The Chronicle of Clemendy

Front matter

THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY

OTHER BOOKS BY ARTHUR MACHEN

THE GREAT GOD PAN: THE INMOST LIGHT: THE RED HAND THE THREE IMPOSTORS THE HILL OF DREAMS THE SECRET GLORY HIEROGLYPHICS A FRAGMENT OF LIFE: THE WHITE PEOPLE THE BOWMEN: THE TERROR: THE RETURN FAR OFF THINGS THINGS NEAR AND FAR FANTASTIC TALES: THE WAY TO ATTAIN THE HEPTAMERON OF MARGUERITE OF NAVARRE

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

(1923)

The other day found me in a part of London once familiar, now rarely visited. This is Notting Hill Gate or, as I believe it now prefers to be called, Holland Park. You get to it by taking an omnibus running westward along Oxford Street; you pass the big dressmakers' and milliners' shops, you pass by Marble Arch, noting, if your eyes are keen, a small brass triangle let into the middle of the roadway, marking the site of Hadley Newgreen or Tyburn Tree, you have the Park and afterwards Kensington Gardens on your left and a prosperous residential quarter on your right, and so you come at length to Notting Hill Gate, named, no doubt, after the toll gate that once stood there. It is not a very characteristic neighbourhood; shops and taverns mostly of the 'fifties and 'sixties of the last century, dingy and undistinguished enough; here and there a couple of houses of Queen Anne's day, pleasant in their mellow brick; streets of a dim and shadowy but yet leafy sort stretching northward, streets once well known by my weary feet; and so on till the main road sweeps down the hill in a broad, steep descent on its way to Shepherds Bush and Acton, Gold Hawk Road and Hammersmith. For London, a fine street enough; well-planted with planes, one side of it bounded by the walls and the gardens of the big white houses in Holland Park. And on the right hand side, about half way down the hill, Clarendon Road goes northward. On this day that I speak of I had no business on earth in Clarendon Road, but my spirit had business there and I turned down it and walked slowly along till I came opposite to Number 23. And then I stopped and looked very hard at that respectable, though quite unremarkable three-storied house, and especially at a window on the top floor. I was glad, I think, to see that the house front was being repainted; for what remained of the old face seemed to show that no fresh paint had touched Number 23 since I had occupied the small narrow room behind that window on the highest story, in the year 1885—and thought of "The Chronicle of Clemendy."

Not many months ago I was talking to a man of letters about those early days of mine. He had been reading my book, "Far Off Things," which attempts to relate the story of this adventurous time.

"I wouldn't have stood it," said my author. "I wouldn't have borne the loneliness that you describe. I would have rushed off to Wimbledon and lain in wait for Swinburne and insisted on knowing him whether he liked it or not."

And I am sure that my friend would have been as good as his word. He would have hailed Swinburne on Wimbledon Common, he would have insisted on knowing him, and I daresay that Swinburne would have liked him very much. And, somehow, I perceive by this example what helpless, bound creatures we all are; bound and imprisoned not so much by circumstance but by the chains of our several natures, constraining us. I have no doubt, I say, that poor Guy Thorne—he is dead not long ago—would have followed the course he preached with the utmost success. I could never so much as have dreamed of it; if I could have followed it, it would not have comforted me at all. I had gone down into the glouring gloom of the furnace house, and there I must stay till the fires had done their work on me. Nothing from without could be of any help. When I first began to descend the steps that led to the dark and fiery place, one of my few friends, noticing the cloud upon me, said:

"What you want is a night at the theatre: meet me at the Lyceum on Thursday."

I went duly, and I am sure that Henry Irving and Ellen Terry were at their very best in "Much Ado About Nothing"; but the play did me no good. My relief must come from within, not from without.

