Читать книгу The Essays of Douglas Jerrold - Douglas William Jerrold - Страница 5

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The bell of St Mary Overy had struck three; the flag was just displayed from the Rose play-house; and, rustling in the wind, was like, in the words of the pious Philip Stubbes, “unto a false harlot, flaunting the unwary onward to destruction and to death.” Barges and boats, filled with the flower of the court-end and the city, crowded to the bridge. Gallants, in the pride of new cloak and doublet, leaped to the shore, making rich the strand with many a fair gentlewoman lifted all tenderly from the craft; horses pranced along Bank-side, spurred by their riders to the door of the tiring-room; nay, there was no man, woman, or child who did not seem beckoned by the Rose flag to the play,—whose ears did not drink in the music of the trumpets, as though it was the most ravishing sound of the earth. At length the trumpets ceased, and the play began.

2.According to Rowe’s story, related to Pope, Shakespeare’s first employment in London was to wait at the door of the play-house and hold the horses of those that had no servants, that they might be ready after the performance. “But I cannot,” says Mr Steevens, “dismiss this anecdote without observing, that it seems to want every mark of probability.”

The Rose was crammed. In the penny gallery was many an apprentice unlawfully dispensing his master’s time—it might be, his master’s penny too. Many a husband, slunk from a shrew’s pipe and hands, was there, to list and shake the head at the player’s tale of wedded love. Nor here and there was wanting, peeping from a nook, with cap pulled over the brow, and ruff huddled about the neck, the sly, happy face of one, who yesterday gave an assenting groan to the charitable wonder of a godly neighbour—of one who marvelled that the Rose flag should flout the heavens, yet call not down the penal fire. The yard was thronged; and on the stage was many a bird of courtly feather, perched on his sixpenny stool; whilst the late comer lay at length upon the rushes, his thoughts wrested from his hose and points by the mystery of the play.

Happy, thrice happy wights, thus fenced and rounded in from the leprous, eating cares of life! Happy ye, who, even with a penny piece, can transport yourselves into a land of fairy—can lull the pains of flesh with the music of high thoughts! The play goes on, with all its influences. Where is the courtier? Ten thousand miles from the glassy floor of a palace, lying on a bank, listening to a reed piping in Arcady. Where the man of thrift? He hath shuffled off his trading suit, and dreams himself a shepherd of the golden time. Where the wife-ridden husband, doubtful of a natural right to his own soul? He is an Indian emperor, flushed with the mastery of ten thousand slaves! Where is the poor apprentice—he who hath weals upon his back for twopence lost on Wednesday? He is in El Dorado, strutting upon gold. Thus works the play—let it go on. Our business calls us to the outside.

There is scarcely a passenger to be seen on Bank-side. Three or four boys loiter about the theatre, some trying, through a deceitful crevice, to catch a glimpse of the play—some tending horses, until the show be done. Apart from these, his arms crossed, leaning against a post, his eyes fixed on the Rose flag,—stands a youth, whose face, though perfect in its beauty, has yet a troubled air. As he stands, watching the rustling beacon, it almost seems—so fixed is his look—as though he held some converse with it; as though the fortunes of his future life were woven in its web in mystic characters, and he, with his spirit straining from his eyes, were seeking to decipher them. Now—so would imagination work—there seemed voluble speech in its flapping folds, and now a visible face. The youth turned from gazing on the flag to the open river. Some spirit was upon him; and, through his eyes, gave to vulgar objects a new and startling form. He was in a day-dream of wonder and beauty; and as it is told that those doomed to the ocean with hearts yearning for the land see fields and pleasant gardens in the heaving wave,—so our hero, tricked by his errant fancy, gazed breathless at new wonders sweeping before him. A golden mist shrouded the mansions and warehouses on the strand. Each common thing of earth glowed and dilated under the creative spirit of the dreamer. The Thames seemed fixed—whilst a thousand forms moved along the silver pavement. The sky shone brighter—harmony was in the air! The shades move on.

