Sir Balthazar Gerbier, an enterprising projector of the same century, by profession a painter and an architect, but now scarcely remembered as either, seems to have imitated the "Museum Minervæ" in an academy opened at Bethnal Green in 1649. Here, in addition to the more common branches of education, he professed to teach astronomy, navigation, architecture, perspective, drawing, limning, engraving, fortification, fireworks, military discipline, the art of well speaking and civil conversation, history, constitutions and maxims of state, and particular dispositions of nations, "riding the great horse," &c. Once in each week, at three o'clock in the afternoon, Sir Balthazar gave a public lecture gratis on the various sciences. The lectures were generally advertised in the Perfect Diurnal, and a few curious specimens of these advertisements may be seen in Lysons' Environs of London, ed. 1795, vol. ii. p. 30.
Balthazar Gerbier was born at Antwerp about 1591, came young into England, and was a retainer of the Duke of Buckingham as early as 1613. Upon the accession of Charles the First, he was employed in Flanders to negociate privately a treaty with Spain. In 1628 he was knighted at Hampton Court; and, as he says himself in one of his books, was promised by the king the office of surveyor-general of the works, after the death of Inigo Jones. In 1637 he was employed in some private transactions of state; and on the 13th of July, 1641, he took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, having a bill of naturalisation. In 1648 he appears to have projected the above-named academy, the failure of which very soon happened. Sir Balthazar then went to America, where he seems to have been very ill treated by the Dutch, and narrowly escaped with his life. He afterwards returned to England, and designed the triumphal arch for the reception of Charles the Second. He died at Hempsted-marshal, in 1667, whilst engaged in superintending the mansion of Lord Craven, and was buried in the chancel of that church.
In conclusion, it may be as well to mention, that, prior to the establishment of the "Museum Minervæ," a committee had been appointed in the House of Lords, consisting of the Duke of Buckingham and others, for taking into consideration the state of the public schools, and method of education. What progress was made in this inquiry is not known, but in all probability the academies of Sir Francis Kynaston and Sir Balthazar Gerbier owed their origin to the meetings of this committee.
Edward F. Rimbault.SHAKSPEARE AND FLETCHER
I feel greatly obliged to your correspondent C. B. for the attention he has bestowed on the question of Fletcher's connexion with Henry VIII., as it is only through the concurrent judgments of those who think the subject worthy of their full and impartial consideration, that we can hope to arrive at the truth. His remarks (Vol. iii., p. 190.) are the more valuable, as they coincide with a doubt in my own mind, which has, to a great extent, ripened since I last communicated with you on the subject; and, indeed, I have no need to hesitate in saying, that I had more difficulty in coming to a conclusion with regard to the scene (Act III. Sc. 2.) in which the passages occur quoted by C. B., than with any other scene in the whole play. The suggestions, that Shakspeare might have touched scenes of which the mass had been written by Fletcher, is a point which I had not overlooked, and which indeed, to some extent, might be said to follow from the view I took of the relation of Shakspeare and Fletcher as master and scholar. Yet this suggestion is especially valuable regarding this scene, and may account for that which, without it, is not so easily explained.
If, however, there be any lurking notion in your correspondent's mind, that the scene in Antony and Cleopatra (Act III. Sc. 1) referred to by X. Z. (Vol. iii., p. 139.) is, judging from certain coincidences of expression, an interpolation, and not by Shakspeare, I beg at once to be allowed to express my total dissent from such a view. Whether, also, there may have been any secondary allusion to some known event of the day, as X. Z. supposes, and as is by no means improbable, I cannot say; but I protest against its being said that the scene referred to is "totally unconnected with what goes before, and what follows." Antony is the hero of the play; and this scene shows the culminating point of Antony's fortunes, when his very successes turn against him.
To return to Henry VIII., the compliment to the Queen, to which your correspondent refers, is, as he very justly observes, brought in in a very forced manner. This, to my mind, is very strong evidence; otherwise I should not think it unworthy of Shakspeare. And it still has to be borne in mind, that he would have had to accommodate his characters and circumstances to the views of another writer. Shakspeare's spirit was too catholic, too universal, to have allowed, in a work entirely his own, even his Wolsey to have made use of the term "a spleeny Lutheran;" yet neither in the passage in which this expression occurs, nor in the one above referred to, is the versification characteristic of Fletcher. For my own part, however, I cannot recognise Shakspeare's spirit in this antagonism of creeds, which is, perhaps, even more strongly displayed in the prophetic speech of Cranmer's in the last scene, wherein he says, "God shall be truly known!" It may be said, that in both these instances the expressions are true to the characters of Wolsey and Cranmer. It may be so; for both are wanting in that ideal elevation which Shakspeare never fails to give. That, with this reservation, he becomes the mouth-piece of each character, is most true; and a curious instance of the writer's utter forgetfulness of his assumed character of contemporary with the events he is relating, occurring in Act. IV. Sc. 2 where Griffiths says
"He was most princely: ever witness for him
Those twins of learning, that he rais'd in you,
Ipswich and Oxford! one of which fell with him,
Unwilling to outlive the good that did it;
The other, though unfinish'd, yet so famous,
So excellent in art, and still so rising,"
has no parallel in Shakspeare's works. To John Fletcher, indeed, at the close of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, these things were known; but scarcely to the attendant of Queen Katherine, who has but just narrated the circumstances, then newly happened, of Wolsey's fall. On maturer consideration, then, I am inclined to think that the whole of the scene (Act III. Sc. 2.) to which your correspondent refers, was originally written by Fletcher, although, as it now stands, it is strongly marked by the hand of Shakspeare. In the same category, also, I am inclined to place Scenes 3. and 4. of Act II. It will be observed that these changes are not inconsistent with the view I had previously taken; the effect being merely, that I am inclined to ascribe a little more than in the first instance to the hitherto unsuspected participator in the work. I am not sure, too, that I shall not be coming nearer to Mr. Spedding; as, if I am not mistaken, it is in some of these scenes that he imagines he detects "a third hand;" a theory which, though I do not adopt, I certainly have not confidence enough to reject altogether. But this view affects so very small a portion of the play, that it is of very little consequence.
Samuel Hickson.ILLUSTRATIONS OF TENNYSON
That great poets are sometimes obscure, needs no proof. That the greatest poets will necessarily be so to the ordinary reader, seems to me equally indisputable.