the infamy he did not earn,
To challenge hate when honor was his due,
And plead his crimes where all his virtue knew.
When they who, loud for liberty and laws,
In doubtful times had fought their country's cause,
When now of conquest and dominion sure,
They sought alone to hold their fruit secure;
When taught by these, Oppression hid the face,
To leave Corruption stronger in her place,
By silent spells to work the public fate,
And taint the vitals of the passive state,
Till healing Wisdom should avail no more,
And Freedom loath to tread the poisoned shore:
Then, like some guardian god that flies to save
The weary pilgrim from an instant grave,
Whom, sleeping and secure, the guileful snake
Steals near and nearer thro' the peaceful brake,-
Then Curio rose to ward the public woe,
To wake the heedless and incite the slow,
1--17


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258
MARK AKENSIDE
Against Corruption Liberty to arm,
And quell the enchantress by a mightier charm.
Lo! the deciding hour at last appears;
The hour of every freeman's hopes and fears!
See Freedom mounting her eternal throne,
The sword submitted, and the laws her own!