Instructions to a Painter, part 2d.
[207] This is taken from the narrative imputed to Harman himself.—See Lives of the Admirals, Vol. II. p. 262. Its authenticity is questioned by Ralph, on account of the lubberly phrases, cordage and crossbeam for slings and yard. But the same circumstances occur in a letter from Alborough, dated June 2d, and published in the London Gazette for June 4th, giving an account of the crippled state in which the Henry had come into that port, and of the part she had sustained in the action. A doggrel poet, on the same occasion, apostrophises
——Brave Harman now, his fiery ordeals past,
Submits unto his watery trial last;
Whose sober valour shall encrease his glory,
And gain new plumes to enrich a future story.
On the Declaration of Toleration, and Publication of War.
[208] "Naboth's Vineyard, or the Innocent Traitor, copied from the original Holy Scriptures, in Heroic Verse, printed for C. R. 1679."
"Since holy scripture itself is not exempt from being tortured and abused by the strainings and perversions of evil men, no great wonder were it if this small poem, which is but an illustration of a single, yet remarkable, passage thereof, be also subject to the like distortions and misapplications of the over-prying and underwitted of one side, and of the malicious on the other: But all ingenious and ingenuous men (to whose divertisement only this poem offers itself) will be guarantees for the author, that neither any honourable and just judge can be thought concerned in the character of Arod, nor any honest and veracious witness in that of Malchus: And as, by the singular care and royal goodness of his Majesty, whom God long preserve, our benches in this nation are furnished with persons of such eminent integrity and ability, that no character of a corrupt judge can, with the least shadow of resemblance, belong to them; so it is to be wished, that also, in all our courts of judicature, a proportionable honesty and veracity were to be found in all witnesses, that so justice and peace might close in a happy kiss."
In this piece, Scroggs is described under the character of Arod, an ambitious judge and statesman: