“Too great for pity, they inspire respect,
Their deeds astonish rather than affect.
Proving how rare the heart that we can move,
Which reason tells us we can never prove.”
Guy Faux, who, when in Spain, was the ’squire of the higher-born Catesby, has inspired but few dramatic writers. I only know of two. In Mrs. Crouch’s memoirs, notice is made of an afterpiece, brought out on the 5th of November, 1793, at the Haymarket. A far more creditable attempt to dramatize the story of Guy Fawkes was made with great success at the Coburg (Victoria) theatre, in September, 1822. This piece still keeps possession of the minor stage, and deservedly; but it has never been played with such effect as by its first “cast.” O. Smith was the Guy, and since he had played the famous Obi, so well as to cause Charles Kemble’s impersonation at the Haymarket to be forgotten, he had never been fitted with a character which suited him so admirably. It was one of the most truthful personations which the stage had ever seen. Indeed the piece was played by such a troop of actors as can not now be found in theatres of more pretensions than the transpontine houses. The chivalric Huntley, very like the chivalric Leigh Murray, in more respects than one, enacted Tresham with a rare ability, and judicious Chapman played Catesby with a good taste, which is not to be found now in the same locality. Dashing Stanley was the Monteagle, and graceful Howell the Percy, Beverly and Sloman gave rough portraits of the king and the facetious knight, Sir Tristam Collywobble—coarse but effective. Smith, however, was the soul of the piece, and Mr. Fawkes, of Farnley, might have witnessed the representation, and have been proud of his descent from the dignified hero that O. Smith made of his ancestor.
I have given samples of knights of various qualities, but I have yet to mention the scholar and poet knights. There are many personages who would serve to illustrate the knight so qualified, but I know of none so suitable as Ulrich Von Hutten.
ULRICH VON HUTTEN.
“Jacta est alea.”—Ulrich’s Device.
Ulrich von Hutten was born on the 21st of April, 1488, in the castle of Stackelberg, near Fulda, in Franconia. He was of a noble family—all the men of which were brave, and all the women virtuous. He had three brothers and two sisters. His tender mother loved him the most, because he was the weakest of her offspring. His father loved him the least for the same reason. For a like cause, however, both parents agreed that a spiritual education best accorded with the frame of Ulrich. The latter, at eleven years old, was accordingly sent to learn his humanities in the abbey school at Fulda.
His progress in all knowledge, religious and secular, made him the delight of the stern abbot and of his parents. Every effort possible was resorted to, to induce him to devote himself for ever to the life of the cloister. In his zealous opposition to this he was ably seconded by a strong-handed and high-minded knight, a friend of his father’s named Eitelwolf von Stein. This opposition so far succeeded, that in 1504, when Ulrich was sixteen years of age he fled from the cloister-academy of Fulda, and betook himself to the noted high-school at Erfurt.