ELENA GRAY KELLI MCCRACKEN
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
About the Authors
~Samara~
Blood pooled under my shirt from the stab wound in my chest. I used what strength I had left to summon the energy around me, then I glanced at the man fleeing from what would become the scene of my murder. He had no clue what I was about to do, and knowing that brought me a smidgen of relief. I could still keep my coven safe. All I had to do was get back to them, but I didn’t want to leave Slade. He’d disappeared right after the attack. I prayed he was okay and I hoped he’d gone to find my other guardians. I knew in my heart that this probably wasn’t true. He would never have left me. He would have died before…
How could I have been so stupid? My carelessness had not only put my people in jeopardy but also my guardian.
After I gathered the energy I’d summoned into my hand, a lavender light glowed inside my palm, forming a perfect casting orb. I flung it toward the ground, and a portal appeared. Relief filled me. It was time to use what little strength I had left and crawl into it.
Then I’d teleport back to the estate and my family—my coven.
Dirt clumped under my fingernails as I grabbed the ground and pulled myself toward the portal. Each inch I moved felt like a mile. I didn’t want to die here, in the woods on the outskirts of the city. If I made it back to my people, maybe they could save me.
No. I refused to allow myself to hope for the impossible. Regardless if I made it back to my coven, I was not walking away from this. Death was imminent and no amount of magic could save me now. It was foolish of me to think I would beat this. The small red patch on my shirt had already spread, leaving most of the fabric drenched in my blood.
After I pulled myself into the portal, the energy within sucked me into its vortex. I moved through the darkness, waiting for my magic to send me home. My body shifted a final time, and I shot out of the energy field.
The dark sky above me glistened with stars. My body slammed into a wall and the impact knocked the wind out of my lungs. I gasped for breath. The pain of my injuries radiated through every inch of me.
Wind whipped around me, causing me to shiver. A putrid odor invaded my nose. It smelled like rotting garbage and urine. In the distance, brakes screeched, horns blew, and sirens wailed. Music blared from someplace close. Add in the other minor sounds and scents, and I knew exactly where I was.
The city.
Why the hell was I here? My magic should have guided me to the coven. Instead, it brought me back to the city. Goddess, what had gone wrong?
The dampness under my shirt reminded me that my blood was spilling at a rate I couldn’t afford. Before the hour was over, I’d be dead. I knew it in my soul. Using what little magic I had left, I focused on slowing the flow of blood leaving my body. It wasn’t much of a solution, but it might buy me a little more time.
Opening my eyes again, I blinked until the blurriness disappeared. A dim street lamp lit my surroundings. I glanced around, taking in the brick walls of the buildings, an overflowing dumpster, and scattered garbage littering the ground around me. I stumbled back as a rat scurried out from behind the dumpster and ran past me.
A few yards away a body sat propped against the wall. I wasn’t sure if the person was even breathing. It wasn’t until they coughed
that I realized they were alive. They shifted enough that I was able to tell it was a woman. She didn’t appear much older than me, but I wasn’t certain. I couldn’t worry about her now. She would be fine. I needed to get home before my powers died with me.
As I drew in a shallow breath, I touched the ground beneath me, searching for energy currents. I needed something to help me escape. This alley was one of the grossest places I had ever been. Why would my magic pull me here?
The thought of spending my last moments in a dirty, disgusting alley angered me. I had no one to blame but myself for getting into this position. That part I could handle. What distressed me was the thought of what would happen to my coven because of my reckless behavior. Those innocent witches would meet their deaths because I’d made bad choices.
Unless…
Yes. There was a way I could protect my coven. Old Magic was frowned upon in today’s society, but I still knew how to use it. My coven would never approve of what I planned to do, but it would save them. The natural balance would remain, and I could rest in peace.
All I needed now was a neophyte. I just hoped I could find one before it was too late.
~Katarina~
“Earth to Katarina. Earth to Kat.”
I blinked as a hand waved in front of my face. I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to shake the unease I’d felt since I got to the bar with my friends. My gaze drifted past Jessica and Natalie who were absorbed in their own conversation. Forcing a smile to my lips, I focused on my friend, Val.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“Girl, I’ve been having a full-on conversation with myself for the past five minutes. Where did you go?”
I shook my head and forced myself to laugh. “Oh, you know, just thinking about the fact that I no longer have to sit in a cubicle. Come Monday, I’ll finally have my own office.”
I could never tell her the truth about my paranoia. She would think I was crazy. That part of my life, the mystical part, I’d buried long ago. People treated me differently when they found out I had a sixth sense. Why it had chosen tonight to reappear was beyond me. Maybe it had something to do with my grandmother’s cryptic message.
Jessica, lifted her glass and held it in the middle of the table. “To Kat. For knowing what you want and not quitting until you got it.”
The clink of our glasses was almost drowned out by the bass pumping through the speakers across the bar. Glancing around the table, my heart swelled and moisture filled my eyes. I was so fortunate to have these girls by my side. The numerous times I’d changed or canceled plans, they never heckled me. They had encouraged me every step of the way.
I wished my dating life treated me the same way, but it was hard to start a relationship with an unpredictable schedule.
It was all worth it in the end, though, and I wouldn’t change a thing. I’d worked hard for my promotion. I needed to do it while I was young. I wanted to have a family one day and I needed a stable job.
I downed the rest of my drink, hoping it would dull the tingling on the back of my neck. Tonight was a night for celebrating, not giving in to my grandmother’s superstitions.
“Dinner at my place this week so we can plan our next girls’ trip!” Natalie clapped her hands. “All I need is a sandy beach, a frozen drink, and a hot waiter.”
“Who are you kidding, Nat?” Jessica laughed. “The only hot guy you look at is Derrick.”
“Not true, I can appreciate a nice set of abs.”
“Uh-huh, when they are attached to Derrick,” I chided. Derrick and Natalie had been dating since college and Natalie was completely head over heels in love with him. Hell, if they weren’t dating, I might have snagged him for myself.
Natalie flipped her middle finger at us and I blew her a kiss. We constantly teased her, but in reality, we were all jealous. The dating scene was getting old and we wished we could quit meeting the frogs and finally find a prince, no matter how cliché it sounded.
“How about Tuesday night at my place?” Val asked. “My vote is for someplace in the Caribbean.”
Jessica raised her hand. “I second the Caribbean. Someplace warm, where all I need to pack is a swimsuit.”
I lifted my phone from the table and opened my calendar, thankful that it was no longer cluttered with work trips and
deadlines. Having a team to delegate to made my job a whole lot easier.
Regardless of how hard I focused on my job, or even our next weekend getaway, it was impossible to ignore the knot in my gut. I scanned the growing crowd around me, searching for a sign of what could be the cause of my unease. I had no idea what I expected to find. A ghost from my past? Maybe a vacation was what I needed to clear my head.
“Tuesday works for me,” I replied. “I’ll pick up Chinese.”
“I’ll bring the wine,” Jess added.
I pushed my chair back and stood from the table. The need to escape my friends suddenly overwhelmed me. When three sets of concerned eyes focused on me, I searched for an excuse for my behavior. “Speaking of wine, who needs another drink?”
Three glasses lifted in unison.
Making my way through a crowd of wall-to-wall bodies, I squeezed into a gap at the bar. Someone bumped my shoulder. I cursed under my breath and closed my eyes, willing my body to relax as claustrophobia set in. I hated crowds. The band that was headlining later was responsible for the madness surrounding me.
I really didn’t need another drink, but it was the first thing that popped into my mind. Couldn’t I have just said I needed to go to the bathroom? Throwing myself into the middle of dozens of sweaty bodies was not a smart idea.
Today was the day I had worked for years to reach. Late nights, tons of travel, missed events. I’d finally got the promotion, so why couldn’t I just enjoy it?
I flinched as a chin rested on my shoulder, their cheek touching mine. I was about to ram my elbow into their stomach when a familiar voice said, “Hey, what’s wrong?”
As I searched for another lame excuse, she cut me off saying, “Don’t give me some BS response that you’re distracted by work. I know when something is bothering you.”
If anyone knew me better than I knew myself, it was my best friend Natalie. She was the only friend who knew about my past because she had stayed by my side through it all. Turning to face
her, I grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the back hallway that led to the bathrooms. It wasn’t an ideal spot to have this conversation, but it would be quieter than where we were. As we passed our table, Natalie pointed toward the bar. Then she made a drinking motion with her hand to let our other friends know if they wanted their drinks anytime soon, they better grab them now.
While we moved through the gyrating bodies on the dance floor, I felt like saying screw the conversation. I wanted to get lost in the rhythm of the music instead. Then I wouldn’t need to think. I could just feel.
When Natalie noticed my hesitation, she switched positions and pulled me through the crowd.
As soon as we entered the hallway, she leaned against the wall and released my hand.
“All right, we’re alone.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Spill it.”
I dropped my eyes to the floor and blew out a breath. This was Natalie, one of the only people I knew who wouldn’t judge me. And if I was honest with myself, I wanted her to tell me that I was overreacting and that nothing was wrong with me.
Lifting my head, I met her concerned gaze. “I haven’t been able to shake this feeling that something is going to happen. I’ve been getting a prickling in my neck and a growing knot in my stomach.”
Without missing a beat, she asked, “Is it something good or something bad?”
“That’s the thing, I have no idea. You know I haven’t embraced that side of my life for years.”
Her expression shifted from concerned to sympathetic. We hadn’t talked about this in a while. Natalie understood my need to keep that part of my life buried. Until now.
“Maybe you should call your Nona. See what she thinks.”
Two girls stumbled down the hall toward the bathroom, arm in arm. One of them slurred, “Is this the line?”
Jerking her head toward the door, Natalie replied, “It’s all yours.”
“Really?” the other girl gushed. “You are soooo amazing. Thank you.”
Giggling, they bumped into each other as they tried to push open the door.
“I think it’s broken,” one of them said.
Sighing, I leaned across them and gripped the handle, pulling the door toward them.
As they glanced from me to the door, they both nearly collapsed in a fit of laughter. One said to the other, “We are so drunk.”
“No shit,” Natalie said.
The girls shot a nasty look at her before they let the door slam behind them. I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with this tonight.
“So are you going to call her?” Natalie asked.
“That’s what started all of this in the first place. She left me a message saying that she needed to do a reading with me, that she saw something in the cards but it wasn’t clear.”
“All the more reason for you to call.”
No way was I getting into this with my grandmother. She had been trying to get me to open up again. Each time, I discouraged her efforts. It was bad enough that her message had me on edge.
“You know I can’t call her,” I said. “It’s probably nothing. Just nervous energy over everything that has happened this week.”
“Or,” Natalie said as she leaned toward me with a conspiratorial smile, “maybe you are feeling the effects of every guy in here checking you out. Don’t think I didn’t miss the looks you were getting as we crossed the dance floor.”
Heat stained my cheeks. I was never one to take a compliment well. Blending in as opposed to standing out was what I preferred. I didn’t always used to be that way, though. It wasn’t until the attention turned ugly that I’d started to withdraw from the spotlight.
As if reading my thoughts, Natalie continued, “I know you try to not draw attention to yourself, but you could wear a grain sack and still look stunning. No matter how hard you try, you can’t hide those killer curves. Do you even realize how many girls would kill to be able to look as amazing as you do without makeup?”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, my friend.” This time, a genuine smile formed on my lips. She always knew the right things to say when my self-doubt got the best of me.
Natalie pushed herself away from the wall and wrapped her arms around me. “You know that I am always here when you need me. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to hear Nona out. You had an amazing gift, Kat. You were just a kid. You couldn’t handle that kind of responsibility.”
Stepping out of her embrace, I gripped both of her hands. “Thanks, Nat. I’ll think about it. But right now, I think I’m going to call it a night.”
“Are you sure? It’s still early. Why don’t you stay and have one more drink?” She wiggled her brows at me. “I’ll even be your wingman.”
“While the offer is so tempting, I wouldn’t be much fun now.” I really didn’t have the energy to pretend everything was okay. Too many demons had been stirred up. While I dreaded calling my grandmother, I knew I had no choice. Once she focused on something, she didn’t give up until she saw it through. That must be where I got my stubbornness from.
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll walk you out.”
Nat led the way through the crowded dance floor. It seemed like more people had packed into the small space since we had last walked through. We were almost to our table when a girl called out to Nat and waved her over.
“Go ahead,” I told her. “I’m going to say goodbye to the girls.”
“Make sure you wait for me. I’ll only be a minute.”
Stopping at our table, I gave Jess and Val a hug goodbye. I scanned the bar and found Nat still engrossed in a conversation with her friend. I didn’t want to interrupt, but I also didn’t want to wait any longer. My car was just outside. With one last glance at Nat, I waved goodbye to the girls and headed toward the door.
I pulled my leather jacket tighter as I stepped out into the crisp night air—a welcome relief after the stifling heat in the bar. I had zero regrets about leaving early. My friends would party all night and frankly, I didn’t have it in me.
An icy chill swept up my spine. I looked over my shoulder, searching the vacant street behind me. The only building getting action tonight was the one I’d just exited. Everything else had closed
hours ago. My grandmother had me all sorts of paranoid. I was going to have to visit her tomorrow or my imagination would make me go crazy.
Just a few more steps and I could slip into my car and get the heat cranking. I couldn’t wait to get these boots off when I got home. They were better suited for fashion than practicality. The only reason I had these boots in the first place was Natalie. She’d convinced me that I needed them and that I couldn’t always dress like a prude. According to her, I had killer legs and I needed to show them off. Well, now I had killer feet.
Passing a darkened doorway of a business long closed for the night, I jumped as a body plowed into me.
“What the hell!”
Teetering on my already sore feet, I was about to shove the obviously drunk person away when gravity began to do the job for me.
Realizing it was a girl, I held onto her and lowered her to the ground. Her dead weight was too much for me to hold up on my own. Strands of damp purple hair clung to her face. I smoothed the strands away so I could get a better look at her. She looked no older than twenty.
Where the hell were her friends? How could they let her leave the bar this wasted and without a coat? Her whole body was trembling.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She blinked at me and her lips began to move, but all that managed to break free were wheezing gasps.
There was no way that she was drunk. I ran my hands over her body, searching for any sign of injury. I paused when I slipped over something warm and sticky. Lifting my hand away, my stomach flipped at the sight of crimson staining my palm and fingers.
“Oh my god!” I forced my shaking hand over her wound, trying to slow the blood that was draining from her body. “Help!” I screamed, scanning the street for anyone that might be walking by. I gauged the distance to the bar, cursing the cold night that had kept
the bouncers inside. I would only need to leave her for a minute. I was about to lay her down when she finally spoke.
“Stay,” she wheezed. “There isn’t enough time.”
“You need an ambulance.” There was so much blood. Moisture traced a trail down my cheeks. I couldn’t let her die in my arms. I had to do something. “I’ll only be gone a minute. I promise I’ll come right back.”
With more strength than she should have had, she gripped my wrist. “Dying.”
“You’re not going to die. Hang in there. I balanced her on my lap and began to dig through my purse for my phone.
“Listen.”
Why the hell did I have so much shit in my purse? I didn’t even use half of it. Letting out a frustrated growl, I began to toss the contents on the ground.
Her fingers flexed around my wrist again, causing me to gasp in pain.
“Listen.”
I couldn’t look away from the torment in her eyes. Even though everything inside me screamed to ignore her and call for help, something made me wait. What if she was trying to tell me who did this to her? If these were the last words she spoke, I owed it to her to listen.
“Sorry,” she wheezed, then choked out a wet cough. “Guardians…will help you.” She coughed again. “Do what they say. Tell them I’m sorry...especially Jax.”
She had to be hallucinating. None of this made sense. Why would her guardians help me?
“I don’t understand.”
“Promise,” she pleaded.
“I promise.” I had no idea what she was rambling about, but it was obviously important to her. At this point, I would tell her whatever she wanted to hear. I released a relieved breath when my hand closed over my phone. I was about to swipe my finger over the screen when it flew out of my hand.
“What the hell?”
I glanced down at the girl in my arms. Her gaze steadied and focused on me. Her chest rose and fell as she struggled to take each breath. If her hand wasn’t gripping my wrist, I would have sworn that she knocked my phone away.
“It’s time.”
Her lips began to move again, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I leaned closer until my ear was hovering over her mouth. The words she whispered too soft for me to hear. I jerked back when my wrist began to tingle under her fingers. The prickle increased to a steady burn.
“Ow!” I tried to twist my wrist out of her grasp, but I might as well have been fighting against a vise. The heat pulsed up my arm, spreading through my body. My breath halted in my lungs as electricity fired through my body.
Another whisper left her lips, but this time, I heard what she was saying. “Sanguinem magicae.”
The language was foreign to me. Though I didn’t understand what she was saying, my blood turned cold. A red mist formed around us, then began to swirl. The more it spun, the darker it became.
Fear paralyzed me. It wasn’t just the fact that this young woman was dying in my arms. Whatever was happening around us, I had a feeling it had something to do with the words she spoke. As much as I wanted to blame this on a drunken hallucination, I’d only had one drink.
Despite how much I wanted to run away, I couldn’t. I barely heard the sound of approaching footsteps through the buzzing in my ears. My vision began to blur as my heart slammed in my chest.
“Samara! Stop!” someone yelled. They sounded so far away. The last thing I felt was the cold concrete as my body slammed into it.
~Roark~
Samara was dead.
That single thought played through my mind as I observed the young woman who had found her, cradled inside my leather sofa. Her presence increased my guilt. She was a reminder of my failure, of the failure of my brothers. It was more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We’d lost track of our ward. Now, she was gone.
My chest grew heavy.
It didn’t feel real. Maybe that was because I didn’t want it to be. Samara gave me a purpose. She was the reason for my existence. My brothers and I were supposed to protect her. Tonight, we’d failed.
Tucking my hands behind my back, I paced in front of the sofa. The last time Samara and I had spoken, we’d discussed the old ways, the high priestess, and how Samara had communicated with her ancestors. They had given her a warning.
I had begged her not to approach anyone in the coven on this matter until we had a chance to inform the other guardians. She hadn’t listened. She never listened. Still, that didn’t mean she needed to die.
My entire world spun around me, leaving me more confused by the minute.
I knew Samara lost her life due to her recklessness, but why was this woman alive? I witnessed what happened, though I still didn’t believe it. The power should have killed the girl. Instead, she’d survived. At least I thought she had.
I paused near her head and studied her face again. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. It was all the proof I needed that she lived. Still, I didn’t know if this was permanent. Perhaps it was why she hadn’t woken. Had the power been too much? Was her body weakening by the minute? If so, death was imminent.
Our people would have our asses if a human died under our care. It wouldn’t matter what caused it. It was our job to protect the true power, the same power Samara had. Now this girl…
Raven hair and porcelain skin filled my eyes. She was a child in comparison to my people, but in her world, she was a woman. I couldn’t keep my eyes from roaming over her curves, nor could I ignore the soft lips that parted slightly as she slept.
