The Cloister and the Hearth: A Tale of the Middle Ages

by Charles Reade

  CHAPTER LXI

  HAPPY the man who has two chain-cables; Merit, and Women.

  Oh that I, like Gerard, had a "chaine des dames" to pull up by.

  I would be prose laureat, or professor of the spasmodic, or something,in no time. En attendant, I will sketch the Fra Colonna.

  The true revivers of ancient learning and philosophy, were two writersof fiction--Petrarch, and Boccaccio.

  Their labours were not crowned with great, public, and immediatesuccess; but they sowed the good seed; and it never perished, butquickened in the soil, awaiting sunshine.

  From their day Italy was never without a native scholar or two, versedin Greek; and each learned Greek who landed there was receivedfraternally. The fourteenth century, ere its close, saw the birth ofPoggio, Valla, and the elder Guarino: and early in the fifteenthFlorence under Cosmo de Medici was a nest of Platonists. These, headedby Gemistus Pletho, a born Greek, began about A. D. 1440, to write downAristotle. For few minds are big enough to be just to great A withoutbeing unjust to capital B.

  Theodore Gaza defended that great man with moderation; George ofTrebizond with acerbity, and retorted on Plato. Then Cardinal Bessarion,another born Greek, resisted the said George, and his idol, in a tract"Adversus calumniatorem Platonis."

  Pugnacity, whether wise or not, is a form of vitality. Born withoutcontroversial bile in so zealous an epoch, Francesco Colonna, a youngnobleman of Florence, lived for the arts. At twenty he turned Dominicanfriar. His object was quiet study. He retired from idle company, andfaction fights, the humming and the stinging of the human hive, to St.Dominic and the Nine Muses.

  An eager student of languages, pictures, statues, chronology, coins, andmonumental inscriptions. These last loosened his faith in popularhistories.

  He travelled many years in the East, and returned laden with spoils:master of several choice MSS., and versed in Greek and Latin, Hebrew andSyriac. He found his country had not stood still. Other lettered princesbesides Cosmo had sprung up. Alfonso King of Naples, Nicolas d'Este,Lionel d'Este, &c. Above all, his old friend Thomas of Sarzana had beenmade pope, and had lent a mighty impulse to letters; had accumulated5,000 MSS. in the library of the Vatican, and had set Poggio totranslate Diodorus Siculus and Xenophon's Cyropaedia, Laurentius Valla totranslate Herodotus and Thucydides, Theodore Gaza, Theophrastus; Georgeof Trebizond, Eusebius, and certain treatises of Plato, etc., etc.

  The monk found Plato and Aristotle under armistice, but Poggio and Vallaat loggerheads over verbs and nouns, and on fire with odiumphilologicum. All this was heaven; and he settled down in his nativeland, his life a rosy dream. None so happy as the versatile, providedthey have not their bread to make by it. And Fra Colonna wasVersatility. He knew seven or eight languages, and a little mathematics;could write a bit, paint a bit, model a bit, sing a bit, strum a bit;and could relish superior excellence in all these branches. For thislast trait he deserved to be as happy as he was. For, gauge theintellects of your acquaintances, and you will find but few whose mindsare neither deaf, nor blind, nor dead to some great art or science,

  "And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out."

  And such of them as are conceited as well as stupid, shall even parade,instead of blushing for, the holes in their intellects.

  A zealot in art, the friar was a sceptic in religion.

  In every age there are a few men, who hold the opinions of another age;past or future. Being a lump of simplicity, his scepticism was as naifas his enthusiasm. He affected to look on the religious ceremonies ofhis day as his models, the heathen philosophers, regarded the worship ofgods and departed heroes: mummeries good for the populace. But here hismind drew unconsciously a droll distinction. Whatever Christian ceremonyhis learning taught him was of purely pagan origin, that he respected,out of respect for antiquity; though had he, with his turn of mind, beena pagan and its cotemporary, he would have scorned it from hisphilosophic heights.

  Fra Colonna was charmed with his new artist, and, having the run of halfthe palaces in Rome, sounded his praises so, that he was soon calledupon to resign him. He told Gerard what great princes wanted him. "But Iam so happy with you, father," objected Gerard. "Fiddlestick about beinghappy with me," said Fra Colonna, "you must not be happy; you must be aman of the world; the grand lesson I impress on the young is be a man ofthe world. Now these Montesini can pay you three times as much as I can,and they shall too--by Jupiter."

  And the friar clapped a terrific price on Gerard's pen. It was accededto without a murmur. Much higher prices were going for _copying_, than_authorship_ ever obtained for centuries under the printing press.

  Gerard had three hundred crowns for Aristotle's treatise on rhetoric.

  The great are mighty sweet upon all their pets, while the fancy lasts:and in the rage for Greek MSS. the handsome writer soon became a pet,and nobles of both sexes caressed him like a lap dog. It would haveturned a vain fellow's head; but the canny Dutchman saw the steel handbeneath the velvet glove, and did not presume. Nevertheless it was aproud day for him, when he found himself seated with Fra Colonna at thetable of his present employer, Cardinal Bessarion. They were about amile from the top of that table; but, never mind, there they were; andGerard had the advantage of seeing roast pheasants dished up with alltheir feathers as if they had just flown out of a coppice instead of offthe spit: also chickens cooked in bottles, and tender as peaches. Butthe grand novelty was the napkins, surpassingly fine, and folded intococked hats, and birds' wings, and fans, etc., instead of lying flat.This electrified Gerard: though my readers have seen the dazzlingphenomenon without tumbling backwards chair and all.

