s THE U8RARY OF ^ ^ d s THE UNIVERSITY o ^& B \ o VINHOillVD JO SANTA BARBARA ° o THE UNIVERSITY o OF CALIFORNIA o y / m 6 SANTA BARBARA o VSlVflSVa VINVS o 9 5K o AllSS3AINn 3H1 V^V8))Va VXNVS c g 5S o AIISa3MNn 3Hi. o \ 'Hf LIBRARY OF o / viNsojnvD JO \ THE UNIVERSITY o s SANTA BARBARA / o vavgiiya vinvs o g 5f> o xiisnaAiNn 3H1 o \ o THE IIBRARY OF o / — E^ 09 n VINXOJIW3 JO o THE UNIVERS O o V!fva!IV9 VINVS g Sfi o AiisasAiNn 3Hi o a OF CALIFORNIA o u eO fS; o JO Asvxan 3Hi o THE UNIVERSITY SANTA BARSARA OF CALIFORNIA u £P fg^ o JO Asviian 3Hi a t> Ailsa3AINn 3H. o THE UNIVERSITY S NTA BARBARA THE LIBRARY OF o C^ ^£ n wiNaojnvD JO » \ vsvjKyg yiNVS a g fft JkilS!l3AINn 3H1 o THE LIBRARY OF o u n r s d L s / viNiiojnvD JO o \ THE ''CHAN DOS CLASSICS." CURIOSITIES OF LITERATUUE. BY ISAAC DISRAELI. EDITED, WITH MEMOIR AND NOTES, BY HIS SON, THE EAEL OF BEACONSFIELD. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. IIL LONDON: FEEDEEICK WAENE AND CO., BEDFORD STREET, STRAND. LONDON : BRADBURV, AGKEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHlTEfKIABS. -CP v,3 1.1 WK ART SANTA BAP.BAKA CONTENTS Oh' VOLUME III. TAGB LOCAL DESCRIPTIONS 1 irASQUES 4 OP DES MAIZEAUX, AND THE SECllET UISTOUY OF ANTHONY COLLINS's MANUSCRIPTS 13 HISTORY OF NEW WORDS 23 THE PHILOSOPHY OF PROVERBS 32 CONFUSION OF WORDS Go POLITICAL NICKNAMES 80 THE DOMESTIC LIFE OP A POET — SIIENSTONE VINDICATED .... 90 SECRET HISTORY OF THE BUILDING OF BLENHEIM 102 SECRET HISTORY OF SIR WALTER RAWLEIGH Ill AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE OF THE LAST HOURS OF SIR WALTER RAWLEIGH 124 LITERARY UNIONS 131 OP A BIOGRAPHY PAINTED 13G CAUSE AND PRETEXT 141 POLITICAL FORGERIES AND FICTIONS 114 EXPRESSION OF SUPPRESSED OPINION 150 lUTOGRAPHS • 1C3 THE HISTORY OF WRITING-MASTERS .... 1G7 THE ITALIAN HISTORIANS 177 OF PALACES BUILT BY MINISTERS 1S6 "TAXATION NO TYRANNY" ? ?3 TFE BOOK OP DEATH 200 HISTORY OF THE SKELETON OF DEATH 206 THE RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS OF HEYLIN 215 OF LENGLET DU FRESNOY 221 THE DICTIONARY OF TREVOUX 229 QUADItlo's ACCOUNT OF ENGLISH POETRY 233 , ,,.-, ■:Tn — ''f'»5friVlVin i\ Contents. PAGB "political keligionism" 238 tolkkation 245 apology for the parisian massacrf, 255 pkkuiction .-..,,,.,,..».»-'•.• 260 1>keams at the dawif of philosophy 280 ON PUCK THE COMMENTAiOii 296 LITERARY FORGERIES 303 OF LITERARY FILCHERS 316 Or LORD BACON AT HOSIE 320 SECRET HISTORY OF TUE DEATH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH 328 JAMES THE FIRST AS A FATHER AND A HUSBAND 333 THE MAN OF ONE ROOK 337 A BIBLIOQNOSTE 340 SECRET HISTORY OP AN ELECTIVE MONARCHY 346 BUILDINGS IN THE METROPOLIS, AND KESIDENCE IN THE COUNTRY . 363 ROYAL PROCLAMATIONS 371 TRUE SOURCES OF SECRET HISTORY 380 LITERAKY RESIDENCES 394 WHETHER ALLOWABLE TO KUIN ONESELF ? 400 DISCOVERIES OF SECLUDED MEN 408 SENTIMENTAL BIOGRAPHY 414 LITERARY PARALLELS 425 THE PEARL BIBLES, AND SIX THOUSAND ERRATA ....... 427 VIEW OF A PARTICULAR PERIOD OF THE STATE OF RELIGION IN OUR CIVIL WARS 423 3 BUCKINGHAM'S POLITICAL COQUETRY WITH THE PURITANS .... 443 SIE EDWARD COKE's EXCEPTIONS AGAINST THE HIGH SHERIFF'S OATH 446 SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST AND HIS FIRST PARLIA- MENTS 448 THE RUMP 482 LIFE AND HABITS OF A LITFSARY ANTIQUARY — OLDYS AND HIS MANUSCRIPTS 49;) ISDEX Oi3 CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE, LOCAL DESCRIPTIONS. NoTHrcTG- is more idle, and, what is less to be forgiven in a writer, more tedious, than minute and lengthened descrip- tions of localities ; where it is very doubtful whether the writers themselves had formed any tolerable notion of the place they describe, — it is certain their readers never can ! These descriptive passages, in which writers of imagination so frequently indulge, are usually a glittering confusion of unconnected things ; circumstances recollected from others, or observed by themselves at different times ; the finest are thrust in together. If a scene from nature, it is possible that all the seasons of the year may be jumbled together; or if a castle or an apartment, its magnitude or its minuteness may equally bewilder. Yet we find, even in works of celebrity, whole pages of these general or these particular descriptive sketches, which leave nothing behind but noun substantives propped up by random epithets. The old writers were quite delighted to fill up their voluminous pages with what was a great saving of sense and thinking. In the Alaric of Scudery sixteen pages, containing nearly five hundred verses, describe a palace, commencing at the fagade, and at length finisliing with the garden ; but his description, we may say, was much better described by Boileau, whose good taste felt tlie alisurdity of this " abondance sterile," in overloading a work with useless details. Un aiiteur, quelquefois, trop plein de sou objet, Jamais sans I'epuiser n'abandoune un sujet. S'il rencontre un palais il m'en depeint la face, II me promene apres de terrasse en terratjse. Ici s'offre un perron, la regne un corridor ; La ce balcon s'enferme en un balustre d'or ; II compte les plafonds, les ronds, et k's ovales — ,. , Je saute vingt feuillets pour en trouver la fin ; Et je me sauve d, peine au travers du jardin ! VOL. III. B 3 Local Descriptions. And then he adds so excellent a canon of criticism, that we mvist not neglect it : — Tout ce qu'on dit de trop est fade et rebutant; L' esprit rassasie le rejette a I'instant, Qui ne salt se borner, iie sut jamais Icrire. Wc have a memorable instance of the inefficiency of local descriptions in a verj- remarkable one by a writer of fine genius, composing with an extreme fondness of his subject, and curiously anxious to send dow^n to posterity the most elaborate display of his own villa — this was the Laurentinum of Pliny. We cannot read his letter to Gallus, which the English reader may in Melmoth's elegant version,* without somewhat participating in the delight of the writer in iTianv of its details ; but we cannot with the writer form the slightest conception of his villa, while he is leading us over from apartment to apartment, and pointing to us the oppo- site wing, with a " beyond this," and a " not far from thence," and "to this apartment another of the same sort," &c. Yet, still, as we were in great want of a correct know- ledge of a Koman villa, and as this must be the most so jjossible, architects have frequently studied, and the learned translated with extraordinary care, Pliny's Description of his Laurentinum. It became so favourite an object, that emi- nent architects have attempted to raise up this edifice once more, by giving its plan and elevation; and this extraordinary fact is the result — that not one of them but has given a representation different from the other ! Montfaueon, a more faithful antiquary, in his close translation of the description of this villa, in comparing it with Felibien's plan of the villa itself, observes, " that the architect accommodated his edi- fice to his translation, but that their notions are not tlie same; unquestionably," he adds, "if ten skilful translators were to perform their task separately, there would not be one who agreed with another !" If, then, on this subject of local descri])tions, we find that it is impossible to convey exact notions of a real existing scene what must we think of those which, in tnith, describe scene.-! which have no other existence than the confused makino-s-up of an author's invention ; where the more he details the more he confuses ; and where the more particular he wishes to be the more indistinct the whole appears ? ' * Book ii. liiii, 17. Local Descriptions. 3 Local descriptions, after a few striking cireumstanccs have been selected, admit of no further detail. It is not their length, but their happiness, which entei's into our comprehen- sion ; the imagination can only take in and keep together a very few parts of a picture. The pen must not intrude on the province of tlie pencil, any more than th(; pencil must attempt to perform what cannot in any shape be submitted to the eye, though fully to the mind. The great art, perhaps, of local description, is ratlier a general than a particular view ; the details must be left to the imagination ; it is suggestion rather than description. There is an old Italian sonnet of this kind which I have often read with delight ; and though I may not communicate the same pleasure to the reader, yet the story of the writer is most interesting, and the lady (for such she was) has the highest claim to be ranked, like the lady of Evelyn, among literary loives. Francesco, Turina Bufalini di Citta di Castello, of noble extraction, and devoted to literature, had a collection of her poems published in 1628. She frequently interspersed little domestic incidents of her female friend, her husband, her son, her grandchildren ; and in one of these sonnets she has deli- neated her palace of Sail Giustino, whose localities she appears to have enjoyed with intense delight in the company of " her lord," whom she tenderly associates with the scene. There is a freshness and simplicity in the description, which will perhaps convey a clearer notion of the spot than even Pliny could do in the voluminous description of his villa. She tells us what she found when brought to the house of her husband: — Ampie salle, ample loggie, ampio cortile E staiize ornate con gentil pitture, Trovai giungendo, e nobili sculture Di marnio fatte, da scalpel non vile. Nobil giardin con un perpetuo Aprile Di varij fior, di frutti, e di verdure, Ombre soavi, acque a temprar i'arsure E strade di beltii non dissimile ; E non men forte ostel, clie per fortezza Ha il ponte, e i fianchi, e lo circonda intorno Fosso profundo e di real larghezza. Qui fei col mio Signore dolce soggiorno Con santo amor, con sorama contentezza Onde ne benedico il meso e il giomo ! Wide halls, wide galleries, and an ample court, Cliambers adorn'd by pictures' soothing charm, i3 2 Masques. I found together blended ; noble sculpture In marble, polish'd by no chisel vile : A noble garden, where a lasting April All-various flowers and fruits and verdure showers J Soft shades, and waters tempering the hot air ; And undulating paths in equal beauty ! Nor less the castled glory stands in force, And bridged and flanked. And round its circuit winds The deepened moat, showing a regal size. IJrrc with my lord I cast my sweet sojourn, Witli holy love, and with supreme content ; And h«nce I bless the month, and bless the day ! MASQUES. It sometimes happens, in the history of national amusements, that a name survives while the thing itself is forgotten. This has been remarkably the case with our coui't Masques, respect- ing which our most eminent writers long ventured on so many false opinions, with a perfect ignorance of the nature of these compositions, which combined all that was exquisite in the imitative arts of poetry, painting, music, song, dancing, and machinery, at a period when our pubHc theatre was in its rude infancy. Convinced of the miserable state of our repre- sented drama, and not then possessing that more curious knowledge of their domestic history which we delight to explore, they were led into erroneous notions c«f one of the most gorgeous, the most fascinating, and the most poetical of dramatic amusements. Our present theatrical exhibitions are, indeed, on a scale to which the twopenny audiences of the barn playhouses of Shakspeare could never have strained their siglit ; and our picturesque and learned costume, with the brilliant changes of our scenery, would have maddened the " property-men" and the " tire- women" of the Globe or the Eed Bull.* Shakspeare himself never beheld the true * Sir Philip Sidney, in his "Defence of Poesy," 1595, alludes to the custom of writing the sui)posed locality of each scene over the stage, and asks, "What child is there that coming to a play, and seeing 2'/iebcs written in great letters on an old door, doth believe that it is Thebes." As late as the production of Davenant's Siege of Rhodes {circa 1656), 11 1 is custom was continued, and is thus described in the printed edition of tlie play : — "In the middle of the frieze was a comjiartment wherein was written Hhodes." In many instances the spectator was left to infer the locality of tiie scene from the dialogue.—" Now," says Sidney, " you shall Lave three ladies walke to gather flowers, and then we must believe the Masiqnes. H magical illusions of his own dramas, with " Enter the \\vA Coat," and " Exit Hat and Cloak," helped ont with " painted cloths;" or, as a bard of Charles the Second's time chants — Look back and see The strange vicissitudes of poetrie ; Your aged fathers came to plays for wit, And sat knee-deep in nut-shells in the pit. But while the pubHc theatre continued long in this con- tracted state, without scenes, without dresses, without an orchestra, the court displayed scenical and dramatic exhi- bitions with such costly magnificence, such inventive fancy, and such miraculous art, that we may doubt if the combined genius of Ben Jonson, Inigo Jones, and Lawes, or Ferobosco, at an era most favourable to the arts of imagination, has been equalled by the modern spectacle of the Opera. But this circumstance had entirely escaped the knowledge of our critics. The critic of a Masque must not only have read it, but he must also have heard and have viewed it. The only witnesses in this case are those letter-writers of the day, who were then accustomed to communicate such domestic intelligence to their absent friends : from such ample corre- spondence I have often drawn some curious and sometimes important information. It is amusing to notice the opinions of some great critics, how from an original mis-statement they have drawn an illegitimate opinion, and how one inherits from the other the error which he propagates. Warburton said on Masques, that " Shakspeare was an enemy to these fooleries, as appears by his writing none." This opinion was among the many which that singular critic threw out as they arose at the moment ; for Warburton forgot that Shakspeare characteristically introduces one in the Tempest's most fan- ciful scene.* Granger, who had not much time to study the manners of the age whose personages he was so well acquainted stage to be a gai-den. By and by we heare newes of shipwracke iu the same place ; then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock." In Middleton's Chaste Maid, 1630, when the scene changes to a bed-room, "a bed is thrust out upon the stage, Alwit's wife in it ;" whicli simple process was effected by pushing it through the curtains that hung across the entrance to the stage, which at that time projected into the pit. * The play of Pyramus and Thisbe, performed by the clowns in Shak- speare's Midsummer NighCs Dream, is certainly constructed in burlesque of characters in court Masques, which sometimes were as difficult to be made comprehensible to an audience as "the clowns of Athens" found Wall and Moonshine to be. 6 Masques. with, in a note on Milton's Masque, said that " these compo- sitiong were trilling and perplexed allegories, the persons of whioh are fantastical to the last degree. Ben Jonson, ni Ins ' ]\lasque of Christmas,' has introduced ' Minced Pie,' and * Baby Cake,' who act their parts in the drama* But the most icr etched performances of this kind could please by the help of music, machinery, and dancing." Granger blunders, describing by two farcical ciiaracters a species of composition of which "farce was not the characteristic. Such personages as he notices would (!nter into the Anti-masque, which was a humorous parody of the more solemn Masque, and some- times relieved it. Malone, whose fancy was not vivid, con- demns Masques and the age of Masques, in which, he says, echoing Granger's epithet, " the wretched taste of the times found amusement." And lastly comes Mr. Todd, whom the splendid fragment of the " Arcades," and the entire Masque, which we have by heart, could not warm; while his neu- tralising criticism fixes him at the freezing point of the thermometer. " This dramatic entertainment, performed not without prodigious expense in machinery and decoration, to lohich humour we certainly owe the entertainment of 'Ai-cades,' and the inimitable Mask of ' Comus.'" Comus, however, is only a fine dramatic poem, retaining scarcely any features of the Masque. The only modern critic who had written with some research on this departed elegance of the English drama was Warton, whose fancy responded to the faiicination of the fairy-like magnificence and lyrical spirit of the Masque. Warton had the taste to give a specimen from " The Inner Temple Mask by William Browne," the pas- toral poet, whose Address to Sleep, he observed, " reminds * It is due to a great poet like Ben JonsoD, that, without troubling the reader to turn to his works, we should give his own description of these characters, to show that they were not the "perplexed allegories" they are asserted to he by Granger ; nor inappropriate to the Masque of Chriatmas, for which they were designed. Minced-Pie was habited " like a fine cook's wife, drest neat, her man carrying a pie, dish, and spoon." Baby-Cake was " drest like a boy, in a fine long coat, biggin-bib, muckender (or handkerchief), and a little dagger ; his usher bearing a great cake, with a bean and a pease ;" the latter being indicative of those gene- rally inserted in a Qhristmas cake, which, when cut into slices and dis- tributed, indicated by the presence of the bean the person who should be king ; the slice with the pea doing the same for the queen. Neitlier of these characters speak, but make part of the show to be descriljed by Father Christmas. Jonson's inventive talent was never more conspicuous than in the concoction of court Masques. Masques. 7 us of some favourite touches in Milton's Comics, to whicli it perhaps gave birth." Yet even Warton was deficient in that sort of research which only can discover the true nature of these singular dramas. Such was the state in which, some years ago, I found all our knowledge of this once favourite amusement of our eourt, our nobility, and our learned bodies of the four inns of court. Some extensive researches, pursued among contemporary manuscripts, cast a new light over this obscure child of fancy and magnificence. I could not think lightly of what lien Jonson has called " The Eloquence of Masques;" entertain- ments on which from three to five thousand pounds were expended, and on more public occasions ten and twenty thou- sand. To the aid of the poetry, composed by the finest poets, came the most skilful musicians and the most elabo- rate machinists ; Ben Jonson, and Inigo Jones,* and Lawes blended into one piece their respective genius; and Lord Bacon, and Whiteloeke, and Selden, who sat in committees for the last grand Masque presented to Charles the First, invented the devices ; composed the procession of the Masquers and the Anti-Masquers ; while one took the cai'e of the dancing or the brawlers, and Whiteloeke the music — the sage Whiteloeke ! who has chronicled his self-compla- cency on this occasion, by claiming the invention of a Coranto, which for thirty years aiterwards was the delight of the nation, and was blessed by the name of " Whiteloeke's Coranto," and which was always called for, two or three times over, whenever that great statesman " came to see a play!"t So much personal honour was considered to be involved in the conduct of a Masque, that even this com- mittee of illustrious men was on the point of being broken up by too serious a discussion concerning precedence ; and the Masque had nearly not taken place, till they hit on the expedient of throwing dice to decide on their rank in the procession ! On this jealousy of honour in the composition of a Masque, I discovered, what hitherto had escaped the knowledge, although not the curiosity, of literary inquirers — the occasion of the memorable enmity between Ben Jonson * The first employmeBt of these two great men was upon The Masque of Blaclcness, performed at Whitehall on Twelfth-Night, 1603 ; and which cost nearly 10,000L of our present money. t The music of Whiteloeke's Coranto is preserved in Hawkins's " His- tory of Music." Might it be restored for the ladies as a waltz i 8 Mnftqves. mid Inigo Jones, who had hitherto acted together with brotherly affection ; *' a cu-cumstance," says Gifford, to whom I communicated it, " not a little important in the history of our calumniated poet." The trivial cause, but not so in its consequences, was the poet prefixing his own name before tliat of the architect on the title-page of a Masque, which hitherto had only been annexed ;* so jealous was the great architect of his part of tht Masque, and so predominant his power and name at court, that he considered his rights invaded by the inferior claims of the poet! Jonson has poured out the whole bitterness of his soul in two short satires: still more unfortunately for the subject of these satires, they provoked Inigo to sharpen his pen on rhyme ; but it is edgeless, and the blunt composition still lies in its manuscript state. While these researches had engaged my attention, appeared Gitford's Memoirs of Ben Jonson. The characteristics of Masques are there, for the first time, elaborately opened with the clear and penetrating spirit of that ablest of our dramatic critics. I feel it like presumption to add to what has re- ceived the finishing hand of a master ; but his jewel is locked up in a chest, which I fear is too rarely opened, and he will allow me to borrow something from its splendour. "The Masque, as it attained its highest degree of excellence, ad- mitted of dialogue, singing, and dancing ; these were not in- dependent of one another, but combined, by the introduction of some ingenious fable, into an harmonious whole. When the plan was formed, the aid of the sister-arts was called in ; for the essence of the Masque was pomp and glory. Move- able scenery of the most costly and splendid kind was lavished on the Masque ; the most celebrated masters were em])loyed on the songs and dances ; and all that the kingdom afforded of vocal and instrumental excellence was employed to embellish the exhibition.f Thus magnificently constructed, the Masque was not committed to ordinary performers. It * This was Cldoridia, a Masque performed by the queen and her ladies at court, on Shrovetide, 1630 ; upon the title-page of which is printed "the inventors — Ben Jonson, Inigo Jones." Jonson was, by reason of the ullueuceuf Inigo, deprived of employ at court ever after, supplanted by (ither poets named by the architect, and among them Heywood, Shirley, and Davenant. t George Chapman's Memorable MasTce, performed at Whitehall, 1630, by the gentlemen of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn, cost the latter society nearly 2000Z. for their share of the expenses. Mfffiques. 9 was composecl, as Lord 13:uoii says, for princes, and by princes it was played.* Of these Masques, the skill with which their ornaments were designed, and the inexpressible grace with which they were executed, appear to have left a vivid impression on the mind of Jonson. His genius awakes at once, and all his faculties attune to sprightliness and pk'u- sure. He makes his appearance, like his own Delight, ' ac- companied with Grace, Love, Harmony, Revel, Sport, and Laughter.' ' ' In curious knot and mazes so The Spring at first was taught to go ; And Zephyr, when he came to woo His Flora, had his motions']- too ; And thus did Venus learn to lead The Idalian brawls, and so to tread, As if the wind, not she, did walk, Nor press'd a flower, nor bow'd a stalk. " But in what," says Gifford, "was the taste of the times wretched ? In poetry, painting, architecture, they have not since been equalled ; and it ill becomes us to arraign the taste of a period which possessed a cluster of writers of whom the meanest would noW be esteemed a prodigy." Malone did not live to read this denouncement of his objection to these Masques, as "bungling shows;" and which Warburton treats as "fooleries;" Granger as "wretched performances;" while Mr. Todd regards them merely as " the humour of the times!" Masques were often the private theatricals of the families of our nobility, performed by the ladies and gentlemen at their seats ; and were splendidly got up on certain occasions : such as the celebration of a nuptial, or in compliment to some great visitor. The Masque of Comus was composed by Milton to celebrate the creation of Charles the First as Prince of Wales ; a scene in this Masque presented botli the castle and the town of Ludlow, which proves, that although our small public theatres had not yet displayed any of the scenical illusions which long afterwards Davenant introduced, these scenical effects existed in great perfection in the Masques. The minute descriptions introduced by Thomas Campion, in his " Memorable Masque," as it is called, will convince us that the scenery must have been exquisite and * Ben Jonson records the names of the noble ladies and gentlemen who enacted his inventions at court. + The figures and actions of dancers in Masques were called motions. 10 Masques. fanciful, and that the poet was always a watchful and an^jious partner with the machinist, with whom sometimes, however, he had a quarrel. The sul^ject of this very rare Masque was " The Nio-ht and the Hours." It would be tedious to describe the first scene with the fondness with which the poet has dwelt on it. It was a double valley; one side, with dark clouds hanging before it ; on the other, a green vale, with trees, and nine golden ones of fifteen feet high ; from which grove, to- wards " the State," or the seat of the king, was a broad descent to the dancing-place : the bower of Flora was on the right, the house of Night on the left ; between them a hill, hanging like a cliff' over the grove. The bower of Flora was spacious, garnished with flowers and flowery branches, with lights among them ; the house of Night ample and stately, with black columns studded with golden stars ; within, nothing but clouds and twinkling stars ; while about it were placed, on wire, artificial bats and owls, continually moving. As soon as the king entered the groat hall, the hautboj^s, out of the wood on the top of the hill, entertained the time, till Flora and Zephyr were seen busily gathering flowers from the bower, throwing them into baskets which two silvans held, attired in changeable taffeta. The song is light as their lingers, but the burden is charming : — Now hath Flora robb'd her bowers To Ijefriend this place with flowers; Strow about ! strow about ! Divers, divers flowers afiect For some private dear respect ; Strow about ! strow about ! But he's none of Flora's friend That will not the rose commend ; Strow about ! strow about ! I cannot quit this Masque, of which collectors know the rarity, without preserving one of those Doric delicacies, of which, perhaps, we have outlived the taste ! It is a playful dialogue between a Silvan and an Hour, while Night appears in her house, with her long black hair spangled with gold, amidst her Hours ; their faces black, and each bearing a lighted black torch. Silvan. Toll me, gentle Hour of Night, ■\Vhcrein dost thou most delight ? Hour. Not in sleep ! Masques. 11 Silt Ay. Wherein then? Hour. In the frolic view of men ! Silvan. Lov'st thou music ? Hour. Oh ! 'tis sweet ! Silvan. What's dancing ? Hour. E'en the mirth of feet. Silvan. Joy you in fairies and in elves ? Hour. We are of that sort ourselves ! But, Silvan ! say, why do you love Only to frequent the grove ? Silvan. Life is fullest of content When delight is innocent. Hour, Pleasure must vary, not be long ! Come then, let's close, and end the song ! That the moveable scenery ol" these Masques formed as per- fect a scenical iUusion as any that our ow^n age, with all it.s perfection of decoration, has attained to, will not he denied by those who have read the few Masques which have been printed. They usually contrived a double division of the scene ; one part was for some time concealed from the spec- tator, which produced surprise and variet}?-. Thus in the Lord's Masque, at the marriage of the Palatine, the scene was divided into two parts, from the roof to the floor ; the lower part being first discovered, there appeared a wood in perspective, the innermost part being of " I'eleeve or whole round," the rest painted. On the left a cave, and on the right a thicket, from which issued Orpheus. At the back part of the scene, at the sudden fall of a curtain, the upper part broke on the spectators, a heaven of clouds of all hues ; the stars suddenly vanished, the clouds dispersed ; an element of artificial fire played about the house of Prometheus — a bright and transparent cloud, reaching from the heavens to the earth, whence the eight masquers descending with the music of a full song ; and at the end of their descent the cloud broke in twain, and one part of it, as with a wind, was blown athwart the scene. While this cloud was vanishing, the wood, being the under part of the scene, was insensibly changing ; a perspective view opened, with porticoes on each side, and female statues of silver, accompanied with orna- ments of architecture, filling the end of the house of Prome- theus, and seemed all of goldsmiths' work. The women of Prometheus descended from their niches, till the anger of Jupiter turned them again into statues. It is evident, too, that the size of the proscenium, or stage, accorded with the magnificence of the scene ; for I find choruses described. ] 2 Masques. " aiul ehancfcaWe conveyances of the song," in manner of an eclio, perlbnned by more than forty different voices and in- struments in various parts of the scene. The architectural decorations were the pride of Inigo Jones ; such could not be trivial. "I suppose," says the writer of this Masque, "few have ever seen more neat artifice than Master Inigo Jones showed in contriving their motion ; who, as all the rest of the work- manship which belonged to the whole invention, showed ex- traordinary industry and skill, which if it be not as lively expressed in writing as it appeared in view, rob not him of his due, but lay the blame on my want of right apprehending his instructions, for the adoring of his art." Whether this strong expression should be only adorning does not appear in any errata ; but the feeling of admiration was fervent among the spectators of that day, who were at least as much astonished as they were dehghted. Ben Jonson's prose descriptions of scenes in his own exquisite Masques, as Gif- ford observes, "are singularly bold and beautiful." In a letter which I discovered, the writer of which had been pre- sent at one of these Masques, and which Gifford has pre- served,* the reader may see the great poet anxiously united with Inigo Jones in working the machinery. Jouson, before " a sacrifice could be performed, turned the globe of the earth, standing behind the altar." In this globe "the sea was expressed heightened with silver waves, which stood, or rather hung (for no axle was seen to support it), and turning softly, discovered the first Masque,"t &c. This " turning softly" producing a very magical effect, the great poet would trust to no other hand but his own ! It seems, however, that as no Masque-writer equalled Jonson, so no machinist rivalled Inigo Jones. I have some- times caught a groan from some unfortunate poet, whose beautiful fancies were spoilt by the bungling machinist. One says, " The order of this scene was carefully and ingeniously disposed, and as happily put in act (for the motions) by the king's master carpenter;" but he adds, "the painters, I must needs say (not to belie them), lent small coloui- to any, to attribute much of the spirit of these things to their * Memoirs of Jonson, p. 88. + See Gifford's Jonson, vol. vii. p. 78. This performance was in the Manque of Hymen, enacted at court in 1605, on the occasion of the marringe of the Earl of Essex to the daughter of the Earl of Suflfolk. Des Maizeaux, and Anthony Collins' s Manuscripts. 1 3 pencil." Campion, in one of his Masques, describing where the trees were gently to sink, &c., by an engine placed under the stage, and in sinking were to open, and the masquers ap- pear out at their tops, &c., adds this vindictive mar- ginal note : " Either by the siinjylicity, negligence, or con- spiracy of the painter, the passing away of the trees was somewhat hazarded, though the same day they had been shown with much admiration, and were left together to the same night ;" that is, they were worked right at the re- hearsal, and failed in the representation, which must have perplexed the nine masquers on the tops of these nine trees. But such accidents were only vexations crossing the fancies of the poet : they did not essentially injure the magnificence, the pomp, and the fairy world opened to the spectators. So little was the character of these Masques known, that all our critics seemed to have fallen into repeated blunders, and used the Masques as Campion suspected his painters to have done, "either by simplicity, neghgence, or conspiracy." Hurd, a cold systematic critic, thought he might safely prefer the Masque in the Tempest, as " putting to shame all the Masques of Jonson, not only in its construction, but in the splendour of its show;" — "which," adds Giflford, "was danced and sung by the ordinary performers to a couple of fiddles, perhaps in the balcony of the stage." Such is the fate of criticism without knowledge ! And now, to close our Masques, let me apply the forcible style of Ben Jonson him- self : " The glory of all these solemnities had perished like a blaze, and gone out in the beholder's eyes ; so short-lived ara the bodies of all things in comparison of their souls !"* OF DES MAIZEAUX, AND THE SECRET HISTORY OP ANTHONY COLLINS'S MANUSCRIPTS. Des Maizeaux was an active literary man of his day, whose connexions with Bayle, St. Evremond, Locke, and Toland, and his name being set oft* by an F.R.S., luive occa- sioned the dictionary-biographers to place him prominently among their " hommes iilustres." Of his private history * Splendour ultimately ruined these works ; they ended in gaudy dresses and expensive macliinery, \>\\i ))oclry was not associated willi tliciu. The youtliful days of Louis XlV. raised them to a height of costly luxu- riance to sink them ever after in oblivion. 14 Des Maizeaux, and Anthony Collins's Manuscripts. nothing seems known. Having something important to communicate respecting one of his friends, a far greater cha- racter, with whose fate he stands connected, even Des Mai- zeaux hecomes an object of our inquiry. He was one of those French refugees whoui political madness or despair of intolerance had driven to our shores. The proscription of Louis XIV., which supplied us with our skihul workers in silk, also produced a race of the unem- ployed, who proved not to be as exquisite in the handicraft of book-making ; such were Motteux, La Cosfe, Ozell, Du- rand, and others. Our author had come over in that tender state of youth, just in time to become half an Englishman : and he was so ambidextrous in the languages of the two great literary nations of Europe, that whenever he took up his pen, it is evident by his manuscripts, which I have exa- mined, that it was mere accident which determined him to write in French or in English. Composing without genius, or even taste, without vivacity or force, the simplicity and fluency of his style were sufficient for the purposes of a ready dealer in all the minutice liter arice ; literary anecdotes, curious quotations, notices of obscure books, and all that supellex which must enter into the history of literature, without forming a history. These little things, which did so well of themselves, without any connexion with anything else, became trivial when they assumed the form of volumi- nous minuteness ; and Des Maizeaux at length imagined that nothing but anecdotes were necessary to compose the lives of men of genius ! With this sort of talent he produced a coi)ious life of Bayle, in which he told everything he pos- sibly could ; and nothing can be more tedious, and more curious : for though it be a grievous fault to omit nothing, and marks the writer to be deficient in the development of -jharacter, and that sympathy which throws inspiration over the vivifying page of biography, yet, to admit everything, lias this merit — that we are sure to find what we want ! Warburton poignantly describes our Des Maizeaux, in one of those letters to Dr. Birch which he wrote in the fervid age of study, and with the impatient vivacity of his genius. " Almost all tlie fife-writers we have had before Toland and Des Maizeaux are indeed strange, insipid crc^atures ; and yet I had rather read the worst of them, than be obliged to''go through with this of Milton'.', or the other's life of Boileau ; where there is auch u dull, heavy succession of long quota- Des Maizeaux, and Anthony Collins' s Mannsci'ipts. 15 tions of Tuiinteresting passages, that it makes their method quite nauseous. But the verbose, tasteless Frenchman seems to la}-- it down as a principle, that every life must be a book, — and, what is worse, it seems a book without a life ; tor what do we know of Boileau after all his tedious stuff?" Des Maizeaux was much in the employ of the Dutch booksellers, then the great monopolisers in the literary mart of Europe. He supplied their " nouvelles htteraires" from England ; but the work-sheet price was very mean in those days. I have seen annual accounts of Des Maizeaux settled to a line for fom* or five pounds ; and yet he sent the " No- velties" as fresh as the post could carry them! He held a confidential correspondence with these great Dutch book- sellers, who consulted him in their distresses ; and he seems rather to have relieved them than himself. But if he got only a few florins at Rotterdam, the same " nouvelles Htte- raires" sometimes secured him valuable friends at London ; for in those days, which perhaps are returning on us, an English author would often appeal to a foreign journal for the commendation he might fail in obtaining at home ; and I have discovered, in more cases than one, that, like other smuggled commodities, the foreign article was often of home manufactory ! I give one of these curious bibliopolical distresses. Sauzet, a bookseller at Rotterdam, who judged too critically for the repose of his authors, seems to have been always fond of projecting a new " Journal ;" tormented by the ideal ex- cellence which he had conceived of such a work, it vexed him that he could never find the workmen ! Once disappointed of the assistance he expected from a writer of talents, he wii.s fain to put up with one he was ashamed of; but warily sti- pulated on very singular terms. He confided this precious literary secret to Des Maizeaux. I translate from his manu- script letter. " I send you, my dear Sir, four sheets of the continuation of my journal, and I hope this second part will turn out better than the former. The author thinks himself a very able person ; but I must tell you frankly, that he is a man without erudition, and without any critical discrimination ; he writes pretty well, ;ind turns passabl^y what he says ; but that is all ! Monsieur Van Elfen having failed in his pro- mises to realise my hopes on this occasion, necessity compelled me to have recourse to him ; but for six months only, and oa 16 Dcs Maizeaux, and Anthony Collins' s Manuscripts. condition that he should not, on any account whatever, allow any one to knoio that he is the author of the journal ; for his name alone would be sufficient to make even a passable book discreditable. As you are among my friends, I will confide to you in secrecy tlie name of this author ; it is Mons. De Limiers.* You see how much my interest is concerned that the author should not be known !" This anecdote is gratui- tously presented to the editors of certain reviews, as a ser- viceable hint to enter into the same engagement with some of their own writers : for it is usually the De Limiers who expend their last puff in blowing their own name about the town. In England, Des Maizeaux, as a literary man, made himself very useful to other men of letters, and particularly to persons of rank : and he found patronage and a pension, — like his talents, very moderate ! A friend to literary men, he lived amongst them, from "Orator" Henley, up to Addison, Lord Halifax, and Anthony Collins. I find a curious character of our Des Maizeaux in the handwriting of Edward, Earl of Oxford, to whose father (Pope's Earl of Oxford) and himself the nation owes the Harl. an treasures. His lordship is a critic with high Tory principles, and high-church notions. "This Des Maizeaux is a great man with those who are pleased to be called Freethinkers, particularly with Mr. Anthony Collins, collects passages out of books for their writings. His Life of Chillingworth is wrote to please that set of men." The secret history I am to unfold relates to Anthony Collins and Des Maizeaux. Some curious book- lovers will be interested in the personal history of an author they are well acquainted with, yet which has hitherto remained unknown. He tells his own story in a sort of epistolary petition he addressed to a noble friend, charac- * Van Ejjcn was a Dutch writer of some merit, and one of a literary knot of ingenious men, consisting of Sallengre, St. Hyacinthe, Prosper Marchand, &c., wlio carried on a smart review for those days, published at tlie Hague under the title of "Journal Litteraire." They all com- posed in French ; and Van Eli'en gave the first translations of our " Guar- di.an," " Robinson Crusoe," and the " Tale of a Tub," &c. He did some- thing more, but not better ; he attempted to imitate the " Spectator," in his "Le Misanthrope," 1726, which exhibits a picture of the uninteresting manners of a nation whom he could not make very lively. Dc Limiers has had his name slipped into our biographical dictionaries. An author cannot escape the fatality of the alphaliet ; his numerous mis- deeds are registered. It is said, that if he had not been so hungry, Le would have given proofs of po.ssess,"jg some talent. Des Maizeaux, and Anthony CoUins's Manuscripts. 17 teristic of an author, who cannot bo deemed unpatronised, yet whose name, after all his painful labours, might be inserted in my " Calamities of Authors." In this letter he announces his intention of publishing a Dictionary like Bayle ; having written the life of Bayle, the next step was to become himself a Bayle ; so short is the passage of literary delusion ! He had published, as a specimen, the lives of Hales and Chillingworth. He complains that his circumstances have not allowed him to forward that work, nor digest the materials he had collected, A work of that nature requires a steady application, free from the cares and avocations incident to all persons obliged to seek for their main- tenance. I have had the misfortune to be in the case of those persons, and am now reduced to a pension on the Irish establishment, which, deducting the tax. of four shillings in the pound, and other charges, brings me in about 401. a year of our English money.* This pension was granted to me in 1710, and I owe it chiefly to the friendship of Mr. Addison, who was then secretary to the Earl of Wharton, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. In 1711, 12, and 14, I was appointed one of the Commissioners of the Lottery by the interest of Lord Halifax. And this is all I ever received from the Government, though I had some claim to the royal favour ; for in 1710, when the enemies to our con- stitution were contriving its ruin, I wrote a pamphlet entitled "Lethe," •which was published in Holland, and afterwards translated into English, and twice printed in London ; and being reprinted in Dublin, proved so offensive to the ministry in Ireland, that it was burnt by the hands of the hangman. But so it is, that after having showed on all occasions my zeal for the royal family, and endeavoured to make myself serviceable to the public by several books published ; after forty years' stay in England, and in an advanced age, I find myself and family destitute of a sufficient live- lihood, and suffering from complaints in the head and impaired sight by constant application to my studies. I am confident, my lord, he adds, that if the queen, to whom I was made known on occasion of Thuanus's French translation, were ac- quainted with my present distress, she would be pleased to afford me some relief. + Among the confidential literary friends of Des Maizeaux, he had the honour of ranking Anthony Collins, a great lover of literature, and a man of fine genius, and who, in a continued correspondence with our Des Maizeaux, treated * I find that the nominal pension was 3s. 6d. per diem on the Irish civil list, which amounts to above 63^. per annum. If a pension bo pranted for reward, it seems a mockery that the income should be so f;rievously reduced, which cruel custom sLill prevails. + This letter, or petition, was written in 1732. In 1743 he procured his pension to be placed on his wife's life, and he died in 1745. He was sworn in as gentleman of his majesty's privy chamber in 1722« ^-Sloane MSS. 4289. VOL. HI. O 1 8 Des Maizemuv, and Anthony Collins' s Manuscripts. him as his friend, and employed him as his agent in his literar)' concerns. These, in tlie formation of an extensive hbrarv, were in a state of perpetual activitj^, and Collins was such a 'true lover of his books, that he drew up the catalogue with his own pen.* Anthony Collins wrote several well- known works without prefixing his name ; hut having pushed too far his curious inquiries on some obscure and polemical points, he incurred the odium of a freetlimlcer, — a term wliich'then began to be ni vogue, and which the French adopted by translating it, in their way, a stroncj tliinJcer, or es'prit fort. Whatever tendency to "liberalise" the mind from dogmas and creeds prevails in these works, the talents and learning of Collins were of the first class. His morals Nvcre immaculate, and his personal character independent; but the odium theologicum of those days contrived every means to stab in the dark, till the taste became hereditr. ry with some. I shall mention a fact of this cruel bigotry, which occurred within my own observation, on one of t!;a most polished men of the age. The late Mr. Cumberland, iu the romance entitled his "Life," gave this extraordinary fact, that Dr. Bentley, who so ably replied by his " Eemarks," under the name of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, to CoUins's " Discourse on Free-thinking," when, many years after, he discovered him fallen into great distress, conceiving that by having ruined Collins's character as a writer for ever, he had been the occasion of his personal miseiy, he liberally contributed to his maintenance. In vain I mentioned to that elegant writer, who was not curlo\is about facts, that this person could never have been Anthony Collins, who had always a plentiful fortune ; and w^hen it was suggested to him that this " A. Colhns," as he printed it, must have been Arthur Collins, the historical compiler, who was often in pecuniary difficulties, still he persisted in sending the lie down to posterity, tolidem verhis, without alteration in his second edition, observing to a friend of mine, that " the stor}^, while it told well, might serve as a striking instance of his great relative's generosity ; and that it should stand, because it could do no harm to any but to Anthony Collins, whom he considered as little short of an atheist." So much for this pious fraud ! but be it recollected that this Anthony Collins was the confidential friend of Locke, of whom Locke said, cyi * There is a printed catalogue of his library. Dps Maizeaux, and Antliony Collins* s Manuscripts. 19 his dying bed, that " ColUns was a man whom he valued in the first rank of those that he left behind him." And the last words of Collins on his own death-bed were, that " lie was persuaded he was going to that place which God had designed for them that love him." The cause of true religion will never be assisted by using such leaky vessels as Cumherla7id's wilful calumnies, which in the end must run out, and be found, like the present, mere empty fictions ! An extraordinary circumstance occurred on the death of Anthony Collins. He left behind him a considerable number of his own manuscripts, there was one collection formed into eight octavo volumes ; and that they might be secured from the common fate of manuscripts, he bequeathed them all, and confided them to the care of our Des Maizeaux. The choice of Collins reflects honour on the character of Des Maizeaux, yet he proved unworthy of it ! He suffered himself to betray his trust, practised on by the earnest desire of the widow, and perhaps by the arts of a Mr. Tomlinson, who appears to have been introduced into the family by the recommendation of Dean Sykes, whom at length he supplanted, and whom the widow, to save her reputation, was afterwards obliged to discard.* In an unguarded moment he relinquished this precious legacy of tlie manuscripts, and ?^ccc])teA fifty giiineas' as a present. But if Des Maizeaux lost his honour in this transaction, he was at heart an honest man, who had swerved for a single moment ; his conscience was soon awakened, and he experienced the most violent compunctions. It was in a paroxysm of this nature that he addressed the following letter to a mutual friend of the late Anthony Collins and himself. iSiR, January 6, 1730. I am very glafl to hear you are come to town, and as you are my best friend, now I have lost Mr. Collins, give me leave to open my heart to you, and to beg your assistance in an affair which highly cuncerns both Mr. Collins's (your friend) and my own honour and reiuitatioii. The case, in few words, stands thus :— Mr. Collins by his last will and testa- ment left me his manuscripts. Mr. Tomlinson, who first acquainted me with it, told me that Mrs. Collins should be glad to have them, and I made them over to her ; whereupon she was pleased to jn-eseut me with fifty guineas. I desired her at the same time to take care they should be kept safe and unhurt, which she promised to do. This was done the 2oth of la.st month. Mr. Tomlinson, who managed all this affair, was present. * This information is from a note found among Des Maizeaux's papers ; bat its truth I have no means to ascertain. c2 20 Des Maizeaux, and Anthony Collinses Manuscripts. Now, having fuiLlier considered that matter, I find that I have done a most'wicked thing. I am persuaded that I have betrayed the trust of a person who, for twenty-six years, had given me continual instances of his friendship and confidence. I am convinced that I have acted contrary to the will and intention of my dear deceased friend ; showed a disregard to the particular mark of esteem he gave me on that occasion ; in short, that I have forfeited what is dearer to me than my own life — honour and reputation. These melancholy thoughts have made so great an impression upon me, that I protest to you I can enjoy no rest ; they haunt me every- where, day and night. I earnestly beseech you, sir, to represent my un- happy case to Mrs. Collins. I acted with all the simplicity and upright- ness of my heart ; I considered that the MSS. would be as safe in Mrs, Collins's hands as in mine ; that she was no less obliged to preserve them than myself ; and that, as the library was left to her, they might naturally go along wth it. Besides, I thought I could not too much comply with the desti-e of a lady to whom I have so many obligations. But I see now clearly that this is not fulfilling Mr. Collins's will, and that the duties of our conscience are superior to all other regards. But it is in her power to forgive and mend what I have done imprudently, but with a good in- tention. Her high sense of virtue and generosity will not, I am sure, let her take any advantage of my weakness ; and the tender regard she has for the memory of the best of men, and the tenderest of husbands, will not suffer that his intentions should be frustrated, and that she should be the instrument of violating what is most sacred. If our late friend had designed that his MSS. should remain in her hands, he would certainly have left them to her by his last will and testament ; his acting otherwise is an evident proof that it was not his intention. All this I proposed to represent to her in the most respectful manner ; but you will do it infinitely better than I can in this present distraction of mind ; and I flatter myself that the miitual esteem and friendship which has continued so many years between Mr. Collins and you, wUl make you readily embrace whatever tends to honour his memory. I send you the fifty guineas I received, which I do now look upon as the wages of iniquity ; and I desire you to return them to Mrs. Collins, who, as I hope it of her justice, equity, and regard to Mr. Collins's intentions, will be pleased to cancel my paper. I am, &c., P. DbS MAIZBAtJX. The manuscripts were never returned to Des Maizeaux ; for seven years afterwards Mrs. Collins, who appears to have been a very spirited lady, addressed to him the followijig letter on the subject of a report, that she had permitted transcripts of these very manuscripts to get abroad. This occasioned an animated correspondence from both sides. Sir, March 10, 1736-37. I have thus long waited in expectation that you would ere this have called on Dean Sykes, as Sir B. Lucy said you intended, that I might luwe had some satisfaction in relation to a very unjust reproach — viz., that I, DesMaizeaux, and Anthony CoUins's Manuscrijjls. 21 or somebody that I Lad trusted, had betrayed some of the transcripts, or MSS., of Mr. Collins into the Bishop of London's hands. I cannot, there- fore, since you have not been with the dean as was desired, but call on you in this manner, to know what authority you had for such a reflection ; or on what grounds you went for saying that these transcripts are in the Bishop of London's hands. I am determined to trace out the grounds of such a report ; and you can be no friend of mine, no friend of Mr. Collins, no friend to common justice, if you refuse to acquaint me, what foundation you had for such a charge. I desire a very sjjeedy answer to this, who am, Sir, Your servant, Eliz. Collins. To Mr. Des Maizeava:, at his lodgings next door to the Quakers^ burying-ground, Hanover-streety out of Long- A ere. TO MRS, COLLINS. March 14, 1737. I had the honour of your letter of the 10th inst., and as I find that something has been misapprehended, I beg leave to set this matter right. Being lately with some honourable persons, I told them it had been re- ported that some of Mr. C.'s MSS. were fallen into the hands of strangers, and that I should be glad to receive from you such information as might enable me to disprove that report. What occasioned this surmise, or what particular MSS. ware meant, I was not able to discover ; so I was left to my own conjectures, which, upon a serious consideration, induced me to believe that it might relate to the MSS. in eight volumes in 8vo, of which there is a transcript. But as the original and the transcript are in your possession, if you please, madam, to compare them together, you may easily see whether they be both entire and perfect, or whether there be anything wanting in either of them. By this means you will assure your- self, and satisfy your friends, that several important pieces are safe in your hands, and that the report is false and groundless. All this I take the liberty to offer out of the singular respect I always professed for you, and for the memory of Mr. Collins, to whom I have endeavoured to do justice on all occasions, and particularly in the memoirs that have been made use of in the General Dictionary ; and I hope my tender concern for his reputation will further appear when I publish his life. Sir, April 6, 1737. My ill state of health has hindered me from acknowledging sooner the receipt of yours, from which I hoped for some satisfaction in relation to your charge, in which I cannot but think myself very deeply concerned. You tell me now, that you was left to your own conjectures what particular MSS, were reported to have fallen into the hands of strangers, and that upon a serious consideration you was induced to believe that it might relate to the MSS. in eight vols. 8vo, of which there was a transcript. I must beg of you to satisfy me very explicitly who were the persons that reported this to you, and from whom did you receive this information ? You know that Mr, Collins left several MSS, behind him ; what grounds had you for your conjecture that it related to the MSS. in eight vols., rather than to any other MSS, of which there was a transcript ? I beg 22 Des Maizeaux, and Anthony Collins' s Manuscripts. that you will be very jilain, and tell me what strangers weiu named to yon ; and why you said the Bishop of Loudon, if your informer said stranger to you. I am so much concerned in this, that I must repeat it, if you have the singular respect for Mr. Collins which you profess, that you would help me to trace out this reproach, which is so abusive to. Sir, Tour servant, Eliz. CoLLiNa. TO MRS. COLLINS. I flattered myself that my last letter would have satisfied you, but I have the mortification to see that my hopes were vain. Therefore I beg leave once more to set this matter right. When I told you what had been reported, I acted, as I thought, the part of a true friend, by acquainting you that some of your MSS. had been purloined, in order that you might examine a fact which to me appeared of the last consequence ; and I verily believe that everybody in my case would have expected thanks for such a friendly information. But instead of that I fiind myself represented as an enemy, and challenged to produce pi'oofs and witnesses of a thing dropt in conversation, a hearsay, as if in those cases people kept a register of what they hear, and entered the names of the persons who spoke, the time, place, &c., and had with them persons ready to witness the whole, &c. I did own I never thought of such a thing, and whenever I happened to hear that some of my friends had some loss, I thought it my duty to acquaint them with such report, that they might inquire into the matter, and see whether there was any ground for it. But I never troubled myself with the names of the persons who spoke, as being a thing entirely needless and unprofitable. Give nie leave further to observe, that you are in no ways concerned in the matter, as you seem to be apprehensive you are. Suppose some MSS. have been taken out of your library, who will say you ought to bear the guilt of it ? What man in his senses, who has the honour to know you, will say you gave your consent to such thing — that you was privy to it? How can you then take upon yourself an action to which you was neither privy and consenting ? Do not such things happen every day, and do the losers think themselves injured or abused when they are talked of ? Is it impossible to be betrayed by a person we confided in ? You call what I told you was a report, a surmise ; you call it, I say, an information, and speak of informers as if there was a plot laid wherein I received the information : I thought I had the honour to be better known to you. Mr. Collins loved me and esteemed me for my integrity and sincerity, of which he had several proofs ; how I have been drawn in to injure him, to forfeit the good opinion he had of me, and which, were he now alive, would deservedly expose me to his utmost contempt, is a grief which I shall carry to the grave. It would be a sort of comfort to me, if those who have consented I should be drawn in were in some measure sensible of the guilt towards so good, kind, and generous a man. Thus we find that, seven years after Des Maizeaux had inconsiderately betrayed his sacred trust, his remorse was still awake ; and the sincerity of his grief is attested by the affecting style which describes it : the spirit of his departed History of Neio Words. 23 friend seemed to bo hovering about hiia, and, in his imagina- tion, would haunt him to the grave. The nature of these manuscripts ; tlie cause of the earnest desire of retaining them by the widow ; the evident unfriend- liness of her conduct to Des Maizeaux ; and whether these manuscripts, consisting of eight octavo vokimes with their transcripts, were destroyed, or are still existing, are all cir- cumstances which my researches have hitherto not ascer- tained. HISTORY OP NEW WORDS. NeoloG-Y, or the novelty of words and phrases, is an inno- vation, which, with the opulence of our present language, the English philologer is most jealous to allow ; but we have puritans or precisians of English, superstitiously nice ! The fantastic coinage of affectation or caprice will cease to cir- culate from its own alloy ; but shall we reject the ore of fine workmanship and solid weight? There is no government mint of words, and it is no statutable offence to invent a felicitous or daring expression unauthorised by Mr. Todd ! When a man of genius, in the heat of his pursuits or his feelings, has thrown out a peculiar word, it probably conveyed more precision or energy than any other established word, otherwise he is but an ignorant pretender ! Julius Csesar, who, unlike other great captains, is authority on words as well as about blows, wrote a large treatise on " Analogy," in which that fine genius counselled to " avoid every unusual word as a rock!"* The cautious Quintilian, as might be expected, opposes all innovation in language. " If the new word is well received, small is the glory ; :f rejected, it raises laughter."t This only marks the penury of his feelings in this species of adventure. The great legis- lator of words, who lived when his own language was at its acme, seems undecided, yet pleaded for this liberty. " Shall that which the Eomans allowed to Cascilius and to Plautus be refused to Virgil and Varius ?" The answer to the ques- tion might not be favourable to the inquirer. While a lan- guage is forming, writers are applauded for extending its limits ; when established, for restricting themselves to them. But this is to imagine that a perfect language can exist! • AuhisGellius, lib. i. c. 10. + Instit. lib. i. c. 5. 21 History of New Words. The good sense and observation of Horace pin-ceived that there may be occasions where necessity must become the mother of invented words : — Si forte necesse est Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum. If you write of things abstruse or new, Some of your own inventing may be used. So it be seldom and discreetly done. Roscommon. But Horace's canon for deciding on the legality of the new invention, or the standard by which it is to be tried, will not serve to assist the inventor of words : — licuit, semperque licebit, Signatum prsesente nota procudere nummum.* This prcesens nota, or public stamp, can never be aflSxed to any new coinage of words : for many received at a season have perished with it.f The privilege of stamping words is reserved for their greatest enemy — Time itself! and the inventor of a new word must never flatter himself that he has secured the pubUc adoption, for he must lie in his grave before he can enter the dictionary. In Willes' address to the reader, prefixed to the collection of Voyages pubhshed in 1577, he finds fault with Eden's translation from Peter Martj^r, for using words that " smelt too much of the Latine." We should scarcely have expected * This verse was corrected by Bentley procudere Tviimmimi, instead of liroducere nomen, which the critics agree is one of his happy conjectures. t Henry Cockeram's curious little "English Dictionarie, or an Inter- pretation of hard English words", 12mo, 1631, professes to give in its first book " the choicest words themselves now in use, wherewith our language is inriched and become so copious." Many have not survived, such as the followintr : — Acyrologicall An improper speech. Adacted .... Driven in by force. Blandiloquy . . , Flattering speech. Compaginate . . To set together that which is broken. Concessation . . Loytering. Delitigate ... To scold, or chide vehemently. Depalmate ... To give one a box on the ear. Esuriate ... To hunger. Strenuitie . . . Activity. Curiously enough, this author notes some words as those "now out of use, and onely used of some ancient writers," but which we nowcommoulj use. Such are the following : — Abandon . . To forsake or cast off. Abate . . To make lesse, diminish, or take from. History of New Words. 25 to find among them ponderouse, fortcntouse, despicable, obse- quious, homicide, imbibed, destructive, prodigious. The only words he qvxotes, not thoroughly naturalised, arc dominators, ditionaries, (subjects), solicititte (careful). The Tatler, No. 230, introduces several polysyllables intro- duced by military narrations, " which (he says), if they attack us too frequently, we shall certainly put them to flight, and cut off the rear ;" every one of them still keep their ground. Half the French words used affectedly by Mclantha, in Dryden's Marriage a-la-Mode, a sinnovations in our language, are now in common use, naivete, foible, chagrin, grimace, embarras, double entendre, eqidvoque, eclaircissement, ridicule, all these words, which she learns by heart to use occasionally, are now in common use. A Dr. Russel called Psalm-singers Ballad-singers, having found the Song of Solomon in an old translation, the Ballad of Ballads, for which he is reproached by his antagonist for not knowing that the signification of words alters with time ; should I call him knave, he ought not to be concerned at it, for the Apostle Paul is also called a Tcnave of Jesus Christ * Unquestionably, neology opens a wide door to innovation ; scarcely has a century passed since our language was patched up with Gallic idioms, as in the preceding century it was piebald with Spanish, and with Italian, and even with Dutch. The political intercourse of islanders with their neighbours has ever influenced their language. In Elizabeth's reign Italian phrasesf and Netherland words were imported ; in James and Charles the Spanish framed the style of courtesy; in Charles the Second the nation and the language were equally Frenchified. Yet such are the sources from whence we have often derived some of the wealth of our language ! * A most striking instance of the change of meaning in a word is in the old law-term let — "without let or hindrance ;" meaning void of all oppo- sition. Hence, " I will let you," meant " I will hinder you ;" and not as we should now think, " I will give you free leave." f Shakspeare makes " Ancient Pistol" use anew-coined Italian word, when he speaks of being "better accommodated ;" to the great delight of Justice Shallow, who exclaims, "It comes from accommodo — a pood phrase !" And Ben Jonson, in his " Tale of a Tub," ridicules laigo Jones's love of two words he often used : — If it conduce To the design, whate'er is feasible, I can express. 26 History of New Words, There are three foul corrupters of a language : caprice, afibctution, and ignorance ! Such fashionable cant terms as "theatricals," and "musicals," invented by the flippant Topham, still survive among his confraternity of fiivolity. A lady eminent for the elegance of her taste, and of whom one of the best judges, the celebrated Miss Edge worth, observed to me, that she spoke the purest and most idiomatic English she had ever heard, threw out an observation which might be extended to a great deal of our present fashionable vocabulary. She is now old enough, she said, to have lived to heai- the vulgarisms of her youth adopted in drawing-room circles.* To lunch, now so familiar from the fau-est lips, in her youth was only known in the servants' hall. An expres- sion very rife of late among our young ladies, a nice man, whatever it may mean, whether that the man resemble a pud- dmg or .something more nice, conveys the offensive notion that they sxq ready to eat him up ! When I was a boy, it was an age of bon ton ; this good tone mysteriously conveyed a sublime idea of fashion ; the term, imported late in the eighteenth century, closed with it. Twaddle for a while suc- ceeded hove ; but hore has recovered the supremacy. We want another Swift to give a new edition of his " Polite Conversation." A dictionary of barbarisms too might be collected from some wretched neologists, whose pens are now at work! Lord Chesterfield, in his exhortations to conform to Johnson's Dictionary, was desirous, however, that the great lexicographer should add as an appendix, " A neological dic- tionary, containing those polite, though perhaps not strictly grammatical, words and phrases commonly used, and some- times understood by the beau-i?tonde."f This last phrase was doubtless a contribution ! Such a dictionary had already appeared in the French language, drawn up by two caustic critics, who in the Dictionnaireneologique aV usage desheaux Esprits du Steele collected together the numerous unlucky inventions of affectation, with their modern authorities ! A collection of the fine words and phrases, culled from some very modern poetry, might show the real amount of the favours bestowed on us. • The term pluch, once only tnown to the prize-ring, lias now got into use in general conversation, and also into literature, as a term indicative of ready courage. + Such terms as ^'^Mtcntto the public" — "normal condition" — "crasa behaviour," are the iuvcutions of the lust few years. History of New Words. 27 The attempts of neologists are, however, not necessarily to be condemned; and we may join with the commentators of Aulus Gellius, who have lamented the loss of a chapter of which the title only has descended to us. That chapter would have demonstrated what happens to all languages, that Bome neologisms, which at first are considered forced or inele- gant, become sanctioned by use, and in time are quoted as authority in the very language which, in their early stage, they were imagined to have debased. The true history of men's minds is found in their actions ; their wants are indicated by their contrivances ; and certain it is that in highly cultivated ages we discover the most refined intellects attempting neologisms.* It would be a subject of great curiosity to trace the origin of many happy expressions, when, and by whom created. Plato substituted the term Providence for fate ; and a new system of human aflPairs arose from a single? word. Cicero invented several ; to this philosopher we owe the term of moral philosophy, which before his time was called the philosophy of manners. But -on this subject we are perhaps more interested by the modern than by the ancient languages. Richardson, the painter of the human heart, has coined some expressions to indicate its little secret movements, which are admirable : that great genius merited a higher education and more literary leisure than the life of a printer could afford, Montaigne created some bold expressions, many of which have not survived him ; his incuriosite, so opposite to curiosity, well describes that state of negligence where we will not learn that of which we are ignorant. With us the word incurious was described by Heylin, 165G, as an unusual word ; it has been appropriately adopted by our best writers, although we still want incuriosity. Charron invented etrangete unsuccessfully, but which, says a French critic, would be the true substantive of the word etrange ; our Locke is the solitary instance produced for " foreignness " for "remoteness or want of relation to something." Malherbe borrowed from the Latin, insidieu.v, securite, which have been received ; but a bolder word, devouloir, by which he proposed to express cesser de vouloir, * Shakspeare has a powei-fully-composed Hue in the speech of the Duke of Burgundy, (Henry V. Act v. So. 2), when, describing the fields ovej-- grown with weeds, he exclaims — The coulter rusts, That should deracinate such savagery. 2S History of Neiv Words. has not. A term, however, expressive and precise. Corneille liap[)ily introduced invaincu in a verse in the Cid, Vous etes invaincu, mais non pas invincible. Yet this created word by their great poet has not sanctioned this fine distinction among the French, for we are told that it is almost a solitary instance. Balzac was a great inventor of neologisms. Urhanite and feliciter were struck in his mint. " Si le mot feliciter n'est pas fran9aise, il le sera I'an- nee qui vient ;" so confidently proud was the neologist, and it prospered as well as urba)iite, of which he says, " Quand I'usage aura muri parmi nous un mot de si mauvais gout, et corrige Vamertuyne de la nouveaute qui s'y peut trouver, nous nous y accoutumerons comme aux autres que nous avons empruute de la meme langue." Balzac was, however, too sanguine in some other words ; for his delecter, his seriosite, &c. still retain their "bitterness of novelty." Menage invented a term of which an equivalent is wanting in our language ; " J'ai iait prosateur a I'imitation de I'italien prosatore, pour dire un homme qui ecrit en prose." To dis- tinguish a prose from a verse writer, we once had " a proser." Drayton uses it ; but this useful distinction has unluckily degenerated, and the current sense is so daily urgent, that the purer sense is irrecoverable. When D'Albancourt was translating Lucian, he invented in French the words indolence and indolent, to describe a mo- mentary languor, rather than that habitual indolence in which sense they are now accepted ; and in translating Tacitus, he created the word turhulemment ; but it did not prosper any more than that of temporisement. Segrais invented the word impardonnahle, \\\\\c\i.,Si{t%x having been rejected, was revived, and is equivalent to our expressive unpardonable. Moliere ridiculed some neologisms of the Precieuses of his day ; but we are too apt to ridicule that which is new, and which we often adopt when it becomes old. Moliere laughed at the term s'encanailler, to describe one who assumed the manners of a blackguard ; the expressive word has remained in the lan- guage. The meaning is disputed as well as the origin is lost of some novel terms. This has happened to a word in daily use — Fudge 1 It is a cant term not in Grose, and only traced by Todd not higher than to Goldsmith. It is, however, no invention of his. In a pamphlet, entitled " Eemarks upon the Navy," 1700, the term is declared to have been the name History of New Words. 139 of a certain nautical personage who had lived in the lifetime of the writer. " There was, sir, in our time, one Gciplain Fudge, commander of a merchantman, who upon his return from a voyage, how ill-fraught soever his ship was, always brought home his owners a good cargo of lies ; so much that now, aboard ship, the sailors, when they hear a great lie told, cry out, ' You fudge it !' " It is singular that such an obscure byword among sailors should have become one of the most popular in our familiar style ; and not less, that recently at the bar, in a court of law, its precise meaning perplexed plaintiff and defendant and their counsel. I think it does not signify mere lies, but bouncing lies, or rhodomontades. There are two remarkable French words created by the Abbe de Saint Pierre, who passed his meritorious life in the contemplation of political morality and universal benevolence — hienfaisance and gloriole. He invented gloriole as a con- temptuous diminutive of glorie ; to describe that vanity of some egotists, so proud of the small talents which they may have received from nature or from accident. Hienfaisance first appeared in this sentence : " L'Esprit de la vraie religion et le principal but de I'evangile c'est la hienfaisance, c'est-a- dire la pratique de la charite envers le prochain." This word was so new, that in the moment of its creation this good man explained its necessity and origin. Complaining that " the word ' charity ' is abused by all sorts of Christians in the persecution of their enemies, and even heretics affirm that they are practising Christian charity in persecuting other heretics, I have sought for a term which might convey to us a precise idea of doing good to our neighbours, and I can form none more proper to make myself understood than the term of hienfaisance, good-doing. Let those who like, use it ; I would only be understood, and it is not equivocal." The happy word was at first criticised, but at length every kind heart found it responded to its own feeling. Some verses from Voltaire, alluding to the political reveries of the good abbe, notice the critical opposition ; yet the new word answez'ed to the great rule of Horace. Certain legislateur, dont la plume fcconde Fit taut de vains projets pour le bieii du monde, Et qvii depuis trente ans ecrit pour des ingrats, Vient de creer un mot qui manque ^ Vaugelas : Ce mot est Bienfaisance ; il me plait, il rassemble Si le coeur en est cru, bien des vertus ensemble. 80 History of New Words. Petits grammairiens, grands precepteurs de sots, Qui pesez la parole et mesurez les mots, Pareille expression vous semble liazardee, Mais I'univers eutier doit en cherir I'idee ! The French revolutionists, in their rage for innovation, almost barbarised the pure French of the Augustan age^ of their literature, as they did many things winch never before occurred ; and sometimes experienced feelings as transitory as they were strange. Their nomenclature was copious ; but the revolutionary jargon often shows the danger and the necessity of neologisms. They form an appendix to the Academy Dictionary. Our plain English has served to en- rich this odd mixture of philology and polities : Cluh, cluMste, comite, jure, juye de jiaix, blend with their terrorisme, Inn- terner, a verb active, levee en masse, noi/acles, and the other verb active, septemhriser, &c. The barbarous term demora- lisation is said to have been the invention of the horrid capuchin Chabot ; and the remarkable expression of arriere pensee belonged exclusively in its birth to the Jesuitic astute- ness of the Abbe Sieyes, that political actor, who, in changing sides, never required prompting in his new part ! A new word, the result of much consideration with its author, or a term which, though unknown to the language, conveys a collective assemblage of ideas hj a fortunate desig- nation, is a precious contribution of genius ; new words should convey new ideas. Swift, living amidst a civil war of pam- phlets, when certain writers were regularly employed by one party to draw up replies to the other, created a term not to be found in our dictionaries, but which, by a single stroke, characterises these hirelings ; he called them answer-johhers. We have not dropped the fortunate expression from any want of its use, but of perception in our lexicographers. The celebrated Marquis of Lansdowne introduced a useful word, which has of late been warmly adopted in France as well as in England — to liberalise ; the noun has been drawn out of the verb — for in the mai'quis's time that was only an abstract conception which is now a sect ; and to liberalise was theo- retically introduced before the liberals arose.* It is cm'ious to observe that as an adjective it had formerly in our lan- * The "Quarterly Review" recently marked the word liheralise ia italics as a strange word, undoubtedly not aware of its origin. It has been lately used by Mr. Dugald Stewart, "to liheralise the views." — Dissert. 2nd part, p. 138. History of New Words. 31 guage a very opposite meaning to its recent one. It was synonymous with "libertine or licentious;" we have "a liberal villain" and " a most profane and liberal counsellor •/' we find one declaring " I have spoken too liberally. ^^ This is unlucky for the liberals, who will not — Give allowance to our liberal jests Upon tlieir persons — Beattmont and Fletcher. Dr. Priestley employed a forcible, but not an elegant term, to mark the general information which had begun in his day; this he frequently calls "the spread of knowledge." Burke attempted to brand with a new name that set of pert, petu- lant, sophistical sciolists, whose philosophy the FrKueh, since their revolutionary period, have distinguished as plillosophism , and the philosophers themselves as philosophistes. He would have designated them as literafors, but few exotic words will circulate ; new words must be the coinage of our own lan- guage to blend with the vernacular idiom. Many new words are still wanted. We have no word by which we could trans- late the otium of the Latins, the cUllettante of the Italians, the alemhique of the French, as an epithet to describe that sublimated ingenuity which exhausts the mind, till, like the fusion of the diamond, the intellect itself disappears. A phi- losopher, in an extensive view of a subject in all its bearings, miiy convey to us the result of his last considerations by the coinage of a novel and significant expression, as this of Pro- fessor Dugald ^tawiivt— political religionism. Let me claim the honour of one pure neologism. I ventured to introduce the term of tathee-lakd to describe our natale solum ; I have liv?d to see it adopted by Lord Byron and by Mr. Southey, and the word is now common. A lady has even composed both the words and the air of a song on " Father- land." This energetic expression may therefore be considered as authenticated ; and patriotism may stamp it with its glory and its affection. Father-land is congenial with the lan- guage in which we find that other fine expression mother- tongue. The patriotic neologism originated with me in Holland, when, in early life, it was my daily pursuit to turn over the glorious history of its independence under the title of Vaderlandsclie Historie — the history of FxVTHEr-lanb ! If we acknowledge that the creation of some neologisms may sometimes produce the beautiful, the revival of the dead 32 The Philosophy of Proverbs. is the more authentic miracle ; for a new word must long re- main doubtful, but an ancient word happily recovered rests on a basis of permanent strenj^th ; it has both novelty and authority. A collection of picturesque words, found among our ancient writers, would constitute a precious supplement to the history of our language. Far more expressive than our term of executioner is their solemn one of the deathsman ; than our vagabond, their scatterling ; than our idiot or lunatic, their moonling, — a \ 'ord which, Mr. Gifford observes, should not have been suffered to grow obsolete. Herrick finely describes by the term pittering the peculiar slirill and short cry of the grasshopper : the cry of the grasshopper is pit ! pit ! pit ! quickly repeated. Envy " dusking the lustre" of genius is a verb lost for us, but which gives a more precise expression to the feeling than any other words which we could use. The late Dr. Boucher, in the prospectus of his proposed Dictionary, did me the honour, then a young writer, to quote an opinion I had formed early in life of the purest source of neology, which is in the revival of old words. Words that wise Bacon or brave Rawleigh spake ! We have lost many exquisite and picturesque expressions through tlie dulness of our lexicographers, or by the deficiency in that profounder study of our writers which their labours require far more than they themselves know. The natural graces of our language have been impoverished. The genius that throws its prophetic eye over the language, and the taste that must come from Heaven, no lexicographer ima- gines are required to accompany him amidst a library of old books! THE PHILOSOPHY OF PROVERBS. In antique furniture we sometimes discover a convenience which long disuse had made us unacquainted with, and are surprised by the aptness which we did not suspect was con- cealed in its solid forms. We have found the labour of the workmen to have been as admirable as the material itself, which is still resisting the mouldering touch of time among those modern in ventions, elegant and unsubstantial, which, often put together with unseasoned wood, are p.pt to warp and fly The Philosophy of Proverbs. 33 into pieces when brought into use. We have found how strength consists in the selection of materials, and that, when- ever the substitute is not better than the original, we are losing something in that test of experience, which all things derive from duration. Be this as it may ! I shall not unreasonably await for the artists of our novelties to retrograde into massive greatness, although I cannot avoid reminding them how often they re- vive the forgotten things of past times ! It is well known that many of our novelties were in use by our ancestors ! In the history of the human mind there is, indeed, a sort of antique fui'niture which I collect, not merely for their anti- quity, but for the sound condition in which I still find them, and the compactness which they still show. Centuries have not worm-eaten their solidity ! and the utility and delight- fulness which they still afford make them look as fresh and as ingenious as any of our patent inventions. By the title of the present article the reader has anti- cipated the nature of the old furniture to which I allude. I propose to give what, in the style of oui- times, may be called the Philosophy of Proverbs — a topic which seems virgin. The art of reading proverbs has not, indeed, always been ac- quired even by some of their admirers ; but my observations, like their subject, must be versatile and unconnected ; and I must bespeak indulgence for an attempt to illustrate a very curious branch of literature, rather not understood than quite forgotten. Proverbs have long been in disuse. " A man of fashion," observes Lord Chesterfield, " never has recourse to pi'overbs and vulgar aphorisms ;" and, since the time his lordship so solemnly interdicted their use, they appear to have withered away under the ban of his anathema. His lordship was little conversant with the history of proverbs, and would unquestionably have smiled on those " men of fashion" of another stamp, who, in the days of Elizabeth, James, and Charles, were great collectors of them ; would appeal to them in their conversations, and enforce them in their learned or their statesmanlike correspondence. Few, perhaps, even now, suspect that these neglected fragments of wisdom, which exist among all nations, still offer many interesting objects for the studies of the philosopher and the historian ; and for men of the world still open an extensive school of human life and manners. VOL. III. "n 34 The Philosophy of Proverbs. The home-spun adages, and the rusty " sayed-saws," whicli remain in tlie mouths of the people, are adapted to their ca- pacities and their humours. Easily remembered, and readily aiipliod, these are the philosophy of the vulgar, and often more sound than that of their masters ! whoever would learn what the peo])le think, and how they feel, must not reject even these as insignificant. The proverbs of the street and of the market, true to nature, and lasting only because they are true, are records that the populace at Athens and at Eome were the same people as at Paris and at London, and as they had before been in the city of Jerusalem ! Proverbs existed before books. The Spaniards date the ()rif>-in of their refranes que dicen las viejris tras elfiiego, '• sayings of old wives by their firesides," before the existence (jf any writings in their language, from the circumstance that these are in the old romance or rudest vulgar idiom. The most ancient poem in the Edda, " the sublime speech of Odin," abounds with ancient proverbs, strikingly descriptive of the ancient Scandinavians. Undoubtedly proverbs in the earliest ages long served as the unwritten language of mo- rality, and even of the useful arts ; like the oral traditions of the Jews, they floated down from age to age on the lips of successive generations. The name of the first sage who sanctioned the saying would in time be forgotten, while the opinion, the metaphor, or the expression, remained, conse- ci-ated into a proverb ! Such was the origin of those memo- rable sentences by which men learnt to think and to speak appositel}^ ; they were precepts which no man could contra- tlict, at a time when authority was valued more than opi- nion, and experience preferred to novelty. The proverbs of a father became the inheritance of a son ; the mistress of a family perpetuated hers through her household ; the workman condensed some traditional secret of his crait into a prover- bial expression. When countries are not yet populous, and pi'opcrty has not yet produced great inequalities in its ranks, every day will show them how "the drunkard and the glutton come to poverty, and drowsiness clothes a man with rags." At such a period he who gave counsel gave wealth. It might therefore have been decided, a priori, that the most homely proverbs would abound in the most ancient writers — and such we find in Plesiod ; a poet whose learning was not drawn from books. It could only have been in the The Philosophy of Proverbs. 35 agricultural state that this venerable bard could have indi- cated a state of repose by this rustic proverb : — Hi^SoXlov l-Civ vTTip Kairvov KaraStlo, Hang your plough-beam o'er the hearth ! The envy of rival workmen is as justly described by a re- ference to the humble manufacturers of earthenware as by the elevated jealousies of the literati and the artists of ii more polished age. The famous proverbial verse in Hesiod's "Works and Days — Kcti Kepajiivg icepafieX kotUi, is literally, " The potter is hostile to the potter !" The admonition of the poet to his brother, to prefer a friendly accommodation to a litigious lawsuit, has fixed a paradoxical proverb often applied, — nXeov iijiKTV TravTog, The half is better than the whole ! In the progress of time, the stock of popular proverbs re- ceived accessions from the highest sources of human intelli- gence ; as the philosophers of antiquity formed their collec- tions, they increased in "weight and number." Erasmus has pointed out some of these sources, in the responses of oracles ; the allegorical symbols of Pythagoras ; the verses of the poets ; allusions to historical incidents ; mythology and apologue ; and other recondite origins. Such dissimilar matters, coming from all quarters, were melted down into this vast body of aphoristic knowledge. Those " avoeds of THE WISE and their dark sayings," as they are distin- guished in that large collection which bears the name of the great Hebrew monarch, at length seem to have required commentaries ; for what else can we infer of the enigmatic wisdom of the sages, when the royal parcemiographer classes among their studies, that of " understanding/ a proverb and the interpretation V This elevated notion of " the dark sayings of the wise" accords with the bold conjecture of their origin which the Stagyrite has thrown out, who con- sidered them as the wrecks of an ancient philosophy which had been lost to mankind by the fatal revolutions of all human things, and that those had been saved I'rom the gene- ral ruin by their pithy elegance and their diminutive '^wxxv \ like those marine shells found on the tops of mountains, the rehcs of the Deluge ! Even at a later period, the sage of i>2 3G The Philosophy of Proverbs. Cheronca prized them among the most solemn mysteries ; and Plutarch has described them in a manner which proverbs may- even still merit : " Under the veil of these curious sentences are hid those germs of morals which the masters of philo- sophy have afterwards developed into so many volumes." At the highest period of Grecian genius, the tragic and the comic poets introduced into their dramas the proverbial style. St. Paul quotes a line which still remains among the first exercises of our school-pens : — Evil communications corrupt good manners. It is a verse found in a fragment of Menander the comic poet: ^Oupovmv ijOr] \pr]C!& bfiikiai KUKal. As this verse is a proverb, and the apostle, and indeed tho highest authority, Jesus himself, consecrates the use of pro- verbs by their occasional application, it is uncertain whether St. Paul quotes the Grecian poet, or only repeats some popu- lar adage. Proverbs were bright shafts in the Greek and Latin quivers ; and when Bentley, by a league of superficial wits, was accused of pedantry for his use of some ancient proverbs, the sturdy critic vindicated his taste by showing tliat Cicero constantly introduced Greek proverbs into his writings, — that Scaliger and Erasmus loved them, and had formed collections drawn from the stores of antiquity. Some difficulty has occurred in the definition. Proverbs must be distinguished from proverbial phrases, and from sen- tentious maxims ; but as proverbs have many faces, from their miscellaneous nature, the class itself scarcely admits of any definition. When Johnson defined a proverb to be " a short sentence frequently repeated by the people," this defi- nition would not include the most curious ones, which have not always circulated among the populace, nor even belong to them ; nor does it designate the vital qualities of a pro- verb. The pithy quaintness of old Howell has admirably described the ingredients of an exquisite proverb to be sense, shortness, and salt. A proverb is distinguished from a maxim or an apophthegm by that brevity which condenses a thought or a metaphor, where one thing is said and another is to be applied. This often produces wit, and that quick ]mngency which excites surprise, but strikes with convic- tion ; this gives it an epigrammatic turn. George Herbert entitled the small collection which he formed " Jaeula Pru- The Philosophy of Proverbs. 37 dentium," Darts or Javelins! something hurled and striking deeply; a characteristic of a proverb which possibly Herbert may have borrowed from a remarkable passage in Plato's dialogue of " Pi'otagoras or the Sophists." The influence of provei'bs over the minds and conversations of a whole people is strikingly illustrated by this philosopher's explanation of the term to laconise, — the mode of speech, peculiar to the Lacedaemonians. This people affected to appear unlearned, and seemed only emulous to excel the rest of the Greeks in fortitude and in military skill. According to Plato's notion, this was really a political artifice, with a view to conceal their pre-eminent wisdom. With the jealousy of a petty state, they attempted to confine their renowned sagacity within themselves, and under their military to hide theii- contemplative character ! The philosopher assures those who in other cities imagined tliey laconised, merely by imitating the severe exercises and the other warlike manners of the Lacedaemonians, that they were grossly deceived ; and thus curiously describes the sort of wisdom which this singular people practised. " If any one wish to converse with the meanest of the Lacedaemonians, he will at first find him, for the most part, apparently despicable in convei'sation ; but afterwards, when a proper opportunity presents itself, this same mean person, like a skilful jaculator, will hurl a sentence, worthy of attention, sliort and contorted ; so that he who converses with him will appear to be in no res])ect superior to a boy ! That to laconise, therefore, consists much more in philosophising than in the love of exercise, is understood by some of the present age, and was known to the ancients, they being persuaded that the ability of idtering such sentences as thesu is the province of a man perfectly learned. The seven sages were emulators, lovers, and disciples of the Lacedcsmonian erudition. Their wisdom was a thing of this kind, viz. short sentences uttered hy each, and worthy to he remembered. These men, assembling together, consecrated to Apollo the first fruits of their wisdom ; writing in the Temple of Apollo, at Delphi, those sentences which are celebrated by all mcji, viz. Know thyself I and Notldny too much! But on what account do I mention these things ? To show that the mode of philosophy among the ancients was a certain laconic diction.'' * * Taylor's Translation of Plato's works, vol v. p. 36. 38 2"he Philosophy of Proverbs. The " laconisms " of the Lacedsemonians evidently partook of the proverbial style: they were, no doubt, often proverbs themselves. The very instances which Plato supplies of this "laconising" are two most venerable proverbs. All this elevates the science of proveebs, and indicates that these abridgments of knowledge convey great results, with a parsimony of words prodigal of sense. They have, therefore, preserved many 'a short sentence, NOT repeated by the people." It is evident, however, that the earliest writings of every people are marked by their most homely, or domestic proverbs ; for these were more directly addressed to their wants. Franklin, who may be considered as the founder of a people who wei'e suddenly placed in a stage of civil society which as yet could afford no literature, discovered the philosophical cast of his genius, when he filled his almanacs with proverbs, by the ingenious contrivance of framing them into a connected discourse, delivered by an old man attending an auction. "These proverbs," he tells us, "which contained the wisdom of many ages and nations, when their scattered counsels were brought together, made a great impression. They were reprinted in Britain, in a large sheet of paper, and stuck up in houses : and were twice translated in France, and distributed among their poor parishioners." The same occur- rence had happened with us ere we became a reading people. Sir Thomas Elyot, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, describing the ornaments of a nobleman's house, among his hangings, and plate, and pictures, notices the engraving of proverbs " on his plate and vessels, which served the guests with a most opportune counsel and comments." Later even than the reign of Ehzabeth our ancestors had proverbs always before them, on everything that had room for a piece of advice on it; they had them painted in their tapestries, stamped on the most ordinary utensils, on the blades of their knives,* the borders of their plates,t and " conned them out Shakspeare satirically alludes to the quality of such rhymes in his Merchant of Venice, Act v. So. 1. Speaking of one whose poesy was For all the world like cutler's poetry Upon a knife, Love me, and leave me not." t One of the fruit trenchers, for such these roundels are called in the Gent. May. for 1793, p. S98, is engraved there, and the inscriptions of an entire set given.-^e also the Supplement to that volume, p. 1187 The Philosophy of Proverbs. 39 of goldsmiths' rings." * The usurer, in Robert Greene's "Groat's worth of Wit," compressed all his jihilosophy into the circle of his ring, having learned sufficient Latin to under- stand the proverbial motto of " Tu tibi cura ! " The husband was reminded of his lordly authority when he only looked into his trencher, one of its learned aphorisms having de- scended to us, — The calmest husbands make the stormiest wives. The English proverbs of the populace, most of which are still in circulation, were collected by old John Heywood. f They are arranged by Tusser for " the parlour — the guest's chamber — the hall — table-lessons," &c. Not a small portion of our ancient proverbs were adapted to rural life, when our ancestors lived more than ourselves amidst the works of (iod, The author of the " Ai-t of English Poesie," 1589, tells us they never contained above one verse, or two at the most, but the shorter the better. Two specimens may suffice the reader. One, under the symbol of a skull, thus morally discourses :— " Content thyself with thine estate, And send no poor wight from thy gate ; For why, this counsel I you give, To learne to die, and die to live." On another, decorated with pictures of fruit, are these satirical lines : — " Feed and be fat : hear's pears and plums. Will never hurt your teeth or spoil your gums. And I wish those girls that painted are. No other food than such fine painted fare." * This constant custom of engraving " posies," as they were termed, on rings, is noted by many authors of the Elizabethan era. Lilly, in his "Euphues," addresses the ladies for a favourable judgment on his work, hoping it will be recorded "as you do the posies in your rings, which arc always next to the finger not to be seene of him that holdcth you by the hand, and yet knowne by you that weare them on your hands." They were always engraved withinside of the ring. A MS. of the time of Charles I. furnishes us with a single posy, of one line, to this effect — " This hath alloy ; my love is pure." From the same source we have the two following rhyming, or ' ' double posies" — " Constancy and heaven are round, And in this the emblem's found." *' Weare me out, love shall not waste ; Love beyond tyme still is placed." + Heywood's "Dialogue, conteyninge the Number in Effectc of all the Proverbes in the English Tunge, 1.561." There are more editions of this little volume than Warton has noticed. There is some humour in his narrative, but hLs metre and his ribaldry are heavy taxes on our curiosity. 40 The Philosojj/i// of Proverbs. and less among those of men.* At this time, one of our old statesmen, in commending the art of compressing a tedious discourse into a few signiticant phrases, suggested the use of proverbs in diplomatic intercourse, convinced of the great benellt which would result to the negotiators themselves, as well as to others ! I give a literary curiosity of this kind. A member of the House of Commons, in the reign of Elizabctli, made a speech entirely composed of the most homely proverbs. The subject was a bill against double payments of book-debts. Knavish tradesmen were then in the habit of swelling out their book-debts with those who took credit, particularly to their younger customers. One of the members who began to speak "for very fear shook," and stood silent. The nervous orator was followed by a blunt and true representative of the famed governor of Barataria, delivering himself thus — "It is now my chance to speak something, and that without humming or hawing. I think this law is a good law. Even reckoning makes long friends. As far goes the penny as the penny's master. Vicfilantibus non dor mientibus jura suhveniunt. Pay the reckoning over- night and ye shall not be troubled in the morning. If ready money be mensura 2^ublica, let every one cut his coat accord- ing to his cloth. When his old suit is in the wane, let him stay till that his money bring a new suit in the increase." t Another instance of the use of proverbs among oui* states- men occurs in a manuscript letter of Sir Dudley Carlton, written in 1632, on the impeachment of Lord Middlesex, who, he says, is "this day to plead his own cause in the Exchequer-chamber, about an account of four-score thousand pounds laid to his charge. How his lordship sped I know not, but do remember well the French proverb, Q,ui mange cle * The whole of Tusser's "Five Hundi-ed Pointes of Good Husbandrie," 1580, was composed in quaint couplets, long remembered by the peasantry for their homely worldly wisdom. One, constructed for the bakehouse, runs thus: — " New bread is a drivell (waste) ; Much crust is as evil." Another for the dairymaid assures her — " Good dairie doth pleasure ; 111 dairie spends treasure." Another might rival any lesson of thrift : — " Where nothing will last, Spare such as thou hast." + Townshead's Historical Collections, p. 283. The Philosophy of Proverbs. 41 Voy du Moy chiera ime plume quarautc ans apres. ' Wlio cats of the king's goose, will void a feather forty years after ! ' " This was the era of proverbs with us ; for then they were spoken by all ranks of society. The free use of trivial proverbs got them into disrepute ; and as the abuse of a thing raises a just opposition to its practice, a slender wit aifecting "a cross humour," published a little volume of "Crossing of Proverbs, Cross-answers, and Cross-humours." He pretends to contradict the most popular ones ; but he has not always the genius to strike at amusing paradoxes.* Proverbs were long the favourites of our neighbours ; in the splendid and refined court of Louis the Fourteenth they gave rise to an odd invention. They plotted comedies and even fantastical ballets from their subjects. In these Curio- sities of Literature I cannot pass by such eccentric inveu" tions unnoticed. A Comedy of proverbs is described by the Duke de la Valliere, which was performed in 1634 with prodigious suc- cess. He considers that this comedy ought to be ranked among farces ; but it is gay, well-written, and curious for containing the best proverbs, which are happily introduced in the dialogue. A more extraordinary attempt was a Ballet of proverbs. Before the opera was established in France, the ancient ballets formed the chief amusement of the court, and Louis the Fourteenth himself joined with the performers. The singular attempt of forming a pantomimical dance out of proverbs is quite French ; we have a " ballet des proverbes, danse par le Eioi, in 1654." At every proverb the scene changed, and adapted itself to the subject. I shall give two or thi-ee of the entrees that we may form some notion of these ca- priccios. * It was published in 1616 : the writer only catches at some verbal ex- pressions—as, for instance : — The vulgar proverb runs, " The more the merrier." The cross, — " Not so ! one hand is enough in a purse." The proverb, "It is a great way to the bottom of the sea." The cross, — "Not so ! it is but a stone's cast." The proverb, "The pride of the rich makes the labours of the i)oor." The cross, — "Not so ! the labours of the poor make the pride of tho rich." The proverb, " He runs far who never turns." The cross, — " Not so ! he may break his neck in a short coxurse." 42 The Philosophy of Proverbs. The proverb was — Tel menace qui a grand peur. He threatens who is afraid. The scene was composed of swaggering scaramouches aiid some honest cits, who at length beat them off. At another entree the proverb was — L' occasion fait le larron. Opportunity makes the thief. Opportunity was acted by le Sieur Beaubrun, but it is diffi- cult to conceive how the real could personify the abstract personage. The thieves were the Duke d'Amville and Mon- sieur de la Chesnaye. Another entree was the proverb of — Ce qui vient de la flute s'ew va au tambour. What comes by the jjipe goes by the tabor. A loose dissipated officer was performed by le Sieur I'Anglois ; the Pipe by St. Aignan, and the Tahor by le Sieur le Comte ! In this manner every proverb was spolcen in action, the whole connected by dialogue. More must have depended on the actors than the poet.* The French long retained this fondness for proverbs ; for they still have dramatic compositions Qi\i\i\edi proverhes, on a more refined plan. Their invention is so recent, that the term is not in their great dictionary of Trevoux. These procerbes are dramas of a single act, invented by Carmontel, who possessed a peculiar vein of humour, but who designed them only for private theatricals. Each proverb furnislied a subject for a few scenes, and created a situation powei'fuUy comic : it is a dramatic amusement whicli does not appear to have reached us, but one which the celebrated Catherine of Russia delighted to compose for her own society. Among the middle classes of society to this day, we may observe that certain family proverbs are traditionally pre- served : the favourite saying of a father is repeated by the Bons ; and frequently the conduct of a whole generation has been influenced by such domestic proverbs. This may be perceived in many of the mottos of our old nobility, which seem to have originated in some habitual proverb of the • It has been suggested that this whimsical amusement has been lately revived, to a certain degree, in the acting of charades among juvenile parties. The Philosophy of Proverbs. 43 founder of the foniily. lu ages when proverbs were most prevalent, such pithy sentences would admirably serve in the ordinary business of life, and lead on to decision, even in its greater exigencies. Orators, by some lucky proverb, without wearying their auditors, would bring conviction home to their bosoms : and great characters would appeal to a proverb, or deliver that which in time by its aptitude became one. When Nero was reproached for the ardour with which he gave him- self up to the study of music, he replied to his censurers by the Greek proverb, " An artist lives everywhere." The emperor answered in the spirit of Rousseau's system, that every child should be taught some trade. When Ctesar, after anxious deliberation, decided on the passage of the Rubicon (which very event has given rise to a proverb), rousing him- self with a start of courage, he committed himself to Fortune, with that proverbial expression on his lips, used by gamesters in desperate play : having passed the Rubicon, he exclaimed, "The die is east!" The answer of Paulus ^milius to the relations of his wife, who had remonstrated with him on his determination to separate himself from her against whom no fault could be alleged, has become one of our most familiar proverbs. This hero acknowledged the excellences of his lady ; but, requesting them to look on his shoe, which appeared to be well made, he observed, " None of you know where the shoe pinches!" He either used a proverbial phrase, or by its aptness it has become one of the most popular. There are, indeed, proverbs connected with the characters of eminent men. They were either their favourite ones, or have originated with themselves. Such a collection would form a historical curiosity. To the celebrated Bayard are the French indebted for a military proverb, which some of them still repeat, " Ce que le gantelet gagne le gorgerin le mange''' — " What the gauntlet gets, the gorget consumes." That reflecting soldier well calculated the prohts of a military life, which consumes, in the pomp and waste which are neces- sary for its maintenance, the slender pay it receives, and even what its rapacity sometimes acquires. The favourite proverb of Erasmus was Festina letite ! — "Hasten slowly!"* Hi wished it be inscribed wherever it could meet our eyes, on public buildings, and on our rings and seals. One of our own * Now the punning motto of a noble fanaily. 44 The Philosophy of Proverbs. statesmen used a favourite sentence, which has enlarged our stock of national proverbs. Sir Amias Pawlet, when he per- ceived too much hurry in any business, was accustomed to say, " Stay awhile, to make an end the sooner." Oliver Cromwell's coarse but descriptive proverb conveys the con- tempt he felt for some of his mean and troublesome coadju- tors : "Nits will be lice!" The Italians have a proverb, which has been occasionally applied to certain political per- sonages : — Egli e quello che Dio vuole; E sard quello che Dio vorrct,/ He is what God pleases ; He shall be what God wills ! Ere tliis was a proverb, it had served as an embroidered motto on the mystical mantle of Castruccio Castracani. That mili- tary genius, who sought to revolutionise Italy, and aspired to its sovereignty, lived long enough to repent the wild romantic ambition which provoked all Italy to confederate against him ; the mysterious motto he assumed entered into the proverbs of his counti'y ! The Border proverb of the Douglases, " It were better to hear the lark sing than the mouse cheep," was adopted by every Border chief, to express, as Sir Walter Scott observes, what the great Bruce had pointed out, that the woods and hiUs of their country were their safest bulwarks, instead of the fortified places which the English surpassed then- neighbours in the arts of assaulting or defending. These illustrations indicate one of the sources of proverbs ; they have often resulted from the spontaneous emotions or the profound reflections of some extraordinary individual, whose energetic expression was caught by a faithful ear, never to perish ! The poets have been very busy with proverbs in all tlie languages of Europe : some appear to have been the favourite lines of some ancient poem : even in more refined times, many of the pointed verses of Boileau and Pope have become pro- verbial. Many trivial and laconic proverbs bear the jingle of alliteration or rhyme, which assisted their circulation, and were probably struck ofi' extempore ; a manner which Swift practised, who was a ready coiner of such rhyming and ludi- crous proverbs : dehghting to startle a collector by his face- tious or sarcastic humour, in the shape of an " old saying and The Philosophy of Proverbs. 45 true." Some of these rhyming proverbs are, however, torse and elegant : we have Little strokes Fell great oaks. The ItaUan— Chi duo leprl caccia Uno perde, e Valtro lascia. Who hunts two hares, loses one and leaves the other. The haughty Spaniard — El dar es honor, T I pedir dolor. To give is honour, to ask is grief. And the French — Ami de table Est variable. The friend of the table Is very variable. The composers of these short proverbs were a •numerous race of poets, who, probably, among the dreams of their im- mortality never suspected that they were to descend to poste- rity, themselves and their works unknown, while their extem- pore thoughts would be repeated by their own nation. Proverbs were at length consigned to the people, when books were addressed to scholars ; but the people did not find themselves so destitute of practical wisdom, by preserving their national proverbs, as some of those closet students who had ceased to repeat them. The various humours of man- kind, in the mutability of human affairs, had given birth to every species ; and men were wise, or merry, or satirical, and mourned or rejoiced in proverbs, Nations held an universal intercourse of proverbs, from the eastern to the western world ; for we discover among those which appear strictly national, many which are common to them all. Of our own familiar ones several may be tracked among the snows of the Latins and the Greeks, and have sometimes been drawn from " The Mines of the East :" like decayed faraihes which re- main in obscurity, they may boast of a high lineal descent whenever they recover their lost title-deeds. The vulgar proverb, " To carry coals to Newcastle," local and idiomatic 46 The Philosophy of Proverbs. as it appears, however, has been borrowed and applied by our- selves ; it may be found among the Persians : in the " Bus- tan" of Sadi we have Infers piper in Hindostan ; " To carry- pepper to Hindostan ;" among the Hebrews, "To carry oil to the City of Olives;" a similar proverb occurs in Greek; and in Galland's " Maxims of the East" we may discover how many of the most common proverbs among us, as well as some of Joe Miller's jests, are of oriental origin. The resemblance of certain proverbs in different nations, must, however, be often ascribed to the identity of human nature ; similar situations and similar objects have unques- tionably made men think and act and express themselves alike. All nations are parallels of each other ! Hence all paroemiographers, or collectors of proverbs, com.plain of the difficulty of separating their own national proverbs from those which have crept into the language from others, parti- cularly when nations have held much intercourse together. We have a copious collection of Scottish proverbs by Kelly, but this learned man was mortified at discovering that many which he had long believed to have been genuine Scottish, were not only English, but French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Greek ones ; many of his Scottish proverbs are almost literally expressed among the fragments of remote antiquity. It would have surprised him further had he been aware that his Greek originals were themselves but copies, and might have been found in D'Herbelot, Erpenius, and Golius, and in many Asiatic works, which have been more recently intro- duced to the enlarged knowledge of the European student, who formerly found his most extended researches limited by Hellenistic lore. Perhaps it was owing to an accidental circumstance that the proverbs of the European nations have been preserved in the permanent form of volumes. Erasmus is usually con- sidered as the first modern collector, but he appears to have been preceded by Polydore Vergil, who bitterly reproacb.es Erasmus with envy and plagiarism, for passing by his collec- tion without even a poor compliment for the inventor ! Poly- dore was a vain, superficial writer, who prided himself in leading the way on more topics than the present, Erasmus, with his usual pleasantry, provokingly excuses himself, by acknowledging that he had forgotten his friend's book ! Few sympathise with the quarrels of authors ; and since Erasmus has written a far better book than Polydore Vej-gil's, the The Philosophy of Proverbs. 47 original "Adaffia^^ is left only to be commemorated in lite- rary history as one of its curiosities.* The " Adagia" of Erasmus contains a collection of about five thousand proverbs, gradually gathered from a constant study of the ancients. Erasmus, blest with the genius which could enliven a folio, delighted himself and all Europe by tlie continued accessions he made to a volume which even now may be the companion of literary men for a winter day's fire- side. The successful example of Erasmus commanded the imitation of the learned in Europe, and drew their attention to their own national proverbs. Some of the most learned men, and some not sufficiently so, were now occupied in this new study. In Spain, Fernandez Nunes, a Greek professor, and the Marquis of Santellana, a grandee, published collections of their Rtifranes, or Proverbs, a term derived A KErEKENUO, because it is often repeated. The " Kefranes o Proverbios Castellanos," par Caesar Oudin, 1624, translated into French, is a valuable compilation. In Cervantes and Qucvedo, the best pi'actical illustrators, they are sown with no sparing hand. There is an ample collection of Italian proverbs, by Florio, who was an Englishman, of Italian origin, and who published " II Giardino di Ricreatione " at London, so early as in 1591, exceeding six thousand proverbs ; but they are unexplained, and are often obscure. Another Italian iu England, Torriano, in 1619, published an interesting collec- tion in the diminutive form of a twenty -fours. It was sub- sequent to these publications in England, that in Italy, Angelus Monozini, in 1604, published his collection ; and Julius Varini, in 1642, produced his Scuola del Vidr/o. In France, Oudin, alter others had preceded him, published a collection of French proverbs, under the title of Ouriosifcs Frangoises. Fleury de Bellingen's JExpUccdion de Proverbes Francois, on comparing it with Les Illustres Proverbes Ilis- toriques, a subsequent publication, I discovered to be the same work. It is the iirst attempt to render the study of proverbs somewhat amusing. The plan consists of a dialogue betwen a philosopher and a Sancho Pan^a, who blurts out his * At the RoTAL Institution there is a fine copy of Polydore Vergil's "Adagia," with his other work, curious in its day, De Iiirciiioribus Jterum, i^rinted by Frobenius, in l;V21. The ivood-cuts o( this edition seem to me to be executed with inimitable delicacy, resembling a pen- ciliing wb ich Eaphael might have envied. •IS The Philosophy of Proverbs. proverbs with more delight than understanding. The philo- sopher takes that opportunity of explaining them by the events in which they originated, which, however, are not always to be depended on. A. work of high merit on French proverbs is the unfinished one of the Abbe Tuet, sensible and learned. A collection of Danish proverbs, accompanied by a French translation, was printed at Copenhagen, in a quarto volume, 1761. England may boast of no inferior paroemiographers. Tlie grave and judicious Camden, the reUgious Herbert, the entertaining Howell, the facetious Fuller, and the laborious Ray, with others, have preserved our national sayings. The Scottish have been largely collected and explained by the learned Kelly. An excellent anonymous collection, not un- common, in various languages, 1707 ; the collector and trans- lator was Dr. J. Mapletoft. It must be acknowledged, that although no nation exceeds our own in sterling sense, we rarely rival the delicacy, the wit, and the fehcity of expres- sion of the Spanish and the Italian, and the poignancy of some of the French proverbs. The interest we may derive from the study of proverbs is not confined to their universal truths, nor to their poignant pleasantry ; a philosophical mind will discover in proverbs a great variety of the most curious knowledge. The manners of a people are painted after hfe in their domestic proverbs ; and it would not be advancing too much to assert, that the genius of the age might be often detected in its prevalent ones. The learned Selden tells us, that the proverbs of several nations were much studied by Bishop Andrews : the reason assigned was, because " by them he knew the minds of several nations, which," said he, "is a brave thing, as we count him wise who knows the minds and the insides of men, which is done by knowing what is habitual to them." Lord Bacon condensed a wide circuit of philosophical thought, when he observed that " the genius, wit, and spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs." Proverbs peculiarly national, while they convey to us the modes of thinking, will consequently indicate the modes of acting among a people. The Romans had a proverbial expres- sion for their last stake in play, Bern ad triarios venisse, " the reserve are engaged !" a proverbial expression, from which the iiiilitary habits of the people might be inferred ; the triarii bemg their reserve. A proverb has preserved a curious cus- tom of ancient coxcombry, which originally came from tho The Fhilosoplnj of Proverbs. 49 Greeks. To men of cffriniiuitu nianuers in tlieir dross, tliey applied the proverb of Unico cUgitulo scalpit caput. Scratchinj^ the liead with a single finger was, it seems, done by the critically nice youths in Home, that they might not discom- pose the economy of their hair. The Arab, whose unsettled existence makes him miserable and interested, says, " Vinegar given is better than honey bought." Everything of high esteem with him who is so often parched in the desert is described as milh — " How large his flow of milk !" is a pro- verbial expression with the Arab to distinguish the most copious eloquence. To express a state of perfect repose, the Arabian proverb is, " I throw the rein over my back ;" an allusion to the loosening of the cords of the camels, which are thrown over their backs when they are sent to pasture. We discover the rustic manners of our ancient Britons in the Cambrian proverbs ; many relate to the hedge. " The cleanly Briton is seen in the hedge : the horse looks not on the hedrjc but the corn : the bad husband's hedge is full of gaps." The state of an agricultural people appears in such proverbs as "You must not count your yearlings till May-day:" and their proverbial sentence for old age is, " An old man's end is to keep sheep ?" Turn from the vagrant Arab and the agri- cultural Briton to a nation existing in a high state of artificial civilization : the Chinese proverbs frequently allude to magni- ficent buildings. Affecting a more solemn exterior than all other nations, a favoui'ite proverb with them is, "A grave and majestic outside is, as it were, the palace of the soul." Their notion of a government is quite architectural. They say, "A sovereign may be compared to a hall; his officers to the steps that lead to it ; the people to the ground on which they stand." What should we think of a people who had a pro- verb, that " He who gives blows is a master, he who gives none is a dog ?" We should instantly decide on the mean and servile spirit of those who could repeat it ; and such wo find to have been that of the Bengalese, to whom the degra- ding proverb belongs, derived from the treatment they wore used to receive from tlieii* Mogul rulers, who answered the claims of their creditors by a vigorous application of the whip ! In some of the Hebrew proverbs we are struck by the frequent allusions of that fugitive people to their own history. The cruel oppression exercised by the ruling power, and the confidence in their hope of change in the da}'^ of retri- bution, was delivered in this Hebrew proverb — " AVhen the VOL. III. E 50 The Philosophy of Proverbs. tale of bricks is doubled, Moses comes !" The fond idolatry of their devotion to their ceremonial law, and to everything connected wltli their sublime Theocracy, in their magnificent Temple, is finely expressed by this proverb—" None ever took a stone out of the Temple, but the dust did fly into his eyes." The Hebrew proverb that " A fast for a dream, is as fire for stubble," which it kindles, could only have been invented by a people whose superstitions attached a holy mystery to fasts and dreams. They imagined that a religious fast was pro- pitious to a religious dream ; or to obtain the interpretation of one which had troubled their imagination. Peyssonel, who long resided among the Turks, observes that their proverbs are full of sense, ingenuity, and elegance, the surest test of the intellectual abilities of any nation. He said this to correct the volatile opinion of De Tott, who, to convey an idea of their stupid pride, quotes one of their favourite adages, of which the truth and candour are admirable ; " E-iches in the Indies, wit in Europe, and pomp among the Ottomans." The Spaniards may appeal to their provei'bs to show that they were a high-minded and independent race. A Whiggish jealousy of the monarchical power stamped itself on this ancient one, Ya el rey Jiasta do peude, y no hasta do quiere : " The king goes as far as he is able, not as far as he desires." It must have been at a later period, when the national genius became more subdued, and every Spaniard dreaded to find under his own roof a spy or an informer, that another pro- verb arose. Con el rey y la inquisicion, cliiton 1 " With the king and the Inquisition, hush!" The gravity and taci- turnity of the nation have been ascribed to the efiects of this proverb. Their popular but suppressed feelings on taxation, and on a variety of dues exacted by their clergy, were mur- mured in proverbs — Lo que no lleva Ghristo lleva el fisco ! " What Christ takes not, the exchequer carries away !" They have a number of sarcastic proverbs on the tenacious gripe of the "abad avariento," the avaricious priest, who, " having ea,tcn the olio offered, claims the dish !" A striking mixture of chivalric habits, domestic decency, and epicurean comfort, appears in the Spanish proverb. La muger y la salsa a la mano de la langa : " The wife and the sauce by the hand of the lance ;" to honour the dame, and to have the sauce near. The Italian proverbs have taken a tinge from their deep and politic genius, and their wisdom seems wholly concen- trated in their uensonal interests. I think every tenth pre- The Philosophy of Proverbs. 