Something about her tugged at me. I didn’t like the fact she was affecting my body. Samara never had. I had been Samara’s guardian, nothing more. Besides, Samara had plenty of men in her life. I’d guarded her several times while she was on a date. We all had.
Rubbing my face, I blew out a deep breath and thought of what to do next. My brothers and I had to work together on this, which would be difficult when we weren’t a complete unit. As of now, it was just Quinn and me.
Hopefully he had answers.
Scanning the parlor, I found Quinn sitting in a chair, his nose so deep in a book it appeared attached. “Did you locate Slade yet?”
“Not yet.”
Quinn thought he could find something to help us figure out what happened with Samara and the woman we found with her. If anyone could find the answer in some dusty old book, it was him. The guy never did anything fun, not like Jax or even Slade.
Yeah. Slade. What had happened to our other brother? It was the four of us who’d guarded Samara, and the four us who’d failed her.
“I don’t understand this. Something is off.” I grumbled the words more to myself than Quinn.
“How so?”
Glancing at the woman, I shook my head and tried to piece the puzzle together. “Slade was with Samara. How was someone able to get close enough to kill her? And where is he?”
After a moment of silence, Quinn shrugged. “I don’t know, which is one of the reasons I’m researching. We should have been able to find them through our marks.”
I lowered my eyes to my wrist, taking in the gray lines that formed a witch’s knot. It was my guardian tattoo. My brothers and I shared them, as did Samara. With her death, they should have changed to a rusty tone. Mine was now gray, not black like on the day I received it.
Gazing at the young woman, I questioned why our guardian tattoo had appeared on her wrist. Who was she? Why was she around when Samara died? Had she killed Samara? So many thoughts ran through my mind. I couldn’t process them along with the pain of losing my ward.
“Is your mark the same?” Quinn asked.
Nodding my head at him, I concentrated on the woman, avoiding the subject I knew he wanted to discuss. I couldn’t.
“Ignoring this won’t make it go away,” he said.
“And discussing it won’t fix anything.” Pivoting toward him, I narrowed my eyes on his face. “We don’t know anything for sure yet. Let’s not speculate.”
Quinn licked his fingers before turning another page. His sudden silence worried me. We’d just lost our ward, and one of our brother guardians was missing. Instead of losing his mind, he was calm, collected even.
Out of all of us, Quinn was the most sensitive. He loved to get sentimental and mushy, but when it came to survival, he was strategic. He always had a plan or an answer. To know he didn’t this
time left me with a feeling of dread. Something in the natural force around us was off. Magic was imbalanced.
Creeping toward him, I waited for him to acknowledge me. He didn’t.
“We have a lot of things to process in a short amount of time,” I said. “The coven will be looking for Samara if she doesn’t return. It would be best if we went to them.”
Quinn chuckled. “Yeah, like you want to deal with the coven. Maybe it would be best if I went to them and you stayed to watch over her.”
I followed his gaze to the young woman. We didn’t even know her name.
“You want me to stay?” I asked.
When he nodded, I scratched the back of my head.
“I don’t know,” I said. “What do I do if she wakes?”
“Keep her calm. Ask questions. Don’t be abrasive.” His eyes lifted toward me as he stared a moment. Once I nodded, he refocused on the book. “If you have any problems, you know how to reach me.”
The old book slammed shut and dust flew in the air. Quinn waved it away and stood. His silver wings stretched to their full length and flapped a few times. Then he tucked the wings neatly behind his back.
“It shouldn’t take me long to report to the coven. I’ll be back in a few hours. When I return, I’ll stay with the girl, whether she’s unconscious or awake, but you have to find Jax.”
“You know where he is. We both do.” I grumbled the words as I thought about my fellow guardian.
Quinn nodded. “You’re right. I do know, but do you think it’s wise for him to be alone, and drunk at that, when our other brother is missing?”
“I never said Jax should be alone, Quinn, but we both know he’s dealing with some shit. Imagine if your last conversation with Samara went the way his did.”
“There will be a time to mourn and reflect, but now isn’t it.” Quinn walked toward the bookshelf and slid the book back into its rightful spot. “We have to report Samara’s death and find our
missing brother. Still, we can’t ignore what is happening. The power we protect, the same one Samara contained, has found its way into this young woman.”
“You’re one hundred percent certain of this?”
Nodding, Quinn pointed at the couch and the woman stretched across it. “You saw our symbol of protection on her wrist. There is no other reason for her to have it. Besides, I sense the power within her.”
As I plopped into the chair he once occupied, I leaned back and folded my arms. “This is a disaster. How can a human hold the power? We’re not sure she can handle it. What if that’s the reason she hasn’t woken?”
“I don’t have all the answers yet, but I believe this is fate, Roark.”
“Humph,” I grumbled. “That’s insane.”
How could a human hold such an ancient power? When I glanced across the room to the young woman, another question formed in my mind. How could I feel attracted to a human?
“Insane? Yes. Impossible? No.” Quinn approached the girl as he spoke to me. “Just because she hasn’t woken doesn’t mean she can’t handle the power. It should have killed her as soon as it transferred.”
He knelt beside her, his eyes aiming toward her wrist. I did the same, questioning everything I knew. We needed answers. Any discussion regarding the girl would wait until later.
“Speculating will get us nowhere, Quinn. I think you should stay with the girl while I go to the council. After I apprise them of Samara’s death and this girl we found, I’ll babysit. You can deal with Jax.”
“Fine. I just hope once you speak to the council, we’ll find Slade. We need him.”
“He wouldn’t have left Samara, which means he might be dead.” My voice cracked. The thought of losing my brother shook me. He was wise, kind, and the one who kept us in line. In a way, he was our leader. I wasn’t sure how we could go on without him.
Quinn’s gaze pierced me. “We haven’t felt our bond with him sever. It’s a painful process, one we wouldn’t miss.”
I leaned forward, resting my arms on my knees. “Then why can’t we sense him? We should feel his energy, dead or alive.”
Quinn glanced at the woman again, then rose. He said nothing as he made it to the French doors of the balcony. A breeze blew inside, causing the drapes to dance.
“Roark, you know as much as I do, but I assure you that I will keep searching for answers. Our library holds a lot of old books. One of them will have something that will help us.”
Leaving the chair behind me, I passed the young woman and joined Quinn by the window. “I’ll return as soon as I can. Until then, keep the girl safe.”
There was no time to argue. My wings unfolded from my back and expanded. I darted out the window and leapt from the balcony. Thunderous thrashing filled my ears as my wings flapped. The trees I flew over bent at the tops, but I pushed myself harder, determined to get away from the house, Quinn, and the human girl.
The faster I flew, the more I thought about her. I shouldn’t be so preoccupied with this strange woman. Her presence went against the rules. She was forbidden to us, yet her existence confounded me.
Why was I drawn to her?
~Katarina~
Ishifted on my bed and groaned when that small movement sent pain shooting through my body. Why was I so tired and sore? My head felt like a dozen cannons were exploding inside.
My fingers twitched. Where there should have been soft cotton sheets under my hand, I felt cool leather. My eyes opened as fast as the throbbing in my skull would allow them.
Where the hell was I? This wasn’t my room and this definitely wasn’t my bed. I was curled up on a leather couch with a pillow tucked under my head and a fluffy throw covering my legs.
Dark wood and leather-bound books surrounded me. My arms shook as I tried to push myself up. Warmth flooded my head and the room began to spin. Within seconds, my face slammed back onto the pillow. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself to take deep breaths until the queasiness subsided.
This was all wrong. Very wrong.
Opening my eyes again, I saw a man sitting on a chair next to me. His arms were draped over his knees, his gaze focused on me.
I gasped and pressed my back into the couch, trying to put as much distance between us as I could. Nausea churned my belly as I struggled to focus on the man in front of me.
“Who are you?” I whispered, unable to speak. High any louder. My throat was so dry, I could barely swallow.
“There was an accident. You fell and hit your head. How do you feel?”
“Like I was in an accident.” Why couldn’t I remember anything? Why wasn’t I in a hospital? I pressed my fingers to my temples, wishing the pressure would relieve the pounding in my head. Each thump made it difficult for me to focus.
“Here,” he said as he handed me a bottle of water.
There was no way I was drinking that. What if he’d drugged it? What if he’d drugged me last night and that’s why I was in this room now? He could be fabricating the accident to explain why I was here. Something obviously happened to me, and until I figured out what, I needed to keep my guard up.
When he realized I wasn’t going to take it, he placed the bottle to his lips and swallowed. He waited a few seconds before handing it back to me.
“See? It’s okay,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I continued to stare at the man in front of me. Had we met before? His eyes reminded me of warm honey. Such an unusual shade, one I had never seen before. Like the amber stones my grandmother believed would heal the soul. I remembered the pulse of the amber necklace my grandmother had given me years ago, the way it would warm my chest every time I wore it. Now it was hidden in the back of my dresser along with the past that I had long ago buried.
“Drink some water and then we can talk.” His voice was like a soothing balm across my aching body.
As I reached for the bottle, my gaze fell to my sleeve that was spotted with crimson. I rubbed my finger across the stain. Had I cut myself in the accident?
Memories from the other night flooded my mind. This wasn’t my blood. This was another girl’s blood—she’d been hurt. I lifted my hands in front of my face, expecting to see them still covered in her blood. Someone had already scrubbed them clean. If not for the
blood on the cuff of my shirt, I would have believed it was all a dream, but my heart knew the truth.
