TALES OF THE MERMAID TAVERN.

BY ALFRED NOYES.

V. A COINER OF ANGELS.

"BEWARE," growled Ben, "'tis Lalage that lights The blue corpse-candles round the last poor pose Of penny poets, combs their long lank hair, And puts the dead-weights on their cod-fish eyes!" "O, mea culpa, father," pattered Kit,

"But once, at least, she lit a rosy lamp

That makes the grey old tomb of Horace glow
As cosily across the centuries

As any Mermaid Inn. What! Shall the Muse
Cut cabbage for the pot and dust and bang?
One kiss of Lalage outweighs"

"The brains

Of penny poets," bellowed Ben, "who cloak
Their bawdry with the solemn name of Art!
Sir, artists, if they sin, should sin like men,
Flesh of the flesh of men, bone of their bone,
Not cloaked with that hypocrisy of Art."

Bully, I'll pledge you drink for drink on that! You took me wrongly. Blow my brains out, Ben, When I go simpering down that primrose-way With penny poets. Drawer, bring a jar

Of best Virginia and another pipe,

This damned thing gurgles like our jolly host
Asleep behind a barrel."

Across his knee

He snapt the pipe, and leant across to Ben.

"I meant no more than this," he said, and hummed A snatch of song, the while I stood and held

Pipe and tobacco, at his elbow, thus:

SONG.
I.

Dulce ridentem, laughing through the ages,
Dulce loquentem, O, fairer far to me,

Rarer than the wisdom of all his golden pages

Floats the happy laughter of his vanished Lalage!

II.

Dulce ridentem,-we hear it and we know it!

Dulce loquentem,-so musical and low!

"Mightier than marble is my song!". Ah, did the poet Know why little Lalage was mightier even so?

III.

Dulce ridentem,-through all the years that sever,

Clear as o'er yon hawthorn-hedge we heard her passing by,— Lalagen amabo,-a song may live for ever!

Dulce loquentem,-but Lalage must die.

He suddenly sank his voice,-"Hist, who comes here? Look-Richard Bame, the Puritan! O, Ben, Ben, Your Mermaid Inn's the study for the stage,

Your only teacher of exits, entrances,

And all the shifting comedy.

Be grave!

Bame is the godliest hypocrite on earth!

I'll startle him an he boards me. Hist! Be grave!
Remember I'm an atheist, black as coal.

He has called me Wormall in an anagram.

Help me to bait him; but be very grave.
We'll talk of Venus."

As he whispered thus,
A tallowy face with small black-beaded eyes,
Close to a long and melancholy nose

Peered at him through the doorway. All too well,
Afterwards, I recalled that scene, when Bame,
Out of revenge for this same night, I guessed,
Penned his foul tract on Marlowe's tragic fate;
And, twelve months later, I saw that tallowy face
Riding to Tyburn in the hangman's cart

For thieving from an old bed-ridden dame
With whom he prayed, at supper-time, on Sundays.

Like a conspirator he sidled in,

Clasping a little pamphlet to his breast,

While, feigning not to see him, Ben began:

"Will's Venus and Adonis, Kit, is great,

A round, sound, full-blown piece of thorough work,
On a great canvas, coloured like one I saw
In Italy, by one-Titian! None of the toys
Of artistry your lank-haired losels turn,

Your

Phyllida-Love-lies-bleeding-Kiss-me-Quicks,

Your fluttering Sighs and Mark-how-I-break-my-beats,
Begotten like this, whenever and how you list,
Your Moths of verse that shrivel in every taper;

But a sound piece of craftsmanship to last

Until the stars are out. 'Tis twice the length

Of Vergil's books-he's listening! Nay, don't look !— Two hundred solid stanzas, think of that;

But each a square celestial brick of gold

Laid level and splendid. I've laid bricks and know

What thorough work is. If a storm should shake
The Tower of London down, Will's house would stand.
Look at his picture of the stallion,

Nostril to croup, that's thorough finished work!"

"O, ay," cried Marlowe, blind to Bame, "and think,
Think, Ben, of Will's white goddess, glorious
From melting palm to nectarous mouth, she lives!
And, though 'tis work throughout, yet there are lines
That drip with lyric honey, as where she boasts
She swayed the sinewy-throated god of war,
Leading him prisoner in a red-rose chain!"

""Twill shock our Tribulation-Wholesomes, Kit!"

"Ay! He leaves nothing out! But that's the wonder! Not even the blue veins in the violets

Whereon the dainty Adonis leans and pouts.
But then-your Puritans-they will not see
His hand in that divine ambrosial clasp,
That lily, prisoned in a gaol of snow!
They'll meditate a more luxurious page
Turned down for "

"Talk of Aphrodite's kiss!

He's listening! Kit, his face is three yards long,
And there's just one bright dew-drop on his nose!"

