Sebastian Freeman,
Registrarius, Nomine Societatis.
From Will’s in
Covent-Garden,
Jan. 10. 1701.
Scarron to Lewis le Grand. By Mr. Brown.
ALL the conversation of this lower world, at present, runs upon you; and the devil a word we can hear in any of our coffee-houses, but what his Gallic Majesty is more or less concern’d in. ’Tis agreed on by all our Virtuosos, that since the days of Dioclesian, no prince has been so great a benefactor to hell as your self; and as much a matter of eloquence as I was once thought to be at Paris, I want words to tell you, how much you are commended here for so heroically trampling under foot the treaty of Reswick, and opening a new scene of war in your great climateric, at which age most of the princes before you were such recreants, as to think of making up their scores with heaven, and leaving their neighbours in peace. But you, they say, are above such sordid precedents, and rather than Pluto should want men to people his dominions, are willing to spare him half a million of your own subjects, and that at a juncture too, when you are not overstock’d with them.
This has gain’d you an universal applause in these regions; the three Furies sing your praises in every street; Bellona swears there’s never a prince in Christendom worth hanging besides your self; and Charon bustles for you in all companies: he desir’d me, about a week ago, to present his most humble respects to you; adding, that if it had not been for your majesty, he, with his wife and children, must long ago been quarter’d upon the parish; for which reason he duly drinks your health every morning in a cup of cold Styx next his conscience.
Indeed I have a double title to write to you, in the first place, as one of your dutiful, tho’ unworthy, subjects, who formerly tasted of your liberality; and secondly, as you have done me the honour to take away my late wife, not only into your private embraces, but private councils. Poor soul! I little thought she would fall to your majesty’s share when I took my last farwel of her, or that a prince that had his choice of so many thousands, would accept of my sorry leavings. And therefore, I must confess, I am apt to be a little vain, as often as I reflect, that the greatest monarch in the universe and I are brother-stallions, and that the eldest son of the church, and the little Scarron have fish’d in the same hole. Some sawcy fellows have had the impudence to tell me to my face, that Madam Maintenon (for so, out of respect to your majesty, I must call her) is your lawful wife, and that you were clandestinely marry’d to her. I took them up roundly, as they deserv’d, and told them, I was sure it was a damn’d lie; for, said I to them, if my master was marry’d to her, as you pretend, she had broke his heart long ago, as well as she did mine; from whence I positively concluded, that she might be your mistress, but was none of your wife.
Last week, as I was sitting with some of my acquaintance in a publick-house, after a great deal of impertinent chat about the affairs of the Milanese, and the intended siege of Mantua, the whole company fell a talking of your majesty, and what glorious exploits you had perform’d in your time. Why, gentlemen, says an ill-look’d rascal, who prov’d to be Herostratus, for Pluto’s sake let not the grand monarch run away with all your praises. I have done something memorable in my time too; ’twas I, who out of the Gaiete de Cœur, and to perpetuate my name, fir’d the famous temple of the Ephesian Diana, and in two hours consumed that magnificent structure which was two hundred years a building: therefore, gentlemen, lavish not away all your praises, I beseech you, upon one man, but allow others their share. Why, thou diminutive inconsiderable wretch said I, in a great passion to him, thou worthless idle logger head, thou pigmy in sin, thou Tom Thumb in iniquity, how dares such a puny insect as thou art, have the impudence to enter the lists with Lewis le Grand? thou valuest thy self upon firing a church, but how? when the mistress of the house, who was a midwife by profession, was gone out to assist Olympias, and deliver’d her of Alexander the Great. ’Tis plain, thou hadst not the courage to do it when the goddess was present, and upon the spot; but what is this to what my royal master can boast of, that had destroyed a hundred and a hundred such foolish fabricks in his time, and bravely ordered them to be bombarded, when he knew the very God that made and redeemed him had taken up his Quarters in ’em. Therefore turn out of the room, like a paltry insignificant villain as thou art, or I’ll pick thy carcass for thee.
