this Nash—the creature of genius, of famine, and despair. He lived indeed in the age of Elizabeth, but writes as if he had lived in our own. He proclaimed himself to the world as Pierce Pennilesse, and on a retrospect of his literary life, observes that he had “sat up late and rose early, contended with the cold, and conversed with scarcitie;” he says, “all my labours turned to losse—I was despised and neglected, my paines not regarded, or slightly rewarded, and I myself, in prime of my best wit, laid open to povertie. Whereupon I accused my fortune, railed on my patrons, bit my pen, rent my papers, and raged.”—And then comes the after-reflection, which so frequently provokes the anger of genius: “How many base men that wanted those parts I had, enjoyed content at will, and had wealth at command! I called to mind a cobbler that was worth five hundred pounds; an hostler that had built a goodly inn; a carman in a leather pilche that had whipt a thousand pound out of his horse’s tail—and have I more than these? thought I to myself; am I better born? am I better brought up? yea, and better favoured! and yet am I a beggar? How am I crost, or whence is this curse? Even from hence, the men that should employ such as I am, are enamoured of their own wits, though they be never so scurvie; that a scrivener is better paid than a scholar; and men of art must seek to live among cormorants, or be kept under by dunces, who count it policy to keep them bare to follow their books the better.” And then, Nash thus utters the cries of—
| A DESPAIRING AUTHOR! Why is’t damnation to despair and die When life is my true happiness’ disease? My soul! my soul! thy safety makes me fly The faulty means that might my pain appease; Divines and dying men may talk of hell; But in my heart her several torments dwell. Ah worthless wit, to train me to this woe! Deceitful arts that nourish discontent! Ill thrive the folly that bewitch’d me so! Vain thoughts, adieu! for now I will repent; And yet my wants persuade me to proceed, Since none take pity of a scholar’s need!— 25 Forgive me, God, although I curse my birth, And ban the air wherein I breathe a wretch! For misery hath daunted all my mirth— Without redress complains my careless verse, And Midas’ ears relent not at my moan! In some far land will I my griefs rehearse, ’Mongst them that will be moved when I shall groan! England, adieu! the soil that brought me forth! Adieu, unkinde! where skill is nothing worth! |
Such was the miserable cry of an “Author by Profession” in the reign of Elizabeth. Nash not only renounces his country in his despair—and hesitates on “the faulty means” which have appeased the pangs of many of his unhappy brothers, but he proves also the weakness of the moral principle among these men of genius; for he promises, if any Mæcenas will bind him by his bounty, he will do him “as much honour as any poet of my beardless years in England—but,” he adds, “if he be sent away with a flea in his ear, let him look that I will rail on him soundly; not for an hour or a day, while the injury is fresh in my memory, but in some elaborate polished poem, which I will leave to the world when I am dead, to be a living image to times to come of his beggarly parsimony.” Poets might imagine that Chatterton had written all this, about the time he struck a balance of his profit and loss by the death of Beckford the Lord Mayor, in which he concludes with “I am glad he is dead by 3l. 13s. 6d.”[19]
A MENDICANT AUTHOR,
AND THE PATRONS OF FORMER TIMES.
It must be confessed, that before “Authors by Profession” had fallen into the hands of the booksellers, they endured peculiar grievances. They were pitiable retainers of some 26 great family. The miseries of such an author, and the insolence and penuriousness of his patrons, who would not return the poetry they liked and would not pay for, may be traced in the eventful life of Thomas Churchyard, a poet of the age of Elizabeth, one of those unfortunate men who have written poetry all their days, and lived a long life to complete the misfortune. His muse was so fertile, that his works pass all enumeration. He courted numerous patrons, who valued the poetry, while they left the poet to his own miserable contemplations. In a long catalogue of his works, which this poet has himself given, he adds a few memoranda, as he proceeds, a little ludicrous, but very melancholy. He wrote a book which he could never afterwards recover from one of his patrons, and adds, “all which book was in as good verse as ever I made; an honourable knight dwelling in the Black Friers can witness the same, because I read it unto him.” Another accorded him the same remuneration—on which he adds, “An infinite number of other songs and sonnets given where they cannot be recovered, nor purchase any favour when they are craved.” Still, however, he announces “Twelve long Tales for Christmas, dedicated to twelve honourable lords.” Well might Churchyard write his own sad life, under the title of “The Tragicall Discourse of the Haplesse Man’s Life.”[20]
It will not be easy to parallel this pathetic description of the wretched age of a poor neglected poet mourning over a youth vainly spent.
| High time it is to haste my carcase hence: Youth stole away and felt no kind of joy, And age he left in travail ever since; The wanton days that made me nice and coy Were but a dream, a shadow, and a toy— 27 I look in glass, and find my cheeks so lean That every hour I do but wish me dead; Now back bends down, and forwards falls the head, And hollow eyes in wrinkled brow doth shroud As though two stars were creeping under cloud. The lips wax cold, and look both pale and thin, The teeth fall out as nutts forsook the shell, The bare bald head but shows where hair hath been, The lively joints wax weary, stiff, and still, The ready tongue now falters in his tale; The courage quails as strength decays and goes. … The thatcher hath a cottage poor you see: The shepherd knows where he shall sleep at night; The daily drudge from cares can quiet be: Thus fortune sends some rest to every wight; And I was born to house and land by right. … Well, ere my breath my body do forsake My spirit I bequeath to God above; My books, my scrawls, and songs that I did make, I leave with friends that freely did me love. … Now, friends, shake hands, I must be gone, my boys! Our mirth takes end, our triumph all is done; Our tickling talk, our sports and merry toys Do glide away like shadow of the sun. Another comes when I my race have run, Shall pass the time with you in better plight, And find good cause of greater things to write. |
Yet Churchyard was no contemptible bard; he composed a national poem, “The Worthiness of Wales,” which has been reprinted, and will be still dear to his “Fatherland,” as the Hollanders expressively denote their natal spot. He wrote in the “Mirrour of Magistrates,” the Life of Wolsey, which has parts of great dignity; and the Life of Jane Shore, which was much noticed in his day, for a severe critic of the times writes:
| Hath not Shore’s wife, although a light-skirt she, Given him a chaste, long, lasting memorie? |
Churchyard, and the miseries of his poetical life, are alluded to by Spenser. He is old Palemon in “Colin Clout’s come Home again.” Spenser is supposed to describe this laborious writer for half a century, whose melancholy pipe, in his old age, may make the reader “rew:”
| Yet he himself may rewed be more right, That sung so long untill quite hoarse he grew. |
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His epitaph, preserved by Camden, is extremely instructive to all poets, could epitaphs instruct them:—
| Poverty and poetry his tomb doth inclose; Wherefore, good neighbours, be merry in prose. |
It appears also by a confession of Tom Nash, that an author would then, pressed by the res angusta domi, when “the bottom of his purse was turned upward,” submit to compose pieces for gentlemen who aspired to authorship. He tells us on some occasion, that he was then in the country composing poetry for some country squire;—and says, “I am faine to let my plow stand still in the midst of a furrow,
