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Title: Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3

Author: Isaac Disraeli

Editor: Earl of Beaconsfield Benjamin Disraeli

Release date: January 25, 2010 [eBook #31078]
Most recently updated: January 6, 2021

Language: English

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CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.

BY

ISAAC DISRAELI.

EDITED, WITH MEMOIR AND NOTES,

BY HIS SON,

THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD.

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.

LONDON:

FREDERICK WARNE AND CO.
AND NEW YORK

CONTENTS OF VOLUME III.

PAGE

LOCAL DESCRIPTIONS 1
MASQUES 4
OF DES MAIZEAUX, AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF
ANTHONY COLLINS’S MANUSCRIPTS 13
HISTORY OF NEW WORDS 23
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PROVERBS 32
CONFUSION OF WORDS 65

POLITICAL NICKNAMES 80
THE DOMESTIC LIFE OF A POET—SHENSTONE
VINDICATED 90
SECRET HISTORY OF THE BUILDING OF BLENHEIM 102
SECRET HISTORY OF SIR WALTER RAWLEIGH 111
AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE OF THE LAST HOURS OF SIR
WALTER RAWLEIGH 124
LITERARY UNIONS 131
OF A BIOGRAPHY PAINTED 136
CAUSE AND PRETEXT 141
POLITICAL FORGERIES AND FICTIONS 144
EXPRESSION OF SUPPRESSED OPINION 150
AUTOGRAPHS 163
THE HISTORY OF WRITING-MASTERS 167
THE ITALIAN HISTORIANS 177
OF PALACES BUILT BY MINISTERS 186
“TAXATION NO TYRANNY” 193
THE BOOK OF DEATH 200
HISTORY OF THE SKELETON OF DEATH 206
THE RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS OF HEYLIN 215
OF LENGLET DU FRESNOY 221
THE DICTIONARY OF TREVOUX 229
QUADRIO’S ACCOUNT OF ENGLISH POETRY 233
“POLITICAL RELIGIONISM” 238
TOLERATION 245
APOLOGY FOR THE PARISIAN MASSACRE 255
PREDICTION 260

DREAMS AT THE DAWN OF PHILOSOPHY 280
ON PUCK THE COMMENTATOR 296
LITERARY FORGERIES 303
OF LITERARY FILCHERS 316
OF LORD BACON AT HOME 320
SECRET HISTORY OF THE DEATH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH 328
JAMES THE FIRST AS A FATHER AND A HUSBAND 333
THE MAN OF ONE BOOK 337
A BIBLIOGNOSTE 340
SECRET HISTORY OF AN ELECTIVE MONARCHY 346
BUILDINGS IN THE METROPOLIS, AND RESIDENCE IN
THE COUNTRY 363
ROYAL PROCLAMATIONS 371
TRUE SOURCES OF SECRET HISTORY 380
LITERARY RESIDENCES 394
WHETHER ALLOWABLE TO RUIN ONESELF? 400
DISCOVERIES OF SECLUDED MEN 408
SENTIMENTAL BIOGRAPHY 414
LITERARY PARALLELS 425
THE PEARL BIBLES, AND SIX THOUSAND ERRATA 427
VIEW OF A PARTICULAR PERIOD OF THE STATE OF
RELIGION IN OUR CIVIL WARS 423
BUCKINGHAM’S POLITICAL COQUETRY WITH THE
PURITANS 443
SIR EDWARD COKE’S EXCEPTIONS AGAINST THE HIGH
SHERIFF’S OATH 446

SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST AND HIS FIRST
PARLIAMENTS 448
THE RUMP 482
LIFE AND HABITS OF A LITERARY ANTIQUARY—OLDYS
AND HIS MANUSCRIPTS 493
INDEX 513

CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.

LOCAL DESCRIPTIONS.

Nothing is more idle, and, what is less to be forgiven in a writer, more
tedious, than minute and lengthened descriptions of localities; where it is
very doubtful whether the writers themselves had formed any tolerable
notion of the place they describe,—it is certain their readers never can!
These descriptive passages, in which writers of imagination so frequently
indulge, are usually a glittering confusion of unconnected things;
circumstances recollected from others, or observed by themselves at
different times; the finest are thrust in together. If a scene from nature, it is
possible that all the seasons of the year may be jumbled together; or if a
castle or an apartment, its magnitude or its minuteness may equally

bewilder. Yet we find, even in works of celebrity, whole pages of these
general or these particular descriptive sketches, which leave nothing behind
but noun substantives propped up by random epithets. The old writers were
quite delighted to fill up their voluminous pages with what was a great
saving of sense and thinking. In the Alaric of Scudery sixteen pages,
containing nearly five hundred verses, describe a palace, commencing at the
façade, and at length finishing with the garden; but his description, we may
say, was much better described by Boileau, whose good taste felt the
absurdity of this “abondance stérile,” in overloading a work with useless
details,

Un auteur, quelquefois, trop plein de son objet,
Jamais sans l’épuiser n’abandonne un sujet.
S’il rencontre un palais il m’en dépeint la face,
Il me promène après de terrasae en terrasse.
Ici s’offre un perron, là règne un corridor;
Là ce balcon s’enferme en un balustre d’or;
Il compte les plafonds, les ronds, et les ovales—
Je saute vingt feuillets pour en trouver la fin;
Et je me sauve à peine au travers du jardin!

And then he adds so excellent a canon of criticism, that we must not
neglect it:—

Tout ce qu’on dit de trop est fade et rébutant;
L’esprit rassasié le rejette à l’instant,
Qui ne sait se borner, ne sut jamais écrire.

We have a memorable instance of the inefficiency of local descriptions in
a very remarkable one by a writer of fine genius, composing with an

extreme fondness of his subject, and curiously anxious to send down to
posterity the most elaborate display of his own villa—this was the
Laurentinum of Pliny. We cannot read his letter to Gallus, which the English
reader may in Melmoth’s elegant version,1 without somewhat participating
in the delight of the writer in many of its details; but we cannot with the
writer form the slightest conception of his villa, while he is leading us over
from apartment to apartment, and pointing to us the opposite wing, with a
“beyond this,” and a “not far from thence,” and “to this apartment another
of the same sort,” &c. Yet, still, as we were in great want of a correct
knowledge of a Roman villa, and as this must be the most so possible,
architects have frequently studied, and the learned translated with
extraordinary care, Pliny’s Description of his Laurentinum. It became so
favourite an object, that eminent architects have attempted to raise up this
edifice once more, by giving its plan and elevation; and this extraordinary
fact is the result—that not one of them but has given a representation
different from the other! Montfaucon, a more faithful antiquary, in his close
translation of the description of this villa, in comparing it with Felibien’s
plan of the villa itself, observes, “that the architect accommodated his
edifice to his translation, but that their notions are not the same;
unquestionably,” he adds, “if ten skilful translators were to perform their
task separately, there would not be one who agreed with another!”

If, then, on this subject of local descriptions, we find that it is impossible
to convey exact notions of a real existing scene, what must we think of
those which, in truth, describe scenes which have no other existence than
the confused makings-up of an author’s invention; where the more he
details the more he confuses; and where the more particular he wishes to be,
the more indistinct the whole appears?

Local descriptions, after a few striking circumstances have been selected,
admit of no further detail. It is not their length, but their happiness, which

enters into our comprehension; the imagination can only take in and keep
together a very few parts of a picture. The pen must not intrude on the
province of the pencil, any more than the pencil must attempt to perform
what cannot in any shape be submitted to the eye, though fully to the mind.

The great art, perhaps, of local description, is rather a general than a
particular view; the details must be left to the imagination; it is suggestion
rather than description. There is an old Italian sonnet of this kind which I
have often read with delight; and though I may not communicate the same
pleasure to the reader, yet the story of the writer is most interesting, and the
lady (for such she was) has the highest claim to be ranked, like the lady of
Evelyn, among literary wives.

Francesca Turina Bufalini di Citta di Castello, of noble extraction, and
devoted to literature, had a collection of her poems published in 1628. She
frequently interspersed little domestic incidents of her female friend, her
husband, her son, her grandchildren; and in one of these sonnets she has
delineated her palace of San Giustino, whose localities she appears to have
enjoyed with intense delight in the company of “her lord,” whom she
tenderly associates with the scene. There is a freshness and simplicity in the
description, which will perhaps convey a clearer notion of the spot than
even Pliny could do in the voluminous description of his villa. She tells us
what she found when brought to the house of her husband:—

Ampie salle, ampie loggie, ampio cortile
E stanze ornate con gentil pitture,
Trovai giungendo, e nobili sculture
Di marmo fatte, da scalpel non vile.
Nobil giardin con un perpetuo Aprile
Di varij fior, di frutti, e di verdure,
Ombre soavi, acque a temprar l’arsure

E strade di beltà non dissimile;
E non men forte estel, che per fortezza
Ha il ponte, e i fianchi, e lo circonda intorno
Fosso profundo e di real larghezza.
Qui fei col mio Signore dolce soggiorno
Con santo amor, con somma contentezza
Onde ne benedico il mese e il giorno!

Wide halls, wide galleries, and an ample court,
Chambers adorn’d by pictures’ soothing charm,
I found together blended; noble sculpture
In marble, polish’d by no chisel vile;
A noble garden, where a lasting April
All-various flowers and fruits and verdure showers;
Soft shades, and waters tempering the hot air;
And undulating paths in equal beauty!
Nor less the castled glory stands in force,
And bridged and flanked. And round its circuit winds
The deepened moat, showing a regal size.
Here with my lord I cast my sweet sojourn,
With holy love, and with supreme content;
And hence I bless the month, and bless the day!

1 Book ii. lett. 17.

MASQUES.

It sometimes happens, in the history of national amusements, that a name
survives while the thing itself is forgotten. This has been remarkably the
case with our court Masques, respecting which our most eminent writers
long ventured on so many false opinions, with a perfect ignorance of the
nature of these compositions, which combined all that was exquisite in the
imitative arts of poetry, painting, music, song, dancing, and machinery, at a
period when our public theatre was in its rude infancy. Convinced of the
miserable state of our represented drama, and not then possessing that more
curious knowledge of their domestic history which we delight to explore,
they were led into erroneous notions of one of the most gorgeous, the most
fascinating, and the most poetical of dramatic amusements. Our present
theatrical exhibitions are, indeed, on a scale to which the twopenny
audiences of the barn playhouses of Shakspeare could never have strained
their sight; and our picturesque and learned costume, with the brilliant
changes of our scenery, would have maddened the “property-men” and the
“tire-women” of the Globe or the Red Bull.2 Shakspeare himself never
beheld the true magical illusions of his own dramas, with “Enter the Red
Coat,” and “Exit Hat and Cloak,” helped out with “painted cloths;” or, as a
bard of Charles the Second’s time chants—

Look back and see
The strange vicissitudes of poetrie;
Your aged fathers came to plays for wit,
And sat knee-deep in nut-shells in the pit.

But while the public theatre continued long in this contracted state,
without scenes, without dresses, without an orchestra, the court displayed
scenical and dramatic exhibitions with such costly magnificence, such
inventive fancy, and such miraculous art, that we may doubt if the
combined genius of Ben Jonson, Inigo Jones, and Lawes, or Ferobosco, at
an era most favourable to the arts of imagination, has been equalled by the
modern spectacle of the Opera.

But this circumstance had entirely escaped the knowledge of our critics.
The critic of a Masque must not only have read it, but he must also have
heard and have viewed it. The only witnesses in this case are those letter-
writers of the day, who were then accustomed to communicate such
domestic intelligence to their absent friends: from such ample
correspondence I have often drawn some curious and sometimes important
information. It is amusing to notice the opinions of some great critics, how
from an original mis-statement they have drawn an illegitimate opinion, and
how one inherits from the other the error which he propagates. Warburton
said on Masques, that “Shakspeare was an enemy to these fooleries, as
appears by his writing none.” This opinion was among the many which that
singular critic threw out as they arose at the moment; for Warburton forgot
that Shakspeare characteristically introduces one in the Tempest’s most
fanciful scene.3 Granger, who had not much time to study the manners of
the age whose personages he was so well acquainted with, in a note on
Milton’s Masque, said that “these compositions were trifling and perplexed
allegories, the persons of which are fantastical to the last degree. Ben
Jonson, in his ‘Masque of Christmas,’ has introduced ‘Minced Pie,’ and
‘Baby Cake,’ who act their parts in the drama.4 But the most wretched
performances of this kind could please by the help of music, machinery,
and dancing.” Granger blunders, describing by two farcical characters a
species of composition of which farce was not the characteristic. Such
personages as he notices would enter into the Anti-masque, which was a

humorous parody of the more solemn Masque, and sometimes relieved it.
Malone, whose fancy was not vivid, condemns Masques and the age of
Masques, in which, he says, echoing Granger’s epithet, “the wretched taste
of the times found amusement.” And lastly comes Mr. Todd, whom the
splendid fragment of the “Arcades,” and the entire Masque, which we have
by heart, could not warm; while his neutralising criticism fixes him at the
freezing point of the thermometer. “This dramatic entertainment, performed
not without prodigious expense in machinery and decoration, to which
humour we certainly owe the entertainment of ‘Arcades,’ and the inimitable
Mask of ‘Comus.’” Comus, however, is only a fine dramatic poem,
retaining scarcely any features of the Masque. The only modern critic who
had written with some research on this departed elegance of the English
drama was Warton, whose fancy responded to the fascination of the fairy-
like magnificence and lyrical spirit of the Masque. Warton had the taste to
give a specimen from “The Inner Temple Mask by William Browne,” the
pastoral poet, whose Address to Sleep, he observed, “reminds us of some
favourite touches in Milton’s Comus, to which it perhaps gave birth.” Yet
even Warton was deficient in that sort of research which only can discover
the true nature of these singular dramas.

Such was the state in which, some years ago, I found all our knowledge
of this once favourite amusement of our court, our nobility, and our learned
bodies of the four inns of court. Some extensive researches, pursued among
contemporary manuscripts, cast a new light over this obscure child of fancy
and magnificence. I could not think lightly of what Ben Jonson has called
“The Eloquence of Masques;” entertainments on which from three to five
thousand pounds were expended, and on more public occasions ten and
twenty thousand. To the aid of the poetry, composed by the finest poets,
came the most skilful musicians and the most elaborate machinists; Ben
Jonson, and Inigo Jones,5 and Lawes blended into one piece their respective
genius; and Lord Bacon, and Whitelocke, and Selden, who sat in

committees for the last grand Masque presented to Charles the First,
invented the devices; composed the procession of the Masquers and the
Anti-Masquers; while one took the care of the dancing or the brawlers, and
Whitelocke the music—the sage Whitelocke! who has chronicled his self-
complacency on this occasion, by claiming the invention of a Coranto,
which for thirty years afterwards was the delight of the nation, and was
blessed by the name of “Whitelocke’s Coranto,” and which was always
called for, two or three times over, whenever that great statesman “came to
see a play!”6 So much personal honour was considered to be involved in the
conduct of a Masque, that even this committee of illustrious men was on the
point of being broken up by too serious a discussion concerning
precedence; and the Masque had nearly not taken place, till they hit on the
expedient of throwing dice to decide on their rank in the procession! On this
jealousy of honour in the composition of a Masque, I discovered, what
hitherto had escaped the knowledge, although not the curiosity, of literary
inquirers—the occasion of the memorable enmity between Ben Jonson and
Inigo Jones, who had hitherto acted together with brotherly affection; “a
circumstance,” says Gifford, to whom I communicated it, “not a little
important in the history of our calumniated poet.” The trivial cause, but not
so in its consequences, was the poet prefixing his own name before that of
the architect on the title-page of a Masque, which hitherto had only been
annexed;7 so jealous was the great architect of his part of the Masque, and
so predominant his power and name at court, that he considered his rights
invaded by the inferior claims of the poet! Jonson has poured out the whole
bitterness of his soul in two short satires: still more unfortunately for the
subject of these satires, they provoked Inigo to sharpen his pen on rhyme;
but it is edgeless, and the blunt composition still lies in its manuscript state.

While these researches had engaged my attention, appeared Gifford’s
Memoirs of Ben Jonson. The characteristics of Masques are there, for the
first time, elaborately opened with the clear and penetrating spirit of that

ablest of our dramatic critics. I feel it like presumption to add to what has
received the finishing hand of a master; but his jewel is locked up in a
chest, which I fear is too rarely opened, and he will allow me to borrow
something from its splendour. “The Masque, as it attained its highest degree
of excellence, admitted of dialogue, singing, and dancing; these were not
independent of one another, but combined, by the introduction of some
ingenious fable, into an harmonious whole. When the plan was formed, the
aid of the sister-arts was called in; for the essence of the Masque was pomp
and glory. Moveable scenery of the most costly and splendid kind was
lavished on the Masque; the most celebrated masters were employed on the
songs and dances; and all that the kingdom afforded of vocal and
instrumental excellence was employed to embellish the exhibition.8 Thus
magnificently constructed, the Masque was not committed to ordinary
performers. It was composed, as Lord Bacon says, for princes, and by
princes it was played.9 Of these Masques, the skill with which their
ornaments were designed, and the inexpressible grace with which they were
executed, appear to have left a vivid impression on the mind of Jonson. His
genius awakes at once, and all his faculties attune to sprightliness and
pleasure. He makes his appearance, like his own Delight, ‘accompanied
with Grace, Love, Harmony, Revel, Sport, and Laughter.’

“In curious knot and mazes so
The Spring at first was taught to go;
And Zephyr, when he came to woo
His Flora, had his motions10 too;

And thus did Venus learn to lead
The Idalian brawls, and so to tread,
As if the wind, not she, did walk,
Nor press’d a flower, nor bow’d a stalk.

“But in what,” says Gifford, “was the taste of the times wretched? In
poetry, painting, architecture, they have not since been equalled; and it ill
becomes us to arraign the taste of a period which possessed a cluster of
writers of whom the meanest would now be esteemed a prodigy.” Malone
did not live to read this denouncement of his objection to these Masques, as
“bungling shows;” and which Warburton treats as “fooleries;” Granger as
“wretched performances;” while Mr. Todd regards them merely as “the
humour of the times!”

Masques were often the private theatricals of the families of our nobility,
performed by the ladies and gentlemen at their seats; and were splendidly
got up on certain occasions: such as the celebration of a nuptial, or in
compliment to some great visitor. The Masque of Comus was composed by
Milton to celebrate the creation of Charles the First as Prince of Wales; a
scene in this Masque presented both the castle and the town of Ludlow,
which proves, that although our small public theatres had not yet displayed
any of the scenical illusions which long afterwards Davenant introduced,
these scenical effects existed in great perfection in the Masques. The minute
descriptions introduced by Thomas Campion, in his “Memorable Masque,”
as it is called, will convince us that the scenery must have been exquisite
and fanciful, and that the poet was always a watchful and anxious partner
with the machinist, with whom sometimes, however, he had a quarrel.

The subject of this very rare Masque was “The Night and the Hours.” It
would be tedious to describe the first scene with the fondness with which
the poet has dwelt on it. It was a double valley; one side, with dark clouds
hanging before it; on the other, a green vale, with trees, and nine golden
ones of fifteen feet high; from which grove, towards “the State,” or the seat
of the king, was a broad descent to the dancing-place: the bower of Flora
was on the right, the house of Night on the left; between them a hill,
hanging like a cliff over the grove. The bower of Flora was spacious,

garnished with flowers and flowery branches, with lights among them; the
house of Night ample and stately, with black columns studded with golden
stars; within, nothing but clouds and twinkling stars; while about it were
placed, on wire, artificial bats and owls, continually moving. As soon as the
king entered the great hall, the hautboys, out of the wood on the top of the
hill, entertained the time, till Flora and Zephyr were seen busily gathering
flowers from the bower, throwing them into baskets which two silvans held,
attired in changeable taffeta. The song is light as their fingers, but the
burden is charming:—

Now hath Flora robb’d her bowers
To befriend this place with flowers;
Strow about! strow about!
Divers, divers flowers affect
For some private dear respect;
Strow about! strow about!
But he’s none of Flora’s friend
That will not the rose commend;
Strow about! strow about!

I cannot quit this Masque, of which, collectors know the rarity, without
preserving one of those Doric delicacies, of which, perhaps, we have
outlived the taste! It is a playful dialogue between a Silvan and an Hour,
while Night appears in her house, with her long black hair spangled with
gold, amidst her Hours; their faces black, and each bearing a lighted black
torch.

Silvan. Tell me, gentle Hour of Night,
Wherein dost thou most delight?

Hour. Not in sleep!

Silvan. Wherein then?

Hour. In the frolic view of men!

Silvan. Lov’st thou music?

Hour. Oh! ’tis sweet!

Silvan. What’s dancing?

Hour. E’en the mirth of feet.

Silvan. Joy you in fairies and in elves?

Hour. We are of that sort ourselves!
But, Silvan! say, why do you love
Only to frequent the grove?

Silvan. Life is fullest of content
When delight is innocent.

Hour. Pleasure must vary, not be long!
Come then, let’s close, and end the song!

That the moveable scenery of these Masques formed as perfect a scenical
illusion as any that our own age, with all its perfection of decoration, has
attained to, will not be denied by those who have read the few Masques
which have been printed. They usually contrived a double division of the
scene; one part was for some time concealed from the spectator, which
produced surprise and variety. Thus in the Lord’s Masque, at the marriage
of the Palatine, the scene was divided into two parts, from the roof to the
floor; the lower part being first discovered, there appeared a wood in
perspective, the innermost part being of “releeve or whole round,” the rest
painted. On the left a cave, and on the right a thicket, from which issued
Orpheus. At the back part of the scene, at the sudden fall of a curtain, the
upper part broke on the spectators, a heaven of clouds of all hues; the stars
suddenly vanished, the clouds dispersed; an element of artificial fire played
about the house of Prometheus—a bright and transparent cloud, reaching

from the heavens to the earth, whence the eight masquers descending with
the music of a full song; and at the end of their descent the cloud broke in
twain, and one part of it, as with a wind, was blown athwart the scene.
While this cloud was vanishing, the wood, being the under part of the
scene, was insensibly changing; a perspective view opened, with porticoes
on each side, and female statues of silver, accompanied with ornaments of
architecture, filling the end of the house of Prometheus, and seemed all of
goldsmiths’ work. The women of Prometheus descended from their niches,
till the anger of Jupiter turned them again into statues. It is evident, too, that
the size of the proscenium, or stage, accorded with the magnificence of the
scene; for I find choruses described, “and changeable conveyances of the
song,” in manner of an echo, performed by more than forty different voices
and instruments in various parts of the scene. The architectural decorations
were the pride of Inigo Jones; such could not be trivial.

“I suppose,” says the writer of this Masque, “few have ever seen more
neat artifice than Master Inigo Jones showed in contriving their motion;
who, as all the rest of the workmanship which belonged to the whole
invention, showed extraordinary industry and skill, which if it be not as
lively expressed in writing as it appeared in view, rob not him of his due,
but lay the blame on my want of right apprehending his instructions, for the
adoring of his art.” Whether this strong expression should be only adorning
does not appear in any errata; but the feeling of admiration was fervent
among the spectators of that day, who were at least as much astonished as
they were delighted. Ben Jonson’s prose descriptions of scenes in his own
exquisite Masques, as Gifford observes, “are singularly bold and beautiful.”
In a letter which I discovered, the writer of which had been present at one
of these Masques, and which Gifford has preserved,11 the reader may see
the great poet anxiously united with Inigo Jones in working the machinery.
Jonson, before “a sacrifice could be performed, turned the globe of the
earth, standing behind the altar.” In this globe “the sea was expressed

heightened with silver waves, which stood, or rather hung (for no axle was
seen to support it), and turning softly, discovered the first Masque,”12 &c.
This “turning softly” producing a very magical effect, the great poet would
trust to no other hand but his own!

It seems, however, that as no Masque-writer equalled Jonson, so no
machinist rivalled Inigo Jones. I have sometimes caught a groan from some
unfortunate poet, whose beautiful fancies were spoilt by the bungling
machinist. One says, “The order of this scene was carefully and ingeniously
disposed, and as happily put in act (for the motions) by the king’s master
carpenter;” but he adds, “the painters, I must needs say (not to belie them),
lent small colour to any, to attribute much of the spirit of these things to
their pencil.” Campion, in one of his Masques, describing where the trees
were gently to sink, &c., by an engine placed under the stage, and in
sinking were to open, and the masquers appear out at their tops, &c., adds
this vindictive marginal note: “Either by the simplicity, negligence, or
conspiracy of the painter, the passing away of the trees was somewhat
hazarded, though the same day they had been shown with much admiration,
and were left together to the same night;” that is, they were worked right at
the rehearsal, and failed in the representation, which must have perplexed
the nine masquers on the tops of these nine trees. But such accidents were
only vexations crossing the fancies of the poet: they did not essentially
injure the magnificence, the pomp, and the fairy world opened to the
spectators. So little was the character of these Masques known, that all our
critics seemed to have fallen into repeated blunders, and used the Masques
as Campion suspected his painters to have done, “either by simplicity,
negligence, or conspiracy.” Hurd, a cold systematic critic, thought he might
safely prefer the Masque in the Tempest, as “putting to shame all the
Masques of Jonson, not only in its construction, but in the splendour of its
show;”—“which,” adds Gifford, “was danced and sung by the ordinary
performers to a couple of fiddles, perhaps in the balcony of the stage.” Such

is the fate of criticism without knowledge! And now, to close our Masques,
let me apply the forcible style of Ben Jonson himself: “The glory of all
these solemnities had perished like a blaze, and gone out in the beholder’s
eyes; so short-lived are the bodies of all things in comparison of their
souls!”13

2 Sir Philip Sidney, in his “Defence of Poesy,” 1595, alludes to the custom of writing the
supposed locality of each scene over the stage, and asks, “What child is there that coming to a
play, and seeing Thebes written in great letters on an old door, doth believe that it is Thebes.” As
late as the production of Davenant’s Siege of Rhodes (circa 1656), this custom was continued,
and is thus described in the printed edition of the play:—“In the middle of the frieze was a
compartment wherein was written Rhodes.” In many instances the spectator was left to infer the
locality of the scene from the dialogue.—“Now,” says Sidney, “you shall have three ladies
walke to gather flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be a garden. By and by we heare
newes of shipwracke in the same place; then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock.” In
Middleton’s Chaste Maid, 1630, when the scene changes to a bed-room, “a bed is thrust out
upon the stage, Alwit’s wife in it;” which simple process was effected by pushing it through the
curtains that hung across the entrance to the stage, which at that time projected into the pit.

3 The play of Pyramus and Thisbe, performed by the clowns in Shakspeare’s Midsummer
Night’s Dream, is certainly constructed in burlesque of characters in court Masques, which
sometimes were as difficult to be made comprehensible to an audience as “the clowns of
Athens” found Wall and Moonshine to be.

4 It is due to a great poet like Ben Jonson, that, without troubling the reader to turn to his
works, we should give his own description of these characters, to show that they were not the
“perplexed allegories” they are asserted to be by Granger; nor inappropriate to the Masque of
Christmas, for which they were designed. Minced-Pie was habited “like a fine cook’s wife, drest
neat, her man carrying a pie, dish, and spoon.” Baby-Cake was “drest like a boy, in a fine long
coat, biggin-bib, muckender (or handkerchief), and a little dagger; his usher bearing a great
cake, with a bean and a pease;” the latter being indicative of those generally inserted in a

Christmas cake, which, when cut into slices and distributed, indicated by the presence of the
bean the person who should be king; the slice with the pea doing the same for the queen. Neither
of these characters speak, but make part of the show to be described by Father Christmas.
Jonson’s inventive talent was never more conspicuous than in the concoction of court Masques.

5 The first employment of these two great men was upon The Masque of Blackness,
performed at Whitehall on Twelfth-Night, 1603; and which cost nearly 10,000l., of our present
money.

6 The music of Whitelocke’s Coranto is preserved in Hawkins’s “History of Music.” Might
it be restored for the ladies as a waltz?

7 This was Chloridia, a Masque performed by the queen and her ladies at court, on
Shrovetide, 1630; upon the title-page of which is printed “the inventors—Ben Jonson, Inigo
Jones.” Jonson was, by reason of the influence of Inigo, deprived of employ at court ever after,
supplanted by other poets named by the architect, and among them Heywood, Shirley, and
Davenant.

8 George Chapman’s Memorable Maske, performed at Whitehall, 1630, by the gentlemen of
the Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn, cost the latter society nearly 2000l. for their share of the
expenses.

9 Ben Jonson records the names of the noble ladies and gentlemen who enacted his
inventions at court.

10 The figures and actions of dancers in Masques were called motions.

11 Memoirs of Jonson, p. 88.

12 See Gifford’s Jonson, vol. vii. p. 78. This performance was in the Masque of Hymen,
enacted at court in 1605, on the occasion of the marriage of the Earl of Essex to the daughter of
the Earl of Suffolk.

13 Splendour ultimately ruined these works; they ended in gaudy dresses and expensive
machinery, but poetry was not associated with them. The youthful days of Louis XIV. raised
them to a height of costly luxuriance to sink them ever after in oblivion.

OF DES MAIZEAUX, AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF
ANTHONY COLLINS’S MANUSCRIPTS.

Des Maizeaux was an active literary man of his day, whose connexions
with Bayle, St. Evremond, Locke, and Toland, and his name being set off
by an F.R.S., have occasioned the dictionary-biographers to place him
prominently among their “hommes illustres.” Of his private history nothing
seems known. Having something important to communicate respecting one
of his friends, a far greater character, with whose fate he stands connected,
even Des Maizeaux becomes an object of our inquiry.

He was one of those French refugees whom political madness or despair
of intolerance had driven to our shores. The proscription of Louis XIV.,
which supplied us with our skilful workers in silk, also produced a race of
the unemployed, who proved not to be as exquisite in the handicraft of
book-making; such were Motteux, La Coste, Ozell, Durand, and others. Our
author had come over in that tender state of youth, just in time to become
half an Englishman: and he was so ambidextrous in the languages of the
two great literary nations of Europe, that whenever he took up his pen, it is
evident by his manuscripts, which I have examined, that it was mere
accident which determined him to write in French or in English. Composing
without genius, or even taste, without vivacity or force, the simplicity and
fluency of his style were sufficient for the purposes of a ready dealer in all
the minutiæ literariæ; literary anecdotes, curious quotations, notices of

obscure books, and all that supellex which must enter into the history of
literature, without forming a history. These little things, which did so well
of themselves, without any connexion with anything else, became trivial
when they assumed the form of voluminous minuteness; and Des Maizeaux
at length imagined that nothing but anecdotes were necessary to compose
the lives of men of genius! With this sort of talent he produced a copious
life of Bayle, in which he told everything he possibly could; and nothing
can be more tedious, and more curious: for though it be a grievous fault to
omit nothing, and marks the writer to be deficient in the development of
character, and that sympathy which throws inspiration over the vivifying
page of biography, yet, to admit everything, has this merit—that we are sure
to find what we want! Warburton poignantly describes our Des Maizeaux,
in one of those letters to Dr. Birch which he wrote in the fervid age of study,
and with the impatient vivacity of his genius, “Almost all the life-writers we
have had before Toland and Des Maizeaux are indeed strange, insipid
creatures; and yet I had rather read the worst of them, than be obliged to go
through with this of Milton’s, or the other’s life of Boileau; where there is
such a dull, heavy succession of long quotations of uninteresting passages,
that it makes their method quite nauseous. But the verbose, tasteless
Frenchman seems to lay it down as a principle, that every life must be a
book,—and, what is worse, it seems a book without a life; for what do we
know of Boileau after all his tedious stuff?”

Des Maizeaux was much in the employ of the Dutch booksellers, then the
great monopolisers in the literary mart of Europe. He supplied their
“nouvelles littéraires” from England; but the work-sheet price was very
mean in those days. I have seen annual accounts of Des Maizeaux settled to
a line for four or five pounds; and yet he sent the “Novelties” as fresh as the
post could carry them! He held a confidential correspondence with these
great Dutch booksellers, who consulted him in their distresses; and he
seems rather to have relieved them than himself. But if he got only a few

florins at Rotterdam, the same “nouvelles littéraires” sometimes secured
him valuable friends at London; for in those days, which perhaps are
returning on us, an English author would often appeal to a foreign journal
for the commendation he might fail in obtaining at home; and I have
discovered, in more cases than one, that, like other smuggled commodities,
the foreign article was often of home manufactory!

I give one of these curious bibliopolical distresses. Sauzet, a bookseller at
Rotterdam, who judged too critically for the repose of his authors, seems to
have been always fond of projecting a new “Journal;” tormented by the
ideal excellence which he had conceived of such a work, it vexed him that
he could never find the workmen! Once disappointed of the assistance he
expected from a writer of talents, he was fain to put up with one he was
ashamed of; but warily stipulated on very singular terms. He confided this
precious literary secret to Des Maizeaux. I translate from his manuscript
letter.

“I send you, my dear Sir, four sheets of the continuation of my journal,
and I hope this second part will turn out better than the former. The author
thinks himself a very able person; but I must tell you frankly, that he is a
man without erudition, and without any critical discrimination; he writes
pretty well, and turns passably what he says; but that is all! Monsieur Van
Effen having failed in his promises to realise my hopes on this occasion,
necessity compelled me to have recourse to him; but for six months only,
and on condition that he should not, on any account whatever, allow any
one to know that he is the author of the journal; for his name alone would
be sufficient to make even a passable book discreditable. As you are among
my friends, I will confide to you in secrecy the name of this author; it is
Mons. De Limiers.14 You see how much my interest is concerned that the
author should not be known!” This anecdote is gratuitously presented to the
editors of certain reviews, as a serviceable hint to enter into the same

engagement with some of their own writers: for it is usually the De Limiers
who expend their last puff in blowing their own name about the town.

In England, Des Maizeaux, as a literary man, made himself very useful to
other men of letters, and particularly to persons of rank: and he found
patronage and a pension,—like his talents, very moderate! A friend to
literary men, he lived amongst them, from “Orator” Henley, up to Addison,
Lord Halifax, and Anthony Collins. I find a curious character of our Des
Maizeaux in the handwriting of Edward, Earl of Oxford, to whose father
(Pope’s Earl of Oxford) and himself the nation owes the Harleian treasures.
His lordship is a critic with high Tory principles, and high-church notions.
“This Des Maizeaux is a great man with those who are pleased to be called
Freethinkers, particularly with Mr. Anthony Collins, collects passages out
of books for their writings. His Life of Chillingworth is wrote to please that
set of men.” The secret history I am to unfold relates to Anthony Collins
and Des Maizeaux. Some curious book-lovers will be interested in the
personal history of an author they are well acquainted with, yet which has
hitherto remained unknown. He tells his own story in a sort of epistolary
petition he addressed to a noble friend, characteristic of an author, who
cannot be deemed unpatronised, yet whose name, after all his painful
labours, might be inserted in my “Calamities of Authors.”

In this letter he announces his intention of publishing a Dictionary like
Bayle; having written the life of Bayle, the next step was to become himself
a Bayle; so short is the passage of literary delusion! He had published, as a
specimen, the lives of Hales and Chillingworth. He complains that his
circumstances have not allowed him to forward that work, nor digest the
materials he had collected.

A work of that nature requires a steady application, free from the cares and avocations incident to
all persons obliged to seek for their maintenance. I have had the misfortune to be in the case of those
persons, and am now reduced to a pension on the Irish establishment, which, deducting the tax of

four shillings in the pound, and other charges, brings me in about 40l. a year of our English money.15
This pension was granted to me in 1710, and I owe it chiefly to the friendship of Mr. Addison, who
was then secretary to the Earl of Wharton, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. In 1711, 12, and 14, I was
appointed one of the Commissioners of the Lottery by the interest of Lord Halifax.
And this is all I ever received from the Government, though I had some claim to the royal favour;
for in 1710, when the enemies to our constitution were contriving its ruin, I wrote a pamphlet entitled
“Lethe,” which was published in Holland, and afterwards translated into English, and twice printed in
London; and being reprinted in Dublin, proved so offensive to the ministry in Ireland, that it was
burnt by the hands of the hangman. But so it is, that after having showed on all occasions my zeal for
the royal family, and endeavoured to make myself serviceable to the public by several books
published; after forty years’ stay in England, and in an advanced age, I find myself and family
destitute of a sufficient livelihood, and suffering from complaints in the head and impaired sight by
constant application to my studies.
I am confident, my lord, he adds, that if the queen, to whom I was made known on occasion of
Thuanus’s French translation, were acquainted with my present distress, she would be pleased to
afford me some relief.16

Among the confidential literary friends of Des Maizeaux, he had the
honour of ranking Anthony Collins, a great lover of literature, and a man of
fine genius, and who, in a continued correspondence with our Des
Maizeaux, treated him as his friend, and employed him as his agent in his
literary concerns. These, in the formation of an extensive library, were in a
state of perpetual activity, and Collins was such a true lover of his books,
that he drew up the catalogue with his own pen.17 Anthony Collins wrote
several well-known works without prefixing his name; but having pushed
too far his curious inquiries on some obscure and polemical points, he
incurred the odium of a freethinker,—a term which then began to be in
vogue, and which the French adopted by translating it, in their way, a strong
thinker, or esprit fort. Whatever tendency to “liberalise” the mind from
dogmas and creeds prevails in these works, the talents and learning of
Collins were of the first class. His morals were immaculate, and his
personal character independent; but the odium theologicum of those days
contrived every means to stab in the dark, till the taste became hereditary

with some. I shall mention a fact of this cruel bigotry, which occurred
within my own observation, on one of the most polished men of the age.
The late Mr. Cumberland, in the romance entitled his “Life,” gave this
extraordinary fact, that Dr. Bentley, who so ably replied by his “Remarks,”
under the name of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, to Collins’s “Discourse on
Free-thinking,” when, many years after, he discovered him fallen into great
distress, conceiving that by having ruined Collins’s character as a writer for
ever, he had been the occasion of his personal misery, he liberally
contributed to his maintenance. In vain I mentioned to that elegant writer,
who was not curious about facts, that this person could never have been
Anthony Collins, who had always a plentiful fortune; and when it was
suggested to him that this “A. Collins,” as he printed it, must have been
Arthur Collins, the historical compiler, who was often in pecuniary
difficulties, still he persisted in sending the lie down to posterity, totidem
verbis, without alteration in his second edition, observing to a friend of
mine, that “the story, while it told well, might serve as a striking instance of
his great relative’s generosity; and that it should stand, because it could do
no harm to any but to Anthony Collins, whom he considered as little short
of an atheist.” So much for this pious fraud! but be it recollected that this
Anthony Collins was the confidential friend of Locke, of whom Locke said,
on his dying bed, that “Collins was a man whom he valued in the first rank
of those that he left behind him.” And the last words of Collins on his own
death-bed were, that “he was persuaded he was going to that place which
God had designed for them that love him.” The cause of true religion will
never be assisted by using such leaky vessels as Cumberland’s wilful
calumnies, which in the end must run out, and be found, like the present,
mere empty fictions!

