R I J I AjHIBRARYQr. - '> ^l-HBRARY^ A \\UiBRARY6^ y 0Aavaain^ ^Aav '^/.\a3A!N.l 3\V^ M OF LITERATURE. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. in. He Stru ^ling: for knowledge hath *lin ff with a fine woman ^^ in *' '*' that f OF LONDON:, 'f f\ TT *- J *JHN MURRAV ^BEMARLE-STREET. 1817. Printed by Nichols, Son, and Bentley, Red Lion Passage, Fleet-street, London. Annex \in CONTENTS Of the Third Volume. pag The Pantomimical Characters 1 Extempore Comedies . . 25 Massinger, Milton, and the Italian Theatre 39 Songs of Trades, or Songs for the People 45 , Introducers of Exotic Flowers, Fruits, &c 59 Usurers of the Seventeenth Century 70 Chidiock Titchbourne (a Roman Catholic's History) 93 Elizabeth and her Parliament 109 . Anecdotes of Prince Henry the son of James I. when a child 124 The Diary of a Master of the Ceremonies 140 Diaries, Moral, Historical, and Critical 163 Licensers of the Press 181 Of Anagrams and Echo Verses 206 Orthography of Proper Names 219 Names of our Streets 223 Secret History of Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford 228 i Ancient Cookery and Cooks . . 233 Ancient and Modern Saturnalia 252 Reliquiae Gethiniana? 275 i. Robinson Crusoe 285 Catholic and Protestant Dramas 291 The History of the Theatre during its Suppression 299 Drinking Customs in England 319 On Literary Anecdotes 334 Condemned Poets . . . . 340 IV CONTENTS. page Acajou and Zirphile, of its Preface 349 Tom o' Bedlams 354 Introduction of Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate 365 Charles the First's Love of the Fine Arts 381 Secret History of Charles I. and his Queen Henrietta .... 398 The Minister the Cardinal Duke of Richelieu 423 The Minister Duke of Buckingham, Lord Admiral, Lord General, &c. &c. &c 435 Felton the Political Assassin 464 Johnson's Hints for the Life of Pope 479 Page 11. This figure of an ancient Buffoon, supposed to be the prototype of our Punch, is engraved in Ficoroni's amusing work on Le Maschere Sceniche, e le figure comiche d'antichi Romani, page 48. Page 49, line 5, for Water-carriers, read Milk-maids. CURIOSITIES OF literature* THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. 11 est des gens de qui 1'esprit guinde* Sous un front jamais deride" Ne souffre, n'approuve, et n'estime, Que le pompeux et le sublime j Pour moi j'ose poser en fait fiu'en de certains momens 1'esprit le plus parfait Peut aimer sans rougir jusqu'aux Marionettes j Et qu'il est des terns et des lieux, Ou le grave, et le serieux, Ne valent pas d'agreables Sornettes. PEAU d' People there are who never smile ; Their foreheads still unsniooth'd, the while Some lambent flame of mirth will play, That wins the easy heart away j Such only choose in prose or rhime A bristling pomp, they call sublime ! 1 blush not to like Harlequin Would he but talk, and all his kin ! Yes, there are times, and there are places, When Flams and Old Wives' tales are worth the Graces', C/ERV ANTES, in the person of his hero, has confessed the delight he received from amuse- VOL. III. * 2 THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. ments which disturb the gravity of some, who are apt, however, to be more entertained by them than they choose to acknowledge. Don Quixote thus dismisses a troop of merry strollers, " Andad con dios buena gente, y hazad vuestra Jiesta, porque desde muchackoj'iil aficionado a la Caratula, y en ml mocedad se ne wan los ojos tras la Farandula." In a literal version the passage may run thus : " Go, good people, God be with you, and keep your merry-making! for from childhood I was in love with the Caratula, and in my youth my eyes would lose themselves amidst the Farandula" According to Pineda La Caratula is an actor masked, and La Faran- dula is a kind of farce*. Even the studious Bayle, wrapping himself in his cloak, and hurrying to the market-place * Motteux, whose translation Lord Woodhouselee distin- guishes as the most curious, turns the passage thus: " I wish you well, good people, drive on to act your play, for in my very childhood I loved shews, and have been a great admirer of dramatic rej)resentatior)s." Part II. c. xi. The other transla- tors have nearly the same words. But in employing the ge- neric term they lose the species, that is, the thing itself; but what is less to able, in the flatness of the style, that deliyht- fulness with which Cervantes conveys to us the recollected pleasures then busying the warm brain of his hero. An Eng- lish reader, who often grows weary over his Quixote, appears not always sensible that one of the secret charms of Cervantes, like all great national authors, lies concealed in his diction. THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. 3 to Punchinello, would laugh when the fellow had humour in him, as was usually the case ; and I believe the pleasure some still find in Pan- tomimes, to the annoyance of their gravity, is a very natural one, and only wants a little more understanding in the Actors and the Spectators. The truth is, that here our Harlequin and all his lifeless family are condemned to perpetual silence. They came to us from the genial hila- rity of the Italian theatre, and were all the gro- tesque children of wit, and whim, and satire. Why is this burlesque race here privileged to cost so much, to do so little, and to repeat that little so often ? Our own Pantomime may, in- deed, boast of two inventions of its own growth : we have turned Harlequin into a Magician, and this produces the surprise of sudden changes of scenery whose splendour and curious correct- ness have rarely been equalled ; while in the metamorphosis of the scene, a certain sort of wit to the eye, " Mechanic Wit,'* as it has been termed, has originated j as when a Sur- geon's shop is turned into a Laundry, with the inscription " Mangling done here;" Counsellors at the bar changed into Fish-women, &c. Every one of this grotesque family were the creatures of national genius, chosen by the peo- ple for themselves. Italy, both ancient and modern, exhibits a gesticulating people of Co- 4 THE PAMTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. medians, and the same comic genius charac- terized the nation through all its revolutions, as well as the individual through all his fortunes. The lower classes still betray their aptitude in that vivid humour, where the action is suited to the word silent gestures sometimes express- ing whole sentences. They can tell a story, and even raise the passions, without opening their lips. No nation in modern Europe possesses so keen a relish for the burlesque, in so much as, to shew a class of unrivalled poems, which are distinguished by the very title ; and perhaps there never was an Italian in a foreign country, however deep in trouble, but would drop all remembrance of his sorrows should one of his. countrymen present himself with the parapher- nalia of Punch at the corner of a street. I was acquainted with an Italian, a philosopher and a man of fortune, residing in this country, who found so lively a pleasure in performing Punchi- nello's little comedy, that, for this purpose, with considerable expence and curiosity, he had his wooden company, in all their costume, sent over from his native place. The shrill squeak of the tin whistle had the same comic effect on him as the notes of the Rans des Caches have in awakening the tenderness of domestic emotions in the wandering Swiss the national genius is dramatic. Lady Wortley Montague, when sh* THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. 5 resided at a villa near Brescia, was applied to by the villagers for leave to erect a theatre in her saloon : they had been accustomed to turn the stables into a playhouse every carnival. She complied, and, as she tells us, was " surprised at the beauty, of their scenes, though painted by a country painter. The performance was yet more surprising, the actors being all peasants ; but the Italians have so natural a genius for comedy, they acted as well as if they had been brought up to nothing else, particularly the Arlequino, who far surpassed any of our English, though only the tailor of our village, and I am assured never saw a play in any other place." Italy is the mother, and the nurse, of the whole Harlequin race. Hence it is that no scholars in Europe, but the most learned Italians, smit by the national genius, could have devoted their vigils to nar- rate the revolutions of Pantomime, to compile the annals of Harlequin, to unroll the genealogy of Punch, and to discover even the most secret anecdotes of the obscurer branches of that gro- tesque family amidst their changeful fortunes during a period of two thousand years ! Nor is this all ; Princes have ranked them among the Rosciuses ; and Harlequins and Scaramouches have been ennobled. Even Harlequins them- selves have written elaborate treatises on the 6 THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. almost insurmountable difficulties of their art. I despair to convey the sympathy they have in- spired me with to my reader ; but every Tramon- tane genius must be informed, that of what he has never seen, he must rest content to be told. Of the ancient Italian troop we have retained three or four of the characters, while their ori- gin has nearly escaped our recollection ; but of the burlesque comedy, the extempore dialogue, the humorous fable, and its peculiar species of comic acting, all has vanished. Many of the popular pastimes of the Romans unquestionably survived their dominion, for the people will amuse themselves, though their mas- ters may be conquered ; and tradition has never proved more faithful than in preserving popular sports. Many of the games of our children were played by Roman boys ; the mountebanks, with the dancers and tumblers on their moveable stages, still in our fairs, are Roman ; the dis- orders of the Bacchanalia Italy appears to imi- tate in her carnivals. Among these Roman diversions certain comic characters have been transmitted to us, along with some of their cha- racteristics, and their dresses. The speaking Pantomimes and extempore Comedies, which have delighted the Italians for many centuries, are from this ancient source. Of the Mimi and the Pantomimi of the Ro- THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. 7 1 mans the following notices enter into our pre- sent researches : The Mi mi were an impudent race of buffoons, who excelled in mimicry, and, like our domes- tic fools, admitted into convivial parties to en- tertain the guests ; from them we derive the term mimetic art. Their powers enabled them to perform a more extraordinary office, for they appear to have been introduced into funerals, to mimic the person, and even the language of the deceased. Suetonius describes an Archl- mimus, accompanying the funeral of Vespasian. This Arch-mime performed his part admirably, not only representing the person, but imitating, according to custom, ut est mos, the manners and language of the living Emperor. He con- trived a happy stroke at the prevailing foible of Vespasian, when he inquired the cost of all this funereal pomp? " Ten millions of Sester- ces !" On this he observed, that if they would give him but a hundred thousand, they might throw his body into the Tiber. The Pantomimi were quite of a different class. They were tragic actors, usually mute ; they combined with the arts of gesture, music and dances of the most impressive character. Their silent language has often drawn tears by the pathetic emotions they excited : " Their very nod speaks, their hands talk, and .their fingers 8 THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. have a voice," says one of their admirers. Se- neca, the father, grave as was his profession, confessed his taste for Pantomimes had become a passion * ; and by the decree of the Senate that " the Roman Knights should not attend the Pantomimic players in the streets," it is evident that the performers were greatly ho- noured. Lucian has composed a curious trea- tise on Pantomimes. We may have some notion of their deep conception of character, and their invention, by an anecdote recorded by Macro- bius, of two rival Pantomimes. When Hylas, dancing a hymnj which closed with the words " The great Agamemnon," to express that idea took it in its literal meaning, and stood erect, as if measuring his size Pylades, his rival, exclaimed, " You make him tall, but not great !'* The audience obliged Pylades to dance the same hymn ; when he came to the words, he collected himself in a posture of deep medita- tion. This silent pantomimic language we our- selves have witnessed carried to singular per- fection, when the actor Palmer, after building a theatre, was prohibited the use of his voice by the Magistrates. It was then he powerfully affected the audience by the eloquence of his action in the pathetic and sublime Pantomime * Tacitus, Annals, Lib. I. Sect. 77, in Murphy's translation. THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. 9 of Don Juan ; a noble example of the greatness of the tragic Pantomime. These Pantomimics seem to have been held in great honour ; many were children of the Graces and the Virtues! The tragic and the comic masks were among the ornaments of the sepul- chral monuments of an Arch-mime and a Pan- tomime. Montfaucon conjectures that they formed a select fraternity *. They had such an influence over the Roman people, that when two of them quarreled, Augustus interfered to renew their friendship. This Pylades was one of them, and he observed to the Emperor, that nothing could be more useful to him than that the people should be perpetually occupied with the squab- bles between him and Bathyllus ! The advice was accepted, and the Emperor was silenced. The particoloured hero, with every part of his dress, has been drawn out of the great ward- robe of antiquity ; he was a Roman Mime. HABLEQUIN is described with his shaven head, rasis capitibus ; his sooty face, fullgine Jaciem obducti ; his flat, unshod feet, planipedes, and his patched coat of many colours, Miml centun- Even Pullicinella, whom we familiarly * L'Antiq. Exp. V. 63. f Louis Riccoboni, in his curious little treatise " Du Theatre Italien," illustrated by seventeen prints of the Italian Pantomimic characters, has duly collected the authorities. 10 THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. call PUNCH, may receive, like other personages of not greater importance, all his dignity from antiquity ; one of his Roman ancestors having I give them in the order quoted above, for the satisfaction of more grave inquirers. Vossius Instit. Poet. Lib. II. cap. 32, 4. The Mimi blackened their faces. Diomedes de Orat. Lib. III. Apuleius in Apolog. And further, the patched dress was used by the ancient peasants of Italy, as appears by a passage in Celsus de Re Rust. Lib. I. c. 8 ; and Juvenal em- ploys the term Centunculus as a diminutive of Cento, for a coat made up of patches. This was afterwards applied meta- phorically to those well-known poems called Centos, composed of shreds and patches of poetry, collected from all quarters. Goldoni considered Harlequin as a poor devil and dolt, whose coat is made up of rags patched together ; his hat shews men- dicity ; and the hare's tail is still the dress of the peasantry of Bergamo. (Quadrio, in his learned Storia d'ogni Poesia, has diffused his erudition on the ancient Mimi and their succes- sors. Dr. Clarke has discovered the light lathe sword of Har- lequin, which had hitherto baffled my most painful researches, amidst the dark mysteries of the ancient mythology ! We read with equal astonishment and novelty, that the proto- types of the modern Pantomime are in the Pagan mysterieg ; that Harlequin is Mercury, with his short sword called Herpe, or his rod the Caduceus, to render himself invisible, and to transport himself from one end of the earth to the other ; that the covering on his head was his Petasus, or winged cap ; that Columbine is Psyche, or the Soul; the Old Man in our Pan- tomimes is Charon; the Clown is Momus, the buffoon of hea- ven. The subject of an ancient vase engraven in his travels, represents Harlequin, Columbine, and the Clown, as we see them on the English stage. The dreams of the learned are amusing when we are not put to sleep. Dr. Clarke's Travels, tol. IV. p. 459. THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. 11 appeared to an Antiquary's visionary eye in a bronze statue : more than one erudite disserta- tion authenticates the family likeness ; the nose long, prominent, and hooked; the staring goggle eyes ; the hump at his back and at his breast j in a word, all the character which so strongly marks the Punch-race, as distinctly as whole dynasties have been featured by the Austrian lip and the Bourbon nose*. * This statue, which is imagined to have thrown so much light on the genealogy of Punch, was discovered in 1727. It is that of a Mime called Maccus by the Romans j the name indicates a simpleton. But the origin of the more modern name has occasioned a little difference, whether it be derived from the nose or its squeak. The learned Quadrio would draw the name Pullicinello from Piilllceno, which Spartianus uses for il pullo gallinaceo (I suppose this to be the turkey-cock) because Punch's hooked nose resembles its beak. But Baretti, in that strange book the " Tolondron," gives a derivation admirably descriptive of the peculiar squeaking nasal sound. He says, " Punchinello, or Punch, as you well know, speaks with a squeaking voice that seems to come out at his nose, because the fellow who in a puppet-shew manages the puppet called Punchinello, or Punch, as the English folks abbreviate it, speaks with a tin whistle in his mouth, which makes him emit that comical kind of voice. But the English word Pun- chinello is in Italian Pulcinella, which means a hen-chicken. Chickens, voices are squeaking and nasal ; and they are limid t and powerless, and for this reason my whimsical countrymen have given the name of Pulcinella, or hen-chicken, to that comic character, to convey the idea of a man that speaks with a squeaking voice through his nose, to express a timid and 1 THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS* The genealogy of the whole family is con- firmed by the general term, which includes them all ; for our Zany, in Italian Zanni, comes direct from Sanmo, a buffoon ; and a passage in Cicero, de Oratore, paints Harlequin and his bro- ther gesticulators after the life ; the perpetual trembling motion of their limbs, their ludicrous and flexible gestures, and all the mimicry of their faces. " Quid enim potest tarn ridtculum quam SANNIO esse ? Qui ore, vultu, imitandis moti- fcw.v, voce, denique corpore ridetur ipso." Lib. II. Sect. 51. For what has more of the ludicrous than SANNIO ? who, with his mouth, his face, imitating every motion, with his voice, and, indeed, with all his body, provokes laughter *. weak fellow, who is always threshed by the other actors, and always boasts of victory after they are gone." Tolondron, p. 324. * How the Latin Sannio became the Italian Zanni, was a whirl in the round-a-bout of etymology, which put Ricco- boni very ill at his ease ; for he, having discovered this clas- sical origin of his favourite character, was alarmed at Menage giving it up with obsequious tameness to a Cruscan corre- spondent. The learned Quadrio, however, gives his vote for the Greek Sannos, from whence the Latins borrowed their Sannio. Riccoboni's derivation, therefore, now stands secure from all verbal disturbers of human quiet. Sanna is in Latin, as Ainsworth elaborately explains, " a mocking by grimaces, mows, a flout, a frump, a gibe, a scoff, a banter ;" and Sannio is " a fool in a play." The Italians change the S into Z, for they say Zmyrna and Zambuco, for THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS, IS These ai'e the two ancient heroes of Panto- mime. The other characters are the laughing children of mere modern humour. Each of these chimerical personages, like so many County- Members, come from different provinces in that gesticulating land of Pantomime ; the rival in- habitants of little principalities presented that contrast in manners and characters which opens a wider field for ridicule and satire, than in a kingdom where an uniformity of government will produce an uniformity of manners. An Inventor appeared in Ruzzante, an author and actor who nourished about 1530. To his time they had servilely copied the duped fathers, the wild sons, and the tricking valets, of Plautus and Terence ; and, perhaps, not being writers of sufficient skill, but of some invention, were satisfied to sketch the plots of dramas, but boldly trusted to extempore acting and dia- logue. Ruzzante peopled the Italian stage with a fresh enlivening crowd of pantomimic cha- racters ; the insipid dotards of the ancient co- medy were transformed into the Venetian Pan- taloon and the Bolognese Doctor, c. ; while the hare-brained fellow, the arch knave, and the booby, were furnished from Milan, Ber- Smyrna and Sambuco ; and thus they turned Sannlo into Zanno, and then into Zanni, and we caught the echo in our Zany. 14 THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. gamo, Calabria, &c. He gave his newly-created beings a new language and a new dress. From Plautus he appears to have taken the hint of introducing all the Italian dialects into one comedy, by making each character use his own ; and even the modern Greek, which, it seems, afforded many an unexpected play on words for the Italian * ; and this new kind of pleasure, like that they had on the tower of Babel, charmed the national ear ; every province would have its dialect introduced on the scene, which often served the purpose both of recreation and a little innocent malice. Their masks and dresses were furnished by the grotesque masqueraders of the carnival, which, doubtless, often con- tributed many scenes and humours to his quick and fanciful genius. I possess a little book of Scaramouches, &c. by Callot. Their masks and their costume must have been copied from these carnival scenes. We see their strongly-featured masks ; their attitudes, pliant as those of a pos- ture-master ; the drollery of their figures ; while the grotesque creatures seem to leap, and dance, and gesticulate, and move about so fantastically under his sharp graver, that they form as indi- vidualized a race as our fairies and witches ; mortals, yet like nothing mortal ! * Riccoboni Histoire *du Theatre Italien, p. 53 5 Gimma Italia Letterata, 19G. THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. 15 The first Italian actors wore masks objec- tions have been raised against their use. Sig- norelli shews the inferiority of the modern in deviating from the moveable or rather double masks of antiquity, by which the actor could vary the artificial face at pleasure. The mask has had its advocates, for some advantages it possesses over the naked face ; a mask aggra- vates the features, and gives a more determined expression to the comic character ; an import- ant effect among this fantastical group*. The HARLEQUIN in the Italian theatre has passed through all the vicissitudes of fortune. At first he was a true representative of the ancient Mime, but during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries he degenerated into a booby and a gourmand, the perpetual butt for a sharp- witted fellow, his companion, called Brighella ; the knife and the whetstone. Harlequin, under the reforming hand of Goldoni, became a child of nature, the delight of his country ; and he has commemorated the historical character of the great Harlequin Sacchi. It may serve the reader to correct his notions of one, from the absurd pretender with us who has usurped the title. " Sacchi possessed a lively and brilliant imagination. While other Harlequins merely * Signorelli Storia Critica de Teatri, torn. III. 2G3. 16 THE PANTOM1MICAL CHARACTERS. repeated themselves, Sacchi, who always ad- hered to the essence of the play, contrived to give an air of freshness to the piece by his new sallies and unexpected repartees. His comic traits and his jests were neither taken from the language of the lower orders, nor that of the co- medians. He levied contributions on comic au- thors, on poets, orators, and philosophers; and in his impromptus they often discovered the thoughts of Seneca, Cicero, or Montaigne. He possessed the art of appropriating the remains of these great men to himself, and allying them to the simplicity of the blockhead ; so that the same proposition which was admired in a serious au- thor, became highly ridiculous in the mouth of this excellent actor*." In France Harlequin was improved into a wit, and even converted into a moralist ; he is the graceful hero of Flo- rian's charming compositions, which please, even in the closet. " This imaginary being, invented by the Italians, and adopted by the French," says the ingenuous Goldoni, " has the exclusive right of uniting naivetd with finesse, and no one ever surpassed Florian in the deli- neation of this amphibious character. He has even contrived to impart sentiment, passion, and morality, to his pieces-}-." Harlequin must * Mem. of Goldoni, I. 281. f Ibid. H 284. THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. ,17 be modelled as a national character, the crea- ture of manners ; and thus the history of such a Harlequin might be that of the age and of the people, whose genius he ought to represent. The history of a people is often detected in their popular amusements ; one of these Italian Pantomimic characters shews this. They had a Capltan, who probably originated in the Miles gloriosus of Plautus ; a brother, at least, of our ancient Pistol and BobadiL The ludicrous names of this military poltroon were, Spavento (Horrid fright), Spezza-fer (Shiver-spear), and a tremen- dous recreant viasC'apit&nSpavento def^al inferno. When Charles V. entered Italy, a Spanish Cap*- tain was introduced ; a dreadful man he was too, if we are to be frightened by names: Sangre ejuego ! and Matamoro / His business was to deal in Spanish rhodomontades, to kick out the native Italian Capitan, in compliment to the Spa- niards, and then to take a quiet caning from Harlequin, in compliment to themselves. When the Spaniards lost their influence in Italy, the Spanish Captain was turned into Scaramouch, who still w T ore the Spanish dress, and was per- petually in a panic. The Italians could only avenge themselves on the Spaniards in Panto*- mime ! On the same principle the gown of Pantaloon over his red waistcoat and breeches, commemorates a circumstance in Venetian his- VOL. III. C 18 THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. tory, expressive of the popular feeling ; the dress is that of a Venetian Citizen, and his speech the dialect ; but when the Venetians lost Negropont, they changed their upper dress to black, which before had been red, as a national demonstration of their grief. The characters of the Italian Pantomime be- came so numerous, that every dramatic subject was easily furnished with the necessary person- ages of Comedy. That loquacious pedant the Dottore, was taken from the Lawyers and the Physicians, babbling false Latin in the dialect of learned Bologna. Scapin was a livery servant who spoke the dialect of Bergamo, a province pro- verbially abounding with rank intriguing knaves, who, like the slaves in Plautus and Terence, were always on the watch to further any wicked- ness ; while Calabria furnished the booby Gian- gurgello with a grotesque nose. Moliere, it has been ascertained, discovered in the Italian thea- tre at Paris, his " Medecin malgre lui," his " Etourdi ;" his " L'Avare," and his " Scapin." Milan offered a pimp in the Brighella; Florence an ape of fashion in Gelsomino. These and other Pantomimic characters, and some ludi- crous ones, as the Tartaglia, a spectacled dotard, a stammerer, and usually in a passion, had been gradually introduced by the inventive powers of an actor of genius, to call forth his own peculiar talents. THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. 19 The Pantomimes, or, as they have been' de- scribed, the continual Masquerades, of Ruz- zante, with all these diversified personages, talking and acting, formed, in truth, a bur- lesque Comedy. Some of the finest geniuses of Italy became the votaries of Harlequin ; and the Italian Pantomime may be said to form a school of its own. The invention of Ruzzante was one capable of perpetual novelty. Many of these actors have been chronicled either for the invention of some comic character, or for their true imitation of nature in performing some favourite one. One, already immortalized by having lost his real name in that of Captain Matamoros, by whose inimitable humours he became the most popular man in Italy, invented the Neapolitan Pullicinello ; while another, by deeper study, added new graces to another bur- lesque rival*. One Constantini invented the character of Mezetin, as the Narcissus of Pan- tomime. He acted without a mask, to charm by the beautiful play of his countenance, and * I am here but the translator of a grave historian. The Italian writes with all the feeling of one aware of the import- ant narrative, and with a most curious accuracy in this ge- nealogy of character : " Silvio Fiorillo, che appcllar sifacea il Capitano Matamoros, INVENTO il Pulcinella Napoletano, e collo studio e grazia molto AGGIUNSE dndrea Calcese dettb Ci- HCCIO par soprannome." Gimma Italia Letterata, p. 196. C 2 THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. display the graces of his figure ; the floating drapery of his fanciful dress could be arranged by the changeable humour of the wearer. Crowds followed him in the streets, and a King of Po- land ennobled him. The Wit and Harlequin Dominic, sometimes dined at the table of Louis XIV. Tiberio Fiurilli, who invented the cha- racter of Scaramouch, had been the amusing companion of the boyhood of Louis XIV. ; and from him Moliere learnt much, as appears by the verses under his portrait : Get illustre Comedien De son art traca la carriere : II fut le maitre de Moliere, Et la Nature fut le sien. The last lines of an Epitaph on one of these Pantomimic actors may be applied to many of them during their flourishing period : '" Toute sa vie il a fait rire ; II a fait pleure" a sa mort." Several of these admirable actors were literary men, who have written on their art, and shewn it was one. The Harlequin Cecchini composed the most ancient treatise on this subject, and was ennobled by the Emperor Matthias ; and Nicholas Barbieri, for his excellent acting called the Beltrame, a Milanese simpleton, in his treatise on Comedy, tells us that he was ho- noured by the conversation of Louis XIII. and rewarded with fortune* THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. 1 What was the nature of that perfection to which the Italian Pantomime reached ; and that prodigality of genius, which excited such en- thusiasm, not only among the populace, but the studious, and the noble, and the men of genius ? The Italian Pantomime had two peculiar fea- tures ; a species of buffoonery technically termed Lazxi, and one of a more extraordinary nature, the extempore dialogue of its comedy. These Lazxi were certain pleasantries of ges- ticulation, quite national, yet so closely allied to our notions of buffoonery, that a Northern critic will not readily detect the separating shade ; yet Riccoboni asserts that they formed a criti- cal, and not a trivial art. That these arts of gesticulation had something in them peculiar to Italian humour, we infer from Gherardi, who could not explain the term but by describing it as " Un Tour ; JEU ITALIEW /" It was so pecu- liar to them, that he could only call it by their own name. It is difficult to describe that of which the whole magic consists in being seen ; and what is more evanescent than the humour which consists in gestures ? " Lazzi (says Riccoboni) is a term corrupted from the old Tuscan Lace?', which signifies 3, knot, or something which connects. These pleasantries called Lazzi^ are certain actions 22 THE PANTOMIM1CAL CHARACTERS. by which the performer breaks into the scene, to paint to the eye his emotions of panic or jocularity ; but as such gestures are foreign to the business going on, the nicety of the art con- sists in not interrupting the scene, and connect- ing the Lazzi with it ; thus to tie the whole together." Lazzi, then, seems a kind of mi- micry and gesture, corresponding with the pass- ing scene ; and we may translate the term by that in our green-room dialect, side-play. Ric- coboni has ventured to describe some Lazzi. When Harlequin and Scapin represent two fa- mished servants of a poor young mistress, among the arts by which they express their state of starvation, Harlequin having murmured, Sca- pin exhorts him to groan, a music which brings out their young mistress. Scapin explains Har- lequin's impatience, and begins a proposal to her which might extricate them all from their misery. While Scapin is talking, Harlequin performs his Lazzi imagining he holds a hat- ful of cherries, he seems eating them, and gaily flinging the stones at Scapin j or with a rueful countenance he is trying to catch a fly, and with his hand, in comical despair, would chop off the wings before he swallows the chameleon game. These, with similar Lazzi, harmonize with the remonstrance of Scapin, and re-ani? mate it; and thus these "Lazzi, although they THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. 23 seem to interrupt the progress of the action, yet in cutting it they slide back into it, and con- nect or tie the whole/' These Lazzi are in great danger of degenerating into puerile mimicry or gross buffoonery, unless fancifully conceived and vividly gesticulated. But the Italians seem to possess the arts of gesture before that of speech ; and this national characteristic is also Roman. Such, indeed, was the powerful ex- pression of their mimetic art, that when the select troop under Riccoboni, on their first in- troduction into France, only spoke in Italian, the audience, who did not understand the words, were made completely masters of the action by their pure and energetic imitations of nature. The Italian theatre has, indeed, recorded some miracles of this sort. A celebrated Scaramouch, without uttering a syllable, kept the audience for a considerable time in a state of suspense by a scene of successive terrors ; and exhibited a living picture of a panic-stricken man. Ghe- rardi, in his " Theatre Italien," conveys some idea of the scene. Scaramouch, a character usually represented in a fright, is waiting for his master Harlequin in his apartment ; having put every thing in order according to his con- fused notions, he takes the guitar, seats himself in an arm-chair, and plays. Pasquariel comes gently behind him, and taps time on his shoul- 524 THE PANTOMIM1CAL CHARACTERS. ders this throws Scaramouch into a panic* ^ It was then that incomparable model of our most eminent actors," says Gherardi, " dis- played the miracles of his art ; that art which paints the passions in the face, throws them into every gesture, and through a whole scene of frights upon frights, conveys the most powerful expression of ludicrous terror. This man moved all hearts by the simplicity of nature, more than skilled orators can with all the charms of per- suasive rhetoric." On this memorable scene a great Prince observed that " Scaramuccia non parla, e dica gran cosa ;" " He speaks not, but he says many great things." The Italian extempore Comedy is a literary curiositv which claims our attention. EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. 5 EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. IT is a curiosity in the history of national genius to discover a people with such a native fund of comic humour, combined with such pas- sionate gesticulation that they could deeply in- terest in acting a Comedy, carried on by dialogue, intrigue, and character, air improvista, or im- promptu ; the actors undergoing no rehearsal, and, in fact, they were composing while they were acting. The plot, called Scenario, con- sisting merely of the scenes enumerated, with the characters indicated, was first written out ; it was then suspended at the back of the stage, and from the mere inspection the actors came forward to perform, the dialogue entirely de- pending on their own genius*. " These pieces must have been detestable, and the actors mere buffoons," exclaim the * Some of the ancient Scenarie were printed in 1661, by Flaminius Scala, one of their great actors. These, according to Riccoboni, consist of nothing more than the skeletons of Comedies ; the Canevas, as the French technically term a plot and its scenes. He says, " they are not so bhort as those we now use to fix at the back of the scenes, nor so full as to furnish any aid to the dialogue ; they only explain what the actor did on the stage, and the action which forms the sub- ject 5 nothing more." 26 EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. Northern Critics, whose imaginations have a coldness in them, like a frost in spring. But when the art of' Extempore Comedy flourished among these children of fancy, the universal pleasure these representations afforded to a whole vivacious people, and the recorded cele- brity of their great actors, open a new field for the speculation of genius. It may seem more extraordinary that some of its votaries have maintained that it possessed some peculiar ad- vantages over written compositions. When Goldoni reformed the Italian theatre by regular Comedies, he found an invincible opposition from the enthusiasts of their old Comedy ; for two centuries it had been the amusement of Italy, and was a species of comic entertainment which it had created. Inventive minds were fond of sketching out these outlines of pieces, and other men of genius of representing them. The inspiration of national genius alone could produce this phenomenon; and these Extempore Comedies were, indeed, indigenous to the soil. Italy, a land of Improvisatori, kept up from the time of their old masters, the Romans, the same fervid fancy. The ancient Atellance Fabulce, or Atellan Farces, originated at Atella, a town in the neighbourhood of ancient Naples; and these, too, were extempore Interludes, or, as Livy terms them, Exodla. We find in that historian EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. #7 a little interesting narrative of the theatrical history of the Romans : when the dramatic per- formances at Rome were becoming too senti- mental and declamatory, banishing the playful- ness and the mirth of Comedy, the Roman youth left these graver performances to the professed actors, and revived, perhaps in imi- tation of the licentious Satyra of the Greeks, the ancient custom of versifying pleasantries, and throwing out jests and raillery among them- selves, for their own diversion*. These Atellan Farces were probably not so low in humour as they have been represented % ; or at least the Roman youth, on their revival, exercised a chaster taste, for they are noticed by Cicero in a letter to his literary friend Papyrius Paetus, which may be read in Melmoth's version. " But to turn from the serious to the jocose part of your letter, the strain of pleasantry you break * The passage in Livy is, " Juventus, histrionibus fabella- rum actu relicto, ipsa inter se, more antique, ridicula intexta versibus jactitare csepit." Lib. vii. cap. 2. f As these Atellanaz Fabulce were never written, they have not descended to us in any shape. It has, indeed, been con- jectured that Horace, in the fifth Satire of his first Book, v. 51, ^ has preserved a scene of this nature between two practised buffoons in the " Pugnam Sarmenti Scurrse," who challenges his brother Cicerrus ; equally ludicrous and scurrilous. But surely these were rather the low humour of the Mimes, than of the Atellan Farcers. S8 EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. into, immediately after having quoted the tra- gedy of Oenomanus, puts me in mind of the modern method of introducing at the end of these graver dramatic pieces, the buffoon humour of our low Mimes, instead of the more delicate bur- lesque of the old Atellan Farces*." This very curious passage distinctly marks out the two classes, which so many centuries after Cicero were revived in the Pantomime of Italy, and in its Extempore Comedy^. The Critics on our side of the Alps reproached the Italians for the Extempore Comedies ; and Marmontel, in the Encyclopedic, rashly declared that the nation did not possess a single Comedy which could endure a perusal. But he drew his notions from the low Farces of the Italian theatre at Paris, and he censured what he had never readj. The Comedies of Bibiena, Del * Melmoth's Letters of Cicero, B. viii. Jett. 20 ; in Grae- vius's edition, Lib. ix. ep. 16. f This passage also shews that our own custom of annex- ing a Farce, or petite piece, or Pantomime, to a tragic Drama, existed among the Romans : the introduction of the practice here seems not to be ascertained ; and it is conjectured not to have existed before the Restoration. Shakspeare and his contemporaries probably were spectators of only a single drama at one performance. % Storia Critica de Teatri de Signorelli, torn. iii. 258, Baretti mentions a collection of four thousand Dramas, made by Apofctolo Zeno, of which the greater part were Comedies. EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. 29 Lasca, Del Secchi, and others, are models of classical Comedy, but not the popular favourites of Italy. Signorelli distinguishes two species of Italian Comedy, those which he calls Commedie Antiche ed Eruditi, ancient and learned Co- medies, and those of Commedie dell' Arte, or a soggetto, Comedies suggested. >The first were moulded on classical models, recited in their academies to a select audience, and performed by amateurs ; but the Commedie a soggetto, the Extempore Comedies, were invented by profes- sional actors of genius. More delightful to the fancy of the Italians, and more congenial to their talents, in spite of the graver Critics, who even in their amusements cannot east off the manacles of precedence, the Italians resolved to be pleased for themselves, with their own natural vein, and with one feeling preferred a freedom of original humour and invention incompatible with regular productions, but which inspired admirable actors, and secured full audiences. Men of great genius had a passion for per- forming in these Extempore Comedies. Salvator Rosa was famous for his character of a Calabrian He allows that in tragedies his nation is inferior to the Eng- lish and the French ; " but no nation," he adds, " can be coin- pared with us for pleasantry and humour in Comedy'' Some of the greatest names in Italian Literature were writers of Coraedv. Ital. Lib. 119. 30 EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. Clown, whose original he had probably often studied amidst that mountainous scenery in which his pencil delighted. Of their manner of acting I find an interesting anecdote in Passerfs life of this great painter ; he shall tell his own story. " One summer Salvator Rosa joined a com- pany of young persons who were curiously ad- dicted to the making of Commedie air improviso. In the midst of a vineyard they raised a rustic stage, under the direction of one Mussi, who enjoyed some literary reputation, particularly for his sermons preached in Lent. " Their second Comedy was numerously at- tended, and I went among the rest ; I sat on the same bench, by good fortune, with the Ca- valier Bernini, Romanelli, and Guido, all well- known persons. Salvator Rosa, who had already made himself a favourite with the Roman peo- ple under the character of Formica*, opened with a prologue, in company with other actors. He proposed, for relieving themselves of the extreme heats and ennui, that they should make a Comedy, and all agreed. Formica then spoke these exact words : ' ' Non boglio gia, chefacimmo Commedie come ciertij che tagliano li panni aduosso a chisto, o a ,* Alfieri explains Formica as a crabbed fellow who acts the butt in a Farce. EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. 31 chillo ; perche co lo tlempo sefa vedere chiu veloce lo taglio de no rasuqlo, che la penna de no poeta ; e ne manco boglio, chefacimmo venire nella scena porta citazioni, acquavitari, e crapari, e ste schi- fenze che tengo spropositi da aneno" One part of this humour lies in the dialect, which is Venetian, but there was a concealed stroke of satire, a snake in the grass. The sense of the passage is, " I will not, however, that we should make a Comedy like certain persons who cut cloaths, and put them on this man's back, and on that man's back ; for at last the time comes which shews how much faster went the cut of the shears than the pen of the poet ; nor will we have come upon the scene couriers, water-carriers, and goat-herds, and there stare shy and blockish, which I think worthy the invention of an ass.'* Passeri now proceeds : " At this time Bernini had made a Comedy in the Carnival, very pun- gent and biting ; and that summer he had one of Castelli's performed in the suburbs, where, to represent the dawn of day, appeared on the stage water-carriers, couriers, and goat-herds, going about all which is contrary to rule, which allows of no character who is not conr cerned in the dialogue, to mix with the groupes. At these words of the Formica, I, who well knew his meaning, instantly glanced my eye at 32 EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. Bernini, to observe his movements ; but he, with an artificial carelessness, shewed that this * cut of the shears' did not touch him ; and he made no apparent shew of being hurt. But Castelli, who was also near, tossing his head and smiling in bitterness, shewed clearly that he was hit." This Italian story, told with all the poignant relish of these vivacious natives, to whom such a stinging incident was an important event, also shews the personal freedoms taken on these occasions by a man of genius, entirely in the spirit of the ancient Roman Atellana, or the Grecian Satyra. Riccoboni has discussed the curious subject of Extempore Comedy with equal modesty and feeling; and Gherardi, with more exultation and egotism. " This kind of spectacle," says Ric- coboni, " is peculiar to Italy ; one cannot deny that it has graces perfectly its own, and which written Comedy can never exhibit. This im- promptu mode of acting furnishes opportunities for a perpetual change in the performance, so that the same scenario repeated still appears a new one: thus one Comedy may become twenty Comedies. An actor of this description, always supposing an actor of genius, is more vividly affected than one who has coldly got his part by rote/' But Riccoboni could not deny that EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. 33 there were inconveniences in this singular art. One difficulty not easily surmounted was the preventing of all the actors speaking together ; each one eager to reply before the other had finished. If was a nice point to know when to yield up the scene entirely to a predominant character, when agitated by violent passion ; nor did it require a less exercised tact to feel when to stop ; the vanity of an actor often spoiled a fine scene. It evidently required that some of the actors . at least should be blessed with genius, and, what is scarcely less difficult to find, with a certain equality of talents ; for the performance of the happiest actor of this school greatly depends on the excitement he receives from his companion ; an actor beneath mediocrity would ruin a piece. " But figure, memory, voice, and even sensi- bility, are not sufficient for the actor aW im- provista; he must be in the habit of cultivating the imagination, pouring forth the flow of expression, and prompt in those flashes which instantaneously vibrate in the plaudits of an audience." And this accomplished extempore actor feelingly laments that those destined to c^ / his profession, who require the most careful education, are most likely to have received the most neglected one. Lucian, in his curious VOL. III. D 34 EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. treatise on Tragic Pantomime, asserts, that the great actor should be also a man of letters. The lively Gherardi pushes his arguments with more boldness, and throws out some curious information respecting this singular art : " Any one may learn a part by rote, and do something bad, or indifferent, on another theatre. With us the affair is quite otherwise ; and when an Italian actor dies, it is with infinite difficulty we can supply his place. An Italian actor learns nothing by head ; he looks on the subject for a moment before he comes forward on the stage, and entirely depends on his imagination for the rest. The actor who is accustomed merely to recite what he has been taught, is so completely occupied by his memory, that he appears to stand as it were unconnected either with the audience or his companion ; he is so impatient to deliver himself of the burthen he is carrying, that he trembles like a school-boy, or is as senseless a& an Echo, and could never speak if others had not spoken before. Such a tutored actor among us would be like a paralytic arm to a body ; an unserviceable member, only fatiguing the healthy action of the sound parts. Our performers, who became illustrious by their art, charmed the spectators by the beauty of their voice, their spontaneous gestures, the flexibility of their passions, while a certain EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. 35 natural air never failed them in their motions and their dialogue*." Here, then, is a species of the histrionic art unknown to us, and running counter to that critical canon which our great poet, but no powerful actor, has delivered to the actors themselves, " to speak no more than is set down for them." The present art consisted in hap- pily performing the reverse. Much of the merit of these actors unquestion- ably must be attributed to the felicity of the national genius. But there were probably some secret aids in this singular art of Extempore Comedy which the pride of the artist has con- cealed. Some traits in the character, and some wit in the dialogue, might descend traditionally; and the most experienced actor on that stage would make use of his memory more than he was willing to confess. Goldoni records an un- lucky adventure of his " Harlequin lost and found," which outline he had sketched for the Italian company ; it was well received at Paris, but utterly failed at Fontainebleau, for some of the actors had thought proper to incorporate * See Gherardi's preface to his Collection of Le Theatre lialien. These six volumes consist of Farces w liten by French authors, in imitation of the more ancient extempore ones. They are ludicrous, and the writers wantonly sport with utter absurdity. 36 EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. too many of the jokes of the " Cocu imaginaire," which displeased the Court, and ruined the piece. When a new piece was to be performed, the chief actor summoned the troop in the morning, read the plot, and explained the story, to contrive scenes. It was like playing the whole performance before the actors. These hints of scenes were all the rehearsal. When the actor entered on the scene he did not know what was to come, nor had he any prompter to help him on ; much, too, depended on the talents of his companions ; yet sometimes a scene might be pre-concerted. Invention, hu- mour, bold conception of character, and rapid strokes of 'genius, they habitually exercised and the pantomimic arts of gesture, the passionate or humourous expression of thefr feelings, would assist an actor when his genius for a moment had deserted him. Such excel- lence was not long hereditary, and in the de- cline of this singular art, its defects became more apparent. The race had degenerated ; the inexperienced actor became loquacious ; long monologues were contrived by a barren genius to hide his incapacity for spirited dia- logue ; and a wearisome repetition of trivial jests, coarse humour, and vulgar buffoonery, damned the Comedia a soggetto, and sunk it to a Bartholomew-fair play. But the miracle EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. 37 which Genius produced, it may repeat, when- ever the same happy combination of circum- stances and persons shall occur together, I shall give one anecdote to record the pos- sible excellence of the art. Louis Riccoboni, known in the annals of this theatre by the adopted name of Lelio, his favourite amoroso character, Was not only an accomplished actor, but a literary man ; and with his wife Jlaminia, afterwards the celebrated novelist, displayed a rare union of talents and of minds. It was sus- pected that they did not act all' improvista, from the facility and the elegance of their dialogue ; and a clamour was now raised in the literary circles, who had long been jealous of the fasci- nation which attracted the public to the Italian theatre. It w r as -said that the Riccobonis were imposing on the public credulity ; and that their pretended Extempore Comedies were pre- concerted scenes. To terminate this civil war between the rival theatres, La Motte offered to sketch a plot in five acts, and the Italians were challenged to perform it. This defiance was instantly accepted. On the morning of the representation Lelio detailed the story to his troop, hung up the Scenario in its usual place, and the whole company were ready at the draw- ing of the curtain.. The plot given in by La Motte was performed to admiration j and all 38 EXTEMPORE COMEDIES. Paris witnessed the triumph. La Motte after,- wards composed this very Comedy for the Erench theatre, L'Amante difficile, yet still the extempore one at the Italian theatre remained a more permanent favourite ; and the public were delighted by seeing the same piece per- petually offering novelties and changing its cha- racter at the fancy of the actors. This fact conveys an idea of dramatic execution which does not enter into our experience. Riccoboni carried the Commedie dell' Arte to a new per- fection, by the introduction of an elegant fable and serious characters ; and he raised the dig- nity of the Italian stage when he inscribed on its curtain CASTIGAT RIDENDO MORES*. * These researches on the Pantomimic Characters, and the Extempore Comedies, were made many years ago ; and except a slight mention of the former in Mr. Pinkertou's " Letters of Literature," these subjects appeared untouched by our own writers. Accident has lately thrown in my way " An Histo- rical and Critical Essay on the revival of the Drama in Italy," f>y the late J. C. Walker, 1805. The reader will there find extensive researches on these subjects ; we could not fail oc- casionally of drawing from the same fountains j but as my object was more particular, his labours have not anticipated nay views. MASSINGER, MILTON, ETC. 39 MASSINGER, MILTON, AND THE ITALIAN THEATRE *. THE pantomimic characters and the extem- pore comedy of Italy, may have had some in- fluence even on our own dramatic poets: this source has indeed escaped all notice; yet I in- cline to think it explains a difficult point in Massinger, which has baffled even the keen spirit of Mr. Gifford. A passage in Massinger bears a striking re- semblance with one in Moliere's " Malade Ima- ginaire." It is in " The Emperor of the East," vol. III. 317. The Quack or " Empiric's" humorous notion is so closely that of Moliere's, that Mr. Gifford, agreeing with Mr. Gilchrist, SONGS OF TRADES, popular tunes and jigs, which one of them said were " too good for the devil." They have sung hymns to the air of " The beds of sweet Roses," &c. And as there have been Puritans among other people as well as our own, the same occurrence took place both in Italy and France. In Italy, the Carnival songs were turned into pious hymns; the hymnJesufammi morire, is sung to the music of T'aga bella e gentile Crucifisso a capo china to that of Una donna damor Jino y one of the most indecent pieces in the Canzoni a ballo; and the hymn, beginning " Ecco'l Messia E la Madre Maria," was sung to the gay tune of Lorenzo de Medici, " Ben venga Maggio, E'l Gonfalon selvaggio." In the book already referred to of Athenseus, he also notices what we call slang or flash songs. He tells us, that there were poets who composed songs in the dialect of the mob ; and who suc- ceeded in this kind of poetry, adapted to their various characters. The French call such songs Chansons a la Vad6, and have frequently com- posed them with a ludicrous effect, when the style of the Poissardes is applied to the grave matters of state affairs, and conveys the popular feelings in the language of the populace. This OR SONGS FOR THE PEOPLE. 55 sort of satirical song is happily defined in a playful didactic poem on La Vaudeville. " II est 1' esprit de ceux qui n'en ont pas." Athenaeus has preserved songs, sung by peti- tioners who went about on holidays to collect alms. A friend of mine, whose taste and learn- ing equal his expansive benevolence, has dis- covered ** The Crow Song," and " The Swallow Song," in his researches, and has transfused their spirit in a happy version. I can only pre- serve a few of the striking ideas, and must sa- tisfy myself to refer to the excellent little vo- lume where they may be seen at length*. The Collectors for The Crow" sung : ' ' My good worthy masters, a pittance bestow, - \ Some oatmeal, or bailey, or wheat for the Crow. A loaf, or a penny, or e'en what you will, From the poor man, a grain of his salt may suffice, For your Crow swallows all, and is not over-nice. And the man who can now give his grain, and no more, May another day give from a plentiful store. Come my lad to the door, Plutus nods to our wish ; And our sweet little mistress comes oift with a dish ; * "Collections relative to systematic Relief of the Poor at different periods, and in different countries," 1815. This is perhaps the most curious work on the history of the Poor of different nations extant in any country, so extensive are the genuine researches of the writer. 56 SONGS OF TRADES, She gives us her figs, and she gives us a smile Heaven send her a husband ! And a boy to be danced on his grandfather's knee, And a girl like herself all the joy of her mother, Who may one day present her with just such another. Thus we carry our Crow-song to door after door, Alternately chaunting, we ramble along, And we treat all who give, or give not, with a song." Swallow-singing, or Chelidonising, as the Greek term is, was another method of collect- -ing eleemosinary gifts, and which took place in the month Boedromion, or August* " The Swallow, the Swallow is here, With his back so black, and his belly so white,, He brings on the pride of the year, With the gay months of love, and the days of delight. Come bring out your good humming stuff; Of the nice tit-bits let the Swallow partake j And a slice of the right Boedromion cake. So give, and give quickly, Or we'll pull down the door from its hinges ; Or we'll steal young Madam away! But see ! we 're a merry boy's party, And the Swallow, the Swallow, is here ! My friend observes, that these songs resemble those of our own ancient mummers, who to this day, in honour of Bishop Blaize, the Saint of Wool-combers, go about chaunting on the eves of their holidays. A custom long existed in this country to elect a Boy-Bishop in almost OR SONGS FOR THE PEOPLE. 57 every parish ; the Montem at Eton still pre- vails; and there is a closer connection perhaps between the custom which produced the " Sogs of the Crow and the Swallow," and our Nor- thern mummeries, than may be at first sus- pected. The Pagan Saturnalia which the Swallow song by its pleasant menaces resembles, were afterwards disguised in the forms adopted by the early Christians ; and these are the remains of the Roman Catholic Religion, in which the people were long indulged in their old taste for mock- ery and mummery, I must add in connection with our main inquiry, that our own ancient beg- gars had their songs, some of which are as old as the Elizabethan period, and many are fancifully characteristic of their habits and their feelings. I shall probably preserve one or two in the pre- sent volume. 