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diff --git a/31078.txt b/31078.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e4e3de --- /dev/null +++ b/31078.txt @@ -0,0 +1,24877 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3), by +Isaac Disraeli + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) + +Author: Isaac Disraeli + +Release Date: January 25, 2010 [EBook #31078] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE, VOL 3 *** + + + + +Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. + + BY + ISAAC DISRAELI. + + + + + A New Edition, + + EDITED, WITH MEMOIR AND NOTES, + + + BY HIS SON, + THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. + + + IN THREE VOLUMES. + + VOL. III. + + [Illustration] + + + LONDON: + FREDERICK WARNE AND CO. + AND NEW YORK + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME III. + + PAGE + LOCAL DESCRIPTIONS 1 + + MASQUES 4 + + OF DES MAIZEAUX, AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF ANTHONY COLLINS'S + MANUSCRIPTS 13 + + HISTORY OF NEW WORDS 23 + + THE PHILOSOPHY OF PROVERBS 32 + + CONFUSION OF WORDS 65 + + POLITICAL NICKNAMES 80 + + THE DOMESTIC LIFE OF A POET--SHENSTONE VINDICATED 90 + + SECRET HISTORY OF THE BUILDING OF BLENHEIM 102 + + SECRET HISTORY OF SIR WALTER RAWLEIGH 111 + + AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE OF THE LAST HOURS OF SIR WALTER + RAWLEIGH 124 + + LITERARY UNIONS 131 + + OF A BIOGRAPHY PAINTED 136 + + CAUSE AND PRETEXT 141 + + POLITICAL FORGERIES AND FICTIONS 144 + + EXPRESSION OF SUPPRESSED OPINION 150 + + AUTOGRAPHS 168 + + THE HISTORY OF WRITING-MASTERS 167 + + THE ITALIAN HISTORIANS 177 + + OF PALACES BUILT BY MINISTERS 186 + + "TAXATION NO TYRANNY" 193 + + THE BOOK OF DEATH 200 + + HISTORY OF THE SKELETON OF DEATH 206 + + THE RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS OF HEYLIN 215 + + OF LENGLET DU FRESNOY 221 + + THE DICTIONARY OF TREVOUX 229 + + QUADRIO'S ACCOUNT OF ENGLISH POETRY 233 + + "POLITICAL RELIGIONISM" 238 + + TOLERATION 245 + + APOLOGY FOR THE PARISIAN MASSACRE 255 + + PREDICTION 260 + + DREAMS AT THE DAWN OF PHILOSOPHY 280 + + ON PUCK THE COMMENTATOR 296 + + LITERARY FORGERIES 303 + + OF LITERARY FILCHERS 316 + + OF LORD BACON AT HOME 320 + + SECRET HISTORY OF THE DEATH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH 328 + + JAMES THE FIRST AS A FATHER AND A HUSBAND 333 + + THE MAN OF ONE BOOK 337 + + A BIBLIOGNOSTE 340 + + SECRET HISTORY OF AN ELECTIVE MONARCHY 346 + + BUILDINGS IN THE METROPOLIS, AND RESIDENCE IN THE COUNTRY 363 + + ROYAL PROCLAMATIONS 371 + + TRUE SOURCES OF SECRET HISTORY 380 + + LITERARY RESIDENCES 394 + + WHETHER ALLOWABLE TO RUIN ONESELF? 400 + + DISCOVERIES OF SECLUDED MEN 408 + + SENTIMENTAL BIOGRAPHY 414 + + LITERARY PARALLELS 425 + + THE PEARL BIBLES, AND SIX THOUSAND ERRATA 427 + + VIEW OF A PARTICULAR PERIOD OF THE STATE OF RELIGION IN OUR + CIVIL WARS 423 + + BUCKINGHAM'S POLITICAL COQUETRY WITH THE PURITANS 443 + + SIR EDWARD COKE'S EXCEPTIONS AGAINST THE HIGH SHERIFF'S OATH 446 + + SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST AND HIS FIRST PARLIAMENTS 448 + + THE RUMP 482 + + LIFE AND HABITS OF A LITERARY ANTIQUARY--OLDYS AND HIS + MANUSCRIPTS 493 + + INDEX 513 + + + + +CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. + +LOCAL DESCRIPTIONS. + + +Nothing is more idle, and, what is less to be forgiven in a writer, more +tedious, than minute and lengthened descriptions of localities; where it +is very doubtful whether the writers themselves had formed any tolerable +notion of the place they describe,--it is certain their readers never +can! These descriptive passages, in which writers of imagination so +frequently indulge, are usually a glittering confusion of unconnected +things; circumstances recollected from others, or observed by themselves +at different times; the finest are thrust in together. If a scene from +nature, it is possible that all the seasons of the year may be jumbled +together; or if a castle or an apartment, its magnitude or its +minuteness may equally bewilder. Yet we find, even in works of +celebrity, whole pages of these general or these particular descriptive +sketches, which leave nothing behind but noun substantives propped up by +random epithets. The old writers were quite delighted to fill up their +voluminous pages with what was a great saving of sense and thinking. In +the _Alaric_ of Scudery sixteen pages, containing nearly five hundred +verses, describe a palace, commencing at the _facade_, and at length +finishing with the garden; but his description, we may say, was much +better described by Boileau, whose good taste felt the absurdity of this +"abondance sterile," in overloading a work with useless details, + + Un auteur, quelquefois, trop plein de son objet, + Jamais sans l'epuiser n'abandonne un sujet. + S'il rencontre un palais il m'en depeint la face, + Il me promene apres de terrasae en terrasse. + Ici s'offre un perron, la regne un corridor; + La ce balcon s'enferme en un balustre d'or; + Il compte les plafonds, les ronds, et les ovales-- + Je saute vingt feuillets pour en trouver la fin; + Et je me sauve a peine au travers du jardin! + +And then he adds so excellent a canon of criticism, that we must not +neglect it:-- + + Tout ce qu'on dit de trop est fade et rebutant; + L'esprit rassasie le rejette a l'instant, + Qui ne sait se borner, ne sut jamais ecrire. + +We have a memorable instance of the inefficiency of local descriptions +in a very remarkable one by a writer of fine genius, composing with an +extreme fondness of his subject, and curiously anxious to send down to +posterity the most elaborate display of his own villa--this was the +_Laurentinum_ of Pliny. We cannot read his letter to Gallus, which the +English reader may in Melmoth's elegant version,[1] without somewhat +participating in the delight of the writer in many of its details; but +we cannot with the writer form the slightest conception of his villa, +while he is leading us over from apartment to apartment, and pointing to +us the opposite wing, with a "beyond this," and a "not far from thence," +and "to this apartment another of the same sort," &c. Yet, still, as we +were in great want of a correct knowledge of a Roman villa, and as this +must be the most so possible, architects have frequently studied, and +the learned translated with extraordinary care, Pliny's _Description of +his Laurentinum_. It became so favourite an object, that eminent +architects have attempted to raise up this edifice once more, by giving +its plan and elevation; and this extraordinary fact is the result--that +not one of them but has given a representation different from the other! +Montfaucon, a more faithful antiquary, in his close translation of the +description of this villa, in comparing it with Felibien's plan of the +villa itself, observes, "that the architect accommodated his edifice to +his translation, but that their notions are not the same; +unquestionably," he adds, "if ten skilful translators were to perform +their task separately, there would not be one who agreed with another!" + +If, then, on this subject of local descriptions, we find that it is +impossible to convey exact notions of a real existing scene, what must +we think of those which, in truth, describe scenes which have no other +existence than the confused makings-up of an author's invention; where +the more he details the more he confuses; and where the more particular +he wishes to be, the more indistinct the whole appears? + +Local descriptions, after a few striking circumstances have been +selected, admit of no further detail. It is not their length, but their +happiness, which enters into our comprehension; the imagination can only +take in and keep together a very few parts of a picture. The pen must +not intrude on the province of the pencil, any more than the pencil must +attempt to perform what cannot in any shape be submitted to the eye, +though fully to the mind. + +The great art, perhaps, of local description, is rather a general than a +particular view; the details must be left to the imagination; it is +suggestion rather than description. There is an old Italian sonnet of +this kind which I have often read with delight; and though I may not +communicate the same pleasure to the reader, yet the story of the writer +is most interesting, and the lady (for such she was) has the highest +claim to be ranked, like the lady of Evelyn, among _literary wives_. + +_Francesca Turina Bufalini di Citta di Castello_, of noble extraction, +and devoted to literature, had a collection of her poems published in +1628. She frequently interspersed little domestic incidents of her +female friend, her husband, her son, her grandchildren; and in one of +these sonnets she has delineated _her palace of San Giustino_, whose +localities she appears to have enjoyed with intense delight in the +company of "her lord," whom she tenderly associates with the scene. +There is a freshness and simplicity in the description, which will +perhaps convey a clearer notion of the spot than even Pliny could do in +the voluminous description of his _villa_. She tells us what she found +when brought to the house of her husband:-- + + Ampie salle, ampie loggie, ampio cortile + E stanze ornate con gentil pitture, + Trovai giungendo, e nobili sculture + Di marmo fatte, da scalpel non vile. + Nobil giardin con un perpetuo Aprile + Di varij fior, di frutti, e di verdure, + Ombre soavi, acque a temprar l'arsure + E strade di belta non dissimile; + E non men forte estel, che per fortezza + Ha il ponte, e i fianchi, e lo circonda intorno + Fosso profundo e di real larghezza. + Qui fei col mio Signore dolce soggiorno + Con santo amor, con somma contentezza + Onde ne benedico il mese e il giorno! + + Wide halls, wide galleries, and an ample court, + Chambers adorn'd by pictures' soothing charm, + I found together blended; noble sculpture + In marble, polish'd by no chisel vile; + A noble garden, where a lasting April + All-various flowers and fruits and verdure showers; + Soft shades, and waters tempering the hot air; + And undulating paths in equal beauty! + Nor less the castled glory stands in force, + And bridged and flanked. And round its circuit winds + The deepened moat, showing a regal size. + Here with my lord I cast my sweet sojourn, + With holy love, and with supreme content; + And hence I bless the month, and bless the day! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [1] Book ii. lett. 17. + + + + +MASQUES. + + +It sometimes happens, in the history of national amusements, that a name +survives while the thing itself is forgotten. This has been remarkably +the case with our court Masques, respecting which our most eminent +writers long ventured on so many false opinions, with a perfect +ignorance of the nature of these compositions, which combined all that +was exquisite in the imitative arts of poetry, painting, music, song, +dancing, and machinery, at a period when our public theatre was in its +rude infancy. Convinced of the miserable state of our represented drama, +and not then possessing that more curious knowledge of their domestic +history which we delight to explore, they were led into erroneous +notions of one of the most gorgeous, the most fascinating, and the most +poetical of dramatic amusements. Our present theatrical exhibitions are, +indeed, on a scale to which the twopenny audiences of the barn +playhouses of Shakspeare could never have strained their sight; and our +picturesque and learned _costume_, with the brilliant changes of our +scenery, would have maddened the "property-men" and the "tire-women" of +the Globe or the Red Bull.[2] Shakspeare himself never beheld the true +magical illusions of his own dramas, with "Enter the Red Coat," and +"Exit Hat and Cloak," helped out with "painted cloths;" or, as a bard of +Charles the Second's time chants-- + + Look back and see + The strange vicissitudes of poetrie; + Your aged fathers came to plays for wit, + And sat knee-deep in nut-shells in the pit. + +But while the public theatre continued long in this contracted state, +without scenes, without dresses, without an orchestra, the court +displayed scenical and dramatic exhibitions with such costly +magnificence, such inventive fancy, and such miraculous art, that we may +doubt if the combined genius of Ben Jonson, Inigo Jones, and Lawes, or +Ferobosco, at an era most favourable to the arts of imagination, has +been equalled by the modern _spectacle_ of the Opera. + +But this circumstance had entirely escaped the knowledge of our critics. +The critic of a Masque must not only have read it, but he must also have +heard and have viewed it. The only witnesses in this case are those +letter-writers of the day, who were then accustomed to communicate such +domestic intelligence to their absent friends: from such ample +correspondence I have often drawn some curious and sometimes important +information. It is amusing to notice the opinions of some great critics, +how from an original mis-statement they have drawn an illegitimate +opinion, and how one inherits from the other the error which he +propagates. Warburton said on Masques, that "Shakspeare was an enemy to +these _fooleries_, as appears by his writing none." This opinion was +among the many which that singular critic threw out as they arose at the +moment; for Warburton forgot that Shakspeare characteristically +introduces one in the _Tempest's_ most fanciful scene.[3] Granger, who +had not much time to study the manners of the age whose personages he +was so well acquainted with, in a note on Milton's Masque, said that +"these compositions were trifling and perplexed allegories, the persons +of which are fantastical to the last degree. Ben Jonson, in his 'Masque +of Christmas,' has introduced 'Minced Pie,' and 'Baby Cake,' who act +their parts in the drama.[4] But the most _wretched performances_ of +this kind could please by the help of music, machinery, and dancing." +Granger blunders, describing by two farcical characters a species of +composition of which farce was not the characteristic. Such personages +as he notices would enter into the Anti-masque, which was a humorous +parody of the more solemn Masque, and sometimes relieved it. Malone, +whose fancy was not vivid, condemns Masques and the age of Masques, in +which, he says, echoing Granger's epithet, "the _wretched taste_ of the +times found amusement." And lastly comes Mr. Todd, whom the splendid +fragment of the "Arcades," and the entire Masque, which we have by +heart, could not warm; while his neutralising criticism fixes him at the +freezing point of the thermometer. "This dramatic entertainment, +performed not without prodigious expense in machinery and decoration, to +_which humour_ we certainly owe the entertainment of 'Arcades,' and the +inimitable Mask of 'Comus.'" _Comus_, however, is only a fine dramatic +poem, retaining scarcely any features of the Masque. The only modern +critic who had written with some research on this departed elegance of +the English drama was Warton, whose fancy responded to the fascination +of the fairy-like magnificence and lyrical spirit of the Masque. Warton +had the taste to give a specimen from "The Inner Temple Mask by William +Browne," the pastoral poet, whose Address to Sleep, he observed, +"reminds us of some favourite touches in Milton's _Comus_, to which it +perhaps gave birth." Yet even Warton was deficient in that sort of +research which only can discover the true nature of these singular +dramas. + +Such was the state in which, some years ago, I found all our knowledge +of this once favourite amusement of our court, our nobility, and our +learned bodies of the four inns of court. Some extensive researches, +pursued among contemporary manuscripts, cast a new light over this +obscure child of fancy and magnificence. I could not think lightly of +what Ben Jonson has called "The Eloquence of Masques;" entertainments on +which from three to five thousand pounds were expended, and on more +public occasions ten and twenty thousand. To the aid of the poetry, +composed by the finest poets, came the most skilful musicians and the +most elaborate machinists; Ben Jonson, and Inigo Jones,[5] and Lawes +blended into one piece their respective genius; and Lord Bacon, and +Whitelocke, and Selden, who sat in committees for the last grand Masque +presented to Charles the First, invented the devices; composed the +procession of the Masquers and the Anti-Masquers; while one took the +care of the dancing or the brawlers, and Whitelocke the music--the sage +Whitelocke! who has chronicled his self-complacency on this occasion, by +claiming the invention of a _Coranto_, which for thirty years afterwards +was the delight of the nation, and was blessed by the name of +"Whitelocke's Coranto," and which was always called for, two or three +times over, whenever that great statesman "came to see a play!"[6] So +much personal honour was considered to be involved in the conduct of a +Masque, that even this committee of illustrious men was on the point of +being broken up by too serious a discussion concerning precedence; and +the Masque had nearly not taken place, till they hit on the expedient of +throwing dice to decide on their rank in the procession! On this +jealousy of honour in the composition of a Masque, I discovered, what +hitherto had escaped the knowledge, although not the curiosity, of +literary inquirers--the occasion of the memorable enmity between Ben +Jonson and Inigo Jones, who had hitherto acted together with brotherly +affection; "a circumstance," says Gifford, to whom I communicated it, +"not a little important in the history of our calumniated poet." The +trivial cause, but not so in its consequences, was the poet prefixing +his own name before that of the architect on the title-page of a Masque, +which hitherto had only been annexed;[7] so jealous was the great +architect of his _part_ of the Masque, and so predominant his power and +name at court, that he considered his rights invaded by the _inferior_ +claims of the poet! Jonson has poured out the whole bitterness of his +soul in two short satires: still more unfortunately for the subject of +these satires, they provoked Inigo to sharpen his pen on rhyme; but it +is edgeless, and the blunt composition still lies in its manuscript +state. + +While these researches had engaged my attention, appeared Gifford's +Memoirs of Ben Jonson. The characteristics of Masques are there, for the +first time, elaborately opened with the clear and penetrating spirit of +that ablest of our dramatic critics. I feel it like presumption to add +to what has received the finishing hand of a master; but his jewel is +locked up in a chest, which I fear is too rarely opened, and he will +allow me to borrow something from its splendour. "The Masque, as it +attained its highest degree of excellence, admitted of dialogue, +singing, and dancing; these were not independent of one another, but +combined, by the introduction of some ingenious fable, into an +harmonious whole. When the plan was formed, the aid of the sister-arts +was called in; for the essence of the Masque was pomp and glory. +Moveable scenery of the most costly and splendid kind was lavished on +the Masque; the most celebrated masters were employed on the songs and +dances; and all that the kingdom afforded of vocal and instrumental +excellence was employed to embellish the exhibition.[8] Thus +magnificently constructed, the Masque was not committed to ordinary +performers. It was composed, as Lord Bacon says, for princes, and by +princes it was played.[9] Of these Masques, the skill with which their +ornaments were designed, and the inexpressible grace with which they +were executed, appear to have left a vivid impression on the mind of +Jonson. His genius awakes at once, and all his faculties attune to +sprightliness and pleasure. He makes his appearance, like his own +Delight, 'accompanied with Grace, Love, Harmony, Revel, Sport, and +Laughter.' + + "In curious knot and mazes so + The Spring at first was taught to go; + And Zephyr, when he came to woo + His Flora, had his _motions_[10] too; + And thus did Venus learn to lead + The Idalian brawls, and so to tread, + As if the wind, not she, did walk, + Nor press'd a flower, nor bow'd a stalk. + +"But in what," says Gifford, "was the taste of the times _wretched_? In +poetry, painting, architecture, they have not since been equalled; and +it ill becomes us to arraign the taste of a period which possessed a +cluster of writers of whom the meanest would now be esteemed a prodigy." +Malone did not live to read this denouncement of his objection to these +Masques, as "bungling shows;" and which Warburton treats as "fooleries;" +Granger as "wretched performances;" while Mr. Todd regards them merely +as "the humour of the times!" + +Masques were often the private theatricals of the families of our +nobility, performed by the ladies and gentlemen at their seats; and were +splendidly got up on certain occasions: such as the celebration of a +nuptial, or in compliment to some great visitor. The Masque of Comus was +composed by Milton to celebrate the creation of Charles the First as +Prince of Wales; a scene in this Masque presented both the castle and +the town of Ludlow, which proves, that although our small public +theatres had not yet displayed any of the scenical illusions which long +afterwards Davenant introduced, these scenical effects existed in great +perfection in the Masques. The minute descriptions introduced by Thomas +Campion, in his "Memorable Masque," as it is called, will convince us +that the scenery must have been exquisite and fanciful, and that the +poet was always a watchful and anxious partner with the machinist, with +whom sometimes, however, he had a quarrel. + +The subject of this very rare Masque was "The Night and the Hours." It +would be tedious to describe the first scene with the fondness with +which the poet has dwelt on it. It was a double valley; one side, with +dark clouds hanging before it; on the other, a green vale, with trees, +and nine golden ones of fifteen feet high; from which grove, towards +"the State," or the seat of the king, was a broad descent to the +dancing-place: the bower of Flora was on the right, the house of Night +on the left; between them a hill, hanging like a cliff over the grove. +The bower of Flora was spacious, garnished with flowers and flowery +branches, with lights among them; the house of Night ample and stately, +with black columns studded with golden stars; within, nothing but clouds +and twinkling stars; while about it were placed, on wire, artificial +bats and owls, continually moving. As soon as the king entered the great +hall, the hautboys, out of the wood on the top of the hill, entertained +the time, till Flora and Zephyr were seen busily gathering flowers from +the bower, throwing them into baskets which two silvans held, attired in +changeable taffeta. The song is light as their fingers, but the burden +is charming:-- + + Now hath Flora robb'd her bowers + To befriend this place with flowers; + Strow about! strow about! + Divers, divers flowers affect + For some private dear respect; + Strow about! strow about! + But he's none of Flora's friend + That will not the rose commend; + Strow about! strow about! + +I cannot quit this Masque, of which, collectors know the rarity, without +preserving one of those Doric delicacies, of which, perhaps, we have +outlived the taste! It is a playful dialogue between a Silvan and an +Hour, while Night appears in her house, with her long black hair +spangled with gold, amidst her Hours; their faces black, and each +bearing a lighted black torch. + + SILVAN. Tell me, gentle Hour of Night, + Wherein dost thou most delight? + + HOUR. Not in sleep! + + SILVAN. Wherein then? + + HOUR. In the frolic view of men! + + SILVAN. Lov'st thou music? + + HOUR. Oh! 'tis sweet! + + SILVAN. What's dancing? + + HOUR. E'en the mirth of feet. + + SILVAN. Joy you in fairies and in elves? + + HOUR. We are of that sort ourselves! + But, Silvan! say, why do you love + Only to frequent the grove? + + SILVAN. Life is fullest of content + When delight is innocent. + + HOUR. Pleasure must vary, not be long! + Come then, let's close, and end the song! + +That the moveable scenery of these Masques formed as perfect a scenical +illusion as any that our own age, with all its perfection of decoration, +has attained to, will not be denied by those who have read the few +Masques which have been printed. They usually contrived a double +division of the scene; one part was for some time concealed from the +spectator, which produced surprise and variety. Thus in the Lord's +Masque, at the marriage of the Palatine, the scene was divided into two +parts, from the roof to the floor; the lower part being first +discovered, there appeared a wood in perspective, the innermost part +being of "releeve or whole round," the rest painted. On the left a cave, +and on the right a thicket, from which issued Orpheus. At the back part +of the scene, at the sudden fall of a curtain, the upper part broke on +the spectators, a heaven of clouds of all hues; the stars suddenly +vanished, the clouds dispersed; an element of artificial fire played +about the house of Prometheus--a bright and transparent cloud, reaching +from the heavens to the earth, whence the eight masquers descending with +the music of a full song; and at the end of their descent the cloud +broke in twain, and one part of it, as with a wind, was blown athwart +the scene. While this cloud was vanishing, the wood, being the under +part of the scene, was insensibly changing; a perspective view opened, +with porticoes on each side, and female statues of silver, accompanied +with ornaments of architecture, filling the end of the house of +Prometheus, and seemed all of goldsmiths' work. The women of Prometheus +descended from their niches, till the anger of Jupiter turned them again +into statues. It is evident, too, that the size of the proscenium, or +stage, accorded with the magnificence of the scene; for I find choruses +described, "and changeable conveyances of the song," in manner of an +echo, performed by more than forty different voices and instruments in +various parts of the scene. The architectural decorations were the pride +of Inigo Jones; such could not be trivial. + +"I suppose," says the writer of this Masque, "few have ever seen more +neat artifice than Master Inigo Jones showed in contriving their motion; +who, as all the rest of the workmanship which belonged to the whole +invention, showed extraordinary industry and skill, which if it be not +as lively expressed in writing as it appeared in view, rob not him of +his due, but lay the blame on my want of right apprehending his +instructions, for the _adoring_ of his art." Whether this strong +expression should be only _adorning_ does not appear in any errata; but +the feeling of admiration was fervent among the spectators of that day, +who were at least as much astonished as they were delighted. Ben +Jonson's prose descriptions of scenes in his own exquisite Masques, as +Gifford observes, "are singularly bold and beautiful." In a letter which +I discovered, the writer of which had been present at one of these +Masques, and which Gifford has preserved,[11] the reader may see the +great poet anxiously united with Inigo Jones in working the machinery. +Jonson, before "a sacrifice could be performed, turned the globe of the +earth, standing behind the altar." In this globe "the sea was expressed +heightened with silver waves, which stood, or rather hung (for no axle +was seen to support it), and _turning softly_, discovered the first +Masque,"[12] &c. This "turning softly" producing a very magical effect, +the great poet would trust to no other hand but his own! + +It seems, however, that as no Masque-writer equalled Jonson, so no +machinist rivalled Inigo Jones. I have sometimes caught a groan from +some unfortunate poet, whose beautiful fancies were spoilt by the +bungling machinist. One says, "The _order of this scene_ was carefully +and ingeniously disposed, and as happily put in act (for the _motions_) +by the king's master carpenter;" but he adds, "the _painters_, I must +needs say (not to belie them), lent small colour to any, to attribute +much of the spirit of these things to their pencil." Campion, in one of +his Masques, describing where the trees were gently to sink, &c., by an +engine placed under the stage, and in sinking were to open, and the +masquers appear out at their tops, &c., adds this vindictive marginal +note: "Either by the _simplicity_, _negligence_, or _conspiracy_ of the +_painter_, the passing away of the trees was somewhat hazarded, though +the same day they had been shown with much admiration, and were left +together to the same night;" that is, they were worked right at the +rehearsal, and failed in the representation, which must have perplexed +the nine masquers on the tops of these nine trees. But such accidents +were only vexations crossing the fancies of the poet: they did not +essentially injure the magnificence, the pomp, and the fairy world +opened to the spectators. So little was the character of these Masques +known, that all our critics seemed to have fallen into repeated +blunders, and used the Masques as Campion suspected his painters to have +done, "either by simplicity, negligence, or conspiracy." Hurd, a cold +systematic critic, thought he might safely prefer the Masque in the +_Tempest_, as "putting to shame all the Masques of Jonson, not only in +its _construction_, but in the _splendour_ of its show;"--"which," adds +Gifford, "was danced and sung by the ordinary performers to a couple of +fiddles, perhaps in the balcony of the stage." Such is the fate of +criticism without knowledge! And now, to close our Masques, let me apply +the forcible style of Ben Jonson himself: "The glory of all these +solemnities had perished like a blaze, and gone out in the beholder's +eyes; so short-lived are the bodies of all things in comparison of their +souls!"[13] + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [2] Sir Philip Sidney, in his "Defence of Poesy," 1595, alludes to + the custom of writing the supposed locality of each scene over the + stage, and asks, "What child is there that coming to a play, and + seeing _Thebes_ written in great letters on an old door, doth + believe that it is Thebes." As late as the production of Davenant's + _Siege of Rhodes_ (_circa_ 1656), this custom was continued, and is + thus described in the printed edition of the play:--"In the middle + of the frieze was a compartment wherein was written _Rhodes_." In + many instances the spectator was left to infer the locality of the + scene from the dialogue.--"Now," says Sidney, "you shall have three + ladies walke to gather flowers, and then we must believe the stage + to be a garden. By and by we heare newes of shipwracke in the same + place; then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock." In + Middleton's _Chaste Maid_, 1630, when the scene changes to a + bed-room, "a bed is thrust out upon the stage, Alwit's wife in it;" + which simple process was effected by pushing it through the curtains + that hung across the entrance to the stage, which at that time + projected into the pit. + + [3] The play of _Pyramus and Thisbe_, performed by the clowns in + Shakspeare's _Midsummer Night's Dream_, is certainly constructed in + burlesque of characters in court Masques, which sometimes were as + difficult to be made comprehensible to an audience as "the clowns of + Athens" found _Wall_ and _Moonshine_ to be. + + [4] It is due to a great poet like Ben Jonson, that, without + troubling the reader to turn to his works, we should give his own + description of these characters, to show that they were not the + "perplexed allegories" they are asserted to be by Granger; nor + inappropriate to the _Masque of Christmas_, for which they were + designed. MINCED-PIE was habited "like a fine cook's wife, drest + neat, her man carrying a pie, dish, and spoon." BABY-CAKE was "drest + like a boy, in a fine long coat, biggin-bib, muckender (or + handkerchief), and a little dagger; his usher bearing a great cake, + with a bean and a pease;" the latter being indicative of those + generally inserted in a Christmas cake, which, when cut into slices + and distributed, indicated by the presence of the bean the person + who should be king; the slice with the pea doing the same for the + queen. Neither of these characters speak, but make part of the show + to be described by Father Christmas. Jonson's inventive talent was + never more conspicuous than in the concoction of court Masques. + + [5] The first employment of these two great men was upon _The Masque + of Blackness_, performed at Whitehall on Twelfth-Night, 1603; and + which cost nearly 10,000_l._, of our present money. + + [6] The music of Whitelocke's _Coranto_ is preserved in Hawkins's + "History of Music." Might it be restored for the ladies as a waltz? + + [7] This was _Chloridia_, a Masque performed by the queen and her + ladies at court, on Shrovetide, 1630; upon the title-page of which + is printed "the inventors--Ben Jonson, Inigo Jones." Jonson was, by + reason of the influence of Inigo, deprived of employ at court ever + after, supplanted by other poets named by the architect, and among + them Heywood, Shirley, and Davenant. + + [8] George Chapman's _Memorable Maske_, performed at Whitehall, + 1630, by the gentlemen of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn, cost + the latter society nearly 2000_l._ for their share of the expenses. + + [9] Ben Jonson records the names of the noble ladies and gentlemen + who enacted his inventions at court. + + [10] The figures and actions of dancers in Masques were called motions. + + [11] Memoirs of Jonson, p. 88. + + [12] See Gifford's Jonson, vol. vii. p. 78. This performance was in + the _Masque of Hymen_, enacted at court in 1605, on the occasion of + the marriage of the Earl of Essex to the daughter of the Earl of + Suffolk. + + [13] Splendour ultimately ruined these works; they ended in gaudy + dresses and expensive machinery, but poetry was not associated with + them. The youthful days of Louis XIV. raised them to a height of + costly luxuriance to sink them ever after in oblivion. + + + + +OF DES MAIZEAUX, AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF ANTHONY COLLINS'S MANUSCRIPTS. + + +Des Maizeaux was an active literary man of his day, whose connexions +with Bayle, St. Evremond, Locke, and Toland, and his name being set off +by an F.R.S., have occasioned the dictionary-biographers to place him +prominently among their "hommes illustres." Of his private history +nothing seems known. Having something important to communicate +respecting one of his friends, a far greater character, with whose fate +he stands connected, even Des Maizeaux becomes an object of our inquiry. + +He was one of those French refugees whom political madness or despair of +intolerance had driven to our shores. The proscription of Louis XIV., +which supplied us with our skilful workers in silk, also produced a race +of the unemployed, who proved not to be as exquisite in the handicraft +of book-making; such were _Motteux_, _La Coste_, _Ozell_, _Durand_, and +others. Our author had come over in that tender state of youth, just in +time to become half an Englishman: and he was so ambidextrous in the +languages of the two great literary nations of Europe, that whenever he +took up his pen, it is evident by his manuscripts, which I have +examined, that it was mere accident which determined him to write in +French or in English. Composing without genius, or even taste, without +vivacity or force, the simplicity and fluency of his style were +sufficient for the purposes of a ready dealer in all the _minutiae +literariae_; literary anecdotes, curious quotations, notices of obscure +books, and all that _supellex_ which must enter into the history of +literature, without forming a history. These little things, which did so +well of themselves, without any connexion with anything else, became +trivial when they assumed the form of voluminous minuteness; and Des +Maizeaux at length imagined that nothing but anecdotes were necessary to +compose the lives of men of genius! With this sort of talent he produced +a copious life of Bayle, in which he told everything he possibly could; +and nothing can be more tedious, and more curious: for though it be a +grievous fault to omit nothing, and marks the writer to be deficient in +the development of character, and that sympathy which throws inspiration +over the vivifying page of biography, yet, to admit everything, has this +merit--that we are sure to find what we want! Warburton poignantly +describes our Des Maizeaux, in one of those letters to Dr. Birch which +he wrote in the fervid age of study, and with the impatient vivacity of +his genius, "Almost all the life-writers we have had before Toland and +Des Maizeaux are indeed strange, insipid creatures; and yet I had rather +read the worst of them, than be obliged to go through with this of +Milton's, or the other's life of Boileau; where there is such a dull, +heavy succession of long quotations of uninteresting passages, that it +makes their method quite nauseous. But the verbose, tasteless Frenchman +seems to lay it down as a principle, that every life must be a +book,--and, what is worse, it seems a book without a life; for what do +we know of Boileau after all his tedious stuff?" + +Des Maizeaux was much in the employ of the Dutch booksellers, then the +great monopolisers in the literary mart of Europe. He supplied their +"nouvelles litteraires" from England; but the work-sheet price was very +mean in those days. I have seen annual accounts of Des Maizeaux settled +to a line for four or five pounds; and yet he sent the "Novelties" as +fresh as the post could carry them! He held a confidential +correspondence with these great Dutch booksellers, who consulted him in +their distresses; and he seems rather to have relieved them than +himself. But if he got only a few florins at Rotterdam, the same +"nouvelles litteraires" sometimes secured him valuable friends at +London; for in those days, which perhaps are returning on us, an English +author would often appeal to a foreign journal for the commendation he +might fail in obtaining at home; and I have discovered, in more cases +than one, that, like other smuggled commodities, the foreign article was +often of home manufactory! + +I give one of these curious bibliopolical distresses. Sauzet, a +bookseller at Rotterdam, who judged too critically for the repose of his +authors, seems to have been always fond of projecting a new "Journal;" +tormented by the ideal excellence which he had conceived of such a work, +it vexed him that he could never find the workmen! Once disappointed of +the assistance he expected from a writer of talents, he was fain to put +up with one he was ashamed of; but warily stipulated on very singular +terms. He confided this precious literary secret to Des Maizeaux. I +translate from his manuscript letter. + +"I send you, my dear Sir, four sheets of the continuation of my journal, +and I hope this second part will turn out better than the former. The +author thinks himself a very able person; but I must tell you frankly, +that he is a man without erudition, and without any critical +discrimination; he writes pretty well, and turns passably what he says; +but that is all! Monsieur Van Effen having failed in his promises to +realise my hopes on this occasion, necessity compelled me to have +recourse to him; but for _six months only_, and on condition that he +should not, on any account whatever, _allow any one to know that he is +the author of the journal_; for his _name_ alone would be sufficient to +make even a passable book discreditable. As you are among my friends, I +will confide to you in secrecy the name of this author; it is Mons. _De +Limiers_.[14] You see how much my interest is concerned that the author +should not be known!" This anecdote is gratuitously presented to the +editors of certain reviews, as a serviceable hint to enter into the same +engagement with some of their own writers: for it is usually the _De +Limiers_ who expend their last puff in blowing their own name about the +town. + +In England, Des Maizeaux, as a literary man, made himself very useful to +other men of letters, and particularly to persons of rank: and he found +patronage and a pension,--like his talents, very moderate! A friend to +literary men, he lived amongst them, from "Orator" Henley, up to +Addison, Lord Halifax, and Anthony Collins. I find a curious character +of our Des Maizeaux in the handwriting of Edward, Earl of Oxford, to +whose father (Pope's Earl of Oxford) and himself the nation owes the +Harleian treasures. His lordship is a critic with high Tory principles, +and high-church notions. "This Des Maizeaux is a great man with those +who are pleased to be called _Freethinkers_, particularly with Mr. +Anthony Collins, collects passages out of books for their writings. His +Life of Chillingworth is wrote to please that set of men." The secret +history I am to unfold relates to Anthony Collins and Des Maizeaux. Some +curious book-lovers will be interested in the personal history of an +author they are well acquainted with, yet which has hitherto remained +unknown. He tells his own story in a sort of epistolary petition he +addressed to a noble friend, characteristic of an author, who cannot be +deemed unpatronised, yet whose name, after all his painful labours, +might be inserted in my "Calamities of Authors." + +In this letter he announces his intention of publishing a Dictionary +like Bayle; having written the life of Bayle, the next step was to +become himself a Bayle; so short is the passage of literary delusion! He +had published, as a specimen, the lives of Hales and Chillingworth. He +complains that his circumstances have not allowed him to forward that +work, nor digest the materials he had collected. + + A work of that nature requires a steady application, free from the + cares and avocations incident to all persons obliged to seek for + their maintenance. I have had the misfortune to be in the case of + those persons, and am now reduced to a pension on the Irish + establishment, which, deducting the tax of four shillings in the + pound, and other charges, brings me in about 40_l._ a year of our + English money.[15] This pension was granted to me in 1710, and I owe + it chiefly to the friendship of Mr. Addison, who was then secretary + to the Earl of Wharton, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. In 1711, 12, and + 14, I was appointed one of the Commissioners of the Lottery by the + interest of Lord Halifax. + + And this is all I ever received from the Government, though I had + some claim to the royal favour; for in 1710, when the enemies to our + constitution were contriving its ruin, I wrote a pamphlet entitled + "Lethe," which was published in Holland, and afterwards translated + into English, and twice printed in London; and being reprinted in + Dublin, proved so offensive to the ministry in Ireland, that it was + burnt by the hands of the hangman. But so it is, that after having + showed on all occasions my zeal for the royal family, and endeavoured + to make myself serviceable to the public by several books published; + after forty years' stay in England, and in an advanced age, I find + myself and family destitute of a sufficient livelihood, and suffering + from complaints in the head and impaired sight by constant + application to my studies. + + I am confident, my lord, he adds, that if the queen, to whom I was + made known on occasion of Thuanus's French translation, were + acquainted with my present distress, she would be pleased to afford + me some relief.[16] + +Among the confidential literary friends of Des Maizeaux, he had the +honour of ranking Anthony Collins, a great lover of literature, and a +man of fine genius, and who, in a continued correspondence with our Des +Maizeaux, treated him as his friend, and employed him as his agent in +his literary concerns. These, in the formation of an extensive library, +were in a state of perpetual activity, and Collins was such a true lover +of his books, that he drew up the catalogue with his own pen.[17] +Anthony Collins wrote several well-known works without prefixing his +name; but having pushed too far his curious inquiries on some obscure +and polemical points, he incurred the odium of a _freethinker_,--a term +which then began to be in vogue, and which the French adopted by +translating it, in their way, _a strong thinker_, or _esprit fort_. +Whatever tendency to "liberalise" the mind from _dogmas_ and _creeds_ +prevails in these works, the talents and learning of Collins were of the +first class. His morals were immaculate, and his personal character +independent; but the _odium theologicum_ of those days contrived every +means to stab in the dark, till the taste became hereditary with some. I +shall mention a fact of this cruel bigotry, which occurred within my own +observation, on one of the most polished men of the age. The late Mr. +Cumberland, in the romance entitled his "Life," gave this extraordinary +fact, that Dr. Bentley, who so ably replied by his "Remarks," under the +name of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, to Collins's "Discourse on +Free-thinking," when, many years after, he discovered him fallen into +great distress, conceiving that by having ruined Collins's character as +a writer for ever, he had been the occasion of his personal misery, he +liberally contributed to his maintenance. In vain I mentioned to that +elegant writer, who was not curious about facts, that this person could +never have been _Anthony_ Collins, who had always a plentiful fortune; +and when it was suggested to him that this "A. Collins," as he printed +it, must have been _Arthur_ Collins, the historical compiler, who was +often in pecuniary difficulties, still he persisted in sending the lie +down to posterity, _totidem verbis_, without alteration in his second +edition, observing to a friend of mine, that "the story, while it told +well, might serve as a striking instance of his great relative's +generosity; and that _it should stand_, because it could do no harm to +any but to _Anthony_ Collins, whom he considered as little short of an +atheist." So much for this pious fraud! but be it recollected that this +Anthony Collins was the confidential friend of Locke, of whom Locke +said, on his dying bed, that "Collins was a man whom he valued in the +first rank of those that he left behind him." And the last words of +Collins on his own death-bed were, that "he was persuaded he was going +to that place which God had designed for them that love him." The cause +of true religion will never be assisted by using such leaky vessels as +_Cumberland's_ wilful calumnies, which in the end must run out, and be +found, like the present, mere empty fictions! + +An extraordinary circumstance occurred on the death of Anthony Collins. +He left behind him a considerable number of his own manuscripts, there +was one collection formed into eight octavo volumes; and that they might +be secured from the common fate of manuscripts, he bequeathed them all, +and confided them to the care of our Des Maizeaux. The choice of Collins +reflects honour on the character of Des Maizeaux, yet he proved unworthy +of it! He suffered himself to betray his trust, practised on by the +earnest desire of the widow, and perhaps by the arts of a Mr. Tomlinson, +who appears to have been introduced into the family by the +recommendation of Dean Sykes, whom at length he supplanted, and whom the +widow, to save her reputation, was afterwards obliged to discard.[18] In +an unguarded moment he relinquished this precious _legacy of the +manuscripts_, and accepted _fifty guineas as a present_. But if Des +Maizeaux lost his honour in this transaction, he was at heart an honest +man, who had swerved for a single moment; his conscience was soon +awakened, and he experienced the most violent compunctions. It was in a +paroxysm of this nature that he addressed the following letter to a +mutual friend of the late Anthony Collins and himself. + + + SIR, _January 6, 1730._ + + I am very glad to hear you are come to town, and as you are my best + friend, now I have lost Mr. Collins, give me leave to open my heart + to you, and to beg your assistance in an affair which highly concerns + both Mr. Collins's (your friend) and my own honour and reputation. + The case, in few words, stands thus:--Mr. Collins by his last will + and testament left me his manuscripts. Mr. Tomlinson, who first + acquainted me with it, told me that Mrs. Collins should be glad to + have them, and I made them over to her; whereupon she was pleased to + present me with fifty guineas. I desired her at the same time to take + care they should be kept safe and unhurt, which she promised to do. + This was done the 25th of last month. Mr. Tomlinson, who managed all + this affair, was present. + + Now, having further considered that matter, I find that I have done a + most wicked thing. I am persuaded that I have betrayed the trust of a + person who, for twenty-six years, had given me continual instances of + his friendship and confidence. I am convinced that I have acted + contrary to the will and intention of my dear deceased friend; showed + a disregard to the particular mark of esteem he gave me on that + occasion; in short, that I have forfeited what is dearer to me than + my own life--honour and reputation. + + These melancholy thoughts have made so great an impression upon me, + that I protest to you I can enjoy no rest; they haunt me everywhere, + day and night. I earnestly beseech you, sir, to represent my unhappy + case to Mrs. Collins. I acted with all the simplicity and uprightness + of my heart; I considered that the MSS. would be as safe in Mrs. + Collins's hands as in mine; that she was no less obliged to preserve + them than myself; and that, as the library was left to her, they + might naturally go along with it. Besides, I thought I could not too + much comply with the desire of a lady to whom I have so many + obligations. But I see now clearly that this is not fulfilling Mr. + Collins's will, and that the duties of our conscience are superior to + all other regards. But it is in her power to forgive and mend what I + have done imprudently, but with a good intention. Her high sense of + virtue and generosity will not, I am sure, let her take any advantage + of my weakness; and the tender regard she has for the memory of the + best of men, and the tenderest of husbands, will not suffer that his + intentions should be frustrated, and that she should be the + instrument of violating what is most sacred. If our late friend had + designed that his MSS. should remain in her hands, he would certainly + have left them to her by his last will and testament; his acting + otherwise is an evident proof that it was not his intention. + + All this I proposed to represent to her in the most respectful + manner; but you will do it infinitely better than I can in this + present distraction of mind; and I flatter myself that the mutual + esteem and friendship which has continued so many years between Mr. + Collins and you, will make you readily embrace whatever tends to + honour his memory. + + I send you the fifty guineas I received, which I do now look upon as + the wages of iniquity; and I desire you to return them to Mrs. + Collins, who, as I hope it of her justice, equity, and regard to Mr. + Collins's intentions, will be pleased to cancel my paper. + + I am, &c., + + P. DES MAIZEAUX. + +The manuscripts were never returned to Des Maizeaux; for seven years +afterwards Mrs. Collins, who appears to have been a very spirited lady, +addressed to him the following letter on the subject of a report, that +she had permitted transcripts of these very manuscripts to get abroad. +This occasioned an animated correspondence from both sides. + + + SIR, _March 10, 1736-37_. + + I have thus long waited in expectation that you would ere this have + called on Dean Sykes, as Sir B. Lucy said you intended, that I might + have had some satisfaction in relation to a very unjust + reproach--viz., that I, or somebody that I had trusted, had + _betrayed_ some of the transcripts, or MSS., of Mr. Collins into the + Bishop of London's hands. I cannot, therefore, since you have not + been with the dean as was desired, but call on you in this manner, to + know what authority you had for such a reflection; or on what grounds + you went for saying that these transcripts are in the Bishop of + London's hands. I am determined to trace out the grounds of such a + report; and you can be no friend of mine, no friend of Mr. Collins, + no friend to common justice, if you refuse to acquaint me, what + foundation you had for such a charge. I desire a very speedy answer + to this, who am, Sir, + + Your servant, + + ELIZ. COLLINS. + + _To Mr. Des Maizeaux, at his lodgings next door to the Quakers' + burying-ground, Hanover-street, out of Long-Acre._ + + + TO MRS. COLLINS. + + _March 14, 1737._ + + I had the honour of your letter of the 10th inst., and as I find that + something has been misapprehended, I beg leave to set this matter + right. + + Being lately with some honourable persons, I told them it had been + reported that some of Mr. C.'s MSS. were fallen into the hands of + strangers, and that I should be glad to receive from you such + information as might enable me to disprove that report. What + occasioned this surmise, or what particular MSS. were meant, I was + not able to discover; so I was left to my own conjectures, which, + upon a serious consideration, induced me to believe that it might + relate to the MSS. in eight volumes in 8vo, of which there is a + transcript. But as the original and the transcript are in your + possession, if you please, madam, to compare them together, you may + easily see whether they be both entire and perfect, or whether there + be anything wanting in either of them. By this means you will assure + yourself, and satisfy your friends, that several important pieces are + safe in your hands, and that the report is false and groundless. All + this I take the liberty to offer out of the singular respect I always + professed for you, and for the memory of Mr. Collins, to whom I have + endeavoured to do justice on all occasions, and particularly in the + memoirs that have been made use of in the General Dictionary; and I + hope my tender concern for his reputation will further appear when I + publish his life. + + + SIR, _April 6, 1737_. + + My ill state of health has hindered me from acknowledging sooner the + receipt of yours, from which I hoped for some satisfaction in + relation to your charge, in which I cannot but think myself very + deeply concerned. You tell me now, that you was left to your own + conjectures what particular MSS. were reported to have fallen into + the hands of strangers, and that upon a serious consideration you was + induced to believe that it might relate to the MSS. in eight vols. + 8vo, of which there was a transcript. + + I must beg of you to satisfy me very explicitly who were the persons + that reported this to you, and from whom did you receive this + information? You know that Mr. Collins left several MSS. behind him; + what grounds had you for your conjecture that it related to the MSS. + in eight vols., rather than to any other MSS. of which there was a + transcript? I beg that you will be very plain, and tell me what + strangers were named to you; and why you said the Bishop of London, + if your informer said stranger to you. I am so much concerned in + this, that I must repeat it, if you have the singular respect for Mr. + Collins which you profess, that you would help me to trace out this + reproach, which is so abusive to, Sir, + + Your servant, + + ELIZ. COLLINS. + + + TO MRS. COLLINS. + + I flattered myself that my last letter would have satisfied you, but + I have the mortification to see that my hopes were vain. Therefore I + beg leave once more to set this matter right. When I told you what + had been reported, I acted, as I thought, the part of a true friend, + by acquainting you that some of your MSS. had been purloined, in + order that you might examine a fact which to me appeared of the last + consequence; and I verily believe that everybody in my case would + have expected thanks for such a friendly information. But instead of + that I find myself represented as an enemy, and challenged to produce + proofs and witnesses of a thing dropt in conversation, a hearsay, as + if in those cases people kept a register of what they hear, and + entered the names of the persons who spoke, the time, place, &c., and + had with them persons ready to witness the whole, &c. I did own I + never thought of such a thing, and whenever I happened to hear that + some of my friends had some loss, I thought it my duty to acquaint + them with such report, that they might inquire into the matter, and + see whether there was any ground for it. But I never troubled myself + with the names of the persons who spoke, as being a thing entirely + needless and unprofitable. + + Give me leave further to observe, that you are in no ways _concerned_ + in the matter, as you seem to be apprehensive you are. Suppose some + MSS. have been taken out of your library, who will say you ought to + bear the guilt of it? What man in his senses, who has the honour to + know you, will say you gave your consent to such thing--that you was + privy to it? How can you then take upon yourself an action to which + you was neither privy and consenting? Do not such things happen every + day, and do the losers think themselves injured or _abused_ when they + are talked of? Is it impossible to be betrayed by a person we + confided in? + + You call what I told you was a report, a surmise; you call it, I say, + an _information_, and speak of _informers_ as if there was a plot + laid wherein I received the information: I thought I had the honour + to be better known to you. Mr. Collins loved me and esteemed me for + my integrity and sincerity, of which he had several proofs; how I + have been drawn in to injure him, to forfeit the good opinion he had + of me, and which, were he now alive, would deservedly expose me to + his utmost contempt, is a grief which I shall carry to the grave. It + would be a sort of comfort to me, if those who have consented I + should be drawn in were in some measure sensible of the guilt towards + so good, kind, and generous a man. + + +Thus we find that, _seven years_ after Des Maizeaux had inconsiderately +betrayed his sacred trust, his remorse was still awake; and the +sincerity of his grief is attested by the affecting style which +describes it: the spirit of his departed friend seemed to be hovering +about him, and, in his imagination, would haunt him to the grave. + +The nature of these manuscripts; the cause of the earnest desire of +retaining them by the widow; the evident unfriendliness of her conduct +to Des Maizeaux; and whether these manuscripts, consisting of eight +octavo volumes with their transcripts, were destroyed, or are still +existing, are all circumstances which my researches have hitherto not +ascertained. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [14] _Van Effen_ was a Dutch writer of some merit, and one of a + literary knot of ingenious men, consisting of Sallengre, St. + Hyacinthe, Prosper Marchand, &c., who carried on a smart review for + those days, published at the Hague under the title of "Journal + Litteraire." They all composed in French; and Van Effen gave the + first translations of our "Guardian," "Robinson Crusoe," and the + "Tale of a Tub," &c. He did something more, but not better; he + attempted to imitate the "Spectator," in his "Le Misanthrope," 1726, + which exhibits a picture of the uninteresting manners of a nation + whom he could not make very lively. + + _De Limiers_ has had his name slipped into our biographical + dictionaries. An author cannot escape the fatality of the alphabet; + his numerous misdeeds are registered. It is said, that if he had not + been so hungry, he would have given proofs of possessing some + talent. + + [15] I find that the nominal pension was 3_s._ 6_d._ per diem on the + Irish civil list, which amounts to above 63_l._ per annum. If a + pension be granted for reward, it seems a mockery that the income + should be so grievously reduced, which cruel custom still prevails. + + [16] This letter, or petition, was written in 1732. In 1743 he + procured his pension to be placed on his wife's life, and he died in + 1745. + + He was sworn in as gentleman of his majesty's privy chamber in + 1722--_Sloane MSS._ 4289. + + [17] There is a printed catalogue of his library. + + [18] This information is from a note found among Des Maizeaux's + papers; but its truth I have no means to ascertain. + + + + +HISTORY OF NEW WORDS. + + +Neology, or the novelty of words and phrases, is an innovation, which, +with the opulence of our present language, the English philologer is +most jealous to allow; but we have puritans or precisians of English, +superstitiously nice! The fantastic coinage of affectation or caprice +will cease to circulate from its own alloy; but shall we reject the ore +of fine workmanship and solid weight? There is no government mint of +words, and it is no statutable offence to invent a felicitous or daring +expression unauthorised by Mr. Todd! When a man of genius, in the heat +of his pursuits or his feelings, has thrown out a peculiar word, it +probably conveyed more precision or energy than any other established +word, otherwise he is but an ignorant pretender! + +Julius Caesar, who, unlike other great captains, is authority on words as +well as about blows, wrote a large treatise on "Analogy," in which that +fine genius counselled to "avoid every unusual word as a rock!"[19] The +cautious Quintilian, as might be expected, opposes all innovation in +language. "If the new word is well received, small is the glory; if +rejected, it raises laughter."[20] This only marks the penury of his +feelings in this species of adventure. The great legislator of words, +who lived when his own language was at its acme, seems undecided, yet +pleaded for this liberty. "Shall that which the Romans allowed to +Caecilius and to Plautus be refused to Virgil and Varius?" The answer to +the question might not be favourable to the inquirer. While a language +is forming, writers are applauded for extending its limits; when +established, for restricting themselves to them. But this is to imagine +that a perfect language can exist! The good sense and observation of +Horace perceived that there may be occasions where necessity must become +the mother of invented words:-- + + ----Si forte necesse est + Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum. + + If you write of things abstruse or new, + Some of your own inventing may be used, + So it be seldom and discreetly done. + + ROSCOMMON. + +But Horace's canon for deciding on the legality of the new invention, or +the standard by which it is to be tried, will not serve to assist the +inventor of words:-- + + ----licuit, semperque licebit, + Signatum praesente nota procudere nummum.[21] + +This _praesens nota_, or public stamp, can never be affixed to any new +coinage of words: for many received at a season have perished with +it.[22] The privilege of stamping words is reserved for their greatest +enemy--Time itself! and the inventor of a new word must never flatter +himself that he has secured the public adoption, for he must lie in his +grave before he can enter the dictionary. + +In Willes' address to the reader, prefixed to the collection of Voyages +published in 1577, he finds fault with Eden's translation from Peter +Martyr, for using words that "smelt too much of the Latine." We should +scarcely have expected to find among them _ponderouse_, _portentouse_, +_despicable_, _obsequious_, _homicide_, _imbibed_, _destructive_, +_prodigious_. The only words he quotes, not thoroughly naturalised, are +_dominators_, _ditionaries_, (subjects), _solicitute_ (careful). + +The Tatler, No. 230, introduces several polysyllables introduced by +military narrations, "which (he says), if they attack us too frequently, +we shall certainly put them to flight, and cut off the rear;" every one +of them still keep their ground. + +Half the French words used affectedly by Melantha, in Dryden's _Marriage +a-la-Mode_, as innovations in our language, are now in common use, +_naivete_, _foible_, _chagrin_, _grimace_, _embarras_, _double +entendre_, _equivoque_, _eclaircissement_, _ridicule_, all these words, +which she learns by heart to use occasionally, are now in common use. A +Dr. Russel called Psalm-singers _Ballad-singers_, having found the Song +of Solomon in an old translation, the _Ballad of Ballads_, for which he +is reproached by his antagonist for not knowing that the signification +of words alters with time; should I call him _knave_, he ought not to be +concerned at it, for the Apostle Paul is also called a _knave of Jesus +Christ_.[23] + +Unquestionably, NEOLOGY opens a wide door to innovation; scarcely has a +century passed since our language was patched up with Gallic idioms, as +in the preceding century it was piebald with Spanish, and with Italian, +and even with Dutch. The political intercourse of islanders with their +neighbours has ever influenced their language. In Elizabeth's reign +Italian phrases[24] and Netherland words were imported; in James and +Charles the Spanish framed the style of courtesy; in Charles the Second +the nation and the language were equally Frenchified. Yet such are the +sources from whence we have often derived some of the wealth of our +language! + +There are three foul corruptors of a language: caprice, affectation, and +ignorance! Such fashionable cant terms as "theatricals," and "musicals," +invented by the flippant Topham, still survive among his confraternity +of frivolity. A lady eminent for the elegance of her taste, and of whom +one of the best judges, the celebrated Miss Edgeworth, observed to me, +that she spoke the purest and most idiomatic English she had ever heard, +threw out an observation which might be extended to a great deal of our +present fashionable vocabulary. She is now old enough, she said, to have +lived to hear the vulgarisms of her youth adopted in drawing-room +circles.[25] To _lunch_, now so familiar from the fairest lips, in her +youth was only known in the servants' hall. An expression very rife of +late among our young ladies, _a nice man_, whatever it may mean, whether +that the man resemble a pudding or something more nice, conveys the +offensive notion that they are ready to eat him up! When I was a boy, it +was an age of _bon ton_; this _good tone_ mysteriously conveyed a +sublime idea of fashion; the term, imported late in the eighteenth +century, closed with it. _Twaddle_ for a while succeeded _bore_; but +_bore_ has recovered the supremacy. We want another Swift to give a new +edition of his "Polite Conversation." A dictionary of barbarisms too +might be collected from some wretched neologists, whose pens are now at +work! Lord Chesterfield, in his exhortations to conform to Johnson's +Dictionary, was desirous, however, that the great lexicographer should +add as an appendix, "_A neological dictionary_, containing those polite, +though perhaps not strictly grammatical, words and phrases commonly +used, and sometimes understood by the _beau-monde_."[26] This last +phrase was doubtless a contribution! Such a dictionary had already +appeared in the French language, drawn up by two caustic critics, who in +the _Dictionnaire neologique a l'usage des beaux Esprits du Siecle_ +collected together the numerous unlucky inventions of affectation, with +their modern authorities! A collection of the fine words and phrases, +culled from some very modern poetry, might show the real amount of the +favours bestowed on us. + +The attempts of neologists are, however, not necessarily to be +condemned; and we may join with the commentators of Aulus Gellius, who +have lamented the loss of a chapter of which the title only has +descended to us. That chapter would have demonstrated what happens to +all languages, that some neologisms, which at first are considered +forced or inelegant, become sanctioned by use, and in time are quoted as +authority in the very language which, in their early stage, they were +imagined to have debased. + +The true history of men's minds is found in their actions; their wants +are indicated by their contrivances; and certain it is that in highly +cultivated ages we discover the most refined intellects attempting +NEOLOGISMS.[27] It would be a subject of great curiosity to trace the +origin of many happy expressions, when, and by whom created. Plato +substituted the term _Providence_ for _fate_; and a new system of human +affairs arose from a single word. Cicero invented several; to this +philosopher we owe the term of _moral_ philosophy, which before his time +was called the philosophy of _manners_. But on this subject we are +perhaps more interested by the modern than by the ancient languages. +Richardson, the painter of the human heart, has coined some expressions +to indicate its little secret movements, which are admirable: that great +genius merited a higher education and more literary leisure than the +life of a printer could afford. Montaigne created some bold expressions, +many of which have not survived him; his _incuriosite_, so opposite to +curiosity, well describes that state of negligence where we will not +learn that of which we are ignorant. With us the word _incurious_ was +described by Heylin, 1656, as an unusual word; it has been appropriately +adopted by our best writers, although we still want _incuriosity_. +Charron invented _etrangete_ unsuccessfully, but which, says a French +critic, would be the true substantive of the word _etrange_; our Locke +is the solitary instance produced for "foreignness" for "remoteness or +want of relation to something." Malherbe borrowed from the Latin, +_insidieux_, _securite_, which have been received; but a bolder word, +_devouloir_, by which he proposed to express _cesser de vouloir_, has +not. A term, however, expressive and precise. Corneille happily +introduced _invaincu_ in a verse in the Cid, + + Vous etes _invaincu_, mais non pas _invincible_. + +Yet this created word by their great poet has not sanctioned this fine +distinction among the French, for we are told that it is almost a +solitary instance. Balzac was a great inventor of neologisms. _Urbanite_ +and _feliciter_ were struck in his mint. "Si le mot _feliciter_ n'est +pas francaise, il le sera l'annee qui vient;" so confidently proud was +the neologist, and it prospered as well as _urbanite_, of which he says, +"Quand l'usage aura muri parmi nous un mot de si mauvais gout, et +corrige _l'amertume de la nouveaute_ qui s'y peut trouver, nous nous y +accoutumerons comme aux autres que nous avons emprunte de la meme +langue." Balzac was, however, too sanguine in some other words; for his +_delecter_, his _seriosite_, &c. still retain their "bitterness of +novelty." + +Menage invented a term of which an equivalent is wanting in our +language; "J'ai fait _prosateur_ a l'imitation de l'italien _prosatore_, +pour dire un homme qui ecrit en prose." To distinguish a prose from a +verse writer, we _once_ had "a proser." Drayton uses it; but this useful +distinction has unluckily degenerated, and the current sense is so daily +urgent, that the purer sense is irrecoverable. + +When D'Albancourt was translating Lucian, he invented in French the +words _indolence_ and _indolent_, to describe a momentary languor, +rather than that habitual indolence in which sense they are now +accepted; and in translating Tacitus, he created the word +_turbulemment_; but it did not prosper any more than that of +_temporisement_. Segrais invented the word _impardonnable_, which, after +having been rejected, was revived, and is equivalent to our expressive +_unpardonable_. Moliere ridiculed some neologisms of the _Precieuses_ of +his day; but we are too apt to ridicule that which is new, and which we +often adopt when it becomes old. Moliere laughed at the term +_s'encanailler_, to describe one who assumed the manners of a +blackguard; the expressive word has remained in the language. The +meaning is disputed as well as the origin is lost of some novel terms. +This has happened to a word in daily use--_Fudge_! It is a cant term not +in Grose, and only traced by Todd not higher than to Goldsmith. It is, +however, no invention of his. In a pamphlet, entitled "Remarks upon the +Navy," 1700, the term is declared to have been the name of a certain +nautical personage who had lived in the lifetime of the writer. "There +was, sir, in our time, one _Captain Fudge_, commander of a merchantman, +who upon his return from a voyage, how ill-fraught soever his ship was, +always brought home his owners a good cargo of lies; so much that now, +aboard ship, the sailors, when they hear a great lie told, cry out, 'You +_fudge_ it!'" It is singular that such an obscure byword among sailors +should have become one of the most popular in our familiar style; and +not less, that recently at the bar, in a court of law, its precise +meaning perplexed plaintiff and defendant and their counsel. I think it +does not signify mere lies, but bouncing lies, or rhodomontades. + +There are two remarkable French words created by the Abbe de Saint +Pierre, who passed his meritorious life in the contemplation of +political morality and universal benevolence--_bienfaisance_ and +_gloriole_. He invented _gloriole_ as a contemptuous diminutive of +_glorie_; to describe that vanity of some egotists, so proud of the +small talents which they may have received from nature or from accident. +_Bienfaisance_ first appeared in this sentence: "L'Esprit de la vraie +religion et le principal but de l'evangile c'est _la bienfaisance_, +c'est-a-dire la pratique de la charite envers le prochain." This word +was so new, that in the moment of its creation this good man explained +its necessity and origin. Complaining that "the word 'charity' is abused +by all sorts of Christians in the persecution of their enemies, and even +heretics affirm that they are practising Christian charity in +persecuting other heretics, I have sought for a term which might convey +to us a precise idea of doing good to our neighbours, and I can form +none more proper to make myself understood than the term of +_bienfaisance_, good-doing. Let those who like, use it; I would only be +understood, and it is not equivocal." The happy word was at first +criticised, but at length every kind heart found it responded to its own +feeling. Some verses from Voltaire, alluding to the political reveries +of the good abbe, notice the critical opposition; yet the new word +answered to the great rule of Horace. + + Certain legislateur, dont la plume feconde + Fit tant de vains projets pour le bien du monde, + Et qui depuis trente ans ecrit pour des ingrats, + Vient de creer un mot qui manque a Vaugelas: + Ce mot est BIENFAISANCE; il me plait, il rassemble + Si le coeur en est cru, bien des vertus ensemble. + Petits grammairiens, grands precepteurs de sots, + Qui pesez la parole et mesurez les mots, + Pareille expression vous semble hazardee, + Mais l'univers entier doit en cherir l'idee! + +The French revolutionists, in their rage for innovation, almost +barbarised the pure French of the Augustan age of their literature, as +they did many things which never before occurred; and sometimes +experienced feelings as transitory as they were strange. Their +nomenclature was copious; but the revolutionary jargon often shows the +danger and the necessity of neologisms. They form an appendix to the +Academy Dictionary. Our plain English has served to enrich this odd +mixture of philology and politics: _Club_, _clubiste_, _comite_, _jure_, +_juge de paix_, blend with their _terrorisme_, _lanterner_, a verb +active, _levee en masse_, _noyades_, and the other verb active, +_septembriser_, &c. The barbarous term _demoralisation_ is said to have +been the invention of the horrid capuchin Chabot; and the remarkable +expression of _arriere pensee_ belonged exclusively in its birth to the +jesuitic astuteness of the Abbe Sieyes, that political actor, who, in +changing sides, never required prompting in his new part! + +A new word, the result of much consideration with its author, or a term +which, though unknown to the language, conveys a collective assemblage +of ideas by a fortunate designation, is a precious contribution of +genius; new words should convey new ideas. Swift, living amidst a civil +war of pamphlets, when certain writers were regularly employed by one +party to draw up replies to the other, created a term not to be found in +our dictionaries, but which, by a single stroke, characterises these +hirelings; he called them _answer-jobbers_. We have not dropped the +fortunate expression from any want of its use, but of perception in our +lexicographers. The celebrated Marquis of Lansdowne introduced a useful +word, which has of late been warmly adopted in France as well as in +England--_to liberalise_; the noun has been drawn out of the verb--for +in the marquis's time that was only an abstract conception which is now +a sect; and to _liberalise_ was theoretically introduced before the +_liberals_ arose.[28] It is curious to observe that as an adjective it +had formerly in our language a very opposite meaning to its recent one. +It was synonymous with "libertine or licentious;" we have "a _liberal_ +villain" and "a most profane and _liberal_ counsellor;" we find one +declaring "I have spoken _too liberally_." This is unlucky for the +_liberals_, who will not-- + + Give allowance to our _liberal_ jests + Upon their persons-- + + BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. + +Dr. Priestley employed a forcible, but not an elegant term, to mark the +general information which had begun in his day; this he frequently calls +"the _spread_ of knowledge." Burke attempted to brand with a new name +that set of pert, petulant, sophistical sciolists, whose philosophy the +French, since their revolutionary period, have distinguished as +_philosophism_, and the philosophers themselves as _philosophistes_. He +would have designated them as _literators_, but few exotic words will +circulate; new words must be the coinage of our own language to blend +with the vernacular idiom. Many new words are still wanted. We have no +word by which we could translate the _otium_ of the Latins, the +_dillettante_ of the Italians, the _alembique_ of the French, as an +epithet to describe that sublimated ingenuity which exhausts the mind, +till, like the fusion of the diamond, the intellect itself disappears. A +philosopher, in an extensive view of a subject in all its bearings, may +convey to us the result of his last considerations by the coinage of a +novel and significant expression, as this of Professor Dugald +Stewart--_political religionism_. Let me claim the honour of one pure +neologism. I ventured to introduce the term of FATHER-LAND to describe +our _natale solum_; I have lived to see it adopted by Lord Byron and by +Mr. Southey, and the word is now common. A lady has even composed both +the words and the air of a song on "Father-land." This energetic +expression may therefore be considered as authenticated; and patriotism +may stamp it with its glory and its affection. FATHER-LAND is congenial +with the language in which we find that other fine expression +MOTHER-TONGUE. The patriotic neologism originated with me in Holland, +when, in early life, it was my daily pursuit to turn over the glorious +history of its independence under the title of _Vaderlandsche +Historie_--the history of FATHER-LAND! + +If we acknowledge that the creation of some neologisms may sometimes +produce the beautiful, the revival of the dead is the more authentic +miracle; for a new word must long remain doubtful, but an ancient word +happily recovered rests on a basis of permanent strength; it has both +novelty and authority. A collection of _picturesque words_, found among +our ancient writers, would constitute a precious supplement to the +history of our language. Far more expressive than our term of +_executioner_ is their solemn one of the _deathsman_; than our +_vagabond_, their _scatterling_; than our _idiot_ or _lunatic_, their +_moonling_,--a word which, Mr. Gifford observes, should not have been +suffered to grow obsolete. Herrick finely describes by the term +_pittering_ the peculiar shrill and short cry of the grasshopper: the +cry of the grasshopper is pit! pit! pit! quickly repeated. Envy +"_dusking_ the lustre" of genius is a verb lost for us, but which gives +a more precise expression to the feeling than any other words which we +could use. + +The late Dr. Boucher, in the prospectus of his proposed Dictionary, did +me the honour, then a young writer, to quote an opinion I had formed +early in life of the purest source of neology, which is in the _revival +of old words_. + + Words that wise Bacon or brave Rawleigh spake! + +We have lost many exquisite and picturesque expressions through the +dulness of our lexicographers, or by the deficiency in that profounder +study of our writers which their labours require far more than they +themselves know. The natural graces of our language have been +impoverished. The genius that throws its prophetic eye over the +language, and the taste that must come from Heaven, no lexicographer +imagines are required to accompany him amidst a library of old books! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [19] Aulus Gellius, lib. i. c. 10. + + [20] Instit. lib. i. c. 5. + + [21] This verse was corrected by Bentley _procudere nummum_, instead + of _producere nomen_, which the critics agree is one of his happy + conjectures. + + [22] Henry Cockeram's curious little "English Dictionarie, or an + Interpretation of hard English words", 12mo, 1631, professes to give + in its first book "the choicest words themselves now in use, + wherewith our language is inriched and become so copious." Many have + not survived, such as the following:-- + + Acyrologicall An improper speech. + Adacted Driven in by force. + Blandiloquy Flattering speech. + Compaginate To set together that which is broken. + Concessation Loytering. + Delitigate To scold, or chide vehemently. + Depalmate To give one a box on the ear. + Esuriate To hunger. + Strenuitie Activity. + + Curiously enough, this author notes some words as those "now out of + use, and onely used of some ancient writers," but which we now + commonly use. Such are the following:-- + + Abandon To forsake or cast off. + Abate To make lesse, diminish, or take from. + + [23] A most striking instance of the change of meaning in a word is + in the old law-term _let_--"without _let_ or hindrance;" meaning + void of all opposition. Hence, "I will _let_ you," meant "I will + hinder you;" and not as we should now think, "I will give you free + leave." + + [24] Shakspeare makes "Ancient Pistol" use a new-coined Italian + word, when he speaks of being "better accommodated;" to the great + delight of Justice Shallow, who exclaims, "It comes from + _accommodo_--a good phrase!" And Ben Jonson, in his "Tale of a Tub," + ridicules Inigo Jones's love of two words he often used:-- + + ----If it _conduce_ + To the design, whate'er is _feasible_, + I can express. + + [25] The term _pluck_, once only known to the prize-ring, has now + got into use in general conversation, and also into literature, as a + term indicative of ready courage. + + [26] Such terms as "_patent_ to the public"--"_normal_ + condition"--"_crass_ behaviour," are the inventions of the last few + years. + + [27] Shakspeare has a powerfully-composed line in the speech of the + Duke of Burgundy, (_Henry V._ Act v. Sc. 2), when, describing the + fields overgrown with weeds, he exclaims-- + + ----The coulter rusts, + That should _deracinate_ such _savagery_. + + [28] The "Quarterly Review" recently marked the word _liberalise_ in + italics as a strange word, undoubtedly not aware of its origin. It + has been lately used by Mr. Dugald Stewart, "to _liberalise_ the + views."--Dissert. 2nd part, p. 138. + + + + +THE PHILOSOPHY OF PROVERBS. + + +In antique furniture we sometimes discover a convenience which long +disuse had made us unacquainted with, and are surprised by the aptness +which we did not suspect was concealed in its solid forms. We have found +the labour of the workmen to have been as admirable as the material +itself, which is still resisting the mouldering touch of time among +those modern inventions, elegant and unsubstantial, which, often put +together with unseasoned wood, are apt to warp and fly into pieces when +brought into use. We have found how strength consists in the selection +of materials, and that, whenever the substitute is not better than the +original, we are losing something in that test of experience, which all +things derive from duration. + +Be this as it may! I shall not unreasonably await for the artists of our +novelties to retrograde into massive greatness, although I cannot avoid +reminding them how often they revive the forgotten things of past times! +It is well known that many of our novelties were in use by our +ancestors! In the history of the human mind there is, indeed, a sort of +antique furniture which I collect, not merely for their antiquity, but +for the sound condition in which I still find them, and the compactness +which they still show. Centuries have not worm-eaten their solidity! and +the utility and delightfulness which they still afford make them look as +fresh and as ingenious as any of our patent inventions. + +By the title of the present article the reader has anticipated the +nature of the old furniture to which I allude. I propose to give what, +in the style of our times, may be called the Philosophy of Proverbs--a +topic which seems virgin. The art of reading proverbs has not, indeed, +always been acquired even by some of their admirers; but my +observations, like their subject, must be versatile and unconnected; and +I must bespeak indulgence for an attempt to illustrate a very curious +branch of literature, rather not understood than quite forgotten. + +Proverbs have long been in disuse. "A man of fashion," observes Lord +Chesterfield, "never has recourse to proverbs and vulgar aphorisms;" +and, since the time his lordship so solemnly interdicted their use, they +appear to have withered away under the ban of his anathema. His lordship +was little conversant with the history of proverbs, and would +unquestionably have smiled on those "men of fashion" of another stamp, +who, in the days of Elizabeth, James, and Charles, were great collectors +of them; would appeal to them in their conversations, and enforce them +in their learned or their statesmanlike correspondence. Few, perhaps, +even now, suspect that these neglected fragments of wisdom, which exist +among all nations, still offer many interesting objects for the studies +of the philosopher and the historian; and for men of the world still +open an extensive school of human life and manners. + +The home-spun adages, and the rusty "sayed-saws," which remain in the +mouths of the people, are adapted to their capacities and their humours. +Easily remembered, and readily applied, these are the philosophy of the +vulgar, and often more sound than that of their masters! whoever would +learn what the people think, and how they feel, must not reject even +these as insignificant. The proverbs of the street and of the market, +true to nature, and lasting only because they are true, are records that +the populace at Athens and at Rome were the same people as at Paris and +at London, and as they had before been in the city of Jerusalem! + +Proverbs existed before books. The Spaniards date the origin of their +_refranes que dicen las viejas tras el fuego_, "sayings of old wives by +their firesides," before the existence of any writings in their +language, from the circumstance that these are in the old romance or +rudest vulgar idiom. The most ancient poem in the Edda, "the sublime +speech of Odin," abounds with ancient proverbs, strikingly descriptive +of the ancient Scandinavians. Undoubtedly proverbs in the earliest ages +long served as the unwritten language of morality, and even of the +useful arts; like the oral traditions of the Jews, they floated down +from age to age on the lips of successive generations. The name of the +first sage who sanctioned the saying would in time be forgotten, while +the opinion, the metaphor, or the expression, remained, consecrated into +a proverb! Such was the origin of those memorable sentences by which men +learnt to think and to speak appositely; they were precepts which no man +could contradict, at a time when authority was valued more than opinion, +and experience preferred to novelty. The proverbs of a father became the +inheritance of a son; the mistress of a family perpetuated hers through +her household; the workman condensed some traditional secret of his +craft into a proverbial expression. When countries are not yet populous, +and property has not yet produced great inequalities in its ranks, every +day will show them how "the drunkard and the glutton come to poverty, +and drowsiness clothes a man with rags." At such a period he who gave +counsel gave wealth. + +It might therefore have been decided, _a priori_, that the most homely +proverbs would abound in the most ancient writers--and such we find in +Hesiod; a poet whose learning was not drawn from books. It could only +have been in the agricultural state that this venerable bard could have +indicated a state of repose by this rustic proverb:-- + + [Greek: Pedalion men uper kapnou katadeio] + Hang your plough-beam o'er the hearth! + +The envy of rival workmen is as justly described by a reference to the +humble manufacturers of earthenware as by the elevated jealousies of the +literati and the artists of a more polished age. The famous proverbial +verse in Hesiod's Works and Days-- + + [Greek: Kai kerameus keramei koteei], + +is literally, "The potter is hostile to the potter!" + +The admonition of the poet to his brother, to prefer a friendly +accommodation to a litigious lawsuit, has fixed a paradoxical proverb +often applied,-- + + [Greek: Pleon emisu pantos], + The half is better than the whole! + +In the progress of time, the stock of popular proverbs received +accessions from the highest sources of human intelligence; as the +philosophers of antiquity formed their collections, they increased in +"weight and number." Erasmus has pointed out some of these sources, in +the responses of oracles; the allegorical symbols of Pythagoras; the +verses of the poets; allusions to historical incidents; mythology and +apologue; and other recondite origins. Such dissimilar matters, coming +from all quarters, were melted down into this vast body of aphoristic +knowledge. Those "WORDS OF THE WISE and their DARK SAYINGS," as they are +distinguished in that large collection which bears the name of the great +Hebrew monarch, at length seem to have required commentaries; for what +else can we infer of the enigmatic wisdom of the sages, when the royal +paroemiographer classes among their studies, that of "_understanding a +proverb and the interpretation_?" This elevated notion of "the dark +sayings of the wise" accords with the bold conjecture of their origin +which the Stagyrite has thrown out, who considered them as the wrecks of +an ancient philosophy which had been lost to mankind by the fatal +revolutions of all human things, and that those had been saved from the +general ruin by their pithy elegance and their diminutive form; like +those marine shells found on the tops of mountains, the relics of the +Deluge! Even at a later period, the sage of Cheronea prized them among +the most solemn mysteries; and Plutarch has described them in a manner +which proverbs may even still merit: "Under the veil of these curious +sentences are hid those germs of morals which the masters of philosophy +have afterwards developed into so many volumes." + +At the highest period of Grecian genius, the tragic and the comic poets +introduced into their dramas the proverbial style. St. Paul quotes a +line which still remains among the first exercises of our school-pens:-- + + Evil communications corrupt good manners. + +It is a verse found in a fragment of Menander the comic poet: + + [Greek: Phtheirousin hethe chresth' homiliai kakai]. + +As this verse is a proverb, and the apostle, and indeed the highest +authority, Jesus himself, consecrates the use of proverbs by their +occasional application, it is uncertain whether St. Paul quotes the +Grecian poet, or only repeats some popular adage. Proverbs were bright +shafts in the Greek and Latin quivers; and when Bentley, by a league of +superficial wits, was accused of pedantry for his use of some ancient +proverbs, the sturdy critic vindicated his taste by showing that Cicero +constantly introduced Greek proverbs into his writings,--that Scaliger +and Erasmus loved them, and had formed collections drawn from the stores +of antiquity. + +Some difficulty has occurred in the definition. Proverbs must be +distinguished from proverbial phrases, and from sententious maxims; but +as proverbs have many faces, from their miscellaneous nature, the class +itself scarcely admits of any definition. When Johnson defined a proverb +to be "a short sentence frequently repeated by the people," this +definition would not include the most curious ones, which have not +always circulated among the populace, nor even belong to them; nor does +it designate the vital qualities of a proverb. The pithy quaintness of +old Howell has admirably described the ingredients of an exquisite +proverb to be _sense, shortness, and salt_. A proverb is distinguished +from a maxim or an apophthegm by that brevity which condenses a thought +or a metaphor, where one thing is said and another is to be applied. +This often produces wit, and that quick pungency which excites surprise, +but strikes with conviction; this gives it an epigrammatic turn. George +Herbert entitled the small collection which he formed "Jacula +Prudentium," Darts or Javelins! something hurled and striking deeply; a +characteristic of a proverb which possibly Herbert may have borrowed +from a remarkable passage in Plato's dialogue of "Protagoras or the +Sophists." + +The influence of proverbs over the minds and conversations of a whole +people is strikingly illustrated by this philosopher's explanation of +the term _to laconise_,--the mode of speech peculiar to the +Lacedaemonians. This people affected to appear _unlearned_, and seemed +only emulous to excel the rest of the Greeks in fortitude and in +military skill. According to Plato's notion, this was really a political +artifice, with a view to conceal their pre-eminent wisdom. With the +jealousy of a petty state, they attempted to confine their renowned +sagacity within themselves, and under their military to hide their +contemplative character! The philosopher assures those who in other +cities imagined they _laconised_, merely by imitating the severe +exercises and the other warlike manners of the Lacedaemonians, that they +were grossly deceived; and thus curiously describes the sort of wisdom +which this singular people practised. + +"If any one wish to converse with the meanest of the Lacedaemonians, he +will at first find him, for the most part, apparently despicable in +conversation; but afterwards, when a proper opportunity presents itself, +this same mean person, like a _skilful jaculator, will hurl a sentence_, +worthy of attention, _short and contorted_; so that he who converses +with him will appear to be in no respect superior to a boy! That _to +laconise_, therefore, consists much more in philosophising than in the +love of exercise, is understood by some of the present age, and was +known to the ancients, they being persuaded that the ability of +_uttering such sentences_ as these is the province of a man perfectly +learned. The seven sages were emulators, lovers, and disciples of the +_Lacedaemonian erudition_. Their wisdom was a thing of this kind, viz. +_short sentences uttered by each, and worthy to be remembered_. These +men, assembling together, consecrated to Apollo the first fruits of +their wisdom; writing in the Temple of Apollo, at Delphi, those +sentences which are celebrated by all men, viz. _Know thyself!_ and +_Nothing too much!_ But on what account do I mention these things? To +show that _the mode of philosophy among the ancients was a certain +laconic diction_."[29] + +The "laconisms" of the Lacedaemonians evidently partook of the proverbial +style: they were, no doubt, often proverbs themselves. The very +instances which Plato supplies of this "laconising" are two most +venerable proverbs. + +All this elevates the science of PROVERBS, and indicates that these +abridgments of knowledge convey great results, with a parsimony of words +prodigal of sense. They have, therefore, preserved many "a short +sentence, NOT repeated by the people." + +It is evident, however, that the earliest writings of every people are +marked by their most homely, or domestic proverbs; for these were more +directly addressed to their wants. Franklin, who may be considered as +the founder of a people who were suddenly placed in a stage of civil +society which as yet could afford no literature, discovered the +philosophical cast of his genius, when he filled his almanacs with +proverbs, by the ingenious contrivance of framing them into a connected +discourse, delivered by an old man attending an auction. "These +proverbs," he tells us, "which contained the wisdom of many ages and +nations, when their scattered counsels were brought together, made a +great impression. They were reprinted in Britain, in a large sheet of +paper, and stuck up in houses: and were twice translated in France, and +distributed among their poor parishioners." The same occurrence had +happened with us ere we became a reading people. Sir Thomas Elyot, in +the reign of Henry the Eighth, describing the ornaments of a nobleman's +house, among his hangings, and plate, and pictures, notices the +engraving of proverbs "on his plate and vessels, which served the guests +with a most opportune counsel and comments." Later even than the reign +of Elizabeth our ancestors had proverbs always before them, on +everything that had room for a piece of advice on it; they had them +painted in their tapestries, stamped on the most ordinary utensils, on +the blades of their knives,[30] the borders of their plates,[31] and +"conned them out of goldsmiths' rings."[32] The usurer, in Robert +Greene's "Groat's worth of Wit," compressed all his philosophy into the +circle of his ring, having learned sufficient Latin to understand the +proverbial motto of "Tu tibi cura!" The husband was reminded of his +lordly authority when he only looked into his trencher, one of its +learned aphorisms having descended to us,-- + + The calmest husbands make the stormiest wives. + +The English proverbs of the populace, most of which are still in +circulation, were collected by old John Heywood.[33] They are arranged by +Tusser for "the parlour--the guest's chamber--the hall--table-lessons," +&c. Not a small portion of our ancient proverbs were adapted to rural +life, when our ancestors lived more than ourselves amidst the works of +God, and less among those of men.[34] At this time, one of our old +statesmen, in commending the art of compressing a tedious discourse into +a few significant phrases, suggested the use of proverbs in diplomatic +intercourse, convinced of the great benefit which would result to the +negotiators themselves, as well as to others! I give a literary curiosity +of this kind. A member of the House of Commons, in the reign of +Elizabeth, made a speech entirely composed of the most homely proverbs. +The subject was a bill against double payments of book-debts. Knavish +tradesmen were then in the habit of swelling out their book-debts with +those who took credit, particularly to their younger customers. One of +the members who began to speak "for very fear shook," and stood silent. +The nervous orator was followed by a blunt and true representative of the +famed governor of Barataria, delivering himself thus--"It is now my +chance to speak something, and that without humming or hawing. I think +this law is a good law. Even reckoning makes long friends. As far goes +the penny as the penny's master. _Vigilantibus non dormientibus jura +subveniunt._ Pay the reckoning overnight and ye shall not be troubled in +the morning. If ready money be _mensura publica_, let every one cut his +coat according to his cloth. When his old suit is in the wane, let him +stay till that his money bring a new suit in the increase."[35] + +Another instance of the use of proverbs among our statesmen occurs in a +manuscript letter of Sir Dudley Carlton, written in 1632, on the +impeachment of Lord Middlesex, who, he says, is "this day to plead his +own cause in the Exchequer-chamber, about an account of four-score +thousand pounds laid to his charge. How his lordship sped I know not, +but do remember well the French proverb, _Qui mange de l'oy du Roy +chiera une plume quarante ans apres_. 'Who eats of the king's goose, +will void a feather forty years after!'" + +This was the era of proverbs with us; for then they were _spoken_ by all +ranks of society. The free use of trivial proverbs got them into +disrepute; and as the abuse of a thing raises a just opposition to its +practice, a slender wit affecting "a cross humour," published a little +volume of "Crossing of Proverbs, Cross-answers, and Cross-humours." He +pretends to contradict the most popular ones; but he has not always the +genius to strike at amusing paradoxes.[36] + +Proverbs were long the favourites of our neighbours; in the splendid and +refined court of Louis the Fourteenth they gave rise to an odd +invention. They plotted comedies and even fantastical ballets from their +subjects. In these Curiosities of Literature I cannot pass by such +eccentric inventions unnoticed. + +A COMEDY _of proverbs_ is described by the Duke de la Valliere, which +was performed in 1634 with prodigious success. He considers that this +comedy ought to be ranked among farces; but it is gay, well-written, and +curious for containing the best proverbs, which are happily introduced +in the dialogue. + +A more extraordinary attempt was a BALLET _of proverbs_. Before the +opera was established in France, the ancient ballets formed the chief +amusement of the court, and Louis the Fourteenth himself joined with the +performers. The singular attempt of forming a pantomimical dance out of +proverbs is quite French; we have a "ballet des proverbes, danse par le +Roi, in 1654." At every proverb the scene changed, and adapted itself to +the subject. I shall give two or three of the _entrees_ that we may form +some notion of these _capriccios_. + +The proverb was--- + + _Tel menace qui a grand peur._ + He threatens who is afraid. + +The scene was composed of swaggering scaramouches and some honest cits, +who at length beat them off. + +At another _entree_ the proverb was-- + + _L'occasion fait le larron._ + Opportunity makes the thief. + +Opportunity was acted by le Sieur Beaubrun, but it is difficult to +conceive how the real could personify the abstract personage. The +thieves were the Duke d'Amville and Monsieur de la Chesnaye. + +Another _entree_ was the proverb of-- + + _Ce qui vient de la flute s'en va au tambour._ + What comes by the pipe goes by the tabor. + +A loose dissipated officer was performed by le Sieur l'Anglois; the +_Pipe_ by St. Aignan, and the _Tabor_ by le Sieur le Comte! In this +manner every proverb was _spoken in action_, the whole connected by +dialogue. More must have depended on the actors than the poet.[37] + +The French long retained this fondness for proverbs; for they still have +dramatic compositions entitled _proverbes_, on a more refined plan. +Their invention is so recent, that the term is not in their great +dictionary of Trevoux. These _proverbes_ are dramas of a single act, +invented by Carmontel, who possessed a peculiar vein of humour, but who +designed them only for private theatricals. Each _proverb_ furnished a +subject for a few scenes, and created a situation powerfully comic: it +is a dramatic amusement which does not appear to have reached us, but +one which the celebrated Catherine of Russia delighted to compose for +her own society. + +Among the middle classes of society to this day, we may observe that +certain family proverbs are traditionally preserved: the favourite +saying of a father is repeated by the sons; and frequently the conduct +of a whole generation has been influenced by such domestic proverbs. +This may be perceived in many of the mottos of our old nobility, which +seem to have originated in some habitual proverb of the founder of the +family. In ages when proverbs were most prevalent, such pithy sentences +would admirably serve in the ordinary business of life, and lead on to +decision, even in its greater exigencies. Orators, by some lucky +proverb, without wearying their auditors, would bring conviction home to +their bosoms: and great characters would appeal to a proverb, or deliver +that which in time by its aptitude became one. When Nero was reproached +for the ardour with which he gave himself up to the study of music, he +replied to his censurers by the Greek proverb, "An artist lives +everywhere." The emperor answered in the spirit of Rousseau's system, +that every child should be taught some trade. When Caesar, after anxious +deliberation, decided on the passage of the Rubicon (which very event +has given rise to a proverb), rousing himself with a start of courage, +he committed himself to Fortune, with that proverbial expression on his +lips, used by gamesters in desperate play: having passed the Rubicon, he +exclaimed, "The die is cast!" The answer of Paulus AEmilius to the +relations of his wife, who had remonstrated with him on his +determination to separate himself from her against whom no fault could +be alleged, has become one of our most familiar proverbs. This hero +acknowledged the excellences of his lady; but, requesting them to look +on his shoe, which appeared to be well made, he observed, "None of you +know where the shoe pinches!" He either used a proverbial phrase, or by +its aptness it has become one of the most popular. + +There are, indeed, proverbs connected with the characters of eminent +men. They were either their favourite ones, or have originated with +themselves. Such a collection would form a historical curiosity. To the +celebrated Bayard are the French indebted for a military proverb, which +some of them still repeat, "_Ce que le gantelet gagne le gorgerin le +mange_"--"What the gauntlet gets, the gorget consumes." That reflecting +soldier well calculated the profits of a military life, which consumes, +in the pomp and waste which are necessary for its maintenance, the +slender pay it receives, and even what its rapacity sometimes acquires. +The favourite proverb of Erasmus was _Festina lente_!--"Hasten +slowly!"[38] He wished it be inscribed wherever it could meet our eyes, +on public buildings, and on our rings and seals. One of our own +statesmen used a favourite sentence, which has enlarged our stock of +national proverbs. Sir Amias Pawlet, when he perceived too much hurry in +any business, was accustomed to say, "Stay awhile, to make an end the +sooner." Oliver Cromwell's coarse but descriptive proverb conveys the +contempt he felt for some of his mean and troublesome coadjutors: "Nits +will be lice!" The Italians have a proverb, which has been occasionally +applied to certain political personages:-- + + _Egli e quello che Dio vuole; + E sara quello che Dio vorra!_ + + He is what God pleases; + He shall be what God wills! + +Ere this was a proverb, it had served as an embroidered motto on the +mystical mantle of Castruccio Castracani. That military genius, who +sought to revolutionise Italy, and aspired to its sovereignty, lived +long enough to repent the wild romantic ambition which provoked all +Italy to confederate against him; the mysterious motto he assumed +entered into the proverbs of his country! The Border proverb of the +Douglases, "It were better to hear the lark sing than the mouse cheep," +was adopted by every Border chief, to express, as Sir Walter Scott +observes, what the great Bruce had pointed out, that the woods and hills +of their country were their safest bulwarks, instead of the fortified +places which the English surpassed their neighbours in the arts of +assaulting or defending. These illustrations indicate one of the sources +of proverbs; they have often resulted from the spontaneous emotions or +the profound reflections of some extraordinary individual, whose +energetic expression was caught by a faithful ear, never to perish! + +The poets have been very busy with proverbs in all the languages of +Europe: some appear to have been the favourite lines of some ancient +poem: even in more refined times, many of the pointed verses of Boileau +and Pope have become proverbial. Many trivial and laconic proverbs bear +the jingle of alliteration or rhyme, which assisted their circulation, +and were probably struck off extempore; a manner which Swift practised, +who was a ready coiner of such rhyming and ludicrous proverbs: +delighting to startle a collector by his facetious or sarcastic humour, +in the shape of an "old saying and true." Some of these rhyming +proverbs are, however, terse and elegant: we have + + Little strokes + Fell great oaks. + +The Italian-- + + _Chi duo lepri caccia + Uno perde, e l'altro lascia._ + + Who hunts two hares, loses one and leaves the other. + +The haughty Spaniard-- + + _El dar es honor, + Y el pedir dolor._ + + To give is honour, to ask is grief. + +And the French-- + + _Ami de table + Est variable._ + + The friend of the table + Is very variable. + +The composers of these short proverbs were a numerous race of poets, +who, probably, among the dreams of their immortality never suspected +that they were to descend to posterity, themselves and their works +unknown, while their extempore thoughts would be repeated by their own +nation. + +Proverbs were at length consigned to the people, when books were +addressed to scholars; but the people did not find themselves so +destitute of practical wisdom, by preserving their national proverbs, as +some of those closet students who had ceased to repeat them. The various +humours of mankind, in the mutability of human affairs, had given birth +to every species; and men were wise, or merry, or satirical, and mourned +or rejoiced in proverbs. Nations held an universal intercourse of +proverbs, from the eastern to the western world; for we discover among +those which appear strictly national, many which are common to them all. +Of our own familiar ones several may be tracked among the snows of the +Latins and the Greeks, and have sometimes been drawn from "The Mines of +the East:" like decayed families which remain in obscurity, they may +boast of a high lineal descent whenever they recover their lost +title-deeds. The vulgar proverb, "To carry coals to Newcastle," local +and idiomatic as it appears, however, has been borrowed and applied by +ourselves; it may be found among the Persians: in the "Bustan" of Sadi +we have _Infers piper in Hindostan_; "To carry pepper to Hindostan;" +among the Hebrews, "To carry oil to the City of Olives;" a similar +proverb occurs in Greek; and in Galland's "Maxims of the East" we may +discover how many of the most common proverbs among us, as well as some +of Joe Miller's jests, are of oriental origin. + +The resemblance of certain proverbs in different nations, must, however, +be often ascribed to the identity of human nature; similar situations +and similar objects have unquestionably made men think and act and +express themselves alike. All nations are parallels of each other! Hence +all paroemiographers, or collectors of proverbs, complain of the +difficulty of separating their own national proverbs from those which +have crept into the language from others, particularly when nations have +held much intercourse together. We have a copious collection of Scottish +proverbs by Kelly, but this learned man was mortified at discovering +that many which he had long believed to have been genuine Scottish, were +not only English, but French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Greek ones; +many of his Scottish proverbs are almost literally expressed among the +fragments of remote antiquity. It would have surprised him further had +he been aware that his Greek originals were themselves but copies, and +might have been found in D'Herbelot, Erpenius, and Golius, and in many +Asiatic works, which have been more recently introduced to the enlarged +knowledge of the European student, who formerly found his most extended +researches limited by Hellenistic lore. + +Perhaps it was owing to an accidental circumstance that the proverbs of +the European nations have been preserved in the permanent form of +volumes. Erasmus is usually considered as the first modern collector, +but he appears to have been preceded by Polydore Vergil, who bitterly +reproaches Erasmus with envy and plagiarism, for passing by his +collection without even a poor compliment for the inventor! Polydore was +a vain, superficial writer, who prided himself in leading the way on +more topics than the present. Erasmus, with his usual pleasantry, +provokingly excuses himself, by acknowledging that he had forgotten his +friend's book! Few sympathise with the quarrels of authors; and since +Erasmus has written a far better book than Polydore Vergil's, the +original "_Adagia_" is left only to be commemorated in literary history +as one of its curiosities.[39] + +The "Adagia" of Erasmus contains a collection of about five thousand +proverbs, gradually gathered from a constant study of the ancients. +Erasmus, blest with the genius which could enliven a folio, delighted +himself and all Europe by the continued accessions he made to a volume +which even now may be the companion of literary men for a winter day's +fireside. The successful example of Erasmus commanded the imitation of +the learned in Europe, and drew their attention to their own national +proverbs. Some of the most learned men, and some not sufficiently so, +were now occupied in this new study. + +In Spain, Fernandez Nunes, a Greek professor, and the Marquis of +Santellana, a grandee, published collections of their _Refranes_, or +Proverbs, a term derived A REFERENDO, because it is often repeated. The +"Refranes o Proverbios Castellanos," par Caesar Oudin, 1624, translated +into French, is a valuable compilation. In Cervantes and Quevedo, the +best practical illustrators, they are sown with no sparing hand. There is +an ample collection of Italian proverbs, by Florio, who was an +Englishman, of Italian origin, and who published "Il Giardino di +Ricreatione" at London, so early as in 1591, exceeding six thousand +proverbs; but they are unexplained, and are often obscure. Another +Italian in England, Torriano, in 1649, published an interesting +collection in the diminutive form of a twenty-fours. It was subsequent to +these publications in England, that in Italy, Angelus Monozini, in 1604, +published his collection; and Julius Varini, in 1642, produced his +_Scuola del Vulgo_. In France, Oudin, after others had preceded him, +published a collection of French proverbs, under the title of _Curiosites +Francoises_. Fleury de Bellingen's _Explication de Proverbes Francois_, +on comparing it with _Les Illustres Proverbes Historiques_, a subsequent +publication, I discovered to be the same work. It is the first attempt to +render the study of proverbs somewhat amusing. The plan consists of a +dialogue between a philosopher and a Sancho Panca, who blurts out his +proverbs with more delight than understanding. The philosopher takes +that opportunity of explaining them by the events in which they +originated, which, however, are not always to be depended on. A work of +high merit on French proverbs is the unfinished one of the Abbe Tuet, +sensible and learned. A collection of Danish proverbs, accompanied by a +French translation, was printed at Copenhagen, in a quarto volume, 1761. +England may boast of no inferior paroemiographers. The grave and +judicious Camden, the religious Herbert, the entertaining Howell, the +facetious Fuller, and the laborious Ray, with others, have preserved our +national sayings. The Scottish have been largely collected and explained +by the learned Kelly. An excellent anonymous collection, not uncommon, in +various languages, 1707; the collector and translator was Dr. J. +Mapletoft. It must be acknowledged, that although no nation exceeds our +own in sterling sense, we rarely rival the delicacy, the wit, and the +felicity of expression of the Spanish and the Italian, and the poignancy +of some of the French proverbs. + +The interest we may derive from the study of proverbs is not confined to +their universal truths, nor to their poignant pleasantry; a +philosophical mind will discover in proverbs a great variety of the most +curious knowledge. The manners of a people are painted after life in +their domestic proverbs; and it would not be advancing too much to +assert, that the genius of the age might be often detected in its +prevalent ones. The learned Selden tells us, that the proverbs of +several nations were much studied by Bishop Andrews: the reason assigned +was, because "by them he knew the minds of several nations, which," said +he, "is a brave thing, as we count him wise who knows the minds and the +insides of men, which is done by knowing what is habitual to them." Lord +Bacon condensed a wide circuit of philosophical thought, when he +observed that "the genius, wit, and spirit of a nation are discovered by +their proverbs." + +Proverbs peculiarly national, while they convey to us the modes of +thinking, will consequently indicate the modes of acting among a people. +The Romans had a proverbial expression for their last stake in play, +_Rem ad triarios venisse_, "the reserve are engaged!" a proverbial +expression, from which the military habits of the people might be +inferred; the _triarii_ being their reserve. A proverb has preserved a +curious custom of ancient coxcombry, which originally came from the +Greeks. To men of effeminate manners in their dress, they applied the +proverb of _Unico digitulo scalpit caput_. Scratching the head with a +single finger was, it seems, done by the critically nice youths in Rome, +that they might not discompose the economy of their hair. The Arab, +whose unsettled existence makes him miserable and interested, says, +"Vinegar given is better than honey bought." Everything of high esteem +with him who is so often parched in the desert is described as +_milk_--"How large his flow of milk!" is a proverbial expression with +the Arab to distinguish the most copious eloquence. To express a state +of perfect repose, the Arabian proverb is, "I throw the rein over my +back;" an allusion to the loosening of the cords of the camels, which +are thrown over their backs when they are sent to pasture. We discover +the rustic manners of our ancient Britons in the Cambrian proverbs; many +relate to the _hedge_. "The cleanly Briton is seen in the _hedge_: the +horse looks not on the _hedge_ but the corn: the bad husband's _hedge_ +is full of gaps." The state of an agricultural people appears in such +proverbs as "You must not count your yearlings till May-day:" and their +proverbial sentence for old age is, "An old man's end is to keep sheep?" +Turn from the vagrant Arab and the agricultural Briton to a nation +existing in a high state of artificial civilization: the Chinese +proverbs frequently allude to magnificent buildings. Affecting a more +solemn exterior than all other nations, a favourite proverb with them +is, "A grave and majestic outside is, as it were, the _palace_ of the +soul." Their notion of a government is quite architectural. They say, "A +sovereign may be compared to a _hall_; his officers to the steps that +lead to it; the people to the ground on which they stand." What should +we think of a people who had a proverb, that "He who gives blows is a +master, he who gives none is a dog?" We should instantly decide on the +mean and servile spirit of those who could repeat it; and such we find +to have been that of the Bengalese, to whom the degrading proverb +belongs, derived from the treatment they were used to receive from their +Mogul rulers, who answered the claims of their creditors by a vigorous +application of the whip! In some of the Hebrew proverbs we are struck by +the frequent allusions of that fugitive people to their own history. The +cruel oppression exercised by the ruling power, and the confidence in +their hope of change in the day of retribution, was delivered in this +Hebrew proverb--"When the tale of bricks is doubled, Moses comes!" The +fond idolatry of their devotion to their ceremonial law, and to +everything connected with their sublime Theocracy, in their magnificent +Temple, is finely expressed by this proverb--"None ever took a stone out +of the Temple, but the dust did fly into his eyes." The Hebrew proverb +that "A fast for a dream, is as fire for stubble," which it kindles, +could only have been invented by a people whose superstitions attached a +holy mystery to fasts and dreams. They imagined that a religious fast +was propitious to a religious dream; or to obtain the interpretation of +one which had troubled their imagination. Peyssonel, who long resided +among the Turks, observes that their proverbs are full of sense, +ingenuity, and elegance, the surest test of the intellectual abilities +of any nation. He said this to correct the volatile opinion of De Tott, +who, to convey an idea of their stupid pride, quotes one of their +favourite adages, of which the truth and candour are admirable; "Riches +in the Indies, wit in Europe, and pomp among the Ottomans." + +The Spaniards may appeal to their proverbs to show that they were a +high-minded and independent race. A Whiggish jealousy of the monarchical +power stamped itself on this ancient one, _Va el rey hasta do peude, y +no hasta do quiere_: "The king goes as far as he is able, not as far as +he desires." It must have been at a later period, when the national +genius became more subdued, and every Spaniard dreaded to find under his +own roof a spy or an informer, that another proverb arose, _Con el rey y +la inquisicion, chiton!_ "With the king and the Inquisition, hush!" The +gravity and taciturnity of the nation have been ascribed to the effects +of this proverb. Their popular but suppressed feelings on taxation, and +on a variety of dues exacted by their clergy, were murmured in +proverbs--_Lo que no lleva Christo lleva el fisco!_ "What Christ takes +not, the exchequer carries away!" They have a number of sarcastic +proverbs on the tenacious gripe of the "abad avariento," the avaricious +priest, who, "having eaten the olio offered, claims the dish!" A +striking mixture of chivalric habits, domestic decency, and epicurean +comfort, appears in the Spanish proverb, _La muger y la salsa a la mano +de la lanca_: "The wife and the sauce by the hand of the lance;" to +honour the dame, and to have the sauce near. + +The Italian proverbs have taken a tinge from their deep and politic +genius, and their wisdom seems wholly concentrated in their personal +interests. I think every tenth proverb, in an Italian collection, is +some cynical or some selfish maxim: a book of the world for worldlings! +The Venetian proverb, _Pria Veneziana, poi Christiane_: "First Venetian, +and then Christian!" condenses the whole spirit of their ancient +Republic into the smallest space possible. Their political proverbs no +doubt arose from the extraordinary state of a people sometimes +distracted among republics, and sometimes servile in petty courts. The +Italian says, _I popoli s'ammazzano, ed i principi s'abbracciano_: "The +people murder one another, and princes embrace one another." _Chi +prattica co' grandi, l'ultimo a tavola, e'l primo a strapazzi_: "Who +dangles after the great is the last at table, and the first at blows." +_Chi non sa adulare, non sa regnare_: "Who knows not to flatter, knows +not to reign." _Chi serve in corte muore sul' pagliato_: "Who serves at +court, dies on straw." Wary cunning in domestic life is perpetually +impressed. An Italian proverb, which is immortalised in our language, +for it enters into the history of Milton, was that by which the elegant +Wotton counselled the young poetic traveller to have--_Il viso sciolto, +ed i pensieri stretti_, "An open countenance, but close thoughts." In +the same spirit, _Chi parla semina, chi tace raccoglie_: "The talker +sows, the silent reaps;" as well as, _Fatti di miele, e ti mangieran le +mosche_: "Make yourself all honey, and the flies will devour you." There +are some which display a deep knowledge of human nature: _A Lucca ti +vidi, a Pisa ti connobbi!_ "I saw you at Lucca, I knew you at Pisa!" +_Guardati d'aceto di vin dolce_: "Beware of vinegar made of sweet wine;" +provoke not the rage of a patient man! + +Among a people who had often witnessed their fine country devastated by +petty warfare, their notion of the military character was not usually +heroic. _Il soldato per far male e ben pagato_: "The soldier is well +paid for doing mischief." _Soldato, acqua, e fuoco, presto si fan +luoco_: "A soldier, fire, and water soon make room for themselves." But +in a poetical people, endowed with great sensibility, their proverbs +would sometimes be tender and fanciful. They paint the activity of +friendship, _Chi ha l'amor nel petto, ha lo sprone a i fianchi_: "Who +feels love in the breast, feels a spur in his limbs:" or its generous +passion, _Gli amici legono la borsa con un filo di ragnatelo_: "Friends +tie their purse with a cobweb's thread." They characterised the +universal lover by an elegant proverb--_Appicare il Maio ad ogn' uscio_: +"To hang every door with May;" alluding to the bough which in the +nights of May the country people are accustomed to plant before the door +of their mistress. If we turn to the French, we discover that the +military genius of France dictated the proverb _Maille a maille se fait +le haubergeon_: "Link by link is made the coat of mail;" and, _Tel coup +de langue est pire qu'un coup de lance_; "The tongue strikes deeper than +the lance;" and _Ce qui vient du tambour s'en retourne a la flute_; +"What comes by the tabor goes back with the pipe." _Point d'argent point +de Suisse_ has become proverbial, observes an Edinburgh Reviewer; a +striking expression, which, while French or Austrian gold predominated, +was justly used to characterise the illiberal and selfish policy of the +cantonal and federal governments of Switzerland, when it began to +degenerate from its moral patriotism. The ancient, perhaps the extinct, +spirit of Englishmen was once expressed by our proverb, "Better be the +head of a dog than the tail of a lion;" _i.e._, the first of the +yeomanry rather than the last of the gentry. A foreign philosopher might +have discovered our own ancient skill in archery among our proverbs; for +none but true toxophilites could have had such a proverb as, "I will +either make a shaft or a bolt of it!" signifying, says the author of +_Ivanhoe_, a determination to make one use or other of the thing spoken +of: the bolt was the arrow peculiarly fitted to the cross-bow, as that +of the long-bow was called a shaft. These instances sufficiently +demonstrate that the characteristic circumstances and feelings of a +people are discovered in their popular notions, and stamped on their +familiar proverbs. + +It is also evident that the peculiar, and often idiomatic, humour of a +people is best preserved in their proverbs. There is a shrewdness, +although deficient in delicacy, in the Scottish proverbs; they are +idiomatic, facetious, and strike home. Kelly, who has collected three +thousand, informs us, that, in 1725, the Scotch were a great proverbial +nation; for that few among the better sort will converse any +considerable time, but will confirm every assertion and observation with +a Scottish proverb. The speculative Scotch of our own times have +probably degenerated in prudential lore, and deem themselves much wiser +than their proverbs. They may reply by a Scotch proverb on proverbs, +made by a great man in Scotland, who, having given a splendid +entertainment, was harshly told, that "Fools make feasts, and wise men +eat them;" but he readily answered, "Wise men make proverbs, and fools +repeat them!" + +National humour, frequently local and idiomatical, depends on the +artificial habits of mankind, so opposite to each other; but there is a +natural vein, which the populace, always true to nature, preserve, even +among the gravest people. The Arabian proverb, "The barber learns his +art on the orphan's face;" the Chinese, "In a field of melons do not +pull up your shoe; under a plum-tree do not adjust your cap;"--to +impress caution in our conduct under circumstances of suspicion;--and +the Hebrew one, "He that hath had one of his family hanged may not say +to his neighbour, _hang_ up this fish!" are all instances of this sort +of humour. The Spaniards are a grave people, but no nation has equalled +them in their peculiar humour. The genius of Cervantes partook largely +of that of his country; that mantle of gravity, which almost conceals +its latent facetiousness, and with which he has imbued his style and +manner with such untranslatable idiomatic raciness, may be traced to the +proverbial erudition of his nation. "To steal a sheep, and give away the +trotters for God's sake!" is Cervantic nature! To one who is seeking an +opportunity to quarrel with another, their proverb runs, _Si quieres dar +palos a sur muger pidele al sol a bever_, "Hast thou a mind to quarrel +with thy wife, bid her bring water to thee in the sunshine!"--a very +fair quarrel may be picked up about the motes in the clearest water! On +the judges in Gallicia, who, like our former justices of peace, "for +half a dozen chickens would dispense with a dozen of penal statutes," _A +juezes Gallicianos, con los pies en las manos_: "To the judges of +Gallicia go with feet in hand;" a droll allusion to a present of +poultry, usually held by the legs. To describe persons who live high +without visible means, _Los que cabritos venden, y cabras no tienen, de +donde los vienen?_ "They that sell kids, and have no goats, how came +they by them?" _El vino no trae bragas_, "Wine wears no breeches;" for +men in wine expose their most secret thoughts. _Vino di un oreja_, "Wine +of one ear!" is good wine; for at bad, shaking our heads, both our ears +are visible; but at good the Spaniard, by a natural gesticulation +lowering on one side, shows a single ear. + +Proverbs abounding in sarcastic humour, and found among every people, +are those which are pointed at rival countries. Among ourselves, hardly +has a county escaped from some popular quip; even neighbouring towns +have their sarcasms, usually pickled in some unlucky rhyme. The egotism +of man eagerly seizes on whatever serves to depreciate or to ridicule +his neighbour: nations proverb each other; counties flout counties; +obscure towns sharpen their wits on towns as obscure as themselves--the +same evil principle lurking in poor human nature, if it cannot always +assume predominance, will meanly gratify itself by insult or contempt. +They expose some prevalent folly, or allude to some disgrace which the +natives have incurred. In France, the Burgundians have a proverb, _Mieux +vaut bon repas que bel habit_; "Better a good dinner than a fine coat." +These good people are great gormandizers, but shabby dressers; they are +commonly said to have "bowels of silk and velvet;" this is, all their +silk and velvet goes for their bowels! Thus Picardy is famous for "hot +heads;" and the Norman for _son dit et son dedit_, "his saying and his +unsaying!" In Italy the numerous rival cities pelt one another with +proverbs: _Chi ha a fare con Tosco non convien esser losco_, "He who +deals with a Tuscan must not have his eyes shut." _A Venetia chi vi +nasce mal vi si pasce_, "Whom Venice breeds, she poorly feeds." + +There is another source of national characteristics, frequently +producing strange or whimsical combinations; a people, from a very +natural circumstance, have drawn their proverbs from local objects, or +from allusions to peculiar customs. The influence of manners and customs +over the ideas and language of a people would form a subject of +extensive and curious research. There is a Japanese proverb, that "A fog +cannot be dispelled with a fan!" Had we not known the origin of this +proverb, it would be evident that it could only have occurred to a +people who had constantly before them fogs and fans; and the fact +appears that fogs are frequent on the coast of Japan, and that from the +age of five years both sexes of the Japanese carry fans. The Spaniards +have an odd proverb to describe those who tease and vex a person before +they do him the very benefit which they are about to confer--acting +kindly, but speaking roughly; _Mostrar primero la horca que le lugar_, +"To show the gallows before they show the town;" a circumstance alluding +to their small towns, which have a gallows placed on an eminence, so +that the gallows breaks on the eye of the traveller before he gets a +view of the town itself. + +The Cheshire proverb on marriage, "Better wed over the mixon than over +the moor," that is, at home or in its vicinity; mixon alludes to the +dung, &c., in the farm-yard, while the road from Chester to London is +over the moorland in Staffordshire: this local proverb is a curious +instance of provincial pride, perhaps of wisdom, to induce the gentry of +that county to form intermarriages; to prolong their own ancient +families, and perpetuate ancient friendships between them. + +In the Isle of Man a proverbial expression forcibly indicates the object +constantly occupying the minds of the inhabitants. The two Deemsters or +judges, when appointed to the chair of judgment, declare they will +render justice between man and man "as equally as the herring bone lies +between the two sides:" an image which could not have occurred to any +people unaccustomed to the herring-fishery. There is a Cornish proverb, +"Those who will not be ruled by the rudder must be ruled by the +rock"--the strands of Cornwall, so often covered with wrecks, could not +fail to impress on the imaginations of its inhabitants the two objects +from whence they drew this salutary proverb against obstinate +wrongheads. + +When Scotland, in the last century, felt its allegiance to England +doubtful, and when the French sent an expedition to the Land of Cakes, a +local proverb was revived, to show the identity of interests which +affected both nations: + + If Skiddaw hath a cap, + Scruffel wots full well of that. + +These are two high hills, one in Scotland and one in England; so near, +that what happens to the one will not be long ere it reach the other. If +a fog lodges on the one, it is sure to rain on the other; the mutual +sympathies of the two countries were hence deduced in a copious +dissertation, by Oswald Dyke, on what was called "The Union-proverb," +which _local proverbs_ of our country Fuller has interspersed in his +"Worthies," and Ray and Grose have collected separately. + +I was amused lately by a curious financial revelation which I found in +an opposition paper, where it appears that "Ministers pretend to make +their load of taxes more portable, by shifting the burden, or altering +the pressure, without, however, diminishing the weight; according to the +Italian proverb, _Accommodare le bisaccie nella strada_, 'To fit the +load on the journey:'" it is taken from a custom of the mule-drivers, +who, placing their packages at first but awkwardly on the backs of their +poor beasts, and seeing them ready to sink, cry out, "Never mind! we +must fit them better on the road!" I was gratified to discover, by the +present and some other modern instances, that the taste for proverbs was +reviving, and that we were returning to those sober times, when the +aptitude of a simple proverb would be preferred to the verbosity of +politicians, Tories, Whigs, or Radicals! + +There are domestic proverbs which originate in incidents known only to +the natives of their province. Italian literature is particularly rich +in these stores. The lively proverbial taste of that vivacious people +was transferred to their own authors; and when these allusions were +obscured by time, learned Italians, in their zeal for their national +literature, and in their national love of story-telling, have written +grave commentaries even on ludicrous, but popular tales, in which the +proverbs are said to have originated. They resemble the old facetious +_contes_, whose simplicity and humour still live in the pages of +Boccaccio, and are not forgotten in those of the Queen of Navarre. + +The Italians apply a proverb to a person who while he is beaten, takes +the blows quietly:-- + + _Per beato ch' elle non furon pesche!_ + Luckily they were not peaches! + +And to threaten to give a man-- + + _Una pesca in un occhio._ + A peach in the eye, + +means to give him a thrashing. This proverb, it is said, originated in +the close of a certain droll adventure. The community of the Castle +Poggibonsi, probably from some jocular tenure observed on St. Bernard's +day, pay a tribute of peaches to the court of Tuscany, which are usually +shared among the ladies in waiting, and the pages of the court. It +happened one season, in a great scarcity of peaches, that the good +people of Poggibonsi, finding them rather dear, sent, instead of the +customary tribute, a quantity of fine juicy figs, which was so much +disapproved of by the pages, that as soon as they got hold of them, they +began in rage to empty the baskets on the heads of the ambassadors of +the Poggibonsi, who, in attempting to fly as well as they could from the +pulpy shower, half-blinded, and recollecting that peaches would have +had stones in them, cried out-- + + _Per beato ch' elle non furon pesche!_ + Luckily they were not peaches! + +_Fare le scalee di Sant' Ambrogio_; "To mount the stairs of Saint +Ambrose," a proverb allusive to the business of the school of scandal. +Varchi explains it by a circumstance so common in provincial cities. On +summer evenings, for fresh air and gossip, the loungers met on the steps +and landing-places of the church of St. Ambrose: whoever left the party, +"they read in his book," as our commentator expresses it; and not a leaf +was passed over! All liked to join a party so well informed of one +another's concerns, and every one tried to be the very last to quit +it,--not "to leave his character behind!" It became a proverbial phrase +with those who left a company, and were too tender of their backs, to +request they would not "mount the stairs of St. Ambrose." Jonson has +well described such a company: + + You are so truly fear'd, but not beloved + One of another, as no one dares break + Company from the rest, lest they should fall + Upon him absent. + +There are legends and histories which belong to proverbs; and some of +the most ancient refer to incidents which have not always been +commemorated. Two Greek proverbs have accidentally been explained by +Pausanias: "He is a man of Tenedos!" to describe a person of +unquestionable veracity; and "To cut with the Tenedian axe;" to express +an absolute and irrevocable refusal. The first originated in a king of +Tenedos, who decreed that there should always stand behind the judge a +man holding an axe, ready to execute justice on any one convicted of +falsehood. The other arose from the same king, whose father having +reached his island, to supplicate the son's forgiveness for the injury +inflicted on him by the arts of a step-mother, was preparing to land; +already the ship was fastened by its cable to a rock; when the son came +down, and sternly cutting the cable with an axe, sent the ship adrift to +the mercy of the waves: hence, "to cut with the Tenedian axe," became +proverbial to express an absolute refusal. "Business to-morrow!" is +another Greek proverb, applied to a person ruined by his own neglect. +The fate of an eminent person perpetuated the expression which he +casually employed on the occasion. One of the Theban polemarchs, in the +midst of a convivial party, received despatches relating to a +conspiracy: flushed with wine, although pressed by the courier to open +them immediately, he smiled, and in gaiety laying the letter under the +pillow of his couch, observed, "Business to-morrow!" Plutarch records +that he fell a victim to the twenty-four hours he had lost, and became +the author of a proverb which was still circulated among the Greeks. + +The philosophical antiquary may often discover how many a proverb +commemorates an event which has escaped from the more solemn monuments +of history, and is often the solitary authority of its existence. A +national event in Spanish history is preserved by a proverb. _Y vengar +quiniento sueldos_; "And revenge five hundred pounds!" An odd expression +to denote a person being a gentleman! but the proverb is historical. The +Spaniards of Old Castile were compelled to pay an annual tribute of five +hundred maidens to their masters, the Moors; after several battles, the +Spaniards succeeded in compromising the shameful tribute, by as many +pieces of coin: at length the day arrived when they entirely emancipated +themselves from this odious imposition. The heroic action was performed +by men of distinction, and the event perpetuated in the recollections of +the Spaniards by this singular expression, which alludes to the +dishonourable tribute, was applied to characterise all men of high +honour, and devoted lovers of their country. + +Pasquier, in his _Recherches sur la France_, reviewing the periodical +changes of ancient families in feudal times, observes, that a proverb +among the common people conveys the result of all his inquiries; for +those noble houses, which in a single age declined from nobility and +wealth to poverty and meanness, gave rise to the proverb, _Cent ans +bannieres et cent ans civieres!_ "One hundred years a banner and one +hundred years a barrow!" The Italian proverb, _Con l'Evangilio si +diventa heretico_, "With the gospel we become heretics,"--reflects the +policy of the court of Rome; and must be dated at the time of the +Reformation, when a translation of the Scriptures into the vulgar tongue +encountered such an invincible opposition. The Scotch proverb, _He that +invented the maiden first hanselled it_; that is, got the first of it! +The maiden is that well-known beheading engine, revived by the French +surgeon Guillotine. This proverb may be applied to one who falls a +victim to his own ingenuity; the artificer of his own destruction! The +inventor was James, Earl of Morton, who for some years governed +Scotland, and afterwards, it is said, very unjustly suffered by his own +invention. It is a striking coincidence, that the same fate was shared +by the French reviver; both alike sad examples of disturbed times! Among +our own proverbs a remarkable incident has been commemorated; _Hand over +head, as the men took the Covenant!_ This preserves the manner in which +the Scotch covenant, so famous in our history, was violently taken by +above sixty thousand persons about Edinburgh, in 1638; a circumstance at +that time novel in our own revolutionary history, and afterwards +paralleled by the French in voting by "acclamation." An ancient English +proverb preserves a curious fact concerning our coinage. _Testers are +gone to Oxford, to study at Brazennose._ When Henry the Eighth debased +the silver coin, called _testers_, from their having a head stamped on +one side; the brass, breaking out in red pimples on their silver faces, +provoked the ill-humour of the people to vent itself in this punning +proverb, which has preserved for the historical antiquary the popular +feeling which lasted about fifty years, till Elizabeth reformed the +state of the coinage. A northern proverb among us has preserved the +remarkable idea which seems to have once been prevalent, that the +metropolis of England was to be the city of York; _Lincoln was, London +is, York shall be!_ Whether at the time of the union of the crowns, +under James the First, when England and Scotland became Great Britain, +this city, from its centrical situation, was considered as the best +adapted for the seat of government, or for some other cause which I have +not discovered, this notion must have been prevalent to have entered +into a proverb. The chief magistrate of York is the only provincial one +who is allowed the title of Lord Mayor; a circumstance which seems +connected with this proverb. + +The Italian history of its own small principalities, whose well-being so +much depended on their prudence and sagacity, affords many instances of +the timely use of a proverb. Many an intricate negotiation has been +contracted through a good-humoured proverb,--many a sarcastic one has +silenced an adversary; and sometimes they have been applied on more +solemn, and even tragical occasions. When Rinaldo degli Albizzi was +banished by the vigorous conduct of Cosmo de' Medici, Machiavel tells us +the expelled man sent Cosmo a menace, in a proverb, _La gallina covava!_ +"The hen is brooding!" said of one meditating vengeance. The undaunted +Cosmo replied by another, that "There was no brooding out of the nest!" + +I give an example of peculiar interest; for it is perpetuated by Dante, +and is connected with the character of Milton. + +When the families of the Amadei and the Uberti felt their honour wounded +in the affront the younger Buondelmonte had put upon them, in breaking +off his match with a young lady of their family, by marrying another, a +council was held, and the death of the young cavalier was proposed as +the sole atonement for their injured honour. But the consequences which +they anticipated, and which afterwards proved so fatal to the +Florentines, long suspended their decision. At length Moscha Lamberti +suddenly rising, exclaimed, in two proverbs, "That those who considered +everything would never conclude on anything!" closing with an ancient +proverbial saying--_cosa fatta capo ha!_ "a deed done has an end!" The +proverb sealed the fatal determination, and was long held in mournful +remembrance by the Tuscans; for, according to Villani, it was the cause +and beginning of the accursed factions of the Guelphs and the +Ghibellines. Dante has thus immortalised the energetic expression in a +scene of the "Inferno." + + Ed un, ch' avea l'una e l'altra man mozza, + Levando i moncherin per l'aura fosca, + Si che 'l sangue facea la faccia sozza, + Grido:--"Ricorderati anche del Mosca, + Che dissi, lasso: _Capo ha cosa fatta_, + Che fu 'l mal seme della gente Tosca." + + ----Then one + Maim'd of each hand, uplifted in the gloom + The bleeding stumps, that they with gory spots + Sullied his face, and cried--"Remember thee + Of Mosca too--I who, alas! exclaim'd + 'The deed once done, there is an end'--that proved + A seed of sorrow to the Tuscan race." + + CARY'S _Dante_. + +This Italian proverb was adopted by Milton; for when deeply engaged in +writing "The Defence of the People," and warned that it might terminate +in his blindness, he resolvedly concluded his work, exclaiming with +great magnanimity, although the fatal prognostication had been +accomplished, _cosa fatta capo ha!_ Did this proverb also influence his +awful decision on that great national event, when the most +honest-minded fluctuated between doubts and fears? + +Of a person treacherously used, the Italian proverb says that he has +eaten of + + _Le frutte di fratre Alberigo._ + The fruit of brother Alberigo. + +Landino, on the following passage of Dante, preserves the tragic +story:-- + + ------Io son fratre Alberigo, + Io son quel dalle frutta del mal orto + Che qui reprendo, &c. + + Canto xxxiii. + + "The friar Alberigo," answered he, + "Am I, who from the evil garden pluck'd + Its fruitage, and am here repaid the date + More luscious for my fig." + + CARY'S _Dante_. + +This was Manfred, the Lord of Fuenza, who, after many cruelties, turned +friar. Reconciling himself to those whom he had so often opposed, to +celebrate the renewal of their friendship he invited them to a +magnificent entertainment. At the end of the dinner the horn blew to +announce the dessert--but it was the signal of this dissimulating +conspirator!--and the fruits which that day were served to his guests +were armed men, who, rushing in, immolated their victims. + +Among these historical proverbs none are more entertaining than those +which perpetuate national events, connected with those of another +people. When a Frenchman would let us understand that he has settled +with his creditors, the proverb is _J'ai paye tous mes Anglois_: "I have +paid all my English." This proverb originated when John, the French +king, was taken prisoner by our Black Prince. Levies of money were made +for the king's ransom, and for many French lords; and the French people +have thus perpetuated the military glory of our nation, and their own +idea of it, by making the _English_ and their _creditors_ synonymous +terms. Another relates to the same event--_Le Pape est devenu Francois, +et Jesus Christ Anglais_: "Now the Pope is become French and Jesus +Christ English;" a proverb which arose when the Pope, exiled from Rome, +held his court at Avignon in France; and the English prospered so well, +that they possessed more than half the kingdom. The Spanish proverb +concerning England is well known-- + + _Con todo el mondo guerra, + Y paz con Inglaterra!_ + + War with the world, + And peace with England! + +Whether this proverb was one of the results of their memorable armada, +and was only coined after their conviction of the splendid folly which +they had committed, I cannot ascertain. England must always have been a +desirable ally to Spain against her potent rival and neighbour. The +Italians have a proverb, which formerly, at least, was strongly +indicative of the travelled Englishmen in their country, _Inglese +Italianato e un diavolo incarnato_; "The Italianised Englishman is a +devil incarnate." Formerly there existed a closer intercourse between +our country and Italy than with France. Before and during the reigns of +Elizabeth and James the First that land of the elegant arts modelled our +taste and manners: and more Italians travelled into England, and were +more constant residents, from commercial concerns, than afterwards when +France assumed a higher rank in Europe by her political superiority. +This cause will sufficiently account for the number of Italian proverbs +relating to England, which show an intimacy with our manners that could +not else have occurred. It was probably some sarcastic Italian, and, +perhaps, horologer, who, to describe the disagreement of persons, +proverbed our nation--"They agree like the clocks of London!" We were +once better famed for merry Christmases and their pies; and it must have +been the Italians who had been domiciliated with us who gave currency to +the proverb--_Ha piu da fare che i forni di natale in Inghilterra_: "He +has more business than English ovens at Christmas." Our pie-loving +gentry were notorious, and Shakspeare's folio was usually laid open in +the great halls of our nobility to entertain their attendants, who +devoured at once Shakspeare and their pasty. Some of those volumes have +come down to us, not only with the stains, but inclosing even the +identical piecrusts of the Elizabethan age. + +I have thus attempted to develope THE ART OF READING PROVERBS; but have +done little more than indicate the theory, and must leave the skilful +student to the delicacy of the practice. I am anxious to rescue from +prevailing prejudices these neglected stores of curious amusement, and +of deep insight into the ways of man, and to point out the bold and +concealed truths which are scattered in these collections. There seems +to be no occurrence in human affairs to which some proverb may not be +applied. All knowledge was long aphoristical and traditional, pithily +contracting the discoveries which were to be instantly comprehended and +easily retained. Whatever be the revolutionary state of man, similar +principles and like occurrences are returning on us; and antiquity, +whenever it is justly applicable to our times, loses its denomination, +and becomes the truth of our own age. A proverb will often cut the knot +which others in vain are attempting to untie. Johnson, palled with the +redundant elegancies of modern composition, once said, "I fancy mankind +may come in time to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow +weary of preparation, and connexion, and illustration, and all those +arts by which a big book is made." Many a volume indeed has often been +written to demonstrate what a lover of proverbs could show had long been +ascertained by a single one in his favourite collections. + +An insurmountable difficulty, which every paraemiographer has +encountered, is that of forming an apt, a ready, and a systematic +classification: the moral Linnaeus of such a "systema naturae" has not yet +appeared. Each discovered his predecessor's mode imperfect, but each was +doomed to meet the same fate.[40] The arrangement of proverbs has +baffled the ingenuity of every one of their collectors. Our Ray, after +long premeditation, has chosen a system with the appearance of an +alphabetical order; but, as it turns out, his system is no system, and +his alphabet is no alphabet. After ten years' labour, the good man could +only arrange his proverbs by commonplaces--by complete sentences--by +phrases or forms of speech--by proverbial similes--and so on. All these +are pursued in alphabetical order, "by the first letter of the most +'material word,' or if there be more words '_equally material_,' by that +which usually stands foremost." The most patient examiner will usually +find that he wants the sagacity of the collector to discover that word +which is "the most material," or, "the words equally material." We have +to search through all that multiplicity of divisions, or conjuring +boxes, in which this juggler of proverbs pretends to hide the ball.[41] + +A still more formidable objection against a collection of proverbs, for +the impatient reader, is their unreadableness. Taking in succession a +multitude of insulated proverbs, their slippery nature resists all hope +of retaining one in a hundred; the study of proverbs must be a frequent +recurrence to a gradual collection of favourite ones, which we ourselves +must form. The experience of life will throw a perpetual freshness over +these short and simple texts; every day may furnish a new commentary; +and we may grow old, and find novelty in proverbs by their perpetual +application. + +There are, perhaps, about twenty thousand proverbs among the nations of +Europe: many of these have spread in their common intercourse; many are +borrowed from the ancients, chiefly the Greeks, who themselves largely +took them from the eastern nations. Our own proverbs are too often +deficient in that elegance and ingenuity which are often found in the +Spanish and the Italian. Proverbs frequently enliven conversation, or +enter into the business of life in those countries, without any feeling +of vulgarity being associated with them: they are too numerous, too +witty, and too wise to cease to please by their poignancy and their +aptitude. I have heard them fall from the lips of men of letters and of +statesmen. When recently the disorderly state of the manufacturers of +Manchester menaced an insurrection, a profound Italian politician +observed to me, that it was not of a nature to alarm a great nation; for +that the remedy was at hand, in the proverb of the Lazzaroni of Naples, +_Meta consiglio, meta esempio, meta denaro!_ "Half advice, half example, +half money!" The result confirmed the truth of the proverb, which, had +it been known at the time, might have quieted the honest fears of a +great part of the nation. + +Proverbs have ceased to be studied or employed in conversation since +the time we have derived our knowledge from books; but in a +philosophical age they appear to offer infinite subjects for speculative +curiosity. Originating in various eras, these memorials of manners, of +events, and of modes of thinking, for historical as well as for moral +purposes, still retain a strong hold on our attention. The collected +knowledge of successive ages, and of different people, must always enter +into some part of our own! Truth and nature can never be obsolete. + +Proverbs embrace the wide sphere of human existence, they take all the +colours of life, they are often exquisite strokes of genius, they +delight by their airy sarcasm or their caustic satire, the luxuriance of +their humour, the playfulness of their turn, and even by the elegance of +their imagery, and the tenderness of their sentiment. They give a deep +insight into domestic life, and open for us the heart of man, in all the +various states which he may occupy--a frequent review of proverbs should +enter into our readings; and although they are no longer the ornaments +of conversation, they have not ceased to be the treasuries of Thought! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [29] Taylor's Translation of Plato's works, vol v. p. 36. + + [30] Shakspeare satirically alludes to the quality of such rhymes in + his _Merchant of Venice_, Act v. Sc. 1. Speaking of one + + "------ whose poesy was + For all the world like cutler's poetry + Upon a knife, _Love me, and leave me not_." + + [31] One of the _fruit trenchers_, for such these roundels are + called in the _Gent. Mag._ for 1798, p. 398, is engraved there, and + the inscriptions of an entire set given.--See also the Supplement to + that volume, p. 1187. The author of the "Art of English Poesie," + 1589, tells us they never contained above one verse, or two at the + most, but the shorter the better. Two specimens may suffice the + reader. One, under the symbol of a skull, thus morally discourses:-- + + "Content thyself with thine estate, + And send no poor wight from thy gate; + For why, this counsel I you give, + To learne to die, and die to live." + + On another, decorated with pictures of fruit, are these satirical + lines:-- + + "Feed and be fat: hear's pears and plums, + Will never hurt your teeth or spoil your gums. + And I wish those girls that painted are, + No other food than such fine painted fare." + + [32] This constant custom of engraving "posies," as they were + termed, on rings, is noted by many authors of the Elizabethan era. + Lilly, in his "Euphues," addresses the ladies for a favourable + judgment on his work, hoping it will be recorded "as you do the + posies in your rings, which are always next to the finger not to be + seene of him that holdeth you by the hand, and yet knowne by you + that weare them on your hands." They were always engraved withinside + of the ring. A MS. of the time of Charles I. furnishes us with a + single posy, of one line, to this effect--"This hath alloy; my love + is pure." From the same source we have the two following rhyming, or + "double posies"-- + + "Constancy and heaven are round, + And in this the emblem's found." + "Weare me out, love shall not waste; + Love beyond tyme still is placed." + + [33] Heywood's "Dialogue, conteyninge the Number in Effecte of all + the Proverbes in the English Tunge, 1561." There are more editions + of this little volume than Warton has noticed. There is some humour + in his narrative, but his metre and his ribaldry are heavy taxes on + our curiosity. + + [34] The whole of Tusser's "Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie," + 1580, was composed in quaint couplets, long remembered by the + peasantry for their homely worldly wisdom. One, constructed for the + bakehouse, runs thus:-- + + "New bread is a drivell (waste); + Much crust is as evil." + + Another for the dairymaid assures her-- + + "Good dairie doth pleasure; + Ill dairie spends treasure." + + Another might rival any lesson of thrift:-- + + "Where nothing will last, + Spare such as thou hast." + + [35] Townshend's Historical Collections, p. 283. + + [36] It was published in 1616: the writer only catches at some + verbal expressions--as, for instance:-- + + The vulgar proverb runs, "The more the merrier." + + The cross,--"Not so! one hand is enough in a purse." + + The proverb, "It is a great way to the bottom of the sea." + + The cross,--"Not so! it is but a stone's cast." + + The proverb, "The pride of the rich makes the labours of the poor." + + The cross,--"Not so! the labours of the poor make the pride of the + rich." + + The proverb, "He runs far who never turns." + + The cross,--"Not so! he may break his neck in a short course." + + [37] It has been suggested that this whimsical amusement has been + lately revived, to a certain degree, in the _acting of charades_ + among juvenile parties. + + [38] Now the punning motto of a noble family. + + [39] At the ROYAL INSTITUTION there is a fine copy of Polydore + Vergil's "Adagia," with his other work, curious in its day, _De + Inventoribus Rerum_, printed by Frobenius, in 1521. The _wood-cuts_ + of this edition seem to me to be executed with inimitable delicacy, + resembling a pencilling which Raphael might have envied. + + [40] Since the appearance of the present article, several collections + of PROVERBS have been attempted. A little unpretending volume, + entitled "Select Proverbs of all Nations, with _Notes_ and + _Comments_, by Thomas Fielding, 1824," is not ill arranged; an + excellent book for popular reading. The editor of a recent + miscellaneous compilation, "The Treasury of Knowledge," has + whimsically bordered the four sides of the pages of a Dictionary + with as many proverbs. The plan was ingenious, but the proverbs are + not. Triteness and triviality are fatal to a proverb. + + [41] A new edition of Ray's book, with large additions, was + published by Bohn, in 1855, under the title of "A Handbook of + Proverbs." It is a vast collection of "wise saws" of all ages and + countries. + + + + +CONFUSION OF WORDS. + + +"There is nothing more common," says the lively Voltaire, "than to read +and to converse to no purpose. In history, in morals, in law, in physic, +and in divinity, be careful of equivocal terms." One of the ancients +wrote a book to prove that there was no word which did not convey an +ambiguous and uncertain meaning. If we possessed this lost book, our +ingenious dictionaries of "synonyms" would not probably prove its +uselessness. Whenever _the same word_ is associated by the parties with +_different ideas_, they may converse, or controverse, till "the crack of +doom!" This with a little obstinacy and some agility in shifting his +ground, makes the fortune of an opponent. While one party is worried in +disentangling a meaning, and the other is winding and unwinding about +him with another, a word of the kind we have mentioned, carelessly or +perversely slipped into an argument, may prolong it for a century or +two--as it has happened! Vaugelas, who passed his whole life in the +study of words, would not allow that the _sense_ was to determine the +meaning of _words_; for, says he, it is the business of _words_ to +explain the _sense_. Kant for a long while discovered in this way a +facility of arguing without end, as at this moment do our political +economists. "I beseech you," exclaims a poetical critic, in the agony of +a confusion of words, on the Pope controversy, "not to ask whether I +mean _this_ or _that_!" Our critic, positive that he has made himself +understood, has shown how a few vague terms may admit of volumes of +vindication. Throw out a word, capable of fifty senses, and you raise +fifty parties! Should some friend of peace enable the fifty to repose on +one sense, that innocent word, no longer ringing the _tocsin_ of a +party, would lie in forgetfulness in the Dictionary. Still more +provoking when an identity of meaning is only disguised by different +modes of expression, and when the term has been closely sifted, to their +mutual astonishment both parties discover the same thing lying under the +bran and chaff after this heated operation. Plato and Aristotle probably +agreed much better than the opposite parties they raised up imagined; +their difference was in the manner of expression, rather than in the +points discussed. The Nominalists and the Realists, who once filled the +world with their brawls, and who from irregular words came to regular +blows, could never comprehend their alternate nonsense; "whether in +employing general terms we use _words_ or _names_ only, or whether there +is _in nature anything_ corresponding to what we mean by a _general +idea_?" The Nominalists only denied what no one in his senses would +affirm; and the Realists only contended for what no one in his senses +would deny; a hair's breadth might have joined what the spirit of party +had sundered! + +Do we flatter ourselves that the Logomachies of the Nominalists and the +Realists terminated with these scolding schoolmen? Modern nonsense, +weighed against the obsolete, may make the scales tremble for awhile, +but it will lose its agreeable quality of freshness, and subside into an +equipoise. We find their spirit still lurking among our own +metaphysicians! "Lo! the Nominalists and the Realists again!" exclaimed +my learned friend, Sharon Turner, alluding to our modern doctrines on +_abstract ideas_, on which there is still a doubt whether they are +anything more than _generalising terms_.[42] Leibnitz confused his +philosophy by the term _sufficient reason_: for every existence, for +every event, and for every truth there must be a _sufficient reason_. +This vagueness of language produced a perpetual misconception, and +Leibnitz was proud of his equivocal triumphs in always affording a new +interpretation! It is conjectured that he only employed his term of +_sufficient reason_ for the plain simple word of _cause_. Even Locke, +who has himself so admirably noticed the "abuse of words," has been +charged with using vague and indefinite ones; he has sometimes employed +the words _reflection_, _mind_, and _spirit_ in so indefinite a way, +that they have confused his philosophy: thus by some ambiguous +expressions, our great metaphysician has been made to establish +doctrines fatal to the immutability of moral distinctions. Even the +eagle-eye of the intellectual Newton grew dim in the obscurity of the +language of Locke. We are astonished to discover that two such +intellects should not comprehend the same ideas; for Newton wrote to +Locke, "I beg your pardon for representing that you struck at the root +of morality in a principle laid down in your book of Ideas--and that I +took you for a Hobbist!"[43] The difference of opinion between Locke and +Reid is in consequence of an ambiguity in the word _principle_, as +employed by Reid. The removal of a solitary word may cast a luminous ray +over a whole body of philosophy: "If we had called the _infinite_ the +_indefinite_," says Condillac, in his _Traite des Sensations_, "by this +small change of a word we should have avoided the error of imagining +that we have a positive idea of _infinity_, from whence so many false +reasonings have been carried on, not only by metaphysicians, but even by +geometricians." The word _reason_ has been used with different meanings +by different writers; _reasoning_ and _reason_ have been often +confounded; a man may have an endless capacity for _reasoning_, without +being much influenced by _reason_, and to be _reasonable_, perhaps +differs from both! So Moliere tells us, + + Raisonner est l'emploi de toute ma maison; + Et le raisonnement en bannit la raison! + +In this research on "confusion of words," might enter the voluminous +history of the founders of sects, who have usually employed terms which +had no meaning attached to them, or were so ambiguous that their real +notions have never been comprehended; hence the most chimerical opinions +have been imputed to founders of sects. We may instance that of the +_Antinomians_, whose remarkable denomination explains their doctrine, +expressing that they were "against law!" Their founder was John +Agricola, a follower of Luther, who, while he lived, had kept Agricola's +follies from exploding, which they did when he asserted that there was +no such thing as sin, our salvation depending on faith, and not on +works; and when he declaimed against the _Law of God_. To what length +some of his sect pushed this verbal doctrine is known; but the real +notions of this Agricola probably never will be! Bayle considered him as +a harmless dreamer in theology, who had confused his head by Paul's +controversies with the Jews; but Mosheim, who bestows on this early +reformer the epithets of _ventosus_ and _versipellis_, windy and crafty! +or, as his translator has it, charges him with "vanity, presumption, and +artifice," tells us by the term "law," Agricola only meant the ten +commandments of Moses, which he considered were abrogated by the Gospel, +being designed for the Jews and not for the Christians. Agricola then, +by the words the "Law of God," and "that there was no such thing as +sin," must have said one thing and meant another! This appears to have +been the case with most of the divines of the sixteenth century; for +even Mosheim complains of "their want of precision and consistency in +expressing _their sentiments_, hence their real sentiments have been +misunderstood." There evidently prevailed a great "confusion of words" +among them! The _grace suffisante_ and the _grace efficace_ of the +Jansenists and the Jesuits show the shifts and stratagems by which +nonsense may be dignified. "Whether all men received from God +_sufficient grace_ for their conversion!" was an inquiry some unhappy +metaphysical theologist set afloat: the Jesuits, according to their +worldly system of making men's consciences easy, affirmed it; but the +Jansenists insisted, that this _sufficient grace_ would never be +_efficacious_, unless accompanied by _special grace_. "Then the +_sufficient grace_, which is not _efficacious_, is a contradiction in +terms, and worse, a heresy!" triumphantly cried the Jesuits, exulting +over their adversaries. This "confusion of words" thickened, till the +Jesuits introduced in this logomachy with the Jansenists papal bulls, +royal edicts, and a regiment of dragoons! The Jansenists, in despair, +appealed to miracles and prodigies, which they got up for public +representation; but, above all, to their Pascal, whose immortal satire +the Jesuits really felt was at once "sufficient and efficacious," +though the dragoons, in settling a "confusion of words," did not boast +of inferior success to Pascal's. Former ages had, indeed, witnessed even +a more melancholy logomachy, in the _Homoousion_ and the _Homoiousion_! +An event which Boileau has immortalised by some fine verses, which, in +his famous satire on _L'Equivoque_, for reasons best known to the +Sorbonne, were struck out of the text. + + D'une _syllabe_ impie un saint _mot_ augmente + Remplit tous les esprits d'aigreurs si meurtrieres-- + Tu fis, dans une guerre et si triste et si longue, + Perir tant de Chretiens, _martyrs d'une diphthongue_! + +Whether the Son was similar to the substance of the Father, or of the +same substance, depended on the diphthong _oi_, which was alternately +rejected and received. Had they earlier discovered, what at length they +agreed on, that the words denoted what was incomprehensible, it would +have saved thousands, as a witness describes, "from tearing one another +to pieces." The great controversy between Abelard and St. Bernard, when +the saint accused the scholastic of maintaining heretical notions of the +Trinity, long agitated the world; yet, now that these confusers of words +can no longer inflame our passions, we wonder how these parties could +themselves differ about words to which we can attach no meaning +whatever. There have been few councils or synods where the omission or +addition of a word or a phrase might not have terminated an interminable +logomachy! At the council of Basle, for the convenience of the +disputants, John de Secubia drew up a treatise of _undeclined words_, +chiefly to determine the signification of the particles _from_, _by_, +_but_, and _except_, which it seems were perpetually occasioning fresh +disputes among the Hussites and the Bohemians. Had Jerome of Prague +known, like our Shakspeare, the virtue of an IF, or agreed with Hobbes, +that he should not have been so positive in the use of the verb IS, he +might have been spared from the flames. The philosopher of Malmsbury has +declared that "Perhaps _Judgment_ was nothing else but the composition +or joining of _two names of things, or modes_, by the verb IS." In +modern times the popes have more skilfully freed the church from this +"confusion of words." His holiness, on one occasion, standing in equal +terror of the court of France, who protected the Jesuits, and of the +court of Spain, who maintained the cause of the Dominicans, contrived a +phrase, where a comma or a full stop, placed at the beginning or the +end, purported that his holiness tolerated the opinions which he +condemned; and when the rival parties despatched deputations to the +court of Rome to plead for the period, or advocate the comma, his +holiness, in this "confusion of words," flung an unpunctuated copy to +the parties; nor was it his fault, but that of the spirit of party, if +the rage of the one could not subside into a comma, nor that of the +other close by a full period! + +In jurisprudence much confusion has occurred in the uses of the term +_rights_; yet the social union and human happiness are involved in the +precision of the expression. When Montesquieu laid down, as the active +principle of a republic, _virtue_, it seemed to infer that a republic +was the best of governments. In the defence of his great work he was +obliged to define the term; and it seems that by _virtue_ he only meant +_political virtue_, the love of the country. + +In politics, what evils have resulted from abstract terms to which no +ideas are affixed,--such as, "The Equality of Man--the Sovereignty or +the Majesty of the People--Loyalty--Reform--even Liberty +herself!