Part 25 (2/2)

”Mongst these, some bards there were that in their sacred rage Recorded the descents and acts of everie age.

Some with their nimbler joynts that strooke the warbling string; In fingering some unskild, but onelie vsed to sing Vnto the other's harpe: of which you both might find Great plentie, and of both excelling in their kind.”

The superst.i.tions of various kinds, the omens, the warnings, the charms, the ”potent spells” of the wizard seer, which

”Could hold in dreadful thrall the labouring moon, Or draw the fix'd stars from their eminence, And still the midnight tempest,”--

the supernatural agents, the goblins, the witches, the fairies, the satyrs, the elves, the fauns, the ”shapes that walk,” the

”Uncharnel'd spectres, seen to glide Along the lone wood's unfrequented path”--

the being and active existence of all these was considered ”true as holy writ” by our ancestors of the Elizabethan age. On this subject we will transcribe a beautifully ill.u.s.trative pa.s.sage from Warton:--

”Every goblin of ignorance” (says he) ”did not vanish at the first glimmerings of the morning of science. Reason suffered a few demons still to linger, which she chose to retain in her service under the guidance of poetry. Men believed, or were willing to believe, that spirits were yet hovering around, who brought with them _airs from heaven, or blasts from h.e.l.l_; that the ghost was duly relieved from his prison of torment at the sound of the curfew, and that fairies imprinted mysterious circles on the turf by moonlight. Much of this credulity was even consecrated by the name of science and profound speculation. Prospero had not yet _broken and buried his staff_, nor _drowned his book deeper than did ever plummet sound_. It was now that the alchemist and the judicial astrologer conducted his occult operations by the potent intercourse of some preternatural being, who came obsequious to his call, and was bound to accomplish his severest services, under certain conditions, and for a limited duration of time. It was actually one of the pretended feats of these fantastic philosophers to evoke the queen of the fairies in the solitude of a gloomy grove, who, preceded by a sudden rustling of the leaves, appeared in robes of transcendant l.u.s.tre. The Shakspeare of a more instructed and polished age would not have given us a magician darkening the sun at noon, the sabbath of the witches, and the cauldron of incantation.”

It were endless, and indeed out of place here, to attempt to specify the numberless minor superst.i.tions to which this credulous tendency of the public mind gave birth or continuation; or the marvels of travellers,--as the Anthropophagi, the Ethiops with four eyes, the Hippopodes with their nether parts like horses, the Arimaspi with one eye in the forehead, and the Monopoli who have no head at all, but a face in their breast--which were all devoutly credited. One potent charm, however, we are constrained to particularise, since its infallibility was mainly dependent on the needlewoman's skill. It was a waistcoat which rendered its owner invulnerable: we believe that if duly prepared it would be found proof not only against ”silver bullets,” but also against even the ”charmed bullet” of German notoriety. Thus runs the charm:--

”On Christmas daie at night, a thread must be sponne of flax, by a little virgine girle, in the name of the divell; and it must be by hir woven, and also _wrought with the needle_. In the brest or forepart thereof must be made _with needleworke_ two heads; on the head at the right side must be a hat and a long beard, and the left head must have on a crowne, and it must be so horrible that it maie resemble Belzebub; and on each side of the wastcote must be _wrought_ a crosse.”

The newspaper, that now mighty political engine, that ”thewe and sinew” of the fourth estate of the realm, took its rise in Elizabeth's day. How would her legislators have been overwhelmed with amazement could they have beheld, in dim perspective, this child of the press, scarcely less now the offspring of the imagination than those chimeras of their own time to which we have been alluding; and would not the wrinkled brow of the modern politician be unconsciously smoothened, would not the careworn and profound diplomatist ”gather up his face into a smile before he was aware,” if the FIRST NEWSPAPER were suddenly placed before him? It is not indeed in existence, but was published under the t.i.tle of ”_The English Mercurie_,” in April, 1588, on the first appearance near the sh.o.r.es of England of the Spanish Armada, a crisis which caused this innovation on the usual public news-letter circulated in ma.n.u.script. No. 50, dated July 23, 1588, is the first now in existence; and as the publication only began in April, it shows they must have been issued frequently. We have seen this No. 50, which is preserved in the British Museum.[122]

In it are no advertis.e.m.e.nts--no fas.h.i.+ons--no law reports--no court circular--no fas.h.i.+onable arrivals--no fas.h.i.+onable intelligence--no murders--no robberies--no reviews--no crim. cons.--no elopements--no price of stocks--no mercantile intelligence--no police reports--no ”leaders,”--no literary memoranda--no poets' corner--no spring meetings--no radical demonstrations--no conservative dinners--but

”The

”English Mercurie,

”Published by AUTHORITIE,

”For the Prevention of False Reportes,

”_Whitehall, July 23, 1588._”

Contains three pages and a half, small quarto, of matter of fact information.

Two pages respecting the Armada then seen ”neare the Lizard, making for the entrance of the Channell,” and appearing on the surface of the water ”like floating castles.”

A page of news from Ostend, where ”nothing was talked of but the intended invasion of England. His Highnesse the Prince of Parma having compleated his preparationes, of which the subjoined Accounte might be depended upon as _exacte and authentique_.”

Something to say--for a newspaper.

And a few lines dated ”London, July 13, of the lord mayor, aldermen, common councilmen, and lieutenancie of this great citie” waiting on Her Majesty with a.s.surances of support, and receiving a gracious reception from her.

Such was the newspaper of 1588.

The great events of Elizabeth's reign, in war, in politics, in legislation, belong to the historian; the great march of mind, the connecting link which that age formed between the darkness of the preceding ones (for during the period of the wars of the Roses all sorts of art and science retrograded), and the high cultivation of later days, it is the province of the metaphysician and philosopher to a.n.a.lyse; and even the lighter characteristics of the time have become so familiar through the medium of many modern and valuable works, that we have ventured only to touch very superficially on some few of the more prominent of them.

FOOTNOTES:

[120] Harrison.

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