58 INTRODUCERS OF INTRODUCERS OF EXOTIC FLOWERS, FRUITS, ETC. THERE has been a class of men whose patri- otic affection, or whose general benevolence, have been usually defrauded of the gratitude their country owes them: these haVe been the introducers of new flowers, new plants, and new roots into Europe ; the greater part which we now enjoy was drawn from the luxuriant climates of Asia, and the profusion which now covers our land, originated in the most anxious nursing, and were the gifts of individuals. Mo- numents are reared, and medals struck, to commemorate events and names, which are less deserving our regard than those who have transplanted into the colder gardens of the North the rich fruits, the beautiful flowers, and the succulent pulse and roots, of more favoured spots ; and carrying into their own country, as it were, another Nature, they have, as old Gerard well expresses it, " laboured with the soil to make it fit for the plants, and with the plants to make them delight in the soil." There is no part of the characters of PEIRESC and EVELYN, accomplished as they are in so many, which seems more delightful to me, than their enthusiasm for the Garden, the Orchard, and the Forest, EXOTIC FLOWERS, FRUITS, ETC. 59 PEIRESC, whose literary occupations admitted of no interruption, and whose universal corre- spondence throughout the habitable globe was more than sufficient to absorb his studious life, yet was he the first man, as Gassendus relates in his interesting manner, whose incessant in- quiries procured the great variety of Jessa- mines ; those from China whose leaves, always green, bear a clay-coloured flower, and a deli- cate perfume ; the American, with a crimson- coloured, and the Persian, with a violet-co- loured flower; and the Arabian, whose tendrils he delighted to train over " the banquetting- house in his garden;" and of fruits, the Orange- trees with a red and parti-coloured flower; the Medlar; the rough Cherry without stone; the rare and luxurious Vines of Smyrna and Da- mascus; and the Fig-tree called Adam's, whose fruit by its size was supposed to be that with which the Spies returned from the land of Ca- naan. Gassendus describes his transports when Peiresc beheld the Indian Ginger growing green in his garden, and his delight in grafting the Myrtle on the Musk Vine, that the experiment might shew us the Myrtle Wine of the 'An- cients. But transplanters, like other inventors, are sometimes baffled in their delightful enter- prizes ; and we are told of Peiresc's deep regret when he found that the Indian Cocoa Nut would 6 INTRODUCERS OF only bud, and then perish in the cold air of France, while the leaves of the ./Egyptian Pa- pyrus refused to yield him their vegetable paper. But it was his garden which propagated the exotic fruits and flowers, which he trans- planted into the French King's, and into Car- dinal Barberini's, and the curious in Europe ; and these occasioned a work on the manuring of flowers by Ferrarius, a botanical Jesuit, who there described these novelties to Europe. Had EVELYN only composed the great work of his " Sylva, or a discourse of Forest Trees," &c. his name would have excited the gratitude of posterity. The voice of the patriot exults in the dedication to Charles II. of one of the later editions. " I need not acquaint your Majesty, how many millions of timber-trees, besides in- finite others, have been propagated and planted throughout your vast dominions, at the instiga- tion and by the sole direction of this work, be- cause your Majesty has been pleased to own it publickly for my encouragement." And surely while Britain retains her awful situation among the nations of Europe, the " Sylva'* of Evelyn will endure with her triumphant Oaks. It was a retired philosopher who aroused the genius of the nation, and who casting a prophetic eye towards the age in which we live, has contri- buted to secure our sovereignty of the seas. EXOTIC FLOWERS, FRUITS, ETC. 6l The present Navy of Great Britain has been constructed with the Oaks which the genius of EVELYN planted ! Animated by a zeal truly patriotic, DE SERRES in France, 1599, composed a work on the art of raising Silk-worms, and dedicated it to the Mu- nicipal Body of Paris, to excite the inhabitants to cultivate Mulberry-trees. The work at first produced a strong sensation, and many planted Mulberry trees in the vicinity of Paris ; but as they were not yet used to raise and manage the Silk-worm, they reaped nothing but their trou- ble for their pains. They tore up the Mulberry trees they had planted, and in spite of De Ser- res, asserted that the Northern climate was not adapted for the rearing of that tender insect. The great Sully, from his hatred of all objects of luxury, countenanced the popular clamour, and crushed the rising enterprise of De Serres. The Monarch was wiser than the minister. The book had made sufficient noise to reach the ear of Henry IV. ; who desired the author to draw up a memoir on the subject, from which the King was induced to plant Mulberry-trees in all the royal gardens ; and having imported the eggs of Silk-worms from Spain, this patriotic Monarch gave up his Orangeries, which were but his private gratifications, for that leaf which, converted into silk, became a national good. It 2 INTRODUCERS OF is to De Serres, who introduced the plantations of Mulberry-trees, that the commerce of France owes one of her staple commodities; and al- though the patriot encountered the hostility of the prime minister, and the hasty prejudices of the populace in his own day, yet his name at this moment is fresh in the hearts of his fellow citi- zens ; for I have just received a medal, the gift of a literary friend from Paris, which bears his por- trait, with the reverse, " Societd d? Agriculture du Department de la Seine." It was struck in 1807- The same honour is the right of EVELYN from the British Natipn. There was a period when the spirit of planta- tion was prevalent in this kingdom; it probably originated from the ravages of the soldiery du- ring the Civil wars. A man, whose retired mo- desty has perhaps obscured his claims on our regard, the intimate friend of the great spirits of that age, by birth a Pole, but whose mother had probably been an English woman, SAMUEL HARTLIB, to whom Milton addressed his tract on Education, published every manuscript he collected on the subjects of horticulture and agriculture. The public good he effected, at- tracted the notice of Cromwell, who rewarded him with a pension, which after the restoration of Charles II. was suffered to lapse, and Hartlib died in utter iieglect and poverty. One of his EXOTIC FLOWERS, FRUITS, ETC. (53 tracts is, "A design for plenty by an universal planting of Fruit-trees." The project consisted in inclosing the waste lands and commons, and appointing officers, whom he calls Fruiterers, or Wood Wards, to see the plantations were duly attended to. The writer of this project ob- serves on fruits, that it is a sort of provisions so natural to the taste, that the poor man and even the child will prefer it before better food, " as the story goeth," which he has preserved in these ancient and simple lines. " The poor man's child invited was to dine, With flesh of Oxen, Sheep, and fatted Swine, (Far better cheer, than he at home could find,) And yet this child to stay had little minde. You have, quoth he, no Apple, Froise, nor Pie, Stewed Pears, with bread and milk, and Walnuts by." The enthusiasm of these transplanters in- spired their labours. They have watched the tender infant of their planting, till the leaf and the flowers and the fruit, expanded under their hand; often indeed they have even ameliorated the quality, increased the size, and even created a new species. The Apricot, drawn from Ame- rica, was first known in Europe in the sixteenth century: an old French writer has remarked, that it was originally riot larger than a damson ; ur Gardeners, he says, have improved it to the perfection of its present size and richness. t>4 INTRODUCERS OF One of these enthusiasts is noticed by Evelyn, who for forty years had in vain tried by. a graft to bequeath his name to a new fruit; but per- sisting on wrong principles, this votary of Po- mona has died without a name. We sympa- thize with Sir William Temple when he exult- ingly acquaints us with the size of his Orange- trees, and with the flavour of his Peaches and Grapes, confessed by Frenchmen to have equalled those of Fontainebleau and Gascony, while the Italians agreed that his White Figs were as good as any of that sort in Italy : and of his " having had the honour" to naturalize in this country four kinds of Grapes, with his liberal distributions of cuttings from them, because " he ever thought all things of this kind the commoner they are the better." The greater number of our exotic flowers and fruits were carefully transported into this Country by many of our travelled nobility and gentry ; some names have been casually pre- served. The learned Linacre first brought, on his return from Italy, the Damask-rose ; and Thomas Lord Cromwell, in the reign of Henry VIII. enriched our fruit-gardens with three dif- ferent Plums. In the reign of Elizabeth, Ed* ward Grindal, afterwards archbishop of Can- terbury, returning from exile, transported here EXOTIC FLOWERS, FRUITS, ETC. 65 the medicinal plant of the Tamerisk : the first Oranges appear to have been brought into Eng- land by one of the Carew family., for a century after, they still flourished at the family seat at Beddington, in Surrey. The Cherry orchards of Kent were first planted about Sittingbourne, by a gardener of Henry VIII; and the Currant- bush was transplanted when our commerce with the Island of Zante was first opened in the same reign. To Sir Walter Rawleigh, we have not been indebted solely for the luxury of the Tobacco- plant, but for that infinitely useful root, which forms a part of our daily meal, and often the entire meal of the poor man the Potatoe, which deserved to have been called a Rawleigh. Sir Anthony Ashley first planted Cabbages in this country, and a Cabbage at his feet appears on his monument. Sir Richard Weston first brought Clover grass into England from Flanders, in 164.5; and the Figs planted by Cardinal Pole at Lambeth, so far back as the reign of Henry VIII. are said by Gough to be still remaining there: nor is this surprising, for Spilman, who set up the first paper-mill in England, at Dart- ford, in 1590, is said to have brought over in his portmanteau the two first Lime-trees, which he planted here, and which are still growing, and worth seeing. The first Mulberry-trees in VOL. III. F 66 INTRODUCERS OF this country are now standing at Sion-house *. The very names of many of our vegetable kingdom indicate their locality: from the ma- jestic Cedar of Lebanon, to the small Cos-let- tuce, which came from the isle of Cos ; the Cherries from Cerasxmtis, a city of Pontus ; the Peach, or Persicum, or mala Persica, Persican apples, from Persia; the Pistachio, ov Psittacia, is the Syrian word for that nut. The Chesnut, orChataigne, in French, andCastagna in Italian, from Castagna, a town of Magnesia. Our Plums coming chiefly from Syria and Damascus, the Damson, or Damascene Plum, gives us a recol- lection of its distant origin. It is somewhat curious to observe on this sub- ject, that there exists an unsuspected intercourse between nations, in the propagation of exotie plants, &c. Lucullus, after the war with Mi- thridates, introduced Cherries from Pontus into Italy; and the newly-imported fruit was found so pleasing that it was rapidly propagated, and six and twenty years afterwards, as Pliny tes- tifies, the Cherry-tree passed over into Britain t. Thus a victory obtained by a Roman Consul * The reader may find more dates amassed respecting the introduction of fruits, &c. in Cough's British Topography, vol. I. p. 133. t Pliny, Nat. Hist. Lib. xv. c. 25. EXOTIC FLOWERS, FRUITS, ETC. 6j over a King of Pont us, with which, it would seem that Britain could have no concern, was the real occasion of our countrymen possessing Cherry -orchards. Yet to our shame must it be tsld, that these Cherries from the King of Pon- tus's city of Cerasuntis, are not the Cherries we are now eating ; for the whole race of Cherry- trees was lost in the Saxon period, and was only restored by the gardener of Henry VIII. who brought them from Flanders without a word to enhance his own merits, concerning the bel- lum Mithridaticum / A calculating political oaconomist will little sympathize with the peaceful triumphs of those active and generous spirits, who have thus propa- gated the truest wealth, and the most innocent luxuries of the people. The project of a new tax, or an additional consumption of ardent spirits, or an act of parliament to put a conve- nient stop to population by forbidding the baniis of some happy couple, would be more con- genial to their researches ; and they would leave without regret the names of those, whom we have held out to the grateful recollections of their country. The Romans, who with all their er- rors were at least Patriots, entertained very dif- ferent notions of these introducers into their country of exotic fruits and flowers. Sir Wil- liam Temple has elegantly noticed the fact. 68 INTRODUCERS OF " The great captains, and even consular me?tf f who first brought them over, took pride in giving them their own names, by which they ran a great while in Rome, as in memory of some great service or pleasure they had done their country; so that not only laws and battles, but several sorts of apples and pears were called Manlian and Claudian, Pompeyan and Tibe- rian, and by several other such noble names." Pliny has paid his tribute of applause to Lu- cullus, for bringing Cherry and Nut-trees from Pontus into Italy. And we have several mo- dern instances, where the name of the trans- planter, or rearer, has been preserved in this sort of creation. Some lines at the close of Peacharcfs Em- blems, give an idea of an English fruit-garden in 1612. He mentions that Cherries were not long known, and gives an origin to the name of Filbert. " The Persian Peach, and fruitful Quince * j And there the forward Almond grew, With Cherries knowne no long time since ; The Winter Warden, orchard's pride f The Philibert f that loves the vale, * The Quince comes from Sydon, a town of Crete, we are told by Le Grand in his Vie privet des Francois, vol. 1. p. 143. where may be found a list of the origin of most of our fruits. f Peacham has here given a note. " The Filbert, so named ofPhiti- EXOTIC FLOWERS, FRUITS, ETC. 69 And red Queen-apple *, so envide Of school-boies, passing by the pale." bei-t, a King of France, who caused by arte sundry kinds to be brought forth ; as did a gardener of Otranto in Italie by Cloue-gilliflowers, and Carnations of such colours as we now see them." * The red Queen-apple was, no doubt, thus distinguished in compli- ment to Elizabeth. I find in Moffet's " Healths Improvement," who wrote at the time, that these were Apples " grafted upon a Mulberry- tstock, and then wax thorough red as our Queen-apples, called by Ruel- Jius, Rubelliana, and Claudiana by Pliny." I am told the race is not .extinct : for an Apple of this description is yet to be found. 70 USURERS OF SEVENTEENTH CENJURY. USURERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. A PERSON whose history will serve as a can- vass to exhibit some scenes of the arts of the money-trader, was one AUDLEY, a lawyer, and a great practical philosopher, who concentrated his vigorous faculties in the science of the re- lative value of Money. He flourished through the reigns of James I. Charles I. and held a lu- crative office in the " Court of Wards," till that singular court was abolished at the time of the Restoration. In his own times he was called " The great Audley," * an epithet so often abused, and here applied to the creation of enormous wealth. But there are minds of great capacity, concealed by the nature of their pur- suits ; and the wealth of AUDLEY may be consi- dered as the cloudy medium through which a bright genius shone, who, had it been thrown into a nobler sphere of action, the " Greatness" would have been less ambiguous. * I find this AUDREY noticed in the curious obituary of the great Book-collector Richard Smith. " 1662. Nov. 15. died Mr. Hugh Audley, sometime of the Court of Wards, infi- nitely rich." Peck's De&id. Cur. II. p. 542. And some me- moirs in a very rare quarto tract, intitled, " The way to be rich, according to the practice of the great Audley, who began with two hundred pounds in the year 1605, and died worth four hundred thousand." 1662. USURERS OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 71 AUDLEY lived at a time when Divines were proclaiming " the detestable sin of Usury,** prohibited by God and man ; but the Mosaic prohibition was the municipal law of an agri- cultural commonwealth, who without trade, the general poverty of its members could afford no interest for loans ; but he has not forbidden the Israelite to take usury from " the Stranger." Or they were quoting from the Fathers, who under- stood this point, as they had that of " original sin," and " the immaculate conception;" while the Scholastics amused themselves with a quaint and collegiate fancy they had picked up in Aris- totle, that interest for money had been forbid- den by Nature, because coin in itself was barren and unpropagating, unlike corn of which every grain will produce many. But Audley consi- dered no doubt that money was not incapable of multiplying itself, provided it was in hands who knew to make it grow and " breed" as Shylock affirmed. The Lawyers then however did not agree with the Divines, nor the College-philoso- phers; they were straining at a more liberal in- terpretation of this odious term " Usury/' Lord Bacon declared, that the suppression of Usury is only fit for an Utopian Government j and Audley must have agreed with the learned Co- well, who in his " Interpreter" derives the term ab usu et cere, quasi usu cera, which in our vernacular style was corrupted into Usury. 72 USURERS OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Whatever the sin might be in the eyes of some, it had become at least a controversial sin, as Sir Symonds D'Ewes calls it, in his Manuscript Diary, who however was afraid to commit it*. Audley, no doubt, considered that interest was nothing more than rent for money; as rent was no better than Usury for land. The legal in- terest was then " ten in the hundred;" but the thirty, the fifty, and the hundred for the hundred, the gripe of Usury, and the shameless contrivances of the money- traders, these he would attribute to the follies of others, or to his own genius. This sage on the wealth of nations, with his pithy wisdom, and quaint sagacity, began with two hundred pounds, and lived to view his mortgages, his statutes, and his judgments so * D'Ewes's father lost a manor which was recovered by the widow of the person who had sold it to him. Old D'Ewes considered this loss as a punishment for the usurious loan of money ; the fact is, that he had purchased that manor with the interests accumulating from the money lent on it. His son intreated him to give over " the practice of that controversial sin." This expression shews that even in that age, there were rational political economists. Mr. JJentham, in his little trea- tise on Usury, has taken the just views, cleared from the in- distinct, and partial ones so long prevalent. Collier has an admirable Essay on Usury, vol. III. It is a curious notion of Lord Bacon's that he would have interest at a lower rate in the country than in trading towns^ because the merchant is best able to afford the highest. USURERS OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 73 numerous, that it was observed, his papers would have made a good map of England. A contemporary dramatist who copied from life, has opened the chamber of such an Usurer, perhaps of our Audley. " Here lay A manor bound fast in a skin of parchment, The wax continuing hard, the acres melting ; Here a sure deed of gift for a market-town, j5**'/If not redeemed this day, v/hich is not in The Unthrift's power ; there being scarce one shire In Wales or England, where my monies are not Lent out at Usury, the certain hook To draw in more."-*- Massingers City Madam. This genius of thirty per cent, first had proved the decided vigour of his mind, by his enthusias- tic devotion to his Jaw-studies ; deprived of the leisure for study through his busy day, he stole the hours from his late nights and his early mornings ; and without the means to procure a law-library he invented a method to possess one without the cost ; as fast as he learned, he taught, and by publishing some useful tracts on tempo- rary occasions, he was enabled to purchase a library. He appears never to have read a book without its furnishing him with some new prac- tical design, and he probably studied too much for his own particular advantage. Such devoted studies was the way to become a Lord-chan* 74 USURERS OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. cellor ; but the science of the Law was here sub- ordinate to that of a Moneytrader. When yet but a clerk to the Clerk in the Counter, frequent opportunities occurred which AUDLEY knew how to improve. He became a money-trader as he had become a law-writer, and the fears and follies of mankind were to furnish him with a trading-capital. The fertility of his genius appeared in expedients and in quick con- trivances. He was sure to be the friend of all men falling out. He took a deep concern in the affairs of his master's clients, and often much more than they were aware of. No man so ready at procuring bail or compounding debts. This was a considerable traffic then, as now. They hired themselves out for bail, swore what was required, and contrived to give false ad- dresses. It seems they dressed themselves out for the occasion : a great seal-ring flamed on the finger, which, however, was pure copper gilt, and often assumed the name of some per- son of good credit *. Savings, and small pre- sents for gratuitous opinions, often afterwards discovered to be very fallacious ones, enabled him to purchase annuities of easy landholders, with their treble amount secured on their estates. * See a curious black-letter pamphlet, " The Discoverie of the Knights of the Post. By E. S. 1597." The characters seem designated by the initials of their names. USURERS OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. J5 The improvident owners, or the careless heirs, were entangled in the usurer's nets ; and, after the receipt of a few years, the annuity, by some latent quibble, or some irregularity in the pay- ments, usually ended in AUDLEY'S obtaining the treble forfeiture. He could at all times out- knave a knave. One of these incidents has been preserved. A Draper of no honest repu- tation, being arrested by a Merchant for a debt of ^.200, AUDLEY bought the debt at ^.40, for which the Draper immediately offered him g.50. But AUDLEY would not consent, unless the Draper indulged a sudden whim of his own : this was a formal contract, that the Draper should pay within twenty years, upon tw r enty certain days, a penny doubled. A knave, in haste to sign, is no calculator ; and, as the contemporary dramatist describes one of the arts of those citizens, one part of whose busi- ness was " To swear and break : they all grow rich by breaking !" the Draper eagerly compounded. He after- wards " grew rich." AUDLEY, silently watch- ing his victim, within two years, claims his doubled pennies, every month during twenty months. The pennies had now grown up to pounds. The knave perceived the trick, and preferred paying the forfeiture of his bond for 76 USURERS OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. ^.500, rather than to receive the visitation of all the little generation of compound interest in the last descendant of ^.SOOO, which would have closed with the Draper's shop. The in- ventive genius of AUDLEY might have illustrated that popular tract of his own times, Peacham's " Worth of a Penny ;" a gentleman who, hav- ing scarcely one left, consoled himself by detail- ing the numerous comforts of life it might pro- cure in the days of Charles II. Such petty enterprizes at length assumed a deeper cast of interest. He formed temporary partnerships with the stewards of country gen- tlemen. They underlet estates which they had to manage ; and, anticipating the owner's ne- cessities, the estates in due time became cheap purchases for AUDLEY and the Stewards. He usually contrived to make the Wood pay for the Land, which he called " making the feathers pay for the goose." He had, however, such a tenderness of conscience for his victim, that, having plucked the live feathers before he sent the unfledged goose on the Common, he would bestow a gratuitous lecture in his own science teaching the art of making them grow again, by shewing how to raise the remaining rents. AUDLEY thus made the tenant furnish at once the means to satisfy his own rapacity, and his employer's necessities. His avarice was not USURERS OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 77 working by a blind, but on an enlightened prin- ciple ; for he was only enabling the landlord to obtain what the tenant, with due industry, could afford to give. Adam Smith might have deli- vered himself in the language of old AUDLEY, so just was his standard of the value of rents. " Under an easy landlord," said AUDLEY, " a tenant seldom thrives ; contenting himself to make the just measure of his rents, and not la- bouring for any surplusage of estate. Under a hard one, the tenant revenges himself upon the land, and runs away with the rent. I would raise my rents to the present price of all com- modities : for if we should let our lands, as other men have done before us, now other wares daily go on in price, we should fall back- ward in our estates." These axioms of political ceconomy were discoveries in his day. AUDLEY knew mankind practically, and struck into their humours with the versatility of ge- nius : oracularly deep with the grave, he only stung the lighter mind. When a Lord borrow- ing money complained to AUDLEY of his exac- tions, his Lordship exclaimed, " What, do you not intend to use a conscience ?'* " Yes, I in- tend hereafter to use it. We monied people must balance accounts : if you do not pay me, you cheat me ; but, if you do, then I cheat your Lordship." AUDLEY'S monied conscience 78 USURERS OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. balanced the risk of his Lordship's honour, against the probability of his own rapacious profits. When he resided in the Temple among those " pullets without feathers," as an old wri- ter describes the brood, the good man would pule out paternal homilies on improvident youth, grieving that they, under pretence of " learning the law, only learnt to be lawless ;" and " never knew by their own studies the process of an execution, till it was served on themselves." Nor could he fail in his prophecy ; for at the moment the Stoic was enduring their ridicule, his agents were supplying them with the certain means of verifying it ; for, as it is quaintly said, he had his decoying as well as his decaying gen- tlemen. The arts practised by the Money-traders of that time have been detailed by one of the town-satirists of the age. Decker, in his " Eng- lish Villanies," has told the story : we may observe how an old story contains many inci- dents which may be discovered in a modern one. The artifice of covering the usury by a pretended purchase and sale of certain wares, even now practised, was then at its height. In " Measure for Measure" we find, " Here's young Master Rash, he's in for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger, nine score and seventeen pounds ; of which he made five marks ready money." USURERS OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 79 The eager " Gull," for his immediate wants, takes at an immense price any goods on credit, which he immediately resells for less than half the cost ; and when dispatch presses, the ven- der and the purchaser have been the same per- son, and the " brown paper and old ginger" merely nominal. The whole displays a complete system of dupery, and the agents were graduated. " The manner of undoing Gentlemen by taking up of Commodities," is the title of a chapter in " Eng- lish Villanies." The " Warren" is the cant term which describes the whole party ; but this requires a word of explanation. It is probable that Rabbit-warrens were nu- merous about the metropolis, a circumstance which must have multiplied the Poachers. Moffet, who wrote on Diet in the reign of Eli- zabeth, notices their plentiful supply " for the Poor's maintenance." I cannot otherwise ac- count for the appellatives given to Sharpers, and the terms of cheatery being so familiarly drawn from a Rabbit-warren ; not that even in that day these cant terms travelled far out of their own circle; for Robert Greene mentions a trial in which the Judges, good simple men ! imagined that the Cony-catcher at the bar was a Warrener, or one who had the care of a Warren. The cant term of " Warren?' included the 80 USURERS OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY* young Conias, or half-ruined Prodigals of that day, with the younger brothers, who had ao complished their ruin ; these naturally herded together, as the Pigeon and the Black-leg of the present day. The Cony-catchers were those who raised a trade on their necessities. To be u conie-catched" was to be cheated. The Warren forms a combination altogether, to at- tract some novice, who in esse or in posse, has his present means good, and those to come great ; he is very glad to learn how money can be raised. The Warren seek after a Tumbler*; and the nature of a London Tumbler was " to hunt dry -foot," in this manner ; " The Tumbler is let loose, and runs snuffing up and down in the shops of Mercers, Goldsmith's Drapers, Haberdashers, to meet with a Ferret, that is, a Citizen who is ready to sell a commodity.*' The Tumbler in his first course usually returned in despair, pretending to have out-wearied him- self by hunting, and swears that the City Fer- rets are so coaped (that is, have their lips stitched up close) that he can't get them to open to so great a sum as ^.500. which the Warren want. " This herb being chewed down by the Rabbit-suckers, almost kills their hearts. It irritates their appetite, and they keenly bid * " A Tumbler was a sort of Hunting Dog." Kersey's New World of Words USURERS OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 81 the Tumbler, if he can't fasten on plate, or cloth, or silks, to lay hold of brown paper, Bar- tholomew babies, lute-strings, or hob-nails. " It hath been verily reported,'* says Decker, " that one Gentleman of great hopes took up not a little jealous, hastily inquired, " To do what?" the little Prince turned away the momentary alarm by his facetiousness, " To cut off the heads of 40,000 leeks," His bold and martial character was discover^ able in minute circumstances like these. Eat* ing in the King's presence a dish of milk, the King asked him why he ate so much child's meat? " Sir, it is also man's meat," Henry re- plied ; and immediately after having fed heartily on a partridge, the King observed, that that meat would make him a coward, according to the prevalent notions of the age respecting diet ; to which the young Prince replied, " Though it be but a cowardly fowl, it shall hot make me a coward." Once taking up straw- berries with two spoons, when one might have sufficed, our infant Mars gaily exclaimed, " The one I use as a rapier, and the other as a daggerf ' K 1 ANECDOTES OF PRINCE HENRY* Adam Newton appears to have filled his of; fice as Preceptor, with no servility to the capri- cious fancies of the princely boy. Desirous, however, of cherishing the generous spirit and playrul humour of Henry, his Tutor encouraged a freedom of jesting with him, which appears to have been carried at times to a degree of momen- tary irritability on the side of the Tutor, by the keen humour of the boy. While the royal pupil held his master in equal reverence and affection, the gaiety of his temper sometimes twitched the equability or the gravity of the Preceptor. When Newton, wishing to set an example to the Prince in heroic exercises, one day practised the pike, and tossing it with such little skill as to have failed in the attempt, the young Prince telling him of his failure, Newton obviously lost his temper, observing, that " to find fault was an evil humour." " Master, I take the humour of you." " It becomes not a Prince)" observed Newton. " Then," retorted the young Prince, " doth it worse become a Prince's Mas- ter 1" Some of these harmless bickerings are amusing. When his Tutor, playing at shuffle- board with the Prince, blamed him for changing so often, and taking up a piece, threw it on the board, and missed his aim, the Prince smiling exclaimed, " Well thrown, Master;'' on which the Tutor, a little vexed, said " he would ANECDOTES OF PRINCE HENRY. 133 jipt strive with a Prince at shuffle-board." Henry observed, " Yet you gownsmen should be best a$ ttch< exercises, which are not meet for men *yho are more stirring." The Tutor, a little irritated, said, " I am meet for whipping of boys." " You vaunt then," retorted the Prince, " that which a ploughman or cart-driver can do better than you/' " I can do more," said the Tjutor, " for I can govern foolish children." On which the Prince, who, in his respect for his Tutor, did not care to carry the jest farther, rose from table, and in a low voice to those near him said, " He had need be a wise man that could do that." ^-Newton was sometimes severe in his chastise- ments ; for when the Prince was playing at Goff, and having warned his Tutor who was standing by in conversation, that he was going to strike the ball, and having lifted up the G off- club, some one observing, " Beware, Sir, that you hit not Mr. Newton ;" the Prince drew back the club, but smilingly observed, " Had I done so, I had but paid my debts." At ano- ther time, when the princely boy was amusing himself with the sports of a child, his Tutor wishing to draw him to more manly exercises, amongst other things, said to him in good hu- mour, " God send you a wise wife!" ?* That she may govern you and me !" said the Prince. ^ he Tutor observed, that " he had one of his J34 ANECDOTES OF PRINCE HENRY. own -," the Prince replied, " But mine, if I have one, would govern your wife, and by that means would govern both you and me." Henry, at this early age, excelled in a quickness of reply, combined with reflection, which marks the precocity of his intellect. His Tutor having laid a wager with the Prince that he could not refrain from standing with his back to the fire, and seeing him forget himself once or twice, standing in that posture, the Tutor said, " Sir, the wager is won, you have failed twice ;" '* Master," replied Henry, " Saint Peter's cock crew thrice.'* A Musician having played a voluntary in his presence, was requested to play the same again. " I could not for the kingdom of Spain," said the musician, " for this were harder than for a preacher to repeat word by word a sermon that he had not learned by rote." A clergyman standing by, observed that he thought a Preacher might do that : " Perhaps," rejoined the young Prince, " for a bishoprick !" The natural facetiousness of his temper ap- pears frequently in the good humour with which the little Prince was accustomed to treat his domestics. The Prince had two of opposite characters, who were frequently set by the ears for the sake of the sport ; the one, Murray, nick- named " the taylor," loved his liquor ; and the other was a stout " trencherman." The King ANECDOTES OF PRINCE HENRY. 135 desired the Prince to put an end to these brawls, and to make the men agree ; and that the agreement should be written and subscribed by both. " Then," said the Prince, " must the drunken taylor subscribe it with chalk, for he cannot write his name, and then I will make them agree upon this condition that the trencherman shall go into the cellar and drink with Will Murray, and Will Murray shall make a great wallet for the trencherman to carry his victuals in." One of his servants having cut the Prince's finger, and sucking out the blood with his mouth, that it might heal the more easily, the young Prince, who expressed no displeasure at the accident, said to him plea- santly, " If, which God forbid ! my father, myself, and the rest of his kindred should fail, you might claim the crown, for you have now in you the blood royal." Our little Prince oce resolved on a hearty game of play, and for this purpose only admitted his young gentlemen, and excluded the men : it happened that an old servant, not aware of the injunction, en- tered the apartment, on which the Prince told him he might play too; and when the Prince was asked why he admitted this old man rather than the other men, he rejoined, " Because he, had a right to be of their number, for Sene$ 136 ANECDOTES OF PRINCE HENRY. Nor was our little Prince susceptible of gross flattery, for when once he wore white shoes, and one said that he longed to kiss his foot, the Prince said to the fawning courtier, " Sir, I am not the Pope;" the other replied that he would not kiss the Pope's foot, except it were to bite off his great toe. The Prince gravely rejoined ; "At Rome you would be glad to kiss his foot, and forget the rest." It was then the mode, when the King or the Prince travelled, to sleep with their suite at the houses of the nobility ; and the loyalty and zeal of the host were usually displayed in the reception given to the royal guest. It hap- pened that in one of these excursions the Prince's servants complained that they had been obliged to go to bed supperless, through the pinching parsimony of the house, which the little Prince at the time of hearing seemed to take no great notice of. The next morning the lady of the house, coming to pay her re- spects to him, she found him turning a volume that had many pictures in it ; one of which was a painting of a company sitting at a ban- quet : this he shewed her. " I invite you, Madam, to a feast." " To what feast?" she asked. " To this feast," said the boy. " What, would your Highness give me but a painted feast?" Fixing his eye on her, he said, " No ANECDOTES OF PRINCE HENRY. 1ST better, Madam, is found in this house." There was a delicacy and greatness of spirit in this ingenious reprimand, far excelling the wit of a child. According to this anecdote-writer, it appears that James I. probably did not delight in the martial dispositions of his son, and whose habits and opinions were, in all respects, forming themselves opposite to his own tranquil and literary character. The writer says that, " his Majesty, with the tokens of love to him, would sometimes interlace sharp speeches, and other demonstrations of fatherly severity." Henry, who however lived, though he died early, to become a patron of ingenious men, and a lover of genius, was himself at least as much '-eim- moured of the pike, as of the pen. The King, to rouse him to study, told him, that if he did not apply more diligently to his book, his/ brother, Duke Charles, who seemed already attached to study, would prove more able for government and for the cabinet, and that him- self would be only fit for field-exercises and mi- litary affairs. To his father, the little Prince made no reply: but, when his tutor one day re- minded him of what his father had said, to sti- mulate our young Prince to literary diligence, Henry asked, whether he thought his brother would prove so good a scholar ? His tutor re- 138 ANECDOTES OF PRINCE HENRY. plied, that he was so likely to prove. " Then," rejoined our little Prince, " will I make Charles Archbishop of Canterbury." Our Henry was devoutly pious and rigid, in never permitting before him any licentious lan- guage or manners. It is well known that James I. had a habit of swearing, innocent expletives in conversation, which, in truth, only expressed the warmth of his feelings ; but, in that age, when Puritanism had already possessed half the nation, an oath was considered as nothing short of blasphemy. Henry once made a keen allu- sion to this verbal frailty of his father's ; for when he was told that some hawks were to be sent to him, but it was thought the King would intercept some of them, the little Prince re- plied, " He may do as he pleases, for he shall not be put to the oath for the matter.*' The King once asking him, what were the best verses he had learned in the first book of Virgil, the little Prince answeied, These : Rex erat ^Eneas nobis quo justior alter Nee pietate fuit., nee bello major et armis. Such are a few of the puerile anecdotes of a Prince who died in early youth, gleaned from a contemporary manuscript, by an eye and ear witness. They are trifles, but trifles conse* ANECDOTES OF PRINCE HENRY. crated by his name. They are genuine, and the philosopher knows how to value the indi- cations of a great and heroic character. There are among them some, which may occasion an inattentive reader to forget, that they are all the speeches and the actions of a child ! 140 THE DIARY OF THE DIARY OF A MASTER OF THE CEREMONIES. OF Court-etiquette, few are acquainted with its mysteries, and still fewer have lost themselves, in its labyrinth of forms. Whence its origin ? Perhaps from those grave and courtly Italians, who, in their petty pompous courts, made the whole business of their effeminate days consist in Puntillios ; and, wanting realities to keep themselves alive, affected the mere shadows of life and action, in a world of these mockeries of State. It suited well the genius of a people who boasted of elementary works to teach how affronts were to be given, and how to be taken ;.' and who had some reason to pride themselves in producing the CORTEGIANO of Castiglione, and the GALATEO of Delia Casa. They carried this refining temper into the most ordinary circum- stances, when a Court was the Theatre, and Monarchs and their Representatives the Actors. Precedence, and other honorary discriminations, establish the useful distinctions of ranks, and of individuals ; but their minuter Court-forms, subtilized by Italian conceits, with an erudition of precedents, and a logic of nice distinctions, imparted a mock dignity of science to the so- lemn fopperies of a Master of the Ceremonies,, A MASTER OF THE CEREMONIES. 14 1 who exhausted all the faculties of his soul on the equiponderance of the first place of inferior degree with the last of a superior ; who turned into a political contest the placing of a chair and a stool ; made a reception at the stairs'- head, or at the door, raise a clash between two rival nations ; a visit out of time, require a negotiation of three months ; or an awkward invitation, produce a sudden fit of sickness ; while many a rising antagonist, in the formida- ble shapes of Ambassadors, were ready to dis- patch a courier to their Courts, for the omission, or neglect, of a single PuntiUio. The pride of Nations, in pacific times, has only these means to maintain their jealousy of power : yet should not the people be grateful to the Sovereign who confines his . campaigns to his drawing-room ; whose Field-marshal is a tripping Master of the Ceremonies ; whose stratagems are only to save the inviolability of Court-etiquette ; and, whose battles of peace are only for precedence ? When the Earls of Holland and Carlisle, our Ambassadors -extraordinary to the Court of France in 1624, were at Paris, to treat of the marriage of Charles with Henrietta, and to join in a league against Spain, before they shewed their propositions, they were desirous of ascer- taining in what manner Cardinal Richelieu would receive them. The Marquis of Ville- THE DIARY Ot aux-Clers was employed in this negotiation* which appeared at least as important as the Marriage and the League. He brought for an- swer, that the Cardinal would receive them as he did the Ambassadors of the Emperor and the King of Spain : that he could not give them the right-hand in his own house, because he never honoured in this way those Ambassa- dors ; but that, in re-conducting them out of* his room, he would go farther than he was ac- customed to do, provided that they would per- mit him to cover this unusual proceeding with a pretext, that the others might not draw any consequences from it in their favour. Our Am- bassadors did not disapprove of this expedient, but they begged time to receive the instructions of his Majesty. As this would create a consi- derable delay, they proposed another, which would set at rest, for the moment, the pwvtillio. They observed, that if the Cardinal would feign himself sick, they would go to see him : on which the Cardinal immediately went to bed, and an interview, so important to both Nations, took place, and articles of great difficulty were dis- cussed, by the Cardinal's bed-side ! When the Nuncio Spada would have made the Cardinal jealous of the pretensions of the English Am- bassadors, and reproached him with yielding his -precedence to them, the Cardinal denied this* A MASTER OF THE CEREMONIES. 14/2 tl I never go before them, it is true, but likewise I never accompany them ; I wait for them only in the chamber of audience, either seated in the most honourable place, or standing, till the table is ready: I am always the first to speak, and the first to be seated; and besides I have never chosen to return their visit, which has made the Earl of Carlisle so outrageous."* Such was the ludicrous gravity of those Court Etiquettes or puntillios, combined with political consequences, of which, I am now to exhibit a picture. When James I. ascended the throne of his united kingdoms, and promised himself and the world long halcyon days of peace ; foreign Princes, and a long train of Ambassadors from every European power, resorted to the English Court. The pacific Monarch, in emulation of an office which already existed in the Courts of Europe, created that of MASTER OF THE CERE- MONIES. This was now found necessary to preserve the state, and allay the perpetual jealousies of the representatives of their Sovereigns. The first officer was Sir Lewis Lewknor^; with an assistant, Sir John Finett, who succeeded him under Charles I. and seems to have been more * La Vie de Card. Richelieu, anonymous, but written by J. Le Clerc, 1695, vol. T. p. 116135. f Stowe's Annals, p. 824. 144 THE DIARY OF amply blest with the genius of the place; his soul doated on the honour of the office; and the subtilty of his inventive shifts and contrivances, look like inspiration in this age of peace and of ceremony, in quieting that school of angry and rigid boys whom he had under his care the Ambassadors of Europe. Sir John Finett like ,a man of genius in of- fice, and living too in an age of Diaries, has not resisted the pleasant labour of perpetuating his own narrative*. He has told every cir- cmustance with chronological exactitude, which passedin his province as Master of theCeremouies; and when we consider that he was a busy actor amidst the whole diplomatic corps, we shall not be surprised by discovering, in this small volume of great curiosity, a vein of secret and * I give the title of this rare volume. " Finetti Philoxenis: Som choice observations of Sir John Finett, Knight, and Master of the Ceremonies to the two last Kings ; touching the reception and precedence, the treatment and audience, the puntillios and contests of forren Ambassadors in England. Legati ligant Mundum. 1656." This very curious diary was published after the Author's death, by his friend James Howell, the well-known writer ; and Oldys, whose literary curiosity scarcely any thing in our domestic literature has escaped, has analysed the volume with his accustomed care. He men- tions that there was a manuscript in being, more full- than the one published ; of which I have not been able to learn further. British Librarian, y. 163. A MASTER OF THE CEREMONIES. 145 authentic history: it throws a new light on many important events, in which the historians of the times are deficient, not having had the knowledge of this assiduous observer. But my present purpose is not to treat Sir John with all the ceremonious puntillios, of which he was himself the arbiter; nor to quote him on grave subjects, which future historians may well do. This volume contains the ruptures of a morning, and the peace-makings of an evening ; sometimes it tells of " a clash between the Savoy and Florence Ambassadors for prece- dence :"- now of *' questions betwixt the Im- perial and Venetian Ambassadors, concerning titles and visits," how. they were to address one another, and who was to pay the first visit! then " the Frenchman takes exceptions about placing." This historian of the Levee now records, that " the French Ambassador gets ground of the Spanish j" but soon after, so eventful were these drawing-room politicks, that a day of festival has passed away in sus- pense, while a Privy-Council has been hastily summoned, to inquire why the French Ambas- sador had " a defluxion of rheum in his teeth, besides a fit of the ague," although he hoped to be present at the same festival next year ! or being invited to a mask, declared " his stomach would not agree with cold meats:" " thereby VOL. in. L 146 THE DIARY OF pointing'' (shrewdly observes Sir John) " at the invitation and presence of the Spanish Ambas- sador, who, at the Mask the Christmas before, had appeared in the first place." Sometimes we discover our Master of the Ceremonies disentangling himself, and the Lord Chamberlain, from the most provoking perplexities, by a clever and civil He. Thus it happened, when the Muscovite Ambassador would not yield precedence to the French nor Spaniard. On this occasion, Sir John, at his wits end, contrived an obscure situation, in which the Russ imagined he was highly honoured, as there he enjoyed a full sight of the King's face, though he could see nothing of the entertain- ment itself; while the other Ambassadors were so kind as " not to take exception," not car- ing about the Russian, from the remoteness of his country, and the little interest that Court then had in Europe! But Sir John displayed even a bolder invention when the Muscovite, at his reception at Whitehall, complained that only one lord was in waiting at the stairs-head, while no one had met him in the court-yard. Sir John assured him that in England it was con- sidered a greater honour to be received by one lord, than by two! Sir John discovered all his acumen in the solemn investigation of " Which was the upper A MASTER OP T*IE CEREMONIES. 147 end of the table?" Arguments and inferences were deduced from precedents quoted ; but as precedents sometimes look contrary ways, this affair might still have remained sub judice, had not Sir John oracularly pronounced that " in spite of the chimneys in England, where the best man sits, is that end of the table." Sir John indeed would often take the most en- larged view of things ; as when the Spanish Ambassador, after hunting with the King at Theobalds, dined with his Majesty in the Privy-chamber, his son Don Antonio dined in the Council-chamber with some of the King's attendants. Don Antonio seated himself on a stool at the end of the table. " One of the Gentlemen-ushers took exception at this, being, he said, irregular and unusual, that place being ever wont to be reserved empty for state!" In a word, no person in the world was ever to sit on that stool; but Sir John, holding a con- ference before he chose to disturb the Spanish Grandee, finally determined that " this was the superstition of a Gentleman-usher, and it was therefore neglected." Thus Sir John could at a critical moment exert a more liberal spirit, and risk an empty stool against a little ease and quiet; which were no common occur- rences with that martyr of state, a Master of Ceremonies ! 148 THE DIARY OF But Sir John, to me he is so entertaining a personage that I do not care to get rid of him, had to overcome difficulties which stretched his fine genius on tenter-hooks. Once, rarely did the like unlucky accident happen to the wary Master of the Ceremonies, did Sir John exceed the civility of his instructions, or rather his half- instructions. Sent to invite the Dutch Ambas- sador, and the States Commissioners, then a young and new government, to the ceremonies of St. George's day, they inquired whether they should have the same respect paid to them as other Ambassadors? The bland Sir John, out of the milkiness of his blood, said he doubted it not. . As soon, however, as he returned to the Lord Chamberlain, he discovered, that he " had been sought for up and down, to stop the iqvi- tation. The Lord Chamberlain said, Sir John had exceeded his commission, if he had invited the Dutchmen " to stand in the closet of the Queen's side ; because the Spanish Ambassador would never endure them so near him, wfsere there was but a thin wainscot hoard between, and a window which might be opened!" Sir John said gently, he had done no otherwise than he had been desired ; which, however, the Lord Chamber- lain, in part) denied, (cautious and civil!) "and I was not so unmannerly as to contest against." (supple, but uneasy!) This affair ended miserably A MASTER OF THE CEREMONIES. H9 for the poor Dutchmen. Those new Republicans were then regarded with the most jealous con- tempt by all the Ambassadors, and were just ven- turing on their first dancing-steps to move among crowned heads. The Dutch now resolved not to be present ; declaring, they had just received an urgent invitation, from the Earl of Exeter, to dine at Wimbledon. A piece of supercherle to save appearances ; probably the happy con- trivance of the combined geniuses of the Lord Chamberlain, and the Master of the Cere- monies ! I will now exhibit some curious details from these archives of fantastical state, and paint a courtly world, where politics and civility seem to have been at perpetual variance. When the Palatine arrived in England to marry Elizabeth, the only daughter of James the First, "the feasting and jollity" of the Court were interrupted by the discontent of the Arch- duke's Ambassador, of which these were the material points : Sir John waited on him, to honour with his presence the solemnity on the second or third days, either to dinner or supper, or both. The Arch-duke's Ambassador paused : with a troubled countenance inquiring whether the Spanish Ambassador was invited ? "I an- swered, answerable to my instructions in case of THE DIARY OF such demand, that he was sick, and could not be there. He was yesterday, quoth he, so well, as that the offer might have very well been made him, and perhaps accepted." To this, Sir John replied, that the French and Venetian Ambassadors holding between them one course of correspondence, and the Spanish and the Arch-duke's another, their in- vitations had been usually joint. This the Arch-duke's Ambassador denied ; and affirmed, that they had been separately in- vited to Masques, &c., but he had never! that France had always yielded precedence to the Arch-duke's predecessors, when they were but Dukes of Burgundy, of which he was ready to produce " ancient proofs ;" and that Venice was a mean Republic, a sort of Burghers, and a handful of territory, compared to his Mo- narchical Sovereign : and to all this he added, that the Venetian bragged of the frequent fa- vours he had received. Sir John returns in great distress to the Lord Chamberlain and his Majesty. A solemn decla- ration is drawn up, in which James I. most gravely laments that the Archduke's Ambas- sador has taken this offence ; but his Majesty offers these most cogent arguments in his own favour : that the Venetian had announced to fiis Majesty, that his Republic had ordered his A MASTER OF THE CEREMONIES. 151 men new liveries on the occasion, an honour, he adds, not usual with Princes the Spanish Ambassador not finding himself well for the first day, (because, by the way, he did not care to dispute precedence with the Frenchman,) his Majesty conceiving that the solemnity of the Marriage being one continued act through di- vers days, it admitted neither prius nor poste- rius : and then James proves too much, by boldly asserting, that the last day should be taken for the greatest day ! As in other cases, for instance in that for Christmas, where Twelfth-day, the last day, is held as the greatest ! But the French and Venetian Ambassadors, so envied by the Spanish and the Archduke's, were themselves not less chary, and crustily fas- tidious. The insolent Frenchman first attempt- ed to take precedence of the Prince of Wales ; and the Venetian stood upon this point, that they should sit on chairs, though the Prince had but a stool : and, particularly, that the carver should not stand before him ! " But," adds Sir John, " neither of them prevailed in their reasonless pretences.'' Nor was it peaceable even at the Nuptial din- ner, which closed with the following catastrophe of etiquette : Sir John having ushered arnong the Coun- THE DIARY OF tesses, the lady of the French Ambassador, he left her to the ranging of the Lord Chamber- lain, who ordered she should be placed at the table next beneath the Countesses, and above the Baronesses. But lo! " The Vicountess of Effingham standing to her woman's right, and possessed already of her proper place (as she called it), \vould not remove lower, so held the hand of the Ambassatrice, till after dinner, when the French Ambassador, informed of the diffe- rence and opposition, called out for his wife's coach ! With great trouble the French lady was persuaded to stay, the Countess of Kildare, and the Viscountess of Haddington, making no scruple of yielding their places. Sir John, un- bending his gravity, facetiously adds, " The Lady of Effingham, in the interim, forbearing (with rather too much, than too little stomach) both her supper and her company." This spoilt child of quality, tugging at the French Am- bassadress to keep her down, mortified to be seated at the side of the French woman that day, frowning and frowned on, and going sup- perless to bed, passed the wedding-day of the Palatine and Princess Elizabeth, like a cross girl on a form. One of the most subtile of these men of Pun* tillio, and the most troublesome, was the Vene- tian Ambassador j for it was his particular apti- A MASTER OF THE CEREMONIES. 153 tude to find fault, and pick out jealousies among all the others of his body. On the marriage of the Earl of Somerset, the Venetian was invited to the Mask, but not the dinner, as last year the rererse had occurred. The Frenchman, who drew always with the Ve- netian, at this moment chose to act by him- self on the watch of precedence, jealous of the Spaniard newly arrived. When invited, he in- quired if the Spanish Ambassador was to be there ? and humbly beseeched his Majesty to be excused, from indisposition. We shall now see Sir John put into the most lively action, by the subtile Venetian. " I was scarcely back at Court with the French Ambassador's answer, when I was told, that a gentleman from the Venetian Ambassador had been to seek me ; who, having at last found me, said that his Lord desired me, that, if ever I would do him favour, I would take the pains to come to him instantly. I, winding the cause to be some new buz gotten into his brain, from some intelligence he had from the French of that morning's proceeding, I excused my pre- sent coining, that I might take further instruc- tions from the Lord Chamberlain ; wherewith, as soon as I was sufficiently armed, I went to the Venetian." But the Venetian would not confer with Sir 154 THE DIARY OF John, though he sent for him in such a hurry, except in presence of his own Secretary. Then the Venetian desired Sir John to repeat the words of his invitation, and those also of his own answer ! which poor Sir John actually did ! For he adds, " I yielded, but not without dis- covering my insatisfaction to be so peremp- torily pressed on, as if he had meant to trip me." The Venetian having thus compelled Sir John to con over both invitation and answer, gravely complimented him on his correctness to a tittle ! Yet still was the Venetian not in less trouble : and now he confessed that the King had given a formal invitation to the French Ambassador, and not to him ! This was a new stage in this important nego- tiation : it tried all the diplomatic sagacity of Sir John, to extract a discovery ; and which was, that the Frenchman had, indeed, con- veyed the intelligence secretly to the Venetian. Sir John now acknowledged that he had sus- pected as much when he received the message, and not to be taken by surprise, he had come prepared with a long apology, ending, for peace sake, with the same formal invitation for the Venetian. Now the Venetian insisted again that Sir John should deliver it in the same precise ivords the invitation had been given to the Frenchman. Sir John, with his never- A MASTER OF THE CEREMONIES. 155 failing courtly docility, performed it to a syl- lable. Whether both parties during all these proceedings could avoid moving a risible muscle at one another, our grave authority records not. The Venetian's final answer seemed now per- fectly satisfactory, declaring he would not ex- cuse his absence as the Frenchman had, on the most frivolous pretence ; and further, he expressed his high satisfaction with last year's substantial testimony of the royal favour, in the public honours conferred on him, and regretted that the quiet of his Majesty should be so fre- quently disturbed by these puntillios, about invitations, which so often " over-thronged IMS guests at the feast." Sir John now imagined that all was happily concluded, and was retiring with the sweetness of a dove, and the quietness of a mouse, to fly to the Lord Chamberlain, when behold the Venetian would not relinquish his hold, but turned on him " with the reading of another scruple, et hinc illos lachrimce ! asking whether the Arch-duke's Ambassador was also invited ?" Poor Sir John, to keep himself clear " from categorical asseverations," declared " he could not resolve him." Then the Venetian observed, (( Sir John was dissembling ! and he hoped and imagined that Sir John had in his instructions, 156 THE DIARY OF that lie was first to have gone to him (the Ve- netian), and on his return to the Arch-duke's Ambassador." Matters now threatened to be as irreconcilable as ever, for it seems the Ve- netian was standing on the point of precedency with the Arch-duke's Ambassador. The poli- tical Sir John, wishing to gratify the Venetian at no expence, adds, " he thought it ill man- ners to mar a belief of an Ambassador's making," and so allowed him to think that he had been invited before the Arch-duke's Am- bassador ! This Venetian proved himself to be, to the great torment of Sir John, a stupendous genius in his own way ; ever on the watch to be treated al paro di teste coronate equal with crowned heads j and, when at a tilt, refused being placed among the Ambassadors of Savoy and the States-general, &c. while the Spanish and French Ambassadors were seated alone on the opposite side. The Venetian declared that this would be a diminution of his quality ; the Jirst place of an inferior degree, being ever held ivorse than the last of a superior. This refined obser- vation delighted Sir John, who dignifies it as an axiom, yet afterwards came to doubt it with a sed de hoc quccre query this ! If it be true in politics, it is not so in common sense according to the proverbs of both nations ; for A MASTER OF THE CEREMONIES. 