FOOTNOTES:
[1] It was intimated by Dryden's enemies, that he chose this religious and grave subject with a view to smooth the way to his taking orders, and obtaining church preferment—See a quotation from the Religio Laici, by J. R. subjoined to these introductory remarks. But our author, in the preface to the "Fables," declares, that going into the church was never in his thoughts.
[2] The reader will find this opinion more fully expressed in the observations on Dryden's conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, given in the Life.
Such an omniscient church we wish indeed;
'Twere worth both Testaments, cast in the creed.
[4] Johnson's Life of Dryden.
[5] Malone, Vol. III. p. 310.
[6] "The Revolter, a Tragi-Comedy, acted between the Hind and Panther and Religio Laici. London. 1687."
[7] As will appear from the following extracts:—"While he sat thus in his poetical throne, or rather acting upon the stage of fable and pagan mythology, and transfiguring into beasts almost all mankind, but Turks and infidels, that were out of his road, he never considered what a monster he was himself; a second Gorgon with three heads, for each of which he had a particular employment; with the one, to fawn upon the most infamous usurpers; with the other, at one time to lick the beneficent hands of his Protestant mother, and, bye and bye, to court the charity of his Catholic mamma; while, with the third, he barked and snarled, not only at his first deserted female parent, but also at all other differing sentiments and opinions, which his sovereign had so graciously and generously indulged."
But 'twas his wrath, because his native church
Left his high expectations in the lurch.
— — — — — —
He saw the play-wright laureate debauched
By the times, vices which he himself reproached;
And, by his grand reform stage-pit fools;,
Judged his ability to manage souls.
The comedy, to see him preach for aught,
She knew might tragic prove to those he taught;
By ill instructions to their loss beguiled,
Or scorning precepts from a tongue defiled
With stage obscenity——
For who could have refrained from sportive mirth,
To hear the nation's poet, Bayes, hold forth?
Or who would ever practice by the rule
Of one they could not chuse but ridicule?
The scandal was the greater, the more rare,
An ordained play-wright in the house of prayer.
While people only flock to hear him chime
A rampant sermon forth in brilly rhime;
Or else his gaping auditors he feasts
With bold Isaiah's raptures, and Ezekiel's beasts.
All this the church foresaw, nor could endure
Polluted lips should handle things most pure.
The Revolter, p. 2.
But, to give the devil his due, I must needs own Mr Bayes has a most powerful and luxurious hand at satire, and may challenge all Christendom to match him; for indeed I never, in my slender province, met any that was worthy to compare to him, unless that unknown, but supposed worthy author, that writ to him upon his at last turning Roman Catholic; for Bayes, like the Vicar of Bray, in Henry VIII. Edward VI. Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth's times, was resolved to keep his place; (and the quoting an author to the purpose, is the same thing, the learned say, as if it was his own), and that will, I hope, excuse my putting them down here:—
"Thou mercenary renegade, thou slave,
Thou ever changing still to be a knave;
What sect, what error, wilt thou next disgrace?
Thou art so lude, so scandalously base,
That antichristian popery may be
Ashamed of such a proselyte as thee;
Not all thy rancour, or felonious spite,
Which animates thy lumpish soul to write,
Could ha' contrived a satire more severe,
Or more disgrace the cause thou wouldst prefer.
Yet in thy favour, this must be confest,
It suits with thy poetic genius best;
There thou——
To truths disused, mayst entertain
Thyself with stories, more fanciful and vain
Than e'er thy poetry could ever fain;
Or sing the lives of thy own fellow saints,
'Tis a large field, and thy assistance wants;
Thence copy out new operas for the stage,
And with their miracles direct the age.
Such is thy faith, if faith thou hast indeed,
For well we may suspect the poet's creed,
Rebel to God, blasphemer o' the king,
Oh tell whence could this strange compliance spring?
So mayest thou prove to thy new gods as true,
As thy old friend, the devil, has been to you.
Yet conscience and religion's your pretence,
But bread and drink the methologick sense.
Ah! how persuasive is the want of bread,
Not reasons from strong box more strongly plead.
A convert, thou! 'tis past all believing;
'Tis a damned scandal, of thy foes contriving;
A jest of that malicious monstrous fame—
The honest layman's faith is still the same."
Religio Laici, by J. R. a Convert of Mr Bayes.
In such coarse invective were Dryden's theological poems censured by persons, who, far from writing decent poetry, or even common sense, could neither spell, nor write tolerable grammar.
[8] "Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith.
"Which faith, except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
[9] The controversy between Athanasius and Arius long divided the Christian church. The former was patriarch of Alexandria, and the latter bishop of Nicomedia, in Asia. The dispute regarded the godhead of the Trinity. The doctrine of Arius, that God the Son was not co-existent, consequently, not equal in dignity with God the Father, was condemned by the grand general council of Nice, and he was banished. But he was afterwards recalled by the emperor; and his heresy spread so widely, that almost all the Christian world were at one time Arians. As a test of the true orthodox doctrine, Athanasius composed the creed which goes by his name. Being written expressly for this purpose, and for the exclusive use of the Christian world, Dryden argues, with great apparent justice, that the anathema with which it is fenced, has no relation to the heathens, and that we cannot, with charity, or even logically, argue from thence concerning their state in the next world.
[10] "It is certain, that the restless and enterprising spirit of the Catholic church, particularly of the Jesuits, merits attention, and is, in some degree, dangerous to every other communion. Such zeal of proselytism actuates that sect, that its missionaries have penetrated into every nation of the globe, and, in one sense, there is a Popish-plot perpetually carrying on against all states, Protestant, Pagan, and Mahometan."—Hume, Vol. VII. p. 72.
[11] The unfortunate Edward Coleman was secretary to the Duke of York, and in high favour with his master. With the intriguing spirit of a courtier, and the zeal of a Catholic, he had long carried on a correspondence with Father La Chaise, confessor to the king of France, with the Pope's nuncio, and with other Catholics abroad, for the purpose, as he himself states it, of "the conversion of three kingdoms, and by that, perhaps, the utter subduing of a pestilent heresy, which has a long time domineered over a great part of the northern world." It would seem, from these letters, that it was the purpose of the Catholics, to begin by obtaining, if possible, a toleration, or exemption from the penal laws; and then, while strengthening themselves by new converts, to await the succession of James, or the open declaration of Charles in favour of their religion. From various points it appears, that Coleman was a better Catholic than an Englishman; and would not have hesitated to sacrifice the interests of his country to France, if, by so doing, he could have brought her faith nearer to Rome. There were also indications of both the king's and duke's accessibility to foreign influence, which were fraught with consequences highly dangerous to the country. But, while the Catholics were availing themselves of these unworthy dispositions in the royal brothers, it was quite absurd to suppose, that they should have forfeited every prospect of success, by assassinating these very persons, upon whose lives their whole plan depended, to place upon the throne the Prince of Orange, the head of the Protestant League. Yet, although not the least trace is to be found in Coleman's letters of the murders, invasions, fires, and massacres, which Oates and Bedloe bore witness to, the real and imaginary conspiracy were identified by the general prepossession of the nation; and Coleman, who undoubtedly deserved death for his unlawful and treasonable trafficking with foreign interests against the religion and liberty of his country, actually suffered for a plot which was totally chimerical.
[12] These are all Jesuits and controversial writers.
Mariana maintains, that it is well for princes to believe, that if they become oppressive to their people, they may be killed, not only lawfully, but most commendably.—Institut. pp. 61, 64. In the 6th chapter of the same work, he calls the murder of Henry III. of France by Jaques Clement, "insignem animi confidentiam—facinus memorabile—cæso rege, ingens sibi nomen fecit."
Bellarmine declares roundly, that all heretics are to be cut off, unless they are the stronger party, and then the Catholics must remain quiet, and wait a fitter time.—De Laicis, Liber III. cap. 22.
Simancha affirms, "propter Hæresin Regis, non solum Rex regno privatur, et a communione fidelium diris proscriptionibus separatur; sed et ejus filii a regni successione pelluntur." Suarez expressly says, "Regem excommunicatum impune deponi vel occidi quibuscunque posse."—Suarez in Reg. Mag. Brit. Lib. 6. cap 6. § 24.
These are sufficient examples of the doctrine laid down in the text, which, I believe, is now as much detested by Roman Catholics as by those of other religions.
[13] Edmund Campian, and Robert Parsons, English Jesuits, in the year 1580, obtained a bull from the Pope, declaring, that the previous bull of Pius V., deposing and excommunicating Queen Elizabeth, did forever bind the heretics, but not the Catholics, till a favourable opportunity should occur of putting it into execution. Thus armed, they came into England, their native country, for the express purpose of proclaiming the pope's right to dethrone monarchs, and that Queen Elizabeth's subjects were freed from their allegiance. Campian was hanged for preaching this doctrine, A. D. 1581. Parsons, finding England too hot for him, fled beyond seas, and settled at Rome. He published many works, both in English and Latin, against the church and state of England; one of which is, "A Conference about the next Succession of the Crown of England." printed in 1593, under the name of N. Doleman. The first part contains the doctrine concerning the right of the church to chastise kings, and proceed against them. This book the fanatics found so much to their purpose, that they reprinted it, to justify the murder of Charles I.—Athenæ Oxon. Vol. I. p. 358. Doleman, under whose name it was originally published, was a quiet secular priest, who abhorred such doctrines. Parsons, the real author, died at Rome in 1610.
[14] The Dominium directum is the right of seignory competent to a feudal superior, in opposition to the Dominium utile, or actual possession of the lands which is held by the vassal.
[15] Hugh Paulin Cressy, better known by the name of Serenus Cressy, which he adopted upon entering into a religious state, was originally chaplain to the unfortunate Strafford, and afterwards to the gallant Falkland; but, having gone abroad after the civil wars, he became a convert to the Catholic faith, and a benedictine monk in the English college of Douay. After the Restoration, he returned to England, and was appointed chaplain to Queen Catherine. He was remarkable for regularity of life, unaffected piety, modest and mild behaviour. But in mystical doctrines, he was an enthusiast; and in religion, a zealot. He was the principal conductor of controversy on the part of the papists; and published many treatises against Stillingfleet, Pierce, Bagshaw, and other champions of the protestant faith. His chief work was the Church History of Brittany, from the beginning of Christianity to the Norman Conquest.—See Athenæ; Oxon. II. p. 528.
[16] The passage in Lord Herbert's history, referred to by Dryden, seems to be that which follows:
"For as the scriptures began then commonly to be read, so out of the literal sense thereof, the manner of those times was, promiscuously to draw arguments, for whatsoever in matter of state or otherwise was to be done. Insomuch, that the text which came nearest the point in question, was taken as a decision of the business; to the no little detriment of their affairs: The scriptures not pretending yet to give regular instructions in those points. But this is so much less strange, that the year preceding, the Scriptures (heretofore not permitted to the view of the people) were now translated in divers languages, and into English, by Tindal, Joy, and others, though, as not being warranted by the king's authority, they were publickly burnt, and a new and better translation promised to be set forth, and allowed to the people. It being not thought fit by our king, that under what pretence or difficulty soever, his subjects should be defrauded of that, wherein was to be found the word of God, and means of their salvation. Howbeit not a few inconveniences were observed to follow. For as the people did not sufficiently separate the more clear and necessary parts thereof, from the obscure and accessory; and as again taking the several authors to be equally inspired, they did equally apply themselves to all; they fell into many dangerous opinions: Little caring how they lived, so they understood well, bringing religion thus into much irresolution and controversie, while few men agreeing on the same interpretation of the harder places, vexed each others conscience, appropriating to themselves the gift of the spirit. Whereof the Roman church, (much perplext at first with these defections) did at last avail itself; as assuming alone the power of that decision, which yet was used more in favour of themselves, than such an analogy, as ought to be found in so perfect a book. So that few were satisfied therewith, but such as, renouncing their own judgment, and submitting to theirs, yielded themselves wholly to an implicit faith; in which, though they found an apparent ease, yet as, for justifying of themselves, the authority of their belief was derived more immediately from the church, than the scripture, not a few difficulties were introduced, concerning both: While the more speculative sort could not imagine, how to hold that as an infallible rule, which needed humane help to vindicate and support it; nevertheless, as by frequent reading of the scripture at this time, it generally appeared what the Roman church had added or altered in religion, so many recovered a just liberty, endeavouring together a reformation of the doctrine and manners of the clergy, which yet, through the obstinacy of some, succeeded worse, than so pious intentions deserved."
[17] William Tyndal, otherwise called Hitchens, was born on the borders of Wales, and educated at Oxford. He was one of the earliest Protestants, and so boldly maintained the doctrines of the Reformation, that he was obliged to leave England. He employed himself, while abroad, in executing a translation, first of the New Testament, and afterwards of the Pentateuch, with prologues to the different books. But as he was a zealous Lutheran, and as it had not pleased King Henry VIII. that his subjects should become Protestants, though they had ceased to be Papists, Tyndal's version of the New Testament was publickly burned, and prohibited by royal proclamation, as tending to disturb the brains of weak persons. This grossly indecorous expression was not altogether without foundation. A rule of faith, containing the most sublime doctrines both of faith and moral practice, and which had long been acknowledged the only guide to heaven, could not be exposed at once to the vulgar, who had been bred up in the grossest ignorance of its nature and contents, without dazzling and confounding them, as the beams of the sun suddenly let in upon the inmates of an obscure dungeon. It was not till the sacred Scriptures, with the expositions of judicious pastors, became a part of the regular education of the people, that their minds were duly prepared to make the proper use of that inestimable gift.
The fate of Tyndal was melancholy enough. By the influence of Henry, he was seized at Brussels; and, under pretence of his being a pragmatical incendiary, one of the first translators of the New Testament was strangled and burned, at Filford castle, about twenty miles from Antwerp, in 1536. His last words were, "Lord, open the king of England's eyes."
[18] Heylin says, the reformation would have rested with the first public liturgy, confirmed by act of parliament in the second and third years of Edward VI., "if Calvin's pragmatical spirit had not interposed. He first began to quarrel at some passages in this sacred liturgy, and afterwards never left soliciting the lord protector, and practising, by his agents, on the court, the country, and the universities, till he had laid the first foundation of the Zuinglian faction, who laboured nothing more than innovation both in doctrine and discipline."—Ecclesia Restaurata. Address to the Reader.
[19] The learned and judicious Richard Hooker, one of the most eminent divines of the church of England, wrote a treatise upon Ecclesiastical Policy, in which he vindicates that communion, both against the Puritans and Papists. It is in eight books; five were published during Hooker's lifetime, and the other three after his death. The last are supposed to be interpolated, as they bear some passages tending to impugn the doctrine of non-resistance, which at that time was a shibboleth of orthodoxy. Hooker died in 1600. His Life, to which Dryden refers, was written by the worthy Isaac Walton, better known as the author of the "Complete Angler;" a delightful work, where the innocent simplicity, unclouded cheerfulness, and real worth of the author, beam through every page. His Life of Hooker was published about 1662. See Hawkin's edition of the Complete Angler, Introduction, p. 19. Athenæ Oxon. Vol. I. p. 302.
[20] George Cranmer, whom Wood calls a gentleman of singular hopes, was grandson to Edmund Cranmer, arch-deacon of Canterbury, brother to Thomas the primate, who suffered martyrdom in the reign of Queen Mary. He was bred to state affairs under Secretary Davison; and after serving in various diplomatic capacities, became secretary to Lord Mountjoy, Lieutenant of Ireland. On the 13th November, 1600, Cranmer was slain in a skirmish at Carlingford between the English and the forces of Tyrone. Camden thus records his death: "Cecidit tamen ex Anglis, præter alios, Cranmerus, Proregi ab epistolis, et ipsi eo nomine longe charissimus." He wrote to Hooker, under whom he had studied, the letter mentioned in the text concerning the new church discipline, which is dated February 1598. It is inserted by Walton in his Life of Hooker. Athenæ Oxon. Vol. I. p. 306.
