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Scaling Machine
Learning with
Spark
Distributed ML with MLlib,
TensorFlow, and PyTorch

Adi Polak
 Scaling Machine Learning with Spark
Learn how to build end-to-end scalable machine learning
solutions with Apache Spark. With this practical guide, author “If there is one book the
Adi Polak introduces data and ML practitioners to creative
Spark community has
solutions that supersede today’s traditional methods. You’ll
learn a more holistic approach that takes you beyond specific been craving for the last
requirements and organizational goals—allowing data and ML decade, it’s this.”
practitioners to collaborate and understand each other better. —Andy Petrella
Founder at Kensu and author of
Scaling Machine Learning with Spark examines several Fundamentals of Data Observability
technologies for building end-to-end distributed ML
workflows based on the Apache Spark ecosystem with
Spark MLlib, MLFlow, TensorFlow, and PyTorch. If you’re Adi Polak is an open source
a data scientist who works with machine learning, this technologist who believes in
communities and education, and
book shows you when and why to use each technology.
their ability to positively impact the
You will: world around us. She is passionate
about building a better world through
• Explore machine learning, including distributed open collaboration and technological
computing concepts and terminology innovation. As a seasoned engineer
• Manage the ML lifecycle with MLflow and vice president of developer
experience at Treeverse, Adi shapes
• Ingest data and perform basic preprocessing with Spark the future of data and ML technologies
• Explore feature engineering, and use Spark for hands-on builders. She serves on
multiple program committees and acts
to extract features
as an advisor for conferences like Data
• Train a model with MLlib and build a pipeline to reproduce it & AI Summit by Databricks, Current by
Confluent, and Scale by the Bay, among
• Build a data system to combine the power of Spark others. Adi previously served as a
with deep learning senior manager for Azure at Microsoft,
• Get a step-by-step example of working with where she helped build advanced
distributed TensorFlow analytics systems and modern data
architectures. Adi gained experience
• Use PyTorch to scale machine learning and in machine learning by conducting
its internal architecture research for IBM, Deutsche Telekom,
and other Fortune 500 companies.

MACHINE LEARNING Twitter: @oreillymedia

linkedin.com/company/oreilly-media
US $79.99 CAN $99.99
youtube.com/oreillymedia
ISBN: 978-1-098-10682-9
57999

9 781098 106829
 Praise for Scaling Machine Learning with Spark

If there is one book the Spark community has been craving for the last decade, it’s this.
Writing about the combination of Spark and AI requires broad knowledge, a deep
technical skillset, and the ability to break down complex concepts so they’re easy to
understand. Adi delivers all of this and more while covering big data, AI, and
everything in between.
—Andy Petrella, founder at Kensu and author of
Fundamentals of Data Observability (O’Reilly)

Scaling Machine Learning with Spark is a wealth of knowledge for data and ML
practitioners, providing a holistic and creative approach to building end-to-end scalable
machine learning solutions. The author’s expertise and knowledge, combined with a focus
on collaboration and understanding, makes this book a must-read for anyone
in the industry.
—Noah Gift, Duke executive in residence

Adi’s book is without any doubt a good reference and resource to have beside you when
working with Spark and distributed ML. You will learn best practices she has to share
along with her experience working in the industry for many years. Worth the investment
and time reading it.
—Laura Uzcategui, machine learning engineer at TalentBait
 This book is an amazing synthesis of knowledge and experience. I consider it essential
reading for both novice and veteran machine learning engineers. Readers will deepen
their understanding of general principles for machine learning in distributed systems
while simultaneously engaging with the technical details required to integrate and scale
the most widely used tools of the trade including Spark, PyTorch, Tensorflow.
—Matthew Housley, CTO and coauthor of Fundamentals of
Data Engineering (O’Reilly)

Adi’s done a wonderful job at creating a very readable, practical, and insanely detailed
deep dive into machine learning with Spark.
—Joe Reis, coauthor of Fundamentals of Data Engineering
(O’Reilly) and “recovering data scientist”
 Scaling Machine Learning
with Spark
Distributed ML with MLlib,
TensorFlow, and PyTorch

Adi Polak

Beijing Boston Farnham Sebastopol Tokyo

Scaling Machine Learning with Spark
by Adi Polak
Copyright © 2023 Adi Polak. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472.
O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are
also available for most titles (https://oreilly.com). For more information, contact our corporate/institu‐
tional sales department: 800-998-9938 or corporate@oreilly.com.

Acquisitions Editor: Nicole Butterfield Indexer: Potomac Indexing, LLC

Development Editor: Jill Leonard Interior Designer: David Futato
Production Editor: Jonathon Owen Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery
Copyeditor: Rachel Head Illustrator: Kate Dullea
Proofreader: Piper Editorial Consulting, LLC

March 2023: First Edition

Revision History for the First Edition

2023-03-02: First Release

See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781098106829 for release details.

The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Scaling Machine Learning with Spark,
the cover image, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
The views expressed in this work are those of the author and do not represent the publisher’s views. While
the publisher and the author have used good faith efforts to ensure that the information and instructions
contained in this work are accurate, the publisher and the author disclaim all responsibility for errors or
omissions, including without limitation responsibility for damages resulting from the use of or reliance
on this work. Use of the information and instructions contained in this work is at your own risk. If any
code samples or other technology this work contains or describes is subject to open source licenses or the
intellectual property rights of others, it is your responsibility to ensure that your use thereof complies
with such licenses and/or rights.

978-1-098-10682-9
[LSI]
 Table of Contents

Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

1. Distributed Machine Learning Terminology and Concepts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Stages of the Machine Learning Workflow 4
Tools and Technologies in the Machine Learning Pipeline 6
Distributed Computing Models 8
General-Purpose Models 8
Dedicated Distributed Computing Models 10
Introduction to Distributed Systems Architecture 11
Centralized Versus Decentralized Systems 11
Interaction Models 12
Communication in a Distributed Setting 13
Introduction to Ensemble Methods 14
High Versus Low Bias 15
Types of Ensemble Methods 15
Distributed Training Topologies 16
The Challenges of Distributed Machine Learning Systems 18
Performance 18
Resource Management 21
Fault Tolerance 22
Privacy 23
Portability 24
Setting Up Your Local Environment 24
Chapters 2–6 Tutorials Environment 25
Chapters 7–10 Tutorials Environment 27
Summary 28

v
2. Introduction to Spark and PySpark. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Apache Spark Architecture 30
Intro to PySpark 32
Apache Spark Basics 33
Software Architecture 33
PySpark and Functional Programming 39
Executing PySpark Code 40
pandas DataFrames Versus Spark DataFrames 41
Scikit-Learn Versus MLlib 42
Summary 43