He had no sooner made his exit, but cries an odd sort of a spark, with his hat button’d up before, like a country scraper, under favour, Sir, what do you think of me? Why, who are you? reply’d I to him, Who am I, answer’d he, Why Nero, the sixth emperor of Rome, that murder’d my—— Come, said I to him, to stop your prating, I know your history as well as yourself, that murder’d your mother, kick’d your wife down stairs, dispatch’d two Apostles out of the world, begun the first persecution against the christians, and, lastly, put your master Seneca to death. As for the murder of your mother, I confess it shew’d you had some taste of wickedness, and may pass for a tolerable piece of gallantry; but prithee, what a mighty matter was it to send your wife packing with a good kick in the guts, when once she grew nauseous and sawcy; ’tis no more than what a thousand tinkers and foot-soldiers have done before you: or to put the penal laws in execution against a brace of hot-headed bigots, and their besotted followers, that must needs come and preach up a new religion at Rome: or, in fine, to take away a haughty, ungrateful pedant’s life, who conspir’d to take away your’s; altho’ I know those worthy gentlemen, the school-masters, make a horrid rout about it in their nonsensical declamations? Whereas his most Christian Majesty, whose advocate I am resolved to be against all opposers whatever, has bravely and generously starv’d a million of poor Hugonots at home, and sent t’other million of them a grasing into foreign countries, contrary to solemn edicts, and repeated promises, for no other provocation, that I know of, but because they were such coxcombs, as to place him upon the throne. In short, friend Nero, thou may’st pass for a rogue of the third or fourth class; but be advised by a stranger, and never shew thyself such a fool as to dispute the pre-eminence with Lewis le Grand, who has murder’d more men in his reign, let me tell thee, than thou hast murder’d tunes, for all thou art the vilest thrummer upon cat-gut the sun ever beheld. However, to give the Devil his due, I will say it before thy face, and behind thy back, that if thou had’st reign’d as many years as my gracious master has done, and had’st had, instead of Tigellinus, a Jesuit or two to have govern’d thy conscience, thou mightest, in all probability, have made a much more magnificent figure, and been inferior to none but the mighty monarch I have been talking of.
Having put my Roman emperor to silence, I look’d about me, and saw a pack of grammarians (for so I guessed them to be by their impertinence and noise) disputing it very fiercely at the next table; the matter in debate was, which was the most heroical age; and one of them, who valu’d himself very much upon his reading, maintain’d, that the heroical age, properly so call’d, began with the Theban, and ended with the Trojan war, in which compass of time, that glorious constellation of heroes, Hercules, Jason, Theseus, Tidæus, with Agamemnon, Ajax, Achilles, Hector, Troilus, and Diomedes flourished: men that had all signaliz’d themselves by their personal gallantry, and valour. His next neighbour argued very fiercely for the age wherein Alexander founded the Grecian monarchy, and saw so many noble generals and commanders about him. The third was as obstreperous for that of Julius Cæsar, and manag’d his argument with so much heat, that I expected every minute when these puppies wou’d have gone to loggerheads in good earnest. To put an end to your controversy, gentlemen, says I to them, you may talk till your lungs are founder’d, but this I positively assert, that the present age we live in is the most heroical age, and that my master, Lewis le Grand is the greatest hero of it. Hark you me, Sir, how do you make that appear, cry’d the whole pack of them, opening upon me all at once: by your leave, gentlemen, answer’d I, two to one is odds at foot-ball; but having a hero’s cause to defend, I find myself possess’d with a hero’s vigour and resolution, and don’t doubt but I shall bring you over to my party. That age therefore is the most heroical which is the boldest and bravest; the antients, I grant you, whor’d and got drunk, and cut throats as well as we do; but, gentlemen, they did not sin upon the same foot as we, nor had so many wicked discouragements to deter them; we whore when we know ’tis ten to one but we get a clap for our pains; whereas our fore-fathers, before the siege of Naples, had no such blessing to apprehend; we drink and murther one another in cold blood, at the same time we believe that we must be rewarded with damnation; but your old hero’s had no notion at all, or at least an imperfect one of a future state: so ’tis a plain case, you see, that the heroism lies on our side. To apply this then to my royal master; he has fill’d all Christendom with blood and confusion; he has broke thro’ the most solemn treaties sworn at the altar; he has stray’d and undone infinite numbers of poor wretches; and all this for his own glory and ambition, when he’s assured that hell gapes every moment for him: now tell me, whether your Jasons, your Agamemnons, or Alexanders, durst have ventur’d so heroically; or whether your pitiful emperors of Germany, your mechanick kings of England and Sweden, or your lousy States of Holland, have courage enough to write after so illustrous a copy.
Thus, Sir, you may see with what zeal I appear in your majesty’s behalf, and that I omit no opportunity of magnifying your great exploits to the utmost of my poor abilities. At the same time I must freely own to you, that I have met with some rough-hewn sawcy rascals, that have stopp’d me in my full career, when I have been expatiating upon your praises, and have so dumbfounded me with their villainous objections, that I could not tell how to reply to them.