An extraordinary circumstance occurred on the death of Anthony Collins.
He left behind him a considerable number of his own manuscripts, there
was one collection formed into eight octavo volumes; and that they might

be secured from the common fate of manuscripts, he bequeathed them all,
and confided them to the care of our Des Maizeaux. The choice of Collins
reflects honour on the character of Des Maizeaux, yet he proved unworthy
of it! He suffered himself to betray his trust, practised on by the earnest
desire of the widow, and perhaps by the arts of a Mr. Tomlinson, who
appears to have been introduced into the family by the recommendation of
Dean Sykes, whom at length he supplanted, and whom the widow, to save
her reputation, was afterwards obliged to discard.18 In an unguarded
moment he relinquished this precious legacy of the manuscripts, and
accepted fifty guineas as a present. But if Des Maizeaux lost his honour in
this transaction, he was at heart an honest man, who had swerved for a
single moment; his conscience was soon awakened, and he experienced the
most violent compunctions. It was in a paroxysm of this nature that he
addressed the following letter to a mutual friend of the late Anthony Collins
and himself.

January 6, 1730.
Sir,
I am very glad to hear you are come to town, and as you are my best friend, now I have lost
Mr. Collins, give me leave to open my heart to you, and to beg your assistance in an affair which
highly concerns both Mr. Collins’s (your friend) and my own honour and reputation. The case, in few
words, stands thus:—Mr. Collins by his last will and testament left me his manuscripts. Mr.
Tomlinson, who first acquainted me with it, told me that Mrs. Collins should be glad to have them,
and I made them over to her; whereupon she was pleased to present me with fifty guineas. I desired
her at the same time to take care they should be kept safe and unhurt, which she promised to do. This
was done the 25th of last month. Mr. Tomlinson, who managed all this affair, was present.
Now, having further considered that matter, I find that I have done a most wicked thing. I am
persuaded that I have betrayed the trust of a person who, for twenty-six years, had given me
continual instances of his friendship and confidence. I am convinced that I have acted contrary to the
will and intention of my dear deceased friend; showed a disregard to the particular mark of esteem he
gave me on that occasion; in short, that I have forfeited what is dearer to me than my own life—
honour and reputation.

These melancholy thoughts have made so great an impression upon me, that I protest to you I can
enjoy no rest; they haunt me everywhere, day and night. I earnestly beseech you, sir, to represent my
unhappy case to Mrs. Collins. I acted with all the simplicity and uprightness of my heart; I
considered that the MSS. would be as safe in Mrs. Collins’s hands as in mine; that she was no less
obliged to preserve them than myself; and that, as the library was left to her, they might naturally go
along with it. Besides, I thought I could not too much comply with the desire of a lady to whom I
have so many obligations. But I see now clearly that this is not fulfilling Mr. Collins’s will, and that
the duties of our conscience are superior to all other regards. But it is in her power to forgive and
mend what I have done imprudently, but with a good intention. Her high sense of virtue and
generosity will not, I am sure, let her take any advantage of my weakness; and the tender regard she
has for the memory of the best of men, and the tenderest of husbands, will not suffer that his
intentions should be frustrated, and that she should be the instrument of violating what is most
sacred. If our late friend had designed that his MSS. should remain in her hands, he would certainly
have left them to her by his last will and testament; his acting otherwise is an evident proof that it
was not his intention.
All this I proposed to represent to her in the most respectful manner; but you will do it infinitely
better than I can in this present distraction of mind; and I flatter myself that the mutual esteem and
friendship which has continued so many years between Mr. Collins and you, will make you readily
embrace whatever tends to honour his memory.
I send you the fifty guineas I received, which I do now look upon as the wages of iniquity; and I
desire you to return them to Mrs. Collins, who, as I hope it of her justice, equity, and regard to Mr.
Collins’s intentions, will be pleased to cancel my paper.
I am, &c.,
P. Des Maizeaux.

The manuscripts were never returned to Des Maizeaux; for seven years
afterwards Mrs. Collins, who appears to have been a very spirited lady,
addressed to him the following letter on the subject of a report, that she had
permitted transcripts of these very manuscripts to get abroad. This
occasioned an animated correspondence from both sides.

March 10, 1736-37.
Sir,
I have thus long waited in expectation that you would ere this have called on Dean Sykes,
as Sir B. Lucy said you intended, that I might have had some satisfaction in relation to a very unjust

reproach—viz., that I, or somebody that I had trusted, had betrayed some of the transcripts, or MSS.,
of Mr. Collins into the Bishop of London’s hands. I cannot, therefore, since you have not been with
the dean as was desired, but call on you in this manner, to know what authority you had for such a
reflection; or on what grounds you went for saying that these transcripts are in the Bishop of
London’s hands. I am determined to trace out the grounds of such a report; and you can be no friend
of mine, no friend of Mr. Collins, no friend to common justice, if you refuse to acquaint me, what
foundation you had for such a charge. I desire a very speedy answer to this, who am, Sir,
Your servant,
Eliz. Collins.
To Mr. Des Maizeaux, at his lodgings next door to the Quakers’ burying-ground, Hanover-street,
out of Long-Acre.

TO MRS. COLLINS.
March 14, 1737.
I had the honour of your letter of the 10th inst., and as I find that something has been
misapprehended, I beg leave to set this matter right.
Being lately with some honourable persons, I told them it had been reported that some of Mr. C.’s
MSS. were fallen into the hands of strangers, and that I should be glad to receive from you such
information as might enable me to disprove that report. What occasioned this surmise, or what
particular MSS. were meant, I was not able to discover; so I was left to my own conjectures, which,
upon a serious consideration, induced me to believe that it might relate to the MSS. in eight volumes
in 8vo, of which there is a transcript. But as the original and the transcript are in your possession, if
you please, madam, to compare them together, you may easily see whether they be both entire and
perfect, or whether there be anything wanting in either of them. By this means you will assure
yourself, and satisfy your friends, that several important pieces are safe in your hands, and that the
report is false and groundless. All this I take the liberty to offer out of the singular respect I always
professed for you, and for the memory of Mr. Collins, to whom I have endeavoured to do justice on
all occasions, and particularly in the memoirs that have been made use of in the General Dictionary;
and I hope my tender concern for his reputation will further appear when I publish his life.

April 6, 1737.
Sir,
My ill state of health has hindered me from acknowledging sooner the receipt of yours,
from which I hoped for some satisfaction in relation to your charge, in which I cannot but think
myself very deeply concerned. You tell me now, that you was left to your own conjectures what
particular MSS. were reported to have fallen into the hands of strangers, and that upon a serious

consideration you was induced to believe that it might relate to the MSS. in eight vols. 8vo, of which
there was a transcript.
I must beg of you to satisfy me very explicitly who were the persons that reported this to you, and
from whom did you receive this information? You know that Mr. Collins left several MSS. behind
him; what grounds had you for your conjecture that it related to the MSS. in eight vols., rather than to
any other MSS. of which there was a transcript? I beg that you will be very plain, and tell me what
strangers were named to you; and why you said the Bishop of London, if your informer said stranger
to you. I am so much concerned in this, that I must repeat it, if you have the singular respect for Mr.
Collins which you profess, that you would help me to trace out this reproach, which is so abusive to,
Sir,
Your servant,
Eliz. Collins.

TO MRS. COLLINS.
I flattered myself that my last letter would have satisfied you, but I have the mortification
to see that my hopes were vain. Therefore I beg leave once more to set this matter right. When I told
you what had been reported, I acted, as I thought, the part of a true friend, by acquainting you that
some of your MSS. had been purloined, in order that you might examine a fact which to me appeared
of the last consequence; and I verily believe that everybody in my case would have expected thanks
for such a friendly information. But instead of that I find myself represented as an enemy, and
challenged to produce proofs and witnesses of a thing dropt in conversation, a hearsay, as if in those
cases people kept a register of what they hear, and entered the names of the persons who spoke, the
time, place, &c., and had with them persons ready to witness the whole, &c. I did own I never
thought of such a thing, and whenever I happened to hear that some of my friends had some loss, I
thought it my duty to acquaint them with such report, that they might inquire into the matter, and see
whether there was any ground for it. But I never troubled myself with the names of the persons who
spoke, as being a thing entirely needless and unprofitable.
Give me leave further to observe, that you are in no ways concerned in the matter, as you seem to
be apprehensive you are. Suppose some MSS. have been taken out of your library, who will say you
ought to bear the guilt of it? What man in his senses, who has the honour to know you, will say you
gave your consent to such thing—that you was privy to it? How can you then take upon yourself an
action to which you was neither privy and consenting? Do not such things happen every day, and do
the losers think themselves injured or abused when they are talked of? Is it impossible to be betrayed
by a person we confided in?
You call what I told you was a report, a surmise; you call it, I say, an information, and speak of
informers as if there was a plot laid wherein I received the information: I thought I had the honour to
be better known to you. Mr. Collins loved me and esteemed me for my integrity and sincerity, of

which he had several proofs; how I have been drawn in to injure him, to forfeit the good opinion he
had of me, and which, were he now alive, would deservedly expose me to his utmost contempt, is a
grief which I shall carry to the grave. It would be a sort of comfort to me, if those who have
consented I should be drawn in were in some measure sensible of the guilt towards so good, kind,
and generous a man.

Thus we find that, seven years after Des Maizeaux had inconsiderately
betrayed his sacred trust, his remorse was still awake; and the sincerity of
his grief is attested by the affecting style which describes it: the spirit of his
departed friend seemed to be hovering about him, and, in his imagination,
would haunt him to the grave.

The nature of these manuscripts; the cause of the earnest desire of
retaining them by the widow; the evident unfriendliness of her conduct to
Des Maizeaux; and whether these manuscripts, consisting of eight octavo
volumes with their transcripts, were destroyed, or are still existing, are all
circumstances which my researches have hitherto not ascertained.

14 Van Effen was a Dutch writer of some merit, and one of a literary knot of ingenious men,
consisting of Sallengre, St. Hyacinthe, Prosper Marchand, &c., who carried on a smart review
for those days, published at the Hague under the title of “Journal Littéraire.” They all composed
in French; and Van Effen gave the first translations of our “Guardian,” “Robinson Crusoe,” and
the “Tale of a Tub,” &c. He did something more, but not better; he attempted to imitate the
“Spectator,” in his “Le Misanthrope,” 1726, which exhibits a picture of the uninteresting
manners of a nation whom he could not make very lively.

De Limiers has had his name slipped into our biographical dictionaries. An author cannot
escape the fatality of the alphabet; his numerous misdeeds are registered. It is said, that if he had
not been so hungry, he would have given proofs of possessing some talent.

15 I find that the nominal pension was 3s. 6d. per diem on the Irish civil list, which amounts
to above 63l. per annum. If a pension be granted for reward, it seems a mockery that the income
should be so grievously reduced, which cruel custom still prevails.

16 This letter, or petition, was written in 1732. In 1743 he procured his pension to be placed
on his wife’s life, and he died in 1745.

He was sworn in as gentleman of his majesty’s privy chamber in 1722—Sloane MSS. 4289.

17 There is a printed catalogue of his library.

18 This information is from a note found among Des Maizeaux’s papers; but its truth I have
no means to ascertain.

HISTORY OF NEW WORDS.

Neology, or the novelty of words and phrases, is an innovation, which, with
the opulence of our present language, the English philologer is most jealous
to allow; but we have puritans or precisians of English, superstitiously nice!
The fantastic coinage of affectation or caprice will cease to circulate from
its own alloy; but shall we reject the ore of fine workmanship and solid
weight? There is no government mint of words, and it is no statutable
offence to invent a felicitous or daring expression unauthorised by Mr.
Todd! When a man of genius, in the heat of his pursuits or his feelings, has
thrown out a peculiar word, it probably conveyed more precision or energy
than any other established word, otherwise he is but an ignorant pretender!

Julius Cæsar, who, unlike other great captains, is authority on words as
well as about blows, wrote a large treatise on “Analogy,” in which that fine

genius counselled to “avoid every unusual word as a rock!”19 The cautious
Quintilian, as might be expected, opposes all innovation in language. “If the
new word is well received, small is the glory; if rejected, it raises
laughter.”20 This only marks the penury of his feelings in this species of
adventure. The great legislator of words, who lived when his own language
was at its acmé, seems undecided, yet pleaded for this liberty. “Shall that
which the Romans allowed to Cæcilius and to Plautus be refused to Virgil
and Varius?” The answer to the question might not be favourable to the
inquirer. While a language is forming, writers are applauded for extending
its limits; when established, for restricting themselves to them. But this is to
imagine that a perfect language can exist! The good sense and observation
of Horace perceived that there may be occasions where necessity must
become the mother of invented words:—

————Si forte necesse est
Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum.

If you write of things abstruse or new,
Some of your own inventing may be used,
So it be seldom and discreetly done.
Roscommon.

But Horace’s canon for deciding on the legality of the new invention, or the
standard by which it is to be tried, will not serve to assist the inventor of
words:—

————licuit, semperque licebit,
Signatum præsente nota procudere nummum.21

This præsens nota, or public stamp, can never be affixed to any new
coinage of words: for many received at a season have perished with it.22
The privilege of stamping words is reserved for their greatest enemy—Time
itself! and the inventor of a new word must never flatter himself that he has
secured the public adoption, for he must lie in his grave before he can enter
the dictionary.

In Willes’ address to the reader, prefixed to the collection of Voyages
published in 1577, he finds fault with Eden’s translation from Peter Martyr,
for using words that “smelt too much of the Latine.” We should scarcely
have expected to find among them ponderouse, portentouse, despicable,
obsequious, homicide, imbibed, destructive, prodigious. The only words he
quotes, not thoroughly naturalised, are dominators, ditionaries, (subjects),
solicitute (careful).

The Tatler, No. 230, introduces several polysyllables introduced by
military narrations, “which (he says), if they attack us too frequently, we
shall certainly put them to flight, and cut off the rear;” every one of them
still keep their ground.

Half the French words used affectedly by Melantha, in Dryden’s
Marriage à-la-Mode, as innovations in our language, are now in common
use, naïveté, foible, chagrin, grimace, embarras, double entendre,
equivoque, eclaircissement, ridicule, all these words, which she learns by
heart to use occasionally, are now in common use. A Dr. Russel called
Psalm-singers Ballad-singers, having found the Song of Solomon in an old
translation, the Ballad of Ballads, for which he is reproached by his
antagonist for not knowing that the signification of words alters with time;
should I call him knave, he ought not to be concerned at it, for the Apostle
Paul is also called a knave of Jesus Christ.23

Unquestionably, neology opens a wide door to innovation; scarcely has a
century passed since our language was patched up with Gallic idioms, as in
the preceding century it was piebald with Spanish, and with Italian, and
even with Dutch. The political intercourse of islanders with their
neighbours has ever influenced their language. In Elizabeth’s reign Italian
phrases24 and Netherland words were imported; in James and Charles the
Spanish framed the style of courtesy; in Charles the Second the nation and
the language were equally Frenchified. Yet such are the sources from
whence we have often derived some of the wealth of our language!

There are three foul corruptors of a language: caprice, affectation, and
ignorance! Such fashionable cant terms as “theatricals,” and “musicals,”
invented by the flippant Topham, still survive among his confraternity of
frivolity. A lady eminent for the elegance of her taste, and of whom one of
the best judges, the celebrated Miss Edgeworth, observed to me, that she
spoke the purest and most idiomatic English she had ever heard, threw out
an observation which might be extended to a great deal of our present
fashionable vocabulary. She is now old enough, she said, to have lived to
hear the vulgarisms of her youth adopted in drawing-room circles.25 To
lunch, now so familiar from the fairest lips, in her youth was only known in
the servants’ hall. An expression very rife of late among our young ladies, a
nice man, whatever it may mean, whether that the man resemble a pudding
or something more nice, conveys the offensive notion that they are ready to
eat him up! When I was a boy, it was an age of bon ton; this good tone
mysteriously conveyed a sublime idea of fashion; the term, imported late in
the eighteenth century, closed with it. Twaddle for a while succeeded bore;
but bore has recovered the supremacy. We want another Swift to give a new
edition of his “Polite Conversation.” A dictionary of barbarisms too might
be collected from some wretched neologists, whose pens are now at work!
Lord Chesterfield, in his exhortations to conform to Johnson’s Dictionary,
was desirous, however, that the great lexicographer should add as an

appendix, “A neological dictionary, containing those polite, though perhaps
not strictly grammatical, words and phrases commonly used, and sometimes
understood by the beau-monde.”26 This last phrase was doubtless a
contribution! Such a dictionary had already appeared in the French
language, drawn up by two caustic critics, who in the Dictionnaire
néologique à l’usage des beaux Esprits du Siècle collected together the
numerous unlucky inventions of affectation, with their modern authorities!
A collection of the fine words and phrases, culled from some very modern
poetry, might show the real amount of the favours bestowed on us.

The attempts of neologists are, however, not necessarily to be
condemned; and we may join with the commentators of Aulus Gellius, who
have lamented the loss of a chapter of which the title only has descended to
us. That chapter would have demonstrated what happens to all languages,
that some neologisms, which at first are considered forced or inelegant,
become sanctioned by use, and in time are quoted as authority in the very
language which, in their early stage, they were imagined to have debased.

The true history of men’s minds is found in their actions; their wants are
indicated by their contrivances; and certain it is that in highly cultivated
ages we discover the most refined intellects attempting NEOLOGISMS.27 It
would be a subject of great curiosity to trace the origin of many happy
expressions, when, and by whom created. Plato substituted the term
Providence for fate; and a new system of human affairs arose from a single
word. Cicero invented several; to this philosopher we owe the term of
moral philosophy, which before his time was called the philosophy of
manners. But on this subject we are perhaps more interested by the modern
than by the ancient languages. Richardson, the painter of the human heart,
has coined some expressions to indicate its little secret movements, which
are admirable: that great genius merited a higher education and more
literary leisure than the life of a printer could afford. Montaigne created

some bold expressions, many of which have not survived him; his
incuriosité, so opposite to curiosity, well describes that state of negligence
where we will not learn that of which we are ignorant. With us the word
incurious was described by Heylin, 1656, as an unusual word; it has been
appropriately adopted by our best writers, although we still want
incuriosity. Charron invented étrangeté unsuccessfully, but which, says a
French critic, would be the true substantive of the word étrange; our Locke
is the solitary instance produced for “foreignness” for “remoteness or want
of relation to something.” Malherbe borrowed from the Latin, insidieux,
sécurité, which have been received; but a bolder word, dévouloir, by which
he proposed to express cesser de vouloir, has not. A term, however,
expressive and precise. Corneille happily introduced invaincu in a verse in
the Cid,

Vous êtes invaincu, mais non pas invincible.