51 verb, in an Italian collection, is some cynical or some selfish maxim : a Look of the world for worldlings ! The ^'enetian proverb, Pria Veneziuna, poi Chrintiane : " First Venetian, and then Christian!" condenses the whole spirit of tlieir ancient Republic into the smallest space possible. Their political proverbs no doubt arose i'rom the extraordinaiy state of a people sometimes distracted among republics, and some- times servile in petty courts. The Italiim says, I popoU s'am- mazzano, ed i principi h' ahhracciano : " The people murder one another, and princes embrace one another." Ghi praftica coi' grandi, Vultimo a tavola, e'l primo a strapazzi : " Who dan- gles after the great is the last at table, and the first at blows." Gki non sa aduJare, non sa recjnare : " Who knows not to flatter, knows not to reign." G/ii serve in corte muore auV pagliato : " Who serves at court, dies on straw." Wary cuviu ning in domestic life is perpetually impressed. An Italian proverb, which is immortalised in our language, for it enters into the history of Milton, was that by which the elegant Wotton counselled the young poetic traveller to have — II viso sciolto, ed i pensieri stretti, "An open countenance, but close thoughts." In the same spirit, Chi parla semina, chi face raccog lie : " The talker sows, the silent reaps;" as well as, Fatti di miele, e ti mangieran le mosche : " Make yourself all honey, and the flies will devour you." There are some which display a deep knowledge of human nature : A Lucca ti vidi, a Pisa ti connohbi ! " I saw you at Lucca, I knew you at Pisa!" Guardati d'aceto di vin dolce : " Bewai'e of vinegar made of sweet wine;" provoke not the rage of a patient man ! Among a people who had often witnessed their fine country devastated b}'' petty warfare, their notion of the military cha- racter was not usually heroic. II soldato per far male e ben. pagato : " The soldier is well paid for doing mischief." >^oldafo, acqua, efuoco, presto si fern luoco : "A soldier, fire, and water soon make room for themselves." But in a poetical people, endowed with great sensibility, their proverbs would sometimes be tender and fanciful. They paint the activity of friendship, Chi ha Vamor nel petto, ha lo sprone d, ifianchi: "Who feels love in the breast, feels a spur in his limbs:" or its generous passion, Gli amici legono la horsa con un Jilo di ragnalelo : " Friends tie their purse with a cobweb's thread." They characterised the universal lover by an elegant i^rowbrh—^Appicare il Maio ad ogn^ undo : " To E 2 52 The Philosojjhi/ of Proverbs. 1 1 an ij every door with May;" alluding to the bough which in the nights of May the country people are accustomed to ))lant bcibre the door of their mistress. If we turn to the French, we discover that tlie military genius of France dic- tated the proverb Maille d, maille se fait le hauhergeon : "Link by Hnk is made the coat of mail;" and, Tel coup de lamjuaestpire qu\m coup de lance; "The tongue strikes deeper thiiu tlie lance;" and Ge qui vient du tamhour s'en retourne a la flute ; " What comes ))y the tabor goes back with the pipe." Point d' argent point de Suisse has become proverbial, observes an Edinburgh Reviewer ; a striking expression, which, while French or Austrian gold predominated, was justly used to characterise the illiberal and selfish policy of the cantonal and federal governments of Switzerland, when it began to degenerate from its moral patriotism. The ancient, perhaps the extinct, spirit of Enghshmen was once expressed by our provei-b, " Better be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion;" i. e., the first of the yeomanry rather than the last of the gentry. A foreign philosopher might have disco- vered our own ancient skill in archery among our proverbs ; for none but true toxophilites could have had such a proverb as, " I will either make a shaft or a bolt of it !" signifying, says the author of IvanJioe, a determination to make one use or other of tlie thing spoken of: the bolt was the arrow peculiarly fitted to the cross-bow, as that of the long-bow was called a shaft. These instances sufficiently demonstrate that the characteristic cu-cumstances and feelings of a people are discovered in their popular notions, and stamped on their familiar proverbs. It is also evident that the peculiar, and often idiomatic, humour of a people is best preserved in their proverbs. There is a shrewdness, although deficient in delicacy, in the Scottish proverbs ; they are idiomatic, facetious, and strike home. Kelly, who has collected three thousand, informs us, that, in 1725, the Scotch were a great proverbial nation ; for that few among the better sort will converse any consider- able time, but will confirm every assertion and observation with a Scottish proverb. The speculative Scotch of our own times have probably degenerated in prudential lore, and deem themselves much wiser than their proverbs. They may reply by a Scotch proverb on proverbs, made by a great man in Scotland, who, having given a splendid entertainment, was harshly told, that " Fools make feasts, and wise men eiit Tiie Philosophy of Proverbs. 53 til em ;" but he readily answered, " Wise men make proverbs, and fools repeat them !" National humour, frequently local and idiomatical, depends on the artificial habits of mankind, so opposite to each other ;• but there is a natural vem, which the populace, always true to nature, preserve, even among the gravest people. The Arabian proverb, " The barber learns his art on the orphan's face ;" the Chinese, " In a field of melons do not pull up your shoe ; under a plum-tree do not adjust your cap ;" — to impress caution in our conduct under circumstances of sus- picion ; — and the Hebrew one, " He that hath had one of his family hanged may not say to his neighbour, haiu/ up this fish !" are all instances of this sort of humour. The Spa- niards are a grave people, but no nation has equalled them in their peculiar humour. The genius of Cervantes partook largely of that of his country ; that mantle of gravity, which almost conceals its latent facetiousness, and with which he has imbued his style and manner with such untranslatable idiomatic raciness, may be traced to the proverbial erudition of his nation. "To steal a sheep, and give away the trotters for God's sake !" is Cervantic nature ! To one who is seek- ing an opportunity to quarrel with another, their proverb runs. Si quieres dar polos a sur muger pidele al sol a hever, " Hast thou a mind to quarrel with thy wife, bid her bring water to thee in the sunshine!" — a very fair quarrel may be picked up about the motes in the clearest water ! On the judges in Gallicia, who, like our former justices of peace, " for half a dozen chickens would dispense with a dozen of penal statutes," A juezes Gallicianos, con los pies en las manos : "To the judges of Gallicia go with feet in hand;" a droll allusion to a present of poultry, usually held by the legs. To describe persons who live high without visible means, Los que cahritos venden, y cobras no tienen, de donde los viencn ? " They that sell kids, and have no goats, how came they by them ?" I^l vino no trae hragas, " Wine wears no breeches ;" for men in wine expose their most secret thoughts. Vino di un oreja, "Wine of one ear!" is good wine ; for at bad, shaking our heads, both our ears are visible ; but at good the Spaniard, by a natural gesticulation lowering on one side, shows a single ear. Proverbs abounding in sarcastic humour, and found among every people, are those which are pointed at rival countries. Ajnong om'selveSj h3,rdly has a county escaped from some po- 54« llie Philosophy of Proverbs. ptilar fjnip ; even neighbouring towns have their sarcasms, usually jiiekled in some unluck}^ rhyme. The egotism of man eagerly seizes on whatever serves to depreciate or to ridicule his neighbour : nations proverb each other ; counties Hout counties ; obscure towns sharpen their wits on towns as ob- scure as themselves — the same evil principle lurking in poor human nature, if it cannot always assume predominance, will meanly gratify itself by insult or contempt. They expose some prevalent folly, or allude to some disgrace which the natives have incurred. In France, the Burgundians have a proverb, JSlieux vaut hon repas que lei halnt ; " Better a good dinner than a fine coat." These good people are great gor- mandizers, but shabby dressers ; they are commonly said to have "bowels of silk and velvet;" this is, all their silk and velvet goes for their bowels ! Thus Picardy is famous for " hot heads ;" and the Norman for son dit et son dedit, " his saying and his unsaying !" In Italy the numerous rival cities pelt one another with proverbs : CM ha a fare con Tosco non convien esser Iosco, " He who deals with a Tuscan must not have his eyes shut." A Venetia chi vi nasce malvi sipasce, " Whom Venice breeds, she poorly feeds." There is another source of national characteristics, fre- quently producing strange or whimsical combinations ; a people, from a very natural circumstance, have drawn their proverbs from local objects, or from allusions to peculiar customs. The influence of manners and customs over the ideas and language of a people would form a subject of ex- tensive and curious research. There is a Japanese proverb, that "A fog cannot be dispelled with a fan !" Had we not known the origin of this proverb, it would be evident that it could only have occurred to a people who had constantly before them fogs and fans ; and the fact appears that fogs are frequent on the coast of Japan, and that from the age of five year.s both sexes of the Japanese carry fans. The Spa- niards have an odd proverb to describe those who tease and vex a person before they do him the very benefit which they are about to confer — acting kindly, but speaking roughly'; Mostrar primero la liorca que le lugar, " To show the gal- lows before they show the town ;" a circumstance alluding to their small towns, which have a gallows placed on an eminence, so that the gallows breaks on the eye of the tra- veller before he gets a view of the town itself. The CJieshire proverb on marriage, " Better wed over the The Philosophy of Proverbs. 55 mixon than over the moor," that is, at home or in its v'w\- nitj ; mixon alkides to the dunjf, &c.,in the farm-yard, while the road from Chester to London is over the moorhind in Staffordshire : this local proverl) is a curious instance of pro- vincial pride, perhaps of wisdom, to induce the g'entry of that county to form iritermarriagcs ; to prolong their own ancient families, and perpetuate ancient friendships between them. In the Isle of Man a proverbial expression forcibly indi- cates the object constantly occupying the minds of the inh;i- bitants. The two Deemsters or judges, when appointed to the chair of judgment, declare they will render justice be- tween man and man " as equally as the herring bone lies be- tween the two sides :" an image which eovild not have oc- curred to any people unaccustomed to the herring-fishery. There is a Cornish proverb, " Those who will not be ruled by the rudder must be ruled by the rock" — the strands of Cornwall, so often covered with wrecks, could not fail to im- press on the imaginations of its inhabitants the two objects from whence they drew this salutary proverb against obsti- nate wrongheads. When Scotland, in the last century, felt its allegiance to England doubtful, and when the French sent an expedition to the Land of Cakes, a local proverb was revived, to show the identity of interests which affected both nations : If Skiddaw hath a cap, Scruffel wots full well of that. These are two high hills, one in Scotland and one in Eng- land ; so near, that what happens to the one will not be long ere it reach the other. If a fog lodges on the one, it is sure to rain on the other ; the mutual sympathies of the two countries were hence deduced in a copious dissertation, by Oswald Dyke, on what was called "The Union-proverb," which local proverbs of our country Fuller has interspersed in his " Worthies," and Hay and Grose have collected sepa- rately. I was amused lately by a curious financial revelation which I found in an opposition paper, where it appears that " Minis- ters pretend to make their load of taxes more portable, by shifting the burden, or altering the pressure, without, how- ever, diminishing the weight ; according to the Italian \)XQ- ■verh, Accommodare le hisaccie nella strada, 'To tit the load on 56 The Philosophy of Proverbs. the jom-ney :'" it is taken from a custom of the mule- drivers, who, placing their packages at first but awkwardly on the backs of their poor beasts, and seeing them ready to sink, cry out, " Never mind ! we must fit them better on the road !" I was gratified to discover, by the present and some other modern instances, that the taste for proverbs was re- viving, and that we were returning to those sober times, when the aptitude of a simple proverb would be preferred to the verbosity of politicians, Tories, Whigs, or Radicals ! There are domestic proverbs which originate in incidents known only to the natives of their province. Italian litera- ture is particularly rich in these stores. The lively prover- bial taste of that vivacious people was transferred to their own authors ; and when these allusions were obscured by time, learned Italians, in their zeal for their national litera- ture, and in their national love of story-telling, have written grave commentaries even on ludicrous, but popular tales, in which the proverbs are said to have originated. They re- semble the old facetious contes, whose simplicity and humour still live in the pages of Boccaccio, and are not forgotten in those of the Queen of Navarre. The Italians apply a proverb to a person who while he is beaten, takes the blows quietly : — Per heato ch' die non furon peschel Luckily they were not peaches ! And to threaten to give a man — Una pesca in mi occJiio, A peach in the eye, means to give him a thrashing. This proverb, it is said, originated in the close of a certain droll adventure. The com- munity of the Castle Poggibonsi, probably from some jocular tenure observed on St. Bernard's day, pay a tribute of peaches to the court of Tuscany, which are usually shared among the ladies in waiting, and the pages of the court. It happened one season, in a great scarcity of peaches, that the good peo- ple of Poggibonsi, finding them rather dear, sent, instead of the customary tribute, a quantity of fine juicy figs, which was so much disapproved of by the pages, that as soon as they got hold of them, they began in rage to empty the baskets on the heads of the ambassadors of the Poggibonsi, who, in attempt- ing to fly as well as they could from the pulpy shower, half- The Philosophy of Proverbs. 57 blinded, and recollecting that poaches would have had stones in them, cried out — Per beato cK die non furon ^pesche! Luckily they were not peaches ! Fare le scalee di Sanf Avibrogio ; " To mount the stairs of Saint Ambrose," a proverb allusive to the business of the school of scandal. Varchi explains it by a circumstance so common in provincial cities. On summer evenings, for fresh air and gossip, the loungers met on the steps and landing- places of the church of St. Ambrose : whoever left the party, " they read in his book," as our commentator expresses it; and not a leaf was passed over ! All liked to join a party so well informed of one ^mother's concerns, and every one tried to be the very last to quit it, — not "to leave his character behind!" It became a proverbial phrase with those who left a company, and were too tender of their backs, to request they would not " mount the stairs of St. Ambrose." Jonson has well described such a company : You are so truly fear'd, but not beloved One of another, as no one dares break Company from the rest, lest they should fall Upon him absent. There are legends and histories which belong to proverbs ; and some of the most ancient refer to incidents which have not always been commemorated. Two Greek proverbs have accidentally been explained by Pausanias : " He is a man of Tenedos !" to describe a person of unquestionable veracity ; and " To cut with the Tenedian axe ;" to express an absolute and irrevocable refusal. The first originated in a king of Tenedos, who decreed that there should always stand beliind the judge a man holding an axe, ready to execute justice on any one convicted of i'alsehood. The other arose from the same king, whose father having reached his island, to suppli- cate the sou's forgiveness for the injury inflicted on him by the arts of a step-mother, was preparing to land ; already the ship was fastened by its cable to a rock ; when the son came down, and sternly cutting the cable with an axe, sent the sliip adrift to the mercy of the waves : hence, " to cut with the Tenedian axe," became proverbial to express an absolute refusal. " Business to-morrow 1" is another Greek proverb, applied to a person ruined by his own neglect. The fate of 58 The Philosophy of Pi'overhs. an eminent person perpetuated the expression which he casuall}' employed on the occasion. One of the Theban pole» marchs, in the midst of a convivial partj^, received despatches relating to a conspiracy : flushed with wine, although pressed by the courier to open them immediately, he smiled, and in gaiety lajnng the letter under the pillow of his couch, observed, "Business to-morrow!" Plutarch records that he fell a victim to the twenty-four hours he had lost, and became the authorof a proverb which was still circulated among theGreeks. The philosophical antiquary may often discover how many a proverb commemorates an event which has escaped from the more solemn monuments of history, and is often the solitary authority of its existence. A national event in Spanish his- tory is preserved by a proverb. Y vengar ([iiiniento sueldos ; " And revenge five hundred pounds !" An odd expression to denote a person being a gentleman ! but the proverb is his- torical. The Spaniards of Old Castile were compelled to pay an annual tribute of five hundred maidens to their masters, the Moors ; after several battles, the Spaniards succeeded in compromising the shameful tribute, by as many pieces of coin : at length the dayarrived when theyentirelyemaucipated them- selves from this odious imposition. The heroic action was per- formed by men of distinction, and the event perpetuated in the recollections of the Spaniards by this singular expression, which alludes to the dishonourable tribute, was applied to characterise all men of high honour, and devoted lovers of their country. Pasquier, in his Hechet'cJ/es sur la France, reviewing the periodical changes of ancient families in feudal times, observes, that a proverb among the common people conveys the result of all his inquiries ; for those noble houses, which in a single age declined from nobility and wealth to poverty and meanness, gave rise to the proverb. Cent ans lannieres et cent ans civieres ! " One hundred years a banner and one hujidred years a barrow 1" The ItaUan proverb, Con VEvan- gilio si diventa heretico, " With the gospel we become here- tics," — reflects the policy of the court of Kome ; and must be dated at the time of the Eeformation, when a translation of the Scriptures into the vulgar tongue encountered such an invincible opposition. The Scotch proverb. Re that invented the maiden first hanselled it; that is, got the first of it! The maiden is that well-known beheading engine, revived by the French surgeon Guillotine. This proverb may be applied to one who falls a victim to his own ingenuity ; the artifice^^ The Philosophy of Proverbs. 59 of his own clestruetion ! The inventor was James, Earl of Morton, who for some years governed Scotland, and after- wards, it is said, very unjustly suffered by his own invention. It is a striking coincidence, that the same fate was shared by the French reviver ; both alike sad examples of disturbed times ! Among our own proverbs a remarkable incident has been commemorated ; Hand over head, as the men took the Covenant ! This preserves the manner in which the Scotch covenant, so famous in our history, was violently taken by above sixty thousand persons about Edinburgh, in 1638 ; a circumstance at that time novel in our own revolutionary history, and afterwards paralleled by the French in voting by "acclamation." An ancient English proverb preserves a curious fact concerning our coinage. Testers are gone to Ox- ford, to study at Brazennose. When Henry the Eighth debased the silver coin, called testers, from their having a head stamped on one side ; the brass, breaking out in red pimples on their silver faces, provoked the ill-humour of the people to vent itself in this punning proverb, which has preserved for the historical antiquary the popular feeling which lasted about fifty 3'ears, till Elizabeth reformed the state of the coinage. A northern proverb among us has preserved the remarkable idea which seems to have once been prevalent, that the metropolis of England was to be the city of York ; Lincoln was, London is, York shall he ! Whether at the time of the union of the crowns, under James the First, when England and Scotland became Great Britain, this city, from its centrical situation, was considered as the best adapted for the seat of government, or for some other cause which I have not dis- covered, this notion must have been prevalent to have entered into a proverb. The chief magistrate of York is the only provincial one who is allowed the title of Lord Mayor ; a cir- cumstance which seems connected with this proverb. Tlie Italian history of its own small principalities, whose well-lieing so much depended on their prudence and sagacity, affords many instances of the timely use of a proverb. Many wn intricate negotiation has been contracted througli a good- humoured proverb, — many a sarcastic one has silenced an adversary ; and sometimes they have been applied on more solemn, and even tragical occasions. When liinaldo degli Albizzi was banished by the vigorous conduct of Cosmo de' Medici, Machiavel tells us the expelled man sent Cosmo a menace, in a proverb, La gallina covava I " The hen i? GO The Philosophy of Proverbs. brooding!" said of one meditating vengeance. The un- daunted Cosmo replied by another, that "There was no brooding out of the nest !" I give an example of peculiar interest ; for it is perpetuated b}^ Dante, and is connected with the character of Milton. When the families of the Amadei and the Uberti felt their liouour wounded in the affront the younger Euondelmonte had put upon them, in breaking off his match with a young lady of their family, by marrying another, a council was held, and the death of the young cavalier was proposed as the sole atonement for their injured honour. But the consequences which they anticipated, and which afterwards proved so fatal to the Florentines, long suspended their decision. At length Moscha Lamberti suddenly rising, exclaimed, in two pro- verbs, " That those who considered everything would never conclude on anything ! ' ' closing with an ancient proverbial saying — cosafatta cafo ha ! " a deed done has an end !" The proverb sealed the fatal detei'mination, and was long held in mournful remembrance by the Tuscans ; for, according to Villani, it was the cause and beginning of the accursed factions of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Dante has thus immortalised the energetic expression in a scene of the " Inferno." Ed un, ch' avea 1' una e 1' altra man mozza, Levando i moncherin per 1' aura fosca, Si che '1 sangue facea la faccia sozza, Grido : — "Ricorderati anclie del Mosca, Che dissi, lasso: Capo ha cosafatta, Che fii '1 mal seme della gente Tosca." Then one Maim'd of each hand, uplifted in the gloom The lileeding stumps, that they with gory spots Sullied his face, and cried — " Remember tliee Of Mosca too — I who, alas ! exclaim'd ' The deed once done, there is an end' — that proved A seed of sorrow to the Tuscan race." Gary's Dante. TI)is Italian provei-b was adopted by Milton ; for when deeply engaged in writing " The Defence of the People," and warned that it might terminate in his blindness, he resolvedly concluded his work, exclaiming with great magnanimity, although the fatal prognostication had been accomplished, cosafatta capo ha I Did this proverb also influence his awful The Philosophy of Proverbs. 61 decision on that great national event, when the most honcst- ininded fluctuated between doubts and fears ? Of a person treacherously used, the Italian proverb saya that he has eaten of Le frutte di fratre A Ihcricjo. The fruit of brother Alberigo. Landino, on the following passage of Dante, preserves the tragic story : — lo son fratre Alberigo, lo son quel dalle frutta del mal orto Che qui reprendo, &c. Canto xxxiii. " The friar Alberigo," answered he, " Am I, who from the evil garden pluck'd Its fruitage, and am here repaid the date More luscious for my fig." Cart's Dante. This was Manfred, the Lord of Fuenza, who, after many cruelties, turned friar. Reconciling himself to those whom he had so often opposed, to celebrate the renewal of tlicir friendship he invited them to a magnificent entertainment. At the end of the dinner the horn blew to announce the dessert — but it was the signal of this dissimulating con- spirator ! — and the fruits which that day were served to his guests were armed men, who, rushing in, immolated their victims. Among these historical proverbs none are more entertaining than those which perpetuate national events, connected with those of another people. When a Frenchman would let us undei'stand that he has settled with his creditors, the proverb is J'ai paye tous mes Anglois : " I have paid all my English." This proverb originated when John, the French king, was taken prisoner by our Black Prince. Levies of money were made for the king's ransom, and for many French lords ; and the French people have thus perpetuated the military glory of our nation, and their own idea of it, by making the English and their creditors synonymous terms. Another relates to the same event — Le Pape est devenu Fraiigois, et Jesus Christ Anglais : " Now the Pope is become Frencli and Jesus Christ English ; " a proverb which arose when the Pope, exiled from Rome, held his court at Avignon in France j and C2 The Philosophy of Proverbs. English prospered so well, that they possesseil nore than the kingdom. The Spanish proverb conceniiuy England the E half is well known — Con todo el mondo f/uerra, Y j>az con Ivrjlaterral War with the worlcl, And peace with England ! Whether this proverb wrs one of the results of their memorable armada, and was only coined after tlieir conviction of the splendid folly which they had committed, I cannot ascertain. England must always have been a desirable ally to Spain against her potent rival and neighbour. The Italians have a proverb, which formerly, at least, was strongly indicative of the travelled Englishmen in their country, Inr/lese Italianato e un diavolo incarnato ; " The Italianised Englishman is a devil incarnate." Formerly there existed a closer intercourse between our country and Italy than with France. Before and during the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First that land of the elegant arts modelled our taste and manners : and more Italians travelled into England, and were more constant residents, from com- mercial concerns, than afterwards when Fi'ance assumed a higher rank in Europe by her political superiority. This cause will sufficiently account for the number of Italian proverbs relating to England, which show an intimac}'' with our manners that could not else have occurred. It was probably some sarcastic Italian, and, perhaps, horologer, who, to describe the disagreement of persons, proverbed our nation — " They agree like the clocks of London ! " We were once better famed for merry Christmases and their pies ; and it must have been the Italians who had been domiciliated with us who gave currency to the proverb — J£a piu da fare che i forni di natale in Inyhilterra : " He has more business than English ovens at Christmas." Our pie-loving gentry were notorious, and Shakspeare's folio was usually laid open in tlie great halls of our nobility to entertain their attendants, who devoured at once Shakspeare and their pasty. Some of those volumes have com« down to us, not only with the stains, but inclosing even the identical piecrusts of the Elizabethan age. I have thus attempted to developc the akt op readtn'G ruoVERBS ; but have done little more than indicate the Tlie Philosophy of Proverbs. dZ fheory, aiid must leave the skilful student to tlie clelicacy of the practice. I am anxious to rescue from prevailiug pi't'ju- dices these neglected stores of curious amusement, and of deep insight into the ways of man, and to point out the bold and concealed truths which are scattered in these collections. There seems to be no occurrence in human affairs to which some proverb may not be applied. All knowledge was long aphoristical and traditional, pithily contracting the dis- coveries which were to be instantly comprehended and easily retained. Whatever be the revolutionary state of man, similar principles and like occurrences are returning on us ; and antiquity, whenever it is justly applicable to our times, loses its denomination, and becomes the truth of our own age. A pi'overb will often cut the knot which others in vain are attempting to untie. Johnson, palled with tlie redundant elegancies of modern composition, once said, " I fancy mankind may come in tiiue to write all aphoristically, except in narrative ; grow weary of preparation, and connexion, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made." Many a volume indeed has often been written to demonstrate what a lover of provei'bs could show had long been ascer- tained by a single one in his favourite collections. An insurmountable difficulty, which every parsemiographer has encountered, is that of forming an apt, a ready, and a systematic classification : the moral Linnaeus of such a " systema naturae" has not yet appeared. Each discovered his predecessor's mode imperfect, but each was doomed to meet the same fate.* The arrangement of proverbs has baJfied the ingenuity of every one of their collectors. Our E,ay, after long premeditation, has chosen a system with the appearance of an alphabetical order ; but, as it turns out, his system is no system, and his alphabet is no alphabet. After ten years' labour, the good man could only arrange his proverbs by commonplaces — by complete sentences — by phrases or forms of speech — by proverbial similes — and so on. All these are pm'sued in alphabetical order, " by the first * Since the appearance of the present article, several collections of Proverbs have been attempted. A little unpretending volume, entitled "Select Proverbs of all Nations, with Notes and Comments, by Thomas Fielding, 1824," is not ill arranged ; an excellent book for popular reading. The editor of a recent miscellaneous compilation, "The Treasury of Know- ledge," has whimsically bordered the four sides of the pages of a Dictionary with as many proverbs. The plan was ingenious, but the proverbs ar» not. Triteness and triviality are fatal to a pro\c).b. ^4 The Philosophy of Proverbs. letter of the most ' material word,' or if there be more words ^ equally material,^ by that which usually stands foremost." The most patient examiner will usually find that he wants the sagacity of the collector to discover that word which is "the most material," or, "the words equally material." We have to search tlirough all that multiplicity of divisions, or conjuring boxes, in which this juggler of proverbs pretends to hide the^balL* A still more formidable objection against a collection of proverbs, for the impatient reader, is their unreadableness. Taking in succession a multitude of insulated proverbs, their slippery nature resists all hope of retaining one in a hundred ; the study of proverbs must be a frequent recurrence to a gradual collection of favourite ones, which we ourselves must form. The experience of life will throw a perpetual freshness over these short and simple texts •, every day may furnish a new commentary ; and we may grow old, and find novelty in proverbs by their perpetual application. There are, perhaps, about twenty thousand proverbs among the nations of Europe : many of these have spread in their common intercourse ; many are borrowed from the ancients, chiefiy the Greeks, who themselves largely took them from the eastern nations. Our own proverbs are too often defi- cient in that elegance and ingenuity which are often found in the Spanish and the Italian. Proverbs frequently enliven conversation, or enter into the business of life in those coun- tries, without any feeling of vulgarity being associated with them : they are too numerous, too witty, and too wise to cease to please by their poignancy and their aptitude. I have heard them fall from the lips of men of letters and of statesmen. When recently the disorderly state of the manufacturers of Manchester menaced an insurrection, a profound Italian poli- tician observed to me, that it was not of a nature to alarm a great nation ; for that the remedy was at hand, in the pro- verb of the Lazr/aroni of Naples, 3Ietd, consiglio, meth esempio, onctct denaro ! ^' Half advice, half example, half money!" The result confirmed the truth of the proverb, which, had it been known at the time, might have quieted the honest fears of a great part of the nation. Proverbs have ceased to be studied or employed in con- * A new edition of Ray's book, witli large additions, was published by BobB, in 1855, under the title of "A Handbook of Proverbs." It is a vast collection of ' ' wise saws" of all ages and countries. Confusion of Words. 65 versation since the time we have derived our knowledge from books ; but in a philosophical age they appear to offer infi- nite subjects for speculative curiosity. Originating in various eras, these memorials of manners, of events, and of modes of thinking, for historical as well as for moral purposes, still re- tain a strong hold on our attention. The collected know- ledge of successive ages, and of different people, must always enter into some part of our own ! Truth and nature can never be obsolete. Proverbs embrace the wide sphere of human existence, they take all the colours of life, they are often exquisite strokes of genius, they delight by their airy sarcasm or their caustic satire, the luxuriance of their humour, the playfulness of their turn, and even by the elegance of their imagery, and the ten- derness of their sentiment. They give a deep insight into domestic life, and open for us the heart of man, in all the various states which he may occupy — a frequent review of proverbs should enter into our readings ; and although they are no longer the ornaments of conversation, they have not ceased to be the treasuries of Thoujjht ! CONFUSION OF WORDS. " There is nothing more common," says the lively Voltaire, " than to read and to converse to no purpose. In history, in morals, in law, in physic, and in divinity, be careful of equi- vocal terms." One of the ancients wrote a book to prove that there was no word which did not convey an ambiguous and uncertain meaning. If we possessed this lost book, our ingenious dictionaries of " synonyms " would not probably prove its uselessness. Whenever the same loord is associated by the parties with different ideas, they may converse, or controverse, till "the crack of doom!" This with a little obstinacy and some agility in shifting his ground, makes the fortune of an opponent. While one party is worried in dis- entangling a meaning, and the other is winding and unwind- ing about him with another, a word of the kind we have mentioned, carelessly or perversely slipped into an argument, may prolong it for a century or two — as it has happened ! Vaugelas, who passed his whole life in the study of words, would not allow that the sense was to determine the meaning of words ; for, says he, it is the business of words to explain VOL. III. !■ 66 Confusion of Words. tlie sense. Kant for a long' while discovered in this way a facility of arguing without end, as at this moment do our political economists. " I beseech you," exclaims a poetical critic, in the agony of a confusion of words, on the Pope con- troversy, " not to ask whether I mean this or that!'" Our critic, positive that he has made himself understood, has shown how a few vague terms may admit of volumes of vin- dication. Throw out a word, capable of fifty senses, and you )-aise fifty parties ! Should some friend of peace enable the fifty to repose on one sense, that innocent word, no longer linging the tocsin of a party, would lie in forgetfulness in the Dictionary. Still more provoking when an identity of mean- in f is only disguised by different modes of expression, and when the term has been closely sifted, to their mutual astonishment both parties discover the same thing lying under the bran and chaff" after this heated operation. Plato and Aristotle probably agreed much better than the opposite parties they raised up imagined ; their difference was in the manner of expression, rather than in the points discussed. The Nominalists and the Realists, who once filled the world with their brawls, and who from irregular words came to regular blows, could never comprehend their alternate non- sense ; " whether in employing general terms we use words or names only, or whether there is in nature anything corre- sponding to what we mean by & general ideai"^ The Nomi- nalists only denied what no one in his senses would affirm ; and the Realists only contended for what no one in his senses would deny ; a hair's breadth might have joined what the spirit of party had sundered ! Do we flatter ourselves that the Logomachies of the No- minalists and the Realists terminated with these scolding schoolmen ? Modern nonsense, weighed against the obsolete, may make the scales tremble for awhile, but it will lose its agreeable quality of freshness, and subside into an equipoise. We find their spirit still lurking among our own metaphysi- cians ! Lo ! the Nominalists and the Realists again!" ex- claimed my learned friend, Sharon Turner, alluding to our modern doctrines on abstract ideas, on which there is still a doubt whether they are anything more than generalising terms.* Leibnitz confused his philosophy by the term su^- cient reason : for every existence, for every event, and foi * Turner's "History of England," i. 514 Confusion of Words. 67 every truth there must be a sujjicicnt reason. This vague- ness of language produced a perpetual misconception, and Leibnitz was proud of his equivocal triumphs in always affording a new interpretation ! It is conjectured that he only employed his term of sufficient reason for the plain simple word of cause. Even Locke, who has himself so ad- mirably noticed the " abuse of words," has been charged vvitli using vague and indefinite ones ; he has sometimes emplo^-ed the words reflection, mind, and spirit in so indefinite a way, that they have confused his philosophy : thus by some ambi- guous expressions, our great metaph3^sician has been made to establish doctrines fatal to the immutability of moral distinc- tions. Even the eagle-eye of the intellectual Newton grew dim in the obscurity of the language of Locke. We are astonished to discover that two such intellects should not comprehend the same ideas; for Newton wrote to Locke, " I beg your pardon for representing that you struck at the root of morality in a principle laid down in your book of Ideas — and that I took you for a Hobbist!"* The difference of opinion between Locke and Eeid is in consequence of an am- biguity in the word principle, as employed by Reid. The removal of a solitary word may cast a luminous ray over a whole body of philosophy : " If we had called the infinite the indefinite,'^ says Condillac, in his Trait e des Sensations, "by this small change of a word we should have avoided the error of imagining that we have a positive idea of ijifinity, from whence so many false reasonings have been carried on, not only by metaphysicians, but even by geometricians." The word reason has been used with different meanings by difie- rent writers ; reasoning and reason have been often con- founded ; a man may have an endless capacity for reasonincjy without being much infiuenced by reason, and to be reason- able, perhaps differs from both ! So Moliere tells us, Raisonner est I'emploi de toute ma maison ; Et le raisonnement en bannit la raison ! In this research on "confusion of words," might enter the voluminous history of the founders of sects, who have usually employed terms which had no meaning attached to them, or were so ambiguous that their real notions have never been comprehended ; hence the most chimerical opinions have been * We owe this curious unpublished letter to the zeal and care of Pro- fessor Dugald Stewart, in his excellent " Dissertations." r 2 68 Confusion of Words. imputed to founders of sects. We may instance that of the Antinomians, whose remarkable denomination explains their doctrine, expressing that they were "against law!" Their founder was John Agricola, a follower of Luther, who, while he lived, had kept Agricola's follies from exploding, which they did when he asserted that there was no such thing as sin, our salvation depending on faith, and not on works ; and when he declaimed agains^. the Law of God. To what length some of his sect pushed this verbal doctrine is known ; but the real notions of this Agricola probably never will be ! Bayle considered him as a harmless dreamer in theology, who had confused his head by Paul's controversies with the Jews ; but Mosheim, who bestows on this early reformer the epithets of ventosus and versipelHs, windy and crafty ! or, as his trans- lator has it, charges him with " vanity, presumption, and artifice," tells us by the term "law," Agricola only meant the ten commandments of Moses, which he considered were abrogated by the Gospel, being designed for the Jews and not for the Christians. Agricola then, by the words the "Law of God," and "that there was no such thing as sin," must have said one thing and meant another ! This appears to have been the case with most of the divines of the six- iecnth century ; for even Mosheim complains of " their want •of precision and consistency in expressing their sentiments, hence their real sentiments have been misunderstood." There evidently prevailed a great "confusion of words" among "them ! The rp-ace siiffisante and the grace efficace of the Jansenists and the Jesuits show the shitts and stratagems by which nonsense maybe dignified. " Whether all men received from God sufficient grace for their conversion!" was an in- quiry some unhappy metaphysical theologist set afloat : the Jesuits, according to their worldly system of making men's consciences easy, affirmed it ; but the Jansenists insisted, tliat this sufficient grace would never be efficacious, unless accompanied by special grace. " Then the sufficient grace, which is not efficacious, is a contradiction in terms, and worse, a heresy!" triumphantly cried the Jesuits, exulting over their adversaries. This " confusion of words" thickened, till the Jesuits introduced in this logomachy with the Jan- senists papal bulls, royal edicts, and a regiment of di-agoons ! The Jansenists, in despair, appealed to miracles and prodigies, which they got up for public representation ; but, above all, to their Pascal, whose immortal satire the Jesuits really felt Confusion of Words. 69 was at once " sufficient and efficacious," though the dragoons, in setthng a "confusion of words," did not boast of interior success to Pascal's. Former ages had, indeed, witnessed even a more mehmcholy logomachy, in the Ilomoousion and the Homoiousion ! An event which Boileau has immortalised by some fine verses, which, in his famous satire on L' Equi- voque, for reasons best known to the Sorbonne, were struck out of the text. D'une sylldbe impie nn saint viot augmente Remplit tous les esprits d'aigreurs si niexirtrieres — Til fis, dans une guerre et si triste et si longue, Perir tant de Chretiens, martyrs d'une diphthonguel Whether the Son was similar to the substance of the Father, or of the same substance, depended on the diphthong oi, which was alternately rejected and received. Had they earlier discovered, what at length they agreed on, that the words denoted what was incomprehensible, it would havo saved thousands, as a witness describes, " from tearing one another to pieces." The great controversy between Abelard and St. Bernard, when the saint accused the scholastic of maintaining heretical notions of the Trinity, long agitated the world ; yet, now that these confusei's of words can no longer inflame our passions, we wonder how these parties could themselves differ about words to which we can attach no meaning whatever. Tliere have been few councils or synods where the omission or addition of a word or a phrase might not have terminated an interminable logomachy ! At the council of Basle, for the convenience of the disputants, John de Secuhia drew up a treatise of undeclined words, chiefly to determine the signification of the particles from, iy, hut, and except, which it seems were perpetually occa- sioning fresh disputes among the Hussites and the Bohemians. Had Jerome of Prague known, like our Shakspeare, the virtue of an IJF, or agreed with Hobbes, that he should not have been so positive in the use of the verb is, he might have been spared from the flames. The philosopher of Mahnsbury has declared that " Perhaps Judrjment was nothing else but the composition or joining of two names of tilings, or modes, by the verb is." In modern times the popes have more skilfully freed the church from this " confusion of words." His holiness, on one occasion, standing in equal terror ot the court of France, who protected the Jesuits, and of the court 70 Confusion of Words. of Spain, who maintained the cause of the Dominicans, con- trived a phrase, where a comma or a full stop, placed at the beginning or the end, purported that his hoHness tolerated the opinions which he condemned ; and when the rival parties despatched deputations to the court of Eome to plead for the ])eriod, or advocate the comma, his holiness, in this " con- fusion of words," flung an unpunctuated copy to the parties ; nor was it his fault, but that of tlie spirit of party, if the rage of the one could not subside into a comma, nor that of the other close by a full pei'iod ! In jurisprudence much confusion has occurred in the uses of the term rights ; yet the social union and human happiness are involved in the precision of the expression. When Mon- tesquieu laid down, as the active principle of a republic, virtue, it seemed to infer that a republic was the best of governments. In the defence of his great work he was obliged to define the term ; and it seems that by virtue he only meant jwlitical virtue, the love of the country. In politics, what evils have resulted from abstract terms to which no ideas are affixed, — such as, " The Equality of Man — the Sovereignty or the Majesty of the People — Loyalty — Ileform— even Liberty herself! — Public Opinion — Public Interest;" and other alDstract notions, which have excited the hatred or the ridicule of the vulgar. Abstract ideas, as sounds, have been used as watchwords. The combatants will usually be found willing to fight for words to which, perhaps, not one of them has attached any settled signification. This is admirabl}' touched on by Locke, in his chapter of " Abuse of Words." " Wisdom, Glory, Grace, &c., are words frequent enough in every man's mouth ; but if a great many of those who use them should be asked what they mean by them, they would be at a stand, and know not what to answer- — a plain proof that though they have learned those sounds, and have them ready at their tongue's end, j-et there are no deter- mined ideas laid up in their minds whicli are to be expressed to others by them." AVhen the American exclaimed that he was not represented in the House of Commons, because he was not an elector, he was told that a very small part of the people of England were electors. As they could not call this an actual representation, they invented a new name for it, and called it a virtual one. It imposed on the English nation, who could not object that others should be taxed rather tlian themselves ; but with the Confusion of Words. 7i Americans it was a sophism ! and this virtual representa- tion, instead of an actual one, terminated in our separation ; " which," says Mr. Flood, " at the time appeared to have swept away most of oar glory and our territory ; forty thou- sand lives, and one hundred millions of treasure ! " That fatal expression which Kousseau had introduced, VEgalite des Mommes, which finally involved the lia])plnes? of a whole people, had he lived he had probahly shown hovv ill his country had understood. He could only have referred in his mind to political equality, but not an equality of pos- sessions, of propert}', of authority, destructive of social order and of moral duties, which must exist among every people. "Liberty," "Equality," and "Reform" (iimocent words!) sadly ferment the brains of those who cannot affix any definite notions to them ; they are like those chimerical fictions in law, which declare the " sovereign immortal, proclaim his ubiquity in various places," and irritate the feelings of the i:)opulace, by assuming that " the king can never do wrong!" In the time of James tlie Second " it is curious," says Lord Russell, " to read the conference between the Houses on the meaning of the words ' deserted' and ' abdicated,' and the debates in the Lords whether or no there is an original con- tract between king and people." The people would neces- sarily decide that " kings derived their power from them;" but kings were once maintained by a " right divine," a " confusion of words," derived from two opposite theories, ' and both only relatively true. When we listen so frequently to such abstract terms as " the majesty of the people," " the sovereignty of the people," whence the inference that " all power is derived from the people," we can form no definite notions : it is " a confusion of words," contradicting all the political experience which our studies or our observations furnish ; for sovereignty is established to rule, to conduct, and to settle the vacillations and quick passions of the mul- titude. PiMic opinion expresses too often the ideas of one party in place; and public interest those of another party out 1 Political axioms, from the circumstance of having the notions attached to them unsettled, are applied to the most opposite ends ! " In the time of the French Directory," observes an Italian philosoplier of profound views, " in the revolution of Naples, the democratic faction pronounced that ' Every act of a tyrannical government is in its origin illegal ;' a proposition which at first sight seems self-evident, but which 72 Confusion of Words. Avent to render all existing laws impracticable. The doctrine of the illegality of the acts of a tyrant was proclaimed by Brutus and Cicero, in the name of the senate, against the populace, who had favoured Caesar's perpetual dictatorship ; and the populace of Paris availed themselves of it, against the National Assembly. This " confusion of words," in time-serving politics, has too often confounded right a'Kl wrong ; and artful men, driven into a corner, and intent only on its possession, have found no difficulty in solving doubts, and reconciling contradictions. Our own history in revolutionary times abounds with dan- gerous examples from all parties ; of specious hypotheses for compliance with the government of the day or the passions of parliament. Here is an instance in which the subtle con- fuser of words pretended to substitute two consciences, by utterly depriving a man of any ! When the unhappy Charles the First pleaded that to pass the bill of attainder against the Earl of Strafford was against bis conscience, that remark- able character of " boldness and impiety," as Clarendon cha- racterizes Williams, Archbishop of York, on this argument of conscience (a simple word enough), demonstrated " that there were two sorts of conscience, public and private ; that his public conscience as a king might dispense with his private conscience as a man!" Such was the ignominious argument which decided the fate of that great victim of State ! It was an impudent " confusion of v>-ords" when Prynne (in order to quiet the consciences of those who were uneasy at warring with the king) observed that the statute of twenty-fifth Edward the Third ran in the singular number — " If a man shall levy war against the king, and therefore could not be extended to the houses, who are many and public persons.*' Later, we find Sherlock blest with the spirit of Williams, the Archbishop of York, whom we have just left. When some did not know how to charge and to discharge themselves of the oaths to James the Second and to William the Third, this confounder of words discovered that there were two rights, a.s the other had that there were two consciences ; one was a providential right, and the other a legal right ; one person might very rigliteously claim and take a thing, and another as righteous!}' hold and keep it ; but that ivhoever got the belter had the providential right by possession ; and since all authority comes from God, the people were obliged to transfer heir allegiance to him as a king of God's making; so that Confusion of Words. 73 he who had the providential right necessarily had the legal one ! a very simple discovery, which must, however, have cost him some pains ; for this confounder of words was himself confounded by twelve answers by non-jurors! A French politician of this stamp recently was suspended from his lec- tureship for asserting that tlie possession of the soil was a right ; by which principle, any Icing reigning over a country, whether by treacher}^ crime, and usurpation, was a legitimate sovereign. For this convenient principle the lecturer was tried, and declared not guilty — by persons who have lately found their advantage in a confusion of words. In treaties between nations, a " confusion of words" has been more par- ticularly studied; and that negotiator has conceived himself most dexterous who, by this abuse of words, has retained an arriere-pensee which may fasten or loosen the ambiguous expression he had so cautiously and so hnely inlaid in his mosaic of treachery. A scene of this nature I draw out of " Mesnager's Negociation with tlie Court of England." When tliat secret agent of Louis the Fourteenth was nego- tiating a peace, an insuperable difficulty arose respecting the acknowledgment of the Hanoverian succession. It was abso- lutely necessary, on this delicate point, to quiet the anxiety of the English public and our allies ; but though the French Icing was willing to recognise Anne's title to the throne, yet the settlement in the house of Hanover was incompatible v;ith French interests and French honour. Mesnager told Lord Bolingbroke that " the king, his inaster, would consent to any such article, loohing tlie other loay, as might disengage him from the obligation of that agreement, as the occasion should present." This ambiguous language was probably understood by Lord Bolingbroke : at the next conference his lordship informed the secret agent " that the queen could not admit of any explanations, whatever her intentions might he ; that the succession was settled by act of parliament ; that as to the private sentiments of the queen, or of any about her, he could say nothing." " All this was said with such an air, as to let me understand that he gave a secret assent to what I had proposed, &c. ; but he desired me to drop the discourse." Thus two great negotiators, both equally urgent to conclude the treaty, found an insuperable obstacle occur, which neither could control. Two honest men would have parted ; but the " skilful confounder of words," the French diplomatist, hit on an expedient ; he wrote the words which afterwards appeared 74 Confusion of Words. in the preliminaries, " That Louis the Fourteenth will acknow- ledge the Queen of Great Britain in that quality, as also tJie succession of ilie crown according to the present settle- ment." " The English agent," adds the Frenchman, " would have had me add — on the house of Hanover, but this I entreated him not to desire of me." The term present SETTLEMENT, then, was that article which was looking the OTHER "WAT, to disengage his master from the obligation of that agreement, as occasion should present ! that is, that Louis the Fourteenth chose to understand by the present SETTLEMENT the old one, by which the British crown was to be restored to the Pretender ! Anne and the English nation were to understand it in their own sense — as the new one, which transferred it to the house of Hanover ! "When politicians cannot rely upon each other's interpreta- tion of one of the commonest words in our la,nguage, how can they possibly act together ? The Bishop of Winchester has proved this observation, by the remarkable anecdote of the Duke of Portland and Mr. Pitt, who, with a view to unite parties, were to hold a conference on fair and equal terms. His grace did not object to the word pair, but the word EQUAL was more specihc and limited ; and for a necessary pre- liminary, he requested Mr. Pitt to inform him what he under- stood by the word equal ? Whether Pitt was puzzled by the question, or would not deliver up an arriere-jjensee, he put off the explanation to the conference. But the duke would not meet Mr. Pitt till the zron/ was explained ; and this important negotiation was broken off by not explaining a simple word which appeared to require no explanation. There is nothing more fatal in language than to wander from the popular acceptation of words ; and yet this popular sense cannot always accord with precision of ideas, for it is itself subject to great changes. Another source, therefore, of the abuse of words, is that mutability to which, in the course of time, the verbal edi- fice, as well as more substantial ones, is doomed. A familiar instance presents itself in the titles of tyrant, parasite, and sophist, originally honourable distinctions. The abuses of dominion made the appropriate title of kings odious ; the title of a magisti-ate, who had the care of the public granaries of corn, at length was applied to a wretched flatterer for a dinner; and absurd philosophers occasioned a mere denomina- tion to become a by-name. To employ such terms in their Confusion of Words. 75 primitive sense would now confuse all ideas ; yet there is an affectation of erudition which has frequently revived terms sanctioned by antiquity. Bishop Watson entitled his vindi- cation of the Bible " an apology ;" this word, in its primitive sense, had long been lost for the multitude, v/hom he particu- larly addressed in this work, and who could only understand it in the sense they are accustomed to. Unquestionably, many of its readers have imagined that the bishop was offering an excuse for a belief in the Bible, instead of a vindication of its truth. The word impei^tinent, by the ancient jurisconsults, or law-counsellors, who gave their opinion on eases, was used merely in opposition to pertinent — ratio pertinens is a perti- nent reason, that is, a reason pertainiiif/ to the cause in ques- tion, and a ratio impertinens, an impertinent reason, is an argument not pertaining to the subject.* Impertinent then originally meant neither absurdity nor rude intrusion, as it does in our present popular sense. The learned Arnauld having characterised a reply of one of his adversaries by the epithet impertinent, when blamed for the freedom of his lan- guage, explained his meaning by giving this history of the word, which applies to our own language. Thus also with us the word in di//bre?it has entirely changed : an historian, whose work was indifferently written, would formei-ly have claimed our attention. In the Liturgy it is prayed that " magistrates may indifferently minister justice." Indifferently originally meant impartially . The word extravagant, in its primitive signification, only signified to digress from the subject. The Decretals, or those letters from the popes deciding on points of ecclesiastical discipline, were at length incorporated with the canon law, and were called extravagant by ivandering out of the body of the canon law, being confusedly dispersed through that collection. When Luther had the Decretals publicly burnt at Wittemberg, the insult was designed for the pope, rather than as a condemnation of the canon law itself. Suppose, in the present case, two persons of opposite opinions. * It is still a Chancery word. An answer in Chancery, &c., is re- ferred for impertinence, reported impcrlincnt-^An(\. the rmpcrtincnce ordered to be struck out, meaning only what is immaterial or superfluous, tending to unnecessary expense. I am indebted for this exphmatiou to my friend, Mr. Merivale ; and to another learned friend, formerly in that court, who describes its meaning as "an excess of words or matter in the pleadings," and who has received many an official fee for "expunging impertinence," leaving, however, he acknowledges, a suthcieut quantity to make the lawyers ashamed of their verbosity. 7G Confusion of Words. The catholic, who had said that the decretals were extrava- (jant, might not have intended to depreciate them, or make "any concession to the Lutheran. What confusion of words has the common sense of the Scotch metaphysicians intro- duced into philosophy ! There are no words, perhaps, in the language wliich may be so differently interpreted ; and Pro- fessor Dugald Stewart has collected, in a curious note in the second volume of his " Philosophy of the Human Mind," a oingular variety of its opposite significations. The Latin phrase, sensits communis, may, in various passages of Cicero, be translated by our phrase common sense ; but, on other occasions, it means something different ; the sensus communis of the schoolmen is quite another thing, and is synonymous with conception, and refe/red to the seat of intellect ; with Sir John Davies, in his curious metaphysical poem, common sense is used as imar/ination. It created a controversy with Beattie and Keid ; and Keid, who introduced this vague ambiguous phrase in philosophical language, often understood the term in its ordinary acceptation. This change of the meaning of words, which is constantly recurring in metaphysical disputes, has made that curious but obscure science liable to this objec- tion of Hobbes, " with many words making nothing under- stood!" Controversies have been keenly agitated about the principles of morals, wliieh resolve entirely into verbal disputes, or at most into questions of arrangement and classification, of little comparative moment to the points at issue. This observation of Mr. Dugald Stewart's might be illustrated by the fate of the numerous inventors of systems of thinking or morals, who have only employed very different and even opposite terms in appearance to express the same thing. Some, by their mode of philosophising, liave strangely unsettled the words self- interest and self-love ; and their misconceptions have sadly misled the votaries of these systems of morals; as others also by sucli vague terms as " utility, fitness," &c. Wlien Ej)icurus asserted that the sovereign good consisted in pleasure, opposing the unfeeling austerity of the Stoics by the softness of pleasurable emotions, his principle was soon disregarded ; while his tcord, perhaps chosen in the spirit of paradox, was warmly adopted by tlie sensualist. Epicurus, of wliom Seneca has drawn so beautiful a domestic scene, iu whose garden a loaf, a Cytherideau cheese, and a draught Coyifusion of Words. 77 which did not inflame thirst,* was the sole banquet, would have started indignantly at The fattest hog iu Epicurus' sty ! Such are the facts which illustrate that principle in " the abuse of words," which Locke calls " an affected obscurity arising from applying old words to new, or unusual signifi- cations." It was the same " confusion of words" which gave rise to the famous sect of the Sadducees. The master of its founder Sadoc, in his moral purity, was desirous of a disinterested worship of the Deity ; he would not have men like slaves, obedient from the hope of reward or the fear of punishment. Sadoc drew a quite contrary inference from the intention of his master, concluding that there were neither rewards nor punishments in a future state. The result is a parallel to the fate of Epicurus. The moi'ality of the master of Sadoc was of the most pure and elevated kind, but in the " confusion of words," the libertines adopted them for their own purposes — and having once assumed that neither rewards nor punish- ments existed in the after-state, they proceeded to the erro- neous consequence that man perished with his own dust ! The plainest words, by accidental associations, may suggest the most erroneous conceptions, and have been productive of the grossest errors. In the famous Bangorian controversy, one of the writers excites a smile by a complaint, arising from his views of the signification of a plain word, whose meaning he thinks had been changed by the contending parties. He says, " the word country, like a great many others, such as church and kingdom, is, by the Bishop of Bangor's leave, become to signify a collection of ideas very different from its origii^al oneaning ; with some it implies ^a/Vy, with others private opinion, and with most interest, and perhaps, in time, may signify some other country. When this good innocent word has been tossed backwards and forwards a little longer, some new reformer of language may arise to reduce it to its primitive signification — the real interest of Great Britain!'' The antagonist of this controversialist probably retorted on him his own term of the real inte^'cst, which might be a very opposite one, according to their notions ! It has been said, with what truth I know not, that it was by a mere confusion * Sen. Epist. 21. 78 Confusion of Words. of words that Burke was enabled to alarm the great Whig families, by showing them their fate in that of the French nohlesse ; they were misled by the similitude of names. The French noblesse had as little resemblance to om* nobility as they have to the JMandarins of China. However it may be in this case, certain it is that the same terms misapplied have often raised those delusive notions termed false analogies. It was long imagined in this country, that the parliameiit's of France were somewhat akui to our own ; but these assemblies were very differently constituted, consisting only of lawyers in courts of law. A misnomer confuses all argument. There is a trick which consists in bestowing good names on bad things. Vices, thus veiled, are introduced to us as virtues, according to an old poet. As drunkenness, good-fellowsTiip we call? Sir Thomas Wiat. Or the reverse, when loyalty may be ridiculed, as The riglit divine of kings — to govern wrong ! The most innocent recreations, such as the drama, dancing, dress, have been anathematised by puritans, ■while philoso- phers have written elaborate treatises iu their defence — the enigma is solved, when we discover that these words sug- gested a set of opposite notions to each. But the nominalists and the realists, and the doctores fun- datissioni, resolutissimi, refulgentcs, profundi, and extatici, have left this heirloom of logomachy to a race as subtle and irrefragable I An extraordinary scene has recently been per- formed by a new company of actors, in the modern comedy of Political Economy ; and the whole dialogue has been car- ried on in an inimitable " confusion of words !" This rea- soning and unreasoning fraternity never use a term as a term, but for an explanation, and which employed by them all, signifies opposite things, but never the plainest ! Is it not, therefore, strange that they cannot yet tell us what are riches ? what is rent ? what is value ? Monsieur Say, the most sparkling of them all, assures us that the English writers are obscure, by their confounding, like Smith, the de- nomination of labour. The vivacious Gaul cries out to the grave Briton, Mr. Malthus, " If I consent to employ your word labour, you must understand me," so and so ! Mr. Malthus says, " Commodities are not exchanged for commo- Confusion of Words, 79 ditioi? only ; they are also exchanged for lalour ;" and when the hypochondriac Englishman, with disma}'', foresees " the glut of markets," and concludes that we naay produce more than we can consume, the paradoxical Monsieur Say dis- covers that "commodities" is a wrong icord, for it gives a wrong idea; it should be "productions;" for his axiom is, that " productions can only he purchased with productions." Money, it seems, according to dictionary ideas, has no exis- tence in his vocabulary ; for Monsieur Say has Ibrmed a sort of Berkleian conception of wealth being immaterial, while we confine our views to its materialit3^ Hence ensues from this " confusion of words," this most brilliant paradox, — that " a glutted market is not a proof that we produce too much but that we produce too little ! for in that case there is not enough produced to exchange with what is produced !" As Frenchmen excel in politeness and impudence, Monsieur Say adds, " I revere Adam Smith ; he is my master ; but this first of political economists did not understand all the phe- nomena of production and consumption." We, who remain uninitiated in this mystery of explaining the operations of trade by metaphysical ideas, and raising up theories to con- duct those who never theorise, can only start at the " con- fusion of words," and leave this blessed inheritance to our sons, if ever the science survive the logomachy. Caramuel, a famous Spanish bishop, was a grand architect of words. Ingenious in theory, his errors were confined to his practice : he said a great deal and meant nothing ; and by an exact dimension of his intellect, taken at the time, it ap- peared that " he had genius in the eighth degree, eloquence in the fifth, but judgment only in the second !" This great man would not read the ancients ; for he had a notion that the moderns must have acquired all they possessed, with a good deal of their own " into the bargain." Two hundred and sixty-two works, differing in breadth and length, besides his manuscripts, attest, that if the world would read his writ- ings, they could need no other ; for which purpose his last work always referred to the preceding ones, and could never be comprehended till his readers possessed those which were to follow. As he had the good sense to perceive that meta- physicians abound in obscure and equivocal terms, to avoid this " confusion of words," he invented a jargon of his own ; and to make " confusion worse confounded," projected gram- mars and vocabularies by which we were to learn it ; but it hO Political Nicknames. is supposed that he was the only man who understood him- self. He put every author in despair by the works which he announced. This famous architect of words, however, built more labyrinths than he could always get out of, notwith- standing his '' cabalisfical grammar," and his "audacious grammar."* Yet this great Caramuel, the critics have agreed, was nothing but a puffy giant, with legs too weak for his bulk, and only to be accounted as a hero amidst a "confusion of words." Let us dread the fate of Caramuel ! and before we enter into discussion with the metaphysician, first settle what he means by the nature of ideas ; with the politician, his notion of liberty and equality ; with the divine, what he deems ortliodox ; with the political economist, what he considers to be value and rent I By this means we may avoid, what is perpetually recurring, that extreme laxity or vagueness of words, which makes every writer, or speaker, complain of his predecessor, and attempt sometimes, not in the best temper, to define and to settle the signification of what the witty South calls " those rabble-charming words, which carry so much wildfire wrapt up in them." POLITICAL NICKNAMES. Political calumny is said to have been reduced into an art, like that of logic, by the Jesuits. This itself may be a poli- tical calumny ! A powerful bod}', who themselves had prac- tised the artifices of calumniators, may, in their turn, often have been calumniated. The passage in question was drawn out of one of the classical authors used in their colleges. Busembaum, a German Jesuit, had composed, in duodecimo, a " Medulla Theologisc moralis," where, among other casuistical propositions, there was found lurking in this old Jesuit's "marrow" one which favoured regicide and assassination! Fifty editions of the book had passed unnoticed ; till a new one appearing at the critical moment of Damien's attempt, the duodecimo of the old scholastic Jesuit, which had now been amplified by its commentators into two folios, was con- sidered not merely ridiculous, but dangerous. It was burnt * Baillet gives the dates .ind plans of these grammars. The cahalistie T*-as published in Bruxelles, 1642, in 12mo. The audacmcs was in folio, printed at Frankfort, 1654. — Jugemens des Savans. Tome ii. 3me partie. Political Nicknames. 81 at Toulouse, in 1757, by order of the parliament, and con- demned at Paris. An Italian Jesuit published an " apology" for this theory of assassination, and the same tlames devoured it ! Whether Busembaum deserved the honour bestowed on his ingenuity, the reader may judge by the passage itself. ^ r"^ " Whoever would ruin a person, or a government, must begin this operation by spreading calumnies, to defame the person or the government ; for unquestionably the calum- niator will always find a great number of persons inclined to believe him, or to side with him ; it therefore follows, that whenever the object of such calumnies is once lowered in credit by such means, he will soon lose the reputation and power founded on that credit, and sink under the permanent and vindictive attacks of the calumniator." This is the politics of Satan — the evil principle which regulates so many things in this world. The enemies of the Jesuits have formed a list of great names who had become the victims of such atrocious Machiavelism.* This has been one of the arts practised by all political parties. Their first weak invention is to attach to a new I'action a contemptible or an opprobrious nickname. In the history of the revolutions of Europe, whenever a new party has at length established its independence, the original denomination which had been fixed on them, marked by the passions of the party which bestowed it, strangely contrasts with the state of the party finally established ! The first revolutionists of Holland incurred the contemptu- ous name of " Les Gueux," or the Beggars. The Duchess of Parma inquiring about them, the Count of Barlamont scorn- full}'' described them to be of this class ; and it was flattery of the great which gave the name currency. The Hollanders accepted the name as much in defiance as with indignation, and acted up to it. Instead of brooches in their hats, they wore little wooden platters, such as beggars used, and foxes' tails instead of feathers. On the targets of some of these Gueux they inscribed " Rather Turkish than Popish ! " and had the print of a cock crowing, out of whose mouth was a label, Vive les Gueux i:)ar tout le monde ! which was every- where set up, and was the favourite sign of their inns. The Protestants in France, after a variety of nicknames to render them contemptible — such as Christodins, because they would * See Recueil Chronologique et Analytique de tout ce qui a fait en Por- tugal la Societe de Jesus. Vol. ii. sect. 406. VOL. III. G 82 Political Nicknames. only talk about Clirist, similar to ourPuritans ; and Parpailhfs, or FarpiroUcs, a small base coin, which was odiously applied to them — at length settled in the well-known term of JItiguenots, which probabl}^ was derived, as the Dictionnaire do Trevoux su^-gests, from their hiding themselves in secret places, and appearing at night, like King Hugon, the great hobo-oblin of France. It appears that the term has been preserved by an earthen vessel without feet, used in cookery, which served the Huffuenofs on meagre days to dress their meat, and to avoid observation ; a curious instance, where a thino- still in use proves the obscure circumstance of its origin. The atrocious insurrection, called La Jacquerie, was a term which originated in cruel derision. AVhen John of France was a prisoner in England, his kingdom appears to have been desolated by its wretched nobles, who, in the indulgence of their passions, set no limits to their luxury and their extor- tion. They despoiled their peasantry without mercy, and when these complained, and even reproached this tyrannical nobility with having forsaken their sovereign, they were told th&t Jacqiie bon Jioinme must pay for all. But Jack good- man came forward in person — a leader appeared under this fatal name, and the peasants revolting in madness, and being joined by all the cut-throats and thieves of Paris, at once pronounced condemnation on every gentleman in France ! Froissart has the horrid narrative ; twelve thousand of these Jacques hon homines expiated their crimes ; but the Jacquerie, who had received their first appellation in derision, assumed it as their nom cle guerre. In the spirited Memoirs of the Duke of Guise, written by himself, of his enterprise against the kingdom of Naples, we find a curious account of this political art of marking peojile by odious nicknames. " Gennaro and Vicenzo," says the duke, "cherished underhand that aversion the rascality had for the better sort of citizens and civiller people, who, by the insolencies they suffered from these, not unjustly hated them. The better class inhabiting the suburbs of the Virgin were called Hack cloaks, and the ordinary sort of people took the name of lazars, both in French and English an old word for a leprous beggar, and hence the lazaroni of Naples." We can easily conceive the evil eye of a lazar when he encountered a Hack cloak ! The Duke adds — " Just as, at the beginning of the revolution, the revolters in Flanders formerly took that Political Nicknames. 83 of hcgf/nrs ; those of Guienne, that of eaters; those of Normandy that of hare-feet ; and of Beausse and Soulogne, of ivooden-paitens.''^ In the late French revohition, we observed the extremes indulged by both parties chiefly concerned in revolution — the wealthy and the poor ! The rich, who, in derision, called their humble fellow-citizens by the con- temptuous term of sans -culottes, provoked a reacting injustice from the populace, who, as a dreadful return for only a slight, rendered the innocent term of aristocrate a signal for plunder or slaughter ! It is a curious fact that the French yerhfronder, as well the noun frondeur, are used to describe those who condemn the measures of government ; and more extensively, designates any hyperbolical and malignant criticism, or any sort of con- demnation. These words have only been introduced into the language since the intrigues of Cardinal de Iletz succeeded in raising a faction against Cardinal Mazarin, known in French history by the nickname of the Fro7ideurs, or the Slingers. It originated in pleasantry, although it became the password for insurrection in France, and the odious name of a faction. A wit observed, that the parliament were like those school- boys, who fling their stones in the pits of Paris, and as soon as the)'' see the Lieutenant Civil, run away ; but are sure to collect again directly he disappears. The comparison was lively, and formed the burthen of songs ; and afterwards, when affairs were settled between the king and the parlia- ment, it was more particular!}'- applied to the faction of Cardinal de Retz, who still held out. " We encouraged the application," says de Retz ; "for we observed that the dis- tinction of a name heated the minds of people ; and one evening we resolved to wear hat-strings in the form of slings. A hatter, who might be trusted with the secret, made a great number as a new fashion, and which were worn by many who did not understand the joke ; we ourselves were the last to adopt them, that the invention might not appear to have come from us. The effect of this trifle was immense ; every fashionable article was now to assume the shape of a sling; bread, hats, gloves, handkerchiefs, fans, &c.; and we ourselves became more in fashion by this folly, than by wliat was essential." This revolutionary term was never forgotten by the French, a circumstance which might have been considered as prognostic of that after-revolution, which de Retz liad the imagination to project, but not the daring to establish. We o2 84 Political Nicknames. sec, however, tliis great politician, confessing the advantages his party derived by encouraging the application of a by- name, which served "to heat the minds of people." It is a curious circumstance that I should have ■^o recount in this chapter on "Political Nicknames" a lainiliar term witli all lovers of art, that of Silhouette ! This is well under- stood as a hlaclc profile ; but it is more extraordinary that a term so universally adopted should not be found in any dictioiiarj^ either in that of L'Academie, or in Todd's, and has not even been preserved, where it is quite indispensable, in Millin's Dictionnaire des Beaux-Arts ! It is little sus- pected that this innocent term originated in a political nick- name ! Silhouette was a minister of state in France in 1759 ; that period was a critical one ; the treasury was in an exhausted condition, and Silhouette, a very honest man, who would hold no intercourse with linanciers or loan-mongers, could contrive no other expedient to prevent a national bankruptcy, than excessive economy and interminable reform! Paris was not the metropolis, any more than London, where a Plato or a Zeno could long be minister of state without ini- curring all the ridicule of the wretched wits ! At first they pretended to take his advice, merely to laugh at him : — they cut their coats shorter, and wore them without sleeves ; they turned their gold snuff-boxes into rough wooden ones ; and the new-fashioned portraits were now only profiles of a face, traced by a black pencil on the shadow cast by a candle on white paper ! All the fashions assumed an air of niggardly economy, till poor Silhouette was driven into retirement, with all his projects of savings and reforms ; but he left his name to describe the most economical sort of portrait, and one as melancholy as his own fate 1 This political artifice of appropriating cant terms, or odious nicknames, could not fail to flourish among a people so perpetually divided by contending interests as ourselves; every party with us have had their watchword, which has served either to congregate themselves, or to set on the ban- dogs of one faction to worry and tear those of another. We practised it early, and we find it still prospering! The JPuritaii of Elizabeth's reign survives to this hour ; the trying difficulties which that wise sovereign had to overcome in settling the national religion, found no sympathy in either of the great divisions of her people ; she retained as much of the catholic rites as might be decorous in the new rehgion, and Political Nicknames. 83 sought to unite, and not to separate, her children. Johr Knox, in the spirit of charity, declared, that " she waa neither gude protestant, nor yet resolute papist ; let the world judge quilk is the third." A jealous party arose, who were for reforming the reforma- tion. In their attempt at more than human purity, they obtained the nickname of Puritans; and from their fastidi- ousness about very small matters. Precisians ; these Drayton characterises as persons that for a painted glass window would pull down the whole church. At that early period these nicknames were soon used in an odious sense ; for Warner, a poet in the reign of Elizabeth, says, — If hypocrites why puritaines we term be asked, in breefe, 'Tis but an ironised terme; good-fellow so spels theefe ! Honest Fuller, who knew that many good men were among these Puritans, wished to decline the term altogether, under the less offensive one of Non-conformists. But the fierce and the fiery of this party, in Charles the First's tim" had been too obtrusive not to fully merit the ironical appelii. tive ; and the peaceful expedient of our moderator dropped away with the page in which it was written. The people have frequently expressed their own notions of different par- liaments by some apt nickname. In Kichard the Second's? time, to express their dislike of the extraordinary and irre- gular proceedings of the lords against the sovereign, as well as their sanguinary measures, they called it " The loonden iwrMng and the xmmerciful parliament." In Edward the Third's reign, when the Black Prince was yet living, the parliament, for having pursued with severity the party of the Duke of Lancaster, was so popular, that the people (dis- tinguished it as the (jood parliament. In Henry the Tli /d's time, the parliament opposing the king, was called " Parlia- mentum insanum," tlie mad parliament, because the lords came armed to insist on the confirmation of the great charter. A Scottish parliament, from its perpetual shiftings from place to place was ludicrously nicknamed the running parliament; in the same spirit we had our lon(/ parliament. The nick- name of Pensioner parliament stuck to the House of Com- mons which sate nearly eighteen years without dissolution, under Charles the Second ; and others have borne satirical or laudatory epithets. So true it is, as old Holingshed observed, " The common people will manie times give such hie names as 86' Political Nicknames. seemeth lest lihinfj to themselves.'^ It would be a curious speculation to discover the sources of tlie popular feeling; influenced by delusion, or impelled by good sense ! The exterminating political nickname of malignant dark- ened the nation through the civil wars : it was a proscription — and a list of (/oocl and had lords was read by the leaders of the first tumults. Of all these inventions, this diabolical one was most adapted to exasperate the animosities of the people, so often duped by names. I have never detected the active man of faction who first hit on this odious brand for persons, but the period when the word changed its ordinary meaning was early ; Charles, in 164^2, retorts on tlie pai-liamentarians the opprobrious distinction, as "The true malignant fart y which has contrived and countenanced those barbarous tumults." And the royalists pleaded for themselves, that the hateful designation was ill applied to them : " for by malignity you denote," said they, "activity in doing evil, whereas we have alwa^'s been on the suffering side in our persons, credits, and estates;" but the parliamentarians, "grinning a ghastly smile," would reply, that "the royalists would have been malignant had they proved successful." The truth is, that malignancy meant with both parties any opposition of opinion. At the same period the offensive dis- tinctions of roundheads and cavaliers supplied the people with party names, who were already provided with so many religious as well as civil causes of quarrel ; the crept heads of the sullen sectaries and the people, were the origin of the derisory nickname ; the splendid elegance and the romantic spirit of the royalists long awed the rabble, who in their mockery could brand them by no other appellation than one in which their bearers gloried. In the distracted times of early revolution, any nickname, however vague, will fully answer a purpose, although neither those who are blackened by the odium, nor those who cast it, can define the hateful appellative. When the term of delinquents came into vogue, it expressed a degree and species of guilt, says Hume, not exactly known or ascertained. It served, however, the end of those revolutionists who had coined it, by involving an}^ person in, or colouring any action by, delinquency ; and many of the nobility and gentry were, without any questions being- asked, suddenly discovered to have committed the crime of delinquency I Whether honest Fuller be facetious or grave on this period of nicknaming parties 1 will not decide ; but, Political Nicknames. 87 when he tells us that there was another word whicli was in- troduced into our nation at this time, I think at least that the whole passage is an admirable commentar}'- on tliis party vocabulary. " Contemporary with maJignants is the word plunder, which some make of Latin original, from lAanuiu dare, to level, to plane all to nothing ! Others of Dutch ex- traction, as if it were to plume, or pluck the feathers of a bird to the bare skin.* Sure I am we first heard of it in the Swedish wars ; and if the name and thing be sent back from whence it came few English ej^es wordd weep thereat." All England had we])t at the introduction of the word. The rump was the filthy nickname of an odious fiiction — the history of this famous appellation, which was at first one of horror, till it afterwards became one of derision and contempt, must be referred to another place. The rump became a per- petual whetstone for the loyal wits,t till at length its former admirers, the rabble themselves, in town and country, vied with each other in " lurningrumps^'' of beef, which were hung by chains on a gallows with a bonfire underneath, and proved how the people, like children, come at length to make a play- thing of that which was once their bugbear. Charles the Second, during the short holiday of the resto- ration — all holida3^s seem short ! — and when he and the people were in good humour, granted anything to every one,— tlie mode of "Petitions" got at length very inconvenient, and the king in council declared that this petitioning was " A method set on foot by ill men to promote discontents among the people," and enjoined his loving subjects not to subscribe them. The petitioners, however, persisted — when a new party rose to express their abhorrence of petitioning ; both parties nicknamed each other the petitioners and the ab- korrers ! Their day was short, but fierce ; the p)ctilioners, however weak in their cognomen, were far the bolder of the two, for the commons were with them, and the ahhorrers had expressed by their term rather the strength of tlieir inclina- tions than of their numbers. Charles the Second said to a * Plunder, observed Mr. Douce, is pure Dutch or Flemish — Plundered, fi-om Plunder, which means j^ropcrty of any kind. May tells us it was brought by those officers who had returned from the wars of the Nether- lands. t One of the best collections of political songs written during the great Civil War, is entitled "The Rump," and has a curious frontispiece repre- senting the mob burning rumps as described above. 88 Political Nicknames. peiitioner from Taunton, " How dare you deliver me such a paper?" " Sir," replied the petitioner irom Taunton, " m}- name is Dake !" A saucy reply, for which he was tried, fined, and imprisoned ; when lo ! the commons petitioned again to release iha petitioner ! "The very name," says Hume, " hy which each party denominated its antagonists discovers the virulence and rancour which prevailed ; for Ijc- sidcs petitioner and ahliorrer, tliis year is remarkable for being the epoch of the well-kiiown epithets of ivhig and tory.'" These silly terms of reproach, whig and tory, are still pre- served among us, as if the palladium of British liberty was guarded by these exotic names, for they are not English, which the parties so invidiously bestow on each other. They are ludici-ous enough in their origin. The friends of the court and the advocates of lineal succession were, bv the re- publican party, branded with the title of tories, which was the name of certain Irish robbers ;* while the court party in return could find no other revenge than by appropi'iating to the covenanters and the republicans of that class the name of the Scotch beverage of sour milk, whose virtue they con- sidered so expressive of their dispositions, and which is called ^t'Ziiyy. So ridiculous in their origin were these pernicious inicknames, which long excited feuds and quarrels in domestic life, and may still be said to divide into two great parties this land of political freedom. But nothing becomes obsolete in political factions, and the meaner and more scandalous the name affixed by one party to another the more it becomes not only their rallying cry or their password, but even con- stitutes their glory. Thus the Hollanders long prided them- selves on the humihating nickname of "Les Gueux :" the protestants of France on the scornful one of the Huguenots; the non-conformists in England on the mockery of the puritan; and all parties have perpetuated their anger by their inglorious names. Swift was well aware of this truth in political history: "each party," says that sagacious ob- server, " grows proud of that appellation which their advei-- saries at first intended as a reproach ; of this sort were the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, Huguenots and Cavaliers:' Nor has it been only by nicknaming each other by derisory or opprobrious terms that parties have been marked, but they * The "History of the Tories and Rapparees" was a popular Irisli duip. took a few years ago, and devoted to the daring acts of these marauders. Political Nicknames. 89 have also worn a livery, and practised distinctive manners. What sufferings did not Italy endure for a long series of years tmder those fatal party-names of the Guclphs and the Ghi- hellines ; alternately the victors and the vanquished, the beautiful land of Italy drank the blood of her children. Italy, like Greece, opens a moving picture of the hatreds and jealousies of small republics ; her Bianchi and her Neri, her GueJjjJis and her Ghibellines ! In Bologna, two great fami- lies once shook that city with their divisions ; the PepoU adopted the French interests ; the Maluezzi the Spanish. It was incurring some danger to walk the streets of Bologna, for the PepoU wore their feathers on the right side of their caps, and the Maluezzi on the left. Such was the party- hatred of the two great Italian factions, that they carried their rancour even into their domestic habits ; at table the GtielpJis placed their knives and spoons longwise, and the Ghibellines across ; the one cut their bread across, the other longwise. Even in cutting an orange they could not agree ; for the Guelph cut his orange horizontally, and the Gldbel- line downwards. Children were taught these artifices of fac- tion — their hatreds became traditional, and thus the Italians perpetuated the full benefits of their party-spirit from gene- ration to generation.* Men in private life go down to their graves with some un- lucky name, not received in baptism, but more descriptive and picturesque ; and even ministers of state have winced at a political christening. Malagrida the Jesuit and Jemmy Twitcher were nicknames which made one of our ministers odious, and another contemptible.f The Earl of Godolphin caught such fire at that of Volpone, that it drove him into the opposite part}', for the vindictive purpose of obtaining the impolitical prosecution of Sacheverell, who, in his famous sermon, had first applied it to the earl, and unluckily it had stuck to him. " Faction," says Lord Orford, " is as capricious as for- tune ; wrongs, oppression, the zeal of real patriots, or the genius of false ones, may sometimes be employed for years in kindling substantial opposition to authority ; in other seasons * Tliese curious particulars I found in a manuscript. + Lord Shelburne was named "Malagrida," and Lord Sandwich was "Jemmy Twitcher ;" a name derived from the cliief of Macheath's gang in the Bc(j(jar's Opera. 90 Domestic Life of a Poet. — Shenstone Vindicated. the impulse of a moment, a 5«//a^, a nicJcname, a fashion can throw a city into a tumult, and shake the foundations of a state." Such is a slight history of the human passions in politics ! We might despair in thus discovering that wisdom ano patriotism so frequently originate in this turbid source of party ; but we are consoled when we reflect that the most im- portant political principles are immutable : and that they are those which even tiie spirit of party must learn to reverence. THE DOMESTIC LIFE OP A POET.— SHENSTONE VINDICATED. The dogmatism of Johnson, and the fastidiousness of Gray, the critic who passed his days amidst " the busy hum of men," and the poet who mused in cloistered solitude, have fatally injured a fine natural genius in Shenstone. Mr. Camp- bell, with a brother's feeling, has (since the present article was composed) sympathised with the endowments and the pursuits of this poet ; but the facts I had collected seemed to me to open a more important view. I am aware how lightly the poetical character of Shenstone is held by some great contemporaries — although this very poet has left us at least one poem of unrivalled originalit3^ Mr. Campbell has regretted that Shenstone not only " affected that arcadian- ism " which " gives a certain air of masquerade in his pastoral character," adopted by our earlier poets, but also has " rather incongruously blended together the rural swain with the disciple of virtu." All this requires some explanation. It is not only as a poet, possessing the characteristics of poetry, but as a creator in another way, for which I claim the atten- tion of the reader. I have formed a picture of the domestic life of a poet, and the pursuits of a votary of taste, both equally contracted in their endeavours, from the habits, the emotions, and the events which occurred to Shenstone. Four material circumstances influenced his character, and were productive of all his unhappiness. The neglect he incurred in those poetical studies to which he had devoted his hopes ; his secret sorrows in not having formed a domestic union, from prudential motives, with one whom he loved; the ruinous state of his domestic affairs, arising from a seducing Domestic Life of a Poet. — Sliensione Vindicated. 91 passion for creating a new taste in landscape gardening; and an ornamented farm ; and finally, his disappointment of that promised patronage, which might have induced him to havo become a political writer ; for which his inclinations, and, it is said, his talents in early life, were alike adapted : with these points in view, we may trace the diiferent states of his mind, show what he did, and what he was earnestly intent to have done. Why have the "Elegies" of Shenstone, which forty years ago formed for many of us the favourite poems of our youth, ceased to delight us in mature life ? It is perhaps that tliese Elegies, planned with peculiar felicity, have little in their execution. They form a series of poetical truths, devoid of poetical expression ; truths, — for notwithstanding the pastoral romance in which the poet has enveloped himself, the subjects are real, and the feelings could not, therefore, be fictitious. In a Preface, remarkable for its graceful simplicity, our poet tells us, that " He entered on his subjects occasionally, as particular incidents in life suggested, or dispositions of mind recommended them to his choice." He shows that " Hg drew his pictures from the spot, and he felt very sensibly the affections he communicates." He avers that all those atten- dants on rural scenery, and all those allusions to rural life, were not the counterfeited scenes of a town ])oet, any more than the sentiments, which were inspired by Nature. Shenstone's friend Graves, who knew him in early life, and to his last days, informs us that these Elegies were written when he had taken the Leasowes into his own hands ;* and though his ferme ornee engaged his thoughts, he occasionally wrote them, "partly," said Shenstone, "to divert my present impatience, and partly, as it will be a picture of most that passes in my own mind ; a portrait which friends may value." This, then, is the secret charm which acts so forcibly on the first emotions of our youth, at a moment when, not too difficult to be pleased, the reflected delineations of the habits and the affec- tions, the hopes and the delights, with all the domestic associations of this poet, always true to Nature, reflect back that picture of ourselves which we instantly recognise. It is only as we advance in life that we lose the relish of our early simplicity, and that we discover that Shenstone was not endowed with high imagination. * This once-celebrated abode of the poet is situated at Ilales-Owen, Shropshire. 93 Domestic Life of a Poet. — Shenstone Vindicated. These Elegies, with some other poems, may be read with a new interest when we discover them to form the true Memoirs of Shenstone. Tlecords of querulous but delightful feelings ! whose subjects spontaneously offered themselves from passing incidents ; they still perpetuate emotions which will interest the young poet and the young lover of taste. Elegy IV., the first which Shenstone composed, is entitled " Ophelia's Urn," and it was no unreal one ! It was erected by Graves in Mickleton Church, to the memory of an extra- ordinary young woman, Utrecia Smith, the literary daughter of a leainied but poor clergyman. Utrecia had formed so fine a taste for literature, and composed with such elegance in verse and prose, that an excellent judge declared that " he did not like to form his opinion of any author till he pre- viously knew hers." Craves had been long attached to her, but from motives of prudence broke off an intercourse with this interesting woman, who sunk under this severe disap- pointment. When her prudent lover. Graves, inscribed the urn, her friend Shenstone, perhaps more feelingl}^ commemo- rated her virtues and her tastes. Such, indeed, was the friendly intercourse between Shenstone and Utrecia, that in Elegy XVIII., written long after her death, she still lingered in his reminiscences. Composing this Eleg}"- on the calami- tous close of Somerville's life, a brother bard, and victim to narrow circumstances, and which he ])robably contemplated as an image of his own, Shenstone tenderly recollects that he used to read Somerville's poems to Utrecia : — Oh, lost OpLelia; smoothly flow'd the day To feel his music with my flames agree; To taste the beauties of his melting lay, To taste, and fancy it was dear to thee ! How true is tlie feeling ! how mean the poetical expression ! The Seventh Elegy describes a vision, where the shadow of Wolsey breaks upon the author : A graceful form appear'd, White were his locks, with awful scarlet crown'd. Even this fanciful subject was not chosen capriciously, but sprung from an incident. Once, on his way to Cheltenham, Shenstone missed his road, and wandered till late at nio-ht among the Cotswold Hills on this occasion he appears'' to Domestic Life of a Poet. — S/tenstone Vindicated. 93 have made a moral reflection, which we fiiKl in his " Essa3's.'^ '' How melancholy is it to travel late upon any ambitious project on a winter's night, and observe the light of cottages, where all the unambitious people are warm and happy, or at rest in their beds." While the benighted poet, lost among the lonely hills, was meditating on " ambitious projects," tlie character of Wolsey arose before liim ; tlie visionary cardinal crossed his path, and busied his imagination. " Thou," exclaims the poet, Like a meteor's fire, Shot'st blazing forth, disdaining dull degrees. ELeyy vii. And the bard, after discovering all tlie miseries of unhappy grandeur, and murmuring at this delay to the house of his friend, exclaims — Oh if these ills the price of power advance, Check not my speed where social joj-s invite ! The silent departure of the poetical spectre is fine : The troubled vision cast a mournful glance, And sighing, vanish'd in the shades of night. And to prove that the subject of this elegy thus arose to the poet's fancy, he has himself commemorated the incident that gave occasion to it, in the opening : — On distant heaths, beneath autumnal skies, Pensive I saw the circling shades descend ; Weary and faint, I heard the storm arise, While the sun vanish'd like a faithless friend. Elegy vii. The Fifteenth Elegy, composed " in memory of a private family in Worcestershire," is on the extinction of the ancient family of the Penns in the male line.* Slienstone's mother was a Penn ; and the poet was now the inhabitant of their ancient mansion, an old timber-built house of the age of Elizabeth. The local description was a real scene — " the shaded pool" — "the group of ancient elms" — "the flocking rooks," and the picture of the simple manners of his own ancestors, were realities ; the emotions they excited were therefore genuine, and not one of those "mockeries" of amplification from the crowd of verse-writers. • This we learn from Dr. Nash's History of Worcestershire. 94 Domestic Life of a Poet. — Shenstone Vindicated. The Tenth Elegy, " To Fortune, suggesting his Motive for repining at her Dispensations," with his celebrated " Pastoral Eallad, in four parts," were alike produced by what one of the great minstrels of our own times has so finel}^ indicated when he sung — The secret woes the world has never known ; While on the weary night dawu'd wearier day, And bitterer was the grief devour'd alone. In this Elegy Shenstone repines at the dispensations of Fortune, not for having denied him her higher gifts, nor that she compels him to Check the fond love of art that fired my veins ; nor that some "dull dotard with boundless wealth" finds his "grating reed" preferred to the bard's, but that the " tawdry shepherdess" of this dull dotard, by her " pride," makes " the rural thane" despise the poet's Delia. Must Delia's softness, elegance, and ease. Submit to Marian's dress ? to Marian's gold ? Must Marian's robe from distant India please? The simple fleece my Delia's limbs infold ! Ah ! what is native worth esteemed of clowns ? 'Tis thy false glare, Fortune ! thine they see; Tis for my Delia's sake I di-ead thy frowns. And my last gasp shall curses breathe on thee ! The Delia of our poet was not an " Iris en air." Shen- stone was early in life captivated by a young lady, whom Graves describes with all those mild and serene graces of pensive melancholy, touched by plaintive love-songs and elegies of woe, adapted not only to be the muse but the mistress of a poet. The sensibility of this passion took entire possession of his heart for some years, and it was in parting from her that he first sketched his exquisite " Pas- toral Ballad." As he retreated more and more into solitude, his passion felt no diminution. Dr. Nash informs us that Shenstone acknowledged that it was his own fault that he did not accept the hand of the lady whom he so tenderly loved ; but his spirit could not endure to be a perpetual witness of her degradation in the rank of society, by an inconsiderate union with poetry and poverty. That such was his motive, we may infer from a passage in one of his letters. " Love, as it regularly tends to matrimony, requires Domestic Life of a Poet. — Shensione Vindicated, 95 certain favours from fortune and circumstances to render it propcs to be indulged in." There are perpetual allusions to these " secret woes" in his correspondence; for, although he liad the fortitude to refuse marriage, he had not the stoicism to contract his own heart in cold and sullen celibacy. He thus alludes to this subject, which so often excited fiir other emotions than those of humour : — " It is long since I have considered myself as undone. The world will not, perhaps, consider me in that light entirely till I have married my maid !" It is probable that our poet had an intention of marrying his maid. I discovei'cd a pleasing anecdote among the late Mr. Bindley's collections, which I transcribed from the origi- nal. On the back of a picture of Shenstone himself, of which Dodsley published a print in 1780, the following energetic inscription was written by the poet on his new-year's gift : — " This picture belongs to Mary Cutler, given her by her master, William Shenstone, January 1st, 1754, in acknow- ledgment of her native genius, her magnanimity, her tender- ness, and her fidelit7. "W. S." "The Progress of Taste; or the Fate of Delicacy," is a poem on the temper and studies of the author ; and " Economy ; a Rhapsody addressed to Young Poets," abounds with self-touches. If Shenstone created little from the imagination, he was at least perpetually under the inllu- ence of real emotions. This is the reason why his truths so strongly operate on the juvenile mind, not yet matured: and thus we have sufficiently ascertained the fact, as the poet himself has expressed it, " that he drew his pictures from the spot, and he felt very sensibly the alfections he communicates." All the anxieties of a poetical life were earl}^ cx]K'i-ienced by Shenstone. He first published some juvenile productions, under a very odd title, indicative of modesty, perhaps too of pride.* And his motto of Co7itentus panels lectoribus, even * While at college he printed, without his name, a small volume of verses, with this title, "Poems upon various Occasions, written for the Entertainment of the Autlior, and printed for the Amusement nf a few Friends, prejudiced in his Favour." Oxford, 1737. 12mo. — Nash's "Ilia- tory of Worcestershire," vol. i. p. 528. I find this notice of it iu W. Lowndes's Catalogue ; 443.3 Rlienstone (W,) Puems, Zl. 13s. Qd. — (Shenstone took uncommon pains to suppiess Ihia 9G Domestic Life of a Poet. — Shenstone Vindicated. Horace himself might have smiled at, for it only conceals the desire of every poet wlio pants to deserve many ! But when he tried at a more elaborate poetical labour, " The Judgment of Hercules," it failed to attract notice. He hastened to town, and he beat about literary coffee-houses ; and i-eturned to the countr}^ from the chase of Fame, wearied without having started it. A breath revived Lim — but a breath o'erthrew. Even " The Judgment of Hercules" between Indolence and Industry, or Pleasure and Virtue, was a pictui-e of his own feelings ; an argument drawn from his own reasonings ; indicating the uncertainty of tlie poet's dubious disposition ; who finally by siding with Indolence, lost that triumph which his hero obtained by a directly opposite course. In the following 3'ear begins that melancholy strain in his correspondence which marks the disappointment of the man who had staked too great a quantity of his happiness on the poetical die. This is the critical moment of life when our character is formed by habit, and our fate is decided by choice. Was Shenstone to become an active or contemplative being ? He yielded to nature!* It was now that he entered into another species of poetry, working with too costly materials, in the magical composition of plants, water, and earth ; with these he created those emo- tions which his more strictly poetical ones failed to excite. He planned a paradise amidst his solitude. When we con- sider that Shenstone, in developing his fine pastoral ideas in the Leasowes, educated the nation into that taste for land- scape-gardening, which has become the model of all Europe, this itself constitutes a claim on fhe gratitude of posterity. f book, by collecting and destroying copies wherever he met with them.) — In Longman's Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica, it is valued at 15Z. Oxf. 1737. Mr. Harris informs me, that about the year 1770, Fletcher, the bookseller, at Oxford, had many co[ues of this first edition, which he sold at Eighteen pence each. These prices are amusing ! The prices of books are connected with their history. • On this subject Graves makes a very useful observation. "In this decision the happiness of Mr. Shenstone was materially concerned. Whe- ther he determined wisely or not, people of taste and people of worldly prudence will probably be of very difierent opinions. I somewhat suspect, that ' people of worldly prudence' are not half the fools that ' people of taste' insist they are." t Shenstone's farm was surrounded by winding walks, decorated with vases and statues, varied by wood and water, and occasiaually embracing Domestic Life of a Poet. — Shenslone Vindicated. 97 Thus tlie private pleasures of a man of genius may become at length those of a whole people. The creator of this new taste appears to have received far less notice than he merited. The name of Shenstone does not appear in the Essay on Gar- dening by Lord Orford : even the supercihous Gray only bestowed a ludicrous image on these pastoral scenes, which, however, his friend Mason has celebrated ; and the genius of Johnson, incapacitated by nature to touch on objects of rural fancy, after describing some of the offices of the landscape designer, adds, that " he will not inquire whether they demand any great powers of mind." Johnson, he vever, conveys to us his own feelings, when \ e immediately^ expresses them under the character of a "suUen and surly speculator." Tlie anxious life of Shenstone wc uld, indeed, have been remune- rated, could he have read the enchanting eulogium of Wheatley on the Leasowe? ; which, said he, " is a perfect picture of his mind — simp'e, elegant, and amiable; and will always suggest a doubt wh ither the spot inspired his verse, or whether in the scenes A^hich he formed, he only realized the pastoral images wb'.ch abound in his songs." Yes! Shenstone would have been delighted, could he have heard that Montesquieu, on his return home, adorned liis " Cliateau gothique, mais orn6 de bois charmans, dont j'ai pris I'idee en Anglefcerre;" and Shenstone, even with his modest and timid nature, had been proud to have witnessed a noble foreigner, amidst memorials dedicated to Theocritus and Virgil, to Thomson and Gesner, raising in his gi'ounds an inscription, in bad English, but in pure taste, to Shenstone himself for having displayed in his writings " a mind natural," and in his Leasowes "laid Arcadian greens nu'al." Recently Pinde- fine views over Frankley and Clent Hills, and the country about Cradley, Dudley, Rawley, and the intermediate places. Some of his vases were inscribed to the memory of relatives and friends. One had a Latin inscrip- tion to his cousin Maria, another was dedicated to Somerville his poet- friend. In different parts of his domain he constructed buildings at once useful and ornamental, destined to serve farm-purposes, but to be also grateful to the eye. A Chinese bridge led to a temple beside a lake, and near was a seat inscribed with the popular Shropshire toast to " all friends round the Wrekin," the spot commanding a distant view of the hill so named. A wild path through a small wood led to an ingeniously con- structed root-house, beside which a rivulet ran which helped to form the lake already mentioned ; on its banks was a dedicatory urn to the Genio Loci. The general effect of the whole place was highly prai.scd in the poet's time. It was neglected at his death ; and its description is now but a record of the past. TOL. III. H 98 Domestic Life of a Poet. — Shenstone Vindicated. nontc has traced the taste of English gardening to Shenstone. A man of genius pometimes receives from foreigners, who are placed out of the prejudices of his compatriots, the tribute of posterity' ! Amidst these rural elegancies which Shenstone was raising about him, his muse has pathetically sung his melancholy feelings — But did the Muses haunt liis cell, Or in his don-e did Veuus dwell ? — When all the structures shone complete, Ah, me ! 'twas Damon's own confession, Came Poverty, and took possession. I'he Progress of Taste. The poet observes, that the wants of philosophy are con- tracted, satisfied with " cheap contentment," but Taste alone requires Entire profusion ! days and nights, and hours Thy voice, liydropic Fancy ! calls aloud For costly draughts. Economy, An original image illustrates that fatal want of economy which conceals itself amidst the beautiful appearances of taste : — Some graceless mark. Some symptom ill-conceal'd, shall soon or late Burst like a pimple from the vicious tide Of acid blood, proclaiming want's disease Amidst the bloom of show. Economy, He paints himself: — Observe Florelio's mien ; Why treads my friend with melancholy step That beauteous lawn ? Why pensive strays his eye O'er statues, grottos, urns, by critic art Proportion'd fair ? or from his lofty dome Keturus his eye unpleased, disconsolate ? The cause is, *' criminal expense," and he exclaims — Sweet interchange Of liver, valley, mountain, woods, and plains, How gladsovae once he ranged your native turf, Your simple scenes how raptured ! ere Expense Had lavish'd thousand ornaments, and taught Convenience to perplex him. Art to pall, Pomp to deject, and Beauty to displease. Economy. Domestic Life of a Poet. — Shenstone Vindicated. 99 While Shenstone was rearing hazels and hawthorns, open- ing vistas, and winding waters ; And having sliowu them where to stray, Threw little pebbles in their way ; while he was pulling down hovels and eowhouses, to compose mottos and inscriptions lor garden-seats and urns ; while he had so finely obscured with a tender gloom the grove of Virgil, and thrown over, " in the midst of a plantation of yew, a bridge of one arch, built of a dusty-coloured stone, and simple even to rudeness,"* and invoked Obcron in some Arcadian scene, Where in cool grot and mossy cell The tripping fauns and fairies dwell ; the solitary magician, who had raised all these wonders, was, in reality, an unfortunate poet, the tenant of a dilapidated farm-house, where the winds passed through, and the rains lodged, often taking refuge in his own kitchen — Far from all resort of mii-th, Save the cricket on the hearth ! In a lettert of the disconsolate founder of landscape gar- dening, our author paints his situation with all its misery — lamenting that his house is not fit to receive " polite friends, were they so disposed ;" and resolved to banish all others, he proceeds : "But I make it a certain rule, 'arcere profanum vulgus.' Persons who will despise you for the want of a good set of chairs, or an uncouth (ire-shovel, at the same time that they can't taste any excellence in a mind that overlooks those things ; with whom it is in vain that your mind is furnished, if the walls are naked; indeed one loses much of one's ac- quisitions in virtue by an hour's converse with such as judge of merit by money — yet 1 am now and then impelled by the social passion to sit half an hour in my kitchen." Eut the solicitude of friends and the fate of Somcrville, a neighbour and a poet, often compelled Shenstone to start amidst his reveries ; and thus he has preserved his feelings and his irresolutions. Reflecting on the death of Somerville, he writes — * Wheatley, on "Modern Gardening," p. 172. Edition 5th. + In "Hull's Collection," vol. ii. letter ii. n2 100 Domestic Life of a Poet. — Shenstone Vindicated. " To be forced to drink himself into pains of tlie body, in order to get rid of the pains of the mind, is a misery which I can well conceive, because I may, without vanity, esteem myself his equal in point of economy, and consequently ou"-ht to have an eye on his misfortunes — (as you kindly liinted to me about twelve o'clock, at the Feathers.) — I should retrench — I will — but you shall not see me — I will not let you know that I took it in good part — I will do it at solitary times as I may." Such were the calamities of "great taste" with "little fortune ;" but in the case of Shenstone, these were combined with the other calamity of " mediocrity of genius." Here, then, at the Leasowes, with occasional trips to town 'in pursuit of fame, which perpetually eluded his grasp ; in the correspondence of a few delicate minds, whose admiration was substituted for more genuine celebrity ; composing dia- tribes against economy and taste, while his income was di- minishing every year ; our neglected author grew daily more indolent and sedentary, and withdrawing himself entirely into his own hermitage, moaned and despaired in an Arcadian solitude,* The cries and the "secret sorrows" of Shenstone have come down to us — those of his brothers have not al- ways ! And shall dull men, because they have minds cold and obscure, like a Lapland jeixr wdiich has no summer, be permitted to exult over this class of men of sensibility r.nd taste, but of moderate genius and without fortune ? The passions and emotions of the heart are facts and dates only to those who possess them. To what a melancholy state was our author reduced, when he thus addressed his friend : — " I suppose you have been informed that my fever was in a great measure hypochondriacal, and left my nerves so ex- tremely sensible, that even on no very interesting subjects, I could readily tlii^ih myself into a vertigo ; I had almost said an epilepsy; for surely 1 was oftentimes near it." The features of this sad portrait are more particularly made out in another place. * Graves wns supposed to have glanced at his friend Shenstone in bis novel of '■'Columella; or, the Distressed Anchoret." The aim of this work is to convey all the moral instruction I could wish to ofler here to youthful genius. It is written to show the consequence of a person of education and talents retiring to solitude and indolence in the vigour of youth. Nichols's "Literary Anecdotes," vol. iii. p. 134. Nash's "His- tory of Worcestershire," vol. i. p. 528. Domestic Life of a Poet. — Shenstone Vindicated. 101 " Now I am come home from a visit, ever^' little uneasi- ness is sufficient to introduce my whole train of melancholy considerations, and to make me utterly dissatisfied with the life I now lead, and the life which I foresee I shall lead. I am angry and envious, and dejected and frantic, and disregard all present things, just as becomes a madman to do. I am infinitely pleased (though it is a gloomy joy) with the ap- plication of Dr. Swift's complaint, ' that he is forced to die in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.' My soul is no more fitted to the figure I make, than a cable rope to a cambric needle ; I cannot bear to see the advantages alienated, which I think I could deserve and relish so much more than those that have them." There are other testimonies in his entire correspondence. . Whenever forsaken by his company he describes the horrors around him, delivered up " to winter, silence, and reflection ;" ever foreseeing^ himself " returninj? to the same series of me- et o lancholy hours." His frame shattered by the whole train of hypochondriacal symptoms, there was nothing to cheer the querulous author, who with half the consciousness of genius, lived neglected and vmpatronised. His elegant mind had not the force, by his productions, to draw the celebrity he sighed after, to his hermitage. Shenstone was so anxious for his literary character, that he contemplated on the posthumous fame which he might derive from the publication of his letters : see Letter Ixxix., On hearitiff Ms letters to Mr. Whistler were destroyed ; the act of a merchant, his brother, who being a very sensible man, as Graves describes, yet with the stupidity of a Goth, destroyed the wliole correspondence of Shenstone, for " its sentimental intercourse.'''' — Shenstone bitterly regrets the loss, and says, " I would have given more money for the letters than it is allowable for me to mention with decency. I look upon my letters as some o[ my chefs-d' oeuvre — they are the history of my mind for these twenty yeare past." This, with the loss of Cowley's correspondence, should have been preserved in the article, " of Suppressors and Dilapidators of Manuscripts." Towards the close of life, when his spirits were ex- hausted, and " the silly clue of hopes and expectations," as he termed them, was undone, the notice of some persons of rank began to reach him. Shenstone, however, deeply colours the variable state of his own mind — " Recovering from a nervous fever, as I have since discovered by many con- ■UNTVERPT'T'Y OF r.^ TTFORNIi^ 102 Secret History of the Building of Blenheim. current symptoms, I seem to anticipate a little of that " vernal delight' which Milton mentions and thinks able to chase All sadness but despair — at least I begin to resume my silly clue of hopes and expec- tations." In a former letter he had, however, given them up : " I begin to wean myself from all hopes and expectations what- ever. I feed my wild-ducks, and I water my carnations. Happy enough if I could extinguish my ambition quite, to indulge the desire of being something more beneficial in my sphere. — Perhaps some few other circumstances would want also to be adjusted." What were these " hopes and expectations," from which sometimes he weans himself, and which are perpetually re- vived, and are attributed to " an ambition he cannot extin- guish" ? This article has been written in vain, if the reader has not already perceived, that they had haunted him in early life ; sickening his spirit after the possession of a poetical celebrity, unattainable by his genius ; some expectations too he might have cherished from the talent he possessed for po- litical studies, in which Graves confidently saj's, that " he would have made no inconsiderable figure, if he had had a sufficient motive for applying his mind to them." Shenstone has left several proofs of this talent.* But his master-pas- sion for literary fame had produced little more than anxieties and disappointments ; and when he indulged his pastoral fancy in a beautiful creation on his grounds, it consumed the estate which it adorned. Johnson forcibly expressed his situation : " His death was probably hastened by his anxie- ties. He wr,3 a lamp that spent its oil in blazing. It is said, that if he had lived a little longer, he would have been assisted by a pension." SECRET HISTORY OF THE BUILDING OF BLENHEIM. The secret history of this national edifice derives importance from its nature, and the remarkable characters involved in the unparalleled transaction. The great architect, wdien ob- structed in the progress of his work by the irregular pay- * See his " Letters" xl. and xli., and more particularly xlii. and xliii., Tith a new theory of political principles. Secret History of the Building of Bknlieim. 