3. Managing the Machine Learning Experiment Lifecycle with MLflow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Machine Learning Lifecycle Management Requirements 46
What Is MLflow? 47
Software Components of the MLflow Platform 48
Users of the MLflow Platform 49
MLflow Components 50
MLflow Tracking 50
MLflow Projects 53
MLflow Models 54
MLflow Model Registry 55
Using MLflow at Scale 57
Summary 60

4. Data Ingestion, Preprocessing, and Descriptive Statistics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Data Ingestion with Spark 62
Working with Images 63
Working with Tabular Data 65
Preprocessing Data 66
Preprocessing Versus Processing 66
Why Preprocess the Data? 67
Data Structures 68
MLlib Data Types 68
Preprocessing with MLlib Transformers 70
Preprocessing Image Data 77
Save the Data and Avoid the Small Files Problem 80
Descriptive Statistics: Getting a Feel for the Data 81
Calculating Statistics 82
Descriptive Statistics with Spark Summarizer 83
Data Skewness 85
Correlation 86
Summary 90

vi | Table of Contents
5. Feature Engineering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Features and Their Impact on Models 93
MLlib Featurization Tools 96
Extractors 96
Selectors 97
Example: Word2Vec 98
The Image Featurization Process 99
Understanding Image Manipulation 101
Extracting Features with Spark APIs 103
The Text Featurization Process 109
Bag-of-Words 110
TF-IDF 110
N-Gram 111
Additional Techniques 112
Enriching the Dataset 112
Summary 113

6. Training Models with Spark MLlib. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Algorithms 116
Supervised Machine Learning 117
Classification 117
Regression 122
Unsupervised Machine Learning 127
Frequent Pattern Mining 127
Clustering 127
Evaluating 131
Supervised Evaluators 131
Unsupervised Evaluators 134
Hyperparameters and Tuning Experiments 135
Building a Parameter Grid 135
Splitting the Data into Training and Test Sets 135
Cross-Validation: A Better Way to Test Your Models 137
Machine Learning Pipelines 138
Constructing a Pipeline 140
How Does Splitting Work with the Pipeline API? 141
Persistence 141
Summary 142

7. Bridging Spark and Deep Learning Frameworks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

The Two Clusters Approach 147
Implementing a Dedicated Data Access Layer 148
Features of a DAL 148

Table of Contents | vii

 Selecting a DAL 150
What Is Petastorm? 151
SparkDatasetConverter 152
Petastorm as a Parquet Store 156
Project Hydrogen 158
Barrier Execution Mode 158
Accelerator-Aware Scheduling 160
A Brief Introduction to the Horovod Estimator API 161
Summary 162

8. TensorFlow Distributed Machine Learning Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

A Quick Overview of TensorFlow 164
What Is a Neural Network? 166
TensorFlow Cluster Process Roles and Responsibilities 168
Loading Parquet Data into a TensorFlow Dataset 169
An Inside Look at TensorFlow’s Distributed Machine Learning Strategies 171
ParameterServerStrategy 173
CentralStorageStrategy: One Machine, Multiple Processors 175
MirroredStrategy: One Machine, Multiple Processors, Local Copy 175
MultiWorkerMirroredStrategy: Multiple Machines, Synchronous 177
TPUStrategy 181
What Things Change When You Switch Strategies? 181
Training APIs 182
Keras API 182
Custom Training Loop 186
Estimator API 188
Putting It All Together 189
Troubleshooting 191
Summary 192

9. PyTorch Distributed Machine Learning Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

A Quick Overview of PyTorch Basics 194
Computation Graph 194
PyTorch Mechanics and Concepts 196
PyTorch Distributed Strategies for Training Models 200
Introduction to PyTorch’s Distributed Approach 201
Distributed Data-Parallel Training 202
RPC-Based Distributed Training 203
Communication Topologies in PyTorch (c10d) 212
What Can We Do with PyTorch’s Low-Level APIs? 220
Loading Data with PyTorch and Petastorm 221

viii | Table of Contents

 Troubleshooting Guidance for Working with Petastorm and Distributed
PyTorch 224
The Enigma of Mismatched Data Types 224
The Mystery of Straggling Workers 226
How Does PyTorch Differ from TensorFlow? 227
Summary 228

10. Deployment Patterns for Machine Learning Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Deployment Patterns 230
Pattern 1: Batch Prediction 230
Pattern 2: Model-in-Service 231
Pattern 3: Model-as-a-Service 232
Determining Which Pattern to Use 233
Production Software Requirements 234
Monitoring Machine Learning Models in Production 238
Data Drift 239
Model Drift, Concept Drift 242
Distributional Domain Shift (the Long Tail) 242
What Metrics Should I Monitor in Production? 243
How Do I Measure Changes Using My Monitoring System? 244
What It Looks Like in Production 245
The Production Feedback Loop 246
Deploying with MLlib 247
Production Machine Learning Pipelines with Structured Streaming 248
Deploying with MLflow 249
Defining an MLflow Wrapper 250
Deploying the Model as a Microservice 253
Loading the Model as a Spark UDF 254
How to Develop Your System Iteratively 254
Summary 256

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Table of Contents | ix
 Preface

Welcome to Scaling Machine Learning with Spark: Distributed ML with MLlib, Tensor‐
Flow, and PyTorch. This book aims to guide you in your journey as you learn more
about machine learning (ML) systems. Apache Spark is currently the most popular
framework for large-scale data processing. It has numerous APIs implemented in
Python, Java, and Scala and is used by many powerhouse companies, including Net‐
flix, Microsoft, and Apple. PyTorch and TensorFlow are among the most popular
frameworks for machine learning. Combining these tools, which are already in use in
many organizations today, allows you to take full advantage of their strengths.
Before we get started, though, perhaps you are wondering why I decided to write this
book. Good question. There are two reasons. The first is to support the machine
learning ecosystem and community by sharing the knowledge, experience, and exper‐
tise I have accumulated over the last decade working as a machine learning algorithm
researcher, designing and implementing algorithms to run on large-scale data. I have
spent most of my career working as a data infrastructure engineer, building infra‐
structure for large-scale analytics with all sorts of formatting, types, schemas, etc., and
integrating knowledge collected from customers, community members, and collea‐
gues who have shared their experience while brainstorming and developing solutions.
Our industry can use such knowledge to propel itself forward at a faster rate, by lev‐
eraging the expertise of others. While not all of this book’s content will be applicable
to everyone, much of it will open up new approaches for a wide array of practitioners.
This brings me to my second reason for writing this book: I want to provide a holistic
approach to building end-to-end scalable machine learning solutions that extends
beyond the traditional approach. Today, many solutions are customized to the specific
requirements of the organization and specific business goals. This will most likely con‐
tinue to be the industry norm for many years to come. In this book, I aim to challenge
the status quo and inspire more creative solutions while explaining the pros and cons
of multiple approaches and tools, enabling you to leverage whichever tools are used in
your organization and get the best of all worlds. My overall goal is to make it simpler

xi
for data and machine learning practitioners to collaborate and understand each other
better.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is designed for machine learning practitioners with previous industry
experience who want to learn about Apache Spark’s MLlib and increase their under‐
standing of the overall system and flow. It will be particularly relevant to data scien‐
tists and machine learning engineers, but MLOps engineers, software engineers, and
anyone interested in learning about or building distributed machine learning models
and building pipelines with MLlib, distributed PyTorch, and TensorFlow will also
find value. Technologists who understand high-level concepts of working with
machine learning and want to dip their feet into the technical side as well should also
find the book interesting and accessible.