“Where is she?” I whispered. I prayed she was okay, but I knew in my soul she wasn’t. There had been so much blood, too much for her to have survived. Was this man in front of me the person who’d stabbed her? Had he taken me, thinking I knew who her killer was?
It wasn’t hard to miss the pain etched on his face. He closed his eyes for a moment before opening them and responding, “Samara didn’t make it.”
Samara.
Her life faded in my arms and I didn’t even know her name. Tears streamed down my face as guilt gnawed at my belly. I crossed my arms over my stomach and bent over. My eyes squeezed shut as if that would erase the horrible images.
Why hadn’t I done more to save her? Help was so close. I could have left her on the sidewalk for a minute and ran inside the bar, or tried to call from my phone again. Something. Anything. She was dead and I had done nothing to prevent it.
I don’t know how much time passed before the tears stopped falling. The man sat there watching me, his amber eyes filled with anguish. She meant something to him. Was she a girlfriend? Sister?
“It’s my fault.” The words tumbled from my lips without thought. The man jerked in his seat as if I’d slapped him. His relaxed posture turned rigid. The kindness that I felt emanating from him earlier had now been replaced with animosity.
“What did you do to her?”
I shrank back against the couch. My heart slammed against my ribs. He could do whatever he wanted to me and no one would know.
Heat coursed through my veins. Each nerve ending felt like it was on fire. I cried out as the pain in my head intensified. The lights in the room began to buzz and flicker. My hands gripped my head, afraid that it would split in two.
Warm hands covered mine as a soft voice spoke into my ear. “You need to breathe. Slow, deep breaths. In and out.”
I struggled to follow his instructions, but the pain was like an electrical current jolting my body. Shattering glass filled the room.
“Katarina, look at me.” The sound of my name on his lips stopped me from submitting to the darkness that was consuming me.
“Katarina.”
My eyes opened. His warm amber gaze greeted me as his forehead nearly pressed to mine.
“Breathe.” He inhaled a deep breath and then released it. He nodded his head, encouraging me to do the same.
Following his lead, I took a steadying breath in and released it. I continued to drag in deep lungfuls of air until the pressure inside me began to ease.
His eyes searched mine, his thumbs swiping the moisture off of my cheeks. Being this close to him sent a different kind of warmth through my body. I felt a tug inside drawing me toward him, like an invisible thread connected us. My grandmother would say he was my fated match. When two people share a spiritual connection, they are considered soulmates.
I never believed that there was one person out there for me— one person who I could connect to on a higher level. That would make the universe cruel. There would only be a one in a million chance of someone finding their soulmate in their lifetime. I didn’t believe in fate or destiny anymore. Believing only brought me pain.
“Are you okay?” he asked. His lips were so close to mine that it would only take the slightest movement for mine to meet them.
Whoa. I cleared my throat and pulled away from his touch, unsure why my thoughts were leading me down that path. I was never into one-night stands and definitely not with a guy whose motives I was unsure of.
“How did you know my name?” After all that just happened, that was the first thing that popped into my mind?
“I checked your driver’s license.”
“Oh.” I swallowed and averted my gaze. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what just happened.”
He stood and resumed his position in the chair across from me. “I think your emotions escalated into a panic attack. It’s
understandable, considering everything that you’ve been through.”
That did make sense, but this had seemed like more than a panic attack.
“Maybe I should go see a doctor. I could have a concussion.” Or worse bleeding on the brain. Whatever just happened to me wasn’t normal.
“You don’t have a concussion. I checked you earlier.”
Why did I feel like he was keeping something from me? When I’d first opened my eyes, his emotions were like an open book. Now I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“Are you a doctor?” I asked.
“No. But my brothers and I have had enough head injuries to know how to check for one. I can have a healer look at you once we figure out what happened to Samara. Why do you think it was your fault?”
Just hearing her name sent my pulse racing. I clutched the blanket in my lap, willing myself to remain calm. Shame filled me. What would he do to me when I voiced my guilt? I was alone with a stranger, someone who deeply cared for the girl who had died because of me. There was no punishment he could inflict that would be more than the guilt I already felt.
My gaze fell to my hands. The blood on my sleeve like a scarlet letter.
“Because I did nothing. I wanted to get help. I even tried calling from my phone. She wouldn’t let me leave. She knew she was dying and she wouldn’t let me help her.” I dragged my gaze up to meet his. “Why would she do that? I could have saved her.”
He stared at me for what felt like an eternity, as if he was trying to read my soul. Who knows, maybe he was. I may not have been in touch with my connection to the spirits in years, but my intuition never failed me. Had I listened to it when Samara was dying, things might have ended differently. Maybe this was my punishment for denying who I really was.
A tingle of awareness spread through my body. His golden aura pulsed around him. The color mirrored his eyes. I was positive he meant me no harm, otherwise the color would be tinged with black.
But I wasn’t naive enough to ignore the power that emanated from him. If I crossed him or someone he loved, he could destroy me.
Breaking eye contact, he blew out a breath and scrubbed his hands over his face. He actually looked relieved at my confession. Had he thought I’d actually been the one to harm her? That would explain his initial reaction.
“If you knew Samara, you would know that she never did the expected.” A soft smile lifted his lips at the memory of the girl he obviously cared for. “She never did anything without a reason. If she truly believed she was dying, she had no choice but to keep you there with her. It was her obligation.”
“I don’t understand. What obligation?”
“How much do you remember about that night?”
My hands trembled as I swiped the moisture from my cheeks. I fought the urge to curl up on the couch and close my eyes to the horror I’d seen, but I owed it to Samara to remember what I could. I smoothed my palms over my pants and took a steadying breath.
“A lot of it’s still foggy, but I know I was out with my friends. I had just left to go home. Looking back, I realize I shouldn’t have walked out alone. If I had waited for my friend, she would have been able to get help.”
The man leaned closer to me. He reached out like he wanted to comfort me, but pulled his hand back.
“Samara came out of nowhere. At first, I thought she was drunk. Then I saw the blood. There was so much... She told me that her guardians would help me and that I should listen to them. Do you know who her guardians are? I think maybe I’m supposed to tell them what happened to her.”
He dragged his fingers through his hair, his eyes glossy with unshed tears. My heart ached for the loss he was feeling. I wanted to ask what his relationship was to her, but I didn’t want to pry.
“I’m Quinn, one of her guardians.”
It wasn’t the answer I’d been expecting. He was too young to be a guardian. And what did he mean ‘one’ of them? How many more were there? Was he married? He didn’t have a ring on his finger, but
that didn’t mean anything. Why did the thought of him having a wife feel like a knife to my heart? I didn’t even know him.
I watched him walk to the window, his hands braced on the sill as he stared out into the night.
“There is a lot that you don’t understand and much more that you won’t. I will tell you as much as I can.” He turned, looking as if he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but right now I need you to try. Not only because it was Samara’s last wish, but also because, whether you believe it or not, we as her guardians are now sworn to protect you.”
“What is going on? Do you think whoever killed Samara will come after me? And what do you mean by we?” I shivered at his announcement. Not once had I considered that someone might think I witnessed what happened or that Samara told who hurt her.
As if sensing my distress, Quinn quickly crossed the room and knelt in front of me. He’d opened his mouth to respond, when the door suddenly opened. A man with broad shoulders and muscles that strained against the sleeves of his shirt filled the doorway.
His lips were pressed into a thin line. An intense fire burned in his eyes. His heated gaze focused on me before finally settling on Quinn.
He said, “I hope you’ve figured out what happened to Samara, because the council is out for blood.”
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the sixteenth century generally, are subjected to the irregular glancing criticism of the essayist. This single paper would enable one to understand the fling of a man like Ben Jonson—the reverse of unintelligent, the reverse of unhumorous, but full of erudition, and of sixteenth-century reverence for it—at “All the essayists, even their master Montaigne.” On the general question whether what is commonly called pedantry is a good or a bad thing, Montaigne’s verdict comes simply to a “Mass! I cannot tell!” He bestows hearty praise on Du Bellay, a non-pedantic and courtier-like man of letters, who yet was enthusiastic for learning; heartier on Adrian Turnebus, a pedant in the common injurious sense; and in the middle of his essay he plays on study of Greek and Latin, on quotations from Plato and Cicero, on “arming oneself against the fear of death, at the cost and charges of Seneca.”[192] The much longer chapter on Education, addressed to Diane de Foix, which immediately follows, contains one of the worst expressions of Renaissance contempt of mediæval literature, in the boast that “of the Lancelots of the Lake, the Amadis, the Huons of Bordeaux, with which childhood amuses itself,” he did not know so much as the name. “My Lord Michael” is great, but even he might have been greater if he had known them. Indeed hardly anywhere does Montaigne exhibit his own undulation and diversity more fully than in relation to letters—at one time amassing ancient instances as if he were totally oblivious of the remarks above about Plato and Seneca; at another criticising for himself[193] with inimitable freshness and gusto; and at another again informing the scholar, with much coolness, that if he will take off hood and gown, drop Latin, and not deafen men’s ears with unmitigated Aristotle, he will be at the level of all the world, and perhaps below it.
Even this, it will be seen, is not so very far from the cardinal Pléiade principle, that study of the ancients is an excellent thing, but that its chief value is to equip and strengthen the student for practice in French. And Montaigne, like the rest of his contemporaries and compatriots, always had this “cultivation of the garden” before him. It is well known how the real pedants of his own time objected to his neologisms, just as Fontaine (or whoever was the author of the Quintil) did to those of Du Bellay; and how large a part these
neologisms played in the development and nourishing of French prose. Every one who knows anything of Montaigne knows his enthusiastic eulogy of Amyot, and of the services which that grant translateur had rendered to French. And everybody should know the delicate and subtle appreciation which he lavishes, in a fashion so different from the indiscriminate laudations of Scaliger, on favourite passages of the ancients, more particularly[194] on the Venus and Vulcan passage of Virgil, and the Venus and Mars passage of Lucretius.
