deuored hym selfe to take away his seruaunt. The iuge consideringe the perilous example and inconuenience that which he shows on evidence which must be considered unimpeachable, to have been the 17th Dec., 1419; a result which proves the error of previous biographers, including Fuller, who had fixed his death to have taken place on Dec. 17, 1412. We cannot, however, agree with Mr. Foss that it is necessary to convict Shakspeare of falsifying history in his desire to enhance the character of his hero,' i... by representing Hen. V. as reappointing Gascoigne, because a certain poetical licence has been permitted to and assumed by poets in all ages, and moreover it must always be remembered that Shakspeare nowhere speaks of the Chief Justice by name, a fact not unfrequently forgotten, but which may be considered an additional argument for supposing that he took the idea from the pages of The Governour. The biographer, however, stands in a very different position from the poet, and Mr. Foss is no doubt justified in saying that he 'cannot acquit Lord Campbell of a similar charge, when he asserts that he can prove to demonstration that Sir William Gascoigne actually filled the office of Chief Justice of the King's Bench under Henry V.;' the result being that Mr. Foss is able to produce evidence which shows that in the very first year of the latter's reign Gascoigne is called 'late Chief Justice of the Bench of Lord Henry, father of the present King? -Judges of England, vol. iv. p. 169. In the view that the Editor takes of the story, the subsidiary question whether it was not Gascoigne who committed the Prince to prison, but some other Judge, Hankford, Hody, or Markham, becomes totally unimportant. Either the story is true, and then undoubtedly Gascoigne must have been the Judge, or it is untrue altogether, and then as regards names cadit quæstio. It may be as well, therefore, briefly to recapitulate the reasons which seem to point to the latter conclusion. 1. It is admitted that Elyot's version is the earliest authority for the story with which we are acquainted. 2. The internal evidence makes it probable that Elyot derived the story from some written source. This appears from the following circumstances: (a) He introduces it as an example of what he calls 'the virtue of placability' in company with other illustrations, each of which he derived from a classical authority which was capable of verification, and which has actually been verified. (b) The style of the narrative points to its being a translation from some (probably Latin) original ; this is shown by such peculiarities as the use of the ablative absolute, 'reserved the Chief Justice' (i.e. reservato excepto summo judice), &c., and the report of the King's speech which is quite in character with the monastic compositions of the 15th century. (c) Elyot himself in introducing the story says, 'it may be compared with any that was ever written? (d) With very few exceptions, all the narratives in The Governour employed as illustrations of virtues, moral qualities, &c., are taken from classical sources which have been identified. (e) Other illustrations from English history, &c., e.g. of Henry I. and Robert Curthose have been verified by reference to earlier documents, and it has been shown for instance that Elyot must have derived some of his information from the writings of Knyghton, who was a canon of Leicester, temp. Hen. IV. 3. The source from which Elyot = moughte therby ensue, with a valiant spirite and courage commaunded the prince upon his alegeance to leue the prisoner derived the story must have been either legal or clerical. If the former, the proceedings were of such an unusual character that it is in the highest degree improbable that they should not be entered on the Records, as was actually done in a very similar case in which a Prince of Wales was implicated, at a still earlier period of English history, and the record of which remains to this day. It may therefore be assumed from the absence of any such entry, or any allusion to the circumstance in the Year Book of the reign or in any of the earliest printed legal text books, that Elyot's authority for the story was not a legal one. 4. It must therefore have been a clerical, and probably a monastic, story. It has already been shown that the clergy were prepared to extol the merits of Gascoigne on account of his refusal to take a part in the so-called 'martydom' of Archbishop Scrope; and Caxton tells us in his Polychronicon that God showed and wrought many miracles for this worthy clerk,' i.e. Scrope. It is not at all improbable, therefore, that similar wonderful stories should have been fabricated by the clergy with regard to Gascoigne, whose name would be inevitably connected with that of the 'martyr.' 5. Although Elyot was nominally a lawyer he was essentially a man of letters, and for the times in which he lived was a voracious reader; he is constantly recommending the perusal of 'old chronicles.' 6. When as in the case of his reference to the legend of Bevis and his horse, he introduces topics of at least doubtful authenticity, he does not seem to have taken much trouble to verify such stories. The conclusion, therefore, to which the foregoing considerations lead us is, that Elyot's story of the Prince and the Judge is a translation of some earlier composition in Latin, probably by a monastic chronicler of the 15th century, with which we are unacquainted. It is only fair, however, to state the facts which seem at first sight to be opposed to this conclusion. 1. The story was also narrated, and apparently in good faith, by Hall and Holinshed, the historians. 2. It was dramatised and therefore popularised by the great poet; and 3. It was referred to incidentally by a Judge on the Bench in the reign of Elizabeth. But when we come to examine carefully into the circumstances of each of these cases we shall find that not one of them, taken separately, is inconsistent with the view of the origin of the story suggested above, and collectively they add no real weight to the argument against it. 1. Hall, for instance, who was the contemporary of Elyot, tells substantially the same story, but with greater brevity and with the addition of various details, all intended to disparage the Prince's character, and some of which have been already disproved. Holinshed merely copied from Hall, and his testimony is therefore entitled to no greater weight. 