This must have been in the autumn of 1882. All through 1883 and for six months of '84 I lived behind that window in the small room in Clarendon Road; utterly lonely, utterly poor, striving for some literary utterance and finding my only relief in the adventure of letters, though oppressed and tormented by all manner of discouragements. Not from without; again I say that I have never cared two straws for publishers' refusals or for any such merely external hindrances. Just as the play did me no good, just as the companionship of the distinguished would have done me no good if I had possessed it; so, on the other side, external obstacles and failures never did me any harm. The fire that scorched me was in my own judgement of my gross incapacity and demerit: that was the flame that burned and blackened, that was the anguish that made mere existence almost intolerable. In '83, after horrible struggles, I had written a queer, futile book called "The Anatomy of Tobacco" and had obtained some relief. Then, I had a year's rest in my old home, finding solace and refreshment in the sight of old, homely, friendly faces, in the warmth of hearths that have long ago grown cold and grey. Now, I was back in Clarendon Road, alone again, picking up a small and precarious living for a while, again at once urged and tormented by the mysterious impulse of letters which, to my mind, is in itself satisfactory proof of the essentially spiritual nature of man. For, on the one hand, in 999 cases out of a thousand, there is no result- ant material profit: on the contrary, mental and material miseries without end are the inevitable reward of the lettered man. Whatever pretences may be on the lips of the general, in their hearts they despise such an one unless he be extremely wealthy; an engineer's apprentice or a young draper's assistant is held in more honour than he. Yet, there is no denying the existence of this literary impulse; it is impossible to overlook its amazing strength and persistence in the face of every discouragement: poverty and hunger, sneers and jeers without; capital sentences of judgement within—and yet the man of letters, though he die daily, yet lives and renews his endeavour. And so in 1885, in that dim and leafy and languid Clarendon Road, as I munched my dry bread and drank my tea and smoked my frequent pipe, it came upon me that a book was to be written. And here I stay for a moment. For it has just been borne in on me as I write that I have rewritten, in other terms, the "Epistle Dedicatory" to "The Chronicle of Clemendy," which I wrote thirty-eight years ago in languid Clarendon Road. Thus, in the "Epistle Dedicatory," in the grand manner:

How many a scholar, I say, hath passed away the best years of his life, the flower of his age, in some mean cock-loft, with scarce enough air, (let alone meat and drink) for his sustenance: the which lack of air being by itself well recognised for a sufficient cause of melancholy. And when we consider the other misfortunes which are rather to be esteemed essential than accidental to such a life: the slow decay of hope, the loneliness of days and weeks and years, the scorn of others, and (often) the contempt of one's very self, it will readily be received that whosoever doth aught to mitigate the hardships of this estate is most worthy of praise, thankofferings, and lowly service.

That was in 1885, when I was twenty-two. Now, having come to the age of sixty, I can no longer write in the grand manner. Age grows too stiff and too weary for these noble antics. But it is all of it true: what I said then I say now; merely in different phrases.

Well, then, it came upon me in this summer of 1885 that a book must be written; but for the life of me I could not think what it was to be about. I could not even discern the vaguest image of the form and shape of it, and here I leave to the occult philosophers—I can make no guess at a solution myself—this astounding problem of the young man who vehemently desires to write but has no notion as to the matter which he wants to write about. There is the fact, but like many other facts, such as Time and Space, it seems to defy the "subtlest" enquiries of the human mind. In a later book, "Things Near and Far," I have hazarded the explanation that the actualities of life are so intolerable that men will do anything and suffer anything to escape from them: some climbing Alps, some drinking methylated spirit and some writing books in their fierce effort to escape from the routine of ordinary existence. This may be the answer to the question: I do not know.

At all events, here was I, wandering about these dim streets and wondering what this famous book was to be. I learned one night. I was lying awake in my bed, and all suddenly there came upon me a magic and ecstatic glow and light and radiance; as I must think, even now, after all the long and heavy years, a faint glimpse and savour of real life and true being. But realities must have their earthly shapes and substance, as Paradise must be a garden, and so this gleam of the things that truly are took the shape, inevitable to me, of the book that was to be written. It was to be called—I have only just remembered the title after a long forgetfulness—"The Glory of Gwent"; it was to be, somehow, all about that beloved country in the west from which I was an exile; it was to be a Great Romance, a noble dream, a revelation of things hidden. Thus do I put myself in the pillory, not waiting for the just vengeance of the reader, who will listen to all this fine talk and then go on to the actuality, the thing that came of this vision in the night, this present "Chronicle of Clemendy"—and then lifted a bewildered brow, and if he be a kind man, weep for the burning desires and the sorry impotence of youth. "That is what he longed to do: this is what he has done: miserrimus."

But on this night of '85 I fell asleep happy and woke happy in the morning and bought pens and paper—I looked the other day for the stationer's shop, Murley's I think it was called, but I could not find it. I was quite clear that a vision had been vouchsafed me, but then, as often happens with the dreams of the night, the sharp outlines began to fade in daylight, the things that had been so shining and distinct became dim and obscure, the distant images, radiant and glowing, grew phantasmal, uncertain. For many months I wandered in an obscure wood, having lost the path, wondering often enough if there ever had been a path. I racked my brain to find a medium, a vehicle for the vision, trying now one form, now another, and meeting with no success at all, but stubbornly persisting nevertheless.

The book that had these beginnings in dim, languid Clarendon Road was continued and ended in a very different scene. In the autumn of 1885, having had a narrow escape from starvation, I returned to my old home, Llanddewi—you pronounce, "Llanthowy"—Rectory in Gwent, or Monmouthshire. The Rectory is almost at the summit of a long hill that winds by deep lanes up the four miles from Caerlem-on-Uske. Its front windows look out over deep orchards, over deep narrow valleys and wooded hills, over sparse white farms shining in the sun, even to the wall of Wentwood, the remnant, still considerable, of the great and ancient forest of Gwent. It was here, in this old and good world, that I finished and brought to an end the best I could make of my dreams; the fairy gold that had turned into dry leaves. I wrote late at night when all the house was asleep, and the snow was on the ground. Later, with the new year and the coming of summer I wrote till the sky grew red over Wentwood. I have a pleasant memory of working at my book of a warm and sunny morning in the June of '86. The elder blossom was sweet in the air, and I had taken out my pen and ink and paper to one of the orchards below the Rectory. Here was a contrivance which had once been the stand for a beehive: the hive was gone, and there you had a very excellent table.

So it was ended at last: this book into which I put all my dreams and my desires, such vision as had been given me, such craftsmanship as I could attain, such hints of another world (that is not very far off but very near) as any words and phrases that I knew could convey. Here it is, "The Chronicle of Clemendy": alas!

Arthur Machen.

Epistle Dedicatory

EPISTLE DEDICATORY

To the Right Honourable, Illustrious and Puissant Prince,

HUMPHREY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER,

Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, etc., etc.