[21] John Penry, or Ap Henry, better known by the name of Martin Mar-prelate, or Mar-priest, as having been a plague to the bishops and clergy of his time. He was a native of Wales, and originally a sub-sizer of Peter-house, in Cambridge. Afterwards he obtained the degree of Master of Arts in Oxford, and, having taken orders, was for some time a regular clergyman. But being a person "full of Welch blood, of a hot and restless head," Anthony Wood tells us, he became a furious Anabaptist, and the most bitter enemy to the church of England that appeared in the long reign of Queen Elizabeth. He wrote a great number of pestilent pamphlets, with burlesque titles; such as, "Oh, read over John Bridges, for it is a worthy work. Printed over sea, in Europe, within two furlongs of a bouncing Priest, at the cost of Martin Mar-prelate, gent." All his writings were filled with the most virulent invectives against the Episcopal church. At length, being apprehended, and tried for writing and publishing infamous books and libels against the established religion, he was condemned and executed at St Thomas a Watering, 29th May, 1593. Dryden compares him to Andrew Marvel, the well known opposer of the court, during the reign of Charles II.
[22] The court writers at this period were anxious to fix upon the presbyterians and the non-conformists in general, the anti-monarchical principles of the fanatics, who brought Charles I. to the scaffold. Their arguments may be seen at length in a book entitled, "Seditious Teachers, ungodly Preachers exemplified." These charges are carried too far; yet as the Episcopalians made church and king their watchword, the fanatics, on the contrary, in England, and the Huguenots in France, had a certain tendency to oppose monarchical government. One of their authors, as early as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, maintains, that if kings and princes refused to reform religion, the inferior magistrates or people, by direction of the ministry, might lawfully, and ought, if need required, even by force of arms, to reform it themselves.—Whittingham's Preface to Goodman on Obedience to Superior Powers.
[23] The freaks of these unhappy enthusiasts may be seen in the histories of the time. Hacket, a man of some learning, had his brain turned by enthusiasm, and seduced Coppinger and Arthington, two fanatic preachers, by his example and exhortation, to sally forth into the streets of London, where he proclaimed himself to be the Messiah, and Coppinger and Arthington, his prophet of mercy, and his prophet of judgment. As they continued to utter the most horrible blasphemies, and to exhort the citizens to take arms, to further the reign of Hacket, who, they said, was come with his fan in his hand to purify the discipline of the church of England, they were seized and lodged in prison. Hacket was executed, though fitter for Bedlam, persisting to the last in the most insane blasphemy. The discipline of the prison restored Arthington to his senses, and he published a recantation, expressing great remorse for his errors. Coppinger starved himself to death in jail. This explosion of madness took place in 1591. Hacket is stated by Camden to have been a determined enemy to Queen Elizabeth, and to have stabbed her picture with his dagger.
[24] The birth-night of Queen Elizabeth was that which the Whigs chose to solemnize, by their grand pope-burnings and processions; considering her as the patron of the Protestant religion. Yet Queen Elizabeth was very severe against the Puritans, and passed several statutes against them.
[25] See the notes on "Absalom and Achitophel," Vol. IX. pages, 280, 404.
[26] Lewis Maimbourg, a secularized Jesuit, wrote a History of Calvinism, in which he charges upon the Huguenots the principal share of the guilt of the civil wars of France. He charges them particularly with the conspiracies of Amboise and Meaux against the crown; and alleges, it was their intention, by the assistance of England, and the Protestant states of Germany, with whom they corresponded, to establish a republic in France. His arguments are controverted in an "Apology for the Protestants of France, in six letters." London, 1683.
[27] Pere Richard Simon was an excellent Orientalist. He was an oratorian priest, and published, besides the work here mentioned, "A critical History of the New Testament," and a new Version of it, which was censured by Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, and opposed by Bossuet, the learned Bishop of Meaux. Pere Simon was an able biblical critic, an excellent scholar, and one of the most learned divines of his age.
[28] Derrick erroneously states this young gentleman to have been Hampden, son of the famous parliamentary leader, who was deeply engaged in the Rye-house Plot, and some years afterwards killed himself. Dryden was not likely, in the very hottest of his political controversy, to be on very intimate habits with a leader of the Whigs, much less to inscribe to him a poem, the preface of which, at least, is levelled against the most zealous of that party. Besides, the translation of Pere Simon's Critical History, which was published in 1682, bears to have been made by H. D. which initials can hardly stand for John Hampden. Mr Malone conjectures he may have been of the Digby family, or perhaps Mr Dodswell, who translated one of Plutarch's Lives, But it appears, from a poem addressed to the Translator by Duke, that his name was Henry Dickinson, probably a son of Edmund Dickinson, a physician, and author of the Delphi Phenecizantes, and other learned pieces. Athenæ Oxon. Vol. II. p. 946. There is another copy of verses, addressed to the Translator of the "Critical History" in Dryden's "Miscellanies." So that Dickinson's work seems to have attracted much notice at the time of its publication.
[29] The author applies the same simile to the use of rhyme in tragedy;
Passion's too fierce to be in fetters bound,
And nature flies him like enchanted ground.
Prologue to Aureng-Zebe.
[30] All the editions read Sons, which seems to make a double genitive, unless we construe the line to mean, "the name of his Eternal Son's salvation." I own I should have been glad to have found an authority for reading Son.
[31] Simon's Critical History of the Old Testament, translated by the young gentleman to whom the poem is addressed.—See Preface.
[32] Calvinistic divines, who made translations of the Scripture, with commentaries, on which Pere Simon makes learned criticisms.
[33] The Socinians, or followers of Lelius Socinius, denied the doctrine of the Trinity and of Redemption. The modern Unitarians have embraced some of the principles of this sect.
[34] The founders of two noted heresies, who, nevertheless, as the poet observes, ventured to appeal to the traditions of the church in support of their doctrines.
[35] Perhaps this idea is borrowed from "Hudibras:"
The learned write, an insect breeze
Is but a mongrel prince of bees,
That falls before a storm on cows,
And stings the founders of his house,
From whose corrupted flesh, that breed
Of vermin did at first proceed.
So, ere the storm of war broke out,
Religion spawned a various rout
Of petulant capricious sects,
The maggots of corrupted texts,
That first run all religion down,
And after every swarm its own.
Hudibras, Part III. canto 2.
[36] The famous Tom Brown is pleased to droll on this association of persons; being a part of the punishment which he says the laureat inflicted on Shadwell for presuming to dispute his theatrical infallibility. "But, gentlemen, when I had thus, in the plenitude of my power, issued out the above-mentioned decretal epistles, you cannot imagine what abundance of adversaries I created myself: some were for appealing to a free unbiassed synod of impartial authors; others were for suing out a quo warranto, to examine the validity of my charter. Not to mention those of higher quality, I was immediatly set upon by the fierce Elkanah, the Empress of Morocco's agent, who at that time commanded a party of Moorish horse, in order to raise the siege of Grenada; and a fat old gouty gentleman, commonly called the King of Basan, who had almost devoured the stage with free quarter for his men of wit and humourists. But I countermined all their designs against my crown and person in a moment; for I presently got the one to be dressed up in a sanbenit, under the unsanctified name of Doeg; the other I coupled myself with his namesake Tom Sternhold. Being thus degraded from their poetical functions, and become incapable of crowning princes, raising ghosts, and offering any more incense of flattery to the living and the dead, I delivered them over to the secular arm, to be chastised by the furious dapper-wits of the Inns of Court, and the young critics of the university. Furthermore, to prevent all infection of their errors, I directed my monitory letters to the Sieur Batterton, advising him to keep no correspondence, either directly or indirectly, with those aforesaid apostates from sense and reason; adding, that in case of neglect, I would certainly put the theatre under an interdict, send a troop of dragoons from Drury-Lane to demolish his garrison in Salisbury-court, and absolve all his subjects, even to the sub-deacons and acolythes of the stage, his trusty door-keepers and candle-lighters, from their oaths of fealty and allegiance." Reasons for Mr Bayes' changing his Religion.
[37] The following Nœnia, among others, occur in Mr Luttrell's Collection:
"A Pindarick Ode, by Sir F. F. Knight of the Bath."
"A Pindarick Ode on the Death of our late Sovereign, with an ancient Prophecy on his present Majesty, by Afra Behn."
"A Poem, humbly dedicated to the Great Pattern of Piety and Virtue, Catherine, Queen Dowager, on the Death of her dear Lord and Husband, King Charles II. By the Same. (4th April, 1685.)"
"The Vision, a Pindarick Ode, by Edmund Arwaker, M. A."
"The Second Part of Ditto, on the Coronation of James and Mary." This author poured forth a similar effusion upon the death of Queen Mary.
"A Pindarick Ode on the Death of Charles II, by J. H."
"Ireland's Tears to the sacred Memory of our late Dread Sovereign, King Charles II., 11th April, 1685."
"Pietas universitatis Oxoniensis in obitum augustissimi et desideratissimi Regis Caroli Secundi."
Duke, and others, also invoked Melpomene on this mournful occasion: but, perhaps, the most remarkable of all these lamentations is, "The Quaker's Elegy on the Death of Charles, late King of England, written by W. P. a sincere lover of Charles and James; (31st March, 1685.)" "Tears wiped off, a Second Part, on the Coronation, (22d April.)" This curious dirge begins thus:
What wondrous change in waking do I find,
For a strange something does my sense unbind;
Truth has possessed my darkened soul all o'er
With an unusual light, not known before;
And doth inform me, that some star is gone,
From whose kind influence we had life alone.
No sooner had this stranger seized my soul,
But Rachel knocked, to raise me from my bed,
And, with a voice of sorrow, did condole
The loss of Charles, whom she declared was dead;
Charles dost thou mean we King of England call,
That lived within the mansion of Whitehall?
Yes—'tis too true, &c.
[38] "Windsor Castle, in a monument to our late, sovereign, King Charles II.," contains some striking passages. But, for the tenuity of the pastoral, even the taste of the age can hardly excuse the author of "Venice Preserved." For example:
Ye tender lambs, stray not so fast away;
To weep and mourn, let us together stay;
O'er all the universe let it be spread,
That now the shepherd of the flock is dead;
The royal Pan, that shepherd of the sheep,
He, who to leave his flock did dying weep,
Is gone! Ah! gone, ne'er to return from death's eternal sleep.
[39] We shall here insert the last meeting of the royal brothers, as described in "Windsor Castle," which the reader may contrast with the same theme in the "Threnodia:"
Here, painter, if thou can'st, thy art improve,
And show the wonders of fraternal love;
How mourning James by fading Charles did stand,
The dying grasping the surviving hand;
How round each others necks their arms they cast,
Moaned, with endearing murmurings, and embraced;
And of their parting pangs such marks did give,
'Twere hard to guess which yet could longest live.
Both their sad tongues quite lost the power to speak,
And their kind hearts seemed both prepared to break.
[40] Perhaps the most extraordinary instance of flattery, wrought up to impiety, occurs in Mrs Behn's address to the queen on the death of her husband:
Methinks I see you like the queen of heaven,
To whom all patience and all grace was given;
When the great lord of life himself was laid
Upon her lap, all wounded, pale, and dead;
Transpierced with anguish, even to death transformed,
So she bewailed her god, so sighed, so mourned,
So his blest image in her heart remained,
So his blest memory o'er her soul still reigned;
She lived the sacred victim to deplore,
And never knew, or wished a pleasure more.
[41] These are even more numerous than the Elegiasts on Charles's death. In the Luttrell Collection there are the following rare pieces.
"Panegyris Jacobi serenissimi, &c. regi ipso die inaugurationis."
"A Poem on Do. by R. Philips."
"On Do. by a Young Gentleman."
"A Panegyrick on Do. by the Author of the Plea for Succession."
"A New Song on Do."
"A Poem on Do. by John Philips."
"A Poem upon the Coronation, by J. Baber, Esq."
"A Pindarique to their Sacred Majesties on their Coronation."
"A Poem on Do. by R. Mansell, Gent."
"A Panegyrick on Do. by Peter Ker;" with whose rapturous invitation to the ships to strand themselves for joy, we shall conclude the list:
Let subjects sing, bells ring, and cannons roar;
And every ship come dancing to the shore.
[42] Dryden, perhaps, recollected the poem of Fitzpayne Fisher on Cromwell's death, entitled, Threnodia Triumphalis in obitum serenissimi Nostri Principis Olivari, Angliæ Scotiæ Hiberniœ cum dominationibus ubicunque jacentibus Nuperi protectoris, (Qui obiit. Septemb. 3tio.) Ubi stupendæ passim victoriæ, et incredibiles domi forasque successus, Heroico carmine, succinctim perstringuntur. Per Fitzpaynæum Piscatorem. Londini, 1658.
[44] Alluding to the fable of Hercules supporting the heavenly sphere when Atlas was fatigued.
[45] A very ill-timed sarcasm on those, who petitioned Charles to call his parliament. See p. [311.]
[46] 2 Kings, chap. xx.
[49] An eagre is a tide swelling above another tide, which I have myself observed in the river Trent.—Dryden. This species of combat between the current and the tide is well known on the Severn; and, so far back as the days of William of Malmesbury, was called the Higre. Unhappy is the vessel, says that ancient historian, on whom its force falls laterally. De Gestis Pontificum, Lib. IV.—Drayton describes the same river,
——With whose tumultuous waves,
Shut up in narrower bounds, the Higre wildly raves,
And frights the straggling flocks the neighbouring shores to fly.
Afar as from the main it comes with hideous cry;
And on the angry front the curled foam doth bring,
The billows 'gainst the bank when fiercely it doth fling,
Hurls up the scaly ooze, and makes the scaly brood
Leap madding to the land affrighted from the flood;
O'erturns the toiling barch whose steersman does not launch,
And thrust the furrowing beak into her ravening paunch.
Poly-Albion, Song VII.
[50] To engage upon liking, (an image rather too familiar for the occasion,) is to take a temporary trial of a service, or business, with licence to quit it at pleasure.
[53] Alluding to the Duke's banishment to Flanders. See note on "Absalom and Achitophel," Vol. IX. p. 384.
[54] The testament of king David, by which he bequeathed to his son the charge of executing vengeance on those enemies whom he had spared during his life, has been much canvassed by divines. I indulge myself in a tribute to a most venerable character, when I state, that the most ingenious discourses I ever heard from the pulpit, were upon this and other parts of David's conduct, in a series of lectures by the late Reverend Dr John Erskine, one of the ministers of the Old Greyfriars church in Edinburgh.
[55] King Charles' first parliament, from passing the Act of Indemnity, and taking other measures to drown all angry recollection of the civil wars, was called the Healing Parliament.
[56] A similar line occurs in the Annus Mirabilis, St. 160:
Beyond the year, and out of heaven's high-way.
The expression is originally Virgil's:
Extra anni, solisque vias.
[57] See the Astræa Redux. [Note VI.]
[58] Reckoning from the death of his father, Charles had reigned thirty-six years and eight days; and, counting from his restoration, twenty-four years, eight months, and nine days.
[59] Ancus Martius, who succeeded the peaceful Numa Pompilius as king of Rome.
[61] Ralph, Vol. I. p. 834.
[62] Life of Lord Keeper Guilford, p. 253.
[63] Epistle to Mr Duke.
[64] Burnet's History of his own Times. End of Book III.
[65] Character of Charles II., Sheffield Duke of Buckingham's Works, Vol. II. p. 65.
[66] One Dr Stokeham is said to have alleged, that the king's fit was epileptic, not apoplectic, and that bleeding was ex diametro wrong.
[67] Nell Gwyn.
[68] Echard's History, p. 1046.
[69] Dalrymple's Memoirs, 8vo. vol. i. p. 66.
[70] In the years 1662 and 1674. See Vol. IX, p. 448.
[71] Our author was not the only poet who hailed this dawn of toleration; for there is in Luttrell's Collection, "A Congratulatory Poem, dedicated to his Majesty, on the late gracious Declaration (9th June, 1687); by a Person of Quality."
[72] Turkish Spy, Vol. viii. p. 19.
