Darnley; or, The Field of the Cloth of Gold

by G. P. R. James

There was likewise always to be observed in them a degree of eccentricity, if a habitual difference from their fellow-beings might be so called, which, being singular, but not obtrusive, gave them an interest in the eyes of the higher, and a dignity in the estimation of the lower classes, as a sort of beings separated by distinct knowledge and feeling from the rest of mankind. In those ages, a thousand branches of useful knowledge lay hid, like diamonds in an undiscovered mine; and many minds, of extraordinary keenness and activity, wanting legitimate objects of research, after diving deep in ancient lore, and exhausting all the treasures of antiquity, still unsated, devoted themselves to those dark and mysterious sciences that gratified their imagination with all the wild and the sublime, and gained for them a reverence amongst their fellow-creatures approaching even to awe.

As we have said before, whatever was the reality of their powers, or however they contrived to deceive themselves, as well as others, they certainly received not only the respect of the weak and vulgar; but if they used their general abilities for the benefit of mankind, they were sure to meet with the admiration and the friendship of the great, the noble, and the wise. Thus, the famous Earl of Surrey, the poet, the courtier, the most accomplished gentleman and bravest cavalier of that very age, is known to have lived on terms of intimacy with Cornelius Agrippa, the celebrated Italian sorcerer, to whose renown the fame of Sir Cesar of England is hardly second; though early sorrows, of the most acute kind, had given a much higher degree of wildness and eccentricity to the character of the extraordinary old man of whom we speak, than the accomplished Italian ever suffered to appear.

In many circumstances there was still a great degree of similarity between them: both were deeply versed in classical literature, and were endowed with every elegant attainment; and both possessed that wild and vivid imagination which taught them to combine in one strange and heterogeneous system the pure doctrines of Christianity, the theories of the Pagan philosophers, and the strange, mysterious notions of the dark sciences they pursued. Amongst many fancies derived from the Greeks, it seems certain that both Sir Cesar and Cornelius Agrippa received, as an undoubted fact, the Pythagorean doctrine of the transmission of the souls through the various human bodies for a long period of existence: the spirit retaining, more or less, in different men, the recollection of events which had occurred to them at other periods of being.

One striking difference, however, existed between these two celebrated men. Cornelius Agrippa was all mildness, gentleness, and suavity; while Sir Cesar, irritated by the memory of much sorrow, was wild, vehement, and impetuous; ever striving to do good, it is true, but hasty and impatient under contradiction. The same sort of mental excitement hurried him on to move from land to land and place to place, without seeming ever to pause for any length of time; and as he stood not upon the ceremony of introduction, but made himself known to whomsoever the fancy of the moment might lead him, he was celebrated in almost every part of the world.

So much as we have said seemed necessary, in order to give our readers some insight into the character of the extraordinary man whose history is strongly interwoven with the web of the present narrative, and to prevent its being supposed that he was an imaginary being devised for the nonce; but we shall now proceed with him in his proper person.

"Let us reason," said Sir Cesar, breaking form abruptly, after he had ridden on with the young knight some way in silence; "let us reason of nature and philosophy; of things that are, and of things that may be; for I would fain expel from my brain a crowd of sad thoughts and dark imaginings, that haunt the caverns of memory."

"I should prove but a slow reasoner," replied the young knight, "when compared with one whose mind, if report speak truth, has long explored the deepest paths of science, and discovered the full wealth of nature."

"Nay, nay, my friend," answered the old man; "something I have studied, it is true; but nature's full wealth who shall ever discover? Look through the boundless universe, and you shall find that were the life of man extended a thousand fold, and all his senses refined to the most exquisite perfection, and had his mind infinite faculty to comprehend, yet the portion he could truly know would be to the great whole as one grain of sand to the vast foundation of the sea. As it is, man not only contemplates but few of nature's works, but also only sees a little part of each. Thus, when he speaks of life, he means but that which inspires animals, and never dreams that everything has life; and yet it is so. Is it not reasonable to suppose that everything that moves feels? and we cannot but conclude that everything that feels has life. The Indian tree that raises its branches when any living creature approaches must feel, must have sensation; the loadstone that flies to its fellow must know, must perceive that that fellow is near. Motion is life; and if viewed near, everything would be found to have motion, to have life, to have sensation."

Sir Osborne smiled. "Then do you suppose," demanded he, "that all vegetables and plants feel?"

"Nay, more, much more!" answered the old man. "I doubt not that everything in nature feels in its degree, from the rude stone that the mason cuts, to man, the most sensitive of substantial beings."