--Public Opinion--Public Interest;" and other abstract notions, +which have excited the hatred or the ridicule of the vulgar. Abstract +ideas, as _sounds_, have been used as watchwords. The combatants will +usually be found willing to fight for words to which, perhaps, not one +of them has attached any settled signification. This is admirably +touched on by Locke, in his chapter of "Abuse of Words." "Wisdom, Glory, +Grace, &c., are words frequent enough in every man's mouth; but if a +great many of those who use them should be asked what they mean by them, +they would be at a stand, and know not what to answer--a plain proof +that though they have learned those _sounds_, and have them ready at +their tongue's end, yet there are no determined _ideas_ laid up in their +minds which are to be expressed to others by them." + +When the American exclaimed that he was not represented in the House of +Commons, because he was not an elector, he was told that a very small +part of the people of England were electors. As they could not call this +an _actual representation_, they invented a new name for it, and called +it a _virtual one_. It imposed on the English nation, who could not +object that others should be taxed rather than themselves; but with the +Americans it was a sophism! and this _virtual_ representation, instead +of an _actual_ one, terminated in our separation; "which," says Mr. +Flood, "at the time appeared to have swept away most of our glory and +our territory; forty thousand lives, and one hundred millions of +treasure!" + +That fatal expression which Rousseau had introduced, _l'Egalite des +Hommes_, which finally involved the happiness of a whole people, had he +lived he had probably shown how ill his country had understood. He could +only have referred in his mind to _political equality_, but not an +equality of possessions, of property, of authority, destructive of +social order and of moral duties, which must exist among every people. +"Liberty," "Equality," and "Reform" (innocent words!) sadly ferment the +brains of those who cannot affix any definite notions to them; they are +like those chimerical fictions in law, which declare the "sovereign +immortal, proclaim his ubiquity in various places," and irritate the +feelings of the populace, by assuming that "the king can never do +wrong!" In the time of James the Second "it is curious," says Lord +Russell, "to read the conference between the Houses on the meaning of +the words 'deserted' and 'abdicated,' and the debates in the Lords +whether or no there is an original contract between king and people." +The people would necessarily decide that "kings derived their power from +them;" but kings were once maintained by a "right divine," a "confusion +of words," derived from two opposite theories, and both only relatively +true. When we listen so frequently to such abstract terms as "the +majesty of the people," "the sovereignty of the people," whence the +inference that "all power is derived from the people," we can form no +definite notions: it is "a confusion of words," contradicting all the +political experience which our studies or our observations furnish; for +sovereignty is established to rule, to conduct, and to settle the +vacillations and quick passions of the multitude. _Public opinion_ +expresses too often the ideas of one party in place; and _public +interest_ those of another party out! Political axioms, from the +circumstance of having the notions attached to them unsettled, are +applied to the most opposite ends! "In the time of the French +Directory," observes an Italian philosopher of profound views, "in the +revolution of Naples, the democratic faction pronounced that 'Every act +of a tyrannical government is in its origin illegal;' a proposition +which at first sight seems self-evident, but which went to render all +existing laws impracticable." The doctrine of the illegality of the acts +of a tyrant was proclaimed by Brutus and Cicero, in the name of the +senate, _against the populace_, who had favoured Caesar's perpetual +dictatorship; and the populace of Paris availed themselves of it, +_against the National Assembly_. + +This "confusion of words," in time-serving politics, has too often +confounded right and wrong; and artful men, driven into a corner, and +intent only on its possession, have found no difficulty in solving +doubts, and reconciling contradictions. Our own history in revolutionary +times abounds with dangerous examples from all parties; of specious +hypotheses for compliance with the government of the day or the passions +of parliament. Here is an instance in which the subtle confuser of words +pretended to substitute two consciences, by utterly depriving a man of +any! When the unhappy Charles the First pleaded that to pass the bill of +attainder against the Earl of Strafford was against his conscience, that +remarkable character of "boldness and impiety," as Clarendon +characterizes Williams, Archbishop of York, on this argument of +_conscience_ (a simple word enough), demonstrated "that there were _two +sorts of conscience_, public and private; that his public conscience as +a king might dispense with his private conscience as a man!" Such was +the ignominious argument which decided the fate of that great victim of +State! It was an impudent "confusion of words" when Prynne (in order to +quiet the consciences of those who were uneasy at warring with the king) +observed that the statute of twenty-fifth Edward the Third ran in the +singular number--"If a man shall levy war against _the king_, and +therefore could not be extended to _the houses_, who are many and public +_persons_." Later, we find Sherlock blest with the spirit of Williams, +the Archbishop of York, whom we have just left. When some did not know +how to charge and to discharge themselves of the oaths to James the +Second and to William the Third, this confounder of words discovered +that there were _two rights_, as the other had that there were _two +consciences_; one was a providential right, and the other a legal right; +one person might very righteously claim and take a thing, and another as +righteously hold and keep it; but that _whoever got the better_ had the +_providential_ right by possession; and since all authority comes from +God, the people were obliged to transfer their allegiance to him as a +king of God's making; so that he who had the providential right +necessarily had the legal one! a very simple discovery, which must, +however, have cost him some pains; for this confounder of words was +himself confounded by twelve answers by non-jurors! A French politician +of this stamp recently was suspended from his lectureship for asserting +that _the possession of the soil_ was a right; by which principle, _any +king_ reigning over a country, whether by treachery, crime, and +usurpation, was a _legitimate sovereign_. For this convenient principle +the lecturer was tried, and declared not guilty--by persons who have +lately found their advantage in a confusion of words. In treaties +between nations, a "confusion of words" has been more particularly +studied; and that negotiator has conceived himself most dexterous who, +by this abuse of words, has retained an _arriere-pensee_ which may +fasten or loosen the ambiguous expression he had so cautiously and so +finely inlaid in his mosaic of treachery. A scene of this nature I draw +out of "Mesnager's Negociation with the Court of England." When that +secret agent of Louis the Fourteenth was negotiating a peace, an +insuperable difficulty arose respecting the acknowledgment of the +Hanoverian succession. It was absolutely necessary, on this delicate +point, to quiet the anxiety of the English public and our allies; but +though the French king was willing to recognise Anne's title to the +throne, yet the settlement in the house of Hanover was incompatible with +French interests and French honour. Mesnager told Lord Bolingbroke that +"the king, his master, would consent to any such article, _looking the +other way, as might disengage him from the obligation of that +agreement_, as the occasion should present." This ambiguous language was +probably understood by Lord Bolingbroke: at the next conference his +lordship informed the secret agent "that the queen could not admit of +any _explanations, whatever her intentions might be_; that the +_succession_ was settled by act of parliament; that as to the private +sentiments of the queen, or of any about her, he could say nothing." +"All this was said with such an air, as to let me understand that he +gave a _secret assent_ to what I had proposed, &c.; but he desired me to +drop the discourse." Thus two great negotiators, both equally urgent to +conclude the treaty, found an insuperable obstacle occur, which neither +could control. Two honest men would have parted; but the "skilful +confounder of words," the French diplomatist, hit on an expedient; he +wrote the words which afterwards appeared in the preliminaries, "That +Louis the Fourteenth will acknowledge the Queen of Great Britain in that +quality, as also _the succession of the crown according to the_ PRESENT +SETTLEMENT." "The English agent," adds the Frenchman, "would have had me +add--_on the house of Hanover_, but this I entreated him not to desire +of me." The term PRESENT SETTLEMENT, then, was that article which was +LOOKING THE OTHER WAY, _to disengage his master from the obligation of +that agreement_, as occasion should present! that is, that Louis the +Fourteenth chose to understand by the PRESENT SETTLEMENT the _old one_, +by which the British crown was to be restored to the Pretender! Anne and +the English nation were to understand it in their own sense--as the _new +one_, which transferred it to the house of Hanover! + +When politicians cannot rely upon each other's interpretation of _one of +the commonest words_ in our language, how can they possibly act +together? The Bishop of Winchester has proved this observation, by the +remarkable anecdote of the Duke of Portland and Mr. Pitt, who, with a +view to unite parties, were to hold a conference _on_ FAIR _and_ EQUAL +_terms_. His grace did not object to the word FAIR, but the word EQUAL +was more specific and limited; and for a necessary preliminary, he +requested Mr. Pitt to inform him what he _understood_ by the word EQUAL? +Whether Pitt was puzzled by the question, or would not deliver up an +_arriere-pensee_, he put off the explanation to the conference. But the +duke would not meet Mr. Pitt till the _word_ was explained; and this +important negotiation was broken off by not explaining a simple word +which appeared to require no explanation. + +There is nothing more fatal in language than to wander from the popular +acceptation of words; and yet this popular sense cannot always accord +with precision of ideas, for it is itself subject to great changes. + +Another source, therefore, of the abuse of words, is that mutability to +which, in the course of time, the verbal edifice, as well as more +substantial ones, is doomed. A familiar instance presents itself in the +titles of _tyrant_, _parasite_, and _sophist_, originally honourable +distinctions. The abuses of dominion made the appropriate title of kings +odious; the title of a magistrate, who had the care of the public +granaries of corn, at length was applied to a wretched flatterer for a +dinner; and absurd philosophers occasioned a mere denomination to become +a by-name. To employ such terms in their primitive sense would now +confuse all ideas; yet there is an affectation of erudition which has +frequently revived terms sanctioned by antiquity. Bishop Watson entitled +his vindication of the Bible "an _apology_:" this word, in its primitive +sense, had long been lost for the multitude, whom he particularly +addressed in this work, and who could only understand it in the sense +they are accustomed to. Unquestionably, many of its readers have +imagined that the bishop was offering an _excuse_ for a belief in the +Bible, instead of a _vindication_ of its truth. The word _impertinent_, +by the ancient jurisconsults, or law-counsellors, who gave their opinion +on cases, was used merely in opposition to _pertinent_--_ratio +pertinens_ is a pertinent reason, that is, a reason _pertaining_ to the +cause in question, and a _ratio impertinens_, an impertinent reason, is +an argument _not pertaining_ to the subject.[44] _Impertinent_ then +originally meant neither absurdity nor rude intrusion, as it does in our +present popular sense. The learned Arnauld having characterised a reply +of one of his adversaries by the epithet _impertinent_, when blamed for +the freedom of his language, explained his meaning by giving this +history of the word, which applies to our own language. Thus also with +us the word _indifferent_ has entirely changed: an historian, whose work +was _indifferently_ written, would formerly have claimed our attention. +In the Liturgy it is prayed that "magistrates may _indifferently_ +minister justice." _Indifferently_ originally meant _impartially_. The +word _extravagant_, in its primitive signification, only signified to +digress from the subject. The Decretals, or those letters from the popes +deciding on points of ecclesiastical discipline, were at length +incorporated with the canon law, and were called _extravagant_ by +_wandering out_ of the body of the canon law, being confusedly dispersed +through that collection. When Luther had the Decretals publicly burnt at +Wittemberg, the insult was designed for the pope, rather than as a +condemnation of the canon law itself. Suppose, in the present case, two +persons of opposite opinions. The catholic, who had said that the +decretals were _extravagant_, might not have intended to depreciate +them, or make any concession to the Lutheran. What confusion of words +has the _common sense_ of the Scotch metaphysicians introduced into +philosophy! There are no words, perhaps, in the language which may be so +differently interpreted; and Professor Dugald Stewart has collected, in +a curious note in the second volume of his "Philosophy of the Human +Mind," a singular variety of its opposite significations. The Latin +phrase, _sensus communis_, may, in various passages of Cicero, be +translated by our phrase _common sense_; but, on other occasions, it +means something different; the _sensus communis_ of the schoolmen is +quite another thing, and is synonymous with _conception_, and referred +to the seat of intellect; with Sir John Davies, in his curious +metaphysical poem, _common sense_ is used as _imagination_. It created a +controversy with Beattie and Reid; and Reid, who introduced this vague +ambiguous phrase in philosophical language, often understood the term in +its ordinary acceptation. This change of the meaning of words, which is +constantly recurring in metaphysical disputes, has made that curious but +obscure science liable to this objection of Hobbes, "with many words +making nothing understood!" + +Controversies have been keenly agitated about the principles of morals, +which resolve entirely into _verbal disputes_, or at most into questions +of arrangement and classification, of little comparative moment to the +points at issue. This observation of Mr. Dugald Stewart's might be +illustrated by the fate of the numerous inventors of systems of thinking +or morals, who have only employed very different and even opposite terms +in appearance to express the same thing. Some, by their mode of +philosophising, have strangely unsettled the words _self-interest_ and +_self-love_; and their misconceptions have sadly misled the votaries of +these systems of morals; as others also by such vague terms as "utility, +fitness," &c. + +When Epicurus asserted that the sovereign good consisted in _pleasure_, +opposing the unfeeling austerity of the Stoics by the softness of +pleasurable emotions, his principle was soon disregarded; while his +_word_, perhaps chosen in the spirit of paradox, was warmly adopted by +the sensualist. Epicurus, of whom Seneca has drawn so beautiful a +domestic scene, in whose garden a loaf, a Cytheridean cheese, and a +draught which did not inflame thirst,[45] was the sole banquet, would +have started indignantly at + + The fattest hog in Epicurus' sty! + +Such are the facts which illustrate that principle in "the abuse of +words," which Locke calls "an affected obscurity arising from applying +_old words to new, or unusual significations_." + +It was the same "confusion of words" which gave rise to the famous sect +of the Sadducees. The master of its founder Sadoc, in his moral purity, +was desirous of a disinterested worship of the Deity; he would not have +men like slaves, obedient from the hope of reward or the fear of +punishment. Sadoc drew a quite contrary inference from the intention of +his master, concluding that there were neither rewards nor punishments +in a future state. The result is a parallel to the fate of Epicurus. The +morality of the master of Sadoc was of the most pure and elevated kind, +but in the "confusion of words," the libertines adopted them for their +own purposes--and having once assumed that neither rewards nor +punishments existed in the after-state, they proceeded to the erroneous +consequence that man perished with his own dust! + +The plainest words, by accidental associations, may suggest the most +erroneous conceptions, and have been productive of the grossest errors. +In the famous Bangorian controversy, one of the writers excites a smile +by a complaint, arising from his views of the signification of a plain +word, whose meaning he thinks had been changed by the contending +parties. He says, "the word _country_, like a great many others, such as +_church_ and kingdom, is, by the Bishop of Bangor's leave, become to +signify a _collection of ideas_ very different from its _original +meaning_; with some it implies _party_, with others _private opinion_, +and with most _interest_, and perhaps, in time, may signify _some other +country_. When this good innocent word has been tossed backwards and +forwards a little longer, some new reformer of language may arise to +reduce it to its primitive signification--_the real interest of Great +Britain!_" The antagonist of this controversialist probably retorted on +him his own term of _the real interest_, which might be a very opposite +one, according to their notions! It has been said, with what truth I +know not, that it was by a mere confusion of words that Burke was +enabled to alarm the great Whig families, by showing them their fate in +that of the French _noblesse_; they were misled by the _similitude of +names_. The French _noblesse_ had as little resemblance to our nobility +as they have to the Mandarins of China. However it may be in this case, +certain it is that the same terms misapplied have often raised those +delusive notions termed false analogies. It was long imagined in this +country, that the _parliaments_ of France were somewhat akin to our own; +but these assemblies were very differently constituted, consisting only +of lawyers in courts of law. A misnomer confuses all argument. There is +a trick which consists in bestowing good names on bad things. Vices, +thus veiled, are introduced to us as virtues, according to an old poet, + + As drunkenness, good-fellowship we call? + + SIR THOMAS WIAT. + +Or the reverse, when loyalty may be ridiculed, as + + The right divine of kings--to govern wrong! + +The most innocent recreations, such as the drama, dancing, dress, have +been anathematised by puritans, while philosophers have written +elaborate treatises in their defence--the enigma is solved, when we +discover that these words suggested a set of opposite notions to each. + +But the nominalists and the realists, and the _doctores fundatissimi_, +_resolutissimi_, _refulgentes_, _profundi_, and _extatici_, have left +this heirloom of logomachy to a race as subtle and irrefragable! An +extraordinary scene has recently been performed by a new company of +actors, in the modern comedy of Political Economy; and the whole +dialogue has been carried on in an inimitable "confusion of words!" This +reasoning and unreasoning fraternity never use a term as a term, but for +an explanation, and which employed by them all, signifies opposite +things, but never the plainest! Is it not, therefore, strange that they +cannot yet tell us what are _riches_? what is _rent_? what is _value_? +Monsieur Say, the most sparkling of them all, assures us that the +English writers are obscure, by their confounding, like Smith, the +denomination of _labour_. The vivacious Gaul cries out to the grave +Briton, Mr. Malthus, "If I consent to employ your word _labour_, you +must understand me," so and so! Mr. Malthus says, "Commodities are not +exchanged for commodities only; they are also exchanged for _labour_;" +and when the hypochondriac Englishman, with dismay, foresees "the glut +of markets," and concludes that we may produce more than we can consume, +the paradoxical Monsieur Say discovers that "commodities" is a _wrong +word_, for it gives a wrong idea; it should be "productions;" for his +axiom is, that "productions can only be purchased with productions." +Money, it seems, according to dictionary ideas, has no existence in his +vocabulary; for Monsieur Say has formed a sort of Berkleian conception +of wealth being immaterial, while we confine our views to its +materiality. Hence ensues from this "confusion of words," this most +brilliant paradox,--that "a glutted market is not a proof that we +produce _too much_ but that we produce _too little_! for in that case +there is not enough produced to exchange with what is produced!" As +Frenchmen excel in politeness and impudence, Monsieur Say adds, "I +revere Adam Smith; he is my master; but this first of political +economists did not understand all the phenomena of production and +consumption." We, who remain uninitiated in this mystery of explaining +the operations of trade by metaphysical ideas, and raising up theories +to conduct those who never theorise, can only start at the "confusion of +words," and leave this blessed inheritance to our sons, if ever the +science survive the logomachy. + +Caramuel, a famous Spanish bishop, was a grand architect of words. +Ingenious in theory, his errors were confined to his practice: he said a +great deal and meant nothing; and by an exact dimension of his +intellect, taken at the time, it appeared that "he had genius in the +eighth degree, eloquence in the fifth, but judgment only in the second!" +This great man would not read the ancients; for he had a notion that the +moderns must have acquired all they possessed, with a good deal of their +own "into the bargain." Two hundred and sixty-two works, differing in +breadth and length, besides his manuscripts, attest, that if the world +would read his writings, they could need no other; for which purpose his +last work always referred to the preceding ones, and could never be +comprehended till his readers possessed those which were to follow. As +he had the good sense to perceive that metaphysicians abound in obscure +and equivocal terms, to avoid this "confusion of words," he invented a +jargon of his own; and to make "confusion worse confounded," projected +grammars and vocabularies by which we were to learn it; but it is +supposed that he was the only man who understood himself. He put every +author in despair by the works which he announced. This famous architect +of words, however, built more labyrinths than he could always get out +of, notwithstanding his "_cabalistical_ grammar," and his "_audacious_ +grammar."[46] Yet this great Caramuel, the critics have agreed, was +nothing but a puffy giant, with legs too weak for his bulk, and only to +be accounted as a hero amidst a "confusion of words." + +Let us dread the fate of Caramuel! and before we enter into discussion +with the metaphysician, first settle what he means by the nature of +_ideas_; with the politician, his notion of _liberty_ and _equality_; +with the divine, what he deems _orthodox_; with the political economist, +what he considers to be _value_ and _rent_! By this means we may avoid, +what is perpetually recurring, that extreme laxity or vagueness of +words, which makes every writer, or speaker, complain of his +predecessor, and attempt sometimes, not in the best temper, to define +and to settle the signification of what the witty South calls "those +rabble-charming words, which carry so much wildfire wrapt up in them." + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [42] Turner's "History of England," i. 514 + + [43] We owe this curious unpublished letter to the zeal and care of + Professor Dugald Stewart, in his excellent "Dissertations." + + [44] It is still a Chancery word. An answer in Chancery, &c., is + referred for _impertinence_, reported _impertinent_--and the + _impertinence_ ordered to be struck out, meaning only what is + immaterial or superfluous, tending to unnecessary expense. I am + indebted for this explanation to my friend, Mr. Merivale; and to + another learned friend, formerly in that court, who describes its + meaning as "an excess of words or matter in the pleadings," and who + has received many an official fee for "expunging impertinence," + leaving, however, he acknowledges, a sufficient quantity to make the + lawyers ashamed of their verbosity. + + [45] Sen. Epist. 21. + + [46] Baillet gives the dates and plans of these grammars. The + _cabalistic_ was published in Bruxelles, 1642, in 12mo. The + _audacious_ was in folio, printed at Frankfort, 1654.--Jugemens des + Savans. Tome ii. 3me partie. + + + + +POLITICAL NICKNAMES. + + +Political calumny is said to have been reduced into an art, like that of +logic, by the Jesuits. This itself may be a political calumny! A +powerful body, who themselves had practised the artifices of +calumniators, may, in their turn, often have been calumniated. The +passage in question was drawn out of one of the classical authors used +in their colleges. Busembaum, a German Jesuit, had composed, in +duodecimo, a "Medulla Theologiae moralis," where, among other casuistical +propositions, there was found lurking in this old Jesuit's "marrow" one +which favoured regicide and assassination! Fifty editions of the book +had passed unnoticed; till a new one appearing at the critical moment of +Damien's attempt, the duodecimo of the old scholastic Jesuit, which had +now been amplified by its commentators into two folios, was considered +not merely ridiculous, but dangerous. It was burnt at Toulouse, in +1757, by order of the parliament, and condemned at Paris. An Italian +Jesuit published an "apology" for this theory of assassination, and the +same flames devoured it! Whether Busembaum deserved the honour bestowed +on his ingenuity, the reader may judge by the passage itself. + +"Whoever would ruin a person, or a government, must begin this operation +by spreading calumnies, to defame the person or the government; for +unquestionably the calumniator will always find a great number of +persons inclined to believe him, or to side with him; it therefore +follows, that whenever the object of such calumnies is once lowered in +credit by such means, he will soon lose the reputation and power founded +on that credit, and sink under the permanent and vindictive attacks of +the calumniator." This is the politics of Satan--the evil principle +which regulates so many things in this world. The enemies of the Jesuits +have formed a list of great names who had become the victims of such +atrocious Machiavelism.[47] + +This has been one of the arts practised by all political parties. Their +first weak invention is to attach to a new faction a contemptible or an +opprobrious nickname. In the history of the revolutions of Europe, +whenever a new party has at length established its independence, the +original denomination which had been fixed on them, marked by the +passions of the party which bestowed it, strangely contrasts with the +state of the party finally established! + +The first revolutionists of Holland incurred the contemptuous name of +"Les Gueux," or the Beggars. The Duchess of Parma inquiring about them, +the Count of Barlamont scornfully described them to be of this class; +and it was flattery of the great which gave the name currency. The +Hollanders accepted the name as much in defiance as with indignation, +and acted up to it. Instead of brooches in their hats, they wore little +wooden platters, such as beggars used, and foxes' tails instead of +feathers. On the targets of some of these _Gueux_ they inscribed "Rather +Turkish than Popish!" and had the print of a cock crowing, out of whose +mouth was a label, _Vive les Gueux par tout le monde!_ which was +everywhere set up, and was the favourite sign of their inns. The +Protestants in France, after a variety of nicknames to render them +contemptible--such as _Christodins_, because they would only talk about +Christ, similar to our Puritans; and _Parpaillots_, or _Parpirolles_, a +small base coin, which was odiously applied to them--at length settled +in the well-known term of _Huguenots_, which probably was derived, as +the Dictionnaire de Trevoux suggests, from their hiding themselves in +secret places, and appearing at night, like King Hugon, the great +hobgoblin of France. It appears that the term has been preserved by an +earthen vessel without feet, used in cookery, which served the +_Huguenots_ on meagre days to dress their meat, and to avoid +observation; a curious instance, where a thing still in use proves the +obscure circumstance of its origin. + +The atrocious insurrection, called _La Jacquerie_, was a term which +originated in cruel derision. When John of France was a prisoner in +England, his kingdom appears to have been desolated by its wretched +nobles, who, in the indulgence of their passions, set no limits to their +luxury and their extortion. They despoiled their peasantry without +mercy, and when these complained, and even reproached this tyrannical +nobility with having forsaken their sovereign, they were told that +_Jacque bon homme_ must pay for all. But _Jack good-man_ came forward in +person--a leader appeared under this fatal name, and the peasants +revolting in madness, and being joined by all the cut-throats and +thieves of Paris, at once pronounced condemnation on every gentleman in +France! Froissart has the horrid narrative; twelve thousand of these +_Jacques bon hommes_ expiated their crimes; but the _Jacquerie_, who had +received their first appellation in derision, assumed it as their _nom +de guerre_. + +In the spirited Memoirs of the Duke of Guise, written by himself, of his +enterprise against the kingdom of Naples, we find a curious account of +this political art of marking people by odious nicknames. "Gennaro and +Vicenzo," says the duke, "cherished underhand that aversion the +rascality had for the better sort of citizens and civiller people, who, +by the insolencies they suffered from these, not unjustly hated them. +The better class inhabiting the suburbs of the Virgin were called _black +cloaks_, and the ordinary sort of people took the name of _lazars_, both +in French and English an old word for leprous beggar, and hence the +_lazaroni_ of Naples." We can easily conceive the evil eye of a _lazar_ +when he encountered a _black cloak_! The Duke adds--"Just as, at the +beginning of the revolution, the revolters in Flanders formerly took +that of _beggars_; those of Guienne, that of _eaters_; those of +Normandy that of _bare-feet_; and of Beausse and Soulogne, of +_wooden-pattens_." In the late French revolution, we observed the +extremes indulged by both parties chiefly concerned in revolution--the +wealthy and the poor! The rich, who, in derision, called their humble +fellow-citizens by the contemptuous term of _sans-culottes_, provoked a +reacting injustice from the populace, who, as a dreadful return for only +a slight, rendered the innocent term of _aristocrate_ a signal for +plunder or slaughter! + +It is a curious fact that the French verb _fronder_, as well the noun +_frondeur_, are used to describe those who condemn the measures of +government; and more extensively, designates any hyperbolical and +malignant criticism, or any sort of condemnation. These words have only +been introduced into the language since the intrigues of Cardinal de +Retz succeeded in raising a faction against Cardinal Mazarin, known in +French history by the nickname of the _Frondeurs_, or the Slingers. It +originated in pleasantry, although it became the password for +insurrection in France, and the odious name of a faction. A wit +observed, that the parliament were like those school-boys, who fling +their stones in the pits of Paris, and as soon as they see the +_Lieutenant Civil_, run away; but are sure to collect again directly he +disappears. The comparison was lively, and formed the burthen of songs; +and afterwards, when affairs were settled between the king and the +parliament, it was more particularly applied to the faction of Cardinal +de Retz, who still held out. "We encouraged the application," says de +Retz; "for we observed that the distinction of a name heated the minds +of people; and one evening we resolved to wear hat-strings in the form +of slings. A hatter, who might be trusted with the secret, made a great +number as a new fashion, and which were worn by many who did not +understand the joke; we ourselves were the last to adopt them, that the +invention might not appear to have come from us. The effect of this +trifle was immense; every fashionable article was now to assume the +shape of a sling; bread, hats, gloves, handkerchiefs, fans, &c.; and we +ourselves became more in fashion by this folly, than by what was +essential." This revolutionary term was never forgotten by the French, a +circumstance which might have been considered as prognostic of that +after-revolution, which de Retz had the imagination to project, but not +the daring to establish. We see, however, this great politician, +confessing the advantages his party derived by encouraging the +application of a by-name, which served "to heat the minds of people." + +It is a curious circumstance that I should have to recount in this +chapter on "Political Nicknames" a familiar term with all lovers of art, +that of _Silhouette_! This is well understood as a _black profile_; but +it is more extraordinary that a term so universally adopted should not +be found in any dictionary, either in that of _L'Academie_, or in +Todd's, and has not even been preserved, where it is quite +indispensable, in Millin's _Dictionnaire des Beaux-Arts_! It is little +suspected that this innocent term originated in a political nickname! +_Silhouette_ was a minister of state in France in 1759; that period was +a critical one; the treasury was in an exhausted condition, and +Silhouette, a very honest man, who would hold no intercourse with +financiers or loan-mongers, could contrive no other expedient to prevent +a national bankruptcy, than excessive economy and interminable reform! +Paris was not the metropolis, any more than London, where a Plato or a +Zeno could long be minister of state without incurring all the ridicule +of the wretched wits! At first they pretended to take his advice, merely +to laugh at him:--they cut their coats shorter, and wore them without +sleeves; they turned their gold snuff-boxes into rough wooden ones; and +the new-fashioned portraits were now only profiles of a face, traced by +a black pencil on the shadow cast by a candle on white paper! All the +fashions assumed an air of niggardly economy, till poor Silhouette was +driven into retirement, with all his projects of savings and reforms; +but he left his name to describe the most economical sort of portrait, +and one as melancholy as his own fate! + +This political artifice of appropriating cant terms, or odious +nicknames, could not fail to flourish among a people so perpetually +divided by contending interests as ourselves; every party with us have +had their watchword, which has served either to congregate themselves, +or to set on the ban-dogs of one faction to worry and tear those of +another. We practised it early, and we find it still prospering! The +_Puritan_ of Elizabeth's reign survives to this hour; the trying +difficulties which that wise sovereign had to overcome in settling the +national religion, found no sympathy in either of the great divisions of +her people; she retained as much of the catholic rites as might be +decorous in the new religion, and sought to unite, and not to separate, +her children. John Knox, in the spirit of charity, declared, that "she +was neither gude protestant, nor yet resolute papist; let the world +judge quilk is the third." + +A jealous party arose, who were for reforming the reformation. In their +attempt at more than human purity, they obtained the nickname of +_Puritans_; and from their fastidiousness about very small matters, +_Precisians_; these Drayton characterises as persons that for a painted +glass window would pull down the whole church. At that early period +these nicknames were soon used in an odious sense; for Warner, a poet in +the reign of Elizabeth, says,-- + + If hypocrites why _puritaines_ we term be asked, in breese, + 'Tis but an _ironised terme_; good-fellow so spels theese! + +Honest Fuller, who knew that many good men were among these _Puritans_, +wished to decline the term altogether, under the less offensive one of +_Non-conformists_. But the fierce and the fiery of this party, in +Charles the First's time had been too obtrusive not to fully merit the +ironical appellative; and the peaceful expedient of our moderator +dropped away with the page in which it was written. The people have +frequently expressed their own notions of different parliaments by some +apt nickname. In Richard the Second's time, to express their dislike of +the extraordinary and irregular proceedings of the lords against the +sovereign, as well as their sanguinary measures, they called it "The +_wonder-working_ and the _unmerciful_ parliament." In Edward the Third's +reign, when the Black Prince was yet living, the parliament, for having +pursued with severity the party of the Duke of Lancaster, was so +popular, that the people distinguished it as the _good_ parliament. In +Henry the Third's time, the parliament opposing the king, was called +"_Parliamentum insanum_," the mad parliament, because the lords came +armed to insist on the confirmation of the great charter. A Scottish +parliament, from its perpetual shiftings from place to place was +ludicrously nicknamed the _running_ parliament; in the same spirit we +had our _long_ parliament. The nickname of _Pensioner_ parliament stuck +to the House of Commons which sate nearly eighteen years without +dissolution, under Charles the Second; and others have borne satirical +or laudatory epithets. So true it is, as old Holingshed observed, "The +common people will manie times give such _bie names_ as seemeth _best +liking to themselves_." It would be a curious speculation to discover +the sources of the popular feeling; influenced by delusion, or impelled +by good sense! + +The exterminating political nickname of _malignant_ darkened the nation +through the civil wars: it was a proscription--and a list of _good_ and +_bad_ lords was read by the leaders of the first tumults. Of all these +inventions, this diabolical one was most adapted to exasperate the +animosities of the people, so often duped by names. I have never +detected the active man of faction who first hit on this odious brand +for persons, but the period when the word changed its ordinary meaning +was early; Charles, in 1642, retorts on the parliamentarians the +opprobrious distinction, as "The _true malignant party_ which has +contrived and countenanced those barbarous tumults." And the royalists +pleaded for themselves, that the hateful designation was ill applied to +them: "for by _malignity_ you denote," said they, "activity in doing +evil, whereas we have always been on the suffering side in our persons, +credits, and estates;" but the parliamentarians, "grinning a ghastly +smile," would reply, that "the royalists would have been _malignant_ had +they proved successful." The truth is, that _malignancy_ meant with both +parties any opposition of opinion. At the same period the offensive +distinctions of _roundheads_ and _cavaliers_ supplied the people with +party names, who were already provided with so many religious as well as +civil causes of quarrel; the cropt heads of the sullen sectaries and the +people, were the origin of the derisory nickname; the splendid elegance +and the romantic spirit of the royalists long awed the rabble, who in +their mockery could brand them by no other appellation than one in which +their bearers gloried. In the distracted times of early revolution, any +nickname, however vague, will fully answer a purpose, although neither +those who are blackened by the odium, nor those who cast it, can define +the hateful appellative. When the term of _delinquents_ came into vogue, +it expressed a degree and species of guilt, says Hume, not exactly known +or ascertained. It served, however, the end of those revolutionists who +had coined it, by involving any person in, or colouring any action by, +_delinquency_; and many of the nobility and gentry were, without any +questions being asked, suddenly discovered to have committed the crime +of _delinquency_! Whether honest Fuller be facetious or grave on this +period of nicknaming parties I will not decide; but, when he tells us +that there was another word which was introduced into our nation at this +time, I think at least that the whole passage is an admirable commentary +on this party vocabulary. "Contemporary with _malignants_ is the word +_plunder_, which some make of Latin original, from _planum dare_, to +_level_, to _plane_ all to nothing! Others of Dutch extraction, as if it +were to _plume_, or pluck the feathers of a bird to the bare skin.[48] +Sure I am we first heard of it in the Swedish wars; and if the name and +thing be sent back from whence it came few English eyes would weep +thereat." All England had wept at the introduction of the word. The +_rump_ was the filthy nickname of an odious faction--the history of this +famous appellation, which was at first one of horror, till it afterwards +became one of derision and contempt, must be referred to another place. +The _rump_ became a perpetual whetstone for the loyal wits,[49] till at +length its former admirers, the rabble themselves, in town and country, +vied with each other in "_burning rumps_" of beef, which were hung by +chains on a gallows with a bonfire underneath, and proved how the +people, like children, come at length to make a plaything of that which +was once their bugbear. + +Charles the Second, during the short holiday of the restoration--all +holidays seem short!--and when he and the people were in good humour, +granted anything to every one,--the mode of "Petitions" got at length +very inconvenient, and the king in council declared that this +petitioning was "A method set on foot by ill men to promote discontents +among the people," and enjoined his loving subjects not to subscribe +them. The petitioners, however, persisted--when a new party rose to +express their abhorrence of petitioning; both parties nicknamed each +other the _petitioners_ and the _abhorrers_! Their day was short, but +fierce; the _petitioners_, however weak in their cognomen, were far the +bolder of the two, for the commons were with them, and the _abhorrers_ +had expressed by their term rather the strength of their inclinations +than of their numbers. Charles the Second said to a _petitioner_ from +Taunton, "How _dare_ you deliver me such a paper?" "Sir," replied the +petitioner from Taunton, "my name is DARE!" A saucy reply, for which he +was tried, fined, and imprisoned; when lo! the commons petitioned again +to release the _petitioner_! "The very name," says Hume, "by which each +party denominated its antagonists discovers the virulence and rancour +which prevailed; for besides _petitioner_ and _abhorrer_, this year is +remarkable for being the epoch of the well-known epithets of _whig_ and +_tory_." These silly terms of reproach, whig and tory, are still +preserved among us, as if the palladium of British liberty was guarded +by these exotic names, for they are not English, which the parties so +invidiously bestow on each other. They are ludicrous enough in their +origin. The friends of the court and the advocates of lineal succession +were, by the republican party, branded with the title of _tories_, which +was the name of certain Irish robbers;[50] while the court party in +return could find no other revenge than by appropriating to the +covenanters and the republicans of that class the name of the Scotch +beverage of sour milk, whose virtue they considered so expressive of +their dispositions, and which is called _whigg_. So ridiculous in their +origin were these pernicious nicknames, which long excited feuds and +quarrels in domestic life, and may still be said to divide into two +great parties this land of political freedom. But nothing becomes +obsolete in political factions, and the meaner and more scandalous the +name affixed by one party to another the more it becomes not only their +rallying cry or their password, but even constitutes their glory. Thus +the Hollanders long prided themselves on the humiliating nickname of +"Les Gueux:" the protestants of France on the scornful one of the +_Huguenots_; the non-conformists in England on the mockery of the +_puritan_; and all parties have perpetuated their anger by their +inglorious names. Swift was well aware of this truth in political +history: "each party," says that sagacious observer, "grows proud of +that appellation which their adversaries at first intended as a +reproach; of this sort were the _Guelphs_ and the _Ghibellines_, +_Huguenots_ and _Cavaliers_." + +Nor has it been only by nicknaming each other by derisory or opprobrious +terms that parties have been marked, but they have also worn a livery, +and practised distinctive manners. What sufferings did not Italy endure +for a long series of years under those fatal party-names of the +_Guelphs_ and the _Ghibellines_; alternately the victors and the +vanquished, the beautiful land of Italy drank the blood of her children. +Italy, like Greece, opens a moving picture of the hatreds and jealousies +of small republics; her _Bianchi_ and her _Neri_, her _Guelphs_ and her +_Ghibellines_! In Bologna, two great families once shook that city with +their divisions; the _Pepoli_ adopted the French interests; the +_Maluezzi_ the Spanish. It was incurring some danger to walk the streets +of Bologna, for the _Pepoli_ wore their feathers on the right side of +their caps, and the _Maluezzi_ on the left. Such was the party-hatred of +the two great Italian factions, that they carried their rancour even +into their domestic habits; at table the _Guelphs_ placed their knives +and spoons longwise, and the _Ghibellines_ across; the one cut their +bread across, the other longwise. Even in cutting an orange they could +not agree; for the _Guelph_ cut his orange horizontally, and the +_Ghibelline_ downwards. Children were taught these artifices of +faction--their hatreds became traditional, and thus the Italians +perpetuated the full benefits of their party-spirit from generation to +generation.[51] + +Men in private life go down to their graves with some unlucky name, not +received in baptism, but more descriptive and picturesque; and even +ministers of state have winced at a political christening. Malagrida the +Jesuit and Jemmy Twitcher were nicknames which made one of our ministers +odious, and another contemptible.[52] The Earl of Godolphin caught such +fire at that of Volpone, that it drove him into the opposite party, for +the vindictive purpose of obtaining the impolitical prosecution of +Sacheverell, who, in his famous sermon, had first applied it to the +earl, and unluckily it had stuck to him. + +"Faction," says Lord Orford, "is as capricious as fortune; wrongs, +oppression, the zeal of real patriots, or the genius of false ones, may +sometimes be employed for years in kindling substantial opposition to +authority; in other seasons the impulse of a moment, a _ballad_, a +_nickname_, a _fashion_ can throw a city into a tumult, and shake the +foundations of a state." + +Such is a slight history of the human passions in politics! We might +despair in thus discovering that wisdom and patriotism so frequently +originate in this turbid source of party; but we are consoled when we +reflect that the most important political principles are immutable: and +that they are those which even the spirit of party must learn to +reverence. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [47] See Recueil Chronologique et Analytique de tout ce qui a fait en + Portugal la Societe de Jesus. Vol. ii. sect. 406. + + [48] _Plunder_, observed Mr. Douce, is pure Dutch or + Flemish--_Plunderen_, from _Plunder_, which means _property_ of any + kind. May tells us it was brought by those officers who had returned + from the wars of the Netherlands. + + [49] One of the best collections of political songs written during + the great Civil War, is entitled "The Rump," and has a curious + frontispiece representing the mob burning rumps as described above. + + [50] The "History of the Tories and Rapparees" was a popular Irish + chapbook a few years ago, and devoted to the daring acts of these + marauders. + + [51] These curious particulars I found in a manuscript. + + [52] Lord Shelburne was named "Malagrida," and Lord Sandwich was + "Jemmy Twitcher;" a name derived from the chief of Macheath's gang + in the _Beggar's Opera_. + + + + +THE DOMESTIC LIFE OF A POET.--SHENSTONE VINDICATED. + + +The dogmatism of Johnson, and the fastidiousness of Gray, the critic who +passed his days amidst "the busy hum of men," and the poet who mused in +cloistered solitude, have fatally injured a fine natural genius in +Shenstone. Mr. Campbell, with a brother's feeling, has (since the +present article was composed) sympathised with the endowments and the +pursuits of this poet; but the facts I had collected seemed to me to +open a more important view. I am aware how lightly the poetical +character of Shenstone is held by some great contemporaries--although +this very poet has left us at least one poem of unrivalled originality. +Mr. Campbell has regretted that Shenstone not only "affected that +arcadianism" which "gives a certain air of masquerade in his pastoral +character," adopted by our earlier poets, but also has "rather +incongruously blended together the rural swain with the disciple of +virtu." All this requires some explanation. It is not only as a poet, +possessing the characteristics of poetry, but as a creator in another +way, for which I claim the attention of the reader. I have formed a +picture of the domestic life of a poet, and the pursuits of a votary of +taste, both equally contracted in their endeavours, from the habits, the +emotions, and the events which occurred to Shenstone. + +Four material circumstances influenced his character, and were +productive of all his unhappiness. The neglect he incurred in those +poetical studies to which he had devoted his hopes; his secret sorrows +in not having formed a domestic union, from prudential motives, with one +whom he loved; the ruinous state of his domestic affairs, arising from a +seducing passion for creating a new taste in landscape gardening and an +ornamented farm; and finally, his disappointment of that promised +patronage, which might have induced him to have become a political +writer; for which his inclinations, and, it is said, his talents in +early life, were alike adapted: with these points in view, we may trace +the different states of his mind, show what he did, and what he was +earnestly intent to have done. + +Why have the "Elegies" of Shenstone, which forty years ago formed for +many of us the favourite poems of our youth, ceased to delight us in +mature life? It is perhaps that these Elegies, planned with peculiar +felicity, have little in their execution. They form a series of poetical +truths, devoid of poetical expression; truths,--for notwithstanding the +pastoral romance in which the poet has enveloped himself, the subjects +are real, and the feelings could not, therefore, be fictitious. + +In a Preface, remarkable for its graceful simplicity, our poet tells us, +that "He entered on his subjects occasionally, as particular _incidents +in life_ suggested, or _dispositions of mind_ recommended them to his +choice." He shows that "He drew his pictures from the spot, and, he felt +very sensibly the affections he communicates." He avers that all those +attendants on rural scenery, and all those allusions to rural life, were +not the counterfeited scenes of a town poet, any more than the +sentiments, which were inspired by Nature. Shenstone's friend Graves, +who knew him in early life, and to his last days, informs us that these +Elegies were written when he had taken the Leasowes into his own +hands;[53] and though his _ferme ornee_ engaged his thoughts, he +occasionally wrote them, "partly," said Shenstone, "to divert my present +impatience, and partly, as it will be a picture of most that passes in +my own mind; a portrait which friends may value." This, then, is the +secret charm which acts so forcibly on the first emotions of our youth, +at a moment when, not too difficult to be pleased, the reflected +delineations of the habits and the affections, the hopes and the +delights, with all the domestic associations of this poet, always true +to Nature, reflect back that picture of ourselves which we instantly +recognise. It is only as we advance in life that we lose the relish of +our early simplicity, and that we discover that Shenstone was not +endowed with high imagination. + +These Elegies, with some other poems, may be read with a new interest +when we discover them to form the true Memoirs of Shenstone. Records of +querulous but delightful feelings! whose subjects spontaneously offered +themselves from passing incidents; they still perpetuate emotions which +will interest the young poet and the young lover of taste. + +Elegy IV., the first which Shenstone composed, is entitled "Ophelia's +Urn," and it was no unreal one! It was erected by Graves in Mickleton +Church, to the memory of an extraordinary young woman, Utrecia Smith, +the literary daughter of a learned but poor clergyman. Utrecia had +formed so fine a taste for literature, and composed with such elegance +in verse and prose, that an excellent judge declared that "he did not +like to form his opinion of any author till he previously knew hers." +Graves had been long attached to her, but from motives of prudence broke +off an intercourse with this interesting woman, who sunk under this +severe disappointment. When her prudent lover, Graves, inscribed the +urn, her friend Shenstone, perhaps more feelingly, commemorated her +virtues and her tastes. Such, indeed, was the friendly intercourse +between Shenstone and Utrecia, that in Elegy XVIII., written long after +her death, she still lingered in his reminiscences. Composing this Elegy +on the calamitous close of Somerville's life, a brother bard, and victim +to narrow circumstances, and which he probably contemplated as an image +of his own, Shenstone tenderly recollects that he used to read +Somerville's poems to Utrecia:-- + + Oh, lost Ophelia; smoothly flow'd the day + To feel his music with my flames agree; + To taste the beauties of his melting lay, + To taste, and fancy it was dear to thee! + +How true is the feeling! how mean the poetical expression! + +The Seventh Elegy describes a vision, where the shadow of Wolsey breaks +upon the author: + + A graceful form appear'd, + White were his locks, with awful scarlet crown'd. + +Even this fanciful subject was not chosen capriciously, but sprung from +an incident. Once, on his way to Cheltenham, Shenstone missed his road, +and wandered till late at night among the Cotswold Hills on this +occasion he appears to have made a moral reflection, which we find in +his "Essays." "How melancholy is it to travel late upon any ambitious +project on a winter's night, and observe the light of cottages, where +all the unambitious people are warm and happy, or at rest in their +beds." While the benighted poet, lost among the lonely hills, was +meditating on "ambitious projects," the character of Wolsey arose before +him; the visionary cardinal crossed his path, and busied his +imagination. "Thou," exclaims the poet, + + Like a meteor's fire, + Shot'st blazing forth, disdaining dull degrees. + + _Elegy_ vii. + +And the bard, after discovering all the miseries of unhappy grandeur, +and murmuring at this delay to the house of his friend, exclaims-- + + Oh if these ills the price of power advance, + Check not my speed where social joys invite! + +The silent departure of the poetical spectre is fine: + + The troubled vision cast a mournful glance, + And sighing, vanish'd in the shades of night. + +And to prove that the subject of this elegy thus arose to the poet's +fancy, he has himself commemorated the incident that gave occasion to +it, in the opening:-- + + On distant heaths, beneath autumnal skies, + Pensive I saw the circling shades descend; + Weary and faint, I heard the storm arise, + While the sun vanish'd like a faithless friend. + + _Elegy_ vii. + +The Fifteenth Elegy, composed "in memory of a private family in +Worcestershire," is on the extinction of the ancient family of the Penns +in the male line.[54] Shenstone's mother was a Penn; and the poet was +now the inhabitant of their ancient mansion, an old timber-built house +of the age of Elizabeth. The local description was a real scene--"the +shaded pool"--"the group of ancient elms"--"the flocking rooks," and the +picture of the simple manners of his own ancestors, were realities; the +emotions they excited were therefore genuine, and not one of those +"mockeries" of amplification from the crowd of verse-writers. + +The Tenth Elegy, "To Fortune, suggesting his Motive for repining at her +Dispensations," with his celebrated "Pastoral Ballad, in four parts." +were alike produced by what one of the great minstrels of our own times +has so finely indicated when he sung-- + + The secret woes the world has never known; + While on the weary night dawn'd wearier day, + And bitterer was the grief devour'd alone. + +In this Elegy Shenstone repines at the dispensations of Fortune, not for +having denied him her higher gifts, nor that she compels him to + + Check the fond LOVE OF ART that fired my veins; + +nor that some "dull dotard with boundless wealth" finds his "grating +reed" preferred to the bard's, but that the "tawdry shepherdess" of this +dull dotard, by her "pride," makes "the rural thane" despise the poet's +Delia. + + Must Delia's softness, elegance, and ease, + Submit to Marian's dress? to Marian's gold? + Must Marian's robe from distant India please? + The simple fleece my Delia's limbs infold! + + Ah! what is native worth esteemed of clowns? + 'Tis thy false glare, O Fortune! thine they see; + Tis for my Delia's sake I dread thy frowns, + And my last gasp shall curses breathe on thee! + +The Delia of our poet was not an "Iris en air." Shenstone was early in +life captivated by a young lady, whom Graves describes with all those +mild and serene graces of pensive melancholy, touched by plaintive +love-songs and elegies of woe, adapted not only to be the muse but the +mistress of a poet. The sensibility of this passion took entire +possession of his heart for some years, and it was in parting from her +that he first sketched his exquisite "Pastoral Ballad." As he retreated +more and more into solitude, his passion felt no diminution. Dr. Nash +informs us that Shenstone acknowledged that it was his own fault that he +did not accept the hand of the lady whom he so tenderly loved; but his +spirit could not endure to be a perpetual witness of her degradation in +the rank of society, by an inconsiderate union with poetry and poverty. +That such was his motive, we may infer from a passage in one of his +letters. "Love, as it regularly tends to matrimony, requires certain +favours from fortune and circumstances to render it proper to be +indulged in." There are perpetual allusions to these "secret woes" in +his correspondence; for, although he had the fortitude to refuse +marriage, he had not the stoicism to contract his own heart in cold and +sullen celibacy. He thus alludes to this subject, which so often excited +far other emotions than those of humour:--"It is long since I have +considered myself as _undone_. The world will not, perhaps, consider me +in that light entirely till I have married my maid!" + +It is probable that our poet had an intention of marrying his maid. I +discovered a pleasing anecdote among the late Mr. Bindley's collections, +which I transcribed from the original. On the back of a picture of +Shenstone himself, of which Dodsley published a print in 1780, the +following energetic inscription was written by the poet on his +new-year's gift:-- + +"This picture belongs to Mary Cutler, given her by her master, William +Shenstone, January 1st, 1754, in acknowledgment of her native genius, +her magnanimity, her tenderness, and her fidelity. + + "W. S." + +"The Progress of Taste; or the Fate of Delicacy," is a poem on the +temper and studies of the author; and "Economy; a Rhapsody addressed to +Young Poets," abounds with self-touches. If Shenstone created little +from the imagination, he was at least perpetually under the influence of +real emotions. This is the reason why his truths so strongly operate on +the juvenile mind, not yet matured: and thus we have sufficiently +ascertained the fact, as the poet himself has expressed it, "that he +drew his pictures from the spot, and he felt very sensibly the +affections he communicates." + +All the anxieties of a poetical life were early experienced by +Shenstone. He first published some juvenile productions, under a very +odd title, indicative of modesty, perhaps too of pride.[55] And his +motto of _Contentus paucis lectoribus_, even Horace himself might have +smiled at, for it only conceals the desire of every poet who pants to +deserve many! But when he tried at a more elaborate poetical labour, +"The Judgment of Hercules," it failed to attract notice. He hastened to +town, and he beat about literary coffee-houses; and returned to the +country from the chase of Fame, wearied without having started it. + + A breath revived him--but a breath o'erthrew. + +Even "The Judgment of Hercules" between Indolence and Industry, or +Pleasure and Virtue, was a picture of his own feelings; an argument +drawn from his own reasonings; indicating the uncertainty of the poet's +dubious disposition; who finally by siding with Indolence, lost that +triumph which his hero obtained by a directly opposite course. + +In the following year begins that melancholy strain in his +correspondence which marks the disappointment of the man who had staked +too great a quantity of his happiness on the poetical die. This is the +critical moment of life when our character is formed by habit, and our +fate is decided by choice. Was Shenstone to become an active or +contemplative being? He yielded to nature![56] + +It was now that he entered into another species of poetry, working with +too costly materials, in the magical composition of plants, water, and +earth; with these he created those emotions which his more strictly +poetical ones failed to excite. He planned a paradise amidst his +solitude. When we consider that Shenstone, in developing his fine +pastoral ideas in the Leasowes, educated the nation into that taste for +landscape-gardening, which has become the model of all Europe, this +itself constitutes a claim on the gratitude of posterity.[57] Thus the +private pleasures of a man of genius may become at length those of a +whole people. The creator of this new taste appears to have received far +less notice than he merited. The name of Shenstone does not appear in +the Essay on Gardening by Lord Orford: even the supercilious Gray only +bestowed a ludicrous image on these pastoral scenes, which, however, his +friend Mason has celebrated; and the genius of Johnson, incapacitated by +nature to touch on objects of rural fancy, after describing some of the +offices of the landscape designer, adds, that "he will not inquire +whether they demand any great powers of mind." Johnson, however, conveys +to us his own feelings, when he immediately expresses them under the +character of a "sullen and surly speculator." The anxious life of +Shenstone would, indeed, have been remunerated, could he have read the +enchanting eulogium of Wheatley on the Leasowes; which, said he, "is a +perfect picture of his mind--simple, elegant, and amiable; and will +always suggest a doubt whether the spot inspired his verse, or whether +in the scenes which he formed, he only realized the pastoral images +which abound in his songs." Yes! Shenstone would have been delighted, +could he have heard that Montesquieu, on his return home, adorned his +"Chateau gothique, mais orne de bois charmans, dont j'ai pris l'idee en +Angleterre;" and Shenstone, even with his modest and timid nature, had +been proud to have witnessed a noble foreigner, amidst memorials +dedicated to Theocritus and Virgil, to Thomson and Gesner, raising in +his grounds an inscription, in bad English, but in pure taste, to +Shenstone himself for having displayed in his writings "a mind natural," +and in his Leasowes "laid Arcadian greens rural." Recently Pindemonte +has traced the taste of English gardening to Shenstone. A man of genius +sometimes receives from foreigners, who are placed out of the prejudices +of his compatriots, the tribute of posterity! + +Amidst these rural elegancies which Shenstone was raising about him, his +muse has pathetically sung his melancholy feelings-- + + But did the Muses haunt his cell, + Or in his dome did Venus dwell?-- + When all the structures shone complete, + Ah, me! 'twas Damon's own confession, + Came Poverty, and took possession. + + _The Progress of Taste._ + +The poet observes, that the wants of philosophy are contracted, +satisfied with "cheap contentment," but + + Taste alone requires + Entire profusion! days and nights, and hours + Thy voice, hydropic Fancy! calls aloud + For costly draughts.---- + + _Economy._ + +An original image illustrates that fatal want of economy which conceals +itself amidst the beautiful appearances of taste:-- + + Some graceless mark, + Some symptom ill-conceal'd, shall soon or late + Burst like a pimple from the vicious tide + Of acid blood, proclaiming want's disease + Amidst the bloom of show. + + _Economy._ + +He paints himself:-- + + Observe Florelio's mien; + Why treads my friend with melancholy step + That beauteous lawn? Why pensive strays his eye + O'er statues, grottos, urns, by critic art + Proportion'd fair? or from his lofty dome + Returns his eye unpleased, disconsolate? + +The cause is, "criminal expense," and he exclaims-- + + Sweet interchange + Of river, valley, mountain, woods, and plains, + How gladsome once he ranged your native turf, + Your simple scenes how raptured! ere EXPENSE + Had lavish'd thousand ornaments, and taught + Convenience to perplex him, Art to pall, + Pomp to deject, and Beauty to displease. + + _Economy._ + +While Shenstone was rearing hazels and hawthorns, opening vistas, and +winding waters; + + And having shown them where to stray, + Threw little pebbles in their way; + +while he was pulling down hovels and cowhouses, to compose mottos and +inscriptions for garden-seats and urns; while he had so finely obscured +with a tender gloom the grove of Virgil, and thrown over, "in the midst +of a plantation of yew, a bridge of one arch, built of a dusty-coloured +stone, and simple even to rudeness,"[58] and invoked Oberon in some +Arcadian scene, + + Where in cool grot and mossy cell + The tripping fauns and fairies dwell; + +the solitary magician, who had raised all these wonders, was, in +reality, an unfortunate poet, the tenant of a dilapidated farm-house, +where the winds passed through, and the rains lodged, often taking +refuge in his own kitchen-- + + Far from all resort of mirth, + Save the cricket on the hearth! + +In a letter[59] of the disconsolate founder of landscape gardening, our +author paints his situation with all its misery--lamenting that his +house is not fit to receive "polite friends, were they so disposed;" and +resolved to banish all others, he proceeds: + +"But I make it a certain rule, 'arcere profanum vulgus.' Persons who +will despise you for the want of a good set of chairs, or an uncouth +fire-shovel, at the same time that they can't taste any excellence in a +mind that overlooks those things; with whom it is in vain that your mind +is furnished, if the walls are naked; indeed one loses much of one's +acquisitions in virtue by an hour's converse with such as judge of merit +by money--yet I am now and then impelled by the social passion to sit +half an hour in my kitchen." + +But the solicitude of friends and the fate of Somerville, a neighbour +and a poet, often compelled Shenstone to start amidst his reveries; and +thus he has preserved his feelings and his irresolutions. Reflecting on +the death of Somerville, he writes-- + +"To be forced to drink himself into pains of the body, in order to get +rid of the pains of the mind, is a misery which I can well conceive, +because I may, without vanity, esteem myself his equal in point of +economy, and consequently ought to have an eye on his misfortunes--(as +you kindly hinted to me about twelve o'clock, at the Feathers.)--I +should retrench--I will--but you shall not see me--I will not let you +know that I took it in good part--I will do it at solitary times as I +may." + +Such were the calamities of "great taste" with "little fortune;" but in +the case of Shenstone, these were combined with the other calamity of +"mediocrity of genius." + +Here, then, at the Leasowes, with occasional trips to town in pursuit of +fame, which perpetually eluded his grasp; in the correspondence of a few +delicate minds, whose admiration was substituted for more genuine +celebrity; composing diatribes against economy and taste, while his +income was diminishing every year; our neglected author grew daily more +indolent and sedentary, and withdrawing himself entirely into his own +hermitage, moaned and despaired in an Arcadian solitude.[60] The cries +and the "secret sorrows" of Shenstone have come down to us--those of his +brothers have not always! And shall dull men, because they have minds +cold and obscure, like a Lapland year which has no summer, be permitted +to exult over this class of men of sensibility and taste, but of +moderate genius and without fortune? The passions and emotions of the +heart are facts and dates only to those who possess them. + +To what a melancholy state was our author reduced, when he thus +addressed his friend:-- + +"I suppose you have been informed that my fever was in a great measure +hypochondriacal, and left my nerves so extremely sensible, that even on +no very interesting subjects, I could readily _think myself into a +vertigo_; I had almost said an _epilepsy_; for surely I was oftentimes +near it." + +The features of this sad portrait are more particularly made out in +another place. + +"Now I am come home from a visit, every little uneasiness is sufficient +to introduce my whole train of melancholy considerations, and to make me +utterly dissatisfied with the life I now lead, and the life which I +foresee I shall lead. I am angry and envious, and dejected and frantic, +and disregard all present things, just as becomes a madman to do. I am +infinitely pleased (though it is a gloomy joy) with the application of +Dr. Swift's complaint, 'that he is forced to die in a rage, like a +poisoned rat in a hole.' My soul is no more fitted to the figure I make, +than a cable rope to a cambric needle; I cannot bear to see the +advantages alienated, which I think I could deserve and relish so much +more than those that have them." + +There are other testimonies in his entire correspondence. Whenever +forsaken by his company he describes the horrors around him, delivered +up "to winter, silence, and reflection;" ever foreseeing himself +"returning to the same series of melancholy hours." His frame shattered +by the whole train of hypochondriacal symptoms, there was nothing to +cheer the querulous author, who with half the consciousness of genius, +lived neglected and unpatronised. His elegant mind had not the force, by +his productions, to draw the celebrity he sighed after, to his +hermitage. + +Shenstone was so anxious for his literary character, that he +contemplated on the posthumous fame which he might derive from the +publication of his letters: see Letter lxxix., _On hearing his letters +to Mr. Whistler were destroyed_; the act of a merchant, his brother, who +being a _very sensible_ man, as Graves describes, yet with the +_stupidity_ of a Goth, destroyed _the whole correspondence of Shenstone, +for "its sentimental intercourse_."--Shenstone bitterly regrets the +loss, and says, "I would have given more money for the letters than it +is allowable for me to mention with decency. I look upon my letters as +some of my _chefs-d'oeuvre_--they are the history of my mind for these +twenty years past." This, with the loss of Cowley's correspondence, +should have been preserved in the article, "of Suppressors and +Dilapidators of Manuscripts." + +Towards the close of life, when his spirits were exhausted, and "the +silly clue of hopes and expectations," as he termed them, was undone, +the notice of some persons of rank began to reach him. Shenstone, +however, deeply colours the variable state of his own mind--"Recovering +from a nervous fever, as I have since discovered by many concurrent +symptoms, I seem to anticipate a little of that 'vernal delight' which +Milton mentions and thinks + + ----able to chase + All sadness but despair-- + +at least I begin to resume my silly clue of hopes and expectations." + +In a former letter he had, however, given them up: "I begin to wean +myself from all hopes and expectations whatever. I feed my wild-ducks, +and I water my carnations. Happy enough if I could extinguish my +ambition quite, to indulge the desire of being something more beneficial +in my sphere.--Perhaps some few other circumstances would want also to +be adjusted." + +What were these "hopes and expectations," from which sometimes he weans +himself, and which are perpetually revived, and are attributed to "an +ambition he cannot extinguish"? This article has been written in vain, +if the reader has not already perceived, that they had haunted him in +early life; sickening his spirit after the possession of a poetical +celebrity, unattainable by his genius; some expectations too he might +have cherished from the talent he possessed for political studies, in +which Graves confidently says, that "he would have made no +inconsiderable figure, if he had had a sufficient motive for applying +his mind to them." Shenstone has left several proofs of this talent.[61] +But his master-passion for literary fame had produced little more than +anxieties and disappointments; and when he indulged his pastoral fancy +in a beautiful creation on his grounds, it consumed the estate which it +adorned. Johnson forcibly expressed his situation: "His death was +probably hastened by his anxieties. He was a lamp that spent its oil in +blazing. It is said, that if he had lived a little longer, he would have +been assisted by a pension." + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [53] This once-celebrated abode of the poet is situated at Hales-Owen, + Shropshire. + + [54] This we learn from Dr. Nash's History of Worcestershire. + + [55] While at college he printed, without his name, a small volume + of verses, with this title, "Poems upon various Occasions, written + for the Entertainment of the Author, and printed for the Amusement + of a few Friends, prejudiced in his Favour." Oxford, 1737. + 12mo.--Nash's "History of Worcestershire," vol. i. p. 528. + + I find this notice of it in W. Lowndes's Catalogue; 4433 Shenstone + (W.) Poems, 3_l._ 13_s._ 6_d._--(Shenstone took uncommon pains to + suppress this book, by collecting and destroying copies wherever he + met with them.)--In, Longman's Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica, it is + valued at 15_l. Oxf_. 1737. Mr. Harris informs me, that about the + year 1770, Fletcher, the bookseller, at Oxford, had many copies of + this first edition, which he sold at _Eighteen pence_ each. These + prices are amusing! The prices of books are connected with their + history. + + [56] On this subject Graves makes a very useful observation. "In + this decision the happiness of Mr. Shenstone was materially + concerned. Whether he determined wisely or not, people of taste and + people of worldly prudence will probably be of very different + opinions. I somewhat suspect, that 'people of worldly prudence' are + not half the fools that 'people of taste' insist they are." + + [57] Shenstone's farm was surrounded by winding walks, decorated + with vases and statues, varied by wood and water, and occasionally + embracing fine views over Frankley and Clent Hills, and the country + about Cradley, Dudley, Rawley, and the intermediate places. Some of + his vases were inscribed to the memory of relatives and friends. One + had a Latin inscription to his cousin Maria, another was dedicated + to Somerville his poet-friend. In different parts of his domain he + constructed buildings at once useful and ornamental, destined to + serve farm-purposes, but to be also grateful to the eye. A Chinese + bridge led to a temple beside a lake, and near was a seat inscribed + with the popular Shropshire toast to "all friends round the Wrekin," + the spot commanding a distant view of the hill so named. A wild path + through a small wood led to an ingeniously constructed root-house, + beside which a rivulet ran which helped to form the lake already + mentioned; on its banks was a dedicatory urn to the _Genio Loci_. + The general effect of the whole place was highly praised in the + poet's time. It was neglected at his death; and its description is + now but a record of the past. + + [58] Wheatley, on "Modern Gardening," p. 172. Edition 5th. + + [59] In "Hull's Collection," vol. ii. letter ii. + + [60] Graves was supposed to have glanced at his friend Shenstone in + his novel of "_Columella_; or, the Distressed Anchoret." The aim of + this work is to convey all the moral instruction I could wish to + offer here to youthful genius. It is written to show the consequence + of a person of education and talents retiring to solitude and + indolence in the vigour of youth. Nichols's "Literary Anecdotes," + vol. iii. p. 134. Nash's "History of Worcestershire," vol. i. p. + 528. + + [61] See his "Letters" xl. and xli., and more particularly xlii. and + xliii., with a new theory of political principles. + + + + +SECRET HISTORY OF THE BUILDING OF BLENHEIM. + + +The secret history of this national edifice derives importance from its +nature, and the remarkable characters involved in the unparalleled +transaction. The great architect, when obstructed in the progress of his +work by the irregular payments of the workmen, appears to have +practised one of his own comic plots to put the debts on the hero +himself; while the duke, who had it much at heart to inhabit the palace +of his fame, but tutored into wariness under the vigilant and fierce eye +of Atossa,[62] would neither approve nor disapprove, silently looked on +in hope and in grief, from year to year, as the work proceeded, or as it +was left at a stand. At length we find this _comedie larmoyante_ wound +up by the duchess herself, in an attempt utterly to ruin the enraged and +insulted architect![63] + +Perhaps this was the first time that it had ever been resolved in +parliament to raise a public monument of glory and gratitude--to an +individual! The novelty of the attempt may serve as the only excuse for +the loose arrangements which followed after parliament had approved of +the design, without voting any specific supply for the purpose! The +queen always issued the orders at her own expense, and commanded +expedition; and while Anne lived, the expenses of the building were +included in her majesty's debts, as belonging to the civil list +sanctioned by parliament.[64] + +When George the First came to the throne, the parliament declared the +debt to be the debt of the queen, and the king granted a privy seal as +for other debts. The crown and the parliament had hitherto proceeded in +perfect union respecting this national edifice. However, I find that the +workmen were greatly in arrears; for when George the First ascended the +throne, they gladly accepted a _third_ part of their several debts! + +The great architect found himself amidst inextricable difficulties. With +the fertile invention which amuses in his comedies, he contrived an +extraordinary scheme, by which he proposed to make the duke himself +responsible for the building of Blenheim! + +However much the duke longed to see the magnificent edifice concluded, +he showed the same calm intrepidity in the building of Blenheim as he +had in its field of action. Aware that if he himself gave any order, or +suggested any alteration, he might be involved in the expense of the +building, he was never to be circumvented--never to be surprised into a +spontaneous emotion of pleasure or disapprobation; on no occasion, he +declares, had he even entered into conversation with the architect +(though his friend) or with any one acting under his orders, about +Blenheim House! Such impenetrable prudence on all sides had often +blunted the subdolous ingenuity of the architect and plotter of +comedies! + +In the absence of the duke, when abroad in 1705, Sir John contrived to +obtain from Lord Godolphin, the friend and relative of the Duke of +Marlborough, and probably his agent in some of his concerns, a warrant, +constituting Vanbrugh _surveyor, with power of contracting on the behalf +of the Duke of Marlborough_. How he prevailed on Lord Godolphin to get +this appointment does not appear--his lordship probably conceived it was +useful, and might assist in expediting the great work, the favourite +object of the hero. This warrant, however, Vanbrugh kept entirely to +himself; he never mentioned to the duke that he was in possession of any +such power; nor, on his return, did he claim to have it renewed. + +The building proceeded with the same delays, and the payments with the +same irregularity; the veteran now foresaw what happened, that he should +never be the inhabitant of his own house! The public money issued from +the Treasury was never to be depended on; and after 1712, the duke took +the building upon himself, for the purpose of accommodating the workmen. +They had hitherto received what was called "crown pay," which was high +wages and uncertain payment--and they now gladly abated a third of their +prices. But though the duke had undertaken to pay the workmen, this +could make no alteration in the claims on the Treasury. Blenheim was to +be built _for_ Marlborough, not _by_ him; it was a monument raised by +the nation to their hero, not a palace to be built by their mutual +contributions. + +Whether Marlborough found that his own million might be slowly injured +while the Treasury remained still obdurate, or that the architect was +still more and more involved, I cannot tell; but in 1715, the workmen +appear to have struck, and the old delays and stand-still again renewed. +It was then Sir John, for the first time, produced the warrant he had +extracted from Lord Godolphin, to lay before the Treasury; adding, +however, a memorandum, to prevent any misconception, that the duke was +to be considered as the paymaster, the debts incurred devolving on the +crown. This part of our secret history requires more development than I +am enabled to afford: as my information is drawn from "the Case" of the +Duke of Marlborough in reply to Sir John's depositions, it is possible +Vanbrugh may suffer more than he ought in this narration; which, +however, incidentally notices his own statements. + +A new scene opens! Vanbrugh not obtaining his claims from the Treasury, +and the workmen becoming more clamorous, the architect suddenly turns +round on the duke, at once to charge him with the whole debt. + +The pitiable history of this magnificent monument of public gratitude, +from its beginnings, is given by Vanbrugh in his deposition. The great +architect represents himself as being comptroller of her majesty's +works; and as such was appointed to prepare a model, which model of +Blenheim House her majesty kept in her palace, and gave her commands to +issue money according to the direction of Mr. Travers, the queen's +surveyor-general; that the lord treasurer appointed her majesty's own +officers to supervise these works; that it was upon defect of money from +the Treasury that the workmen grew uneasy; that the work was stopped, +till further orders of money from the Treasury; that the queen then +ordered enough to secure it from winter weather; that afterwards she +ordered more for payment of the workmen; that they were paid in part; +and upon Sir John's telling them the queen's resolution to grant them a +further supply (_after a stop put to it by the duchess's order_), they +went on and incurred the present debt; that this was afterwards brought +into the House of Commons as the debt of the crown, not owing from the +queen to the Duke of Marlborough, but to the workmen, and this by the +queen's officers. + +During the uncertain progress of the building, and while the workmen +were often in deep arrears, it would seem that the architect often +designed to involve the Marlboroughs in its fate and his own; he +probably thought that some of their round million might bear to be +chipped, to finish his great work, with which, too, their glory was so +intimately connected. The famous duchess had evidently put the duke on +the defensive; but once, perhaps, was the duke on the point of indulging +some generous architectural fancy, when lo! Atossa stepped forwards and +"put a stop to the building." + +When Vanbrugh at length produced the warrant of Lord Godolphin, +empowering him to contract for the duke, this instrument was utterly +disclaimed by Marlborough; the duke declares it existed without his +knowledge; and that if such an instrument for a moment was to be held +valid, no man would be safe, but might be ruined by the act of another! + +Vanbrugh seems to have involved the intricacy of his plot, till it fell +into some contradictions. The queen he had not found difficult to +manage; but after her death, when the Treasury failed in its golden +source, he seems to have sat down to contrive how to make the duke the +great debtor. Vanbrugh swears that "He himself looked upon the crown, as +engaged to the Duke of Marlborough for the expense; but that he believes +the workmen always looked upon the duke as their paymaster." He advances +so far, as to swear that he made a contract with particular workmen, +which contract was not unknown to the duke. This was not denied; but the +duke in his reply observes, that "he knew not that the workmen were +employed for _his_ account, or by _his_ own agent:"--never having heard +till Sir John produced the warrant from Lord Godolphin, that Sir John +was "his surveyor!" which he disclaims. + +Our architect, however opposite his depositions appear, contrived to +become a witness to such facts as tended to conclude the duke to be the +debtor for the building; and "in his depositions has taken as much care +to have the guilt of perjury without the punishment of it, as any man +could do." He so managed, though he has not sworn to contradictions, +that the natural tendency of one part of his evidence presses one way, +and the natural tendency of another part presses the direct contrary +way. In his former memorial, the main design was to disengage the duke +from the debt; in his depositions, the main design was to charge the +duke with the debt. Vanbrugh, it must be confessed, exerted not less of +his dramatic than his architectural genius in the building of Blenheim! + +"The Case" concludes with an eloquent reflection, where Vanbrugh is +distinguished as the man of genius, though not, in this predicament, the +man of honour. "If at last the charge run into by order of the crown +must be upon the duke, yet the infamy of it must go upon another, who +was perhaps the only architect in the world capable of building such a +house; and the only friend in the world capable of contriving to lay the +debt upon one to whom he was so highly obliged." + +There is a curious fact in the depositions of Vanbrugh, by which we +might infer that the idea of Blenheim House might have originated with +the duke himself; he swears that "in 1704, the duke met him, and told +him _he_ designed to build a house, and must consult him about a model, +&c.; but it was the queen who ordered the present house to be built with +all expedition." + +The whole conduct of this national edifice was unworthy of the nation, +if in truth the nation ever entered heartily into it. No specific sum +had been voted in parliament for so great an undertaking; which +afterwards was the occasion of involving all the parties concerned in +trouble and litigation; threatened the ruin of the architect; and I +think we shall see, by Vanbrugh's letters, was finished at the sole +charge, and even under the superintendence, of the duchess herself! It +may be a question, whether this magnificent monument of glory did not +rather originate in the spirit of party, in the urgent desire of the +queen to allay the pride and jealousies of the Marlboroughs. From the +circumstance to which Vanbrugh has sworn, that the duke had designed to +have a house built by Vanbrugh, before Blenheim had been resolved on, we +may suppose that this intention of the duke's afforded the queen a +suggestion of a national edifice. + +Archdeacon Coxe, in his Life of Marlborough, has obscurely alluded to +the circumstances attending the building of Blenheim. "The illness of +the duke, and the tedious litigation which ensued, caused such delays, +that little progress was made in the work at the time of his decease. In +the interim a serious misunderstanding arose between the duchess and the +architect, which forms the subject of a voluminous correspondence. +Vanbrugh was in consequence removed, and the direction of the building +confided to other hands, under her own immediate superintendence." + +This "voluminous correspondence" would probably afford "words that burn" +of the lofty insolence of Atossa, and "thoughts that breathe" of the +comic wit; it might too relate, in many curious points, to the +stupendous fabric itself. If her grace condescended to criticise its +parts with the frank roughness she is known to have done to the +architect himself, his own defence and explanations might serve to let +us into the bewildering fancies of his magical architecture. Of that +self-creation for which he was so much abused in his own day as to have +lost his real avocation as an architect, and stands condemned for +posterity in the volatile bitterness of Lord Orford, nothing is left for +us but our own convictions--to behold, and to be for ever +astonished!--But "this voluminous correspondence?" Alas! the historian +of war and politics overlooks with contempt the little secret histories +of art and of human nature!--and "a voluminous correspondence" which +indicates so much, and on which not a solitary idea is bestowed, has +only served to petrify our curiosity! + +Of this quarrel between the famous duchess and Vanbrugh I have only +recovered several vivacious extracts from confidential letters of +Vanbrugh's to Jacob Tonson. There was an equality of the genius of +_invention_, as well as rancour, in her grace and the wit: whether +Atossa, like Vanbrugh, could have had the patience to have composed a +comedy of five acts I will not determine; but unquestionably she could +have dictated many scenes with equal spirit. We have seen Vanbrugh +attempting to turn the debts incurred by the building of Blenheim on the +duke; we now learn, for the first time, that the duchess, with equal +aptitude, contrived a counterplot to turn the debts on Vanbrugh! + +"I have the misfortune of losing, for I now see little hopes of ever +getting it, near 2000_l._ due to me for many years' service, plague, and +trouble, at Blenheim, which that wicked woman of 'Marlborough' is so far +from paying me, that the duke being sued by some of the workmen for work +done there, she has tried to turn the debt due to them upon me, for +which I think she ought to be hanged." + +In 1722, on occasion of the duke's death, Vanbrugh gives an account to +Tonson of the great wealth of the Marlboroughs, with a caustic touch at +his illustrious victims. + +"The Duke of Marlborough's treasure exceeds the most extravagant guess. +The grand settlement, which it was suspected her grace had broken to +pieces, stands good, and hands an immense wealth to Lord Godolphin and +his successors. A round million has been moving about in loans on the +land-tax, &c. This the Treasury knew before he died, and this was +exclusive of his 'land;' his 5000_l._ a year upon the post-office; his +mortgages upon a distressed estate; his South-Sea stock; his annuities, +and which were not subscribed in, and besides what is in foreign banks; +and yet this man could neither pay his workmen their bills, nor his +architect his salary. + +"He has given his widow (may a Scottish ensign get her!) 10,000_l._ a +year _to spoil Blenheim her own way_; 12,000_l._ a year to keep herself +clean and go to law; 2000_l._ a year to Lord Rialton for present +maintenance; and Lord Godolphin only 5000_l._ a year jointure, if he +outlives my lady: this last is a wretched article. The rest of the heap, +for these are but snippings, goes to Lord Godolphin, and so on. She will +have 40,000_l._ a year in present." + +Atossa, as the quarrel heated and the plot thickened, with the +maliciousness of Puck, and the haughtiness of an empress of Blenheim, +invented the most cruel insult that ever architect endured!--one +perfectly characteristic of that extraordinary woman. Vanbrugh went to +Blenheim with his lady, in a company from Castle Howard, another +magnificent monument of his singular genius. + +"We staid two nights in Woodstock; but there was an order to the +servants, _under her grace's own hand, not to let me enter Blenheim_! +and lest that should not mortify me enough, she having somehow learned +that my _wife_ was of the company, _sent an express the night before we +came there_, with orders that if _she_ came with the Castle Howard +ladies, the servants should not suffer her to see either house, gardens, +or even to enter the park: so she was forced to sit all day long and +keep me company at the inn!" + +This was a _coup-de-theatre_ in this joint comedy of Atossa and +Vanbrugh! The architect of Blenheim, lifting his eyes towards his own +massive grandeur, exiled to a dull inn, and imprisoned with one who +required rather to be consoled, than capable of consoling the enraged +architect! + +In 1725, Atossa still pursuing her hunted prey, had driven it to a spot +which she flattered herself would enclose it with the security of a +preserve. This produced the following explosion! + +"I have been forced into chancery by that B. B. B. the Duchess of +Marlborough, where she has got an injunction upon me by her friend the +late good chancellor (Earl of Macclesfield), who declared that I was +never employed by the duke, and therefore had no demand upon his estate +for my services at Blenheim. Since my hands were thus tied up from +trying by law to recover my arrear, I have prevailed with Sir Robert +Walpole _to help me in a scheme which I proposed to him, by which I got +my money in spite of the hussy's teeth. My carrying this point enrages +her much_, and the more because it is of considerable weight in my small +fortune, which she has heartily endeavoured so to destroy as to throw me +into an English Bastile, there to finish my days, as _I began them, in a +French one_." + +Plot for plot! and the superior claims of one of practised invention are +vindicated! The writer, long accustomed to comedy-writing, has excelled +the self-taught genius of Atossa. The "scheme" by which Vanbrugh's +fertile invention, aided by Sir Robert Walpole, finally circumvented the +avaricious, the haughty, and the capricious Atossa, remains untold, +unless it is alluded to by the passage in Lord Orford's "Anecdotes of +Painting," where he informs us that the "duchess quarrelled with Sir +John, and went to law with him; but though he _proved to be in the +right_, or rather _because_ he proved to be in the right, she employed +Sir Christopher Wren to build the house in St. James's Park." + +I have to add a curious discovery respecting Vanbrugh himself, which +explains a circumstance in his life not hitherto understood. + +In all the biographies of Vanbrugh, from the time of Cibber's Lives of +the Poets, the early part of the life of this man of genius remains +unknown. It is said he descended from an ancient family in _Cheshire_, +which came originally from _France_, though by the name, which properly +written would be _Van Brugh_, he would appear to be of _Dutch_ +extraction. A tale is universally repeated that Sir John once visiting +France in the prosecution of his architectural studies, while taking a +survey of some fortifications, excited alarm, and was carried to the +Bastile: where, to deepen the interest of the story, he sketched a +variety of comedies, which he must have communicated to the governor, +who, whispering it doubtless as an affair of state to several of the +noblesse, these admirers of "sketches of comedies"--English ones no +doubt--procured the release of this English Moliere. This tale is +further confirmed by a very odd circumstance. Sir John built at +Greenwich, on a spot still called "Van Brugh's Fields," two whimsical +houses; one on the side of Greenwich Park is still called "the +Bastile-House," built on its model, to commemorate this imprisonment. + +Not a word of this detailed story is probably true! that the _Bastile_ +was an object which sometimes occupied the imagination of our architect, +is probable; for by the letter we have just quoted, we discover from +himself the singular incident of Vanbrugh's having been _born in the +Bastile_.[65] + +Desirous, probably, of concealing his alien origin, this circumstance +cast his early days into obscurity. He felt that he was a Briton in all +respects but that of his singular birth. The father of Vanbrugh married +Sir Dudley Carleton's daughter. We are told he had "political +connexions;" and one of his "political" tours had probably occasioned +his confinement in that state-dungeon, where his lady was delivered of +her burden of love. This odd fancy of building a "Bastile-House" at +Greenwich, a fortified prison! suggested to his first life-writer the +fine romance; which must now be thrown aside among those literary +fictions the French distinguish by the softening and yet impudent term +of "_Anecdotes hasardees!_" with which formerly Varillas and his +imitators furnished their pages; lies which looked like facts! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [62] The name by which Pope ruthlessly satirized Sarah Duchess of + Marlborough. + + [63] I draw the materials of this secret history from an unpublished + "Case of the Duke of Marlborough and Sir John Vanbrugh," as also + from some confidential correspondence of Vanbrugh with Jacob Tonson, + his friend and publisher. + + [64] Parliament voted 500,000_l._ for the building, which was + insufficient. The queen added thereto the honour of Woodstock, an + appanage of the crown, on the simple condition of rendering at + Windsor Castle every year on the anniversary of the victory of + Blenheim, a flag adorned with three fleur-de-lys, "as acquittance + for all manner of rents, suits and services due to the crown." + + [65] Cunningham, in his "Lives of the British Architects," does not + incline to the conclusions above drawn. He says, "I suspect that + Vanbrugh, in saying he began his days in the Bastile, meant only + that he was its tenant in early life--at the commencement of his + manhood." The same author tells us that Vanbrugh's grandfather fled + from Ghent, his native city, to avoid the persecutions of the Duke + of Alva, and established himself as a merchant in Walbrook, where + his son lived after him, and where John Vanbrugh (afterwards the + great architect) was born in the year 1666. His father was at this + time Comptroller of the Treasury Chamber. Cunningham thinks the + Cheshire part of the genealogy "unlikely to be true." + + + + +SECRET HISTORY OF SIR WALTER RAWLEIGH.[66] + + +Rawleigh exercised in perfection incompatible talents, and his character +connects the opposite extremes of our nature! His "Book of Life," with +its incidents of prosperity and adversity, of glory and humiliation, was +as chequered as the novelist would desire for a tale of fiction. Yet in +this mighty genius there lies an unsuspected disposition, which requires +to be demonstrated, before it is possible to conceive its reality. From +his earliest days, probably by his early reading of the romantic +incidents of the first Spanish adventurers in the New World, he himself +betrayed the genius of an _adventurer_, which prevailed in his character +to the latest; and it often involved him in the practice of mean +artifices and petty deceptions; which appear like folly in the wisdom of +a sage; like ineptitude in the profound views of a politician; like +cowardice in the magnanimity of a hero; and degrade by their littleness +the grandeur of a character which was closed by a splendid death, worthy +the life of the wisest and the greatest of mankind! + +The sunshine of his days was in the reign of Elizabeth. From a boy, +always dreaming of romantic conquests (for he was born in an age of +heroism), and formed by nature for the chivalric gallantry of the court +of a maiden queen, from the moment he with such infinite art cast his +rich mantle over the miry spot, his life was a progress of glory. All +about Rawleigh was as splendid as the dress he wore: his female +sovereign, whose eyes loved to dwell on men who might have been fit +subjects for "the Faerie Queene" of Spenser, penurious of reward, only +recompensed her favourites by suffering them to make their own fortunes +on sea and land; and Elizabeth listened to the glowing projects of her +hero, indulging that spirit which could have conquered the world, to +have laid the toy at the feet of the sovereign! + +This man, this extraordinary being, who was prodigal of his life and +fortune on the Spanish Main, in the idleness of peace could equally +direct his invention to supply the domestic wants of every-day life, in +his project of "an office for address." Nothing was too high for his +ambition, nor too humble for his genius. Pre-eminent as a military and a +naval commander, as a statesman and a student, Rawleigh was as intent on +forming the character of Prince Henry, as that prince was studious of +moulding his own aspiring qualities by the genius of the friend whom he +contemplated. Yet the active life of Rawleigh is not more remarkable +than his contemplative one. He may well rank among the founders of our +literature; for composing on a subject exciting little interest, his +fine genius has sealed his unfinished volume with immortality. For +magnificence of eloquence, and massiveness of thought, we must still +dwell on his pages.[67] Such was the man who was the adored patron of +Spenser; whom Ben Jonson, proud of calling other favourites "his sons," +honoured by the title of "his father;" and who left political +instructions which Milton deigned to edit. + +But how has it happened that, of so elevated a character, Gibbon has +pronounced that it was "ambiguous," while it is described by Hume as "a +great but ill-regulated mind!" + +There was a peculiarity in the character of this eminent man; he +practised the cunning of an _adventurer_--a cunning most humiliating in +the narrative! The great difficulty to overcome in this discovery is, +how to account for a sage and a hero acting folly and cowardice, and +attempting to obtain by circuitous deception what it may be supposed so +magnanimous a spirit would only deign to possess himself of by direct +and open methods. + +Since the present article was written, a letter, hitherto unpublished, +appears in the recent edition of Shakspeare which curiously and minutely +records one of those artifices of the kind which I am about to narrate +at length. When, under Elizabeth, Rawleigh was once in confinement, it +appears that seeing the queen passing by, he was suddenly seized with a +strange resolution of combating with the governor and his people, +declaring that the mere _sight_ of the queen had made him desperate, as +a confined lover would feel at the sight of his mistress. The letter +gives a minute narrative of Sir Walter's astonishing conduct, and +carefully repeats the warm romantic style in which he talked of his +royal mistress, and his formal resolution to die rather than exist out +of her presence.[68] This extravagant scene, with all its cunning, has +been most elaborately penned by the ingenious letter-writer, with a hint +to the person whom he addresses, to suffer it to meet the eye of their +royal mistress, who could not fail of admiring our new "Orlando +Furioso," and soon after released this tender prisoner! To me it is +evident that the whole scene was got up and concerted for the occasion, +and was the invention of Rawleigh himself; the romantic incident he well +knew was perfectly adapted to the queen's taste. Another similar +incident, in which I have been anticipated in the disclosure of the +fact, though not of its nature, was what Sir Toby Matthews obscurely +alludes to in his letters, of "the guilty blow he gave himself in the +Tower;" a passage which had long excited my attention, till I discovered +the curious incident in some manuscript letters of Lord Cecil. Rawleigh +was then confined in the Tower for the Cobham conspiracy; a plot so +absurd and obscure that one historian has called it a "state-riddle," +but for which, so many years after, Rawleigh so cruelly lost his life. + +Lord Cecil gives an account of the examination of the prisoners involved +in this conspiracy. "One afternoon, whilst divers of us were in the +Tower examining some of these prisoners, Sir Walter _attempted to murder +himself_; whereof, when we were advertised, we came to him, and found +him in some agony to be unable to endure his misfortunes, and protesting +innocency, with carelessness of life; and in that humour _he had wounded +himself under the right pap, but no way mortally, being in truth rather +a_ CUT _than a_ STAB, and now very well cured both in body and +mind."[69] This feeble attempt at suicide, this "cut rather than stab," +I must place among those scenes in the life of Rawleigh so +incomprehensible with the genius of the man. If it were nothing but one +of those + + Fears of the Brave! + +we must now open another of the + + Follies of the Wise! + +Rawleigh returned from the wild and desperate voyage of Guiana, with +misery in every shape about him.[70] His son had perished; his devoted +Keymis would not survive his reproach; and Rawleigh, without fortune and +without hope, in sickness and in sorrow, brooded over the sad thought, +that in the hatred of the Spaniard, and in the political pusillanimity +of James, he was arriving only to meet inevitable death. With this +presentiment, he had even wished to give up his ship to the crew, had +they consented to land him in France; but he was probably irresolute in +this decision at sea, as he was afterwards at land, where he wished to +escape, and refused to fly: the clearest intellect was darkened, and +magnanimity itself became humiliated, floating between the sense of +honour and of life. + +Rawleigh landed in his native county of Devon: his arrival was the +common topic of conversation, and he was the object of censure or of +commiseration: but his person was not molested, till the fears of James +became more urgent than his pity. + +The Cervantic Gondomar, whose "quips and quiddities" had concealed the +cares of state, one day rushed into the presence of James, breathlessly +calling out for "audience!" and compressing his "ear-piercing" message +into the laconic abruptness of "piratas! piratas! piratas!" There was +agony as well as politics in this cry of Gondomar, whose brother, the +Spanish governor, had been massacred in this predatory expedition.[71] +The timid monarch, terrified at this tragical appearance of his +facetious friend, saw at once the demands of the whole Spanish cabinet, +and vented his palliative in a gentle proclamation. Rawleigh having +settled his affairs in the west, set off for London to appear before +the king, in consequence of the proclamation. A few miles from Plymouth +he was met by Sir Lewis Stucley, vice-admiral of Devon, a kinsman and a +friend, who, in communication with government, had accepted a sort of +_surveillance_ over Sir Walter. It is said (and will be credited, when +we hear the story of Stucley), that he had set his heart on the _ship_, +as a probable good purchase; and on the _person_, against whom, to +colour his natural treachery, he professed an old hatred. He first +seized on Rawleigh more like the kinsman than the vice-admiral, and +proposed travelling together to London, and baiting at the houses of the +friends of Rawleigh. The warrant which Stucley in the meanwhile had +desired was instantly despatched, and the bearer was one Manoury, a +French empiric, who was evidently sent to act the part he did--a part +played at all times, and the last title, in French politics, that so +often had recourse to this instrument of state, is a _Mouton_! + +Rawleigh still, however, was not placed under any harsh restraint: his +confidential associate, Captain King, accompanied him; and it is +probable, that if Rawleigh had effectuated his escape, he would have +conferred a great favour on the government. + +They could not save him at London. It is certain that he might have +escaped; for Captain King had hired a vessel, and Rawleigh had stolen +out by night, and might have reached it, but irresolutely returned home; +another night, the same vessel was ready, but Rawleigh never came! The +loss of his honour appeared the greater calamity. + +As he advanced in this eventful journey, everything assumed a more +formidable aspect. His friends communicated fearful advices; a +pursuivant, or king's messenger, gave a more menacing appearance; and +suggestions arose in his own mind, that he was reserved to become a +victim of state. When letters of commission from the Privy Council were +brought to Sir Lewis Stucley, Rawleigh was observed to change +countenance, exclaiming with an oath, "Is it possible my fortune should +return upon me thus again?" He lamented, before Captain King, that he +had neglected the opportunity of escape; and which, every day he +advanced inland, removed him the more from any chance. + +Rawleigh at first suspected that Manoury was one of those instruments of +state who are sometimes employed when open measures are not to be +pursued, or when the cabinet have not yet determined on the fate of a +person implicated in a state crime; in a word, Rawleigh thought that +Manoury was a spy over him, and probably over Stucley too. The first +impression in these matters is usually the right one; but when Rawleigh +found himself caught in the toils, he imagined that such corrupt agents +were to be corrupted. The French empiric was sounded, and found very +compliant; Rawleigh was desirous by his aid to counterfeit sickness, and +for this purpose invented a series of the most humiliating stratagems. +He imagined that a constant appearance of sickness might produce delay, +and procrastination, in the chapter of accidents, might end in pardon. +He procured vomits from the Frenchman, and, whenever he chose, produced +every appearance of sickness; with dimness of sight, dizziness in his +head, he reeled about, and once struck himself with such violence +against a pillar in the gallery, that there was no doubt of his malady. +Rawleigh's servant one morning entering Stucley's chamber, declared that +his master was out of his senses, for that he had just left him in his +shirt upon all fours, gnawing the rushes upon the floor. On Stucley's +entrance, Rawleigh was raving, and reeling in strong convulsions. +Stucley ordered him to be chafed and fomented, and Rawleigh afterwards +laughed at this scene with Manoury, observing that he had made Stucley a +perfect physician. + +But Rawleigh found it required some more visible and alarming disease +than such ridiculous scenes had exhibited. The vomits worked so slowly, +that Manoury was fearful to repeat the doses. Rawleigh inquired whether +the empiric knew of any preparation which could make him look ghastly, +without injuring his health. The Frenchman offered a harmless ointment +to act on the surface of the skin, which would give him the appearance +of a leper. "That will do!" said Rawleigh, "for the lords will be afraid +to approach me, and besides it will move their pity." Applying the +ointment to his brows, his arms, and his breast, the blisters rose, the +skin inflamed, and was covered with purple spots. Stucley concluded that +Rawleigh had the plague. Physicians were now to be called in; Rawleigh +took the black silk ribbon from his poniard, and Manoury tightened it +strongly about his arm, to disorder his pulse; but his pulse beat too +strong and regular. He appeared to take no food, while Manoury secretly +provided him. To perplex the learned doctors still more, Rawleigh had +the urinal coloured by a drug of a strong scent. The physicians +pronounced the disease mortal, and that the patient could not be removed +into the air without immediate danger. Awhile after, being in his +bed-chamber undressed, and no one present but Manoury, Sir Walter held a +looking-glass in his hand to admire his spotted face,[72] and observed +in merriment to his new confidant, "how they should one day laugh for +having thus cozened the king, council, physicians, Spaniards, and all." +The excuse Rawleigh offered for this course of poor stratagems, so +unworthy of his genius, was to obtain time and seclusion for writing his +Apology, or Vindication of his Voyage, which has come down to us in his +"Remains." "The prophet David did make himself a fool, and suffered +spittle to fall upon his beard, to escape from the hands of his +enemies," said Rawleigh in his last speech. Brutus, too, was another +example. But his discernment often prevailed over this mockery of his +spirit. The king licensed him to reside at his own house on his arrival +in London; on which Manoury observed that the king showed by this +indulgence that his majesty was favourably inclined towards him; but +Rawleigh replied, "They used all these kinds of flatteries to the Duke +of Biron, to draw him fairly into prison, and then they cut off his +head. I know they have concluded among them that it is expedient that a +man should die, to re-assure the traffick which I have broke with +Spain." And Manoury adds, from whose narrative we have all these +particulars, that Sir Walter broke out into this rant: "If he could but +save himself for this time, he would plot such plots as should make the +king think himself happy to send for him again, and restore him to his +estate, and would force the King of Spain to write into England in his +favour." + +Rawleigh at length proposed a flight to France with Manoury, who +declares it was then he revealed to Stucley what he had hitherto +concealed, that Stucley might double his vigilance. Rawleigh now +perceived that he had two rogues to bribe instead of one, and that they +were playing into one another's hands. Proposals are now made to Stucley +through Manoury, who is as compliant as his brother-knave. Rawleigh +presented Stucley with a "jewel made in the fashion of hail powdered +with diamonds, with a ruby in the midst." But Stucley observing to his +kinsman and friend, that he must lose his office of vice-admiral, which +had cost him six hundred pounds, in case he suffered Rawleigh to escape; +Rawleigh solemnly assured him that he should be no loser, and that his +lady should give him one thousand pounds when they got into France or +Holland. About this time the French quack took his leave: the part he +had to act was performed: the juggle was complete: and two wretches had +triumphed over the sagacity and magnanimity of a sage and a hero, whom +misfortune had levelled to folly; and who, in violating the dignity of +his own character, had only equalled himself with vulgar knaves; men who +exulted that the circumventer was circumvented; or, as they expressed +it, "the great cozener was cozened." But our story does not here +conclude, for the treacheries of Stucley were more intricate. This +perfect villain had obtained a warrant of indemnity to authorise his +compliance with any offer to assist Rawleigh in his escape; this wretch +was the confidant and the executioner of Rawleigh; he carried about him +a license to betray him, and was making his profit of the victim before +he delivered him to the sacrifice. Rawleigh was still plotting his +escape; at Salisbury he had despatched his confidential friend Captain +King to London, to secure a boat at Tilbury; he had also a secret +interview with the French agent. Rawleigh's servant mentioned to Captain +King, that his boatswain had a ketch[73] of his own, and was ready at +his service for "thirty pieces of silver;" the boatswain and Rawleigh's +servant acted Judas, and betrayed the plot to Mr. William Herbert, +cousin to Stucley, and thus the treachery was kept among themselves as a +family concern. The night for flight was now fixed, but he could not +part without his friend Stucley, who had promised never to quit him; and +who indeed, informed by his cousin Herbert, had suddenly surprised +Rawleigh putting on a false beard. The party met at the appointed place; +Sir Lewis Stucley with his son, and Rawleigh disguised. Stucley, in +saluting King, asked whether he had not shown himself an honest man? +King hoped he would continue so. They had not rowed twenty strokes, +before the watermen observed, that Mr. Herbert had lately taken boat, +and made towards the bridge, but had returned down the river after them. +Rawleigh instantly expressed his apprehensions, and wished to return +home; he consulted King--the watermen took fright--Stucley acted his +part well; damning his ill-fortune to have a friend whom he would save, +so full of doubts and fears, and threatening to pistol the watermen if +they did not proceed. Even King was overcome by the earnest conduct of +Stucley, and a new spirit was infused into the rowers. As they drew near +Greenwich a wherry crossed them. Rawleigh declared it came to discover +them. King tried to allay his fears, and assured him that if once they +reached Gravesend, he would hazard his life to get to Tilbury. But in +these delays and discussions, the tide was failing; the watermen +declared they could not reach Gravesend before morning; Rawleigh would +have landed at Purfleet, and the boatswain encouraged him; for there it +was thought he could procure horses for Tilbury. Sir Lewis Stucley too +was zealous; and declared he was content to carry the cloak-bag on his +own shoulders, for half-a-mile, but King declared that it was useless, +they could not at that hour get horses to go by land. + +They rowed a mile beyond Woolwich, approaching two or three ketches, +when the boatswain doubted whether any of these were the one he had +provided to furnish them. "We are betrayed!" cried Rawleigh, and ordered +the watermen to row back: he strictly examined the boatswain; alas! his +ingenuity was baffled by a shuffling villain, whose real answer appeared +when a wherry hailed the boat: Rawleigh observed that it contained +Herbert's crew. He saw that all was now discovered. He took Stucley +aside; his ingenious mind still suggesting projects for himself to +return home in safety, or how Stucley might plead that he had only +pretended to go with Rawleigh, to seize on his private papers. They +whispered together, and Rawleigh took some things from his pocket, and +handed them to Stucley; probably more "rubies powdered with +diamonds."--Some effect was instantaneously produced; for the tender +heart of his friend Stucley relented, and he not only repeatedly +embraced him with extraordinary warmth of affection, but was voluble in +effusions of friendship and fidelity. Stucley persuaded Rawleigh to land +at Gravesend, the strange wherry which had dogged them landing at the +same time; these were people belonging to Mr. Herbert and Sir William +St. John, who, it seems, had formerly shared in the spoils of this +unhappy hero. On Greenwich bridge, Stucley advised Captain King that it +would be advantageous to Sir Walter, that King should confess that he +had joined with Stucley to betray his master; and Rawleigh lent himself +to the suggestion of Stucley, of whose treachery he might still be +uncertain; but King, a rough and honest seaman, declared that he would +not share in the odium. At the moment he refused, Stucley arrested the +captain in the king's name, committing him to the charge of Herbert's +men. They then proceeded to a tavern, but Rawleigh, who now viewed the +monster in his true shape, observed, "Sir Lewis, these actions will not +turn out to your credit;" and on the following day, when they passed +through the Tower-gate, Rawleigh, turning to King, observed, "Stucley +and my servant Cotterell have betrayed me. You need be in no fear of +danger, but as for me, it is I who am the mark that is shot at." Thus +concludes the narrative of Captain King. The fate of Rawleigh soon +verified the prediction. + +This long narrative of treachery will not, however, be complete, unless +we wind it up with the fate of the infamous Stucley. Fiction gives +perfection to its narratives, by the privilege it enjoys of disposing of +its criminals in the most exemplary manner; but the labours of the +historian are not always refreshed by this moral pleasure. Retribution +is not always discovered in the present stage of human existence, yet +history is perhaps equally delightful as fiction, whenever its perfect +catastrophes resemble those of romantic invention. The present is a +splendid example. + +I have discovered the secret history of Sir Lewis Stucley, in several +manuscript letters of the times. + +Rawleigh, in his admirable address from the scaffold, where he seemed to +be rather one of the spectators than the sufferer, declared he forgave +Sir Lewis, for he had forgiven all men; but he was bound in charity to +caution all men against him, and such as he is! Rawleigh's last and +solemn notice of the treachery of his "kinsman and friend" was +irrevocably fatal to this wretch. The hearts of the people were open to +the deepest impressions of sympathy, melting into tears at the pathetic +address of the magnanimous spirit who had touched them; in one moment +Sir Lewis Stucley became an object of execration throughout the nation; +he soon obtained a new title, that of "Sir Judas," and was shunned by +every man. To remove the Cain-like mark, which God and men had fixed on +him, he published an apology for his conduct; a performance which, at +least for its ability, might raise him in our consideration; but I have +since discovered, in one of the manuscript letter-writers, that it was +written by Dr. Sharpe, who had been a chaplain to Henry Prince of Wales. +The writer pleads in Stucley's justification, that he was a state-agent; +that it was lawful to lie for the discovery of treason; that he had a +personal hatred towards Rawleigh, for having abridged his father of his +share of some prize-money; and then enters more into Rawleigh's +character, who "being desperate of any fortune here, agreeable to the +height of his mind, would have made up his fortune elsewhere, upon any +terms against his sovereign and his country. Is it not marvel," +continues the personifier of Stucley, "that he was angry with me at his +death for bringing him back? Besides, being a man of so great a wit, it +was no small grief that a man of mean wit as I should be thought to go +beyond him. No? _Sic ars deluditur arte. Neque enim lex justior ulla est +quam necis artifices arte perire sua._ [This apt latinity betrays Dr. +Sharpe.] But why did you not execute your commission bravely +[openly]?--Why? My commission was to the contrary, to discover his +pretensions, and to seize his secret papers," &c.[74] + +But the doctor, though no unskilful writer, here wrote in vain; for what +ingenuity can veil the turpitude of long and practised treachery? To +keep up appearances, Sir Judas resorted more than usually to court; +where, however, he was perpetually enduring rebuffs, or avoided, as one +infected with the plague of treachery. He offered the king, in his own +justification, to take the sacrament, that whatever he had laid to +Rawleigh's charge was true, and would produce two unexceptionable +witnesses to do the like. "Why, then," replied his majesty, "the more +malicious was Sir Walter to utter these speeches at his death." Sir +Thomas Badger, who stood by, observed, "Let the king take off Stucley's +head, as Stucley has done Sir Walter's, and let him at his death take +the sacrament and his oath upon it, and I'll believe him; but till +Stucley loses his head, I shall credit Sir Walter Rawleigh's bare +affirmative before a thousand of Stucley's oaths." When Stucley, on +pretence of giving an account of his office, placed himself in the +audience chamber of the lord admiral, and his lordship passed him +without any notice, Sir Judas attempted to address the earl; but with a +bitter look his lordship exclaimed--"Base fellow! darest thou, who art +the scorn and contempt of men, offer thyself in my presence? Were it not +in my own house, I would cudgel thee with my staff for presuming on this +sauciness." This annihilating affront Stucley hastened to convey to the +king; his majesty answered him--"What wouldst thou have me do? Wouldst +thou have me hang him? Of my soul, if I should hang all that speak ill +of thee, all the trees of the country would not suffice, so great is the +number!" + +One of the frequent crimes of that age, ere the forgery of bank-notes +existed, was the clipping of gold; and this was one of the private +amusements suitable to the character of our Sir Judas. Treachery and +forgery are the same crime in a different form. Stucley received out of +the exchequer five hundred pounds, as the reward of his _espionnage_ and +perfidy. It was the price of blood, and was hardly in his hands ere it +was turned into the fraudulent coin of "the cheater!" He was seized on +in the palace of Whitehall, for diminishing the gold coin. "The manner +of the discovery," says the manuscript-writer, "was strange, if my +occasions would suffer me to relate the particulars." On his examination +he attempted to shift the crime to his own son, who had fled; and on his +man, who, being taken, in the words of the letter-writer, was "willing +to set the saddle upon the right horse, and accused his master." +Manoury, too, the French empiric, was arrested at Plymouth for the same +crime, and accused his worthy friend. But such was the interest of +Stucley with government, bought, probably, with his last shilling, and, +as one says, with his last shirt, that he obtained his own and his son's +pardon, for a crime that ought to have finally concluded the history of +this blessed family.[75] A more solemn and tragical catastrophe was +reserved for the perfidious Stucley. He was deprived of his place of +vice-admiral, and left destitute in the world. Abandoned by all human +beings, and most probably by the son whom he had tutored in the arts of +villany, he appears to have wandered about, an infamous and distracted +beggar. It is possible that even so seared a conscience may have +retained some remaining touch of sensibility. + + All are men, + Condemned alike to groan; + The tender for another's pain, + THE UNFEELING FOR HIS OWN. + +And Camden has recorded, among his historical notes on James the First, +that in August, 1620, "Lewis Stucley, who betrayed Sir Walter Rawleigh, +died in a manner mad." Such is the catastrophe of one of the most +perfect domestic tales; an historical example, not easily paralleled, of +moral retribution. + +The secret practices of the "Sir Judas" of the court of James the First, +which I have discovered, throw light on an old tradition which still +exists in the neighbourhood of Affeton, once the residence of this +wretched man. The country people have long entertained a notion that a +hidden treasure lies at the bottom of a well in his grounds, guarded by +some supernatural power: a tradition no doubt originating in this man's +history, and an obscure allusion to the gold which Stucley received for +his bribe, or the other gold which he clipped, and might have there +concealed. This is a striking instance of the many historical facts +which, though entirely unknown or forgotten, may be often discovered to +lie hid, or disguised, in popular traditions. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [66] Rawleigh, as was much practised to a much later period, wrote + his name various ways. I have discovered at least how it was + pronounced in his time--thus, _Rawly_. This may be additionally + confirmed by the Scottish poet Drummond, who spells it (in his + conversations with Ben Jonson) _Raughley_. The translation of + Ortelius' "Epitome of the Worlde," 1603, is dedicated to Sir Walter + _Rawleigh_. See vol. ii. p. 261, art. "Orthography of Proper Names." + It was also written _Rawly_ by his contemporaries. He sometimes + wrote it _Ralegh_, the last syllable probably pronounced _ly_, or + _lay_. _Ralegh_ appears on his official seal. + + [67] I shall give in the article "Literary Unions" a curious account + how "Rawleigh's History of the World" was composed, which has + hitherto escaped discovery. + + [68] It is narrated in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil from Mr. + (afterwards Sir) Arthur Gorges, and runs as follows:--"Upon a report + of her majesty's being at Sir George Carew's, Sir W. Ralegh having + gazed and sighed a long time at his study window, from whence he + might discern the barges and boats about the Blackfriars stairs, + suddenly brake out into a great distemper, and sware that his + enemies had on purpose brought her majesty thither to break his gall + in sunder with Tantalus's torments, that when she went away he might + see death before his eyes; with many such like conceits. And, as a + man transported with passion, he sware to Sir George Carew that he + would disguise himself, and get into a pair of oars to ease his mind + but with a sight of the queen, or else he protested his heart would + break." This of course the gaoler refused, and so they fell to + fighting, "scrambling and brawling like madmen," until parted by + Gorges. Sir Walter followed up his absurdity by another letter to + Cecil, couched in the language of romance, in which he declares + that, while the queen "was yet near at hand, that I might hear of + her once in two or three days my sorrows were the less, but now my + heart is cast into the depth of all misery." + + [69] These letters were written by Lord Cecil to Sir Thomas Parry, + our ambassador in France, and were transcribed from the copy-book of + Sir Thomas Parry's correspondence which is preserved in the Pepysian + library at Cambridge. + + [70] He had undertaken the expedition immediately upon his release + from the Tower in 1617. The king had never pardoned him, and his + release was effected by bribing powerful court favourites, who + worked upon the avarice of James I. by leading him to hope for the + possession of Guiana, which, though discovered by the Spaniards, had + never been conquered by them; and which Rawleigh promised to + colonise. + + [71] This occurred during the attack on the town of St. Thomas; a + settlement of the Spaniards near the gold mines. It ended + disastrously to Rawleigh: his ships mutinied; and he never recovered + his ill-fortune; but sailed to Newfoundland, and thence, after a + second mutiny, returned to Plymouth. + + [72] A friend informs me, that he saw recently at a print-dealer's a + _painted portrait of Sir Walter Rawleigh, with the face thus + spotted_. It is extraordinary that any artist should have chosen + such a subject for his pencil; but should this be a portrait of the + times, it shows that this strange stratagem had excited public + attention. + + [73] A small coasting-vessel, made round at stem and stern like the + Dutch boats. The word is still used in some English counties to + denote a _tub_. + + [74] Stucley's Humble Petition, touching the bringing up Sir W. + Rawleigh, 4to. 1618; republished in Somers' Tracts, vol. iii. 751. + + [75] The anecdotes respecting Stucley I have derived from manuscript + letters, and they were considered to be of so dangerous a nature, + that the writer recommends secrecy, and requests, after reading, + that "they may be burnt." With such injunctions I have generally + found that the letters were the more carefully preserved. + + + + +AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE OF THE LAST HOURS OF SIR WALTER RAWLEIGH. + + +The close of the life of Sir Walter Rawleigh was as extraordinary as +many parts of his varied history; the promptitude and sprightliness of +his genius, his carelessness of life, and the equanimity of this great +spirit in quitting the world, can only be paralleled by a few other +heroes and sages. Rawleigh was both! But it is not simply his dignified +yet active conduct on the scaffold, nor his admirable speech on that +occasion, circumstances by which many great men are judged, when their +energies are excited for a moment to act so great a part, before the +eyes of the world assembled at their feet; it is not these only which +claim our notice. + +We may pause with admiration on the real grandeur of Rawleigh's +character, not from a single circumstance, however great, but from a +tissue of continued little incidents, which occurred from the moment of +his condemnation till he laid his head on the block. Rawleigh was a man +of such mark, that he deeply engaged the attention of his +contemporaries; and to this we owe the preservation of several +interesting particulars of what he did and what he said, which have +entered into his life; but all has not been told in the published +narratives. Contemporary writers in their letters have set down every +fresh incident, and eagerly caught up his sense, his wit, and, what is +more delightful, those marks of the natural cheerfulness of his +invariable presence of mind: nor could these have arisen from any +affectation or parade, for we shall see that they served him even in his +last tender farewell to his lady, and on many unpremeditated occasions. + +I have drawn together into a short compass all the facts which my +researches have furnished, not omitting those which are known, +concerning the feelings and conduct of Rawleigh at these solemn moments +of his life; to have preserved only the new would have been to mutilate +the statue, and to injure the whole by an imperfect view. + +Rawleigh one morning was taken out of his bed, in a fit of fever, and +unexpectedly hurried, not to his trial, but to a sentence of death. The +story is well known.--Yet pleading with "a voice grown weak by sickness +and an ague he had at that instant on him," he used every means to avert +his fate: he did, therefore, value the life he could so easily part +with. His judges, there, at least, respected their state criminal, and +they addressed him in a tone far different from that which he had +fifteen years before listened to from Coke. Yelverton, the +attorney-general, said--"Sir Walter Rawleigh hath been as a star at +which the world have gazed; but stars may fall, nay, they must fall, +when they trouble the sphere where they abide." And the lord +chief-justice noticed Rawleigh's great work:--"I know that you have been +valiant and wise, and I doubt not but you retain both these virtues, for +now you shall have occasion to use them. Your book is an admirable work; +I would give you counsel, but I know you can apply unto yourself far +better than I am able to give you." But the judge ended with saying, +"execution is granted." It was stifling Rawleigh with roses! the heroic +sage felt as if listening to fame from the voice of death. + +He declared that now being old, sickly, and in disgrace, and "certain +were he allowed to live, to go to it again, life was wearisome to him, +and all he entreated was to have leave to speak freely at his farewell, +to satisfy the world that he was ever loyal to the king, and a true +lover of the commonwealth; for this he would seal with his blood." + +Rawleigh, on his return to his prison, while some were deploring his +fate, observed that "the world itself is but a larger prison, out of +which some are daily selected for execution." + +That last night of his existence was occupied by writing what the +letter-writer calls "a remembrancer to be left with his lady, to +acquaint the world with his sentiments, should he be denied their +delivery from the scaffold, as he had been at the bar of the King's +Bench." His lady visited him that night, and amidst her tears acquainted +him that she had obtained the favour of disposing of his body; to which +he answered smiling, "It is well, Bess, that thou mayst dispose of that, +dead, thou hadst not always the disposing of when it was alive." At +midnight he entreated her to leave him. It must have been then, that, +with unshaken fortitude, Rawleigh sat down to compose those verses on +his death, which being short, the most appropriate may be repeated. + + Even such is Time, that takes on trust + Our youth, our joys, our all we have, + And pays us but with age and dust; + Who in the dark and silent grave, + When we have wandered all our ways, + Shuts up the story of our days! + +He has added two other lines expressive of his trust in his +resurrection. Their authenticity is confirmed by the writer of the +present letter, as well as another writer, enclosing "half a dozen +verses, which Sir Walter made the night before his death, to take his +farewell of poetry, wherein he had been a scribbler even from his +youth." The enclosure is not now with the letter. Chamberlain, the +writer, was an intelligent man of the world, but not imbued with any +deep tincture of literature. On the same night Rawleigh wrote this +distich on the candle burning dimly:-- + + Cowards fear to die; but courage stout, + Rather than live in snuff, will be put out. + +At this solemn moment, before he lay down to rest, and at the instant of +parting from his lady, with all his domestic affections still warm, to +express his feelings in verse was with him a natural effusion, and one +to which he had long been used. It is peculiar in the fate of Rawleigh, +that having before suffered a long imprisonment with an expectation of a +public death, his mind had been accustomed to its contemplation, and had +often dwelt on the event which was now passing. The soul, in its sudden +departure, and its future state, is often the subject of his few poems; +that most original one of "The Farewell," + + Go, soul! the body's guest, + Upon a thankless errand, &c. + +is attributed to Rawleigh, though on uncertain evidence. But another, +entitled "The Pilgrimage," has this beautiful passage:-- + + Give me my scallop-shell of quiet, + My staff of truth to walk upon, + My scrip of joy immortal diet; + My bottle of salvation; + My gown of glory, Hope's true gage, + And thus I'll take my pilgrimage-- + + Whilst my soul, like a quiet palmer, + Travelleth towards the land of Heaven-- + +Rawleigh's cheerfulness was so remarkable, and his fearlessness of death +so marked, that the Dean of Westminster, who attended him, at first +wondering at the hero, reprehended the lightness of his manner, but +Rawleigh gave God thanks that he had never feared death, for it was but +an opinion and an imagination; and as for the manner of death, he would +rather die so than of a burning fever; and that some might have made +shows outwardly, but he felt the joy within. The dean says, that he made +no more of his death than if he had been to take a journey: "Not," said +he, "but that I am a great sinner, for I have been a soldier, a seaman, +and a courtier." The writer of a manuscript letter tells us, that the +dean declared he died not only religiously, but he found him to be a man +as ready and as able to give as to take instruction. + +On the morning of his death he smoked, as usual, his favourite tobacco, +and when they brought him a cup of excellent sack, being asked how he +liked it, Rawleigh answered--"As the fellow, that, drinking of St. +Giles's bowl, as he went to Tyburn, said, 'that was good drink if a man +might tarry by it.'"[76] The day before, in passing from Westminster +Hall to the Gate-house, his eye had caught Sir Hugh Beeston in the +throng, and calling on him, Rawleigh requested that he would see him die +to-morrow. Sir Hugh, to secure himself a seat on the scaffold, had +provided himself with a letter to the sheriff, which was not read at the +time, and Sir Walter found his friend thrust by, lamenting that he could +not get there. "Farewell!" exclaimed Rawleigh, "I know not what shift +you will make, but I am sure to have a place." In going from the prison +to the scaffold, among others who were pressing hard to see him, one old +man, whose head was bald, came very forward, insomuch that Rawleigh +noticed him, and asked "whether he would have aught of him?" The old man +answered--"Nothing but to see him, and to pray God for him." Rawleigh +replied--"I thank thee, good friend, and I am sorry I have no better +thing to return thee for thy good will." Observing his bald head, he +continued, "but take this night-cap (which was a very rich wrought one +that he wore), for thou hast more need of it now than I." + +His dress, as was usual with him, was elegant, if not rich.[77] Oldys +describes it, but mentions, that "he had a wrought nightcap under his +hat;" this we have otherwise disposed of; he wore a ruff-band, a black +wrought velvet night-gown over a hare-coloured satin doublet, and a +black wrought waistcoat; black cut taffety breeches, and ash-coloured +silk stockings. + +He ascended the scaffold with the same cheerfulness as he had passed to +it; and observing the lords seated at a distance, some at windows, he +requested they would approach him, as he wished that they should all +witness what he had to say. The request was complied with by several. +His speech is well known; but some copies contain matters not in others. +When he finished, he requested Lord Arundel that the king would not +suffer any libels to defame him after death.--"And now I have a long +journey to go, and must take my leave." "He embraced all the lords and +other friends with such courtly compliments, as if he had met them at +some feast," says a letter-writer. Having taken off his gown, he called +to the headsman to show him the axe, which not being instantly done, he +repeated, "I prithee let me see it, dost thou think that I am afraid of +it?" He passed the edge lightly over his finger, and smiling, observed +to the sheriff, "This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all +diseases," and kissing it laid it down. Another writer has, "This is +that that will cure all sorrows." After this he went to three several +corners of the scaffold, and kneeling down, desired all the people to +pray for him, and recited a long prayer to himself. When he began to fit +himself for the block, he first laid himself down to try how the block +fitted him; after rising up, the executioner kneeled down to ask his +forgiveness, which Rawleigh with an embrace gave, but entreated him not +to strike till he gave a token by lifting up his hand, "_and then, fear +not, but strike home!_" When he laid his head down to receive the +stroke, the executioner desired him to lay his face towards the east. +"It was no great matter which way a man's head stood, so that the heart +lay right," said Rawleigh; but these were not his last words. He was +once more to speak in this world with the same intrepidity he had lived +in it--for, having lain some minutes on the block in prayer, he gave the +signal; but the executioner, either unmindful, or in fear, failed to +strike, and Rawleigh, after once or twice putting forth his hands, was +compelled to ask him, "Why dost thou not strike? Strike! man!" In two +blows he was beheaded; but from the first his body never shrunk from the +spot by any discomposure of his posture, which, like his mind, was +immovable. + +"In all the time he was upon the scaffold, and before," says one of the +manuscript letter-writers, "there appeared not the least alteration in +him, either in his voice or countenance; but he seemed as free from all +manner of apprehension as if he had been come thither rather to be a +spectator than a sufferer; nay, the beholders seemed much more sensible +than did he, so that he hath purchased here in the opinion of men such +honour and reputation, as it is thought his greatest enemies are they +that are most sorrowful for his death, which they see is like to turn so +much to his advantage." + +The people were deeply affected at the sight, and so much, that one said +that "we had not such another head to cut off;" and another "wished the +head and brains to be upon Secretary Naunton's shoulders." The observer +suffered for this; he was a wealthy citizen, and great newsmonger, and +one who haunted Paul's Walk. Complaint was made, and the citizen was +summoned to the Privy Council. He pleaded that he intended no disrespect +to Mr. Secretary, but only spoke in reference to the old proverb, that +"two heads were better than one!" His excuse was allowed at the moment; +but when afterwards called on for a contribution to St. Paul's +Cathedral, and having subscribed a hundred pounds, the Secretary +observed to him, that "two are better than one, Mr. Wiemark!" Either +from fear or charity, the witty citizen doubled his subscription.[78] + +Thus died this glorious and gallant cavalier, of whom Osborne says, "His +death was managed by him with so high and religious a resolution, as if +a Roman had acted a Christian, or rather a Christian a Roman."[79] + +After having read the preceding article, we are astonished at the +greatness, and the variable nature of this extraordinary man and this +happy genius. With Gibbon, who once meditated to write his life, we may +pause, and pronounce "his character ambiguous;" but we shall not +hesitate to decide that Rawleigh knew better how to die than to live. +"His glorious hours," says a contemporary, "were his arraignment and +execution;" but never will be forgotten the intermediate years of his +lettered imprisonment; the imprisonment of the learned may sometimes be +their happiest leisure. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [76] In the old time, when prisoners were conveyed from Newgate to + Tyburn, they stopped about midway at the "Old Hospital," at St. + Giles's-in-the-fields, "and," says Stow, "were presented with a + great bowl of ale, thereof to drink at their pleasure, as to be + their last refreshment in this life." + + [77] Rawleigh's love of dress is conspicuous in the early portraits + of him we possess, and particularly so in the one engraved by Lodge. + + [78] The general impression was so much in disfavour of this + judicial murder, that James thought it politic to publish an 8vo + pamphlet, in 1618, entitled, "A Declaration of the Demeanor and + Cariage of Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight, as well in his Voyage, as in + and sithence his Returne: and of the true motives and inducements + which occasioned his Maiestie to proceed in doing justice upon him, + as hath beene done." It takes the whole question apologetically of + the licence given him to Guiana, "as his Majestie's honour was in a + manner engaged, not to deny unto his people the adventure and hope + of such great riches" as the mines of that island might yield. It + afterwards details his proceedings there, which are declared + criminal, dangerous to his Majesty's allies, and an abuse of his + commission. It ends by defending his execution, "because he could + not by law be judicially called in question, for that his former + attainder of treason is the highest and last worke of the law + (whereby hee was _civiliter mortuus_) his Maiestie was enforced + (except attainders should become priviledges for all subsequent + offences) to resolve to have him executed upon his former + attainder." + + [79] The chief particulars in this narrative are drawn from two + manuscript letters of the day, in the Sloane Collection, under their + respective dates, Nov. 3, 1618, Larkin to Sir Thos. Pickering; Oct. + 13, 1618, Chamberlain's letters. + + + + +LITERARY UNIONS. + +SECRET HISTORY OF RAWLEIGH'S HISTORY OF THE WORLD, AND VASARI'S LIVES. + + +A union of talents, differing in their qualities, might carry some +important works to a more extended perfection. In a work of great +enterprise, the aid of a friendly hand may be absolutely necessary to +complete the labours of the projector, who may have neither the courage, +the leisure, nor all necessary acquisitions for performing the favourite +task which he has otherwise matured. Many great works, commenced by a +master-genius, have remained unfinished, or have been deficient for want +of this friendly succour. The public would have been grateful to +Johnson, had he united in his dictionary the labours of some learned +etymologist. Speed's Chronicle owes most of its value, as it does its +ornaments, to the hand of Sir Robert Cotton, and other curious +researchers, who contributed entire portions. Goguet's esteemed work of +the "Origin of the Arts and Sciences" was greatly indebted to the +fraternal zeal of a devoted friend. The still valued books of the Port +Royal Society were all formed by this happy union. The secret history of +many eminent works would show the advantages which may be derived from +that combination of talents, differing in their nature. Cumberland's +masterly versions of the fragments of the Greek dramatic poets would +never have been given to the poetical world, had he not accidentally +possessed the manuscript notes of his relative, the learned Bentley. +This treasure supplied that research in the most obscure works, which +the volatile studies of Cumberland could never have explored; a +circumstance which he concealed from the world, proud of the Greek +erudition which he thus cheaply possessed. Yet by this literary union, +Bentley's vast erudition made those researches which Cumberland could +not; and Cumberland gave the nation a copy of the domestic drama of +Greece, of which Bentley was incapable. + +There is a large work, which is still celebrated, of which the +composition has excited the astonishment even of the philosophic Hume, +but whose secret history remains yet to be disclosed. This extraordinary +volume is "The History of the World by Rawleigh." I shall transcribe +Hume's observations, that the reader may observe the literary +phenomenon. "They were struck with the extensive genius of the man, who +being educated amidst naval and military enterprises, _had surpassed in +the pursuits of literature, even those of the most recluse and sedentary +lives_; and they admired his unbroken magnanimity, which at his age, and +under his circumstances, could engage him to undertake and execute so +great a work, as his History of the World." Now when the truth is known, +the wonderful in this literary mystery will disappear, except in the +eloquent, the grand, and the pathetic passages interspersed in that +venerable volume. We may, indeed, pardon the astonishment of our calm +philosopher, when we consider the recondite matter contained in this +work, and recollect the little time which this adventurous spirit, whose +life was passed in fabricating his own fortune, and in perpetual +enterprise, could allow to such erudite pursuits. Where could Rawleigh +obtain that familiar acquaintance with the rabbins, of whose language he +was probably entirely ignorant? His numerous publications, the effusions +of a most active mind, though excellent in their kind, were evidently +composed by one who was not abstracted in curious and remote inquiries, +but full of the daily business and the wisdom of human life. His +confinement in the Tower, which lasted several years, was indeed +sufficient for the composition of this folio volume, and of a second +which appears to have occupied him. But in that imprisonment it +singularly happened that he lived among literary characters with most +intimate friendship. There he joined the Earl of Northumberland, the +patron of the philosophers of his age, and with whom Rawleigh pursued +his chemical studies; and Serjeant Hoskins, a poet and a wit, and the +poetical "father" of Ben Jonson, who acknowledged that "It was Hoskins +who had polished him;" and that Rawleigh often consulted Hoskins on his +literary works, I learn from a manuscript. But however literary the +atmosphere of the Tower proved to Rawleigh, no particle of Hebrew, and +perhaps little of Grecian lore, floated from a chemist and a poet. The +truth is, that the collection of the materials of this history was the +labour of several persons, who have not all been discovered. It has been +ascertained that Ben Jonson was a considerable contributor; and there +was an English philosopher from whom Descartes, it is said even by his +own countrymen, borrowed largely--Thomas Hariot, whom Anthony Wood +charges with infusing into Rawleigh's volume philosophical notions, +while Rawleigh was composing his History of the World. But if +Rawleigh's _pursuits surpassed even those of the most recluse and +sedentary lives_, as Hume observes, we must attribute this to a "Dr. +Robert Burrel, Rector of Northwald, in the county of Norfolk, who was a +great favourite of Sir Walter Rawleigh, and had been his chaplain. All, +or the greatest part of the drudgery of Sir Walter's History for +criticisms, chronology, and reading Greek and Hebrew authors, was +performed by him for Sir Walter."[80] Thus a simple fact, when +discovered, clears up the whole mystery; and we learn how that knowledge +was acquired, which, as Hume sagaciously detected, required "a recluse +and sedentary life," such as the studies and the habits of a country +clergyman would have been in a learned age. + +The secret history of another work, still more celebrated than the +History of the World, by Sir Walter Rawleigh, will doubtless surprise +its numerous admirers. + +Without the aid of a friendly hand, we should probably have been +deprived of the delightful History of Artists by Vasari: although a mere +painter and goldsmith, and not a literary man, Vasari was blessed with +the nice discernment of one deeply conversant with art, and saw rightly +what was to be done, when the idea of the work was suggested by the +celebrated Paulus Jovius as a supplement to his own work of the +"Eulogiums of Illustrious Men." Vasari approved of the project; but on +that occasion judiciously observed, not blinded by the celebrity of the +literary man who projected it, that "It would require the assistance of +an artist to collect the materials, and arrange them in their proper +order; for although Jovius displayed great knowledge in his +observations, yet he had not been equally accurate in the arrangement of +his facts in his book of Eulogiums." Afterwards, when Vasari began to +collect his information, and consulted Paulus Jovius on the plan, +although that author highly approved of what he saw, he alleged his own +want of leisure and ability to complete such an enterprise; and this was +fortunate: we should otherwise have had, instead of the rambling spirit +which charms us in the volumes of Vasari, the verbose babble of a +declaimer. Vasari, however, looked round for the assistance he wanted; a +circumstance which Tiraboschi has not noticed: like Hogarth, he required +a literary man for his scribe. I have discovered the name of the chief +writer of the Lives of the Painters, who wrote under the direction of +Vasari, and probably often used his own natural style, and conveyed to +us those reflections which surely come from their source. I shall give +the passage, as a curious instance where the secret history of books is +often detected in the most obscure corners of research. Who could have +imagined that in a collection of the lives _de' Santi e Beati dell' +Ordine de' Predicatori_, we are to look for the writer of Vasari's +lives? Don Serafini Razzi, the author of this ecclesiastical biography, +has this reference: "Who would see more of this may turn to the Lives of +the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, _written for the greater part +by Don Silvano Razzi_, my brother, for the Signor Cavaliere M. Giorgio +Vasari, his great friend."[81] + +The discovery that Vasari's volumes were not entirely written by +himself, though probably under his dictation, and unquestionably, with +his communications, as we know that Dr. Morell wrote the "Analysis of +Beauty" for Hogarth, will perhaps serve to clear up some unaccountable +mistakes or omissions which appear in that series of volumes, written +at long intervals, and by different hands. Mr. Fuseli has alluded to +them in utter astonishment; and cannot account for Vasari's "incredible +dereliction of reminiscence, which prompted him to transfer what he had +rightly ascribed to Giorgione in one edition to the elder Parma in the +subsequent ones." Again: "Vasari's memory was either so treacherous, or +his rapidity in writing so inconsiderate, that his account of the +Capella Sistina, and the stanze of Raffaello, is a mere heap of errors +and unpardonable confusion." Even Bottari, his learned editor, is at a +loss how to account for his mistakes. Mr. Fuseli finely observes--"He +has been called the Herodotus of our art; and if the main simplicity of +his narrative, and the desire of heaping anecdote on anecdote, entitle +him in some degree to that appellation, we ought not to forget that the +information of every day adds something to the authenticity of the Greek +historian, whilst every day furnishes matter to question the credibility +of the Tuscan." All this strongly confirms the suspicion that Vasari +employed different hands at different times to write out his work. Such +mistakes would occur to a new writer, not always conversant with the +subject he was composing on, and the disjointed materials of which were +often found in a disordered state. It is, however, strange that neither +Bottari nor Tiraboschi appears to have been aware that Vasari employed +others to write for him; we see that from the first suggestion of the +work he had originally proposed that Paulus Jovius should hold the pen +for him. + +The principle illustrated in this article might be pursued; but the +secret history of two great works so well known is as sufficient as +twenty others of writings less celebrated. The literary phenomenon which +had puzzled the calm inquiring Hume to cry out "a miracle!" has been +solved by the discovery of a little fact on Literary Unions, which +derives importance from this circumstance.[82] + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [80] I draw my information from a very singular manuscript in the + Lansdowne collection, which I think has been mistaken for a boy's + ciphering book, of which it has much the appearance, No. 741, fo. + 57, as it stands in the auctioneer's catalogue. It appears to be a + collection closely written, extracted out of Anthony Wood's papers; + and as I have discovered in the manuscript numerous notices not + elsewhere preserved, I am inclined to think that the transcriber + copied them from that mass of Anthony Wood's papers, of which more + than one sackful was burnt at his desire before him when dying. If + it be so, this MS. is the only register of many curious facts. + + Ben Jonson has been too freely censured for his own free censures, + and particularly for one he made on Sir Walter Rawleigh, who, he + told Drummond, "esteemed more fame than conscience. _The best wits + in England were employed in making his History_; Ben himself had + written a piece to him of the Punic War, which he altered and set in + his book." Jonson's powerful advocate, Mr. Gifford, has not alleged + a word in the defence of our great bard's free conversational + strictures; the secret history of Rawleigh's great work had never + been discovered; on this occasion, however, Jonson only spoke what + he knew to be true--and there may have been other truths, in those + conversations which were set down at random by Drummond, who may + have chiefly recollected the satirical touches. + + [81] I find this quotation in a sort of polemical work of natural + philosophy, entitled "Saggio di Storia Litteraria Fiorentina del + Secolo XVII. da Giovanne Clemente Nelli," Lucca, 1759, p. 58. Nelli + also refers to what he had said on this subject in his _Piante ad + alzati di S.M. del Fiore_, p. vi. e vii.; a work on architecture. + See Brunet; and Haym, _Bib. Ital. de Libri rari_. + + [82] MR. PATRICK FRASER TYTLER, in his recent biography of Sir + Walter Rawleigh, a work of vigorous research and elegant + composition, has dedicated to me a supernumerary article in his + Appendix, entitled _Mr. D'Israeli's Errors_! + + He has inferred from the present article, that I denied that + Rawleigh was the writer of his own great work!--because I have shown + how great works may be advantageously pursued by the aid of + "Literary Union." It is a monstrous inference! The chimera which + plays before his eyes is his own contrivance; he starts at his own + phantasmagoria, and leaves me, after all, to fight with his shadow. + + Mr. Tytler _has not contradicted a single statement of mine_. I have + carefully read his article and my own, and I have made no + alteration. + + I may be allowed to add that there is much redundant matter in the + article of Mr. Tytler; and, to use the legal style, there is much + "impertinence," which, with a little candour and more philosophy, he + would strike his pen through, as sound lawyers do on these + occasions. + + + + +OF A BIOGRAPHY PAINTED. + + +There are objects connected with literary curiosity, whose very history, +though they may never gratify our sight, is literary; and the +originality of their invention, should they excite imitation, may serve +to constitute a class. I notice a book-curiosity of this nature. + +This extraordinary volume may be said to have contained the travels and +adventures of Charles Magius, a noble Venetian; and this volume, so +precious, consisted only of eighteen pages, composed of a series of +highly-finished miniature paintings on vellum, some executed by the hand +of Paul Veronese. Each page, however, may be said to contain many +chapters; for, generally, it is composed of a large centre-piece, +surrounded by ten small ones, with many apt inscriptions, allegories, +and allusions; the whole exhibiting romantic incidents in the life of +this Venetian nobleman. But it is not merely as a beautiful production +of art that we are to consider it; it becomes associated with a more +elevated feeling in the occasion which produced it. The author, who is +himself the hero, after having been long calumniated, resolved to set +before the eyes of his accusers the sufferings and adventures he could +perhaps have but indifferently described: and instead of composing a +tedious volume for his justification, invented this new species of +pictorial biography. The author minutely described the remarkable +situations in which fortune had placed him; and the artists, in +embellishing the facts he furnished them with to record, emulated each +other in giving life to their truth, and putting into action, before the +spectator, incidents which the pen had less impressively exhibited. This +unique production may be considered as a model to represent the actions +of those who may succeed more fortunately by this new mode of +perpetuating their history; discovering, by the aid of the pencil, +rather than by their pen, the forms and colours of an extraordinary +life. + +It was when the Ottomans (about 1571) attacked the Isle of Cyprus, that +this Venetian nobleman was charged by his republic to review and repair +the fortifications. He was afterwards sent to the pope to negociate an +alliance: he returned to the senate to give an account of his +commission. Invested with the chief command, at the head of his troops, +Magius threw himself into the island of Cyprus, and after a skilful +defence, which could not prevent its fall, at Famagusta he was taken +prisoner by the Turks, and made a slave. His age and infirmities induced +his master, at length, to sell him to some Christian merchants; and +after an absence of several years from his beloved Venice, he suddenly +appeared, to the astonishment and mortification of a party who had never +ceased to calumniate him; while his own noble family were compelled to +preserve an indignant silence, having had no communications with their +lost and enslaved relative. Magius now returned to vindicate his honour, +to reinstate himself in the favour of the senate, and to be restored to +a venerable parent amidst his family; to whom he introduced a fresh +branch, in a youth of seven years old, the child of his misfortunes, +who, born in trouble, and a stranger to domestic endearments, was at one +moment united to a beloved circle of relations. + +I shall give a rapid view of some of the pictures of this Venetian +nobleman's life. The whole series has been elaborately drawn up by the +Duke de la Valliere, the celebrated book-collector, who dwells on the +detail with the curiosity of an amateur.[83] + +In a rich frontispiece, a Christ is expiring on the cross; Religion, +leaning on a column, contemplates the Divinity, and Hope is not distant +from her. The genealogical tree of the house of Magius, with an +allegorical representation of Venice, its nobility, power, and riches: +the arms of Magius, in which is inserted a view of the Holy Sepulchre of +Jerusalem, of which he was made a knight; his portrait, with a Latin +inscription: "I have passed through arms and the enemy, amidst fire and +water, and the Lord conducted me to a safe asylum, in the year of grace +1571." The portrait of his son, aged seven years, finished with the +greatest beauty, and supposed to have come from the hand of Paul +Veronese; it bears this inscription: "Overcome by violence and artifice, +almost dead before his birth, his mother was at length delivered of him, +full of life, with all the loveliness of infancy; under the divine +protection, his birth was happy, and his life with greater happiness +shall be closed with good fortune." + +A plan of the Isle of Cyprus, where Magius commanded, and his first +misfortune happened, his slavery by the Turks.--The painter has +expressed this by an emblem of a tree shaken by the winds and scathed by +the lightning; but from the trunk issues a beautiful green branch +shining in a brilliant sun, with this device--"From this fallen trunk +springs a branch full of vigour." + +The missions of Magius to raise troops in the province of La Puglia.--In +one of these Magius is seen returning to Venice; his final departure,--a +thunderbolt is viewed falling on his vessel--his passage by Corfu and +Zante, and his arrival at Candia. + +His travels to Egypt.--The centre figure represents this province +raising its right hand extended towards a palm-tree, and the left +leaning on a pyramid, inscribed "Celebrated throughout the world for her +wonders." The smaller pictures are the entrance of Magius into the port +of Alexandria; Rosetta, with a caravan of Turks and different nations; +the city of Grand Cairo, exterior and interior, with views of other +places; and finally, his return to Venice. + +His journey to Rome.--The centre figure an armed Pallas seated on +trophies, the Tyber beneath her feet, a globe in her hands, inscribed +_Quod rerum victrix ac domina_,--"Because she is the Conqueress and +Mistress of the World." The ten small pictures are views of the cities +in the pope's dominion. His first audience at the conclave forms a +pleasing and fine composition. + +His travels into Syria.--The principal figure is a female, emblematical +of that fine country; she is seated in the midst of a gay orchard, and +embraces a bundle of roses, inscribed _Mundi deliciae_--"The delight of +the universe." The small compartments are views of towns and ports, and +the spot where Magius collected his fleet. + +His pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he was made a knight of the Holy +Sepulchre.--The principal figure represents Devotion, inscribed +_Ducit_--"It is she who conducts me." The compartments exhibit a variety +of objects, with a correctness of drawing which is described as +belonging to the class, and partaking of the charms of the pencil of +Claude Lorraine. His vessel is first viewed in the roadstead at Venice +beat by a storm; arrives at Zante to refresh; enters the port of Simiso; +there having landed, he and his companions are proceeding to the town on +asses, for Christians were not permitted to travel in Turkey on horses. +In the church at Jerusalem the bishop, in his pontifical habit, receives +him as a knight of the Holy Sepulchre, arraying him in the armour of +Godfrey of Bouillon, and placing his sword in the hands of Magius. His +arrival at Bethlehem, to see the cradle of the Lord--and his return by +Jaffa with his companions, in the dress of pilgrims; the groups are +finely contrasted with the Turks mingling amongst them. + +The taking of the city of Famagusta, and his slavery.--The middle +figure, with a dog at its feet, represents Fidelity, the character of +Magius, who ever preferred it to his life or his freedom, inscribed +_Captivat_--"She has reduced me to slavery." Six smaller pictures +exhibit the different points of the island of Cyprus where the Turks +effected their descents. Magius retreating to Famagusta, which he long +defended, and where his cousin, a skilful engineer, was killed. The +Turks compelled to raise the siege, but return with greater forces--the +sacking of the town and the palace, where Magius was taken.--One picture +exhibits him brought before a bashaw, who has him stripped, to judge of +his strength and fix his price, when, after examination, he is sent +among other slaves. He is seen bound and tied up among his companions in +misfortune--again he is forced to labour, and carries a cask of water on +his shoulders.--In another picture, his master, finding him weak of +body, conducts him to a slave-merchant to sell him. In another we see +him leading an ass loaded with packages; his new master, finding him +loitering on his way, showers his blows on him, while a soldier is seen +purloining one of the packages from the ass. Another exhibits Magius +sinking with fatigue on the sands, while his master would raise him up +by an unsparing use of the bastinado. The varied details of these little +paintings are pleasingly executed. + +The close of his slavery.--The middle figure kneeling to Heaven, and a +light breaking from it, inscribed, "He breaks my chains," to express +the confidence of Magius. The Turks are seen landing with their pillage +and their slaves.--In one of the pictures are seen two ships on fire; a +young lady of Cyprus preferring death to the loss of her honour and the +miseries of slavery, determined to set fire to the vessel in which she +was carried; she succeeded, and the flames communicated to another. + +His return to Venice.--The painter for his principal figure has chosen a +Pallas, with a helmet on her head, the aegis on one arm, and her lance in +the other, to describe the courage with which Magius had supported his +misfortunes, inscribed _Reducit_--"She brings me back." In the last of +the compartments he is seen at the custom-house at Venice; he enters the +house of his father; the old man hastens to meet him, and embraces him. + +One page is filled by a single picture, which represents the senate of +Venice, with the Doge on his throne; Magius presents an account of his +different employments, and holds in his hand a scroll, on which is +written, _Quod commisisti perfeci; quod restat agendum, pare fide +complectar_--"I have done what you committed to my care; and I will +perform with the same fidelity what remains to be done." He is received +by the senate with the most distinguished honours, and is not only +justified, but praised and honoured. + +The most magnificent of these paintings is the one attributed to Paul +Veronese. It is described by the Duke de la Valliere as almost +unparalleled for its richness, its elegance, and its brilliancy. It is +inscribed _Pater meus et fratres mei dereliquerunt me; Dominus autem +assumpsit me!