[73] Perhaps the poet recollected the attributes ascribed to the panther by one of the fathers: "Pantheræ, ut Divus Basilius ait, cum immani sint ac crudeli odio in homines a natura incensæ, in hominum simulacra furibundæ irruunt, nec aliter hominum effigiem, quam homines ipsos dilacerant."—Granateus Concion. de Tempore, Tom. i. p. 492.
[74] "Only by the way, before we bring D. against D. to the stake, I would fain know how Mr Bayes, that so well understood the nature of beasts, came to pitch upon the Hind and the Panther, to signify the church of Rome and the church of England? Doubtless his reply will be, because the hind is a creature harmless and innocent; the panther mischievous and inexorable. Let all this be granted; what is this to the author's absurdity in the choice of his beasts? For the scene of the persecution is Europe, a part of the world which never bred panthers since the creation of the universe. On the other side, grant his allusion passable, and then he stigmatizes the church of England to be the most cruel and most voracious creature that ranges all the Lybian deserts;—a character, which shows him to have a strange mist before his eyes when he reads ecclesiastical history. And then, says he,
The panther, sure the noblest next the hind,
And fairest creature of the spotted kind.
Which is another blunder, cujus contrarium verum est: For if beauty, strength, and courage, advance the value of the several parts of the creation, without question the panther is far to be preferred before the hind, a poor, silly, timorous, ill-shaped, bobtailed creature, of which a score will hardly purchase the skin of a true panther. Had he looked a little farther, Ludolphus would have furnished him with a zebra, the most beautiful of all the four-footed creatures in the world, to have coped with his panther for spots, and with his hind for gentleness and mildness; of which one was sold singly to the Turkish governor of Suaquena for 2000 Venetian ducats. There had been a beast for him, as pat as a pudding for a friar's mouth. But to couple the hind and the panther was just like sic magna parvis componere; and, therefore, he had better have put his hind in a good pasty, or reserved her for some more proper allusion; for this, though his nimble beast have four feet, will by no means run quatuor pedibus, though she had a whole kennel of hounds at her heels."—The Revolter, a Tragi-comedy.
[75] The following justification of their plan is taken from the preface, which is believed to have been entirely the composition of Montague.
"The favourers of 'The Hind and Panther' will be apt to say in its defence, that the best things are capable of being turned to ridicule; that Homer has been burlesqued, and Virgil travestied, without suffering any thing in their reputation from that buffoonery; and that, in like manner,'The Hind and the Panther' may be an exact poem, though it is the subject of our raillery: But there is this difference, that those authors are wrested from their true sense, and this naturally falls into ridicule; there is nothing represented here as monstrous and unnatural, which is not equally so in the original.—First, as to the general design; Is it not as easy to imagine two mice bilking coachmen, and supping at the Devil, as to suppose a hind entertaining the panther at a hermit's cell, discussing the greatest mysteries of religion, and telling you her son Rodriguez writ very good Spanish? What can be more improbable and contradictory to the rules and examples of all fables, and to the very design and use of them? They were first begun, and raised to the highest perfection, in the eastern countries, where they wrote in signs, and spoke in parables, and delivered the most useful precepts in delightful stories; which, for their aptness, were entertaining to the most judicious, and led the vulgar into understanding by surprizing them with their novelty, and fixing their attention. All their fables carry a double meaning; the story is one and entire; the characters the same throughout, not broken or changed, and always conformable to the nature of the creatures they introduce. They never tell you, that the dog, which snapt at a shadow, lost his troop of horse; that would be unintelligible; a piece of flesh is proper for him to drop, and the reader will apply it to mankind: They would not say, that the daw, who was so proud of her borrowed plumes, looked very ridiculous, when Rodriguez came and took away all the book but the 17th, 24th, and 25th chapters, which she stole from him. But this is his new way of telling a story, and confounding the moral and the fable together.
Before the word was written, said the hind,
Our Saviour preached the faith to all mankind.
What relation has the hind to our Saviour? or what notion have we of a panther's bible? If you say he means the church, how does the church feed on lawns, or range in the forest? Let it be always a church, or always the cloven-footed beast, for we cannot bear his shifting the scene every line. If it is absurd in comedies to make a peasant talk in the strain of a hero, or a country wench use the language of the court, how monstrous is it to make a priest of a hind, and a parson of a panther? To bring them in disputing with all the formalities and terms of the school? Though as to the arguments themselves, those we confess are suited to the capacity of the beasts; and if we would suppose a hind expressing herself about these matters, she would talk at that rate."
The reader may be curious to see a specimen of the manner in which these two applauded wits encountered Dryden's controversial poem, with such eminent success, that a contemporary author has said, "that 'The City and Country Mouse' ruined the reputation of the divine, as the 'Rehearsal' ruined the reputation of the poet."[76] The plan is a dialogue between Bayes, and Smith, and Johnson, his old friends in the "Rehearsal;" the poet recites to them a new work, in which the Popish and English churches are represented as the city and country mouse, the former spotted, the latter milk-white. The following is a specimen both of the poetry and dialogue:
"Bayes. Reads. With these allurements, Spotted did invite,
From hermit's cell, the female proselyte.
Oh, with what ease we follow such a guide,
Where souls are starved, and senses gratified!
"Now, would not you think she's going? but, egad, you're mistaken; you shall hear a long argument about infallibility before she stir yet:
But here the White, by observation wise,
Who long on heaven had fixed her prying eyes,
With thoughtful countenance, and grave remark,
Said, "Or my judgment fails me, or 'tis dark;
Lest, therefore, we should stray, and not go right,
Through the brown horror of the starless night,
Hast thou Infallibility, that wight?"
Sternly the savage grinned, and thus replied,
"That mice may err, was never yet denied."
"That I deny," said the immortal dame,
"There is a guide,—Gad, I've forgot his name,—
Who lives in Heaven or Rome, the Lord knows where;
Had we but him, sweet-heart, we could not err.—
But hark ye, sister, this is but a whim,
For still we want a guide to find out him."
"Here, you see, I don't trouble myself to keep on the narration, but write White speaks, or Dapple speaks, by the side. But when I get any noble thought, which I envy a mouse should say, I clap it down in my own person, with a poeta loquitur; which, take notice, is a surer sign of a fine thing in my writings, than a hand in the margent anywhere else.—Well now, says White,
What need we find him? we have certain proof
That he is somewhere, dame, and that's enough;
For if there is a guide that knows the way,
Although we know not him, we cannot stray.
"That's true, egad: Well said, White.—You see her adversary has nothing to say for herself; and, therefore, to confirm the victory, she shall make a simile.
Smith. Why, then, I find similes are as good after victory, as after a surprize.
Bayes. Every jot, egad; or rather better. Well, she can do it two ways; either about emission or reception of light, or else about Epsom waters: But I think the last is most familiar; therefore speak, my pretty one. [Reads.]
As though 'tis controverted in the school,
If waters pass by urine, or by stool;
Shall we, who are philosophers, thence gather,
From this dissention, that they work by neither?
"And, egad, she's in the right on't; but, mind now, she comes upon her scoop. [Reads.]
All this I did, your arguments to try.
"And, egad, if they had been never so good, this next line confutes 'em. [Reads.]
Hear, and be dumb, thou wretch! that guide am I.
"There's a surprize for you now!—How sneakingly t'other looks?—Was not that pretty now, to make her ask for a guide first, and tell her she was one? Who could have thought that this little mouse had the Pope, and a whole general council, in her belly?—Now Dapple had nothing to say to this; and, therefore, you'll see she grows peevish. [Reads.]
}
Come leave your cracking tricks; and, as they say, }
Use not that barber that trims time, delay;— }
Which, egad, is new, and my own.— }
I've eyes as well as you to find the way."— }
Then on they jogged; and, since an hour of talk
Might cut a banter on the tedious walk,
"As I remember," said the sober Mouse,
"I've heard much talk of the Wit's Coffee-house."
"Thither," says Brindle, "thou shalt go, and see
Priests sipping coffee, sparks and poets tea,
Here, rugged frieze; there, quality well drest;
These, baffling the Grand Seigneur; those, the Test;
And here shrewd guesses made, and reasons given,
That human laws were never made in heaven.
But, above all, what shall oblige thy sight,
And fill thy eye-balls with a vast delight,
Is the poetic Judge of sacred wit,[77]
Who does i'the darkness of glory sit.
And as the moon, who first receives the light
With which she makes these nether regions bright,
So does he shine, reflecting from afar
The rays he borrowed from a better star;
For rules, which from Corneille and Rapin flow,
Admired by all the scribbling herd below,
}
From French tradition while he does dispense, }
Unerring truths, 'tis schism,—a damned offence,— }
To question his, or trust your private sense. }
"Ha! is not that right, Mr Johnson?—Gad forgive me, he is fast asleep! Oh the damned stupidity of this age! Asleep!—Well, sir, since you're so drowsy, your humble servant.
John. Nay, pray, Mr Bayes! Faith, I heard you all the while.—The white mouse——
Bayes. The white mouse! Ay, ay, I thought how you heard me. Your servant, sir, your servant.
John. Nay, dear Bayes: Faith, I beg thy pardon, I was up late last night. Prithee, lend me a little snuff, and go on.
Bayes. Go on! Pox, I don't know where I was.—Well, I'll begin. Here, mind, now they are both come to town. [Reads.]
But now at Piccadilly they arrive,
And, taking coach, t'wards Temple-Bar they drive;
But, at St Clement's church, eat out the back,
And, slipping through the palsgrave, bilked poor hack.
"There's the utile which ought to be in all poetry. Many a young Templar will save his shilling by this stratagem of my mice.
Smith. Why, will any young Templar eat out the back of a coach?
Bayes. No, egad! But you'll grant, it is mighty natural for a mouse."—Hind and Panther Transversed.
Such was the wit, which, bolstered up by the applause of party, was deemed an unanswerable ridicule of Dryden's favourite poem.
[76] Preface to the Second Part of "The Reasons of Mr Bayes changing his Religion."
[77] i.e. Dryden himself.
[78] I know not, however, but a critic might here also point out an example of that discrepancy, which is censured by Johnson, and ridiculed by Prior. The cause of dissatisfaction in the pigeon-house is, that the proprietor chuses rather to feed upon the flesh of his domestic poultry, than upon theirs; no very rational cause of mutiny on the part of the doves.
[79] Butler, however, assigns the Bear-Garden as a type of my Mother Kirk; and the resemblance is thus proved by Ralpho:
Synods are mystical bear-gardens,
Where elders, deputies, church-wardens,
And other members of the court,
Manage the Babylonish sport;
For prolocutor, scribe, and bear-ward,
Do differ only in a mere word;
Both are but several synagogues
Of carnal men, and bears, and dogs;
Both antichristian assemblies,
To mischief bent as far's in them lies;
Both slave and toil with fierce contests,
The one with men, the other beasts:
The difference is, the one fights with
The tongue, the other with the teeth;
And that they bait but bears in this,
In t'other souls and consciences.
Hudibras denies the resemblance, and answers by an appeal to the senses:
For bears and dogs on four legs go
As beasts, but synod-men have two;
'Tis true, they all have teeth and nails,
But prove that synod-men have tails;
Or that a rugged shaggy fur
Grows o'er the hide of presbyter;
Or that his snout and spacious ears
Do hold proportion with a bear's.
A bear's a savage beast, of all
Most ugly and unnatural;
Whelped without form, until the dam
Has licked it into shape and frame;
But all thy light can ne'er evict,
That ever synod-man was lickt,
Or brought to any other fashion,
Than his own will and inclination.
Hudibras, Part 1. Canto 3.
[80] "In short, the whole poem, if it may deserve that name, is a piece of deformed, arrogant nonsense, and self-contradiction, drest up in fine language, like an ugly brazen-faced whore, peeping through the costly trappings of a point de Venise cornet. I call it nonsense, because unseasonable; and arrogant, because impertinent: For could Mr Bayes have so little wit, to think himself a sufficient champion to decide the high mysteries of faith and transubstantiation, and the nice disputes concerning traditions and infallibility, in a discourse between "The Hind and the Panther," which, undetermined hitherto, have exercised all the learning in the world? Or, could he think the grand arcana of divinity a subject fit to be handled in flourishing rhyme, by the author of "The Duke of Guise," or "The Conquest of Peru," or "The Spanish Friar:" Doubts which Mr Bayes is no more able to unfold, than Saffold to resolve a question in astrology. And all this only as a tale to usher in his beloved character, and to shew the excellency of his wit in abusing honest men. If these were his thoughts, as we cannot rationally otherwise believe, seeing that no man of understanding will undertake an enterprise, wherein he does not think himself to have some advantage of his predecessors; then does this romance, I say, of The Panther and the Hind, fall under the most fatal censure of unseasonable folly and saucy impertinence. Nor can I think, that the more solid, prudent, and learned persons of the Roman Church, con him any thanks for laying the prophane fingers of a turn-coat upon the altar of their sacred debates."—The Revolter, a tragi-comedy, acted between The Hind and Panther and Religio Laici, &c. 1687.
[81] The following is the commencement of his "Reflections on the Hind and Panther," in a letter to a friend, 1687:
"The present you have made me of "The Hind and Panther," is variously talked of here in the country. Some wonder what kind of champion the Roman Catholics have now gotten; for they have had divers ways of representing themselves; but this of rhyming us to death, is altogether new and unheard of, before Mr Bayes set about it; and, indeed, he hath done it in the sparkishest poem that ever was seen. 'Tis true, he hath written a great many things; but he never had such pure swiftness of thought, as in this composition, nor such fiery flights of fancy. Such hath always been his dramatical and scenical way of scribbling, that there was no post nor pillar in the town exempt from the pasting up of the titles of his plays; insomuch, that the footboys, for want of skill in reading, do now (as we hear) often bring away, by mistake, the title of a new book against the Church of England, instead of taking down the play for the afternoon. Yet, if he did it well or handsomely, he might deserve some pardon; but, alas! how ridiculously doth he appear in print for any religion, who hath made it his business to laugh at all! How can he stand up for any mode of worship, who hath been accustomed to bite, and spit his venom against the very name thereof?
"Wherefore, I cannot but wish our adversaries joy on their new-converted hero, Mr Bayes; whose principle it is to fight single with whole armies; and this one quality he prefers before all the moral virtues put together. The Roman Catholics may talk what they will, of their Bellarmine and Perrone, their Hector and Achilles, and I know not who; but I desire them all, to shew one such champion for the cause, as this Drawcansir: For he is the man that kills whole nations at once; who, as he never wrote any thing, that any one can imagine has ever been the practice of the world, so, in his late endeavours to pen controversy, you shall hardly find one word to the purpose. He is that accomplished person, who loves reasoning so much in verse, and hath got a knack of writing it smoothly. The subject (he treats of in this poem) did, in his opinion, require more than ordinary spirit and flame; therefore, he supposed it to be too great for prose; for he is too proud to creep servilely after sense; so that, in his verse, he soars high above the reach of it. To do this, there is no need of brain, 'tis but scanning right; the labour is in the finger, not in the head.
"However, if Mr Bayes would be pleased to abate a little of the exuberancy of his fancy and wit; to dispense with his ornaments and superfluencies of invention and satire, a man might consider, whether he should submit to his argument; but take away the railing, and no argument remains; so that one may beat the bush a whole day, and, after so much labour, only spring a butterfly, or start a hedge-hog.
"For all this, is it not great pity to see a man, in the flower of his romantic conceptions, in the full vigour of his studies on love and honour, to fall into such a distraction, as to walk through the thorns and briars of controversy, unless his confessor hath commanded it, as a penance for some past sins? that a man, who hath read Don Quixote for the greatest part of his life, should pretend to interpret the Bible, or trace the footsteps of tradition, even in the darkest ages?"—Four Letters, &c.