157 the honest English declares, that " Better be the head of the yeomanry than the tail of the gentry;" while the subtile Italian has it, " E meglio esser testa di Luccio, che coda di Sto- rione ;" " better be the head of a pike than fhe tail of a sturgeon." But before we quit Sir John, let us hear him in his own words, reason- ing with that fine critical tact, on right and left hands, he undoubtedly possessed, but reasoning with infinite modesty as well as genius. Hear this sage of Puntillios, this philosopher of cour- tesies* " The AXIOM before delivered by the Ve- netian Ambassador, was judged, upon discourse I had with some of understanding, to be of value in a distinct company, but might be other- wise in a joint assembly /" And then Sir John, lake a philosophical historian, explores some great public event "As at the conclusion of the peace at Vervins (the only part of the peace ke cared about), the French and Spanish meet- ing, contended for precedence who should sit at the right hand of the Pope's Legate : an ex- pedient was found, of sending into France for the Pope's Nuncio residing there, who, seated at the right hand of the said Legate (the Le- gate himself sitting at the table's end), the French Ambassador being offered the choice of the next place, lie took that at the Legate's left 158 THE DIARY OF hand, leaving the second at the right hand to the Spanish, who, taking it, persuaded himself to have the better of it ; sed de hoc quaere." How modestly, yet how shrewdly insinuated ! So much, if not too much, of the Diary of a Master of the Ceremonies ; where the im- portant personages strangely contrast with the frivolity and foppery of their actions. By this work it appears that all foreign Am- bassadors were entirely entertained, for their diet, lodgings, coaches, with all their train, at the cost of the English Monarch, and on their departure received customary presents of con- siderable value ; from 1000 to 5000 ounces of gilt plate ; and in more cases than one, the meanest complaints were made by the Ambas- sadors, about short allowances. That the fo- reign Ambassadors in return made presents to the Masters of the Ceremonies, from thirty to fifty " pieces," or in plate or jewel; and some so grudgingly, that Sir John Finett often vents his indignation, and commemorates the indignity. As thus, on one of the Spanish Ambassadors extraordinary waiting at Deal for three days, Sir John, " expecting the wind with the patience of an hungry entertainment from a close-handed Ambassador, as his present to me at his parting from Dover being but an old gilt livery pot, that had lost his fellow not worth above 12 A MASTER OF THE CEREMONIES. pounds, accompanied with two pair of Spanish gloves to make it almost 13, to my shame and his." When he left this scurvy Ambassador- extraordinary to his fate aboard the ship, he exults that " the cross-winds held him in the Downs almost a sevennight before they would blow him over." From this mode of receiving Ambassadors, two inconveniencies resulted ; their perpetual jars of puntillios, and their singular intrigues to obtain precedence, which so completely ha- rassed the patience of the most pacific Sove- reign, that James was compelled to make great alterations in his domestic comforts, and was perpetually embroiled in the most ridiculous contests. At length Charles I. perceived the great charge of these Embassies, ordinary and extraordinary, often on frivolous pretences ; and with an empty treasury, and an uncomplying Parliament, he grew less anxious for such ruinous honours*. He gave notice to foreign * Charles I. had, however, adopted them, and long pre- served the stateliness of his Court with foreign powers, as appears by these extracts from Manuscript letters of the time : Mr. Mead vvrkes to Sir M. Stuteville, July 25, 1629. " His Majesty was wont to answer the French Ambassador in his own language j now he speaks in English, and by an interpreter. And so doth Sir Thomas Edmondes to the 160 THE DIARY OF Ambassadors, that he should not any more " defray their diet, nor provide coaches for them, &c." " This frugal purpose" cost Sir John many altercations, who seems to view it, as the glory of the British Monarch being on the wane. The unsettled state of Charles was appearing in 1636, by the querulous nar- rative of the Master of the Ceremonies; the etiquettes of the Court were disturbed by the erratic course of its great star; and the Master of the Ceremonies was reduced to keep blank letters to superscribe, and address to any Nobleman who w r as to be found, from the absence of the great officers of state. On this occasion the Ambassador of the Duke of Mantova, who had long desired his parting audience, and the King objecting to the unfit- ness of the place he was then in, the Ambas- French King, contrary to the ancient custom : so that altho* of late we have not equalled them in arms, yet now we shall equal them in ceremonies." Oct. 31, 1628. " This day fortnight the States' Ambassador going to visit my Lord Treasurer about some business, whereas his Lordship was wont always to bring them but to the stair's head, he then, after a great deal of courteous resistance on the Ambassador's part, attended him through the hall and court-yard, even to the very boot of his coach." Sloane MSS. 4173. A RASTER OF THE CEREMONIES* 16'1 sador replied, that " if it were under a tree, it should be to him as a palace." Yet although we smile at this science of pun- tillios and these rigid forms of ceremony, when they were altogether discarded, a great states- man lamented them, and found the inconveni* ence and mischief in the political consequences which followed their neglect* Charles II* who was no admirer of these regulated formalities of Court-etiquette* seems to Have broken up the pomp and pride of the former Master of the Ceremonies; and the grave and great Chan- cellor of human nature (as Warburton calls Clarendon) censures this, and felt all the incon- veniencies of this open intercourse of an Am- bassador with the King, which he observed in the case of the Spanish Ambassador, who, he writes, " took the advantage of the licence of the Court, where no rules or formalities were yet established (and to which the King him- self was not enough inclined) but all doors open to all persons; which the Ambassador finding, he made himself a domestic, came to the King at all hours, and spake to him when, and as long as he would without any ceremony, or de* siring an audience according to the old custom; but came into the bed-chamber while the King was dressing himself, and mingled in all dis- courses with the same freedom he would use in VOL. in. M 162 THE DIARY, ETC. his own. And from this never heard-of licence, introduced by the French and the Spaniard at this time, without any dislike in the King, though not permitted in any Court in Christen- dom : many inconveniencies and mischiefs broke in, which could never after be shut out*.'' * Clarendon's Life, vol. II. p. 160. DIARIES. 163 DIARIES MORAL, HISTORICAL, AND CRITICAL. WE converse with the absent by Letters, and with ourselves by Diaries; but vanity is more gratified by dedicating its time to the little la- bours which have a chance of immediate notice, and may circulate from hand to hand, than by the honester pages of a volume reserved only for solitary contemplation; or to be a future re- lick of ourselves, when we shall no more hear of ourselves. Marcus Antoninus's celebrated work entitled " Of Himself to Himself,"* would be a good definition of the use and purpose of a Diary. Shaftesbury calls a Diary, " A Fault-book," in- tended for self-correction ; and a Colonel Har- wood in the reign of Charles I. kept a Diary, which, in the spirit of the times, he entitled " Slips, Infirmities, and Passages of Provi- dence." Such a Diary is a moral instrument, should the writer exercise it on himself, and on all around him. Men then wrote folios con- cerning themselves; and it sometimes happened) by some that I have examined in manuscript, that often writing in retirement, they would write when they had nothing to write. * To>v ?j lavlov, literally Of the things which concern himself, M 2 164 DIARIES. Diaries must be out of date in a lounging age ; although I have myself known several who have continued the practice with pleasure and usefulness to themselves. One of our old writers quaintly observes, that " the ancients used to take their stomach-pill of self-examina- tion every night. Some used little books, or tablets, which they tied at their girdles, in which they kept a memorial of what they did, against their night-reckoning." We know that Titus, the delight of mankind as he has been called, kept a Diary of all his actions, and when at night he found upon examination, that he had performed nothing memorable, he would exclaim, "Amici! diem per didimus T Friends! we have lost a day! Among our own countrymen, in times more favourable for a concentrated mind than in this age of scattered thoughts, and of the fragments of genius, the custom long prevailed; and we their posterity are still reaping the benefit of their lonely hours, and diurnal records. It is always pleasing to recollect the name of Alfred, and w r e have deeply to regret the loss of a Ma- nual which this Monarch, so strict a manager of his time, yet found leisure to pursue: and it would have interested us more, even than his Translations, which have come down to us. Af- fred curried in his bosom memorandum leaves, DIARIES. 165 in which he made collections from his studies, and took so much pleasure in the frequent exa- mination of this journal, that he called it his Hand-book, because, says Spelman, day and night he ever had it in hand with him. This manual, as my learned friend Mr. Turner, in his elaborate and philosophical Life of Alfred, has shewn by some curious extracts from Malmsbury, was the repository of his own occasional literary reflections. An association of ideas connects two other of our illustrious Princes with Alfred. Prince Henry, the son of James I. our English Marcellus, who was wept by all the Muses, and mourned by all the brave in Britain, devoted a great portion of his time to literary intercourse ; and the finest geniuses of the age addressed their works to him, and wrote several at the Prince's suggestion: Dallington, in the preface to his curious " Aphorisms, Civil and Militarie," has described Prince Henry's do- mestic life: " Myself," says he, " the unablest of many in that Academy, for so was his family, had this especial employment for his proper use, which he pleased favourably to entertain, arid often to read over." The Diary of Edward VI, written with his own hand, conveys a notion of that precocity of intellect, in that early educated prince, which would not suffer his infirm health to 166 DIARIES. relax in his royal duties. This Prince was solemnly struck with the feeling that he was not seated on a throne to be a trifler of a sensualist; and this simplicity of mind is very remarkable in the entrances of his Diary; where on one occasion, to remind himself of the causes of his secret proffer of friendship to aid the Emperor of Germany with men against the Turk, and to keep it at present secret from the French Court, the young Monarch inserts, " This was done on intent to get some friends. The reasonings be in my desk." So zealous was he to have before him a state of public affairs, that often in the middle of the month he recalls to mind passages he had omitted in the beginning : what was done every day of moment, he retired into his study to set down. Even James II. wrote with his own hand the daily occurrences of his times, his reflections and conjectures ; and bequeathed us better materials for history than " perhaps any Sovereign Prince has left behind him." Adversity had schooled him into reflec- tion, and softened into humanity a spirit of bigotry ; and it is something in his favour, that after his abdication he collected his thoughts, and mortified himself by the penance of & Diary. Could a Clive or a Cromwell have composed a Diary ? Neither of these men could suffer solitude and darkness; they started DIARIES. 167 at their casual recollections: what would they have done, had memory marshalled their crimes, and arranged them in the .terrors of chronology? When the national character retained more originality and individuality than our monoto- nous habits now admit, our later ancestors dis- played a love of application, which was a source of happiness, quite lost to us. Till the middle of the last century, they were as great ceconomists of their time, as of their estates ; and life with them was not one hurried, yet tedious festival. Living more within themselves, more separated, they were therefore more original in their pre- judices, their principles, and in the constitution of their minds. They resided more on their estates, and the Metropolis was usually resigned to the men of trade in their Royal Exchange, and the preferment-hunters among the back- stairs at Whitehall. Lord Clarendon tells us in his " Life" that his grandfather in James Ist's time had never been in London after the death of Elizabeth, though he lived thirty years afterwards ; and his w T ife, to whom he had been married forty years, had never once visited the Metropolis. On this fact he makes a curious observation ; " The wisdom and frugality of that time being such, that few gentlemen made journeys to London, or any other expensive journey, but upon important business, and their 168 DIARIES. wives never ; by which providence they enjoyed and improved their estates in the country, and kept good hospitality in their house, brought up their children well, and were be- loved by their neighbours. " This will appear a very coarse home-spun happiness, and these must seem very gross virtues to our artificial feeL ings ; yet this assuredly created a national charac- ter ; made patriots of every country gentleman ; and finally, produced in the civil wars some of the most sublime characters, and some of the most original ones, which ever acted a great part on the theatre of human life. This was the age of DIARIES ! The head of almost every family formed one. Ridiculous people may have written ridiculous Diaries, as Elias Ashmole's j but many of our greatest characters in public life, have left such monu- ments of their diurnal labours. These Diaries were a substitute for every thinking man for our newspapers, magazines, and annual registers ; but those who imagine that these are a substitute for the scenical and dramatic life of the Diary of a man of genius, like Swift, who wrote one, or even of a sensible observer, who lived amidst the scenes he de- scribes, only shew that they are better ac* quainted with the more ephemeral and equivo- cal labours. DIARIES. 169 There is a curious passage in a letter of Sir Thomas Bodley, recommending to Sir Francis Bacon, then a young man on his travels, the mode by which he should make his life " profit- able to his country and his friends." His ex- pressions are remarkable. " Let all these riches be treasured up, not only in your memory, where time may lessen your stock, but rather in good writings and books of account, which will keep them safe for your use hereafter." By these good writings and books of account ^ he describes the Diaries of a student and an ob- server ; these " good writings" will preserve what wear out in the memory, and these " books of account" render to a man an account to him- self of himself. It was this solitary reflection and industry which assuredly contributed so largely to form the gigantic minds of the Seldens, the Cam- dens, the Cokes, and others of that vigorous age of genius. When Coke fell into disgrace, and retired to private life, the discarded states- man did not pule himself into . a lethargy, but on the contrary seemed almost to rejoice that an opportunity was at length afforded him of indulging in studies more congenial to his feel- ings, Then he found leisure not only to revise his former writings, which were thirty volumes written with his own hand ; but what most 170 DIARIES. pleased him was a manual, which he called Vade Mecuniy which contained a retrospective view of his life, having noted in that volume the most remarkable occurrences which had hap- pened to him. It is not probable that such a MS. could ever have been destroyed but by accident ; and it might, perhaps, yet be recovered. u The interest of the public was the business of Camden's life," observes Bishop Gibson ; and, indeed, this was the character of the men of that age. Camden kept a diary of all occur- rences in the reign of James I. ; not that at his advanced age, and with his infirm health, he could ever imagine that he should make use of these materials ; but he did this, inspired by the love of Truth, and in love of that labour which delights in preparing its materials for pos- terity. Bishop Gibson has made an important observation on the nature of such a Diary, which cannot be too often repeated to those who have the opportunities of forming one ; and for them I transcribe it. " Were this practised by persons of learning and curiosity, who have opportunities of seeing into the pub- lic affairs of a kingdom, the short hints and strictures of this kind, w r ould often set things in a truer light than regular histories." A student of this class was Sir Symonds D'Ewes, an independent country gentleman, to DIARIES. 171 whose zeal we owe the valuable Journals of Par- liament in Elizabeth's reign, and who has left in manuscript a voluminous Diary, from which may be drawn some curious matters. In the preface to his Journals, he has presented a noble picture of his literary reveries, and the intended productions of his pen. They will animate the youthful student, and shew the active genius of the gentlemen of that day j the Diarist who now occupies our inquiries. " Having now fi- nished these volumes, I have already entered upon other and greater labours, conceiving my- self not to be born for myself alone, Qui vivat sibi solus, homo nequit esse beatfls, Malo mori, nam sic vivere nolo mihi." He then gives a list of his intended historical works, and adds, " These I have proposed to myself to labour in, besides divers others, smaller works : like him that shoots at the Sun, not in hopes to reach it, but to shoot as high as possibly his strength, art, or skill, will permit. So though I know it impossible to finish all these during my short and uncertain life, having al- ready entered into the thirtieth year of my age, and having many unavoidable cares of an estate and family, yet, if I can finish a little in each kind, it may hereafter stir up some able judges to add an end to the whole : Sic mihi contingat virere, sicque mori," DIARIES. Richard Baxter, whose facility and diligence, it is said, produced one hundred and forty-five distinct works, wrote, he himself says, " in the crowd of all my other employments.'* Assuredly the one which may excite astonishment, is his voluminous auto-biography, forming a folio of more than seven hundred closely-printed pages j a history which takes a considerable compass, from 1615 to 1684 ; whose writer pries into the very seed of events, and whose personal know- ledge of the leading actors of his times, throws a perpetual interest over his lengthened pages. Yet this was not written with a view of publica- tion by himself; he still continued this work, till time and strength wore out the hand that could no longer hold the pen, and left it to the judgment of others, whether it should be given to the world. But these were private persons. It may ex- cite our surprise to discover that our Statesmen, and others engaged in active public life, occu- pied themselves with the same habitual attention to what was passing around them in the form of Diaries, or their own memoirs, or in forming collections for future times, with no possible view but for posthumous utility. They seem to have been inspired by the most genuine passion of patriotism, and an aweful love of posterity. What motive less powerful could induce many DIARIES. 173 noblemen and gentlemen to transcribe volumes ; to transmit to posterity authentic narratives, which would not even admit of contemporary notice ; either because the facts were then well known to all, or of so secret a nature as to render them dangerous to be communicated to their own times. They sought neither fame nor interest; for many collections of this nature have come down to us without even the names of the Scribes, which have been usually disco- vered by accidental circumstances. It may be said, that this toil was the pleasure of idle men : the idlers then were of a distinct race from our own. There is scarcely a person of reputation among them, who has not left such laborious records of himself. I intend drawing up a list of such Diaries and Memoirs ; deriving their importance from the Diarists themselves. Even the women of this time partook of the same thoughtful dispositions. It appears that the Duchess of York, wife to James II. and the daughter of Clarendon, drew up a narrative of his life : the celebrated Duchess of Newcastle has formed a dignified biography of her hus- band : Lady Fanshaw's Memoirs are partially known by some curious extracts ; and it was but recently that Mrs. Hutchinson's Memoirs of her Colonel, delighted every curious reader. Whitelocke's " Memorials" is a diarv full of DIARIES. important public matters ; and the noble editor observes, that " our author not only served the State, in several stations, . both at home and in foreign countries, but, likewise conversed with books, and made himself a large provision from his studies and contemplation, like that noble Roman Portius Cato as described by Nepos. He was. all along so much in business, one would not imagine he ever had leisure for books ; yet, who considers his studies might be- lieve he had been always shut up with his friend Selden, and the dust of action never fallen on his gown." When Whitelocke was sent on an em- bassy to Sweden, he journalized it ; it amounts to two bulky quartos, extremely curious. He has even left us a History of England. Yet all is not told of Whitelocke; and we have deeply to regret the loss, or at least the concealment, of a work addressed to his family, which apparently would be still more interesting, as exhibiting his domestic habits and feelings; and affording a model for those in public life, who had the spirit to imitate such greatness of mind, of which we have not many examples. Whitelocke had drawn up a great work, which he entitled " Remembrances of the labours ofWhitt- locke, in the Annales of his life, for the instruc- tion of his children." To Dr. Morton, the editor of Whitelocke's " Journal of the Swedish Am- DIARIES. 175 bassy," we owe the notice of this work, and I shall transcribe his dignified feelings in regretting the want of these MSS. "Such a work, and by such a father, is become the inheritance of every child, whose abilities and station in life may at any time hereafter call upon him to de- liberate for his country and for his family and person, as parts of the great whole : and I con- fess myself to be one of those who lament the suppression of that branch of the Annales which relates to the author himself in his private capa- city; they would have afforded great pleasure, as well as instruction, to the world in their entire form. The first volume, containing the first twenty years of his life, may one day see the light ; but the greatest part has hitherto es- caped my inquiries." This is all we know of a work of equal moral and philosophical curiosity. The preface, however, to these " Remem- brances," has been fortunately preserved, and it is an extraordinary production. In this it appears that Whitelocke himself owed the first idea of his own work to one left by his father, which existed in the family, and to which he repeatedly refers his children. He says, " The memory and worth of your deceased grandfather deserves all honour and imitation, both from you and me; his LIBER FAMELICUS, his own story written by himself, will be left to you, and was 17 '6 DIARIES. an incouragement and precedent to this larger work." Here is a family-picture quite new to us; the heads of the house are its historians, and these records of the heart were animated by examples and precepts, drawn from their own bosoms ; and as Whitelocke feelingly ex- presses it, " all is recommended to the perusal, and intended for the instruction of my own house, and almost in every page you will find a dedication to you my dear children." The habit of laborious studies, and a zealous attention to the history of his own times, produced the Register and Chronicle of Bishop Kennett, " containing matters of fact, delivered in the words of the most authentic papers and records, all daily entered and commented on ;" it includes an account of all pamphlets as they appeared. This History, more valuable to us than to his own contemporaries, occupied two large folios ; of which only one has been printed, a zealous labour, which could only have been carried on from a motive of pure patriotism. It is how- ever but a small part of the diligence of the Bishop, since his own Manuscripts form a small library of themselves. The malignant vengeance of Prynne in ex- posing the diary of Laud to the public eye, lost all its purpose, for nothing appeared more favour- able to Laud than this exposition of his private DIARIES. 177 diary. We forget the harshness in the per- sonal manners of Laud himself, and sympathize even with his errors, when we turn over the simple leaves of this diary, which obviously was not intended for any purpose but for his own private eye and collected meditations. There his whole heart is laid open ; his errors are not concealed, and the purity of his inten- tions is established. Laud, who had too haugh- tily blended the Prime Minister with the Arch- bishop, still, from conscientious motives, in the hurry of public duties, and in the pomp of pub- lic honours, could steal aside into solitude, to account to God and himself, for every day, and the evil thereof." The Diary of Henry Earl of Clarendon, who inherited the industry of his father, has partly escaped destruction; it presents us with a pic- ture of the manners of the age, from whence, says Bishop Douglas, we may learn that at the close of the last century, a man of the first quality made it his constant practice to pass his time without shaking his arm at a gaming-table, as- sociating with jockies at Newmarket, or mur- dering time by a constant round of giddy dis- sipation, if not of criminal indulgence. Diaries were not uncommon in the last age : Lord An- glesey, who made so great a figure in the -reign of Charles II. left one behind him ; and one said to VOL. in. N 178 DIARIES. have been written by the Duke of Shrewsbury still exists. But the most admirable example is Lord Cla- rendon's History of his own " Life," or rather of the Court, and every event and person pass- ing before him. In this moving scene he co* pies nature with freedom, and has exquisitely touched the individual character. There that great statesman opens the most concealed trans- actions, and traces the views of the most op- posite dispositions ; and though engaged, when in exile, in furthering the royal intercourse with the Loyalists, and when, on the Restoration, con- ducting the difficult affairs of a great nation, a careless monarch, and a dissipated court, yet besides his immortal history of the civil wars, " the Chancellor of human nature" passed his life in habitual reflection, and his pen in daily em- ployment. Such was the admirable industry of our later ancestors ; their diaries and their me- moirs are its monuments! The literary man has formed Diaries purely of his studies, and the practice may be called journalizing the mind, in a summary of studies, and a register of loose hints and sbozzos, that sometimes happily occur; and like Ringelber- gius, that enthusiast for study, whose animated exhortations to young students have been aptly DIARIES. 179 compared to the sound of a trumpet in the field of battle, marked down every night, before going to sleep, what had been done during the studious day. Of this class of Diaries, Gibbon has given us an illustrious model; and there is an unpublished quarto of the late Barr6 Roberts, a young student of genius, devoted to curious researches, which deserves to meet the public eye. I should like to see a little book published with this title, " Otium delittosiim in quo object a vel in actione, vel in lectione, vel in visione ad singulos dies Anni 1(329 observata representan- tur" This writer was a German, who boldly published for the course of one year, whatever he read or had seen every day iVi that year. As an experiment, if honestly performed, this might be curious to the philosophical observer; but to write down every thing, may end in something like nothing. A great poetical contemporary of our own country, does not think that even DREAMS should pass away unnoted ; and he calls this re- gister, his Nocturnals. His dreams are assuredly poetical ; as Laud's, who journalized his, seem to have been made up of the affairs of state and religion; the personages are his patrons, his enemies, and others; his dreams are scenical and dramatic. Works of this nature are not de- signed for the public eye; they are domestic N 2 180 DIARIES. annals, to be guarded in the little archives of a family; they are offerings cast before our Lares. Pleasing, when youth is long expired, to trace The forms our pencil or our pen design'd ; Such was our youthful air, and shape and face, Such the soft image of our youthful mind. SHENSTONE, LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. 181 LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. In the history of literature, and perhaps in that of the human mind, the institution of the LICENSERS OF THE PRESS, and CENSORS OF BOOKS, was a bold invention, designed to counteract that of the Press itself; and even to convert this newly-discovered instrument of human freedom, into one which might serve to perpetuate that system of passive obedience, which had so long enabled Modern Rome to dictate her laws to the Universe. It was thought possible in the subtilty of Italian Astuzia and Spanish Mona* chism, to place a centinel on the very thoughts, as well as on the persons of Authors; and in extreme cases, that Books might be condemned to the flames, as well as Heretics. Of this institution, the beginnings are ob* scure, for it originated in caution and fear; but as the work betrays the workman, and the na- tional physiognomy the native, it is evident that so inquisitorial an act could only have originated in the Inquisition itself*. However feeble, or * Dr. C. Symmons has denounced Sixtus IV. as " the first who placed the Press under the controul of a State-%iquisitor." Life of Milton, p. C 214. I am not acquainted with his au- thority; but as Sixtus IV. died as early as 1484, I suspect 18^ LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. partial, may have been the previous attempts, it assumed its most formidable shape in the Council of Trent, when some gloomy spirits from Rome and Madrid, where they are still governing, foresaw the Revolution of this new age of Books. The triple-crowned Pontiff had m vain rolled the thunders of the Vatican to strike out of the hands of all men the volumes of Wickliffe, of Huss, and of Luther, and even menaced their eager readers with death. At this Council Pius IV. was presented with a ca- talogue of books of which they denounced that the perusal ought to be forbidden : his bull not only confirmed this list of the condemned, but this writer meant Sixtus V. who was busy enough with this office. Millot, in his History of France, mentions that Philip II. had a Catalogue printed of Books prohibited by the Spa- nish Inquisition; and Paul IV. the following year 1559, or- dered the holy office at Rome to publish a similar catalogue. Such was the origin of what was called the Index. However we have an Index printed at Venice in 1543, Peigiiot's Livres condamnts, I. 256. The most ancient at the British Museum is one of Antwerp 15*0. The learned Dr. James, the first chief librarian of the Bodleian, derives this Institution from the Council of Trent, held in 1542. See " The Mystery of the Indices Expurgatorii" p. 372. These Indexes appear to have been very hard to be obtained, for Dr. James says, the Index of Antwerp was discovered accidentally by Junius, who reprinted 1 !?; the Spanish and Portugal was never known till we took Cadiz j and the Roman, Index was procured with great trouble, p. 391. LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. 183 added rules how books should be judged*. Sub" sequent Popes enlarged these catalogues, and added to the rules, as the monstrous novelties started up. Inquisitors of books were ap-> pointed; at Rome they consisted of certain Car- dinals and " the master of the holy palace;" and literary Inquisitors were elected at Madrid, at Lisbon, at Naples, and for the Low Coun- tries; they were watching the ubiquity of the human mind. These catalogues of prohibited books were called Indexes; and at Rome a body of these literary despots are still called " the Con- gregation of the Index." The simple Index is a list of condemned books never to be opened; but the Expurgatory Index indicates those only prohibited till they have undergone a purifi- cation. No book was to be allowed on any sub* ject, or in any language, which contained a single position, an ambiguous sentence, even a word, which, in the most distant sense, could be construed opposite to the doctrines of the supreme authority of this Council of Trent \ where it seems to have been enacted, that all men, literate and illiterate, prince and peasant., the Italian, the Spaniard, and the Netherlander, should take the mint-stamp of their thoughts from the Council of Trent, and millionsflpf souls * This Bull is dated March 24, 1564. 184 LICENSERS OF THE PRESS, be struck off at one blow, out of the same used mould. The Sages who compiled these Indexes, in- deed, long had reason to imagine that passive obedience was attached to the human cha- racter; and therefore they considered, that the. publications of their adversaries required no other notice, than a convenient insertion in their Indexes. But the Heretics diligently reprinted them with ample prefaces and useful annotations ; Dr. James of Oxford, republished an Index with due animadversions. The parties made an opposite use of them : while the Ca- tholic crossed himself at every title, the He- retic would purchase no book which had not been Indexed. One of their portions exposed a list of those authors whose heads were con- demned as well as their books ; it was a cata- logue of men of genius. The results of these Indexes were somewhat curious. As they were formed in different coun- tries, the opinions were often diametrically oppo- site to each other. The learned Arias Monta- nus, who was a chief Inquisitor in the Nether- lands, and concerned in the Antwerp Index, lived to see his own works placed in the Roman Index; while the Inquisitor of Naples was so displeased with the Spanish Index, that he per- sisted to assert, that it had never been printed LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. 185 at Madrid ! Men who began by insisting that all the world should not differ from their opi- nions, ended by not agreeing with themselves. A civil war raged among the Index-makers; and if one criminated, the other retaliated. If one discovered ten places to be expurgated, another found thirty, and a third inclined to place the whole work in the condemned list. The In- quisitors at length became so doubtful of their own opinions, that they sometimes expressed im their licence for printing, that " they tolerated the reading, after the book had been corrected by themselves, till such time as the work should be considered worthy of some farther correction." The expurgatory Indexes excited louder complaints than those which simply con- demned books; because the purgers and cas- trators, as they were termed, or, as Milton calls them, " the Executioners of Books," by omitting, or interpolating passages, made an author say, or unsay, w r nat the Inquisitors chose; and their editions, after the death of the authors, were compared to the erasures or forgeries in records; for the books which an author leaves behind him, with his last cor- rections, are like his last will and testament, and the public are the legitimate heirs of an author's opinions. The whole process of these expurgatory In- 186 LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. dexcs, that " takes through the entrails of many an old good author, with a violation >vorse than any could be offered to his tomb," as Milton says, must inevitably draw off the life-blood, and leave an author a mere spectre! A book in Spain and Portugal passes through six or seven Courts before it can be published, and is supposed to recommend itself by the informa- tion, that it is published with all the necessary privileges. Authors of genius have taken fright at the gripe of " the Master of the holy palace," or the lacerating scratches of the " Corrector general por su Magestad." At Madrid and Lis- bon, and even at Rome, this licensing of books has confined most of their authors to the body of the good fathers themselves. This system has prospered to admiration, in keeping them all down to a certain meanness of spirit, and hap- pily preserved stationary the childless stupidity through the nation, on which so much depends. Nani's History of Venice is allowed to be printed, because it contained nothing against princes. Princes then were either immaculate, or historians false. The history of Guicciardini is still scarred with the merciless wound of the Papistic Censor; for Le Clerc informs us, that- a curious account of the origin and increase of Papal power is wanting in the third and fourth book of his history. Velli's History of France LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. 187 would have been an admirable work, had it not been printed at Paris. When the insertions in the Index were found of no other use than to bring the peccant vo- lumes under the eyes of the curious, they em- ployed the secular arm in burning them in public places. The history of these literary conflagrations has often been traced by writers of opposite parties ; for the truth is, that both used them : zealots seem all cut out of one paste, whatever be their party. They had yet to learn, that burning was not confuting, and that these public fires were an advertisement by proclamation. The publisher of Erasmus's Colloquies intrigued to procure the burning of his book, which raised the sale to twenty-four thousand. A curious literary anecdote has reached us of the times of Henry VIII. Tonstall, Bishop of London, whose extreme moderation, of which he was accused at the time, preferred burning Books to that of Authors, which was then getting into practice ; to testify his ab- horrence of Tindal's principles, who had printed a translation of the New Testament, a sealed book for the multitude, he thought of purchasing all the copies of Tindal's translation, and anni- hilating them in the common flame. This occurred to him when passing through Antwerp 188 LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. in 1529, then a place of refuge for the Tindal- ists. He employed an English merchant there for this business, who happened to be a secret follower of TindaPs, and acquainted him with the Bishop's intention. Tindal was extremely glad to hear of the project, for he was desirous of printing a more correct edition of his ver- sion ; but the first impression still hung on his hands, and he was too poor to make a new one ; he furnished the English merchant with all his unsold copies, which the Bishop as eagerly bought, and had them all publicly burnt in Cheapside ; which the people not only de- clared was " a burning of the word of God," but it so inflamed the desire of reading that volume, that the second edition was sought after at any price ; and when one of the Tin- dalists, who was sent here to sell them, was pro- mised by the Lord Chancellor in a private ex- amination, that he should not suffer if he would reveal who encouraged and supported his party at Antwerp, the Tindalist immediately ac- cepted the offer, and assured the Lord Chan- cellor that the greatest encouragement they had was from Tonstall, the Bishop of London, who had bought up half the impression, and enabled them to produce a second ! In the reign of Henry VIII. we seem to have burnt books on both sides, in that age of un- LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. 189 settled opinions ; in Edward's the Catholic works were burnt ; and Mary had her pyramids of Protestant volumes ; in Elizabeth's, political pamphlets fed the flames ; and libels in the reign of James I. and his sons. Such was this black dwarf of literature, ge- nerated by Italian craft and Spanish Monkery, which, however, was fondly adopted as it crept in among all the nations of Europe. France cannot exactly fix on the sera of her Cen$eurs de Livres* ; and we ourselves, who gave it its death-blow, found the custom prevail without any authority from our statutes. Britain long groaned under the leaden stamp of an Impri- matur-^, and long witnessed men of genius either suffering the vigorous limbs of their pro- ductions to be shamefully mutilated in public, or voluntarily committing a literary suicide in their own manuscripts. Camden declared that he was not suffered to print all his Elizabeth ; but he sent those passages over to De Thou, the French historian, who printed his history faith- fully two years after Cam den's first edition, 1615. The same happened to Lord Herbert's History of Henry VIII. which has never been given. * Peignot's Diet, des Livres condamnes, vol. I. p. 266. t Oxford and Cambridge still grasp at this shadow of departed literary tyranny j they have their Licensers and their Imprimaturs. 190 LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. according to the original. In the Poems of Lord Brooke, we find a lacuna of the first twenty pages : it was a poem on Religion, cancelled by the order of Archbishop Laud. The great Sir Matthew Hale ordered that none of his works should be printed after his death ; as he appre- hended, that, in the licensing of them, some things might be struck out or altered, which he had observed, not without some indignation, had been done to those of a learned friend ; and he preferred bequeathing his uncorrupted MSS. to the Society of Lincoln's Inn, as their only guardians : hoping that they were a treasure worth keeping*. Contemporary authors have frequent allusions to such books, imperfect and mutilated at the caprice or the violence of a Licenser. The laws of England have never violated the freedom and the dignity of its Press. " There is no law to prevent the printing of any book in England, only a decree in the Star-chamber," said the learned Selden -f~. Proclamations were occasionally issued against Authors and Books ; and foreign works were, at times, prohibited. The Freedom of the Press was rather circum- vented, than openly attacked, in the reign of * Burnet's Life of Sir Matthew Hale, f Sir Thomas Crew's Collection of the proceedings of the Parliament, 1G2S, p. 71. LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. Elizabeth; who dreaded those Roman Catho- lics who were disputing her right to the Throne, and the religion of the State. Foreign publica- tions, or " books from any parts beyond the seas," were therefore prohibited*. The Press, however, was not free under the reign of a So- vereign, whose high-toned feelings, and the exi- gencies of the times, rendered her as despotic in deeds, as the pacific James was in words. Al- though the Press had then no restrictions, an Author was always at the mercy of the Govern- ment. Elizabeth too had a keen scent after what she called treason, which she allowed to take in a large compass. She condemned one Author (with his publisher) to have the hand cut off which wrote his book ; and she hanged another -f~. It was Sir Francis Bacon, or his * The consequence of this prohibition was, that our own men of learning were at a loss to know what arms the ene- mies of England, and of her religion, were fabricating against us. This was absolutely necessary, which appears by a curi- ous fact in Strype's Life of Whitgift : there we find a Licence for the importation of foreign Books, granted to an Italian Merchant, who was to collect abroad this sort of libels ; but he was to deposit them with the Archbishop and the Privy Council, &c. A few, no doubt, were obtained by the curious, Catholic or Protestant. Strype's Life of Whitgift, p. 268. f The Author, with his Publisher, who had their right hands cut off, was John Stubbs of Lincoln's Inn, a hot-headed Puritan, whose sister was married to Thomas Cartwright, the head of that faction. This execution took place upon a 192 LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. father, who once pleasantly turned aside the keen edge of her regal vindictiveness ; for when Elizabeth was inquiring, whether an Author, whose book she had given him to examine, was not guilty of treason ? he replied, " Not of trea- son, Madam ; but of robbery, if you please ; for he has taken all that is worth noticing in him, from Tacitus and Sallust." With the fear of Elizabeth before his eyes, Holinshed castrated the volumes of his History. When Giles Fletch- er, after his Russian embassy, congratulated scaffold, in the market-place at Westminster. After Stubbs had his right hand cut off, with his left he pulled off his hat, and cried, with a loud voice, " God save the Queen !" the multitude standing deeply silent, either out of horror at this new and unwonted kind of punishment, or else out of com- miseration of the man, whose character was unblemished. Camden, who was a witness to this transaction, has related it. The Author, and the Printer, and the Publisher, were condemned to this barbarous punishment, on an Act of Philip and Mary, against the Authors and Publishers of seditious wri- tings. Some Lawyers were honest enough to assert, that the sentence was erroneous, for that Act was only a temporary one, and died with Queen Mary ; but, of these honest Law- yers, one was sent to the Tower, and another was so sharply reprimanded, that he resigned his place as a Judge in the Common Pleas. Other Lawyers, as the Lord Chief Justice, who fawned on the Prerogative far more then than in the Stuart-reigns, asserted, that Queen Mary was a King ; and that an Act made by any King, unless repealed, must always exist, because the King of England never dies ! LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. 193 himself with having escaped with his head, and, on his return, wrote a book called " The Rus- sian Commonwealth,*' describing its tyranny, Elizabeth forbad the publishing of the work. It is curious to contrast this fact with another bet- ter known, under the reign of William III. ; then the Press had obtained its perfect freedom, and even the shadow of the Sovereign could not pass between an Author and his Work. When the Danish Ambassador complained to the King of the freedom which Lord Moles- worth had exercised on his master's govern- ment, in his Account of Denmark ; and hinted that, if a Dane had done the same with the King of England, he would, on complaint, have taken the Author's head off: "That I cannot do," replied the Sovereign of a free people, " but, if you please, I will tell him what you say, and he shall put it into the next edition of his book.'' What an immense interval between the feelings of Elizabeth and William ! and not # century betwixt them! James I. proclaimed Buchanan's history, and a political tract of his, at " the Mercat Cross ;" and every one was to bring his copy " to be perusit and purgit of the offensive and extraor- dinare materis," under a heavy penalty. Knox, whom Milton calls " the Reformer of a King- dom," was also curtailed ; and " the sense of VOL. III. O 1Q4- LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. that great man shall, to all posterity, be lost, for the tearfulness, or the presumptuous rashness of a perfunctory Licenser." The regular establishment of Licensers of the Press appeared under Charles I. It must be placed among the projects of Laud, and the King, I suspect, inclined to it ; for, by a pas- sage in a manuscript letter of the times, I find, that when Charles printed his speech on the dis- solution of the parliament, which excited such general discontent, some one printed Queen Elizabeth's last speech, to accompany Charles's. This was presented to the King by his own Printer, John Bill, not from a political motive, but merely by way of complaint, that another had printed, without leave or licence, that which, as the King's Printer, he asserted was his own copy-right. Charles does not appear to have been pleased with the gift, and observed, " You Printers print any thing." Three gentlemen of the bed-chamber, continues the writer, stand- ing by, commended Mr. Bill very much, and prayed him to come oftener with such rarities to the King, because they might do some good *. One of the consequences of this persecution of the Press was, the raising up of a new class * A letter from J. Mead to Sir M. Stuteville, July 19, 1628. Sloane MSS. 4178. LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. 195 of publishers, under the government of Charles I. those who became noted for, what was then called, " unlawful and unlicensed books." Sparkes, the publisher of Prynne's " Histrio- mastix," was of this class. I have already en- tered more particularly into this subject *. The Presbyterian party in Parliament, who thus found the Press closed on them, vehemently cried out for its freedom : and it was imagined, that when they had ascended into power, the odious office of a Licenser of the Press would have been abolished ; but these pretended friends of freedom, on the contrary, discovered themselves as tenderly alive as the old govern- ment, and maintained it with the extremest vi- gour. Such is the political history of mankind. The literary fate of Milton was remarkable ; his genius was castrated alike by the Monarchical and the Republican Government. The Royal Licenser expunged several passages from Mil- ton's history, in which Milton had painted the superstition, the pride, and the cunning of the Saxon Monks, which the sagacious Licenser applied to Charles II. and the Bishops ; but Milton had before suffered as merciless a muti- lation from his old friends the Republicans ; who suppressed a bold picture, taken from life, * See "Calamities of Authors," vol. II. p. 116. O 2 1Q6 LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. / which he had introduced into his History of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines. Milton gave the unlicensed passages to the Earl of Anglesea, a literary nobleman, the editor of \Vhitelocke"s Memorials ; and the cas- trated passage, which could not be licensed in 1670, was received with peculiar interest, when separately published in 1681 *. " If there be found in an author's book one sentence of a ventrous edge, uttered in .the height of zeal, and who knows whether it might not be the dictate of a divine spirit, yet not suiting every low decrepid humour of their own, they will not pardon him their dash." This office seems to have lain dormant a short time under Cromwell, from the scruples of a conscientious Licenser, who desired the Coun- cil of State in 1649, for reasons given, to be discharged of that employment. This Mabot, the Licenser, was evidently deeply touched by * It is a quarto tract, entitled, " Mr John Milton's Cha- racter of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines in 1641 ; omitted in his other works, and never before printed. and very seasonable for these times. 1681." It is inserted in the uncastrated edition of Milton's prose works in 1738. It is a retort on the Presbyterian Clement Walker's History of the Independents; and Warburton in his admirable cha- racters of the historians of this period, alluding to Clement Walker, says, " Milton was even with him in the fine and severe character he draws of the Presbyterian administration." LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. 197 Milton's address for " The Liberty of Unli* Censed Printing." The office was, however^ revived on the restoration of Charles II. k , and through the reign of James II. the abuses of Licensers were unquestionably not discouraged; their castrations of books reprinted, appear to have been very artful ; for in reprinting Gage's " Survey of the West Indies," which originally Consisted of twenty-two chapters, in 1648 and 1657, with a dedication to Sir Thomas Fairfax, in l677 after expunging the passages in ho- nour of Fairfax, the dedication is dexterously turned into a preface ; and the twenty-second chapter being obnoxious for containing par- ticulars of the artifices of " the papalins*," in converting the author, was entirely chopped away by the Licenser's hatchet. The castrated chapter, as usual, was preserved afterwards separately. Literary despotism at least is short* sighted in its views, for the expedients it em- ploys are certain of overturning themselves. On this subject we must not omit noticing one of the noblest and most eloquent prose com- positions of Milton ; the " Areopagitica ; a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing." 1 It is a work of love and inspiration, breathing the most enlarged spirit of literature ; sepa- rating at an awful distance from the multitude, that character " who was born to study and to * So Milton calls the Papists. 198 LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. love learning for itself, not for lucre, or any other end, but, perhaps, for that lasting fame and perpetuity of praise, which God and good men have consented shall be the reward of those whose PUBLISHED LABOURS advance the good of mankind." One part of this unparalleled effusion turns on " the quality which ought to be in every Licenser." It will suit our new Licensers of public opinion, a laborious corps well known, who constitute themselves without an act of Star-chamber. I shall pick out but a few sen- tences, that I may add some little facts, casu- ally preserved, of the ineptitude of such an officer. " He who is made judge to sit upon the birth or death of books, whether they may be wafted into this world or not, had need to be a uiau above the common measure, both studious, learned, and judicious ; there may be else no mean mistakes in his censure. If he be of such worth as behoves him, there cannot be a more tedious and unpleasing journey-work, a greater loss of time levied upon his head, than to be made the perpetual reader of unchosen books and pamph- lets. There is no book acceptable unless at certain seasons; but to be enjoyned the reading of that at all times, whereof three pages would not down at any time, is an imposition which I cannot believe how he that values time and his own studies, or is but of a LtCENSERS OF THE PRESS. 199 sensible nostril, should be able to endure. What advantages is it to be a man, over it is to be a boy at school, if we have only scaped the ferula to come under the fescue of an Imprimatur? if serious and elaborate writings, as if they were no more than the theme of a grammar lad under his pedagogue, must not be uttered without the cursory eyes of a tempo- rising and extemporising Licenser? When a man writes to the world, he summons up all his reason and deliberation to assist him; he searches, meditates, is industrious, and likely consults and confers with his judicious friends, as well as any that writ before him; if in this, the most consummate act of his fidelity and ripeness, no years, no industry, no former proof of his abilities, can bring him to that state of maturity^ as not to be still mistrusted and suspected, unless he* carry all his considerate diligence, all his midnight watchings, and expence of Palladian oil, to the hasty view of an unleasured Licenser, perhaps much his younger, perhaps far his inferior in judgment, per- haps one who never knew the labour of book- writing; and if he be not repulsed or slighted, must appear in print like a Punie with his guardian, and his censor's hand on the back of his title to be his bail and surety, that he is no idiot, or seducer ; it cannot be but a dis- honour and derogation to the author, to the book, to the privilege and dignity of learning." The reader may now follow the stream in the great original j I must, however, preserve one image of exquisite sarcasm. 200 LICENSERS OF THE PRESS* " Debtors and delinquents walk about without keeper ; but inoffensive books must not stir forth without a visible jailor in their title ; nor is it to the common people less than a reproach: for if we dare not trust them with an English pamphlet, what do we but censure them for a giddy, vitious, and ungrounded people, in such a sick and weak state of faith and discretion, as to be able to take nothing but thro' the glister-pipe of a Licenser ?" The ignorance and stupidity of these censors was often, indeed, as remarkable as their exter- minating spirit. The noble simile of Milton, of Satan with the rising-sun, in the first book of the Paradise Lost, had nearly occasioned the suppression of our national epic : it was sup- posed to contain a treasonable allusion. The tragedy of Arminius, by one Paterson, who was an amanuensis of the poet Thomson, was in- tended for representation, but the Dramatic Censor refused a licence : as Edward and Elea- nora was not permitted to be performed, being considered a party work, our sagacious State- critic imagined that Paterson 's own play was in the same perdicamerit, by being in the same, hand- writing ! The French have retained many curious facts of the singular ineptitude of these censors. Mallebranche said, that he could ne- ver obtain an approbation for his Research after Truth, because it was unintelligible to his cen- LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. sors ; and, at length, Mezeray, the historian, approved of it as a book of geometry. Latterly in France, it is said, that the greatest geniuses were obliged to submit their works to the criti- cal understanding of persons who had formerly been low dependants oh some man of quality, and who appear to have brought the same ser- vility of mind to the examination of works of genius. There is something, which, on the principle of incongruity and contrast, becomes exquisitely ludicrous, in observing the works of men of genius allowed to be printed, and even commended, by certain persons who have ne- ver printed their names but to their licences. One of these gentlemen suppressed a work, be- cause it contained principles of government, which appeared to him not conformable to the laws of Moses. Another said to a geometrician, " I cannot permit the publication of your book : you dare to say, that, between two given points, the shortest line is the straight line. Do you think me such an idiot as not to perceive your allusion ? If your work appeared, I should maTce enemies of all those who find, by crooked ways, an ea'sier admittance into court, than by a straight line. Consider their number !" At this moment the Censors in Austria appear sin- gularly inept ; for, not long ago, they con- demned as "heretical two books ; of which, 202 LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. one, entitled " Principes de la Trigonometric" the Censor would not allow to be printed, be- cause the Trinity, which he imagined to be included in Trigonometry, was not permitted to be discussed : and the other, on the " De- struction of Insects, he insisted, had a covert allusion to the Jesuits, who, he conceived, were thus malignantly designated *. These appear trifling minutiae ; and yet, like a hair in a watch, that utterly destroys its pro- gress, these little ineptiae obliged writers to have recourse to foreign presses ; compelled a Mon- tesquieu to write with concealed ambiguity, and many to sign a recantation of principles they could never change. The recantation of Sel- den, extorted from his hand on his suppressed " Historic of Tithes," humiliated a great mind; but it could not remove a particle from the masses of his learning, nor darken the luminous conviction of his reasonings ; nor did it dimi- nish the number of those who assented to his principles. Recantations usually prove the force of authority, rather than the change of opinion. When a Dr. Pocklington was condemned to make a recantation, he hit the etymology of the word, while he caught at the spirit he began thus : " If canto be to sing, recanto is to sing again." So that he rechaunted his offending * Peignot's Diet, ties Livres condamnes, vol. I. 256. LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. 203 opinions, by repeating them in his recantation. At the Revolution in England, licences for the Press ceased ; but its liberty did not com- mence till 1694, when every restraint was taken off, by the firm and decisive tone of the Com- mons. It was granted, says our philosophic Hume, " to the great displeasure of the King and his Ministers, who, seeing no where, in any government during present or past ages, any example of such unlimited freedom, doubted much of its salutary effects ; and, probably, thought, that no books or writings would ever so much improve the general understanding of men, as to render it safe to entrust them with an indulgence so easily abused." And the present moment verifies the prescient conjecture of the philosopher. Such is the li- centiousness of our Press, that some, not per- haps the most hostile to the cause of freedom, would not be averse to manacle authors once more with an IMPRIMATUR. It will not be denied, that Erasmus was a friend to the free- ' dom of the Press ; yet he was so shocked at the licentiousness of Luther's pen, that there was a time when he considered it as necessary to re- strain the liberty of the Press. It was then, as now. Erasmus had, indeed, been miserably ca- lumniated, and expected future libels. I am glad, however, to observe, that he afterwards, 204 LICENSERS OF THE PRESS, on a more impartial investigation, confessed, that such a remedy was much more dangerous than the disease. To restrain the liberty of the Press, can only be the interest of the individual, never that of the public ; one must be a patriot here : we must stand in the field with an un- shielded breast, since the safety of the people is the supreme law. There were, in Milton's days, some, who said of this institution, that, although the inventors were bad, the thing, for all that, might be good. " This may be so," replies the vehement advocate for " unlicensed printing." But as the wisest Commonwealths have existed through all ages, and have forborne to use it, he sees no necessity for the invention ; and held it as a dangerous and suspicious fruit from the tree which bore it. The ages of the wisest Common- wealths, Milton seems not to have recollected, were not diseased with the popular infection of publications, issuing at all hours, and propa- gated with a celerity, on which the Ancients could not calculate. The learned Dr. James, who has denounced the invention of the Indexes., confesses, however, that it was not unuseful when it restrained the publications of Atheistic and immoral works. But it is our lot, to bear with all the consequent evils, that we may pre- serve the good inviolate ; since the profound Hume has declared, that " THE LIBERTY OF LICENSERS OF THE PRESS. 205 BRITAIN is GONE FOR EVER, when such attempts shall succeed." A constitutional Sovereign will consider the freedom of the Press as the sole organ of the feelings of the people. Calumniators he will leave to the fate of calumny ; a fate similar to those, who, having overcharged their arms with the fellest intentions, find, that the death they intended for others, only in bursting, annihi- lates themselves. 