Do You Need Distributed Machine Learning?

As with every good thing, it depends. If you have small datasets that fit into your
machine’s memory, the answer is no. If at some point you will need to scale out your
code and make sure you can train a model on a larger dataset that does not fit into a
single machine’s memory, then yes.
It is often better to use the same tools across the software development lifecycle, from
the local development environment to staging and production. Take into considera‐
tion, though, that this also introduces other complexities involved in managing a dis‐
tributed system, which typically will be handled by a different team in your
organization. It’s a good idea to have a common language to collaborate with your
colleagues.
Also, one of the greatest challenges people who create machine learning models face
today is moving them from local development all the way to production. Many of us
sin with spaghetti code that should be reproducible but often is not and is hard to
maintain and collaborate on. I will touch upon that topic as part of the discussion of
managing the lifecycle of experiments.

Navigating This Book

This book is designed to build from foundational information in the first few chap‐
ters, covering the machine learning workflow using Apache Spark and PySpark and
managing the machine learning experiment lifecycle with MLflow, to bridging into a
dedicated machine learning platform in Chapters 7, 8, and 9. The book concludes
with a look at deployment patterns, inference, and monitoring of models in produc‐
tion. Here’s a breakdown of what you will find in each chapter:

xii | Preface
Chapter 1, “Distributed Machine Learning Terminology and Concepts”
This chapter provides a high-level introduction to machine learning and covers
terminology and concepts related to distributed computing and network topolo‐
gies. I will walk you through various concepts and terms, so you have a strong
foundation for the next chapters.
Chapter 2, “Introduction to Spark and PySpark”
The goal of this chapter is to bring you up to speed on Spark and its Python
library, PySpark. We’ll discuss terminology, software abstractions, and more.
Chapter 3, “Managing the Machine Learning Experiment Lifecycle with MLflow”
This chapter introduces MLflow, a platform that facilitates managing the
machine learning lifecycle. We’ll discuss what a machine learning experiment is
and why managing its lifecycle is important, and we’ll examine the various com‐
ponents of MLflow that make this possible.
Chapter 4, “Data Ingestion, Preprocessing, and Descriptive Statistics”
Next, we will dive into working with data. In this chapter, I will discuss how to
use Spark to ingest your data, perform basic preprocessing (using image files as
an example), and get a feel for the data. I’ll also cover how to avoid the so-called
small file problem with image files by leveraging the PySpark API.
Chapter 5, “Feature Engineering”
Once you’ve performed the steps in the previous chapter, you’re ready to engi‐
neer the features you will use to train your machine learning model. This chapter
explains in detail what feature engineering is, covering various types, and show‐
cases how to leverage Spark’s functionality for extracting features. We’ll also look
at how and when to use applyInPandas and pandas_udf to optimize perfor‐
mance.
Chapter 6, “Training Models with Spark MLlib”
This chapter walks you through working with MLlib to train a model, evaluate
and build a pipeline to reproduce the model, and finally persist it to disk.
Chapter 7, “Bridging Spark and Deep Learning Frameworks”
This chapter breaks down how to build a data system to combine the power of
Spark with deep learning frameworks. It discusses bridging Spark and deep
learning clusters and provides an introduction to Petastorm, Horovod, and the
Spark initiative Project Hydrogen.
Chapter 8, “TensorFlow Distributed Machine Learning Approach”
Here, I’ll lead you through a step-by-step example of working with distributed
TensorFlow—specifically tf.keras—while leveraging the preprocessing you’ve
done with Spark. You will also learn about the various TensorFlow patterns for
scaling machine learning and the component architectures that support it.

Preface | xiii
Other documents randomly have
different content
Bull and the Cockpit probably whistled the tune as they wended their
way homeward to crab-apple ale and spiced gingerbread.
Next to the Champions of Christendom, the King’s Knight Champion
of England is perhaps the most important personage—in the point of
view of chivalry. I think it is some French author who has said, that
revolutions resemble the game of chess, where the pawns or pieces
(les pions) may cause the ruin of the king, save him, or take his
place. Now the champ pion, as this French remark reminds me, is
nothing more than the field pion, pawn, or piece, put forward to fight
in the king’s quarrel.
The family of the Champion of England bears, it may be observed,
exactly the name which suits a calling so derived. The appellation
“Dymoke” is derived from De Umbrosâ Quercu; I should rather say it
is the translation of it; and Harry De Umbrosâ Quercu is only Harry of
the Shady or Dim Oak, a very apt dwelling-place and name for one
whose chief profession was that of field-pawn to the king.
This derivation or adaptation of names from original Latin surnames
is common enough, and some amusing pages might be written on
the matter, in addition to what has been so cleverly put together by
Mr. Mark Anthony Lower, in his volume devoted especially to an
elucidation of English surnames.
The royal champions came in with the Conquest. The Norman dukes
had theirs in the family of Marmion—ancestors of that Marmion of Sir
Walter Scott’s, who commits forgery, like a common knave of more
degenerate times. The Conqueror conferred sundry broad lands in
England on his champions; among others, the lands adjacent to, as
well as the castle of Tamworth. Near this place was the first nunnery
established in this country. The occupants were the nuns of St.
Edith, at Polesworth. Robert de Marmion used the ladies very
“cavalierly,” ejected them from their house, and deprived them of
their property. But such victims had a wonderfully clever way of
recovering their own.
My readers may possibly remember how a certain Eastern potentate
injured the church, disgusted the Christians generally, and irritated
especially that Simeon Stylites who sat on the summit of a pillar,
night and day, and never moved from his abiding-place. The offender
had a vision, in which he not only saw the indignant Simeon, but was
cudgelled almost into pulp by the simulacre of that saint. I very much
doubt if Simeon himself was in his airy dwelling-place at that
particular hour of the night. I was reminded of this by what happened
to the duke’s champion, Robert de Marmion. He was roused from a
deep sleep by the vision of a stout lady, who announced herself as
the wronged St. Edith, and who proceeded to show her opinion of De
Marmion’s conduct toward her nuns, by pommelling his ribs with her
crosier, until she had covered his side with bruises, and himself with
repentance. What strong-armed young monk played St. Edith that
night, it is impossible to say; but that he enacted the part
successfully, is seen from the fact that Robert brought back the
ladies to Polesworth, and made ample restitution of all of which they
had been deprived. The nuns, in return, engaged with alacrity to inter
all defunct Marmions within the chapter-house of their abbey, for
nothing.
With the manor of Tamworth in Warwickshire, Marmion held that of
Scrivelsby in Lincolnshire. The latter was held of the King by grand
sergeantry, “to perform the office of champion at the King’s
coronation.” At his death he was succeeded by a son of the same
Christian name, who served the monks of Chester precisely as his
sire had treated the nuns at Polesworth. This second Robert fortified
his ill-acquired prize—the priory; but happening to fall into one of the
newly-made ditches, when inspecting the fortifications, a soldier of
the Earl of Chester killed him, without difficulty, as he lay with broken
hip and thigh, at the bottom of the fosse. The next successor, a third
Robert, was something of a judge, with a dash of the warrior, too,
and he divided his estates between two sons, both Roberts, by
different mothers. The eldest son and chief possessor, after a
bustling and emphatically “battling” life, was succeeded by his son
Philip, who fell into some trouble in the reign of Henry III. for
presuming to act as a judge or justice of the peace, without being
duly commissioned. This Philip was, nevertheless, one of the most
faithful servants to a king who found so many faithless; and if honors
were heaped upon him in consequence, he fairly merited them all.
He was happy, too, in marriage, for he espoused a lady sole heiress
to a large estate, and who brought him four daughters, co-heiresses
to the paternal and maternal lands of the Marmions and the Kilpecs.
This, however, is wandering. Let us once more return to orderly
illustration. In St. George I have shown how pure romance deals with
a hero. In the next chapter I will endeavor to show in what spirit the
lives and actions of real English heroes have been treated by native
historians. In so doing, I will recount the story of Sir Guy of Warwick,
after their fashion, with original illustrations and “modern instances.”
 SIR GUY OF WARWICK,
AND WHAT BEFELL HIM.