It were but lost labour on my part (most illustrious) should I presume to give the especial reasons or prerogative instances whereby I am moved to offer unto Your Grace these poor ingatherings of a scholar's toil. For your universal favour and benevolent encouragement toward men of letters is a thing widely known; and if amongst scholars, that are vulgarly supposed to form a Commonwealth, it be lawful to set up lordship, this I make no doubt shall by the consent of all be assigned unto you. Of late years, I confess, Patronage hath been a thing little used and but meanly conceited of; but indeed I know not how it would have gone with myself and many others of like employ, had it not been for Your Grace's hospitality. How many a poor author hath had at home but a scurvy bin and piggin, a bare floor and barer trencher, a cup void not only of canary, but even of small ale. How many a scholar, I say, hath passed away the best years of his life, the flower of his age, in some mean cock-loft, with scarce enough air, (let alone meat and drink) for his sustenance: the which lack of air being by itself well recognised for a sufficient cause of melancholy. And when we consider the other misfortunes which are rather to be esteemed essential than accidental to such a life: the slow decay of hope, the loneliness of days and weeks and years, the scorn of others, and (often) the contempt of one's very self, it will readily be received that whosoever doth aught to mitigate the hardships of this estate is most worthy of praise, thankofferings, and lowly service. The which hath been Your Grace's office, I mean to entertain a sort of men mighty little esteemed in the Commonwealth, being held by the most of the people at an equal price with mere strollers or common vagabonds; differing only in this, that we scholars so far from roaming about do rather use not to venture out of doors, for fear and shame lest our ragged small-clothes and greasy doublets should draw on us open scorn and derision. But I suspect that in this particular I shall scarcely gain much credit, scholarship and shame being generally accounted as incompatibles, and as little likely to coexist in one person as heat and cold, at the same time, in one and the same substance. And indeed it were well for us if this should be so: and let him that leaveth the shelter of his chimney corner (though it be in a kitchen) and adventureth up to town to make his fortune by letters, take heed that he have about his heart that harness of strong oak and triple brass that Horace writes of. I say nothing of them that are driven by ill hap to try their luck (as the phrase goes), they have no choice, and may be are as well off as they expected. But I would have him who abandons of his own free will a good home, kindred, acquaintance, and the life to make account of these things. That for plenty, he shall have want, for love, scorn and contempt, for familiarity, loneliness and desolation. For pure air he shall gain a Stygian fume, a black mist, a sooty smoke: for those delicious meadows, heathery mountains, rustling woods, and all such prospects of delight, a Cretan labyrinth, a stony wilder- ness, a dædal wandering along whose turnings and returnings do go such companies and pomps as the old Tuscan Poet beheld in his vision. Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni, said he of them, in a parody of Vincentius his hymn; and I doubt not that the line would stand as good in application to certain of our trained bands as to those of Hell itself. Truly then do we poor folk owe what service we are able to pay Your Grace, who, spite of mean dress and poverty (justly accounted by Mr. Hobbes for shame and dishonour) is pleased to entertain us at that board, where so great a multitude of our brotherhood has feasted before. For your illustrious line hath now for many generations made it a peculiar glory to supply the needs of lettered men; and as we sit at meat it seems (methinks) as if those mighty men of old did sit beside us and taste with us once more the mingled cup we drink. The ingenious author of Don Quixote de la Mancha must, I suppose, have often dined with the Duke of his age, Mr. Peter Corneille and Mr. Otway, Senhor Camoens, Rare Old Ben, Signori Tasso and Ariosto, not seldom: while young Mr. Chatterton the poet did not only dine, but break his fast, take his morning draught, and sup with Your Grace's great-grandfather, till at last he died of a mere repletion. In fine, throughout all ages the House of Gloucester hath stood our friend; and not one whit do you (most honourable) degenerate from the Dukes of the former time. Nay, I believe that there are as many bucks killed and butts of claret and canary tapped, as many benches round the board now as ever there were; for our race doth in these days discover no very manifest signs of diminution: I can assert at all events that did we (like Holy Church) draw our graces and inspiration as by a chain and a continual succession, there would be no fear warranted lest the line should become extinct.

This poor offering then I am bold to present for Your Grace's acceptance; and if there shall be found in it aught of sweet savour or pleasant discoursing, lay it not up to my poor wit (or at least in but a small degree) but to Your Grace's entertainment and familiarity. And let it please you, my Lord, to be assured of this: that the butler may always set a cup and trencher on the board for me, since (unlike to some others) I shall never scorn Your Grace's hospitality:

But do now, and ever shall remain Your Grace's most obliged, humble servant,

ARTHUR MACHEN, Silurist.

Here begins the veracious Chronicle of Clemendy, the which was compiled and written by Gervase Perrot of Clemendy, Gentleman, Lord of the Manor of Pwllcwrw (Beerpool) and Tankard Marshall of the Assize of Ale. And in this volume are contained all those witty and facetious discourses, jests and histories done in the parlour of Clemendy, on the Forest Road, and in the town of Uske, when the Silurists journeyed thither on the Portreeve's festival. And first is set down the Discourse of Ale, the same standing first in the Latin book.