  After dinner the tables were split in pieces, and carried away, and lounder each was another table spread with sweetmeats. The signoras, andsignorinas, fell upon them and gormandized; but the signors eyed themwith reasonable suspicion.

  "But, dear father," objected Gerard, "I see not the bifurcal daggers,with which men say his excellency armeth the left hand of a man."

  "Nay, 'tis the Cardinal Orsini which hath invented yon peevishinstrument for his guests to fumble their meat withal. One, being inhaste, did skewer his tongue to his palate with it I hear; O tempora, Omores! The ancients, reclining godlike at their feasts, how have theyspurned such pedantries."

  As soon as the ladies had disported themselves among the sugar-plums,the tables were suddenly removed, and the guests sat in a row againstthe wall. Then came in, ducking and scraping, two ecclesiastics withlutes, and kneeled at the cardinal's feet and there sang the service ofthe day; then retired with a deep obeisance: in answer to which thecardinal fingered his skull cap as our late Iron Duke his hat: thecompany dispersed, and Gerard had dined with a cardinal, and one thathad thrice just missed being pope.

  But greater honour was in store.

  One day the cardinal sent for him, and after praising the beauty of hiswork took him in his coach to the Vatican: and up a private stair to aluxurious little room, with a great oriel window. Here were inkstands,sloping frames for writing on, and all the instruments of art. Thecardinal whispered a courtier, and presently the Pope's privatesecretary appeared with a glorious grimy old MS. of Plutarch's Lives.And soon Gerard was seated alone copying it, awestruck, yet halfdelighted at the thought that his holiness would handle his work andread it.

  The papal inkstands were all glorious externally; but within the ink wasvile. But Gerard carried ever good ink, home-made, in a dirty littleinkhorn: he prayed on his knees for a firm and skilful hand, and set towork.

  One side of his room was nearly occupied by a massive curtain divided inthe centre: but its ample folds overlapped. After a while, Gerard feltdrawn to peep through that curtain. He resisted the impulse. Itreturned. It overpowered him. He left Plutarch; stole across the mattedfloor; took the folds of the curtain, and gently gathered them up withhis fingers, and putting his nose through the chink ran it against acold steel halbert. Two soldiers armed cap-a-pie, were holding theirglittering weapons crossed in a triangle. Gerard drew swiftly
back: butin that instant he heard the soft murmur of voices and saw a group ofpersons cringing before some hidden figure.

  He never repeated his attempt to pry through the guarded curtain; butoften eyed it. Every hour or so an ecclesiastic peeped in, eyed him,chilled him, and exit. All this was gloomy and mechanical. But the nextday a gentleman, richly armed, bounced in, and glared at him. "What istoward here?" said he.

  Gerard told him he was writing out Plutarch, with the help of thesaints. The spark said he did not know the signor in question. Gerardexplained the circumstances of time and space, that had deprived theSignor Plutarch of the advantage of the spark's conversation.

  "Oh! one of those old dead Greeks they keep such a coil about."

  "Ay, signor, one of them, who, being dead, yet live."

  "I understand you not, young man," said the noble, with all the dignityof ignorance. "What did the old fellow write? Love stories?" and hiseyes sparkled: "merry tales like Boccaccio."

  "Nay lives of heroes, and sages."

  "Soldiers, and popes?"

  "Soldiers, and princes."

  "Wilt read me of them some day?"

  "And willingly, signor. But what would they say who employ me, were I tobreak off work?"

  "Oh never heed that; know you not who I am? I am Jacques Bonaventura,nephew to his holiness the Pope, and captain of his guards. And I camehere to look after my fellows. I trow they have turned them out of theirroom for you." Signor Bonaventura then hurried away. This livelycompanion however having acquired a habit of running into that littleroom, and finding Gerard good company, often looked in on him, andchatted ephemeralities while Gerard wrote the immortal lives.

  One day he came a changed, and moody man, and threw himself into achair, crying "Ah, traitress! traitress!" Gerard inquired what was hisill? "Traitress! traitress!" was the reply. Whereupon Gerard wrotePlutarch. Then says Bonaventura "I am melancholy; and for our Lady'ssake read me a story out of Ser Plutarcho, to sooth my bile: in allthat Greek is there nought about lovers betrayed?"

  Gerard read him the life of Alexander. He got excited, marched about theroom, and embracing the reader, vowed to shun "soft delights," that bedof nettles, and follow glory.

  Who so happy now as Gerard? His art was honoured, and fabulous pricespaid for it; in a year or two he should return by sea to Holland, withgood store of money, and set up with his beloved Margaret in Bruges, orAntwerp, or dear Augsburg, and end their days in peace, and love, andhealthy, happy labour. His heart never strayed an instant from her.

  In his prosperity he did not forget poor Pietro. He took the Fra Colonnato see his picture. The friar inspected it severely and closely, fell onthe artist's neck, and carried the picture to one of the Colonnas, whogave a noble price for it.

  Pietro descended to the first floor; and lived like a gentleman.

  But Gerard remained in his garret. To increase his expenses would havebeen to postpone his return to Margaret. Luxury had no charms for thesingle-hearted one, when opposed to love.

  Jacques Bonaventura made him acquainted with other gay young fellows.They loved him, and sought to entice him into vice, and other expenses.But he begged humbly to be excused. So he escaped that temptation. But agreater was behind.