103 ments of the workmen, appears to have practised one of liis own comic plots to put the debts on the liero himself; while the duke, who had it much at heart to inhabit the jialace of his fame, but tutored into wariness under the vigilant and fierce eye of Atossa,* would neither approve nor disapprove, silently looked on in hope and in grief, i'rom year to year, as the work proceeded, or as it was left at a stand. At length we find this comedie larmoyante wound up by the ducliess herself, in an attempt utterly to ruin the enraged and insulted architect If Perhaps this was the first time that it had ever l)ecn re- solved in parliament to raise a public monument of glory and gratitude — to an individual ! The novelty of the attempt may serve as the only excuse for the loose arrangements which followed after parliament had approved of the design, without voting any specific supply for the purpose ! The queen always issued the orders at her own expense, and commanded expedition ; and while Anne lived, the expenses of the building were included in her majesty's debts, as be- longing to the civil list sanctioned by parliament. J When George the First came to the throne, the parliament declared the debt to be the debt of the queen, and the king granted a privy seal as for other debts. The crown and the parliament had hitherto proceeded in perfect union respecting this national edifice. However, I find that the workmen were greatly in arrears ; for when George the First ascended the throne, they gladly accepted a third part of their several debts ! The great architect found himself amidst inextricable difficulties. With the fertile invention which amuses in his comedies, he contrived an extraordinary scheme, by which he proposed to make the duke himself responsible for the build- ing of Blenheim ! * The name by which Pope ruthlessly satirized Sarah Ducliess of Marlborough. + I draw the materials of this secret history from an unpublished "Case of the Duke of Marlborough and Sir .John Vanbrugh," as also from some confidential correspondence of Vanbrugh with Jacob TonsoD, his friend and publisher. X Parliament voted 500, 000?. for the building, which was insufficient. The queen added thereto the honour of Woodstock, an appanage of the crown, on the simple condition of rendering at Windsor Castle every year on the anniversary of the victory of Blenheim, a flag adorned witii three fleur-de-lys, "as acquittance for all manner of rents, suits and servlcea due to the crown." 10 i Secret History of the Building of Blenheim. However much the duke longed to see the magnificent edifice concluded, he showed the same calm intrepidity in the building of Blenheim as he had in its field of action. Awarc that if he himself gave any order, or suggested any alteration, he might he involved in the expense of the building, he was never to be circumvented — never to be surprised into a spon- taneous emotion of pleasure or disapprobation ; on no occasion, he declares, had he even entered into conversation with the architect (though his friend) or with any one acting under his orders, about Blenheim House ! Such impenetrable pru- dence on all sides had often blunted the subdolous ingenuity of the architect and plotter of comedies ! In the absence of the duke, when abroad in 1705, Sir John contrived to obtain from Lord Godolphin, the friend and relative of the Duke of Marlborough, and probably his agent in some of his concerns, a warrant, constituting Vanbrugh siirvpi/or, icith power of contracting on the hehalf of the Duke of Marlborough. How he prevailed on Lord Godolphin to get this appointment does not appear — his lordship probably conceived it was useful, and might assist in expediting the great work, the favourite object of the hero. This warrant, however, Vanbrugh kept entirely tohimself; he never mentioned to the duke that he was in possession of any such power ; nor, on his return, did he claim to have it renewed. The building proceeded with the same delays, and the pay- ments with the same irregularity ; the veteran now foresaw what happened, that he should never be the inhabitant of his own house ! The public money issued from the Treasury ■was never to be depended on ; and after 1712, the duke took the building upon himself, for the purpose of accommodating the workmen. They had hitherto received what was called "crown pay," which was high wages and uncertain payment — and they now gladly abated a third of their prices. But though tlie duke had undertaken to pay the workmen, this could make no alteration in the claims on the Treasury. Blenheim was to be built for Marlborough, not hy him ; it was a monument raised by the nation to their hero, not a palace to be built by their mutual contributions. Whether Marlborough ibund that his own million might be slowly injured while the Treasury remained still obdurate, or that the arcliitcet was still more and more involved, I cannot tell ; but in 1715, the workmen appear to have struck, and the old delays and stand-still again renewed. It was Secret History of the BaUd'uiy of Blenheim. 105 then Sir John, for the first time, produced the warrant he had extracted from Lord Godolpliin, to lay before the Treasury ; adding, however, a memoraudum, to prevent any misconception, that the duke was to be considered as the paymaster, the debts incurred devolving on the crown. This part of our secret history requires more development than I am enabled to afford ; as my information is drawn from " the Case" of the Duke of Marlborough in re])ly to Sir John's depositions, it is possible Vanbrugh may suffer more than he ought in this narration ; which, however, incidentally notices his own statements. A new scene opens ! Vanbrugh not obtaining his claims from the Treasury, and the workmen becoming more clamorous, the architect suddenly turns round on the duke, at once to charge him with the whole debt. The pitiable history of this magnificent monument of public gratitude, from its beginnings, is given by Vanbrugh in his deposition. The great architect represents himself as being comptroller of her majesty's works ; and as such was appointed to prepare a model, which model of Blenheim House her majesty kept in her palace, and gave her commands to issue money according to the direction of Mr. Travers, the queen's surveyor-general ; that the lord treasurer appointed her majesty's own officers to supervise these works ; that it was upon defect of money from the Treasury that the work- men grew uneasy ; that the work was stopped, till further orders of money from the Treasury ; that the queen then ordered enough to secure it from winter weather ; that after- wards she ordered more for payment of the workmen ; that- they were paid in part ; and upon Sir John's telling them the queen's resolution to grant them a further supply {after a atop put to it hy tlie duchess's order), they went on and incurred the present debt ; that this was afterwards brought into the House of Commons as the debt of the crown, not owing from the queen to the Duke of Marlborough, but to the workmen, and this by the queen's officers. During the uncertain progress of the building, and while the workmen were often in deep arrears, it would seem that the architect often designed to involve the Marlboroughs in its fate and his own ; he probably thought that some of their round million might bear to be chipped, to finish his great work, with which, too, their glory was so intimately connected. The famous duchess had evidently put the duke lOG Secret Ilislonj of the Building of Blenheim. on the defensive ; but once, perhaps, was the duke on the point of indulging some generous architectural fancy, when lo ! Atossa stepped forwards and " put a stop to the building." When Vanbrugh at length produced the warrant of Lord Godolphin, empowering him to contract for the duke, this instrument was utterly disclaimed by Marlborough ; the duke declares it existed without his knowledge ; and that if such an instrument for a moment was to be held valid, no man would be safe, but might be ruined by the act of another ! Vanbrugh seems to have involved the intricacy of his plot, till it fell into some contradictions. The queen he had not found diflBcult to manage ; but after her death, when the Treasury failed in its golden source, he seems to have sat down to contrive how to make the duke the great debtor. Vanbrugh swears that "He himself looked upon the crown, as engaged to the Duke of Marlborough for the expense ; but that he believes the workmen always looked upon the duke as their paymaster." He advances so far, as to swear that he made a contract with particular workmen, which contract was not unknowui to the duke. This was not denied ; but the duke in his reply observes, that " he knew not that the work- men were employed for his account, or by Jiis own agent :" — never having heard till Sir John produced the warrant from Lord Godolphin, that Sir John was "his surveyor!" which he disclaims. Our architect, however opposite his depositions appear, contrived to become a witness to such facts as tended to con- clude the duke to be the debtor for the building ; and " in his depositions has taken as much care to have the guilt of perjuror without the punishment of it, as any man could do." He so managed, though he has not sworn to contradictions, that the natural tendency of one part of his evidence presses one way, and the natural tendency of another part presses the direct contrary way. In his former memorial, the main design was to disengage the duke from the debt; in his depositions, the main design was to charge the duke with the debt. Vanbrugh, it must be confessed, exerted not less of his dramatic than his architectural genius in the building of Blenheim ! " The Case " concludes with an eloquent reflection, where Vanbrugh is distinguished as the man of genius, though not, in this predicament, the man of honour. " If at last the Secret Histori/ of the BitUdi))(j of Blenheim. 107 charge run into by order of the crown must be upon the duke, yet the infamy of it must go upon another, who was perhaps the onlj^ architect in the workl capable of buihling such a house ; and the only friend in the world capable of contriving to lay the debt upon one to whom he was so highly obliged." There is a curious fact in the depositions of Vanbrugh, by which we might infer that the idea of Blenheim House might have originated with the duke himself; he swears that "in 1704, the duke met him, and told him he designed to build a house, and must consult him about a model, &c. ; but it was the queen who ordered the present house to be built with all expedition." The whole conduct of this national edifice was unworthy of the nation, if in truth the nation ever entered heartily into it. No specific sum had been voted in parliament for so great an undertaking ; which afterwards was the occasion of involving all the parties concerned in trouble and litigation ; threatened the ruin of the architect ; and I think we shall see, by Vanbrugh's letters, was finished at the sole charge, and even under the superintendence, of the duchess herself ! It may be a question, whether this magnificent monument of glory did not rather originate in the spirit of party, in the urgent desire of the queen to allay the pride and jealousies of the Marlboroughs. From the circumstance to which Van- brugh has sworn, that the duke had designed to have a house built by Vanbrugh, before Blenheim had been resolved on, we may suppose that this intention of the duke's afforded the queen a suggestion of a national edifice. Archdeacon Coxe, in his Life of Marlborough, has obscurely alluded to the circumstances attending the building of Blen- heim. "The illness of the duke, and the tedious litigation which ensued, caused such delays, that little progress was made in the work at the time of his decease. In tlie interim a serious misunderstanding arose between the duchess and the architect, which forms the subject of a voluminous cor- I'espondence. Vanbrugh was in consequence removed, and the direction of the building confided to otlier hands, under her own immediate superintendence." This " voluminous correspondence " would probably afiord "words that burn" of the lofty insolence of Atossa, and "thoughts that breathe" of the comic wit; it might too re- late, hi many curious points, to the stupendous fabric itself. 108 Secret History of the Building of Blenheim. If her grace condescended to criticise its parts with the {'rank roughness she is known to have done to the architect liimself, his own defence and explanations might serve to let us into the bewildering fancies of his magical architecture. Of that self-creation for which he was so much abused in his own day as to have lost his real avocation as an architect, and stands condemned for posterity in the volatile bitterness of Lord Orford, nothing is left for us but our own convictions ■ — to behold, and to be for ever astonished! — But "this voluminous correspondence?" Alas! the historian of war and politics overlooks with contempt the little secret his- tories of art and of human nature ! — and " a voluminous correspondence" which indicates so much, and on which not a solitary idea is bestowed, has only served to petrify our curiosity ! Of this quarrel between the famous duchess and Vanbrugh I have only recovered several vivacious extracts from confi- dential letters of Vanbrugh's to Jacob Tonson. There was an equality of the genius of invention, as well as rancour, in her grace and the wit : whether Atossa, like Vanbrugh, could have had the patience to have composed a comedy of five acts I will not determine ; but unquestionably she could have dictated many scenes w^ith equal spirit. We have seen Van' brugh attempting to turn the debts incurred by the buildin|^ of Blenheim on the duke ; we now learn, for the first time, that the duchess, with equal aptitude, contrived a counterplot to turn the debts on Vanbrugh ! " I have the misfortune of losing, for I now see little hopes of ever getting it, near 2000Z. due to me for many years' service, plague, and trouble, at Blenheim, which that wicked woman of ' Marlborough' is so far from paying me, that the duke being sued by some of the workmen for work done there, she has tried to turn the debt due to them upon me, for which I think she ought to be hanged." In 1722, on occasion of the duke's death, Vanbrugh gives an account to Tonson of the great wealth of the Marlboroughs, with a caustic touch at his illustrious victims. " The Duke of Marlborough's treasure exceeds the most extravagant guess. The grand settlement, which it was sus- pected her grace had broken to pieces, stands good, and hands an immense wealth to Lord Godolphin and his successors. A round million has been moving about in loans on the land- tax, &c. This the Treasury knew before he died, and this Secret Hislory of the Building of Blenheim. 100 was exclusive of his ' land ;' his 5000Z. a year upon the post- office ; his mortgages upon a distressed estate ; his South-Sea stock ; his annuities, and which were not subscribed in, and besides what is in foreign banks ; and yet this man could neither pay his workmen tlieir bills, nor his architect his salary. " He has given his widow (may a Scottish ensign get her !) 10,000Z. a year to spoil Blenheim her own icay ; 12,000/. a year to keep herself clean and go to law ; 2000/. a year to Lord Rialton for present maintenance ; and Lord Godolphin only 5000/. a year jointure, if he outlives my lady : this last is a wretched article. The rest of the heap, for these are but snippings, goes to Lord Godolphin, and so on. She will have 40,000/. a year in present." Atossa, as the quarrel heated and the plot thickened, with the maliciousness of Puck, and the haughtiness of an empress of Blenheim, invented the most cruel insult that ever archi- tect endured ! — one perfectly characteristic of that extraordi- nar}^ woman. Vanbrugh went to Blenheim with his lady, in a company from Castle Howard, another magnificent monu- ment of his singular genius. " We staid two nights in Woodstock ; but there was an order to the servants, under her grace's own hand, not to let one enter Blenheim ! and lest that should not mortify me enough, she having somehow learned that my loife, was ot the compan}'', sent an express the nicjht before we came there, with orders that if she came with the Castle Howard ladies, the servants should not suffer her to see either house, gardens, or even to enter the park : so she was forced to sit all day long and keep me company at the inn !" This was a coup-de-theatre in this joint comedy of Atossa and Vanbrugh ! The architect of Blenheim, lifting his eyes towards his own massive grandeur, exiled to a dull inn, and imprisoned with one who required rather to be consoled, than capable of consoling the enraged architect ! In 1725, Atossa still pursuing her hunted prey, had driven it to a spot which she flattered herself would enclose it with the security of a preserve. This produced the following explosion ! " I have been forced into chancery by that B. B. B. the Duchess of Marlborough, where she has got an injunction upon me by her friend the late good chancellor (Earl of Mac- clesfield), who declared that 1 was never employed by the 1 ] Secret History of the Building of Blenheim. duke, and therefore had no demand upon his estate for my services at Blenheim. Since my hands were thus tied up from trying by law to recover my arrear, I have prevailed with Sir Eobert Walpole to help me in a scheme loliich Iino- posed to him, hij which I got ony money in spite of the hussy's teeth. My carrying this point enrages her much, and the more because it is of considerable weight in my small fortune, which she has heartily endeavoured so to destroy as to throw me into an English BastiL, there to finish my da^^s, as 1 hegan them, in a French one.'' Plot for plot ! and the superior claims of one of practised invention are vindicated ! The writer, long accustomed to comedy-writing, has excelled the self-taught genius of Atossa. The "scheme" by which Yanbrugh's fertile invention, aided by Sir Kobert Walpole, finally circumvented the avaricious, the haughty, and the capricious Atossa, remains untold, unless it is alluded to by the passage in Lord Orford's " Anecdotes of Painting," where he informs us that the "duchess cjuar- relled with Sir John, and went to law with him ; but though h.Q proved to be in the right, or rather because he proved to be in the right, she employed Sir Christopher Wren to build the house in St. James's Park." I have to add a curious discovery respecting Vanbrugh himself, which explains a circumstance in his life not hitherto understood. In all the biographies of Vanbrugh, fi'om the time of Gibber's Lives of the Poets, the early part of the life of this man of genius remains unknown. It is said he descended from an ancient family in Cheshire, which came originally from France, though b}' the name, which properly written would be Van Brugh, he would appear to be of Dutch extrac- tion. A tale is univcrsall}' repeated that Sir John once visiting France in the prosecution of his architectural studies, while taking a survey of some fortifications, excited alarm, and was carried to the Bastile : where, to deepen the interest of the story, he sketched a variety of comedies, which he must have communicated to the governor, who, whisj^ering it doubtless as an affair of state to several of the noblesse, these admirers of " sketches of comedies" — English ones no doubt — procured the release of this Englisli Moliere. This tale is further confirmed by a very odd circumstance. Sir John built at Greenwich, on a spot still called "Van Brugh's Fields," two whimsical houses ; one on the side of Greenwich Seo'ct History of Sir Walter Raivkiyli. ] 1 1 Park is still called "the Bastile-House," built on its inodo), to commemorate this imprisonment. Not a word of this detailed story is probably true ! that the Bastile was an object which sometimes occupied the ima- gination of our architect, is probable ; for by the letter wfe have just quoted, we discover from himself the singular inci- dent of Vanbrugh's having been horn in the Bastile* Desirous, probably, of concealing his alien origin, this cir- cumstance cast his early days into obscurity. He felt that he was a Briton in all respects but that of his singular birth. The father of A^'anbrugh married Sir Dudley Carleton's daughter. We are told he had "political connexions ;" and one of his "political" tours had probably occasioned his con- finement in that state-dungeon, where his lady was delivered of her burden of love. Tliis odd fancy of building a " Bas- tile-House " at Greenwich, a fortified prison ! suggested to his first life-writer the fine romance ; which must now be thi'own aside among those literary fictions the French distin- guish by the softening and yet impudent term of " Anecdotes hasardees !" with which formerly Varillas and his imitators furnished their pages ; lies which looked like facts ! SECRET HISTORY OF SIR WALTER RAWLEIGH.f Rawleiqh exercised in perfection incompatible talents, and his character connects the opposite extremes of our nature ! * Cunningham, in his " Lives of the British Architects," does not in- cline to the conclusions above drawn. He says, "I suspect that Van- brugh, in saying he began his days in the Bastile, meant only that he was its tenant in early life — at the commencement of his manhood." The same author tells us that Vanbrugh's grandfather fled from Ghent, his native city, to avoid the persecutions of the Duke of Alva, and established himself as a merchant in Walbrook, where his sou lived after him, and where John Vanbrugh (afterwards the great architect) was born in the year 1666. His father was at this time Comptroller of the Treasury Chamber. Cunningham thinks the Cheshire part of the genealogy " un- likely to be true." •f- Rawleigh, as was much practised to a much later period, wrote his name various ways. I have discovered at least how it was pronounced in his time^thus, Kaicly. This may be additionally confirmed by the Scot- tish poet Drummond, who spells it (in his conversations with Ben Jonson) Raugldey. The translation of Ortelius' ' ' Epitome of the Worlde," 1603, is dedicated to Sir Walter Raicleigh. See vol. ii. p. 261, art. "Ortho- graphy of Proper Names." It was also written Raivhj by his contempo- raries. He sometimes wrote it Ralegh, the last syllable probably pro- nounced ly, or lay. Ralegh appc-ars on his official seal. 112 Secret History of Sir Waller Raivleigh. His " Book of Life," with its incidents of prosperity and adversity, of glory and humiliation, was as chequered as the iiovelist\vould desire lor a tale of fiction. Yet in this mighty genius there lies an unsuspected disposition, which requires to be demonstrated, before it is possible to conceive its reality. From his earliest days, probably by his early reading of the romantic incidents of the first Spanish adventurers in the New World, he himself betrayed the genius of an adventurer; which prevailed in his chcracter to the latest ; and it often involved him in the practice of mean artifices and petty deceptions ; which appear like folly in the wisdom of a sage ; like ineptitude in the profound views of a politician ; like cowardice in the magnanimity of a hero ; and degrade by their littleness the grandeur of a character which was closed by a splendid death, worthy the life of the wisest and the greatest of mankind ! The sunshine of his days was in the reign of Elizabeth. From a boy, always dreaming of romantic conquests (for he was born in an age of heroism), and formed by nature for the chivalric gallantry of the court of a maiden queen, from the moment he with such infinite art cast his rich mantle over the miry spot, his life was a progress of glory. All about Itawleigh was as splendid as the dress he wore : his female sovereign, whose e3'es loved to dwell on men who might have l>een fit subjects for "the Faerie Queene" of Spenser, penu- rious of reward, only recompensed her favourites by suflering them to make their own fortunes on sea and land ; and Eliza- beth listened to the glowing projects of her hero, indulging that spirit which could have conquered the world, to have laid the toy at the feet of the sovereign ! This man, this extraordinary being, who was prodigal of his life and fortune on the Spanish Main, in the idleness of peace could equally direct his invention to supply the domestic wants of every-day life, in his project of " an office for address." Nothing was too high for his ambition, nor too humble for his genius. Pre-eminent as a military and a naval commander, as a statesman and a student, E-awleigh was as intent on forming the character of Prince Henry, as that prince was studious of moulding his own aspiring quali- ties by the genius of the friend whom he contemplated. Yet the active life of llawleigh is not more remarkable than his C!)ntemplative one. He may well rank among the founders oi our literature J for composing on a subject exciting little Secret History of Sir Walter Rawleiyli. ]]3 interest, his fine genius has sealed his unfinished voUnne with • immortahty. For magnificence of eloquence, and massive- ness of thought, we must still dwell on his pages.* Such was the man who was the adored patron of Spenser ; whom Ben Jonson, proud of calling other favourites " his sons," honoured by the title of " his father;" and who left political instructions which Milton deigned to edit. But how has it happened that, of so elevated a character. Gibbon has pronounced that it was " ambiguous," while it is described by Hume as " a great but ill-regulated mind!" There was a peculiarity in the character of this eminent man ; he practised tlie canning of an adventurer — a cunning most humiliating in the narrative! The great difficult}'' to overcome in this discovery is, how to account for a sage and a hero acting folly and cowardice, and attempting to obtain by circuitous deception what it may be supposed so mag- nanimous a spirit would only deign to possess himself of by direct and open methods. Since the present article was written, a letter, hitherto unpublished, appears in the recent edition of Shakspeare which curiously and minutely records one of those artifices of the kind which I am about to narrate at length. When, under Elizabeth, Rawleigh was once in confinement, it appears that seeing the queen passing by, he was suddenly seized with a strange resolution of combating with the governor and his people, declaring that the mere sight of the queen had made him desperate, as a confined lover would feel at the sight of his mistress. The letter gives a minute narrative of Sir Walter's astonishing conduct, and carefully repeats the warm romantic style in which he talked of his royal mistress, and his formal resolution to die rather than exist out of her presence.f This extravagant scene, with all * I shall give in the article " Literary Unions" a curious account how "Rawleigh's History of the World" was composed, which has hitherto escaped discovery. + It is narrated in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil from Mr. (afterwards Sir) Arthur Gorges, and runs as follows : — "Upon a report of her majesty's being at Sir George Carew's, Sir W. Ralegh having gazed and sighed a long time at his study window, from whence he might discern the barges and boats about the Blackfriars stairs, suddenly brake out into a great dis- temper, and sware that his enemies had on purpose brought her majesty thither to break his gall in sunder with Tantalus's torments, that when she went away he might see death before his eyes ; with many such like conceits. And, as a man transported with passion, he sware to Sir George Carew that he would disguise himself, and got into a pair of oars VOL. III. 1 Ill Secret IJi.slury of Sir IValUr Ruwlc'tyh. its cunning, lias been most elaborately penned by tlie ing-e- nious letter-writer, with a hint to the person whom he addresses, to suiler it to meet the eye of their royal mistress, who could not fail of admiring our new " Orlando Furioso," and soon after released this tender prisoner! To me it is evident that the whole scene was got up and concerted for the occasion, and was the invention of llawleigh himself; the romantic incident he well knew was perfectly ada])ted to the queen's taste. Another similar incident, m which I have been anticipated in the disclosure of the fact, though not of its nature, was what Sir Toby Matthews obscurely alludes to in his letters, of " the guilty blow he gave himself in the Tower;" a passage which had long excited my attention, till I discovered the curious incident in some manuscript letters of Lord Cecil. Eawleigh was then confined in the Tower for the Cobham consi)ii'acy ; a plot so absurd and obscure that one historian has called it a " state-riddle," but for which, so many years after, liawleigh so cruelly lost his life. Lord Cecil gives an account of the examination of the prisoners involved in this conspiracy. " One afternoon, whilst divers of us were in the Tower examining some of these ])risoners, Sir Walter ottemptcd to murder liimself; whereof, when we were advertised, we came to him, and found him in some agony to be unable to endure his misfortunes, and pro- testing innocency, with carelessness of life ; and in that luimour he had wounded himself under the right pctp, hut no xcay morlalh/, heiur/ in truth rather a cut than a stah, and now very well cured both in body and mind."* This feeble attempt at suicide, this "cut rather than stab," I must place among those scenes in the life of Eawleigh so incomprehensible with the genius of the man. If it were nothing but one. of those Fears of the Brav* 1 to case his mind but with a sight of the queen, or else he protested his heart would break." Tliis of course the gaoler refused, and so they fell to fighting, "scrambling and brawling like madmen," until parted by Gorges. Sir Walter fallowed up his absurdity by another letter to Cecil, couched in the language of romance, in which he declares that, while the queen " was yet near at hand, that I might hear of her once in two or three days my sorrows were the less, but now my heart is cast into the depth of itU misery." * Tliese letters were written by Lord Cecil to Sir Thomas Parry, our ambassador in France, and were transcribed from the copy-book of Sir Thomas Parry's correspondence which is preserved in the Pepysiau library V, Cambridge. Secret History of Sir IVutter Rawleiffh. 115 we must now open another of the Follies of the Wise ! Eavvleigh returned from the wiki and desperate voya""e of Guiana, with misery in every shape about him.* His son had perished ; his devoted Keymis would not survive his reproach ; and Rawleigh, without fortune and without hope, in sickness and in sorrow, brooded over the sad thouglit, that in the hatred of the Spaniard, and in the pohtical pusilhi- iiimity of James, he was arriving only to meet inevitable death. With this presentiment, he had even wished to give up his ship to the crew, had they consented to land him in France ; but he was probably irresolute in this decision at sea, as he was afterwards at land, where he wislied to escape, and refused to fly : the clearest intellect was darkened, and magnanimity itself became humiliated, floating between the sense of honour and of life. Rawleigh landed in his native county of Devon : his arrival was the common topic of conversation, and he was the object of censure or of commiseration : but his person was not molested, till the fears of James became more urgent than his pity. The Cervantic Gondomar, whose "quips and quiddities" had concealed the cares of state, one day rushed into the presence of James, breathlessly calling out for "audience!" and compressing his " ear-piercing" message into the laconic abruptness of " piratas ! piratas ! piratas!" There was agony as well as politics in this cry of Gondomar, whose brother, the Spanish governor, had been massaci'ed in this predatory expedition. t The timid monarch, terrified at this tragical appearance of his facetious friend, saw at once the demands of the whole Spanish cabinet, and vented his palliative in a gentle proclamation, llawleigh having settled his affairs in * He had undertaken the expedition immediately upon his release from the Tower in 1617. The king had never pardoned him, and his release was effected by bribing powerful court favourites, who worked upon the avarice of James I. by leading him to hope for the possession of Guiana, ■which, though discovered by the Spaniards, had never been conquered by them ; and which Rawleigh promised to colonise. + This occurred during the attack on the town of St. Thomas ; a settle- ment of the Spaniards near the gold mines. It ended disastrously to Kawleign ; his ships mutinied; and he never recovered his ill-fortune: but sailed to Newfoundland, and thence, after a second mutiny, returned to Plymouth. I 2 11>3 Secret History of Sir Walter Rawleiyh. the west, set off for London to appear before the king, in consequence of the proclamation. A few miles from Ply- mouth he was met by Sir Lewis Stucley, vice-admiral of Devon, a kinsman and a friend, who, in communication with government, had accepted a sort of surveillance over Sir Walter. It is said (and will be credited, when we hear the story of Stucley), that he had set his heart on the sJiip, as a probable good purchase ; and on the person, against whom, to colour his natural treachery, he professed an old hatred. He first seized on Eawleigh more like the kinsman than the vice-admiral, and proposed travelling together to London, and baiting at the houses of the friends of Eawleigh. The war- rant which Stucley in the meanwhile had desired was instantly despatched, and the bearer was one Manoury, a French em- piric, who was evidently sent to act the part he did — a part played at all times, and the last title, in French politics, that so often had recourse to this instrument of state, is a Mouton ! Eawleigh still, however, was not placed under any harsh restraint : his confidential associate, Captain King, accom- panied him ; and it is probable, that if Eawleigh had effectu- ated his escape, he would have conferred a great favour on the government. They could not save him at London. It is certain that he might have escaped ; for Captain King had hired a vessel, and Eawleigh had stolen out by night, and might have reached it, but irresolutely returned home ; another night, the same vessel was ready, but Eawleigh never came ! The loss of his honour appeared the greater calamity. As he advanced in this eventful journey, everything assumed a more formidable aspect. His friends communicated fearful advices; a pursuivant, or king's messenger, gave a more menacing appearance ; and suggestions arose in his own mind, that he was reserved to become a victim of state. When letters of commission from the Privy Council were brought to Sir Lewis Stucley, Eawleigh was observed to change coun- tenance, exclaiming with an oath, " Is it possible my fortune should return upon me thus again?" He lamented, before Captain King, that he had neglected the opportunity of escape; and which, every day he advanced inland, removed him the more from any chance. Eawleigh at first suspected that Manoury was one of those instruments of state who are sometimes employed when open measures are not to be pursued, or when the cabinet have not Secret History oj Sir Walter RawleiyJi. 117 yet determined on the fate of a pei'son im])licated in a state crime ; in a word, llawleigh thought that I\Iatioury was a spy- over him, and prohably over Stucley too. The first impres- sion in these matters is usually the right one ; but when Rawleigh tound himself caught in the toils, he imagined that such corrupt agents were to be corrupted. The French em- piric was sounded, and found very compliant ; llawleigh was desirous by his aid to counterfeit sickness, and for this pur- pose invented a series of tlie most humiliating stratagems. He imagined that a constant appearance of sickness might produce delaj', and procrastination, in the cha])ter of accidents, might end in pardon. He procured vomits from the French- man, and, whenever he chose, produced every appearance of sickness ; with dimness of sight, dizziness in his head, he reeled about, and once struck himself with such violence against a pillar in the gallery, that there was no doubt of his malady. Kawleigh's servant one morning entering Stucley's chamber, declared that his master was out of his senses, for that he had just left him in his shirt upon all fours, gnawing the rushes upon the floor. On Stucley's entrance, llawleigh was raving, and reeling in strong convulsions. Stucley ordered him to be chafed and fomented, and llawleigh afterwards laughed at this scene with Manoury, observing that he had made Stucley a perfect physician. But llawleigh found it required some more visible and alarming disease than such ridiculous scenes had exhibited. The vomits worked so slowly, that Manoury was fearful to repeat the doses. Eawleigh inquired whether the empiric knew of any preparation which could make him look ghastly, without injuring his health. The Frenchman ofl^ered a harm- less ointment to act on the surface of the skin, which would give him the appearance of a leper. " That will do !" said llawleigh, " for the lords will be afraid to approach me, and besides it will move their pity." Applying the ointment to his brows, his arms, and his breast, the blisters rose, the skin inflamed, and was covered with purple spots. Stucley concluded that Eawleigh had the plague. Physicians were now to be called in ; llawleigh took the black silk ribbon from his poniard, and Manoury tightened it strongly about his arm, to disorder his pulse ; but his pulse beat too strong and regular. He appeared to take no food, while Manoury secretly provided him. To perplex tlie learned doctors still more, llawleigh had the urinal coloured by a drug of a strong 118 Secret History of Sir Walter Raivleigh. scent. The physicians pronounced the disease mortal, and that the patient could not he removed into the air without immediate danger. Awhile after, being in his bed-chamber undressed, and no one present but Manoury, Sir Walter held a looking-glass in his hand to admire his spotted face,* and observed in merriment to his new confidant, " how they should one day laugh for having thus cozened the king, council, physicians, Spaniards, and all." The excuse Eaw- leigh offered for this course of poor stratagems, so unworthy of his genius, was to obtain time and seclusion for writing his Apology, or Vindication of his Voyage, which has come down to us in his "Remains." "The prophet David did make himself a fool, and suffered spittle to fall upon his beard, to escape from the hands of his enemies," said Raw- leigh in his last speech. Brutus, too, was another example. But his discernment often prevailed over this mockery of his spirit. The king licensed him to reside at his own house on his arrival in London ; on which Manoury observed that the king showed by this indulgence that his majesty was favour- ably inclined towards him ; but Rawleigh replied, " They used all these kinds of flatteries to the Duke of Biron, to draw him fairly into prison, and then they cut off his head. I know they have concluded among them that it is expedient that a man should die, to re-assure the traffick which I have broke with Spain." And Manoury adds, from whose narra- tive we have all these particulars, that Sir Walter broke out into tbis rant: " If he could but save himself for this time, he would plot such plots as should make the king think him- self happy to send for him again, and restore him to his estate, and would force the King of Spain to write into England in his favour." Kawleigh at length proposed a flight to France with Manoury, who declares it was then he revealed to Stucley what he had hitherto concealed, that Stucley might double his vigilance. Eawleigh now perceived that he had two rogues to bribe instead of one, and that they were playing into one another's hands. Proposals are now made to Stucley through Manoury, who is as compliant as his brother-knave. * A friend informs me, that he saw recently at a print-dealer's & painted portrait of Sir Walter Rawleigh, tvifh the face th%LS spotted. It is extra- ordinary that any artist should have chosen such a subject for his pencil ; but should this be a portrait of the times, it shows that this strange stra- tagem had excited public attention. Secret History of Sir Walter Rawlcif/h. 119 Rawleigh presented Stucley with a "jewel made in the fashion of hail powdered with diamonds, with a rub}^ in the midst." But Stucley ohserving to his liinsraan and friend, that he must lose his office of vice-admiral, which had cost him six hundred pounds, in case he suffered Rawleigh to escape ; Rawleigh solemnly assured him that he should be no loser, and that his lady should give him one thousand pounds when they got into France or Holland. About this time the French quack took his leave : the part he had to act was per- formed : the juggle was complete: and two wretches had triumphed over the sagacity and magnanimit}'' of a sage and a hero, whom misfortune had levelled to folly ; and who, in violating the dignity of his own character, had only equalled himself with vulgar knaves ; men who exulted that the circumventer was circumvented ; or, as they expressed it, " the great cozener was cozened." But our story does not here conclude, for the treacheries of Stucley were more intricate. This perfect villain had obtained a warrant of indemnity to authorise his compliance with any offer to assist Rawleigh in his escape ; this wretch was the confidant and the executioner of Rawleigh ; he carried about him a license to betray him, and was making his profit of the victim betbre he delivered him to the sacrifice. Rawleigh was still plotting his escape; at Salisbury he had despatched his confidential friend Captain King to London, to secm-e a boat at Tilbury ; he had also a secret interview with the French agent. Rawleigh's servant mentioned to Captain King, that his boatswain had a ketch* of his own, and was ready at his service for " thirty pieces of silver;" the boatswain and Rawleigh's servant acted Judas, and betrayed the plot to Mr. William Herbert, cousin to Stucley, and thus the treachery was kept among themselves as a family concern. The night for fiight was now fixed, but he could not part without his friend Stucley, who had promised never to quit him ; and who indeed, informed by his cousin Herbert, had suddenly surprised Rawleigh putting on a false beard. The party met at the appointed place ; Sif Lewis Stucley with his son, and Rawleigh disguised. Stucley, in salutmg King, asked whether he had not shown himself an honest man ? King hoped he would continue so. They had not rowed twenty strokes, before the watermen observed, * A small coasting-vessel, made round at stem and stern like the Dutch boats. The word is still used in some English counties to denote a tub. 120 Secret History of Sir Walter Raivkifjh. that Mr. Herbert had lately taken boat, and made towards the bridge, but had returned down the river after them, llawleigh instantly expressed his apprehensions, and wished to return home ; he consulted King — the watermen took iright — Stuclej' acted his j^art well ; damning his ill-fortune to have a fi-iend whom he would save, so full of doubts and fears, and threatening to pistol the watermen if they did not proceed. Even King was overcome by the earnest conduct of Stucley, and a new spirit was infused into the rowers. As they drew near Greenwich a wherry crossed them. Rawleigh declared it came to discover them. King tried to allay his iears, and assured him that if once they reached Gravesend, lie would hazard his life to get to 'J'ilbury. But in these delays and discussions, the tide was failing ; the watermen declared they could not reach Gravesend before morning ; liawleigh would have landed at Purlleet, and the boatswain encouraged him ; for there it was thouglit he could procure horses ibr Tilbury. Sir Lewis Stucley too was zealous ; and declared he was content to carry the cloak-bag on his own shoulders, for half-a-mile, but King declared that it was useless, they could not at that hour get horses to go by land. They rowed a mile beyond Woolwich, approaching two or three ketches, when the boatswain doubted whether any of these were the one he had provided to furnish them. " We are betrayed !" cried Eawleigh, and ordered the watermen to row back : he stj-ictly examined the boatswain ; alas ! his ingenuity was baffled by a shuffling villain, whose real an- jKwer appeared when a wherry hailed the boat : Eawleigh observed that it contained Herbert's crew. He saw that all Avas now discovered. He took Stucley aside ; his ingenious mind still suggesting projects for himself to return home in safety, or how Stucley might plead that he had only pre- tended to^ go with Eawleigh, to seize on his private papers. They whispered together, and Eawleigh took some things from his pocket, and handed them to Stucley ; probably more "rubies powdered with diamonds."— Some effect was in- stantaneously produced ; for the tender heart of his friend Stucley relented, and he not only repeatedly embraced him with_ extraordinary warmth of afi'ection, but was voluble in «;irusions of friendship and fidelity. Stucley persuaded Eaw- leigh to land at Gravesend, the strange wherry which had dogged them landing at the same time ; these were people Secret History of Sir JVaUer Rawlcigh. 121 belonging to Mr. Herbert and Sir William St. Jobn, who, it seems, had formerly shared in the spoils of this unliappy hero. On Greenwich bridge, Stucley advised Captain King that it would be advantageous to Sir Walter, that King should confess that he had joined with Stueley to betray his master; and Kawleigh lent himself to the suggestion of Stueley, of ■whose treachery he might still be uncertain ; but King, a rough and honest seaman, declared that he would not share in the odium. At the moment he refused, Stucley arrested the captain in the king's name, committing him to the charge of Herbert's men. They then proceeded to a tavern, but Eawleigh, who now viewed the monster in his true shape, observed, " Sir Lewis, these actions will not turn out to your credit ;" and on the following day, when they passed through the Tower-gate, Kawleigh, turning to King, observed, " Stucley and my servant Cotterell have betrayed me. You need be in no fear of danger, but as for me, it is I who am the mark that is shot at." Thus concludes the narrative of Captain King. The fate of Eawleigh soon verified the pre- diction. This long narrative of treachery will not, however, be complete, unless we wind it up with the fate of the infamous Stucley. Fiction gives perfection to its narratives, by the privilege it enjoys of disposing of its criminals in the most exemplary manner ; but the labours of the historian are not always refreshed by this moral pleasure. Retribution is not always discovered in the present stage of human existence, ^•et history is perhaps equally delightful as fiction, whenever its perfect catastrophes resemble those of romantic invention. The present is a splendid example. I have discovered the secret history of Sir Lewis Stucley, in several manuscript letters of the times. Kawleigh, in his admirable address from the scaffold, where he seemed to be rather one of the spectators tlian the suf- ferer, declared he forgave Sir Lewis, for he had forgiven all men ; but he was bound in charity to caution all men against him, and such as he is ! llawleigh's last and solemn notice of the treachery of his "kinsman and friend" was irrevo- cably fatal to this wretch. The hearts of the peo])le were open to the deepest impressions of sympathy, melting into tears at the pathetic address of the magnanimous spirit who had touched them ; in one moment Sir Lewis Stucley became an object of execration throughout tlie nation ; he soon ob- 1S3 Secret History of Sir Walter Raivleigh. tained a new title, that of " Sir Judas," and was shunned by every man. To remove the Cain-hke mark, which God and men had fixed on him, he pubhshed an apology for his con- duct ; a performance which, at least for its ability, might raise him in our consideration ; but I have since discovered, in one of the manuscript letter-writers, that it was written by Dr. Sharpe, who had been a chaplain to Henry Prince of ^Vales. The writer pleadi in Stucley's justification, that he was a state-agent ; that it was lawful to lie for the discovery of treason ; that he had a personal hatred towards Kawleigh, for having abridged his father of his share of some prize- money ; and then enters more into Rawleigh's character, who " being desperate of any fortune here, agreeable to the height of his mind, would have made up his fortune elsewhere, upon any terms against his sovereign and his country. Is it not marvel," continues the personifier of Stucley, " that he was angry with me at his death for bringing him back ? Be- sides, being a man of so great a wit, it was no small grief that a man of mean wit as I should be thought to go beyond him. No ? Sic ars clelmlitur arte. Neque enim lex justior ulla est quam necis artifices arte perire sua. [This apt latinity betraj's Dr. Sharpe.] But why did you not execute 3'our commission bravely [openly] ? — Why ? My commis- sion was to the contrary, to discover his pretensions, and to seize his secret papers," &c.* But the doctor, though no unskilful writer, here wrote in vain ; for what ingenuity can veil the turpitude of long and practised treachery ? To keep up appearances, Sir Judas re- sorted more than usually to court ; where, however, he was perpetually enduring rebuffs, or avoided, as one infected with the plague of treachery. He offered the king, in his own justification, to take the sacrament, that whatever he had laid to Bawleigh's charge was true, and would produce two un- exceptionable witnesses to do the like. " Why, then," re- plied his majesty, " the more mahcious was Sir Walter to utter these speeches at his death." Sir Thomas Badger, who stood by, observed, " Let the king take off' Stucley's head, as Stucley has done Sir Walter's, and let him at his death take the sacrament and his oath upon it, and I'll believe him ; but till Stucley loses his head, 1 shall credit Sir Walter Raw- leigh's bare affirmative before a thousand of Stucley's oaths." * Stucley's Humble Petition, touching the bringing up Sir W. Rawleigh, 4to. 1618 ; republished in Somers' Tracts, vol. iii. 751. Secret History of Sir JFalter Ruzvleif/h. 123 When Stucley, on pretence of giving an account oC his office, placed himself in the audience chamber of the lord admiral, and his loi'dship passed him without any notice, Sir Judas attempted to address the earl ; but with a bitter look his lordship exclaimed — " Base fellow ! darest thou, who a;"t the scorn and contempt of men, offer thyself in my presence ? Were it not in my own house, I would cudgel thee with my staff for presuming on this sauciness." This annihilating affront Stucley hastened to convey to the king ; his majesty answered him — " What wouldst thou have me do ? Wouldst thou have me hang him ? Of my soul, if I should hang all that speak ill of thee, all the trees of the country would not suffice, so great is the number!" One of the frequent crimes of that age, ere the forgery of bank-notes existed, was the clipping of gold ; and this was one of the private amusements suitable to the character of our Sir Judas. Treachery and forgery are the same crime in a different form. Stucley received out of the exchequer five hundred pounds, as the reward of his espionna(je and perfidy. It was the price of blood, and was hardly in his hands ere it was turned into the fraudulent coin of "the cheater 1" He was seized on in the palace of Whitehall, for diminishing the gold coin. " The manner of the discovery," says the manu- script-writer, " was strange, if my occasions would suffer me to relate the particulars." On his examination he attempted to shift the crime to his own son, who had fled ; and on his nian, who, being taken, in the words of the letter-writer, was " willing to set the saddle upon the right horse, and accused his master." Manoury, too, the French empiric, was ar- rested at Plymouth for the same crime, and accused his worthy friend. But such was the interest of Stucley with government, bought, probably, with his last shilling, and, as one says, with his last shirt, that he obtained his own and his son's pardon, for a crime that ought to have finally con- eluded the history of this blessed family.* A more solemn and tragical catastrophe was reserved for the perfidious Stuc- ley. He was deprived of his place of vice-admiral, and left destitute in the world. Abandoned by all human beings, and * The anecdotes respecting Stucley I have derived from manuscript letters, and they wei'e considered to be of so dangerous a nature, that tho ■writer recommends secrecy, and requests, after reading, that ''they may be burnt." With such injunctions I have generally found that the letters were the more carefully preserved. 124 Narrative of the Last Hours most probably by the son whom he had tutored in the arts of villany, he appears to have wandered about, an infamous and distracted beggar. It is possible that even so seared a conscience may have retained some remaining touch of sensi- bility. All are men, Condemned alike to groan ; The tender for another's pain, The unfeeling for his own. And Camden has recorded, among his historical notes on James the First, that in August, 1G20, " Lewis Stueley, who betrayed Sir Walter Ravvleigh, died in a manner mad." Such is the catastrophe of one of the most perfect domestic tales ; an historical example, not easily paralleled, of moral retribu- tion. The secret practices of the " Sir Judas" of the court of James the First, which I have discovered, throw light on an old tradition which still exists in the neighbourhood of Affe- ton, once the residence of this wretched man. The country people have long entertained a notion that a hidden treasure lies at the bottom of a well in his grounds, guarded by some supernatural power : a tradition no doubt originating in this man's history, and an obscure allusion to the gold which Stueley received for his bribe, or the other gold which he clipped, and might have there concealed. This is a striking instance of the many historical facts which, though entirely unknown or forgotten, may be often discovered to lie hid, or disguised, in popular traditions. AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE OF THE LAST HOURS OP SIR WALTER RAWLEIGH. The close of the life of Sir Walter Rawleigh was as extra- ordinary as many parts of his varied history ; the prom])titude and sprightliness of his genius, his carelessness of life, and the equanimity of this great spirit in quitting the world, can only be paralleled by a few other heroes and sages. Raw- leigh was both ! But it is not simply his dignified yet active conduct on the scaffold, nor his admirable speech on that occasion, circumstances by which many great men are judged, when their energies are excited for a moment to act so arreat of Sir Walter RaivkiyJi. 125 a part, before the eyes of the world assembled at their feet ; it is not these only which claim our notice. We may pause with admiration on the real gi-andeur of Rawleigh's character, not from a single circumstance, however great, but from a tissue of continued little incidents, which occurred from the moment of his condenination till he laid his head on the block. Rawleigh was a man of such mark, that he deeply engaged the attention of his contemporaries ; and to this we owe the preservation of several interesting particulars of what he did and what he said, which have entered into his life ; but all has not been told in the pub- lished narratives. Contemporary writers in their letters have set down every fresh incident, and eagerly caught up his sense, his wit, and, what is more delightful, vhose marks of the natural cheerfulness of his invariable presence of mind : nor could these have arisen from any affectation or parade, for we shall see that they served him even in his last tender farewell to his lady, and on many unpremeditated occasions, I have drawn together into a short compass all the facts which my researches have furnished, not omitting those which are known, concerning the feehngs and conduct of llawleigh at these solemn moments of his life ; to have preserved only the new would have been to mutilate the statue, and toinjui-e the whole by an imperfect view. Rawleigh one morning was taken out of his bed, in a fit of fever, and unexpectedly hurried, not to his trial, but to a sen- tence of death. The story is well known. ^Yet pleading with " a voice grown weak by sickness and an ague he Inid at that instant on him," he used every means to avert his fate : he did, therefore, value the life he could so easily part with. His judges, there, at least, respected their state criminal, and they addressed him in a tone far different from that wliich he had fifteen years before listened to from Coke. Yelverton, the attorney-general, said — " Sir Walter liawleigh hath been as a star at which the world have gazed ; but stars may fall, nay, they must fall, when they trouble the sphere where they abide." And the lord chief-justice noticed Rawleigh's great work : — " I know that you have been valiant and wise, and I doubt not but you retain botli these virtues, for now you sliall have occasion to use them. Your book is an adraira])le work ; I would give you counsel, but I know you can apply unto yourself far better than I am able to give you." But the judge ended with saying, "execution is granted." It was 12G Narrative of the Last Hours stifling llawlelgli with roses ! tlie heroic sage felfc as if listen- ing to fame from the voice of death. He declared that now being old, sicldj, and in disgrace, and " certain wei'e he allowed to live, to go to it again, life was wearisome to him, and all he entreated was to have leave to speak freely at his farewell, to satisfy the world that he was ever loyal to the king, and a true lover of the common- wealth ; for this he would seal with his blood." Rawleigh, on his return to his prison, while some were deploring his fate, observed that "the world itself is but a larger prison, out of which some are daily selected for execution." That last nif^at of his existence was occupied by writing what the letter-writer calls " a remembrancer to be left with his lady, to acquaint the world with his sentiments, should he be denied their delivery from the scatFold, as he had been at the bar of the King's Bench. His lady visited him that night, and amidst her tears acquainted him that she had obtained the favour of disposing of his body ; to which he answered smiling, " It is well, Bess, that thou mayst dispose of that, dead, thou hadst not alwaj's the disposing of when it was alive." At midnight he entreated her to leave him. It must have been then, that, with unshaken fortitude, Kawleigh sat down to compose those verses on his death, which being short, the most appropriate may be repeated. Even such is Time, tliat takes on trust Oui- youth, our joys, our all we have, And pays us but with age and dust ; Who in the dark and silent grave, "When we have wandered all our ways, Shuts up the story of our d.ays ! He has added two other lines expressive of his trust in his resurrection. Their authenticity is confirmed by the writer of the present letter, as well as another writer, enclosing " half a dozen verses, which Sir Walter made the night before his death, to take his farewell of poetry, wherein he had been a scribbler even from his youth." 'The enclosure is not now with the letter. Chamberlain, the writer, was an intelligent man of the world, but not imbued with any deep tincture of literature. On the same night Eawleigh wrote this distich on the candle burning dimly : — Cowards fear to die ; but courage stout, Eather than live in snufif, will be put out. of Sir Walter Raioleigh. 127 At this solemn moment, before he lay down to rest, and at the instant of parting from his lady, with all his domestic affec- tions still warm, to express his feelings in verse was with him a natural effusion, and one to which he had long been used. ]t is peculiar in the fate of Ivawleigh, that having before suffered a long imprisonment with an expectation of a public death, his mind had been accustomed to its contemplation, and had often dvvelt on the event which was now passing. The soul, in its sudden departure, and its future state, is often the subject of his few poems ; that most original one of " The Farewell," Go, soul ! the body's guest, Upon a thankless errand, &c. is attributed to Rawleigh, though on uncertain evidence. But another, entitled " The Pilgrimage," has this ]peautiful passage : — Give me my scallop-shell of quiet, My staff of truth to walk upon, My scrip of joy immortal diet; My bottle of salvation ; My gown of gloiy, Hope's true gage, And thus I'll take my pilgrimage — Whilst my soul, like a quiet jjalmer, Travelleth towards the laud of Heaven — Eawleigh's cheerfulness was so remarkable, and his fearless- ness of death so marked, that the Dean of Westminster, who attended him, at first wondering at the hero, reprehended the lightness of his manner, but Rawleigh gave God thanks that he had never feared death, for it was but an opinion and an imagination ; and as for the manner of death, he would ratlier die so than of a burning fever ; and that some might have made shows outwardly, but he felt the joy within. The dean says, that he made no more of his death than if he had been to take a journey : "Not," said he, " but that I am a great sinner, for I have been a soldier, a seaman, and a courtier." The writer of a manuscript letter tells us, that the dean declared he died not only religiously, but he found him to be a man as ready and as able to give as to take instruction. On the morning of his death he smoked, as usual, his fa- vourite tobacco, and when they brought him a cup of excellent sack, being asked how he liked it, liawleigh answered — "As the fellow, that, drinking of St. Giles's bowl, as he went to 128 Narrative of the Last Huurs Tyburn, said, ' that was good drink if a man naight tarry by ■it.' ''* The day before, in passing from Westminster Hall to the Gate-honse, his eye had caught Sir Hugh Beeston in the throng, and calling on him, Rawleigh requested that he would see him die to-morrow. Sir Hugh, to secure himself a seat on the scaffold, had provided himself with a letter to the sheriff', which was not read at the time, and Sir Walter found his friend thrust by, lamenting that he could not get there. " Farewell !" exclaimed Ei.wleigh, " I know not what shift you will make, but I am sure to have a place." In going from the prison to the scaffold, among others who were pressing hard to see him, one old. man, whose head was bald, came very forward, insomuch that Rawleigh noticed him, and asked "whether he would have aught of him ?" The old man answered — " Nothing but to see him, and to pray God for him." Rawleigh replied — ■" I thank thee, good friend, and I am sorry I have no better thing to return thee for thy good will." Observing his bald head, he continued, " but take this night-cap (which was a very rich wrought one that he wore), for thou hast more need of it now than T." His dress, as was usual with him, was elegant, if not rich.t Oldys describes it, but mentions, that " he had a wrought nightcap under his hat ; " this we have otherwise disposed of; he wore a ruff-band, a black wrought velvet night-gown over a hare-coloured satin doublet, and a black wrought waistcoat; black cut taflPety breeches, and ash-coloured silk stockings. He ascended the scaffold with the same cheerfulness as he liad passed to it ; and observing the lords seated at a distance, some at windows, he requested they would approach him, as he wished that they should all witness what he had to say. The request was complied with by several. His speech is well known ; but some copies contain matters not in others. When he finished, he requested Lord Arundel that the king would not suffer any libels to defame him after death. — "And now I have a long journey to go, and must take my leave." " He embraced all the lords and other friends with sucli courtly compliments, as if he had met them at some feast," * In the old time, when prisoners were conveyed from Newgate to Tyburn, they stopped about midway at the "Old Hospital," at St. Giles's- in-the-iields, "and," says Stow, "were presented with a great bowl of ale, thereof to drink at their pleasure, as to be their last refreshment in this life." + Rawleigh's love of dress is conspicuous in the early portraits of him we possess, and particularly so in the one engraved by Lodge. of Sir Walter llawleigh. 129 says a letter-writer. Having taken off his gown, he called to the headsman to show him the axe, which not being instantly- done, he repeated, " I prithee let me see it, dost thou think that I am afraid of it ? " He passed the edge lightly over his finger, and smiling, observed to the sheritF, " This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases," and kissing it laid it down. Another writer has, " This is that that will cure all sorrows." After this he went to three several corners of the scaffold, and kneeling down, desired all the people to pray for him, and recited a long prayer to himself. When he began to fit himself for the block, he first laid him- self down to try how the block fitted him ; after rising up, the executioner kneeled down to ask his forgiveness, which Eawleigh with an embrace gave, but entreated him not to strike till he gave a token by lifting up his hand, " and then, fear not, hut strike home I " When he laid his head down to receive the stroke, the executioner desired him to lay his face towards the east. " It was no great matter which way a man's head stood, so that the heart lay right," said Rawleigh ; but these were not his last words. He was once more to speak in this world with the same intrepidity he had lived in it — for, having lain some minutes on the block in prayer, he gave the signal ; but the executioner, either unmindful, or in fear, failed to strike, and Rawleigh, after once or twic putting forth his hands, was compelled to ask him, " Why dost thou not strike ? StrUve ! man ! " In two blows he was beheaded ; but frona the first his body never shrunk from the spot by any discomposure of his posture, which, like his mind, was immovable. " In all the time he was upon the scaffold, and before," says one of the manuscript letter-writers, " there appeared not the least alteration in him, either in his voice or counte- nance ; but he seemed as free from all manner of apprehension as if he had been come thither rather to be a spectator than a sufferer ; nay, the beliolders seemed much more sensible than did he, so that he hath purchased here in the opinion of men such honour and reputation, as it is thought his greatest enemies are they that are most sorrowful for his death, which they see is like to turn so nmch to his advantage." The people were deeply affected at the sight, and so much, that one said that "we had not such another head to cut oif; " and another " wished the head and brains to be upon Secre- tary Naunton's shoulders." The observer sufibrcd for this; TOL. III. Ji loO Tht last Hours of Sir Walter Rawleigh. he was a wealthy citizen, and great newsmonger, and one who haunted Paul's Walk. Complaint was made, and the citizen was summoned to the Privy Council. He pleaded that he intended no disrespect to Mr. Secretary, hut only spoke in reference to the old proverb, that " two heads were better than one ! " His excuse was allowed at the moment; but when afterwards called on for a contribution to St. Paul's Cathedral, and having subscribed a hundred pounds, the Secretary observed to him, that "two are better than one, Mr. Wiemark!" Either from fear or charity, the witty citizen doubled his subscription.* Thus died this glorious and gallant cavalier, of whom Osborne says, " His death was managed by him with so high and religious a resolution, as if a Eoman had acted a Christian, or rather a Christian a Koman." f After having read the preceding article, we are astonished at the greatness, and the variable nature of this extraordinary- man and this happy genius. With Gibbon, who once medi- tated to write his life, we may pause, and pronounce " his character ambiguous;" but we shall not hesitate to decide that Rawleigh knew better how to die than to live. " His glorious hours," says a contemporary, " were his arraignment and execution ; " but never will be forgotten the intermediate years of his lettered imprisonment ; the imprisonment of the learned may sometimes be their happiest leisure. * The general impression was so much in disfavour of this judicial murder, that James thought it politic to publish an 8vo pamphlet, in 1618, entitled, "A Declaration of the Demeanor and Cariage of Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight, as well in his Voyage, as in and sithence his Returne : and of the true motives and inducements which occasioned his Maiestie to proceed in doing justice upon him, as hath beene done." It takes the whole question apologetically of the licence given him to Guiana, "as his Majestie's honour was in a manner engaged, not to deny unto his people the adventure and hope of such great riches" as the mines of that island might yield. It afterwards details his proceedings there, which are iJ.eclared criminal, dangerous to l}is Majesty's allies, and an abuse of his commission. It ends by defending his execution, "because he could not bylaw be judicially called in question, for that his former attainder of treason is the highest and last worke of the law (whereby hee was civiliter mortuus) his Maiestie was enforced (except attainders should become priviledges for all subsequent offences) to resolve to have him executed upon his former attainder." f The chief particulars in this narrative are drawn from two manuscript letters of the day, in the Sloane Collection, under their respective dates, Nov. 3, 1618. Larkin to Sir Thos. Pickering; Oct. 13, 1618, Chamber- lain's letters. 131 LITERARY UNIONS. SECRET HISTORY OF RAWLEIGh's HISTORY OP THE WORLD, AND VASARl'S LIVES. A. TTSIO'S of talents, differing in their qualities, might eairv some important works to a more extended perfection. In "a work of great enterprise, the aid of a friendly hand may be absolutely necessary to complete the labours of the projector, who may have neither the courage, the leisure, nor all neces- sary acquisitions for performing the favourite task which he has otherwise matured. Many great works, commenced by a master-genius, have remained unfinished, or have been deficient for want of this friendly succour. The public would have been grateful to Johnson, had he united in his dic- tionary the labours of some learned etymologist. Speed's Chronicle owes most of its value, as it does its ornaments, to the hand of Sir Robert Cotton, and other curious researchers, who contributed entire portions. Goguet's esteemed work of the "Origin of the Arts and Sciences" was greatly indebted to the fraternal zeal of a devoted friend. The still valued books of the Port Royal Society were all formed by this happy union. The secret history of many eminent works would show the advantages which may be derived from that combination of talents, differing in their nature. Cumber- land's masterly versions of the fragments of the Greek dramatic poets would never have been given to the poetical world, had he not accidentally possessed the manuscript notes of his relative, the learned Bentley. This treasure supplied that research in the most obscure works, which the volatile studies of Cumberland could never have explored ; a circum- stance which he concealed from the world, proud of the Greek erudition which he thus cheaply possessed. Yet by this literary union, Bentley's vast erudition made those researches which Cumberland could not ; and Cumberland gave the nation a copy of the domestic drama of Greece, of which Bentley was incapable. There is a large work, which is still celebrated, of which the composition has excited the astonishment even of the philosophic Hume, but whose secret history remains yet to be disclosed. This extraordinary volume is " The Histor}' of the World by Rawleigh." I shall transcribe Hume's ol>ser- vations, that the reader may observe theliterarv phenomenon. ' k2 \?)2 Literary Unions. "They were struck with the extensive genius of the man, who being educated amidst naval and military enterprises, Jiad surpassed in the pursuits of literature, even those of the most recluse and sedentary lives; and they admired his unbroken magnanimity, which at his age, and under his cir- cumstances, could engage him to undertake and execute so great a work, as his History of the World." Now when the truth is known, the wonderful in this literary mystery will disappear, except in the eloquent, the grand, and the pathetic passages interspersed in that venerable volume. We may, indeed, pardon the astonishment of our calm philosopher, when we consider the recondite matter contained in this work, and recollect the little time which this adventurous spirit, whose life was passed in fabricating his own fortune, and in perpetual enterprise, could allow to such erudite pui'suits. Where could Rawleign obtain that familiar acquaintance with the rabbins, of whose language he was probably entirely ignorant ? His numerous publications, the effusions of a most active mind, though excellent in their kind, were evidently composed by one who was not abstracted in curious and remote inquiries, but full of the daily business and the wisdom of human life. His confinement in the Tower, which lasted several years, was indeed sufficient for the composition of this folio volume, and of a second which appears to have occupied him. But in that imprisonment it singularly happened that he lived among literary characters with most intimate friendship. There he joined the Earl of Northum- berland, the patron of the philosophers of his age, and with whom Kawleigh pursued his chemical studies ; and Serjeant Hoskins, a poet and a wit, and the poetical " father " of Ben Joiison, who acknowledged that " It was Hoskins who had polished him ;" and that Ravvleigh often consulted Hoskins on his literary works, I learn from a manuscript. But however literary the atmosphere of the Tower proved to Rawleigh, no particle of Hebrew, and perhaps little of Grecian lore, floated from a chemist and a poet. The truth is, that the collection of the materials of this history was the labour of several persons, who have not all been discovered. It has been ascertained that Ben Jonson was a considerable contri- butor; and there was an English philosopher from whom Descartes, it is said even by his own countrymen, borrowed lai-gely — Thomas Hariot, whom Anthony Wood charges with infusing into Rawleigh's volume philosophical notions, while Literary Unions. 133 Rawleigla was composing his History of the World. But if Ravvleigh's pursuits surpassed even those of the most recluse and sedentary lives, as Hume observes, we must attribute this to a " Dr. Robert Burrel, Rector of Northwald, in the county of Norfolk, who was a great favourite of Sir Walter Rawleigh, and had been his chaplain. All, or the greatest part of the drudgery of Sir Walter's History for criticisms, chronology, and reading Greek and Hebrew authors, was performed by him for Sir Walter." * Thus a simple fact, when discovered, clears up the whole mystery ; and we learn how that knowledge was acquired, which, as Hume sa- gaciously detected, required " a recluse and sedentary life," such as the studies and the habits of a country clergyman would have been in a learned age. The secret history of another work, still more celebrated than the History of the World, by Sir Walter Rawleigh, will doubtless surpinse its numerous admirers. Without the aid of a friendly hand, we should probably have been deprived of the delightful History of Artists by Vasari : although a mere painter and goldsmith, and not a literary man, Vasari was blessed with the nice discernment of one deeply conversant with art, and saw rightly what was to be done, when the idea of the work was suggested by the celebrated Paulas Jovius as a supplement to his own work of the " Eulogiums of Illustrious Men." Vasari approved of the * I draw my information from a very singular manuscript in the Lans- downe collection, which I think has been mistaken for a boy's ciphering book, of which it has much the appearance, No. 741, fo. 57, as it stauds iu the auctioneer's catalogue. It appears to be a collection closely written, extracted out of Anthony Wood's papers ; and as I have discovered in the manuscript numerous notices not elsewhere preserved, I am inclined to think that the transcriber copied them from that mass of Anthony Wood's l^apers, of which more than one sackful was burnt at his desire before him when dying. If it be so, this MS. is the only register of many curious facts. Ben Jouson has been too freely censured for his own free censures, and particularly for one he made on Sir Walter Kawleigh, who, he told Drum- mond, " esteemed more fame than conscience. The best wits in England were employed in making his History ; Ben himself had written a piece to him of the Punic War, which he altered and set in his book." Jonson's powerful advocate, Mr. Gifloi-d, has not alleged a word in the defence of our great bard's free conversational strictures ; the secret history of Rawleigh's great work had never been discovered ; on this occasion, how- ever, Jonson only spoke what he knew to be true — and there may have been other truths, in those conversations which were set down at random by Drummond, who may have chiefly recollected the satirical touches. 134 Literary Unions. project; but on that occasion judiciously observed, not blinded by tlie celebrity of the literary man who projected it, that " It would require the assistance of an artist to collect the materials, and arrange them in their proper order ; for although Jovius displayed great knowledge in his observa- tions, yet he had not been equally accurate in the arrange- ment of his facts in his book of Eulogiums." Afterwards, when Vasari began to collect his information, and consulted Paulus Jovius on the plan, although that author highly approved of what he saw, he alleged his own want of leisui-e and ability to complete such an enterprise ; and this was for- tunate : we should otherwise have had, instead of the rambling spirit which charms us in the volumes of Vasari, the verbose babble of a declaimer. Vasari, however, looked round for the assistance he wanted ; a circumstance which Tiraboschi has not noticed : like Hogarth, he required a literary m.an for his scribe. I have discovered the name of the chief writer of the Lives of the Painters, who wrote under the direction of Vasari, and probably often used his own natural style, and conveyed to us those reflections which surely come from their source. I shall give the passage, as a curious in- stance where the secret history of books is often detected in the most obscure corners of research. Who could have ima- gined that in a collection of the lives de' Sanii e Beati delV Ordine de' Fredicatori, we are to look for the writer of Vasari' s lives ? Don Serafini Eazzi, the author of this eccle- siastical biography, has this reference : " Who would see more of this may turn to the Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, ivritten for the greater part hy Don Silvano Razzi, my brother, for the Signor Cavaliere M. Giorgio Vasari, his great friend."* The discovery that Vasari's volumes were not entirely written by himself, though probably under his dictation, and unquestionably, with his communications, as we know that Dr. Morell wrote the " Analysis of Beauty" for Hogarth, will perhaps serve to clear up some unaccountable mistakes or * I find this quotation in a sort of polemical work of natural philosopliy, entitled "Saggio di Storia Litteraria Fiorentina del Secolo XVII. da Giovanne Clemente Nelli," Lucca, 1759, p. 58. Nelli also refers to what he had said on this subject in his Piante ad alzati di S. M. del Fiore, p. vi. e vii. ; a work on architecture. See Brunet ; and Haym, Bib. Ital. de I/ihri rari Literary Unions. 135 omissions wliicli appear in that series of volumes, written at long intervals, and by different hands. Mr. Fuseli has alluded to them in utter astonishment ; and cannot account for Vasari's " incredible dereliction of reminiscence, which prompted him to transfer what he had rightly ascribed to Giorgione in one edition to the elder Parma in the subsequent ones." Again : " Vasari's memory was either so treacherous, or his rapidity in writing so inconsiderate, that his account of the Capella Sistina, and the stanze of RafiPaello, is a mere heap of errors and unpardonable confusion." Even Bottari, his learned editor, is at a loss how to account for his mis- takes. Mr. Fuseli finely observes — " He has been called the Herodotus of our art ; and if the main simplicity of his narra- tive, and the desire of heaping anecdote on anecdote, entitle him in some degree to that appellation, we ought not to forget that the information of every day adds something to the authenticity of the Greek historian, whilst every day fur- nishes matter to question the credibility of the Tuscan." All this strongly confirms the suspicion that Vasari employed different hands at difierent times to write out his work. Such mistakes would occur to a new writer, not always conversant with the svibject he was composing on, and the disjointed materials of which were often found in a disordered state. It is, however, strange that neither Bottari nor Tiraboschi appears to have been aware that Vasari employed others to write for him ; we see that from the first suggestion of the work he had originally proposed that Paulus Jovius should hold the pen for him. The principle illustrated in this article might be pursued ; but the secret history of two great works so well known is as sufficient as twenty others of writings less celebrated. The literary phenomenon which had puzzled the calm inquiring Hume to cry out " a miracle !" has been solved by the dis- covery of a little fact on Literary Unions, which derives im- portance from this cu'cumstance.* * Mr. Patrick Fraser Tytleb, in his recent biography of Sir Walter Rawleigh, a work of vigorous research and elegant composition, has dedi- cated to me a supernumerary article in his Appendix, entitled Mr. D'' Israeli's Errors! He has inferred from the present article, that I denied that Rawleigh ■was the writer of liis own great work ! — because I have shown how great works maybe advantageously pursued by the aid of "Literary Union." It is a monstrous inference ! The chimera which plays before his eyes is 136 OF A BIOGRAPHY PAINTED. Theee are objects connected with literary curiosity, whose very history, though they may never gratify our sight, is literary ; and the originality of their invention, should they excite imitation, may serve to constitute a class. I notice a book-curiosity of this natu'-e. This extraordinary volume may be said to have contained the travels and adventures of Charles Magius, a noble Vene- tian ; and this volume, so precious, consisted only of eighteen pages, composed of a series of highly-finished miniature paint- ings on vellum, some executed by the hand of Paul Veronese. Each page, however, may be said to contain many chapters ; for, generally, it is composed of a large centre-piece, sur- rounded by ten small ones, with many apt inscriptions, alle- gories, and allusions ; the whole exhibiting romantic incidents in the life of this Venetian nobleman. But it is not merely as a beautiful production of art that we are to consider it ; it becomes associated with a more elevated feeling in the occasion which produced it. The author, who is himself the hero, after having been long calumniated, resolved to set be- fore the eyes of his accusers the sufferings and adventures he could perhaps have but indifferently described : and instead of composing a tedious volume for his justification, invented this new species of pictorial biography. The author minutely described the remarkable situations in which fortune had placed him ; and the artists, in embellishing the facts he fur- nished them with to record, emulated each other in giving life to their truth, and putting into action, before the spec- tator, incidents which the pen had less impressivelj^ exhibited. This unique production may be considered as a model to re- present the actions of those who may succeed more fortu- nately by this new mode of perpetuating their history ; dis- covering, by the aid of the pencil, rather than by their pen, the forms and colours of an extraordinary life. his own contrivance ; he starts at his own phantasmagoria, and leaves me, after all, to fight with his shadow. Mr. Tytler fias not contradicted a single statement of mine. I have carefully read his article and my own, and I have made no alteration. I may be allowed to add that there is much redundant matter in the article of Mr. Tytler; and, to use the legal style, there is much "imper- tinence," which, with a little candour and more philosophy, he would strike his pen through, as sound lawyers do on these occasions. Of a Biography Painted. 137 It was when the Ottomans (about 1571) attacked tlie Islo of Cyprus, that tins Venetian nobleman was charged by his republic to review and repair the fortifications. He was afterwards sent to the pope to negociate an alliance : he re- turned to the senate to give an account of his commission. Invested with the chief command, at the head of his troops, Magius threw himself into the island of Cyprus, and after a skilful defence, which could not prevent its i'all, at Famagusta he was taken prisoner by the Turks, and made a slave. His age and infirmities -induced his master, at length, to sell him to some Christian merchants ; and after an absence of several years from his beloved Venice, he suddenly appeared, to the astonishment and mortification of a pai'ty who had never ceased to calumniate him ; while his own noble family were compelled to preserve an indignant silence, having had no communications with their lost and enslaved relative. Magius now returned to vindicate his honour, to reinstate himself in the favour of the senate, and to be restored to a venerable parent amidst his family ; to whom he introduced a fresh branch, in a youth of seven years old, the child of his misfor- tunes, who, born in trouble, and a stranger to domestic endearments, was at one moment united to a beloved circle of relations. I shall give a rapid view of some of the pictures of this Venetian nobleman's life. The whole series has been elabo- rately drawn up by the Duke de la Valliere, the celebrated book-collector, who dwells on the detail with the curiosity of an amateur.* In a rich frontispiece, a Christ is expiring on the cross ; Religion, leaning on a column, contemplates the Divinity, and Hope is not distant from her. The genealogical tree of the house of Magius, with an allegorical representation of Venice, its nobility, power, and rich(!s : the arms of Magius, in which is inserted a view of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, of which he was made a knight ; his portrait, with a Latin inscription : " I have passed through arms and the enemy, amidst fire and water, and the Lord conducted me to a safe * The Duke's description is not to be found, as might be expected, in his own valued catalogue, but was a contribution to Gaignat"s, ii. ](>, where it occupies fourteen pages. This singular work sold at Gaignat's sale for 902 livres. It was then the golden age of literary curiosity, when the rarest things were not ruinous ; and that price was even then con.si- dered extraordinary, though the work was an unique. It must consist of about 180 subjects, by Italian artists. 133 Of a Biography Painted. as3-lum, in the year of grace 1571." The portrait of his son, aged seven years, finished with the greatest beauty, and sup- posed to have come from the hand of Paul Veronese ; it bears this inscription : " Overcome by violence and artifice, almost dead before his birth, his mother was at length delivered of him, full of life, with all the loveliness of in- fancy ; under the divine protection, his birth was happy, and his life with greater ha,ppiness shall be closed with good fortune." A plan of the Isle of Cyprus, where Magius commanded, and his first misfortune happened, his slavery by the Turks. — The painter has expressed this by an emblem of a tree shaken by the winds and scathed by the lightning; but from the trunk issues a beautiful green branch shining in a brilliant sun, with this device — " From this fallen trunk springs a branch full of vigour." The missions of Magius to raise troops in the province of La Puglia. — In one of these Magius is seen returning tb Venice ; his final departure, — a thunderbolt is viewed falling on his vessel — his passage by Corfu and Zante, and his arrival at Candia. His travels to Egypt. — The centre figure represents this province raising its right hand extended towards a palm-tree, and the left leaning on a pyramid, inscribed " Celebrated throughout the world for her wonders." The smaller pic- tures are the entrance of Magius into the port of Alexandria ; Eosetta, with a caravan of Turks and different nations ; the city of Grand Cairo, exterior and interior, with views of other places ; and finally, his return to Venice. His journey to Rome. — The centre figure an armed Pallas seated on trophies, the Tyber beneath her feet, a globe in her hands, inscribed Quod rerum victrix ac domina — " Because she is the Conqueress and Mistress of the V/orld." The ten small pictures are views of the cities in the pope's dominion. His first audience at the conclave forms a pleasing and fine composition. His travels into Syria. — The principal figure is a female, emblematical of that fine country ; she is seated in the midst of a gay orchard, and embraces a bundle of roses, inscribed Mundi delicicB — " The delight of the universe." The small compartments are views of towns and ports, and the spot where Magius collected his fleet. His pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he was made a knight Of a Biography Painied. 139 of the Holy Sepulchre. — The principal figure represents Devo- tion, inscribed Ducit — " It is she who conducts me." The Bompartments exhibit a variety of objects, with a correctness of drawing whicli is described as belonging to the class, and partaking of the charms of the pencil of Claude Lorraine. His vessel is first viewed in the roadstead at Venice beat by a storm ; arrives at Zante to refresh ; enters the port of Simiso ; there having landed, he and his companions are pro- ceeding to the town on asses, for Christians were not per- mitted to travel in Turkey on horses. In the church at Jerusalem the bishop, in his pontifical habit, receives him as a knight of the Holy Sepulchre, arraying him in the armour of Godfrey of Bouillon, and placing his sword in the hands of Magius. His arrival at Bethlehem, to see the cradle of the Lord — and his return by Jaffa with his companions, in the dress of pilgrims ; the groups are finely contrasted with the Turks mingling amongst them. The taking of the city of Famagusta, and his slavery. — The middle figure, with a dog at its feet, represents Fidelity, the character of Magius, who ever preferred it to his life or his freedom, inscribed Captivat — " She has reduced me to slavery." Six smaller pictures exhibit the different points of the island of Cyprus where the Turks effected their descents. Magius retreating to Famagusta, which he long defended, and where his cousin, a skilful engineer, was killed. The Turks compelled to raise the siege, but return with greater forces — • the sacking of the town and the palace, where Magius was taken. — One picture exhibits him brought before a bashaw, who has him stripped, to judge of his strength and fix his price, when, after examination, he is sent among other slaves. He is seen bound and tied up among his companions in mis- fortune — again he is forced to labour, and carries a cask of water on his shoulders.— In another picture, his master, find- ing him weak of body, conducts him to a slave-merchant to sell him. In another we see him leading an ass loaded with packages ; his new master, finding him loitering on his way, showers his blows on him, while a soldier is seen purloining one of the packages from the ass. Another exhibits Magius sinking with fatigue on the sands, while his master would raise him up by an unsparing use of the bastinado. The varied details of these little paintings are pleasingly executed. The close of his slavery. — The middle figure kneeling to Heaven, and a light breaking from it, inscribed, " He breaks 110 Of a Biography Painted, my chains," to expiess tlie confidence of Magius. The Turlcg are seen landing with their pillage and their slaves. — In one of the pictures are seen two ships on fire ; a young lady of Cyprus preferring death to the loss of her honour and the m'ii^eries of slavery, determined to set fire to the vessel in which she was carried ; she succeeded, and the flames com- municated to another. His return to Venice. — The painter for his principal figure has chosen a Pallas, with a helmet on her head, the aegis on one arm, and her lance in the other, to describe the courage with which Magius had supported his misfortunes, inscribed Rediicit — " She brings me back." In the last of the com- partments he is seen at the custom-house at Venice ; he enters the house of his father ; the old man hastens to meet him, and embraces him. One page is filled by a single picture, which represents the senate of Venice, with the Doge on his throne ; Magius pre- sents an account of his different employments, and holds in his hand a scroll, on which is written, Quod commisisti per- feci ; quod restat agendum, pare Jide complectar — "I have done what you committed to my care ; and I will perform with the same fidelity what remains to be done." He is received by the senate with the most distinguished honours, and is not only justified, but praised and honoured. The most magnificent of these paintings is the one attri- buted to Paul Veronese. It is described by the Duke de la Valliere as almost unparalleled for its richness, its elegance, and its brilliancy. It is inscribed Fater mens et fratres mei dereliquerunt me; Dominus autem assumpsit me! — "My father and my brothers abandoned me ; but the Lord took me under his protection." This is an allusion to the accu- sation raised against him in the open senate when the Turks took the Isle of C3'prus, and his family wanted either the confidence or the courage to defend Magius. In the front of this large picture, Magius leading his son by the hand, con- ducts him to be reconciled with his brothers and sisters-in- law, who are on the opposite side ; his hand holds this scroll, Vos cogitastis de me malum; sed Deus convertit illud in honum — " You thought ill of me ; but the Lord has turned it to good." In this he alludes to the satisfaction he had given the senate, and to the honours they had decreed him. Another scene is introduced, where Magius appears in a mag- nificent hall at a table in the midst of all his family, with Cause and Pretext. 141 whom a general reconciliation has taken place : on his left hand are gardens opening with an enchanting effect, and magnificently ornamented, with the villa of his father, on which flowers and wreaths seem dropping on the roof, as if from heaven. In the perspective, the landscape probably represents the rural neighbourhood of Magius's early days. Such are the most interesting incidents which I have selected from the copious description of the Duke de la Val- liere. The idea of this production is new : an autobiography in a series of remarkable scenes, painted under the eye of the describer of them, in which, too, he has preserved all tlie fulness of his feelings and his minutest recollections ; but the novelty becomes interesting from the character of the noble Magius, and the romantic fancy which inspired this elabo- rate and costly curiosity. It was not, indeed, without some trouble that I have drawn up this little account ; but while thus employed, I seemed to be composing a very uncommon romance. CAUSE AND PRETEXT, It is an important principle in morals and in politics, not to mistake the cause for the pretext, nor the pretext for the cause, and by this means to distinguish between the con- cealed and the ostensible motive. On this principle, history might be recomposed in a new manner ; it would not often describe circumstances and characters as they usually appear. When we mistake the characters of men, we mistake the nature of their actions ; and we shall find in the study of secret history, that some of the most important events in modern history were produced from very difierent motives than their ostensible ones. Polybius, the most philosophical writer of the ancients, has marked out this useful distinction of cause and pretext, and aptly illustrates the observation by the facts which he explains. Amilcar, for instance, was the first author and contriver of the second Punic war, though he died ten years before the commencement of it. " A states- man," says the wise and grave historian, " who knows not how to trace the orisfin of events, and discern the different sources from whence they take their rise, may be compared to a physician who neglects to inform himself of the causes of those distempers which he is called in to cure. Our pains can never be better employed than in searching out the causes 1 42 Cause and Pretext. of events ; for the most trifling incidents give birth to matters of the greatest moment and importance." The latter part of this remark of Polybius points out another principle which has been often verified by history, and which furnished the materials of the little book of " Grands Evenemeus par les petites Causes." Our present inquiry concerns " cause and pretext." Leo X. projected an allirnce of the sovereigns of Christen- dom against the Turks. The avowed object was to oppose the progress of the Ottomans against the Mamelukes of Egypt, who were more friendly to the Christians ; but the con- cealed motive with his holiness was to enrich himself and his family with the spoils of Christendom, and to aggrandise the papal throne by war ; and such, indeed, the policy of these pontiffs had always been in those mad crusades which they excited against the East. The Reformation, excellent as its results have proved in the cause of genuine freedom, originated in no purer source than human passions and selfish motives : it was the progeny of avarice in Germany, of novelty in France, and of love in England. The latter is elegantly alluded to by Gray — And gospel-light first beam'd from BuUen's eyes. The E,eformation is considered by the Duke of Nevers, in a \vork printed in 1590, as it had been by Francis I., in his Apology in 1537, as a coup-d'etat of Charles V. towards uni- versal monarchy. The duke says, that the emperor silently permitted Luther to establish his principles in Germany, that they might split the confederacy of the elective princes, and by this division facilitate their more easy conquest, and play them off' one against another, and by these means to secure the imperial crown hereditary in the house of Austria. Had Charles V. not been the mere creature of his politics, and had he felt any zeal for the Catholic cause, which he pretended to fight for, never would he have allowed the new doctrines to spread for more than twenty years without the least oppo- sition. The famous League in France was raised for '• religion and the relief of public grievances;" such was the pretext! After the princes and the peojjle had alike become its victims, this "league" was discovered to have been formed b}' the pride and the anibition of the Guises, aided by the machina- tions uf the Jesuits against the attempts of the Prince of Cause and Pretext. ] ^3 Conde to dislodge them from their " seat of power." While the Huguenots pillaged, burnt, and massacred, declaring in their manifestoes that they were only fighting to release the king, whom they asserted was a prisoner of the Guises, the Catholics repaid them with the same persecution and the same manifestoes, declaring that they only wished to liberate tlie Prince of Conde, who was the prisoner of the Hugue- nots. The people were led on by the cry of " religion ;" but this civil war was not in reality so much Catlioiic against Huguenot, as Guise against Conde. A parallel event oc- curred between our Charles I. and the Scotch Covenanters ; and the king expressly declared, in " a large declaration, concerning the late tumults in Scotland," that "religion is only pretended, and used by them as a cloak to palliate their intended rebellion," which he demonstrated by the facts he alleged. There was a revolutionary party in France, which, taking the name of Frondeurs, shook that kingdom under the administration of Cardinal Mazarin, and held out for their pretext the public freedom. But that faction, composed of some of the discontented French princes and the mob, was entirely organized by Cardinal de Retz, who held them in hand, to check or to spur them as the occasion required, from a mere personal pique against Mazarin, who had not treated that vivacious genius with all the deference he exacted. This appears from his own Memoirs. We have smiled at James I. threatening the States-general by the English ambassador, about Vor&tius, a Dutch pro- fessor, who had espoused the doctrines of Arminius against those of the contra-remonstrants, or Calvinists ; the osten- sible subject was religious, or rather metaphysical-religious doctrines, but the concealed one was a struggle for predomi- nance between the Pensionary Barnevelt, assisted by the French interest, and the Prince of Orange, supported by the English, " These were the real sources," says Lord Hard- wicke, a statesman and a man of letters, deeply conversant with secret and public history, and a far more able judge than Diodati the Swiss divine, and Brandt the ecclesiastical histo- rian, who in the synod of Dort could see nothing but wliat appeared in it, and gravely narrated the idle squabbles on phrases concerning predestination or grace. Hales, of Eaton, who was secretary to the English ambassador at this synod, perfectly accords with the account of Lord Hard- wicke. "Our synod," writes that judicious observer, "goes 14 i' Political Forgeries and Fictions. on like a watch ; the main wheels upon which tlie whole business turns are least in sight ; for all things of moment are acted in private sessions ; what is done in public is only for show and entertainment.^^ The cause of the pe-rsecution of the Jansenists was the jealousy of the Jesuits ; the pretext was la grace siiffisante. The learned La Croze observes, that the same circumstance occurred in the affair of Nestorius and the church of Alex- andria ; the pretext was orthodoxy, the cause was the jea- lousy of the church of Alexandria, or rather the fiery and turbulent Cyril, who personally hated Nestorius. The opi- nions of Nestorius, and the council which condemned them, were the same in effect. I only produce this remote fact to prove that ancient times do not alter the truth of our prin- ciple. When James II. was so strenuous an advocate for tolera- tion and liberty of conscience in removing the Test Act, thia enlightened principle of government was only ^pretext with that monk-ridden monarch ; ifc is well known that the cause was to introduce and make the Catholics predominant m his councils and government. The result, which that eager and blind politician hm-ried on tou fast, and which therefore did not take place, would have been that "liberty of con- science" would soon have become an " overt act of treason" before an inquisition of his Jesuits ! In all political affairs drop the pretexts and strike at the causes ; we may thus understand what the heads of parties may choose to conceal. POLITICAL FOEGERIES AND FICTIONS. A WRTTEE, whose learning gives value to his eloquence, in his Bampton Lectures has censured, with that liberal spirit so friendly to the caxise of truth, the calumnies and rumours of parties, whicJi are still industriously retailed, though they have been often confuted. Forged documents are still re- ferred to, or tales unsupported by evidence are confidently quoted. Mr. Hebcr's subject confined his inquiries to theo- logical history ; he has told us that " Augustin is not ashamed, in his dispute with Faustus, to take advantage of the popular slanders against the followers of Manes, though his own experience (for he had himself been of that sect) was Political Forgeries and Fictions. \Vj sufficient to detect this falsehood." The Eomanists, in .spite of satisfactory answers, have continued to urge against tlie EngHsh protestant the romance of Parker's consecration ;* while the protestant persists in falsely imputing to the catholic public formularies the systematic omission of the second commandment. "The calumnies of Rimius and Stinstra against the Moravian brethren are cases in point," continues Mr. Heber. " No one now believes them, yet they once could deceive even Wavburton !" We may also add the obsolete calumny of Jews crucifying boys — of which a mo- nument raised to Hugh of Lincoln perpetuates the memory, and which a modern historian records without any scruple of doubt ; several authorities, which are cited on this occasion, amount only to the single one of Matthew Paris, who gives it as a popular rumour. Such accusations usually hap- pened when the Jews were too rich and the king was too poor !t The falsehoods and forgeries raised by parties are over- whelming ! It startles a philosopher, in the calm of his study, when he discovers how writers, who, we may pre- sume, are searchers after truth, should, in fact, turn out to be searchers after the grossest fictions. This alters the habits of the literary man : it is an unnatural depravity of his pursuits — and it proves that the personal is too apt to predominate over the literary character. I have already touched on the main point of the present article in the one on " Political Nicknames." I have there shown how political calumny appears to have been reduced into an art ; one of its branches would be that of converting forgeries and fictions into historical authorities. When one nation is at war with another, there is no doubt that the two governments connive at, and often encourage, tlie most atrocious libels on each other, to madden the people to * Absurdly reported to have taken place at a meeting in the Nag's- head Tavern, Cheapside. + M. Michel published in Paris, in 1834, a collection of poems and ba,llads concerning Hugh of Lincoln, which were all very popular at home and abroad in the Middle Ages. One of these, preserved in an Anglo- Norman MS. in the Bibliothcque Royale at Paris, was evidently constructed to be sung by the people soon after the event, which is stated to have hap- pened in the reign of our Henry III. ; but there are many ballads compa- ratively naodern which show how carefully the story was kept before the populace ; and may be seen in the collections of Bishop Percy, Jameson, Motherwell, &c. VOL. III. 1a 14G Political Forgeries and Fictions. preserve their independence, and contribute cheerfully to the expenses of the war. France and England formerly com- plained of Holland — the Athenians employed the same policy against the Macedonians and Persians. Such is the origin of a vast number of supposititious papers and volumes, which sometimes, at a remote date, confound the labours of the honest historian, and too often serve the purposes of the dis- honest, with whom they become authorities. The crude and suspicious libels which were drawn out of their obscurity in Ci'omwell's time against James the First have overloaded the character of that monarch, yet are now eagerly referred to by party writers, though in their own da3's they were obsolete and doubtful. During the civil wai's of Charles the First such spurious documents exist in the forms of speeches which were never spoken ; of letters never written by the names subscribed ; printed declarations never declared ; battles never fought, and victories never obtained ! Such is the language of Rushworth, who complains of this evil spirit of party Ibr- geries, while he is himself suspected of having rescinded or suppressed whatever was not agreeable to his patron Crom- well. A curious, and perhaps a necessary list might be drawn up of political forgeries of our own, which have been sometimes referred to as genuine, but which are the inven- tions of wits and satirists ! Bayle ingeniously observes, that at the close of every century such productions should be branded by a skilful discriminator, to save the future inquirer from errors he can hardly avoid. " How many are still kept in error by the satires of the sixteenth century ! Tliose of the present age will be no less active in future ages, for they will still be preserved in public libraries." The art and skill with which some have fabricated a forged narrative render its detection almost hopeless. When young Maitland, the brother to the secretary, in order to palliate the crime of the assassination of the Regent Murray, was employed to draw up a pretended conference between him, Knox, and others, to stigmatise them by the odium of advising to dethrone the young monarch, and to substitute the regent for their sovereign, Maitland produced so drainatic a perform- ance, by giving to each person his pecidiar mode of expression, that this circumstance long baffled the incredulity of those who could not in consequence deny the truth of a narrative apparently so correct in its particulars ! " The fiction of the warming-pan enclosing the young Pretender brovight more Political Forgeries and Fictions. 147 adherents to the cause of the Whigs than the Bill of Rights," observes Lord John Russell. Among such party narratives, the horrid tale of the bloody- Colonel Kirk has been worked up by Hume with all his elo- quence and pathos ; and, from its interest, no suspicion has arisen of its truth. Yet, so far as it concerns Kirk, or the reign of James the Second, or even English history, it is, as Ritson too honestly expresses it, " an impudent and a bai-e- faced lie !" The simple fact is told by Kennet in a ^kiw words: ha probably was aware of the nature of this political fiction. Hume was not, indeed, himself the fabricator of the tale ; but he had not any historical authority. The origin of this fable was probably a pious fraud of the Whig party, to whom Kirk had rendered himself odious ; at that moment stoi'ies still more terrifying were greedily swallowed, and which, Rit- son insinuates, have become a part of the history of England. The original story, related more circumstantially, though not more afi'ectingly, nor perhaps more truly, may be found in Wanley's " Wonders of the Little World,"* which I give, relieving it from the tediousness of old Wanley. A governor of Zealand, under the bold Duke of Burgundy, had in vain sought to seduce the affections of the beautiful wife of a citizen. The governor imprisons the husband on an accusation of treason ; and when the wife appeared as the suppliant, the governor, after no brief eloquence, succeeded as a lovei', on the plea that her husband's life could only be spared by her compliance. The woman, in tears and in aversion, and not without a hope of vengeance only delayed, lost her honour ! Pointing to the prison, the governor told her, " If you seek your husband, enter there, and take him along with you !" The wife, in the bitterness of her thoughts, yet not without the consolation that she had snatched her husband from the grave, passed into the prison ; there in a coll, to her astonishment and horror, she beheld the corpse of her hus- band laid out in a coffin, ready for burial ! Mourning over it, she at length returned to the governor, fiercely' exclaiming, " You have kept your word! you have restored to me my husband! and be assured the favour shall be repaid!" The inhuman villain, terrified in the presence of his intrepid vic- tim, attempted to appease her vengeance, and more, to win her to his wishes. Returning home, she assembled her frienda, * Bookiii. ch. 29, sec. 18. 1.2 148 Political Forgeries and Fictions. Revealed lier whole story, and under their protection she appealed to Charles the Bold, a strict lover of justice, and who low awarded a singular but an exemplary catastrophe. The duke first commanded that the criminal governor should instantly marry the woman whom he had made a widow, and at the same time sign his will, with a clause importing that should he die before his lady he constituted her his heiress. AH this was concealed from both sides, rather to satisfy the duke than the parties themselves. This done, the unhappy woman was dismissed alone ! The governor was conducted to the prison to suffer the same death he had inflicted on the husband of his wife ; and when this lady was desired once more to enterthe prison, she beheld her second husband headless in his coffin as she had her first ! Such extraordinary inci- dents in so short a period overpowered the feeble frame of the sufferer; she died — leaving a son, who inherited the rich accession of fortune so fatally obtained by his injured and suffering mother. Such is the tale of which the party story of Kirk appeared to Ritson to have been a rifacimento ; but it is rather the foundation than the superstructure. This critic was right in the general, but not in the particular. It was not necessary to point out the present source, when so many others of a parallel nature exist. This tale, universally told, Mr. Douce considers as the origin of Pleasure for Measure, and was probably some traditional event ; for it appears sometimes with a change of names and places, without any of incident. It always turns on a soldier, a brother or a husband, executed; and a wife, a sister, a deceived victim, to save them from death. It was, therefore, easily transferred to Kirk, and Pomfret's poem of " Cruelty and Lust" long made the story popular. It could only have been in this form that it reached the his- torian, who, it must be observed, introduces it as a " story commonly told of him ;" but popular tragic romances should not enter into the dusty documents of a history of England, and much less be particularly specified in the index ! Belle- forest, in his old version of the tale, has even the circumstance of the " captain, who having seduced the wife under the pro- mise to save her husband's life, exhibited him soon afterwards through the loindow of her apartment suspended on a gibhet.''^ This forms the horrid incident in the history of " the bloody Colonel," and served the purpose of a party, who wished to bury him in odium. Kirk was a soldier of fortune, and a loose Political Forgeries and Fictions. 149 liver, and ii great blusterer, who would sometimes threaten to decimate his own regiment, but is said to have forgotten tlie menacethe next day. Hateful as such military men will always be, in the present instance Colonel Kirk has been shamefully calumniated by poets and historians, who suffer themselves to be duped by the forgeries of political parties !* While we are detecting a source of error into which tli(i party feelings of modern historians may lead them, let us confess that they are far more valuable than the ancient ; for to us at least the ancients have written history without producing authorities ! Modern historians must furnish their readers with the truest means to become their critics, by providing them with their authorities ; and it is only by judi- ciously appreciating these that we may confidently accept their discoveries. Unquestionably the ancients have often introduced into their histories many tales similar to the story of Kirk — popular or party forgeries ! The mellifluous co- piousness of Livy conceals many a tale of wonder ; the graver of Tacitus etches many a fatal stroke; and the secret history of Suetonius too often raises a suspicion of those whispers, Quid rex in aurem regincB dixerit, quid Juno fabiolata sit cum Jove. It is certain that Plutarch has often told, and varied too in the telling, the same story, which he has applied to different persons. A critic in the Ritsonian style has said of the grave Plutarch, Mendax ille Plutarchus qui vitas orato- rum, dolls et erroribus consutas, olim conscrihMavit.f " That lying Plutarch, who formerly scribbled the lives of the orators, made up of falsities and blunders!" There is in Italian a scarce book, of a better design than execution, of the Abbate JjajnceWotii, Farfalloni degli Antichi Uistorici. — " Flim-flams of the Ancients." Modern historians have to dispute their passage to immortality step by step ; and however fervid be their eloquence, their real test as to value must be brought to the humble references in their margin. Yet these must not * A story still more absurd was connected with the name of Colonel Lunsford, a soldier who consistently defended Charles I., and was killed in 16i3. It is related by Echard as reported of him, that he would kill and eat the children of the opposite party. This horridly grotesque imputa- tion has been preserved in the political ballads and poetry of tlie day. Cleveland ridicules it in one of his poems, where he makes a Roundhead declare — " He swore he saw, when Lunsford fell, A child's arm in his pocket." + Taylor, Annot. ad Lysiam. 150 Expression of Suppressed Opinion. terminate our inquiries ; for in tracing a story to its original source we shall find that fictions have been sometimes grafted on truths or hearsays, and to separate them as they appeared in their first stage is the pride and glory of learned criticism. EXPHESSION OF SUPPEESSED OPINION. A PEOPLE denied the freedom of speech or of writing have usually left some memorials of their feelings in that silent language which addresses itself to the eye. Many ingenious inventions have been contrived to give vent to their sup- pressed indignation. The voluminous grievance which they could not trust to the voice or the pen they have carved in wood, or sculptured on stone ; and have sometimes even face- tiously concealed their satire among the playful ornaments dfesigned to amuse those of whom they so fruitlessly com- plained ! Such monuments of the suppressed feelings of the multitude are not often inspected by the historian — their minuteness escapes all eyes but those of the philosophical antiquary ; nor are these satirical appearances always consi- dered as grave authorities, which unquestionably they will be found to be by a close observer of human nature. An enter- taining history of the modes of thinking, or the discontents of a people, drawn from such dispersed efforts in every sera, would cast a new light of secret history over many dark intervals. Did we possess a secret history of the Saturnalia, it would doubtless have afforded some materials for the present article. In those revels of venerable radicalism, when the senate was closed, and the Fileus, or cap of liberty, was triumphantly worn, all things assumed an appearance contrary to what they were ; and human nature, as well as human laws, might be said to have been parodied. Among so many whimsical regu- lations in favour of the licentious rabble, there was one which forbad the circulation of money ; if any one offered the coin of the state, it was to be condemned as an act of madness, and the man was brought to his senses by a penitential fast for that day. An ingenious French antiquary seems to have discovered a class of wretched medals, cast in lead or copper, which formed the circulating medium of these mob lords, who, to ridicule the idea of money, used the basest metals, stamping them with grotesque figures, or odd devices — such Expression of Suppressed Opinion. 151 as a sow ; a chimerical bird ; an imporator in his car, with a monkej^ behind him ; or an okl woman's bead, Acca Lawcnlia, cither the traditional old nurse of" Romulus, or an old courtesan of the same name, who bequeathed the fruits of her labours to the Roman people ! As all things were done in mockery, this base metal is stamped with s. c, to ridicule the Senalus consulto, which our antiquary happily explains,* in the true spirit of this government of mockery, Saturnallum consulto, agreeing with the legend of the reverse, inscribed in the midst of four tall, or bones, which they used as dice, Qui ludit arram det, quod satis sit — " Let them who play give a pledge, which will be sufficient." This mock-money served not only as an expression of the native irony of the radical gentry of Rome during their festival, but, had they spoken their mind out, meant a ridicule of money itself; for these citizens of equality have always imagined that society might proceed without this contrivance of a medium which served to represent property in which they themselves must so little participate. A period so glorious for exhibiting the suppressed senti- ments of the populace as were these Saturnalia, had been nearly lost for us, had not some notions been preserved by Lucian ; for we glean but sparingly from the solenin pages of the historian, except in the remarkable instance which Suetonius has preserved of the arch-mime who followed the body of the Emperor Vespasian at his funeral. This officer, as well as a similar one who accompanied the general to whom they granted a triumph, and who was allowed the un- restrained licentiousness of his tongue, were both the organs of popular feeling, and studied to gratify the rabble, who were their real masters. On this occasion the arch-mime, representing both the exterior personage and the character of Vespasian, according to custom, inquired the expense of the funeral ? He was answered, " ten millions of sesterces !" In * Baudelotde Dairval, de VUtiliU des Voijages, ii. 64.'5. There is a work, by Ficoroni, oil these lead coins or tickets. Tbcy are found in the cabinets of the curious medallist. Piukerton, in referring to this enter- taining work, regrets that " such curious remains have almost escaped the notice of medallists, and have not j'et been arranged in one class, or named. A special work on them would be highly acceptable." The time has )>er- haps arrived when antiquaries may begin to be philosophers, and philo- .sophers antiquaries ! The unhappy separation of erudition from philo.sophy, and of philosophy from erudition, has hitlierto thrown impediments iu the progress of the human mind and the history of man. 153 Expression of Suppressed Opinion. allusion to the love of money which characterised the emperor, his mock representative exclaimed, " Give me the money, and, if you will, throw my body into the Tiber !" All these mock offices and festivals among the ancients I consider as organs of the suppressed opinions and feelings of the populace, who were allowed no other, and had not the means of the printing ages to leave any permanent records. At a later period, before the discovery of the art which mul- tiplies with such facility libels or panegyrics, when the people could not speak freely against those rapacious clergy who sheared the fleece and cared not for the sheep, many a secret of popular indignation was confided not to books (for they could not read), but to pictures and sculptures, which are books which the people can always read. The sculptors and illuminators of those times no doubt shared in common the popular feelings, and boldly trusted to the paintings or the carvings which met the eyes of their luxurious and indo- lent masters their satirical inventions. As far back as in 1300, we find in Wolfius * the description of a picture of this kind, in a MS. of -^sop's Fables found in the Abbey of Fulda, among other emblems of the corrupt lives of the churchmen. The present was a wolf, large as life, wearing a monkish cowl, with a shaven crown, preaching to a flock of sheep, with these words of the apostle in a label from his mouth — " God is my witness how I long for you all in my bowels !" And underneath was inscribed — " This hooded wolf is the hypocrite of whom is said in the Gospel, ' Beware of false prophets !' " Such exhibitions were often introduced into articles of furniture. A cushion was found in an old abbey, in which was worked a fox preaching to geese, each goose holding in his bill his praying beads ! In the stone wall, and on the columns of the great church at Strasburg, was once viewed a number of wolves, bears, foxes, and other mischievous animals, carrying holy water, crucifixes, and tapers; and others more in- delicate. These, probably as old as the year 1300, were engraven in 1617 by a protestant ; and were not destroyed till 1685, by the pious rage of the catholics, who seemed at length to have rightly construed these silent lampoons ; and in their turn broke to pieces the protestant images, as the others had done the papistical dolls. The carved seats and stalls in our own cathedrals exhibit subjects not only strange and satirical, * Lect. Mem. i. ad. an. 1300. Expression of Suppressed Opinion. 153 but even indecent.