Yet, after all, was the tomb quite imaginary ?

6 There an he lay' (we read) carved from head to foot in alabaster, in his gown of bachelor of civil law, and his tonsured head.' Yes; and the curious may find Antony à Wood describing the tomb of a certain John Noble, also from head to foot carved from alabaster, with the habit of a Batch. of Civ. Law, and the head tonsured.' Scattered up and down à Wood are other hints for the Introductory Chapter; there is the name Lydiard, for instance, and another John founds a chapel, and a hospital for lunatics. But the peculiar license which Shorthouse allowed his pen is first fully shown in the description of the spoliation of Westacre Priory, otherwise known as the Priory in the Wood,' by Richard Inglesant, ancestor to John, and one of Thomas Cromwell's agents (ch. i). A very pretty conflation of names and places is made from Wright's Letters relating to the Suppression of the Monasteries.' The description of the Priory in John Inglesant' is taken partly from the suppression of Woolstrope, near Grantham, partly from that of Caversham near Reading, partly from that of Hayles in Gloucestershire. But there was a Westport, half a mile to the south of Malmesbury, and in Letter LXXXVII, Wright, just after mentioning the true Westacre, in Norfolk, says that the Carthusian Priory of Eppeworth in Lincolnshire was styled 'The Priory in the Wood'; and both names evidently caught Shorthouse's eye and fancy.

There was no reason against this; but what follows is something far different:

no small nombre of acres redy sowen with whete, and the tylthe seasonablie orderyd for barlye; . . . the father had hys howse so well furnyssched with . . . plate, stuff, corne, catell, and the wodes so well savyd, as thoo he had lokyde forre no alteration of hys howse' (p. 237).

'and dydde surrendre hys howse with suche discrete and franke maner' (p. 218); ... and they wolde assuredly pray unto almightie Godde long to preserve the kinges grace... to hys most blessyd pleasure' (p. 287).

The incidents of the occult practices and subsequent madness of the Prior are taken from the 'Athenæ Oxonienses.' *

It may be interesting now to turn to the description of Inglesant's boyhood, which is a tangled web of allusiveness to passages in Aubrey's Brief Lives' and Burton's Anatomy.' Anatomy.' Aubrey and Hobbes, to whom Aubrey devotes much space, were both brought up at Malmesbury, so that the mention of the glovers of the

* 2nd Edition, vol. I, Fasti. col. 7.

136 SOME TRUTHS ABOUT JOHN INGLESANT' town, of the falconers and huntsmen who lingered about the place, and of the legends of a countryside that 'was full of the scattered spoil of the monasteries,' are true to life. John's first schoolmaster, to whom he went 'when it was fine enough to make a pleasant walk attractive to, taught some boys their grammar and Latin Terence in the Church itself.' His second master 'was a delicate and little person, and had an easy and attractive way of teaching (and) was a Greek scholar ('J. I.,' p. 22). Now both these men are one and the same in Aubrey, for thus we read in Brief Lives,' * (Hobbes) was entred in his Latin grammar by Mr Latimer, rector of Leigh-de-la-Mere, a mile's fine walk, who had an easie way of teaching. . . . I was then in Terence.' 'I was then at schoole in the churche, newly entred into my grammar. Mr Latimer was a goode Graecian. He was a delicate and little person.' The result of this early education was remarkably alike in Inglesant and in Aubrey. 'Inglesant was an apt pupil, an apprehensive and inquisitive boy, mild of spirit and very susceptible of fascination ... of an inventive imagination, though not a retentive memory, given to ... metaphysical speculation . . . with a mind and spirit so susceptible, that the least breath affected them' ('J. I.,' pp. 22, 28). Aubrey says of himself, I had apprehension enough, but my memory not tenacious of an inventive and philosophical head. I was exceeding mild of spirit, mightily susceptible of fascination . . . like water which the least wind does disorder' ('Brief Lives,' i. 36, 37). We may add that both boys, the real and the imaginative, were fond of inquiring of their grandfather of the old time, rood-loft, ceremonies of the Priory.'

