[183] Ibid., vol. 10, p. 36.
[184] Lady Huntingdon and her Friends. Compiled by Mrs. Helen C. Knight, p. 18.
[185] Coventry, Francis: Pompey the Little, bk. I, chap. XL.
[186] This conception of a divinely authorized aristocracy governed by a special set of laws tallies with the opinion formulated by Dr. George Hickes in a sermon preached before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London in 1684. Dr. Hickes justified the presence of the poor in the body politic, as necessary to the very existence of the State:
"But this Civil Equality is morally impossible, because no Commonweal, little or great, can subsist without Poor. They are necessary, for the establishment of Superiority, and Subjection in Humane Societies, where there must be Members of Dishonour, as well as Honour, and some to serve and obey, as well as others to command. The Poor are the Hands and Feet of the Body Politick, the Gibeonites and Nethinims in all Countries, who hew the Wood, and draw the Water of the Rich. They Plow our Lands, and dig our Quarries, and cleanse our Streets, nay, those, who fight our battels in the defence of their Country, are the Poor Souldiers, who, as the Legions of Blæsus once complained in a Mutiny, sell their lives for seven pence a day. As there must be Rich to be, like the Centurian in the Gospel, in Authority: so there must be Poor, to whom they may say, Go unto one, and he goeth, and to another come, and he cometh; but were all equally rich, there could be no subordination, none to command, nor none to serve. But in such case, the Body Politick must dissolve, as the Natural body was like to do in the Fable of Agrippa, when the rest of the Members would work no longer for the Belly, which, they thought did nothing at all."
[187] In 1656 there appeared a book by Elizabeth Major entitled Honey on the Rod, or a Comfortable Contemplation for one in Affliction, with Sundry Poems. By the Unworthiest of the Servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1652 had appeared anonymously Eliza's Babes, or the Virgin's Offerings. A detailed examination of the two books leads to a surmise that they are by the same author. What is probably a unique copy of Eliza's Babes is in the British Museum. (Notes and Queries, 7th Series, vol. III, p. 502.)
[188] Cibber: Lives of the Poets, vol. II, p. 168.
[189] Lady Winchilsea: Circuit of Apollo, note. (Ed. Reynolds, Myra.)
[190] Behn, Aphra: Works, 6 vols.; Cibber, Lives of the Poets, vol. III, pp. 17-23.
[191] The Epistle to Augustus, ll. 290-91.