* At the time they built churches they satirised the ministers ; a curious instance how the feelings of the people struggle to find a vent. It is conjectured that rival orders satirised each other, and that some of the carv- ings are caricatures of certain monks. The margins of illu- minated manuscripts frequently contain ingenious caricatures, or satirical allegories. In a magnificent chronicle of Frois- sart I observed several. A wolf, as usual, in a monk's frock and cowl, stretching his paw to bless a cock, bending its head submissively to the wolf: or a fox with a crosier, dropping beads, which a cock is picking up ; to satirise the blind devo- tion of the bigots ; perhaps the figure of the cock alluded to our Gallic neighbours. A cat in the habit of a nun, holding a platter in its paws to a mouse approaching to lick it ; alluding to the allurements of the abbesses to draw young women into their convents ; while sometimes I have seen a sow in an abbess's veil, mounted on stilts : the sex marked by the sow's dugs. A pope sometimes appears to be thrust by devils into a cauldron ; and cardinals are seen roasting on spits ! These ornaments must have been generally exe- cuted by the monks themselves ; but these more ingenious members of the ecclesiastical order appear to have sympa- thised with the people, like the curates in our church, and envied the pampered abbot and the purple bishop. Church- men were the usual objects of the suppressed indignation of the people in those days ; but the knights and feudal lords have not always escaped from the " curses not loud, but deep," of their satirical pencils. As the Reformation, or rather the Revolution, was has- tening, this custom became so general, that in one of the dia- logues of Erasmus, where two Franciscans are entertained by their host, it appears that such satirical exhibitions were hung up as common furniture in the apartments of inns. The facetious genius of Erasmus either invents or describes one which he had seen of an ape in the habit of a Franciscan sitting by a sick man's bed, dispensing ghostly counsel, holding up a crucifix in one hand, while with the other he is filching a purse out of the sick man's pocket. Such are "the straws" by which we may always observe from what corner the wind rises ! Mr. Dibdin has recently in- formed us, that Geyler, whom he calls " the herald of the Re- * Many specimens may be seen in Carter's curious volumes on " Ancient Architecture and Painting." 154 Expression of Suppressed Opinion. formation," preceding Luther by twelve years, had a ston? chair or pulpit in the cathedral at Strasbui-g, from which he delivei'ed his lectures, or rather rolled the thunders of his anathemas against the monks. This stone pulpit was con- structed under his own superintendence, and is covered with very indecent figures of monks and nuns, expressly designed by him to expose their profligate manners. We see Geyler doing what for centuries had been done ! In the curious folios of feauval, the Stowe of France, there is a copious chapter, entitled " Heretiques, leurs attentats^ In this enumeration of their attempts to give vent to their suppressed indignation, it is very remarkable that, preceding the time of Luther, the minds of many were perfectly Lutheran respecting the idolatrous worship of the Roman Church ; and what I now notice would have rightly entered into that significant Historia Beformationis ante Beforma- tionem, which was formerly projected by continental writers. Luther did not consign the pope's decretals to the flames till 1520 — this was the first open act of reformation and in- surrection, for hitherto he had submitted to the court of Rome. Yet in 1490, thirty years preceding this great event, I find a priest burnt for having snatched the host in derision from the hands of another celebrating mass. Twelve years afterwards, 1502, a student repeated the same deed, tramp- ling on it ; and in 1523, the resolute death of Anne de Bourg, a counsellor in the parliament of Paris, to use the expression of Sauval, "corrupted the world." It is evident that the Huguenots were fast on the increase. From that period I find continued accounts which prove that the Huguenots of France, like the Puritans of England, were most resolute iconoclasts. They struck oif the heads of Virgins and httle Jesuses, or blunted their daggers by chipping the wooden saints, which were then fixed at the corners of streets. Every morning discovered the scandalous treatment they had undergone in the night. Then their images were painted on the walls, but these were heretically scratched and dis- figured :^ and, since the saints could not defend themselves, a royal edict was published in their favour, commanding that all holy paintings in the streets should not be allowed short of ten feet from the ground! They entered churches at night, tearing up or breaking down the prians, the henitoires, the crucifixes, the colossal ecce-homos, which they did not always succeed in dislodging for want of time or tools. Expression of Suppressed Opinion. 155 Amidst these battles with wooden adversaries, we may smile at the frequent solemn processions instituted to ward off tlu; vengeance of the parish saint ; the wooden was expiated by a silver image, secured by iron bars and attended by the king and the nobility, carrying the new saint, with prayers that he would protect himself from the heretics ! In an early period of the Reformation, an instance occurs of the art of concealing what we wish only the few should comprehend, at the same time that we are addressing the public. Curious collectors are acquainted with " The Oli- vetan Bible;" this was the first translation published by the protestants, and there seems no doubt that Calvin was the chief, if not the only translator ; but at that moment not choosing to become responsible for this new version, he made use of the name of an obscure relative, Robert Pierre Oli- vetan. Calvin, however, prefixed a Latin preface, remarkable for delivering positions very opposite to those tremendous doctrines of absolute predestination which, in his theological despotism, he afterwards assumed. De Bure describes this first protestant Bible not only as rare, but, when found, as usually imperfect, much soiled and dog-eared, as the well- read first edition of Shakspeare, by the perpetual use of the multitude. But a curious fact has escaped the detection both of De Bui-e and Beloe ; at the end of the volume are found ten verses, which, in a concealed manner, authenticate the translation ; and which no one, unless initiated into the secret, could possibly suspect. The verses are not poetical, but I give the first sentence : — Lecteur entends, si verite adresse Viens done ouyr instament sa promesse Et vif parler &c. The first letters of every word of these ten verses form a per- fect distich, containing information important to those to whom the Olivetan Bible was addressed. Les Vaudois, peuple evangelique, Ont mis ce thresor en publique. An anagram would have been too inartificial a contrivance to have answered the purjiose of concealing from the world at large this secret. There is an adroitness in the invention of the initial letters of all the wo]-ds through these ten verses. They contained a communication necessary to authenticate 156 Expression of Sujipressed Opinion. the version, but which, at the same time, could not be sus- pected by any person not intrusted witli the secret. When the art of medal-engraving was revived in Europe, the spirit we are now noticing took possession of those less perishable and more circulating vehicles. Satiric medals were almost unknown to the ancient mint, notwithstanding those of the Saturnalia, and a few which bear miserable puns on the unlucky names of some consuls. Medals illustrate history, and history reflects light on medals ; but we should not place such unreserved confidence on medals as their advocates, who are warm in their favourite study. It has been asserted that medals are more authentic memorials than history itself ; but a medal is not less susceptible of the bad passions than a pamphlet or an epigram. Ambition has its vanity, and engraves a dubious victory ; and Flattery will practise its art, and deceive us in gold ! A calumny or a fiction on metal may be more durable than on a fugitive page ; and a libel has a better chance of being preserved when the artist is skilful, than simple truths when miserably executed. Medals of this class are numerous, and were the precursors of those political satires exhibited in caricature prints.* There is a large collection of wooden cuts about the time of Calvin, where the Romish religion is represented by the most gro- tesque forms which the ridicule of the early Reformers could invent. More than a thousand figures attest the ex- uberant satire of the designers. This work is equally rare and costly .t Satires of this species commenced in the freedom of the Reformation ; for we find a medal of Luther in a monk's habit, satirically bearing for its reverse Catherine de Bora, the nun whom this monk married ; the first step of his per- sonal reformation ! Nor can we be certain that Catherine was not more concerned in that great revolution than appears in the voluminous Lives we have of the great reformer. How- ever, the reformers were as great sticklers for medals as the "papelins." Of Pope John VIIT., an effeminate voluptuary, •we have a medal with his portrait, inscribed Pope Joan ! and another of Innocent X., dressed as a woman holding a spindle; the reverse, his famous mistress, Donna Olympia, dressed as * The series published during the wars in the Low Countries are the most remarkable, and may be seen in the volumes by Van Loon. + Mr. Douce possessed a portion of this very curious collection : for a complete one De Bure asked about twenty pounds. Expression of Suppressed Opinion. 157 a Pope, with the tiara on her head, and the keys of St. Peter in her hands !* When, in the reign of Mary, England was groaning under Spanish influence, and no remonstrance could reach the throne, the queen's person and government were made ridicu- lous to the people's eyes hy prints or pictures " representing her majesty naked, meagre, withered, and wrinkled, with every aggravated circumstance of deformity that could dis- grace a female figure, seated in a regal chair; a ci-own on her head, surrounded with M. R. and A. in capitals, accompanied by small letters; Maria Regina Anglice ! a number of Spa- niards were sucking her to skin and bone, and a specification was added of the money, rings, jewels, and other presents with which she had secretly gratified her husband Philip. "f It is said that the queen suspected some of her own council of this invention, who alone were privy to these transac- tions. It is, however, in this manner that the voice which is suppressed by authority comes at length in another shape to the eye. The age of Elizabeth, when the Roman pontiff and all his adherents were odious to the people, produced a remarkable caricature, and ingenious invention — a gorgon's head ! A church bell forms the helmet ; the ornaments, instead of the feathers, are a wolf's head in a mitre devouring a lamb, an ass's head with spectacles reading, a goose holding a rosary : the face is made out with a fish for the nose, a chalice and water for the eye, and other priestly ornaments for the shoulder and breast, on which rolls of parchment pardons hang.+ A famous bishop of Munster, Bernard de Galen, who, in his charitable violence for converting protestants, got himself into such celebrity that he appears to have served as an ex- cellent sign-post to the inns in Germany, was the true church * The Eoman satirists also invented a tale to ridicule what they dared not openly condemn, in which it was asserted that a play called The Marriaye of the Pope was enacted before Cromwell, in which the Donna having ob- tained the key of Paradise from Innocent, insists on that of Purgatory also, that she may not be sent there when he is wearied of her. "The wedding" is then kept by a ball of monks and nuns, deli;,'bted to think they may one day marry also. Such was the means the Ilomans took to notify their sense of the degradation of the pope. •j" Warton's " Life of Sir Thomas Pope," p. 58. + This ancient caricature, so descriptive of the popular feelings, is tole- rably given in Malcolm's history of "Caricaturing," plate ii. fig. 1. 158 Expression of Suppressed Opinion. militant : and his figure was exhibited according to the popular fancy. His head was half mitre and half helmet ; a crosier in one hand and a sabre in the other ; half a rochet and half a cuirass : he was made performing mass as a dra- goon on horseback, and giving out the charge when he ought the Ife, missa est ! He was called the converter ! and the "Bishop of Munster" became popular as a sign-post in German towns; for the people like fighting men, though ,hey should even fight against themselves. It is rather curious to observe of this new species of satire, so easily distributed among the people, and so directly ad- dressed to their understandings, that it was made the vehicle of national feeling. Ministers of state condescended to invent the devices. Lord Orford says that caricatures on cards were the invention of George Townshend in the affair of Byng, which was soon followed by a pack. I am informed of an ancient pack of cards which has caricatures of all the Parlia- mentarian Generals, which might be not unusefully shuffled by a writer of secret history.* We may be surprised to find the grave Sully practising this artifice on several occasions. In the civil wars of France the Duke of Savoy had taken by surprise Saluces, and struck a medal ; on the reverse a centaur appears shooting with a bow and arrow, with the legend Op- porfime ! But when Henry the Fourth had reconquered the town, he published another, on which Hercules appears killing the centaur, with the word Opportunius. The great minister was the author of this retort If A medal of the Dutch am- bassador at the court of France, Van Beuninghen, whom the French represent as a haughty burgomaster, but who had the vivacity of a Frenchman and the haughtiness of a Spaniard, as Voltaire characterises him, is said to have been the occasion of the Dutch war in 1672 ; but wars will be hardly made for an idle medal. Medals may, however, indicate a preparatory war. Louis the Fourteenth was so often compared to the * This pack was probably executed in Holland in tbe time of Charles the Second. There are other sets of political cards of the same reigu, particularly one connected with the so-called "popish plots," and the murder of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey. The South-Sea Bubble was made the subject of a similar pack, after it had exploded. t The royal house of Navarre was fancifully derived by the old heraldic writers from Hispalus, the son of Hercules ; and the pageant provided by the citizens of Avignon to greet his entrance there in 1600, was entirely composed in reference thereto, and Henry indicated in its'trtle, L'Hercule GauLois Triumphant. Expression of Suppressed Opinion. 159 Fun at its meridian, that some of his creatures may have imagined that, like the sun, he could dart into any part of Europe as he willed, and be as cheerfully received.* The Dutch minister, whose Christian name was Joshua, however, had a medal struck of Joshua stopping the sun in his course, inferring that this miracle was operated by his little republic. The medal itself is engraven in Van Loon's voluminous Ills- toire MedaUique du Pays Bas, and in Marchand'sZ)ic/^o««rt^re JUstoriqiie, who labours to prove against twenty authors that the Dutch ambassador was not the inventor ; it was not, however, unworthy of him, and it conveyed to the world the high feeling of her power which Holland had then assumed. Two years after the noise about this medal the repubHc paid dear for the device ; but thirty years afterwards this very burgomaster concluded a glorious peace, and France and Spain were compelled to receive the mediation of the Dutch Joshua with the French Sun.f In these vehicles of national satire, it is odd that the phlegmatic Dutch, more than any other nation, and from the earliest period of their republic, should have indulged freely, if not licentiously. It was a republican humour. Their taste was usually gross. We owe to them, even in the reign of Elizabeth, a severe medal on Leicester, who, having retired in disgust from the government of their provinces, struck a medal with his bust, reverse a dog and sheep, Non gregem, sed ingratos invitus desero ; on which the angry juvenile states struck another, represent- ing an ape and young ones ; reverse, Leicester near a fire, Fugiens fumum, incidit in ignem. Another medal, with an excellent portrait of Cromwell, was struck hy the Dutch. The Protector, crowned with laurels, is on his knees, laying his head in the lap of the common- wealth, but loosely exhibiting himself to the French and Spanish ambassadors with gross indecency : the Frenchman, covered with. Jleur de lis, is pushing aside the grave Don, and disputes with him the precedence — Retire-toy; Vhonneur * He took for a device and motto on his shield on the occasion of tilting-matches and court festivities, a representation of the sun iu splen- dour, and the words, Nee Plurihus Inipar. + The history of this medal is useful in more than one respect ; and may be found in Prosper Marchand. ; CO Expression of Svppressed Opinion. appartient au roy mon maitre, Louis le Grand. Van Loon. is very right in denouncing this same medal, so grossly flat- terino- to the English, as most detestable and indelicate ! But why does Van Loon envy us this lumpish invention ? why does the Dutchman quarrel with his own cheese ? The honour of the medal we claim, but the invention belongs to his country. The Dutch went on commenting in this manner on English affairs from reign to reign. Charles the Second declared war against them in 1672 for a malicious medal, though the States-General offered to break the die, by pur- chasing it of the workman for one thousand ducats ; but it served for a pretext for a Dutch war, which Charles cared more about than the mala hestia of his exergue. Charles also complained of a scandalous picture which the brothers de Witt had in their house, representing a naval battle with the English. Charles the Second seems to have been more sensible to this sort of national satire than we might have expected in a professed wit ; a race, however, who are not the most patient in having their own sauce returned to their lips. The king employed Evelyn to write a history of the Dutch war, and " enjoined him to make it a little keen, for the Hol- landers had very unhandsomely abused him in their pictures, books, and libels." The Dutch continued their career of con- veying their national feeling on English affairs more trium- phantly when their Stadtholder ascended an English throne. The birth of the Pretender is represented by the chest which Minerva gave to the daughters of Cecrops to keep, and which, opened, discovered an infant with a serpent's tail : Infan- temque vident apporrectumque draconem ; the chest perhaps alluding to the removes of tlie warming-pan ; and, in another, James and a Jesuit flying in terror, the king throwing away a crown and sceptre, and the Jesuit carrying a child ; Ite missa est, the words applied from the mass.* But in these contests of national feeling, while the grandeur of Louis the Fourteenth did not allow of these ludicrous and satirical exhibitions, and while the political idolatry which his forty Academicians paid to him exhausted itself in the splendid fictions of a series of famous medals, amounting to nearly four hundi-ed, it appears that we were not without our re- prisals ; for I find Prosper Marchand, who writes as a Hol- * Another represents the young prince holding the symbol of the Romish faith in his right hand, and crowning himself with the left : Truth opens a door below and discovers Father Petre, as the i;uidingintiui.uoe of all. Expression of Suppressed Opinion. 161 lander, censuring his own country for having at length adu- hited the grand monarque by a compHmentary medal. He says — " The English cannot be reproached with a similar debonairete." After the famous victories of Marlborough, they indeed inserted in a medal the head of the French monarch and the EnglisVi queen, with this inscription, JLudovicus Magnus, Anna Major. Long ere this one of our queens had been exhibited by ourselves with considerable energy. On the defeat of the Armada, Elizabeth, Pinkerton tells us, struck a medal representing the English and Spanish fleets, Sesperidum rec/em devicit vircjo. Philip had mi'dals dispersed in England of the same impression, with this addi- tion, Negatur. JEst meretrix vulgi. These the queen sup- pressed, but published another medal, with this legend : — Hesperidum regem devicit virgo ; negatur. Est meretrix vulgi ; res eo deterior. An age fertile in satirical prints was the eventful sera of Charles the First : they were showered from all parties, and a large collection of them would admit of a critical historical commentary, which might become a vehicle of the most curious secret history. Most of them are in a bad style, for they are allegorical ; yet that these satirical exhibitions influ- enced the eyes and minds of the people is evident from an extraordinary circumstance. Two grave collections of his- torical documents adopted them. We are surprised to find prefixed to Rushworth's and Nalson's historical collections two such political prints ! Nalson's was an act of retributive justice ; but he seems to have been aware that satire in the shape of pictures is a language very attractive to the multi- tude, for he has introduced a caricature print in the solemn folio of the Trial of Charles the First.* Of the happiest of these political prints is one by Taylor the Water-poet, not included in his folio, but prefixed to his " Mad Fashions, Odd Fashions, or the Emblems of these Distracted Times." It is the figure of a man whose eyes have left their sockets, and whose legs have usurped the place of his arms ; a hor^e on * It represents Cromwell as an armed monster, carrying the three kingdoms captive at his feet in a triumphal car driven by the devil over the body of liberty, and the decapitated Charles I. Tlio state of llie people is emblematized by a bird flying from its cage to be devoured by a hawk ; and sheep breaking from the fold to be set on by ravening wolves. VOr,. ITT. "^^ 162 Expression of Suppi-essed Opinion. his Lind legs is drawing a cart ; a ehurcli is inverted ; fish fly- in the air ; a caudle burns with the flame downwards ; and the mouse and rabbit are pursuing the cat and the fox ! The animosities of national hatred have been a fertile source of these vehicles of popular feeling — which discover them- selves in severe or grotesque caricatures. The French and the Spaniards mutually exhibit one another under the most extravagant figures. The political caricatures of the French in the seventeenth century are numerous. The hadauds of Paris amused themselves for their losses by giving an emetic to a Spaniard, to make him render up all the towns his vic- tories had obtained : seven or eight Spaniards are seen seated around a large turnip, with their frizzled mustachios, their hats en pot-a-leurre ; their long rapiers, with their pummels down to their feet, and their points up to their shoulders ; their ruffs stiffened by many rows, and pieces of garlick stuck in their girdles. The Dutch were exhibited in as great variety as the uniformity of frogs would allow. We have largely participated in the vindictive spirit which these grotesque emblems keep up among the people ; they mark the secret feelings of national pride. The Greeks despised foreigners, and considered them only as fit to be slaves ;* the ancient Jews, inflated with a false idea of their small territory, would be masters of the world : the Italians placed a hne of demai*- cation for genius and taste, and marked it by their mountains. The Spaniards once imagined that the conferences of God with Moses on Mount Sinai were in the Spanish language. If a Japanese become the friend of a foreigner, he is con- sidered as committing treason to his emperor, and rejected as a false brother in a country which, we are told, is figura- tively called Tenha, or the Kingdom under the Heavens. John Bullism is not peculiar to Englishmen ; and patriotism is a noble virtue when it secures our independence without depriving us of our humanity. The civil wars of the League in France, and those in Eng- land under Charles the First, bear the most striking i*esem- blance ; and in examining the revolutionary scenes exhibited by the graver in the famous Satire Menippee, we discover the foreign artist revelling in the caricature of his ludicrous and * A passage may be found in Aristotle's Politics, vol. i. c. 3 — 7 ; wher« Aristotle advises Alexander to govern the Greeks like liis subjects, and the barbarians like slaves ; for that the one he was to consider as companions, and the other as creatures of an inferior race. Autographs. 1G3 severe exhibition ; and in that other revolutionary period of La Fronde, there was a mania for political songs ; the curious have formed them into collections; and we not only have " the Rump Songs" of Charles the First's times, but have repeated this kind of evidence of the public feeliug at many subsequent periods.* Caricatures and political songs might with us furnish a new sort of history ; and perha[)s would preserve some truths, and describe some particular events not to be found in more grave authorities. AUTOGRAPHS.t The art of judging of the characters of persons by their handwriting can only have any reality when the pen, acting without restraint, becomes an instrument guided by, and indicative of, the natural dispositions. But regulated as the pen is now too often by a mechanical process, which the pre- sent race of writing-masters seem to have contrived for their own convenience, a whole school exhibits a similar hand- writing ; the pupils are forced in their automatic motions, as if acted on by the pressure of a steam-engine ; a bevy of beauties will now write such fac-similes of each other, that in a heap of letters presented to the most sharp-sighted lover to select that of his mistress — though, like Bassanio among the caskets, his happiness should be risked on the choice — he would despair of fixing on the right one, all appearing to have come from the same rolling-press. Even brothers of different tempers have been taught by the same master to * The following may be mentioned as the most important of these col- lections : — " Rome rhymed to Death." 1683. " A Collection of the newest and most ingenious Poems, Songs, Catches, &c., against Popery." 1689. " Poems on Afi'airs of State." 1703-7. " Whig and Tory; or, Wit on both sides." 1712. " Political Merriment; or, Truths told to some Tune." 1714. + A small volume which I met with at Paris, entitled "L'Art de juger du Caractere des Hommes sur leurs Ecritures," is curious for its illus- trations, consisting of twenty-four plates, exhibiting fac-similcs of the writing of eminent and other persons, correctly taken from the original autographs. Since this period both France and Germany have produced many books devoted to the use of the curious in autographs. In our own country J. T. Smith published a curious collection of fac-similes of letters, chiefly from literary characters. m2 \CJ6 Autographs. give the same form to their letters, the same regularity to their line, and have made our handwritings as monotonous as are our characters in the present habits of society. The true physiognomy of writing will be lost among our rising generation : it is no longer a face that we are looking on, but a beautiful mask of a single pattern ; and the fashionable handwriting of our young ladies is like the former tight- lacing of their mothers' youthful days, when every one alike had what was supposed to be a fine shape ! Assuredly nature would prompt every individual to have a distinct sort of writing, as she has given a peculiar coun- tenance — a voice — and a manner. The flexibility of the muscles differs with every individual, and the hand will follow the direction of the thoughts and the emotions and the habits of the writers. The phlegmatic will portray his words, while the playful haste of the volatile will scarcely sketch them ; the slovenly will blot and efface and scrawl, while the neat and orderly-minded will view themselves in the paper before their eyes. The merchant's clerk will not write like the lawyer or the poet. Even nations are distinguished by their writing ; the vivacity and variableness of the French- man, and the delicacy and suppleness of the Italian, are perceptibly distinct from the slowness and strength of pen discoverable in the phlegmatic German, Dane, and Swede. When we are in grief, we do not write as we should in joy. The elegant and correct mind, which has acquired the foi tu- nate habit of a fixity of attention, will write with scarcely an erasure on the page, as Fenelon, and Gray, and Gibbon ; while we find in Pope's manuscripts the perpetual struggles of cor- rection, and the eager and rapid interlineations struck off in heat. Lavater's notion of handwriting is by no means chimerical ; nor was General Paoli fanciful, when he told Mr. Northcote that he had decided on the character and disposi- tions of & man from his letters, and the handwritinar. Long beiore the days of Lavater, Shenstone in one of his letters said, " I want to see Mrs. Jago's handwriting, that I may judge of her temper." One great truth must however be conceded to the opponents of tlie physiogno77iy of writing ; general rules only can be laid down. Yet the vital principle must be true that the handwriting bears an analogy to the character of the writer, as all voluntary actions are character- istic of the individual. But many causes operate to coun- teract or obstruct this result. I am intimately acquainted Autographs. 1 G5 with the handwritings of five of our great poets. The first in earl}^ Hfe acquired among Scottish advocates a handwriting which cannot be distinguished from that of his ordinary- brothers ; the second, educated in pubHc schools, where writing is shamefully neglected, composes his sublime or sportive verses in a school-boy's ragged scrawl, as if he had never finished his tasks with the writing-master ; the third writes his highly-wrought poetry in the common hand of a merchant's clerk, from early commercial avocations ; the fourth has all that finished neatness which polishes his verses ; while the fifth is a specimen of a full mind, not in the habit of correction or alteration ; so that he appears to be printing down his thoughts, without a solitary erasure. The hand- writing of the first and third poets, not indicative of tlieir character, we have accounted for ; the others are admirable specimens of characteristic autographs.* Oldys, in one of his curious notes, was struck by the dis- tinctness of character in the handwritings of several of our kings. He observed nothing further than the mere fact, and did not extend his idea to the art of judging of the natural character by the writing. Oldys has described these hand- writings with the utmost correctness, as I have often verified. I shall add a few comments. " Henry the Eighth wrote a strong hand, but as if he had seldom a good pen." — The vehemence of his character con- veyed itself into his writing ; bold, hasty, and commanding, I have no doubt the assertor of the Pope's supremacy and its triumphant destroyer split many a good quill. "Edward the Sixth wrote a fair legible hand." — We have this promising young prince's diary, written by his own hand ; in all respects he was an assiduous pupil, and he had scarcely learnt to write and to reign when we lost him. " Queen Elizabeth writ an upright hand, like the bastard Italian." She was indeed a most elegant caligrapher, whom Eoger Ascham f had taught all the elegancies of the pen. The French editor of the little autographical work I have noticed has given the autograph of her name, which she usually wrote in a very large tall character, and painfully * It will be of interest to the reader to note the names of these poets in the consecutive order they are alluded to. They are Scott, Byron, Kogers, Moore, and Campbell. t He was also the tutor of Lady Jane Grey, and the author of one of our earliest and best works on education. 166 Autograjjhs. elaborate. He accompanies it with one of the Scottish Mary, who at times wrote elegantly, though usually in vuieven lines ; when in haste and distress of mind, in several letters during her imprisonment which I have read, much the contrary. The French editor makes this observation : " Who could believe that these writings are of the same epoch ? The first denotes asperity and ostentation ; the second indicates simplicity, softness, and nobleness. The one is that of Eliza- beth, queen of England ; the other that of her cousin, Mary Stuart. The difference of these two handwritings answer? most evidently to that of their characters." " James the First writ a poor ungainly character, all awry, and not in a straight line." James certainly wrote a slovenly scrawl, strongly indicative of that personal negligence which he carried into all the little things of life ; and Buchanan, who had made him an excellent scholar, may receive the disgrace of his pupil's ugly scribble, which sprawls about his careless and inelegant letters. " Charles the First wrote a fair open Italian hand, and more correctly perhaps than any prince we ever had." Charles was the first of our monarchs who intended to have domicihated taste in the kingdom, and it might have been conjectured from* this unfortunate prince, who so finely discriminated the manners of the different painters, which are in fact their handwritings, that he would not have been insensible to the elegancies of the pen. " Charles the Second wrote a little fair running hand, as if wrote in haste, or uneasy till he had done." Such was the writing to have been expected from this illustrious vagabond, who had much to write, often in odd situations, and could never get rid of his natural restlessness and vivacity. "James the Second writ a large fair hand." It is charac- terised by his phlegmatic temper, as an exact detailer of occurrences, and the matter-of-business genius of the writer. "Queen Anne wrote a fair round hand;" that is the writing she had been taught by her master, probably without any alteration of manner naturally suggested by herself; the copying hand of a common character.* The subject of autographs associates itself with what has * Since this article was written, Nichols has published a cleverlj'- executed series of autographs of royal, noble, and illustrious persons of Great Britain, in which the reader may study the accuracy of the criticism above given. The History of Writing-masters. 167 been cHgnified by its professors as caligrapliy, or the art of beautiful writing. As I have something curious to commu- nicate on that subject considered professionally, it shall form our following article. THE HISTORY OF WRITING-MASTERS. There is a very apt letter from James the First to Prince Henry when very young, on the neatness and fairness of his handwriting. The royal father suspecting that the prince's tutor, Mr., afterwards Sir Adam, Newton, had helped out the young prince in the composition, and that in this specimen of caligraphy he had relied also on the pains of Mr. Peter Bales, the great writing-master, for touching up his letters, his majesty shows a laudable anxiety that the prince should be impressed with the higher importance of the one over the other. James shall himself speak. " I confess I long to receive a letter from you that may be wholly youi's, as well matter as ibrm ; as well formed by your mind as drawn by 3''our fingers ; for ye may remember, that in my book to you I warn you to beware with (of) that kind of wit that may fly out at the end of your fingers ; not that I commend not a fair handwriting ; sed hoc facito, illud non omittito : and the other is midto magis prcBcipuum.'''' Prince Henry, indeed, wrote with that elegance which he borrowed from his own mind ; and in an age when such minute elegance was not universal among the crowned heads of Europe. Henry IV., on receiving a letter from Prince Henry, immediately opened it, a custom not usual with him, and comparing the writing with the signature, to decide whether it were of one hand. Sir George Carew, observing the French King's hesitation, called JMr. Douglas to testify to the fact ; on which Henry the Great, admiring an art in which he had little skill, and looking ou the neat elegance of the writing before him, politely observed, " I see that in writing fair, as in other things, the elder must yield to the younger." Had this anecdote of neat writing reached the professors of caligraphy, who in this country have put forth such j)ain- ful panegyrics on the art, these royal names had unquestion- ably blazoned their pages. Not indeed that these penmen require any fresh inflation ; for never has there been a race of professors in any art who have exceeded in solemnity and 1C8 The History of JVnting-masters. pretensions the practitioners in this simple and mechanical craft. I must leave to more ingenious investigators of human nature to reveal the occult cause which has operated such powerful delusions on these " Vive la Plume !" men, who have been generally observed to possess least intellectual ability in proportion to the excellence they have obtained in their own art. I suspect this maniacal vanity is peculiar to the writing-masters of England ; and I can only attribute the immense importance which they have conceived of their art to the perfection to which they have carried the art of short-hand writing ; an art which was always better under- stood, and more skilfully practised, in England than in any other country. It will surprise some when they learn that the artists in verse and colours, poets and painters, have not raised loftier pretensions to the admiration of mankind. Writing-masters, or caligraphers, have had their engraved "effigies," with a Fame in flourishes, a pen in one hand and a trumpet in the other ; and fine verses inscribed, and their very lives written ! They have compared The nimbly-tuming of their silver quill to the beautiful in art and the sublime in invention ; nor is this wonderful, since they discover the art of writing, like the invention of language, in a divine original ; and from the tablets of stone which the Deity himself delivered, they trace their German broad text, or their fine running-hand. One, for "the bold striking of those words, Vive la Plume" was so sensible of the reputation that this last piece of com- mand of hand would give the book which he thus adorned, and which his biographer acknowledges was the product of about a minute, — (but then how many years of flourisliing had that single minute cost him !) — that he claims the glory of an artist ; observing, — We seldom find The man of business with the artist join'd. Another was flattered that his v:riting could impart immor- tality to the most wretched compositions ! — And any lines prove pleasing, when you write. Sometimes the cahgrapher is a sort of hero : — To you, you rare commander of the quill, "Whose wit and worth, deep learnini', and high skill. Speak yuu the honour of Great Tower Hill ' The History of Writing-masters. 169 The last line became traditionally adopted by those who were so lucky as to live in the neighbourhood of this Parnassus. But the reader must form some notion of that charm of cali- graphy which has so bewitched its professors, when, Soft, bold, and free, your manuscripts still please. How justly bold in Snell's improving hand Tlie pen at once joins freedom with, command I With softness strong, with ornaments not vain, Loose with proportion, and with neatness plain ; Not swell'd, not full, complete in every part, And artful most, when not affecting art. And these describe those pencilled knots and flourishes, "the angels, the men, the birds, and the beasts," which, as one of them observed, he could Command Even by the gentle motion of his handy all the speciosa ^niracula of caligraphy ; Thy tender stroJces, inimitably fine, Crown with perfection every floviing line ; And to each grand performance add a grace, As curling hair adorns a beauteous face : In every page new fancies give delight, And sporting round the margin charm the sight. One Massey, a writing-master, published in 1763, " The Origin and Progress of Letters." The great singularity of this volume is " a new species of biography never attempted before in English." This consists of the lives of " EngHsh Penmen," otherwise writing-masters ! If some have foolishly enough imagined that the sedentary lives of authors are void of interest from deficient incident and interesting catastrophe, what must they think of the barren labours of those who, in the degree they become eminent, to use their own style, in the art of " dish, dash, long-tail fly," the less they become interesting to the public ; for what can the most skilful writing-master do but wear away his life in leaning over his pupil's copy, or sometimes snatch a pen to decorate the margin, though he cannot compose the page ? Montaigne has a very original notion on writing-masters: he says that some of those cdhgraphers who had obtained ])romotion by their ex- cellence in the art, afterwards affected to lorite carelessh/, lest their promotion sliould be suspected to have been owing to such an ordinary acquisition ! 170 The History of Writing-masters. Massey is an enthusiast, fortunately for his subject. He considers that there are schools of loriting, as well as of painting or sculpture ; and expatiates with the eye of frater- nal i'eeling on " a natural genius, a tender stroke, a grand performance, a bold striking freedom, and a liveliness in the sprigged letters, and pencilled knots and flourishes ;" while this Vasari of writing-masters relates the controversies and the libels of many a rival pen-nibber. " George Shelley, one of the most celebrated worthies who have made a shining figure in the commonwealth of English caligraphy, born I suppose of obscure parents, because brought up in Christ'fe Hospital, yet under the humble blue-coat he laid the founda- tion of his caligraphic excellence and lasting fame, for he was elected writing-master to the hospital." Shelley published his " Natural Writing ;" but, alas ! Snell, another blue-coat, transcended the other. He was a genius who would " bear no brother near the throne." — " I have been informed that there were jealous heart-burnings, if not bickerings, between him and Col. Ayres, another of our great reformers in the writing commonweal, both eminent men, yet, like our most celebrated poets Pope and Addison, or, to carry the com- parison still higher, like Ccesar and Pompey, one could bear no superior, and the other no equal." Indeed, the great Snell practised a little stratagem against Mr. Shelley, for which, if writing-masters held courts-martial, this hero ought to have appeared before his brothers. In one of his works he procured a number of friends to write letters, in which Massey confesses " are some satyrical strokes upon Shelley," as if he had arrogated too much to himself in his book of " Natural Writing." They find great fault with pencilled knots and sprigged letters. Shelley, who was an advocate for ornaments in fine penmanship, which Snell utterly re- jected, had parodied a well-known line of Herbert's in favour of his favourite decorations : — A Knot may take liim who fi-om letters flies, And turn deliyht into an exercise. These reflections created ill-blood, and even an open difference amongst several of the superior artists in writing. The commanding genius of Snell had a more terrific contest when lie published his "Standard Eules," pretending to have (/e- monstrated them as Euclid would. " This pi'oved a bone of contention, and occasioned a terrific quarrel between Mr. The History of Writing-masters. 171 Snell and Mr. Clark. This quarrel about ' Standard Rules* ran so high between them, that they could scarce forbear scurrilous lanc/uage therein, and a treatment of each other unbecoming c/cnUemen ! Both sides in this dispute had their abettors ; and to say which had the most truth and reason, non nostrum est tantas componere lites ; perhaps both parlies micjlit he too fond of tlieir own scliemes. They should have left them to people to choose which they liked best." A candid politician is our Massey, and a philosophical historian too ; for he winds up the whole story of this civil war by describing its result, which happened as all such great con- troversies have ever closed. "' Who now-a-days takes those Standard Mules, either one or the other, for their guide in writing ?" This is the finest lesson ever offered to the furious heads of yiarties, and to all their men ; let them me- ditate on the nothingness of their " Standard llules," by the fate of Mr. Snell. It was to be expected, when once these writing-masters imagined that they were artists, that they would be infected with those plague-spots of genius — envy, detraction, and all the jalousie du metier. And such to this hour we find them ! An extraordinary scene of this nature has long been exhibited in my neighbourhood, where two doughty cham- pions of the quill have been posting up libels in their win- dows respecting the inventor of a new art of writinf/, the Cai'stairian, or the Lewisian ? When the great German phi- losopher asserted that he had discovered the method of fluxions before Sir Isaac, and when the dispute gi-ew so vio- lent that even the calm Newton sent a formal defiance in set Verms, and got even George the Second to try to arbitrate (who would rather have undertaken a campaign), the method of fluxions was no more cleared up than the present affair between our two heroes of the quill. A recent instance of one of these egregious caligraphcrs may be told of the late Tomkius. This vainest of writing- masters dreamed through life that penmanship was one of the fine arts, and that a writing-master should be seated with, his peers in the Academy 1 He bequeathed to the British Museum his opus mafjnum — a copy of Macklin's Bible, pro- fusely embellished witli the most beautiful and varied deco- rations of his pen ; and as he conceived that both the work- man and the work would alike be darling objects with ))os- terity, he left sometliing iimnortal with the legacy, his finy 172 The History of Wriiing-masters. bust, by Cbantre}", unaccompanied by which they were not to receive the unparalleled gift ! When Tomkins applied to have his bust, our great sculptor abated the usual price, and, courteously kind to the feelings of the man, said that he considered Tomkins as an artist ! It was the proudest day of the life of our writing-master ! But an eminent artist and wit now living, once looking on this fine bust of Tomkins, declared, that " this man had died for want of a dinner !" — a ftite, however, not so lamentable as it appeared ! Our penman had long felt that he stood de- graded in the scale of genius by not being received at the Academy, at least among the class of engravers ; the next approach to academic honour he conceived would be that of appearing as a cjuest at their annual dinner. These invita- tions are as limited as they are select, and all the Academy persisted in consideringTomkins a* a writing-master ! Many a year passed, every intrigue was practised, every remonstrance was urged, every stratagem of courtesy was tried ; but neve'' ceasing to deplore the failure of his hopes, it preyed on his spirits, and the luckless caligrapher went down to his grave — without dining at the Academy ! This authentic anecdote has been considered as "satire improperly directed" — by some friend of Mr. Tomkins — but the criticism is much too grave ! The foible of Mr. Tomkins as a writing-master pre- sents a striking illustration of the class of men here delineated. I am a mere historian — and am only responsible for the vera- city of this fact. That " Mr. Tomkins lived in familiar intercourse with the Royal Academicians of his day, and was a frequent guest at their private tables," and moreover was a most worthy man, I believe — but is it less true that he was ridiculously mortified by being never invited to the Academic dinner, on account of his caligraphy ? He had some reason to consider that his art was of the exalted class to which he aspired to raise it, when this friend concludes his eulogy of this writing-master thus — "Mr. Tomkins, as an artist, stood foremost in his own profession, and his name will be handed down to posterity with the Heroes and Statesmen, whose excellences his penmansliip has contributed to illustrate and to commemorate." I always give the Pour and the Contre! Such men about such things have produced public contests, ccmbafs a Voutrance, where much ink was spilled by the knights in a joust of goose-quills ; these solemn trials have often oceuiTed in the history of writing-masters, which is TJii' History of Writiyig-masters. 1 73 er.livened by public defiances, proclamations, and judicial trials by umpires ! The prize was usually a golden jien of some value. One as late as in the reign of Anne took place be- tween Mr. German and Mr. More. German having cour- teously insisted that Mr. More should set the copy, he thus set it, ingeniously quaint ! As more, and More, our understanding clears, So more and more our ignorance appears. The result of this pen-combat was really lamentable ; they displayed such an equality of excellence that the umpires re- fused to decide, till one of them espied that Mr. German had omitted the tittle of an i ! But Mr. More was evidently a man of genius, not only by his couplet, but in his " Essay on the Invention of Writing," where occurs this noble passage : " Art with me is of no party. A noble emulation 1 would cherish, while it proceeded neither from, nor to malevolence. Bales had his Johnson, Norman his Mason, Ayres his Matlock and his Shelley ; yet Art the while was no sufferer. Tlie busybody who officiously employs himself in creating mis- understandings V)etween artists, may be compared to a turn- stile, which stands in every man's way, yet hinders nobody ; and he is the slanderer who gives ear to the slander."* Among these knights of the " Plume volante," whose chivalric exploits astounded the beholders, must be distin- guished Peter Bales in his joust with David Johnson. In this tilting-match the guerdon of caligraphy was won by the greatest of caligraphers ; its arms were assumed b}' the victor, azure, a pen or; while the "golden pen," carried away in triumph, was painted with a hand over the door of the caligrapher. Tlie history of this renowned encounter was onl}'^ traditionally known, till with my own ej'es I pon- dered on this whole trial of skill in the precious manuscript of the champion himself; who, like Caesar, not only knew how to win. victories, but also to record them. Peter Bales was a hero of such transcendent eminence, that his name has entered into our history. Holinshed chronicles oue of his curiosities of microscopic writing at a time when the taste prevailed for admiring writing which no eye could read ! In the compass of a silver penny this caligrapher put more things than would fill several of these pages. He presented Queen * I have not met with More's book, and am obliged to transcribe iLifl from the Blog. Brit. 174 The History of Writing-masters. Elizabeth with the manuscript set in a ring of gold covered with a crystal ; he had also contrived a magnifying glass of such power, that, to her delight and wonder, her majesty read the whole volume, which she held on her thumb-nail, and " commended the same to the lords of the council and the ambassadors ;" and frequently, as Peter often heard, did her majesty vouchsafe to wear this caligraphie ring.* " Some will think I labour on a cobweb" — modestly ex- claimed Bales in his narrative, and his present historian much fears for himself! The reader's gratitude will not be propor- tioned to my pains, in condensing such copious pages into the size of a " silver penny," but without its worth ! For a whole year had David Johnson affixed a challenge " To any one who should take exceptions to this my writing and teaching." He was a young friend of Bales, daring and longing for an encounter ; yet Bales was magnanimously ^(ilent, till he discovered that he was " doing much less in writing and teaching" since this public challenge was pro- claimed ! He then set up his counter-challenge, and in one hour afterwards Johnson arrogantly accepted it, "in a most despiteful and disgraceful manner." Bales's challenge was delivered "in good terms." "To all Englishmen and strangers." It was to write for a gold pen of twenty pounds value in all kinds of hands, " best, straightest, and fastest," and most kind of ways; "a full, a mean, a small, with line, and without line ; in a slow set hand, a mean facile hand, and a fast running hand;" and further, "to write truest and speediest, most secretary and clerk-like, from a man's mouth, reading or pronouncing, either English or Latin." Young Johnson had the hardihood now of turning the tables on his great antagonist, accusing the veteran Bales of arrogance. Such an absolute challenge, says he, was never witnessed by man, " without exception of any in the world !" And a few days after meeting Bales, "of set purpose to affront and disgrace him what he could, showed Bales a piece * Howes, in his Chronicle under date 1576, has thus narrated the story: — "A strange piece of work, and almost incredible, was brought to pass by an Englishman from within the city of London, and a clerk of the Chancery, named Peter Bales, who by his industry and practice of his pen contrived and writ, within the compass of a penny, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, a prayer to God, a prayer for the queen, his posy, his name, the day of the month, the year of our Lord, and the reign of the queen : and at Hampton Court he presented the same to the queen's majesty." The History of Writing-masters. 1 75 of .vriting of secretary's hand, which he had very much la'^ured in fine ahortive parchment,"* uttering to the chal- lenger these words : " Mr. Bales, give me one shilling out of your purse, and if within six months you better, or equal this piece of writing, I will give you forty pounds for it." This legal deposit of the shilling was made, and the challenger, or appellant, was thereby bound by law to the performance. The day before the trial a printed declaration was affixed throughout the city, taunting Bales's " proud poverty," and his pecuniary motives, as " a thing ungentle, base, and mer- cenary, and not answerable to the dignity of the golden pen !" Johnson declares he would maintain his challenge for a thousand pounds more, but for the respondent's inability to perform a thousand groats. Bales retorts on the libel ; de- clares it as a sign of his rival's weakness, " yet who so bold as blind Bayard, that hath not a word of Latin to cast at a dog, or say Bo ! to a goose !" On Michaelmas day, 1595, the trial opened before five judges : the appellant and the respondent appeared at the appointed place, and an ancient gentleman was intrusted with "the golden pen." In the first trial, for the manner of teaching scholars, after Johnson had taught his pupil a fortnight, he would not bring him forward ! This was awarded in favour of Bales. The second, for secretary and clerk-like writing, dictating to them both in English and in Latin, Bales performed best, being first done ; written straightest without line, with true orthography: the challenger himself confessing that he wanted the Latin tongue, and was no clerk ! The third and last trial for fair writing in sundry kinds of hands, the challenger prevailed for the beauty and most " au- thentic proportion," and for the superior variety of the Ito- man hand. In the court hand the respondent exceeded the appellant, and likewise in the set text ; and in bastard secre- tary was also somewhat perfecter. At length Bales, perhaps perceiving an equilibrium in tlie judicial decision, to overwhelm his antagonist presented what he distinguishes as his "masterpiece," composed of secretary and Roman hand four ways varied, and olferingthe defendant to let pass all his previous advantages if he could better this * This was written in the reign of Elizabeth. Holyoke notices "virgin- perehment made of an ahortive skin; membrana vii'go." Peachaoj, 04 *' Drawing," calls parchment simply an abortive. 1/6 3%e History of Writing-masters. Bpecimen of caligraphy ! The challenger was silent ! At this moment some of the judges perceiving that the decision must go in favour of Bales, in consideration of the youth ot the challenger, lest he might be disgraced to the world, requested the other judges not to pass judgment in public. Bales assures us, that he in vain remonstrated ; for by these means the winning of the golden pen might not be so fa- mously spread as otherwise it would have been. To Bales the prize was awarded. But oar history has a more interesting close; the subtle Machiavelism 6f the first challenger! When the great trial had closed, and Bales, carrying off the golden pen, exultingly had it painted and set up for his sign, the baffled challenger went about reporting that Tie had won the golden pen, but that the defendant had obtained the same by " plots and shifts, and other base and cunning practices." Bales vindicated his claim, and offered to show the world his " masterpiece " which had acquired it. Johnson issued an " Appeal to all Impartial Penmen," which he spread in great numbers through the city for ten days, a libel against the judges and the victorious defendant ! He declared that there had been a subtle combination with one of the judges concern- ing the place of trial ; which he expected to have been " before penmen," but not before a multitude like a stage-play, and shouts and tumults, with which thechallenger had hithertobeen unacquainted. The judges were intended to be twelve ; but of the five, four were the challenger's friends, honest gentlemen, but unskilled in judging of most hands ; and he offered again forty pounds to be allowed in six months to equal Bales's masterpiece. And he closes his "appeal" by declaring that Bales had lost in several parts of the trial, neither did the judges deny that Bales possessed himself of the golden pen by a trick ! Before judgment was awarded, alleging the sickness of his wife to be extreme, he desired she might have a sight qftlie golden, pen to comfort her! The ancient gentleman who was the holder, taking the defendant's word, allowed the golden pen to be carried to the sick wife ; and Bales immediately pawned it, and afterwards, to make sure work, sold it at a great loss, so that when the judges met for their definite sentence, nor pen nor pennyworth was to be had ! The judges being ashamed of their own conduct, were compelled to give such a verdict as suited the occasion. Bales rejoins : he publishes to the universe the day and the hour when the judges brought the golden pen to his house, IVic Italian Historians. 177 and while he checks the insolence of this Bobadil, to show hlmseii" no recreant, assumes the gold(;n pen I'or his sign. Such is the shortest history I could contrive of this chivahy of the pen ; something mysteriously clouds over the fate of the defendant ; Bales's history, like Caesar's, is but an cx-parte evidence. Who can tell whether he has not slurred over his defeats, and only dwelt on his victories ? There is a strange phrase connected with the art of the caligrapher, which I think may be found in most, if not in all modern languages, to write like an angel ! Ladies have been frequently compared with angels ; they are beautiful as angels, and sing and dance like angels ; but, however intelli- gible these are, we do not so easily connect penmanship with the other celestial accomplishments. This I'anciful phrase, however, has a very human origin. Among those learned Greeks who emigrated to Italy, and afterwards into France, in the reign of Francis I., was one Angelo Vergecio, whose beautiful caligraphy excited the admiration of the learned. The French monarch had a Greek fount cast, modelled by his writing. The learned Henry Stephens, who, like our Porson for correctness and delicacy, was one of the most elegant writers of Greek, had learnt the practice from our Angela. His name became synonymous for beautiful writing, and gave birth to the vulgar proverb or familiar phrase to write like an angel ! THE ITALIAN HISTORIANS. It is remarkable that the country which has long lost its political independence may be considered as the true paj-ent of modern history. The greater part of their historians have abstained from the applause of their contemporaries, while they have not the less elaborately composed their posthumous folios, consecrated solely to truth and posterity ! The true principles of national glory are opened by the grandeur of tlie minds of these assertors of political freedom. It was their in- dignant spirit, seeking to console its injuries bj' confiding them to their secret manuscripts, which raised up this singular phe- nomenon in the literary world. Of the various causes wliich produced such a lofty race of patriots, one is prominent. The proud recollections of their Koman fathers often troubled the dreams of the sons, The YOL. III. :? 178 The Italian Historians. petty rival republics, and the petty despotic principalities, which had started up from some great families, who at first came forward as the protectors of the people from their exte- rior enemies or their interior factions, at length settled into a corruption of power ; a power which had been conferred on them to preserve liberty itself ! These factions often shook, by their jealousies, their fears, and their hatreds, that divided land, which groaned wlienever they witnessed the " Ultra- montanes " descending from their Alps and their Apennines. Petrarch, in a noble invective, warmed by Livy and ancient Kome, impatiently beheld the French and the Germans passing the mounts. "Enemies," he cries, "so often con- quered prepare to strike with swords which formerly served us to raise our trophies . shall the mistress of the world bear chains forged by hands which she has so often bound to their backs P" Maehiavel, in his " Exhortations to Free Italy from the Barbarians," rouses his country against their changeable masters, the Germans, the French, and the Spaniards ; closing with the verse of Petrarch, that short shall be the battle for which virtue arms to show the world — che r antico valore Ne gl' Italic! cuor non e ancor morto. Nor has this sublime patriotism declined even in more ~ecent times ; I cannot resist from preserving in this place a sonnet by Filicaja, which I could never read without partici- pating in the agitation of the writer for the ancient glory of his degenerated country ! The energetic personification of the close perhaps surpasses even his more celebrated sonnet, preserved in Lord Byron's notes to the fourth canto of " Childe Harold." "Dof e Italia, il tuo braccio ? e a che ti serri Tu dell' altrui ? non e s' io scorgo il verOj Di chi t' offende il defensor men fero : Ambe nemici sono, ambo fur servi, Cosi dunque 1' onor, cosi conservi Gli avanzi tu del glorioso Impero ? Cosi al valor, cosi al valor primiero Che a te fede giuro, la fede osservi ? Or va ; repudia il valor prisco, e sposa L' ozio, e fra il sangue, i gemiti, e le sirld* Nel periglio maggior dormi e riposa ! Doruii, Adultera vil ! fin che omicida Spada ultrice ti svegii, e sonnacchiosa, E nuda in braccio al tuo fedel t'uccida ! The Italian Historians. 179 Oh, Italy ! where is thine arm ? What purpose eervos So to be helped by others? Deem I right, Aiuong oflenders thy defender stands ? Both are thy enemies — both were thy servants ! Thus dost thou honour — thus dost thou preserve The mighty boundaries of the glorious empire? And thus to Valour, to thy pristine Valour That swore its faith to thee, thy faitli thou kcep'st'? Go ! and divorce thyself from thy old Valiance, And marry Idleness : and midst the blood, The heavy groans and cries of agony, In thy last danger sleep, and seek repose ! Sleep, vile Adulteress ! the homicidal sword Vengeful shall waken thee ! and lull'd to slumber, While naked in thy minion's arms, shall strike ! Among the domestic contests of Italy the true principles of political freedom were developed ; and in that country we may find the origin of that philosophical history which includes so many important views and so many new results unknown to the ancients. Machiavel seems to have been the first writer who dis- covered the secret of what may be called comparative history. He it was who first sought in ancient history for the materials which were to illustrate the events of his own times, by fixing on analogous facts, similar personages, and parallel periods. This was enlarging the field of history, and opening a new combination for philosophical speculation. His profound genius advanced still further ; he not only explained modern by ancient history, but he deduced those results or principles founded on this new sort of evidence which guided him in forming his opinions. History had hitherto been, if we ex- cept Tacitus, but a story well told ; and by writers of limited capacity, the detail and number of facts had too often been considered as the only valuable portion of history. An eru- dition of facts is not the philosophy of history ; an historian unskilful in the art of applying his facts amasses impure ore, which he cannot strike into coin. The chancellor D'Aguesseau, in his instructions to his son on the study of history, has admirably touched on this distinction. " Minds which are purely historical mistake a fact for an argument ; they are so accustomed to satisfy themselves by rej)eating a great number of facts and enriching their memory, that they become incapable of reasoning on principles. It often hap- pens that the result of their knowledge breeds confusion and universal indecision ; for their facts^ often contradictory, only .\2 180 The Italian Historians. raise up doubts. The superfluous and the frivolous occupy the place of what is essential and solid, or at least so overload and darken it that we must sail with them in a sea of trifles to get to firm land. Those who only value the philosophical part of history fall into an opposite extreme ; they judge of what has been done by that which should be done ; while the others always decide on what should be done by that which, has been : the first are the dupes of their reasoning, the second of the facts which they mistake for reasoning. We should not separate two things which ought always to go in concert, and mutually lend an aid, reason and example 1 Avoid equally the contempt of some philosophers for the science of facts, and the distaste or the incapacity which those who confine themselves to facts often contract for what- ever depends on pure reasoning. True and solid philosophy should direct us in the study of history, and the study of history should give perfection to philosophy." Such was the enlightened opinion, as far back as at the beginning of the seventeenth century, of the studious chancellor of France, before the more recent designation of PJiilosophical History was so generally received, and so familiar on our title-pages. From the moment that the Florentine secretary conceived the idea that the history of the Homan people, opening such varied spectacles of human nature, served as a point of com- parison to which he might perpetually recur to try the analogous facts of other nations and the events passing under his own eye, a new light broke out and ran through the vast extents of history. The maturity of experience seemed to have been obtained by the historian in his solitary medita- tion. Livy in the grandeur of Rome, and Tacitus in its fated decline, exhibited for Machiavel a moving picture of his own republics — the march of destiny in all human governments ! The text of Livy and Tacitus revealed to him many an imperfect secret — the fuller truth he drew from the depth of his own observations on his own times. In Machiavel's " Discoiu'ses on Livy" we may discover the foundations of our PhilosopJiical History. The example of Machiavel, like that of all creative genius, mfluenced the character of his age, and his history of Florence produced an emulative spirit among a new dynasty of his- torians. The Italian historians have proved themselves to be an extraordinarv race, for they devoted their days to the com- The Italian Hlstor'Ktns. ±81 position of historical works which they wore certain could not see the Hght during their hves ! They nobly detcrniiiied that their works should be posthumous, rather than be com- pelled to mutilate them for the press. These historians were rather the saints than the martyrs of history ; they did not always personally suffer for truth, but during their protracted labour they sustained their spirit by anticipating their glorified after-state. Among these Italian historians must be placed the illus- trious Guicciardini, the friend of Machiavel. No perfect edition of this historian existed till recent times. Tlie his- tory itself was posthumous; nor did his nephew venture to publish it till twenty years after the historian's death. He only gave the first sixteen books, and these castrated. The obnoxious passages consisted of some statements relating to the papal court, then so impoi'tant in the affairs of Europe ; some account of the origin and progress of the papal power ; some eloquent pictures of the abuses and disorders of that corrupt court ; and some free caricatures on the government of Florence. The precious fragments were fortunately pre- served in manuscript, and the Protestants procured transcripts which they published separately, but which were long very rare.* All the Italian editions continued to be reprinted in the same truncated condition, and appear only to have been reinstated in the immortal history so late as in 1775 ! Thus, it required two centuries before an editor could venture to give the world the pure and complete text of the manuscript of the lieutenant-general of the papal army, who had been so close and so indignant an observer of the Roman cabinet. Adriani, whom his son entitles gentiluomo Fiorentino, the writer of the pleasing dissertation " on the Ancient Painters noticed by Pliny," prefixed to his friend Vasari's biographies, wrote as a continuation of Guicciardini, a history of his own times in twenty-two books, of which Denina gives the highest character for its moderate spirit, and from which De Thou has largely drawn, and commends for its authenticity. Our author, however, did not venture to publish his history during his lifetime : it was after his death that his son became the editor. Nardi, of a noble family and high in office, famed for a * Tliey were printed at Basle in 156 9— at London in 1595 — in Amster- dam, 1663. How many attempts to echo the voice of suppressed truth — Haym's Bib. Jlal. 1803. 183 The Italian Historians. translation of Livy which rivals its original in the pleasure it affords, in his retirement from puhlie affairs wrote a history Df Florence, which closes with the loss of the liberty of his country in 1531. It was not published till fifty years after his death ; even then the editors suppressed many passages which are found in manuscript in the libraries of Florence and Venice, with other historical documents of this noble and patriotic historian. About the same time the senator Philip Nerli was writing his " Commentarj de' fatti civlli,'^ which had occurred in Florence. He gave them with his dying hand to his nephew, who presented the MSS. to the Grand Duke ; yet, although this work is rather an apology than a crimination of the Medici family for their ambitious views and their overgrown power, probably some state-reason interfered to prevent the publication, which did not take place till 150 years after the death of the historian ! Bernardo Segni composed a history of Florence still more valuable, wliieh shared the same fate as that of Nerli. It was only after his death that his relatives accidentally dis- covered this history of Florence, which the author had care- fully concealed during his lifetime. He had abstained from communicating to any one the existence of such a work while he lived, that he might not be induced to check the freedom of his pen, nor compromise the cause and the interests of truth. His heirs presented it to one of the Medici family, who threw it aside. Another copy had been more carefully preserved, from which it was printed in 1713, about 150 years after it had been written. It appears to have excited great curiosity, for Lenglet du Fresnoy observes that the scarcity of this history is owing to the circumstance " of the Grand Duke having bought up the copies." Du Fresnoy, indeed, has noticed more than once this sort of address of the Grand Duke ; for he observes on the Florentine history of Bruto that the work was not common, the Grand Duke having bought up the copies to suppress them. The author was even obliged to fly from Italy for having delivered his opinions too freely on the house of the Medici. This honest historian thus expresses himself at the close of his work : — " My design has but one end — that our posterity may learn by these notices the root and the causes of so many troubles which we have suffered, while they expose the malignity of those men who have raised them up or prolonged them, as The Italian Historians. 183 well as the goodness of those who did all which they could to turn them away." It was the same motive, the fear of offending the great personages or their families, of whom these historians h;«l 80 freely written, which deterred Benedetto Varchi from pub- lishing his well-known " Storie Florentine," which was not given to the world till 1721, a period which appeiu's to have roused the slumbers of the literary men of Italy to recur to their native historians. Varchi, who wrote with so much zeal the history of his fatherland, is noticed by Nardi as one who never took an active part in the events he records ; never having combined with any party, and living merely as a spectator. This historian closes the narrative of a horrid crime of Peter Lewis Farnese with this admirable reflection : " I know well this story, with many others which I have freely exposed, may hereafter prevent the reading of my his- tory ; but also I know, that besides what Tacitus has said on this subject, the great duty of an historian is not to be more careful of the reputation of persons than is suitable with truth, which is to be preferred to 11 things, however detri- mental it may be to the writer."* * My friend, Mr. Merivalc, whose critical researcli is only equalled by the elegance of his taste, has supplied rae with a note which proves but too well that even writers who compose uninfluenced by party feelings, may not, however, be sufficiently scrupulous in weighing tlie evidence of the facts which they collect. Mr. Merivale observes, "The strange and improbable narrative with which Varchi has the misfortune of closing his history, should not have been even hinted at without adding, that it is denounced by other writers as a most impudent forgery, invented years after the occurrence is supposed to have happened, by the ' Apostate' bishop Petrus Paulus Vergerius." See its refutation in Amiaui, "Hist, di Fano," ii. 149, et seq. 160. " Varchi's character as an historian cannot but suffer greatly from his having given it insertion on such authority. The responsibility of an author for the truth of what he relates should render us very cautious of giving credit to the writers of memoirs not intended to see the light till a distant period. The credibility of Vergeriu.s, as an acknowledged libeller of Pope Paul III. and his family, apjjears still more conclusively from his article in Bayle, note K." It must be added, that the calumny of Verge- rius may be found in Woltius's Lect. Mem. ii. 691, in a tract de Idolo Lauretano, published 1556. Varchi is more particular in his details of this monstrous tale. Vergerius's libels, universally read at the time though they were collected afterwards, are now not to be met with, cvo in public libraries. Whether there was any truth in the story of Peter Lewis Farnese I know not ; but crimes of as monstrous a ilyc occur in tho authentic Guicciardiui. The story is not yet forgotten, since in the last edition of Haym's Biblioteca Italiana, the best edition is marked as that 18 i The Italian Historians, Such was that free maimer of thinking and of writing which prevailed in these ItaHan historians, who, often living in the midst of the ruins of popular freedom, poured forth their injured feelings in their secret pages ; without the hope, and perhaps without the wish, of seeing them published in their lifetime: a glorious example of self-denial and lofty patriotism ! Had it been inquired of these writers why they did not publish their histories, they might have answered, in nearly the words of an ancient sage, " Because I am not permitted to write as I would ; and I would not write as I am per- mitted." We cannot imagine that these great men were in the least insensible to the applause they denied themselves ; they were not of tempers to be turned aside ; and it was the highest motive which can inspire an historian, a stern devo- tion to truth, which reduced them to silence, but not to inactivity ! These Florentine and Venetian historians, ardent with truth, and profound in political sagacity, were writing these legacies of history solely for their countrymen, hopeless of their gratitude ! If a Frenchman* wrote the English his- tory, that labour was the aliment of his own glory ; if Hume and Robertson devoted their pens to history, the motive of the task was less glorious than their work ; but here we dis- jover a race of historians, whose patriotism alone instigated their secret labour, and who substituted for fame and fortune that mightier spirit, which, amidst their conflicting passions, has developed the truest principles, and even the errors, of Political Freedom ! None of these historians, we have seen, published their works in their lifetime. I have called them the saints of history, rather than the martj'^rs. One, however, had the intrepidity to risk this awful responsibility, and he stands forth among the most illustrious and ill-fated examples of HISTORICAL MABTTEDOM ! This great historian is Giannone, whose civil history of the kingdom of Naples is remarkable for its profound inquiries concerning the civil and ecclesiastical constitution, the laws and customs of that kingdom. With some interruptions which at p. 639 contains *'?a sceleratezza di Pier Lewis Famese." I am of opinion that Varchi believed the story, by the solemnity of hia proposition. Whatever be its truth, the historian's feeling was elevated and intrepid. * Rapin. TJie Italian Historians. 185 from his professional avocations at the bar, twenty vears were consumed in writing this history. Researches on eccle- siastical usurpations, and severe strictures on the clergv, are the chief subjects of his bold and unreserved pen. These passages, curious, grave, and indignant, were afterwai'ds ex- tracted from the history by Vernet, and published in a small volume, under the title of "Anecdotes Ecclesiastiques," 1738. When Giannone consulted with a friend on the propriety of publishing his history, his critic, in admiring the work, pre- dicted the fate of the author. " You have," said he, "placed on your head a crown of thorns, and of very sharp ones." The historian set at nought his own personal repose, and in 1723 this elaborate history saw the light. From that mo- ment the historian never enjoyed a day of quiet ! Rome attempted at first to extinguish the author with his work ; all the books were seized on ; and copies of the first edition are of extreme rarity. To escape the fangs of inquisitorial power, the historian of Naples fiew from Naples on the pub- lication of his immortal work. The fugitive and excommu- nicated author sought an asylum at Vienna, where, though he found no friend in the emperor. Prince Eugene and other nobles became his patrons. Forced to quit Vienna, he retired to Venice, when a new persecution arose from the jealousy of the state-inquisitors, who one night landed him on the borders of the pope's dominions. Escaping unexpectedly with his life to Geneva, he was preparing a supplemental volume to his celebrated history, when, enticed by a treache- rous friend to a catholic village, Giannone was arrested by an order of the King of Sardinia ; his manuscripts were sent to Rome, and the historian imprisoned in a fort. It is curious that the imprisoned Giannone wrote a vindication of the rights of the King of Sardinia, against the claims of the court of Rome. This powerful appeal to the feelings of this sove- reign was at first favourably received ; but, under the secret influence of Rome, the Sardinian monarch, on the extraor- dinary plea that he kept Giannone as a prisoner of state tliat he might preserve him from the papal power, ordered that the vindicator of his rights should be more closely confined than before ; and, for this purpose, transferred his state- prisoner to the citadel of Turin, where, after twelve years of persecution and of agitation, our great historian closed his life ! Such was the fate of this historical mai'tvr, wlioso work 186 Of Palaces Built by Ministers. the catholic Ha}"^!!! describes as opera scritta con molto fuoco e troppa liberta. He hints that this history is only paral- leled by De Thou's great work. This Italian history will ever be ranked among the most philosophical. But, pro- found as was the masculine genius of Giannone, such was his love of fame, that he wanted tlie intrepidity requisite to deny himself the delight of giving his history to the world, though some of his great predecessors had set him a noble and dig- nified example. One more observation on these Italian historians. All of them represent man in his darkest colours ; their drama is terrific ; the actors are monsters of perfidy, of mhumanity, and inventors of crimes which seem to want a name! They were all " princes of darkness ;" and the age seemed to afford a triumph of Manicheism ! The worst passions were called into play by all parties. But if something is to be ascribed to the manners of the times, much more may be traced tp that science of politics, which sought for mastery in an unde- fiuable struggle of ungovernable political power ; in the remorseless ambition of the despots, and the hatreds and jealousies of the republics. These Italian historians have formed a perpetual satire on the contemptible simulation and dissimulation, and the inexpiable crimes of that system of politics, which has derived a name from one of themselves — • the great, may we add, the calumniated, MacuiaT-BL ? OF PALACES BUILT BY MINISTERS. Ouu ministers and court favourites, as well as those on the Continent, practised a very impolitical custom, and one likely to be repeated, although it has never failed to cast a popular odium on their names, exciting even the envy of their equals — in the erection of palaces for themselves, which outvied those of their sovereign ; and which, to the eyes of the populace, appeared as a perpetual and insolent exhibition of what they deemed the ill-earned wages of peculation, oppres- sion, and court-favour. We discover the seduction of this passion for ostentation, this haughty sense of their power, and this self-idolatry, even among the most prudent and the wisest of our ministers ; and not one but lived to lament over this vain act of imprudence. To these ministers the noble simplicity of Pitt will ever form an admirable contrast ; while Of Palaces Built by Ministers. 1S7 his personal character, as a statesman, descends to posterity unstained by calumny. The houses of Cardinal Wolsey appear to have exceeded the palaces of the sovereign in magnificence ; and potent as he was in all the pride of pomp, the " great cardinal" found rabid envy pursuing him so close at his heels, that ht; relin- quished one palace after the other, and gave up as gitts to the monarch what, in all his overgrown greatness, he trem- bled to retain for himself. The state satire of that day was often pointed at this very circumstance, as appears in Skel- ton's " Why come ye not to Court ?" and Roy's " Eede me, and be not wrothe."* Skelton's railing rhymes leave their bitter teeth in his purple pride ; and the style of both these satirists, if we use our own orthography, shows how little the language of the common people has varied during three centuries. Set up a wretch on liigli lu a throne triamphautly; Make iiim a great state And he will play check-mate With royal majesty The King's Court Should havu the excellence, But Hampton Court Hath the pre-emiucuce ; And Yorke Placef With my Lord's grace, To whose magnificence Is all the confluence, Suits, and supplications ; Embassies of all nations. Roy, in contemplating the palace, is maliciously reminded of the butcher's lad, and only gives plain sense in plain words. Hath the Cardinal any gay mansion ? Great palaces without comparison, Most glorious of outward sight, * Skelton's satire is accessible to the reader in the Kev. Alexander Dyce's edition of the poet's works. Roy's poem was printed abroad about 1525, and is of extreme rarity, as the cardinal spared no labour and ex- pense to purchase and destroy all the copies. A second edition was printed at Wesel in 1546. Its author, who had been a friar, was ulti- mately burned in Portugal for heresy. t The palace of Wolsey, as Archbishop of York, which Le had furnished in the most sumptuous manner ; after bis dis^grace it became a royui resi- dence under the name of Whitehall. — Note in Dyce's ed. of Skelton's Works. 188 Of Palaces Built by Ministers. And within decked point-device,* More like unto a paradise Than an earthly habitation. He Cometh then of some noble stock? His father could match a bullock, A butcher by his occupation. Whatever we may now think of the structure, and the low apartments of Wolsey's palace, it is described not only in his own times, but much later, as of unparalleled magnifi- cence ; and indeed Cavendish's narrative of the Cardinal's entertainment of the French ambassadors gives an idea of the ministerial prelate's imperial establishment very puzzling to the comprehension of a modern inspector. Six hundred persons, I think, were banqueted and slept in an abode which appears to us so mean, but which Stowe calls " so stately a palace." To avoid the odium of living in this splendid edifice, Wolsey presented it to the king, who, in recompense, suf- fered the Cardinal occasionally to inhabit this wonder of England, in the character of keeper of the king's palace ;t so that Wolsey only dared to live in his own palace by a subterfuge ! This perhaps was a tribute which ministerial haughtiness paid to popular feeling, or to the jealousy of a royal master. I have elsewhere shown the extraordinary elegance and prodigality of expenditure of Buckingham's residences ; they were such as to have extorted the wonder even of Bassom- pierre, and unquestionably excited the indignation of those who lived in a poor court, while our gay and thoughtless minister alone could indulge in the wanton profusion. But Wolsey and Buckingham were ambitious and adventu- rous ; they I'ose and shone the comets of the political horizon of Europe. The Roman tiara still haunted the imagination of the Cardinal : and the egotistic pride of having out-rivalled * Point-device, a term explained by Mr. Douce, He thinks that it is borrowed from the labours of the needle, as we have point-lace, so point- device, i.e., point, a stitch, and device, devised or invented ; applied to describe anything uncommonly exact, or worked with the nicety and pre- cision of stitches made or devised by the needle. — Illustrations of Shak- speare, i. 93. But Mr. Gilford has since observed that the origin of the expression is, perhaps, yet to be sought for : he derives it from a mathe- matical phrase, a point devise, or a given point, and hence exact, correct, &c. — Ben Jonson, vol. iv. 170. See, for various examples, Mr, Nares'fl Glossary, art. Point-devise. f L,Yson's "Environs," v. 58 Of Palaces Built by Ministers. 189 Richelieu and Olivarez, the nominal ministers but the real sovereigns of Europe, kindled the buoj^ant sj)irits of the gay, the gallant, and the splendid Villiers. But what "follv of the wise" must account for the conduct of the profound Cla- rendon, and the sensible Sir Robert Walpole, who, like the other two ministers, equally became the victims of this im- prudent passion for the ostentatious pomp of a palace. This magnificence looked like the vaunt of insolence in the eyes of the people, and covered the ministers with a popular odium. Clarendon House is now only to be viewed in a print ; but its story remains to be told. It was built on the site of Grafton-street ; and when afterwards purchased by Monk, the Duke of Albemarle, he left his title to that well-known street. It was an edifice of considerable extent and grandeur. Clarendon reproaches himself in his Life for " his weakness and vanity" in the vast expense incurred in this building, which he acknowledges had " more contributed to that gust of envy that had so violently shaken him, than any misde- meanour that he was thought to have been guilty of." It ruined his estate ; but he had been encouraged to it by the royal grant of the land, by that passion for building to which he owns "he was naturally too much inclined," and perhaps by other circumstances, among which was the opportunity of purchasing the stones which had been designed for tlie re- building of St. Paul's ; but the envy it drew on him, and the excess of the architect's proposed expense, had made his life "very uneasy, and near insupportable." The truth is, that when this palace was finished, it was imputed to him as a state-crime ; all the evils in the nation, which were then numerous, pestilence, conflagration, war, and defeats, were discovered to be in some way connected with Clarendon House, or, as it was popularly called, either Dunkirk House, or Tangier Hall, from a notion that it had been erected with the golden bribery which the chancellor had received for the sale of Dunkirk and Tangiers.* He was reproached with having profaned the sacred stones dedicated to the use of the church. The great but unfortunate master of this palace, who, from a private lawyer, had raised himself by alliance even to royalty, the father-in-law of the Duloe of Yoi'k, it * Bumet says, " Others called it Holland House, because he was Lclieved to be no friend to the war : so it was given out that h« iud money from the Dutch." 190 Of Palaces Built by Ministers. was maliciously suggested, had persuaded Charles the Second to Tiiarry the Infanta of Portugal, knowing (but how Clarendon obtained the knowledge his enemies have not revealed) that the Portuguese princess was not likely to raise any obstacle to the inheritance of his own daughter to the throne. At the Restoration, among other enemies. Clarendon found that the royalists were none of the least active ; he was reproached by them for preferring those who had been the cause of their late troubles. The bame reproach was incurred on the restoration of the Bourbons. It is perhaps more political to maintain active men, who have obtained power, than to rein- state inferior talents, who at least have not their popularity. This is one of the parallel cases which so frequently strike us in exploring political history ; and the ultras of Louis the Eighteenth were only the royalists of Charles the Second. There was a strong popular delusion carried on by the wits and the Misses who formed the court of Charles the Second, that the government was as much shared by the Hydes as the Stuarts. We have in the state-poems, an unsparing lam- poon, entitled " Clarendon's House-warming ;" but a satire yielding nothing to it in severity I have discovered in manu- script ; and it is also remarkable for turning chiefly on a pun of the family name of the Earl of Clarendon. The witty and malicious rhymer, after making Charles the Second demand the Great Seal, and resolve to be his own chancellor, proceeds, reflecting on the great political victim : Lo ! his whole ambition already divides The sceptre between the Stuarts and the Hydes. Behold in the depth of our plague and wars, He built him a palace out-braves the stars ; Which house (we Dunkirk, he Clarendon, names) • Looks down with shame upon St. James ; But 'tis not his golden globe that will save him, Being less than the custom-house farmers gave him ; His chapel for consecration calls. Whose sacrilege plundered the stones from Paul's. When Queen Dido landed she bought as much ground As the Hyde of a lusty fat bull would surround; But when the said Hyde was cut into thongs, A city and kingdom to Hyde belongs; So here in court, church, and country, far and wide. Here's nought to be seen but Hyde ! Hyde I Hyde I Of old, and where law the kingdom divides, 'Twas our Hydes of land, 'tis now land of Hydes ! Clarendon House was a palace^ which had been raised with Of Palaces Built by Ministers. 1 f)l at least as much fondness as pride ; and Eveljai tells us that the garden was planned by himself and his lordship ; hut the cost, as usual, trebled the calculation, and the noble master grieved in sdence amidst this splendid pile of architecture.* Even when in his exile the sale was proposed to pay his debts, and secui'e some provision for his younger children, he honestly tells us that " he remained so inl'atuated with the delight he had enjoyed, that though he was deprived of it, he hearkened very unwillingly to the advice." In 1683 Clarendon House met its fate, and was abandoned to the brokers, who had purchased it for its materials. An affecting circumstance is recorded by Evelyn on this occasion. In re- turning to town with the Earl of Clarendon, the son of the great earl, " in passing by the glorious palace his fatiit-r built but a few years before, which they were now demolishing, being sold to certain undertakers,t I turned my head the contrary way till the coach was gone past by, lest I might minister occasion of speaking of it, which must needs have grieved him, that in so short a time this pomp was fallen." A feeling of infinite delicacy, so perfectly characteristic of Evelyn ! And now to bring down this subject to times still nearer. We find that Sir Robert Walpole had placed himself exactly in the situation of the great minister we have noticed ; we have his confession to his brother Lord Walpole, and to his friend Sir John Hynde Cotton. The historian of this minister observes, that his magnificent building at Houghton drew on him great obloquy. On seeing his brother's house at Wol- terton, Sir Robert expressed his wishes that he had contented himself with a similar structure. In the reign of Anne, Sir Robert, sitting by Sir John Hynde Cotton, alluding to a sumptuous house which was then building by Harley, ob- served, that to construct a great house was a high act of imprudence in any muiister ! It was a long time after, when he had become prime minister, that he forgot the whole result of the present article, and pulled down his family man- * At the gateway of the Three Kings Inn, near Dover-street, in Picca- dilly, are two pilasters with Corinthian capitals, which belonged to Clarendon House, and are perhaps the only remains of that edifice. i* An old term for contractors. Evelyn tells us they were " certain rich bankers and mechanics, who gave for it, and the ground about it, 35,000/." They built streets and houses on the site to their great profit, the ground comprising twenty-four acres of laud. 192 Of Palaces Built by Ministers. sion at Houghton to build its magnificent edifice : it was then Sir John Hynde Cotton reminded him of the reflection •which he had made some years ago : the reply of Sir Eobert IS remarkable — " Your recollection is too late ; I wish you had reminded me of it before I began building, for then it might have been of service to me !" Tne statesman and politician then are susceptible of all the seduction of ostentation and the pride of pomp ! Who would have credited it ? But bewildered with power, in the magnificence and magnitude of the edifices which their colossal greatness inhabits, they seem to contemplate on its image ! Sir Francis Walsingham died and left nothing to pay his debts, as appears by a curious fact noticed in the anonymous life of Sir Philip Sidney prefixed to the Arcadia, and evidently written by one acquainted with the family history of his friend and hero. The chivalric Sidney, though sought after by court beauties, solicited the hand of the daughter of Wal- singham, although, as it appears, she could have had no other portion than her own virtues and her father's name. "And herein," observes our anonymous biographer, "he was exemplary to all gentlemen not to carry their love in their purses." On this he notices this secret history of Wal- singham : " This is that Sir Francis who impoverished himself to enrich the state, and indeed made England his heir ; and was so far from building up of fortune by the benefit of his place, that he demolished that fine estate left him by his ancestors to purchase dear intelligence from all parts of Christendom. He had a key to unlock the pope's cabinet ; and, as if master of some invisible whispering-place, all the secrets of Christian princes met at his closet. Wonder not then if he bequeathed no great wealth to his daughter, being privately interred in the choir of Paul's, as muck indebted to his creditors though not so much as our nation is indebted to his memory." Some curious inquirer may afford us a catalogue of great ministers of state who have voluntarily declined the augmen- tation of their jDrivate fortune, while they devoted their days to the noble pursuits of patriotic glory ! The labour of this research will be great, and the volume small ! 193 "TAXATION NO TYRANNY!" Such was the title of a famous political tract, which wag issued at a moment when a people, in a state of insurrection, put forth a declaration that taxation was tyranny ! It was not against an insignificant tax they protested, but against taxation itself! and in the temper of the moment tliis ab- stract proposition appeared an insolent paradox. It was in- stantly run down by that everlasting party which, so far back as in the laws of our Henry the First, are designated by the odd descriptive term of acephali, a people ivithout heads !* the strange equality of levellers ! These political monsters in all times have had an associa- tion of ideas of taxation and tyranny, and with them one name instantly suggests the other ! This happened to one Gigli of Sienna, who published the first part of a dictionary of the Tuscan language,t of which only 312 leaves amused the Florentines ; these having had the honour of being con- signed to the flames by the hands of the hangman for certain popular errors ; such as, for instance, under the word Gran Diica we find Vedl Gahelli ! (see Taxes !) and the word Gahella was explained by a reference to Gran Duca ! Grand-dulce and taxes were synonymes, according to this mordacious lexicographer ! Such grievances, and the modes of expressing them, are equally ancient. A Roman consul, by levying a tax on salt during the Punic war, was nick- named Sallnator, and condemned by " the majesty" of the * Cowel's "Interpreter," art. ^cf^j/irtZ/. This by-name we unexpectedly find in a grave antiquarian law-dictionary ! probably derived from Fliny'a description of a people whom some travellers had reported to have found in this predicament, in their fright and haste in attempting to land on a hostile shore among savages. To account for this fabulou.s people, it has been conjectured they wore such high coverings, that their heads did not appear above their shoulders, while their eyes seemed to be placed in their breasts. How this name came to be introduced into the laws of Henry the First remains to be told by some profound antiquary ; but the allusion was common in the middle ages. Cowel says, " Those are called acephali who were the levellers of that age, and acknowledged no head or superior." + Vocabulario di Santa Caterina e dclla Lingua Sanesc, 1717. This pungent lexicon was prohibited at Rome by desire of the court of Florence. The history of this suppressed work may be found in II Giornale de' Letterati cZ' Italia, tomo xxis. 1410. In the last edition of Haym's " Biblioteca Italiana," 1803, it is said to be reprinted at Manilla,^ ndC Isole FilUppine/ — For the book-licensers it is a great way to go for it. VOL. III. O 194 " Taxation no Tyranny /" people ! He had formerly done Lis duty to the country, but the sailer was now his reward ! He retired from Rome, let his beard grow, and by his sordid dress and melancholy air evinced his acute sensibilit3^ The Romans at length wanted the sailer to command the army — as an injured man, he re- fused — but he was told that he should bear the caprice of the Roman people with the tenderness of a son for the humours of a parent ! He had lost his reputation by a pro- ductive tax on salt, though this tax had provided an army and obtained a victory! Certain it is that GrigH and his numerous adherents are wrong : for were they freed from all restraints as much as if they slept in forests and not in houses ; were they inha- bitants of wilds and not of cities, so that every man should be his own lawgiver, with a perpetual immunity from all taxation, we could not necessarily infer their political hap- piness. There are nations where taxation is hardly known, for the people exist in such utter wretchedness, that they are too poor to be taxed ; of which the Chinese, among others, exhibit remarkable instances. When Nero would have abo- lished all taxes, in his excessive passion for popularity, the senate thanked him for his good will to the people, but assured him that this was a certain means not of repairing, but of ruining the commonwealth. Bodin, in his curious work " The Republic," has noticed a class of politicians who are in too great favour with the peo]:)le. " Many seditious citizens, and desirous of innovations, did of late years pro- mise immunity of taxes and subsidies to our people ; but neither could they do it, or if they could have done it, they would not ; or if it were done, should we have any com- monweal, being the ground and foundation of one."* The undisguised and naked term of " taxation" is, how- ever, so odious to the people, that it may be curious to ob- serve the arts practised by governments, and even by the people themselves, to veil it under some mitigating term. In the first breaking out of the American troubles, they pro- bably would have yielded to the mother-country the right of * Bodin^s "Six Books of a, Commonwealth," translated by Richard KnoUes, 1606. A work replete with the practical knowledge of politics, and of which Mr. Dugald Stewart has delivered a high opinion. Yet this great politician wrote a volume to anathematise those who doubted the existence of sorcerers and witches, &c., whom he condemns to the flames ! See his "Demonomanie des Sorciers," 1593. " Taxation no Tyranny !" 195 taxation, modified by the tei-m rcffulafion (ol" their trade) ; tliis I infer from a letter of Dr. llobertson, who observes that " the distinction between taxation and regulation is mere folly !" Even despotic governments have condescended to disguise the contributions forcibly levied, by some appel- lative which should partly conceal its real nature. Terms have often influenced circumstances, as names do things ; and conquest or oppression, which we may allow to be .syno- nymes, apes benevolence whenever it claims as a gift what it exacts as a tribute. A sort of philosophical history of taxation appears in the narrative of Wood, in his " Inquiry on Homer." He tells us that " the presents (a term of extensive signification in the East) which are distributed annually by tlie bashaw of Da- mascus to the several Arab princes through whose territory he conducts the caravan of pilgrims to Mecca, arc, at Con- stantinople, called a free gift, and considered as an act of the sultan's generosity towards his indigent subjects ; while, on the other hand, the Arab Sheikhs deny even a riglit of pas- sage through the districts of tlieir command, and exact those sums as a tax due for the permis.sion of going through their country. In the frequent bloody contef e wliicli the adjust- ment of these fees produces, the Turks ^^omplain of robbery, and the Arabs of invasion."* Here we trace taxation through all its shifting forms, ac- commodating itself to the feelings of the different people ; the same principle regulated the alternate terms proposed by the buccaneers, when they ashed what the weaker party was sure to give, or when they levied what the others paid only as a common toll. When Louis the Eleventh of France beheld his country ex- hausted by the predatory wars of England, he bought a peace of our Edward the Fourth by an annual sum of fifty thousand crowns, to be paid at London, and likewise granted pensions to the English ministers. Holinshed and all our historians call this a yearly tribute; but Comines, the French memoir-writer, with a national spirit, denies that these gifts were either pensions or tributes, " Yet," says Bodin, a Frenchman also, but affecting a moi'e philosoi)hical indiffe- rence, " it must be either the one or the other ; thougli I confess, that those who receive a pension to obtain peace, • Wood's "Inquiry on Homer," p. ]53. o 2 196 " Taxation no Tyranny .'" commonly boast of it as if it were a trihuie P'* Such are the shades of our feelings in this history of taxation and tri- bute. But there is another artifice of applying soft names to hard things, by veiling a tyrannical act by a term which presents no disagreeable idea to the imagination. When it Avas formerly thought desirable, in the relaxation of morals which prevailed in Venice, to institute the office of censor, three magistrates were elected bearing this title ; but it seemed so harsh and austere in that dissipated city, that these reformers of manners were compelled to change their title ; when they were no longer called censors, but I signori aopra il hon vivere della citta, all agreed on the propriety of the office under the softened term. Father Joseph, the secret agent of Cardinal Kichelieu, was the inventor of httres de cacliet, disguising that instrument of despotism by the amusing term of a sealed letter. Expatriation would have been merciful compared with the result of that hillet- doux, a sealed letter from his maiestv ! Burke reflects A'ith profound truth — " Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty in- heres in some sensible object ; and every nation has formed to itself some favourite point, which, by way of eminence, be- comes the criterion of their happiness. It happened that the great contest.^ for freedom in this country were from the earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing. Most of the contests in the ancient commonwealths turned primarily on the right of election of magistrates, or on the balance among the several orders of the state. The question of money was not with them so immediate. But in England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest pens and most eloquent tongues have been exercised ; the greatest spirits have acted and suffered. "f One party clamorously asserts that taxation is their griev- ance, w^hile another demonstrates that the anniliilation of taxes would be their ruin ! The interests of a great nation, among themselves, are often contrary to each other, and each seems alternately to predominate and to decline. " The sting of taxation," observes Mr. Hallam, "is wastefulness; but it is difficult to name a limit beyond which taxes will not be borne without impatience when fuithJ'uUy apjdied." In plainer words, this only signifies, we presume, that Mr. Hallam's * Bodin's "Commonweal," translated by R. Knolles, p. 148, 1606. + Burke's Works, vol. i. 288. " Taxation no Tyranny 1-' 197 party would tax us witliout " wastefulness !" Ministerial or opposition, whatever be the administration, it follows that " taxation is no t3'ranny ;" Dr. Johnson then was terribly abused in his da}' for a vox et lyrceterea nihil ! Still shall the innocent word be hateful, and the people will turn even on their best friend, who in administration inflicts a new impost ; as we have shown b}^ the late of the lloman Salincifor ! Among ourselves, our government, in its consti- tution, if not always in its practice, long had a consideration towards the feelings of the people, and otten contrived to hide the nature of its exactions b}' a name of blandishment. An enormous grievance was long the office of purveyance. A purveyor was an officer who was to furnish every sort of pro- vision for the roj'al house, and sometimes for great lords, during their progresses or journeys. His oppressive office, by arbitrarily fixing the market prices, and compelling the countrjanen to bring their articles to market, would enter into the history of the arts of grinding the labouring class of society ; a remnant of feudal tyranny ! The very title of thi.s officer became odious ; and by a statute of Edward III. the hateful name of purveyor was ordered to be changed into aclieleur or buyer ! * A change of name, it was imagined, would conceal its nature ! The term often devised, strangely contrasted with the thing itself. Levies of money were long raised under the pathetic appeal of benevolences. When Edward IV. was passing over to France, he obtained, under this gentle demand, money towards ''the great journey," ami afterwards having " rode about the more part of the landi-, and used the people in such fair manner, that they were liberal in their gifts;" old Fabian adds, "the which way of the levying of this money was after-named a benevolence." Edward IV. was courteous in this newly-invented style, and was besides the handsomest tax-gatherer in his kingdom ! His royal presence was very dangerous to the purses of his loyal subjects, particularly to those of the females. In his progress, having kissed a widow for having contributed a larger sum than was expected from her estate, she was so overjoyed at the singular honour and delight, that she doubled her benevolence, and a second kiss had ruined her ! In tho succeeding reign of Kichard III. the term had already lost the freshness of its innocence. In the speech which the * The modern word cheater is traced by some authors to this ternr, which soon became odious to the popuhice. 198 " Taxation no Tyranny /" Duke of Buckingham delivered from the hustings in Guild- hall, he explained the term to the satisfaction of his auditors, who even then were as cross-humoured as the livery of this day, in their notions of what now we gently call "supplies." " Under the plausible name of benevolence, as it was held in the time of Edward IV., your goods were taken from you much against your will, as if by that name was understood that every man should psy, not what he pleased, but what the king would have him ;" or, as a marginal note in Buck's Life of Richard III. more pointedly has it, that " the name of benevolence signified that every man should pay, not what he of his own good will list, but what the king of his good will list to take."* Richard III., whose business, like that of all \xsurpers, was to be popular, in a statute even condemns this "benevolence" as "a new imposition," and enacts that " none shall be charged with it in future ; many families having been ruined under these pretended gifts." His suc- cessor, however, found means to levy " a benevolence ;" but when Henr}^ VIII. demanded one, the citizens of London ap- pealed to the act of Richard III. Cardinal Wolsey insisted that the law of a murderous usurper should not be enforced. One of the common council courageously replied, that " King Richard, conjointly with parliament, had enacted many good statutes." Even then the citizen seems to have compre- hended the spirit of our constitution — that taxes should not be raised without the consent of parliament ! Charles the First, amidst his urgent wants, at first had hoped, by the pathetic appeal to beneoolences, that he should have touched the hearts of his unfriendly commoners ; but the term of benevolence proved unlucky. The I'esisters of taxa- tion took full advantage of a significant meaning, which had long been lost in the custom : asserting by this very term that all levies of money were not compulsory, but the voluntary gifts of the people. In that political crisis, when in the fulness of time all the national grievances which had hitherto been kept down started up with one voice, the courteous term strangely contrasted with the rough demand. Lord Digby said " the granting of subsidies, under so prepos- * Daines Barrington, in "Observations on the Statutes," gives the mar- ginal nole of Buck as the words of the duke ; they certainly served his purpose to amuse, better than the veracious cues ; but we expect from a grave antiquary invinlable authenticity. The duke is made by Barrington a sort of wit, but the pithy quaintne.ss is Buck's. " Taxation no Tyranny !" 199 lerous a name as of a henevolence, was a inalevolence.^* And Mr. Grimstone observed, that " the_y have granted a benevo- lence, but the nature of the thing agrees not with the name." The nature indeed liad so entirely changed from the name, that when James I. had tried to warm the hearts of his " benevolent " people, he got " little money, and lost a great deal of love." "Subsidies," that is grants made by parlia- ment, observes Arthur Wilson, a dispassionate historian, "get more of the people's monc}^, but exactions enslave the mind." When benevolences had become a grievance, to diminish the odium they invented more inviting phrases. The subject was cautiously informed that the sums demanded were only loans ; or he was honoured by a letter under the Privy Seal ; a bond which the king engaged to repay at a definite period ; but privy seals at length got to be hawked about to persons coming out of church. " Privy Seals," says a manuscript letter, " are flying thick and threefold in sight of all the world, which might surely have been better performed in delivering them to every man privately at home." The general loan, which in fact was a forced loan, was one of the most cr^'ing grievances under Charles I. Ingenious in the destruction of his own popularity, the king contrived a ne\< mode of "secret instructions to commissioner's."* They were to find out persons who could bear the largest rates. How the commissioners were to acquire this secret and inquisitorial knowledge appears in the bungling contrivance. It is one of their orders that after a number of inquiries have been put to a person, concerning others who had spoken against loan- money, and what arguments they had used, this person was to be charged in his majesty's name, and upon his allegiance, not to disclose to any other the answer he had given. A striking instance of that fatuity of the human mind, when a weak government is trying to do what it knows not how to perform : it was seeking to obtain a secret pm-pose by the most open and general means : a self-destroying princi])le ! Our ancestors were children in finance ; their simplicity has been too often described as tyranny ! but from my soul do I believe, on this obscure subject of taxation, that old Bui'leigh's advice to Elizabeth includes more than all the squabbling pamphlets of our political economists, — "WiN UEAitxs, and YOU HATE THEIR HANDS AND PURSES !" * These "Private Instructions to the Commis.sioners for the General Loan" may be found in Ptush worth, i. 418. 200 THE BOOK OF DEATIl. Montaigne was fond of reading minute accounts of the ueaths of remarkable persons; and, in the simplicity of his hearU old Montaigne wished to be learned enough to form a collec- tion of these deaths, to observe " their words, their actions, and what sort of countenance they put upon it." He seems to have been a little over curious about deaths, in reference, no doubt, to his own, in which he was certainly deceived ; for we are told that he did not die as he had promised himself, — expiring in the adoration of the mass ; or, as his preceptor Buchanan would have called it, in " the act of rank idolatry." I have been told of a privately printed volume, under the singular title of " The Book of Death," where an amateur has compiled the pious memorials of many of our eminent men in their last moments : and it may form a companion-piece to the little volume on " Les grands hommes qui sont morts en plaisantant." This work, I fear, must be monotonous ; the deaths of the righteous must resemble each other ; the learned and the eloquent can only receive in silence that hope which awaits "the covenant of the grave." But this volume will not establish any decisive principle, since the just and the religious have not always encountered death with indifference, nor even in a fit composure of mind. The functions of the mind are connected with those of the body. On a death-bed a fortnight's disease may reduce the firmest to a most wretched state ; while, on the contrary, the soul struggles, as it were in torture, in a robust frame. Nani, the Venetian historian, has curiously described the death of Innocent the Tenth, who was a character unblemished by vices, and who died at an advanced age, with too robust a con- stitution. Dopo lunga e terribile agonia, con dolore e con 'pena, seperandosi Vanima da quel corpo robusto, egli spiro ai sette di Oeniiaro, nel ottantesimo primo de suoi anno. "After a long and terrible agony, with great bodily pain and diffi- culty, his soul separated itself from that robust frame, and expired in his eighty-first year." Some have composed sermons on death, while they passed many years of anxiety, approaching to madness, in contem- plating their own. The certainty of an immediate separation from all our human sympathies may, even on a death-bed The Book of Death. 201 suddenly disorder the imagination. The great physician of our times told me of a general, who had olten faced the can- non's mouth, dropping down in terror, w'hen informed by him that his disease was rapid and fatal. Some have died of tlie strong imagination of death. There is a print of a knight brought on the scaffold to suffer ; he viewed the headsman ; he was blinded, and knelt down to receive the stroke. Having passed through the whole ceremony of a criminal execution, accompanied by all its disgrace, it was ordered that his life should be spared. Instead of the stroke from the sword, they poured cold water over his neck. After this opci'ation the knight remained motionless ; i\\Qj discovered that he had expired in the very imagination of death ! Such are among the man}^ causes which may affect the mind in the hour of its last trial. The habitual associations of the natural character are most likely to prevail, though not always. The intrepid Marshal Biron disgraced his exit by womanish tears and raging imbecility ; the virtuous Erasmus, with miserable groans, was heard crying out, Domiiie ! Domine ! facjinem! facjinem ! Bayle liaving prepared his proof for the printer, pointed to where it lay, v/hen dying. The last words which Lord Chesterffeld was heard to speak were, when the valet, opening the curtains of the bed, announced Mr. Dayroles, " Give Dayroles a chair !" " This good breeding," observed the late Dr. Warren, his phj'sician, " only quits him with his life." The last words of Nelson were, " Tell Collingwood to bring the fleet to an anchor." The tranquil grandeur which east a new majesty over Charles the First on the scaffold, appeared when he declared, " I fear not death ! Death is not terrible to me !" And the characteristic pleasantry of Sir Thomas More exhilarated his last moments, when, observing the weakness of the scaffold, he said, in mounting it, " I pray you, see me up safe, and lor my coming down, let me shilt for myself!" Sir Walter llawleigh passed a similar jest wlien going to the scaff'old.* My ingenious friend Dr. Sherwen has furnislied me with the following anecdotes of death : — In one of tlie bloody battles fought by the Duke d'Enghien. two French noblemen * To these may be added Queen Anne Boleyn. Kingston, tbe Lieutenant of tbe Tower, in a letter to Cromwell, records that she remarked of her own execution, "'I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck ;' and islie put lier hands alwut it, laut;liing heartily. Truly, this lady has much joy and pleasure in death." 203 The Book of Death. were left wounded among the dead on the field of battle. One complained loudly of his pains ; the other, after long silence, thus offered him consolation : " My friend, whoever you are, remember that our God died on the cross, our king on the scaffold ; and if you have strength to look at him who now speaks to you, you will see that both his legs are shot away." At the murder of the Duke d'Enghien, the royal victim looking at the soldiers, who had pointed their fusees, said, " Grenadiers ! lower your arms, otherwise you will miss, or only wound me!" To two of them who proposed to tie a handkerchief over his eyes, he said, " A \oy^\ soldier who has been so often exposed to fire and sword can see the approach of death with naked eyes and without fear." After a similar caution on the part of Sir George Lisle, or Sir Charles Lucas, when murdered in nearly the same manner at Colchester, by the soldiers of Fairfax, the loyal hero, in answer to their assertions and assurances that they would take care not to miss him, nobly replied, " You have often missed me when I have been nearer to vou in the field of battle." AVhen the governor of Cadiz, the Marquis de Solano, was murdered by the enraged and mistaken citizens, to one of his murderers, who had run a pike through liis back, he calmly turned round and said, " Coward, to strike there ! Come round — if you dare face — and destroy me !" Abernethy, in his Physiological Lectures, has ingeniously observed that " Shakspeare has represented Mercutio con- tinuing to jest, though conscious that he was mortally wounded ; the expiring Hotspur thinking of nothing but honour ; and the dying Falstatf still cracking his jests upon Bardolph's nose. If such facts were duly attended to, they would prompt us to make a more liberal allowance for eacli other's conduct, under certain circumstances, tlian we are accustomed to do." The truth seems to be, that whenever the functions of the mind are not disturbed by " the nervous functions of the digestive organs," the j^ersonal character predominates even in death, audits habitual associations exist to its last moments. Many religious persons may have died without showing in their last moments any of those exterior acts, or employing those fervent expressions, which the col- lector of "The Book of Death" would only deign to chronicle ; their hope is not gathered in their last hour. The Book of Death. 203 Yet many liave delighted to taste of death long before tlicy have died, and have placed before tlieir eyes all the furniture of mortalit3^ The horrors of a charnel-house is the scene o( their pleasure. The " Midnight Meditations " of Quarles preceded Young's " Night .Thoughts " by a century, and both these poets loved preternatural terror. If I must die, I'll snatch at everything That ma)' but mind me of my latest breath ; Death's-heahs, Graves, Knells, Blacks,* Tombs, all these shall bring Into my soul such useful thoughts of death, That this sable king of fears Shall not catch me unawares. — Q carles. But it may be doubtful whether the thougJits of death are useful, whenever they put a man out of the possession of his faculties. Young pursued the scheme of Quarles : he raised about him an artificial emotion of death : he darkened his sepulchral study, placing a skull on his table by lamp-light ; as Dr. Donne had his portrait taken, first winding a sheet over his head and closing his eyes ; keeping this melancholy picture by his bed-side as long as he lived, to remind him of his mortalityt Young, even in his garden, had his conceits of death : at the end of an avenue was viewed a seat of an admirable chiaro-oscuro, which, when approached, presented only a painted surface, with an inscription, alluding to the deception of the things of this world. To be looking at " the mirror which flatters not ;" to discover ourselves only as a skeleton with the horrid life of corruption about us, has been among those penitential inventions, which have often ended in shaking the innocent b^' the pangs which are only natural to the damned. J Without adverting to those nume- rous testimonies, the diaries of fanatics, T shall offer a picture of an accomplished and innocent lad}^ in a curious and un- * Blades was the term for mourning in James the First and Charles the First's time. + It was from this picture his stone effigy was constructed for his tomb in old St. Paul's. This mutilated figure, which withstood the great fire of London, is still preserved in tlie crypt of the present cathedral. X A still more curious /as/; /oh in this taste for mortuary memorials ori- ginated at the court of Henry II. of France ; whose mistress, Diana of Poitiers, being a widow ; mourning colours of black and white l)ccanic the fashion at court. Watches in tlie form of skulls were wui-n ; jewels and pendants in the shape of coffins; and rings decorated witli bkulis and skeletons. 