To the Priory, in due time, comes Father Sancta Clara, otherwise the Jesuit Father Hall, bringing with him John's twin brother, Eustace. Lord Acton was perfectly right, and Shorthouse certainly made a mistake in choosing the name of a well-known Franciscan of the period, alias Christopher Davenport. But Shorthouse makes at times very strange mistakes, even in matters of taste and style. What Lord Acton did not seem to know was that there really was a Jesuit Father Hall, of

* Ed. Clark, vol. I, pp. 35, 36, 50, 323.

25

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vhose existence Shorthouse had become aware as he ead the Brief Lives.' This Father Hall knew Sir Kenelm Digby, so it is not withou significance that in maste hapter xx of the novel he is ford inquiring about Digby's doings from Inglesant.

er

1

Eustace tells John of the pleasus of the City and Court life, and the eleven lines of is description are pieced together, here a phrase and there a sentence, 8. from Burton's Anatomy.'* John is discreetly silent on his own

'

'pleasant walks by the brook side, pleasant shade by the sweet silver streams, good air, and sweet smell of fine, fresh meadow flowers, his walks among orchards, gardens, green thickets and such-like places, in some solitary groves between wood and water, meditating on some delightful and pleasant subject' (p. 27),

hall of which is Burton verbatim.* The odd thing is that the moment one isolates the passage from its context, one sees how purely 17th century the diction is. Follows an otter-hunt, in which John carries a spear; we turn up our Walton expectantly, but no, it is not from 'The Compleat Angler' but from Turbervile's Booke of Hunting' that Shorthouse borrows his account. Thus:

"The hounds came trailing and chanting along by the riverside, venting every tree-root, every osier-bed and tuft of bulrushes, and sometimes taking to the water, and beating it like spaniels' ('J. I.,' p. 27). The houndes . . . will come chaunting and trayling alongst by the river-side, and will beat every tree-roote, every holme, every Osier-bedde and tufte of bulrushes; yea, sometimes also they will take the ryver, and beate it like a water-spaniel' (Turbervile, pp. 201, 202, Tudor and Stuart Library, Clarendon Press, 1908).

Here, as elsewhere, we have omitted several scattered phrases which Shorthouse also gleaned.

The episode of Little Gidding is one of the most charming passages in 'John Inglesant.' It may fairly be said to have revived interest in the beautiful if somewhat exotic life of devotion and good works practised by the Ferrar family; indeed, after the publication of Shorthouse's book, pilgrimages to Little Gidding became

* Cf. Burton, 16th Ed., pp. 3, 26, 344, 345, 350, 27, 162, 343.

ary.

ค

frequent. Shorthou told inquirers that he had relied ea solely on Peckard's Life,' and that it had come as a th revelation to him at one of Nicholas Ferrar's nieces w was really named ry. But Mary Collet is mentioned by Peckard, and Se sentence in John Inglesant'-as regards the sister taking vows-comes almost verbally from a Note in the Life by John Ferrar, and this Note also contains the name of Mary Collet. Yet, as Jebb copies Peckard, and Peckard closely follows the Life by John Ferrar, Shorthouse may very well have made a slip in memory. But now, what is to be done with the use of his material? For he has practically lifted Peckard, with some exceptions of detail, entire into his Romance, but the excerpts are so lengthy and so carefully shifted as to order that it would weary the reader, and quite overpass the limits of an article, were any consecutive attempt made to reproduce them. Two alterations, however, which Shorthouse made in his transcription are of some interest. The first reveals a little tendency in the author's mind which makes a reappearance more than once as the novel proceeds. It is to improve on his sources, in the cause of beauty. Thus, the word 'geniculation' becomes the more graceful genuflexion,' and that this is no mere modernising is shown by the substitution of 'The Charitable' for 'The Chiefe' among the names assumed by the young ladies of Gidding. The archaic Submiss' is, however, retained, as well as the order of the rest of the names as given by Peckard. But, as will appear later, no uncouth name is tolerated in 'John Inglesant.' And this trait well accords with what we are told of Mr Shorthouse's delicate susceptibility to beautiful sounds. The other voluntary departure from accuracy is made in the interests of the Romance itself. Inglesant, kneeling at Communion, is struck by the stained glass of the east window of the church. The grace of a figure of the Saviour, of an early and severe type,' enters into his soul. It seems a pity to break in upon an exquisite description of a peculiarly sacred occasion; but the extraordinarily close following of his sources in other respects-we repeat that it is often word for word-compels us to remark that Shorthouse must have known perfectly well that there was no stained glass in the