206 OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES. OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES. THE "true" modern Critics on our elder Wri- ters are apt to thunder their anathemas on inno- cent heads ; for usually this sort of critics is little versed in the aeras of our literature, and the fashions of our wit : but popular criticism must submit to be guided by the literary his- torian. Kippis, and his opinion has been transcribed, condemns Sir Symonds D'Ewes for his admira- tion of two Anagrams, expressive of the feelings of the times. It required the valour of Falstaff to attack extinct Anagrams ; and our pretended English Bayle thought himself secure, in pro- riouncing all Anagrammatists to be wanting in judgment and taste: yet, if this mechanical critic did not know something of the state and nature of Anagrams in Sir Symonds's day, he was more deficient in that curiosity of literature, which his work required, than plain honest Sir Symonds in the taste and judgment of which he is so contemptuously deprived. The author who thus decides on the tastes of another age by those of his own day, and whose knowledge of the national literature does not extend be- yond his own century, is neither historian nor critic. The truth is, that ANAGRAMS were then OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES. 207 the fashionable amusements of the wittiest and the most learned. Kippis says, and others have repeated, " That Sir Symonds D'Ewes's judgment and taste, with regard to wit, were as contemptible as can well be imagined, will be evident from the following passage taken from his account of Carr Earl of Somerset, and his wife : ' This discontent gave many satirical wits occasion to vent themselves into stingie [stinging] libels, in which they spared neither the persons nor families of that unfortunate pair. There came also two Ana- grams to my hands, not unworthy to be owned by the rarest wits of this age* These were, one very descriptive of the lady ; and the other, of an incident in which this infamous woman was so deeply criminated. FRANCES HOWARD, THOMAS OVERBURIE, Car finds a Whore. O ! ! base Murther /" This sort of wit is not falser at least than the criticism which infers, that D'Ewes's "judg- ment and taste were as contemptible as can well be ;" for he might have admired these Ana- grams, which, however, are not of the nicest construction, and yet not have been so destitute of those qualities, of which he is so authorita- tively divested. Camden has a chapter in his " Remains" on ANAGRAMS, which he defines to be a dissolution 208 OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES. of a (person's) name into its letters, as its ele- ments; and a new connection into words is formed by their transposition, if possible with- out addition, subtraction, or change of the let- ters ; and the words must make a sentence applicable to the person named. The ANAGRAM is complimentary or satirical ; or may contain some allusion to an event, or describe some personal characteristic. Such difficult trifles it may be convenient at all times to discard ; but, if ingenious minds can convert an ANAGRAM into a means of exer- cising their ingenuity, the things themselves will necessarily become ingenious. An ANA- GRAM is confounded with the unmeaning ACROS- TIC ; but the Acrostic is a mechanical and childish arrangement of the letters of a name. I preserve a few specimens of what we may consider as Anagrams, either ingenious or fan- ciful : they have arisen from chance notes of a few met in the course of reading ; some more fortunate may, possibly, be produced. Camden has preserved one of Elizabeth. The mildness of her government, contrasted with her intre- pidity against the Iberians, is thus picked out of her title : she is made the English ewe-lamb, and the lioness of Spain. -Elisabetha Regina Anglice, ANGLIS AGNA, HIBERI^E LJSA. OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES. 209 The unhappy history of Mary Queen of Scots, the deprivation of her kingdom, and her violent death, were expressed in this Latin Ana- gram : Maria Steuarda Scotorum Regina. TRUSA vi REGNIS, MORTE AMARA CADO. and in Maria Stevarta. VEHITAS ARMATA. Another fanciful one on our James I. whose rightful claim to the British Monarchy, as the descendant of the visionary Arthur, could only have satisfied genealogists of romance-reading : Charles James Steuart, CLAIMS ARTHUR'S SEAT. Sylvester, the translator of Du Bartas, con- sidered himself fortunate when he found in the name of his Sovereign, the strongest bond of affection to his service. In the dedication he rings loyal changes on the name of his Liege, James Stuart : in which he finds a just master ! The Anagram on Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, on the restoration of Charles II. included an important date in our history : Georgius Monke, Dux de Aumarle, Ego Regem reduxi, Arf. Sa. MDCLVV. VOL. III. P 210 OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES. The art flourished in France, and Bayle no* tices that Daurat restored the practice, which existed from the days of Lycophron, who has left some beautiful Anagrams on record : as the two which Camden gives on Ptolomaeus Phila- delphus, King of Egypt, and his Queen Arsi- noe. The King's name he thus anagram- matised : HTOAEMAIOS. MADE OF HONEY. APSINOH, 'Egos loy. JUNO'S VIOLET. Learning, which revived under Francis the First in France, did not disdain to cultivate this small flower of wit. Le Laboureur, the histo- rian, was extremely pleased with the Anagram made on the mistress of Charles IX. of France. Her name was Marie Touchet. JE CHARME TOUT. which is historically just. In the assassin of Henry III. frere Jacques Clement, they discovered C 'EST I/ENFER aui M'A CREE'. OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES. A slight reversing of the letters in a name produced a happy compliment: as in Pernon was found Renoun ; and the celebrated Sir Thomas Wiat bore his own designation in his name, a Wit. Of the poet Waller the anagrammatist said, " His brows need not with Lawrel to be bound, Since in his name with Lawrel he is crowned." Randle Holmes, who has written a very ex- traordinary and encyclopedic volume on the science of Heraldry, was complimented by an expressive Anagram : Lo, Men's Herald! These Anagrams were often devoted to the personal attachments of love or friendship. A friend delighted to twine his name with the name of his friend. Crashawe the poet, had a literary intimate of the name of Car, who was his posthumous editor ; and, in prefixing some elegiac lines, discovers that his late friend Cra- shawe was Car ; for so the Anagram of Crashawe runs : He was Car. On this quaint discovery, he has indulged all the tenderness of his recol- lections : " Was Car then Crashawe, or was Crashawe Car ? Since both within one name combined are. P 2 OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES. Yes, Car 's Crashawe, he Car ; 'tis Love alone Which melts two hearts, of both composing one, So Crashawe 's still the same, &c. A happy Anagram on a person's name might have a moral effect on the feelings ; as there is reason to believe, that certain celebrated names have had some influence on the personal charac- ter. When one Martha Nicolson was found out to be Soon calm in heart, the Anagram, in be- coming familiar to her, might afford an oppor- tune admonition. But, perhaps, the happiest of Anagrams was produced on a singular person and occasion. Lady Eleanor Davies, the wife of the celebrated Sir John Davies, the poet, was a very extraordinary character. She was the Cassandra of her age; and several of her predic- tions warranted her to conceive she was a pro- phetess. As her prophecies in the troubled times of Charles I. were usually against the go- vernment, she was, at length, brought by them into the Court of High Commission. The pro- phetess was not a little mad, and fancied the spirit of Daniel was in her, from an Anagram she had formed of her name, ELEANOR DAVIES. REVEAL O DANIEL ! The Anagram had too much by an L, and too OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES. 213 litfole by an s ; yet David and reveal was in ii, and that was sufficient to satisfy her inspirations. The Court attempted to dispossess the spirit from the lady, while the Bishops were in vain reason- ing the point with her out of the Scriptures, to no purpose, she poising text against text: one of the Deans of the Arches, says Heylin, shot her thorough and thorough with an arrow borrowed from her own quiver : he took a pen, and at last hit upon this excellent Anagram : DAME ELEANOR DAVIES. , NEVER so MAD A LADIE ! The happy fancy put the solemn Court into laughter, and Cassandra into the utmost dejec- tion of spirit. Foiled by her own weapons, her spirit suddenly forsook her ; and either she never afterwards ventured on prophesying, or the Anagram perpetually reminded her hearers of her state and we hear no more of this pro- phetess. Thus much have I written in favour of Sir Symonds D'Ewes's keen relish of " a stingie Anagram j" and on the error of those literary historians, who do not enter into the spirit of the age they are writing on. Anagrams were, certainly, once the favourite amusements of men of learning and ingenuity ; OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES. and to have admired a couple, not insignificant ones, does not prove that " the judgment and taste of Sir Symonds D'Ewes were as contemp- tible as can well be imagined,'* as the modern critics assert ; who echo from authority which they have not always the capacity to com- prehend. We find in the Scribleriad, the ANAGRAMS appearing in thje land of false Wit : " But with still more disordered march advance, (Nor march it seem'd, but wild fantastic dance), The uncouth ANAGRAMS, distorted train, Shifting, in double mazes, o'er the plain." C.H. 161. The fine humour of Addison was never more playful than in his account of that Anagramma- tist, who, after shutting himself up for half a year, and having taken certain liberties with the name of his mistress, discovered, on presenting his Anagram, that he had mis-spelt her sirname ; by which he was so thunderstruck with his mis- fortune, that in a little time after, he lost his senses, which, indeed, had been very much im- paired by that continual application he had given to his Anagram. Even old Camden, who lived in the golden age of Anagrams, notices the difficllia quce pulchra, the charming diffi- OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES. 215 culty, " as a whetstone of patience to them that shall practise it. For some have been seen to bite their pen, scratch their heads, bend their brows, bite their lips, beat the board, tear their paper, when the names were fair for somewhat, and caught nothing therein." Such was the troubled happiness of an Anagrammatist ; yet, adds our venerable author, notwithstanding " the sour sort of critics, good Anagrams yield a delightful comfort, and pleasant motion in honest minds.'* When the mania of making ANAGRAMS pre- vailed, the little persons at Court flattered the great ones at inventing Anagrams for them ; and when the wit of the maker proved to be as barren as the letters of the name, they dropped or changed them, raving with the alphabet, and racking their wits. Among the manuscripts of the grave Sir Julius Caesar, one cannot but smile at a bundle emphatically endorsed " Trash." It is a collection of these Court- Anagrams ; a remarkable evidence of that ineptitude to which mere fashionable wit can carry the frivolous. In consigning this intellectual exercise to ob- livion, we must not confound the miserable and the happy together. A man of genius would not consume an hour in extracting even a for- tunate Anagram from a name, although on an extraordinary person or occasion its apposite- OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES. ness might be worth an Epigram. Much of its merit will arise from the association of ideas : a trifler can only produce what is trifling, but an elegant mind may delight by some elegant allu- sion, and a satirical one by its causticity. A similar contrivance, that of ECHO VERSES, may here be noticed. I have already given a specimen of these in a modern French writer, whose sportive pen has thrown out so much wit and humour in his ECHOES *. Nothing ought to be contemned, which, in the hands of a man of genius, is converted into a medium of his talents. No verses have been considered more contemptible than these, which, with all their kindred, have been anathematized by Butler, in his exquisite character of " a small poet'' in his " Remains," whom he describes as " tumb- ling through the hoop of an Anagram," and " all those gambols of wit." The philosophical critic will be more tolerant than was the ortho- dox church of wit in that day, which was, in- deed, alarmed at the fantastical heresies which were then prevailing. I say not a word in fa- vour of unmeaning ACROSTICS ; but ANAGRAMS and ECHO-VERSES, may be shewn capable of reflecting the ingenuity of their makers. 1 pre- serve a copy of ECHO-VERSES, which exhibit a * See Tol. II. p. 9. OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES. 217 curious picture of the state of our religious fa- natics, the Roundheads of Charles I. as an evi- dence, that in the hands of a wit, even such things can be converted into the instruments of wit. At the end of a comedy presented at the en- tertainment of the Prince, by the Scholars of Trinity College Cambridge, in March 1641, printed for James Calvin, 1642, the author, Francis Cole, holds in a print a paper in one hand, and a round hat in another. At the end of all is this humorous little poem. THE ECCHO! Now Eccho, on what 's Religion grounded ? Round-head ! Whose its professor most considerable ? Rabble ! How do these prove themselves to be the Godly? Oddly I But they in life are known to be the Holy. lie! Who are these Preachers, men or women-common ? Common ! Come they from any Universitie ? Citie! Do they not learning from their doctrine sever ? Ever ' Yet they pretend that they do edifie ; Ofie! What do you call it then, to fructify ? Ay. 218 OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES. What church have they, and what pulpits ? Pitta >' But now in chambers the Conventicle j Tickle! The godly sisters shrewdly are belied. Bellied f The godly number then will soon transcend. End! As for the Temples they with zeal embrace them. Rase them J What do they make of Bishop's hierarchy ? Archie ! * Are Crosses, Images, ornaments their scandall ? All! Nor will they leave us many ceremonies, Monies ! Must even Religion down for satisfaction. Faction. How stand they affected to the government civil ? Evil! But to the King they say they are most loyal. Lye alL Then God keep King and State from these same men. Amen! * An allusion probably to Archibald Armstrong, the Fool or privi- leged Jester of Charles I. usually called Archy ; and of whom many Arek things are on record. ORTHOGRAPHY OF PROPER NAMES. 219 ORTHOGRAPHY OF PROPER NAMES. WE are often perplexed to decide in what manner to write the names of some of our emi- nent men ; and they are even now written diversely. The truth is that our Orthography was so long unsettled among us, that it appears by various documents of the times which I have seen, that persons did not know how to write their own names, and most certainly have written them variously. I have sometimes suspected that estates may have been lost, and descents confounded, by such uncertain and disagreeing signatures of the same person. In a late suit respecting the Duchess of Norfolk's estate, one of the ancestors has his name printed Higden, while in the genealogy it appears HicMen. I think I have seen Ben Jonsoris name written by himself with an h ; and Dry den made use of an i. As late as in 1660 a Dr. Crovne was at such a loss to have his name pronounced rightly, that he tried six different ways of writing it, as appears by printed books ; Cron, Croon, Crova, Crone, Croone and Crovne ; all which appear under his own hand, as he wrote it differently at different periods of his life. In the subscription book of the Royal Society he writes W. Croone, but in his will at the Commons he signs W. Crovne. 220 ORTHOGRAPHY OF PBOPER NAMES. Ray the naturalist informs us in his letters, p. 72, that he first wrote his name Wray, but afterwards omitted the W. Dr. Whitloy, in books published by himself, writes hijs name sometimes Whiteby. And among the Harleian Manuscripts there is a large collection of letters, to which I have often referred ; written be- tween 1620 and 1630 by Joseph Mead-, and yet in all his printed letters, and his w r orks, even within that period, it is spelt Mede ; by w r hich signature we recognize the name of a learned man better known to us : it was long before I discovered the letter-writer to have been this scholar. I shall illustrate this subject by the history of the names of two of our most illustrious country- men, Shakespeare and Rawleigh. We all remember the day, when a violent literary controversy was opened, nor is yet closed, respecting the spelling of our poet's name. One great Editor persisted in his tri- umphant discovery, by printing SkaJtspere, while another would only partially yield, Shahspeare ; but all parties seemed willing to drop the usual and natural derivation of his name, in which we are surely warranted from a passage in a contemporary writer, who alludes by the name to a conceit of his own, of the martial spirit of the poet. The truth seeois to be then, that ORTHOGRAPHY OF PROPER NAMES. 221 personal names were written by the ear, since the persons themselves did not attend to the accurate writing of their own names, which they changed sometimes capriciously and some- times with anxious nicety. Our great poet's name appears Shakspere in the register of Strat- ford church ; it is Shackspeare in the body of his will, but that rery instrument is indorsed Mr. Shackspere* s Will. He himself has written his name in two different ways, Shakspeare and Shakspere. Mr. Colman says, the poet's name in his own county is pronounced with the first a short, which accounts for this mode of writing the name, and proves that the Orthoepy rather than the Orthography, of a person's name was most attended to ; a very questionable and un- certain standard. Another remarkable instance of this sort is the name of Sir Walter Rawley, of which I am myself uncertain how to write it ; although I have discovered a fact which proves how it should be pronounced. Rawley's name was spelt by himself and by his contemporaries in all sorts of ways. We find it Ralegh, Raleigh, Rawleigh, Raweley, and Rawly ; the last of which at least preserves its pronunciation. This great man when young, appears to have subscribed his name " Walter Raweley of the Middle Temple" to a copy of ORTHOGRAPHY OF PROPER NAMES. verses, printed among others prefixed to a sa* tire called the Steel-glass, in George Gascoigne's Works, 1576. Sir Walter was then a young student, and these verses both by their spirit and signature cannot fail to be his ; however this matter is doubtful, for the critics have not met elsewhere with his name thus written. The orthoepy of the name of this great man I can establish by the following fact. When Sir Walter was first introduced to James I. on the King's arrival in England, with whom, being united with an opposition party, he was no favourite ; the Scottish Monarch gave him this broad reception : "Rawly! Rawly! true enough, for I think of thee very Rawly, mon !" There is also an aenigma contained in a distich written by a lady of the times, which preserves the real pronunciation of the name of this extraor- dinary man. " What's bad for the stomach, and the word of dishonour, Is the name of the man, whom the King will not honour. Thus our ancient personal names were writ- ten down by the ear, at a period when we had no settled Orthography ; and even at a later period, not distant from our own times, some persons, it might be shewn, have been equally puzzled how to write their names ; witness the Thomsons, Thompsons j the Wartons, the Whartons, &c. NAMES OF OUR STREETS. NAMES OF OUR STREETS. LORD ORFORD has, in one of his letters, pro- jected a curious work to be written in a walk through the Streets of the Metropolis, similar to a French work entitled "Anecdotes des Rues de Paris." I know of no such work, and suspect the vivacious writer alluded in his mind to Saint- Foix's " Essais historiques sur Paris," a very entertaining work, of which the plan is that projected by his Lordship. We have had Pen- nant's " London," a work of this description j but, on the whole, this is a superficial perform- ance, as it regards Manners, Characters, and Events. That antiquary skimmed every thing, and grasped scarcely any thing : he wanted the patience of research, and the keen spirit which revivifies the past. Should Lord Orford's pro- ject be carried into execution, or rather, should Pennant be hereafter improved, it would be first necessary to obtain the original names, or their meanings, of our Streets, free from the disguise in which Time has concealed them. We shall otherwise lose many characters of Persons, and many remarkable Event*, of which their ori- ginal denominations, would remind the historian of our Streets. NAMES OF OUR STREETS. I have noted down a few of these modern misnomers, that this future historian may be excited to discover more. Mincing-lane was Mincheon-lane ; from tene- ments pertaining to the Mincheons, or Nuns of St. Helen's, in Bishopsgate Street. Gutter-lane, corrupted from Guthurun* s-lane ; from its first owner, a citizen of great trade. Blackivall-hall was Bakewell's-hall, from one Thomas Bakewell ; and originally called Ba- sing's-haugh, from a considerable family of that name, whose arms were once seen on the an- tient building, and whose name is still perpe- tuated in Basing' s-lane. Finch-lane was Finite s-lane, from a whole family of this name. Thread -needle -street was originally Thrid- needle-street, as Samuel Clarke dates from his study there. BUliter-lane is a corruption of Belzetter's- lane ; from the first builder or owner. Crutched- friars was Crowched or Crossed- friars. Lothbury was so named from the noise of Founders at their work ; and, as Howel pre- tends, this place was called Lothbury " dis- dainedly." Garlick-hill was Garlick-hithe, or hive, where Garlick was sold. NAMES OF OUR STREETS. 225 Gracechurch-street, sometimes called Qra- Gious-street, was originally Grass-street, from a herb-market there. Fenchurch-street, from a fenny or moorish ground by a river-side. Galley-key has preserved its name, but its origin may have been lost. Howel, in his " Londinopolis," says, " here dwelt strangers called Galley-men^ who brought wine, &c. in Galleys. Greek -street, says Pennant, " I am sorry to degrade into Grig -street :" whether it alludes to the little vivacious Eel, or to the merry character of its tenants, he does not resolve. Bridewell was St. Bridgets-well, from one dedicated to Saint Bride or Bridget. Marybone was St. Mary-on-the-Bourne, cor- rupted to Mary -bone; as Holborn was Old Bourne, or the Old River j Bourne being the ancient English for river: hence the Scottish Burn, Newington was New-town. Piccadilly was named after a hall called Piccadilla-hally a place of sale for Piccadil- li$s, or Turn-overs ; a part of the fashionable dress which appeared about 1614. It has pre- served its name uncorrupted ; for Barnabe Rich, in his " Honestie of the Age," has this VOL. in. Q NAMES OF OUR STREETS. passage on " the body-makers that do swarm through all parts, both of London and about London. The body is still pampered up in the very dropsy of excess. He that some fortie years sithens should have asked after a Picka- dilly, I wonder who would have understood him ; or could have told what a Piccadilly had been, either fish or flesh." This is sufficient to shew how the names of our Streets require either to be corrected, or explained, by their historian. The French, among the numerous projects for the moral im- provement of civilized man, had one, which, had it not been polluted by a horrid faction, might have been directed to a noble end. It was to name Streets after eminent men. This would at least preserve them from the corruption of the people, and exhibit a perpetual monument of moral feeling, and of glory, to the rising genius of every age. With what excitement and delight may the young contemplatist, who first studies at Gray's Inn, be reminded of Ve- rM/aw-buildings. The names of Streets will often be found connected with some singular event, or the character of some person. Not long ago, a Hebrew, who had a quarrel with his commu- nity, built a neighbourhood at Bethnal-green, and retained the subject of his anger in the NAMES OF OUR STREETS. 227 name the houses bear, of Pwrim-place. This may startle some theological Antiquary at a remote period, who may idly lose himself in abstruse conjectures on the sanctity of a name, derived from a well-known Hebrew Festival ; and, perhaps, colonize the spot with an ancient horde of Israelites. SECRET HISTORY OF SECRET HISTORY OF EDWARD VERB EARL OF OXFORD. IT is an odd circumstance in literary research, that I am enabled to correct a story which was written about 1680. The Aubrey papers, re- cently published with singular faithfulness, re- taining all their peculiarities even to the gross- est errors, were memoranda for the use of An- thony Wood's great work. But besides these, the Oxford Antiquary had a very extensive literary correspondence, and it is' known, that when speechless and dying, he evinced the fortitude to call in two friends to destroy a vast multitude of papers; about two bushels full were ordered for the fire, lighted for the occasion ; and, " as he was expiring he expressed both his know- ledge and approbation of what was done, by throwing out his hands." These two bushels full were not however all his papers; his more private ones he had ordered not to be opened for seven years. I suspect also, that a great number of letters were not burnt on this occasion, for I have discovered a manuscript crowdedly written which the writer filled (about 1720 to 1730) and which, he tells us, consists of " Ex- cerpts out of Anthony Wood's papers." They EDWARD VEREj EARL OF OXFORD. 229 contain many curious facts not to be found else- where, as far as I have hitherto discovered. These papers of Anthony Wood's probably still exist in. the Ashmolean Museum: should they have perished, in that case this solitary manuscript will be the sole record of many interesting par- ticulars not known to the public. By these I correct a little story, which may be found in the Aubrey papers, vol. III. 3$5. It is an account of one Nicholas Hill, a man of great learning, and in the high confidence of a remarkable and munificent Earl of Oxford, tra- velling with him abroad. I transcribe the printed Aubrey account. " In his travellswith his Lord (Iforget whether Italy or Germany, but I think the former,) a poor man begged him to give him a penny. 6 A penny !' said Mr. Hill, * What do'st say to ten pounds?' * Ah! ten pounds,' said the beggar; * that would make a man happy.' N. Hill gave him immediately ten pounds, and putt it downe upon account. Item, to a beggar ten pounds to make him happy?" The point of this story has been marred in the telling : it was drawn up from the following one, which must have been the original. This extract was made from a letter by Aubrey to A. Wood, dated July 15, 1689. " A poor man asked Mr. Hill, his Lordship's steward, once to give him six- 230 SECRET HISTORY OF pence, or a shilling, for an alms. * What dost say if I give thee ten pounds?' ' Ten pounds! that would make a man of me!' Hill gave it him, and put down in his account, * Item .^.10 for making a man? which his Lordship inquir- ing about for the oddness of the expression, not only allowed, but was pleased with it." This philosophical humourist was the steward of Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, in the reign of Elizabeth. This Peer was a person of ele- gant accomplishments j and Lord Orford, in his " Noble Authors," has given a higher character of him than perhaps he may deserve. He was. of the highest rank, in great favour with the Queen, and, to employ the style of the day, when all our fashions and our poetry were moulding themselves on the Italian model, he was the " Mirrour of Tuscanismo;" and in a word, this coxcombical Peer, after a seven years' residence in Florence, returned highly " Italianated." The ludicrous motive of this peregrination is given in the present manuscript account. Haughty of his descent and his alli- ance, irritable with effeminate delicacy and per- sonal vanity, a little circumstance, almost too minute to be recorded, inflicted such an injury on his pride, that in his mind it required years of absence from the Court of England, ere it could be forgotten. Once making a low obei- EDWARD VERB, EARL OF OXFORD. 231 sance to the Queen, before the whole Court, this stately and inflated Peer, suffered a mis- / chance, which has happened, it is said, on a like occasion it was " light as air !" But this ac- cident so sensibly hurt his mawkish delicacy, and so humbled his aristocratic dignity, that he could not raise his eyes on his Royal Mistress. He resolved from that day to " be a banished man," and resided for seven years in Italy, living in more grandeur, at Florence, than the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He spent in those years forty thousand pounds. On his return he presented the Queen with embroidered gloves and perfumes, then for the first time in- troduced into England, as Stowe has noticed. Part of the new presents seem to have some reference to the Earl's former mischance. The Queen received them graciously, and was even painted wearing those gloves: but my manu- script authority states, that the masculine sense of Elizabeth could not abstain from congratu- lating the noble coxcomb; perceiving, she said, that at length my Lord had forgot the mention- ing the little mischance of seven years ago ! The Peer's munificence abroad was indeed the talk of Europe; but the secret motive of this was as wicked as that of his travels had been ridiculous. This Earl of Oxford had married the daughter of Lord Burleigh, and, EDWARD VERB, EARL OF OXFORD. when this great Statesman would not consent to save the life of the Duke of Norfolk, the friend of this Earl, he swore to revenge him- self on the Countess, out of hatred to his father- in-law. Ke not only forsook her, but studied every means to waste that great inheritance which had descended to him from his ancestors. Secret history often startles us with unexpected discoveries: the personal affectations of this Earl induce him to quit a Court, where he stood in the highest favour, to domesticate himself abroad j and a family pique was the motive of that splendid prodigality whicK, at Florence, could throw into shade the Court of Tuscany itself. ANCIENT COOKERY AND COOKS. ANCIENT COOKERY AND COOKS. THE memorable grand dinner given by the classical Doctor in Peregrine Pickle, has indis- posed our tastes for the Cookery of the An- cients ; but, since it is often " the Cooks who spoil the broth," we cannot be sure that even " the black Lacedaemonian/' stirred by the spear of a Spartan, might hare a poignancy for him, which did not happen on that occasion. Their Cookery must have been superior to our humbler art, since they could find dainties in the tough membraneous parts of the matrices of a sow, and the flesh of young hawks, and a young ass. The elder Pliny tells, that one man had studied the art of fattening snails with paste so successfully, that the shells of some of his snails would contain many quarts*. The same monstrous taste fed up those prodigious goose's livers, a taste still prevailing in Italy. Swine were fattened with whey and figs ; and even fish in their ponds were fattened by such artificial means. Our prize oxen might astonish a Ro- man, as much as one of their crammed peacocks would ourselves. Gluttony produces monsters, and turns away from nature to feed on unwhole- * Nat. Hist. Lib. IX. 56. 234* ANCIENT COOKERY AND COOKS. some meats. The flesh of young foxes about autumn, when they fed on grapes, is praised by Galen ; and Hippocrates equals the flesh of puppies to that of birds. The humorous Dr. King, who has touched on this subject, suspects that many of the Greek dishes appear charming, from their mellifluous terminations, resounding with sijloios and toios*. The numerous descriptions of Ancient Cook- ery which Athenaeus has preserved, indicate an unrivalled dexterity and refinement : and the Ancients, indeed, appear to have raised the culinary art into a science, and dignified Cooks into professors. They had writers who exhausted their erudition and ingenuity in verse and prose ; while some were proud to immortalize their names, by the invention of poignant sauce, or a popular gateau, Apicius, a name immor- talized, and now synonymous with a Gorger, was the inventor of cakes called Apicians j and one Aristoxenes, after many unsuccessful com- binations, at length hit on a peculiar manner of seasoning hams, thence called Aristoxenians. The name of a late nobleman among ourselves is thus invoked every day. * See his Works, collected by Mr. Nichols, vol. 1. 19. I have no doubt, that Dr. King's description of the Virtuoso Bentivoglio, with his " bill of fare out of Athenseus," sug- gested to Smollet his celebrated scene. ANCIENT COOKERY AND COOKS. 235 Of these Erudites gulee, Archestratus, a cu- linary philosopher, composed an epic or didactic poem on good eating. His " Gastrology" be- came the creed of the epicures, and its pathos appears to have moved the very mouths of its readers. The idea has been recently success- fully imitated by a French poet. Archestratus thus opens his subject : " I write these precepts for immortal Greece, That round a table delicately spread, Or three, or four, may sit in choice repast, Or five at most. Who otherwise shall dine Are like a troup marauding for their prey. The elegant Romans declared, that a repast should not consist of less in number than the Graces, nor of more than the Muses. They had, however, a quaint proverb, which Alexandri ab Alexandro has preserved, not favourable even to so large a dinner-party as nine ; it turns on a play of words : " Septem convivium, Novem eonvicium facere *." An elegant Roman, meeting a friend, re- gretted he could not invite him to dinner, " because my number is complete.'* * Genial. Dierum, II. 283, Lug. 1673. The writer has collected in this chapter a variety of curious particulars on this subject. 23 ANCIENT COOKERY AND COOKS. When Archestratus acknowledges that some things are for the winter, and some for the summer, he consoles himself, that though we cannot have them at the same time, yet, at least, we may talk about them at all times. This great genius seems to have travelled over land and seas, that he might critically exa- mine the things themselves, and improve, with new discoveries, the table-luxuries. He indi- cates the places for peculiar edibles, and exqui- site potables ; and promulgates his precepts with the zeal of a sublime Legislator, who is dictating a code designed to ameliorate the imperfect state of society. A Philosopher worthy to bear the title of Cook, or a Cook worthy to be a Philosopher, according to the numerous curious passages scattered in Athenaeus, was an extraordinary genius, endowed not merely with a natural aptitude, but with all acquired accomplishments. The philosophy, or the metaphysics, of Cookery appears in the following passage : " Know then, the COOK, a dinner that's bespoke Aspiring to prepare, with prescient zeal Should know the tastes and humours of the guests j For if he drudges thro' the common work, Thoughtless of manner, careless what the place And seasons claim, and what the favouring hour ANCIENT COOKERY AND COOKS. Auspicious to his genius may present, Why, standing midst the multitude of men, Call we this plodding Fricasseer a COOK ? Oh differing far ! and one is not the other ! We call indeed the General of an army Him who is charged to lead it to the war ; But the true General is the man whose mind, Mastering events, anticipates, combines ; Else is he but a Leader to his men ! With our profession thus : the first who comes May with a humble toil, or slice, or chop, Prepare the ingredients, and around the fire Obsequious, him I call a Fricasseer ! But ah ! the Cook a brighter glory crowns ! Well skill'd is he to know the place, the hour, Him who invites, and him who is invited, What fish in season makes the market rich, A choice delicious rarity ! I know That all, we always find ; but always all, Charms not the palate, critically fine. Archestratus, in culinary lore Deep for his time, in this more learned age Is wanting ; and full oft he surely talks Of what he never ate. Suspect his page, Nor load thy genius with a barren precept. Look not in books for what some idle sage So idly raved ; for Cookery is an art Comporting ill with rhetoric ; 'tis an art 238 ANCIENT COOKERY AND COOKS. Still changing, and of momentary triumph ! Know on thyself thy genius must depend. All books of Cookery, all helps of art, All critic learning, all commenting notes, Are vain, if void of genius thou wouldst cook !'* The culinary sage thus spoke ; his friend Demands, " Where is the ideal Cook thou paint'st ?" " Lo, I the man !" the savouring sage replied. uando ita majores voluerunt, utece : narra." Hor. Lib. II. Sat. ?; * Thiers, TrailS dcs Jews, p. 449. ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNAX1A. The Roman Saturnalia, thus transplanted into Christian Churches, had for its singular principle, that of inferiors, whimsically, and in mockery, personifying their superiors with a licensed licentiousness. This forms a distinct characteristic from those other popular customs and pastimes, which the learned have also traced to the Roman, and even more ancient nations. Our present inquiry is, to illustrate that prone- ness in man, of delighting to reverse the order of society, and ridiculing its decencies. Here we had our Boy-bishop, a legitimate descendant of this family of Foolery. On St. Nicholas's-day, a saint who was the patron of children, the Boy-bishop with his mitra parva and a long crosier, attended by his school-mates as his diminutive Prebendaries, assumed the title and state of a Bishop. The Child-bishop preached a sermon, and afterwards, accompa- nied by his attendants, went about singing and collecting his pence : to such theatrical proces- sions in collegiate bodies, Warton attributes the custom, still existing at Eton, of going ad mon- tem. But this was a tame mummery, compared with the grossness elsewhere allowed in bur- lesquing religious ceremonies. The English, more particularly after the Reformation, seem not to have polluted the churches with such abuses. The relish for the Saturnalia was not, 262 ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA. however, less lively here than on the Continent ; but it took a more innocent direction, and was allowed to turn. itself into civil life : and since the people would be gratified by mock dignities, and claimed the privilege of ridiculing their masters, it was allowed them by our Kings and Nobles ; and a troop of grotesque characters^ frolicsome great men, delighting in merry mis- chief, are recorded in our domestic annals. The most learned Selden, with parsimonious phrase and copious sense, has thus compressed the result of an historical dissertation : he de- rives our ancient Christmas sports, at once from the true, though remote, source. " Christmas succeeds the Saturnalia ; the same time, the same number of holy-days ; then the master waited upon the servant like the Lord oj Mis- rule* " Such is the title of a facetious poten- tate, who, in this notice of Selden's, is not fur- ther indicated, for this personage was familiar in his day, but of whom the accounts are so scattered, that his offices and his glory are now equally obscure. The race of this nobility *0f drollery, and this legitimate king of all hoaxing and quizzing, like mightier dynasties, has ceased to exist. In England our festivities at Christmas ap- 'flf * Selden's Table-talk. ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA. 263 pear to have been more entertaining than in other countries. We were once famed for merry Christmases and their pies : witness the Italian proverb, " Ha piu di fare che iforni di Nat ale in Inghilterra. : v " He has more business than English ovens at Christinas." Wherever the King resided, there was created for that merry season a Christmas Prince, usually called " the Lord of Misrule ;" and whom the Scotch once knew under the significant title of "the Abbot of Unreason" His office, according to Stowe, was " to make the rarest pastimes to delight the beholder." Every nobleman, and every great family, surrendered their houses, during Christ- mas, to the Christmas Prince, who found rivals or usurpers in almost every parish ; and more particularly, as we shall see, among the grave students in our Inns of Court. .rjjThe Italian Polydore Vergil, who, residing here, had clearer notions of this facetious per- sonage, considered the Christmas Prince as pe- culiar to our country. Without venturing to ascend in his genealogy, we must admit his, inelationship to that ancient family of Foolery we have noticed, whether he be legitimate or not. If this whimsical personage, at his creation, was ^besige^ti to regulate " Misrule," Jiis lordship, invested with plenary power, came himself, at length, to delighfr 4 -tocMiirach in his " merry ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA. disports." Stubbes, a morose Puritan in the reign of Elizabeth, denominates him " a grand captaine of mischiefe," and has preserved a mi- nute description of all his wild doings in the country; but, as Strutt has anticipated me in this amusing extract, I must refer to his " Sports and Pastimes of the People of England," p. 254. I prepare another scene of unparalleled Saturna- lia, among the grave judges and Serjeants of the law, where the Lord of Misrule is viewed amidst his frolicsome courtiers, with the humour of hunting the fox and the cat with ten couple of hounds round their great Hall, among the other merry disports of those joyous days when sages could play like boys. For those who can throw themselves back amidst the grotesque humours and clumsy pastimes of our ancestors, who, without what we think to be taste, had whim and merri- ment there has been fortunately preserved a curious history of the manner in which " A grand Christmass" was kept at our Inns of Court, by the grave and learned Dugdale, in his " Origines Juridiciales :" it is a complete fes- tival of Foolery, acted by the students and law- officers. They held for. that season every thing in mockery: they had a mock parliament, a prince of Sophie or folly, an honourable order of Pegasus, a high constable, marshal, a master of ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA. 265 the game, a ranger of the forest, lieutenant of the Tower, which was a temporary prison for Christmas delinquents, all the paraphernalia of a court, burlesqued by these youthful sages before the boyish judges. The characters personified were in the cos- tume of their assumed offices. On Christmas day, the constable-marshal, accoutred with a complete gilded " harness/' shewed that every thing was to be chivalrously ordered ; while the lieutenant of the Tower, in " a fair white armour," attended with his troop of halberdiers; and the Tower was then placed beneath the fire. After this opening followed the costly feasting ; and then nothing less than a hunt with a pack of hounds in their Hall! The master of the game dressed in green velvet, and the ranger of the forest in green sattin, bear- ing a green bow and arrows, each with a hunt- ing-hern about their necks, blowing together three blasts of venery (or hunting), they pace round about the fire three times. The master of the game kneels to be admitted into the ser- vice of the high-constable. A huntsman comes into the Hall, with nine or ten couple of hounds, bearing on the end of his staff a purse-net, which holds a fox and a cat: these were let loose and hunted by the hounds, and killed beneath the fire. 266 ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA. These extraordinary amusements took place after their repast; for these grotesque Saturnalia appeared after that graver part of their grand Christmas. Supper ended, the constable-marshal presented himself with drums playing, mounted on a stage borne by four men, and carried round, at length he cries out " a lord! a lord !" Sec. and then calls his mock court every one by name. Sir Francis Flatterer, of Fowlshurt. Sir Randall Rackabite, of Rascall hall, in the county of Rake-hell. Sir Morgan Mumchance, of Much Monkery, in the county of Mad Mopery. Sir Bartholomew Bald-breech of Buttock- bury, in the county of Break-neck*. They had also their mock arraignments. The king's-serjeant, after dinner or supper, " oratour- * A rare quarto tract seems to give an authentic narra- tive of one of these grand Christmas-keepings, exhibiting all their whimsicality and burlesque humour : It is entitled " Gesta Grayorum ; or the History of the high and mighty Prince Henry, Prince of Purpoole, arch-duke of Stapulia and Bernardia (Staple's and Bernard's Inns), Duke of High and Nether-Holborn, Marquess of St. Giles and Tottenham, Count Palatine of Bloomsbury and Clerkenwell, Great Lord of the Cantons of Islington, Kentish town, &c. Knight arid Sovereign of the most heroical order of the Helmet, who reigned and died A. D>. 1594." It is full of burlesque speeches and addresses. As it was printed in 1688, 1 suppose ' it was from somp manuscript of the times 5 the preface gives no information. ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA. 2(>7 like,'* complained that the constable -marshal had suffered great disorders to prevail ; the com- plaint was answered by the common-serjeant, who was to shew his talent at defending the cause. The king's-serjeant replies; they re- join, &c. : till one at length is committed to the Tower, for being found most deficient. If any offender contrived to escape from the lieute- nant of the Tower into the Buttery, and brought into the Hall a manchet (or small loaf) upon the point of a knife, he was pardoned; for the Buttery in this jovial season was con- sidered as a sanctuary. Then began the Revels. Blount derives this term from the French reveil- /er, to awake from sleep. These were sports of dancing, masking, comedies, &c. (for some were called solemn revels) ; used in great houses, and were so denominated because they were per- formed by night; and these various pastimes were regulated by a Master of the revels. Amidst "the grand Christmass," a personage df no small importance was " the Lord of Mis- rule." His lordship was abroad early in the morning, and if he lacked any of his officers, he entered their chambers, to drag forth the loi- terers; but after breakfast his lordship's power erided, and it was in suspense till night, when his personal presence was paramount, or as Dugdale expresses it, " and then his power is most potent." 26S ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA. Such once were the pastimes of the whole learned Bench ; and when once it happened that the under-barristers did not dance on Candle- mas-day, according to the ancient order of the Society, when the Judges were present, the whole Bar was offended, and at Lincoln' s-Inn were by decimation put out of commons, for example-sake; and if the same omission were repeated, they were to be fined or disbarred ; for these dancings were thought necessary, " as much conducing to the making of gentlemen more fit for their books at other times." I can- not furnish a detailed notice of these pastimes; for Dugdale, whenever he indicates them, spares his gravity from recording the evanescent fro- lics, by a provoking 8$c. 8$c. a huge overgrown smith's hammer. This being complained of to my Lord Mayor, he said he would be with them about eleven o'clock on -Sunday night last; willing that all that Ward should attend him with their halberds, and that ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA. himself, besides those that came out of his house, should bring the Watches along with him. His lordship, thus attended, advanced^as high as Ram-alley in martial equipage; whenforth came the Lord of Misrule, attended by his gal- lants, out of the Temple-gate, with their swords, all armed in cuerpo. A halberdier bad the Lord of Misrule come to my Lord Mayor. He an- swered, No ! let the Lord Mayor come to me ! At length they agreed to meet half-way ; and, as the interview of rival Princes is never with- out danger of some ill accident, so it happened in this : for first, Mr. Palmer being quarrelled with, for not pulling off' his hat to my Lord Mayor, and giving cross answers, the halberds began to fly about his ears, and he and his com- pany to brandish their swords. At last being beaten to the ground, and the Lord of Misrule sore wounded, they were fain to yield to the longer and more numerous weapon. My Lord Mayor taking Mr. Palmer by the shoulder, led him to the Counter, and thrust him in at the prison-gate with a kind of indignation ; and so, notwithstanding his hurts, he was forced to lie among the common prisoners for two nights. On Tuesday, the King's attorney became a suitor to my Lord Mayor for their liberty; which his lordship granted, upon condition they should repay the gathered rents, and do repara- ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA. tions upon broken doors. Thus the game ended. Mr. Attorney- General, being of the same house, fetched them in his own coach, and car- ried them to the Court, where the King himself reconciled my Lord Mayor and them together with joining of hands ; the gentlemen of the Temple being this Shrove-tide to present a Mask to their Majesties, over and besides the King's own great Mask, to be performed at the Ban- quetting-house by an hundred actors." Thus it appears, that although the grave ci- tizens did well and rightly protect themselves, yet, by the Attorney-General taking the Lord of Misrule in his coach, and the King giving his royal interference between the parties, that they considered that this Lord of Foolery had certain ancient privileges ; and it was, perhaps, a doubt with them, whether this interference of the Lord Mayor might not be considered as severe and unseasonable. It is probable, how- ever, that the arm of the civil power brought all future Lords of Misrule to their senses. Perhaps this dynasty in the Empire of Foolery closed with this Christmas Prince, who fell a victim to the arbitrary taxation he levied. I find after this, orders made for the Inner Tem- ple, for " preventing of that general scandal and obloquie, which the House hath heretofore incurred in time of Christmas:" and that " there ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA. QJ3 be not any going abroad out of the gates of this House, by any Lord or others, to break open any house, or take any thing in the name of rent or a distress." These " Lords of Misrule, 5 ' and their mock court and royalty, appear to have been only ex- tinguished with the English sovereignty itself, at the time of our Republican government. Edmund Gayton tells a story, to shew the strange impressions of strong fancies : as his work is of great rarity, I shall transcribe the story in his own- words, both to give a conclu- sion to this inquiry, and a specimen of his style of narrating this sort of little things. " A gen- , tleman importuned, at a fire-night in the public hall, to accept the high and mighty place of a mock-Emperor, which was duely conferred upon him by seven mock-Electors. At the same time, with much wit and ceremony, the Emperor as- cended his chair of state, which was placed in the highest table in the hall ; and at his instal- ment all pomp, reverence, and signs of homage, were used by the whole company ; insomuch that our Emperor, having a spice of self-conceit before, was soundly peppered now, for he was instantly metamorphosed into the stateliest, gravest, and commanding soul, that ever eye beheld. Taylor acting Arbaces, or Swanston VOL. III. T %74? ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA* D'Amboise, were shadows to him : his pace, his look, his voice, and all his garb, was altered. Alexander upon his elephant, nay, upon the castle upon that elephant, was not so high ; and so close did this imaginary honour stick to his fancy, that for many years he could not shake off this one night's assumed deportments, until the times came that drove all monarchical ima- ginations out, not only of his head, but every one's." * This mock " Emperor" was unques- tionably one of these " Lords of Misrule," or " a Christmass Prince." The " Public-hall" was that of the Temple, or Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn. And it was natural enough, when the levelling equality of our theatrical and practical Commonwealths were come into vogue, that even the shadowy regality of mockery startled them, by reviving the recollections of ceremo- nies and titles, which some might incline, as they afterwards did, seriously to restore. The " Prince of Christmass" did not, however, at- tend the Restoration of Charles II. The Saturnalian spirit has not been extinct even in our days. The Mayor of Garrat, with the mock addresses and burlesque election, was an image of such satirical exhibitions of their * Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixote, by Edmund Gayton, Esq. folio, 1654, p. 24. ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA. 275 superiors, so delightful to the people. France, at the close of Louis XIV's reign, first saw her imaginary " Regiment de la Calotte," which was the terror of the sinners of the day, and the blockheads of all times. This regiment of the Scull-caps originated in an officer and a wit, who, suffering from violent head-aches, was re- commended the use of a scull-cap of lead : and his companions, as great wits, formed them- selves into a regiment, to be composed only of persons distinguished by their extravagancies in words or in deeds. They elected a General, they had their arms blazoned, and struck me- dals, and issued " brevets," and " lettres pa- tentes," and granted pensions to certain indi- viduals, stating their claims to be enrolled in the regiment for some egregious extravagance. The wits versified these Army commissions ; and the idlers, like pioneers, were busied in clearing their way, by picking up the omissions and com- missions of the most noted characters. Those who were favoured with its " brevets," intrigued against the regiment ; but, at length, they found it easier to wear their " Calotte," and say nothing. This society began in raillery and playfulness, seasoned by a spice of malice. It produced a great number of ingenious and satirical little things. That the privileges of the " Calotte" were afterwards, abused and ca- T 2 76 ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA. lumny too often took the place of poignant satire, is the history of human nature, as well as of " the Calotins." * Another society in the same spirit has been discovered in one of the Lordships of Poland. It was called " The Republic of Baboonery." The society was a burlesque model of their own government : a King, Chancellor, Counsellors, Archbishops, Judges, &c. If a member would engross the conversation, he was immediately appointed Orator of the republic. If he spoke with impropriety, the absurdity of his conver- sation usually led to some suitable office created to perpetuate his folly. A man talking too much of dogs, would be made a master of the buck-hounds : or vaunting his courage, perhaps a field-marshal ; and, if bigoted on disputable matters and speculative opinions in religion, he was considered to be nothing less than an inqui- sitor. This was a pleasant and useful project to reform the manners of the Polish youth ; and one of the Polish Kings good-humouredly ob- served, that he considered himself " as much * Their " Brevets," &c. are collected in a little volume, " Recueil des pieces du Regiment de la Calotte ; a Paris chez Jaques Colombat, Imprimeur privilegie" du Regiment. L'an de 1'Ere Calotine 772C." From the date we infer, that the true Calotine is as old as the Creation. ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA. 277 King of Baboonery as King of Poland." We have had in our own country, some attempts at similar Saturnalia; but their success has been so equivocal, that they hardly afford materials for our domestic history. 278 RELIGLUIA: RELIQ,UL'E GETHINIANJE. In the South aile of Westminster Abbey, stands a monument erected to the memory of w LADY GRACE GETHIN. A statue of her lady- ship represents her kneeling, holding a book in her right hand. This accomplished lady was considered as a prodigy in her day, and appears to have created a feeling of enthusiasm for her character. She died early, having scarcely at- tained to womanhood, although a wife ; for " all this goodness and all this excellence was bounded within the compass of twenty years." But it is her book commemorated in marble, and not her character, which may have merited the marble that chronicles it, which has ex- cited my curiosity and my suspicion. After her death a number of loose papers were found in her hand-writing, which could not fail to attract, and, perhaps, astonish their readers, with the maturity of thought and the vast ca- pacity which had composed them. These re- liques of genius were collected together, metho- dized under heads, and appeared with the title of " Reliquiae Gethinianas ; or some remains of Grace Lady Gethin, lately deceased : being a collection of choice discourses, pleasant apo- RELIQ.UL'E GETHINIAN^E. thegms, and witty sentences ; written by her for the most part by way of Essay and at spare hours ; published by her nearest relations to preserve her memory. Second Edition, 1700." Of this book, considering that comparatively it is modern, and the copy before me is called a second edition, it is somewhat extraordinary that it seems always to have been a very scarce one. Even Ballard in his Memoirs of Learned Ladies, 1750, mentions that these re- mains are " very difficult to be procured ;" and Sir William Musgrave in a manuscript note observed, that " this book was very scarce." It bears now a high price. A hint is given in the preface that the work was chiefly printed for the use of her friends; yet, by a second edition, we must infer that the public at large were so. There is a poem prefixed with the signature W. C. which no one will hesitate to pronounce is by Congreve ; he wrote indeed another poem to celebrate this astonishing book, for, con- sidered as the production of a young lady, it is a miraculous, rather than a human, production. The last lines in this poem we might expect from Congreve in his happier vein, who con- trives to preserve his panegyric amidst that caustic wit, with which he keenly touched the ^80 KUUQ.UI.&: GETHINIAN/E. "A POEM IN PRAISE OF THE AUTHOR, I that hate books, such as come daily out By public licence to the reading rout, A due religion yet observe to this j And here assert, if any thing 's amiss, It can be only the compiler's fault, Who has ill-drest the charming Author's thought That was all right : her beauteous looks were join' d To a no less admired excelling mind. But oh ! this glory of trail Nature 's dead, As I shall be that write, and you that read *. Once to be out of fashion^ 1 11 conclude With something that may tend to public good : I wish that Piety, for which in Heaven The Fair is placed to the lawn sleeves were given ; Her Justice' to the knot of men whose care From the raised millions is to take their share. W. C." The book claimed all the praise the finest genius could bestow on it. But let us hear the editor. He tells us, that " It is a vast dis- advantage to authors to publish their private undigested thoughts., and Jirst notions hastily set down, and designed only as materials for a future structure." And he adds, " That the work * Was this thought, that strikes with a sudden effect, in the mind of Hawkesworth, when he so pathetically con- cluded his last paper ? RELIftUI/E GETHINIAN^E. 281 may not come short of that great and just ex- pectation which the world had of her while she was alive, and still has of every thing that is the genuine product of her pen, they must be told that this was written for the most part in limte, were her first conceptions and overflow- ings of her luxuriant fancy, noted with her pencil at spare hours, or as she was dressing, as her Hoios^yov only ; and set down just as they came into her mind." All this will serve as a memorable example of the cant and mendacity of an Editor ! and that total absence of critical judgment that could assert such matured reflection, in so ex- quisite a style, could ever have been " first conceptions, just as they came into the mind of Lady Gethin, as she was dressing." The truth is, that Lady Gethin may have had little concern in all these " Reliquiae Ge- thiniange." They indeed might well have de- lighted their readers j but those who had read Lord Bacon's Essays, and other writers, such as Owen Feltham, and Osborne, from whom these relicks are chiefly extracted, might have wondered that Bacon should have been so little known to the families of the Nortons and the Gethins, to whom her ladyship was allied ; to Congreve and to the editor; and still more particularly to subsequent compilers, as Ballard 382 RELIftULE GETHINIAN^. in his Memoirs, and lately the Rev. Mark Noble in his Continuation of Granger; who both, with all the innocence of criticism, give specimens of these " Relicks," without a suspicion that they were transcribing literally from Lord Bacon's Essays ! Unquestionably Lady Gethin herself intended no imposture ; her mind had all the delicacy of her sex ; she noted much from the book she seems most to have delighted in ; and nothing less than the most undiscerning friends could have imagined that every thing written by the hand of this young lady was her " first conceptions;" and apologize for some of the finest thoughts, in the most vigorous style which the English language can produce. It seems, however, to prove that Lord Bacon's Essays were not much read at the time this volume appeared. The marble book in Westminster Abbey must, therefore, lose most of its leaves; but it was necessary to discover the origin of this mi- ra.culous production of a young lady. What is Lady Gethin's, or what is not her's, in this miscellany of plagiarisms, it is not material to examine. Those passages in which her ladyship speaks in her own person, probably are of ori- ginal growth ' of this kind many evince great vivacity of thought, drawn from actual obser- vation on what was passing around her ; but even among these are intermixed the splendid passages of Bacon and other writers. RELiaiJI/E GETHINIAN^. 283 I shall not crowd my pages with specimens of a very suspicious author. One of her subjects has attracted my attention; for it shews the corrupt manners of persons of fashion who lived between 1680 and 1700. To find a mind so pure and elevated as Lady Gethin's unques- tionably was, discussing whether it were most advisable to have for a husband a general lover, or one attached to a mistress, and deciding by the force of reasoning in favour of the dissipated man, (for a woman it seems had only the alter- native) evinces a public depravation of morals. These manners were the wretched remains of the Court of Charles II. when Wycherley, Dry- den, and Congreve seem to have written with much less invention, in their indecent plots and language, than is imagined. " I know not which is worse, to be wife to a man that is continually changing his loves t or to an husband that hath but one mistress whom he loves with a con- stant passion. And if you keep some measure of civi- lity to her, he will at least esteem you ; but he of the roving humour plays an hundred frolics that divert the town and perplex his wife. She often meets with her husband's mistress, and is at a loss how to carry her- self towards her. 