204 The Book of Death. affected transcript she has left of a mind of great sensihilitj, u-here the preternatural terror of death might perhaps havo hastened the premature one she suffered. From the " Keliquiae Gethinianse," * I quote some of Lady Gethin's ideas on " Death." — " The very thoughts of death disturb one's reason ; and though a man may have many ex- cellent qualities, yet he may have the weakness of not commanding his sentiments. Nothing is worse for one's health than to be in fear of death. There are some so wise as neither to hate nor fear it ; hut for my part I have an aversion for it ; and with reason ; for it is a rash inconsiderate thing, that always comes before it is looked for ; always comes unseasonably, parts friends, ruins beauty, laughs at youth, and draws a dark veil over all the pleasures of life. — This dreadful evil is but the evil of a moment, and what we cannot hj any means avoid ; and it is that which makes it so terrible to me ; for were it uncertain, hope might diminish some part of the fear ; but when I think I must die, and that I may die every moment, and that too a thousand several ways, I am in such a fright as you cannot imagine. I see dangers where, perhaps, there never were an3^ I am per- suaded 'tis happy to be somewhat dull of apprehension in this case ; and yet the best way to cure the pensiveness of the thoughts of death is to think of it as little as possible." She proceeds by enumerating the terrors of the fearful, who " cannot enjoy themselves in the pleasantest places, and although they are neither on sea, river, or creek, but in good health in their chamber, yet are they so well instructed with t\\Q fear of dying, that they do not measure it only by the present dangers that wait on us. — Then is it not best to submit to God ? But some people cannot do it as they would ; and though they are not destitute of reason, but per- ceive they are to blame, yet at the same time that their reason condemns them their imagination makes their hearts feel what it pleases." Such is the picture of an ingenious and a religious mind, drawn by an amiable woman, who, it is evident, lived always in the fear of death. The Gothic skeleton was ever haunting her imagination. In Dr. Johnson the same horror was sug- gested by the thoughts of death. When Boswell once in conversation persecuted Johnson on this subject, whether we * My discovery of the nature of this rare volume, of what is original and ■what cullecled, will be found in volume ii. of this work. The Book of Death. 205 might not fortify our minds for tlic approach of doatli ; he answered in a passion, "No, sir! let it alone! It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives ! The art of dyinf is not of importance, it lasts so short a time !" But when Boswcll persisted in the conversation, Johnson was thrown into such a state of agitation, that he tliundcrcd out " Give us no more of this!" and, further, sternly told the trembling and too curious philosopher, " Don't let us meet to-morrow !" It may be a question whether those who b}^ their ])repara- tory conduct have appeared to show the greatest indifference for death, have not rather betrayed the most curious art to disguise its terrors. Some have invented a mode of escapin"- from life in the midst of convivial enjoj'ment. A mortuary preparation of this kind iias been recorded of an amiable man, Moncriff, the author of " Histoire des Chats " and " L'Art de Plaire," by his literary friend La Place, who was an actor in, as well as the historian of, the singular narrative. One morning La Place received a note from Moncriff, requestino- that "he would immediately select for him a dozen volumes most likely to amuse, and of a nature to withdraw the reader from being occupied by melancholy thoughts." La Place was startled at the unusual request, and flew to his old friend, whom he found deeply engaged in being measured for a new peruke, and a taffety robe-de-chambre, earnestly enjoining the utmost expedition. "Shut the door!" said JVIoncrifi', ob- serving the surprise of his friend. " And now that we are alone, I confide my secret : on rising this morning, my valet in dressing me showed me on this leg this dark spot — from that moment I knew I was ' condemned to death ; ' but I had presence of mind enough not to betray m^-self." "Can a head so well organised as yours imagine that such a trifle is a sentence of death ? " — " Don't speak so loud, my friend ! or rather deign to listen a moment. At m}' age it is fatal ! The system from which I have derived the felicity of a long life has been, that whenever any evil, moral or phj-sical, happens to us, if there is a remedy, all must be sacrificed to deliver us from it — but in a contrary case, I do not choose to wrestle with destiny and to begin complaints, endles.s as use- less ! All that I request of you, my fi-iend, is to assist me to pass away the few days which remain for me, free from all cares, of which otherwise they might be too susceptible. But do not think," he added with warmth, " tliat 1 mean to elude the religious duties of a citizen, which so many of late afiect 206 History of the Sheldon of Death. to contemn. The good and virtuous curate of my parish is coming here under the pretext of an annual contribution, and 1 have even ordered my physician, on whose confidence I can rely. Here is a list of ten or twelve persons, friends beloved ! who are mostly known to you. I shall write to them this evening, to tell them of my condemnation ; but if they wish me to live, they will do me the favour to assemble here at five in the evening, where they may be certain of finding all those objects of amusement, which I shall study to discover suitable to their tastes. And you, my old friend, with my doctor, are two on whom I most depend." La Place was strongly affected by this appeal — neither Socrates, nor Cato, nor Seneca looked more serenely on the approach of death. " Familiarise yourself early with death !" said the good old man with a smile—" It is only dreadful for those who dread it!" During ten days after this singular conversation, the whole of Moncriff"s remaining hfe, his apartment was open to his friends, of whom several were ladies ; all kinds of games were played till nine o'clock ; and that the sorrows of the host might not disturb his guests, he played the cliouette at his favourite game of picquet ; a supper, seasoned by the wit of the master, concluded at eleven. On the tenth night, in taking leave of his friend, Moncriff whispered to him, "Adieu, my friend! to-morrow morning I shall return your books !" He died, as he foresaw, the following day. I have sometimes thought that we might form a history of this fear of death, by tracing the first appearances of the SKELETON which hauiits our funereal imagination. In the modern history of mankind we might discover some very strong contrasts in the notion of death entertained by men at various epochs. The following article will supply a sketch of this kind. HISTOEY OF THE SKELETON OF DEATH. Hutlianasia ! Euthanasia ! an easy death ! was the exclama- tion of Augustus ; it was what Antoninus Pius enjoyed ; and it is that for which every wise man will pray, said Lord Orrery, when perhaps he was contemplating the close of Swift's life. Historij of the Skeletoti of Death. 207 The ancients contemplated de.vtk witliout terror, and met it with indifference. It was the only divinity to which they never sacrificed, convinced that no human heing coidd turn aside its stroke. The}'- raised altars to Fever, to j\Iis- fortune, to all the evils of life ; for these might change ! l>ut though they did not court the presence of death in any shape, they acknowledged its tranquillity ; and in the beautiful fables of their allegorical religion. Death was the daughter of Night, and the sister of Sleep ; and ever the friend of the unhappy ! To the eternal sleep of death they dedicated their sepulchral monuments — jSSternaU somno ! * If the full light of revela- tion had not yet broken on them, it can hardly be denied that they had some glimpses and a dawn of the life to come, from the many allegorical inventions which describe the transmigration of the soul. A butterfly on the extremity of an extinguished lamp, held up by the messenger of the gods intently gazing above, implied a dedication of that soul ; Love, with a melancholy air, his legs crossed, leaning on an inverted torch, the flame thus naturally extinguishing itself, elegantly denoted the cessation of human life ; a rose sculptured on a sarcophagus, or the emblems of epicurean life traced on it, in a skull wreathed by a chaplet of flowers, such as they wore at their convivial meetings, a flask of wine, a patera, and the small bones used as dice : all these symbols were indirect allusions to death, veiling its painful recollec- tions. They did not pollute their imagination with the con- tents of a charnel-house. The sarcophagi of the ancients rather recall to us the remembrance of the activity of life ; for they are sculptured with battles or games, in basso relievo ; a sort of tender homage paid to the dead, observes Mad. de Stael, with her peculiar refinement of thinking. It would seem that the Eomans had even an aversion to mention death in express terms, for they disguised its very name by some periphrasis, such as discessit e vita, " he has departed from life ;" and they did not say that their friend had died, but that he had lived; pixit ! In the old Latin chronicles, and even in the Foedera and other documents of the middle ages, we find the same delicacy about using the fatal word Death, especially when applied to kings and great people. " Transire d, Sceculo — Vitam suam mutare — >SV (luid de 60 humanitus contigerit, Mic qiCibii lioiame de lettres ^ut cspion, cscroc, bizarre, fow/ueux, cyniqv.e, incapuhle d\imitie, de soumission aux loix? d-c. Yet they do not pretend that the bibliography of Lenglet du Fresnoy is at all deficient in curio.sit.T. Of Lerujld du Frcsnoy. 227 career as a man of letters, he was at first engaged in the great chase of jiolitical adventure ; and some striking facts are re- corded, which show his successful activity. Michault describes his occupations by a paraphrastical delicacy of language, which an Englishman might not have so happily composed. The minister for foreign affairs, the IMarquis de Torcy, sent Lenglet to Lille, where the court of the Elector of Cologne was then held: " He had particular orders to loafch that the two ministers of the elector should do nothing prejudicial to the king's affairs." He seems, however, to have watched many other persons, and detected many other things. He discovered a captain, who agreed to open the gates of Mons to Marlborough, for 100,000 piastres; the captain was arrested on the parade, the letter of Marlborough was found in his pocket, and the traitor was broken on the wheel. Lenglet denounced a foreign general in the French service, and the event warranted the prediction. His most important dis- covery was that of the famous conspiracy of Prince Cellamar, one of the chimerical plots of Alberoni ; to the honour of Lenglet, he would not engage in its detection unless the minister promised that no blood should be shed. These suc- cessful incidents in the life of an honourable spy were rewarded with a moderate pension. — Lenglet must have been no vulgar intriguer ; he was not only perpetually confined by his verj patrons when he resided at home, for the freedom of his pen, but I find him early imprisoned in the citadel of Strasburgh for six months : it is said for purloining some curious books from the library of the Abbe Bignon, of which he had the care. It is certain that he knew the value of the scarcest works, and was one of those lovers of bibliography who trado at times in costly rarities. At Vienna he became intimately acquainted with the poet Rousseau, and Prince Eugene. The prince, however, who suspected the character of our author, long avoided him. Lenglet insinuated himself into the fa- vour of the prince's librarian; and such was his bibliographical skill, that this acquaintance ended in Prince Eugene laying aside his political dread, and preferring the advice of Lenglet to his librarian's, to enrich his magnificent library. When the motive of Lenglet's residence at Vienna became more and more suspected, liousseau was employed to watch him ; and not yet having quarrelled with his brother spy, he could only- report that the Abbe Lenglet was every morning occupied in working on his " Tablettes Chronologiques," a work not q2 228 Of Lenglet du Fresnoy. worthy of alarming the government ; that he spent hia evenings at a vioHn-player's married to a Frenchwoman, and returned home at eleven. As soon as our historian had dis- covered that the poet was a brother spy and newsmonger on the side of Prince Eugene, their reciprocal civilities cooled. Lenglet now imagined that he owed his six months' retire- Bient in the citadel of Strasburgh to the secret officiousness of Rousseau : each grew suspicious of the other's fidelity ; and spies are like lovers, for their mutual jealousies settled into the most inveterate hatred. One of the most defama- tory libels is Lenglet's intended dedication of his edition of Marot to Rousseau, which being forced to suppress in Hol- land, by order of the States-general ; at Brussels, by the intervention of the Duke of Aremberg ; and by every means the friends of the unfortunate Rousseau could contrive ; was, however, many years afterwards at length subjoined by Leng- let to the first volume of his work on Romances ; where an ordinary reader may wonder at its appearance unconnected with any part of the work. In this dedication, or " Eloge Historique," he often addresses " Mou cher Rousseau," but the irony is not delicate, and the calumny is heavy. Rous- seau lay too open to the unlicensed causticity of his accuser. The poet was then expatriated from France for a false accusa- tion against Saurin, in attempting to fix on him those criminal coiiplets, which so long disturbed the peace of the literary world in France, and of which Rousseau was generally supposed to be the writer ; but of which on his death-bed he solemnly protested that he was guiltless. The coup-de-grace is given to the poet, stretched on this rack of invective, by just accusations on account of those infamous epigrams, which appear in some editions of that poet's works ; a lesson for a poet, if poets would be lessoned, who indulge their imagina- tion at the cost of their happiness, and seem to invent crimes, as if they themselves were criminals. But to return to our Lenglet. Had he composed his own life, it would have offered a sketch of political servitude and pohtical adventure, in a man too intractable for the one, and too literary for the other. Yet to the honour of his capacity, we must observe that he might have chosen his patrons, would he have submitted to jmtronage. Prince Eugene at Vienna ; Cardinal Passionei at Rome ; or Mons. Le Blanc, the French minister, would have held, him on his own terras But " Liberty and my books !" was the secret ejaculation of Tlie Dictionary of Trevonx. 229 Lenglot ; and iVom that moment all things in life were sacri- llced to a jealous spirit of independence, which broke out in his actions as well as in his writings ; and a passion for stud^i lor ever crushed the worm of ambition. He was as singular in his conversation, which, says Jordan, was extremely agreeable to a foreigner, for he delivered him- self without reserve on all things, and on all persons, seasoned with secret and literary anecdotes. He refused all the conve- niences offered by an opulent sister, that he might not endure the restraint of a settled dinner-hour. He lived to his eightieth year, still busied, and then died by one of those grievous chances, to which aged men of letters are liable : our caustic critic slumbered over some modern work, and, falling into the fire was burnt to death. Many characteristic anecdotes of the Abbe Lenglet have been preserved in the Dictiunnaire Sistorique, hut I shall not repeat what is of easy" recurrence. THE DICTIONARY OF TREVOUX. A LEAii>'ED iViend, in bis very agreeable " Trimestre, or a Three Months' Journey in France and Switzerland," could not pass through the small town of Trevoux without a literary association of ideas which should accompany every man of letters in his tours, abroad or at home. A mind well-in- formed cannot travel without discovering that there are objects constantly presenting themselves, which suggest lite- rary, historical, and moral facts. My friend writes, "As you proceed nearer to Lyons 3'ou stop to dine at Trevoux, on the left bank of the Saone. On a sloping hill, down to the water-side, rises an amphitheatre, crowned with an ancient Gothic castle, in venerable ruin ; under it is the small town of Trevoux, well known for its Journal and Dictionarj', which latter is almost an enclycopaedia, as tliere are few things of ivJiich something Is not said in that most valuable compilation, and the whole was printed at Trevoux, The knowledge of this circumstance greatly enhances the delight of any visitor who has consulted the book, and is acquainted with its merit ; and must add much to his local pleasures." A work from which every man of letters may be continually deriving such vai'ied knowledge, and which is little known but to the most curious readers, claims a place in these volumes ; nor is the history of the work itself without interest. EiglU 230 The Dictionary of Trevoux. large folios, each consisting of a tliousand closely printed pages, stand like a vast mountain, of which, before we climb, we may be anxious to learn the security of the passage. The history of dictionaries is the most mutable of all histories ; it is a picture of the inconstancy of the knowledge of man ; the learning of one generation passes away with another ; and a dictionary of this kind is always to be repaired, to be rescinded, and to be enlarged. The small town of Trtvoux gave its name to an excellent literary journal, long conducted by the Jesuits, and to this dictionary — as Edinburgh has to its Critical Eeview and Annual llegister, &c. It first came to be distinguished as a literary town from the Due du Maine, as prince sovereign of Dombes,* transferring to this little town of Trevoux not only his parliament and other public institutions, but also estab- lishing a magnificent printing-house, in the beginning of the last century. The duke, probably to keep his printers in con- stant employ, instituted the "Journal de Trevoux;^' and this perhaps greatly tended to bring the printing-house into notice, so that it became a favourite with many good wri- ters, who appear to have had no other connexion with the place ; and this dictionary borrowed its first title, whicli it always preserved, merely from the place where it was printed. Both the journal and the dictionary were, however, consigned to the care of some learned Jesuits ; and perhaps the place always indicated the principles of the writers, of whom none were more eminent for elegant literature than the Jesuits. t The first edition of this dictionary sprung from the spirit of rivalry, occasioned by a French dictionary published in Holland, by the protestant Basnage de Beauval. The duke set his Jesuits hastily to work ; who, after a pompous announcement that this dictionarj^ was formed on a plan suggested by their patron, did little more than pillage Fure- tiere, and rummage Basnage, and produced three new folios without any novelties ; they pleased the Due de Maine, and no one else. This was in 1704. Twenty years after, it was republished and improved ; and editions increasing, the volumes succeeded each other, till it reached to its present * It was always acknowledged as an independent state by the French kings from the time of Vhilip Augustus. It had its own parliament, and the privilege also of coining its own money. t The house in which the Jesuits resided, having the shield of arms of -their order over its portal, still remains at Trevoux. The Dictionary of Trevoux. 231 magnitude aud value in eight large folios, in 1771, the only •edition now esteemed. Many of the names of the contri- butors to this excellent collection of words and thing*, the industry of Monsieur Barbicr has revealed in his " Diction- uaire des Anonymes," art. 10782. The work, in the progress of a century, evidently became a favourite receptacle with men of letters in France, who eagerly contributed tlie small- ■est or lai'gest articles with a zeal honourable to literature and most useful to the public. Tliey made this dictionary their ■commonplace book for all their curious acquisitions ; every one competent to write a short article, preserving an impor- tant fact, did not aspire to compile the dictionary, or even an entire article in it ; but it v/as a treasury in which such mites collected together formed its wealtli ; and all the literati may be said to have engaged in perfecting these volumes during a century. In this manner, from the humble beginnings of three volumes, in which the plagiary much more than the contributor was visible, eight were at length built up with more durable materials, and which claim the attention and the gratitude of the student. The work, it appears, interested the government itself, as a national concern, from the tenor of the following anecdotes. Most of the minor contributors to this great collection were satisfied to remain anonymous ; but as might be ex- pected among such a number, sometimes a contributor was anxious to be known to his circle ; and did not like this peni- tential abstinence of fame. An anecdote recorded of one of this class will amuse : A Monsieur Lautour du Chatel, avocat au parlement de Normandie, voluntarily devoted his studious hours to improve this work, and furnished nearly three thou- sand articles to the supplement of tlie edition of 1752. This ardent scholar had had a lively quarrel thirty years before vpith the first authors of the dictionary. He had sent them one thousand three hundred articles, on condition that the donor should be handsomely thanked in the preface of the new edition, and further receive a copy en grand papier. They were accepted. The conductors of the new edition, in 1721, forgot all the promises — nor thanks, nor copy ! Our learned avocat, who was a little irritable, as his nepliew who wrote his lii'e acknowledges, as soon as the great work appeared, astonished, like Dennis, that " tliey were rattlrng bis own thunder," without saying a word, quits his country town, and ventures, half dead with sickness and indignation. 233 The Lictionary of Trevoux. on an expedition to Paris, to make his complaint to the chan- cellor ; and the work was deemed of that importance in the eye of" government, and so zealous a contributor was con- sidered to have such an honourable claim, that the chancellor ordered, first, that a copy on large paper should be imme- diately delivered to Monsieur Lautour, richly bound and free of carriage ; and secondly, as a reparation of the unperformed promise, and an acknowledgment of gratitude, the omission of thanks should be inserted and explained in the three great literary journals of France ; a curious instance, among others, of the French government often mediating, when difficulties occurred in great literary undertakings, and considering not lightly the claims and the honours of men of letters. Another proof, indeed, of the same kind, concerning the present work, occurred after the edition of 1752. One Jamet I'alne, who had with others been usefully employed on this edition, addressed a proposal to government for an improved one, dated from the Bastile. He proposed that the govern- ment should choose a learned person, accustomed to the labour of the researches such a work requires ; and he calcu- lated, that if supplied with three amanuenses, such an editor would accomplish his task in about ten or twelve years, the produce of the edition would soon repay all the expenses and capital advanced. This literary projector did not wish to remain idle in the Bastile. Fifteen years afterwards the last improved edition appeared, published by the associated book- sellers of Paris. As for the work itself, it partakes of the character of our Encyclopaedias ; but in this respect it cannot be safely con- sulted, for widely has science enlarged its domains and cor- rected its errors since 1771. But it is precious as a vast collection of ancient and modern learning, particularly in that sort of knowledge which we usually term antiquarian and philological. It is not merely a grammatical, scientific, and technical dictionary, but it is replete with divinity, law, moral philosophy, critical and historical learning, and abounds with innumerable miscellaneous curiosities. It would be difficult, whatever may be the subject of inquiry, to open it, without the gratification of some knowledge neither obvious nor trivial. I heard a man of great learning declare, that whenever he coald not recollect his knowledge he opened, Hofi'man's Lexicon Universale Historicuin, where he was sure to find what he had lost. The works are similar ; and Quadrio's Account of English Poetry. 23^ valuable as are the German's four folios, the eight of the Fxeuchman may safely be recommended as their substitute, or their supplement. As a Dictionary of the French Lan- guage it bears a peculiar feature, which has been presump- tuously dropped in the Dictionnaire de I'Academie ; the last invents phrases to explain words, which therefore have no other authority than the writer himself! this of Trevoux is I'urnished, not only with mere autliorities, but also with quo- tations from the classical French writers — an improvement which was probably suggested by the English Dictionary oC Johnson. One nation improves by another. QUADRIO'S ACCOUNT OF ENGLISH POETRY, It is, perhaps, somewhat mortifying in our literary researches- to discover that our own literature has been only known to the other nations of Europe comparatively within recent, times. We have at length triumphed over our continental rivals in the noble struggles of genius, and our authors now see their works printed even at foreign presses, while we are furnishing with our gratuitous labours nearly the whole lite- rature of a new empire ; yet so late as in the reign of Anne, our poets were only known by the Latin versifiers of the " Musa? Anglicanse ;" and when Boileau was told of the publia funeral of Dryden, he was pleased with the national honours bestowed on genius, but he declared that he never heard of his name before. This great legislator of Parnassus has never alluded to one of our own poets, so insular then was our lite- rary glory ! The most remarkable fact, or perhaps assertion^, I have met with, of the little knowledge which the Continent had of our writers, is a French translation of Bishop Hall's "Characters of Virtues and Vices." It is a duodecimo, printed at Paris, of 109 pages, 1610, with this title Cliarac- teres de Vertus et de Vices ; tires de V Anglois de M. Josef Hall. In a dedication to the Earl of Salisbury, the translator informs his lordship that " ce livre est la premiere traduction de I'Anglois jamais imprimee en aucun vulgaire" — the lirst translation from the English ever printed in any modern lan- guage ! Whether the translator is a bold liar, or an ignoi'ant blunderer, remains to be ascertained ; at all events it is a humiliating demonstration of the small progress which ouy houae literature had made abroad in 1610 ! 231 Quadrio's Account of English Poetry. I come now to notice a contemporary writer, professedly ■writing the history of our Poetiy, of which his knowledge will open to us as we proceed with our enlightened and ama- teur historian. Father Quadrio's Delia Sfo?'ia e delV ragione d' ognl Foesia, — is a gigantic work, which could only have been pro- jected and persevered in by some hypochondriac monk, who, to get rid of the ennui of life, could discover no pleasanter ■way than to bury himselt alive in seven monstrous closely- printed quartos, and every day be compiling something on a subject which he did not understand. Fortunately for Father •Quadrio, without taste to feel, and discernment to decide, nothing occurred in this progress of literary history and cri- "ticism to abridge his volumes and his amusements ; and with dihgence and erudition unparalleled, he has here built up a receptacle for his immense, curious, and trifling knowledge on "the poetry of every nation. Quadrio is among that class of authors whom we receive with more gratitude than pleasure, li\^ to sometimes to quote, but never linger to read ; and fix on our shelves, but seldom have in our hands. I have been much mortified, in looking over this volumi- nous compiler, to discover, although he wrote so late as about 1750, how little the history of English poetry was known to foreigners. It is assuredly our own fault. We have too long neglected the bibliography and the literary history of ■our own country. Italy, Spain, and France have enjoyed ^eminent bibliographers — we have none to rival them. Italy may justly glory in her Tiraboschi and her Mazzuchelli Spain in the Bibliothecas of Nicholas Antonio; and France, so rich in bibliographical treasures, affords models to every literary nation of every species of literary history. With us, the partial labour of the hermit Anthony for tlie Oxford ■writers, compiled before philosophical criticism existed in the nation ; and Warton's History of Poetry, which was left un- finished at its most critical period, when that delightful anti- quary of taste had just touched the threshold of his Paradise — these are the sole great labours to which foreigners might Tesort, but these will not be found of much use to them. The Jieglect of our own literary history has, therefore, occasioned the errors, sometimes very ridiculous ones, of foreign writers ;re.specting our authors. Even the lively Chaudon, in his ■" Dictionnaire Historique," gives the most extraordinary accounts of most of the English writers. "Without an Enff- Quadrio's Account of EnglisJi Poetry. 235 li
  • o- sitions" to monarchical and episcopal government; their " innovations " in the church ; and their " embroilments " of the kingdoms. The sword rages in their hands ; treason, sacrilege, plunder; while " more of the blood of Englishmen had poured like water within the space of four years, than had been shed in the civil wars of York and Lancaster in four centuries ! " Neal opposes a more elaborate history ; where these "great and good men," the puritans and the presbyterians, " are placed among the reformers ;^^ while their fame is blanched into angelic purity. Neal and his party opined that the pro- testant had not sufficiently protested, and that the reforma- tion itself needed to be reformed. They wearied the impatient Elizabeth and her ardent churchmen ; and disputed with the learned James, and his courtly bishops, about such ceremonial trifles, that the historian may blush or smile who has to record them. And when the puritan was thrown out of preferment, and seceded into separation, he turned into a preshyter. Nonconformity was their darling sin, and their sullen triumph. Calamy, in four painful volumes, chronicles the bloodless martyrology of the two thousand silenced and ejected ministers. Their history is not glorious, and their heroes are obscure ; but it is a domestic tale. When the second Charles was restored, th.e p>'>'eshyterians, like every other faction, were to be amused, if not courted. Some of the king's chaplains were selected from among them, and preached once. Their hopes were raised that they should, by some agreement, be enabled to share in that ecclesiastical establishment which they had so often opposed ; and the bishops met the presby- ters in a convocation at the Savoy. A conference was held between the hiffh church, resuming the seat of power, and the low church, now prostrate; that is, between the old clergy who had recently been mercilessly ejected by the new, who in their turn were awaiting their fate. The conference was closed with arguments by the weaker, and votes by the stronger. Many curious anecdotes of this conference have come down to us. The presbyterians, in their last struggle, petitioned for indulgence ; but oppressors who had become petitioners, only showed that they possessed no longer the means of resistance. This conference was followed up by the Act of Uniformity, which took place on Bartholomew day, " Political Religionism" 2^1 A'Jfjust 24. lGu2 : an act which ejected Calamy's two thousand ministers from the hosom of the established church. Bartholomew day with this party was long paralleled, and perhaps is still, with the dreadful French massacre of that fatal saint's day. The calamity was rather, however, of a private than of a public nature. The tvvo thou.^and ejected ministers were indeed deprived of their livings ; but this was, however, a happier fate than what has often occurred in these contests for the security of political power. This ejection was not like the expulsion of the Moriscoes, the best and most useful subjects of Spain, which was a human sacrifice of half a million of men, and the proscription of many Jews from that land of Catholicism ; or the massacre of thousands of Huguenots, and the expulsion of more than a hundred thousand by Louis the Fourteenth from France. The presbyterian divines were not driven from their fatherland, and compelled to learn another language than their mother- tongue. Destitute as divines, they w^ere suffered to remain as citizens ; and the result was remarkable. These divines could not disrobe themselves of their learning and their piety, while several of them were compelled to become tradesmen : among these the learned Samuel Chandler, whose literary productions are numerous, kept a bookseller's shop in the Poultry. Hard as this event proved in its result, it was, however, pleaded, that " It was but like for like." And that the his- tory of "the like" might not be curtailed in the telling, opposed to Calamy's chronicle of the two thousand ejected ministers stands another, in folio magnitude, of the same sort of chronicle of the clergy of the Church of England, with a title by no means less pathetic. This is Walker's '* Attempt towards recovering an Account of the Clergy of the Church of England who were sequestered, harassed, &c., in the late Times." Walker is himself astonished at the size of his volume, the number of his sufferers, and the variety of the sufferings. " Shall the church," says he, " not have the liberty to preserve the history of her sufferings, as well as the separation to set forth an account of theirs ? Can Dr. Calamy be acquitted for publishing the history of the Bartholomew sufferers, if I am condemned for writing that of the sequestered loyalists ? " He allows that " the number of the ejected amounts to two thousand," and there were no less than YOL. III. It 242 " Political Religionism." " seven or cii^lit tliousand of the episcopal clergy imprisoned^ banisliecl, and sent a starving," &.c. &c. "Whether the reformed were martyred by the catholics, or the catholics executed by the reformed; whether the puritans expelled those of the established church, or the establisl^ed church ejected the puritans, all seems reducible to two classes, conformists and non-conformists, or, in the political style, the administration and the opposition. When we discover that the heads of all parties are of the same hot temperament, and observe the same evil conduct in similar situations ; when we view honest old Latimer with his own hands hanging a mendicant i'riar on a tree, and, the government changing, the friars binding Latimer to the stake ; when we see the French catholics cutting out the tongues of the protestants, that they might no longer protest ; the haught}' Luther writing submissive apologies to Leo the Tentli and Henry the Eighth for the scurrility with which he had treated them in his writings, and finding that his apologies were received with contempt, then retract- ing his retractations; when we find that haughtiest of the haughty, John Knox, when Elizabeth first ascended the throne, crouching and repenting of having written his famous excommunication against all female sovereignty ; or pulling down the monasteries, from the axiom that when the rookery was destroyed, the rooks would never return ; when we find his recent apologist admiring, while he apologises for, some extraordinary proofs of Macliiavelian politics, an impenetrable mystery seems to hang over the conduct of men who pi'ofess to be guided by the bloodless code of Jesus. But try them by a human standard, and treat them as politicians, and the motives once discovered, the actions are understood ! Two edicts of Charles the Fifth, in 1555, condemned to •death the Reformed of the Low Countries, even should they return to the catholic faith, with this exception, however, in favour of the latter, that they shall not be burnt alive, but that the men shall be beheaded, and the women buried alive ! Relir/ioii could not, then, be the real motive of the Spanish cabinet, for in returning to the ancient faith that point was obtained; but the truth is, that the Spanish government considered the reformed as rebels, whom it was not safe to re-admit to the rights of citizenship. The undis- guised fact appears in the codicil to the will of the emperor, when he solemnly declares that he had written to the Inqui- " Political Religionism.'* 213 sition " to burn and extirpate the heretics," after trying to make Christians oj them, because he is convinced that they never can become sincere catholics ; and he acknowledges that he had committed a great fault in permitting Luther to return free on the faith of his safe-conduct, as the emperor was not bound to keep a promise with a heretic. '• It is because that I destroyed him not, that heresy has now become strong, which I am convinced might have been stifled with him in its birth." * The whole conduct of Charles the Fifth in this mighty revolution was, from its beginning, censured by contemporaries as purely political. Francis the First observed that the emperor, under the colour of religion, was placing himself at the head of a league to make his way to a predominant monarchy. "The pretext of religion is no new thing," writes the Duke of Nevers, "' Charles the Fifth had never undertaken a war against the Protestant princes but, with the design of rendering the Imperial crown hereditary in the house of Austria ; and he has only attacked the electoral princes to ruin them, and to abolish their right of election. Had it been zeal for the catholic religion, would he have delayed from 1519 to 1549 to arm ? That he might have extinguished the Lutheran heresy, which he could easily have done in 1526, but he considered that this novelty would serve to divide the German princes, and he patiently waited till the effect was realised." t Good men of both parties, mistaking the nature of these religious wars, have drawn horrid inferences ! The " dragon- nades" of Louis XIV. excited the admiration of Bruyere; and Anquetil, in his " Esprit de la Ligue," compares the revocation of the Edict of Nantes to a salutary amputation. The massacre of St. Bartholomew in its own day, and even recently, has found advocates ; a Greek professor at the time asserted that there were two classes of protestants in France — political and religious ; and that " the late ebullition of public vengeance was solely directed against the former." Dr. M'Crie, cursing the catholic with a catholic's curse, exe- crates "the stale sophistry of this calumniator." But should we allow that the Greek professor who advocated their national crime was the wretch the calvinistlc doctor * Llorente's "Critical History of the Inquisition." f Naude, "Considerations Politiques," p. 115. See a curious note ia Hart's " Life of Gustavus Adolpims," ii. 129. b2 244 " Political Reliyionism." describes, yet the nature of things cannot be altered by the equal violence of Peter Charpentier and Dr. M'Crie. This subject of " Political Religionism" is indeed as nice as it is curious ; politics have been so cunningly worked into the cause of religion, that the parties themselves will never be able to separate them ; and to this moment the most oppo- site opinions are formed concerning the same events and the same persons. When public disturbances broke out at Nismes on the first restoration of the Bourbons, the protestants, who there are numerous, declared that they were perse- cuted for religion, and their cry, echoed by their brethren the dissenters, resounded in this country. We have not forgotten the ferment it raised here ; much was said, and something was done. Our minister, however, persisted in declaring that it was a mere political affair. It is clear that our government was right on the cause, and those zealous complainants wrong, who only observed the effect; for as soon as the Bourbonists had triumphed over the Bonapartists, we heard no more of those sanguinary persecutions of the protestants of Nismes, of which a dissenter has just published a large history. It is a curious fact, that when two writers at the same time were occupied in a Life of Cardinal Ximenes, Fleehier converted the cardinal into a saint, and every inci- dent in his administration was made to connect itself with his religious character ; MarsoUier, a writer very inferior to Fleehier, shows the cardinal merely as a politician. The elegances of Fleehier were soon neglected by the public, and the deep interests of truth soon acquired, and still retain, for the less elegant writer the attention of the statesman. A modern historian has observed that " the affairs of religion were the grand fomenters and promoters of the Thirty Years' War, which first brought down the powers of the North to mix in the politics of the Southern states." The fact is indisputable, but the cause is not so apparent. Gustavus Adolphus, the vast military genius of his age, had designed, and was successfully attempting, to oppose the overgrown power of the imperial house of Austria, which had long aimed at an universal monarchy in Europe ; a cir- cumstance which Philip IV. weakly hinted at to the world when he placed this motto under his arms — " Sine ipso fac- tum est nihil ;'^ an expression applied to Jesus Christ by St. John ! 245 TOLERATION. AiS" enlightened toleration is a blessing of the last age — it would seeni to have been practised by the Romans, when they did not mistake the primitive Christians for seditious members of society ; and was inculcated even by Mahomet, in a pas- sage in the Koran, but scarcely practised by his followers. In modern history it was condemned when religion was turned into a political contest under the aspiring house of Austria — and in Spain — and in France. It required a long time before its nature was comprehended — and to this moment it is far from being clear, either to the tolcrators or the tolerated. It does not appear that the precepts or the practice of Jesus and the apostles inculcate the co7npelling of any to be Christians ;* yet an expression employed in the nuptial parable of the great supper, when the hospitable lord com- manded the servant, finding that he had still room to accom- modate more guests, to go out in the highways and hedges, and " compel them to come in, that my house may he jilled" was alleged as an authority by those catholics who called themselves " the converters," for using religious force, which, still alluding to the hospitable lord, they called " a charitable and salutary violence." It was this circumstance which pro- duced Bayle's " Commentaire Philosophique sur ces Paroles de Jesus Christ," published under the supposititious name of an Englishman, as printed at Canterbury in 1686, but really at Amsterdam. It is curious that Locke ])ublished his first letter on "Toleration" in Latin at Gouda, in 1689 — the second in 1690 — and the third in 1692. Bayle opened the mind of Locke, and some time after quotes Locke's Latin letter with high commendation. t The caution of both writers in publishi)ig in foreign places, however, indicates the prudence which it was deemed necessary to observe in writing in favour of toleration . These were the first philosophical attempts ; but the • Bishop Barlow's "Several Miscellaneous and Weighty Cases of Con- science Resolved," 1692. His "Case of a Toleration in Matters of Reli- gion," addressed to Robert Boyle, p. 39. This volume was not intended to have been given to the world, a circumstance which doe.s not make it the lesa curious. + In the article Sancterius. Note F. 246 Toleration. earliest advocates for toleration may be found among the religious controversialists of a preceding period ; it war probably started among the fugitive sects who had found an asylum in Holland. It was a blessing which they had gone far to find, and the miserable, reduced to humane feel- ings, are compassionate to one another. With us the sect called " the Independents" had, early in our revolution under Charles the First, pleaded for the doctrine of religious liberty, and long maintained it against the presbyterians. Both proved persecutors when they possessed power. The first of our respectable divines who advocated this cause were Jeremy Taylor, in his " Discourse on the Liberty of Prophe- sying," 1647, and Bishop Hall, who had pleaded the cause of moderation in a discourse about the same period.* Locke had no doubt examined all these writers. The history of opinions is among the most curious of histories ; and I sus- pect that Bayle was well acquainted with the pamphlets of our sectarists, who, in their flight to Holland, conveyed those curiosities of theology, which had cost them their happiness and their estates : 1 think he indicates this hidden source of his ideas by the extraordinary ascription of his book to an Englishman, and fixing the place of its publica- tion at Canterbury ! Toleration has been a vast engine in the hands of modern politicians. It was established in the United Provinces of Holland, and our numerous non-conformists took refuge in that asylum for disturbed consciences ; it attracted a valuable community of French refugees ; it conducted a colony of Hebrew fugitives from Portugal ; conventicles of Brownists, quakers' meetings, French churches, and Jewish synagogues, and (had it been required) Mahometan mosques, in Amster- dam, were the precursors of its mart, and its exchange ; the moment they could preserve their consciences sacred to them- * Recent %vTiters among our sectarists assert that Dr. Owen was ihe first ■who wrote in fnvour of toleration, in 1648 I Another claims the honour for John Goodwin, the chaplain of Oliver Cromwell, who published one of his obscure polemical tracts in 1644, among a number of other persons v.ho, at that crisis, did not venture to prefix their names to pleas in favour of toleration, so delicate and so obscure did this subject then appear ! In 1651, they translated the liberal treatise of Grotius, De Imperio Suvirna- rum Potestatum circa Sacra, under the title of " The Authority of the Highest Powers about Sacred Things." London, 8vo, 1651. To the honour of Grotius, the first of philosophical reformers, be it recorded, that he displeased both parties ! Toleration. 247 selves, they lived without mutual persecution, and mixed together as good Dutchmen. The excommunicated part of Europe seemed to be the most enlightened, and it was then considered as a proof of the admirable progress of the human mind, that Locke and Clarke and Newton corresponded with Leibnitz, and others of the learned in France and Italy. Some were astonished that philosophers who differed in their relijioits opinions should communicate among themselves with so much tole- ration.* It is not, however, clear that had an}^ one of these sects at Amsterdam obtained predominance, which was sometimes attempted, they would have granted to others the toleration they participated in common. The infancy of a party is accom- panied by a political weakness which disables it from weaken- ing_others. vThe catholic in this country pleads for toleration ; in his own he refuses to grant itj^ Here, the presbyterian, who had complained of persecution, once fixed in the seat of power, abrogated eveiy kind of independence among others. When the flames consumed Servetus at Geneva, the controversy began, whether the civil magistrate might punish heretics, which Beza, the associate of Calvin, maintained ; he triumphed in the small predestinating city of Geneva ; but the book he wrote was fatal to the protestants a few leagues distant, among a majority of catholics. Whenever the protestants complained of the persecutions they suffered, the catholics, for authority and sanction, never failed to appeal to the volume of their own Beza. M. Necker de Saussure has recently observed on " what trivial circumstances the change or the preservation of the established religion in different districts of Europe has de- pended!" When the Reformation penetrated into Switzer- land, the government of the principality of Neufchatel, wishing to allow liberty of conscience to all their subjectc, invited each parish to vote " for or against the adoption of the new worship ; and in all the parishes, except two, the majority of suffrages declared in favour of the protestant communion." The inhabitants of the small village of Cressier had also assembled ; and forming an even number, there happened to be an equality of votes for and against * J. P. Rabaut, "sur la Revolution Fran9al.se," p. '27. 218 Toleration. the change of religion. A shepherd being absent, tending the flocks on the hills, they summoned him to appear and decide t! lis important question: when, having no liking to innovation, he gave his voice in favour of the existing form of worship ; and this parish remained catholic, and is so at this day, in the heart of the protestant cantons. I proceed to some facts which I have arranged for the his- tory'- of Toleration. In the Membirs of James the Second, when that monarch published " The Declaration for Liberty of Conscience," the catholic reasons and liberalises like a modern philosopher : he accuses " the jealousy of our clergy, who had degraded themselves into intriguers ; and like me- chanics in a trade, who are afraid of nothing so much as interlopers — they had therefore induced indifferent persons to imagine that their earnest contest was not about their faith, but about their temporal possessions. It was incongruous that a church, which does not pretend to be infallible, should constrain persons, under heavy penalties and punishments, to believe as she does: they deUghted, he asserted, to hold an iron rod over dissenters and catholics ; so sweet was domi- nion, that the very thought of others participating in their freedom made them deny the very doctrine they preached." The chief argument the catholic urged on this occasion was " the reasonableness of repealing laws which made men liable to the greatest punishments for that it was not in their power to remedy, for that no man could force himself to believe what he really did not believe."* Such was the rational language of the most bigoted of zealots ! — The Ibx can bleat like the lamb. At the very mo- ment James the Second was uttering this mild expostulation, in his own heart he had anathematised the nation ; for I have seen some of the king's private papers, which still exist ; they consist of communications, chiefly by the most bigoted priests, with the wildest projects, and most infatuated pro- phecies and dreams, of restoring the true catholic faith in England ! Had the Jesuit-led monarch retained the English throne, the language he now addressed to the nation would have been no longer used ; and in that case it would have served his protestant subjects. He asked for toleration, to be- come intolerant ! He devoted himself, not to the hundredth * " Life of James the Second, from hig own Papers," ii 114. Toleration. 249 part of the English nation ; and yet he was surprised that he was left one morning without an army ! When the catholic inonarch issued this declaration for "liberty of conscience," the Jekyll of his day observed, that " it was hut scaffolding : they intend to huild another house, and when that house (Popery) is built, they will take down the scaffold."* When presbytery was our lord, they who had endured the tortures of persecution, and raised such sharp outcries for freedom^ of all men were the most intolerant : hardly had they tasted of the Circean cup of dominion, ere they were transformed into the most hideous or the most grotesque monsters of political power. To their e3'-es toleration was an hydra, and the dethroned bishops had never so vehemently declaimed against what, in ludicrous rage, one of the high- flying presbyterians called " a cursed intolerable toleration !" They advocated the rights of persecution ; and " shallow Edwards," as Milton calls the author of "The Gangrsena," published a treatise against toleration. They who had so long complained of "the licensers," now sent all the books they condemned to penal fires. Prynne now vindicated the very doctrines under which he himself had so severely suf- fered ; assuming the highest possible power of civil govern- ment, even to the infliction of death on its opponents. Prynne lost all feeling for the ears of others ! The idea of toleration was not intelligible for too long a period in the annals of Europe : no parties probabl}^ could conceive the idea of toleration in the struggle for predo- minance. Treaties are not proffered when conquest is the concealed object. Men were immolated ! a massacre was a sacrifice ! medals were struck to commemorate these hoi}'' per- secutions !t The destroying angel, holding in one hand a cross, and in the other a sword, with these words — Vgonot- torum Strages, 1572 — "The massacre of the Huguenots" — * This was a Baron Wallop. From Dr. H. Sampson's Manuscript Diary. •f* It is curious to observe that the catholics were afierwarJs ashamed of these indiscretions ; they were unwilling to own that there were any medals which commemorate massacres. Thuanus, in his 53rd book, has minutely described them. The medals, however, have become excessively scarce ; but copies inferior to the originals have been sold. They had also pictures on similar subjects, accompanied by insulting inscriptions, which latter they have effaced, sometimes very imperfectly. See HoUis's "Memoirs," p. 312 — 14. This enthusiast advertised in the papers to request traveJlera to procure them. 250 Toleration, ))roves tliafc toleration will not agree with that date.* Cas- telnau, a statesman and a humane man, was at a loss how to decide on a point of the utmost importance to France. In 1582 tlicy first began to burn the Lutherans or Calvinists, and to cut out the tongues of all protestants, " that they might no longer protest." According to Father Paul, fifty thousand persons had perished in the Netherlands, by dif- ierent tortures, for religion. But a change in the religion of the state, Castelnau considered, would occasion one in the government : he wondered how it happened, that the more they punished with death, it only increased the number of the victims : martyrs produced proselytes. As a statesman, he looked round the great field of human actions in the history of the past ; there he discovered that the Romans were more enlightened in their actions than ourselves ; that Trajan com- manded Pliny the 3'ounger not to molest the Christians for their religion, but should their conduct endanger the state^ to put down illegal assemhlies ; that Julian the Apostate ex* pressly forbad the execution of the Christians, who then ima- gined that they were securing their salvation by mart3^rdom ; but he ordered all their goods to be confiscated — a severe pu- nishment — by which Julian prevented more than he could have done by ])ersecutions. " All this," he adds, " we read in eccle- siastical history. "t Such were the sentiments of Castelnau^ in 1560. Amidst perplexities of state necessity, and of our common humanitj', the notion of toleration had not entered into the views of the statesman. It was also at this time that De Sainctes, a great controversial writer, declared, that had the fires lighted for the destruction of Calvinism not been extinguished, the sect had not spread ! About half a century subsequent to this period, Thuanus was, perhaps, the first great mind who appears to have insinuated to the French monarch and his nation, that they might live at peace with lieretics ; by which avowal he called down on himself the haughty indignation of Kome, and a declaration that the man who spoke in favour of heretics must necessarily be one of the first class. Hear the afflicted historian : " Have men no compassion, after forty years passed full of continual miseries ? Have they no fear after the loss of the Nether- * The Sola liegia of the Vatican has still iipon its walls a painting by Vasari of this massacre, among the other impoi-tant events in the history of the Popes similarly commemorated. + " Memoires tie Michel de Castelnau," liv. i. c. 4. Toleration. 251 lands, occasioned by the frantic obstinacy which marked the times ? I grieve that such sentiments should have occasioned my book to have been examined with a rigour that amounts to calumny." Such was the language of Thuanus, in a letter written in 1606 ;* which indicates an approximation to tole- ration, but which term was not probably yet found in any dictionary. We may consider, as so many attempts at tole- ration, the great national synod of Dort, whose history is amply written by Brandt ; and the mitigating protestantism of Laud, to approximate to the ceremonies of the Roman church ;: but the synod, after holding about two hundred sessions, closed, dividing men into universalists and semi-universalists, supralapsarians and sublapsarians ! The reformed themselves produced the remonstrants ; and Laud's ceremonies ended in. placing the altar eastward, and in raising the scaffold for the monarchy and the hierarchy. Error is circuitous when it will do what it has not yet learnt. Thej'^ were pressing for conformity to do that which, a century afterwards, they found could only be done by toleration. The secret history of toleration among certain parties has been disclosed to us by a curious document, from that reli- gious Machiavel, the fierce ascetic republican John Knox, a. calvinistical Pope. "While the posterit}'^ of Abraham," says that mighty and artful reformer, " were few in number, and. while they sojourned in different countries, they were merely required to avoid all participation in the idolatrous rites of the heathen ; but as soon as they prospered into a kingdom, and had obtained possession of Canaan, they were strictly charged to suppress idolatry, and to destroj'' all the monu- ments and incentives. The same duty was now incumbent on the professors of the true religion in Scotland. Formerly, when not more than ten persons in a county were enlightened, it would have been foolishness to have demanded of the nobility the suppression of idolatry. But now, when know- ledge had been increased," &c.t Such are the men who cry out for toleration during their state of political weakness, but who cancel the bond by which they hold their tenure when- ever they " obtain possession of Canaan." The only com- mentary on this piece of the secret history of toleration is the acute remark of Swift : — " We are fully convinced that we^ shall always tolerate them, but not tliat they, will tolerate us.'" * "Life of Tluianus, by the Rev. J. Gollinson," p. 115. + Dr. M'Crie's " Life of Jolin Knox," ii. 122. 252 Toleration. The truth is that toleration was allowed by none of the parties! and I will now show the dilemmas into which each party thrust itself. When the kings of England would forcibly have established episcopacy in Scotland, the presbyters passed an act against the toleration of dissenters from preshyterian doctrines and discipline ; and thus, as Guthrie observes, they were com- mitting the same violence on the consciences of their brethren which they opposed in the king. The presbyterians contrived their famous covenant to dispossess the royalists of their livings ; and the independents, who assumed the principle of toleration in their very name, shortly after entbrced what they called the engagement, to eject the presbyterians ! In England, where the dissenters were ejected, their great advo- cate Calamy complains that the dissenters were only making use of the same arguments which the most eminent reformers had done in their noble defence of the reformation against the papists ; while the arguments of the established church against the dissenters were the same which were urged by the papists against the protestant reformation !* When the presbyte- * I quote from an uupublislied letter, writtea so late as in 1749, ad- dressed to the author of " The Free and Candid Disquisition," by the Rev. ■Thomas Allen, rector of Kettering, Northamptonshire. However extrava- gant his doctrine appears to us, I suspect that it exhibits the concealed sentiments of even some protestant churchmen ! This rector of Kettering attributes the growth of schism to the negligence of the clergy, and seems to have persecuted both the archbishops, "to his detriment," as he tells us, with singular plans of reform borrowed from monastic institutions. He wished to revive the practice inculcated by a canon of the counsel of Laodicea of having prayers ad horam nonam ^t ad vesperam — prayers twice a day in the churches. But his grand project take in his own words — " I let the archbishop know that I had composed an irenicon, wherein I prove the necessity of an ecclesiastical power over consciences in matters of religion, which utterly silences their arguments who plead so hard for folerat.io7i. I took my scheme from 'A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Polity,' wherein the authority of the civil magistrate over the consciences of sub- jects in matters of external religion is asserted ; the mischiefs and incon- veniences of toleration are represented, and all pretences pleaded in behalf of liberty of conscience are fully answered. If this book were re- printed and considered, the king would know his power and the people their duty." The rector of Kettering seems not to have known that the author of this "Discourse on Ecclesiastical Polity" was the notorious Parker, immor- talised by the satire of Marvell. This political apostate, from a republican and pre.sbyterian, became a furious advocate for arbitrary government in •church and state ! He easily won the favour of James the Second, who Toleration. 253 riaiis were our masters, and preached up the doctrine of pas- sive obedience in spiritual matters to the civil power, it was unquestionably passing a self-condemnation on their own recent opposition and detraction of the former episcopacv. Whenever men act from a secret motive entirely contrary to their ostensible one, such monstrous results will happen ; and as extremes will join, however opposite they appear in their beginnings, John Knox and Father Petre, in office, would have equally served James the Second as confessor and prime minister ! A. fact relating to the famous Justus Lipsius proves the difficulty of forming a clear notion of toleration. This learned man, after having been ruined by the religious wars of the Netfierlands, found an honourable retreat in a profes- sor's chair at Leyden, and without difficulty abjured papacy. He published some political works : and adopted as his great principle, that only one religion should be allowed to a people, and that no clemency should be granted to non-conformists, who, he declares, should be pursued by sword and fire : in this manner a single member would be cut off to preserve the body sound, Ure, seca — are his words. Strange notions these in a protestant republic ; and, in fact, in Holland it was approving of all the horrors of their oppressors, the Duke d'Alva and Philip the Second, from which they had hardly recovered.* It was a principle by which we must inevitably infer, says Bayle, that in Holland no other mode of religious belief but one sect should be permitted ; and that those Pagans who had hanged the missionaries of the gospel had done what they ought. Lipsius found himself sadly embar- rassed when refuted by Theodore Cornhert,t the firm advo- cate of political and religious freedom, and at length Lipsius, that protestant with a catholic heart, was forced to eat his made him Bishop of Oxford ! His principles were so violent that Father Petre, the confessor of James, made sure of him ! This letter of the r.ctor of Kettering, in adopting the system of such a catholic bishop, confirms my suspicion that toleration is condemned as an evil among some protestants ! * The cruelties practised by the Protestant against the Catholic party are pictured and described in Arnoudt Van Weluwe's book, " Over de Ont- ledinghe van dry verscheyden Niew-Ghereformeerde Martelaers Boecken," published at Antwerp in 1656. t Cornhert was one of the fathers of Dutch literature, and even of their arts. He was the composer of the great national air of William of Orange ; he was too a famous engraver, the master of Goltzius. On his death-bed he was still writing against ih^ jier sedition of heretics. 254 Toleration. words, like Pistol his onion, declaring that the two objection- able words, ure, seca, were borrowed from medicine, meaning not literally Jlre and sword, but a strong efficacious remedy, one of those powerful medicines to expel poison. Jean de Serres, a warm Huguenot, carried the principle of toleration" so far in his " Inventaire generale de I'Histoire de France," as to blame Charles Martel for compelling the iVisans, whom he had conquered, to adopt Christianity ! ■ "A pardonable aeal," he observes, " in a warrior ; but in fact the minds of men cannot be gained over by arms, nor that religion forced upon them, which must be introduced into the hearts of men by reason." It is curious to see a protestant, in his aeal for toleration, blaming a king for forcmg idolaters to be- come Christians ; and to have found an opportunity to ex- press his opinions in the dark history of the eighth century, is an instance how historians incorporate their passions in their works, and view ancient facts with modern eyes. The protestant cannot grant toleration to the catholic, unless the catholic ceases to be a papist ; and the Arminian ped out of his calculation all the stirring passions of ambition and party, and the vacillations of the multitude. A similar error of a great genius occurs in De Foe. " Child," says Mr. George Chalmers, " foreseeing from experience that men's conduct must finally be decided by their principles, eoretold the colonial revolt. De Foe, allowing his prejudices to obscure his sagacity, reprobated that suggestion, because he deemed interest a more strenuous prompter than enthusiasm^ The predictions of Harrington and De Foe are precisely such as we might expect from a petty calcalator, a political economist, who can see nothing farther than immediate results ; but the true philosophical predictor was Child, who had read the past. It is probable that the American emancipation from the mother country of England was foreseen twenty or thirty years before it occurred, though not perhaps by the administration. Lord Orford, writing in 1754, under the ministry of the Duke of Newcastle, blames " The instructions to the governor of New York, which seemed better calculated for the latitude of Mexico, and for a Spanish tribunal, than for a free British settlement, and in such opulence and such haughtiness, that suspicions had long been conceived of their oneditating to throw veliicle for mucli personal satire. Thus it is stated that the "CdJirnis- gioners of Westminster-liridge have ordered this calamity to be entered in their booljs, as a glorious excuse for the next sinking pier ;" and that the town received some comfort upon hearing that '-the Inns of Court were all sunls, and several orders were given that no one should assist in bringing any one lawyer above ground." Prediction, 275 0^ tJie dependence on t^teir mother-coiintrij." If this was wi'itten at the time, as the author asserts, it is a very re- markable passage, observes the noble editor of his memoirs. The prognostics or presages of this rpvolqtipn it may no\y be dilficult to recover ; but it is evident that Child, before the time when Jjord Orford wrote this passage, predicted the separation on true and philosophical principles, Even when the event does not always justify thq predicr tion, the predictor may not have been the Jess correct in his principles of divination. The catastrophe of human life, q,})d the turn of great events, often prove accidental. Marfshal Biron, whom we have noticed, might haye ascended the throne instead of the scallbld ; Cromwell and De Retz miglit have become only the favourite general or the mii:)ister of their sovereigns. Fortuitous events are not cojnpvehended in the reach of humaji prescience ; such niust be consigned to tliose vulgar superstitions which presume to discover the issue of human events, without pretending to any human knowledge. There is nothing superp^it^jral in the prpscie^pe of the philosopher. Sometimes predictions have been condemned as false ones, which, when scrutiriised, we can scarcely 4pena to havp failed : they may have been accomplished, and they may again revolve on us. Ir; 1749 Dr. Hartley published his "Observations on Man," and predicted the fall of the exist- ing governments and hierarchies ii^ two simple propositions ; among others — Prop. 81. It is probable that all the civil governments will be overtiirned. Prop. 82. It is probable that the present forms of church- government will be dissolved. Many were alarmed at these predicted falls of church and state. Lady Charlotte Wentworth asked Hartley when these terrible things would happen. The answer of the predictor was not less awful : "I am an old mjin, and shall not live to see them ; but you are a young woman, and pror bably will see them.'' In the subsequent revohitions of America and of France, and perhaps now of Spain, we can hardly deny that these predictions had failed. A fortuitous event has once more thrown back Europe into its old cor- ners : but we still revolve in a circle, and what is now dark and remote may again come round, when time has performed its great cycle. There was a prophetical passage in Hooker's T 2 276 Prediction. Ecclesiastical Polity regarding the church which long occu- pied the speculations of its expounders. Hooker indeed seemed to have done what no predictor of events should do ; he fixed on the period of its accomplishment. In 1597 he declared that it would " peradventure fall out to be three- score and ten years, or if strength do awe, into fourscore." Those who had outlived the revolution in 1641, when the long parliament pulled down the ecclesiastical establishment, and sold the church-lands — a circumstance which Hooker had contemplated — and were afterwards returned to their places on the Restoration, imagined that the prediction had not 3'^et been completed, and were looking with great anxiety towards the year 1677, for the close of this extraordinary prediction ! When Bishop Barlow, in 1675, was consulted on it, he endeavoured to dissipate the panic, by referring to an old historian, who had reproached our nation for their prone- ness to prophecies !* The prediction of the venerable Hooker in truth had been fully accomplished, and the event had occurred without Bishop Barlow having recurred to it ; so easy it seems to forget what we dislike to remember ! The period of time was too literally taken, and seems to have been only the figui'ative expression of man's age in scriptural language which Hooker had employed ; but no one will now deny that this prescient sage had profoundly foreseen the results of that rising party, whose designs on church and state were clearly depicted in his own luminous view. The philosophical predictor, in foretelling a crisis from the appeai'ance of things, will not rashly assign the period of time ; for the crisis which he anticipates is calculated on by that inevitable march of events which generate each other in human affairs ; but the period is always dubious, being either retarded or accelerated by circumstances of a nature incapable of entering into this moral arithmetic. It is probable that a revolution similar to that of France would have occurred in this country, had it not been counteracted by the genius of Pitt. In 1618 it was easy to foretell by the political prog- nostic that a mighty war throughout Europe must neces- • An eye-witness of the great fire of London has noted the difficulty of obtaining effective assistance in endeavouring to stay its progress, owing to tlie superstition which seized many persons, because a prophecy of Mother Shipton's was quoted to show that London was doomed to hopeless and entire destruction. Prediction. 'Z77 sarily occur. At that moment, observes Bayle, the house of Austria aimed at a universal monarchy ; the consequent domineering spirit of the ministers of the Emperor and the King of Spain, combined with their determination to extermi- nate the new rehgion, excited a reaction to this imperial despotism ; public opinion had been suppressed, till every people grew impatient ; while their sovereigns, influenced by national feeling, were combining against Austria. But Austria was a vast military power, and her generals were the first of their class. The efforts of Europe would then be often repulsed ! This state of affairs prognosticated a long war ! — and when at length it broke out it lasted thirty years ! The approach and the duration of the war might have been predicted ; but the period of its termination could not have been foi'eseen. There is, however, a spirit of political vaticination which presumes to pass beyond the boundaries of human prescience ; it has been often ascribed to the highest source of inspiration by enthusiasts ; but since " the language of prophecy " has ceased, such pretensions are not less impious than they are uuphilosophical. Knox the reformer possessed an extraordi- nary portion of this awful prophetic confidence : he appears to have predicted several remarkable events, and the fates of some persons. We are told that, condemned to a galley at Kochelle, he predicted that "' within two or three years he should preach the gospel at Saint Giles's in Edinburgh ;" an improbable event, which happened. Of Mary and Darnley, he pronounced that, " as the king, for the queen's pleasure, had gone to mass, the Lord, in his justice, would make her the instrument of his overthrow." Other striking predictions of the deaths of Thomas Maitland, and of Kirkaldy of Grange, and the warning he solemnly gave to the Regent Murray not to go to Linlithgow, where he was assassinated, occasioned a barbarous people to imagine that the prophet Knox had received an immediate communication from Heaven. A Spanish friar and almanac-maker predicted, in clear and precise words, the death of Henry the Fourth of France ; and Pieresc, though he had no faith in the vain science of astro- logy, yet, alarmed at whatever menaced the life of a beloved monarch, consulted with some of the king's friends, and had the Spanish almanac laid before his majesty. That high- spirited monarcli thanked thein for their solicitude, but utterly slighted the prediction : the event occurred, and in 278 Prediction. the following year the Spanish friar spread his own fame m a new ahnanac. 1 have been occasionally struck at the Jere- miads of honest George Withers, the vaticinating poet of our civil wnrs : some of his works afford many solemn predictions. We may account for many predictions of this class without the intervention of any supernatural agency. Among the busy spirits of a revolutionary age, the heads of a party, such as Knox, have frequently i^ecret eolnmunications with spies or with friends. In a constant source of concealed information, a shrewd, confident, and enthusiastic temper will find ample matter for mysterious prescience. Knox exercised that deep sagacity which took in the most enlarged views of the future, as appears by his Machiavelian foresight on the barbarous destruction of the monasteries and the cathedrals — " The best way to keep the rooks from returning, is to pull down their nests.^' In the case of the prediction of the death of Henry the Fourth, by the Spanish friar, it resulted either from his being acquainted with the plot, or from his being made an instrument for their purpose by those who were. It appears that rumours of Henry's assassination were rife in Spain and Italy before the event occurred. Such vaticinators as George Withers will always rise in those disturbed times which his own prosaic metre has forcibly depicted :— ^ It may he on that darkness, which they find Within their hearts, a sudden light liath shin'd, Making reflections of some things to come, Which leave within them musings troublesome To their weak spirits ; or too intricate For them to put in order, and relate. They act as men in ecstasies have done — Striving their cloudy visions to declare — And I, perhaps, among these may be one That was let loose for service to be done : I blunder out what worldly-prudent men Count madnesse. — P. 7.* Separating human prediction from inspired prophecy, we only ascribe to the faculties of man that acquired prescience which we have demonstrated that some great minds have unquestionably exercised. We have discovered its principles in the necessary dependence of efi'ects on general causes, and we have shown that, impelled by the same motives, and circumscribed by the same passions, all human affairs revolve * "A Dark Lantherne, offering a dim Discovery, intermixed with Ke* merabrances, Predictions, &c. 1652." Prediction. 279 in a circle ; and we have opened the true source of this ycfc imperfect science of moral and political prediction, in an intimate but a diricriminative knowledge of the past. Authority is sacred, when experience affords parallels and analogies. If much which may overwhelm when it shall happen can be foreseen, the prescient statesman and moralist may provide defensive measures to break the waters, whose streams they cannot always direct ; and the venerable Hooker has profoundly observed, that " the best things have been over- thrown, not so much by puissance and might of adversaries, as through defect of council in those that should have upheld and defended the same." * The philosophy of history blends the past with the present, and combines the present with the future : each is but a por- tion of the other ! The actual state of a thing is necessarily determined by its antecedent, and thus progressively through the chain of human existence ; while " the present is always full of the future," as Leibnitz has happily expressed the idea. A new and beautiful light is thus thrown over the annals of mankind, by the analogies and the parallels of different ages in succession. How the seventeenth century has influenced the eighteenth ; and the results of the nineteenth as they shall appear in the twentieth, might open a source of predictions, to which, however difficult it might be to affix their dates, there would be none in exploring into causes, and tracing their inevitable effects. The multitude live only among the shadows of things in the appearances of the peesent ; the learned, busied with the PAST, can only trace whence and how all comes ; but he who is one of the people, and one of the learned, the true philosa pher, views the natural tendency and terminations which are preparing for the eutube ! * Hooker wrote this about 15G0, and he wrote before the Steele des Re- volutions had begun, even among ourselves ! He j)enetrated into this i'A- portant principle merely by the force of his own meditation. At this moment, after more practical experience in political revolutions, a very in- telligent French writer, in a pamphlet, entitled "M. da Villele," says, "Experience proclaims a great truth — namely, that revolutions them- selves cannot succeed, except when they are favoured by a portion of the Government." He illustrates the axiom liy the different revolutions which have occurred in his nation within these thirty years. It is tlie same truth, traced to its source by another road. ^>8fJ DREAMS AT THE DAWN OF PHILOSOPHY. Modern philosophy, theoretical or experimental, only amuses while the action of discovery is suspended or advances ; the interest ceases with the inquirer when the catastrophe is ascertained, as in the romance whose denouement turns on a mysterious incident, which, once unfolded, all future agitation ceases. But in the true infancy of science, philosophers were as imaginative a race as poets : marvels and portents, unde- monstrable and undefinable, with occult fancies, perpetually beginning and never ending, were delightful as the shifting cantos of Ariosto. Then science entranced the eye by its thaumaturgy ; when they looked through an optic tube, they believed they were looking into futurity ; or, starting at some shadow darkening the glassy globe, beheld the absent person ; while the mechanical inventions of art were toys and tricks, with sometimes an automaton, which frightened them with life. The earlier votaries of modern philosophy only witnessed, as Gaffarel calls his collection, " Unheard-of Curiosities." This state of the marvellous, of which we are now for ever deprived, prevailed among the philosophers and the virtuosi ■-n Europe, and with ourselves, long after the establishment of the Royal Society. Philosophy then depended mainly on authority — a single one, however, was sufficient : so that when this had been repeated by fifty others, they had the authority of fifty honest men — whoever the first man might have been ! They were then a blissful race of children, rambling here and there in a golden age of innocence and ignorance, where at every step each gifted discoverer whispered to the few, some half-concealed secret of nature, or played with some toy of art ; some invention which with great difficulty performed what, without it, might have been done with great ease. The cabinets of the lovers of mechanical arts formed enchanted apartments, where the admirers feared to stir or look about them ; while the philosophers themselves half imagined they were the very thaumaturgi, for which the world gave them too much credit, at least for their quiet ! Would we run after the shadows in this gleaming land of moonshine, or sport with these children in the fresh morning of science, ere Aurora had scarcely peeped on the hills, we must enter into their feelings, view with then- eyes, and Dreams at the Dawn of Philosophy. 281 believe all they confide to us ; and out of these bundles of dreams sometimes pick out one or two for our own dreaming. They are the fairy tales and the Arabian Nights' entertain- ments of science. But if the reader is stubbornly mathema- tical and logical, he will only be holding up a great torch against the muslin curtain, upon which the fantastic shadows playing upon it must vanish at the instant. It is an amuse- ment which can only take place by carefully keeping himself in the dark.* What a subject, were I to enter on it, would be the narra- tives of magical writers ! These precious volumes have been so constantly wasted by the profane, that now a book of real magic requires some to find it, as Vvell as a great magician to use it. Albertus Magnus, or Albert the Great, as he is erro- neously styled — for this sage only derived this enviable epithet from his surname De Groot, as did Hugo Grotius — this sage, in his " Admirable Secrets," delivers his opinion that these books of magic should be most preciously preserved ; for, he prophetically added, the time is arriving when they would be understood ! It seems they were not intelligible in the thir- teenth century; but if Albertus has not miscalculated, in the present day they may be! Magical terms with talismanic figures may yet conceal many a secret ; gunpowder came down to us in a sort of anagram, and the kaleidoscope, with all its interminable multiplications of forms, lay at hand for two centuries in Baptista Porta's " Natural Magic." The abbot Trithemius, in a confidential letter, happened to call himself a magician, perhaps at the moment he thought himself one, and sent three or four leaves stuffed with the names of devils and with their evocations. At the death of his friend these leaves fell into the unworthy hands of the prior, who was so frightened on the first glance at the diabolical nomenclature, that he raised the country against the abbot, and Trithemius was nearly a lost man ! Yet, after all, this evocation of devils has reached us in his " Steganographia," and proves to be only one of this ingenious abbot's polygraphic attempts at secret writing ; for he had fiattered himself that he had in- vented a mode of concealing' his thoughts from all the world, while he communicated them to a friend. Roger Bacon pro- mised to raise thunder and lightning, and disperse clouds by dissolving them into rain. The first magical process has been * Godwin's amusing Lives of the Necromancers abound in marvellous tories of the supernatural feats of these old students. 282 Dreams at the Dawn of Philosophy. obtained by Franklin ; and the other, of I'ar more use to our agriculturists, ma}^ perchance be found lurking in some corner which has been overlooked in the "Opus majus" of our " Doctor mirabilis." Do we laugh at their magical works of art ? Are we ourselves such indifferent artists ? Cornelius Agrippa, before he wrote his "Vanity of the Arts and Sciences," intended to reduce into a system and method the secret of communicating with spirits and demons.* On good authority, that of Porphyrins, Psellus, Plotinus, Jamblichus — and on better, were it necessary to allege it — he was well assured that the upper regions of the air swarmed with what the Grrceks called dcBmones, just as our lower atmosphere is full of birds, our waters of fish, and our earth of insects. Yet this occult philosopher, who knew perfectly eight languages, and married two wives, with whom he had never exchanged a harsh word in any of them, was everywhere avoided as having by his side, for his companion, a personage no less than a demon ! This was a great black dog, whom he suffered to stretch himself out among his magical manuscripts, or lie on his bed, often kissing and patting him, and feeding him on choice morsels. Yet for this would Paulus Jovius and all the world have had him put to the ordeal of fire and fagot ! The truth was afterwards boldly asserted by Wierus, his learned domestic, who believed that his master's dog was really no- thing more than what he appeared! "I believe," says he, " that he was a real natural dog ; he was indeed black, but of a moderate size, and I have often led him by a string, and called him by the French name Agrippa had given him, Monsieur ! and he had a female who was called Mademoiselle! I wonder how authors of such great character should write so absurdly on his vanishing at his death, nobody knows how!" But as it is probable that Monsieur and Mademoiselle must have generated some puppy demons, Wierus ought to have been more circumstantial. Albertus Magnus, for thirty years, had never ceased work- ing at a man of brass, and had cast together the qualities of his materials under certain constellations, which threw such * Agrippa was the most fortunate and honoured of occult philosophers. He was lodged at courts, and favoured by all his contemporaries. Scho- lars like Erasmus spoke of him with admiration ; and royalty constantly sought his powers of divination. But in advanced life he was accused of sorcery, and died poor in 1534. Dreams at the Dawn of Philosophy. 283 a spirit into his man of brass, that it was reported his growth was visible ; his feet, legs, thighs, shoulders, neck, and head, expanded, and made the city of Cologne uneasy at possessing one citizen too mighty for them all. This man of brass, when he reached his maturity, was so loquacious, that Albert's master, the great scholastic Thomas Aquinas, one day, tired of his babble, and declaring it was a devil, or devilish, with his staff knocked the head off; and, what was extraordinary, this brazen man, like any human being thus effectually silenced, " word never spake more." This incident is equall}^ historical and authentic ; though whether heads of brass can speak, and even prophesy, was indeed a subject of profound inquiry even at a later period.* Naude, who never questioned their vocal powers, and yet was puzzled concerning the nature of this new species of animal, has no doubt most judiciously stated the question. Whether these speaking brazen heads had a sensi- tive and reasoning nature, or whether demons spoke in them ? But brass has not the faculty of ])roviding its own nourish- ment, as we see in plants, and therefore they were not sensi- tive ; and as for the act of reasoning, these brazen heads pre- sumed to know nothing but the future : with the past and the present they seemed totally unacquainted, so that their memory and their observation were very limited ; and as for the future, that is always doubtful and obscure — even to heads of brass ! This learned man then infers that " These brazen heads could have no reasoning faculties, for nothing altered their nature ; they said what they had to say, which no one could contradict ; and having said their say, you might have broken the head for anything more that you could have got out of it. Had they had any life in them, would they not have moved as well as spoken ? Life itself is but mo- tion, but they had no lungs, no spleen ; and, in fact, though they spoke, they had no tongue. Was a devil in them ? I think not. Yet why should men have taken all this trouble to make, not a man, but a trumpet ?" Our profound philosopher was right not to agitate the ques- tion whether these brazen heads had ever spoken. Why * One of the most popular of our old English prose romances, " The Histo- rie of Fryer Bacon," narrates how he had intended to " wall England about with brass," by means of such a brazen head, had not the stupidity of a servant prevented him. The tale may be read in Thorns' " Collection of Early English Prose Romances." 284- Dreams at the Dawn of Philosophy. should not a man of brass speak, since a doll can whisper, a statue play chess,* and brass ducks have performed the whole process of digestion ?t Another magical invention has been ridiculed with equal reason. A magician was annoyed, as philosophers still are, by passengers in the street ; and he, particularly so, by having horses led to drink under his win- dow. He made a magical horse of wood, according to one of the books of Hermes, which perfectly answered its pur- pose, by frightening away the horses, or rather the grooms ! the wooden horse, no doubt, gave some palpable kick. The same magical story might have been told of Dr. Franklin, who finding that under his window the passengers had disco- vered a spot which they made too convenient for themselves, he charged it with his newly-discovered electrical fire. After a few remarkable incidents had occurred, which at a former period would have lodged the great discoverer of electricity in the Inquisition, the modern magician succeeded just as well as the ancient, who had the advantage of conning over the books of Hermes. Instead of ridiculing these works of .magic, let us rather become magicians ourselves ! The works of the ancient alchemists have afforded number- less discoveries to modern chemists : nor is even their grand operation despaired of. If they have of late not been so re- nowned, this has arisen from a want of what Ashmole calls " apertness ;" a qualification early inculcated among these illuminated sages. We find authentic accounts of some who have lived three centuries, with tolerable complexions, pos- sessed of nothing but a crucible and a bellows ! but they were so unnecessarily mysterious, that whenever such a person * The allusion here is to the automaton chess-player, first exhibited by Kempelen (its inventor) in England about 1785. The figure was habited as a Turk, and placed behind a chest, this was opened by the exhibitor to display the machinery, which seemed to give the figure motion, while playing intricate games of chess witii any of the spectators. But it has been fully demonstrated that this chest could conceal a full-grown man, who could place his arm down that of the figure, and direct its movements in the game ; the machinery being really constructed to hide him, and dis- arm suspicion. As the whole trick has been demonstrated by diagrams, the marvellous nature of the machinei'y is exploded. + This brass duck was the work of a very ingenious mechanist, M. Vau- canson ; it is reijorted to have uttered its natural voice, moved its wings, drank water, and ate corn. In 1738, he delighted the Parisians by a figure of a shepherd which played on a pipe and beat a tabor ; and a flute- player who performed twelve tunes. Dreams at the Daivn of Philosophy . 285 was discovered, he was sure in an instant to disappear, and was never afterwards heard of. Ill the " Liber Patris Sapientia)" this selfish cautiousness is all along impressed on the student for the accomplishment of the great mystery. In the commentary on this precious work of the alchemist Norton, who counsels, Be thou in a place secret, by thyself alone, That no man see or hear what thou shalt say or done. Trust not thy friend too much wheresoe'er thou go, For he thou trustest best, sometyme may be thy foe ; Ashmole observes, that " Norton gives exceeding good advicv to the student in this science where he bids him be secret in the carrying on of his studies and operations, and not to let any one know of his undertakings but his good angel and himself :" and such a close and retired breast had Norton's master, who, When men disputed of colours of the rose, He would not speak, but kept himself full close ! We regret that by each leaving all his knowledge to " his good angel and himself," it has happened that "the good angels" have kept it all to themselves ! It cannot, however, be denied, that if they could not always extract gold out of lead, they sometimes succeeded in washing away the pimples on ladies' faces, notwithstanding that Sir Kenelm Digby poisoned his most beautiful lady, because, as Saucho would have said, he was one of those who would " have his bread whiter than the finest wheaten." Van Hel- mont, who could not succeed in discovering the true elixir of life, however hit on the spirit of hartshorn, which for a good while he considered was the wonderful elixir itself, restorino- to life persons who seemed to have lost it. And though this delightful enthusiast could not raise a ghost, yet he thought he had ; for he raised something aerial from spa-water, which mistaking for a ghost, he gave it that very name ; a name which we still retain in gas, from the German geist, or ghost ! Paracelsus carried the tiny spirits about him in the hilt of his great sword ! Having first discovered the qualities of laudanum, this illustrious quack made use of it as an universal remedy, and distributed it in the foi'm of pills, which he car- ried in the basket-hilt of his sword ; tlie operations he per- formed were as rapid as they seemed magical. Doubtless wo 28G Dreams at the Daivn of Philosophy, have lost some inconceivable secrets by some unexpected occurrences, which the secret itself it would seem ought to have prevented taking place. When a philosopher had disco- vered the art of prolonging life to an indefinite period, it is most provoking to find that he should have allowed himself to die at an early age ! We have a very authentic history from Sir Kenelm Digby himself, that when he went in dis- guise to visit Descartes at his retirement at Egmond, lament- ing the brevity of life, which hindered philosophers getting on in their studies, the French philosopher assured him that " he had considered that matter ; to render a man immortal was what he could not promise, but that he was very sui'e it was possible to lengthen out his life to the period of the patriarchs." And when his death was announced to the world, the Abbe Picot, an ardent disciple, for a long time would not believe it possible ; and at length insisted, that if it had occurred, it must have been owing to some mistake of the philosopher's. The late Holcroft, Loutherbourg, and Cosway, imagined that they should escape the vulgar era of scriptural life by re- organizing their old bones, and moistening their dry marrow; their new principles of vitality were supposed by them to be found in the powers of the mind ; this seemed more reason- able, but proved to be as little efficacious as those other phi- losophers, who imagine they have detected the hidden prin- ciple of life in the eels frisking in vinegar, and allude to " the bookbinder who creates the book-worm!" Paracelsus has revealed to us one of the grandest secrets of nature. When the world began to dispute on the very existence of the elementary folk, it was then that he boldly offered to give birth to a fairy, and has sent down to pos- terity the recipe. He describes the impurity which is to be transmuted into such purity, the gross elements of a delicate fairy, which, fixed in a phial, placed in fuming dung, will in due time settle into a full-grown fairy, bursting through its vitreous prison — on the vivifying principle by which the ancient Egyptians hatched their eggs in ovens. I recollect, at Dr. Farmer's sale, the leaf which preserved this recipe for making a fairy, forcibly folded down by the learned commen- tator ; from which we must infer the credit he gave to the experiment. There was a greatness of mind in Paracelsus, wl\o, having furnished a recipe to make a fairy, had the deli- cacy to retrain from its formation. Even Baptista Porta, Dreams at the Dawn of Philosophy. 287 one of the most enlightened philosophers, does not deny the possibility of engendering creatures which, " at their full growth, shall not exceed the size of a mouse;" but he adds, " they are only pretty little dogs to play with." Were these akin to the fairies of Paracelsus ?* They were well convinced of the existence of such elemental beings ; frequent accidents in mines showed the potency of the UTitallic spirits, whicli so tormented the workmen in some of thy German mines by blindness, giddiness, and sudden sickness, that they have been obliged to abandon mines well known to be rich in silver, A metallic spirit at one sweep annihilated twelve miners, who were all found dead together. The fact was unquestionable ; and the safety-lamp was un- discovered. Never was a philosophical imagination more beautiful than that exquisite I'alingenesis, as it has been termed from the Greek, or a regeneration : or rather the apparitions of animals and plants. Schott, Kircher, Gaffarel, Borelli, Digby, and the whole of that admirable school, discovered in the ashes of plants their primitive forms, which were again raised up by the force of heat. Nothing, they say, perishes in nature ; all is but a continuation, or a revival. The semina of resur- rection are concealed in extinct bodies, as in the blood of man ; the ashes of roses will again revive into roses, though smaller and paler than if they had been planted; unsub- stantial and unodoriferous, they are not roses which grow on rose-trees, but their delicate apparitions ; and, like appari- tions, they are seen but for a moment ! The process of the Palingenesis, this picture of immortality, is described. These philosophers having burnt a flower, by calcination disengaged the salts from its ashes, and deposited them in a glass phial ; a chemical mixture acted on it, till in the fermentation the\' assumed a bluish and a spectral hue. This dust, thus excited by heat, shoots upwards into its primitive forms ; by sym- pathy the parts unite, and while each is returning to its destined place, we see distinctly the stalk, the leaves, and the flower arise ; it is the pale spectre of a flower coming slowly forth from its ashes. The heat passes away, tlie magical scene declines, till the whole matter again precipi- tates itself into the chaos at the bottom. Tliis vegetable phoenix lies thus concealed in its cold ashes till the presence * This great charicatan, after many successful impositions, ended Lis I'j'e in poverty in the hospital at Saltzbourg, in 1541. 288 Dreams at the Dawn of Philosophy. of heat produces this resurrection — in its absence it returns to its death. Tims the dead naturally revive ; and a corpse may give out its shadowy re-animation when not too deeply buried in the earth. Bodies corrupted in their graves have risen, particularly the murdered ; for murderers are apt to bury their victims in a slight and hasty manner. Their salts, exhaled in vapour by means of their fermentation, have arranged themselves on the surface of the earth, and formed those phantoms, vphich at night have often terrified the pass- ing spectator, as authentic history witnesses. They have opened the graves of the phantom, and discovered the bleed- ing corpse beneath ; hence it is astonishing how many ghosts may be seen at night, after a recent battle, standing over their corpses ! On the same principle, my old philosopher GafFarel conjectures on the raining of frogs ; but these frogs, we must conceive, can only be the ghosts of frogs ; and GafFarel himself has modestly opened this fact by a " perad- venture." A more satisfactory origin of ghosts modern philosophy has not afforded. And who does not believe in the existence of ghosts ? for, as Dr. More forcibly says — " That there should be so uni- versal a fame and fear of that which never was, nor is, nor can be ever in the world, is to me the greatest miracle of all. If there had not been, at some time or other, true miracles, it had not been so easy to impose on the people by false. The alchemist would never go about to sophisticate metals to pass them off for true gold and silver, unless that such a thing was acknowledged as true gold and silver in the world." The pharmacopoeia of those times combined more of morals with medicine than our own. They discovered that the agate rendered a man eloquent and even witty ; a laurel leaf placed on the centre of the skull fortified the memory ; the brains of fowls and birds of swift wing wonderfully helped the imagination. All such specifics have now disappeared, and have greatly reduced the chances of an invalid recovering that which perhaps he never possessed. Lentils and rape- seed were a certain cure for the small-pox, and very obviously — their grains resembling the spots of this disease. The}"" discovered that those who lived on " fair" plants became fair, those on fruitful ones were never barren : on the principle that Hercules acquired his mighty strength by feeding on the marrow of lions. But their talismans, provided they were genuine, seem to have been wonderiolly operative ; and Dreams at the Dawn of PJdlosophy. 289 had we the same confidence, and melted down the guineas we give physicians, engraving on tliem talismanic figures, I would answer for the good effects of the experiment. Naude, indeed, has utterly ridiculed the occult virtues of talismans, in his defence of Virgil, accused of being a magician : the poet, it seems, cast into a well a talisman of a liorse-leech, graven on a plate of gold, to drive away the great number of horse-leeches which infested Naples. Naude positively denies that talismans ever possessed any such occult virtues : Gafiarel regrets that so judicious a man as Naude should have gone this length, giving the lie to so many autlientic authors ; and Naude's paradox is indeed as strange as his denial ; he sus- pects the thing is not true because it is so generally told ! " It leads one to suspect," says he, " as animals are said to have been driven away from so many places by these talis- mans, whether they were ever driven from any one place." Gaffarel, suppressing by his good temper his indignant feel- ings at such reasoning, turns the paradox on its maker : — " As if, because of the great number of battles that Hannibal is reported to have fought with the Romans, we might not, by the same reason, doubt whether he fought any one with them." The reader must be aware that the strength of the argument hes entirely with the firm believer in talismans. Gaifarel, indeed, who passed his days in collecting " Curiosites monies," is a most authentic historian of unparalleled events, even in his own times ! Such as that heavy rain in Poitou, which showered down " petites bestioles," little creatures like bishops with their mitres, and monks with their capuchina over their heads ; it is true, afterwiu'ds they all turned into butterflies ! The museums, the cabinets, and the inventions of our early virtuosi were the baby-houses of philosophers. Baptista Porta, Bishop Wilkins, and old Ashmole, were they now Jiving, had been enrolled among the quiet members of " The Society of Arts," instead of flying in the air, collecting " a wing of the phoenix, as tradition goes ;" or catching the dis- jointed syllables of an old doting astrologer. But these early dilettanti had not derived the same pleasure from the useful inventions of the aforesaid " Society of Arts" as they received from what Cornelius Agrippa, in a fit of spleen, calls " things vain and superfluous, invented to no other end but for pomp and idle pleasure." Baptista Porta was more skilful in the mysteries of art and nature than any man in his day. H aving TOL. III. U 290 Breams at the Dawn of Philosophy. founded the Academy dcgll Oziosi, he held an inferior asso- ciation in his own house, called di Secreti, where none was admitted but those elect who had communicated some secret ; for, in the early period of modern art and science, the slightest novelty became a secret, not to be confided to the uninitiated. Porta was unquestionably a fine genius, as his works still show ; but it was his misfortune that he attributed his own penetrating sagacity to his skill in the art of divination. He considered himself a prognosticator ; and, what was more un- fortunate, some eminent persons really thought he was. Predictions and secrets are harmless, provided they are not believed : but his Holiness finding Porta's were, warned him that magical sciences were great hindrances to the study of the Bible, and paid him the compliment to forbid his prophe- sying. Porta's genius was now limited to astonish, and sometimes to terrify, the more ingenious part of I Secreti. On entering his cabinet, some phantom of an attendant was sure to be hovering in the air, moving as he who entered moved ; or he observed in some mirror that his face was twisted on the wrong side of his shoulders, and did not quite think that all was right when he clapped his hand on it ; or passing through a darkened apartment a magical landsca})e burst on him, with hiiman beings in motion, the boughs of trees bending, and the very clouds passing over the sun ; or sometimes banquets, battles, and hunting-parties were in the same apartment. " All these spectacles my friends have wit- nessed !" exclaims the self-delighted Baptista Porta. When his friends drank wine out of the same cup which he had used, they were mortified with wonder ; for he drank wine, and they only water ! or on a summer's day, when all com- plained of the sirocco, he would freeze his guests with cold air in the room ; or, on a sudden, let off a flying dragon to sail along with a cracker in its tail, and a cat tied on his back ; shrill was the sound, and awful was the concussion ; so that it required strong nerves, in an age of apparitions and devils, to meet this great philosopher when in his best humour. Albertus Magnus entertained the Earl of Holland, as that earl passed through Cologne, in a severe winter, with a warm summer scene, luxuriant in fruits and flowers. The fact is related by Trithemius — and this magical scene con-, nected with his vocal head, and his books De Secretis Mulie- runi, and De Mirabilibus, confirmed the accusations they raised against the great Albert for being a magician. His Dreams at the Daivn of Philosopfii/. 291 apologist, Theophilus Raynaud, is driven so hard to defend Aibertus, that he at once asserts the winter changed to sum- mer and the speaking head to be two infamous flams ! He will not believe these authenticated facts, although he credits a miracle which proves tlie sanctity of Aibertus, — after three centuries, the body of Albert the Great remained as sweet as ever! "Whether such enchauntments," as old Mandeville cau« tiously observeth, two centuries preceding the days of Porta, were "by craft or by nygromancye, I wot nere." But that they were not unknown to Chaucer, appears in his " Franke- lein's Tale," where, minutely describing them, he communi- cates the same pleasure he must himself have received from the ocular illusions of "the Tregetoure," or " Jogelour." Chaucer ascribes the miracle to a " naturall magique !" in which, howevei", it was as unsettled whether the " Prince of Darkness" was a party concerned. For I am siker that there be sciences By which meu maken divers apparencea Swiche as thise subtil tregetoures pLay. For oft at festes have I wel herd say That tregetoures, within an halle hirge, Have made come in a water and a barge, And in the halle rowen up and doun. Sometime hath semed come a grim leoun, And sometime floures spring as in a mede, Sometime a vine and grapes white and rede, Sometime a castel al of lime and ston, And whan hem liketh voideth it anon : Thus semeth it to every mannes sight. Bishop Wilkins's museum was visited by Evelyn, who describes the, sort of curiosities which occupied and amused the children of science. " Here, too, there was a hollow statue, which gave a voice, and uttered words by a long con- cealed pipe that went to its mouth, whilst one speaks through it at a good distance :" a circumstance which, perhaps, they were not then awai'e revealed the whole mystery of the ancient oracles, which they attributed to demons rather than to tubes, pulleys, and wheels. The learned Charles Patin, in his scientific travels, records, among other valuable produc- tions of art, a cherry-stone, on which were engraven about a dozen and a half of portraits ! Even the greatest of human geniuses, Leonardo da Vinci, to attract the royal patronage, created a lion which ran before tho French monarch, dropping f2 202 Breams at the Dawn of Philosophy. Jleiirs Jc Us from its shaggy breast. And another philosopher who had a spinnet which played and stopped at command, might have made a revolution in the arts and sciences, had the half-stifled child that was concealed in it not been forced, unluckily, to crawl into daylight, and thus it was proved that a philosopher might be an impostor ! The arts, as well as the sciences, at the first institution of the Royal Society, were of the most amusing class. The famous Sir Samuel Moreland had turned his house into an enchanted palace. Everything was full of devices, which showed art and mechanism in perfection : his coach carried a travelling kitchen; for it had a fire-place and grate, with which he could make a soup, broil cutlets, and roast an egg; and he dressed his meat by clock-work. Another of these virtuosi, who is described as " a gentleman of superior order, and whose house was a knickknackatory," valued himself on his multifarious inventions, but most in " sowing salads in the morning, to be cut for dinner," The house of Winstanley, who afterwards raised the first Eddystone lighthouse, rr\}%t liave been the wonder of the age. If you kicked aside an old slipper, purposely lying in your way, up started a ghost before you ; or if you sat down in a certain chair, a couple of gigantic arms would immediately clasp you in. There was an arbour in the garden, by the side of a canal; you had scarcely seated your- self when you were sent out afloat to the middle of the canal — from whence you could not escape till this man of art and science wound you up to the arbour. What was passing at the " Royal Society" was also occurring at the " Academic des Sciences" at Paris. A great and gouty member of that phi- losophical body, on the departui-e of a stranger, would point to his legs, to show the impossibility of conducting him to the door ; yet the astonished visitor never failed finding the virtuoso waiting for him on the outside, to make his final bow ! While the visitor was going down stairs, this inven- tive genius was descending with great velocity in a machine from the window : so that he proved, that if a man of science cannot force nature to walk down stairs, he may drive her out at the window ! If they travelled at home, they set off" to note down prodi- gies. Dr. Plott, in a magnificent project of journeying through England, for the advantage of " Learning and Trade," and the discovery of " Antiquities and other Curiosi- ties," for which he solicited the royal aid which Leland en- Dreams at the Baton of Philosophy. 293 joyed, among other notable designs, discriminates a class thus : " Next I shall inquire of animals ; and first of strange people." — " Strange accidents that attend corporations or families, as that the deans of Rochester ever since the foun- dation by turns have died deans and bishops ; the bird with a white breast that haunts the family of Oxenham near Exeter just before the death of any of that family ; the bodies of trees that are seen to swim in a pool near Brereton in Cheshire, a certain warning to the heir of that honourable family to prepare for the next world." And such remarkables as "Number of children, such as the Lady Temple, who be- fore she died saw seven hundred descended from her."* Tiiis fellow of the Royal Society, who lived nearly to 1700, was requested to give an edition of Pliny : we have lost the be- nefit of a most copious commentary ! Bishop Hall went to "the Spa." The wood about that place was haunted not only by " freebooters, but by wolves and witches ; although these last are ofttimes but one." They were called loups- garoux ; and the Greeks, it seems, knew them by the name of \vKav6pu)Troi, men-wolves : witches that have put on the shapes of those cruel beasts. " We sawe a boy there, whose half-face was devoured by one of them near the village ; yet so, as that the eare was rather cut than bitten off." Rumour had spread that the boy had had half his face devoured ; when it was examined, it turned out that his ear had only been scratched ! However, there can be no doubt of the ex- istence of " witch-wolves ;" for Hall saw at Limburgh " one of those miscreants executed, who confessed on the wheel to have devoured two-and-forty children in that form." They would probably have found it diflicult to have summoned the mothers who had lost the children. But observe our philo- sopher's reasoning : " It would aske a large volume to scan this problem of li/caniliropy.'' He had laboriously collected all the evidence, and had added his arguments : the result offers a curious instance of acute reasoning on a wrong principle. t * Similar popular fallacies may be seen carefully noted in R. Burton's "Admirable Curiosities, Rarities, and Wonders in England, Scotland, unci Ireland," 1684. It is one of those curious volumes of "folk-lore" sent out by Nat. Croucb the bookseller, under a fictitious name. f HaU's postulate is, that God's work could not admit of any substan- tial change, which is above the reach of all infernal powers ; but " Herein the divell plays the double sophister ; the sorcerer with sorcerers. Hee both deludes the witch's conce't and the beliolder's eyes." In a word, Hall . antique" was only a piece of retaliation. In reviewing Masters's Life of Baker he found two heads, one scratckec down from painted glass by George Steevens, who would have passed it ofi' for a portrait of one of our kings. Gough, on the watch to have a fling at George Steevens, attacked his graphic performance, and reprobated a portrait which had nothing human in it ! Steevens vowed, that wretched as Gough deemed his pencil to be, it should make " The Director " ashamed of his own eyes, and be fairly taken in by something scratched much worse. Such was the origin of his adoption of this fragment of a chimney-slab, which I have seen, and with a better judge wondered at the injudicious antiquary, who could have been duped by the slight and ill- formed scratches, and even with a false spelling of the name, which, however, succeeded in being passed off as a genuine Saxon inscription : but he had counted on his man.* The trick is not so original as it seems. One De Grassis had engraved on marble the epitaph of a mule, which he buried in his vineyard : some time after, having ordered a new plan- tation on the spot, the diggers could not fail of disinterring what lay ready for tbem. The inscription imported that one Publius Grassus had raised this monument to his mule ! De Grassis gave it out as an odd coincidence of names, and a prophecy about his own mule ! It was a simple joke ! The marble was thrown by, and no more thought of. Several years after it rose into celebrity, for with the erudite it then * The stone may be found in tlie British Museum. HAEDENVT is the reading on the Harthacnut stone ; but the true orthography of tlie name is HARDAEN VT. It was reported to have been discovered in Keniiington- lane, where the palace of the monarch was said to have been located, and the inscription carefully made in Anglo-Saxon characters, was to the eflect that "Here Hardcnut drank a wine horn dry, stared about him, and died." Sylvanus Urban, my once excellent and old friend, seems a trifle un- courteous on this grave occasion. — He tells us, however, that " The history of this wanton trick, with a facsimile of Schnebbelie's drawing, may be seen in his volume Ix. p. 217." He says that this wicked contrivance of George Steevens was to entrap this famous draughtsman ! Does Sylvanus then deny that "the Director" was not also "entrapped ?" and that he always struck out his own name in the proof-sheets of the Magazine, sub- stituting his official designation, by which the whole society itself seemed to screen "' the Director 1" Literary Forge^'ies. 305 passed for an ancient inscription, and the antiquar}^ Poracchi inserted the epitaph in his work on "Burials." Thus Do Grassis and his mule, equally respectable, would have come down to posterity, had not the story by some means got wind ! An incident of this nature is recorded in Portuguese history, contrived with the intention to keep up the national spirit, and difi'use hopes of the new enterprise of Vasco de Gama, who had just sailed on a voyage of discovery to the Indies. Three stones were discovered near Cintra, bearing in ancient characters a Latin inscription ; a sibylline oracle ad- dressed prophetically " To the Inhabitants of the West ! " stating that when these three stones shall be found, the Ganges, the Indus, and the Tagus should exchange their commodities ! This was the pious fraud of a Portuguese poet, sanctioned by the approbation of the king. When tho stones had lain a sufficient time in the damp eai'th, so as to become apparently antique, our poet invited a numerous party to a dinner at his country-house ; in the midst of the enter- tainment a peasant rushed in, announcing the sudden dis- covery of this treasure 1 The inscription was placed among the royal collections as a sacred curiosity ! The prophecy was accomplished, and the oracle was long considered genuine ! In such cases no mischief resulted ; the annals of mankind were not confused by spurious dynasties and fabulous chrono- logies ; but when literary forgeries are published by those whose character hardly admits of a suspicion that they are themselves the impostors, the difficulty of assigning a motive only increases that of forming a decision ; to adopt or reject them may be equally dangerous. In this class we must place Annius of Viterbo,* who pub- lished a pretended collection of historians of the remotest antiquity, some of whose names had descended to us in the works of ancient writers, while their works themselves had been lost. Afterwards he subjoined commentaries to confirm their authority by passages from known autliors. These at first were eagerly accepted by the learned ; the blunders of the presumed editor, one of which was his mistaking the * Ho was a Dominican monk, his real name being Giovanni Nanni, ■which he Latinized iu conformity with the custom of his era. He was born 1432, and died 1502. His great work, AndijuHatem Rarioruvi, professes to contain the works of Manetho, Berosus, and other authors of equal antiquity. YOL. III. X 306 Literary Forgeries. right name of the historian he forged, were gradually detected, till at length the imposture was apparent ! The pretended originals were more remarkable ior their number than their volume ; for the whole collection does not exceed 171 pages, which lessened the difficulty of the forgery ; while the com- mentaries which were afterwards published must have been manulactured at the same time as the text. In favour of Annius, the high rank he occupied at the Roman Court, his irreproachable conduct, and his declaration that he had recovered some of these fragments at Mantua, and that others had come from Armenia, induced many to credit these pseudo-historians. A literary war soon kindled ; Niceron has discriminated between four parties engaged in this conflict. One party decried the whole of the collection as gross forgeries ; another obstinately supported their authenticity ; a third decided that they were forgeries before Annius possessed them, who was only credulous ; while a fourth party con- sidered them as partly authentic, and ascribed their blunders to the interpolations of the editor, to increase their import- ance. Such as they were, they scattered confusion over the whole face of history. The false Berosus opens his history before the deluge, when, according to him, the Chaldeans through preceding ages had faithfully preserved their histori- cal evidences ! Annius hints, in his commentary, at the archives and pubhc libraries of the Babylonians : the days of Noah compai'atively seemed modern history with this dream- ing editor. Some of the fanciful writers of Italy were duped : Sansovino, to delight the Florentine nobility, accommodated them with a new title of antiquity in their ancestor Noah, Imperatore e monarclia delle genti, visse e morl in quelle parti. The Spaniards complained that in forging these fabulous origins of different nations, a new series of kings from the ark of Noah had been introduced by some of their rhodo- montade historians to pollute the sources of their history. Bodin's otherwise valuable works are considerably injured by Annius's supposititious discoveries. One historian died of grief, for having raised his elaborate speculations on these fabulous originals ; and theu' credit was at length so much reduced, that Pignori and Maffei both anrounced to their readers that they had not referred in their works to the pre- tended writers of Annius ! Yet, to the present hour, these presumed forgeries are not always given up. The problem remains unsolved — and the silence of the respectable Annius, Literary Forgeries. 007 in regard to the forgery, as well as what he affirmed when alive, leave us in doubt whether he really intended to laugh at the world by these fairy tales of the giants of antiquity. Sanchoniathon, as preserved by Eusebius, may be classed among these ancient writings or forgeries, and has been equally rejected and defended. Another literary forgery, supposed to have been grafted on those of Annius, involved the Inghirami family. It was by digging in their grounds that they discovered a number of Etruscan antiquities, consisting of inscriptions, and also frag- ments of a chronicle, pretended to have been composed sixty years before the vulgar era. The characters on the marbles were the ancient Etruscan, and the historical work tended to confirm the pretended discoveries of Annius. They \vere collected and enshrined in a magnificent folio by Curtius Inghirami, who, a few years after, published a quarto volume exceeding one thousand pages to support their authenticity. Notwithstanding the erudition of the forger, these monu- ments of antiquity betrayed their modern condiment.* There were uncial letters which no one knew ; but these were said to be undiscovered ancient Etruscan characters ; it was more difiicult to defend the small italic letters, for they were not used in the age assigned to them ; besides that, there were dots on the letter i, a custom not practised till the eleventh century. The style was copied from the Latin of the Psalms and the Breviary ; but Inghirami discovered that there had been an intercourse between the Etruscans and the Hebrews, and that David had imitated the writings of Noah and his descendants ! Of Noah the chronicle details speeches and anecdotes ! The Romans, who have preserved so much of the Etrus- cans, had not, however, noticed a single fact recorded in these Etruscan antiquities. Inghirami replied that the manuscript was the work of the secretary of the college of the Etrurian augurs, who alone was permitted to draw his materials irom the archives, and who, it would seem, was the only scribe who has favoured posterity with so much secret history. It was urged in favour of the authenticity of these Etruscan monuments, that Inghirami was so young an antiquary at * A forgery of a similar character has been recently effected in the debris of the Chapelle St. Eloi (Departement de L'Eure, France), where many in- scriptions connected with the early history of France were exhumed, wiiich a deputation of antiquaries, convened to examine their authenticity, hav9 since pronounced to be forgeries ! x2 308 Literary Forgeries. the time of the discovery, that he could not even explain them ; and that when fresh researches were made on the spot, other similar monuments were also disinterred, where evidently they had long lain ; the whole affair, however con- trived, was confined to the Ingliirami family. One of them, half a century before, had been the librarian of the Vatican, and to him is ascribed the honour of the forgeries which he buried where he was sure they would be found. This, how- ever, is a mere conjecture ! Inghirami, who published and defended their authenticity, was not concerned in their fabri- cation ; the design was probably merely to raise the antiquity of Volaterra, the family estate of the Inghirami ; and for this purpose one of its learned branches had bequeathed his pos- terity a collection of spurious historical monuments, which tended to overturn all received ideas on the first ages of history.* It was probably such impostures, and those of false de- cretals of Isidore, which were forged for the maintenance of the papal supremacy, and for eight hundred years formed the fundamental basis of the canon law, the discipline of the church, and even the faith of Christianity, which led to the monstrous pyrrhonism of father Hardouin, who, with immense erudition, had persuaded himself that, excepting the Bible and Homer, Herodotus, Plautus, Pliny the elder, with frag- ments of Cicero, Virgil, and Horace, all the remains of classical literature were forgeries of the thirteenth and four- teenth centuries ! In two dissertations he imagined that he had proved that the ^neid was not written by Virgil, nor the Odes of Horace by that poet. Hardouin was one of those wrong-headed men who, once having fallen into a delusion, whatever afterwards occurs to them on their favourite subject only tends to strengthen it. He died in his own faith ! He «eems not to have been aware that by ascribing such prodigal inventions as Plutarch, Thucydides, Livy, Tacitus, and other historians, to the men he did, he was raising up an unparal- leled age of learning and genius when monks could only write meagre chronicles, while learning and genius themselves lay in an enchanted slumber with a suspension of all their vital powers. * The volume of these pretended Antiquities is entitled Etruscarum Afifiquitatum Fracimenta, fo. Franc. 