Yet this created word by their great poet has not sanctioned this fine
distinction among the French, for we are told that it is almost a solitary
instance. Balzac was a great inventor of neologisms. Urbanité and féliciter
were struck in his mint. “Si le mot féliciter n’est pas française, il le sera
l’année qui vient;” so confidently proud was the neologist, and it prospered
as well as urbanité, of which he says, “Quand l’usage aura muri parmi nous
un mot de si mauvais gout, et corrigé l’amertume de la nouveauté qui s’y
peut trouver, nous nous y accoutumerons comme aux autres que nous avons
emprunté de la même langue.” Balzac was, however, too sanguine in some
other words; for his délecter, his sériosité, &c. still retain their “bitterness
of novelty.”

Menage invented a term of which an equivalent is wanting in our
language; “J’ai fait prosateur à l’imitation de l’italien prosatore, pour dire
un homme qui écrit en prose.” To distinguish a prose from a verse writer,

we once had “a proser.” Drayton uses it; but this useful distinction has
unluckily degenerated, and the current sense is so daily urgent, that the
purer sense is irrecoverable.

When D’Albancourt was translating Lucian, he invented in French the
words indolence and indolent, to describe a momentary languor, rather than
that habitual indolence in which sense they are now accepted; and in
translating Tacitus, he created the word turbulemment; but it did not prosper
any more than that of temporisement. Segrais invented the word
impardonnable, which, after having been rejected, was revived, and is
equivalent to our expressive unpardonable. Molière ridiculed some
neologisms of the Précieuses of his day; but we are too apt to ridicule that
which is new, and which we often adopt when it becomes old. Molière
laughed at the term s’encanailler, to describe one who assumed the
manners of a blackguard; the expressive word has remained in the
language. The meaning is disputed as well as the origin is lost of some
novel terms. This has happened to a word in daily use—Fudge! It is a cant
term not in Grose, and only traced by Todd not higher than to Goldsmith. It
is, however, no invention of his. In a pamphlet, entitled “Remarks upon the
Navy,” 1700, the term is declared to have been the name of a certain
nautical personage who had lived in the lifetime of the writer. “There was,
sir, in our time, one Captain Fudge, commander of a merchantman, who
upon his return from a voyage, how ill-fraught soever his ship was, always
brought home his owners a good cargo of lies; so much that now, aboard
ship, the sailors, when they hear a great lie told, cry out, ‘You fudge it!’” It
is singular that such an obscure byword among sailors should have become
one of the most popular in our familiar style; and not less, that recently at
the bar, in a court of law, its precise meaning perplexed plaintiff and
defendant and their counsel. I think it does not signify mere lies, but
bouncing lies, or rhodomontades.

There are two remarkable French words created by the Abbé de Saint
Pierre, who passed his meritorious life in the contemplation of political
morality and universal benevolence—bienfaisance and gloriole. He
invented gloriole as a contemptuous diminutive of glorie; to describe that
vanity of some egotists, so proud of the small talents which they may have
received from nature or from accident. Bienfaisance first appeared in this
sentence: “L’Esprit de la vraie religion et le principal but de l’evangile c’est
la bienfaisance, c’est-à-dire la pratique de la charité envers le prochain.”
This word was so new, that in the moment of its creation this good man
explained its necessity and origin. Complaining that “the word ‘charity’ is
abused by all sorts of Christians in the persecution of their enemies, and
even heretics affirm that they are practising Christian charity in persecuting
other heretics, I have sought for a term which might convey to us a precise
idea of doing good to our neighbours, and I can form none more proper to
make myself understood than the term of bienfaisance, good-doing. Let
those who like, use it; I would only be understood, and it is not equivocal.”
The happy word was at first criticised, but at length every kind heart found
it responded to its own feeling. Some verses from Voltaire, alluding to the
political reveries of the good abbé, notice the critical opposition; yet the
new word answered to the great rule of Horace.

Certain législateur, dont la plume féconde
Fit tant de vains projets pour le bien du monde,
Et qui depuis trente ans écrit pour des ingrats,
Vient de créer un mot qui manque à Vaugelas:
Ce mot est Bienfaisance; il me plaît, il rassemble
Si le cœur en est cru, bien des vertus ensemble.
Petits grammairiens, grands précepteurs de sots,
Qui pesez la parole et mesurez les mots,
Pareille expression vous semble hazardée,

Mais l’univers entier doit en cherir l’idée!

The French revolutionists, in their rage for innovation, almost barbarised
the pure French of the Augustan age of their literature, as they did many
things which never before occurred; and sometimes experienced feelings as
transitory as they were strange. Their nomenclature was copious; but the
revolutionary jargon often shows the danger and the necessity of
neologisms. They form an appendix to the Academy Dictionary. Our plain
English has served to enrich this odd mixture of philology and politics:
Club, clubiste, comité, jure, juge de paix, blend with their terrorisme,
lanterner, a verb active, lévee en masse, noyades, and the other verb active,
septembriser, &c. The barbarous term demoralisation is said to have been
the invention of the horrid capuchin Chabot; and the remarkable expression
of arrière pensée belonged exclusively in its birth to the jesuitic astuteness
of the Abbé Sieyes, that political actor, who, in changing sides, never
required prompting in his new part!

A new word, the result of much consideration with its author, or a term
which, though unknown to the language, conveys a collective assemblage
of ideas by a fortunate designation, is a precious contribution of genius;
new words should convey new ideas. Swift, living amidst a civil war of
pamphlets, when certain writers were regularly employed by one party to
draw up replies to the other, created a term not to be found in our
dictionaries, but which, by a single stroke, characterises these hirelings; he
called them answer-jobbers. We have not dropped the fortunate expression
from any want of its use, but of perception in our lexicographers. The
celebrated Marquis of Lansdowne introduced a useful word, which has of
late been warmly adopted in France as well as in England—to liberalise;
the noun has been drawn out of the verb—for in the marquis’s time that was
only an abstract conception which is now a sect; and to liberalise was
theoretically introduced before the liberals arose.28 It is curious to observe

that as an adjective it had formerly in our language a very opposite meaning
to its recent one. It was synonymous with “libertine or licentious;” we have
“a liberal villain” and “a most profane and liberal counsellor;” we find one
declaring “I have spoken too liberally.” This is unlucky for the liberals,
who will not—

Give allowance to our liberal jests
Upon their persons—
Beaumont and Fletcher.

Dr. Priestley employed a forcible, but not an elegant term, to mark the
general information which had begun in his day; this he frequently calls
“the spread of knowledge.” Burke attempted to brand with a new name that
set of pert, petulant, sophistical sciolists, whose philosophy the French,
since their revolutionary period, have distinguished as philosophism, and
the philosophers themselves as philosophistes. He would have designated
them as literators, but few exotic words will circulate; new words must be
the coinage of our own language to blend with the vernacular idiom. Many
new words are still wanted. We have no word by which we could translate
the otium of the Latins, the dillettante of the Italians, the alembiqué of the
French, as an epithet to describe that sublimated ingenuity which exhausts
the mind, till, like the fusion of the diamond, the intellect itself disappears.
A philosopher, in an extensive view of a subject in all its bearings, may
convey to us the result of his last considerations by the coinage of a novel
and significant expression, as this of Professor Dugald Stewart—political
religionism. Let me claim the honour of one pure neologism. I ventured to
introduce the term of Father-land to describe our natale solum; I have
lived to see it adopted by Lord Byron and by Mr. Southey, and the word is
now common. A lady has even composed both the words and the air of a
song on “Father-land.” This energetic expression may therefore be

considered as authenticated; and patriotism may stamp it with its glory and
its affection. Father-land is congenial with the language in which we find
that other fine expression mother-tongue. The patriotic neologism
originated with me in Holland, when, in early life, it was my daily pursuit to
turn over the glorious history of its independence under the title of
Vaderlandsche Historie—the history of Father-land!

If we acknowledge that the creation of some neologisms may sometimes
produce the beautiful, the revival of the dead is the more authentic miracle;
for a new word must long remain doubtful, but an ancient word happily
recovered rests on a basis of permanent strength; it has both novelty and
authority. A collection of picturesque words, found among our ancient
writers, would constitute a precious supplement to the history of our
language. Far more expressive than our term of executioner is their solemn
one of the deathsman; than our vagabond, their scatterling; than our idiot or
lunatic, their moonling,—a word which, Mr. Gifford observes, should not
have been suffered to grow obsolete. Herrick finely describes by the term
pittering the peculiar shrill and short cry of the grasshopper: the cry of the
grasshopper is pit! pit! pit! quickly repeated. Envy “dusking the lustre” of
genius is a verb lost for us, but which gives a more precise expression to the
feeling than any other words which we could use.

The late Dr. Boucher, in the prospectus of his proposed Dictionary, did
me the honour, then a young writer, to quote an opinion I had formed early
in life of the purest source of neology, which is in the revival of old words.

Words that wise Bacon or brave Rawleigh spake!

We have lost many exquisite and picturesque expressions through the
dulness of our lexicographers, or by the deficiency in that profounder study
of our writers which their labours require far more than they themselves

know. The natural graces of our language have been impoverished. The
genius that throws its prophetic eye over the language, and the taste that
must come from Heaven, no lexicographer imagines are required to
accompany him amidst a library of old books!

19 Aulus Gellius, lib. i. c. 10.

20 Instit. lib. i. c. 5.

21 This verse was corrected by Bentley procudere nummum, instead of producere nomen,
which the critics agree is one of his happy conjectures.

22 Henry Cockeram’s curious little “English Dictionarie, or an Interpretation of hard English
words”, 12mo, 1631, professes to give in its first book “the choicest words themselves now in
use, wherewith our language is inriched and become so copious.” Many have not survived, such
as the following:—

Acyrologicall An improper speech.

Adacted Driven in by force.

Blandiloquy Flattering speech.

Compaginate To set together that which is broken.

Concessation Loytering.

Delitigate To scold, or chide vehemently.

Depalmate To give one a box on the ear.

Esuriate To hunger.

Strenuitie Activity.

Curiously enough, this author notes some words as those “now out of use, and onely used of
some ancient writers,” but which we now commonly use. Such are the following:—

Abandon To forsake or cast off.

Abate To make lesse, diminish, or take from.

23 A most striking instance of the change of meaning in a word is in the old law-term let
—“without let or hindrance;” meaning void of all opposition. Hence, “I will let you,” meant “I
will hinder you;” and not as we should now think, “I will give you free leave.”

24 Shakspeare makes “Ancient Pistol” use a new-coined Italian word, when he speaks of
being “better accommodated;” to the great delight of Justice Shallow, who exclaims, “It comes
from accommodo—a good phrase!” And Ben Jonson, in his “Tale of a Tub,” ridicules Inigo
Jones’s love of two words he often used:—

————If it conduce
To the design, whate’er is feasible,
I can express.

25 The term pluck, once only known to the prize-ring, has now got into use in general
conversation, and also into literature, as a term indicative of ready courage.

26 Such terms as “patent to the public”—“normal condition”—“crass behaviour,” are the
inventions of the last few years.

27 Shakspeare has a powerfully-composed line in the speech of the Duke of Burgundy,
(Henry V. Act v. Sc. 2), when, describing the fields overgrown with weeds, he exclaims—

——The coulter rusts,
That should deracinate such savagery.

28 The “Quarterly Review” recently marked the word liberalise in italics as a strange word,
undoubtedly not aware of its origin. It has been lately used by Mr. Dugald Stewart, “to liberalise
the views.”—Dissert. 2nd part, p. 138.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF PROVERBS.

In antique furniture we sometimes discover a convenience which long
disuse had made us unacquainted with, and are surprised by the aptness
which we did not suspect was concealed in its solid forms. We have found
the labour of the workmen to have been as admirable as the material itself,
which is still resisting the mouldering touch of time among those modern
inventions, elegant and unsubstantial, which, often put together with
unseasoned wood, are apt to warp and fly into pieces when brought into
use. We have found how strength consists in the selection of materials, and
that, whenever the substitute is not better than the original, we are losing
something in that test of experience, which all things derive from duration.

Be this as it may! I shall not unreasonably await for the artists of our
novelties to retrograde into massive greatness, although I cannot avoid
reminding them how often they revive the forgotten things of past times! It
is well known that many of our novelties were in use by our ancestors! In
the history of the human mind there is, indeed, a sort of antique furniture
which I collect, not merely for their antiquity, but for the sound condition in
which I still find them, and the compactness which they still show.
Centuries have not worm-eaten their solidity! and the utility and
delightfulness which they still afford make them look as fresh and as
ingenious as any of our patent inventions.

By the title of the present article the reader has anticipated the nature of
the old furniture to which I allude. I propose to give what, in the style of our
times, may be called the Philosophy of Proverbs—a topic which seems
virgin. The art of reading proverbs has not, indeed, always been acquired

even by some of their admirers; but my observations, like their subject,
must be versatile and unconnected; and I must bespeak indulgence for an
attempt to illustrate a very curious branch of literature, rather not
understood than quite forgotten.

Proverbs have long been in disuse. “A man of fashion,” observes Lord
Chesterfield, “never has recourse to proverbs and vulgar aphorisms;” and,
since the time his lordship so solemnly interdicted their use, they appear to
have withered away under the ban of his anathema. His lordship was little
conversant with the history of proverbs, and would unquestionably have
smiled on those “men of fashion” of another stamp, who, in the days of
Elizabeth, James, and Charles, were great collectors of them; would appeal
to them in their conversations, and enforce them in their learned or their
statesmanlike correspondence. Few, perhaps, even now, suspect that these
neglected fragments of wisdom, which exist among all nations, still offer
many interesting objects for the studies of the philosopher and the historian;
and for men of the world still open an extensive school of human life and
manners.

The home-spun adages, and the rusty “sayed-saws,” which remain in the
mouths of the people, are adapted to their capacities and their humours.
Easily remembered, and readily applied, these are the philosophy of the
vulgar, and often more sound than that of their masters! whoever would
learn what the people think, and how they feel, must not reject even these as
insignificant. The proverbs of the street and of the market, true to nature,
and lasting only because they are true, are records that the populace at
Athens and at Rome were the same people as at Paris and at London, and as
they had before been in the city of Jerusalem!

Proverbs existed before books. The Spaniards date the origin of their
refranes que dicen las viejas tras el fuego, “sayings of old wives by their
firesides,” before the existence of any writings in their language, from the

circumstance that these are in the old romance or rudest vulgar idiom. The
most ancient poem in the Edda, “the sublime speech of Odin,” abounds
with ancient proverbs, strikingly descriptive of the ancient Scandinavians.
Undoubtedly proverbs in the earliest ages long served as the unwritten
language of morality, and even of the useful arts; like the oral traditions of
the Jews, they floated down from age to age on the lips of successive
generations. The name of the first sage who sanctioned the saying would in
time be forgotten, while the opinion, the metaphor, or the expression,
remained, consecrated into a proverb! Such was the origin of those
memorable sentences by which men learnt to think and to speak appositely;
they were precepts which no man could contradict, at a time when authority
was valued more than opinion, and experience preferred to novelty. The
proverbs of a father became the inheritance of a son; the mistress of a
family perpetuated hers through her household; the workman condensed
some traditional secret of his craft into a proverbial expression. When
countries are not yet populous, and property has not yet produced great
inequalities in its ranks, every day will show them how “the drunkard and
the glutton come to poverty, and drowsiness clothes a man with rags.” At
such a period he who gave counsel gave wealth.

It might therefore have been decided, à priori, that the most homely
proverbs would abound in the most ancient writers—and such we find in
Hesiod; a poet whose learning was not drawn from books. It could only
have been in the agricultural state that this venerable bard could have
indicated a state of repose by this rustic proverb:—

Πηδάλιον μὲν ύπὲρ καπνοῦ καταδεῖο
Hang your plough-beam o’er the hearth!

The envy of rival workmen is as justly described by a reference to the
humble manufacturers of earthenware as by the elevated jealousies of the

literati and the artists of a more polished age. The famous proverbial verse
in Hesiod’s Works and Days—

Καὶ κεραμεὺς κεραμεῖ κοτέει,

is literally, “The potter is hostile to the potter!”

The admonition of the poet to his brother, to prefer a friendly
accommodation to a litigious lawsuit, has fixed a paradoxical proverb often
applied,—

Πλέον ἢμισυ παντός,
The half is better than the whole!

In the progress of time, the stock of popular proverbs received accessions
from the highest sources of human intelligence; as the philosophers of
antiquity formed their collections, they increased in “weight and number.”
Erasmus has pointed out some of these sources, in the responses of oracles;
the allegorical symbols of Pythagoras; the verses of the poets; allusions to
historical incidents; mythology and apologue; and other recondite origins.
Such dissimilar matters, coming from all quarters, were melted down into
this vast body of aphoristic knowledge. Those “words of the wise and their
dark sayings,” as they are distinguished in that large collection which bears
the name of the great Hebrew monarch, at length seem to have required
commentaries; for what else can we infer of the enigmatic wisdom of the
sages, when the royal parœmiographer classes among their studies, that of
“understanding a proverb and the interpretation?” This elevated notion of
“the dark sayings of the wise” accords with the bold conjecture of their
origin which the Stagyrite has thrown out, who considered them as the
wrecks of an ancient philosophy which had been lost to mankind by the
fatal revolutions of all human things, and that those had been saved from

the general ruin by their pithy elegance and their diminutive form; like
those marine shells found on the tops of mountains, the relics of the
Deluge! Even at a later period, the sage of Cheronea prized them among the
most solemn mysteries; and Plutarch has described them in a manner which
proverbs may even still merit: “Under the veil of these curious sentences
are hid those germs of morals which the masters of philosophy have
afterwards developed into so many volumes.”

At the highest period of Grecian genius, the tragic and the comic poets
introduced into their dramas the proverbial style. St. Paul quotes a line
which still remains among the first exercises of our school-pens:—

Evil communications corrupt good manners.

It is a verse found in a fragment of Menander the comic poet:

Φθείρουσιν ἢθη χρήσθ᾽ ὁμιλίαι κακαί.

As this verse is a proverb, and the apostle, and indeed the highest authority,
Jesus himself, consecrates the use of proverbs by their occasional
application, it is uncertain whether St. Paul quotes the Grecian poet, or only
repeats some popular adage. Proverbs were bright shafts in the Greek and
Latin quivers; and when Bentley, by a league of superficial wits, was
accused of pedantry for his use of some ancient proverbs, the sturdy critic
vindicated his taste by showing that Cicero constantly introduced Greek
proverbs into his writings,—that Scaliger and Erasmus loved them, and had
formed collections drawn from the stores of antiquity.