[82] "To draw now to an end, Mr Bayes, I hear, has lately complained, at Willis' Coffeehouse, of the ill usage he has met in the world; that whereas he had the generosity and assurance to set his own name to his late piece of polemic poetry, yet others, who have pretended to answer him, wanted the breeding and civility to do the like: Now, because I would not willingly disoblige a person of Mr Bayes's character, I do here fairly, and before all the world, assure him that my name is Dudly Tomkinson, and that I live within two miles of St Michael's Mount, in Cornwall, and have, in my time, been both constable, church-warden, and overseer of the parish; by the same token, that the little gallery next the belfry, the new motto about the pulpit, the king's arms, the ten commandments, and the great sun-dial in the church-yard, will transmit my name to all posterity. Furthermore, (if it will do him any good at all) I can make a pretty shift to read without spectacles; wear my own hair, which is somewhat inclining to red; have a large mole on my left cheek; am mightily troubled with corns; and, what is peculiar to my constitution, after half-a-dozen bottles of claret, which I generally carry home every night from the tavern, I never fail of a stool or two next morning; besides, use to smoke a pipe every day after dinner, and afterwards steal a nap for an hour or two in the old wicker-chair near the oven; take gentle purgatives spring and fall; and it has been my custom, any time these sixteen years, (as all the parish can testify) to ride in Gambadoes. Nay, to win the heart of him for ever, I invite him here, before the courteous reader, to a country regale, (provided he will before hand promise not to debauch my wife,) where he shall have sugar to his roast beef, and vinegar to his butter; and lastly, to make him amends for the tediousness of the journey, a parcel of relics to carry home with him, which I believe can scarce be matched in the whole Christian world; but, because I have no great fancy that way, I don't care if I part with them to so worthy a person; they are as followeth:
"St Gregory's Ritual, bound up in the same calve's-skin that the old gentleman, in St Luke, roasted at the return of his prodigal son.
"The quadrant that a Philistine tailor took the height of Goliah by, when he made him his last suit of clothes; for the giant being a man of extraordinary dimensions, it was impossible to do this in any other way than your designers use when they take the height of a country-steeple," &c &c..—Reasons for Mr Bayes changing his Religion. See Preface.
[83] THE LAUREAT.
Jack Squab's history, in a little drawn,
Down to his evening from his morning dawn.
(Bought by Mr Luttrel, 24th October, 1687.)
Appear, thou mighty bard, to open view;
Which yet, we must confess, you need not do.
The labour to expose thee we may save;
Thou standst upon thy own records a knave,
Condemned to live in thy apostate rhymes,
The curse of ours, and scoff of future times.
}
Still tacking round with every turn of state, }
Reverse to Shaftesbury, thy cursed fate }
Is always, at a change, to come too late. }
To keep his plots from coxcombs, was his care;
His villainy was masked, and thine is bare.
}
Wise men alone could guess at his design, }
And could but guess, the threads were spun so fine; }
But every purblind fool may see through thine. }
Had Dick still kept the regal diadem,
Thou hadst been poet laureat still to him,
And, long ere now, in lofty verse proclaimed
His high extraction, among princes famed;
Diffused his glorious deed from pole to pole,
Where winds can carry, or where waves can roll:
Nay, had our Charles, by heaven's severe decree,
Been found and murdered in the royal tree,
Even thou hadst praised the fact; his father slain,
Thou callest but gently breathing of a vein.
}
Impious and villainous, to bless the blow }
That laid at once three lofty nations low, }
And gave the royal cause a fatal overthrow! }
}
Scandal to all religions, new and old; }
Scandal to them, where pardon's bought and sold, }
And mortgaged happiness redeemed for gold. }
Tell me, for 'tis a truth you must allow,
Who ever changed more in one moon than thou?
Even thy own Zimri was more stedfast known,
He had but one religion, or had none.
What sect of Christians is't thou hast not known,
And at one time or other made thy own?
A bristled baptist bred, and then thy strain
Immaculate was far from sinful stain;
No songs, in those blest times, thou didst produce,
To brand and shame good manners out of use;
The ladies had not then one b—— bob,
Nor thou the courtly name of Poet Squab.
Next, thy dull muse, an independant jade,
On sacred tyranny fine stanzas made;
Praised Noll, who even to both extremes did run,
To kill the father and dethrone the son.
When Charles came in, thou didst a convert grow,
More by thy interest, than thy nature so;
}
Under his 'livening beams thy laurels spread; }
He first did place that wreath about thy head, }
Kindly relieved thy wants, and gave thee bread. }
Here 'twas thou mad'st thy bells of fancy chime,
And choked the town with suffocating rhyme;
Till heroes, formed by thy creating pen,
Were grown as cheap and dull as other men.
Flushed with success, full gallery and pit,
Thou bravest all mankind with want of wit;
Nay, in short time wer't grown so proud a ninny,
As scarce to allow that Ben himself had any;
But when the men of sense thy error saw,
They checked thy muse, and kept the termagant in awe.
To satire next thy talent was addrest,
Fell foul on all, thy friends among the rest:
Those who the oft'nest did thy wants supply,
Abused, traduced, without a reason why;
Nay, even thy royal patron was not spared,
But an obscene, a santring wretch declared.
Thy loyal libel we can still produce;
Beyond example, and beyond excuse.
O strange return to a forgiving king!
But the warmed viper wears the greatest sting.
Thy pension lost, and justly without doubt;
When servants snarl, we ought to kick 'em out;
They that disdain their benefactor's bread,
No longer ought by bounty to be fed.
That lost, the visor changed, you turn about,
And straight a true blue Protestant crept out.
The "Friar" now was writ; and some will say,
They smell a mal-content through all the play.
}
The Papist too was damned, unfit for trust, }
Called treacherous, shameless, profligate, unjust; }
And kingly power thought arbitrary lust. }
This lasted till thou didst thy pension gain,
And that changed both thy morals and thy strain.
If to write contradictions nonsense be,
Who has more nonsense in their works than thee?
We'll mention but thy Layman's Faith and Hind:
Who'll think both these, such clashing do we find,
Could be the product of one single mind!
Here thou wouldst charitable fain appear,
Find fault that Athanasius was severe;
Thy pity straight to cruelty is raised,
And even the pious inquisition praised,
And recommended to the present reign,
"O happy countries, Italy and Spain!"
}
Have we not cause, in thine own words, to say, }
Let none believe what varies every day, }
That never was, nor will be, at a stay? }
Once heathens might be saved, you did allow,
But not, it seems, we greater heathens now.
The loyal church, that buoys the kingly line,
Damned with a breath, but 'tis such a breath as thine.
What credit to thy party can it be,
To have gained so lewd a profligate as he,
Strayed from our fold, makes us to laugh, not weep;
We have but lost what was disgrace to keep.
By them mistrusted, and to us a scorn;
For 'tis but weakness at the best to turn.
}
True, hadst thou left us in the former reign, }
Y'had proved it was not wholly done for gain; }
Now the meridian sun is not so plain. }
}
Gold is thy god; for a substantial sum, }
Thou to the Turk wouldst run away from Rome, }
And sing his holy expedition against Christendom. }
But, to conclude; blush with a lasting red,
If thou'rt not moved by what's already said,
To see thy boars, bears, buzzards, wolves, and owls,
And all thy other beasts and other fowls,
Routed by two poor mice (unequal fight!);
But easy 'tis to conquer in the right.
See, there a youth, (a shame to thy gray hairs)
Make a mere dunce of all thy threescore years.
What in that tedious poem hast thou done,
But crammed all Esop's fables into one?
But why do I the precious minutes spend
On him, that would much rather hang than mend?
No, wretch, continue still just as thou art,
Thou'rt now in this last scene that crowns thy part.
To purchase favour veer with every gale, }
And against interest never cease to rail, }
Though thou'rt the only proof how interest can prevail. }
[84] "Tale of a Tub," first part. "Tommy Potts" is a silly popular ballad, for which see Ritson's "Ancient Songs."
[85] The tumultuary joy of the sectaries, upon their first view of this triumph over the church of England, led them into all the extravagancies of loyalty, which used to be practised by their ancient enemies the Tories. Addresses teeming with affection, and foaming with bombast, were poured in upon King James from all corners of his dominions; Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Quakers, Sectaries of all sorts and persuasions, strove to be foremost in the race of gratitude. And when similar addresses came in from corporations, who had been formerly anxious to shew their loyalty on the subject of the Rye-house plot, the king's accession, and other occasions of triumph to the Tories, the tone of these bodies also was wonderfully changed; and, instead of raving against excluders, rebels, regicides, republicans, and fanatics, whose hellish contrivances endeavoured to destroy the safety of the kingdom, and the life of the king, these same gentlemen mention the Sectaries as their brethren and fellow-subjects, to whom the king, their common father, had been justly, liberally, royally pleased to grant freedom of conscience, for which the addressers offer their hearty and unfeigned thanks. These were the two classes of persons, whom Dryden, as they had closed with the measures of government, declares to be exempted from his satire. Those, therefore, against whom it is avowedly directed, are first, the Church of England, whose adherents saw her destruction aimed at through the pretence of toleration. 2dly, Those Sectaries, who distrusted the boon which the king presented, and feared that the consequences of this immediate indulgence at the hands of an ancient enemy, would be purchased by future persecution. These formed a body, small at first, but whose numbers daily increased.
Among the numerous addresses which were presented to the court on this occasion, there are two somewhat remarkable from the quality and condition of the persons in whose name they are offered. The one is from the persons engaged in the schemes of Shaftesbury and Monmouth, and who set out by acknowledging their lives and fortunes forfeited to King James; a singular instance of convicts offering their sentiments upon state affairs. The other is from no less a corporation than the company of London Cooks, which respectable persons declare their approbation of the indulgence, upon a principle recognized in their profession, "the difference of men's gusto, in religion, as in eatables;" and assure his majesty, that his declaration "somewhat resembles the Almighty's manna, which suited every man's palate." History of Addresses, pp. 106, 132.
[86] Most readers will, I think, acknowledge with me, the extreme awkwardness with which Dryden apologizes, for hoping well of those Sectaries, against whom he had so often discharged the utmost severity of his pen. Yet there is much real truth in the observation, though the compliment to the new allies of the Catholics is but a cold one. Many sects have distinguished themselves by faction, fanaticism, and furious excess at their rise, which, when their spirits have ceased to be agitated by novelty, and exasperated by persecution, have subsided into quiet orderly classes of citizens, only remarkable for some peculiarities of speculative doctrine.
[87] Alluding to the persecution of the Huguenots in France, after the recall of the edict of Nantes.
[88] This phrase occurs in the address of the Ministers of the Gospel in and about the city of London, commonly called Presbyterians: "Your majesty's princely wisdom," say these reverend sycophants, "now rescues us from our long sufferings, and by the same royal act restores God to the empire over conscience." This it is to be too eloquent; when people set no bounds to their rhetoric, it betrays them often into nonsense, and not seldom into blasphemy.—History of Addresses, p. 107.
[89] A gentle insinuation, that, if the sectaries could renounce the ordination by presbyteries or classes, in favour of the church of England, it would require but a step or two farther to bring them to a conformity with that of Rome.
[90] Who freed the Jews from their bondage, and gave them permission to rebuild their city and temple.—See the Book of Esdras.
[91] In his ardour for extending the Catholic religion, James II. had directed copies of the papers found in his brother's strongbox in favour of that communion, with the copy of a paper by his first duchess, giving the reasons for her conversion to that faith, to be printed, and circulated through the kingdom. These papers were answered by the learned Stillingfleet, then Dean of St Paul's. A Defence of the Papers was published "by command," of which it appears, from the passage in the text, that our author wrote the third part, which applies to the Duchess of York's paper. Stillingfleet published a vindication of his answer, in which he attacks our author with some severity. A full account of the controversy will be found attached to Dryden's part of the Defence, among his prose works.
[92] In the controversy between Dryden and Stillingfleet, the former had concluded his Defence of the Duchess of York's paper, by alleging, that "among all the volumes of divinity written by the Protestants, there is not one original treatise, at least that I have seen or heard of, which has handled distinctly, and by itself, the Christian virtue of humility." This Stillingfleet, in his reply, calls a "bare-faced assertion of a thing known to be false;" for, "with-in a few years, besides what has been printed formerly, such a book hath been published in London." Dryden, in the text, replies to this allegation, that Duncombe's treatise, which he supposes to be meant, is a translation from the Spanish of Rodriguez, therefore, not originally a Protestant work. Montague, in the preface to "The Hind and Panther Transversed" alleges, that Dryden has mistaken the name of the author of the treatise alluded to; which was not, he asserts, Duncombe, but Allen. See the matter more fully canvassed in a note on the original passage, in "The Duchess of York's Paper Defended."
[93] Dryden is not quite candid in his statement. In Stillingfleet's answer to the Duchess's paper, it is indeed called, the "paper said to be written by a great lady;" but there is not another word upon the authority, which, indeed, considering it was published under the king's immediate inspection, could not be very decorously disputed. Dryden seizes upon this phrase in his defence, and, coupling with it some expressions of the Bishop of Winchester, he argues that it was the intention of these sons of the church of England, to give the lie to their sovereign. In this vindication of the answer, Stillingfleet thus expresses himself: "As to the main design of the third paper, I declared, that I considered it, as it was supposed to contain the reasons and motives of the conversion of so great a lady to the church of Rome.
"But this gentleman has now eased me of the necessity of farther considering it on that account. For he declares, that none of those motives or reasons are to be found in the paper of her highness. Which he repeats several times. 'She writ this paper, not as to the reasons she had herself for changing, &c.' 'As for her reasons, they were only betwixt God and her own soul, and the priest with whom she spoke at last.'
"And so my work is at an end as to her paper. For I never intended to ransack the private papers or secret narratives of great persons; and I do not in the least question the relation now given from so great authority, as that he mentions of the passages concerning her; and therefore I have nothing more to say as to what relates to the person of the duchess."
It is obvious that Dryden, probably finding the divine too hard for him on the controversial part of the subject, affects to consider the dispute as entirely limited to the authenticity of the paper, which it cannot be supposed Stillingfleet ever seriously intended to impeach.
[94] Eleanor James, a lady who was at this period pleased to stand up as a champion for the test, against the repeal which James had so deeply at heart. This female theologian is mentioned in the "Remarks from the country, upon the two Letters, relating to the convocation, and alterations in the liturgy." "It is a thousand pities, so instructive and so eloquent papers should ever fall under such an imputation, (of being too forward, and solemn impertinence,) and be ranked among the scribblings of Eleanor James, with this only advantage of having better language, whereas the woman counsellor is judged to have the better meaning." Although Mrs James's lucubrations were thus vilipended by the male disputants, one of her own sex thought it necessary to enter the lists in opposition to her. See Elizabeth Rone's short Answer to Eleanor James's Long Preamble, or Vindication of the New Test:
The book called Mistress James's Vindication,
Does seem to me but her great indignation;
Against the Romans and dissenters too,
She for the church of England makes adoe;
Calling her Christ's spouse, but she's mistaken,
Christ's spouse is she that is by her forsaken.
Mrs James's work was entitled, "A Vindication of the Church of England, in answer to a pamphlet, entitled, a New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty." She was herself the wife of a printer, who left many books to the library of Sion college. Mrs James's picture is preserved in the library, in the full dress of a citizen's wife of that period. She survived her husband many years, and carried on the printing business on her own account.—Malone, Vol. III. p. 539.
[95] The Roman Catholic church.
[97] The Roman Catholic priests executed in England, at different times since the Reformation, and regarded as martyrs and saints by those of their communion.
[98] The Independents. See [Note II.]
[99] The Quakers. See Note [III.]
[100] Free-thinkers. See [Note IV.]
[101] Anabaptists. See [Note V.]
[102] Unitarians. See [Note VI.]
[103] See Introductory remarks.
[105] Quasi By-land-er, an old word for a boat, used in coast navigation.
[107] Alluding to the classical ordination, which the Presbyterian church has adopted, instead of that by Bishops.
[108] Geneva, the cradle of Calvinism. The territories of the little republic, dum Troja fuit, were bounded by its ramparts and lake.
[109] Alluding to the recall of the Edict of Nantz, and persecution of the Huguenots. See [Note IX.]