"O, ay, that kiss of Venus! Deep, sweet, slow,
As the dawn breaking to its perfect flower

And golden noon of bliss, then slow, sweet, deep,
Like a great honeyed sunset it dissolves
Away!"

A hollow groan, like a bass viol,

Resounded thro' the room. Up started Kit

In feigned alarm-"What, Master Richard Bame, Quick, Ben, the good man's ill. Bring him some wine! Red wine for Master Bame, the blood of Venus

That stained the rose!"

"White wine for Master Bame," Ben echoed, "Juno's cream that" . Both at once They thrust a wine-cup to the sallow lips

And smote him on the back.

"O, Ben, you've sent His dew-drop into Venus' blood," cried Kit. "Nay, into Juno's cream! I saw it go,"

Roared Ben, "shot like a falling star from heaven!" "What is it, sir? Green-sickness?" Tenderly

Kit asked him. "Nay, the staggers, Kit, the staggers, I know the symptoms!" "Drink this Master Bame

Red wine for the green-sickness!" "Nay, white wine
For staggers, Kit, I tell thee! Red means death!"
"Try both then, Master Bame!" "Bacchus, that's good!
He's emptied both, Kit, both, dew-drop and all!"

"Sirs, you mistake!" coughed Bame, waving his hands And struggling to his feet, "I am not vexed

With fleshly griefs. It was my spirit groaned
To see your feet entangled in the nets

Of the Strange Woman!"

"He means Venus, Ben!"

"Name not that scarlet Ashtaroth!"

"She's white,

I swear, sir, brow, breast, foot, white as the moon,
Isn't she, Ben? Nay, whiter! When she leaned
To kiss young Adon in the summer fields
Upon her elbow, thus, against her side

The lilies looked as brown as your old hat.
My friend here knows her well. Only her lips
Are scarlet. Ben, who groaned?"

"Sirs, I have brought
A message from a youth who walked with you
In wantonness, aforetime, and is now
Groaning in sulphurous fires!"

"Kit, that means hell!"

"Ay, sirs, a pamphlet from the pit of hell,
Written by Robert Greene before he died.
Mark what he styles it-A Groatsworth of Wit
Bought with a Million of Repentance !”

"Ay,

Poor Rob was all his life-time either drunk,
Wenching, or penitent, Ben! Poor lad, he died
Young. Let me see now, Master Bame, you say
Rob Greene wrote this on earth before he died,
And then you printed it yourself in hell!"
"Stay, sir, I came not to this haunt of sin
To make mirth for Beëlzebub!"

That's you!"

"O, Ben,

"'Swounds, sir, am I Beëlzebub? Ogs-gogs!" roared Ben, his hand upon his hilt! "Nay, sir, I signified the god of flies!

I speak out of the scriptures!" snuffled Bame
With deprecating eye. "Ogs-gogs, you'd best!"
"Nor did I come to emperil my soul's life
By looking on the wine when it is red!"

"Why, Kit, I told you so! White wine for staggers! The red means death!"

"O, no, the pamphlet, Ben!

'Twas the Greene-sickness!"

"Neither did I come

To pluck your souls out of the fire."

"I breathe!"

"I breathe again!"

"No, sirs, I come to save
A brand that you have kindled at your fire,
But not yet charred, not yet so far consumed,
One Richard Cholmeley, who declares to all
He was persuaded to turn Atheist

By Marlowe's reasoning. I have wrestled with him,
But find him still so constant to your words
That only you can save him from the fire."
"Why, Master Bame," said Kit, "had I the keys
To hell, the damned should all come out and dance
A morrice round the Mermaid Inn to-night."
"Nay, sir, the damned are damned!"

"Ay, but you wish They were not so! You wish that they were saved?" "Yea, sir, but being damned . . ."

"Come, sit you down! Take some more wine! You'd have them all be damned

Except Dick Cholmeley. What must I unsay

To save him?" A quick eye-lid dropt at Ben. "Now tell me, Master Bame!"

The books of Moses!"

"Sir, he derides

"Bame, do you believe?

There's none to hear us but Beëlzebub

Do you believe that we must taste of death
Because God set a foolish naked wench
Too near an apple-tree, how long ago?
Five thousand years?
Long before that!"
The books of Moses

But there were men on earth
"Nay, nay, sir, if you read
"Moses was a juggler!"

"A juggler, sir, how, what!" "Nay, sir, be calm! Take some more wine-the white, if that's too red!

I never cared for Moses! Help yourself

To red-deer pie. Good! You are hungry, too!

That's two clear points for hell! But-as for MosesBolt not your pie, or pious wrath will end

With indigestion! All the miracles

You say that he performed-why, what are they?

I know one Heriots, lives in Friday Street,

Can do much more than Moses! Eat your pie

In patience, friend, the mouth of man performs
One good work at a time. What says he, Ben?
The red deer stops his-what? Sticks in his gizzard?
O-led them through the wilderness! No doubt