JOHN TIPTOFT. BY CHARLES WHIBLEY. I. WHEN civil war threatened the Court. The way, then, lay England, and the opposing open before him. Wisdom and forces of York and Lancaster desire pointed to the same end. first met in the field, John He determined, with a moderaTiptoft, Earl of Worcester, tion which presently deserted prudently betook himself to him, to prefer peace before the Holy Land. So closely war, to hold himself aloof from was his sympathy engaged on the war of faction, to avoid either side, that he knew not the contamination of turbulence for whom he should draw the and conspiracy. Thus it was sword. If the Duke of York that to cite the language of held the higher place in his interested adulation—he imregard, he could not persuade itated the lofty-souled heroes himself as yet to show dis- whom the good ship Argo bore courtesy to Henry VI. That eastwards, enavigated all the amiable prince had advanced seas of the earth, and conhim beyond the measure of ferred upon all nations the his years and birth. He was benefit of his presence, maninot far past his youth when festing everywhere the divinity (in 1449) he was made Earl of of his soul, and leaving behind Worcester. At twenty-five he him the immortal memory of was Treasurer of the Ex- his name. In plainer prose, chequer, and two years later he travelled with becoming he was appointed Captain to state to Jerusalem, he visited guard the Sea. The contest the holy places, as in pious between gratitude and inclina- duty bound, and when the tion, which raged in his mind, Orient had lost its hold might have had another issue, upon him he came with had not Somerset, the King's what speed he might to Counsellor, dismissed him from Venice. No man of his time was better fitted to appreciate the newly discovered treasures of II. Italy. Englishman though he was, he was the true child of the Renaissance. He had 1 He was of noble birth, being the son of John, Baron de Tiptoft, and Joyce, his "incomparable" wife, but not of so high a family as to justify his rapid rise to fortune. learned at Balliol all that Oxford could teach him, and not even his sojourn at the Court had checked his ardent love of the Humanities. Few scholars or churchmen of his age surpassed him in knowledge of the classics or in felicity of expression; and so little did the natural arrogance of his temper show itself in his studies, that with all the modesty of a pupil he frequented the famous schools of Italy, and sat at the feet of the masters. He visited Ferrara, that he might hear the lectures of the renowned Guarino, whose method of discipline attracted students from every corner of Europe, even from Britain itself, a country "situate beyond the confines of the earth." There in Guarino's house he met many a wandering scholar, such as John Free, who, with the characteristic courage of his kind, had set out from Oxford to conquer the learning of Italy with no more than ten pounds in his pocket;1 William Grey, erudite and disinterested as Tiptoft himself, presently appointed in Rome to the bishopric of Ely; and John Gunthorpe, who studied the Humanities with such success that he was rewarded with the deanery of Wells. These three he had known at Balliol. a college which did more than any other to restore in England the wisdom of the ancients, and which may still take a just pride in its nurslings, who lived, learned, and taught in the cities of Italy. Of this company John Tiptoft was the natural sovereign. He dispensed his princely favours with a large and generous hand. Whatever was asked of him he gave, to this one his friendship, to that the support of a well-filled purse, to all sympathy and encouragement. By general consent he was acclaimed the Mæcenas of his age, and learning has rarely found a nobler patron. So for three years he wandered up and down Italy-from Ferrara to Padua, from Padua to Florence, from Florence to Rome,— gathering treasures in manuscript and storing his head with the knowledge and policy of the time. Of his life at Florence Vespasiano has left us an amiable sketch. Now Vespasiano, courtliest of booksellers, humanest of scholars, 1 The career of John Free-or Phreas, as he was called-was typical of his time and class. He was a fellow of Balliol, and became, says his biographer, "an admirable Philosopher, Lawyer, and Physician." He was public reader of physic at Ferrara, and afterwards at Florence and Padua. He seems to have been half scholar, half pedant. His letters and odes were alike elegant. He composed a set of fluent verses, in which Bacchus expostulates with a goat for gnawing a vine, he translated Synesius' treatise concerning baldness, and dedicated both works to his patron Tiptoft. Another work, which he laid at the feet of Pope Pius II., procured him the bishopric of Bath and Wells; "a month after he went to Rome, where he died before he could be consecrated, but not without suspicion of poison from some competitor, 1465." The story is wholly suitable to the Italy of the Renaissance, where the folio and the poisoned cup were always near neighbours. a mediæval soribe who witnessed the triumph of the black art which came from across the mountains, had the fairest opportunity of observing the character of Tiptoft, to whom he gave a place among his "Illustrious Men," and we accept his account in the best of good faith. "He had a great abundance of books," says Vespasiano, "and in Florence be bought what more he could find, and also had a goodly number made for him. While certain books were being made which his lordship desired, he desired, he abode abode some days in Florence, and wished to see the whole place. Without attendants, alone and empty-handed, he went about; and if he was told to go to the right hand, he went to the left," an excellent method of sight-seeing truly, which may be commended to the idly obedient traveller of today. "And having heard of the fame of Messer Giovanni Argiropolo," thus Vespasiano continues, "he desired to hear one of his lectures at the school; and he came thither unknown, in the said manner, and he was well satisfied with the teaching of Messer Giovanni." A man of letters and of exceeding wisdom-thus it is that Vespasiano sums him up after his simple fashion, sending him on to Rome, where he "visited the Pontiff and the Cardinals and the other prelates who were there." It was at Rome, indeed, that Tiptoft won his highest triumph and gave the best proof of his Latin eloquence. In vain would he have visited Italy if he had not seen Rome, which, says Leland, had not for many centuries received so noble and so welcome a guest, and which thought that a god god had descended from heaven, so much did it marvel at his humanity, his splendour, and the Ciceronian abundance of his discourse. The effect of his oratory upon Pius II.