[110] Which is usually distinguished by an act of grace, or general pardon.
[111] Nimrod.
[112] Jesus Christ.
[113] King James II.
[115] Our author recollected his own Philidel in "King Arthur:"
An airy shape, the tenderest of my kind,
The last seduced and least deformed of hell;
Half-white, and shuffled in the crowd I fell,
Desirous to repent and loath to sin,
Awkward in mischief, piteous of mankind;
My name is Philidel, my lot in air,
Where, next beneath the moon, and nearest heaven,
I soar, I have a glimpse to be received.
Vol. VIII. p. 135.
[116] Henry the Eighth's passion for Anna Bullen led the way to the Reformation.
[117] The marriage of the clergy, licensed by the Reformation.
[118] Worn out, or become hagard.
[119] A Popish advocate, in the controversy with Tennison, tells us exultingly, "That Martin Luther himself, Dr T's excellent instrument, after he had eat a feasting supper, and drank lutheranice, as the German proverb has it, was called into another world at two o'clock in the night, February 18, 1546." This was one of the reasons why his adversaries alleged, that Martin Luther set sail for hell in the manner described by Sterne, in his tale from Slawkenbergius.
[120] The king being owned the head of the church of England, contrary to the doctrine of the other reformed churches.
[121] Phylacteries are little scrolls of parchment worn by the Jews on their foreheads and wrists, inscribed with sentences from the law. They are supposed, as is expressed by the phrase in the original, to have the virtue of preserving the wearer from danger and evil.
[122] The Lutherans adopt the doctrine of consubstantiation; that is to say, they believe, that, though the elements are not changed into the body and blood of Christ by consecration, which is the Roman faith, yet the participants, at the moment of communicating, do actually receive the real body and blood. The Calvinists utterly deny the real presence in the eucharist, and affirm, that the words of Christ were only symbolical. The church of England announces a doctrine somewhat between these. See Note XI.
[125] Alluding to the fate of the church and monarchy of England, which fell together in the great rebellion. See Note XI.
[126] Resolved, i.e. dissolved.
[127] The Wolf, or Presbytery.—See [note XIII.]
[129] That is, if the church of England would be reconciled to Rome, she should be gratified with a delegated portion of innate authority over the rival sectaries; instead of being obliged to depend upon the civil power for protection.
[130] Alluding to the exercise of the dispensing power, and the Declaration of Indulgence.
[131] The ten-horned monster, in the Revelations, was usually explained by the reformers as typical of the church of Rome.
[132] There was a classical superstition, that, if a wolf saw a man before he saw the wolf, the person lost his voice:
——voxque Mærin
Jam fugit ipsa: lupi Mærin videre priores.
Dryden has adopted, in the text, the converse of this superstitious belief.
[133] Although the Roman Catholic plot was made the pretence of persecuting the Papists in the first instance, yet the high-flying party of the Church of England were also levelled at, and accused of being Tantivies, Papists in masquerade, &c. &c.
[134] Hind and Panther Transversed.
[135] This office was usually held by the executioner, who, to this extent, was a pluralist; and the change was chiefly made, to prevent the necessity of producing that person in court, to the aggravation of the criminal's terrors.
[136] "But separating this obliquity from the main intendment, the work was vigorously carried on by the king and his counsellors, as appears clearly by the doctrinals in the Book of Homilies, and by the practical part of Christian piety, in the first public Liturgy, confirmed by act of parliament, in the second and third year of the king; and in that act (and, which is more, by Fox himself) affirmed to have been done by the especial aid of the Holy Ghost. And here the business might have rested, if Catin's pragmatical spirit had not interposed. He first began to quarrel at some passages in this sacred liturgy, and afterwards never left soliciting the Lord Protector, and practising by his agents on the court, the country, and the universities, till he had laid the first foundation of the Zuinglian faction; who laboured nothing more, than innovation both in doctrine and discipline; to which they were encouraged by nothing more than some improvident indulgence granted unto John A-Lasco; who, bringing with him a mixt multitude of Poles and Germans, obtained the privilege of a church for himself and his, distinct in government and forms of worship from the church of England.
"This gave powerful animation to the Zuinglian gospellers, (as they are called by Bishop Hooper, and some other writers) to practise first upon the church; who being countenanced, if not headed, by the Earl of Warwick, (who then began to undermine the Lord Protector,) first quarrelled the episcopal habit, and afterwards inveighed against caps and surplices, against gowns and tippets, but fell at last upon the altars, which were left standing in all churches by the rules of liturgy. The touching on this string made excellent music to most of the grandees of the court, who had before cast many an envious eye on those costly hangings, that massy plate, and other rich and precious utensils, which adorned those altars. And what need all this waste? said Judas, when one poor chalice only, and perhaps not that, might have served the turn. Besides, there was no small spoil to be made of copes, in which the priest officiated at the holy sacrament; some of them being made of cloth of tissue, of cloth of gold and silver, or embroidered velvet; the meanest being made of silk, or satin, with some decent trimming. And might not these be handsomely converted into private use, to serve as carpets for their tables, coverlids to their beds, or cushions to their chairs or windows. Thereupon some rude people are encouraged under-hand to beat down some altars, which makes way for an order of the council-table, to take down the rest, and set up tables in their places; followed by a commission, to be executed in all parts of the kingdom, for seizing on the premises to the use of the king."
[137] "Quo animo ipsum quoque Paulum dicere existimo, si potes liber fieri utere potius, 1. Cor. 7. Quod eternum Dei concilium, patres nostri, fortissimi viri, infracto animo secuti, miris victoriarum successibus ut Sempachii," &c. And again, "Ipse Dominus libertatis author exstitit, et honestam libertatem querentibus adest."—Pia et Amica Paranæsis ad Suitensium rempublicam.
[138] Dalrymple's Memoirs, Vol. II. p. 108.
[139] The Hind and the Panther Transversed, p. 14.
[140] Alluding to the Popish Plot. See [Note I.]
[141] James II. then Duke of York, whom Shaftesbury and his party involved in the odium of the plot.
[142] Plunket, the titular primate of Ireland, Whitebread, provincial of the Jesuits, and several other Catholic priests, suffered for the alleged plot. Derrick most absurdly supposes the passage to refer to the period of the Civil War.
[143] Quarry signifies, properly, "dead game ready to be cut up by the huntsman," which the French still call faire la curée. But it is often taken, as in this passage, for the game in general. Vermin comprehends such wild animals as are not game, foxes, polecats, and the like.
[145] The test-oath, against popery, in which transubstantiation is formally disavowed. See [Note III.]
[146] There was a dispute among naturalists, whether sight was accomplished per emissionem vel per receptionem specierum.
[147] Dolus versatur in generalibus, was an axiom of the schools.
[149] The Catholics interpret our Saviour's promise, "that he would be with the disciples to the end of the world," as applicable to their own church exclusively.
[151] By the doctrine of consubstantiation.
[152] Alluding to Lucan's description of the Roman civil war.
[154] See Note XIV. Part I. page [156].
[155] The gallows.
[156] By the Blatant Beast, we are generally to understand slander; see Spenser's Legend of Courtesy. But it is here taken for the Wolf, or Presbyterian clergy, whose violent declamations against the church of Rome filled up many sermons.
[157] The Presbyterian church utterly rejects traditions, and appeals to the scripture as the sole rule of faith.
[159] It is probable, that from this passage Swift took the idea of comparing the scripture to a testament in his "Tale of a Tub."
[160] By this asseveration the author seems to infer, that, because the church of Rome avers her own infallibility, she is therefore infallible.
[161] In a Polish Diet, where unanimity was necessary, the mode adopted of ensuring it was for the majority to hew to pieces the first individual who expressed his dissent by the fatal veto.
[162] "The church, according to the articles of faith, hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith; and yet it is not lawful for the church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's word written, neither may it so expound one place of scripture, that it be repugnant to another." Article xx.
[163] This romantic name is given to the sword of mercy; which wants a point, and is said to have been that of Edward the Confessor. It is borne at the coronation. The sword of Ogier the Dane, famous in romance, the work of Galand, who made Joyeuse and Durandal, was also called Curtana.
[164] The Lutherans.
[165] The Huguenot preachers, being Calvinists, had received classical, and not episcopal ordination: hence, unless re-ordained, they were not admitted to preach in the established church of England.
[168] The magicians imitated Moses in producing the frogs which infested Egypt; but they could not relieve from that, or any of the other plagues. By that of boils and blains they were afflicted themselves, like the other Egyptians. "And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils were upon the magicians, and upon all the Egyptians." Exod. ix. 11.
[169] Debauchees.
[172] Alluding to the doctrines of Wiccliff and the Lollards, condemned as heresies in their own times, but revived by the reformers.
[173] About seven hundred years elapsed between the departure of the church of Rome from the simplicity of the primitive Christians, and the dawn of the Reformation.
[176] Poeta loquitur.
[177] King James.
[179] Our Saviour.
Ut ventum ad sedes: Hœc, inquit, limina victor
Alcides subiit; hœc illum regia cepit.
Aude, hospes, contemnere opes, et te quoque dignum
Finge deo; rebusque veni non asper egenis.
Æneid. Lib. VIII.
[181] The great civil war broke out in 1641-2, and the king was dethroned in 1648.
[182] "The Freeholder's Choice, or a Letter of Advice concerning Elections."
[183] New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty.
[185] The Declaration of Indulgence.
[186] The Convocation.
[187] The adherence of the church of England to the interests of James, while he was an exile at Brussels, and the Bill of Exclusion against him was in dependence, is here, as in other places, made the subject of panegyric. Had the church joined with the sectaries, the destruction of the Catholics, at the time of the plot, would have been inevitable.
[188] The church of England complained, with great reason, of the coldness which they experienced from James, in whose behalf they had exerted themselves so successfully.
[189] An old sea-term, signifying to run before the wind.
[190] Une querelle Allemande is the well-known French phrase for a quarrel picked without cause. The Hind insinuates, that the Panther, conscious of superior force, meant to take such cause of quarrel at the English Catholics, as Louis had raked up against the Huguenots, which, therefore, might be styled rather a French than a German quarrel.
[193] The different parts of the body were assigned to different planets. The old almanacks have a naked figure in front, surrounded by the usual planetary emblems, which dart their rays on the parts which they govern. What Scorpio claims, if not apparent from the context, may be there found.
[195] Alluding to the charges brought against Dryden himself by Stillingfleet. See [Note V.]
[198] This is our author's own averment in his "Defence of the Papers of the Duchess of York." See [Note VIII.]
[199] The latitudinarian, or moderate clergy above-mentioned, and particularly Stillingfleet.
[202] Stillingfleet's Vindication, which contains the imputations complained of by Dryden, bears this licence: "Imprimatur, Henricus Maurice Rmo. P. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cant. a sacris. January 10, 1686."
[203] In these, and in the following beautiful lines, the poet, who had complained of Stillingfleet's having charged him with atheism, expresses his resolution to submit to this reproach with Christian meekness, and without retaliation.
[204] Stillingfleet. See [Note XI.]
[206] See Introduction, p. [114;] also Note VIII.
[207] The penal laws, though suspended by the king's Declaration of Indulgence, were not thereby abrogated.
[209] ——Sinistra cava prædixit ab ilice Cornix.
[210] Alluding to the table of Icarus:
Icarus Icariis nomina fecit aquis.
Chelidonian, from χελιδὼν a swallow.
[211] Otherwise called martlets. Dryden.
[212] A parody on Lee's famous rant in "Œdipus."
"May there not be a glimpse, one starry spark,
But gods meet gods, and jostle in the dark."
[213] An old Saxon word for a village.
[214] It is a vulgar idea, that a dead swallow, suspended in the air, intimates a change of wind, by turning its bill to the point from which it is to blow.
[216] Century White, See [Note XV.]
[217] The Hind intimates, that, as the sunshine of Catholic prosperity, in the fable, depended upon the king's life, there existed those among her enemies, who would fain have it shortened. But from this insinuation she exempts the church of England, and only expresses her fears, that her passive principles would incline her to neutrality.
[217a] Note C: [Note XVI.]
[218] Louis XIV. whose revocation of the Edict of Nantes has been so frequently alluded to. As that monarch did not proceed to the extremity of capital punishment against the Huguenots, Dryden contends his edicts were more merciful than the penal laws, by which mass-priests are denounced as guilty of high treason.
[220] The poet alludes to the enchantress Duessa, who, when disrobed by Prince Arthur, was changed from a beautiful woman into
A loathly wrinkled hag, ill-favoured, old,
Whose secret filth good manners biddeth not be told.
Spenser's Fairy Queen, Book I, canto 8.
[222] The fiend in the Book of Tobit, who haunted Raguel's daughter, is frighted away, by fumigation, by Tobias her bridegroom. Thus, Milton:
——Better pleased
Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume,
That drove him, though enamoured, from the spouse
Of Tobit's son, and with a vengeance sent
From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound.
Par. Lost, Book IV.
[223] A proverbial expression, taken from our author's alteration of the "Tempest." See Vol. III. p. 176.
[224] Æneid, lib. vii. 1. 213.
[226] Two pamphlets were published, urging the necessity of an alliance between the church of England and the Dissenters; and warmly exhorting the latter not to be cajoled to serve the purposes of their joint enemies of Rome, by the pretended toleration which was held out as a snare to them. One of these, called "Reflections on the Declaration of Indulgence," is ascribed to Burnet; the other, called "Advice to Dissenters," is supposed to come from the masterly pen of Halifax.
[227]Ον Βριαρεων καλέουσι θεοι, ανδρες δε τεπαντες Αιγααιων.
[229] The power claimed, and liberally exercised, by the king, of dispensing with the penal statutes.
[230] That is, wishing the accession of the Prince of Orange, then the presumptive heir of the crown.
[232] The refugee Huguenots. See [Note XXII.]
[233] James II. See [Note XXIII.]
[234] The Catholic chapel in Whitehall.
[235] The clergy of the church of England, and those of London in particular. See [Note XXIV.]
[236] The Catholic clergy, maintained by King James.
[237] The cock is made an emblem of the regular clergy of Rome, on account of their nocturnal devotions and mattins.
[238] The Nuns.
[240] The worship of images, charged upon the Romish church by Protestants as idolatrous.
[242] The Doves.
[243] The laws imposing the penalty of high treason on priests saying mass in England.
[244] The Roman Catholic nobility, excluded from the House of Peers by the imposition of the test.
[245] Hemlock.
[246] Quos Jupiter vult perdere, prius dementat.
[247] The foolish fable of Mahomet accustoming a pigeon to pick peas from his ear, to found his pretensions to inspiration, is well known.
[248] Gilbert Burnet, D. D. afterwards Bishop of Salisbury. See [Note XXVII.]
[252] ——timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. Æneid, II. lib.
[256] The promise to maintain the church of England, made in James's first proclamation after his accession; and which the church party alleged he had now broken. [Note XXXIV.]
[257] See note XXXIII.
[258] Declaration of indulgence. [Note XXXV.]
[260] The tyrant of Syracuse, who, after being dethroned, taught a school at Corinth.
[261] Quisque suæ fortunæ faber. Sallust.
[264] A New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty.
Blue bonnet lords, a numerous store,
Whose best example is, they're poor;
Merely drawn in by hope of gains,
And reap their scandal for their pains;
}
Half-starved at court with expectation, }
Forced to return to their Scotch station, }
Despised and scorned by every nation. }
The New Converts.
This put the heathen priesthood in a flame,
For priests of all religions are the same.
Absalom and Achitophel, Part I.
[267] A Vindication of the Answer to some late Papers.
[268] A Vindication of the Answer to some late Papers, p. 116.
[269] Ibidem, p. 117.—Stillingfleet plays on this expression of the grim logician, in allusion to a passage of our author's "Defence of the Duchess of York's Paper;" where he says, "That the kingdom of heaven is not only for the wise and learned," and that "our Saviour's disciples were but poor fishermen; and we read but of one of his apostles who was bred up at the feet of Gamaliel, and that poor people have souls to save, as precious in the sight of God as the grim logician's." Dryden retorts it upon him in the text.