The Discourse of Ale

THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY

MASTER PERROT'S DISCOURSE OF ALE

OF THE invention of beer divers tales are told; for some say that the Egyptians first concocted this super-excellent and glorious juice; some place that primitive brewery among the Germans, lauding their King Gambrinus, and some stiffly maintain that those Asiatic peoples that fought with Xenophon did used to get drunk on ale, and nothing else. But I believe these to be idle tales, legendary fables, and false conceits, for our old bards in their Triads name cwrw (and that is ale) as one of the three special blessings of the Land of Summer. Hence I believe that the Silurians, while they dwelt in that land, by some happy chance brewed beer, and, as they journeyed westward, imparted the secret of its concoction to the races through whose midst they passed; and finally, having brought their ships to anchor off the coast of Gwent, made a stay at last to all their wandering, and set up their vats beside the waters of the Uske. And this Manor of Pwllcwrw, in which I dwell, I suspect to have been from the very first a moist yet ever thirsty soil; for the word meaneth Beer Pool, or in the Latin tongue, as it is styled in the ancient Court Rolls, Stagnum de Cervisiâ. And unto this day, if you shall ask a man in the manour who is casting barley-seed upon the ground, "Friend, what sow you?" he will answer, without more ado, "Hot beer." Whereby you will perceive how subtle a people we are, and how keenly we search into eschatology, looking rather to final ends and effects than to what is but passing and transitory. And, if you come to practice and leave theories, I suppose there is not a man amongst us that loveth not a cup of old and corny ale, who will not joyfully dip his beard into the foam, turn up the can, and pour the torrent down. Wherefore amongst us the Mystery of Ale Drapers is held in great honour and repute, from the highest unto the lowest, from the little taverns on lonely roads, atop of hills, and in forgotten valleys to the great masters of the Tankard that fill the can in our fenced cities and towns of frequentation. Of these last we have some egregious specimens, fellows with round paunches and long heads, who have seen so many generations of travellers, and such diversity of morals, trickeries, methods, humours, counterfeits, revelries, noses, doublets, lecheries, japes, breeches, arguments, and appetites that their wits have grown very sharp, so that they perfectly comprehend the difference between a cassock and a smock, understand when it is wise to ask questions, and when to lay finger unto nose, when to call the crier, and when mumchance is the only word. Sometimes these gentry lose all sense of hearing and seeing to boot, and inquisitive strangers who wish to find out things, and have a well-founded conceit that the master of the Ivy-Bush sees what is done under the ivy, are greatly as- tonished at a deep, impenetrable ignorance, and go away as they deserve, no wiser than they came. But at other times Red Lion and Boar's Head see through the blankets and hear through the keyhole most wondrously well; they have, I believe, a special kind of tankard in the which they look when they desire to learn the A B C of an affair, and likewise a fashion of ear-trumpet that carries the click (it is some such sound, at all events) of a kiss from the cock-loft to the cellar. These Master Tankards are, in fact, mighty pleasant fellows, who bear witness to the error of giving the name "fuddlecap" to them that have much traffic with ale; and this is, it seems certain, a very great mistake, which all good Christians ought to avoid. A man who comes home late, goes to bed by a lanthorn which he has forgotten to light, and blows it out heedfully before he gets between the sheets, doubtless seems a little foolish; but, if you should interrogate him, he would be able to give good reasons and arguments of justification, showing that he was a judicious and agreeable Silurian, and that you were a jolterhead. Well, then! leave Silurians alone when they come home late and do strange things, for you must know they have been gazing, for I wis not how many hours, into a certain dark brown, foaming, silvery fountain, wherein they have seen all manner of strange sights, visions, hieroglyphics, steganographics, pyramids, triangles, spells, perpetual motions, hot fiery conjunctions, drolleries, and mosaics; they are therefore illuminated with a transcendent science which often makes them laugh very heartily to themselves, whenas they think how ignorant and silly others are. And, from seeing in that admirable fountain and abysmal well how this earthly sphere does certainly whirl around the sun in an everlasting gyre (indeed Pythagoras taught as much, but nobody would listen to him), Silurians are obnoxious to a circularity of motion after these meditations, the which the old hieroglyphical writers symbolise by the likeness of a man driving turkeys along a road.