'Tis true the constant man is ready to sacrifice, every moment, his whole family to his love; he hates any pj,ace where she is not, is prodigal in what concerns his love, covetous in other respects; 284 RELIQUIAE expects you should be blind to all he doth, and though you can't but see, yet must not dare to complain. And tho' both he who lends his heart to whosoever pleases it, and he that gives it entirely to one, do both of them require the exactesf devoir from their wives, yet I know not if it be not better to be wife to an un- constant husband (provided he be something discreet) than to a constant fellow who is always perplexing her with his inconstant humour. For the unconstant lovers are commonly the best humoured ; but let them be what 'they will, women ought not to be unfaithful for Virtue's sake and their own, nor to offend by example. It is one of the best bonds of charity and obedience in the wife, if she think her husband wise, which she will never do if she find him jealous. "Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses." The last degrading sentence is found in some writer, whose name I cannot recollect. Lady Gethin, with an intellect so superior to that of the women of that day, had no conception of the dignity of the female character, the claims of virtue, and the duties of honour. A wife was only to know obedience and silence : however, she hints that such a husband should not be jealous! There was a sweetness in revenge reserved for some of these married women. ROBINSON CRUSOE. ROBINSON CRUSOE. ROBINSON CRUSOE, the favourite of the learned and the unlearned, of the youth and the adult; the book that was to constitute the library of Rousseau's EmiHus owes its secret charm to its being a new representation of hu- man nature, yet drawn from an existing state ; this picture of self-education, self-inquiry, self- happiness, is scarcely a fiction, although it in- cludes all the magic of romance; and is not a mere narrative of truth, since it displays all the forcible genius of one of the most original minds our literature can boast. The history of the work is therefore interesting. It was treated in the author's time as a mere idle romance, for the philosophy was not discovered in the story; after his death it was considered to have been pillaged from the papers of Alexander Selkirk, confided to the author, and the honour, as well as the genius of De Foe, were alike questioned. The entire history of this work of genius may now be traced, from the first hints to the mature state, to which only the genius of De Foe could have wrought it. Captain Burney, in the fourth volume of his "Voyages and Discoveries to the South Sea," has arranged the evidence in the clearest manner, and finally settled a 286 ROBINSON CRUSOE. point hitherto obscure and uncertain. I have little to add ; but as the origin of this universal book is not likely to be sought for in Captain Burney's valuable volumes of Voyages, here it may not be out of its place. The adventures of Selkirk are well known; he was found on the desert island of Juan Fer- nandez, where he had formerly been left, by Woodes Rogers and Edward Cooke, who in 1712 published their voyages, and told the extraordinary history of Crusoe's prototype, with all those curious and minute particulars which Selkirk had freely communicated to them. This narrative of itself is extremely interesting; and has been given entire by Captain Burney; it may also be found in the Biographia Bri- tannica. In this artless narrative we may discover more than the embryo of Robinson Crusoe. The first appearance of Selkirk, " a man clothed in goats skins, who looked more wild than the first owners of them." The two huts he had built, the one to dress his victuals, the other to sleep in; his con- trivance to get fire by rubbing two pieces of pi- mento wood together; his distress for the want of bread and salt till he came to relish his meat without either ; his wearing out his shoes, till he grew so accustomed to be without them, that he could not for a long time afterwards, on ROBINSON CRUSOE. 287 his return home, use .them without inconve- nience ; his bedstead of his own contriving, and his bed of goat-skins ; when his gunpowder failed, his teaching himself by continual exer- cise to run as swiftly as the goats ; his falling from a precipice in catching hold of a goat, stunned and bruised, till coming to his senses he found the goat dead under himj his taming kids to divert himself by dancing with them and his cats; his converting a nail into a needle; his, sewing his goat-skins with little thongs of the same ; and when his knife was worn to the back, contriving to make blades out of some iron hoops. His solacing himself in this solitude by singing psalms, and preserving a social feeling in his fervent prayers. And the habitation which Selkirk had raised, to reach which, they followed him, " with difficulty climbing up and creeping down many rocks, till they came at last to a pleasant spot of ground, full of grass and of trees, where stood his two huts, and his numerous tame goats shewed his solitary re- treat ;" and, finally, his indifference to return to a world, from which his feelings had been so perfectly weaned. Such were the first rude materials of a new situation in human nature : an European in a primeval state, with the habits or mind of a savage. ROBINSON CRUSOE. The year after this account was published, Selkirk and his adventures attracted the notice of Steele; who was not likely to pass unobserved a man and a story so strange and so new. In his paper of " The Englishman," Dec. IJ13, he communicates further particulars of Selkirk. Steele became acquainted with him ; he says, that " he could discern that he had been much separated from company, from his aspect and gesture. There was a strong but cheerful seri- ousness in his looks, and a certain disregard to the ordinary things about him, as if he had been sunk in thought. The man frequently be- wailed his return to the world, which could not, he said, with -all its enjoyments, restore him to the tranquillity of his solitude." Steele adds another curious change in this wild man, which occurred some time after he had seen him. " Though I had frequently conversed with him, after a few months absence, he met me in the street, and though he spoke to me, I could not recollect that I had seen him. Familiar con- verse in this town had taken off the loneliness of his aspect, and quite altered the air of his face/' De Foe could not fail of being struck by these interesting particulars of the character of Selkirk; but probably it was another observa 1 - tion of Steele, which threw the germ of Robin- son Crusoe into the mind of De Foe. " It was ROBINSON CRUSOE. 289 matter of great curiosity to hear him, as he was a man of sense, give an account of the diffe- rent revolutions in his own mind in that long solitude" The work of De Foe, however, was no sud- den ebullition ; long engaged in political war- fare, condemned to suffer imprisonment, and at length struck by a fit of apoplexy, this un* happy and unprosperous man of genius on his recovery was reduced to a comparative state of solitude. To his injured feelings and lonely contemplations, Selkirk in his desert Isle, and Steele's vivifying hint, often occurred; and to all these we perhaps owe the instructive and delightful tale, which shews man what he can do for himself, and what the fortitude of Piety does for man. Even the personage of Friday is not a mere coinage of his brain: a Mosquito- Indian described by Dampier was the proto- type. Robinson Crusoe was not given to the world till 1719 ; seven years after the publica- tion of Selkirk's adventures. Selkirk could have no claims on De Foe; for he had only supplied the man of genius with that which lies open to all ; and which no one had, or perhaps could have converted into the wonderful story we possess but De Foe himself. Had De Foe not written Robinson Crusoe, the name and story of Selkirk had been passed over like VOL. III. U 290 ROBINSON CRUSOE. others of the same sort; yet Selkirk has the merit of having detailed his own history, in a manner so interesting, as to have attracted the notice of Steele, and to have inspired the genius of De Foe. After this, the originality of Robinson Crusoe will no longer be suspected; and the idle tale which Dr. Beattie has repeated of Selkirk hav- ing supplied the materials of his story to DeFoe, from which our author borrowed his work, and published for his own profit, will be finally put to rest. This is due to the injured honour and the genius of De Foe. f!T It lohn . CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT DRAMAS. 291 CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT DRAMAS. f LITERATURE, and the Arts connected with it, in this free country, have been involved with its political state, and have sometimes flourished or declined with the fortunes, or been made in- strumental to the purposes, of the parties which had espoused them. Thus in our dramatic his- tory, in the early period of the Reformation, the Catholics were secretly working on the Stage; and long afterwards, the Royalist Party under Charles I. possessed it till they provoked their own ruin. The Catholics, in their expir- ing cause, took refuge in the Theatre, and dis- guised the invectives they would have vented in Sermons, under the more popular forms of the Drama, where they freely ridiculed the chiefs of the new Religion, as they termed the Reformation, and " the new Gospellers," or those who quoted their Testament as an autho- rity for their proceedings. Fuller notices this circumstance. " The popish priests, though un- seen, stood behind the hangings, or lurked in the tyring-house *." These found supporters among the elder part of their auditors, who * Eccl. Hist. Book VII. 390. U 2 CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT DRAMAS. were tenacious of their old habits and doe- trines ; and opposers in the younger, who ea- gerly adopted the term Reformation in its full sense. This conduct of the Catholics called down a Proclamation from Edward VI. when we find that the Government was most anxious, that these pieces should not be performed in " the English Tongue ;" so that we may infer that the Government Was not alarmed at treason in Latin. This Proclamation states, " that a great number of those that be common Players of En- teiiudes or Plays, as well within the City of London as elsewhere, who for the most part play such interludes as contain matter tending to Sedition, &c. &c. whereupon are grown, and daily are like to grow much division, tumult, and uproars in this realm. The King charges his subjects that they should not openly or secretly play in the English tongue, any kind of Interlude, Play, Dialogue, or other matter set forth in form of Play, on pain of imprison- ment, &c." This was however but a temporary prohibi- tion; it cleared the Stage for a time of these Catholic dramatists ; but reformed Enterludes, as they were termed, were afterwards permitted. These Catholic dramas would afford some speculations to historical inquirers: we know CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT DRAMAS. they made very free strictures on the first heads of the Reformation, on Cromwell, Cranmer, and their party ; but they were probably over- come in their struggles with their prevailing rivals. Some may yet possibly lurk in their ma- nuscript state. We have, printed, one of those Moralities, or moral plays, or allegorical dra- matic pieces, which succeeded the Mysteries in the reign of Henry VIII, entitled " Every Man :" in the character of that hero, the writer not unaptly designates Human Nature herself*. This comes from the Catholic school, to recall the auditors back to the forsaken ceremonies of that Church; but it levels no strokes of personal satire on the Reformers. Percy observed that from the solemnity of the .subjects, the sum- moning of man out of the world by death, and by the gravity of its conduct, not without some attempts however rude to excite terror and pity, this Morality may not improperly be re- ferred to the class of Tragedy. Such ancient simplicity is not worthless to the poetical anti- quary : although the mere modern reader would soon feel weary at such inartificial productions, yet the invention which may be discovered in these rude pieces, would be sublime, warm with the colourings of a Gray or a Collins. * It has been preserved by Hawkins in his " Origin of the English Drama/^vol. I. 294 CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT DRAMAS. On the side of the Reformed we have no defi- ciency of attacks on the superstitions and idola- tries of the Romish Church; and Satan, and his old son Hypocrisy, are very busy at their in- trigues with another hero called " Lusty Juven- tus," and the seductive mistress they introduce him to, " Abominable Living" : this was printed in the reign of Edward VI. It is odd enough to see quoted in a dramatic performance chapter and verse, as formally as if a sermon was to be performed. There we find such rude learning as this: " Read the V. to the Galathians, and there you shall see That the flesh rebelleth against the spirit" or in homely rhymes like these, (l I will shew you what St. Paul doth declare In his epistle to the Hebrews, and the X chapter." In point of historical information respecting the pending struggle between the Catholics and the " new Gospellers," we do not glean much secret history from these pieces : yet they curi- ously exemplify that regular progress in the his- tory of man, which has shewn itself in the more recent revolutions of Europe: the old people still clinging, from habit and affection, to what is obsolete, and the younger ardent in establish- CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT DRAMAS. 295 ing what is new ; while the balance of human happiness trembles between both. Thus " Lusty Juventus" conveys to us in his rude simplicity the feeling of that day. Satan, in lamenting the downfal of superstition, de- clares that " The old people would believe still in my laws, But the younger sort lead them a contrary way They will live as the Scripture teacheth them." Hypocrisy, r when informed by his old master the Devil, of the change that " Lusty Juventus 1 ' has undergone, expresses his surprise ; attach- ing that usual odium of meanness on the early Reformers, in the spirit that the Hollanders were nick -named at their first Revolution by their lords the Spaniards, "Les Gueux," or the Beggars. " What, is Juventus become so tame To be a new Gospeller?" But in his address to the young Reformer, who asserts that he is not bound to obey his parents but " in all things honest and lawful," Hypo- crisy thus vents his feeling : " Lawfal, quoth ha ? Ah ! fool ! fool ! Wilt thou set men to school CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT DRAMAS, When they be old ? 1 may say to you secretly, The world was never merry Since children were so bold ; Now every boy will be a teacher, The father a fool, the child a preacher j This is pretty gear ! The foul presumption of youth Will shortly turn to great ruth, I fear, I fear, I fear !" In these rude and simple lines, there is some- thing like the artifice of composition : the repe- tition of words in the first and the last lines, was doubtless intended as a grace in the poetry. That the ear of the poet was not unmusical, amidst the inartificial construction of his verse, will appear in this curious catalogue of holy things, which Hypocrisy has drawn up, not with- out humour, in asserting the services he had performed for the Devil. " And I brought up such superstition Under the name of holiness and That deceived almost all. As holy cardinals, holy popes, Holy vestments, holy copes, Holy hermits, and friars, Holy priests, holy bishops, CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT DRAMAS. 297 Holy monks, holy abbots, Yea, and all obstinate liars. Holy pardons, holy beads, Holy saints, holy images, With holy holy blood. Holy stocks, holystones, Holy clouts, holy bones, Yea, and holy holy wood. Holy skins, holy bulls, Holy rochets, and cowls, Holy crutches and staves, Holy hoods, holy caps, Holy mitres, holy hats, And good holy holy knaves. Holy days, holy fastings, Holy twitching, holy tastings, Holy visions and sights, Holy wax, holy lead, Holy water, holy bread, To drive away the spirits. Holy fire, holy palme, Holy oil, holy cream, And holy ashes altfo'j Holy broaches, holy rings, Holy kneeling, holy censings, And a hundred trim-trams mo. 98 CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT DRAMAS. Holy crosses, holy bells, Holy reliques, holy jouels, Of mine own invention ; Holy candles, holy tapers, Holy parchments, holy papers j Had not you a holy son ? THE THEATRE DURING ITS SUPPRESSION. 299 THE HISTORY OF THE THEATRE DURING ITS SUPPRESSION. , : rc : Sq 'tfo^ .'"?Jr- >fjfTfK-C;X; ,:;., A PERIOD in our dramatic annals has been passed over during the progress of the Civil Wars, which indeed was one of silence, but not of repose in the Theatre. It lasted beyond the death of Charles I. when the Fine Arts seemed also to have suffered with the Monarch. The Theatre, for the first time in any nation, was abolished by a public ordinance, and the Actors, and consequently all that family of genius who by their labours or their tastes are connected with the Drama, were reduced to silence. The Actors were forcibly dispersed, and became even some of the most persecuted objects of the new Government. It may excite our curiosity to trace the hidden footsteps of this numerous fraternity of genius. Hypocrisy and Fanaticism had, at length, tri- umphed over Wit and Satire. A single blow could not, however, annihilate those never-dying powers ; nor is suppression always extinction. Reduced to a state which did not allow of uniting in a body, still their habits and their affections could not desert them : Actors would attempt to resume their functions, and the 800 THE HISTORY OF THE THEATRE genius of the authors and the tastes of the people would occasionally break out, though scattered and concealed. Mr. GIFFORD has observed, in his introduction to MASSINGER, on the noble contrast between our Actors at that time, with those of revolu- tionary France, when, to use his own emphatic expression, " One wretched Actor only de- serted his Sovereign ; while of the vast multi- tude fostered by the nobility and the royal family of France, not one individual adhered to their cause : all rushed madly forward to plunder and assassinate their benefactors." The contrast is striking, but the result must be traced to a different principle ; for the cases are not parallel as they appear. The French did not occupy the same ground as our Actors. Here, the Fanatics shut up the Theatre, and extirpated the art and the artists ; there, the Fanatics enthusiastically converted the Theatre into an instrument of their own revolution, and the French Actors therefore found an increased national patronage. It was natural enough that Actors would not desert a flourishing profession. " The plunder and assassinations," indeed, were quite peculiar to themselves as Frenchmen, not as Actors. The destruction of the Theatre here was the result of an ancient quarrel between the Puri- DURING ITS SUPPRESSION. 301 tanic party and the whole Corps dramatique. In this little history of Plays and Players, like more important history, we perceive how all human events form but a series of conse- quences, linked together ; and we must go back to the reign of Elizabeth to comprehend an event which occurred in that of Charles 1st. It has been perhaps peculiar to this land of contending opinions, and of our happy and unhappy liberty, that a gloomy sect was early formed, who, drawing, as they fancied, the prin- ciples of their conduct from the literal precepts of the Gospel, formed those views of human nature which were more practicable in a desert than a city, and for a monastic- order rather than a polished people. These were our PURI- TANS, who at first, perhaps from utter sim- plicity, among other extravagant reforms, fan- cied that of the extinction of the Theatre. Numerous works from that time fatigued their wn pens and their readers' heads, by literal interpretations of the Scriptures, which were applied to our. Drama, though written ere our Drama existed ; voluminous quotations from the Fathers, who had only witnessed farcical in- terludes and licentious pantomimes : they even quoted classical authority to prove that " a Stage-player" was considered infamous by the Romans ; among whom, however, Roscius, the admiration of Rome, received the princely re- THE HISTORY OF THE THEATRE numeration of a thousand denarii per diem ; and the tragedian ^Esorus bequeathed about ^.150,000 to his son*: remunerations, which shew the high regard in which the great Actors were held among the Roman people. A series of writers might be collected of these Anti-dramatists. The licentiousness of our Comedies had too often indeed presented a fair occasion for their attacks ; and they at length succeeded in purifying the Stage : we owe them this good, but we owe little gratitude to that blind zeal which was desirous of extin- guishing the Theatre, wanting the taste to feel that it was also a popular School of Morality ; that the Stage is a supplement to the Pulpit ; where Virtue, according to Plato's sublime idea, moves our love and affections when made visible to the eye. Of this class among the earliest writers, was STEPHEN GOSSON, who in 1579 published " The School of Abuse, or a pleasant Invective against Poets, Players, Jesters, and such-like Catterpillars." Yet this Gosson de- dicated his work to Sir Philip Sidney, a great lover of Plays, and one who has vindicated their morality, in his " Defence of Poesy." The same Puritanic spirit soon reached our Uni- versities ; for when a Dr. GAGER had a Play performed at Christ-church, Dr. REYNOLDS of Queen's College, terrified at the Satanic no- * Macrobius, Saturn, lib. III. 1. 14. DURING ITS SUPPRESSION. 303 velty, published " The Ouerthrow of Stage- plays, 1593 ;" a tedious invective, foaming at the mouth of its text with quotations and au- thorities ; for that was the age when authority was stronger than opinion, and the slightest could awe the readers. REYNOLDS takes great pains to prove that a Stage-play is infamous, by the opinions of Antiquity ; that a Theatre cor- rupts morals, by those of the Fathers ; but the most reasonable point of attack is " the sin of boys wearing the dress and affecting the airs of women." This was too long a flagrant evil in the Theatrical ceconomy. To us there appears something so repulsive in the exhibition, of boys, or men, personating female characters, that one cannot conceive how they could ever have been tolerated as a substitute for the spontaneous grace, the melting voice, and the soothing looks of a female, without undergoing so unnatural a metamorphosis that it was quite impossible to give the tenderness of a woman to any per- fection of feeling, in a personating male ; and to this cause may we not attribute that the female characters have never been made a chief person- age among our elderpoets, as they would assuredly have done, but they knew the male Actor could not have sufficiently affected the audience ? A poet who lived in Charles IPs day, and who has written a Prologue to Othello, to introduce 304 THE HISTORY OF THE THEATRE the Jirst Actress on our stage, has humorously touched on this gross absurdity. " Our Women are defective, and so sized, You'd think they were some of the guard disguised; For to speak truth, men act, that are between Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen ; With brows so large, and nerve so uncompliant, When you call Desdemona enter Giant. Yet at the time absurd custom had so pre- vailed over sense, that TOM NASH, in his Pierce Pennilesse, commends our stage for not having, as they had abroad, Women-actors, or " Cour- tezans" as he calls them ; and even so late as in 1650, when Women were first introduced on our Stage, endless are the apologies for the indecorum of this novel usage ! Such are the difficulties which occur even in forcing bad customs to return to Nature ; and so long it takes to infuse into the multitude a little com- mon sense! It is even probable that this happy revolution originated from mere necessity, rather than from choice ; for the boys who had been trained to act female characters before the Rebel- lion, during the present suspension of the The- atre, had grown too masculine to resume their tender office at the Restoration j and as the same poet observes, " Doubting we should never play agen, We have played all our Women into Men." DURING ITS SUPPRESSION. 305 so that the introduction of Women was the mere result of necessity: hence all these apologies for the most natural ornament of the stage. This volume of REYNOLDS seems to have been the shadow and precursor of one of the most substantial of literary monsters, in the tremen- dous " Histriomastix, or the Player's Scourge," of PRYNNE, in 1633. In that volume, of more than a thousand closely-printed quarto pages, all that was ever written against Plays and Players, perhaps, may be found : what followed, could only have been transcripts from a genius who could raise at once the Mountain and the Mouse. Yet COLLIER, so late as in 1698, re- newed the attack still more vigorously, and with final success ; although he left room for Arthur Bedford a few years afterwards, in his ct Evil and Danger of Stage-prays :" in which extraor- dinary work, he produced " seven thousand in- stances, taken out of plays of the present cen- tury ;" and a catalogue of ' c fourteen hundred texts of scriptures, ridiculed by the Stage." This religious anti-dramatist must have been more deeply read in the Drama than even its most fervent lovers. His piety pursued too deeply the study of such impious productions ; and such labours were, probably, not without more amusement than he ought to have found in them. VOL. in. x S0() THE HISTORY OF THE THEATRE This Stage-persecution, which began in the reign of ELIZABETH, had been necessarily re- sented by the theatrical people, and the Fanatics were really objects too tempting for the traders in wit arid satire to pass by. They had made themselves very marketable ; and the Puritans, changing their character with the times, from ELIZABETH to CHARLES I. were often the Tar- tuff es of the Stage. But when they became the government itself, in 1642, all the Theatres were suppressed, because " Stage-plaies do not suit with seasons of humiliation ; but fasting and praying have been found very effectual." This was but a mild cant, and the suppression, at first, was only to be temporary. But as they gained strength, the hypocrite, who had at first only struck a gentle blow at the Theatre, with redoubled vengeance buried it in its own ruins. ALEXANDER BROME, in his Verses on RICHARD BROME'S comedies, discloses the secret motive ; " 'Tis worth our note, Bishops and Players, both suffer'd in one vote : And reason good, for they had cause to fear them ; One did suppress their schisms, and t' other JEER THEM. Bishops were guiltiest, for they swell'd with riches ; T' other had nought but verses, songs, and speeches, And by their ruin, the State did no more But rob the Spittle, and unrag the Poor." DURING ITS SUPPRESSION. 307 They poured forth the long-suppressed bitter- ness of their souls six years afterwards, in their ordinance of 1648, for " the suppression of all Stage-plaies, and for the taking down all their boxes, stages, and seats whatsoever, that so there might be no more plays acted." *' Those proud parroting players" are described as ** a sort of superbious ruffians ; and, because some- times the asses are clothed in lion's skins, the dolts imagine themselves somebody, and walke in as great state as Caesar." This ordinance against " boxes, stages, and seats," was, with- out a metaphor, a war of extermination. They passed their ploughshare over the land of the Drama, and sowed it with their salt ; and the spirit which raged in the governing powers ap- peared in the deed of one of their followers. When an Actor had honourably surrendered himself in battle to this spurious " Saint,'' he exclaimed, " Cursed be he who doth the work of the Lord negligently, 1 ' and shot his prisoner because he was an Actor ! "We find some account of the dispersed actors in that curious morsel of " Historia Histrionica," preserved in the twelfth volume of Dodsley's Old Plays ; full of the traditional history of the Theatre, which the writer appears to have gleaned from the reminiscences of the old Ca- valier, his father. 308 THE HISTORY OF THE THEATRE The actors were " Malignants" to a man, if we except that " wretched actor," as Mr. Gif- ford distinguishes him, who was, however, only such for his politics : and he pleaded hard for his treason, that he really was a Presbyterian, although an Actor. Of these men, who had lived in the sunshine of a Court, and amidst taste and criticism, many perished in the field, from their affection for their royal master. Some sought humble occupations ; and not a few, who, by habits long indulged, and their own turn of mind, had hands too delicate to put to work, attempted often to entertain secret audiences, and were often dragged to prison. These disturbed audiences were too unplea- sant to afford much employment to the actors. Francis Kirkman, the author and bookseller, tells us they were often seized on by the sol- diers, and stripped and fined at their pleasure. A curious circumstance occurred in the economy of these strolling theatricals; these seizures of- ten deprived them of their wardrobe; and among the stage directions of the time, may be found among the exits and the entrances, these ; En- ter the Red-Coat Exit Hat and Cloak, which were, no doubt, considered not as the least pre- cious parts of the whole living company: they were at length obliged to substitute painted cloth for the splendid habits of the Drama. DURING ITS SUPPRESSION. 309 At this epoch, a great comic genius, ROBERT Cox, invented a peculiar sort of dramatic ex- hibition, suited to the necessities of the time, short pieces which he mixed with other amuse- ments, that these might disguise the acting. It was under the pretence of rope-dancing, that he filled the Red-bull playhouse, which was a large one, with such a confluence that as many went back for want of room as entered. The dramatic contrivance consisted of a combination of the richest comic scenes into one piece, from Shakespeare, Marston, Shirley, &c. concealed under some taking title; and these pieces of plays were called " Humours" or " Drolleries." These have been collected by MARSH, and re- printed by KIRKMAN, as put together by Cox, for the use of theatrical booths at the Fairs** I * The title of this collection is " THE WITS, or Sport upon Sport, in select pieces of Drollery, digested into scenes by way of Dialogue. Together with variety of Humours of several nations, fitted for the pleasure and content of all persons, either in Court, City, Country, or Camp. The like never be- fore published, printed for H. Marsh, 1662." again printed for F. Kirkman, 1672. To Kirkman's edition is prefixed a cu. rious print representing the inside of a Bartholomew-fair theatre. Several characters are introduced. In the middle of the Stage, a clown with a fool's cap peeps out of the cur- tain with a label from his mouth, " Tu quoque," which per- haps was a cant expression used by clowns or fools. Then a changeling, a simpleton, a French dancing master, Clause the beggar, Sir John Falstaff and hostess. Our notion of Fal- 310 THE HISTORY OF THE THEATRE The argument prefixed to each piece serves as its plot ; and drawn as most are from some of our Dramas, these " Drolleries" may still be read with great amusement, and offer, seen all together, an extraordinary specimen of our Na- tional humour. The price this collection ob- tains among book-collectors, is excessive. In " The bouncing Knight or the Robbers robbed" we recognize our old friend Falstaff, and his celebrated adventure; " The Equal Match" is made out of " Rule a Wife and have a Wife ;" and thus most. There are, however, some ori- ginal pieces by Cox himself which were the most popular favourites; being characters cre- ated by himself for himself, from ancient farces : such were, " The Humours of John Swabber, Simpleton the Smith," &c. These remind us of the Extempore Comedy and the pantomimical characters of Italy, invented by actors of genius. This Cox was the delight of the City, the Country, and the Universities: assisted by the greatest actors of the time, ex- pelled from the Theatre, it was he who still preserved alive, as it were by stealth, the sup- pressed spirit of the Drama. That he merited staff by this print seems very different from that of our an- cestors : their Falstaff is no extravaganza of obesity, and he seems not to have required, to be Falstaff, so much " stuf- fing" as our's does. DURING ITS SUPPRESSION. 311 the distinctive epithet of " the incomparable Robert Cox," as KIRKMAN calls him, we can only judge by the memorial of our mimetic genius, which will be best given in Kirkman's words. " As meanly as you may now think of these DROLLS* they were then acted by the best comedians ; and I may say, by some that then exceeded all now living; the incomparable RO- BERT Cox, who was not only the principal actor, but also the contriver and author of most of these farces. How have I heard him cried up for his John Swabber^ and Simpleton the Smith; in which he being to appear with a large piece of bread and butter, I have frequently known several of the female spectators and auditors to long for it; and once that well-known natural Jack Adams of Clerkenwell) seeing him with bread and butter on the Stage, and knowing him, cried out 'Cuz! Cuz! give . me some 1* to the great pleasure of the audience. And. so naturally did he act the Smiths part, that being at a fair in a country town, and that farce being presented, the only Master-Smith of the town came to him, saying, ' Well, .although your father speaks so ill of you, yet when the fair is done, if you will come and work with me, I will give you twelve pence a week more than I give any other journeyman.' Thuswashe taken for aSmith bred, that was, indeed, as much of any trade.'* 31% THE HISTORY OF THE THEATRE To this low state the gloomy and exasperated Fanatics, who had so often smarted under the satirical whips of the Dramatists, had reduced the Drama itself; without, however, extinguishing the talents of the Players, or the finer ones of those who once derived their fame from that noble arena of genius the English Stage. At the first suspension of the Theatre by the Long Parliament in 1642, they gave vent to their feelings in an admirable satire. About this time, " Petitions" to the Parliament from various classes were put into vogue; multitudes were pre- sented to the House from all parts of the coun- try, and from the City of London ; and some of these were extraordinary. The Porters, said to have been 15,000 in number, declaimed with great eloquence on the blood-sucking Malig- nants for insulting the privileges of Parliament, and threatened to come to extremities, and make good the saying " Necessity has no Law ;" there was one from the Beggars, who declared, that by means of the Bishops and Popish Lords they knew not where to get bread; and we are told of a third from the Tradesmen's Wives, in Lon- don, headed by a brewer's wife : all these were encouraged by their party, and were alike " most thankfully accepted." The satirists soon turned thisnewpolitical trick of " Petitions," into an instrument for their own DURING ITS SUPPRESSION. 313 purpose: we have " Petitions of the Poets," of the House of Commons to the King, Remon- strances to the Porters petition, &c. : spirited political satires. One of these, the " Players pe- tition to the Parliament," after being so long silenced, that they might play again, is replete with sarcastic allusions. It may be found in that rare collection entitled " Rump Songs, 1662," but with the usual incorrectness of the Press in that day. The following extract I have corrected by a manuscript copy. " Now while you reign, our low petition craves That we, the King's true subjects and your slaves. May in our comic mirth and tragic rage Set up the Theatre, and shew the Stage; This shop of Truth and Fancy, where we vow Not to act any thing you disallow. We will not dare at your strange votes to jeer, Or personate King PVM * with his state-fleer; Aspiring Cataline shall be forgot, Bloody Sejanus, or whoe'er could plot Confusion 'gainst a State; the war betwixt The Parliament and just Harry the Sixth Shall have no thought or mention, 'cause their power Not only placed, but lost him in the Tower; * PYM was then at the head of the Commons, and wa* usually de- puted to address personally the motley petitioners. We have a curious speech he made to the Tradesmen's Wives in Echard's History of Eng- land, vol. II. 290. THE HISTORY OF THE THEATRE Nor will we parallel with least suspicion Your Synod, with the Spanish Inquisition. All these, and such like maxims as may mar Your soaring plots, or shew you what you are, We shall omit, lest our inventions shake them : Why should the men be wiser than you make them : We think, there should not such a difference be 'Twixt our profession and your quality : You meet, plot, act, talk high with minds immense; The like with us, but only we speak sense, Inferior unto your's ; we can tell how To depose Kings, there we know more than you, Although not more than what we would ; then we Likewise in our vast privilege agree ; But that your's is the larger ; and controuls Not only lives and fortunes, but men's souls, Declaring by an aenigmatic sense A privilege on each man's conscience, As if the Trinity could not consent To save a soul but by the Parliament. We make the people laugh at some strange show, And as they laugh at us, they do at you j Only i' the contrary we disagree, For you can make them cry, faster than we. Your tragedies more real are express'd, You murder men in earnest, we in jest : There we come short ; but if you follow thus, Some wise men fear you will come short of us. DURING ITS SUPPRESSION. 315 As humbly as we did begin, we pray, Dear Schoolmasters, you '11 give us leave to play Quickly before the King comes ; for we would Be glad to say, you 've done a little good. Since ye have sat, your play is almost done As well as our's, would it had ne'er begun ! But we shall find, ere the last act be spent Enter the King, Exeunt the Parliament. And Heigh then up go we! who by the frown Of guilty members have been voted down, Until a legal trial shew us how You used the King, and Heigh then up go you! So pray your humble slaves with all their powers, That when they have their due, you may have yours." Such was the petition of the suppressed play- ers in 1642 ; but, in 1653, their secret exulta- tion appears, although the Stage was not yet restored to them, in some verses prefixed to RICHARD BROME'S Plays, by ALEXANDER BROME, which may close our little history. Alluding to the theatrical people, he moralizes on the fate of players : *' See the strange twirl of Times ! when such poor things Outlive the dates of Parliaments, or Kings ! This Revolution makes exploded Wit Now see the fall of those that ruin'd it ; And the condemned Stage hath now obtain'd, To see her Executioners arraign a. 316 THE HISTORY OF THE THEATRE There 's nothing permanent : those high great men That rose from dust, to dust may fall again ; And Fate so orders things, that the same heur Sees the same man both in contempt and power : For the multitude, in w horn the power doth lie, Do in one breath cry Hail ! and Crucify f At this period, though deprived of a Theatre, the taste for the Drama was, perhaps, the more Uvely among its lovers ; for, besides the per- formances already noticed, sometimes contrived at, and sometimes protected by bribery, in Oli- ver's time they stole into a practice of privately acting at Noblemen's houses, particularly at Holland-house, at Kensington: and " Alex- ander Goffe, the woman-actor, was the jackall, to give notice of time and place to the lovers of the Drama," according to the writer of " Historia Histrionica." The players, urged by their ne- cessities, published several excellent manuscript plays, which they had hoarded in their dramatic exchequers, as the sole property of their respec- tive companies. In one year appeared fifty of these new plays. Of these Dramas many have, no doubt, perished; for numerous titles are recorded, while the plays appear to have pe- rished ; yet some may still remain in their ma- nuscript state, in hands not capable of valuing them. All our old plays were the property of DURING ITS SUPPRESSION. 317 the actors, who bought them for their own com- panies. The immortal works of Shakespeare had not descended to us, had HEMINOE and CONDELL felt no sympathy for the fame of their friend. They had been scattered and lost, and, perhaps, had not been discriminated among the numerous manuscript plays of that age. One more effort, during this suspension of the Drama, was made in 1655, to recall the public attention to its productions. This was a very curious collection by John Cotgrave, entitled " The English Treasury of Wit and Language, collected out of the most, and best, of our Eng- lish Dramatick Poems.*' It appears by Cot- grave's Preface, that " The Dramatic Poem," as he calls our tragedies and comedies, " had been of late too much slighted." He tells us how some, not wanting in wit themselves, but " through a stiff and obstinate prejudice, have, in this neglect,- lost the benefit of many rich and useful observations ; not duly considering, or believing, that the Framers of them were the most fluent and redundant wits that this age, or I think any other, ever knew." He enters further into this just panegyric of our old dra- matic writers, whose acquired knowledge in an- cient and modern languages, and whose 4uxu- riant fancies, which they derived from no other sources but their own native growth, are viewed. 318 THE THEATRE DURING ITS SUPPRESSION. to great advantage in COTGRAVE'S common- places ; and, perhaps, still more in HAYWARD'S " British Muse," which collection was made under the super visal, and by the valuable aid of OLDYS, an experienced caterer of these re- lishing morsels. DRINKING-CUSTOMS IN ENGLAND. 319 DRINKING-CUSTOMS IN ENGLAND. The ancient Bacchus, as represented in gems and statues, was a youthful and graceful divi- nity ; he is so described by Ovid, and was so painted by Barry. He has the epithet of Psilas, or flFings, to express the light spirits which give wings to the soul. His voluptuousness was joyous and tender ; and he was never viewed reeling with intoxication. According to Virgil, Et quocunque deus circum caput egit honestum. Georg. II. 392. which Dryden, contemplating on the red-faced boorish boy astride on a barrel on our sign- posts, tastelessly sinks into gross vulgarity : " On whate'er side he turns his honest face." This Latinism of honestum, even the literal in- elegance of Davidson had spirit enough to translate, " Wherever the God hath moved around his graceful head." The hideous figure of Ebriety, in its most disgusting stage, the ancients exposed in the bestial Silenus and his crew ; and with these, rather than with the Ovidian and Virgilian deity, our own convivial customs have assimilated. We shall, probably, outlive that custom of hard-drinking, whick was so long one of our DRINKING-CUSTOMS IN ENGLAND. national vices. The Frenchman, the Italian, and the Spaniard, only taste the luxury of the grape, but seem never to have indulged in set convivial parties, or Drinking-matches, as some of the Northern people. Of this folly of our's, which was, however, a borrowed one, and which lasted for two centuries, the history is curious : the variety of its modes and customs ; its freaks and extravagancies ; the technical language in- troduced to raise it into a science ; and the inventions contrived to animate the progress of the thirsty souls of its votaries. Nations, like individuals, in their intercourse are great imitators ; and we have the authority of Camden, who lived at the time, for asserting that " the English in their long wars in the Netherlands first learnt to drown themselves with immoderate drinking, and by drinking others healths to impair their own. Of all the Northern nations, they had been before this, most commended for their sobriety." And the historian adds, " that the vice had so diffused itself over the nation, that in our days it was first restrained by severe laws *." * Camden's History of he is nobody that cannot drink super naguium; carouse the hunter's hoope; quaff vpse freze crosse ; with healths, gloves, mumpest Jrolickes, and a thousand such domi*- neering inventions *." Drinking super nagulum, that is on the nail, is a device, which Nash says ft new come out of France ; but it had probably a Northern ori* gin, for far Northwards it still exists. This new device consisted in this, that after a man, says Nash, hath turned up the bottom of the cup to drop it on his nail, and make a pearl with irest of the company > formed a carouse. Barnaby Rich notices thecarowse as an invention for which the first founder merited hanging. 1 1 is necessary to add that there could be no rouse, or carouse, unless the glasses were emptied." Although we have lost the terms, we have not lost the practice, as those who have the honour of dining in public parties, are still gratified by the animating cry of " Gentlemen, charge your glasses." According to Blount's Glossographia, carouse is a cor- ruption of two old German words, gar signifying all, and ausz, out : so that to drink garauz is to drink all out : hence carouse. * Pierce Pennilesse, Sig. F 2, 1595. Y 2 324 DRINKING-CUSTOMS IN ENGLAND. what is left, which if it shed, and cannot make it stand on, by reason there is too much, he must drink again for his penance.** The custom is also alluded toby Bishop Hall, in his satirical romance of " Mundus alter et idem,' " A Discovery of a New World ;" a work which probably Swift read, and did not forget. The Duke of Tenter-belly in his oration, when he drinks off his large goblet of twelve quarts on his election, exclaims, should he be false to their laws, " Let never this goodly-formed goblet of wine go jovially through me ; and then he set it to his mouth, stole it off every drop, save a little remainder, which he was by custom to set upon his thumb* s nail, and lick it off as he did." The phrase is in Fletcher : " I am thine ad unguem that is, he would drink with his friend to the last. In a manuscript letter of the times, I find an account of Columbo the Spanish Ambassador being at Oxford, and drinking healths to the Infanta. The writer adds, " I shall not tell you how our Doctors pledged healths to the Infanta and the Arch-dutchess ; and if any left too big a snuff, Columbo would cry, super- naculum ! super-naculum /" This Bacchic freak seems still preserv ed ; for DRINKING-CUSTOMS IN ENGLAND. 325 a recent traveller, Sir George Mackenzie, has noticed the custom in his Travels through Ice- land. " His host having filled a silver cup to the brim, and put on the cover, then held it towards the person who sat next to him, and desired him to take off the cover, and look into the cup; a ceremony intended to secure fair play in filling it. He drank our health, desir- ing to be excused from emptying the cup, on account of the indifferent state of his health ; but we were informed at the same time that if any one of us should neglect any part of the ceremony, orjail to invert the cup, placing the edge on one of the thumbs as a proof that we had swallowed every drop, the defaulter would be obliged by the laws of drinking to fill the cup again, and drink it off a second time. In spite- of their utmost exertions the penalty of a second draught was incurred by two of the company ; we were dreading the consequences of having swallowed so much wine, and in terror lest the cup should be sent round again." Carouse the hunter's hoop " Carouse" is ex- plained in the note p. 322 : the hunter's hoop alludes to the custom of hoops being marked on a drinking-pot, by which every man was to measure his draught. Shakespeare makes the jacobin Jack Cade, among his furious reforma- tions, promise his friends that " there shall be 326 DRINKING-CUSTOMS IN ENGLAND. in England seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny ; the three-hooped pot .shall have ten hoops, and I will make it felony to drink small beer." I have elsewhere observed that our modern Bacchanalians, whose feats are recorded by the bottle, and who insist on an equality in their rival combats, may discover some ingenuity in that invention among our ancestors of their peg- tankards, of which a few may yet occasionally be found in Derbyshire * ; the invention of an age * These inventions for keeping every thirsty soul within bounds, are alluded to by Tom Nash ; I do not know that his authority will be great as an antiquary, but the things themselves he describes he had seen. He tells us that " King Edgar, because his subjects should not offend in swilling and bibbing as they did, caused certain iron cups to be chained to every fountain and well-side ; and at every vintner's door with iron pins in them, to stint every man how much he should drink, and he who went beyond one of those pins forfeited a penny for every draught." Pegge, in his Anonymiana, has minutely described these peg-tankards, which confirms this account of Nash, and nearly the antiquity of the custom. " They have in the in- side a row of eight pins one above another, from top to bottom ; the tankards hold two quarts, so that there is a gill of ale, i. e. half a pint of Winchester measure, between each pin. The first person that drank was to empty the tankard to the first peg or pin ; the second was to empty to the next pin, &c. by which means the pins were so many measures to the compotators, making them all drink alike, or the same quantity ; and as the distance of the pins was such as to contain a large draught of liquor, the company would DRINKING-CUSTOMS IN EN 7 GLAND. 327 less refined than the present, when we have heard of globular glasses and bottles, which by their shape cannot stand, but roll about the table; thus compelling the unfortunate Bacchanalian to drain the last drop, or expose his recreant sobriety. We must have recourse again to our old friend Tom Nash, who acquaints us with some of " the general rules and inventions for drinking, as good as printed precepts or statutes by act of parliament, that go from drunkard to drunkard; as, still to keep your first man : not to leave any flocks in the bottom of the cup ; to knock the glass on your thumb when you have done ; to have some shooing-horn to pull on your wine, as a rasher on the coals or a red herring." Shooing-hornSy sometimes called gloves, are also described by Bishop Hall in his " Mundus alter et idem." " Then, Sir, comes me up a service of shooing-horns of all sorts ; salt cakes, red herrings, anchovies, and gammon of bacon, and abundance of such pullers on." That fa- be very liable by this method to get drunk, especially when, if they drank short of the pin or beyond it, they were obliged to drink again. In Archbishop Anselm's Canons, made in the Council at London in 1102, priests are enjoined not to go to drinking-bouts, nor to drink to pegs. The words are, " Ut Presbyteri noti eant ad potationes, nee AD PINNAS bibant." (Wilkins, vol.1, p. 3S2). This shews the antiquity of this invention, which at least was as old as the Conquest. 328 DRINKING^CUSTOMS IN ENGLAND. mous surfeit of " Rhenish and pickled herrings," which banquet proved so fatal to Robert Green, a congenial wit and associate of our Nash, was occasioned by these shoeing-horns. Massinger has given a curious list of " n> service of shooing-horns." 1 usher Such an unexpected dainty bit for breakfast As yet I never cook'd 3 'tis not Botargo, Fried frogs, potatoes marrow'd, cavear, Carps tongues, the pith of an English chine of beef, Nor our Italian delicate, oil'd mushrooms, And yet a drawer-on too* ; and if you shew not An appetite and a strong one, I'll not say To eat it, but devour it, without grace too, (For it will not stay a preface) I am shamed, And all my past provocatives will be jeer'd at. Massinger, the Guardian, A. 2. S. 3. * And yet a drawer-on too;} i.e. an incitement to appetite : the phrase is yet in use. This drawer-on was also technically termed a puller-on, and a shoeing- horn in drink. On "the Italian delicate oil'd mushrooms," still a favourite dish with the Italians, I have to communicate some curious knowledge. In an original manuscript letter dated Hereford, 15 Nov. 1659, the name of the writer wanting, but evidently the composition of a physician who had travelled, I find that the dressing of MUSHROOMS was then a novelty. The learned writer laments his error that he " disdained to learn the cookery that occurred in my travels, by a sullen prin- ciple of mistaken devotion, and thus declined the great helps I had to enlarge and improve human diet." This was an age of medicine, when it was imagined that the health of mankind essentially depended on diet ; and Moffet had written his curious book on this principle. DRINKING-CUSTOJtfS IN ENGLAND. 329 To knock the glass on the thumb, was to shew they had performed their duty. Barnaby Rich describes this custom ; after having drank, the president " turned the bottom of the cup up- ward, and in ostentation of his dexterity, gave it a fillip, to make it cry ting." They had among these " domineering in- ventions" some, which we may imagine never took place, till they were told by " the hollow cask" " How the waning night grew old." Such were flap-dragons, which were small combustible bodies fired at one end and floated in a glass of liquor, which an experienced toper swallowed unharmed, while yet blazing. Such is Dr. Johnson's accurate description, who seems to have witnessed what he so well de- scribes*. When Falstaff says of Poins's acts of Our writer, in noticing the passion of the Romans for mushrooms, which was called " an imperial dish," says, " he had eaten it often at Sir Henry Wotton's table (our resident Ambassador at Venice), always dressed by the inspection of his Dutch-Venetian Johanna, orofNic. Oudart, and truely it did deserve the old applause as I found it at his table ; it was far beyond pur English food. Neither did any of us find it of hard digestion, for we did riot eat like Adamites, but as modest men would eat of musk-melons. If it were now lawful to hold any kind of intelligence with Nic. Oudart, I would only ask him Sir Henry Wotton's art of dressing mushrooms, and I hope that is not high treason." Sloane MSS. 4292. * See Mr. Douce's curious " Illustrations of Shakespeare," vol. I. 457''. a gentleman more intimately conversant with our ancient domes- tic manners than, perhaps, any single individual in th country. DR1NKING-CUSTOMS IN ENGLAND. dexterity, to ingratiate himself with the Prince, that " he drinks off candle-ends for flap dragons," it seems that this was likewise one of these " frolicks," for Nash notices that the liquor was " to be stirred about with a candle's end to make it taste better, and not to hold your peace while the pot is stirring/' no doubt to mark the intrepidity of the miserable " skinker." The most illustrious feat of all is one, however, de- scribed by Bishop Hall. If the drinker "could put his finger into the flame of the candle with- out playing hit-I-miss-I ! he is held a sober man, however otherwise drunk he might be." This was considered as a trial of victory among these " canary birds," or bibbers of canary wine *. We have a very common expression to de- scribe a man in a state of ebriety, that " he is as drunk as a beast," or that " he is beastly drunk." This is a libel on the brutes, for the vice of ebriety is perfectly human. I think the phrase is peculiar to ourselves ; and I ima- gine I have discovered its origin. When ebriety became first prevalent in our nation, during the reign of Elizabeth, it was a favourite notion among the writers of the time, and on * This term is used in " Bancroft's two books of Epigrams and Epitaphs/' 1639. I tuke it to have been an accepted one of that dav. DRINKING-CUSTOMS IN ENGLAND. which they have exhausted their fancy; that a man in the different stages of ebriety, shewed the most vicious quality of different animals - 9 or that a company of Drunkards exhibited a collection of Brutes, with their different cha- racteristics. " All Dronkardes are Beasts," says George Gascoigne in a curious treatise on them*, and he proceeds in illustrating his proposition ; but the satirist Nash has classified eight kinds of " Drunkards;" a fanciful sketch from the hand of a Master in humour, and which could only have been composed by a close spectator of their manners and habits. " The first is Ape-drunk, and he leaps and sings and hollows arid danceth for the hea- vens; the second is Lyoifrdrunk, and he flings the pots about the house, calls the Hostess W e, breaks the glass-windows with his dagger, and is apt to quarrel with any man that speaks to him ; the third is Swine-drunk, heavy, lumpish, and sleepy, and cries for a little more drink and a few more cloaths ; the fourth is Sheepe-drunk, wise in his own conceit when he cannot bring forth a right word ; the fifth is * A delicate diet for daintie mouthde Droonkardfes, where- in the fowle abuse of common carowsing and quaffing with hartie draughtes is honestlie admonished. By George Gas- coyne, Esquier. 1576. DRINKING-CUSTOMS IN ENGLAND. Maudlen-drunk, when a fellow will weep for kindness in the midst of his drink, and kiss you, saying, ' By God! Captain, I love thee, go thy ways, thou dost not think so often of me, as I do of thee : I would (if it pleased God) I could not love thee so well as I do,' and then he puts his finger in his eye and cries. The sixth, is Martin-drunk, when a man is drunk, and drinks himself sober ere he stir ; the seventh is Goat-drunk, when in his drunkenness he hath no mind but on Letchery. The eighth is Fox-drunk, when he is crafty-drunk, as many of the Dutchmen be, which will never bargain but when they are drunk. All these species, and more, I have seen practised in one company at one sitting, when I have been permitted to remain sober amongst them only to note their several humours." A new sera in this history of our drinking-par- ties, occurred about the time of the Restoration, when politics heated their wine, and drunken- ness and loyalty became more closely con- nected. As the puritanic coldness wore off, the people were perpetually, in 16,50, warmed in drinking the King's health on their knees ; and among various kinds of " Ranting Cava- lierism," the cavaliers during Cromwell's usur- pation usually put a crum of bread into their glass, and before they drank it off, with cau- DR1NKING-CUSTOMS IN ENGLAND. 333 tious ambiguity exclaimed, " God send this Crum tvell down!" which, by the way, preserves the orthoepy of that extraordinary man's name, and may be added to the instances adduced in this volume at p. 222. We have a curious ac- count of a drunken bout by some Royalists, told by Whitelocke in his Memorials. It bore some resemblance to the drinking-party of Catiline : they mingled their own blood with their wine *. After the Restoration, Burnet complains of K the excess of convivial loyalty. " Drinking the King's health, was set up by too many as a dis- tinguishing mark of loyalty, and drew many into great excess after his Majesty's Restora- tion -j~. * 1 shall preserve the story in the words of Whitelocke j it was something ludicrous, as well as terrific. " From Berkshire (in May 1650) that five Drunkards agreed to drink the King's health in their blood, and that each of them should cut off a piece of his buttock, and fry it upon the gridiron, which was done by four of them, of whom one did bleed so exceedingly, that they were fain to send for a Chirurgeon, and so were discovered. The Wife of one of them hearing that her husband was amongst them, came to the room, and taking up a pair of tongs laid about her, and so saved the cutting of her husband's flesh." Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 453. second Edition. f Burnet's Life of Sir Matthew Hale. 334 LITERARY ANECDOTES. LITERARY ANECDOTES. A writer of penetration sees connexions in literary anecdotes, which are not immediately perceived by others ; in his hands anecdotes, even should they be familiar to us, are suscep- tible of deductions and inferences, which be- come novel and important truths. Facts of themselves are barren; it is when these facts pass through our reflections, and become inter- woven with our feelings, or our reasonings, that they are the finest illustrations ; that they assume the dignity of " philosophy teaching by example ;" that, in the Moral world, they are what the wise system of Bacon inculcated in the Natural ; knowledge deduced from experi- ments; the study of Nature in her operations. " When examples are pointed out to us," says Lord Bolingbroke, " there is a kind of appeal with which we are flattered made to our senses, as well as to our understandings. The instruc- tion comes then from our authority; we yield to fact, when we resist speculation." For this reason, writers and artists should, among their recreations, be forming a constant acquaintance with the history of their departed kindred. In literary biography a man of genius LITERARY ANECDOTES. always finds something which relates to himself. The studies of artists have a great uniformity, and their habits of life are monotonous. They have all the same difficulties to encounter, although they do not all meet with the same glory. How many secrets may the man of genius learn from Literary Anecdotes ! important se- crets, which his friends will not convey to him. He traces the effects of similar studies ; warned sometimes by failures, and often animated by watching the incipient and shadowy attempts which closed in a great work. From one he learns in what manner he planned and corrected; from another how he overcame those obstacles which, perhaps, at that very moment made him rise in despair from his own unfinished labour. What perhaps he had in vain desired to know for half his life, is revealed to him by a Literary Anecdote ; and thus the amusements of indo- lent hours may impart the vigour of study ; as we find sometimes in the fruit we have taken for pleasure, the medicine which restores our health. How superficial is that cry of some impertinent pretended geniuses of these times, who affect to exclaim, " Give me no Anecdotes of an au- thor, but give me his Works!" I have often found the Anecdotes more interesting than the works. Dr. Johnson devoted one of his periodical 836 LITERARY ANECDOTES. papers to a defence of anecdotes, and expresses himself thus on certain collectors of anecdotes : " They are not always so happy as to select the most important. I know not well what ad- vantage posterity can receive from the only circumstance by which Tickell has distinguished Addison from the rest of mankind, the irre- gularity of his pulse; nor can I think myself overpaid for the time spent in reading the life of fyfalherbe, by being enabled to relate, after the learned biographer, that Malherbe had two predominant opinions ; one, that the looseness of a single woman might destroy all her boast of ancient descent ; the other, that the French beggars made use, very improperly and bar- barously, of the phrase noble gentlemen, because either word included the sense of both." These just observations may, perhaps, be fur- ther illustrated by the following notices. Dr. J. Warton has informed the world, that many of our poets have been handsome. This, cer- tainly, neither concerns the world, nor the class of poets. It is trifling to tell us that Dr. John- son was accustomed " to cut his nails to the quick." I am not much gratified by being in- formed, that Menage wore a greater number of stockings than any other person, excepting one, whose name I have really forgotten. The bio- grapher of Cujas, a celebrated lawyer, says, LITERARY ANECDOTES. 