_--"My father and my brothers abandoned me; but the Lord +took me under his protection." This is an allusion to the accusation +raised against him in the open senate when the Turks took the Isle of +Cyprus, and his family wanted either the confidence or the courage to +defend Magius. In the front of this large picture, Magius leading his +son by the hand, conducts him to be reconciled with his brothers and +sisters-in-law, who are on the opposite side; his hand holds this +scroll, _Vos cogitastis de me malum; sed Deus convertit illud in +bonum_--"You thought ill of me; but the Lord has turned it to good." In +this he alludes to the satisfaction he had given the senate, and to the +honours they had decreed him. Another scene is introduced, where Magius +appears in a magnificent hall at a table in the midst of all his family, +with whom a general reconciliation has taken place: on his left hand +are gardens opening with an enchanting effect, and magnificently +ornamented, with the villa of his father, on which flowers and wreaths +seem dropping on the roof, as if from heaven. In the perspective, the +landscape probably represents the rural neighbourhood of Magius's early +days. + +Such are the most interesting incidents which I have selected from the +copious description of the Duke de la Valliere. The idea of this +production is new: an autobiography in a series of remarkable scenes, +painted under the eye of the describer of them, in which, too, he has +preserved all the fulness of his feelings and his minutest +recollections; but the novelty becomes interesting from the character of +the noble Magius, and the romantic fancy which inspired this elaborate +and costly curiosity. It was not, indeed, without some trouble that I +have drawn up this little account; but while thus employed, I seemed to +be composing a very uncommon romance. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [83] The Duke's description is not to be found, as might be + expected, in his own valued catalogue, but was a contribution to + Gaignat's, ii. 16, where it occupies fourteen pages. This singular + work sold at Gaignat's sale for 902 livres. It was then the golden + age of literary curiosity, when the rarest things were not ruinous; + and that price was even then considered extraordinary, though the + work was an unique. It must consist of about 180 subjects, by + Italian artists. + + + + +CAUSE AND PRETEXT. + + +It is an important principle in morals and in politics, not to mistake +the cause for the pretext, nor the pretext for the cause, and by this +means to distinguish between the concealed and the ostensible motive. On +this principle, history might be recomposed in a new manner; it would +not often describe _circumstances_ and _characters_ as they usually +appear. When we mistake the characters of men, we mistake the nature of +their actions; and we shall find in the study of secret history, that +some of the most important events in modern history were produced from +very different motives than their ostensible ones. Polybius, the most +philosophical writer of the ancients, has marked out this useful +distinction of _cause_ and _pretext_, and aptly illustrates the +observation by the facts which he explains. Amilcar, for instance, was +the first author and contriver of the second Punic war, though he died +ten years before the commencement of it. "A statesman," says the wise +and grave historian, "who knows not how to trace the origin of events, +and discern the different sources from whence they take their rise, may +be compared to a physician who neglects to inform himself of the causes +of those distempers which he is called in to cure. Our pains can never +be better employed than in searching out the causes of events; for the +most trifling incidents give birth to matters of the greatest moment and +importance." The latter part of this remark of Polybius points out +another principle which has been often verified by history, and which +furnished the materials of the little book of "Grands Evenemens par les +petites Causes." + +Our present inquiry concerns "cause and pretext." + +Leo X. projected an alliance of the sovereigns of Christendom against +the Turks. The avowed object was to oppose the progress of the Ottomans +against the Mamelukes of Egypt, who were more friendly to the +Christians; but the concealed motive with his holiness was to enrich +himself and his family with the spoils of Christendom, and to aggrandise +the papal throne by war; and such, indeed, the policy of these pontiffs +had always been in those mad crusades which they excited against the +East. + +The Reformation, excellent as its results have proved in the cause of +genuine freedom, originated in no purer source than human passions and +selfish motives: it was the progeny of avarice in Germany, of novelty in +France, and of love in England. The latter is elegantly alluded to by +Gray-- + + And gospel-light first beam'd from Bullen's eyes. + +The Reformation is considered by the Duke of Nevers, in a work printed +in 1590, as it had been by Francis I., in his Apology in 1537, as a +_coup-d'etat_ of Charles V. towards universal monarchy. The duke says, +that the emperor silently permitted Luther to establish his principles +in Germany, that they might split the confederacy of the elective +princes, and by this division facilitate their more easy conquest, and +play them off one against another, and by these means to secure the +imperial crown hereditary in the house of Austria. Had Charles V. not +been the mere creature of his politics, and had he felt any zeal for the +Catholic cause, which he pretended to fight for, never would he have +allowed the new doctrines to spread for more than twenty years without +the least opposition. + +The famous League in France was raised for "religion and the relief of +public grievances;" such was the pretext! After the princes and the +people had alike become its victims, this "league" was discovered to +have been formed by the pride and the ambition of the Guises, aided by +the machinations of the Jesuits against the attempts of the Prince of +Conde to dislodge them from their "seat of power." While the Huguenots +pillaged, burnt, and massacred, declaring in their manifestoes that they +were only fighting to _release the king_, whom they asserted was a +prisoner of the Guises, the Catholics repaid them with the same +persecution and the same manifestoes, declaring that they only wished +_to liberate the Prince of Conde_, who was the prisoner of the +Huguenots. The people were led on by the cry of "religion;" but this +civil war was not in reality so much Catholic against Huguenot, as Guise +against Conde. A parallel event occurred between our Charles I. and the +Scotch Covenanters; and the king expressly declared, in "a large +declaration, concerning the late tumults in Scotland," that "religion is +only _pretended_, and used by them as a cloak to palliate their +_intended rebellion_," which he demonstrated by the facts he alleged. +There was a revolutionary party in France, which, taking the name of +_Frondeurs_, shook that kingdom under the administration of Cardinal +Mazarin, and held out for their pretext the public freedom. But that +faction, composed of some of the discontented French princes and the +mob, was entirely organized by Cardinal de Retz, who held them in hand, +to check or to spur them as the occasion required, from a mere personal +pique against Mazarin, who had not treated that vivacious genius with +all the deference he exacted. This appears from his own Memoirs. + +We have smiled at James I. threatening the States-general by the English +ambassador, about Vorstius, a Dutch professor, who had espoused the +doctrines of Arminius against those of the contra-remonstrants, or +Calvinists; the ostensible subject was religious, or rather +metaphysical-religious doctrines, but the concealed one was a struggle +for predominance between the Pensionary Barnevelt, assisted by the +French interest, and the Prince of Orange, supported by the English. +"These were the real sources," says Lord Hardwicke, a statesman and a +man of letters, deeply conversant with secret and public history, and a +far more able judge than Diodati the Swiss divine, and Brandt the +ecclesiastical historian, who in the synod of Dort could see nothing but +what appeared in it, and gravely narrated the idle squabbles on phrases +concerning predestination or grace. Hales, of Eaton, who was secretary +to the English ambassador at this synod, perfectly accords with the +account of Lord Hardwicke. "Our synod," writes that judicious observer, +"goes on like a watch; the main wheels upon which the whole business +turns are least in sight; for all things of moment are acted in private +sessions; _what is done in public is only for show and entertainment_." + +The _cause_ of the persecution of the Jansenists was the jealousy of the +Jesuits; the _pretext_ was _la grace suffisante_. The learned La Croze +observes, that the same circumstance occurred in the affair of Nestorius +and the church of Alexandria; the pretext was orthodoxy, the cause was +the jealousy of the church of Alexandria, or rather the fiery and +turbulent Cyril, who personally hated Nestorius. The opinions of +Nestorius, and the council which condemned them, were the same in +effect. I only produce this remote fact to prove that ancient times do +not alter the truth of our principle. + +When James II. was so strenuous an advocate for _toleration_ and +_liberty of conscience_ in removing the Test Act, this enlightened +principle of government was only a _pretext_ with that monk-ridden +monarch; it is well known that the _cause_ was to introduce and make the +Catholics predominant in his councils and government. The result, which +that eager and blind politician hurried on too fast, and which therefore +did not take place, would have been that "liberty of conscience" would +soon have become an "overt act of treason" before an inquisition of his +Jesuits! + +In all political affairs drop the _pretexts_ and strike at the _causes_; +we may thus understand what the heads of parties may choose to conceal. + + + + +POLITICAL FORGERIES AND FICTIONS. + + +A writer, whose learning gives value to his eloquence, in his Bampton +Lectures has censured, with that liberal spirit so friendly to the cause +of truth, the calumnies and rumours of parties, which are still +industriously retailed, though they have been often confuted. Forged +documents are still referred to, or tales unsupported by evidence are +confidently quoted. Mr. Heber's subject confined his inquiries to +theological history; he has told us that "Augustin is not ashamed, in +his dispute with Faustus, to take advantage of the popular slanders +against the followers of Manes, though his own experience (for he had +himself been of that sect) was sufficient to detect this falsehood." +The Romanists, in spite of satisfactory answers, have continued to urge +against the English protestant the romance of Parker's consecration;[84] +while the protestant persists in falsely imputing to the catholic public +formularies the systematic omission of the second commandment. "The +calumnies of Rimius and Stinstra against the Moravian brethren are cases +in point," continues Mr. Heber. "No one now believes them, yet they once +could deceive even Warburton!" We may also add the obsolete calumny of +Jews crucifying boys--of which a monument raised to Hugh of Lincoln +perpetuates the memory, and which a modern historian records without any +scruple of doubt; several authorities, which are cited on this occasion, +amount only to the single one of Matthew Paris, who gives it as a +popular rumour. Such accusations usually happened when the Jews were too +rich and the king was too poor![85] + +The falsehoods and forgeries raised by parties are overwhelming! It +startles a philosopher, in the calm of his study, when he discovers how +writers, who, we may presume, are searchers after truth, should, in +fact, turn out to be searchers after the grossest fictions. This alters +the habits of the literary man: it is an unnatural depravity of his +pursuits--and it proves that the personal is too apt to predominate over +the literary character. + +I have already touched on the main point of the present article in the +one on "Political Nicknames." I have there shown how political calumny +appears to have been reduced into an art; one of its branches would be +that of converting forgeries and fictions into historical authorities. + +When one nation is at war with another, there is no doubt that the two +governments connive at, and often encourage, the most atrocious libels +on each other, to madden the people to preserve their independence, and +contribute cheerfully to the expenses of the war. France and England +formerly complained of Holland--the Athenians employed the same policy +against the Macedonians and Persians. Such is the origin of a vast +number of supposititious papers and volumes, which sometimes, at a +remote date, confound the labours of the honest historian, and too often +serve the purposes of the dishonest, with whom they become authorities. +The crude and suspicious libels which were drawn out of their obscurity +in Cromwell's time against James the First have overloaded the character +of that monarch, yet are now eagerly referred to by party writers, +though in their own days they were obsolete and doubtful. During the +civil wars of Charles the First such spurious documents exist in the +forms of speeches which were never spoken; of letters never written by +the names subscribed; printed declarations never declared; battles never +fought, and victories never obtained! Such is the language of Rushworth, +who complains of this evil spirit of party forgeries, while he is +himself suspected of having rescinded or suppressed whatever was not +agreeable to his patron Cromwell. A curious, and perhaps a necessary +list might be drawn up of political forgeries of our own, which have +been sometimes referred to as genuine, but which are the inventions of +wits and satirists! Bayle ingeniously observes, that at the close of +every century such productions should be branded by a skilful +discriminator, to save the future inquirer from errors he can hardly +avoid. "How many are still kept in error by the satires of the sixteenth +century! Those of the present age will be no less active in future ages, +for they will still be preserved in public libraries." + +The art and skill with which some have fabricated a forged narrative +render its detection almost hopeless. When young Maitland, the brother +to the secretary, in order to palliate the crime of the assassination of +the Regent Murray, was employed to draw up a pretended conference +between him, Knox, and others, to stigmatise them by the odium of +advising to dethrone the young monarch, and to substitute the regent for +their sovereign, Maitland produced so dramatic a performance, by giving +to each person his peculiar mode of expression, that this circumstance +long baffled the incredulity of those who could not in consequence deny +the truth of a narrative apparently so correct in its particulars! "The +fiction of the warming-pan enclosing the young Pretender brought more +adherents to the cause of the Whigs than the Bill of Rights," observes +Lord John Russell. + +Among such party narratives, the horrid tale of the bloody Colonel Kirk +has been worked up by Hume with all his eloquence and pathos; and, from +its interest, no suspicion has arisen of its truth. Yet, so far as it +concerns Kirk, or the reign of James the Second, or even English +history, it is, as Ritson too honestly expresses it, "an impudent and a +bare-faced lie!" The simple fact is told by Kennet in a few words: he +probably was aware of the nature of this political fiction. Hume was +not, indeed, himself the fabricator of the tale; but he had not any +historical authority. The origin of this fable was probably a pious +fraud of the Whig party, to whom Kirk had rendered himself odious; at +that moment stories still more terrifying were greedily swallowed, and +which, Ritson insinuates, have become a part of the history of England. +The original story, related more circumstantially, though not more +affectingly, nor perhaps more truly, may be found in Wanley's "Wonders +of the Little World,"[86] which I give, relieving it from the +tediousness of old Wanley. + +A governor of Zealand, under the bold Duke of Burgundy, had in vain +sought to seduce the affections of the beautiful wife of a citizen. The +governor imprisons the husband on an accusation of treason; and when the +wife appeared as the suppliant, the governor, after no brief eloquence, +succeeded as a lover, on the plea that her husband's life could only be +spared by her compliance. The woman, in tears and in aversion, and not +without a hope of vengeance only delayed, lost her honour! Pointing to +the prison, the governor told her, "If you seek your husband, enter +there, and take him along with you!" The wife, in the bitterness of her +thoughts, yet not without the consolation that she had snatched her +husband from the grave, passed into the prison; there in a cell, to her +astonishment and horror, she beheld the corpse of her husband laid out +in a coffin, ready for burial! Mourning over it, she at length returned +to the governor, fiercely exclaiming, "You have kept your word! you have +restored to me my husband! and be assured the favour shall be repaid!" +The inhuman villain, terrified in the presence of his intrepid victim, +attempted to appease her vengeance, and more, to win her to his wishes. +Returning home, she assembled her friends, revealed her whole story, +and under their protection she appealed to Charles the Bold, a strict +lover of justice, and who now awarded a singular but an exemplary +catastrophe. The duke first commanded that the criminal governor should +instantly marry the woman whom he had made a widow, and at the same time +sign his will, with a clause importing that should he die before his +lady he constituted her his heiress. All this was concealed from both +sides, rather to satisfy the duke than the parties themselves. This +done, the unhappy woman was dismissed alone! The governor was conducted +to the prison to suffer the same death he had inflicted on the husband +of his wife; and when this lady was desired once more to enter the +prison, she beheld her second husband headless in his coffin as she had +her first! Such extraordinary incidents in so short a period overpowered +the feeble frame of the sufferer; she died--leaving a son, who inherited +the rich accession of fortune so fatally obtained by his injured and +suffering mother. + +Such is the tale of which the party story of Kirk appeared to Ritson to +have been a _rifacimento_; but it is rather the foundation than the +superstructure. This critic was right in the general, but not in the +particular. It was not necessary to point out the present source, when +so many others of a parallel nature exist. This tale, universally told, +Mr. Douce considers as the origin of _Measure for Measure_, and was +probably some traditional event; for it appears sometimes with a change +of names and places, without any of incident. It always turns on a +soldier, a brother or a husband, executed; and a wife, a sister, a +deceived victim, to save them from death. It was, therefore, easily +transferred to Kirk, and Pomfret's poem of "Cruelty and Lust" long made +the story popular. It could only have been in this form that it reached +the historian, who, it must be observed, introduces it as a "story +_commonly told_ of him;" but popular tragic romances should not enter +into the dusty documents of a history of England, and much less be +particularly specified in the index! Belleforest, in his old version of +the tale, has even the circumstance of the "captain, who having seduced +the wife under the promise to save her husband's life, exhibited him +soon afterwards _through the window of her apartment suspended on a +gibbet_." This forms the horrid incident in the history of "the bloody +Colonel," and served the purpose of a party, who wished to bury him in +odium. Kirk was a soldier of fortune, and a loose liver, and a great +blusterer, who would sometimes threaten to decimate his own regiment, +but is said to have forgotten the menace the next day. Hateful as such +military men will always be, in the present instance Colonel Kirk has +been shamefully calumniated by poets and historians, who suffer +themselves to be duped by the forgeries of political parties![87] + +While we are detecting a source of error into which the party feelings of +modern historians may lead them, let us confess that they are far more +valuable than the ancient; for to us at least the ancients have written +history without producing authorities! Modern historians must furnish +their readers with the truest means to become their critics, by providing +them with their authorities; and it is only by judiciously appreciating +these that we may confidently accept their discoveries. Unquestionably +the ancients have often introduced into their histories many tales +similar to the story of Kirk--popular or party forgeries! The mellifluous +copiousness of Livy conceals many a tale of wonder; the graver of Tacitus +etches many a fatal stroke; and the secret history of Suetonius too often +raises a suspicion of those whispers, _Quid rex in aurem reginae dixerit, +quid Juno fabulata sit cum Jove_. It is certain that Plutarch has often +told, and varied too in the telling, the same story, which he has applied +to different persons. A critic in the Ritsonian style has said of the +grave Plutarch, _Mendax ille Plutarchus qui vitas oratorum, dolis et +erroribus consutas, olim conscribillavit_.[88] "That lying Plutarch, who +formerly scribbled the lives of the orators, made up of falsities and +blunders!" There is in Italian a scarce book, of a better design than +execution, of the Abbate Lancellotti, _Farfalloni degli Antichi +Historici_.--"Flim-flams of the Ancients." Modern historians have to +dispute their passage to immortality step by step; and however fervid be +their eloquence, their real test as to value must be brought to the +humble references in their margin. Yet these must not terminate our +inquiries; for in tracing a story to its original source we shall find +that fictions have been sometimes grafted on truths or hearsays, and to +separate them as they appeared in their first stage is the pride and +glory of learned criticism. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [84] Absurdly reported to have taken place at a meeting in the + Nag's-head Tavern, Cheapside. + + [85] M. Michel published in Paris, in 1834, a collection of poems + and ballads concerning Hugh of Lincoln, which were all very popular + at home and abroad in the Middle Ages. One of these, preserved in an + Anglo-Norman MS. in the Bibliotheque Royale at Paris, was evidently + constructed to be sung by the people soon after the event, which is + stated to have happened in the reign of our Henry III.; but there + are many ballads comparatively modern which show how carefully the + story was kept before the populace; and may be seen in the + collections of Bishop Percy, Jameson, Motherwell, &c. + + [86] Book iii. ch. 29, sec. 18. + + [87] A story still more absurd was connected with the name of + Colonel Lunsford, a soldier who consistently defended Charles I., + and was killed in 1643. It is related by Echard as reported of him, + that he would kill and eat the children of the opposite party. This + horridly grotesque imputation has been preserved in the political + ballads and poetry of the day. Cleveland ridicules it in one of his + poems, where he makes a Roundhead declare-- + + "He swore he saw, when Lunsford fell, + A child's arm in his pocket." + + [88] Taylor, Annot. ad Lysiam. + + + + +EXPRESSION OF SUPPRESSED OPINION. + + +A people denied the freedom of speech or of writing have usually left +some memorials of their feelings in that silent language which addresses +itself to the eye. Many ingenious inventions have been contrived to give +vent to their suppressed indignation. The voluminous grievance which +they could not trust to the voice or the pen they have carved in wood, +or sculptured on stone; and have sometimes even facetiously concealed +their satire among the playful ornaments designed to amuse those of whom +they so fruitlessly complained! Such monuments of the suppressed +feelings of the multitude are not often inspected by the +historian--their minuteness escapes all eyes but those of the +philosophical antiquary; nor are these satirical appearances always +considered as grave authorities, which unquestionably they will be found +to be by a close observer of human nature. An entertaining history of +the modes of thinking, or the discontents of a people, drawn from such +dispersed efforts in every aera, would cast a new light of secret history +over many dark intervals. + +Did we possess a secret history of the Saturnalia, it would doubtless +have afforded some materials for the present article. In those revels of +venerable radicalism, when the senate was closed, and the _Pileus_, or +cap of liberty, was triumphantly worn, all things assumed an appearance +contrary to what they were; and human nature, as well as human laws, +might be said to have been _parodied_. Among so many whimsical +regulations in favour of the licentious rabble, there was one which +forbad the circulation of money; if any one offered the coin of the +state, it was to be condemned as an act of madness, and the man was +brought to his senses by a penitential fast for that day. An ingenious +French antiquary seems to have discovered a class of wretched medals, +cast in lead or copper, which formed the circulating medium of these mob +lords, who, to ridicule the idea of _money_, used the basest metals, +stamping them with grotesque figures, or odd devices--such as a sow; a +chimerical bird; an imperator in his car, with a monkey behind him; or +an old woman's head, _Acca Laurentia_, either the traditional old nurse +of Romulus, or an old courtesan of the same name, who bequeathed the +fruits of her labours to the Roman people! As all things were done in +mockery, this base metal is stamped with S. C., to ridicule the _Senatus +consulto_, which our antiquary happily explains,[89] in the true spirit +of this government of mockery, _Saturnalium consulto_, agreeing with the +legend of the reverse, inscribed in the midst of four _tali_, or bones, +which they used as dice, _Qui ludit arram det, quod satis sit_--"Let +them who play give a pledge, which will be sufficient." This mock-money +served not only as an expression of the native irony of the radical +gentry of Rome during their festival, but, had they spoken their mind +out, meant a ridicule of money itself; for these citizens of equality +have always imagined that society might proceed without this contrivance +of a medium which served to represent property in which they themselves +must so little participate. + +A period so glorious for exhibiting the suppressed sentiments of the +populace as were these _Saturnalia_, had been nearly lost for us, had +not some notions been preserved by Lucian; for we glean but sparingly +from the solemn pages of the historian, except in the remarkable +instance which Suetonius has preserved of the arch-mime who followed the +body of the Emperor Vespasian at his funeral. This officer, as well as a +similar one who accompanied the general to whom they granted a triumph, +and who was allowed the unrestrained licentiousness of his tongue, were +both the organs of popular feeling, and studied to gratify the rabble, +who were their real masters. On this occasion the arch-mime, +representing both the exterior personage and the character of Vespasian, +according to custom, inquired the expense of the funeral? He was +answered, "ten millions of sesterces!" In allusion to the love of money +which characterised the emperor, his mock representative exclaimed, +"Give me the money, and, if you will, throw my body into the Tiber!" + +All these mock offices and festivals among the ancients I consider as +organs of the suppressed opinions and feelings of the populace, who were +allowed no other, and had not the means of the printing ages to leave +any permanent records. At a later period, before the discovery of the +art which multiplies with such facility libels or panegyrics, when the +people could not speak freely against those rapacious clergy who sheared +the fleece and cared not for the sheep, many a secret of popular +indignation was confided not to books (for they could not read), but to +pictures and sculptures, which are books which the people can always +read. The sculptors and illuminators of those times no doubt shared in +common the popular feelings, and boldly trusted to the paintings or the +carvings which met the eyes of their luxurious and indolent masters +their satirical inventions. As far back as in 1300, we find in +Wolfius[90] the description of a picture of this kind, in a MS. of +AEsop's Fables found in the Abbey of Fulda, among other emblems of the +corrupt lives of the churchmen. The present was a wolf, large as life, +wearing a monkish cowl, with a shaven crown, preaching to a flock of +sheep, with these words of the apostle in a label from his mouth--"God +is my witness how I long for you all in my bowels!" And underneath was +inscribed--"This hooded wolf is the hypocrite of whom is said in the +Gospel, 'Beware of false prophets!'" Such exhibitions were often +introduced into articles of furniture. A cushion was found in an old +abbey, in which was worked a fox preaching to geese, each goose holding +in his bill his praying beads! In the stone wall, and on the columns of +the great church at Strasburg, was once viewed a number of wolves, +bears, foxes, and other mischievous animals, carrying holy water, +crucifixes, and tapers; and others more indelicate. These, probably as +old as the year 1300, were engraven in 1617 by a protestant; and were +not destroyed till 1685, by the pious rage of the catholics, who seemed +at length to have rightly construed these silent lampoons; and in their +turn broke to pieces the protestant images, as the others had done the +papistical dolls. The carved seats and stalls in our own cathedrals +exhibit subjects not only strange and satirical, but even indecent.[91] +At the time they built churches they satirised the ministers; a curious +instance how the feelings of the people struggle to find a vent. It is +conjectured that rival orders satirised each other, and that some of the +carvings are caricatures of certain monks. The margins of illuminated +manuscripts frequently contain ingenious caricatures, or satirical +allegories. In a magnificent chronicle of Froissart I observed several. +A wolf, as usual, in a monk's frock and cowl, stretching his paw to +bless a cock, bending its head submissively to the wolf: or a fox with a +crosier, dropping beads, which a cock is picking up; to satirise the +blind devotion of the bigots; perhaps the figure of the cock alluded to +our Gallic neighbours. A cat in the habit of a nun, holding a platter in +its paws to a mouse approaching to lick it; alluding to the allurements +of the abbesses to draw young women into their convents; while sometimes +I have seen a sow in an abbess's veil, mounted on stilts: the sex marked +by the sow's dugs. A pope sometimes appears to be thrust by devils into +a cauldron; and cardinals are seen roasting on spits! These _ornaments_ +must have been generally executed by the monks themselves; but these +more ingenious members of the ecclesiastical order appear to have +sympathised with the people, like the curates in our church, and envied +the pampered abbot and the purple bishop. Churchmen were the usual +objects of the suppressed indignation of the people in those days; but +the knights and feudal lords have not always escaped from the "curses +not loud, but deep," of their satirical pencils. + +As the Reformation, or rather the Revolution, was hastening, this custom +became so general, that in one of the dialogues of Erasmus, where two +Franciscans are entertained by their host, it appears that such +satirical exhibitions were hung up as common furniture in the apartments +of inns. The facetious genius of Erasmus either invents or describes one +which he had seen of an ape in the habit of a Franciscan sitting by a +sick man's bed, dispensing ghostly counsel, holding up a crucifix in one +hand, while with the other he is filching a purse out of the sick man's +pocket. Such are "the straws" by which we may always observe from what +corner the wind rises! Mr. Dibdin has recently informed us, that Geyler, +whom he calls "the herald of the Reformation," preceding Luther by +twelve years, had a stone chair or pulpit in the cathedral at Strasburg, +from which he delivered his lectures, or rather rolled the thunders of +his anathemas against the monks. This stone pulpit was constructed under +his own superintendence, and is covered with very indecent figures of +monks and nuns, expressly designed by him to expose their profligate +manners. We see Geyler doing what for centuries had been done! + +In the curious folios of Sauval, the Stowe of France, there is a copious +chapter, entitled "_Heretiques, leurs attentats_." In this enumeration +of their attempts to give vent to their suppressed indignation, it is +very remarkable that, _preceding the time of Luther_, the minds of many +were perfectly _Lutheran_ respecting the idolatrous worship of the Roman +Church; and what I now notice would have rightly entered into that +significant _Historia Reformationis ante Reformationem_, which was +formerly projected by continental writers. + +Luther did not consign the pope's decretals to the flames till +1520--this was the first open act of reformation and insurrection, for +hitherto he had submitted to the court of Rome. Yet in 1490, thirty +years preceding this great event, I find a priest burnt for having +snatched the host in derision from the hands of another celebrating +mass. Twelve years afterwards, 1502, a student repeated the same deed, +trampling on it; and in 1523, the resolute death of Anne de Bourg, a +counsellor in the parliament of Paris, to use the expression of Sauval, +"corrupted the world." It is evident that the Huguenots were fast on the +increase. From that period I find continued accounts which prove that +the Huguenots of France, like the Puritans of England, were most +resolute iconoclasts. They struck off the heads of Virgins and little +Jesuses, or blunted their daggers by chipping the wooden saints, which +were then fixed at the corners of streets. Every morning discovered the +scandalous treatment they had undergone in the night. Then their images +were painted on the walls, but these were heretically scratched and +disfigured: and, since the saints could not defend themselves, a royal +edict was published in their favour, commanding that all holy paintings +in the streets should not be allowed short of ten feet from the ground! +They entered churches at night, tearing up or breaking down the +_prians_, the _benitoires_, the crucifixes, the colossal _ecce-homos_, +which they did not always succeed in dislodging for want of time or +tools. Amidst these battles with wooden adversaries, we may smile at +the frequent solemn processions instituted to ward off the vengeance of +the parish saint; the wooden was expiated by a silver image, secured by +iron bars and attended by the king and the nobility, carrying the new +saint, with prayers that he would protect himself from the heretics! + +In an early period of the Reformation, an instance occurs of the art of +concealing what we wish only the few should comprehend, at the same time +that we are addressing the public. Curious collectors are acquainted +with "The Olivetan Bible;" this was the first translation published by +the protestants, and there seems no doubt that Calvin was the chief, if +not the only translator; but at that moment not choosing to become +responsible for this new version, he made use of the name of an obscure +relative, Robert Pierre Olivetan. Calvin, however, prefixed a Latin +preface, remarkable for delivering positions very opposite to those +tremendous doctrines of absolute predestination which, in his +theological despotism, he afterwards assumed. De Bure describes this +first protestant Bible not only as rare, but, when found, as usually +imperfect, much soiled and dog-eared, as the well-read first edition of +Shakspeare, by the perpetual use of the multitude. But a curious fact +has escaped the detection both of De Bure and Beloe; at the end of the +volume are found _ten verses_, which, in a concealed manner, +authenticate the translation; and which no one, unless initiated into +the secret, could possibly suspect. The verses are not poetical, but I +give the first sentence:-- + + Lecteur entends, si verite adresse + Viens donc ouyr instament sa promesse + Et vif parler----&c. + +_The first letters of every word_ of these _ten verses_ form a perfect +distich, containing information important to those to whom the Olivetan +Bible was addressed. + + Les Vaudois, peuple evangelique, + Ont mis ce thresor en publique. + +An anagram would have been too inartificial a contrivance to have +answered the purpose of concealing from the world at large this secret. +There is an adroitness in the invention of the initial letters of all +the words through these ten verses. They contained a communication +necessary to authenticate the version, but which, at the same time, +could not be suspected by any person not intrusted with the secret. + +When the art of medal-engraving was revived in Europe, the spirit we are +now noticing took possession of those less perishable and more +circulating vehicles. Satiric medals were almost unknown to the ancient +mint, notwithstanding those of the Saturnalia, and a few which bear +miserable puns on the unlucky names of some consuls. Medals illustrate +history, and history reflects light on medals; but we should not place +such unreserved confidence on medals as their advocates, who are warm in +their favourite study. It has been asserted that medals are more +authentic memorials than history itself; but a medal is not less +susceptible of the bad passions than a pamphlet or an epigram. Ambition +has its vanity, and engraves a dubious victory; and Flattery will +practise its art, and deceive us in gold! A calumny or a fiction on +metal may be more durable than on a fugitive page; and a libel has a +better chance of being preserved when the artist is skilful, than simple +truths when miserably executed. Medals of this class are numerous, and +were the precursors of those political satires exhibited in caricature +prints.[92] There is a large collection of wooden cuts about the time of +Calvin, where the Romish religion is represented by the most grotesque +forms which the ridicule of the early Reformers could invent. More than +a thousand figures attest the exuberant satire of the designers. This +work is equally rare and costly.[93] + +Satires of this species commenced in the freedom of the Reformation; for +we find a medal of Luther in a monk's habit, satirically bearing for its +reverse Catherine de Bora, the nun whom this monk married; the first +step of his personal reformation! Nor can we be certain that Catherine +was not more concerned in that great revolution than appears in the +voluminous Lives we have of the great reformer. However, the reformers +were as great sticklers for medals as the "papelins." Of Pope John +VIII., an effeminate voluptuary, we have a medal with his portrait, +inscribed _Pope Joan!_ and another of Innocent X., dressed as a woman +holding a spindle; the reverse, his famous mistress, Donna Olympia, +dressed as a Pope, with the tiara on her head, and the keys of St. +Peter in her hands![94] + +When, in the reign of Mary, England was groaning under Spanish +influence, and no remonstrance could reach the throne, the queen's +person and government were made ridiculous to the people's eyes by +prints or pictures "representing her majesty naked, meagre, withered, +and wrinkled, with every aggravated circumstance of deformity that could +disgrace a female figure, seated in a regal chair; a crown on her head, +surrounded with M. R. and A. in capitals, accompanied by small letters; +_Maria Regina Angliae!_ a number of Spaniards were sucking her to skin +and bone, and a specification was added of the money, rings, jewels, and +other presents with which she had secretly gratified her husband +Philip."[95] It is said that the queen suspected some of her own council +of this invention, who alone were privy to these transactions. It is, +however, in this manner that the voice which is suppressed by authority +comes at length in another shape to the eye. + +The age of Elizabeth, when the Roman pontiff and all his adherents were +odious to the people, produced a remarkable caricature, and ingenious +invention--a gorgon's head! A church bell forms the helmet; the +ornaments, instead of the feathers, are a wolf's head in a mitre +devouring a lamb, an ass's head with spectacles reading, a goose holding +a rosary: the face is made out with a fish for the nose, a chalice and +water for the eye, and other priestly ornaments for the shoulder and +breast, on which rolls of parchment pardons hang.[96] + +A famous bishop of Munster, Bernard de Galen, who, in his charitable +violence for converting protestants, got himself into such celebrity +that he appears to have served as an excellent _sign-post_ to the inns +in Germany, was the true church militant: and his figure was exhibited +according to the popular fancy. His head was half mitre and half helmet; +a crosier in one hand and a sabre in the other; half a rochet and half a +cuirass: he was made performing mass as a dragoon on horseback, and +giving out the charge when he ought the _Ite, missa est!_ He was called +the _converter!_ and the "Bishop of Munster" became popular as a +sign-post in German towns; for the people like fighting men, though they +should even fight against themselves. + +It is rather curious to observe of this new species of satire, so easily +distributed among the people, and so directly addressed to their +understandings, that it was made the vehicle of national feeling. +Ministers of state condescended to invent the devices. Lord Orford says +that _caricatures on cards_ were the invention of George Townshend in +the affair of Byng, which was soon followed by a pack. I am informed of +an ancient pack of cards which has caricatures of all the +Parliamentarian Generals, which might be not unusefully shuffled by a +writer of secret history.[97] We may be surprised to find the grave +Sully practising this artifice on several occasions. In the civil wars +of France the Duke of Savoy had taken by surprise Saluces, and struck a +medal; on the reverse a centaur appears shooting with a bow and arrow, +with the legend _Opportune!_ But when Henry the Fourth had reconquered +the town, he published another, on which Hercules appears killing the +centaur, with the word _Opportunius_. The great minister was the author +of this retort![98] A medal of the Dutch ambassador at the court of +France, Van Beuninghen, whom the French represent as a haughty +burgomaster, but who had the vivacity of a Frenchman and the haughtiness +of a Spaniard, as Voltaire characterises him, is said to have been the +occasion of the Dutch war in 1672; but wars will be hardly made for an +idle medal. Medals may, however, indicate a preparatory war. Louis the +Fourteenth was so often compared to the sun at its meridian, that some +of his creatures may have imagined that, like the sun, he could dart +into any part of Europe as he willed, and be as cheerfully received.[99] +The Dutch minister, whose Christian name was _Joshua_, however, had a +medal struck of Joshua stopping the sun in his course, inferring that +this miracle was operated by his little republic. The medal itself is +engraven in Van Loon's voluminous _Histoire Medallique du Pays Bas_, and +in Marchand's _Dictionnaire Historique_, who labours to prove against +twenty authors that the Dutch ambassador was not the inventor; it was +not, however, unworthy of him, and it conveyed to the world the high +feeling of her power which Holland had then assumed. Two years after the +noise about this medal the republic paid dear for the device; but thirty +years afterwards this very burgomaster concluded a glorious peace, and +France and Spain were compelled to receive the mediation of the Dutch +Joshua with the French Sun.[100] In these vehicles of national satire, +it is odd that the phlegmatic Dutch, more than any other nation, and +from the earliest period of their republic, should have indulged freely, +if not licentiously. It was a republican humour. Their taste was usually +gross. We owe to them, even in the reign of Elizabeth, a severe medal on +Leicester, who, having retired in disgust from the government of their +provinces, struck a medal with his bust, reverse a dog and sheep, + + _Non gregem, sed ingratos invitus desero_; + +on which the angry juvenile states struck another, representing an ape +and young ones; reverse, Leicester near a fire, + + _Fugiens fumum, incidit in ignem._ + +Another medal, with an excellent portrait of Cromwell, was struck by the +Dutch. The Protector, crowned with laurels, is on his knees, laying his +head in the lap of the commonwealth, but loosely exhibiting himself to +the French and Spanish ambassadors with gross indecency: the Frenchman, +covered with _fleur de lis_, is pushing aside the grave Don, and +disputes with him the precedence--_Retire-toy; l'honneur appartient +au roy mon maitre, Louis le Grand_. Van Loon is very right in denouncing +this same medal, so grossly flattering to the English, as most +detestable and indelicate! But why does Van Loon envy us this lumpish +invention? why does the Dutchman quarrel with his own cheese? The honour +of the medal we claim, but the invention belongs to his country. The +Dutch went on commenting in this manner on English affairs from reign to +reign. Charles the Second declared war against them in 1672 for a +malicious medal, though the States-General offered to break the die, by +purchasing it of the workman for one thousand ducats; but it served for +a pretext for a Dutch war, which Charles cared more about than the _mala +bestia_ of his exergue. Charles also complained of a scandalous picture +which the brothers de Witt had in their house, representing a naval +battle with the English. Charles the Second seems to have been more +sensible to this sort of national satire than we might have expected in +a professed wit; a race, however, who are not the most patient in having +their own sauce returned to their lips. The king employed Evelyn to +write a history of the Dutch war, and "enjoined him _to make it a little +keen_, for the Hollanders had very unhandsomely abused him in their +pictures, books, and libels." The Dutch continued their career of +conveying their national feeling on English affairs more triumphantly +when their Stadtholder ascended an English throne. The birth of the +Pretender is represented by the chest which Minerva gave to the +daughters of Cecrops to keep, and which, opened, discovered an infant +with a serpent's tail: _Infantemque vident apporrectumque draconem_; the +chest perhaps alluding to the removes of the warming-pan; and, in +another, James and a Jesuit flying in terror, the king throwing away a +crown and sceptre, and the Jesuit carrying a child; _Ite missa est_, the +words applied from the mass.[101] But in these contests of national +feeling, while the grandeur of Louis the Fourteenth did not allow of +these ludicrous and satirical exhibitions, and while the political +idolatry which his forty Academicians paid to him exhausted itself in +the splendid fictions of a series of famous medals, amounting to nearly +four hundred, it appears that we were not without our reprisals; for I +find Prosper Marchand, who writes as a Hollander, censuring his own +country for having at length adulated the grand monarque by a +complimentary medal. He says--"The English cannot be reproached with a +similar _debonairete_." After the famous victories of Marlborough, they +indeed inserted in a medal the head of the French monarch and the +English queen, with this inscription, _Ludovicus Magnus, Anna Major_. +Long ere this one of our queens had been exhibited by ourselves with +considerable energy. On the defeat of the Armada, Elizabeth, Pinkerton +tells us, struck a medal representing the English and Spanish fleets, +_Hesperidum regem devicit virgo_. Philip had medals dispersed in England +of the same impression, with this addition, _Negatur. Est meretrix +vulgi._ These the queen suppressed, but published another medal, with +this legend:-- + + Hesperidum regem devicit virgo; negatur, + Est meretrix vulgi; res eo deterior. + +An age fertile in satirical prints was the eventful aera of Charles the +First: they were showered from all parties, and a large collection of +them would admit of a critical historical commentary, which might become +a vehicle of the most curious secret history. Most of them are in a bad +style, for they are allegorical; yet that these satirical exhibitions +influenced the eyes and minds of the people is evident from an +extraordinary circumstance. Two grave collections of historical +documents adopted them. We are surprised to find prefixed to Rushworth's +and Nalson's historical collections two such political prints! Nalson's +was an act of retributive justice; but he seems to have been aware that +satire in the shape of pictures is a language very attractive to the +multitude, for he has introduced a caricature print in the solemn folio +of the Trial of Charles the First.[102] Of the happiest of these +political prints is one by Taylor the Water-poet, not included in his +folio, but prefixed to his "Mad Fashions, Odd Fashions, or the Emblems +of these Distracted Times." It is the figure of a man whose eyes have +left their sockets, and whose legs have usurped the place of his arms; a +horse on his hind legs is drawing a cart; a church is inverted; fish +fly in the air; a candle burns with the flame downwards; and the mouse +and rabbit are pursuing the cat and the fox! + +The animosities of national hatred have been a fertile source of these +vehicles of popular feeling--which discover themselves in severe or +grotesque caricatures. The French and the Spaniards mutually exhibit one +another under the most extravagant figures. The political caricatures of +the French in the seventeenth century are numerous. The _badauds_ of +Paris amused themselves for their losses by giving an emetic to a +Spaniard, to make him render up all the towns his victories had +obtained: seven or eight Spaniards are seen seated around a large +turnip, with their frizzled mustachios, their hats _en pot-a-beurre_; +their long rapiers, with their pummels down to their feet, and their +points up to their shoulders; their ruffs stiffened by many rows, and +pieces of garlick stuck in their girdles. The Dutch were exhibited in as +great variety as the uniformity of frogs would allow. We have largely +participated in the vindictive spirit which these grotesque emblems keep +up among the people; they mark the secret feelings of national pride. +The Greeks despised foreigners, and considered them only as fit to be +slaves;[103] the ancient Jews, inflated with a false idea of their small +territory, would be masters of the world: the Italians placed a line of +demarcation for genius and taste, and marked it by their mountains. The +Spaniards once imagined that the conferences of God with Moses on Mount +Sinai were in the Spanish language. If a Japanese become the friend of a +foreigner, he is considered as committing treason to his emperor, and +rejected as a false brother in a country which, we are told, is +figuratively called _Tenka_, or the Kingdom under the Heavens. John +Bullism is not peculiar to Englishmen; and patriotism is a noble virtue +when it secures our independence without depriving us of our humanity. + +The civil wars of the League in France, and those in England under +Charles the First, bear the most striking resemblance; and in examining +the revolutionary scenes exhibited by the graver in the famous _Satire +Menippee_, we discover the foreign artist revelling in the _caricature_ +of his ludicrous and severe exhibition; and in that other revolutionary +period of _La Fronde_, there was a mania for _political songs_; the +curious have formed them into collections; and we not only have "the +Rump Songs" of Charles the First's times, but have repeated this kind of +evidence of the public feeling at many subsequent periods.[104] +_Caricatures_ and _political songs_ might with us furnish a new sort of +history; and perhaps would preserve some truths, and describe some +particular events not to be found in more grave authorities. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [89] Baudelot de Dairval, _de l'Utilite des Voyages_, ii. 645. There + is a work, by Ficoroni, on these lead _coins_ or _tickets_. They are + found in the cabinets of the curious medallist. Pinkerton, in + referring to this entertaining work, regrets that "such curious + remains have almost escaped the notice of medallists, and have not + yet been arranged in one class, or named. A special work on them + would be highly acceptable." The time has perhaps arrived when + antiquaries may begin to be philosophers, and philosophers + antiquaries! The unhappy separation of erudition from philosophy, + and of philosophy from erudition, has hitherto thrown impediments in + the progress of the human mind and the history of man. + + [90] Lect. Mem. i. ad. an. 1300. + + [91] Many specimens may be seen in Carter's curious volumes on + "Ancient Architecture and Painting." + + [92] The series published during the wars in the Low Countries are + the most remarkable, and may be seen in the volumes by Van Loon. + + [93] Mr. Douce possessed a portion of this very curious collection: + for a complete one De Bure asked about twenty pounds. + + [94] The Roman satirists also invented a tale to ridicule what they + dared not openly condemn, in which it was asserted that a play + called _The Marriage of the Pope_ was enacted before Cromwell, in + which the Donna having obtained the key of Paradise from Innocent, + insists on that of Purgatory also, that she may not be sent there + when he is wearied of her. "The wedding" is then kept by a ball of + monks and nuns, delighted to think they may one day marry also. Such + was the means the Romans took to notify their sense of the + degradation of the pope. + + [95] Warton's "Life of Sir Thomas Pope," p. 58. + + [96] This ancient caricature, so descriptive of the popular feelings, + is tolerably given in Malcolm's history of "Caricaturing," plate ii. + fig. 1. + + [97] This pack was probably executed in Holland in the time of + Charles the Second. There are other sets of political cards of the + same reign, particularly one connected with the so-called "popish + plots," and the murder of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey. The South-Sea + Bubble was made the subject of a similar pack, after it had + exploded. + + [98] The royal house of Navarre was fancifully derived by the old + heraldic writers from Hispalus, the son of Hercules; and the pageant + provided by the citizens of Avignon to greet his entrance there in + 1600, was entirely composed in reference thereto, and Henry + indicated in its title, _L'Hercule Gaulois Triumphant_. + + [99] He took for a device and motto on his shield on the occasion of + tilting-matches and court festivities, a representation of the sun + in splendour, and the words, _Nec Pluribus Impar_. + + [100] The history of this medal is useful in more than one respect; + and may be found in Prosper Marchand. + + [101] Another represents the young prince holding the symbol of the + Romish faith in his right hand, and crowning himself with the left; + Truth opens a door below and discovers Father Petre, as the guiding + influence of all. + + [102] It represents Cromwell as an armed monster, carrying the three + kingdoms captive at his feet in a triumphal car driven by the devil + over the body of liberty, and the decapitated Charles I. The state + of the people is emblematized by a bird flying from its cage to be + devoured by a hawk; and sheep breaking from the fold to be set on by + ravening wolves. + + [103] A passage may be found in Aristotle's Politics, vol. i. c. + 3-7; where Aristotle advises Alexander to govern the Greeks like his + _subjects_, and the barbarians like _slaves_; for that the one he + was to consider as companions, and the other as creatures of an + inferior race. + + [104] The following may be mentioned as the most important of these + collections:-- + + "Rome rhymed to Death." 1683. + + "A Collection of the newest and most ingenious Poems, Songs, + Catches, &c, against Popery." 1689. + + "Poems on Affairs of State." 1703-7. + + "Whig and Tory; or, Wit on both sides." 1712. + + "Political Merriment; or, Truths told to some Tune." 1714. + + + + +AUTOGRAPHS.[105] + + +The art of judging of the characters of persons by their handwriting can +only have any reality when the pen, acting without restraint, becomes an +instrument guided by, and indicative of, the natural dispositions. But +regulated as the pen is now too often by a mechanical process, which the +present race of writing-masters seem to have contrived for their own +convenience, a whole school exhibits a similar handwriting; the pupils +are forced in their automatic motions, as if acted on by the pressure of +a steam-engine; a bevy of beauties will now write such fac-similes of +each other, that in a heap of letters presented to the most +sharp-sighted lover to select that of his mistress--though, like +Bassanio among the caskets, his happiness should be risked on the +choice--he would despair of fixing on the right one, all appearing to +have come from the same rolling-press. Even brothers of different +tempers have been taught by the same master to give the same form to +their letters, the same regularity to their line, and have made our +handwritings as monotonous as are our characters in the present habits +of society. The true physiognomy of writing will be lost among our +rising generation: it is no longer a face that we are looking on, but a +beautiful mask of a single pattern; and the fashionable handwriting of +our young ladies is like the former tight-lacing of their mothers' +youthful days, when every one alike had what was supposed to be a fine +shape! + +Assuredly nature would prompt every individual to have a distinct sort +of writing, as she has given a peculiar countenance--a voice--and a +manner. The flexibility of the muscles differs with every individual, +and the hand will follow the direction of the thoughts and the emotions +and the habits of the writers. The phlegmatic will portray his words, +while the playful haste of the volatile will scarcely sketch them; the +slovenly will blot and efface and scrawl, while the neat and +orderly-minded will view themselves in the paper before their eyes. The +merchant's clerk will not write like the lawyer or the poet. Even +nations are distinguished by their writing; the vivacity and +variableness of the Frenchman, and the delicacy and suppleness of the +Italian, are perceptibly distinct from the slowness and strength of pen +discoverable in the phlegmatic German, Dane, and Swede. When we are in +grief, we do not write as we should in joy. The elegant and correct +mind, which has acquired the fortunate habit of a fixity of attention, +will write with scarcely an erasure on the page, as Fenelon, and Gray, +and Gibbon; while we find in Pope's manuscripts the perpetual struggles +of correction, and the eager and rapid interlineations struck off in +heat. Lavater's notion of handwriting is by no means chimerical; nor was +General Paoli fanciful, when he told Mr. Northcote that he had decided +on the character and dispositions of a man from his letters, and the +handwriting. + +Long before the days of Lavater, Shenstone in one of his letters said, +"I want to see Mrs. Jago's handwriting, that I may judge of her temper." +One great truth must however be conceded to the opponents of _the +physiognomy of writing_; general rules only can be laid down. Yet the +vital principle must be true that the handwriting bears an analogy to +the character of the writer, as all voluntary actions are characteristic +of the individual. But many causes operate to counteract or obstruct +this result. I am intimately acquainted with the handwritings of five +of our great poets. The first in early life acquired among Scottish +advocates a handwriting which cannot be distinguished from that of his +ordinary brothers; the second, educated in public schools, where writing +is shamefully neglected, composes his sublime or sportive verses in a +school-boy's ragged scrawl, as if he had never finished his tasks with +the writing-master; the third writes his highly-wrought poetry in the +common hand of a merchant's clerk, from early commercial avocations; the +fourth has all that finished neatness which polishes his verses; while +the fifth is a specimen of a full mind, not in the habit of correction +or alteration; so that he appears to be printing down his thoughts, +without a solitary erasure. The handwriting of the _first_ and _third_ +poets, not indicative of their character, we have accounted for; the +others are admirable specimens of characteristic autographs.[106] + +Oldys, in one of his curious notes, was struck by the distinctness of +character in the handwritings of several of our kings. He observed +nothing further than the mere fact, and did not extend his idea to the +art of judging of the natural character by the writing. Oldys has +described these handwritings with the utmost correctness, as I have +often verified. I shall add a few comments. + +"Henry the Eighth wrote a strong hand, but as if he had seldom a good +pen."--The vehemence of his character conveyed itself into his writing; +bold, hasty, and commanding, I have no doubt the assertor of the Pope's +supremacy and its triumphant destroyer split many a good quill. + +"Edward the Sixth wrote a fair legible hand."--We have this promising +young prince's diary, written by his own hand; in all respects he was an +assiduous pupil, and he had scarcely learnt to write and to reign when +we lost him. + +"Queen Elizabeth writ an upright hand, like the bastard Italian." She +was indeed a most elegant caligrapher, whom Roger Ascham[107] had taught +all the elegancies of the pen. The French editor of the little +autographical work I have noticed has given the autograph of her name, +which she usually wrote in a very large tall character, and painfully +elaborate. He accompanies it with one of the Scottish Mary, who at +times wrote elegantly, though usually in uneven lines; when in haste and +distress of mind, in several letters during her imprisonment which I +have read, much the contrary. The French editor makes this observation: +"Who could believe that these writings are of the same epoch? The first +denotes asperity and ostentation; the second indicates simplicity, +softness, and nobleness. The one is that of Elizabeth, queen of England; +the other that of her cousin, Mary Stuart. The difference of these two +handwritings answers most evidently to that of their characters." + +"James the First writ a poor ungainly character, all awry, and not in a +straight line." James certainly wrote a slovenly scrawl, strongly +indicative of that personal negligence which he carried into all the +little things of life; and Buchanan, who had made him an excellent +scholar, may receive the disgrace of his pupil's ugly scribble, which +sprawls about his careless and inelegant letters. + +"Charles the First wrote a fair open Italian hand, and more correctly +perhaps than any prince we ever had." Charles was the first of our +monarchs who intended to have domiciliated taste in the kingdom, and it +might have been conjectured from this unfortunate prince, who so finely +discriminated the manners of the different painters, which are in fact +their handwritings, that he would not have been insensible to the +elegancies of the pen. + +"Charles the Second wrote a little fair running hand, as if wrote in +haste, or uneasy till he had done." Such was the writing to have been +expected from this illustrious vagabond, who had much to write, often in +odd situations, and could never get rid of his natural restlessness and +vivacity. + +"James the Second writ a large fair hand." It is characterised by his +phlegmatic temper, as an exact detailer of occurrences, and the +matter-of-business genius of the writer. + +"Queen Anne wrote a fair round hand;" that is the writing she had been +taught by her master, probably without any alteration of manner +naturally suggested by herself; the copying hand of a common +character.[108] + +The subject of autographs associates itself with what has been +dignified by its professors as caligraphy, or the art of beautiful +writing. As I have something curious to communicate on that subject +considered professionally, it shall form our following article. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [105] A small volume which I met with at Paris, entitled "L'Art de + juger du Caractere des Hommes sur leurs Ecritures," is curious for + its illustrations, consisting of _twenty-four plates, exhibiting + fac-similes of the writing of eminent and other persons_, correctly + taken from the original autographs. Since this period both France + and Germany have produced many books devoted to the use of the + curious in autographs. In our own country J.T. Smith published a + curious collection of fac-similes of letters, chiefly from literary + characters. + + [106] It will be of interest to the reader to note the names of + these poets in the consecutive order they are alluded to. They are + Scott, Byron, Rogers, Moore, and Campbell. + + [107] He was also the tutor of Lady Jane Grey, and the author of one + of our earliest and best works on education. + + [108] Since this article was written, Nichols has published a + cleverly-executed series of autographs of royal, noble, and + illustrious persons of Great Britain, in which the reader may study + the accuracy of the criticism above given. + + + + +THE HISTORY OF WRITING-MASTERS. + + +There is a very apt letter from James the First to Prince Henry when +very young, on the neatness and fairness of his handwriting. The royal +father suspecting that the prince's tutor, Mr., afterwards Sir Adam, +Newton, had helped out the young prince in the composition, and that in +this specimen of caligraphy he had relied also on the pains of Mr. Peter +Bales, the great writing-master, for touching up his letters, his +majesty shows a laudable anxiety that the prince should be impressed +with the higher importance of the one over the other. James shall +himself speak. "I confess I long to receive a letter from you that may +be wholly yours, as well matter as form; as well formed by your mind as +drawn by your fingers; for ye may remember, that in my book to you I +warn you to beware with (of) that kind of wit that may fly out at the +end of your fingers; not that I commend not a fair handwriting; _sed hoc +facito, illud non omittito_: and the other is _multo magis praecipuum_." +Prince Henry, indeed, wrote with that elegance which he borrowed from +his own mind; and in an age when such minute elegance was not universal +among the crowned heads of Europe. Henry IV., on receiving a letter from +Prince Henry, immediately opened it, a custom not usual with him, and +comparing the writing with the signature, to decide whether it were of +one hand, Sir George Carew, observing the French King's hesitation, +called Mr. Douglas to testify to the fact; on which Henry the Great, +admiring an art in which he had little skill, and looking on the neat +elegance of the writing before him, politely observed, "I see that in +writing fair, as in other things, the elder must yield to the younger." + +Had this anecdote of neat writing reached the professors of caligraphy, +who in this country have put forth such painful panegyrics on the art, +these royal names had unquestionably blazoned their pages. Not indeed +that these penmen require any fresh inflation; for never has there been +a race of professors in any art who have exceeded in solemnity and +pretensions the practitioners in this simple and mechanical craft. I +must leave to more ingenious investigators of human nature to reveal the +occult cause which has operated such powerful delusions on these "Vive +la Plume!" men, who have been generally observed to possess least +intellectual ability in proportion to the excellence they have obtained +in their own art. I suspect this maniacal vanity is peculiar to the +writing-masters of England; and I can only attribute the immense +importance which they have conceived of their art to the perfection to +which they have carried the art of short-hand writing; an art which was +always better understood, and more skilfully practised, in England than +in any other country. It will surprise some when they learn that the +artists in verse and colours, poets and painters, have not raised +loftier pretensions to the admiration of mankind. Writing-masters, or +caligraphers, have had their engraved "effigies," with a Fame in +flourishes, a pen in one hand and a trumpet in the other; and fine +verses inscribed, and their very lives written! They have compared + + The nimbly-turning of their silver quill + +to the beautiful in art and the sublime in invention; nor is this +wonderful, since they discover the art of writing, like the invention of +language, in a divine original; and from the tablets of stone which the +Deity himself delivered, they trace their German broad text, or their +fine running-hand. One, for "the bold striking of those words, _Vive la +Plume_," was so sensible of the reputation that this last piece of +command of hand would give the book which he thus adorned, and which his +biographer acknowledges was the product of about a minute,--(but then +how many years of flourishing had that single minute cost him!)--that he +claims the glory of an artist; observing,-- + + We seldom find + The _man of business_ with the _artist_ join'd. + +Another was flattered that his _writing_ could impart immortality to the +most wretched compositions!-- + + And any lines prove pleasing, when you write. + +Sometimes the caligrapher is a sort of hero:-- + + To you, you rare commander of the quill, + Whose wit and worth, deep learning, and high skill, + Speak you the honour of Great Tower Hill! + +The last line became traditionally adopted by those who were so lucky as +to live in the neighbourhood of this Parnassus. But the reader must form +some notion of that charm of caligraphy which has so bewitched its +professors, when, + + Soft, bold, and free, your manuscripts still please. + + How justly bold in SNELL'S improving hand + The pen at once joins freedom with command! + With softness strong, with ornaments not vain, + Loose with proportion, and with neatness plain; + Not swell'd, not full, complete in every part, + And artful most, when not affecting art. + +And these describe those pencilled knots and flourishes, "the angels, +the men, the birds, and the beasts," which, as one of them observed, he +could + + Command + Even by the _gentle motion of his hand_, + +all the _speciosa miracula_ of caligraphy; + + Thy _tender strokes_, inimitably fine, + Crown with perfection every _flowing line_; + And to each _grand performance_ add a grace, + As _curling hair_ adorns a beauteous face: + In every page _new fancies_ give delight, + And _sporting round the margin_ charm the sight. + +One Massey, a writing-master, published in 1763, "The Origin and +Progress of Letters." The great singularity of this volume is "a new +species of biography never attempted before in English." This consists +of the lives of "English Penmen," otherwise writing-masters! If some +have foolishly enough imagined that the sedentary lives of authors are +void of interest from deficient incident and interesting catastrophe, +what must they think of the barren labours of those who, in the degree +they become eminent, to use their own style, in the art of "dish, dash, +long-tail fly," the less they become interesting to the public; for what +can the most skilful writing-master do but wear away his life in leaning +over his pupil's copy, or sometimes snatch a pen to decorate the margin, +though he cannot compose the page? Montaigne has a very original notion +on writing-masters: he says that some of those caligraphers who had +obtained promotion by their excellence in the art, afterwards _affected +to write carelessly, lest their promotion should be suspected to have +been owing to such an ordinary acquisition_! + +Massey is an enthusiast, fortunately for his subject. He considers that +there are _schools of writing_, as well as of painting or sculpture; and +expatiates with the eye of fraternal feeling on "a natural genius, a +tender stroke, a grand performance, a bold striking freedom, and a +liveliness in the sprigged letters, and pencilled knots and flourishes;" +while this Vasari of writing-masters relates the controversies and the +libels of many a rival pen-nibber. "George Shelley, one of the most +celebrated worthies who have made a shining figure in the commonwealth +of English caligraphy, born I suppose of obscure parents, because +brought up in Christ's Hospital, yet under the humble blue-coat he laid +the foundation of his caligraphic excellence and lasting fame, for he +was elected writing-master to the hospital." Shelley published his +"Natural Writing;" but, alas! Snell, another blue-coat, transcended the +other. He was a genius who would "bear no brother near the throne."--"I +have been informed that there were jealous heart-burnings, if not +bickerings, between him and Col. Ayres, another of our _great reformers_ +in the writing commonweal, both eminent men, yet, _like_ our most +celebrated poets _Pope and Addison_, or, to carry the comparison still +higher, like _Caesar and Pompey_, one could bear no superior, and the +other no equal." Indeed, the great Snell practised a little stratagem +against Mr. Shelley, for which, if writing-masters held courts-martial, +this hero ought to have appeared before his brothers. In one of his +works he procured a number of friends to write letters, in which Massey +confesses "are some satyrical strokes upon Shelley," as if he had +arrogated too much to himself in his book of "Natural Writing." They +find great fault with pencilled knots and sprigged letters. Shelley, who +was an advocate for ornaments in fine penmanship, which Snell utterly +rejected, had parodied a well-known line of Herbert's in favour of his +favourite decorations:-- + + A _Knot_ may take him who from _letters_ flies, + And turn _delight_ into an _exercise_. + +These reflections created ill-blood, and even an open difference amongst +several of the _superior artists in writing_. The commanding genius of +Snell had a more terrific contest when he published his "Standard +Rules," pretending to have _demonstrated_ them as Euclid would. "This +proved a bone of contention, and occasioned a terrific quarrel between +Mr. Snell and Mr. Clark. This quarrel about 'Standard Rules' ran so +high between them, that they could scarce forbear _scurrilous language_ +therein, and a treatment of each other unbecoming _gentlemen_! Both +sides in this dispute had their abettors; and to say which had the most +truth and reason, _non nostrum est tantas componere lites_; perhaps +_both parties might be too fond of their own schemes_. They should have +left them to people to choose which they liked best." A candid +politician is our Massey, and a philosophical historian too; for he +winds up the whole story of this civil war by describing its result, +which happened as all such great controversies have ever closed. "Who +now-a-days takes those _Standard Rules_, either one or the other, for +their _guide_ in writing?" This is the finest lesson ever offered to the +furious heads of parties, and to all their men; let them meditate on the +nothingness of their "Standard Rules," by the fate of Mr. Snell. + +It was to be expected, when once these writing-masters imagined that +they were artists, that they would be infected with those plague-spots +of genius--envy, detraction, and all the _jalousie du metier_. And such +to this hour we find them! An extraordinary scene of this nature has +long been exhibited in my neighbourhood, where two doughty champions of +the quill have been posting up libels in their windows respecting the +inventor of _a new art of writing_, the Carstairian, or the Lewisian? +When the great German philosopher asserted that he had discovered the +method of fluxions before Sir Isaac, and when the dispute grew so +violent that even the calm Newton sent a formal defiance in set terms, +and got even George the Second to try to arbitrate (who would rather +have undertaken a campaign), the method of fluxions was no more cleared +up than the present affair between our two heroes of the quill. + +A recent instance of one of these egregious caligraphers may be told of +the late Tomkins. This vainest of writing-masters dreamed through life +that penmanship was one of the fine arts, and that a writing-master +should be seated with his peers in the Academy! He bequeathed to the +British Museum his _opus magnum_--a copy of Macklin's Bible, profusely +embellished with the most beautiful and varied decorations of his pen; +and as he conceived that both the workman and the work would alike be +darling objects with posterity, he left something immortal with the +legacy, his fine bust, by Chantrey, unaccompanied by which they were +not to receive the unparalleled gift! When Tomkins applied to have his +bust, our great sculptor abated the usual price, and, courteously kind +to the feelings of the man, said that he considered Tomkins as an +artist! It was the proudest day of the life of our writing-master! + +But an eminent artist and wit now living, once looking on this fine bust +of Tomkins, declared, that "this man had died for want of a dinner!"--a +fate, however, not so lamentable as it appeared! Our penman had long +felt that he stood degraded in the scale of genius by not being received +at the Academy, at least among the class of _engravers_; the next +approach to academic honour he conceived would be that of appearing as a +_guest_ at their annual dinner. These invitations are as limited as they +are select, and all the Academy persisted in considering Tomkins _as a +writing-master_! Many a year passed, every intrigue was practised, every +remonstrance was urged, every stratagem of courtesy was tried; but never +ceasing to deplore the failure of his hopes, it preyed on his spirits, +and the luckless caligrapher went down to his grave--without dining at +the Academy! This authentic anecdote has been considered as "satire +improperly directed"--by some friend of Mr. Tomkins--but the criticism +is much too grave! The foible of Mr. Tomkins as a writing-master +presents a striking illustration of the class of men here delineated. I +am a mere historian--and am only responsible for the veracity of this +fact. That "Mr. Tomkins lived in familiar intercourse with the Royal +Academicians of his day, and was a frequent guest at their private +tables," and moreover was a most worthy man, I believe--but is it less +true that he was ridiculously mortified by being never invited to the +Academic dinner, on account of his caligraphy? He had some reason to +consider that his art was of the exalted class to which he aspired to +raise it, when this friend concludes his eulogy of this writing-master +thus--"Mr. Tomkins, as an artist, stood foremost in his own profession, +and his name will be handed down to posterity with the _Heroes_ and +_Statesmen_, whose excellences his _penmanship_ has contributed to +illustrate and to commemorate." I always give the _Pour_ and the +_Contre_! + +Such men about such things have produced public contests, _combats a +l'outrance_, where much ink was spilled by the knights in a joust of +goose-quills; these solemn trials have often occurred in the history of +writing-masters, which is enlivened by public defiances, proclamations, +and judicial trials by umpires! The prize was usually a golden pen of +some value. One as late as in the reign of Anne took place between Mr. +German and Mr. More. German having courteously insisted that Mr. More +should set the copy, he thus set it, ingeniously quaint! + + As more, and MORE, our understanding clears, + So more and more our ignorance appears. + +The result of this pen-combat was really lamentable; they displayed such +an equality of excellence that the umpires refused to decide, till one +of them espied that Mr. German had omitted the tittle of an i! But Mr. +More was evidently a man of genius, not only by his couplet, but in his +"Essay on the Invention of Writing," where occurs this noble passage: +"Art with me is of no party. A noble emulation I would cherish, while it +proceeded neither from, nor to malevolence. Bales had his Johnson, +Norman his Mason, Ayres his Matlock and his Shelley; yet Art the while +was no sufferer. The busybody who officiously employs himself in +creating misunderstandings between artists, may be compared to a +turn-stile, which stands in every man's way, yet hinders nobody; and he +is the slanderer who gives ear to the slander."[109] + +Among these knights of the "Plume volante," whose chivalric exploits +astounded the beholders, must be distinguished Peter Bales in his joust +with David Johnson. In this tilting-match the guerdon of caligraphy was +won by the greatest of caligraphers; its _arms_ were assumed by the +victor, _azure, a pen or_; while the "golden pen," carried away in +triumph, was painted with a hand over the door of the caligrapher. The +history of this renowned encounter was only traditionally known, till +with my own eyes I pondered on this whole trial of skill in the precious +manuscript of the champion himself; who, like Caesar, not only knew how +to win victories, but also to record them. Peter Bales was a hero of +such transcendent eminence, that his name has entered into our history. +Holinshed chronicles one of his curiosities of microscopic writing at a +time when the taste prevailed for admiring writing which no eye could +read! In the compass of a silver penny this caligrapher put more things +than would fill several of these pages. He presented Queen Elizabeth +with the manuscript set in a ring of gold covered with a crystal; he had +also contrived a magnifying glass of such power, that, to her delight +and wonder, her majesty read the whole volume, which she held on her +thumb-nail, and "commended the same to the lords of the council and the +ambassadors;" and frequently, as Peter often heard, did her majesty +vouchsafe to wear this caligraphic ring.[110] + +"Some will think I labour on a cobweb"--modestly exclaimed Bales in his +narrative, and his present historian much fears for himself! The +reader's gratitude will not be proportioned to my pains, in condensing +such copious pages into the size of a "silver penny," but without its +worth! + +For a whole year had David Johnson affixed a challenge "To any one who +should take exceptions to this my writing and teaching." He was a young +friend of Bales, daring and longing for an encounter; yet Bales was +magnanimously silent, till he discovered that he was "doing much less in +writing and teaching" since this public challenge was proclaimed! He +then set up his counter-challenge, and in one hour afterwards Johnson +arrogantly accepted it, "in a most despiteful and disgraceful manner." +Bales's challenge was delivered "in good terms." "To all Englishmen and +strangers." It was to write for a gold pen of twenty pounds value in all +kinds of hands, "best, straightest, and fastest," and most kind of ways; +"a full, a mean, a small, with line, and without line; in a slow set +hand, a mean facile hand, and a fast running hand;" and further, "to +write truest and speediest, most secretary and clerk-like, from a man's +mouth, reading or pronouncing, either English or Latin." + +Young Johnson had the hardihood now of turning the tables on his great +antagonist, accusing the veteran Bales of arrogance. Such an absolute +challenge, says he, was never witnessed by man, "without exception of +any in the world!" And a few days after meeting Bales, "of set purpose +to affront and disgrace him what he could, showed Bales a piece of +writing of secretary's hand, which he had very much laboured in fine +abortive parchment,"[111] uttering to the challenger these words: "Mr. +Bales, give me one shilling out of your purse, and if within six months +you better, or equal this piece of writing, I will give you forty pounds +for it." This legal deposit of the shilling was made, and the +challenger, or appellant, was thereby bound by law to the performance. + +The day before the trial a printed declaration was affixed throughout +the city, taunting Bales's "proud poverty," and his pecuniary motives, +as "a thing ungentle, base, and mercenary, and not answerable to the +dignity of the golden pen!" Johnson declares he would maintain his +challenge for a thousand pounds more, but for the respondent's inability +to perform a thousand groats. Bales retorts on the libel; declares it as +a sign of his rival's weakness, "yet who so bold as blind Bayard, that +hath not a word of Latin to cast at a dog, or say Bo! to a goose!" + +On Michaelmas day, 1595, the trial opened before five judges: the +appellant and the respondent appeared at the appointed place, and an +ancient gentleman was intrusted with "the golden pen." In the first +trial, for the manner of teaching scholars, after Johnson had taught his +pupil a fortnight, he would not bring him forward! This was awarded in +favour of Bales. + +The second, for secretary and clerk-like writing, dictating to them both +in English and in Latin, Bales performed best, being first done; written +straightest without line, with true orthography: the challenger himself +confessing that he wanted the Latin tongue, and was no clerk! + +The third and last trial for fair writing in sundry kinds of hands, the +challenger prevailed for the beauty and most "authentic proportion," and +for the superior variety of the Roman hand. In the court hand the +respondent exceeded the appellant, and likewise in the set text; and in +bastard secretary was also somewhat perfecter. + +At length Bales, perhaps perceiving an equilibrium in the judicial +decision, to overwhelm his antagonist presented what he distinguishes as +his "masterpiece," composed of secretary and Roman hand four ways +varied, and offering the defendant to let pass all his previous +advantages if he could better this specimen of caligraphy! The +challenger was silent! At this moment some of the judges perceiving that +the decision must go in favour of Bales, in consideration of the youth +of the challenger, lest he might be disgraced to the world, requested +the other judges not to pass judgment in public. Bales assures us, that +he in vain remonstrated; for by these means the winning of the golden +pen might not be so famously spread as otherwise it would have been. To +Bales the prize was awarded. But our history has a more interesting +close; the subtle Machiavelism of the first challenger! + +When the great trial had closed, and Bales, carrying off the golden pen, +exultingly had it painted and set up for his sign, the baffled +challenger went about reporting that _he_ had _won_ the golden pen, but +that the defendant had obtained the same by "plots and shifts, and other +base and cunning practices." Bales vindicated his claim, and offered to +show the world his "masterpiece" which had acquired it. Johnson issued +an "Appeal to all Impartial Penmen," which he spread in great numbers +through the city for ten days, a libel against the judges and the +victorious defendant! He declared that there had been a subtle +combination with one of the judges concerning the place of trial; which +he expected to have been "before penmen," but not before a multitude +like a stage-play, and shouts and tumults, with which the challenger had +hitherto been unacquainted. The judges were intended to be twelve; but +of the five, four were the challenger's friends, honest gentlemen, but +unskilled in judging of most hands; and he offered again forty pounds to +be allowed in six months to equal Bales's masterpiece. And he closes his +"appeal" by declaring that Bales had lost in several parts of the trial, +neither did the judges deny that Bales possessed himself of the golden +pen by a trick! Before judgment was awarded, alleging the sickness of +his wife to be extreme, he desired she might have _a sight of the golden +pen to comfort her_! The ancient gentleman who was the holder, taking +the defendant's word, allowed the golden pen to be carried to the sick +wife; and Bales immediately pawned it, and afterwards, to make sure +work, sold it at a great loss, so that when the judges met for their +definite sentence, nor pen nor pennyworth was to be had! The judges +being ashamed of their own conduct, were compelled to give such a +verdict as suited the occasion. + +Bales rejoins: he publishes to the universe the day and the hour when +the judges brought the golden pen to his house, and while he checks the +insolence of this Bobadil, to show himself no recreant, assumes the +golden pen for his sign. + +Such is the shortest history I could contrive of this chivalry of the +pen; something mysteriously clouds over the fate of the defendant; +Bales's history, like Caesar's, is but an _ex-parte_ evidence. Who can +tell whether he has not slurred over his defeats, and only dwelt on his +victories? + +There is a strange phrase connected with the art of the caligrapher, +which I think may be found in most, if not in all modern languages, _to +write like an angel_! Ladies have been frequently compared with angels; +they are _beautiful_ as angels, and _sing_ and _dance_ like angels; but, +however intelligible these are, we do not so easily connect penmanship +with the other celestial accomplishments. This fanciful phrase, however, +has a very human origin. Among those learned Greeks who emigrated to +Italy, and afterwards into France, in the reign of Francis I., was one +Angelo _Vergecio_, whose beautiful caligraphy excited the admiration of +the learned. The French monarch had a Greek fount cast, modelled by his +writing. The learned Henry Stephens, who, like our Porson for +correctness and delicacy, was one of the most elegant writers of Greek, +had learnt the practice from our _Angelo_. His name became synonymous +for beautiful writing, and gave birth to the vulgar proverb or familiar +phrase _to write like an angel_! + +FOOTNOTES: + + [109] I have not met with More's book, and am obliged to transcribe + this from the Biog. Brit. + + [110] Howes, in his Chronicle under date 1576, has thus narrated the + story:--"A strange piece of work, and almost incredible, was brought + to pass by an Englishman from within the city of London, and a clerk + of the Chancery, named Peter Bales, who by his industry and practice + of his pen contrived and writ, within the compass of a penny, the + Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, a prayer to God, a + prayer for the queen, his posy, his name, the day of the month, the + year of our Lord, and the reign of the queen: and at Hampton Court + he presented the same to the queen's majesty." + + [111] This was written in the reign of Elizabeth. Holyoke notices + "virgin-perchment made of an _abortive skin; membrana virgo_." + Peacham, on "Drawing," calls parchment simply _an abortive_. + + + + +THE ITALIAN HISTORIANS. + + +It is remarkable that the country which has long lost its political +independence may be considered as the true parent of modern history. The +greater part of their historians have abstained from the applause of +their contemporaries, while they have not the less elaborately composed +their posthumous folios, consecrated solely to truth and posterity! The +true principles of national glory are opened by the grandeur of the +minds of these assertors of political freedom. It was their indignant +spirit, seeking to console its injuries by confiding them to their +secret manuscripts, which raised up this singular phenomenon in the +literary world. + +Of the various causes which produced such a lofty race of patriots, one +is prominent. The proud recollections of their Roman fathers often +troubled the dreams of the sons. The petty rival republics, and the +petty despotic principalities, which had started up from some great +families, who at first came forward as the protectors of the people from +their exterior enemies or their interior factions, at length settled +into a corruption of power; a power which had been conferred on them to +preserve liberty itself! These factions often shook, by their +jealousies, their fears, and their hatreds, that divided land, which +groaned whenever they witnessed the "Ultramontanes" descending from +their Alps and their Apennines. Petrarch, in a noble invective, warmed +by Livy and ancient Rome, impatiently beheld the French and the Germans +passing the mounts. "Enemies," he cries, "so often conquered prepare to +strike with swords which formerly served us to raise our trophies: shall +the mistress of the world bear chains forged by hands which she has so +often bound to their backs?" Machiavel, in his "Exhortations to Free +Italy from the Barbarians," rouses his country against their changeable +masters, the Germans, the French, and the Spaniards; closing with the +verse of Petrarch, that short shall be the battle for which virtue arms +to show the world-- + + che l' antico valore + Ne gl' Italici cuor non e ancor morto. + +Nor has this sublime patriotism declined even in more recent times; I +cannot resist from preserving in this place a sonnet by Filicaja, which +I could never read without participating in the agitation of the writer +for the ancient glory of his degenerated country! The energetic +personification of the close perhaps surpasses even his more celebrated +sonnet, preserved in Lord Byron's notes to the fourth canto of "Childe +Harold." + + Dov' e ITALIA, il tuo braccio? e a che ti servi + Tu dell' altrui? non e s' io scorgo il vero, + Di chi t' offende il defensor men fero: + Ambe nemici sono, ambo fur servi. + Cosi dunque l' onor, cosi conservi + Gli avanzi tu del glorioso Impero? + Cosi al valor, cosi al valor primiero + Che a te fede giuro, la fede osservi? + Or va; repudia il valor prisco, e sposa + L' ozio, e fra il sangue, i gemiti, e le strida + Nel periglio maggior dormi e riposa! + Dormi, Adultera vil! fin che omicida + Spada ultrice ti svegli, e sonnacchiosa, + E nuda in braccio al tuo fedel t'uccida! + + Oh, Italy! where is thine arm? What purpose serves + So to be helped by others? Deem I right, + Among offenders thy defender stands? + Both _are_ thy enemies--both _were_ thy servants! + Thus dost thou honour--thus dost thou preserve + The mighty boundaries of the glorious empire? + And thus to Valour, to thy pristine Valour + That swore its faith to thee, thy faith thou keep'st? + Go! and divorce thyself from thy old Valiance, + And marry Idleness: and midst the blood, + The heavy groans and cries of agony, + In thy last danger sleep, and seek repose! + Sleep, vile Adulteress! the homicidal sword + Vengeful shall waken thee! and lull'd to slumber, + While naked in thy minion's arms, shall strike! + +Among the domestic contests of Italy the true principles of political +freedom were developed; and in that country we may find the origin of +that PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY which includes so many important views and so +many new results unknown to the ancients. + +Machiavel seems to have been the first writer who discovered the secret +of what may be called _comparative history_. He it was who first sought +in ancient history for the materials which were to illustrate the events +of his own times, by fixing on analogous facts, similar personages, and +parallel periods. This was enlarging the field of history, and opening a +new combination for philosophical speculation. His profound genius +advanced still further; he not only explained modern by ancient history, +but he deduced those results or principles founded on this new sort of +evidence which guided him in forming his opinions. History had hitherto +been, if we except Tacitus, but a story well told; and by writers of +limited capacity, the detail and number of facts had too often been +considered as the only valuable portion of history. An erudition of +facts is not the philosophy of history; an historian unskilful in the +art of applying his facts amasses impure ore, which he cannot strike +into coin. The chancellor D'Aguesseau, in his instructions to his son on +the study of history, has admirably touched on this distinction. "Minds +which are purely historical mistake a fact for an argument; they are so +accustomed to satisfy themselves by repeating a great number of facts +and enriching their memory, that they become incapable of reasoning on +principles. It often happens that the result of their knowledge breeds +confusion and universal indecision; for their facts, often +contradictory, only raise up doubts. The superfluous and the frivolous +occupy the place of what is essential and solid, or at least so overload +and darken it that we must sail with them in a sea of trifles to get to +firm land. Those who only value the philosophical part of history fall +into an opposite extreme; they judge of what has been done by that which +should be done; while the others always decide on what should be done by +that which has been: the first are the dupes of their reasoning, the +second of the facts which they mistake for reasoning. We should not +separate two things which ought always to go in concert, and mutually +lend an aid, _reason and example_! Avoid equally the contempt of some +philosophers for the science of facts, and the distaste or the +incapacity which those who confine themselves to facts often contract +for whatever depends on pure reasoning. True and solid philosophy should +direct us in the study of history, and the study of history should give +perfection to philosophy." Such was the enlightened opinion, as far back +as at the beginning of the seventeenth century, of the studious +chancellor of France, before the more recent designation of +_Philosophical History_ was so generally received, and so familiar on +our title-pages. + +From the moment that the Florentine secretary conceived the idea that +the history of the Roman people, opening such varied spectacles of human +nature, served as a point of comparison to which he might perpetually +recur to try the analogous facts of other nations and the events passing +under his own eye, a new light broke out and ran through the vast +extents of history. The maturity of experience seemed to have been +obtained by the historian in his solitary meditation. Livy in the +grandeur of Rome, and Tacitus in its fated decline, exhibited for +Machiavel a moving picture of his own republics--the march of destiny in +all human governments! The text of Livy and Tacitus revealed to him many +an imperfect secret--the fuller truth he drew from the depth of his own +observations on his own times. In Machiavel's "Discourses on Livy" we +may discover the foundations of our _Philosophical History_. + +The example of Machiavel, like that of all creative genius, influenced +the character of his age, and his history of Florence produced an +emulative spirit among a new dynasty of historians. + +The Italian historians have proved themselves to be an extraordinary +race, for they devoted their days to the composition of historical +works which they were certain could not see the light during their +lives! They nobly determined that their works should be posthumous, +rather than be compelled to mutilate them for the press. These +historians were rather the saints than the martyrs of history; they did +not always personally suffer for truth, but during their protracted +labour they sustained their spirit by anticipating their glorified +after-state. + +Among these Italian historians must be placed the illustrious +Guicciardini, the friend of Machiavel. No perfect edition of this +historian existed till recent times. The history itself was posthumous; +nor did his nephew venture to publish it till twenty years after the +historian's death. He only gave the first sixteen books, and these +castrated. The obnoxious passages consisted of some statements relating +to the papal court, then so important in the affairs of Europe; some +account of the origin and progress of the papal power; some eloquent +pictures of the abuses and disorders of that corrupt court; and some +free caricatures on the government of Florence. The precious fragments +were fortunately preserved in manuscript, and the Protestants procured +transcripts which they published separately, but which were long very +rare.[112] All the Italian editions continued to be reprinted in the +same truncated condition, and appear only to have been reinstated in the +immortal history so late as in 1775! Thus, it required two centuries +before an editor could venture to give the world the pure and complete +text of the manuscript of the lieutenant-general of the papal army, who +had been so close and so indignant an observer of the Roman cabinet. + +Adriani, whom his son entitles _gentiluomo Fiorentino_, the writer of +the pleasing dissertation "on the Ancient Painters noticed by Pliny," +prefixed to his friend Vasari's biographies, wrote as a continuation of +Guicciardini, a history of his own times in twenty-two books, of which +Denina gives the highest character for its moderate spirit, and from +which De Thou has largely drawn, and commends for its authenticity. Our +author, however, did not venture to publish his history during his +lifetime: it was after his death that his son became the editor. + +Nardi, of a noble family and high in office, famed for a translation of +Livy which rivals its original in the pleasure it affords, in his +retirement from public affairs wrote a history of Florence, which closes +with the loss of the liberty of his country in 1531. It was not +published till fifty years after his death; even then the editors +suppressed many passages which are found in manuscript in the libraries +of Florence and Venice, with other historical documents of this noble +and patriotic historian. + +About the same time the senator Philip Nerli was writing his +"_Commentarj de' fatti civili_," which had occurred in Florence. He gave +them with his dying hand to his nephew, who presented the MSS. to the +Grand Duke; yet, although this work is rather an apology than a +crimination of the Medici family for their ambitious views and their +overgrown power, probably some state-reason interfered to prevent the +publication, which did not take place till 150 years after the death of +the historian! + +Bernardo Segni composed a history of Florence still more valuable, which +shared the same fate as that of Nerli. It was only after his death that +his relatives accidentally discovered this history of Florence, which +the author had carefully concealed during his lifetime. He had abstained +from communicating to any one the existence of such a work while he +lived, that he might not be induced to check the freedom of his pen, nor +compromise the cause and the interests of truth. His heirs presented it +to one of the Medici family, who threw it aside. Another copy had been +more carefully preserved, from which it was printed in 1713, about 150 +years after it had been written. It appears to have excited great +curiosity, for Lenglet du Fresnoy observes that the scarcity of this +history is owing to the circumstance "of the Grand Duke having bought up +the copies." Du Fresnoy, indeed, has noticed more than once this sort of +address of the Grand Duke; for he observes on the Florentine history of +Bruto that the work was not common, the Grand Duke having bought up the +copies to suppress them. The author was even obliged to fly from Italy +for having delivered his opinions too freely on the house of the Medici. +This honest historian thus expresses himself at the close of his +work:--"My design has but one end--that our posterity may learn by these +notices the root and the causes of so many troubles which we have +suffered, while they expose the malignity of those men who have raised +them up or prolonged them, as well as the goodness of those who did all +which they could to turn them away." + +It was the same motive, the fear of offending the great personages or +their families, of whom these historians had so freely written, which +deterred Benedetto Varchi from publishing his well-known "Storie +Fiorentine," which was not given to the world till 1721, a period which +appears to have roused the slumbers of the literary men of Italy to +recur to their native historians. Varchi, who wrote with so much zeal +the history of his fatherland, is noticed by Nardi as one who never took +an active part in the events he records; never having combined with any +party, and living merely as a spectator. This historian closes the +narrative of a horrid crime of Peter Lewis Farnese with this admirable +reflection: "I know well this story, with many others which I have +freely exposed, may hereafter prevent the reading of my history; but +also I know, that besides what Tacitus has said on this subject, the +great duty of an historian is not to be more careful of the reputation +of persons than is suitable with truth, which is to be preferred to all +things, however detrimental it may be to the writer."[113] + +Such was that free manner of thinking and of writing which prevailed in +these Italian historians, who, often living in the midst of the ruins of +popular freedom, poured forth their injured feelings in their secret +pages; without the hope, and perhaps without the wish, of seeing them +published in their lifetime: a glorious example of self-denial and lofty +patriotism! + +Had it been inquired of these writers why they did not publish their +histories, they might have answered, in nearly the words of an ancient +sage, "Because I am not permitted to write as I would; and I would not +write as I am permitted." We cannot imagine that these great men were in +the least insensible to the applause they denied themselves; they were +not of tempers to be turned aside; and it was the highest motive which +can inspire an historian, a stern devotion to truth, which reduced them +to silence, but not to inactivity! These Florentine and Venetian +historians, ardent with truth, and profound in political sagacity, were +writing these legacies of history solely for their countrymen, hopeless +of their gratitude! If a Frenchman[114] wrote the English history, that +labour was the aliment of his own glory; if Hume and Robertson devoted +their pens to history, the motive of the task was less glorious than +their work; but here we discover a race of historians, whose patriotism +alone instigated their secret labour, and who substituted for fame and +fortune that mightier spirit, which, amidst their conflicting passions, +has developed the truest principles, and even the errors, of Political +Freedom! + +None of these historians, we have seen, published their works in their +lifetime. I have called them the saints of history, rather than the +martyrs. One, however, had the intrepidity to risk this awful +responsibility, and he stands forth among the most illustrious and +ill-fated examples of HISTORICAL MARTYRDOM! + +This great historian is Giannone, whose civil history of the kingdom of +Naples is remarkable for its profound inquiries concerning the civil and +ecclesiastical constitution, the laws and customs of that kingdom. With +some interruptions from his professional avocations at the bar, twenty +years were consumed in writing this history. Researches on +ecclesiastical usurpations, and severe strictures on the clergy, are the +chief subjects of his bold and unreserved pen. These passages, curious, +grave, and indignant, were afterwards extracted from the history by +Vernet, and published in a small volume, under the title of "Anecdotes +Ecclesiastiques," 1738. When Giannone consulted with a friend on the +propriety of publishing his history, his critic, in admiring the work, +predicted the fate of the author. "You have," said he, "placed on your +head a crown of thorns, and of very sharp ones." The historian set at +nought his own personal repose, and in 1723 this elaborate history saw +the light. From that moment the historian never enjoyed a day of quiet! +Rome attempted at first to extinguish the author with his work; all the +books were seized on; and copies of the first edition are of extreme +rarity. To escape the fangs of inquisitorial power, the historian of +Naples flew from Naples on the publication of his immortal work. The +fugitive and excommunicated author sought an asylum at Vienna, where, +though he found no friend in the emperor, Prince Eugene and other nobles +became his patrons. Forced to quit Vienna, he retired to Venice, when a +new persecution arose from the jealousy of the state-inquisitors, who +one night landed him on the borders of the pope's dominions. Escaping +unexpectedly with his life to Geneva, he was preparing a supplemental +volume to his celebrated history, when, enticed by a treacherous friend +to a catholic village, Giannone was arrested by an order of the King of +Sardinia; his manuscripts were sent to Rome, and the historian +imprisoned in a fort. It is curious that the imprisoned Giannone wrote a +vindication of the rights of the King of Sardinia, against the claims of +the court of Rome. This powerful appeal to the feelings of this +sovereign was at first favourably received; but, under the secret +influence of Rome, the Sardinian monarch, on the extraordinary plea that +he kept Giannone as a prisoner of state that he might preserve him from +the papal power, ordered that the vindicator of his rights should be +more closely confined than before; and, for this purpose, transferred +his state-prisoner to the citadel of Turin, where, after twelve years of +persecution and of agitation, our great historian closed his life! + +Such was the fate of this historical martyr, whose work the catholic +Haym describes as _opera scritta con molto fuoco e troppa liberta_. He +hints that this history is only paralleled by De Thou's great work. This +Italian history will ever be ranked among the most philosophical. But, +profound as was the masculine genius of Giannone, such was his love of +fame, that he wanted the intrepidity requisite to deny himself the +delight of giving his history to the world, though some of his great +predecessors had set him a noble and dignified example. + +One more observation on these Italian historians. All of them represent +man in his darkest colours; their drama is terrific; the actors are +monsters of perfidy, of inhumanity, and inventors of crimes which seem +to want a name! They were all "princes of darkness;" and the age seemed +to afford a triumph of Manicheism! The worst passions were called into +play by all parties. But if something is to be ascribed to the manners +of the times, much more may be traced to that science of politics, which +sought for mastery in an undefinable struggle of ungovernable political +power; in the remorseless ambition of the despots, and the hatreds and +jealousies of the republics. These Italian historians have formed a +perpetual satire on the contemptible simulation and dissimulation, and +the inexpiable crimes of that system of politics, which has derived a +name from one of themselves--the great, may we add, the calumniated, +MACHIAVEL? + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [112] They were printed at Basle in 1569--at London in 1595--in + Amsterdam, 1663. How many attempts to echo the voice of suppressed + truth--_Haym's Bib. Ital._ 1803. + + [113] My friend, Mr. Merivale, whose critical research is only + equalled by the elegance of his taste, has supplied me with a note + which proves but too well that even writers who compose uninfluenced + by party feelings, may not, however, be sufficiently scrupulous in + weighing the evidence of the facts which they collect. Mr. Merivale + observes, "The strange and improbable narrative with which Varchi + has the misfortune of closing his history, should not have been even + hinted at without adding, that it is denounced by other writers as a + most impudent forgery, invented years after the occurrence is + supposed to have happened, by the 'Apostate' bishop Petrus Paulus + Vergerius." See its refutation in Amiani, "Hist. di Fano," ii. 149, + et seq. 160. + + "Varchi's character as an historian cannot but suffer greatly from + his having given it insertion on such authority. The responsibility + of an author for the truth of what he relates should render us very + cautious of giving credit to the writers of memoirs not intended to + see the light till a distant period. The credibility of Vergerius, + as an acknowledged libeller of Pope Paul III. and his family, + appears still more conclusively from his article in Bayle, note K." + It must be added, that the calumny of Vergerius may be found in + Wolfius's Lect. Mem. ii. 691, in a tract _de Idolo Lauretano_, + published 1556. Varchi is more particular in his details of this + monstrous tale. Vergerius's libels, universally read at the time + though they were collected afterwards, are now not to be met with, + even in public libraries. Whether there was any truth in the story + of Peter Lewis Farnese I know not; but crimes of as monstrous a dye + occur in the authentic Guicciardini. The story is not yet forgotten, + since in the last edition of Haym's _Biblioteca Italiana_, the best + edition is marked as that which at p. 639 contains "_la sceleratezza + di Pier Lewis Farnese_." I am of opinion that Varchi believed the + story, by the solemnity of his proposition. Whatever be its truth, + the historian's feeling was elevated and intrepid. + + [114] Rapin. + + + + +OF PALACES BUILT BY MINISTERS. + + +Our ministers and court favourites, as well as those on the Continent, +practised a very impolitical custom, and one likely to be repeated, +although it has never failed to cast a popular odium on their names, +exciting even the envy of their equals--in the erection of palaces for +themselves, which outvied those of their sovereign; and which, to the +eyes of the populace, appeared as a perpetual and insolent exhibition of +what they deemed the ill-earned wages of peculation, oppression, and +court-favour. We discover the seduction of this passion for ostentation, +this haughty sense of their power, and this self-idolatry, even among +the most prudent and the wisest of our ministers; and not one but lived +to lament over this vain act of imprudence. To these ministers the noble +simplicity of Pitt will ever form an admirable contrast; while his +personal character, as a statesman, descends to posterity unstained by +calumny. + +The houses of Cardinal Wolsey appear to have exceeded the palaces of the +sovereign in magnificence; and potent as he was in all the pride of +pomp, the "great cardinal" found rabid envy pursuing him so close at his +heels, that he relinquished one palace after the other, and gave up as +gifts to the monarch what, in all his overgrown greatness, he trembled +to retain for himself. The state satire of that day was often pointed at +this very circumstance, as appears in Skelton's "Why come ye not to +Court?" and Roy's "Rede me, and be not wrothe."[115] Skelton's railing +rhymes leave their bitter teeth in his purple pride; and the style of +both these satirists, if we use our own orthography, shows how little +the language of the common people has varied during three centuries. + + Set up a wretch on high + In a throne triumphantly; + Make him a great state + And he will play check-mate + With royal majesty---- + The King's Court + Should have the excellence, + But Hampton Court + Hath the pre-eminence; + And Yorke Place[116] + With my Lord's grace, + To whose magnificence + Is all the confluence, + Suits, and supplications; + Embassies of all nations. + +Roy, in contemplating the palace, is maliciously reminded of the +butcher's lad, and only gives plain sense in plain words. + + Hath the Cardinal any gay mansion? + Great palaces without comparison, + Most glorious of outward sight, + And within decked point-device,[117] + More like unto a paradise + Than an earthly habitation. + He cometh then of some noble stock? + His father could match a bullock, + A butcher by his occupation. + +Whatever we may now think of the structure, and the low apartments of +Wolsey's PALACE, it is described not only in his own times, but much +later, as of unparalleled magnificence; and indeed Cavendish's narrative +of the Cardinal's entertainment of the French ambassadors gives an idea +of the ministerial prelate's imperial establishment very puzzling to the +comprehension of a modern inspector. Six hundred persons, I think, were +banqueted and slept in an abode which appears to us so mean, but which +Stowe calls "so stately a palace." To avoid the odium of living in this +splendid edifice, Wolsey presented it to the king, who, in recompense, +suffered the Cardinal occasionally to inhabit this wonder of England, in +the character of keeper of the king's palace;[118] so that Wolsey only +dared to live in his own palace by a subterfuge! This perhaps was a +tribute which ministerial haughtiness paid to popular feeling, or to the +jealousy of a royal master. + +I have elsewhere shown the extraordinary elegance and prodigality of +expenditure of Buckingham's residences; they were such as to have +extorted the wonder even of Bassompierre, and unquestionably excited the +indignation of those who lived in a poor court, while our gay and +thoughtless minister alone could indulge in the wanton profusion. + +But Wolsey and Buckingham were ambitious and adventurous; they rose and +shone the comets of the political horizon of Europe. The Roman tiara +still haunted the imagination of the Cardinal: and the egotistic pride +of having out-rivalled Richelieu and Olivarez, the nominal ministers +but the real sovereigns of Europe, kindled the buoyant spirits of the +gay, the gallant, and the splendid Villiers. But what "folly of the +wise" must account for the conduct of the profound Clarendon, and the +sensible Sir Robert Walpole, who, like the other two ministers, equally +became the victims of this imprudent passion for the ostentatious pomp +of a palace. This magnificence looked like the vaunt of insolence in the +eyes of the people, and covered the ministers with a popular odium. + +Clarendon House is now only to be viewed in a print; but its story +remains to be told. It was built on the site of Grafton-street; and when +afterwards purchased by Monk, the Duke of Albemarle, he left his title +to that well-known street. It was an edifice of considerable extent and +grandeur. Clarendon reproaches himself in his Life for "his weakness and +vanity" in the vast expense incurred in this building, which he +acknowledges had "more contributed to that gust of envy that had so +violently shaken him, than any misdemeanour that he was thought to have +been guilty of." It ruined his estate; but he had been encouraged to it +by the royal grant of the land, by that passion for building to which he +owns "he was naturally too much inclined," and perhaps by other +circumstances, among which was the opportunity of purchasing the stones +which had been designed for the rebuilding of St. Paul's; but the envy +it drew on him, and the excess of the architect's proposed expense, had +made his life "very uneasy, and near insupportable." The truth is, that +when this palace was finished, it was imputed to him as a state-crime; +all the evils in the nation, which were then numerous, pestilence, +conflagration, war, and defeats, were discovered to be in some way +connected with Clarendon House, or, as it was popularly called, either +Dunkirk House, or Tangier Hall, from a notion that it had been erected +with the golden bribery which the chancellor had received for the sale +of Dunkirk and Tangiers.[119] He was reproached with having profaned the +sacred stones dedicated to the use of the church. The great but +unfortunate master of this palace, who, from a private lawyer, had +raised himself by alliance even to royalty, the father-in-law of the +Duke of York, it was maliciously suggested, had persuaded Charles the +Second to marry the Infanta of Portugal, knowing (but how Clarendon +obtained the knowledge his enemies have not revealed) that the +Portuguese princess was not likely to raise any obstacle to the +inheritance of his own daughter to the throne. At the Restoration, among +other enemies, Clarendon found that the royalists were none of the least +active; he was reproached by them for preferring those who had been the +cause of their late troubles. The same reproach was incurred on the +restoration of the Bourbons. It is perhaps more political to maintain +active men, who have obtained power, than to reinstate inferior talents, +who at least have not their popularity. This is one of the parallel +cases which so frequently strike us in exploring political history; and +the _ultras_ of Louis the Eighteenth were only the _royalists_ of +Charles the Second. There was a strong popular delusion carried on by +the wits and the _Misses_ who formed the court of Charles the Second, +that the government was as much shared by the Hydes as the Stuarts. We +have in the state-poems, an unsparing lampoon, entitled "Clarendon's +House-warming;" but a satire yielding nothing to it in severity I have +discovered in manuscript; and it is also remarkable for turning chiefly +on a pun of the family name of the Earl of Clarendon. The witty and +malicious rhymer, after making Charles the Second demand the Great Seal, +and resolve to be his own chancellor, proceeds, reflecting on the great +political victim: + + Lo! his whole ambition already divides + The sceptre between the Stuarts and the Hydes. + Behold in the depth of our plague and wars, + He built him a palace out-braves the stars; + Which house (we Dunkirk, he Clarendon, names) + Looks down with shame upon St. James; + But 'tis not his golden globe that will save him, + Being less than the custom-house farmers gave him; + His chapel for consecration calls, + Whose sacrilege plundered the stones from Paul's. + When Queen Dido landed she bought as much ground + As the _Hyde_ of a lusty fat bull would surround; + But when the said _Hyde_ was cut into thongs, + A city and kingdom to _Hyde_ belongs; + So here in court, church, and country, far and wide, + Here's nought to be seen but _Hyde! Hyde! Hyde!_ + Of old, and where law the kingdom divides, + 'Twas our Hydes of land, 'tis now land of Hydes! + +Clarendon House was a palace, which had been raised with at least as +much fondness as pride; and Evelyn tells us that the garden was planned +by himself and his lordship; but the cost, as usual, trebled the +calculation, and the noble master grieved in silence amidst this +splendid pile of architecture.[120] Even when in his exile the sale was +proposed to pay his debts, and secure some provision for his younger +children, he honestly tells us that "he remained so infatuated with the +delight he had enjoyed, that though he was deprived of it, he hearkened +very unwillingly to the advice." In 1683 Clarendon House met its fate, +and was abandoned to the brokers, who had purchased it for its +materials. An affecting circumstance is recorded by Evelyn on this +occasion. In returning to town with the Earl of Clarendon, the son of +the great earl, "in passing by the glorious palace his father built but +a few years before, which they were now demolishing, being sold to +certain undertakers,[121] I turned my head the contrary way till the +coach was gone past by, lest I might minister occasion of speaking of +it, which must needs have grieved him, that in so short a time this pomp +was fallen." A feeling of infinite delicacy, so perfectly characteristic +of Evelyn! + +And now to bring down this subject to times still nearer. We find that +Sir Robert Walpole had placed himself exactly in the situation of the +great minister we have noticed; we have his confession to his brother +Lord Walpole, and to his friend Sir John Hynde Cotton. The historian of +this minister observes, that his magnificent building at Houghton drew +on him great obloquy. On seeing his brother's house at Wolterton, Sir +Robert expressed his wishes that he had contented himself with a similar +structure. In the reign of Anne, Sir Robert, sitting by Sir John Hynde +Cotton, alluding to a sumptuous house which was then building by Harley, +observed, that to construct a great house was a high act of imprudence +in any minister! It was a long time after, when he had become prime +minister, that he forgot the whole result of the present article, and +pulled down his family mansion at Houghton to build its magnificent +edifice; it was then Sir John Hynde Cotton reminded him of the +reflection which he had made some years ago: the reply of Sir Robert is +remarkable--"Your recollection is too late; I wish you had reminded me +of it before I began building, for then it might have been of service to +me!" + +The statesman and politician then are susceptible of all the seduction +of ostentation and the pride of pomp! Who would have credited it? But +bewildered with power, in the magnificence and magnitude of the edifices +which their colossal greatness inhabits, they seem to contemplate on its +image! + +Sir Francis Walsingham died and left nothing to pay his debts, as +appears by a curious fact noticed in the anonymous life of Sir Philip +Sidney prefixed to the _Arcadia_, and evidently written by one +acquainted with the family history of his friend and hero. The chivalric +Sidney, though sought after by court beauties, solicited the hand of the +daughter of Walsingham, although, as it appears, she could have had no +other portion than her own virtues and her father's name. "And herein," +observes our anonymous biographer, "he was exemplary to all gentlemen +not to carry their love in their purses." On this he notices this secret +history of Walsingham: + +"This is that Sir Francis who impoverished himself to enrich the state, +and indeed made England his heir; and was so far from building up of +fortune by the benefit of his place, that he demolished that fine estate +left him by his ancestors to purchase dear intelligence from all parts +of Christendom. He had a key to unlock the pope's cabinet; and, as if +master of some invisible whispering-place, all the secrets of Christian +princes met at his closet. Wonder not then if he bequeathed no great +wealth to his daughter, being _privately interred_ in the choir of +Paul's, as _much indebted to his creditors_ though not so much as our +nation is indebted to his memory." + +Some curious inquirer may afford us a catalogue of great ministers of +state who have voluntarily declined the augmentation of their private +fortune, while they devoted their days to the noble pursuits of +patriotic glory! The labour of this research will be great, and the +volume small! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [115] Skelton's satire is accessible to the reader in the Rev. + Alexander Dyce's edition of the poet's works. Roy's poem was printed + abroad about 1525, and is of extreme rarity, as the cardinal spared + no labour and expense to purchase and destroy all the copies. A + second edition was printed at Wesel in 1546. Its author, who had + been a friar, was ultimately burned in Portugal for heresy. + + [116] The palace of Wolsey, as Archbishop of York, which he had + furnished in the most sumptuous manner; after his disgrace it became + a royal residence under the name of Whitehall.--Note in Dyce's ed. + of Skelton's Works. + + [117] _Point-device_, a term explained by Mr. Douce. He thinks that + it is borrowed from the labours of the needle, as we have + _point-lace_, so _point-device_, i.e., _point_, a stitch, and + _devise_, devised or invented; applied to describe anything + uncommonly exact, or worked with the nicety and precision of + _stitches made or devised by the needle_.--_Illustrations of + Shakspeare_, i. 93. But Mr. Gifford has since observed that the + origin of the expression is, perhaps, yet to be sought for: he + derives it from a mathematical phrase, _a point devise_, or _a given + point_, and hence exact, correct, &c.--_Ben Jonson_, vol. iv. 170. + See, for various examples, Mr. Nares's Glossary, art. + _Point-devise_. + + [118] Lyson's "Environs," v. 58 + + [119] Burnet says, "Others called it _Holland House_, because he was + believed to be no friend to the war: so it was given out that he had + money from the Dutch." + + [120] At the gateway of the Three Kings Inn, near Dover-street, in + Piccadilly, are two pilasters with Corinthian capitals, which + belonged to Clarendon House, and are perhaps the only remains of + that edifice. + + [121] An old term for _contractors_. Evelyn tells us they were + "certain rich bankers and mechanics, who gave for it, and the ground + about it, 35,000_l_." They built streets and houses on the site to + their great profit, the ground comprising twenty-four acres of land. + + + + +"TAXATION NO TYRANNY!" + + +Such was the title of a famous political tract, which was issued at a +moment when a people, in a state of insurrection, put forth a +declaration that taxation was tyranny! It was not against an +insignificant tax they protested, but against taxation itself! and in +the temper of the moment this abstract proposition appeared an insolent +paradox. It was instantly run down by that everlasting party which, so +far back as in the laws of our Henry the First, are designated by the +odd descriptive term of _acephali, a people without heads!_[122] the +strange equality of levellers! + +These political monsters in all times have had an association of ideas +of _taxation_ and _tyranny_, and with them one name instantly suggests +the other! This happened to one Gigli of Sienna, who published the first +part of a dictionary of the Tuscan language,[123] of which only 312 +leaves amused the Florentines; these having had the honour of being +consigned to the flames by the hands of the hangman for certain popular +errors; such as, for instance, under the word _Gran Duca_ we find _Vedi +Gabelli!_ (see Taxes!) and the word _Gabella_ was explained by a +reference to _Gran Duca_! _Grand-duke_ and _taxes_ were synonymes, +according to this mordacious lexicographer! Such grievances, and the +modes of expressing them, are equally ancient. A Roman consul, by +levying a tax on _salt_ during the Punic war, was nicknamed _Salinator_, +and condemned by "the majesty" of the people! He had formerly done his +duty to the country, but the _salter_ was now his reward! He retired +from Rome, let his beard grow, and by his sordid dress and melancholy +air evinced his acute sensibility. The Romans at length wanted the +_salter_ to command the army--as an injured man, he refused--but he was +told that he should bear the caprice of the Roman people with the +tenderness of a son for the humours of a parent! He had lost his +reputation by a productive tax on salt, though this tax had provided an +army and obtained a victory! + +Certain it is that Gigli and his numerous adherents are wrong: for were +they freed from all restraints as much as if they slept in forests and +not in houses; were they inhabitants of wilds and not of cities, so that +every man should be his own lawgiver, with a perpetual immunity from all +taxation, we could not necessarily infer their political happiness. +There are nations where taxation is hardly known, for the people exist +in such utter wretchedness, that they are too poor to be taxed; of which +the Chinese, among others, exhibit remarkable instances. When Nero would +have abolished all taxes, in his excessive passion for popularity, the +senate thanked him for his good will to the people, but assured him that +this was a certain means not of repairing, but of ruining the +commonwealth. Bodin, in his curious work "The Republic," has noticed a +class of politicians who are in too great favour with the people. "Many +seditious citizens, and desirous of innovations, did of late years +promise immunity of taxes and subsidies to our people; but neither could +they do it, or if they could have done it, they would not; or if it were +done, should we have any commonweal, being the ground and foundation of +one."[124] + +The undisguised and naked term of "taxation" is, however, so odious to +the people, that it may be curious to observe the arts practised by +governments, and even by the people themselves, to veil it under some +mitigating term. In the first breaking out of the American troubles, +they probably would have yielded to the mother-country _the right of_ +_taxation_, modified by the term _regulation_ (of their trade); this I +infer from a letter of Dr. Robertson, who observes, that "the +distinction between _taxation_ and _regulation_ is mere folly!" Even +despotic governments have condescended to disguise the contributions +forcibly levied, by some appellative which should partly conceal its +real nature. Terms have often influenced circumstances, as names do +things; and conquest or oppression, which we may allow to be synonymes, +apes benevolence whenever it claims as a gift what it exacts as a +tribute. + +A sort of philosophical history of taxation appears in the narrative of +Wood, in his "Inquiry on Homer." He tells us that "the presents (a term +of extensive signification in the East) which are distributed annually +by the bashaw of Damascus to the several Arab princes through whose +territory he conducts the caravan of pilgrims to Mecca, are, at +Constantinople, called a free gift, and considered as an act of the +sultan's generosity towards his indigent subjects; while, on the other +hand, the Arab Sheikhs deny even a right of passage through the +districts of their command, and exact those sums as a tax due for the +permission of going through their country. In the frequent bloody +contests which the adjustment of these fees produces, the Turks complain +of robbery, and the Arabs of invasion."[125] + +Here we trace _taxation_ through all its shifting forms, accommodating +itself to the feelings of the different people; the same principle +regulated the alternate terms proposed by the buccaneers, when they +_asked_ what the weaker party was sure to _give_, or when they _levied_ +what the others paid only as a common _toll_. + +When Louis the Eleventh of France beheld his country exhausted by the +predatory wars of England, he bought a peace of our Edward the Fourth by +an annual sum of fifty thousand crowns, to be paid at London, and +likewise granted _pensions_ to the English ministers. Holinshed and all +our historians call this a yearly _tribute_; but Comines, the French +memoir-writer, with a national spirit, denies that these _gifts_ were +either _pensions_ or _tributes_. "Yet," says Bodin, a Frenchman also, +but affecting a more philosophical indifference, "it must be either the +one or the other; though I confess, that those who receive a pension to +obtain peace, commonly boast of it _as if it were a tribute_!"[126] +Such are the shades of our feelings in this history of taxation and +tribute. But there is another artifice of applying soft names to hard +things, by veiling a tyrannical act by a term which presents no +disagreeable idea to the imagination. When it was formerly thought +desirable, in the relaxation of morals which prevailed in Venice, to +institute the office of _censor_, three magistrates were elected bearing +this title; but it seemed so harsh and austere in that dissipated city, +that these reformers of manners were compelled to change their title; +when they were no longer called _censors_, but _I signori sopra il bon +vivere della citta_, all agreed on the propriety of the office under the +softened term. Father Joseph, the secret agent of Cardinal Richelieu, +was the inventor of _lettres de cachet_, disguising that instrument of +despotism by the amusing term of _a sealed letter_. Expatriation would +have been merciful compared with the result of that _billet-doux_, a +sealed letter from his majesty! + +Burke reflects with profound truth--"Abstract liberty, like other mere +abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in some sensible +object; and every nation has formed to itself some favourite point, +which, by way of eminence, becomes the criterion of their happiness. It +happened that the great contests for freedom in this country were from +the earliest times chiefly upon the question of _taxing_. Most of the +contests in the ancient commonwealths turned primarily on the right of +election of magistrates, or on the balance among the several orders of +the state. The question of _money_ was not with them so immediate. But +in England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest pens and +most eloquent tongues have been exercised; the greatest spirits have +acted and suffered."[127] + +One party clamorously asserts that taxation is their grievance, while +another demonstrates that the annihilation of taxes would be their ruin! +The interests of a great nation, among themselves, are often contrary to +each other, and each seems alternately to predominate and to decline. +"The sting of taxation," observes Mr. Hallam, "is wastefulness; but it +is difficult to name a limit beyond which taxes will not be borne +without impatience when _faithfully applied_." In plainer words, this +only signifies, we presume, that Mr. Hallam's party would tax us +without "wastefulness!" Ministerial or opposition, whatever be the +administration, it follows that "taxation is no tyranny;" Dr. Johnson +then was terribly abused in his day for a _vox et praeterea nihil_! + +Still shall the innocent word be hateful, and the people will turn even +on their best friend, who in administration inflicts a new impost; as we +have shown by the fate of the Roman _Salinator_! Among ourselves, our +government, in its constitution, if not always in its practice, long had +a consideration towards the feelings of the people, and often contrived +to hide the nature of its exactions by a name of blandishment. An +enormous grievance was long the office of purveyance. A purveyor was an +officer who was to furnish every sort of provision for the royal house, +and sometimes for great lords, during their progresses or journeys. His +oppressive office, by arbitrarily fixing the market prices, and +compelling the countrymen to bring their articles to market, would enter +into the history of the arts of grinding the labouring class of society; +a remnant of feudal tyranny! The very title of this officer became +odious; and by a statute of Edward III. the hateful name of _purveyor_ +was ordered to be changed into _acheteur_ or buyer![128] A change of +name, it was imagined, would conceal its nature! The term often devised, +strangely contrasted with the thing itself. Levies of money were long +raised under the pathetic appeal of _benevolences_. When Edward IV. was +passing over to France, he obtained, under this gentle demand, money +towards "the great journey," and afterwards having "rode about the more +part of the lands, and used the people in such fair manner, that they +were liberal in their gifts;" old Fabian adds, "the which way of the +levying of this money was after-named a benevolence." Edward IV. was +courteous in this newly-invented style, and was besides the handsomest +tax-gatherer in his kingdom! His royal presence was very dangerous to +the purses of his loyal subjects, particularly to those of the females. +In his progress, having kissed a widow for having contributed a larger +sum than was expected from her estate, she was so overjoyed at the +singular honour and delight, that she doubled her _benevolence_, and a +second kiss had ruined her! In the succeeding reign of Richard III. the +term had already lost the freshness of its innocence. In the speech +which the Duke of Buckingham delivered from the hustings in Guildhall, +he explained the term to the satisfaction of his auditors, who even then +were as cross-humoured as the livery of this day, in their notions of +what now we gently call "supplies." "Under the plausible name of +_benevolence_, as it was held in the time of Edward IV., your goods were +taken from you much against your will, as if by that name was understood +that every man should pay, not what he pleased, but what the king would +have him;" or, as a marginal note in Buck's Life of Richard III. more +pointedly has it, that "the name of _benevolence_ signified that every +man should pay, not what he of his own good will list, but what the king +of his good will list to take."[129] Richard III., whose business, like +that of all usurpers, was to be popular, in a statute even condemns this +"benevolence" as "a new imposition," and enacts that "none shall be +charged with it in future; many families having been ruined under these +pretended gifts." His successor, however, found means to levy "a +benevolence;" but when Henry VIII. demanded one, the citizens of London +appealed to the act of Richard III. Cardinal Wolsey insisted that the +law of a murderous usurper should not be enforced. One of the common +council courageously replied, that "King Richard, conjointly with +parliament, had enacted many good statutes." Even then the citizen seems +to have comprehended the spirit of our constitution--that taxes should +not be raised without the consent of parliament! + +Charles the First, amidst his urgent wants, at first had hoped, by the +pathetic appeal to _benevolences_, that he should have touched the +hearts of his unfriendly commoners; but the term of _benevolence_ proved +unlucky. The resisters of _taxation_ took full advantage of a +significant meaning, which had long been lost in the custom: asserting +by this very term that all levies of money were not compulsory, but the +voluntary gifts of the people. In that political crisis, when in the +fulness of time all the national grievances which had hitherto been kept +down started up with one voice, the courteous term strangely contrasted +with the rough demand. Lord Digby said "the granting of _subsidies_, +under so preposterous a name as of a _benevolence_, was a +_malevolence_." And Mr. Grimstone observed, that "they have granted a +benevolence, but the nature of the _thing_ agrees not with the _name_." +The nature indeed had so entirely changed from the name, that when James +I. had tried to warm the hearts of his "benevolent" people, he got +"little money, and lost a great deal of love." "Subsidies," that is +grants made by parliament, observes Arthur Wilson, a dispassionate +historian, "get more of the people's money, but exactions enslave the +mind." + +When _benevolences_ had become a grievance, to diminish the odium they +invented more inviting phrases. The subject was cautiously informed that +the sums demanded were only _loans_; or he was honoured by a letter +under the _Privy Seal_; a bond which the king engaged to repay at a +definite period; but privy seals at length got to be hawked about to +persons coming out of church. "Privy Seals," says a manuscript letter, +"are flying thick and threefold in sight of all the world, which might +surely have been better performed in delivering them to every man +privately at home." The _general loan_, which in fact was a forced loan, +was one of the most crying grievances under Charles I. Ingenious in the +destruction of his own popularity, the king contrived a new mode of +"_secret instructions to commissioners_."[130] They were to find out +persons who could bear the largest rates. How the commissioners were to +acquire this secret and inquisitorial knowledge appears in the bungling +contrivance. It is one of their orders that after a number of inquiries +have been put to a person, concerning others who had spoken against +loan-money, and what arguments they had used, this person was to be +charged in his majesty's name, and upon his allegiance, not to disclose +to any other the answer he had given. A striking instance of that +fatuity of the human mind, when a weak government is trying to do what +it knows not how to perform: it was seeking to obtain a secret purpose +by the most open and general means: a self-destroying principle! + +Our ancestors were children in finance; their simplicity has been too +often described as tyranny! but from my soul do I believe, on this +obscure subject of taxation, that old Burleigh's advice to Elizabeth +includes more than all the squabbling pamphlets of our political +economists,--"WIN HEARTS, AND YOU HAVE THEIR HANDS AND PURSES!" + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [122] Cowel's "Interpreter," art. _Acephali_. This by-name we + unexpectedly find in a grave antiquarian law-dictionary! probably + derived from Pliny's description of a people whom some travellers + had reported to have found in this predicament, in their fright and + haste in attempting to land on a hostile shore among savages. To + account for this fabulous people, it has been conjectured they wore + such high coverings, that their heads did not appear above their + shoulders, while their eyes seemed to be placed in their breasts. + How this name came to be introduced into the laws of Henry the First + remains to be told by some profound antiquary; but the allusion was + common in the middle ages. Cowel says, "Those are called _acephali_ + who were the _levellers_ of that age, and acknowledged _no head_ or + superior." + + [123] _Vocabulario di Santa Caterina e della Lingua Sanese_, 1717. + This pungent lexicon was prohibited at Rome by desire of the court + of Florence. The history of this suppressed work may be found in _Il + Giornale de' Letterati d' Italia_, tomo xxix. 1410. In the last + edition of Haym's "Biblioteca Italiana," 1803, it is said to be + reprinted at _Manilla, nell' Isole Fillippine_!--For the + book-licensers it is a great way to go for it. + + [124] Bodin's "Six Books of a Commonwealth," translated by Richard + Knolles, 1606. A work replete with the _practical_ knowledge of + politics, and of which Mr. Dugald Stewart has delivered a high + opinion. Yet this great politician wrote a volume to anathematise + those who doubted the existence of sorcerers and witches, &c., whom + he condemns to the flames! See his "Demonomanie des Sorciers," 1593. + + [125] Wood's "Inquiry on Homer," p. 153. + + [126] Bodin's "Commonweal," translated by R. Knolles, p. 148. 1606. + + [127] Burke's Works, vol. i. 288. + + [128] The modern word _cheater_ is traced by some authors to this + term, which soon became odious to the populace. + + [129] Daines Barrington, in "Observations on the Statutes," gives + the marginal _note_ of Buck as the _words_ of the duke; they + certainly served his purpose to amuse, better than the veracious + ones; but we expect from a grave antiquary inviolable authenticity. + The duke is made by Barrington a sort of wit, but the pithy + quaintness is Buck's. + + [130] These "Private Instructions to the Commissioners for the + General Loan" may be found in Rushworth, i. 418. + + + + +THE BOOK OF DEATH. + + +Montaigne was fond of reading minute accounts of the deaths of remarkable +persons; and, in the simplicity of his heart, old Montaigne wished to be +learned enough to form a collection of these deaths, to observe "their +words, their actions, and what sort of countenance they put upon it." He +seems to have been a little over curious about deaths, in reference, no +doubt, to his own, in which he was certainly deceived; for we are told +that he did not die as he had promised himself,--expiring in the +adoration of the mass; or, as his preceptor Buchanan would have called +it, in "the act of rank idolatry." + +I have been told of a privately printed volume, under the singular title +of "The Book of Death," where an _amateur_ has compiled the pious +memorials of many of our eminent men in their last moments: and it may +form a companion-piece to the little volume on "Les grands hommes qui +sont morts en plaisantant." This work, I fear, must be monotonous; the +deaths of the righteous must resemble each other; the learned and the +eloquent can only receive in silence that hope which awaits "the +covenant of the grave." But this volume will not establish any decisive +principle, since the just and the religious have not always encountered +death with indifference, nor even in a fit composure of mind. + +The functions of the mind are connected with those of the body. On a +death-bed a fortnight's disease may reduce the firmest to a most +wretched state; while, on the contrary, the soul struggles, as it were +in torture, in a robust frame. Nani, the Venetian historian, has +curiously described the death of Innocent the Tenth, who was a character +unblemished by vices, and who died at an advanced age, with too robust a +constitution. _Dopo lunga e terribile agonia, con dolore e con pena, +seperandosi l'anima da quel corpo robusto, egli spiro ai sette di +Genuaro, nel ottantesimo primo de suoi anno._ "After a long and terrible +agony, with great bodily pain and difficulty, his soul separated itself +from that robust frame, and expired in his eighty-first year." + +Some have composed sermons on death, while they passed many years of +anxiety, approaching to madness, in contemplating their own. The +certainty of an immediate separation from all our human sympathies may, +even on a death-bed suddenly disorder the imagination. The great +physician of our times told me of a general, who had often faced the +cannon's mouth, dropping down in terror, when informed by him that his +disease was rapid and fatal. Some have died of the strong imagination of +death. There is a print of a knight brought on the scaffold to suffer; +he viewed the headsman; he was blinded, and knelt down to receive the +stroke. Having passed through the whole ceremony of a criminal +execution, accompanied by all its disgrace, it was ordered that his life +should be spared. Instead of the stroke from the sword, they poured cold +water over his neck. After this operation the knight remained +motionless; they discovered that he had expired in the very imagination +of death! Such are among the many causes which may affect the mind in +the hour of its last trial. The habitual associations of the natural +character are most likely to prevail, though not always. The intrepid +Marshal Biron disgraced his exit by womanish tears and raging +imbecility; the virtuous Erasmus, with miserable groans, was heard +crying out, _Domine! Domine! fac finem! fac finem!_ Bayle having +prepared his proof for the printer, pointed to where it lay, when dying. +The last words which Lord Chesterfield was heard to speak were, when the +valet, opening the curtains of the bed, announced Mr. Dayroles, "Give +Dayroles a chair!" "This good breeding," observed the late Dr. Warren, +his physician, "only quits him with his life." The last words of Nelson +were, "Tell Collingwood to bring the fleet to an anchor." The tranquil +grandeur which cast a new majesty over Charles the First on the +scaffold, appeared when he declared, "I fear not death! Death is not +terrible to me!" And the characteristic pleasantry of Sir Thomas More +exhilarated his last moments, when, observing the weakness of the +scaffold, he said, in mounting it, "I pray you, see me up safe, and for +my coming down, let me shift for myself!" Sir Walter Rawleigh passed a +similar jest when going to the scaffold.[131] + +My ingenious friend Dr. Sherwen has furnished me with the following +anecdotes of death:--In one of the bloody battles fought by the Duke +d'Enghien, two French noblemen were left wounded among the dead on the +field of battle. One complained loudly of his pains; the other, after +long silence, thus offered him consolation: "My friend, whoever you are, +remember that our God died on the cross, our king on the scaffold; and +if you have strength to look at him who now speaks to you, you will see +that both his legs are shot away." + +At the murder of the Duke d'Enghien, the royal victim looking at the +soldiers, who had pointed their fusees, said, "Grenadiers! lower your +arms, otherwise you will miss, or only wound me!" To two of them who +proposed to tie a handkerchief over his eyes, he said, "A loyal soldier +who has been so often exposed to fire and sword can see the approach of +death with naked eyes and without fear." + +After a similar caution on the part of Sir George Lisle, or Sir Charles +Lucas, when murdered in nearly the same manner at Colchester, by the +soldiers of Fairfax, the loyal hero, in answer to their assertions and +assurances that they would take care not to miss him, nobly replied, +"You have often missed me when I have been nearer to you in the field of +battle." + +When the governor of Cadiz, the Marquis de Solano, was murdered by the +enraged and mistaken citizens, to one of his murderers, who had run a +pike through his back, he calmly turned round and said, "Coward, to +strike there! Come round--if you dare face--and destroy me!" + +Abernethy, in his Physiological Lectures, has ingeniously observed that +"Shakspeare has represented Mercutio continuing to jest, though +conscious that he was mortally wounded; the expiring Hotspur thinking of +nothing but honour; and the dying Falstaff still cracking his jests upon +Bardolph's nose. If such facts were duly attended to, they would prompt +us to make a more liberal allowance for each other's conduct, under +certain circumstances, than we are accustomed to do." The truth seems to +be, that whenever the functions of the mind are not disturbed by "the +nervous functions of the digestive organs," the personal character +predominates even in death, and its habitual associations exist to its +last moments. Many religious persons may have died without showing in +their last moments any of those exterior acts, or employing those +fervent expressions, which the collector of "The Book of Death" would +only deign to chronicle; their hope is not gathered in their last hour. + +Yet many have delighted to taste of death long before they have died, +and have placed before their eyes all the furniture of mortality. The +horrors of a charnel-house is the scene of their pleasure. The "Midnight +Meditations" of Quarles preceded Young's "Night Thoughts" by a century, +and both these poets loved preternatural terror. + + If I must die, I'll snatch at everything + That may but mind me of my latest breath; + DEATH'S-HEADS, GRAVES, KNELLS, BLACKS,[132] TOMBS, all these shall bring + Into my soul such _useful thoughts of death_, + That this sable king of fears + Shall not catch me unawares.--QUARLES. + +But it may be doubtful whether the _thoughts of death are useful_, +whenever they put a man out of the possession of his faculties. Young +pursued the scheme of Quarles: he raised about him an artificial emotion +of death: he darkened his sepulchral study, placing a skull on his table +by lamp-light; as Dr. Donne had his portrait taken, first winding a +sheet over his head and closing his eyes; keeping this melancholy +picture by his bed-side as long as he lived, to remind him of his +mortality[133]. Young, even in his garden, had his conceits of death: at +the end of an avenue was viewed a seat of an admirable chiaro-oscuro, +which, when approached, presented only a painted surface, with an +inscription, alluding to the deception of the things of this world. To +be looking at "the mirror which flatters not;" to discover ourselves +only as a skeleton with the horrid life of corruption about us, has been +among those penitential inventions, which have often ended in shaking +the innocent by the pangs which are only natural to the damned.[134] +Without adverting to those numerous testimonies, the diaries of +fanatics, I shall offer a picture of an accomplished and innocent lady, +in a curious and unaffected transcript she has left of a mind of great +sensibility, where the preternatural terror of death might perhaps have +hastened the premature one she suffered. + +From the "Reliquiae Gethinianae,"[135] I quote some of Lady Gethin's ideas +on "Death."--"The very thoughts of death disturb one's reason; and +though a man may have many excellent qualities, yet he may have the +weakness of not commanding his sentiments. Nothing is worse for one's +health than to be in fear of death. There are some so wise as neither to +hate nor fear it; but for my part I have an aversion for it; and with +reason; for it is a rash inconsiderate thing, that always comes before +it is looked for; always comes unseasonably, parts friends, ruins +beauty, laughs at youth, and draws a dark veil over all the pleasures of +life.--This dreadful evil is but the evil of a moment, and what we +cannot by any means avoid; and it is that which makes it so terrible to +me; for were it uncertain, hope might diminish some part of the fear; +but when I think I must die, and that I may die every moment, and that +too a thousand several ways, I am in such a fright as you cannot +imagine. I see dangers where, perhaps, there never were any. I am +persuaded 'tis happy to be somewhat dull of apprehension in this case; +and yet the best way to cure the pensiveness of the thoughts of death is +to think of it as little as possible." She proceeds by enumerating the +terrors of the fearful, who "cannot enjoy themselves in the pleasantest +places, and although they are neither on sea, river, or creek, but in +good health in their chamber, yet are they so well instructed with the +_fear of dying_, that they do not measure it only by the _present_ +dangers that wait on us.--Then is it not best to submit to God? But some +people cannot do it as they would; and though they are not destitute of +reason, but perceive they are to blame, yet at the same time that their +reason condemns them their imagination makes their hearts feel what it +pleases." + +Such is the picture of an ingenious and a religious mind, drawn by an +amiable woman, who, it is evident, lived always in the fear of death. +The Gothic skeleton was ever haunting her imagination. In Dr. Johnson +the same horror was suggested by the thoughts of death. When Boswell +once in conversation persecuted Johnson on this subject, whether we +might not fortify our minds for the approach of death; he answered in a +passion, "No, sir! let it alone! It matters not how a man dies, but how +he lives! The art of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a +time!" But when Boswell persisted in the conversation, Johnson was +thrown into such a state of agitation, that he thundered out "Give us no +more of this!" and, further, sternly told the trembling and too curious +philosopher, "Don't let us meet to-morrow!" + +It may be a question whether those who by their preparatory conduct have +appeared to show the greatest indifference for death, have not rather +betrayed the most curious art to disguise its terrors. Some have +invented a mode of escaping from life in the midst of convivial +enjoyment. A mortuary preparation of this kind has been recorded of an +amiable man, Moncriff, the author of "Histoire des Chats" and "L'Art de +Plaire," by his literary friend La Place, who was an actor in, as well +as the historian of, the singular narrative. One morning La Place +received a note from Moncriff, requesting that "he would immediately +select for him a dozen volumes most likely to amuse, and of a nature to +withdraw the reader from being occupied by melancholy thoughts." La +Place was startled at the unusual request, and flew to his old friend, +whom he found deeply engaged in being measured for a new peruke, and a +taffety robe-de-chambre, earnestly enjoining the utmost expedition. +"Shut the door!" said Moncriff, observing the surprise of his friend. +"And now that we are alone, I confide my secret: on rising this morning, +my valet in dressing me showed me on this leg this dark spot--from that +moment I knew I was 'condemned to death;' but I had presence of mind +enough not to betray myself." "Can a head so well organised as yours +imagine that such a trifle is a sentence of death?"--"Don't speak so +loud, my friend! or rather deign to listen a moment. At my age it is +fatal! The system from which I have derived the felicity of a long life +has been, that whenever any evil, moral or physical, happens to us, if +there is a remedy, all must be sacrificed to deliver us from it--but in +a contrary case, I do not choose to wrestle with destiny and to begin +complaints, endless as useless! All that I request of you, my friend, is +to assist me to pass away the few days which remain for me, free from +all cares, of which otherwise they might be too susceptible. But do not +think," he added with warmth, "that I mean to elude the religious duties +of a citizen, which so many of late affect to contemn. The good and +virtuous curate of my parish is coming here under the pretext of an +annual contribution, and I have even ordered my physician, on whose +confidence I can rely. Here is a list of ten or twelve persons, friends +beloved! who are mostly known to you. I shall write to them this +evening, to tell them of my condemnation; but if they wish me to live, +they will do me the favour to assemble here at five in the evening, +where they may be certain of finding all those objects of amusement, +which I shall study to discover suitable to their tastes. And you, my +old friend, with my doctor, are two on whom I most depend." + +La Place was strongly affected by this appeal--neither Socrates, nor +Cato, nor Seneca looked more serenely on the approach of death. + +"Familiarise yourself early with death!" said the good old man with a +smile--"It is only dreadful for those who dread it!" + +During ten days after this singular conversation, the whole of +Moncriff's remaining life, his apartment was open to his friends, of +whom several were ladies; all kinds of games were played till nine +o'clock; and that the sorrows of the host might not disturb his guests, +he played the _chouette_ at his favourite game of _picquet_; a supper, +seasoned by the wit of the master, concluded at eleven. On the tenth +night, in taking leave of his friend, Moncriff whispered to him, "Adieu, +my friend! to-morrow morning I shall return your books!" He died, as he +foresaw, the following day. + +I have sometimes thought that we might form a history of this _fear of +death_, by tracing the first appearances of the SKELETON which haunts +our funereal imagination. In the modern history of mankind we might +discover some very strong contrasts in the notion of death entertained +by men at various epochs. The following article will supply a sketch of +this kind. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [131] To these may be added Queen Anne Boleyn. Kingston, the + Lieutenant of the Tower, in a letter to Cromwell, records that she + remarked of her own execution, "'I heard say the executioner was + very good, and I have a little neck;' and she put her hands about + it, laughing heartily. Truly, this lady has much joy and pleasure in + death." + + [132] _Blacks_ was the term for mourning in James the First and + Charles the First's time. + + [133] It was from this picture his stone effigy was constructed for + his tomb in old St. Paul's. This mutilated figure, which withstood + the great fire of London, is still preserved in the crypt of the + present cathedral. + + [134] A still more curious _fashion_ in this taste for mortuary + memorials originated at the court of Henry II. of France; whose + mistress, Diana of Poitiers, being a widow; mourning colours of + black and white became the fashion at court. Watches in the form of + skulls were worn; jewels and pendants in the shape of coffins; and + rings decorated with skulls and skeletons. + + [135] My discovery of the nature of this rare volume, of what is + original and what collected, will be found in volume ii. of this + work. + + + + +HISTORY OF THE SKELETON OF DEATH. + + +_Euthanasia! Euthanasia_! an easy death! was the exclamation of +Augustus; it was what Antoninus Pius enjoyed; and it is that for which +every wise man will pray, said Lord Orrery, when perhaps he was +contemplating the close of Swift's life. + +The ancients contemplated DEATH without terror, and met it with +indifference. It was the only divinity to which they never sacrificed, +convinced that no human being could turn aside its stroke. They raised +altars to Fever, to Misfortune, to all the evils of life; for these +might change! But though they did not court the presence of death in any +shape, they acknowledged its tranquillity; and in the beautiful fables +of their allegorical religion, Death was the daughter of Night, and the +sister of Sleep; and ever the friend of the unhappy! To the eternal +sleep of death they dedicated their sepulchral monuments--_AEternali +somno!_[136] If the full light of revelation had not yet broken on them, +it can hardly be denied that they had some glimpses and a dawn of the +life to come, from the many allegorical inventions which describe the +transmigration of the soul. A butterfly on the extremity of an +extinguished lamp, held up by the messenger of the gods intently gazing +above, implied a dedication of that soul; Love, with a melancholy air, +his legs crossed, leaning on an inverted torch, the flame thus naturally +extinguishing itself, elegantly denoted the cessation of human life; a +rose sculptured on a sarcophagus, or the emblems of epicurean life +traced on it, in a skull wreathed by a chaplet of flowers, such as they +wore at their convivial meetings, a flask of wine, a patera, and the +small bones used as dice: all these symbols were indirect allusions to +death, veiling its painful recollections. They did not pollute their +imagination with the contents of a charnel-house. The sarcophagi of the +ancients rather recall to us the remembrance of the activity of life; +for they are sculptured with battles or games, in basso relievo; a sort +of tender homage paid to the dead, observes Mad. de Stael, with her +peculiar refinement of thinking. + +It would seem that the Romans had even an aversion to mention death in +express terms, for they disguised its very name by some periphrasis, +such as _discessit e vita_, "he has departed from life;" and they did +not say that their friend had _died_, but that he had _lived_; _vixit_! +In the old Latin chronicles, and even in the _Foedera_ and other +documents of the middle ages, we find the same delicacy about using the +fatal word _Death_, especially when applied to kings and great people. +"_Transire a Saeculo--Vitam suam mutare--Si quid de eo humanitus +contigerit, &c._" I am indebted to Mr. Merivale for this remark. Even +among a people less refined, the obtrusive idea of death has been +studiously avoided: we are told that when the Emperor of Morocco +inquires after any one who has recently died, it is against etiquette to +mention the word "death;" the answer is "his destiny is closed!" But +this tenderness is only reserved for "the elect" of the Mussulmen. A +Jew's death is at once plainly expressed: "He is dead, sir! asking your +pardon for mentioning such a contemptible wretch!" _i.e._ a Jew! A +Christian's is described by "The infidel is dead!" or, "The cuckold is +dead." + +The ancient artists have so rarely attempted to personify Death, that we +have not discovered a single revolting image of this nature in all the +works of antiquity.[137]--To conceal its deformity to the eye, as well +as to elude its suggestion to the mind, seems to have been an universal +feeling, and it accorded with a fundamental principle of ancient art; +that of never permitting violent passion to produce in its +representation distortion of form. This may be observed in the Laocoon, +where the mouth only opens sufficiently to indicate the suppressed agony +of superior humanity, without expressing the loud cry of vulgar +suffering. Pausanias considered as a personification of death a female +figure, whose teeth and nails, long and crooked, were engraven on a +coffin of cedar, which enclosed the body of Cypselus; this female was +unquestionably only one of the _Parcae_, or the Fates, "watchful to cut +the thread of life." Hesiod describes Atropos indeed as having sharp +teeth and long nails, waiting to tear and devour the dead; but this +image was of a barbarous era. Catullus ventured to personify the Sister +Destinies as three Crones; "but in general," Winkelmann observes, "they +are portrayed as beautiful virgins, with winged heads, one of whom is +always in the attitude of writing on a scroll." Death was a nonentity to +the ancient artist. Could he exhibit what represents nothing? Could he +animate into action what lies in a state of eternal tranquillity? +Elegant images of repose and tender sorrow were all he could invent to +indicate the state of death. Even the terms which different nations have +bestowed on a burial-place are not associated with emotions of horror. +The Greeks called a burying-ground by the soothing term of +_Coemeterion_, or "the sleeping-place;" the Jews, who had no horrors +of the grave, by _Beth-haim_, or, "the house of the living;" the +Germans, with religious simplicity, "God's-field." The Scriptures had +only noticed that celestial being "the Angel of Death,"--graceful, +solemn, and sacred! + +Whence, then, originated that stalking skeleton, suggesting so many +false and sepulchral ideas, and which for us has so long served as the +image of death? + +When the Christian religion spread over Europe, the world changed! the +certainty of a future state of existence, by the artifices of wicked +worldly men, terrified instead of consoling human nature; and in the +resurrection the ignorant multitude seemed rather to have dreaded +retribution, than to have hoped for remuneration. The Founder of +Christianity everywhere breathes the blessedness of social feelings. It +is "Our Father!" whom he addresses. The horrors with which Christianity +was afterwards disguised arose in the corruptions of Christianity among +those insane ascetics who, misinterpreting "the Word of Life," trampled +on nature; and imagined that to secure an existence in the other world +it was necessary not to exist in the one in which God had placed them. +The dominion of mankind fell into the usurping hands of those imperious +monks whose artifices trafficed with the terrors of ignorant and +hypochondriac "Kaisers and kings." The scene was darkened by penances +and by pilgrimages, by midnight vigils, by miraculous shrines, and +bloody flagellations; spectres started up amidst their _tenebres_; +millions of masses increased their supernatural influence. Amidst this +general gloom of Europe, their troubled imaginations were frequently +predicting the end of the world. It was at this period that they first +beheld the grave yawn, and Death, in the Gothic form of a gaunt anatomy, +parading through the universe! The people were frightened as they +viewed, everywhere hung before their eyes, in the twilight of their +cathedrals, and their "pale cloisters," the most revolting emblems of +death. They startled the traveller on the bridge; they stared on the +sinner in the carvings of his table and chair; the spectre moved in the +hangings of the apartment; it stood in the niche, and was the picture +of their sitting-room; it was worn in their rings, while the illuminator +shaded the bony phantom in the margins of their "Horae," their primers, +and their breviaries. Their barbarous taste perceived no absurdity in +giving action to a heap of dry bones, which could only keep together in +a state of immovability and repose; nor that it was burlesquing the +awful idea of the resurrection, by exhibiting the incorruptible spirit +under the unnatural and ludicrous figure of mortality drawn out of the +corruption of the grave. + +An anecdote of these monkish times has been preserved by old Gerard +Leigh; and as old stories are best set off by old words, Gerard +speaketh! "The great Maximilian the emperor came to a monastery in High +Almaine (Germany), the monks whereof had caused to be curiously painted +the charnel of a man, which they termed--Death! When that well-learned +emperor had beholden it awhile, he called unto him his painter, +commanding to blot the skeleton out, and to paint therein the image +of--a fool. Wherewith the abbot, humbly beseeching him to the contrary, +said 'It was a good remembrance!'--'Nay,' quoth the emperor, 'as vermin +that annoyeth man's body cometh unlooked for, so doth death, which here +is but a fained image, and life is a certain thing, if we know to +deserve it.'"[138] The original mind of Maximilian the Great is +characterized by this curious story of converting our emblem of death +into a parti-coloured fool; and such satirical allusions to the folly of +those who persisted in their notion of the skeleton were not unusual +with the artists of those times; we find the figure of a fool sitting +with some drollery between the legs of one of these skeletons.