The Essay On Books.
Of course Montaigne’s interests, despite his exquisite literary accomplishment, are not primarily literary. But he has given one entire Essay (II. 10), and that not of the shortest, to Books; and he has frequent glancings at the subject, sometimes characteristically racy, as that at the Heptameron, “un gentil livre pour son estoffe.” The “Books” essay begins with one of his familiar jactations of imperfection. He has some reading, but no faculty of retention. He often intentionally plagiarises—for instance from Plutarch and Seneca. He does not seek in books anything more than amusement and knowledge of himself and of life. He refuses to grapple—at any great expense of labour—with difficulties. He likes Rabelais, Boccaccio, and Johannes Secundus for mere pastime, but repeats his depressing scorn for romances, and confesses, as did Darwin on the score of Shakespeare, that he cannot take the pleasure he used to take in Ariosto and Ovid. He thinks Virgil, Lucretius, Horace, and Catullus (especially Virgil in the Georgics and the Fifth Æneid) at the top of poetry—a grouping which makes us long to pin the elusive Perigourdin down, and force him, Proteus as he is, to give us his exquisite reasons. His judgment on Lucan is a little commonplace, “not the style but the sentiments”—whereas the sentiments of Lucan are but Roman “common form,” and his style, if not of the best kind, is great in a kind not the best. He thinks Terence “the very darling and grace of Latin,” and is half apologetic as to the equalling of Lucretius to Virgil, positively violent (it is, he thinks, bestise et stupidité barbarique)[195] on that of Virgil to Ariosto, and depressing again in regard to Plautus (Terence sent bien mieux son gentilhomme). He returns again and again to the style of Terence; and warns us of the coming classicism by his objections to the
“fantastiques élévations Espagnoles et Pétrarchistes,” being equally “correct” in exalting (or at least in his reasons for the exaltation, there being no doubt about the fact) Catullus above Martial. On Greek authors as such he frankly and repeatedly declares his incompetence to give judgment; but “now that Plutarch has been made French,” he can as frankly yoke him once more with Seneca, and extol the pair super æthera, boldly expressing his comparative distaste for Cicero. He would like to have “a dozen of [Diogenes] Laertius,” for the “human document,” of course; and puts Cæsar above all other historians, including Sallust, while he has something to say of divers French writers of the class—Froissart (who, he thinks, gives “the crude matter of history”), Comines, Du BellayLangey, and others. It is to be noted that in this place he says nothing about French poetry. And when he does take up the subject much later, in II. 17, at the end of the “Essay on Presumption,” he is very brief, only saying that he thinks Ronsard and Du Bellay “hardly far from the ancient perfection.” At the beginning of II. 36 he divides with the majority on the merits of Homer and Virgil, though he once more admits a disqualification, which in this case is, of course, total. And in the famous remark,[196] “Poetry is an amusement proper for women; it is a frolic and subtle art, disguised, talkative, quite occupied with pleasure and display, like them,” he gives no doubt a certain measure of his critical capacity in less specially conditioned matters.
This capacity is, indeed, strictly limited. Montaigne is almost, if not quite, as much set as his beloved Plutarch on the life-side of literature, as the only one that really interests him; and, in addition, he has an obstinate prosaic inclination, with which Plutarch does not seem to be nearly so chargeable. Yet he must have found mention here, not merely as our first very great French man of letters,[197] who has left us literary opinions, but as the very light and glory of the French intellect at the meeting of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and as thus giving an index of the greatest value to its tastes and opinions. He displays (conditioning it in the ways just mentioned, and others, by his intense idiosyncrasy) the general literary attitude of the time—an active, practical, striving towards performance, a rather conventional and arbitrary admiration of the
farther past, a contempt, or at least good-natured underestimation, of the nearer, and fair, if vague, hopes for the future. But considering the intensely critical character of Montaigne’s intellect in most directions, its exertions in this direction tell us even more by what they do not, than by what they do.
157. See Petit de Julleville, ii. 392, who quotes four between c. 1405 and c. 1475; and for a monograph E. Langlois, De Artibus Rhetoricæ Rythmicæ, Paris, 1890. To this may be added, as commentaries on this chapter, the corresponding division in Spingarn, op. cit., Part II., pp. 172-250; the extensive and valuable Introduction to M. Georges Pellissier’s edition of Vauquelin de la Fresnaye (Paris, 1885); and Herr Rücktaschel’s Einige Arts Poétiques aus der Zeit Ronsards und Malherbes (Leipsic, 1889).
158. L’Art et Science de Rhétorique, 1493, printed by Verard, and reprinted by Crapelet. Another, a little later, was printed about 1500, and reprinted in the Bibliothèque Elzévirienne, Anciennes Poésies Françaises, iii. 118. It is odd that M. Petit de Julleville, who does not give the volume and page of that very extensive collection, and misquotes its title, should speak of this as “in prose.” It is in verse: divided under short headings, sometimes of teaching, sometimes of example, as in this notable “Rondel équivoqué,” Avoir, Fait Avoir Avoir, Avoir Fait-Avoir, Fait, where each word is a line. The interpretation may be left as a treat for the reader.
159. L’Instructif de la seconde Rhétorique, or Le Jardin de Plaisance
160. Grant et vray art de pleine Rhétorique, Rouen, 1521.
161. Rhétorique Métrifiée, Paris, 1539. Between Fabri and Gratien du Pont appeared in 1529 Geoffrey Tory’s Champfleury, a more grammatical than critical miscellany, which is elsewhere glanced at; and the very noteworthy critical remarks prefixed by Marot to his edition of Villon in 1533. M. Gaston Paris is assuredly right when he calls this (in his charming little book on the author of the Ballade des Pendus, Paris, 1901) “un des plus anciens morceaux de critique littéraire que l’on ait écrits en français,” and its appreciative sympathy, if not co-extensive with the merits of the work, leaves little to desire in the points which it touches. In fact, the mere selection of
Villon and of the Roman de la Rose, as the subjects of his editorial care, shows in Master Clement the presence of a deep instinctive critical faculty, which has only partially and incidentally developed itself. In this, as in not a few other points, Marot himself seems to me to have had for the most part inadequate justice from critics; though here as elsewhere it may be allowed that time and circumstance prevented him from doing himself justice. His intense affection for literature and poetry, the light glancing quality of his wit and intellect, the absence of all pomposity, pedantry, and parade, and the shrewd sense which (in judgment if not quite in conduct) distinguished him, go very far to constitute the equipment of the accomplished critic. But his short life, perhaps a certain instability of character, and the immature condition of the special state of literature in his time, with the ever-deplorable distractions of the religious upheaval, gave him little chance.
162. With the Lyons reprint (v. infra) of Sibilet and the Quintil Horatien is given an Autre Art Poétique, short and strictly practical. It notices Ronsard, but gives the old forms.
163. It would be clearly improper to load this book with much general French literary history. But those who would thoroughly appreciate the position may find an endeavour to put it briefly in my Short History of the subject, Book II. chaps, i., ii., and iv. (6th ed., Oxford, 1901). If they want more they had better go to MM. Darmesteter and Hatzfeld’s admirable Seizième Siècle in France (Paris, 1878), or, best of all, to the last 150 pp. of the first vol. of Crepet’s Poètes Français. M. Ch. d’Héricault’s prefaces here, with his introduction to Marot (ed. Garnier), are not likely to be soon equalled.
164. For a poet of such eminence and a book of such importance, Du Bellay and the Défense are curiously difficult of access. M. MartyLaveaux' ed. of the Works, with the Pléiade generally (Paris, 1876), is very scarce and dear. M. Becq de Fouquières’ Selections are, it is said, out of print, though they can be obtained. A Versailles reprint I know only through the British Museum Catalogue. It is odd how, in almost all languages, reprinting, like a more agreeable, if less troublesome, process, seems to “go by favour.”
165. That quoted supra, at i. 316.
166 Of course in an earlier stage you do get much more. English, for instance, profited almost infinitely by translation from French and from Latin prose in the late fourteenth century, and throughout the fifteenth. But French was past this stage, or nearly past it, when Du Bellay wrote.
167. L’Evolution des genres (Paris, 1890), p. 43 sq.
168. M. Brunetière quotes this famous and striking expression, but complains that we are not told how it is to be done. Our English supplies a sufficient reply to this in famous words, “by reading, marking, learning, and inwardly digesting.”
169. The small space given to the Défense here may seem inconsistent with the importance assigned to it. The fact is, however, —and this fact no doubt explains to some extent, if it does not excuse, the views of those who do not think it very important,—that its details require little notice. Its claim lies in its eager eloquence, in the new position sketched above, and (negatively) in its onslaught on the forms of French poetry for two hundred years past. Du Bellay’s critical views reappear in the “Epistle to the Reader” in his Olive (ed. Becq de Fouquières, pp. 67-76), in that prefixed to his Vers Traduits (ibid., pp. 151-157), in the vigorous defence of vernacular verse addressed to the second of the three Valois Marguerites (ibid., pp. 127-129), and elsewhere.