Praised be the home of the Greyhound in Abergavenny, and the habitations of the Salmons in Uske; thither we all hasten after we have crossed the bridge, for we see the shield from afar, azure, three salmons nayant in pale argent; 'tis a very goodly coat. But all the company within must be blazoned hauriant and not naiant, for they sit drinking and drinking evermore, forgetful that the Portreeve passeth along the road, they hear not the noise of his trumpets nor the beating of his drums. No thought give they to the high service in St. Mary's quire, nor to dalliance with fair ladies in the castle that overlooks the town; but the tankards, and cans, and cups foam up, and foam again, and in the Salmons they sit still drinking, and drinking evermore. And thou, most swift Greyhound, that swingest in the city dreaming below great hills, where the Gavenny and the Uske do meet interflow, for thee, I say, they have set up a rare kennel, a kennel with a courtyard and low passages, where is stored baronial ale, ale such as was pleasant to De Broase what time he had lordship here, and dwelt in a mighty fortress. Hither journey weary men who have crossed mountains and are sore afoot; along the road they come at evensong and count the miles unto thy gate, till the noise of chiming bells grows near, and they enter in and sit them down, and with a long breath do drain oblivion of all their toils. Hither comes the cold and melancholic people and go away duly spiced, and warmed and gingered; hither also do the merry folk hold their synods, and Silurianise till the flame leapeth out through the chimney-top, and the tiles clatter together with their singing and their mirth. Gather ye, O gather ye, and pull the greyhound's tail, all dumpish and doting men. I cite, summon, and admonish you to be and appear before the High Court of Cervisage holden within the afore-named tavern at six of the clock in the afternoon on the Calends of May, that ye may, there and then purge ye of your contempt toward this honourable Silurian Assize. Fill your purses, and be ready to do suit and service and pay your quit rents to the High Tosspot our lord paramount, and to his magistrates the Lords Maltworm of Wales, humbly craving pardon for past sadness, dolour, wry mouths, cramped foreheads, knitted brows, griefs, ill haps, and all the like iniquities. For 'tis a very merciful Court, and will ever pardon them that desire to amend. I have known one come before the Most High and Mighty Lord Tosspot confessing that he had fared well in no single undertaking of this life, that all the glad hopes and expectations of his youth had come to nought, that his days were passed in misery and woe, and that he wished for nothing better than to die; yet he submitted himself to his liege lord, and craved mercy. But my lord looked pitifully upon this wretched sinner, and charged Levrier d'Argent, his herald, to set him in the ingle-nook, and there to deliver to him the sentence of the Court; and that was brought in a great tankard of old ale, so strong that it burned upon the fire like oil, so concocted that it smelt as a garden of spices of Arabia. Then the session went on, and the Sub-chanter raised the song—

Potus blandus! Potus fortis Regibus, cleris et scortis Et in hortis atque portis O dulcis cervisia:

