A Corant On the Heath, by Walter Pope

‘A Man Playing a Flute’, painted between 1630 and 1669 by an anonymous artist of the Dutch School. Pope’s ‘Memoirs’, published shortly after Du Vall was hanged in 1670, are a curious composition, full of dry humour, acerbic comment and jokes at the expense of English and French alike. He tells us, for example, that a desire to visit England had been implanted in Claude from the womb, ever since his expectant mother showed a sudden craving for pudding and mince pies which her doting husband had been at some pains to supply, eventually finding them on sale at an English provender stall in the market at Rouen, a hundred miles way. Claude, it seems, was born in Domfront, Normandy, in 1643, and lies buried in St Paul’s, Covent Garden.

A Corant On the Heath

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WHICH said, the Lacquey opens the Boot, out comes the Knight, Du Vall leaps lightly off his Horse, and hands the Lady out of the Coach. They Danc’d, and here it was that Du Vall performed marvels; the best Master in London, except those that are French not being able to shew such footing as he did in his great, riding French Boots.* The Dancing being over, he waits on the Lady to her Coach; as the Knight was going in, sayes Du Vall to him, Sir, You have forgot to pay the Musick: No, I have not, replies the Knight, and putting his hand under the seat of the Coach, puls out a Hundred pounds in a bag, and delivers it to him: Which Du Vall took with a very good grace, and courteously answered, Sir, You are liberal, and shall have no cause to repent your being so; this liberality of yours shall excuse you the other Three Hundred Pounds; and giving him the word, that, if he met with any more of the Crew, he might pass undisturb’d, he civilly takes his leave of him.

by Walter Pope ?-1714

original spelling

From ‘The Memoires of Monsieur Du Vall Containing the History of His Life and Death: Whereunto Are Annexed His Last Speech and Epitaph’ (1670) by Walter Pope (?-1714). The original spelling and capitalisation have been retained.

* “As I should have told you before,” says Pope a little further on, “there being no Violins, Du Vall sung the Corant himself.”

Précis

After the couple had danced on the neighbouring heath, Claude handed his partner back into her carriage, reminding her husband as he did so that the time had come to pay the piper. A hundred pounds was passed over with so little fuss that Claude gallantly renounced the £300 more that — as he knew — still lay concealed under the seat.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

Du Vall and the lady danced on the Heath. There were no musicians to play. Du Vall sang a courante.

See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.

IAs. IIAbsence. IIIInstead.

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