First passes one bearing in his hand a skull: wisdom is in his eyes, music on his tongue—the soul of contemplation in the flesh of an Apollo: the greatest wonder and the deepest truth—the type of great thought and sickly fancies—the arm of clay, wrestling with and holding down the angel. He looks at the skull, as though death had written on it the history of man. In the distance one white arm is seen above the tide, clutching at the branches of a willow “growing askant a brook.”

Now there are sweet, fitful noises in the air: a shaggy monster, his lips glued to a bottle—his eyes scarlet with wine—wine throbbing in the very soles of his feet—heaves and rolls along, mocked at by a sparkling creature couched in a cowslip’s bell.

And now a maiden and a youth, an eternity of love in their passionate looks, with death as a hooded priest joining their hands: a gay gallant follows them, led on by Queen Mab, twisting and sporting as a porker’s tail.

The horns sound—all, all is sylvan! Philosophy in hunter’s suit, stretched beneath an oak, moralises on a wounded deer, festering, neglected, and alone: and now the bells of folly jingle in the breeze, and the suit of motley glances among the greenwood.

The earth is blasted—the air seems full of spells: the shadows of the Fates darken the march of the conqueror: the hero is stabbed with air-drawn steel.

The waves roar like lions round the cliff: the winds are up, and howling; yet there is a voice, louder than theirs—a voice made high and piercing by intensest agony! The singer comes, his white head “crowned with rank fumitor”—madness, tended by truth, speaking through folly!

The Adriatic basks in the sun: there is a street in Venice; “a merry bargain” is struck—the Jew slinks like a balked tiger from the court.

Enter a pair of legs, marvellously cross-gartered.

And hark! to a sound of piping, comes one with an ass’s head wreathed with musk roses and a spirit playing around it like a wildfire.

A handkerchief, with “magic in the web,” comes like a trail of light, and disappears.

A leek—a leek of immortal green shoots up!

Behold! like to the San Trinidad, swims in a buck-basket labelled “to Datchet Meads.”

There gleam two roses, red and white—a Roman cloak stabbed through and through—a lantern of the watch of Messina!

A thousand images of power and beauty pass along.

The glorious pageant is over—no! fancy is yet at work.—

Yonder ship, laden with sherris, canary, and spice—see how her masts and rigging fall and melt, like metal in a furnace! Her huge hold, stowed to the deck with wine, swells and distends, and takes another form. We see no ship, but a man mountain, with a belly that “would sink a navy.” One butt of red wine is sinking in the Thames: no; it moves and shapes itself into something like a nose, which, rising like a comet, fiery red, before him of the abdomen, seems as ’twere purposed for a torch to light him “’twixt tavern and tavern.” And see——

But the day-dream of the youth is broken. A visitor, mounted, has just arrived, and would fain enter the play-house; but there is none bold or strong enough to hold his steed. At least a dozen men—it was remarkable that each had in his bosom a roll of paper, it might be the draft of a play—rushing from the Rose, strove to hold the bridle: but some the horse trod down—some he struck paralytic with his flashing eye—some ran away, half distraught at his terrible neighing. At length our dreamer approached the steed, which, as it had been suddenly turned to stone, stood still. The rider dismounted and entered the play-house, leaving his horse tended by our hero. The animal ate from out his hand—answered with its proud head the caresses of its feeder—and, as it pranced and curveted, a sound of music, as from the horny hoofs of dancing satyrs, rose from the earth. All stood amazed at the sudden taming of the horse.

The play ended—the audience issued from the doors. The story had run from mouth to mouth, touching the new-comer and his horse. All hurried about the stranger, to see him mount. He, with some difficulty, such was the crowd, leaped on his steed, when, inclining his face, radiant with smiles, towards the youth who had performed the office of his groom, he flashed like a sunbeam out of sight. All stood marble with astonishment. At length the immortal quality of the visitor was made manifest, for, in the press and hurry, a feather had fallen from one of his wings—albeit, concealed and guarded by a long cloak.

The youth who had taken charge of the horse seized, as his rightful wages, on this relic of Phœbus, and, taking his way, he fashioned it into a pen, and with it from time to time gave to the “airy nothings” of his day-dream “a local habitation and a name.”

It is modestly hoped that this well-authenticated story will wholly silence the sceptical objections of Mr Steevens.

“Hearing little John Fenton lisp his Berkshire Latin”