“His desires
Are higher than his state, and his deserts
Not much short of the most he can desire.”
Chapman’s Byron’s Conspiracy.

The Christian name of Guy was once an exceedingly popular name

in the county of York. I have never heard a reason assigned for this,
but I think it may have originated in admiration of the deeds and the
man whose appellation and reputation have survived to our times. I
do not allude to Guy Faux; that young gentleman was the Father of
Perverts, but by no means the first of the Guys.
The “Master Guy” of whom I am treating here, or, rather, about to
treat, was a youth whose family originally came from
Northumberland. That family was, in one sense, more noble than the
imperial family of Muscovy, for its members boasted not only of good
principles, but of sound teeth.
The teeth and principles of the Romanoffs are known to be in a
distressing state of dilapidation.
Well; these Northumbrian Guys having lived extremely fast, and
being compelled to compound with their creditors, by plundering the
latter, and paying them zero in the pound, migrated southward, and
finally settled in Warwickshire. Now, the head of the house had a
considerable share of common sense about him, and after much
suffering in a state of shabby gentility, he not only sent his daughters
out to earn their own livelihood, but, to the intense disgust of his
spouse, hired himself as steward to that noble gentleman the Earl of
Warwick. “My blood is as good as ever it was,” said he to the fine
lady his wife. “It is the blood of an upper servant,” cried she, “and my
father’s daughter is the spouse of a flunkey.”
The husband was not discouraged; and he not only opened his office
in his patron’s castle but he took his only son with him, and made
him his first clerk. This son’s name was Guy; and he was rather
given to bird-catching, hare-snaring, and “gentism” generally. He had
been a precocious youth from some months previous to his birth,
and had given his lady-mother such horrid annoyance, that she was
always dreaming of battles, fiery-cars, strong-smelling dragons, and
the wrathful Mars. “Well,” she used to remark to her female friends,
while the gentlemen were over their wine, “I expect that this boy”
(she had made up her mind to that) “will make a noise in the world,
draw bills upon his father, and be the terror of maid-servants. Why,
do you know——” and here she became confidential, and I do not
feel authorized to repeat what she then communicated.
But Master Guy, the “little stranger” alluded to, proved better than
was expected. He might have been considerably worse, and yet
would not have been so bad as maternal prophecy had depicted
him. At eight years ... but I hear you say, “When did all this occur?”
Well, it was in a November’s “Morning Post,” that announcement
was made of the birth; and as to the year, Master Guy has given it
himself in the old metrical romance,

“Two hundred and twenty years and odd,

After our Savior Christ his birth,
When King Athelstan wore the crown,
I livéd here upon the earth.”

At eight years old, I was about to remark, young Guy was the most
insufferable puppy of his district. He won all the prizes for athletic
sports; and by the time he was sixteen there was not a man in all
England who dared accept his challenge to wrestle with both arms,
against him using only one.
It was at this time that he kept his father’s books and a leash of
hounds, with the latter of which he performed such extraordinary
feats, that the Earl of Warwick invited him from the steward’s room to
his own table; where Guy’s father changed his plate, and Master
Guy twitched him by the beard as he did it.
At the head of the earl’s table sat his daughter “Phillis the Fair,” a
lady who, like her namesake in the song, was “sometimes forward,
sometimes coy,” and altogether so sweetly smiling and so beguiling,
that when the earl asked Guy if he would not come and hunt (the
dinner was at 10 a. m.), Guy answered, as the Frenchman did who
could not bear the sport, with a Merci, j’ai été! and affecting an iliac
seizure, hinted at the necessity of staying at home.
The youth forthwith was carried to bed. Phillis sent him a posset, the
earl sent him his own physician; and this learned gentleman, after
much perplexity veiled beneath the most affable and confident
humbug, wrote a prescription which, if it could do the patient no good
would do him no harm. He was a most skilful man, and his patients
almost invariably recovered under this treatment. He occasionally
sacrificed one or two when a consultation was held, and he was
called upon to prescribe secundum artem; but he compensated for
this professional slaying by, in other cases, leaving matters to
Nature, who was the active partner in his firm, and of whose success
he was not in the least degree jealous. So, when he had written the
prescription, Master Guy fell a discoursing of the passion of love,
and that with a completeness and a variety of illustration as though
he were the author of the chapter on that subject in Burton’s
“Anatomy of Melancholy.” The doctor heard him to the end, gently
rubbing one side of his nose the while with the index-finger of his
right hand; and when his patient had concluded, the medical
gentleman smiled, hummed “Phillis is my only joy,” and left the room
with his head nodding like a Chinese Mandarin’s.
By this time the four o’clock sun was making green and gold pillars
of the trees in the neighboring wood, and Guy got up, looked at the
falling leaves, and thought of the autumn of his hopes. He whistled
“Down, derry, down,” with a marked emphasis on the down; but
suddenly his hopes again sprang up, as he beheld Phillis among her
flower-beds, engaged in the healthful occupation which a sublime
poet has given to the heroine whom he names, and whose action he
describes, when he tells us that

“Miss Dinah was a-walking in her garding one day.”