Some difficulty has occurred in the definition. Proverbs must be
distinguished from proverbial phrases, and from sententious maxims; but as
proverbs have many faces, from their miscellaneous nature, the class itself

scarcely admits of any definition. When Johnson defined a proverb to be “a
short sentence frequently repeated by the people,” this definition would not
include the most curious ones, which have not always circulated among the
populace, nor even belong to them; nor does it designate the vital qualities
of a proverb. The pithy quaintness of old Howell has admirably described
the ingredients of an exquisite proverb to be sense, shortness, and salt. A
proverb is distinguished from a maxim or an apophthegm by that brevity
which condenses a thought or a metaphor, where one thing is said and
another is to be applied. This often produces wit, and that quick pungency
which excites surprise, but strikes with conviction; this gives it an
epigrammatic turn. George Herbert entitled the small collection which he
formed “Jacula Prudentium,” Darts or Javelins! something hurled and
striking deeply; a characteristic of a proverb which possibly Herbert may
have borrowed from a remarkable passage in Plato’s dialogue of
“Protagoras or the Sophists.”

The influence of proverbs over the minds and conversations of a whole
people is strikingly illustrated by this philosopher’s explanation of the term
to laconise,—the mode of speech peculiar to the Lacedæmonians. This
people affected to appear unlearned, and seemed only emulous to excel the
rest of the Greeks in fortitude and in military skill. According to Plato’s
notion, this was really a political artifice, with a view to conceal their pre-
eminent wisdom. With the jealousy of a petty state, they attempted to
confine their renowned sagacity within themselves, and under their military
to hide their contemplative character! The philosopher assures those who in
other cities imagined they laconised, merely by imitating the severe
exercises and the other warlike manners of the Lacedæmonians, that they
were grossly deceived; and thus curiously describes the sort of wisdom
which this singular people practised.

“If any one wish to converse with the meanest of the Lacedæmonians, he
will at first find him, for the most part, apparently despicable in
conversation; but afterwards, when a proper opportunity presents itself, this
same mean person, like a skilful jaculator, will hurl a sentence, worthy of
attention, short and contorted; so that he who converses with him will
appear to be in no respect superior to a boy! That to laconise, therefore,
consists much more in philosophising than in the love of exercise, is
understood by some of the present age, and was known to the ancients, they
being persuaded that the ability of uttering such sentences as these is the
province of a man perfectly learned. The seven sages were emulators,
lovers, and disciples of the Lacedæmonian erudition. Their wisdom was a
thing of this kind, viz. short sentences uttered by each, and worthy to be
remembered. These men, assembling together, consecrated to Apollo the
first fruits of their wisdom; writing in the Temple of Apollo, at Delphi,
those sentences which are celebrated by all men, viz. Know thyself! and
Nothing too much! But on what account do I mention these things? To show
that the mode of philosophy among the ancients was a certain laconic
diction.”29

The “laconisms” of the Lacedæmonians evidently partook of the
proverbial style: they were, no doubt, often proverbs themselves. The very
instances which Plato supplies of this “laconising” are two most venerable
proverbs.

All this elevates the science of proverbs, and indicates that these
abridgments of knowledge convey great results, with a parsimony of words
prodigal of sense. They have, therefore, preserved many “a short sentence,
not repeated by the people.”

It is evident, however, that the earliest writings of every people are
marked by their most homely, or domestic proverbs; for these were more
directly addressed to their wants. Franklin, who may be considered as the

founder of a people who were suddenly placed in a stage of civil society
which as yet could afford no literature, discovered the philosophical cast of
his genius, when he filled his almanacs with proverbs, by the ingenious
contrivance of framing them into a connected discourse, delivered by an old
man attending an auction. “These proverbs,” he tells us, “which contained
the wisdom of many ages and nations, when their scattered counsels were
brought together, made a great impression. They were reprinted in Britain,
in a large sheet of paper, and stuck up in houses: and were twice translated
in France, and distributed among their poor parishioners.” The same
occurrence had happened with us ere we became a reading people. Sir
Thomas Elyot, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, describing the ornaments
of a nobleman’s house, among his hangings, and plate, and pictures, notices
the engraving of proverbs “on his plate and vessels, which served the guests
with a most opportune counsel and comments.” Later even than the reign of
Elizabeth our ancestors had proverbs always before them, on everything
that had room for a piece of advice on it; they had them painted in their
tapestries, stamped on the most ordinary utensils, on the blades of their
knives,30 the borders of their plates,31 and “conned them out of goldsmiths’
rings.”32 The usurer, in Robert Greene’s “Groat’s worth of Wit,”
compressed all his philosophy into the circle of his ring, having learned
sufficient Latin to understand the proverbial motto of “Tu tibi cura!” The
husband was reminded of his lordly authority when he only looked into his
trencher, one of its learned aphorisms having descended to us,—

The calmest husbands make the stormiest wives.

The English proverbs of the populace, most of which are still in
circulation, were collected by old John Heywood.33 They are arranged by
Tusser for “the parlour—the guest’s chamber—the hall—table-lessons,”
&c. Not a small portion of our ancient proverbs were adapted to rural life,

when our ancestors lived more than ourselves amidst the works of God, and
less among those of men.34 At this time, one of our old statesmen, in
commending the art of compressing a tedious discourse into a few
significant phrases, suggested the use of proverbs in diplomatic intercourse,
convinced of the great benefit which would result to the negotiators
themselves, as well as to others! I give a literary curiosity of this kind. A
member of the House of Commons, in the reign of Elizabeth, made a
speech entirely composed of the most homely proverbs. The subject was a
bill against double payments of book-debts. Knavish tradesmen were then
in the habit of swelling out their book-debts with those who took credit,
particularly to their younger customers. One of the members who began to
speak “for very fear shook,” and stood silent. The nervous orator was
followed by a blunt and true representative of the famed governor of
Barataria, delivering himself thus—“It is now my chance to speak
something, and that without humming or hawing. I think this law is a good
law. Even reckoning makes long friends. As far goes the penny as the
penny’s master. Vigilantibus non dormientibus jura subveniunt. Pay the
reckoning overnight and ye shall not be troubled in the morning. If ready
money be mensura publica, let every one cut his coat according to his cloth.
When his old suit is in the wane, let him stay till that his money bring a new
suit in the increase.”35

Another instance of the use of proverbs among our statesmen occurs in a
manuscript letter of Sir Dudley Carlton, written in 1632, on the
impeachment of Lord Middlesex, who, he says, is “this day to plead his
own cause in the Exchequer-chamber, about an account of four-score
thousand pounds laid to his charge. How his lordship sped I know not, but
do remember well the French proverb, Qui mange de l’oy du Roy chiera
une plume quarante ans après. ‘Who eats of the king’s goose, will void a
feather forty years after!’”

This was the era of proverbs with us; for then they were spoken by all
ranks of society. The free use of trivial proverbs got them into disrepute;
and as the abuse of a thing raises a just opposition to its practice, a slender
wit affecting “a cross humour,” published a little volume of “Crossing of
Proverbs, Cross-answers, and Cross-humours.” He pretends to contradict
the most popular ones; but he has not always the genius to strike at amusing
paradoxes.36

Proverbs were long the favourites of our neighbours; in the splendid and
refined court of Louis the Fourteenth they gave rise to an odd invention.
They plotted comedies and even fantastical ballets from their subjects. In
these Curiosities of Literature I cannot pass by such eccentric inventions
unnoticed.

A Comedy of proverbs is described by the Duke de la Vallière, which was
performed in 1634 with prodigious success. He considers that this comedy
ought to be ranked among farces; but it is gay, well-written, and curious for
containing the best proverbs, which are happily introduced in the dialogue.

A more extraordinary attempt was a Ballet of proverbs. Before the opera
was established in France, the ancient ballets formed the chief amusement
of the court, and Louis the Fourteenth himself joined with the performers.
The singular attempt of forming a pantomimical dance out of proverbs is
quite French; we have a “ballet des proverbes, dansé par le Roi, in 1654.”
At every proverb the scene changed, and adapted itself to the subject. I shall
give two or three of the entrées that we may form some notion of these
capriccios.

The proverb was—

Tel menace qui a grand peur.
He threatens who is afraid.

The scene was composed of swaggering scaramouches and some honest
cits, who at length beat them off.

At another entrée the proverb was—

L’occasion fait le larron.
Opportunity makes the thief.

Opportunity was acted by le Sieur Beaubrun, but it is difficult to conceive
how the real could personify the abstract personage. The thieves were the
Duke d’Amville and Monsieur de la Chesnaye.

Another entrée was the proverb of—

Ce qui vient de la flute s’en va au tambour.
What comes by the pipe goes by the tabor.

A loose dissipated officer was performed by le Sieur l’Anglois; the Pipe by
St. Aignan, and the Tabor by le Sieur le Comte! In this manner every
proverb was spoken in action, the whole connected by dialogue. More must
have depended on the actors than the poet.37

The French long retained this fondness for proverbs; for they still have
dramatic compositions entitled proverbes, on a more refined plan. Their
invention is so recent, that the term is not in their great dictionary of
Trevoux. These proverbes are dramas of a single act, invented by
Carmontel, who possessed a peculiar vein of humour, but who designed
them only for private theatricals. Each proverb furnished a subject for a few
scenes, and created a situation powerfully comic: it is a dramatic
amusement which does not appear to have reached us, but one which the
celebrated Catherine of Russia delighted to compose for her own society.

Among the middle classes of society to this day, we may observe that
certain family proverbs are traditionally preserved: the favourite saying of a
father is repeated by the sons; and frequently the conduct of a whole
generation has been influenced by such domestic proverbs. This may be
perceived in many of the mottos of our old nobility, which seem to have
originated in some habitual proverb of the founder of the family. In ages
when proverbs were most prevalent, such pithy sentences would admirably
serve in the ordinary business of life, and lead on to decision, even in its
greater exigencies. Orators, by some lucky proverb, without wearying their
auditors, would bring conviction home to their bosoms: and great characters
would appeal to a proverb, or deliver that which in time by its aptitude
became one. When Nero was reproached for the ardour with which he gave
himself up to the study of music, he replied to his censurers by the Greek
proverb, “An artist lives everywhere.” The emperor answered in the spirit
of Rousseau’s system, that every child should be taught some trade. When
Cæsar, after anxious deliberation, decided on the passage of the Rubicon
(which very event has given rise to a proverb), rousing himself with a start
of courage, he committed himself to Fortune, with that proverbial
expression on his lips, used by gamesters in desperate play: having passed
the Rubicon, he exclaimed, “The die is cast!” The answer of Paulus
Æmilius to the relations of his wife, who had remonstrated with him on his
determination to separate himself from her against whom no fault could be
alleged, has become one of our most familiar proverbs. This hero
acknowledged the excellences of his lady; but, requesting them to look on
his shoe, which appeared to be well made, he observed, “None of you know
where the shoe pinches!” He either used a proverbial phrase, or by its
aptness it has become one of the most popular.

There are, indeed, proverbs connected with the characters of eminent
men. They were either their favourite ones, or have originated with
themselves. Such a collection would form a historical curiosity. To the

celebrated Bayard are the French indebted for a military proverb, which
some of them still repeat, “Ce que le gantelet gagne le gorgerin le
mange”—“What the gauntlet gets, the gorget consumes.” That reflecting
soldier well calculated the profits of a military life, which consumes, in the
pomp and waste which are necessary for its maintenance, the slender pay it
receives, and even what its rapacity sometimes acquires. The favourite
proverb of Erasmus was Festina lente!—“Hasten slowly!”38 He wished it
be inscribed wherever it could meet our eyes, on public buildings, and on
our rings and seals. One of our own statesmen used a favourite sentence,
which has enlarged our stock of national proverbs. Sir Amias Pawlet, when
he perceived too much hurry in any business, was accustomed to say, “Stay
awhile, to make an end the sooner.” Oliver Cromwell’s coarse but
descriptive proverb conveys the contempt he felt for some of his mean and
troublesome coadjutors: “Nits will be lice!” The Italians have a proverb,
which has been occasionally applied to certain political personages:—

Egli e quello che Dio vuole;
E sarà quello che Dio vorrà!

He is what God pleases;
He shall be what God wills!

Ere this was a proverb, it had served as an embroidered motto on the
mystical mantle of Castruccio Castracani. That military genius, who sought
to revolutionise Italy, and aspired to its sovereignty, lived long enough to
repent the wild romantic ambition which provoked all Italy to confederate
against him; the mysterious motto he assumed entered into the proverbs of
his country! The Border proverb of the Douglases, “It were better to hear
the lark sing than the mouse cheep,” was adopted by every Border chief, to
express, as Sir Walter Scott observes, what the great Bruce had pointed out,

that the woods and hills of their country were their safest bulwarks, instead
of the fortified places which the English surpassed their neighbours in the
arts of assaulting or defending. These illustrations indicate one of the
sources of proverbs; they have often resulted from the spontaneous
emotions or the profound reflections of some extraordinary individual,
whose energetic expression was caught by a faithful ear, never to perish!

The poets have been very busy with proverbs in all the languages of
Europe: some appear to have been the favourite lines of some ancient
poem: even in more refined times, many of the pointed verses of Boileau
and Pope have become proverbial. Many trivial and laconic proverbs bear
the jingle of alliteration or rhyme, which assisted their circulation, and were
probably struck off extempore; a manner which Swift practised, who was a
ready coiner of such rhyming and ludicrous proverbs: delighting to startle a
collector by his facetious or sarcastic humour, in the shape of an “old saying
and true.” Some of these rhyming proverbs are, however, terse and elegant:
we have

Little strokes
Fell great oaks.

The Italian—

Chi duo lepri caccia
Uno perde, e l’altro lascia.

Who hunts two hares, loses one and leaves the other.

The haughty Spaniard—

El dar es honor,
Y el pedir dolor.

To give is honour, to ask is grief.

And the French—

Ami de table
Est variable.

The friend of the table
Is very variable.

The composers of these short proverbs were a numerous race of poets,
who, probably, among the dreams of their immortality never suspected that
they were to descend to posterity, themselves and their works unknown,
while their extempore thoughts would be repeated by their own nation.

Proverbs were at length consigned to the people, when books were
addressed to scholars; but the people did not find themselves so destitute of
practical wisdom, by preserving their national proverbs, as some of those
closet students who had ceased to repeat them. The various humours of
mankind, in the mutability of human affairs, had given birth to every
species; and men were wise, or merry, or satirical, and mourned or rejoiced
in proverbs. Nations held an universal intercourse of proverbs, from the
eastern to the western world; for we discover among those which appear
strictly national, many which are common to them all. Of our own familiar
ones several may be tracked among the snows of the Latins and the Greeks,
and have sometimes been drawn from “The Mines of the East:” like
decayed families which remain in obscurity, they may boast of a high lineal

descent whenever they recover their lost title-deeds. The vulgar proverb,
“To carry coals to Newcastle,” local and idiomatic as it appears, however,
has been borrowed and applied by ourselves; it may be found among the
Persians: in the “Bustan” of Sadi we have Infers piper in Hindostan; “To
carry pepper to Hindostan;” among the Hebrews, “To carry oil to the City of
Olives;” a similar proverb occurs in Greek; and in Galland’s “Maxims of
the East” we may discover how many of the most common proverbs among
us, as well as some of Joe Miller’s jests, are of oriental origin.

The resemblance of certain proverbs in different nations, must, however,
be often ascribed to the identity of human nature; similar situations and
similar objects have unquestionably made men think and act and express
themselves alike. All nations are parallels of each other! Hence all
parœmiographers, or collectors of proverbs, complain of the difficulty of
separating their own national proverbs from those which have crept into the
language from others, particularly when nations have held much intercourse
together. We have a copious collection of Scottish proverbs by Kelly, but
this learned man was mortified at discovering that many which he had long
believed to have been genuine Scottish, were not only English, but French,
Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Greek ones; many of his Scottish proverbs are
almost literally expressed among the fragments of remote antiquity. It
would have surprised him further had he been aware that his Greek
originals were themselves but copies, and might have been found in
D’Herbelot, Erpenius, and Golius, and in many Asiatic works, which have
been more recently introduced to the enlarged knowledge of the European
student, who formerly found his most extended researches limited by
Hellenistic lore.

Perhaps it was owing to an accidental circumstance that the proverbs of
the European nations have been preserved in the permanent form of
volumes. Erasmus is usually considered as the first modern collector, but he

appears to have been preceded by Polydore Vergil, who bitterly reproaches
Erasmus with envy and plagiarism, for passing by his collection without
even a poor compliment for the inventor! Polydore was a vain, superficial
writer, who prided himself in leading the way on more topics than the
present. Erasmus, with his usual pleasantry, provokingly excuses himself,
by acknowledging that he had forgotten his friend’s book! Few sympathise
with the quarrels of authors; and since Erasmus has written a far better book
than Polydore Vergil’s, the original “Adagia” is left only to be
commemorated in literary history as one of its curiosities.39

The “Adagia” of Erasmus contains a collection of about five thousand
proverbs, gradually gathered from a constant study of the ancients.
Erasmus, blest with the genius which could enliven a folio, delighted
himself and all Europe by the continued accessions he made to a volume
which even now may be the companion of literary men for a winter day’s
fireside. The successful example of Erasmus commanded the imitation of
the learned in Europe, and drew their attention to their own national
proverbs. Some of the most learned men, and some not sufficiently so, were
now occupied in this new study.

In Spain, Fernandez Nunes, a Greek professor, and the Marquis of
Santellana, a grandee, published collections of their Refranes, or Proverbs,
a term derived A REFERENDO, because it is often repeated. The “Refranes
o Proverbios Castellanos,” par Cæsar Oudin, 1624, translated into French,
is a valuable compilation. In Cervantes and Quevedo, the best practical
illustrators, they are sown with no sparing hand. There is an ample
collection of Italian proverbs, by Florio, who was an Englishman, of Italian
origin, and who published “Il Giardino di Ricreatione” at London, so early
as in 1591, exceeding six thousand proverbs; but they are unexplained, and
are often obscure. Another Italian in England, Torriano, in 1649, published
an interesting collection in the diminutive form of a twenty-fours. It was

subsequent to these publications in England, that in Italy, Angelus
Monozini, in 1604, published his collection; and Julius Varini, in 1642,
produced his Scuola del Vulgo. In France, Oudin, after others had preceded
him, published a collection of French proverbs, under the title of Curiosités
Françoises. Fleury de Bellingen’s Explication de Proverbes François, on
comparing it with Les Illustres Proverbes Historiques, a subsequent
publication, I discovered to be the same work. It is the first attempt to
render the study of proverbs somewhat amusing. The plan consists of a
dialogue between a philosopher and a Sancho Pança, who blurts out his
proverbs with more delight than understanding. The philosopher takes that
opportunity of explaining them by the events in which they originated,
which, however, are not always to be depended on. A work of high merit on
French proverbs is the unfinished one of the Abbé Tuet, sensible and
learned. A collection of Danish proverbs, accompanied by a French
translation, was printed at Copenhagen, in a quarto volume, 1761. England
may boast of no inferior parœmiographers. The grave and judicious
Camden, the religious Herbert, the entertaining Howell, the facetious Fuller,
and the laborious Ray, with others, have preserved our national sayings. The
Scottish have been largely collected and explained by the learned Kelly. An
excellent anonymous collection, not uncommon, in various languages,
1707; the collector and translator was Dr. J. Mapletoft. It must be
acknowledged, that although no nation exceeds our own in sterling sense,
we rarely rival the delicacy, the wit, and the felicity of expression of the
Spanish and the Italian, and the poignancy of some of the French proverbs.

