CATHERINE AND GRIFFITH.

Gry. How does your grace?

Cath. O Griffith, sick to death:

My legs like loaded branches bow to th' earth, Willing to leave their burden: reach a chair.So now methinks I feel a little ease.

Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, as thou led'st me, That the great child of honor, Cardinal Wolsey, Was dead.

Grif. Yes, madam; but I think your grace, Out of the pain you suffer'd, gave no ear to 't. Cath. Pr'ythee, good Griffith, tell me how he died?

If well, he stept before me, happily,

For my example.

Grif. Well, the voice goes, madam,

For after the stout Earl of Northumberland
Arrested him at York, and brought him forward
(As a man sorely tainted) to his answer,
He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill

He could not sit his mule.

Cath. Alas, poor man!

Grif. At last, with easy roads he came to Leicester,

Lodg'd in the abbey; where the reverend abbot,
With all his convent, honorably receiv'd him;
To whom he gave these words: "O Father Abbot,
An old man broken with the storms of state,
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;
Give him a little earth for charity!"

So went to bed: where eagerly his sickness

Pursued him still, and three nights after this,
About the hour of eight (which he himself
Foretold should be his last), full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears and sorrows,
He gave his honors to the world again,

His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace. Cath. So may he rest, his faults lie buried with him!

Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak him,
And yet with charity; he was a man

Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
Himself with princes; one that by suggestion
Tithed all the kingdom; simony was fair play:
His own opinion was his law. I' th' presence
He would say untruths, and be ever double
Both in his words and meaning. He was never,
But where he meant to ruin, pitiful.

His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
But his performance, as he now is, nothing.
Grif. Noble madam,

Men's evil manners live in brass, their virtues
We write in water. May it please your highness
To hear me speak his good now?

Cath. Yes, good Griffith,

I were malicious else.

Grif. This Cardinal,

Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly Was fashion'd to much honor from his cradle : He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one; Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading; Lofty, and sour to them that lov'd him not,

But to those men that sought him sweet as sum

mer.

And though he was unsatisfied in getting,
(Which was a sin) yet in bestowing, madam,
He was most princely; ever witness for him,
Those twins of learning that he rais'd in you,
Ipswich and Oxford! one of which fell with him,
Unwilling to outlive the good he did it:
The other, though unfinished, yet so famous,
So excellent in art, and still so rising,

That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue ;
His overthrow heaped happiness upon him;
For then, and not till then, he felt himself,
And found the blessedness of being little :
And to add greater honors to his age
Than man could give him, he died, fearing God.
Cath. After my death I wish no other herald,
No other speaker, of my living actions,
To keep mine honor from corruption,
But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.
Whom I most hated living, thou hast made me,
With thy religious truth and modesty,

Now in his ashes honor. Peace be with him!

GUALBERTO'S VICTORY.

Shakespeare.

A MOUNTAIN pass so narrow that a man
Riding that way to Florence, stooping, can
Touch with his hand the rock, on either side,
And pluck the flowers that in the crannies hide.
Here, on Good Friday, centuries ago,

Mounted and armed, John Gualbert met his foe,

Mounted and armed as well, but riding down To the fair city from the woodland brown, This way and that swinging his jewelled whip, A gay old love-song on his careless lip,

And on his charger's neck the reins loose thrown.

An accidental meeting; but the sun
Burned on their brows, as if it had been one
Of deep design, so deadly was the look

Of mutual hate their olive faces took,
As (knightly courtesy forgot in wrath)
Neither would yield his enemy the path.

"Back!" cried Gualberto. "Never!" yelled his foe;

And on the instant, sword in hand, they throw
Them from their saddles, nothing loath,

And fall to fighting, with a smothered oath.
A pair of shapely, stalwart cavaliers,

Well-matched in stature, weapons, weight, and years,

Theirs was a long, fierce struggle on the grass,
Thrusting and parrying up and down the pass;
Swaying from left to right, in combat clenched.
Till all the housings of their steeds were drenched
With brutal gore, and ugly blood-drops oozed
Upon the rocks, from head and hands contused.
But at the close, when Gualbert stopped to rest,
His heel was planted on his foeman's breast;
And looking up, the fallen courtier sees,
As in a dream, gray rocks and waving trees
Before his glazing vision faintly float,

While Gualbert's sabre glitters at his throat.

"Now die, base wretch!" the victor fiercely cries, His heart of hate outflashing from his eyes: "Never again, by the all-righteous Lord! Shalt thou with life escape this trusty sword,Revenge is sweet !" And upward glanced the steel, But ere it fell,-dear Lord! a silvery peal Of voices chanting in the town below,

Grave, ghostly voices chanting far below,

Rose, like a fountain's spray from spires of

snow,

And chimed and chimed to die in echoes slow.

In the sweet silence following the sound,
Gualberto and the man upon the ground
Glared at each other with bewildered eyes
(The glare of hunted deer on leashed hound);
And then the vanquished, struggling to arise,
Made one last effort, while his face grew dark
With pleading agony: "Gualberto! hark!

The chants-the hour-thou know'st the olden fashion,

The monks below intone our Lord's dear Pas

sion.

Oh! by this cross !"-and here he caught the hilt Of Gualbert's sword,-" and by the Blood once spilt

Upon it for us both long years ago,
Forgive-forget-and spare a fallen foe!"

The face that bent above grew white and set
(Christ or the demon?—in the balance hung):
The lips were drawn,-the brow bedewed with
sweat,-