Guy trussed his points, pulled up his hose, set his bonnet smartly on
his head, clapped a bodkin on his thigh, and then walked into the
garden with the air of the once young D’Egville in a ballet, looking
after a nymph—which indeed was a pursuit he was much given to
when he was old D’Egville, and could no longer bound through his
ballets, because he was stiff in the joints.
Guy, of course, went down on one knee, and at once plunged into
the most fiery style of declaration, but Phillis had not read the Mrs.
Chapone of that day for nothing. She brought him back to prose and
propriety, and then the two started afresh, and they did talk! Guy felt
a little “streaked” at first, but he soon recovered his self-possession,
and it would have been edifying for the young mind to have heard
how these two pretty things spoke to, and answered each other in
moral maxims stolen from the top pages of their copy-books. They
poured them out by the score, and the proverbial philosophy they
enunciated was really the origin of the book so named by Martin
Tupper. He took it all from Phillis and Guy, whose descendants, of
the last name, were so famous for their school-books. This I expect
Mr. Tupper will (not) mention in his next edition.
After much profitable interchange of this sort of article, the lady
gently hinted that Master Guy was not indifferent to her, but that he
was of inferior birth, yet of qualities that made him equal with her;
adding, that hitherto he had done little but kill other people’s game,
whereas there were nobler deeds to be accomplished. And then she
bade him go in search of perilous adventures, winding up with the
toast and sentiment, “Master Guy, eagles do not care to catch flies.”
Reader, if you have ever seen the prince of pantomimists, Mr.
Payne, tear the hair of his theatrical wig in a fit of amorous despair,
you may have some idea as to the intensity with which Master Guy
illustrated his own desperation. He stamped the ground with such
energy that all the hitherto quiet aspens fell a-shaking, and their
descendants have ever since maintained the same fashion. Phillis
fell a-crying at this demonstration, and softened considerably. After a
lapse of five minutes, she had blushingly directed Master Guy to
“speak to papa.”
Now, of all horrible interviews, this perhaps is the most horrible.
Nelson used to say that there was only one thing on earth which he
dreaded, and that was dining with a mayor and corporation.
Doubtless it is dreadful, but what is it compared with looking a grave
man in the face, who has no sentiment into him, and whose first
remark is sure to be, “Well, sir, be good enough to tell me—what can
you settle on my daughter? What can you do to secure her
happiness?”
“Well,” said Guy, in reply to this stereotyped remark, “I can kill the
Dun cow on the heath. She has killed many herself who’ve tried the
trick on her; and last night she devoured crops of clover, and twice
as many fields of barley on your lordship’s estate.”
“First kill the cow, and then——,” said the earl with a smile; and
Shakespeare had the echo of this speech in his ear, when he began
the fifth act of his Othello. Now Guy was not easily daunted. If I
cared to make a pun, I might easily have said “cowed,” but in a grave
and edifying narrative this loose method of writing would be
extremely improper. Guy, then, was not a coward—nay, nothing is
hidden under the epithet. He tossed a little in bed that night as he
thought the matter over, and the next morning made sheets of paper
as crumpled as the cow’s horns, as he rejected the plans of assault
he had designed upon them, and sat uncertain as to what he should
do in behoof of his own fortune. He at length determined to go and
visit the terrible animal “incognito.” It is the very word used by one of
the biographers of Guy, an anonymous Northumbrian, who published
the life on a broad sheet, with a picture of Master Guy which might
have frightened the cow, and which is infinitely more ugly. Neither
the black-letter poem, the old play, nor the pamphlets or ballads, use
the term incognito, but all declare that Guy proceeded with much
caution, and a steel cuirass over his jerkin. I mention these things,
because without correctness my narrative would be worthless. I am
not imaginative, and would not embroider a plain suit of fact upon
any account.
Guy’s carefulness is to be proved. Here was a cow that had been
more destructive than ever Red Riding Hood’s Wolf was—that Count
Wolf, who used to snap up young maidens, and lived as careless of
respectability as was to be expected of a man once attached to a
“marching regiment,” and who turned monk. The cow was twelve
feet high, from the hoof to the shoulder, and eighteen feet long, from
the neck to the root of the tail. All the dragons ever heard of had
never been guilty of such devastation to life and property as this
terrible cow. Guy looked at her and did not like her. The cow
detected him and rushed at her prey. Guy was active, attacked her in
front and rear, as the allies did the forts of Bomarsund; very
considerably confused her by burying his battle-axe in her skull;
hung on by her tail as she attempted to fly; and finally gave her the
coup de grace by passing his rapier rapidly and repeatedly through
her especially vulnerable point behind the ear. In proof of the fact,
the scene of the conflict still bears the name of Dunsmore Heath,
and that is a wider basis of proof than many “facts” stand upon, to
which we are required by plodding teachers to give assent.
Besides, there is a rib of this very cow exhibited at Bristol. To be sure
it is not a rib now of a cow, but out of reverence to the antiquity of the