1637. That which Inghirami pub- lished to defend their authenticity is ia Italian, Discorso so;pra l' Oppo- sizionifatte all' Antichita Toscane, 4to, Firenze, 1645. Literary Forgeries. 309 There are numerous instances of the forgeries of smaller documents. The Prayer-book of Columbus, presented to him by the Pope, which the great discoverer of a new world bequeathed to the Genoese republic, has a codicil in his own writing, as one of the leaves testifies, but as volumes com- posed against its authenticity deny. The famous description in Petrarch's Virgil, so often quoted, of his first rencontre with Laura in the church of St. Clair on a Good Friday, Gth April, 1327, it has been recently attempted to be shown is a forgery. By calculation, it appears that the Gth April, 1327, fell on a Monday ! The Good Friday seems to have been a blunder of the manufacturer of the note. He was entrapped by reading the second sonnet, as it appears in the printed editions ! Era il giorno ch' al sol si scolorana Per la pieta del suo fattore i rai. " It was on the day when the rays of the sun were obscured by compassion for his Maker." The forger imagined this description alluded to Good Friday and the eclipse at the Crucifixion. But how stands the passage in the MS. in the Imperial Library of Vienna, which Abbe Costaing has found 'i Era il giorno ch' al sol di color raro Parve la pieta da suo fattore, ai rai Quand lo fu preso ; e non mi guardai Che ben vostri occhi dentro mi legaro. " It was on the day that I was captivated, devotion for its Maker appeared in the rays of a brilliant sun, and I did not well consider that it was your eyes that enchained me ! " The first meeting, according to the Abbe Costaing, was not in a church, but in a meadow — as appears by the ninety- first sonnet. The Laura of Sade was not the Laura of Pstrarch, but Laura de Baux, unmarried, and who died young, residing in the vicinity of Vaucluse. Petrarch had often viewed her from his own window, and often enjoyed her society amidst her family.* If the Abbe Costaing's dis- * I draw this information from a little "new year's gift," which my learned friend, the Rev. S. Weston, presented to his friends in 1822, en- titled "A Visit to Vaucluse," accompanied by a Supplement. He derives his account apparently from a curious publication of L'Abbe Costaing de Pusigner d' Avignon, which I with other inquirers have not been able to procure, but which it is absolutely necessary to examine, before we can decide on the very curious but unsatisfactory accounts we have hitherto possessed of the Laura of Petrarch. 310 Literary Forgeries. cuverj be confirmed, the good name of Petrarch is freed from the idle romantic passion for a married woman. It would be curious if the famous story of the first meeting with Laura in the church of St. Clair originated in the blunder of the forger's misconception of a }>assage which was incorrectly printed, as appears by existing manuscripts ! Literary forgeries have been introduced into bibliography ; dates have been altered ; fictitious titles affixed ; and books have been reprinted, either to leave out or to interpolate whole passages ! I forbear entering minutely into this part of the history of literary forgery, for this article has already grown voluminous. When we discover, however, that one of the most magnificent of amateurs, and one of the most critical of bibliographers, were concerned in a forgery of this nature, it may be useful to spread an alarm among collectors. The Duke de la Valliere, and the Abbe de St. Leger once .co.neei*ted together to supply the eager purchaser of literary rarities with a copy of De Tribus Impostoribus, a book, by the date, pretended to have been printed in 1598, though probably a modern forgery of 1698. The title of such a work had long existed by rumour, but never was a copy seen by man ! Works printed with this title have all been proved to be modern fabrications. A copy, however, of the introuv- ahle original was sold at the Duke de la Valliere's sale ! The history of this volume is curious. The Duke and the Abb6 having manufactured a text, had it printed in the old Gothic character, under the title, De Tribus Impostor ibus. They proposed to put the great bibliopolist, De Bure, in good humour, whose agency would sanction the imposture. They were afterwards to dole out copies at twenty-five louis each, which would have been a reasonable price for a book which no one ever saw ! They invited De Bure to dinner, flattered and cajoled him, and, as they imagined, at a moment they had wound him up to their pitch, they exhibited their manu- facture ; the keen-eyed glance of the renowned cataloguer of the " Bibliographie Instructive" instantly shot like lightning over it, and, like lightning, destroyed the whole edition. He not only discovered the forgery, but reprobated it ! He refused his sanction ; and the forging Duke and Abbe, in confusion, suppressed the livre infrouvable ; but they owed a grudge to the honest bibliograplier, and attempted to write down the work whence the De Bureis derive tiicii* fame. Literary Forgeries. 311 Among the extraordinary literary impostors of our age — if we except Lauder, who, detected by the Ithuriel pen of Bishop Douglas, lived to make his public recantation of his audacious forgeries, and Chatterton, who has buried his inexplicable story in his own grave, a tale, which seems but half told — we must place a man well known in the literary world under the as- sumed name of George Psalmanazar. He composed his auto- biography as the penance of contrition, not to be published till he was no more, when all human motives have ceased which might cause his veracity to be suspected. The life is tedious ; but I have curiously traced the progress of the mind in an ingenious imposture, which is worth preservation. The present literary forgery consisted of personating a converted islander of Formosa : a place then little known but by the reports of the Jesuits, and constructing a language and a history of a new people and a new religion, entirely of his own invention! This man was evidently a native ot the south of France; educated in some provincial college of the Jesuits, where he had heard much of their discoveries of Japan ; he had looked over their maps, and listened to their comments. He i'orgot the manner in which the Japanese wrote; but supposed, like orientalists, they wrote from the right to the left, which he found difficult to manage. He set about excogitating an al]jhabet ; but actually foi'got to give names to his letters, which afterwards baffled him before literary men. He fell into gross blunders ; having inadvertently affirmed tliat the Formosans sacrificed eighteen thousand male infants annually, he persisted in not lessening the number. It was ]iroved to be an impossibility in so small an island, without cc'-asioning a depopulation. He had made it a principle iu this imposture never to vary when he had once said a thing. All this was projected in haste, fearful of detection by those about him. He was himself surprised at his facility of invention, and tlio progress of his forgery. He had formed an alphabet, a o.isiderable portion of a new language, a grammar, a new division of the year into twenty months, and a new religion ! He had accustomed himself to write his language ; but being an inexpert writer with the unusual way of writing back- wards, he found this so difficult, that he was compelled to change the complicated forms of some of his letters. He now finally quitted his home, assuming the character of a Formosan convert, who had been educated by the Jesuits. He vv'as then 313 TAtcrary Forgeries. \\ his fifteenth or sixteenth year. To support his new cha- /acter, he practised some religious mummeries ; he was seen worshipping the rising and setting sun. He made a prayer- Look with rude drawings of the sun, moon, and stars, to which he added some gibberish prose and verse, written in his invented character, muttering or chanting it, as the humour took him. His custom of eating raw flesh seemed to assist his deception more than the sun and moon.* In a garrison at Sluys he found a Scotch regiment in the Dutch pay ; the commander had the curiosity to invite our Formosan to confer with Innes, the chaplain to his regiment. This Innes was probably the chief cause of the imposture being carried to the extent it afterwards reached. Innes was a clergyman, but a disgrace to his cloth. As soon as he fixed his eye on our Formosan, he hit on a project ; it was nothing less than to make Psalmanazar the ladder of his own ambi- tion, and the stepping-place for him to climb up to a good living ! Innes was a worthless character ; as afterwards ap- peared, when by an audacious imposition Innes practised on the Bishop of London, he avowed himself to be the author of an anonymous work, entitled " A Modest Inquiry after Moral Virtue ;" for this he obtained a good living in Essex : the real author, a poor Scotch clergyman, obliged him afterwards to disclaim the work in print, and to pay him the profit of the edition which Innes had made ! He lost his character, and retired to the solitude of his living ; if not penitent, at least mortified. Such a character was exactly adapted to become the foster- father of imposture. Innes courted the Formosan, and easily won on the adventurer, who had hitherto in vain sought for a patron. Meanwhile no time was lost by Innes to inform the unsuspicious and generous Bishop of London of the prize he possessed — to convert the Formosan was his ostensible pretext ; to procure preferment his concealed motive. It is curious enough to observe, that the ardour of conversion died away in Innes, and the most marked neglect of his convert prevailed, while the answer of the bishop was protracted or doubtful. He had at first proposed to our Formosan impostor to procure his discharge, and convey him to England ; this was eagerly consented to by our pliant adventurer. A iaw Dutch schellings, and fair words, kept him in good humour ; * For some further notices of Psalmauazar and his literary labours, we may refer the reader to vol. i. p. 137, note. Literary Forgeries. 313 but no letter coming from the bishop, there were fewer words, and not a stiver ! This threw a new light over the character of Innes to the inexperienced youth. Psalmanazar saga- ciously now turned all his attention to some Dutch ministers ; Innes gi'ew jealous lest they should pluck the bird which he had already in his net. He resolved to baptize the impostor ■ — which only the more convinced Psalmanazar that Innes was one himself ; for before this time Innes had practised a stra- tagem on him which had clearly shown what sort of a man his Formosau was. This stratagem was this : he made him translate a passage in Cicero, of some length, into his pretended language, and give it him in writing ; this was easily done, by Psalmanazar's facility of inventing characters. After Innes had made hinj construe it, he desired to have another version of it on an- other paper. The proposal, and the arch manner of making it, threw our impostor into the most visible confusion. He had had but a short time to invent the first paper, less to recollect it ; so that in the second transcript not above half the words were to be found which existed in the first. Innes assumed a solemn air, and Psalmanazar was on the point of throwing himself on his mercy, but Innes did not wish to unmask the impostor; he was rather desirous of fitting the mask closer to his face. Psalmanazar, in this hard trial, had given evidence of uncommon facility, combined with a singular memory. Innes cleared his brow, smiled with a friendly look, and only hinted in a distant manner that he ought to be careful to be better provided for the future! An advice which Psalmanazar afterwards bore in mind, and at length produced the forgery of an entire new language ; and which, he remarkably observes, " by what I have tried since I came into England, I cannot say but I could have compassed it with less difficulty than can be conceived had I applied closely to it." When a ver- sion of the catechism was made into the pretended Formosau language, which was submitted to the judgment of the iirst scholars, it appeared to them grammatical, and was pronounced to be a real language, from the circumstance that it resembled no other ! and they could not conceive that a stripling could be the inventor of a language. If the reader is curious to ex- amine this extraordinary imposture, I refer him to that lite- rary cui'iosity, " An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, with Accounts of the Religion, Customs and Man- ners of the Inhabitants, by George Psalmanazar, a Native of 814 Literary Forgeries. the said Isle," 1704 ; with numerous plates, wretched inven- tions ! of their dress ! religious ceremonies ! their tabt?rnaele and altars to the sun, the moon, and the ten stai*s ! their archi- tecture! the viceroy's castle! a temple! a city house! a countryman's house! and the Formosan alphabet! In his conferences before the Royal Society with a Jesuit just re- turned from China, the Jesuit had certain strong suspicions that our hero was an impostor. The good father remained obstinate in his own conviction, but could not satisfactorily communicate it to others; and Psalmanazar, after politely ask- ing pardon for the expression, complains of the Jesuit that "he lied most impudenthi^'' mentitur impudentissime ! Dr. Iilead absurdly insisted Psalmanazar was a Dutchman or a German ; some thought him a Jesuit in disguise, a tool of ihe non-jurors ; the Catholics thought him bribed by the Protestants to expose their church ; the Presbyterians that he Avas paid to explode their doctrine, and cry up episcopacy I Tins fabulous history of Formosa seems to have been pro- jected by his artful prompter Innes, who put Varenius into Psalmanazar's hands to assist him ; trumpeted forth in the domestic and foreign papers an account of this converted For- mosan ; maddened the booksellers to hurry the author, who was searcel}^ allowed two months to produce this extraordinary volutne ; and as the former accounts which the public pos- sessed of this island were full of monstrous absurdities and contradictions, these assisted the present imposture. Our forger resolved not to describe new and surprising things as they had done, but rather studied to clash with them, pro- biibly that he might have an opportunity of pretending- to correct them. The first edition was immediately sold ; the world was more divided than ever in opinion ; in a second edition he prefixed a vindication ! — the unhappy forger got al)Out twenty guineas for an imposture, whose delusion spread far and wide ! Some years alterwards Psalmanazar was en- gaged in a minor imposture ; one man had persuaded him to fiither a white composition called the Formosan japan! which was to be sold at a high price ! It was curious for its white- ness, but it had its faults. The project failed, and Psalmanazar considered the miscarriage of the white Formosan japan as a providential warning to repent of all his impostures of Formosa ! Among these literary forgeries may be classed several in- genious ones fabricated for a, political purpose. We had cer- Literary Forgeries. 315 tainly numerous ones during our civil wars in the reign of Charles the First. This is not the place to continue the controversy respecting the mysterious EiTcon Basilike, which has been ranked among them, from the ambiguous claim of Gauden,* A recent writer who would probably incline not to leave the monarch, were he living, not only his head but the little fame he might obtain by the " Verses" said to be written by him at Carisbrook Castle, would deprive him also of these. Henderson's death-bed recantation is also reckoned among them ; and we have a large collection of " Letters of Sir Henry Martin to his Lady of Delight," which were the satirical effusions of a wit of that day, but by the price they have obtained, are probably considered as gcvmine ones, and exhibit an amusing picture of his loose rambling life.f There is a ludicrous speech of the strange Earl of Pembroke, which was forged by the inimitable Butler. Sir John Birkenhead, a great humourist and wit, had a busy pen in these spurious letters and speeches.;]; * The question lias been discussed with great critical acumcu by Dr. Wordsworth. f Since this was published I have discovered that Harry Mai-tia's Letters ai'e not forgeries, but I cannot immediately recover my authority. J One of the most amusing of these tricks livas perpetrated on "William Pryune, the well-known puritanic hater of the stivge, by some witty cava- lier. Prynne's great work, " Histriomastix, the Player's Scourge; or, Actor's Tragedy,'' an immense quarto, of 1100 pages, was a complete condemnation of all theatrical amusements ; but in 1649 appeared a tract of four leaves, entitled "Mr. William Prynne, his Defence of Stage Playes ; or, a Retractation of a former Book of his called Histriomastix." It must have astonished many readers in his own day, and would have pass -d for his work in more modern times, but for theaocidental pi-eservation of a single copy of a handbill Prynne published disclaiming the whole thing His style is most amusingly imitated throughout, and his great love for quoting authorities in his margin. He is made to complain thai, "this wicked and tyrannical army did lately in a most inhumane, cruell, rough, and barbarous manner, take away the poor players from their houses, being met there to discharge the duty of their callings : as if this army were fully bent, and most trayterously and maliciously set, to put down and depresse all the King's friends, not only in the parliament but in the very theatres ; they have no care of covenant or anything else." And he is further made to declare, in spite of " what the malicious, cla- morous, and obstreporous people" may object, that he once wrote {^.gainst stage-plays,— that it was " when I had not so clear a light as now I have.'" We can fancy the amusement this pamphlet must ^la^e been to many readers during the great Civil AVar. 316 OF LITERARY FILCHERS. An honest historian at tinnes will have to inflict severe stroke on his favourites. This has fallen to my lot, for in the course of my researches, I have to record that we have both forgers and purloiners, as well as other more obvious impostors, in the republic of letters ! The present article descends to re- late anecdotes of some contrivances to possess our literary curiosities by other means than by purchase ; and the only apology which can be alleged for the splendida peccata, as St. Austin calls the virtues of the heathen, of the present inno- cent criminals, is their excessive passion for literature, and otherwise the respectability of their names. According to Grose's " Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," we have had celebrated collectors, both in the learned and vulgar idioms. But one of them, who had some reasons too to be tender on this point, distinguished this mode of completing his collections, not by hook-stealing, but by hooTc- coveting. On some occasions, in mercy, we must allow of softening names. Were not the Spartans allowed to steal from one another, and the bunglers only punished ? It is said that Pinelli made occasional additions to his lite- rary treasures sometimes by his skill in an art which lay much more in the hand than in the head : however, as Pinelli never stirred out of his native city but once in his lifetime, when the plague drove him from home, his field of action was so restricted, that we can hardly conclude that he could have been so great an enterpriser in this way. No one can have lost their character by this sort of exercise in a confined circle, and be allowed to prosper ! A light-fingered Mercury would hardly haunt the same spot : however, this is as it may be ! It is probable that we owe to this species of accumula- tion many precious manuscripts in the Cottonian collection. It appears by the manuscript note-book of Sir Nicholas Hyde, chief justice of the King's Bench from the second to the seventh year of Charles the First, that Sir Robert Cotton had in his library, records, evidences, ledger-books, original letters, and other state papers, belonging to the king ; for the attorney-general of that time, to prove this, showed a copy of the pardon which Sir Robert had obtained from King James for embezzling records, &c.* * Lansdowne MSS. 888, in the former printed catalogue, art. 79. Of Literary Flickers. 317 Gough has more than insinuated tliat RawHnson and his friend Umfreville "he under very strong suspicions;" and he asserts that the collector of the Wilton treasures made as free as Dr. Willis with his friend's coins,* But he has also put forth a declaration relating to Bishop More, the famous collector, that " the bishop collected his librarj^ hj plundering those of the clergy in his diocese ; some he paid with sermons or more modern books ; others, less civilly, only with a quid iUiterati cum libris ?" This plundering then consisted rather of cajoling others out of what they knew not how to value ; and this is an advantage which every skilful lover of books must enjoy over those whose apprenticeship has not expired. I have myself been plundered by a very dear friend of some such literary curiosities, in the days of my innocence and of his precocity of knowledge. However, it does appear that Bishop More did actually lay violent hands in a snug corner on some irresistible little charmer ; which we gather from a precaution adopted by a friend of the bishop, who one day was found busy in hiding his rarest books, and locking up as many as he could. On being asked the reason of this odd occupation, the bibliopolist ingenuously replied, " The Bishop of Ely dines with me to-day." This fact is quite clear, and here is another as indisputal^le. Sir Robert Saville writing to Sir Robert Cotton, appointing an interview with the founder of the Bodleian Library, cautions Sir Robert, that " If he held any book so dear as that he would be loath to lose it, he should not let Sir Thomas out of his sight, but set ' the boke' aside beforehand." A surprise and detection of this nature has been revealed in a piece of secret history by Amelot de la Houssaie, which terminated in very important political con- sequences. He assures us that the personal dislike which Pope Innocent X. bore to the French had originated in his youth, when cardinal, from having been detected in the library of an eminent French collector, of having purloined a most rare volume. The delirium of a collector's rage over- came even French politesse; the Frenchman not only openly accused his illustrious culprit, but was resolved that he should not quit the library without replacing the precious * Coins are the most dangerous things which can be exhibited to a professed collector. One of the fraternity, wlio died but a few years since, absolutely kept a record of his pilferiii;,'s ; he succeeded in improving IiIm collection by attending sales also, and changing his own coins for other.; iu better preservatic:)n. 318 Of Literary Filchers. volume — from, accusation and denial both resolved to try their strength : but in this literary wrestling-match the book dropped out of the cardinal's robes ! — and from that day he hated the French — at least their more curious collectors ! Even an author on his dying bed, at those awful moments, should a collector be by his side, may not be considered secure from his too curious hands. Sir William Dugdale possessed the minutes of King James's life, written by Cam- den, till within a fortnight of his death ; as also Camden's own life, which he had from Hacket, the author of the folio life of Bishop Williams : who, adds Aubrey, " did Jilch it from Mr. Camden, as he lay a dying!" He afterwards cor- rects his information, by the name of Dr. Thorndyke, wliich, however, equally answers our purpose, to prove that even dying authors may dread such collectors ! The medalists have, I suspect, been more predatory than these subtracters of our literary treasures ; not only from the facility of their conveyance, but from a peculiar contrivance which of all those things which admit of being secretly pur- lioned, can only be practised in this department — for they can steal and no human hand can search them with any pos- sibility of detection ; they can pick a cabinet and swallow the curious things, and transport them with perfect safety, to be digested at their leisure. An adventure of this kind happened to Baron Stosch, the famous antiquary. It was in looking over the gems of the royal cabinet of medals, that the keeper perceived the loss of one ; his place, his pension, and his re- putation were at stake : and he msisted that Baron Stosch should be most minutely examined ; in this dilemma, forced to confession, this erudite collector assured the keeper of the royal cabinet, that the strictest search would not avail : "Alas, sir! I have it here within," he said, pointing to his breast — an emetic was suggested by the learned practitioner himself, probably from some former experiment. This was not the first time that such a natural cabinet had been in- vented; the antiquary Vaillant, when attacked at sea by an Algerine, zealously swallowed a whole series of Syrian kings ; when he landed at Lyons, groaning with his concealed trea- sure, he hastened to his friend, his physician, and his brother antiquary Dufour, — who at first was only anxious to inquire of his patient, whether the medals were of the higher empke ? Vaillant showed two or three, of which natui'e had kindly re- Of Liiernr?/ Flickers . 319 lieved him, A collection of medals was left to the city of Exeter, and the donor accompanied the bequest by a clause in his will, that should a certain antiquary, his old friend and rival, be desirous of examining the coins, he should be watched by two persons, one on each side. La Croze informs us in his life, that the learned Charles Patin, who has written a work on medals, was one of the present race of collectors : Patin offered the curators of the public library at Basle to draw up a catalogue of the cabinet of Amberback there pre- served, containing a good number of medals ; but they would have been more numerous, had the catalogue-writer not dimi- nished both them and his labom*, by sequestrating some of the most rare, which was not discovered till this plunderer of antiquity was far out of their reach. When Gough touched on this odd svibject in the first edi- tion of his "British Topography," "An Academic" in the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1772, insinuated that this charge of literary pilfering was only a jocular one ; on which Gough, in his second edition, observed that this was not the case, and that " one might point out enough light-fingered antiquaries in the present age, to render such a charge ex- tremely probable against earlier ones." The most extraor- dinary part of this slight history is, that our public de- nouncer some time after proved himself to be one of these " light-fingered antiquaries :" the deed itself, however, was more singular than disgraceful. At the disinterment of the remains of Edward the First, around which thirty years ago assembled our most erudite antiquaries, Gough was observed, as Steevens used to relate, in a wrapping great-coat of un- usual dimensions; that witty and malicious "Puck," so capable himself of inventing mischief, easily suspected others, and divided his glance as much on the living piece of antiquity as on the elder. In the act of closing up the relics of royalty, there was found wanting an entire fore-finger of Edward the First ; and as the body was perfect when opened, a murmur of dissatisfaction was spreading, when " Puck" directed their attention to the great antiquary in the watchman's great-coat — from whence — too surely was ex- tracted Edward the First's great fore-finger ! — so that " the light-fingered antiquary" was recognised ten years after he denounced the race, when he came to "try his hand."* * It is probable that this story of Gough's pocketing the fore-finger dl Edward the First, was one of the malicious iuveutious of George Steuveca, .520 OF LORD BACON AT HOME. The history of Lord Bacon would be that of the intellectual faculties, and a theme so worthy of the philosophical biogra- pher remains yet to be written. The personal narrative of this master-genius or inventor must for ever be separated from the scala intellectus he was perpetually ascending : and the domestic history of this creative mind must be consigned to the most humiliating chapter in the volume of human life ; a chapter ah-eady sufficiently enlarged, and which has irre- futably proved how the greatest minds are not freed from the infirmities of the most vulgar. The parent of our philosophy is now to be considered in a new light, one which others do not appear to have observed. My researches into contemporary notices of Bacon have often convinced me that his philosophical works, in his own days and among his own countrymen, were not only not compre- hended, but often ridiculed, and sometimes reprobated ; that they were the occasion of many slights and mortifications which this depreciated man endured ; but that from a very early period in his life, to that last record of his feelings which appears in his will, this "servant of posterity," as he prophetically called himself, sustained his mighty spirit with the confidence of his own posthumous greatness. Bacon sast his views through the maturity of ages, and perhaps amidst the sceptics and the rejectors of his plans, may have felt at times all that idolatry of fame, which has now conse- crated his philosophical works. At college, Bacon discovered how " that scrap of Grecian knowledge, the peripatetic philosophy," and the scholastic babble, could not serve the ends and purposes of knowledge ; after he discovered that tlie antiquary was among the few admitted to the Tintombing of the royal corpse ; Steevens himself was not there I Sylvanus Urban (the late respected John Nichols), who must know much more than he cares to record of "Puck," — has, however, given the following "secret history" of what he calls " ungentlemanly and unwarrantable attacks" on Gough by Steevens. It seems that Steevens was a collector of the works of Hogarth, and while engaged in forming his collection, wrote an abrupt letter to Gough to obtain from him some early impres- sions, by purchas3 or exchange. Gough resented the manner of his ad- dress by a rough refusal, for it is admitted to have been "a peremptory one." Thus arose the implacable vengeance of Steevens, who used to boast that all the mischievous tricks he played on the grave antiquary, who was rarely over-kind to any one, was but a pleasant kind of revenge. Of Lord Bacon at Home. 321 that syllogisms were not things, and that a new logic might teach us to invent and judge by induction. He found that theories were to be built upon experiments. When a young man, abroad, he began to make those observations on nature, which afterwards led on to the foundations of the new plii- losophy. At sixteen, he philosophised ; at twentj^-six, he had framed his system into some form ; and after forty years of continued labours, unfinished to his List hour, he left behind him sufficient to found the great philosophical reformation. On his entrance into active life, study was not however his prime object. With his fortune to make, his court con- nexions and his father's example opened a path for ambition. He chose the practice of common law as his means, while his inclinations were looking upwards to political affairs as his end. A passion for study, however, had strongly marked liirn ; he had read much more than was required in his pro- fessional character, and this circumstance excited the mean jealousies of the minister Cecil, and the Attorney-General Coke. Both were mere practical men of business, whose narrow conceptions and whose stubborn habits assume that whenever a man acquires much knowledge foreign to his profession, he will know less of professional knowledge than he ought. The.se men of strong minds, yet limited capa- cities, hold in contempt all studies alien to their habits. Bacon early aspired to the situation of Solicitor-General ; the court of Elizabeth was divided into fixctions ; Bacon adopted the interests of the generous Essex, which were ini- mical to the party of Cecil. The queen, from his boyhood, was delighted by conversing with her "young lord-keeper," as she early distinguished the precocious gravity and the in- genious turn of mind of the future philosopher. It was un- questionably to attract her favour, that Bacon presented to the queen his " Maxims and Elements of tlie Common Law," not published till after his death. Elizabeth suttered her minister to form her opinions on the legal character of Bacon. It was alleged that Bacon was addicted to more general pursuits than law, and the miscellaneous books which he was known to have read confirmed the accusation. This was urged as a reason why the post of Solicitor-General should not be conferred on a man of speculation, more likely to distract than to direct her affairs. Elizabetli, in the height of that political prudence which marked her cha- racter, was swayed by the vulgar notion of Cecil, and be- VOL. III. T ■*^ 12 Gf Lord Bacon at Home. lie^ed that Bacon, who afterwards filled the situation both of Solicitor-General and Lord Chancellor, was " a man rather of show than of depth." AYe have recently been told by a great lawyer that " Bacon was a master." On the accession of James the First, when Bacon still found the same party obstructing his political advancement, he appears, in some momentary fit of disgust, to have medi- tated on. a retreat into a foreign country ; a circumstance which has happened to several of our men of genius, during a fever of solitary indignation. He was for some time thrown out of the sunshine of life, but he found its shade more fitted for contemplation ; and, unquestionably, philo- sophy was benefited by his solitude at Gray's Inn. His hand was always on his work, and better thoughts will find an easy entrance into the mind of those who feed on their thoughts, and live amidst their reveries. In a letter on this occasion, he writes, " My ambition now I shall only put upon my PEiS", whereby I shall be able to maintain memory and merit, of the times succEEDiNa." And many years after, when he had finally quitted public life, he told the king, " I would live to study, and not study to live : yet I am pre- pared for date oholum Belisario ; and, I that have borne a bag, can bear a wallet." Ever were the times succeeding in his mind. In that delightful Latin letter to Father Fulgentio, where, with the simplicity of true grandeur, he takes a view of all his works, and in which he describes himself as " one who served pos- terity," in communicating his past and his future designs, he adds that " they require some ages for the ripening of them." There, while he despairs of finishing what was m- tended for the sixth part of his Instauration, how nobly he despairs ! " Of the perfecting this I have cast away all hopes ; but in future ages, perhaps, the design may bud again." And he concludes by avowing, that the zeal and constancy of his mind in the great design, after so many years, had never become cold and indifferent. He remem- bers how, forty years ago, he had composed a juvenile work about those things, which with confidence, but with too pompous a title, he had called Temporis Partus Maximus ; the great birth of time ! Besides the public dedication of his Novum Organum to James the First, he accompanied it with a private letter. He wishes the king's favour to the work, which he accounts as much as a hundi'ed years' time j OJ Lord Bacon at Home. 323 for he adds, " I am persuaded the icorlc icill gain upon men's minds in ages." In his hist will appears his remarkable legacy of fame. " My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to mine own countrymen, after some time be past over." Time seemed alwaN's i)ersonated in the imagination of our philosopher, and with time he wrestled with a consciousness of triumph. I shall now bring forward sufficient evidence to prove how little Bacon was understood, and how much he was even de- spised, in his philosophical character. In those prescient views b}^ which the genius of Verulam has often anticipated the institutions and the discoveries of succeeding times, there was one important object which even his foresight does not appear to have contemplated. Lord Bacon did not foresee that the English language would one day be capable of embalming all that philosophy can discover, or poetry can invent ; that his country would at length possess a national literature of its own, and that it would exult in classical compositions which might be appre- ciated with the finest models of antiquity. His taste was far unequal to his invention. So little did he esteem the language of his cjuntry, that his favourite works are com- posed in Latin ; and he was anxious to have what he had written in English preserved in that " universal language which may last as long as books last." It would have sm'- prised Bacon to have been told, that the most learned men in Europe have studied English authors to learn to think and to write. Our philosopher was surely somewhat mortified, when in his dedication of the Essays he observed, that " of all my other works my Essays have been most current ; for that, as it seems, they come home to men's business and bosoms." It is too much to hope to find in a vast and pro- found inventor a writer also who bestows immortality on his language. The English language is the only object in his great sm-vey of art and of natm-e, which owes nothing of its excellence to the genius of Bacon. He had reason indeed to be mortified at the reception of his philosophical works ; and Dr. Ilawley, even some years after the death of his illustrious master, had occasion to ob- serve, that " His fame is greater and sounds louder in foreign parts abroad than at home in his own nation ; thereby verify- ing that divine sentence, a prophet is not without honour, y2 324 Of Lord Bacon at Home. save in his own counW and in his own house. Even the men of genius, who ouglit to have comprehended this new source of knowledge thus opened to them, reluctantly entered into it ; so repugnant are we suddenly to give up ancient errors which time and habit have made a part of ourselves. Harvey, who himself experienced the sluggish obstinacy of the learned, which repelled a great but a novel discovery, could, however, in his turn deride the amazing novelty of Bacon's Novum Organum. Harvey said to Aubrey, that " Bacon was no great philosopher ; he writes philosophy like a lord chancellor." It has been suggested to me that Bacon's philosophical writings have been much overrated, — His expe- rimental philosophy from the era in which they were produced must be necessarily defective: the time he gave to them could only have been had at spare hours ; but like the great prophet on the mount, Bacon was doomed to view the land afar, which he himself could never enter. Bacon found but small encouragement for his new lemming among the most eminent scholars, to whom he submitted his early discoveries, A very copious letter by Sir Thomas Bodley on Bacon's desiring him to return the manuscript of the Cogitata et Visa, some portion of the Novum Organum, has come down to us ; it is replete with objections to the new phi- losophy. " I am one of that crew," says Sir Thomas, " that say we possess a far greater holdfast of certainty in the sciences than you will seem to acknowledge." He gives a hint too that Solomon complained " of the infinite making of books in his time ;" that all Bacon delivers is only " by averment without other force of argument, to disclaim all our axioms, maxims, &c., left by tradition from our elders unto us, which have passed all probations of the sharpest wits that ever were;" and he concludes that the end of all Bacon's philo- sophy, by " a fresh creating new principles of sciences, would be to be dispossessed of the learning we have ;" and he fears that it would require as many ages as have marched before us that knowledge should be perfectly achieved, Bodley truly compares himself to " the carrier's horse which cannot blanch the beaten way in which I was trained."* Bacon did not lose heart by the timidity of the " carrier's horse:" a smart vivacious note in return shows liis quick apprehension. ♦ This letter may be found in Reliquice Bodleiance, p. 369. Of Lord Bacon at Home. 325 " As I am going to my house in the country, I shall want my papers, which I heg you therefore to return. You ai-e slothl'ul, and you help me nothing, so that I am half in conceit you affect not the ai-gument ; for myself I know well you love and affect. I can say no more, hut no)i canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylvce. If you be not of the lodgings chalked up, whereof I speak in my preface, 1 am but to pass by your door. But if I had you a fortnight at Gorhambury, 1 would make you tell another tale ; or else I would add a cogitation against libraries, and be revenged on you that way." A keen but playful retort of a great author too conscious of his own views to be angry with his critic ! The singular phrase of the lodgings challced np is a sarcasm explained by this passage in "The Advancement of Learning." "As Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the French for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to mark up their lodgings, and not with weapons to fight ; so I like better that entry of truth that cometh peaceably with chalk to mark up those minds which are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with pugnacity and con- tention."* The threatened agitation against libraries must have caused Bodley's cheek to tingle. Let us now turn from the scholastic to the men of the world, and we shall see what sort of notion these critics en- tertained of the philosophy of Bacon. Chamberlain writes, "This week the lord chancellor hath set forth his new work, called Instauratio Magna, or a kind of Novum Organum of all philosophy. In sending it to the king, he wrote that he wished his majesty might be so long in reading it as he hath been in composing and polishing it, which is well near thirty /ears. I have read no more than the bare title, and am not greatly encouraged by Mr. CufFe's judgment, t vvho having long since perused it, gave this censure, that " a fool could not have written such a work, and a wise man would not." A month or two afterwards we find that " the king cannot forbear sometimes in reading the lord chancellor's last book * I have been favoiireJ with this apt illustration by an anonymous coni- munieator, who dates from the "London University." I request him to accept my grateful acknowledgments. t Henry Cuffe, secretary to Kobert, Earl of Essex, and executed, being cuucerned in his treason. A man noted for his classical acquirements and his genius, who perished early in lite. 326 Of Lord Bacon at Home. to say, that it is like the peace of God, that surpasseth all tcnderstandinr/.^^ Two years afterwards tlie same letter-writer proceeds with another literary paragraph about Bacon. " This lord busies himself altogether about looks, and hath set out two lately, Ilistoria Ventorum and De Vita et Morte, with promise ot more. I have yet seen neither of them, because I have not leisure; but if the Life of Henry the Eighth (the Seventh), which they say he is aboat, might come out after his own manner (meaning his Moral Essays), I should find time and means enough to read it." When this history made its appearance, the same writer observes, " My Lord Yerulam's history of Henry the Seventh is come forth ; I have not read much of it, but they say it is a very pretty book."* Bacon, in his vast survey of human knowledge, included even its humbler provinces, and condescended to form a col- lection of apophthegms : his lordship regretted the loss of a collection made by Julius Csesar, while Plutarch indiscrimi- nately drew much of the dregs. The wits, who could not alwa3^s comj)rehend his plans, ridiculed the sage. I shall now quote a contemporary poet, whose works, for by their size they may assume that distinction, were never published. A Dr. Andrews wasted a sportive pen on fugitive events ; but though not always deficient in humour and wit, such is the freedom of his writings, that they will not often admit of quotation. The following is indeed but a strange pun on Bacon's title, derived from the town of St. Albans and his collection of apophthegms : — ON LORD BACON PUBLISHING APOl'HTHEGMS When learned Bacon wrote Essays, He did deserve and liath the praise ; But DOW he writes his A pophthcgms, Surely he dozes or he dreams ; One said, St. Albans now is grown unahle, And is in the high-road way — to Dunstable [i. e., Dunce-tx.i.lle.] To the close of his days were Lord Bacon's philosophical pursuits still disregarded and depreciated by ignorance and * Chamberlain adds the price of this moderate- sized folio, which was six shillings. It would be worth the while of some literary student to note the prices of our eai-lier books, which are often found written upon them by their original possessor. A rare tract first purchased for two- pence has often lealized fuur guineas or more in modern lays. Of Lord Bacon at Home. 327 cnv}', in the forms of friendship or rivality. I shall now give a remarkable exam])le. Sir Edward Coke was a mere great lawyer, and, like all such, had a mind so walled in by law- laiowledge, that in its bounded views it sliut out the horizon of the intellectual faculties, and the whole of his philosophy lay in the statutes. In the library at Holkham there will be ibund a presentation copy of Lord Bacon's Novum Organum^ the Instauratio Magna, 1620. It was given to Coke, for it bears the following note on the title-page, in the writing of Coke : — Edw. Coke, Ex dono aiithoris, Auctori consilium ] nstaurare paras veterum documenta sopliorwm, Jnstaura leges, justitiamque jprius. The verses not only reprove Bacon for going out of his profes- sion, but must have alluded to his character as a prerogative lawyer, and his corrupt administration of the chancery. The book was published in October, 1620, a few months before his impeachment. And so far one may easily excuse the causticity of Coke ; but how he really valued the philosophy of Bacon appears by this : in this first edition there is a device of a ship passing between Hercules's ])illars ; the jjlus tdtra, the proud exultation of ovx philosopher. Over this device Coke has written a miserable distich in English, which marks his utter contempt of the philosophical pursuits of his illustrious rival. This ship passing beyond the columns of Hercules he sarcastically conceits as " Tlie Ship of Fools," the famous satire of the German Sebastian Brandt, translated by Alexander Barclay. It deserveth not to he read in schools, JBut to be freighted in the Ship of Fools. Such then was the fate of Lord Bacon ; a history not written by his biographers, but which may serve as a com- ment on that obscure passage dropped from the pen of his chaplain, and already quoted, that he was more valued abroad tlx'in at home. 328 SECRET HISTORY OP THE DEATH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. It is an extraordinary circumstance in our history, that the iccession to the English dominion, in two remarkable cases, was never settled by the possessors of the throne themselves during their lifetime ; and that there is every reason to believe that this mighty transfer of three kingdoms became the sole act of their ministers, who considered the succession merely as a state expedient. Two of our most able sovereigns found themselves in this predicament : Queen Elizabeth and the Protector Cromwell ! Cromwell probably had his reasons not to name his successor; his positive election would have dis- satisfied the opposite parties of his government, whom he only ruled while he was able to cajole them. He must have been aware that latterly he had need of conciliating all parties to his usurpation, and was jirobably as doubtful on his death- bed whom to appoint his successor as at any other period of his reign. Ludlow suspects that Cromwell was " so discom- posed in body or mind, that he could not attend to that matter; and whether he named any one is to me uncertain." All that we know is the report of the Secretary Thurlow and his chaplains, who, when the protector lay in his last agonies, suggested to him the propriety of choosing his eldest son, and they tell us that he agreed to this choice. Had Cromwell been in his senses, he would have probably fixed on Henri/, the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, rather than on Richard, or possibly had not chosen either of his sons! Elizabeth, from womanish infirmity, or from state-reasons, could not endure the thoughts of her successor ; and long threw into jeopardy the politics of all the cabinets of Euro]>e, each of which had its favourite candidate to support. The legitimate heir to the throne of England was to be the crea- ture of her breath, yet Elizabeth would not speak him into existence ! This had, however, often raised the discontents of the nation, and we shall see how it harassed the queen in her dying hours. It is even suspected that the queen still retained so much of the woman, that she could never over- come her perverse dislike to name a successor ; so that, according to this opinion, she died and left the crown to the mercy of a party ! This would have been acting unworthy of the magnanimity of her great character — and as it is ascertained that the queen was very sensible that she lay in a Secret History of the Death of Queen Elizalieth. 3.29 dying state several days before the natural catastro])he occurred, it is difficult to believe tliat she totally disregarded so important a circumstance. It is therefore, reasoning a j)riori, most natural to conclude that the choice of a successor must have occupied her thoughts, as well as the anxieties of her ministers ; and tliat she would not have left the throne in the same unsettled state at her death as she had persevered in during her whole life. How did she express herself when bequeathing the crown to James the First, or did she bequeath it at all ? In the popular pages of her female historian Miss Aikin, it is observed that " the closing scene of the long and event- ful life of Queen Elizabeth was marked by that peculiarity of character and destiny which attended her from the cradle, and pursued her to the grave." The last days of Elizabeth were indeed most melancholy — she died a victim of the higher passions, and perhaps as much of grief as of age, refusing all remedies and even nourishment. But in all the published accounts, I can nowhere discover how she con- ducted herself respecting the circumstance of our present inquiry. The most detailed narrative, or as Gray the poet calls it, " the Earl of Monmouth's odd account of Queen Elizabeth's death," is the one most deserving notice ; and there we find the circumstance of this inquiry introduced. The queen at that moment was reduced to so sad a state, that it is doubtful whether her majesty was at all sensible of the inquiries put to her by her ministers respecting the suc- cession. The Earl of Monmouth says, " On Wednesday, the 23rd of March, she grew speechless. That afternoon, by signs, she called for her council, and by putting her hand to her head when the King of Scots was named to succeed her, thej all knew he was the man she desired should reign after her." Such a sign as that of a dying woman putting her hand to her head was, to say the least, a very ambiguous acknow- ledgment of the right of the Scottish monarch to the English throne. The " odd " but very naive account of Robert Cary, afterwards Earl of Monmouth, is not furnished with dates, nor with the exactness of a diary. Something might have occurred on a preceding da}"- which had not reached him. Camden describes the death-bed scene of Elizabeth ; by this authentic writer it appears that she had confided her state-secret of the succession to the lord admiral (the Earl of l^ottingham) ; and when the earl found the queen almost at 330 Secret History of the Death of Queen Elizabeth. her extremity, lie commiinicated lier majesty'' s secret to the council, who commissioned the lord admiral, the lord keeper, and the seeretaiy, to wait on her majesty, and acquaint her that they came in the name of the rest to learn her pleasure in reference to tlie succession. The queen was then very weak, and answered them with a faint voice, that she had already declared, that as she held a regal sceptre, so she desired no other than a roj^al successor. AVhen the secretary requested her to explain herself, the queen said, " I would have a king succeed me ; and who should that be but my nearest kinsman, the King of Scots?" Here this state conversation was put an end to by the inter- ference of the archbishop advising her majesty to turn her thoughts to God. "Never," she replied, "has my mind wandered from him." An historian of Camden's high integrity would hardly have forged a fiction to please the new monarch : yet Camden has not been i-eferred to on this occasion by the exact Birch, who draws his information from the letters of the French ambassador, Villeroy ; information which it appears the English ministers had confided to this ambassador ; nor do we get any distinct ideas from Elizabeth's more recent popular historian, wlio could only transcribe the account of Q&vj. He had told us a fact which he could not be mistaken in, that the queen fell speechless on Wednesday, 23rd of March, on which day, however, she called her council, and made that sign with her hand, which, as the lords choose to understand, for ever united the two kingdoms. But the noble editor of Cary's Memoirs (the Earl of Cork and Orrery) has observed that "the speeches made for Elizabeth on her death-bed are all forged." Echard, Kapin, and a long string of historians, make her say faintly (so faintly indeed that it could not pos- sibly be heard), "I will that a king succeed me, and who should that be but my nearest kinsman, the King of Scots ?" A different account of this matter will be found in the follow- ing memoirs. " She was speechless, and almost expiring, when the chief councillors of state were called into her bed- chamber. As soon as they were perfectly convinced that she could not utter an articulate word, and scarce could hear or understand one, they named the King of Scots to her, a liberty tliey dared not to have taken if she had heen able to sj)ea]c ; she put her hand to her head, which was probably at Secret History of the Death of Queen Elizabeth. 331 that time in agonising pain. TJ/e lords, who interpreted her sirjns just as tlieij pleased, were immctliately convinced that the motion of tier hand to her liead icas a declaration of James tlie Sixtti as tier successor. What was this but tlie unanimous interpretation of persons who were adoring the rising sun ?" This is lively and plausible ; but the noble editor did not recollect that " the speeches made by Elizabeth on her death- bed," which he deems "forgeries," in consequence of the cir- cumstance he had found in Gary's Memoirs, originate with Camden, and were only repeated by llapin and Echard, &c. I am now to confirm the narrative of the elder historian, as well as the circumstance related by Gary, describing the sign of the queen a little differently, which happened on Wednes- day, 23rd. A hitherto unnoticed document pretends to give a fuller and more circumstantial account of this affair, which commenced on the precedinfj day, when the queen retained the power of speech ; and it will be confessed that the language here used has all that loftiness and brevity which was the natural style of this queen. I have discovered a cm'ious document in a manuscript volume formerly in the possession of Petyt, and seemingly in his own handwriting. I do not doubt its autlienticity, and it could only have come from some of the illustrious personages who were the actors in that solemn scene, probably from Gecil. This memoran- dum is entitled " Account of the last words of Queen Elizabeth about her Successor. " On the Tuesday before her death, being the twenty -third of March, the admiral being on the right side of her bed, the lord keeper on the left, and Mr. Secretary Gecil (afterwards Earl of Salisbury) at the bed's feet, all standing, the lord admiral put her in mind of her speech concerning the s\icces- sion had at Whitehall, and that ihoy, in the name of all the rest of her council, came unto her to know her pleasure who should succeed ; whei'eunto she thus replied : " / told you my seat had heen the seat of kinrjs, and I will have no rascal to succeed me. And tvho should succeed me hut a Icing ? " The lords not understanding this dark speech, and looking one on the other ; at length Mr. Secretary boldly asked her what she meant by those words, that no rascal should succeed her. Whereto she replied, that her meaniny was, tJiat a king 332 Secret History of the Death of Queen Elizabeth. should succeed : and who, quoth she, should that he hut our cousin of Scotland? " They asked her whether that were her absolute resolution ? whereto she answered, 1 pray you trouhle me no more ; for I will have none hut him. With wliieh answer they departed. " Notwithstanding, after again, about four o'clock in the afternoon the next day, being Wednesday, after the Arch- bishop of Canterbury and other divines had been with her, and left her in a manner speechless, the three lords aforesaid repaired unto her again, asking her if she remained in her former resolution, and who should succeed her ? but not being able to speak, was asked by Mr. Secretary in this sort, ' We beseech your majesty, if you remain in 3'our former resolu- tion, and that you would have the King of Scots to succeed you in your kingdom, show some sign unto us : whereat, suddenly heaving herself upivards in her hed, and putting her arms out of hed, she held her hands jointly over her head in manner of a crown ; whence as they guessed, she signified that she did not only wish him the kingdom, but desire con- tinuance of his estate : after which they departed, and the next morning she died. Immediately alter her death, all the lords, as well of the council as other noblemen that were at the court, came from Eichmond to Whitehall by six o'clock in the morning, where other noblemen that were in London met them. Touching the succession, after some speeches of divers competitors and matters of state, at length the admiral rehearsed all the aforesaid premises which the late queen had spoken to him, and to the lord keeper, and Mr. Secretary (Cecil), with the manner thereof; which they, being asked, did affirm to be true upon their honour." Such is this singular document of secret history, I cannot but value it as authentic, because the one part is evidently alluded to by Camden, and the other is fully confirmed by Cary ; and besides this, the remarkable expression of " ras- cal " is found in the letter of the French ambassador. There were two interviews with the queen, and Cary appears only to have noticed the last on Wednesda}^, when the queen lay speechless. Elizabeth all her life had persevered in an obsti- nate mj'steriousness respecting the succession, and it harassed her latest moments. The second interview of her ministers may seem to us quite supernumerary ; but Cary's " putting lier hand to her head," too meanly describes the "joining her hands in manner of a crown," 333 JAMES THE FIRST AS A FATHER AND A HGSBAND. Caltjmntes antl sarcasms liavo reduced the character of James the First to contempt among general readers ; while the nar- rative of historians, wlio have related facts in spite of tliem- selves, is in perpetual contradiction with their own opinions. Perhaps no sovereign has sutl'ered more by that art, wliich is described by an old Irish proverb, of " killing a man by lies." The surmises and the insinuations of one part}', dissatisfied with the established government in church and state ; the misconceptions of more modern writers, who have not pos- sessed the requisite knowledge ; and the anonymous libels, sent forth at a particular period to vilify the Stuarts ; all these cannot be treasured up by the philosopher as the authorities of history. It is at least more honourable to resist popular prejudice than to yield to it a passive obedience ; and what we can ascertain it would be a dereliction of truth to conceal. Mucli can be substantiated in favour of the domestic affections and habits of this pacific monarch ; and those who are more intimately acquainted with the secret history of the times will perceive how erroneously the personal character of this sovereign is exhibited in our popular histo- rians, and often even among the lew who, with better infor- mation, have re-echoed their preconceived opinions. Confining myself here to his domestic character, I shall not touch on the many admirable public projects of this monarch, which have extorted the praise, and even the admiration, of some who have not spared their pens in his disparagement. James the First has been taxed with pusillanimity and fool- ishness ; this monarch cannot, however, be reproached with having engendered them ! All his children, in whose educa- tion their father was so deeply concerned, sustained through life a dignified character and a high spirit. The short life of Henry was passed in a school of prowess, and amidst an academy of literature. Of the king's paternal solicitude, even to the hand and the letter-writing of Prince Henry when young, I have preserved a proof in the article of " The His- tory of Writing-masters." Charles the First, in his youth more particularly designed for a studious life, with a serious character, was, however, never deficient in active bravery and magnanimous fortitude. Of Elizabeth, the Queen of Bohe- mia, tried as she was by such vicissitudes of fortune, it is 33J< James the First as a Father and a Husband. much to be regretted that the interesting story remains un- told ; her buoyant spirits rose always above the perpetual changes of a princely to a private state — a queen to an exile ! The father of such children derives some distinction for capacity, in having reared such a noble offspring ; and the king's marked attention to the formation of his children's minds was such as to have been pointed out by Ben Jonson, who, in his " Gipsies Metamorphosed," rightly said of James, using his native term — You are an honest, good man, and have care of yodr Bearns (bairns). Among the Ilouts and gibes so freely bespattering the per- sonal character of James the First, is one of his coldness and neglect of his queen. It would, however, be difficult to prove by any known fact that James was not as indulgent a hus- band as he was a father. Yet even a writer so well informed as Daines Barrington, who, as a lawyer, could not refrain from lauding the royal sage during his visit to Denmark, on his marriage, for having borrowed three statutes from the Danish code, found the king's name so provocative of sarcasm, that he could not forbear observing, that James " spent more time in those courts of judicature than in aftendin^ upon his des- tined consort." — " Men of all sorts have taken a pride to gird at me," might this monarch have exclaimed. But every- thing has two handles, saith the ancient adage. Had an austere puritan chosen to observe that James the First, when abroad, had lived jovially ; and had this historian then di'opped silently the interesting circumstance of the king's " spending his time in the Danish com'ts of judicature," the fact would have borne him out in his reproof; and Francis Osborne, indeed, has censured James for giving marks of liis iixorious- ness I There was no deficient gallantry in the conduct of James the First to his queen; the very circumstance, that when the Princess of Denmark was driven by a storm back to Norway, the king resolved to hasten to her, and consummate his mar- riage in Denmark, was itself as romantic an expedition as after- wards was that of his son's into Spain, and betrays no mark of that tame pusillanimity with which he stands overcharged. The character of the queen of James the First is somewhat obscure in our public history, for in it she makes no promi- nent figure ; while in secret history she is more apparent. Anne of Denmark was a spirited and enterprising woman; and it appears from a passage in Sully, whose authority should James the First as a Father and a Husband. 333 weiqli witli us, altliough we ouglit to recollect that it is the French minister who writes, that she seems to have raised a coiu't faction against James, and inclined to favour the Spanish and catholic interests ; j-et it may be alleged as a strong proof of James's political wisdom, that the queen was never sutl'ered to head a formidable jjarty, though she latterly might have engaged Prince Henry in that court opposition. The honliommie of the king, on this subject, expressed with a simpUcity of style which, though it may not be royal, is some- thing better, appears in a letter to the queen, which has been preserved in the appendix to Sir David Dalrymple's collec- tions. It is without date, but written when in Scotland, to quiet the queen's suspicions, that the Earl of Mar, who had the care of Prince Henry, and whom she wished to take out of his hands, had insinuated to the king that her majesty was strongly disposed to any "popish or Spanish course." This letter conlirms the representation of Sully ; but the extract is remarkable for the manly simplicit}'- of style which the king used. " I say over again, leave these froward womanly apprehen- sions, for I thank God I carry that love and respect unto you which, by the law of God and nature, I ought to do to my wife, and mother of my children ; but not for that jq are a king's daughter ; for whether ye were a king's daughter, or a cook's daughter, ye must be all alike to me since my wife. For the respect of your honourable birth and descent I mar- ried you ; but the love and respect I now bear you is because that ye are ray married wife, and so partaker of my honour, as of my other fortunes. I beseech you excuse my plainness in this, for casting up of your birth is a needless impertinent (that is, not pertinent) argument to me. God is my witness, I ever preferred you to my bairns, much more than to a sul)ject." In an in^'jnious historical dissertation, but one perfectly theoretical, respecting that mysterious transaction the Gowrie conspiracy, Pinkerton has attempted to show that Anne of Denmark was a lady somewhat inclined to intrigue, and that "the king had cause to be jealous." He confesses that "he cannot discover any positive charge of adultery against Anne of Denmark, but merely of coquetry."* To what these accusa- tions amount it would be difficult to say. The progeny of * The historical dissertation is appended to the first volume of Mr. Malcolm Laing's " History of Scotland, " who thinks that "it has placed that obscure transaction in its genuine light." 336 James the First as a Father and a Husband. James the First sufficiently bespeak their fiimily resemblance. If it be true, that " the king had ever reason to be jealous," find yet that no single criminal act of the queen's has been recorded, it must be confessed that one or both of the parties were singularl}' discreet and decent ; for the king never com- plained, and the queen was never accused, if we except this burthen of an old Scottish ballad, tlie bonny Earl of Murray, He was the queen's love. Whatever may have happened in Scotland, in England the queen appears to have lived occupied chiefly by the amuse- ments of the court, and not to have interfered with the arcana of state. She appears to have indulged a passion for the elegancies and splendours of the age, as they were shown in those gorgeous court masques with which the taste of James harmonized, either from his gallantry for the queen, or his own poetic sympathy. But this taste for court masques could not escape the slur and scandal of the puritanic, and the.se "high-flying fancies" are thus recorded hj honest Arthur Wilson, whom we summon into court as an indubi- table witness of the mutual cordiality of this royal couple. In the spirit of his party, and like Milton, he censures the taste, but likes it. He says, " The court being a continued maskarado, where she (the queen) and her ladies, like so many sea-nymphs or Nereides, appeared often in various dresses, to the ravishment of the beholders ; the king him- self not being a little delighted with such fluent elegancies as made the night moi'e glorious than the day."* This is a direct proof that James was by no means cold or negligent in his attentions to his queen ; and the letter which has been given is the picture of his mind. That James the First was fondly indulgent to his queen, and could perform an act of ehivalric gallantry with all the generosity of passion, and the ingenuity of an elegant mind, a pleasing anecdote which I liave discovered in an unpublished letter of the day will show. 1 give it in the words of the writer. ^'August, 16l3. "At their last being at Theobalds, about a fortnight ago, the queehj shooting at a deer, mistook her mark, and killed * See the article on Cou7-t Masques in the early pages of the present volume for notices of the elaborate splendour and costliness of tbeso favourite displays. T?ie Man of One Book. 337 Jeu-cl,i\\Q king's most principal and special hound; at wliich he stormed exceedingly awliile ; but after he knew who did it, he was soon pacified, and with much kindness wished her not to be ti-oubled with it, for he should love her never the worse : and the next day sent her a diamond worth two thou- sand pounds as a Icf/aci/ from his dead dog. Love and kind- ness increased daily between them." Such is the history of a contemporary living at com-t, very opposite to that representation of coldness and neglect with wliich the king's temper has been so freely aspersed ; and sucli too is the true portrait of James the First in domestic life. His first sensations were thoughtless and impetuous ; and he would ungracefully thunder out an oath, wliich a puritan would set down in his " tables," while he omitted to note that this king's forgiveness and forgetfulness of personal injuries were sure to follow the feeling tliey had excited. THE MAN OF ONE BOOK. Mr. Maurice, in his animated Memoirs, has recently acquainted us with a fact whicli may be deemed important in the life of a literary man. He tells us, " We have been just informed that Sir William Jones invariahlg read through every year the works of Cicero, whose life indeed was the great exemplar of his own." The same passion for the works of Cicero has been participated by others. When the best means of forming a good style wei-e inquired of the learned Ar- nauld, he advised the daily study of Cicero ; but it was observed that the object was not to form a Latin, but a French style : " In that case," replied Arnauld, " you must still read Cicero." A predilection for some great author, among the vast num- ber which must transiently occupy our attention, seems to be the happiest preservative for our taste : accustomed to that excellent author whom we have chosen for our favourite, we may in this intimacy possibly resemble him. It is to be feared that, if we do not form such a permanent attachment, we may be acquiring knowledge, while our enervated tastcj becomes less and less lively. Taste embalms the knowledge which otherwise cannot preserve itself. He who has long been intimate with one great author will alwa^'s be found to be a formidable antagonist ; he has saturat<'d his mind with the VOL. 111. « 338 The Man of One Book. excellences of genius ; he has shaped his faculties insensibly to himself by his model, and he is like a man who ever sleeps in armour, ready at a moment ! The old Latin proverb reminds us of this fact, Cave ah homine unius lihri: Be cau- tious of the man of one book ! Pliny and Seneca give very safe advice on reading : that we should read much, but not many books — but they had no "monthly list of new publications!" Since their days others have favoured us with " Methods of Study," and "Catalogues of Books to be Read." Vain attempts to circumscribe that invisible circle of human knowledge which is perpetually en- larging itself! The multiplicity of books is an evil for the many ; for we now find an helluo lihrorum not only among the learned, but, with their pardon, among the un- learned ; for those who, even to the prejudice of their health, persist only in reading the incessant book-novelties of our own time, will after many years acquire a sort of learned ignorance. We are now in want of an art to teach how books are to be read, rather than not to read them : such an art is practicable. But amidst this vast multitude still let us be "the man of one book," and preserve an uninterrupted inter- course with that great author with whose mode of thinking we sympathise, and whose charms of composition we can habitually retain. It is remarkable that every great writer appears to have a predilection for some favourite author ; and, with Alexander, had thej' possessed a golden casket, would have enshrined the works they so constantly turned over. Demosthenes felt such delight in the hi.story of ThucycUdes, that, to obtain a familiar and perfect mastery of his style, he re-copied his history eight times ; while Brutus not only was constantly perusing Poly- bius, even amidst the most busy periods of his life, but was abridging a copy of that author on the last awful night of his existence, when on the following day he was to ivy his fate against Antony and Octavius. Selim the Second had the Commentaries of Caesar translated for his use ; and it is recorded that his mihtary ardour was heightened by the perusal. We are told that Scipio Africanus was made a hero iQy the writings of Xenophon. When Clarendon was em- ployed in writing his history, he was in a constant study of Livy and Tacitus, to acquire the full and flowing style of the one, and the portrait-painting of the other : he records this circumstance in a letter. Voltaire had usually on his table The Man of One Book. 33D the AthaJle of Hacine, and tlie Petit Careme of Massillon ; the tragedies of the one were the finest model of French verse, the sermons of the other of French prose. " Were I obliged to sell my library," exclaimed Diderot, " I would keep back Moses, Homer, and Richardson ;" and, by the elo^e which this enthusiastic writer composed on our English novelist, it is doubtful, had the Frenchman been obliged to liave lost two of them, whether Richardson had not been the elected favourite. Monsieur Thomas, a French writer, Vv'ho at times displays high eloquence and profound thinking, Herault de Seelielles tells us, studied chiefly one autlior, but that author was Cicero ; and never went into the country un- accompanied by some of his works. Fdnclon was constantly employed on his Homer ; he left a translation of the greater part of the Odyssey, without any design of publication, but merely as an exercise for style. Montesquieu was a constant student of Tacitus, of whom he must be considered a forcible imitator. He has, in the manner of Tacitus, characterised Tacitus : " That historian," he says, " who abridged every- thing, because he saw everything." The famous Bourda- loue re-perused every year Saint Paul, Saint Chrysostom, and Cicero. "These," says a French critic, " were the sources of his masculine and solid eloquence." Grotius had such a taste for Lucan, that he always carried a pocket edition about him, and has been seen to kiss his hand-book with the rapture of a true votary. If this anecdote be true, the elevated sentiments of the stern Roman were probably the attraction with the Ba- tavian republican. The diversified reading of Leibnitz is well known ; but he still attached himself to one or two favour- ites : Virgil was alwaj^s in his hand when at leisure, and Leibnitz had read Virgil so often, that even in his old age he could repeat whole books by heart ; Barclay's Argenis was his model for prose ; when he was found dead in his chair, the Argenis had fallen from his hands. Rabelais and Marot were the perpetual favourites of La Fontaine ; from one he bor- rowed his humour, and from the other his style. Quevedo was so passionately fond of the Don Quixote of Cervantes, that often in reading that unrivalled work he felt an impulse to burn his own inferior compositions : to be a sincere admirer and a hopeless rival is a case of authorship the hardest ima- ginable. Few writers can venture to anticipate the award of posterity ; yet perhaps Quevedo had not even been what he was without the perpetual excitement he received from his z2 340 A Bibliognoste. great master. Horace was the friend of Lis heart to Mal- herbe ; he laid the Roman poet on his pillow, took him in the- fields, and called his Horace his breviary. Plutarch, Montaigne^ and Locke, were the three authors constantly in the hands of Rousseau, and he has drawn from them the groundwork of his ideas in his Emile. Thefavouriteauthor of the great Earl of Chatham was Barrow ; and on his style he had formed his eloquence, and had read his great master so constantly, as ta he able to repeat his elaborate sermons from memory. The- great Lord Burleigh always carried TuUy's Offices in his- pocket ; Charles V. and Buonaparte had Machiavel frequently in their hands ; and Davila was the perpetual study of Hampden : he seemed to have discovered in that historian of civil wars those which he anticipated in the land of his fathers. These facts sufficiently illustrate the recorded circumstance of Sir William Jones's invariable habit of reading his Cicero through every year, and exemplify the happy result for him, who, amidst the multiplicity of his authors, still continues in this way to be "the man of one book." A BIBLIOGNOSTE. A STARTLING literary prophecy, recently sent forth from our oracular literature, threatens the annihilation of public libraries, which are one day to moulder away ! Listen to the vaticinator ! " As conservatories of mental treasures, their value in times of darkness and barbarity was incalculable ; and even in these happier days, when men are incited to explore new regions of thought, they command respect as depots of methodical and well-ordered references for the researches of the curious. But what in one state of society is invaluable, may at another be worthless ; and the progress which the world has made within a very few cen- turies has considerably reduced the estimation which is due to such establishments. We will say more — "* but enough! This idea of striking into dust " the god of his idolatry," the Dagon of his devotion, is sufficient to terrify the bibliographer, who views only a blind Samson pulling down the pillars of his temple ! This future universal inundation of books, this superfluity of knowledge, in billions and trillions, overwhelms the imagi- * " Edinburgh Review," vol. xxxiv. 384. A B'lbliognoste. 311 nation ! It is now about four hundred years since tlie art of multiplying books has been discovered ; and an arithmetician has attempted to calculate the Incalculable of these four ages of typography, which he discovers have actually produced 3,G41,960 works ! Taking each work at three volumes, and reckoning only each impression to consist of three hundred copies, which is too little, the actual amount from the presses of Europe will give to 181G, 3,277,7(34,000 volumes ! each of which being an inch thick, if placed on a line, would cover '6069 leagues ! Leibnitz facetiously maintained that such would be the increase of literature, that future generations would find whole cities insufficient to contain their libi-aries. We are, however, indebted to the patriotic endeavours of our grocers and trunkmakers, alchemists of literatiu'e ! they annihilate the gross bodies without injuring the finer spirits. We are still more indebted to that neglected race, the biblio- graphers ! The science of books, for so bibliography is sometimes dignified, may deserve the gratitude of a public, who are yet insensible of the useful zeal of those book-practitioners, the nature of whose labours is yet so imperfectly comprehended. Who is this vatlcinator of the uselessness of public libraries ? Is he a hihliocjnoste, or a hihliograj^he, or a hihliomane, or a hiblioj)hile, or a hihliotaphe ? A hihliothecaire, or a biblio- pole, the prophet cannot be ; for the bibliothecaire is too delightfully busied among his shelves, and the bibliojjole is too profitably concerned in furnishing perpetual additions to admit of this hyperbolical terror of annihilation ! * Unawares, we have dro]:)ped into that professional jargon which was chiefly forged by one who, though seated in the *' scorner's chair," was the Thaumaturgus of books and manuscripts. The Abbe Rive had acquii-ed a singular taste and curiosity, not without a fermenting dash of singular charlatanerie, in bibliography : the little volumes he occa- sionally put forth are things which but few hands have touched. He knew well, that for some books to be noised about, they should not be read : this was one of those recon- dite mysteries of his, which we may have occasion farther to * Will this writer pardon me for ranking him, for a moment, amor^ those " generalisers" of the age who excel in what a critical friend has happily discriminated as amhitious writing ? that is, writing on any topic, and not least strikingly on that of which they know least ; men otherwise of fine taste, and whu excel in every charm of composition. 342 A Bibliognoste. reveal. This bibliographical hero was librarian to the mosb magnificent of book-collectors, the Duke de la Valliere. The Abbe Eive was a strong but ungovernable brvite, rabid, surly, but tres-mordant. His master, whom I have discovered to have been the partner of the cur's tricks, would often pat him ; and when the lihliognostes, and the bibliomanes were in the heat of contest, let his " bull-dog" loose among them, as the duke affectionately called his librarian. The " bull- dog" of bibliography appears, too, to have had the taste and appetite of the tiger of politics, but he hardly lived to join the festival of the guillotine. I judge of this by an expression he used to one complaining of his parish priest, whom he advised to give " une messe dans son ventre !" He had tried to exhaust his genius in La Chasse aux Bibliographes et aux Antiquaires mal avises, and acted Cain with his brothers ! All Europe was to receive from liim new ideas concerning books and manuscripts. Yet all his mighty promises fumed away in projects ; and though he appeared for ever correcting the blunders of others, this French Ritson left enough of his own to afford them a choice of revenge. His st3de of criti- cism was perfectly Ilifsonian . He describes one of his rivals as ri?tsoleni et tres-insense aiiteur de V Almanach de Gotha, on the simple subject of the origin of playing-cards ! The Abbe Rive was one of those men of letters, of whom there are not a few who pass all their lives in preparations. Dr. Dibdin, since the above was written, has witnessed the confusion of the mind and the gigantic industry of our biblio- gnoste, which consisted of many trunks full of memoranda. The description will show the reader to what hard hunting these book-hunters voluntarily doom themselves, with little hope of obtaining fame ! " In one trunk were about six thousand notices of MSS. of all ages. In another were wedged about twelve thousand descriptions of books in all languages, except those of French and Italian ; sometimes with critical notes. In a third trunk was a bundle of pajDers relating to the History of the Troubadours. In a fourth was a collection of memoranda and literary sketches con- nected with the invention of arts and sciences, with pieces exclusively bibliographical. A fifth trunk contained between two and three thousand cards, written upon each side, respect- ing a collection of prints. In a sixth trunk were contained his papers respecting earthquakes, volcanoes, and geographical A Bibliognoste. 3J3 f.iibjccts.''* This Ajax jlarjdhfer of the bibliographical tribe, who was, as Dr. Dibdin observes, " the terror of his acquaintance, and the pride of his patron," is said to have been in private a very different man from his public cha- racter ; all which may be true, without altering a shade of that public character. The Frencli Kevolution showed how men, mild and even kind in domestic life, were sanguinary and ferocious in their public. The rabid Abbe Hive gloried in terrifying, without en- lightening his rivals; he exulted that he was devoting to "the rods of criticism and the laughter of Europe thehiblio- poles," or dealers in books, who would not get by lieart his '* Catechism" of a thousand and one questions and answers: it broke the slumbers of honest De Bure, who had found life was already too short for his own " Bibliograph'e In- structive." The Abbe Rive had contrived to catch the shades of the appellatives necessary to discriminate book amateurs ; and of the first term he is acknowledged to be the inventor. A hihliognoste, from the Greek, is one knowing in titie- pages and colophons, and in editions ; the place and year when printed; the presses whence issued; and all the minutice of a book. A hihliograplie is a describer of books and other literary arrangements. A bibliomane is an indiscriminate accumulator, who blun- ders faster than he buys, cock-brained, and purse-heavy ! A hibliophile, the lover of books, is the only one in the class who appears to read them for his own pleasure. A bibliotaplie buries his books, by keeping them under lock, or framing them in glass cases. I shall catch our bibliognoste in the hour of book-rapture ! It will produce a collection of bibliographical writers, and show to the second-siarhted EdinburGrher what human con- trivances have been raised by the art of more painful writers than himself — either to postpone the day of universal annihi- * The late Wm. TJpcott possessed, in a large degree, a similar taste for miscellaneous collections. He never threw an old hat away, but used it as a receptacle for certain "cuttings" from books and periodicals on some peculiar subjects. He had filled a room with hats and trunks thus crammed ; but they were sacrificed at his death for want of necessary aiTangement. 311 A Bibliogiioste. ktion, or to preserve for our posterity, tliree centuries hence, the knowledge whieli now so busily occupies us, and transmit; to them something more than what Bacon calls " Inven- tories" of our literary treasures. "Histories, and literary bibJiotlieqiies (or hibliothecas), will always present to us," says La Rive, " an immense harvest of errors, till the authors of such catalogues shall be fully im- pressed by the importance of their art ; and, as it were, reading in the most distant ages of the future the literary good and evil which they may produce, force a triumph from the pure devotion to truth, in spite of all the disgusts which their professional tasks involve ; still patiently enduring the heavy chains which bind down those who give themselves up to this pursuit, with a passion which resembles heroism. " The catalogues of hihliotlieques fixes (or critical, historical, and classified accounts of writers) have engendered that enor- mous swarm of bibliographical errors, which have spread their roots, in greater or less quantities, in all ou-r bibliographers." He has here furnished a long list, which I shall preserve in the note.* The list, though curious, is by no means complete. Such are the men of whom the Abbe Rive speaks with more re- spect than his accustomed courtesy. "If such," says he, " cannot escape from errors, who shall ? I have only marked them out to prove the importance of bibliographical history. A writer oi' this sort must occupy himself with more regard for his reputation than his own profit, and yield himself up entirely to the study of books." The mere knowledge of books, which has been called an erudition of title-pages, may be sufficient to occupy the life of some ; and while the wits and "the million" are ridiculing these hunters of editions, who force their passage through secluded spots, as well as course in the open fields, it will be found that this art of book-knowledge may turn out to be a very philosophical pursuit, and that men of great name have * Gessner — Simler — Bellarmin — L'Abbe — Mabillon — Montfaucon — Moreri — Bayle — Baillet — Niceron — Dupin • — Cave — Warton— Casimir Oudin— Le Long — Goujet — Wolfius — Juhn Albert Fabricius — Argelati — Tiraboschi — Nicholas Antonio — Walchius — Struvius — Brucker — Scheuch- zer — Linnajus — Seguier — Haller — Adamson — Manget — Kestner — Eloy — ■ Douglas — Weidler — Hailbronner — Wontucla — Lalande — Bailly — Quadrio "-llorhoff — Stollius — Funccius — Schelhorn — Eugles — Beyer — Gerde.sius — Vogts — Freytag — David Clement — Chevillier — Maittaire — Orlandi — Pros- per Marchand — Scboeplin — De Boze — Abbe Sallier — and de Saint Leger. A Bibliognoste. 34.5 devoted tliemselves to labours more frequently contemned tlian comprehended. Apostolo Zeno, a poet, a critic, and a true man of letters, considered it as no small portion of his glory to have annotated Fontiinini, who, himself an eminent ])relate, had passed his life in forming his Blhliotheca Itnliana. Zeno did not consider that to correct errors and to enrich by information this catalogue of Italian writers was a mean task. The enthusiasm of the Aijbe liive considered bibliography as a- sublime pursuit, exclaiming on Zeno's commentary on Fon- tanini — " He chained together the knowledge of whole gene- rations for posterity, and he read in I'uture ages." There are few things by which we can so well trace the history of the human mind as by a classed catalogue, with dates of the first publication of books ; even the relative prices of books at different periods, their decline and then their rise, and again their fall, form a chapter in tliis liistorv of the human mind ; we become critics even by this literary chro- nology, and this appraisement of auctioneers. The favourite book of ever}^ age is a certain pietux'e of the people. The gradual depreciation of a great author marks a change in knowledge or in taste. But it is imagined that we are not interested in the history of indifferent writers, and scarcely in that of the secondary ones. If none but great originals should claim our attention, in the course of two thousand years we should not count twenty authors ! Every book, whatever be its character, may be considered as a new experiment; made by the human un- derstanding ; and as a book is a sort of individual representa- tion, not a solitary volume exists but may be personified, and described as a human being. Hints start discoveries : they are usually found in very different authors who could go no further ; and the historian of obscure books is often ])reserving for men of genius indications of knowledge, which without his intervention we should not possess ! Many secrets we dis- cover in bibliography. Great writers, vmskilled in this science of books, have frequently used defective editions, as Hume did the castrated Whitelocke ; or, like Robertson, they are ignorant of even the sources of the knowledge they would give the ])ublie ; or they compose on a subject which too late they discover had been anticipated. Bibliograpli}'' will show what has been done, and suggest to our invention what is wanted. Many have often protracted their journey in a road which had already been worn out by the wheels whicli had tra- 34G Secret His tori/ of an Elective Monarchy. versed it : bibliography unrolls the whole map of the countrj we piu'pose travelling over — the post-roads and the by-paths. Every half-centm-y, indeed, the obstructions multiply ; and the Edinburgh prediction, should it approximate to the event it has foreseen, may more reasonably terrify a far distant pos- terity. Mazzuchelli declared, after liis laborious researches in Italian literature, that one of his more recent predecessors, who had commenced a similar work, had collected notices of forty thousand writers- -and yet, he adds, my work must in- crease that number to ten thousand more ! Mazzuchelli said this in 1753 ; and the amount of nearly a century must now be added, for the presses of Italy have not been inactive. But the literature of Germany, of France, and of England has exceeded the multiplicity of the productions of Italy, and an appalling population of authors swarm before the imagina- tion.* Hail then tlie peaceful spirit of the literary liistorian, which sitting amidst the night of tune, by the monuments of genius, trims the sepulchral lamps of the human mind ! Hail to the literary Reaumur, who by the clearness of his glasses makes even the minute interesting, and reveals to us the world of insects ! These are guardian spirits who, at the close of every century standing on its ascent, trace out the old roads we had pursued, and with a lighter line indicate the new ones which are opening, from the imperfect attempts, and even the errors of our predecessors ! SECRET HISTORY OF AN ELECTIVE MONARCHY. A POLITICAL SKETCH. Poland, once a potent and magnificent kingdom, when it sunk into an elective monarchy, became "venal thrice an age." That country must have exhibited many a diplomatic scene of intricate intrigue, which although they could not ai)pear in its public, have no doubt been often consigned to its secret, history. With us the corruption of a rotten bo- rough has sometimes exposed the guarded proffer of one party, and the dexterous chaffering of tlie other : but a masterpiece of diplomatic finesse and political invention, electioneering viewed on the most magnificent scale, with a kingdom to be * The British Museum Library now numbers more than 500,000 vo- lumes. The catalogue alone forms a small library. Secret History of an Elective Monarchy . 347 canvassed, and a crown to be won and lost, or lost and won in the coui'se of a single day, exhibits a political di'ania, which, for the honom* and happiness of mankind, is of rare and strange occurrence. There was one scene in this cli'ama which might appear somewhat too large for an ordinary theatre ; the actors apparently wci'e not less than iilty to a hundred thou- sand ; twelve vast tents were raised on an extensive plain, a hundi'ed thousand horses were in the environs — and pala- tines and castellans, the ecclesiastical orders, with the am- bassadors of the royal competitors, all agitated by the ceaseless motion of different factions diu-ing the six weeks of the election, and of manj'- preceding months of preconcerted measures and vacillating opinions, now were all solemnly assembled at the diet. — Once the poet, amidst his gigantic conception of a scene, resolved to leave it out : So vast a tlu'ong the stage can ne'er contain — Then build a new, or act it in a lilain ! exclaimed "La Mancha's knight," kindling at a scene so novel and so vast ! Such an electioneering negotiation, the only one 1 am acquainted with, is opened in the " Discom-s" of Choisin, the secretary of Montluc, J^ishop of Valence, the confidential agent of Catharine de' Medici, and who was sent to intrigue at the Polish diet, to obtain the crown of Poland for her son the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry the Third. This bold entei'prise at first seemed hopeless, and in its progress encoun- tered growing obstructions ; but Montluc was one of the most finished diplomatists that the genius of the Gallic cabinet ever sent forth. He was nicknamed in all tlie courts of Europe, from the circumstance of his limping, "le Boiteux;" our political bishop was in cabinet intrigues the Talleyrand of his age, and sixteen embassies to Italy, Germany, England, Scotland, and Turkey, had made this "connoisseur en hommes" an extraordinary politician ! Catharine de' Medici was infatuated with the di*eams of judicial astrology ; her pensioned oracles had declared that she should live to see each of her sons crowned, by which prediction probably they had only ])urposed to flatter her pride and her love of dominion. The}', however, ended in terrifying the credulous queen ; and she, dreading to witness a throne in France, dis])uted perhaps by fi-atricides, anxiously sought a separate crow n ibr each of her three sons. She had 348 Secret History of an Elective Monarchy. been trifled with in her earnest negotiations with our Eliza- beth ; twice had she seen herself baffled in her views in the Dukes of AlenQon and of Anjou. Catharine then projected a new empire for Anjou, by incorporating into one kingdom Algiers, Corsica, and Sardinia ; but the other despot, he of Oonstantinople, Selim the Second, dissipated the brilliant speculation of our female Machiavel. Charles the Ninth was sickly, jealous, and desirous of removing from the court the Duke of Anjou, whom two victories had made popular, though he afterwards sunk into a Sardanapalus. Montluc penetrated into the secret wishes of Catharine and Charles, and suggested to them the possibility of encircling the brows of Anjou with the diadem of Poland, the Polish monarch then being in a state of visible decline. The project was approved ; and, like a profound politician, the bishop prepared for an event which might be remote, and always problema- tical, by sending into Poland a natural son of his, Balagny, as a disguised agent ; his youth, his humble rank, and his love of pleasure, would not create any alarm among the neighbovu-ing powers, who were alike on the watch to snatch the expected spoil ; but as it was necessary to have a more ■dexterous politician behind the curtain, he recommended his secretary, Choisnin, as a travelHng tutor to a youth who ap- peared to want one. Balagny proceeded to Poland, where, under the veil of dis- sipation, and in the midst of splendid festivities, with his trusty adjutant, this hair-brained boy of revelry began to weave those intrigues which were afterwards to be knotted, or untied, by Montluc himself. He had contrived to be so little suspected, that the agent of the emperor had often dis- closed important secrets to his young and amiable friend. On the death of Sigismond Augustus, Balagny, leaving Choisnin behind to trumpet forth the virtues of Anjou, hastened to Paris to give an account of all which he had seen or heard. But poor Choisnin found himself in a dilemma among those "Nvho had so long listened to his panegyrics on the humanity and meek character of the Duke of Anjou ; for the news of St. Bartholomew's massacre had travelled faster than the post ; and Choisnin complains that he was now treated as an impudent liar, and the French prince as a monster. In vain he assured them that the whole was an exaggerated account, a mere insurrection of the people, or the effects of a few pri- vate enmities, praying the indignant Poles to suspend their Secret History of an Elective Monarciuj. £49 decision till the bishop came : "Attendez le Boitcu\!" cried he, in agony. Meanwhile, at Paris, the choice of a proper person for this embassy had been cUfficult to settle. It was a bnsiness of intrigue more than of form, and required an orator to make s|)eeches and addi-esses in a sort of ];opular assembly ; for though the people, indeed, had no concern in the diet, yet the greater and the les.ser nobles and gentlemen, all electors, were reckoned at one hundi'ed thousand. It was supposed that a law^'er who could negotiate in good Latin, and one, as the French proverb runs, who could aller et parlcr, would more effectually puzzle their heads, and satisfy their consciences to vote for his client. Catharine at last fixed on Montluc him- self, from the superstitious prejudice, which, however, in this case accorded with philosophical experience, that " Montluc had ever been lucky in his negotiations." Montluc hastened his departure from Paris ; and it appears that our political bishop had, by his skilful penetration into the French cabinet, foreseen the horrible catastrophe which occui-red very shortly after he had left it ; for he had warned the Count de Rochefoucault to absent himself ; but this lord, like so many others, had no suspicions of the perfidious pro- jects of Catharine and her cabinet. Montluc, however, had not long been on his journey ere the news reached him, and it occasioned innumerable obstacles in his progress, which even his sagacity had not calculated on. At Strasburgh he had appointed to meet some able coadjutors, among whom was the famous Joseph Sealiger ; but they were so terrified by Les Matinees Pariaieivies, that Sealiger tlew to Geneva, and would not budge out of that safe corner : and the othei's ran home, not imagining that Montluc would venture to pass through Germany, where the protestant indignation had made the roads too hot for a catholic bishop. But Montluc had set his cast on the die. He had already passed through several hair-breadth escapes from the stratagems of the Guise faetion, who more than once attempted to hang or drown the bishop, who, they cried out, was a Calvinist ; the fears and jealousies of the Guises had been roused by this political mission. Among all these troubles and delays, Montluc was most affected by the rumour that the election was on the point of being made, and that the plague was universal throughout Poland, so that he must have felt that he might be too late for the one, and too early for the other. 350 Sea'et Historij of mi Elective Monarchy. At last Montluc arrived, and found that the whole weight of this negotiation was to fall on his single shoulders ; and further, that he was to sleep every night on a pillow of thorns. Our bishop had not only to allay the ferment of the popular spirit of the evangehcals, as the protestants were then called, hut even of the more rational catholics of Po- land. He had also to face those haughty and feudal lords, of whom each considered himself the equal of the sovereign whom he created, and whose avowed principle was, and many were incorrupt, that their choice of a sovereign should be regulated solely by the public interest ; and it was hardly to be expected that the emperor, the czar, and the King of Sweden would prove unsuccessful rivals to the cruel, and vo- luptuous, and bigoted duke of Anjou, whose political inte- rests were too remote and novel to have raised any faction among these independent Poles. The crafty politician had the art of dressing himself u^p in all the winning charms of candour and loyalty ; a sweet flow of honeyed words melted on his lips, while his heart, cold and immovable as a rock, stood unchanged amidst the most unforeseen difficulties. The emperor had set to work the Abbe Gyre in a sort of ambiguous character, an envoy for the nonce, to be acknow- ledged or disavowed as was convenient ; and by his activity he obtained considerable influence among the Lithuanians, the Wallachians, and nearly all Prussia, in favour of the Arch- duke Ernest. Two Bohemians, who had the advantage of speaking the Polish language, had arrived with a state and magnificence becoming kings rather than ambassadors. The Muscovite had written letters full of golden promises to the nobility, and was supported by a palatine of high character ; a perpetual peace between two such great neighbours was too inviting a project not to find advocates ; and this party, Choisnin observes, appeared at first the most to be feared. The King of Sweden was a close neighbour, who had married the sister of their late sovereign, and his son urged his family claims as superior to those of foreigners. Among these par- ties was a patriotic one, who were desirous of a Pole for their monarch ; a king of their fatherland, speaking their mother-tongue, one who would not strike at the indepen- dence of his countrv, but preserve its integrity from the stranger. This popular party was even agreeable to several of the foreign powers themselves, who did not like to see a Secret History of an Elective MonurcJnj. 351 rival power strengthening itself by so strict a union with Poland ; but in this choice of a sovereign from among them- selves, there were at least thu't}^ lords who equally thought that they were the proper wood of which kings should be carved out. The Poles therefore could not agree on the Pole who deserved to be a Piaste ; an endearing title for a native monarch, which originated in the name of tlie family of the Fiastis, who had reigned happily over the Polish people for the space of five centuries ! The remembrance of their vir- tues existed in the minds of the honest Poles in this affec- tionate title, and their party were called the Piastis. Montluc had been deprived of the assistance he had depended on from many able persons, whom the massacre of St. Bartholomew had frightened away from every French jioHtical connexion. He found that he had himself only to depend on. We are told that he was not provided with the usual means which are considered most efficient in elections, nor possessed the interest nor the splendour of his powerful competitors : he was to derive all his resources from diploma- tic finesse. The various ambassadors had fixed and distant residences, that they might not hold too close an intercourse with the Polish nobles. Of all things, he was desirous to obtain an easy access to these chiefs, that he might observe, and that they might listen. He who would seduce by his own ingenuity must come in contact with the object he would corrupt. Yet Montluc persisted in not approaching them without being sought after, which answered his purpose in the end. One favourite argument which our Talleyrand had set afloat, was to show that all the benefits which the difi'erent competitors had promised to the Poles were accompanied by other circumstances which could not fail to be ruinous to the country : while the offer of his master, whose interests were remote, could not be adverse to those of the Polish nation : so that much good might be expected from him, without any fear of accompanying evil. Montluc procured a clever Frenchman to be the bearer of his first despatch, in Latin, to the diet ; which had hardly assembled, ere suspicions and jealousies were already breaking out. The emperor's ainl)as- sadors had offended the pride of the Polisli nobles liy travelling about the countrv without leave, and resorting to the infanta ; and besides, in some intercepted letters the Polisli nation was designated as rjens barhara et r/ens inepta. "1 do not think that the said letter was really written by the said ambassadors, o J2 itecret History of an Elective Monarchy. who were statesmen too politic to employ such unguarded language," very ingeniously writes the secretary of Montluc. lowever, it was a blow levelled at the imperial ambassadors ; while the letter of the French bishop, composed " in a humble and modest style," began to melt their proud spirits, and two thousand copies of the French bishop's letter were eagerly spread. " But this good fortune did not last more than four-and twenty hours," mournfully writes our honest secretary; "for suddenly the news of the fatal day cf St. Bartholomew arrived, and every Frenchman was detested." Montluc, in this distress, published an apology for les Ilatinees Parisiennes, which he reduced to some excesses of the people, the result of a conspiracy plotted hy the protes- tants ; and he adroitly introduced as a personage his master Anjou, declaring that " he scorned to oppress a party whom he had so often conquered with sword in hand." This pamphlet, which still exists, must have cost the good bishop some invention ; hut in elections the lie of the moment sei'ves a purpose ; and although Montluc was in due time bitterly recriminated on, still the apology served to divide public opinion. Montluc was a whole cabinet to himself: he dispersed another tract in the character of a Polish gentleman, in which the French interests were urged by such arguments, that the leading chiefs never met without disputing ; and Montluc now found that he had succeeded in creating a French party. The Austrian then emplo3'ed a real Polish gentleman to write for his party ; but this was too genuine a production, for the writer wrote too much in earnest ; and in politics we must not be in a passion. The mutual jealousies of each party assisted the views of our negotiator ; they would side with him against each other. The archduke and the czar opposed the Turk ; the Muscovite could not endure that Sweden should be aggrandised by this new crown ; and Denmark was still more uneasy. Montluc had discovered how every party had its vulnerable point, by which it could be managed. The cards had now got fairly shuffled, and he depended on his usual good play. Our bishop got hold of a palatine to write for the French cause in the vernacular tongue ; and appears to have held a more mysterious intercourse with another palatine, Albert Lasky. Mutual accusations were made in the open diet : thu Secret History of an Elective Monarchy. 3^3 i^oles accused some Litlmanian lords of having contracted ■certain engagements with the czar ; these in return accuseil the Poles, and particularly this Lasky, with being corrupted TL»v the gold of France. Another circumstance afterwards arose; the Spanish ambassador had forty thousand thnlers sent to him, bnt which never passed the frontiers, as this fresh supply arrived too late for the election. " I believe," wi'ites om* secretary with great simplicity, " that this money was only designed to distribute among the trum]:)eters and the tabourines." The usual expedient in contested elections was now evidently introduced ; our secretary acknowledging that Montluc daily acquired new supporters, because he did not attempt to gain tliem over merely hy promises — resting fiis whole cause on this argument, that the interest of the nation was concerned in the French election. Still would ill fortune cross our crafty politician when ^3verything was proceeding smoothly. The massacre was refreshed with more damning particulars ; some letters were, forged, and others were but too true ; all parties, with rival intrepidity, were carrying on a complete scene of deception. A rumour spread that the French king disavowed his accre- dited agent, and apologised to the emperor for having yielded to the importunities of a political speculator, whom he was now resolved to recall. This somewhat paralysed the exertions of those palatines who had involved themselves in the intrigues of Montluc, who was now forced patiently to wait for the arrival of a com-ier with renewed testimonials of his diplomatic character from the French com-t. A great odium was cast on the French in the course of this negotiation by a distribution of prints, which exposed the most inventive cruelties practised by the Catholics on the Reformed ; such as women cleaved in half in the act of attempting to snatch their children from their butchers ; while Charles the Ninth and the Duke of Anjou were hideously represented in their persons, and as spectators of such horrid tragedies, with words written in labels, complaining that the executioners were not zealous enough in this holy work. These prints, accompanied by libels and by horrid narratives, inflamed the popular indignation, and more particularly the women, who were affected to tears, as if these horrid scenes had been pass- ing before their eyes. Montluc replied to the libels as fast as they appeared, while he skilfully introduced the most elaborate panegyrics VOL, III. > A ?54 Secret History of an Elective Monarchy. oil tlie Dulie of Anjou ; and in return for the caricatures, he distributed two portraits of the l such houses much comfort and ease toward their living." The King gra- ciously says ; — " He tooke no small contentment in the resori: of gentler and Residence in the Country. 365 A manuscript writer of the times complains of the breaking up of old family establishments, all crowding to " upstart London." Every one strives to be a Diogenes in his house, and an emperor in the streets ; not caring if they sleep in a tub, so they may be hui-ried in a coach : giving that allow- ance to horses and mares that formerly maintained houses full of men ; pinching many a belly to paint a few backs, and burying all the treasui'es of the kingdom into a few citizens' coffers ; their woods into wardi-obes, their leases into laces, and their goods and chattels into guarded coats and gaudy toys." Such is the representation of an eloquent contempo- rary ; and however contracted might have been his knowledge of the principles of political economy, and of that prosperit}- which a wealthy nation is said to derive from its consumption of articles of luxury, the moral efiects have not altered, nor has the scene in reality greatly changed. The government not only frequently forbade new buildings within ten miles of London, but sometimes ordered them to be pulled down — after they had been erected for several years. Every six or seven years proclamations were issued. In Charles the First's reign, offenders were sharply prosecuted by a combined operation, not only against houses, but against persons* Many of the nobility and gentry, in 1632, were informed against for having resided in the city, contrary to the late proclamation. And the Attorney-General was then fully occupied in filing bills of indictment against them, as well as ladies, for staying in town. The following cm-ious *■ information" in the Star Chamber will serve our purpose. The Attorney-General informs his majesty that both Eliza- beth and James, by several proclamations, had commanded that " persons of livelihood and means should reside in their counties, and not abide or sojoui'n in the city of London, men, and other our subjects coming to visit us, holding their affectionate desire to see our person to be a certaine testimonie of their inward love ;" ibut he says he must not " give way to so great a mischiefe as the con- tinuall resort may breed," and that therefore all that have no special cause of attendance must at once go back until the time of his coronation, when they may ' ' returne until the solemnity be passed ; " but only for that time, for if the proclamation be slighted he shall ' ' make them an example of contempt if we shall finde any making stay hei-e contrary to this direc- tion." Such proclamations were from time to time issued, and though sometimes evaded, were frequently enforced by fines, so that living in London was a risk and danger to country gentlemen of fortune. * Eushworth, vol. ii. p. 288. 366 Buildings in the Metropolis ^ so that counties remain unserved." These proclamations were renewed by Charles the First, who had observed " a greater number of nobility and gentry, and abler sort of people, with their families, had resorted to the cities of London and West- minster, residing there, contrary to the ancient usage of the English nation" — "by their abiding in their several counties where their means arise, they would not only have served his majesty according to their ranks, but by their housekeepin(/ in those parts the meaner sort of people formerly were guided, directed, and relieved^ He accuses them of wasting their estates in the metropolis, which would employ and relieve the common people in their several counties. The loose and disorderly people that follow them, living in and about the cities, are so numerous, that they are not easily governed by tlie ordinary magistrates : mendicants increase in great num- ber — the prices of all commodities are highly raised, &c. The king had formerly proclaimed that all ranks who were not connected with public offices, at the close of foiiy days' no- tice, should resort to their several counties, and with their families continue their residence there. And his majesty further warned them " Not to put themselves to unnecessary cliarge in providing themselves to return in winter to the said cities, as it was the king's firm resolution to withstand such great and growing evil." The information concludes with a most copious list of offenders, among whom are a great number of nobility, and ladies and gentlemen, who were accused of having lived in London for several months after the given warning of forty daj's. It appears that most of them, to elude the grasp of the law, had contrived to make a show of quitting the metropolis, and, after a short absence, had again returned ; " and thus the service of your majesty and your people in the several counties have been neglected and undonCc" Such is the substance of this curious information, which enables us at least to collect the ostensible motives of this singular prohibition. Proclamations had hitherto been consi- dered little more than the news of the morning, and three days afterwards were as much read as the last week's news- papers. They were now, however, resolved to stretch forth the strong arm of law, and to terrify by an example. The constables were commanded to bring in a list of the names of strangers, and the time they proposed to fix their residence in their parishes. A remarkable victim on this occasion was a and Residence hi the Country. 3fl7 Mr. Palmer, a Sussex gentleman, who was brouglit ore tenus into the Star Chamber for disobeying the proelamation for living in the country. Pahner was a squire of lOOOZ. per annum, then a considerable income. He appears to have been some rich bachelor; for in his defence he alleged that he had never been married, never was a housekeeper, and had no house fitting for a man of his birth to reside in, as his man- sion in the country had been burnt down within two years. These reasons appeared to his judges to aggravate rather than extenuate his olfence ; and after a long reprimand for having deserted his tenants and neighbours, they heavily fined him in one thousand pounds.* The condemnation of this Sussex gentleman struck a terror through a wide circle of sojourners in the metropolis. 1 find accounts, pathetic enough, of their " packing away on all sides for fear of the worst ;" and gentlemen " grumbling that they should be confined to their houses :" and this was sometimes backed too by a second proclamation, respecting "their wives and families, and also widows," which was " clurus sermo to the women. It is nothing pleasing to all," saj-^s the letter- writer, " but least of all to the women." " To encourage gentlemen to live more willingly in the country," says an- other letter-writer, " all game-fowl, as pheasants, partridges^ ducks, as also hares, are this day by proclamation forbidden to be dressed or eaten in siwy inn." Here we find realized the ai'gument of Mr. Justice Best in favour of the game- laws. It is evident that this severe restriction must have pro- duced great mconvenience to certain persons who found a residence in London necessary for their pursuits. This ap- pears from the manuscript diary of an honest antiquary, Sir Symonds D'Ewes ; he has preserved an opinion which, no doubt, was spreading fast, that such prosecutions of tlie Attorney-General were a violation of the liberty of the sub- ject. " Most men wondered at Mr. Noy, the Attorney- General, being accounted a great lavvj'er, that so strictly iooJc away men's liberties at one blow, confining them to reside at their own houses, and not permitting them freedom to live where they pleased within the king's dominions. I was iriyself a little startled upon the first coming out of the pro- clamation ; but having first spoken with the Lord Coventry, '■ From a manuscript letter from Sir George Gresley to Sir Tliomas Puc-kering, Nov. 1G32. SG8 Buildings m the Metropolis, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, at Islington, when I visit^'d him ; and afterwards with Sir William Jones, one of the King's Justices of the Bench, about nij condition and resi- tlence at the said town of Islington, and thej both agreeing that I was not within the letter of the proclamation, nor the intention of it neither, I rested satisfied, and thought myself secure, laying in all my provisions for housekeeping for the year ensuing, and never imagined myself to be in danger, till this unexpected censure of Mr. Palmer passed in the Star Chamber ; so, having advised with my friends, I resolved for a remove, being much troubled not only with my separation from Eecordes, but with my wife, being great with child, fearing a winter journey might be dangerous to her."* He left Islington and the records in the Tower to return to his country-seat, to the great disturbance of his studies. It is, perhaps, difficult to assign the cause of this marked anxiety of the government for the severe restriction of the limits of the metropolis, and the prosecution of the nobility and gentry to compel a residence on their estates. Whatever were the motives, they were not peculiar to the existing sovereign, but remained transmitted from cabinet to cabinet, and were even renewed under Charles the Second. At a time when the plague often broke out, a close and growing metro- polis might have been considered to be a great evil ; a terror ■expressed by the manuscript- writer before quoted, complaining of " this deluge of building, that we shall be all poisoned with breathing in one another's faces." The police of the metro- polis was long imbecile, notwithstanding their " strong watches and guards" set at times ; and bodies of the idle and the refi-actory often assumed some mysterious title, and were with difficulty governed. We may conceive the state of the police, when " London apprentices," growing in number and insolence, frequently made attempts on Bridewell, or pulled down houses. One day the citizens, in proving some ord- nance, terrified the whole court of James the First with a panic that there was " a rising in the city." It is possible that the government might have been induced to pursue this singular conduct, for I do not know that it can be paralleled, of pulling down new-built houses by some principle of poli- tical economy which remains to be explained, or ridiculed, by our modern adepts. ♦ Harl. MSS. 6. fo. 152. and Residence in the Country. 3CD It would liardly be supposed that the present suhject may be enlivened bv a poem, the elegance and freedom of whicli may even now be admired. It is a great literar}- curiosity, and its length may be excused for several remarkable points. AN ODE, BY SIR RICHAKD FANSHAW, Upon Occasion of his Majesty's Proclamation in the Tear 1630, com* manding the Gentry to reside upon their Estates in the Country. Now war is all the world about, And everywhere Erinnys reigns ; Or of the torch so late put out The stench remains. Holland for many years hath been Of Christian tragedies the stage, Yet seldom hath she played a scene Of bloodier rage : And France, that was not long composM, With civil drums again resounds, And ere the old are fully clos'd, Receives new wounds. The great Gustavus in the west Plucks the imperial eagle's wing, Than whom the earth did ne'er invest A fiercer king. Only the island which we sow, A world without the world so far. From present wounds, it cannot show An ancient scar. White peace, the beautifuU'st of thiiiod, Seems here her everlasting rest To fix and spread the downy wings Over the nest. As when great Jove, usurping reign, From the plagued world did her exile. And tied her with a golden chain To one blest isle, Which in a sea of plenty swam, And turtles sang on every bough, A. safe retreat to all that came. As ours is now ; Yet we, as if some foe were here. Leave the despised fields to clowns, And come to save ourselves, as 'twere In walled towns. Hither we bring wives, babes, rich clotlios. And gems — till now my suveraign The growing evil doth oppose : Counting in vain VOL. TIT. 15 il 370 Buildings in the Metropolis, ^c. His care preserves us from annoy Of enemies his realms to invade, Unless he force us to enjoy The peace he made, To roll themselves in envied leisure ; He therefore sends the lauded heirs, Whilst he proclaims not his own pleasure So mucli was theirs. The sap and blood of the land, which fled Into the root, and choked the heart, Are bid their quick'uing power to spread Through every part. 'twas an act, not for my muse To celebrate, nor the dull age, Until the country air infuse A purer rage. And if the fields as thankful prove For benefits received, as seed. They will to 'quite so great a love A Virgil breed. Nor let the gentry grudge to go Into those places whence they grew. But think them blest they may do so. Who would pursue The smoky glory of the town. That may go till his native earth, And by the shining fire sit down Of his own hearth, Free from the griping scrivener's bands, And the more biting mercer's books; Free from the bait of oiled hands, And painted looks ? The country too even chops for rain ; You that exhale it by your power, Let the fat drops fall down again In a full shower. And you bright beauties of the time, That waste yourselves here in a blaze, Fix to your orb and proper clime Your wandering rays, Let no dark corner of the land Be unembellish'd with one gem, And those which here too thick do staiid Sprinkle on them. Believe me, ladies, you will find In that sweet light more solid joys, More true contentment to the mind Than all town-toya, .Mor Cupid there less blood doth spill. But heads his shafts with chaster love. Not feather'd with a sparrow's quill. But of a dove. Royal Proclamations. 