FullReads

‘To what use have you designed it, sir?’ I asked, after a while spent in watching him.

‘To no use at all, soldier,’ he answered, more tartly. ‘The water is warm, and you can bathe your hurt and afterwards I will plaster it.’ While I laved my temple with the edge of the towel, between the dip of the water I heard his voice in broken sentences: ‘To no use at all. . . . Would a man ask the sun to what use it danced? . . . or the moon and planets? . . .’

I looked up, dabbing my wound gently. His voice had risen and stretched itself on a high, monotonous pitch. He was declaiming verse.

‘Who doth not see the measures of the Moon?
Which thirteen times she dances every year,
And ends her Pavane thirteen times as soon
As doth–

Hey? Do you know the lines, soldier?’ He stepped forward and peered close at my head while I shook it. ‘Tush! a cut, a trifle! Go on bathing. . . . The lines, sir, were writ by Sir John Davies, the first of English poets.’

‘Indeed, sir,’ said I. ‘Now at the Inner Temple, before mixing myself in these troubles, I used to read much poetry and dispute on it with other young men. We had our several laureates; but believe me-and despise if you will–although we had heard tell of Sir John Davies, I doubt if one in six of us had read a line of him.’

‘Ay, indeed,’ he caught me up, ‘I have scarce read a line of any other. Having discovered him I had no need. For allow me to observe–although I know nothing about it–that in poetry the Subject is nine points of excellence; and, Sir John Davies having hit on the most exalted subject tractable by the Muse, it follows that he must be the most exalted poet. Let me tell you–if it will shorten argument–that in general, and in all walks of life, I hate the second-best.’

‘I have heard, sir,’ said I, ‘that this masterpiece was a poem on Dancing. But you must be thinking of another.’

‘Not at all, young man,’ my host replied, poring anew into his toy. ‘”Orchestra” is the name of it; the subject, Dancing. But what dancing!–the sun, the moon, the stars–Eh? Halleluia, but it goes again!’

Sure enough, bending over the basin, I heard a buzz of wheels, and looked up to see the whole machine springing like a score of whipping-tops gone mad, the brass balls swinging and rotating so fast that the eye lost them in little twinkling circles and ellipses, the wheels whirring and filling the room with their hum.

My astronomer had dived under the bench. I saw for the moment little more than his posterior and the soles of his list slippers.

‘You’ll pardon me,’ I heard him grunt, and the speed of the machinery slackened as he attached a couple of leaden weights to the dependent chains. He backed, crawled out, and stood erect; adjusted his spectacles, and stood beaming upon his invention.

‘But what is the signification, sir?’ I asked, rising from my chair and stepping close.

‘Ah! You improve, soldier. It hath signification, not use: and it signifies the motion of the heavens. See–this larger ball is the sun; and here, on their several rods, the planets–all swinging in their courses. By a pointer on this dial-plate–observe me now–I reduce the space of a day to one, two, three minutes, as I chose, retarding or accelerating, but always in just proportion. ‘Tis set for these December days; you will remark the sun’s ambit–how it lies south of the zenith, and how far short it rises and falls from the equinoctial points. But wait awhile, and in a few minutes–that is to say, days–you shall see him start to widen his circuit. Here now is Saturn, with his rim: and here Venus–mark how delicately she lifts, following the motion of her lord–`