The interest we may derive from the study of proverbs is not confined to
their universal truths, nor to their poignant pleasantry; a philosophical mind
will discover in proverbs a great variety of the most curious knowledge.
The manners of a people are painted after life in their domestic proverbs;
and it would not be advancing too much to assert, that the genius of the age
might be often detected in its prevalent ones. The learned Selden tells us,

that the proverbs of several nations were much studied by Bishop Andrews:
the reason assigned was, because “by them he knew the minds of several
nations, which,” said he, “is a brave thing, as we count him wise who
knows the minds and the insides of men, which is done by knowing what is
habitual to them.” Lord Bacon condensed a wide circuit of philosophical
thought, when he observed that “the genius, wit, and spirit of a nation are
discovered by their proverbs.”

Proverbs peculiarly national, while they convey to us the modes of
thinking, will consequently indicate the modes of acting among a people.
The Romans had a proverbial expression for their last stake in play, Rem ad
triarios venisse, “the reserve are engaged!” a proverbial expression, from
which the military habits of the people might be inferred; the triarii being
their reserve. A proverb has preserved a curious custom of ancient
coxcombry, which originally came from the Greeks. To men of effeminate
manners in their dress, they applied the proverb of Unico digitulo scalpit
caput. Scratching the head with a single finger was, it seems, done by the
critically nice youths in Rome, that they might not discompose the economy
of their hair. The Arab, whose unsettled existence makes him miserable and
interested, says, “Vinegar given is better than honey bought.” Everything of
high esteem with him who is so often parched in the desert is described as
milk—“How large his flow of milk!” is a proverbial expression with the
Arab to distinguish the most copious eloquence. To express a state of
perfect repose, the Arabian proverb is, “I throw the rein over my back;” an
allusion to the loosening of the cords of the camels, which are thrown over
their backs when they are sent to pasture. We discover the rustic manners of
our ancient Britons in the Cambrian proverbs; many relate to the hedge.
“The cleanly Briton is seen in the hedge: the horse looks not on the hedge
but the corn: the bad husband’s hedge is full of gaps.” The state of an
agricultural people appears in such proverbs as “You must not count your
yearlings till May-day:” and their proverbial sentence for old age is, “An

old man’s end is to keep sheep?” Turn from the vagrant Arab and the
agricultural Briton to a nation existing in a high state of artificial
civilization: the Chinese proverbs frequently allude to magnificent
buildings. Affecting a more solemn exterior than all other nations, a
favourite proverb with them is, “A grave and majestic outside is, as it were,
the palace of the soul.” Their notion of a government is quite architectural.
They say, “A sovereign may be compared to a hall; his officers to the steps
that lead to it; the people to the ground on which they stand.” What should
we think of a people who had a proverb, that “He who gives blows is a
master, he who gives none is a dog?” We should instantly decide on the
mean and servile spirit of those who could repeat it; and such we find to
have been that of the Bengalese, to whom the degrading proverb belongs,
derived from the treatment they were used to receive from their Mogul
rulers, who answered the claims of their creditors by a vigorous application
of the whip! In some of the Hebrew proverbs we are struck by the frequent
allusions of that fugitive people to their own history. The cruel oppression
exercised by the ruling power, and the confidence in their hope of change in
the day of retribution, was delivered in this Hebrew proverb—“When the
tale of bricks is doubled, Moses comes!” The fond idolatry of their devotion
to their ceremonial law, and to everything connected with their sublime
Theocracy, in their magnificent Temple, is finely expressed by this proverb
—“None ever took a stone out of the Temple, but the dust did fly into his
eyes.” The Hebrew proverb that “A fast for a dream, is as fire for stubble,”
which it kindles, could only have been invented by a people whose
superstitions attached a holy mystery to fasts and dreams. They imagined
that a religious fast was propitious to a religious dream; or to obtain the
interpretation of one which had troubled their imagination. Peyssonel, who
long resided among the Turks, observes that their proverbs are full of sense,
ingenuity, and elegance, the surest test of the intellectual abilities of any
nation. He said this to correct the volatile opinion of De Tott, who, to

convey an idea of their stupid pride, quotes one of their favourite adages, of
which the truth and candour are admirable; “Riches in the Indies, wit in
Europe, and pomp among the Ottomans.”

The Spaniards may appeal to their proverbs to show that they were a
high-minded and independent race. A Whiggish jealousy of the monarchical
power stamped itself on this ancient one, Va el rey hasta do peude, y no
hasta do quiere: “The king goes as far as he is able, not as far as he
desires.” It must have been at a later period, when the national genius
became more subdued, and every Spaniard dreaded to find under his own
roof a spy or an informer, that another proverb arose, Con el rey y la
inquisicion, chiton! “With the king and the Inquisition, hush!” The gravity
and taciturnity of the nation have been ascribed to the effects of this
proverb. Their popular but suppressed feelings on taxation, and on a variety
of dues exacted by their clergy, were murmured in proverbs—Lo que no
lleva Christo lleva el fisco! “What Christ takes not, the exchequer carries
away!” They have a number of sarcastic proverbs on the tenacious gripe of
the “abad avariento,” the avaricious priest, who, “having eaten the olio
offered, claims the dish!” A striking mixture of chivalric habits, domestic
decency, and epicurean comfort, appears in the Spanish proverb, La muger
y la salsa a la mano de la lança: “The wife and the sauce by the hand of the
lance;” to honour the dame, and to have the sauce near.

The Italian proverbs have taken a tinge from their deep and politic
genius, and their wisdom seems wholly concentrated in their personal
interests. I think every tenth proverb, in an Italian collection, is some
cynical or some selfish maxim: a book of the world for worldlings! The
Venetian proverb, Pria Veneziana, poi Christiane: “First Venetian, and then
Christian!” condenses the whole spirit of their ancient Republic into the
smallest space possible. Their political proverbs no doubt arose from the
extraordinary state of a people sometimes distracted among republics, and

sometimes servile in petty courts. The Italian says, I popoli s’ammazzano,
ed i principi s’abbracciano: “The people murder one another, and princes
embrace one another.” Chi prattica co’ grandi, l’ultimo a tavola, e’l primo a
strapazzi: “Who dangles after the great is the last at table, and the first at
blows.” Chi non sa adulare, non sa regnare: “Who knows not to flatter,
knows not to reign.” Chi serve in corte muore sul’ pagliato: “Who serves at
court, dies on straw.” Wary cunning in domestic life is perpetually
impressed. An Italian proverb, which is immortalised in our language, for it
enters into the history of Milton, was that by which the elegant Wotton
counselled the young poetic traveller to have—Il viso sciolto, ed i pensieri
stretti, “An open countenance, but close thoughts.” In the same spirit, Chi
parla semina, chi tace raccoglie: “The talker sows, the silent reaps;” as well
as, Fatti di miele, e ti mangieran le mosche: “Make yourself all honey, and
the flies will devour you.” There are some which display a deep knowledge
of human nature: A Lucca ti vidi, à Pisa ti connobbi! “I saw you at Lucca, I
knew you at Pisa!” Guardati d’aceto di vin dolce: “Beware of vinegar made
of sweet wine;” provoke not the rage of a patient man!

Among a people who had often witnessed their fine country devastated
by petty warfare, their notion of the military character was not usually
heroic. Il soldato per far male è ben pagato: “The soldier is well paid for
doing mischief.” Soldato, acqua, e fuoco, presto si fan luoco: “A soldier,
fire, and water soon make room for themselves.” But in a poetical people,
endowed with great sensibility, their proverbs would sometimes be tender
and fanciful. They paint the activity of friendship, Chi ha l’amor nel petto,
ha lo sprone à i fianchi: “Who feels love in the breast, feels a spur in his
limbs:” or its generous passion, Gli amici legono la borsa con un filo di
ragnatelo: “Friends tie their purse with a cobweb’s thread.” They
characterised the universal lover by an elegant proverb—Appicare il Maio
ad ogn’ uscio: “To hang every door with May;” alluding to the bough which
in the nights of May the country people are accustomed to plant before the

door of their mistress. If we turn to the French, we discover that the military
genius of France dictated the proverb Maille à maille se fait le haubergeon:
“Link by link is made the coat of mail;” and, Tel coup de langue est pire
qu’un coup de lance; “The tongue strikes deeper than the lance;” and Ce qui
vient du tambour s’en retourne à la flute; “What comes by the tabor goes
back with the pipe.” Point d’argent point de Suisse has become proverbial,
observes an Edinburgh Reviewer; a striking expression, which, while
French or Austrian gold predominated, was justly used to characterise the
illiberal and selfish policy of the cantonal and federal governments of
Switzerland, when it began to degenerate from its moral patriotism. The
ancient, perhaps the extinct, spirit of Englishmen was once expressed by
our proverb, “Better be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion;” i.e., the
first of the yeomanry rather than the last of the gentry. A foreign
philosopher might have discovered our own ancient skill in archery among
our proverbs; for none but true toxophilites could have had such a proverb
as, “I will either make a shaft or a bolt of it!” signifying, says the author of
Ivanhoe, a determination to make one use or other of the thing spoken of:
the bolt was the arrow peculiarly fitted to the cross-bow, as that of the long-
bow was called a shaft. These instances sufficiently demonstrate that the
characteristic circumstances and feelings of a people are discovered in their
popular notions, and stamped on their familiar proverbs.

It is also evident that the peculiar, and often idiomatic, humour of a
people is best preserved in their proverbs. There is a shrewdness, although
deficient in delicacy, in the Scottish proverbs; they are idiomatic, facetious,
and strike home. Kelly, who has collected three thousand, informs us, that,
in 1725, the Scotch were a great proverbial nation; for that few among the
better sort will converse any considerable time, but will confirm every
assertion and observation with a Scottish proverb. The speculative Scotch
of our own times have probably degenerated in prudential lore, and deem
themselves much wiser than their proverbs. They may reply by a Scotch

proverb on proverbs, made by a great man in Scotland, who, having given a
splendid entertainment, was harshly told, that “Fools make feasts, and wise
men eat them;” but he readily answered, “Wise men make proverbs, and
fools repeat them!”

National humour, frequently local and idiomatical, depends on the
artificial habits of mankind, so opposite to each other; but there is a natural
vein, which the populace, always true to nature, preserve, even among the
gravest people. The Arabian proverb, “The barber learns his art on the
orphan’s face;” the Chinese, “In a field of melons do not pull up your shoe;
under a plum-tree do not adjust your cap;”—to impress caution in our
conduct under circumstances of suspicion;—and the Hebrew one, “He that
hath had one of his family hanged may not say to his neighbour, hang up
this fish!” are all instances of this sort of humour. The Spaniards are a grave
people, but no nation has equalled them in their peculiar humour. The
genius of Cervantes partook largely of that of his country; that mantle of
gravity, which almost conceals its latent facetiousness, and with which he
has imbued his style and manner with such untranslatable idiomatic
raciness, may be traced to the proverbial erudition of his nation. “To steal a
sheep, and give away the trotters for God’s sake!” is Cervantic nature! To
one who is seeking an opportunity to quarrel with another, their proverb
runs, Si quieres dar palos a sur muger pidele al sol a bever, “Hast thou a
mind to quarrel with thy wife, bid her bring water to thee in the
sunshine!”—a very fair quarrel may be picked up about the motes in the
clearest water! On the judges in Gallicia, who, like our former justices of
peace, “for half a dozen chickens would dispense with a dozen of penal
statutes,” A juezes Gallicianos, con los pies en las manos: “To the judges of
Gallicia go with feet in hand;” a droll allusion to a present of poultry,
usually held by the legs. To describe persons who live high without visible
means, Los que cabritos venden, y cabras no tienen, de donde los vienen?
“They that sell kids, and have no goats, how came they by them?” El vino

no trae bragas, “Wine wears no breeches;” for men in wine expose their
most secret thoughts. Vino di un oreja, “Wine of one ear!” is good wine; for
at bad, shaking our heads, both our ears are visible; but at good the
Spaniard, by a natural gesticulation lowering on one side, shows a single
ear.

Proverbs abounding in sarcastic humour, and found among every people,
are those which are pointed at rival countries. Among ourselves, hardly has
a county escaped from some popular quip; even neighbouring towns have
their sarcasms, usually pickled in some unlucky rhyme. The egotism of man
eagerly seizes on whatever serves to depreciate or to ridicule his neighbour:
nations proverb each other; counties flout counties; obscure towns sharpen
their wits on towns as obscure as themselves—the same evil principle
lurking in poor human nature, if it cannot always assume predominance,
will meanly gratify itself by insult or contempt. They expose some
prevalent folly, or allude to some disgrace which the natives have incurred.
In France, the Burgundians have a proverb, Mieux vaut bon repas que bel
habit; “Better a good dinner than a fine coat.” These good people are great
gormandizers, but shabby dressers; they are commonly said to have
“bowels of silk and velvet;” this is, all their silk and velvet goes for their
bowels! Thus Picardy is famous for “hot heads;” and the Norman for son dit
et son dédit, “his saying and his unsaying!” In Italy the numerous rival
cities pelt one another with proverbs: Chi ha a fare con Tosco non convien
esser losco, “He who deals with a Tuscan must not have his eyes shut.” A
Venetia chi vi nasce mal vi si pasce, “Whom Venice breeds, she poorly
feeds.”

There is another source of national characteristics, frequently producing
strange or whimsical combinations; a people, from a very natural
circumstance, have drawn their proverbs from local objects, or from
allusions to peculiar customs. The influence of manners and customs over

the ideas and language of a people would form a subject of extensive and
curious research. There is a Japanese proverb, that “A fog cannot be
dispelled with a fan!” Had we not known the origin of this proverb, it would
be evident that it could only have occurred to a people who had constantly
before them fogs and fans; and the fact appears that fogs are frequent on the
coast of Japan, and that from the age of five years both sexes of the
Japanese carry fans. The Spaniards have an odd proverb to describe those
who tease and vex a person before they do him the very benefit which they
are about to confer—acting kindly, but speaking roughly; Mostrar primero
la horca que le lugar, “To show the gallows before they show the town;” a
circumstance alluding to their small towns, which have a gallows placed on
an eminence, so that the gallows breaks on the eye of the traveller before he
gets a view of the town itself.

The Cheshire proverb on marriage, “Better wed over the mixon than over
the moor,” that is, at home or in its vicinity; mixon alludes to the dung, &c.,
in the farm-yard, while the road from Chester to London is over the
moorland in Staffordshire: this local proverb is a curious instance of
provincial pride, perhaps of wisdom, to induce the gentry of that county to
form intermarriages; to prolong their own ancient families, and perpetuate
ancient friendships between them.

In the Isle of Man a proverbial expression forcibly indicates the object
constantly occupying the minds of the inhabitants. The two Deemsters or
judges, when appointed to the chair of judgment, declare they will render
justice between man and man “as equally as the herring bone lies between
the two sides:” an image which could not have occurred to any people
unaccustomed to the herring-fishery. There is a Cornish proverb, “Those
who will not be ruled by the rudder must be ruled by the rock”—the strands
of Cornwall, so often covered with wrecks, could not fail to impress on the

imaginations of its inhabitants the two objects from whence they drew this
salutary proverb against obstinate wrongheads.

When Scotland, in the last century, felt its allegiance to England
doubtful, and when the French sent an expedition to the Land of Cakes, a
local proverb was revived, to show the identity of interests which affected
both nations:

If Skiddaw hath a cap,
Scruffel wots full well of that.

These are two high hills, one in Scotland and one in England; so near, that
what happens to the one will not be long ere it reach the other. If a fog
lodges on the one, it is sure to rain on the other; the mutual sympathies of
the two countries were hence deduced in a copious dissertation, by Oswald
Dyke, on what was called “The Union-proverb,” which local proverbs of
our country Fuller has interspersed in his “Worthies,” and Ray and Grose
have collected separately.

I was amused lately by a curious financial revelation which I found in an
opposition paper, where it appears that “Ministers pretend to make their
load of taxes more portable, by shifting the burden, or altering the pressure,
without, however, diminishing the weight; according to the Italian proverb,
Accommodare le bisaccie nella strada, ‘To fit the load on the journey:’” it
is taken from a custom of the mule-drivers, who, placing their packages at
first but awkwardly on the backs of their poor beasts, and seeing them ready
to sink, cry out, “Never mind! we must fit them better on the road!” I was
gratified to discover, by the present and some other modern instances, that
the taste for proverbs was reviving, and that we were returning to those
sober times, when the aptitude of a simple proverb would be preferred to
the verbosity of politicians, Tories, Whigs, or Radicals!

There are domestic proverbs which originate in incidents known only to
the natives of their province. Italian literature is particularly rich in these
stores. The lively proverbial taste of that vivacious people was transferred
to their own authors; and when these allusions were obscured by time,
learned Italians, in their zeal for their national literature, and in their
national love of story-telling, have written grave commentaries even on
ludicrous, but popular tales, in which the proverbs are said to have
originated. They resemble the old facetious contes, whose simplicity and
humour still live in the pages of Boccaccio, and are not forgotten in those of
the Queen of Navarre.

The Italians apply a proverb to a person who while he is beaten, takes the
blows quietly:—

Per beato ch’ elle non furon pesche!
Luckily they were not peaches!

And to threaten to give a man—

Una pesca in un occhio.
A peach in the eye,

means to give him a thrashing. This proverb, it is said, originated in the
close of a certain droll adventure. The community of the Castle Poggibonsi,
probably from some jocular tenure observed on St. Bernard’s day, pay a
tribute of peaches to the court of Tuscany, which are usually shared among
the ladies in waiting, and the pages of the court. It happened one season, in
a great scarcity of peaches, that the good people of Poggibonsi, finding
them rather dear, sent, instead of the customary tribute, a quantity of fine
juicy figs, which was so much disapproved of by the pages, that as soon as
they got hold of them, they began in rage to empty the baskets on the heads

of the ambassadors of the Poggibonsi, who, in attempting to fly as well as
they could from the pulpy shower, half-blinded, and recollecting that
peaches would have had stones in them, cried out—

Per beato ch’ elle non furon pesche!
Luckily they were not peaches!

Fare le scalée di Sant’ Ambrogio; “To mount the stairs of Saint
Ambrose,” a proverb allusive to the business of the school of scandal.
Varchi explains it by a circumstance so common in provincial cities. On
summer evenings, for fresh air and gossip, the loungers met on the steps
and landing-places of the church of St. Ambrose: whoever left the party,
“they read in his book,” as our commentator expresses it; and not a leaf was
passed over! All liked to join a party so well informed of one another’s
concerns, and every one tried to be the very last to quit it,—not “to leave his
character behind!” It became a proverbial phrase with those who left a
company, and were too tender of their backs, to request they would not
“mount the stairs of St. Ambrose.” Jonson has well described such a
company:

You are so truly fear’d, but not beloved
One of another, as no one dares break
Company from the rest, lest they should fall
Upon him absent.