[139] + +This story is associated with an important fact. After they had +successfully terrified the people with their charnel-house figure, a +reaction in the public feelings occurred, for the skeleton was now +employed as a medium to convey the most facetious, satirical, and +burlesque notions of human life. Death, which had so long harassed their +imaginations, suddenly changed into a theme fertile in coarse humour. +The Italians were too long accustomed to the study of the beautiful to +allow their pencil to sport with deformity; but the Gothic taste of the +German artists, who could only copy their own homely nature, delighted +to give human passions to the hideous physiognomy of a noseless skull; +to put an eye of mockery or malignity into its hollow socket, and to +stretch out the gaunt anatomy into the postures of a Hogarth; and that +the ludicrous might be carried to its extreme, this imaginary being, +taken from the bone-house, was viewed in the action of _dancing_! This +blending of the grotesque with the most disgusting image of mortality, +is the more singular part of this history of the skeleton, and indeed of +human nature itself! + +"The Dance of Death," erroneously considered as Holbein's, with other +similar Dances, however differently treated, have one common subject +which was painted in the arcades of burying-grounds, or on town-halls, +and in market-places. The subject is usually "The Skeleton" in the act +of leading all ranks and conditions to the grave, personated after +nature, and in the strict costume of the times. This invention opened a +new field for genius; and when we can for a moment forget their luckless +choice of their bony and bloodless hero, who to amuse us by a variety of +action becomes a sort of horrid Harlequin in these pantomimical scenes, +we may be delighted by the numerous human characters, which are so +vividly presented to us. The origin of this extraordinary invention is +supposed to be a favourite pageant, or religious mummery, invented by +the clergy, who in these ages of barbarous Christianity always found it +necessary to amuse, as well as to frighten the populace; a circumstance +well known to have occurred in so many other grotesque and licentious +festivals they allowed the people. The practice of dancing in churches +and church-yards was interdicted by several councils; but it was found +convenient in those rude times. It seems probable that the clergy +contrived the present dance, as more decorous and not without moral and +religious emotions. This pageant was performed in churches, in which the +chief characters in society were supported in a sort of masquerade, +mixing together in a general dance, in the course of which every one in +his turn vanished from the scene, to show how one after the other died +off. The subject was at once poetical and ethical; and the poets and +painters of Germany adopting the skeleton, sent forth this chimerical +Ulysses of another world to roam among the men and manners of their own. +A popular poem was composed, said to be by one Macaber, which name +seems to be a corruption of St. Macaire; the old Gaulish version, +reformed, is still printed at Troyes, in France, with the ancient blocks +of woodcuts, under the title of "La Grande Danse Macabre des Hommes et +des Femmes." Merian's "Todten Tanz," or the "Dance of the Dead," is a +curious set of prints of a Dance of Death from an ancient painting, I +think not entirely defaced, in a cemetery at Basle, in Switzerland. It +was ordered to be painted by a council held there during many years, to +commemorate the mortality occasioned by a plague in 1439. The prevailing +character of all these works is unquestionably grotesque and ludicrous; +not, however, that genius, however barbarous, could refrain in this +large subject of human life from inventing scenes often imagined with +great delicacy of conception, and even great pathos. Such is the +new-married couple, whom Death is leading, beating a drum; and in the +rapture of the hour, the bride seems, with a melancholy look, not +insensible of his presence; or Death is seen issuing from the cottage of +the poor widow with her youngest child, who waves his hand sorrowfully, +while the mother and the sister vainly answer; or the old man, to whom +Death is playing on a psaltery, seems anxious that his withered fingers +should once more touch the strings, while he is carried off in calm +tranquillity. The greater part of these subjects of death are, however, +ludicrous; and it may be a question, whether the spectators of these +Dances of Death did not find their mirth more excited than their +religious emotions. Ignorant and terrified as the people were at the +view of the skeleton, even the grossest simplicity could not fail to +laugh at some of those domestic scenes and familiar persons drawn from +among themselves. The skeleton, skeleton as it is, in the creation of +genius, gesticulates and mimics, while even its hideous skull is made to +express every diversified character, and the result is hard to describe; +for we are at once amused and disgusted with so much genius founded on +so much barbarism.[140] + +When the artist succeeded in conveying to the eye the most ludicrous +notions of death, the poets also discovered in it a fertile source of +the burlesque. The curious collector is acquainted with many volumes +where the most extraordinary topics have been combined with this +subject. They made the body and the soul debate together, and ridicule +the complaints of a damned soul! The greater part of the poets of the +time were always composing on the subject of Death in their humorous +pieces.[141] Such historical records of the public mind, historians, +intent on political events, have rarely noticed. + +Of a work of this nature, a popular favourite was long the one entitled +"_Le faut mourir, et les Excuses Inutiles qu'on apporte a cette +Necessite; Le tout en vers burlesques, 1658_." Jacques Jacques, a canon +of Ambrun, was the writer, who humorously says of himself that he gives +his thoughts just as they lie on his heart, without dissimulation--"For +I have nothing double about me except my name! I tell thee some of the +most important truths in laughing; it is for thee _d'y penser tout a +bon_." This little volume was procured for me with some difficulty in +France; and it is considered as one of the happiest of this class of +death-poems, of which I know not of any in our literature. + +Our canon of Ambrun, in facetious rhymes, and with the _naivete_ of +expression which belongs to his age, and an idiomatic turn fatal to a +translator, excels in pleasantry; his haughty hero condescends to hold +very amusing dialogues with all classes of society, and delights to +confound their "excuses inutiles." The most miserable of men, the +galley-slave, the mendicant, alike would escape when he appears to them. +"Were I not absolute over them," Death exclaims, "they would confound me +with their long speeches; but I have business, and must gallop on!" His +geographical rhymes are droll. + + Ce que j'ai fait dans l'Afrique + Je le fais bien dans l'Amerique; + On l'appelle monde nouveau + Mais ce sont des brides a veau; + Nulle terre a moy n'est nouvelle + Je vay partout sans qu'on m'appelle; + Mon bras de tout temps commanda + Dans le pays du Canada; + J'ai tenu de tout temps en bride + La Virginie et la Floride, + Et j'ai bien donne sur le bec + Aux Francais du fort de Kebec. + Lorsque je veux je fais la nique + Aux Incas, aux rois de Mexique; + Et montre aux Nouveaux Grenadins + Qu'ils sont des foux et des badins. + Chacun sait bien comme je matte + Ceux du Bresil et de la Plate, + Ainsi que les Taupinembous-- + En un mot, je fais voir a tout + Que ce que nait dans la nature, + Doit prendre de moy tablature![142] + +The perpetual employments of Death display copious invention with a +facility of humour. + + Egalement je vay rangeant, + Le conseiller et le serjent, + Le gentilhomme et le berger, + Le bourgeois et le boulanger, + Et la maistresse et la servante + Et la niece comme la tante; + Monsieur l'abbe, monsieur son moine, + Le petit clerc et le chanoine; + Sans choix je mets dans mon butin + Maistre Claude, maistre Martin, + Dame Luce, dame Perrete, &c. + J'en prends un dans le temps qu'il pleure + A quelque autre, au contraire a l'heure + Qui demesurement il rit; + Je donne le coup qui le frit. + J'en prends un, pendant qu'il se leve; + En se couchant l'autre j'enleve. + Je prends le malade et le sain + L'un aujourd'hui, l'autre le demain. + J'en surprends un dedans son lit, + L'autre a l'estude quand il lit. + J'en surprends un le ventre plein + Je mene l'autre par la faim. + J'attrape l'un pendant qu'il prie, + Et l'autre pendant qu'il renie; + J'en saisis un au cabaret + Entre le blanc et le clairet, + L'autre qui dans son oratoire + A son Dieu rend honneur et gloire: + J'en surprends un lorsqu'il se psame + Le jour qu'il epouse sa femme, + L'autre le jour que plein de deuil + La sieune il voit dans le cercueil; + Un a pied et l'autre a cheval, + Dans le jeu l'un, et l'autre au bal; + Un qui mange et l'autre qui boit, + Un qui paye et l'autre qui doit, + L'un en ete lorsqu'il moissonne, + L'autre eu vendanges dans l'automne, + L'un criant almanachs nouveaux-- + Un qui demande son aumosne + L'autre dans le temps qu'il la donne, + Je prends le bon maistre Clement, + Au temps qu'il prend un lavement, + Et prends la dame Catherine + Le jour qu'elle prend medecine. + +This veil of gaiety in the old canon of Ambrun covers deeper and more +philosophical thoughts than the singular mode of treating so solemn a +theme. He has introduced many scenes of human life which still interest, +and he addresses the "teste a triple couronne," as well as the "forcat +de galere," who exclaims, "Laissez-moi vivre dans mes fers," "le gueux," +the "bourgeois," the "chanoine," the "pauvre soldat," the "medecin;" in +a word, all ranks in life are exhibited, as in all the "Dances of +Death." But our object in noticing these burlesque paintings and poems +is to show that after the monkish Goths had opened one general scene of +melancholy and tribulation over Europe, and given birth to that dismal +_skeleton of death_, which still terrifies the imagination of many, a +reaction of feeling was experienced by the populace, who at length came +to laugh at the gloomy spectre which had so long terrified them! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [136] Montfaucon, "L'Antiquite Expliquee," i. 362. + + [137] A representation of Death by a skeleton appears among the + Egyptians: a custom more singular than barbarous prevailed, of + enclosing a skeleton of beautiful workmanship in a small coffin, + which the bearer carried round at their entertainments; observing, + "After death you will resemble this figure: drink, then! and be + happy." A symbol of Death in a convivial party was not designed to + excite terrific or gloomy ideas, but a recollection of the brevity + of human life. + + [138] "The Accidence of Armorie," p. 199. + + [139] A woodcut preserved in Mr. Dibdin's Bibliographical Decameron, + i. 35. + + [140] My greatly-lamented friend, the late Mr. Douce, has poured + forth the most curious knowledge on this singular subject, of "The + Dance of Death." This learned investigator has reduced _Macaber_ to + a nonentity, but not "The Macaber Dance," which has been frequently + painted. Mr. Douce's edition is accompanied by a set of woodcuts, + which have not unsuccessfully copied the exquisite originals of the + Lyons wood-cutter. + + [141] Goujet, "Bib. Francoise," vol. x. 185. + + [142] _Tablature d'un luth_, Cotgrave says, is the belly of a lute, + meaning "all in nature must dance to my music!" + + + + +THE RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS OF HEYLIN. + + +Peter Heylin was one of the popular writers of his times, like Fuller +and Howell, who, devoting their amusing pens to subjects which deeply +interested their own busy age, will not be slighted by the curious.[143] +We have nearly outlived their divinity, but not their politics. +Metaphysical absurdities are luxuriant weeds which must be cut down by +the scythe of Time; but the great passions branching from the tree of +life are still "growing with our growth." + +There are two biographies of our Heylin, which led to a literary quarrel +of an extraordinary nature; and, in the progress of its secret history, +all the feelings of rival authorship were called out. + +Heylin died in 1662. Dr. Barnard, his son-in-law, and a scholar, +communicated a sketch of the author's life to be prefixed to a +posthumous folio, of which Heylin's son was the editor. This Life was +given by the son, but anonymously, which may not have gratified the +author, the son-in-law.[144] + +Twenty years had elapsed when, in 1682, appeared "The Life of Dr. Peter +Heylin, by George Vernon." The writer, alluding to the prior Life +prefixed to the posthumous folio, asserts that, in borrowing something +from Barnard, Barnard had also "Excerpted passages out of _my papers_, +the very words as well as matter, when he had them in his custody, as +any reader may discern who will be at the pains of comparing the Life +now published with what is extant before the _Keimalea Ecclesiastica_;" +the quaint, pedantic title, after the fashion of the day, of the +posthumous folio. + +This strong accusation seemed countenanced by a dedication to the son +and the nephew of Heylin. Roused now into action, the indignant Barnard +soon produced a more complete Life, to which he prefixed "A necessary +Vindication." This is an unsparing castigation of Vernon, the literary +pet whom the Heylins had fondled in preference to their learned +relative.[145] The long-smothered family grudge, the suppressed +mortifications of literary pride, after the subterraneous grumblings of +twenty years, now burst out, and the volcanic particles flew about in +caustic pleasantries and sharp invectives; all the lava of an author's +vengeance, mortified by the choice of an inferior rival. + +It appears that Vernon had been selected by the son of Heylin, in +preference to his brother-in-law, Dr. Barnard, from some family +disagreement. Barnard tells us, in describing Vernon, that "No man, +except himself, who was totally ignorant of the doctor, and all the +circumstances of his life, would have engaged in such a work, which was +never primarily laid out for him, but by reason of some unhappy +differences, as usually fall out in families; and he, who loves to put +his oar in troubled waters, instead of closing them up, hath made them +wider." + +Barnard tells his story plainly. Heylin the son, intending to have a +more elaborate Life of his father prefixed to his works, Dr. Barnard, +from the high reverence in which he held the memory of his +father-in-law, offered to contribute it. Many conferences were held, and +the son entrusted him with several papers. But suddenly his caprice, +more than his judgment, fancied that George Vernon was worth John +Barnard. The doctor affects to describe his rejection with the most +stoical indifference. He tells us--"I was satisfied, and did patiently +expect the coming forth of the work, not only term after term, but year +after year--a very considerable time for such a tract. But at last, +instead of the Life, came a letter to me from a bookseller in London, +who lived at the sign of the Black Boy, in Fleet-street."[146] + +Now, it seems that he who lived at the Black Boy had combined with +another who lived at the Fleur de Luce, and that the Fleur de Luce had +assured the Black Boy that Dr. Barnard was concerned in writing the Life +of Heylin--this was a strong recommendation. But lo! it appeared that +"one Mr. Vernon, of Gloucester," was to be the man! a gentle, +thin-skinned authorling, who bleated like a lamb, and was so fearful to +trip out of its shelter, that it allows the Black Boy and the Fleur de +Luce to communicate its papers to any one they choose, and erase or add +at their pleasure.[147] + +It occurred to the Black Boy, on this proposed arithmetical criticism, +that the work required addition, subtraction, and division; that the +fittest critic, on whose name, indeed, he had originally engaged in the +work, was our Dr. Barnard; and he sent the package to the doctor, who +resided near Lincoln. + +The doctor, it appears, had no appetite for a dish dressed by another, +while he himself was in the very act of the cookery; and it was suffered +to lie cold for three weeks at the carrier's. + +But entreated and overcome, the good doctor at length sent to the +carrier's for the life of his father-in-law. "I found it, according to +the bookseller's description, most lame and imperfect; ill begun, worse +carried on, and abruptly concluded." The learned doctor exercised that +plenitude of power with which the Black Boy had invested him--he very +obligingly showed the author in what a confused state his materials lay +together, and how to put them in order-- + + Nec facundia deseret hunc, nec lucidus ordo. + +If his rejections were copious, to show his good-will as well as his +severity, his additions were generous, though he used the precaution of +carefully distinguishing by "distinct paragraphs" his own insertions +amidst Vernon's mass, with a gentle hint that "He knew more of Heylin +than any man now living, and ought therefore to have been the +biographer." He returned the MS. to the gentleman with great civility, +but none he received back! When Vernon pretended to ask for +improvements, he did not imagine that the work was to be improved by +being nearly destroyed; and when he asked for correction, he probably +expected all might end in a compliment. + +The narrative may now proceed in Dr. Barnard's details of his doleful +mortifications, in being "altered and mangled" by Mr. Vernon. + +"Instead of thanks from him (Vernon), and the return of common civility, +he disfigured my papers, that no sooner came into his hands, but he fell +upon them as a lion rampant, or the cat upon the poor cock in the fable, +saying, _Tu hodie mihi discerperis_--so my papers came home miserably +clawed, blotted, and blurred; whole sentences dismembered, and pages +scratched out; several leaves omitted which ought to be +printed,--shamefully he used my copy; so that before it was carried to +the press, he swooped away the second part of the Life wholly from +it--in the room of which he shuffled in a preposterous conclusion at the +last page, which he printed in a different character, yet could not keep +himself honest, as the poet saith, + + _Dicitque tua pagina, fur es._ + MARTIAL. + +For he took out of my copy Dr. Heylin's dream, his sickness, his last +words before his death, and left out the burning of his surplice. He so +mangled and metamorphosed the whole Life I composed, that I may say as +Sosia did, _Egomet mihi non credo, ille alter Sosia me malis mulcavit +modis_--PLAUT." + +Dr. Barnard would have "patiently endured these wrongs;" but the +accusation Vernon ventured on, that Barnard was the plagiary, required +the doctor "to return the poisoned chalice to his own lips," that +"himself was the plagiary both of words and matter." The fact is, that +this reciprocal accusation was owing to Barnard having had a prior +perusal of Heylin's papers, which afterwards came into the hands of +Vernon: they both drew their water from the same source. These papers +Heylin himself had left for "a rule to guide the writer of his life." + +Barnard keenly retorts on Vernon for his surreptitious use of whole +pages from Heylin's works, which he has appropriated to himself without +any marks of quotation. "I am no such excerptor (as he calls me); he is +of the humour of the man who took all the ships in the Attic haven for +his own, and yet was himself not master of any one vessel." + +Again:-- + +"But all this while I misunderstand him, for possibly he meaneth his own +dear words I have excerpted. Why doth he not speak in plain, downright +English, that the world may see my faults? For every one doth not know +what is _excerpting_. If I have been so bold to pick or snap a word from +him, I hope I may have the benefit of the clergy. What words have I +robbed him of?--and how have I become the richer for them? I was never +so taken with him as to be once tempted to break the commandments, +because I love plain speaking, plain writing, and plain dealing, which +he does not: I hate the word _excerpted_, and the action imported in it. +However, he is a fanciful man, and thinks there is no elegancy nor wit +but in his own way of talking. I must say as Tully did, _Malim equidem +indisertam prudentiam quam stultam loquacitatem_." + +In his turn he accuses Vernon of being a perpetual transcriber, and for +the Malone minuteness of his history. + +"But how have I excerpted _his_ matter? Then I am sure to rob the +spittle-house; for he is so poor and put to hard shifts, that he has +much ado to compose a tolerable story, which he hath been hammering and +conceiving in his mind for four years together, before he could bring +forth his _foetus_ of intolerable transcriptions to molest the reader's +patience and memory. How doth he run himself out of breath, sometimes +for twenty pages and more, at other times fifteen, ordinarily nine and +ten, collected out of Dr. Heylin's old books, before he can take his +wind again to return to his story! I never met with such a transcriber +in all my days; for want of matter to fill up a _vacuum_, of which his +book was in much danger, he hath set down the story of Westminster, as +long as the Ploughman's Tale in Chaucer, which to the reader would have +been more pertinent and pleasant. I wonder he did not transcribe bills +of Chancery, especially about a tedious suit my father had for several +years about a lease at Norton." + +In his raillery of Vernon's affected metaphors and comparisons, "his +similitudes and dissimilitudes strangely hooked in, and fetched as far +as the Antipodes," Barnard observes, "The man hath also a strange +opinion of himself that he is Dr. Heylin; and because he writes his +Life, that he hath his natural parts, if not acquired. The soul of St. +Augustin (say the schools) was Pythagorically transfused into the corpse +of Aquinas; so the soul of Dr. Heylin into a narrow soul. I know there +is a question in philosophy, _An animae sint oequales?_--whether souls +be alike? But there's a difference between the spirits of Elijah and +Elisha: so small a prophet with so great a one!" + +Dr. Barnard concludes by regretting that good counsel came now +unseasonably, else he would have advised the writer to have transmitted +his task to one who had been an ancient friend of Dr. Heylin, rather +than ambitiously have assumed it, who was a professed stranger to him, +by reason of which no better account could be expected from him than +what he has given. He hits off the character of this piece of +biography--"A Life to the half; an imperfect creature, that is not only +lame (as the honest bookseller said), but wanteth legs, and all other +integral parts of a man; nay, the very soul that should animate a body +like Dr. Heylin. So that I must say of him, as Plutarch does of Tib. +Gracchus, 'that he is a bold undertaker and rash talker of those matters +he does not understand.' And so I have done with him, unless he creates +to himself and me a future trouble!" + +Vernon appears to have slunk away from the duel. The son of Heylin stood +corrected by the superior Life produced by their relative; the learned +and vivacious Barnard probably never again ventured to _alter and +improve the works of an author_ kneeling and praying for corrections. +These bleating lambs, it seems, often turn out roaring lions![148] + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [143] Dr. Heylin's principal work, "_Ecclesia Restaurata_; or, the + History of the Reformation of the Church of England," was reprinted + at the Cambridge University press, for "the Ecclesiastical History + Society," in 2 vols. 8vo, 1849, under the able editorship of J. C. + Robertson, M.A., Vicar of Bekesbourne, Kent. The introductory + account of Heylin has enabled us to correct the present article in + some particulars, and add a few useful notes. + + [144] Dr. John Barnard married the daughter of Heylin, when he lived + at Abingdon, near Oxford. He afterwards became rector of the rich + living of Waddington, near Lincoln, of which he purchased the + perpetual advowson, holding also the sinecure of Gedney, in the same + county. He was ultimately made Prebendary of Asgarby, in the church + of Lincoln, and died at Newark, on a journey, in August, 1683. His + rich and indolent life would naturally hold out few inducements for + literary labour. + + [145] Mr. George Vernon, according to Wood (Athen. Oxon. iv. 606), + was made Chaplain of All Souls' College, afterwards Rector of + Sarsden, near Churchill, in Oxfordshire, of Bourton-on-the-Water, in + Gloucestershire, and of St. John and St. Michael, in the city of + Gloucester. Wood enumerates several works by him, so that he was + evidently more of a "literary man" than Barnard, who enjoyed + "learned ease" to a great degree, and was evidently only to be + aroused by something flagitious. + + [146] This was Harper, a bookseller, who had undertaken a + republication of the _Ecclesia Vindicata_, and other tracts by + Heylin, to which the Life was to be prefixed. + + [147] The author had "desired Mr. Harper to communicate the papers + to whom he pleases, and cross out or add what is thought + convenient." A leave very few literary men would give! + + [148] The most curious part of the story remains yet to be told. Dr. + Barnard was mistaken in his imputations, and Vernon was not the + really blamable party. We tell the tale in Mr. Robertson's words in + the work already alluded to.--"Who was the party guilty of these + outrages? Barnard assumed that it could be no other than Vernon; but + the truth seems to be that the Rector of Bourton had nothing + whatever to do with the matter. The publisher had called in a more + important adviser--Dr. Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln (Ath. Oxon. iii. + 567; iv. 606); the mutilations of Barnard's MS. were really the + work, not of the obscure Gloucestershire clergyman, but of the + indignant author's own diocesan; and we need not hesitate to ascribe + the abruptness of the conclusion, and the smallness of the type in + which it is printed, to Mr. Harper's economical desire to save the + expense of an additional sheet." Thus "Bishop Barlow and the + bookseller had made the mischief between the parties, who, instead + of attempting a private explanation, attacked each other in print." + + + + +OF LENGLET DU FRESNOY. + + +The "_Methode pour etudier l' Histoire_," by the Abbe Lenglet du +Fresnoy, is a master-key to all the locked-up treasures of ancient and +modern history, and to the more secret stores of the obscurer +memorialists of every nation. The history of this work and its author +are equally remarkable. The man was a sort of curiosity in human nature, +as his works are in literature. Lenglet du Fresnoy is not a writer +merely laborious; without genius, he still has a hardy originality in +his manner of writing and of thinking; and his vast and restless +curiosity fermenting his immense book-knowledge, with a freedom verging +on cynical causticity, led to the pursuit of uncommon topics. Even the +prefaces to the works which he edited are singularly curious, and he +has usually added _bibliotheques_, or critical catalogues of authors, +which we may still consult for notices on the writers of romances--of +those on literary subjects--on alchymy, or the hermetic philosophy; of +those who have written on apparitions, visions, &c.; an historical +treatise on the secret of confession, &c.; besides those "Pieces +Justificatives," which constitute some of the most extraordinary +documents in the philosophy of history. His manner of writing secured +him readers even among the unlearned; his mordacity, his sarcasm, his +derision, his pregnant interjections, his unguarded frankness, and often +his strange opinions, contribute to his reader's amusement more than +comports with his graver tasks; but his peculiarities cannot alter the +value of his knowledge, whatever they may sometimes detract from his +opinions; and we may safely admire the ingenuity, without quarrelling +with the sincerity of the writer, who having composed a work on _L'Usage +des Romans_, in which he gaily impugned the authenticity of all history, +to prove himself not to have been the author, ambidexterously published +another of _L'Histoire justifiee contre les Romans_; and perhaps it was +not his fault that the attack was spirited, and the justification dull. + +This "Methode" and his "Tablettes Chronologiques," of nearly forty other +publications are the only ones which have outlived their writer; +volumes, merely curious, are exiled to the shelf of the collector; the +very name of an author merely curious--that shadow of a shade--is not +always even preserved by a dictionary-compiler in the universal charity +of his alphabetical mortuary. + +The history of this work is a striking instance of those imperfect +beginnings, which have often closed in the most important labours. This +admirable "Methode" made its first meagre appearance in two volumes in +1713. It was soon reprinted at home and abroad, and translated into +various languages. In 1729 it assumed the dignity of four quartos; but +at this stage it encountered the vigilance of government, and the +lacerating hand of a celebrated _censeur_, Gros de Boze. It is said, +that from a personal dislike of the author, he cancelled one hundred and +fifty pages from the printed copy submitted to his censorship. He had +formerly approved of the work, and had quietly passed over some of these +obnoxious passages: it is certain that Gros de Boze, in a dissertation +on the Janus of the ancients in this work, actually erased a high +commendation of himself,[149] which Lenglet had, with unusual courtesy, +bestowed on Gros de Boze; for as a critic he is most penurious of +panegyric, and there is always a caustic flavour even in his drops of +honey. This _censeur_ either affected to disdain the commendation, or +availed himself of it as a trick of policy. This was a trying situation +for an author, now proud of a great work, and who himself partook more +of the bull than of the lamb. He who winced at the scratch of an +epithet, beheld his perfect limbs bruised by erasures and mutilated by +cancels. This sort of troubles indeed was not unusual with Lenglet. He +had occupied his old apartment in the Bastile so often, that at the +sight of the officer who was in the habit of conducting him there, +Lenglet would call for his nightcap and snuff; and finish the work he +had then in hand at the Bastile, where, he told Jordan, that he made his +edition of Marot. He often silently restituted an epithet or a sentence +which had been condemned by the _censeur_, at the risk of returning once +more; but in the present desperate affair he took his revenge by +collecting the castrations into a quarto volume, which was sold +clandestinely. I find, by Jordan, in his _Voyage Litteraire_, who +visited him, that it was his pride to read these cancels to his friends, +who generally, but secretly, were of opinion that the decision of the +_censeur_ was not so wrong as the hardihood of Lenglet insisted on. All +this increased the public rumour, and raised the price of the cancels. +The craft and mystery of authorship was practised by Lenglet to +perfection; and he often exulted, not only in the subterfuges by which +he parried his _censeurs_, but in his bargains with his booksellers, who +were equally desirous to possess, while they half feared to enjoy, his +uncertain or his perilous copyrights. When the _unique_ copy of the +_Methode_, in its pristine state, before it had suffered any +dilapidations, made its appearance at the sale of the curious library of +the _censeur_ Gros de Boze, it provoked a Roxburgh competition, where +the collectors, eagerly outbidding each other, the price of this +uncastrated copy reached to 1500 livres; and even more extraordinary in +the history of French bibliography, than in our own. The curious may now +find all these cancel sheets, or _castrations_, preserved in one of +those works of literary history, to which the Germans have contributed +more largely than other European nations, and I have discovered that +even the erasures, or _bruises_, are amply furnished in another +bibliographical record.[150] + +This _Methode_, after several later editions, was still enlarging itself +by fresh supplements; and having been translated by men of letters in +Europe, by Coleti in Italy, by Mencken in Germany, and by Dr. Rawlinson +in England, these translators have enriched their own editions by more +copious articles, designed for their respective nations. The sagacity of +the original writer now renovated his work by the infusions of his +translators; like old AEson, it had its veins filled with green juices; +and thus his old work was always undergoing the magic process of +rejuvenescence.[151] + +The personal character of our author was as singular as many of the +uncommon topics which engaged his inquiries; these we might conclude had +originated in mere eccentricity, or were chosen at random. But Lenglet +has shown no deficiency of judgment in several works of acknowledged +utility; and his critical opinions, his last editor has shown, have, for +the greater part, been sanctioned by the public voice. It is curious to +observe how the first direction which the mind of a hardy inquirer may +take, will often account for that variety of uncommon topics he delights +in, and which, on a closer examination, may be found to bear an +invisible connexion with some preceding inquiry. As there is an +association of ideas, so in literary history there is an association of +research; and a very judicious writer may thus be impelled to compose on +subjects which may be deemed strange or injudicious. + +This observation may be illustrated by the literary history of Lenglet +du Fresnoy. He opened his career by addressing a letter and a tract to +the Sorbonne, on the extraordinary affair of Maria d'Agreda, abbess of +the nunnery of the Immaculate Conception in Spain, whose mystical Life +of the Virgin, published on the decease of the abbess, and which was +received with such rapture in Spain, had just appeared at Paris, where +it excited the murmurs of the pious, and the inquiries of the curious. +This mystical Life was declared to be founded on apparitions and +revelations experienced by the abbess. Lenglet proved, or asserted, that +the abbess was not the writer of this pretended Life, though the +manuscript existed in her handwriting; and secondly, that the +apparitions and revelations recorded were against all the rules of +apparitions and revelations which he had painfully discovered. The +affair was of a delicate nature. The writer was young and incredulous; a +grey-beard, more deeply versed in theology, replied, and the Sorbonnists +silenced our philosopher in embryo. + +Lenglet confined these researches to his portfolio; and so long a period +as fifty-five years had elapsed before they saw the light. It was when +Calmet published his Dissertations on Apparitions, that the subject +provoked Lenglet to return to his forsaken researches. He now published +all he had formerly composed on the affair of Maria d'Agreda, and two +other works; the one, "_Traite historique et dogmatique sur les +Apparitions, les Visions, et les Revelations particulieres_," in two +volumes; and "_Recueil de Dissertations anciennes et nouvelles, sur les +Apparitions, &c._," with a catalogue of authors on this subject, in four +volumes. When he edited the _Roman de la Rose_, in compiling the +glossary of this ancient poem, it led him to reprint many of the +earliest French poets; to give an enlarged edition of the _Arrets +d'Amour_, that work of love and chivalry, in which his fancy was now so +deeply embedded; while the subject of Romance itself naturally led to +the taste of romantic productions which appeared in "_L'Usage des +Romans_," and its accompanying copious nomenclature of all romances and +romance-writers, ancient and modern. Our vivacious Abbe had been +bewildered by his delight in the works of a chemical philosopher; and +though he did not believe in the existence of apparitions, and certainly +was more than a sceptic in history, yet it is certain that the "grande +oeuvre" was an article in his creed; it would have ruined him in +experiments, if he had been rich enough to have been ruined. It altered +his health; and the most important result of his chemical studies +appears to have been the invention of a syrup, in which he had great +confidence; but its trial blew him up into a tympany, from which he was +only relieved by having recourse to a drug, also of his own discovery, +which, in counteracting the syrup, reduced him to an alarming state of +atrophy. But the mischances of the historian do not enter into his +history: and our curiosity must be still eager to open Lenglet's +"Histoire de la Philosophie Hermetique," accompanied by a catalogue of +the writers in this mysterious science, in two volumes: as well as his +enlarged edition of the works of a great Paracelsian, Nicholas le Fevre. +This philosopher was appointed by Charles the Second superintendent over +the royal laboratory at St. James's: he was also a member of the Royal +Society, and the friend of Boyle, to whom he communicated the secret of +infusing young blood into old veins, with a notion that he could +renovate that which admits of no second creation.[152] Such was the +origin of Du Fresnoy's active curiosity on a variety of singular topics, +the germs of which may be traced to three or four of our author's +principal works. + +Our Abbe promised to write his own life, and his pugnacious vivacity, +and hardy frankness, would have seasoned a piece of autobiography; an +amateur has, however, written it in the style which amateurs like, with +all the truth he could discover, enlivened by some secret history, +writing the life of Lenglet with the very spirit of Lenglet: it is a +mask taken from the very features of the man, not the insipid wax-work +of an hyperbolical eloge-maker.[153] + +Although Lenglet du Fresnoy commenced in early life his career as a man +of letters, he was at first engaged in the great chase of political +adventure; and some striking facts are recorded, which show his +successful activity. Michault describes his occupations by a +paraphrastical delicacy of language, which an Englishman might not have +so happily composed. The minister for foreign affairs, the Marquis de +Torcy, sent Lenglet to Lille, where the court of the Elector of Cologne +was then held: "He had particular orders to _watch_ that the two +ministers of the elector should do nothing prejudicial to the king's +affairs." He seems, however, to have _watched_ many other persons, and +detected many other things. He discovered a captain, who agreed to open +the gates of Mons to Marlborough, for 100,000 piastres; the captain was +arrested on the parade, the letter of Marlborough was found in his +pocket, and the traitor was broken on the wheel. Lenglet denounced a +foreign general in the French service, and the event warranted the +prediction. His most important discovery was that of the famous +conspiracy of Prince Cellamar, one of the chimerical plots of Alberoni; +to the honour of Lenglet, he would not engage in its detection unless +the minister promised that no blood should be shed. These successful +incidents in the life of an honourable spy were rewarded with a moderate +pension.--Lenglet must have been no vulgar intriguer; he was not only +perpetually confined by his very patrons when he resided at home, for +the freedom of his pen, but I find him early imprisoned in the citadel +of Strasburgh for six months: it is said for purloining some curious +books from the library of the Abbe Bignon, of which he had the care. It +is certain that he knew the value of the scarcest works, and was one of +those lovers of bibliography who trade at times in costly rarities. At +Vienna he became intimately acquainted with the poet Rousseau, and +Prince Eugene. The prince, however, who suspected the character of our +author, long avoided him. Lenglet insinuated himself into the favour of +the prince's librarian; and such was his bibliographical skill, that +this acquaintance ended in Prince Eugene laying aside his political +dread, and preferring the advice of Lenglet to his librarian's, to +enrich his magnificent library. When the motive of Lenglet's residence +at Vienna became more and more suspected, Rousseau was employed to +_watch_ him; and not yet having quarrelled with his brother spy, he +could only report that the Abbe Lenglet was every morning occupied in +working on his "Tablettes Chronologiques," a work not worthy of +alarming the government; that he spent his evenings at a violin-player's +married to a Frenchwoman, and returned home at eleven. As soon as our +historian had discovered that the poet was a brother spy and newsmonger +on the side of Prince Eugene, their reciprocal civilities cooled. +Lenglet now imagined that he owed his six months' retirement in the +citadel of Strasburgh to the secret officiousness of Rousseau: each grew +suspicious of the other's fidelity; and spies are like lovers, for their +mutual jealousies settled into the most inveterate hatred. One of the +most defamatory libels is Lenglet's intended dedication of his edition +of Marot to Rousseau, which being forced to suppress in Holland, by +order of the States-general; at Brussels, by the intervention of the +Duke of Aremberg; and by every means the friends of the unfortunate +Rousseau could contrive; was, however, many years afterwards at length +subjoined by Lenglet to the first volume of his work on Romances; where +an ordinary reader may wonder at its appearance unconnected with any +part of the work. In this dedication, or "Eloge Historique," he often +addresses "Mon cher Rousseau," but the irony is not delicate, and the +calumny is heavy. Rousseau lay too open to the unlicensed causticity of +his accuser. The poet was then expatriated from France for a false +accusation against Saurin, in attempting to fix on him those criminal +couplets, which so long disturbed the peace of the literary world in +France, and of which Rousseau was generally supposed to be the writer; +but of which on his death-bed he solemnly protested that he was +guiltless. The _coup-de-grace_ is given to the poet, stretched on this +rack of invective, by just accusations on account of those infamous +epigrams, which appear in some editions of that poet's works; a lesson +for a poet, if poets would be lessoned, who indulge their imagination at +the cost of their happiness, and seem to invent crimes, as if they +themselves were criminals. + +But to return to our Lenglet. Had he composed his own life, it would +have offered a sketch of political servitude and political adventure, in +a man too intractable for the one, and too literary for the other. Yet +to the honour of his capacity, we must observe that he might have chosen +his patrons, would he have submitted to patronage. Prince Eugene at +Vienna; Cardinal Passionei at Rome; or Mons. Le Blanc, the French +minister, would have held him on his own terms. But "Liberty and my +books!" was the secret ejaculation of Lenglet; and from that moment all +things in life were sacrificed to a jealous spirit of independence, +which broke out in his actions as well as in his writings; and a passion +for study for ever crushed the worm of ambition. + +He was as singular in his conversation, which, says Jordan, was +extremely agreeable to a foreigner, for he delivered himself without +reserve on all things, and on all persons, seasoned with secret and +literary anecdotes. He refused all the conveniences offered by an +opulent sister, that he might not endure the restraint of a settled +dinner-hour. He lived to his eightieth year, still busied, and then died +by one of those grievous chances, to which aged men of letters are +liable: our caustic critic slumbered over some modern work, and, falling +into the fire was burnt to death. Many characteristic anecdotes of the +Abbe Lenglet have been preserved in the _Dictionnaire Historique_, but I +shall not repeat what is of easy recurrence. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [149] This fact appears in the account of the minuter erasures. + + [150] The _castrations_ are in _Beyeri Memoriae historico-criticae + Librorum rariorum_, p. 166. The _bruises_ are carefully noted in the + _Catalogue of the Duke de la Valiere_, 4467. Those who are curious + in such singularities will be gratified by the extraordinary + opinions and results in Beyer; and which after all were purloined + from a manuscript "Abridgment of Universal History," which was drawn + up by Count de Boulainvilliers, and more adroitly than delicately + inserted by Lenglet in his own work. The original manuscript exists + in various copies, which were afterwards discovered. The minuter + corrections, in the Duke de la Valiere's catalogue, furnish a most + enlivening article in the dryness of bibliography. + + [151] The last edition, enlarged by Drouet, is in fifteen volumes, + but is not later than 1772. It is still an inestimable manual for + the historical student, as well as his _Tablettes Chronologiques_. + + [152] The "Dictionnaire Historique," 1789, in their article Nich. Le + Fevre, notices the third edition of his "Course of Chemistry," that + of 1664, in two volumes; but the present one of Lenglet du Fresnoy's + is more recent, 1751, enlarged into five volumes, two of which + contain his own additions. I have never met with this edition, and + it is wanting at the British Museum. Le Fevre published a tract on + the great cordial of Sir Walter Rawleigh, which may be curious. + + [153] This anonymous work of "Memoires de Monsieur l'Abbe Lenglet du + Fresnoy," although the dedication is signed G. P., is written by + Michault, of Dijon, as a presentation copy to Count de Vienne in my + possession proves. Michault is the writer of two volumes of + agreeable "Melanges Historiques et Philologiques;" and the present + is a very curious piece of literary history. The "Dictionnaire + Historique" has compiled the article of Lenglet entirely from this + work; but the _Journal des Scavans_ was too ascetic in this opinion. + _Etoit-ce la peine de faire un livre pour apprendre au public qu'un + homme de lettres fut espion, escroc, bizarre, fougueux, cynique, + incapable d'amitie, de soumission aux loix? &c._ Yet they do not + pretend that the bibliography of Lenglet du Fresnoy is at all + deficient in curiosity. + + + + +THE DICTIONARY OF TREVOUX. + + +A learned friend, in his very agreeable "Trimestre, or a Three Months' +Journey in France and Switzerland," could not pass through the small +town of Trevoux without a literary association of ideas which should +accompany every man of letters in his tours, abroad or at home. A mind +well-informed cannot travel without discovering that there are objects +constantly presenting themselves, which _suggest_ literary, historical, +and moral facts. My friend writes, "As you proceed nearer to Lyons you +stop to dine at Trevoux, on the left bank of the Saone. On a sloping +hill, down to the water-side, rises an amphitheatre, crowned with an +ancient Gothic castle, in venerable ruin; under it is the small town of +Trevoux, well known for its Journal and Dictionary, which latter is +almost an encyclopaedia, as _there are few things of which something is +not said in that most valuable compilation_, and the whole was printed +at Trevoux. The knowledge of this circumstance greatly enhances the +delight of any visitor who has consulted the book, and is acquainted +with its merit; and must add much to his local pleasures." + +A work from which every man of letters may be continually deriving such +varied knowledge, and which is little known but to the most curious +readers, claims a place in these volumes; nor is the history of the work +itself without interest. Eight large folios, each consisting of a +thousand closely printed pages, stand like a vast mountain, of which, +before we climb, we may be anxious to learn the security of the passage. +The history of dictionaries is the most mutable of all histories; it is +a picture of the inconstancy of the knowledge of man; the learning of +one generation passes away with another; and a dictionary of this kind +is always to be repaired, to be rescinded, and to be enlarged. + +The small town of Trevoux gave its name to an excellent literary +journal, long conducted by the Jesuits, and to this dictionary--as +Edinburgh has to its Critical Review and Annual Register, &c. It first +came to be distinguished as a literary town from the Duc du Maine, as +prince sovereign of Dombes,[154] transferring to this little town of +Trevoux not only his parliament and other public institutions, but also +establishing a magnificent printing-house, in the beginning of the last +century. The duke, probably to keep his printers in constant employ, +instituted the "_Journal de Trevoux_;" and this perhaps greatly tended +to bring the printing-house into notice, so that it became a favourite +with many good writers, who appear to have had no other connexion with +the place; and this dictionary borrowed its first title, which it always +preserved, merely from the place where it was printed. Both the journal +and the dictionary were, however, consigned to the care of some learned +Jesuits; and perhaps the place always indicated the principles of the +writers, of whom none were more eminent for elegant literature than the +Jesuits.[155] + +The first edition of this dictionary sprung from the spirit of rivalry, +occasioned by a French dictionary published in Holland, by the +protestant Basnage de Beauval. The duke set his Jesuits hastily to work; +who, after a pompous announcement that this dictionary was formed on a +plan suggested by their patron, did little more than pillage Furetiere, +and rummage Basnage, and produced three new folios without any +novelties; they pleased the Duc du Maine, and no one else. This was in +1704. Twenty years after, it was republished and improved; and editions +increasing, the volumes succeeded each other, till it reached to its +present magnitude and value in eight large folios, in 1771, the only +edition now esteemed. Many of the names of the contributors to this +excellent collection of words and things, the industry of Monsieur +Barbier has revealed in his "Dictionnaire des Anonymes," art. 10782. The +work, in the progress of a century, evidently became a favourite +receptacle with men of letters in France, who eagerly contributed the +smallest or largest articles with a zeal honourable to literature and +most useful to the public. They made this dictionary their commonplace +book for all their curious acquisitions; every one competent to write a +short article, preserving an important fact, did not aspire to compile +the dictionary, or even an entire article in it; but it was a treasury +in which such mites collected together formed its wealth; and all the +literati may be said to have engaged in perfecting these volumes during +a century. In this manner, from the humble beginnings of three volumes, +in which the plagiary much more than the contributor was visible, eight +were at length built up with more durable materials, and which claim the +attention and the gratitude of the student. + +The work, it appears, interested the government itself, as a national +concern, from the tenor of the following anecdotes. + +Most of the minor contributors to this great collection were satisfied +to remain anonymous; but as might be expected among such a number, +sometimes a contributor was anxious to be known to his circle; and did +not like this penitential abstinence of fame. An anecdote recorded of +one of this class will amuse: A Monsieur Lautour du Chatel, avocat au +parlement de Normandie, voluntarily devoted his studious hours to +improve this work, and furnished nearly three thousand articles to the +supplement of the edition of 1752. This ardent scholar had had a lively +quarrel thirty years before with the first authors of the dictionary. He +had sent them one thousand three hundred articles, on condition that the +donor should be handsomely thanked in the preface of the new edition, +and further receive a copy _en grand papier_. They were accepted. The +conductors of the new edition, in 1721, forgot all the promises--nor +thanks, nor copy! Our learned avocat, who was a little irritable, as his +nephew who wrote his life acknowledges, as soon as the great work +appeared, astonished, like Dennis, that "they were rattling his own +thunder," without saying a word, quits his country town, and ventures, +half dead with sickness and indignation, on an expedition to Paris, to +make his complaint to the chancellor; and the work was deemed of that +importance in the eye of government, and so zealous a contributor was +considered to have such an honourable claim, that the chancellor +ordered, first, that a copy on large paper should be immediately +delivered to Monsieur Lautour, richly bound and free of carriage; and +secondly, as a reparation of the unperformed promise, and an +acknowledgment of gratitude, the omission of thanks should be inserted +and explained in the three great literary journals of France; a curious +instance, among others, of the French government often mediating, when +difficulties occurred in great literary undertakings, and considering +not lightly the claims and the honours of men of letters. + +Another proof, indeed, of the same kind, concerning the present work, +occurred after the edition of 1752. One Jamet l'aine, who had with +others been usefully employed on this edition, addressed a proposal to +government for an improved one, dated from the Bastile. He proposed that +the government should choose a learned person, accustomed to the labour +of the researches such a work requires; and he calculated, that if +supplied with three amanuenses, such an editor would accomplish his task +in about ten or twelve years, the produce of the edition would soon +repay all the expenses and capital advanced. This literary projector did +not wish to remain idle in the Bastile. Fifteen years afterwards the +last improved edition appeared, published by the associated booksellers +of Paris. + +As for the work itself, it partakes of the character of our +Encyclopaedias; but in this respect it cannot be safely consulted, for +widely has science enlarged its domains and corrected its errors since +1771. But it is precious as a vast collection of ancient and modern +learning, particularly in that sort of knowledge which we usually term +antiquarian and philological. It is not merely a grammatical, +scientific, and technical dictionary, but it is replete with divinity, +law, moral philosophy, critical and historical learning, and abounds +with innumerable miscellaneous curiosities. It would be difficult, +whatever may be the subject of inquiry, to open it, without the +gratification of some knowledge neither obvious nor trivial. I heard a +man of great learning declare, that whenever he could not recollect his +knowledge he opened Hoffman's _Lexicon Universale Historicum_, where he +was sure to find what he had lost. The works are similar; and valuable +as are the German's four folios, the eight of the Frenchman may safely +be recommended as their substitute, or their supplement. As a Dictionary +of the French Language it bears a peculiar feature, which has been +presumptuously dropped in the Dictionnaire de l'Academie; the last +invents phrases to explain words, which therefore have no other +authority than the writer himself! this of Trevoux is furnished, not +only with mere authorities, but also with quotations from the classical +French writers--an improvement which was probably suggested by the +English Dictionary of Johnson. One nation improves by another. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [154] It was always acknowledged as an independent state by the + French kings from the time of Philip Augustus. It had its own + parliament, and the privilege also of coining its own money. + + [155] The house in which the Jesuits resided, having the shield of + arms of their order over its portal, still remains at Trevoux. + + + + +QUADRIO'S ACCOUNT OF ENGLISH POETRY. + + +It is, perhaps, somewhat mortifying in our literary researches to +discover that our own literature has been only known to the other +nations of Europe comparatively within recent times. We have at length +triumphed over our continental rivals in the noble struggles of genius, +and our authors now see their works printed even at foreign presses, +while we are furnishing with our gratuitous labours nearly the whole +literature of a new empire; yet so late as in the reign of Anne, our +poets were only known by the Latin versifiers of the "Musae Anglicanae;" +and when Boileau was told of the public funeral of Dryden, he was +pleased with the national honours bestowed on genius, but he declared +that he never heard of his name before. This great legislator of +Parnassus has never alluded to one of our own poets, so insular then was +our literary glory! The most remarkable fact, or perhaps assertion, I +have met with, of the little knowledge which the Continent had of our +writers, is a French translation of Bishop Hall's "Characters of Virtues +and Vices." It is a duodecimo, printed at Paris, of 109 pages, 1610, +with this title _Characteres de Vertus et de Vices; tires de l'Anglois +de M. Josef Hall_. In a dedication to the Earl of Salisbury, the +translator informs his lordship that "_ce livre est la_ premiere +traduction de l'Anglois _jamais_ imprimee en aucun vulgaire"--the first +translation from the English ever printed in any modern language! +Whether the translator is a bold liar, or an ignorant blunderer, remains +to be ascertained; at all events it is a humiliating demonstration of +the small progress which our home literature had made abroad in 1610! + +I come now to notice a contemporary writer, professedly writing the +history of our Poetry, of which his knowledge will open to us as we +proceed with our enlightened and amateur historian. + +Father Quadrio's _Della Storia e dell' ragione d' ogni Poesia_,--is a +gigantic work, which could only have been projected and persevered in by +some hypochondriac monk, who, to get rid of the _ennui_ of life, could +discover no pleasanter way than to bury himself alive in seven monstrous +closely-printed quartos, and every day be compiling something on a +subject which he did not understand. Fortunately for Father Quadrio, +without taste to feel, and discernment to decide, nothing occurred in +this progress of literary history and criticism to abridge his volumes +and his amusements; and with diligence and erudition unparalleled, he +has here built up a receptacle for his immense, curious, and trifling +knowledge on the poetry of every nation. Quadrio is among that class of +authors whom we receive with more gratitude than pleasure, fly to +sometimes to quote, but never linger to read; and fix on our shelves, +but seldom have in our hands. + +I have been much mortified, in looking over this voluminous compiler, to +discover, although he wrote so late as about 1750, how little the +history of English poetry was known to foreigners. It is assuredly our +own fault. We have too long neglected the bibliography and the literary +history of our own country. Italy, Spain, and France have enjoyed +eminent bibliographers--we have none to rival them. Italy may justly +glory in her Tiraboschi and her Mazzuchelli; Spain in the Bibliothecas +of Nicholas Antonio; and France, so rich in bibliographical treasures, +affords models to every literary nation of every species of literary +history. With us, the partial labour of the hermit Anthony for the +Oxford writers, compiled before philosophical criticism existed in the +nation; and Warton's History of Poetry, which was left unfinished at its +most critical period, when that delightful antiquary of taste had just +touched the threshold of his Paradise--these are the sole great labours +to which foreigners might resort, but these will not be found of much +use to them. The neglect of our own literary history has, therefore, +occasioned the errors, sometimes very ridiculous ones, of foreign +writers respecting our authors. Even the lively Chaudon, in his +"Dictionnaire Historique," gives the most extraordinary accounts of most +of the English writers. Without an English guide to attend such weary +travellers, they have too often been deceived by the _mirages_ of our +literature. They have given blundering accounts of works which do exist, +and chronicled others which never did exist; and have often made up the +personal history of our authors, by confounding two or three into one. +Chaudon, mentioning Dryden's tragedies, observes, that Atterbury +translated two into Latin verse, entitled _Achitophel_ and +_Absalom_![156] + +Of all these foreign authors, none has more egregiously failed than this +good Father Quadrio. In this universal history of poetry, I was curious +to observe what sort of figure we made, and whether the fertile genius +of our original poets had struck the foreign critic with admiration or +with critical censure. But little was our English poetry known to its +universal historian. In the chapter on those who have cultivated "la +melica poesia in propria lingua tra, Tedeschi, Fiamminghi e +Inglesi,"[157] we find the following list of English poets. + +"Of John Gower; whose rhymes and verses are preserved in manuscript in +the college of the most Holy Trinity, in Cambridge. + +"Arthur Kelton, flourished in 1548, a skilful English poet: he composed +various poems in English; also he lauds the Cambrians and their +genealogy. + +"The works of William Wycherly, in English prose and verse." + +These were the only English poets whom Quadrio at first could muster +together! In his subsequent additions he caught the name of Sir Philip +Sidney with an adventurous criticism, "le sue poesie assai buone." He +then was lucky enough to pick up the title--not the volume, +surely--which was one of the rarest; "Fiori poetici de A. Cowley," which +he calls "poesie amorose:" this must mean that early volume of Cowley's, +published in his thirteenth year, under the title of "Poetical +Blossoms." Further he laid hold of "John Donne" by the skirt, and +"Thomas Creech," at whom he made a full pause, informing his Italians +that "his poems are reputed by his nation as 'assai buone.'" He has also +"Le opere di Guglielmo;" but to this Christian name, as it would +appear, he had not ventured to add the surname. At length, in his +progress of inquiry, in his fourth volume (for they were published at +different periods), he suddenly discovers a host of English poets--in +Waller, Duke of Buckingham, Lord Roscommon, and others, among whom is +Dr. Swift; but he acknowledges their works have not reached him. +Shakspeare at length appears on the scene; but Quadrio's notions are +derived from Voltaire, whom, perhaps, he boldly translates. Instead of +improving our drama, he conducted it _a totale rovina nelle sue farse +monstruose, che si chiaman tragedie; alcune scene vi abbia luminose e +belle e alcuni tratti si trovono terribili e grandi_. Otway is said to +have composed a tragic drama on the subject of "Venezia Salvata;" he +adds with surprise, "ma affatto regolare." Regularity is the essence of +genius with such critics as Quadrio. Dryden is also mentioned; but the +only drama specified is "King Arthur." Addison is the first Englishman +who produced a classical tragedy; but though Quadrio writes much about +the life of Addison, he never alludes to the Spectator. + +We come now to a more curious point. Whether Quadrio had read our +_comedies_ may be doubtful; but he distinguishes them by very high +commendation. Our comedy, he says, represents human life, the manners of +citizens and the people, much better than the French and Spanish +comedies, in which all the business of life is mixed up with love +affairs. The Spaniards had their gallantry from the Moors, and their +manners from chivalry; to which they added their tumid African taste, +differing from that of other nations. I shall translate what he now adds +of English comedy. + +"The English, more skilfully even than the French, have approximated to +the true idea of comic subjects, choosing for the argument of their +invention the customary and natural objects of the citizens and the +populace. And when religion and decorum were more respected in their +theatres, they were more advanced in this species of poetry, and merited +not a little praise, above their neighbouring nations. But more than the +English and the French (to speak according to pure and bare truth) have +the Italians signalised themselves." A sly, insinuating criticism! But, +as on the whole, for reasons which I cannot account for, Father Quadrio +seems to have relished our English comedy, we must value his candour. +He praises our comedy; "per il bello ed il buono;" but, as he is a +methodical Aristotelian, he will not allow us that liberty in the +theatre which we are supposed to possess in parliament--by delivering +whatever we conceive to the purpose. His criticism is a specimen of the +irrefragable. "We must not abandon legitimate rules _to give mere +pleasure thereby_; because pleasure is produced by, and flows from, the +_beautiful_; and the beautiful is chiefly drawn from the good order and +unity in which it consists!" + +Quadrio succeeded in discovering the name of one of our greatest comic +geniuses; for, alluding to our diversity of action in comedy, he +mentions in his fifth volume, page 148,--"Il celebre _Benjanson_, nella +sua commedia intitolato _Bartolommeo Foicere_, e in quella altra +commedia intitolato _Ipsum Veetz_." The reader may decipher the poet's +name with his _Fair_; but it required the critical sagacity of Mr. Douce +to discover that by _Ipsum Veetz_ we are to understand Shadwell's comedy +of _Epsom Wells_. The Italian critic had transcribed what he and his +Italian printer could not spell. We have further discovered the source +of his intelligence in St. Evremond, who had classed Shadwell's comedy +with Ben Jonson's. To such shifts is the writer of an universal history +_d' ogni Poesia_ miserably reduced! + +Towards the close of the fifth volume we at last find the sacred muse of +Milton,--but, unluckily, he was a man "di pochissima religione," and +spoke of Christ like an Arian. Quadrio quotes Ramsay for Milton's +vomiting forth abuse on the Roman Church. His figures are said to be +often mean, unworthy of the majesty of his subject; but in a later +place, excepting his religion, our poet, it is decided on, is worthy "di +molti laudi." + +Thus much for the information the curious may obtain on English poetry +from its universal history. Quadrio unquestionably writes with more +ignorance than prejudice against us: he has not only highly +distinguished the comic genius of our writers, and raised it above that +of our neighbours, but he has also advanced another discovery, which +ranks us still higher for original invention, and which, I am confident, +will be as new as it is extraordinary to the English reader. + +Quadrio, who, among other erudite accessories to his work, has exhausted +the most copious researches on the origin of Punch and Harlequin, has +also written, with equal curiosity and value, the history of +Puppet-shows. But whom has he lauded? whom has he placed paramount, +above all other people, for their genius of invention in improving this +art!--The English! and the glory which has hitherto been universally +conceded to the Italian nation themselves, appears to belong to us! For +we, it appears, while others were dandling and pulling their little +representatives of human nature into such awkward and unnatural motions, +first invented pulleys, or wires, and gave a fine and natural action to +the artificial life of these gesticulating machines! + +We seem to know little of ourselves as connected with the history of +puppet-shows; but in an article in the curious Dictionary of Trevoux, I +find that John Brioche, to whom had been attributed the invention of +_Marionnettes_, is only to be considered as an improver; in his time +(but the learned writers supply no date) _an Englishman_ discovered the +secret of moving them by springs, and without strings; but the +Marionnettes of Brioche were preferred for the pleasantries which he +made them deliver. The erudite Quadrio appears to have more successfully +substantiated our claims to the pulleys or wires, or springs of the +puppets, than any of our own antiquaries; and perhaps the uncommemorated +name of this Englishman was that Powell, whose Solomon and Sheba were +celebrated in the days of Addison and Steele; the former of whom has +composed a classical and sportive Latin poem on this very subject. But +Quadrio might well rest satisfied that the nation which could boast of +its _Fantoccini_, surpassed, and must ever surpass the puny efforts of a +doll-loving people! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [156] Even recently, il Cavaliere Onofrio Boni, in his Eloge of Lanzi, + in naming the three Augustan periods of modern literature, fixes + them, for the Italians, under Leo the Tenth; for the French, under + Louis the Fourteenth, or the Great; and for the English, under + Charles the Second! + + [157] Quadrio, vol. ii. p. 416. + + + + +"POLITICAL RELIGIONISM." + + +In Professor Dugald Stewart's first Dissertation on the Progress of +Philosophy, I find this singular and significant term. It has occasioned +me to reflect on those contests for religion, in which a particular +faith has been made the ostensible pretext, while the secret motive was +usually political. The historians, who view in religious wars only +religion itself, have written large volumes, in which we may never +discover that they have either been a struggle to obtain predominance, +or an expedient to secure it. The hatreds of ambitious men have +disguised their own purposes, while Christianity has borne the odium of +loosening a destroying spirit among mankind; which, had Christianity +never existed, would have equally prevailed in human affairs. Of a moral +malady, it is not only necessary to know the nature, but to designate it +by a right name, that we may not err in our mode of treatment. If we +call that _religious_ which we shall find for the greater part is +_political_, we are likely to be mistaken in the regimen and the cure. + +Fox, in his "Acts and Monuments," writes the martyrology of the +_Protestants_ in three mighty folios; where, in the third, "the tender +mercies" of the Catholics are "cut in wood" for those who might not +otherwise be enabled to read or spell them. Such pictures are +abridgments of long narratives, but they leave in the mind a fulness of +horror. Fox made more than one generation shudder; and his volume, +particularly this third, chained to a reading-desk in the halls of the +great, and in the aisles of churches, often detained the loiterer, as it +furnished some new scene of papistical horrors to paint forth on +returning to his fireside. The protestants were then the martyrs, +because, under Mary, the protestants had been thrown out of power. + +Dodd has opposed to Fox three curious folios, which he calls "The Church +History of England," exhibiting a most abundant martyrology of the +_catholics_, inflicted by the hands of the protestants; who in the +succeeding reign of Elizabeth, after long trepidations and balancings, +were confirmed into power. He grieves over the delusion and seduction of +the black-letter romance of honest John Fox, which he says, "has +obtained a place in protestant churches next to the Bible, while John +Fox himself is esteemed little less than an evangelist."[158] Dodd's +narratives are not less pathetic: for the situation of the catholic, who +had to secrete himself, as well as to suffer, was more adapted for +romantic adventures, than even the melancholy but monotonous story of +the protestants tortured in the cell, or bound to the stake. These +catholics, however, were attempting all sorts of intrigues; and the +saints and martyrs of Dodd, to the parliament of England, were only +traitors and conspirators! + +Heylin, in his history of the _Puritans_ and the _Presbyterians_, +blackens them for political devils. He is the Spagnolet of history, +delighting himself with horrors at which the painter himself must have +started. He tells of their "oppositions" to monarchical and episcopal +government; their "innovations" in the church; and their "embroilments" +of the kingdoms. The sword rages in their hands; treason, sacrilege, +plunder; while "more of the blood of Englishmen had poured like water +within the space of four years, than had been shed in the civil wars of +York and Lancaster in four centuries!" + +Neal opposes a more elaborate history; where these "great and good men," +the puritans and the presbyterians, "are placed among the _reformers_;" +while their fame is blanched into angelic purity. Neal and his party +opined that the protestant had not sufficiently protested, and that the +reformation itself needed to be reformed. They wearied the impatient +Elizabeth and her ardent churchmen; and disputed with the learned James, +and his courtly bishops, about such ceremonial trifles, that the +historian may blush or smile who has to record them. And when the +_puritan_ was thrown out of preferment, and seceded into separation, he +turned into a _presbyter_. Nonconformity was their darling sin, and +their sullen triumph. + +Calamy, in four painful volumes, chronicles the bloodless martyrology of +the two thousand silenced and ejected ministers. Their history is not +glorious, and their heroes are obscure; but it is a domestic tale. When +the second Charles was restored, the _presbyterians_, like every other +faction, were to be amused, if not courted. Some of the king's chaplains +were selected from among them, and preached once. Their hopes were +raised that they should, by some agreement, be enabled to share in that +ecclesiastical establishment which they had so often opposed; and the +bishops met the presbyters in a convocation at the Savoy. A conference +was held between the _high church_, resuming the seat of power, and the +_low church_, now prostrate; that is, between the _old clergy_ who had +recently been mercilessly ejected by the _new_, who in their turn were +awaiting their fate. The conference was closed with arguments by the +weaker, and votes by the stronger. Many curious anecdotes of this +conference have come down to us. The presbyterians, in their last +struggle, petitioned for _indulgence_; but oppressors who had become +petitioners, only showed that they possessed no longer the means of +resistance. This conference was followed up by the _Act of Uniformity_, +which took place on Bartholomew day, August 24, 1652: an act which +ejected Calamy's two thousand ministers from the bosom of the +established church. Bartholomew day with this party was long paralleled, +and perhaps is still, with the dreadful French massacre of that fatal +saint's day. The calamity was rather, however, of a private than of a +public nature. The two thousand ejected ministers were indeed deprived +of their livings; but this was, however, a happier fate than what has +often occurred in these contests for the security of political power. +This _ejection_ was not like the expulsion of the Moriscoes, the best +and most useful subjects of Spain, which was a human sacrifice of half a +million of men, and the proscription of many Jews from that land of +Catholicism; or the massacre of thousands of Huguenots, and the +expulsion of more than a hundred thousand by Louis the Fourteenth from +France. The presbyterian divines were not driven from their fatherland, +and compelled to learn another language than their mother-tongue. +Destitute as divines, they were suffered to remain as citizens; and the +result was remarkable. These divines could not disrobe themselves of +their learning and their piety, while several of them were compelled to +become tradesmen: among these the learned Samuel Chandler, whose +literary productions are numerous, kept a bookseller's shop in the +Poultry. + +Hard as this event proved in its result, it was, however, pleaded, that +"It was but like for like." And that the history of "the like" might not +be curtailed in the telling, opposed to Calamy's chronicle of the two +thousand ejected ministers stands another, in folio magnitude, of the +same sort of chronicle of the clergy of the Church of England, with a +title by no means less pathetic. + +This is Walker's "Attempt towards recovering an Account of the Clergy of +the Church of England who were sequestered, harassed, &c., in the late +Times." Walker is himself astonished at the size of his volume, the +number of his sufferers, and the variety of the sufferings. "Shall the +church," says he, "not have the liberty to preserve the history of her +sufferings, as well as the _separation_ to set forth an account of +theirs? Can Dr. Calamy be acquitted for publishing the history of the +_Bartholomew sufferers_, if I am condemned for writing that of the +_sequestered loyalists_?" He allows that "the number of the ejected +amounts to two thousand," and there were no less than "seven or eight +thousand of the episcopal clergy imprisoned, banished, and sent a +starving," &c. &c. + +Whether the reformed were martyred by the catholics, or the catholics +executed by the reformed; whether the puritans expelled those of the +established church, or the established church ejected the puritans, all +seems reducible to two classes, conformists and non-conformists, or, in +the political style, the administration and the opposition. When we +discover that the heads of all parties are of the same hot temperament, +and observe the same evil conduct in similar situations; when we view +honest old Latimer with his own hands hanging a mendicant friar on a +tree, and, the government changing, the friars binding Latimer to the +stake; when we see the French catholics cutting out the tongues of the +protestants, that they might no longer protest; the haughty Luther +writing submissive apologies to Leo the Tenth and Henry the Eighth for +the scurrility with which he had treated them in his writings, and +finding that his apologies were received with contempt, then retracting +his retractations; when we find that haughtiest of the haughty, John +Knox, when Elizabeth first ascended the throne, crouching and repenting +of having written his famous excommunication against all female +sovereignty; or pulling down the monasteries, from the axiom that when +the rookery was destroyed, the rooks would never return; when we find +his recent apologist admiring, while he apologises for, some +extraordinary proofs of Machiavelian politics, an impenetrable mystery +seems to hang over the conduct of men who profess to be guided by the +bloodless code of Jesus. But try them by a human standard, and treat +them as _politicians_, and the motives once discovered, the actions are +understood! + +Two edicts of Charles the Fifth, in 1555, condemned to death the +Reformed of the Low Countries, even should they return to the catholic +faith, with this exception, however, in favour of the latter, that they +shall not be burnt alive, but that the men shall be beheaded, and the +women buried alive! _Religion_ could not, then, be the real motive of +the Spanish cabinet, for in returning to the ancient faith that point +was obtained; but the truth is, that the Spanish government considered +the reformed as _rebels_, whom it was not safe to re-admit to the rights +of citizenship. The undisguised fact appears in the codicil to the will +of the emperor, when he solemnly declares that he had written to the +Inquisition "to burn and extirpate the heretics," _after trying to make +Christians of them_, because he is convinced that they never can become +sincere catholics; and he acknowledges that he had committed a great +fault in permitting Luther to return free on the faith of his +safe-conduct, as the emperor was not bound to keep a promise with a +heretic. "It is because that I destroyed him not, that heresy has now +become strong, which I am convinced might have been stifled with him in +its birth."[159] The whole conduct of Charles the Fifth in this mighty +revolution was, from its beginning, censured by contemporaries as purely +_political_. Francis the First observed that the emperor, under the +colour of religion, was placing himself at the head of a league to make +his way to a predominant monarchy. "The pretext of religion is no new +thing," writes the Duke of Nevers. "Charles the Fifth had never +undertaken a war against the Protestant princes but with the design of +rendering the Imperial crown hereditary in the house of Austria; and he +has only attacked the electoral princes to ruin them, and to abolish +their right of election. Had it been zeal for the catholic religion, +would he have delayed from 1519 to 1549 to arm? That he might have +extinguished the Lutheran heresy, which he could easily have done in +1526, but he considered that this novelty would serve to divide the +German princes, and he patiently waited till the effect was +realised."[160] + +Good men of both parties, mistaking the nature of these religious wars, +have drawn horrid inferences! The "dragonnades" of Louis XIV. excited +the admiration of Bruyere; and Anquetil, in his "Esprit de la Ligue," +compares the revocation of the Edict of Nantes to a salutary amputation. +The massacre of St. Bartholomew in its own day, and even recently, has +found advocates; a Greek professor at the time asserted that there were +_two classes_ of protestants in France--political and religious; and +that "the late ebullition of public vengeance was solely directed +against the former." Dr. M'Crie, cursing the catholic with a catholic's +curse, execrates "the stale sophistry of this calumniator." But should +we allow that the Greek professor who advocated their national crime was +the wretch the calvinistic doctor describes, yet the nature of things +cannot be altered by the equal violence of Peter Charpentier and Dr. +M'Crie. + +This subject of "Political Religionism" is indeed as nice as it is +curious; _politics_ have been so cunningly worked into the cause of +_religion_, that the parties themselves will never be able to separate +them; and to this moment the most opposite opinions are formed +concerning the same events and the same persons. When public +disturbances broke out at Nismes on the first restoration of the +Bourbons, the protestants, who there are numerous, declared that they +were persecuted for religion, and their cry, echoed by their brethren +the dissenters, resounded in this country. We have not forgotten the +ferment it raised here; much was said, and something was done. Our +minister, however, persisted in declaring that it was a mere _political_ +affair. It is clear that our government was right on the _cause_, and +those zealous complainants wrong, who only observed the _effect_; for as +soon as the Bourbonists had triumphed over the Bonapartists, we heard no +more of those sanguinary persecutions of the protestants of Nismes, of +which a dissenter has just published a large history. It is a curious +fact, that when two writers at the same time were occupied in a Life of +Cardinal Ximenes, Flechier converted the cardinal into a saint, and +every incident in his administration was made to connect itself with his +religious character; Marsollier, a writer very inferior to Flechier, +shows the cardinal merely as a politician. The elegances of Flechier +were soon neglected by the public, and the deep interests of truth soon +acquired, and still retain, for the less elegant writer the attention of +the statesman. + +A modern historian has observed that "the affairs of religion were the +grand fomenters and promoters of the _Thirty Years' War_, which first +brought down the powers of the North to mix in the politics of the +Southern states." The fact is indisputable, but the cause is not so +apparent. Gustavus Adolphus, the vast military genius of his age, had +designed, and was successfully attempting, to oppose the overgrown power +of the imperial house of Austria, which had long aimed at an universal +monarchy in Europe; a circumstance which Philip IV. weakly hinted at to +the world when he placed this motto under his arms--"_Sine ipso factum +est nihil_;" an expression applied to Jesus Christ by St. John! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [158] "Fox's Martyrs," as the book was popularly called, was often + chained to a reading-desk in churches; one is still thus affixed at + Cirencester; it thus received equal honour with the Bible. + + [159] Llorente's "Critical History of the Inquisition." + + [160] Naude, "Considerations Politiques," p. 115. See a curious note + in Hart's "Life of Gustavus Adolphus," ii. 129. + + + + +TOLERATION. + + +An enlightened toleration is a blessing of the last age--it would seem +to have been practised by the Romans, when they did not mistake the +primitive Christians for seditious members of society; and was +inculcated even by Mahomet, in a passage in the Koran, but scarcely +practised by his followers. In modern history it was condemned when +religion was turned into a political contest under the aspiring house of +Austria--and in Spain--and in France. It required a long time before its +nature was comprehended--and to this moment it is far from being clear, +either to the tolerators or the tolerated. + +It does not appear that the precepts or the practice of Jesus and the +apostles inculcate the _compelling_ of any to be Christians;[161] yet an +expression employed in the nuptial parable of the great supper, when the +hospitable lord commanded the servant, finding that he had still room to +accommodate more guests, to go out in the highways and hedges, and +"_compel them to come in, that my house may be filled_," was alleged as +an authority by those catholics who called themselves "the converters," +for using religious force, which, still alluding to the hospitable lord, +they called "a charitable and salutary violence." It was this +circumstance which produced Bayle's "Commentaire Philosophique sur ces +Paroles de Jesus Christ," published under the supposititious name of an +_Englishman_, as printed at Canterbury in 1686, but really at Amsterdam. +It is curious that Locke published his first letter on "Toleration" in +Latin at Gouda, in 1689--the second in 1690--and the third in 1692. +Bayle opened the mind of Locke, and some time after quotes Locke's Latin +letter with high commendation.[162] The caution of both writers in +publishing in foreign places, however, indicates the prudence which it +was deemed necessary to observe in writing in favour of toleration. + +These were the first _philosophical_ attempts; but the earliest +advocates for toleration may be found among the religious +controversialists of a preceding period; it was probably started among +the fugitive sects who had found an asylum in Holland. It was a blessing +which they had gone far to find, and the miserable, reduced to humane +feelings, are compassionate to one another. With us the sect called "the +Independents" had, early in our revolution under Charles the First, +pleaded for the doctrine of religious liberty, and long maintained it +against the presbyterians. Both proved persecutors when they possessed +power. The first of our respectable divines who advocated this cause +were Jeremy Taylor, in his "Discourse on the Liberty of Prophesying," +1647, and Bishop Hall, who had pleaded the cause of _moderation_ in a +discourse about the same period.[163] Locke had no doubt examined all +these writers. The history of opinions is among the most curious of +histories; and I suspect that Bayle was well acquainted with the +pamphlets of our sectarists, who, in their flight to Holland, conveyed +those curiosities of theology, which had cost them their happiness and +their estates: I think he indicates this hidden source of his ideas by +the extraordinary ascription of his book to _an Englishman_, and fixing +the place of its publication at _Canterbury_! + +Toleration has been a vast engine in the hands of modern politicians. It +was established in the United Provinces of Holland, and our numerous +non-conformists took refuge in that asylum for disturbed consciences; it +attracted a valuable community of French refugees; it conducted a colony +of Hebrew fugitives from Portugal; conventicles of Brownists, quakers' +meetings, French churches, and Jewish synagogues, and (had it been +required) Mahometan mosques, in Amsterdam, were the precursors of its +mart, and its exchange; the moment they could preserve their consciences +sacred to themselves, they lived without mutual persecution, and mixed +together as good Dutchmen. + +The excommunicated part of Europe seemed to be the most enlightened, and +it was then considered as a proof of the admirable progress of the human +mind, that Locke and Clarke and Newton corresponded with Leibnitz, and +others of the learned in France and Italy. Some were astonished that +philosophers who differed in their _religious opinions_ should +communicate among themselves with so much toleration.[164] + +It is not, however, clear that had any one of these sects at Amsterdam +obtained predominance, which was sometimes attempted, they would have +granted to others the toleration they participated in common. The +infancy of a party is accompanied by a political weakness which disables +it from weakening others. + +The catholic in this country pleads for toleration; in his own he +refuses to grant it. Here, the presbyterian, who had complained of +persecution, once fixed in the seat of power, abrogated every kind of +independence among others. When the flames consumed Servetus at Geneva, +the controversy began, whether the civil magistrate might punish +heretics, which Beza, the associate of Calvin, maintained; he triumphed +in the small predestinating city of Geneva; but the book he wrote was +fatal to the protestants a few leagues distant, among a majority of +catholics. Whenever the protestants complained of the persecutions they +suffered, the catholics, for authority and sanction, never failed to +appeal to the volume of their own Beza. + +M. Necker de Saussure has recently observed on "what trivial +circumstances the change or the preservation of the established religion +in different districts of Europe has depended!" When the Reformation +penetrated into Switzerland, the government of the principality of +Neufchatel, wishing to allow liberty of conscience to all their +subjects, invited each parish to vote "for or against the adoption of +the new worship; and in all the parishes, except two, the majority of +suffrages declared in favour of the protestant communion." The +inhabitants of the small village of Cressier had also assembled; and +forming an even number, there happened to be an equality of votes for +and against the change of religion. A shepherd being absent, tending +the flocks on the hills, they summoned him to appear and decide this +important question: when, having no liking to innovation, he gave his +voice in favour of the existing form of worship; and this parish +remained catholic, and is so at this day, in the heart of the protestant +cantons. + +I proceed to some facts which I have arranged for the history of +Toleration. In the Memoirs of James the Second, when that monarch +published "The Declaration for Liberty of Conscience," the catholic +reasons and liberalises like a modern philosopher: he accuses "the +jealousy of our clergy, who had degraded themselves into intriguers; and +like mechanics in a trade, who are afraid of nothing so much as +interlopers--they had therefore induced indifferent persons to imagine +that their earnest contest was not about their faith, but about their +temporal possessions. It was incongruous that a church, which does not +pretend to be infallible, should constrain persons, under heavy +penalties and punishments, to believe as she does: they delighted, he +asserted, to hold an iron rod over dissenters and catholics; so sweet +was dominion, that the very thought of others participating in their +freedom made them deny the very doctrine they preached." The chief +argument the catholic urged on this occasion was "the reasonableness of +repealing laws which made men liable to the greatest punishments for +that it was not in their power to remedy, for that no man could force +himself to believe what he really did not believe."[165] + +Such was the rational language of the most bigoted of zealots!--The fox +can bleat like the lamb. At the very moment James the Second was +uttering this mild expostulation, in his own heart he had anathematised +the nation; for I have seen some of the king's private papers, which +still exist; they consist of communications, chiefly by the most bigoted +priests, with the wildest projects, and most infatuated prophecies and +dreams, of restoring the true catholic faith in England! Had the +Jesuit-led monarch retained the English throne, the language he now +addressed to the nation would have been no longer used; and in that case +it would have served his protestant subjects. He asked for toleration, +to become intolerant! He devoted himself, not to the hundredth part of +the English nation; and yet he was surprised that he was left one +morning without an army! When the catholic monarch issued this +declaration for "liberty of conscience," the Jekyll of his day observed, +that "it was but scaffolding: they intend to build another house, and +when that house (Popery) is built, they will take down the +scaffold."[166] + +When presbytery was our lord, they who had endured the tortures of +persecution, and raised such sharp outcries for freedom, of all men were +the most intolerant: hardly had they tasted of the Circean cup of +dominion, ere they were transformed into the most hideous or the most +grotesque monsters of political power. To their eyes toleration was an +hydra, and the dethroned bishops had never so vehemently declaimed +against what, in ludicrous rage, one of the high-flying presbyterians +called "a cursed intolerable toleration!" They advocated the rights of +persecution; and "shallow Edwards," as Milton calls the author of "The +Gangraena," published a treatise _against toleration_. They who had so +long complained of "the licensers," now sent all the books they +condemned to penal fires. Prynne now vindicated the very doctrines under +which he himself had so severely suffered; assuming the highest possible +power of civil government, even to the infliction of death on its +opponents. Prynne lost all feeling for the ears of others! + +The idea of toleration was not intelligible for too long a period in the +annals of Europe: no parties probably could conceive the idea of +toleration in the struggle for predominance. Treaties are not proffered +when conquest is the concealed object. Men were immolated! a massacre +was a sacrifice! medals were struck to commemorate these holy +persecutions![167] The destroying angel, holding in one hand a cross, +and in the other a sword, with these words--_Vgonottorum Strages_, +1572--"The massacre of the Huguenots"--proves that toleration will not +agree with that date.[168] Castelnau, a statesman and a humane man, was +at a loss how to decide on a point of the utmost importance to France. +In 1532 they first began to burn the Lutherans or Calvinists, and to cut +out the tongues of all protestants, "that they might no longer protest." +According to Father Paul, fifty thousand persons had perished in the +Netherlands, by different tortures, for religion. But a change in the +religion of the state, Castelnau considered, would occasion one in the +government: he wondered how it happened, that the more they punished +with death, it only increased the number of the victims: martyrs +produced proselytes. As a statesman, he looked round the great field of +human actions in the history of the past; there he discovered that the +Romans were more enlightened in their actions than ourselves; that +Trajan commanded Pliny the younger not to molest the Christians for +their _religion_, but should their conduct endanger the state, to put +down _illegal assemblies_; that Julian the Apostate expressly forbad the +_execution_ of the Christians, who then imagined that they were securing +their salvation by martyrdom; but he ordered all their goods to be +_confiscated_--a severe punishment--by which Julian prevented more than +he could have done by persecutions. "All this," he adds, "we read in +ecclesiastical history."[169] Such were the sentiments of Castelnau, in +1560. Amidst perplexities of state necessity, and of our common +humanity, the notion of _toleration_ had not entered into the views of +the statesman. It was also at this time that De Sainctes, a great +controversial writer, declared, that had the fires lighted for the +destruction of Calvinism not been extinguished, the sect had not spread! +About half a century subsequent to this period, Thuanus was, perhaps, +the first great mind who appears to have insinuated to the French +monarch and his nation, that they might live at peace with heretics; by +which avowal he called down on himself the haughty indignation of Rome, +and a declaration that the man who spoke in favour of heretics must +necessarily be one of the first class. Hear the afflicted historian: +"Have men no compassion, after forty years passed full of continual +miseries? Have they no fear after the loss of the Netherlands, +occasioned by the frantic obstinacy which marked the times? I grieve +that such sentiments should have occasioned my book to have been +examined with a rigour that amounts to calumny." Such was the language +of Thuanus, in a letter written in 1606;[170] which indicates an +approximation to _toleration_, but which term was not probably yet found +in any dictionary. We may consider, as so many attempts at toleration, +the great national synod of Dort, whose history is amply written by +Brandt; and the mitigating protestantism of Laud, to approximate to the +ceremonies of the Roman church; but the synod, after holding about two +hundred sessions, closed, dividing men into universalists and +semi-universalists, supralapsarians and sublapsarians! The _reformed_ +themselves produced the _remonstrants_; and Laud's ceremonies ended in +placing the altar eastward, and in raising the scaffold for the monarchy +and the hierarchy. Error is circuitous when it will do what it has not +yet learnt. They were pressing for conformity to do that which, a +century afterwards, they found could only be done by _toleration_. + +The _secret history of toleration_ among certain parties has been +disclosed to us by a curious document, from that religious Machiavel, +the fierce ascetic republican John Knox, a calvinistical Pope. "While +the posterity of Abraham," says that mighty and artful reformer, "were +_few in number_, and while they sojourned in _different countries_, they +were merely required to avoid all participation in the idolatrous rites +of the heathen; but _as soon as they prospered into a kingdom_, and had +obtained _possession of Canaan_, they were strictly charged to suppress +idolatry, and to destroy all the monuments and incentives. The same duty +was _now_ incumbent on the professors of the true religion in Scotland. +Formerly, when not more than _ten persons in a county_ were enlightened, +it would have been _foolishness_ to have demanded of the nobility the +suppression of idolatry. But _now_, when knowledge had been increased," +&c.[171] Such are the men who cry out for toleration during their state +of political weakness, but who cancel the bond by which they hold their +tenure whenever they "obtain possession of Canaan." The only commentary +on this piece of the secret history of _toleration_ is the acute remark +of Swift:--"We are fully convinced that we shall always tolerate them, +but not that they will tolerate us." + +The truth is that TOLERATION was allowed by none of the parties! and I +will now show the dilemmas into which each party thrust itself. + +When the kings of England would forcibly have established episcopacy in +Scotland, the presbyters passed an act _against the toleration of +dissenters from presbyterian doctrines and discipline_; and thus, as +Guthrie observes, they were committing the same violence on the +consciences of their brethren which they opposed in the king. The +presbyterians contrived their famous _covenant_ to dispossess the +royalists of their livings; and the independents, who assumed the +principle of toleration in their very name, shortly after enforced what +they called the _engagement_, to eject the presbyterians! In England, +where the dissenters were ejected, their great advocate Calamy complains +that the dissenters were only making use of the same arguments which the +most eminent reformers had done in their noble defence of the +reformation against the papists; while the arguments of the established +church against the dissenters were the same which were urged by the +papists against the protestant reformation![172] When the presbyterians +were our masters, and preached up the doctrine of passive obedience in +spiritual matters to the civil power, it was unquestionably passing a +self-condemnation on their own recent opposition and detraction of the +former episcopacy. Whenever men act from a secret motive entirely +contrary to their ostensible one, such monstrous results will happen; +and as extremes will join, however opposite they appear in their +beginnings, John Knox and Father Petre, in office, would have equally +served James the Second as confessor and prime minister! + +A fact relating to the famous Justus Lipsius proves the difficulty of +forming a clear notion of TOLERATION. This learned man, after having +been ruined by the religious wars of the Netherlands, found an +honourable retreat in a professor's chair at Leyden, and without +difficulty abjured papacy. He published some political works: and +adopted as his great principle, that only _one religion_ should be +allowed to a people, and that no clemency should be granted to +non-conformists, who, he declares, should be pursued by sword and fire: +in this manner a single member would be cut off to preserve the body +sound. _Ure, seca_--are his words. Strange notions these in a protestant +republic; and, in fact, in Holland it was approving of all the horrors +of their oppressors, the Duke d'Alva and Philip the Second, from which +they had hardly recovered.[173] It was a principle by which we must +inevitably infer, says Bayle, that in Holland no other mode of religious +belief but one sect should be permitted; and that those Pagans who had +hanged the missionaries of the gospel had done what they ought. Lipsius +found himself sadly embarrassed when refuted by Theodore Cornhert,[174] +the firm advocate of political and religious freedom, and at length +Lipsius, that protestant with a catholic heart, was forced to eat his +words, like Pistol his onion, declaring that the two objectionable +words, _ure_, _seca_, were borrowed from medicine, meaning not literally +_fire_ and _sword_, but a strong efficacious remedy, one of those +powerful medicines to expel poison. Jean de Serres, a warm Huguenot, +carried the principle of TOLERATION so far in his "Inventaire generale +de l'Histoire de France," as to blame Charles Martel for compelling the +Frisans, whom he had conquered, to adopt Christianity! "A pardonable +zeal," he observes, "in a warrior; but in fact the minds of men cannot +be gained over by arms, nor that religion forced upon them, which must +be introduced into the hearts of men by reason." It is curious to see a +protestant, in his zeal for toleration, blaming a king for forcing +idolaters to become Christians; and to have found an opportunity to +express his opinions in the dark history of the eighth century, is an +instance how historians incorporate their passions in their works, and +view ancient facts with modern eyes. + +The protestant cannot grant toleration to the catholic, unless the +catholic ceases to be a papist; and the Arminian church, which opened +its wide bosom to receive every denomination of Christians, nevertheless +were forced to exclude the papists, for their passive obedience to the +supremacy of the Roman pontiff. The catholic has curiously told us, on +this word _toleration_, that _Ce mot devient fort en usage a mesure que +le nombre des tolerans augmente_.[175] It was a word which seemed of +recent introduction, though the book is modern! The protestants have +disputed much how far they might tolerate, or whether they should +tolerate at all; "a difficulty," triumphantly exclaims the catholic, +"which they are not likely ever to settle, while they maintain their +principles of pretended reformation; the consequences which naturally +follow excite horror to the Christian. It is the weak who raise such +outcries for toleration; the strong find authority legitimate." + +A religion which admits not of _toleration_ cannot be safely tolerated, +if there is any chance of its obtaining a political ascendancy. + +When Priscillian and six of his followers were condemned to torture and +execution for asserting that the three persons of the Trinity were to be +considered as three different _acceptions_ of the same being, Saint +Ambrose and Saint Martin asserted the cause of offended humanity, and +refused to communicate with the bishops who had called out for the blood +of the Priscillianists; but Cardinal Baronius, the annalist of the +church, was greatly embarrassed to explain how men of real purity could +abstain from _applauding_ the ardent zeal of the _persecution_: he +preferred to give up the saints rather than to allow of toleration--for +he acknowledges that the toleration which these saints would have +allowed was not exempt from sin.[176] + +In the preceding article, "Political Religionism," we have shown how to +provide against the possible evil of the _tolerated_ becoming the +_tolerators_! Toleration has been suspected of indifference to religion +itself; but with sound minds, it is only an indifference to the +logomachies of theology--things "not of God, but of man," that have +perished, and that are perishing around us! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [161] Bishop Barlow's "Several Miscellaneous and Weighty Cases of + Conscience Resolved," 1692. His "Case of a Toleration in Matters of + Religion," addressed to Robert Boyle, p. 39. This volume was not + intended to have been given to the world, a circumstance which does + not make it the less curious. + + [162] In the article _Sancterius_. Note F. + + [163] Recent writers among our sectarists assert that Dr. Owen was + the _first_ who wrote in favour of toleration, in 1648! Another + claims the honour for John Goodwin, the chaplain of Oliver Cromwell, + who published one of his obscure polemical tracts in 1644, among a + number of other persons who, at that crisis, did not venture to + prefix their names to pleas in favour of toleration, so delicate and + so obscure did this subject then appear! In 1651, they translated + the liberal treatise of Grotius, _De Imperio Summarum Potestatum + circa Sacra_, under the title of "The Authority of the Highest + Powers about Sacred Things." London, 8vo, 1651. To the honour of + Grotius, the first of philosophical reformers, be it recorded, that + he displeased both parties! + + [164] J. P. Rabaut, "sur la Revolution Francaise," p. 27. + + [165] "Life of James the Second, from his own Papers," ii 114. + + [166] This was a Baron Wallop. From Dr. H. Sampson's Manuscript Diary. + + [167] It is curious to observe that the catholics were afterwards + ashamed of these indiscretions; they were unwilling to own that + there were any medals which commemorate massacres. Thuanus, in his + 53rd book, has minutely described them. The medals, however, have + become excessively scarce; but copies inferior to the originals have + been sold. They had also pictures on similar subjects, accompanied + by insulting inscriptions, which latter they have effaced, sometimes + very imperfectly. See Hollis's "Memoirs," p. 312-14. This enthusiast + advertised in the papers to request travellers to procure them. + + [168] The _Sala Regia_ of the Vatican has still upon its walls a + painting by Vasari of this massacre, among the other important + events in the history of the Popes similarly commemorated. + + [169] "Memoires de Michel de Castelnau," liv. i. c. 4. + + [170] "Life of Thuanus, by the Rev. J. Collinson," p. 115. + + [171] Dr. M'Crie's "Life of John Knox," ii. 122. + + [172] I quote from an unpublished letter, written so late as in 1749, + addressed to the author of "The Free and Candid Disquisition," by + the Rev. Thomas Allen, rector of Kettering, Northamptonshire. + However extravagant his doctrine appears to us, I suspect that it + exhibits the concealed sentiments of even some protestant churchmen! + This rector of Kettering attributes the growth of schism to the + _negligence_ of the clergy, and seems to have persecuted both the + archbishops, "to his detriment," as he tells us, with singular plans + of reform borrowed from monastic institutions. He wished to revive + the practice inculcated by a canon of the counsel of Laodicea of + having prayers _ad horam nonam et ad vesperam_--prayers twice a day + in the churches. But his grand project take in his own words:-- + + "I let the archbishop know that I had composed an _irenicon_, + wherein I prove the necessity of an ecclesiastical _power over + consciences_ in matters of religion, which utterly silences their + arguments who _plead so hard for toleration_. I took my scheme from + 'A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Polity,' wherein the authority of the + civil magistrate over the consciences of subjects in matters of + external religion is asserted; _the mischiefs and inconveniences of + toleration_ are represented, and all pretences pleaded in behalf of + _liberty of conscience_ are fully answered. If this book were + reprinted and considered, the king would know his power and the + people their duty." + + The rector of Kettering seems not to have known that the author of + this "Discourse on Ecclesiastical Polity" was the notorious Parker, + immortalised by the satire of Marvell. This political apostate, from + a republican and presbyterian, became a furious advocate for + _arbitrary government_ in church and state! He easily won the favour + of James the Second, who made him Bishop of Oxford! His principles + were so violent that Father Petre, the confessor of James, made sure + of him! This letter of the rector of Kettering, in adopting the + system of such a _catholic_ bishop, confirms my suspicion that + _toleration_ is condemned as an evil among some protestants! + + [173] The cruelties practised by the Protestant against the Catholic + party are pictured and described in Arnoudt Van Geluwe's book, "Over + de Ontledinghe van dry verscheyden Niew-Ghereformeerde Martelaers + Boecken," published at Antwerp in 1656. + + [174] Cornhert was one of the fathers of Dutch literature, and even + of their arts. He was the composer of the great national air of + William of Orange; he was too a famous engraver, the master of + Goltzius. On his death-bed he was still writing against the + _persecution of heretics_. + + [175] "Dictionnaire de Trevoux," _ad vocem_ Tolerance. Printed in 1771. + + [176] Sismondi, "Hist. des Francais," i. 41. The character of the + _first person_ who introduced _civil_ persecution into the Christian + church has been described by Sulpicius Severus. See Dr. Maclaine's + note in his translation of Mosheim's "Ecclesiastical History," vol. + i. 428. + + + + +APOLOGY FOR THE PARISIAN MASSACRE. + + +An original document now lying before me, the autograph letter of +Charles the Ninth, will prove, that the unparalleled massacre, called by +the world _religious_, was, in the French cabinet, considered merely as +_political_; one of those revolting state expedients which a pretended +instant necessity has too often inflicted on that part of a nation +which, like the undercurrent, subterraneously works its way, and runs +counter to the great stream, till the critical moment arrives when one +or the other must cease. + +The massacre began on St. Bartholomew day, in August, 1572, lasted in +France during seven days: that awful event interrupted the +correspondence of our court with that of France. A long silence ensued; +the one did not dare to tell the tale which the other could not listen +to. But sovereigns know how to convert a mere domestic event into a +political expedient. Charles the Ninth, on the birth of a daughter, sent +over an ambassador extraordinary to request Elizabeth to stand as +sponsor: by this the French monarch obtained a double purpose; it served +to renew his interrupted intercourse with the silent queen, and alarmed +the French protestants by abating their hopes, which long rested on the +aid of the English queen. + +The following letter, dated 8th February, 1573, is addressed by the king +to La Motte Fenelon, his resident ambassador at London. The king in this +letter minutely details a confidential intercourse with his mother, +Catharine of Medicis, who, perhaps, may have dictated this letter to the +secretary, although signed by the king with his own hand.[177] Such +minute particulars could only have been known to herself. The Earl of +_Wolchester_ (Worcester) was now taking his departure, having come to +Paris on the baptism of the princess; and accompanied by Walsingham, our +resident ambassador, after taking leave of Charles, had the following +interview with Catharine de Medicis. An interview with the young monarch +was usually concluded by a separate audience with his mother, who +probably was still the directress of his councils. + +The French court now renewed their favourite project of marrying the +Duke d'Alencon with Elizabeth. They had long wished to settle this +turbulent spirit, and the negotiation with Elizabeth had been broken off +in consequence of the massacre at Paris. They were somewhat uneasy lest +he should share the fate of his brother, the Duke of Anjou, who had not +long before been expedited on the same fruitless errand; and Elizabeth +had already objected to the disparity of their ages, the Duke of +Alencon, being only seventeen, and the maiden queen six-and-thirty; but +Catharine observed that Alencon was only one year younger than his +brother, against whom this objection had not occurred to Elizabeth, for +he had been sent back upon another pretext--some difficulty which the +queen had contrived about his performing mass in his own house. + +After Catharine de Medicis had assured the Earl of Worcester of her +great affection for the Queen of England, and her and the king's strict +intention to preserve it, and that they were therefore desirous of this +proposed marriage taking place, she took this opportunity of inquiring +of the Earl of Worcester the cause of the queen his mistress's marked +_coolness toward them_. The narrative becomes now dramatic. + +"On this Walsingham, who kept always close by the side of the count, +here took on himself to answer, acknowledging that the said count had +indeed been charged to speak on this head; and he then addressed some +words in English to Worcester. And afterwards the count gave to my lady +and mother to understand, that the queen his mistress had been waiting +for an answer on two articles; the one concerning religion, and the +other for an interview. My lady and mother instantly replied, that she +had never heard any articles mentioned, on which she would not have +immediately satisfied the Sieur Walsingham, who then took up the word; +first observing that the count was not accustomed to business of this +nature, but that he himself knew for certain that the cause of this +negotiation for marriage not being more advanced, was really these two +unsettled points: that his mistress still wished that the point of +religion should be cleared up; for that they concluded in England that +this business was designed only to amuse and never to be completed (as +happened in that of my brother the Duke of Anjou); and the other point +concerned the interview between my brother the Duke of Alencon; because +some letters which may have been written between the parties[178] in +such sort of matters, could not have the same force which the sight and +presence of both the persons would undoubtedly have. But, he added, +_another thing, which had also greatly retarded this business, was what +had happened lately in this kingdom_; and during such troubles, +proceeding from religion, it could not have been well timed to have +spoken with them concerning the said marriage; and that himself and +those of his nation had been in great fear in this kingdom, thinking +that we intended to extirpate all those of the said religion. On this, +my lady and mother answered him instantly and in order: That she was +certain that the queen his mistress could never like nor value a prince +who had not his religion at heart; and whoever would desire to have this +otherwise, would be depriving him of what we hold dearest in this world; +That he might recollect that my brother had always insisted on the +freedom of religion, and that it was from the difficulty of its public +exercise, which he always insisted on, which had broken off this +negotiation: the Duke d'Alencon will be satisfied when this point is +agreed on, and will hasten over to the queen, persuaded that she will +not occasion him the pain and the shame of passing over the seas without +happily terminating this affair. In regard to _what has occurred these +latter days_, that he must have seen how it happened by the fault of the +chiefs of those who remained here; for when the late admiral was +treacherously wounded at Notre Dame, he knew the affliction it threw us +into (fearful that it might have occasioned great troubles in this +kingdom), and the diligence we used to verify judicially whence it +proceeded; and the verification was nearly finished, when they were so +forgetful, as to raise a conspiracy, to attempt the lives of myself, my +lady and mother, and my brothers, and endanger the whole state; which +was the cause, that to avoid this, I was compelled, to my very great +regret, to permit what had happened in this city; but as he had +witnessed, I gave orders to stop, as soon as possible, this fury of the +people, and place every one in repose. On this, the Sieur Walsingham +replied to my lady and mother, that the exercise of the said religion +had been interdicted in this kingdom. To which she also answered, that +this had not been done but for a good and holy purpose; namely, that the +fury of the catholic people might the sooner be allayed, who else had +been reminded of the past calamities, and would again have been let +loose against those of the said religion, had they continued to preach +in this kingdom. Also should these once more fix on any chiefs, which I +will prevent as much as possible, giving him clearly and pointedly to +understand, that what is done here is much the same as what has been +done, and is now practised by the queen his mistress in her kingdom. For +she permits the exercise but of one religion, although there are many of +her people who are of another; and having also, during her reign, +punished those of her subjects whom she found seditious and rebellious. +It is true this has been done by the laws, but I indeed could not act in +the same manner; for finding myself in such imminent peril, and the +conspiracy raised against me and mine, and my kingdom, ready to be +executed, I had no time to arraign and try in open justice as much as I +wished, but was constrained, to my very great regret, to strike the blow +(lascher le main) in what has been done in this city." + +This letter of Charles the Ninth, however, does not here conclude. "My +lady and mother" plainly acquaints the Earl of Worcester and Sir Francis +Walsingham, that her son had never interfered between their mistress and +her subjects, and in return expects the same favour; although, by +accounts they had received from England, many ships were arming to +assist their rebels at Rochelle. "My lady and mother" advances another +step, and declares that Elizabeth by treaty is bound to assist her son +against his rebellious subjects; and they expect, at least, that +Elizabeth will not only stop these armaments in all her ports, but +exemplarily punish the offenders. I resume the letter. + +"And on hearing this, the said Walsingham changed colour, and appeared +somewhat astonished, as my lady and mother well perceived by his face; +and on this he requested the Count of Worcester to mention the order +which he knew the queen his mistress had issued to prevent these people +from assisting those of La Rochelle; but that in England, so numerous +were the seamen and others who gained their livelihood by maritime +affairs, and who would starve without the entire freedom of the seas, +that it was impossible to interdict them." + +Charles the Ninth encloses the copy of a letter he had received from +London, in part agreeing with an account the ambassador had sent to the +king, of an English expedition nearly ready to sail for La Rochelle, to +assist his rebellious subjects. He is still further alarmed, that +Elizabeth foments the _wartegeux_, and assists underhand the +discontented. He urges the ambassador to hasten to the queen, to impart +these complaints in the most friendly way, as he knows the ambassador +can well do, and as, no doubt, Walsingham will have already prepared her +to receive. Charles entreats Elizabeth to prove her good faith by deeds +and not by words; to act openly on a point which admits of no +dissimulation. The best proof of her friendship will be the marriage; +and the ambassador, after opening this business to her chief ministers, +who the king thinks are desirous of this projected marriage, is then +"to acquaint the queen with what has passed between her ambassadors and +myself." + +Such is the first letter on English affairs which Charles the Ninth +despatched to his ambassador, after an awful silence of six months, +during which time La Motte Fenelon was not admitted into the presence of +Elizabeth. The apology for the massacre of St. Bartholomew comes from +the king himself, and contains several remarkable expressions, which are +at least divested of that style of bigotry and exultation we might have +expected: on the contrary, this sanguinary and inconsiderate young +monarch, as he is represented, writes in a subdued and sorrowing tone, +lamenting his hard necessity, regretting he could not have recourse to +the laws, and appealing to others for his efforts to check the fury of +the people, which he himself had let loose. Catharine de Medicis, who +had governed him from the tender age of eleven years, when he ascended +the throne, might unquestionably have persuaded him that a conspiracy +was on the point of explosion. Charles the Ninth died young, and his +character is unfavourably viewed by the historians. In the voluminous +correspondence which I have examined, could we judge by state letters of +the character of him who subscribes them, we must form a very different +notion; they are so prolix, and so earnest, that one might conceive they +were dictated by the young monarch himself! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [177] All the numerous letters which I have seen of Charles the + Ninth, now in the possession of Mr. Murray, are carefully signed by + himself, and I have also observed _postscripts_ written with his own + hand: they are always countersigned by his secretary. I mention this + circumstance, because, in the _Dictionnaire Historique_, it is said + that Charles, who died young, was so given up to the amusements of + his age, that he would not even sign his despatches, and introduced + the custom of secretaries subscribing for the king. This voluminous + correspondence shows the falsity of this statement. History is too + often composed of popular tales of this stamp. + + [178] These _love-letters_ of Alencon to our Elizabeth are noticed + by Camden, who observes, that the queen became wearied by receiving + so many; and to put an end to this trouble, she consented that the + young duke should come over, conditionally, that he should not be + offended if her suitor should return home suitless. + + + + +PREDICTION. + + +In a curious treatise on "Divination," or the knowledge of future events, +Cicero has preserved a complete account of the state-contrivances which +were practised by the Roman government to instil among the people those +hopes and fears by which they regulated public opinion. The pagan creed, +now become obsolete and ridiculous, has occasioned this treatise to be +rarely consulted; it remains, however, as a chapter in the history of +man! + +To these two books of Cicero on "Divination," perhaps a third might be +added, on POLITICAL and MORAL PREDICTION. The principles which may even +raise it into a science are self-evident; they are drawn from the heart +of man, and they depend on the nature and connexion of human events! We +presume we shall demonstrate the positive existence of such a faculty; +a faculty which Lord Bacon describes of "making things FUTURE and REMOTE +AS PRESENT." The aruspex, the augur, and the astrologer have vanished +with their own superstitions; but the moral and the political predictor, +proceeding on principles authorised by nature and experience, has become +more skilful in his observations on the phenomena of human history; and +it has often happened that a tolerable philosopher has not made an +indifferent prophet. + +No great political or moral revolution has occurred which has not been +accompanied by its _prognostic_; and men of a philosophic cast of mind +in their retirement, freed from the delusions of parties and of sects, +at once intelligent in the _quicquid agunt homines_, while they are +withdrawn from their conflicting interests, have rarely been confounded +by the astonishment which overwhelms those who, absorbed in active life, +are the mere creatures of sensation, agitated by the shadows of truth, +the unsubstantial appearances of things! Intellectual nations are +advancing in an eternal circle of events and passions which succeed each +other, and the last is necessarily connected with its antecedent; the +solitary force of some fortuitous incident only can interrupt this +concatenated progress of human affairs. + +That every great event has been accompanied by a presage or prognostic, +has been observed by Lord Bacon. "The shepherds of the people should +understand the _prognostics of state tempests_; hollow blasts of wind +seemingly at a distance, and secret swellings of the sea, often precede +a storm." Such were the prognostics discerned by the politic Bishop +Williams in Charles the First's time, who clearly foresaw and predicted +the final success of the Puritanic party in our country: attentive to +his own security, he abandoned the government and sided with the rising +opposition, at the moment when such a change in public affairs was by no +means apparent.[179] + +In this spirit of foresight our contemplative antiquary Dugdale must +have anticipated the scene which was approaching in 1641, in the +destruction of our ancient monuments in cathedral churches. He hurried +on his itinerant labours of taking draughts and transcribing +inscriptions, as he says, "to preserve them for future and better +times." Posterity owes to the prescient spirit of Dugdale the ancient +Monuments of England, which bear the marks of the haste, as well as the +zeal, which have perpetuated them. + +Continental writers formerly employed a fortunate expression, when they +wished to have an _Historia Reformationis ante Reformationem_: this +history of the Reformation would have commenced at least a century +before the Reformation itself! A letter from Cardinal Julian to Pope +Eugenius the Fourth, written a century before Luther appeared, clearly +predicts the Reformation and its consequences. He observed that the +minds of men were ripe for something tragical; he felt the axe striking +at the root, and the tree beginning to bend, and that his party, instead +of propping it, were hastening its fall.[180] In England, Sir Thomas +More was not less prescient in his views; for when his son Roper was +observing to him that the Catholic religion, under "the Defender of the +Faith," was in a most flourishing state, the answer of More was an +evidence of political foresight--"Truth, it is, son Roper! and yet I +pray God that we may not live to see the day that we would gladly be at +league and composition with heretics, to let them have their churches +quietly to themselves, so that they would be contented to let us have +ours quietly to ourselves." Whether our great chancellor predicted from +a more intimate knowledge of the king's character, or from some private +circumstances which may not have been recorded for our information, of +which I have an obscure suspicion, remains to be ascertained. The minds +of men of great political sagacity were unquestionably at that moment +full of obscure indications of the approaching change; Erasmus, when at +Canterbury before the tomb of Becket, observing it loaded with a vast +profusion of jewels, wished that those had been distributed among the +poor, and that the shrine had been only adorned with boughs and flowers; +"For," said he, "those who have heaped up all this mass of treasure will +one day be plundered, and fall a prey to those who are in power;"--a +prediction literally fulfilled about twenty years after it was made. The +unknown author of the Visions of Piers Ploughman, who wrote in the reign +of Edward the Third,[181] surprised the world by a famous prediction of +_the fall of the religious houses from the hand of a king_.[182] The +event was realised, two hundred years afterwards, by our Henry the +Eighth. The protestant writers have not scrupled to declare that in this +instance he was _divino numine afflatus_. But moral and political +prediction is not inspiration; the one may be wrought out by man, the +other descends from God. The same principle which led Erasmus to predict +that those who were "in power" would destroy the rich shrines, because +no other class of men in society could mate with so mighty a body as the +monks, conducted the author of Piers Ploughman to the same conclusion; +and since power only could accomplish that great purpose, he fixed on +the highest as the most likely; and thus the wise prediction was, so +long after, literally accomplished! + +Sir Walter Rawleigh foresaw the future consequences of the separatists +and the sectaries in the national church, and the very scene his +imagination raised in 1530 has been exhibited, to the letter of his +description, two centuries after the prediction! His memorable words +are--"Time will even bring it to pass, if it were not resisted, that God +would be _turned out of churches_ into _barns_, and from thence again +into the _fields_ and _mountains_, and under _hedges_--all order of +discipline and church government left to _newness of opinion_ and men's +fancies, and _as many kinds of religion_ spring up as there are parish +churches within England." We are struck by the profound genius of +Tacitus, who clearly foresaw the calamities which so long ravaged Europe +on the fall of the Roman Empire, in a work written five hundred years +before the event! In that sublime anticipation of the future, he +observed--"When the Romans shall be hunted out from those countries +which they have conquered, what will then happen? The revolted people, +freed from their master oppressor, will not be able to subsist without +destroying their neighbours, and the most cruel wars will exist among +all these nations." + +We are told that Solon at Athens, contemplating on the port and citadel +of Munychia, suddenly exclaimed, "How blind is man to futurity! Could +the Athenians foresee what mischief this will do their city, they would +even eat it with their own teeth to get rid of it!"--a prediction +verified more than two hundred years afterwards! Thales desired to be +buried in an obscure quarter of Milesia, observing that that very spot +would in time be the forum. Charlemagne, in his old age, observing from +the window of a castle a Norman descent on his coast, tears started in +the eyes of the aged monarch. He predicted that since they dared to +threaten his dominions while he was yet living, what would they do when +he should be no more!--a melancholy prediction, says De Foix, of their +subsequent incursions, and of the protracted calamities of the French +nation during a whole century! + +There seems to be something in minds which take in extensive views of +human nature which serves them as a kind of divination, and the +consciousness of this faculty has even been asserted by some. Cicero +appeals to Atticus how he had always judged of the affairs of the +republic as a good diviner; and that its overthrow had happened as he +had foreseen fourteen years before.[183] Cicero had not only predicted +what happened in his own times, but also what occurred long after, +according to the testimony of Cornelius Nepos. The philosopher, indeed, +affects no secret revelation, nor visionary second-sight; he honestly +tells us that this art had been acquired merely by study and the +administration of public affairs, while he reminds his friend of several +remarkable instances of his successful predictions. "I do not divine +human events by the arts practised by the augurs, but I use other +signs." Cicero then expresses himself with the guarded obscurity of a +philosopher who could not openly ridicule the prevailing superstitions; +but we perfectly comprehend the nature of his "signs" when, in the great +pending event of the rival conflicts of Pompey and of Caesar, he shows +the means he used for his purpose. "On one side I consider the humour +and genius of Caesar, and on the other the condition and the manner of +civil wars."[184] In a word, the political diviner foretold events by +their dependence on general causes, while the moral diviner, by his +experience of the personal character, anticipated the actions of the +individual. Others, too, have asserted the possession of this faculty. +Du Vair, a famous chancellor of France, imagined the faculty was +intuitive with him: by his own experience he had observed the results of +this curious and obscure faculty, and at a time when the history of the +human mind was so imperfectly comprehended, it is easy to account for +the apparent egotism of this grave and dignified character. "Born," says +he, "with constitutional infirmity, a mind and body but ill adapted to +be laborious, with a most treacherous memory, enjoying no gift of +nature, yet able at all times to exercise a sagacity so great that I do +not know, since I have reached manhood, that anything of importance has +happened to the state, to the public, or to myself in particular, which +I had not foreseen."[185] This faculty seems to be described by a +remarkable expression employed by Thucydides in his character of +Themistocles, of which the following is given as a close translation: +"By a species of sagacity peculiarly his own, for which he was in no +degree indebted either to early education or after study, he was +supereminently happy in forming a prompt judgment in matters that +admitted but little time for deliberation; at the same time that he far +surpassed all in his _deductions of the future from the_ PAST, or was +the best _guesser of the future_ from the past."[186] Should this +faculty of moral and political prediction be ever considered as a +science, we can even furnish it with a denomination; for the writer of +the Life of Sir Thomas Browne prefixed to his works, in claiming the +honour of it for that philosopher, calls it "the Stochastic," a term +derived from the Greek and from archery, meaning "to shoot at a mark." +This eminent genius, it seems, often "hit the white." Our biographer +declares, that "though he were no prophet, yet in that faculty which +comes nearest to it, he excelled, _i.e._, _the Stochastic_, wherein he +was seldom mistaken as to _future events_, as well public as private." + +We are not, indeed, inculcating the fanciful elements of an occult art. +We know whence its principles may be drawn; and we may observe how it +was practised by the wisest among the ancients. Aristotle, who collected +all the curious knowledge of his times, has preserved some remarkable +opinions on the art of _divination_. In detailing the various +subterfuges practised by the pretended diviners of his day, he reveals +the _secret principle_ by which one of them regulated his predictions. +He frankly declared that the FUTURE being always very obscure, while the +PAST was easy to know, _his predictions had never the future in view_; +for he decided from the PAST as it appeared in human affairs, which, +however, lie concealed from the multitude.[187] Such is the true +principle by which a philosophical historian may become a skilful +diviner. + +Human affairs make themselves; they grow out of one another, with slight +variations; and thus it is that they usually happen as they have +happened. The necessary dependence of effects on causes, and the +similarity of human interests and human passions, are confirmed by +comparative parallels with the past. The philosophic sage of holy writ +truly deduced the important principle, that "the thing that hath been is +that which shall be." The vital facts of history, deadened by the touch +of chronological antiquarianism, are restored to animation when we +comprehend the principles which necessarily terminate in certain +results, and discover the characters among mankind who are the usual +actors in these scenes. The heart of man beats on the same eternal +springs; and whether he advances or retrogrades, he cannot escape out of +the march of human thought. Hence, in the most extraordinary revolutions +we discover that the time and the place only have changed; for even when +events are not strictly parallel, we detect the same conducting +principles. Scipio Ammirato, one of the great Italian historians, in his +curious discourses on Tacitus, intermingles ancient examples with the +modern; that, he says, all may see how the truth of things is not +altered by the changes and diversities of time. Machiavel drew his +illustrations of modern history from the ancient. + +When the French Revolution recalled our attention to a similar eventful +period in our own history, the neglected volumes which preserved the +public and private history of our Charles the First and Cromwell were +collected with eager curiosity. Often the scene existing before us, even +the very personages themselves, opened on us in these forgotten pages. +But as the annals of human nature did not commence with those of Charles +the First, we took a still more retrograde step, and it was discovered +in this wider range, that in the various governments of Greece and Rome, +the events of those times had been only reproduced. Among them the same +principles had terminated in the same results, and the same personages +had figured in the same drama. This strikingly appeared in a little +curious volume, entitled, "Essai sur l'Histoire de la Revolution +Francoise, par une Societe d'Auteurs Latins," published at Paris in +1801. This "Society of Latin Authors," who have written so inimitably +the history of the _French_ Revolution, consist of the _Roman +historians_ themselves! By extracts ingeniously applied, the events of +that melancholy period are so appositely described, indeed so minutely +narrated, that they will not fail to surprise those who are not +accustomed to detect the perpetual parallels which we meet with in +philosophical history. + +Many of these crises in history are close resemblances of each other. +Compare the history of "The League" in France with that of our own civil +wars. We are struck by the similar occurrences performed by the same +political characters who played their part on both those great theatres +of human action. A satirical royalist of those times has commemorated +the motives, the incidents, and the personages in the "Satire Menippee +de la Vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne;" and this famous "Satire Menippee" +is a perfect Hudibras in prose! The writer discovers all the bitter +ridicule of Butler in his ludicrous and severe exhibition of the "Etats +de Paris," while the artist who designed the satirical prints becomes no +contemptible Hogarth. So much are these public events alike in their +general spirit and termination, that they have afforded the subject of a +printed but unpublished volume, entitled "Essai sur les +Revolutions."[188] The whole work was modelled on this principle. "It +would be possible," says the eloquent writer, "to frame a table or chart +in which all the given imaginable events of the history of a people +would be reduced to a mathematical exactness." The conception is +fanciful, but its foundation lies deep in truth. + +A remarkable illustration of the secret principle divulged by Aristotle, +and described by Thucydides, appears in the recent confession of a man +of genius among ourselves. When Mr. Coleridge was a political writer in +the _Morning Post_ and _Courier_, at a period of darkness and utter +confusion, that writer was then conducted by a tract of light, not +revealed to ordinary journalists, on the Napoleonic empire. "Of that +despotism in masquerade" he decided by "the state of Rome under the +first Caesars;" and of the Spanish American Revolution, by taking the war +of the United Provinces with Philip the Second as the groundwork of the +comparison. "On every great occurrence," he says, "I endeavoured to +discover, in PAST HISTORY the event that most nearly resembled it. I +procured the contemporary historians, memorialists, and pamphleteers. +Then fairly subtracting the points of _difference_ from those of +_likeness_, as the balance favoured the former or the latter, I +conjectured that the result would be the same or different. In the +essays 'On the Probable Final Restoration of the Bourbons,' I feel +myself authorised to affirm, by the effect produced on many intelligent +men, that were the dates wanting, it might have been suspected that the +essays had been written within the last twelve months."[189] + +In moral predictions on individuals, many have discovered the future +character. The revolutionary character of Cardinal de Retz, even in his +youth, was detected by the sagacity of Mazarin. He then wrote the +history of the conspiracy of Fiesco, with such vehement admiration of +his hero, that the Italian politician, after its perusal, predicted that +the young author would be one of the most turbulent spirits of the age! +The father of Marshal Biron, even amid the glory of his son, discovered +the cloud which, invisible to others, was to obscure it. The father, +indeed, well knew the fiery passions of his son. "Biron," said the +domestic seer, "I advise thee, when peace takes place, to go and plant +cabbages in thy garden, otherwise I warn thee, thou wilt lose thy head +on the scaffold!" Lorenzo de' Medici had studied the temper of his son +Piero; for Guicciardini informs us that he had often complained to his +most intimate friends that "he foresaw the imprudence and arrogance of +his son would occasion the ruin of his family." There is a remarkable +prediction of James the First of the evils likely to ensue from Laud's +violence, in a conversation given by Hacket, which the king held with +Archbishop Williams. When the king was hard pressed to promote Laud, he +gave his reasons why he intended to "keep Laud back from all place of +rule and authority, because I find he hath a restless spirit, and cannot +see when matters are well, but loves to toss and change, and to bring +things to a pitch of reformation floating in his own brain, which +endangers the steadfastness of that which is in a good pass. I speak not +at random; he hath made himself known to me to be such an one." James +then gives the circumstances to which he alludes; and at length, when, +still pursued by the archbishop, then the organ of Buckingham, as usual, +this king's good nature too easily yielded; he did not, however, without +closing with this prediction: "Then take him to you!--but, on my soul, +you will repent it!" The future character of Cromwell was apparent to +two of our great politicians. "This coarse unpromising man," said Lord +Falkland, pointing to Cromwell, "will be the first person in the +kingdom, if the nation comes to blows!" And Archbishop Williams told +Charles the First confidentially, "There was _that_ in Cromwell which +foreboded something dangerous, and wished his majesty would either win +him over to him, or get him taken off." The Marquis of Wellesley's +incomparable character of Bonaparte predicted his fall when highest in +his glory; that great statesman then poured forth the sublime language +of philosophical prophecy. "His eagerness of power is so inordinate; his +jealousy of independence so fierce; his keenness of appetite so feverish +in all that touches his ambition, even in the most trifling things, that +he must plunge into dreadful difficulties. He is one of an order of +minds that by nature make for themselves great reverses." + +Lord Mansfield was once asked, after the commencement of the French +Revolution, when it would end? His lordship replied, "It is an event +_without precedent_, and therefore _without prognostic_." The truth, +however, is, that it had both. Our own history had furnished a precedent +in the times of Charles the First. And the prognostics were so +redundant, that a volume might be collected of passages from various +writers who had predicted it. However ingenious might be a history of +the Reformation before it occurred, the evidence could not be more +authentic and positive than that of the great moral and political +revolution which we have witnessed in our own days. + +A prediction which Bishop Butler threw out in a sermon before the House +of Lords, in 1741, does honour to his political sagacity, as well as to +his knowledge of human nature; he calculated that the irreligious spirit +would produce, some time or other, political disorders similar to those +which, in the seventeenth century, had arisen from religious fanaticism. +"Is there no danger," he observed, "that all this may raise somewhat +like _that levelling spirit_, upon atheistical principles, which in the +last age prevailed upon enthusiastic ones? Not to speak of the +possibility that _different sorts of people_ may _unite_ in it upon +these _contrary principles_!" All this literally has been accomplished! +Leibnitz, indeed, foresaw the results of those selfish, and at length +demoralizing, opinions, which began to prevail through Europe in his +day. These disorganizing principles, conducted by a political sect, who +tried "to be worse than they could be," as old Montaigne expresses it; a +sort of men who have been audaciously congratulated as "having a _taste_ +for evil;" exhibited to the astonished world the dismal catastrophe the +philosopher predicted. I shall give this remarkable passage. "I find +that certain opinions approaching those of Epicurus and Spinoza, are, +little by little, insinuating themselves into the minds of the great +rulers of public affairs, who serve as the guides of others, and on whom +all matters depend; besides, these opinions are also sliding into +fashionable books, and thus _they are preparing all things to that_ +GENERAL REVOLUTION _which menaces Europe_; destroying those generous +sentiments of the ancients, Greek and Roman, which preferred the love of +country and public good, and the cares of posterity, to fortune and even +to life. Our _public spirits_,[190] as the English call them, +excessively diminish, and are no more in fashion, and will be still less +while the least vicious of these men preserve only one principle, which +they call _honour_; a principle which only keeps them from not doing +what they deem a low action, while they openly laugh at the love of +country--ridicule those who are zealous for public ends--and when a +well-intentioned man asks what will become of their posterity, they +reply 'Then, as now!' _But it may happen to these persons themselves to +have to endure those evils which they believe are reserved for others._ +If this epidemical and intellectual disorder could be corrected, _whose +bad effects are already visible_, those evils might still be prevented; +but if it proceeds in its growth, _Providence will correct man by the +very revolution which must spring from it_. Whatever may happen indeed, +all must turn out as usual for the best in general, at the end of the +account, although _this cannot happen without the punishment of those +who contribute even to general good by their evil actions_." The most +superficial reader will hardly require a commentary on this very +remarkable passage; he must instantly perceive how Leibnitz, in the +seventeenth century, foresaw what has occurred in the eighteenth; and +the prediction has been verified in the history of the actors in the +late revolution, while the result, which we have not perhaps yet had, +according to Leibnitz's own exhilarating system of optimism, is an +eduction of good from evil. + +A great genius, who was oppressed by malignant rivals in his own times, +has been noticed by Madame de Stael, as having left behind him an actual +prophecy of the French Revolution: this was Guibert, who, in his +Commentary on Folard's Polybius, published in 1727, declared that "a +conspiracy is actually forming in Europe, by means at once so subtle and +efficacious, that I am sorry not to have come into the world _thirty +years later_ to witness its result. It must be confessed that the +sovereigns of Europe wear very bad spectacles. The proofs of it are +mathematical, if such proofs ever were, of a conspiracy." Guibert +unquestionably foresaw the anti-monarchical spirit gathering up its +mighty wings, and rising over the universe! but could not judge of the +nature of the impulse which he predicted; prophesying from the ideas in +his luminous intellect, he seems to have been far more curious about, +than certain of, the consequences. Rousseau even circumstantially +predicted the convulsions of modern Europe. He stood on the crisis of +the French Revolution, which he vividly foresaw, for he seriously +advised the higher classes of society to have their children taught some +useful trade; a notion highly ridiculed on the first appearance of the +Emile: but at its hour the awful truth struck! He, too, foresaw the +horrors of that revolution; for he announced that Emile designed to +emigrate, because, from the moral state of the people, a virtuous +revolution had become impossible.[191] The eloquence of Burke was often +oracular; and a speech of Pitt, in 1800, painted the state of Europe as +it was only realised fifteen years afterwards. + +But many remarkable predictions have turned out to be false. Whenever +the facts on which the prediction is raised are altered in their +situation, what was relatively true ceases to operate as a general +principle. For instance, to that striking anticipation which Rousseau +formed of the French revolution, he added, by way of note, as remarkable +a prediction on MONARCHY. _Je tiens pour impossible que les grandes +monarchies de l'Europe aient encore long tems a durer; toutes ont brille +et tout etat qui brille est sur son declin._ The predominant +anti-monarchical spirit among our rising generation seems to hasten on +the accomplishment of the prophecy; but if an important alteration has +occurred in the nature of things, we may question the result. If by +looking into the past, Rousseau found facts which sufficiently proved +that nations in the height of their splendour and corruption had closed +their career by falling an easy conquest to barbarous invaders, who +annihilated the most polished people at a single blow; we now find that +no such power any longer exists in the great family of Europe: the state +of the question is therefore changed. It is _now_ how corrupt nations +will act against corrupt nations equally enlightened? But if the citizen +of Geneva drew his prediction of the extinction of monarchy in Europe +from that predilection for democracy which assumes that a republic must +necessarily produce more happiness to the people than a monarchy, then +we say that the fatal experiment was again repeated since the +prediction, and the fact proved not true! The excess of democracy +inevitably terminates in a monarchical state; and were all the +monarchies in Europe at present republics, a philosopher might safely +predict the restoration of monarchy! + +If a prediction be raised on facts which our own prejudices induce us to +infer will exist, it must be chimerical. We have an Universal Chronicle +of the Monk Carion, printed in 1532, in which he announces that the +world was about ending,[192] as well as his chronicle of it; that the +Turkish empire would not last many years; that after the death of +Charles the Fifth the empire of Germany would be torn to pieces by the +Germans themselves. This monk will no longer pass for a prophet; he +belongs to that class of historians who write to humour their own +prejudices, like a certain lady-prophetess, who, in 1811, predicted that +grass was to grow in Cheapside about this time![193] The monk Carion, +like others of greater name, had miscalculated the weeks of Daniel, and +wished more ill to the Mahometans than suit the Christian cabinets of +Europe to inflict on them; and, lastly, the monastic historian had no +notion that it would please Providence to prosper the heresy of Luther! +Sir James Mackintosh once observed, "I am sensible that in the field of +_political prediction_ veteran sagacity has often been deceived." Sir +James alluded to the memorable example of Harrington, who published a +demonstration of the impossibility of re-establishing monarchy in +England six months before the restoration of Charles the Second! But the +author of the Oceana was a political fanatic, who ventured to predict an +event, not by other similar events, but by a theoretical principle which +he had formed, that "the balance of power depends on that of property." +Harrington, in his contracted view of human nature, had dropped out of +his calculation all the stirring passions of ambition and party, and the +vacillations of the multitude. A similar error of a great genius occurs +in De Foe. "Child," says Mr. George Chalmers, "foreseeing from +experience that men's _conduct_ must finally be decided by their +_principles_, FORETOLD _the colonial revolt_. De Foe, allowing his +prejudices to obscure his sagacity, reprobated that suggestion, because +he deemed _interest_ a more strenuous prompter than _enthusiasm_." The +predictions of Harrington and De Foe are precisely such as we might +expect from a petty calculator, a political economist, who can see +nothing farther than immediate results; but the true philosophical +predictor was Child, who had read the _past_. It is probable that the +American emancipation from the mother country of England was foreseen +twenty or thirty years before it occurred, though not perhaps by the +administration. Lord Orford, writing in 1754, under the ministry of the +Duke of Newcastle, blames "The instructions to the governor of New York, +which seemed better calculated for the latitude of Mexico, and for a +Spanish tribunal, than for a free British settlement, and in such +opulence and such haughtiness, that _suspicions had long been conceived +of their meditating to throw off the dependence on their +mother-country_." If this was written at the time, as the author +asserts, it is a very remarkable passage, observes the noble editor of +his memoirs. The prognostics or presages of this revolution it may now +be difficult to recover; but it is evident that Child, before the time +when Lord Orford wrote this passage, predicted the separation on true +and philosophical principles. + +Even when the event does not always justify the prediction, the +predictor may not have been the less correct in his principles of +divination. The catastrophe of human life, and the turn of great events, +often prove accidental. Marshal Biron, whom we have noticed, might have +ascended the throne instead of the scaffold; Cromwell and De Retz might +have become only the favourite general or the minister of their +sovereigns. Fortuitous events are not comprehended in the reach of human +prescience; such must be consigned to those vulgar superstitions which +presume to discover the issue of human events, without pretending to any +human knowledge. There is nothing supernatural in the prescience of the +philosopher. + +Sometimes predictions have been condemned as false ones, which, when +scrutinised, we can scarcely deem to have failed: they may have been +accomplished, and they may again revolve on us. In 1749 Dr. Hartley +published his "Observations on Man," and predicted the fall of the +existing governments and hierarchies in two simple propositions; among +others-- + +Prop. 81. It is probable that all the civil governments will be +overturned. + +Prop. 82. It is probable that the present forms of church-government +will be dissolved. + +Many were alarmed at these predicted falls of church and state. Lady +Charlotte Wentworth asked Hartley when these terrible things would +happen. The answer of the predictor was not less awful: "I am an old +man, and shall not live to see them; but you are a young woman, and +probably will see them." In the subsequent revolutions of America and of +France, and perhaps now of Spain, we can hardly deny that these +predictions had failed. A fortuitous event has once more thrown back +Europe into its old corners: but we still revolve in a circle, and what +is now dark and remote may again come round, when time has performed its +great cycle. There was a prophetical passage in Hooker's Ecclesiastical +Polity regarding the church which long occupied the speculations of its +expounders. Hooker indeed seemed to have done what no predictor of +events should do; he fixed on the period of its accomplishment. In 1597 +he declared that it would "peradventure fall out to be threescore and +ten years, or if strength do awe, into fourscore." Those who had +outlived the revolution in 1641, when the long parliament pulled down +the ecclesiastical establishment, and sold the church-lands--a +circumstance which Hooker had contemplated--and were afterwards returned +to their places on the Restoration, imagined that the prediction had not +yet been completed, and were looking with great anxiety towards the year +1677, for the close of this extraordinary prediction! When Bishop +Barlow, in 1675, was consulted on it, he endeavoured to dissipate the +panic, by referring to an old historian, who had reproached our nation +for their proneness to prophecies![194] The prediction of the venerable +Hooker in truth had been fully accomplished, and the event had occurred +without Bishop Barlow having recurred to it; so easy it seems to forget +what we dislike to remember! The period of time was too literally taken, +and seems to have been only the figurative expression of man's age in +scriptural language which Hooker had employed; but no one will now deny +that this prescient sage had profoundly foreseen the results of that +rising party, whose designs on church and state were clearly depicted in +his own luminous view. + +The philosophical predictor, in foretelling a crisis from the appearance +of things, will not rashly assign the period of time; for the crisis +which he anticipates is calculated on by that inevitable march of events +which generate each other in human affairs; but the period is always +dubious, being either retarded or accelerated by circumstances of a +nature incapable of entering into this moral arithmetic. It is probable +that a revolution similar to that of France would have occurred in this +country, had it not been counteracted by the genius of Pitt. In 1618 it +was easy to foretell by the political prognostic that a mighty war +throughout Europe must necessarily occur. At that moment, observes +Bayle, the house of Austria aimed at a universal monarchy; the +consequent domineering spirit of the ministers of the Emperor and the +King of Spain, combined with their determination to exterminate the new +religion, excited a reaction to this imperial despotism; public opinion +had been suppressed, till every people grew impatient; while their +sovereigns, influenced by national feeling, were combining against +Austria. But Austria was a vast military power, and her generals were +the first of their class. The efforts of Europe would then be often +repulsed! This state of affairs prognosticated a long war!--and when at +length it broke out it lasted thirty years! The approach and the +duration of the war might have been predicted; but the period of its +termination could not have been foreseen. + +There is, however, a spirit of political vaticination which presumes to +pass beyond the boundaries of human prescience; it has been often +ascribed to the highest source of inspiration by enthusiasts; but since +"the language of prophecy" has ceased, such pretensions are not less +impious than they are unphilosophical. Knox the reformer possessed an +extraordinary portion of this awful prophetic confidence: he appears to +have predicted several remarkable events, and the fates of some persons. +We are told that, condemned to a galley at Rochelle, he predicted that +"within two or three years he should preach the gospel at Saint Giles's +in Edinburgh;" an improbable event, which happened. Of Mary and Darnley, +he pronounced that, "as the king, for the queen's pleasure, had gone to +mass, the Lord, in his justice, would make her the instrument of his +overthrow." Other striking predictions of the deaths of Thomas Maitland, +and of Kirkaldy of Grange, and the warning he solemnly gave to the +Regent Murray not to go to Linlithgow, where he was assassinated, +occasioned a barbarous people to imagine that the prophet Knox had +received an immediate communication from Heaven. A Spanish friar and +almanac-maker predicted, in clear and precise words, the death of Henry +the Fourth of France; and Pieresc, though he had no faith in the vain +science of astrology, yet, alarmed at whatever menaced the life of a +beloved monarch, consulted with some of the king's friends, and had the +Spanish almanac laid before his majesty. That high-spirited monarch +thanked them for their solicitude, but utterly slighted the prediction: +the event occurred, and in the following year the Spanish friar spread +his own fame in a new almanac. I have been occasionally struck at the +Jeremiads of honest George Withers, the vaticinating poet of our civil +wars: some of his works afford many solemn predictions. We may account +for many predictions of this class without the intervention of any +supernatural agency. Among the busy spirits of a revolutionary age, the +heads of a party, such as Knox, have frequently secret communications +with spies or with friends. In a constant source of concealed +information, a shrewd, confident, and enthusiastic temper will find +ample matter for mysterious prescience. Knox exercised that deep +sagacity which took in the most enlarged views of the future, as appears +by his Machiavelian foresight on the barbarous destruction of the +monasteries and the cathedrals--"The best way to keep the _rooks_ from +returning, is to pull down their _nests_." In the case of the prediction +of the death of Henry the Fourth, by the Spanish friar, it resulted +either from his being acquainted with the plot, or from his being made +an instrument for their purpose by those who were. It appears that +rumours of Henry's assassination were rife in Spain and Italy before the +event occurred. Such vaticinators as George Withers will always rise in +those disturbed times which his own prosaic metre has forcibly +depicted:-- + + It may be on that darkness, which they find + Within their hearts, a sudden light hath shin'd, + Making reflections of SOME THINGS TO COME, + Which leave within them musings troublesome + To their weak spirits; or too intricate + For them to put in order, and relate. + They act as men in ecstasies have done-- + Striving their cloudy visions to declare-- + And I, perhaps, among these may be one + That was let loose for service to be done: + I blunder out what worldly-prudent men + Count madnesse.--P. 7.[195] + +Separating human prediction from inspired prophecy, we only ascribe to +the faculties of man that acquired prescience which we have demonstrated +that some great minds have unquestionably exercised. We have discovered +its principles in the necessary dependence of effects on general causes, +and we have shown that, impelled by the same motives, and circumscribed +by the same passions, all human affairs revolve in a circle; and we +have opened the true source of this yet imperfect science of moral and +political prediction, in an intimate but a discriminative knowledge of +the PAST. + +Authority is sacred, when experience affords parallels and analogies. If +much which may overwhelm when it shall happen can be foreseen, the +prescient statesman and moralist may provide defensive measures to break +the waters, whose streams they cannot always direct; and the venerable +Hooker has profoundly observed, that "the best things have been +overthrown, not so much by puissance and might of adversaries, as +through defect of council in those that should have upheld and defended +the same."[196] + +The philosophy of history blends the past with the present, and combines +the present with the future: each is but a portion of the other! The +actual state of a thing is necessarily determined by its antecedent, and +thus progressively through the chain of human existence; while "the +present is always full of the future," as Leibnitz has happily expressed +the idea. + +A new and beautiful light is thus thrown over the annals of mankind, by +the analogies and the parallels of different ages in succession. How the +seventeenth century has influenced the eighteenth; and the results of +the nineteenth as they shall appear in the twentieth, might open a +source of predictions, to which, however difficult it might be to affix +their dates, there would be none in exploring into causes, and tracing +their inevitable effects. + +The multitude live only among the shadows of things in the appearances +of the PRESENT; the learned, busied with the PAST, can only trace whence +and how all comes; but he who is one of the people, and one of the +learned, the true philosopher, views the natural tendency and +terminations which are preparing for the FUTURE! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [179] See Rushworth, vol. i. p. 420. His language was decisive. + + [180] This letter is in the works of AEneas Sylvius; a copious + extract is given by Bossuet, in his "Variations." See also Mosheim, + Cent. xiii. part ii. chap. 2, note _m_. + + [181] Though it cannot be positively asserted it is generally + believed that the author was Robert Longlande, a monk of Malvern. + See introduction to Wright's edition of "The Vision." The latter + part of the year 1362 is believed to be the time of its composition. + + [182] The passage is so remarkable as to be worth giving here, for + the immediate reference of such readers as may not have ready access + to the original. We modernize the spelling from Mr. Wright's + edition:-- + + But there shall come a king, + And confess you religious, + And award you as the Bible telleth + For breaking of your rule. + + * * * * * + + And then shall the Abbot of Abingdon + And all his issue for ever, + Have a knock of a king, + And incurable the wound. + + [183] Ep. ad Att. Lib. x. Ep. 4. + + [184] Ep. ad Att. Lib. vi. Ep. 6. + + [185] This remarkable confession I find in Menage's "Observations + sur la Langue Francoise," Part II. p. 110. + + [186] [Greek: Okeia gar xunesei, kai oute promathon es auten ouden, + out epimathon ton te parachrema di elachistes boules kratistos + gnomon, kai ton mellonton epipleiston tou genesomenou aristos + eikastes].--Thucydides, lib. i. + + [187] Arist. Rhet. lib. vii. c. 5. + + [188] This work was printed in London as a _first_ volume, but + remained unpublished. This singularly curious production was + suppressed, but reprinted at Paris. It has suffered the most cruel + mutilations. I read with surprise and instruction the single copy + which I was assured was the only one saved from the havoc of the + entire edition. The writer was the celebrated Chateaubriand. + + [189] "Biographia Literaria; or, Biographical Sketches of my + Literary Life and Opinions." By S.T. Coleridge, Esq. 1807. Vol. i. + p. 214. + + [190] _Public spirit_, and _public spirits_, were about the year + 1700 household words with us. Leibnitz was struck by their + significance, but it might now puzzle us to find synonyms, or even + to explain the very terms themselves. + + [191] This extraordinary passage is at the close of the third book + of _Emile_, to which I must refer the reader. It is curious, + however, to observe, that in 1760 Rousseau poured forth the + following awful predictions, which were considered quite + absurd:--"Vous vous fiez a l'ordre actuel de la societe, sans songer + que cet ordre est sujet a des _revolutions inevitables_--le grand + devient petit, le riche devient pauvre, le monarque devient + sujet--_nous approchons l'etat de crise et du siecle des + revolutions_. Que fera donc dans la bassesse ce satrape que vous + n'aurez eleve que pour la grandeur? Que fera dans la pauvrete, ce + publicain qui ne scait vivre que d'or? Que fera, depourvu de tout, + ce fastueux imbecille qui ne sait point user de lui-meme?" &c. &c. + + [192] This prediction of the end of the world is one of the most + popular hallucinations, warmly received by many whenever it is + promulgated. It had the most marked effect when the cycle of a + thousand years after the birth of Christ was approaching completion; + and the world was assured that was the limit of its present state. + Numerous acts of piety were performed. Churches were built, + religious houses founded, and asceticism became the order of the + day, until the dreaded year was completed without the accompaniment + of the supernatural horrors so generally feared; the world soon + relapsed into forgetfulness, and went on as before. Very many + prophecies have since been promulgated; and in defiance of such + repeated failures are still occasionally indulged in by persons from + whom better things might be expected. Richard Brothers, in the last + century, and more than one reverend gentleman in the present one, + have been bold enough to fix an exact time for the event: but it has + passed as quietly as the thousandth anniversary noted above. + + [193] One of the most effective prophecies against London, and which + frightened for the time a very large number of its inhabitants, was + that given out in the spring of 1750, after a slight shock of an + earthquake was felt in London, and it was prophesied that another + should occur which would destroy the town and all its inhabitants. + All the roads were thronged with persons flying to the country a day + or two before the threatened event; and they were all unmercifully + ridiculed when the day passed over quietly. Walpole in one of his + amusing letters speaks of a party who went "to an inn ten miles out + of town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning, + and then come back--I suppose, to look for the bones of their + husbands and families under the rubbish!" Jokers who were out late + amused themselves by bawling in the watchmen's voice, "Past four + o'clock, and a dreadful earthquake!" A pamphlet purporting to be "a + full and true account" of this earthquake which never happened, was + "printed for Tim Tremor, in Fleet-street, 1750," and made the + vehicle for much personal satire. Thus it is stated that the + "Commissioners of Westminster-bridge have ordered this calamity to + be entered in their books, as a glorious excuse for the next sinking + pier;" and that the town received some comfort upon hearing that + "the Inns of Court were all sunk, and several orders were given that + no one should assist in bringing any one lawyer above ground." + + [194] An eye-witness of the great fire of London has noted the + difficulty of obtaining effective assistance in endeavouring to stay + its progress, owing to the superstition which seized many persons, + because a prophecy of Mother Shipton's was quoted to show that + London was doomed to hopeless and entire destruction. + + [195] "A Dark Lantherne, offering a dim Discovery, intermixed with + Remembrances, Predictions, &c. 1652." + + [196] Hooker wrote this about 1560, and he wrote before the _Siecle + des Revolutions_ had begun, even among ourselves! He penetrated into + this important principle merely by the force of his own meditation. + _At this moment_, after more practical experience in political + revolutions, a very intelligent French writer, in a pamphlet, + entitled "M. da Villele," says, "Experience proclaims a great + truth--namely, that revolutions themselves cannot succeed, except + when they are favoured by a portion of the GOVERNMENT." He + illustrates the axiom by the different revolutions which have + occurred in his nation within these thirty years. It is the same + truth, traced to its source by another road. + + + + +DREAMS AT THE DAWN OF PHILOSOPHY. + + +Modern philosophy, theoretical or experimental, only amuses while the +action of discovery is suspended or advances; the interest ceases with +the inquirer when the catastrophe is ascertained, as in the romance +whose _denouement_ turns on a mysterious incident, which, once unfolded, +all future agitation ceases. But in the true infancy of science, +philosophers were as imaginative a race as poets: marvels and portents, +undemonstrable and undefinable, with occult fancies, perpetually +beginning and never ending, were delightful as the shifting cantos of +Ariosto. Then science entranced the eye by its thaumaturgy; when they +looked through an optic tube, they believed they were looking into +futurity; or, starting at some shadow darkening the glassy globe, beheld +the absent person; while the mechanical inventions of art were toys and +tricks, with sometimes an automaton, which frightened them with life. + +The earlier votaries of modern philosophy only witnessed, as Gaffarel +calls his collection, "Unheard-of Curiosities." This state of the +marvellous, of which we are now for ever deprived, prevailed among the +philosophers and the _virtuosi_ in Europe, and with ourselves, long +after the establishment of the Royal Society. Philosophy then depended +mainly on authority--a single one, however, was sufficient: so that when +this had been repeated by fifty others, they had the authority of fifty +honest men--whoever the first man might have been! They were then a +blissful race of children, rambling here and there in a golden age of +innocence and ignorance, where at every step each gifted discoverer +whispered to the few, some half-concealed secret of nature, or played +with some toy of art; some invention which with great difficulty +performed what, without it, might have been done with great ease. The +cabinets of the lovers of mechanical arts formed enchanted apartments, +where the admirers feared to stir or look about them; while the +philosophers themselves half imagined they were the very thaumaturgi, +for which the world gave them too much credit, at least for their quiet! +Would we run after the shadows in this gleaming land of moonshine, or +sport with these children in the fresh morning of science, ere Aurora +had scarcely peeped on the hills, we must enter into their feelings, +view with their eyes, and believe all they confide to us; and out of +these bundles of dreams sometimes pick out one or two for our own +dreaming. They are the fairy tales and the Arabian Nights' +entertainments of science. But if the reader is stubbornly mathematical +and logical, he will only be holding up a great torch against the muslin +curtain, upon which the fantastic shadows playing upon it must vanish at +the instant. It is an amusement which can only take place by carefully +keeping himself in the dark.