Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century

by Georgiana Fullerton

library.Howsoever, he was very well known to be a recusant, for that neitherhimself, nor any belonging to him, attended Protestant worship; andSir Francis sometimes told him that the clemency with which he wastreated was shown toward him with the hope that, by mild courses, hemight be soon brought to some better conformity.

  Mr. Lacy's house was in Gray's Inn Lane, a few doors from Mr. SwithinWells's; and through this proximity an intimate acquaintanceship didarise between that worthy gentleman and his wife and Kate's friends.He was very good-natured, pleasant in conversation, courteous, andgenerous; and Mrs. Wells a most virtuous gentlewoman. Although he (Mr.Swithin) much delighted in hawking, hunting, and other suchlikediversions, yet he so soberly governed his affections therein, as tobe content to deprive himself of a good part of those pleasures, andretire to a more profitable employment of training up young gentlemenin virtue and learning; and with such success that his house has been,as it were, a fruitful seminary to many worthy members of the CatholicChurch. Among the young gentlemen who resided with him at that timewas Mr. Hubert Rookwood, the youngest of the two sons of Mr. Rookwood,of Euston, whom I had seen at the inn at Bedford, when I wasjourneying to London. We did speedily enter into a somewhat closeacquaintanceship, founded on a similarity of tastes and agreeableinterchange of civilities, touching the lending of books and likewisepieces of music, which I did make fair copies of for him, and which wesometimes practiced in the evening; for he had a pleasant voice and anaptness to catch the trick of a song, albeit unlearned in the art,wherein he styled me proficient; and I, nothing loth to impart myknowledge, became his instructor, and did teach him both to sing andplay the lute. He was not much taller than when I had seen him before;but his figure was changed, and his visage had grown pale, and hishair thick and flowing, especially toward the back of the head,discovering in front a high and thoughtful forehead. There was a greatdeal of good young company at that time in Mr. Wells's house; for someCatholics tabled there beside those that were his pupils, and othersresorted to it by reason of the pleasant entertainment they found inthe society of ingenuous persons, well qualified, and of their ownreligion. I had most days opportunities of conversing with Hubert,though we were never alone; and, by reason of the friendship which hadexisted between his father and mine, I allowed him a kindness I didnot commonly afford to others.

  Mr. Lacy had had his training in that house, and, albeit his naturalparts did not title him to the praise of an eminent scholar, he hadthence derived a great esteem for learning, a taste for books, of thewhich he did possess a great store (many hundred volumes), and adiscreet manner of talking, though something tinctured withaffectation, inasmuch as he should seem to be rather enamored of thewords he uttered, than careful of the substance. Hubert was wontto say that his speech was like to the drawing of a leaden sword outof a gilded sheath. He was a very virtuous young man; and his wife hadnever but one complaint to set forth, which was that his books took upso much of his time that she was almost as jealous of them as if theyhad been her rivals. She would have it he did kill himself with study;and, in a particular manner, with the writing of the life of oneThomas a Kempis, which was a work he had had a long time on hand. Oneday she comes into his library, and salutes him thus: "Mr. Lacy, Iwould I were a book; and then methinks you would a little more respectme." Polly, who was by, cried out, "Madam, you must then be analmanac, that he might change every year;" whereat she was not alittle displeased. And another time, when her husband was sick, shesaid, if Mr. Lacy died, she would burn Thomas a Kempis for the killingof her husband. I, hearing this, answered that to do so were a greatpity; to whom she replied, "Why, who was Thomas a Kempis?" to which Ianswered, "One of the saintliest men of the age wherein he lived."Wherewith she was so satisfied, that she said, then she would not doit for all the world.