[270] A Vindication, &c. p. 1.
[271] Ergoteering was a phrase used by Dryden in his "Defence of the Duchess's Paper," and which Stillingfleet harps upon throughout his "Vindication."
[272] Ralph's History, Vol. I. p. 933.—Secret Consults, &c. of the Roman Party, p. 59.
[273] "One Petre, descended from a noble family; a man of no learning, nor any way famed for his virtue, but who made up all in boldness and zeal, was the Jesuit of them all, that seemed animated with the most courage."—Burnet.
[274] "We have," says one of the order, "a good while begun to get footing in England. We teach humanity at Lincoln, Norwich, and York. At Warwick, we have a public chapel secured from all injuries by the king's soldiers; we have also bought some houses of the city of Wiggorn, in the province of Lancaster. The Catholic cause very much increaseth. In some Catholic churches, upon holidays, above 1500 are always numbered present at the sermon. At London, likewise, things succeed no worse. Every holiday, or preaching, people are so frequent, that many of the chapels cannot contain them. Two of our fathers, Darmes and Berfall, do constantly say mass before the king and queen. Father Edmund Newill, before the queen-dowager, Father Alexander Regnes in the chapel of the ambassador aforesaid, others in other places. Many houses are bought for the college in the Savoy, as they call it, nigh Somerset-house, London, the palace of the queen-dowager, to the value of about eighteen thousand florins; in making of which, after the form of a college, they labour very hard, that the schools may be opened before Easter." A Letter from a Jesuit at Liege. Somers' Tracts, p. 248. About this letter, see Burnet's History, Vol. I. p. 711. The king also granted the manor of York to Lawson, a priest, for thirty years, as a seminary for the education of youth in the Catholic faith; to the great displeasure of Sir John Reresby, the governor of the city, who had fitted it up for his own residence. See his Memoirs, pp. 245, 246.
[275] So says the memorable "Test of the Church of England's Loyalty."
[276] New Test, &c.
[277] Roman Catholic Principles, 1680.
[278] There is a copy of this old caricature print in Luttrell's Collection.
[279] History of his Own Times, Vol. I. p. 280.
[280] See Burnet's Life, by his Son, p. 686.
[281] See Dr Flexman's catalogue of his works, under the head "Tracts, Political, Polemical, and Miscellaneous."
[282] Mr B—ty, vice-chamberlain.
[283] Notes on the Phœnix Pastoral Letter, Johnson's Works, pp. 317, 318.
[284] The Declaration of Indulgence. See Vol. IX. p. 447.
[285] The addresses of the grand juries of the counties of Monmouth, Stafford, Glocester, Yorkshire, &c. &c., all pressed forward upon this occasion, and are all positive that the blessed hope of the queen's womb must necessarily prove a son, since the king seemed to have very little occasion for more daughters. Edmund Arwaker is of the same opinion, in his poem humbly dedicated to the queen, on occasion of her majesty's happy conception.
[286] "That which does us most harm with the lords and great men, is the apprehension of a heretic successor: For as a lord told me lately, assure me of a Catholic successor, and I assure you I and my family will be so too. To this purpose the queen's happy delivery will be of very great moment. Our zealous Catholics do already lay two to one that it will be a prince. God does nothing by halves, and every day masses are said upon this very occasion."—Letter from Father Petre to Father La Chaise. This letter is a forgery, but it distinctly expresses the hopes and apprehensions of both parties.
[287] The most remarkable were celebrated at the Hague, by the Marquis of Abbeville, his majesty's ambassador there. On one side of a triumphal arch were the figures of Truth and Justice, with this inscription: Veritas et Justitia fulcimentum throni Patris et erunt mei: On the other side were Religion and Liberty embracing, with this motto, Religio et Libertas amplexatæ erant. On the portico was painted the conquest of the dragon by St George, and the delivery of St Margaret, explained to allude to the liberty of conscience procured by James's abolition of the test and penal laws. These decorations, remarkable for their import, and the place in which they were exhibited, were accompanied with the discharge of fire-works, and other public rejoicings. There are particular accounts of the splendid rejoicings at Ratisbon and Paris, &c. &c. in the Gazettes of the period.
[288] As for example, the poets of Isis, in a collection called "Strenæ Natalitiæ in Celsissimum principem.—Oxoni; E Theatro Shedoniano, 1688." Consisting of Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Turkish, pastoral, heroic, and lyrical pieces, on this happy topic.
The following poems are in the Luttrell Collection:
"Votum pro Principe.
"To the King, upon the Queen's being delivered of a Son; by John Baber, Esq.
"To the King, on ditto; by William Niven, late master of the music school of Inverness, in Scotland." Surely the very ultima Thule of poetry.
"A Congratulatory Poem on ditto, by Mrs Behn.
"A Pindarique Ode on ditto, by Calib Calle."
[289] The 10th of June.
[290] Whitsunday.
[291] Trinity Sunday, the octave of Whitsunday.
[293] Alluding only to the commonwealth party here, and in other parts of the poem. Dryden.—See [Note II.]
[294] Rev. xii. v. 4.
[295] The Cross.
[296] The Crescent, which the Turks bear for their arms. Dryden. [Note III.]
[297] The Pope, in the time of Constantine the Great; alluding to the present Pope. Dryden.—See [Note IV.]
[298] King James II.
[299] Bill of Exclusion.
[300] The Lemmon Ore, on which the vessel of King James was lost in his return from Scotland. The crew perished, and he himself escaped with difficulty. See Vol. IX. p. 401.
[301] Venerable is here used in its original sense, as deserving of veneration. But the epithet has been so commonly connected with old age, that a modern poet would hardly venture to apply it to an infant.
[303] Alluding to the temptation in the wilderness.
Restitit Æneas, clarâque in luce refulsit,
Os, humerosque deo similis; namque ipsa decoram
Cæsariem nato genetrix, lumenque juventæ
Purpureum, et lætos oculis afflarat honores.
Æneid, Lib. I.
[305] Edward the Black Prince, born on Trinity Sunday.
[306] The motto of the poem explained.
[307] St George.
[308] The great Civil War.
[309] The Fire of London.
[310] The Popish plot.
[311] The Test-act.
[312] The death of the Jesuits, executed for the Plot.
[313] All the queen's former children died in infancy.
[314] The year 1688, big with so many events of importance, commenced very unfavourably with stormy weather, and an epidemical distemper among men and cattle.
[315] 1 Kings, chap, xxxiv.
[317] Original sin, supposed to be washed off by baptism.
[318] See "The Hind and the Panther," p. 224.
[319] The prince christened, but not named.
[320] Jehovah, or the name of God, unlawful to be pronounced by the Jews. Dryden.
[321] Some authors say, that the true name of Rome was kept a secret, ne hostes incantamentis deos elicerent. Dryden.
[322] Candia, where Jupiter was born and lived secretly. Dryden.
[323] Pallas, or Minerva, said by the poets to have been bred up by hand. Dryden.
[324] The prince had no wet nurse.
[325] The sudden false report of the prince's death. See [Note VII.]
[326] 2 Kings, chap. iv.
[327] 1 Samuel, chap. iv. v. 10.
[328] Exodus, chap. xvii. v. 8.
[329] Aristides. See his Life in Plutarch.
[330] Our author's several modes of coaxing or bullying the audience in the prologues, are ridiculed in the "Rehearsal;" where Bayes says, "You must know there is in nature but two ways of making very good prologues;—the one is, by civility, by insinuation, good language, and all that to —— a —— in a manner steal your plaudit from the courtesy of the auditors: the other, by making use of some certain personal things, which may keep a hank upon such censuring persons as cannot otherwise, egad, in nature, be hindered from being too free with their tongues."
[331] The following is the statement of the accusation in Tom's peculiar style, being a sort of cant jargon, not void of low humour:
"Bayes. Now, there being but three remarkable places in the whole island; that is, the two universities, and the great metropolitan city; I shall, consequently, confine my discourse only to them: But, first of all, I must tell you, that I am altogether of my Lord Plausible's opinion in the "Plain Dealer;" if I chance to commend any place, or order of men, out of pure friendship, I choose to do it before their faces; and if I have occasion to speak ill of any person or place, out of a principle of respect and good manners, I do it behind their backs. You cannot imagine, Mr Crites, when I visit either of the two universities, in my own person, or by my commissioners of the playhouse, how much I am taken with a college life: Oh, there's nothing like a cheese cut out into farthings! and my Lord Mayor, amidst all his brutal city luxury, does not dine half so well as a student upon a single chop of rotten roasted mutton; nay, I can scarce prevail with myself, for a month or two after, to eat my meat on a plate, so great a respect have I for a university trencher; and then their conversation is so learned, and withal so innocent, that I could sit a whole day together at a coffee-house to hear them dispute about actus perspicui, and forma misti. From this beginning I naturally fall a railing at London, with as much zeal as a Buckingham-shire grazier, who had his pocket picked at a Smithfield entertainment; or a country lady, whose obsequious knight has spent his estate among misses, vintners, and linen-drapers; and then I tell my audience, that a man may walk farther in the city to meet a true judge of poetry, than ride his horse on Salisbury Plain to find a house.
London likes grossly, but this nicer pit
Examines, fathoms, all the depths of wit.
You see here, Mr Crites, that scholars won't take Alderman Duncomb's leaden halfpence for Irish half crowns, while dull Londoner swallows every thing; and takes it with as little consideration, as a true Romanist takes a spiritual dose of relicts, that are sealed up with the council of Trent's coat-of-arms.
Eugen. How was that, Mr Bayes, about the council of Trent? Pray, let us hear it again.
Bayes. Gad forgive me for't!—it dropt from me ere I was aware; but I shall in time wear off this hitching in my gait, and walk in Catholic trammels as well as the best of them; nature, I must confess, is not overcome on the sudden—But let me see, gentlemen, whether I have any more lines to our last purpose; oh, here they are!
Poetry, which is in Oxford made
An art, in London only is a trade.
Our poet, could he find forgiveness here,
Would wish it rather than a plaudit there.
You are sensible, without question, how little beholden the city is to me, when I am upon my progress elsewhere. But 'tis a comfort that this peremptory humour does not continue long upon me; for, as I have the grace to disown my mother-university, with a jug in one hand, and a link in the other, when I am at Oxford,—
Thebes did his green unknowing years engage;
He chuses Athens in his riper age.
So, when I am got amongst my honest acquaintance here in Covent-Garden, I disown both the sisters, and make myself as merry as a grig, with their greasy trenchers, rusty salt-sellers, and no napkins, with their everlasting drinking, and no intervals of fornication to relieve it. In fine, I make a great scruple of it, whether it be possible for a man to write sound heroics, and make an accomplished thorough-paced wit, unless he comes to refine and cultivate himself at London; unless be knows how many stories high the houses are in Cheapside and Fleet-street; is acquainted with all the gaming ordinaries about town, and the rates of porters and hackney-coachmen; has shot the bridge; seen the tombs at Westminster; heard the Wooden-head speak; can tell you where the insuring-office is kept; and which of the twelve companies
The Reasons for Mr Bayes changing his Religion, p. 10.
[332] St Paul's, and other churches, were consumed in the great fire, then a recent event.
[333] That is, the consumer of Burgundy, or drunken bully of the day.
[334] Dorset-Garden theatre, where the Duke's company acted various shewy pieces, directed by D'Avenant.
[335] St André, the famous ballet dancer, composed dances for many operas about this time, which were probably performed by his light-footed countrymen, at Dorset-Gardens.
[336] "In 1673, the 'Tempest, or the Enchanted Island,' made into an opera by Mr Shadwell, having all new in it, as scenes, machines, &c.: one scene painted with myriads of ærial spirits; and others flying away with a table furnished with fruits, sweetmeats, and all sorts of viands, just when Duke Trinculo and his company were going to dinner. All things were performed so admirably well, that not any succeeding opera could get any money."—Roscius Anglicanus, p. 34. Shadwell had also, about this time, produced his opera of "Psyche," which, with the "Tempest" and other pieces depending chiefly upon shew and scenery, were acting in Dorset-Garden, when this Prologue was written. In order to ridicule these splendid exhibitions, the company at Drury-Lane brought forward parodies on them, such as the "Mock Tempest," "Psyche Debauched," &c. These pieces, though written in the meanest style by one Duffet, a low buffoon, had a transient course of success.
[337] This seems to be an allusion to the recent death of Mr Scroop; a man of fortune, who, about this time, was stabbed in the theatre at Dorset-Gardens by Sir Thomas Armstrong, afterwards the confidential friend of the Duke of Monmouth. Langbaine says, he witnessed this real tragedy, which happened during the representation of "Macbeth," as altered and revised by D'Avenant in 1674. Mr Scroop died immediately after his removal into a neighbouring house.
[338] Alluding to the recent establishment in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, then separated from the city by a large vacant space.
[339] "The three boys in buff," were, I believe, the three Bold Beauchamps in an old ranting play:
"The three bold Beauchamps shall revive again,
And, with the London Prentice, conquer Spain."
[340] Some part of the ornaments of D'Avenant's scenes probably presented the portraits of dramatic writers.
[341] Its properties are thus described by Spenser:
It vertue had to show in perfect sight
Whatever thing was in the world contained,
Betwixt the lowest earth and heaven's height,
So that it to the looker appertained.
Whatever foe had wrought, or friend designed,
Therein discovered was ne ought mote pass,
Ne ought in secret from the same remained,
Forthy it round, and hollow-shaped was,
Like to the world itself, and seemed a world of glass.
Such was the glassy globe that Merlin made,
And gave unto King Ryence for his guard.
Fairy Queen, Book iii. Canto 2.
[342] Ralph Bathurst, thus highly distinguished by our author, was a distinguished character of the age. He was uncle to Allen, the first Lord Bathurst. He was born in 1620, and bred to the church, but abandoned divinity for the pursuit of medicine, which he practised until the Restoration, when he resumed his clerical character. In 1663 he became head of Trinity college, Oxford, into the court and chapel of which he introduced the beauties of classical architecture, to rival, if it were possible, the magnificence of the Gothic edifices by which it is surrounded. In 1673, he had the honour to be appointed vice-chancellor; an office which he retained for two years. During his execution of this duty he is said to have reformed many abuses which had crept into the university; and by liberal benefactions added considerably to the prosperity of literature. Anthony Wood, who had some private reason for disliking him, and who, moreover, was as determined an enemy to the fair sex as ever harboured in a cloister, picked a quarrel with Bathurst's wife, as he could find no reasonable fault with the vice-chancellor himself. "Dr Bathurst took his place of vice-chancellor; a man of good parts, and able to do good things; but he has a wife that scorns that he should be in print; a scornful woman! scorns that he was dean of Wells: no need of marrying such a woman, who is so conceited, that she thinks herself fit to govern a college, or university."—Perhaps the countenance given by Bathurst to the theatre, for which Dryden here expresses his gratitude, might not tend to conciliate the good will of Anthony, who quarrelled with his sister-in-law by refusing to treat her to the play. But it agreed well with the character of Bathurst, who was not only a patron of literature in all its branches, but himself an excellent Latin poet, as his verses prefixed to Hobbes' "Leviathan," fully testify; and as good an English poet as most of his contemporaries. He died in his eighty-fourth year, 1704. Warton has given us the following character of his Latin compositions, for which Dryden has celebrated him so highly: "His Latin orations are wonderful specimens of wit and antithesis, which were the delight of his age. They want, upon the whole, the purity and simplicity of Tully's eloquence, but even exceed the sententious smartness of Seneca, and the surprising turns of Pliny. They are perpetually spirited, and discover an uncommon quickness of thought. The manner is concise and abrupt, but yet perspicuous and easy: His allusions are delicate, and his observations sensible and animated; his sentiments of congratulation, or indignation, are equally forcible: his compliments are most elegantly turned, and his satire is most ingeniously severe. These compositions are extremely agreeable to read, but, in the present improvement of classical taste, not so proper to be imitated."—Life of Bathurst, prefixed to his Literary Remains, published under the inspection of Mr Warton.
[343] Characters in Jonson's "Volpone," and Fletcher's "King and no King," which plays are justly held the master-pieces of these authors.
[344] The "Slighted Maid" was a contemporary drama, written by Sir Richard Stapylton, of which Dryden elsewhere takes occasion to speak in terms of contempt. See the Parallel betwixt Poetry and Painting.
[345] This opinion seems to be solely founded on the inferiority of "Pericles," to the other plays of Shakspeare; an inferiority so great, as to warrant very strong doubts of its being the legitimate offspring of his muse at all.
[346] Alluding to the legend of the Glastonbury thorn, supposed to bloom on Christmas day.
[347] The war between France and the confederates was now raging on the Continent.
[348] The glorious nymphs, afterwards Queens Anne and Mary, both lived to exclude their own father and his son from the throne. Derrick, I suppose, alluded to this circumstance, when in the next line he read supplant for suppliant monarchs.
[349] The fool's cap and bauble, with which the ancient jester was equipped.
[350] A scramble.
[351] In Dryden's days, as in our own, there were provided by the hawkers a plentiful assortment of wonders and prodigies to captivate the people; with this difference, that, in that earlier period, the readers and believers of these wonders were more numerous, and of higher rank. I cannot point out the particular prodigies referred to; but I suppose they were of the same description as "The wonderful blazing star; with the dreadful apparition of two armies in the air; the one out of the north, the other out of the south, seen on the 17th December, 1680, betwixt four and five o'clock in the evening, at Ottery, ten miles eastward of Exon;" or as "The strange and dreadful relation of a horrible tempest of thunder and lightning, and of strange apparitions in the air, accompanied with whirlwinds, gusts of hail and rain, which happened the 10th of June, 1680, at a place near Weatherby, in the county of York: with the account how the top of strong oak, containing one load of wood, was taken off by a sheet of fire, wrapped in a whirlwind, and carried through the air, half a mile distant from the place, &c. As, likewise, another strange relation of a monstrous child with two heads, four arms, four legs, and all things thereunto belonging; born at a village, called Ill-Brewers, in the county of Somerset, on the 19th of May last, with several other circumstances and curious observations, to the wonder of all that have beheld it."
[352] The court of Requests was a general rendezvous for the news-mongers, politicians, and busy bodies of the time. North says, "It was observable of Oates, that while he had his liberty, as in King Charles's time and King William's, especially the latter, he never failed to give his attendance in the court of Requests, and in the lobbies, to solicit hard in all points under deliberation that might terminate in the prejudice of the church, crown, or of any gentlemen of the loyal, or church of England party." Swift, in his journal to Stella, makes frequent mention of the Court of Requests as a scene of political bustle and intrigue.
[353] The Popish plot being now in full force and credit, our author here, as in the "Spanish Friar," flatters the universal prejudice entertained against the Catholics.
[354] Apparently, a tennis-court was the place where the temporary stage was erected at Oxford.
[355] Probably some pasquinade against the Whigs, then current in the university.
[356] Noted school divines, whose works (the greater was the pity) were then in high esteem in the university.
[357] The City Gazettes were such publications as the Petition of the City, Mayor, and Aldermen, for the sitting of parliament on the 13th January, 1680, which is printed with the city arms prefixed, by a solemn order of the common council, and an appointment by the Lord Mayor, that Samuel Roycroft, printer to the city, do print the same, pursuant to order, and that no other person presume to do so. The "factious speech" was probably that of Shaftesbury, which was burned by the hands of the common hangman.
[358] The Pope-burning, so often mentioned.
[359] The meaning is, that the poets rebel against sense and criticism, like the parliament, in 1641, against the king; and that the audience judge as ill as those, who, in 1648, condemned Charles to the block. The parallel between the political disputes in 1680, and 1681, and those which preceded the great civil war, was fashionable among the Tories. A Whig author, who undertakes "to answer the clamours of the malicious, and to inform the ignorant on this subject," complains, "It hath been all the clamour of late, forty-one, forty-one is now coming to be acted over again; we are running in the very same steps, in the same path and road, to undo the nation, and to ruin kingly government, as our predecessors did in forty, and forty-one. We run the same courses, we take the same measures; latet anguis in herba; beware of the Presbyterian serpent, who lurks in the affairs of eighty, being the very same complexion, form, and shape, as that of forty and forty one."—The Disloyal Forty and Forty-one, and the Loyal Eighty, presented to public view. Folio 1680.
[360] Alluding to St André, the famous dancing master, and Jacob Hall, the performer on the slack rope.
[361] Cowley published in his sixteenth year, a book called "Poetical Blossoms."
[362] The city of London had now declared against petitioning for parliament.
[363] Alluding to the Irish massacre.
[364] The lottery cavaliers were the loyal indigent officers, to whom the right of keeping lotteries was granted by patent in the reign of Charles II. There are many proclamations in the gazettes of the time against persons encroaching upon this exclusive privilege.
[365] The "three ungiving parliaments" were that convoked in 1679, and dissolved on the 10th July in the same year; that which was held at Westminster 21st October, 1680, and dissolved on the 18th January following; and, finally, the Oxford parliament, assembled 21st March, 1680-1, and dissolved on the 28th of the same month. All these parliaments refused supplies to the crown, until they should obtain security, as they termed it, for the Protestant religion.
[366] The famous astrologer Lilly is here mentioned ironically. In his "Strange and wonderful prophecy, being a relation of many universal accidents that will come to pass in the year 1681, according to the prognostications of the celestial bodies, as well in this our English nation, as in parts beyond the seas, with a sober caution to all, by speedy repentance, to avert the judgments that are impendent," I find "an account of the great stream of light, by some termed a blazing star, which was seen in the south-west on Saturday and Sunday, the 11th and 12th of this instant December, between six and seven in the evening, with several judicial opinions and conjectures on the same." But the comet, mentioned in the text, may be that which is noticed in "A strange and wonderful Trinity, or a Triplicity of Stupendous Prodigies, consisting of a wonderful eclipse, as well as of a wonderful comet, and of a wonderful conjunction, now in its second return; seeing all these three prodigious wonders do jointly portend wonderful events, all meeting together in a strange harmonious triangle, and are all the three royal heralds successively sent from the King of Heaven, to sound succeeding alarms for awakening a slumbering world. Beware the third time." 4to. London, 1683. This comet is said to have appeared in October 1682. Various interpretations were put upon these heavenly phenomena, by Gadbury, Lilly, Kirkby, Whalley, and other Philo-maths, who were chiefly guided in their predictions by their political attachments. Some insisted they meant civil war, others foreign conquest; some that they presaged the downfall of the Turk, others that of the Pope and French king; some that they foretold dearth on the land, and others, the fertility of the king's bed, by the birth of a son, to the exclusion of the Duke of York.
[367] This was one of the numerous devices used by the partizans of Monmouth to strengthen his interest: "A relation was published, in the name of one Elizabeth Freeman, afterwards called the Maid of Hatfield, setting forth, That, on the 24th of January, the appearance of a woman all in white, with a white veil over her face, accosted her with these words: 'Sweetheart, the 15th day of May is appointed for the royal blood to be poisoned. Be not afraid, for I am sent to tell thee.' That on the 25th, the same appearance stood before her again, and she having then acquired courage enough to lay it under the usual adjuration, in the name, &c. it assumed a more glorious shape, and said in a harsher tone of voice: 'Tell King Charles from me, and bid him not remove his parliament, and stand to his council:' adding, 'do as I bid you.' That on the 26th it appeared to her a third time, but said only, 'do your message.' And that on the next night, when she saw it for the last time, it said nothing at all.
"Those who depend upon the people for support, must try all manners of practices upon them; and such fooleries as these sometimes operate more forcibly than expedients of a more rational kind. Care was, besides, taken, to have this relation attested by Sir Joseph Jordan, a justice of the peace, and the rector of Hatfield, Dr Lee, who was one of the king's chaplains: Nay, the message was actually sent to his majesty, and the whole forgery very officiously circulated all over the kingdom."—Ralph's Review of the Reigns of Charles II. and James II. Vol. I. p. 562.
The Tories, according to the custom of that time, endeavoured to turn this apparition against those who invented it, and published an ironical account of its appearance to Lady Gray, the supposed mistress of the Duke of Monmouth.—See Ralph, ibid. and this Work, Vol. IX. p. 276.
[368] "Heraclitus Ridens" was a paper published weekly, by L'Estrange, on the part of the court, and answered by one called "Democritus" on that of the Whigs.
[369] Probably alluding to the pope-burning, meditated by the Whigs during the administration of Harley. Swift, in his journal to Stella, mentions the figures intended for the procession having been seized by government.
[370] See a copy of the penny chronicle alluded to, containing a minute account of this celebrated procession, with a cut illustrative of the description, Vol. VI. p. 222.
[371] Only five dissenters were allowed to meet together by the penal statutes.
[372] Where the play was acted.
[373] Alluding to the tokens issued by tradesmen in place of copper money, which, though not a legal tender of payment, continued to be current by the credit of the individual whose name they bore. Tom Brown mentions Alderman Buncombe's leaden halfpence.
[374] The Parliament, which sat from the Restoration till 1678, bore this ignominious epithet among the Whigs.
[375] Alluding to the emigration of the French Huguenots, which the intolerance of Louis XIV. and his ministers began to render general. Many took refuge in England. See Vol. X. p. 264.
[376] An allusion to Shadwell; who boasted, that he drew his characters from nature, in contempt of regular criticism.
[377] Alluding to the mode in which the emperors were chosen during the decline of the empire, when the soldiers of the Prætorian guards were the electors, without regard to the legal rights of the senate.
[378] This and the following lines refer to the success of Shadwell's comedy of "The Lancashire Witches," in which a great deal of machinery is introduced; the witches flying away with the clown's candles, and the priest's bottle of holy water, and converting a country-fellow into a horse upon the stage. Not content with this, the author has introduced upon the stage all that writers upon Dæmonology have rehearsed of the Witches' Sabbath, or Festival, with their infernal master; and has thus, very clumsily, mixed the horrible with the ludicrous. As for the cats and dogs, we have, in one place,—"Enter an Imp, in the shape of a black Shock;" and, in another,
"Enter Mother Hargrave, Mother Madge, and two Witches more; they mew, and spit, like cats, and fly at them, and scratch them.
Young Hartford. What's this? we're set on by cats.
Sir Timothy. They're witches in the shape of cats; what shall we do?
Priest. Phaat will I do? cat, cat, cat! oh, oh! Conjuro vobis! fugite, fugite, Cacodæmones; cats, cats! (They scratch all their faces, till the blood runs about them.)
Tom Shacklehead. Have at ye all! (he cuts at them.) I ha' mauled some of them, by the mass! they are fled, but I am plaguily scratched. (The Witches shriek, and run away.)"
Besides the offence which Shadwell gave, in point of taste, by the introduction of these pantomimical absurdities, Dryden was also displeased by the whole tenor of the play, which was directed against the High-Churchmen and Tories.—See Dedication of the Duke of Guise, Vol. VII. p. 15.
[379] This has no reference to any recent representation of the tragedy of "Macbeth." Shadwell, from the witchcraft introduced in his play, is ironically termed, "Macbeth and Simon Magus."
[380] Alluding to the Roman citizens, who had the right of voting, denied to the lower, or provincial orders.
[381] Our author was educated at Cambridge. Whether the sons of Cam relished this avowed preference of Oxford, may be doubted.
[382] Alluding to the Whigs, who called themselves so. See Vol. IX. p. 211.
[383] Alluding to the gratulating speech of Orator Higgins to Clause, when elected King of the Beggars:
Who is he here that did not wish thee chosen,
Now thou art chosen? Ask them; all will say so,
Nay, swear't—'tis for the king,—but let that pass.
Beggars' Bush, Act II. Scene I.
[384] The severity of the Austrian government, in Hungary particularly, towards those who dissented from the Roman Catholic faith, occasioned several insurrections. The most memorable was headed by Count Teckeli, who allied himself with the sultan, assumed the crown of Transylvania, as a vassal of the Porte, and joined, with a considerable force, the large army of Turks which besieged Vienna, and threatened to annihilate the Austrian empire. A similarity of situation and of interest induced the Whig party in England to look with a favourable eye upon this Hungarian insurgent, as may be fully inferred from the following passage in De Foe's "Appeal to Honour and Justice:"
"The first time I had the misfortune to differ with my friends, was about the year 1683, when the Turks were besieging Vienna, and the Whigs in England, generally speaking, were for the Turks taking it; which I, having read the history of the cruelty and perfidious dealings of the Turks in their wars, and how they had rooted out the name of the Christian religion in above threescore and ten kingdoms, could by no means agree with; and, though then but a young man, and a younger author, I opposed it, and wrote against it, which was taken very unkindly indeed."
The incongruity of the opinion combated by De Foe, with the high pretences of religion set up by the Whigs, was the constant subject of ridicule to the Tory wits. In a poem, entitled, "The Third Part of Advice to the Painter," dated by Luttrell 28th May, 1684, we find the following passage:
Paint me that mighty powerful state a shaking,
And their great prophet, Teckely, a quaking;
Who for religion made such bustling work,
That, to reform it, he brought in the Turk.
Next, paint our English muftis of the tub,
Those great promoters of the Teckelites' club.
Draw me them praying for the Turkish cause,
And for the overthrow of Christian laws.
Another Tory poet prophecies of the infant son of James II.,—
His conquering arm shall soon subdue
Teckelite Turks and home-bred Jew,
Such as our great forefathers never knew.
Pindaric Ode on the Queen's Delivery, by Caleb Calle.
Another ballad, written shortly after the defeat of Monmouth, is entitled, "A Song upon the Rendezvous on Hounsley-heath, with a Parallel of the Destruction of our English Turks in the West, and the Mahometans in Hungary." The expression occurs also in the Address of the Carlisle Citizens on the Declaration of Indulgence, who "thank his majesty for his royal army, which is really both the honour and safety of the nation, let the Teckelites think and say what they will." An indignant Whig commentator on this effusion of loyalty, says, "What the good men of Carlisle mean by Teckelites, we know not any more than they know themselves. However, the word has a pretty effect at a time when the Protestant Hungarians, under Count Teckely, were well beaten by the Popish standing army in Hungary." History of Addresses, p. 161.
[385] The original Trimmer was probably meant for Lord Shaftesbury, once a member of the Cabal, and a favourite minister, though afterwards in such violent opposition. His lordship's turn for gallantry was such as distinguished him even at the court of Charles.—See Vol. IX. p. 446. The party of Trimmers, properly so called, only comprehended the followers of Halifax; but our author seems to include all those who, professing to be friends of monarchy, were enemies of the Duke of York, and who were as odious to the court as the fanatical republicans. Much wit, and more virulence, was unchained against them. Among others, I find in Mr Luttrell's Collection, a poem, entitled, "The Character of a Trimmer," beginning thus:
Hang out your cloth, and let the trumpet sound,
Here's such a beast as Afric never owned:
A twisted brute, the satyr in the story,
That blows up the Whig heat, and cools the Tory;
A state hermaphrodite, whose doubtful lust
Salutes all parties with an equal gust.
Like Ireland shocks, he seems two natures joined;
Savage before, and all betrimmed behind;
And the well-tutored curs like him will strain,
Come over for the king, and back again, &c.
[386] Loaded dice, contrived some for high, and others for low throws.
[387] Our author seems to copy himself in this passage. "His old father, in the country, would have given him but little thanks for it, to see him bring down a fine-bred woman, with a lute and a dressing-box, and a handful of money to her portion."—The Wild Gallant, Vol. II. p. 66.
[388] In this last point Colley is, however, mistaken. See p. 328.
[389] The American colonies, from the time of the first troubles in the reign of Charles I., continued to be the place of refuge to all who were discontented with the government of the time, or experienced oppression under it. The settlers did not fail to excite their countrymen to emigration, by exaggerated accounts of the fertility and advantages of their places of refuge, which were circulated by the hawkers.
