The speech of Noy, the Attorney-General, conveys some notion of the work itself; sufficiently curious as giving the feelings of those times against the Puritans.
“Who he means by his modern innovators in the church, and by cringing and ducking to altars, a fit term to bestow on the church; he learned it of the canters, being used among them. The musick in the church, the charitable term he giveth it, is not to be a noise of men, but rather a bleating of brute beasts; choristers bellow the tenor, as it were oxen; bark a counterpoint as a kennel of dogs; roar out a treble like a sort of bulls; grunt out a bass, as it were a number of hogs. Bishops he calls the silk and satin divines; says Christ was a Puritan, in his Index. He falleth on those things that have not relation to stage-plays, musick in the church, dancing, new-years’ gifts, &c.,—then upon altars, images, hair of men and women, bishops and bonfires. Cards and tables do offend him, and perukes do fall within the compass of his theme. His end is to persuade the people that we are returning back again to paganism, and to persuade them to go and serve God in another country, as many are gone already, and set up new laws and fancies among themselves. Consider what may come of it!”
The decision of the Lords of the Star Chamber was dictated by passion as much as justice. Its severity exceeded the crime of having produced an unreadable volume of indigested erudition; and the learned scribbler was too hardly used, scarcely escaping with life. Lord Cottington, amazed at the mighty volume, too bluntly affirmed that Prynne did not write this book alone; “he either assisted the devil, or was 155 assisted by the devil.” But secretary Cooke delivered a sensible and temperate speech; remarking on all its false erudition that,
“By this vast book of Mr. Prynne’s, it appeareth that he hath read more than he hath studied, and studied more than he hath considered. He calleth his book ‘Histriomastix;’ but therein he showeth himself like unto Ajax Anthropomastix, as the Grecians called him, the scourge of all mankind, that is, the whipper and the whip.”
Such is the history of a man whose greatness of character was clouded over and lost in a fatal passion for scribbling; such is the history of a voluminous author whose genius was such that he could write a folio much easier than a page; and “seldom dined” that he might quote “squadrons of authorities.”[109]
GENIUS AND ERUDITION THE VICTIMS OF IMMODERATE VANITY.
The name of Toland is more familiar than his character, yet his literary portrait has great singularity; he must be classed among the “Authors by Profession,” an honour secured by near fifty publications; and we shall discover that he aimed to combine with the literary character one peculiarly his own.[110] 156 With higher talents and more learning than have been conceded to him, there ran in his mind an original vein of thinking. Yet his whole life exhibits in how small a degree great intellectual powers, when scattered through all the forms which Vanity suggests, will contribute to an author’s social comforts, or raise him in public esteem. Toland was fruitful in his productions, and still more so in his projects; yet it is mortifying to estimate the result of all the intense activity of the life of an author of genius, which terminates in being placed among these Calamities.
Toland’s birth was probably illegitimate; a circumstance which influenced the formation of his character. Baptised in ridicule, he had nearly fallen a victim to Mr. Shandy’s system of Christian names, for he bore the strange ones of Janus Junius, which, when the school-roll was called over every morning, afforded perpetual merriment, till the master blessed him with plain John, which the boy adopted, and lived in quiet. I must say something on the names themselves, perhaps as ridiculous! May they not have influenced the character of Toland, since they certainly describe it? He had all the shiftings of the double-faced Janus, and the revolutionary politics of the ancient Junius. His godfathers sent him into the world in cruel mockery, thus to remind their Irish boy of the fortunes that await the desperately bold: nor did Toland forget the strong-marked designations; for to his most objectionable work, the Latin tract entitled Pantheisticon, descriptive of what some have considered as an atheistical society, he subscribes these appropriate names, which at the time were imagined to be fictitious.