DANGER INCURRED BY GIVING THE RESULT OF LITERARY INQUIRIES.
An author occupies a critical situation, for, while he is presenting the world with the result of his profound studies and his honest inquiries, it may prove pernicious to himself. By it he may incur the risk of offending the higher powers, and witnessing his own days embittered. Liable, by his moderation or his discoveries, by his scruples or his assertions, by his adherence to truth, or by the curiosity of his speculations, to be persecuted by two opposite parties, even when the accusations of the one necessarily nullify the other; such an author will be fortunate to be permitted to retire out of the circle of the bad passions; but he crushes in silence and voluntary obscurity all future efforts—and thus the nation loses a valued author.
This case is exemplified by the history of Dr. Cowel’s curious work “The Interpreter.” The book itself is a treasure of our antiquities, illustrating our national manners. The author was devoted to his studies, and the merits of his work recommended him to the Archbishop of Canterbury; in the Ecclesiastical Court he practised as a civilian, and became there eminent as a judge.[130]
Cowel gave his work with all the modesty of true learning; for who knows his deficiencies so well in the subject on which he has written as that author who knows most? It is delightful to listen to the simplicity and force with which an author in the reign of our first James opens himself without reserve.
“My true end is the advancement of knowledge; and 194 therefore have I published this poor work, not only to impart the good thereof to those young ones that want it, but also to draw from the learned the supply of my defects. Whosoever will charge these my travels [labours] with many oversights, he shall need no solemn pains to prove them. And upon the view taken of this book sithence the impression, I dare assure them that shall observe most faults therein, that I, by gleaning after him, will gather as many omitted by him, as he shall show committed by me. What a man saith well is not, however, to be rejected because he hath some errors; reprehend who will, in God’s name, that is, with sweetness and without reproach. So shall he reap hearty thanks at my hands, and thus more soundly help in a few months, than I, by tossing and tumbling my books at home, could possibly have done in many years.”
This extract discovers Cowel’s amiable character as an author. But he was not fated to receive “sweetness without reproach.”
Cowel encountered an unrelenting enemy in Sir Edward Coke, the famous Attorney-General of James I., the commentator of Littleton. As a man, his name ought to arouse our indignation, for his licentious tongue, his fierce brutality, and his cold and tasteless genius. He whose vileness could even ruffle the great spirit of Rawleigh, was the shameless persecutor of the learned Cowel.
Coke was the oracle of the common law, and Cowel of the civil; but Cowel practised at Westminster Hall as well as at Doctors’ Commons. Coke turned away with hatred from an advocate who, with the skill of a great lawyer, exerted all the courage. The Attorney-General sought every occasion to degrade him, and, with puerile derision, attempted to fasten on Dr. Cowel the nickname of Dr. Cowheel. Coke, after having written in his “Reports” whatever he could against our author, with no effect, started a new project. Coke well knew his master’s jealousy on the question of his prerogative; and he touched the King on that nerve. The Attorney-General suggested to James that Cowel had discussed “too nicely the mysteries of his monarchy, in some points derogatory to the supreme power of his crown; asserting that the royal prerogative was in some cases limited.” So subtly the serpent whispered to the feminine ear of a monarch, whom this vanity of royalty startled with all the fears of a woman. This suggestion had nearly occasioned the ruin of Cowel—it 195 verged on treason; and if the conspiracy of Coke now failed, it was through the mediation of the archbishop, who influenced the King; but it succeeded in alienating the royal favour from Cowel.
When Coke found he could not hang Cowel for treason, it was only a small disappointment, for he had hopes to secure his prey by involving him in felony. As physicians in desperate cases sometimes reverse their mode of treatment, so Coke now operated on an opposite principle. He procured a party in the Commons to declare that Cowel was a betrayer of the rights and liberties of the people; that he had asserted the King was independent of Parliament, and that it was a favour to admit the consent of his subjects in giving of subsidies, &c.; and, in a word, that he drew his arguments from the Roman Imperial Code, and would make the laws and customs of Rome and Constantinople those of London and York. Passages were wrested to Coke’s design. The prefacer of Cowel’s book very happily expresses himself when he says, “When a suspected book is brought to the torture, it often confesseth all, and more than it knows.”
The Commons proceeded criminally against Cowel; and it is said his life was required, had not the king interposed. The author was imprisoned, and the book was burnt.