[197] + +What a subject, were I to enter on it, would be the narratives of +magical writers! These precious volumes have been so constantly wasted +by the profane, that now a book of real magic requires some to find it, +as well as a great magician to use it. Albertus Magnus, or Albert the +Great, as he is erroneously styled--for this sage only derived this +enviable epithet from his surname _De Groot_, as did Hugo Grotius--this +sage, in his "Admirable Secrets," delivers his opinion that these books +of magic should be most preciously preserved; for, he prophetically +added, the time is arriving when they would be understood! It seems they +were not intelligible in the thirteenth century; but if Albertus has not +miscalculated, in the present day they may be! Magical terms with +talismanic figures may yet conceal many a secret; gunpowder came down to +us in a sort of anagram, and the kaleidoscope, with all its interminable +multiplications of forms, lay at hand for two centuries in Baptista +Porta's "Natural Magic." The abbot Trithemius, in a confidential letter, +happened to call himself a magician, perhaps at the moment he thought +himself one, and sent three or four leaves stuffed with the names of +devils and with their evocations. At the death of his friend these +leaves fell into the unworthy hands of the prior, who was so frightened +on the first glance at the diabolical nomenclature, that he raised the +country against the abbot, and Trithemius was nearly a lost man! Yet, +after all, this evocation of devils has reached us in his +"Steganographia," and proves to be only one of this ingenious abbot's +polygraphic attempts at _secret writing_; for he had flattered himself +that he had invented a mode of concealing his thoughts from all the +world, while he communicated them to a friend. Roger Bacon promised to +raise thunder and lightning, and disperse clouds by dissolving them into +rain. The first magical process has been obtained by Franklin; and the +other, of far more use to our agriculturists, may perchance be found +lurking in some corner which has been overlooked in the "Opus majus" of +our "Doctor mirabilis." Do we laugh at their magical works of art? Are +we ourselves such indifferent artists? Cornelius Agrippa, before he +wrote his "Vanity of the Arts and Sciences," intended to reduce into a +system and method the secret of communicating with spirits and +demons.[198] On good authority, that of Porphyrius, Psellus, Plotinus, +Jamblichus--and on better, were it necessary to allege it--he was well +assured that the upper regions of the air swarmed with what the Greeks +called _daemones_, just as our lower atmosphere is full of birds, our +waters of fish, and our earth of insects. Yet this occult philosopher, +who knew perfectly eight languages, and married two wives, with whom he +had never exchanged a harsh word in any of them, was everywhere avoided +as having by his side, for his companion, a personage no less than a +demon! This was a great black dog, whom he suffered to stretch himself +out among his magical manuscripts, or lie on his bed, often kissing and +patting him, and feeding him on choice morsels. Yet for this would +Paulus Jovius and all the world have had him put to the ordeal of fire +and fagot! The truth was afterwards boldly asserted by Wierus, his +learned domestic, who believed that his master's dog was really nothing +more than what he appeared! "I believe," says he, "that he was a real +natural dog; he was indeed black, but of a moderate size, and I have +often led him by a string, and called him by the French name Agrippa had +given him, Monsieur! and he had a female who was called Mademoiselle! I +wonder how authors of such great character should write so absurdly on +his vanishing at his death, nobody knows how!" But as it is probable +that Monsieur and Mademoiselle must have generated some puppy demons, +Wierus ought to have been more circumstantial. + +Albertus Magnus, for thirty years, had never ceased working at a man of +brass, and had cast together the qualities of his materials under +certain constellations, which threw such a spirit into his man of +brass, that it was reported his growth was visible; his feet, legs, +thighs, shoulders, neck, and head, expanded, and made the city of +Cologne uneasy at possessing one citizen too mighty for them all. This +man of brass, when he reached his maturity, was so loquacious, that +Albert's master, the great scholastic Thomas Aquinas, one day, tired of +his babble, and declaring it was a devil, or devilish, with his staff +knocked the head off; and, what was extraordinary, this brazen man, like +any human being thus effectually silenced, "word never spake more." This +incident is equally historical and authentic; though whether heads of +brass can speak, and even prophesy, was indeed a subject of profound +inquiry even at a later period.[199] Naude, who never questioned their +vocal powers, and yet was puzzled concerning the nature of this new +species of animal, has no doubt most judiciously stated the question, +Whether these speaking brazen heads had a sensitive and reasoning +nature, or whether demons spoke in them? But brass has not the faculty +of providing its own nourishment, as we see in plants, and therefore +they were not sensitive; and as for the act of reasoning, these brazen +heads presumed to know nothing but the future: with the past and the +present they seemed totally unacquainted, so that their memory and their +observation were very limited; and as for the future, that is always +doubtful and obscure--even to heads of brass! This learned man then +infers that "These brazen heads could have no reasoning faculties, for +nothing altered their nature; they said what they had to say, which no +one could contradict; and having said their say, you might have broken +the head for anything more that you could have got out of it. Had they +had any life in them, would they not have moved as well as spoken? Life +itself is but motion, but they had no lungs, no spleen; and, in fact, +though they spoke, they had no tongue. Was a devil in them? I think not. +Yet why should men have taken all this trouble to make, not a man, but a +trumpet?" + +Our profound philosopher was right not to agitate the question whether +these brazen heads had ever spoken. Why should not a man of brass +speak, since a doll can whisper, a statue play chess,[200] and brass +ducks have performed the whole process of digestion?[201] Another +magical invention has been ridiculed with equal reason. A magician was +annoyed, as philosophers still are, by passengers in the street; and he, +particularly so, by having horses led to drink under his window. He made +a magical horse of wood, according to one of the books of Hermes, which +perfectly answered its purpose, by frightening away the horses, or +rather the grooms! the wooden horse, no doubt, gave some palpable kick. +The same magical story might have been told of Dr. Franklin, who finding +that under his window the passengers had discovered a spot which they +made too convenient for themselves, he charged it with his +newly-discovered electrical fire. After a few remarkable incidents had +occurred, which at a former period would have lodged the great +discoverer of electricity in the Inquisition, the modern magician +succeeded just as well as the ancient, who had the advantage of conning +over the books of Hermes. Instead of ridiculing these works of magic, +let us rather become magicians ourselves! + +The works of the ancient alchemists have afforded numberless discoveries +to modern chemists: nor is even their grand operation despaired of. If +they have of late not been so renowned, this has arisen from a want of +what Ashmole calls "apertness;" a qualification early inculcated among +these illuminated sages. We find authentic accounts of some who have +lived three centuries, with tolerable complexions, possessed of nothing +but a crucible and a bellows! but they were so unnecessarily mysterious, +that whenever such a person was discovered, he was sure in an instant +to disappear, and was never afterwards heard of. + +In the "Liber Patris Sapientiae" this selfish cautiousness is all along +impressed on the student for the accomplishment of the great mystery. In +the commentary on this precious work of the alchemist Norton, who +counsels, + + Be thou in a place secret, by thyself alone, + That no man see or hear what thou shalt say or done. + Trust not thy friend too much wheresoe'er thou go, + For he thou trustest best, sometyme may be thy foe; + +Ashmole observes, that "Norton gives exceeding good advice to the +student in this science where he bids him be secret in the carrying on +of his studies and operations, and not to let any one know of his +undertakings but his good angel and himself:" and such a close and +retired breast had Norton's master, who, + + When men disputed _of colours of the rose_, + He would not speak, but kept himself full close! + +We regret that by each leaving all his knowledge to "his good angel and +himself," it has happened that "the good angels" have kept it all to +themselves! + +It cannot, however, be denied, that if they could not always extract +gold out of lead, they sometimes succeeded in washing away the pimples +on ladies' faces, notwithstanding that Sir Kenelm Digby poisoned his +most beautiful lady, because, as Sancho would have said, he was one of +those who would "have his bread whiter than the finest wheaten." Van +Helmont, who could not succeed in discovering the true elixir of life, +however hit on the spirit of hartshorn, which for a good while he +considered was the wonderful elixir itself, restoring to life persons +who seemed to have lost it. And though this delightful enthusiast could +not raise a ghost, yet he thought he had; for he raised something aerial +from spa-water, which mistaking for a ghost, he gave it that very name; +a name which we still retain in _gas_, from the German _geist_, or +ghost! Paracelsus carried the tiny spirits about him in the hilt of his +great sword! Having first discovered the qualities of laudanum, this +illustrious quack made use of it as an universal remedy, and distributed +it in the form of pills, which he carried in the basket-hilt of his +sword; the operations he performed were as rapid as they seemed magical. +Doubtless we have lost some inconceivable secrets by some unexpected +occurrences, which the secret itself it would seem ought to have +prevented taking place. When a philosopher had discovered the art of +prolonging life to an indefinite period, it is most provoking to find +that he should have allowed himself to die at an early age! We have a +very authentic history from Sir Kenelm Digby himself, that when he went +in disguise to visit Descartes at his retirement at Egmond, lamenting +the brevity of life, which hindered philosophers getting on in their +studies, the French philosopher assured him that "he had considered that +matter; to render a man immortal was what he could not promise, but that +he was very sure it was possible to lengthen out his life to the period +of the patriarchs." And when his death was announced to the world, the +Abbe Picot, an ardent disciple, for a long time would not believe it +possible; and at length insisted, that if it had occurred, it must have +been owing to some mistake of the philosopher's. + +The late Holcroft, Loutherbourg, and Cosway, imagined that they should +escape the vulgar era of scriptural life by reorganizing their old +bones, and moistening their dry marrow; their new principles of vitality +were supposed by them to be found in the powers of the mind; this seemed +more reasonable, but proved to be as little efficacious as those other +philosophers, who imagine they have detected the hidden principle of +life in the eels frisking in vinegar, and allude to "the bookbinder who +creates the book-worm!" + +Paracelsus has revealed to us one of the grandest secrets of nature. +When the world began to dispute on the very existence of the elementary +folk, it was then that he boldly offered to give birth to a fairy, and +has sent down to posterity the recipe. He describes the impurity which +is to be transmuted into such purity, the gross elements of a delicate +fairy, which, fixed in a phial, placed in fuming dung, will in due time +settle into a full-grown fairy, bursting through its vitreous prison--on +the vivifying principle by which the ancient Egyptians hatched their +eggs in ovens. I recollect, at Dr. Farmer's sale, the leaf which +preserved this recipe for making a fairy, forcibly folded down by the +learned commentator; from which we must infer the credit he gave to the +experiment. There was a greatness of mind in Paracelsus, who, having +furnished a recipe to make a fairy, had the delicacy to refrain from its +formation. Even Baptista Porta, one of the most enlightened +philosophers, does not deny the possibility of engendering creatures +which, "at their full growth, shall not exceed the size of a mouse;" but +he adds, "they are only pretty little dogs to play with." Were these +akin to the fairies of Paracelsus?[202] + +They were well convinced of the existence of such elemental beings; +frequent accidents in mines showed the potency of the metallic spirits, +which so tormented the workmen in some of the German mines by blindness, +giddiness, and sudden sickness, that they have been obliged to abandon +mines well known to be rich in silver. A metallic spirit at one sweep +annihilated twelve miners, who were all found dead together. The fact +was unquestionable; and the safety-lamp was undiscovered. + +Never was a philosophical imagination more beautiful than that exquisite +_Palingenesis_, as it has been termed from the Greek, or a regeneration: +or rather the apparitions of animals and plants. Schott, Kircher, +Gaffarel, Borelli, Digby, and the whole of that admirable school, +discovered in the ashes of plants their primitive forms, which were +again raised up by the force of heat. Nothing, they say, perishes in +nature; all is but a continuation, or a revival. The semina of +resurrection are concealed in extinct bodies, as in the blood of man; +the ashes of roses will again revive into roses, though smaller and +paler than if they had been planted; unsubstantial and unodoriferous, +they are not roses which grow on rose-trees, but their delicate +apparitions; and, like apparitions, they are seen but for a moment! The +process of the _Palingenesis_, this picture of immortality, is +described. These philosophers having burnt a flower, by calcination +disengaged the salts from its ashes, and deposited them in a glass +phial; a chemical mixture acted on it, till in the fermentation they +assumed a bluish and a spectral hue. This dust, thus excited by heat, +shoots upwards into its primitive forms; by sympathy the parts unite, +and while each is returning to its destined place, we see distinctly the +stalk, the leaves, and the flower arise; it is the pale spectre of a +flower coming slowly forth from its ashes. The heat passes away, the +magical scene declines, till the whole matter again precipitates itself +into the chaos at the bottom. This vegetable phoenix lies thus concealed +in its cold ashes till the presence of heat produces this +resurrection--in its absence it returns to its death. Thus the dead +naturally revive; and a corpse may give out its shadowy re-animation +when not too deeply buried in the earth. Bodies corrupted in their +graves have risen, particularly the murdered; for murderers are apt to +bury their victims in a slight and hasty manner. Their salts, exhaled in +vapour by means of their fermentation, have arranged themselves on the +surface of the earth, and formed those phantoms, which at night have +often terrified the passing spectator, as authentic history witnesses. +They have opened the graves of the phantom, and discovered the bleeding +corpse beneath; hence it is astonishing how many ghosts may be seen at +night, after a recent battle, standing over their corpses! On the same +principle, my old philosopher Gaffarel conjectures on the raining of +frogs; but these frogs, we must conceive, can only be the ghosts of +frogs; and Gaffarel himself has modestly opened this fact by a +"peradventure." A more satisfactory origin of ghosts modern philosophy +has not afforded. + +And who does not believe in the existence of ghosts? for, as Dr. More +forcibly says--"That there should be so universal a _fame_ and _fear_ of +that which never was, nor is, nor can be ever in the world, is to me the +greatest miracle of all. If there had not been, at some time or other, +true miracles, it had not been so easy to impose on the people by false. +The alchemist would never go about to sophisticate metals to pass them +off for true gold and silver, unless that such a thing was acknowledged +as true gold and silver in the world." + +The pharmacopoeia of those times combined more of morals with medicine +than our own. They discovered that the agate rendered a man eloquent and +even witty; a laurel leaf placed on the centre of the skull fortified +the memory; the brains of fowls and birds of swift wing wonderfully +helped the imagination. All such specifics have now disappeared, and +have greatly reduced the chances of an invalid recovering that which +perhaps he never possessed. Lentils and rape-seed were a certain cure +for the small-pox, and very obviously--their grains resembling the spots +of this disease. They discovered that those who lived on "fair" plants +became fair, those on fruitful ones were never barren: on the principle +that Hercules acquired his mighty strength by feeding on the marrow of +lions. But their talismans, provided they were genuine, seem to have +been wonderfully operative; and had we the same confidence, and melted +down the guineas we give physicians, engraving on them talismanic +figures, I would answer for the good effects of the experiment. Naude, +indeed, has utterly ridiculed the occult virtues of talismans, in his +defence of Virgil, accused of being a magician: the poet, it seems, cast +into a well a talisman of a horse-leech, graven on a plate of gold, to +drive away the great number of horse-leeches which infested Naples. +Naude positively denies that talismans ever possessed any such occult +virtues: Gaffarel regrets that so judicious a man as Naude should have +gone this length, giving the lie to so many authentic authors; and +Naude's paradox is indeed as strange as his denial; he suspects the +thing is not true because it is so generally told! "It leads one to +suspect," says he, "as animals are said to have been driven away from so +many places by these talismans, whether they were ever driven from any +one place." Gaffarel, suppressing by his good temper his indignant +feelings at such reasoning, turns the paradox on its maker:--"As if, +because of the great number of battles that Hannibal is reported to have +fought with the Romans, we might not, by the same reason, doubt whether +he fought any one with them." The reader must be aware that the strength +of the argument lies entirely with the firm believer in talismans. +Gaffarel, indeed, who passed his days in collecting "Curiosites +inouies," is a most authentic historian of unparalleled events, even in +his own times! Such as that heavy rain in Poitou, which showered down +"petites bestioles," little creatures like bishops with their mitres, +and monks with their capuchins over their heads; it is true, afterwards +they all turned into butterflies! + +The museums, the cabinets, and the inventions of our early virtuosi were +the baby-houses of philosophers. Baptista Porta, Bishop Wilkins, and old +Ashmole, were they now living, had been enrolled among the quiet members +of "The Society of Arts," instead of flying in the air, collecting "a +wing of the phoenix, as tradition goes;" or catching the disjointed +syllables of an old doting astrologer. But these early dilettanti had +not derived the same pleasure from the useful inventions of the +aforesaid "Society of Arts" as they received from what Cornelius +Agrippa, in a fit of spleen, calls "things vain and superfluous, +invented to no other end but for pomp and idle pleasure." Baptista Porta +was more skilful in the mysteries of art and nature than any man in his +day. Having founded the Academy _degli Oziosi_, he held an inferior +association in his own house, called _di Secreti_, where none was +admitted but those elect who had communicated some _secret_; for, in the +early period of modern art and science, the slightest novelty became a +secret, not to be confided to the uninitiated. Porta was unquestionably +a fine genius, as his works still show; but it was his misfortune that +he attributed his own penetrating sagacity to his skill in the art of +divination. He considered himself a prognosticator; and, what was more +unfortunate, some eminent persons really thought he was. Predictions and +secrets are harmless, provided they are not believed: but his Holiness +finding Porta's were, warned him that magical sciences were great +hindrances to the study of the Bible, and paid him the compliment to +forbid his prophesying. Porta's genius was now limited to astonish, and +sometimes to terrify, the more ingenious part of _I Secreti_. On +entering his cabinet, some phantom of an attendant was sure to be +hovering in the air, moving as he who entered moved; or he observed in +some mirror that his face was twisted on the wrong side of his +shoulders, and did not quite think that all was right when he clapped +his hand on it; or passing through a darkened apartment a magical +landscape burst on him, with human beings in motion, the boughs of trees +bending, and the very clouds passing over the sun; or sometimes +banquets, battles, and hunting-parties were in the same apartment. "All +these spectacles my friends have witnessed!" exclaims the self-delighted +Baptista Porta. When his friends drank wine out of the same cup which he +had used, they were mortified with wonder; for he drank wine, and they +only water! or on a summer's day, when all complained of the sirocco, he +would freeze his guests with cold air in the room; or, on a sudden, let +off a flying dragon to sail along with a cracker in its tail, and a cat +tied on his back; shrill was the sound, and awful was the concussion; so +that it required strong nerves, in an age of apparitions and devils, to +meet this great philosopher when in his best humour. Albertus Magnus +entertained the Earl of Holland, as that earl passed through Cologne, in +a severe winter, with a warm summer scene, luxuriant in fruits and +flowers. The fact is related by Trithemius--and this magical scene +connected with his vocal head, and his books _De Secretis Mulierum_, and +_De Mirabilibus_, confirmed the accusations they raised against the +great Albert for being a magician. His apologist, Theophilus Raynaud, +is driven so hard to defend Albertus, that he at once asserts the winter +changed to summer and the speaking head to be two infamous flams! He +will not believe these authenticated facts, although he credits a +miracle which proves the sanctity of Albertus,--after three centuries, +the body of Albert the Great remained as sweet as ever! + +"Whether such enchauntments," as old Mandeville cautiously observeth, +two centuries preceding the days of Porta, were "by craft or by +nygromancye, I wot nere." But that they were not unknown to Chaucer, +appears in his "Frankelein's Tale," where, minutely describing them, he +communicates the same pleasure he must himself have received from the +ocular illusions of "the Tregetoure," or "Jogelour." Chaucer ascribes +the miracle to a "naturall magique!" in which, however, it was as +unsettled whether the "Prince of Darkness" was a party concerned. + + For I am siker that there be sciences + By which men maken divers apparences + Swiche as thise subtil tregetoures play. + For oft at festes have I wel herd say + That tregetoures, within an halle large, + Have made come in a water and a barge, + And in the halle rowen up and doun. + Sometime hath semed come a grim leoun, + And sometime floures spring as in a mede, + Sometime a vine and grapes white and rede, + Sometime a castel al of lime and ston, + And whan hem liketh voideth it anon: + Thus semeth it to every mannes sight. + +Bishop Wilkins's museum was visited by Evelyn, who describes the sort of +curiosities which occupied and amused the children of science. "Here, +too, there was a hollow statue, which gave a voice, and uttered words by +a long concealed pipe that went to its mouth, whilst one speaks through +it at a good distance:" a circumstance which, perhaps, they were not +then aware revealed the whole mystery of the ancient oracles, which they +attributed to demons rather than to tubes, pulleys, and wheels. The +learned Charles Patin, in his scientific travels, records, among other +valuable productions of art, a cherry-stone, on which were engraven +about a dozen and a half of portraits! Even the greatest of human +geniuses, Leonardo da Vinci, to attract the royal patronage, created a +lion which ran before the French monarch, dropping _fleurs de lis_ from +its shaggy breast. And another philosopher who had a spinnet which +played and stopped at command, might have made a revolution in the arts +and sciences, had the half-stifled child that was concealed in it not +been forced, unluckily, to crawl into daylight, and thus it was proved +that a philosopher might be an impostor! + +The arts, as well as the sciences, at the first institution of the Royal +Society, were of the most amusing class. The famous Sir Samuel Moreland +had turned his house into an enchanted palace. Everything was full of +devices, which showed art and mechanism in perfection: his coach carried +a travelling kitchen; for it had a fire-place and grate, with which he +could make a soup, broil cutlets, and roast an egg; and he dressed his +meat by clock-work. Another of these virtuosi, who is described as "a +gentleman of superior order, and whose house was a knickknackatory," +valued himself on his multifarious inventions, but most in "sowing +salads in the morning, to be cut for dinner." The house of Winstanley, +who afterwards raised the first Eddystone lighthouse, must have been the +wonder of the age. If you kicked aside an old slipper, purposely lying +in your way, up started a ghost before you; or if you sat down in a +certain chair, a couple of gigantic arms would immediately clasp you in. +There was an arbour in the garden, by the side of a canal; you had +scarcely seated yourself when you were sent out afloat to the middle of +the canal--from whence you could not escape till this man of art and +science wound you up to the arbour. What was passing at the "Royal +Society" was also occurring at the "Academie des Sciences" at Paris. A +great and gouty member of that philosophical body, on the departure of a +stranger, would point to his legs, to show the impossibility of +conducting him to the door; yet the astonished visitor never failed +finding the virtuoso waiting for him on the outside, to make his final +bow! While the visitor was going down stairs, this inventive genius was +descending with great velocity in a machine from the window: so that he +proved, that if a man of science cannot force nature to walk down +stairs, he may drive her out at the window! + +If they travelled at home, they set off to note down prodigies. Dr. +Plott, in a magnificent project of journeying through England, for the +advantage of "Learning and Trade," and the discovery of "Antiquities and +other Curiosities," for which he solicited the royal aid which Leland +enjoyed, among other notable designs, discriminates a class thus: "Next +I shall inquire of animals; and first of strange people."--"Strange +accidents that attend corporations or families, as that the deans of +Rochester ever since the foundation by turns have died deans and +bishops; the bird with a white breast that haunts the family of Oxenham +near Exeter just before the death of any of that family; the bodies of +trees that are seen to swim in a pool near Brereton in Cheshire, a +certain warning to the heir of that honourable family to prepare for the +next world." And such remarkables as "Number of children, such as the +Lady Temple, who before she died saw seven hundred descended from +her."[203] This fellow of the Royal Society, who lived nearly to 1700, +was requested to give an edition of Pliny: we have lost the benefit of a +most copious commentary! Bishop Hall went to "the Spa." The wood about +that place was haunted not only by "freebooters, but by wolves and +witches; although these last are ofttimes but one." They were called +_loups-garoux_; and the Greeks, it seems, knew them by the name of +[Greek: lukanthropoi], men-wolves: witches that have put on the shapes +of those cruel beasts. "We sawe a boy there, whose half-face was +devoured by one of them near the village; yet so, as that the eare was +rather cut than bitten off." Rumour had spread that the boy had had half +his face devoured; when it was examined, it turned out that his ear had +only been scratched! However, there can be no doubt of the existence of +"witch-wolves;" for Hall saw at Limburgh "one of those miscreants +executed, who confessed on the wheel to have devoured two-and-forty +children in that form." They would probably have found it difficult to +have summoned the mothers who had lost the children. But observe our +philosopher's reasoning: "It would aske a large volume to scan this +problem of _lycanthropy_." He had laboriously collected all the +evidence, and had added his arguments: the result offers a curious +instance of acute reasoning on a wrong principle.[204] + +Men of science and art then passed their days in a bustle of the +marvellous. I will furnish a specimen of philosophical correspondence in +a letter to old John Aubrey. The writer betrays the versatility of his +curiosity by very opposite discoveries. "My hands are so full of work +that I have no time to transcribe for Dr. Henry More an account of the +Barnstable apparition--Lord Keeper North would take it kindly from +you--give a sight of this letter from Barnstable to Dr. Whitchcot." He +had lately heard of a Scotchman who had been carried by fairies into +France; but the purpose of his present letter is to communicate other +sort of apparitions than the ghost of Barnstable. He had gone to +Glastonbury, "to pick up a few berries from the holy thorn which +flowered every Christmas day."[205] The original thorn had been cut down +by a military saint in the civil wars; but the trade of the place was +not damaged, for they had contrived not to have a single holy thorn, but +several, "by grafting and inoculation."[206] He promises to send these +"berries;" but requests Aubrey to inform "that person of quality who had +rather have a _bush_, that it was impossible to get one for him. I am +told," he adds, "that there is a person about Glastonbury who hath a +nursery of them, which he sells for a crown a piece," but they are +supposed not to be "of the right kind." + +The main object of this letter is the writer's "suspicion of gold in +this country;" for which he offers three reasons. Tacitus says there was +gold in England, and that Agrippa came to a spot where he had a prospect +of Ireland--from which place he writes; secondly, that "an honest man" +had in this spot found stones from which he had extracted good gold, and +that he himself "had seen in the broken stones a clear appearance of +gold;" and thirdly, "there is a story which goes by tradition in that +part of the country, that in the hill alluded to there was a door into a +hole, that when any wanted money they used to go and knock there, that a +woman used to appear, and give to such as came.[207] At a time one by +greediness or otherwise gave her offence, she flung to the door, and +delivered this old saying, still remembered in the country: + + 'When all _the Daws_ be gone and dead, + Then.... Hill shall shine gold red.' + +My fancy is, that this relates to an ancient family of this name, of +which there is now but one man left, and he not likely to have any +issue." These are his three reasons; and some mines have perhaps been +opened with no better ones! But let us not imagine that this great +naturalist was credulous; for he tells Aubrey that "he thought it was +but a monkish tale forged in the abbey so famous in former time; but as +I have learned not to despise our forefathers, I question whether this +may not refer to some rich mine in the hill, formerly in use, but now +lost. I shall shortly request you to discourse with my lord about it, to +have advice, &c. In the mean time it will be best to _keep all private_ +for his majesty's service, his lordship's, and perhaps some private +person's benefit." But he has also positive evidence: "A mason not long +ago coming to the renter of the abbey for a freestone, and sawing it, +out came divers pieces of gold of L3 10_s._ value apiece, of ancient +_coins_. The stone belonged to some chimney-work; the gold was hidden in +it, perhaps, when the Dissolution was near." This last incident of +finding coins in a chimney-piece, which he had accounted for very +rationally, serves only to confirm his dream, that they were coined out +of the gold of the mine in the hill; and he becomes more urgent for "a +private search into these mines, which I have, I think, a way to." In +the postscript he adds an account of a well, which by washing, wrought a +cure on a person deep in the king's evil. "I hope you don't forget your +promise to communicate whatever thing you have relating to your IDEA." + +This promised _Idea_ of Aubrey may be found in his MSS., under the title +of "The Idea of Universal Education." However whimsical, one would like +to see it. Aubrey's life might furnish a volume of these philosophical +dreams: he was a person who from his incessant bustle and insatiable +curiosity was called "The Carrier of Conceptions of the Royal Society." +Many pleasant nights were "privately" enjoyed by Aubrey and his +correspondent about the "Mine in the Hill;" Ashmole's manuscripts at +Oxford contain a collection of many secrets of the Rosicrucians; one of +the completest inventions is "a Recipe how to walk invisible." Such were +the fancies which rocked the children of science in their cradles! and +so feeble were the steps of our curious infancy!--But I start in my +dreams! dreading the reader may also have fallen asleep! + +"Measure is most excellent," says one of the oracles; "to which also we +being in like manner persuaded, O most friendly and pious Asclepiades, +here finish"--the dreams at the dawn of philosophy! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [197] Godwin's amusing _Lives of the Necromancers_ abound in + marvellous stories of the supernatural feats of these old students. + + [198] Agrippa was the most fortunate and honoured of occult + philosophers. He was lodged at courts, and favoured by all his + contemporaries. Scholars like Erasmus spoke of him with admiration; + and royalty constantly sought his powers of divination. But in + advanced life he was accused of sorcery, and died poor in 1534. + + [199] One of the most popular of our old English prose romances, + "The Historie of Fryer Bacon," narrates how he had intended to "wall + England about with brass," by means of such a brazen head, had not + the stupidity of a servant prevented him. The tale may be read in + Thoms' "Collection of Early English Prose Romances." + + [200] The allusion here is to the automaton chess-player, first + exhibited by Kempelen (its inventor) in England about 1785. The + figure was habited as a Turk, and placed behind a chest, this was + opened by the exhibitor to display the machinery, which seemed to + give the figure motion, while playing intricate games of chess with + any of the spectators. But it has been fully demonstrated that this + chest could conceal a full-grown man, who could place his arm down + that of the figure, and direct its movements in the game; the + machinery being really constructed to hide him, and disarm + suspicion. As the whole trick has been demonstrated by diagrams, the + marvellous nature of the machinery is exploded. + + [201] This brass duck was the work of a very ingenious mechanist, M. + Vaucanson; it is reported to have uttered its natural voice, moved + its wings, drank water, and ate corn. In 1738, he delighted the + Parisians by a figure of a shepherd which played on a pipe and beat + a tabor; and a flute-player who performed twelve tunes. + + [202] This great charlatan, after many successful impositions, ended + his life in poverty in the hospital at Saltzbourg, in 1541. + + [203] Similar popular fallacies may be seen carefully noted in R. + Burton's "Admirable Curiosities, Rarities, and Wonders in England, + Scotland, and Ireland," 1684. It is one of those curious volumes of + "folk-lore" sent out by Nat. Crouch the bookseller, under a + fictitious name. + + [204] Hall's postulate is, that God's work could not admit of any + substantial change, which is above the reach of all infernal powers; + but "Herein the divell plays the double sophister; the sorcerer with + sorcerers. Hee both deludes the witch's conceit and the beholder's + eyes." In a word, Hall believes in what he cannot understand! Yet + Hall will not believe one of the Catholic miracles of "the Virgin of + Louvain," though Lipsius had written a book to commemorate "the + goddess," as Hall sarcastically calls her. Hall was told, with great + indignation, in the shop of the bookseller of Lipsius, that when + James the First had just looked over this work, he flung it down, + vociferating "Damnation to him that made it, and to him that + believes it!" + + [205] Thousands flocked to see this "miracle" in the middle ages, + and their presence brought great wealth to the abbey. It was + believed to have grown miraculously from the staff used by St. + Joseph. It appears to have been brought from Palestine, and merely + to have flowered in accordance with its natural season, though + differing with ours. + + [206] Taylor, the water poet, in his "Wonders of the West," 1649, + says that a slip was preserved by a vintner dwelling at Glastonbury, + when the soldiers cut down the tree; that he set it in his garden, + "and he with others did tell me that the same doth likewise bloom on + the 25th day of December, yearly." + + [207] Many of these tales of treasures in hills, are now reduced to + the simple facts of discoveries being made of coins and personal + ornaments, in tumuli of Roman and Saxon settlers in England. In the + British Museum is a gold breastplate found in a grave at Mold, in + Flintshire. The grave-hills of Bohemia have furnished the museum at + Vienna with a large number of gold objects of great size and value. + In Russia the dead have been found placed between large plates of + pure gold in the centre of such tumuli; and in Ireland very large + and valuable gold personal ornaments have been frequently found in + grave-hills. + + + + +ON PUCK THE COMMENTATOR. + + +Literary forgeries recently have been frequently indulged in, and it is +urged that they are of an innocent nature; but impostures more easily +practised than detected leave their mischief behind, to take effect at a +distant period; and as I shall show, may entrap even the judicious! It +may require no high exertion of genius to draw up a grave account of an +ancient play-wright whose name has never reached us, or to give an +extract from a volume inaccessible to our inquiries and, as dulness is +no proof of spuriousness, forgeries, in time, mix with authentic +documents.[208] + +We have ourselves witnessed versions of Spanish and Portuguese poets, +which are passed on their unsuspicious readers without difficulty, but +in which no parts of the pretended originals can be traced; and to the +present hour, whatever antiquaries may affirm, the poems of +Chatterton[209] and Ossian[210] are veiled in mystery! + +If we possessed the secret history of the literary life of George +Steevens, it would display an unparalleled series of arch deception and +malicious ingenuity. He has been happily characterised by Gifford as +"the Puck of Commentators!" Steevens is a creature so spotted over with +literary forgeries and adulterations, that any remarkable one about the +time he flourished may be attributed to him. They were the habits of a +depraved mind, and there was a darkness in his character many shades +deeper than belonged to Puck; even in the playfulness of his invention +there was usually a turn of personal malignity, and the real object was +not so much to raise a laugh, as to "grin horribly a ghastly smile," on +the individual. It is more than rumoured that he carried his ingenious +malignity into the privacies of domestic life; and it is to be regretted +that Mr. Nichols, who might have furnished much secret history of this +extraordinary literary forger, has, from delicacy, mutilated his +collective vigour. + +George Steevens usually commenced his operations by opening some +pretended discovery in the evening papers, which were then of a more +literary cast than they are at present; the _St. James's Chronicle_, the +_General Evening Post_, or the _Whitehall_, were they not dead in body +and in spirit, would now bear witness to his successful efforts. The +late Mr. Boswell told me, that Steevens frequently wrote notes on +Shakspeare, purposely to mislead or entrap Malone, and obtain for +himself an easy triumph in the next edition! Steevens loved to assist +the credulous in getting up for them some strange new thing, dancing +them about with a Will-o'-the-wisp--now alarming them by a shriek of +laughter! and now like a grinning Pigwigging sinking them chin-deep into +a quagmire! Once he presented them with a fictitious portrait of +Shakspeare, and when the brotherhood were sufficiently divided in their +opinions, he pounced upon them with a demonstration, that every portrait +of Shakspeare partook of the same doubtful authority! Steevens usually +assumed a _nom de guerre_ of Collins, a pseudo-commentator, and +sometimes of Amner, who was discovered to be an obscure puritanic +minister who never read text or notes of a play-wright, whenever he +explored into a "thousand notable secrets" with which he has polluted +the pages of Shakspeare! The marvellous narrative of the upas-tree of +Java, which Darwin adopted in his plan of "enlisting imagination under +the banner of science," appears to have been another forgery which +amused our "Puck." It was first given in the _London Magazine_, as an +extract from a Dutch traveller, but the extract was never discovered in +the original author, and "the effluvia of this noxious tree, which +through a district of twelve or fourteen miles had killed all +vegetation, and had spread the skeletons of men and animals, affording a +scene of melancholy beyond what poets have described, or painters +delineated," is perfectly chimerical. A splendid flim-flam! When Dr. +Berkenhout was busied in writing, without much knowledge or skill, a +history of our English authors, Steevens allowed the good man to insert +a choice letter by George Peele, giving an account of a "merry meeting +at the Globe," wherein Shakspeare said Ben Jonson and Ned Alleyne are +admirably made to perform their respective parts. As the nature of the +"Biographia Literaria" required authorities, Steevens ingeniously added, +"Whence I copied this letter I do not recollect." However, he well knew +it came from the "Theatrical Mirror," where he had first deposited the +precious original, to which he had unguardedly ventured to affix the +date of 1600; unluckily, Peele was discovered to have died two years +before he wrote his own letter! The _date_ is adroitly dropped in +Berkenhout! Steevens did not wish to refer to his original, which I have +often seen quoted as authority. One of these numerous forgeries of our +Puck appears in an article in Isaac Reed's catalogue, art. 8708. "The +Boke of the Soldan, conteyninge strange matters touchynge his lyfe and +deathe, and the ways of his course, in two partes, 12mo," with this +marginal note by Reed--"The foregoing was written by George Steevens, +Esq., from whom I received it. It was composed merely to impose on 'a +literary friend,' and had its effect; for he was so far deceived as to +its authenticity, that he gave implicit credit to it, and put down the +person's name in whose possession the original books were supposed to +be." + +One of the sort of inventions which I attribute to Steevens has been got +up with a deal of romantic effect, to embellish the poetical life of +Milton; and unquestionably must have sadly perplexed his last +matter-of-fact editor, who is not a man to comprehend a flim-flam!--for +he has sanctioned the whole fiction, by preserving it in his +biographical narrative! The first impulse of Milton to travel in Italy +is ascribed to the circumstance of his having been found asleep at the +foot of a tree in the vicinity of Cambridge, when two foreign ladies, +attracted by the loveliness of the youthful poet, alighted from their +carriage, and having admired him for some time as they imagined +unperceived, the youngest, who was very beautiful, drew a pencil from +her pocket, and having written some lines, put the paper with her +trembling hand into his own! But it seems,--for something was to account +how the sleeping youth could have been aware of these minute +particulars, unless he had been dreaming them,--that the ladies had been +observed at a distance by some friends of Milton, and they explained to +him the whole silent adventure. Milton on opening the paper read _four +verses_ from Guarini, addressed to those "human stars," his own eyes! On +this romantic adventure, Milton set off for Italy, to discover the fair +"incognita," to which undiscovered lady we are told we stand indebted +for the most impassioned touches in the Paradise Lost! We know how +Milton passed his time in Italy, with Dati, and Gaddi, and Frescobaldi, +and other literary friends, amidst its academies, and often busied in +book-collecting. Had Milton's tour in Italy been an adventure of +knight-errantry, to discover a lady whom he had never seen, at least he +had not the merit of going out of the direct road to Florence and Rome, +nor of having once alluded to this _Dame de ses pensees_, in his letters +or inquiries among his friends, who would have thought themselves +fortunate to have introduced so poetical an adventure in the numerous +_canzoni_ they showered on our youthful poet. + +This _historiette_, scarcely fitted for a novel, first appeared where +generally Steevens's literary amusements were carried on, in the +_General Evening Post_, or the _St. James's Chronicle_: and Mr. Todd, in +the improved edition of Milton's Life, obtained this spurious original, +where the reader may find it; but the more curious part of the story +remains to be told. Mr. Todd proceeds, "The preceding highly-coloured +relation, however, is _not singular_; my friend, Mr. Walker, points out +to me a counterpart in the extract from the preface to _Poesies de +Marguerite-Eleanore Clotilde, depuis Madame de Surville, Poete Francois +du XV. Siecle. Paris, 1803_." + +And true enough we find among "the family traditions" of the same +Clotilde, that Justine de Levis, great-grandmother of this unknown +poetess of the fifteenth century, walking in a forest, witnessed the +same beautiful _spectacle_ which the Italian Unknown had at Cambridge; +never was such an impression to be effaced, and she could not avoid +leaving her tablets by the side of the beautiful sleeper, declaring her +passion in her tablets by _four Italian verses_! The very number our +Milton had meted to him! Oh! these _four_ verses! they are as fatal in +their _number_ as the _date_ of Peele's letter proved to George +Steevens! Something still escapes in the most ingenious fabrication +which serves to decompose the materials. It is well our veracious +historian dropped all mention of Guarini--else that would have given +that _coup de grace_--a fatal anachronism! However, his invention +supplied him with more originality than the adoption of this story and +the _four_ verses would lead us to infer. He tells us how Petrarch was +jealous of the genius of his Clotilde's grandmother, and has even +pointed out a sonnet which, "among the traditions of the family," was +addressed to her! He narrates, that the gentleman, when he fairly awoke, +and had read the "four verses," set off for Italy, which he run over +till he found Justine, and Justine found him, at a tournament at Modena! +This parallel adventure disconcerted our two grave English critics--they +find a tale which they wisely judge improbable, and because they +discover the tale copied, they conclude that "it is not singular!" This +knot of perplexity is, however, easily cut through, if we substitute, +which we are fully justified in, for "Poete du XV. Siecle"--"du XIX. +Siecle." The "Poesies" of Clotilde are as genuine a fabrication as +Chatterton's; subject to the same objections, having many ideas and +expressions which were unknown in the language at the time they are +pretended to have been composed, and exhibiting many imitations of +Voltaire and other poets. The present story of the FOUR _Italian +verses_, and the beautiful _Sleeper_, would be quite sufficient +evidence of the authenticity of "the family traditions" of _Clotilde, +depuis Madame de Surville_, and also of Monsieur De Surville himself; a +pretended editor, who is said to have found by mere accident the +precious manuscript, and while he was copying from the press, in 1793, +these pretty poems, for such they are, of his _grande tante_, was shot +in the Reign of Terror, and so completely expired, that no one could +ever trace his existence! The real editor, who we must presume to be the +poet, published them in 1803. + +Such, then, is the history of a literary forgery! A Puck composes a +short romantic adventure, which is quietly thrown out to the world in a +newspaper or a magazine; some collector, such as the late Mr. Bindley, +who procured for Mr. Todd his original, as idle at least as he is +curious, houses the forlorn fiction--and it enters into literary +history! A French Chatterton picks up the obscure tale, and behold, +astonishes the literary inquirers of the very country whence the +imposture sprung! But the FOUR _Italian verses_, and the _Sleeping +Youth_! Oh! Monsieur Vanderbourg! for that gentleman is the ostensible +editor of Clotilde's poesies of the fifteenth century, some ingenious +persons are unlucky in this world! Perhaps one day we may yet discover +that this "romantic adventure" of _Milton_ and _Justine de Levis_ is not +so original as it seems--it may lie hid in the _Astree_ of D'Urfe, or +some of the long romances of the Scuderies, whence the English and the +French Chattertons may have drawn it. To such literary inventors we say +with Swift:-- + + ----Such are your tricks; + But since you hatch, pray own your chicks! + +Will it be credited that for the enjoyment of a temporary piece of +malice, Steevens would even risk his own reputation as a poetical +critic? Yet this he ventured, by throwing out of his edition the poems +of Shakspeare, with a remarkable hyper-criticism, that "the strongest +act of parliament that could be framed would fail to compel readers into +their service." Not only he denounced the sonnets of Shakspeare, but the +sonnet itself, with an absurd question, "What has truth or nature to do +with sonnets?" The secret history of this unwarrantable mutilation of a +great author by his editor was, as I was informed by the late Mr. +Boswell, merely done to spite his rival commentator Malone, who had +taken extraordinary pains in their elucidation. Steevens himself had +formerly reprinted them, but when Malone from these sonnets claimed for +himself one ivy leaf of a commentator's pride, behold, Steevens in a +rage would annihilate even Shakspeare himself, that he might gain a +triumph over Malone! In the same spirit, but with more caustic +pleasantry, he opened a controversy with Malone respecting Shakspeare's +wife! It seems that the poet had forgotten to mention his wife in his +copious will; and his recollection of Mrs. Shakspeare seems to mark the +slightness of his regard, for he only introduced by an interlineation, a +legacy to her of his "second best bed with the furniture"--and nothing +more! Malone naturally inferred that the poet had forgot her, and so +recollected her as more strongly to mark how little he esteemed her. He +had already, as it is vulgarly expressed, "cut her off, not indeed with +a shilling, but with an old bed!"[211] All this seems judicious, till +Steevens asserts the conjugal affection of the bard, tells us, that the +poet having, when in health, provided for her by settlement, or knowing +that her father had already done so (circumstances entirely +conjectural), he bequeathed to her at his death not _merely an old piece +of furniture, but_, PERHAPS, _as a mark of peculiar tenderness_, + + The very bed that on his bridal night + Received him to the arms of Belvidera! + +Steevens' severity of satire marked the deep malevolence of his heart; +and Murphy has strongly pourtrayed him in his address to the _Malevoli_. + +Such another Puck was Horace Walpole! The King of Prussia's "Letter" to +Rousseau, and "The Memorial" pretended to have been signed by noblemen +and gentlemen, were fabrications, as he confesses, only to make +mischief. It well became him, whose happier invention, the Castle of +Otranto, was brought forward in the guise of forgery, so unfeelingly to +have reprobated the innocent inventions of a Chatterton. + +We have Pucks busied among our contemporaries: whoever shall discover +their history will find it copious though intricate; the malignity at +least will exceed tenfold the merriment. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [208] A remarkable instance is afforded in the present work; see the + note to the article on _Newspapers_, in Vol. I., detailing one which + has spread falsity to an enormous extent throughout our general + literature. + + [209] The pretended "antique manuscripts" preserved among the + Chatterton papers in the British Museum, as well as the fac-simile + of the "Yellow Roll," published in the Cambridge edition of + Chatterton's works, are, however, so totally unlike the writing of + the era to which they purport to belong, that no doubt need be + entertained as to their falsity. + + [210] They are, however, so far determined by the fragments of + Gaelic originals, since published by Scottish antiquaries, that the + amplifications of Macpherson can be detected. + + [211] Mr. Charles Knight, in his edition of Shakspeare, first + clearly pointed out the true nature of the bequest. The great poet's + estates, with the exception of a copyhold tenement, expressly + mentioned in the will, were freehold. _His wife was entitled to + dower_, or a life interest of one-third of the proceeds arising from + lands or tenements the property of Shakspeare, and which were of + considerable value, she was thus amply provided for by the clear and + undeniable operation of the law of England. Mr. Halliwell has + further proved that such bequests were the constant modes of showing + regard to such relatives as were well provided for by the usual + legal course of events; and he adds, "so far from this bequest being + one of slight importance, and exhibiting small esteem, it was the + usual mode of expressing a mark of great affection." + + + + +LITERARY FORGERIES. + + +The preceding article has reminded me of a subject by no means incurious +to the lovers of literature. A large volume might be composed on +literary impostors; their modes of deception, however, were frequently +repetitions; particularly those at the restoration of letters, when +there prevailed a _mania_ for burying spurious antiquities, that they +might afterwards be brought to light to confound their contemporaries. +They even perplex us at the present day. More sinister forgeries have +been performed by Scotchmen, of whom Archibald Bower, Lauder, and +Macpherson, are well known. + +Even harmless impostures by some unexpected accident have driven an +unwary inquirer out of the course. George Steevens must again make his +appearance for a memorable trick played on the antiquary Gough. This was +the famous tombstone on which was engraved the drinking-horn of +Hardyknute, to indicate his last fatal carouse; for this royal Dane died +drunk! To prevent any doubt, the name, in Saxon characters, was +sufficiently legible. Steeped in pickle to hasten a precocious +antiquity, it was then consigned to the corner of a broker's shop, where +the antiquarian eye of Gough often pored on the venerable odds and ends; +it perfectly succeeded on the "Director of the Antiquarian Society." He +purchased the relic for a trifle, and dissertations of a due size were +preparing for the Archaeologia![212] Gough never forgave himself nor +Steevens for this flagrant act of ineptitude. On every occasion in the +_Gentleman's Magazine_, when compelled to notice this illustrious +imposition, he always struck out his own name, and muffled himself up +under his titular office of "The Director!" Gough never knew that this +"modern antique" was only a piece of retaliation. In reviewing Masters's +Life of Baker he found two heads, one scratched down from painted glass +by George Steevens, who would have passed it off for a portrait of one +of our kings. Gough, on the watch to have a fling at George Steevens, +attacked his graphic performance, and reprobated a portrait which had +nothing human in it! Steevens vowed, that wretched as Gough deemed his +pencil to be, it should make "The Director" ashamed of his own eyes, and +be fairly taken in by something scratched much worse. Such was the +origin of his adoption of this fragment of a chimney-slab, which I have +seen, and with a better judge wondered at the injudicious antiquary, who +could have been duped by the slight and ill-formed scratches, and even +with a false spelling of the name, which, however, succeeded in being +passed off as a genuine Saxon inscription: but he had counted on his +man.[213] The trick is not so original as it seems. One De Grassis had +engraved on marble the epitaph of a mule, which he buried in his +vineyard: some time after, having ordered a new plantation on the spot, +the diggers could not fail of disinterring what lay ready for them. The +inscription imported that one Publius Grassus had raised this monument +to his mule! De Grassis gave it out as an odd coincidence of names, and +a prophecy about his own mule! It was a simple joke! The marble was +thrown by, and no more thought of. Several years after it rose into +celebrity, for with the erudite it then passed for an ancient +inscription, and the antiquary Poracchi inserted the epitaph in his work +on "Burials." Thus De Grassis and his mule, equally respectable, would +have come down to posterity, had not the story by some means got wind! +An incident of this nature is recorded in Portuguese history, contrived +with the intention to keep up the national spirit, and diffuse hopes of +the new enterprise of Vasco de Gama, who had just sailed on a voyage of +discovery to the Indies. Three stones were discovered near Cintra, +bearing in ancient characters a Latin inscription; a sibylline oracle +addressed prophetically "To the Inhabitants of the West!" stating that +when these three stones shall be found, the Ganges, the Indus, and the +Tagus should exchange their commodities! This was the pious fraud of a +Portuguese poet, sanctioned by the approbation of the king. When the +stones had lain a sufficient time in the damp earth, so as to become +apparently antique, our poet invited a numerous party to a dinner at his +country-house; in the midst of the entertainment a peasant rushed in, +announcing the sudden discovery of this treasure! The inscription was +placed among the royal collections as a sacred curiosity! The prophecy +was accomplished, and the oracle was long considered genuine! + +In such cases no mischief resulted; the annals of mankind were not +confused by spurious dynasties and fabulous chronologies; but when +literary forgeries are published by those whose character hardly admits +of a suspicion that they are themselves the impostors, the difficulty of +assigning a motive only increases that of forming a decision; to adopt +or reject them may be equally dangerous. + +In this class we must place Annius of Viterbo,[214] who published a +pretended collection of historians of the remotest antiquity, some of +whose _names_ had descended to us in the works of ancient writers, while +their works themselves had been lost. Afterwards he subjoined +commentaries to confirm their authority by passages from known authors. +These at first were eagerly accepted by the learned; the blunders of the +presumed editor, one of which was his mistaking the right name of the +historian he forged, were gradually detected, till at length the +imposture was apparent! The pretended originals were more remarkable for +their number than their volume; for the whole collection does not exceed +171 pages, which lessened the difficulty of the forgery; while the +commentaries which were afterwards published must have been manufactured +at the same time as the text. In favour of Annius, the high rank he +occupied at the Roman Court, his irreproachable conduct, and his +declaration that he had recovered some of these fragments at Mantua, and +that others had come from Armenia, induced many to credit these +pseudo-historians. A literary war soon kindled; Niceron has +discriminated between four parties engaged in this conflict. One party +decried the whole of the collection as gross forgeries; another +obstinately supported their authenticity; a third decided that they were +forgeries before Annius possessed them, who was only credulous; while a +fourth party considered them as partly authentic, and ascribed their +blunders to the interpolations of the editor, to increase their +importance. Such as they were, they scattered confusion over the whole +face of history. The false Berosus opens his history before the deluge, +when, according to him, the Chaldeans through preceding ages had +faithfully preserved their historical evidences! Annius hints, in his +commentary, at the archives and public libraries of the Babylonians: the +days of Noah comparatively seemed modern history with this dreaming +editor. Some of the fanciful writers of Italy were duped: Sansovino, to +delight the Florentine nobility, accommodated them with a new title of +antiquity in their ancestor Noah, _Imperatore e monarcha delle genti, +visse e mori in quelle parti._ The Spaniards complained that in forging +these fabulous origins of different nations, a new series of kings from +the ark of Noah had been introduced by some of their rhodomontade +historians to pollute the sources of their history. Bodin's otherwise +valuable works are considerably injured by Annius's supposititious +discoveries. One historian died of grief, for having raised his +elaborate speculations on these fabulous originals; and their credit was +at length so much reduced, that Pignori and Maffei both announced to +their readers that they had not referred in their works to the pretended +writers of Annius! Yet, to the present hour, these presumed forgeries +are not always given up. The problem remains unsolved--and the silence +of the respectable Annius, in regard to the forgery, as well as what he +affirmed when alive, leave us in doubt whether he really intended to +laugh at the world by these fairy tales of the giants of antiquity. +Sanchoniathon, as preserved by Eusebius, may be classed among these +ancient writings or forgeries, and has been equally rejected and +defended. + +Another literary forgery, supposed to have been grafted on those of +Annius, involved the Inghirami family. It was by digging in their +grounds that they discovered a number of Etruscan antiquities, +consisting of inscriptions, and also fragments of a chronicle, pretended +to have been composed sixty years before the vulgar era. The characters +on the marbles were the ancient Etruscan, and the historical work tended +to confirm the pretended discoveries of Annius. They were collected and +enshrined in a magnificent folio by Curtius Inghirami, who, a few years +after, published a quarto volume exceeding one thousand pages to support +their authenticity. Notwithstanding the erudition of the forger, these +monuments of antiquity betrayed their modern condiment.[215] There were +uncial letters which no one knew; but these were said to be undiscovered +ancient Etruscan characters; it was more difficult to defend the small +italic letters, for they were not used in the age assigned to them; +besides that, there were dots on the letter _i_, a custom not practised +till the eleventh century. The style was copied from the Latin of the +Psalms and the Breviary; but Inghirami discovered that there had been an +intercourse between the Etruscans and the Hebrews, and that David had +imitated the writings of Noah and his descendants! Of Noah the chronicle +details speeches and anecdotes! + +The Romans, who have preserved so much of the Etruscans, had not, +however, noticed a single fact recorded in these Etruscan antiquities. +Inghirami replied that the manuscript was the work of the secretary of +the college of the Etrurian augurs, who alone was permitted to draw his +materials from the archives, and who, it would seem, was the only scribe +who has favoured posterity with so much secret history. It was urged in +favour of the authenticity of these Etruscan monuments, that Inghirami +was so young an antiquary at the time of the discovery, that he could +not even explain them; and that when fresh researches were made on the +spot, other similar monuments were also disinterred, where evidently +they had long lain; the whole affair, however contrived, was confined to +the _Inghirami family_. One of them, half a century before, had been the +librarian of the Vatican, and to him is ascribed the honour of the +forgeries which he buried where he was sure they would be found. This, +however, is a mere conjecture! Inghirami, who published and defended +their authenticity, was not concerned in their fabrication; the design +was probably merely to raise the antiquity of Volaterra, the family +estate of the Inghirami; and for this purpose one of its learned +branches had bequeathed his posterity a collection of spurious +historical monuments, which tended to overturn all received ideas on the +first ages of history.[216] + +It was probably such impostures, and those of _false decretals of_ +Isidore, which were forged for the maintenance of the papal supremacy, +and for eight hundred years formed the fundamental basis of the canon +law, the discipline of the church, and even the faith of Christianity, +which led to the monstrous pyrrhonism of father Hardouin, who, with +immense erudition, had persuaded himself that, excepting the Bible and +Homer, Herodotus, Plautus, Pliny the elder, with fragments of Cicero, +Virgil, and Horace, all the remains of classical literature were +forgeries of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries! In two +dissertations he imagined that he had proved that the AEneid was not +written by Virgil, nor the Odes of Horace by that poet. Hardouin was one +of those wrong-headed men who, once having fallen into a delusion, +whatever afterwards occurs to them on their favourite subject only tends +to strengthen it. He died in his own faith! He seems not to have been +aware that by ascribing such prodigal inventions as Plutarch, +Thucydides, Livy, Tacitus, and other historians, to the men he did, he +was raising up an unparalleled age of learning and genius when monks +could only write meagre chronicles, while learning and genius themselves +lay in an enchanted slumber with a suspension of all their vital powers. + + +There are numerous instances of the forgeries of smaller documents. The +Prayer-book of Columbus, presented to him by the Pope, which the great +discoverer of a new world bequeathed to the Genoese republic, has a +codicil in his own writing, as one of the leaves testifies, but as +volumes composed against its authenticity deny. The famous description +in Petrarch's Virgil, so often quoted, of his first _rencontre_ with +Laura in the church of St. Clair on a Good Friday, 6th April, 1327, it +has been recently attempted to be shown is a forgery. By calculation, it +appears that the 6th April, 1327, fell on a Monday! The Good Friday +seems to have been a blunder of the manufacturer of the note. He was +entrapped by reading the second sonnet, as it appears in the _printed_ +editions! + + Era il giorno ch' al sol _si scolorana_ + _Per la_ pieta del suo fattore i rai. + +"It was on the day when the rays of the sun were obscured by compassion +for his Maker." The forger imagined this description alluded to Good +Friday and the eclipse at the Crucifixion. But how stands the passage in +the MS. in the Imperial Library of Vienna, which Abbe Costaing has +found? + + Era il giorno ch' al sol _di color raro_ + _Parve_ la pieta da suo fattore, _ai rai_ + Quand Io fu preso; e non mi guardai + Che ben vostri occhi dentro mi legaro. + +"It was on the day that I was captivated, devotion for its Maker +appeared in the rays of a brilliant sun, and I did not well consider +that it was your eyes that enchained me!" + +The first meeting, according to the Abbe Costaing, was not in a +_church_, but in a _meadow_--as appears by the ninety-first sonnet. The +Laura of Sade was _not_ the Laura of Petrarch, but Laura de Baux, +unmarried, and who died young, residing in the vicinity of Vaucluse. +Petrarch had often viewed her from his own window, and often enjoyed her +society amidst her family.[217] If the Abbe Costaing's discovery be +confirmed, the good name of Petrarch is freed from the idle romantic +passion for a married woman. It would be curious if the famous story of +the first meeting with Laura in the church of St. Clair originated in +the blunder of the forger's misconception of a passage which was +incorrectly printed, as appears by existing manuscripts! + +Literary forgeries have been introduced into bibliography; dates have +been altered; fictitious titles affixed; and books have been reprinted, +either to leave out or to interpolate whole passages! I forbear entering +minutely into this part of the history of literary forgery, for this +article has already grown voluminous. When we discover, however, that +one of the most magnificent of _amateurs_, and one of the most critical +of bibliographers, were concerned in a forgery of this nature, it may be +useful to spread an alarm among collectors. The Duke de la Valliere, and +the Abbe de St. Leger once concerted together to supply the eager +purchaser of literary rarities with a copy of _De Tribus Impostoribus_, +a book, by the date, pretended to have been printed in 1598, though +probably a modern forgery of 1698. The title of such a work had long +existed by rumour, but never was a copy seen by man! Works printed with +this title have all been proved to be modern fabrications. A copy, +however, of the _introuvable_ original was sold at the Duke de la +Valliere's sale! The history of this volume is curious. The Duke and the +Abbe having manufactured a text, had it printed in the old Gothic +character, under the title, _De Tribus Impostoribus_. They proposed to +put the great bibliopolist, De Bure, in good humour, whose agency would +sanction the imposture. They were afterwards to dole out copies at +twenty-five louis each, which would have been a reasonable price for a +book which no one ever saw! They invited De Bure to dinner, flattered +and cajoled him, and, as they imagined, at a moment they had wound him +up to their pitch, they exhibited their manufacture; the keen-eyed +glance of the renowned cataloguer of the "Bibliographie Instructive" +instantly shot like lightning over it, and, like lightning, destroyed +the whole edition. He not only discovered the forgery, but reprobated +it! He refused his sanction; and the forging Duke and Abbe, in +confusion, suppressed the _livre introuvable_; but they owed a grudge to +the honest bibliographer, and attempted to write down the work whence +the De Bures derive their fame. + +Among the extraordinary literary impostors of our age--if we except +Lauder, who, detected by the Ithuriel pen of Bishop Douglas, lived to +make his public recantation of his audacious forgeries, and Chatterton, +who has buried his inexplicable story in his own grave, a tale, which +seems but half told--we must place a man well known in the literary +world under the assumed name of George Psalmanazar. He composed his +autobiography as the penance of contrition, not to be published till he +was no more, when all human motives have ceased which might cause his +veracity to be suspected. The life is tedious; but I have curiously +traced the progress of the mind in an ingenious imposture, which is +worth preservation. The present literary forgery consisted of +personating a converted islander of Formosa: a place then little known +but by the reports of the Jesuits, and constructing a language and a +history of a new people and a new religion, entirely of his own +invention! This man was evidently a native of the south of France; +educated in some provincial college of the Jesuits, where he had heard +much of their discoveries of Japan; he had looked over their maps, and +listened to their comments. He forgot the manner in which the Japanese +wrote; but supposed, like orientalists, they wrote from the right to the +left, which he found difficult to manage. He set about excogitating an +alphabet; but actually forgot to give names to his letters, which +afterwards baffled him before literary men. + +He fell into gross blunders; having inadvertently affirmed that the +Formosans sacrificed eighteen thousand male infants annually, he +persisted in not lessening the number. It was proved to be an +impossibility in so small an island, without occasioning a depopulation. +He had made it a principle in this imposture never to vary when he had +once said a thing. All this was projected in haste, fearful of detection +by those about him. + +He was himself surprised at his facility of invention, and the progress +of his forgery. He had formed an alphabet, a considerable portion of a +new language, a grammar, a new division of the year into twenty months, +and a new religion! He had accustomed himself to write his language; but +being an inexpert writer with the unusual way of writing backwards, he +found this so difficult, that he was compelled to change the complicated +forms of some of his letters. He now finally quitted his home, assuming +the character of a Formosan convert, who had been educated by the +Jesuits. He was then in his fifteenth or sixteenth year. To support his +new character, he practised some religious mummeries; he was seen +worshipping the rising and setting sun. He made a prayer-book with rude +drawings of the sun, moon, and stars, to which he added some gibberish +prose and verse, written in his invented character, muttering or +chanting it, as the humour took him. His custom of eating raw flesh +seemed to assist his deception more than the sun and moon.[218] + +In a garrison at Sluys he found a Scotch regiment in the Dutch pay; the +commander had the curiosity to invite our Formosan to confer with Innes, +the chaplain to his regiment. This Innes was probably the chief cause of +the imposture being carried to the extent it afterwards reached. Innes +was a clergyman, but a disgrace to his cloth. As soon as he fixed his +eye on our Formosan, he hit on a project; it was nothing less than to +make Psalmanazar the ladder of his own ambition, and the stepping-place +for him to climb up to a good living! Innes was a worthless character; +as afterwards appeared, when by an audacious imposition Innes practised +on the Bishop of London, he avowed himself to be the author of an +anonymous work, entitled "A Modest Inquiry after Moral Virtue;" for this +he obtained a good living in Essex: the real author, a poor Scotch +clergyman, obliged him afterwards to disclaim the work in print, and to +pay him the profit of the edition which Innes had made! He lost his +character, and retired to the solitude of his living; if not penitent, +at least mortified. + +Such a character was exactly adapted to become the foster-father of +imposture. Innes courted the Formosan, and easily won on the adventurer, +who had hitherto in vain sought for a patron. Meanwhile no time was lost +by Innes to inform the unsuspicious and generous Bishop of London of the +prize he possessed--to convert the Formosan was his ostensible pretext; +to procure preferment his concealed motive. It is curious enough to +observe, that the ardour of conversion died away in Innes, and the most +marked neglect of his convert prevailed, while the answer of the bishop +was protracted or doubtful. He had at first proposed to our Formosan +impostor to procure his discharge, and convey him to England; this was +eagerly consented to by our pliant adventurer. A few Dutch schellings, +and fair words, kept him in good humour; but no letter coming from the +bishop, there were fewer words, and not a stiver! This threw a new light +over the character of Innes to the inexperienced youth. Psalmanazar +sagaciously now turned all his attention to some Dutch ministers; Innes +grew jealous lest they should pluck the bird which he had already in his +net. He resolved to baptize the impostor--which only the more convinced +Psalmanazar that Innes was one himself; for before this time Innes had +practised a stratagem on him which had clearly shown what sort of a man +his Formosan was. + +This stratagem was this: he made him translate a passage in Cicero, of +some length, into his pretended language, and give it him in writing; +this was easily done, by Psalmanazar's facility of inventing characters. +After Innes had made him construe it, he desired to have another version +of it on another paper. The proposal, and the arch manner of making it, +threw our impostor into the most visible confusion. He had had but a +short time to invent the first paper, less to recollect it; so that in +the second transcript not above half the words were to be found which +existed in the first. Innes assumed a solemn air, and Psalmanazar was on +the point of throwing himself on his mercy, but Innes did not wish to +unmask the impostor; he was rather desirous of fitting the mask closer +to his face. Psalmanazar, in this hard trial, had given evidence of +uncommon facility, combined with a singular memory. Innes cleared his +brow, smiled with a friendly look, and only hinted in a distant manner +that he ought to be careful to be better provided for the future! An +advice which Psalmanazar afterwards bore in mind, and at length produced +the forgery of an entire new language; and which, he remarkably +observes, "by what I have tried since I came into England, I cannot say +but I could have compassed it with less difficulty than can be conceived +had I applied closely to it." When a version of the catechism was made +into the pretended Formosan language, which was submitted to the +judgment of the first scholars, it appeared to them grammatical, and was +pronounced to be a real language, from the circumstance that it +resembled no other! and they could not conceive that a stripling could +be the inventor of a language. If the reader is curious to examine this +extraordinary imposture, I refer him to that literary curiosity, "An +Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, with Accounts of the +Religion, Customs and Manners of the Inhabitants, by George Psalmanazar, +a Native of the said Isle," 1704; with numerous plates, wretched +inventions! of their dress! religious ceremonies! their tabernacle and +altars to the sun, the moon, and the ten stars! their architecture! the +viceroy's castle! a temple! a city house! a countryman's house! and the +Formosan alphabet! In his conferences before the Royal Society with a +Jesuit just returned from China, the Jesuit had certain strong +suspicions that our hero was an impostor. The good father remained +obstinate in his own conviction, but could not satisfactorily +communicate it to others; and Psalmanazar, after politely asking pardon +for the expression, complains of the Jesuit that "HE _lied most +impudently," mentitur impudentissime!_ Dr. Mead absurdly insisted +Psalmanazar was a Dutchman or a German; some thought him a Jesuit in +disguise, a tool of the non-jurors; the Catholics thought him bribed by +the Protestants to expose their church; the Presbyterians that he was +paid to explode their doctrine, and cry up episcopacy! This fabulous +history of Formosa seems to have been projected by his artful prompter +Innes, who put Varenius into Psalmanazar's hands to assist him; +trumpeted forth in the domestic and foreign papers an account of this +converted Formosan; maddened the booksellers to hurry the author, who +was scarcely allowed two months to produce this extraordinary volume; +and as the former accounts which the public possessed of this island +were full of monstrous absurdities and contradictions, these assisted +the present imposture. Our forger resolved not to describe new and +surprising things as they had done, but rather studied to clash with +them, probably that he might have an opportunity of pretending to +correct them. The first edition was immediately sold; the world was more +divided than ever in opinion; in a second edition he prefixed a +vindication!--the unhappy forger got about twenty guineas for an +imposture, whose delusion spread far and wide! Some years afterwards +Psalmanazar was engaged in a minor imposture; one man had persuaded him +to father a white composition called the _Formosan japan!_ which was to +be sold at a high price! It was curious for its whiteness, but it had +its faults. The project failed, and Psalmanazar considered the +miscarriage of the _white Formosan japan_ as a providential warning to +repent of all his impostures of Formosa! + +Among these literary forgeries may be classed several ingenious ones +fabricated for a _political_ purpose. We had certainly numerous ones +during our civil wars in the reign of Charles the First. This is not the +place to continue the controversy respecting the mysterious _Eikon +Basilike_, which has been ranked among them, from the ambiguous claim of +Gauden.[219] A recent writer who would probably incline not to leave the +monarch, were he living, not only his head but the little fame he might +obtain by the "Verses" said to be written by him at Carisbrook Castle, +would deprive him also of these. Henderson's death-bed recantation is +also reckoned among them; and we have a large collection of "Letters of +Sir Henry Martin to his Lady of Delight," which were the satirical +effusions of a wit of that day, but by the price they have obtained, are +probably considered as genuine ones, and exhibit an amusing picture of +his loose rambling life.[220] There is a ludicrous speech of the strange +Earl of Pembroke, which was forged by the inimitable Butler. Sir John +Birkenhead, a great humourist and wit, had a busy pen in these spurious +letters and speeches.[221] + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [212] I have since been informed that this famous invention was + originally a flim-flam of a Mr. Thomas White, a noted collector and + dealer in antiquities. But it was Steevens who placed it in the + broker's shop, where he was certain of _catching_ the antiquary. + When the late Mr. Pegge, a profound brother, was preparing to write + a dissertation on it, the first inventor of the flam stepped forward + to save any further tragical termination; the wicked wit had already + succeeded too well. + + [213] The stone may be found in the British Museum. HARDCNVT is the + reading on the _Harthacnut_ stone; but the true orthography of the + name is HAREthACNVT. It was reported to have been discovered in + Kennington-lane, where the palace of the monarch was said to have + been located, and the inscription carefully made in Anglo-Saxon + characters, was to the effect that "Here Hardcnut drank a wine horn + dry, stared about him, and died." + + Sylvanus Urban, my once excellent and old friend, seems a trifle + uncourteous on this grave occasion.--He tells us, however, that "The + history of this wanton trick, with a _fac-simile_ of Schnebbelie's + drawing, may be seen in his volume lx. p. 217." He says that this + wicked contrivance of George Steevens was to entrap this famous + draughtsman! Does Sylvanus then deny that "the Director" was not + also "entrapped?" and that he always struck out his own _name_ in + the proof-sheets of the Magazine, substituting his official + designation, by which the whole society itself seemed to screen "the + Director!" + + [214] He was a Dominican monk, his real name being Giovanni Nanni, + which he Latinized in conformity with the custom of his era. He was + born 1432, and died 1502. His great work, _Antiquitatem Rariorum_, + professes to contain the works of Manetho, Berosus, and other + authors of equal antiquity. + + [215] A forgery of a similar character has been recently effected in + the _debris_ of the Chapelle St. Eloi (Departement de L'Eure, + France), where many inscriptions connected with the early history of + France were exhumed, which a deputation of antiquaries, convened to + examine their authenticity, have since pronounced to be forgeries! + + [216] The volume of these pretended Antiquities is entitled + _Etruscarum Antiquitatum Fragmenta, fo. Franc._ 1637. That which + Inghirami published to defend their authenticity is in Italian, + _Discorso sopra l'Opposizioni fatte all' Antichita Toscane_, 4to, + _Firenze_, 1645. + + [217] I draw this information from a little "new year's gift," which + my learned friend, the Rev. S. Weston, presented to his friends in + 1822, entitled "A Visit to Vaucluse," accompanied by a Supplement. + He derives his account apparently from a curious publication of + L'Abbe Costaing de Pusigner d'Avignon, which I with other inquirers + have not been able to procure, but which it is absolutely necessary + to examine, before we can decide on the very curious but + unsatisfactory accounts we have hitherto possessed of the Laura of + Petrarch. + + [218] For some further notices of Psalmanazar and his literary + labours, we may refer the reader to vol. i. p. 137, note. + + [219] The question has been discussed with great critical acumen by + Dr. Wordsworth. + + [220] Since this was published I have discovered that Harry Martin's + Letters are not forgeries, but I cannot immediately recover my + authority. + + [221] One of the most amusing of these tricks was perpetrated on + William Prynne, the well-known puritanic hater of the stage, by some + witty cavalier. Prynne's great work, "Histriomastix, the Player's + Scourge; or, Actor's Tragedy," an immense quarto, of 1100 pages, was + a complete condemnation of all theatrical amusements; but in 1649 + appeared a tract of four leaves, entitled "Mr. William Prynne, his + Defence of Stage Playes; or, a Retractation of a former Book of his + called Histriomastix." It must have astonished many readers in his + own day, and would have passed for his work in more modern times, + but for the accidental preservation of a single copy of a handbill + Prynne published disclaiming the whole thing. His style is most + amusingly imitated throughout, and his great love for quoting + authorities in his margin. He is made to complain that "this wicked + and tyrannical army did lately in a most inhumane, cruell, rough, + and barbarous manner, take away the poor players from their houses, + being met there to discharge the duty of their callings: as if this + army were fully bent, and most trayterously and maliciously set, to + put down and depresse all the King's friends, not only in the + parliament but in the very theatres; they have no care of covenant + or any thing else." And he is further made to declare, in spite of + "what the malicious, clamorous, and obstreperous people" may object, + that he once wrote against stage-plays,--that it was "when I had not + so clear a light as now I have." We can fancy the amusement this + pamphlet must have been to many readers during the great Civil War. + + + + +OF LITERARY FILCHERS. + + +An honest historian at times will have to inflict severe stroke on his +favourites. This has fallen to my lot, for in the course of my +researches, I have to record that we have both forgers and purloiners, +as well as other more obvious impostors, in the republic of letters! The +present article descends to relate anecdotes of some contrivances to +possess our literary curiosities by other means than by purchase; and +the only apology which can be alleged for the _splendida peccata_, as +St. Austin calls the virtues of the heathen, of the present innocent +criminals, is their excessive passion for literature, and otherwise the +respectability of their names. According to Grose's "Classical +Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," we have had celebrated _collectors_, +both in the learned and vulgar idioms. But one of them, who had some +reasons too to be tender on this point, distinguished this mode of +completing his collections, not by _book-stealing_, but by +_book-coveting_. On some occasions, in mercy, we must allow of softening +names. Were not the Spartans allowed to steal from one another, and the +bunglers only punished? + +It is said that Pinelli made occasional additions to his literary +treasures sometimes by his skill in an art which lay much more in the +hand than in the head: however, as Pinelli never stirred out of his +native city but once in his lifetime, when the plague drove him from +home, his field of action was so restricted, that we can hardly conclude +that he could have been so great an enterpriser in this way. No one can +have lost their character by this sort of exercise in a confined circle, +and be allowed to prosper! A light-fingered Mercury would hardly haunt +the same spot: however, this is as it may be! It is probable that we owe +to this species of accumulation many precious manuscripts in the +Cottonian collection. It appears by the manuscript note-book of Sir +Nicholas Hyde, chief justice of the King's Bench from the second to the +seventh year of Charles the First, that Sir Robert Cotton had in his +library, records, evidences, ledger-books, original letters, and other +state papers, belonging to the king; for the attorney-general of that +time, to prove this, showed a copy of the _pardon_ which Sir Robert had +obtained from King James for _embezzling records_, &c.[222] + +Gough has more than insinuated that Rawlinson and his friend Umfreville +"lie under very strong suspicions;" and he asserts that the collector of +the Wilton treasures made as free as Dr. Willis with his friend's +coins.[223] But he has also put forth a declaration relating to Bishop +More, the famous collector, that "the bishop collected his library by +_plundering_ those of the clergy in his diocese; some he paid with +sermons or more modern books; others, less civilly, only with a _quid +illiterati cum libris?_" This _plundering_ then consisted rather of +_cajoling_ others out of what they knew not how to value; and this is an +advantage which every skilful lover of books must enjoy over those whose +apprenticeship has not expired. I have myself been plundered by a very +dear friend of some such literary curiosities, in the days of my +innocence and of his precocity of knowledge. However, it does appear +that Bishop More did actually lay violent hands in a snug corner on some +irresistible little charmer; which we gather from a precaution adopted +by a friend of the bishop, who one day was found busy in _hiding his +rarest books_, and locking up as many as he could. On being asked the +reason of this odd occupation, the bibliopolist ingenuously replied, +"The Bishop of Ely dines with me to-day." This fact is quite clear, and +here is another as indisputable. Sir Robert Saville writing to Sir +Robert Cotton, appointing an interview with the founder of the Bodleian +Library, cautions Sir Robert, that "If he held any book so dear as that +he would be loath to lose it, he should _not let Sir Thomas out of his +sight_, but set 'the boke' aside beforehand." A surprise and detection +of this nature has been revealed in a piece of secret history by Amelot +de la Houssaie, which terminated in very important political +consequences. He assures us that the personal dislike which Pope +Innocent X. bore to the French had originated in his youth, when +cardinal, from having been detected in the library of an eminent French +collector, of having purloined a most rare volume. The delirium of a +collector's rage overcame even French politesse; the Frenchman not only +openly accused his illustrious culprit, but was resolved that he should +not quit the library without replacing the precious volume--from +accusation and denial both resolved to try their strength: but in this +literary wrestling-match the book dropped out of the cardinal's +robes!--and from that day he hated the French--at least their more +curious collectors! + +Even an author on his dying bed, at those awful moments, should a +collector be by his side, may not be considered secure from his too +curious hands. Sir William Dugdale possessed the minutes of King James's +life, written by Camden, till within a fortnight of his death; as also +Camden's own life, which he had from Hacket, the author of the folio +life of Bishop Williams: who, adds Aubrey, "did _filch_ it from Mr. +Camden, as he lay a dying!" He afterwards corrects his information, by +the name of Dr. Thorndyke, which, however, equally answers our purpose, +to prove that even dying authors may dread such collectors! + +The medalists have, I suspect, been more predatory than these +subtractors of our literary treasures; not only from the facility of +their conveyance, but from a peculiar contrivance which of all those +things which admit of being secretly purloined, can only be practised in +this department--for they can steal and no human hand can search them +with any possibility of detection; they can pick a cabinet and swallow +the curious things, and transport them with perfect safety, to be +digested at their leisure. An adventure of this kind happened to Baron +Stosch, the famous antiquary. It was in looking over the gems of the +royal cabinet of medals, that the keeper perceived the loss of one; his +place, his pension, and his reputation were at stake: and he insisted +that Baron Stosch should be most minutely examined; in this dilemma, +forced to confession, this erudite collector assured the keeper of the +royal cabinet, that the strictest search would not avail: "Alas, sir! I +have it here within," he said, pointing to his breast--an emetic was +suggested by the learned practitioner himself, probably from some former +experiment. This was not the first time that such a natural cabinet had +been invented; the antiquary Vaillant, when attacked at sea by an +Algerine, zealously swallowed a whole series of Syrian kings; when he +landed at Lyons, groaning with his concealed treasure, he hastened to +his friend, his physician, and his brother antiquary Dufour,--who at +first was only anxious to inquire of his patient, whether the medals +were of the higher empire? Vaillant showed two or three, of which nature +had kindly relieved him. A collection of medals was left to the city of +Exeter, and the donor accompanied the bequest by a clause in his will, +that should a certain antiquary, his old friend and rival, be desirous +of examining the coins, he should be watched by two persons, one on each +side. La Croze informs us in his life, that the learned Charles Patin, +who has written a work on medals, was one of the present race of +collectors: Patin offered the curators of the public library at Basle to +draw up a catalogue of the cabinet of Amberback there preserved, +containing a good number of medals; but they would have been more +numerous, had the catalogue-writer not diminished both them and his +labour, by sequestrating some of the most rare, which was not discovered +till this plunderer of antiquity was far out of their reach. + +When Gough touched on this odd subject in the first edition of his +"British Topography," "An Academic" in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for +August 1772, insinuated that this charge of literary pilfering was only +a jocular one; on which Gough, in his second edition, observed that this +was not the case, and that "one might point out enough _light-fingered +antiquaries_ in the present age, to render such a charge extremely +probable against earlier ones." The most extraordinary part of this +slight history is, that our public denouncer some time after proved +himself to be one of these "light-fingered antiquaries:" the deed +itself, however, was more singular than disgraceful. At the disinterment +of the remains of Edward the First, around which thirty years ago +assembled our most erudite antiquaries, Gough was observed, as Steevens +used to relate, in a wrapping great-coat of unusual dimensions; that +witty and malicious "Puck," so capable himself of inventing mischief, +easily suspected others, and divided his glance as much on the living +piece of antiquity as on the elder. In the act of closing up the relics +of royalty, there was found wanting an entire fore-finger of Edward the +First; and as the body was perfect when opened, a murmur of +dissatisfaction was spreading, when "Puck" directed their attention to +the great antiquary in the watchman's great-coat--from whence--too +surely was extracted Edward the First's great fore-finger!--so that "the +light-fingered antiquary" was recognised ten years after he denounced +the race, when he came to "try his hand."[224] + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [222] Lansdowne MSS. 888, in the former printed catalogue, art. 79. + + [223] Coins are the most dangerous things which can be exhibited to + a professed _collector_. One of the fraternity, who died but a few + years since, absolutely kept a record of his pilferings; he + succeeded in improving his collection by attending sales also, and + changing his own coins for others in better preservation. + + [224] It is probable that this story of Gough's pocketing the + fore-finger of Edward the First, was one of the malicious inventions + of George Steevens, after he discovered that the antiquary was among + the few admitted to the untombing of the royal corpse; Steevens + himself was not there! Sylvanus Urban (the late respected John + Nichols), who must know much more than he cares to record of + "Puck,"--has, however, given the following "secret history" of what + he calls "ungentlemanly and unwarrantable attacks" on Gough by + Steevens. It seems that Steevens was a collector of the works of + Hogarth, and while engaged in forming his collection, wrote an + abrupt letter to Gough to obtain from him some early impressions, by + purchase or exchange. Gough resented the manner of his address by a + rough refusal, for it is admitted to have been "a peremptory one." + Thus arose the implacable vengeance of Steevens, who used to boast + that all the mischievous tricks he played on the grave antiquary, + who was rarely over-kind to any one, was but a pleasant kind of + revenge. + + + + +OF LORD BACON AT HOME. + + +The history of Lord Bacon would be that of the intellectual faculties, +and a theme so worthy of the philosophical biographer remains yet to be +written. The personal narrative of this master-genius or inventor must +for ever be separated from the _scala intellectus_ he was perpetually +ascending: and the domestic history of this creative mind must be +consigned to the most humiliating chapter in the volume of human life; a +chapter already sufficiently enlarged, and which has irrefutably proved +how the greatest minds are not freed from the infirmities of the most +vulgar. + +The parent of our philosophy is now to be considered in a new light, one +which others do not appear to have observed. My researches into +contemporary notices of Bacon have often convinced me that his +philosophical works, in his own days and among his own countrymen, were +not only not comprehended, but often ridiculed, and sometimes +reprobated; that they were the occasion of many slights and +mortifications which this depreciated man endured; but that from a very +early period in his life, to that last record of his feelings which +appears in his will, this "servant of posterity," as he prophetically +called himself, sustained his mighty spirit with the confidence of his +own posthumous greatness. Bacon cast his views through the maturity of +ages, and perhaps amidst the sceptics and the rejectors of his plans, +may have felt at times all that idolatry of fame, which has now +consecrated his philosophical works. + +At college, Bacon discovered how "that scrap of Grecian knowledge, the +peripatetic philosophy," and the scholastic babble, could not serve the +ends and purposes of knowledge; that syllogisms were not things, and +that a new logic might teach us to invent and judge by induction. He +found that theories were to be built upon experiments. When a young man, +abroad, he began to make those observations on nature, which afterwards +led on to the foundations of the new philosophy. At sixteen, he +philosophised; at twenty-six, he had framed his system into some form; +and after forty years of continued labours, unfinished to his last hour, +he left behind him sufficient to found the great philosophical +reformation. + +On his entrance into active life, study was not however his prime +object. With his fortune to make, his court connexions and his father's +example opened a path for ambition. He chose the practice of common law +as his means, while his inclinations were looking upwards to political +affairs as his end. A passion for study, however, had strongly marked +him; he had read much more than was required in his professional +character, and this circumstance excited the mean jealousies of the +minister Cecil, and the Attorney-General Coke. Both were mere practical +men of business, whose narrow conceptions and whose stubborn habits +assume that whenever a man acquires much knowledge foreign to his +profession, he will know less of professional knowledge than he ought. +These men of strong minds, yet limited capacities, hold in contempt all +studies alien to their habits. + +Bacon early aspired to the situation of Solicitor-General; the court of +Elizabeth was divided into factions; Bacon adopted the interests of the +generous Essex, which were inimical to the party of Cecil. The queen, +from his boyhood, was delighted by conversing with her "young +lord-keeper," as she early distinguished the precocious gravity and the +ingenious turn of mind of the future philosopher. It was unquestionably +to attract her favour, that Bacon presented to the queen his "Maxims and +Elements of the Common Law," not published till after his death. +Elizabeth suffered her minister to form her opinions on the legal +character of Bacon. It was alleged that Bacon was addicted to more +general pursuits than law, and the miscellaneous books which he was +known to have read confirmed the accusation. This was urged as a reason +why the post of Solicitor-General should not be conferred on a man of +speculation, more likely to distract than to direct her affairs. +Elizabeth, in the height of that political prudence which marked her +character, was swayed by the vulgar notion of Cecil, and believed that +Bacon, who afterwards filled the situation both of Solicitor-General and +Lord Chancellor, was "a man rather of show than of depth." We have +recently been told by a great lawyer that "Bacon was a master." + +On the accession of James the First, when Bacon still found the same +party obstructing his political advancement, he appears, in some +momentary fit of disgust, to have meditated on a retreat into a foreign +country; a circumstance which has happened to several of our men of +genius, during a fever of solitary indignation. He was for some time +thrown out of the sunshine of life, but he found its shade more fitted +for contemplation; and, unquestionably, philosophy was benefited by his +solitude at Gray's Inn. His hand was always on his work, and better +thoughts will find an easy entrance into the mind of those who feed on +their thoughts, and live amidst their reveries. In a letter on this +occasion, he writes, "My ambition now I shall only put upon my PEN, +whereby I shall be able to maintain memory and merit, of THE TIMES +SUCCEEDING." And many years after, when he had finally quitted public +life, he told the king, "I would live to study, and not study to live: +yet I am prepared for _date obolum Belisario_; and, I that have borne a +bag, can bear a wallet." + +Ever were THE TIMES SUCCEEDING in his mind. In that delightful Latin +letter to Father Fulgentio, where, with the simplicity of true grandeur, +he takes a view of all his works, and in which he describes himself as +"one who served posterity," in communicating his past and his future +designs, he adds that "they require some ages for the ripening of them." +There, while he despairs of finishing what was intended for the sixth +part of his Instauration, how nobly he despairs! "Of the perfecting this +I have cast away all hopes; but in future ages, perhaps, the design may +bud again." And he concludes by avowing, that the zeal and constancy of +his mind in the great design, after so many years, had never become cold +and indifferent. He remembers how, forty years ago, he had composed a +juvenile work about those things, which with confidence, but with too +pompous a title, he had called _Temporis Partus Maximus_; the great +birth of time! Besides the public dedication of his _Novum Organum_ to +James the First, he accompanied it with a private letter. He wishes the +king's favour to the work, which he accounts as much as a hundred years' +time; for he adds, "I am persuaded _the work will gain upon men's minds +in_ AGES." + +In his last will appears his remarkable legacy of fame. "My name and +memory I leave to foreign nations, and to mine own countrymen, AFTER +SOME TIME BE PAST OVER." Time seemed always personated in the +imagination of our philosopher, and with time he wrestled with a +consciousness of triumph. + +I shall now bring forward sufficient evidence to prove how little Bacon +was understood, and how much he was even despised, in his philosophical +character. + +In those prescient views by which the genius of Verulam has often +anticipated the institutions and the discoveries of succeeding times, +there was one important object which even his foresight does not appear +to have contemplated. Lord Bacon did not foresee that the English +language would one day be capable of embalming all that philosophy can +discover, or poetry can invent; that his country would at length possess +a national literature of its own, and that it would exult in classical +compositions which might be appreciated with the finest models of +antiquity. His taste was far unequal to his invention. So little did he +esteem the language of his country, that his favourite works are +composed in Latin; and he was anxious to have what he had written in +English preserved in that "universal language which may last as long as +books last." It would have surprised Bacon to have been told, that the +most learned men in Europe have studied English authors to learn to +think and to write. Our philosopher was surely somewhat mortified, when +in his dedication of the Essays he observed, that "of all my other works +my Essays have been most current; for that, _as it seems_, they come +home to men's business and bosoms." It is too much to hope to find in a +vast and profound inventor a writer also who bestows immortality on his +language. The English language is the only object in his great survey of +art and of nature, which owes nothing of its excellence to the genius of +Bacon. + +He had reason indeed to be mortified at the reception of his +philosophical works; and Dr. Rawley, even some years after the death of +his illustrious master, had occasion to observe, that "His fame is +greater and sounds louder in foreign parts abroad than at home in his +own nation"; thereby verifying that divine sentence, a prophet is not +without honour, save in his own country and in his own house. Even the +men of genius, who ought to have comprehended this new source of +knowledge thus opened to them, reluctantly entered into it; so repugnant +are we suddenly to give up ancient errors which time and habit have made +a part of ourselves. Harvey, who himself experienced the sluggish +obstinacy of the learned, which repelled a great but a novel discovery, +could, however, in his turn deride the amazing novelty of Bacon's _Novum +Organum_. Harvey said to Aubrey, that "Bacon was no great philosopher; +he writes philosophy like a lord chancellor." It has been suggested to +me that Bacon's philosophical writings have been much overrated.--His +experimental philosophy from the era in which they were produced must be +necessarily defective: the time he gave to them could only have been had +at spare hours; but like the great prophet on the mount, Bacon was +doomed to view the land afar, which he himself could never enter. + +Bacon found but small encouragement for his _new learning_ among the +most eminent scholars, to whom he submitted his early discoveries. A +very copious letter by Sir Thomas Bodley on Bacon's desiring him to +return the manuscript of the _Cogitata et Visa_, some portion of the +_Novum Organum_, has come down to us; it is replete with objections to +the new philosophy. "I am one of that crew," says Sir Thomas, "that say +we possess a far greater holdfast of certainty in the sciences than you +will seem to acknowledge." He gives a hint too that Solomon complained +"of the infinite making of books in his time;" that all Bacon delivers +is only "by averment without other force of argument, to disclaim all +our axioms, maxims, &c., left by tradition from our elders unto us, +which have passed all probations of the sharpest wits that ever were;" +and he concludes that the end of all Bacon's philosophy, by "a fresh +creating new principles of sciences, would be to be dispossessed of the +learning we have;" and he fears that it would require as many ages as +have marched before us that knowledge should be perfectly achieved. +Bodley truly compares himself to "the carrier's horse which cannot +blanch the beaten way in which I was trained."[225] + +Bacon did not lose heart by the timidity of the "carrier's horse:" a +smart vivacious note in return shows his quick apprehension. + +"As I am going to my house in the country, I shall want my papers, which +I beg you therefore to return. You are slothful, and you help me +nothing, so that I am half in conceit you affect not the argument; for +myself I know well you love and affect. I can say no more, but _non +canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylvae_. If you be not _of the lodgings +chalked up_, whereof I speak in my preface, I am but to pass by your +door. But if I had you a fortnight at Gorhambury, I would make you tell +another tale; or else I would add a cogitation _against libraries_, and +be revenged on you that way." + +A keen but playful retort of a great author too conscious of his own +views to be angry with his critic! The singular phrase of the _lodgings +chalked up_ is a sarcasm explained by this passage in "The Advancement +of Learning." "As Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of +the French for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to mark +up their lodgings, and not with weapons to fight; so I like better that +entry of truth that cometh peaceably with chalk to mark up those minds +which are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with +pugnacity and contention."[226] The threatened agitation _against +libraries_ must have caused Bodley's cheek to tingle. + +Let us now turn from the scholastic to the men of the world, and we +shall see what sort of notion these critics entertained of the +philosophy of Bacon. Chamberlain writes, "This week the lord chancellor +hath set forth his new work, called _Instauratio Magna_, or a kind of +_Novum Organum_ of all philosophy. In sending it to the king, he wrote +that he wished his majesty might be so long in reading it as he hath +been in composing and polishing it, which is well near thirty years. I +have read no more than the bare title, and am not greatly encouraged by +Mr. Cuffe's judgment,[227] who having long since perused it, gave this +censure, that a fool could not have written such a work, and a wise man +would not." A month or two afterwards we find that "the king cannot +forbear sometimes in reading the lord chancellor's last book to say, +that it is like _the peace of God, that surpasseth all understanding_." + +Two years afterwards the same letter-writer proceeds with another +literary paragraph about Bacon. "This lord busies himself altogether +about _books_, and hath set out two lately, _Historia Ventorum_ and _De +Vita et Morte_, with promise of more. I have yet seen neither of them, +because I have not leisure; but if the Life of Henry the Eighth (the +Seventh), which they say he is about, might _come out after his own +manner_ (meaning his Moral Essays), I should find time and means enough +to read it." When this history made its appearance, the same writer +observes, "My Lord Verulam's history of Henry the Seventh is come forth; +I have not read much of it, but they say it is a very pretty book."[228] + +Bacon, in his vast survey of human knowledge, included even its humbler +provinces, and condescended to form a collection of apophthegms: his +lordship regretted the loss of a collection made by Julius Caesar, while +Plutarch indiscriminately drew much of the dregs. The wits, who could +not always comprehend his plans, ridiculed the sage. I shall now quote a +contemporary poet, whose works, for by their size they may assume that +distinction, were never published. A Dr. Andrews wasted a sportive pen +on fugitive events; but though not always deficient in humour and wit, +such is the freedom of his writings, that they will not often admit of +quotation. The following is indeed but a strange pun on Bacon's title, +derived from the town of St. Albans and his collection of apophthegms:-- + + ON LORD BACON PUBLISHING APOPHTHEGMS + + When learned Bacon wrote Essays, + He did deserve and hath the praise; + But now he writes his _Apophthegms_, + Surely he dozes or he dreams; + One said, _St. Albans_ now is grown unable, + And is in the high-road way--_to Dunstable_ [i.e., _Dunce-table_.] + +To the close of his days were Lord Bacon's philosophical pursuits still +disregarded and depreciated by ignorance and envy, in the forms of +friendship or rivality. I shall now give a remarkable example. Sir +Edward Coke was a mere great lawyer, and, like all such, had a mind so +walled in by law-knowledge, that in its bounded views it shut out the +horizon of the intellectual faculties, and the whole of his philosophy +lay in the statutes. In the library at Holkham there will be found a +presentation copy of Lord Bacon's _Novum Organum_, the _Instauratio +Magna_, 1620. It was given to Coke, for it bears the following note on +the title-page, in the writing of Coke:-- + + Edw. Coke, _Ex dono authoris, + Auctori consilium + Instaurare paras veterum documenta sophorum + Instaura leges, justitiamque prius_. + +The verses not only reprove Bacon for going out of his profession, but +must have alluded to his character as a prerogative lawyer, and his +corrupt administration of the chancery. The book was published in +October, 1620, a few months before his impeachment. And so far one may +easily excuse the causticity of Coke; but how he really valued the +philosophy of Bacon appears by this: in this first edition there is a +device of a ship passing between Hercules's pillars; the _plus ultra_, +the proud exultation of our philosopher. Over this device Coke has +written a miserable distich in English, which marks his utter contempt +of the philosophical pursuits of his illustrious rival. This ship +passing beyond the columns of Hercules he sarcastically conceits as "The +Ship of Fools," the famous satire of the German Sebastian Brandt, +translated by Alexander Barclay. + + _It deserveth not to be read in schools, + But to be freighted in the Ship of Fools._ + +Such then was the fate of Lord Bacon; a history not written by his +biographers, but which may serve as a comment on that obscure passage +dropped from the pen of his chaplain, and already quoted, that he was +more valued abroad than at home. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [225] This letter may be found in _Reliquiae Bodleianae_, p. 369. + + [226] I have been favoured with this apt illustration by an + anonymous communicator, who dates from the "London University." I + request him to accept my grateful acknowledgments. + + [227] Henry Cuffe, secretary to Robert, Earl of Essex, and executed, + being concerned in his treason. A man noted for his classical + acquirements and his genius, who perished early in life. + + [228] Chamberlain adds the price of this moderate-sized folio, which + was six shillings. It would be worth the while of some literary + student to note the prices of our earlier books, which are often + found written upon them by their original possessor. A rare tract + first purchased for twopence has often realized four guineas or more + in modern days. + + + + +SECRET HISTORY OF THE DEATH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. + + +It is an extraordinary circumstance in our history, that the succession +to the English dominion, in two remarkable cases, was never settled by +the possessors of the throne themselves during their lifetime; and that +there is every reason to believe that this mighty transfer of three +kingdoms became the sole act of their ministers, who considered the +succession merely as a state expedient. Two of our most able sovereigns +found themselves in this predicament: Queen Elizabeth and the Protector +Cromwell! Cromwell probably had his reasons not to name his successor; +his positive election would have dissatisfied the opposite parties of +his government, whom he only ruled while he was able to cajole them. He +must have been aware that latterly he had need of conciliating all +parties to his usurpation, and was probably as doubtful on his death-bed +whom to appoint his successor as at any other period of his reign. +Ludlow suspects that Cromwell was "so discomposed in body or mind, that +he could not attend to that matter; and whether he named any one is to +me uncertain." All that we know is the report of the Secretary Thurlow +and his chaplains, who, when the protector lay in his last agonies, +suggested to him the propriety of choosing his eldest son, and they tell +us that he agreed to this choice. Had Cromwell been in his senses, he +would have probably fixed on _Henry_, the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, +rather than on _Richard_, or possibly had not chosen either of his sons! + +Elizabeth, from womanish infirmity, or from state-reasons, could not +endure the thoughts of her successor; and long threw into jeopardy the +politics of all the cabinets of Europe, each of which had its favourite +candidate to support. The legitimate heir to the throne of England was +to be the creature of her breath, yet Elizabeth would not speak him into +existence! This had, however, often raised the discontents of the +nation, and we shall see how it harassed the queen in her dying hours. +It is even suspected that the queen still retained so much of the woman, +that she could never overcome her perverse dislike to name a successor; +so that, according to this opinion, she died and left the crown to the +mercy of a party! This would have been acting unworthy of the +magnanimity of her great character--and as it is ascertained that the +queen was very sensible that she lay in a dying state several days +before the natural catastrophe occurred, it is difficult to believe that +she totally disregarded so important a circumstance. It is therefore, +reasoning _a priori_, most natural to conclude that the choice of a +successor must have occupied her thoughts, as well as the anxieties of +her ministers; and that she would not have left the throne in the same +unsettled state at her death as she had persevered in during her whole +life. How did she express herself when bequeathing the crown to James +the First, or did she bequeath it at all? + +In the popular pages of her female historian Miss Aikin, it is observed +that "the closing scene of the long and eventful life of Queen Elizabeth +was marked by that peculiarity of character and destiny which attended +her from the cradle, and pursued her to the grave." The last days of +Elizabeth were indeed most melancholy--she died a victim of the higher +passions, and perhaps as much of grief as of age, refusing all remedies +and even nourishment. But in all the published accounts, I can nowhere +discover how she conducted herself respecting the circumstance of our +present inquiry. The most detailed narrative, or as Gray the poet calls +it, "the Earl of Monmouth's _odd account_ of Queen Elizabeth's death," +is the one most deserving notice; and there we find the circumstance of +this inquiry introduced. The queen at that moment was reduced to so sad +a state, that it is doubtful whether her majesty was at all sensible of +the inquiries put to her by her ministers respecting the succession. The +Earl of Monmouth says, "On Wednesday, the 23rd of March, she grew +speechless. That afternoon, by signs, she called for her council, and by +putting her hand to her head when the King of Scots was named to succeed +her, they all knew he was the man she desired should reign after her." +Such a sign as that of a dying woman putting her hand to her head was, +to say the least, a very ambiguous acknowledgment of the right of the +Scottish monarch to the English throne. The "odd" but very _naive_ +account of Robert Cary, afterwards Earl of Monmouth, is not furnished +with dates, nor with the exactness of a diary. Something might have +occurred on a preceding day which had not reached him. Camden describes +the death-bed scene of Elizabeth; by this authentic writer it appears +that she had confided her state-secret of the succession to the lord +admiral (the Earl of Nottingham); and when the earl found the queen +almost at her extremity, _he communicated her majesty's secret to the +council_, who commissioned the lord admiral, the lord keeper, and the +secretary, to wait on her majesty, and acquaint her that they came in +the name of the rest to learn her pleasure in reference to _the +succession_. The queen was then very weak, and answered them with a +faint voice, that she had already declared, that as she held a regal +sceptre, so she desired no other than a royal successor. When the +secretary requested her to explain herself, the queen said, "I would +have a king succeed me; and who should that he but my nearest kinsman, +the King of Scots?" Here this state conversation was put an end to by +the interference of the archbishop advising her majesty to turn her +thoughts to God. "Never," she replied, "has my mind wandered from him." + +An historian of Camden's high integrity would hardly have forged a +fiction to please the new monarch: yet Camden has not been referred to +on this occasion by the exact Birch, who draws his information from the +letters of the French ambassador, Villeroy; information which it appears +the English ministers had confided to this ambassador; nor do we get any +distinct ideas from Elizabeth's more recent popular historian, who could +only transcribe the account of Cary. He had told us a fact which he +could not be mistaken in, that the queen fell speechless on Wednesday, +23rd of March, on which day, however, she called her council, and made +that sign with her hand, which, as the lords choose to understand, for +ever united the two kingdoms. But the noble editor of Cary's Memoirs +(the Earl of Cork and Orrery) has observed that "the speeches made for +Elizabeth on her death-bed are all forged." Echard, Rapin, and a long +string of historians, make her say faintly (so faintly indeed that it +could not possibly be heard), "I will that a king succeed me, and who +should that be but my nearest kinsman, the King of Scots?" A different +account of this matter will be found in the following memoirs. "She was +speechless, and almost expiring, when the chief councillors of state +were called into her bedchamber. As soon as they were perfectly +convinced that she could not utter an articulate word, and scarce could +hear or understand one, they named the King of Scots to her, _a liberty +they dared not to have taken if she had been able to speak_; she put her +hand to her head, which was probably at that time in agonising pain. +_The lords, who interpreted her signs just as they pleased_, were +immediately convinced that the _motion of her hand to her head was a +declaration of James the Sixth as her successor_. What was this but the +unanimous interpretation of persons who were adoring the rising sun?" + +This is lively and plausible; but the noble editor did not recollect +that "the speeches made by Elizabeth on her death-bed," which he deems +"forgeries," in consequence of the circumstance he had found in Cary's +Memoirs, originate with Camden, and were only repeated by Rapin and +Echard, &c. I am now to confirm the narrative of the elder historian, as +well as the circumstance related by Cary, describing the sign of the +queen a little differently, which happened on Wednesday, 23rd. A +hitherto unnoticed document pretends to give a fuller and more +circumstantial account of this affair, which commenced on _the preceding +day_, when the queen retained the power of speech; and it will be +confessed that the language here used has all that loftiness and brevity +which was the natural style of this queen. I have discovered a curious +document in a manuscript volume formerly in the possession of Petyt, and +seemingly in his own handwriting. I do not doubt its authenticity, and +it could only have come from some of the illustrious personages who were +the actors in that solemn scene, probably from Cecil. This memorandum is +entitled + +"Account of the last words of Queen Elizabeth about her Successor. + +"On the Tuesday before her death, being the twenty-third of March, the +admiral being on the right side of her bed, the lord keeper on the left, +and Mr. Secretary Cecil (afterwards Earl of Salisbury) at the bed's +feet, all standing, the lord admiral put her in mind of her speech +concerning the succession had at Whitehall, and that they, in the name +of all the rest of her council, came unto her to know her pleasure who +should succeed; whereunto she thus replied: + +"_I told you my seat had been the seat of kings, and I will have no +rascal to succeed me. And who should succeed me but a king?_ + +"The lords not understanding this dark speech, and looking one on the +other; at length Mr. Secretary boldly asked her what she meant by those +words, that _no rascal should succeed her_. Whereto she replied, that +_her meaning was, that a king should succeed: and who_, quoth she, +_should, that be but our cousin of Scotland_? + +"They asked her whether that were her absolute resolution? whereto she +answered, _I pray you trouble me no more; for I will have none but him_. +With which answer they departed. + +"Notwithstanding, after again, about four o'clock in the afternoon the +next day, being Wednesday, after the Archbishop of Canterbury and other +divines had been with her, and left her in a manner speechless, the +three lords aforesaid repaired unto her again, asking her if she +remained in her former resolution, and who should succeed her? but not +being able to speak, was asked by Mr. Secretary in this sort, 'We +beseech your majesty, if you remain in your former resolution, and that +you would have the King of Scots to succeed you in your kingdom, show +some sign unto us: whereat, _suddenly heaving herself upwards in her +bed, and putting her arms out of bed, she held her hands jointly over +her head in manner of a crown_; whence as they guessed, she signified +that she did not only wish him the kingdom, but desire continuance of +his estate: after which they departed, and the next morning she died. +Immediately after her death, all the lords, as well of the council as +other noblemen that were at the court, came from Richmond to Whitehall +by six o'clock in the morning, where other noblemen that were in London +met them. Touching the succession, after some speeches of divers +competitors and matters of state, at length the admiral rehearsed all +the aforesaid premises which the late queen had spoken to him, and to +the lord keeper, and Mr. Secretary (Cecil), with the manner thereof; +which they, being asked, did affirm to be true upon their HONOUR." + +Such is this singular document of secret history. I cannot but value it +as authentic, because the one part is evidently alluded to by Camden, +and the other is fully confirmed by Cary; and besides this, the +remarkable expression of "rascal" is found in the letter of the French +ambassador. There were two interviews with the queen, and Cary appears +only to have noticed the last on Wednesday, when the queen lay +speechless. Elizabeth all her life had persevered in an obstinate +mysteriousness respecting the succession, and it harassed her latest +moments. The second interview of her ministers may seem to us quite +supernumerary; but Cary's "putting her hand to her head," too meanly +describes the "joining her hands in manner of a crown." + + + + +JAMES THE FIRST AS A FATHER AND A HUSBAND. + + +Calumnies and sarcasms have reduced the character of James the First to +contempt among general readers; while the narrative of historians, who +have related facts in spite of themselves, is in perpetual contradiction +with their own opinions. Perhaps no sovereign has suffered more by that +art, which is described by an old Irish proverb, of "killing a man by +lies." The surmises and the insinuations of one party, dissatisfied with +the established government in church and state; the misconceptions of +more modern writers, who have not possessed the requisite knowledge; and +the anonymous libels, sent forth at a particular period to vilify the +Stuarts; all these cannot be treasured up by the philosopher as the +authorities of history. It is at least more honourable to resist popular +prejudice than to yield to it a passive obedience; and what we can +ascertain it would be a dereliction of truth to conceal. Much can be +substantiated in favour of the domestic affections and habits of this +pacific monarch; and those who are more intimately acquainted with the +secret history of the times will perceive how erroneously the personal +character of this sovereign is exhibited in our popular historians, and +often even among the few who, with better information, have re-echoed +their preconceived opinions. + +Confining myself here to his domestic character, I shall not touch on +the many admirable public projects of this monarch, which have extorted +the praise, and even the admiration, of some who have not spared their +pens in his disparagement. James the First has been taxed with +pusillanimity and foolishness; this monarch cannot, however, be +reproached with having engendered them! All his children, in whose +education their father was so deeply concerned, sustained through life a +dignified character and a high spirit. The short life of Henry was +passed in a school of prowess, and amidst an academy of literature. Of +the king's paternal solicitude, even to the hand and the letter-writing +of Prince Henry when young, I have preserved a proof in the article of +"The History of Writing-masters." Charles the First, in his youth more +particularly designed for a studious life, with a serious character, +was, however, never deficient in active bravery and magnanimous +fortitude. Of Elizabeth, the Queen of Bohemia, tried as she was by such +vicissitudes of fortune, it is much to be regretted that the +interesting story remains untold; her buoyant spirits rose always above +the perpetual changes of a princely to a private state--a queen to an +exile! The father of such children derives some distinction for +capacity, in having reared such a noble offspring; and the king's marked +attention to the formation of his children's minds was such as to have +been pointed out by Ben Jonson, who, in his "Gipsies Metamorphosed," +rightly said of James, using his native term-- + + You are an honest, good man, and have care of YOUR BEARNS (bairns). + +Among the flouts and gibes so freely bespattering the personal character +of James the First, is one of his coldness and neglect of his queen. It +would, however, be difficult to prove by any known fact that James was +not as indulgent a husband as he was a father. Yet even a writer so well +informed as Daines Barrington, who, as a lawyer, could not refrain from +lauding the royal sage during his visit to Denmark, on his marriage, for +having borrowed three statutes from the Danish code, found the king's +name so provocative of sarcasm, that he could not forbear observing, +that James "spent more time in those courts of judicature than in +_attending upon his destined consort_."--"Men of all sorts have taken a +pride to gird at me," might this monarch have exclaimed. But everything +has two handles, saith the ancient adage. Had an austere puritan chosen +to observe that James the First, when abroad, had lived jovially; and +had this historian then dropped silently the interesting circumstance of +the king's "spending his time in the Danish courts of judicature," the +fact would have borne him out in his reproof; and Francis Osborne, +indeed, has censured James for giving marks of his _uxoriousness_! There +was no deficient gallantry in the conduct of James the First to his +queen; the very circumstance, that when the Princess of Denmark was +driven by a storm back to Norway, the king resolved to hasten to her, +and consummate his marriage in Denmark, was itself as romantic an +expedition as afterwards was that of his son's into Spain, and betrays +no mark of that tame pusillanimity with which he stands overcharged. + +The character of the queen of James the First is somewhat obscure in our +public history, for in it she makes no prominent figure; while in secret +history she is more apparent. Anne of Denmark was a spirited and +enterprising woman; and it appears from a passage in Sully, whose +authority should weigh with us, although we ought to recollect that it +is the French minister who writes, that she seems to have raised a court +faction against James, and inclined to favour the Spanish and catholic +interests; yet it may be alleged as a strong proof of James's political +wisdom, that the queen was never suffered to head a formidable party, +though she latterly might have engaged Prince Henry in that court +opposition. The _bonhommie_ of the king, on this subject, expressed with +a simplicity of style which, though it may not be royal, is something +better, appears in a letter to the queen, which has been preserved in +the appendix to Sir David Dalrymple's collections. It is without date, +but written when in Scotland, to quiet the queen's suspicions, that the +Earl of Mar, who had the care of Prince Henry, and whom she wished to +take out of his hands, had insinuated to the king that her majesty was +strongly disposed to any "popish or Spanish course." This letter +confirms the representation of Sully; but the extract is remarkable for +the manly simplicity of style which the king used. + +"I say over again, leave these froward womanly apprehensions, for I +thank God I carry that love and respect unto you which, by the law of +God and nature, I ought to do to my wife, and mother of my children; but +not for that ye are a king's daughter; for whether ye were a king's +daughter, or a cook's daughter, ye must be all alike to me since my +wife. For the respect of your honourable birth and descent I married +you; but the love and respect I now bear you is because that ye are my +married wife, and so partaker of my honour, as of my other fortunes. I +beseech you excuse my plainness in this, for casting up of your birth is +a needless impertinent (that is, not pertinent) argument to me. God is +my witness, I ever preferred you to my bairns, much more than to a +subject." + +In an ingenious historical dissertation, but one perfectly theoretical, +respecting that mysterious transaction the Gowrie conspiracy, Pinkerton +has attempted to show that Anne of Denmark was a lady somewhat inclined +to intrigue, and that "the king had cause to be jealous." He confesses +that "he cannot discover any positive charge of adultery against Anne of +Denmark, but merely of coquetry."[229] To what these accusations amount +it would be difficult to say. The progeny of James the First +sufficiently bespeak their family resemblance. If it be true, that "the +king had ever reason to be jealous," and yet that no single criminal act +of the queen's has been recorded, it must be confessed that one or both +of the parties were singularly discreet and decent; for the king never +complained, and the queen was never accused, if we except this burthen +of an old Scottish ballad, + + O the bonny Earl of Murray, + He was the queen's love. + +Whatever may have happened in Scotland, in England the queen appears to +have lived occupied chiefly by the amusements of the court, and not to +have interfered with the _arcana_ of state. She appears to have indulged +a passion for the elegancies and splendours of the age, as they were +shown in those gorgeous court masques with which the taste of James +harmonized, either from his gallantry for the queen, or his own poetic +sympathy. But this taste for court masques could not escape the slur and +scandal of the puritanic, and these "high-flying fancies" are thus +recorded by honest Arthur Wilson, whom we summon into court as an +indubitable witness of the mutual cordiality of this royal couple. In +the spirit of his party, and like Milton, he censures the taste, but +likes it. He says, "The court being a continued _maskarado_, where she +(the queen) and her ladies, like so many sea-nymphs or Nereides, +appeared often in various dresses, to the ravishment of the beholders; +the king himself not being a little delighted with such fluent +elegancies as made the night more glorious than the day."[230] This is a +direct proof that James was by no means cold or negligent in his +attentions to his queen; and the letter which has been given is the +picture of his mind. That James the First was fondly indulgent to his +queen, and could perform an act of chivalric gallantry with all the +generosity of passion, and the ingenuity of an elegant mind, a pleasing +anecdote which I have discovered in an unpublished letter of the day +will show. I give it in the words of the writer. + + "_August, 1613._ + + "At their last being at Theobalds, about a fortnight ago, the queen, + shooting at a deer, mistook her mark, and killed _Jewel_, the king's + most principal and special hound; at which he stormed exceedingly + awhile; but after he knew who did it, he was soon pacified, and with + much kindness wished her not to be troubled with it, for he should + love her never the worse: and the next day sent her a diamond worth + two thousand pounds as _a legacy from his dead dog_. Love and + kindness increased daily between them." + +Such is the history of a contemporary living at court, very opposite to +that representation of coldness and neglect with which the king's temper +has been so freely aspersed; and such too is the true portrait of James +the First in domestic life. His first sensations were thoughtless and +impetuous; and he would ungracefully thunder out an oath, which a +puritan would set down in his "tables," while he omitted to note that +this king's forgiveness and forgetfulness of personal injuries were sure +to follow the feeling they had excited. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [229] The historical dissertation is appended to the first volume of + Mr. Malcolm Laing's "History of Scotland," who thinks that "it has + placed that obscure transaction in its genuine light." + + [230] See the article on _Court Masques_ in the early pages of the + present volume for notices of the elaborate splendour and costliness + of these favourite displays. + + + + +THE MAN OF ONE BOOK. + + +Mr. Maurice, in his animated Memoirs, has recently acquainted us with a +fact which may be deemed important in the life of a literary man. He +tells us, "We have been just informed that Sir William Jones +_invariably_ read through every year the works of Cicero, whose life +indeed was the great exemplar of his own." The same passion for the +works of Cicero has been participated by others. When the best means of +forming a good style were inquired of the learned Arnauld, he advised +the daily study of Cicero; but it was observed that the object was not +to form a Latin, but a French style: "In that case," replied Arnauld, +"you must still read Cicero." + +A predilection for some great author, among the vast number which must +transiently occupy our attention, seems to be the happiest preservative +for our taste: accustomed to that excellent author whom we have chosen +for our favourite, we may in this intimacy possibly resemble him. It is +to be feared that, if we do not form such a permanent attachment, we may +be acquiring knowledge, while our enervated taste becomes less and less +lively. Taste embalms the knowledge which otherwise cannot preserve +itself. He who has long been intimate with one great author will always +be found to be a formidable antagonist; he has saturated his mind with +the excellences of genius; he has shaped his faculties insensibly to +himself by his model, and he is like a man who ever sleeps in armour, +ready at a moment! The old Latin proverb reminds us of this fact, _Cave +ab homine unius libri_: Be cautious of the man of one book! + +Pliny and Seneca give very safe advice on reading: that we should read +much, but not many books--but they had no "monthly list of new +publications!" Since their days others have favoured us with "Methods of +Study," and "Catalogues of Books to be Read." Vain attempts to +circumscribe that invisible circle of human knowledge which is +perpetually enlarging itself! The multiplicity of books is an evil for +the many; for we now find an _helluo librorum_ not only among the +learned, but, with their pardon, among the unlearned; for those who, +even to the prejudice of their health, persist only in reading the +incessant book-novelties of our own time, will after many years acquire +a sort of learned ignorance. We are now in want of an art to teach how +books are to be read, rather than not to read them: such an art is +practicable. But amidst this vast multitude still let us be "the man of +one book," and preserve an uninterrupted intercourse with that great +author with whose mode of thinking we sympathise, and whose charms of +composition we can habitually retain. + +It is remarkable that every great writer appears to have a predilection +for some favourite author; and, with Alexander, had they possessed a +golden casket, would have enshrined the works they so constantly turned +over. Demosthenes felt such delight in the history of Thucydides, that, +to obtain a familiar and perfect mastery of his style, he re-copied his +history eight times; while Brutus not only was constantly perusing +Polybius, even amidst the most busy periods of his life, but was +abridging a copy of that author on the last awful night of his +existence, when on the following day he was to try his fate against +Antony and Octavius. Selim the Second had the Commentaries of Caesar +translated for his use; and it is recorded that his military ardour was +heightened by the perusal. We are told that Scipio Africanus was made a +hero by the writings of Xenophon. When Clarendon was employed in writing +his history, he was in a constant study of Livy and Tacitus, to acquire +the full and flowing style of the one, and the portrait-painting of the +other: he records this circumstance in a letter. Voltaire had usually on +his table the _Athalie_ of Racine, and the _Petit Careme_ of Massillon; +the tragedies of the one were the finest model of French verse, the +sermons of the other of French prose. "Were I obliged to sell my +library," exclaimed Diderot, "I would keep back Moses, Homer, and +Richardson;" and, by the _eloge_ which this enthusiastic writer composed +on our English novelist, it is doubtful, had the Frenchman been obliged +to have lost two of them, whether Richardson had not been the elected +favourite. Monsieur Thomas, a French writer, who at times displays high +eloquence and profound thinking, Herault de Sechelles tells us, studied +chiefly one author, but that author was Cicero; and never went into the +country unaccompanied by some of his works. Fenelon was constantly +employed on his Homer; he left a translation of the greater part of the +Odyssey, without any design of publication, but merely as an exercise +for style. Montesquieu was a constant student of Tacitus, of whom he +must be considered a forcible imitator. He has, in the manner of +Tacitus, characterised Tacitus: "That historian," he says, "who abridged +everything, because he saw everything." The famous Bourdaloue re-perused +every year Saint Paul, Saint Chrysostom, and Cicero. "These," says a +French critic, "were the sources of his masculine and solid eloquence." +Grotius had such a taste for Lucan, that he always carried a pocket +edition about him, and has been seen to kiss his hand-book with the +rapture of a true votary. If this anecdote be true, the elevated +sentiments of the stern Roman were probably the attraction with the +Batavian republican. The diversified reading of Leibnitz is well known; +but he still attached himself to one or two favourites: Virgil was +always in his hand when at leisure, and Leibnitz had read Virgil so +often, that even in his old age he could repeat whole books by heart; +Barclay's Argenis was his model for prose; when he was found dead in his +chair, the Argenis had fallen from his hands. Rabelais and Marot were +the perpetual favourites of La Fontaine; from one he borrowed his +humour, and from the other his style. Quevedo was so passionately fond +of the Don Quixote of Cervantes, that often in reading that unrivalled +work he felt an impulse to burn his own inferior compositions: to be a +sincere admirer and a hopeless rival is a case of authorship the hardest +imaginable. Few writers can venture to anticipate the award of +posterity; yet perhaps Quevedo had not even been what he was without the +perpetual excitement he received from his great master. Horace was the +friend of his heart to Malherbe; he laid the Roman poet on his pillow, +took him in the fields, and called his Horace his breviary. Plutarch, +Montaigne, and Locke, were the three authors constantly in the hands of +Rousseau, and he has drawn from them the groundwork of his ideas in his +Emile. The favourite author of the great Earl of Chatham was Barrow; and +on his style he had formed his eloquence, and had read his great master +so constantly, as to be able to repeat his elaborate sermons from +memory. The great Lord Burleigh always carried Tully's Offices in his +pocket; Charles V. and Buonaparte had Machiavel frequently in their +hands; and Davila was the perpetual study of Hampden: he seemed to have +discovered in that historian of civil wars those which he anticipated in +the land of his fathers. + +These facts sufficiently illustrate the recorded circumstance of Sir +William Jones's invariable habit of reading his Cicero through every +year, and exemplify the happy result for him, who, amidst the +multiplicity of his authors, still continues in this way to be "the man +of one book." + + + + +A BIBLIOGNOSTE. + + +A startling literary prophecy, recently sent forth from our oracular +literature, threatens the annihilation of public libraries, which are +one day to moulder away! + +Listen to the vaticinator! "As conservatories of mental treasures, their +value in times of darkness and barbarity was incalculable; and even in +these happier days, when men are incited to explore new regions of +thought, they command respect as depots of methodical and well-ordered +references for the researches of the curious. But what in one state of +society is invaluable, may at another be worthless; and the progress +which the world has made within a very few centuries has considerably +reduced the estimation which is due to such establishments. We will say +more--"[231] but enough! This idea of striking into dust "the god of his +idolatry," the Dagon of his devotion, is sufficient to terrify the +bibliographer, who views only a blind Samson pulling down the pillars of +his temple! + +This future universal inundation of books, this superfluity of +knowledge, in billions and trillions, overwhelms the imaginnation! It +is now about four hundred years since the art of multiplying books has +been discovered; and an arithmetician has attempted to calculate the +incalculable of these four ages of typography, which he discovers have +actually produced 3,641,960 works! Taking each work at three volumes, +and reckoning only each impression to consist of three hundred copies, +which is too little, the actual amount from the presses of Europe will +give to 1816, 3,277,764,000 volumes! each of which being an inch thick, +if placed on a line, would cover 6069 leagues! Leibnitz facetiously +maintained that such would be the increase of literature, that future +generations would find whole cities insufficient to contain their +libraries. We are, however, indebted to the patriotic endeavours of our +grocers and trunkmakers, alchemists of literature! they annihilate the +gross bodies without injuring the finer spirits. We are still more +indebted to that neglected race, the bibliographers! + +The science of books, for so bibliography is sometimes dignified, may +deserve the gratitude of a public, who are yet insensible of the useful +zeal of those book-practitioners, the nature of whose labours is yet so +imperfectly comprehended. Who is this vaticinator of the uselessness of +public libraries? Is he a _bibliognoste_, or a _bibliographe_, or a +_bibliomane_, or a _bibliophile_, or a _bibliotaphe_? A +_bibliothecaire_, or a _bibliopole_, the prophet cannot be; for the +_bibliothecaire_ is too delightfully busied among his shelves, and the +_bibliopole_ is too profitably concerned in furnishing perpetual +additions to admit of this hyperbolical terror of annihilation![232] + +Unawares, we have dropped into that professional jargon which was +chiefly forged by one who, though seated in the "scorner's chair," was +the Thaumaturgus of books and manuscripts. The Abbe Rive had acquired a +singular taste and curiosity, not without a fermenting dash of singular +_charlatanerie_, in bibliography: the little volumes he occasionally put +forth are things which but few hands have touched. He knew well, that +for some books to be noised about, they should not be read: this was one +of those recondite mysteries of his, which we may have occasion farther +to reveal. This bibliographical hero was librarian to the most +magnificent of book-collectors, the Duke de la Valliere. The Abbe Rive +was a strong but ungovernable brute, rabid, surly, but _tres-mordant_. +His master, whom I have discovered to have been the partner of the cur's +tricks, would often pat him; and when the _bibliognostes_, and the +_bibliomanes_ were in the heat of contest, let his "bull-dog" loose +among them, as the duke affectionately called his librarian. The +"bull-dog" of bibliography appears, too, to have had the taste and +appetite of the tiger of politics, but he hardly lived to join the +festival of the guillotine. I judge of this by an expression he used to +one complaining of his parish priest, whom he advised to give "une messe +dans son ventre!" He had tried to exhaust his genius in _La Chasse aux +Bibliographes et aux Antiquaires mal avises_, and acted Cain with his +brothers! All Europe was to receive from him new ideas concerning books +and manuscripts. Yet all his mighty promises fumed away in projects; and +though he appeared for ever correcting the blunders of others, this +French Ritson left enough of his own to afford them a choice of revenge. +His style of criticism was perfectly _Ritsonian_. He describes one of +his rivals as _l'insolent et tres-insense auteur de l'Almanach de +Gotha_, on the simple subject of the origin of playing-cards! + +The Abbe Rive was one of those men of letters, of whom there are not a +few who pass all their lives in preparations. Dr. Dibdin, since the +above was written, has witnessed the confusion of the mind and the +gigantic industry of our _bibliognoste_, which consisted of many trunks +full of _memoranda_. The description will show the reader to what hard +hunting these book-hunters voluntarily doom themselves, with little hope +of obtaining fame! "In one trunk were about _six thousand_ notices of +MSS. of all ages. In another were wedged about _twelve thousand_ +descriptions of books in all languages, except those of French and +Italian; sometimes with critical notes. In a third trunk was a bundle of +papers relating to the _History of the Troubadours_. In a fourth was a +collection of memoranda and literary sketches connected with the +invention of arts and sciences, with pieces exclusively bibliographical. +A fifth trunk contained between _two_ and _three thousand_ cards, +written upon each side, respecting a collection of prints. In a sixth +trunk were contained his papers respecting earthquakes, volcanoes, and +geographical subjects."[233] This _Ajax flagellifer_ of the +bibliographical tribe, who was, as Dr. Dibdin observes, "the terror of +his acquaintance, and the pride of his patron," is said to have been in +private a very different man from his public character; all which may be +true, without altering a shade of that public character. The French +Revolution showed how men, mild and even kind in domestic life, were +sanguinary and ferocious in their public. + +The rabid Abbe Rive gloried in terrifying, without enlightening his +rivals; he exulted that he was devoting to "the rods of criticism and +the laughter of Europe the _bibliopoles_," or dealers in books, who +would not get by heart his "Catechism" of a thousand and one questions +and answers: it broke the slumbers of honest De Bure, who had found life +was already too short for his own "Bibliographie Instructive." + +The Abbe Rive had contrived to catch the shades of the appellatives +necessary to discriminate book amateurs; and of the first term he is +acknowledged to be the inventor. + +A _bibliognoste_, from the Greek, is one knowing in title-pages and +colophons, and in editions; the place and year when printed; the presses +whence issued; and all the _minutiae_ of a book. + +A _bibliographe_ is a describer of books and other literary +arrangements. + +A _bibliomane_ is an indiscriminate accumulator, who blunders faster +than he buys, cock-brained, and purse-heavy! + +A _bibliophile_, the lover of books, is the only one in the class who +appears to read them for his own pleasure. + +A _bibliotaphe_ buries his books, by keeping them under lock, or framing +them in glass cases. + +I shall catch our _bibliognoste_ in the hour of book-rapture! It will +produce a collection of bibliographical writers, and show to the +second-sighted Edinburgher what human contrivances have been raised by +the art of more painful writers than himself--either to postpone the day +of universal annihilation, or to preserve for our posterity, three +centuries hence, the knowledge which now so busily occupies us, and +transmit to them something more than what Bacon calls "Inventories" of +our literary treasures. + +"Histories, and literary _bibliotheques_ (or bibliothecas), will always +present to us," says La Rive, "an immense harvest of errors, till the +authors of such catalogues shall be fully impressed by the importance of +their art; and, as it were, reading in the most distant ages of the +future the literary good and evil which they may produce, force a +triumph from the pure devotion to truth, in spite of all the disgusts +which their professional tasks involve; still patiently enduring the +heavy chains which bind down those who give themselves up to this +pursuit, with a passion which resembles heroism. + +"The catalogues of _bibliotheques fixes_ (or critical, historical, and +classified accounts of writers) have engendered that enormous swarm of +bibliographical errors, which have spread their roots, in greater or +less quantities, in all our bibliographers." He has here furnished a +long list, which I shall preserve in the note.[234] + +The list, though curious, is by no means complete. Such are the men of +whom the Abbe Rive speaks with more respect than his accustomed +courtesy. "If such," says he, "cannot escape from errors, who shall? I +have only marked them out to prove the importance of bibliographical +history. A writer of this sort must occupy himself with more regard for +his reputation than his own profit, and yield himself up entirely to the +study of books." + +The mere knowledge of books, which has been called an erudition of +title-pages, may be sufficient to occupy the life of some; and while the +wits and "the million" are ridiculing these hunters of editions, who +force their passage through secluded spots, as well as course in the +open fields, it will be found that this art of book-knowledge may turn +out to be a very philosophical pursuit, and that men of great name have +devoted themselves to labours more frequently contemned than +comprehended. Apostolo Zeno, a poet, a critic, and a true man of +letters, considered it as no small portion of his glory to have +annotated Fontanini, who, himself an eminent prelate, had passed his +life in forming his _Bibliotheca Italiana_. Zeno did not consider that +to correct errors and to enrich by information this catalogue of Italian +writers was a mean task. The enthusiasm of the Abbe Rive considered +bibliography as a sublime pursuit, exclaiming on Zeno's commentary on +Fontanini--"He chained together the knowledge of whole generations for +posterity, and he read in future ages." + +There are few things by which we can so well trace the history of the +human mind as by a classed catalogue, with dates of the first +publication of books; even the relative prices of books at different +periods, their decline and then their rise, and again their fall, form a +chapter in this history of the human mind; we become critics even by +this literary chronology, and this appraisement of auctioneers. The +favourite book of every age is a certain picture of the people. The +gradual depreciation of a great author marks a change in knowledge or in +taste. + +But it is imagined that we are not interested in the history of +indifferent writers, and scarcely in that of the secondary ones. If none +but great originals should claim our attention, in the course of two +thousand years we should not count twenty authors! Every book, whatever +be its character, may be considered as a new experiment made by the +human understanding; and as a book is a sort of individual +representation, not a solitary volume exists but may be personified, and +described as a human being. Hints start discoveries: they are usually +found in very different authors who could go no further; and the +historian of obscure books is often preserving for men of genius +indications of knowledge, which without his intervention we should not +possess! Many secrets we discover in bibliography. Great writers, +unskilled in this science of books, have frequently used defective +editions, as Hume did the castrated Whitelocke; or, like Robertson, they +are ignorant of even the sources of the knowledge they would give the +public; or they compose on a subject which too late they discover had +been anticipated. Bibliography will show what has been done, and suggest +to our invention what is wanted. Many have often protracted their +journey in a road which had already been worn out by the wheels which +had traversed it: bibliography unrolls the whole map of the country we +purpose travelling over--the post-roads and the by-paths. + +Every half-century, indeed, the obstructions multiply; and the Edinburgh +prediction, should it approximate to the event it has foreseen, may more +reasonably terrify a far distant posterity. Mazzuchelli declared, after +his laborious researches in Italian literature, that one of his more +recent predecessors, who had commenced a similar work, had collected +notices of forty thousand writers--and yet, he adds, my work must +increase that number to ten thousand more! Mazzuchelli said this in +1753; and the amount of nearly a century must now be added, for the +presses of Italy have not been inactive. + +But the literature of Germany, of France, and of England has exceeded +the multiplicity of the productions of Italy, and an appalling +population of authors swarm before the imagination.[235] Hail then the +peaceful spirit of the literary historian, which sitting amidst the +night of time, by the monuments of genius, trims the sepulchral lamps of +the human mind! Hail to the literary Reaumur, who by the clearness of +his glasses makes even the minute interesting, and reveals to us the +world of insects! These are guardian spirits who, at the close of every +century standing on its ascent, trace out the old roads we had pursued, +and with a lighter line indicate the new ones which are opening, from +the imperfect attempts, and even the errors of our predecessors! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [231] "Edinburgh Review," vol. xxxiv, 384. + + [232] Will this writer pardon me for ranking him, for a moment, + among those "generalisers" of the age who excel in what a critical + friend has happily discriminated as _ambitious writing_? that is, + writing on any topic, and not least strikingly on that of which they + know least; men otherwise of fine taste, and who excel in every + charm of composition. + + [233] The late Wm. Upcott possessed, in a large degree, a similar + taste for miscellaneous collections. He never threw an old hat away, + but used it as a receptacle for certain "cuttings" from books and + periodicals on some peculiar subjects. He had filled a room with + hats and trunks thus crammed; but they were sacrificed at his death + for want of necessary arrangement. + + [234] Gessner--Simler--Bellarmin--L'Abbe--Mabillon--Montfaucon--Moreri-- + Bayle--Baillet--Niceron--Dupin--Cave--Warton--Casimir Oudin--Le + Long--Goujet--Wolfius--John Albert Fabricius--Argelati--Tiraboschi-- + Nicholas Antonio--Walchius--Struvius--Brucker--Scheuchzer--Linnaeus-- + Seguier--Haller--Adamson--Manget--Kestner--Eloy--Douglas--Weidler-- + Hailbronner--Montucla--Lalande--Bailly--Quadrio--Morhoff--Stollius-- + Funccius--Schelhorn--Engles--Beyer--Gerdesius--Vogts--Freytag--David + Clement--Chevillier--Maittaire--Orlandi--Prosper Marchand--Schoeplin-- + De Boze--Abbe Sallier--and de Saint Leger. + + [235] The British Museum Library now numbers more than 500,000 volumes. + The catalogue alone forms a small library. + + + + +SECRET HISTORY OF AN ELECTIVE MONARCHY. + +A POLITICAL SKETCH. + + +Poland, once a potent and magnificent kingdom, when it sunk into an +elective monarchy, became "venal thrice an age." That country must have +exhibited many a diplomatic scene of intricate intrigue, which although +they could not appear in its public, have no doubt been often consigned +to its secret, history. With us the corruption of a rotten borough has +sometimes exposed the guarded proffer of one party, and the dexterous +chaffering of the other: but a masterpiece of diplomatic finesse and +political invention, electioneering viewed on the most magnificent +scale, with a kingdom to be canvassed, and a crown to be won and lost, +or lost and won in the course of a single day, exhibits a political +drama, which, for the honour and happiness of mankind, is of rare and +strange occurrence. There was one scene in this drama which might appear +somewhat too large for an ordinary theatre; the actors apparently were +not less than fifty to a hundred thousand; twelve vast tents were raised +on an extensive plain, a hundred thousand horses were in the +environs--and palatines and castellans, the ecclesiastical orders, with +the ambassadors of the royal competitors, all agitated by the ceaseless +motion of different factions during the six weeks of the election, and +of many preceding months of preconcerted measures and vacillating +opinions, now were all solemnly assembled at the diet.