The Wooden O

A harmless, necessary cat

In the year before my birth, one Master William Baldwin publish'd Beware the Cat, which is now hail'd as the first novel in English. In this most merry tale (yet somewhat sharp in its satyr upon the faith of Rome), a man cometh by art magick to understand the speech of cat-kind, and to speak with them by moonlight.

Even so today, this Web of light in which we all are twined doth make the humble cat, without magic or other forbidden arts, to speak most feelingly. They be not, it seems, much learned in the Queen's English: indeed, I marvel that they be not better spoken, having lived so long amongst our kind. Howsomever, it seemeth some of these felines have turn'd scholar, and have taken to reading on my works. 'Tis a thing most strange, yet I confess me that these same cats have made me, indeed, to laugh out loud.

A pitiful thing

A pox o' this comment spam! May these base cullions who do so infest my site ne'er thrive!

Gentles, I profess would not ill-convenience you in any manner. Howsomever, my hand is somewhat forc'd, and I must in sadness henceforth require registration of any who would comment. I know 'tis a gall, but trust me, against the vile flood of spam 'tis but a trifle. Moreover, I here swear that I shall ne'er abuse thy details, nor give them out to any other.

I remain your obedient servant, and my delight at your words is as great as ever it hath been. Let not this paltry registration come betwixt us, I pray!

All hail MacBrown, that shall be King hereafter

And so the deep-revolving, witty Blair shall spin no more.

It were a great temptation to say "MacBrown hath murther'd spin", but his great speech in which he doth promise henceforth to clothe his coming reign in russet yeas and honest kersey noes doth rather prompt the hearer to think "This same Chancellor doth protest too much." For is not this determination of his, to be as blunt as Kent in my King Lear, but spin by another name?

I know not the answer. I know but this: that in all my mortal years, and all the years since, I did never see a politician overmuch given to honesty. Nay, they but used it as it suited their purpose, and threw it off when it grew to be a clog: these great men could make even honesty a very whore. Or perchance a betray'd wife, since she is ever true though they be ne'er so false.

Remember ye, gentles, how I did begin the second part of my Henry IV?

Enter Rumour, painted with many tongues

Were I to write the story of these same two most potent ministers, I should make my prologue so:

Enter Spin, painted with many faces.

How think you, my masters? Would this play serve?

He's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom

On this, the day on which my mortall body enter'd this breathing world some four hundred twoscore and three years gone, I am return'd to fill this page of insubstantial light with words light and insubstantial likewise.

Much hath passed since last I writ here, and many are the souls new come to join me and mine where we sit and quaff the golden ale of immortality. One such sits by me now, and raiseth up a glass: that most learnéd sir, Professor Tony Nuttall, lately come from Oxford. Here is one who, in life, knew me right well, as his book doth attest (yet he names me Shakespeare The Thinker! Methinks he doth flatter overmuch.) A better companion ne'er drain'd a glass; a better tutor ne'er gave a lecture; a finer man ne'er walked the green earth. Now he tradeth tales with Kit Marlowe, Ben Jonson and me (and that odd lean parson, Laurence Sterne, who cometh here expressly to speak with him. A strange fellow, but holds his drink well enow.)

I wax maudlin, I know; 'tis a fault with poets, be they drunk or sober, dead or living. It shall be my round anon, and I must to the tapster: only this I say, in parting.

If thou wouldst know me, Reader, look
Not on this Blog, but on his Book.