170. Others call it Le Quintil Censeur. It appears not unnecessary to say that “Quintil” has not, and could not have, any reference to “Quintilian,” but refers to the Quintilius of Horace (Art. Po., 438). The original edition seems to be very rare: the British Museum only possesses the Lyons reprint (with Sibilet) of 1556. It seems to have been also reprinted with Du Bellay at Versailles in 1878, but this I do not possess. Some make the title Horatian or Horace.
171. “Vermeille” with him is “vermeilhæ”; “voix,” “voès”; “neigeux,” “negeus”; Lucan, “Lukein,” &c.
172. Œuvres Complètes, ed. Blanchemain, 8 vols., Paris, 18571867. They are not quite “complete,” but the omissions (which may be found, if anybody wants them, in such respectable works as the Cabinet Satirique &c.) fortunately do not concern us.
173. In ed. of Vauquelin (sup. cit.), xxviii. sq.
174. Ed. cit., vii. 317-337
175. Alphonse Delbène, Abbé of Haute-Combe in Savoy 176.
“Jewels five words long That on the stretched forefinger of all time Sparkle for ever.”
T , The Princess.
177. Ed. cit., iii. 7-39.
178. Plustost à la façon d’une missive, ou de quelques lettres royaux, que d’un poème bien prononcé.
179 Principalement des boucliers.
180. Odd as these things may seem, they are not fool-born jests of an idle historian. Ronsard actually says them, though at greater length. See p. 28, “Su tu veux faire mourir sur-le-champ quelque capitaine, il le faut navrer au plus mortel lieu du corps, comme le cerveau, le cœur, la gorge,” &c., &c.; and, p. 29, “Car s’il fait bouillir de l’eau en un chaudron,” &c., &c.
181. In the Prefatory Discourse to his Mort de César (1562). He extols Aristotle and Horace, but does not like Seneca.
182 In the prefatory matter of his Saül le Furieux, 1572. Jean assails the native drama, especially the Moralities, and thinks highly of Seneca.
183. La Manière de faire des vers en Français comme en Grec et en Latin, Paris, 1573. There is a useful abstract of this in Rücktaschel, op. cit., pp. 23-27.
184. L’art Poétique Français, Paris, 1598. This, like almost all the works noticed in this chapter, is but a little book, odd to compare with the close-packed Italian quartos. But it is longer than most of its fellows.
185. Some abatement, however, may be claimed, if only on the ground that Laudun is absolutely sound on the vernacular question.
186. M. Pellissier, to whose already cited edition the references following are made.
187. I agree with Mr Spingarn (p. 187) and disagree with M. Pellissier (p. xxxviii) in thinking that this reference to Minturno is quite serious. The French editor, indeed, speaks of Minturno rather oddly, coupling him with Vida as “les deux poètes Italiens,” and saying that
both “ne font que remâcher les préceptes des anciens,” which Vauquelin only says of Vida. This is of more than doubtful justice as to Minturno, and why call him a “poet”? He may have written in verse on other occasions, for aught I know, but his two Poetics are as unquestionably in prose as Vida’s one is in verse.
188. Oste moy la Ballade, oste moy le Rondeau.
189. Inst. Orat., II. xiii. 13. The anecdote in Quintilian is very simple: Apelles paints Antigonus in profile to hide a lost eye. Vauquelin (on uncertain authority) expands this into a long story of a competition between Polygnotus, Scopas, and Diocles.
190. The Recherches have not been completely reprinted, I think, since 1723. All their literary matter, however, is included in M. Léon Feugère’s extremely useful and well-edited Œuvres Choisies d’E. P. (2 vols., Paris, 1849). It extends from i. 230 to ii. 134, what follows on the University of Paris being itself not quite irrelevant.
191. Difficult, that is, to appraise critically—not to understand.
192. Vol. i. p. 165, ed. Courbet and Royer. Je n’aime point cette suffisance relative et mendiée, he goes on with his own absolute and unborrowed stamp of phrase and epithet.
193. Cf., for instance, the remarkable critical comparison of Tacitus and Seneca in the Eighth Essay of the Third Book, towards the close (iv. 37 ed. cit.)
194. If there is anywhere a happier critical phrase, in its particular kind, than “cette noble circumfusa, mère du gentil infusus,” I do not know it.
195. Ed. cit., ii. 112. Most of the expressions quoted are in the immediate context.
196. III. 3, Les Trois Commerces, ed. cit., iii. 288.
197. Rabelais is no real exception. It is needless to say that Gargantua and Pantagruel do contain matter touching on literature. But Rabelais comes too early to be critical. The “Library of SaintVictor” and other things are simply alarums and excursions of his general campaign against the rearguard of “monkish ignorance”; and in his references to French poetry he does not seem to have got beyond—or to have wished to get beyond—complacent acquiescence in rhétoriqueur pedantry.
ELIZABETHAN CRITICISM.
BACKWARDNESS OF ENGLISH CRITICISM NOT IMPLYING INFERIORITY ITS CAUSE THE INFLUENCE OF RHETORIC AND OTHER MATTERS HAWES—THE FIRST TUDOR CRITICS—WILSON: HIS ‘ART OF RHETORIC’; HIS ATTACK ON “INKHORN TERMS”—HIS DEALING WITH FIGURES—CHEKE: HIS RESOLUTE ANGLICISM AND ANTI-PRECIOSITY HIS CRITICISM OF SALLUST ASCHAM HIS PATRIOTISM HIS HORROR OF ROMANCE, AND OF THE ‘MORTE D’ARTHUR’ HIS GENERAL CRITICAL ATTITUDE TO PROSE, AND TO POETRY THE CRAZE FOR CLASSICAL METRES SPECIAL WANTS OF ENGLISH PROSODY ITS KINDS: (1) CHAUCERIAN (2) ALLITERATIVE (3) ITALIANATED DEFICIENCIES OF ALL THREE THE TEMPTATIONS OF CRITICISM IN THIS RESPECT ITS ADVENTURERS: ASCHAM HIMSELF WATSON AND DRANT GASCOIGNE HIS ‘NOTES OF INSTRUCTION’ THEIR CAPITAL VALUE SPENSER AND HARVEY THE PURITAN ATTACK ON POETRY GOSSON ‘THE SCHOOL OF ABUSE’ LODGE’S ‘REPLY’ SIDNEY’S ‘APOLOGY FOR POETRY’ ABSTRACT OF IT ITS MINOR SHORTCOMINGS AND MAJOR HERESIES THE EXCUSES OF BOTH, AND THEIR AMPLE COMPENSATION KING JAMES’S ‘REULIS AND CAUTELIS’ WEBBE’S ‘DISCOURSE’ SLIGHT IN KNOWLEDGE, BUT ENTHUSIASTIC, IF UNCRITICAL, IN APPRECIATION— PUTTENHAM’S (?) ‘ART OF ENGLISH POESIE’—ITS ERUDITION— SYSTEMATIC ARRANGEMENT AND EXUBERANT INDULGENCE IN FIGURES MINORS: HARINGTON, MERES, WEBSTER, BOLTON, ETC. CAMPION AND HIS ‘OBSERVATIONS’ DANIEL AND HIS ‘DEFENCE OF RHYME’ BACON THE ‘ESSAYS’ THE ‘ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING’ ITS DENUNCIATION OF MERE WORD-STUDY ITS VIEW OF POETRY SOME “OBITER DICTA” THE WHOLE OF VERY SLIGHT IMPORTANCE STIRLING’S “ANACRISIS” BEN JONSON: HIS EQUIPMENT HIS ‘PREFACES,’ ETC. THE DRUMMOND CONVERSATIONS THE ‘DISCOVERIES’ FORM OF THE BOOK ITS DATE MOSAIC OF OLD AND NEW THE FLING AT MONTAIGNE AT ‘TAMERLANE’ THE SHAKESPEARE PASSAGE AND THAT ON BACON GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE BOOK
The fortune of England in matters political has often been noticed; and it has at least deserved to be noticed, hardly less often, in matters literary. One of the luckiest of these chances came at the time of the Renaissance; when the necessary changes were effected with the minimum of direct foreign influence, and so slowly that the natural force of the nation and the language was able completely, or almost completely, to assimilate the influences, both foreign and classical, that rained upon it.
Nor was this least the case in respect of criticism.[198] The history of this part of English literary evolution has been, until recently, much neglected; and it can hardly be said even yet to have received comprehensive attention. It is all the more necessary to bestow some time and pains on it here, with at least some fair hope of correcting an unfair depreciation. The Baron of Bradwardine (displaying that shrewd appreciation of contrast between English and Scottish characteristics which belonged, if not to himself, to his creator) remarked to Colonel Talbot that it was the Colonel’s “humour, as he [the Baron] had seen in other gentlemen of birth and honour” in the Colonel’s country, “to derogate from the honour of his burgonet.” Gentlemen of the most undoubted birth and honour (as such things go in literature), from Dryden to Matthew Arnold, have displayed this humour in regard to English criticism. But there has been something too much of it; and it has been taken far too literally by the ignorant. M. Brunetière has expressed his opinion that Frenchmen would make un véritable marché de dupe if they exchanged Boileau, Marmontel, La Harpe, and Co. for Lessing and some others. I shall not in this place express any opinion on that question directly. But, if this book does what I shall endeavour to make it do, it will at least show that to exchange, for any foreign company, our own critics, from Sidney and Ben Jonson, through Dryden and Addison, Samuel Johnson and Coleridge, Lamb and Hazlitt, to Mr Arnold himself, would be “un véritable marché de”— Moses Primrose.
Backwardness of English Criticism not implying inferiority.