after the order appointed in the Consuetudinary of the Court. Then was read a piece from "The Red Book of Rabanus Jocosus," and the whole assembly from the High Tosspot to the Clericus Spigotti recounted tales so quaint and admirable that the guilty, pardoned man was like to have been bursten with laughter, notably at the tale of a certain clerk, called The History of the Silver Tankard with the Golden Spout, and how rain water flowed forth from it. Which I would gladly set down here had I not sworn by Gwen-Wen and the Round Table not to publish nor blaze abroad the acts done in Cervisage at the Greyhound; but this tale is engrossed on the Court Rolls, with many other choice relations that the Court has heard told and laughed at, you may be sure, as they have deserved. This ancient society of Cwrw Dda was founded, it seems certain, in the time of King Arthur, and sat for many years in that quarter of Caerleon which has ever since been renowned for its malt-houses; but about the time that the Normans came over great alterations and reformations were made, and, on account of the decayed magnificence and diminished frequention of Caerleon, the Court was removed to Abergavenny and the day of session fixed for the Calends of May, being the day on which the great May Mart is held at the aforesaid town. And shortly after this, summons was directed to Gruffydd Perrot, assigning to him the office of Tankard Marshall, unto him and his heirs for ever—"quia et ille et ante-cessores sui semper habuerunt domum Columbariam in manerio de Stagno Cervisiæ"—for that he and his forefathers have always held Clemendy in the Manour of Beerpool. And then I think this High Court was constituted as it is now, and records kept by the Clerk of the Acts in Cervisage; yet all customs and precedents of weight were curiously maintained and are observed unto this day as they were in the reign of King Arthur. For all our doctors and antiquaries who have searched the Chronicles and turned up the soil of the Caerleon meadows are agreed that the High Tosspot, and his proctors, lieutenants, summoners, clerks and surrogates, with all their acts, arrests, prescriptions, methods and consuetudinaries, their merum et mixtum cervisium, their writ of Cyathum hausit extremum and all their other benefices, exemptions and immunities, have their source and beginning from that wonderful Round Table, which is as potent now as when King Arthur and his Knights first made it famous. From this origin proceeds the Benefice of Free Sokage and the famous character of Terra Sabulosa or Sandy Soil. And this latter name is given to no desert place nor stony land but rather to the fairest and most delicious manours, and the merriest cities of Gwent, and confers inestimable privileges. But, before it be granted and set forth under the seal of the High Tosspot, the Clericus Spigotti visits the place and strictly interrogates all men, gentle and simple, whether they be verily addicted to strong ale and waggish ways; and, if he find so much as one politique or rancorous meddler therein, without more ado he tears his mandate in twain and rides hot foot away. But if the Spigot Clerk find the folk to be true Silurians, mellow men; the girls comely and jesticulous; the country provided with sunny nooks for winter and shadowed summer byways; and, above all, the ale mighty and sound to the core; he brings a good report to the Court and speaks favourably of that land. And if it be a town the Spigot Clerk must find a fair open street or square for wags to walk in; and walled gardens and trees and orchards, without which the largest town is no better than a rat-hole and fitter for brutes than Christian men. Then is the charter engrossed, and signed and sealed by the High Tosspot, and carried with pomp and worship to the place with trumpets, and vyalls and ban- ners and the rarest show imaginable. The which place is thenceforth called Sandy Soil, because the thirst of it is insatiable, and craving moisture without end. Observe, then, what lordship Ale hath over us Silurians, and especially over the folk of Pwllcwrw; for 'twas by virtue of holding land in this gracious manour that my ancestor was cited to the Court and had an honourable office given him at the Reformation, which he and those who have come from his body have fulfilled through rain and sun ever since, both at High Sessions in Abergavenny, and at Petty Sessions in Uske. We Perrots indeed have gone wet foot and dry foot to these solemnities, not let by turmoil or distress, and when Levrier d'Argent calls Canthari Mareschallus, our adsum never fails, nor the function of our Marshalsea, nor have we broken faith with the Round Table. And know that by this Session Cwrw Dda ale is ennobled and glorified for us, exalted from a tinker's drain to a sempiternal spring of deep