assertion which allegedly makes it so, I think we are bound to
believe what is thus advanced. Not that I do myself, but that is of no
consequence. I have a strong idea that the cow was not a cow, but a
countess (not a Countess Cowper), who made war in her own right,
lived a disreputable life, was as destructive to wealthy young lords as
a Lorette, and won whole estates by cheating at écarté. Guy took a
hand, and beat her.
Poor Master Guy, he was as hardly used as ever Jacob was, and
much he meditated thereupon in the fields at eventide. The stern earl
would by no means give his consent to the marriage of his daughter
with the young champion, until the latter had performed some
doughtier deeds than this. The boy (he was still in his teens) took
heart of grace, divided a crooked sixpence with Phillis, and
straightway sailed for Normandy, where he arrived, after meeting as
many thieves by the way as if he had walked about for a month in
the streets of Dover. But Master Guy killed all he met; there is a
foolish judicial, not to say social, prejudice against our doing the
same with the bandits of Dover. I can not conjecture why; perhaps
they have a privilege under some of the city companies, whereby
they are constituted the legal skinners of all sojourners among them,
carrying filthy lucre.
Guy met in Normandy with the last person he could have expected
to fall in with—no other than the Emperor of Almayne, a marvellously
ubiquitous person to be met with in legends, and frequently
encountered in the seaports of inland towns. The historians are here
a little at issue. One says that Master Guy having found a certain
Dorinda tied to the stake, and awaiting a champion who would stake
his own life for her rescue, inquired the “antecedents” of the position.
Dorinda, it appears, had been as rudely used as young lady possibly
could be, “by the Duke of Blois, his son,” and the duke was so
enraged at Dorinda’s charge against his favorite Otto, that he
condemned her to be burned alive, unless a champion appeared in
time to rescue her by defeating the aforesaid Otto in single combat.
Guy, of course, transacted the little business successfully; spoiled
Otto’s beauty by slashing his nose; and so enchanted Dorinda, that
she never accused her champion of doing aught displeasing to her.
Anxious as I am touching the veracity of this narrative, I have
recorded what biographers state, though not in their own words. But
I must add, that in some of the histories this episode about Dorinda
is altogether omitted, and we only hear of Master Guy appearing in
panoply at a tournament given by the Emperor of Allemagne, in
Normandy—which is much the same, gentle reader, as if I were, at
your cost, to give a concert and ball, with a supper from Farrance’s,
and all, not in my house, but in yours. Nevertheless, in Normandy
the tournament was held, and the paternal Emperor of Allemagne,
having then a daughter, Blanche, of whom he wished to get rid, he
set her up as the prize of the conquering knight in the tournament.
I think I hear you remark something as to the heathenness of the
custom. But it is a custom sacred to these times; and our neighbors
(for of course neither you nor I could condescend to such manners)
get up evening tournaments of whist, quadrilles, and a variety of
singing—of every variety but the good and intelligible, and at these
modern tournaments given for the express purpose which that
respectable old gentleman, the Emperor of Allemagne, had in view
when he opened his lists; the “girls” are the prizes of the carpet-
knights. So gentlemen, faites votre jeu, as the philosopher who
presided at Frescati’s used to say—faites votre jeu, Messieurs; and
go in and win. Perhaps if you read Cowper, you may be the better
armed against loss in such a conflict.
I need not say that Master Guy’s good sword, which gleamed like
lightning in the arena, and rained blows faster than ever Mr.
Blanchard rained them, in terrific Coburg combats, upon the
vulnerable crest of Mr. Bradley—won for him the peerless prize—to
say nothing of a dog and a falcon thrown in. Master Guy rather
ungallantly declined having the lady, though her father would have
given him carte blanche; he looked at her, muttered her name, and
then murmured, “Blanche, as thou art, yet art thou black-a-moor,
compared with my Phillis;”—and with this unchivalric avowal, for it
was a part of chivalry to say a thing and think another, he returned to
England, carrying with him the “Spaniel King’s Charls,” as French
authors write it, and the falcon, with a ring and a perch, like a huge
parroquet.
Master Guy entered Warwick in a “brougham,” as we now might say,
and sorely was he put to it with the uneasy bird. At every lurch of the
vehicle, out flapped the wings, elongated was the neck, and Master
Guy had to play at “dodge” with the falcon, who was intent upon
darting his terrific beak into the cavalier’s nose. At length, however,
the castle was safely reached; the presents were deposited at the
feet of Phillis the Fair, and Guy hoped, like the Peri, and also like that
gentle spirit to be disappointed, that the gates of paradise were
about to open. But not so, Phillis warmly praised his little regard for
that pert minx, Blanche, or Blanc d’Espagne, as she wickedly added;
and she patted the spaniel, and offered sugar to the falcon; and,
after the dinner to which Guy was invited, she intimated in whispers,
that they were both “too young as yet” (not that she believed so), and
that more deeds must be done by Guy, ere the lawyers would be
summoned by her papa to achieve some of their own.
The youthful Guy went forth “reluctant but resolved,” and he would
have sung as he went along,

