William Shakspeare.
“Who, indeed? when the founder of the feast leaveth an invited guest so empty! Yea, sir, the guest was invited, and the board was spread. The fruits that lay upon it be there still, and fresh as ever; and the bread of life in those capacious canisters is unconsumed and unbroken.”
Sir Silas (aside).
“The knave maketh me hungry with his mischievous similitudes.”
Sir Thomas.
“Thou hast aggravated thy offence, Wil Shakspeare! Irreverent caitiff! is this a discourse for my chaplain and clerk? Can he or the worthy scribe Ephraim (his worship was pleased to call me worthy) write down such words as those, about litter and wolvets, for the perusal and meditation of the grand jury? If the whole corporation of Stratford had not unanimously given it against thee, still his tongue would catch thee, as the evet catcheth a gnat. Know, sirrah, the reverend Sir Silas, albeit ill appointed for riding, and not over-fond of it, goeth to every house wherein is a venison feast for thirty miles round. Not a buck’s hoof on any stable-door but it awakeneth his recollections like a red letter.”
This wholesome reproof did bring the youth back again to his right senses; and then said he, with contrition, and with a wisdom beyond his years, and little to be expected from one who had spoken just before so unadvisedly and rashly,—
“Well do I know it, your worship! And verily do I believe that a bone of one being shovelled among the soil upon his coffin would forthwith quicken [8a] him. Sooth to say, there is ne’er a buckhound in the county but he treateth him as a godchild, patting him on the head, soothing his velvety ear between thumb and forefinger, ejecting tick from tenement, calling him ‘fine fellow,’ ‘noble lad,’ and giving him his blessing, as one dearer to him than a king’s debt to a debtor, [8b] or a bastard to a dad of eighty. This is the only kindness I ever heard of Master Silas toward his fellow-creatures. Never hold me unjust, Sir Knight, to Master Silas. Could I learn other good of him, I would freely say it; for we do good by speaking it, and none is easier. Even bad men are not bad men while they praise the just. Their first step backward is more troublesome and wrenching to them than the first forward.”
“In God’s name, where did he gather all this?” whispered his worship to the chaplain, by whose side I was sitting. “Why, he talks like a man of forty-seven, or more!”
“I doubt his sincerity, sir!” replied the chaplain. “His words are fairer now—”