“Duty’s a dry debt,” said he. “I would you had ought the name that cup of burnt sack which my present poverty denies me.”
The new-comer was a young man—little more than his own age—of a very fine and distinguished appearance. His face was delicate and handsome, but a little irregular in its contour, as if its commanding intelligence were easily at the mercy of its humour. A chestnut moustache and beard, small but already strong, clothed a jaw a thought underhung. The eyes above were wonderful—brown vivacious lights of sagacity that seemed to take all observation for their province. A comely compact figure, of the average height, clothed sombrely but richly in purple velvet, a snowy ruff, a flexible black hat with a rolled band of silk above its brim—such completed a personality which was as attractive as it was compelling.
“Is that so?” said the stranger. “Genius insolvent? ‘Ingenium res adversæ nudare solent, celare secundæ.’ Your poverty should be your gain, sir.”
“As with the Horace you quote?” answered the playwright. “I ask for nothing better, sir, nor for a more enlightened Mæcenas than her Majesty’s Counsel-Extraordinary.”
Mr. Francis Bacon—for it was he, indeed—laughed, knowing himself detected, as if pleased.
“I am well answered,” he said. He was already, young as he was, in advance of his amazing promise—a Bencher and Reader of his Inn, a Member of Parliament, my Lord of Essex’s loved client. And his vast imagination had been the first to grasp the full significance of the dramatic revolution inaugurated by this scapegrace genius who sat revealed before him. “And by a scholar,” he added.
“An exhibitioner, an it please your worship,” cried the other. “Bachelor and Master of Arts of Benet’s College of your own University; translator of Helen’s Rape from Coluthus, and, since, a humble reformer of the Miracles, and, as some aver, even a worker of new ones.”
“I have been eye and ear-witness of your Tambourlaine,” said the stranger; “of your Faustus, of your Jew; lastly of your Edward the King; and I have no desire to traverse the statement. You have done things; you have revealed; you have opened out worlds which others, perchance, shall colonise. I doff my hat to that fine madness of your Muse—the hot passion that tears the ‘unities’ to rags and leaves her clothed in Nature. Withal, Master Marlowe, I have a bone or two to pick with you.”
“Alack!” cried the playwright: “this arid mirthless feast!”
“Anon, anon, my gentleman! Grace before meat.”