[86] Sir Robert Naunton tells us, “The queen was never profuse in delivering out of her treasure; but paid her servants part in money, and the rest with GRACE; which, as the case stood, was then taken for good payment.” [Fragm. Reg. p. 89.] And Nat. Bacon to the same purpose. “A wise man, that was an eye-witness of HER actions, and those that succeeded to her, many times hath said, That a courtier might make a better meal of one good LOOK from her, than of a gift from some other.” [Disc. P. ii. p. 266. Lond. 1651.]
[87] This reverence of authority, one of the characteristics of that time, and which Mr. Addison presently accounts for, a great writer celebrates in these words—“It was an ingenuous uninquisitive time, when all the passions and affections of the people were lapped up in such an innocent and humble obedience, that there was never the least contestation nor capitulation with the queen, nor (though she very frequently consulted with her subjects) any further reasons urged of her actions than HER OWN WILL.” See a tract intitled The Disparity, in Sir H. Wotton’s Remains, p. 46, supposed to have been written by the earl of Clarendon.
[88] Paulus Hentznerus, a learned German, who was in England in 1598, goes still further in his encomium on the queen’s skill in languages. He tells us, that, “præterquam quòd Græcè et Latinè eleganter est docta, tenet, ultra jam memorata idiomata, etiam Hispanicum, Scoticum, et Belgicum.” See his Itinerarium.
But this was the general character of the great in that reign: at least, if we may credit Master William Harrison, who discourseth on the subject before us in the following manner: “This further is not to be omitted, to the singular commendation of both sorts and sexes of our courtiers here in England, that there are very few of them, which have not the use and skill of sundry speeches, beside an excellent vein of writing, before time not regarded. Truly it is a rare thing with us now, to hear of a courtier which hath but his own language. And to say how many gentlewomen and ladies there are, that, beside sound knowledge of the Greek and Latin tongues, are thereto no less skilful in the Spanish, Italian, and French, or in some one of them, it resteth not in me; sith I am persuaded, that as the noblemen and gentlemen do surmount in this behalf, so these come very little or nothing behind them for their parts; which industry God continue, and accomplish that which otherwise is wanting.” Descript. of England, p. 196.
[89] One of these ties was the prejudice of education; and some uncommon methods used to bind it fast on the minds of the people.—A book, called ΕΙΡΗΝΑΡΧΙΑ, sive Elizabeth, was written in Latin verse by one Ockland, containing the highest panegyrics on the queen’s character and government, and setting forth the transcendant virtues of her ministers. This book was enjoined by authority to be taught, as a classic author, in Grammar-schools, and was of course to be gotten by heart by the young scholars throughout the kingdom.
This was a matchless contrivance to imprint a sense of loyalty on the minds of the people. And, though it flowed, as we are to suppose, from a tender regard, in the advisers of it, for the interests of Protestantism in that reign; yet its uses are so apparent in any reign, and under any administration, that nothing but the moderation of her successors, and the reasonable assurance of their ministers that their own acknowledged virtues were a sufficient support to them, could have hindered the expedient from being followed.
But, though the stamp of public authority was wanting, private men have attempted, in several ways, to supply this defect. To instance only in one. The Protestant queen was to pass for a mirror of good government: hence the Εἰρηνάρχια. Her successor would needs be thought a mirror of eloquence: and hence the noble enterprise I am about to celebrate. “Mr. George Herbert (I give it in the grave historian’s own words) being prelector in the rhetorique school in Cambridge, in 1618, passed by those fluent orators, that domineered in the pulpits of Athens and Rome, and insisted to read upon an oration of K. James, which he analysed; shewed the concinnity of the parts; the propriety of the phrase; the height and power of it to move the affections; the style, UTTERLY UNKNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS, who could not conceive what kingly eloquence was, in respect of which those noted demigogi were but hirelings and tribolary rhetoricians.” Bishop Hacket’s Life of Archbishop Williams, p. 175.
[90] A learned foreigner gives this character of the English at that time: “Angli, ut ADDICTE SERVIUNT, ità evecti ad dignitates priorem humilitatem INSOLENTIA rependunt.” H. Grotii Ann. L. v. p. 95. Amst. 1657. Hence the propriety of those complaints, in our great poet, of,
“The whips and scorns of th’ time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The insolence of office;”—
complaints so frequent, and so forcibly expressed by him, that we may believe he painted from his own observation, and perhaps experience, of this insolent misuse of authority. Measure for Measure, A. II. S. vii.