“CHING TO TING.
“I send, O Ting, from the barbarian ship, a picture of barbarians. Make one for your friend, like unto it; in size, in shape, and colour, even the same. But why should I waste words with Ting, whose pencil is true as the tongue of Confutzee? No; I will straightway deliver to him all my studies have made known to me of the barbarians written on the canvas before him: for how can even Ting paint the faces of barbarians in their very truth, if he knows not the history not only of themselves but of their fathers?
“The he barbarian with the big belly was called Forlstoff, and in time was known as Surgeon Forlstoff: from which, there is no doubt, he was a skilful leech in the army of the barbarian king, more of whom in good season. Forlstoff’s father was one Shak or Shake, Speare or Spear; for there have been great tumults among the barbarians about the e. In nothing does the ignorance of the English barbarians more lamentably discover itself than in the origin they obstinately give to their Shakespeare; who, according to them, was, like the great Brahme, hatched in an egg on the bank of a river, as may be seen in a thousand idle books in which he is called the ‘Swan of Haveone.’ And this conceit was further manifested in the building of a place called ‘the Swan Theatre,’ where the barbarians were wont to worship. There is little known of Shakespeare’s wife, Forlstoff’s mother, and that little proves her to have been an idle person, given to great sleep and sloth, as is shown by her getting nothing at the death of her husband but his ‘second-best bed!’
“If Forlstoff would not, at a later time of life, leave off stealing, there is little doubt that he owed the fault to his father, Shakespeare, who was forced to fly to London, which is a sacred city for all thieves, for having stolen an antelope, an animal consecrated to the higher kinds of barbarians, and which it is death for the poor to touch. Indeed, the flesh of the antelope is to be eaten with safety by very few of the barbarians, it having killed even many of the Eldermen immediately after dinner.
“When Shakespeare came to London he was poor and without friends, and he held the horses of the rich barbarians who came to worship at a temple on the banks of the river. In time he learned to make shoes for the horses; and in such esteem are the shoes still held by the barbarians, that they are bought at any price, and nailed at the threshold of their houses and barns; for where they are nailed, the foolish natives think no fire, no pestilence will come, and no evil thing have any strength. Such is the silly idolatry of the barbarians.
“At length Shakespeare got admitted into the temple; and there he showed himself master of the greatest arts; and he wrote charms upon paper which, it is said, will make a man weep or laugh with very happiness,—will bring spirits from the sky and devils from the water,—will open the heart of a man and show what creeps within it,—will now snatch a crown from a king, and now put wings to the back of a beggar. And all this they say Shakespeare did, and studied not. No, beloved Ting, he was not like Sing, who, though but a poor cowherd, became wise by poring on his book spread between the horns of his cow, he travelling on her back.
“And Shakespeare proceeded in his marvels, and he became rich; and even the queen of the barbarians was seen to smile at him, and once, with a burning look, to throw her glove at him; but Shakespeare, it is said, to the discomfiture of the queen, returned the glove, taking no further notice of the amatory invitation.
“In a ripe season of his life Shakespeare gave up conjuring, and returned to the village on the banks of the river Haveone, where, as it is ignorantly believed, he was hatched, and where he lived in the fulness of fortune. He had laid down his conjuring-rod and taken off his gown, and passed for nothing more than a man, and, it is said—though you, beloved Ting, who see the haughty eyes and curling noses of the lesser man mandarins, can, after what I have writ of Shakespeare, hardly believe it—thought himself nothing more.
“Became wise by poring on his book”