There are legends and histories which belong to proverbs; and some of
the most ancient refer to incidents which have not always been
commemorated. Two Greek proverbs have accidentally been explained by
Pausanias: “He is a man of Tenedos!” to describe a person of
unquestionable veracity; and “To cut with the Tenedian axe;” to express an

absolute and irrevocable refusal. The first originated in a king of Tenedos,
who decreed that there should always stand behind the judge a man holding
an axe, ready to execute justice on any one convicted of falsehood. The
other arose from the same king, whose father having reached his island, to
supplicate the son’s forgiveness for the injury inflicted on him by the arts of
a step-mother, was preparing to land; already the ship was fastened by its
cable to a rock; when the son came down, and sternly cutting the cable with
an axe, sent the ship adrift to the mercy of the waves: hence, “to cut with
the Tenedian axe,” became proverbial to express an absolute refusal.
“Business to-morrow!” is another Greek proverb, applied to a person ruined
by his own neglect. The fate of an eminent person perpetuated the
expression which he casually employed on the occasion. One of the Theban
polemarchs, in the midst of a convivial party, received despatches relating
to a conspiracy: flushed with wine, although pressed by the courier to open
them immediately, he smiled, and in gaiety laying the letter under the
pillow of his couch, observed, “Business to-morrow!” Plutarch records that
he fell a victim to the twenty-four hours he had lost, and became the author
of a proverb which was still circulated among the Greeks.

The philosophical antiquary may often discover how many a proverb
commemorates an event which has escaped from the more solemn
monuments of history, and is often the solitary authority of its existence. A
national event in Spanish history is preserved by a proverb. Y vengar
quiniento sueldos; “And revenge five hundred pounds!” An odd expression
to denote a person being a gentleman! but the proverb is historical. The
Spaniards of Old Castile were compelled to pay an annual tribute of five
hundred maidens to their masters, the Moors; after several battles, the
Spaniards succeeded in compromising the shameful tribute, by as many
pieces of coin: at length the day arrived when they entirely emancipated
themselves from this odious imposition. The heroic action was performed
by men of distinction, and the event perpetuated in the recollections of the

Spaniards by this singular expression, which alludes to the dishonourable
tribute, was applied to characterise all men of high honour, and devoted
lovers of their country.

Pasquier, in his Récherches sur la France, reviewing the periodical
changes of ancient families in feudal times, observes, that a proverb among
the common people conveys the result of all his inquiries; for those noble
houses, which in a single age declined from nobility and wealth to poverty
and meanness, gave rise to the proverb, Cent ans bannières et cent ans
civières! “One hundred years a banner and one hundred years a barrow!”
The Italian proverb, Con l’Evangilio si diventa heretico, “With the gospel
we become heretics,”—reflects the policy of the court of Rome; and must
be dated at the time of the Reformation, when a translation of the Scriptures
into the vulgar tongue encountered such an invincible opposition. The
Scotch proverb, He that invented the maiden first hanselled it; that is, got
the first of it! The maiden is that well-known beheading engine, revived by
the French surgeon Guillotine. This proverb may be applied to one who
falls a victim to his own ingenuity; the artificer of his own destruction! The
inventor was James, Earl of Morton, who for some years governed
Scotland, and afterwards, it is said, very unjustly suffered by his own
invention. It is a striking coincidence, that the same fate was shared by the
French reviver; both alike sad examples of disturbed times! Among our own
proverbs a remarkable incident has been commemorated; Hand over head,
as the men took the Covenant! This preserves the manner in which the
Scotch covenant, so famous in our history, was violently taken by above
sixty thousand persons about Edinburgh, in 1638; a circumstance at that
time novel in our own revolutionary history, and afterwards paralleled by
the French in voting by “acclamation.” An ancient English proverb
preserves a curious fact concerning our coinage. Testers are gone to Oxford,
to study at Brazennose. When Henry the Eighth debased the silver coin,
called testers, from their having a head stamped on one side; the brass,

breaking out in red pimples on their silver faces, provoked the ill-humour of
the people to vent itself in this punning proverb, which has preserved for
the historical antiquary the popular feeling which lasted about fifty years,
till Elizabeth reformed the state of the coinage. A northern proverb among
us has preserved the remarkable idea which seems to have once been
prevalent, that the metropolis of England was to be the city of York; Lincoln
was, London is, York shall be! Whether at the time of the union of the
crowns, under James the First, when England and Scotland became Great
Britain, this city, from its centrical situation, was considered as the best
adapted for the seat of government, or for some other cause which I have
not discovered, this notion must have been prevalent to have entered into a
proverb. The chief magistrate of York is the only provincial one who is
allowed the title of Lord Mayor; a circumstance which seems connected
with this proverb.

The Italian history of its own small principalities, whose well-being so
much depended on their prudence and sagacity, affords many instances of
the timely use of a proverb. Many an intricate negotiation has been
contracted through a good-humoured proverb,—many a sarcastic one has
silenced an adversary; and sometimes they have been applied on more
solemn, and even tragical occasions. When Rinaldo degli Albizzi was
banished by the vigorous conduct of Cosmo de’ Medici, Machiavel tells us
the expelled man sent Cosmo a menace, in a proverb, La gallina covava!
“The hen is brooding!” said of one meditating vengeance. The undaunted
Cosmo replied by another, that “There was no brooding out of the nest!”

I give an example of peculiar interest; for it is perpetuated by Dante, and
is connected with the character of Milton.

When the families of the Amadei and the Uberti felt their honour
wounded in the affront the younger Buondelmonte had put upon them, in
breaking off his match with a young lady of their family, by marrying

another, a council was held, and the death of the young cavalier was
proposed as the sole atonement for their injured honour. But the
consequences which they anticipated, and which afterwards proved so fatal
to the Florentines, long suspended their decision. At length Moscha
Lamberti suddenly rising, exclaimed, in two proverbs, “That those who
considered everything would never conclude on anything!” closing with an
ancient proverbial saying—cosa fatta capo ha! “a deed done has an end!”
The proverb sealed the fatal determination, and was long held in mournful
remembrance by the Tuscans; for, according to Villani, it was the cause and
beginning of the accursed factions of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.
Dante has thus immortalised the energetic expression in a scene of the
“Inferno.”

Ed un, ch’ avea l’una e l’altra man mozza,
Levando i moncherin per l’aura fosca,
Si che ’l sangue facea la faccia sozza,
Gridò:—“Ricorderati anche del Mosca,
Che dissi, lasso: Capo ha cosa fatta,
Che fu ’l mal seme della gente Tosca.”

———Then one
Maim’d of each hand, uplifted in the gloom
The bleeding stumps, that they with gory spots
Sullied his face, and cried—“Remember thee
Of Mosca too—I who, alas! exclaim’d
‘The deed once done, there is an end’—that proved
A seed of sorrow to the Tuscan race.”
Cary’s Dante.

This Italian proverb was adopted by Milton; for when deeply engaged in
writing “The Defence of the People,” and warned that it might terminate in
his blindness, he resolvedly concluded his work, exclaiming with great
magnanimity, although the fatal prognostication had been accomplished,
cosa fatta capo ha! Did this proverb also influence his awful decision on
that great national event, when the most honest-minded fluctuated between
doubts and fears?

Of a person treacherously used, the Italian proverb says that he has eaten
of

Le frutte di fratre Alberigo.
The fruit of brother Alberigo.

Landino, on the following passage of Dante, preserves the tragic story:—

———Io son fratre Alberigo,
Io son quel dalle frutta del mal orto
Che qui reprendo, &c.
Canto xxxiii.

“The friar Alberigo,” answered he,
“Am I, who from the evil garden pluck’d
Its fruitage, and am here repaid the date
More luscious for my fig.”
Cary’s Dante.

This was Manfred, the Lord of Fuenza, who, after many cruelties, turned
friar. Reconciling himself to those whom he had so often opposed, to
celebrate the renewal of their friendship he invited them to a magnificent
entertainment. At the end of the dinner the horn blew to announce the

dessert—but it was the signal of this dissimulating conspirator!—and the
fruits which that day were served to his guests were armed men, who,
rushing in, immolated their victims.

Among these historical proverbs none are more entertaining than those
which perpetuate national events, connected with those of another people.
When a Frenchman would let us understand that he has settled with his
creditors, the proverb is J’ai payé tous mes Anglois: “I have paid all my
English.” This proverb originated when John, the French king, was taken
prisoner by our Black Prince. Levies of money were made for the king’s
ransom, and for many French lords; and the French people have thus
perpetuated the military glory of our nation, and their own idea of it, by
making the English and their creditors synonymous terms. Another relates
to the same event—Le Pape est devenu François, et Jesus Christ Anglais:
“Now the Pope is become French and Jesus Christ English;” a proverb
which arose when the Pope, exiled from Rome, held his court at Avignon in
France; and the English prospered so well, that they possessed more than
half the kingdom. The Spanish proverb concerning England is well known
—

Con todo el mondo guerra,
Y paz con Inglaterra!

War with the world,
And peace with England!

Whether this proverb was one of the results of their memorable armada, and
was only coined after their conviction of the splendid folly which they had
committed, I cannot ascertain. England must always have been a desirable
ally to Spain against her potent rival and neighbour. The Italians have a
proverb, which formerly, at least, was strongly indicative of the travelled

Englishmen in their country, Inglese Italianato è un diavolo incarnato;
“The Italianised Englishman is a devil incarnate.” Formerly there existed a
closer intercourse between our country and Italy than with France. Before
and during the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First that land of the
elegant arts modelled our taste and manners: and more Italians travelled
into England, and were more constant residents, from commercial concerns,
than afterwards when France assumed a higher rank in Europe by her
political superiority. This cause will sufficiently account for the number of
Italian proverbs relating to England, which show an intimacy with our
manners that could not else have occurred. It was probably some sarcastic
Italian, and, perhaps, horologer, who, to describe the disagreement of
persons, proverbed our nation—“They agree like the clocks of London!”
We were once better famed for merry Christmases and their pies; and it
must have been the Italians who had been domiciliated with us who gave
currency to the proverb—Ha piu da fare che i forni di natale in Inghilterra:
“He has more business than English ovens at Christmas.” Our pie-loving
gentry were notorious, and Shakspeare’s folio was usually laid open in the
great halls of our nobility to entertain their attendants, who devoured at
once Shakspeare and their pasty. Some of those volumes have come down
to us, not only with the stains, but inclosing even the identical piecrusts of
the Elizabethan age.

I have thus attempted to develope the art of reading proverbs; but have
done little more than indicate the theory, and must leave the skilful student
to the delicacy of the practice. I am anxious to rescue from prevailing
prejudices these neglected stores of curious amusement, and of deep insight
into the ways of man, and to point out the bold and concealed truths which
are scattered in these collections. There seems to be no occurrence in
human affairs to which some proverb may not be applied. All knowledge
was long aphoristical and traditional, pithily contracting the discoveries
which were to be instantly comprehended and easily retained. Whatever be

the revolutionary state of man, similar principles and like occurrences are
returning on us; and antiquity, whenever it is justly applicable to our times,
loses its denomination, and becomes the truth of our own age. A proverb
will often cut the knot which others in vain are attempting to untie. Johnson,
palled with the redundant elegancies of modern composition, once said, “I
fancy mankind may come in time to write all aphoristically, except in
narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connexion, and illustration, and
all those arts by which a big book is made.” Many a volume indeed has
often been written to demonstrate what a lover of proverbs could show had
long been ascertained by a single one in his favourite collections.

An insurmountable difficulty, which every paræmiographer has
encountered, is that of forming an apt, a ready, and a systematic
classification: the moral Linnæus of such a “systema naturæ” has not yet
appeared. Each discovered his predecessor’s mode imperfect, but each was
doomed to meet the same fate.40 The arrangement of proverbs has baffled
the ingenuity of every one of their collectors. Our Ray, after long
premeditation, has chosen a system with the appearance of an alphabetical
order; but, as it turns out, his system is no system, and his alphabet is no
alphabet. After ten years’ labour, the good man could only arrange his
proverbs by commonplaces—by complete sentences—by phrases or forms
of speech—by proverbial similes—and so on. All these are pursued in
alphabetical order, “by the first letter of the most ‘material word,’ or if there
be more words ‘equally material,’ by that which usually stands foremost.”
The most patient examiner will usually find that he wants the sagacity of
the collector to discover that word which is “the most material,” or, “the
words equally material.” We have to search through all that multiplicity of
divisions, or conjuring boxes, in which this juggler of proverbs pretends to
hide the ball.41

A still more formidable objection against a collection of proverbs, for the
impatient reader, is their unreadableness. Taking in succession a multitude
of insulated proverbs, their slippery nature resists all hope of retaining one
in a hundred; the study of proverbs must be a frequent recurrence to a
gradual collection of favourite ones, which we ourselves must form. The
experience of life will throw a perpetual freshness over these short and
simple texts; every day may furnish a new commentary; and we may grow
old, and find novelty in proverbs by their perpetual application.

There are, perhaps, about twenty thousand proverbs among the nations of
Europe: many of these have spread in their common intercourse; many are
borrowed from the ancients, chiefly the Greeks, who themselves largely
took them from the eastern nations. Our own proverbs are too often
deficient in that elegance and ingenuity which are often found in the
Spanish and the Italian. Proverbs frequently enliven conversation, or enter
into the business of life in those countries, without any feeling of vulgarity
being associated with them: they are too numerous, too witty, and too wise
to cease to please by their poignancy and their aptitude. I have heard them
fall from the lips of men of letters and of statesmen. When recently the
disorderly state of the manufacturers of Manchester menaced an
insurrection, a profound Italian politician observed to me, that it was not of
a nature to alarm a great nation; for that the remedy was at hand, in the
proverb of the Lazzaroni of Naples, Metà consiglio, metà esempio, metà
denaro! “Half advice, half example, half money!” The result confirmed the
truth of the proverb, which, had it been known at the time, might have
quieted the honest fears of a great part of the nation.

Proverbs have ceased to be studied or employed in conversation since the
time we have derived our knowledge from books; but in a philosophical age
they appear to offer infinite subjects for speculative curiosity. Originating in
various eras, these memorials of manners, of events, and of modes of

thinking, for historical as well as for moral purposes, still retain a strong
hold on our attention. The collected knowledge of successive ages, and of
different people, must always enter into some part of our own! Truth and
nature can never be obsolete.

Proverbs embrace the wide sphere of human existence, they take all the
colours of life, they are often exquisite strokes of genius, they delight by
their airy sarcasm or their caustic satire, the luxuriance of their humour, the
playfulness of their turn, and even by the elegance of their imagery, and the
tenderness of their sentiment. They give a deep insight into domestic life,
and open for us the heart of man, in all the various states which he may
occupy—a frequent review of proverbs should enter into our readings; and
although they are no longer the ornaments of conversation, they have not
ceased to be the treasuries of Thought!

29 Taylor’s Translation of Plato’s works, vol v. p. 36.

30 Shakspeare satirically alludes to the quality of such rhymes in his Merchant of Venice, Act
v. Sc. 1. Speaking of one

“—— whose poesy was
For all the world like cutler’s poetry
Upon a knife, Love me, and leave me not.”

31 One of the fruit trenchers, for such these roundels are called in the Gent. Mag. for 1798,
p. 398, is engraved there, and the inscriptions of an entire set given.—See also the Supplement
to that volume, p. 1187. The author of the “Art of English Poesie,” 1589, tells us they never
contained above one verse, or two at the most, but the shorter the better. Two specimens may
suffice the reader. One, under the symbol of a skull, thus morally discourses:—

“Content thyself with thine estate,
And send no poor wight from thy gate;
For why, this counsel I you give,
To learne to die, and die to live.”

On another, decorated with pictures of fruit, are these satirical lines:—

“Feed and be fat: hear’s pears and plums,
Will never hurt your teeth or spoil your gums.
And I wish those girls that painted are,
No other food than such fine painted fare.”

32 This constant custom of engraving “posies,” as they were termed, on rings, is noted by
many authors of the Elizabethan era. Lilly, in his “Euphues,” addresses the ladies for a
favourable judgment on his work, hoping it will be recorded “as you do the posies in your rings,
which are always next to the finger not to be seene of him that holdeth you by the hand, and yet

knowne by you that weare them on your hands.” They were always engraved withinside of the
ring. A MS. of the time of Charles I. furnishes us with a single posy, of one line, to this effect
—“This hath alloy; my love is pure.” From the same source we have the two following
rhyming, or “double posies”—

“Constancy and heaven are round,
And in this the emblem’s found.”
“Weare me out, love shall not waste;
Love beyond tyme still is placed.”

33 Heywood’s “Dialogue, conteyninge the Number in Effecte of all the Proverbes in the
English Tunge, 1561.” There are more editions of this little volume than Warton has noticed.
There is some humour in his narrative, but his metre and his ribaldry are heavy taxes on our
curiosity.

34 The whole of Tusser’s “Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie,” 1580, was composed
in quaint couplets, long remembered by the peasantry for their homely worldly wisdom. One,
constructed for the bakehouse, runs thus:—

“New bread is a drivell (waste);
Much crust is as evil.”

Another for the dairymaid assures her—

“Good dairie doth pleasure;
Ill dairie spends treasure.”

Another might rival any lesson of thrift:—

“Where nothing will last,
Spare such as thou hast.”

35 Townshend’s Historical Collections, p. 283.

36 It was published in 1616: the writer only catches at some verbal expressions—as, for
instance:—

The vulgar proverb runs, “The more the merrier.”

The cross,—“Not so! one hand is enough in a purse.”

The proverb, “It is a great way to the bottom of the sea.”

The cross,—“Not so! it is but a stone’s cast.”

The proverb, “The pride of the rich makes the labours of the poor.”

The cross,—“Not so! the labours of the poor make the pride of the rich.”

The proverb, “He runs far who never turns.”

The cross,—“Not so! he may break his neck in a short course.”

37 It has been suggested that this whimsical amusement has been lately revived, to a certain
degree, in the acting of charades among juvenile parties.

38 Now the punning motto of a noble family.

39 At the Royal institution there is a fine copy of Polydore Vergil’s “Adagia,” with his
other work, curious in its day, De Inventoribus Rerum, printed by Frobenius, in 1521. The wood-
cuts of this edition seem to me to be executed with inimitable delicacy, resembling a pencilling
which Raphael might have envied.

40 Since the appearance of the present article, several collections of Proverbs have been
attempted. A little unpretending volume, entitled “Select Proverbs of all Nations, with Notes and
Comments, by Thomas Fielding, 1824,” is not ill arranged; an excellent book for popular
reading. The editor of a recent miscellaneous compilation, “The Treasury of Knowledge,” has
whimsically bordered the four sides of the pages of a Dictionary with as many proverbs. The
plan was ingenious, but the proverbs are not. Triteness and triviality are fatal to a proverb.

41 A new edition of Ray’s book, with large additions, was published by Bohn, in 1855, under
the title of “A Handbook of Proverbs.” It is a vast collection of “wise saws” of all ages and
countries.

CONFUSION OF WORDS.

