More than one hundred and fifty treatises are said to have been published upon the question whether Thomas a Kempis was the Author of the well known book de Imitatione Christi. That question affects the Augustinians; for if it were proved that this native of Kemp near Cologne, Thomas Hammerlein by name, were the transcriber only and not the writer of that famous treatise, they would lose the brightest ornament of their order. This Hammerlein has never been confounded with his namesake Felix, once a Doctor and Precentor Clarissimus, under whose portrait in the title page of one of his volumes where he stands Hammer in hand, there are these verses.
Felicis si te juvat indulsisse libellis
Malleoli, presens dilige lector opus.
Illius ingenium variis scabronibus actum
Perspicis, et stimulos sustinuisse graves.
Casibus adversis, aurum velut igne, probatus
Hostibus usque suis Malleus acer erat.
Hinc sibi conveniens sortitus nomen, ut esset
Hemmerlin dictus, nomine, reque, statu.
At Felix tandem, vicioque illæsus ab omni
Carceris e tenebris sydera clara subit.
This Hemmerlin in his Dialogue between a Nobleman and a Rustic, makes the Rustic crave license for his rude manner of speech saying, si ruralis consuetudine moris ineptissime loquar per te non corripiar, quia non sermonis colorum quoque nitorem, sed sensus sententiarumque requiro rigorem. Nam legitur quod Demon sedebat et braccam cum reste suebat; et dixit, si non est pulchra, tamen est consucio firma. The needle must have been considerably larger than Gammer Gurton's, which is never-the-less and ever will be the most famous of all needles.
Well was it for Hodge when Diccon the Bedlam gave him the good openhanded blow which produced the catastrophe of that Right Pithy, Pleasant, and Merry Comedy entitled Gammer Gurton's Needle, well was it I say for Hodge that the Needle in the episcopal comedy was not of such calibre as that wherewith the Auld Gude Man, as the Scotch, according to Sir Walter, respectfully call the Old Wicked One, in their caution never to give any unnecessary offence,—Well, again I say, was it for Hodge that his Gammer's Neele, her dear Neele, her fair long straight Neele that was her only treasure, was of no such calibre as the Needle which that Old One used, when mending his breeks with a rope he observed that though it was not a neat piece of sewing it was strong,—for if it had been such a Needle, Diccon's manual joke must have proved fatal. Our Bishops write no such comedies now; yet we have more than one who could translate it into Aristophanic Greek.
Wherefore did Thomas Warton (never to be named without respect and gratitude by all lovers of English literature,) say that when the Sermons of Hugh Latimer were in vogue at Court, the University might be justified in applauding Gammer Gurton's Needle? How could he who so justly appreciated the Comedy, disparage those sermons? He has spoken of the play as the first in our language in which a comic story is handled with some disposition of plot and some discrimination. “The writer,” he says, “has a degree of jocularity which sometimes rises above buffoonery, but is often disgraced by lowness of incident. Yet in a more polished age he would have chosen, nor would he perhaps have disgraced, a better subject. It has been thought surprizing that a learned audience could have endured some of these indelicate scenes. But the established festivities of scholars were gross, nor was learning in that age always accompanied by gentleness of manners.” Nor is it always now, nor has it ever been O Thomas Warton! if it had, you would not when you wore a great wig, had taken the degree of B.D., been Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, and was moreover Poet Laureate, most worthy of that office of all who have held it since Great Ben, you would not in your mellow old age, when your brother was Master of Winchester School, have delighted as you did in hunting rats with the Winchester Boys.
O Thomas Warton! you had and could not but have a hearty liking for all that is properly comic in the pithy old episcopal comedy! but that you should even seem to disparage Latimer's Sermons is to me more than most strange. For Latimer would have gained for himself a great and enduring name in the pulpit, if he had not been called upon to bear the highest and holiest of all titles. The pithy comedy no doubt was written long before its author was consecrated Bishop of Bath and Wells, and we may be sure that Bishop Still never reckoned it among his sins. If its language were rendered every where intelligible and its dirtiness cleaned away, for there is nothing worse to be removed, Gammer Gurton's Needle might succeed in these days as a farce.
Fuller says he had read in the Register of Trinity College, Cambridge, this commendation of Bishop Still that he was αγαθος κουροτροφος nec Collegio gravis aut onerosus. Still was Master of that College, as he had been before of St. Johns.
“What style,” says Sir John Harrington “shall I use to set forth this Still, whom (well nigh thirty years since) my reverend tutor in Cambridge styled by this name, ‘Divine Still,’ who, when my self came to him to sue for my grace to be bachelor, first examined me strictly, and after answered me kindly, that ‘the grace he granted me was not of grace but of merit;’ who was often content to grace my young exercises with his venerable presence; who, from that time to this, hath given me some helps, more hopes, all encouragements, in my best studies; to whom I never came, but I grew more religious; from whom I never went, but I parted better instructed: Of him therefore, my acquaintance, my friend, my instructor, and last my diocesan; if I speak much it were not to be marvelled; if I speak frankly, it is not to be blamed; and though I speak partially, it were to be pardoned. Yet to keep within my proportion custom and promise, in all these, I must say this much of him; his breeding was from his childhood in good literature, and partly in music, which was counted in those days a preparative to Divinity, neither could any be admitted to primam tonsuram, except he could first bene le, bene con, bene can, (as they call it,) which is to read well, to construe well, and to sing well; in which last he hath good judgement, and I have heard good music of voices in his house.
“In his full time, more full of learning, he became Bachelor of Divinity, and after Doctor; and so famous for a Preacher, and especially a disputer, that the learned'st were even afraid to dispute with him; and he finding his own strength would not stick to warn them in their arguments to take heed to their answers, like a perfect fencer that will tell beforehand in which button he will give the venew, or like a cunning chess-player that will appoint beforehand with which pawn, and in what place, he will give the mate.
“One trifling accident happened to his Lordship at Bath, that I have thought since of more consequence, and I tell him that I never knew him non plus in argument, but there. There was a craft's-man in Bath, a recusant puritan, who condemning our Church, our Bishops, our sacraments, our prayers, was condemned himself to die at the assizes, but at my request Judge Anderson reprieved him, and he was suffered to remain at Bath upon bail. The Bishop conferred with him, in hope to convert him, and first, My Lord alleged for the authority of the church, St. Augustine! The Shoemaker answered, ‘Austin was but a man.’ He (Still) produced, for the antiquity of Bishops the Fathers of the Council at Nice. He answered, ‘They were also but men, and might err.’ ‘Why then, said the Bishop, thou art but a man, and must, and dost err.’ ‘No Sir, saith he, the Spirit bears witness to my spirit, I am the child of God.’ ‘Alas! said the Bishop thy blind spirit will lead thee to the gallows.’ ‘If I die, saith he, in the Lord's cause, I shall be a martyr.’ The Bishop turning to me, stirred as much to pity as impatience;—‘This man, said he, is not a sheep strayed from the fold, for such may be brought in again on the shepherd's shoulders, but this is like a wild buck broke out of a park whose pale is thrown down, that flies the farther off, the more he is hunted.’ Yet this man, that stopped his ears like the adder to the charms of the Bishop, was after persuaded by a lay-man, and grew conformable. But to draw to an end; in one question this Bishop whom I count an oracle for learning, would never yet give me satisfaction, and that was, when I asked him his opinion of witches. He saith ‘he knows other men's opinions, both old and new writers, but could never so digest them, to make them an opinion of his own.’ All I can get is ‘this, that the Devil is the old Serpent our enemy, that we pray to be delivered from daily; as willing to have us think he can do too much as to have us persuaded he doth nothing.’”