337 that two things were remarkable of this scholar. The Jirst, that he studied on the floor, lying prostrate on a carpet, with his books about him ; and, secondly, that his perspiration exhaled an agreeable smell, which he used to inform his friends he had in common with Alexander the Great ! This admirable biographer should have told us, whether he frequently turned from his very uneasy attitude. Somebody informs us, that Guy Patin resembled Cicero, whose statue is preserved at Rome ; on which he enters into a comparison of Patin with Cicero ; but a man may resemble a statue of Cicero, yet not Cicero. Baillet loads his life of Descartes with a thou- sand minutiae, which less disgrace the philoso- pher than the biographer. Was it worth in- forming the public, that Descartes was very particular about his wigs ; that he had them manufactured at Paris ; and that he always kept four? That he wore green taffety in France; but that, in Holland, he quitted taffety for cloth ; and that he was fond of omelets of eggs? It is an odd observation of Clarendon in his own life, that " Mr. Chillingworth was of a stature little superior to Mr. Hales ; and it was an age in which there were many great and wonderful men of THAT SIZE." Lord Falkland, formerly Sir Lucius Carey, was of low stature and smaller than most men ; and of Sidney VOL. III. Z 338 LITERARY ANECDOTES. Godolphin, " There was never so great a mind and spirit contained in so little room ; so that Lord Falkland used to say merrily, that he thought it was a great ingredient into his friend- ship for Mr. Godolphin, that he was pleased to be found in his company where he was the properer man." This irrelevant observation of Lord Clarendon is an instance where a great mind will sometimes draw inferences from ac- cidental coincidences, and establish them into a general principle ; as if the small size of the men had even the remotest connexion with their genius and their virtues. Perhaps, too, there was in this a tincture of the superstitions of the times : whatever it was, the fact ought not to have degraded the truth and dignity of historical narrative. We have writers who cannot discover the particulars which characterize THE MAN their souls, like wet gunpowder, cannot iguite with the spark when it falls on them. Yet of anecdotes which appear trifling, some- thing may be alleged in their defence. It i& certainly safer for some writers, to give us all they know, than to try at the power of rejec- tion. Let us sometimes recollect, that the page over which we toil, will probably furnish ma- terials for authors of happier talents. I would rather have a Birch, or a Hawkins, appear heavy, cold, and prolix, than any thing mate- LITERARY ANECDOTES. 339 rial which concerns a Tillotson or a Johnson should be lost. It must also be confessed, that an anecdote, or a circumstance, which may appear inconsequential to a reader, may bear some remote or latent connexion ; a biographer who has long contemplated the character he re- cords, sees many connexions which escape an ordinary reader. Kippis, in closing the life of the diligent Dr. Birch, has, from his own expe- rience no doubt, formed an apology for that minute research, which some have thought this writer carried to excess. curred the censure of the inconsiderate and > rin io the, tasteless, for attempting to separate these writers who exist in a state of perpetual sion; who live on querulously, wliich is an j for themselves, arid to no purpose of life, is an evil to others. I have been blamed for / JJ>lxJi.l CM* 1'J C jLl y jn * I^lili lulll J.I-, * * > / / Ulil exemplifying " the illusions of writers in ve JCSfo-ftr by the remarkable case of Percjyal Stockfjajjjrp, v%ho, after a conderqned silence of nearly, half a y \f rw fi i A. y 11 iv/ ii jj j r j 1 1 j i ,' -f * ti w \u*j i v| & niiiyjjiivi.^ * c^^tties-6r^filtH3^.^.^.to?ri 10! f It iirst appeared ma Rc\ie*.v of hi CONDEMNED POETS. 341 century, like a vivacious spectre throwing aside his shroud in gaiety, came forward a venerable man in his eightieth J year, to assure us of the immortality of one of the worst poets 6f his age ; and for this, wrote his own memoirs, \Mtich only proved, that when authbts^afe troubled with a literary hallucination, and jbos- the unhappy talent of reasoning in their s, a little raillery, if it cannot cure, may least as a salutary regimen. 1 ^l* shall illustrate the case of condemned au- thors who will still be pleading after their trials, y aforeign dramatic writer. Among those in- corrigible miirmurcrs at public justice, not the least extraordinary was a Mr. Peyrand de tt&ai&sol, who, in 1775, had a tragedy, " Les ArSacides," in six acts, printed, not as it was aced, as Fielding says, on the title-page of one df^is comedies, but as it was damned! 2 fn a preface, this " Sir Fretful," more inimi- table than that original, with all the gravity of an 7 historical narrative, details the public con- spftacy ; and with all the pathetic touches of a sn% wrecked mariner the agonies of his literary ^--> \, >i-i? egotism. ttle declares; {niit it is absurd for the town to eoiraemn a piece^ftfch they can only know by the title, for heard it had never &efl!, And yet he observesyTiwith infinite naivete, " My piece is 342 CONDEMNED POETS. as generally condemned as if the world had it all by heart.'* One of the great objections against this tra- gedy was its monstrous plan of six acts; this innovation did not lean towards improvement in the minds of those who had endured the long sufferings of tragedies of the accepted size. But the author offers some solemn reasons to induce us to believe that six acts were so far from being too many, that the piece had been more perfect with a seventh ! Mr. de Beaus- sol had, perhaps, been happy to have known, that other dramatists have considered, that the usual restrictions are detrimental to a grand ge- nius. Nat. Lee, when too often drunk , and some- times in Bedlam, wrote a play in twenty-five acts. Our philosophical dramatist, from the con- stituent principles of the human mind, and the physical powers of man, and the French nation more particularly, deduces the origin of the sublime, and the faculty of attention. The plan of his tragedy is agreeable to these principles : Monarchs, Queens and Rivals, and every class of men ; it is therefore grand ; and the acts can be listened to, and therefore it is not too long. It was the high opinion that he had formed of human nature and the French people, which at once terrified and excited him to finish CONDEMNED POETS. 343 a tragedy, which, he modestly adds, " may not have the merit of any single one; but which one day will be discovered to include the labour- bestowed on fifty!" No great work was ever produced without a grand plan. " Some Critics," says our author, " have ventured to assert that my six acts may easily be reduced to the usual five, without injury to the conduct of the fable." To reply to this, required a complete analysis of the tragedy, which, having been found more voluminous than the tragedy itself, he considerately " published separately." It would be curious to ascertain whether a single copy of the analysis of a con- demned tragedy was ever sold. And yet this critical analysis was such an admirable and de- monstrative criticism, that the author assures us that it proved the absolute impossibility, " and the most absolute too," that his piece could not suffer the slightest curtailment. It demon - seated more that " the gradation and the de- velopement of interest required necessarily seven Actsl but, from dread of carrying this innova- tion too far, the author omitted one Act which passed behind the scenes ! * but which ought to ords are " Un 'tlerriere la Scene." I am not sure of the ffteaning, but an Act behind the Scenes would bo per- fectly ia eharaciSrtwith this dramatic bard. 344 CONDEMNED POETS. have come in between the fifth and sixth. Ano- ther point is proved, that the attention of an au- dience, the physical powers of man, can be kept up with interest much longer than has been calculated; that his piece only takes up two hours and three quarters, or three hours at most, if some of the most impassioned parts were but declaimed rapidly*. Now we come to the history of all the disasters which happene^ at the acting of this tragedy. *' How can people complain that my piece is te- dious, when, after the first act, they would never listen ten minutes to it? Why did they attend to the first scenes, and even applaud one? Let me not be told, because these were sublime, and commanded the respect of the cabal raised against it ; because there are other scenes far more sublime in the piece, which they perpe- tually interrupted. Will it be believed, that they pitched upon the scene of the sacrifice of Vol- gesie, as one of the most tedious ? the scene_of Volgesie, which is the finest in my piece ; oot a * The exact reasoning of Sir Fretful, in the Critic, when Mrs. Dangle thought his piece " rather too long," while he proves his play was " a remarkably short play." " The first evening you can spare me three hours and a half, I'll under- take to read you the whole, from beginning to end, with the prologue and epilogue, and allow time for the music between the acts. The watch here, you know, is the critic." CONDEMNED POETS, 345 verse, not a word in it can be omitted!* Every thing tends towards the catastrophe ; and it reads in the closet as well as it would affect us on the stage. I was not, however, astonished at this; what men hear, and do not understand, is always tedious ; and it was recited in so shock- ing a tone by the actress, who, not having en- tirely recovered from a fit of illness, was flurried by the tumult of the audience. She declaimed in a twanging tone, like psalm-singing ; so that the audience could not hear, among these fa- tiguing discordances," (he means their own hissing,) nor separate the thoughts and words from the full chaunt which accompanied them. They objected perpetually to the use of the wordiTJfadawe, between two female Rivals, as too comic ; one of the pit, when an actress said Madame, cried out, ' Say Princesse!' This disconcerted the actress. They also ob- jeetfed to the words a propos and mal-apropos. Set, after all, how are there too many Madamos k^tfoe piece* since they do not amount to forty- six in the course of forty-four scenes ? Of these however I have erased half." arf slffU iin >'' * Again Sir Fretful} when Dangle " ventures to suggest that the intr-rc-i mrher fall* off in the fifth act;" " Rises, I ieve you mean" ^V- ~" ^p, I don't, upon my word." ,;}ad jiauni 901 not am** WQU&DA& es, yes, you do. upon irmsoul ; it certainly don t fell off; oifita Mil * wortx tiny i, no, it don 346 CONDEMNED POETS. This historian of his own wrongheadedness proceeds, with all the simplicity of this narrative, to describe the hubbub. " Thus it was impossible to connect what they were hearing with What they had heard. In the short intervals of silence, the actors, who, during the tumult, forgot their characters, tried with difficulty to recover their conception. The' conspirators were prepared to a man; not only in their head, but some with written notes had their watch-words, to set their party agoing. They seemed to act with the most extraordinary con- cert ; they seemed to know the exact moment when they were to give the word, and drown, in their hurly-burly, the voice of the actor who had a passionate part to declaim, and thus" break the connexion between the speakers. All this pro- duced so complete an effect, that it seemed as if the actors themselves had been of the conspiracy, so wilful and so active was the execution of the plot. It was particularly during the fifth and sixth acts, that the cabal was most outrageous ; they knew these were the most beautiful, and deserved particular attention. Such a humming arose, that the actors seemed to have had their heads turned; some lost their voice, some de- claimed at random, the prompter in vain cried out, nothing was heard and everything was said ; the actor, who could not hear the catch- word, re- CONDEMNED POETS. mained disconcerted and silent ; the whole was broken, wrong and right ; it was all Hebrew. Nor was this all ; the actors behind the scene were terrified, and they either came forwards jtrembling, and only watching the signs of their brother actors, or would not venture to shew themselves. The machinist only, with his scene-shifters, who felt so deep an interest in the fate of my piece, was tranquil and attentive to his duty, to produce a fine effect. After the hurly-burly was over, he left the actors mute with their arms crossed, He opened the scenery ! and not an actor could enter on it ! The pit, more clamorous than ever, would not suffer the denouement! Such was the conduct, and such the intrepidity, of the army employed to be- siege the Arsacides! Such the cause of that ac- cusation of tediousness made against a drama, which has most evidently the contrary defect!" Such is the history of a damned dramatist, written by himself, with a truth and simplicity worthy of a happier fate. It is admirable to see a man, who was himself so deeply involved in the event, preserve the observing calmness which could discover the minutest occurrence; and, allowing for his particular conception of the cause, detailing them with the most rigid veracity. This author was unquestionably a man of the most honourable probity, and not 348 CONDEMNED POETS. destitute of intellectual ability ; but he must serve as an useful example of that wrong-headed nature in some men, which has produced so many " Abbots of Unreason*' in Society, whom it is in vain to convince by a reciprocation of arguments; who, assuming false principles, act rightly according to themselves ; a sort of ra- tional lunacy, which, when it discovers itself in politics and religion, and in the more com- mon affairs of life, has produced the most un- happy effects ; but this fanaticism, when con- fined to poetry, only amuses us with the ludi- crous ; and, in the persons of Monsieur De Beaussol, and of Percival Stockdale, may offer some very fortunate self-recollections in that calamity of authors, which I have called " The illusions of Writers in Verse/' q& bfIB anl acb il rhurn i ACAJOU AND ZIRPHILE. 349 ACAJOU AND ZIRPHILE. tttO t As a literary curiosity, and as a supplemen- tal anecdote to the article of PREFACES*, I can* >ass over the suppressed preface tovtjje et Zirphile" of Du Clos, which ^ itself is almost a singular instance of hardy iij- , in an address to the public. tow pjgle volume is one of the most whim* ; of fairy tales, and an amusing satire, ori* ginating in an odd circumstance. Count Tessin, th^wedish Ambassador at the Court of Prance, h$4 a number of grotesque designs made by BpJUchei^^^ King's painter, and had them en- graved by the first artists. The last plate had just been finished when the Count was recalled, and appointed Prime Minister and Governor to the Prince Royal, a place he filled with great honour j and in emulation of Fenelon, composed letters on the Education of a Prince, which have been translated. He left behind him in France all the plates in the hands of Boucher, who, having shewn them to Du Clos for their singular invention, regretted he had bestowed so much fancy on a fairy tale, \which was not to be had ; Du Clos, to relieve his regrets, offered * Vol. I. p. 118. 350 ACAJOU AND ZIRPHILE. to invent a tale to correspond with these gro- tesque subjects. This seemed not a little diffi- culty. In the first plate, the author appeared in his morning gown, writing in his study, sur- rounded by apes, rats, butterflies, and smoke. In another, a Prince is drest in the French costume of 1740,- strolling full of thought in the shady walk of ideas. In a third plate, the Prince is conversing with a fairy who rises out of a gooseberry which he had plucked : two dwarfs, discovered in another gooseberry, give a sharp fillip to the Prince, who seems much embarrassed by their tiny maliciousness. In another walk he eats an apricot, which opens with the most beautiful of faces, a little melan- choly, and leaning on one side. In another plate, he finds the body of this lovely face and the hands, and he adroitly joins them together. Such was the set of these incomprehensible and capricious inventions, which the lighter fancy and ingenuity of Du Clos converted into a fairy story, full of pleasantry and satire. Among the novelties of this small volume, not the least remarkable is the dedication of this, fairy romance to the public, which excited great attention, and charmed and provoked our author's fickle patron. Du Clos here openly ridicules, and dares his protector and his judge. This hazardous attack was successful, ACAJOU AND ZIRPHILE. and the author soon acquired the reputation which he afterwards maintained, of being a writer who little respected the common pre- judices of the world. Freron replied by a long criticism, entitled, " Reponse du Public a 1'Auteur d' Acajou ;" but its severity was not discovered in its length ; so that the Public, who had been so keenly ridiculed, and so hardily braved in the light and sparkling page of the haughty Du Clos, preferred the caustic truths and the pleasant insult. In this " Epistle to the Public," the author informs us that, " excited by example, and en- couraged by the success he had often witnessed, he designed to write a piece of nonsense. He was only embarrassed by the choice of subject. Politics, Morals, and Literature, were equally the same to me ; but I found, strange to say, all these matters pre-occupied by persons who seem to have laboured with the same view. I found silly things in all kinds, and I saw myself under the necessity of adopting the reasonable ones to become singular ; so that I do not yt despair that we may one day discover truth, when we shall have exhausted all pur errors. " I first proposed to write down all erudition, to shew the freedom and independence of , ge- nius, whose fertility is such as not to require borrowing any thing from foreign sources ; but ACAJOU AND ZIRPHILE. I observed that this had sunk into a mere com* mon-place, trite and trivial, invented by indo* lence, adopted by ignorance, and which adds nothing to genius. " Mathematics, which has succeeded to eru- dition, begins to be unfashionable ; we know at present indeed that one may be as great a dizzard in resolving a problem as in restoring a reading. Every thing is compatible with ge- nius, but nothing can give it ! " For the bel esprit, so much envied, so much sought after, it is almost as ridiculous to pretend to it, as it is difficult to attain. Thus the scholar is contemned, the mathematician tires, the man of wit and genius is hissed. What is to be done ?'' Having told the whimsical origin of this tale, Du Clos continues ; " I do not know, my dear Public, if you will approve of my design ; how- ever, it appears to me ridiculous enough to deserve your favour ; for, to speak to you like a friend, you appear to unite all the stages of human life, only to experience all their cross-ae- cidents. You are a child to run after trifles ; a youth when driven by your passions ; and, in mature age, you conclude you are wise, because your follies are of a more solemn nature, for you grow old only to doat ; to talk at random, to act without design, and to believe you, judge, because you pronounce sentence. ACAJOU AND ZIRPHILE. " I respect you greatly ; I esteem you but little ; you are not worthy of being loved. These are ray sentiments respecting you ; if you insist on others from me, in that case, I am, Your most humble and most obedient servant." The caustic pleasantry of this " Epistle dedi- catory*' was considered by some mawkish critics so offensive, that when the editor of the " Cabinet de Fe"es," a vast collection of fairy tales, re- published this little playful satire and whimsical fancy-piece, he thought proper to cancel the " Epistle; 1 ' concluding that it was entirely want* ing in that respect with which the public are to be addressed ! This editor, of course, was a Frenchman : we view him in the ridiculous atti- tude of making his profound bow, and ex- pressing all this " high consideration" for this same " Public," while, with his opera hat in his hand, he is sweeping away the most poignant and delectable page of Acajou and Zirphile. VOL. Ill* A A 354 TOM O' BEDLAMS. TOM O BEDLAMS. THE history of a race of singular mendicants, known by the name of Tom o' Bedlams, con- nects itself with that of our Poetry. Not only will they live with our language, since Shake- speare has perpetuated their existence, but they themselves appear to have been the occasion of creating a species of wild fantastic poetry, pe- culiar to our Nation. Bethlem Hospital formed, in its original in- stitution, a contracted and penurious charity ; its governors soon discovered that the Metro- polis furnished them with more lunatics than they had calculated on ; they also required from the friends of the patients a weekly sti- pend, besides clothing. It is a melancholy fact to record in the history of human nature, that when one of their original regulations prescribed that persons who put in patients should provide their cloaths, it was soon observed that the poor lunatics were frequently perishing by the omission of this slight duty from those former friends ; so soon forgotten were they whom none found an interest to recollect. They were obliged to open contributions to provide a wardrobe *. * Stowe's Survey of London, Book. I. TOM O BEDLAMS. In consequence of the limited resources of the Hospital, they relieved the establishment by fre- quently discharging patients whose cure might be very equivocal. Harmless lunatics thrown thus into the world, often without a single friend, wan- dered about the country, chaunting wild ditties, and wearing a fantastical dress to attract the no- tice of the charitable, on whose alms they lived. They had a kind of costume, which I find de- scribed by Handle Holme, in a curious and extraordinary work # " The Bedlam has a long staff, and a cow or ox-horn by his side ; his cloathing fantastic and ridiculous ; for, being a madman, he is madly decked and dressed all over with rubins (rib- bands), feathers, cuttings of cloth, and what not, to make him seem a madman, or one distracted, when he is no other than a wander- ing and dissembling knave." This writer here points out one of the grievances resulting from licensing even harmless lunatics to roam about the country ; for a set of pretended madmen, called " Abram men," a cant term for certain * " The Academy of Armory," Book II. C. 3. p. 161. This is a very singular work, where the writer has contrived to turn the barren subjects of Heraldry into an entertaining Encyclopaedia, containing much curious knowledge on almost every thing ; but this folio more particularly exhibits the most copious Vocabulary of old English terms extant. A A 2 356 TOM O' BEDLAMS. sturdy rogues, concealed themselves in their costume, covered the country, and pleaded the privileged denomination when detected in their depredations *. * In that curious source of our domestic history, the " English Villanies" of Decker, we find a lively description of the " Abram Cove," or Abrara man, the impostor who personated a " Tom o* Bedlam." He was terribly disguised with his grotesque rags, his staff, his knotted hair, and with the more disgusting contrivances to excite pity, still practised among a class of our mendicants, who, in their cant lan- guage, are still said " to sham Abraham." This impostor was, therefore, as suited his purpose and the place, capable of working on the sympathy, by uttering a silly maunding, or demanding of charity, or terrifying the easy fears, of women, children, and domestics, as he' wandered up and down the country : they refused nothing to a being who was as terrific to them as " Robin Good-fellow," or " Raw-head and bloody-bones." Thus, as Edgar expresses it, " some- times with lunatic bans, sometimes with prayers," the ges- tures of this impostor were " a counterfeit puppet-play: they came with a hollow noise, whooping, leaping, gambol- ling, wildly dancing, with a fierce or distracted look." These sturdy mendicants were called " Tom of Bedlam's band of mad-caps," or " Poor Tom's flock of wild-geese." Decker has preserved their " Maund," or begging " Good worship master, bestow your reward on a poor man that hath been in Bedlam without Bishopsgate, three years, four months, and nine days, and bestow one piece of small silver towards his fees, which he is indebted there, of 3/. 13s. 7%d." (or to such effect). Or, " Now dame, well and wisely, what will you give poor Tom ? One pound of your sheep's feathers to make TOM O' BEDLAMS. 357 Mr. Walter Scott first obligingly suggested to me that these roving lunatics were out-door pensioners of Bedlam, sent about to live as well as they could with the pittance granted by the Hospital. The fullest account that I have obtained of these singular persons is drawn from a manu- script note transcribed from some of Aubrey** papers, which I have not seen printed. poor Tom a blanket ? or one cutting of your sow's side, no bigger than my arm ; or one piece of your salt meat to make poor Tom a sharing horn ; or one cross of your small silver, towards a pair of shoes ; well and wisely, give poor Tom an old sheet to keep him from the cold ; or an old doublet and jerkin of my master's ; well and wisely, God save the King and his Council." Such is a history drawn from the very archives of mendicity and imposture ; and written perhaps as far back as the reign of James I.j but which prevailed in that of Eliza- beth, as Shakespeare has so finely shewn in his EDGAR. This Maund, and these assumed manners and costume, I should not have preserved from their utter penury, but such was the rude material which Shakespeare has worked up into that most fanciful and richest vein of native poetry, which per- vades the character of the wandering EDGAR, tormented by " the foul fiend," when he bethought To take the basest and most poorest shape That ever penury, in contempt of man, Brought near to beast. And the Poet proceeds with a minute picture of " Bedlam beggars." See LEAR, A. II. S. 3. 358 , TOM O* BEDLAMS. " Till the breaking out of the civil wars, Tom o' Bedlams did travel about the country ; they had been poor distracted men, that had been put into Bedlam, where recovering some soberness, they were licentiated to go a begging; i. e. they had on their left arm an armiila, an iron ring for the arm, about four inches long, as printed in some works*. They could not get it off; they wore about their necks a great horn of an ox in a string or bawdry, which, when they came to a house, they did wind, and they put the drink given to them into this horn, whereto they put a stopple. Since the wars I do not remember to have seen any one of them." The civil wars, probably, cleared the country of all sorts of vagabonds ; but among the royalists or the parliamentarians, we did not know that in their rank and file they had so many Tom o' Bedlams. I have now to explain something in the cha- racter of EDCAR in LEAR, on which the com- mentators seem to have ingeniously blundered, from an imperfect knowledge of the character EDGAR personates. * Aubrey's information is perfectly correct ; for those impostors who assumed the character of Tom o' Bedlams for their own nefarious purpose*, used to have a mark burnt in their arms, which they shewed as the mark of Bedlam. " The English Villainies of Decker/' C. 17. 1648. TOM O BEDLAMS. EDGAR, in wandering about the country for a safe disguise, assumes the character of these Tom o' Bedlams; he thus closes one of his dis- tracted speeches, " Poor Tom, Thy horn is dry!" On this Johnson is content to inform us, that "men that begged under pretence of lu- nacy used formerly to carry a horn, and blow it through the streets." This is no explanation of Edgar's allusion to the dryness of his horn, Steevens adds a fanciful note, that Edgar alludes to a proverbial expression Thy horn is dry, de- signed to express that a man had said all he could say; and, further, Steevens supposes that Edgar speaks these words aside; as if he had been quite weary of Tom o Bedlam's part, and could not keep it up any longer. The reasons of all this conjectural criticism, are a curious illustration of perverse ingenuity. Aubrey's manuscript note has shewn us that the Bedlam's horn was also a drinking-horn, and Edgar closes his speech in the perfection of the as- sumed character, and not as one who had grown weary of it, by making the mendicant lunatic desirous of departing from a heath, to march, as he cries, " to wakes, and fairs, and mar- ket-towns Poor Tom ! thy horn is dry !" as more likely places to solicit alms; and he is thinking of his drink-money, when he cries that " his torn is dry." 360 TOM O' BEDLAMS. An itinerant lunatic, chaunting wild ditties, fancifully attired, gay with the simplicity of childhood, yet often moaning with the sorrows of a troubled man, a mixture of character at once grotesque and plaintive, became an in- teresting object to poetical minds. It is pro- bable that the character of Edgar, in the Lear of Shakespeare, first introduced the hazardous conception into the poetical world. Poems composed in the character of a Tom o j Bedlam appear to have formed a fashionable class of poetry among the wits ; they seem to have held together poetical contests, and some of these writers became celebrated for their suc- cessful efforts, for old Izaac Walton mentions a ** Mr. William Basse as one who has made the choice songs of the * Hunter in his career,' and of * Tom o* Bedlam/ and many others of note." Bishop Percy, in his " Reliques of ancient En- glish Poetry," has preserved six of what he calls " Mad Songs," expressing his surprise that the English should have " more songs and ballads on the subject of Madness than any of their Neighbours," for such are not found in the collections of songs of the French, Italian, &c. and nearly insinuates, for their cause, that we are perhaps more liable to the calamity of Madness than other nations. This superfluous criticism had been spared had that elegant col- TOM O' BEDLAJMS. S6l lector been aware of the circumstance which had produced this class of poems, and recol- lected the more ancient original in the Edgar of Shakespeare. Some of the " Mad Songs" the Bishop has preserved are of too modern a date to suit the title of his work ; being written by Tom D'Urfey, for his comedies of Don Quixote. I shall preserve one of more ancient date, fraught with all the wild spirit of this peculiar character*. This poem must not be read without a per- petual reference to the personated character. Delirious and fantastic, strokes of sublime ima- gination are mixed with familiar comic humour, and even degraded by the cant language; for the gipsy habits of life of these " Tom o' Bed- lams," had confounded them with " the prog- ging Abram men." These luckless beings are described by Decker as sometimes exceeding merry, and could do nothing but sing songs fashioned out of their own brains ; now they danced, now they would do nothing but laugh and weep, or were dogged and sullen both in look and speech. All they did, all they sung, was alike unconnected ; indicative of the desul- tory and rambling wits of the chaunter. * I discovered the present in a very scarce collection, en- titled " Wit and Drollery," 1661 ; but this edition is not the earliest of this once fashionable miscellanv. 362 TOM O' BEDLAMS. A TOM-A-BEDLAM SONG. From the Hag and hungry goblin That into rags would rend ye, All the spirits that stand By the naked man, In the book of moons defend ye ! That of your five sound senses You never be forsaken ; Nor travel from Yourselves with Tom Abroad, to beg your bacon. CHORUS. Nor never sing any food and feeding, Money, drink, orcloathing; Come dame or maid, Be not afraid, For Tom will injure nothing. Of thirty bare years have I Twice twenty been enraged ; And of forty been Three times fifteen In durance soundly caged. In the lovely lofts of Bedlam, In stubble soft and dainty, Brave bracelets strong, Sweet whips ding, dong, And a wholesome hunger plenty. TOM O' BEDLAMS. 363 With a thought I took for Maudlin, And a cruise of cockle pottage, And a thing thus tall, Sky bless you all, I fell into this dotage. 1 slept not till the Conquest ; Till then I never waked j Till the roguish boy Of love where I lay, Me found, and stript me naked. When short I have shorn my sow's face, And swigg'd my horned barrel j In an oaken inn Do I pawn my skin, As a suit of gilt apparel : The morn's my constant mistress, And the lovely owl my morrow j The flaming drake, And the night-crow, make Me music, to my sorrow. The palsie plague these pounces, When I prig your pigs or pullen ; Your culvers take Or mateless make Your chanticlear and sullen j m I want provant with Humphrey I sup, 364 TOM O' BEDLAMS. And, when benighted, To repose in Paul's, With walking souls I never am affrighted. I know more than Apollo : For, oft when he lies sleeping, I behold the stars At mortal wars, And the rounded welkin weeping j The moon embraces her shepherd, And the Queen of Love her warrior j While the first does horn The stars of the morn, And the next the heavenly farrier. With a heart of furious fancies, Whereof I am commander j With a burning spear, And a horse of air, To the wilderness I wander ; With a knight of ghosts and shadows, I summoned am to Tourney : Ten leagues beyond The wide world's end ; Methinks it is no journey ! The last stanza of this Bedlam song, contains the seeds of exquisite romance ; a stanza worth many an admired poem. TEA, COFFEE, CHOCOLATE. 365 INTRODUCTION OF TEA, COFFEE, AND CHOCOLATE. IT is said that the frozen Norwegians on the first sight of roses, dared not touch what they conceived were trees budding with fire; and the natives of Virginia, the first time they seized on a quantity of gunpowder, which belonged to the English colony, sowed it for grain, expect- ing to reap a plentiful crop of combustion by the next harvest, to blow away the whole colony. In our own recollection, strange imaginations impeded the first period of Vaccination ; when some families, terrified by a physician too, con- ceived their race would end in a species of Minotaurs : Semibovemque virum, semivirumque bovern. Ovid, de Arte Am. lib. II. We smile at the simplicity of the men of nature, for their mistaken notions at the first introduction among them of exotic novelties ; and yet, even in civilized Europe, how long a time those whose profession, or whose reputa- tion, regulates public opinion, are influenced by vulgar prejudices, often disguised under the imposing form of science ! and when their ludi- crous absurdities and obstinate prejudices enter into the matters of history, it is then we dis- 366 INTRODUCTION OF cover that they were only imposing on them* selves and on others. It is hardly credible that on the first intro- duction of that Chinese leaf, which now affords our daily refreshment ; or that American leaf, whose sedative ftimes made it so long an uni- versal favourite ; or that Arabian berry, whose aroma exhilarates its European votaries ; that the use of these harmless novelties should have spread consternation in the nations of Europe, and have been anathematized by the terrors and the fictions of some of the learned. Yet this seems to have happened. Patin, who wrote so furiously against the introduction of Anti- mony, spread the same alarm at the use of Tea, which he calls, " 1'impertinente nouveaute du siecle." In Germany, Hanneman considered tea-dealers as immoral members of society, lying in wait for men's purses and lives ; and Dr. Duncan, in his treatise on hot liquors, sus- pected that the virtues attributed to tea, were merely to encourage the importation. Many virulent pamphlets were published against the use of this shrub, from various mo- tives. In 1670 a Dutch writer says it was ridi- culed in Holland under the name of hay-water. " The progress of this famous plant," says an ingenious writer, " has been something like the progress of Truth; suspected at first, though TEA, COFFEE, AND CHOCOLATE. 367 very palatable to those who had courage to taste it; resisted as it encroached; abused as its po- pularity seemed to spread; and establishing its triumph at last, in cheering the whole land from the palace to the cottage, only by the slow and resistless efforts of time and its own virtues*." The history of the Tea-shrub, written by Dr. Lettsom, is usually referred to on this subject; I consider it little more than a plagiarism on Dr. Short's learned and curious dissertation on Tea, 1730, 4to. Lettsom has superadded the solemn trifling of his moral and medical advice. These now common beverages are all of re- cent origin in Europe ; neither the ancients, nor those of the middle ages tasted of this lux- ury. The first accounts we find of the use of this shrub are the casual notices of travellers, who seem to have tasted it, and sometimes not to have liked it: a Russian Ambassador, in 1639, who resided at the Court of the Mogul, declined accepting a large present of tea for the Czar, " as it would only incumber him with a commodity for which he had no use." The appearance of " a black water'* and an acrid taste, seems not to have recommended it to the German Olearius in 1633. Dr. Short has recorded an anecdote of a stratagem of the * Edinburgh Review, 1816, p. 117. 368 INTRODUCTION ot Dutch in their second voyage to China, by which they at first obtained their tea without disbursing money ; they carried from home great store of dried sage, and bartered it with the Chinese for tea ; and received three or four pounds of tea for one of sage: but at length the Dutch could not export sufficient quantity of sage to supply their demand. This fact, how- ever, proves how deeply the imagination is con- cerned with our palate, for the Chinese, affected by the exotic novelty, considered our sage to be more precious than their tea. The first introduction of tea into Europe is not ascertained; according to the common ac- counts, it came into England from Holland, in 1666, when Lord Arlington and Lord Ossory brought over a small quantity : the custom of drinking tea became fashionable, and a pound weight sold then for sixty shillings. This ac- count, however, is by no means satisfactory. I have heard of Oliver Cromwell's tea-pot in the possession of a collector, and this will de- range the chronology of those writers who are perpetually copying the researches of others, without confirming or correcting them. Amidst the rival contests of the Dutch and the English East-India Companies, the honour of introducing its use into Europe maybe claimed by both. Dr. Short conjectures that tea might TEA, COFFEE, AND CHOCOLATE. 36*9 have been known in England as far back as the reign of James I. for the first fleet set out in 1600; but, had the use of this shrub been known, the novelty had been chronicled among our dramatic writers, whose works are the annals of our pre- valent tastes and humours. It is rather extra- ordinary that our East-India Company should not have discovered the use of this shrub in their early adventures; yet it certainly was not known in England so late as in 1641, for in a scarce " Treatise of Warm Beer/' where the title indicates the author's design to recommend hot in preference to cold drinks, he refers to tea only by quoting the Jesuit Maffei's ac- count, that " they of China do for the most part drink the strained liquor of an herb called Chia, hot." The word Cha is the Portuguese term for tea retained to this day, which they borrowed from the Japanese ; while our in- tercourse with the Chinese made us no doubt adopt their term Theh, now prevalent through- out Europe, with the exception of the Portu- guese. The Chinese origin is still preserved in the term Bohea, tea which comes from the country of Vouhi\ and that of Hyson is the name of the most considerable Chinese then concerned in the trade. The best account of the early use, and the prices of tea in England, appears in the hand- VOL, III. B B 370 INTRODUCTION OF bill of one who may be called our first Tea- maker. This curious hand-bill bears no date, but as Hanway ascertained that the price was sixty-shillings in 1660, this bill must have been dispersed about that period. Thomas Garway in Exchange-alley, Tobac- conist and Coffee-man, was the first who sold and retailed tea, recommending it for the cure of all disorders. The following shop-bill is more curious than any historical account we have. *' Tea in England hath been sold in the leaf for six pounds, and sometimes for ten pounds the pound weight, and in respect of its former scarceness and dearness it hath been only used as a regalia in high treatments and entertain- ments, and presents made thereof to princes and grandees till the year 1657. The said Garway did purchase a quantity thereof, and first publicly sold the said tea in leaf or drink, made according to the directions of the most knowing merchants into those Eastern countries. On the knowledge of the said Garway's conti- nued care and industry in obtaining the best tea, and making drink thereof, very many noblemen, physicians, merchants, &c. have ever since sent to him for the said leaf, and daily resort to his house to drink the drink thereof. He sells tea from 16*. to 50s. a pound." Probably, tea was not in general use domes- tically so late as in 1687, for in the diary of TEA, COFFEE, AND CHOCOLATE. 371 Henry, Earl of Clarendon, he registers that " Pere Couplet supped with me, and after supper we had tea, which he said was really as good as any he had drank in China." Had his lordship been in the general habit of drinking tea, he had not, probably, made it a subject for his diary. While the honour of introducing Tea may be disputed between the English and the Dutch, that of Coffee remains between the English and the French. Yet an Italian intended to have occupied the place of honour; that admirable traveller Pietro della Valle, writing from Con- stantinople 1615, to a Roman, his fellow-coun- tryman, informing him, that he should teach Europe in what manner the Turks took what he calls " Cahud" or as the word is written in an Arabic and English pamphlet, printed at Ox- ford 1659, on " the nature of the drink Kauhi or Coffee." As this celebrated traveller lived to 1652, it may excite surprise that the first cup of coffee was not drank at Rome : this remains for the discovery of some member of the " Ar- cadian Society." Our own Purchas, at the time that Valle wrote, was also " a Pilgrim," and well knew what was " Coffa" which " they drank as hot as they can endure itj it is as black as soot, and tastes not much unlike it; good they say for digestion and mirth." BB 2 372 INTRODUCTION OF It appears by Le Grand's " Vie privee des Fra^ois," that the celebrated Thevenot, in 1658, gave coffee after dinner ; but it was con- sidered as the whim of a traveller; neither the thing itself, nor its appearance, was inviting: it was probably attributed by the gay, to the humour of a vain philosophical traveller. But ten years afterwards a Turkish Ambassador at Paris made the beverage highly fashionable. The elegance of the equipage recommended it to the eye, and charmed the women : the bril- liant porcelain cups, in which it was poured; the napkins fringed with gold, and the Turkish slaves on their knees presenting it to the ladies, seated on the ground on cushions, turned the heads of the Parisian dames. This elegant in- troduction made the exotic beverage a subject of conversation, and in 167^, an Armenian at Paris at the fair-time opened a coffee-house. But the custom still prevailed to sell beer and wine, and to smoak and mix with indifferent com- pany in their first imperfect Coffee-houses. A Florentine, one Procope, celebrated in his day as the arbiter of taste in this department, instructed by the error of the Armenian, invented a supe- rior establishment, and introduced ices ; he embellished his apartment, and those who had avoided the offensive coffee-houses, repaired td Procope's j where literary men, artists, and TEA, COFFEE, AND CHOCOLATE. 373 wits resorted, to inhale the fresh and fragrant steam. Le Grand says, that this establishment holds a distinguished place in the literary history of the times. It was at the coffee-house of Du Laurent that Saurin, La Motte, Danchet, Boindin, Rousseau, &c. met ; but the mild steams of the aromatic berry could not mollify the acerbity of so many rivals, and the witty malignity of Rousseau gave birth to those fa- mous couplets on all the coffee-drinkers, which occasioned his misfortune and his banishment. Such is the history of the first use of coffee and its houses at Paris. We, however, knew the use before even the time of Thevenot ; for an English Turkish merchant brought a Greek servant in 16.52, who, knowing how to roast and make it, opened a house to sell it publicly. I have also discovered his hand-bill, in which he sets forth, " The vertue of the coffee-drink, first pub- liquely made and sold in England, by Pasqua Rosee, in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill, at the sign of his own head." For about twenty years after the introduction of coffee in this kingdom, we find a continued series of invectives against its adoption, both in medicinal and domestic views. The use of coffee, indeed, seems to have excited more no- tice, and to have had a greater influence on 374< INTRODUCTION OF the manners of the people, than that of tea. It seems at first to have been more universally used, as it still is on the Continent ; and its use is connected with a resort for the idle and the curious : the history of coffee-houses is often that of the manners, the morals, and the poli- tics, of a people. Even in its native country, the Government discovered that extraordinary fact, and the use of the Arabian berry was more than once forbidden where it grows ; for Ellis, in his " History of Coffee," 1774, refers to an Arabian MS. in the King of France's library, which shews that coffee-houses in Asia were sometimes suppressed. The same fate happened on its introduction into England. Among a number of poetical satires against the use of coffee, I find a curious exhibition, according to the exaggerated notions of that day, in " A cup of Coffee, or Coffee in its co- lours," 1663. The writer, like others of his contemporaries, wonders at the odd taste which could make Coffee a substitute for Canary. " For men and Christians to turn Turks, and think To excuse the crime, because 'tis in their drink ! Pure English apes ! ye may, for aught I know, Would it but mode learn to eat spiders too*. * This witty poet was not without a degree of prescience ; the luxury of eating spiders has never indeed become " modish," but TEA, COFFEE, AND CHOCOLATE. 375 Should any of your grandsires' ghosts appear In your wax-candle circles, and but hear The name of coffee so much call'd upon j Then see it drank like scalding Phlegethon ; Would they not startle, think ye, all agreed 'Twas conjuration both in word and deed ; Or Catiline's conspirators, as they stood Sealing their oaths in draughts of blackest blood ? The merriest ghost of all your sires would say, Your wine 's much worse since his last yesterday. He 'd wonder how the club had given a hop O'er tavern-bars into a farrier's shop, Where he'd suppose, both by the smoak and stench, Each man a horse, and each horse at his drench. Sure you 're no poets, nor their friends, for now, Should Jonson's strenuous spirit, or the rare Beaumont and Fletcher's in your rounds appear, They would not find the air perfumed with one Castalian drop, nor dew of Helicon. When they but men would speak as the Gods do, They drank pure nectar as the Gods drink too j Sublim'd with rich Canary say shall then, These less than coffee's self, these coffee-men ; These sons of nothing, that can hardly make Their broth, for laughing how the jest does take j Mons. Lalande, the French astronomer, and one or two bumble imi- tators of the modern philosopher, have shewn this triumph over vulgar prejudices, and were Epicures of this stamp. 876 INTRODUCTION OF Yet grin, and give ye for the vine's pure blood, A loathsome potion, not yet understood, Syrop of soot, or essence of old shoes, Dash't with diurnals and the books of news." Other complaints arose from the mixture of the company in the first coffee-houses. In " A broadside against Coffee, or the marriage of the Turk," 1672, the writer indicates the growth of the fashion : " Confusion huddles all into one scene, Like Noah's ark, the clean and the unclean j For now, alas ! the drench has credit got, And he 's no gentleman who drinks it not. That such a dwarf should rise to such a stature ! But custom is but a remove from nature. In " The Women's petition against Coffee/' 1674, they complained that " it made men as unfruitful as the deserts whence that unhappy berry is said to be brought : that the offspring of our mighty ancestors would dwindle into a succession of apes and pigmies ; and on a do- mestic message, a husband would stop by the way to drink a couple of cups of coffee." It was now sold in convenient penny-worths; for in another poem in praise of a coffee-house, for the variety of information obtained there, it is called " a penny university." TEA, COFFEE, AND CHOCOLATE. 577 Amidst these contests of popular prejudices, between the lovers of forsaken Canary, and the terrors of our females at the barrenness of an Arabian desert, which lasted for twenty years, at length the custom was universally established ; nor were there wanting some re- flecting minds desirous of introducing the use of this liquid, among the labouring classes of society, to wean them from strong liquors. Howel, in noticing that curious philosophical traveller, Sir Henry Blount's " Organon Salutis," 1659, observed that " this coffa-drink hath caused a great sobriety among all nations : for- merly apprentices, clerks, &c. used to take their morning-draughts in ale, beer, or wine, which often made them unfit for business. Now they play the good-fellows in this wakeful and civil drink. The worthy gentleman Sir James Muddiford, who introduced the practice hereof first in London, deserves much respect of the whole nation." Here it appears, what is most probable, that the use of this berry was intro- duced by other Turkish merchants, besides Edwards and his servant Pasqua. But the custom of drinking coffee among the labouring classes does not appear to have lasted ; and when it was recently even the cheapest beve- rage, the popular prejudices prevailed against it, and run in favour of tea. The contrary prac- 378 INTRODUCTION OF tice prevails on the Continent, where beggars are viewed making their coffee in the street. I remember seeing the large body of shipwrights at Helvoetsluys summoned by a bell, to take their regular refreshment of coffee ; and the fleets of Holland were not then built by arms less robust than the fleets of Britain. The frequenting of coffee-houses is a custom which has declined within our recollection, since institutions of a higher character, and soci- ety itself, has so much improved within late years. These were, however, the common assemblies of all classes of society. The mercantile man, the man of letters, and the man of fashion, had their appropriate coffee-houses. The Tatler dates from either to convey a character of his subject. In the reign of Charles II. 1675, a proclamation for some time shut them all up, having become the rendezvous of the politicians of that day. Roger North has given in his Exainen a full account of this bold stroke : it was not done without some apparent respect to the British Constitution, the court affecting not to act against law, for the judges were summoned to a consultation, when, it seems, the five who met did not agree in opinion. But a decision was contrived that " the retailing of coffee and tea might be an innocent trade ; but as it was said to nourish sedition, spread lies, and scan- TEA, COFFEE, AND CHOCOLATE. 37 dalize great men, it might also be a common nuisance." A general discontent, in consequence, as North acknowledges, took place, and em- boldened the merchants and retailers of coffee and tea to petition ; and permission was soon granted to open the houses to a certain period, under a severe admonition, that the masters should prevent all scandalous papers, books, and libels from being read in them ; and hinder every person from spreading scandalous reports against the government. It must be confessed, all this must have frequently puzzled the coffee- house master to decide what was scandalous, what book was fit to be licensed to be read, and what political intelligence might be allowed to be communicated. The object of the govern- ment was, probably, to intimidate, rather than to persecute, at that moment. Of chocolate, I have only to observe that, according to Le Grand's " Vie priv6e de Francois," the Spaniards brought it from Mex- ico, where it was denominated Chocollatti ; it was a coarse mixture of ground cacao and Indian corn with rocou. The Spaniards, liking its nourishment, improved it into a richer com- pound, with sugar, vanilla, and other aromatics. We had chocolate-houses in London long after coffee-houses ; they seemed to have associated something more elegant and refined in their 380 TEA, COFFEE, AND CHOCOLATE. new term, when the other had become common. Roger North thus inveighs against them : " The use of coffee-houses seems much improved by a new invention, called chocolate-houses, for the benefit of rooks and cullies of quality, where gaming is added to all the rest, and the sum- mons of W seldom fails ; as if the devil had erected a new University, and those were the Colleges of his professors, as well as his schools of discipline." Roger North, a high tory, and attorney-general to James II. observed however, that these rendezvous were often not entirely composed of those " factious gentry he so much dreaded ; for he says, " This way of passing time might have been stopped at first before people had possessed themselves of some convenience from them of meeting for short dispatches, and passing evenings with small expences." And old Aubrey, the small Boswell of his day, attributes his general acquaintance to " the modern advantage of coffee-houses in this great city, before which men knew not how to be acquainted, but with their own re- lations, and societies :" a curious statement, which proves the moral connection with society of all sedentary recreations which induce the herding spirit. CHARLES I. S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. CHARLES I. S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. HERBERT, the faithful attendant of Charles I. during the two last years of the King's life, mentions " a diamond seal with the King's arms engraved on it.' 1 The history of this " diamond seal" is remarkable, and seems to have been recovered by the conjectural sagacity of War- burton, who never exercised his favourite talent with greater felicity. The curious passage I transcribe, may be found in a manuscript letter to Doctor Birch. " If you have read Herbert's account of the last days of Charles Ist's life, you must remem- ber he tells a story of a diamond seal, with the arms of England cut into it. This, King Charles ordered to be given, I think, to the Prince. I suppose you don't know what became of this seal, but would be surprised to find it afterwards in the Court of Persia. Yet there Tavernier certainly carried it, and offered it to sale, as I certainly collect from these words of vol. I. p. 541. " Me souvenant de ce qui etoit arriv au Chevalier de Reville," &c. He tells us he told the Prime Minister what was engraved on the diamond, w r as the arms of a Prince of Europe, but, says he, I would not be more particular, S8 CHARLES I.'s LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. remembering the case of Reville. Reville's case was this ; he came to seek employment under the Sophy, who asked him " where he had served ?" He said, " in England under Charles I. and that he was a captain in his guards." " Why did you leave his service ?" " He was murdered by cruel rebels." " And how had you the impudence," says the Sophy, " to survive him ?" And so disgraced him. Now Tavernier was afraid if he had said the arms of England had been on the seal, that they would have occasioned the inquiry into the old story. You will ask how Tavernier got this seal ? I suppose that the Prince in his necessi- ties sold it to Tavernier, who was at Paris when the English Court was there. What made me recollect Herbert's account on reading this, was the singularity of an impress cut on the diamond, which Tavernier represents as a most extraordinary rarity. Charles I. was a great virtuoso, and delighted particularly in sculpture and painting." This is an instance of conjectural evidence, where an historical fact seems established on no other authority than the ingenuity of a student, exercised in his library on a private and secret event a century after it had occurred. The dia- mond seal of Charles I. may, probably , be yet dis- covered in the treasures of the Persian Sovereign. CHARLES I/S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. 383 Warburton, who had ranged with keen de- light through the age of Charles I. the no* blest and the most humiliating in our own history and in that of the world, perpetually instructive, has justly observed the King's pas- sion for the fine arts. It was indeed such, that had the reign of Charles I. proved prosperous, that Sovereign about 1640 would have antici- pated those tastes, and even that enthusiasm, which are still almost foreign to the nation. , The mind of Charles I. was moulded by the Graces. His favourite Buckingham was, pro- bably, a greater favourite for those congenial tastes, and the frequent exhibition of those splendid masques and entertainments, which combined all the picture of ballet-dances, with the voice of music 5 the charms of the verse of Jonson, the scenic machinery of Inigo Jones> and the variety of fanciful devices of Gerbier, the Duke's architect, the bosom friend of Ru- bens. There was a costly magnificence in the f4tes at York House, the residence of Buck- ingham, of which few but curious researchers are aware ; they eclipsed the splendour of the French Court, for Bassompiere in one of his dispatches, declares he had never witnessed a similar magnificence. He describes the vaulted apartments, the ballets at supper, which were proceeding between the services, with various CHARLES I.S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. representations, theatrical changes, and those of the tables, and the music ; the Duke's own contrivance, to prevent the inconvenience of pressure, by having a turning door made like that of the Monasteries, which admitted only one person at a time. The following extract from a manuscript letter of the times, conveys a lively account of one of these Fdtes. * Last Sunday at night, the Duke's Grace entertained their Majesties and the French Am- bassador at York-house with great feasting and shew, where all things came .down in clouds ; amongst w r hich, one rare device was a represen- tation of the French King and the two Queens, with their chiefest attendants, and so to the life, that the Queen's Majesty could name them. It was four o'clock in the morning before they parted, and then the King and Queen, together with the French Ambassador, lodged there. Some estimate this entertainment at five or six thousand pounds* 1 .'.' At another time, " The King and Queen were entertained at supper at Gerbier the Duke's painter's house, which could not stand him in less than a thousand pounds." Sir Symonds D'Ewes mentions Ban- quets at ^500. The fullest account I have found of one of these entertainments, which at * Sloane MSS. 5176, letter 367. CHARLES I/S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. 385 Once shew the curiosity of the scenical machi- nery and the fancy of the Poet; th< richness of the crimson habits of the gentlemen, and the white dresses with white heron's plumes and jewelled head-dresses and ropes of pearls of the ladies, was in a manuscript letter of the times, with which I supplied the editor of Jonson, who has preserved the narrative in his memoirs of that Poet *. " Such were the magnificent entertain- ments," says Mr. Giftbrd, in his introduction to Massinger, " which, though modern refinement may affect to despise them, modern splendour never reached, even in thought.'* That the ex- penditure was costly, proves that the greater encouragement was offered to artists; nor should Buckingham be censured, as some will incline to, for this lavish expence ; it was not unusual with the great Nobility then; for the literary Duchess of Newcastle mentions that an enter- tainment of this sort, which the Duke gave to Charles I. cost her Lord between four and five thousand pounds. The ascetic Puritan would indeed abhor these scenes; but their magnifi- cence was also designed to infuse into the na- tional character gentler feelings and more ele- gant tastes. They charmed even those fiercer republican spirits in their tender youth: MIL- TON owes his Arcades and his delightful Comus * Mr. Gifford's Memoirs of Jonson, p. 88. VOL. III. C C 386 CHARLES 1/S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. to a Masque at Ludlow Castle; and WHITE- LOCKE, wfeo was himself an actor and manager, in " a splendid lioyal Masque of the four Inns of Court, joining together" to go to Court about the time that Prynne published his Histriomas- tix, " to manifest the difference of their opi- nions from Mr. Prynne's.new learning," seems, even at a later day, when drawing up his " Me- morials of the English Aifairs," and occupied by graver concerns, to have dwelt with all the fondness of reminiscence on the stately shows and masques of his more innocent age ; and has de- voted, in a Chronicle which contracts many an important event into a single paragraph, , six folio columns to a minute and very curious de- scription of " these dreams past, and these va- nished pomps." Charles I. indeed, not only possessed a cri- tical tact, but extensive knowledge in the fine arts, and the relics of antiquity. In his flight in 1 6-42, the King stopped at the abode of the re- ligious family of the Farrars at Gidding, who had there raised a singular Monastic Institution among themselves. One of their favourite amusements had been to form an illustrated Bible, the wonder and the talk of the country. In turning it over, the King would tell his com- panion the Palsgrave, whose curiosity in prints exceeded his knowledge, the various masters, CHARLES I.*S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. 