Toland was accused of an intention to found a sect, as South calls them, of “Mahometan-Christians.” Many were stigmatised as Tolandists; but the disciples of a man who never procured for their prophet a bit of dinner or a new wig, for he was frequently wanting both, were not to be feared as enthusiasts. The persecution from the church only rankled in the breast of Toland, and excited unextinguishable revenge.
He now breathed awhile from the bonfire of theology; and our Janus turned his political face. He edited Milton’s voluminous politics, and Harrington’s fantastical “Oceana,” and, as his “Christianity not Mysterious” had stamped his religion with something worse than heresy, so in politics he was branded as a Commonwealth’s-man. Toland had evidently strong nerves; for him opposition produced controversy, which he loved, and controversy produced books, by which he lived.
But let it not be imagined that Toland affected to be considered as no Christian, or avowed himself as a Republican. “Civil and religious toleration” (he says) “have been the two main objects of all my writings.” He declares himself to be only a primitive Christian, and a pure Whig. But an author must not be permitted to understand himself so much more clearly than he has enabled his readers to do. His mysterious conduct may be detected in his want of moral integrity.
He had the art of explaining away his own words, as in his first controversy about the word mystery in religion, and he exults in his artifice; for, in a letter, where he is soliciting the minister for employment, he says:—“The church is much exasperated against me; yet as that is the heaviest article, so it is undoubtedly the easiest conquered, and I know the infallible method of doing it.” And, in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, he promises to reform his religion to that prelate’s liking! He took the sacrament as an opening for the negotiation.
What can be more explicit than his recantation at the close of his Vindicius Liberius? After telling us that he had withdrawn from sale, after the second edition, his “‘Christianity not Mysterious,’ when I perceived what real or pretended offence it had given,” he concludes thus:—“Being now arrived to years that will not wholly excuse inconsiderateness in resolving, or precipitance in acting, I firmly hope that my persuasion and practice will show me to be a true Christian; that my due conformity to the public worship may 160 prove me to be a good Churchman; and that my untainted loyalty to King William will argue me to be a staunch Commonwealth’s-man. That I shall continue all my life a friend to religion, an enemy to superstition, a supporter of good kings, and a deposer of tyrants.”
Observe, this Vindicius Liberius was published on his return from one of his political tours in Germany. His views were then of a very different nature from those of controversial divinity; but it was absolutely necessary to allay the storm the church had raised against him. We begin now to understand a little better the character of Toland. These literary adventurers, with heroic pretensions, can practise the meanest artifices, and shrink themselves into nothing to creep out of a hole. How does this recantation agree with the “Nazarenus,” and the other theological works which Toland was publishing all his life? Posterity only can judge of men’s characters; it takes in at a glance the whole of a life; but contemporaries only view a part, often apparently unconnected and at variance, when in fact it is neither. This recantation is full of the spirit of Janus Junius Toland.
But we are concerned chiefly with Toland’s literary character. He was so confirmed an author, that he never published one book without promising another. He refers to others in MS.; and some of his most curious works are posthumous. He was a great artificer of title-pages, covering them with a promising luxuriance; and in this way recommended his works to the booksellers. He had an odd taste for running inscriptions of whimsical crabbed terms; the gold-dust of erudition to gild over a title; such as “Tetradymus, Hodegus, Clidopharus;” “Adeisidaemon, or the Unsuperstitious.” He pretends these affected titles indicated their several subjects; but the genius of Toland could descend to literary quackery.
He had the art of propagating books; his small Life of Milton produced several; besides the complacency he felt in extracting long passages from Milton against the bishops. In this Life, his attack on the authenticity of the Eikon Basilike of Charles I. branched into another on supposititious writings; and this included the spurious gospels. Association of ideas is a nursing mother to the fertility of authorship. The spurious gospels opened a fresh theological campaign, and produced his “Amyntor.” There was no end in provoking an author, who, in writing the life of a poet, could 161 contrive to put the authenticity of the Testament to the proof.
Amid his philosophical labours, his vanity induced him to seize on all temporary topics to which his facility and ingenuity gave currency. The choice of his subjects forms an amusing catalogue; for he had “Remarks” and “Projects” as fast as events were passing. He wrote on the “Art of Governing by Parties,” on “Anglia Liberia,” “Reasons for Naturalising the Jews,” on “The Art of Canvassing at Elections,” “On raising a National Bank without Capital,” “The State Anatomy,” “Dunkirk or Dover,” &c. &c. These, and many like these, set off with catching titles, proved to the author that a man of genius may be capable of writing on all topics at all times, and make the country his debtor without benefiting his own creditors.[113]