—that learned Pontiff who, fifteen years before, had wondered that the Latin tongue had penetrated as far as Britain as Britain-was the highest tribute that could have been paid to Tiptoft's attainments. John Free, who may have been a witness of the scene, describes how the Pope burst into tears of joy as he listened to Tiptoft's eloquence. If only Time had spared the oration, we might form a clearer judgment. But the centuries have dealt hardly with the orator, and we must accept a verdict at second-hand. Harshly, too, have the centuries treated the collections of books, the divers choice and rare manuscripts which Tiptoft sent to Duke Humphrey's library at Oxford. The skill wherewith he hunted for the masterpieces of ancient literature, the munificence wherewith he purchased them, were legendary in his day. Ludovico Carbo, his friend of Ferrara, whom he would have carried with him to England, adds his testimony to the sure knowledge of Vespasiano. "He despoiled the libraries of Italy," says Carbo, "that he might He make England a treasure-house scholarship engaged. of beautiful books.” If his thought at one blow to sing books ever reached the Uni- the praise of England and to versity, they were long since give Cæsar an ampler life in dispersed. One alone has another tongue. His version escaped in the general rout- is marked by a workmanlike a Commentary on Juvenal, simplicity. It is an accurate written in an Italian hand, representation in style as in and bearing upon the cover the sense of the original. Free arms of the Earl of Worcester. from the opulence and curiosity Thus Italy was despoiled in of speech which was presently vain, and England is the richer to stamp Elizabethan prose but by a single volume for with a character of its own, Tiptoft's zeal and generosity. Tiptoft's Englishing of Cæsar Though much that Tiptoft is far nearer to our modern wrote and said is lost, the art method than Golding's. Inand diligence of Caxton have deed, were it not for the use preserved for us some excellent of a word here and therespecimens of his translations. such as "affyed " for probabat, Inspired by the Renaissance, he and "brute" in the sense of too did what he might to re- noise - which suggests the capture the ancient classics, and close relationship still existto enrich his country and his ing between French and Engcountry's language with some lish, Tiptoft's 'Cæsar' might works of Cæsar and Cicero. have been written yesterHis choice of originals was wise. The treatise De Amicitia' is packed with the splendid commonplaces which the revival of learning had made already popular. And of Cæsar's Commentaries' 6 Englished only so "much as concernyth thys realm of England callyd Bretanyne; which is the eldest hystoryes of all other that can be found that ever wrote of thys realm of England. Thus was his patriotism as well his he day. But, apt as he was for learning, Tiptoft regarded literature as the interlude of an active life, and he was destined soon to lay it aside for the clash of arms and the conflict of policies. His sojourn in Italy gave him far more than a knowledge of the Humanities. He brought back to England with him those lessons of statecraft which were taught only on the other side of the Alps. He learned from the despots with how 1 The following passage, chosen at hazard, and modernised only in its spelling, will prove how closely Tiptoft approached both his original and the English of our time: "Now, the side of the river, where his enemies stood, was pitched full of sharp piles; and beside it, at the brink of the river, were other piles covered with water. Of the which things, when Cæsar was advertised by the report of the prisoners, and by them which had left the Britons and were come to Cæsar, he sent first his men of arms, and commanded the legions should follow them without delay." There is not a touch of archaism in these lines. Plainness is their quality-a quality, above all others, necessary to the interpreter of Cæsar, who wrote as though his hand held not a pen but a sword. nice a cynicism cruelty and models constantly before him, learning might be combined. Tiptoft easily acquired the He discovered from a hundred hard, ruthless doctrines of the illustrious examples that it Renaissance. He arrived at the was in no disaccord with sov- same ends by the same paths ereignty to carry a cup of as the despots. He drove from poison in one hand and a his mind what to Malatesta manuscript of Plato in the would have seemed the cant other. Though Machiavelli of mercy and justice. Hencewas born only a year be- forth he knew but one godfore Tiptoft lost his head, success, and no other methods Machiavellism in act was of worship than force, pride, already plain to see. The and passion. The moral aspect pitiless dramas of lust and of things no longer attracted craft, which the wise Floren- his vision. He approved only tine resumed in his stern such courses as flattered his theory of life and government, own ambition or prospered his were enacted, many of them, prince. But he was no ogre before the eyes of Tiptoft. He might, perchance, have known the famous Lord of Rimini, Sigismundo Pandolfo Malatesta, who engrossed in his single person the vices and virtues of his age. Scholar and savage, Sigismundo studied the classics and listened to the lectures of learned men with the same ardour wherewith he killed his wives or betrayed, tricked, and tortured his enemies. Trained in such a school, with such at any rate, in his own regard. He encouraged culture and luxury like the best of the despots, he did something no doubt to soften the barbarity of English manners, and if, in obeying the behests of the King, he showed himself as graciously cynical as his Italian exemplars, he did not shirk the reprisal which he knew must come. A terror to others, he watched without terror his own approaching doom. |