There is in Essex a manor of Hawkwood, which is supposed to owe its name to the gallant tailor-soldier; and the house on which, was reputed to have been built by his heirs. It is ascertained, however, that this manor of Hawkwood was so known in the reign of King John; and perhaps the renowned John’s ancestors originally came from its vicinity, and took its name for a surname, when surnames were rare, and they hardly knew what to call themselves. One author indeed has suggested that the received story of the lowly origin of Hawkwood is all fiction, and that he was really of gentle blood. But I protest against any such suggestion, for in that case what would become of all this history I have been telling?
In sober seriousness, the main facts are doubtless as they have been told. They are not mere romantic details of romantic times. In much later days we have heard of tailors turning out heroes. There is no worthier illustration of this fact that I can remember, than “daring Dörfling;” and his little story I will briefly tell, if my readers will only vouchsafe me ear and patience; as Crispin says, “Cela ne sera pas long.”
GEORGE DÖRFLING, THE MARTIAL TAILOR.
“Of stature tall, and straightly fashion’d;
Like his desire, lift upwards, and divine.”
Marlowe: Tamburlaine.
George Dörfling was born in Bohemia, in the year 1606. It is popularly said in that country, that when a child is born there, a fairy presents herself at his side and offers him a purse and a violin, leaving to him to choose which gift most pleases him. According as he makes his selection, is his future character determined. If he takes the fiddle, he turns out a musician. If he grasps at the purse, he invariably becomes a thief. Every Bohemian is declared to be either the one or the other. I may add, that under the shadow of the Hradschin, I have met with “Czeks” who were both, and with very many who were neither.
I fancy that at Dörfling’s birth there was much confusion, both in the domestic and the magic circle. In the former there must have been something peculiarly wrong. George could make no Shandean calculations touching his birth, for he never knew his parents’ names; and as he turned out neither player nor robber, except on a very heroic scale, the fairies do not appear to have afforded him the usual exercise of judgement which they commonly permitted to discriminating infants.
There was one thing, however, of which young George would not doubt. He felt quite sure that he was born. He had no hesitation upon that question; and he was a philosopher of the Descartes school, without ever having heard anything of the Cartesian philosophy. He soon gave himself, or had given to him, a name. He had first seen light in a village; and he was accordingly called George Villager, or Little Villager. “Dorf” implies village, and “Dörfling,” villager; and accordingly the little Bohemian took that humble name,—nobody having the slightest idea that he would ever make it famous, and upon it place a baron’s coronet.