“Elle a quinze ans, moi j’en ai seize,”

of Sedaine and Grétry, only neither poet nor composer, nor the opera
of Richard Cœur de Lion, had yet appeared to gladden heart and
ear. But the sentiment was there, and perhaps Sedaine knew of it
when he penned the words. However this may be, Master Guy,
though soft of heart, was not so of arm, for on this present cause of
errantry he enacted such deeds that their very enumeration makes
one breathless. His single sword cleared whole forests of hordes of
brigands, through whose sides his trenchant blade passed as easily
as the sabre, when held by Corporal Sutton, through a dead sheep.
Our hero was by no means particular as to what he did, provided he
was doing something; nor what cause he fought for, provided there
were a cause and a fight. Thus we find him aiding the Duke of
Louvain against his old friend the Emperor of Allemagne. He led the
Duke’s forces, slew thousands upon thousands of the enemy, and,
as though he had the luck of a modern Muscovite army, did not lose
more than “one man,” with slight damage to the helmet of a second.
Master Guy, not yet twenty, surpassed the man whom Mr. Thiers
calls “ce pur Anglais,” Mr. Pitt, for he became a prime minister ere he
had attained his majority. In that capacity he negotiated a peace for
the Duke with the Emperor. The two potentates were so satisfied
with the negotiator, that out of compliment they offered him the
command of their united fleet against the Pagan Soldan of
Byzantium. They did not at all expect that he would accept it; but
then they were not aware that Master Guy had much of the spirit
which Sidney Smith, in after-years, discerned in Lord John Russell—
and the enterprising Guy accepted the command of the entire fleet,
with quite an entire confidence.
He did therewith, if chroniclers are to be credited, more than we
might reasonably expect from Lord John Russell, were that
statesman to be in command of a Channel squadron. Having swept
the sea, he rather prematurely, if dates are to be respected, nearly
annihilated Mohammedanism—and he was as invincible and
victorious against every kind of Pagan. It was in the East that he
overthrew in single combat, the giants Colbron and his brother
Mongadora. He was resting after this contest, and leaning like the
well-breathed Hotspur, upon his sword, at the entrance to his tent,
when the Turkish governor Esdalante, approaching him, politely
begged that he might take his head, as he had promised the same to
an Osmanlee lady, who was in a condition of health which might be
imperilled by refusal. Master Guy as politely bade him take it if he
could, and therewith, they went at it “like French falconers,” and Guy
took off the head of his opponent instead of losing his own. This little
matter being settled, Guy challenged the infidel Soldan himself,
putting Christianity against Islamism, on the issue, and thus
professing to decide questions of faith as Galerius did when he left
Olympus and Calvary to depend upon a vote of the Roman senate.
Master Guy, being thrice armed by the justness of his quarrel,
subdued the infidel Soldan, but the latter, to show, as we are told, his
insuperable hatred for Christianity, took handfuls of his own blood,
and cast it in the face of his conqueror—and no doubt here, the
victor had in his mind the true story of Julian insulting “the Galilæan.”
We thus see how history is made to contribute to legend.
And now the appetite of the errant lover grew by what it fed upon. He
mixed himself up in every quarrel, and could not see a lion and a
dragon quietly settling their disputes in a wood, by dint of claws,
without striking in for the lion, slaying his foe, and receiving with
complacency the acknowledgments of the nobler beast.
He achieved something more useful when he met Lord Terry in a
wood, looking for his wife who had been carried off by a score of
ravishers. While the noble lord sat down on a mossy bank, like a
gentleman in a melodrama, Guy rescued his wife in his presence,
and slew all the ravishers, “in funeral order,” the youngest first. He
subsequently stood godfather to his friend Terry’s child, and as I am
fond of historical parallels, I may notice that Sir Walter Scott
performed the same office for a Terry, who if he was not a lord, often
represented them, to say nothing of monarchs and other characters.
Master Guy’s return to England was a little retarded by another
characteristic adventure. As he was passing through Louvain, he
found Duke Otto besieging his father in his own castle—“governor”
of the castle and the Duke. Now nothing shocked Master Guy so
much as filial ingratitude, and despite all that Otto could urge about
niggardly allowance, losses at play, debts of honor, and the
parsimony of the “governor,” our champion made common cause
with the “indignant parent,” and not only mortally wounded Otto, but,
before the latter died, Guy brought him to a “sense of his situation,”
and Otto died in a happy frame of mind, leaving all his debts to his
father. The legacy was by way of a “souvenir,” and certainly the
governor never forgot it. As for Guy, he killed the famous boar of
Louvain, before he departed for England, and as he drew his sword
from the animal’s flank, he remarked, there lies a greater boar, and
not a less beast than Otto himself. However, he took the head and
hams with him, for Phillis was fond of both; and as she was wont to
say, if there was anything that could seduce her, it was brawn!
When Master Guy stepped ashore at Harwich, where that
amphibious town now lies soaking, deputations from all quarters
were awaiting him, to ask his succor against some terrible dragon in
the north that was laying waste all the land, and laying hold of all the
waists which the men there wished to enclose. King Athelstan was
then at York hoping to terrify the indomitable beast by power of an
army, which in combat with the noxious creature made as long a tail,
in retreat, as the dragon itself.
Now whatever this nuisance was which so terribly plagued the good
folks in the North, whether a dragon with a tongue thirty feet long, or
anything else equally hard to imagine, it is matter of fact that our
Master Guy assuredly got the better of it. On his return he met an
ovation in York; Athelstan entertained him at a banquet, covered him
with honor, endowed him with a good round sum, and thus all the
newborn male children in the county became Guys. At least two
thirds of them received the popular name, and for many centuries it
remained in favor, until disgrace was brought upon it by the York
proctor’s son, whose effigy still glides through our streets on each
recurring 5th of November.
I will not pause on this matter. I will only add that the Earl of Warwick,
finding Guy a man whom the King delighted to honor, accepted him
for a son-in-law; and then, ever wise, and civil, and proper, he
discreetly died. The King made Guy Earl of Warwick, in his place,
and our hero being now a married man, he of course ceased to be
Master Guy.
And here I might end my legend, but that it has a moral in it Guy did
a foolish but a common thing, he launched out into extravagant
expenses, and, suddenly, he found himself sick, sad, and insolvent.
Whether, therewith, his wife was soured, creditors troublesome, and
bailiffs presuming, it is hard to say. One thing, however, is certain,
that to save himself from all three, Earl Guy did what nobles often do
now, in the same predicament, “went abroad.” Guy, however,
travelled in primitive style. He went on foot, and made his inn
o’nights in church-yards, where he colloquized with the skulls after
the fashion of Hamlet with the skull of “poor Yorick.” He had given
out that he was going to Jerusalem, but hearing that the Danes were
besieging Athelstan at Winchester, he went thither, and, in modest
disguise, routed them with his own unaided hand. Among his
opponents, he met with the giant Colbron whom he had previously
slain in Orient lands, and the two fought their battles o’er again, and
with such exactly similar results as to remind one of the peculiar
philosophy of Mr. Boatswain Cheeks.
This appearance of Colbron in two places is a fine illustration of the
“myth,” and I mention it expressly for the benefit of the next edition of
the Right Reverend Doctor Whateley’s “Historical Fallacies.” But to
resume.
Guy, imparting a confidential statement of his identity and intentions
to the King, left him, to take up his abode in a cave, in a cliff, near his
residence; and at the gates of his own castle he received, in the
guise of a mendicant, alms of money and bread, from the hands of
his wife. I strongly suspect that the foundation of this section of our
legend rests upon the probable fact that Phillis was of that quality
which is said to belong to gray mares; and that she led Guy a life
which made him a miserable Guy indeed; and that the poor
henpecked man took to bad company abroad, and met with small
allowance of everything but reproach at home And so he “died.”
A dramatic author of Charles I.’s reign, has, however, resuscitated
him in “A Tragical History of Guy, Earl of Warwick,” enacted several
times in presence of that monarch, and professedly written by a
certain “B. J.,” whom I do not at all suspect of being Ben Jonson.
The low comedy portion of this tragic drama is of the filthiest sort,
dealing in phrases and figures which I can hardly conceive would
now be tolerated in the lowest den of St. Giles’s, certainly not out of
it. If Charles heard this given more than once, as the titlepage
intimates, “more shame for him.” If his Queen was present, she
haply may not have understood the verba ad summam caveam
spectantia, and if a daughter could have been at the royal
entertainment, why then the very idea revolts one, and pity is almost
lost in indignation. That the author himself thought well of the piece,
which he printed in 1661, is proved by the defiant epigraph which
says:—

“Carpere vel noli nostra vel ede tua.”