--Once the poet, +amidst his gigantic conception of a scene, resolved to leave it out: + + So vast a throng the stage can ne'er contain-- + Then build a new, or _act it in a plain_! + +exclaimed "La Mancha's knight," kindling at a scene so novel and so +vast! + +Such an electioneering negotiation, the only one I am acquainted with, +is opened in the "Discours" of Choisin, the secretary of Montluc, Bishop +of Valence, the confidential agent of Catharine de' Medici, and who was +sent to intrigue at the Polish diet, to obtain the crown of Poland for +her son the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry the Third. This bold +enterprise at first seemed hopeless, and in its progress encountered +growing obstructions; but Montluc was one of the most finished +diplomatists that the genius of the Gallic cabinet ever sent forth. He +was nicknamed in all the courts of Europe, from the circumstance of his +limping, "le Boiteux;" our political bishop was in cabinet intrigues the +Talleyrand of his age, and sixteen embassies to Italy, Germany, England, +Scotland, and Turkey, had made this "connoisseur en hommes" an +extraordinary politician! + +Catharine de' Medici was infatuated with the dreams of judicial +astrology; her pensioned oracles had declared that she should live to +see each of her sons crowned, by which prediction probably they had only +purposed to flatter her pride and her love of dominion. They, however, +ended in terrifying the credulous queen; and she, dreading to witness a +throne in France, disputed perhaps by fratricides, anxiously sought a +separate crown for each of her three sons. She had been trifled with in +her earnest negotiations with our Elizabeth; twice had she seen herself +baffled in her views in the Dukes of Alencon and of Anjou. Catharine +then projected a new empire for Anjou, by incorporating into one kingdom +Algiers, Corsica, and Sardinia; but the other despot, he of +Constantinople, Selim the Second, dissipated the brilliant speculation +of our female Machiavel. Charles the Ninth was sickly, jealous, and +desirous of removing from the court the Duke of Anjou, whom two +victories had made popular, though he afterwards sunk into a +Sardanapalus. Montluc penetrated into the secret wishes of Catharine and +Charles, and suggested to them the possibility of encircling the brows +of Anjou with the diadem of Poland, the Polish monarch then being in a +state of visible decline. The project was approved; and, like a profound +politician, the bishop prepared for an event which might be remote, and +always problematical, by sending into Poland a natural son of his, +Balagny, as a disguised agent; his youth, his humble rank, and his love +of pleasure, would not create any alarm among the neighbouring powers, +who were alike on the watch to snatch the expected spoil; but as it was +necessary to have a more dexterous politician behind the curtain, he +recommended his secretary, Choisnin, as a travelling tutor to a youth +who appeared to want one. + +Balagny proceeded to Poland, where, under the veil of dissipation, and +in the midst of splendid festivities, with his trusty adjutant, this +hair-brained boy of revelry began to weave those intrigues which were +afterwards to be knotted, or untied, by Montluc himself. He had +contrived to be so little suspected, that the agent of the emperor had +often disclosed important secrets to his young and amiable friend. On +the death of Sigismond Augustus, Balagny, leaving Choisnin behind to +trumpet forth the virtues of Anjou, hastened to Paris to give an account +of all which he had seen or heard. But poor Choisnin found himself in a +dilemma among those who had so long listened to his panegyrics on the +humanity and meek character of the Duke of Anjou; for the news of St. +Bartholomew's massacre had travelled faster than the post; and Choisnin +complains that he was now treated as an impudent liar, and the French +prince as a monster. In vain he assured them that the whole was an +exaggerated account, a mere insurrection of the people, or the effects +of a few private enmities, praying the indignant Poles to suspend their +decision till the bishop came: "Attendez le Boiteux!" cried he, in +agony. + +Meanwhile, at Paris, the choice of a proper person for this embassy had +been difficult to settle. It was a business of intrigue more than of +form, and required an orator to make speeches and addresses in a sort of +popular assembly; for though the people, indeed, had no concern in the +diet, yet the greater and the lesser nobles and gentlemen, all electors, +were reckoned at one hundred thousand. It was supposed that a lawyer who +could negotiate in good Latin, and one, as the French proverb runs, who +could _aller et parler_, would more effectually puzzle their heads, and +satisfy their consciences to vote for his client. Catharine at last +fixed on Montluc himself, from the superstitious prejudice, which, +however, in this case accorded with philosophical experience, that +"Montluc had ever been _lucky_ in his negotiations." + +Montluc hastened his departure from Paris; and it appears that our +political bishop had, by his skilful penetration into the French +cabinet, foreseen the horrible catastrophe which occurred very shortly +after he had left it; for he had warned the Count de Rochefoucault to +absent himself; but this lord, like so many others, had no suspicions of +the perfidious projects of Catharine and her cabinet. Montluc, however, +had not long been on his journey ere the news reached him, and it +occasioned innumerable obstacles in his progress, which even his +sagacity had not calculated on. At Strasburgh he had appointed to meet +some able coadjutors, among whom was the famous Joseph Scaliger; but +they were so terrified by _Les Matinees Parisiennes_, that Scaliger flew +to Geneva, and would not budge out of that safe corner: and the others +ran home, not imagining that Montluc would venture to pass through +Germany, where the protestant indignation had made the roads too hot for +a catholic bishop. But Montluc had set his cast on the die. He had +already passed through several hair-breadth escapes from the stratagems +of the Guise faction, who more than once attempted to hang or drown the +bishop, who, they cried out, was a Calvinist; the fears and jealousies +of the Guises had been roused by this political mission. Among all these +troubles and delays, Montluc was most affected by the rumour that the +election was on the point of being made, and that the plague was +universal throughout Poland, so that he must have felt that he might be +too late for the one, and too early for the other. + +At last Montluc arrived, and found that the whole weight of this +negotiation was to fall on his single shoulders; and further, that he +was to sleep every night on a pillow of thorns. Our bishop had not only +to allay the ferment of the popular spirit of the evangelicals, as the +protestants were then called, but even of the more rational catholics of +Poland. He had also to face those haughty and feudal lords, of whom each +considered himself the equal of the sovereign whom he created, and whose +avowed principle was, and many were incorrupt, that their choice of a +sovereign should be regulated solely by the public interest; and it was +hardly to be expected that the emperor, the czar, and the King of Sweden +would prove unsuccessful rivals to the cruel, and voluptuous, and +bigoted duke of Anjou, whose political interests were too remote and +novel to have raised any faction among these independent Poles. + +The crafty politician had the art of dressing himself up in all the +winning charms of candour and loyalty; a sweet flow of honeyed words +melted on his lips, while his heart, cold and immovable as a rock, stood +unchanged amidst the most unforeseen difficulties. + +The emperor had set to work the Abbe Cyre in a sort of ambiguous +character, an envoy for the nonce, to be acknowledged or disavowed as +was convenient; and by his activity he obtained considerable influence +among the Lithuanians, the Wallachians, and nearly all Prussia, in +favour of the Archduke Ernest. Two Bohemians, who had the advantage of +speaking the Polish language, had arrived with a state and magnificence +becoming kings rather than ambassadors. The Muscovite had written +letters full of golden promises to the nobility, and was supported by a +palatine of high character; a perpetual peace between two such great +neighbours was too inviting a project not to find advocates; and this +party, Choisnin observes, appeared at first the most to be feared. The +King of Sweden was a close neighbour, who had married the sister of +their late sovereign, and his son urged his family claims as superior to +those of foreigners. Among these parties was a patriotic one, who were +desirous of a Pole for their monarch; a king of their fatherland, +speaking their mother-tongue, one who would not strike at the +independence of his country, but preserve its integrity from the +stranger. This popular party was even agreeable to several of the +foreign powers themselves, who did not like to see a rival power +strengthening itself by so strict a union with Poland; but in this +choice of a sovereign from among themselves, there were at least thirty +lords who equally thought that they were the proper wood of which kings +should be carved out. The Poles therefore could not agree on the Pole +who deserved to be a _Piaste_; an endearing title for a native monarch, +which originated in the name of the family of the _Piastis_, who had +reigned happily over the Polish people for the space of five centuries! +The remembrance of their virtues existed in the minds of the honest +Poles in this affectionate title, and their party were called the +_Piastis_. + +Montluc had been deprived of the assistance he had depended on from many +able persons, whom the massacre of St. Bartholomew had frightened away +from every French political connexion. He found that he had himself only +to depend on. We are told that he was not provided with the usual means +which are considered most efficient in elections, nor possessed the +interest nor the splendour of his powerful competitors: he was to derive +all his resources from diplomatic finesse. The various ambassadors had +fixed and distant residences, that they might not hold too close an +intercourse with the Polish nobles. Of all things, he was desirous to +obtain an easy access to these chiefs, that he might observe, and that +they might listen. He who would seduce by his own ingenuity must come in +contact with the object he would corrupt. Yet Montluc persisted in not +approaching them without being sought after, which answered his purpose +in the end. One favourite argument which our Talleyrand had set afloat, +was to show that all the benefits which the different competitors had +promised to the Poles were accompanied by other circumstances which +could not fail to be ruinous to the country: while the offer of his +master, whose interests were remote, could not be adverse to those of +the Polish nation: so that much good might be expected from him, without +any fear of accompanying evil. Montluc procured a clever Frenchman to be +the bearer of his first despatch, in Latin, to the diet; which had +hardly assembled, ere suspicions and jealousies were already breaking +out. The emperor's ambassadors had offended the pride of the Polish +nobles by travelling about the country without leave, and resorting to +the infanta; and besides, in some intercepted letters the Polish nation +was designated as _gens barbara et gens inepta_. "I do not think that +the said letter was really written by the said ambassadors, who were +statesmen too politic to employ such unguarded language," very +ingeniously writes the secretary of Montluc. + +However, it was a blow levelled at the imperial ambassadors; while the +letter of the French bishop, composed "in a humble and modest style," +began to melt their proud spirits, and two thousand copies of the French +bishop's letter were eagerly spread. + +"But this good fortune did not last more than four-and twenty hours," +mournfully writes our honest secretary; "for suddenly the news of the +fatal day of St. Bartholomew arrived, and every Frenchman was detested." + +Montluc, in this distress, published an apology for _les Matinees +Parisiennes_, which he reduced to some excesses of the people, the +result of a conspiracy plotted by the protestants; and he adroitly +introduced as a personage his master Anjou, declaring that "he scorned +to oppress a party whom he had so often conquered with sword in hand." +This pamphlet, which still exists, must have cost the good bishop some +invention; but in elections the lie of the moment serves a purpose; and +although Montluc was in due time bitterly recriminated on, still the +apology served to divide public opinion. + +Montluc was a whole cabinet to himself: he dispersed another tract in +the character of a Polish gentleman, in which the French interests were +urged by such arguments, that the leading chiefs never met without +disputing; and Montluc now found that he had succeeded in creating a +French party. The Austrian then employed a real Polish gentleman to +write for his party; but this was too genuine a production, for the +writer wrote too much in earnest; and in politics we must not be in a +passion. + +The mutual jealousies of each party assisted the views of our +negotiator; they would side with him against each other. The archduke +and the czar opposed the Turk; the Muscovite could not endure that +Sweden should be aggrandised by this new crown; and Denmark was still +more uneasy. Montluc had discovered how every party had its vulnerable +point, by which it could be managed. The cards had now got fairly +shuffled, and he depended on his usual good play. + +Our bishop got hold of a palatine to write for the French cause in the +vernacular tongue; and appears to have held a more mysterious +intercourse with another palatine, Albert Lasky. Mutual accusations were +made in the open diet: the Poles accused some Lithuanian lords of +having contracted certain engagements with the czar; these in return +accused the Poles, and particularly this Lasky, with being corrupted by +the gold of France. Another circumstance afterwards arose; the Spanish +ambassador had forty thousand _thalers_ sent to him, but which never +passed the frontiers, as this fresh supply arrived too late for the +election. "I believe," writes our secretary with great simplicity, "that +this money was only designed to distribute among the trumpeters and the +tabourines." The usual expedient in contested elections was now +evidently introduced; our secretary acknowledging that Montluc daily +acquired new supporters, because he did not attempt to gain them over +_merely by promises_--resting his whole cause on this argument, that the +interest of the nation was concerned in the French election. + +Still would ill fortune cross our crafty politician when everything was +proceeding smoothly. The massacre was refreshed with more damning +particulars; some letters were forged, and others were but too true; all +parties, with rival intrepidity, were carrying on a complete scene of +deception. A rumour spread that the French king disavowed his accredited +agent, and apologised to the emperor for having yielded to the +importunities of a political speculator, whom he was now resolved to +recall. This somewhat paralysed the exertions of those palatines who had +involved themselves in the intrigues of Montluc, who was now forced +patiently to wait for the arrival of a courier with renewed testimonials +of his diplomatic character from the French court. A great odium was +cast on the French in the course of this negotiation by a distribution +of prints, which exposed the most inventive cruelties practised by the +Catholics on the Reformed; such as women cleaved in half in the act of +attempting to snatch their children from their butchers; while Charles +the Ninth and the Duke of Anjou were hideously represented in their +persons, and as spectators of such horrid tragedies, with words written +in labels, complaining that the executioners were not zealous enough in +this holy work. These prints, accompanied by libels and by horrid +narratives, inflamed the popular indignation, and more particularly the +women, who were affected to tears, as if these horrid scenes had been +passing before their eyes. + +Montluc replied to the libels as fast as they appeared, while he +skilfully introduced the most elaborate panegyrics on the Duke of +Anjou; and in return for the caricatures, he distributed two portraits +of the king and the duke, to show the ladies, if not the diet, that +neither of these princes had such ferocious and inhuman faces. Such are +the small means by which the politician condescends to work his great +designs; and the very means by which his enemies thought they should +ruin his cause, Montluc adroitly turned to his own advantage. Anything +of instant occurrence serves electioneering purposes, and Montluc +eagerly seized this favourable occasion to exhaust his imagination on an +ideal sovereign, and to hazard, with address, anecdotes, whose +authenticity he could never have proved, till he perplexed even +unwilling minds to be uncertain whether that intolerant and inhuman duke +was not the most heroic and most merciful of princes. It is probable +that the Frenchman abused even the license of the French _eloge_, for a +noble Pole told Montluc that he was always amplifying his duke with such +ideal greatness, and attributing to him such immaculate purity of +sentiment, that it was inferred there was no man in Poland who could +possibly equal him; and that his declaration, that the duke was not +desirous of reigning over Poland to possess the wealth and grandeur of +the kingdom, and that he was solely ambitious of the honour to be the +head of such a great and virtuous nobility, had offended many lords, who +did not believe that the duke sought the Polish crown _merely_ to be the +sovereign of a virtuous people. + +These Polish statesmen appear, indeed, to have been more enlightened +than the subtle politician perhaps calculated on; for when Montluc was +over anxious to exculpate the Duke of Anjou from having been an actor in +the Parisian massacre, a noble Pole observed, "That he need not lose his +time at framing any apologies; for if he could prove that it was the +interest of the country that the duke ought to be elected their king, it +was all that was required. His cruelty, were it true, would be no reason +to prevent his election, for we have nothing to dread from it: once in +our kingdom, he will have more reason to fear us than we him, should he +ever attempt our lives, our property, or our liberty." + +Another Polish lord, whose scruples were as pious as his patriotism was +suspicious, however observed that, in his conferences with the French +bishop, the bishop had never once mentioned God, whom all parties ought +to implore to touch the hearts of the electors in the choice of God's +"anointed." Montluc might have felt himself unexpectedly embarrassed at +the religious scruples of this lord, but the politician was never at a +fault. "Speaking to a man of letters, as his lordship was," replied the +French bishop, "it was not for him to remind his lordship what he so +well knew; but since he had touched on the subject, he would, however, +say, that were a sick man desirous of having a physician, the friend who +undertook to procure one would not do his duty should he say it was +necessary to call in one whom God had chosen to restore his health; but +another who should say that the most learned and skilful is he whom God +has chosen, would be doing the best for the patient, and evince most +judgment. By a parity of reason we must believe that God will not send +an angel to point out the man whom he would have his anointed; +sufficient for us that God has given us a knowledge of the requisites of +a good king; and if the Polish gentlemen choose such a sovereign, it +will be him whom God has chosen." This shrewd argument delighted the +Polish lord, who repeated the story in different companies, to the +honour of the bishop. "And in this manner," adds the secretary with +great _naivete_, "did the _sieur_, strengthened by good arguments, +divulge his opinions, which were received by many, and run from hand to +hand." + +Montluc had his inferior manoeuvres. He had to equipoise the opposite +interests of the Catholics and the Evangelists, or the Reformed: it was +mingling fire and water without suffering them to hiss, or to extinguish +one another. When the imperial ambassadors gave _fetes_ to the higher +nobility only, they consequently offended the lesser. The Frenchman gave +no banquets, but his house was open to all at all times, who were +equally welcome. "You will see that the _fetes_ of the imperialists will +do them more harm than good," observed Montluc to his secretary. + +Having gained over by every possible contrivance a number of the Polish +nobles, and showered his courtesies on those of the inferior orders, at +length the critical moment approached, and the finishing hand was to be +put to the work. Poland, with the appearance of a popular government, +was a singular aristocracy of a hundred thousand electors, consisting of +the higher and the lower nobility, and the gentry; the people had no +concern with the government. Yet still it was to be treated by the +politician as a popular government, where those who possessed the +greatest influence over such large assemblies were orators, and he who +delivered himself with the most fluency and the most pertinent arguments +would infallibly bend every heart to the point he wished. The French +bishop depended greatly on the effect which his oration was to produce +when the ambassadors were respectively to be heard before the assembled +diet; the great and concluding act of so many tedious and difficult +negotiations--"which had cost my master," writes the ingenuous +secretary, "six months' daily and nightly labours; he had never been +assisted or comforted by any but his poor servants, and in the course of +these six months had written ten reams of paper, a thing which for forty +years he had not used himself to." + +Every ambassador was now to deliver an oration before the assembled +electors, and thirty-two copies were to be printed, to present one to +each palatine, who in his turn was to communicate it to his lords. But a +fresh difficulty occurred to the French negotiator; as he trusted +greatly to his address influencing the multitude, and creating a popular +opinion in his favour, he regretted to find that the imperial ambassador +would deliver his speech in the Bohemian language, so that he would be +understood by the greater part of the assembly; a considerable advantage +over Montluc, who could only address them in Latin. The inventive genius +of the French bishop resolved on two things which had never before been +practised: first, to have his Latin translated into the vernacular +idiom; and, secondly, to print an edition of fifteen hundred copies in +both languages, and thus to obtain a vast advantage over the other +ambassadors, with their thirty-two manuscript copies, of which each copy +was used to be read to 1200 persons. The great difficulty was to get it +secretly translated and printed. This fell to the management of +Choisnin, the secretary. He set off to the castle of the palatine, +Solikotski, who was deep in the French interest; Solikotski despatched +the version in six days. Hastening with the precious MS. to Cracow, +Choisnin flew to a trusty printer, with whom he was connected; the +sheets were deposited every night at Choisnin's lodgings, and at the end +of a fortnight the diligent secretary conducted the 1500 copies in +secret triumph to Warsaw. + +Yet this glorious labour was not ended; Montluc was in no haste to +deliver his wonder-working oration, on which the fate of a crown seemed +to depend. When his turn came to be heard, he suddenly fell sick; the +fact was, that he wished to speak last, which would give him the +advantage of replying to any objection raised by his rivals, and admit +also of an attack on their weak points. + +He contrived to obtain copies of their harangues, and discovered five +points which struck at the French interest. Our poor bishop had now to +sit up through the night to re-write five leaves of his printed oration, +and cancel five which had been printed; and worse! he had to get them by +heart, and to have them translated and inserted, by employing twenty +scribes day and night. "It is scarcely credible what my master went +through about this time," saith the historian of his "gestes." + +The council or diet was held in a vast plain. Twelve pavilions were +raised to receive the Polish nobility and the ambassadors. One of a +circular form was supported by a single mast, and was large enough to +contain 6000 persons, without any one approaching the mast nearer than +by twenty steps, leaving this space void to preserve silence; the +different orders were placed around; the archbishop and the bishops, the +palatines, the castellans, each according to their rank. During the six +weeks of the sittings of the diet, 100,000 horses were in the environs, +yet forage and every sort of provisions abounded. There were no +disturbances, not a single quarrel occurred, although there wanted not +in that meeting for enmities of long standing. It was strange, and even +awful, to view such a mighty assembly preserving the greatest order, and +every one seriously intent on this solemn occasion. + +At length the elaborate oration was delivered: it lasted three hours, +and Choisnin assures us not a single auditor felt weary. "A cry of joy +broke out from the tent, and was re-echoed through the plain, when +Montluc ceased: it was a public acclamation; and had the election been +fixed for that moment, when all hearts were warm, surely the duke had +been chosen without a dissenting voice." Thus writes, in rapture, the +ingenuous secretary; and in the spirit of the times communicates a +delightful augury attending this speech, by which evidently was foreseen +its happy termination. "Those who disdain all things will take this to +be a mere invention of mine," says honest Choisnin: "but true it is, +that while the said _sieur_ delivered his harangue, a lark was seen all +the while upon the mast of the pavilion, singing and warbling, which was +remarked by a great number of lords, because the lark is accustomed only +to rest itself on the earth: the most impartial confessed this to be a +good augury.[236] Also it was observed, that when the other ambassadors +were speaking, a hare, and at another time a hog, ran through the tent; +and when the Swedish ambassador spoke, the great tent fell half-way +down. This lark singing all the while did no little good to our cause; +for many of the nobles and gentry noticed this curious particularity, +because when a thing which does not commonly happen occurs in a public +affair, such appearances give rise to hopes either of good or of evil." + +The singing of this lark in favour of the Duke of Anjou is not so +evident as the cunning trick of the other French agent, the political +Bishop of Valence, who now reaped the full advantage of his 1500 copies +over the thirty-two of his rivals. Every one had the French one in hand, +or read it to his friends; while the others, in manuscript, were +confined to a very narrow circle. + +The period from the 10th of April to the 6th of May, when they proceeded +to the election, proved to be an interval of infinite perplexities, +troubles, and activity; it is probable that the secret history of this +period of the negotiations was never written. The other ambassadors were +for protracting the election, perceiving the French interest prevalent: +but delay would not serve the purpose of Montluc, he not being so well +provided with friends and means on the spot as the others were. The +public opinion which he had succeeded in creating, by some unforeseen +circumstance might change. + +During this interval, the bishop had to put several agents of the other +parties _hors de combat_. He got rid of a formidable adversary in the +Cardinal Commendon, an agent of the pope's, whom he proved ought not to +be present at the election, and the cardinal was ordered to take his +departure. A bullying colonel was set upon the French negotiator, and +went about from tent to tent with a list of the debts of the Duke of +Anjou, to show that the nation could expect nothing profitable from a +ruined spendthrift. The page of a Polish count flew to Montluc for +protection, entreating permission to accompany the bishop on his return +to Paris. The servants of the count pursued the page; but this young +gentleman had so insinuated himself into the favour of the bishop, that +he was suffered to remain. The next day the page desired Montluc would +grant him the full liberty of his religion, being an evangelical, that +he might communicate this to his friends, and thus fix them to the +French party. Montluc was too penetrating for this young political +agent, whom he discovered to be a spy, and the pursuit of his fellows to +have been a farce; he sent the page back to his master, the evangelical +count, observing that such tricks were too gross to be played on one who +had managed affairs in all the courts of Europe before he came into +Poland. + +Another alarm was raised by a letter from the grand vizier of Selim the +Second, addressed to the diet, in which he requested that they would +either choose a king from among themselves, or elect the brother of the +King of France. Some zealous Frenchman at the Sublime Porte had +officiously procured this recommendation from the enemy of Christianity; +but an alliance with Mahometanism did no service to Montluc, either with +the catholics or the evangelicals. The bishop was in despair, and +thought that his handiwork of six months' toil and trouble was to be +shook into pieces in an hour. Montluc, being shown the letter, instantly +insisted that it was a forgery, designed to injure his master the duke. +The letter was attended by some suspicious circumstances; and the French +bishop, quick at expedients, snatched at an advantage which the +politician knows how to lay hold of in the chapter of accidents. "The +letter was not sealed with the golden seal, nor enclosed in a silken +purse or cloth of gold; and farther, if they examined the translation," +he said, "they would find that it was not written on Turkish paper." +This was a piece of the _sieur's_ good fortune, for the letter was not +forged; but owing to the circumstance that the Boyar of Wallachia had +taken out the letter to send a translation with it, which the vizier had +omitted, it arrived without its usual accompaniments; and the courier, +when inquired after, was kept out of the way: so that, in a few days, +nothing more was heard of the great vizier's letter. "Such was our +fortunate escape," says the secretary, "from the friendly but fatal +interference of the sultan, than which the _sieur_ dreaded nothing so +much." + +Many secret agents of the different powers were spinning their dark +intrigues; and often, when discovered or disconcerted, the creatures +were again at their "dirty work." These agents were conveniently +disavowed or acknowledged by their employers. The Abbe Cyre was an +active agent of the emperor's, and though not publicly accredited, was +still hovering about. In Lithuania he had contrived matters so well as +to have gained over that important province for the archduke; and was +passing through Prussia to hasten to communicate with the emperor, but +"some honest men," _quelques bons personnages_, says the French +secretary, and no doubt some good friends of his master, "took him by +surprise, and laid him up safely in the castle of Marienburgh, where +truly he was a little uncivilly used by the soldiers, who rifled his +portmanteau and sent us his papers, when we discovered all his foul +practices." The emperor, it seems, was angry at the arrest of his secret +agent; but as no one had the power of releasing the Abbe Cyre at that +moment, what with receiving remonstrances and furnishing replies, the +time passed away, and a very troublesome adversary was in safe custody +during the election. The dissensions between the catholics and the +evangelicals were always on the point of breaking out; but Montluc +succeeded in quieting these inveterate parties by terrifying their +imaginations with sanguinary civil wars, and invasions of the Turks and +the Tartars. He satisfied the catholics with the hope that time would +put an end to heresy, and the evangelicals were glad to obtain a truce +from persecution. The day before the election Montluc found himself so +confident, that he despatched a courier to the French court, and +expressed himself in the true style of a speculative politician, that +_des douze tables du Damier nous en avons les Neufs assures_. + +There were preludes to the election; and the first was probably in +acquiescence with a saturnalian humour prevalent in some countries, +where the lower orders are only allowed to indulge their taste for the +mockery of the great at stated times and on fixed occasions. A droll +scene of a mock election, as well as combat, took place between the +numerous Polish pages, who, saith the grave secretary, are still more +mischievous than our own: these elected among themselves four +competitors, made a senate to burlesque the diet, and went to +loggerheads. Those who represented the archduke were well beaten, the +Swede was hunted down, and for the _Piastis_, they seized on a cart +belonging to a gentleman, laden with provisions, broke it to pieces, and +burnt the axle-tree, which in that country is called a _piasti_, and +cried out _The Piasti is burnt!_ nor could the senators at the diet that +day command any order or silence. The French party wore white +handkerchiefs in their hats, and they were so numerous as to defeat the +others. + +The next day, however, opened a different scene; "the nobles prepared to +deliberate, and each palatine in his quarters was with his companions on +their knees, and many with tears in their eyes, chanting a hymn to the +Holy Ghost; it must be confessed that this looked like a work of God," +says our secretary, who probably understood the manoeuvring of the +mock combat, or the mock prayers, much better than we may. Everything +tells at an election, burlesque or solemnity! + +The election took place, and the Duke of Anjou was proclaimed King of +Poland--but the troubles of Montluc did not terminate. When they +presented certain articles for his signature, the bishop discovered that +these had undergone material alterations from the proposals submitted to +him before the proclamation; these alterations referred to a disavowal +of the Parisian massacre; the punishment of its authors, and toleration +in religion. Montluc refused to sign, and cross-examined his Polish +friends about the original proposals; one party agreed that some things +had been changed, but that they were too trivial to lose a crown for; +others declared that the alterations were necessary to allay the fears, +or secure the safety, of the people. Our Gallic diplomatist was +outwitted, and after all his intrigues and cunning, he found that the +crown of Poland was only to be delivered on conditional terms. + +In this dilemma, with a crown depending on a stroke of his +pen,--remonstrating, entreating, arguing, and still delaying, like +"Ancient Pistol" swallowing his leek, he witnessed with alarm some +preparations for a new election, and his rivals on the watch with their +protests. Montluc, in despair, signed the conditions--"assured, +however," says the secretary, who groans over this _finale_, "that when +the elected monarch should arrive, the states would easily be induced to +correct them, and place things in _statu quo_, as before the +proclamation. I was not a witness, being then despatched to Paris with +the joyful news, but I heard that the _sieur evesque_ it was thought +would have died in this agony, of being reduced to the hard necessity +either to sign, or to lose the fruits of his labours. The conditions +were afterwards for a long while disputed in France." De Thou informs +us, in lib. lvii. of his history, that Montluc after signing these +conditions wrote to his master, that he was not bound by them, because +they did not concern Poland in general, and that they had compelled him +to sign, what at the same time he had informed them his instructions did +not authorise. Such was the true Jesuitic conduct of a grey-haired +politician, who at length found that honest plain sense could embarrass +and finally entrap the creature of the cabinet, the artificial genius of +diplomatic finesse. + +The secretary, however, views nothing but his master's glory in the +issue of this most difficult negotiation; and the triumph of Anjou over +the youthful archduke, whom the Poles might have moulded to their will, +and over the King of Sweden, who claimed the crown by his queen's side, +and had offered to unite his part of Livonia with that which the Poles +possessed. He labours hard to prove that the palatines and the +castellans were not _pratiques_, i.e., had their votes bought up by +Montluc, as was reported; from their number and their opposite +interests, he confesses that the _sieur evesque_ slept little, while in +Poland, and that he only gained over the hearts of men by that natural +gift of God which acquired him the title of the _happy ambassador_. He +rather seems to regret that France was not prodigal of her +purchase-money, than to affirm that all palatines were alike scrupulous +of their honour. + +One more fact may close this political sketch; a lesson of the nature of +court gratitude! The French court affected to receive Choisnin with +favour, but their suppressed discontent was reserved for "the happy +ambassador!" Affairs had changed; Charles the Ninth was dying, and +Catharine de' Medici in despair for a son to whom she had sacrificed +all; while Anjou, already immersed in the wantonness of youth and +pleasure, considered his elevation to the throne of Poland as an exile +which separated him from his depraved enjoyments! Montluc was rewarded +only by incurring disgrace; Catharine de' Medici and the Duke of Anjou +now looked coldly on him, and expressed their dislike of his successful +mission. "The mother of kings," as Choisnin designates Catharine de' +Medici, to whom he addresses his memoirs, with the hope of awakening her +recollections of the zeal, the genius, and the success of his old +master, had no longer any use for her favourite; and Montluc found, as +the commentator of Choisnin expresses in a few words, an important +truth in political morality, that "at court the interest of the moment +is the measure of its affections and its hatreds."[237] + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [236] Our honest secretary reminds me of a passage in Geoffrey of + Monmouth, who says, "At this place an _eagle spoke_ while the wall + of the town was building; and indeed I should not have failed + _transmitting the speech to posterity_ had I thought it _true_ as + the rest of the history." + + [237] I have drawn up this article, for the curiosity of its subject + and its details, from the "Discours au vray de tout ce qui s'est + fait et passe pour l'entiere Negociation de l'Election du Roi de + Pologne, divises en trois livres, par Jehan Choisnin du + Chatelleraud, nagueres Secretaire de M. l'Evesque de Valence," 1574. + + + + +BUILDINGS IN THE METROPOLIS, AND RESIDENCE IN THE COUNTRY. + + +Recently more than one of our learned judges from the bench have perhaps +astonished their auditors by impressing them with an old-fashioned +notion of residing more on their estates than the fashionable modes of +life and the _esprit de societe_, now overpowering all other _esprit_, +will ever admit. These opinions excited my attention to a curious +circumstance in the history of our manners--the great anxiety of our +government, from the days of Elizabeth till much later than those of +Charles the Second, to preserve the kingdom from the evils of an +overgrown metropolis. The people themselves indeed participated in the +same alarm at the growth of the city; while, however, they themselves +were perpetuating the grievance which they complained of. + +It is amusing to observe, that although the government was frequently +employing even their most forcible acts to restrict the limits of the +metropolis, the suburbs were gradually incorporating with the city, and +Westminster at length united itself to London. Since that happy +marriage, their fertile progenies have so blended together, that little +Londons are no longer distinguishable from the ancient parent; we have +succeeded in spreading the capital into a county, and have verified the +prediction of James the First, "that England will shortly be London, and +London England." + +"I think it a great object," said Justice Best, in delivering his +sentiments in favour of the Game Laws, "that gentlemen should have a +temptation _to reside in the country, amongst their neighbours and +tenantry, whose interests must be materially advanced by such a +circumstance_. The links of society are thereby better preserved, and +_the mutual advantages and dependence of the higher and lower classes_ +on one another are better maintained. The baneful effects of our present +system we have lately seen in a neighbouring country, and an ingenious +French writer has lately shown the ill consequences of it on the +continent."[238] + +These sentiments of a living luminary of the law afford some reason of +policy for the dread which our government long entertained on account of +the perpetual growth of the metropolis; the nation, like a +hypochondriac, was ludicrously terrified that their head was too +monstrous for their body, and that it drew all the moisture of life from +the middle and the extremities. Proclamations warned and exhorted; but +the very interference of a royal prohibition seemed to render the +crowded city more charming. In vain the statute against new buildings +was passed by Elizabeth; in vain during the reigns of James the First +and both the Charleses we find proclamations continually issuing to +forbid new erections. + +James was apt to throw out his opinions in these frequent addresses to +the people, who never attended to them: his majesty notices "those +swarms of gentry, who through the instigation of their wives, or to +new-model and fashion their daughters (who if they were unmarried, +marred their reputations, and if married, lost them), did neglect their +country hospitality, and cumber the city, a general nuisance to the +kingdom."--He addressed the Star Chamber to regulate "the exorbitancy of +the new buildings about the city, which were but a shelter for those +who, when they had spent their estates in coaches, lacqueys, and fine +clothes like Frenchmen, lived miserably in their houses like Italians; +but the honour of the English nobility and gentry is to be hospitable +among their tenants." Once conversing on this subject, the monarch threw +out that happy illustration, which has been more than once noticed, that +"Gentlemen resident on their estates were like ships in port; their +value and magnitude were felt and acknowledged; but when at a distance, +as their size seemed insignificant, so their worth and importance were +not duly estimated."[239] + +A manuscript writer of the times complains of the breaking up of old +family establishments, all crowding to "upstart London." "Every one +strives to be a Diogenes in his house, and an emperor in the streets; +not caring if they sleep in a tub, so they may be hurried in a coach: +giving that allowance to horses and mares that formerly maintained +houses full of men; pinching many a belly to paint a few backs, and +burying all the treasures of the kingdom into a few citizens' coffers; +their woods into wardrobes, their leases into laces, and their goods and +chattels into guarded coats and gaudy toys." Such is the representation +of an eloquent contemporary; and however contracted might have been his +knowledge of the principles of political economy, and of that prosperity +which a wealthy nation is said to derive from its consumption of +articles of luxury, the moral effects have not altered, nor has the +scene in reality greatly changed. + +The government not only frequently forbade new buildings within ten +miles of London, but sometimes ordered them to be pulled down--after +they had been erected for several years. Every six or seven years +proclamations were issued. In Charles the First's reign, offenders were +sharply prosecuted by a combined operation, not only against _houses_, +but against _persons_.[240] Many of the nobility and gentry, in 1632, +were informed against for having resided in the city, contrary to the +late proclamation. And the Attorney-General was then fully occupied in +filing bills of indictment against them, as well as ladies, for staying +in town. The following curious "information" in the Star Chamber will +serve our purpose. + +The Attorney-General informs his majesty that both Elizabeth and James, +by several proclamations, had commanded that "persons of livelihood and +means should reside in their counties, and not abide or sojourn in the +city of London, so that counties remain unserved." These proclamations +were renewed by Charles the First, who had observed "a greater number of +nobility and gentry, and abler sort of people, with their families, had +resorted to the cities of London and Westminster, residing there, +contrary to the ancient usage of the English nation"--"by their abiding +in their several counties where their means arise, they would not only +have served his majesty according to their ranks, but by their +_housekeeping in those parts the meaner sort of people formerly were +guided, directed and relieved_." He accuses them of wasting their +estates in the metropolis, which would employ and relieve the common +people in their several counties. The loose and disorderly people that +follow them, living in and about the cities, are so numerous, that they +are not easily governed by the ordinary magistrates: mendicants increase +in great number--the prices of all commodities are highly raised, &c. +The king had formerly proclaimed that all ranks who were not connected +with public offices, at the close of forty days' notice, should resort +to their several counties, and with their families continue their +residence there. And his majesty further warned them "Not to put +themselves to unnecessary charge in providing themselves to return in +winter to the said cities, as it was the king's firm resolution to +withstand such great and growing evil." The information concludes with a +most copious list of offenders, among whom are a great number of +nobility, and ladies and gentlemen, who were accused of having lived in +London for several months after the given warning of forty days. It +appears that most of them, to elude the grasp of the law, had contrived +to make a show of quitting the metropolis, and, after a short absence, +had again returned; "and thus the service of _your majesty_ and _your +people_ in the several counties have been neglected and undone." + +Such is the substance of this curious information, which enables us at +least to collect the ostensible motives of this singular prohibition. +Proclamations had hitherto been considered little more than the news of +the morning, and three days afterwards were as much read as the last +week's newspapers. They were now, however, resolved to stretch forth the +strong arm of law, and to terrify by an example. The constables were +commanded to bring in a list of the names of strangers, and the time +they proposed to fix their residence in their parishes. A remarkable +victim on this occasion was a Mr. Palmer, a Sussex gentleman, who was +brought _ore tenus_ into the Star Chamber for disobeying the +proclamation for living in the country. Palmer was a squire of 1000_l._ +per annum, then a considerable income. He appears to have been some rich +bachelor; for in his defence he alleged that he had never been married, +never was a housekeeper, and had no house fitting for a man of his birth +to reside in, as his mansion in the country had been burnt down within +two years. These reasons appeared to his judges to aggravate rather than +extenuate his offence; and after a long reprimand for having deserted +his tenants and neighbours, they heavily fined him in one thousand +pounds.[241] + +The condemnation of this Sussex gentleman struck a terror through a wide +circle of sojourners in the metropolis. I find accounts, pathetic +enough, of their "packing away on all sides for fear of the worst;" and +gentlemen "grumbling that they should be confined to their houses:" and +this was sometimes backed too by a second proclamation, respecting +"their wives and families, and also widows," which was "_durus sermo_ to +the women. It is nothing pleasing to all," says the letter-writer, "but +least of all to the women." "To encourage gentlemen to live more +willingly in the country," says another letter-writer, "all game-fowl, +as pheasants, partridges, ducks, as also hares, are this day by +proclamation forbidden to be dressed or eaten in any inn." Here we find +realized the argument of Mr. Justice Best in favour of the game-laws. + +It is evident that this severe restriction must have produced great +inconvenience to certain persons who found a residence in London +necessary for their pursuits. This appears from the manuscript diary of +an honest antiquary, Sir Symonds D'Ewes; he has preserved an opinion +which, no doubt, was spreading fast, that such prosecutions of the +Attorney-General were a violation of the liberty of the subject. "Most +men wondered at Mr. Noy, the Attorney-General, being accounted a great +lawyer, that so strictly _took away men's liberties at one blow, +confining them to reside at their own houses_, and not permitting them +freedom to live where they pleased within the king's dominions. I was +myself a little startled upon the first coming out of the proclamation; +but having first spoken with the Lord Coventry, Lord Keeper of the +Great Seal, at Islington, when I visited him; and afterwards with Sir +William Jones, one of the King's Justices of the Bench, about my +condition and residence at the said town of Islington, and they both +agreeing that I was not within the letter of the proclamation, nor the +intention of it neither, I rested satisfied, and thought myself secure, +laying in all my provisions for housekeeping for the year ensuing, and +never imagined myself to be in danger, till this unexpected censure of +Mr. Palmer passed in the Star Chamber; so, having advised with my +friends, I resolved for a remove, being much troubled not only with my +separation from Recordes, but with my wife, being great with child, +fearing a winter journey might be dangerous to her."[242] He left +Islington and the records in the Tower to return to his country-seat, to +the great disturbance of his studies. + +It is, perhaps, difficult to assign the cause of this marked anxiety of +the government for the severe restriction of the limits of the +metropolis, and the prosecution of the nobility and gentry to compel a +residence on their estates. Whatever were the motives, they were not +peculiar to the existing sovereign, but remained transmitted from +cabinet to cabinet, and were even renewed under Charles the Second. At a +time when the plague often broke out, a close and growing metropolis +might have been considered to be a great evil; a terror expressed by the +manuscript-writer before quoted, complaining of "this deluge of +building, that we shall be all poisoned with breathing in one another's +faces." The police of the metropolis was long imbecile, notwithstanding +their "strong watches and guards" set at times; and bodies of the idle +and the refractory often assumed some mysterious title, and were with +difficulty governed. We may conceive the state of the police, when +"London apprentices," growing in number and insolence, frequently made +attempts on Bridewell, or pulled down houses. One day the citizens, in +proving some ordnance, terrified the whole court of James the First with +a panic that there was "a rising in the city." It is possible that the +government might have been induced to pursue this singular conduct, for +I do not know that it can be paralleled, of pulling down new-built +houses by some principle of political economy which remains to be +explained, or ridiculed, by our modern adepts. It would hardly be +supposed that the present subject may be enlivened by a poem, the +elegance and freedom of which may even now be admired. It is a great +literary curiosity, and its length may be excused for several remarkable +points. + + + AN ODE, + + BY SIR RICHARD FANSHAW, + +_Upon Occasion of his Majesty's Proclamation in the Year 1630, +commanding the Gentry to reside upon their Estates in the Country._ + + Now war is all the world about, + And everywhere Erinnys reigns; + Or of the torch so late put out + The stench remains. + Holland for many years hath been + Of Christian tragedies the stage, + Yet seldom hath she played a scene + Of bloodier rage: + And France, that was not long compos'd, + With civil drums again resounds, + And ere the old are fully clos'd, + Receives new wounds. + The great Gustavus in the west + Plucks the imperial eagle's wing, + Than whom the earth did ne'er invest + A fiercer king. + Only the island which we sow, + A world without the world so far, + From present wounds, it cannot show + An ancient scar. + White peace, the beautifull'st of things, + Seems here her everlasting rest + To fix and spread the downy wings + Over the nest. + As when great Jove, usurping reign, + From the plagued world did her exile, + And tied her with a golden chain + To one blest isle, + Which in a sea of plenty swam, + And turtles sang on every bough, + A safe retreat to all that came, + As ours is now; + Yet we, as if some foe were here, + Leave the despised fields to clowns, + And come to save ourselves, as 'twere + In walled towns. + Hither we bring wives, babes, rich clothes, + And gems--till now my soveraign + The growing evil doth oppose: + Counting in vain + His care preserves us from annoy + Of enemies his realms to invade, + Unless he force us to enjoy + The peace he made, + To roll themselves in envied leisure; + He therefore sends the landed heirs, + Whilst he proclaims not his own pleasure + So much was theirs. + The sap and blood of the land, which fled + Into the root, and choked the heart, + Are bid their quick'ning power to spread + Through every part. + O 'twas an act, not for my muse + To celebrate, nor the dull age, + Until the country air infuse + A purer rage. + And if the fields as thankful prove + For benefits received, as seed, + They will to 'quite so great a love + A Virgil breed. + Nor let the gentry grudge to go + Into those places whence they grew, + But think them blest they may do so. + Who would pursue + The smoky glory of the town, + That may go till his native earth, + And by the shining fire sit down + Of his own hearth, + Free from the griping scrivener's bands, + And the more biting mercer's books; + Free from the bait of oiled hands, + And painted looks? + The country too even chops for rain; + You that exhale it by your power, + Let the fat drops fall down again + In a full shower. + And you bright beauties of the time, + That waste yourselves here in a blaze, + Fix to your orb and proper clime + Your wandering rays. + Let no dark corner of the land + Be unembellish'd with one gem, + And those which here too thick do stand + Sprinkle on them. + Believe me, ladies, you will find + In that sweet light more solid joys, + More true contentment to the mind + Than all town-toys. + Nor Cupid there less blood doth spill, + But heads his shafts with chaster love, + Not feather'd with a sparrow's quill, + But of a dove. + There you shall hear the nightingale, + The harmless syren of the wood, + How prettily she tells a tale + Of rape and blood. + The lyric lark, with all beside + Of Nature's feather'd quire, and all + The commonwealth of flowers in 'ts pride + Behold you shall. + The lily queen, the royal rose, + The gilly-flower, prince of the blood! + The courtier tulip, gay in clothes, + The regal bud; + The violet purple senator, + How they do mock the pomp of state, + And all that at the surly door + Of great ones wait. + Plant trees you may, and see them shoot + Up with your children, to be served + To your clean boards, and the fairest fruit + To be preserved; + And learn to use their several gums; + 'Tis innocence in the sweet blood + Of cherry, apricocks, and plums, + To be imbrued. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [238] _Morning Chronicle_, January 23, 1820. + + [239] A proclamation was issued in the first year of King James, + "commanding gentlemen to depart the court and city," because it + hinders hospitality and endangers the people near their own + residences, "who had from such houses much comfort and ease toward + their living." The King graciously says:--"He tooke no small + contentment in the resort of gentlemen, and other our subjects + coming to visit us, holding their affectionate desire to see our + person to be a certaine testimonie of their inward love;" but he + says he must not "give way to so great a mischiefe as the continuall + resort may breed," and that therefore all that have no special cause + of attendance must at once go back until the time of his coronation, + when they may "returne until the solemnity be passed;" but only for + that time, for if the proclamation be slighted he shall "make them + an example of contempt if we shall finde any making stay here + contrary to this direction." Such proclamations were from time to + time issued, and though sometimes evaded, were frequently enforced + by fines, so that living in London was a risk and danger to country + gentlemen of fortune. + + [240] Rushworth, vol. ii. p. 288. + + [241] From a manuscript letter from Sir George Gresley to Sir Thomas + Puckering, Nov. 1632. + + [242] Harl. MSS. 6. fo. 152. + + + + +ROYAL PROCLAMATIONS. + + +The satires and the comedies of the age have been consulted by the +historian of our manners, and the features of the times have been traced +from those amusing records of folly. Daines Barrinton enlarged this +field of domestic history in his very entertaining "Observations on the +Statutes." Another source, which to me seems not to have been explored, +is the proclamations which have frequently issued from our sovereigns, +and were produced by the exigencies of the times. + +These proclamations or royal edicts in our country were never armed with +the force of laws--only as they enforce the execution of laws already +established; and the proclamation of a British monarch may become even +an illegal act, if it be in opposition to the law of the land. Once, +indeed, it was enacted under the arbitrary government of Henry the +Eighth, by the sanction of a pusillanimous parliament, that the force of +acts of parliament should be given to the king's proclamations; and at a +much later period the chancellor, Lord Ellesmere, was willing to have +advanced the king's proclamations into laws, on the sophistical maxim +that "all precedents had a time when they began;" but this chancellor +argued ill, as he was told with spirit by Lord Coke, in the presence of +James the First,[243] who probably did not think so ill of the +chancellor's logic. Blackstone, to whom on this occasion I could not +fail to turn, observes, on the statute under Henry the Eighth, that it +would have introduced the most despotic tyranny, and must have proved +fatal to the liberties of this kingdom, had it not been luckily repealed +in the minority of his successor, whom he elsewhere calls an amiable +prince--all our young princes, we discover, were amiable! Blackstone has +not recorded the subsequent attempt of the lord chancellor under James +the First, which tended to raise proclamations to the nature of an ukase +of the autocrat of both the Russias. It seems that our national freedom, +notwithstanding our ancient constitution, has had several narrow +escapes. + +Royal proclamations, however, in their own nature are innocent enough; +for since the manner, time, and circumstances of putting laws in +execution must frequently be left to the discretion of the executive +magistrate, a proclamation that is not adverse to existing laws need not +create any alarm; the only danger they incur is that they seem never to +have been attended to, and rather testified the wishes of the government +than the compliance of the subjects. They were not laws, and were +therefore considered as sermons or pamphlets, or anything forgotten in a +week's time! + +These proclamations are frequently alluded to by the letter-writers of +the times among the news of the day, but usually their royal virtue +hardly kept them alive beyond the week. Some on important subjects are +indeed noticed in our history. Many indications of the situation of +affairs, the feelings of the people, and the domestic history of our +nation, may be drawn from these singular records. I have never found +them to exist in any collected form, and they have been probably only +accidentally preserved.[244] + +The proclamations of every sovereign would characterize his reign, and +open to us some of the interior operations of the cabinet. The despotic +will, yet vacillating conduct of Henry the Eighth, towards the close of +his reign, may be traced in a proclamation to abolish the translations +of the scriptures, and even the reading of Bibles by the people; +commanding all printers of English books and pamphlets to affix their +names to them, and forbidding the sale of any English books printed +abroad.[245] When the people were not suffered to publish their opinions +at home, all the opposition flew to foreign presses, and their writings +were then smuggled into the country in which they ought to have been +printed. Hence, many volumes printed in a foreign type at this period +are found in our collections. The king shrunk in dismay from that spirit +of reformation which had only been a party business with him, and making +himself a pope, decided that nothing should be learnt but what he +himself deigned to teach! + +The antipathies and jealousies which our populace too long indulged, by +their incivilities to all foreigners, are characterised by a +proclamation issued by Mary, commanding her subjects to behave +themselves peaceably towards the strangers coming with King Philip; that +noblemen and gentlemen should warn their servants to refrain from +"strife and contention, either by outward deeds, taunting words, +unseemly countenance, by mimicking them, &c." The punishment not only +"her grace's displeasure, but to be committed to prison without bail or +mainprise." + +The proclamations of Edward the Sixth curiously exhibit the unsettled +state of the reformation, where the rites and ceremonies of Catholicism +were still practised by the new religionists, while an opposite party, +resolutely bent on an eternal separation from Rome, were avowing +doctrines which afterwards consolidated themselves into puritanism, and +while others were hatching up that demoralising fanaticism which +subsequently shocked the nation with those monstrous sects, the +indelible, disgrace of our country! In one proclamation the king +denounces to the people "those who despise the sacrament by calling it +_idol_, or such other vile name." Another is against such "as innovate +any ceremony," and who are described as "certain private preachers and +other laiemen, who rashly attempt of _their own and singular wit and +mind_, not only to persuade the people from the old and accustomed rites +and ceremonies, but also themselves bring in _new and strange orders +according to their phantasies_. The which, as it is an evident token of +pride and arrogancy, so it tendeth both to confusion and disorder." +Another proclamation, to press "a godly conformity throughout his +realm," where we learn the following curious fact, of "divers unlearned +and indiscreet priests of a devilish mind and intent, teaching that a +man may forsake his wife and marry another, his first wife yet living; +likewise that the wife may do the same to the husband. Others, that a +man may have _two wives or more_ at once, for that these things are not +prohibited by God's law, but by the Bishop of Rome's law; so that by +such evil and fantastical opinions some have not been afraid indeed to +marry and keep _two wives_." Here, as in the bud, we may unfold those +subsequent scenes of our story which spread out in the following +century; the branching out of the non-conformists into their various +sects; and the indecent haste of our reformed priesthood, who, in their +zeal to cast off the yoke of Rome, desperately submitted to the liberty +of having "two wives or more!" There is a proclamation to abstain from +flesh on Fridays and Saturdays; exhorted on the principle, not only that +"men should abstain on those days, and forbear their pleasures and the +meats wherein they have more delight, to the intent to subdue their +bodies to the soul and spirit, but also for _worldly policy_. To use +_fish_, for the benefit of the commonwealth, and profit of many who be +_fishers_ and men using that trade, unto the which this realm, in every +part environed with the seas, and so plentiful of fresh waters, be +increased the nourishment of the land by saving flesh." It did not seem +to occur to the king in council that the butchers might have had cause +to petition against this monopoly of two days in the week granted to the +fishmongers; and much less, that it was better to let the people eat +flesh or fish as suited their conveniency. In respect to the religious +rite itself, it was evidently not considered as an essential point of +faith, since the king enforces it on the principle, "for the profit and +commodity of his realm." Burnet has made a just observation on religious +fasts.[246] + +A proclamation against excess of apparel, in the reign of Elizabeth, and +renewed many years after, shows the luxury of dress, which was indeed +excessive.[247] There is a curious one against the _iconoclasts, or +image-breakers and picture-destroyers_, for which the antiquary will +hold her in high reverence. Her majesty informs us, that "several +persons, ignorant, malicious, or covetous, of late years, have spoiled +and broken ancient monuments, erected only _to show a memory to +posterity_, and not to nourish any kind of _superstition_." The queen +laments that what is broken and spoiled would be now hard to recover, +but advises her good people to repair them; and commands them in future +to desist from committing such injuries. A more extraordinary +circumstance than the proclamation itself was the manifestation of her +majesty's zeal, in subscribing her name with her own hand to every +proclamation dispersed throughout England. These image-breakers first +appeared in Elizabeth's reign; it was afterwards that they flourished +in all the perfection of their handicraft, and have contrived that these +monuments of art shall carry down to posterity the _memory of their_ +SHAME _and of their age_. These image-breakers, so famous in our +history, had already appeared under Henry the Eighth, and continued +their practical zeal, in spite of proclamations and remonstrances, till +they had accomplished their work. In 1641 an order was published by the +Commons, that they should "take away all scandalous pictures out of +churches:" but more was intended than was expressed; and we are told +that the people did not at first carry their barbarous practice against +all Art to the lengths which they afterwards did, till they were +instructed by _private information!_ Dowsing's Journal has been +published, and shows what the _order_ meant! He was their giant +destroyer! Such are the Machiavelian secrets of revolutionary +governments; they give a _public_ order in moderate _words_, but the +_secret_ one, for the _deeds_, is that of extermination! It was this +sort of men who discharged their prisoners by giving a secret sign to +lead them to their execution! + +The proclamations of James the First, by their number, are said to have +sunk their value with the people.[248] He was fond of giving them gentle +advice; and it is said by Wilson that there was an intention to have +this king's printed proclamations bound up in a volume, that better +notice might be taken of the matters contained in them. There is more +than one to warn the people against "speaking too freely of matters +above their reach," prohibiting all "undutiful speeches." I suspect that +many of these proclamations are the composition of the king's own hand; +he was often his own secretary. There is an admirable one against +private duels and challenges. The curious one respecting Cowell's +"Interpreter" is a sort of royal review of some of the arcana of state: +I refer to the quotation.[249] + +I will preserve a passage of a proclamation "against excess of lavish +and licentious speech." James was a king of words! + + "Although the commixture of nations, confluence of ambassadors, and + the relation which the affairs of our kingdoms have had towards the + business and interests of foreign states have caused, during our + regiment (government) a greater openness and liberty of discourse, + even concerning MATTERS OF STATE (which are _no themes or subjects + fit for vulgar persons or common meetings_), than hath been in former + times used or permitted; and although in our own nature and judgment + we do well allow of _convenient freedom of speech_, esteeming any + over-curious or restrained hands carried in that kind rather as a + weakness, or else over-much severity of government than otherwise; + yet for as much as it is come to our ears, by common report, that + there is at this time a more licentious passage of _lavish discourse + and bold censure in matters of state_ than is fit to be suffered: We + give this warning, &c., to take heed _how they intermeddle by pen or + speech with causes of state and secrets of empire_, either at home or + abroad, but contain themselves within that modest and reverent regard + of matters above their reach and calling; nor to give any manner of + applause to such discourse, without acquainting one of our privy + council within the space of twenty-four hours." + +It seems that "the bold speakers," as certain persons were then +denominated, practised an old artifice of lauding his majesty, while +they severely arraigned the counsels of the cabinet; on this James +observes, "Neither let any man mistake us so much as to think that by +giving fair and specious attributes to our person, they cover the +scandals which they otherwise lay upon our government, but conceive that +we make no other construction of them but as fine and artificial +glosses, the better to give passage to the rest of their imputations and +scandals." + +This was a proclamation in the eighteenth year of his reign; he repeated +it in the nineteenth, and he might have proceeded to "the crack of doom" +with the same effect! + +Rushworth, in his second volume of Historical Collections, has preserved +a considerable number of the proclamations of Charles the First, of +which many are remarkable; but latterly they mark the feverish state of +his reign. One regulates access for cure of the king's evil--by which +his majesty, it appears, "hath had good success therein;" but though +ready and willing as any king or queen of this realm ever was to relieve +the distresses of his good subjects, "his majesty commands to change the +seasons for his 'sacred touch' from Easter and Whitsuntide to Easter and +Michaelmas, as times more convenient for the temperature of the season," +&c. Another against "departure out of the realm without license." One to +erect an office "for the suppression of cursing and swearing," to +receive the forfeitures; against "libellous and seditious pamphlets and +discourses from Scotland," framed by factious spirits, and republished +in London--this was in 1640; and Charles, at the crisis of that great +insurrection in which he was to be at once the actor and the spectator, +fondly imagined that the possessors of these "scandalous" pamphlets +would bring them, as he proclaimed "to one of his majesty's justices of +peace, to be by him sent to one of his principal secretaries of state!" + +On the Restoration, Charles the Second had to court his people by his +domestic regulations. He early issued a remarkable proclamation, which +one would think reflected on his favourite companions, and which +strongly marks the moral disorders of those depraved and wretched times. +It is against "vicious, debauched, and profane persons!" who are thus +described:-- + + + "A sort of men of whom we have heard much, and are sufficiently + ashamed; who spend their time in taverns, tippling-houses and + debauches; giving no _other evidence of their affection to us but in + drinking our health_, and inveighing against all others who are not + of their own dissolute temper; and who, in truth, have _more + discredited our cause_, by the license of their manners and lives, + than they could ever advance it by their affection or courage. We + hope all persons of honour, or in place and authority, will so far + assist us in discountenancing such men, that their discretion and + shame will persuade them to reform what their conscience would not; + and that the displeasure of good men towards them may supply what the + laws have not, and, it may be, cannot well provide against; there + being by the license and corruption of the times, and the depraved + nature of man, many enormities, scandals, and impieties in practice + and manners, which _laws cannot well describe, and consequently not + enough provide against_, which may, by the example and severity of + virtuous men, be easily discountenanced, and by degrees suppressed." + +Surely the gravity and moral severity of Clarendon dictated this +proclamation! which must have afforded some mirth to the gay, debauched +circle, the loose cronies of royalty! + +It is curious that, in 1660, Charles the Second issued a long +proclamation for the strict observance of Lent, and alleges for it the +same reason as we found in Edward the Sixth's proclamation, "for the +good it produces in the employment of _fishermen_" No ordinaries, +taverns, &c., to make any supper _on Friday nights, either in Lent or +out of Lent_. + +Charles the Second issued proclamations "to repress the excess of +gilding of coaches and chariots," to restrain the waste of gold, which, +as they supposed, by the excessive use of gilding, had grown scarce. +Against "the exportation and the buying and selling of gold and silver +at higher rates than in our mint," alluding to a statute made in the +ninth year of Edward the Third, called the Statute of Money. Against +building in and about London and Westminster, in 1661: "The +inconveniences daily growing by increase of new buildings are, that the +people increasing in such great numbers, are not well to be governed by +the wonted officers: the prices of victuals are enhanced; the health of +the subject inhabiting the cities much endangered, and many good towns +and boroughs unpeopled, and in their trades much decayed--frequent fires +occasioned by timber-buildings." It orders to build with brick and +stone, "which would beautify, and make an uniformity in the buildings; +and which are not only more durable and safe against fire, but by +experience are found to be of _little more if not less charge than the +building with timber_." We must infer that, by the general use of +timber, it had considerably risen in price, while brick and stone not +then being generally used, became as cheap as wood![250] + +The most remarkable proclamations of Charles the Second are those which +concern the regulations of coffee-houses, and one for putting them +down;[251] to restrain the spreading of false news, and licentious +talking of state and government, the speakers and the hearers were made +alike punishable. This was highly resented as an illegal act by the +friends of civil freedom; who, however, succeeded in obtaining the +freedom of the coffee-houses, under the promise of not sanctioning +treasonable speeches. It was urged by the court lawyers, as the high +Tory, Roger North, tells us, that the retailing coffee might be an +innocent trade, when not used in the nature of a common assembly to +discourse of matters of state news and great persons, as a means "to +discontent the people." On the other side, Kennet asserted that the +discontents existed before they met at the coffee-houses, and that the +proclamation was only intended to suppress an evil which was not to be +prevented. At this day we know which of those two historians exercised +the truest judgment. It was not the coffee-houses which produced +political feeling, but the reverse. Whenever government ascribes effects +to a cause quite inadequate to produce them, they are only seeking means +to hide the evil which they are too weak to suppress. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [243] The whole story is in 12 Co. 746. I owe this curious fact to + the author of Eunomus, ii. 116. + + [244] A quarto volume was published by Barker, the king's printer, + and is entitled "A Booke of Proclamations Published since the + beginning of his Majestie's most happy Reign over England, until + this present month of Feb. 1609." It contains 110 in all. The + Society of Antiquaries of London possesses at the present time the + largest and most perfect collection of royal proclamations in + existence, brought together since the above was written. They are on + separate broadsheets, as issued. + + [245] In 1529 the king had issued a proclamation for resisting and + withstanding of most dampnable heresyes sowen within the realme by + the discyples of Luther and other "heretykes, perverters of Christes + relygyon." In June, 1530, this was followed by the proclamation "for + dampning (or condemning) of erronious bokes and heresies, and + prohibitinge the havinge of holy scripture translated into the + vulgar tonges of englishe, frenche, or dutche," he notes many bookes + "printed beyonde the see" which he will not allow, "that is to say, + the boke called the wicked Mammona, the boke named the Obedience of + a Christen Man, the Supplication of Beggars, and the boke called the + Revelation of Antichrist, the Summary of Scripture, and divers other + bokes made in the Englishe tongue," in fact all books in the + vernacular not issued by native printers. "And that having respect + to the malignity of this present tyme, with the inclination of + people to erronious opinions, the translation of the newe testament + and the old into the vulgar tonge of englysshe, shulde rather be the + occasion of contynuance or increase of errours amonge the said + people, than any benefit or commodite toward the weale of their + soules," and he determines therefore that the scriptures shall only + be expounded to the people as heretofore, and that these books "be + clerely extermynate and exiled out of this realme of Englande for + ever." + + [246] History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 96, folio. + + [247] In June, 1574, the queen issued from her "Manour of Greenwich" + this proclamation against "excesse of apparel, and the superfluitie + of unnecessarye foreign wares thereto belonginge," which is declared + to have "growen by sufferance to such an extremetie, that the + manifest decay, not only of a great part of the wealth of the whole + realme generally, is like to follow by bringing into the realme such + superfluities of silkes, clothes of gold, sylver, and other most + vaine devices, of so greate coste for the quantitie thereof; as of + necessitie the moneyes and treasure of the realme is, and must be, + yeerely conveyed out of the same." This is followed by three folio + leaves minutely describing what may be worn on the dresses of every + grade of persons; descending to such minutiae as to note what classes + are not to be allowed to put lace, or fringes, or borders of velvet + upon their gowns and petticoats, under pain of fine or punishment, + because improper for their station, and above their means. The order + appears to have been evaded, for it was followed by another in + February, 1580, which recapitulates these prohibitions, and renders + them more stringent. + + [248] The list of a very few of those issued at the early part of + his reign may illustrate this. In 1604 was published a "Proclamation + for the true winding or folding of wools," as well as one "For the + due regulation of prices of victuals within the verge of Kent." In + 1605, "Against certain calumnious surmises concerning the church + government of Scotland." In 1608, "A proclamation against making + starch." In 1612, "That none buy or sell any bullion of gold and + silver at higher prices than is appointed to be paid for the same." + Another against dying silk with _slip_ or any corrupt stuff. In + 1613, for "Prohibiting the untimely bringing in of wines," as well + as for "Prohibiting the publishing of any reports or writings of + duels," and also "The importation of felt hats or caps." In 1615, + "Prohibiting the making of glass with timber or wood," because "of + late yeeres the waste of wood and timber hath been exceeding great + and intolerable, by the glassehouses and glasseworkes of late in + divers parts erected," and which his majesty fears may have the + effect of depriving England of timber to construct her navy! + + [249] I have noticed it in Calamities of Authors. + + [250] Lilly, the astrologer, in his memoirs, notes that Thomas + Howard, Earl of Arundel (the famous collector of the Arundelian + marbles now at Oxford), "brought over the new way of building with + brick in the city, greatly to the safety of the city, and + preservation of the wood of this nation." + + [251] This proclamation "for the suppression of coffee-houses" bears + date December 20, 1675, and is stated to have been issued because + "the multitude of coffee-houses, lately set up and kept within this + kingdom, and the great resort of idle and dissipated persons to + them, have produced very evil and dangerous effects," particularly + in spreading of rumours, and inducing tradesmen to neglect their + calling, tending to the danger of the commonweal, by the idle waste + of time and money. It therefore orders all coffee-house keepers + "that they, or any of them, do not presume from and after the tenth + day of January next ensuing, to keep any publick coffee-house, or + utter, or sell by retail, in his, her, or their house, or houses (to + be spent or consumed within the same), any coffee, chocolate, + sherbett, or tea; as they will answer it at their utmost peril." + + + + +TRUE SOURCES OF SECRET HISTORY. + + +This is a subject which has been hitherto but imperfectly comprehended +even by some historians themselves; and has too often incurred the +satire, and even the contempt, of those volatile spirits who play about +the superficies of truth, wanting the industry to view it on more than +one side, and those superficial readers who imagine that every tale is +told when it is written. + +Secret history is the supplement of history itself, and is its great +corrector; and the combination of secret with public history has in +itself a perfection, which each taken separately has not. The popular +historian composes a plausible rather than an accurate tale; researches +too fully detailed would injure the just proportions, or crowd the bold +design, of the elegant narrative; and facts, presented as they occurred, +would not adapt themselves to those theoretical writers of history who +arrange events not in a natural, but in a systematic order. But in +secret history we are more busied in observing what passes than in being +told of it. We are transformed into the contemporaries of the writers, +while we are standing on the "vantage ground" of their posterity; and +thus what to them appeared ambiguous, to us has become unquestionable; +what was secret to them has been confided to us. They mark the +beginnings, and we the ends. From the fulness of their accounts we +recover much which had been lost to us in the general views of history, +and it is by this more intimate acquaintance with persons and +circumstances that we are enabled to correct the less distinct, and +sometimes the fallacious appearances in the page of the popular +historian. He who _only_ views things in masses will have no distinct +notion of any one particular; he may be a fanciful or a passionate +historian, but he is not the historian who will enlighten while he +charms. + +But as secret history appears to deal in minute things, its connexion +with great results is not usually suspected. The circumstantiality of +its story, the changeable shadows of its characters, the redundance of +its conversations, and the many careless superfluities which egotism or +vanity may throw out, seem usually confounded with that small-talk +familiarly termed _gossiping_. But the _gossiping_ of a profound +politician or a vivacious observer, in one of their letters, or in their +memoirs, often, by a spontaneous stroke, reveals the individual, or by a +simple incident unriddles a mysterious event. We may discover the value +of these pictures of human nature, with which secret history abounds, by +an observation which occurred between two statesmen in office. Lord +Raby, our ambassador, apologised to Lord Bolingbroke, then secretary of +state, for troubling him with the minuter circumstances which occurred +in his conferences; in reply, the minister requests the ambassador to +continue the same manner of writing, and alleges an excellent reason: +"Those _minute circumstances_ give very great light to the general scope +and design of the _persons_ negotiated with. And I own that nothing +pleases me more in that valuable collection of the Cardinal D'Ossat's +letters, than the _naive_ descriptions which he gives of the looks, +gestures, and even tones of voice, of the persons he conferred with." I +regret to have to record the opinions of another noble author, who +recently has thrown out some degrading notions of secret history, and +particularly of the historians. I would have silently passed by a vulgar +writer, superficial, prejudiced, and uninformed, but as so many are yet +deficient in correct notions of _secret history_, it is but justice that +their representative should be heard before they are condemned. + +His lordship says, that "Of late the appetite for _Remains_ of all kinds +has surprisingly increased. A story repeated by the Duchess of +Portsmouth's waiting-woman to Lord Rochester's valet forms the subject +of investigation for a philosophical historian; and you may hear of an +assembly of scholars and authors discussing the validity of a piece of +scandal invented by a maid of honour more than two centuries ago, and +repeated to an obscure writer by Queen Elizabeth's housekeeper. It is a +matter of the greatest interest to see the _letters_ of every busy +trifler. Yet who does not laugh at such men?" This is the attack! but as +if some half truths, like light through the cranny in a dark room, had +just darted in a stream of atoms over this scoffer at secret history, he +suddenly views his object with a very different appearance--for his +lordship justly concludes that "It must be confessed, however, that +knowledge of this kind is very entertaining; and here and there among +the rubbish we find hints that may give the philosopher a clue to +important facts, and afford to the moralist a better analysis of the +human mind than a whole library of metaphysics!" The philosopher may +well abhor all intercourse with wits! because the faculty of judgment is +usually quiescent with them; and in their orgasm they furiously decry +what in their sober senses they as eagerly laud! Let me inform his +lordship, that "the waiting-woman and the valet" of eminent persons are +sometimes no unimportant personages in history. By the _Memoires de +Mons. de la Porte, premier valet-de-chambre de Louis XIV._, we learn +what before "the valet" wrote had not been known--the shameful arts +which Mazarin allowed to be practised, to give a bad education to the +prince, and to manage him by depraving his tastes. _Madame de +Motteville_, in her Memoirs, "the waiting lady" of our Henrietta, has +preserved for our own English history some facts which have been found +so essential to the narrative, that they are referred to by our +historians. In _Gui Joly_, the humble dependant of Cardinal de Retz, we +discover an unconscious but a useful commentator on the memoirs of his +master; and the most affecting personal anecdotes of Charles the First +have been preserved by _Thomas Herbert_, his gentleman in waiting; +_Clery_, the valet of Louis the Sixteenth, with pathetic faithfulness, +has shown us the man in the monarch whom he served! + +Of SECRET HISTORY there are obviously two species; it is positive, or it +is relative. It is _positive_, when the facts are first given to the +world; a sort of knowledge which can only be drawn from our own personal +experience, or from contemporary documents preserved in their manuscript +state in public or in private collections; or it is _relative_, in +proportion to the knowledge of those to whom it is communicated, and +will be more or less valued according to the acquisitions of the reader; +and this inferior species of secret history is drawn from rare and +obscure books and other published authorities, often as scarce as +manuscripts. + +Some experience I have had in those literary researches, where +cusiosity, ever wakeful and vigilant, discovers among contemporary +manuscripts new facts; illustrations of old ones; and sometimes detects, +not merely by conjecture, the concealed causes of many events; often +opens a scene in which some well-known personage is exhibited in a new +character; and thus penetrates beyond those generalising representations +which satisfy the superficial, and often cover the page of history with +delusion and fiction. + +It is only since the latter institution of national libraries that these +immense collections of manuscripts have been formed; with us they are an +undescribable variety, usually classed under the vague title of +"state-papers."[252] The instructions of ambassadors, but more +particularly their own dispatches; charters and chronicles brown with +antiquity, which preserve a world which had been else lost for us, like +the one before the deluge; series upon series of private correspondence, +among which we discover the most confidential communications, designed +by the writers to have been destroyed by the hand which received them; +memoirs of individuals by themselves or by their friends, such as are +now published by the pomp of vanity, or the faithlessness of their +possessors; and the miscellaneous collections formed by all kinds of +persons, characteristic of all countries and of all eras, materials for +the history of man!--records of the force or of the feebleness of the +human understanding, and still the monuments of their passions. + +The original collectors of these dispersed manuscripts were a race of +ingenious men, silent benefactors of mankind, to whom justice has not +yet been fully awarded; but in their fervour of accumulation, everything +in a manuscript state bore its spell; acquisition was the sole point +aimed at by our early collectors, and to this these searching spirits +sacrificed their fortunes, their ease, and their days; but life would +have been too short to have decided on the intrinsic value of the +manuscripts flowing in a stream to the collectors; and suppression, even +of the disjointed reveries of madmen, or the sensible madness of +projectors, might have been indulging a capricious taste, or what has +proved more injurious to historical pursuits, that party-feeling which +has frequently annihilated the memorials of their adversaries.[253] + +These manuscript collections now assume a formidable appearance. A +toilsome march over these "Alps rising over Alps!" a voyage in "a sea +without a shore!" has turned away most historians from their severer +duties; those who have grasped at early celebrity have been satisfied to +have given a new form to, rather than contributed to the new matter of +history. The very sight of these masses of history has terrified some +modern historians. When Pere Daniel undertook a history of France, the +learned Boivin, the king's librarian, opened for his inspection an +immense treasure of charters, and another of royal autograph letters, +and another of private correspondence; treasures reposing in fourteen +hundred folios! The modern historian passed two hours impatiently +looking over them, but frightened at another plunge into the gulf, this +Curtius of history would not immolate himself for his country! He wrote +a civil letter to the librarian for his "supernumerary kindness," but +insinuated that he could write a very readable history without any +further aid of such _paperasses_ or "paper-rubbish." Pere Daniel, +therefore, "quietly sat down to his history," copying others--a +compliment which was never returned by any one: but there was this +striking novelty in his "readable history," that according to the +accurate computation of Count Boulainvilliers, Pere Daniel's history of +France contains ten thousand blunders! The same circumstance has been +told me by a living historian of the late Gilbert Stuart; who, on some +manuscript volumes of letters being pointed out to him when composing +his history of Scotland, confessed that "what was already printed was +more than he was able to read!" and thus much for his theoretical +history, written to run counter to another theoretical history, being +Stuart versus Robertson! They equally depend on the simplicity of their +readers, and the charms of style! Another historian, Anquetil, the +author of _L'Esprit de la Ligue_, has described his embarrassment at an +inspection of the contemporary manuscripts of that period. After +thirteen years of researches to glean whatever secret history printed +books afforded, the author, residing in the country, resolved to visit +the royal library at Paris. Monsieur Melot receiving him with that +kindness which is one of the official duties of the public librarian +towards the studious, opened the cabinets in which were deposited the +treasures of French history.--"This is what you require! come here at +all times, and you shall be attended!" said the librarian to the young +historian, who stood by with a sort of shudder, while he opened cabinet +after cabinet. The intrepid investigator repeated his visits, looking +over the mass as chance directed, attacking one side, and then flying to +another. The historian, who had felt no weariness during thirteen years +among printed books, discovered that he was now engaged in a task +apparently always beginning, and never ending! The "Esprit de la Ligue" +was however enriched by labours which at the moment appeared so barren. + +The study of these _paperasses_ is not perhaps so disgusting as the +impatient Pere Daniel imagined; there is a literary fascination in +looking over the same papers which the great characters of history once +held and wrote on; catching from themselves their secret sentiments; and +often detecting so many of their unrecorded actions! By habit the toil +becomes light; and with a keen inquisitive spirit even delightful! For +what is more delightful to the curious than to make fresh discoveries +every day? Addison has a true and pleasing observation on such pursuits. +"Our employments are converted into amusements, so that even in those +objects which were indifferent, or even displeasing to us, the mind not +only gradually loses its aversion, but conceives a certain fondness and +affection for them." Addison illustrates this case by one of the +greatest geniuses of the age, who by habit took incredible pleasure in +searching into rolls and records, till he preferred them to Virgil and +Cicero! The faculty of curiosity is as fervid, and even as refined in +its search after truth, as that of taste in the objects of imagination; +and the more it is indulged, the more exquisitely it is enjoyed! + +The popular historians of England and of France have, in truth, made +little use of manuscript researches. Life is very short for long +histories; and those who rage with an avidity of fame or profit will +gladly taste the fruit which they cannot mature. Researches too remotely +sought after, or too slowly acquired, or too fully detailed, would be so +many obstructions in the smooth texture of a narrative. Our theoretical +historians write from some particular and preconceived result; unlike +Livy, and De Thou, and Machiavel, who describe events in their natural +order, these cluster them together by the fanciful threads of some +political or moral theory, by which facts are distorted, displaced, and +sometimes altogether omitted! One single original document has sometimes +shaken into dust their Palladian edifice of history. At the moment Hume +was sending some sheets of his history to press, Murdin's State Papers +appeared. And we are highly amused and instructed by a letter of our +historian to his rival, Robertson, who probably found himself often in +the same forlorn situation. Our historian discovered in that collection +what compelled him to retract his preconceived system--he hurries to +stop the press, and paints his confusion and his anxiety with all the +ingenuous simplicity of his nature. "We are all in the wrong!" he +exclaims. Of Hume I have heard that certain manuscripts at the State +Paper Office had been prepared for his inspection during a fortnight, +but he never could muster courage to pay his promised visit. Satisfied +with the common accounts, and the most obvious sources of history, when +librarian at the Advocates' Library, where yet may be examined the books +he used, marked by his hand, he spread the volumes about the sofa, from +which he rarely rose to pursue obscure inquiries, or delay by fresh +difficulties the page which every day was growing under his charming +pen. A striking proof of his careless happiness I discovered in his +never referring to the perfect edition of "Whitelocke's Memorials" of +1732, but to the old truncated and faithless one of 1682. + +Dr. Birch was a writer with no genius for composition, but one to whom +British history stands more indebted than to any superior author; his +incredible love of labour, in transcribing with his own hand a large +library of manuscripts from originals dispersed in public and in private +repositories, has enriched the British Museum by thousands of the most +authentic documents of genuine secret history. He once projected a +collection of original historical letters, for which he had prepared a +preface, where I find the following passage:--"It is a more important +service to the public to contribute _something not before known_ to the +general fund of history, than to give new form and colour to what we are +already possessed of, by superadding refinement and ornament, which too +often tend _to disguise the real state of the facts_; a fault not to be +atoned for by the pomp of _style_, or even the fine _eloquence_ of the +historian." This was an oblique stroke aimed at Robertson, to whom Birch +had generously opened the stores of history, for the Scotch historian +had needed all his charity; but Robertson's attractive inventions and +highly-finished composition seduce the public taste; and we may forgive +the latent spark of envy in the honest feelings of the man, who was +profoundly skilled in delving in the native beds of ore, but not in +fashioning it; and whose own neglected historical works, constructed on +the true principles of secret history, we may often turn over to correct +the erroneous, the prejudiced, and the artful accounts of those who have +covered their faults by "the pomp of style, and the eloquence of the +historian." + +The large manuscript collections of original documents, from whence may +be drawn what I have called _positive secret history_, are, as I +observed, comparatively of modern existence. Formerly they were widely +dispersed in private hands; and the nature of such sources of historic +discovery but rarely occurred to our writers. Even had they sought them, +their access must have been partial and accidental. Lord Hardwicke has +observed, that there are still many untouched manuscript collections +within these kingdoms, which, through the ignorance or inattention of +their owners, are condemned to dust and obscurity; but how valuable and +essential they may be to the interests of authentic history and of +sacred truth, cannot be more strikingly demonstrated than in the recent +publications of the Marlborough and the Shrewsbury Papers by Archdeacon +Coxe.[254] The editor was fully authorised to observe, "It is singular +that those transactions should either have been passed over in silence, +or imperfectly represented by most of our national historians." Our +modern history would have been a mere political romance, without the +astonishing picture of William and his ministers, exhibited in those +unquestionable documents. Burnet was among the first of our modern +historians who showed the world the preciousness of such materials, in +his "History of the Reformation," which he largely drew from the +Cottonian collection. Our early historians only repeated a tale ten +times told. Milton, who wanted not for literary diligence, had no fresh +stores to open for his "History of England;" while Hume despatches, +comparatively in a few pages, a subject which has afforded to the +fervent diligence of my learned friend Sharon Turner volumes precious to +the antiquary, the lawyer, and the philosopher. + +To illustrate my idea of the usefulness and of the absolute necessity of +SECRET HISTORY, I fix first on _a public event_, and secondly on _a +public character_; both remarkable in our own modern history, and both +serving to expose the fallacious appearances of popular history by +authorities indisputably genuine. The _event_ is the Restoration of +Charles the Second; and the _character_ is that of Mary, the queen of +William the Third. + +In history the Restoration of Charles appears in all its splendour--the +king is joyfully received at Dover, and the shore is covered by his +subjects on their knees--crowds of the great hurry to Canterbury--the +army is drawn up, in number and with a splendour that had never been +equalled--his enthusiastic reception is on his birthday, for that was +the lucky day fixed on for his entrance into the metropolis--in a word, +all that is told in history describes a monarch the most powerful and +the most happy. One of the tracts of the day, entitled "England's +Triumph," in the mean quaintness of the style of the times, tells us +that "The soldiery, who had hitherto made _clubs_ trump, resolve now to +enthrone the _king of hearts_." Turn to the faithful memorialist, who so +well knew the secrets of the king's heart, and who was himself an actor +behind the curtain; turn to Clarendon, in his own Life, and we shall +find that the power of the king was then as dubious as when he was an +exile; and his feelings were so much racked, that he had nearly resolved +on a last flight. + +Clarendon, in noticing the temper and spirit of that time, observes, +"Whoever reflects upon all this composition of contradictory wishes and +expectations, must confess that the king was not yet the master of the +kingdom, nor his _authority_ and _security_ such as _the general noise +and acclamation, the bells and the bonfires, proclaimed it to +be_."--"The first mortification the king met with as soon as he arrived +at Canterbury, within three hours after he landed at Dover." Clarendon +then relates how many the king found there, who, while they waited with +joy to kiss his hand, also came with importunate solicitations for +themselves; forced him to give them present audience, in which they +reckoned up the insupportable losses undergone by themselves or their +fathers; demanding some grant, or promise of such or such offices; some +even for more! "pressing for two or three with such confidence and +importunity, and with such tedious discourses, that the king was +extremely nauseated with their suits, though his modesty knew not how to +break from them; that he no sooner got into his chamber, which for some +hours he was not able to do, than _he lamented the condition to which he +found he must be subject_; and did, in truth, from that minute, contract +such a prejudice against some of those persons." But a greater +mortification was to follow, and one which had nearly thrown the king +into despair. + +General Monk had from the beginning to this instant acted very +mysteriously, never corresponding with nor answering a letter of the +king's, so that his majesty was frequently doubtful whether the general +designed to act for himself or for the king: an ambiguous conduct which +I attribute to the power his wife had over him, who was in the opposite +interest. The general, in his rough way, presented him a large paper, +with about seventy names for his privy council, of which not more than +two were acceptable. "The king," says Clarendon, "was _in more than +ordinary confusion_, for he knew not well what to think of the general, +in whose absolute power he was--so that at this moment his majesty was +almost alarmed at the demand and appearance of things." The general +afterwards undid this unfavourable appearance, by acknowledging that the +list was drawn up by his wife, who had made him promise to present it; +but he permitted his majesty to act as he thought proper. At that moment +General Monk was more king than Charles. + +We have not yet concluded. When Charles met the army at Blackheath, +50,000 strong, "he knew well the ill constitution of the army, the +distemper and murmuring that was in it, and how many diseases and +convulsions their infant loyalty was subject to; that _how united soever +their inclinations and acclamations seemed to be at Blackheath_, their +_affections_ were not the _same_--and _the very countenances_ there of +many _officers_, as well as _soldiers_, did sufficiently manifest that +they were drawn thither to a service they were not delighted in. The +_old soldiers_ had little regard for their _new officers_; and it +quickly appeared, by the select and affected mixtures of sullen and +melancholic parties of officers and soldiers."--And then the chancellor +of human nature adds, "And in this _melancholic and perplexed condition_ +the king and all his hopes stood, _when he appeared most gay and +exalted, and wore a pleasantness in his face_ that became him, and +looked like as full an assurance of his security as was possible to put +on." It is imagined that Louis the Eighteenth would be the ablest +commentator on this piece of secret history, and add another _twin_ to +Pierre de Saint Julien's "Gemelles ou Pareiles," an old French treatise +of histories which resemble one another: a volume so scarce, that I have +never met with it. + +Burnet informs us, that when Queen Mary held the administration of +government during the absence of William, it was imagined by some, that +as "every woman of sense loved to be meddling, they concluded that she +had but a small portion of it, because she lived so abstracted from all +affairs." He praises her exemplary behaviour; "regular in her devotions, +much in her closet, read a great deal, was often busy at work, and +seemed to employ her time and thoughts in anything rather than matters +of state. Her conversation was lively and obliging; everything in her +was easy and natural. The king told the Earl of Shrewsbury, that though +he could not hit on the right way of pleasing England, he was confident +she would, and that we should all be very happy under her." Such is the +miniature of the queen which Burnet offers; we see nothing but her +tranquillity, her simplicity, and her carelessness, amidst the important +transactions passing under her eye; but I lift the curtain from a larger +picture. The distracted state amidst which the queen lived, the +vexations, the secret sorrows, the agonies and the despair of Mary in +the absence of William, nowhere appear in history! and as we see, +escaped the ken of the Scotch bishop! They were reserved for the +curiosity and instruction of posterity; and were found by Dalrymple, in +the letters of Mary to her husband, in King William's cabinet. It will +be well to place under the eye of the reader the suppressed cries of +this afflicted queen at the time when "everything in her was so easy and +natural, employing her time and thoughts in anything rather than matters +of state--often busy at work!" + +I shall not dwell on the pangs of the queen for the fate of William--or +her deadly suspicions that many were unfaithful about her; a battle lost +might have been fatal; a conspiracy might have undone what even a +victory had obtained; the continual terrors she endured were such, that +we might be at a loss to determine who suffered most, those who had been +expelled from, or those who had ascended the throne. + +So far was the queen from not "employing her thoughts" on "matters of +state," that every letter, usually written towards evening, chronicles +the conflicts of the day; she records not only events, but even +dialogues and personal characteristics; hints her suspicions, and +multiplies her fears; her attention was incessant--"I never write but +what I think others do not;" and her terrors were as ceaseless,--"I pray +God send you back quickly, for I see all breaking out into flames." The +queen's difficulties were not eased by a single confidential +intercourse. On one occasion she observes, "As I do not know what I +ought to speak, and when not, I am as silent as can be." "I ever fear +not doing well, and trust to what nobody says but you. It seems to me +that every one is afraid of themselves.--I am very uneasy in one thing, +which is want of somebody to speak my mind freely to, for it's a great +constraint to think and be silent; and there is so much matter, that I +am one of Solomon's fools, who am ready to burst. I must tell you again +how Lord Monmouth endeavours to frighten me, and indeed things have but +a melancholy prospect." She had indeed reasons to fear Lord Monmouth, +who, it appears, divulged all the secrets of the royal councils to Major +Wildman, who was one of our old republicans; and, to spread alarm in the +privy council, conveyed in lemon-juice all their secrets to France, +often on the very day they had passed in council! They discovered the +fact, and every one suspected the other as the traitor! Lord Lincoln +even once assured her, that "the Lord President and all in general, who +are in trust, were rogues." Her council was composed of factions, and +the queen's suspicions were rather general than particular: for she +observes on them, "Till now I thought you had given me wrong characters +of men; but now I see they answer my expectation of being as little of a +mind as of a body."--For a final extract, take this full picture of +royal misery--"I must see company on my set days; I must play twice a +week; nay, I must laugh and talk, though never so much against my will: +I believe I dissemble very ill to those who know me; at least, it is a +great constraint to myself, yet I must endure it. All my motions are so +watched, and all I do so observed, that if I eat less, or speak less, or +look more grave, all is lost in the opinion of the world; so that I have +this misery added to that of your absence, that I must grin when my +heart is ready to break, and talk when my heart is so oppressed that I +can scarce breathe. I go to Kensington as often as I can for air; but +then I never can be quite alone, neither can I complain--that would be +some ease; but I have nobody whose humour and circumstances agree with +mine enough to speak my mind freely to. Besides, I must hear of +business, which being a thing I am so new in, and so unfit for, does but +break my brains the more, and not ease my heart." + +Thus different from the representation of Burnet was the actual state of +Queen Mary: and I suspect that our warm and vehement bishop had but +little personal knowledge of her majesty, notwithstanding the elaborate +character of the queen which he has given in her funeral eulogium. He +must have known that she did not always sympathise with his +party-feelings: for the queen writes, "The Bishop of Salisbury has made +a long thundering sermon this morning, which he has been with me to +desire to print; which I could not refuse, though I should not have +ordered it, for reasons which I told him." Burnet (whom I am very far +from calling what an inveterate Tory, Edward Earl of Oxford, does in one +of his manuscript notes, "that lying Scot") unquestionably has told many +truths in his garrulous page; but the cause in which he stood so deeply +engaged, coupled to his warm sanguine temper, may have sometimes dimmed +his sagacity, so as to have caused him to have mistaken, as in the +present case, a mask for a face, particularly at a time when almost +every individual appears to have worn one! + +Both these cases of Charles the Second and Queen Mary show the absolute +necessity of researches into secret history, to correct the appearances +and the fallacies which so often deceive us in public history. + +"The appetite for Remains," as the noble author whom I have already +alluded to calls it, may then be a very wholesome one, if it provide the +only materials by which our popular histories can be corrected, and +since it often infuses a freshness into a story which, after having been +copied from book to book, inspires another to tell it for the tenth +time! Thus are the _sources of_ secret history unsuspected by the idler +and the superficial, among those masses of untouched manuscripts--that +subterraneous history!--which indeed may terrify the indolent, bewilder +the inexperienced, and confound the injudicious, if they have not +acquired the knowledge which not only decides on facts and opinions, but +on the authorities which have furnished them. Popular historians have +written to their readers; each with different views, but all alike form +the open documents of history; like feed advocates, they declaim, or +like special pleaders, they keep only on one side of their case: they +are seldom zealous to push on their cross-examination; for they come to +gain their cause, and not to hazard it! + +Time will make the present age as obsolete as the last, for our sons +will cast a new light over the ambiguous scenes which distract their +fathers; they will know how some things happened for which we cannot +account; they will bear witness to how many characters we have mistaken; +they will be told many of those secrets which our contemporaries hide +from us; they will pause at the ends of our beginnings; they will read +the perfect story of man, which can never be told while it is +proceeding. All this is the possession of posterity, because they will +judge without our passions; and all this we ourselves have been enabled +to possess by the secret history _of the last two ages_![255] + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [252] The large mass of important documents in the National + State-paper Office has recently been made available to the use of + the historic student, with the best results, and cannot fail to have + important influence on the future historic literature of the + country. + + [253] See what I have said of "Suppressors and Dilapidators of + Manuscripts," vol. ii. p. 443. + + [254] The "Conway Papers" remain unpublished. From what I have + already been favoured with the sight of, I may venture to predict + that our history may receive from them some important accession. The + reader may find a lively summary of the contents of these Papers in + Horace Walpole's account of his visit to Ragley, in his letter to + George Montague, 20th August, 1758. The Right Hon. John Wilson + Croker, with whom the Marquis of Hertford had placed the disposal of + the Conway Papers, is also in possession of the Throckmorton Papers, + of which the reader may likewise observe a particular notice in Sir + Henry Wotton's will, in Izaak Walton's Lives. Unsunned treasures lie + in the State-paper office. + + [255] Since this article has been sent to press I rise from reading + one in the _Edinburgh Review_ on Lord Orford's and Lord Waldegrave's + Memoirs. This is one of the very rare articles which could only come + from the hand of a master long exercised in the studies he + criticises. The critic, or rather the historian, observes, that "of + a period remarkable for the establishment of our present system of + government, no authentic materials had yet appeared. Events of + public notoriety are to be found, though often inaccurately told, in + our common histories; but the secret springs of action, the private + views and motives of individuals, &c., are as little known to us as + if the events to which they relate had taken place in China or + Japan." The clear, connected, dispassionate, and circumstantial + narrative, with which he has enriched the stores of English history, + is drawn from _the sources of_ SECRET HISTORY; from _published + memoirs_ and _contemporary correspondence_. + + + + +LITERARY RESIDENCES. + + +Men of genius have usually been condemned to compose their finest works, +which are usually their earliest ones, under the roof of a garret; and +few literary characters have lived, like Pliny and Voltaire, in a villa +or _chateau_ of their own. It has not therefore often happened that a +man of genius could raise local emotions by his own intellectual +suggestions. Ariosto, who built a palace in his verse, lodged himself in +a small house, and found that stanzas and stones were not put together +at the same rate: old Montaigne has left a description of his library; +"over the entrance of my house, where I view my court-yards, and garden, +and at once survey all the operations of my family!" + +There is, however, a feeling among literary men of building up their own +elegant fancies, and giving a permanency to their own tastes; we dwell +on their favourite scenes as a sort of portraits, and we eagerly collect +those few prints, which are their only vestiges. A collection might be +formed of such literary residences chosen for their amenity and their +retirement, and adorned by the objects of their studies; from that of +the younger Pliny, who called his villa of literary leisure by the +endearing term of _villula_, to that of Cassiodorus, the prime minister +of Theodoric, who has left so magnificent a description of his literary +retreat, where all the elegancies of life were at hand; where the +gardeners and the agriculturists laboured on scientific principles; and +where, amidst gardens and parks, stood his extensive library, with +scribes to multiply his manuscripts:--from Tycho Brahe's, who built a +magnificent astronomical house on an island, which he named after the +sole objects of his musings Uranienburgh, or the Castle of the +Heavens;--to that of Evelyn, who first began to adorn Wotton, by +building "a little study," till many years after he dedicated the +ancient house to contemplation, among the "delicious streams and +venerable woods, the gardens, the fountains, and the groves, most +tempting for a great person and a wanton purse; and indeed gave one of +the first examples to that elegancy since so much in vogue."--From Pope, +whose little garden seemed to multiply its scenes by a glorious union of +nobility and literary men conversing in groups;--down to lonely +Shenstone, whose "rural elegance," as he entitles one of his odes, +compelled him to mourn over his hard fate, when + + ----EXPENSE + Had lavish'd thousand ornaments, and taught + CONVENIENCE to perplex him, ART to pall, + POMP to deject, and BEAUTY to displease. + +We have all by heart the true and delightful reflection of Johnson on +local associations, when the scene we tread suggests to us the men or +the deeds, which have left their celebrity to the spot. We are in the +presence of their fame, and feel its influence! + +A literary friend, whom a hint of mine had induced to visit the old +tower in the garden of Buffon, where the sage retired every morning to +compose, passed so long a time in that lonely apartment as to have +raised some solicitude among the honest folks of Montbard, who having +seen the "Englishman" enter, but not return, during a heavy +thunder-storm which had occurred in the interval, informed the good +mayor, who came in due form, to notify the ambiguous state of the +stranger. My friend is, as is well known, a genius of that cast who +could pass two hours in the _Tower of Buffon_, without being aware that +he had been all that time occupied by suggestions of ideas and reveries, +which in some minds such a locality may excite. He was also busied with +his pencil; for he has favoured me with two drawings of the interior and +the exterior of this _old tower in the garden_: the nakedness within can +only be compared to the solitude without. Such was the studying-room of +Buffon, where his eye, resting on no object, never interrupted the unity +of his meditations on nature. + +In return for my friend's kindness, it has cost me, I think, two hours +in attempting to translate the beautiful picture of this literary +retreat, which Vicq d'Azyr has finished with all the warmth of a votary. +"At Montbard, in the midst of an ornamented garden, is seen an antique +tower; it was there that Buffon wrote the History of Nature, and from +that spot his fame spread through the universe. There he came at +sunrise, and no one, however importunate, was suffered to trouble him. +The calm of the morning hour, the first warbling of the birds, the +varied aspect of the country, all at that moment which touched the +senses, recalled him to his model. Free, independent, he wandered in his +walks; there was he seen with quickened or with slow steps, or standing +wrapped in thought, sometimes with his eyes fixed on the heavens in the +moment of inspiration, as if satisfied with the thought that so +profoundly occupied his soul; sometimes, collected within himself, he +sought what would not always be found; or at the moments of producing, +he wrote, he effaced, and rewrote, to efface once more; thus he +harmonised, in silence, all the parts of his composition, which he +frequently repeated to himself, till, satisfied with his corrections, he +seemed to repay himself for the pains of his beautiful prose, by the +pleasure he found in declaiming it aloud. Thus he engraved it in his +memory, and would recite it to his friends, or induce some to read it to +him. At those moments he was himself a severe judge, and would again +re-compose it, desirous of attaining to that perfection which is denied +to the impatient writer." + +A curious circumstance, connected with local associations, occurred to +that extraordinary oriental student, Fourmont. Originally he belonged to +a religious community, and never failed in performing his offices: but +he was expelled by the superior for an irregularity of conduct not +likely to have become contagious through the brotherhood--he frequently +prolonged his studies far into the night, and it was possible that the +house might be burnt by such superfluity of learning. Fourmont retreated +to the college of Montaign, where he occupied the very chambers which +had formerly been those of Erasmus; a circumstance which contributed to +excite his emulation, and to hasten his studies. He who smiles at the +force of such emotions, only proves that he has not experienced what are +real and substantial as the scene itself--for those who are concerned in +them. Pope, who had far more enthusiasm in his poetical disposition than +is generally understood, was extremely susceptible of the literary +associations with localities: one of the volumes of his Homer was begun +and finished in an old tower over the chapel of Stanton Harcourt;[256] +and he has perpetuated the event, if not consecrated the place, by +scratching with a diamond on a pane of stained glass this inscription:-- + + In the year 1718, + ALEXANDER POPE + Finished here the f.... + fifth volume of HOMER.[257] + +It was the same feeling which induced him one day, when taking his +usual walk with Harte in the Haymarket, to desire Harte to enter a +little shop, where going up three pair of stairs into a small room, Pope +said, "In this garret Addison wrote his _Campaign_!" Nothing less than a +strong feeling impelled the poet to ascend this garret--it was a +consecrated spot to his eye; and certainly a curious instance of the +power of genius contrasted with its miserable locality! Addison, whose +mind had fought through "a campaign!" in a garret, could he have called +about him "the pleasures of imagination," had probably planned a house +of literary repose, where all parts would have been in harmony with his +mind. + +Such residences of men of genius have been enjoyed by some; and the +vivid descriptions which they have left us convey something of the +delightfulness which charmed their studious repose. + +The Italian, Paul Jovius, has composed more than three hundred concise +eulogies of statesmen, warriors, and literary men, of the fourteenth, +fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries; but the occasion which induced him +to compose them is perhaps more interesting than the compositions. + +Jovius had a villa, situated on a peninsula, bordered by the Lake of +Como. It was built on the ruins of the villa of Pliny, and in his time +the foundations were still visible. When the surrounding lake was calm, +the sculptured marbles, the trunks of columns, and the fragments of +those pyramids which had once adorned the residence of the friend of +Trajan, were still viewed in its lucid bosom. Jovius was the enthusiast +of literature, and the leisure which it loves. He was an historian, with +the imagination of a poet, and though a Christian prelate, almost a +worshipper of the sweet fictions of pagan mythology; and when his pen +was kept pure from satire or adulation, to which it was too much +accustomed, it became a pencil. He paints with rapture his gardens +bathed by the waters of the lake; the shade and freshness of his woods; +his green slopes; his sparkling fountains, the deep silence and calm of +his solitude! A statue was raised in his gardens to Nature! In his hall +stood a fine statue of Apollo, and the Muses around, with their +attributes. His library was guarded by a Mercury, and there was an +apartment adorned with Doric columns, and with pictures of the most +pleasing subjects dedicated to the Graces! Such was the interior! +Without, the transparent lake here spread its broad mirror, and there +was seen luminously winding by banks covered with olives and laurels; in +the distance, towns, promontories, hills rising in an amphitheatre, +blushing with vines, and the first elevation of the Alps, covered with +woods and pasture, and sprinkled with herds and flocks. + +It was in a central spot of this enchanting habitation that a cabinet or +gallery was erected, where Jovius had collected with prodigal cost the +portraits of celebrated men; and it was to explain and to describe the +characteristics of these illustrious names that he had composed his +eulogies. This collection became so remarkable, that the great men his +contemporaries presented our literary collector with their own +portraits, among whom the renowned Fernandez Cortes sent Jovius his +before he died, and probably others who were less entitled to enlarge +the collection; but it is equally probable that our caustic Jovius would +throw them aside. Our historian had often to describe men more famous +than virtuous; sovereigns, politicians, poets, and philosophers, men of +all ranks, countries, and ages, formed a crowded scene of men of genius +or of celebrity; sometimes a few lines compress their character, and +sometimes a few pages excite his fondness. If he sometimes adulates the +living, we may pardon the illusions of a contemporary; but he has the +honour of satirising some by the honest freedom of a pen which +occasionally broke out into premature truths. + +Such was the inspiration of literature and leisure which had embellished +the abode of Jovius, and had raised in the midst of the Lake of Como a +cabinet of portraits; a noble tribute to those who are "the salt of the +earth." + +We possess prints of Rubens's house at Antwerp. That princely artist +perhaps first contrived for his _studio_ the circular apartment with a +dome, like the rotunda of the Pantheon, where the light descending from +an aperture or window at the top, sent down a single equal light,--that +perfection of light which distributes its magical effects on the objects +beneath.[258] Bellori describes it _una stanza rotonda con un solo +occhio in cima_; the _solo occhio_ is what the French term _oeil de +boeuf_; we ourselves want this _single eye_ in our technical language +of art. This was his precious museum, where he had collected a vast +number of books, which were intermixed with his marbles, statues, +cameos, intaglios, and all that variety of the riches of art which he +had drawn from Rome:[259] but the walls did not yield in value; for they +were covered by pictures of his own composition, or copies by his own +hand, made at Venice and Madrid, of Titian and Paul Veronese. No +foreigners, men of letters, or lovers of the arts, or even princes, +would pass through Antwerp without visiting the house of Rubens, to +witness the animated residence of genius, and the great man who had +conceived the idea. Yet, great as was his mind, and splendid as were the +habits of his life, he could not resist the entreaties of the hundred +thousand florins of our Duke of Buckingham, to dispose of this _studio_. +The great artist could not, however, abandon for ever the delightful +contemplations he was depriving himself of; and as substitutes for the +miracles of art he had lost, he solicited and obtained leave to replace +them by casts which were scrupulously deposited in the places where the +originals had stood. + +Of this feeling of the local residences of genius, the Italians appear +to have been not perhaps more susceptible than other people, but more +energetic in their enthusiasm. Florence exhibits many monuments of this +sort. In the neighbourhood of _Santa Maria Novella_, Zimmerman has +noticed a house of the celebrated Viviani, which is a singular monument +of gratitude to his illustrious master, Galileo. The front is adorned +with the bust of this father of science, and between the windows are +engraven accounts of the discoveries of Galileo; it is the most +beautiful biography of genius! Yet another still more eloquently excites +our emotions--the house of Michael Angelo: his pupils, in perpetual +testimony of their admiration and gratitude, have ornamented it with all +the leading features of his life; the very soul of this vast genius put +in action: this is more than biography!--it is living as with a +contemporary! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [256] The room is a small wainscoted apartment in the second floor, + commanding a pleasant view. + + [257] The above inscription is a fac-simile of that upon the glass. + The word _fifth_ in the third line has been erased by Pope for want + of room to complete it properly. It is scratched on a small pane of + red glass, and has been removed to Nuneham Courtney, the seat of the + Harcourt family, on the banks of the Thames, a few miles from + Oxford. + + [258] Harrewyns published, in 1684, a series of interesting views of + the house, and some of the apartments, including this domed one. The + series are upon one folio sheet, now very rare. + + [259] Rubens was an ardent collector, and lost no chance of increasing + his stores; in the appendix to Carpenter's "Pictorial Notices of + Vandyke" is printed the correspondence between himself and Sir D. + Carleton, offering to exchange some of his own pictures for antiques + in possession of the latter, who was ambassador from England to + Holland, and who collected also for the Earl of Arundel. + + + + +WHETHER ALLOWABLE TO RUIN ONESELF? + + +The political economist replies that it is! + +One of our old dramatic writers, who witnessed the singular extravagance +of dress among the modellers of fashion, our nobility, condemns their +"superfluous bravery," echoing the popular cry-- + + "There are a sort of men, whose coining heads + Are mints of all new fashions, that have done + More hurt to the kingdom, by superfluous bravery, + Which the foolish gentry imitate, than a war + Or a long famine. _All the treasure by + This foul excess is got into the merchants', + Embroiderers', silkmen's, jewellers', tailors' hands, + And the third part of the land too!_ the nobility + Engrossing _titles only_." + +Our poet might have been startled at the reply of our political +economist. If the nobility, in follies such as these, only preserved +their "titles," while their "lands" were dispersed among the industrious +classes, the people were not sufferers. The silly victims ruining +themselves by their excessive luxury, or their costly dress, as it +appears some did, was an evil which, left to its own course, must check +itself; if the rich did not spend, the poor would starve. Luxury is the +cure of that unavoidable evil in society--great inequality of fortune! +Political economists therefore tell us that any regulations would be +ridiculous which, as Lord Bacon expresses it, should serve for "the +repressing of waste and excess by _sumptuary laws_." Adam Smith is not +only indignant at "sumptuary laws," but asserts, with a democratic +insolence of style, that "it is the highest impertinence and presumption +in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private +people, and to restrain their expense by sumptuary laws. They are +themselves always the greatest spendthrifts in the society; let them +look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private +people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, +that of their subjects never will." We must therefore infer that +governments by extravagance may ruin a state, but that individuals enjoy +the remarkable privilege of ruining themselves without injuring society! +Adam Smith afterwards distinguishes two sorts of luxury: the one +exhausting itself in "durable commodities, as in buildings, furniture, +books, statues, pictures," will increase "the opulence of a nation;" but +of the other, wasting itself in dress and equipages, in frivolous +ornaments, jewels, baubles, trinkets, &c., he acknowledges "no trace or +vestige would remain; and the effects of ten or twenty years' profusion +would be as completely annihilated as if they had never existed." There +is, therefore, a greater and a lesser evil in this important subject of +the opulent, unrestricted by any law, ruining his whole generation. + +Where "the wealth of nations" is made the solitary standard of their +prosperity, it becomes a fertile source of errors in the science of +morals; and the happiness of the individual is then too frequently +sacrificed to what is called the prosperity of the state. If an +individual, in the pride of luxury and selfism, annihilates the fortunes +of his whole generation, untouched by the laws as a criminal, he leaves +behind him a race of the discontented and the seditious, who, having +sunk in the scale of society, have to reascend from their degradation by +industry and by humiliation; but for the work of industry their habits +have made them inexpert; and to humiliation their very rank presents a +perpetual obstacle. + +Sumptuary laws, so often enacted and so often repealed, and always +eluded, were the perpetual, but ineffectual, attempts of all governments +to restrain what, perhaps, cannot be restrained--criminal folly! And to +punish a man for having ruined himself would usually be to punish a most +contrite penitent. + +It is not surprising that before "private vices were considered as +public benefits," the governors of nations instituted sumptuary +laws--for the passion for pageantry and an incredible prodigality in +dress were continually impoverishing great families--more equality of +wealth has now rather subdued the form of private ruin than laid this +evil domestic spirit. The incalculable expenditure and the blaze of +splendour of our ancestors may startle the incredulity of our +_elegantes_. We find men of rank exhausting their wealth and pawning +their castles, and then desperately issuing from them, heroes for a +crusade, or brigands for their neighbourhood!--and this frequently from +the simple circumstance of having for a short time maintained some +gorgeous chivalric festival on their own estates, or from having melted +thousands of acres into cloth of gold; their sons were left to beg their +bread on the estates which they were to have inherited. + +It was when chivalry still charmed the world by the remains of its +seductive splendours, towards the close of the fifteenth century, that I +find an instance of this kind occurring in the _Pas de Sandricourt_, +which was held in the neighbourhood of the sieur of that name. It is a +memorable affair, not only for us curious inquirers after manners and +morals, but for the whole family of the Sandricourts; for though the +said sieur is now receiving the immortality we bestow on him, and _la +dame_ who presided in that magnificent piece of chivalry was infinitely +gratified, yet for ever after was the lord of Sandricourt ruined--and +all for a short, romantic three months! + +This story of the chivalric period may amuse. A _pas d'armes_, though +consisting of military exercises and deeds of gallantry, was a sort of +festival distinct from a tournament. It signified a _pas_ or passage to +be contested by one or more knights against all comers. It was necessary +that the road should be such that it could not be passed without +encountering some guardian knight. The _chevaliers_ who disputed the +_pas_ hung their blazoned shields on trees, pales, or posts raised for +this purpose. The aspirants after chivalric honours would strike with +their lance one of these shields, and when it rung, it instantly +summoned the owner to the challenge. A bridge or a road would sometimes +serve for this military sport, for such it was intended to be, whenever +the heat of the rivals proved not too earnest. The sieur of Sandricourt +was a fine dreamer of feats of chivalry, and in the neighbourhood of his +castle he fancied that he saw a very spot adapted for every game; there +was one admirably fitted for the barrier of a tilting-match; another +embellished by a solitary pine-tree; another which was called the meadow +of the Thorn; there was a _carrefour_, where, in four roads, four +knights might meet; and, above all, there was a forest called +_devoyable_, having no path, so favourable for errant knights who might +there enter for strange adventures, and, as chance directed, encounter +others as bewildered as themselves. Our chivalric Sandricourt found nine +young _seigneurs_ of the court of Charles the Eighth of France, who +answered all his wishes. To sanction this glorious feat it was necessary +to obtain leave from the king, and a herald of the Duke of Orleans to +distribute the _cartel_ or challenge all over France, announcing that +from such a day ten young lords would stand ready to combat, in those +different places, in the neighbourhood of Sandricourt's _chateau_. The +names of this flower of chivalry have been faithfully registered, and +they were such as instantly to throw a spark into the heart of every +lover of arms! The world of fashion, that is, the chivalric world, were +set in motion. Four bodies of assailants soon collected, each consisting +of ten combatants. The herald of Orleans having examined the arms of +these gentlemen, and satisfied himself of their ancient lineage and +their military renown, admitted their claims to the proffered honour. +Sandricourt now saw with rapture the numerous shields of the assailants +placed on the sides of his portals, and corresponding with those of the +challengers which hung above them. Ancient lords were elected judges of +the feats of the knights, accompanied by the ladies, for whose honour +only the combatants declared they engaged. + +The herald of Orleans tells the history in no very intelligible verse; +but the burthen of his stanza is still + + _Du pas d'armes du chasteau Sandricourt._ + +He sings, or says, + + Oncques, depuis le tempts du roi Artus, + Ne furent tant les armes exaulcees-- + Maint chevaliers et preux entreprenans-- + Princes plusieurs ont terres deplacees + Pour y venir donner coups et poussees + Qui out ete la tenus si de court + Que par force n'ont prises et passees + Les barriers, entrees, et passees + Du pas des armes du chasteau Sandricourt. + +Doubtless there many a Roland met with his Oliver, and could not pass +the barriers. Cased as they were in steel, _de pied en cap_, we presume +that they could not materially injure themselves; yet, when on foot, the +ancient judges discovered such symptoms of peril, that on the following +day they advised our knights to satisfy themselves by fighting on +horseback. Against this prudential counsel for some time they protested, +as an inferior sort of glory. However, on the next day, the horse combat +was appointed in the _carrefour_, by the pine-tree. On the following day +they tried their lances in the meadow of the Thorn; but, though on +horseback, the judges deemed their attacks were so fierce that this +assault was likewise not without peril; for some horses were killed, and +some knights were thrown, and lay bruised by their own mail; but the +barbed horses, wearing only _des chamfreins_, head-pieces magnificently +caparisoned, found no protection in their ornaments. The last days were +passed in combats of two to two, or in a single encounter, a-foot, in +the _foret devoyable_. These jousts passed without any accident, and the +prizes were awarded in a manner equally gratifying to the claimants. The +last day of the festival was concluded with a most sumptuous banquet. +Two noble knights had undertaken the humble office of _maitres-d'hotel_; +and while the knights were parading in the _foret devoyable_ seeking +adventures, a hundred servants were seen at all points, carrying white +and red hypocras, and juleps, and _sirop de violars_, sweetmeats, and +other spiceries, to comfort these wanderers, who, on returning to the +_chasteau_, found a grand and plenteous banquet. The tables were crowded +in the court apartment, where some held one hundred and twelve +gentlemen, not including the _dames_ and the _demoiselles_. In the +halls, and outside of the _chasteau_, were other tables. At that +festival more than two thousand persons were magnificently entertained +free of every expense; their attendants, their armourers, their +_plumassiers_, and others, were also present. _La Dame de Sandricourt_, +"fut moult aise d'avoir donne dans son chasteau si belle, si magnifique, +et gorgiasse fete." Historians are apt to describe their personages as +they appear, not as they are: if the lady of the Sieur Sandricourt +really was "moult aise" during these gorgeous days, one cannot but +sympathise with the lady, when her loyal knight and spouse confessed to +her, after the departure of the mob of two thousand visitors, +neighbours, soldiers, and courtiers,--the knights challengers, and the +knights assailants, and the fine scenes at the pine-tree; the barrier in +the meadow of the Thorn; and the horse-combat at the _carrefour_; and +the jousts in the _foret devoyable_; the carousals in the castle halls; +the jollity of the banquet tables; the morescoes danced till they were +reminded "how the waning night grew old!"--in a word, when the costly +dream had vanished,--that he was a ruined man for ever, by immortalising +his name in one grand chivalric festival! The Sieur de Sandricourt, like +a great torch, had consumed himself in his own brightness; and the very +land on which the famous _Pas de Sandricourt_ was held--had passed away +with it! Thus one man sinks generations by that wastefulness, which a +political economist would assure us was committing no injury to society! +The moral evil goes for nothing in financial statements. + +Similar instances of ruinous luxury we may find in the prodigal +costliness of dress through the reigns of Elizabeth, James the First, +and Charles the First. Not only in their massy grandeur they outweighed +us, but the accumulation and variety of their wardrobe displayed such a +gaiety of fancy in their colours and their ornaments, that the +drawing-room in those days must have blazed at their presence, and +changed colours as the crowd moved. But if we may trust to royal +proclamations, the ruin was general among some classes. Elizabeth issued +more than one proclamation against "the excess of apparel!" and among +other evils which the government imagined this passion for dress +occasioned, it notices "the wasting and undoing of a great number of +young gentlemen, otherwise serviceable; and that others, seeking by show +of apparel to be esteemed as gentlemen, and allured by the vain show of +these things, not only consume their goods and lands, but also run into +such debts and shifts, as they cannot live out of danger of laws without +attempting of unlawful acts." The queen bids her own household "to look +unto it for good example to the realm; and all noblemen, archbishops and +bishops, all mayors, justices of peace, &c., should see them executed in +their private households." The greatest difficulty which occurred to +regulate the wear of apparel was ascertaining the incomes of persons, or +in the words of the proclamation, "finding that it is very hard for any +man's state of living and value to be truly understood by other +persons." They were to be regulated as they appear "sessed in the +subsidy books." But if persons chose to be more magnificent in their +dress, they were allowed to justify their means: in that case, if +allowed, her majesty would not be the loser; for they were to be rated +in the subsidy books according to such values as they themselves offered +as a qualification for the splendour of their dress! + +In my researches among manuscript letters of the times, I have had +frequent occasion to discover how persons of considerable rank appear to +have carried their acres on their backs, and with their ruinous and +fantastical luxuries sadly pinched their hospitality. It was this which +so frequently cast them into the nets of the "goldsmiths," and other +trading usurers. At the coronation of James the First, I find a simple +knight whose cloak cost him five hundred pounds; but this was not +uncommon.[260] At the marriage of Elizabeth, the daughter of James the +First, "Lady Wotton had a gown of which the embroidery cost fifty pounds +a yard. The Lady Arabella made four gowns, one of which cost 1500_l._ +The Lord Montacute (Montague) bestowed 1500_l._ in apparel for his two +daughters. One lady, under the rank of baroness, was furnished with +jewels exceeding one hundred thousand pounds; "and the Lady Arabella +goes beyond her," says the letter-writer. "All this extreme costs and +riches makes us all poor," as he imagined![261] I have been amused in +observing grave writers of state-dispatches jocular on any mischance or +mortification to which persons are liable whose happiness entirely +depends on their dress. Sir Dudley Carleton, our minister at Venice, +communicates, as an article worth transmitting, the great disappointment +incurred by Sir Thomas Glover, "who was just come hither, and had +appeared one day like a comet, all in crimson velvet and beaten gold, +but had all his expectations marred on a sudden by the news of Prince +Henry's death." A similar mischance, from a different cause, was the lot +of Lord Hay, who made great preparations for his embassy to France, +which, however, were chiefly confined to his dress. He was to remain +there twenty days; and the letter-writer maliciously observes, that "He +goes with twenty special suits of apparel for so many days' abode, +besides his travelling robes; but news is very lately come that the +French have lately altered their fashion, whereby he must needs be out +of countenance, if he be not set out after the last edition!" To find +himself out of fashion, with twenty suits for twenty days, was a +mischance his lordship had no right to count on! + +"The glass of fashion" was unquestionably held up by two very eminent +characters, Rawleigh and Buckingham; and the authentic facts recorded of +their dress will sufficiently account for the frequent "Proclamations" +to control that servile herd of imitators--the smaller gentry! + +There is a remarkable picture of Sir Walter, which will at least serve +to convey an idea of the gaiety and splendour of his dress. It is a +white satin pinked vest, close sleeved to the wrist; over the body a +brown doublet, finely flowered and embroidered with pearl. In the +feather of his hat a large ruby and pearl drop at the bottom of the +sprig, in place of a button; his trunk or breeches, with his stockings +and riband garters, fringed at the end, all white, and buff shoes with +white riband. Oldys, who saw this picture, has thus described the dress +of Rawleigh. But I have some important additions; for I find that +Rawleigh's shoes on great court days were so gorgeously covered with +precious stones, as to have exceeded the value of six thousand six +hundred pounds: and that he had a suit of armour of solid silver, with +sword and belt blazing with diamonds, rubies, and pearls, whose value +was not so easily calculated. Rawleigh had no patrimonial inheritance; +at this moment he had on his back a good portion of a Spanish galleon, +and the profits of a monopoly of trade he was carrying on with the newly +discovered Virginia. Probably he placed all his hopes in his dress! The +virgin queen, when she issued proclamations against "the excess of +apparel," pardoned, by her looks, that promise of a mine which blazed in +Rawleigh's; and, parsimonious as she was, forgot the three thousand +changes of dresses which she herself left in the royal wardrobe. + +Buckingham could afford to have his diamonds tacked so loosely on, that +when he chose to shake a few off on the ground, he obtained all the fame +he desired from the pickers-up, who were generally _les dames de la +cour_; for our duke never condescended to accept what he himself had +dropped. His cloaks were trimmed with great diamond buttons, and diamond +hatbands, cockades, and ear-rings yoked with great ropes and knots of +pearls. This was, however, but for ordinary dances. "He had twenty-seven +suits of clothes made, the richest that embroidery, lace, silk, velvet, +silver, gold, and gems could contribute; one of which was a white uncut +velvet, set all over, both suit and cloak, with diamonds valued at +fourscore thousand pounds, besides a great feather stuck all over with +diamonds, as were also his sword, girdle, hat, and spurs."[262] In the +masques and banquets with which Buckingham entertained the court, he +usually expended, for the evening, from one to five thousand pounds. To +others I leave to calculate the value of money: the sums of this +gorgeous wastefulness, it must be recollected, occurred before this +million age of ours. + +If, to provide the means for such enormous expenditure, Buckingham +multiplied the grievances of monopolies; if he pillaged the treasury for +his eighty thousand pounds' coat; if Rawleigh was at length driven to +his last desperate enterprise to relieve himself of his creditors for a +pair of six thousand pounds' shoes--in both these cases, as in that of +the chivalric Sandricourt, the political economist may perhaps +acknowledge that _there is a sort of luxury highly criminal_. All the +arguments he may urge, all the statistical accounts he may calculate, +and the healthful state of his circulating medium among "the merchants, +embroiderers, silkmen, and jewellers"--will not alter such a moral evil, +which leaves an eternal taint on "the wealth of nations!" It is the +principle that "private vices are public benefits," and that men may be +allowed to ruin their generations without committing any injury to +society. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [260] The famous Puritanic writer, Philip Stubbes, who published his + "Anatomie of Abuses" in 1593, declares that he "has heard of shirtes + that have cost some ten shillings, some twentie, some fortie, some + five pound, some twentie nobles, and (which is horrible to heare) + some tenne pounde a peece." His book is filled with similar + denunciations of abuses; in which he is followed by other satirists. + They appear to have produced little effect in the way of + reformation; for in the days of James I, John Taylor, the Water + poet, similarly laments the wastefulness of those who-- + + Wear a farm in shoe-strings edged with gold, + And spangled garters worth a copyhold; + A hose and doublet which a lordship cost; + A gaudy cloak, three manors' price almost; + A beaver band and feather for the head + Priced at the church's tythe, the poor man's bread. + + [261] It is not unusual to find in inventories of this era, the + household effects rated at much less than the wearing apparel, of + the person whose property is thus valued. + + [262] The Jesuit Drexelius, in one of his Religious Dialogues, + notices the fact; but I am referring to an Harleian manuscript, + which confirms the information of the Jesuit. + + + + +DISCOVERIES OF SECLUDED MEN. + + +Those who are unaccustomed to the labours of the closet are unacquainted +with the secret and silent triumphs obtained in the pursuits of studious +men. That aptitude, which in poetry is sometimes called _inspiration_, +in knowledge we may call _sagacity_; and it is probable that the +vehemence of the one does not excite more pleasure than the still +tranquillity of the other: they are both, according to the strict +signification of the Latin term from whence we have borrowed ours of +_invention_, a finding out, the result of a combination which no other +has formed but ourselves. + +I will produce several remarkable instances of the felicity of this +aptitude of the learned in making discoveries which could only have been +effectuated by an uninterrupted intercourse with the objects of their +studies, making things remote and dispersed familiar and present.[263] + +One of ancient date is better known to the reader than those I am +preparing for him. When the magistrates of Syracuse were showing to +Cicero the curiosities of the place, he desired to visit the tomb of +Archimedes; but, to his surprise, they acknowledged that they knew +nothing of any such tomb, and denied that it ever existed. The learned +Cicero, convinced by the authorities of ancient writers, by the verses +of the inscription which he remembered, and the circumstance of a sphere +with a cylinder being engraven on it, requested them to assist him in +the search. They conducted the illustrious but obstinate stranger to +their most ancient burying-ground: amidst the number of sepulchres, they +observed a small column overhung with brambles--Cicero, looking on while +they were clearing away the rubbish, suddenly exclaimed, "Here is the +thing we are looking for!" His eye had caught the geometrical figures on +the tomb, and the inscription soon confirmed his conjecture. Cicero long +after exulted in the triumph of this discovery. "Thus!" he says, "one of +the noblest cities of Greece, and once the most learned, had known +nothing of the monument of its most deserving and ingenious citizen, had +it not been discovered to them by a native of Arpinum!" + +The great French antiquary, Peiresc, exhibited a singular combination of +learning, patient thought, and luminous sagacity, which could restore an +"airy nothing" to "a local habitation and a name." There was found on an +amethyst, and the same afterwards occurred on the front of an ancient +temple, a number of _marks_, or indents, which had long perplexed +inquirers, more particularly as similar marks or indents were frequently +observed in ancient monuments. It was agreed on, as no one could +understand them, and all would be satisfied, that they were secret +hieroglyphics. It occurred to Peiresc that these marks were nothing more +than holes for small nails, which had formerly fastened little +_laminae_, which represented so many Greek letters. This hint of his own +suggested to him to draw lines from one hole to another; and he beheld +the amethyst reveal the name of the sculptor, and the frieze of the +temple the name of the god! This curious discovery has been since +frequently applied; but it appears to have originated with this great +antiquary, who by his learning and sagacity explained a supposed +hieroglyphic, which had been locked up in the silence of seventeen +centuries.[264] + +Learned men, confined to their study, have often rectified the errors of +travellers; they have done more, they have found out paths for them to +explore, or opened seas for them to navigate. The situation of the vale +of Tempe had been mistaken by modern travellers; and it is singular, +observes the Quarterly Reviewer, yet not so singular as it appears to +that elegant critic, that the only good directions for finding it had +been given by a person who was never in Greece. Arthur Browne, a man of +letters of Trinity College, Dublin--it is gratifying to quote an Irish +philosopher and man of letters, from the extreme rarity of the +character--was the first to detect the inconsistencies of Pococke and +Busching, and to send future travellers to look for Tempe in its real +situation, the defiles between Ossa and Olympus; a discovery +subsequently realised. When Dr. Clarke discovered an inscription +purporting that the pass of Tempe had been fortified by Cassius +Longinus, Mr. Walpole, with equal felicity, detected, in Caesar's +"History of the Civil War," the name and the mission of this very +person. + +A living geographer, to whom the world stands deeply indebted, does not +read Herodotus in the original; yet, by the exercise of his +extraordinary aptitude, it is well known that he has often corrected the +Greek historian, explained obscurities in a text which he never read, by +his own happy conjectures, and confirmed his own discoveries by the +subsequent knowledge which modern travellers have afforded. + +Gray's perseverance in studying the geography of India and of Persia, at +a time when our country had no immediate interests with those ancient +empires, would have been placed by a cynical observer among the curious +idleness of a mere man of letters. These studies were indeed +prosecuted, as Mr. Mathias observes, "on the disinterested principles of +liberal investigation, not on those of policy, nor of the regulation of +trade, nor of the extension of empire, nor of permanent establishments, +but simply and solely on the grand view of what is, and of what is past. +They were the researches of a solitary scholar in academical +retirement." Since the time of Gray, these very pursuits have been +carried on by two consummate geographers, Major Rennel and Dr. Vincent, +who have opened to the classical and the political reader all he wished +to learn, at a time when India and Persia had become objects interesting +and important to us. The fruits of Gray's learning, long after their +author was no more, became valuable! + +The studies of the "solitary scholar" are always useful to the world, +although they may not always be timed to its present wants; with him, +indeed, they are not merely designed for this purpose. Gray discovered +India for himself; but the solitary pursuits of a great student, shaped +to a particular end, will never fail being useful to the world; though +it may happen that a century may elapse between the periods of the +discovery and its practical utility. + +Halley's version of an Arabic MS. on a mathematical subject offers an +instance of the extraordinary sagacity I am alluding to; it may also +serve as a demonstration of the peculiar and supereminent advantages +possessed by mathematicians, observes Mr. Dugald Stewart, in their fixed +relations, which form the objects of their science, and the +correspondent precision in their language and reasoning:--as matter of +literary history it is highly curious. Dr. Bernard accidentally +discovered in the Bodleian Library an Arabic version of Apollonius _de +Sectione Rationis_, which he determined to translate in Latin, but only +finished about a tenth part. Halley, extremely interested by the +subject, but with an entire ignorance of the Arabic language, resolved +to complete the imperfect version! Assisted only by the manuscript which +Bernard had left, it served him as a key for investigating the sense of +the original; he first made _a list of those words_ wherever they +occurred, with the _train of reasoning_ in which they were involved, to +decipher, by these very slow degrees, the import of the context; till at +last Halley succeeded in mastering the whole work, and in bringing the +translation, without the aid of any one, to the form in which he gave +it to the public; so that we have here a difficult work translated from +the Arabic, by one who was in no manner conversant with the language, +merely by the exertion of his sagacity! + +I give the memorable account, as Boyle has delivered it, of the +circumstances which led Harvey to the discovery of the circulation of +the blood. + +"I remember that when I asked our famous Harvey, in the only discourse I +had with him, which was but a little while before he died, what were the +things which induced him to think of a circulation of the blood, he +answered me, that when he took notice that the valves in the veins of so +many parts of the body were so placed that they gave free passage to the +blood towards the heart, but opposed the passage of the venal blood the +contrary way, he was invited to think that so provident a cause as +nature had not placed so many valves without design; and no design +seemed more probable than that, since the blood could not well, because +of the interposing valves, be sent by the veins to the limbs, it should +be sent through the arteries and return through the veins, whose valves +did not oppose its course that way." + +The reason here ascribed to Harvey seems now so very natural and +obvious, that some have been disposed to question his claim to the high +rank commonly assigned to him among the improvers of science! Dr. +William Hunter has said that after the discovery of the valves in the +veins, which Harvey learned while in Italy from his master, Fabricius ab +Aquapendente, the remaining step might easily have been made by any +person of common abilities. "This discovery," he observes, "set Harvey +to work upon the _use_ of the heart and vascular system in animals; and +in the _course of some years_, he was so happy as to discover, and to +prove beyond all possibility of doubt, the circulation of the blood." He +afterwards expresses his astonishment that this discovery should have +been left for Harvey, though he acknowledges it occupied "a course of +years;" adding that "Providence meant to reserve it for _him_, and would +not let men _see what was before them, nor understand what they read_." +It is remarkable that when great discoveries are effected, their +simplicity always seems to detract from their originality: on these +occasions we are reminded of the egg of Columbus! + +It is said that a recent discovery, which ascertains that the Niger +empties itself into the Atlantic Ocean, was really anticipated by the +geographical acumen of a student at Glasgow, who arrived at the same +conclusion by a most persevering investigation of the works of +travellers and geographers, ancient and modern, and by an examination of +African captives; and had actually constructed, for the inspection of +government, a map of Africa, on which he had traced the entire course of +the Niger from the interior. + +Franklin _conjectured_ the identity of lightning and of electricity, +before he had _realised_ it by decisive experiment. The kite being +raised, a considerable time elapsed before there was any appearance of +its being electrified. One very promising cloud had passed over it +without any effect. Just as he was beginning to despair of his +contrivance, he observed some loose threads of the hempen string to +stand erect, and to avoid one another, just as if they had been +suspended on a common conductor. Struck with this promising appearance, +he immediately presented his knuckle to the key! And let the reader +judge of the exquisite pleasure he must have felt at that moment when +_the discovery was complete_! We owe to Priestley this admirable +narrative; the strong sensation of delight which Franklin experienced as +his knuckle touched the key, and at the moment when he felt that a new +world was opening, might have been equalled, but it was probably not +surpassed, when the same hand signed the long-disputed independence of +his country! + +When Leibnitz was occupied in his philosophical reasonings on his _Law +of Continuity_, his singular sagacity enabled him to predict a discovery +which afterwards was realised--he _imagined_ the necessary existence of +the polypus! + +It has been remarked of Newton, that several of his slight hints, some +in the modest form of queries, have been ascertained to be predictions, +and among others that of the inflammability of the diamond; and many +have been eagerly seized upon as indisputable axioms. A hint at the +close of his Optics, that "If natural philosophy should be continued to +be improved in its various branches, the bounds of moral philosophy +would be enlarged also," is perhaps among the most important of human +discoveries--it gave rise to Hartley's _Physiological Theory of the +Mind_. The queries, the hints, the conjectures of Newton, display the +most creative sagacity; and demonstrate in what manner the discoveries +of retired men, while they bequeath their legacies to the world, afford +to themselves a frequent source of secret and silent triumphs. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [263] The remarkable clue to the reading of the hieroglyphic language + of ancient Egypt perfected in our own times is a striking instance + of this; as well as the investigations now proceeding in Babylonian + inscriptions, which promise to enable us to comprehend a language + that was once considered as hopelessly lost. + + [264] The curious reader may view the marks, and the manner in which + the Greek characters were made out, in the preface to Hearne's + "Curious Discourses." The amethyst proved more difficult than the + frieze, from the circumstance, that in engraving on the stone the + letters must be reversed. + + + + +SENTIMENTAL BIOGRAPHY. + + +A periodical critic, probably one of the juniors, has thrown out a +startling observation. "There is," says this literary senator, +"something melancholy in the study of biography, because it is--a +history of the dead!" A truism and a falsity mixed up together is the +temptation with some modern critics to commit that darling sin of +theirs--novelty and originality! But we really cannot condole with the +readers of Plutarch for their deep melancholy; we who feel our spirits +refreshed, amidst the mediocrity of society, when we are recalled back +to the men and the women who WERE! illustrious in every glory! Biography +with us is a re-union with human existence in its most excellent state! +and we find nothing dead in the past, while we retain the sympathies +which only require to be awakened. + +It would have been more reasonable had the critic discovered that our +country has not yet had her Plutarch, and that our biography remains +still little more than a mass of compilation. + +In this study of biography there is a species which has not yet been +distinguished--biographies composed by some domestic friend, or by some +enthusiast who works with love. A term is unquestionably wanted for this +distinct class. The Germans seem to have invented a Platonic one, drawn +from the Greek, _psyche_, or the soul; for they call this the +_psychological life_. Another attempt has been made, by giving it the +scientific term of _idiosyncrasy_, to denote a peculiarity of +disposition. I would call it _sentimental biography_! + +It is distinct from a _chronological_ biography, for it searches for the +individual's feelings amidst the ascertained facts of his life; so that +facts, which occurred remotely from each other, are here brought at once +together. The detail of events which completes the chronological +biography, contains many which are not connected with the peculiarity of +the character itself. The _sentimental_ is also distinct from the +_autobiography_, however it may seem a part of it. Whether a man be +entitled to lavish his panegyric on himself, I will not decide; but it +is certain that he risks everything by appealing to a solitary and +suspected witness. + +We have two Lives of Dante, one by Boccaccio and the other by Leonardo +Aretino, both interesting: but Boccaccio's is the _sentimental life_! + +Aretino, indeed, finds fault, but with all the tenderness possible, with +Boccaccio's affectionate sketch, _Origine, Vita, Studi e Costumi del +clarissimo Dante_, &c. "Origin, Life, Studies and Manners, of the +illustrious Dante," &c. "It seems to me," he says, "that our Boccaccio, +_dolcissimo e suavissimo uomo_, sweet and delightful man! has written +the life and manners of this sublime poet as if he had been composing +the _Filocolo_, the _Filostrato_, or the _Fiametta_," the romances of +Boccaccio--"for all breathes of love and sighs, and is covered with warm +tears, as if a man were born in this world only to live among the +enamoured ladies and the gallant youths of the ten amorous days of his +hundred novels." + +Aretino, who wanted not all the feeling requisite for the delightful +"costumi e studi" of Boccaccio's Dante, modestly requires that his own +life of Dante should be considered as a supplement to, not as a +substitute for, Boccaccio's. Pathetic with all the sorrows, and eloquent +with all the remonstrances of a fellow-citizen, Boccaccio, while he +wept, hung with anger over his country's shame in its apathy for the +honour of its long-injured exile. Catching inspiration from the +breathing pages of Boccaccio, it inclines one to wish that we possessed +two biographies of an illustrious favourite character; the one strictly +and fully historical, the other fraught with those very feelings of the +departed, which we may have to seek in vain for in the circumstantial +and chronological biographer. Boccaccio, indeed, was overcome by his +feelings. He either knew not, or he omits the substantial incidents of +Dante's life; while his imagination throws a romantic tinge on +occurrences raised on slight, perhaps on no foundation. Boccaccio +narrates a dream of the mother of Dante so fancifully poetical, that +probably Boccaccio forgot that none but a dreamer could have told it. +Seated under a high laurel-tree, by the side of a vast fountain, the +mother dreamt that she gave birth to her son; she saw him nourished by +its fruit, and refreshed by the clear waters; she soon beheld him a +shepherd; approaching to pluck the boughs, she saw him fall! When he +rose he had ceased to be a man, and was transformed into a peacock! +Disturbed by her admiration, she suddenly awoke; but when the father +found that he really had a son, in allusion to the dream he called him +Dante--or _given! e meritamente_; _perocche ottimamente, siccome si +vedra procedendo, segui al nome l'effetto_: "and deservedly! for +greatly, as we shall see, the effect followed the name!" At nine years +of age, on a May-day, whose joyous festival Boccaccio beautifully +describes, when the softness of the heavens, re-adorning the earth with +its mingled flowers, waved the green boughs, and made all things smile, +Dante mixed with the boys and girls in the house of the good citizen who +on that day gave the feast, beheld little Brice, as she was familiarly +called, but named Beatrice. The little Dante might have seen her before, +but he loved her then, and from that day never ceased to love; and thus +Dante _nella pargoletta eta fatto d'amore ferventissimo servidore_; so +fervent a servant to love in an age of childhood! Boccaccio appeals to +Dante's own account of his long passion, and his constant sighs, in the +_Vita Nuova_. No look, no word, no sign, sullied the purity of his +passion; but in her twenty-fourth year died "la bellissima Beatrice." +Dante is then described as more than inconsolable; his eyes were long +two abundant fountains of tears; careless of life, he let his beard grow +wildly, and to others appeared a savage meagre man, whose aspect was so +changed, that while this weeping life lasted, he was hardly recognised +by his friends; all looked on a man so entirely transformed with deep +compassion. Dante, won over by those who could console the inconsolable, +was at length solicited by his relations to marry a lady of his own +condition in life; and it was suggested that as the departed lady had +occasioned him such heavy griefs, the new one might open a source of +delight. The relations and friends of Dante gave him a wife that his +tears for Beatrice might cease. + +It is supposed that this marriage proved unhappy. Boccaccio, like a +pathetic lover rather than biographer, exclaims, _Oh menti cicche! Oh +tenebrosi intelletti! Oh argomenti vani di molti mortali, quante sono le +ruiscite in assai cose contrarie a' nostri avvisi!_ &c. "Oh blind men! +Oh dark minds! Oh vain arguments of most mortals, how often are the +results contrary to our advice! Frequently it is like leading one who +breathes the soft air of Italy to refresh himself in the eternal shades +of the Rhodopean mountains. What physician would expel a burning fever +with fire, or put in the shivering marrow of the bones snow and ice? So +certainly shall it fare with him who, with a new love, thinks to +mitigate the old. Those who believe this know not the nature of love, +nor how much a second passion adds to the first. In vain would we +assist or advise this forceful passion, if it has struck its root near +the heart of him who long has loved." + +Boccaccio has beguiled my pen for half-an-hour with all the loves and +fancies which sprung out of his own affectionate and romantic heart. +What airy stuff has he woven into the "Vita" of Dante! this _sentimental +biography_! Whether he knew but little of the personal history of the +great man whom he idolised, or whether the dream of the mother--the +May-day interview with the little Brice, and the rest of the +children--and the effusion on Dante's marriage, were grounded on +tradition, one would not harshly reject such tender incidents.[265] But +let it not be imagined that the heart of Boccaccio was only susceptible +to amorous impressions--bursts of enthusiasm and eloquence, which only a +man of genius is worthy of receiving, and only a man of genius is +capable of bestowing--kindle the masculine patriotism of his bold, +indignant spirit! + +Half a century had elapsed since the death of Dante, and still the +Florentines showed no sign of repentance for their ancient hatred of +their persecuted patriot, nor any sense of the memory of the creator of +their language, whose immortality had become a portion of their own +glory. Boccaccio, impassioned by all his generous nature, though he +regrets he could not raise a statue to Dante, has sent down to posterity +more than marble, in the "Life." I venture to give the lofty and bold +apostrophe to his fellow-citizens; but I feel that even the genius of +our language is tame by the side of the harmonised eloquence of the +great votary of Dante! + +"Ungrateful country! what madness urged thee, when thy dearest citizen, +thy chief benefactor, thy only poet, with unaccustomed cruelty was +driven to flight! If this had happened in the general terror of that +time, coming from evil counsels, thou mightest stand excused; but when +the passion ceased, didst thou repent? didst thou recall him? Bear with +me, nor deem it irksome from me, who am thy son, that thus I collect +what just indignation prompts me to speak, as a man more desirous of +witnessing your amendment, than of beholding you punished! Seems it to +you glorious, proud of so many titles and of such men, that the one +whose like no neighbouring city can show, you have chosen to chase from +among you? With what triumphs, with what valorous citizens, are you +splendid? Your wealth is a removable and uncertain thing; your fragile +beauty will grow old; your delicacy is shameful and feminine; but these +make you noticed by the false judgments of the populace! Do you glory in +your merchants and your artists? I speak imprudently; but the one are +tenaciously avaricious in their servile trade; and Art, which once was +so noble, and became a second nature, struck by the same avarice, is now +as corrupted, and nothing worth! Do you glory in the baseness and the +listlessness of those idlers, who, because their ancestors are +remembered, attempt to raise up among you a nobility to govern you, ever +by robbery, by treachery, by falsehood! Ah! miserable mother! open thine +eyes; cast them with some remorse on what thou hast done, and blush, at +least, reputed wise as thou art, to have had in your errors so fatal a +choice! Why not rather imitate the acts of those cities who so keenly +disputed merely for the honour of the birth-place of the divine Homer? +Mantua, our neighbour, counts as the greatest fame which remains for +her, that Virgil was a Mantuan! and holds his very name in such +reverence, that not only in public places, but in the most private, we +see his sculptured image! You only, while you were made famous by +illustrious men, you only have shown no care for your great poet. Your +Dante Alighieri died in exile, to which you unjustly, envious of his +greatness, destined him! A crime not to be remembered, that the mother +should bear an envious malignity to the virtues of a son! Now cease to +be unjust! He cannot do you that, now dead, which living he never did do +to you! He lies under another sky than yours, and you never can see him +again, but on that day, when all your citizens shall view him, and the +great Remunerator shall examine, and shall punish! If anger, hatred, and +enmity are buried with a man, as it is believed, begin then to return to +yourself; begin to be ashamed to have acted against your ancient +humanity; begin, then, to wish to appear a mother, and not a cold +negligent step-dame. Yield your tears to your son; yield your maternal +piety to him whom once you repulsed, and, living, cast away from you! +At least think of possessing him dead, and restore your citizenship, +your award, and your grace, to his memory. He was a son who held you in +reverence, and though long an exile, he always called himself, and would +be called a Florentine! He held you ever above all others; ever he loved +you! What will you then do? Will you remain obstinate in iniquity? Will +you practise less humanity than the barbarians? You wish that the world +should believe that you are the sister of famous Troy, and the daughter +of Rome; assuredly the children should resemble their fathers and their +ancestors. Priam, in his misery, bought the corpse of Hector with gold; +and Rome would possess the bones of the first Scipio, and removed them +from Linternum, those bones, which, dying, so justly he had denied her. +Seek then to be the true guardian of your Dante, claim him! show this +humane feeling, claim him! you may securely do this: I am certain he +will not be returned to you; but thus at once you may betray some mark +of compassion, and, not having him again, still enjoy your ancient +cruelty! Alas! what comfort am I bringing you! I almost believe, that if +the dead could feel, the body of Dante would not rise to return to you, +for he is lying in Ravenna, whose hallowed soil is everywhere covered +with the ashes of saints. Would Dante quit this blessed company to +mingle with the remains of those hatreds and iniquities which gave him +no rest in life? The relics of Dante, even among the bodies of emperors +and of martyrs, and of their illustrious ancestors, is prized as a +treasure, for there his works are looked on with admiration; those works +of which you have not yet known to make yourselves worthy. His +birthplace, his origin remains for you, spite of your ingratitude! and +this Ravenna envies you, while she glories in your honours which she has +snatched from you through ages yet to come!" + +Such was the deep emotion which opened Boccaccio's heart in this +sentimental biography, and which awoke even shame and confusion in the +minds of the Florentines; they blushed for their old hatreds, and, with +awakened sympathies, they hastened to honour the memory of their great +bard. By order of the city, the _Divina Commedia_ was publicly read and +explained to the people. Boccaccio, then sinking under the infirmities +of age, roused his departing genius: still was there marrow in the bones +of the aged lion, and he engaged in the task of composing his +celebrated Commentaries on the _Divina Commedia_. + +In this class of _sentimental biography_ I would place a species which +the historian Carte noticed in his literary travels on the Continent, in +pursuit of his historical design. He found, preserved among several +ancient families of France, their domestic annals. "With a warm, +patriotic spirit, worthy of imitation, they have often carefully +preserved in their families the acts of their ancestors." This delight +and pride of the modern Gauls in the great and good deeds of their +ancestors, preserved in domestic archives, will be ascribed to their +folly or their vanity; yet in that folly there may be so much wisdom, +and in that vanity there may be so much greatness, that the one will +amply redeem the other. + +This custom has been rarely adopted among ourselves; we have, however, a +few separate histories of some ancient families, as those of Mordaunt, +and of Warren. One of the most remarkable is "A Genealogical History of +the House of Yvery, in its different branches of Yvery, Luvel, Perceval, +and Gournay." Two large volumes, closely printed,[266] expatiating on +the characters and events of a single family with the grave pomp of a +herald, but more particularly the idolatry of the writer for ancient +nobility, and his contempt for that growing rank in society whom he +designates as "New Men," provoked the ridicule at least of the +aspersed.