387 and the character of their inventions. And when Panzani, a secret agent of the Pope, was sent over to England to promote the Catholic Cause, the subtile and elegant Cardinal Barbe- rini, called the protector of the English at Rome, introduced Panzani to the King's favour by making him appear an agent rather for pro- curing him fine pictures, statues, and curiosities; and the earnest inquiries and orders given by Charles I. prove his perfect knowledge of the most beautiful existing remains of ancient art. " The statues go on prosperously," says Car- dinal Barberini in a letter to Mazarine, " nor shall I hesitate to rob Rome of her most va- luable ornaments, if in exchange we might be so happy as to have the King of England's name among those Princes who submit to the Apos- tolic See." Charles I. was particularly urgent to procure a statue of Adonis in the Villa Lu- dovisia; every effort was made by the Queen's Confessor, Father Philips, and the vigilant Car- dinal at Rome ; but the inexorable Duchess of Fiano would not suffer it to be separated from her rich collection of statues and paintings, even for the chance conversion of a whole king- dom of heretics.* * See Gregorio Panzani's Memoirs of his agency in Eng- land. This work long lay in manuscript, and was only c c 2 388 CHARLES I.'S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. This Monarch, who possessed " four and twenty palaces, all of them elegantly and com- pletely furnished,'* had formed very consider- able collections. " The value of pictures had doubled in Europe, by the emulation between our Charles and Philip IV. of Spain, who was touched with the same elegant passion." When the rulers of Fanaticism began their reign, "all the King's furniture was put to sale; his pic- tures, disposed of at very low prices, enriched all the collections in Europe ; the cartoons when complete were only appraised at SOOl. though the whole collection of the King's curiosities were sold at above 50,000/.* Hume adds, " the very library and medals at St. James's were intended by the generals to be (brought to auction, in order to pay the arrears of some regiments of cavalry; but Selden, appreheoftive of this loss, engaged his friend Whitelocke, then lord-keeper of the Commonwealth* to apply for the office of librarian. This con- trivance saved that valuable collection." > iThis * ^^oftrrrqefli r ?;rno kncnvji to vis in the Catholic D.odd's Chjjrch History, bv partial FOQ nrojerrefrnr) ^Knfr^nRTn^ a. J 7 >' extracts. It was at length translated from the Italian MS. siul T3&id $WW teph^eri^gto^f^^rTous piece o$J^*n^rtttiaWy. v J . *>***& ^ n * Ifiune's History of England ; Vlt! 34<3. iris authority is the Pail. Hist. XIX. S3. CHARLES I.'S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. 389 account is only partly correct: the love of books, which formed the passion of the two learned scho- lars whom Hume notices, fortunately intervened to save the royal collection from the intended scattering; but the Pictures and Medals were, perhaps, objects too slight in the eyes of the book-learned; they were resigned to the sin- gular fate of appraisement. After the Restora- tion?very many books were missing, but scarcely a -tfeird part of the medals remained : of the strange manner in which these precious remains of artcient art and history were valued and disposed of, the following account may not be reiad without interest. fax March 1648, the Parliament ordered Com- missioners to be appointed, to inventory the goods and personal estate of the late King, Queen, and Prince, and appraise them for the use of the publick. And in April 1648, an Act, fedds Whitelocke, was committed, for inven- torying the late King's goods, &c. * This very inventory I have examined. It forms a magnificent folio, of near a thousand pa^es, of an extraordinary dimension, bound in crimson velvet, and richly gilt, written in a fair large hand, but with little knowledge of the objects which the inventory- writer describes. It v ; * t f < , * Whitelocke's Memorials. ,390 CHARLES l.*S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTSc is entitled, " An Inventory of the Goods, Jewels, Plate, &c. belonging to King Charles I. sold by order of the Council of State, from the year 1649 to 16.52." So that, from the decapitation of the King, a year was allowed to draw up the inventory ; and the sale proceeded during three years. From this manuscript catalogue to give long extracts were useless ; it has afforded, however, some remarkable observations. Every article was appraised, nothing was sold under the af- fixed price, but a slight competition sometimes seems to have raised the sum ; and when the Council of State could not get the sum ap- praised, the gold and silver was sent to the Mint; and assuredly many fine works of art, were va- lued by the ounce. The names of the purcha- sers appear ; they are usually English, but pro- t>ably many were the agents for foreign Courts. The coins, or medals, were thrown promiscu- ously into drawers : one drawer having twenty- four medals, was valued at 2/. 10s.; another of twenty at I/.; another of twenty-four at I/.; and one drawer containing forty-six silver coins with the box, was sold for 51. On the whole the medals seem not to have been valued at much more than a shilling a-piece. The ap- praiser was certainly no antiquary. The King's curiosities in the Tower Jewel^ CHARLES I.'S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. 891 house generally fetched above the price fixed ; the toys of art could please the unlettered minds that had no conception of its works. The Temple of Jerusalem, made of ebony and amber, fetched &5/. A fountain of silver, for perfumed waters, artificially made to play of itself, sold for 301, A chess-board, said to be Queen Elizabeth's, inlaid with gold, silver, and pearls, 23/. A conjuring drum from Lapland, with an al- manack cut on a piece of wood. Several sections in silver of a Turkish galley, a Venetian gondola, an Indian canoe, and a first-rate man of war. A Saxon king's mace used in war, with a ball full of spikes, and the handle covered with gold plates, and enamelled, sold for 37/. 8,?. A gorget of massy gold, chased with the manner of a battle, weighing thirty-one ounces, at St. 10.9. per ounce, was sent to the Mint. A Roman shield of buff leather, covered with a plate of gold, finely chased with a Gorgon's head, set round the rim with rubies, emeralds, turquoise stones, in number 137, 132J. 12s. The pictures, taken from Whitehall, Wind- sor, Wimbledon, Greenwich, Hampton -Court, &c exhibit, in number, an unparalleled collec- tion. By what standard they were valued, it would, perhaps, be difficult to conjecture ; from CHARLES I.S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. 50/. to 100/, seems to have been the limits of the appraiser's taste and imagination. Some whose price is whimsically low, may have been thus rated, from a political feeling respecting the portrait of the person; there are, however, in this singular appraised catalogue, two pictures, which were rated at, anpl sold for the remark- able sums of one, and of two thousand pounds. The one was a sleeping Venus by Corregio, and the other a Madonna by Raphael. There was also a picture by Julio Romano, called " The great piece of the Nativity," at 500/. " The little Madona and Christ," by Raphael, at 800/. *' The great Venus and Parde," by Titian, at 600/. These seem to have been the only pictures, in this immense collection, which reached a picture's price. The inventory-writer had, pro- bably, been instructed by the public voice of their value ; which, however, would, in the pre- sent day, be considered much under a fourth. Rubens' " Woman taken in Adultery," de- scribed as a large picture, sold for 20/. ; and his " Peace and Plenty, with many figures big as the life," forlOO/. Titian's pictures seem generally valued at 100/. Venus dressed by) -the Graces, by Guido, reached to 200/. w^ The Cartoons of Raphael, here called " The Acts of the Apostles," notwithstanding their subject was so congenial to the 'popular feelings, CHARLES I/S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. 393 and only appraised at 300/. could find no pur- chaser. The following full-lengths of celebrated per- sonages were rated at these whimsical prices : Queen Elizabeth in her Parliament robes, va- lued I/. The Queen Mother in mourning habit, va- lued $L Buchanan's pfcture, valued 31. 10s. The King, when a youth in coats, valued 2/, The picture of the Queen when she was with child, sold for five shillings. King Charles on horseback, by Sir Anthony Vandyke, was purchased by Sir Balthazar Ger- bier, at the appraised price of 200/. The greatest sums were produced by the tapestry and arras hangings, which were chiefly purchased for the service of the Protector. ^keir amount exceeds 30,000/. I note a few. u At Hampton Court, ten pieces of arras hang- ings of Abraham, containing 826 yards, at 10/. ..a.- yard, 826W. -iTen pieces of Julius Caesar, 71? ells, at JL >B iOne of the cloth of estates is thus described : i" One rich cloth of estate of purple velvet, embroidered with gold, having the arms of England within a garter, with all the furniture 3uitable thereunto. The state containing these 394 CHARLES I.'S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS, stones following : two cameos or agates, twelve crysolites, twelve ballases or garnets, one sap- phire seated in chases of gold, one long pearl pendant, and many large and small pearls, va- lued, at 500/. sold for 602/. 10*. to Mr. Oliver, 4 February, 1649." Was plain Mr. Oliver in 1649, who was one of the early purchasers, shortly after " the Lord Protector ? All the " cloth of estate" and " arras hangings," were afterwards purchased for the service of the Protector ; and one may venture to conjecture that when Mr. Oliver purchased this " rich cloth of estate," it was not without a latent motive of its service to the new owner*." There is one circumstance remarkable in the feeling of Charles I. for the Fine Arts : it was a passion without ostentation or egotism ; for although this Monarch was inclined himself to participate in the pleasures of a creating artist, for the King has handled the pencil arid com- posed a poem, yet he never suffered his private dispositions to prevail over his more majestic * Some may be curious to learn the price of gold and siher about 1650. It appears by this manuscript inventory that the silver sold at 4s. lid. per oz. and gold at 31. 10*. ; so that the value of ; these metals has little varied during the last century and a half. 1& * CHARLES -I.*S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. 395 duties. We do not discover in history that Charles I. was a painter and a poet. Accident and secret history only reveal this softening feature in his grave and king-like character, Charles sought no glory from, but indulged his love for Art, and the artists. He suggested to the two great painters of his age, the sub- jects he considered worthy of their pencils, and had for his " closet-companions" those native poets, for which he was censured in " etil times," and even by Milton ! Charles I. therefore, if ever he practised the arts he loved, it may be conjectured, was im- pelled by the force of his feelings ; his workf or his touches, however unskilful, were at least their effusions, expressing the full language of his soul. In his imprisonment at Carisbook Castle, the author of the " Eikon Basilike" so- laced his royal woes by composing a poem, en- titled in the very style of this memorable volume, " Majesty in Misery, or an Imploration to the King of Kings ;" and, like that volume, it con- tains stanzas fraught with the most tender and solemn feeling ; such a subject, in the hands of such an author, was sure to produce poetry, although in the unpractised poet we may want the versifier. A few stanzas will illustrate this conception of part of his character ; 396 CHARLES I.'S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS- w The fiercest furies that do daily tread Upon my grief, my grey-discrowned head, Are those that owe my bounty for their bread. " With my own power my majesty they wound j In the King's name, the King 's himself uncrown'd j Set doth the dust destroy the diamond." After a pathetic description of his Queen ^ " forced in pilgrimage to seek a tomb," and " Great Britain's heir forced into France," where, " Poor child, he weeps out his inheritance !" Charles continues : " They promise to erect my royal stem j To make me great, to advance my diadem ; If I will first fall down, and worship them ! But for refusal they devour my thrones, Distress my children, and destroy my bones : I fear they'll force me to make bread of stones. And implores, with a martyr's piety, the Saviour's forgiveness for those who were more misled than criminal : " Such as thou know'st do not know what they do."* As a poet and a painter, Charles is not popu- larly known; but this article was due, to preserve * This poem is omitted in the great edition of the King's works, published after the Restoration ; and was first given by Burnet in bis " Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton." CHARLES I.'s LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. 3Q7 the memory of the royal votary's ardour and pure feelings for the love of the Fine Arts.* * This article was composed without any recollection that a part of the subject had been anticipated by Lord Orford. la the "..Anecdotes of Painting in England," many curious par- ticulars are noticed : the story of the King's diamond seal had reached his lordship, and Vertue had a mutilated trans- cript of the Inventory of the King's pictures, &c. discovered in Moorfields; for, among others, more than thirty pages at the beginning relating to the plate and jewels, were missing. The Manuscript in the Harleian Collection is perfect. Lord Or- ford has also given an interesting anecdote to shew the King's discernment in the knowledge of the hands of the painters, which confirms the little anecdote I have related from the Farrars. b^/ii'H 3 ton ot ->-;* 30 >! noii ;> 3 THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES I. THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES I. AND HIS ftUEEN HENRIETTA. The secret history of Charles I. and his Queen Henrietta of France, opens a different scene from the one exhibited in the passionate drama of our history. The King is accused of the most spiritless uxoriousness; and the chaste fondness of a hus- band is placed among his political errors. Even Hume conceives that his Queen " precipitated him into hasty and imprudent counsels," arid Bishop Kennet had alluded to " the influence of a stately Queen over an affectionate Hus- band." The uxoriousness of Charles is re-echoed by all the writers of a certain party. This is an odium which the King's enemies first threw out to make him contemptible; while his apo- logists imagined that, in perpetuating this ac- cusation, they had discovered, in a weakness which has at least something amiable, some pal- liation for his own political misconduct. The factious, too, by this aspersion, promoted the alarm tl;ey spread in the nation, of the King's inclination to popery ; yet, on the contrary, Charles was then making a determined stand, and at length triumphed over a Catholic AND HIS QUEEN HENRIETTA. 399 faction, which was ruling his Queen ; and this at the risk and menace of a War with France. Yet this firmness too has been denied him, even by his apologist Humej that histo- rian on his system imagined, that every action of Charles I. originated in the Duke of Bucking- ham, and that the Duke pursued his personal quarrel with Richelieu, and taking advantage of these domestic quarrels, had persuaded Charles to dismiss the French attendants of the Queen*. There are, fortunately, two letters from Charles I. to Buckingham, preserved in the State-papers of Lord Hardwicke, which set this point to rest : these decisively prove, that the whole matter originated with the King him- self, and that Buckingham, on the contrary, had tried every effort, to persuade him to the con- trary; for the King complains, that he had been too long overcome by his persuasions, but that he was now " resolved it must be done, and that shortly !"-f It is remarkable, that the character of a Queen, who is imagined to have performed so ac- tive a part in our history, scarcely ever appears in it ; when abroad, and when she returned to En- * Hume, vol. VI. p. 234. f Lord Hardwicke's State-papers, II. 2, 3. THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES I. gland, in the midst of a winter-storm 4 bringing all the aid she could to her unfortunate consort, those who witnessed this appearance of energy, imagined that her character was equally power- ful in the cabinet. Yet Henrietta, after all, was nothing more than a volatile woman ; one who had never studied, never reflected, and whom Nature had formed to be charming and haughty, but whose vivacity could not retain even a state-secret for an hour, and whose talents were quite opposite to those of deep political intrigue. Henrietta viewed even the characters ef great men with all the sensations of a woman. Describing the Earl of Straftbrd to a confiden- tial friend, and having observed that he was a great man, she dwelt with far more interest on his person: " Though not handsome," said she, " he was agreeable enough, and he had the finest hands of any man in the world." Land- ing at Burlington-bay in Yorkshire, she lodged on the Key ; the Parliament's Admiral barba- rously pointed his cannon at the house; and several shot reaching it, her favourite, Jcrmyn, requested her to fly; she safely reached a ca- vern in the fields., but, recollecting that she had left a lap-dog asleep in its bed, she flew back, and, amidst the cannon-shot, returned with this* other favourite. The Queen related this inci- AND HIS 6LUEEN HENRIETTA. 401 dent of the lap-dog to her friend Madame Motteville; these ladies considered it as a com-* plete woman's victory. It is in these memoirs we find, that when Charles went down to the House, to seize on the five leading members of the opposition, the Que'en could not retain her lively temper, and impatiently babbled the plot ; so that one of the ladies in attendance dis- patched a hasty note to the parties, who, as the King entered the House, had just time to leave it* Some have dated the ruin of his cause to the failure of that impolitic step, which alarmed every one zealous for that spirit of po- litical freedom which had now grown up in the Commons. Incidents like these, mark the fe- minine dispositions of Henrietta. But when at sea, in danger of being taken by a Parliamen- tarian, the Queen commanded the captain not to strike, but to prepare at the extremity to blow up the ship, resisting the shrieks of her females and domestics ; we perceive how, on every trying occasion, Henrietta never forgot that she was the daughter of Henry IV.; that glorious affinity was inherited by her with all the sexual pride; and hence, at times, that energy in her actions which was so far above her intellectual capacity. And, indeed, when the awful events she had witnessed were one by one registered in her VOL. in* D D 402 THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES I. melancholy mind, the sensibility of the woman subdued the natural haughtiness of her charac- ter; but, true woman! the feeling creature of circumstances, at the Restoration she resumed it, and when the new court of Charles II. would not endure her obsolete haughtiness, the Dowager-Queen left it in all the full bitterness of her spirit. An habitual gloom, and the meagreness of grief, during the Com- monwealth, had changed a countenance once the most lively, and her eyes, whose dark and dazzling lustre was even celebrated, then only shone in tears. When she told her phy- sician, Sir Theodore Mayerne, that she found her understanding was failing her, and seemed terrified lest it was approaching to madness, the Court-physician, hardly courtly to fallen majesty, replied, " Madam, fear not that; for you are already mad." Henrietta had lived to contemplate the awful changes of her reign, without comprehending them. Waller, in the profusion of poetical decora- tion, makes Henrietta so beautiful, that her beauty would affect every lover " more than his private loves.'* She was " the whole world's mistress." A portrait in crayons of Henrietta at Hampton-court, sadly reduces all his poetry, for the miraculous was only in the fancy of the Court-poet. But there may be some truth in what he says of the eyes of Henrietta. AND HIS QUEEN HENRIETTA. 403 " Such eyes as your's, on Jove himself, had thrown As bright and fierce a lightning as his own." And in another poem there is one characte- ristic line. " such radiant eyes, Such lovely motion, and such sharp replies." In a MS. letter of the times, the writer de- scribes the Queen as " nimble and quick, black- eyed, brown - haired, and a brave lady * " In the MS. journal of Sir Symonds D'Ewes, who saw the Queen on her first arrival in Lon- don, cold and puritanic as was that antiquary, he notices with some warmth " the features of her face, which were much enlivened by her radiant and sparkling black eye-f-." She ap- pears to have possessed French vivacity both in her manners and her conversation; in the history of a Queen, an accurate conception of her person enters for something. Her talents were not of that order which could influence the revolutions of a people. Her natural dispositions might have allowed her to become a politician of the toilette, and she might have practised those slighter artifices, which may be considered as so many political coquetries. But Machiavelian principles, and f Sloane MSS. 4176. f Harl. MSS. 646. DD2 404* THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES I. involved intrigues, of which she has been so freely accused, could never have entered into her character. At first she tried all the fertile inventions of a woman to persuade the King that she was his humblest creature, and the good people of England that she was quite in love with them. Now that we know that no female was ever more deeply tainted with Ca- tholic bigotry ; and that, haughty as she was, this Princess suffered the most insulting super* stitions, inflicted as penances by her priests, for this very marriage with a Protestant Prince, the following new facts relating to her first arrival in England, curiously contrast with the mortified feelings she must have endured by the violent suppression of her real ones. We must first bring forward a remarkable and unnoticed document in the Embassies of Marshal Bassompierre*. It is nothing less than a most solemn obligation contracted with the Pope and her brother the King of France, to educate her children as Catholics, and only to choose Catholics to attend them. Had this been known either to Charles, or to the English nation, Henrietta could never have been per- mitted to ascend the English throne. The fate of both her sons shows how faithfully she per- * Ambassades du Marechal de Bassompierre, vol. III. 49. AND HIS GUEEN HENRIETTA. 405 formed this treasonable contract. This piece of secret history opens the concealed cause of those deep impressions of that faith, which both Monarchs sucked in with their milk; that tri- umph of the cradle over the grave which most men experience: Charles II. died a Catholic, James II. lived as one. When Henrietta was on her way to England, a Legate from Rome arrested her at Amiens, requiring the Princess to undergo a penance, which was to last sixteen days, for marrying Charles without the papal dispensation. The Queen stopped her journey, and wrote to inform the King of the occasion. Charles, who was then waiting for her at Canterbury, replied, that if Henrietta did not instantly proceed, he would return alone to London. Henrietta doubtless sighed for the Pope and the penance, but she set off the day she received the King's letter. The King, either by his wisdom or his impatience, detected tjie aim of the Roman Pontiff, who, had he been permitted to arrest the progress of a Queen of England for sixteen days in the face of all Europe, would thus have ob- tained a tacit supremacy over a British Mo- narch. When the King arrived at Canterbury, al- though not at the moment prepared to receive him, Henrietta flew to meet him, and with all 406 THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES I. her spontaneous grace and native vivacity, kneeling at his feet, she kissed his hand, while -the King, bending over her, wrapt her in his arms, and kissed her with many kisses. This royal and youthful pair, unusual with those of their rank, met with the eagerness of lovers,, and the first words of Henrietta were those of devotion ; Sire, Je suis venue en ce pais de votre Majest^ pour etre u.se'e et command ee de vous*. It had been rumoured that she was of a very short stature, but, reaching to the King's shoul- der, his eyes were cast down to her feet, seem- ingly observing whether she used art to in- crease her height. Anticipating his thoughts, and playfully shewing her feet, she declared, that " she stood upon her own feet, for thus high I am, and neither higher nor lower." After an hour's conversation in privacy, Henri- etta took her dinner surrounded -by the Court; and the King, who had already dined, perform- ing the office of her carver, cut a pheasant and some venison. By the side of the Queen stood her ghostly Confessor, solemnly reminding her that this was the eve of John the Baptist, and was to be fasted, exhorting her to be cautious that she set no scandalous example on her first * A letter from Dr. Meddus to Mr. Mead, 1? Jan. 1625. 4177. Sloane MSS. AND HIS GLUEEN HENRIETTA. 407 arrival. But Charles and his Court were now to be gained over, as well as John the Baptist. She affected to eat very heartily of the forbidden meat, which gave great comfort, it seems, to se- veral of her new heretical subjects then present;, but we may conceive the pangs of so confirmed a devotee! She carried her dissimulation so far, that being asked about this time whether she could abide a Hugonot? she replied, " Why not? Was not my father one?" Her ready smiles, the graceful wave of her hand, the many " good signs of hope,"as a contemporary in a manuscript letter expresses it, induced many of the English to believe that Henrietta might even become one of themselves! Sir Symonds D'Ewes, as appears by his manuscript diary, was struck by " her deportment to her women, and her looks to her servants, which were so sweet and humble*!'* However, this was in the first days of her arrival, and these " sweet and humble looks" were not constant ones ; for a courtier at Whitehall, writ- ing to a friend, observes, that " the Queen, how- ever little of stature, yet is of a pleasing coun- * Sir S. D'Ewes's Journal of his life. Harl. MS. 646. We have seen our puritanic antiquary describing the person of the Queen with some warmth ; but " he could not abstain from deep-fetched sighs, to consider that she wanted the knowledge of true religion," a circumstance that Henrietta would have as zealously regretted for Sir Symonds himself! 4-08 THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES I. tenance, if she be pleased, otherwise full of spirit and vigour, and seems of more than or- dinary resolution;" and he adds an incident of one of her " frowns." The room in which the Queen was at dinner being somewhat over- heated with the fire and company, " she drove us all out of the chamber. I suppose none but a Queen could have cast such a scow r l *." We may already detect the fair waxen mask melting away on the features it covered, even in one short month! By the marriage-contract, Henrietta was to be allowed a household establishment, com- posed of her own people j and this had been contrived to be not less than a small French co- lony, exceeding three hundred persons. It com- posed, in fact, a French faction, and looks like a covert project of Richelieu's to further his in- trigues here, by opening a perpetual corre- spondence with the discontented Catholics of England. In the instructions of Bassompierre, one of the alleged objects of the marriage is the general good of the Catholic religion, by affording some relief to those English who pro- fessed it. If, however, that great Statesman ever entertained this political design, the sim- plicity and pride of the Roman Priests here * A letter to Mr. Mead, July 1, 1625. Sloane MSS. 4176, AND HIS GLUEEN HENRIETTA. 409 ^completely overturned it ; for in their blind zeal they dared to extend their domestic ty- ranny over Majesty itself. The French party had not long resided here, ere the mutual jealousies between the two na- tions broke out. All the English who were not Catholics, were soon dismissed from their at- tendance on the Queen, by herself; while Charles was compelled by the popular cry, to forbid any English Catholics to serve the Queen, or to be present at the celebration of her mass. The King was even obliged to employ poursuivants or king's messengers, to stand at the door of her chapel to seize on any of the English who en- tered there, while on these occasions the French would draw their swords to defend these con- cealed Catholics. " The Queen and her's" be- came an odious distinction in the nation. Such were the indecent scenes exhibited in public ; they were not less reserved in private. The following anecdote of saying a grace before the King, at his own table, in a most indecorous race run between the Catholic priest and the King's chaplain, is given in a manuscript letter of the times. " The King and Queen dining together in the presence*, Mr. Hacket (chaplain to the * There is a curious picture of Charles and Henrietta dining in the presence, at Hampton Court. 410 THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES 1. Lord Keeper Williams *) being then to say grace, the Confessor would have prevented him, but that Racket shoved him away ; whereupon the Confessor went to the Queen's side, and was about to say grace again, but that the King pulling the dishes unto him, and the carvers falling to their business hindered. When dinner was done, the Confessor thought, standing by the Queen, to have been before Mr. Racket, but Mr. Racket again got the start. The Con- fessor, nevertheless, begins his grace as loud as Mr. Racket, with such a confusion, that the King in great passion instantly rose from the table, and, taking the Queen by the hand, re- tired into the bed-chamber -}-." It is with dif- ficulty we conceive how such a scene of priestly indiscretion should have been suffered at the table of an English Sovereign. Such are the domestic accounts I have gleaned from MS. letters of the times j but particulars of a deeper nature may be discovered in the answer of the King's Council to Marshal Bas- sompierre, preserved in the History of his embassy ; this Marshal had been hastily dis- * The author of the Life of this Archbishop and Lord Keeper j a voluminous folio, but full of curious matters. Ambrose Philips the poet abridged it. t A letter from Mr. Mead to Sir Martin Stuteville, October 1625. 41?7, SloaneMSS AND HIS OUEEN HENRIETTA. 441 patched as an extraordinary ambassador when the French party were dismissed. - This state-docu- ment, rather a remonstrance than a reply, states that the French household had formed a little republic within themselves, combining with the French resident Ambassador, and inciting the opposition members in Parliament ; a practice usual with that intriguing court, 'even from the days of Elizabeth, as the original letters of the French Ambassador of the time, which will be found in this volume, amply shew; and those of La Boderie in James I.'s time, who raised a French party about Prince Henry ; and the correspondence of Barillon in Charles II.'s reign, is fully exposed in his entire correspondence published by Fox. The French domestics of the Queen were engaged in lower intrigues j they lent their names to hire houses in the suburbs of London, where, under their pro- tection, the English Catholics found a secure retreat to hold their illegal assemblies, and where the youth of both sexes were educated and prepared to be sent abroad to Catholic seminaries. But the Queen's priests, by those well-known means which the Catholic religion sanctions, were drawing from the Queen the minutest circumstances which passed in privacy between her and the King; indisposed her mind towards her royal consort, impressed on her a THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES I. contempt of the English nation, and a disgust of our customs, and particularly, as has been usual with the French, made her neglect the English language, as if the Queen of England held no common interest with the nation. They had made her residence a place of security for the persons and papers of the discontented. Yet all this was hardly more offensive than the humili- ating state to which they had reduced an English Queen by their monastic obedience j inflicting the most degrading penances. One of the most flagrant is alluded to in our history. This was a barefoot pilgrimage to Tyburn, where, one morning, under the gallows on which so many Jesuits had been executed as traitors to Eliza* beth and James I. she knelt and prayed to them as martyrs and saints who had shed their blood in defence of the Catholic cause*. A manuscript letter of the times mentions that " the priests had also made her dabble in the dirt in a foul morning from Somerset-house to St. James's, her Luciferian confessor riding along by her in his coach ! They have made her to go barefoot to spin, to eat her meat out of dishes, to wait at the table of servants, with many other ridiculous and absurd penances. And if they dare thus insult (adds the writer) * There is a very rare print which has commemorated this circumstance. AND HIS GIUEEN HENRIETTA. 413 over the daughter, sister, and wife of so great Kings, what slavery would they not make us, the people, to undergo*." One of the articles in the contract of marriage was, that the Queen should have a chapel at St. James's, to be built and consecrated by her French Bishop ; the Priests became very impor- tunate, declaring that without a chapel mass could not be performed with the state it ought before a Queen. The King's answer is not that of a man inclined to Popery. " If the Queen's closet, where they now say mass, is not large enough, let them have it in the great chamber; and, if the great chamber is not wide enough, they might use the garden ; and, if the garden would not serve their turn, then was the park the fittest place." The French Priests and the whole party feel- ing themselves slighted, and sometimes worse treated, were breeding perpetual quarrels among themselves, grew weary of England, and wished themselves away ; but many having purchased their places with all their fortune, would have been ruined by the breaking up of the establish- ment. Bassompierre alludes to the broils and * Mr. Pory to Mr. Mead, July 1626. Harl. MSS. No. 383. The answer of the King's Council to the complaints of Bas- eompierre are both copious and detailed in Vol. HI. p. 166, of the " Ambassades" of this Marshal. THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES I. clamours of these French strangers, which ex- posed them to the laughter of the English Court; and one cannot but smile in observing, in one of the dispatches of this great mediator between two Kings and a Queen, addressed to the Mi- nister, that one of the greatest obstacles which he had found in this difficult negotiation, arose from the bed-chamber women ! The French King being desirous of having two additional women to attend the English Queen, his sister, the Ambassador declares, that " it would be more expedient rather to diminish than to in- crease the number ; for they all live so ill toge- ther, with such rancorous jealousies and enmi- ties, that I have more trouble to make them agree than I shall find to accommodate the dif- ferences between the two Kings. Their con- tinual bickerings, and often their vituperative language, occasion the English to entertain the most contemptible and ridiculous opinions of our nation. I shall not, therefore, insist on this point, unless it shall please his Majesty to re- new it." The French Bishop was under the age of thirty, and his authority was imagined to have been but irreverently treated by two beautiful viragos in that civil war of words which was raging ; one of whom, Madame St. George, was in high favour, and most intolerably hated by AND HIS ftUEEN HENRIETTA. 415 the English. Yet such was English gallantry, that the King presented this lady on her dismis- sion with several thousand pounds and jewels. There was something inconceivably ludicrous in the notions of the English, of a Bishop hardly of age, and the gravity of whose character was probably tarnished by French gesture and vi- vacity. This French establishment was daily growing in expence and number ; a manu- script letter of the times states that it cost the King 240/. a day, and had increased from three- score persons to four hundred and forty, besides children ! It was one evening that the King suddenly appeared, and, summoning the French house- hold, commanded them to take their instant de- parture the carriages were prepared for their removal. In doing this, Charles had to resist the warmest in treaties, and even the vehement anger of the Queen, who is said in her rage to have broken several panes of the window of the apartment to which the King dragged her, and confined her from them*. The scene which took place among the French people, at the sudden announcement of the King's determination, was remarkably in- * A letter from Mr. Pory to Mr. Mead contains a full account of this transaction. Harl. MSS. 3S3. 416 THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES t. decorous. They instantly flew to take posses-* sion of all the Queen's wardrobe and jewels; they did not leave her, it appears, a change of linen, since it was with difficulty she procured one as a favour, according to some manuscript letters of the times. One of their extraordi- nary expedients was that of inventing bills, for which they pretended they had engaged them- selves on account of the Queen, to the amount of 10,OOO/. which the Queen at first owned to, but afterwards acknowledged the debts were fictitious ones. Among these items was one of 400/. for necessaries for her Majesty; an Apothecary's bill for drugs of 800/.; and another of 150/. for u the Bishop's unholy water," as the writer expresses it. The young French Bishop attempted by all sorts of delays to avoid this ignominious expulsion ; till the King was forced to send his yeomen of the guards to turn them out from Somerset - house, where the juvenile French Bishop, at once protesting against it, and mounting the steps of the coach, took his departure " head and shoulders." It appears that to pay the debts and the pensions, besides sending the French troops free home, cost 0,000/. In a long procession of nearly forty coaches, after four days tedious travelling they reached Dover; but the spectacle of these impatient AND HIS 6LUEEN HENRIETTA; foreigners so reluctantly quitting England, ges- ticulating their sorrows or their quarrels, ex- posed them to the derision, and stirred up the prejudices of the common people. As Madame George, whose vivacity is always described ex- travagantly French, was stepping into the boat, one of the mob could not resist the satisfaction of flinging a stone at her French cap; an Eng- lish courtier who was conducting her, instantly quitted his charge, ran the fellow through the body, and quietly returned to the boat. The r man died on the spot; but no farther notice ap- pears to have been taken of the inconsiderate gallantry of this English courtier. But Charles did not show his kingly firmness only on this occasion: it did not forsake him when the French Marshal Bassompierre was in- stantly sent over to awe the King; Charles sternly offered the alternative of war, rather than permit a French faction to trouble an Eng- lish Court. Bassompierre makes a curious ob- servation in a letter to the French Bishop of Mende, he who had been just sent away from England; and which serves as the most positive evidence of the firm refusal of Charles I. The French Marshal, after stating the total failure of his mission, exclaims, "See, Sir, to what we are reduced! and imagine my grief, that the Queen of Great Britain has the pain of viewing my de- VOL. III. E E 418 THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES I. parture without being of any service to her; but if you consider that I was sent here to make a contract of marriage observed, and to maintain the Catholic Religion in a country from which they formerly banished it to break a contract of marriage, you will assist in excusing me of this failure." The French Marshal has also pre- served the same distinctive feature of the Nation, as well as of the Monarch, who, surely to his ho- nour as King of England, felt and acted on this occasion as a true Briton. " I have found,'* says the Gaul, " humility among Spaniards, ci- vility and courtesy among the Swiss ; in the Em- bassies I had the honour to perform for the King; but the English would not in the least abate of their natural pride and arrogance. The King is so resolute not to re-establish any French about the Queen, his consort, and was so stern (rude) in speaking to me, that it is im- possible to have been more so." In a word, the French Marshal, with all his vaunts and his threats, discovered that Charles I. was the true representative of his subjects, and that the King had the same feelings with the people: this indeed was not always the case! This transaction took place in 1626, and when, four years after- wards, it was attempted again to introduce ceK tain French persons, a Bishop and a Physician, about the Queen, the King absolutely refused AND HIS aUEEN HENRIETTA. 419 even a French Physician who had come over with the intention of being chosen the Queen's, under the sanction of the Queen mother. This little circumstance appears in a manuscript letter from Lord Dorchester to Mr. De Vic, one of the King's agents at Paris. After an account of the arrival of this French Physician, his Lord^ ship proceeds to notice the former determina- tions of the King; " yet this man,' 5 he adds, " hath been addressed to the Ambassador to in- troduce him into the Court, and the Queen per^ suaded in cleare and plaine terms to speak to the King to admit him as domestique. His Ma- jesty expressed his dislike of this proceeding, but contented himself to let the Ambassador know that this Doctor may return as hee is come, with intimation that he should do it spee* dily ; the French Ambassador, willing to help the matter, spake to the King that the said Doctor might be admitted to kiss the Queen's hand, and to carrie the news into France of her safe delivery; which the King excused by a civil answer, and has since commanded me to let the Ambassador* understand, that he had heard him as Monsieur de Fontenay in this par- ticular, but, if he should persist and press him as Ambassador, he should be forced to say that which would displease him." Lord Dorchester adds, that he informs Mr. De Vic of these par- EE 2 420 THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES I. ticulars, that he should not want for the infor- mation should the matter be revived by the French Court, otherwise he need not notice it*. By this narrative of secret history Charles I. does not appear so weak a slave to his Queen, as our writers echo from each other; and those who make Henrietta so important a personage in the cabinet, appear to have been imperfectly acquainted with her real talents. Charles, in- deed, was deeply enamoured of the Queen, for he was inclined to strong personal attachments; and " the temperance of his youth, by which he had lived so free from personal vice," as May the parliamentary historian expresses it, even the gay levity of Buckingham seems never, in ap- proaching the King, to have violated. Charles admired in Henrietta all those personal graces which he himself wanted; her vivacity in con- versation enlivened his own seriousness, and her gay volubility the defective utterance of his own; while the versatility of her manners re- lieved his own formal habits. Doubtless the Queen exercised the same power over this Mo- narch which vivacious females are privileged by nature to possess over their husbands ; she was * A letter from the Earl of Dorchester, 27 May 1630. Harl. MSS. 7000 (160). AND HIS ftUEEN HENRIETTA. 421 often listened to, and her suggestions were sometimes approved ; but the fixed and syste- matic principles of the character and the govern- ment of this Monarch must not be imputed to the intrigues of a mere lively and volatile woman ; we must trace them to a higher source ; to his own inherited conceptions of the Regal rights, if we would seek for truth, and read the history of human nature in the history of Charles I. 422 THE MINISTER CARDINAL RICHELIEU. THE MINISTER THE CARDINAL DUKE Of RICHELIEU. RICHELIEU was the greatest of statesmen, if he who maintains himself by the greatest power is necessarily the greatest minister. He was called " the King of the King.'* After having long tormented himself and France, he left a great name and a great empire both alike the victims of splendid ambition ! Neither this great minister, nor this great nation, tasted of happiness under his mighty administration. He had, indeed, a heartlessness in his conduct which obstructed by no relentings those re- morseless decisions which made him terrible. But, while he trode down the princes of the blood and the nobles, and drove his patroness the Queen-mother into a miserable exile, and contrived that the King should fear and hate his brother, and all the Cardinal -Duke chose, Richelieu was grinding the face of the poor by exorbitant taxation, and converted every town in France into a garrison j it was said of him, that he sever liked to be in any place where he was not the strongest. " The commissioners of the exchequer and the commanders of the army believe themselves called to a golden harvest ; THE MINISTER CARDINAL RICHELIEU. 423 and in the interim the Cardinal is charged with the sins of all the world, and is even afraid of his life." Thus Grotius speaks, in one of his let- ters, of the miserable situation of this great Mi* nister, in his account of the Court of France in 1635, when he resided there as Swedish ambas- sador. Yet such is the delusion of these great politicians, who consider what they term state- Interests as paramount to all other duties, human or divine, that while their whole life is a series of oppression, of troubles, of deceit, and of cruelty, their state-conscience finds nothing to reproach itself with. Of any other conscience it seems absolutely necessary that they should be divested. Richelieu on his death-bed made a solemn protestation, appealing to the last Judge of man, who was about to pronounce his sentence, that he never proposed any thing but for the good of religion and the state ; that is, the Catholic religion and his own administration. When Louis XIII. who visited him in his last moments, took from the hand of an attendant a plate with two yolks of eggs, that the King of France might himself serve his expiring minister, Richelieu died in all the self-delusion of a great Minister. The sinister means he practised, and the political deceptions he contrived, do not yield in subtilty to the dark grandeur of his ministerial THE MINISTER CABDINA1, RICHELIEU. character. It appears that, at a critical ment, when he felt the King's favour was waver- ing, he secretly ordered a battle to be lost by the French, to determine the King at once not to give up a Minister who, he knew, was the only man who could extricate him out of this new difficulty. In our great civil war, this Minister pretended to Charles I. that he was at- tempting to win the Parliament over to him, while he was backing their most secret projects against Charles. When a French Ambassador addressed the Parliament as an independent power, after the King had broken with it, Charles, sensibly affected, remonstrated with the French Court ; the Minister disavowed the whole proceeding, and instantly recalled the Ambassador, while at the very moment his secret agents were to their best embroiling the affairs of both parties *. The object of Richelieu was to weaken the English monarchy, so as to busy itself at home, and prevent its fleets and its armies thwarting his projects on the Continent, lest England, jealous of the greatness of France, should declare itself for Spain the moment it had recovered its own tranquillity. This is a stratagem too * Clarendon details the political coquetries of Monsieur La Ferte'; his " notable familiarity with those who governed most in the two Houses j" II. 93. THE MINISTER CARDINAL RICHELIEU. ordinary with great ministers, those plagues of the earth, who, with their state-reasons, are for cutting as many throats as God pleases among every other nation *. A fragment of the secret history of this great Minister may be gathered from that of some of his confidential agents. One exposes an in- vention of this Minister's to shorten his cabinet labours, and to have at hand a screen, when * Hume seems to have discovered in Estrades' Memoirs, the real occasion of Richelieu's conduct. In 1639 the French and Dutch proposed dividing the Low-Country provinces ; England was to stand neuter. Charles replied to D' Estrades, that his army and fleet should instantly sail to prevent these projected conquests. From that moment the intolerant ambi- tion of Richelieu swelled the venom of his heart, and he eagerly seized on the first opportunity of supplying the Covenanters in Scotland with arms and money. Hume observes, that Charles here expressed his mind with an imprudent candour ; but it proves he had acquired a just idea of national interest. VI. 337- See on this a very curious passage in the Catholic Dodd's Church History, III. 22. He apologizes for his Cardinal by asserting that the same line of policy was pursued here in Eng- land " by Charles I. himself, who sent fleets and armies to assist the Hugonots, or French rebels, as he calls them ; and that this was the constant practice of Queen Elizabeth's ministry, to foment differences in several neighbouring king- doms, and support their rebellious subjects, as the forces she employed for that purpose both in France, Flanders, and Scotland, are an undeniable proof." The recriminations of politicians are the confessions of great sinners. 426 THE MINISTER CARDINAL RICHELIEU. that useful contrivance was requisite; the other, the terrific effects of an agent setting up to be a politician on his own account, against that of his master's. Richelieu's Confessor was one Father Joseph ; but this man was designed to be employed rather in state-affairs, than in those which con- cerned his conscience. This Minister, who was never a penitent, could have none. Father Joseph had a turn for political negotiation, otherwise he had not been the Cardinal's Con- fessor ; but this turn was of that sort, said the Nuncio Spada, which was adapted to follow up to the utmost the views and notions of the Minister, rather than to draw the Cardinal to his, or to induce him to change a tittle of his designs. The truth is, that Father Joseph pre- ferred going about in his chariot on ministerial missions, rather than walking solitary to his con- vent, after listening to the unmeaning confessions of Cardinal Richelieu. He made himself so in- timately acquainted with the plans and the will of this great Minister, that he could venture, at a pinch, to act without orders ; and foreign affairs were particularly consigned to his ma- nagement. Grotius, when Swedish Ambassador, knew them both. Father Joseph, he tells us, was employed by Cardinal Richelieu to open negotiations, and put them in a way to succeed THE MINISTER- CARDINAL RICHELIEU. 427 to his mind, and then the Cardinal would step in, and undertake the finishing himself. Joseph took businesses in hand when they were green, and, after ripening them, he handed them over to the Cardinal. In a conference which Grotius held with the parties, Joseph began the treaty, and bore the brunt of the first contest. After a warm debate the Cardinal interposed as arbi- trator : " A middle way will reconcile you," said the Minister, " and as you and Joseph can never agree, I will now make you friends *." That this was Richelieu*s practice, appears from another similar personage mentioned by Grotius, but one more careless and less cunning. When the French Ambassador, Leon Brulart, assisted by Joseph, concluded at Ratisbon a treaty with the Emperor's Ambassador, on its arrival the Cardinal unexpectedly disapproved of it, declaring that the Ambassador had ex- ceeded his instructions. But Brulart who was an old statesman, and Joseph, to whom the Cardinal confided his most secret views, it was not supposed could have committed such a gross error ; and it was rather believed that the Car- dinal changed his opinions with the state of affairs, wishing for peace or war as they suited the French interests, or as he conceived they * Grotii Epistolae, 3*5 and 380. fo. Ams. 1687. A volume which contains 2500 letters of this great man. 428 THE MINISTER CARDINAL RICHELIEU. tended to render his administration necessary to the Crown.* When Brulart, on his return from his embassy, found this outcry raised against him. and not a murmur against Joseph he explained the mystery; the Cardinal had raised this clamour against him merely to cover the instructions which he had himself given, and which Brulart was convinced he had re- ceived, through his organ Father Joseph ; a man, said he, who has nothing of the Capuchin but the frock, and nothing of the Christian but the name ; a mind so practised in artifices, that he could do nothing without deception ; and during the whole of the Ratisbon negotiation, Brulart discovered, that Joseph would never communi- cate to him any business till the whole was finally arranged; the sole object of his pursuits was to find means to gratify the Cardinal. Such free sentiments nearly cost Brulart his head; for once, in quitting the Cardinal in warmth, the Minister, following him to the door, and pass- ing his hand over the other's neck, observed, that " Brulart was a fine man, and it would be a pity to divide the head from the body." * La vie du Cardinal Due de Richelieu, anonymous, but written by Jean le Clerc, vol. I. 507. An impartial life of a great Minister, of whom, between the panegyrics of his flatterers, and the satires of his enemies, it was difficult to discover a just medium. * THE MINISTER CARDINAL RICHELIEU. 429 One more anecdote of this good father Joseph, the favourite instrument of the most important and covert designs of this Minister, has been pre- served in the Memorie Recondite of Vittorio Siri*, an Italian Abb6, the Procopius of France, but afterwards pensioned by Mazarine. Richelieu had in vain tried to gain over Colonel Ornano, a >man of talents, the governor of Monsieur, the only brother of Louis XIII; not accustomed to have his offers refused, he resolved to ruin him. Joseph was now employed to contract a parti- cular friendship with Ornano, and to suggest to him, that it was full time that his pupil should be admitted into the Council, to acquire some political knowledge. The advancement of Ornano's royal pupil was his own ; and as the King had no children, the crown might descend to Monsieur. Ornano therefore took the first oppor- tunity to open himself to the King, on the pro- priety of initiating his brother into affairs, either in council, or by a command in the army. This the King, as usual, immediately commu- nicated to the Cardinal, who was well prepared to give the request the most odious turn, and to alarm his Majesty with the character of Or- nano, who, he said, was inspiring the young Prince with ambitious thoughts ; that the next step would be an attempt to share the crown * Mem. Rec. vol. VI. 131. THE MINISTER CARDINAL RICHELIEU. itself with his Majesty. The Cardinal foresaw how much Monsieur would be offended by the refusal, and would not fail to betray his impatience, and inflame the jealousy of the King. Yet Richelieu bore still an open face and friendly voice for Ornano, whom he was every day undermining in the King's favour, till all terminated in a pretended conspiracy, and Ornano perished in the Bastile, of a fever, at least caught there. So much for the friend- ship of Father Joseph! And by such men and such means, the astutious Minister secretly threw a seed of perpetual hatred between the Royal brothers, producing conspiracies, often closing in blood, which only his own haughty tyranny had provoked. Father Joseph died regretted by Richelieu ; he was an ingenious sort of a creature, and kept his carriage to his last day, but his name is only preserved in secret histories. The fate of Father Caussin, the author of the ** Cours Sainte," a popular book among the Catholics for its curious religious stories, and whose name is better known than Father Joseph's, shews how this Minister could rid himself of Father-Con- fessors who persisted, according to their own notions, to be honest men, in spite of the Minister. This piece of secret history is drawn from a manuscript narrative which THE MINISTER CARDINAL RICHELIEU. 431 Caussin left addressed to the General of the Jesuits.* Richelieu chose Father Caussin for the King's Confessor, and he had scarcely entered his office, when the Cardinal informed him of the King's romantic friendship for Mademoiselle La Fayette, of whom the Cardinal was extremely jealous. Desirous of getting rid altogether of this sort of tender connexion, he hinted to the new Confessor, that, however innocent it might be, it was attended with perpetual danger, which the lady herself acknowledged, and, warm with " all the motions of grace/' had declared her intention to turn " Religieuse ;" and that Caussin ought to dispose the King's mind to see the wisdom of the resolution. It happened however, that Caussin considered that this lady, whose zeal for the happiness of the people was well known, might prove more seviceable at Court than in a cloister, so that the good father * It is quoted in the " Kemarques Critiques sur le Dic- tionnaire de Bayle," Paris 1748. This anonymous folio vo- lume was written by Le Sieur Joly, a canon of Dijon, and is full of curious researches, and many authentic discoveries. The writer is no philosopher, but he corrects, and adds, to the knowledge of Bayle. Here 1 found some original anec- dotes of Hobbes, from MS. sources, during that philosopher's residence at Paris, which I have given in " Quarrels of Au- thors." 43% THE MINISTER CARDINAL RICHELIEU. was very inactive in the business, and the Mi- nister began to suspect that he had in hand an instrument not at all fitted to it as Father Jo- seph. " The motions of Grace," were, however, more active than the Confessor, and Made- moiselle retired to a monastery. Richelieu learned that the King had paid her a visit of three hours, and he accused Caussin of encouraging these secret interviews. This was not denied, but it was adroitly insinuated, that it was pru- dent not abruptly to oppose the violence of the King's passion, which seemed reasonable to the Minister. The King continued these visits, and the lady, in concert with Caussin, impressed on the King the most unfavourable sentiments of the Minister, the tyranny exercised over the exiled Queen-mother, and the Princes of the blood;* the grinding taxes he levied on the people, his projects of alliance with the Turk against the Christian Sovereigns, &c. His Majesty sighed; he asked Caussin if he could name any one capable of occupy ing the Minister's place ? Our simple po- litician had not taken such a consideration in his * Montresor, attached to the Duke of Orleans, has left us some Very curious memoirs, in two small volumes ; the second preserving many historical documents of that active period This spirited writer has not hesitated to detail his projects for the assassination of the tyrannical minister. THE MINISTER CARDINAL RICHELIEU. 433 mind. The .King asked Caussin whether he would meet Richelieu face to face? The Jesuit was again embarrassed, but summoned up the resolution with equal courage and simplicity. Caussin went for the purpose : he found the King closeted with the Minister, the con- ference was long, from which Caussin augured ill. He himself tells us, that, weary of waiting in the anti-chamber, he contrived to be ad- mitted into the presence of the King, when he performed his promise. But the case was altered ! Caussin had lost his cause before he pleaded it, aud Richelieu had completely justified himself to the King. The good Father was told that the King would not perform his devotions that day, and that he might return to Paris. The next morning the whole affair was cleared up. An order from Court prohibited this voluble Je- suit either from speaking or writing to any per- son ; and farther drove him away in an inclement winter, sick in body and at heart, till he found himself an exile on the barren rocks of Quimper in Britany, where, among the savage inhabitants, he was continually menaced by a prison or a gallows, which the terrific Minister lost no op- portunity to place before his imagination j and occasionally dispatched a Paris Gazette, that distilled the venom of Richelieu's heart, and which, like the eagle of Prometheus, could VOL. III. F F 434 THE MINISTER CARDINAL RICHELIEU. gnaw at the heart of the insulated politician chained to his rock.* Such were the contrasted fates of Father Joseph and Father Caussin! the one the inge- nious creature^ the other the simple opposi- tionist, of this great minister. * In the first volume of this work, page 247, is a different view of the character of this extraordinary man : those anec- dotes are of a lighter and satirical nature j they touch on " the follies of the wise." THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 435 THE MINISTER DUKK OF BUCKINGHAM, LORD ADMIRAL, LORD GENERAL, &C. &C. &C. " Had the Duke of Buckingham been blessed with a faithful friend, qualified with wisdom and integrity, the Duke would have committed as few faults, and done as transcendant worthy ac- tions, as any man in that age in Europe." Such was the opinion of Lord Clarendon in the prime of life, when yet untouched by party feeling, he had no cause to plead,, and no quarrel with truth.* The portrait of Buckingham by Hume, seems to me a character dove-tailed into a system, adjusted to his plan of lightening the cause of Charles I. by participating it among others. This character eonceals the more fa- vourable parts of no ordinary man : that spirit which was fitted to lead others by its own in- vincibility, and those qualities he possessed of a better nature. All the fascination of his cha- racter is lost in the general shade cast over it by the niggardly commendation, that " he pos~ * In " The Disparity" to accompany " The Parallel," of Sir Henry Wotton ; two exquisite cabinet-pictures, preserved in the Reliquiae Wottoniana; and at least equal to the finest " Parallels" of Plutarch. F F 2 43(5 THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM* sessed some accomplishments of a courtier.'