1 stores of information before his hearers in a manner of greater or less interest. Some, indeed, who were behind pillars and in other snug recesses, passed the hour in pleasant dreams, a practice which is not yet obsolete. A witty but wicked old gentleman was heard to remark some time ago, "The preacher took for his text, He giveth His beloved sleep: so I slept." Doubtless some of those earlier listeners did sleep: ""Tis a shame," says Fuller in playful earnest, "when the church itself is Cameterium, wherein the living sleep above ground as the dead do beneath." But whether they slept or not they were obliged to come to church, else they were fined a shilling, which was to go to the poor of the parish, and they incurred the suspicion of Romanism to boot. When once they were before him they were completely at the mercy of the parson, who sternly and even individually denounced their sins, while he stinted them neither in the quantity nor in the quality of his denunciations. The modern divine, who must perforce be more modest and less vehement, may well envy the liberty of speech which his early predecessors enjoyed; but if he be prudent he will imitate them neither in their excessive length nor in their oratorical violence. Such a parson was Henry Smith, whose name has an undoubtedly familiar sound, but whose works are almost entirely forgotten. Yet he was a preacher of uncommon fame in his own day and for nearly a century after his death, who was great alike in the length and fervour of his sermons, though somewhat limited in breadth. His discourses have a wonderful ring of truth and, be it said without any undue disparagement, of prejudice in their outspoken language, while they are couched in a clear literary style of great and sometimes deeply affecting eloquence. The fat old quarto volume which contains them was published under the superintendence of Thomas Fuller in the year 1657. Its frontispiece represents the portrait of the author quaintly though characteristically engraved by T. Cross. The eminent divine has a delicate, ascetic face based upon a ruff of much stiffness and great apparent discomfort. The eyes are large and bright, the nose strong and pronounced; the mouth, which is shaded by the usual moustache and imperial, is small but firm, and the forehead broad and ample. His cheeks were 1 Holy State (1648), p. 85. 1 probably tinged with the hectic hue of consumption, of which he died in the prime of his powers. Underneath the engraving is the legend, "The lively Portraiture of the Reverend and Learned Minister of Jesus Christ, Mr. Henry Smith." On the opposite page is an ample title, probably put together by the printer or publisher, which surmounts a curly-tailed dog with his tongue out between the two top and the two bottom teeth. He has three whiskers, which must have caused him much annoyance, on the tip of his nose, four claws upon one fore foot, two on the other, and three on each of the hind feet. This is the representation of the "Sign of the Talbot," where the book was to be had; but, according to his own fierce theology, it might well be a type of the preacher as the watchful dog ready to lift up his voice when the devil assailed the Christian fold. According to the tradition of Islam, the Angel Gabriel discharged this perilous duty when Mohammed was born, who kept away the Archenemy from the sacred cradle by pelting him with stones. Henry Smith, the eldest son and heir of Erasmus Smith of Withcote in Leicestershire, and grandson of John Smith, was born in or about the year 1560.1 Of his earliest years no account has survived, but he would seem always to have been delicate from his boyhood. Who was his first schoolmaster is unknown; but at the age of thirteen, on July 17, 1573, he was admitted Fellow Commoner of Queen's College, Cambridge, where, however, he did not matriculate. He does not appear to have resided in College, but to have been entrusted by his father to the care of Richard Greenham, the pious and learned Puritan divine of Dry Drayton, who inspired his distinguished pupil with his own tendencies to nonconformity. That Smith's non-residence at the University upon this occasion was due to his weakly health, seems not improbable; but the reason of his migration to Oxford a little more than two years later is entirely unknown. On March 14, 1575-6, however, he matriculated at Lincoln College, where he may have graduated, but where he cannot be shewn to have taken his Master's 1 Burton, Leicestershire (1777), p. 292. Cooper, Athenæ Cantabrigienses, Vol. II. p. 103 (1861). 