  Methinks I read more in that one year than in all the rest of my lifebeside. Mine aunt was more sick than usual, and Mistress Ward so takenup with the nursing of her, that she did not often leave her room.Polly was married in the winter to Sir Ralph Ingoldby, and went toreside for some months in the country. Muriel prevailed on her fatherto visit the prison with her, in Mistress Ward's stead, so thatsometimes they were abroad the whole of the day; by reason of which, Iwas oftener in Gray's Inn Lane than at home, sometimes at Kate'shouse, and sometimes at Mistress Wells's mansion, where I becameinfected with a zeal for learning, which Hubert's example andconversation did greatly invite me to. He had the most winning tongue,and the aptest spirit in the world to divine the natural inclinationsof those he consorted with. The books he advised me to read weremostly such as Mistress Ward, to whom I did faithfully recite theirtitles, accounted to be not otherwise than good and profitable, havinglearned so much from good men she consulted thereon, for she washerself no scholar; but they bred in me a great thirst for knowledge,a craving to converse with those who had more learning than myself,and withal so keen a relish for Hubert's society, that I had nocontentment so welcome as to listen to his discourse, which wasseasoned with a rare kind of eloquence and a discursive fancy, towhich, also, the perfection of his carriage, his pronunciation ofspeech, and the deportment of his body lent no mean lustre. Naughtarrogant or affected disfigured his conversation, in which did lie soefficacious a power of persuasion, and at times, when the occasioncalled for it, so great a vehemency of passion, as enforced admirationof his great parts, if not approval of his arguments. I made him atthat time judge of the new thoughts which books, like so many keysopening secret chambers in the mind, did unlock in mine; and I mind mehow eagerly I looked for his answers--how I hung on his lips when hewas speaking, not from any singular affection toward his person, butby reason of the extraordinary fascination of his speech, and theinterest of the themes we discoursed upon; one time touching on thehistories of great men of past ages, at another on the changes wroughtin our own by the new art of printing books, which had produced suchgreat changes in the world, and yet greater to be expected. And as hewas well skilled in the Italian as well as the French language, I cameby his means to be acquainted with many great writers of thosenations. He translated for me sundry passages from the divine play ofSignor Dante Alighieri, in which hell and purgatory and heavenare depicted, as it were by an eye-witness, with so much pregnancy ofmeaning and force of genius, that it should almost appear as if somespecial revelation had been vouchsafed to the poet beyond his naturalthoughts, to disclose to him the secrets of other spheres. He alsomade me read a portion of that most fine and sweet poem on thedelivery of the holy city Jerusalem, composed by Signor TorquatoTasso, a gentleman who resided at that time at the court of the Dukeof Ferrara, and which one Mr. Fairfax has since done into Englishverse. The first four cantos thereof were given to Mr. Wells by ayoung gentleman, who had for a while studied at the University ofPadua. This fair poem, and mostly the second book thereof, hathremained imprinted in my memory with a singular fixity, by reason thatit proved the occasion of my discerning for the first time a specialinclination on Hubert's side toward myself, who thought nothing oflove, but was only glad to have acquired a friend endowed with so muchwit and superior knowledge, and willing to impart it. This book, Isay, did contain a narration which bred in me so great a resentment ofthe author's merits, and so quick a sympathy with the feigned subjectsof his muse, that never before or since methinks has a fiction somoved me as the story of Olindo and Sophronisba.

  Methinks this was partly ascribable to a certain likeness between thescenes described by the poet and some which take place at this time inour country. In the maiden of high and noble thoughts, fair, butheedless of her beauty, who stood in the presence of the soldan, oncea Christian, then a renegade, taking on herself the sole guilt,--Ovirtuous guilt! O worthy crime!--of which all the Christians wereaccused, to wit, of rescuing sacred Mary's image from the hands of theinfidels who did curse and blaspheme it, and, when all were to die forthe act of one unknown, offered herself a ransom for all, and with ashamefaced courage, such as became a maid, and a bold modestybefitting a saint--a bosom moved indeed, but n
ot dismayed, a fair butnot pallid cheek--was content to perish for that the rest shouldlive;--in her, I say, I saw a likeness in spirit to those who suffernowadays for a like faith with hers, not at the hands of infidels, butof such whose parents did for the most part hold that same beliefwhich they do now make out to be treason.

  Hubert, observing me to be thus moved, smiled, and asked if, in thelike case, I should have willed to die as Sophronisba.

  "Yes," I answered, "if God did give me grace;" and then, as I utteredthe words, I thought it should not be lawful to tell a lie, not for tosave all the lives in the world; which doubt I imparted to him, wholaughed and said he was of the poet's mind, who doth exclaim, touchingthis lie, "O noble deceit! worthier than truth itself!" and that hethought a soul should not suffer long in purgatory for