It will have been sufficiently seen in the last volume that the backwardness of English—a backwardness long exaggerated, but to some extent real, and to no small extent healthy—was nowhere
exhibited more distinctly than in the department which supplies the materials of this history. Until the close of the fifteenth century, and for some decades afterwards, not a single critical treatise on English existed in the English language, or even in Latin; the nearest approach, even in fragment, to any utterance of the kind being the naïf and interesting, but only infantinely critical, remarks of Caxton in his prefaces.[199]
The fact is that, not only until a nation is in command of a single form of “curial” speech for literary purposes, but until sufficient experiments have been made in at least a majority of the branches of literature, criticism is impossible, and would, if possible, be rather mischievous than beneficial. Now England, though it possessed at least one very great author, and more than a fair number of respectable seconds to him, was, up to 1500 at least, in neither case. Till the end of the fourteenth century it had been practically trilingual; it was bilingual till past the end of the fifteenth, if not till far into the seventeenth, so far as literature was concerned. Nor, till the towering eminence of Chaucer had helped to bring the vernacular into prominence, was there any one settled dialect of primacy in the vernacular itself. Further, the fifteenth century was nearly at its end before any bulk of prose, save on religious subjects, was written; and for another century the proportion of translation over original work in prose was very large indeed.
Its cause.
At the same time the scholastic Rhetoric—which had always played to criticism the part of a half-faithless guardian, who keeps his pupil out of the full enjoyment of his property, yet preserves that property in good condition to hand over to him perforce at some future time—was still faithfully taught.[200]
The influence of Rhetoric and other matters.
The enlarged and more accurate study of the classics at the Revival of Learning set classical criticism once more before students in the originals; the eager study of those originals by Continental scholars was sure to reflect itself upon England; and, lastly, religious zeal and other motives combined, here as elsewhere, to make men determined to get the vernacular into as complete and useful a condition as possible. Nowhere does the intense national spirit, which is the glory of the Tudor period, appear
Hawe s. more strongly than in this our scholastic and “umbratile” division of the national life.
Long, indeed, before this scholastic and regular criticism made its appearance, and during the whole course of the fifteenth century, critical appreciation, stereotyped and unmethodised it may be, but genuine for all that, and stimulating, had made its appearance. The extraordinary quality of Chaucer, the amiable pastimemaking of Gower, and, a little later, the busy polygraphy and painful rhetoric of Lydgate, had, almost from the moment of Chaucer’s death, attracted and inspired students. The pretty phrase about Chaucer’s “gold dew-drops of speech,” which justly drew the approval of a critic so often unjustly severe on ante-Renaissance work as Mr Arnold, was, as is known even by tyros in the study of English literature, repeated, expanded, varied by almost every prominent writer for a century and a quarter at least, till it reaches, not exactly final, but most definite and noteworthy, expression in the work of Stephen Hawes, that curious swan-singer of English mediæval poetry. In the to us eccentric, if not positively absurd, exposition of the Trivium and Quadrivium which diversifies the account of the courtship of Grandamour and La Bell Pucell,[201] the praise of the Three is led up to by a discussion of Rhetoric and Poetics so elaborate and minute that it occupies more space than is given to all the other Arts together, and nearly double that which is given to all the rest, except a largely extended Astronomy. Rhetoric herself, after being greeted by and greeting her pupil in the most “aureate” style, divides herself into five parts, each of which has its chapter, with a “Replication against ignorant Persons” intervening, and many curious digressions such as the description of a sort of Earthly Paradise of Literature with four rivers, “Understanding,” “Closely-Concluding,” “Novelty,” and “Carbuncles,”[202] and a “Tower of Virgil” in their midst. Lydgate has been already praised for “versifying the depured rhetoric in English language,” but he comes up once more for eulogy as “my master” in the peroration, and has in fact considerably more space than either Gower or Chaucer. Nor, confused and out of focus as such things must necessarily appear to us, should we forget that Hawes and his generation were not altogether uncritically endeavouring at what was “important to
The first Tudor critics.
them”—the strengthening and enriching, namely, of English vocabulary, the extension of English literary practice and stock. Yet their criticism could but be uncritical: and the luck above referred to appears first in the peculiar scholastic character of the criticism of the first English school of critics deserving the name. No one of its members was exactly a man of genius, and this was perhaps lucky; for men of genius have rarely been observed to make the best schoolmasters. All were fully penetrated with the Renaissance adoration of the classics; and this was lucky again, because the classics alone could supply the training and the models just then required by English prose, and even to some extent by English poetry. All were very definitely set against Gallicising and Italianising; and yet again this was lucky, because England had been overdosed with French influence for centuries, while their opposition to Italian did perhaps some good, and certainly little harm. But all were thoroughly possessed by the idea that English, adjusted to classical models as far as possible, but not denationalised or denaturalised, ought to be raised into a sufficient medium of literary, as of familiar, communication for Englishmen. And—with that intense Renaissance belief in education, and a high and noble kind of education too, which puts to shame the chattering and pottering of certain later periods on this unlucky subject—all were determined, as far as in them lay, to bring English up to this point. The tendency was spread over a great number of persons, and a considerable period of time. Its representatives ranged from healthy and large-souled, if not quite heroic or inspired, scholars like Ascham to “acrid-quack” pedants like Gabriel Harvey. But the chief of these representatives were the well-known trio, of whom one has just been mentioned—Sir[203] Thomas Wilson, Sir John Cheke, and Roger Ascham. They were all friends, they were all contemporary members (to her glory be it ungrudgingly said) of one University, the University of Cambridge, and though the moral character of all, and especially of the first two, had something of the taints of self-seeking and of sycophancy, which were the blemishes of the Tudor type of writers, all had the merits of that type as exhibited in the man of the study rather than of the field—intense curiosity and industry, a real patriotism, a half-instinctive eagerness
to action, a consciousness how best to adorn the Sparta that had fallen to their lot, and a business-like faculty of carrying their conceptions out. From various indications, positive and indirect, it would seem that Cheke, who was the eldest, was also the most “magnetic,” the most Socratically suggestive and germinal of the three: but his actual literary work is of much inferior importance to that of Ascham and Wilson.
Wilson’s Art of Rhetoric[204] is, as the other dates given in the text and notes will show sufficiently, by no means the first book of the school; nor is it that which has, on the whole, the most interest for us. But it deserves precedence historically because, as no other does, it keys, or gears, the new critical tendency on to the old technical rhetoric. The first edition appeared in 1553, dedicated to Edward VI. Wilson dates his prologue to the second[205] on the 7th December 1560; but it does not seem to have been published till 1563. Between the date of the first edition and the writing of this Prologue, Wilson, an exile at Rome, had fallen into the claws of the Inquisition as author of the book and of another on Logic; and, as he recounts with natural palpitation, escaped literally “so as by fire,” his prison-house being in flames.
Wilson: his Art of Rhetoric;
his attack on “Inkhorn terms.”
His two first Books Wilson faithfully devotes to all the old technicalities—Invention, Disposition, Amplification, “States,” and the rest. But his third Book, “Of Elocution,”[206] announces from the first an interest in the matter very different from the jejune rehashings of the ancients (and chiefly of those ancients least worth rehashing) which the mediæval Rhetorics mostly give us. In fact, Wilson had shown himself alive to the importance of the subject in the very opening of the work itself[207] by recounting, with much gusto, how “Phavorinus the Philosopher (as Gellius telleth the tale) did hit a young man over the thumbs very handsomely for using over-old and over-strange words.” And as soon as he has divided the requirements of Elocution under the four heads of Plainness, Aptness, Composition, and Exornation, he opens the stop which has been recognised as his characteristic one, by denouncing “strange inkhorn terms.” He inveighs against the “far-journeyed gentlemen” who, on their return home, as they love to go in foreign apparel, so they “powder their
talk with oversea language,” one talking French-English, another “chopping in” with English-Italianated. Professional men, lawyers and auditors, have their turn of censure, and a real literary “document” follows in the censure of the “fine courtier who will talk nothing but Chaucer.” Most copious is he against undue “Latining” of the tongue, in illustration of which he gives a letter from a Lincolnshire gentleman which may owe royalty either to the Limousin Scholar of Rabelais, or even to Master Francis’ own original, Geoffrey Tory himself. And he points the same moral (very much after the manner of Latimer, for whom, as elsewhere appears, he had a great admiration) by divers facetious stories from his experience, “when I was in Cambridge, and student in the King’s College,” and from other sources. After which he falls in with Cicero as to the qualifications of words allowable.
“Aptness” follows: and here Sir Thomas, without knowing it, has cut at a folly of language revived three hundred years and more later than his own time. For he laughs at one who, “seeing a house fair-builded,” said to his fellow, “Good Lord, what a handsome phrase of building is this!” Wilson’s butt would have been no little thought of by certain persons at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Indeed, one may seem to remember a sentence about the merits of a “passage” in a marble chimney-piece, which is a mere echo, conscious or unconscious, of his “phrase.” The same temper appears in the longer remarks on Composition; but when we come to Exornation, “a gorgeous beautifying of the tongue with borrowed words and change of sentence,” Wilson’s lease of originality has run out. He is still in the bondage of the Figures, which he describes ambitiously as a kind “not equally sparpled[208] about the whole oration, but so dissevered and parted as stars stand in the firmament, or flowers in a garden, or pretty-devised antiques in a cloth of Arras.” The enumeration is full of character and Elizabethan piquancy; but it still has the old fault of beginning at the wrong end. When a man writes even a good oration, much more that far higher thing a good piece of prose (which may be an oration, if need serves, or anything else), he does not say to himself, “Now I shall throw in some hyperbaton; now we will exhibit a little anadiplosis;
His dealing with Figures.
