CHARACTER& NV HAT is a " character ".1 It is "
a picture (reall or per- sonall) quaintly drawne, in various colours, all of them heightned by one shadowing," or, to put it still more delicately, a character is "a quicke and soft touch of many strings, all shutting up in one musicall close : it is wits descant on any plain song."
Such, in very Meredithian language, was what our English followers of Theophrastus aimed at ; and when we turn over their books we find the very essence of refined art ; what the sonnet is to poetry, the character was to other literature ; it was a cameo most consummately executed, small in compass, but perfect in design. Its production exercised a mar- vellous fascination over men of most varied talents. Ben Jonson and Milton were guilty of characters, as well as Bishops- Hall and Earle ; Charles Lamb moulded his Elia upon these strange old-world models ; George Eliot had her attempt to " characterise " modern life ; but it is poor Sir Thomas Overbury, with his tragic melancholy story, who gave the definitions that are quoted above ; and to Sir Thomas let us turn for an idea of the character in itself. A character in his hands is very short and very neat, quite a little diamond with facets sharply cut and brightly polished ; it catches you in the first line with an epigram, and draws you ere you know it into a second bon-mot; you travel on a switch-back as it were, and have passed the centre of your journey before you have quite made up your mind to start,—and then, a decline, a rise, a slight jolt, and a slow swan-like ending, musical and serene— and you alight. The " plaine song" is often very plain indeed ; it is out of the most familiar theme that wit makes the best "descant." Because the subject is well known we are all ears to know what can possibly be said about it ; if it were foreign our attention would have to be aroused instead. But a tinker, a chambermaid, a mere scholar, a French cook, a country gentleman, a good woman,—these are heads and topics so common and familiar that at first we think wit has little to do with them, and then discover that to know them is one thing, but to know them through the eyes of a wit is another. . .
Sir Thomas with his courtier gaze watched the ostler who held his- stirrup " in exspectation," and noted that " he was a thing that scrubbeth unreasonably his horse, reasonably himselfe," that "he comes to him that cals loudest not first," and that "he speakes Northerne, what countryman soever." He studies the changeless devotion of his footman, who "hates or loves the men as his master doth the master," who imitates all his master's habits, " only the clocke of his stomack is set to go an houre after his." He turned epigrams again on the tailor, as he measured bim for a suit. " Of all weapons he most affecteth the long bill; and this he will manage to the great prejudice of a customer's estate : he is partly an alchymist ; for he extracteth his owne apparell out of other men's clothes." And the pretended traveller with whom he chats in the Park. The man's affectation is pitilessly photographed, while he prides himself upon the im- pression he is making. This is the man that "speakes his own language with shame and lisping ; he will choake rather than confesse beere good drinke ; " who (inimitable sentence !) "comes still from great personages, but goes with mean," who "takes occasion to shew jewels given him in regard of his vertue, that were bought in S. Martines ; and not long after having with a mountbank's method pronounced them worth thousands, impawneth them for a few shillings." It is the man we know so well who "imputeth his want and poverty to the ignorance of the time, not his owne unwortbinesse ; and concludes his discourse with halfe a period, or a word, and leaves the rest to imagination."
The witty courtier and man of the world cannot away with the scholars and fellows of the University. "A meere scholer is an intelligible asse," he says, "or a silly fellow in blacke that speakes sentences more familiarly than sense." Here follows a quite modern trait. "The antiquity of his University is his creed, and the excellency of his colledge (though but for a match at foot-ball) an article of his faith. University jests are his universall discourse, and his newes, the demeanor of the proctors." We learn here that the talking of " shop " is an ancient institution in College-halls. The "meere fellow of an house," again, we seem to have met somewhere, or some one like him. " He hath sworne to see London once a yeare, though all his businesse be to see a play, walke a turne in Pauls, and observe the fashion. If he be a leader of a faction he thinks himselfe greater than ever Clcsar was. And he had rather lose an inheritance than an office, when he stands for it. He is never more troubled than when he is to maintaine talke with a gentle-woman : wherein hee commits more absurdities than a clown in eating of an egge." And, alas ! lastly (this is the "musicall close "), "he is one that respects no man in the University, and is respected by no man out of it."
King James's courtier naturally has some hard blows for the Puritans and Preeisians. The former is "a diseased piece of Apocrypha ; bind him to the Bible, and he corrupts the whole text ; where the gate stands open, hee is ever seeking a style ; and where his learning ought to climb he creeps through." The Precisiau fares still worse. He is defined as " varnisht rottennesse, a demure creature full of orall sanctity, and mentall impiety : he had rather see Antichrist than a picture in the church window ; and is of so good discourse, that he dares challenge '..he Almighty to talke with him ex tempore. He thinks every organist is in the state of damna- tion, and had rather heave one of Robert Wisdome's Psalm than the best hymne a cherubin can sing. He bath nick- named all the prophets and apostles with his sonnes, and begets nothing but vertues for daughters."
He is no kinder to the Jesuit at the other pole of faith ; and his words on his character are very shrewd: "His vows seeme heavenly : but in meddling with state-business, he seems to mix heaven and earth together."
Out in the country and away from the atmosphere of the Court Sir Thomas is quite at home, and he gives us some very valuable contributions to the knowledge of the rural England of his day. Amid the milkmaids he is apt to idealise a little, but we pardon that, for the pictures he gives are lovely. There is the Franklin, the ancient yeoman of England, whose poor tenants' cottages are " his almes-houses, though there be painted on them no such superscription." " He never sits up late, but when he hunts the badger, the vow'd foe of his lambs ; nor uses hee any cruelty, but when hee hunts the hare, nor subtilty, but when he setteth snares for the snite, or pit- falls for the black-bird, nor oppression but when in the moneth of July he goeth to the next river, and sheares his sheep." He loves old country pastimes. " Rocke Munday, and the wake in summer, shrovings, the wakeful ketches on Christmas Eve, the hoky or seed-cake, he yearely keepes, yet holdes them no reliques of popery." And it does not scandalise him to see "the country lasses dance in the church-yard after evensong." And those country lasses themselves, what a beautiful little miniature is their representative. "A faire and happy Milk-mayd," she has all the delicacy of a Dresden shepherdess, and all the purity of a. child. " She rises with the chaunticleare, her dames cock, and at night makes the lamb her courfew ; the golden eares of come fall and kisse her feet when shee reapes them, as if they wished—" "Enough !" you say ; " This is mere idyllic fancy." Perhaps it is, but this is not, which must close this tissue of quotations. " She dares goe alone, and Unfold sheepe th' night, and feares no manner of ill, because, she meanes none ; yet to say truth, she is never alone, for she is still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones ; yet they have their efficacy, in that they are not paled with -
insuing idle cogitations." And so "wits descant" comes to its " musicall close." "Thus lives she, and all her care is that she may die in the springtime, to have store of flowers stucke upon her winding-sheet." A trifle strained ; but place it in its own setting of time and fashion, and it sparkles a stone of the first water.
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