This elegant picture, so happily introduced into a piece of literary controversy, appears to have only slightly affected the mind of Brooke, which was probably of too stout a grain to take the folds of Grecian drapery. Instead of sympathising with its elegance, he breaks out into a horse-laugh; and, what is quite unexpected among such grave inquiries into a ludicrous tale in verse, which, though it has not Grecian fancy, has broad English humour, where he maliciously insinuates that Camden had appropriated to his own use, or “new-coated his ‘Britannia’” with Leland’s MSS., and disguised what he had stolen.
Now, to show himself as good a painter as he is a herald, he propounded, at the end of his book, a table (i.e. a picture) of his own invention, being nothing comparable to “Apelles,” as he himself confesseth, and we believe him; for, like the rude painter that was fain to write, ‘This is a Horse,’ upon his painted horse, he writes upon his picture the names of all that furious rabble therein expressed—which, for to requite him, I will return a tale of John Fletcher (some time of Oxford) and his horse. Neither can this fable be any disparagement to his table, being more ancient and authenticall, and far more conceipted than his envious picture. And thus it was:—
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A TALE (NOT OF A ROASTED) BUT OF A PAINTED HORSE.
John Fletcher, famous, and a man well known, But using not his sirname’s trade alone,[398] Did hackney out poor jades for common hire, Not fit for any pastime but to tire. 498 His conscience, once, surveying his jade’s stable, Prick’d him, for keeping horses so unable. “Oh why should I,” saith John, “by scholars thrive, For jades that will not carry, lead, nor drive?” To mend the matter, out he starts, one night, And having spied a palfrey somewhat white, He takes him up, and up he mounts his back, Rides to his house, and there he turns him black; Marks him in forehead, feet, in rump, and crest, As coursers mark those horses which are best. So neatly John had coloured every spot, That the right owner sees him, knows him not. Had he but feather’d his new-painted breast, He would have seemèd Pegasus at least. Who but John Fletcher’s horse, in all the town, Amongst all hackneys, purchased this renown? But see the luck; John Fletcher’s horse, one night, By rain was wash’d again almost to white. His first right owner, seeing such a change, Thought he should know him, but his hue was strange! But eyeing him, and spying out his steed, By flea-bit spots of his now washèd weed, Seizes the horse; so Fletcher was attainted, And did confess the horse—he stole and painted. |
To close with honour to Brooke; in his graver moments he warmly repels the accusation Camden raised against him, as an enemy to learning, and appeals to many learned scholars, who had tasted of his liberality at the Universities, towards their maintenance; but, in an elevated tone, he asserts his right to deliver his animadversions as York Herald.
“I know (says Brooke) the great advantage my adversary has over me, in the received opinion of the world. If some will blame me for that my writings carry some characters of spleen against him, men of pure affections, and not partial, will think reason that he should, by ill hearing, lose the pleasure he conceived by ill speaking. But since I presume not to understand above that which is meet for me to know, I must not be discouraged, nor fret myself, because of the malicious; for I find myself seated upon a rock, that is sure from tempest and waves, from whence I have a prospect into his errors and waverings. I do confess his great worth and merit, and that we Britons are in some sort beholding to him; and might have been much more, if God had lent him 499 the grace to have played the faithful steward, in the talent committed to his trust and charge.”
Such was the dignified and the intrepid reply of Ralph Brooke, a man whose name is never mentioned without an epithet of reproach; and who, in his own day, was hunted down, and not suffered, vindictive as he was no doubt, to relieve his bitter and angry spirit, by pouring it forth to the public eye.[399]
But the story is not yet closed. Camden, who wanted the magnanimity to endure with patient dignity the corrections of an inferior genius, had the wisdom, with the meanness, silently to adopt his useful corrections, but would never confess the hand which had brought them.[400]
Thus hath Ralph Brooke told his own tale undisturbed, and, after the lapse of more than a century, the press has been opened to him. Whenever a great author is suffered to gag the mouth of his adversary, Truth receives the insult. But there is another point more essential to inculcate in literary controversy. Ought we to look too scrupulously into the motives which may induce an inferior author to detect the errors of a greater? A man from no amiable motive may perform a proper action: Ritson was useful after Warton; nor have we a right to ascribe it to any concealed motives, which, after all, may be doubtful. In the present instance, our much-abused Ralph Brooke first appears to have composed his elaborate 500 work from the most honourable motives: the offer he made of his Notes to Camden seems a sufficient evidence. The pride of a great man first led Camden into an error, and that error plunged him into all the barbarity of persecution; thus, by force, covering his folly. Brooke over-valued his studies: it is the nature of those peculiar minds adapted to excel in such contracted pursuits. He undertook an ungracious office, and he has suffered by being placed by the side of the illustrious genius with whom he has so skilfully combated in his own province; and thus he has endured contempt, without being contemptible. The public are not less the debtors to such unfortunate, yet intrepid authors.[401]