371 There you shall hear the nightingale, The harmless syren of the wood, How prettily she tells a tale Of rape and blood. The lyric lark, with all beside Of JVature's feather'd quire, and all The commonwealth of flowers in 'ts pride Behold you shall. The lily queen, the royal rose. The gilly-flower, prince of the blood ! The courtier tulip, gay in clothes. The regal bud ; The violet purple senator. How they do mock the pomp of state, And all that at the surly door Of great ones wait. Plant trees you may, and see them shoot Up with your childi-en, to be served To your clean boai-ds, and the fairest fruit To be preserved ; And learn to use their several gums ; 'Tis innocence in the sweet blood Of cherry, apricocks, and plums, To be imbrued. ROYAL PROCLAMATIONS. The satires and the comedies of the age have been consulted by the historian of our manners, and the featm'es of the times (have been traced from those amusing records of folly. Daines Barrinton enlarged this field of domestic history in his very •entertaining " Observations on the Statutes." Another source, which to me seems not to have been explored, is the procla- mations which have frequently issued from our sovereigns, and "vvere produced by the exigencies of the times. These proclamations or royal edicts in our country were never armed with the force of laws — only as they enforce the execution of laws already established ; and the proclamation of a British monarch may become even an illegal act, if it be in opposition to the law of the land. Once, indeed, it was enacted under the arbitrary government of Henry the Eighth, by the sanction of a pusillanimous parliament, that the force of acts of parliament should be given to the king's proclama- tions ; and at a much later period the chancellor. Lord EUes- rnere, was willing to have advanced the king's proclamations into laws, on the sophistical maxim that " all precedents had E B 2 S72 Royal Proclamations. a time when they began ;" but this chancellor argued ill, as he was told with spirit bj^ Lord Coke, in the presence of James the First,* who probably did not think so ill of the chancellor's logic. Blackstone, to whom on this occasion I could not fail to turn, observes, on the statute under Henry the Eighth, that it would have introduced the most despotic tyranny, and must have proved fatal to the liberties of this kingdom, had it not been luckily repealed in the minority of his successor, whom he elsewhere calls an amiable prince — all our 3'oung princes, we discover, were amiable ! Blackstone has not recorded the subsequent attempt of the lord chan- cellor under James the First, which tended to raise proclama- tions to the nature of an ukase of the autocrat of both the Russias. It seems that our national freedom, notwithstand- ing our ancient constitution, has had several narrow escapes. Royal proclamations, however, in their own nature are innocent enough ; for since the manner, time, and circum- stances of putting laws in execution must frequently be left to the discretion of the executive magistrate, a proclamation that is not adverse to existing laws need not create any alarm ; the only danger they incur is that they seem never to have been attended to, and rather testified the wishes of the government than the compliance of the subjects. They were not laws, and were therefore considered as sermons or pamphlets, or anything forgotten in a week's time ! These proclamations are frequently alluded to by the letter- writers of the times among the news of the day, but usually their royal virtue hardly kept them alive beyond the week. Some on important subjects are indeed noticed in our history. Many indications of the situation of affairs, the feelings of the people, and the domestic history of our nation, may be di-awn from these singular records. I have never found them to exist in any collected form, and they have been probably only accidentally preserved. f The proclamations of every sovereign would characterize * The whole story is in 12 Co. 746. I owe this curious fact to tlie author of Eunomus, ii. 116. + A quarto volume was published by Barker, the king's printer, and is entitled "A Booke of Proclamations Published since the beginning of his Majestie's most happy Reign over England, until this present month of Feb. 1609." It contains 110 in all. The Society of Antiquaries of London possesses at the present time the largest and most perfect collec- tion of royal proclamations in existence, brought together since the above was written. They are on separate broadsheets, as issued. Royal Proclamations. 373 his veign, and open to us some of the iiitevior operations of the cabinet. The despotic will, yet vacillating conduct ol Henry the Eighth, towards the close of his reign, may be traced in a proclamation to abolish the translations of the scriptures, and even the reading of Bibles by the people ; commanding all printers of English l)ooks and pamphlets to aflBx their names to them, and forbidding the sale of any EngUsh books printed abroad.* When the people were not suffered to publish their opinions at home, all the opposition ilew to foreign presses, and their writings were then smuggled into the country in which they ought to have been printed. Hence, many volumes printed in a foreign type at this period are found in our collections. The king shrunk in dismay from that spirit of reformation which haJ only been a party business with him, and making himself a pope, decided that nothing should be learnt but what he himself deigned to teach ! The antipathies and jealousies which our populace too long indulged, by their incivilities to all foreigners, are charac- terised by a proclamation issued by Mary, commanding her subjects to behave themselves peaceably towards the strangers coming with King Philip ; that noblemen and gentlemen should warn their servants to refrain from " strife and con- tention, either by outward deeds, taunting words, unseemly countenance, by mimicking them, &c." The punishment not only " her grace's displeasure, but to be committed to prison without bail or mainprise." * In 1529 the king had issueJ a proclamation for resisting and with- standing of most dampnable heresyes sowen within the realme by the dis- cyples of Luther and other heretykes, perverters of Christes relygyon." In June, 1530, this was followed by the proclamation "for dampning (or condemning) of erronious bokes and heresies, and prohibitinge the havinge of holy scripture translated into the vulgar tonges of englishe, frenche, or dutche," he notes many bookes " printed beyonde the see" which he will not allow, " that is to say, the boke called the wicked Mammona, the boke named the Obedience of a Christen Man, the Supplication of Beggars, and the boke called the Revelation of Antichrist, the Summary of Scripture, and divers other bokes made in the Euglishe tongue," in fact all books in the vernacular not issued by native printers. "And that having respect to the malignity of this present tyme, with the inclination of people to erronious opinions, the translation of the newe testament and the old into the vulgar tonge of englysshe, shulde rather be the occasion of contynuance or increase of errours anionge the said people, than any benefit or com- jnodite toward the weale of their soules," and he determines therefore that the scriptures shall only be expounded to the people as heretofore, and that these books " be clerely estermynate and exiled out of this realme of Ecglande for ever." 37 ]< Royal Proclamations. The proclamations of Edward the Sixth curiously exhibit the unsettled state of the reformation, where the rites and ceremonies of Catholicism were still practised by the new religionists, while an opposite party, resolutely bent on an eternal separation from Rome, were avowing doctrines which afterwards consolidated themselves into puritanism, and while- others were hatching up that demoralising fanaticism which, subsequently shocked the nation with those monstrous sects^ the indelible disgrace of our country ! In one proclamation the king denounces to the people " those who despise the- sacrament by calling it idol, or such other vile name." Another is against such " as innovate any ceremony," and who are described as " certain private preachers and other laiemen, who rashly attempt of their own and singular loit and mind, not only to persuade the people from the old and accustomed rites and ceremonies, but also themselves bring in new and strange orders according to their phantasies. The which, as it is an evident token of pride and arrogancy^ so it tendeth both to confusion and disorder." Another proclamation, to pres? " a godly conformity throughout his- realm," where we learn the following curious fact, of " divers unlearned and indiscreet priests of a devilish mind and intent, teaching that a man may forsake his wife and marry another, his first wife yet living ; likewise that the wife may do the- same to the husband. Others, that a man may have two wives or more at once, for that these things are not pro- hibited by God's law, but by the Bishop of Rome's law ; sO' that by such evil and fantastical opinions some have not been afraid indeed to marry and keep two wives." Here, as- in the bud, we may unfold those subsequent scenes of our story which spread out in the following century ; the branch- ing out of the non-conformists into their various sects ; and the indecent haste of our reformed priesthood, who, in their zeal to cast off the yoke of Rome, desperately submitted to- the liberty of having "two wives or more!" There is a proclamation to abstain from flesh on Fridays and Saturdays ; exhorted on the principle, not only that " men should ab.^tain on those days, and forbear their pleasures and the meats wherein they have more delight, to the intent to subdue their bodies to the soul and spirit, but also for loorldhj •policy. To use fish for the benefit of the commonwealth, and profit of many who be Jishers and men using that trade, unto the which this realm, in every part environed with the seas, and Royal Proclamations. 375 50 plentiful of fresh waters, be increased the nourishment oC the land by saving flesh." It did not seem to occur to the king in council that the butchers might have had cause to petition against this monopoly of two days in the week granted to the fishmongers; and much less, that it was better to let the people eat flesh or fish as suited their con- veniency. In respect to the religious rite itself, it was evi- dently not considered as an essential point of faith, since the king enforces it on the principle, " for the profit and com- modity of his realm." iJurnet has made a just observation on rehgious fasts.* A proclamation against excess of apparel, in the reign of Ehzabeth, and renewed many years after, shows the luxury of dress, which was indeed excessive.f There is a curious one against the iconoclasts, or image-lrealcers and picture- destroyers, for which the antiquary will hold her in high reverence. Her majesty informs us, that " several persons, ignorant, malicious, or covetous, of late years, have spoiled and broken ancient monuments, erected only to show a memory to posterity, and not to nourish any kind of supersti- tion.''' The queen laments that wliat is broken and spoiled would be now hard to recover, but advises her good people to repair them ; and commands them in future to desist from committing such injuries. A more extraordinary circum- stance than the proclamation itself was the manifestation of her majesty's zeal, in subscribing her name with her own hand to every proclamation dispersed throughout England. These image-breakers first appeared in Elizabeth's reign ; * History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 9(), folio. + In June, 1574, the qtieen issued from her " Manour of Greenwich" this proclamation against " excesse of apparel, and the superfluitie of uu- necessarye foreign wares thereto belong! nge," which is declared to have " growen by sufferance to such an extremetie, that the manifest decay, not only of a great part of the wealth of the whole realine generally, is like to follow by bringing into the realme such superfluities of silkes, clothes of gold, sylver, and other most value devices, of so greate coste for the quan- titie thereof ; as of necessitie the moneyes and treasure of the realme is, and must be, yeerely conveyed out of the same." This is followed by three folio leaves minutely describing what may be worn on the dresses of every grade of persons ; descending to such miuutioe as to note wiiat classes are not to be allowed to put lace, or fringes, or borders of velvet upon their gowns and petticoats, under pain of fine or punishment, because improper for their station, and above their means. The order appears to have been evaded, for it was followed by another in February, 1580, which recapitu- lates these prohibitions, and renders them more stringent. 876 Royal Proclamations. it was afterwards that they flourished in all the perfection of their handicraft, and have contrived that these monu- ments of art shall carry down to posterity the memory of (heir suame and of their arje. These image-hreakers, so i'amous in our history, had already appeared under Henry the Eighth, and continued their practical zeal, in spite of proclamations and remonstrances, till they had accomplished their worli. In 1641 an order was published by the Com- mons, that they should " take away all scandalous pictures out of churches :" but more was intended than was expressed; and we are told that the people did not at first carry their barbarous practice against all Art to the lengths which they afterwards did, till they were instructed hj private informa- tion ! Dowsing's Journal has been published, and shows what the order meant ! He was their giant destroyer ! Such are the Machiavelian secrets of revolutionary governments ; they give a public order in moderate words, but the secret one, for the deeds, is that of extermination ! It was this sort of men who discharged their prisoners by giving a secret sign to lead them to their execution ! The proclamations of James the First, by their number, are said to have sunk their value with the people.* He was fond of giving them gentle advice ; and it is said by Wilson that there was an intention to have this king's printed pro- clamations bound up in a volume, that better notice might be taken of the matters contained in them. There is more than one to warn the people against " speaking too freel}' of matters above their reach," prohibiting all " undutiful speeches." I suspect that many of these proclamations are * The list of a very few of those issued at the early part of his reign may illustrate this. In 1604 was published a "Proclamation fur the true ■winding or folding of wools," as well as one " For the due regulation of prices of victuals within the verge of Kent." In 1605, " Against certain calumnious surmises concerning the church government of Scotland." In 1608, " A proclamation against making starch." In 1612, "Thatnonebuy or sell any bullion of gold and silver at higher prices than is appointed to be paid for the same." Another against dying silk with slip or any corrupt stufi'. In 1613, for "Prohibiting the untimely bringing in of wines," as well as for " Prohibiting the publishing of any reports or writings of duels," and also "The importation of felt hats or caps." In 1616, "Prohibiting the making of glass with timber or wood," because "of late yeeres the waste of wood and timber hath been exceeding great and into- lerable, by the glassehouses and glasseworkes of late in divers parts erected," and which his majesty fears may have the effect of depriving England of timber to construct her navy ! Boyal Proclamations. 377 the composition of the king's own hand ; he was often his awn spjretary. There is an admirable one against private duels and challenges. The curious one respecting Cowell's '' Interpreter " is a sort of royal review of sonae of the arcana of state : I refer to the quotation.* I will preserve a passage of a proclamation "against excess of lavish and licentious speech." James was a king of words ! Although the commixture of nations, confluence of ambassadors, and the relation which the affairs of our kingdoms have had towards the business and interests of foreign states have caused, during our regiment (govern- meut) a greater openness and liberty of discourse, even concerning mat- ters OF STATE (which are no themes or subjects fit for vulgar persons or common meetings), than hath been in former times used or permitted ; and although in our own nature and judgment we do well allow of convenient freedom of speech, esteeming any over-curious or restrained hands carried in that kind rather as a weakness, or else over-much severity of govern- ment than otherwise ; yet fur as mucli as it is come to our ears, by common report, that there is at this time a more licentious passage of lavish dis- course and bold censure in mutters of state than is tit to be suffered : We give this warning, kc, to take heed how they intermeddle by pen or speech with causes of state and secrets of empire, either at home or abroad, but contain themselves within that modest and reverent regard of matters above their reach and calling ; nor to give any manner of applause to such discourse, without acquainting one of our privy council within the space of twenty-four hours." It seems that "the bold speakers," as certain persons were then denominated, practised an old artifice of lauding his majesty, while they severely arraigned the counsels of the cabinet ; on this James observes, " Neither let any man mis- take us so much as to think that by giving fair and specious attributes to our person, they cover the scandals which they otherwise lay upon our government, but conceive that we make no other construction of them but as fine and artificial glosset, the better to give passage to the rest of their impu- tations and scandals." This was a proclamation in the eighteenth year of his reign ; he repeated it in the nineteenth, and he might have proceeded to " the crack of doom " with the same effect ! IJ'.ishworth, in his second volume of Historical Collections, has preserved a considerable number of the proclamations of Charles the First, of which many are remarkable; but latterly they mark the feverish state of his reign. One regulates access for cure of the king's evil — by which his majesty, it * I have noticed it in Calainilies of Authors. 378 Royal Proclamations. appears, " hatli had good success therein ; " hut though ready and willing as any king or queen of this realm ever was to re- lieve the distresses of his good subjects, " his majesty com- mands to change the seasons for his ' sacred touch ' from Easter and Whitsuntide to Easter and Michaelmas, as times more convenient for the temperature of the season," &c. Another against "departure out of the realm without license." One to erect an office " for the suppression of cursing and swearing," to receive the forfeitures ; against "libellous and seditious pamphlets and discourses from Scotland," framed by factious spirits, and republished in London — this was in IGIO; and Charles, at the crisis of that great insurrection in which he was to be at once the actor and the spectator, fondly imagined that the possessors of these "scandalous" pamphlets would bring them, as he proclaimed "to one of his majesty'* justices of peace, to be by him sent to one of his principal secretaries of state ! " On the Restoration, Charles the Second had to court his people by his domestic regulations. He early issued a re- markable proclamation, which one would think reflected on his favourite companions, and which strongly marks the moral disorders of those depraved and wretched times. It is- against "vicious, debauched, and profane persons ! " who are thus described : — "A sort of men of whom we have heard much, and are sufficiently ashamed ; who .spend iheir time in taverns, tipplirig-houses and de- bauches ; giving no other evidence of their affection to us but in drinkin{f our health, and inveighing against all others who are not of their owa dissolute temper ; and who, in truth, have more discredited our cause, by the license of their manners and lives, than they could ever advance it by their affection or courage. We hope all persons of honour, or in place and authority, will so far assist us in discountenancing such men, that their discretion and shame will persuade them to reform what their conscience would not ; and that the displeasure of good men towards them may supply what the laws have not, and, it may be, cannot well provide against ; there being by the license and corruption of the times, and the depraved nature of man, many enormities, scandals, and impieties in prac- tice and manners, which laws cannot ivcll describe, and consequentlij not enough provide against, which may, by the example and severity of vir- tuous men, be easily discountenanced, and by degrees suppressed." Surely the gravity and moral severity of Clarendon dictated this proclamation ! which must have afforded some mirth to- the gay, debauched circle, the loose cronies of royalty ! It is curious that, in 1660, Charles the Second issued a long- proclamation for the strict observance of Lent, and alleges for Royal Proclamations. 879 it tlie same reoson as we found in Edward the Sixth's pro- clamation, "for the good it produces in the employment of fishermen.'''' No ordinaries, taverns, &c., to make any supper on Friday nigTits, either in Lent or out of Lent. Charles the Second issued proclamations " to repress the excess of gilding of coaches and chariots," to restrain the waste of gold, which, as they supposed, hy the excessive use of gilding, had grown scarce. Against " the expox'tation and the buying and selling of gold and silver at higher rates than in our mint," alluding to a statute made in the ninth year of Edward the Third, called the Statute of Money. Against building in and about London and Westminster, in IGGl : " The inconveniences daily growing by increase of new build- ings are, that the people increasing in such great numbers, are not well to be governed by the wonted officers : the prices of victuals are enhanced; the health of the subject inhabiting the cities much endangered, and many good towns and boroughs unpeopled, and in their trades much decayed — fre- quent fires occasioned by timber-buildings." It orders to build with brick and stone, "which would beautify, and make an uniformity in the buildings ; and which are not onl}- more durable and safe against fire, but by experience are Ibund to be of little more if not less charge than the huildinrf loith timber.'''' We must infer tliat, by the general use of timber, it had considerably risen in j)rice, while brick and stone not then being generally used, became as cheap as wood ! * The most remarkable proclamations of Charles the Second are those which concern the regulations of coffee-houses, and one for putting them down ; f to restrain the spreading of * Lilly, the astrologer, in his memoirs, notes that Thomas Howard, Earl, of Arundel (the famous collector of the Arundelian marbles now at Ox' ford), "brought over the new way of building with brick in the city, greatly to the safety of the city, and preservation of the wood of this na- tion." ■f" This proclamation "for the suppression of coffee-houses" hears date December 20, 1675, and is stated to have been issued because "the mul- titude of coftee-houses, lately set up and kept witliiu this kingdom, and the great resort of idle and dissipated persons to them, have produced very evil and dangerous effects," particularly in spreading of rumours, and in- ducing tradesmen to neglect their calling, tending to the danger of the commonweal, by the idle waste of time and money. It therefore orders- all coffee-house keepers " that they, or any of them, do not presume from, and after the tenth day of January next ensuing, to keep any publick coffee-hou.sc, or utter, or sell by retail, in his, her, or their house, or houses (to be spent or consumed within the same), any coffee, chocolate;, sherbett, or tea ; as they will answer it at their utmost peril." 380 True Sovrces of Secret History. false news, and licentious talking of state and government, the speakers and the hearers were made alike punishable. This was highly resented as an illegal act by the friends of civil freedom ; who, however, succeeded in obtaining the freedom of the coffee-houses, under the promise of not sanctioning trea- sonable speeches. It was urged b}- the court lawyers, as the high Tory, Roger North, tells us, that the retailing coffee might be an innocent trade, when not used in the nature of a common assembly to discourse of matters of state news and great persons, as a means " to discontent the people." On the other side, Kennet asserted tliat the discontents existed before they met at the coffee-houses, and that the proclama- tion was only intended to suppress an evil which was not to be prevented. At this day we know which of those two historians exercised the truest judgment. It was not the coffee-houses which produced political feeling, but the reverse. Whenever government ascribes effects to a cause quite inade- quate to produce them, they are ov\\ seeking means to hide the evil which they are too weak to suppress. TRUE SOURCES OF SECRET HISTORY. This is a subject which has been hitherto but imperfectly comprehended even by some historians themselves ; and has too often incurred the satire, and even the contempt, of those volatile spirits who play about the superficies of truth, wanting the industry to view it on more than one side, and those superficial readers who imagine that every tale is told when it is written. Secret history is the supplement of history itself, and is its great corrector ; and the combination of secret with public history has in itself a perfection, which each taken sepa- rately has not. The popular historian composes a plausible rather than an accurate tale ; researches too fully detailed would injure the just proportions, or crowd the bold design, of the elegant narrative ; and facts, presented as they occurred, would not adapt themselves to those theoretical writers of history who arrange events not in a natural, but in a sys- tematic order. But in secret history we are more busied in observing what passes than in being told of it. We are transformed into the contemporaries of the writers, while we are standing on the "vantage ground" of their posterity; True Sources of Secret History. 381 and tlius nliat to them appeared ambiguous, to us has become unquestionable ; what was secret to tliem has been confided to us. They mark tlie beginnings, and we the ends. From the fidness of their accounts we recover much which had been lost to us in the general views of history, and it is by this more intimate acquaintance with persons and circum- stances that we are enabled to correct the less distinct, and sometimes the fallacious appearances in the page of the popu- lar historian. He who onli/ views things in masses will have no distinct notion of any one particular ; he may be a fanciful or a passionate historian, but he is not the historian who will enlighten while he charms. But as secret history ajopears to deal in minute things, its connexion with great results is not usually suspected. The circumstantiality of its story, the changeable shadows of its characters, the redundance of its conversations, and the many careless superfluities which egotism or vanity may throw out, seem usually confounded with that small-talk familiarly termed gossiping. But the gossiping of a profound politi- cian or a vivacious observer, in one of their letters, or in their memoirs, often, by a spontaneous stroke, reveals the indi- vidual, or by a simple incident unriddles a m^^sterious event. We may discover the value of these pictui-es of human nature, with which secret history abounds, by an oliservation which occurred between two statesmen in of!ioe. Lord Rab}'', our ambassador, apologised to Lord Bolingbroke, then secretary of state, for troubling him with the minuter circumstances which occurred in his conferences ; in reply, the minister requests the ambassador to continue the same manner of writing, and alleges an excellent reason : " Those minute cir- cumstances give very great light to the general scope and design of the persons negotiated with. And I own that nothing pleases me more in that valuable collection of the Cardinal D'Ossat's letters, than the naive descriptions which he gives of the looks, gestures, and even tones of voice, of the persons he conferred with." I regret to have to record the opinions of another noble author, who recently lias thrown out some degrading notions of secret history, and particularly of the historians. I would have silently passed by a vulgar writer, superficial, prejudiced, and uninformed, but as so many are yet deficient in correct notions of secret history, it is but justice that their represe itative should be heard before they are condemned. 3S2 True Sources of Secret History. His lordship says, that " Of late the appetite for JRemains of all kinds has surprisingly increased. A story repeated by the Duchess of Portsmouth's waiting-woman to Lord Rochester's valet forms the suhject of investigation for a philoso])hical historian ; and you may hear of an assemhly of scholars and authors discussing the validity of a piece of scandal invented by a maid of honour more than two centu- ries ago, and repeated to an obscure writer by Queen Eliza- beth's housekeeper. It is a matter of the greatest interest to see the letters of every bus}^ trifler. Yet who does not laugh at such men?" This is the attack! but as if some half truths, like light through the cranny in a dark room, had ■just darted in a stream of atoms over this scoffer at secret history, he suddenly views his object with a very different iippearance — for his lordship jusUy concludes that " It must be confessed, however, that knowledge of this kind is very 'ithstanding the elaborate character of the queen which he has given in her funeral eulogiura. He must have known that she did not always sympathise with his party- feelings : for the queen whites, '• The Bishop of Salisbury has made a long thundering sermon this morning, which he has been with me to desire to print ; which I could not refuse, though I should not have ordered it, for reasons which I told him." Burnet (whom I am very far from calling what an inveterate Tory, Edward Earl of Oxford, does in one of his manuscript notes, "that lying Scot") unquestionably has told many truths in his garrulous page; but the cause in v/hich he stood so deeply engaged, coupled to his warm san< guine temper, may have sometimes dimmed his sagacity, so as to have caused him to have mistaken, as in the present case, a mask for a face, particularly at a time when almost every individual appears to have worn one ! Both these cases of Charles the Second and Queen Mary show the absolute necessity of researches into secret history, to correct the appearances and the fallacies which so often deceive us in public history. True Sources of Secret Hlslory. 393 " The appetite for Remains," as the noble author whom I have ah'eady aUuded to calls it, may then be a very whole- «;ome one, if it provide the only materials by wliich our popular histories can be corrected, and since it often infuses a freshness into a story which, after having been co])icd from book to book, inspires another to tell it for the tenth time ! Thus are the sources of secret history unsuspected by the idler and the superficial, among those masses of untouclicd manuscripts — that subterraneous history ! — which indeed may terrify the indolent, bewilder the inexperienced, and conibund the injudicious, if they have not acquired the knowledge which not only decides on facts and opinions, but on the authorities which have furnished them. Popular historians have written to their readers ; each with different views, but all ahke form the open documents of history ; like feed advo- cates, they declaim, or like special pleaders, they keep onl}' on one side of their case : they are seldom zealous to push on their cross-examination ; for the}^ come to gain their cause, and not to hazard it ! Time will make the present age as obsolete as the last, lor our sous will cast a new light over the ambiguous scenes which distract their fathers ; they will know how some things happened for which we cannot account ; they will bear wit- ness to how many characters Ave have mistaken ; the}' will be told many of those secrets wdiicli our contemporaries hide from us ; they will pause at the ends of our beginnings ; they will I'ead the perfect story of man, which can never be told while it is proceeding. All this is the possession of posterity, because they will judge without our passions ; and all this we ourselves have been enabled to possess by the secret history of the lest tioo ar/es !'■' '• Since tins article has been sent to press I rise from reading one iu the Edinhurfjlo Retieiu on Lord Orford's and Lord W^Jdegrave's I\Iemoir.s. Tliis is one of the very rare articles which could only come from the hand of a master long exercised in the studies he ci'iticises. The critic, or rather the historian, observes, that "of a period remarkable for the esta- blishment of our present system of government, no authentic materials had yet appeared. Events of public notoriety are to be found, though often ijiaccurately told, in our common histories ; but the secret springs of ac- tion, the private views and motives of individuals, &c., are as little known to us as if the events to which they relate had taken jjlace in China or Japan." The clear, connected, dispassionate, and circumstantial nar- rative, with which he has enriched the stores of English history, is drawn from the sources of secuet uistouy ; from published memoirs and con- temporary correspon dencc. 39^ LITERARY RESIDENCES, Men of genius have usually been condemned to conipose their finest works, which are usually their earliest ones, under the roof of a garret ; and few literary characters have lived, like Pliny and Voltaire, in a villa or clmteau of their own. It has not therefore often happened that a man of genius could raise local emotions by his own intellectual sug- gestions. Ariosto, who built a palace in his verse, lodged himself in a small house, and found that stanzas and stones were not put togetlier at the same rate : old Montaigne has left a description of his library ; " over the entrance of my house, where I view my court-3^ards, and garden, and at once survey all the operations of my family !" There is, however, a feeling among literary men of build- ing up their own elegant fancies, and giving a permanency to their own tastes ; we dwell on their favourite scenes as a sort of poi'traits, and we eagerly collect those few prints, which are their only vestiges. A collection might be formed of such literary residences chosen for their am.enity and their retirement, and adorned by the objects of their studies ; from that of the younger Plin}^, who called his villa of literary leisure by the endearing term of villula, to that of Cassio- dorus, the prime minister of Theodoric, who has left so magnificent a description of his literary retreat, where all the elegancies of life were at hand : where the gardeners and the agriculturists laboured on scientific principles ; and where, amidst gardens and parks, stood his extensive library, with scribes to multiply his manuscripts : — from Tycho Brahe's, who built a magnificent astronomical house on an island, which he named after the sole objects of his musings Ura- nienburgh, or the Castle of the Heavens ; — ^to that of Evelyn, who first began to adorn Wotton, by building " a little study," till many years after he dedicated the ancient house to contemplation, among the " delicious streams and venerable woods, the gardens, the fountains, and the groves, most tempting for a great person and a wanton purse ; and indeed gave one of the first examples to that elegancy since so much in vogue." — From Pope, whose little garden seemed to mul- tiply its scenes by a glorious union of nobility and literary men conversing in groups ; — down to lonely Shenstone, whose Literary Residences. 395 " runil elegance," as he entitles one of liis odes, compelled him to mourn over his hard I'ate, when -Expense Had lavish'd thousand ornaments, and taught Convenience to pcr])lex him, Art to pall. Pomp to deject, and Beautt to displease. Vv'e have all by heart the true and delightful reflection of Johnson on local associations, when the scene we tread sug- gests to us the men or the deeds, which have left their cele- brity to the spot. We are in the presence of their fame, and feel its influence ! A literary friend, whom a hint of mine had induced to visit the old tower in the garden of Butfon, where the sage retired every morning to compose, passed so long a time in that lonely apartment as to have raised some solicitude among the honest folks of Montbard, who having seen the " English- man" enter, but not return, during a heavy thunder-storm which had occurred in the interval, informed the good mayor, who came in due form, to notify the ambiguous, state of the stranger, j^.ly friend is, as is well known, a genius of that cast who could pass two hours in the Tower of Bvffon, without being aware that he had been all that time occupied by suggestions of ideas and reveries, which in some minds such a locality may excite. He was also busied with his pencil ; for he has favoured me with two drawings of the interior and the exterior of this old tower in the garden : the nakedness within can only be compared to the solitude without. Such was the studying-room of Buffon, where his eye, resting on no object, never interrupted the unity of his meditations on nature. In return for my friend's kindness, it has cost me, I think, two hours in attempting to translate the beautiful picture of this literary retreat, which Vicq d'Azyr has finished with all the warmth of a votary. " At Montbard, in the midst of an ornamented garden, is seen an antique tower ; it was there that Buffon wrote the Historj'- of Nature, and from that spot his fame spread through the universe. There he came at sun- rise, and no one, however importunate, was suffered to trouble him. The calm of the morning hour, the first warbling of the birds, the varied aspect of the country, all at that mo- ment which touched the senses, recalled him to his model. Free, independent, he wandered in his walks ; there was he seen with quickened or with slow steps, or standing wrapped in thought, sometimes with bis eyes fixed on the heavens in 396 Literary Residences. the moment of inspiration, as if Fatisfiecl with the thought that so profomidly occupied his soul ; sometimes, collected within himself, he sought what would not always he found ; or at the moments of producing, he wrote, he etfaced, and re- wrote, to efface once more ; thus he harmonised, in silence, all the parts of his composition, wliioh he frequently repeated to himself, till, satisfied with his corrections, he seemed to repay himself for the pains of his beautiful prose, by the pleasure he found in declaiming it aloud. Thus he engraved it in his memorj-, and would recite it to his i'ricnds, or induce some to read it to him. At those moments he was himself a severe judge, and would again re-compose it, desirous of attain- ing to that perfection which is denied to the impatient writer." A curious circumstance, connected with local associations, occurred to that extraordinary oriental student, Fourmont. Originally he belonged to a religious community, and never failed in performing his offices : but he was expelled by the superior for an irregularity of conduct not likely to have become contagious through, the brotlierhood — he frequently prolonged his studies far into the night, and it was possible that the house might be burnt by such superflmt3^ of learning. Fourmont retreated to the college of Montaign, where he occupied the very chambers which had formerly been those of Erasmus ; a circumstance which contributed to excite his emulation, and to hasten his studies. He who smiles at the force of such emotions, only proves that he has not expe- rienced what are real and substantial as the scene itself — for those who are concerned in them. Pope, who had far more enthusiasm in his poetical disposition than is generally under- stood, was extremely susceptible of the literary associations Nvith localities : one of tlie volumes of his Homer was begun and finished in an old tower over the chapel of Stanton Har- court ;* and he has perpetuated the event, if not consecrated the place, by scratching with a diamond on a pane of stained glass this inscription : — In the year 1718, Alexander Pope FinisLed here the f . . . . fifth volume of Homeh.+ * The room is a small wainscoted apartment in the second floor, com- manding a jjleasant view. t The above inscription is a fac-simile of that upon the glass. The word fifth in the third line has been erased by Pope for want of room to Literary Residences. 397 It was the same feeling which induced him one da}"-, when taking his usual walk with Harte in the Haymarket, to desire Harte to enter a little shop, where going up three pair of stairs into a small room. Pope said, "In this garret Addi- son wrote his Campair/n! '" Nothing less than a strong feeling impelled the poet to ascend this garret — it was a con- secrated spot to his eye ; and certainly a curious instance of the power of genius contrasted with its miserable locality ! Addison, whose mind had fought through " a campaign ! " in a. garret, could he have called about him "the pleasures of imagination," had probably planned a house of literary repose, where all parts would have been in harmonj^ with his mind. Such residences of men of genius have been onjo3'cd by some ; and the vivid descriptions which they have left us con- vey something of the delightfulness which charmed their studious repose The Italian, Paul Jovius, has composed more than three hundred concise eulogies of statesmen, warriors, and literary men, of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries ; but the occasion wdiich induced him to compose them is perhaps more interesting than the compositions. Jovius had a villa, situated on a peninsula, bordered by the Lake of Corao. It was built on the ruins of the villa of Pliny, and in his time the foundations were still visible. When the surrounding lake was calm, the sculptured marbles, the trunks of columns, and the fragments of those pyramids which had once adorned the residence of the friend of Trajan, were still viewed in its lucid bosom. Jovius was the enthu- siast of literature, and the leisure which it loves. He was an historian, with the imagination of a poet, and though a christian prelate, almost a worshipper of the sweet fictions of pagan m3'thology ; and when his pen was kept pure from satire or adulation, to which it was too much accustonacd, it became a pencil. He paints with rapture his gardens bathed by the waters of the lake ; the shade and freshness of his woods ; his green slopes ; his sparkling fountains, the deep 'lence and calm of his solitude ! A statue was raised in his gardens to Nature ! In his hall stood a fine statue of Apollo, and the Muses around, with their attributes. His library was guarded by a Mercury, and there was an apartment compkte it properly. It is scratched on a small pane of red glass, and has been removed to Nuneham Courtney, the seat of the Harcourt family, on the banks of the Thames, a few miles from Oxford. 398 Literary Residences. adorned with Doric columns, and with pictures of the most pleasing subjects dedicated to the Graces ! Such was the interior ! Without, the transparent lake here spread its broad mirror, and there was seen luminously winding by banks covered with olives and laurels ; in the distance, towns, promontories, hills rising in an amphitheatre, blushing with vines, and the first elevation of the Alps, covered with woods and pasture, and sprinkled with herds and Hocks. It was in a central spot of this enchanting habitation that a cabinet or gallery was erected, where Jovius had collected with prodigal cost the portraits of celebrated men ; and it was to explain and to describe the characteristics of these illustri- ous names that he had composed his eulogies. This collec- tion became so remarkable, that the great men his contem- poraries presented our literary collector with their own portraits, among whom the renowned Fernandez Cortes sent Jovius his before he died, and probably others who were less entitled to enlarge the collection ; but it is equally probable that our caustic Jovius would throw them aside. Our historian had often to describe men more famous than virtuous ; sovereigns, poUticians, poets, and philosophers, men of all ranks, countries, and ages, formed a crowded scene of men of genius or of celebrity ; sometimes a few lines compress their character, and sometimes a few pages excite his fondness. If lie sometimes adulates the living, we may pardon the illusions of a contemporary ; but he has the honour of satirising some by the honest freedom of a pen which occasionally broke out into premature truths. Such was the inspiration of literature and leism-e which had embellished the abode of Jovius, and had raised in the midst of the Lake of Como a cabinet of portraits ; a noble tri- bute to those who are "the salt of the earth." We possess prints of Ruljens's house at Antwerp. That princely artist perhaps first contrived for his studio the circular apartment with a dome, like the rotunda of the Pantheon, where the light descending from an aperture or window at the top, sent down a single equal light, — that per- fection of light which distributes its magical effects on the objects beneath.* Bellori describes it una stanza rotonda con un solo occhio in cima ; the solo occliio is v/liat the French * Harrewyns publislied, in 1684, a series of interesting views of the house, and some of the apartments, including this domed, one. The series are upon one folio sheet, now very rare. Literanj ll?.suk'nces. 399 term ceil de hcenf ; we ourselves want this siiu/le eye in our technical language of art. This was his precious museum, where he had collected a vast number of books, which were intermixed with his marbles, statues, cameos, intaglios, and all that variety of the riches of art which he had drawn from Kome : * but the walls did not yield in value ; for they were covered by pictures of his own composition, or copies by his own hand, made at Venice and Madrid, of Titian and Paul Veronese. No foreigners, men of letters, or lovers of the arts, or even princes, would pass through Antwerp without visiting the house of Ilubens, to witness the animated residence of genius, and the great man who had conceived the idea. Yet, great as was his mind, and splendid as w^ere the habits of his life, he could not resist the entreaties of the hundred thousand florins of our Duke of Buckingham, to dispose of this studio. The great artist could not, however, abandon for ever the de- lightful contemplations he was depriving himself of ; and as substitutes for the miracles of art he had lost, he solicited and obtained leave to replace them by casts which were scru- pulousl}- deposited in the places where the originals had stood. Of this feeling of the local residences of genius, the Italians appear to have been not perhaps more susceptible than other people, but more energetic in their enthusiasm. Florence exhibits many monuments of this sort. In the neighbour- hood of Santa Maria Novella, Zimmerman has noticed a house of the celebrated Viviani, which is a singular monu- ment of gratitude to his illustrious master, Galileo. The front is adorned with the bust of this father of science, and between the windows are engraven accounts of the discoveries of Galileo : it is the most beautiful biogi-aphj'- of genius ! Yet another still more eloquently excites our emotions — the house of Michael Angelo : his pupils, in perpetual testimony of their admiration and gratitude, have ornamented it wdth all the leading features of his life ; the very soul of this vast genius put in action : this is more than biography ! — it is living as H'ith a contemporary ! '■■ Rubens was an ardent collector, and lost no chance of increasing his stores ; in the appendix to Carpenter's " Pictorial Notices of Vandyke" is printed the correspondence between himself and Sir D. Carleton, offering to exchange some of his own pictures for antiques in possession of the latter, wlio was ambassador from England to Holland, and who collected also for the Earl of Arundel. 400 WHETHER ALLOWABLE TO EUIN ONESELF ? The political economist replies that it is ! One of our old dramatic writers, who witnessed the singu- lar extravagance of dress among the modellers of fashion, our nobilit}^ condemns their " superfluous braverj," echoing tho popular cry — Tliere are a sort of men, whose coiniag heads Are mints of all new fashions, that have done More hurt to the kingdom, by superfluovis bravery, Which the foolish gentrj' imitate, than a war Or a long famine. All the treasure by This foul excess is got into the merchant^ , Embroiderers', siUcmen's, jewellers', tailors' hands, And the thirds part of the land too! the nobility Engrossing titles only.'" Our poet miglit have been startled at the reply of our political economist. If the nobility, in follies such as these, only preserved their "titles," while their " lands" were dis- persed among the industrious classes, the people were not sufferers. The silly victims ruining themselves by their excessive luxury, or their costly dress, as it appears some did, was an evil which, left to its own course, must check itself; if the rich did not spend, the poor would starve. Luxury is the cure of that unavoidable evil in society — great inequality of fortune ! Political economists therefore tell us that any regulations would be ridiculous which, as Lord Bacon expresses it, should serve for " the repressing of waste and excess by sitmptuary laws.'''' Adam Smith is not only indignant at " sumptuary laws," but asserts, with a demo- cratic insolence of style, that " it is the highest impertinence and presumption in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense by sumptuary laws. They are themselves always the greatest spendthrifts in the society; let them look v^^eli after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extj-avagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will." We must there- fore infer that governments by extravagance may ruin a state, but that individuals enjoy the remarkable privilege of ruining themselves without injuring society! Adam Smith after- Whether allotcable to Ruin OncselJ ? 401 wards distinguishes two sorts of luxury : the one exhausting itself in " durable commodities, as in buildings, furniture, books, statues, pictures," will increase " the opulence of a nation;" but of the other, wasting itself in dress and equi- pages, in frivolous ornaments, jewels, baubles, trinkets, &c., he acknowledges " no trace or vestige would remain ; and the effects of ten or twenty years' profusion would be as com- pletely annihilated as if they had never existed." There is, therefore, a greater and a lesser evil in this important subject of the opulent, unrestricted by any law, ruining his whole generation. Where " the wealth of nations" is made the solitary standard of their prosperity, it becomes a fertile source of errors in the science of morals ; and the happiness of the individual is then too frequently sacrificed to what is called the prosperity of the state. If an individual, in the pride of luxury and selfism, annihilates the fortunes of his whole generation, untouched by the laws as a criminal, he leaves behind him a race of the discontented and the seditious, who, having sunk in the scale of society, have to reascend from their degradation by industry and by humiliation ; but for the work of industry their habits have made them inexpert ; and to humiliation their very rank presents a perpetual obstacle. Sumptuary- laws, so often enacted and so often repealed, and always eluded, were the perpetual, but ineffectual, attempts of all governments to restrain what, perhaps, cannot be restrained — criminal folly ! And to punish a man for having ruined himself would usually be to punish a most contrite penitent. It is not surprising that before " private vices were con- sidered as public benefits," the governors of nations insti- tuted sumptuary laws — for the passion for pageantry and an nicredible ]n'odigality in dress were continually impoverishing great families — more equality of wealth has now rather sub- dued the form of private ruin than laid this evil domestic .spirit. The iucalcuhible expenditure and the blaze of splen- dour of our ancestors may startle the incredulity of our Uerjantes. We find men of rank exhausting their wealtli and pawning their castles, and then desperately issuing i'rom them, heroes for a crusade, or brigands for their neighbour- hood ! — and this i'requently from the simple circumstance of having for a short time maintained some gorgeous chivalric TOL. III. D » 402 Whether allowable to Earn Oaeselj ? festival on their own estates, or from having melted thoa- gands of acres into cloth of gold ; their sons were lelt to beg their bread on the estates which they were to have inherited. It was when chivalry still charmed the world by the re- mains of its seductiv2 splendours, towards the close of the fifteenth century, that I find an instance of this kind occur- ring in the Fas de Sandricourt, which was held in tlie neighbourhood of the sieur of that name. It is a memorable afiair, not only for us curious inquirers after manners and morals, bu.t for the whole family of the Sandricourts ; for though the said sieur is now receiving the immortality we bestow on him, and la dame who presided in that magnificent piece of chivalry was infinitely gratified, yet for ever after was the lord of Sandricourt ruined — and all for a short, romantic three months ! This story of the ehivalric period may amuse. A pas d'armes, though consisting of military exercises and deeds of gallantry, was a sort of festival distinct from a tourna- ment. It signified a j;as or passage to be contested by one or more knights against all comers. It was necessary that the road should be such that it could not be passed without encountering some guardian knight. The chevaliers who disputed the pas hung their blazoned shields on trees, pales, or posts raised for this purpose. The aspirants after ehivalric honours would strike with their lance one of these shields, and when it rung, it instantly summoned the owner to the challenge. A bridge or a road would sometimes serve for this military sport, for such it was intended to be, whenever the heat of the rivals proved not too earnest. The sieur of Sandricourt was a fine dreamer of feats of chivalry, and in the neighljourhood of his castle he fancied that he saw a very i^pot adapted for every game ; there was one admirably fitted for the barrier of a tilting-match ; another embeUished by a solitary pine-tree ; another which was called the meadow of the Thorn ; there was a carrefoiir, where, in four roads, four knights might meet ; and, above all, there was a forest called devoyahle, having no path, so favourable for errant knights who might there enter for strange adventures, and, as chance directed, encounter others as bewildered as themselves. Our ehivalric Sandricourt found nine young seigneurs of the court of Charles the Eighth of France, who answered all his wishes. To sanction this glorious feat it was necessary to obtain leave from the king, and a herald of the Duke of Orleans to distri- WJiether aUoivable to Ruin Oneself? 403 bute the cartel or challenge all over France, announcing that from such a day tea young lords would stand readj'- to com- bat, in those different places, in the neighbourhood of Sandri- court's clidteau. The names of this flower of chivalry have been faithfulh' registered, and they were such as instantly to throw a spark into the heart of every lover of arms ! The world of fashion, that is, the chivalric world, were set in motion. Four bodies of assailants soon collected, each con- sisting of ten combatants. The herald of Orleans having examined the arms of these gentlemen, and satisfied himself of their ancient lineage and their military renown, admitted their claims to the proffered honour. Sandricourt now saw with raptui'e the numerous shields of the assailants placed on the sides of his portals, and corresponding with those of the challengers which hung above them. Ancient lords were elected judges of the feats of the knights, accompanied by the ladies, lor whose honour only the combatants declared they engaged. The herald of Orleans tells the history in no very intel- ligible verse ; but the burthen of his stanza is still Du pas cVarmes du chasteau Savdricowrt. Ke sings, or says, Oncques, depuis le tempts du roi Artus, Ne furent tant les armes exanlcees — Maiut chevaliers et preux enti'epi'enans — Princes pkisieui-s ont terres deplacees Pour y Tenir donner coups et poussees Qui ont ete lii tenus si de court Que par force n'ont prises et passees Les barriers, entrees, et passees Du pas des armes du chasteau Sandricourt, Doubtless there many a Roland met with his Oliver, and could not pass the barriers. Cased as they were in steel, do pied en cap, we presume that they could not materially injure themselves ; yet, when on foot, the ancient judges discovered such symptoms of peril, that on the following day they advised our knights to satisfy themselves by lighting on horseback. Against this prudential counsel for some time they protested, as an inferior sort of glory. However, on the next day, the horse combat was appointed in the carre- Jour, by the pine-tree. Oii the foUowung day they tried their lances in the meadow of the Thorn ; but, though on D D 2 404 Whether allowahk to Ram Oneself? horseback, the judges deemed tlieir attacks were so fierce that this assault was hkewise not without peril; for some horses were killed, and some knights were thrown, and laj bruised by their own mail ; but the barbed horses, wearing only ties clmmfreins, head-pieces magnificently caparisoned, found no protection in their ornaments. The last days were passed in combats of two to two, or in a single encounter, a-foot, in the foret devoyable. These jousts passed without any accident, and the prizes were awarded in a manner equally gratifying to the claimants. The last day of the festival was concluded with a most sumptuous banquet. Two noble knights had undertaken the humble office of onaitres-dlwtel ; and while the knights were parading in the foret devoyahle seeking adventxires, a hundred servants were seen at all points, carrying white and red hypocras, and juleps, and sh'op de violars, sweetmeats, and other spiceries, to comfort these wanderers, who, on returning to the cliasteaxf,, found a grand and plenteous banquet. The tables were crowded in the court apartment, where some held one hundred and twelve gentle- men, not including the dames and the demoiselles. In the halls, and outside of the cliasteati, were other tables. At that festival more than two thousand persons were magnifi- cently entertained free of every expense ; their attendants, their armourers, their ^J?z«w?«5sier5, and others, were also present. La Dame de Sandricourt, " fut moult aise d'avoir donne dans son chasteau si belle, si magnifique, et gorgiasse fete." Historians are apt to describe their personages as they appear, not as they are : if the lady of the Sieur Sandri- court really was " moult aise" during these gorgeous days, one cannot but sympathise with the lady, when her loyal knight and spouse confessed to her, after the departure of the mob of two thousand visitors, neighbours, soldiers, and courtiers,— the knights challengers, and the knights assailants, and the fine scenes at the pine-tree ; the barrier in the meadow of the Thorn; and the horse-combat at the carrefour ; and the jousts in the fo7'et devoyahle ; the carousals in the castle halls ; the jollity of the banquet tables ; the morescoes danced till they were reminded " how the waning night grew old !" — in a word, when the costly dream had vanished, — that he was a ruined man for ever, by immortalising his name in one grand chivalric festival! The Sieur de Sandricourt, like a great torch, had consumed himself in his own brightness ; and the very land on which the famous Pas de Sandricourt Whetlier allowable to lliua Onest{f? 405 v/as held — had passed away with it ! Thus one man pinks generations by that wastefulness, which a political economist would assure us was committino- no injury to society! The moral evil goes for nothing in iinaneial statements. Similar instances of ruinous luxmy we may find in the prodigal costliness of dress through the reigns of Elizabeth, James the First, and Chai-les the First. Not only in their massy grandeur they outweighed us, but the accumulation and variety of their wardrobe displayed such a gaiet}'- of iancy in their colours and their ornaments, that the drawing-room in those days must have blazed at their presence, and changed colours as the crowd moved. But if we may trust to royal proclamations, the rmn was general among some classes. Elizabeth issued more than one proclamation against " the excess of apparel !" and among other evils which the govern- ment imagined this passion for dress occasioned, it notices " the wasting and undoing of a great number of young gentle- men, otherwise serviceable ; and that others, seeking by show of apparel to be esteemed as gentlemen, and allured by the vain show of these things, not only consume their goods and lands, but also run into such debts and shifts, as they cannot live out of danger of laws without attempting of unlawful acts." The queen bids her own household "to look unto it for good example to the realm ; and all noblemen, archbishops and bishops, all mayors, justices of peace, &c., should see them executed in their private households." The greatest difficulty which occurred to regulate the wear of apparel was ascertain- ing the incomes of persons, or in the words of the proclama- tion, " finding that it is very hard for any man's state of living and value to be truly understood hy other persons." They were to be regulated as they appear " sessed in the subsidy books." But if persons chose to be more magnificent in their dress, they were allowed to justify their means : in that case, if allowed, her majesty would not be the loser; for they were to be rated in the subsidy books according to such values as they themselves offered as a qualification for the splendour of their dress ! In my researches among manuscript letters of the times, I have had frequent occasion to discover how persons of con- siderable rank appear to have carried their acres on their backs, and with their ruinous and fantastical luxuries sadly pinched their hospitality. It was thir! which so frequently cast them into tlie nets of the '"goldsmiths," and other 406 Whether allowable to Ruin Oneself? trading usurers. At the coronation of Janries the First, I find a simple knight whose cloak cost him five hundred pounds ; but this was not uncommon.* At the marriage of Elizabeth, the daughter of James the First, " Lad}'- Wotton Vad a gown of which the embroidery cost fifty pounds a yard. •The Lady Arabella made four gowns, one of which cost 1500Z. The Lord Montacute (Montague) bestowed 1500/. in apparel for his two daughters. One lady, under the rank of baroness, was furnished with jewels exceeding one hundred thousand pounds ; " and the Lady Arabella goes beyond her," says the letter-writer. " All this extreme costs and riches makes us all poor," as he imagined ! f I have been amused in observing grave writers of state-dispatches jocular on anjr mischance or mortification to which persons are liable whose happiness entirely depends on their dress. Su* Dudley Carleton, our minister at Venice, communicates, as an article worth trans- mitting, the great disappointment incurred by Sir Thomas Glover, " who was just come hither, and had appeared one day like a comet, all in crimson velvet and beaten gold, but had all his expectations marred on a sudden by the news of Prince Henry's death." A similar mischance, from a different cause, was the lot of Lord Haj^, who made great preparations for his embassy to France, which, however, were chiefly confined to his dress. He was to remain there twenty days ; and the letter- writer maliciously observes, that " He goes with twenty special suits of apparel for so many days' abode, ^besides his travelling robes; but news is very lately come that the French have lately altered their fashion, whereby he must needs be out * The famous Puritanic writer, Philip Stubbes, who published his "Anatomieof Abuses" in 1593, declares that he "has heard of shirtes that have cost some ten shillings, some twentie, some fortie, some five pound, some tv»-entie nobles, and (which is horrible to heare) some tenne pounde a peece." His book is filled with similar denunciations of abuses ; in which he is followed by other satirists. They appear to have produced little effect in the way of reformation ; for in the days of James I, John Tavlor, the Water poet, similarly laments the v/astefulness of those who — Wear a farm in shoe-strings edged with gold, And spangled garters worth a copyhold ; A hose and doublet which a lordship cost ; A gaudy cloak, three manors' price almost ; A beaver baud and feather for the head Priced at the church's tythe, the poor man's bread. + It is not unusual to find in inventories of this era, the household effects rated at much less than the wearing apparel, of the person whoso property is thus valued. Whether allowable to Ruin Oneself? 407 of countenance, if lie be not set out after the last edition !" To find himself out of fashion, with twenty suits for twenty ilays, was a mischance iiis lordship had no right to count on! "The glass of fashion" was unquestionably held up by two very eminent characters, Eawleigh and Buckingham ; and the authentic facts recorded of their dress will sufficiently ac- count for the frequent "Proclamations" to control that ser- vile herd of imitators — the smaller gentry ! There is a remarkable pictui'e of Sir Walter, v/hich will at least serve to convey an idea of the gaiety and splendour of his dress. It is a white satin pinked vest, close sleeved to the wrist ; over the body a brown doublet, finely flowered and embroidered with pearl. In the feather of his hat a large ruby and pearl drop at the bottom of the sprig, in place of a button ; his trunk or breeches, with his stockings and riband garters, fringed at the end, all white, and Ijufi" shoes with white riband. Oldys, who saw this picture, has thus described the dress of Eawleigh. But I have some important additions; for I find that Eawleigh's shoes on great court days were so gorgeously covered with precious stones, as to have exceeded the value of six thousand six hundred pounds : and that he had a suit of armour of solid silver, with sword and bolt blazing with diamonds, rubies, and pearls, whose value was not so easily calculated. Eawleigh had no patrimonial in- heritance ; at this moment he had on his back a good portion of a Spanish galleon, and the profits of a monopoly of trade he was carrying on with the newly discovered Virginia. Pro- bably he placed all his hopes in his dress ! The virgin queen, when she issued proclamations against " the excess of apparel," pardoned, by her looks, that promise of a mine which blazed in Eawleigh's ; and, parsimonious as she was, forgot tlie three thousand changes of dresses which she herself left in the royal wardrobe. Buckingham could afford to have his diamonds tacked so loosely on, that when he chose to shake a few off on the ground, he obtained all the fame he desired from the pickers- up, who were generally les dailies de la cour ; for our duk.^ never condescended to accept what he himself had dropp'.-d. His cloaks were trimmed with great diamond buttons, and diamond hatbands, cockades, and ear-rings yoked with great ropes and knots of pearls. This was, however, but for ordi- naiy dances. " He had twentj'-.seven suits of clothes made, the richest that embroidery, lacc; silk, velvet, silver, gold, and gems 408 Discoveries of Secluded Men, could contribute ; one of which was a white uncut velvot, set all over, both suit and cloak, with diamonds valued at four- score thousand pounds, besides a great feather stuck all over with diamonds, as were also his sword, girdle, hat, and spurs."* In the masques and banquets with wliich Buckingham, enter- tained the court, he usually expended, for the evening, from one to five thousand pounds. To others I leave to calculate the value of money : the sums of this gorgeous wastefulness, it must be recollected, occurred before this million age of ours. If, to provide the means for such enormous expenditure, Buckingham multiplied the grievances of monopolies ; if he pillaged the treasury for his eighty thousand pounds' coat ; if Eawleigh was at length driven to his last desperate enter- prise to relieve himself of his creditors for a pair of six thou- sand pounds' shoes — in both these cases, as in that of the chivalric Sandricourt, the political economist maj perhaps acknowledge that there is a sort of luxurt/ liiglih/ criminal. All the arguments he may urge, all the statistical accounts he may calculate, and the healthful state of his circulating medium among " the merchants, embroiderers, silkmen, and jewellers" — will not alter such a moral evil, which leaves an eternal taint on " the wealth of nations !" It is the principle that " private vices are public benefits," and that men may be allowed to ruin their generations without committing any uijury to society. DISCOVERIES OF SECLUDED MEN. Those who are unaccustomed to the labours of the closet are unacquainted with the secret and silent triumphs obtained in the pursuits of studious men. That aptitude, which in poetry is sometimes called insjiiration, in knowledge we may call sagacity; and it is probable that the vehemence of the one does not excite more pleasure than the still tranquillity of the other : they are both, according to the strict signification of the Latin term from whence we have borrowed ours of in- vention, a finding out, the result of a combination which no other has formed but ourselves. I will produce several remarkable instances of the felicity * The Jesuit Drexelius, in one of his Religious Dialogues, notices the fact ; but I am referring to an Harleian manuscript, which confirnis the infor- mation of the Jesuit. Discoveries of Secluded Men. 409 of this aptitude of the learned in making disoovevics which could only have been effectuated by an uninterrupted inter- course with the objects of their studies, making things re- mote and dispersed familiar and present.* One of ancient date is better known to the reader than those I am preparing for him. When the magistrates of Syracuse were showing to Cicero the curiosities of the place, he desired to visit the tomb of Archimedes ; but, to his sur- prise, they acknowledged that they knew nothing of any such tomb, and denied that it ever existed. The learned Cicero, convinced b}^ the authorities of ancient writers, by the verses of the inscription which he remembered, and the circumstance of a sphere with a C3'linder being engraven on it, requested them to assist him in the search. They conducted the illus- trious but obstinate stranger to their most ancient burying- ground : amidst the number of sepulchres, the}'' observed a small column overhung with brambles — Cicero, looking on while they were clearing away the rubbish, suddenly ex- claimed, " Here is the thing we are looking for !" His eye had caught the geometrical iigures on the tomb, and the in- scription soon confirmed his conjecture. Cicero long after exulted in the triumph of this discovery. " Thus !" he says, " one of the noblest cities of Greece, and once the most learned, had known nothing of the monument of its most deserving and ingenious citizen, had it not been discovered to them by a native of Arpinum !" The great French antiquary, Peiresc, exhibited a singular combination of learning, patient thought, and luminous saga- city, which could restore an " air}^ nothing" to ''a local habitation and a name." There was found on an amethyst, and the same afterwards occurred on the front of an ancient temple, a number of marlcs, or indents, which had long per- plexed inquirers, more particularly as similar marks or in- dents were frequently observed in ancient monuments. It was agreed on, as no one could understand them, and all would be satisfied, that they were secret hieroglyphics. It occurred to Peirese that these marks were nothing more than holes for small nails, which had formerly fastened little * The remarkable clue to the reading of the hieroglyphic language of ancient Egypt perfected in our own times is a striking instance of this ; as well as the investigations now proceeding in Babylonian inscriptions, which promise to enable us to comprehend a language that was once considered as hopelessly lost. 410 Discoveries of Secluded Men. lamincB, which represented so many Greek letters. This hint of his own suggested to him to draw hnes from one hole to another ; and he beheld the amethyst reveal the name of the sculptor, and the frieze of the temple the name of the god 1 This curious discovery has been since frequently applied ; but- it appears to have originated with this great antiquar^^ who by his learning and sagacity explained a supposed hiero- glyphic, which had been locked up in the silence of seventeen centuries.* Learned men, confined to their study, have often rectified the errors of travellers ; they have done more, they have found out paths for them to explore, or opened seas for them to navigate. The situation of the vale of Tempe had been mis- taken by modern travellers ; and it is singular, observes the Quarterly Reviewer, yet not so singular as it appears to that elegant critic, that the onty good directions for finding it had been given by a person who was never in Greece. Arthur Browne, a man of letters of Trinity College, Dublin — it is gratif^dng to quote an Irish philosopher and man of letters, from the extreme rarity of the character — was the first to detect the inconsistencies of Pococke and Busehing, and to send future travellers to look for Tempe in its real situation, the defiles between Ossa and Olympus ; a discovery subse- quently realised. When Dr. Clarke discovered an inscription purporting that the pass of Tempe had been fortified b}"- Cassius Longinus, Mr. Walpole, with equal felicity, detected, in Csesar's " History of the Civil War," the name and the mission of this very person. A living geographer, to whom the world stands deeply in- debted, does not read Herodotus in the original ; yet, by the exercise of his extraordinary aptitude, it is well known that he has often corrected the Greek historian, explained obscu- rities in a text which he never read, by his own happ}^ con- jectures, and confirmed his owni discoveries by the subsequent knowledge which modern travellers have afforded. Gray's perseverance in studying the geography of India and of Persia, at a time when our country had no immediate interests with those ancient empires, would have been placed by a cynical observer among the curious idleness of a mere * The curious reader may viev,' the marks, and the manner in which the Greek chai'acters were made out, in the preface to Hearne's "Curious Discourses." The ametliyst proved more difficult than the frieze, from the circumstance, that iu engraving on the stone the lettei's must be reversed. Discoveries of Secluded Men. 411 man of letters. These studies were indeed prosecuted, as Mr. Matliias observes, " on the disinterested principles of liberal investigation, not on those of policy, nor of the regu- lation of trade, nor of the extension of empire, nor of perma- nent establishments, but simply and solely on the grand view of what is, and of what is past. They were the researches of a solitary scholar in academical retirement." Since the time of Gra}^ these veiy pursuits have been carried on by two consummate geographers. Major Rennel and Dr. Yineent, who have opened to the classical and the political reader all he wished to learn, at a time when India and Persia had be- come objects interesting and important to us. The fruits of Gray's learning, long after their author was no more, became valuable ! The studies of the " solitary scholar" are always useful to the world, although the}' may not alwaj's be timed to its present wants ; with him, indeed, they are not merely de- signed for this purpose. Gray discovered India for himself; but the solitary' ])ursuits of a great student, shaped to a parti- cular end, will never fail being useful to the world ; though it may happen that a centurj^ may elapse between the periods of the discover}'" and its practical utility. Halley's version of an Arabic MS. on a mathematical sub- ject offers an instance of the extraordinary sagacit}^ I am alluding to ; it may also serve as a demonstration of the peculiar and supereminent advantages possessed b}' mathema- ticians, observes Mr. 'Dugald Stewart, in their fixed relations, which form the objects of their science, and the correspondent precision in their language and reasoning: — as matter of literary history it is highly curious. Dr. Bernard acciden- tally discovered in the Bodleian Libi ary an Arabic version of Apollonius de Sectione Hationis, which he determined to translate in Latin, but only finished about a tenth part. Halley, extremely interested by the subject, but with an entire ignorance of the Arabic language, resolved to complete the imperfect version ! Assisted only by the manuscript which Bernard had left, it served him as a key for investi- gating the sense of the original ; he first made a list of those words wherever they occurred, with the train of reasoning in which they were involved, to dcciplier, by these very slow degrees, the import of the context ; till at last Halley suc- ceeded in mastering the whole Avork, and in bringing the translation, without the aid of an}- one, to the form in which 412 Discoveries of Secluded Men. he gave it to the pubUe ; so that we have here a difficult work translated from the Aral)ic, l:>y one who was in no manner conversant with the language, merely by the exertion of his sagacity! I give the memorable account, as Boyle has delivered it, of the circumstances which led Harvey to the discovery of the circulation of the blood. " I remember that when I asked our famous Harvey, in the only discourse I had v/ith him, which was but a little while before he died, what were the things which induced him to think of a circulation of the blood, he answered me, that when he took notice that the valves in the veins of so many parts of the body were so placed that they gave free passage to the blood towards the heart, but opposed the passage of the venal blood the contrary way, he was invited to think that so provident a cause as nature had not placed so many valves without design ; and no design seemed more probable than that, since the blood could not well, because of the interposing valves, be sent by the veins to the limbs, it should be sent through the arteries and return through the veins, whose valves did not oppose its course that way." The reason here ascribed to Harvey seems now so ver}'- natural and obvious, that some have been disposed to question his claim to the high rank commonly assigned to him among the improvers of science ! Dr. William Hunter has said that after the discovery of the valves in the veins, which Harvey learned while in Italy from his master, Fabricius ab Aquapen- dente, the remaining step might easily have been made by any person of common abilities. "This discovery," he ob- serves, " set Harvey to work upon the tise of the heart and vascular system in animals ; and in the course of some years, he was so happy as to discover, and to prove beyond all possibility of doubt, the circulation of the blood." He after- wards expresses his astonishment that this discovery should have been left for Harvey, though he acknowledges it occu- pied " a course of years ;" adding that " Providence meant to reserve it for 1dm, and would not let men see what was hefore them, nor understand ivhat they read." It is remark- able that when great discoveries are effected, their simplicity always seems to detract from their originality: on these occa- sions we are reminded of the e^^ of Columbus ! It is said that a recent discovery, which ascertains that the Niger empties itself into the Atlantic Ocean, was realh^ Discoveries of Secluded Men. 413 anticipated by the geograpliical acumen of a student at Glasgow, who arrived at the same conclusion by a most per- severing investigation of the works of ti'avellers and geogra- phers, ancient and modern, and by an examination of Ai'rican captives ; and had actuall}^ constructed, for the inspection of government, a map of Ai'rica, on which he had traced the entire course of the Niger from the interior. Franklin conjectured the identity of lightning and of elec- tricity, before he had realised it by decisive experiment. The kite being raised, a considerable time elapsed before there was any appearance of its being electrified. One very promising cloud had passed over it witliout any effect. Just as he was beginning to despair of his contrivance, he observed some loose threads of the hempen string to stand erect, and to avoid one another, just as if they had been suspended on a common conductor. Struck with this promising appearance, he imme- diately presented his knuckle to the ke}- ! And let the reader judge of the exquisite pleasure he must have felt at that mo- ment when tlie discovery toas complete! We owe to Priestley this admu'able narrative ; the strong sensation of delight which Franklin experienced as his knuckle touched the key, and at the moment when he felt that a new world was open- ing, might have been equalled, but it was probably not sur- passed, when the same hand signed the long-disputed inde- pendence of his country ! When Leibnitz was occupied in his philosophical reasonings on his Law of Continuity/, his singular sagacity enabled hini to predict a discovery which afterwards was realised — he imac/ined the necessary existence of the polypus ! It has been remarked of Newton, that several of his slight hints, some in the modest form of queries, have been as- certained to be predictions, and among others that of the inflammability of the diamond ; and many have been eagerly seized upon as indisputable axioms. A hint at the close of his Optics, that " If natural philosophy should be continued to be improved in its various branches, the bounds of moral philosophy would be enlarged also," is perhaps among the most important of human discoveries — it gave rise to Hartley's Physiological Theory of the Mind. The queries, the hints, the conjectures of Newton, displa}'- the most creative sagacity ; and demonstrate in what manner the discoveries of retired men, while they bequeath their legacies to the woi-ld, afford to themselves a frequent source of secret and silent triumphs. 414 SENTIMENTAL BIOGRAPHY. A PEEIODICAL ci-itie, probably one of the juniors, has thrown out a startHng observation. '■' There is," says this literai'y senator, " something melancholy in the study of biography, because it is — a history of the dead ! " A truism and a falsity mixed up together is the temptation with some modern critics to commit that darling sin of theirs — novelty and originality ! But we really cannot condole with the readers of Plutarch for their deep melancholy ; we who feel our spirits refreshed, amidst the mediocrity of societ\', when we are re- called back to the men and the women who weee ! illustrious in every glory ! Biography with us is a re-union with human existence in its most excellent state ! and we find nothing- dead in the past, while we retain the sj^mpathies which only require to be awakened. It would have been more reasonable had the critic dis- covered that our country has not yet had her Plutarch, and that our biography remains still little more than a mass of compilation. In this study of biography there is a species which has not yet been distinguished — biographies composed b}"" some domestic friend, or by some enthusiast who works with love. A term is unquestionably wanted for this distinct class. The Germans seem to have invented a Platonic one, drawn from the Greek, fsyclie^ or the soul; for they call this the psycliolo- gical life. Another attempt has been made, by giving it the scientific term of idiosyncrasy, to denote a peculiarity of disposition. I would call it sentimental hior/raphy ! It is distinct from a chronological biography, for it searches for the individual's feelings amidst the ascertained facts of his life ; so that facts, which occurred remotely from each other, are here brought at once together. The detail of events which completes the chronological biography, contams many which are not connected with the peculiarity of the character itself. The sentimental is also distinct from tho auto- biography, however it may seem a part of it. Whether a man be entitled to lavish his panegyric on himself, I will not decide ; but it is certain that he risks everything by appealing to a solitary and suspected witness. We have two Lives of Dante, one by Boccaccio and th^ Sentimental Biography. 415 other by Leonardo Aretino, both interesting : but Boccaccio's is the sentimental life ! Aretino, indeed, finds fault, but with all the tenderness possible, \vith Boccaccio's affectionate sketch, Origine, Vita, Studi e Costumi del clarissimo Dante, &e. " Origin, Life, Studies and Manners, of the illustrious Dante," &c. " It seems to me," he says, '" that our Boccaccio, dclcissimo e juavissimo uomo, sweet and delightful man ! has written the lil'e and manners of this sublime poet as if he had been com- posing the Filocolo, the Filostrato, or the Wiametta" the romances of Boccaccio — " for all breathes of love and sighs, and is covered with warm tears, as if a man wei'e born in this world onh' to live among the enamoured ladies and the gallant youths of the ten amorous days of his hundred novels." Aretino, who wanted not all the feeling requisite for the delightful "costumi e studi" of Boccaccio's Dante, modestly requires that his own life of Dante should be considered as a supplement to, not as a substitute for, Boccaccio's. Pathetic with all the sorrows, and eloquent with all the remonstrances of a fellow-citizen, Boccaccio, while he wept, hung with anger over his country's shame in its apathy for the honour of its long-injured exile. Catching inspiration from the breathing pages of Boccaccio, it inclines one to wish that we possessed two biographies of an illustrious favourite character ; the one strictly and fully historical, the other fraught with those very feelings of the departed, which we may have to seek in vain for in the circumstantial and chronological biographer. Boccaccio, indeed, was overcome by his feelings. He either knew not, or he omits the substantial incidents of Dante's life ; while his imagination throws a romantic tinge on occur- rences raised on slight, perhaps on no foundation. Boccaccio narrates a dream of the mother of Dante so fancifully poetical, that probably Boccaccio forgot that none but a dreamer could have told it. Seated under a high laurel-tree, by the side of a vast fountain, the mother dreamt that she gave birth to her son ; she saw him nourished by its fruit, and refreshed by tlie clear waters ; she soon beheld him a shephei'd ; approaching to pluck the boughs, she saw him fall ! When he rose he had ceased to be a man, and was transformed into a peacock ! Distui'bed by her admiration, she suddenly awoke ; but when the father found that he really had a son, in allusion to the dream hp ■\alled him Dante — or (jiven ! e meritamente ; 416 Sentimental hloyrwphy. perocclte ottlmamenie, siccome si vedra vroceclendo, seyui at nome V effetlo : " and deservedly ! for greatly, as we shall see, the effect followed the name! " At nine years of age, on a May-day, whose joyous festival Boccaccio beautifully describes, when the softness of the heavens, re-adorning the earth with its mingled flowers, waved the green boughs, and made all things smile, Dante mixed with tlie boys and girls in the house of the good citizen who on that day gave the feast, be- held little Brice, as she was familiarly called, but named Beatrice. The little Dante might have seen her before, but he loved her then, and from that day never ceased to love ; and thus Dante nella parc/oletta eta fait o d' amove ferventis- simo servidore ; so fervent a servant to love in an age of childhood ! Boccaccio appeals to Dante's own account of his long passion, and his constant s.ighs, in the Vita Nuova. No look, no word, no sign, sullied the purity of his passion ; but in her twenty-fourth year died "la bellissima Beatrice." Dante is then described as more than inconsolable ; his eyes were long two abundant fountains of tears ; careless of life, he let his beard grow wildly, and to others appeared a savage meagre man, whose aspect was so changed, that while this weeping life lasted, he was hardly recognised by his friends ; all looked on a man so entirely transformed Avith deep compassion. Dante, won over by those who could console the inconsolable, was at length solicited by his relations to many a lady of his own condition in life ; and it was suggested that as the departed lady had occasioned him such heavy griefs, the new one might open a source of delight. The relations and friends of Dante gave him a wife that his tears for Beatrice might cease. It is supposed that this marriage proved unhappy. Boc- caccio, like a pathetic lover rather than biographer, exclaims. Oh onenti ciecJie ! Oh tenehrosi intelletti ! Oh argomenti vani di molti mortali, quante sono le riciscite in assai cose contrarie «' nostri avvisi I &c. " Oh blind men ! Oh dark minds ! Oh vain arguments of most mortals, how often are the results contrary to our advice ! Frequently it is like leading one who breathes the soft air of Italy to refresh himself in the eternal shades of the Ehodopean mountains. What physician would expel a burning fever with fire, or put in the shivering- marrow of the bones snow and ice ? So certainly shall it fare with him who, with a new love, thinks to mitigate the old. Those who believe this know not the nature of love, nor hxii«' Sentimental Biography. 417 raucli a second passion adds to the first. In vain would we assist or advise this forceful passion, if it has struck its root near the heart of him who long has loved." Boccaccio has beguiled my pen for half-an-hour with all the loves and fancies which sprung out of his own affectionate and romantic heart. What airy stuti" has he woven into the "Vita" of Dante ! this sentimental hiograpliy ! Whether lie knew but little of the personal history of the great man whom he idolised, or whether the dream of the mother — the May-day interview with the little Briee, and the rest of the children— and the effusion on Dante's marriage, were grounded on tradition, one would not harshly reject such tender inci- dents.* But let it not be imagined that the heart of Boccaccio was only susceptible to amorous impressions — bursts of enthusiasm and eloquence, which only a man of genius is worthy of receiving, and only a man of genius is capable of bestowing — kindle the masculine patriotism of his bold, indignant spirit ! Half a century had elapsed since the death of Dante, and still the Florentines showed no sign of repentance for their ancient hatred of their persecuted patriot, nor any sense of the memory of the creator of their language, whose immor- tality had become a portion of their own glory. Boccaccio, impassioned by all his generous nature, though he regrets he could not raise a statue to Dante, has sent down to posterity more than marble, in the " Life." I venture to give the lofty and bold apostrophe to his fellow-citizens ; but I feel that even the genius of our language is tame by the side of the har- monised eloquence of the great votary of Dante ! " Ungrateful country ! what madness urged thee, when thy dearest citizen, thy chief benefactor, thy only poet, with un- accustomed ci'uelty was driven to flight ! If this had happened in the general terror of that time, coming from evil counsels, thou mightest stand excused ; but when the passion ceased, didst thou repent ? didst thou recall him ? Bear with me, nor deem it irksome from me, who am thy son, that thus * " A Comment on the Divine Comedy of Dante," in English, printed in Italy, has just reached me. I am delighted to find that this biography of Love, however romantic, is true ! In his ninth year, Dante was a lover and a poet ! The tender sonnet, free from all obscurity, which he com- posed on Beatrice, is preserved in the above singular volume. Tliere can be no longer any doubt of the story of Beatrice ; but the sonnet ar,d the passion must be " classed among curious natural phenomena," or how far apocryphal, remains for future inquiry. VOL. III. E E 418 Sentimental Biography. I collect what just indignation prompts me to speak, as a man more desirous of witnessing your amendment, than of beholding you punished ! Seems it to you glorious, proud of so many titles and of such men, that the one whose like no neighbouring city can show, you have chosen to chase from among yoxa ? With what triumphs, with what valorous citi- zens, ai-e you splendid ? Your wealth is a removable and uncertain thing ; your fragile beauty will grow old ; your delicacy is shameful and feminine ; but these make you noticed by the false judgments of the populace ! Do you glory in your merchants and your artists ? I speak im- prudently ; but the one are tenaciously avaricious in their servile trade ; and Art, which once was so noble, and became a second nature, struck by the same avarice, is now as cor- rupted, and nothing worth ! Do you glory in the baseness and the listlessness of those idlers, who, because their ancestors are remembered, attempt to raise up among you a nobility to govern you, ever by robbery, by treachery, by falsehood ! Ah ! miserable mother ! open thine eyes ; cast them with some remorse on what thou hast done, and blush, at least, reputed wise as thou art, to have had in your errors so fatal a choice ! Why not rather imitate the acts of those cities who so keenly disputed merely for the honour of the birth-place of the divine Homer ? Mantua, our neighbour, counts as the greatest fame which remains for her, that Virgil was a Mantuan ! and holds his very name in such reverence,that not only in public places, but in the most private, we see his sculptured image ! You only, while you were made famous by illustrious men, you only have shown no care for your great poet. Your Dante Alighieri died in exile, to which you imjustly, envious of his greatness, destined him! A crime not to be remembered, that the mother should bear an envious malignity to the virtues of a son ! Now cease to be unjust ! He cannot do you that, now dead, which living he never did do to you ! He lies under another sky than yours, and you never can see him again, but on that day, when all your citizens shall view him, and the great Bemunerator shall examine, and shall punish ! If anger, hatred, and enmity are buried with a man, as it is believed, begin then to return to yourself; begin to be ashamed to have acted against your ancient humanity; begin, then, to wish to appear a mother, and not a cold negligent step-dame. Yield your tears to your son ; yield your maternal piety to him whom once you re- Senthnental Biography. 419 pulsed, and, living, cast away from you ! At least think of possessing him dead, and restore your citizenship, your award, and your grace, to his memory. He was a son who held you in reverence, and though long an exile, he always called himself, and would be called a Florentine ! He held 3'ou ever above all others ; ever he loved yow. ! What will you then do ? Will you remain obstinate in iniquity ? Will you practise less humanity than the barbarians ? You wish that the world should believe that you are the sister of . ■fi^.^-.r.nr ^ o^^^i f he daughter of Eome ; assuredly the H _'to«-i?3iri ogcds duble their fathers and their ancestors. gi 3 11 ^3 ^Ga^r" ^5 bought the corpse of Hector with gold ; «_§'»2.j='p»S;^j_-^a§oSsess the bones of the first Scipio, and s^p?3^|'l,;§L,§-"^5.| Biinternum, those bones, which, dying, so " il H^lfs ^ l?^"^'^ ler. Seek then to be the true guardian !l'iH55_o-'i]' S9qo^ ihim! show this humane feelinsr, claim |j;,h3Wjj,2.3_g'p|.^-g|3 ly do this: I am certain he will not be g|;|g^gpo' p-'^'g Lt thus at once you may betray some goSp^^^g^.^M^ and, not having him again, still enjoy >-* rWg j^o o 5-^ig.p Alas ! what comfort am I bringing ^^I'^^o^l^io^ ?e, that if the dead could feel, the body pW-^^^o-'^g'S'l^K- 'ise to return to you, for he is lying in S^JTg'SgO' g'fol?' wed soil is everywhere covered with the »'>i)io S'°:5'i' §•' P uld Dante quit this blessed company to p.S^q" gS'pS-o .ins of those hatreds and iniquities which ^^%%' 3.i3.^^p9 fe? The relics of Dante, even among oil's- c7i^u:a"oi''eifiperors and of martyrs, and of their illus- trious ancestors, is prized as a treasure, for there his works are looked on with admiration ; those works of which you have not yet known to make yourselves worthy. His birtli- place, his origin remains for you, spite of your ingratitude ! and this Ravenna envies you, while she glories in your honours which she has snatched from you through ages yet to come !" Sucli was the deep emotion which opened Boccaccio's heart in this sentimental biography, and which awoke even shame and confusion in the minds of the Florentines ; they blushed for their old hatreds, and, with awakened sympathies, they hastened to honour the meiTiory of their great bard. By order of the city, the Divina Comniedia was publicly read and explained to the people. Boccaccio, then sinking under the infirmities of age, roused his departing genius : still was there marrow in the bones of the aged lion, and he engaged in the E £ 2 418 Sentimental Biography. I collect what just indignation pi'ompts me to speak, as a man more desirous of witnessing your amendment, than of beholding you punished ! Seems it to you glorious, proud of so many titles and of such men, that the one whose like no neighbouring city can show, you have chosen to chase from among you ? With what triumphs, with what valorous citi- zens, are you splendid ? Your wealth is a removable and uncertain thing ; your fragile beauty will gTow old ; your delicacy is shameful and feminine ; but these make you noticed by the false judgments of the p opulapp ' "r>" vnn glory in your merchants and your artis ^ ■g*o52'§o°'S prudently ; but the one are tenaciously ^ servile trade ; and Art, which once was s § S ^. ^ a second nature, struck by the same ava rupted, and nothing worth ! Do you g and the listlessness of those idlers, ancestors are remembered, attempt to n nobility to govern you, ever by robber falsehood ! Ah ! miserable mother ! o} "^s =; o ' 3 (0 at least, reputed wise as thou art, to hav( so fatal a choice ! Why not rather imitf o6 s^df^uooSin^c cities who so keenly disputed merely fo i£ g p en ^2 ^- g I .t S.2S ^S them with some remorse on what thou hi' l«2&2^'oS»-"'"' Q 5 = i a a w ■s d)^ !0 O J3 O « birth-place of the divine Homer? Man ^ ^ '*' o | § oJI^Ig counts as the greatest fame which remairi '^ ^gg^l^'Sa'! was a Mantuan ! and holds his very name vd g ;? 3 aj •§ § ijs » I not only in public places, but in the most ^...^^^, .. J-'^f „-.?.? ^ sculptured image ! You only, while you were made famous by illustrious men, you only have shown no care for your great poet. Your Dante Alighieri died in exile, to which you unjustly, envious of his greatness, destined him! A crime not to be remembered, that the mother should bear an envious malignity to the virtues of a son ! Now cease to be unjust ! He cannot do you that, now dead, which living he never did do to you! He lies under another sky than yours, and you never can see him again, but on that day, when all your citizens shali view him, and the great Kemunerator shall examine, and shall punish ! If anger, hatred, and enmity are buried with a man, as it is believed, begin then to return to yourself ; begin to be ashamed to have acted against your ancient humanity; begin, then, to wish to appear a mother, and not a cold negligent step-dame. Yield your tears to your son ; yield your maternal piety to him whom once you re- Sentimental Biorjraphij. 419 pulsed, and, living, cast away from you ! At least think of possessing him dead, and restore 3'our citizenship, your award, and your grace, to his memory. He was a son who held you in I'everence, and though long an exile, he always called himself, and would be called a Florentine ! He held you ever above all others ; ever he loved you ! What will you then do ? Will you remain obstinate in iniquity ? Will you practise less humanit}^ than the barbarians ? You wish that the world should believe that you are the sister of famous Troy, and the daughter of Kome ; assuredly the children should resemble their fathers and their ancestors. Priam, in his miserj'-, bought the corpse of Hector with gold ; and Rome would possess the bones of the first Scipio, and removed them from Linternum, those bones, which, dying, so justly he had denied her. Seek then to be the true guardian of your Dante, claim him ! show this humane feeling, claim him ! you may securely do this : I am certain he will not be returned to you ; but thus at once you may betray some mark of compassion, and, not having him again, still enjoy 3'our ancient cruelty ! Alas ! what comfort am I bringing you ! I almost believe, that if the dead could feel, the body of Dante would not rise to return to you, for he is lying in Kavenna, whose hallowed soil is everywhere covered with the ashes of saints. Would Dante quit this blessed company to mingle with the remains of those hatreds and iniquities which gave him no rest in life ? The relics of Dante, even among the bodies of emperors and of martyrs, and of their illus- trious ancestors, is prized as a treasure, for there his works are looked on with admiration ; those works of which you have not yet known to make yourselves worthy. His birth- place, his origin remains for you, spite of your ingratitude ! and this Eavenna envies you, while she glories in your honours which she has snatched from you through ages yet to come !" Such was the deep emotion which opened Boccaccio's heart in this sentimental biography, and which awoke even shame and confusion in the minds of the Florentines ; they blushed for their old hatreds, and, with awakened sympathies, they hastened to bonour the memory of their great bard. By order of the city, the Divina Commedia was publicly read and explained to the people. Boccaccio, then sinking under the infirmities of age, roused his departing genius : still was there marrow in the bones of the aged lion, and he engaged in the E £ 2 420 Sentimental Biogrcqihy. task of composing liis celebrated Commentaries on the Dicina Gommedia. In this class of sentimental hior/rapliy I would place a species which the historian Carte noticed in his literary travels on the Continent, in pursuit of his historical design. He found, pre- served among several ancient families of France, their domestic annals. " With a warm, patriotic spirit, worthy of imitation, they have often carefully preserved in their families the acts of their ancestors." This delight and pride of the modern Gauls in the great and good deeds of their ancestors, preserved in domestic archives, will be ascribed to their folly or their vanity ; yet in that folly there may be so much vv'isdom, and in that vanity there may be so much greatness, that the one will amply redeem the other. This custom has been rarely adopted among ourselves ; we have, however, a few separate histories of some ancient families, as those of Mordaunt, and of Warren. One of the most remarkable is " A Genealogical History of the House of Yvery, in its different branches of Yvery, Luvel, Perceval, and Gournay." Two large volumes, closely printed,* expa- tiating on the characters and events of a single family with the grave pomp of a herald, but more particularly the idolatry of the writer for ancient nobility, and his contempt for that growing rank in society whom he designates as " New Men," provoked the ridicule at least of the aspersed.f This extra- ordinary work, notwithstanding its absurdities in its general result, has left behind a deep impression. Drawn from the authentic family records, it is not without interest that we toil through its copious pages ; we trace with a romantic sympa- * This work was pnhlished in 1742, and the scarcity of these volumes was felt in Granger's day, for tliey oLtained then the considerable price of four guineas ; some time ago a fine copy was sold for thirty at a sale, and a cheap copy was offered to me at twelve guineas. These volumes should contain seventeen portraits. The first was written by Mr. Anderson, who, dying before the second appeared, Loid Egmont, from the materials An- derson had left, concluded his fanjily history — con amove. + Mr. Anderson, the writer of the first volume, was a feudal enthu- siast ; he has thrown out an odd notion that the commercial, or the wealthy class, had intruded on the dignity of the ancient nobility ; but as wealth has raised such high prices for labour, commodities, &c., it had reached its me jdus ultra, and commerce could be carried on no longer ! He has ventured on this amusing prediction, " As it is therefore evident that KEW MEN will never rise again in any age with such advantages of wealth, at least in considerable numbers, their ^^aj'^y will gradually ds- Mfcose." Sentimental Biography. 421 thy the fortunes of the descenclants of the House of Yveiy, from that not-forgotten hero le vaillant Perceval chevalier de la Table Hoiide, to the Norman Baron Assehn, surnamed tho Wolf, for his bravery or his fei'ocity ; thence to the Cavahef of Charles the First, Sir Philip Perceval, who, having gloriously defended his castle, was at length deprived of his lordl}^ possessions, but never of his loyalty, and died obscurely in the metropolis of a broken heart, till we reach the polished nobleman, the Lord Egmont of the Georges. The nation has lost many a noble example of men and women acting a great part on great occasions, and then re- treating to tlie shade of privacy ; and we may be confident that many a name has not been inscribed on the roll of national glory only from wanting a few drops of ink ! Such domestic annals may yet be viewed in the family records at Appleby Castle ! Anne, Countess of Pembroke, was a glorious woman, the descendant of two potent northern families, the Veteri- ponts and the Cliffords. — She lived in a state of regal magni- fleence and independence, inhabiting five or seven castles ; yet though her magnificent spirit poured itself out in her ex- tended charities, and though her independence mated that of monarchs, j'et she herself, in her domestic habits, lived as a hermit in her own castles ; and though only acquainted with her native language, she had cultivated her mind in many parts of learning ; and as Donne, in his way, observes, " she knew how to converse of everything, from predestination to slea-silk." Her favoui'ite design was to have materials col- lected for the history of those two potent northern families to whom she was allied ; and at a considerable expense she employed learned persons to make collections for this pur- pose from the records in the Tower, the KoUs, and other depositories of manuscripts : Gilpin had seen thi'ee large volumes fairly transcribed. Anecdotes of a great variety of characters, who had exerted themselves on very important occasions, compose these fiimily records — and induce one to wish that the public were in possession of such annals of the domestic life of heroes and of sages, who have only failed in obtaining an historian !* A biographical monument of this nature, which has passed through the press, will sufficiently prove the utility of thi:* * Much curious matter about the old Countess of Westmoreland and her seven castles may Le fuuud iu Whitaker's History of Craveu, and in Pea- naut. 422 Sentimental Biograjjhy. class of sentimental hiograpTiy. It is the Life of E-obert Price, a Welsh lawyer, and an ancestor of the gentleman whose in- genuity, in our days, has refined the principles of the Pictu- resque in Art. This Life is announced as "printed by the appointment of the family ;" but it must not be considered merely as a tribute of private affection ; and how we are at this day interested in the actions of a Welsh lawyer in the reign of William the Third, whose name has probably never been consigned to the page of history, remains to be told. Ptobert Price, after having served Charles the Second, lived latterly in the eventful times of William the Third — he was probably of Tory principles, for on the arrival of the Dutch prince he was removed from the attorney-generalship of Glamorgan. The new monarch has been accused of favourit- ism, and of an eagerness in showering exorbitant grants on some of his foreigners, which soon raised a formidable oppo- sition in the jealous spirit of Englishmen. The grand favourite, William Bentinck, after being raised to the Earl- dom of Portland, had a grant bestowed on him of three lordships in the county of Denbigh. The patriot of his native country — a title which the Welsh had already con- feri'ed on Robert Price — then rose to assert the rights of his fatherland, and his speeches are as admirable for their know- ledge as their spirit. " The submitting of 1500 freeholders to the will of a Dutch lord was," as he sarcastically declared, " putting them in a worse posture than their former estate, when under William the Conqueror and his Norman lords. England must not be tributary to strangers — we must, like patriots, sta,nd by our countrj^ — otherwise, when God shall Liend us a Prince of Wales, he may have such a present of a crown made him as a Pope did to King John, who was sur- named Sans-terre, and was by his father- made Lord of Ireland, which grant was confirmed by the Pope, who sent him a crown of peacocks' feathers, in derogation of his power, and the poverty of his country." Robert Price asserted that the king could not, by the Bill of Rights, alien or give away the inheritance of a Prince of Wales without the consent of parliament. He concluded a copious and patriotic speech, b}'' proposing that an address be presented to the king, to put an immediate stop to the grant now passing to the Earl of Port- land for the lordships, &c. This speech produced such an effect, that the address was carried unanimously; and the king, though he highly resented Sentimental Biogroplnj. 423 the speech of Robert Price, sent a civil message to the com- mons, declaring that he should not have given Lord Portland those lands, had he imagined the House of Commons could have been concerned ; " I will therefore recall the grant !" On receiving the royal message, Pobert Price drew up a reso- lution to which the house assented, that " to procure or pass exorbitant grants by any member of the privy council, &c. was a high crime and misdemeanour." The speech of Robert Price contained truths too numerous and too bold to sufier the light during that reign ; but this =peech against foreigners was printed the year after King William's death, with this title, " Gloria Camhrics, or the speech of a bold Briton in ])arliament, against a Dutch Prince of Wales," with this motto, Opposuit et Vicit. Such was the great character of Robert Price, that he was made a Welsh judge by the very sovereign whose favourite plans he had so patriotically thwarted. Another marked event in the life of this English patriot was a second noble stand he made against the royal authority, when in opposition to the public good. The secet history of a quarrel between George the First and the Prinos of Wales, afterwards George the Second, on the birth of a son, appears in this life ; and when the prince in disgrace left the palace, his royal highness proposed taking his children and the princess with him ; but the king detained the children, claim- ing the care of the royal offspring as a royal prerogative. It now became a legal point to ascertain " whether the educa- tion of his majesty's grandchildren, and the care of their marriages, &e., belonged of right to his majesty as king of this realm, or not ?" Ten of the judges obsequiously allowed of the prerogative to the full. Robert Price and another judge decided that the education, &g., was the right of the father, although the marriages was that of his majesty as king of this realm, yet not exclusive of the prince, their father. He assured the king, that the ten obsequious judges had no authority to support their precipitate oi^iinion ; all the books and precedents cannot form a prerogative for the king of this realm to have the care and education of his grand- children during the life and without the consent of their father — a prerogative unknown to the laws of England ! He pleads for the rights of a father, with the spirit of one who feels them, as well as with legal science and historical knowledge. 424 Sentimental BiograpJiy. Such were the two great incidents in the life of this Welsh judge ! Yet, had the family not found one to comme- morate these memorable events in the life of their ancestor, we had lost the noble picture of a constitutional interpreter of the laws, an independent country gentleman, and an Englishman jealous of the excessive predominance of minis- terial or royal influence. Cicero, and others, have informed us that the ancient his- tory of Rome itself was composed out of such accounts of private families, to which, indeed, we must add those annals or registers of public events which unquestionably were pre- served in the archives of the temples by the priests. But the history of the individual may involve public interest, whenever the skill of the writer combines with the import- ance of the event. Messala, the orator, gloried in having composed many volumes of the genealogies of the nobility of Rome ; and Atticus wrote the genealogy of Brutus, to prove him descended from Junius Brutus, the expulser of the Tarquins, and founder of the Republic, near five hundred years before. Another class of this sentimental hiograpliy was projected by the late Elizabeth Hamilton. This was to have consisted of a series of what she called comparative liograpliy, and an ancient character was to have been paralleled 'by a modern one. Occupied by her historical romance witli the character of Agrip)pina, she sought in modern history for a partner of her own sex, and " one who, like her, had experienced vicissi- tudes of fortune ;" and she found no one better qualified than the princess palatine, Elizaleth, the daugliter of James the First. Her next life was to have been that of Seneca, with " the scenes and persons of which her Life of Agrippina had famiharised her;" and the contrast or the parallel was to have been LocJce ; which, well managed, she thought would have been sufficiently striking. It seems to me that it would rather have afforded an evidence of her invention ! Such a biographical project reminds one of Plutarch's Paral- lels, and might incur the danger of displaying more ingenuity than truth. The sage of Cheronea must often have racked his invention to help out his parallels, bending together, to make them similar, the most unconnected events and the most distinct feelings ; and, to keep his parallels in two straight lines, he probably made a free use of augmentatives and dimi- Literarij Parallels. 4.?5 nutives to help out his pair, who might have been cqu^il, and yet not ahke ! Our fatherland is prodigal of immortal names, or names which might he made immortal ; Gibbon once contemj)lated with compiaeency, the very ideal of sentimental bioghapiit, and we may regret that he has only left tbe project ! " I have long revolved in m}'- mind a volume of biographical writing ; the lives or rather the characters of the most emi- nent persons in arts and arms, in church and state, who have flourished in Britain from the reign of Henry the Eighth to the present age. The subject would afford a rich display of human nature and domestic history, and powerfully address itself to the feelings of every Englishman." LITERARY PARALLELS. Ak opinion on this subject in the preceding article has led me to a further investigation. It may be right to acknowledge that so attractive is this critical and moral amusement of comparing great characters witli one another, that, among others, Bishop Hurd once proposed to write a hook of FaralJeh, and has furnished a specimen in that of Petrareli and Tiousseau, and intended lor another that of Erasmus with Cicero. It is amusing to observe how a lively and subtle mind can strike out resemblances, and make contraries accord, and at the same time it may show the pinching diffi- culties through which a parallel is pushed, till it ends in a paradox. Hurd says of Petrarch and Rousseau — " Both Avere impelled by an equal enthusiasm, though directed towards dilierent objects : Petrarch's towards the glory of the lloman name, Rousseau's towards his idol of a state of nature ; the one religious, the other tin esprit Jort ; but may not Petrarch's spite to Babylon be considered, in his time, as a species of free-thinking" — and concludes, that "both were mad, but of a different nature." UiKjuestionably there were feature* much alike, and almost peculiar to these two literary cha- racters ; but I doubt if Hurd has comprehended them in the parallel. I now give a specimen of those parallels which have done so much mischief in the literary world, when drawn by a 426 Litei^anj Parallels. hand which covertly leans on one side. An elahorate one of this sort was composed by Longolius or Longuel, between Budaeus and Erasmus.* This man, though of Dutch origin, affected to pass for a Frenchman, and, to paj' his court to his chosen people, gives the preference obliquely to the French Budaeus ; though, to make a show of impartiality, he acknow- ledges that Francis the First had awarded it to Erasmus ; but probably he did not infer that kings were the most able reviewers ! This parallel was sent forth during the lifetime of both these great scholars, wdio had long been correspon- dents, but the publication of the parallel interrupted their friendly intercourse. Erasmus returned his compliments and thanks to Longolius, but at the same time insinuates a gentle hint that he was not overpleased. " What pleases me most," Erasmus writes, "is the just preference you have given Budseus over me ; I confess you are even too economical in your praise of him, as you are too prodigal in mine. I thank you for informing me what it is the learned desire to find in me ; my self-love suggests many little excuses, with which, you observe, I am apt to favour my defects. If I am careless, it arises parth' from my ignorance, and more from my indolence; I am so constituted, that I cannot conquer ray nature ; I pre- cipitate rather than compose, and it is far more irksome for me to revise than to write." This parallel between Erasmus and Budreus, though the parallel itself was not of a malignant nature, yet disturbed the quiet, and interrupted the friendship of both. When Longolius discovered that the Parisian surpassed the Hol- lander in Greek literature and the knowledge of the civil law, and worked more learnedly and laboriousl}', how did this de- tract from the finer genius and the varied erudition of the more delightful writer ? The parallelist compares Erasmus to "a river swelling its waters, and often overflowing its banks; Budseus rolled on like a majestic stream, ever restraining its waves within its bed. The Fi-enchman has more nerve, and blood, and life, and the Hollander more fulness, freshness, and colour." The taste for liograpMcal parallels must have reached us from Plutarch ; and there is something malicious in our nature which inclines us to form comparative estimates, usually with a view to elevate one great man at the cost of * It is noticed hj Jortin in liis Life of Erasmus, Tol. i. p. ICO. The Pearl Bibles and Six Thousand Errata. 427 another, whom we would secretly depreciate. Our political parties at home have often indulged in these fallacious paral- lels, and Pitt and Fox once halanced the scales, not by the standard weights and measures which ought to have been used, but by the adroitness of the hand that pressed down the scale. In literature, these comparative estimates have proved most prejudicial. A finer model exists not than the parallel of Dryden and Pope, by Johnson ; for, without design- ing any undue preference, his vigorous judgment has analysed them by his contrasts, and has rather shown their distinctness than their similarity. But literary parallels usuall}^ end in producing parties ; and, as I have elsewhere observed, often originate in undervaluing one man of genius, for liis defi- ciency in some eminent quality possessed by the other man of genius; they not un frequently proceed from adverse tastes, and are formed with the concealed design of establishing some favourite one. Tlie world of literature has been deeply in- fected with this folly. Virgil probably was often vexed in his da3's by a parallel with Homer, and the Ilomerians combated with the Virgilians. Modern Italy was long divided into such literary sects : a perpetual skirmisliing is carried on be- tween the Ariostoists and the Tassoists ; and feuds as dire as those between two Highland clans Vv'ere raised concerning the Petrarcliists, and the Ghiahrerists. Old Corncille lived tc bow his venerable genius before a parallel with Eacine ; and no one has suffered more unjustly b}^ such arbitrai-y criticism^ than Pope, for a strange unnatural civil war has often been renewed between the Drydenists and the Popeists. Two mer of great genius should never be depreciated by the misapplied ingenuity of a parallel ; on such occasions we ought to con- clude magis pares quam similes. THE PEARL BIBLES AND SIX THOUSAND ERRATA. As a literary curiosity, I notice a subject which might rather enter into the history of religion. It relates to the extraordinary state of our English Bibles, which were for some time suff'ered to be so corrupted that no books ever yet swarmed with such innumerable errata ! These errata unquestionably were in great part voluntary commissions, passages interpolated, and meanings forged lor certain purposes ; sometimes to sanction the new creed of a 428 The Pearl Bibles and Six Thousand Errata. half-hatched sect, and sometimes with an intention to destroy all scriptural authority by a confusion, or an omission of texts — the whole was left open to the option or the malignity of the editors, who, probably, like certain ingenious wine- merchants, contrived to accommodate "the waters of life" to their customers' peculiar taste. They had also a project of printing Bibles as cheaply and in a form as contracted as they possibly could for the common people ; and they proceeded till it nearly ended with having no Bible at all : and, as Fuller, in his " Mixt Contemplations on Better Times," alludingtothis circumstance, with not one of his lucky quibbles, observes, "The small price of the Bible has caused the small -prizing of the Bible." This extraordinary'' attempt on the English Bible began even before Charles the First's dethronement, and probably arose from an unusual demand for Bibles, as the sectarian fanaticism was increasing. Printing of English Bibles was an article of open trade; every one printed at the lowest price, and as fast as their presses would allow. Even those who were dignified as "his Majesty's Printers" were among these manufacturers ; for we have an account of a scandalous omis- sion by them of the important negative in the seventh com- mandment ! The printers were summoned before the Court of High Commission, and this not served to bind them in a fine of three thousand pounds ! A prior circumstance, indeed, bad occurred, which induced the government to be more vigi- lant on the Biblical Press. The learned Usher, one day hasten- ing to preach at Paul's Cross, entered the shop of one of the stationers, as booksellers were then called, and inquiring for a Bible of the London edition, when he came to look for his text, to his astonishment and horror he discovered that the verse was omitted in the Bible ! This gave the first occasion of complaint to the king of the insufferable negligence and incapacity of the London press : and, says the manuscript writer of this anecdote, first bred that great contest which followed, between the University of Cambridge and the Lon- don stationers, about the right of printing Bibles.* The secret bibliographical history of these times would show the extraordinary state of the press in this new trade of Bibles. The writer of a curious pamphlet exposes the com- bination of those called the king's printers, with their contri- * Harl. MS. 6395. llie Pearl Bibles and Six Thousand Errata. 4Q9 vanccs to keep up the prices of Bibles ; their corrcsponclence with the booksellers of Scotland and Dublin, by which means thev retained the privilege in their own hands : the king's London printers got Bibles printed cheaper at Edinburgh. In 1G29, when folio Bibles were wanted, the Cambridge printers sold them at ten shillings in quires ; on this the Londoners set six printing-houses at work, and, to annihilate the Camhridgians, printed a similar /bZ/o Bible, but sold with it five hundred qiiarfoJxoman Bibles, and five hundred quarto English, at five shillings a book ; which proved the ruin of the folio Bibles, by keeping them down under the cost price. Another competition arose among those who printed Eng- lish Bibles in Holland, in duodecimo, with an English colophon, for half the price even of the lowest in London. Twelve thousand of these duodecimo Bibles, with notes, fabri- cated in Holland, usually by our fugitive sectarians, were seized by the king's printers, as contrary to the statute.* Such was this shameful war of Bibles — folios, quartos, and duodecimos, even in the days of Charles the First. The public spirit of the rising sects was the real occasion of these increased demands for Bibles. During the civil wars they carried on the same open trade and competition, besides the private ventures of the smuggled Bibles. A large impression of these Dutch English Bibles were burnt by order of the Assembly of Divines, for these three errors : — Gen. xxsvi. 