Cheke: his resolute Anglicism and antipreciosity.
this is the occasion surely for a passage of zeugma.” He writes as the spirit moves him, and as the way of art leads. One could wish, in reading Wilson, for another Sir Thomas, to deal with the Figurants as he has dealt with the Chaucerists and the Lincolnshire Latinisers. But we must not expect too much at once: and lucky are we if we often, or even sometimes, get so bold a striking out into new paths for a true end as we find in this Art of Rhetoric. Cheke has left no considerable English work, and he seems—as it is perhaps inevitable that at least some of the leaders in every period of innovation should seem—to have pushed innovation itself to and over the verge of crotchet. He was a spelling and pronouncing reformer both in Greek and English; and, classical scholar and teacher as he was, he seems to have fallen in with that curious survival of “Saxon” rendering of words not of Saxon origin, the great storehouse of which is the work of Reginald Pecock a century earlier. But he appears to have been one of the main and most influential sources of the double stream of tendency observable in Wilson himself, and still more in Ascham—the tendency on the one hand to use the classics as models and trainers in the formation of a generally useful and practicable English style, and on the other to insist that neither from classical nor from any other sources should English be adulterated by “inkhorn terms,” as Wilson calls them,[209] of any kind—that is to say, by archaisms, technicalities, preciousnesses, fished up as it were from the bottom of the ink-pot, instead of simply and naturally taken as they came from its surface to the pen. What Ascham tells us that he said of Sallust is the spirit, the centre, the kernel, of the criticism of the whole school—a dread that is to say, and a dislike and a censure of what he calls the “uncontented care to write better than he could.”[210] And it must be obvious that this sharply formulated censure is itself a critical point de repère of the greatest value. It is well that it was not too much listened to—for the greatest results of English prose and verse in the great period, beginning a few years after Cheke’s death and continuing for an old man’s lifetime, were the result of this “never contented care,” which still reached something better than content. But if, at this early period, it had had too much way given to it, if the
vigorous but somewhat sprawling infancy of Elizabethan English had been bid and let sprawl simply at its pleasure, the consequences could not but have been disastrous.
His criticism of Sallust.
This criticism of Sallust, which may be found at length in Ascham’s Schoolmaster, [211] is quite a locus in its kind. It is not of the justest, for the prepossession of the sentence quoted above (which stands in the forefront of it) colours it all through. It has funny little scholastic lapses in logic, such as the attempt to apply the old brocard Orator est vir bonus dicendi peritus to the disadvantage of Sallust, as compared not only with Cicero but with Cæsar, on the score of morality. It would have been pleasant to observe the countenances of Fausta and Servilia if this had been argued in their joint presence. And the dislike of Thucydides, to which a disliker of Sallust is almost necessarily driven, argues a literary palate not of the most refined. But the disposition of the supposed causes of the faults of Sallust’s style, when, having sown his wild oats, he took to literature, and borrowed his vocabulary from Cato and Varro, and his method from Thucydides himself, is an exceedingly ingenious piece of critical pleading. Even if it will not hold water, it shows us a stage of criticism advanced, in some directions, beyond anything that classical or mediæval times can show. The other great “place” of Cheke’s writing occurs in his letter[212] to Hoby on that learned knight’s translation of Castiglione, with its solemn judgment (the author, though but in middle age, was ill, and in fact almost dying), “I am of this opinion, that our own tongue should be written clean and pure, unmixed and unmangled with borrowing of other tongues, wherein if we take no heed betimes, ever borrowing and never paying, she shall be fain to keep house as a bankrupt.” The analogy, of course, is a false one:—there is no need to pay, nor possibility of payment, any more than a conquering monarchy needs to fear the repayment of the tribute it draws from others, or than a sturdy plant need dread bankruptcy because it owes nourishment to earth, and air, and the rain of heaven. But once more the position is a definite, and not a wholly untenable, critical position: and Cheke shows himself here as at once engineer and captain of it.
Ascham.
The chief representative of this school is, however, beyond question, the always agreeable, and but seldom other than admirable, author of Toxophilus and The Schoolmaster himself.[213] His positive achievements in English literature do not here directly concern us; nor does the debate between those who regard him as a Euphuist before Euphuism, and those who will have him to be the chief example of the plain style in early Elizabethan literature. I confess myself to be on the side of the latter; though I know what the former mean. But it is with what Ascham thought as a critic, not with what he did as a writer, that we are here busy; and on this there is no reasonable opening for serious difference of opinion. Ascham’s critical position and opinions are clear, not only from his two famous and pleasant little books, but from the constant literary references in his letters, ranging from elaborate lucubrations on the study of the classics to an amusing little Cambridge fling at the older university, where, as we learn from a letter of exactly the middle of the century, taste was in so shocking a condition that Oxford men actually paid more attention to Lucian and Apuleius than to Cicero and Xenophon.[214]
His patriotism.
The Toxophilus itself is a critical document in parts, both for the initial manifesto of his desire “to write this English matter in the English tongue for English men,” and for the more elaborate defence of the proceeding (a defence repeated in the numerous Latin letters accompanying the copies of the book he sent to his friends), as well as for one of those hits at Romance which were characteristic of Renaissance scholars too generally, and were particularly to be expected in very moral and rather prosaic persons like Ascham. But we necessarily turn to the Schoolmaster for a full exposition of Ascham’s critical ethos, and we find it.
A tendency rather to slight poetry, one great heresy concerning it (of which more presently), and the above-mentioned contempt or even horror of romance—these are the worst things to be noted here. All these are connected with a wider critical heresy, which is prevalent in England to this day, and which emerges most interestingly in this infancy of English criticism. This heresy is the valuing of examples, and even of whole
His horror of Romance,
kinds, of literary art, not according to their perfection on their own artistic standards, not according to the quantity or quality of artistic pleasure which they are fitted to give; but according to certain principles—patriotic, political, ethical, or theological—which the critic holds or does not hold, as the case may be. This fallacy being one of those proper—or, at least, inseparably accidental—to the human intellect, is of course perceptible enough in antiquity itself. It is, as we have seen, rife in Plato, and more rife in Plutarch; and there is no doubt that the devotion of the Renaissance to the greatest of Greek philosophers and prosemen, to the most entertaining of Greek biographers and moralists, had not a little to do with its reappearance, though the struggle of the Reformation, and the national jealousies which this struggle bred or helped, had more. But no one has given more notable examples of it than Ascham by his attack on “books of feigned chivalry,” in Toxophilus, [215] and his wellknown censure of the Morte d’Arthur in The Schoolmaster. [216]
Than this book there was, at Ascham’s date, no more exquisite example of English prose in existence. There is not to this day a book, either in prose or in verse, which has more of the true Romantic charm. There are few better instances anywhere of subtly combined construction of story than are to be found in some of its parts; and, to a catholic judgment, which busies itself with the matter and spirit of a book, there are few books which teach a nobler temper of mind, which inculcate with a more wonderful blending of sternness and sympathy the great moral that “the doer shall suffer,” that “for all these things God shall bring us into judgment,” or which display more accomplished patterns of man and sweeter examples of woman. Yet Ascham (and he had read the book) saw in it nothing but “open manslaughter and bold bawdry.”
and of the Morte d’Arthur.
Apart from this somewhat Philistine prudery—which occupies itself more reasonably with Italian novelle, and the translations of them into English—Ascham’s criticism is of a piece with that of the whole school in all but a very few points. He differed with Wilson, and with most of the scholars of his time, on the subject of translation, which he rightly enough regarded as a useful engine of education, but as quite incapable of giving any literary equivalent for the original. He
agreed both with Wilson and with Cheke as to the impropriety of adulterating English with any foreign tongue, ancient or modern. He was, all the same, an exceedingly fervent Ciceronian and devotee of the golden age of Latin. And when we come in one[217] of his letters to Sturm on the name of Pigna (v. supra, p. 62), the rival of Cinthio Giraldi, there seems to be established a contact, of the most interesting, between English and Italian criticism. But (as indeed we might have expected) no allusion to Pigna’s view of the despised romances is even hinted: it is his dealing with the aureolum libellum of Horace that Ascham has read, his dealings with Aristotle and Sophocles that he wishes to read.
Putting his theory and his practice together, and neglecting for the moment his moral “craze,” we can perceive in him a tolerably distinct ideal of English prose, which he has only not illustrated by actual criticism of the reviewing sort, because the material was so scanty. This prose is to be fashioned with what may be excusably called a kind of squint—looking partly at Latin and Greek construction and partly at English vernacular usage. It does not seem that, great as was his reverence for Cheke, he was bitten by Cheke’s mania for absolute Teutonism; nor does he appear to have gone to the extreme of Latimer and Latimer’s admirer, Wilson, in caring to mingle merely familiar speech with his ordered vernacular. But he went some way in this direction: he was by no means proof against that Delilah of alliteration which, like a sort of fetch or ghost of the older alliterative prosody, bewitched the mid-sixteenth-century verse and prose of England, and had not lost hold on Spenser himself. And he had belief in certain simple Figures of the antithetic and parallel kind. But he was, above all, a schoolmaster—as even being dead he spoke—to English literature; and his example and his precepts together tended to establish a chastened, moderately classical, pattern of writing, which in the next generation produced the admirable English prose of Hooker, and was not without influence on the less accomplished, but more germinal and protreptic, style of Jonson.
His general critical attitude to Prose, and to Poetry.
We must praise him less when we come to poetry. The history of the craze for classical metre and