* Some, indeed, and the most pleasing; but not all truly, for dissimulation and hypocrisy were arts unpractised by this courtier. " His sweet and attractive manner so favoured by the Graces," has been described, by Sir Henry Wotton, who knew him well; while Clarendon, another living witness, tells us, that, " He was the most rarely accomplished the Court had ever beheld; while some that found inconvenience in his nearness, intending by some affront to discountenance him, perceived he had masked under this gen- tleness a terrible courage, as could safely pro- tect all his sweetnesses." The very errors and infirmities of Bucking- ham, seem to have started from qualities of a generous nature ; too devoted a friend, and too undisguised an enemy, carrying his loves and his hatreds on his open forehead ;* too careless * The singular openness of his character was not Statesman- like. He was one of those whose ungovernable sincerity " cannot put all their passions in their pockets." He told the Count-Duke Olivarez, on quitting Spain, that " he would always cement the friendship between the two nations, but with regard to you, Sir, in particular, you must not consider me as your friend, but must ever expect from me all possible en- mity and opposition." The Cardinal was willing enough, says Hume, " to accept what was proffered, and on these terms the favourites parted." Buckingham, desirous of ac- commodating the parties in the nation, once tried at the fa- THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 437 of calumny*, and too fearless of danger ; he vour of the Puritanic party, whose head was Dr. Preston, master of Emanuel College. The Duke was his generous patron, and Dr. Preston his most servile adulator. The more zea- lous Puritans were offended at this intimacy; and Dr. Preston, in a letter to some of his party, observed, that it was true that the Duke was a vile and profligate fellow, but that there was no other way to come at him but by the lowest flattery; that it was necessary for the glory of God that such instruments should be made use of; and more in this strain. Some officious hand conveyed this letter to the Duke, who, when Dr. Preston came one morning, as usual, asked him whether he had ever disobliged him, that he should describe him to his party in such black characters. The Doctor, amazed, denied the fact; on which the Duke instantly produced the letter, then turned from him, .never to see him more. It is said that from this moment he abandoned the Puritan party, and attached himself to Laud. This story was told by Thomas Baker to W. Wotton, as coming from one well versed in the secret his- tory of that time. Lansdowne MSS. 7"2. fo. 68. * A well-known tract against the Duke of Buckingham, by Dr. George Eglisham physician to James I. entitled, " The Fore-runner of Revenge," may be found in many of our col- lections. Gerbier, in his manuscript memoirs., gives a curious account of this political libeller, the model of that class of desperate scribblers. *' The falseness of his libels," says Gerbier, " he hath since acknowledged, tho' too late. Du- ring my residency at Bruxelles, this Eglisham desired Sir William Chaloner, who then was at Liege, to bear a letter to me, which is still extant ; he proposed, if the King would par- don and receive him into favour again, with some competent subsistence, he would recant all that he had said or written, to the disadvantage of any in the Court of England, confess- ing that he had been urged thereunto by some combustious 438 THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. was, in a word, a man of sensation, acting from impulse; scorning, indeed, prudential views, but capable at all times of embracing grand and ori- ginal ones ; compared by the jealousy of faction to the Spenser of Edward II. and even the Se- janus of Tiberius; he was no enemy to the peo- ple ; often serious in the best designs, but vola- tile in the midst ; his great error sprung from a sanguine spirit ; he was ever, says Wotton, " greedy of honour and hot upon the public ends, but too confident in the prosperity of be- ginnings." If Buckingham was a hero, and yet neither General nor Admiral; a Minister, and yet no Statesman ; if often the creature of popular admiration, he was at length hated by the people ; if long envied by his equals, and be- trayed by his own creatures,* " delighting too spirits, that for their malitious designs had set him on work." Buckingham would never notice these and similar libels. Eglisham flew to Holland after he had deposited his political venom in his native country, and found a fate which every villainous factionist who offers to recant for " a competent subsistence," does not always 5 he was found dead, assassinated in his walks by a companion. Yet this political libel, with many like it are still considered. " George Duke of Bucking- ham," says Oldys, ' will not speedily outstrip Dr. Eglisham's Fore-runner of Revenge." * The misery* of Prime Ministers and favourites is a por- tion of theu^fate, which has not always been noticed by their biographers ; one must be conversant with secret history, to THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 439 much in the press and affluence of dependants and suitors, who are always burrs and some- times the briars of favourites," as Wotton well describes them ; if one of his great crimes in the eyes of the people was, that " his enterprizes succeeded not according to their impossible expectation j" and that it was a still greater, that Buckingham had been the permanent fa- vourite of two Monarchs, who had spoilt their child of fortune ; then may the future inquirer find something of his character which remains to be opened ; to instruct alike the Sovereign and the people, and " be worthy to be registered among the great examples of Time and For- tune." discover the thorn in their pillow. Who could have imagined that Buckingham, possessing the entire affections of his Sove- reign, during his absence had reason to fear being supplanted? When his confidential secretary, Dr. Mason, slept in the same chamber with the Duke, he would give way at night to those suppressed passions which his unaltered countenance con- cealed by day. In the absence of all other ears and eyes, he would break out into the most querulous and impassioned language, declaring, that " never his dispatches to divers princes, nor the great business of a fleet, of an army, of a siege, of a treaty, of war and peace both on foot together, and all of them in his head at a time, did not so much break his repose, as the idea that some at home under his Majesty of whom he had well-deserved, were now content to forget him." So short-lived is the gratitude observed to an absent favourite, who is most likely to fall by the creatures his own hands have made. 440 THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. Contrast the fate of BUCKINGHAM with that of his great rival, RICHELIEU. The one winning popularity and losing it ; once in the Commons saluted as " their redeemer," till, at length, they resolved that " Buckingham was the cause of all the evils and dangers to the king and kingdom." Magnificent, open, and merciful ; so forbearing, even in his acts of gentle oppression, that they were easily evaded j and riots and libels were in- fecting the country, till, in the popular clamour, Buckingham was made a political monster, and the dagger was planted in the heart of the in- cautious minister. The other Statesman, un- relenting in his power, and grinding in his oppressions, unblest with one brother-feeling, had his dungeons filled and his scaffolds raised, and died in safety and glory a cautious tyrant ! There exists a manuscript memoir of Sir Balthazar Gerbier, who was one of those inge- nious men Buckingham delighted to assemble about him ; for this was one of his characteris- tics, that, although the Duke himself was not learned, yet he never wanted for knowledge ; too early in life a practical man, he had not the leisure to become a contemplative one ; he sup- plied this deficiency by perpetually " sifting and questioning well" the most eminent for their experience and knowledge ; and Lord Bacon, and the Lord Keeper Williams, as well as sucl* THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 441 as Gerbier, were admitted into this sort of inti-r inacy. We have a curious letter by Lord Bacon, of advice to our minister, written at his own request; and I have seen a large correspondence with that subtile politician, the Lord Keeper Williams, who afterwards attempted to supplant him, to the same purpose. Gerbier was the painter and architect, and at the same time one of the confidential agents of Buckingham ; the friend of Rubens, the painter, with whom he was concerned in this country to open a Spanish negotiation, and became at length the master of the ceremonies to Charles II. in his exile. He was an actor in many scenes. Ger- bier says of himself, that " he was a minister who had the honour of public employment, and may therefore incur censure for declaring some passages of state more overtly than becomes such an one, but secrets are secrets but for a time ; others may be wiser for themselves, but it is their silence which makes me write*." A mystery has always hung over that piece of knight-errantry, the romantic journey to Madrid, where the prime minister and the heir- apparent, in disguise, confided their safety in the hands of our national enemies ; which excited such popular clamour, and indeed anxiety for the Prince and the Protestant cause. A new *SloaneMSS. 4191. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. light is cast over this extraordinary transaction, by a secret which the Duke imparted to Gerbier. The project was Buckingham's ; a bright ori- ginal view, but taken far out of the line of precedence. It was one of those bold inventions which no common mind could have conceived, and none but the spirit of Buckingham could have carried on with a splendour and mastery over the persons and events, which turned out, however, as unfavourable as possible. The restoration of the imprudent Palatine, the son-in-law of James I. to the Palatinate which that Prince had lost by his own indiscretion, when he accepted the crown of Bohemia, although warned of his own incompetency, as well as of the incapacity of those Princes of the empire, who might have assisted him against the power of Austria and Spain, seemed however to a great part of our nation necessary to the stability of the Protestant interests. James I. was most bitterly run down at home for his civil pacific measures, but the truth is, by Gerbier's account, that James could not depend on one single ally, who had all taken fright, although some of the Germans were willing enough to be subsidised at 30,000/. a month from England ; which James had not to give, and which he had been a fool had he given j for though this war for the Protestant interests was popular in England, it was by no THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 443 means general among the German Princes : the Prince Elector of Treves, and another Prince, treated Gerbier coolly; and observed, that " God in these days did not send prophets more to the Protestants than to others, to fight against nations, and to second pretences which public incendiaries propose to Princes, to engage them into unnecessary wars with their neighbours.'* France would not go to war, and much less the Danes, the Swedes, and the Hollanders. James was calumniated for his timidity and cowardice ; yet,' says Gerbier, King James me- rited much of his people, though ill-requited, choosing rather to suffer an eclipse of his per- sonal reputation, than to bring into such hazard the reputation and force of his kingdoms in a war of no hopes. As a father and a king, from private and from public motives, the restoration of the Palatinate had a double tie on James, and it was always the earnest object of his negotiations. But Spain sent him an amusing and literary Ambas- sador, who kept him in play year after year, with merry tales and bon mots *. These nego- * Gerbier gives a curious specimen of Gondomar's pleasant sort of impudence. When James expressed himself with great warmth on the Spaniards under Spinola, taking the first town in the Palatinate, under the eyes of our Ambassador, Gondomar with Cervantic humour, attempted to give a new 444 THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. tiations had languished through all the tedium of diplomacy ; the amusing promises of the courtly Gondomar were sure, on return of the courier, to bring sudden difficulties from the subtile Olivarez. Buckingham meditated by a single blow to strike at the true secret, whether the Spanish Court could be induced to hasten this important object, gained over -by the prof- fered alliance with the English crown, from the lips of the Prince himself. The whole scene dazzled with politics, chivalry, and magnifi- cence ; it was caught by the high spirit of the youthful Prince, whom Clarendon tell us " loved adventures j" and it was indeed an incident which has adorned more than one Spanish ro- mance. The panic which seized the English, fearful of the personal safety of the Prince, did not prevail with the Duke, who told Gerbier that the Prince run no hazard from the Spaniard, who well knew that while his sister, the fugitive Queen of Bohemia, with a numerous issue was residing in Holland, the Protestant succession to our crown was perfectly secured ; and it was turn to the discussion ; for he wished that Spinola had taken the whole Palatinate at once, for "then the generosity of my master would be shewn in all its lustre, by restoring it all again to the English Ambassador, who had witnessed the whole operations." James, however, at this moment was no longer pleased with the inexhaustible humour of his old friend, and set about trying what could be done. THE DUKE OF BUCKING HAM* 445 with this conviction, says Gerbier, that when the Count Duke Olivarez had been persuaded that the Prince of Wales was meditating a flight from Spain, that Buckingham with his accus- tomed spirit told him, that " if love had made the Prince steal out of his own country, yet fear would never make him run out of Spain, and that he should depart with an equipage as fitted a Prince of Wales." This was no empty vaunt. An English fleet was then waiting in a Spanish port, and the Spanish Court inviting our Prince to the grand Escurial, attended the departure of Charles, as Hume expresses it, with " ela- borate pomp." This attempt of Buckingham, of which the origin has been so often inquired into, and so oppositely viewed, entirely failed with the Spa- niard. . The Catholic league outweighed the Protestant. At first the Spanish Court had been as much taken by surprise as the rest of the world ; all parties seemed at their first inter- view highly gratified. V* We may rule the world together," said the Spanish to the English mi- nister- They were, however, not made by nature, or state-interests, to agree at a second interview. The Lord Keeper Williams, a wily courtier and subtile politician, who, in the absence of his patron, Buckingham, evidently supplanted him in the favour of his royal mas- 446 THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. ter, when asked by James, " Whether he thought this knight-errant pilgrimage would be likely to win the Spanish lady 5" answered, with much political foresight, and saw the difficulty: " If my Lord Marquis will give honour to the Count Duke Olivarez, and remember he is the fa- vourite of Spain ; or, if Olivarez will shew honou- rable civility to my Lord Marquis, remembering he is the favourite of England, the wooing may be prosperous : but if my Lord Marquis should forget where he is, and not stoop to Olivarez ; or, if Olivarez, forgetting what guest he hath received with the Prince, bear himself like a Castilian grandee to my Lord Marquis, the pro- vocation may cross your Majesty's good inten- tions *." What Olivarez once let out, " though somewhat in hot blood, that in the Councils of the King, the English match had never been taken into consideration, but from the time of the Prince of Wales's arrival at Madrid," might have been true enough. The seven years which had passed in apparent negotiation, resembled the scene of a, fata morgana; an earth painted in the air raised by the delusive arts of Gon- domar and Olivarez. As they never designed to realise it, it would of course never have been brought into the Councils of his Spanish Majesty. Buckingham discovered, as he told Gerbier, * Racket's Life of Lord Keeper Williams, p. 115, pt. I. fo. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 447 that the Infanta by the will of her father, Philip III. was designed for the Emperor's son; the Catholic for the Catholic, to cement the vene- rable system. When Buckingham and Charles had now ascertained that the Spanish Cabinet could not adopt English and Protestant interests, and Olivarez had convinced himself that Charles would never be a Catholic, all was broken up ; and thus a treaty of marriage which had been slowly reared, during a period of seven years, when the flower seemed to take, only contained within itself the seeds of war *. Olivarez and Richelieu were thorough-paced statesmen, in every respect the opposites of the elegant, the spirited, and the open Buckingham. The English favourite checked the haughty Castilian, the favourite of Spain, and the more than king-like Cardinal, the favourite of France, with the rival spirit of his Island, proud of her equality with the continent. * The narrative furnished by Buckingham, and vouched by the Prince to the Parliament, agrees in the main with what the Duke told Gerbier. It is curious to observ how the narrative seems to have perplexed Hume, who, from some preconceived system, condemns Buckingham, " for the falsity of this long narrative as calculated entirely to mislead the Parliament." He has, however, in the note [T] of this very volume, sufficiently marked the difficulties which hung about the opinion he has given in the text. The curious may find the narrative in Frankland's Annals, p. 89, and in Rushworth's Hist. Coll. I. 119. It has many entertaining particulars. 44-8 THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. There is a story that the war between Eng- land and France, was occasioned by the per- sonal disrespect shewn by the Cardinal Duke Richelieu to the English Duke, in the affronting mode of addressing his letters. Gerbier says^ the world are in a ridiculous mistake about this circumstance. The fact of the letters is true, since Gerbier was himself the secretary on this occasion. It terminated, however, differently than is known. Richelieu* at least as haughty as Buckingham, addressed a letter, in a moment of caprice, in which the word Monsieur was level with the first line, avoiding the usual space of honour, to mark his disrespect. Buckingham instantly turned on the Cardinal his own in- vention. Gerbier, who had written the letter, was also its bearer. The Cardinal started at the first sight, never having been addressed with such familiarity, and was silent. On the following day, however, the Cardinal received Gerbier civilly, and, with many rhetorical ex- pressions respecting the Duke, " I know," said he, " the power and greatness of 'a high admiral of England; the cannons of his great ships make way, and prescribe law more forcibly than the canons of the church, of which I am a member. I acknowledge the power of the favourites of great kings, and I am content to be a minister of state, and the Duke's humble servant." THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 449 This was an apology made with all the politesse of a Gaul, and by a great statesman who had recovered his senses. If ever Minister of State was threatened by the prognostics of a fatal termination to his life, it was Buckingham ; but his own fearlessness dis- dained to interpret them. The following cir- cumstances, collected from manuscript letters of the times, are of this nature. After the sudden and unhappy dissolution of the Parliament, po- pular terror shewed itself in all shapes ; and those who did not join in the popular cry, were ' branded with the odious nickname of the Duke- lings. A short time before the assassination of Buckingham, when the King, after an obstinate resistance, had conceded his assent to the " Pe- tition of Right," the Houses testified their sa- tisfaction, perhaps their triumph, by their shouts of acclamation. They were propagated by the hearers on the outside, from one to the other, till they reached the City: some confused ac- count arrived before the occasion of tfrese re- joicings were generally known: suddenly the bells began to ring, bonfires were kindled, and in an instant all was a scene of public rejoicing. But ominous indeed were these rejoicings, for the greater part was occasioned by a false ru- mour that the Duke was to be sent to the VOL. III. G G 450 THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. Tower; no one inquired about a news which every one wished to hear ; and so sudden was the joy, that a MS letter says " the old scaffold on Tower-hill was pulled down and burned by certain unhappy boys, who said they would have a new one built for the Duke." This mis- take so rapidly prevailed as to reach even the country, which blazed with bonfires to announce the fall of Buckingham*. The shouts on the acquittal of the seven Bishops in 1688, did not speak in plainer language to the son's ear, when after the verdict was given, such prodigious ac- clamations of joy " seemed to set the King's au- thority at defiance : it spread itself not only into the City, but even to Hounslow-heath, where the soldiers upon the news of it gave up a great shout, though the King was then actually at dinner in the camp."t To the speculators of human nature, who find it's history written in their libraries, how many plain lessons seem to have been lost on the mere politician, who it only such in the heat of action. About a month before the Duke was assas- sinated, occurred the murder by the populace of {he man who was called " The Duke's devil." This was a Dr. Lambe, a man of infamous cha- * Letter from J. Mead to Sir fyjt Stuteville, June 5, 1628. Harl. MSS. 7000. f Memoirs of James II. vol. II. p. 163. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 451 acter ; a dealer in magical arts, who lived by shewing apparitions or selling the favours of the devil, and whose chambers were a convenient rendezvous for the curious of both sexes. This wretched man, who openly exulted in the infa- mous traffic by which he lived, when he was sober, prophesied that he should fall one day by the hands from which he received his death ; and it was said he was as positive about his pa- tron's. At the age of eighty, he was torn to pieces in the City, and the City was imprudently heavily fined ^.6000, for not delivering up those, who, in murdering this hoary culprit, were heard to say that they would handle his master worse, and would have minced his flesh, and have had every one a bit of him. This is one more instance of the political cannibalism of the mob. The fate of Dr. Lambe served for a ballad, and the printer and singer were laid in Newgate*. Buckingham, it seems, for a moment * Rushworth has preserved a burthen of one of these songs : Let Charles and George do what they can, The Duke shall die like Doctor Lamb. And on the assassination of the Duke, I find two lines in a MS letter : The Shepherd 's struck, the sheep are fled ! For want of Lamb the fVolfis dead ! G G 2 There THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, contemplated his own fate in his wretched creature's, more particularly as another omen obtruded itself on his attention; for on the very day of Dr. Lambe's murder, his own por- trait in the Council-chamber was seen to have fallen out of its frame; a circumstance as awful in that age of omens, as the portrait that walked from its frame in the Castle of Otranto, but perhaps more easily accounted for. On the eventful day of Dr. Lambe's being torn to pieces by the mob, a circumstance occurred to Buck- ingham, somewhat remarkable to shew the spirit of the times. The King and the Duke were in the Spring-gardens looking on the Bowlers ; the Duke put on his hat. One Wil- son a Scotchman, first kissing the Duke's hands, snatched it off, saying, " Off with your hat before the King." Buckingham, not apt to restrain his quick feelings, kicked the Scotchman, but the King interfering, said, " Let him alone, George, he is either mad or a fool." " No, Sir," replied the Scotchman, " I am a sober man, and if your Majesty would give me leave, I will tell you that of this man which many know, and none dare There is a scarce tract of " A brief description of the noto- rious life of John Lambe, otherwise called Doctor Lambe/' &c. with a curious wood print of the mob pelting him in the street. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. speak." This was as a prognostic, an anticipa- tion of the dagger of Felton. About this time a libel was takea down from a post in Coleman-street by a constable and carried to the Lord-Mayor, who ordered it to be delivered to none but his Majesty. Of this libel the manuscript letter contains the following particulars : " Who rules the Kingdom ? The King. Who rules the King ? The Duke. Who rules the Duke ? The Devil. Let the Duke look to it j for they intend shortly to use him worse than they did the Doctor ; and if things be not shortly reformed they will work a reformation themselves." The only advice the offended King suggested was to set a double watch every night! A watch at a post to prevent a libel being affixed to it, was no prevention of libels being writ- ten, and the fact is, libels were now bundled and sent to Fairs, to be read by those who would venture to read, to those who would venture to listen ; both parties were often sent to prison. It was about this time, after the sudden dissolution of the Parliament, that popular terror shewed itself in various shapes, and the spirit which then broke out in libels by night was assuredly the same, which, if 454 THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. these political prognostics had been rightly construed by Charles, might have saved the eventual scene of blood. But neither the King nor his favourite had yet been taught to respect popular feelings. Buckingham, after all, was guilty of no heavy political crimes; but it was his misfortune to have been a Prime Minister, as Clarendon says, in " a busy, que- rulous, f reward time, when the people were un- easy under pretences of Reformation, with some petulant discourses of liberty, which their great impostors scattered among them like glasses to multiply their fears." It was an age, which was preparing for a great contest, where both parties committed great faults. The favourite did not appear odious in the eyes of the King, who knew his better dispositions more inti- mately than the popular party, who were cry- ing him down. And Charles attributed to in- dividuals, and " the great impostors," the cla- mours which had been raised. But the plurality of offices showered on Buckingham, rendered him still more odious to the people : had he not been created Lord-High Admiral and General, he had never risked his character amidst the opposing elements, orbefore impregnable forts. But something more than his own towering spirit, or the temerity of v&- THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 4>55 nity, must be alleged for his assumption of those opposite military characters.* A peace of twenty years appears to have rusted the arms of our soldiers, and their commanders were destitute of military skill. The war with Spain was clamoured for ; and an expedition to Cadiz, in which the Duke was reproached by the people for not taking the command, as they supposed from deficient spirit, only ended in our undisciplined soldiers under bad commanders getting drunk in the Spanish cellars, in so much that not all had the power to run away. On this expedition, some verses were handed about, which, probably are now first printed, from a manuscript letter of the times ; a political pasquinade which shews the utter silliness of this " Ridiculus Mus." * At the British Institution, some time back, was seen a picture of Buckingham, mounted on a charger by the sea- shore, crowded with Tritons, &c. As it reflected none of the graces or beauty of the original, and seemed the work of some wretched apprentice of Rubens (perhaps Gerbier himself) these contradictory accompaniments increased the suspicion that the picture could not be the Duke's : it was not recollected generally that the favourite was both Admiral and General ; and that the Duke was at once Neptune and Mars, ruling both sea and land. 456 THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. VERSES ON THE EXPEDITION TO CADIZ. There was a crow sat on a stone, He flew a.way and there was none ! There was a man that run a race, When he ran fast he ran apace ! There was a maid that eat an apple When she eat two she eat a couple ! There was an ape sat on a tree, When he fell down then down fell he ! There was a fleet that went to Spain, When h returned it came again ! Another expedition toRochelle, undertheEarl of Denbigh, was indeed of a more sober nature, for the Earl declined to attack the enemy. The national honour, among the other grievances of the people, had been long degraded ; not in- deed by Buckingham himself, who personally had ever maintained, by his high spirit an equality, if not a superiority, with France and Spain. It was to win back the public favour by a resolved and public effort, that Buckingham a second time was willing to pledge his fortune, his honour, and his life, into one daring cast, and on the dyke of Rochelle to leave his body, or to vindicate his aspersed name. The garrulous Gerbier shall tell his own story, which I tran- scribe from his own hand-writing, of the mighty THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 457 preparations, and the Duke's perfect devotion to the cause, for among other rumours, he was calumniated as never having been faithful to his engagement with the Protestants of Ro- chelle. " The Duke caused me to make certain works, according to the "same model as those wherewith the Prince of Parma blew up, before Antwerp, the main Dyke and Estacado; they were so mighty strong, and of that quantity of powder, and so closely masoned in barks, that they might have blown up the half of a town. I employed therein of powder, stone-quarries, bombs, fire-balls, chains, and iron balls, a dou- ble proportion to that used by the Duke of Parma, according to the description left there- of." " The Duke's intention to succour the Ro- chellers was manifest, as was his care to assure them of it. He commanded me to write and convey fo them the secret advertisement thereof. The last advice I gave them from him con- tained these words, ' Hold out but three weeks, and God willing I will loe with you, either to overcome or to die there.' The bearer of this received from my hands a hundred Jacobuses to carry it with speed and safety. The Duke had disbursed three score thousand pounds of his money upon the fleet ; and lost his life ere he 458 THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. could get aboard. Nothing but death had hin- dered him or frustrated his design, of which I am confident by another very remarkable passage. The Duke, a little before his departure from York house, being alone with me in his garden, and giv- ing me his last commands for my journey towards Italy and Spain, one Mr. Wigmore, a gentleman of his, coming to us, presented to his lordship a paper, said to come from the prophesying Lady Davers*, foretelling that he should end his life that month ; besides he had received a letter from a very considerable hand, persuading him to let some other person be sent on that expe- dition to command in his place ; on which oc- casion the Duke made this expression to me : ' Gerbier, if God please I will go, and be the first man who shall set his foot upon the Dike before Rochel to die, or do the work, whereby the world shall see the reality of our intentions for the relief of that place.' He had before told me the same in his closet, after he had signed certain dispatches of my letters of credence to the Duke of Lorraine and Savoy, to whom I * Gerbier, a foreigner, scarcely ever writes an English name correctly, while his orthography is not always intelli- gible. He means here Lady Davies, an extraordinary character and a supposed prophetess. This Cassandra hit the time in her dark predictions, and was more persuaded than ever that she was a prophetess ! See more of her in this volume p. 212. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 459 was sent to know what diversion they could make in favour of the King, in case the peace with Spain should not take. His Majesty spoke to me, on my going towards my residency at Bruxelles, ' Gerbier, I do command thee to have a continual care, to press the Infanta and the Spanish Ministers there, for the restitution of the Palatinate; for I am obliged in con- science, in honour, and in maxim of state, to stir all the powers of the world, rather than to fail to try to the uttermost to compass this business'." In the week of that expedition, the King took " George" with him in his coach to view the ships at Deptford on their departure for Rochelle, when he said to the Duke, * George, there are some that wish both these and thou mightest perish together : but care not for them ; w T e will both perish together, if thou doest!" A few days before the Duke went on his last expedition, he gave a farewell mask and supper at York-honse, to their Majesties. In the mask the Duke appeared followed by Envy with many open-mouthed dogs, which were to re- present the barkings of the people, while next came Fame and Truth ; and the courtly allegory expressed the King's sentiment and the Duke's sanguine hope. Thus resolutely engaged in the very cause 460 THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. the people had so much at heart, the blood Buck- ingham would have sealed it with, was shed by one of the people themselves; the enterprise, designed to retrieve the national honour, long tarnished, was prevented; and the Protestant cause suffered, by one who imagined himself to be, and was blest by nearly the whole nation, as a Patriot! Such are the effects of the exaggerations of po- pular delusion. I find the following epitaph on Buckingham, in a manuscript letter of the times. Its con- densed bitterness of spirit gives the popular idea of his unfortunate attempts. THE DUKE'S EPITAPH. If idle travellers ask who lieth here, Let the Duke's tomb this for inscription bear : Paint Cales and Rhd, make French and Spanish laugh ; Mix England's shame and there 's his epitaph ! Before his last fatal expedition, among the many libels which abounded, I have discovered a manuscript satire, entitled " Rhodomontados." The thoughtless minister is made here to exult in his power over the giddy-headed multitude. Buckingham speaks in his own person ; and we have thus preserved those false rumours, and those aggravated feelings, then floating among the people : a curious instance of those heaped up calumnies, which are often so heavily laid THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 4>6l on the head of a prime minister, no favourite with the people. " Tis not your threats shall take me from the King ! Nor questioning my counsels and commands, How with the honour of the state it stands j That I lost Rlie", and with such loss of men, As scarcely time can e'er repair again ; Shall aught affright me ; or else care to see The narrow seas from Dunkirk clear and free. Or that you can enforce the King to believe, I from the pirates a third share receive ; Or that I correspond with foreign states (Whether the King's foes or confederates) To plot the ruin of the King and state, As erst you thought of the Palatinate ; Or that five hundred thousand pounds doth lie In the Venice bank to help Spain's Majesty j Or that three hundred thousand more doth rest In Dunkirk, for the Arch-dutchess to contest With England, whene'er occasion offers ; Or that by rapine I will fill my coffers ; Nor that an office in church, state, and court, Is freely given, but they must pay me for 't. Nor shall you ever prove I had a hand, In poisoning of the Monarch of this land, Or the like hand by poisoning to intox Southampton, Oxford, Hamilton, Lennox. 462 THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. Nor shall you ever prove by magic charms, I wrought the King's affection or his harms. Nor fear I if ten Vitrys now were here, Since I have thrice ten Ravilliacs as near. My power shall be unbounded in each thing, If once I use these words, " I, and my King." Seem wise, and cease then to perturb the realm, Or strive with him that sits and guides the helm. I know your reading will inform you soon, What creatures they were, that barkt against the moon. I '11 give you better council as a friend : Coblers their latchets ought not to transcend ; Meddle with common matters, common wrongs j To the House of Commons common things belongs. Leave him the oar that best knows how to row, And state to him that best the state doth know. If I by industry, deep reach, or grace, Am now arriv'd at this or that great place, Must I to please your inconsiderate rage Throw down mine honours ? Will nought else assuage Your furious wisdoms ? True shall the verse be yet, There's no less wit required to keep, than get. Though Lamb be dead, I '11 stand, and you shall see I '11 smile at them that can but bark at me." After Buckingham's death, Charles I. che- rished his memory warmly as his life, advanced his friends, and designed to raise a magnificent THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 463 monument to his memory ; and if any one ac- cused the Duke, the King always imputed the fault to himself. The King said, "Let not the Duke's enemies seek to catch at any of his offices, for they will find themselves deceived.'* Charles called Buckingham " his martyr !" and often said the world was much mistaken in the Duke's character ; for it was commonly thought the Duke ruled his Majesty; but it was much the contrary, having been his most faith- ful and obedient servant in all things, as the King said he would make sensibly appear to the world. Indeed after the death of Buckingham, Charles shewed himself extremely active in bu- siness. Lord Dorchester wrote " The death of Buckingham causes no changes ; the King holds in 'his own hands the total direction, leaving the executory part to every man within the compass of his charge." * This is one proof, among many, that Charles I. was not the pup- pet-king of Buckingham, as modern historians have imagined. * Sloane MSS. 4178, letter 519. 464 FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN. FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN. FELTON, the assassin of the Duke of Buck- kingham, by the growing republican party, was hailed as a Brutus, rising, in the style of a patriotic bard : " Refulgent from the stroke." AKENSIDE. Gibbon has thrown a shade of suspicion even over Brutus's " God-like stroke," as Pope has ex- alted it. In Felton, a man acting from mixed and confused motives, the political martyr is entirely lost in the contrite penitent j he was, however, considered in his own day as a being almost beyond humanity. Mrs. Macaulay has called him " a lunatic," because the Duke had not been assassinated on the right principle. His motives appeared even inconceivable to his con- temporaries ; for Sir Henry Wotton, who has written a Life of the Duke of Buckingham, ob- serves, that " what may have been the imme- diate or greatest motive of that felonious con- ception ("the Duke's assassination), is even yet in the clouds." After ascertaining that it was not private revenge, he seems to conclude that it was Dr. Egglesheim's furious " libel," and the " remonstrance" of the parliament, which, having made the Duke " one of the foulest tELTON T&E POLITICAL ASSASSIN. 465 inonsters upon earth," worked on the dark imagination of Felton. From Felton's memorable example, and some similar ones, one observation occurs worth the notice of every minister of state who dares the popular odium he has raised. Such a minister will always be in present danger of a violent termination to his career; for however he may be convinced that there is not political virtue enough in a whole people to afford " the Godlike stroke," he will always have to dread the arm of some melancholy enthusiast, whose mind, secretly agitated by the public indignation, directs itself solely on him. It was some time after having written this reflection, that I discovered the following notice of the Duke of Buckingham in the unpublished Life of Sir Syrnonds D'Ewes. " Some of his friends had advised him how generally he was hated in England, and how needful it would be for his greater safety to wear some coat of mail, or some other secret defensive armour, which the Duke slighting, said, ' It needs not, there are no Roman spi- rits left*'." An account of the contemporary feelings which sympathised with Felton, and almost sanctioned the assassin's deed, I gather from * Harl. MSS. 646. VOL. III. H H 466 FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN. the MS. letters of the times. The public mind, through a long state of discontent, had been prepared for, and not without an obscure ex- pectation, of the mortal end of Buckingham. It is certain the Duke received many warnings which he despised. The assassination kindled a tumult of joy throughout the nation, and a state-libel was written in strong characters in the faces of the people. The passage of Felton to London, after, the assasshiation, seemed a triumph. Now pitied, and now blessed, mothers held up their children to behold the saviour of the country ; and an old woman exclaimed as Felton passed her, with a scriptural allusion to his short stature, and the mightiness of Buck- ingham, " God bless thee, little David!" Felton was nearly sainted before he reached the Metro- polis. His health was the reigning toast among the republicans. A character somewhat re- markable, Alexander Gill (usher under his father Dr. Gill, master of St. Paul's school), who was the tutor of Milton, and his dear friend afterwards, and, perhaps, from whose impres- sions in early life Milton derived his vehement hatred of Charles, was committed by the star- chamber, heavily fined, and sentenced to lose his ears, on three charges, one of which arose from drinking a health to Felton. At Trinity College, Gill said that the King was fitter to FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN. 46? stand in a Cheapside shop, with an apron before him, and say What lack ye ? than to govern a kingdom ; that the Duke was gone down to hell to See King James ; and drinking a health to Fel- ton, added he was sorry Felton had deprived him of the honour of doing that brave act*. In the taste of that day, they contrived a poli- tical anagram of his name, to express the im- moveable self-devotion he shewed after the assassination, never attempting to escape ; and John Felton, for the nonce, was made to read, Nohl file not! But while Felton's name was echoing through the kingdom, our new Brutus was at that moment exhibiting a piteous spectacle of re- morse ; so different often is the real person himself, from the ideal personage of the public. The assassination, with him, was a sort of the- oretical one, depending, as we shall shew, on four propositions, so that when the King's at- torney, as the attorney-general was then called, had furnished the unhappy criminal with an unexpected argument, which appeared to him to have overturned his, he declared that he had been in a mistake ; and lamenting that he had not been aware of it before, from that in- * The MS. letter giving this account, observes, that the words concerning his Majesty were not read in open Court, but only those relating to the Duke and Felton. H H 2 468 FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN. stant his conscientious spirit sunk into despair. In the open court he stretched out his arm, offering it as the offending instrument to be first cut off; he requested the King's leave to wear sackcloth about his loins, to sprinkle ashes on his head, to carry a halter about his neck, in testimony of repentance^ and that he might sink to the lowest point of contrition, he insisted on asking pardon not only of the Dutchess, the Duke's mother, but even of the Duke's scullion-boy; and a man naturally brave, was seen always shedding tears, so that no one could have imagined that Felton had been " a stout soldier." These particulars were given by one of the Divines who attended him, to the writer of the MS. letter*. The character of Felton must not, however, be conceived from this agonizing scene of con- trition. Of melancholy and retired habits, and one of those thousand officers, who had incurred disappointments, both in promotion and in ar- * Clarendon notices that Felton was " of a gentleman 1 * family in Suffolk of good fortune and reputation." I find that during his confinement, the Earl and Countess of Arun- del, and Lord Maltravers their son, " he being of their blood," says the letter-writer, continually visited him, gave many proofs of their friendship, and brought his " winding sheet/' for to the last they attempted to save him from being hung 1 in chains: they did not succeed. FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN. 469 rears of pay, from the careless Duke, he felt perhaps, although he denied it, a degree of per- sonal animosity towards him. A solitary man who conceives himself injured, broods over his revenge. Feiton once cut off a piece of his own finger, inclosing it in a challenge, to convince the person whom he addressed, that he valued not endangering his whole body, provided it afforded him an opportunity of vengeance*. Yet with all this, such was his love of truth and rigid honour, that Feiton obtained the nick- name of " honest Jack," one which, after the as- sassination, became extremely popular through the nation. The religious enthusiasm of the times had also deeply possessed his mind, and that enthusiasm, as is well known, was of a na- ture that might easily occasion its votary to be mistaken for a Republican. Clarendon mentions that in his hat he ^iad sewed a paper, in which were written a few lines of that remonstrance of the Commons, whrch appeared to him to sanction the act. I have seen a letter from Lord Carlton to the Queen, detailing the particulars ; his lordship was one of those who saved Feiton from the swords of the military around him, who in their vexation for the loss of their General the Duke, which they considered to be the end * Rushworth, vol. I. 638. 470 FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN. of the war, and their ruin, would have avenged themselves. But though Felton in conversa- tion with Lord Carlton, confessed that by rea- ding the remonstrance of the Parliament, it came into his head, that in committing the act of killing the Duke, he should do his country a great good service, yet the paper sewed in his, hat, thinking he might have fallen a victim in the attempt, was different from that described by Clarendon, and is thus preserved in this letter to the Queen by Lord Carlton. " If I be slain let no man condemn me, but rather condemn himself, Our hearts are hardened, and become senseless, or else he had not gone so long un- punished. He is unworthy the name of a gen- tleman or soldier, in my opinion, that is afraid to sacrifice his life for the honour of God, his King, and Country. JOHN FELTON." * Fulton's mind had however previously passed through a more evangelical process ; four the- ological propositions struck the knife into the heart of the Minister. The conscientious as- sassin, however, accompanied the fatal blow with a prayer to Heaven, to have mercy on the soul of the victim ; and never was a man mur- dered with more Gospel than the Duke. The following curious document I have discovered in the MS. letter. * Lanbdpvvne MSS. 209, .FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN. 471 " Propositions found in Felton's trunk, at the time he slew the Duke. 1. There is no alliance nearer to any one than his Country. Except his God and his own soul, said the divines. 2. The safety of the people is the chiefest Law. Next to the law of God, said these divines. 3. No law is more sacred, than the safety and welfare of the Commonwealth. Only God's law is more sacred, said the di- vines. 4. God himself hath enacted this law, that all things that are for the good profit and be- nefit of the Commonwealth should be lawful. The divines said, We must not do evil that good may come thereon." The gradual rise in these extraordinary pro- positions, with the last sweeping one, which includes every thing lawless as lawful for the common weal, was at least but feebly parried by the temperate divines, who, while they were so reasonably referring every thing to God, wanted the vulgar curiosity to inquire, or the philoso- phical discernment to discover, that Felton's ima- gination was driving every thing to the Duke. Could they imagine that these were but subtile cobwebs, spun by a closet-speculator on human FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN. affairs? In those troubled times did they not give a thought to the real object of these inqui- ries ? Or did they not care what befel a Minion of State ? There is one bright passage in the history of this unhappy man, who, w r hen broken down in spirits, firmly asserted the rights of a Briton ; and even the name of John Felton may fill a date in the annals of our constitutional free- dom. Felton was menaced with torture. Rushworth has noticed the fact, and given some imperfect notes of his speech, when threatened to be, racked ; but the following is not only more am- ple, but more important in its essential parti- culars. When Lord Dorset told him (says the MS. letter) Mr. Felton, it is the King's pleasure that you should be put to the torture, to make you confess your complices, and therefore pre- pare yourself for the rack ; Felton answered, " My Lord, I do not believe that it is the King's pleasure, for he is a just and a gracious Prince, and will not have his subjects tortured against law. I do affirm upon my salvation that my purpose was not known to any man living; but -if it be his Majesty's pleasure, I am ready to suffer whatever his Majesty will have inflicted upon me. Yet this I must tell you by the way, that if I be put upon the rack, I will accuse you, FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN. 473 my Lord of Dorset, and none but yourself*. This firm and sensible speech silenced them. A Council was held, the Judges were consulted, and on this occasion, they came to a very unex- pected decision, that " Felton ought not to be tortured by the rack, for no such punishment is known or allowed by our law." Thus the Judges condemned what the Government had constantly practised. Blackstone yields a fra- ternal eulogitim to the honour of the Judges on this occasion; but Hume more philosophi- cally discovers the cause of this sudden tender- ness. " So much more exact reasoners with regard to Law, had they become from the' jealous scruples of the House of Commons" An argu- ment which may be strengthened from cases which are unknown to the writers of our his- tory. Not two years before the present one, a Captain Brodeman, one who had distinguished himself among the " bold speakers" concerning the King and the Duke, had been sent to the Tower, and was reported to have expired on the rack; the death seems doubtful, but the fact of his having been racked, is repeated in the MS. letters of the times. The rack has been more frequently used as a state-engine than has reached *. Hart. MSS. 7000. J. Mead to Sir Matt. Stuteville, Sept. 27, 1628. 474< FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIX. the knowledge of our Historians; secret have been the deadly embraces of the Duke of Exe- ter's daughter*. It was only by an original journal of the transactions in the Tower that Burnet discovered the racking of Anne Askew, a narrative of horror! James 1st incidentally mentions in his account of the Powder-plot that . this rack w r as shewn to Guy Fawkes during his examination ; and yet under this Prince, mild as his temper was, it had been used in a terrific manner-^. Elizabeth but too frequently em- ployed this engine of arbitrary power ; once she had all the servants of the Duke of Nor- folk tortured. I have seen in a MS. of the times heads of charges made against some member of the House of Commons in Elizabeth's reign, * The Rack, or Brake, now in the Tower, was introduced by the Duke of Exeter in the reign of Henry VI., as an auxi- liary to his project of establishing the Civil law in this coun- try ; and in derision it was called his daughter. dowel's Interp. voc. Rack. f This remarkable document is preserved by Dalrymple^ it is an indorsement in the hand-writing of Secretary Win- wood, respecting the examination of Peacham, a record whose graduated horrors might have charmed the specula- tive cruelty of a Domitian or a Nero. " Upon these interro- gatories, Peacham this day was examined before torture, in torture, between torture, and after torture ; notwithstanding, nothing could be drawn from him, he persisting still in his obstinate and insensible denials and former answer." Dalrymple's Mem. and Letters of James I. p. 58. FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN. 475 among which is one for having written against torturing! Yet Coke, the most eminent of our lawyers, extols the mercy of Elizabeth in the trials of Essex and Southampton, because she had not used torture against their accomplices or witnesses. Was it for the head of Law itself, as Coke was, to extol the mercy of the Sovereign for not violating the laws, for not punishing the subject by an illegal act? The truth is, lawyers are rarely philosophers ; the history of the heart, read only in statutes and law cases, pre- sents the worst side of human nature : thev are / apt to consider men as wild beasts; and they have never spoken with any great abhorrence of what they so erroneously considered a means of obtaining confession. Long after these times Sir George Mackenzie, a great lawyer in the reign of James II. used torture in Scotland. We have seen how the manly spirit of Felton, and the scruples of the Commons, wrenched the hidden law from Judges who had hitherto been too silent; and produced that unexpected avowal, which condemned all their former practices. But it was reserved for better times, when philosophy combining with law, enabled the genius of Blackstone to quote with ad- miration the exquisite ridicule of torture, by Beccaria. On a rumour that Eelton was condemned to suffer torture, an effusion of poetry, the ardent 476 FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN. breathings of a pure and youthful spirit, was addressed to the supposed political martyr, by Zouch Townley, of the ancient family of the Townleys in Lancashire, to whose last descend- ant, the nation owes the first public collection of ancient art *. The poem I transcribe from a MS copy of the times ; it appears only to have circulated in that secret form, for the writer being sum- moned to the star-chamber, and not willing to have any such poem addressed to himself, es- caped to the Hague. " To his confined friend, Mr. j"o. FELTON. Enjoy thy bondage, make thy prison know Thou hast a liberty, thou can'st not owe To those base punishments j keep entire, since Nothing but guilt shackles the conscience. I dare not tempt thy valiant blood to affray, Infeebling it with pity ; nor dare I pray Thine act may mercy finde, least thy great story Lose somewhat of its miracle and glory. J wish thy merits, laboured cruelty; Stout vengeance best befriends thy memory. For I would have posterity to hear, He that can bravely do can bravely bear. * Z. Townley in 1624 made the Latin oration in memory of Camden, reprinted by Dr. Thomas Smith at the end of Camden's Life. Wood's Fasti. I find his name also among the verses addressed to Ben Jonson, prefixed to his works. FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN. 477 Tortures may seem great in a coward's eye 5 It 's no great thing to suffer, less to die. Should all the clouds fall down, and in that strife, Lightning and thunder serve to take my life, I would applaud the wisdom of my fate, Which knew to value me of such a rate, As to my fall to trouble all the sky, Emptying upon me Jove's full armoury. Serve in your sharpest mischieffs ; use your rack, Enlarge each joint, and make each sinew crack, Thy soul before was straitened ; thank thy doom. To shew her virtue, she hath larger room. Yet sure if every artery were broke, Thou would'st find strength for such another stroke,. And now I leave thee unto Death and Fame, Which lives to shake Ambition with thy name ; And if it were not sin, the Court by it Should hourly swear before the favourite. Farewell ! for thy brave sake we shall not send Henceforth commanders, enemies to defend ; Nor will it our just Monarchs henceforth please, To keep an admiral, to lose the seas. Farewell ! undaunted stand, and joy to be Of public service the epitome. Let the Duke's name solace and crown thy thraE ; All we for him did suffer, thou for all ! And I dare boldly write, as thou dar'st die, Stout Felton, England's ransom, liere doth lie!" FELTON THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN. This it is to be a great poet. Felton, who was celebrated in such elevated strains, was, at that moment, not the patriot but the penitent. In political history it frequently occurs that the man who accidentally has effectuated the pur- pose of a party, is immediately invested by them with all their favourite virtues ; but in reality, having acted from motives originally insignifi- cant and obscure, his character may be quite the reverse they have made him j and such was that of our " honest Jack." Had Townley had a more intimate acquaintance with his Brutus, we might have lost a noble poem on a noble subject. JOHNSON'S LIFE OF POPE. 479 JOHNSON S HINTS FOR THE LIFE OF POPE. I SHALL preserve a literary curiosity, which perhaps is the only one of its kind. It is an original memorandum of Dr. JOHNSON'S, of hints for the life of POPE, written down as they were suggested to his mind, in the course of his researches. The lines in italics, Johnson had scratched with red ink, probably after having made use of them. These notes should be compared with the life itself. The youthful student will find some use, and the curious be gratified in discovering the gradual labours of research and observation; and that art of seiz- ing on those general conceptions which after- wards are opened by meditation, and illustrated by the powers of a man of genius. I once thought of accompanying these hints, by the amplified and finished passages derived from them: but this is an amusement which the reader can contrive for himself. I have ex- tracted the most material notes. This fragment is a companion-piece to the en- graved fac-simile of a page of Pope's Homer, in the second volume of this work, of which I shall now observe, that there never was a more mi- nutely perfect copy of a manuscript. 480 JOHNSON'S LIFE OF POPE. That fac-simile was not given to shew the au- tograph of Pope a silly practice which has lately so generally prevailed, but to exhibit to the eye of the student, the fervour and the diligence required in every work of genius : this could only be done by shewing the state of the ma- nuscript itself, with all its erasures, and even its half-formed lines,; nor could this effect be produced by giving only some of the correc- tions, which Johnson had already, in printed characters. My notion has been approved of, because it was comprehended by writers of genius ; yet this fac-simile has been consi- dered as nothing more than an autograph by those literary blockheads, who, without taste and imagination intruding into the province of literature, find themselves as awkward as a once popular Divine, in his " Christian life," assures us would certain sinners in Paradise, like " Eigs in a drawing-room." POPE. Nothing occasional. No haste. No rivals. No compulsion. Practised only one form of verse. Facility from use. Emulated former pieces. Coopers-hill. Dryden's ode. Affected to disdain flattery. Not happy in his selection of Pa- trons, Colham, Bolingbrolce*. * He has added in the life, the name of Burlington. JOHNSON'S LIFE OF POPE. 481 Gibber's abuse will be better to him than a dose of hartshorn. Poems long delayed. Satire and praise late, alluding to something past. He had always some poetical plan in his head *. Echo to the sense. Would not constrain himself too much. Felicities of language. Watts.f Luxury of language. Motives to study want of health, want of money helps to study some small patrimony. Prudent and frugal pint of wine. LETTERS. Amiable disposition but he gives his own character. Elabo- rate. Think what to say say what one thinks. Letter on sickness to Steele. On Solitude. Ostentatious benevolence. Professions of sincerity. Neglect of fame. Indifference about every thing. Sometimes gay and airy, sometimes sober and grave. Too proud of living among the great. Probably forward to make acquaintance. No literary man ever talked so much of his fortune. Grotto. Importance. Post-office, letters open. Cant of despising the world. * In the Life Johnson gives Swift's complaint that Pope was never at leisure for conversation, because he had always some poetical scheme in his head. f Johnson in the Life has given Watts's opinion of Pope's-poetical diction. VOL. III. I I 482 JOHNSON'S LIFE OF POPE. Affectation of despising poetry. His easiness about the critics. Something of foppery. His letters to the ladies pretty. Abuse of Scripture not all early. Thoughts in his letters that are elsewhere, ESSAY ON MAN. Ramsay missed the fall of man. Others the immortality of the soul. Address to our Saviour. Excluded by Berkley. Bolitlgbroke's notions not understood. Scale of Being turn it in prose. Part and not the whole always said. Conversation with Bol. R. 220.* Bol. meant ill. Pope well. Crousaz. Resnel. Warburton. Good sense. Luxurious -felicities of language. Wall. Loved labour always poetry in his head. Extreme sensibility. Ill-health, head-aches. He never laughed. No conversation. No writings against Swift. Parasitical epithets. Six lines of Iliad f. * Ruffhed's Life of Pope. f In the Life Johnson says, " Expletives he very early rejected from his verses ; but he now and then admits an epithet rather commodious than important. Each of the six first lines of the Iliad might lose two JOHNSON'S LIFE OF POPE. 483 He used to set down what occurred of thoughts a line a t The humourous lines end sinner. Prunello.* First line made for the sound, or v. versa. Foul lines in Jervas. More notice of books early than late. DUNCIAD. The line on Phillips borrowed from another poem. Pope did not increase the difficulties of writing. Poetce pulorum. syllables with very little diminution of the meaning ; and sometimes after all his art and labour, one verse seems to be made for the sake of another." * He has a few double rhymes ; but always, I think, unsuccessfully; except one in the Rape of the Lock. Life of Pope. THE END. Printed by Nichols, Son, and Bentley, Rd Lion Passage, Fleet Street, London- I University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 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