[267] This extraordinary work, notwithstanding its absurdities +in its general result, has left behind a deep impression. Drawn from the +authentic family records, it is not without interest that we toil +through its copious pages; we trace with a romantic sympathy the +fortunes of the descendants of the House of Yvery, from that +not-forgotten hero _le vaillant Perceval chevalier de la Table Ronde_, +to the Norman Baron Asselin, surnamed the Wolf, for his bravery or his +ferocity; thence to the Cavalier of Charles the First, Sir Philip +Perceval, who, having gloriously defended his castle, was at length +deprived of his lordly possessions, but never of his loyalty, and died +obscurely in the metropolis of a broken heart, till we reach the +polished nobleman, the Lord Egmont of the Georges. + +The nation has lost many a noble example of men and women acting a great +part on great occasions, and then retreating to the shade of privacy; +and we may be confident that many a name has not been inscribed on the +roll of national glory only from wanting a few drops of ink! Such +domestic annals may yet be viewed in the family records at Appleby +Castle! Anne, Countess of Pembroke, was a glorious woman, the descendant +of two potent northern families, the Veteriponts and the Cliffords.--She +lived in a state of regal magnificence and independence, inhabiting five +or seven castles; yet though her magnificent spirit poured itself out in +her extended charities, and though her independence mated that of +monarchs, yet she herself, in her domestic habits, lived as a hermit in +her own castles; and though only acquainted with her native language, +she had cultivated her mind in many parts of learning; and as Donne, in +his way, observes, "she knew how to converse of everything, from +predestination to slea-silk." Her favourite design was to have materials +collected for the history of those two potent northern families to whom +she was allied; and at a considerable expense she employed learned +persons to make collections for this purpose from the records in the +Tower, the Rolls, and other depositories of manuscripts: Gilpin had seen +three large volumes fairly transcribed. Anecdotes of a great variety of +characters, who had exerted themselves on very important occasions, +compose these family records--and induce one to wish that the public +were in possession of such annals of the domestic life of heroes and of +sages, who have only failed in obtaining an historian![268] + +A biographical monument of this nature, which has passed through the +press, will sufficiently prove the utility of this class of +_sentimental biography_. It is the Life of Robert Price, a Welsh lawyer, +and an ancestor of the gentleman whose ingenuity, in our days, has +refined the principles of the Picturesque in Art. This Life is announced +as "printed by the appointment of the family;" but it must not be +considered merely as a tribute of private affection; and how we are at +this day interested in the actions of a Welsh lawyer in the reign of +William the Third, whose name has probably never been consigned to the +page of history, remains to be told. + +Robert Price, after having served Charles the Second, lived latterly in +the eventful times of William the Third--he was probably of Tory +principles, for on the arrival of the Dutch prince he was removed from +the attorney-generalship of Glamorgan. The new monarch has been accused +of favouritism, and of an eagerness in showering exorbitant grants on +some of his foreigners, which soon raised a formidable opposition in the +jealous spirit of Englishmen. The grand favourite, William Bentinck, +after being raised to the Earldom of Portland, had a grant bestowed on +him of three lordships in the county of Denbigh. The patriot of his +native country--a title which the Welsh had already conferred on Robert +Price--then rose to assert the rights of his fatherland, and his +speeches are as admirable for their knowledge as their spirit. "The +submitting of 1500 freeholders to the will of a Dutch lord was," as he +sarcastically declared, "putting them in a worse posture than their +former estate, when under William the Conqueror and his Norman lords. +England must not be tributary to strangers--we must, like patriots, +stand by our country--otherwise, when God shall send us a Prince of +Wales, he may have such a present of a crown made him as a Pope did to +King John, who was surnamed _Sans-terre_, and was by his father made +Lord of Ireland, which grant was confirmed by the Pope, who sent him a +crown of peacocks' feathers, in derogation of his power, and the poverty +of his country." Robert Price asserted that the king could not, by the +Bill of Rights, alien or give away the inheritance of a Prince of Wales +without the consent of parliament. He concluded a copious and patriotic +speech, by proposing that an address be presented to the king, to put an +immediate stop to the grant now passing to the Earl of Portland for the +lordships, &c. + +This speech produced such an effect, that the address was carried +unanimously; and the king, though he highly resented the speech of +Robert Price, sent a civil message to the commons, declaring that he +should not have given Lord Portland those lands, had he imagined the +House of Commons could have been concerned; "I will therefore recall the +grant!" On receiving the royal message, Robert Price drew up a +resolution to which the house assented, that "to procure or pass +exorbitant grants by any member of the privy council, &c. was a high +crime and misdemeanour." The speech of Robert Price contained truths too +numerous and too bold to suffer the light during that reign; but this +speech against foreigners was printed the year after King William's +death, with this title, "_Gloria Cambriae_, or the speech of a bold +Briton in parliament, against a Dutch Prince of Wales," with this motto, +_Opposuit et Vicit_. Such was the great character of Robert Price, that +he was made a Welsh judge by the very sovereign whose favourite plans he +had so patriotically thwarted. + +Another marked event in the life of this English patriot was a second +noble stand he made against the royal authority, when in opposition to +the public good. The secret history of a quarrel between George the +First and the Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Second, on the +birth of a son, appears in this life; and when the prince in disgrace +left the palace, his royal highness proposed taking his children and the +princess with him; but the king detained the children, claiming the care +of the royal offspring as a royal prerogative. It now became a legal +point to ascertain "whether the education of his majesty's +grandchildren, and the care of their marriages, &c., belonged of right +to his majesty as king of this realm, or not?" Ten of the judges +obsequiously allowed of the prerogative to the full. Robert Price and +another judge decided that the education, &c., was the right of the +father, although the marriages was that of his majesty as king of this +realm, yet not exclusive of the prince, their father. He assured the +king, that the ten obsequious judges had no authority to support their +precipitate opinion; all the books and precedents cannot form a +prerogative for the king of this realm to have the care and education of +his grandchildren during the life and without the consent of their +father--a prerogative unknown to the laws of England! He pleads for the +rights of a father, with the spirit of one who feels them, as well as +with legal science and historical knowledge. + +Such were the two great incidents in the life of this Welsh judge! Yet, +had the family not found one to commemorate these memorable events in +the life of their ancestor, we had lost the noble picture of a +constitutional interpreter of the laws, an independent country +gentleman, and an Englishman jealous of the excessive predominance of +ministerial or royal influence. + +Cicero, and others, have informed us that the ancient history of Rome +itself was composed out of such accounts of private families, to which, +indeed, we must add those annals or registers of public events which +unquestionably were preserved in the archives of the temples by the +priests. But the history of the individual may involve public interest, +whenever the skill of the writer combines with the importance of the +event. Messala, the orator, gloried in having composed many volumes of +the genealogies of the nobility of Rome; and Atticus wrote the genealogy +of Brutus, to prove him descended from Junius Brutus, the expulser of +the Tarquins, and founder of the Republic, near five hundred years +before. + +Another class of this _sentimental biography_ was projected by the late +Elizabeth Hamilton. This was to have consisted of a series of what she +called _comparative biography_, and an ancient character was to have +been paralleled by a modern one. Occupied by her historical romance with +the character of _Agrippina_, she sought in modern history for a partner +of her own sex, and "one who, like her, had experienced vicissitudes of +fortune;" and she found no one better qualified than the princess +palatine, _Elizabeth, the daughter of James the First_. Her next life +was to have been that of _Seneca_, with "the scenes and persons of which +her Life of Agrippina had familiarised her;" and the contrast or the +parallel was to have been _Locke_; which, well managed, she thought +would have been sufficiently striking. It seems to me that it would +rather have afforded an evidence of her invention! Such a biographical +project reminds one of Plutarch's Parallels, and might incur the danger +of displaying more ingenuity than truth. The sage of Cheronea must often +have racked his invention to help out his parallels, bending together, +to make them similar, the most unconnected events and the most distinct +feelings; and, to keep his parallels in two straight lines, he probably +made a free use of augmentatives and diminutives to help out his pair, +who might have been equal, and yet not alike! + +Our fatherland is prodigal of immortal names, or names which might be +made immortal; Gibbon once contemplated with complacency, the very ideal +of SENTIMENTAL BIOGRAPHY, and we may regret that he has only left the +project! "I have long revolved in my mind a volume of biographical +writing; the lives or rather the characters of the most eminent persons +in arts and arms, in church and state, who have flourished in Britain +from the reign of Henry the Eighth to the present age. The subject would +afford a rich display of human nature and domestic history, and +powerfully address itself to the feelings of every Englishman." + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [265] "A Comment on the Divine Comedy of Dante," in English, printed + in Italy, has just reached me. I am delighted to find that this + biography of Love, however romantic, is true! In his _ninth year_, + Dante was a lover and a poet! The tender sonnet, free from all + obscurity, which he composed on Beatrice, is preserved in the above + singular volume. There can be no longer any doubt of the story of + Beatrice; but the sonnet and the passion must be "classed among + curious natural phenomena," or how far apocryphal, remains for + future inquiry. + + [266] This work was published in 1742, and the scarcity of these + volumes was felt in Granger's day, for they obtained then the + considerable price of four guineas; some time ago a fine copy was + sold for thirty at a sale, and a cheap copy was offered to me at + twelve guineas. These volumes should contain seventeen portraits. + The first was written by Mr. Anderson, who, dying before the second + appeared, Lord Egmont, from the materials Anderson had left, + concluded his family history--_con amore_. + + [267] Mr. Anderson, the writer of the first volume, was a feudal + enthusiast; he has thrown out an odd notion that the commercial, or + the wealthy class, had intruded on the dignity of the ancient + nobility; but as wealth has raised such high prices for labour, + commodities, &c., it had reached its _ne plus ultra_, and commerce + could be carried on no longer! He has ventured on this amusing + prediction, "As it is therefore evident that NEW MEN _will never + rise again in any age with such advantages of wealth_, at least in + considerable numbers, their _party_ will gradually decrease." + + [268] Much curious matter about the old Countess of Westmoreland and + her seven castles may be found in Whitaker's History of Craven, and + in Pennant. + + + + +LITERARY PARALLELS. + + +An opinion on this subject in the preceding article has led me to a +further investigation. It may be right to acknowledge that so attractive +is this critical and moral amusement of comparing great characters with +one another, that, among others, Bishop Hurd once proposed to write _a +book of Parallels_, and has furnished a specimen in that of Petrarch and +Rousseau, and intended for another that of Erasmus with Cicero. It is +amusing to observe how a lively and subtle mind can strike out +resemblances, and make contraries accord, and at the same time it may +show the pinching difficulties through which a parallel is pushed, till +it ends in a paradox. + +Hurd says of Petrarch and Rousseau--"Both were impelled by an equal +enthusiasm, though directed towards different objects: Petrarch's +towards the glory of the Roman name, Rousseau's towards his idol of a +state of nature; the one religious, the other _un esprit fort_; but may +not Petrarch's spite to Babylon be considered, in his time, as a species +of free-thinking"--and concludes, that "both were mad, but of a +different nature." Unquestionably there were features much alike, and +almost peculiar to these two literary characters; but I doubt if Hurd +has comprehended them in the parallel. + +I now give a specimen of those parallels which have done so much +mischief in the literary world, when drawn by a hand which covertly +leans on one side. An elaborate one of this sort was composed by +Longolius or Longuel, between Budaeus and Erasmus.[269] This man, though +of Dutch origin, affected to pass for a Frenchman, and, to pay his court +to his chosen people, gives the preference obliquely to the French +Budaeus; though, to make a show of impartiality, he acknowledges that +Francis the First had awarded it to Erasmus; but probably he did not +infer that kings were the most able reviewers! This parallel was sent +forth during the lifetime of both these great scholars, who had long +been correspondents, but the publication of the parallel interrupted +their friendly intercourse. Erasmus returned his compliments and thanks +to Longolius, but at the same time insinuates a gentle hint that he was +not overpleased. "What pleases me most," Erasmus writes, "is the just +preference you have given Budaeus over me; I confess you are even too +economical in your praise of him, as you are too prodigal in mine. I +thank you for informing me what it is the learned desire to find in me; +my self-love suggests many little excuses, with which, you observe, I am +apt _to favour my defects_. If I am careless, it arises partly from my +ignorance, and more from my indolence; I am so constituted, that I +cannot conquer my nature; I precipitate rather than compose, and it is +far more irksome for me to revise than to write." + +This parallel between Erasmus and Budaeus, though the parallel itself was +not of a malignant nature, yet disturbed the quiet, and interrupted the +friendship of both. When Longolius discovered that the Parisian +surpassed the Hollander in Greek literature and the knowledge of the +civil law, and worked more learnedly and laboriously, how did this +detract from the finer genius and the varied erudition of the more +delightful writer? The parallelist compares Erasmus to "a river swelling +its waters, and often overflowing its banks; Budaeus rolled on like a +majestic stream, ever restraining its waves within its bed. The +Frenchman has more nerve, and blood, and life, and the Hollander more +fulness, freshness, and colour." + +The taste for _biographical parallels_ must have reached us from +Plutarch; and there is something malicious in our nature which inclines +us to form _comparative estimates_, usually with a view to elevate one +great man at the cost of another, whom we would secretly depreciate. +Our political parties at home have often indulged in these fallacious +parallels, and Pitt and Fox once balanced the scales, not by the +standard weights and measures which ought to have been used, but by the +adroitness of the hand that pressed down the scale. In literature, these +comparative estimates have proved most prejudicial. A finer model exists +not than the _parallel of Dryden and Pope_, by Johnson; for, without +designing any undue preference, his vigorous judgment has analysed them +by his contrasts, and has rather shown their distinctness than their +similarity. But literary _parallels_ usually end in producing _parties_; +and, as I have elsewhere observed, often originate in undervaluing one +man of genius, for his deficiency in some eminent quality possessed by +the other man of genius; they not unfrequently proceed from adverse +tastes, and are formed with the concealed design of establishing some +favourite one. The world of literature has been deeply infected with +this folly. Virgil probably was often vexed in his days by a parallel +with Homer, and the _Homerians_ combated with the _Virgilians_. Modern +Italy was long divided into such literary sects: a perpetual skirmishing +is carried on between the _Ariostoists_ and the _Tassoists_; and feuds +as dire as those between two Highland clans were raised concerning the +_Petrarchists_, and the _Chiabrerists_. Old _Corneille_ lived to bow his +venerable genius before a parallel with _Racine_; and no one has +suffered more unjustly by such arbitrary criticisms than _Pope_, for a +strange unnatural civil war has often been renewed between the +_Drydenists_ and the _Popeists_. Two men of great genius should never be +depreciated by the misapplied ingenuity of a parallel; on such occasions +we ought to conclude _magis pares quam similes_. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [269] It is noticed by Jortin in his Life of Erasmus, vol. i. p. 160. + + + + +THE PEARL BIBLES AND SIX THOUSAND ERRATA. + + +As a literary curiosity, I notice a subject which might rather enter +into the history of religion. It relates to the extraordinary state of +our English Bibles, which were for some time suffered to be so corrupted +that no books ever yet swarmed with such innumerable errata! + +These errata unquestionably were in great part voluntary commissions, +passages interpolated, and meanings forged for certain purposes; +sometimes to sanction the new creed of a half-hatched sect, and +sometimes with an intention to destroy all scriptural authority by a +confusion, or an omission of texts--the whole was left open to the +option or the malignity of the editors, who, probably, like certain +ingenious wine-merchants, contrived to accommodate "the waters of life" +to their customers' peculiar taste. They had also a project of printing +Bibles as cheaply and in a form as contracted as they possibly could for +the common people; and they proceeded till it nearly ended with having +no Bible at all: and, as Fuller, in his "Mixt Contemplations on Better +Times," alluding to this circumstance, with not one of his lucky +quibbles, observes, "The _small price_ of the Bible has caused the +_small prizing_ of the Bible." + +This extraordinary attempt on the English Bible began even before +Charles the First's dethronement, and probably arose from an unusual +demand for Bibles, as the sectarian fanaticism was increasing. Printing +of English Bibles was an article of open trade; every one printed at the +lowest price, and as fast as their presses would allow. Even those who +were dignified as "his Majesty's Printers" were among these +manufacturers; for we have an account of a scandalous omission by them +of the important negative in the seventh commandment! The printers were +summoned before the Court of High Commission, and this _not_ served to +bind them in a fine of three thousand pounds! A prior circumstance, +indeed, had occurred, which induced the government to be more vigilant +on the Biblical Press. The learned Usher, one day hastening to preach at +Paul's Cross, entered the shop of one of the stationers, as booksellers +were then called, and inquiring for a Bible of the London edition, when +he came to look for his text, to his astonishment and horror he +discovered that the verse was omitted in the Bible! This gave the first +occasion of complaint to the king of the insufferable negligence and +incapacity of the London press: and, says the manuscript writer of this +anecdote, first bred that great contest which followed, between the +University of Cambridge and the London stationers, about the right of +printing Bibles.[270] + +The secret bibliographical history of these times would show the +extraordinary state of the press in this new trade of Bibles. The writer +of a curious pamphlet exposes the combination of those called the king's +printers, with their contrivances to keep up the prices of Bibles; +their correspondence with the booksellers of Scotland and Dublin, by +which means they retained the privilege in their own hands: the king's +_London_ printers got Bibles printed cheaper at Edinburgh. In 1629, when +folio Bibles were wanted, the Cambridge printers sold them at ten +shillings in quires; on this the Londoners set six printing-houses at +work, and, to annihilate the Cambridgians, printed a similar _folio_ +Bible, but sold with it five hundred _quarto_ Roman Bibles, and five +hundred _quarto_ English, at five shillings a book; which proved the +ruin of the folio Bibles, by keeping them down under the cost price. +Another competition arose among those who printed English Bibles in +Holland, in _duodecimo_, with an English colophon, for half the price +even of the lowest in London. Twelve thousand of these _duodecimo_ +Bibles, with notes, fabricated in Holland, usually by our fugitive +sectarians, were seized by the king's printers, as contrary to the +statute.[271] Such was this shameful war of Bibles--folios, quartos, and +duodecimos, even in the days of Charles the First. The public spirit of +the rising sects was the real occasion of these increased demands for +Bibles. + +During the civil wars they carried on the same open trade and +competition, besides the private ventures of the smuggled Bibles. A +large impression of these Dutch English Bibles were burnt by order of +the Assembly of Divines, for these _three errors_:-- + +Gen. xxxvi. 24.--This is that _ass_ that found rulers in the +wilderness--for _mule_. + +Ruth iv. 13.--The Lord gave her _corruption_--for _conception_. + +Luke xxi. 28.--Look up, and lift up your hands, for your _condemnation_ +draweth nigh--for _redemption_. + +These errata were none of the printer's; but, as a writer of the times +expresses it, "egregious blasphemies, and damnable errata" of some +sectarian, or some Bellamy editor of that day! + +The printing of Bibles at length was a privilege conceded to one +William Bentley; but he was opposed by Hills and Field; and a paper war +arose, in which they mutually recriminated on each other, with equal +truth. + +Field printed, in 1653, what was called the Pearl Bible; alluding, I +suppose, to that diminutive type in printing, for it could not derive +its name from its worth. It is in twenty-fours;[272] but to contract the +mighty book into this dwarfishness, all the original Hebrew text +prefixed to the Psalms, explaining the occasion and the subject of their +composition, is wholly expunged. This Pearl Bible, which may be +inspected among the great collection of our English Bibles at the +British Museum, is set off by many notable _errata_, of which these are +noticed:-- + +Romans vi. 13.--Neither yield ye your members as instruments of +_righteousness_ unto sin--for _unrighteousness_. + +First Corinthians vi. 9.--Know ye not that the unrighteous _shall +inherit_ the kingdom of God?--for _shall not inherit_. + +This _erratum_ served as the foundation of a dangerous doctrine; for +many libertines urged the text from this corrupt Bible against the +reproofs of a divine. + +This Field was a great forger; and it is said that he received a present +of 1500_l._ from the _Independents_ to corrupt a text in Acts vi. 3, to +sanction the right of the people to appoint their own pastors.[273] The +corruption was the easiest possible; it was only to put a _ye_ instead +of a _we_; so that the right in Field's Bible emanated from the people, +not from the apostles. The only account I recollect of this +extraordinary state of our Bibles is a happy allusion in a line of +Butler:-- + + Religion spawn'd a various rout, + Of petulant, capricious sects, + THE MAGGOTS OF CORRUPTED TEXTS. + +In other Bibles by Hills and Field we may find such abundant errata, +reducing the text to nonsense or to blasphemy, making the Scriptures +contemptible to the multitude, who came to pray, and not to scoff. + +It is affirmed, in the manuscript account already referred to, that one +Bible swarmed with _six thousand faults_! Indeed, from another source we +discover that "Sterne, a solid scholar, was the first who summed up the +_three thousand and six hundred_ faults that were in our printed Bibles +of London."[274] If one book can be made to contain near four thousand +errors, little ingenuity was required to reach to six thousand; but +perhaps this is the first time so remarkable an incident in the history +of literature has ever been chronicled. And that famous edition of the +Vulgate, by Pope Sixtus the Fifth, a memorable book of blunders, which +commands such high prices, ought now to fall in value, before the pearl +Bible, in twenty-fours, of Messrs. Hills and Field! + +Mr. Field and his worthy coadjutor seem to have carried the favour of +the reigning powers over their opponents; for I find a piece of their +secret history. They engaged to pay 500_l._ per annum to some, "whose +names I forbear to mention," warily observes the manuscript writer; and +above 100_l._ per annum to Mr. _Marchmont Needham and his wife_, out of +the profits of the sales of their Bibles; deriding, insulting, and +triumphing over others, out of their confidence in their great friends +and purse, as if they were lawless and free, both from offence and +punishment.[275] This Marchmont Needham is sufficiently notorious, and +his secret history is probably true; for in a Mercurius Politicus of +this unprincipled Cobbett of his day, I found an elaborate puff of an +edition published by the annuity-granter to this worthy and his wife! + +Not only had the Bible to suffer these indignities of size and price, +but the Prayer-book was once printed in an illegible and worn-out type; +on which the printer being complained of, he stoutly replied, that "it +was as good as the price afforded; and being a book which all persons +ought to have by heart, it was no matter whether it was read or not, so +that it was worn out in their hands." The puritans seem not to have been +so nice about the source of purity itself. + +These hand-bibles of the sectarists, with their six thousand errata, +like the false Duessa, covered their crafty deformity with a fair +raiment; for when the great Selden, in the assembly of divines, +delighted to confute them in their own learning, he would say, as +Whitelock reports, when they had cited a text to prove their assertion, +"Perhaps in your little pocket-bible with gilt leaves," which they would +often pull out and read, "the translation may be so, but the Greek or +the Hebrew signifies this." + +While these transactions were occurring, it appears that the authentic +translation of the Bible, such as we now have it, by the learned +translators in James the First's time, was suffered to lie neglected. +The copies of the original manuscript were in the possession of two of +the king's printers, who, from cowardice, consent, and connivance, +suppressed the publication; considering that the Bible full of errata, +and often, probably, accommodated to the notions of certain sectarists, +was more valuable than one authenticated by the hierarchy! Such was the +state of the English Bible till 1660![276] + +The proverbial expression of _chapter and verse_ seems peculiar to +ourselves, and, I suspect, originated in the puritanic period, probably +just before the civil wars under Charles the First, from the frequent +use of appealing to the Bible on the most frivolous occasions, practised +by those whom South calls "those mighty men at _chapter and verse_." +With a sort of religious coquetry, they were vain of perpetually opening +their gilt pocket Bibles; they perked them up with such self-sufficiency +and perfect ignorance of the original, that the learned Selden found +considerable amusement in going to their "assembly of divines," and +puzzling or confuting them, as we have noticed. A ludicrous anecdote on +one of these occasions is given by a contemporary, which shows how +admirably that learned man amused himself with this "assembly of +divines!" They were discussing the distance between Jerusalem and +Jericho, with a perfect ignorance of sacred or of ancient geography; one +said it was twenty miles, another ten, and at last it was concluded to +be only seven, for this strange reason, that fish was brought from +Jericho to Jerusalem market! Selden observed, that "possibly the fish in +question was salted," and silenced these acute disputants. + +It would probably have greatly discomposed these "chapter and verse" men +to have informed them that the Scriptures had neither chapter nor verse! +It is by no means clear how the holy writings were anciently divided, +and still less how quoted or referred to. The honour of the invention of +the present arrangement of the Scriptures is ascribed to Robert +Stephens, by his son, in the preface to his Concordance, a task which he +performed during a journey on horseback from Paris to London, in 1551; +and whether it was done as Yorick would in his Shandean manner lounging +on his mule, or at his intermediate baits, he has received all possible +thanks for this employment of his time. Two years afterwards he +concluded with the Bible. But that the honour of every invention may be +disputed, Sanctus Pagninus's Bible, printed at Lyons in 1527, seems to +have led the way to these convenient divisions; Stephens, however, +improved on Pagninus's mode of paragraphical marks and marginal verses; +and our present "chapter and verse," more numerous and more commodiously +numbered, were the project of this learned printer, to _recommend his +edition of the Bible_; trade and learning were once combined! Whether in +this arrangement any disturbance of the continuity of the text has +followed, is a subject not fitted for my inquiry. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [270] Harl. MS. 6395. + + [271] "Scintilla, or a light broken into darke Warehouses; of some + Printers, sleeping Stationers, and combining Booksellers; in which + is only a touch of their forestalling and ingrossing of Books in + Pattents, and raysing them to excessive prises. Left to the + consideration of the high and honourable House of Parliament, now + assembled. London: Nowhere to be sold, but somewhere to be given." + 1641. + + [272] A technical printing-term for a sheet containing twenty-four + pages. + + [273] The passage is as follows, and is addressed by the apostles to + "the multitude of the disciples," who desired an improved clerical + rule:--"Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of + honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom _we_ may + appoint over this business." + + [274] G. Garrard's Letter to the Earl of Strafford, vol. i. p. 208. + + [275] Harl. MS. 7580. + + [276] See the London Printers' Lamentation on the Press Oppressed. + Harl. Coll. iii. 280. + + + + +VIEW OF A PARTICULAR PERIOD OF THE STATE OF RELIGION IN OUR CIVIL WARS. + + +Looking over the manuscript diary of Sir Symonds D'Ewes, I was struck by +a picture of the domestic religious life which at that period was +prevalent among families. Sir Symonds was a sober antiquary, heated with +no fanaticism, yet I discovered in his diary that he was a visionary in +his constitution, macerating his body by private fasts, and +spiritualising in search of _secret signs_. These ascetic penances were +afterwards succeeded in the nation by an era of hypocritical sanctity; +and we may trace this last stage of insanity and of immorality closing +with impiety. This would be a dreadful picture of religion, if for a +moment we supposed that it were _religion_; that consolatory power which +has its source in our feelings, and according to the derivation of its +expressive term, _binds men together_. With us it was sectarism, whose +origin and causes we shall not now touch on, which broke out into so +many monstrous shapes, when every pretended reformer was guided by his +own peculiar fancies: we have lived to prove that folly and wickedness +are rarely obsolete. + +The age of Sir Symonds D'Ewes, who lived through the times of Charles +the First, was religious; for the character of this monarch had all the +seriousness and piety not found in the _bonhomie_ and careless +indecorums of his father, whose manners of the Scottish court were +moulded on the gaieties of the French, from the ancient intercourse of +the French and Scottish governments. But this religious age of Charles +the First presents a strange contrast with the licentiousness which +subsequently prevailed among the people: there seems to be a secret +connexion between a religious and an irreligious period: the levity of +popular feeling is driven to and fro by its reaction; when man has been +once taught to contemn his mere humanity, his abstract fancies open a +secret bye-path to his presumed salvation; he wanders till he is +lost--he trembles till he dotes in melancholy--he raves till truth +itself is no longer immutable. The transition to a very opposite state +is equally rapid and vehement. Such is the history of man when his +religion is founded on misdirected feelings; and such, too, is the +reaction so constantly operating in all human affairs. + +The writer of this diary did not belong to those nonconformists who +arranged themselves in hostility to the established religion and +political government of our country. A private gentleman and a +phlegmatic antiquary, Sir Symonds withal was a zealous Church of England +protestant. Yet amidst the mystical allusions of an age of religious +controversies, we see these close in the scenes we are about to open, +and find this quiet gentleman tormenting himself and his lady by +watching for "certain _evident marks_ and _signs of an assurance_ for a +better life," with I know not how many distinct sorts of "Graces." + +I give an extract from the manuscript diary:-- + + "I spent this day chiefly in _private fasting_, prayer, and other + religious exercises. This was the first time that I ever practised + this duty, having always before declined it, by reason of the + papists' superstitious abuses of it. I had partaken formerly of + _public fasts_, but never knew the use and benefit of the same duty + performed alone in secret, or with others of mine own family in + private. In these particulars, I had my knowledge much enlarged by + the religious converse I enjoyed at Albury Lodge, for there also I + shortly after entered upon _framing an evidence of marks and signs + for my assurance of a better life_. + + "I found much benefit of my _secret fasting_, from a learned + discourse on fasting by Mr. Henry Mason, and observed his rule, that + Christians ought to sit sometimes apart for their ordinary + humiliation and fasting, and so intend to continue the same course as + long as my health will permit me. Yet did I vary the times and + duration of my fasting. At first, before I had finished _the marks + and signs of my assurance of a better life, which scrutiny and search + cost me some three-score days of fasting_, I performed it sometimes + twice in the space of five weeks, then once each month, or a little + sooner or later, and then also I sometimes ended the duties of the + day, and took some little food about three of the clock in the + afternoon. But for divers years last past, I constantly abstained + from all food the whole day. I fasted till supper-time, about six in + the evening, and spent ordinarily about eight or nine hours in the + performance of religious duties; one part of which was _prayer and + confession of sins_, to which end I wrote down _a catalogue of all my + known sins_, orderly. These were all sins of _infirmity_; for, + through God's grace, I was so far from allowing myself in the + practice and commission of any _actual_ sin, as I durst not take upon + me any _controversial sins_, as usury, carding, dicing, mixt dancing, + and the like, because I was in mine own judgment persuaded they were + unlawful. Till I had finished my _assurance_ first in English and + afterwards in Latin, with a large and an elaborate preface in Latin + also to it; I spent a great part of the day at that work, &c. + + "Saturday, December 1, 1627, I devoted to my usual course of _secret + fasting_, and drew divers _signs of my assurance of a better life_ + from the _grace_ of repentance, having before gone through the + _graces_ of knowledge, faith, hope, love, zeal, patience, humility, + and joy; and drawing several marks from them on like days of + humiliation for the greater part. My dear wife beginning also to draw + _most certain signs_ of her own future happiness after death from + _several graces_. + + "January 19, 1628.--Saturday I spent in secret humiliation and + fastings, and finished _my whole assurance to a better life_, + consisting of THREE SCORE and FOUR SIGNS, or marks drawn from + _several graces_. I made some small alterations in the signs + afterwards; and when I turned them into the Latin tongue, I enriched + the margent with further _proofs and authorities_. I found much + comfort and reposedness of spirit from them, which shows the devilish + sophisms of the papists, anabaptists, and pseudo-Lutherans, and + profane atheistical men, who say that _assurance_ brings forth + presumption, and a careless wicked life. True, when men pretend to + the end, and not use the means. + + "My wife joined with me in a private day of _fasting_, and drew + _several signs and marks by_ MY _help and assistance, for her + assurance to a better life_." + +This was an era of religious diaries, particularly among the +nonconformists; but they were, as we see, used by others. Of the +Countess of Warwick, who died in 1678, we are told that "she kept a +diary, and took counsel with two persons, whom she called her _soul's +friends_." She called prayers _heart's ease_, for such she found them. +"Her own lord, knowing her _hours of prayers_, once conveyed a godly +minister into _a secret place_ within hearing, who, being a man very +able to judge, much admired her humble fervency; for in praying she +prayed aloud; but when she did not with an audible voice, her sighs and +groans might be heard at a good distance from the closet." We are not +surprised to discover this practice of religious diaries among the more +puritanic sort: what they were we may gather from this description of +one. Mr. John Janeway "kept a diary, in which he wrote down _every +evening_ what the _frame of his spirit_ had been _all that day_; he took +notice what _incomes_ he had, what _profit_ he received in his spiritual +traffic: what _returns_ came from that far country; what _answers_ of +prayer, what deadness and flatness of spirit," &c. And so we find of Mr. +John Carter, that "He kept a _day-book_ and _cast up his accounts_ with +God every day."[277] To such worldly notions had they humiliated the +spirit of religion; and this style, and this mode of religion, has long +been continued among us even among men of superior acquisitions: as +witness the "Spiritual Diary and Soliloquies" of a learned physician +within our own times, Dr. Rutty, which is a great curiosity of the kind. + +Such was the domestic state of many well-meaning families: they were +rejecting with the utmost abhorrence every resemblance to what they +called the idolatry of Rome, while, in fact, the gloom of the monastic +cell was settling over the houses of these melancholy puritans. Private +fasts were more than ever practised; and a lady, said to be eminent for +her genius and learning, who outlived this era, declared that she had +nearly lost her life through a prevalent notion that _no fat person +could get to heaven_; and thus spoiled and wasted her body through +excessive fastings. A quaker, to prove the text that "Man shall not live +_by bread alone_, but by the word of God," persisted in refusing his +meals. The literal text proved for him a dead letter, and this practical +commentator died by a metaphor. This quaker, however, was not the only +victim to the letter of the text; for the famous Origen, by interpreting +in too literal a way the 12th verse of the 19th of St. Matthew, which +alludes to those persons who become eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, +with his own hands armed himself against himself, as is sufficiently +known. "_Retournons a nos moutons!_" The parliament afterwards had both +periodical and occasional fasts; and Charles the First opposed "the +hypocritical fast of every Wednesday in the month, by appointing one for +the second Friday;" the two unhappy parties, who were hungering and +thirsting for each other's blood, were fasting in spite one against the +other! + +Without inquiring into the causes, even if we thought that we could +ascertain them, of that frightful dissolution of religion which so long +prevailed in our country, and of which the very corruption it has left +behind still breeds in monstrous shapes, it will be sufficient to +observe that the destruction of the monarchy and the ecclesiastical +order was a moral earthquake, overturning all minds, and opening all +changes. A theological logomachy was substituted by the sullen and proud +ascetics who ascended into power. These, without wearying themselves, +wearied all others, and triumphed over each other by their mutual +obscurity. The two great giants in this theological war were the famous +Richard Baxter and Dr. Owen. They both wrote a library of books; but the +endless controversy between them was the extraordinary and +incomprehensible subject, whether the death of Christ was _solutio +ejusdem_, or only _tantundem_; that is, whether it was a payment of the +very thing, which by law we ought to have paid, or of something held by +God to be equivalent. Such was the point on which this debate between +Owen and Baxter lasted without end. + +Yet these metaphysical absurdities were harmless, compared to what was +passing among the more hot fanatics, who were for acting the wild +fancies which their melancholy brains engendered; men, who from the +places into which they had thrust themselves, might now be called "the +higher orders of society!" These two parties alike sent forth an evil +spirit to walk among the multitude. Every one would become his own +law-maker, and even his own prophet; the meanest aspired to give his +name to his sect. All things were to be put in motion according to the +St. Vitus's dance of the last new saint. "Away with the Law! which cuts +off a man's legs and then bids him walk!" cried one from his pulpit. +"Let believers sin as fast as they will, they have a fountain open to +wash them;" declared another teacher. We had the _Brownists_, from +Robert Brown, the _Vaneists_, from Sir Harry Vane, then we sink down to +Mr. Traske, Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. Robinson, and H. N., or Henry Nicholas, +of the Family of Love, besides Mrs. Hutchinson, and the Grindletonian +family, who preferred "motions to motives," and conveniently assumed +that "their spirit is not to be tried by the Scripture, but the +Scripture by their spirit." Edwards, the author of "Gangraena," the +adversary of Milton, whose work may still be preserved for its +curiosity, though immortalised by the scourge of genius, has furnished +a list of about two hundred of such sects in these times. A divine of +the Church of England observed to a great sectary, "You talk of the +idolatry of Rome: but each of you, whenever you have made and set up a +calf, will dance about it."[278] + +This confusion of religions, if, indeed, these pretended modes of faith +could be classed among religions, disturbed the consciences of good men, +who read themselves in and out of their vacillating creed. It made, at +least, even one of the puritans themselves, who had formerly complained +that they had not enjoyed sufficient freedom under the bishops, cry out +against "this cursed intolerable toleration." And the fact is, that when +the presbyterians had fixed themselves into the government, they +published several treatises against toleration! The parallel between +these wild notions of reform, and those of another character, run +closely together. About this time, well-meaning persons, who were +neither enthusiasts from the ambition of founding sects, nor of covering +their immorality by their impiety, were infected by the _religiosa +insania_. One case may stand for many. A Mr. Greswold, a gentleman of +Warwickshire, whom a Brownist had by degrees enticed from his parish +church, was afterwards persuaded to return to it--but he returned with a +troubled mind, and lost in the prevalent theological contests. A horror +of his future existence shut him out, as it were, from his present one: +retiring into his own house, with his children, he ceased to communicate +with the living world. He had his food put in at the window; and when +his children lay sick, he admitted no one for their relief. His house at +length was forced open, and they found two children dead, and the father +confined to his bed. He had mangled his Bible, and cut out the titles, +contents, and everything but the very text itself; for it seems that he +thought that everything human was sinful, and he conceived that the +titles of the books and the contents of the chapters were to be cut out +of the sacred Scriptures, as having been composed by men.[279] + +More terrible it was when the insanity, which had hitherto been more +confined to the better classes, burst forth among the common people. +Were we to dwell minutely on this period, we should start from the +picture with horror: we might, perhaps, console ourselves with a +disbelief of its truth; but the drug, though bitter in the mouth, we +must sometimes digest. To observe the extent to which the populace can +proceed, disfranchised of law and religion, will always leave a +memorable recollection. + +What occurred in the French Revolution had happened here--an age of +impiety! Society itself seemed dissolved, for every tie of private +affection and of public duty was unloosened. Even nature was strangely +violated! From the first opposition to the decorous ceremonies of the +national church, by the simple puritans, the next stage was that of +ridicule, and the last of obloquy. They began by calling the surplice a +linen rag on the back; baptism a Christ's cross on a baby's face; and +the organ was likened to the bellow, the grunt, and the barking of the +respective animals. They actually baptized horses in churches at the +fonts; and the jest of that day was, that the Reformation was now a +thorough one in England, since our horses went to church.[280] St. +Paul's cathedral was turned into a market, and the aisles, the +communion-table, and the altar, served for the foulest purposes.[281] +The liberty which every one now assumed of delivering his own opinions, +led to acts so execrable, that I can find no parallel for them except in +the mad times of the French Revolution. Some maintained that there +existed no distinction between moral good and moral evil; and that every +man's actions were prompted by the Creator. Prostitution was professed +as a religious act; a glazier was declared to be a prophet, and the +woman he cohabited with was said to be ready to lie in of the Messiah. +A man married his father's wife. Murders of the most extraordinary +nature were occurring; one woman crucified her mother; another, in +imitation of Abraham, sacrificed her child; we hear, too, of parricides. +Amidst the slaughters of civil wars, spoil and blood had accustomed the +people to contemplate the most horrible scenes. One madman of the many, +we find drinking a health on his knees, in the midst of a town, "to the +devil! that it might be said that his family should not be extinct +without doing some infamous act." A Scotchman, one Alexander Agnew, +commonly called "Jock of broad Scotland," whom one cannot call an +atheist, for he does not seem to deny the existence of the Creator, nor +a future state, had a shrewdness of local humour in his strange notions. +Omitting some offensive things, others as strange may exhibit the state +to which the reaction of an hypocritical system of religion had driven +the common people. "Jock of broad Scotland" said he was nothing in God's +common, for God had given him nothing; he was no more obliged to God +than to the devil; for God was very greedy. Neither God nor the devil +gave the fruits of the ground; the wives of the country gave him his +meat. When asked wherein he believed, he answered, "He believed in white +meal, water, and salt. Christ was not God; for he came into the world +after it was made, and died as other men." He declared that "he did not +know whether God or the devil had the greatest power; but he thought the +devil was the greatest. When I die, let God and the devil strive for my +soul, and let him that is strongest take it." He no doubt had been +taught by the presbytery to mock religious rites; and when desired to +give God thanks for his meat, he said, "Take a sackful of prayers to the +mill and grind them, and take your breakfast of them." To others he +said, "I will give you a two-pence, to pray until a boll of meal, and +one stone of butter, fall from heaven through the house rigging (roof) +to you." When bread and cheese were laid on the ground by him, he said, +"If I leave this, I will long cry to God before he give it me again." To +others he said, "Take a bannock, and break it in two, and lay down one +half thereof, and you will long pray to God before he will put the other +half to it again!" He seems to have been an anti-trinitarian. He said he +received everything from nature, which had ever reigned and ever would. +He would not conform to any religious system, nor name the three +Persons,--"At all these things I have long shaken my cap," he said. +"Jock of broad Scotland" seems to have been one of those who imagine +that God should have furnished them with bannocks ready baked. + +The extravagant fervour then working in the minds of the people is +marked by the story told by Clement Walker of the soldier who entered a +church with a lantern and a candle burning in it, and in the other hand +four candles not lighted. He said he came to deliver his message from +God, and show it by these types of candles. Driven into the churchyard, +and the wind blowing strong, he could not kindle his candles, and the +new prophet was awkwardly compelled to conclude his five denouncements, +abolishing the Sabbath, tithes, ministers, magistrates, and, at last, +the Bible itself, without putting out each candle, as he could not +kindle them; observing, however, each time--"And here I should put out +the first light, but the wind is so high that I cannot kindle it." + +A perfect scene of the effects which the state of irreligious society +produced among the lower orders I am enabled to give from the manuscript +life of John Shaw, vicar of Rotherham; with a little tediousness, but +with infinite _naivete_, he relates what happened to himself. This +honest divine was puritanically inclined, but there can be no +exaggeration in these unvarnished facts. He tells a remarkable story of +the state of religious knowledge in Lancashire, at a place called +Cartmel: some of the people appeared desirous of religious instruction, +declaring that they were without any minister, and had entirely +neglected every religious rite, and therefore pressed him to quit his +situation at Lymm for a short period. He may now tell his own story. + + "I found a very large spacious church, scarce any seats in it; a + people very ignorant, and yet willing to learn; so as I had + frequently some thousands of hearers, I catechised in season and out + of season. The churches were so thronged at nine in the morning, that + I had much ado to get to the pulpit. One day, an old man about sixty, + sensible enough in other things, and living in the parish of Cartmel, + coming to me on some business, I told him that he belonged to my care + and charge, and I desired to be informed of his knowledge in + religion. I asked him how many Gods there were? He said he knew not. + I informing him, asked again how he thought to be saved? He answered + he could not tell. Yet thought that was a harder question than the + other. I told him that the way to salvation was by Jesus Christ, + God-man, who as he was man shed his blood for us on the cross, &c. + Oh, sir, said he, I think I heard of that man you speak of once in a + play at Kendall, called Corpus-Christ's play,[282] where there was a + man on a tree and blood run down, &c. And afterwards he professed he + could not remember that he ever heard of salvation by Jesus, but in + that play." + +The scenes passing in the metropolis, as well as in the country, are +opened to us in one of the chronicling poems of George Withers. Our +sensible rhymer wrote in November, 1652, "a Darke Lanthorne" on the +present subject. + +After noticing that God, to mortify us, had sent preachers from the +"shop-board and the plough," + + ----Such as we seem justly to contemn, + As making truths abhorred, which come from them; + +he seems, however, inclined to think that these self-taught "Teachers +and Prophets" in their darkness might hold a certain light within them: + + ----Children, fools, + Women, and madmen, we do often meet + Preaching, and threatening judgments in the street, + Yea by strange actions, postures, tones, and cries, + Themselves they offer to our ears and eyes + As signs unto this nation.---- + They act as men in ecstacies have done---- + Striving their cloudy visions to declare, + Till they have lost the notions which they had, + And want but few degrees of being mad.[283] + +Such is the picture of the folly and of the wickedness, which, after +having been preceded by the piety of a religious age, were succeeded by +a dominion of hypocritical sanctity, and then closed in all the horrors +of immorality and impiety. The parliament at length issued one of their +ordinances for "punishing blasphemous and execrable opinions," and this +was enforced with greater power than the slighted proclamations of James +and Charles; but the curious wording is a comment on our present +subject. The preamble notices that "men and women had lately discovered +_monstrous opinions_, even such as tended to _the dissolution of human +society, and have abused, and turned into licentiousness, the liberty +given in matters of religion_." It punishes any person not distempered +in his brains, who shall maintain any mere creature to be God; or that +all acts of unrighteousness are not forbidden in the Scriptures; or that +God approves of them; or that there is no real difference between moral +good and evil, &c. + +To this disordered state was the public mind reduced, for this +proclamation was only describing what was passing among the people! The +view of this subject embraces more than one point, which I leave for the +meditation of the politician, as well as the religionist. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [277] "The Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons in this Later Age;" by + Samuel Clarke. Folio, 1683. A rare volume, with curious portraits. + + [278] Alexander Ross's laborious "View of all Religions" may also be + consulted with advantage by those who would study this subject. + + [279] "The Hypocrite Discovered and Cured," by Sam. Torshall, 4to. + 1644. + + [280] There is a pamphlet which records a strange fact. "News from + Powles: or the new Reformation of the army, with a true Relation of + a Colt that was foaled in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, in + London, and how it was publiquely baptised, and the name (because a + bald colt) was called Baal-Rex!" 1649. The water they sprinkled from + the soldier's helmet on this occasion is described. The same + occurred elsewhere. See Foulis's History of the Plots, &c., of our + pretended Saints. These men, who baptized horses and pigs in the + name of the Trinity, sang psalms when they marched. One cannot + easily comprehend the nature of fanaticism, except when we learn + that they refused to pay rents! + + [281] That curious compilation by Bruno Ryves, published in 1646, + with the title "Mercurius Rusticus, or the countrie's complaint of + the barbarous outrages committed by the sectaries of this late + flourishing kingdom," furnishes a fearful detail of "sacrileges, + profanations, and plunderings committed in the cathedrall churches." + + [282] The festival of Corpus Christi, held on the first Thursday + after Trinity Sunday, was the period chosen in old times for the + performances of miracle-plays by the clergy, or the guilds of + various towns; for an account of them see vol. i. p. 352-362. + + [283] There is a little "Treatise of Humilitie, published by + E.D.--Parson, sequestered"--1654; in which, while enforcing the + virtue which his book defends, he with much _naivete_ gives a strong + opinion of his oppressors. "We acknowledge the justice and mercy of + the Lord in punishing us, so we take notice of his wisdom in + choosing such instruments to punish us, _men of mean and low rank, + and of common parts and abilities_. By these he doth admonish all + the honourable, valiant, learned, and wise men of this nation; and + as it were write our sin, in the character of our punishment; and in + _the low condition_ of these instruments of his anger and + displeasure, the rod of his wrath, he would abate and punish our + great pride." + + + + +BUCKINGHAM'S POLITICAL COQUETRY WITH THE PURITANS. + + +Buckingham, observes Hume, "in order to fortify himself against the +resentment of James"--on the conduct of the duke in the Spanish match, +when James was latterly hearing every day Buckingham against Bristol, +and Bristol against Buckingham--"had affected popularity, and entered +into the cabals of the puritans; but afterwards, being secure of the +confidence of Charles, he had since abandoned this party; and on that +account was the more exposed to their hatred and resentment." + +The political coquetry of a minister coalescing with an opposition +party, when he was on the point of being disgraced, would doubtless open +an involved scene of intrigue; and what one exacted, and the other was +content to yield, towards the mutual accommodation, might add one more +example to the large chapter of political infirmity. Both workmen +attempting to convert each other into tools, by first trying their +respective malleability on the anvil, are liable to be disconcerted by +even a slight accident, whenever that proves, to perfect conviction, how +little they can depend on each other, and that each party comes to +cheat, and not to be cheated! + +This piece of secret history is in part recoverable from good +authority. The two great actors were the Duke of Buckingham and Dr. +Preston, the master of Emmanual College, and the head of the puritan +party. + +Dr. Preston was an eminent character, who from his youth was not without +ambition. His scholastic learning, the subtilty of his genius, and his +more elegant accomplishments, had attracted the notice of James, at +whose table he was perhaps more than once honoured as a guest; a +suspicion of his puritanic principles was perhaps the only obstacle to +his court preferment; yet Preston unquestionably designed to play a +political part. He retained the favour of James by the king's hope of +withdrawing the doctor from the opposition party, and commanded the +favour of Buckingham by the fears of that minister; when, to employ the +quaint style of Hacket, the duke foresaw that "he might come to be tried +in the furnace of the next sessions of parliament, and he had need to +make the refiners his friends:" most of these "refiners" were the +puritanic or opposition party. Appointed one of the chaplains of Prince +Charles, Dr. Preston had the advantage of being in frequent attendance; +and as Hacket tells us, "this politic man felt the pulse of the court, +and wanted not the intelligence of all dark mysteries through the Scotch +in his highness's bed-chamber." A close communication took place between +the duke and Preston, who, as Hacket describes, was "a good crow to +smell carrion." He obtained an easy admission to the duke's closet at +least thrice a week, and their notable conferences Buckingham appears to +have communicated to his confidential friends. Preston, intent on +carrying all his points, skilfully commenced with the smaller ones. He +winded the duke circuitously,--he worked at him subterraneously. This +wary politician was too sagacious to propose what he had at heart--the +extirpation of the hierarchy! The thunder of James's voice, "No bishop! +no king!" in the conference at Hampton Court, still echoed in the ear of +the puritan. He assured the duke that the love of the people was his +only anchor, which could only be secured by the most popular measures. A +new sort of reformation was easy to execute. Cathedrals and collegiate +churches maintained by vast wealth, and the lands of the chapter, only +fed "fat, lazy, and unprofitable drones." The dissolution of the +foundations of deans and chapters would open an ample source to pay the +king's debts, and scatter the streams of patronage. "You would then +become the darling of the commonwealth;" I give the words as I find +them in Hacket. "If a crumb stick in the throat of any considerable man +that attempts an opposition, it will be easy to wash it down with +manors, woods, royalties, tythes, &c." It would be furnishing the wants +of a number of gentlemen; and he quoted a Greek proverb, "that when a +great oak falls, every neighbour may scuffle for a faggot." + +Dr. Preston was willing to perform the part which Knox had acted in +Scotland! He might have been certain of a party to maintain this +national violation of property; for he who calls out "Plunder!" will +ever find a gang. These acts of national injustice, so much desired by +revolutionists, are never beneficial to the people; they never partake +of the spoliation, and the whole terminates in the gratification of +private rapacity. + +It was not, however, easy to obtain such perpetual access to the +minister, and at the same time escape from the watchful. Archbishop +Williams, the lord keeper, got sufficient hints from the king; and in a +tedious conference with the duke, he wished to convince him that Preston +had only offered him "flitten milk, out of which he should churn +nothing!" The duke was, however, smitten by the new project, and made a +remarkable answer: "You lose yourself in generalities: make it out to +me, in particular, if you can, that the motion you pick at will find +repulse, and be baffled in the House of Commons. I know not how you +bishops may struggle, but I am much deluded if a great part of the +knights and burgesses would not be glad to see this alteration." We are +told on this, that Archbishop Williams took out a list of the members of +the House of Commons, and convinced the minister that an overwhelming +majority would oppose this projected revolution, and that in consequence +the duke gave it up. + +But this anterior decision of the duke may be doubtful, since Preston +still retained the high favour of the minister, after the death of +James. When James died at Theobalds, where Dr. Preston happened to be in +attendance, he had the honour of returning to town in the new king's +coach with the Duke of Buckingham. The doctor's servile adulation of the +minister gave even great offence to the over-zealous puritans. That he +was at length discarded is certain; but this was owing not to any +deficient subserviency on the side of our politician, but to one of +those unlucky circumstances which have often put an end to temporary +political connexions, by enabling one party to discover what the other +thinks of him. + +I draw this curious fact from a manuscript narrative in the handwriting +of the learned William Wotton. When the puritanic party foolishly became +jealous of the man who seemed to be working at root and branch for their +purposes, they addressed a letter to Preston, remonstrating with him for +his servile attachment to the minister; on which he confidently returned +an answer, assuring them that he was as fully convinced of the vileness +and profligacy of the Duke of Buckingham's character as any man could +be, but that there was no way to come at him but by the lowest flattery, +and that it was necessary for the glory of God that such instruments +should be made use of as could be had; and for that reason, and that +alone, he showed that respect to the reigning favourite, and not for any +real honour that he had for him. This letter proved fatal; some +officious hand conveyed it to the duke! When Preston came, as usual, the +duke took his opportunity of asking him what he had ever done to +disoblige him, that he should describe him in such black characters to +his own party? Preston, in amazement, denied the fact, and poured forth +professions of honour and gratitude. The duke showed him his own letter. +Dr. Preston instantaneously felt a political apoplexy; the labours of +some years were lost in a single morning. The baffled politician was +turned out of Wallingford House, never more to see the enraged minister! +And from that moment Buckingham wholly abandoned the puritans, and +cultivated the friendship of Laud. This happened soon after James the +First's death. Wotton adds, "This story I had from one who was extremely +well versed in the secret history of the time."[284] + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [284] Wotton delivered this memorandum to the literary antiquary, + Thomas Baker; and Kennet transcribed it in his Manuscript + Collections. Lansdowne MSS. No. 932-88. The life of Dr. Preston, in + Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary, may be consulted with advantage. + + + + +SIR EDWARD COKE'S EXCEPTIONS AGAINST THE HIGH SHERIFF'S OATH. + + +A curious fact will show the revolutionary nature of human events, and +the necessity of correcting our ancient statutes, which so frequently +hold out punishments and penalties for objects which have long ceased to +be criminal; as well as for persons against whom it would be barbarous +to allow some unrepealed statute to operate. + +When a political stratagem was practised by Charles the First to keep +certain members out of the House of Commons, by pricking them down as +sheriffs in their different counties, among them was the celebrated Sir +Edward Coke, whom the government had made High Sheriff for Bucks. It was +necessary, perhaps, to be a learned and practised lawyer to discover the +means he took, in the height of his resentment, to elude the insult. +This great lawyer, who himself, perhaps, had often administered the oath +to the sheriffs, which had, century after century, been usual for them +to take, to the surprise of all persons drew up Exceptions against the +Sheriff's Oath, declaring that no one could take it. Coke sent his +Exceptions to the attorney-general, who, by an immediate order in +council, submitted them to "all the judges of England." Our legal +luminary had condescended only to some ingenious cavilling in three of +his exceptions; but the fourth was of a nature which could not be +overcome. All the judges of England assented, and declared, that there +was one part of this ancient oath which was perfectly irreligious, and +must ever hereafter be left out! This article was, "That you shall do +all your pain and diligence to destroy and make to cease all manner of +heresies, commonly called _Lollaries_, within your bailiwick, &c."[285] +The Lollards were the most ancient of protestants, and had practised +Luther's sentiments; it was, in fact, condemning the established +religion of the country! An order was issued from Hampton Court, for the +abrogation of this part of the oath; and at present all high sheriffs +owe this obligation to the resentment of Sir Edward Coke, for having +been pricked down as Sheriff of Bucks, to be kept out of parliament! The +merit of having the oath changed, _instanter_, he was allowed; but he +was not excused taking it, after it was accommodated to the +conscientious and lynx-eyed detection of our enraged lawyer. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [285] Rushworth's Historical Collections, vol. i. p. 199. + + + + +SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST AND HIS FIRST PARLIAMENTS. + + +The reign of Charles the First, succeeded by the Commonwealth of +England, forms a period unparalleled by any preceding one in the annals +of mankind. It was for the English nation the great result of all former +attempts to ascertain and to secure the just freedom of the subject. The +prerogative of the sovereign and the rights of the people were often +imagined to be mutual encroachments, and were long involved in +contradiction, in an age of unsettled opinions and disputed principles. +At length the conflicting parties of monarchy and democracy, in the +weakness of their passions, discovered how much each required the other +for its protector. This age offers the finest speculations in human +nature; it opens a protracted scene of glory and of infamy; all that +elevates, and all that humiliates our kind, wrestling together, and +expiring in a career of glorious deeds, of revolting crimes, and even of +ludicrous infirmities! + +The French Revolution is the commentary of the English; and a commentary +at times more important than the text which it elucidates. It has thrown +a freshness over the antiquity of our own history; and, on returning to +it, we seem to possess the feelings, and to be agitated by the +interests, of contemporaries. The circumstances and the persons which so +many imagine had passed away, have been reproduced under our own eyes. +In other histories we accept the knowledge of the characters and the +incidents on the evidence of the historian; but here we may take them +from our own conviction, since to extinct names and to past events we +can apply the reality which we ourselves have witnessed. + +Charles the First had scarcely ascended the throne ere he discovered +that in his new parliament he was married to a sullen bride: the +youthful monarch, with the impatience of a lover, warm with hope and +glory, was ungraciously repulsed even in the first favours! The +prediction of his father remained, like the handwriting on the wall; +but, seated on the throne, Hope was more congenial to youth than +Prophecy. + +As soon as Charles the First could assemble a parliament, he addressed +them with an earnestness, in which the simplicity of words and thoughts +strongly contrasted with the oratorical harangues of the late monarch. +It cannot be alleged against Charles the First, that he preceded the +parliament in the war of words. He courted their affections; and even in +this manner of reception, amidst the dignity of the regal office, +studiously showed his exterior respect by the marked solemnity of their +first meeting. As yet uncrowned, on the day on which he first addressed +the Lords and Commons, he wore his crown, and vailed it at the opening, +and on the close of his speech; a circumstance to which the parliament +had not been accustomed. Another ceremony gave still greater solemnity +to the meeting; the king would not enter into business till they had +united in prayer. He commanded the doors to be closed, and a bishop to +perform the office. The suddenness of this unexpected command +disconcerted the catholic lords, of whom the less rigid knelt, and the +moderate stood: there was one startled papist who did nothing but cross +himself![286] + +The speech may be found in Rushworth; the friendly tone must be shown +here. + + I hope that you do remember that you were pleased to employ me to + advise my father to break off the treaties (with Spain). I came into + this business willingly and freely, like a young man, and + consequently rashly; but it was by your interest--your engagement. I + pray you to remember, that this being my _first action_, and begun by + _your advice and entreaty_, what a great dishonour it were to you and + me that it should fail for that assistance you are able to give me! + +This effusion excited no sympathy in the house. They voted not a seventh +part of the expenditure necessary to proceed with a war, into which, as +a popular measure, they themselves had forced the king. + +At Oxford the king again reminded them that he was engaged in a war +"from their desires and advice." He expresses his disappointment at +their insufficient grant, "far short to set forth the navy now +preparing." The speech preserves the same simplicity. + +Still no echo of kindness responded in the house. It was, however, +asserted, in a vague and quibbling manner, that "though a former +parliament did engage the king in a war, yet, (if things were managed by +a contrary design, and the treasure misemployed) _this parliament is not +bound by another parliament_:" and they added a cruel mockery, "that the +king should help the cause of the Palatinate with _his own_ +_money_!"--this foolish war, which James and Charles had so long borne +their reproaches for having avoided as hopeless, but which the puritanic +party, as well as others, had continually urged as necessary for the +maintenance of the protestant cause in Europe. + +Still no supplies! but protestations of duty, and petitions about +grievances, which it had been difficult to specify. In their +"Declaration" they style his Majesty "Our dear and dread sovereign," and +themselves "his poor Commons:" but they concede no point--they offer no +aid! The king was not yet disposed to quarrel, though he had in vain +pressed for dispatch of business, lest the season should be lost for the +navy; again reminding them, that "it was the _first request_ that he +ever made unto them!" On the pretence of the plague at Oxford, Charles +prorogued parliament, with a promise to reassemble in the winter. + +There were a few whose hearts had still a pulse to vibrate with the +distresses of a youthful monarch, perplexed by a war which they +themselves had raised. But others, of a more republican complexion, +rejected "_Necessity_, as a dangerous counsellor, which would be always +furnishing arguments for supplies. If the king was in danger and +necessity, those ought to answer for it who have put both king and +kingdom into this peril: and if the state of things would not admit a +redress of grievances, there cannot be so much _necessity for money_." + +The first parliament abandoned the king! + +Charles now had no other means to despatch the army and fleet, in a bad +season, but by borrowing money on privy seals: these were letters, where +the loan exacted was as small as the style was humble. They specified, +"that this loan, without inconvenience to any, is only intended for the +service of the public. Such private helps for public services which +cannot be deferred," the king premises, had been often resorted to; but +this "being the _first time_ that we have required anything in this +kind, we require but _that sum which few men would deny a friend_." As +far as I can discover, the highest sum assessed from great personages +was twenty pounds! The king was willing to suffer any mortification, +even that of a charitable solicitation, rather than endure the obdurate +insults of parliament! All donations were received, from ten pounds to +five shillings: this was the mockery of an alms-basket! Yet with +contributions and savings so trivial, and exacted with such a warm +appeal to their feelings, was the king to send out a fleet with ten +thousand men--to take Cadiz! + +This expedition, like so many similar attempts from the days of Charles +the First to those of the great Lord Chatham, and to our own--concluded +in a nullity! Charles, disappointed in this predatory attempt, in +despair called his _second_ parliament--as he says, "in the midst of his +necessities--and to learn from them how he was to frame his course and +counsels." + +The Commons, as duteously as ever, profess that "No king was ever dearer +to his people, and that they really intend to assist his majesty in such +a way as may make him safe at home and feared abroad"--but it was to be +on condition that he would be graciously pleased to accept "the +information and advice of parliament in discovering the causes of the +great evils, and redress their grievances." The king accepted this "as a +satisfactory answer;" but Charles comprehended their drift--"You +specially aim at the Duke of Buckingham; what he hath done to change +your minds I wot not." The style of the king now first betrays angered +feelings; the secret cause of the uncomplying conduct of the Commons was +hatred of the favourite--but the king saw that they designed to control +the executive government, and he could ascribe their antipathy to +Buckingham but to the capriciousness of popular favour; for not long ago +he had heard Buckingham hailed as "their saviour." In the zeal and +firmness of his affections, Charles always considered that he himself +was aimed at in the person of his confidant, his companion, and his +minister! + +Some of "the bold speakers," as the heads of the opposition are +frequently designated in the manuscript letters, have now risen into +notice. Sir John Eliot, Dr. Turner, Sir Dudley Digges, Mr. Clement Coke, +poured themselves forth in a vehement, not to say seditious style, with +invectives more daring than had ever before thundered in the House of +Commons! The king now told them--"I come to show your errors, and, as I +may call it, _unparliamentary proceedings of parliament_." The lord +keeper then assured them, that "when the irregular humours of _some +particular persons_ were settled, the king would hear and answer all +just grievances; but the king would have them also to know that he was +equally jealous to the contempt of his royal rights, which his majesty +would not suffer to be violated by any pretended course of +parliamentary liberty. The king considered the parliament as his +council; but there was a difference between councilling and controlling, +and between liberty and the abuse of liberty." He finished by noticing +their extraordinary proceedings in their impeachment of Buckingham. The +king, resuming his speech, remarkably reproached the parliament-- + + Now that you have all things according to your wishes, and that _I am + so far engaged that you think there is no retreat, now you begin to + set the dice, and make your own game_. But I pray you be not + deceived; it is not a parliamentary way, nor is it a way to deal with + a king. Mr. Clement Coke told you, "It was better to be eaten up by a + foreign enemy than to be destroyed at home!" Indeed, I think it more + honour for a king to be invaded and almost destroyed by a foreign + enemy than to _be despised by his own subjects_. + +The king concluded by asserting his privilege to call or to forbid +parliaments. + +The style of "the bold speakers" appeared at least as early as in April; +I trace their spirit in letters of the times, which furnish facts and +expressions that do not appear in our printed documents. + +Among the earliest of our patriots, and finally the great victim of his +exertions, was Sir John Eliot, vice-admiral of Devonshire. He, in a tone +which "rolled back to Jove his own bolts," and startled even the writer, +who was himself biassed to the popular party, "made a resolute, I doubt +whether a timely, speech." He adds Eliot asserted that "They came not +thither either to do what the king should command them, nor to abstain +when he forbade them; they came to continue constant, and to maintain +their privileges. They would not give their posterity a cause to curse +them for losing their privileges by restraint, which their forefathers +had left them."[287] + +On the 8th of May the impeachment of the duke was opened by Sir Dudley +Digges, who compared the duke to a meteor exhaled out of putrid matter. +He was followed by Glanville, Selden, and others. On this first day the +duke sat out-facing his accusers and out-braving their accusations, +which the more highly exasperated the house.[288] On the following day +the duke was absent, when the epilogue to this mighty piece was +elaborately delivered by Sir John Eliot, with a force of declamation and +a boldness of personal allusion which have not been surpassed in the +invectives of the modern Junius. + +Eliot, after expatiating on the favourite's ambition in procuring and +getting into his hands the greatest offices of strength and power in the +kingdom, and the means by which he had obtained them, drew a picture of +"the inward character of the duke's mind." The duke's plurality of +offices reminded him "of a chimerical beast called by the ancients +_Stellionatus_, so blurred, so spotted, so full of foul lines that they +knew not what to make of it! In setting up himself he hath set upon the +kingdom's revenues, the fountain of supply, and the nerves of the land. +He intercepts, consumes, and exhausts the revenues of the crown; and, by +emptying the veins the blood should run in, he hath cast the kingdom +into a high consumption." He descends to criminate the duke's +magnificent tastes; he who had something of a congenial nature; for +Eliot was a man of fine literature. "Infinite sums of money, and mass of +land exceeding the value of money, contributions in parliament have been +heaped upon him; and how have they been employed? Upon costly furniture, +sumptuous feasting, and magnificent building, _the visible evidence of +the express exhausting of the state_!" + +Eliot eloquently closes-- + + Your lordships have an _idea_ of the man, what he is in himself, what + in his affections! You have seen his power, and some, I fear, have + felt it. You have known his practice, and have heard the effects. + Being such, what is he in reference to king and state; how compatible + or incompatible with either? In reference to the king, he must be + styled the canker in his treasure; in reference to the state the moth + of all goodness. I can hardly find him a parallel; but none were so + like him as Sejanus, who is described by Tacitus, _Audax; sui + obtegens, in alios criminator; juxta adulatio et superbia_. Sejanus's + pride was so excessive, as Tacitus saith, that he neglected all + councils, mixed his business and service with the prince, seeming to + confound their actions, and was often styled _Imperatoris laborum + socius_. Doth not this man the like? Ask England, Scotland, and + Ireland--and they will tell you! How lately and how often hath this + man commixed his actions in discourses with actions of the king's! My + lords! I have done--you see the man! + +The parallel of the duke with Sejanus electrified the house; and, as we +shall see, touched Charles on a convulsive nerve. + +The king's conduct on this speech was the beginning of his troubles, and +the first of his more open attempts to crush the popular party. In the +House of Lords the king defended the duke, and informed them, "I have +thought fit to take order for the _punishing some insolent speeches_ +lately spoken." I find a piece of secret history enclosed in a letter, +with a solemn injunction that it might be burnt. "The king this morning +complained of Sir John Eliot for comparing the duke to _Sejanus_, in +which he said implicitly he must intend _me_ for _Tiberius_!" On that +day the prologue and the epilogue orators--Sir Dudley Digges, who had +opened the impeachment against the duke, and Sir John Eliot, who had +closed it--were called out of the house by two messengers, who showed +their warrants for committing them to the Tower.[289] + +On this memorable day a philosophical politician might have presciently +marked the seed-plots of events, which not many years afterwards were +apparent to all men. The passions of kings are often expatiated on; but, +in the present anti-monarchical period, the passions of parliaments are +not imaginable! The democratic party in our constitution, from the +meanest of motives, from their egotism, their vanity, and their +audacity, hate kings; they would have an abstract being, a chimerical +sovereign on the throne--like a statue, the mere ornament of the place +it fills,--and insensible, like a statue, to the invectives they would +heap on its pedestal! + +The commons, with a fierce spirit of reaction for the king's "punishing +some insolent speeches," at once sent up to the lords for the commitment +of the duke![290] But when they learnt the fate of the patriots, they +instantaneously broke up! In the afternoon they assembled in +Westminster-hall, to interchange their private sentiments on the fate of +the two imprisoned members, in sadness and indignation.[291] + +The following day the commons met in their own house. When the speaker +reminded them of the usual business, they all cried out, "Sit down! sit +down!" They would touch on no business till they were "righted in their +liberties!"[292] An open committee of the whole house was formed, and no +member suffered to quit the house; but either they were at a loss how to +commence this solemn conference, or expressed their indignation by a +sullen silence. To soothe and subdue "the bold speakers" was the +unfortunate attempt of the vice-chamberlain, Sir Dudley Carleton, who +had long been one of our foreign ambassadors; and who, having witnessed +the despotic governments on the continent, imagined that there was no +deficiency of liberty at home. "I find," said the vice-chamberlain, "by +the great silence in this house, that it is a fit time to be heard, if +you will grant me the patience." Alluding to one of the king's messages, +where it was hinted that, if there was "no correspondency between him +and the parliament, he should be forced to _use new counsels_," "I pray +you consider what these new counsels are, and may be: I fear to declare +those I conceive!" However, Sir Dudley plainly hinted at them, when he +went on observing, that "when monarchs began to know their own strength, +and saw the turbulent spirit of their _parliaments_, they had overthrown +them in all Europe, except here only with us." Our old ambassador drew +an amusing picture of the effects of despotic governments, in that of +France--"If you knew the subjects in foreign countries as well as +myself, to see them look, not like our nation, with store of flesh on +their backs, but like so many ghosts and not men, being nothing but skin +and bones, with some thin cover to their nakedness, and wearing only +wooden shoes on their feet, so that they cannot eat meat, or wear good +clothes, but they must pay the king for it; this is a misery beyond +expression, and that which we are yet free from!" A long residence +abroad had deprived Sir Dudley Carleton of any sympathy with the high +tone of freedom, and the proud jealousy of their privileges, which, +though yet unascertained, undefined, and still often contested, was +breaking forth among the commons of England. It was fated that the +celestial spirit of our national freedom should not descend among us in +the form of the mystical dove! + +Hume observes on this speech, that "these imprudent suggestions rather +gave warning than struck terror." It was evident that the event, which +implied "new counsels," meant what subsequently was practised--the king +governing without a parliament! As for "the ghosts who wore wooden +shoes," to which the house was congratulated that they had not _yet_ +been reduced, they would infer that it was the more necessary to provide +against the possibility of such strange apparitions! Hume truly +observes, "The king reaped no further benefit from this attempt than to +exasperate the house still further." Some words, which the duke +persisted in asserting had dropped from Digges, were explained away, +Digges declaring that they had not been used by him; and it seems +probable that he was suffered to eat his words. Eliot was made of +"sterner stuff;" he abated not a jot of whatever he had spoken of "that +man," as he affected to call Buckingham. + +The commons, whatever might be their patriotism, seem at first to have +been chiefly moved by a personal hatred of the favourite;[293] and their +real charges against him amounted to little more than pretences and +aggravations. The king, whose personal affections were always strong, +considered his friend innocent; and there was a warm, romantic feature +in the character of the youthful monarch, which scorned to sacrifice his +faithful companion to his own interests, and to immolate the minister to +the clamours of the commons. Subsequently, when the king did this in the +memorable case of the guiltless Strafford, it was the only circumstance +which weighed on his mind at the hour of his own sacrifice! Sir Robert +Cotton told a friend, on the day on which the king went down to the +house of lords, and committed the two patriots, that "he had of late +been often sent for to the king and duke, and that the king's affection +towards him was very admirable, and no whit lessened. Certainly," he +added, "the king will never yield to the duke's fall, being a young man, +resolute, magnanimous, and tenderly and firmly affectionate where he +takes."[294] This authentic character of Charles the First, by that +intelligent and learned man, to whom the nation owes the treasures of +its antiquities, is remarkable. Sir Robert Cotton, though holding no +rank at court, and in no respect of the duke's party, was often +consulted by the king, and much in his secrets. How the king valued the +judgment of this acute and able adviser, acting on it in direct +contradiction and to the mortification of the favourite, I shall +probably have occasion to show. + +The commons did not decline in the subtle spirit with which they had +begun; they covertly aimed at once to subjugate the sovereign, and to +expel the minister! A remonstrance was prepared against the levying of +tonnage and poundage, which constituted half of the crown revenues; and +a petition, "equivalent to a command," for removing Buckingham from his +majesty's person and councils.[295] The remonstrance is wrought up with +a high spirit of invective against "the unbridled ambition of the duke," +whom they class "among those vipers and pests to their king and +commonwealth, as so expressly styled by your most royal father." They +request that "he would be pleased to remove this person from access to +his sacred presence, and that he would not balance this one man with all +these things, and with the affairs of the Christian world." + +The king hastily dissolved this _second_ parliament; and when the lords +petitioned for its continuance, he warmly and angrily exclaimed, "Not a +moment longer!" It was dissolved in June, 1626. + +The patriots abandoned their sovereign to his fate, and retreated home +sullen, indignant, and ready to conspire among themselves for the +assumption of their disputed or their defrauded liberties. They +industriously dispersed their remonstrance, and the king replied by a +declaration; but an attack is always more vigorous than a defence. The +declaration is spiritless, and evidently composed under suppressed +feelings, which, perhaps, knew not how to shape themselves. The +"Remonstrance" was commanded everywhere to be burnt; and the effect +which it produced on the people we shall shortly witness. + +The king was left amidst the most pressing exigencies. At the +dissolution of the first parliament he had been compelled to practise a +humiliating economy. Hume has alluded to the numerous wants of the young +monarch; but he certainly was not acquainted with the king's extreme +necessities. His coronation seemed rather a private than a public +ceremony. To save the expenses of the procession from the Tower through +the city to Whitehall, that customary pomp was omitted; and the reason +alleged was "to save the charge for more noble undertakings!" that is, +for means to carry on the Spanish war without supplies! But now the most +extraordinary changes appeared at court. The king mortgaged his lands in +Cornwall to the aldermen and companies of London. A rumour spread that +the small pension list must be revoked; and the royal distress was +carried so far, that all the tables at court were laid down, and the +courtiers put on board-wages! I have seen a letter which gives an +account of "the funeral supper at Whitehall, whereat twenty-three tables +were buried, being from henceforth converted to board-wages;" and there +I learn, that "since this dissolving of house-keeping, his majesty is +but slenderly attended." Another writer, who describes himself to be +only a looker-on, regrets, that while the men of the law spent ten +thousand pounds on a single masque, they did not rather make the king +rich; and adds, "I see a rich commonwealth, a rich people, and the crown +poor!" This strange poverty of the court of Charles seems to have +escaped the notice of our general historians. Charles was now to victual +his fleet with the savings of the board-wages! for this "surplusage" was +taken into account! + +The fatal descent on the Isle of Rhe sent home Buckingham discomfited, +and spread dismay through the nation. The best blood had been shed from +the wanton bravery of an unskilful and romantic commander, who, forced +to retreat, would march, but not fly, and was the very last man to quit +the ground which he could not occupy. In the eagerness of his hopes, +Buckingham had once dropped, as I learn, that "before Midsummer he +should be more honoured and beloved by the commons than ever was the +Earl of Essex:" and thus he rocked his own and his master's imagination +in cradling fancies. This volatile hero, who had felt the capriciousness +of popularity, thought that it was as easily regained as it was easily +lost; and that a chivalric adventure would return to him that favour +which at this moment might have been denied to all the wisdom, the +policy, and the arts of an experienced statesman. + +The king was now involved in more intricate and desperate measures; and +the nation was thrown into a state of agitation, of which the page of +popular history yields but a faint impression. + +The spirit of insurrection was stalking forth in the metropolis and in +the country. The scenes which I am about to describe occurred at the +close of 1626: an inattentive reader might easily mistake them for the +revolutionary scenes of 1640. It was an unarmed rebellion. + +An army and a navy had returned unpaid, and sore with defeat. The town +was scoured by mutinous seamen and soldiers, roving even into the palace +of the sovereign. Soldiers without pay form a society without laws. A +band of captains rushed into the duke's apartment as he sat at dinner; +and when reminded by the duke of a late proclamation, forbidding all +soldiers coming to court in troops, on pain of hanging, they replied, +that "Whole companies were ready to be hanged with them! that the king +might do as he pleased with their lives; for that their reputation was +lost, and their honour forfeited, for want of their salary to pay their +debts." When a petition was once presented, and it was inquired who was +the composer of it, a vast body tremendously shouted "All! all!" A +multitude, composed of seamen, met at Tower-hill, and set a lad on a +scaffold, who, with an "O yes!" proclaimed that King Charles had +promised their pay, or the duke had been on the scaffold himself! These, +at least, were grievances more apparent to the sovereign than those +vague ones so perpetually repeated by his unfaithful commons. But what +remained to be done? It was only a choice of difficulties between the +disorder and the remedy. At the moment, the duke got up what he called +"The council of the sea;" was punctual at its first meeting, and +appointed three days in a week to sit--but broke his appointment the +second day--they found him always otherwise engaged; and "the council of +the sea" turned out to be one of those shadowy expedients which only +lasts while it acts on the imagination. It is said that thirty thousand +pounds would have quieted these disorganised troops; but the exchequer +could not supply so mean a sum. Buckingham in despair, and profuse of +life, was planning a fresh expedition for the siege of Rochelle; a new +army was required. He swore, "if there was money in the kingdom it +should be had!" + +Now began that series of contrivances, and artifices, and persecutions +to levy money. Forced loans, or pretended free-gifts, kindled a +resisting spirit. It was urged by the court party, that the sums +required were, in fact, much less in amount than the usual grants of +subsidies; but the cry, in return for "a subsidy," was always "a +Parliament!" Many were heavily fined for declaring that "they knew no +law, besides that of Parliament, to compel men to give away their own +goods." The king ordered that those who would not subscribe to the loans +should not be forced; but it seems there were orders in council to +specify those householders' names who would not subscribe; and it +further appears that those who would not pay in purse should in person. +Those who were pressed were sent to the _depot_; but either the soldiers +would not receive these good citizens, or they found easy means to +return. Every mode which the government invented seems to have been +easily frustrated, either by the intrepidity of the parties themselves, +or by that general understanding which enabled the people to play into +one another's hands. When the common council had consented that an +imposition should be laid, the citizens called the Guildhall the +_Yield-all_! And whenever they levied a distress, in consequence of a +refusal to pay it, nothing was to be found but "Old ends, such as nobody +cared for." Or if a severer officer seized on commodities, it was in +vain to offer pennyworths where no customer was to be had. A wealthy +merchant, who had formerly been a cheesemonger, was summoned to appear +before the privy council, and required to lend the king two hundred +pounds, or else to go himself to the army, and serve it with cheese. It +was not supposed that a merchant, so aged and wealthy, would submit to +resume his former mean trade; but the old man, in the spirit of the +times, preferred the hard alternative, and balked the new project of +finance, by shipping himself with his cheese. At Hicks's Hall the duke +and the Earl of Dorset sat to receive the loans; but the duke +threatened, and the earl affected to treat with levity, men who came +before them with all the suppressed feelings of popular indignation. The +Earl of Dorset asking a fellow who pleaded inability to lend money, of +what trade he was, and being answered "a tailor," said: "Put down your +name for such a sum; one snip will make amends for all!" The tailor +quoted scripture abundantly, and shook the bench with laughter or with +rage by his anathemas, till he was put fast into a messenger's hands. +This was one Ball, renowned through the parish of St. Clement's; and +not only a tailor, but a prophet. Twenty years after, tailors and +prophets employed messengers themselves![296] + +These are instances drawn from the inferior classes of society; but the +same spirit actuated the country gentlemen: one instance represents +many. George Gatesby, of Northamptonshire, being committed to prison as +a loan-recusant, alleged, among other reasons for his non-compliance, +that "he considered that this loan might become a precedent; and that +every precedent, he was told by the lord president, was a flower of the +prerogative." The lord president told him that "he lied!" Gatesby shook +his head, observing, "I come not here to contend with your lordship, but +to suffer!" Lord Suffolk then interposing, entreated the lord president +would not too far urge his kinsman, Mr. Gatesby. This country gentleman +waived any kindness he might owe to kindred, declaring, that "he would +remain master of his own purse." The prisons were crowded with these +loan-recusants, as well as with those who had sinned in the freedom of +their opinions. The country gentlemen insured their popularity by their +committals; and many stout resistors of the loans were returned in the +following parliament against their own wishes.[297] The friends of these +knights and country gentlemen flocked to their prisons; and when they +petitioned for more liberty and air during the summer, it was policy to +grant their request. But it was also policy that they should not reside +in their own counties: this relaxation was only granted to those who, +living in the south, consented to sojourn in the north; while the +dwellers in the north were to be lodged in the south! + +In the country the disturbed scenes assumed even a more alarming +appearance than in London. They not only would not provide money, but +when money was offered by government, the men refused to serve; a +conscription was not then known: and it became a question, long debated +in the privy council, whether those who would not accept press-money +should not be tried by martial law. I preserve in the note a curious +piece of secret information.[298] The great novelty and symptom of the +times was the scattering of letters. Sealed letters, addressed to the +leading men of the country, were found hanging on bushes; anonymous +letters were dropped in shops and streets, which gave notice that the +day was fast approaching when "Such a work was to be wrought in England +as never was the like, which will be for our good." Addresses multiplied +"To all true-hearted Englishmen!" A groom detected in spreading such +seditious papers, and brought into the inexorable Star-chamber, was +fined three thousand pounds! The leniency of the punishment was rather +regretted by two bishops; if it was ever carried into execution, the +unhappy man must have remained a groom who never after crossed a horse! + +There is one difficult duty of an historian, which is too often passed +over by the party-writer; it is to pause whenever he feels himself +warming with the passions of the multitude, or becoming the blind +apologist of arbitrary power. An historian must transform himself into +the characters which he is representing, and throw himself back into the +times which he is opening; possessing himself of their feelings and +tracing their actions, he may then at least hope to discover truths +which may equally interest the honourable men of all parties. + +This reflection has occurred from the very difficulty into which I am +now brought. Shall we at once condemn the king for these arbitrary +measures? It is, however, very possible that they were never in his +contemplation! Involved in inextricable difficulties, according to his +feelings, he was betrayed by parliament; and he scorned to barter their +favour by that vulgar traffic of treachery--the immolation of the single +victim who had long attached his personal affections; a man at least as +much envied as hated! that hard lesson had not yet been inculcated on a +British sovereign, that his bosom must be a blank for all private +affection; and had that lesson been taught, the character of Charles was +destitute of all aptitude for it. To reign without a refractory +parliament, and to find among the people themselves subjects more loyal +than their representatives, was an experiment--and a fatal one! Under +Charles, the liberty of the subject, when the necessities of the state +pressed on the sovereign, was matter of discussion, disputed as often as +assumed; the divines were proclaiming as rebellious those who refused +their contributions to aid the government;[299] and the law-sages +alleged precedents for raising supplies in the manner which Charles had +adopted. Selden, whose learned industry was as vast as the amplitude of +his mind, had to seek for the freedom of the subject in the dust of the +records of the Tower--and the omnipotence of parliaments, if any human +assembly may be invested with such supernatural greatness, had not yet +awakened the hoar antiquity of popular liberty. + +A general spirit of insurrection, rather than insurrection itself, had +suddenly raised some strange appearances through the kingdom. "The +remonstrance" of parliament had unquestionably quickened the feelings of +the people; but yet the lovers of peace and the reverencers of royalty +were not a few; money and men were procured to send out the army and the +fleet. More concealed causes may be suspected to have been at work. Many +of the heads of the opposition were pursuing some secret machinations; +about this time I find many mysterious stories--indications of secret +societies--and other evidences of the intrigues of the popular party. + +Little matters, sometimes more important than they appear, are suitable +to our minute sort of history. In November, 1626, a rumour spread that +the king was to be visited by an ambassador from "the President of the +Society of the Rosycross." He was indeed an heteroclite ambassador, for +he is described "as a youth with never a hair on his face;" in fact, a +child who was to conceal the mysterious personage which he was for a +moment to represent. He appointed Sunday afternoon to come to court, +attended by thirteen coaches. He was to proffer to his majesty, provided +the king accepted his advice, three millions to put into his coffers; +and by his secret councils he was to unfold matters of moment and +secrecy. A Latin letter was delivered to "David Ramsey of the clock," to +hand over to the king: a copy of it has been preserved in a letter of +the times; but it is so unmeaning, that it could have had no effect on +the king, who, however, declared that he would not admit him to an +audience, and that if he could tell where "the President of the +Rosycross" was to be found, unless he made good his offer, he would hang +him at the court-gates. This served the town and country for talk till +the appointed Sunday had passed over, and no ambassador was visible! +Some considered this as the plotting of crazy brains, but others +imagined it to be an attempt to speak with the king in private, on +matters respecting the duke. + +There was also discovered, by letters received from Rome, "a whole +parliament of Jesuits sitting" in "a fair-hanged vault" in +Clerkenwell.[300] Sir John Cooke would have alarmed the parliament, that +on St. Joseph's day these were to have occupied their places; ministers +are supposed sometimes to have conspirators for "the nonce;" Sir Dudley +Digges, in the opposition, as usual, would not believe in any such +political necromancers; but such a party were discovered; Cooke would +have insinuated that the French ambassador had persuaded Louis that the +divisions between Charles and his people had been raised by his +ingenuity, and was rewarded for the intelligence; this is not unlikely. +After all, the parliament of Jesuits might have been a secret college of +the order; for, among other things seized on, was a considerable +library. + +When the parliament was sitting, a sealed letter was thrown under the +door, with this superscription, _Cursed be the man that finds this +letter, and delivers it not to the House of Commons_. The +Serjeant-at-Arms delivered it to the Speaker, who would not open it till +the house had chosen a committee of twelve members to inform them +whether it was fit to be read. Sir Edward Coke, after having read two or +three lines, stopped, and according to my authority, "durst read no +further, but immediately sealing it, the committee thought fit to send +it to the king, who they say, on reading it through, cast it into the +fire, and sent the House of Commons thanks for their wisdom in not +publishing it, and for the discretion of the committee in so far +tendering his honour, as not to read it out, when they once perceived +that it touched his majesty."[301] + +Others, besides the freedom of speech, introduced another form, "A +speech without doors," which was distributed to the members of the +house. It is in all respects a remarkable one, occupying ten folio pages +in the first volume of Rushworth. + +Some in office appear to have employed extraordinary proceedings of a +similar nature. An intercepted letter written from the archduchess to +the King of Spain, was delivered by Sir H. Martyn at the council-board +on New Year's-day, who found in it some papers relating to the navy. The +duke immediately said he would show it to the king; and, accompanied by +several lords, went into his majesty's closet. The letter was written in +French; it advised the Spanish court to make a sudden war with England, +for several reasons; his majesty's want of skill to govern of himself; +the weakness of his council in not daring to acquaint him with the +truth; want of money; disunion of the subjects' hearts from their +prince, &c. The king only observed, that the writer forgot that the +archduchess writes to the King of Spain in Spanish, and sends her +letters overland. + +I have to add an important fact. I find certain evidence that the heads +of the opposition were busily active in thwarting the measures of +government. Dr. Samuel Turner, the member for Shrewsbury, called on Sir +John Cage, and desired to speak to him privately; his errand was to +entreat him to resist the loan, and to use his power with others to +obtain this purpose. The following information comes from Sir John Cage +himself. Dr. Turner "being desired to stay, he would not a minute, but +instantly took horse, saying he had more places to go to, and time +pressed; _that there was a company of them had divided themselves into +all parts, every one having had a quarter assigned to him, to perform +this service for the commonwealth_." This was written in November, 1626. +This unquestionably amounts to a secret confederacy watching out of +parliament as well as in; and those strange appearances of popular +defection exhibited in the country, which I have described, were in +great part the consequences of the machinations and active intrigues of +the popular party.[302] + +The king was not disposed to try a _third_ parliament. The favourite, +perhaps to regain that popular favour which his greatness had lost him, +is said in private letters to have been twice on his knees to intercede +for a new one. The elections, however, foreboded no good; and a +letter-writer connected with the court, in giving an account of them, +prophetically declared, "we are without question undone!" + +The king's speech opens with the spirit which he himself felt, but which +he could not communicate:-- + + "The times are for action: wherefore, for example's sake, I mean not + to spend much time in words! If you, which God forbid, should not do + your duties in contributing what the state at this time needs, I + must, in discharge of my conscience, _use those other means_ which + God hath put into my hands, to save that, which the follies of some + particular men may otherwise hazard to lose." He added, with the + loftiness of ideal majesty--"Take not this as a threatening, for I + scorn to threaten any but my equals; but as an admonition from him, + that, both out of nature and duty, hath most care of your + preservations and prosperities:" and in a more friendly tone he + requested them "To remember a thing to the end that we may forget it. + You may imagine that I come here with a doubt of success, remembering + the distractions of the last meeting; but I assure you that I shall + very easily forget and forgive what is past." + +A most crowded house now met, composed of the wealthiest men; for a +lord, who probably considered that property was the true balance of +power, estimated that they were able to buy the upper-house, his majesty +only excepted! The aristocracy of wealth had already begun to be felt. +Some ill omens of the parliament appeared. Sir Robert Philips moved for +a general fast: "we had one for the plague which it pleased God to +deliver us from, and we have now so many plagues of the commonwealth +about his majesty's person, that we have need of such, an act of +humiliation." Sir Edward Coke held it most necessary, "because there +are, I fear, some devils that will not be cast out but by fasting and +prayer." + +Many of the speeches in "this great council of the kingdom" are as +admirable pieces of composition as exist in the language. Even the +court-party were moderate, extenuating rather than pleading for the late +necessities. But the evil spirit of party, however veiled, was walking +amidst them all: a letter-writer represents the natural state of +feelings: "Some of the parliament talk desperately; while others, of as +high a course to enforce money if they yield not!" Such is the perpetual +action and reaction of public opinion; when one side will give too +little, the other is sure to desire too much! + +The parliament granted subsidies.--Sir John Cooke having brought up the +report to the king, Charles expressed great satisfaction, and declared +that he felt now more happy than any of his predecessors. Inquiring of +Sir John by how many voices he had carried it? Cooke replied, "But by +one!"--at which his majesty seemed appalled, and asked how many were +against him? Cooke answered, "None! the unanimity of the House made all +but _one voice_!" at which his majesty wept![303] If Charles shed tears, +or as Cooke himself expresses it, in his report to the House, "was much +affected," the emotion was profound: for on all sudden emergencies +Charles displayed an almost unparalleled command over the exterior +violence of his feelings. + +The favourite himself sympathised with the tender joy of his royal +master; and, before the king, voluntarily offered himself as a +peace-sacrifice. In his speech at the council-table, he entreats the +king that he, who had the honour to be his majesty's favourite, might +now give up that title to them.--A warm genuine feeling probably +prompted these words:-- + + "To open my heart, please to pardon me a word more; I must confess I + have long lived in pain, sleep hath given me no rest, favours and + fortune no content; such have been my secret sorrows, to be thought + the man of separation, and that divided the king from his people, and + them from him; but I hope it shall appear they were some mistaken + minds that would have made me the evil spirit that walketh between a + good master and a loyal people."[304] + +Buckingham added, that for the good of his country he was willing to +sacrifice his honours; and since his plurality of offices had been so +strongly excepted against,[305] that he was content to give up the +Master of the Horse to Marquess Hamilton, and the Warden of the Cinque +Ports to the Earl of Carlisle; and was willing that the parliament +should appoint another admiral for all services at sea. + +It is as certain as human evidence can authenticate, that on the king's +side all was grateful affection; and that on Buckingham's there was a +most earnest desire to win the favours of parliament; and what are +stronger than all human evidence, those unerring principles in human +nature itself, which are the secret springs of the heart, were working +in the breasts of the king and his minister; for neither were +tyrannical. The king undoubtedly sighed to meet parliament with the love +which he had at first professed; he declared that "he should now rejoice +to meet with his people often." Charles had no innate tyranny in his +constitutional character; and Buckingham at times was susceptible of +misery amidst his greatness, as I have elsewhere shown.[306] It could +not have been imagined that the luckless favourite, on the present +occasion, should have served as a pretext to set again in motion the +chaos of evil! Can any candid mind suppose that the king or the duke +meditated the slightest insult on the patriotic party, or would in the +least have disturbed the apparent reconciliation! Yet it so happened! +Secretary Cooke, at the close of his report of the king's acceptance of +the subsidies, mentioned that the duke had fervently beseeched the king +to grant the house all their desires! Perhaps the mention of the duke's +name was designed to ingratiate him into their toleration. + +Sir John Eliot caught fire at the very name of the duke, and vehemently +checked the secretary for having dared to introduce it; declaring, that +"they knew of no other distinction but of king and subjects. By +intermingling a subject's speech with the king's message, he seemed to +derogate from the honour and majesty of a king. Nor would it become any +subject to bear himself in such a fashion, as if no grace ought to +descend from the king to the people, nor any loyalty ascend from the +people to the king, but through him only." + +This speech was received by many with acclamations; some cried out, +"Well spoken, Sir John Eliot!"[307] It marks the heated state of the +political atmosphere, where even the lightest coruscation of a hated +name made it burst into flames! + +I have often suspected that Sir John Eliot, by his vehement personality, +must have borne a personal antipathy to Buckingham. I have never been +enabled to ascertain the fact; but I find that he has left in manuscript +a collection of satires, or Verses, being chiefly invectives against the +Duke of Buckingham, to whom he bore a bitter and most inveterate enmity. +Could we sometimes discover the motives of those who first head +political revolutions, we should find how greatly personal hatreds have +actuated them in deeds which have come down to us in the form of +patriotism, and how often the revolutionary spirit disguises its private +passions by its public conduct.[308] + +But the supplies, which had raised tears from the fervent gratitude of +Charles, though voted, were yet withheld. They resolved that grievances +and supplies go hand in hand. The commons entered deeply into +constitutional points of the highest magnitude. The curious erudition of +Selden and Coke was combined with the ardour of patriots who merit no +inferior celebrity, though not having consecrated their names by their +laborious literature, we only discover them in the obscure annals of +parliament. To our history, composed by writers of different principles, +I refer the reader for the arguments of lawyers, and the spirit of the +commons. My secret history is only its supplement. + +The king's prerogative, and the subject's liberty, were points hard to +distinguish, and were established but by contest. Sometimes the king +imagined that "the house pressed not upon the abuses of power, but only +upon power itself." Sometimes the commons doubted whether they had +anything of their own to give; while their property and their persons +seemed equally insecure. Despotism seemed to stand on one side, and +Faction on the other--Liberty trembled! + +The conference of the commons before the lords, on the freedom and +person of the subject, was admirably conducted by Selden and by Coke. +When the king's attorney affected to slight the learned arguments and +precedents, pretending to consider them as mutilated out of the records, +and as proving rather against the commons than for them, Sir Edward Coke +rose, affirming to the house, upon his skill in the law, that "it lay +not under Mr. Attorney's cap to answer any one of their arguments." +Selden declared that he had written out all the records from the Tower, +the Exchequer, and the King's Bench, with his own hand; and "would +engage his head, Mr. Attorney should not find in all these archives a +single precedent omitted." Mr. Littleton said, that he had examined +every one _syllabatim_, and whoever said they were mutilated spoke +false! Of so ambiguous and delicate a nature was then the liberty of the +subject, that it seems they considered it to depend on precedents! + +A startling message, on the 12th of April, was sent by the king for +despatch of business. The house, struck with astonishment, desired to +have it repeated. They remained sad and silent. No one cared to open +the debate. A whimsical politician, Sir Francis Nethersole,[309] +suddenly started up, entreating leave to tell his last night's dream. +Some laughing at him, he observed, that "kingdoms had been saved by +dreams!" Allowed to proceed, he said, "he saw two good pastures; a flock +of sheep was in the one, and a bell-wether alone in the other; a great +ditch was between them, and a narrow bridge over the ditch." + +He was interrupted by the Speaker, who told him that it stood not with +the gravity of the house to listen to dreams; but the house was inclined +to hear him out. + +"The sheep would sometimes go over to the bell-wether, or the +bell-wether to the sheep. Once both met on the narrow bridge, and the +question was who should go back, since both could not go on without +danger. One sheep gave counsel that the sheep on the bridge should lie +on their bellies, and let the bell-wether go over their backs. The +application of this dilemma he left to the house."[310] It must be +confessed that the bearing of the point was more ambiguous than some of +the important ones that formed the matters of their debates. _Davus sum, +non Oedipus!_ It is probable that this fantastical politician did not +vote with the opposition; for Eliot, Wentworth, and Coke, protested +against the interpretation of dreams in the house! + +When the attorney-general moved that the liberties of the subject might +be moderated, to reconcile the differences between themselves and the +sovereign, Sir Edward Coke observed, that "the true mother would never +consent to the dividing of her child." On this, Buckingham swore that +Coke intimated that the king, his master, was the prostitute of the +state. Coke protested against the misinterpretation. The dream of +Nethersole, and the metaphor of Coke, were alike dangerous in +parliamentary discussion. + +In a manuscript letter it is said that the House of Commons sat four +days without speaking or doing anything. On the first of May, Secretary +Cooke delivered a message, asking whether they would rely upon the +_king's word_? This question was followed by a long silence. Several +speeches are reported in the letters of the times, which are not in +Rushworth. Sir Nathaniel Rich observed that, "confident as he was of the +royal word, what did any indefinite word ascertain?" Pym said, "We have +his majesty's coronation oath to maintain the laws of England; what need +we then take his word?" He proposed to move "Whether we should take the +king's word or no." This was resisted by Secretary Cooke; "What would +they say in foreign parts, if the people of England would not trust +their king?" He desired the house to call Pym to order; on which Pym +replied, "Truly, Mr. Speaker, I am just of the same opinion I was; viz., +that the king's oath was as powerful as his word." Sir John Eliot moved +that it be put to the question, "because they that would have it, do +urge us to that point." Sir Edward Coke on this occasion made a +memorable speech, of which the following passage is not given in +Rushworth:-- + + "We sit now in parliament, and therefore must take his _majesty's + word no otherwise than in a parliamentary way_; that is, of a matter + agreed on by both houses--his majesty sitting on his throne in his + robes, with his crown on his head, and sceptre in his hand, and in + full parliament; and his royal assent being entered upon record, _in + perpetuam rei memoriam_. This was _the royal word of a king in + parliament_, and not a word delivered in a chamber, and out of the + mouth of a secretary at the second hand; therefore I motion, that the + House of Commons, _more majorum_, should draw up a petition, _de + droict_, to his majesty; which, being confirmed by both houses, and + assented unto by his majesty, will be as firm an act as any. Not that + I distrust the king, but that I cannot take his trust but in a + parliamentary way."[311] + +In this speech of Sir Edward Coke we find the first mention, in the +legal style, of the ever-memorable "Petition of Right," which two days +after was finished. The reader must pursue its history among the writers +of opposite parties. + +On Tuesday, June 5, a royal message announced that on the 11th the +present sessions would close. This utterly disconcerted the commons. +Religious men considered it as a judicial visitation for the sins of the +people; others raged with suppressed feelings; they counted up all the +disasters which had of late occurred, all which were charged to one man: +they knew not, at a moment so urgent, when all their liberties seemed +at stake, whether the commons should fly to the lords, or to the king. +Sir John Eliot said, that as they intended to furnish his majesty with +money, it was proper that he should give them time to supply him with +counsel: he was renewing his old attacks on the duke, when he was +suddenly interrupted by the Speaker, who, starting from the chair, +declared that he was commanded not to suffer him to proceed; Eliot sat +down in sullen silence. On Wednesday, Sir Edward Coke broke the ice of +debate. "That man," said he of the duke, "is the grievance of +grievances! As for going to the lords," he added, "that is not _via +regia_; our liberties are impeached--it is our concern!" + +On Thursday, the vehement cry of Coke against Buckingham was followed +up; as, says a letter-writer, when one good hound recovers the scent, +the rest come in with a full cry.[312] A sudden message from the king +absolutely forbade them to asperse any of his majesty's ministers, +otherwise his majesty would instantly dissolve them. + +This fell like a thunderbolt; it struck terror and alarm; and at the +instant the House of Commons was changed into a scene of tragical +melancholy! All the opposite passions of human nature--all the national +evils which were one day to burst on the country seemed, on a sudden, +concentrated in this single spot! Some were seen weeping, some were +expostulating, and some, in awful prophecy, were contemplating the +future ruin of the kingdom; while others, of more ardent daring, were +reproaching the timid, quieting the terrified, and infusing resolution +into the despairing. Many attempted to speak, but were so strongly +affected that their very utterance failed them. The venerable Coke, +overcome by his feelings when he rose to speak, found his learned +eloquence falter on his tongue; he sat down, and tears were seen on his +aged cheeks. The name of the public enemy of the kingdom was repeated, +till the Speaker, with tears covering his face, declared he could no +longer witness such a spectacle of woe in the commons of England, and +requested leave of absence for half an hour. The speaker hastened to the +king to inform him of the state of the house. They were preparing a vote +against the duke, for being an arch-traitor and arch-enemy to king and +kingdom, and were busied on their "Remonstrance," when the Speaker, on +his return, after an absence of two hours, delivered his majesty's +message, that they should adjourn till the next day. + +This was an awful interval of time; many trembled for the issue of the +next morning: one letter-writer calls it "that black and doleful +Thursday!" and another, writing before the house met, observes, "What we +shall expect this morning, God of heaven knows; we shall meet +timely."[313] + +Charles probably had been greatly affected by the report of the Speaker, +on the extraordinary state into which the whole house had been thrown; +for on Friday the royal message imported that the king had never any +intention of "barring them from their right, but only to avoid scandal, +that his ministers should not be accused for their counsel to him; and +still he hoped that all Christendom might notice a sweet parting between +him and his people." This message quieted the house, but did not suspend +their preparations for a "Remonstrance," which they had begun on the day +they were threatened with a dissolution. + +On Saturday, while they were still occupied on the "Remonstrance," +unexpectedly, at four o'clock, the king came to parliament, and the +commons were called up. Charles spontaneously came to reconcile himself +to parliament. The king now gave his second answer to the "Petition of +Right." He said--"My maxim is, that the people's liberties strengthen +the king's prerogative; and the king's prerogative is to defend the +people's liberties. Read your petition, and you shall have an answer +that I am sure will please you."[314] They desired to have the ancient +form of their ancestors, "Soit droit fait come il est desyre," and not +as the king had before given it, with any observation on it. Charles now +granted this; declaring that his second answer to the petition in nowise +differed from his first; "but you now see how ready I have shown myself +to satisfy your demands; I have done my part; wherefore, if this +parliament have not a happy conclusion, the sin is yours,--I am free +from it!" + +Popular gratitude is at least as vociferous as it is sudden. Both houses +returned the king acclamations of joy; everyone seemed to exult at the +happy change which a few days had effected in the fate of the kingdom. +Everywhere the bells rung, bonfires were kindled, an universal holiday +was kept through the town, and spread to the country: but an ominous +circumstance has been registered by a letter-writer; the common people, +who had caught the contagious happiness, imagined that all this public +joy was occasioned by the king's consenting to commit the duke to the +Tower! + +Charles has been censured, even by Hume, for his "evasions and delays" +in granting his assent to the "Petition of Right;" but now, either the +parliament had conquered the royal unwillingness, or the king was +zealously inclined on reconciliation. Yet the joy of the commons did not +outlast the bonfires in the streets; they resumed their debates as if +they had never before touched on the subjects: they did not account for +the feelings of the man whom they addressed as the sovereign. They sent +up a "Remonstrance" against the duke,[315] and introduced his mother +into it, as a patroness of popery. Charles declared, that after having +granted the famous "Petition," he had not expected such a return as this +"Remonstrance." "How acceptable it is," he afterwards said, "every man +may judge; no wise man can justify it." After the reading of the +Remonstrance, the duke fell on his knees, desiring to answer for +himself; but Charles no way relaxed in showing his personal favour.[316] + +The duke was often charged with actions and with expressions of which, +unquestionably, he was not always guilty; and we can more fairly decide +on some points relating to Charles and the favourite, for we have a +clearer notion of them than his contemporaries. The active spirits in +the commons were resolved to hunt down the game to the death: for they +now struck at, as the king calls it, "one of the chief maintenances of +my crown," in tonnage and poundage, the levying of which, they now +declared, was a violation of the liberties of the people. This subject +again involved legal discussions, and another "Remonstrance." They were +in the act of reading it, when the king suddenly came down to the +house, sent for the Speaker, and prorogued the parliament. "I am forced +to end this session," said Charles, "some few hours before I meant, +being not willing to receive any more Remonstrances, to which I must +give a harsh answer." There was at least as much of sorrow as of anger +in this closing speech. + +Buckingham once more was to offer his life for the honour of his +master--and to court popularity! It is well known with what exterior +fortitude Charles received the news of the duke's assassination; this +imperturbable majesty of his mind--insensibility it was not--never +deserted him on many similar occasions. There was no indecision--no +feebleness in his conduct; and that extraordinary event was not suffered +to delay the expedition. The king's personal industry astonished all the +men in office. One writes that the king had done more in six weeks than +in the duke's time had been done in six months. The death of Buckingham +caused no change; the king left every man to his own charge, but took +the general direction into his own hands.[317] In private, Charles +deeply mourned the loss of Buckingham; he gave no encouragement to his +enemies: the king called him "his martyr," and declared "the world was +greatly mistaken in him; for it was thought that the favourite had ruled +his majesty, but it was far otherwise; for that the duke had been to him +a faithful and an obedient servant."[318] Such were the feelings and +ideas of the unfortunate Charles the First, which it is necessary to +become acquainted with to judge of; few have possessed the leisure or +the disposition to perform this historical duty, involved as it is in +the history of our passions. If ever the man shall be viewed, as well as +the monarch, the private history of Charles the First will form one of +the most pathetic of biographies.[319] + +All the foreign expeditions of Charles the First were alike disastrous: +the vast genius of Richelieu, at its meridian, had paled our ineffectual +star! The dreadful surrender of Rochelle had sent back our army and navy +baffled and disgraced; and Buckingham had timely perished, to save one +more reproach, one more political crime, attached to his name. Such +failures did not improve the temper of the times; but the most brilliant +victory would not have changed the fate of Charles, nor allayed the +fiery spirits in the commons, who, as Charles said, "not satisfied in +hearing complainers, had erected themselves into inquisitors after +complaints." + +Parliament met. The king's speech was conciliatory. He acknowledged that +the exaction of the duties of the customs was not a right which he +derived from his hereditary prerogative, but one which he enjoyed as the +gift of his people. These duties as yet had not indeed been formally +confirmed by parliament, but they had never been refused to the +sovereign. The king closed with a fervent ejaculation that the session, +begun with confidence, might end with a mutual good understanding.[320] + +The shade of Buckingham was no longer cast between Charles the First and +the commons. And yet we find that "their dread and dear sovereign" was +not allowed any repose on the throne. + +A new demon of national discord, Religion, in a metaphysical garb, +reared its distracted head. This evil spirit had been raised by the +conduct of the court divines, whose political sermons, with their +attempts to return to the more solemn ceremonies of the Romish church, +alarmed some tender consciences; it served as a masked battery for the +patriotic party to change their ground at will, without slackening their +fire. When the king urged for the duties of his customs, he found that +he was addressing a committee sitting for religion. Sir John Eliot threw +out a singular expression. Alluding to some of the bishops, whom he +called "masters of ceremonies," he confessed that some ceremonies were +commendable, such as "that we should stand up at the repetition of the +creed, to testify the resolution of our hearts to defend the religion we +profess, and in some churches they did not only stand upright, but _with +their swords drawn_." His speech was a spark that fell into a well-laid +train; scarcely can we conceive the enthusiastic temper of the House of +Commons at that moment, when, after some debate, they entered into _a +vow_ to preserve "the articles of religion established by parliament in +the _thirteenth year of our late Queen Elizabeth_!" and this _vow_ was +immediately followed up by a petition to the king for _a fast_ for the +increasing miseries of the reformed churches abroad. Parliaments are +liable to have their passions! Some of these enthusiasts were struck by +a panic, not perhaps warranted by the danger, of "Jesuits and +Armenians." The king answered them in good-humour; observing, however, +on the state of the reformed abroad; "that fighting would do them more +good than fasting." He granted them their fast, but they would now grant +no return; for now they presented "a Declaration" to the king, that +tonnage and poundage must give precedency to religion! The king's answer +still betrays no ill temper. He confessed that he did not think that +"religion was in so much danger as they affirmed." He reminds them of +tonnage and poundage; "I do not so much desire it out of greediness of +the thing, as out of a desire to put an end to those questions that +arise between me and some of my subjects." + +Never had the king been more moderate in his claims, or more tender in +his style; and never had the commons been more fierce, and never, in +truth, so utterly inexorable! Often kings are tyrannical, and sometimes +are parliaments! A body corporate, with the infection of passion, may +perform acts of injustice equally with the individual who abuses the +power with which he is invested. It was insisted that Charles should +give up the receivers of the customs, who were denounced as capital +enemies to the king and kingdom; while those who submitted to the duties +were declared guilty as accessories. When Sir John Eliot was pouring +forth invectives against some courtiers--however they may have merited +the blast of his eloquence--he was sometimes interrupted and sometimes +cheered, for the stinging personalities. The timid Speaker, refusing to +put the question, suffered a severe reprimand from Selden: "If you will +not put it, we must sit still, and thus we shall never be able to do +anything!" The house adjourned in great heat; the dark prognostic of +their next meeting, which Sir Symonds D'Ewes has remarked in his Diary +as "the most gloomy, sad, and dismal day for England that happened for +five hundred years!" + +On this fatal day,[321] the Speaker still refusing to put the question, +and announcing the king's command for an adjournment, Sir John Eliot +stood up! The Speaker attempted to leave the chair, but two members, +who had placed themselves on each side, forcibly kept him down--Eliot, +who had prepared "a short declaration," flung down a paper on the floor, +crying out that it might be read! His party vociferated for the +reading--others that it should not. A sudden tumult broke out; Coriton, +a fervent patriot, struck another member, and many laid their hands on +their swords.[322] "Shall we," said one, "be sent home as we were last +sessions, turned off like scattered sheep?" The weeping, trembling +Speaker, still persisting in what he held to be his duty, was dragged to +and fro by opposite parties; but neither he nor the clerk would read the +paper, though the Speaker was bitterly reproached by his kinsman, Sir +Peter Hayman, "as the disgrace of his country, and a blot to a noble +family." Eliot, finding the house so strongly divided, undauntedly +snatching up the paper, said, "I shall then express that by my tongue +which this paper should have done." Denzil Holles assumed the character +of Speaker, putting the question: it was returned by the acclamations of +the party. The doors were locked and the keys laid on the table. The +king sent for the serjeant and mace, but the messenger could obtain no +admittance--the usher of the black rod met no more regard. The king then +ordered out his guard--in the meanwhile the protest was completed. The +door was flung open, the rush of the members was so impetuous that the +crowd carried away among them the serjeant and the usher in the +confusion and riot. Many of the members were struck by horror amidst +this conflict, it was a sad image of the future! Several of the patriots +were committed to the Tower. The king on dissolving this parliament, +which was the last till the memorable "Long Parliament," gives us, at +least, his idea of it:--"It is far from me to judge all the House alike +guilty, for there are there as dutiful subjects as any in the world; it +being but some few vipers among them that did cast this mist of +undutifulness over most of their eyes."[323] + +Thus have I traced, step by step, the secret history of Charles the +First and his early Parliaments. I have entered into their feelings, +while I have supplied new facts, to make everything as present and as +true as my faithful diligence could repeat the tale. It was necessary +that I should sometimes judge of the first race of our patriots as some +of their contemporaries did; but it was impossible to avoid correcting +these notions by the more enlarged views of their posterity. This is the +privilege of an historian and the philosophy of his art. There is no +apology for the king, nor any declamation for the subject. Were we only +to decide by the final results of this great conflict, of which what we +have here narrated is but the faint beginning, we should confess that +Sir John Eliot and his party were the first fathers of our political +existence; and we should not withhold from them the inexpressible +gratitude of a nation's freedom! But human infirmity mortifies us in the +noblest pursuits of man; and we must be taught this penitential and +chastising wisdom. The story of our patriots is involved; Charles +appears to have been lowering those high notions of his prerogative, +which were not peculiar to him, and was throwing himself on the bosom of +his people. The severe and unrelenting conduct of Sir John Eliot, his +prompt eloquence and bold invective, well fitted him for the leader of a +party. He was the lodestone, drawing together the looser particles of +iron. Never sparing, in the monarch, the errors of the man, never +relinquishing his royal prey, which he had fastened on, Eliot, with Dr. +Turner and some others, contributed to make Charles disgusted with all +parliaments. Without any dangerous concessions, there was more than one +moment when they might have reconciled the sovereign to themselves, and +not have driven him to the fatal resource of attempting to reign without +a parliament![324] + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [286] From manuscript letters of the times. + + [287] Sloane MSS. 4177. Letter 317. + + [288] The king had said in his speech to parliament, "I must let you + know I will not allow any of my servants to be questioned among you, + much less such as are of eminent place, and near unto me;" hence the + security of Buckingham, who showed the most perfect contempt for the + speakers who thus violently attacked him. + + [289] Our printed historical documents, Kennett, Frankland, &c., are + confused in their details, and facts seem misplaced for want of + dates. They all equally copy Rushworth, the only source of our + history of this period. Even Hume is involved in the obscurity. The + king's speech was on the _eleventh_ of May. As Rushworth has not + furnished dates, it would seem that the two orators had been sent to + the Tower _before the king's speech_ to the lords. + + [290] The king attended the House of Lords to explain his intentions + verbally, taking the minister with him, though under impeachment. + "Touching the matters against him," said the king, "I myself can be + a witness to clear him in every one of them." + + [291] They decided on stopping all business till satisfaction was + given them, which ended in the release of Digges and Eliot in a few + days. + + [292] Frankland, an inveterate royalist, in copying Rushworth, inserts + "their _pretended_ liberties;" exactly the style of catholic writers + when they mention protestantism by "la religion _pretendue + reformee_." All party writers use the same style! + + [293] The strength of the popular hatred may be seen in the articles + on Buckingham and Felton in vol. ii. Satires in manuscript abounded, + and by their broad-spoken pungency rendered the duke a perfect _bete + noir_ to the people. + + [294] Manuscript letter. + + [295] Rushworth, i. 400. Hume, vi. 221, who enters widely into the + views and feelings of Charles. + + [296] The Radicals of that day differed from ours in the means, + though not in the end. They at least referred to their Bibles, and + rather more than was required; but superstition is as mad as + atheism! Many of the puritans confused their brains with the study + of the Revelations; believing Prince Henry to be prefigured in the + Apocalypse, some prophesied that he should overthrow "the beast." + Ball, our tailor, was this very prophet; and was so honest as to + believe in his own prophecy. Osborn tells, that Ball put out money + on adventure; _i.e._, to receive it back double or treble, when + King James should be elected pope! So that though he had no money + for a loan, he had to spare for a prophecy. + + This Ball has been confounded with a more ancient radical, Ball, a + priest, and a principal mover in Wat Tyler's insurrection. Our Ball + must have been very notorious, for Jonson has noticed his "admired + discourses." Mr. Gifford, without any knowledge of my account of + this tailor-prophet, by his active sagacity has rightly indicated + him.--See Jonson's Works, vol. v. p. 241. + + [297] It is curious to observe that the Westminster elections, in + the fourth year of Charles's reign, were exactly of the same + turbulent character as those which we witness in our days. The duke + had counted by his interest to bring in Sir Robert Pye. The contest + was severe, but accompanied by some of those ludicrous + electioneering scenes which still amuse the mob. Whenever Sir Robert + Pye's party cried--"A Pye! a Pye! a Pye!" the adverse party would + cry--"A pudding! a pudding! a pudding!" and others--"A lie! a lie! a + lie!" This Westminster election of two hundred years ago ended as we + have seen some others; they rejected all who had urged the payment + of the loans; and, passing by such men as Sir Robert Cotton, and + their last representative, they fixed on a brewer and a grocer for + the two members for Westminster. + + [298] Extract from a manuscript letter:--"On Friday last I hear, but + as a secret, that it was debated at the council-table whether our + Essex men, who refused to take press-money, should not be punished + by martial-law, and hanged up on the next tree to their dwellings, + for an example of terror to others. My lord keeper, who had been + long silent, when, in conclusion, it came to his course to speak, + told the lords, that as far as he understood the law, _none were + liable to martial law but martial men_. If these had taken + press-money, and afterwards run from their colours, they might then + be punished in that manner; but yet they were no soldiers, and + refused to be. Secondly, he thought a subsidy, new by law, could not + be pressed against his will for a foreign service; it being + supposed, in law, the service of his purse excused that of his + person, unless his own country were in danger; and he appealed to my + lord treasurer, and my lord president, whether it was not so, who + both assented it was so, though some of them faintly, as unwilling + to have been urged to such an answer. So it is thought that + proposition is dashed; and it will be tried what may be done in the + Star-chamber against these refractories." + + [299] A member of the house, in James the First's time, called this + race of divines "Spaniels to the court and wolves to the people." + Dr. Mainwaring, Dr. Sibthorpe, and Dean Bargrave were seeking for + ancient precedents to maintain absolute monarchy, and to inculcate + passive obedience. Bargrave had this passage in his sermon: "It was + the speech of a man renowned for wisdom in our age, that if he were + _commanded_ to put forth to sea in a ship that had neither mast nor + tackling, he would do it:" and being asked what wisdom that were, + replied, "The wisdom must be in him that hath power to command, not + in him that conscience binds to obey." Sibthorpe, after he published + his sermon, immediately had his house burnt down. Dr. Mainwaring, + says a manuscript letter-writer, "sent the other day to a friend of + mine, to help him to all the ancient precedents he could find, to + strengthen his opinion (for absolute monarchy), who answered him he + could help him in nothing but only to hang him, and that if he lived + till a parliament, or, &c., he should be sure of a halter." + Mainwaring afterwards submitted to parliament; but after the + dissolution got a free pardon. The panic of popery was a great evil. + The divines, under Laud, appeared to approach to Catholicism; but it + was probably only a project of reconciliation between the two + churches, which Elizabeth, James, and Charles equally wished. Mr. + Cosins, a letter-writer, is censured for "superstition" in this + bitter style: "Mr. Cosins has impudently made three editions of his + prayer-book, and one which he gives away in private, different from + the published ones. An audacious fellow, whom my Lord of Durham + greatly admireth. I doubt if he be a sound protestant: he was so + blind at even-song on Candlemas-day, that he could not see to read + prayers in the minster with less than three hundred and forty + candles, whereof sixty he caused to be placed about the high altar; + besides he caused the picture of our Saviour, supported by two + angels, to be set in the choir. The committee is very hot against + him, and no matter if they trounce him." This was Cosins, who + survived the revolution, and returning with Charles the Second, was + raised to the see of Durham: the charitable institutions he has left + are most munificent. + + [300] Rushworth's Collections, i. 514. + + [301] I deliver this fact as I find it in a private letter; but it + is noticed in the Journals of the House of Commons, 23 Junii, 4to. + Caroli Regis. "Sir Edward Coke reporteth that they find that, + enclosed in the letter, to be unfit for any subject's ear to hear. + Read but one line and a half of it, and could not endure to read + more of it. It was ordered to be sealed and delivered into the + king's hands by eight members, and to acquaint his majesty with the + place and time of finding it; particularly that upon the reading of + one line and a half at most, they would read no more, but sealed it + up, and brought it to the House." + + [302] I have since discovered, by a manuscript letter, that this + _Dr. Turner_ was held in contempt by the king; that he was ridiculed + at court, which he haunted, for his want of veracity; in a word, + that he was a disappointed courtier! + + [303] This circumstance is mentioned in a manuscript letter; what + Cooke declared to the House is in Rushworth, vol. i. p. 525. + + [304] I refer the critical student of our history to the duke's + speech at the council-table as it appears in Rushworth, i. 525: but + what I add respecting his personal sacrifices is from manuscript + letters. Sloane MSS. 4177. Letter 490, &c. + + [305] On this subject, see note to the brief article on Buckingham + in vol. i. + + [306] Curiosities of Literature, First Series, vol. iii. p. 438, ed. + 1817; vol. v. p. 277, ed. 1823; vol. iii. p. 429, ed. 1824; vol. iv. + p. 148 ed. 1834; p. 301, ed. 1840, or vol. ii. p. 357, of this + edition. + + [307] I find this speech, and an account of its reception, in + manuscript letters; the fragment in Rushworth contains no part of + it. I. 526. Sloane MSS. 4177. Letter 490, &c. + + [308] Modern history would afford more instances than perhaps some + of us suspect. I cannot pass over an illustration of my principle, + which I shall take from two very notorious politicians--Wat Tyler + and Sir William Walworth! + + Wat, when in servitude, had been beaten by his master, Richard + Lyons, a great merchant of wines, and a sheriff of London. This + chastisement, working on an evil disposition, appears never to have + been forgiven; and when this Radical assumed his short-lived + dominion, he had his old master beheaded, and his head carried + before him on the point of a spear! So Grafton tells us, to the + eternal obloquy of this arch-jacobin, who "was a crafty fellow, and + of an excellent wit, but wanting grace." I would not sully the + patriotic blow which ended the rebellion with the rebel; yet there + are secrets in history! Sir William Walworth, "the ever famous mayor + of London," as Stowe designates him, has left the immortality of his + name to one of our suburbs; but having discovered in Stowe's + "Survey," that Walworth was the landlord of the stews on the + Bank-side, which he farmed out to the Dutch _vrows_, and which Wat + had pulled down, I am inclined to suspect that private feeling first + knocked down the saucy ribald, and then thrust him through and + through with his dagger; and that there was as much of personal + vengeance as patriotism, which crushed the demolisher of so much + valuable property! + + [309] I have formed my idea of Sir Francis Nethersole from some + strange incidents in his _political_ conduct, which I have read in + some contemporary letters. He was, however, a man of some eminence, + had been Orator for the University of Cambridge, agent for James I. + with the Princes of the Union in Germany, and also Secretary to the + Queen of Bohemia. He founded and endowed a free-school at Polesworth + in Warwickshire. + + [310] Manuscript letter. + + [311] These speeches are entirely drawn from those manuscript letters + to which I have frequently referred. Coke's may be substantially + found in Rushworth, but without a single expression as here given. + + [312] The popular opinion is well expressed in the following lines + preserved in Sloane MS. 826:-- + + When only one doth rule and guide the ship, + Who neither card nor compass knew before, + The master pilot and the rest asleep, + The stately ship is split upon the shore; + But they awaking start up, stare, and cry, + "Who did this fault?"--"Not I,"--"Nor I,"--"Nor I." + So fares it with a great and wealthy state + Not govern'd by the master, but his mate. + + [313] This last letter is printed in Rushworth, vol. i. p. 609. + + [314] The king's answer is in Rushworth, vol. i. p. 613. + + [315] This eloquent state paper is in Rushworth, vol. i. p. 619. + + [316] This interview is taken from manuscript letters. + + [317] Manuscript Letters: Lord Dorset to the Earl of Carlisle.--Sloane + MSS. 4178. Letter 519. + + [318] Manuscript Letter. + + [319] I have given (vol. ii. p. 336) the "Secret History of Charles + the First and his Queen," where I have traced the firmness and + independence of his character. In another article will be found as + much of the "Secret History of the Duke of Buckingham" as I have + been enabled to acquire. + + [320] "To conclude," said the king; "let us not be jealous one of + the other's actions." + + [321] Monday, 2nd of March, 1629. + + [322] It was imagined out of doors that swords had been drawn; for a + Welsh page running in great haste, when he heard the noise, to the + door, cried out, "I pray you let hur in! let hur in! to give hur + master his sword!"--_Manuscript Letter._ + + [323] At the time many undoubtedly considered that it was a mere + faction in the house. Sir Symonds D'Ewes was certainly no + politician--but, unquestionably, his ideas were not peculiar to + himself. Of the last third parliament he delivers this opinion in + his Diary: "I cannot deem but the greater part of the house were + morally honest men; but these were the least guilty of the fatal + breach, being only misled by _some other Machiavelian politics, who + seemed zealous for the liberty of the commonwealth_, and by that + means, _in the moving of their outward freedom_, drew the votes of + those good men to their side." + + [324] Since the publication of the present article, I have composed + my "Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles the First," in + five volumes. + + + + +482 THE RUMP. + + +Text and commentary! The French Revolution abounds with wonderful +"explanatory notes" on the English. It has cleared up many obscure +passages--and in the political history of Man, both pages must be read +together. + +The opprobrious and ludicrous nickname of "the Rump," stigmatised a +faction which played the same part in the English Revolution as the +"Montagne" of the Jacobins did in the French. It has been imagined that +our English Jacobins were impelled by a principle different from that of +their modern rivals; but the madness of avowed atheism, and the frenzy +of hypocritical sanctity, in the circle of crimes meet at the same +point. Their history forms one of those useful parallels where, with +truth as unerring as mathematical demonstration, we discover the +identity of human nature. Similarity of situation, and certain +principles, producing similar personages and similar events, finally +settle in the same results. The Rump, as long as human nature exists, +can be nothing but the Rump, however it may be thrown uppermost. + +The origin of this political by-name has often been inquired into; and +it is somewhat curious, that, though all parties consent to reprobate +it, each assigns for it a different allusion. In the history of +political factions there is always a mixture of the ludicrous with the +tragic; but, except their modern brothers, no faction like the present +ever excited such a combination of extreme contempt and extreme horror. + +Among the rival parties in 1659, the loyalists and the presbyterians +acted as we may suppose the Tories and the Whigs would in the same +predicament; a secret reconciliation had taken place, to bury in +oblivion their former jealousies, that they might unite to rid +themselves from that tyranny of tyrannies, a hydra-headed government; +or, as Hume observes, that "all efforts should be used for the overthrow +of the Rump; so they called the parliament, in allusion to that part of +the animal body." The sarcasm of the allusion seemed obvious to our +polished historian; yet, looking more narrowly for its origin, we shall +find how indistinct were the notions of this nickname among those who +lived nearer to the times. Evelyn says that "the Rump parliament was so +called as containing some few rotten members of the other." Roger Coke +describes it thus: "You must now be content with a piece of the Commons +called 'the Rump.'" And Carte calls the Rump, "the carcass of a house," +and seems not precisely aware of the contemptuous allusion. But how do +"rotten members" and "a carcass" agree with the notion of "a Rump?" +Recently the editor of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson has conveyed a +novel origin. "The number of the members of the Long Parliament having +been by seclusion, death, &c., very much reduced,"--a remarkable &c. +this! by which our editor seems adroitly to throw a veil over the +forcible transportation by the Rumpers of two hundred members at one +swoop,--"the remainder was compared to the _rump of a fowl which was +left_, all the rest being eaten." Our editor even considers this to be +"a coarse emblem;" yet "the rump of a fowl" could hardly offend even a +lady's delicacy! Our editor, probably, was somewhat anxious not to +degrade _too lowly_ the anti-monarchical party, designated by this +opprobrious term. Perhaps it is pardonable in Mrs. Macaulay, an +historical lady, and a "Rumper," for she calls the "Levellers" a "brave +and virtuous party," to have passed over in _her_ history any mention of +the offensive term at all, as well as the ridiculous catastrophe which +they underwent in the political revolution, which, however, we must beg +leave not to pass by. + +This party-coinage has been ascribed to Clement Walker, their bitter +antagonist; who, having sacrificed no inconsiderable fortune to the +cause of what he considered constitutional liberty, was one of the +violent ejected members of the Long Parliament, and perished in prison, +a victim to honest, unbending principles. His "History of Independency" +is a rich legacy bequeathed to posterity, of all their great misdoings, +and their petty villanies, and, above all, of their secret history. One +likes to know of what blocks the idols of the people are sometimes +carved out. + +Clement Walker notices "the votes and acts of this _fag end_; this RUMP +of a parliament, with corrupt maggots in it."[325] This hideous, but +descriptive image of "The Rump" had, however, got forward before, for +the collector of "the Rump Songs"[326] tells us, "If you ask who named +it _Rump_, know 'twas so styled in an honest sheet of prayer, called +'The Bloody Rump,' written _before the trial_ of our late sovereign; but +the word obtained not _universal notice_, till it flew from the mouth +of Major-General Brown, at a public assembly in the days of Richard +Cromwell." Thus it happens that a stinging nickname has been frequently +applied to render a faction eternally odious; and the chance expression +of a wit, when adopted on some public occasion, circulates among a whole +people. The present nickname originated in derision on the expulsion of +the majority of the Long Parliament by the usurping minority. It +probably slept; for who would have stirred it through the Protectorate? +and finally awakened at Richard's restored, but fleeting "Rump," to +witness its own ridiculous extinction. + +Our Rump passed through three stages in its political progress. +Preparatory to the trial of the sovereign, the anti-monarchical party +constituted the minority in "the _Long_ Parliament:" the very name by +which this parliament is recognised seemed a grievance to an impatient +people, vacillating with chimerical projects of government, and now +accustomed, from a wild indefinite notion of political equality, to pull +down all existing institutions. Such was the temper of the times, that +an act of the most violent injustice, openly performed, served only as +the jest of the day, a jest which has passed into history. The forcible +expulsion of two hundred of their brother members, by those who +afterwards were saluted as "The Rump," was called "Pride's Purge," from +the activity of a colonel of that name, a military adventurer, who was +only the blind and brutal instrument of his party; for when he stood at +the door of the Commons, holding a paper with the names of the members, +he did not personally know one! And his "Purge" might have operated a +quite opposite effect, administered by his own unskilful hand, had not +Lord Grey of Groby, and the door-keeper,--worthy dispersers of the +British senate!--pointed out the obnoxious members, on whom our colonel +laid his hand, and sent off by his men to be detained, if a bold member, +or to be deterred from sitting in the house, if a frightened one. This +colonel had been a drayman; and the contemptible knot of the Commons, +reduced to fifty or sixty confederates, which assembled after his +"Purge," were called "Colonel Pride's Dray-Horses." + +It was this Rump which voted the death of the sovereign, and abolished +the regal office, and the House of Peers--as "unnecessary, burdensome, +and dangerous!" Every office in parliament seemed "dangerous," but that +of the "Custodes libertatis Angliae," the keepers of the liberties of +England! or rather "the gaolers!" "The legislative half-quarter of the +House of Commons!" indignantly exclaims Clement Walker--the "Montagne" +of the French revolutionists! + +The "Red-coats" as the military were nicknamed, soon taught their +masters, "the Rumpers," silence and obedience: the latter having raised +one colossal man for their own purpose, were annihilated by him at a +single blow. Cromwell, five years after, turned them out of their house, +and put the keys into his pocket. Their last public appearance was in +the fleeting days of Richard Cromwell, when the comi-tragedy of "the +Rump" concluded by a catastrophe as ludicrous as that of Tom Thumb's +tragedy! + +How such a faction used their instruments to gather in the common spoil, +and how their instruments at length converted the hands which held them +into instruments themselves, appears in their history. When "the Long +Parliament" opposed the designs of Cromwell and Ireton, these chiefs +cried up "the liberty of the people," and denied "the authority of +parliament:" but when they had effectuated their famous "purge," and +formed a House of Commons of themselves, they abolished the House of +Lords, crying up the supreme authority of the House of Commons, and +crying down the liberty of the people. Such is the history of political +factions, as well as of statesmen! Charles the Fifth alternately made +use of the Pope's authority to subdue the rising spirit of the +Protestants of Germany, or raised an army of Protestants to imprison the +Pope! who branded his German allies by the novel and odious name of +Lutherans. A chain of similar facts may be framed out of modern history. + +The "Rump," as they were called by every one but their own party, became +a whetstone for the wits to sharpen themselves on; and we have two large +collections of "Rump Songs," curious chronicles of popular feeling![327] +Without this evidence we should not have been so well informed +respecting the phases of this portentous phenomenon. "The Rump" was +celebrated in verse, till at length it became "the Rump of a Rump of a +Rump!" as Foulis traces them to their dwindled and grotesque +appearance. It is pourtrayed by a wit of the times-- + + The Rump's an old story, if well understood, + 'Tis a thing dress'd up in a parliament's hood, + And like it--but the tail stands where the head shou'd! + 'Twould make a man scratch where it does not itch! + They say 'tis good luck when a body rises + With the rump upwards; but he that advises + To live in that posture, is none of the wisest. + +Cromwell's hunting them out of the House by military force is alluded +to-- + + Our politic doctors do us teach, + That a blood-sucking red-coat's as good as a leech + To relieve the head, if applied to the breech. + +In the opening scene of the Restoration, Mrs. Hutchinson, an honest +republican, paints with dismay a scene otherwise very ludicrous. "When +the town of Nottingham, as almost all the rest of the island, began to +grow mad, and declared themselves in their desires of the king;" or, as +another of the opposite party writes, "When the soldiery, who had +hitherto made _clubs trumps_, resolved now to turn up the _king of +hearts_ in their affections," the rabble in town and country vied with +each other in burning the "Rump;" and the literal emblem was hung by +chains on gallowses, with a bonfire underneath, while the cries of "Let +us burn the Rump! Let us roast the Rump!" were echoed everywhere. The +suddenness of this universal change, which was said to have maddened the +wise, and to have sobered the mad, must be ascribed to the joy at +escaping from the yoke of a military despotism; perhaps, too, it marked +the rapid transition of hope to a restoration which might be supposed to +have implanted gratitude even in a royal breast! The feelings of the +people expected to find an echo from the throne! + +"The Rump," besides their general resemblance to the French anarchists, +had also some minuter features of ugliness, which Englishmen have often +exulted have not marked an English revolution--sanguinary +proscriptions![328] We had thought that we had no revolutionary +tribunals! no Septembrisers! no noyades! no moveable guillotines +awaiting for carts loaded with human victims! no infuriated republican +urging, in a committee of public safety, the necessity of a salutary +massacre! + +But if it be true that the same motives and the same principles were at +work in both nations, and that the like characters were performing in +England the parts which they did afterwards in France, by an argument _a +priori_ we might be sure that the same revolting crimes and chimerical +projects were alike suggested at London as at Paris. Human nature, even +in transactions which appear unparalleled, will be found to preserve a +regularity of resemblance not always suspected. + +The first great tragic act was closely copied by the French: and if the +popular page of our history appears unstained by their revolutionary +axe, this depended only on a slight accident; for it became a question +of "yea" and "nay!" and was only carried in the negative by _two voices_ +in the council! It was debated among "the bloody Rump," as it was +hideously designated, "whether to massacre and to put to the sword _all +the king's party_!"[329] Cromwell himself listened to the suggestion; +and it was only put down by the coolness of political calculation--the +dread that the massacre would be _too general_! Some of the Rump not +obtaining the blessedness of a massacre, still clung to the happiness of +an immolation; and many petitions were presented, that "_two or three +principal gentlemen_ of the royal party in EACH COUNTY might be +sacrificed to justice, whereby the land might be saved from +_blood-guiltiness_!" Sir Arthur Haslerigg, whose "passionate fondness of +liberty" has been commended,[330] was one of the committee of safety in +1647--I too would commend "a passionate lover of liberty," whenever I do +not discover that this lover is much more intent on the dower than on +the bride. Haslerigg, "an absurd, bold man," as Clarendon, at a single +stroke, reveals his character, was resolved not to be troubled with king +or bishop, or with any power in the state superior to "the Rump's." We +may safely suspect the patriot who can cool his vehemence in spoliation. +Haslerigg would have no bishops, but this was not from any want of +reverence for church lands, for he heaped for himself such wealth as to +have been nicknamed "the Bishop of Durham!" He is here noticed for a +political crime different from that of plunder. When, in 1647, this +venerable radical found the parliament resisting his views, he declared +that "Some heads must fly off!" adding, "the parliament cannot save +England; we must look another way;"--threatening, what afterwards was +done, to bring in the army! It was this "passionate lover of liberty" +who, when Dorislaus, the parliamentary agent, was assassinated by some +Scotchmen in Holland, moved in the house, that "six royalists of the +best quality" should be immediately executed! When some northern +counties petitioned the Commons for relief against a famine in the land, +our Maratist observed, that "this _want of food_ would best defend those +counties from Scottish invasion!"