2 2 Brook, Lives of the Puritans, Vol. II. p. 108. Brook sets down the date of Smith's birth as 1550, which is certainly inaccurate, as he would have been sent sooner to the University had he been born in that year. 3 Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, Vol. IV. p. 1,372. degree1 with any certainty. On none of his printed sermons does he style himself M.A., nor indeed was he called anything more than theologus. Of course the absence of the mystic letters does not prove that he was not entitled to assume them if he chose; but it is extremely improbable that he would have failed to follow the common custom in this respect. Of his Oxford life only one hint has survived, and that in an unexpected place. Thomas Nash, who must surely refer to this period of Smith's life, exclaims, "Silver-tongued Smith, whose welltuned style hath made thy death the general tears of the Muses, quaintly couldst thou devise heavenly ditties to Apollo's lute, and teach stately verse to trip it as smoothly as if Ovid and thou had but one soul. Hence along did it proceed, that thou wert such a plausible pulpit-man, before thou enteredst into the wonderful ways of theology, thou refinedst, preparedst, and purifiedst thy wings with sweet poetry. If a simple man's censure may be admitted to speak in such an open theatre of opinions, I never saw abundant reading better mixt with delight, or sentences which no man can challenge of profane affectation sounding more deep into the heart." None of Smith's poems have survived to enable the later critic to test this piece of judgment; but it may readily be admitted that Thomas 1 Cooper, Athena Cantabrigienses, Vol. II. p. 103. There were two Henry Smiths, Fellow Commoners of Hart Hall, the one of whom took his M.A. on July 9, 1579, and the other on May 3, 1583. Of these the former cannot be our Henry Smith, who would not have been of sufficient standing to have taken his M.A. so early as 1579; nor can the latter be identified with him in spite of Wood, as it seems certain that Smith was not in residence so late as 1583. As far as can be discerned from some chronological perplexities, he was at that time resident at the rectory of Husbands Bosworth in Leicestershire, of which his father was patron. (Burton's Description of Leicestershire, 1777, p. 42). Indeed he must have been somewhere in the neighbourhood in 1582, when he exposed the impostor, Robert Dickons of Mansfield (Cooper, Athena Cantabrigienses, Vol. II. p. 103, for the date). He was sent to investigate this curious case, of which full details appear below, by the Lord Justices on circuit, who would not have sent up to Oxford for him to inquire into a case at Mansfield. If, therefore, Cooper's date of 1582 be correct for the abovementioned examination, it follows that Smith was doing duty at Husbands Bosworth, though he may not have been rector of the parish. At any rate, if he were not in this place he must have been at home at the very time when he is credited with having taken his Master's de gree. * Pierce Penniless's Supplication to the Devil (1592), edited by J. Payne Collier for the Shakespeare Society in 1842, pp. 40-41. Mr. Collier has curiously failed to identify Smith, and his note is a remarkable piece of critical want of sagacity. Nash in his own province was able to appreciate the merits of greater poets than our parson could have been. In or about 1581-2 Henry Smith left Oxford and, though heir to a large property, entered upon the ministry of Christ. It cannot be said that he took Orders, seeing that he never subscribed the Articles, apparently from some dissatisfaction with their regulation of discipline, and doubtless with the strong injunction of the twentieth Article concerning this important point. Be that as it may, he seems to have officiated at Husbands Bosworth for some time, though there is no evidence that he was actually the rector of that parish; indeed the contrary seems probable on account of his refusal to take Orders, and from the fact that such a title is never given to him by his contemporaries. It was in the year 1582 that one of the most remarkable of the events of his life occurred to him. He was probably engaged in fitting himself for his future excellence in preaching, when he received a summons to attend a Court of investigation, to be held at Mansfield, to inquire into the truth of the alleged visions of one Robert Dickons. An actual peep into the country life of the past must always be interesting to those who care to know what manner of men their forefathers were. There is something supremely attractive in old-world simplicity, and when the village credulity of the sixteenth century is disturbed by a modern Pharaoh, who was not merely a dreamer of dreams, but, it must be admitted, a forger of frauds, the interest of the narrative has no tendency to diminish. Supposed demoniacs are not so common in English history, that a typical instance can be lightly passed by with commonplace indifference, and especially when the examinations which led to the discovery of the imposture were conducted with so much tact and skill. The investigation appears to have occupied two days, which were divided by an eloquent sermon delivered in the presence of a full congregation to them and at the culprit, as appears from the direct appeal of the peroration. If the rustic Pharaoh did not confess the frauds of his too inventive fancy, he was threatened with the rack in words which could hardly fail to thrill others besides the miserable victim of his own vanity or folly. Life prefixed to Sermons, 1657. Strype, Life of Aylmer (1821), pp. 100-102. 2 Cooper, Athena Cantabrigienses, Vol. II. p. 103. |