2. Shakspeare was professedly a poet and not a historian, and must be allowed the usual poetic licence. He probably borrowed the idea from Elyot's book, and in common with Elyot, Hall and Holinshed abstains from identifying the Judge by name, though no reason can be suggested for this omission, as the other characters in the play have real names assigned to them. On the supposition, however, that he borrowed the story from the pages of The Governour, the suppression of the and departe his waye. With whiche commandment the prince, being set all in a fury, all chafed, and in a terrible maner, came up to the place of iugement-men thinkyng that he wolde haue slayne the iuge, or haue done to hym some damage; but the iuge sittyng styll, without mouynge, declarynge the maiestie of the kynges place of iugement, and with an assured and bolde countenance, hadde to the prince these words folowyng: Sir, remembre your selfe; I kepe here the place of the king, your soueraigne lorde and father, to whom ye owe double obedience, wherfore, eftsones in his name, I charge you desiste of your wilfulnes and unlaufull entreprise, and from hensforth gyue good example to those whiche hereafter shall be your propre subiectes. And nowe for your contempt and disobedience, go you to the prisone of the kynges benche, where unto I committe you; and remayne ye there prisoner name explains itself. 3. Crompton represents Mr. Justice Whidden to have mentioned from the Bench the fact of the Prince's committal and coupled Gascoigne's name with the proceeding. The occasion, however, on which Whidden is alleged to have done this was at the hearing of a case decided in 1565, a century and a half after Gascoigne's death, and more than thirty years after the publication of The Governour, a book with which every man having the least pretensions to be considered a man of education must have been acquainted, and particularly a Judge, as it was written by the son of a distinguished Judge. It is therefore at least as probable that Whidden was quoting from his recollection of the story as told by Elyot or Hall, as from some independent authority. If Coke could refer to The Governour as his authority, why not Whidden, who lived still nearer to the time when The Governour was first published? The inference, therefore, in favour of the authenticity of the story drawn from the united testimony of two chroniclers, the great dramatist, and a single Judge of the 16th century, ceases to be conclusive when that testimony is submitted to the only test which can now be applied, and it is shown that the evidence of these witnesses, when critically examined, proves not to be intrinsically and independently valuable. At the risk, therefore, of being charged with exhibiting what Lord Campbell has styled 'a reckless spirit of questioning what has long been taken for implicit truth,' the Editor feels bound to express the opinion that the story, which during several centuries has been allowed to pass, not indeed unchallenged, but with the advantage of appealing directly to the national sympathy with the characters personified, and with the prestige derived from the support of great names, must at length be deposed from its pedestal as the monument of a strictly historical fact, and be henceforth regarded only as a peculiarly interesting specimen of monastic legend. untill the pleasure of the kyng, your father, be further knowen. With whiche wordes beinge abasshed, and also wondrynge at the meruailous grauitie of that worshipful Justice, the noble prince, layinge his waipon aparte, doinge reuerence, departed and wente to the kynges benche as he was commaunded. Wherat his seruants disdainyng, came and shewed to the kynge all the hole affaire. Wherat he a whiles studienge, after as a man all rauisshed with gladness, holdyng his eien and handes up towarde heuen, abrayded, sayinge with a loude voice, O mercifull god, howe moche am I, aboue all other men, bounde to your infinite goodnes; specially for that ye haue gyuen me a iuge, who feareth nat to ministre iustice, and also a sonne who can suffre semblably and obey iustice? Nowe here a man may beholde thre persones worthye excellent memorie. Firste, a iuge, who beinge a subiecte, feared nat to execute iustice on the eldest sonne of his soueraigne lorde, and by the ordre of nature his successour. Also a prince and sonne and heire of the kynge, in the middes of his furye, more considered his iuell example, and the iuges constance in iustice, than his owne astate or wylfull appetite. Thirdly, a noble kynge and wyse father, who contrary to the custome of parentes, reioyced to se his sonne and the heire of his crowne, to be for his disobedience by his subiecte corrected.. Wherfore I conclude that nothing is more honorable, or to be desired in a prince or noble man, than placabilitie. As contrary wyse, nothing is so detestable, or to be feared in suche one, as wrathe and cruell malignitie. CHAPTER VII. That a gouernour ought to be mercifull and the diuersitie of mercye and vayne pitie. MERCYE is and hath ben euer of suche estimation with mankynde, that nat onely reason persuadeth, but also experience • proueth, that in whome mercye lacketh and is nat founden, in hym all other vertues be drowned and lose their iuste commendation. Crueltie. The vice called crueltie, whiche is contrary to mercye, is by good reason most odyous of all other vices, in as moche as, lyke a poyson or continual pestilence, it destroyeth the generation of man. Also the vertues beynge in a cruell persone be nat only obfuscate or hyd, but also lyke wyse as norysshynge meates and drynkes in a sycke body do lose their bountie and augmente the malady, semblably diuers vertues in a persone malicious do minystre occasion and assistence to crueltie. But nowe to speke of the inestimable price and value of mercy. Let gouernours, whiche knowe that they haue resceyued theyr powar from aboue, reuolue in their myndes in what peryll they them selfes be in dayly if in god were nat habundaunce of mercy, but that as sone as they offende him greuously, he shulde immediatly strike them with his moste terrible darte of vengeaunce. All be it uneth any houre passeth that men deserue nat some punysshement. The mooste noble emperours, whiche for their merites resceyued of the gentyles diuyne honours, vainquisshed the greate hartes of their mortall enemyes, in shewynge mercy aboue mennes expectacion. Julius Cesar, whiche in policie, eloquence, celeritie, and prowesse, excelled all other capitaynes, in mercye onely he a 'Moderationem vero clementiamque, cum in administratione, tum in victoriâ belli civilis, admirabilem exhibuit. Denuntiante Pompeio, pro hostibus se habiturum, qui Reipublicæ defuissent; ipse, medios et neutrius partis suorum sibi |