Bonfires were kindled in his honour; one of the witnesses against him narrowly escaped from the fury of the mob; a medal was struck to commemorate his enlargement. Hence the poem of that name from the pen of Dryden, suggested by the King. On regaining his liberty, Shaftesbury went to reside at his house in Aldersgate Street, when, finding his enemies were still working against him, he took the friendly advice of Lord Mordaunt, and after lying perdu in another part of London for a night or two, he set off for Harwich, en route for Holland, with a young relative, both disguised as Presbyterian ministers, with long black perukes. Adverse winds detained them at a small inn, when one day the landlady entered the elder gentleman’s room, and, carefully shutting the door, told him that the chambermaid had just been into his companion’s apartment, and instead of a swarthy, sour-faced dominie, had found a beautiful fair-haired youth. ‘Be assured, sir,’ said the good woman, ‘that I will neither ask questions, nor tell tales, but I cannot answer for a young girl’s discretion.’
The man who had been so hunted of late was touched, thanked the good soul, and bade his handsome young friend make love to the maid, till the wind changed.
The fugitives, however, had an extra run for it, as it was, for the hounds were on their track. Fortunately the capture of one of Shaftesbury’s servants, dressed like his master, gave them time to embark.
They arrived at Amsterdam after a stormy passage, where Shaftesbury hired a large house, with the intention of remaining some time, and all the more that he found himself treated with great respect by all the principal inhabitants. But misfortune pursued him. He was seized with gout in the stomach, and expired on the 1st of January 1683. His body was conveyed to England, and landed at Poole, whither the gentlemen of his native county flocked, uninvited, to pay a tribute to his memory, by attending the remains to Wimborne St. Giles.
We leave the sentence to be pronounced on the first Earl of Shaftesbury to wiser heads than ours, but one remark we feel authorised to make,—that we are not called on to believe him as black as Dryden has painted him, since we cannot but question the justice of the pen that described Charles II. as the God-like David, in the far-famed poem of ‘Absalom (the Duke of Monmouth) and Achitophel’ (Shaftesbury), which loads the latter with invective:—
‘A name to all succeeding ages curst,
For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
Restless, unfixed in principles and place,
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace;