The above really includes much of what was then going on in the London of that Jacobite time. According as the dates marked Hanoverian or Stuart anniversaries, so was the outlay for material of a hostile or pleasant nature, rue or roses, oaken-boughs or putting out of Whig bonfires, punch for Jacobite prisoners in Newgate, and money for aid to various sorts of traitors. In a later passage, Sir John Woodville (a Jacobite) objects, however, to the employment of dissolute and abandoned fellows for whom the pillory and gallows seem to groan. To which objection, Dr. Wolf answers with this remarkable introduction of party politics, on the stage: ‘’Tis true, indeed, and I have often wish’d ’t were possible to do without them; but in a multitude all men won’t be Saints, and then again, they are really useful; nay, and in many things that sober men will not stoop to.… They serve, poor men, to bark at the Government in the open streets, and keep up the wholesome spirit of Clamour in the common people;—and, Sir, you cannot conceive the wonderful use of Clamour; ’tis so teasing to a Ministry; it makes them wince and fret, and grow uneasy in their posts.… Ah! many a comfortable point has been gain’d by Clamour; ’tis in the nature of mankind to yield more to that than to Reason. E’en Socrates himself could not resist it, for, wise as he was, yet you see his wife Xantippe carried all her points by Clamour. Come, come, Clamour is a useful monster, and we must feed the hungry mouths of it, it being of the last importance to us that hope to change the Government, to let it have no quiet.’
POLITICAL ALLUSIONS.
One may fancy the glances that went up to the royal box on the king’s nights, when the above words were emphasised; and the smiles among the Jacobite ladies, when Wolf paid the following compliment to their White Rose fidelity: ‘To give them their due, we have no Spirits among us like the Women; the Ladies have supported our Cause with a surprising constancy. Oh! there’s no daunting them even with ill-success! They will starve their very Vanities, their Vices, to feed their Loyalty! I am informed that my good Lady, Countess of Night-and-day, has never been seen in a new gown, or has once thrown a die at any of the Assemblies, since our last general Contribution.’ And once more the house must have rung with derisive laughter when Wolf, alone on the stage, sneered at Jacobite Sir John, in the popular phrase, as an idiot for supposing ‘that a Protestant church can never be secure till it has a Popish Prince to defend it.’
Allusions of kingly clemency to repentant rebels were not wanting in the play, but the most audacious passage in it was this sketch of Wolf, in which the audience recognised a portrait of Patten. ‘He went with us, Madam, none so active in the front of Resolution, till Danger came to face him; then, indeed, a friendly fever seized him, which, on the first alarm of the king’s forces marching towards Preston, gave him a cold pretence to leave the town’.…
INCENSE FOR THE KING.
The political passages were skilfully enough worked into the dramatic story. With them, there was no lack of incense for the king or prince to savour. The daintiest dish of this sort was to be found in Heartly’s account of the interview of the pardoned Jacobite, Charles, with his Hanoverian father. ‘The tender father caught him in his arms, and, dropping his fond head upon his cheek, kissed him and sigh’d out, Heaven protect thee! Then gave into his hand the Royal Pardon, and, turning back his face to dry his manly eyes, he cried, “Deserve this Royal Mercy, and I’m still thy Father!” The grateful youth, raising his heart-swoll’n voice, reply’d, May Heaven preserve the Royal Life that gave it!’ Some could sympathise, others would laugh at this, but how great Augustus looked as he listened, supposing he understood it, is quite beyond conjecture.
A LECTURE FROM THE STAGE.
The Jacobites took it for satire in disguise, and the Whigs, after applauding, got their opportunity for a roar when Sir John expressed his satisfaction at Heartly having been born the year before the Revolution, as he might, in consequence, be taken for a ‘regular Christian’; and the roar was not less when this Jacobite, Sir John, was described as a man who, ‘Name to him but Rome or Popery, he startles, as at a Monster, but gild its grossest Doctrines with the Stile of Catholick English, he swallows down the poison, like a cordial!’ After this fling at the disloyal Ritualists of that day no more religious or political allusions were made to delight or exasperate portions of the audience, till Heartly delivered the last speech, which took the form of a little political lecture, as thus: ‘Give me leave to observe that, of all the arts our enemies make use of to embroil us, none seem so audaciously preposterous as their insisting that a Nation’s best security is the Word of a Prince whose Religion indulges him to give it, and at the same time, obliges him to break it. And, though perhaps in lesser points our politick disputes won’t suddenly be ended, methinks there’s one Principle that all Parties might easily come into, that no change of Government can give us a blessing equal to our Liberty;’ and then the too eager applause of the audience was hushed to hear the tag,—
Grant us but this and then of course you’ll own,
To guard that Freedom, George must fill the Throne.—