signification and high method, whence comes Silurianism and all that joyous knowledge which will not let us be dumpish, disconsolate, nor over-sorrowful have we never so much reason for sadness and dolour. Of these sweet thoughts the Saxons know nothing at all, and hold our mirth for folly and dotage, and, merely seeing that many of us are poor and meanly clad, deride and despise Silurians more than all other men, declaring that we are fools, dolts, jolterheads, idlers, whoremongers, drunkards, and so forth, and at the best pity us with a kind of scorn as a moonstruck silly folk, harmless for want of sense. But we, though we hear these people so declaring in their pride that our Round Table is nothing more than a Roman shambles or slaughter-house, merely shrug up our shoulders, smile under our beards, and utter some quaint saying as to the foolishness of men talking about a place to which they have never been, or at least do not understand in the smallest degree. But by the Oar and the Stillions! by the Spigot and the Pitch! these stupid persons are not worthy of a seat in the Greyhound nor the Salmons neither; nor should they be allowed so much as to cross the boundaries of the Land of the Moon, lest they make us as dull and dismal as they themselves always are and always have been. But, if you wish to learn a little Silurian wisdom, go any day to Uske, and spend a few hours and a little money at the Salmons, taking the seat between the fire and the window which looks out on a fair open place, where there is always some pleasantry or racy galliardise on foot. Then you shall go to the Boar's Head, and there they will give you all you want, whatever it may be or how much so ever of it you require at their hands. 'Tis the first degree in Cervisage, and so you must go on, till the fame of your deeds and conversation come to the ears of the High Court, who will in due course issue the writ, Bene, Bene, Bene Bibere, and cite you to their Petty Sessions. It may be that I have said too much of the customs of Cervisage, and am growing somewhat wearisome; but, by the Bottomless Vat! I have looked so long into the Tankard that it is still dancing, shimmering, brawling, foaming, ebbing, flowing, before my eyes; and as for my ears there is ever a humming, a surging on the Brim, a deep thorough Bassus sounding in them, with treble, tenor, and counter-tenor, duly falling in and making up the concert in more descants, symphonies, antiphons, fugues, madrigals, rounds, canons, and catches, than it is convenient for one man to listen to. And the chime of silver cans is still changing, ringing, and tingling against the tympanum, the meatus, and Eustachius his tubes, running back and fore from the outer ear to the inner, so that I can hear nothing else. In fine, all my five senses (some naughty fellow has added a sixth, fye on him!) rational and vegetal soul, sensus communis, memory, understanding, will, and phantasy, are quite absorbed in this one object; and, if you talk to me of letters, I can but think of the Library of Burgavenny, where are so many great embossed books clothed in skins, and bound in chains; such chests of parchments and rolls, where is kept the Silver Oar borne before the High Tosspot, where are desks, lecterns, and stalls for learned Silurists, where in the midst hangs a silver lamp, fed with pure and quintessential ale, and such a store of wonderful and joyous histories, and phantastic inventions that a London bookseller would go raving mad to think thereon. Am I not, then, a complete and special Tankard Marshall, and a true Silurian? One of that company who cannot laugh too much or turn the tap too often; and in truth, whether it be good or bad, that is all our philosophy. As for the rest; reform- ing, regenerating, couzening, amending, perfecting, leading-by-the-nose, and beatifying our fellow-men, we leave to the wise folks, those I mean that have a finger in every pie, and whose pockets never lack plums; maybe we should be tempted to follow their example did we not see these same righteous busybodies, and sanctified intermeddlers sometimes giving one another odd, sour looks, and drawing their foreheads into all manner of comical shapes, which they call gravity and expect us to consider mighty solemn. But we Silurians had rather laugh and lie still, leaving other matters to God and the King, who (it is lawful to say) can be trusted to do what is best. What ho! My Lord High Tosspot cometh with his Silver Oar and Great Seals, and all his merry company. There go the vyalls and the horns to the tune of O my Madam in the Can. Lo! you; in crossing the brook the Clericus Spigotti hath been spilt; there'll be a tang of beer about the water till it flows into the Uske hard by Caerleon. Fill up a foaming measure, and make all ready for the joyous session of the Cwrw Dda.