2-1. — This is that ass that found rulers in the wilderness — for mule. Ruth iv. 13. — The Lord gave her corru])tion — for conccp- Hon. Luke xxi. 28. — Look up, and lift up your hands, for your condemnation draweth nigh — for redemption. These errata were none of the printer's ; but, as a writer of the times expresses it, " egregious blasphemies, and dam- nable errata " of some sectarian, or some Bellamy editor of that day ! The printing of Bibles at length was a privilege conceded * "Scintilla, or a lig'ut broken into darke Warehouses; of some Printers, sleeping Stationers, and combining Bnoksollers ; iu wliich is only a touch of tlieir forestalling and ingrossing of Books in Patients, and rays- ing them to excessive prises. LefD to the consideration of the lii.uK auuhUc use! — How these venerable asylums escaped from being sold with the king's pictures, as stone and timber, and why their rich endowments were not shared among such inveterate ignorance and remorseless spoliation, might claim some inquiry. The Abbe Morellet, a great political economist, imagined that the source of all the crimes of the French Revolution was their violation of the sacred rights of j^ropei'ty. The perpetual invectives of the Sans-cidottes of France against 2')roiyrietors and against projperty jiroceeded from demoralised beings who formed panegyrics on all crimes ; crimes, to ex- plain whose revolutionary terms, a new dictionary was re- quired. But even these anarchists, in their mad expressions against property', and in their wildest notions of their " egalite," have not gone beyond the daring of our own " Rumpers !" Of those revolutionary journals of the parliament of 1649, which in spirit so strongly resemble the diurnal or hebdo- madal effusions of the redoubtable French Hebert, INIarat, and others of that stamp, one of the most remarkable is, " The Modei'ate, impartially^ communicating Martial Affairs to the Kingdom of England;" the monareliical title ons The Rump. 491 commonwealth men had not yet had time enoup^h to oblite- rate from their colloquial style. This writer called himself, in his barbarous English, The Moderate 1 It would be hard to conceive the meanness and illiteracy to which the English language was reduced under the pens of the rabble-writers of these da3's, had we not witnessed in the present time a parallel to their compositions. "The Moderate!" was a title assumed on the princi]:)le on which Marat denominated himself " I'Ami du Peuple." It is curious that the most ferocious politicians usually assert their moderation. Robes- pierre, in his justification, declares that Marat " m'a souvent accus^ de JSLoderantismer The same actors, pla^'ing the same parts, may be alwaj^s paralleled in their language and their deeds. This "Moderate" steadih^ pursued one great principle — the overthrow of all property. Assuming that property was the original cause of sin ! an exhortation to the people for this purpose is the subject of the present paper :* the illustration of his principle is as striking as the principle itself. It is an apology for, or rather a defence of, robbery ! Some moss-troo])ers had been condemned to be hanged i'or prac- tising their venerable custom of gratuitously supplying them- selves from the flocks and herds of their weaker neighbours : our " Moderate" ingeniously discovers that the loss of these men's lives is to be attributed to nothing but property. They are necessitated to otl'end the laws in order to obtain a livelihood ! On this he descants ; and the extract is a political curio- sity in the French stjde ! " Property is the original cause of any sin between party and party as to civil transactions. And since the tyrant is taken off, and the government altered in nomine, so ought it really to redound to the good of the people in specie; which, though they cannot expect it in few years, by reason of tlie multiplicity of the gentlemen in authority, command, &c. who drive on all designs for support of the old government, and consequently their own interest and the people'' s slavery, yet they doubt not but in time the }ieople will herein discern their own blindness and folly." In September, he advanced with more depth of tliought. " Wars have ever been clothed with the most gracious pre- tences — viz., reformation of religion, the laws of the land, the * The Moderate, from Tuesday, July 31, to August 7, 1C49. 492 The Rump. liberty of the subject, &c. ; thougb the efTects thereof have proved most destructive to every nation ; making the sword, and not tJie people, the original of all authorities for many hundred years together, taking away each man's lirthright, and seftUnff upon a few a cursed peopeiett; the ground of all civil ofi'ences, and the greatest cause of most sins against the heavenly Deit}'. This tyranny and oppression running through the veins of many of our predecessors, and being too long maintained by the sword upon a royal foundation, at last became so customary, as to the vulgar it seemed most natural — the only reason why the people of this time are so ignorant of their birthright, their only freedom," &c. " The birthright " of citoyen Egalite to " a cursed pro- priety settled 07i a few,''' was not, even among the French Jacobins, urged with more amazing force. Had things pro- ceeded according to our "Moderate's" plan, "the people's slavery " had been something worse. In a short time the nation would have had more proprietors than property. We have a curious hst of the spoliations of those members of the House of Commons, who, after their famous self-denying ordinances, appropriated among themselves sums of money, offices, and lands, for services "done or to be done." The most innocent of this new government of " the Majesty of the People," were those whose talents had been limited by Nature to peddle and purloin ; puny mechanics, who had suddenly dropped their needles, their hammers, and their lasts, and slunk out from behind their shop-counters ; those who had never aspired beyond the constable of the parish, were now seated in the council of state ; where, as Milton describes them, " they fell to huckster the common- wealth :" there they met a more rabid race of obscure law- yers, and discontented men of family, of blasted reputations ; adventurers, who were to command the militia and navy of England, — governors of the three kingdoms ! whose votes and ordinances resounded with nothing else but new impositions, new taxes, excises, yearly, monthl}'^, weekly sequestrations, compositions, and universal robbery ! Baxter vents one deep groan of indignation, andpresciently announces one future consequence of Reform ! " In all this appeared the severity of God, the mutability of worldly things, and the fruits of error, pride, and selfishness, to he charged hereafter upon reformation and religion.'^ As a statesman, the sagacity of this honest prophet was narrowed Oldijs and his Manuscripts. 493 by the horizon of his rehgious views ; for he ascribes the wnole as " prepared by Satan to the injury of the Protestant cause, and the advantage of the Papists !" But dropping his partieuLar apphcation to the devil and the Papists, honest Kichard IJaxter is perfectly right in his general principle concerning " Eumpers," — " Sans-culottes," and "Radicals." LIFE AND HABITS OF A LITERARY ANTIQUARY.— OLDYS AND HIS MANUSCRIPTS. Such a picture may be furnished by some unexpected mate- rials which my inquiries have obtained of Oldys. This is a sort of personage little known to the wits, who write more than they read, and to their volatile votaries, who only read what the wits ^vrite. It is time to vindicate the honours of the few whose laborious days enrich the stores of national literature, not by the duplicates but tlie supplements of know- ledge. A literary antiquary is that idler whose life is passed in a perpetual voyage autour de ma climnbre ; fervent in saga- cious diligence, instinct with the enthusiasm of curious inquiry, critical as well as erudite ; he has to arbitrate between contending opinions, to resolve the doubtful, to clear np the obscure, and to grasp at the remote ; so busied with other times, and so interested for other persons than those about him, that he becomes the inhabitant of the visionary- world of books. He counts only his days by his acquisi- tions, and may be said by his original discoveries to be the CREATOR 01? TACTS ; often exciting the gratitude of the literary world, while the very name of the benefactor has not always descended with the inestimable labours. Such is the man whom we often find leaving, when he dies, his favoui'ite volumes onl}^ an incomplete project ! and few of this class of literary men have escaped the fate reserved for most of their brothers. Voluminous works have been usually left unfinished by the death of the authors ; and it is with them as with the planting of trees, of which Johnson has forcibly observed, " There is a frightful interval between the seed and timber." And he admirably remarks, what I cannot forbear applying to the labours I am now to describe : " He that calculates the growth of trees has the remembrance of the shortness of life driven hard upon him. He knows that 494 Life and Habits of a Literary Antiquary — he is doing what will never benefit himself; and when he rejoices to see the stem rise, is disposed to repine that another shall cut it down." The days of the patriotic Count Mazzu- chelli were freely given to his national literature ; and six invaluable folios attest the gigantic force of his immense eru- dition ; yet these only carry iis through the letters A and B : and though Mazzuchelli had finished for the press other volumes, the torpor of his descendants has defrauded Europe of her claims.* The Abbe Goujet, who had designed a classi- fied history of his national literature, in the eighteen volumes we possess, could only conclude that of the translators, and commence that of the poets ; two other volumes in manu- script have perished. That great enterprise of the Bene- dictines, the " Histoire Literaire de la France," now consists of twelve large quartos, and the industry of its successive Avriters has only been able to carry it to the twelfth century. David Clement designed the most extensive bibliography which had ever appeared ; but the diligent life of the Avriter could only proceed as far as H. The alphabetical order, which so many writers of this class have adopted, has proved a mortifying memento of human life ! Tiraboschi was so fortunate as to complete his great national history of Italian literature. But, unhappily for us, Thomas Warton, after feeling his way through the darker ages of our poetry, in planning the map of the beautiful land, of which he had only a Pisgah -sight, expired amidst his volumes. The most precious portion of Warton's history is but the fragment of a fragment. Oldj^s, among this brotherhood, has met perhaps with a harder fate ; his published works, and the numerous ones to which he contributed, are now highly appreciated by the lovers of books ; but the larger portion of his literary labours have met with the sad fortune of dispersed, and probably of wasted aiaanuscripts. Oldys's manuscripts, or 0. M. as they are sometimes designated, are constantly referred to by every distinguished writer on our literary history. I believe that not one of them could have given us any positive account of the manuscripts themselves ! They have indeed long served as the solitary sources of information — but like the well at the wayside, too many have drawn their waters in silence. Oldys is chiefly known by the caricature of the facetious Grose ; a great humourist, both with pencil and with pen : * His intention was to publisli a general classified biography of all the Italian authors. Oldys and his 2Ianuscripts. 490 it is in a posthumous sci'ap-book, where Grose deposited his odds and ends, and where there is perliaps not a single story which is not satirical. Our lively antiquary, who cared more for rusty armour than for rusty volumes, would turn over these flams and quips to some confidential friend, to enjoy together a secret laugh at their literary intimates. His eager executor, who happened to be his bookseller, sei'vcd up the poiguant hash to the public as "Grose's Olio ! "* The deli- neation of Oldys is sufficiently overcharged for " the nonce." One prevalent infirmity ot honest Oldys, his love of companion- ship over too social a glass, sends him down to posterity in a grotesque attitude ; and ^Ir. Alexander Chalmers, who has given us the fullest account of Oldys, has inflicted on him something like a sermon, on "a state of intoxication." Alas ! Oldys was an outcast of fortune, t and the utter simplicity of his heart was guileless as a child's — ^ever open to the designing. The noble spirit of a Duke of Norfolk once rescued the long-lost historian of Rawleigh fi'om the confinement of the Fleet, where he had existed, probably forgotten by the world, for six years. It was by an act of grace that the duke safely placed Oldys in the Heralds' Col- lege as Norroy King of Arms. J But Oldys, like all shy and ■* He says in his advertisement, " It will be difficult to ascertain whe- ther he meant to give them to the public, or only to reserve them for his own amusement and the entertainment of his friends." Many of these anecdotes are evidently mere loose scandal. f Grose narrates his early history thus : — " Ilis parents dying when he was very young, he soon squandered away his small patrimony, when he be- came, at first an attendant in Lord Oxford's library, and afterwards libra- rian ; at whose death he was obliged to write for the booksellers for a subsistence." X Mr. John Taylor, the son of Oldys' s intimate friend, has furnished me with this interesting anecdote. "Oldys, as my father informed me, was many years in quiet obscurity in the Fleet prison, but at lust was spirited up to make his situation known to the Duke of Norfolk of that time, who received Oldys's letter while he was at dinner with some friends. The duke immediately communicated the contents to the company, observ- ing that he had long been anxious to know what had become of an old, though an humble frieud, and was happy by that letter to find that he was alive. He then called for his genUcman (a kind of humble friend whom noblemen used to retain under that name in those days), and de- sired him to go immediately to the Fleet, to take money for the immediate need cf Oldys, to procure an account of his debts, and discharge them. Oidya was soon after, either by the duke's gift or interest, appointed Nor- roy King of Arraa : and I remember that his official regalia came into my father s nanas at /iis cieatii.'' In the "Life of Oldys," by Mr. A. Chalmers, the date of this promotion 496 Life and Iluhits of a Lltcrarij Antiquary — retired men, had contracted peculiar liabits and close attach- ments for a few ; botli these lie could indulge at no distance. He liked his old associates in the purlieus of the Fleet, whom }ie facetiously dignified as " his Rulers," and there, as I have heard, with the grotesque whim of a herald, established " The Dragon Club." Companionship yields the poor man vmpurchased pleasures. Oldys, busied every morning among the departed wits and the learned of our country, reflected some image from them of their wit and learning to his com- panions : a secret history as yet untold, and ancient wit, which, cleared of the rust, seemed to him brilliant as the modern ! It is hard, however, for a literary antiquary to be carica- tured, and for a herald to be I'idicuied about an " unseemly reeling with the coronet of the Princess Caroline, which looked unsteady on the cushion, to the great scandal of his brethren," — a circumstance which could never have occurred at the burial of a prince or princess, as the coronet is carried by Ciarencieux, and not by Norroy. Oldys's deep potations of ale, however, give me an opportunity of bestowing on him tlie honour of being the author of a popular Anacr-eoutie song. Mr, Taylor informs me that " Oldys always asserted that he was the author of the well-known song — Busy, curious, thirsty fly ! and as he was a rigid lover of truth, I doubt not that he wrote it." My own researches confirm it : I have traced this popular song through a dozen of collections since the j^ear 1740, the first in which I find it. In the later collections an original inscription has been dropped, which the accurate Ritson has restored, without, however, being able to discover the writer. In 1740 it is said to have been " made extem- pore by a gentleman, occasioned by a fly drinking out of his cup of ale -f — the accustomed potion of poor Oldys!* is not found. ]\Iy accomplished friend, the Rev. J. Dallaway, has oblig- ingly examined the records of the college, by which it appears that Oldys had been Norfolh herald extraordinary, but not belonging to the college, was appointed jjfr saltitin Norroy King of Arms by patent, May 5th, 1755. Grose says — "The patronage of the duke occasioned a suspicion of his being a pajiist, though I think really without reason ; this for a while re- tarded his appointment : it was underhand propagated by the heralds, who were vexed at having a stranger put in upon them." * The beautiful simplicity of this Anacreontic has met the unusual fate of entirely losing its character, by an additional and incouijmous stanza iu Oldys and his Manuscripts. 497 Grose, however, though a great joker on the pecuharities of Oldys, was far from insensible to the extraordinary acqui- sitions of the man. " His knowledge of English books has hardly been exceeded." Grose, too, was struck by the deli- cacy of honour, and the unswerving veracity which so strongly characterised Oldys, of which he gives a remarkahle instance.* "We are concerned in ascertaining the moral integrity of the writer, whose main business is with history. At a time when our literary histor}^, excepting in the soli- tary labour of Anthony Wood, was a forest, with neither road nor pathway, Oldj's, fortunately placed in the library of the Earl of Oxford, yielded up his entire days to researches con- cerning the books and the men of the preceding age. His labours were then valueless, their very nature not yet ascer- tained, and when he opened the treasures of our ancient lore in " The British Librarian," it was closed for want of public encouragement. Our writers, then struggling to create an age of genius of their own, forgot that they had had any progenitors ; or while they were acquiring new modes of excellence, that they were losing others, to which their pos- the modem editions, by a gentleman who lias put into practice the unal- lowable liberty of altering the poetical and dramatic compositions of ac- knowledged genius to his own notion of what he deems "morality;" but in works of genius whatever is dull ceases to be moral. "The Fly" of Oldys may stand by " The Fly" of Gray for melancholy tenderness of thought ; it consisted only of these two stanzas : Busy, curious, thirsty fly ! Drink with me, and drink as I I Freely welcome to my cup, Couldst thou sip and sip it up : Make the most of life you may; Life is short and wears away ! Both alike are mine and thine, Hastening quick to their decline ! Thine's a summer, mine no more, Though repeated to threescore ! Threescore summers when they're gone, Will appear as short as one ! * This anecdote should be given in justice to both parties, and iu Grose's words, who says ; — " He was a man of great good-nature, honour, and in- tegrity, particularly in his character of an historian. Nothing, I firmly believe, would ever have biassed him to insert any fact in his writings he did not believe, or to suppress any he did. Of this delicacy he gave an instance at a time when he was in great distress. After his publication of the 'Life of Sir Walter Raleigh,' some booksellers thinking his namo would sell a piece they were publishing, offered him a considerable sum to father it, which he rejected with the greatest indignation." VOL. in. K K 498 Life and Habits of a Literary Antiquary^ terlty or the national genius might return. (To know, and to admire only, the literature and the tastes of our own age, is a species of elegant barbarism.)* Spenser was considered nearly as obsolete as Chaucer ; Milton was veiled by oblivion, and Shakspeare's dramas were so imperfectly known, that in looking over the play-bills of 1711, and much later, I find that whenever it chanced that they were acted, they were always announced to have been " written by Shakspeare." Massinger was unknown ; and Jonson, though called " im- mortal" in the old play -bills, lay entombed in his two folios. The poetical era of Elizabeth, the eloquent age of James the First, and the age of wit of Charles the Second, were blanks in our literaiy history. Bysshe, compiling an Art of Poetr}' in 1718, passed by in his collection " Sjjenser and the poets of Jiis ac/e, because their language is now become so obsolete that most readers of our age have no ear for them, and there- fore Shalcspeare himself is so rarely cited in ray collection." The hest English poets were considered to be the modern ; a taste which is always obstinate ! All this was nothing to Oldys ; his literary emiosit}' antici- pated by half a century the fervour of the present day. This energetic direction of all his thoughts was sustained by that life of discovery which in literary researches is starting novelties among old and unremembered things ; contemplat- ing some ancient tract as precious as a manuscript, or revelling in the volume of a poet whose passport of fame was yet dela^^ed in its way ; or disinterring the treasure of some secluded manuscript, whence he drew a virgin extract ; or raising up a sort of domestic intimacy with the eminent in arms, in politics, and in literature in this visionary life, life itself witli Oldys was insensibly gliding away — its cares almost unfelt ! The life of a literarj^ antiquary partakes of the nature of those who, having no concerns of their own, busj^ themselves ■with those of others. Oldj^s lived in the back ages of Eng- land; he had crept among the dark passages of Time, till, like an old gentleman usher, he seemed to be reporting the secret history of the courts which he had lived in. He had been charmed among their masques and revels, had eyed * We Lave been taught to enjoy the two ages of Genius and of Taste. The literary public are deeply indebted to the editorial care, the taste, and the euthusias'Ti of Mr. Singer, for exquisite reprints of some valuable ■writers. OUhjs and his Manuscripts. 499 with astonishment their cumbrous magnificence, when knights and hidies carried on their mantles and their cloth of gold ten thousand pounds' wortli of ropes of pearls, and buttons of diamonds ; or, descending to the gay court of the second Charles, he tattled merry tales, as in that of the first he had painfully watched, like a patriot or a loyalist, a distempered era. He had lived so constantlj^ with these people of another age, and had so deeplj^ interested himself in their affairs, and 60 loved the wit and the learning which are often bright under the rust of antiquity, that his own uncourtl}^ st3^1e is embrowned with the tint of a centur}"" old. But it was this taste and curiosity which alone could have produced the extraordinar}'- volume of Sir Walter Rawleigh's life — a work richly inlaid with the most curious facts and the juxta- position of the most remote knowledge ; to judge by its ful- ness of narrative, it would seem rather to have been the woi'k of a contemporar}'.* It was an advantage in this primaeval era of literary curio- sity, that those volumes which are now not even to be found in our national library, where certainly they are per- petually wanted, and which are now so excessively ajipre- ciated, were exposed on stalls, through the reigns of Anne and the two Georges. f Oldj^s encountered no competitor, cased in the invulnerable mail of his purse, to dispute his possession of the rarest volume. On the other hand, our early collector did not possess our advantages ; he could not fl}" for instant aid to a " Biographia Britannica," he had no history of our poetry, nor even of our drama. Oldys could tread in no man's path, for every soil about him was unbroken ground. He had to create everything for his own purposes. We gather fruit from trees Avhich others have planted, and too often we but " pluck and eat." Nulla dies sine linea, was his sole hope while he was aecu- * Gibbon once meditated a life of Rawleigli, and for that purpose began some researches in that "memorable era of our English annals." After reading Oldys' s, he relinquished his design, from a conviction that "he could add nothing new to the subject, excejit the uncertain merit of style and sentiment." + The British Museum is extremely deficient in our National Literature. The gift of George the Third's library has, however, probably supplied many deficiencies. [The recent bequest of the Grenville collection, and the C'lustant search made of late years for these relics of early literature by the oiiicers of our great national library, has greatly altered the state of the collection since the above was written^ — Ed.\ K k2 500 Life and Habits of a Literanj Antiquary — mulating masses of notes ; and as Oldys never used his pen from the weak passion of scribbhng, but from the urgency of preserving some substantial knowledge, or planning some future inquiry, he amassed nothing but what he wished to remember. Even the minuter pleasures of settling a date, or classifj'ing a title-page, were enjoyments to his incessant pen. Everything was acquisition. This never-ending business of research appears to have absorbed his powers, and sometimes to have dulled his conceptions. No one more aptly exercised the tact of discovery ; he knew where to feel in the dark : but he was not of the race — that race indeed had not yet ap- peared among us — who could melt into their Corinthian brass the mingled treasures of Research, Imagination, and Philosophy ! We may be curious to inquire where our literary antiquary deposited the discoveries and curiosities which he was so in- cessantly acquiring. They were dispersed, on many a fly-leaf, in occasional memorandum-books ; in ample marginal notes on his authors — the}^ were sometimes thrown into what he calls his " parchment budgets," or " Bags of Biography — of Botany — of Obituary " — of " Books relative to London," and other titles and bags, which he was every day filling.* Sometimes his collections seem to have been intended for a series of volumes, for he refers to " My first Volume of Tables of the eminent Persons celebrated by English Poets " — to another of " Poetical Characteristics." Among those manu- scripts which I have seen, I find one mentioned, apparently of a wide circuit, under the reference of " My Biographical Institutions. Part third ; containing a Catalogue of all the English Lives, with Historical and Critical Observations on them." But will our cm'ious or our whimsical collectors of the present day endure without impatience the loss of a quarto manuscript, which bears this rich condiment for it* title — " Of London Libraries ; with Anecdotes of Collectors of Books ; Remarks on Booksellers ; and on the first Pub- lishers of Catalogues ? " 01d3's left ample annotations on " Fuller's Worthies," and " Winstanley's Lives of the Poets," and on " Langbaine's Dramatic Poets." The late Mr. * Grose says — " His mode of composing was somewhat singular : he had a number of small parchment bags, inscribed with the names of the per- sons whose lives he intended to write ; into these bags he put every cir- cumstance and anecdote he could collect, and from thence drew up hia history." Ohlys and his Manuscripts. 501 Boswell showed me a Fuller in the Malone collection, with Steevens's transcriptions of Ohlys' s notes, which Malone i)ur- ■chasecl for 43/. at Steevens's sale ; but where is the oi'iginal copy of Oldys ? The " Winstanley," I think, also reposes in the same collection. The " Langbaine " is far-famed, and is preserved in the British Museum, the gift of Dr. Birch; it has been considered so precious, that several of our eminent writers liave cheerfully passed through the labour of a minute tran- scription of its numberless notes. In the history of the fate and fortune of books, that of Oldys's Lamjhaine is too curious to omit. Oldys may tell his own story, which I find in the Museum copy, p. 336, and which copy appears to be a second attempt ; for of i\\e first Langbaine we have this account : — When I left London in 1724, to reside in Yorhsldrc, I left in the care of the Eev. Mr. Burridge's family, with whom I had several years lodged, among many other books, goods, &c., a copy of this "Langbaine," in wliich I had wrote several notes and references to further knowledge of these poets. "When I returned to Loudon, 1730, I understood my books had heen .dispersed ; and afterwards becoming acquainted with Mr. T. Coxeter, I found that he had bought my " Langbaine" of a bookseller who was a great collector of plays and poetical books : this must have been of service to him, and he has kept it so carefully from my sight, that I never could have the opportunity of transcribing into this I am now writing in the notes I had collected in that.* * At the Bodleian Library, I learnt by a letter with which I am favoured by the Rev. Dr. Bliss, that there is an interleaved " Gildon's Lives and Characters of the Dramatic Poets," with corrections, which once belonged to Coxeter, who appears to have intended a new edition. Whether Cox- eter transcribed into his Gildon the notes of Oldys's first "Langbaine," is worth inquiry. Coxeter's conduct, though he had purchased Oldys's first " Langbaine," was that of an ungenerous miser, who will quarrel with a brother rather than share in any acquisition he can get into his own hands. To Coxeter we also owe much; he suggested Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, and the first tolerable edition of Massinger. Oldys could not have been employed in Lord Oxford's library, as Mr. Chalmers conjectures, about 1726 ; for here he mentions that he was in York- shire from 1724 to 1730. This period is a remarkable blank in Oldys's life. My learned friend, the Rev. Joseph Hunter, has supplied mo with a note in the copy of Fuller in the Malone collection preserved at the Bod- leian. Those years were passed apparently in the household of the first Earl of Malton, who built Wentworth House. There all the collections of the antiquary Gascoigne, with "seven great chests of manuscripts," some as ancient as the time of the Conquest, were condemned in one solemn sacrifice to Vulcan ; the ruthless earl being impenetrable to the prayers and remonstrances of our votary to English History. Oldys left the earl with little satisfaction, as appears by some severe strictures from hia gentle pen. 502 Life and Habits of a Literary Antiquary — This first Langbaine, with additions hy Coxeter, was bought, at the sale of his books, by Theophilus Gibber : on the strength of these notes he prefixed his name to the first col- lection of the " Lives of our Poets," which appeared in weekly numbers, and now form five volumes, written chiefly by Shiels, an amanuensis of Dr. Johnson. Shiels has been recently castigated by Mr. Gilford. These literary jobbers nowhere distinguished Coxeter's and Oldys's curious matter from their own. Such was the fate of the first copy of Langbaine, with Oldys's notes ; but the second is more important. At an auction of some of Oldys's books and manuscripts, of which I have seen a printed cata- logue, Dr. Birch purchased this invaluable copy for three shillings and sixpence.* Such was the value attached to these original researches concerning our poets, and of which, to obtain only a transcript, very large sums have since been cheerfully given. The Museum copy of Langbaine is in Oldys's handwriting, not interleaved, biit overflowing with notes, written in a very small hand about the margins, and inserted between the lines ; nor may the transcriber pass negli- gently even its corners, otherwise he is here assured that he will lose some useful date, or the hint of some curious refer- ence. The enthusiasm and diligence of Oldys, in undertaking a repetition of his first lost labour, proved to be infinitely greater than the sense of his unrequited labours. Such is the history of the escapes, the changes, and the fate of a volume which forms the groundwork of the most curious information concerning our elder poets, and to which we must still fre- quently refer. In this variety x,i literary arrangements, which we must consider as single works in a progressive state, or as portions of one great work on our modern literary history, it may, perhaps, be justly suspected that Oldys, in the delight of perpetual acquisition, impeded the happier labour of unity of design and completeness of purpose. He was not a Tira- * This copy was lent by Dr. Birch to the late Bishop of Dromore, who with his own hand carefully transcribed the notes into an interleaved copy of " Langbaine," divided into four volumes, which, as I am informed, nar- rowly escaped the flames, and was injured by the water, at a fire at Northum- berland House. His lordship, when he went to Ireland, left this copy with Mr. Nichols, for the use of the projected editions of the Tatler, the Spectator, and the Guardian, with notes and illustrations ; of which I think the Tatler only has appeared, and to which his lordship contributed some Taluable communications. Oklijs and his Manuscripts. 503 boschi — nor even a Niceron ! He was sometimes chilled by- neglect, and by " vanity and vexation of spirit," else we should not now have to count over a barren list of manuscript works ; masses of literary history, of which the existence is even doubtful. In Kippis's Biographia Britannica we find frequent refer- ences to O. M., Oldys's Manuscripts. Mr. John Taylor, the son of the friend and executor of Oldys, has greatly obliged me with all his recollections of this man of letters ; vvdiose pursuits, however, were in no manner analogous to his, and whom he could only have known in youth. By him I learn, that on the death of Oldys, Dr. Kippis, editor of the Biogra- phia Britannica, looked over these manuscripts at Mr. Taylor's house. He had been directed to this discovery by the late Bishop of Dromore, whose active zeal was very remarkable in every enterprise to enlarge our literary history. Ivippis was one who, in some degree, might have estimated their literary value ; but, employed by commercial men, and negotiating with persons who neither comprehended their nature, nor affixed any value to them, the editor of the Biographia found Oldys's manuscripts an easy purchase for his employer, the late Mr. Cadell ; and the twenty guineas, perhaps, served to bury their writer ! Mr. Taylor says — " The manuscripts of Oldys were not so many as might be expected from so inde- fatigable a writer. They consisted chieily of short extracts from books, and minutes of dates, and were thoiujltt worth pur- chasing by the doctor. I remember the manuscripts well ; though Oldys was not the author, but rather recorder." Such is the statement and the opinion of a writer whose effusions are of a gayer sort. But the researches of Oldys must not be estimated by this standard ; with him a single line was the result of many a day of research, and a leaf of scattered hints would supply more original knowledge than some octavos fashioned out by the hasty gilders and varnishers of modern literature. These discoveries occupy small space to the eye ; but large works are composed out of them. This \evy lot of Oldys's manuscripts was, indeed, so considerable in the judgment of Kippis, that he has described them as " a large and useful hody of biographical materials, left hij Mr, Oldys." Were these the " Biographical Institutes" Oldys .refers to among his manuscripts ? "The late Mr. Malone," continues Mr. Taylor, " told me that he had seen all Oldys's vianiiscripts ; so 1 presume they are in the hands of Cadell 504 Life and Habits of a Literary Antiquary — ■ and Davies." Have they met with the fate of sucked oranges ? — and how much of Malone may we owe to Oldys ? This information enabled me to trace the manuscripts of Oldys to Dr. Kippis ; but it cast me among the booksellers, who do not value manuscripts which no one can print. I discovered, by the late Mr. Davies, that the direction of that hapless work in our literary history, with its whole treasure of manuscripts, had been consigned by Mr. Cadell to the late Greroge Robinson, and that the successor of Dr. Kippis had been the late Dr. George Gregory. Again I repeat, the history of voluminous works is a melancholy office ; every one concerned with them no longer can be found ! The esteemed relict of Dr. Gregory, with a friendly promptitude, gratified my anxious inquiries, and informed me, that " she perfectly recollects a mass of papers, such as I described, being returned, on the death of Dr. Gregory, to the house of Wilkie and Robinson, in the early part of the year 1809." I applied to this house, who, after some time, referred me to Mr. John Robinson, the representative of his late father, and with whom all the papers of the former partnership were deposited. But Mr. John Robinson has terminated my inquiries, by his civility in promising to comply with them, and his perti- nacity in not doing so. He may have injured his own interest in not trading with my curiosity.* It was fortunate for the nation that George Vertue's mass of manuscripts escaped the fate of Oldys's ; had the possessor proved as indolent, Horace Walpole would not have been the writer of his most valuable work, and we should have lost the " Anecdotes of Painting," of which Vertue had collected the materials. Of a life consumed in such literary activity we should have known more had the Diaries of Oldys escaped destruction. " One habit of my father's old friend, WiUiam Oldys," says Mr. Taylor, " was that of keeping a diary, and recording in it every day all the events that occurred, and all his engage- ments, and the employment of his time. I have seen piles of these books, bu t know not what became of them." * I know that not only this lot of Oldys's manuscripts, but a great quantity of original contributions of whole lives, intended for the " Biogra- phia Britannica," must lie together, unless they have been destroyed aa waste paper. These biographical and literary curiosities were often sup- plied by the families or friends of eminent persons. Some may, perhaps, have been reclaimed by their owners. I am informed there was among' them an interesting collection of the correspondence of Locke ; and I could •vention several lives which were prejmred. Ohhjs and his Manuscrvj^is. 505 The existence of such diaries is confinned b}' a sale catalogue of Thomas Davies, the literary bookseller, who sold many of the books and some manuscripts of Oldi/s, which a])pear to have been dispersed in various libraries. [ find Lot " 3G27, Mr. Old^'s's Diar}', containing several observations relating to books, characters, &c. ;" a single volume, which appears to have separated from the "piles" which Mr. Taylor once wit- nessed. The literary diary of Oldys could have exhibited the mode of his pm-suits, and the results of his discoveries One of these volumes I have fortunately discovered, and a singulai'ity in this writer's feelings throws a new interest ovei such diurnal records. Oldys was apt to give utterance with liis pen to his most secret emotions. Querulous or indignant, his honest simplicity confided to the paper before him such extemporaneous soliloquies, and I have found him hiding in the very corners of his manuscripts his " secret sorrows." A few of these slight memorials of his feelings will exhibit a sort of Silliouette likeness traced by his own hand, when at times the pensive man seems to have contemplated his own shadow. Oldys would throw down in verses, whose humility or quaintness indicates their origin, or by some pithy adage, or apt quotation, or recording anecdote, his self-advice, or his self-regrets ! Oppressed by a sense of tasks so unprofitable to himself, while his days were often passed in trouble and in prison, he breathes a self-reproach in one of these jirofound reflections of melancholy which so often startle the man of study, who truly discovei's that life is too limited to acquire real know- ledge, with the ambition of dispensing it to the world : — I say, who too long in these cohweLs lurks, Is always whettiug tools, but never works. In one of the corners of his note-books I find this curious but sad reflection : — Alas ! this is but the apron of a fig-leaf — but the curtain of a cobweb. Sometimes he seems to have anticipated the fate of that obscure diligence which was pursuing discoveries reserved for others to use : — He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them. Fond treasurer of tliese stores, behold thy fate In Psalm the thirty-ninth, 6, 7, and 8. 606 Life and Habits of a Literary Antiquary — Sometimes he checks the eager ardour of his pen, and reminds himself of its repose, in Latin, Itahan, and Enghsh. Non vi, seel sfepe catlendo. Assai presto si fa quel che si fa bene. Some respite best recovers what we need, Discreetly baiting gives the journey speed. There was a thoughtless kindness in honest Oldys ; and his simplicity of character, as I have observed, was practised on by the artful or the ungenerous. We regret to find the following entry concerning the famous collector, James West :— I gave above threescore letters of Dr. Davenant to his sod, who was envoy at Frankfort in 1703 to 1708, to Mr. James West,* with one hun- dred and fifty more, about Christmas, 1746 : but the same fate they found as grain that is sown in barren ground. Such is the plaintive record by which Oldys relieved him- self of a groan ! We may smile at the simplicity of the fol- lowing narrative, where poor Oldys received manuscripts in lieu of money : — Old Counsellor Fane, of Colchester, who, in formd pau'pcris, deceived me of a good sum of money which he owed me, and not long after set up his chariot, gave me a parcel of manuscripts, and promised me others, which he never gave me, nor anything else, besides a barrel of oysters, and a manuscript copy of Kandolph's poems, an original, as he said, with many additions, being devolved to him as the author's relation. There was no end to his aids and contributions to every author or bookseller who applied to him ; yet he had reason to complain of both while they were using his invaluable but not valued knowledge. Here is one of these diurnal entries : — I lent the tragical lives and deaths of the famous pirates, Ward and Dansiker, 4to, London, 1612, by Robt. Daboru, alias Dabourne, to Mr. T. Lediard, when he was writing his Naval History, and he never returned it. See Howell's Letters of them. In another, when his friend T. Hayward was collecting, for his "British Muse," the most exquisite commonplaces of our old English dramatists, a compilation which must not be confounded with ordinary ones, Oldys not only assisted in the * This collection, and probably the other letters, have come down to ns, no doubt, with the manuscripts of this collector, purchased for the Bi-itisli Museum. The correspondence of Dr. Davenant, the political writer, with his son, the envoy, turns on one jierpetual topic, his sou's and his own ad« yancement in the state. Oldys and his Manuscripts. 507 labour, but drew up a curious introduction with a knowledge and love of the subject which none but himself possessed. But so little were these researches then understood, that we find Oldys, in a moment of vexatious recollection, and in a corner of one of the margins of his Langbaine, accidentally preserving an extraordinary circumstance attending this curious dissertation. Oldys having completed this elaborate introduction, " the penurious publisher insisted on leaving out one third part, which happened to be the best matter in it, because he would have it contracted into one sheet .'" Poor Oldys never could forget the fate of this elaborate Disser- tation on all the collections of English poetry ; I am con- fident that I have seen some vohmie which was formerly Oldys's, and afterwards Thomas Warton's, in the possession of my intelligent friend Mr. Douce, in the fly-leaf of which Oldys has expressed himself m these words : — -" In my his- torical and critical review of all the collections of this kind, it would have made a sheet and a half or two sheets ; but they for sordid gain, and to save a little expense in print and paper, got Mr. John Campbell to cross it and cramp it, and pJaij the devil with it, till they squeezed it into less compass than a sheets This is a loss which we may never recover. The curious book-knowledge of this singular man of letters, those stores of which he was the fond treasurer, as he says with such tenderness for his pursuits, were always ready to be cast into the forms of a dissertation or an introduction ; and when Morgan published his Collection of Hare Tracts, the friendly hand of Oldys furnished " A Dissertation upon Pamphlets, in a Letter to a Nobleman ;" probably the Earl of Oxford, a great literary curiosity ; and in the Harleian Collection he has given a Catalogue raisonne of six hundred. When Mrs. Cooper attempted "The Muse's Library," the first essay which influenced the national taste to return to our deserted poets in our most poetical age, it was Okie's who only could have enabled this lady to perform that task so well.* When Curll, the publisher, to help out one of his hasty compilations, a "History of the Stage," repaired, like all the world, to Oldys, whose kindness covild not resist the * It is a stout octavo ■volume of 400 pages, containing a good selection of specimens from the earliest era, concluding with Sam. Daniel, in the reigu of James I. Mrs. Elizabeth Cooper was the wife of an auctioneer, who had been a chum of Oldys's in the Fleet Prison, -where he died a debtor ; and it was to aid his widow that Oldys edited this book. 508 Life and Habits of a Literary Antiquary — importunity of this busy publisher, he gave him a life of Nell Gwynn ; while at the same moment Oldys could not avoid noticing, in one of his usual entries, an intended work on the stage, which we seem never to have had, " Dick Leveridge s History of the Stage and Actors in his own Time, for these forty or fifty years past, as he told me he had composed, is likely to prove, whenever it shall appear, a more perfect work." I might proceed with many similar gra- tuitous contributions with which he assisted his contem- poraries. Oldys should have been constituted the reader for the nation. His Oom'ptes Rendus of books and manuscripts are still held precious ; but his useful and curious talent had sought the public patronage in vain ! From one of his " Diaries," which has escaped destruction, I transcribe some interesting passages ad verhum. The reader is here presented with a minute picture of those invisible occupations which pass in the study of a man of letters. There are those who may be surprised, as well as amused, in discovering how all the business, even to the very disappointments and pleasures of active life, can be transferred to the silent chamber of a recluse student ; but there are others who will not read without emotion the secret thoughts of him who, loving literature with its purest pas- sion, scarcely repines at being defrauded of his just fame, and leaves his stores for the after-age of his more gifted heirs. Thus we open one of Oldys's literary days : — I was informed that day by Mr. Tho. Odell's daughter, that her father, who was Deputy-Inspector and Licenser of the Plays, died 24 May, 1749, at his house in Chappel-street, Westminster, aged 58 years. He was writing a history of the characters he had observed, and conferences he had had with many eminent persons he knew in his time. He was a great ob- servator of everytliiug curious in the conversations of his acquaintance, and his own conversation was a living chronicle of the remarkable intrigues, adventures, sayings, stories, writings, &c., of many of the quality, poets, and other authors, players, booksellers, &c., who flourished especially in the present century. He had been a popular man at elections, and some- time master of the playliouse in Goodman's Fields, but latterly was forced to live reserved and retired by reason of his debts. He published two or three dramatic pieces, one was the Patron, on the story of Lord Romney. Q. of his da. to restore me Eustace Budgell's papers, and to get a sight of her father's. Have got the one, and seen the other. July 31. — Was at Mrs. Odell's ; she returned me Mr. Budgell's papers. Saw some of her husband's papers, mostly poems in favour of the ministry, and against Mr. Pope. One of them, printed by the late Sir Robert Wal- pole's eucouragementj who gave him ten guineas for writing and as much Oldys and his Manuscripts. 50!) for tbe expense of printing it ; but through his advice it was never pub- lished, because it might hurt his interest with Lord Chestertield, and some other noblemen who favoured Mr. I'o|ie for his fine genius. The tract I liked best of his writings was tlie history of his playhouse in Goodman's Fields. (Remember that which was published against that playhouse, which I have entered in my London Catalogue. Letter to Sir Ric. Brocas, Lord Mayor, &c., 8vo, 1730.) Saw nothing of the history of his conversations with ingenious men ; his characters, tales, jests, and intrigues of them, of which no man was better furnished with them. She thinks she has some papers of these, and pro- mises to look them out, and also to inquire after Mr. Griffin, of the Lord Chamberlain's office, that I may get a search made about Spenser. So intent was Oldys on these literary researches that we see, by the last words of this entry, how in hunting after one sort of game, his undivided zeal kept his eye on another. One of his favourite subjects was the realising of original dis- coveries respecting Spenser and Shakspeare ; of whom, per- haps, to our shame, as it is to our vexation, it may be said that two of our master-poets are those of whom we know the least ! Oldys once flattered himself that he should be able to have given the world a Life of Shalcspeare. Mr. John Taylor informs me, that " Oldys had contracted to supply ten 3'ears of the life of Shakspeare unhnoicn to the hiograpliers, with one Walker, a bookseller in the Strand ; and as Oldys did not live to fulfil the engagement, my father was obliged to return to Walker twenty guineas which he had advanced on the work." That interesting narrative is now hopeless for us. Yet, by the solemn contract into which Oldys had entered, and from his strict integrity, it might induce one to suspect that he had made positive discoveries which are now irrecoverable. We may observe the manner of his anxious inquiries about Spenser : — Ask Sir Peter Thompson if it were improper to try if Lord Effingham Howard would procure the pedigrees in the Herald's office, to be seen for Edmund Spenser's parentage or family ? or how he was related to Sir Johu Spenser of Althorpe, in Northamptonshire ? to three of whose daughters, who all married nobilitj', Spenser dedicates three of his poems. Of Mr. Vertue, to examine Stowe's memorandum-book. Look more carefully for the year when Spenser's monument was raised, or betweeu which years the entry stands — 1623 and 1G26. Sir Clement Cottrell's book about Spenser. Captain Power, to know if he has heard from Capt. Spenser about my letter of inquiries relating to Edward Spenser. Of Whiston, to examine if my remarks on Spenser are complete as to the press — Yes. Remember, when I see Mr. W. Thompson, to inquire whether he baa 510 Life and Habits of a Literary Antiquary — printed in any of liis works any other character of our old poets than those of Spenser and Shakspeare ;* and to get the liberty of a visit at Kentish Town, to see his Collection of Robert Greene's Works, in about four large volumes quarto. He commonly published a pamphlet every term, as his acquaintance Tom Nash informs us. Two or three other memorials may excite a smile at his peculiar habits of studj'-, and unceasing vigilance to draw from original sources of information. Dryden^s Dream, at Lord Exeter's, at Burleigh, while he was trans- lating Virgil, as Signior Verrio, then painting tliere, related it to the Yorkshire painter, of whom I had it, lies in the parchment book in quarto, designed for his life. At a subsequent period 01d3's inserts, " Now entered therein." Malone quotes this ver\^ memorandum, which he discovered in Oldi/s's Lan^haine, to show Dryden had some confidence in Oneirocritlcism, and supposed that future events were sometimes prognosticated by dreams. Malone adds, "Where either the toose prophetic leaf or the parchment hook now is, I know not." f Unquestionably we have incurred a great loss in Oldys's collections for Dryden' s Life, which are very extensive ; such a mass of literary history cannot have perished unless by acci- dent ; and I suspect that man}' of Oldys's manuscripts are in the possession of individuals who are not acquainted with his hand-writing, which may be easily verified. To search the old papers in one of my large deal boxes for Dryden's letter of thanks to my father, for some communication relathig to Plu- tarch, while they and others were publishing a translation of Plutarch's Lives, in five volumes 8vo. 1683. It is copied in the yellow book for Dryden's Life, in wliich there are about 150 transcriptions, in prose and verse, relating to the life, character, and writings of Dryden. — Is Eng- land's Remembrancer extracted out of my ohit. (obituary) into my remarks on him in the pocf/caZ bag ? Mj exlrsicts in the parchment budget about Denham's seat and family in Surrey. My ivhite vellum pocket-book, bordered with gold, for the extract from " Groans of Great Britain" about Butler. See my account of the great yews in Tankersley's park, while Sir R. Faushaw was prisoner in the lodge there ; especially Talbot's yew, which a man on horseback might turn about in, in my botanical budget. * William Thompson, the poet of " Sickness," and otherpoems ; awarm lover of our elder bards, and no vulgar imitator of Spenser. He was the revivor of Bishop Hall's Satires, in 1753, by an edition which had been more fortunate if conducted by his friend Oldys, for the text is unfaithful, though the edition followed was one borrowed from Lord Oxford's library, probably by the aid of Oldys. + Malone's Life of Dryden, p. 420. Ohhjs and his Manusaipls. 511 This Donald Liipton I have mentioiicrl in iny catalogue of all the books and pamphlets relative to London in folio, begun anno 1740, and in •which I have now, 1740, entered between 300 and 400 articles, besides remarks, &c. Now, in June, 1748, between 400 and 500 articles. Now, in October, 1750, six hundred and thirty-six.* There remains to be told an anecdote whicli shows that Pope greatl}'- regarded our hterarj antiquary. " Oldys," says my fi-iend, "was one of the hbrarians of the Earl of Oxford, and he used to tell a story of the o-edit which he ob- tained as a scholar, by setting Pope right in a Latin quota- tion v/hich he made at the earl's table. He did not, how- ever, as I remember, boast of having been admitted as a guest at the table, but as happening to be in the room." AVhy might not Oldys, however, have been seated, at least below the salt ? It would do no honour to cither pai-ty to suppose that Oldys stood among the menials. The truth is, there appears to have existed a confidential intercourse between Pope and Oldys ; of this I shall give a remarkable proof. In those fragments of Oldys, preserved as " addi- tional anecdotes of Shakspeare," in Steevens's and Ma- lone's editions, Oldys mentions a story of Davenant, which, he adds, " Mr. Pope told me at the Earl of Oxford's table !" And further relates a conversation which passed between them. Nor is this all ; for in Oldys's Langbaine he put down this memorandum in the article of Shalcspeare — " Remember what I observed to my Lord Oxford for Mr. Pope's use out of Cowley's preface." Malono appears to have discovered this observation of Cowley's, which is curious enough, and very ungrateful to that commentator's ideas : it is " to prune and lop away the old withered branches" in the new editions of Shakspeare and other ancient poets ! " Pope adopted," says Malone, * This is one of Oldys's Mamiscripts ; a thick folio of titles, which has been made to do its duty, with small thanks from those who did not care to praise the service which they derived from it. It passed from Dr. Berkenhout to Geoi-ge Steevens, who lent it to (lough. It was sold for five guineas. The useful work of ten years of attention given to it ! The antiquary Gough alludes to it with his usual discernment. " Among these titles of books and pamphlets about homlow &vq ma,n-y jmrely historical, and many of too low a hind to rank under the head of topography and history." Thus the design of Oldys, in forming this elaborate collection, is condemned by trying it by the limited olijeet of the to])ographer's view. This catalogue remains a desideratum, were it printed entire as collected by Oldys, not merely for the topography of the metropolis, but for its re- lation to its manners, domestic annals, events, and i)ersons connected with its history. 512 Life and Habits of a Literary Antiquary — " this very unwarrantable idea ; Old^^s was the person who suggested to Pope the singular course he pursued in his edition of Shakspeare." Without touching on the felicit}^ or the danger of this new system of republishing Shakspeare, one may say that if many passages were struck out, Shak- speare would not be injured, for many of them were never composed by that great bard ! There not only existed a literary intimacy between Oldys and Pope, but our poet adopting his suggestions on so important an occasion, evinces jow higlily he esteemed his judgment ; and unquestionably Pope had often been delighted bj' Oldys with the history of his predecessors, and the curiosities of English poetry. I have now introduced the reader to Oldys sitting amidst his " poetical bags," his " parchment biographical budgets," his " catalogues," and his " diaries," often venting a solitary groan, or active in some fnjsh inquiry. Such is the Sil- houette of this prodigy of literary curiosity ! The very existence of Oldys's manuscripts continues to be of an ambiguous nature ; referred to, quoted, and transcribed, we can but seldom turn to the originals. These masses of curious knowledge, dispersed or lost, have enriched an after- race, who have often picked up the spoil and claimed the victory, but it was Oldys who had fought the battle ! Oldys affords one more example how life is often closed amidst discoveries and acquisitions. The literary antiquary, when he has attempted to embody his multiplied inquiries, and to finish his scattered designs, has found that the laboe ABSQUE LABORE, " the labour void of labour," as the inscrip- tion on the library of Florence finely describes the researches of literature, has dissolved his days in the voluptuousness of his curiosity ; and that too often, like the hunter iu the heat of the chase, while he disdained the pre}^ which lay before him, he was still stretching onwards to catch the fugitive ! Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia capiat. At the close of every century, in this growing world of books, may an Oldys be the reader for the nation ! Should he be endowed with a philosophical spirit, and combine the genius of his own times with that of the preceding, he will hold in his hand the chain of human thoughts, and, like another Bajle, become the historian of the human mind ' INDEX. Ar.r:i.AR0, r.inks ;imong the heretics, i. liO; book condemned as his written by another, ib. ; absolution granted to, 146 ; wrote and sung linely, 147; raises the school of the Paraclete, ib. Abuam-men, ii. 312, and note, ib. AiJKiDGERS, objections to, and re- commendations of, i. 39 7 ; P'.aylc's advice to, 398; now slightly re- garded, 399 ; instructions to, quoted from the Book of Maccabees, ib. Absence of mind, anecdotes of, i. 206. Absolute monarchy, search for pre- cedents to maintaiii, iii. 510, note. Abstraction of mind, instances of, amongst great men, ii. 59 — GO ; sonnet on, by Metastasio, 61. Ac.\DEMY, the French, some account of. i. 413—117 ; visit of Christina Queen of Sweden to, 414 ; of Lite- rature, designed in the reign of Queen Anne, ii. 407; abortive attempts to establish various, ib. ; disadvantages of, ib. ; arguments of tlie advocates for, ib.; should be designed by individuals, 408; French origin of, 408 — 110 ; origin of the Royal Society, 410—412 ; ridiculous titles of Italian, 479 ; some account of the Arcadian, and its service to literature, 482 ; deri- vation of its title, ib. ; of the Co- lombaria, 483 ; indications of, in England, 484 ; early rise of among the Italians, 485; establishment of the " Academy," 486 ; suppressed, and its members persecuted, ib.; of the " Oziosi," 488 ; suppression of many, at Florence and Sienna, ib.; considerations of the reason of the Italian fantastical titles of, &c., 489. Acajou and Zirphile, a whimsical laiiy tale, ii. 308—311. Accademia of Bologna originated witli Lodovico Caracci, ii. 399. VOI,. TTT. Accident, instances of trie pur- suits of great men directed bv, i. 85. Acepiialt, iii. 190, and note, ib. Aches, formerly a dissyllable c exam- ples from Swift, Hudibras, and Shakespeare ; John Kemble's use of the word, i. SI, note. Acrostics, i. 295 — 296. Actors, tragic, i. 248 ; who have died martyrs to their triigic cha- racters, 249 ; should be nursed in the laps of queens, 250 ; anec- dotes of, 250 — 251. Addison, silent among strangei's, i. 104. Adriani, his continuation of Guic- ciardiniV History, iii. ISO. Advice, good, of a literary sinner, i. 350. Agates, presenting representations of natural forms, i. 241. Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons,;. 21, and note. Agreda, Maria, wrote the Life of the A'irgin iMary, i. 307. Alberico, vision of, ii. 422. Albeutl's Magnus, his opinion cou- cerning books of magic, iii. 281 ; his brazen man, 282 ; his enter- tainment of the Earl of Holland, 290. Alchyjiists, results of their opera- tions, iii. 284 ; their cautious secrcsy, 2S5 ; discoveries by, ib. Alchymy, anecdotes of professors of, i. 283—284; Henry YI. endea- voured to recruit lii a model of a literary character. 305. Beam in the eye of the Pharisee, literally represented in eai-ly art, i. 307, and note. Beards, various fashions in, i. 220 Beaussol, M. Peyraud de, his preface to his condemned tragedy, ii. 304 — 307. Ben Jonson, masques by, iii. 12 ; assisted Kawleigh in his history of the world, 131, and note. Benevolences, iii. 218, 219. Bentley, notice of his criticisms on Milton, i. 370 — 373. Bethlehem Hospital, its original foundation, ii. 311, and note. Betterton, anecdote of, i. 250. Beza, Theodore, an imitator of Calvin in abuse, i. 310 ; effect of his work against toleration, iii. 245. Bible, the prohibition of, ii. 19 ; va- rious versions of, 20 — 23 ; a, family one, 22 ; the Olivetan, iii. 155; cor- rupt state of tlie English, formerly, 427 ; printing of, an article of open trade, 428 ; shameful practices in the printing of, 428 — 431, and note ; privilege of printing granted to one Bentley, 430 ; Field's Pearl Bible contained 6000 faults, 431 ; divi- sion of, into chapter and verse, 432. Bibliomane, iii. 343. Bibliomania, i. 9. Bibliognoste, iii. 343. BlBLIOGRAPHE,iii. 343. Bibliography, remarks on its impor- tance, iii. 341. Bibliophile, iii. 343. Bibliotaphe, iii. 343. Biographical parallels, iii. 425 ; a book of, proposed by Hurd, ib. ; be- tween Budasus and Erasmus, 426 ; instances of several, 427. Biography, painted, a, iii. 137 — 141 ; remarks on, 414; sentimental, dis- tinguished from chronological, ib. ; of Dante, by Boccacio and Aretiuo, 415 — 419; domestic, 420 — 423; customary among the Romans, 424; comparative, a series of, projected by Elizabeth Hamilton, ib. Birch, Dr., his great services to his- tory, iii. 383. Birkenhead, Sir John, a newspaper writer and pami)hleteer during tha great rebellion, i. l.jf. Bl.vck Cloak.s, a political nickname for a party in Naples, iii. .82. L L 2 516 Index. Blenheim, secret history of the build- ing of, iii. 102 — 111; drawn from liiSS., 103, note. BoNAVENTURE DE Perriers, Speci- men of his stories, i. 128. Book of Sports, effect of, ii. 148. Books, collections of, see Libraries; collectors of, see Collectors ; re- views of, and criticisms on, see Li- terary Journals and Sketches OF Criticism ; destruction of see Title ; lost, i. 47 — 57 ; prices of, in early times, 76 ; treatise on the art of reading printed, 78; curious ad- vertisements of, 157 ; titles of, 288; various opinions as to the size of, 347 ; difficulties encountered in pub- lishing many books of merit, 375 ; works of another description better remunerated, 377 ; leaves of, origin of their name, ii. 23, note; table- books, 26; derivation of the name " book," 28 ; description of the form and condition of ancient, ib. ; cen- sors and licensers of, 216; catalogue of, condemned at the Council of Trent, ib. ; inquisitors of, ib. ; see Index ; burning of, anecdote of its good elfect in promoting their sale, 219; mutilations caused by the censors in Camden's works. Lord Herbert's History of Henry VIII., and the Poems of Lord Brooke, 220 ; anecdotes of purloiners of, iii. olG — 319 ; predilection of cele- brated men to particular, iii. 340 — 343 ; calculations as to their pre- sent number, 342 ; different terms for amateurs of, 343 ; which have been designed but not completed, 493, 494. Booksellers, two ruined by one au- thor, ii. 533. Borrowers, destructive to collections of books, i. 12. Botanic Garden, Darwin's remarks on, i. 341. BOURDALOUE, i. 257. Bourgeois, Pere, one of the Chinese missionaries, accouut of his attempt at preaching in Cliinese, i. 268. Bouts Rimes,!. 296. Brandt, Ship of Fools, i. 7. Lridgewater, late Duke of, destroy- ed many family MSS., ii. 451. Buckingham, Duke of, his fami- liarity and coarseness with James I.,i. 4G3,notL'; Iiis conduct in Spain, ii. 4 ; equally a favourite with James I. and Charles T., 5 ; Hume's character of, ib. and 355 ; anec- dote of him and the Queen of France, 6 ; his audacity and " En- glish familiarity," ib. ; anecdote of him and Prince Charles, 7 ; his rise, 10 ; his magnificent entertain- ment of Charles I. and the French ambassador, 327 ; his character, 356 — 358, and notes; his fears of being supplanted, 357, note; con- trast between him and Richelieu, 35S ; secret history of his expedition to Spain with Prince Charles, 359; prognostics of his death, 364 ; por- trait of, 3G6, note ; determined to succour Rochelle, 367; his death, 371 ; satires on, 369, 370 ; possess- ed the esteem of Charles I., ib.; his extravagance in dress, iii. 407 ; in- trigued with the Puritans, 443; his intercourse with Dr. Preston, a Puritan, 444 ; discovers Preston's insincerity, and abandons the Pu- ritans, 445 ; his impeachment, 452; his failure at the Isle of Rlie, 458 ; offers to resign his offices, 469; hatred of, by the parliament, 470 — 474. BuFFON, Vicq d'Azyr's description of his study, iii. 208. Buildings in the metropolis, opposi- tion to, from the days of Elizabeth to those of Charles II., iii. 363 ; statutes against, 364; proclama- tions against, 365. Burnet, his book against Varillas, i. 132, and note. Burying grounds, iii. 231. Butler, the author of " Hudibras," vindicated, ii. 491 — 495. Cadiz, expedition to, in the time of Charles I., ii. 366 ; satirical lines on, 367. CAL.4.My, his "History of the Ejected Ministers," iii. 240. Calumny, political advantages of.iii. 81. Calvin, less tolerant than Luther in controversy,!. 309. Camus, his"Medecine de I'Esprit," ii. 469. Caracci, family of the, ii. 399 ; Lo- dovico, character of, ib. ; the school of the, 401, note; Agostino and Annibale, tlieir opposite characters, 402 ; tlie three opened a school in their own house, 403; Agostino's emineufe there, ib. ; his sonnet, comprising the laws of painting, Index. 517 404 ; Domenichino, Albauo, tiuido, Guercino, their pupils, 405; dis- putes between Annibale and Agos- tino, ib. ; their separation, 40G. Caudinal Kichelieu, anecdotes of, and considerations on his character, i. 139 — 142. Carleton, Sir Dudley, Vice-Cham- berlain of Charles I., his speech to the Commons on the imprisonment of two of their members for their impeachment of Buckingham, iii. 455. Cartoons of Raphael, now at Hamp- ton Court, offered for sale, and bought by Cromwell, ii. 333 ; nearly sold to France by Charles II., ib., note ; the gallery for their reception built by AViUiam III., ib. Catherine de' 3Iedici, her belief in astrology, iii. 347 ; employs Mont- luc to intrigue to secure the election of the Duke of Anjou to the crown of Poland, 349. Catharinot, a voluminous writer, ii. .545 ; his singular mode of pub- lishing his unsaleable works, 546. Cause and Pretext, distinction be- tween, to be observed by historians, iii. 141 ; anecdotal illustrations, 142—144. Caxton, the printer, his earliest works, i. 75, note. Cayet, Dr., his " Chronologic Nove- n-aire," ii. 7. Censers used to sweeten houses in the reign of Elizabeth, ii. 3S, note. Censors of books, designed to coun- teract the press, ii. 216 ; originated with the Inquisition, ib.; appointed with the title of Inquisitors of Books, ib. ; disagreement among these Inquisitors, 217; in Spain, 218; their treatment of commen- tators on the " Lusiad," ib. ; in- stances of the injury done to En- gli.* literature by the appointment of, 220; never recognised by English law, 221; regularly established under Charles I., 223; office of, maintained by the Puritans, ib. ; treatment of Milton by, ib. ; the office lay dormant under Cromwell, 224 .; revived and continued under Charles II. and James II., ib.; anecdotes relative to, 226 — 228. Cj;ntos, i. 299. Cerk.'.ionies, different, among various nations, ii. 12 — 15. Cervantes, remark of. i. S94; taken prisoner at the battle of I.epanto, ib. Chamillart, Minister of France, liis rise, ii, 11. Charades, i. 297. Charles Martel, his combat witli, and defeat of, the Jlahomctnns, ii. 430. Charles the Bald of France, liis remarkable vision, ii. 423. Charles the First, account of his ex- pedition into Spain, ii. 1 — t; anec- dote of him and lUickingham, G ; history of his diamond seal, 326 ; his love of the fine arts, 327 : the magnificence and taste of his court entertainments, 32 S ; anecdote of, 329; catalogue of his effects, 331 — 334; an artist and a poet, 334, 335, and note ; influence of his wife on, doubted, 336 ; his dismissal of his wife's French establishment, 345 ; reply to the French ambas- sador's remonstrances, 347 ; his conduct on the death of Bucking- ham, 371 ; secret history of him and his first Parliaments, iii. 44 8 ; the latter a sullen bride, ib. ; his ad- dress to his first Parliament, and their ungracious conduct, 449 ; they abandoned the king, 450 ; raises money on Privy Seals, ib. ; on the failure of the expedition to Cadiz he called his second Parliament, 451 ; communications between him and his Parliament, ib. ; his ad- dress to them, noticing the impeach- ment of Buckingham, 452 ; his con- duct on that occasion the beginuing of his troubles, 453 ; on the Com- mons' further remonstrance against Buckingham, he dissolves his se- cond Parliament, 457 ; his distress for money, ib. ; his fresh distresses on the failure of the expedition to the Isle of Rhe, and his expedients to raise money, 458, 459 ; their ill success, 460, 461 ; reflections on his situation, 4fi3 ; rejects the proffered advice of the President of the Rosy- Cross, 464; anonymous letter sent to the Commons, and by tliem for- warded to the king without perus- ing, 465; secret measures used by the opposition, 4GG ; speech of the king to Parliament, 467 ; his emo- tion on being informed that the Parliament liad granted subsidies 518 Index. 468; debates on the king's mes- sage, 4C9 , Eliot's speech thereon, •iTO, Coke's memorable speech, 473 ; the king grants his assent to the Petition of Eight, 475 ; popular rejoicings, 47C; presentation oftlie Eemonstrance, ib. ; the king's con- duct after the assassination of Buckingham, 477 ; voav of the Par- liament to maintain the Articles of Eeligion of the 13th Eliz., 47S ; tu- mult in the House, and dissolution of the Parliament, 480. CifAELF.s the Fifth, his edicts against the Reformed religion, iii. 242 ; his conduct influenced by political, not religious motives, 243. Chakles the Ninth, account of the deatli of, ii. 7 — 9 ; his apology for tlie massacre of St. Bartholomew, iii. 255 — 239 ; his character, 260. Cherries, introduction of, into Great Britain, ii. 156 ; loss and rein- troduction of, in the reign of Henry VIII., ib. Chess, clergymen prohibited from playing, ii. 32 ; Kempelen's Me- chanical Chess-player, iii. 284, note. Chinese language, i. 267; difficulties of, experienced by P. Bourgeois, 268. Chocolate, brought from 3rexico by the Spaniards, ii. 325; treatise against the use of, ib. ; chocolate- houses in Loudon, ib. Christmas Prince at tlie Universities, ii. 268; account of one at Oxford, 1607. ib.,note. Christodins, iii. 81. XlHRONOGRAiMS, i. 295. CnuKCHiLt, abhorred the correction ofhisMSS., ii. 85. Cicero a punster, i. 69 ; a manufac- turer of ijrefaces, 71 ; a collector, ii. 396 ; his projected library, ib. ; employs Atticus to procure books and statues, 397 ; discovered <,he tomb of Archimedes, iii. 409. Cities, Free, shook off the yoke of feudal tyranny, i. 1S4. Clairon, Mademoiselle, anecdote of, i. 251. Clarendon House, history of its erection, iii. ISO — 191 ; popularly called Dunkirk House, or Tangier Hall, 189; satire on the building of, 190 ; existing remains of, 191, note. Classical learning, ii. .332. Clovis, his reasons for adopting Christianity, ii. 433, 434, and note. Coaches, introduction of, into Eng- land, ii. 36 ; use of, in France, ib. Cocker AM, H., his English Dictionary and its new words, iii. 24. CocK-riGHTiNG in Ceylon, i. 188, CoFrEE, introduction of, into Europe, ii. 320 ; made fashionable at Paris by the Turkish ambassador, 321 ; invectives and poetical satires against, 322 — 324; advantages of its use, 325. Coffee-houses, the first opened at Paris, ii. 321 ; improvements in, ib. ; the first in England, 322 ; shut up by proclamation, ib. ; and iii. 379, note. Coke, or Cook, Sir Edward, his most pleasing book, his Manual, or Vade Mecum, ii. 519 ; his MSS. seized on his death, ib. ; yet to be recovered, ib., note ; his character, 520 ; his matrimonial alliances, ib. ; his dis- grace, 521; disputes between him and his wife. Lady Hatton, con- cerning the marriage of his daugh- ter, 523; curious letter of advice to Lady Hatton, for her defence be- fore the Council, 524 ; his daughter married to Lord Villiers, and Coke reinstated, 529; his daughter'sbad conduct, ib. ; his death, 530; his vituperative style, ib. ; his conduct to Rawleigh, 5.31 ; his abjectness in disgrace, 532 ; pricked as sheriff, to exclude him from Parliament, iii. 446; eludes the appointment by excepting to the oath, 448. Coke, Mr. Clement, a violent opposi- tion leader in the second Parlia- ment of Charles I., iii. 498, 499. Coleridge, method pursued by liim in his remarkable political predic- tions, iii. 268. Collections' of books, see Libra- ries ; of engravings, see Engrav- ings. Collector of books, i. 1 — 8 ; defence of himself, as one of the body, by Ancillon, 10 ; Aristotle first saluted as a, 53. Collectors, their propensity to plunder, iii. 316 — 319. Collins, Anthony, a great lover of books, iii. 16; a free-thinker, ib. ; the friend of Locke, 1 8 ; fate of his MSS., le— 23. 1 1 alt X. >i9 CoMEPTES, extemporal, ii. 1"0; opi- nion of northern critics on, 1"1 ; the amusement of Italy, ib. ; prac- tised by the itomans, ib. ; Salvator Rosa's prologue to one, 133 ; opi- nions and descriptions of, by Kicco- boni and Gherardi, 134, 135 ; anec- dote of the excellence of, 137 ; when lirsf introduced in England, 138. CoMFrrs universally used under Henry III. of france, i. 221. Comixes, notice of, i. 2G3. Co.MPosiTiox, various modes of lite- rary, ii. 85 ; correction in, neces- sary, ib. ; but by some authors im- possible, ib. ; illustrative anecdotes, 86; use of models in, SS; various modes of, used by celebrated au- thors, 90 — 92 ; passion for, exhi- bited by some authors, 533 — 54G. CoxDE, great Prince of, expert in phy.--iognomy, i. liJO. CoxFREUES de la Passion, 1. 353. Confusion of words by writers, iii. G5 ; by the Nominalists and Eeal- ists, GC ; in modern philosophy, ib. ; between the Antinomians and their opposers, and the .Jansenists and Jesuits, GS; between Abelard and St. Bernard, ib ; other instances, C9 ; in jurisprudence and politics, 70; historical instances, 71 — 73; arising from a change of meaning in the course of time, 71 ; serious consequences of, 77 ; among poli- tical economists, 78 ; illustrative anecdote of Caramuel, a Spanish bishop, 79. CoNSTAXTixE, motives of his acknow- ledgment of Christianity, ii. 433. Controversial writings, acrimony infused into by scholars, i. 153, and SI 7. CoxTROVERSy, literary, that of tlie Nominalists and IJcalists, i. 312; between Benedetto Aletino and Constantino Grimakli, 314; abuse lavished on each other by learned men in, 308 — 320 ; challenges sent on occasion of, 317. Cookery and cooks of the ancients, ii. 245 ; Epic competed in praise of, 24ti ; Illustrative translations from Athena2U.*,247 — 252 ; the dexterity of tiie cooks, 263 ; writers on, 254; anecdotes, 255. Corneille, Peter, died in poverty, i. 32 ; deficient in conversation, 104 : sketch of his life, 428—432. Corneille, Thomas, impromptu writ- ten under his portrait, i. 432. CoRNELirs AcRiri'A, accused of magic, i. 27; his dog .supposed, to be a demon, 28 ; liis belief in de- mons, iii. 282. Cqknuert, Theodore, a great advo- cate for toleration, iii. 253, and note. Corpus Ciiristi plays at Chester, i. 353; at Kendal, iii. 442, and note. Cos.METics, ufc of, by the ladies of the Elizabethan age, i. 227. Cotton, Sir Bobert, his manuscript collections, iii. 31G; his character of diaries I., 45G, 457. Country gentlemen, their former habits commended, ii. 214; Lord Clarendon's mention of his grand- father's conduct as one of the body, ib. ; their conduct created a national character, ib. Country residence, opinion of Justice Best upon, iii. 363 ; James I. re- commendation of, 3G4; proclama- tions to compel a, ib. ; and pro- ceedings in the Star Chamber against the disobedient, 3G5 — 3G8 ; Ode ujjon, by Sir Kichard Faii- shaw, 3G9. Court of Wards and Liveries, ii. 158, note. Cranjier, Jansenist character of, i. 3 73. Creation of the "World, precise dato of, i. 303. Crebillon, his creditors attached tlie proceeds of his tragedy of Cati- line, i. 405 ; decree of Louis XV. thereupon, 40 G. Critics may possess the art of judg- ing without the power of execution, i. 407 ; Abbe d'Aubignac and Cha- pelaine quoted as instances, ib. Criticism, Periodical, see Literauv Journals, i. 12 — 17; sketches of amongst the ancients, 24 — 27; effect of, upon authors, 409. Cromwell, his preat political error, ii. 435; prediction of his future eminence, iii. 2r;9; reasons for hid delay ia naming a successor, Si'S, 329. Cruikshank, George, curious error concerning, i. 321, note. Cvre, the Abbe, an envoy of the Em- peror's in Poland, iii. 350; seized and imprisoned, 3G0. D'Aguesseau, the Chancellor, his 520 Index. adT;oetoliis ion on tlie study of history, iii. 179. Dance of Death, iii. 211—215. Dante, origin of liis Inferno, dis- putes ou, ii. 421 ; the entire work Gotliic, ib.; Vision of Alberico supposed to be borrowed, 422 ; and probably read by Dante, ib. ; his orisinahty vindicated, 423 ; the true origin of tlie Inferno, 427, and note. D.VY-FATAUTT, i. 279; Uicky and unlucky days, ib., note. De.vth, anecdotes relating to the death of many distinguished per- sons, i. 417 — 121 ; book containing the accounts of the deaths of re- nuirkable persons, compiled by Montaigne, iii. 200; reflections on death, ib. ; anecdotes of the death of some celebrated persons, 201, 202 ; effect of tlie continual con- sideration of, 203 ; Lady Gethin's ideas on, 204 ; conversations of Johnson and Boswell on, ib. ; sin- gular preparations for, by jMoncriff, 20.5; opinions of the ancients on, 207 ; personifications of, among the ancients, 208, and note; Gothic re- presentations of, 209. Dedications, curious anecdotes con- cerning, i. 337 — 341 ; price for the dedication of a play, 338; one to liimself, composed by a patron, ib. ; practice of Elkanah Settle with re- gard to, 339 ; of the Polyglot Bible to Cromwell, ib. ; altered at the Eestoration, ib. ; to Cardinal Eicheliou, 340 ; Dryden's, ib. ; in- genious one by Sir Simon Degge, .341. De Foe, his honour questioned as to the publication of l;obinson Crusoe, ii. 274 ; probably struck by Steele's observations on Selkirk's narration, 27G; wrote Kobinson Crusoe in comparative solitude, ib. ; vindica- tion of his character, ib. De i.a Ciiahibke, secret correspon- dence of, with Louis XIV. on phy- siognomy, 1. 14S. Delinquents, a convenient revolu- tionary phrase, iii. ,?G. Descartes, persecuted for liis opi- nions, i. 29; silent in mixed com- pany, 104 ; his description of his life in Amsterdam, 113. Descriptions, local, when prolonged tedious, iii. 1 ; Eoileau's criticisms ou, 1, 2; inefficiency of, instanced by a passage from Pliny, 2 ; ex- ample of elegant, in a sonnet by Francesea de Castello, 3. DESCRirTivE Poems, general remarks on, i. 341 ; race of, confined to one object, ib. ; titles of, and notices on several of these, 342, 343. Des Maizeal'X, a French refugee, iii. 13 ; his Life of Bayle, 14 ; notices of his literary life, 1-5 — IS; Anthony Collins bequeaths his BISS. to, 19 ; relinquishes them to CoUins's widow, 20 ; correspondence con- cerning, 19 — 22. Desmauets, his comedy of the " Visionnaires," ii. 48. De Serres, introduced the cultiva- tion of the mulberry tree and silk- worm into France, ii. 1-52 ; opposi- tion to his schemes, ib. ; supported by Henry IV., ib. ; medal struck in honour of his memory, 153. Destruction of books and MSB. by the monks, i. IS, 50 ; accoimt of, at Constantinople, by the Christians, suppressed, 47 ; btu-ning of Tal- muds, 48 ; of Irish and Mexican, ib. ; anecdotes regarding, 49 ; of Korans, ib. ; of the classics, 50 ; of Bohemian, ib. ; in England under Henry VIII., 51 ; at Stationers' Hall in 1599, 53 ; of many of Lady Mary AVortley Montague's letters, 54 ; of Anglo-Saxon MSS., 55 ; anecdotes concerning the, ib., note ; by fire and shipwreck, 56, 57. D'EwES, Sir Symonds, a sober anti- quary, but a visionary, iii. 433 ; extracts from his Diary, 434, 435. Di.vKY, of a Master of the Ceremo- nies, ii. 194 — 206 ; Shaftesbury's definition of a, ib. ; Colonel Har- wood's, 206 ; kept by Titus, ib. ; Alfred's, 207 ; Prince Henry's, ib. ; Edward VI. 's, ib. ; kept by James II., 208 ; usually l:ept by heads of families, 209 ; kept by Swift and Horace Walpole, ib. ; recommended by Sir Thomas Bodley to Sir Francis Bacon, ib. ; Coke's, ib. ; Camden's, 210; of Sir Symonds D'Ewes, ib. ; Baxter's, 211; the thoughtful disposition giving rise to the keeping of a diary, partaken even by women, ib. ; Whitclocke's, 212; Laud's, 213: Lord Claren- don's, 214; practice of keeping one recommended, 215. Index. P21 PlASIES, Keligion.-', iii. 435. DrcTiONARY of Trevoux, account of its origin and progress, iii. 229 ; of Basnage, 230 ; of Dr. .rohnson, 233. DiGCKS, Sir Dudley, a violent oppo- sition leader in Charles I.'s second parliament, iii. 451 ; opened tlic impeachment of Buckingliam, 452 ; committed to the tower, 454- DiL.\riDATiONSof3ISS. — See3rANU- SCRIPTS. Dinner hour, variations of, in different times, ii. 34,35. Dinner parties, Roman limitation of the number of guests at, ii. 24C. Discoveries in literature and science, aptitude in, obtained hy studious men, iii. 408 ; illustrative anec- dotes, 409—413. Divinity, scholastic, i. 60, CI; curi- ous accounts and specimens of, 6-)— 65. Dodd's Church History of England, iii. 239. Dragons, origin of the old stories of, ii. 311. Drama, anecdotes of the early, ii. 40 — 43 ; Mexican, ib. ; account of a curious drama, entitled Techno- tamia, or the Marriage of the Arts, 43 — 46 ; account of one written by a madman, 48. Drajviatic works made the vehicle of political feeling, ii. 277 ; by the Catholics at the Reformation, ib. ; such conduct caused a proclama- tion by Edward VI. against Eng- lish interludes, &c., ib. ; those on the side of the Reformation allowed, and specimens of one, 279 — 281; proceedings against in the Star Chamber, ib. Dramatic Annals. — See Dramatic "Works. Suppression of the drama during the civil wars of Charles I., ii. 281 ; opposite conduct of actors at that time, and at the period of the French revolution, 282 ; writers against the stage, 283 ; custom of boys personating females, 284 ; in- troduction of actresses, 285 ; His- triomastix, ib. ; all theatres sup- pressed in 1C42, ib. ; ordinance against theatres, 286 ; plays enacted secretly during their suppression, ib. ; Cox's " drolleries," 287 ; peti- tions against tlie drama, 289 ; the player's petition in favour of, ib. ; secretly acted at Holland House, 291 ; the suppression of the drama caused the publication ol ir.any ]\IS. plays, ib. Dress, costliness of, in the rei{'.\i!D, a celebrated painter, curi- ous anecdote conccrniiig, i.-'OS, '-' j9. MiLTOx, Ids controversy witli Sal- masius and IMorus conducted witli mutual revilings, i. 152, 153 ; ab- surdly criticised by Bentley, 370 — 373 ; indebted to Andreini for the ^ first idea of Paradise Lost, ii. 141 ; his works suffered at the hands of both Royalist and Republican li- censers, 223 ; his Areopagitica, 225 ; a passage in his History of England suppressed, but preserved in a pamphlet, 448 ; his Comus escaped the destruction of the Bridgewater papers, 451 ; the story of him and the Italian lady, jiro- bably an invention of George Steevens, iii. 299 ; copied from a French story purporting to be of the 15th century, 300. JTiLLiNERS' bills, ancient and mo- dern, ii. 39. Mimes, Arch-mime followed the body of Vespasian at his funeral, iii. 120. MiMi, an impudent race of buffoons, ii. 120; harlequin, a Roman mime, 121, and note. Ministers, origin of the term as applied to the pastors of Christian churches, i. 128 ; palaces built by, notices of several, iii. 18G — 192; Sir Robert Walpole's remarks on the imprudence of their erecting such, 193; yet builds one himself, ib. Minstrels, ancient and modern, pickpockets, ii. 14fi, note. MisiiNA, see Talmud. Missals, gross adornments of, i. 3G6. Modern stories and plots, many de- rived from the East, i. Ill, 112. jttODESofsalutation in various nations, ii. 12. Monk, General, anecdote of him and his wife, i. 468; his conduct to- wards Charles II. at his landing, iii. 389. Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, suppression of her MSS., ii. 450. Montfleury, a Frencli actor, death of, i. 248. Montluc, Bishop of Valence, his negotiations for the election of the Duke of Anjou as King of Poland, iii. 349 — 362. MoR.^LiTiES, see Mysteries and Moralities Morality of " Every Man," referrcl by Percy to the ehiss of tragedy, ii. 278. More, Doctor, his extravagant Pla- tonic opinions, i. 216. MORL'S, controversy of Salmasius M'itli Milton, continued by, with mutual abuse, i. 153. Music, use of, in discovering indis- positions by the voice, i. 151 ; in- lluence of, in the cure of disea.=es, 269 — 271; effect of, on animals, 272—274. Mutilations commonly practised in the middle ages, ii. 311. IMysteries, Ancient, bibliographical note of such as are printed, i. .152, note ; one still performed in Bava- ria, i. 3G0, note. Mysteries and Moralities introduced by pilgrims, i. 352 ; subsequently distinguished characters actors in, S53 ; performed in open plains, ib.; indulgence granted to frequenters of, ib. ; at Chester, ib. ; singular anecdotes concerning a mystery, 364 ; specimens from French mys- teries, 355 ; observations of Bayle and Wartonon, 357 ; distinguished from each other, ib. ; specimen of a morality, 358 ; moralities allego- rical dramas, ib. ; passion of Rene d' Anjou for, 360 ; triple stage used for representation of, 3G1; anec- dote relating to an English mys- tery, ib. ; morality of " Love and Folly," 362; at Kendal, York- shire, iii. 442 ; usually performed in the festival of Corpus Christi, ib., note. Names, anecdotes relating to, and to their eflect on mankind, ii. 65 — 75; orthography of proper, ii. 237 — 230 ; names of our streets, 239 —243. Names, signifwauce of Roman, ii. 75, note. Nardi, his history of Florence, iii. 181. Natural Productions resembling artificial compositions, i. 241 — 24G. Neal, his account of the Noncon- formists, iii. 240. Neediiam, Marchmont, the great patriarch of newspaper writers, i. 158; short account of, ib. Neology, or the novelty of new words and phrases, remarks on, 1 iii. 23 ; Neological Dictionary pro- Index. 531 posed by Lord Chesterfield, 2G ; not always to be condemned, '.'7 ; examples of tlie introduction of various new words in French and English, 2S — ;:2 ; the term •' fa- therland" introduced by the autlior, 31; picturesque words, 32. Nerli, Philip, liis " Commeniarj de FattiCiviU" iii. 182. Newcastle, Margaret, Duchess of, celebrated among literary -wives, i. o27 — 337 ; her account of her hus- band's mode of life, ii. 38, 39. Xewspapers, forged, and used un- suspectingly by historians, i. 156, note. Newspapers, originated in Italy, i. 1.3.5 ; called Gazettas, ib. ; first a Venetian, published monthly, ib. ; circulated in manuscript, ib. ; pro- hibited by Gregory XIII., ib. ; first English, lof; ; much used by the English during the Civil AVars of Cromwell, and notices of these, 157 — 159; origin of, in France, 160 ; first daily one after the Restoration, ib. ; only one daily, in the reign of Queen Anne, ib. ; union between them and literary j)eriodicals, opi- nions expressed on, ib. Newton, remarks on, iii. 413. NiccoLi, Nicholas, founded the first public library in Italy, i. 4. Nicknames, use of, practised by poli- tical parties, iii. SO ; instances of many, 81 — 89 ; serve to heat the minds of the people, 83 ; of various Tarliaments, 85 ; effect of, on mi- nisters, 89. Nobility, conduct of kings towards, ii. 11, 12. Noblemen turned critics, pair of anecdotes concerning, i. 131. Nominalists and Realists, i. 312. NosTiiODAMUs, consulted by Cathe- rine de' Medici, i. 279. Novels, the successors of romances, i. 450 ; Adam Smith's favoiu-able opinion of, ib. NuMERic.VL Figures, of Indian origin, i. 276 ; introduction of Arabic, 277 ; Roman, ib. ; origin of Roman, ib. ; falsification of Arabic, 278. Obscuritv, in style, taught by a pro- fessor, i. 401 ; Lycophron possessed this taste, 402 ; defence of, by Thomas Anglus, ib. ; Gravina's ob- servations on, ib. Oi«l) Age, progress of, in new studies, i. 98 ; remark of Adam Smith, on resumption of former studies in, ib. Oldys, a literary antiquary, iii. 493; caricature of, by Grose, 495 ; re- leased from the fleet by the Duke of Norfolk, and made Norroy King at Arms, ib., and note ; autlior of the anacreontic, " Busy, curious, thirsty fly," 496; placed in the library of the Earl of Oxford, 497 ; his integrity, ib., and note ; his literary labours, 497 — 499 ; his life of Rawleigh,499 ; history of liis two annotated copies of Langbaine, 502 ; fate of his M.SS., 503; his diaries, 501; liis readiness to aid others with his knowledge, 506 ; his Dis- sertation on English Poetry cur- tailed by the bookseller, 507 ; ex- tracts from his diaries, 508 — 511; his intended Life of Shakspcare, 509; anecdote of liim and Pope, 5 11. Olivetan Bible, iii. 155. Opinions, suppressed, modes of ex- pressing them in ancient and mo- dern times, iii. 150 ; in the Satur- nalia, ib. ; by carvings and illumi- nations, 152 ; preceding the Refor- mation, 153; instance of the Oli- vetan Bible, 155 ; by medals and prints, 156. Orchis, Bee and Fly, i. 245. Ordeals, i. 161 — 166. Ordinaries, the " Hells " of the 17tli century, ii. 165 ; description of the arts practised at, 165 — 167. Orobio, his description of his im- prisonment in the Inquisition, i. 167. Orthography of proper names, ii. 261 ; of the name of Shakespeare, ii. 238, note; of Sir Walter Raleigh, iii. 111. Os.M an, Sultan, promotes his gardener, ii. 10. Oxford, Edward Vere, Earl of, his secret history, ii. 243 — 245. Palaces built by ministers, iii. 186 — 192. Palingenesis. — See Regenera- TION. Palmer, tlie actor, his death, i. 2-10. Pa:.ipiilets, sketch of Mylcs Davis's history of, i. 343 ; origin and rise of, 344 ; one pretended to have been composed by Jesus Clirist, ib. ; Alexander Pope denounced as a plotter in a, 345 ; etymologies of the word, 345 — 347. M M 2 Index. Pantomijie, French verses in praise of, and translation of, ii. 116 ; Cer- vantes and Bayle's delight in, 116, 117; harlequin, 119 ; of the lower Italians in their gestures, ib. ; trea- tises on, 121 ; transmitted from the Romans, 123; improvement of, by Ruzzante, 124 ; the history of a people traced in, 135 ; description of the various characters in Italian, 126. Pantomimi, tragic actors usually nuite, ii. 120; Seneca's taste for, ib. ; their influence over the Roman people, 121. Pantomimical Characters. See Pantomime; Massinger and Mo- liere indebted to, ii. 138; remarks on Shakspeare's " Pantaloon," 139. Paper, among the ancients, ii. 27, 28 ; introduction into England, 29 ; various sorts of modern, ib. Paracelsus, his receipt for making a fairy, iii. 286, 287. Paradise Lost, prose and verse ver- sions of, i. 305. Parisian Massacre, apology for, iii. 253—260, 352. Park, Mungo, his book interpolated and altered by his editor, Bryan Kdwards, ii. 453. Parker, Bishop of Oxford, iii. 279, note. Parodies, anecdote relating to, ii. 453 ; resembles mimicry, 454 ; not made in derision, ib. ; practised by the ancients, 455 ; ancient, of Ho- mer, ib. ; modern, 456 : dramatic, anecdotes of modern, 458 — 4C0 ; legitimate use of, ib. Parpaillots, or Parpirolles, iii. 82. Particular Providence, various opi- nions on, ii. 428 — 431; the grant- ing a free-conduct to Luther, by Charles V., possibly one, 432. Pasquin and Marforio, account of, i. 208. Pasquinades, origin of, and instances of several, i. 208. Patrons, their treatment of authors, i. 82 ; anecdotes regarding, S3, 84 ; opinion of Dr. Johnson upon, 83. Paulus Jovius, description of the country-house and collections of statues, books, and portraits be- longing to, i. 45 ; description of the villa built by, iii. 397. PAZZi,Cavaliero, founder of the Acca- uemia Colombaria, ii. 483. Peg-tankaeds, ii. 296, and note. Peiresc, a man of incessant literary occupations, and an enthusiast in the importation of exotic plants, ii. 151 ; anecdotes of, iii. 409. Pembroke, Anne, Countess of, de- signed a history of her family, iii. 421. Perfumery and costly washes, in- troduced into England by the Earl of Oxford, i. 225. Petitions, to Parliament against the Drama, ii. 289 ; mock, ib. Petitioners and Abhorrers, iii. 87. Petrarch, formula used at his coro- nation with the Laurel Crown, i. 455 ; his passion for literary com.- position, ii. 592 ; his Laura, iii. 309. Pictorial Biography. — See M.vgius. PisiSTRATUS, the first projector amongst the Greeks of a collec- tion of the works of the learned, i. 2. Philip the First of Spain, i. 469 ; his marriage with Mary of Eng- land, ib. ; sought Queen Elizabeth in marriage, 470 ; offered himself to three different sisters-in-law, ib. ; his advice to his son, ib. ; his death-bed, ib. ; his epitaph, 471. Philosophy, dreams at the dawn of, iii. 280 — 290 ; mechanical fancies, 291, 292; inquiries after prodi- gies, 293 ; further anecdotes of, 294 — 296. Physiognomy, credited by Louis XIV. and James I., i. 148, 149. PxCART, his impostures innocentes, i. 259. Pictures belonging to Charles I.,ii. 332, 333. PiNAMONTi, his book on the eternal punishments, i. 204, note. PiNELLi, his great library, and its partial destruction, i. 57, and note. Plagiarism, in printed sermons, i. 400 ; a professor of, ib. Plants, presenting representations of natural forms, i. 245. Plantyn the printer, and his oflice at Antwerp, i. 77, note. Platina, his account of his persecu- tion and tortures, for having been a member of the " Academy" at Pome, ii. 486. Plato, Aristotle studied under, i. 143; parallel between him and Aristotle, ib. ; contest between hira Index. 533 and Aristotle, 344; the model of the moderns wlio profess to be anti- poetical, 4oO ; ii true poet himself, ib. Px-ATONiSM, modern, originated among the Italians, i. 213 ; system of, by Gemisthus Pletlio, ib. ; jiro- fessed by a Mr. Thomas Taylor, 215; by a scholar in tlie reign of Louis XII., 216 ; by Dr. More, ib. PiiETHO, or Gemisthus, a remarkable modern professor of Platonism, i. 213. Pi,.A.TTS or Plots, theatrical discovery of curious ones at Duhvicli College, and remarks upon, ii. 13S — 140; see ScENAEio. PiiOTT, Dr., his project of a tour, iii. 292. Plunder, etymology of, iii. S7, and note. Poets, Plato's description of the feel- ings of, in the Phredon, i. 433 ; opinions of various learned men on the works of, 433 ; remarks ontlie habits of, 434, 435; behaviour of Frederic King of Prussia (father of the Great Frederic) to, 436 ; dilTerent conduct of other kings towards, 43 7 ; honours paid to, in the early stage of poetry, ib. ; anecdote of Margaret of Scotland and Alain the poet, 43S ; opinions of tlie pious on the works of, ib. ; too frequently merely poets, 439 ; hints to young, 440 ; to veteran, ib. ; mistresses of, 441; change their oi)inions of their productions, ib. ; antiquity of the custom of crown- ing, 454 ; abolished in the reign of Theodosius, ib. ; regal, 467; con- demned, ii. 303 — 308 ; laureat, see Laureats. Poetical Gaueand, i. 247. Poetical imitations and similarities, ii. 92 — 113. Point-device, etymology of, iii. ISS, and note. Poland, liistory of the election of the Duke of Anjou as King of, iii. 340—363. PoLiCHiNELLO. — See Punch. PoLiTiAN, Angelo, a polished Italian writer of tlie 15tli century, i. 457 ; his dedicatory epistle, prefixed to his epistles, 4 58. Political Nicknames, iii. SO — 90. Political Keijorts, false maxim on the efficacy of, ii. 43S ; ancient in- stances, ib. ; of the battle of Lut- zen, 439 ; on the battle of the I'oyno, ib. ; other anecdotes, mo- dern and ancient, of the effect of, 440—443. Political Religionism, illustrations of its eftects, iii. 238—244. Political Prognostics. — See Pre- dictions. Dugdalo hastened his labours in anticipation of tlie dis- orders of the Kebellion, iii. 261. Political Parallels, iii. 2C7. PoLYDORE Vergil, a destroyer of MSS., ii.-415. PoMPONius L/etus, in the 15th cen- tury raised altars to Komulus, ii. 485; chief of the "Academy" ;;t Home, 486. Pope, his manuscripts, ii. 110 ; pas- sage from, with the various altera- tions, 111, 112; Dr. Johnson's memorandum of hints for the life of, 381 ; anecdote of, iii. 397. PorE, project of tlic, for placing a cardinal on the throne of England, ii. 605 ; favoured by Henry IV., ib. Popes, their early humility and sub- sequent arrogance, ii. S3 ; Celestine kicks ofi' the crown of the Em- peror Henry the Sixth, ib.; tlieir infallibility first asserted, ib. ; protest of the Universit)"^ of Vienna against, S4; their excommunica- tions, ib. Porta, John Baptiste and John Vincent, found the academy "Degli Oxiosi," ii. 488; Baptiste's mechanical genius, iii. 290. Portraits, of authors, of celebrated men, i. 42 — 47 : of the Fugger family, 6 ; commonly prefixed to ancient manuscripts, 42 ; collec- tions of, amongst the ancients, 43 ; query upon the mode of their transmission and their correctness, ib. ; use of, ib. ; anecdotes relative to the eflect of, 45 ; objections of ingenious men to sit for, repro- bated, 46 ; Granger's illustrations of, 45; Perrault's " Eloges" con- fined to French, ib. ; collection by Paulus Jovius, ib. ; doubts as to authenticity of several, ib. ; lite- rary, of himself, by St. Evrc- mond, 102; in minute writing, 275. Port Hoval Societv, tlie, i. 91; 534 Index. their Logic, or The Art of Think- ing, an admirable work, ib. ; ac- count of its rise and progress, 95 ; many families of rank erected houses there, ib. ; persecuted and destroyed by the Jesuits, 9G ; their writings fixed the French lan- guage, ib. Posies on rings, iii. 39, note. Poverty, abridgment of history of, by Morin, i. 19S ; regulations re- garding, among the Jews, ib. ; among the Greeks, Komans, and Egyptians, 199 ; uncommon among the ancients, 201 ; introduction of hospitals for the relief of, ib. rj!AYER-BOOKS, gross illustrations of, i. 3C6. Pkeachers, jocular, i. 251 — 258. Prediction, political and moral, de- termined by certain prognostics, iii. 260 ; of the Reformation by Cardinal Julian, Sir Thomas JMore, and Erasmus, 262; by Sir Walter Eawleigh, 263 ; of Tacitus, ib. ; of Solon, 264 ; of Charlemagne, ib. ; Cicero's art of, ib. ; faculty of, pos- sessed by Du Vair, 265 ; principles of, revealed by Aristotle, 266 ; by Mr. Coleridge, 268 ; of the French Eevolution, 269, 270 ; frequently false, 272; anecdotes, 273; of the end of the world, ib., note; of the destruction of London in 1750, ib., note ; of American independence, 274 ; sometimes condemned as false when really verified, 275 ; caution to be observed in, 276; instances of, by Knox, 277 ; of the death of Henry IV., ib. ; re- flections on, 278, 279. Prefaces, frequently superior to the work, i. 71; a volume of, always I;«pt ready by Cicero, ib. ; ought to be dated, 72 ; anecdote of Du Clos' to a fairy tale, ii. 340. PRErEKMENT, anccdotcs of, ii. 12. Presbyterians, their conduct under Cliarles II., iii. 240 ; their intole- rance, 254. Press-money, proposition that those who refused it should be tried by martial law, iii. 462, and note. Price, Robert, a Welsh lawyer, inci- dents in his life, iii. 422. Primero, a game at cards described, ii. 166, note. Prince Henry, son of James I., resembled Henry V. in his features, ii.186 ; Dr. Birch's life of, 187 ; anec- dotes concerning, 187 — 194 ; his diary, 207. Printing, art of, possessed by the Romans without being aware of it, i. 43, and note ; probably origi- nated in China, ib., and note ; gene- ral account of early, 73 — 78. Printers, mention of early, i. 75. Prints, satiric, iii. 160. Proclamations, against long swords and deep rulfs, i. 222 ; royal, against buildings in London, iii. 365 ; to enforce a country residence, 367; never possessed the force of laws, 366; of Henry VIII., 372 ; of Mary, 373; of Edward VI., S74 ; of Elizabeth, 375 ; of James I., 376 ; of Charles I., 377 ; of Charles II. against vicious, de- bauched, and profane persons, ib. ; others by Charles II., 379. Profession, the choice of one and its influence on the mind, witli some illustrative anecdotes, ii. 461 — 463. Proper names, orthography of, the uncertainty of, ii. 237 ; anecdotes and instances of, 237 — 243. Protestantism, once existed in Spain, ii. 434. Proverbs, use of, derided by Lord Chesterfield, iii. 33 ; records of the populace, 34 ; existed before books, ib. ; abound in the most ancient writers, ib. ; " the dark sayings of the wise," 35 ; introduced into the Greek drama, 36 ; definition of, 38 ; influence of, over a whole peo- ple, ib. ; collection of, by Frank- lin, ib. ; inscribed on furniture, ib. ; English, collected by Hey wood, 39; a speech of, 40 ; an era of, amongst the English, 41 ; long favourites in France, ib.; comedy of, ib. ; family, 42 ; ancient examples of the use of, 43 ; some, connected with the cliaracters of eminent men, 44; use of, by poets, ib. ; Eastern origin of many, 45 ; collection of, by Poly- dore Vergil and Erasmus, of Spanish by Fernandez Nunes, of Italian and French, English and Scotch, 46, 47; study of, 48; illus- trative of national eliaracter, 48 — 56 ; anecdotes of the origin of cer- tain, 56 — 61 ; historical, Gl ; re- marks on the arrangement of col- lections of, 63. Index. 535 pRYNNE, his method of composition, ii. 534 ; liis extraorclinnry ptrse- verance, lb. ; title of the cataloKue of his writings, 035 ; copy of liis works bequcatlied to Sion College, ib. ; tlie pretended retractation of his Ilistriomastix, iii. 315, note. Psalm-singing, remarks on, ii. 472 ; first introduction of, ib.; T. War- ton's criticism of, 473 ; history of, 473 — 47S ; practised at lord mayor's feasts, 479. PsALMANAZAE, liis extraordinary literary forgery, 1. 137, note; iii. 311 ; some account of, 312 — 314. Puck, the Commentator. — See Stee- VENS. PuLTENEY, Earl of Bath, MS. Me- moirs of, suppressed, ii. 447. Punch, his ancient origin, ii. 122, and note ; origin of his name, ib., note. Punchinello. — See Punch. Punning, in a dictionary, i. 305. Puns, Cicero's, i. 69. Puppet-shows in England, iii. 238. PuKGATORY, Cardinal liollarmiu's treatise on, i. 204. Puritans, turn bacchanalian songs into spiritual ones, ii. 148. Puritans and Precisians, party nicknames at the Reformation, iii. 84, 85. Pyrotechkics. — See Fireworks. QuADRio, his Universal History of Poetry, iii. 233; his ignorance of English poetry, 234 — 236 ; his opi- nion of English comedy, 236; praises our puppet-shows, 238. Queen ]\[ary the First, her marriage with Pliilip of Spain, i. 469 ; her letter of instructions, ib. Queen Elizabeth, letter of, to her brother, Edward VI., i. 461 ; her exhibition of youthfulness to the ambassador of the Scottish king, 463 ; remarkable period in her annals, ii. 179 ; her maiden state, ib. ; real cause of her repugnance to change it, ib., and note ; her ar- tifices to conceal her resolution, ISO; debates of the Commons on the succession to, 181 ; address to, by the Duke of Norfolk, and her answer, ib. ; despatch of the French ambassador on this occa- sion, 181 — 186; her judicious con- duct, ib. ; her conduct towards printers and authors, 221, 222 ; licr dislike to the appointment of a successor, iii. 331 ; account of her death-bed, 331, 332. Queen Anne Bullen, anecdote rela- tive to her execution, i. 462. Querno, made laureat for the joltc's sake, i. 455. QuEVEDO, his love for Don Quixote, iii. 339. Quince, origin of, ii. 157, note. QuoDLiBETS, or Scliolastic Disquisi- tions, i. 60. Quotation, remarks on the use of,ii. 416; Selden's precept for, violated by himself, 417; Bayle's remarks on the use of, 418 ; wlien used by an eminent author often appropriated by an inferior, 419 ; value of the proper application of, 420. Rabbinical Stories, siiecimens of, i. 120 — 126 ; scripture quoted to sup- port, 126. Rawleigh, Sir Walter, composed his History of the World in prison, i. 30 ; assisted in that work by seve- ral eminent persons, ib. ; variations in orthography of his name, iii. Ill, note; author's account of his character, 112 ; Gibbon's and Hume's observations on, 113 ; cun- ning practised by, ib. ; anecdotes of, 114 ; account of his return from Guiana, 115, 116; his attempt to escape, 118 ; betrayed by Sir Lewis Stucley, 119 ; narrative of his last hours, 124 — 129 ; his History of the World, the labour of several persons, 131; note on Mr. Ty tier's remarks on the author's account of, 135, note; his extravagance in dress, 407 ; notice of Oldys's life of, 499. R.VNTZAU, founder of thegreat library at Copenhagen, stanzas by, i. 5. Ranz des Vaciies, effect of, i. 274. Raynaud, 'Iheophilus, his works fill twenty folios, and ruined Ids book- seller, 542 ; notice of, 543 ; his curious treatises, ib. Re.alists, a sect of Scholars, i. 312. Reformation, origin of, iii. 142. Refutation, a Catholic's, i. 349. Regeneration of material bodies, iii. 286, 287. Relics of Saints, bought, sold, and stolen, i. 239 ; treatise on, by Gil- bert de Nogent, ib. ; of St. Levvin, ib.; of St. Indalece, 240; of St. Jlajcaii, ib. ; of St. Augustin'sarm, Index. ib. ; flogging of, ib. ; miracles per- formed by, ib. ; miraculously mul- tiplied, 241 ; anecdote of a box of, l>resented by the I'ope to Prince Kadzivil, ib. ; Frederick the Wise, a great collector of, 242; phial of tlie blood of Christ sent to Henry in., ib. ; fall in price of, ib. ; de- ceptive, 2 4 3. Keligion, state of, during the Civil Wars, iii. 433 : illustrative anec- dotes of, 434 — 43G ; contest between Owen and Baxter on, 437 ; coldfu- sion of, ib. ; a colt baptised in St. Paul's Cathedral, 439, and note ; anecdotes, 439 — 441 ; noticed by George AVither the Poet, 442; ordi- nance of the Parliament to rectify tlie disorders in, 443. PELIGIONISM distinguished from reli gion, iii. 239. Keligious Nouvellettes, a class of very singular works, i. 3G3 ; ac- count of one, 364 ; notice of one discussing three thousand questions concerning the Virgin Mary, 3C5 ; Life of the Virgin, 3C7 ; Jesuits usual authors of, 368 ; one describ- ing what passes in Paradise, ib. ; the Spiritual Kalendar, ib. Eepkesea-tation, right of, not fixed in the 10th century, i. 162. Eesidences of literary men, notices of several, iii. 394 — 399. Reviews. — SeeLixERAiiY Journals. Kevolutions, maxim on, iii. 278. KiiYMES inscribed on knives, and alluded to by Shakespeare, iii. 38, note; on fruit trenchers, ib.; on rings, 39, note. KiccoBONi, a celebrated actor, his remarks on the Italian extempore comedy, ii. 134 ; anecdote of, 137 ; his inscription on the curtain of his theatre, ib. Eicn, a celebrated harlequin, ii. 130, and note. riiciiARDSOK, the author of Sir Charles Grandison, remarks on him and his works, ii. C2 — G5. KiciiELiEU, Cardinal de, his general character, ii. 349 ; his death-bed, ib. ; anecdotes of the sinister means practised by, 350 ; his confessor, Father Joseph, 3.^1 — 353 ; projects of assassination of, 354, and note; di-ives Father Caussin, the king's confessor, into exile, 355. KiVE, Abbe de, librarian of the Duke de la Valliere, iii. 341 ; his style of criticism, 342 ; his collections for works never begun, ib. ; his obser- vations on the cause of the errors of literary history, 344. KoBiNSON Crusoe, remarks on, ii. 274; history of, traced, 275; written by Defoe, after illness, and in com- parative solitude, 276 ; not pub- lished till seven years after Selkirk's adventures, 277. Hoc, the, of Arabian tales, a creature of Kabbinical fancy, i. 124. ROCHEFOUCAULT De la, remarks on him and his maxims, i. 110. RocHELLE, expedition to, ii. 367 ; preparations for, ib. ; frustrated by tlie death of Buckingham, 369. Romances, the offspring of fiction and love, i. 442 ; early, ib. ; that of Heliodorus denounced in the synod, 443: forbidden in the Koran, ib.; of the Troubadours, 444 ; modern poets indebted to, ib. ; Le Roman de Perceforest, 445 ; of chivalry, examples of, 446; Italian, 448; use made of by poets, 449 ; French, ib. ; went out of fashion with square cocked hats, 450 ; modern novels, ib. ; histories of, 451 ; D'Urfe's Astraea, ib. RoMNEY the painter, his belief in alchymy, i. 282, and note. RoNSARD, the French bard, and his Bacchanalia, ii. 41. Rosy-Cross, the President of, iwoffera his advice to Charles I., iii. 464. Rousseau, his prediction of the French Revolution, iii. 271, 272, and note ; his favourite authors, iii. 340. Royal Autographs, iii. 165. Royal Promotions, ii. 10. Royal Society, origin of, ii. 410 — 413. Royal Society of Literature, ii. 406, note. Rubens, his house at Antwerp, iii. 398; his love for collections of art, 399, and note. Ruffs, extravagances in,i. 222 — 227. Rump, the origin of the term, iii. 482, 483; three stages in its political progress, 484 ; songs upon, 4S5 ; debate of the, whether to massacre all the king's party, 487 ; iiarallel between their course of conduct and that of the leaders in the French Revolution, 489— 493. Index. 537 SjUNTE Ampoule, ii, 4')4, note. SALSfASics, his controversy with and abuse of Milton, i. 15:^ — l.jl. Salvator Kosa, fond of acting in exteniporal comedy, ii. 103. Saxdkicourt, the Sieur de, ruined himself by one fete, iii. 402 — 40."). Sams Culottes, iii. 83. St. Ambrose, writes a treatise on Virgins, i. 412 ; and another on the Perpetual Virginity of the Jlother ofGoci,ib. ; his chastisement of an erring nun, ib. St. Bartholomew, apology for the mas^acre of, iii. 255 — 200. St. Evremond, literary portrait of, by himself, i. 102. St. Ursue.v and the Eleven Thou- sand Virgins all created out of a bhmder, i. 324. St. Viar, created by an error, i, ."520. Satirical medals, iii. 15G — IcO. Satirists may dread the cane of the satirised, 1. 442. Saturnalia, institution of among the Romans, derived by Slacrobius from the Grecians, ii. 25G; dedi- cated to Saturn, ib. ; latterly pro- longed for a week, 257 ; descrip- tion of, ib. ; crept into the Christian Church, 258, and note ; practised in the middle ages, 25!) ; Feast of Asses, ib. ; "December liberties," 2C0 ; the boy-bisliop, 261: Lord of Misrule, ib. ; Abbot of Unreason, 262 ; description of a grand Christ- masheldattlielnnsof Courts, 263 — 2G5, and note ; the last memorable, of the Lords of IMisrule of the Inns of Court, 2GG; anecdote of a Lord of Misrule, 267 ; the Blayor of Garratt, 2G9 ; regiment de la Ca- lotte, ib., and note, 270; Republic of Baboonery, ib.; medals used for money in, iii. 150,151. Sauntering, i. 175. Savages, various usages of at meals, i. 171—173. ScALiGER,Julius, his singular manner of composition, ii. 86. Scaramouches. — See Pantomoie. Punch and Zany, prints of, ii. 125 ; character of, invented by Tiberio Fiurilli, 126 ; power of a cele- brated, ib. Scaron, account of his life and works, i. 421 — 428. Scenery of the old English stage, iii. 4, and note. Scenarie, the plots of extemporal comedies, ii. 130; description of, note ; some discovered at Dulwich College, 139, 140, and note. ScRiBLERAiD, tlic, a poctical jest on pseudo-science, by R. O, Cambridge, i. 2f)5, and note. Scripture story treated likemedixval romance, i. 163, and note. ScuDERY, IMademoiselle, composed ninety romances, i. 106; jiaue- gyrics on, ib.; her "Great Cyrus and Map of Tenderness," 107. ScuDERY, George, famous for com- posing romances, i. 107; a votary of vanity, ib. ; author of sixteen plays, 108. Secret History, of authors who have ruined their booksellers, ii. 532 — 546; of an elective monarchy, iii. 346 — 363; the supplement of his- tory itself, iii. 380 ; reply to an at- tack on the writers of, 3S2 ; two species of, positive and relative, ib.; tlietrue sources of to be found in MS. collections, 3S3 ; neglect of by his- torians, 384 ; its utility, 385 ; of the Restoration, 386 ; of Mary, the Queen of William III., 389— 393. Sedan chairs, introduced into Eng- land by the Duke of Buckingham, ii. 36. Segni, Bernardo, his History of Florence, iii. 182. Sentimental biography, iii. 411 — 424. Serassi, writes the life of Tasso, ii. 444; finds Galileo's 318. annota- tions, copies them, and suppresses the original, ib. Sermons, printed, Bayle's saying on, i. 345. Seymour, William, his family and character, ii. 508 ; enters into a treaty of marriage with the Lady Arabella Stuart, ib. ; summoned before the I'rivy Council, ib. ; his marriage, 509; imprisoned in the Tower, ib.; his wife's letter to him, 510; his escape, 515; is pcrmiltcd to return, 519. Shakespeare, Fuller's character of, i. 380; orthography of his name, ii. 238, and note ; introduces a masque in his " Tempest," and burlesques the charactera in court masques, iii. 5, and note ; bequest to his wife, 302. 538 Index. SiiExsTONE. the object of his poem of the Sclioolmistress niisuudcrstood, ii. 496; his ludicrous index to, 409; his character, his life, and his •>vorks, iii. 90 — 102. Shoeing-hoens, ii. 297, note. Silhouette, a term not to be found in any dictionary, iii. 84 ; origi- nated in a political nickname, ib. Sii.K stockings, pair of, presented to Queen Elizabeth, i. 22G. SiLLi, ancient parodies, ii. 455. Skei.ton, his satire on "Wolsey, iii. 1S7. Sneezing, the custom of saluting after, i. 12G ; attributed to St. Gre- gory, ib. ; Eabbinical account of, ib. ; anecdotes concerning, 127. Snuff-boxes, the rage, in the reign of Queen Anne, i. 229 ; the Jesuits', reported to be poisoned, ii. 442. Solitude, tres.tise on, by Sir George ^Mackenzie, ii. 50 ; necessary for the pursuits of genius, 52; discomforts of 5-3, 54. Solomon, accounted an adept in ne- cromancy, 1. 122 ; story of him and the Queen of Sheba, 202. Songs among the Grecians, ii. 142 ; sayings of Fletcher of Saltoun, and Dr. Clerk on, ib. ; Greek songs of the trades, 143 ; of the weavers among the English, ib. ; harvest and oar-songs in the Highlands, ib.; of the gondoliers, ib. ; Dibdin's, 144; old English, 145 ; Swiss, 146 ; Italian , composed at Florence, under the 3Iedici, ib.; French " Chansons de' Vendange," 147; parodied, by Puritans, 148 ; slang or flash, known to the Greeks, and speci- mens from Athensus, 149; ancient practices in, connected with old English customs, 150 ; political, iii. 179, ISO. Sonnah, the, i. 113. Sotades travestied the Iliad, ii. 455. SpTTiES, more farcical tlian farce, i. 358 ; specimen of one, 359 — 360. Sovereignty of the seas, ii. 79 — 31. Spanish Etiquette, instances of its absurdity, i. 194. Sfanisii Poetry, i. 100 ; remarks on and illustrative quotations of, 1 ni ; transl.ition of a madrigal found in a newspaper, 102. Speed, the historian, suspicions of his originality, ii. 445, Spenser, Fuller's character of, i. 379. Spiders, influence of music on, i. 272 ; admired as food, ii. 355, note. Stanzas to Laura, i. 230. Starching, origin of, i. 22 7. Steevens, George, the Puck of com- mentators, iii. 296 ; account of his literary forgeries, 297, 298; the story of Jlilton and the Italian lady attributed to, 299 ; his motives for omitting the Poems from his edition of Shakespeare, 301; his trick on the antiquary Gough, 303, 304. Stephens, Robert, the printer, his family and their works, i. 76, note ; divided the Bible into chapter and verse, iii. 433. Sternhold and Hopkins, their ver- sion of the Psalms, ii. 472. Stones, presenting representations of natural forms, i. 244, 245. Stosch, Baron, his dishonest collect- ing, iii. 318. Streets of London, origin of many of their names, ii. 239 — 243. Stuart, Arabella, mistakes of his- torians regarding, Li. 502 ; her ilistoiy, 50-3 — 519. Stukelet, Dr., his Imaginary His- tory of the Empress Oriuna, i. 324, note. Stuclet, Sir Lewis, Vice-Admiral of Devon, accepted a surveillance over his kinsman. Sir Walter Kawleigh, iii. 116; his base treachery, 119; universally shunned in consequence, 120 ; convicted of clipping gold, ib.; his miserable death, 121. Student in the metropolis, the, de- scription of, by Gibbon, Rogers, and Descartes, i. 112. Study, plans of historical, ii. 90 — 92. Style, remarks on, in the composi- tion of works of science, i. 89 ; strictures on the, of theological writers, ii. 21, 22; on that of Lancelot Addison, 23. Sugar- Loaf-Court, origin of the name, ii. 10. Suppression of MSS. — See Manu- scripts. Sydenham, F., his melancholy death occasions the foundation of the Literary Fund, i. 34, and note. Tablets, and Table-books, ii. 2C. Talmud, many copies of, burnt, i. 43 ; a collection of Jewish tradi- tions orally preserved, 114 j com- Index. 539 prises NUhim, wliioh is the text of llie Gcmara, its coinmentnvy, ib. ; general account of, ib. ; believed apocryphal, even by a i'ew among the Jews, ib. ; time of the first appearance of its traditions uncer- tain, ib. ; compiled by Jewish doc- tor.s to oppose the Christians, ib. ; analysis of, by W. Wotton, 11.5; two Talmuds, ib. ; committed to writinjr, and arranged by R. Jnda, prince of the Rabbins, forming the Mishna, ib. ; disputes and opinions of the Rabbins on the form of the 3Iishna, ib. ; God's study of, ib. ; curious, from its antiquity, 110; specimens of, from tlie Mishnic titles, IIG— IIS; and from the Geniara, 119. Tasso, various opinions on the re- spective merits of him and Ariosto, i. 3SC ; IJoileau's criticism on, 388; his errors national, ib. ; his verses sung by the gondoliers, ib. Taxation, remarks on the popular feeling on, in ancient and modern times, iii. 193 ; associated with the idea of tyranny, ib. ; illustrative anecdotes, 194 ; efficacy of using a mitigated term for, 19-5 ; gifts, tri- bute, benevolences, and loans, 195 — 198 ; Burleigh's advice on, 199. Taylor, Thomas, a modern professor of Platonism, i. 215. Tea, opposition to the introduction of, ii. 317 ; present of, declined by the Russian ambassador, 318 ; Dutch bargain for, 319; introduc- tion into Europe, ib. ; shop-bill of the first vendor of, S20. Tenures, curious ancient, i. 187, note. Tho.has Aquinas, some account of the works of, i. 63 — 65. TiMON of Philius, his parodies of Homer, ii. 455. TiCHBOURNE, Chidiock, concerned in Babington's conspiracy, ii. 171 : his address to the populace at his exe- cution, 17C ; his letter to his wfe, 177; verses composed by him the night before his execution, 178. Titles, origins of, and anecdotes concerning, i. 155; book of, pub- lislied in Spain, ib. ; Sclden's 7'itles of Ilononr, ib. ; of books, 288 — 292. Toi.EU.-VTioN, practised by the Ro- flans, and inculcated by JIahomet, iii. 2 45 ; caution used in publishing works on, ib. ; early English advo- cates of, 246, and note ; in Holland, ib. ; facts illustrative ot tlie history of, 247, 248 ; condemned by all parties, 249 — 253; opinions of an English clergyman on, 252. Tom o' Bedla.ms, account of, ii. 311 — 314, and notes ; songs of, 315 — 317. Torture, Felton threatened with, ii. 376 ; its frequent use in England, ib. TORQUEMADA, first Spanish inquisitor, in fourteen years persecuted 80,000 individuals, i. 166. TowNLEY, Zouch, his poem on Felton, ii. 378; collection of antique mar- bles formed by his descendant Charles Townley, purchased for the British Museum, ib., note. Traitors, barbarous mode of execu- tion of, in Queen Elizabeth's time, ii. 175, and note. Treasures in hills, iii. 295, note. Trevoux. — See Dictio.^mry. Troubadours, their poems and their loves, i. 444. Trusler, Doctor, first vendor of printed sermons imitating manu- script, i. 400. Turner, Doctor, a violent opposition leader in the second Parliament of Charles I., iii. 451 ; an agent of the opposition in Parliament against the measures of Charles I., 466 ; a disappointed courtier, 467, note. Turkish Spy, the, i. 377 ; John Paul Marana, the author of, 378. Urban the Eighth, instances of his poetic sensibility, i. 456. Usurers of the 17th century, notice of the practices of, ii. 1 58 — 170. Usury, contrary opinions on, ii. 174, 175. Utopia, Sir Thomas More's, missiona- ries proposed to be sent to, i. 320. Vaccination, strange dread of, ii. 317. Vallancey's Collectanea, curious error in, i. 326, note. Vanbrugii, the architect of Blenheim, got a power from Lord Godolphin to contract in tlie Duke of ]Marlbo- rough's name, iii. lot; produces the power, lot; ; his depositions, ib. ; attempt of the Duchess of 31arlbo- rough to charge the debts of Blen- heim on, lOS; conduct of the Ducliess toward.s, 109; discovery of his origin, 110, 111. 540 Index. Varchi, Benedetto, liis " Storie Fio- ivntine," iii. 183 ; remarks of Mr. Slerivale on, ib., note. Varillas, his fictitious work on tlie Keformation, i. 132, note. Vasari's History of Artists, not en- tirely written by liimself, iii. 131. Vatican, library of, i. 4. Val'CANson, liis meclianical figures, iii. 284, note. Vaudevilles, origin of the name, ii. 148. Vekses, follies in the fantastical forms of, i. 296 — 300; reciprocal, ib. Vicar or Cray, story of the, i. 19G; Dr. Kitchen, Bishop of Llandaff, acted the same part, 11)7 ; type of, ii. 37. ViDA, Jerome, from the humblest ob- scurity attained to the episcopacy, i. 105. Vision of ALberico, ii. 422 ; of Charles the Bald, 423. Virgin JIaky, images of, frequently portraits of mistresses and queens, i. 36C ; miraculous letter of, 3G7 ; Louis II. conveys Boulogne to, ib. ; Life of, by Maria Agreda, ib. ; worship paid to, in Spain, 368; system of, in seven folio vols., 3Ci). Virginity, St. Ambrose's treatise on, i. 412. "Walker, his account of the clergy of the Church of England who were sequestered, &c., iii. 2 43. Walpole, Sir liobert, his magnificent building at Houghton, iii. 191. Walsingham, Sir Francis, died in debt, iii. 192. Walworth, Sir AViUiam, his private motive for killing Wat Tyler, iii. 470, note. Warburton, J., by neglect causes the destruction of old manuscript plays, i. 54, note. Wat Tyler, anecdote of, iii. 470, note. Westminster elections always turbu- lent from the days of Charles the First, iii. 4(>1, note. Whig and Tory, origin of the terms, iii. 88. Whistlecraft's Poem on King Arthur, ii. 490, note; imitated by Byron in his Beppo, ib. Whitelocke, his Memorials, ii. 212 ; his remembrances, a work addressed to his family, lost or concealed, ib.; preface to the Remembrances pre- served, ib.; omissions in first edi- tion of ins Memorials, ii. 448. Wife, Literary, i. 327 ; of Budajus, 328; of Evelyn, who designed the frontispiece to Ids translation of Lucretius, ib. ; of Baron Haller, ib. ; Calphurnia, wife of Tliny, ib. ; Margaret, Ducliess of Newcastle, 329 ; extract from her epistle to her husband, ib. ; notices of tlio wives of various celebrated men, 332—337. Wigs, custom of using, i. 217 — 220 ; Steele's, 229. WiLKiNS, Bishop, liis museum, iii. 291. Winkelmann, the plan on which he composed his works, ii. Sit. WoLSEV, Cardinal, his magnificent houses, iii. 187. Women, actors, first introduced on the Italian stage, ii. 140 ; on the English, 284 ; Kynaston a favourite actor of female characters, 285, note. Woodcuts, ancient, in the British Museum, i. 74, note. Words, introduction of new. — See Neology. Wood, Anthony, when dying, caused his papers to be destroyed, ii. 243 ; some, however, preserved, ib. ; se- cret history of the Earl of Oxford drawn from, ib. ; compelled to dis- avow the translation of his book, 453 ; Gibbon's opinion of liis dul- ness opposed, 538, note. Writing, minute, i. 2 76; ancient modes of, ii. 20 — 2G ; materials used for, 27—30. AVkiting-JIasters, iii. 16 7; Massey's lives of, 1C9 ; anecdote of Tomkins, 171; Peter Bales, a celebrated, 173; account of his contest with David Johnson, 173 — 177. Xenocrates, pupil of Plato, attacked Aristotle, i. 142. YvERY, notice of the History of the House of, iii. 420, and note. Zany, etymology of the word, ii. 123 j and notes. y THE END. a OF CALIFORNIA o o vKVBava viNVS o M^_ iLS^ THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara >r i\ THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. Series 9482 / \ / o THE UNIVERSITY o u. O 9± SANTA BARtAKAl o OF CALIFORNIA o >l ! 1-* 205 00500 9772 ^^ f o n > s z > tjTA BARBARA UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001 037 280 3