I must not devote much space to a retrospective review of this piece,

particularly as the action begins after Guy has ceased to be “Master,”
and when, on his announcement of going to Jerusalem (perhaps to
the Jews to do a little business in bills), Phillis makes some matronly
remarks in a prospective sense, and a liberty of illustration which
would horrify a monthly nurse.
However, Guy goes forth and meets with a giant so huge, that his
squire Sparrow says it required four-and-twenty men to throw
mustard in his mouth when he dined. From such giants, Heaven
protects the errant Guy, and with a troop of fairies, wafts him to
Jerusalem. Here he finds Shamurath of Babylon assaulting the city,
but Guy heaps miracle on miracle of valor, and produces such
astounding results that Shamurath, who is a spectator of the deeds
and the doer; inquires, with a suspicion of Connaught in the accent
of the inquiry, “What divil or man is this?”
The infidel is more astonished than ever when Guy, after defeating
him, takes him into controversy, and laying hold of him as Dr.
Gumming does of Romanism, so buffets his belief that, the soldier,
fairly out of breath and argument, gives in, and declares himself a
Christian, on conviction.
During one-and-twenty years, Guy has a restless life through the five
acts of this edifying tragedy, and when he is seen again in England,
overcoming the Danes, he intimates to Athelstan that he has six
years more to pass in disguise, ere a vow, of which we have before
heard nothing, will be fulfilled. Athelstan receives all that is said, in
confidence; and promises affably, “upon my word,” not to betray the
secret. Guy is glad to hear that Phillis is “pretty well;” and then he
takes up his residence as I have before told, according to the legend.
He and an Angel occasionally have a little abstruse disquisition; but
the most telling scene is doubtless where the bread is distributed to
the beggars, by Phillis. Guy is here disguised as a palmer, and Phillis
inquires if he knew the great Earl, to which Guy answers, with a wink
of the eye, that he and the Earl had often drank at the same crystal
spring. But Phillis is too dull, or too melancholy to trace her way
through so sorry a joke.
And now, just as the hour of completion of the vowed time of his
disguise, Guy takes to dying, and in that state he is found by
Rainhorn, the son who knows him not. He sends a token by the
young fellow to Phillis, who begins to suspect that the palmer who
used to be so particular in asking for “brown bread” at her gate, must
be the “Master Guy” of the days of sunny youth, short kirtles, and
long love-making. Mother and son haste to the spot, but the vital
spark has fled. Phillis exclaims, with much composed thought, not
unnatural in a woman whose husband has been seven-and-twenty
years away from home, and whose memory is good: “If it be he, he
has a mould-wart underneath his ear” to which the son as
composedly remarks, “View him, good mother, satisfy your mind.”
Thereupon the proper identification of the “party” is established; and
the widow is preparing to administer, without will annexed, when
Rainhorn bids her banish sorrow, as the King is coming. The son
evidently thinks the honor of a living king should drown sorrow for a
deceased parent; just as a Roman family that can boast of a Pope in
it, does not put on mourning even when that Pope dies; the having
had him, being considered a joy that no grief should diminish.
Athelstan is evidently a King of Cockayne, for he affably expresses
surprise at the old traveller’s death, seeing, says his Majesty, that “I
had appointed for to meet Sir Guy” to which the son, who has now
succeeded to the estate, replies, in the spirit of an heir who has been
waiting long for an inheritance:—“that the death has happened, and
can not now be helped.”
But the most remarkable matter in this tragedy is that uttered by
Time, who plays prologue, epilogue, and interlude between the acts.
Whatever Charles may have thought of the piece, he was doubtless
well-pleased with Time, who addresses the audience in verse, giving
a political turn to the lesson on the stage. I dare say the following
lines were loudly applauded, if not by the king, by the gallants,
courtiers, and cavaliers generally:—

“In Holy Land abroad Guy’s spirits roam,

And not in deans and chapters’ lands at home.
His sacred fury menaceth that nation,
Which held Judea under sequestration.
He doth not strike at surplices and tippets,
To bring an olio in of sects and sippets;
But deals his warlike and death-doing blows
Against his Saviour’s and his sov’reign’s foes.”

How the Royalist throats must have roared applause, and

warrantably too, at these genial lines; and how must the churchmen
in the pit have stamped with delight when Time subsequently
assured them that Guy took all his Babylonian prisoners to
Jerusalem, and had them probably christened by episcopally-
ordained ministers! If the house did not ring with the cheers of the
Church-and-King audience there, why they were unworthy of the
instruction filtered through legend and tragedy.
Such is the story of “Master Guy;” a story whose incidents have
doubtless meaning in them, but which were never turned to more
practical purpose than when they were employed to support a
tottering altar and a fallen throne. Reader, let us drink to the immortal
memory of Master Guy; and having seen what sort of man he was
whom the king delighted to honor, let us see what honors were
instituted by kings for other deserving men.
 GARTERIANA.
“Honor! Your own worth before
Hath been sufficient preparation.”— The Maid’s Revenge.

A brief sketch of the history of the foundation of the Order of the

Garter will be found in another page. Confining myself here to
anecdotical detail, I will commence by observing, that in former
times, no Knight could be absent from two consecutive feasts of the
order, without being fined in a jewel, which he was to offer at St.
George’s altar. The fine was to be doubled every year, until he had
made atonement. Further, every knight was bound to wear the
Garter in public, wherever he might be, on pain of a mulct of half a
mark. Equally obligatory was it on the knight, in whatever part of the
world he was residing, or however he was engaged, to wear the
sanguine mantle of the order from the eve of St. George till vesper-
time on the morrow of the festival. Some of the chevaliers who were
in distant lands must have caused as much surprise by their
costume, as a Blue-coat boy does, wandering in his strangely-
colored garb, in the streets of Paris. I need not allude to the absurd
consequence which would attend the enforcing of this arrangement
in our own days. Hunting is generally over before the eve of St.
George’s day, and therefore a robed Knight of the Garter could never
be seen taking a double fence, ditch and rail, at the tail of the
“Melton Mowbray.” But even the sight of half a dozen of them riding
down Parliament street at the period in question, would hardly be a
stranger spectacle. A slight money offering of a penny exempted any
rather loose-principled knight from attending divine service at St.
George’s Chapel when he was in or near Windsor. When a knight
died, all his surviving comrades were put to the expense of causing a
certain number of masses to be said for his soul. The sovereign-lord
of the order had one thousand masses chanted in furtherance of his
rescue from purgatory. There was a graduated scale through the
various ranks till the knight-bachelor was come to. For him, only one
hundred masses were put up. This proves either that the knight’s
soul was not so difficult of deliverance from what Prince Gorschakoff
would call the “feu d’enfer,” or that the King’s was so heavily pressed
to the lowest depths of purgatory by its crimes, that it required a
decupled effort before it could be rescued.
“Companionship,” it may be observed, profited a knight in some
degree if, being knave as well as knight, he fell under the usual
sentence of being “drawn, hanged, and beheaded.” In such case, a
Knight of the Garter only suffered decapitation, as Sir Simon Burley
in 1388. The amount of favor shown to the offending knight did not
admit of his being conscious of much gratitude to him at whose
hands it was received. It may be mentioned, that it did not always
follow that a nobleman elected to be knight willingly accepted the
proffered Garter. The first who refused it, after due election, in 1424,
was the Duke of Burgundy. He declined it with as much scorn as
Uhland did the star of merit offered to the poet by the present King of
Bavaria.
In treating of stage knights, I shall be found to have placed at their
head Sir John Falstaff. The original of that character according to
some namely, Sir John Fastolf, claims some notice here, as a Knight
of the Garter who was no more the coward which he was said to be,
than Falstaff is the bloated buffoon which some commentators take
him for. Sir John Fastolf was elected Knight of the Garter in 1426.
Monstrelet says he was removed from the order for running away,
without striking a blow, at the battle of Patay. Shakespeare’s popular
Sir John has nothing in common with this other Sir John, but we
have Falstolf himself in Henry VI. act iv. sc. 1, with Talbot, alluding to
his vow, that

“When I did meet thee next,

To tear the Garter from thy craven’s leg,
The which I have done, because unworthily
Thou wast installed in that high degree.”

This sort of suspension or personal deprivation was never allowed

by the rules of the order, which enjoined the forms for degrading a
knight who was proved to have acted cowardly. The battle of Patay