[390] The settlement of Pennsylvania, under the famous Penn, had just taken place; and the design of a Scottish insurrection, at the time of the Rye-house plot, was carried on by Baillie of Jerviswood, under pretence of being agent for some gentlemen of the south of Scotland, who proposed to leave their country, and make a settlement in Carolina.
[391] This seems to allude to the mutiny of the younger actors against Hart and Mohun, mentioned by Cibber. The performers were also anxious to emancipate themselves from the thraldom of the patentees, which they did not accomplish till after the Revolution. They were emancipated by King William, who considered them, says Cibber, as the only subjects he had not yet relieved from arbitrary power. Dryden seems to allude to some ineffectual struggles made for this purpose, which he compares to those of the Whigs in the latter end of the reign of Charles II.
[392] Alluding to the forfeiture of the city charter, by the process of Quo Warranto.
[393] Our author, who writes in all the exultation of triumphant Toryism, does not forget to bestow a passing sarcasm upon his political and personal enemy, Shadwell. In the observations on "Mac-Flecnoe," and elsewhere, we have noticed Shadwell's affectation of treading in the paths of Ben Jonson, by describing what he calls humours; a word as great a favourite with the fat bard as with Corporal Nym. The following passage in the dedication of "The Virtuoso," may serve to explain what he means by the phrase:
"I have endeavoured in this play, at humour, wit, and satire, which are the three things (however I may have fallen short in my attempt) which your grace has often told me are the life of a comedy. Four of the humours are entirely new; and, without vanity, I may say I never produced a comedy that had not some natural humour in it, not represented before, nor, I hope, ever shall. Nor do I count those humours which a great many do; that is to say, such as consist in using one or two by-words; or in having a fantastic extravagant dress, as many pretended humours have; nor in the affectation of some French words, which several plays have shown us. I say nothing of impossible, unnatural, farce fools, which some intend for comical; who think it the easiest thing in the world to write a comedy, and yet will sooner grow rich upon their ill plays than write a good one: Nor is downright silly folly a humour, as some take it to be, for it is a mere natural imperfection; and they might as well call it a humour of blindness in a blind man, or lameness in a lame one; or as a celebrated French farce has the humour of one who speaks very fast, and of another who speaks very slow: But natural imperfections are not fit subjects for comedy, since they are not to be laughed at, but pitied. But the artificial folly of those who are not coxcombs by nature, but, with great art and industry, make themselves so, is a proper object of comedy; as I have discoursed at large in the Preface to "The Humourists," written five years since. Those slight circumstantial things, mentioned before, are not enough to make a good comical humour; which ought to be such an affectation as misguides men in knowledge, art, or science; or that causes defection in manners and morality, or perverts their minds in the main actions of their lives: And this kind of humour, I think, I have not improperly described in the Epilogue to "The Humourists."
"But your grace understands humour too well not to know this, and much more than I can say of it. All I have now to do, is, humbly to dedicate this play to your grace, which has succeeded beyond my expectation; and the humours of which have been approved by men of the best sense and learning. Nor do I hear of any professed enemies to the play, but some women, and some men of feminine understandings, who like slight plays only that represent a little tattle-sort of conversation like their own: but true humour is not liked or understood by them; and therefore even my attempt towards it is condemned by them: but the same people, to my great comfort, damn all Mr Jonson's plays, who was incomparably the best dramatic poet that ever was, or, I believe, ever will be; and I had rather be author of one scene in his best comedies, than of any play this age has produced."
[394] This inhuman jest turns on the execution of Henry Cornish, who, with Slingsby Bethel, was sheriff in 1680, and distinguished himself in opposition to the court.—See Note on "Absalom and Achitophel," Part I. vol. ix. p. 280. He was condemned as accessary to the Rye-house plot, and executed accordingly on 23d October, 1685; probably a short time before this prologue was spoken, which might be in January 1686.
[395] A Bear so called, which was a favourite with the courtly audience of the Bear Garden.
[397] This was the course which Charles usually recommended to Parliament, who generally followed that which was precisely opposite.
[398] Alluding to Shaftesbury and Charles II. in his own admirable satire.
[399] The Princess of Cleves, in the play, confesses to her husband her love for Nemours.
[400] It was the fashion, at this time, to have black boys in attendance, decorated with silver collars. See the following advertisement: "A black boy, about fifteen years of age, named John White, ran away from Colonel Kirke, the 15th inst.; he has a silver collar about his neck, upon which is the Colonel's arms and cipher." Gazette, March 18th, 1685.
[401] Selling bargains, a species of wit common, according to Swift, among Queen Anne's maids of honour, consisted in leading some innocent soul to ask a question, which was answered by the bargain-seller's naming his, or her, sitting part, by its broadest appellation. Dum-founding is explained by a stage direction in Bury-fair, where "Sir Humphrey dum-founds the Count with a rap betwixt the shoulders." The humour seems to have consisted in doing this with such dexterity, that the party dum-founded should be unable to discover to whom he was indebted for the favour.
[402] This was quite in character. Cibber says of Williams, that his industry was not equal to his capacity, for he loved his bottle better than his business. Apology, p. 115.
[403] The taking of Cork was one of the first exploits of the renowned Marlborough. The besieging army was disembarked on the 23d September, 1690, and the garrison, amounting to four thousand men, surrendered on the 28th of the same month.
[404] A phrase in the "Tempest" as altered by Dryden, which seems to have become proverbial.
[405] The facetious Joe Haynes became a Catholic in the latter part of James the Second's reign. But after the Revolution, he read his recantation of the errors of Rome in a penitentiary prologue, which he delivered in a suit of mourning.
[406] This seems to have been a cant name for highwaymen. Shadwell's christian name was Thomas.
[407] Shadwell succeeded to our author's post of laureat, after the Revolution. I am not able to discover, if Shadwell had given any very recent cause for this charge of plagiarism. In the "Libertine," "The Miser," "Bury-fair," and "The Sullen Lovers," he has borrowed, or rather translated, from Moliere. The "Squire of Alsatia" contains some imitations of Terence's "Adelphi." "Psyche" is taken from the French, and "Timon of Athens" from Shakespeare, although Shadwell has the assurance to claim the merit of having made it into a play. He was also under obligations to his contemporaries. The "Royal Shepherdess" was originally written by one Mr Fountain of Devonshire. Dryden, in "Mac-Flecnoe," intimates, that Sedley "larded with wit" his play of "Epsom Wells;" and in the Dedication to the "True Widow," Shadwell himself acknowledges obligations to that gentleman's revision of some of his pieces. Langbaine, who hated Dryden, and professed an esteem for Shadwell, expresses himself thus, on the latter's claim to originality:
"But I am willing to say the less of Mr Shadwell, because I have publicly professed a friendship for him; and though it be not of so long date as some former intimacy with others, so neither is it blemished with some unhandsome dealings I have met with from persons where I least expected it. I shall therefore speak of him with the impartiality that becomes a critic, and own I like his comedies better than Mr Dryden's, as having more variety of characters, and those drawn from the life; I mean men's converse and manners, and not from other men's ideas, copied out of their public writings: though indeed I cannot wholly acquit our present laureat from borrowing; his plagiaries being in some places too bold and open to be disguised, of which I shall take notice, as I go along; though with this remark, that several of them are observed to my hand, and in great measure excused by himself, in the public acknowledgment he makes in his several prefaces, to the persons to whom he was obliged for what he borrowed."
Shadwell in the following lines, which occur in the prologue to the "Scowerers," seems to retort on Dryden the accusation here brought against him:
You have been kind to many of his plays,
And should not leave him in his latter days.
}
Though loyal writers of the last two reigns, }
Who tired their pens for Popery and chains, }
Grumble at the reward of all his pains; }
They would, like some, the benefit enjoy
Of what they vilely laboured to destroy.
}
They cry him down as for his place unfit, }
Since they have all the humour and the wit; }
They must write better e'er he fears them yet. }
}
'Till they have shewn you more variety }
Of natural, unstolen comedy than he, }
By you at least he should protected be. }
}
'Till then, may he that mark of bounty have, }
Which his renowned and royal master gave, }
Who loves a subject, and contemns a slave; }
Whom heaven, in spite of hellish plots, designed
To humble tyrants, and exalt mankind.
[408] Perhaps our author had in view the three oppositions of Saturn and Jupiter in June and December 1692, and in April 1693, which are thus feelingly descanted upon by John Silvester: "It hath been long observed, that the most remarkable mutations of a kingdom, or nation, have chiefly depended on the conjunctions or aspects of those two superior planets, Saturn and Jupiter; and by their effects past, we perceive that the most wise Creator first placed them higher than all the other planets, that they should respect, chiefly, the highest and most durable affairs and concerns of men on earth.
"And if one opposition of Saturn and Jupiter produceth much, how then can those three oppositions to come do any less than cause some remarkable changes and alterations of laws, or religious orders, in England's chief and most renowned city? because Saturn then will be stronger than Jupiter, who also, at his second opposition, will be near unto the body of Mars, (the planet of war;) and having took possession of religious Jupiter, should contend with him, (with a frowning lofty countenance,) in London's ascendant, from whence I fear some religious disturbances, if not some warlike violence, by insurrections, or otherwise, occasioned by some frowning dissatisfied minds, which will then happen in some part of Britain, or take its beginning there to the purpose in those years.
"Ah poor Jupiter in Gemini! (London,) I fear thou wilt then be so much humbled against thy will, that thou wilt think thou hast a sufficient occasion to bewail thy condition; and if so, God will suffer this, that thou mayest humbly endeavour to forsake thy accustomed sins, and that thou mayest know power is not in thee to help thyself. But yet I think thou wilt then have no need to fear that God hath wholly forsaken thee; for look but a little back unto the years 1682 and 1683, where Jupiter was three times in conjunction with Saturn, in a sign of his own triplicity, and consider, was not he then stronger than Saturn, and hast not thou been victorious ever since, throughout all those great changes and alterations? And when thou hast thus considered, perhaps thou wilt believe, that that which begins well will end well; and indeed perhaps it may so happen; but be not too proud of this, a word is enough to the wise."—Astrological Observations and Predictions for the year of our Lord 1691, by John Silvester. London, 1690, 4to.
[409] The Gallery.
[410] Young Dryden was then in Rome with his brother Charles, who was gentleman-usher to the Pope.
[411] See the whole passage, Vol. VII. p. 141. note.
[412] See the Remarks on the Empress of Morocco, written in conjunction by Dryden, Crown, and Shadwell. They were printed in 1674.
[413] These circumstances of offence occur in the prologue, epilogue, and preface to the "Virtuoso," which must have been acted in the same season with "Aureng-Zebe," as the dedication is dated 26th June, 1676. The prologue commences with an irreverend allusion to that play, and to our author's theatrical engagements:
You came with such an eager appetite
To a late play, which gave so great delight,
Our poet fears, that by so rich a treat
Your palates are become too delicate.
Yet since you've had rhyme for a relishing bit,
To give a better taste to comic wit;
But this requires expence of time and pains,
Too great, alas! for poets' slender gains.
For wit, like china, should long buried lie,
Before it ripens to good comedy;
A thing we ne'er have seen since Jonson's days,
And but a few of his were perfect plays.
Now drudges of the stage must oft appear,
They must be bound to scribble twice a year.
That these insinuations might not be mistaken, Shadwell, in the epilogue, severely attacks rhyming tragedies in general; the object of which diatribe, considering the late success of "Aureng-Zebe," could not possibly be misinterpreted:
But of those ladies he despairs to-day,
Who love a dull romantic whining play;
}
Where poor frail woman's made a deity, }
With senseless amorous idolatry, }
And snivelling heroes sigh, and pine, and cry. }
Though singly they beat armies, and huff kings,
Rant at the gods, and do impossible things;
Though they can laugh at danger, blood, and wounds,
Yet if the dame once chides, the milk-sop hero swoons.
These doughty things nor manners have nor wit;
We ne'er saw hero fit to drink with yet.
The passage in the Dedication, in which he insinuates that the provision of a pension was all he wanted, to place him on a level with the proudest of his rivals, is as follows: "That there are a great many faults in the conduct of this play, I am not ignorant; but I (having no pension but from the theatre, which is either unwilling, or unable, to reward a man sufficiently for so much pains as correct comedies require) cannot allot my whole time to the writing of plays, but am forced to mind some other business of advantage. Had I as much money, and as much time for it, I might perhaps write as correct a comedy as any of my contemporaries."
[414] See Essay on Satire, Vol. XIII. p. 65.
[415] This epithet preceded the nickname of Whig. See Vol. IX. p. 211.
[416] "I make bold to use his own expression in "Mac-Flecnoe," if it is his, I say, for Mr Shadwell, in the preface before his Translation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, has been lately pleased to acquaint the world, that he publicly disowned the writing it with as solemn imprecations as his friend the Spanish Friar did the Cavalier Lorenzo."—Reasons, &c.
[424] An eminent dancing-master of the period.
[427] Alluding to the political apprehensions of the period, so universal in the city.
[428] These lines are a parody on a passage in Cowley's Davideis, Book I.:
Beneath the dens where unfledged tempests lie,
And infant winds their tender voices cry;
— — — — —
Where their vast court the mother waters keep;
And, undisturbed by moons, in silence sleep.
[429] The character of a cobler in an interlude.
[430] A celebrated punster, according to Derrick.
[433] Henry Herringman, bookseller, published almost all the poems, plays, and lighter pieces of the day. He was Dryden's original publisher.
[434] A play of Flecknoe's so called. See [Note XII.]
[435] Perhaps in allusion to Shadwell's frequent use of opium, as well as to his dulness.
[441] This elegant phrase is the current catch-word of Sir Samuel Hearty in the "Virtuoso," described in the dramatis personæ as "a brisk, amorous, adventurous, unfortunate coxcomb; one that, by the help of humorous, nonsensical bye-words, takes himself to be a great wit."
[442] Alluding, probably, to the following vaunt of Shadwell, in the Dedication to the "Virtuoso:" "Four of the humours are entirely new; and, without vanity, I may say, I ne'er produced a comedy that had not some natural humour in it not represented before, and I hope I never shall."
[444] Bruce and Longvil are fine gentlemen in Shadwell's comedy of the "Virtuoso;" who, during a florid speech of Sir Formal Trifle, contrive to get rid of the orator, by letting go a trap-door, upon which he had placed himself during his declamation.
[445] An anonymous poet ascribes the estimation in which he was held to his poetical propensities:
Verse the famed Flecknoe raised, the muses' sport,
From drudging for the stage to drudge at court.
[446] Epistle dedicatory to "Bury-fair," addressed to the Earl of Dorset.
[447] See the inscription intended for his monument in Westminster Abbey, by his son Sir John Shadwell, in the Life prefixed to Shadwell's Works. But it was altered before it was placed in the Abbey, and a blunder in the date seems to have crept in.—See Cibber's Lives of the Poets, Vol. III. p. 49.
[448] See Vol. IX. p. 61.
[449] See Vol. IV. p. 211, &c.
P.[46]. 'priciples' chanaged to 'principles', as in other volume.
P.[78]. Added footnote after 'manly train' as the anchor is missing and seems to go here.
P.[82]. Note V, link should be P. 69, not P. 68 changed.
P.[82]. Note VI, link should be P. 74, not P. 73 changed.
Footnote 57: Added 'Note VI.', as the link is missing.
Footnote 174: 'Note XI.', should read 'Note XII.', changed.
Footnote 175: 'Note XII.', should read 'Note XIII.', changed.
Footnote 178: 'Note XIII.', should read 'Note XIV.', changed.
P.[119]. 'enequal' is 'unequal' in another volume, changed.
P.[169]. 'Rosolving' is 'Resolving' in another volume, changed.
Footnote 208: Should read 'Note XIII', not 'Note XII', changed.
P.[394]. Footnote 'Pensylvania' changed to 'Pennsylvania'.
P.[457]. 'Note XIX' needs to be XIII, changed.
Footnote 60: Should read 'Note VII', not 'Note VIII', changed.
Corrected various punctuation.