[331] The slaughter of Drogheda by +Cromwell, and his frightening all London by what Walker calls "a +butchery of apprentices," when he cried out to his soldiers, "to kill +man, woman, and child, and fire the city!"[332] may be placed among +those crimes which are committed to open a reign of terror--but Hugh +Peters's solemn thanksgiving to Heaven that "none were spared!" was the +true expression of the true feeling of these political demoniacs. +Cromwell was cruel from politics, others from constitution. Some were +willing to be cruel without "blood-guiltiness." One Alexander Rigby, a +radical lawyer, twice moved in the Long Parliament, that those _lords +and gentlemen_ who were "malignants," should be _sold as slaves to the +Dey of Algiers_, or sent off to the new plantations in the West Indies. +He had all things prepared; for it is added that he had contracted with +two merchants to ship them off.[333] There was a most bloody-minded +"maker of washing-balls," as one John Durant is described, appointed a +lecturer by the House of Commons, who always left out of the Lord's +Prayer, "As we forgive them that trespass against us," and substituted, +"Lord, since thou hast now drawn out thy sword, let it not be sheathed +again till it be glutted in the blood of the malignants." I find too +many enormities of this kind. "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the +Lord negligently, and keepeth back his sword from blood!" was the cry of +the wretch, who, when a celebrated actor and royalist sued for quarter, +gave no other reply than that of "fitting the action to the word."[334] +Their treatment of the Irish may possibly be admired by a true +Machiavelist: "they permitted forty thousand of the Irish to enlist in +the service of the kings of Spain and France"--in other words, they +expelled them at once, which, considering that our Rumpers affected such +an abhorrence of tyranny, may be considered as an act of mercy! +satisfying themselves only with dividing the forfeited lands of the +aforesaid forty thousand among their own party, by lot and other means. +An universal confiscation, after all, is a bloodless massacre. They used +the Scotch soldiers, after the battles of Dunbar and Worcester, a little +differently--but equally efficaciously--for they sold their Scotch +prisoners for slaves to the American planters.[335] + +The Robespierres and the Marats were as extraordinary beings, and in +some respects the Frenchmen were working on a more enlarged scheme. +These discovered that "the generation which had witnessed the preceding +one would always regret it; and for the security of the Revolution, it +was necessary that every person who was thirty years old in 1788 should +perish on the scaffold!" The anarchists were intent on reducing the +French people to eight millions, and on destroying the great cities of +France.[336] + +Such monstrous persons and events are not credible--but this is no proof +that they have not occurred. Many incredible things will happen! + +Another disorganising feature in the English _Rumpers_ was also observed +in the French _Sans-culottes_--their hatred of literature and the arts. +Hebert was one day directing his satellites towards the _Bibliotheque +Nationale_, to put an end to all that human knowledge had collected for +centuries on centuries--in one day! alleging, of course, some good +reason. This hero was only diverted from the enterprise by being +persuaded to postpone it for a day or two, when luckily the guillotine +intervened; the same circumstance occurred here. The burning of the +records in the Tower was certainly proposed; a speech of Selden's, which +I cannot immediately turn to, put a stop to these incendiaries. It was +debated in the Rump parliament, when Cromwell was general, whether they +should _dissolve the universities_? They concluded that no university +was necessary; that there were no ancient examples of such education, +and that scholars in other countries did study at _their own cost and +charges_, and therefore they looked on them as unnecessary, and thought +them fitting _to be taken away for the public use_!--How these venerable +asylums escaped from being sold with the king's pictures, as stone and +timber, and why their rich endowments were not shared among such +inveterate ignorance and remorseless spoliation, might claim some +inquiry. + +The Abbe Morellet, a great political economist, imagined that the source +of all the crimes of the French Revolution was their violation of the +sacred rights of property. The perpetual invectives of the +_Sans-culottes_ of France _against proprietors and against property_ +proceeded from demoralised beings who formed panegyrics on all crimes; +crimes, to explain whose revolutionary terms, a new dictionary was +required. But even these anarchists, in their mad expressions against +property, and in their wildest notions of their "egalite," have not gone +beyond the daring of our own "Rumpers!" + +Of those revolutionary journals of the parliament of 1649, which in +spirit so strongly resemble the diurnal or hebdomadal effusions of the +redoubtable French Hebert, Marat, and others of that stamp, one of the +most remarkable is, "The Moderate, impartially communicating Martial +Affairs to the _Kingdom_ of England;" the monarchical title our +commonwealth men had not yet had time enough to obliterate from their +colloquial style. This writer called himself, in his barbarous English, +_The Moderate_! It would be hard to conceive the meanness and illiteracy +to which the English language was reduced under the pens of the +rabble-writers of these days, had we not witnessed in the present time a +parallel to their compositions. "The Moderate!" was a title assumed on +the principle on which Marat denominated himself "l'Ami du Peuple." It +is curious that the most ferocious politicians usually assert their +moderation. Robespierre, in his justification, declares that Marat "m'a +souvent accuse de _Moderantisme_." The same actors, playing the same +parts, may be always paralleled in their language and their deeds. This +"Moderate" steadily pursued one great principle--the overthrow of all +property. Assuming that _property_ was the original cause of _sin_! an +exhortation to the people for this purpose is the subject of the present +paper:[337] the illustration of his principle is as striking as the +principle itself. + +It is an apology for, or rather a defence of, robbery! Some +moss-troopers had been condemned to be hanged for practising their +venerable custom of gratuitously supplying themselves from the flocks +and herds of their weaker neighbours: our "Moderate" ingeniously +discovers that the loss of these men's lives is to be attributed to +nothing but _property_. They are necessitated to offend the laws in +order to obtain a livelihood! + +On this he descants; and the extract is a political curiosity in the +French style! "_Property_ is the original cause of any _sin_ between +party and party as to civil transactions. And since the _tyrant_ is +taken off, and the government altered _in nomine_, so ought it really to +redound to the good of the people _in specie_; which, though they cannot +expect it in few years, by reason of _the multiplicity of the gentlemen +in authority_, command, &c. who drive on all designs for support of the +old government, and consequently their own interest and the _people's +slavery_, yet they doubt not but _in time_ the people will herein +discern their own blindness and folly." + +In September, he advanced with more depth of thought. "_Wars_ have ever +been clothed with the most gracious pretences--viz., reformation of +religion, the laws of the land, the liberty of the subject, &c.; though +the effects thereof have proved most destructive to every nation; making +the sword, and not _the people_, the original of all authorities for +many hundred years together, taking away _each man's birthright_, and +_settling upon a few_ A CURSED PROPRIETY; the ground of all civil +offences, and the greatest cause of most sins against the heavenly +Deity. _This tyranny and oppression_ running through the veins of many +of our predecessors, and being too long maintained by the sword upon a +royal foundation, at last became so customary, as _to the vulgar it +seemed most natural_--the only reason why the _people_ of this time are +so _ignorant of their birthright_, their only freedom," &c. + +"The birthright" of citoyen _Egalite_ to "_a cursed propriety settled on +a few_," was not, even among the French Jacobins, urged with more +amazing force. Had things proceeded according to our "Moderate's" plan, +"the people's slavery" had been something worse. In a short time the +nation would have had more proprietors than property. We have a curious +list of the spoliations of those members of the House of Commons, who, +after their famous _self-denying ordinances_, appropriated among +themselves sums of money, offices, and lands, for services "done or to +be done." + +The most innocent of this new government of "the Majesty of the People," +were those whose talents had been limited by Nature to peddle and +purloin; puny mechanics, who had suddenly dropped their needles, their +hammers, and their lasts, and slunk out from behind their shop-counters; +those who had never aspired beyond the constable of the parish, were now +seated in the council of state; where, as Milton describes them, "they +fell to huckster the commonwealth:" there they met a more rabid race of +obscure lawyers, and discontented men of family, of blasted reputations; +adventurers, who were to command the militia and navy of +England,--governors of the three kingdoms! whose votes and ordinances +resounded with nothing else but new impositions, new taxes, excises, +yearly, monthly, weekly sequestrations, compositions, and universal +robbery! + +Baxter vents one deep groan of indignation, and presciently announces +one future consequence of _Reform_! "In all this appeared the severity +of God, the mutability of worldly things, and the fruits of error, +pride, and selfishness, _to be charged hereafter upon reformation and +religion_." As a statesman, the sagacity of this honest prophet was +narrowed by the horizon of his religious views; for he ascribes the +whole as "prepared by Satan to the injury of the Protestant cause, and +the advantage of the Papists!" But dropping his particular application +to the devil and the Papists, honest Richard Baxter is perfectly right +in his general principle concerning "Rumpers,"--"Sans-culottes," and +"Radicals." + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [325] History of Independency, Part II. p. 32. + + [326] First collected and published in 1661, and afterwards reprinted + in two small vols. 1731. + + [327] The first collection ever formed of these political satires + was printed in 1660, with the quaint title of "Ratts rhimed to + Death; or, the Rump-parliament hang'd up in the Shambles." + + [328] In one of the popular political songs of the day, "The Rump" + is aptly compared to + + "The foxes of Samson, that carried a brand + In their tails, to destroy and to burn up the land." + + [329] Clement Walker's History of Independency, part II. p. 130. + Confirmed by Barwick in his Life, p. 163. + + [330] The Rev. Mark Noble's Memoirs of the Protectoral House of + Cromwell, i. 405. + + [331] Clement Walker's History of Independency, Part II. 173. + + [332] Ib., Part I. 160. + + [333] Mercurius Rusticus, xii. 115. Barwick's Life, p. 42. + + [334] This actor was a comedian named Robinson, of the Blackfriars + Theatre; the performers there being termed "the king's servants." In + the civil wars most of the young actors, deprived of living by their + profession, all theatres being closed by order of the Parliament, + went into the king's army. Robinson was fighting at the siege of + Basing House, in Hampshire, October, 1645, when after an obstinate + defence his party was defeated, he laid down his arms, suing for + quarter, but was shot through the head by Colonel Harrison, as he + repeated the words quoted above. + + [335] The following account is drawn from Sir William Dugdale's + interleaved Pocket-book for 1648.--"Aug. 17. The Scotch army, under + the command of Duke Hamilton, defeated at Preston in Lancashire. + 24th. The Moorlanders rose upon the Scots and stript some of them. + The Scotch prisoners miserably used; exposed to eat cabbage-leaves + in Ridgley (Staffordshire), and carrot-tops in Coleshill + (Warwickshire). The soldiers who guarded them sold the victuals + which were brought in for them from the country." + + [336] Desodoard's Histoire Philosophique de la Revolution de France, + iv. 5. When Lyons was captured in 1793, the revolutionary army + nearly reduced this fine city to a heap of ruins, in obedience to + the decree of the Montagne, who had ordered its name to be effaced, + that it should henceforth be termed, "Commune affranchie," and upon + its ruins a column erected and inscribed, "Lyon fit la guerre a la + liberte; Lyon n'est plus." + + [337] The _Moderate_, from Tuesday, July 31, to August 7, 1649. + + + + +LIFE AND HABITS OF A LITERARY ANTIQUARY.--OLDYS AND HIS MANUSCRIPTS. + + +Such a picture may be furnished by some unexpected materials which my +inquiries have obtained of Oldys. This is a sort of personage little +known to the wits, who write more than they read, and to their volatile +votaries, who only read what the wits write. It is time to vindicate the +honours of the few whose laborious days enrich the stores of national +literature, not by the duplicates but the supplements of knowledge. A +literary antiquary is that idler whose life is passed in a perpetual +_voyage autour de ma chambre_; fervent in sagacious diligence, instinct +with the enthusiasm of curious inquiry, critical as well as erudite; he +has to arbitrate between contending opinions, to resolve the doubtful, +to clear up the obscure, and to grasp at the remote; so busied with +other times, and so interested for other persons than those about him, +that he becomes the inhabitant of the visionary world of books. He +counts only his days by his acquisitions, and may be said by his +original discoveries to be the CREATOR OF FACTS; often exciting the +gratitude of the literary world, while the very name of the benefactor +has not always descended with the inestimable labours. + +Such is the man whom we often find leaving, when he dies, his favourite +volumes only an incomplete project! and few of this class of literary +men have escaped the fate reserved for most of their brothers. +Voluminous works have been usually left unfinished by the death of the +authors; and it is with them as with the planting of trees, of which +Johnson has forcibly observed, "There is a frightful interval between +the seed and timber." And he admirably remarks, what I cannot forbear +applying to the labours I am now to describe: "He that calculates the +growth of trees has the remembrance of the shortness of life driven hard +upon him. He knows that he is doing what will never benefit himself; +and where he rejoices to see the stem rise, is disposed to repine that +another shall cut it down." The days of the patriotic Count Mazzuchelli +were freely given to his national literature; and six invaluable folios +attest the gigantic force of his immense erudition; yet these only carry +us through the letters A and B: and though Mazzuchelli had finished for +the press other volumes, the torpor of his descendants has defrauded +Europe of her claims.[338] The Abbe Goujet, who had designed a +classified history of his national literature, in the eighteen volumes +we possess, could only conclude that of the translators, and commence +that of the poets; two other volumes in manuscript have perished. That +great enterprise of the Benedictines, the "Histoire Literaire de la +France," now consists of twelve large quartos, and the industry of its +successive writers has only been able to carry it to the twelfth +century. David Clement designed the most extensive bibliography which +had ever appeared; but the diligent life of the writer could only +proceed as far as H. The alphabetical order, which so many writers of +this class have adopted, has proved a mortifying memento of human life! +Tiraboschi was so fortunate as to complete his great national history of +Italian literature. But, unhappily for us, Thomas Warton, after feeling +his way through the darker ages of our poetry, in planning the map of +the beautiful land, of which he had only a Pisgah-sight, expired amidst +his volumes. The most precious portion of Warton's history is but the +fragment of a fragment. + +Oldys, among this brotherhood, has met perhaps with a harder fate; his +published works, and the numerous ones to which he contributed, are now +highly appreciated by the lovers of books; but the larger portion of his +literary labours have met with the sad fortune of dispersed, and +probably of wasted manuscripts. Oldys's manuscripts, or O. M. as they +are sometimes designated, are constantly referred to by every +distinguished writer on our literary history. I believe that not one of +them could have given us any positive account of the manuscripts +themselves! They have indeed long served as the solitary sources of +information--but like the well at the wayside, too many have drawn their +waters in silence. + +Oldys is chiefly known by the caricature of the facetious Grose; a great +humourist, both with pencil and with pen: it is in a posthumous +scrap-book, where Grose deposited his odds and ends, and where there is +perhaps not a single story which is not satirical. Our lively antiquary, +who cared more for rusty armour than for rusty volumes, would turn over +these flams and quips to some confidential friend, to enjoy together a +secret laugh at their literary intimates. His eager executor, who +happened to be his bookseller, served up the poignant hash to the public +as "Grose's Olio!"[339] The delineation of Oldys is sufficiently +overcharged for "the nonce." One prevalent infirmity of honest Oldys, +his love of companionship over too social a glass, sends him down to +posterity in a grotesque attitude; and Mr. Alexander Chalmers, who has +given us the fullest account of Oldys, has inflicted on him something +like a sermon, on "a state of intoxication." + +Alas! Oldys was an outcast of fortune,[340] and the utter simplicity of +his heart was guileless as a child's--ever open to the designing. The +noble spirit of a Duke of Norfolk once rescued the long-lost historian +of Rawleigh from the confinement of the Fleet, where he had existed, +probably forgotten by the world, for six years. It was by an act of +grace that the duke safely placed Oldys in the Heralds' College as +Norroy King of Arms.[341] But Oldys, like all shy and retired men, had +contracted peculiar habits and close attachments for a few; both these +he could indulge at no distance. He liked his old associates in the +purlieus of the Fleet, whom he facetiously dignified as "his Rulers," +and there, as I have heard, with the grotesque whim of a herald, +established "The Dragon Club." Companionship yields the poor man +unpurchased pleasures. Oldys, busied every morning among the departed +wits and the learned of our country, reflected some image from them of +their wit and learning to his companions: a secret history as yet +untold, and ancient wit, which, cleared of the rust, seemed to him +brilliant as the modern! + +It is hard, however, for a literary antiquary to be caricatured, and for +a herald to be ridiculed about an "unseemly reeling with the coronet of +the Princess Caroline, which looked unsteady on the cushion, to the +great scandal of his brethren,"--a circumstance which could never have +occurred at the burial of a prince or princess, as the coronet is +carried by Clarencieux, and not by Norroy. Oldys's deep potations of +ale, however, give me an opportunity of bestowing on him the honour of +being the author of a popular Anacreontic song. Mr. Taylor informs me +that "Oldys always asserted that he was the author of the well-known +song-- + + Busy, curious, thirsty fly! + +and as he was a rigid lover of truth, I doubt not that he wrote it." My +own researches confirm it: I have traced this popular song through a +dozen of collections since the year 1740, the first in which I find it. +In the later collections an original inscription has been dropped, which +the accurate Ritson has restored, without, however, being able to +discover the writer. In 1740 it is said to have been "made extempore by +a gentleman, occasioned by a _fly_ drinking out of his _cup of +ale_;"--the accustomed potion of poor Oldys![342] + +Grose, however, though a great joker on the peculiarities of Oldys, was +far from insensible to the extraordinary acquisitions of the man. "His +knowledge of English books has hardly been exceeded." Grose, too, was +struck by the delicacy of honour, and the unswerving veracity which so +strongly characterised Oldys, of which he gives a remarkable +instance.[343] We are concerned in ascertaining the moral integrity of +the writer, whose main business is with history. + +At a time when our literary history, excepting in the solitary labour of +Anthony Wood, was a forest, with neither road nor pathway, Oldys, +fortunately placed in the library of the Earl of Oxford, yielded up his +entire days to researches concerning the books and the men of the +preceding age. His labours were then valueless, their very nature not +yet ascertained, and when he opened the treasures of our ancient lore in +"The British Librarian," it was closed for want of public encouragement. +Our writers, then struggling to create an age of genius of their own, +forgot that they had had any progenitors; or while they were acquiring +new modes of excellence, that they were losing others, to which their +posterity or the national genius might return. (To know, and to admire +only, the literature and the tastes of our own age, is a species of +elegant barbarism.)[344] Spenser was considered nearly as obsolete as +Chaucer; Milton was veiled by oblivion, and Shakspeare's dramas were so +imperfectly known, that in looking over the play-bills of 1711, and much +later, I find that whenever it chanced that they were acted, they were +always announced to have been "written by Shakspeare." Massinger was +unknown; and Jonson, though called "immortal" in the old play-bills, lay +entombed in his two folios. The poetical era of Elizabeth, the eloquent +age of James the First, and the age of wit of Charles the Second, were +blanks in our literary history. Bysshe, compiling an Art of Poetry in +1718, passed by in his collection "_Spenser and the poets of his age_, +because their language is now become so obsolete that most readers of +our age have no ear for them, and therefore _Shakspeare_ himself is so +_rarely cited_ in my collection." The _best_ English poets were +considered to be the _modern_; a taste which is always obstinate! + +All this was nothing to Oldys; his literary curiosity anticipated by +half a century the fervour of the present day. This energetic direction +of all his thoughts was sustained by that life of discovery which in +literary researches is starting novelties among old and unremembered +things; contemplating some ancient tract as precious as a manuscript, or +revelling in the volume of a poet whose passport of fame was yet delayed +in its way; or disinterring the treasure of some secluded manuscript, +whence he drew a virgin extract; or raising up a sort of domestic +intimacy with the eminent in arms, in politics, and in literature in +this visionary life, life itself with Oldys was insensibly gliding +away--its cares almost unfelt! + +The life of a literary antiquary partakes of the nature of those who, +having no concerns of their own, busy themselves with those of others. +Oldys lived in the back ages of England; he had crept among the dark +passages of Time, till, like an old gentleman usher, he seemed to be +reporting the secret history of the courts which he had lived in. He had +been charmed among their masques and revels, had eyed with astonishment +their cumbrous magnificence, when knights and ladies carried on their +mantles and their cloth of gold ten thousand pounds' worth of ropes of +pearls, and buttons of diamonds; or, descending to the gay court of the +second Charles, he tattled merry tales, as in that of the first he had +painfully watched, like a patriot or a loyalist, a distempered era. He +had lived so constantly with these people of another age, and had so +deeply interested himself in their affairs, and so loved the wit and the +learning which are often bright under the rust of antiquity, that his +own uncourtly style is embrowned with the tint of a century old. But it +was this taste and curiosity which alone could have produced the +extraordinary volume of Sir Walter Rawleigh's life--a work richly inlaid +with the most curious facts and the juxtaposition of the most remote +knowledge; to judge by its fulness of narrative, it would seem rather to +have been the work of a contemporary.[345] + +It was an advantage in this primaeval era of literary curiosity, that +those volumes which are now not even to be found in our national +library, where certainly they are perpetually wanted, and which are now +so excessively appreciated, were exposed on stalls, through the reigns +of Anne and the two Georges.[346] Oldys encountered no competitor, cased +in the invulnerable mail of his purse, to dispute his possession of the +rarest volume. On the other hand, our early collector did not possess +our advantages; he could not fly for instant aid to a "Biographia +Britannica," he had no history of our poetry, nor even of our drama. +Oldys could tread in no man's path, for every soil about him was +unbroken ground. He had to create everything for his own purposes. We +gather fruit from trees which others have planted, and too often we but +"pluck and eat." + +_Nulla dies sine linea_, was his sole hope while he was accumulating +masses of notes; and as Oldys never used his pen from the weak passion +of scribbling, but from the urgency of preserving some substantial +knowledge, or planning some future inquiry, he amassed nothing but what +he wished to remember. Even the minuter pleasures of settling a date, or +classifying a title-page, were enjoyments to his incessant pen. +Everything was acquisition. This never-ending business of research +appears to have absorbed his powers, and sometimes to have dulled his +conceptions. No one more aptly exercised the _tact_ of discovery; he +knew where to feel in the dark: but he was not of the race--that race +indeed had not yet appeared among us--who could melt into their +Corinthian brass the mingled treasures of Research, Imagination, and +Philosophy! + +We may be curious to inquire where our literary antiquary deposited the +discoveries and curiosities which he was so incessantly acquiring. They +were dispersed, on many a fly-leaf, in occasional memorandum-books; in +ample marginal notes on his authors--they were sometimes thrown into +what he calls his "parchment budgets," or "Bags of Biography--of +Botany--of Obituary"--of "Books relative to London," and other titles +and bags, which he was every day filling.[347] Sometimes his collections +seem to have been intended for a series of volumes, for he refers to "My +first Volume of Tables of the eminent Persons celebrated by English +Poets"--to another of "Poetical Characteristics." Among those +manuscripts which I have seen, I find one mentioned, apparently of a +wide circuit, under the reference of "My Biographical Institutions. Part +third; containing a Catalogue of all the English Lives, with Historical +and Critical Observations on them." But will our curious or our +whimsical collectors of the present day endure without impatience the +loss of a quarto manuscript, which bears this rich condiment for its +title--"Of London Libraries; with Anecdotes of Collectors of Books; +Remarks on Booksellers; and on the first Publishers of Catalogues?" +Oldys left ample annotations on "Fuller's Worthies," and "Winstanley's +Lives of the Poets," and on "Langbaine's Dramatic Poets." The late Mr. +Boswell showed me a _Fuller_ in the Malone collection, with Steevens's +transcriptions of _Oldys's notes_, which Malone purchased for 43_l._ at +Steevens's sale; but where is the original copy of Oldys? The +"Winstanley," I think, also reposes in the same collection. The +"Langbaine" is far-famed, and is preserved in the British Museum, the +gift of Dr. Birch; it has been considered so precious, that several of +our eminent writers have cheerfully passed through the labour of a +minute transcription of its numberless notes. In the history of the fate +and fortune of books, that of Oldys's _Langbaine_ is too curious to +omit. Oldys may tell his own story, which I find in the Museum copy, p. +336, and which copy appears to be a _second_ attempt; for of the _first_ +Langbaine we have this account:-- + + When I left London in 1724, to reside in _Yorkshire_, I left in the + care of the Rev. Mr. Burridge's family, with whom I had several years + lodged, among many other books, goods, &c., a copy of this + "Langbaine," in which I had wrote several notes and references to + further knowledge of these poets. When I returned to London, 1730, I + understood my books had been dispersed; and afterwards becoming + acquainted with Mr. T. Coxeter, I found that he had bought my + "Langbaine" of a bookseller who was a great collector of plays and + poetical books: this must have been of service to him, and he has + kept it so carefully from my sight, that I never could have the + opportunity of transcribing into this I am now writing in the notes I + had collected in that.[348] + +This _first_ Langbaine, with additions by Coxeter, was bought, at the +sale of his books, by Theophilus Cibber: on the strength of these notes +he prefixed his name to the first collection of the "Lives of our +Poets," which appeared in weekly numbers, and now form five volumes, +written chiefly by Shiels, an amanuensis of Dr. Johnson. Shiels has been +recently castigated by Mr. Gifford. + +These literary jobbers nowhere distinguished Coxeter's and Oldys's +curious matter from their own. Such was the fate of the _first_ copy of +Langbaine, with _Oldys's notes_; but the _second_ is more important. At +an auction of some of Oldys's books and manuscripts, of which I have +seen a printed catalogue, Dr. Birch purchased this invaluable copy for +three shillings and sixpence.[349] Such was the value attached to these +original researches concerning our poets, and of which, to obtain only a +transcript, very large sums have since been cheerfully given. The Museum +copy of Langbaine is in Oldys's handwriting, not interleaved, but +overflowing with notes, written in a very small hand about the margins, +and inserted between the lines; nor may the transcriber pass negligently +even its corners, otherwise he is here assured that he will lose some +useful date, or the hint of some curious reference. The enthusiasm and +diligence of Oldys, in undertaking a repetition of his first lost +labour, proved to be infinitely greater than the sense of his unrequited +labours. Such is the history of the escapes, the changes, and the fate +of a volume which forms the groundwork of the most curious information +concerning our elder poets, and to which we must still frequently refer. + +In this variety of literary arrangements, which we must consider as +single works in a progressive state, or as portions of one great work on +our modern literary history, it may, perhaps, be justly suspected that +Oldys, in the delight of perpetual acquisition, impeded the happier +labour of unity of design and completeness of purpose. He was not a +Tiraboschi--nor even a Niceron! He was sometimes chilled by neglect, +and by "vanity and vexation of spirit," else we should not now have to +count over a barren list of manuscript works; masses of literary +history, of which the existence is even doubtful. + +In Kippis's Biographia Britannica we find frequent references to O. M., +Oldys's Manuscripts. Mr. John Taylor, the son of the friend and executor +of Oldys, has greatly obliged me with all his recollections of this man +of letters; whose pursuits, however, were in no manner analogous to his, +and whom he could only have known in youth. By him I learn, that on the +death of Oldys, Dr. Kippis, editor of the Biographia Britannica, looked +over these manuscripts at Mr. Taylor's house. He had been directed to +this discovery by the late Bishop of Dromore, whose active zeal was very +remarkable in every enterprise to enlarge our literary history. Kippis +was one who, in some degree, might have estimated their literary value; +but, employed by commercial men, and negotiating with persons who +neither comprehended their nature, nor affixed any value to them, the +editor of the Biographia found Oldys's manuscripts an easy purchase for +his employer, the late Mr. Cadell; and the twenty guineas, perhaps, +served to bury their writer! Mr. Taylor says--"The manuscripts of Oldys +were not so many as might be expected from so indefatigable a writer. +They consisted chiefly of short extracts from books, and minutes of +dates, and were _thought worth purchasing_ by the doctor. I remember the +manuscripts well; though Oldys was not the author, but rather recorder." +Such is the statement and the opinion of a writer whose effusions are of +a gayer sort. But the researches of Oldys must not be estimated by this +standard; with him a single line was the result of many a day of +research, and a leaf of scattered hints would supply more _original +knowledge_ than some octavos fashioned out by the hasty gilders and +varnishers of modern literature. These _discoveries_ occupy small space +to the eye; but large works are composed out of them. This very lot of +Oldys's manuscripts was, indeed, so considerable in the judgment of +Kippis, that he has described them as "_a large and useful body of +biographical materials, left by Mr. Oldys_." Were these the +"Biographical Institutes" Oldys refers to among his manuscripts? "The +late Mr. Malone," continues Mr. Taylor, "told me that he had seen _all +Oldys's manuscripts_; so I presume they are in the hands of Cadell and +Davies." Have they met with the fate of sucked oranges?--and how much of +Malone may we owe to Oldys? + +This information enabled me to trace the manuscripts of Oldys to Dr. +Kippis; but it cast me among the booksellers, who do not value +manuscripts which no one can print. I discovered, by the late Mr. +Davies, that the direction of that hapless work in our literary history, +with its whole treasure of manuscripts, had been consigned by Mr. Cadell +to the late George Robinson, and that the successor of Dr. Kippis had +been the late Dr. George Gregory. Again I repeat, the history of +voluminous works is a melancholy office; every one concerned with them +no longer can be found! The esteemed relict of Dr. Gregory, with a +friendly promptitude, gratified my anxious inquiries, and informed me, +that "she perfectly recollects a mass of papers, such as I described, +being returned, on the death of Dr. Gregory, to the house of Wilkie and +Robinson, in the early part of the year 1809." I applied to this house, +who, after some time, referred me to Mr. John Robinson, the +representative of his late father, and with whom all the papers of the +former partnership were deposited. But Mr. John Robinson has terminated +my inquiries, by his civility in promising to comply with them, and his +pertinacity in not doing so. He may have injured his own interest in not +trading with my curiosity.[350] It was fortunate for the nation that +George Vertue's mass of manuscripts escaped the fate of Oldys's; had the +possessor proved as indolent, Horace Walpole would not have been the +writer of his most valuable work, and we should have lost the "Anecdotes +of Painting," of which Vertue had collected the materials. + +Of a life consumed in such literary activity we should have known more +had the _Diaries_ of Oldys escaped destruction. "One habit of my +father's old friend, William Oldys," says Mr. Taylor, "was that of +keeping a diary, and recording in it every day all the events that +occurred, and all his engagements, and the employment of his time. I +have seen piles of these books, but know not what became of them." The +existence of such _diaries_ is confirmed by a sale catalogue of Thomas +Davies, the literary bookseller, who sold many of the books and _some +manuscripts of Oldys_, which appear to have been dispersed in various +libraries. I find Lot "3627, Mr. Oldys's Diary, containing several +observations relating to books, characters, &c.;" a single volume, which +appears to have separated from the "piles" which Mr. Taylor once +witnessed. The literary diary of Oldys could have exhibited the mode of +his pursuits, and the results of his discoveries. One of these volumes I +have fortunately discovered, and a singularity in this writer's feelings +throws a new interest over such diurnal records. Oldys was apt to give +utterance with his pen to his most secret emotions. Querulous or +indignant, his honest simplicity confided to the paper before him such +extemporaneous soliloquies, and I have found him hiding in the very +corners of his manuscripts his "secret sorrows." + +A few of these slight memorials of his feelings will exhibit a sort of +_Silhouette_ likeness traced by his own hand, when at times the pensive +man seems to have contemplated his own shadow. Oldys would throw down in +verses, whose humility or quaintness indicates their origin, or by some +pithy adage, or apt quotation, or recording anecdote, his self-advice, +or his self-regrets! + +Oppressed by a sense of tasks so unprofitable to himself, while his days +were often passed in trouble and in prison, he breathes a self-reproach +in one of these profound reflections of melancholy which so often +startle the man of study, who truly discovers that life is too limited +to acquire real knowledge, with the ambition of dispensing it to the +world:-- + + I say, who too long in these cobwebs lurks, + Is always whetting tools, but never works. + +In one of the corners of his note-books I find this curious but sad +reflection:-- + + Alas! this is but the apron of a fig-leaf--but the curtain of a cobweb. + +Sometimes he seems to have anticipated the fate of that obscure +diligence which was pursuing discoveries reserved for others to use:-- + + He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them. + + Fond treasurer of these stores, behold thy fate + In Psalm the thirty-ninth, 6, 7, and 8. + + +Sometimes he checks the eager ardour of his pen, and reminds himself of +its repose, in Latin, Italian, and English. + + ----Non vi, sed saepe cadendo. + Assai presto si fa quel che si fa bene. + + Some respite best recovers what we need, + Discreetly baiting gives the journey speed. + +There was a thoughtless kindness in honest Oldys; and his simplicity of +character, as I have observed, was practised on by the artful or the +ungenerous. We regret to find the following entry concerning the famous +collector, James West:-- + + I gave above threescore letters of Dr. Davenant to his son, who was + envoy at Frankfort in 1703 to 1708, to Mr. James West,[351] with one + hundred and fifty more, about Christmas, 1746: but the same fate they + found as grain that is sown in barren ground. + +Such is the plaintive record by which Oldys relieved himself of a groan! +We may smile at the simplicity of the following narrative, where poor +Oldys received manuscripts in lieu of money:-- + + Old Counsellor Fane, of Colchester, who, _in forma pauperis_, + deceived me of a good sum of money which he owed me, and not long + after set up his chariot, gave me a parcel of manuscripts, and + promised me others, which he never gave me, nor anything else, + besides a barrel of oysters, and a manuscript copy of Randolph's + poems, an original, as he said, with many additions, being devolved + to him as the author's relation. + +There was no end to his aids and contributions to every author or +bookseller who applied to him; yet he had reason to complain of both +while they were using his invaluable but not valued knowledge. Here is +one of these diurnal entries:-- + + I lent the tragical lives and deaths of the famous pirates, Ward and + Dansiker, 4to, London, 1612, by Robt. Daborn, alias Dabourne, to Mr. + T. Lediard, when he was writing his Naval History, and he never + returned it. See Howell's Letters of them. + +In another, when his friend T. Hayward was collecting, for his "British +Muse," the most exquisite commonplaces of our old English dramatists, a +compilation which must not be confounded with ordinary ones, Oldys not +only assisted in the labour, but drew up a curious introduction with a +knowledge and love of the subject which none but himself possessed. But +so little were these researches then understood, that we find Oldys, in +a moment of vexatious recollection, and in a corner of one of the +margins of his Langbaine, accidentally preserving an extraordinary +circumstance attending this curious dissertation. Oldys having completed +this elaborate introduction, "the penurious publisher insisted on +leaving out one third part, which happened to be the best matter in it, +because he would have it contracted into _one sheet_!" Poor Oldys never +could forget the fate of this elaborate Dissertation on all the +collections of English poetry; I am confident that I have seen some +volume which was formerly Oldys's, and afterwards Thomas Warton's, in +the possession of my intelligent friend Mr. Douce, in the fly-leaf of +which Oldys has expressed himself in these words:--"In my historical and +critical review of all the collections of this kind, it would have made +a sheet and a half or two sheets; but they for sordid gain, and to save +a little expense in print and paper, got Mr. John Campbell _to cross it +and cramp it, and play the devil with it, till they squeezed it into +less compass than a sheet_." This is a loss which we may never recover. +The curious book-knowledge of this singular man of letters, those stores +of which he was the fond treasurer, as he says with such tenderness for +his pursuits, were always ready to be cast into the forms of a +dissertation or an introduction; and when Morgan published his +Collection of Rare Tracts, the friendly hand of Oldys furnished "A +Dissertation upon Pamphlets, in a Letter to a Nobleman;" probably the +Earl of Oxford, a great literary curiosity; and in the Harleian +Collection he has given a _Catalogue raisonne_ of six hundred. When Mrs. +Cooper attempted "The Muse's Library," the first essay which influenced +the national taste to return to our deserted poets in our most poetical +age, it was Oldys who only could have enabled this lady to perform that +task so well.[352] When Curll, the publisher, to help out one of his +hasty compilations, a "History of the Stage," repaired, like all the +world, to Oldys, whose kindness could not resist the importunity of +this busy publisher, he gave him a life of Nell Gwynn; while at the same +moment Oldys could not avoid noticing, in one of his usual entries, an +intended work on the stage, which we seem never to have had, "_Dick +Leveridge's History of the Stage and Actors in his own Time_, for these +forty or fifty years past, as he told me he had composed, is likely to +prove, whenever it shall appear, a more perfect work." I might proceed +with many similar gratuitous contributions with which he assisted his +contemporaries. Oldys should have been constituted the reader for the +nation. His _Comptes Rendus_ of books and manuscripts are still held +precious; but his useful and curious talent had sought the public +patronage in vain! From one of his "Diaries," which has escaped +destruction, I transcribe some interesting passages _ad verbum_. + +The reader is here presented with a minute picture of those invisible +occupations which pass in the study of a man of letters. There are those +who may be surprised, as well as amused, in discovering how all the +business, even to the very disappointments and pleasures of active life, +can be transferred to the silent chamber of a recluse student; but there +are others who will not read without emotion the secret thoughts of him +who, loving literature with its purest passion, scarcely repines at +being defrauded of his just fame, and leaves his stores for the +after-age of his more gifted heirs. Thus we open one of Oldys's literary +days:-- + + I was informed that day by Mr. Tho. Odell's daughter, that her + father, who was Deputy-Inspector and Licenser of the Plays, died 24 + May, 1749, at his house in Chappel-street, Westminster, aged 58 + years. He was writing a history of the characters he had observed, + and conferences he had had with many eminent persons he knew in his + time. He was a great observator of everything curious in the + conversations of his acquaintance, and his own conversation was a + living chronicle of the remarkable intrigues, adventures, sayings, + stories, writings, &c., of many of the quality, poets, and other + authors, players, booksellers, &c., who flourished especially in the + present century. He had been a popular man at elections, and sometime + master of the playhouse in Goodman's Fields, but latterly was forced + to live reserved and retired by reason of his debts. He published two + or three dramatic pieces, one was the _Patron_, on the story of Lord + Romney. + + Q. of his da. to restore me Eustace Budgell's papers, and to get a + sight of her father's. + + Have got the one, and seen the other. + + July 31.--Was at Mrs. Odell's; she returned me Mr. Budgell's papers. + Saw some of her husband's papers, mostly poems in favour of the + ministry, and against Mr. Pope. One of them, printed by the late Sir + Robert Walpole's encouragement, who gave him ten guineas for writing + and as much for the expense of printing it; but through his advice + it was never published, because it might hurt his interest with Lord + Chesterfield, and some other noblemen who favoured Mr. Pope for his + fine genius. The tract I liked best of his writings was the history + of his playhouse in Goodman's Fields. (Remember that which was + published against that playhouse, which I have entered in my London + Catalogue. Letter to Sir Ric. Brocas, Lord Mayor, &c., 8vo, 1730.) + + Saw nothing of the history of his conversations with ingenious men; + his characters, tales, jests, and intrigues of them, of which no man + was better furnished with them. She thinks she has some papers of + these, and promises to look them out, and also to inquire after Mr. + Griffin, of the Lord Chamberlain's office, that I may get a search + made about _Spenser_. + +So intent was Oldys on these literary researches that we see, by the +last words of this entry, how in hunting after one sort of game, his +undivided zeal kept his eye on another. One of his favourite subjects +was the realising of original discoveries respecting Spenser and +Shakspeare; of whom, perhaps, to our shame, as it is to our vexation, it +may be said that two of our master-poets are those of whom we know the +least! Oldys once flattered himself that he should be able to have given +the world a Life of Shakspeare. Mr. John Taylor informs me, that "Oldys +had contracted to supply ten years of the life of Shakspeare _unknown to +the biographers_, with one Walker, a bookseller in the Strand; and as +Oldys did not live to fulfil the engagement, my father was obliged to +return to Walker twenty guineas which he had advanced on the work." +_That interesting narrative is now hopeless for us._ Yet, by the solemn +contract into which Oldys had entered, and from his strict integrity, it +might induce one to suspect that he had made positive discoveries which +are now irrecoverable. + +We may observe the manner of his anxious inquiries about _Spenser_:-- + + Ask Sir Peter Thompson if it were improper to try if Lord Effingham + Howard would procure the pedigrees in the Herald's office, to be seen + for Edmund Spenser's parentage or family? or how he was related to + Sir John Spenser of Althorpe, in Northamptonshire? to three of whose + daughters, who all married nobility, Spenser dedicates three of his + poems. + + Of Mr. Vertue, to examine Stowe's memorandum-book. Look more + carefully for the year when Spenser's monument was raised, or between + which years the entry stands--1623 and 1626. + + Sir Clement Cottrell's book about Spenser. + + Captain Power, to know if he has heard from Capt. Spenser about my + letter of inquiries relating to Edward Spenser. + + Of Whiston, to examine if my remarks on Spenser are complete as to + the press--Yes. + + Remember, when I see Mr. W. Thompson, to inquire whether he has + printed in any of his works any other character of our old poets + than those of Spenser and Shakspeare;[353] and to get the liberty of + a visit at Kentish Town, to see his _Collection of Robert Greene's + Works_, in about _four large volumes quarto_. He commonly published a + pamphlet every term, as his acquaintance Tom Nash informs us. + +Two or three other memorials may excite a smile at his peculiar habits +of study, and unceasing vigilance to draw from original sources of +information. + + _Dryden's Dream_, at Lord Exeter's, at Burleigh, while he was + translating Virgil, as Signior Verrio, then painting there, related + it to the Yorkshire painter, of whom I had it, lies in _the parchment + book in quarto_, designed for his life. + +At a subsequent period Oldys inserts, "Now entered therein." Malone +quotes this very memorandum, which he discovered in _Oldys's Langbaine_, +to show Dryden had some confidence in Oneirocriticism, and supposed that +future events were sometimes prognosticated by dreams. Malone adds, +"Where either the _loose_ prophetic _leaf_ or the _parchment book_ now +is, I know not."[354] + +Unquestionably we have incurred a great loss in Oldys's collections for +Dryden's Life, which are very extensive; such a mass of literary history +cannot have perished unless by accident; and I suspect that many of +_Oldys's manuscripts_ are in the possession of individuals who are not +acquainted with his hand-writing, which may be easily verified. + + To search the old papers in one of my large deal boxes for Dryden's + letter of thanks to my father, for some communication relating to + Plutarch, while they and others were publishing a translation of + Plutarch's Lives, in five volumes 8vo. 1683. It is copied in _the + yellow book for Dryden's Life_, in which there are about 150 + transcriptions, in prose and verse, relating to the life, character, + and writings of Dryden.--Is England's Remembrancer extracted out of + my _obit._ (obituary) into my remarks on him in the _poetical bag_? + + My extracts in the _parchment budget_ about Denham's seat and family + in Surrey. + + My _white vellum pocket-book_, bordered with gold, for the extract + from "Groans of Great Britain" about Butler. + + See my account of the great yews in Tankersley's park, while Sir R. + Fanshaw was prisoner in the lodge there; especially Talbot's yew, + which a man on horseback might turn about in, in my _botanical + budget_. + + This Donald Lupton I have mentioned in my _catalogue_ of all the + books and pamphlets relative to London in folio, begun anno 1740, and + in which I have now, 1740, entered between 300 and 400 articles, + besides remarks, &c. Now, in June, 1748, between 400 and 500 + articles. Now, in October, 1750, six hundred and thirty-six.[355] + +There remains to be told an anecdote which shows that Pope greatly +regarded our literary antiquary. "Oldys," says my friend, "was one of +the librarians of the Earl of Oxford, and he used to tell a story of the +credit which he obtained as a scholar, by setting Pope right in a Latin +quotation which he made at the earl's table. He did not, however, as I +remember, boast of having been admitted as a guest at the table, but as +happening to be in the room." Why might not Oldys, however, have been +seated, at least below the salt? It would do no honour to either party +to suppose that Oldys stood among the menials. The truth is, there +appears to have existed a confidential intercourse between Pope and +Oldys; of this I shall give a remarkable proof. In those fragments of +Oldys, preserved as "additional anecdotes of Shakspeare," in Steevens's +and Malone's editions, Oldys mentions a story of Davenant, which, he +adds, "Mr. Pope told me at the Earl of Oxford's table!" And further +relates a conversation which passed between them. Nor is this all; for +in Oldys's Langbaine he put down this memorandum in the article of +_Shakspeare_--"Remember what I observed to my Lord Oxford for Mr. Pope's +use out of Cowley's preface." Malone appears to have discovered this +observation of Cowley's, which is curious enough, and very ungrateful to +that commentator's ideas: it is "to prune and lop away the old withered +branches" in the new editions of Shakspeare and other ancient poets! +"Pope adopted," says Malone, "this very unwarrantable idea; Oldys was +the person who suggested to Pope the singular course he pursued in his +edition of Shakspeare." Without touching on the felicity or the danger +of this new system of republishing Shakspeare, one may say that if many +passages were struck out, Shakspeare would not be injured, for many of +them were never composed by that great bard! There not only existed a +literary intimacy between Oldys and Pope, but our poet adopting his +suggestions on so important an occasion, evinces how highly he esteemed +his judgment; and unquestionably Pope had often been delighted by Oldys +with the history of his predecessors, and the curiosities of English +poetry. + +I have now introduced the reader to Oldys sitting amidst his "poetical +bags," his "parchment biographical budgets," his "catalogues," and his +"diaries," often venting a solitary groan, or active in some fresh +inquiry. Such is the _Silhouette_ of this prodigy of literary curiosity! + +The very existence of Oldys's manuscripts continues to be of an +ambiguous nature; referred to, quoted, and transcribed, we can but +seldom turn to the originals. These masses of curious knowledge, +dispersed or lost, have enriched an after-race, who have often picked up +the spoil and claimed the victory, but it was Oldys who had fought the +battle! + +Oldys affords one more example how life is often closed amidst +discoveries and acquisitions. The literary antiquary, when he has +attempted to embody his multiplied inquiries, and to finish his +scattered designs, has found that the LABOR ABSQUE LABORE, "the labour +void of labour," as the inscription on the library of Florence finely +describes the researches of literature, has dissolved his days in the +voluptuousness of his curiosity; and that too often, like the hunter in +the heat of the chase, while he disdained the prey which lay before him, +he was still stretching onwards to catch the fugitive! + + _Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia captat._ + +At the close of every century, in this growing world of books, may an +Oldys be the reader for the nation! Should he be endowed with a +philosophical spirit, and combine the genius of his own times with that +of the preceding, he will hold in his hand the chain of human thoughts, +and, like another Bayle, become the historian of the human mind! + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [338] His intention was to publish a general classified biography of + all the Italian authors. + + [339] He says in his advertisement, "It will be difficult to ascertain + whether he meant to give them to the public, or only to reserve them + for his own amusement and the entertainment of his friends." Many of + these anecdotes are evidently mere loose scandal. + + [340] Grose narrates his early history thus:--"His parents dying when + he was very young, he soon squandered away his small patrimony, when + he became, at first an attendant in Lord Oxford's library, and + afterwards librarian; at whose death he was obliged to write for the + booksellers for a subsistence." + + [341] Mr. John Taylor, the son of Oldys's intimate friend, has + furnished me with this interesting anecdote. "Oldys, as my father + informed me, was many years in quiet obscurity in the Fleet prison, + but at last was spirited up to make his situation known to the Duke + of Norfolk of that time, who received Oldys's letter while he was at + dinner with some friends. The duke immediately communicated the + contents to the company, observing that he had long been anxious to + know what had become of an old, though an humble friend, and was + happy by that letter to find that he was alive. He then called for + his _gentleman_ (a kind of humble friend whom noblemen used to + retain under that name in those days), and desired him to go + immediately to the Fleet, to take money for the immediate need of + Oldys, to procure an account of his debts, and discharge them. Oldys + was soon after, either by the duke's gift or interest, appointed + Norroy King of Arms; and I remember that his official regalia came + into my father's hands at his death." + + In the "Life of Oldys," by Mr. A. Chalmers, the date of this + promotion is not found. My accomplished friend, the Rev. J. + Dallaway, has obligingly examined the records of the college, by + which it appears that Oldys had been _Norfolk herald extraordinary_, + but not belonging to the college, was appointed _per saltum_ Norroy + King of Arms by patent, May 5th, 1755. + + Grose says--"The patronage of the duke occasioned a suspicion of his + being a papist, though I think really without reason; this for a + while retarded his appointment: it was underhand propagated by the + heralds, who were vexed at having a stranger put in upon them." + + [342] The beautiful simplicity of this Anacreontic has met the + unusual fate of entirely losing its character, by an additional and + incongruous stanza in the modern editions, by a gentleman who has + put into practice the unallowable liberty of _altering_ the poetical + and dramatic compositions of acknowledged genius to his own notion + of what he deems "morality;" but in works of genius whatever is dull + ceases to be moral. "The Fly" of Oldys may stand by "The Fly" of + Gray for melancholy tenderness of thought; it consisted only of + these two stanzas: + + Busy, curious, thirsty fly! + Drink with me, and drink as I! + Freely welcome to my cup, + Couldst thou sip and sip it up: + Make the most of life you may; + Life is short and wears away! + + Both alike are mine and thine, + Hastening quick to their decline! + Thine's a summer, mine no more, + Though repeated to threescore! + Threescore summers when they're gone, + Will appear as short as one! + + [343] This anecdote should be given in justice to both parties, and + in Grose's words, who says:--"He was a man of great good-nature, + honour, and integrity, particularly in his character of an + historian. Nothing, I firmly believe, would ever have biassed him to + insert any fact in his writings he did not believe, or to suppress + any he did. Of this delicacy he gave an instance at a time when he + was in great distress. After his publication of the 'Life of Sir + Walter Raleigh,' some booksellers thinking his name would sell a + piece they were publishing, offered him a considerable sum to father + it, which he rejected with the greatest indignation." + + [344] We have been taught to enjoy the two ages of Genius and of + Taste. The literary public are deeply indebted to the editorial + care, the taste, and the enthusiasm of Mr. Singer, for exquisite + reprints of some valuable writers. + + [345] Gibbon once meditated a life of Rawleigh, and for that purpose + began some researches in that "memorable era of our English annals." + After reading Oldys's, he relinquished his design, from a conviction + that "he could add nothing new to the subject, except the uncertain + merit of style and sentiment." + + [346] The British Museum is extremely deficient in our National + Literature. The gift of George the Third's library has, however, + probably supplied many deficiencies. [The recent bequest of the + Grenville collection, and the constant search made of late years for + these relics of early literature by the officers of our great + national library, has greatly altered the state of the collection + since the above was written _s--Ed_.] + + [347] Grose says--"His mode of composing was somewhat singular: he + had a number of small parchment bags, inscribed with the names of + the persons whose lives he intended to write; into these bags he put + every circumstance and anecdote he could collect, and from thence + drew up his history." + + [348] At the Bodleian Library, I learnt by a letter with which I am + favoured by the Rev. Dr. Bliss, that there is an interleaved + "Gildon's Lives and Characters of the Dramatic Poets," with + corrections, which once belonged to Coxeter, who appears to have + intended a new edition. Whether Coxeter transcribed into his Gildon + the notes of Oldys's _first_ "Langbaine," is worth inquiry. + Coxeter's conduct, though he had purchased Oldys's first + "Langbaine," was that of an ungenerous miser, who will quarrel with + a brother rather than share in any acquisition he can get into his + own hands. To Coxeter we also owe much; he suggested Dodsley's + Collection of Old Plays, and the first tolerable edition of + Massinger. + + Oldys could not have been employed in Lord Oxford's library, as Mr. + Chalmers conjectures, about 1726; for here he mentions that he was + in _Yorkshire_ from 1724 to 1730. This period is a remarkable blank + in Oldys's life. My learned friend, the Rev. Joseph Hunter, has + supplied me with a note in the copy of Fuller in the Malone + collection preserved at the Bodleian. Those years were passed + apparently in the household of the first Earl of Malton, who built + Wentworth House. There all the collections of the antiquary + Gascoigne, with "seven great chests of manuscripts," some as ancient + as the time of the Conquest, were condemned in one solemn sacrifice + to Vulcan; the ruthless earl being impenetrable to the prayers and + remonstrances of our votary to English History. Oldys left the earl + with little satisfaction, as appears by some severe strictures from + his gentle pen. + + [349] This copy was lent by Dr. Birch to the late Bishop of Dromore, + who with his own hand carefully transcribed the notes into an + interleaved copy of "Langbaine," divided into four volumes, which, + as I am informed, narrowly escaped the flames, and was injured by + the water, at a fire at Northumberland House. His lordship, when he + went to Ireland, left this copy with Mr. Nichols, for the use of the + projected editions of the _Tatler_, the _Spectator_, and the + _Guardian_, with notes and illustrations; of which I think the + _Tatler_ only has appeared, and to which his lordship contributed + some valuable communications. + + [350] I know that not only this lot of _Oldys's manuscripts_, but a + great quantity of _original contributions_ of whole lives, intended + for the "Biographia Britannica," must lie together, unless they have + been destroyed as waste paper. These biographical and literary + curiosities were often supplied by the families or friends of + eminent persons. Some may, perhaps, have been reclaimed by their + owners. I am informed there was among them an interesting collection + of the correspondence of Locke; and I could mention several lives + which were prepared. + + [351] This collection, and probably the other letters, have come + down to us, no doubt, with the manuscripts of this collector, + purchased for the British Museum. The correspondence of Dr. + Davenant, the political writer, with his son, the envoy, turns on + one perpetual topic, his son's and his own advancement in the state. + + [352] It is a stout octavo volume of 400 pages, containing a good + selection of specimens from the earliest era, concluding with Sam. + Daniel, in the reign of James I. Mrs. Elizabeth Cooper was the wife + of an auctioneer, who had been a chum of Oldys's in the Fleet + Prison, where he died a debtor; and it was to aid his widow that + Oldys edited this book. + + [353] William Thompson, the poet of "Sickness," and other poems; a + warm lover of our elder bards, and no vulgar imitator of Spenser. He + was the revivor of Bishop Hall's Satires, in 1753, by an edition + which had been more fortunate if conducted by his friend Oldys, for + the text is unfaithful, though the edition followed was one borrowed + from Lord Oxford's library, probably by the aid of Oldys. + + [354] Malone's Life of Dryden, p. 420. + + [355] This is one of _Oldys's Manuscripts_; a thick folio of titles, + which has been made to do its duty, with small thanks from those who + did not care to praise the service which they derived from it. It + passed from Dr. Berkenhout to George Steevens, who lent it to Gough. + It was sold for five guineas. The useful work of ten years of + attention given to it! The antiquary Gough alludes to it with his + usual discernment. "Among these titles of books and pamphlets about + London are many _purely historical_, and many of _too low a kind_ to + rank under the head of topography and history." Thus the design of + Oldys, in forming this elaborate collection, is condemned by trying + it by the limited object of the topographer's view. This catalogue + remains a desideratum, were it printed entire as collected by Oldys, + not merely for the topography of the metropolis, but for its + relation to its manners, domestic annals, events, and persons + connected with its history. + + + + +INDEX. + + + ABELARD, ranks among the heretics, i. 145; book condemned as his + written by another, ib.; absolution granted to, 146; wrote and + _sung_ finely, 147; raises the school of the Paraclete, ib. + + ABRAM-MEN, ii. 312, and note, ib. + + ABRIDGERS, objections to, and recommendations of, i. 397; Bayle's + advice to, 398; now slightly regarded, 399; instructions to, quoted + from the Book of Maccabees, ib. + + ABSENCE of mind, anecdotes of, i. 206. + + ABSOLUTE monarchy, search for precedents to maintain, iii. 510, + note. + + ABSTRACTION of mind, instances of, amongst great men, ii. 59-60; + sonnet on, by Metastasio, 61. + + ACADEMY, the French, some account of, i. 413-417; visit of Christina + Queen of Sweden to, 414; of Literature, designed in the reign of + Queen Anne, ii. 407; abortive attempts to establish various, ib.; + disadvantages of, ib.; arguments of the advocates for, ib.; should + be designed by individuals, 408; French origin of, 408-410; origin + of the Royal Society, 410-412; ridiculous titles of Italian, 479; + some account of the Arcadian, and its service to literature, 482; + derivation of its title, ib.; of the Colombaria, 483; indications + of, in England, 484; early rise of among the Italians, 485; + establishment of the "Academy," 486; suppressed, and its members + persecuted, ib.; of the "Oziosi," 488; suppression of many, at + Florence and Sienna, ib.; considerations of the reason of the + Italian fantastical titles of, &c., 489. + + ACAJOU and Zirphile, a whimsical fairy tale, ii. 308-311. + + ACCADEMIA of Bologna originated with Lodovico Caracci, ii. 399. + + ACCIDENT, instances of the pursuits of great men directed by, i. 85. + + ACEPHALI, iii. 193, and note, ib. + + ACHES, formerly a dissyllable; examples from Swift, Hudibras, and + Shakespeare; John Kemble's use of the word, i. 81, note. + + ACROSTICS, i. 295-296. + + ACTORS, tragic, i. 248; who have died martyrs to their tragic + characters, 249; should be nursed in the laps of queens, 250; + anecdotes of, 250-251. + + ADDISON, silent among strangers, i. 104. + + ADRIANI, his continuation of Guicciardini's History, iii. 180. + + ADVICE, good, of a literary sinner, i. 350. + + AGATES, presenting representations of natural forms, i. 244. + + AGOBARD, Archbishop of Lyons, i. 21, and note. + + AGREDA, Maria, wrote the Life of the Virgin Mary, i. 367. + + ALBERICO, vision of, ii. 422. + + ALBERTUS MAGNUS, his opinion concerning books of magic, iii. 281; + his brazen man, 282; his entertainment of the Earl of Holland, 290. + + ALCHYMISTS, results of their operations, iii. 284; their cautious + secresy, 285; discoveries by, ib. + + ALCHYMY, anecdotes of professors of, i. 283-284; Henry VI. + endeavoured to recruit his coffers by, 284; professors of, called + multipliers, 285; books of, pious frauds, ib.; Elias Ashmole rather + the historian of, than an adept in, 286; opinions of modern chemists + on, 287. + + ALEXANDRIA, library of, i. 1; Demetrius Phalereus, its industrious + and skilful librarian, ib.; original manuscripts of AEschylus, + Sophocles, and Euripides procured for, ib.: destruction of, 47-57. + + AMBASSADORS, anecdotes of frivolous points of etiquette insisted on + by, ii. 195-206. + + AMICABLE ceremonies in various nations, ii. 12. + + AMILCAR, the author of the Second Punic War, iii. 143. + + AMPHIGOURIES, i. 298. + + AMUSEMENT, periodical, during study, a standing rule among the + Jesuits, i. 31; various, practised by different celebrated men, + 38-41. + + ANAGRAMS, i. 298, ii. 229; are classed among the Hebrews with the + cabalistic sciences, 230; Platonic notions of, ib.; specimens of + Greek, ib.; several examples of curious, 231-233; amusing anecdotes + concerning, 234. + + ANCILLON and his library, i. 10, and note. + + ANDREINI, an actor and author of irregular Italian comedies, ii. + 141; a drama of his gave the first idea to Milton of his "Paradise + Lost," ib. + + ANECDOTES of European Manners, ii. 30-39; of Abstraction of Mind, + 59-62; literary, their importance, 300; Dr. Johnson's defence of, + 301; the absurdity of many transmitted by biographers, ib.; general + remarks on, 303. + + ANGLESEA, Earl of, his MSS. suppressed, ii. 447. + + ANIMALS, influence of music on, i. 272-4. + + ANNIUS of Viterbo published seventeen books of pretended + antiquities, iii. 305; and afterwards a commentary, ib.; caused a + literary war, 306. + + ANTEDILUVIAN researches, i. 301-303. + + ANTI, a favourite prefix to books of controversy, i. 318. + + ANTIQUARIES, Society of, inquiry into its origin and progress, ii. + 413-415. + + ANTONY, Marc, anecdote of, ii. 10. + + APPAREL, excess in, proclamation against, by Elizabeth, iii. 375. + + APPLES grafted on mulberry stocks, ii. 157, note. + + ARCHESTRATUS, a celebrated culinary philosopher, ii. 246. + + ARGUMENTS, invented by a machine, ii. 419. + + ARIOSTO, his merits disputed in Italy, i. 386; public preference + given to, by the Accademia della Crusca, 387; his verses sung by the + gondoliers, 388. + + ARISTOCRAT, a nick-name, iii. 83. + + ARISTOTLE, account of criticisms on, i. 25; fate of his library, 53; + Arabic commentaries on, 61; rage for, ib.; his opinions on sneezing, + 127; letter of Philip of Macedon to, 142; description of the person + and manners of, ib.; will of, 143; studied under Plato, ib.; + parallel between him and Plato, by Rapin, ib.; anecdote concerning + him and Plato, 144; raises a school, ib.; attacked by Xenocrates, + ib.; his mode of pointing out a successor, 145; writers against and + for, 314; bon-mot on his precepts, 407. + + ARMSTRONG, Archibald, jester to Charles I., ii. 236, note. + + ARNAULD, one of the most illustrious members of the Port Royal + Society, i. 94; anecdotes of, 96; was still the great Arnauld at the + age of eighty-two, 97. + + ASHMOLE, Elias, his Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, i. 286; his + Diary, ii. 209; his superstition, ib., note. + + ASTRAEA, D'Urfe's romance of the, i. 451; sketch of, 452-454. + + ASTROLOGERS, faith in, by celebrated characters, i. 278; Lilly + consulted by Charles I., ib.; Nostrodamus, by Catherine de Medici, + 279; several have suffered death to verify their skill, ib.; shifts + and impostures of, 279-280. + + ASTROLOGY, greatly flourished in the time of the Civil Wars, i. 280; + attacks on and defences of, 281-282. + + ATELLANAE Fabulae, Atellan farces, ii. 131, and note, 132. + + ATTICUS, employed to collect for Cicero, ii. 397; traded in books + and gladiators, 398. + + AUBREY, John, extract from his correspondence, iii. 294; his search + after gold, ib.; his idea of universal education, 296. + + AUDLEY, a lawyer and usurer, ii. 158; his commencement of life, and + means of rising in, 159; anecdote of him and a draper, 161; his + maxims of political economy, 162; his reply to a borrowing lord, + ib.; his manners and opinions, 168-170; his death and general + character, 170. + + AUTOGRAPHS, indications of character, iii. 163; of English + sovereigns, 165-166. + + + BABINGTON'S conspiracy, some account of its progress, and of the + noble youths concerned in it, ii. 171; trial and defences of the + conspirators, 173; their execution, 175-176. + + BACCHUS, ancient descriptions of, and modern translations of them, + ii. 292. + + BACON, Lord, sketch of his life as a philosopher, iii. 320-326; more + valued abroad than at home, 327. + + BAKER, Sir Richard, author of the "Chronicle," died in the Fleet, + ii. 452; his papers burnt, ib. + + BALES, Peter, a celebrated caligrapher, i. 275; iii. 173-177. + + BALLARD, the Jesuit, concerned in Babington's conspiracy, ii. 172; + expression of his on his trial, 173. + + BAPTISTA PORTA, founded the Accademie of the Oziosi and Segreti, + iii. 290; considered himself a prognosticator, ib.; his magical + devices, ib. + + BARBIER, Louis, anecdote relating to, ii. 11; his superstitious + observances, ib., note. + + BARNARD, Dr., his "Life of Heylin," iii. 217-221. + + BARTHIUS, Gaspar, a voluminous author, ii. 536; an infant prodigy, + ib.; published a long list of unprinted works, 537; its fate, ib. + + BASNAGE, his Dictionary, iii. 233. + + BAYLE, publishes his _Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres_, i. + 14; account of his death, 391; his conduct to his friend, 392; read + much by his fingers, ib.; amusements of, ib.; anecdotes relating to, + 393; his "Critical Dictionary," remarks on its character, ii. + 382-388; Gibbon's remarks on, 385; publication of, ib.; his + originality, how obtained, 386; his errors, 388; his personal + traits, 389; his characteristics, 388-396; changes his religion + twice, 390; extract from his diary, ib.; his methods of study, 391; + appointed to a professorship, ib.; deprived of it, ib.; laments his + want of books, 392; anecdotes of the effects of his works, 394; a + model of a literary character, 395. + + BEAM in the eye of the Pharisee, literally represented in early art, + i. 307, and note. + + BEARDS, various fashions in, i. 220. + + BEAUSSOL, M. Peyraud de, his preface to his condemned tragedy, ii. + 304-307. + + BEN JONSON, masques by, iii. 12; assisted Rawleigh in his history of + the world, 131, and note. + + BENEVOLENCES, iii. 218, 219. + + BENTLEY, notice of his criticisms on Milton, i. 370-373. + + BETHLEHEM Hospital, its original foundation, ii. 311, and note. + + BETTERTON, anecdote of, i. 250. + + BEZA, Theodore, an imitator of Calvin in abuse, i. 310; effect of + his work against toleration, iii. 245. + + BIBLE, the prohibition of, ii. 19; various versions of, 20-23; a + _family_ one, 22; the Olivetan, iii. 155; corrupt state of the + English, formerly, 427; printing of, an article of open trade, 428; + shameful practices in the printing of, 428-431, and note; privilege + of printing granted to one Bentley, 430; Field's Pearl Bible + contained 6000 faults, 431; division of, into chapter and verse, + 432. + + BIBLIOMANE, iii. 343. + + BIBLIOMANIA, i. 9. + + BIBLIOGNOSTE, iii. 343. + + BIBLIOGRAPHE, iii. 343. + + BIBLIOGRAPHY, remarks on its importance, iii. 341. + + BIBLIOPHILE, iii. 343. + + BIBLIOTAPHE, iii. 343. + + BIOGRAPHICAL parallels, iii. 425; a book of, proposed by Hurd, ib.; + between Budaeus and Erasmus, 426; instances of several, 427. + + BIOGRAPHY, painted, a, iii. 137-141; remarks on, 414; sentimental, + distinguished from chronological, ib.; of Dante, by Boccacio and + Aretino, 415-419; domestic, 420-423; customary among the Romans, + 424; comparative, a series of, projected by Elizabeth Hamilton, ib. + + BIRCH, Dr., his great services to history, iii. 383. + + BIRKENHEAD, Sir John, a newspaper writer and pamphleteer during the + great rebellion, i. 159. + + BLACK Cloaks, a political nickname for a party in Naples, iii. 82. + + BLENHEIM, secret history of the building of, iii. 102-111; drawn + from MSS., 103, note. + + BONAVENTURE DE PERRIERS, specimen of his stories, i. 128. + + BOOK of Sports, effect of, ii. 148. + + BOOKS, collections of, see LIBRARIES; collectors of, see COLLECTORS; + reviews of, and criticisms on, see LITERARY JOURNALS and SKETCHES OF + CRITICISM; destruction of, see TITLE; lost, i. 47-57; prices of, in + early times, 76; treatise on the art of reading printed, 78; curious + advertisements of, 157; titles of, 288; various opinions as to the + size of, 347; difficulties encountered in publishing many books of + merit, 375; works of another description better remunerated, 377; + leaves of, origin of their name, ii. 23, note; table-books, 26; + derivation of the name "book," 28; description of the form and + condition of ancient, ib.; censors and licensers of, 216; catalogue + of, condemned at the Council of Trent, ib.; inquisitors of, ib.; see + INDEX; burning of, anecdote of its good effect in promoting their + sale, 219; mutilations caused by the censors in Camden's works, Lord + Herbert's History of Henry VIII., and the Poems of Lord Brooke, 220; + anecdotes of purloiners of, iii. 316-319; predilection of celebrated + men to particular, iii. 340-343; calculations as to their present + number, 342; different terms for amateurs of, 343; which have been + designed but not completed, 493, 494. + + BOOKSELLERS, two ruined by one author, ii. 533. + + BORROWERS, destructive to collections of books, i. 12. + + BOTANIC GARDEN, Darwin's remarks on, i. 341. + + BOURDALOUE, i. 257. + + BOURGEOIS, Pere, one of the Chinese missionaries, account of his + attempt at preaching in Chinese, i. 268. + + BOUTS RIMES, i. 296. + + BRANDT, Ship of Fools, i. 7. + + BRIDGEWATER, late Duke of, destroyed many family MSS., ii. 451. + + BUCKINGHAM, Duke of, his familiarity and coarseness with James I., + i. 463, note; his conduct in Spain, ii. 4; equally a favourite with + James I. and Charles I., 5; Hume's character of, ib. and 355; + anecdote of him and the Queen of France, 6; his audacity and + "English familiarity," ib.; anecdote of him and Prince Charles, 7; + his rise, 10; his magnificent entertainment of Charles I. and the + French ambassador, 327; his character, 356-358, and notes; his fears + of being supplanted, 357, note; contrast between him and Richelieu, + 358; secret history of his expedition to Spain with Prince Charles, + 359; prognostics of his death, 364; portrait of, 366, note; + determined to succour Rochelle, 367; his death, 371; satires on, + 369, 370; possessed the esteem of Charles I., ib.; his extravagance + in dress, iii. 407; intrigued with the Puritans, 443; his + intercourse with Dr. Preston, a Puritan, 444; discovers Preston's + insincerity, and abandons the Puritans, 445; his impeachment, 452; + his failure at the Isle of Rhe, 458; offers to resign his offices, + 469; hatred of, by the parliament, 470-474. + + BUFFON, Vicq d'Azyr's description of his study, iii. 208. + + BUILDINGS in the metropolis, opposition to, from the days of + Elizabeth to those of Charles II., iii. 363; statutes against, 364; + proclamations against, 365. + + BURNET, his book against Varillas, i. 132, and note. + + BURYING grounds, iii. 231. + + BUTLER, the author of "Hudibras," vindicated, ii. 491-495. + + + CADIZ, expedition to, in the time of Charles I., ii. 366; satirical + lines on, 367. + + CALAMY, his "History of the Ejected Ministers," iii. 240. + + CALUMNY, political advantages of, iii. 81. + + CALVIN, less tolerant than Luther in controversy, i. 309. + + CAMUS, his "Medecine de l'Esprit," ii. 469. + + CARACCI, family of the, ii. 399; Lodovico, character of, ib.; the + school of the, 401, note; Agostino and Annibale, their opposite + characters, 402; the three opened a school in their own house, 403; + Agostino's eminence there, ib.; his sonnet, comprising the laws of + painting, 404; Domenichino, Albano, Guido, Guercino, their pupils, + 405; disputes between Annibale and Agostino, ib.; their separation, + 406. + + CARDINAL RICHELIEU, anecdotes of, and considerations on his + character, i. 139-142. + + CARLETON, Sir Dudley, Vice-Chamberlain of Charles I., his speech to + the Commons on the imprisonment of two of their members for their + impeachment of Buckingham, iii. 455. + + CARTOONS of Raphael, now at Hampton Court, offered for sale, and + bought by Cromwell, ii. 333; nearly sold to France by Charles II., + ib., note; the gallery for their reception built by William III., + ib. + + CATHERINE DE' MEDICI, her belief in astrology, iii. 347; employs + Montluc to intrigue to secure the election of the Duke of Anjou to + the crown of Poland, 349. + + CATHARINOT, a voluminous writer, ii. 545; his singular mode of + publishing his unsaleable works, 546. + + CAUSE and Pretext, distinction between, to be observed by + historians, iii. 141; anecdotal illustrations, 142-144. + + CAXTON, the printer, his earliest works, i. 75, note. + + CAYET, Dr., his "Chronologie Novenaire," ii. 7. + + CENSERS used to sweeten houses in the reign of Elizabeth, ii. 38, + note. + + CENSORS of books, designed to counteract the press, ii. 216; + originated with the Inquisition, ib.; appointed with the title of + Inquisitors of Books, ib.; disagreement among these Inquisitors, + 217; in Spain, 218; their treatment of commentators on the "Lusiad," + ib.; instances of the injury done to English literature by the + appointment of, 220; never recognised by English law, 221; regularly + established under Charles I., 223; office of, maintained by the + Puritans, ib.; treatment of Milton by, ib.; the office lay dormant + under Cromwell, 224; revived and continued under Charles II. and + James II., ib.; anecdotes relative to, 226-228. + + CENTOS, i. 299. + + CEREMONIES, different, among various nations, ii. 12-15. + + CERVANTES, remark of i. 394; taken prisoner at the battle of Lepanto, + ib. + + CHAMILLART, Minister of France, his rise, ii, 11. + + CHARADES, i. 297. + + CHARLES MARTEL, his combat with, and defeat of, the Mahometans, ii. + 430. + + CHARLES the Bald of France, his remarkable vision, ii. 423. + + CHARLES the First, account of his expedition into Spain, ii. 1-4; + anecdote of him and Buckingham, 6; history of his diamond seal, 326; + his love of the fine arts, 327; the magnificence and taste of his + court entertainments, 328; anecdote of, 329; catalogue of his + effects, 331-334; an artist and a poet, 334, 335, and note; + influence of his wife on, doubted, 336; his dismissal of his wife's + French establishment, 345; reply to the French ambassador's + remonstrances, 347; his conduct on the death of Buckingham, 371; + secret history of him and his first Parliaments, iii. 448; the + latter a sullen bride, ib.; his address to his first Parliament, and + their ungracious conduct, 449; they abandoned the king, 450; raises + money on Privy Seals, ib.; on the failure of the expedition to Cadiz + he called his second Parliament, 451; communications between him and + his Parliament, ib.; his address to them, noticing the impeachment + of Buckingham, 452; his conduct on that occasion the beginning of + his troubles, 453; on the Commons' further remonstrance against + Buckingham, he dissolves his second Parliament, 457; his distress + for money, ib.; his fresh distresses on the failure of the + expedition to the Isle of Rhe, and his expedients to raise money, + 458, 459; their ill success, 460, 461; reflections on his situation, + 463; rejects the proffered advice of the President of the + Rosy-Cross, 464; anonymous letter sent to the Commons, and by them + forwarded to the king without perusing, 465; secret measures used by + the opposition, 466; speech of the king to Parliament, 467; his + emotion on being informed that the Parliament had granted subsidies + 468; debates on the king's message, 469; Eliot's speech thereon, + 470; Coke's memorable speech, 473; the king grants his assent to the + Petition of Right, 475; popular rejoicings, 476; presentation of the + Remonstrance, ib.; the king's conduct after the assassination of + Buckingham, 477; vow of the Parliament to maintain the Articles of + Religion of the 13th Eliz., 478; tumult in the House, and + dissolution of the Parliament, 480. + + CHARLES the Fifth, his edicts against the Reformed religion, iii. + 242; his conduct influenced by political, not religious motives, + 243. + + CHARLES the Ninth, account of the death of, ii. 7-9; his apology for + the massacre of St. Bartholomew, iii. 255-259; his character, 260. + + CHERRIES, introduction of, into Great Britain, ii. 156; loss and + reintroduction of, in the reign of Henry VIII., ib. + + CHESS, clergymen prohibited from playing, ii. 32; Kempelen's + Mechanical Chess-player, iii. 284, note. + + CHINESE language, i. 267; difficulties of, experienced by P. Bourgeois, + 268. + + CHOCOLATE, brought from Mexico by the Spaniards, ii. 325; treatise + against the use of, ib.; chocolate-houses in London, ib. + + CHRISTMAS Prince at the Universities, ii. 268; account of one at + Oxford, 1607, ib., note. + + CHRISTODINS, iii. 81. + + CHRONOGRAMS, i. 295. + + CHURCHILL abhorred the correction of his MSS., ii. 85. + + CICERO a punster, i. 69; a manufacturer of prefaces, 71; a + collector, ii. 396; his projected library, ib.; employs Atticus to + procure books and statues, 397; discovered the tomb of Archimedes, + iii. 409. + + CITIES, Free, shook off the yoke of feudal tyranny, i. 184. + + CLAIRON, Mademoiselle, anecdote of, i. 251. + + CLARENDON House, history of its erection, iii. 189-191; popularly + called Dunkirk House, or Tangier Hall, 189; satire on the building + of, 190; existing remains of, 191, note. + + CLASSICAL learning, ii. 332. + + CLOVIS, his reasons for adopting Christianity, ii. 433, 434, and + note. + + COACHES, introduction of, into England, ii. 36; use of, in France, ib. + + COCKERAM, H., his English Dictionary and its new words, iii. 24. + + COCK-FIGHTING in Ceylon, i. 188. + + COFFEE, introduction of, into Europe, ii, 320; made fashionable at + Paris by the Turkish ambassador, 321; invectives and poetical + satires against, 322-324; advantages of its use, 325. + + COFFEE-HOUSES, the first opened at Paris, ii. 321; improvements in, + ib.; the first in England, 322; shut up by proclamation, ib.; and + iii. 379, note. + + COKE, or Cook, Sir Edward, his most pleasing book, his Manual, or + _Vade Mecum_, ii. 519; his MSS. seized on his death, ib.; yet to be + recovered, ib., note; his character, 520; his matrimonial alliances, + ib.; his disgrace, 521; disputes between him and his wife, Lady + Hatton, concerning the marriage of his daughter, 523; curious letter + of advice to Lady Hatton, for her defence before the Council, 524; + his daughter married to Lord Villiers, and Coke reinstated, 529; his + daughter's bad conduct, ib.; his death, 530; his vituperative style, + ib.; his conduct to Rawleigh, 531; his abjectness in disgrace, 532; + pricked as sheriff, to exclude him from Parliament, iii. 446; eludes + the appointment by excepting to the oath, 448. + + COKE, Mr. Clement, a violent opposition leader in the second + Parliament of Charles I., iii. 498, 499. + + COLERIDGE, method pursued by him in his remarkable political + predictions, iii. 268. + + COLLECTIONS of books, see LIBRARIES; of engravings, see ENGRAVINGS. + + COLLECTOR of books, i. 1-8; defence of himself, as one of the body, + by Ancillon, 10; Aristotle first saluted as a, 53. + + COLLECTORS, their propensity to plunder, iii. 316-319. + + COLLINS, Anthony, a great lover of books, iii. 16; a free-thinker, + ib.; the friend of Locke, 18; fate of his MSS., 19-23. + + COMEDIES, extemporal, ii. 130; opinion of northern critics on, 131; + the amusement of Italy, ib.; practised by the Romans, ib.; Salvator + Rosa's prologue to one, 133; opinions and descriptions of, by + Riccoboni and Gherardi, 134, 135; anecdote of the excellence of, + 137; when first introduced in England, 138. + + COMFITS universally used under Henry III. of France, i. 221. + + COMINES, notice of, i. 263. + + COMPOSITION, various modes of literary, ii. 85; correction in, + necessary, ib.; but by some authors impossible, ib.; illustrative + anecdotes, 86; use of models in, 88; various modes of, used by + celebrated authors, 90-92; passion for, exhibited by some authors, + 533-546. + + CONDE, great Prince of, expert in physiognomy, i. 150. + + CONFRERES de la Passion, i. 353. + + CONFUSION of words by writers, iii. 65; by the Nominalists and + Realists, 66; in modern philosophy, ib.; between the Antinomians and + their opposers, and the Jansenists and Jesuits, 68; between Abelard + and St. Bernard, ib; other instances, 69; in jurisprudence and + politics, 70; historical instances, 71-73; arising from a change of + meaning in the course of time, 74; serious consequences of, 77; + among political economists, 78; illustrative anecdote of Caramuel, a + Spanish bishop, 79. + + CONSTANTINE, motives of his acknowledgment of Christianity, ii. 433. + + CONTROVERSIAL writings, acrimony infused into by scholars, i. 153, + and 317. + + CONTROVERSY, literary, that of the Nominalists and Realists, i. 312; + between Benedetto Aletino and Constantino Grimaldi, 314; abuse + lavished on each other by learned men in, 308-320; challenges sent + on occasion of, 317. + + COOKERY and cooks of the ancients, ii. 245; Epic composed in praise + of, 246; illustrative translations from Athenaeus,247-252; the + dexterity of the cooks, 253; writers on, 254; anecdotes, 255. + + CORNEILLE, Peter, died in poverty, i. 32; deficient in conversation, + 104; sketch of his life, 428-432. + + CORNEILLE, Thomas, impromptu written under his portrait, i. 432. + + CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, accused of magic, i. 27; his dog supposed to be a + demon, 28; his belief in demons, iii. 282. + + CORNHERT, Theodore, a great advocate for toleration, iii. 253, and + note. + + CORPUS CHRISTI plays at Chester, i. 353; at Kendal, iii. 442, and + note. + + COSMETICS, use of, by the ladies of the Elizabethan age, i. 227. + + COTTON, Sir Robert, his manuscript collections, iii. 316; his + character of Charles I., 456, 457. + + COUNTRY gentlemen, their former habits commended, ii. 214; Lord + Clarendon's mention of his grandfather's conduct as one of the body, + ib.; their conduct created a national character, ib. + + COUNTRY residence, opinion of Justice Best upon, iii. 363; James I. + recommendation of, 364; proclamations to compel a, ib.; and + proceedings in the Star Chamber against the disobedient, 365-368; + Ode upon, by Sir Richard Fanshaw, 369. + + COURT of Wards and Liveries, ii. 158, note. + + CRANMER, Jansenist character of, i. 373. + + CREATION of the World, precise date of, i. 303. + + CREBILLON, his creditors attached the proceeds of his tragedy of + Catiline, i. 405; decree of Louis XV. thereupon, 406. + + CRITICS may possess the art of judging without the power of + execution, i. 407; Abbe d'Aubignac and Chapelaine quoted as + instances, ib. + + CRITICISM, Periodical, see LITERARY JOURNALS, i. 12-17; sketches of + amongst the ancients, 24-27; effect of, upon authors, 409. + + CROMWELL, his great political error, ii. 435; prediction of his + future eminence, iii. 269; reasons for his delay in naming a + successor, 328, 329. + + CRUIKSHANK, George, curious error concerning, i. 321, note. + + CYRE, the Abbe, an envoy of the Emperor's in Poland, iii. 350; + seized and imprisoned, 360. + + + D'AGUESSEAU, the Chancellor, his advice to his son on the study of + history, iii. 179. + + DANCE of Death, iii. 211-215. + + DANTE, origin of his Inferno, disputes on, ii. 421; the entire work + Gothic, ib.; Vision of Alberico supposed to be borrowed, 422; and + probably read by Dante, ib.; his originality vindicated, 423; the + true origin of the Inferno, 427, and note. + + DAY-FATALITY, i. 279; lucky and unlucky days, ib., note. + + DEATH, anecdotes relating to the death of many distinguished + persons, i. 417-421; book containing the accounts of the deaths of + remarkable persons, compiled by Montaigne, iii. 200; reflections on + death, ib.; anecdotes of the death of some celebrated persons, 201, + 202; effect of the continual consideration of, 203; Lady Gethin's + ideas on, 204; conversations of Johnson and Boswell on, ib.; + singular preparations for, by Moncriff, 205; opinions of the + ancients on, 207; personifications of, among the ancients, 208, and + note; Gothic representations of, 209. + + DEDICATIONS, curious anecdotes concerning, i. 337-341; price for the + dedication of a play, 338; one to himself, composed by a patron, + ib.; practice of Elkanah Settle with regard to, 339; of the Polyglot + Bible to Cromwell, ib.; altered at the Restoration, ib.; to Cardinal + Richelieu, 340; Dryden's, ib.; ingenious one by Sir Simon Degge, + 341. + + DE FOE, his honour questioned as to the publication of Robinson + Crusoe, ii. 274; probably struck by Steele's observations on + Selkirk's narration, 276; wrote Robinson Crusoe in comparative + solitude, ib.; vindication of his character, ib. + + DE LA CHAMBRE, secret correspondence of, with Louis XIV. on + physiognomy, i. 148. + + DELIQUENTS, a convenient revolutionary phrase, iii. 86. + + DESCARES, persecuted for his opinions, i. 29; silent in mixed + company, 104; his description of his life in Amsterdam, 113. + + DESCRIPTIONS, local, when prolonged tedious, iii. 1; Boileau's + criticisms on, 1, 2; inefficiency of, instanced by a passage from + Pliny, 2; example of elegant, in a sonnet by Francesca de Castello, + 3. + + DESCRIPTIVE Poems, general remarks on, i. 341; race of, confined to + one object, ib.; titles of, and notices on several of these, 342, + 343. + + DES MAIZEAUX, a French refugee, iii. 13; his Life of Bayle, 14; + notices of his literary life, 15-18; Anthony Collins bequeaths his + MSS. to, 19; relinquishes them to Collins's widow, 20; + correspondence concerning, 19-22. + + DESMARETS, his comedy of the "Visionnaires," ii. 48. + + DE SERRES, introduced the cultivation of the mulberry tree and + silk-worm into France, ii. 152; opposition to his schemes, ib.; + supported by Henry IV., ib.; medal struck in honour of his memory, + 153. + + DESTRUCTION of books and MSS. by the monks, i. 18, 50; account of, + at Constantinople, by the Christians, suppressed, 47; burning of + Talmuds, 48; of Irish and Mexican, ib.; anecdotes regarding, 49; of + Korans, ib.; of the classics, 50; of Bohemian, ib.; in England under + Henry VIII., 51; at Stationers' Hall in 1599, 53; of many of Lady + Mary Wortley Montague's letters, 54; of Anglo-Saxon MSS., 55; + anecdotes concerning the, ib., note; by fire and shipwreck, 56, 57. + + D'EWES, Sir Symonds, a sober antiquary, but a visionary, iii. 433; + extracts from his Diary, 434, 435. + + DIARY, of a Master of the Ceremonies, ii. 194-206; Shaftesbury's + definition of a, ib.; Colonel Harwood's, 206; kept by Titus, ib.; + Alfred's, 207; Prince Henry's, ib.; Edward VI.'s, ib.; kept by James + II., 208; usually kept by heads of families, 209; kept by Swift and + Horace Walpole, ib.; recommended by Sir Thomas Bodley to Sir Francis + Bacon, ib.; Coke's, ib.; Camden's, 210; of Sir Symonds D'Ewes, ib.; + Baxter's, 211; the thoughtful disposition giving rise to the keeping + of a diary, partaken even by women, ib.; Whitelocke's, 212; Laud's, + 213; Lord Clarendon's, 214; practice of keeping one recommended, + 215. + + DIARIES, Religious, iii. 435. + + DICTIONARY of Trevoux, account of its origin and progress, iii. 229; + of Basnage, 230; of Dr. Johnson, 233. + + DIGGES, Sir Dudley, a violent opposition leader in Charles I.'s + second parliament, iii. 451; opened the impeachment of Buckingham, + 452; committed to the tower, 454. + + DILAPIDATIONS of MSS.--See MANUSCRIPTS. + + DINNER hour, variations of, in different times, ii. 34, 35. + + DINNER parties, Roman limitation of the number of guests at, ii. + 246. + + DISCOVERIES in literature and science, aptitude in, obtained + by studious men, iii. 408; illustrative anecdotes, 409-413. + + DIVINITY, scholastic, i. 60, 61; curious accounts and specimens of, + 63-65. + + DODD'S Church History of England, iii. 239. + + DRAGONS, origin of the old stories of, ii. 311. + + DRAMA, anecdotes of the early, ii. 40-43; Mexican, ib.; account of a + curious drama, entitled Technotamia, or the Marriage of the Arts, + 43-46; account of one written by a madman, 48. + + DRAMATIC works made the vehicle of political feeling, ii. 277; by + the Catholics at the Reformation, ib.; such conduct caused a + proclamation by Edward VI. against English interludes, &c., ib.; + those on the side of the Reformation allowed, and specimens of one, + 279-281; proceedings against in the Star Chamber, ib. + + DRAMATIC Annals.--See DRAMATIC WORKS. Suppression of the drama + during the civil wars of Charles I., ii. 281; opposite conduct of + actors at that time, and at the period of the French revolution, + 282; writers against the stage, 283; custom of boys personating + females, 284; introduction of actresses, 285; Histriomastix, ib.; + all theatres suppressed in 1642, ib.; ordinance against theatres, + 286; plays enacted secretly during their suppression, ib.; Cox's + "drolleries," 287; petitions against the drama, 289; the player's + petition in favour of, ib.; secretly acted at Holland House, 291; + the suppression of the drama caused the publication of many MS. + plays, ib. + + DRESS, costliness of, in the reigns of Elizabeth, James I., and + Charles I., iii. 405-408. + + DRINKING, hard, a borrowed custom among the English, ii. 293; learnt + by them in the Netherlands, ib.; statutes against, ib., note; terms + of, 294, note, 295-298; anecdotes of, 300. + + DRUNKARDS, their different characteristics, ii. 299; "A Delicate + Diet for," ib., note; toasts of, 300, and note. + + DU CLOS, origin of his fairy tale of Acajou and Zirphile, and + account of his satirical preface to it, ii. 308-310. + + DUTCH literature, remarks and strictures on, i. 403-405; satirical + medals, iii. 156-160. + + + ECHO verses, specimen of, ii. 236. + + ECLECTIC School of Art founded by the Caracci, ii. 401, note. + + EDWARD the Fourth, to what he owed his crown, i. 261. + + EGLISHAW, Dr., his political libels, ii. 357, note; is murdered in + Holland, ib. + + ELIZABETH, queen, i. 264; her amours, 265; wished to be thought + beautiful by all the world, ib.; her habits studious, but not of the + gentlest kind, 266; her writing, 267; her education severely + classical, ib.; various anecdotes concerning, 264-267; her able + management of her parliaments, ii. 179-186; her conduct regarding + the succession, iii. 328; her treatment of James I., 332; her + proclamation against excess in apparel, 375. + + ELIOT, Sir John, a violent opposition leader in Charles I.'s second + Parliament, iii. 452; his speech on the impeachment of Buckingham, + 453; committed to the Tower, 454; violent against Buckingham in + Parliament, 469-471; his collection of satires against him, ib.; a + leader in the last Parliament of Charles I., 474-479. + + ELOISA, solicited and obtained Abelard's absolution, i. 146; buried + with Abelard, ib.; a fine lady, 147; Pope's reprehensible lines + found in original letters of, 148. + + ENCHANTERS, origin of the old stories of, ii. 31. + + ENGLISH Poetry, scarcely known in France in 1610, iii. 233; + ignorance of, displayed by Quadrio in his History of Poetry + published in 1750, 236. + + ENGRAVING, early origin among the Egyptians, i. 43, note. + + ENGRAVINGS, first collection of, under Louis XIV., by Colbert, i. 7; + collecting of engraved portraits originated the work of Granger, 45. + + EPITAPH on Cardinal Richelieu, by his protege, Benserade, i. 84; by + celebrated persons on themselves, 417; on Philip I., 471; on Butler, + the author of Hudibras, ii. 548. + + ERRATA, remarkable anecdotes concerning, i, 78-82. + + ERRONEOUS proper names, given in foreign authors, i. 327, and note. + + ETIQUETTE, Court, reflections on its rise and progress, ii. 194; + forms of, observed between the English ambassadors and Cardinal + Richelieu, 195; creation of a master of the ceremonies, 196; absurd + punctilios of, illustrated from the Diary of Sir John Finett, + 196-204. + + EVELYN, his mode of composition, ii. 88; praise due to him for his + Sylva, 152; his design for arms of Royal Society, 411, and note. + + EVENTS which have not happened, ii. 428-438. + + EXCOMMUNICATION, by the Popes, dreadful consequences of, ii. 84. + + + FAIRFAX Papers, curious discovery of, i. 24, note. + + FAIRFAX, Sir Thomas, anecdotes of him and his family, ii. 461-474. + + FAME, contemned, 66. + + FAMILIAR spirits, intercourse with, believed, i. 27, 28, 280. + + FANSHAW, Sir Richard, his Ode on the king's commanding the gentry to + reside on their estates, iii. 369-371. + + FARCES, ancient, reprehensible, but their pleasantry and humour not + contemptible, i. 358; customary among the Romans after a serious + piece, ii. 131. + + FASHIONS.--See LITERARY FASHIONS. Anecdotes of their origin, changes + and extravagances, i. 216-230; introduction of French, 227, 228; + chronicled by Stowe, 225; French, prevailed in the reign of + Charles II., 228; notice of modern, 229; lines condemning the acts + of, 230; expensive in the reigns of Henry VII. and VIII., ii. 36. + + FEAST of Fools, ii. 31. + + FEAST of Asses, ii. 31. + + FELTON, John, the assassin of the Duke of Buckingham, his motives + for the act, ii. 371; his passage to London in triumph, 372; anagram + on his name, 373; his remorse, ib.; his character, 374; his family, + ib., and note; propositions found in his trunk, 375; history of the + remarkable written paper found in his hat, ib., note; answer to a + threat of torture, 376; poem addressed to, 378. + + FEMALE beauty and ornaments, opinions and practices of various + nations concerning, i. 211. + + FENELON, Jansenist character of, i. 373; his admiration of Homer, + iii. 339. + + FEUDAL customs and rights, the barbarous, the first attempts at + organizing society, i. 183; servitude of the land, 184; maiden + rights, ib.; wardship, 185; German lords privileged to rob on the + highway, ib.; anecdote of Geoffrey, Lord of Coventry, ib.; anecdotes + of the abuse of feudal rights and power, 186, 187. + + FILBERT, origin of the name, ii. 157, and note. + + FILCHERS, literary, iii. 316-319. + + FILICAJA, a sonnet of, iii. 197, translated, ib. + + FINETT, Sir John, master of the ceremonies to Charles I.--See + ETIQUETTE. + + FIRE, in primaeval ages, a signal of respect, ii. 16; worshipped as a + divinity, ib.; a symbol of majesty, ib.; ancient observances + regarding, ib. + + FIRE-WORKS, not known to antiquity, ii. 15; their epoch, 17; + originated with the Florentines and Siennese, ib.; their use passes + to Rome, ib.; exhibition of at Paris, 18. + + FLAP-DRAGONS, ii. 298. + + FLEA, collection of poems on, i. 304. + + FLORAL gifts, withheld by the Capitouls of Toulouse from Maynard, a + French poet, i. 437. + + FLOGGING, a discussion on, occasioned Roger Ascham to write his + Schoolmaster, i. 87. + + FLOWERS and Fruits, praise of the introducers of exotic, ii. 151; + Peirese and Evelyn, ib.; Hartlib, 153; enthusiasm evinced by the + transplanters of, ib.; notice of many introduced by particular + persons, 154; origin of, distinguished by their names, 155; worthy + pride of introducers of, 156, 157. + + FORGERIES and fictions, political and religious, iii. 144; + historical instances, 145-150; literary, iii. 304-319. + + FORMOSA, Psalmanazar's pretended history of, i. 136, note. + + FOSCOLO, Ugo, his opinion on the titles of Italian Academies, ii. + 490. + + FOURMONT, the Oriental scholar, anecdote of, iii. 396. + + FOX'S Acts and Monuments, iii. 239. + + FRIENDSHIPS of literary men, interesting anecdotes of, ii. 55-59. + + FRANKLIN, Dr., experiments with lightning, ii. 413. + + FRENCH REVOLUTION a commentary on the English, iii. 489. + + FRONDEURS, organized by Cardinal de Retz, iii. 83. + + FUGGERS, a wealthy family of merchants, i. 6, and note. + + FUNERAL honours paid to their kings by the Goths and Huns, i. 196. + + + GALILEO, condemned to disavow his own opinions, i. 28; his + annotations on Tasso, ii. 444. + + GAMESTERS, memoirs of celebrated, i. 190. + + GAMING, a universal passion, i. 187; treatises on, ib.; among the + nations of the East, 188, 189; the ancients, ib.; picture of a + gambling-house in 1731, ib. + + GARDENS, mediaeval, ii. 154, note; gradual introduction of fruits and + flowers, 151-157. + + GAS, origin of the word, iii. 282. + + GAYTON, Edmund, his pleasant notes upon Don Quixote and other works, + i. 139, note. + + GEMARA.--See TALMUD. + + GENIUS, inequalities of, i. 88; men of, deficient in conversation, + 103; modern persecution of, 197. + + GERBIER, Sir Balthazar, a confidential agent of the Duke of + Buckingham, ii. 358; notices of his Memoirs, 359-369; his account + of the preparations for the siege of Rochelle, 368. + + GESTURES significant, used by the ancients and by modern + Neapolitans, ii. 119, note. + + GETHIN, Lady Grace, her statue in Westminster Abbey, ii. 270; her + papers collected and published, under the title of Reliquiae + Gethinianae, 271; character of the book, ib.; Congreve's laudatory + lines on, ib.; its authenticity doubted, 272; her considerations on + the choice of a husband, 273. + + GHOSTS, theory of, iii. 287, 288. + + GIANNONE, his History of Naples, iii. 184; threatened by the + Inquisition, 185; died in the citadel of Turin, ib. + + GIBBON, his mode of study useful to students, ii. 89. + + GILL, Alexander, committed by the Star Chamber, ii. 373. + + GLOVES, supposed to be mentioned in the 108th Psalm, i. 235; account + of, by Xenophon, ib.; mentioned by several ancient writers, ib.; use + of, universal in the 9th century, 236; regulations concerning, ib.; + employed on great and solemn occasions, such as investitures, ib.; + Abbots forbidden to use, ib.; blessing of, 237; deprivation of, a + mark of degradation, ib.; challenging by, ib.; used for secret + correspondence, ib., note; use of, in carrying the hawk, 238; + formerly forbidden to judges, ib.; singular anecdote concerning, + ib.; ancient, in the Denny family, 239. + + GLOVE-MONEY, i. 238. + + GOFF, Thomas, a tragic poet, specimens of his works, ii. 42. + + GONDOLIERS of Venice, description of their chanting the verses of + Tasso and Ariosto, i. 388. + + GOUGH, the antiquary, anecdote of, iii. 319. + + GRAY, loss of his MSS., ii. 451. + + GROTIUS, account of his life and studies, i. 129, 130. + + GRUB-STREET Journal, extract from, ii. 492; its authors, ib., note. + + GUELPHS and Ghibellines, iii. 89. + + GUEUX, iii. 81. + + GUIBERT, foretold the French Revolution, iii. 300. + + GUICCIARDINI, his history posthumous, iii. 180; first editions of + his works castrated, ib.; continuation of his history by Adriani, + ib. + + GUILT, trials and modes of proof of, in superstitious ages, i. + 161-166. + + GULLIVER'S Travels, account of the first edition, i. 320, note. + + + HAIR, early taste in the colour of, ii. 33, and note. + + HALIFAX, Marquis of, his MS. memoirs suppressed, ii. 447. + + HALL, Bishop, his belief in witches, iii. 293, and note. + + HALLEY, anecdote of his perseverance and sagacity, iii. 411. + + HAMILTON, Elizabeth, her projected series of comparative biography, + iii. 424. + + HANS CARVEL, origin of Prior's story of, i. 111. + + HARDI, a French tragic author, ii. 41. + + HARLEQUIN, his Italian origin, ii. 117; turned into a magician by + the English, ib.; the character essentially Italian, 118; treatises + written on it, 121; a Roman mime, ib. and note; his classical + origin, 123, note; his degeneration, 125; his renovation under the + hand of Goldoni, ib.; improved into a wit in France, ib. + + HARTLIBB, Samuel, a collector and publisher of manuscripts on + horticulture and agriculture, ii. 153. + + HARVEY, his discovery of the circulation of the blood, iii. 412. + + HAZLERIGG, Sir Arthur, "an absurd bold man," a violent leader of the + Rump Parliament, iii. 487. + + HEART of a lover, story of, i. 233, 234. + + HEAVY hours of literary men, i. 392. + + HELL, Purgatory, and Heaven, topographical descriptions of, i. 202; + treatises on, 204, 205. + + HEMON DE LA FOSSE, a modern Polytheist, executed in 1503, i. 216. + + HENRIETTA, queen of Charles I., her character, ii. 337; anecdote + illustrative of, ib.; after the Restoration, 338; various + descriptions of her person, ib.; her contract with the Pope, 339; + account of her journey to England on her marriage, 340; her French + establishment, 341; anecdote of her confessor's conduct, 342; the + dismissal of her French attendants, 345; the amount of her supposed + influence over her husband, 348. + + HENRY the Seventh, anecdote of, ii. 10. + + HENRY the Eighth, anecdote of, ii. 10; his proclamation against + reading the Bible in English, iii. 373, note. + + HENRY, prince, son of James I., anecdote of, iii. 186-194. + + HENRY, the English historian, loose and general in his references, + ii. 418. + + HERETICS, a classification of, i. 350. + + HERMIPPUS REDIVIVUS, a curious jeu-d'-esprit, i. 320. + + HEYLIN, a popular writer, died in 1662, iii. 215; his rival + biographers, 216-221; his History of the Puritans and Presbyterians, + 239. + + HIGH SHERIFF'S Oath, exceptions taken to, by Sir Edward Coke, iii. + 446. + + HISTORY, of events which have not happened, a good title for a + curious book, ii. 428; speculative history of the battle of + Worcester, had it terminated differently, 429; a history of this + kind in Livy, ib.; subjects for, 430-438. + + HISTORY of New Words.--See NEOLOGY. Of suppressed opinion, iii. + 150-163; of writing masters, 167-177. + + HISTORIANS, remarks on the infidelities of, i. 191; Italian, + commended, iii. 177; notices of the most celebrated, 180-186; wrote + for posterity, 182, 183; fate of Giannone, who published in his + life-time, 185; observations on, 186. + + HOLYDAY, Barton, author of the comedy "The Marriage of the Arts," + ii. 43. + + HOME, the author of the tragedy of "Douglas," persecuted for + composing it, i. 197. + + HOMER, notice of his detractors, i. 24; profound knowledge of + history, geography, arts, sciences, and surgery ascribed to, 303. + + HUDIBRAS, attacks upon Butler, the author of, ii. 491; various + accounts of the original of the character, 492; indecency avoided + in, 493; epitaph on the author of, ib.; attacks on Butler's + character, 494; and vindication of, 495. + + HUGH of Lincoln, legend of, iii. 145, note. + + HUGUENOT, origin of the term, iii. 82. + + HUME, his carelessness in research, iii. 368. + + HUMPHREY, Duke, origin of the phrase "dining with," ii. 169, note. + + HURD, Bishop, his proposed book of parallels, iii. 425. + + HYMNS set to popular tunes, ii. 149, note. + + + IDLENESS punished among the ancients, i. 199, 200. + + IKON BASILIKE; its probable effects had it appeared a week sooner, + ii. 435. + + ILIAD, in a nut-shell, i. 275. + + IMAGE-BREAKERS, proclamation by Elizabeth against, iii. 375, 376. + + IMITATORS, masterly, i. 258, 261. + + IMITATIONS, of Cicero, i. 67; Le Brun's religious Virgil and Ovid, + ib.; Sannazarius's poem _de Partu Virginis_, 68; Arruntius an + ancient imitator of Sallust, ib.; modern, ib.; Arabian anecdote, 69. + + IMITATIONS and Similarities, Poetical, various and curious instances + of, ii. 92-110. + + INDEPENDENTS, their intolerance, iii. 85. + + INDEX, of prohibited books, ii. 216; Expurgatory, ib.; Congregation + of the, ib.; reprinted by the heretics with annotations, 217; effect + of, in raising the sale of books, 219. + + INDEXES, Fuller's observations on, i. 72. + + INFLUENCE of a name, ii. 65-75. + + INGHIRAMI, and forged Etruscan antiques, iii. 307. + + INIGO JONES, his excellent machinery for exhibiting masques, iii. + 12, 13. + + INK, inferiority of modern, ii. 29; various kinds anciently used, + 30. + + INQUISITION, establishment of, at Toulouse, i. 166; in Spain, 167; + first proceeding of, ib.; taciturnity of the Spaniards attributed + to, ib.; anecdotes concerning, 168-170; history of, by Orobio, 167. + + INTEMPERANCE in study, i. 8. + + INTRODUCERS of exotic flowers, fruits, &c., ii. 151, 157. + + IRELAND, W. H., his Shakesperian forgeries, i. 137, note. + + ISABELLA-COLOUR, origin of term, i. 217. + + ITALIANS, their national genius dramatic, ii. 118. + + ITALIAN HISTORIANS, iii. 177-186. + + ITALIC letter, introduction of, i. 77; formerly called the Aldine, 78. + + + JACQUERIE, iii. 82. + + JAMES the First gave credit to physiognomy, i. 149; injustice done + to his character for wit, 156; distinguished as Queen James, 462; + his ambassador's speech, 463; _cleanliness_ of his court, ib.; his + effeminacy, ib.; his general character, ib.; his imbecility in his + amusements, 464; his pedantry, 465; account of his death, 466; + results of the author's further inquiry into the character of, 467; + his conduct regarding his son's expedition into Spain, ii. 2; his + objections to Laud's promotion, iii. 297; his character vilified, + 333; his attention to the education of his children, ib.; his + conduct towards his wife, 334-337. + + JAMES the Second, kept a diary, ii. 214. + + JAMET L'AINE, proposes to edit a new edition of the Dictionary of + Trevoux, iii. 232. + + JANSENISTS, the Methodists of France, i. 373; cause a Biographical + Dictionary to be compiled, devoted to their cause, in opposition to + that of L'Avocat, ib.; specimens of this dictionary, 373, 374; their + curses never "lapsed legacies," 375. + + JERUSALEM, Arabic chronicle of, only valuable from the time of + Mahomet, i. 191; several portions translated by Longuerue, ib. + + JESUITS, a senate of, sent by Sigismund, King of Sweden, to + represent him at Stockholm, destroyed by stratagem, i. 231-233. + + JESUIT'S snuff poisoned, ii. 442, note. + + JEWS of York, history of their self-destruction, ii. 75-79. + + JOCULAR PREACHERS, i. 251-258. + + JODELLE, Etienne, the first author of French tragedy, ii. 40. + + JOHNSON, Dr., his original Memorandum of Hints for the Life of Pope, + ii. 380-382. + + JONSON, Ben, Fuller's character of, i. 380; his arrogance, 381; his + Ode on the ill reception of his play of "The New Inn" quoted, 382; + Owen Feltham's Ode in reply, 383; Randolph's Consolatory Ode to, + 385; his poem on translation, ii. 501; employed on court masques, + iii. 6-8, 12. + + JOSEPH VELLA, pretended to have recovered seventeen of the lost + books of Livy, i. 135; patronized by the king of Naples, ib.; + discovered and imprisoned, 136. + + JOURNALS.--See LITERARY JOURNALS. + + JOURNALIST, Public, indispensable acquirements of a, i. 16. + + JUDICIAL Combats, anecdotes of, i. 162, 163. + + + KINGS, remark of St. Chrysostom on, i. 173; willing to be aided, but + not surpassed, 174; anecdotes of, ib.; observations of the Duke of + Alva and of Dr. Johnson on, 176; divine honours bestowed on, 179; + dethroned, 181; anecdotes of, and their families, in misfortune, + 181, 182; descendants of, found among the dregs of the populace in + conquered countries, 183; funeral honours paid to, by the Goths and + Huns, 196. + + KIRK, Colonel, original of the horrid tale of, related by Hume, iii. + 148. + + KISSING hands, customary among the ancients as an act of adoration, + ii. 81; used by the primeval bishops, ib.; declined with Paganism, + ib.; prevailed at Rome, 82; an essential duty under the emperors, + ib.; practised in every known country, ib. + + KNOX, John, his Machiavelian politics, iii. 242; his opinions on + toleration, 251; his predictions, 277, 278. + + + LAMBE, Dr., a magician, murdered in the streets of London, ii. 364; + fine and assessment on City companies in consequence, ib., note. + + LA MOTHE LE VAYER, a great quoter, ii. 417. + + LAMPS, Perpetual, i. 243; possibility of, ib.; Rosicrucians, ib. + + LA RUE, i. 257. + + LATIMER, Bishop, curious sermons by, i. 256, and note; his youthful + history, ii. 39, note. + + LATOUR DU CHATEL, a neglected contributor to the Dictionary of + Trevoux, procures the mediation of the French government, iii. 231. + + LAUDER, William, pretended discovery of plagiarisms of Milton, i. + 137, and note. + + LAUREATS, sketch of the history of, i. 454; ancient, ib.; Petrarch + the first modern, ib.; degrees granted to, ib.; formula employed in + granting the degree of, 455; their honours disgraced in Italy, ib.; + Querno crowned in a joke, ib.; honours lavished on, by Maximilian + I., 456; honours still conferred on, in Germany, ib.; unknown among + the French, ib.; appointment of, in Spain, ib.; in England never + solemnly crowned, 457; salary of, in England, ib. + + LAZZARONI, iii. 82. + + LAZZI, dramatic side-play, ii. 128. + + LEAGUE, the, its pretext and its cause, iii. 142, 143. + + LEARNED men, persecution of, i. 27; poverty of, 29; imprisonment of, + 35; amusements of, 38. + + LE CLERC, antagonist of Bayle, and author of three Bibliotheques, + the Universelle et Historique, Choisie, and Ancienne et Moderne, i. + 15. + + LE FEVRE, Nicholas, edition of his works by Lenglet du Fresnoy, iii. + 249, and note. + + LEGENDS, origin of, i. 89; Golden, 90; of the Seven Sleepers, 91; + account of several, 92, 93; Golden, abounds in religious + indecencies, 366; of St. Mary the Egyptian, ib. + + LEIBNETZ, his admiration of Barclay's Argenis, iii. 339; anecdote + of, iii. 455. + + LENGLET DU FRESNOY, his "Methode pour etudier l'Histoire," iii. 221; + his peculiar character, ib.; history of his Methode, 222, 224, and + note, ib.; his literary history, 224; a believer in alchymy, 225; + his political adventures, 227. + + LE KAIN, anecdote of, i. 251. + + LEO the Tenth, motive of his projected alliance against the Turks, + iii. 142. + + L'ESTRANGE, Sir Roger, a strong party writer for Charles II., i. + 159; his AEsop's Fables, 160. + + LETTRES DE CACHET, invented by Father Joseph, confessor to + Richelieu, iii. 196. + + LIBEL, singular means used to discover the author of a, ii. 314. + + LIBELS on the Duke of Buckingham, ii. 365-370. + + LIBERTY of the Press, restrictions on, ii. 216-227; its freedom did + not commence till 1694, 227; reflections on, 228.--See CENSORS. + + LIBRARIES, i. 1; celebrated Egyptian and Roman, 1-3; public, in + Italy and England, 3, 4; in France and Germany, 6, 7; use of lights + in, 7; that of the Palatine Apollo destroyed by Pope Gregory + VIII., 50; in Bohemia, destroyed by the Jesuits, ib.; destruction + of, under Henry VIII. ib.; astronomical, in the ark of Noah, 303; + Irish, before the Flood, ib.; Adams's, ib.; modern opinion on their + utility, iii. 345. + + LICENSERS of the Press.--See CENSORS. + + LIGHTS, in public libraries, ordered in France by Charles V., i. 6; + objection to, 7. + + LILLY, the astrologer, notices of, i. 280-283; his great work, 282; + an exquisite rogue, ib. + + LIPOGRAMMATIC works, i. 293. + + LIPSIUS, Justus, his opinions on toleration, iii. 253. + + LITERARY Blunders, a pair of lexicographical, i. 305; instances of + curious, 320-327. + + LITERARY Composition, ii. 85-92. + + LITERARY Controversy, specimens of Luther's mode of managing, i. + 308; Calvin's conduct of, 309; Beza imitates Calvin's style in, 310; + opinion of Bishop Bedell on, ib.; conduct of the fathers in, ib.; + grossness used in, 311; of the Nominalists and Realists, 312. + + LITERARY Fashions, ii. 113; applause given to a work supposed to be + written by a celebrated man, ib.; notices of various, ib.; love all + the fashion, 114; Spenser's Faerie Queen became one, ib.; the + translation of Greek tragedies, a, ib.; of the seventeenth century, + 115; of the time of Charles I., ib.; of Charles II., and of more + modern times, ib. + + LITERARY Follies, instances of various in the fantastical + composition of verses, i. 293-307; strange researches made in + antediluvian times to be classed with, 301-303; anecdote of a + malicious one, ib.; various anecdotes concerning, 301-307. + + LITERARY Forgeries, by Dr. Berkenhout, a letter from Peele to + Marlow, i. 380; by George Steevens, iii. 297; history of one, 299, + 300; by Horace Walpole, 302; anecdote of Steevens and Gough, 303, + 304, and notes; by De Grassis, ib.; by Annius of Viterbo, 305, and + mischievous consequences of, ib.; Sanchoniathon, 306; of Etruscan + antiquities, ib.; the false Decretals of Isidore, 308; in the + prayer-book of Columbus, ib.; in the Virgil of Petrarch, ib.; by the + Duke de la Valliere, 309; by Lauder, 310; by Psalmanazar, 311. + + LITERARY Friendships, ii. 55-58. + + LITERARY Impositions, curious anecdotes of, i. 260, 261. + + LITERARY Impostures, i. 132; by Varillas, the French historian, ib.; + supposed by Gemelli Carreri, but afterwards discovered to be fact, + ib.; Du Halde's account of China compiled, 133; Damberger's Travels, + ib.; titles of works announced by the historiographer Paschal, his + works at his death amounting to six pages, ib.; by Gregorio Leti, + ib.; forgeries of Testaments Politiques, ib.; pretended + translations, 134; Travels of Rabbi Benjamin, ib.; by Annius + Viterbo, ib.; by Joseph Vella, who pretended to have recovered + seventeen of the lost books of Livy, 135; by Medina Conde, 136; by + George Psalmanazar, ib.; Lauder's, 137; Ireland's, ib.; by a learned + Hindu, ib.; anecdotes concerning, 138. + + LITERARY Journals, i. 12; originated with the Journal de Scavans, by + Denis de Sallo, counsellor in the Parliament of Paris, 13; Nouvelles + de la Republique des Lettres, published by Bayle in 1684--continued + by Bernard, and afterwards by Basnage in his Histoire des Ouvrages + de Scavans, 15; Le Clerc's Bibliotheques Universelle et Historique, + Choisie, and Ancienne et Moderne, ib.; Apostolo Zeno's Giornale de + Litterati d'Italia, ib.; Bibliotheque Germanique, 16; Bibliotheque + Britannique, ib.; Journal Britannique by Dr. Maty, ib.; Review + conducted by Maty, jun., 16; Memoire des Trevoux, ib.; Journal + Litteraire, ib.; Memoirs of Literature and Present State of the + Republic of Letters, the best early English, ib.; monthly, ib. + + LOLLARDS, oath against them enforced upon sheriffs until reign of + Charles I., iii. 447; repealed by the political feeling of Coke, ib. + + LONGOLIUS, or Longueil, composed a biographical parallel between + Budaeus and Erasmus, iii. 425. + + LORENZO DE' MEDICI, effect of his death, ii. 436. + + LOUIS the Eighth, singular anecdote of the cause of his death, ii. + 32. + + LOUIS the Eleventh, anecdote of, ii. 10, 11. + + LOUIS the Twelfth, cause of his death, ii. 34. + + LOUIS the Fourteenth, chose his courtiers by the rules of + physiognomy, i. 148; some remarks on his real character, ii, 449; + passages suppressed in his instruction to the Dauphin, 450. + + LOUIS L'ABE, the Aspasia of Lyons, i. 362; wrote the morality of + "Love and Folly," ib. + + LOUPS-GAROUX, iii. 293. + + LUCULLUS, description of the library of, i. 3. + + LUKE, Sir Samuel, the true prototype of Hudibras, ii. 491, and note. + + LUNSFORD, Colonel, imputed a cannibal, iii. 149, note. + + LUTHER, Martin, remarks on, and extracts from, his controversial + writings, i. 308, 309; caricatures on, 309, note; Jansenist + character of, 374; anecdote of, from Guicciardini, ii. 479, 480; his + political conduct, iii. 144. + + LUYNES, Duc de, his origin, ii. 11. + + LUXURY, in dress, an old dramatist's opinion on, iii. 400; doctrines + of political economy concerning, 401; excessive amongst our + ancestors, ib.; the Pas de Sandricourt, 402-405; ruinous in the + reigns of Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I., 405. + + + MABBE, James, translator of "Guzman" and "Celestina," Spanish plays, + ii. 501; Ben Jonson's verses in praise of, ib. + + MACHIAVEL discovered the secret of comparative history, iii. 179. + + MACKENZIE, Sir George, notice of his Treatise on Solitude, ii. 50. + + MAD-SONG, specimen of an ancient, ii. 315. + + MAGIC, instances of many learned men accused of, i. 27-29; Solomon + accounted an adept in, 122. + + MAGIUS, Charles, a noble Venetian, iii. 136; his travels and + adventures contained in a volume of paintings, ib.; detailed + description of, 137-141. + + MAGLIABECHI, Anthony, celebrated for his great knowledge of books, + i. 394; description of him and his mode of life, 394-397. + + MAII, the discoverer of Cicero's treatise _de Republica_, i. 18, and + note. + + MAILLARD, Oliver, a famous cordelier and preacher, i. 252. + + MAINE, Duc de, instituted the Journal de Trevoux, iii. 230; and the + Dictionary of Trevoux, ib. + + MAINTENON, Madame de, marries Scarron, i. 424; corrects his style, + ib. + + MALHERBE, his love of Horace, iii. 340. + + MALIGNANTS, iii. 86. + + MAN of one book, iii. 337-340. + + MANDRAKE, i. 246. + + MANNERS, anecdotes of European, ii. 30-39; domestic, among the + English, 42-44. + + MANUSCRIPTS, more valued by the Romans than vases of gold, i. 2; two + thousand collected by Trithemius, abbot of Spanheim, who died 1516, + 7; recovery of, 17-24; of the classics, disregarded and mutilated by + the monks, 18; researches for, at the restoration of letters, 19; + great numbers imported from Asia, 20; of Quintilian discovered by + Poggio under a heap of rubbish, ib.; of Tacitus found in a + Westphalian monastery, ib.; of Justinian's code found in a city of + Calabria, ib.; loss of, ib.; unfair use made of by learned men, 22; + anecdotes concerning, 22-25; of Galileo, partly destroyed by his + wife's confessor, 28; ancient, frequently adorned with portraits of + the authors, 42; destruction of, at the Reformation, 51; of Lord + Mansfield destroyed in the riots of 1780, and of Dr. Priestley by + the mob at Birmingham, 53; loss of many of Lady Mary Wortley + Montagu's letters, 54; loss of letters addressed to Peiresc, ib.; of + Leonardo da Vinci, ib.; anecdotes of manuscripts of several + celebrated works, 375-377; description of the ancient adornments of, + ii. 28; of Pope's versions of the Iliad and Odyssey, 110; of Sir + Matthew Hale, bequeathed to Lincoln's Inn, to avoid their mutilation + by the licensers of the press, 220; slaves employed to copy, 398; of + the Vision of Alberico, preserved in the king's library at Paris, + 422: of Galileo's annotations on Tasso, 444; destruction of Hugh + Broughton's, by Speed, 445; destruction of Leland's, by Polydore + Vergil, ib.; dilapidation of the Harleian, 446; suppression of one + relating to Sixtus IV. by Fabroni, ib.; of the Marquis of Halifax + suppressed, 447; Earl of Pulteney's and Earl of Anglesea's MS. + Memoirs suppressed, ib.; anecdotes of the suppression of various, + 448-452; mutilators of, 448; of Oldys's, iii. 493. + + MARANA, John Paul, author of the Turkish Spy, i. 377-379. + + MARBLES, presenting representations of natural forms, i. 244-247. + + MARE CLAUSUM, written by Selden in answer to the Mare Liberum of + Grotius, ii. 80; copies preserved in the chest of the Exchequer and + in the Court of Admiralty, ib. + + MARIONETTES, improved by the English, iii. 238. + + MARLBOROUGH, the great Duke of (See BLENHEIM), account of his + wealth, iii. 108. + + MAROLLES, Abbe de, a most egregious scribbler, i. 350; wrote his own + memoirs, 351; good advice in the postscript to the epistle + dedicatory of that work, ib.; his memoirs, ii. 538; anecdote of him + and De L'Etang, a critic, 539; notices of his voluminous works, ib.; + his magnificent collection of prints, 541. + + MAROT, Clement, his character, ii. 474; his translation of the + Psalms, ib.; sung to the airs of popular ballads, 476; his Psalms + the fashion, 477; edition published by Theodore Beza, set to music, + ib.; his Psalms declared Lutheran, and himself forced to fly to + Geneva, ib. + + MAR-PRELATE, the book suppressed, ii. 453. + + MASKS, worn by Italian actors, ii. 124. + + MASSINGER a student of the Italian drama, ii. 138. + + MASQUES, notices of magnificent, in the time of Charles I., ii. 327; + the farewell masque of the Duke of Buckingham, 369; mistaken notions + of commentators regarding, iii. 5; their real nature, 7, 8, 9; + description of the masque of Night and the Hours, 10; their ultimate + ruin, by their splendour, at the court of Louis XIV., 13, note. + + MASSILLON, i. 250. + + MASTER of the Ceremonies, created by James the First, ii. 196. + + MASTERLY IMITATORS, i. 258-261. + + MATRIMONY, its suitableness to learned men considered, i. 332-334; + opinions of Sir Thomas Browne upon, 335; not borne out by his + practice, ib. + + MAXIMILIAN the First, founds a poetical college at Vienna, i. 456. + + MEALS, hours of, ii. 315. + + MEDAL, struck by the Catholics to commemorate the massacre of the + Huguenots, iii. 249. + + MEDALS, satiric, used as money in the Saturnalia, iii. 151; modern + applications of, 158-160. + + MEDICINE and Morals, considerations on their connection, ii. + 464-469; connection of the mind with the body, 470. + + MEDINA CONDE, forges deeds and inscriptions to benefit the Church, + i. 136; sold a bracelet to the Morocco ambassador, as part of the + treasure of the last Moorish king, yet in fact fabricated by + himself, ib. + + MEMOIRS, remarks on their interest as compared with history, i. 462. + + MENDELSSOHN, anecdote of, i. 392. + + MENDICITY, punished among the Jews and nations of antiquity, i. 199, + 200; first made a trade of by liberated Christian slaves, 201; + punishment of in China, 202. + + MENOT, Michael, a celebrated preacher, specimen of his sermons, i. + 256. + + MENTAL DISORDERS, singular mode of cure of, ii. 466; remarkable + anecdotes of, 468-470. + + METEMPSYCHOSIS, doctrines of, advocated in the present age, i. 192; + notion long extant in Greece before the time of Pythagoras, ib.; + taught by the Egyptians, ib.; entertained by many Eastern nations + and by the Druids, ib.; Welsh system of, explained by Sharon Turner, + 193; believed in Mexico, 194; Plutarch's description of, ib. + + MICHAEL ANGELO, anecdote of, i. 258. + + MIGNARD, a celebrated painter, curious anecdote concerning, i. 258, + 259. + + MILTON, his controversy with Salmasius and Morus conducted with + mutual revilings, i. 152, 153; absurdly criticised by Bentley, + 370-373; indebted to Andreini for the first idea of Paradise Lost, + ii. 141; his works suffered at the hands of both Royalist and + Republican licensers, 223; his Areopagitica, 225; a passage in his + History of England suppressed, but preserved in a pamphlet, 448; his + Comus escaped the destruction of the Bridgewater papers, 451; the + story of him and the Italian lady, probably an invention of George + Steevens, iii. 299; copied from a French story purporting to be of + the 15th century, 300. + + MILLINERS'bills, ancient and modern, ii. 39. + + MIMES, Arch-mime followed the body of Vespasian at his funeral, iii. + 120. + + MIMI, an impudent race of buffoons, ii. 120; harlequin, a Roman + mime, 121, and note. + + MINISTERS, origin of the term as applied to the pastors of Christian + churches, i. 128; palaces built by, notices of several, iii. + 186-192; Sir Robert Walpole's remarks on the imprudence of their + erecting such, 193; yet builds one himself, ib. + + MINSTRELS, ancient and modern, pickpockets, ii. 146, note. + + MISHNA, see TALMUD. + + MISSALS, gross adornments of, i. 366. + + MODERN stories and plots, many derived from the East, i. 111, 112. + + MODES of salutation in various nations, ii. 12. + + MONK, General, anecdote of him and his wife, i. 468; his conduct + towards Charles II. at his landing, iii. 389. + + MONTAGU, Lady Mary Wortley, suppression of her MSS., ii. 450. + + MONTFLEURY, a French actor, death of, i. 248. + + MONTLUC, Bishop of Valence, his negotiations for the election of the + Duke of Anjou as King of Poland, iii. 349-362. + + MORALIITIES, see MYSTERIES and MORALITIES. + + MORALITY of "Every Man," referred by Percy to the class of tragedy, + ii. 278. + + MORE, Doctor, his extravagant Platonic opinions, i. 216. + + MORUS, controversy of Salmasius with Milton, continued by, with + mutual abuse, i. 153. + + MUSIC, use of, in discovering indispositions by the voice, i. 151; + influence of, in the cure of diseases, 269-271; effect of, on + animals, 272-274. + + MUTILATIONS commonly practised in the middle ages, ii. 311. + + MYSTERIES, ANCIENT, bibliographical note of such as are printed, i. + 352, note; one still performed in Bavaria, i. 360, note. + + MYSTERIES and Moralities introduced by pilgrims, i. 352; + subsequently distinguished characters actors in, 353; performed in + open plains, ib.; indulgence granted to frequenters of, ib.; at + Chester, ib.; singular anecdotes concerning a mystery, 354; + specimens from French mysteries, 355; observations of Bayle and + Warton on, 357; distinguished from each other, ib.; specimen of a + morality, 358; moralities allegorical dramas, ib.; passion of Rene + d'Anjou for, 360; triple stage used for representation of, 361; + anecdote relating to an English mystery, ib.; morality of "Love and + Folly," 362; at Kendal, Yorkshire, iii. 442; usually performed in + the festival of Corpus Christi, ib., note. + + + NAMES, anecdotes relating to, and to their effect on mankind, ii. + 65-75; orthography of proper, ii. 237-239; names of our streets, + 239-243. + + NAMES, significance of Roman, ii. 75, note. + + NARDI, his history of Florence, iii. 181. + + NATURAL PRODUCTIONS resembling artificial compositions, i. 244-246. + + NEAL, his account of the Nonconformists, iii. 240. + + NEEDHAM, Marchmont, the great patriarch of newspaper writers, i. + 158; short account of, ib. + + NEOLOGY, or the novelty of new words and phrases, remarks on, iii. + 23; Neological Dictionary proposed by Lord Chesterfield, 26; not + always to be condemned, 27; examples of the introduction of various + new words in French and English, 28-32; the term "fatherland" + introduced by the author, 31; picturesque words, 32. + + NERLI, Philip, his "_Commentarj de Fatti Civili_," iii. 182. + + NEWCASTLE, Margaret, Duchess of, celebrated among literary wives, i. + 327-337; her account of her husband's mode of life, ii. 38, 39. + + NEWSPAPERS, forged, and used unsuspectingly by historians, i. 156, + note. + + NEWSPAPERS, originated in Italy, i. 155; called Gazettas, ib.; first + a Venetian, published monthly, ib.; circulated in manuscript, ib.; + prohibited by Gregory XIII., ib.; first English, 156; much used by + the English during the Civil Wars of Cromwell, and notices of these, + 157-159; origin of, in France, 160; first daily one after the + Restoration, ib.; only one daily, in the reign of Queen Anne, ib.; + union between them and literary periodicals, opinions expressed on, + ib. + + NEWTON, remarks on, iii. 413. + + NICCOLI, Nicholas, founded the first public library in Italy, i. 4. + + NICKNAMES, use of, practised by political parties, iii. 80; + instances of many, 81-89; serve to heat the minds of the people, 83; + of various Parliaments, 85; effect of, on ministers, 89. + + NOBILITY, conduct of kings towards, ii. 11, 12. + + NOBLEMEN turned critics, pair of anecdotes concerning, i. 131. + + NOMINALISTS and Realists, i. 312. + + NOSTRODAMUS, consulted by Catherine de' Medici, i. 279. + + NOVELS, the successors of romances, i. 450; Adam Smith's favourable + opinion of, ib. + + NUMERICAL Figures, of Indian origin, i. 276; introduction of Arabic, + 277; Roman, ib.; origin of Roman, ib.; falsification of Arabic, 278. + + + OBSCURITY, in style, taught by a professor, i. 401; Lycophron + possessed this taste, 402; defence of, by Thomas Anglus, ib.; + Gravina's observations on, ib. + + OLD AGE, progress of, in new studies, i. 98; remark of Adam Smith, + on resumption of former studies in, ib. + + OLDYS, a literary antiquary, iii. 493; caricature of, by Grose, 495; + released from the fleet by the Duke of Norfolk, and made Norroy King + at Arms, ib., and note; author of the anacreontic, "Busy, curious, + thirsty fly," 496; placed in the library of the Earl of Oxford, 497; + his integrity, ib., and note; his literary labours, 497-499; his + life of Rawleigh, 499; history of his two annotated copies of + Langbaine, 502; fate of his MSS., 503; his diaries, 504; his + readiness to aid others with his knowledge, 506; his Dissertation on + English Poetry curtailed by the bookseller, 507; extracts from his + diaries, 508-511; his intended Life of Shakspeare, 509; anecdote of + him and Pope, 511. + + OLIVETAN Bible, iii. 155. + + OPINIONS, suppressed, modes of expressing them in ancient and modern + times, iii. 150; in the Saturnalia, ib.; by carvings and + illuminations, 152; preceding the Reformation, 153; instance of the + Olivetan Bible, 155; by medals and prints, 156. + + ORCHIS, Bee and Fly, i. 245. + + ORDEALS, i. 161-166. + + ORDINARIES, the "Hells" of the 17th century, ii. 165; description of + the arts practised at, 165-167. + + OROBIO, his description of his imprisonment in the Inquisition, i. + 167. + + ORTHOGRAPHY of proper names, ii. 261; of the name of Shakespeare, + ii. 238, note; of Sir Walter Raleigh, iii. 111. + + OSMAN, Sultan, promotes his gardener, ii. 10. + + OXFORD, Edward Vere, Earl of, his secret history, ii. 243-245. + + + PALACES built by ministers, iii. 186-192. + + PALINGENESIS.--See REGENERATION. + + PALMER, the actor, his death, i. 249. + + PAMPHLETS, sketch of Myles Davis's history of, i. 343; origin and + rise of, 344; one pretended to have been composed by Jesus Christ, + ib.; Alexander Pope denounced as a plotter in a, 345; etymologies of + the word, 345-347. + + PANTOMIME, French verses in praise of, and translation of, ii. 116; + Cervantes and Bayle's delight in, 116, 117; harlequin, 119; of the + lower Italians in their gestures, ib.; treatises on, 121; + transmitted from the Romans, 123; improvement of, by Ruzzante, 124; + the history of a people traced in, 125; description of the various + characters in Italian, 126. + + PANTOMIMI, tragic actors usually mute, ii. 120; Seneca's taste for, + ib.; their influence over the Roman people, 121. + + PANTOMIMICAL Characters. See PANTOMIME; Massinger and Moliere + indebted to, ii. 138; remarks on Shakspeare's "Pantaloon," 139. + + PAPER, among the ancients, ii. 27, 28; introduction into England, + 29; various sorts of modern, ib. + + PARACELSUS, his receipt for making a fairy, iii. 286, 287. + + PARADISE LOST, prose and verse versions of, i. 305. + + PARISIAN Massacre, apology for, iii. 255-260, 352. + + PARK, Mungo, his book interpolated and altered by his editor, Bryan + Edwards, ii. 453. + + PARKER, Bishop of Oxford, iii. 279, note. + + PARODIES, anecdote relating to, ii. 453; resembles mimicry, 454; not + made in derision, ib.; practised by the ancients, 455; ancient, of + Homer, ib.; modern, 456; dramatic, anecdotes of modern, 458-460; + legitimate use of, ib. + + PARPAILLOTS, or Parpirolles, iii. 82. + + PARTICULAR Providence, various opinions on, ii. 428-431; the + granting a free-conduct to Luther, by Charles V., possibly one, 432. + + PASQUIN and Marforio, account of, i. 208. + + PASQUINADES, origin of, and instances of several, i. 208. + + PATRONS, their treatment of authors, i. 82; anecdotes regarding, 83, + 84; opinion of Dr. Johnson upon, 83. + + PAULUS JOVIUS, description of the country-house and collections of + statues, books, and portraits belonging to, i. 45; description of + the villa built by, iii. 397. + + PAZZI, Cavaliero, founder of the Accademia Colombaria, ii. 483. + + PEG-TANKARDS, ii. 296, and note. + + PEIRESC, a man of incessant literary occupations, and an enthusiast + in the importation of exotic plants, ii. 151; anecdotes of, iii. + 409. + + PEMBROKE, Anne, Countess of, designed a history of her family, iii. + 421. + + PERFUMERY and costly washes, introduced into England by the Earl of + Oxford, i. 225. + + PETITIONS, to Parliament against the Drama, ii. 289; mock, ib. + + PETITIONERS and Abhorrers, iii. 87. + + PETRACH, formula used at his coronation with the Laurel Crown, i. + 455; his passion for literary composition, ii. 592; his Laura, iii. + 309. + + PICTORIAL Biography.--See MAGIUS. + + PISISTRATUS, the first projector amongst the Greeks of a collection + of the works of the learned, i. 2. + + PHILIP the First of Spain, i. 469; his marriage with Mary of + England, ib.; sought Queen Elizabeth in marriage, 470; offered + himself to three different sisters-in-law, ib.; his advice to his + son, ib.; his death-bed, ib.; his epitaph, 471. + + PHILOSOPHY, dreams at the dawn of, iii. 280-290; mechanical fancies, + 291, 292; inquiries after prodigies, 293; further anecdotes of, + 294-296. + + PHYSIOGNOMY, credited by Louis XIV. and James I., i. 148, 149. + + PICART, his _impostures innocentes_, i. 259. + + PICTURES belonging to Charles I., ii. 332, 333. + + PINAMONTI, his book on the eternal punishments, i. 204, note. + + PINELLI, his great library, and its partial destruction, i. 57, and + note. + + PLAGIARISM, in printed sermons, i. 400; a professor of, ib. + + PLANTS, presenting representations of natural forms, i. 245. + + PLANTYN the printer, and his office at Antwerp, i. 77, note. + + PLATINA, his account of his persecution and tortures, for having + been a member of the "Academy" at Rome, ii. 486. + + PLATO, Aristotle studied under, i. 143; parallel between him and + Aristotle, ib.; contest between him and Aristotle, 144; the model + of the moderns who profess to be anti-poetical, 433; a true poet + himself, ib. + + PLATONISM, modern, originated among the Italians, i. 213; system of, + by Gemisthus Pletho, ib.; professed by a Mr. Thomas Taylor, 215; by + a scholar in the reign of Louis XII., 216; by Dr. More, ib. + + PLETHO, or Gemisthus, a remarkable modern professor of Platonism, i. + 213. + + PLATTS or Plots, theatrical discovery of curious ones at Dulwich + College, and remarks upon, ii. 138-140; see SCENARIO. + + PLOTT, Dr., his project of a tour, iii. 292. + + PLUNDER, etymology of, iii. 87, and note. + + POETS, Plato's description of the feelings of, in the Phaedon, i. + 433; opinions of various learned men on the works of, 433; remarks + on the habits of, 434, 435; behaviour of Frederic King of Prussia + (father of the Great Frederic) to, 436; different conduct of other + kings towards, 437; honours paid to, in the early stage of poetry, + ib.; anecdote of Margaret of Scotland and Alain the poet, 438; + opinions of the pious on the works of, ib.; too frequently merely + poets, 439; hints to young, 440; to veteran, ib.; mistresses of, + 441; change their opinions of their productions, ib.; antiquity of + the custom of crowning, 454; abolished in the reign of Theodosius, + ib.; regal, 457; condemned, ii. 303-308; laureat, see LAUREATS. + + POETICAL GARLAND, i. 247. + + POETICAL imitations and similarities, ii. 92-113. + + POINT-DEVICE, etymology of, iii. 188, and note. + + POLAND, history of the election of the Duke of Anjou as King of, + iii. 346-363. + + POLICHINELLO.--See PUNCH. + + POLITIAN, Angelo, a polished Italian writer of the 15th century, i. + 457; his dedicatory epistle, prefixed to his epistles, 458. + + POLITICAL Nicknames, iii. 80-90. + + POLITICAL Reports, false maxim on the efficacy of, ii. 438; + ancient instances, ib.; of the battle of Lutzen, 439; on the battle + of the Boyne, ib.; other anecdotes, modern and ancient, of the + effect of, 440-443. + + POLITICAL Religionism, illustrations of its effects, iii. 238-244. + + POLITICAL Prognostics.--See PREDICTIONS. Dugdale hastened his + labours in anticipation of the disorders of the Rebellion, iii. 261. + + POLITICAL Parallels, iii. 267. + + POLYDORE VERGIL, a destroyer of MSS., ii. 445. + + POMPONIUS LAETUS, in the 15th century raised altars to Romulus, ii. + 485; chief of the "Academy" at Rome, 486. + + POPE, his manuscripts, ii. 110; passage from, with the various + alterations, 111, 112; Dr. Johnson's memorandum of hints for the + life of, 381; anecdote of, iii. 397. + + POPE, project of the, for placing a cardinal on the throne of + England, ii. 505; favoured by Henry IV., ib. + + POPES, their early humility and subsequent arrogance, ii. 83; + Celestine kicks off the crown of the Emperor Henry the Sixth, ib.; + their infallibility first asserted, ib.; protest of the University + of Vienna against, 84; their excommunications, ib. + + PORTA, John Baptiste and John Vincent, found the academy "Degli + Oziosi," ii. 488; Baptiste's mechanical genius, iii. 290. + + PORTRAITS, of authors, of celebrated men, i. 42-47; of the Fugger + family, 6; commonly prefixed to ancient manuscripts, 42; collections + of, amongst the ancients, 43; query upon the mode of their + transmission and their correctness, ib.; use of, ib.; anecdotes + relative to the effect of, 45; objections of ingenious men to sit + for, reprobated, 46; Granger's illustrations of, 45; Perrault's + "Eloges" confined to French, ib.; collection by Paulus Jovius, ib.; + doubts as to authenticity of several, ib.; literary, of himself, by + St. Evremond, 102; in minute writing, 275. + + PORT ROYAL SOCIETY, the, i. 94; their Logic, or The Art of + Thinking, an admirable work, ib.; account of its rise and progress, + 95; many families of rank erected houses there, ib.; persecuted and + destroyed by the Jesuits, 96; their writings fixed the French + language, ib. + + POSIES on rings, iii. 39, note. + + POVERTY, abridgment of history of, by Morin, i. 198; regulations + regarding, among the Jews, ib.; among the Greeks, Romans, and + Egyptians, 199; uncommon among the ancients, 201; introduction of + hospitals for the relief of, ib. + + PRAYER-BOOKS, gross illustrations of, i. 366. + + PREACHERS, jocular, i. 251-258. + + PREDICTION, political and moral, determined by certain prognostics, + iii. 260; of the Reformation by Cardinal Julian, Sir Thomas More, + and Erasmus, 262; by Sir Walter Rawleigh, 263; of Tacitus, ib.; of + Solon, 264; of Charlemagne, ib.; Cicero's art of, ib.; faculty of, + possessed by Du Vair, 265; principles of, revealed by Aristotle, + 266; by Mr. Coleridge, 268; of the French Revolution, 269, 270; + frequently false, 272; anecdotes, 273; of the end of the world, ib., + note; of the destruction of London in 1750, ib., note; of American + independence, 274; sometimes condemned as false when really + verified, 275; caution to be observed in, 276; instances of, by + Knox, 277; of the death of Henry IV., ib.; reflections on, 278, 279. + + PREFACES, frequently superior to the work, i. 71; a volume of, + always kept ready by Cicero, ib.; ought to be dated, 72; anecdote of + Du Clos' to a fairy tale, ii. 340. + + PREFERMENT, anecdotes of, ii. 12. + + PRESBYTERIANS, their conduct under Charles II., iii. 240; their + intolerance, 254. + + PRESS-MONEY, proposition that those who refused it should be tried + by martial law, iii. 462, and note. + + PRICE, Robert, a Welsh lawyer, incidents in his life, iii. 422. + + PRIMERO, a game at cards described, ii. 166, note. + + PRINCE HENRY, son of James I., resembled Henry V. in his features, + ii. 186; Dr. Birch's life of, 187; anecdotes concerning, 187-194; + his diary, 207. + + PRINTING, art of, possessed by the Romans without being aware of it, + i. 43, and note; probably originated in China, ib., and note; + general account of early, 73-78. + + PRINTERS, mention of early, i. 75. + + PRINTS, satiric, iii. 160. + + PROCLAMATIONS, against long swords and deep ruffs, i. 222; royal, + against buildings in London, iii. 365; to enforce a country + residence, 367; never possessed the force of laws, 366; of Henry + VIII., 372; of Mary, 373; of Edward VI., 374; of Elizabeth, 375; of + James I., 376; of Charles I., 377; of Charles II. against vicious, + debauched, and profane persons, ib.; others by Charles II., 379. + + PROFESSION, the choice of one and its influence on the mind, with + some illustrative anecdotes, ii. 461-463. + + PROPER names, orthography of, the uncertainty of, ii. 237; anecdotes + and instances of, 237-243. + + PROTESTANTISM, once existed in Spain, ii. 434. + + PROVERBS, use of, derided by Lord Chesterfield, iii. 33; records of + the populace, 34; existed before books, ib.; abound in the most + ancient writers, ib.; "the dark sayings of the wise," 35; introduced + into the Greek drama, 36; definition of, 38; influence of, over a + whole people, ib.; collection of, by Franklin, ib.; inscribed on + furniture, ib.; English, collected by Heywood, 39; a speech of, 40; + an era of, amongst the English, 41; long favourites in France, ib.; + comedy of, ib.; family, 42; ancient examples of the use of, 43; + some, connected with the characters of eminent men, 44; use of, by + poets, ib.; Eastern origin of many, 45; collection of, by Polydore + Vergil and Erasmus, of Spanish by Fernandez Nunes, of Italian and + French, English and Scotch, 46, 47; study of, 48; illustrative of + national character, 48-56; anecdotes of the origin of certain, + 56-61; historical, 61; remarks on the arrangement of collections of, + 63. + + PRYNNE, his method of composition, ii. 534; his extraordinary + perseverance, ib.; title of the catalogue of his writings, 535; copy + of his works bequeathed to Sion College, ib.; the pretended + retractation of his Histriomastix, iii. 315, note. + + PSALM-SINGING, remarks on, ii. 472; first introduction of, ib.; T. + Warton's criticism of, 473; history of, 473-478; practised at lord + mayor's feasts, 479. + + PSALMANAZAR, his extraordinary literary forgery, i. 137, note; iii. + 311; some account of, 312-314. + + PUCK, the Commentator.--See STEEVENS. + + PULTENEY, Earl of Bath, MS. Memoirs of, suppressed, ii. 447. + + PUNCH, his ancient origin, ii. 122, and note; origin of his name, + ib., note. + + PUNCHINELLO.--See PUNCH. + + PUNNING, in a dictionary, i. 305. + + PUNS, Cicero's, i. 69. + + PUPPET-SHOWS in England, iii. 238. + + PURGATORY, Cardinal Bellarmin's treatise on, i. 204. + + PURITANS, turn bacchanalian songs into spiritual ones, ii. 148. + + PURITANS and Precisians, party nicknames at the Reformation, iii. + 84, 85. + + PYROTECHNICS.--See FIREWORKS. + + + QUADRIO, his Universal History of Poetry, iii. 233; his ignorance of + English poetry, 234-236; his opinion of English comedy, 236; praises + our puppet-shows, 238. + + QUEEN MARY the First, her marriage with Philip of Spain, i. 469; her + letter of instructions, ib. + + QUEEN ELIZABETH, letter of, to her brother, Edward VI., i. 461; her + exhibition of youthfulness to the ambassador of the Scottish king, + 463; remarkable period in her annals, ii. 179; her maiden state, + ib.; real cause of her repugnance to change it, ib., and note; her + artifices to conceal her resolution, 180; debates of the Commons on + the succession to, 181; address to, by the Duke of Norfolk, and her + answer, ib.; despatch of the French ambassador on this occasion, + 181-186; her judicious conduct, ib.; her conduct towards printers + and authors, 221, 222; her dislike to the appointment of a + successor, iii. 331; account of her death-bed, 331, 332. + + QUEEN ANNE BULLEN, anecdote relative to her execution, i. 462. + + QUERNO, made laureat for the joke's sake, i. 455. + + QUEVEDO, his love for Don Quixote, iii. 339. + + QUINCE, origin of, ii. 157, note. + + QUODLIBETS, or Scholastic Disquisitions, i. 60. + + QUOTATION, remarks on the use of, ii. 416; Selden's precept for, + violated by himself, 417; Bayle's remarks on the use of, 418; when + used by an eminent author often appropriated by an inferior, 419; + value of the proper application of, 420. + + + RABBINICAL Stories, specimens of, i. 120-126; scripture quoted to + support, 126. + + RANTZAU, founder of the great library at Copenhagen, stanzas by, i. 5. + + RANZ DES VACHES, effect of, i. 274. + + RAWLEIGH, Sir Walter, composed his History of the World in prison, + i. 36; assisted in that work by several eminent persons, ib.; + variations in orthography of his name, iii. 111, note; author's + account of his character, 112; Gibbon's and Hume's observations on, + 113; cunning practised by, ib.; anecdotes of, 114; account of his + return from Guiana, 115, 116; his attempt to escape, 118; betrayed + by Sir Lewis Stucley, 119; narrative of his last hours, 124-129; his + History of the World, the labour of several persons, 131; note on + Mr. Tytler's remarks on the author's account of, 135, note; his + extravagance in dress, 407; notice of Oldys's life of, 499. + + RAYNAUD, Theophilus, his works fill twenty folios, and ruined his + bookseller, 542; notice of, 543; his curious treatises, ib. + + REALISTS, a sect of Scholars, i. 312. + + REFORMATION, origin of, iii. 142. + + REFUTATION, a Catholic's, i. 349. + + REGENERATION of material bodies, iii. 286, 287. + + RELICS of Saints, bought, sold, and stolen, i, 239; treatise on, by + Gilbert de Nogent, ib.; of St. Lewin, ib.; of St. Indalece, 240; of + St. Majean, ib.; of St. Augustin's arm, ib.; flogging of, ib.; + miracles performed by, ib.; miraculously multiplied, 241; anecdote + of a box of, presented by the Pope to Prince Radzivil, ib.; + Frederick the Wise, a great collector of, 242; phial of the blood of + Christ sent to Henry III., ib.; fall in price of, ib.; deceptive, + 243. + + RELIGION, state of, during the Civil Wars, iii. 433; illustrative + anecdotes of, 434-436; contest between Owen and Baxter on, 437; + confusion of, ib.; a colt baptised in St. Paul's Cathedral, 439, and + note; anecdotes, 439-441; noticed by George Wither the Poet, 442; + ordinance of the Parliament to rectify the disorders in, 443. + + RELIGIONISM distinguished from religion, iii. 239. + + RELIGIOUS Nouvellettes, a class of very singular works, i. 363; + account of one, 364; notice of one discussing three thousand + questions concerning the Virgin Mary, 365; Life of the Virgin, 367; + Jesuits usual authors of, 368; one describing what passes in + Paradise, ib.; the Spiritual Kalendar, ib. + + REPRESENTATION, right of, not fixed in the 10th century, i. 162. + + RESIDENCES of literary men, notices of several, iii. 394-399. + + REVIEWS.--See LITERARY JOURNALS. + + REVOLUTIONS, maxim on, iii. 278. + + RHYMES inscribed on _knives_, and alluded to by Shakespeare, iii. + 38, note; on _fruit trenchers_, ib.; on _rings_, 39, note. + + RICCOBONI, a celebrated actor, his remarks on the Italian extempore + comedy, ii. 134; anecdote of, 137; his inscription on the curtain of + his theatre, ib. + + RICH, a celebrated harlequin, ii. 130, and note. + + RICHARDSON, the author of _Sir Charles Grandison_, remarks on him + and his works, ii. 62-65. + + RICHELIEU, Cardinal de, his general character, ii. 349; his death-bed, + ib.; anecdotes of the sinister means practised by, 350; his + confessor, Father Joseph, 351-353; projects of assassination of, + 354, and note; drives Father Caussin, the king's confessor, into + exile, 355. + + RIVE, Abbe de, librarian of the Duke de la Valliere, iii. 341; his + style of criticism, 342; his collections for works never begun, ib.; + his observations on the cause of the errors of literary history, + 344. + + ROBINSON CRUSOE, remarks on, ii. 274; history of, traced, 275; + written by Defoe, after illness, and in comparative solitude, 276; + not published till seven years after Selkirk's adventures, 277. + + ROC, the, of Arabian tales, a creature of Rabbinical fancy, i. 124. + + ROCHEFOUCAULT De la, remarks on him and his maxims, i. 110. + + ROCHELLE, expedition to, ii. 367; preparations for, ib.; frustrated + by the death of Buckingham, 369. + + ROMANCES, the offspring of fiction and love, i. 442; early, ib.; + that of Heliodorus denounced in the synod, 443; forbidden in the + Koran, ib.; of the Troubadours, 444; modern poets indebted to, ib.; + Le Roman de Perceforest, 445; of chivalry, examples of, 446; + Italian, 448; use made of by poets, 449; French, ib.; went out of + fashion with square cocked hats, 450; modern novels, ib.; histories + of, 451; D'Urfe's Astraea, ib. + + ROMNEY the painter, his belief in alchymy, i. 282, and note. + + RONSARD, the French bard, and his Bacchanalia, ii. 41. + + ROSY-CROSS, the President of, proffers his advice to Charles I., iii. + 464. + + ROUSSEAU, his prediction of the French Revolution, iii. 271, 272, + and note; his favourite authors, iii. 340. + + ROYAL Autographs, iii. 165. + + ROYAL Promotions, ii. 10. + + ROYAL SOCIETY, origin of, ii. 410-413. + + ROYAL Society of Literature, ii. 406, note. + + RUBENS, his house at Antwerp, iii. 398; his love for collections of + art, 399, and note. + + RUFFS, extravagances in, i. 222-227. + + RUMP, the origin of the term, iii. 482, 483; three stages in its + political progress, 484; songs upon, 485; debate of the, whether to + massacre all the king's party, 487; parallel between their course of + conduct and that of the leaders in the French Revolution, 489-493. + + + SAINTE Ampoule, ii. 434, note. + + SALMASIUS, his controversy with and abuse of Milton, i. 152-154. + + SALVATOR ROSA, fond of acting in extemporal comedy, ii. 133. + + SANDRICOURT, the Sieur de, ruined himself by one fete, iii. 402-405. + + SANS CULOTTES, iii. 83. + + ST. AMBROSE, writes a treatise on Virgins, i. 412; and another on + the Perpetual Virginity of the Mother of God, ib.; his chastisement + of an erring nun, ib. + + ST. BARTHOLOMEW, apology for the massacre of, iii. 255-260. + + ST. EVREMOND, literary portrait of, by himself, i. 102. + + ST. URSULA and the Eleven Thousand Virgins all created out of a + blunder, i. 324. + + ST. VIAR, created by an error, i, 323. + + SATIRICAL medals, iii. 156-160. + + SATIRISTS may dread the cane of the satirised, i. 442. + + SATURNALIA, institution of among the Romans, derived by Macrobius + from the Grecians, ii. 256; dedicated to Saturn, ib.; latterly + prolonged for a week, 257; description of, ib.; crept into the + Christian Church, 258, and note; practised in the middle ages, 259; + Feast of Asses, ib.; "December liberties," 260; the boy-bishop, 261; + Lord of Misrule, ib.; Abbot of Unreason, 262; description of a grand + Christmas held at the Inns of Courts, 263-265, and note; the last + memorable, of the Lords of Misrule of the Inns of Court, 266; + anecdote of a Lord of Misrule, 267; the Mayor of Garratt, 269; + regiment de la Calotte, ib., and note, 270; Republic of Baboonery, + ib.; medals used for money in, iii. 150, 151. + + SAUNTERING, i. 175. + + SAVAGES, various usages of at meals, i. 171-173. + + SCALIGER, Julius, his singular manner of composition, ii. 86. + + SCARAMOUCHES.--See PANTOMIME. Punch and Zany, prints of, ii. 125; + character of, invented by Tiberio Fiurilli, 126; power of a + celebrated, ib. + + SCARON, account of his life and works, i. 421-428. + + SCENERY of the old English stage, iii. 4, and note. + + SCENARIE, the plots of extemporal comedies, ii. 130; description of, + note; some discovered at Dulwich College, 139, 140, and note. + + SCRIBLERAID, the, a poetical jest on pseudo-science, by R. O. + Cambridge, i. 295, and note. + + SCRIPTURE story treated like mediaeval romance, i. 163, and note. + + SCUDERY, Mademoiselle, composed ninety romances, i. 106; panegyrics + on, ib.; her "Great Cyrus and Map of Tenderness," 107. + + SCUDERY, George, famous for composing romances, i. 107; a votary of + vanity, ib.; author of sixteen plays, 108. + + SECRET HISTORY, of authors who have ruined their booksellers, ii. + 532-546; of an elective monarchy, iii. 346-363; the supplement of + history itself, iii. 380; reply to an attack on the writers of, 382; + two species of, positive and relative, ib.; the true sources of to + be found in MS collections, 383; neglect of by historians, 384; its + utility, 385; of the Restoration, 386; of Mary, the Queen of William + III., 389-393. + + SEDAN chairs, introduced into England by the Duke of Buckingham, ii. + 36. + + SEGNI, Bernardo, his History of Florence, iii. 182. + + SENTIMENTAL biography, iii. 414-424. + + SERASSI, writes the life of Tasso, ii. 444; finds Galileo's MS. + annotations, copies them, and suppresses the original, ib. + + SERMONS, printed, Bayle's saying on, i. 345. + + SEYMOUR, William, his family and character, ii. 508; enters into a + treaty of marriage with the Lady Arabella Stuart, ib.; summoned + before the Privy Council, ib.; his marriage, 509; imprisoned in the + Tower, ib.; his wife's letter to him, 510; his escape, 515; is + permitted to return, 519. + + SHAKESPEARE, Fuller's character of, i. 380; orthography of his name, + ii. 238, and note; introduces a masque in his "Tempest," and + burlesques the characters in court masques, iii. 5, and note; + bequest to his wife, 302. + + SHENSTONE, the object of his poem of the Schoolmistress misunderstood, + ii. 496; his ludicrous index to, 499; his character, his life, and + his works, iii. 90-102. + + SHOEING-HORNS, ii. 297, note. + + SILHOUETTE, a term not to be found in any dictionary, iii. 84; + originated in a political nickname, ib. + + SILK stockings, pair of, presented to Queen Elizabeth, i. 226. + + SILLI, ancient parodies, ii. 455. + + SKELTON, his satire on Wolsey, iii. 187. + + SNEEZING, the custom of saluting after, i. 126; attributed to St. + Gregory, ib.; Rabbinical account of, ib.; anecdotes concerning, 127. + + SNUFF-BOXES, the rage, in the reign of Queen Anne, i. 229; the + Jesuits', reported to be poisoned, ii. 442. + + SOLITUDE, treatise on, by Sir George Mackenzie, ii. 50; necessary + for the pursuits of genius, 52; discomforts of 53, 54. + + SOLOMON, accounted an adept in necromancy, i. 122; story of him and + the Queen of Sheba, 202. + + SONGS among the Grecians, ii. 142; sayings of Fletcher of Saltoun, + and Dr. Clerk on, ib.; Greek songs of the trades, 143; of the + weavers among the English, ib.; harvest and oar-songs in the + Highlands, ib.; of the gondoliers, ib.; Dibdin's, 144; old English, + 145; Swiss, 146; Italian, composed at Florence, under the Medici, + ib.; French "Chansons de' Vendange," 147; parodied, by Puritans, + 148; slang or flash, known to the Greeks, and specimens from + Athenaeus, 149; ancient practices in, connected with old English + customs, 150; political, iii. 179, 180. + + SONNAH, the, i. 113. + + SOTADES travestied the Iliad, ii. 455. + + SOTTIES, more farcical than farce, i. 358; specimen of one, 359-360. + + SOVEREIGNTY of the seas, ii. 79-81. + + SPANISH Etiquette, instances of its absurdity, i. 194. + + SPANISH Poetry, i. 100; remarks on and illustrative quotations of, + 101; translation of a madrigal found in a newspaper, 102. + + SPEED, the historian, suspicions of his originality, ii. 445. + + SPENSER, Fuller's character of, i. 379. + + SPIDERS, influence of music on, i. 272; admired as food, ii. 355, + note. + + STANZAS to Laura, i. 230. + + STARCHING, origin of, i. 227. + + STEEVENS, George, the Puck of commentators, iii. 296; account of his + literary forgeries, 297, 298; the story of Milton and the Italian + lady attributed to, 299; his motives for omitting the Poems from his + edition of Shakespeare, 301; his trick on the antiquary Gough, 303, + 304. + + STEPHENS, Robert, the printer, his family and their works, i. 76, + note; divided the Bible into chapter and verse, iii. 433. + + STERNHOLD and Hopkins, their version of the Psalms, ii. 472. + + STONES, presenting representations of natural forms, i. 244, 245. + + STOSCH, Baron, his dishonest collecting, iii. 318. + + STREETS of London, origin of many of their names, ii. 239-243. + + STUART, Arabella, mistakes of historians regarding, ii. 502; her + history, 503-519. + + STUCLEY, Sir Lewis, Vice-Admiral of Devon, accepted a surveillance + over his kinsman, Sir Walter Rawleigh, iii. 116; his base treachery, + 119; universally shunned in consequence, 120; convicted of clipping + gold, ib.; his miserable death, 121. + + STUDENT in the metropolis, the, description of, by Gibbon, Rogers, + and Descartes, i. 112. + + STUDY, plans of historical, ii. 90-92. + + STUKELEY, Dr., his Imaginary History of the Empress Oriuna, i. 324, + note. + + STYLE, remarks on, in the composition of works of science, i. 89; + strictures on the, of theological writers, ii. 21, 22; on that of + Lancelot Addison, 23. + + SUGAR-LOAF-COURT, origin of the name, ii. 10. + + SUPPRESSION of MSS.--See MANUSCRIPTS. + + SYDENHAM, F., his melancholy death occasions the foundation of the + Literary Fund, i. 34, and note. + + + TABLETS, and Table-books, ii. 26. + + TALMUD, many copies of, burnt, i. 48; a collection of Jewish + traditions orally preserved, 114; comprises _Mishna_, which is the + text of the _Gemara_, its commentary, ib.; general account of, ib.; + believed apocryphal, even by a few among the Jews, ib.; time of the + first appearance of its traditions uncertain, ib.; compiled by + Jewish doctors to oppose the Christians, ib.; analysis of, by W. + Wotton, 115; two Talmuds, ib.; committed to writing, and arranged by + R. Juda, prince of the Rabbins, forming the Mishna, ib.; disputes + and opinions of the Rabbins on the form of the Mishna, ib.; God's + study of, ib.; curious, from its antiquity, 116; specimens of, from + the Mishnic titles, 116-118; and from the Gemara, 119. + + TASSO, various opinions on the respective merits of him and Ariosto, + i. 386; Boileau's criticism on, 388; his errors national, ib.; his + verses sung by the gondoliers, ib. + + TAXATION, remarks on the popular feeling on, in ancient and modern + times, iii. 193; associated with the idea of tyranny, ib.; + illustrative anecdotes, 194; efficacy of using a mitigated term for, + 195; gifts, tribute, benevolences, and loans, 195-198; Burleigh's + advice on, 199. + + TAYLOR, Thomas, a modern professor of Platonism, i. 215. + + TEA, opposition to the introduction of, ii. 317; present of, + declined by the Russian ambassador, 318; Dutch bargain for, 319; + introduction into Europe, ib.; shop-bill of the first vendor of, + 320. + + TENURES, curious ancient, i. 187, note. + + THOMAS AQUINAS, some account of the works of, i. 63-65. + + TIMON of Philius, his parodies of Homer, ii. 455. + + TICHBOURNE, Chidiock, concerned in Babington's conspiracy, ii. 171; + his address to the populace at his execution, 176; his letter to his + wife, 177; verses composed by him the night before his execution, + 178. + + TITLES, origins of, and anecdotes concerning, i. 155; book of, + published in Spain, ib.; Selden's _Titles of Honour_, ib.; of books, + 288-292. + + TOLERATION, practised by the Romans, and inculcated by Mahomet, iii. + 245; caution used in publishing works on, ib.; early English + advocates of, 246, and note; in Holland, ib.; facts illustrative + of the history of, 247, 248; condemned by all parties, 249-253; + opinions of an English clergyman on, 252. + + TOM O' BEDLAMS, account of, ii. 311-314, and notes; songs of, 315-317. + + TORTURE, Felton threatened with, ii. 376; its frequent use in + England, ib. + + TORQUEMADA, first Spanish inquisitor, in fourteen years persecuted + 80,000 individuals, i. 166. + + TOWNLEY, Zouch, his poem on Felton, ii. 378; collection of antique + marbles formed by his descendant Charles Townley, purchased for the + British Museum, ib., note. + + TRAITORS, barbarous mode of execution of, in Queen Elizabeth's time, + ii. 175, and note. + + TREASURES in hills, iii. 295, note. + + TREVOUX.--See DICTIONARY. + + TROUBADORS, their poems and their loves, i. 444. + + TRUSLER, Doctor, first vendor of printed sermons imitating manuscript, + i. 400. + + TURNER, Doctor, a violent opposition leader in the second Parliament + of Charles I., iii. 451; an agent of the opposition in Parliament + against the measures of Charles I., 466; a disappointed courtier, + 467, note. + + TURKISH SPY, the, i. 377; John Paul Marana, the author of, 378. + + + URBAN the Eighth, instances of his poetic sensibility, i. 456. + + USURERS of the 17th century, notice of the practices of, ii. 158-170. + + USURY, contrary opinions on, ii. 174, 175. + + UTOPIA, Sir Thomas More's, missionaries proposed to be sent to, i. 320. + + + VACCINATION, strange dread of, ii. 317. + + VALLANCEY'S Collectanea, curious error in, i. 326, note. + + VANBRUGH, the architect of Blenheim, got a power from Lord Godolphin + to contract in the Duke of Marlborough's name, iii. 104; produces + the power, 106; his depositions, ib.; attempt of the Duchess of + Marlborough to charge the debts of Blenheim on, 108; conduct of the + Duchess towards, 109; discovery of his origin, 110, 111. + + VARCHI, Benedetto, his "Storie Florentine," iii. 183; remarks of Mr. + Merivale on, ib., note. + + VARILLAS, his fictitious work on the Reformation, i. 132, note. + + VASARI'S History of Artists, not entirely written by himself, iii. + 131. + + VATICAN, library of, i. 4. + + VAUCANSON, his mechanical figures, iii. 284, note. + + VAUDEVILLES, origin of the name, ii. 148. + + VERSES, follies in the fantastical forms of, i. 295-300; reciprocal, + ib. + + VICAR OF BRAY, story of the, i. 196; Dr. Kitchen, Bishop of + Llandaff, acted the same part, 197; type of, ii. 37. + + VIDA, Jerome, from the humblest obscurity attained to the episcopacy, + i. 105. + + VISION OF ALBERICO, ii. 422; of Charles the Bald, 423. + + VIRGIN MARY, images of, frequently portraits of mistresses and + queens, i. 366; miraculous letter of, 367; Louis II. conveys + Boulogne to, ib.; Life of, by Maria Agreda, ib.; worship paid to, in + Spain, 368; system of, in seven folio vols., 369. + + VIRGINITY, St. Ambrose's treatise on, i. 412. + + + WALKER, his account of the clergy of the Church of England who were + sequestered, &c., iii. 243. + + WALPOLE, Sir Robert, his magnificent building at Houghton, iii. 191. + + WALSINGHAM, Sir Francis, died in debt, iii. 192. + + WALWORTH, Sir William, his private motive for killing Wat Tyler, + iii. 470, note. + + WARBURTON, J., by neglect causes the destruction of old manuscript + plays, i. 54, note. + + WAT TYLER, anecdote of, iii. 470, note. + + WESTMINSTER elections always turbulent from the days of Charles the + First, iii. 461, note. + + WHIG and Tory, origin of the terms, iii. 88. + + WHISTLECRAFT'S Poem on King Arthur, ii. 496, note; imitated by Byron + in his Beppo, ib. + + WHITELOCKE, his Memorials, ii. 212; his remembrances, a work + addressed to his family, lost or concealed, ib.; preface to the + Remembrances preserved, ib.; omissions in first edition of his + Memorials, ii. 448. + + WIFE, Literary, i. 327; of Budaeus, 328; of Evelyn, who designed the + frontispiece to his translation of Lucretius, ib.; of Baron Haller, + ib.; Calphurnia, wife of Pliny, ib.; Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, + 329; extract from her epistle to her husband, ib.; notices of the + wives of various celebrated men, 332-337. + + WIGS, custom of using, i. 217-220; Steele's, 229. + + WILKINS, Bishop, his museum, iii. 291. + + WINKELMANN, the plan on which he composed his works, ii. 89. + + WOLSEY, Cardinal, his magnificent houses, iii. 187. + + WOMEN, actors, first introduced on the Italian stage, ii. 140; on + the English, 284; Kynaston a favourite actor of female characters, + 285, note. + + WOODCUTS, ancient, in the British Museum, i. 74, note. + + WORDS, introduction of new.--See NEOLOGY. + + WOOD, Anthony, when dying, caused his papers to be destroyed, ii. + 243; some, however, preserved, ib.; secret history of the Earl of + Oxford drawn from, ib.; compelled to disavow the translation of his + book, 453; Gibbon's opinion of his dulness opposed, 538, note. + + WRITING, minute, i. 275; ancient modes of, ii. 20-26; materials used + for, 27-30. + + WRITING-MASTERS, iii. 167; Massey's lives of, 169; anecdote of + Tomkins, 171; Peter Bales, a celebrated, 173; account of his contest + with David Johnson, 173-177. + + + XENOCRATES, pupil of Plato, attacked Aristotle, i. 142. + + + YVERY, notice of the History of the House of, iii. 420, and note. + + + ZANY, etymology of the word, ii. 123; and notes. + + + + +THE END. + + + + +Transcriber's note: The following typographical errors have been corrected: + + + In page 45: "Y l pedir dolor." amended to "Y el pedir dolor." + + In page 47: "The plan consists of a dialogue betwen a philosopher and + a Sancho Panca..." 'betwen' amended to 'between'. + + In page 66: Added double quotes at the begining of: "Lo! the + Nominalists and the Realists again!" + + In page 208: Added double quotes at the end of: "He is dead, sir! + asking your pardon for mentioning such a contemptible wretch!" + + In page 229: "Journal and Dictionary, which latter is almost an + enclycopaedia as there are few things..." 'enclycopaedia' amended to + 'encyclopaedia'. + + In page 230: "Duc de Maine" amended to "Duc du Maine". + + In page 318: "which of all those things which admit of being secretly + purlioned, can only be practised in this department..." 'purlioned' + amended to 'purloined'. + + In page 504: "Cadell to the late Geroge Robinson, and that the + successor of Dr. Kippis." 'Geroge' amended to 'George'. + + In footnote 143: "The introductory account of Heylin has enabled us to + correct the present article in some particulars, and add a few usefu + notes." 'usefu' corrected to 'useful'. + + In footnote 245: Added double quotes at the begining of: "heretykes, + perverters of Christes relygyon." + + In the Index: Discoveries in literature and science, aptitude in, + obtained hy studious men, iii. 'hy' corrected to 'by'. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of +3), by Isaac Disraeli + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE, VOL 3 *** + +***** This file should be named 31078.txt or 31078.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/0/7/31078/ + +Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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