“There is nothing more common,” says the lively Voltaire, “than to read
and to converse to no purpose. In history, in morals, in law, in physic, and in
divinity, be careful of equivocal terms.” One of the ancients wrote a book to
prove that there was no word which did not convey an ambiguous and
uncertain meaning. If we possessed this lost book, our ingenious
dictionaries of “synonyms” would not probably prove its uselessness.
Whenever the same word is associated by the parties with different ideas,
they may converse, or controverse, till “the crack of doom!” This with a
little obstinacy and some agility in shifting his ground, makes the fortune of
an opponent. While one party is worried in disentangling a meaning, and
the other is winding and unwinding about him with another, a word of the
kind we have mentioned, carelessly or perversely slipped into an argument,
may prolong it for a century or two—as it has happened! Vaugelas, who
passed his whole life in the study of words, would not allow that the sense
was to determine the meaning of words; for, says he, it is the business of
words to explain the sense. Kant for a long while discovered in this way a
facility of arguing without end, as at this moment do our political

economists. “I beseech you,” exclaims a poetical critic, in the agony of a
confusion of words, on the Pope controversy, “not to ask whether I mean
this or that!” Our critic, positive that he has made himself understood, has
shown how a few vague terms may admit of volumes of vindication. Throw
out a word, capable of fifty senses, and you raise fifty parties! Should some
friend of peace enable the fifty to repose on one sense, that innocent word,
no longer ringing the tocsin of a party, would lie in forgetfulness in the
Dictionary. Still more provoking when an identity of meaning is only
disguised by different modes of expression, and when the term has been
closely sifted, to their mutual astonishment both parties discover the same
thing lying under the bran and chaff after this heated operation. Plato and
Aristotle probably agreed much better than the opposite parties they raised
up imagined; their difference was in the manner of expression, rather than
in the points discussed. The Nominalists and the Realists, who once filled
the world with their brawls, and who from irregular words came to regular
blows, could never comprehend their alternate nonsense; “whether in
employing general terms we use words or names only, or whether there is in
nature anything corresponding to what we mean by a general idea?” The
Nominalists only denied what no one in his senses would affirm; and the
Realists only contended for what no one in his senses would deny; a hair’s
breadth might have joined what the spirit of party had sundered!

Do we flatter ourselves that the Logomachies of the Nominalists and the
Realists terminated with these scolding schoolmen? Modern nonsense,
weighed against the obsolete, may make the scales tremble for awhile, but it
will lose its agreeable quality of freshness, and subside into an equipoise.
We find their spirit still lurking among our own metaphysicians! “Lo! the
Nominalists and the Realists again!” exclaimed my learned friend, Sharon
Turner, alluding to our modern doctrines on abstract ideas, on which there
is still a doubt whether they are anything more than generalising terms.42
Leibnitz confused his philosophy by the term sufficient reason: for every

existence, for every event, and for every truth there must be a sufficient
reason. This vagueness of language produced a perpetual misconception,
and Leibnitz was proud of his equivocal triumphs in always affording a new
interpretation! It is conjectured that he only employed his term of sufficient
reason for the plain simple word of cause. Even Locke, who has himself so
admirably noticed the “abuse of words,” has been charged with using vague
and indefinite ones; he has sometimes employed the words reflection, mind,
and spirit in so indefinite a way, that they have confused his philosophy:
thus by some ambiguous expressions, our great metaphysician has been
made to establish doctrines fatal to the immutability of moral distinctions.
Even the eagle-eye of the intellectual Newton grew dim in the obscurity of
the language of Locke. We are astonished to discover that two such
intellects should not comprehend the same ideas; for Newton wrote to
Locke, “I beg your pardon for representing that you struck at the root of
morality in a principle laid down in your book of Ideas—and that I took you
for a Hobbist!”43 The difference of opinion between Locke and Reid is in
consequence of an ambiguity in the word principle, as employed by Reid.
The removal of a solitary word may cast a luminous ray over a whole body
of philosophy: “If we had called the infinite the indefinite,” says Condillac,
in his Traité des Sensations, “by this small change of a word we should
have avoided the error of imagining that we have a positive idea of infinity,
from whence so many false reasonings have been carried on, not only by
metaphysicians, but even by geometricians.” The word reason has been
used with different meanings by different writers; reasoning and reason
have been often confounded; a man may have an endless capacity for
reasoning, without being much influenced by reason, and to be reasonable,
perhaps differs from both! So Moliere tells us,

Raisonner est l’emploi de toute ma maison;
Et le raisonnement en bannit la raison!

In this research on “confusion of words,” might enter the voluminous
history of the founders of sects, who have usually employed terms which
had no meaning attached to them, or were so ambiguous that their real
notions have never been comprehended; hence the most chimerical opinions
have been imputed to founders of sects. We may instance that of the
Antinomians, whose remarkable denomination explains their doctrine,
expressing that they were “against law!” Their founder was John Agricola, a
follower of Luther, who, while he lived, had kept Agricola’s follies from
exploding, which they did when he asserted that there was no such thing as
sin, our salvation depending on faith, and not on works; and when he
declaimed against the Law of God. To what length some of his sect pushed
this verbal doctrine is known; but the real notions of this Agricola probably
never will be! Bayle considered him as a harmless dreamer in theology,
who had confused his head by Paul’s controversies with the Jews; but
Mosheim, who bestows on this early reformer the epithets of ventosus and
versipellis, windy and crafty! or, as his translator has it, charges him with
“vanity, presumption, and artifice,” tells us by the term “law,” Agricola only
meant the ten commandments of Moses, which he considered were
abrogated by the Gospel, being designed for the Jews and not for the
Christians. Agricola then, by the words the “Law of God,” and “that there
was no such thing as sin,” must have said one thing and meant another!
This appears to have been the case with most of the divines of the sixteenth
century; for even Mosheim complains of “their want of precision and
consistency in expressing their sentiments, hence their real sentiments have
been misunderstood.” There evidently prevailed a great “confusion of
words” among them! The grace suffisante and the grace efficace of the
Jansenists and the Jesuits show the shifts and stratagems by which nonsense
may be dignified. “Whether all men received from God sufficient grace for
their conversion!” was an inquiry some unhappy metaphysical theologist set
afloat: the Jesuits, according to their worldly system of making men’s

consciences easy, affirmed it; but the Jansenists insisted, that this sufficient
grace would never be efficacious, unless accompanied by special grace.
“Then the sufficient grace, which is not efficacious, is a contradiction in
terms, and worse, a heresy!” triumphantly cried the Jesuits, exulting over
their adversaries. This “confusion of words” thickened, till the Jesuits
introduced in this logomachy with the Jansenists papal bulls, royal edicts,
and a regiment of dragoons! The Jansenists, in despair, appealed to miracles
and prodigies, which they got up for public representation; but, above all, to
their Pascal, whose immortal satire the Jesuits really felt was at once
“sufficient and efficacious,” though the dragoons, in settling a “confusion of
words,” did not boast of inferior success to Pascal’s. Former ages had,
indeed, witnessed even a more melancholy logomachy, in the Homoousion
and the Homoiousion! An event which Boileau has immortalised by some
fine verses, which, in his famous satire on L’Equivoque, for reasons best
known to the Sorbonne, were struck out of the text.

D’une syllabe impie un saint mot augmenté
Remplit tous les esprits d’aigreurs si meurtrières—
Tu fis, dans une guerre et si triste et si longue,
Périr tant de Chrétiens, martyrs d’une diphthongue!

Whether the Son was similar to the substance of the Father, or of the
same substance, depended on the diphthong oi, which was alternately
rejected and received. Had they earlier discovered, what at length they
agreed on, that the words denoted what was incomprehensible, it would
have saved thousands, as a witness describes, “from tearing one another to
pieces.” The great controversy between Abelard and St. Bernard, when the
saint accused the scholastic of maintaining heretical notions of the Trinity,
long agitated the world; yet, now that these confusers of words can no
longer inflame our passions, we wonder how these parties could themselves

differ about words to which we can attach no meaning whatever. There have
been few councils or synods where the omission or addition of a word or a
phrase might not have terminated an interminable logomachy! At the
council of Basle, for the convenience of the disputants, John de Secubia
drew up a treatise of undeclined words, chiefly to determine the
signification of the particles from, by, but, and except, which it seems were
perpetually occasioning fresh disputes among the Hussites and the
Bohemians. Had Jerome of Prague known, like our Shakspeare, the virtue
of an if, or agreed with Hobbes, that he should not have been so positive in
the use of the verb is, he might have been spared from the flames. The
philosopher of Malmsbury has declared that “Perhaps Judgment was
nothing else but the composition or joining of two names of things, or
modes, by the verb is.” In modern times the popes have more skilfully freed
the church from this “confusion of words.” His holiness, on one occasion,
standing in equal terror of the court of France, who protected the Jesuits,
and of the court of Spain, who maintained the cause of the Dominicans,
contrived a phrase, where a comma or a full stop, placed at the beginning or
the end, purported that his holiness tolerated the opinions which he
condemned; and when the rival parties despatched deputations to the court
of Rome to plead for the period, or advocate the comma, his holiness, in
this “confusion of words,” flung an unpunctuated copy to the parties; nor
was it his fault, but that of the spirit of party, if the rage of the one could not
subside into a comma, nor that of the other close by a full period!

In jurisprudence much confusion has occurred in the uses of the term
rights; yet the social union and human happiness are involved in the
precision of the expression. When Montesquieu laid down, as the active
principle of a republic, virtue, it seemed to infer that a republic was the best
of governments. In the defence of his great work he was obliged to define
the term; and it seems that by virtue he only meant political virtue, the love
of the country.

In politics, what evils have resulted from abstract terms to which no ideas
are affixed,—such as, “The Equality of Man—the Sovereignty or the
Majesty of the People—Loyalty—Reform—even Liberty herself!—Public
Opinion—Public Interest;” and other abstract notions, which have excited
the hatred or the ridicule of the vulgar. Abstract ideas, as sounds, have been
used as watchwords. The combatants will usually be found willing to fight
for words to which, perhaps, not one of them has attached any settled
signification. This is admirably touched on by Locke, in his chapter of
“Abuse of Words.” “Wisdom, Glory, Grace, &c., are words frequent enough
in every man’s mouth; but if a great many of those who use them should be
asked what they mean by them, they would be at a stand, and know not
what to answer—a plain proof that though they have learned those sounds,
and have them ready at their tongue’s end, yet there are no determined ideas
laid up in their minds which are to be expressed to others by them.”

When the American exclaimed that he was not represented in the House
of Commons, because he was not an elector, he was told that a very small
part of the people of England were electors. As they could not call this an
actual representation, they invented a new name for it, and called it a
virtual one. It imposed on the English nation, who could not object that
others should be taxed rather than themselves; but with the Americans it
was a sophism! and this virtual representation, instead of an actual one,
terminated in our separation; “which,” says Mr. Flood, “at the time
appeared to have swept away most of our glory and our territory; forty
thousand lives, and one hundred millions of treasure!”

That fatal expression which Rousseau had introduced, l’Egalité des
Hommes, which finally involved the happiness of a whole people, had he
lived he had probably shown how ill his country had understood. He could
only have referred in his mind to political equality, but not an equality of
possessions, of property, of authority, destructive of social order and of

moral duties, which must exist among every people. “Liberty,” “Equality,”
and “Reform” (innocent words!) sadly ferment the brains of those who
cannot affix any definite notions to them; they are like those chimerical
fictions in law, which declare the “sovereign immortal, proclaim his
ubiquity in various places,” and irritate the feelings of the populace, by
assuming that “the king can never do wrong!” In the time of James the
Second “it is curious,” says Lord Russell, “to read the conference between
the Houses on the meaning of the words ‘deserted’ and ‘abdicated,’ and the
debates in the Lords whether or no there is an original contract between
king and people.” The people would necessarily decide that “kings derived
their power from them;” but kings were once maintained by a “right
divine,” a “confusion of words,” derived from two opposite theories, and
both only relatively true. When we listen so frequently to such abstract
terms as “the majesty of the people,” “the sovereignty of the people,”
whence the inference that “all power is derived from the people,” we can
form no definite notions: it is “a confusion of words,” contradicting all the
political experience which our studies or our observations furnish; for
sovereignty is established to rule, to conduct, and to settle the vacillations
and quick passions of the multitude. Public opinion expresses too often the
ideas of one party in place; and public interest those of another party out!
Political axioms, from the circumstance of having the notions attached to
them unsettled, are applied to the most opposite ends! “In the time of the
French Directory,” observes an Italian philosopher of profound views, “in
the revolution of Naples, the democratic faction pronounced that ‘Every act
of a tyrannical government is in its origin illegal;’ a proposition which at
first sight seems self-evident, but which went to render all existing laws
impracticable.” The doctrine of the illegality of the acts of a tyrant was
proclaimed by Brutus and Cicero, in the name of the senate, against the
populace, who had favoured Cæsar’s perpetual dictatorship; and the
populace of Paris availed themselves of it, against the National Assembly.

This “confusion of words,” in time-serving politics, has too often
confounded right and wrong; and artful men, driven into a corner, and intent
only on its possession, have found no difficulty in solving doubts, and
reconciling contradictions. Our own history in revolutionary times abounds
with dangerous examples from all parties; of specious hypotheses for
compliance with the government of the day or the passions of parliament.
Here is an instance in which the subtle confuser of words pretended to
substitute two consciences, by utterly depriving a man of any! When the
unhappy Charles the First pleaded that to pass the bill of attainder against
the Earl of Strafford was against his conscience, that remarkable character
of “boldness and impiety,” as Clarendon characterizes Williams,
Archbishop of York, on this argument of conscience (a simple word
enough), demonstrated “that there were two sorts of conscience, public and
private; that his public conscience as a king might dispense with his private
conscience as a man!” Such was the ignominious argument which decided
the fate of that great victim of State! It was an impudent “confusion of
words” when Prynne (in order to quiet the consciences of those who were
uneasy at warring with the king) observed that the statute of twenty-fifth
Edward the Third ran in the singular number—“If a man shall levy war
against the king, and therefore could not be extended to the houses, who are
many and public persons.” Later, we find Sherlock blest with the spirit of
Williams, the Archbishop of York, whom we have just left. When some did
not know how to charge and to discharge themselves of the oaths to James
the Second and to William the Third, this confounder of words discovered
that there were two rights, as the other had that there were two consciences;
one was a providential right, and the other a legal right; one person might
very righteously claim and take a thing, and another as righteously hold and
keep it; but that whoever got the better had the providential right by
possession; and since all authority comes from God, the people were
obliged to transfer their allegiance to him as a king of God’s making; so that

he who had the providential right necessarily had the legal one! a very
simple discovery, which must, however, have cost him some pains; for this
confounder of words was himself confounded by twelve answers by non-
jurors! A French politician of this stamp recently was suspended from his
lectureship for asserting that the possession of the soil was a right; by which
principle, any king reigning over a country, whether by treachery, crime,
and usurpation, was a legitimate sovereign. For this convenient principle the
lecturer was tried, and declared not guilty—by persons who have lately
found their advantage in a confusion of words. In treaties between nations,
a “confusion of words” has been more particularly studied; and that
negotiator has conceived himself most dexterous who, by this abuse of
words, has retained an arrière-pensée which may fasten or loosen the
ambiguous expression he had so cautiously and so finely inlaid in his
mosaic of treachery. A scene of this nature I draw out of “Mesnager’s
Negociation with the Court of England.” When that secret agent of Louis
the Fourteenth was negotiating a peace, an insuperable difficulty arose
respecting the acknowledgment of the Hanoverian succession. It was
absolutely necessary, on this delicate point, to quiet the anxiety of the
English public and our allies; but though the French king was willing to
recognise Anne’s title to the throne, yet the settlement in the house of
Hanover was incompatible with French interests and French honour.
Mesnager told Lord Bolingbroke that “the king, his master, would consent
to any such article, looking the other way, as might disengage him from the
obligation of that agreement, as the occasion should present.” This
ambiguous language was probably understood by Lord Bolingbroke: at the
next conference his lordship informed the secret agent “that the queen could
not admit of any explanations, whatever her intentions might be; that the
succession was settled by act of parliament; that as to the private sentiments
of the queen, or of any about her, he could say nothing.” “All this was said
with such an air, as to let me understand that he gave a secret assent to what

I had proposed, &c.; but he desired me to drop the discourse.” Thus two
great negotiators, both equally urgent to conclude the treaty, found an
insuperable obstacle occur, which neither could control. Two honest men
would have parted; but the “skilful confounder of words,” the French
diplomatist, hit on an expedient; he wrote the words which afterwards
appeared in the preliminaries, “That Louis the Fourteenth will acknowledge
the Queen of Great Britain in that quality, as also the succession of the
crown according to the present settlement.” “The English agent,” adds the
Frenchman, “would have had me add—on the house of Hanover, but this I
entreated him not to desire of me.” The term present settlement, then, was
that article which was looking the other way, to disengage his master from
the obligation of that agreement, as occasion should present! that is, that
Louis the Fourteenth chose to understand by the present settlement the old
one, by which the British crown was to be restored to the Pretender! Anne
and the English nation were to understand it in their own sense—as the new
one, which transferred it to the house of Hanover!

When politicians cannot rely upon each other’s interpretation of one of
the commonest words in our language, how can they possibly act together?
The Bishop of Winchester has proved this observation, by the remarkable
anecdote of the Duke of Portland and Mr. Pitt, who, with a view to unite
parties, were to hold a conference on fair and equal terms. His grace did
not object to the word fair, but the word equal was more specific and
limited; and for a necessary preliminary, he requested Mr. Pitt to inform
him what he understood by the word equal? Whether Pitt was puzzled by
the question, or would not deliver up an arrière-pensée, he put off the
explanation to the conference. But the duke would not meet Mr. Pitt till the
word was explained; and this important negotiation was broken off by not
explaining a simple word which appeared to require no explanation.

There is nothing more fatal in language than to wander from the popular
acceptation of words; and yet this popular sense cannot always accord with
precision of ideas, for it is itself subject to great changes.

Another source, therefore, of the abuse of words, is that mutability to
which, in the course of time, the verbal edifice, as well as more substantial
ones, is doomed. A familiar instance presents itself in the titles of tyrant,
parasite, and sophist, originally honourable distinctions. The abuses of
dominion made the appropriate title of kings odious; the title of a
magistrate, who had the care of the public granaries of corn, at length was
applied to a wretched flatterer for a dinner; and absurd philosophers
occasioned a mere denomination to become a by-name. To employ such
terms in their primitive sense would now confuse all ideas; yet there is an
affectation of erudition which has frequently revived terms sanctioned by
antiquity. Bishop Watson entitled his vindication of the Bible “an apology:”
this word, in its primitive sense, had long been lost for the multitude, whom
he particularly addressed in this work, and who could only understand it in
the sense they are accustomed to. Unquestionably, many of its readers have
imagined that the bishop was offering an excuse for a belief in the Bible,
instead of a vindication of its truth. The word impertinent, by the ancient
jurisconsults, or law-counsellors, who gave their opinion on cases, was used
merely in opposition to pertinent—ratio pertinens is a pertinent reason, that
is, a reason pertaining to the cause in question, and a ratio impertinens, an
impertinent reason, is an argument not pertaining to the subject.44
Impertinent then originally meant neither absurdity nor rude intrusion, as it
does in our present popular sense. The learned Arnauld having characterised
a reply of one of his adversaries by the epithet impertinent, when blamed
for the freedom of his language, explained his meaning by giving this
history of the word, which applies to our own language. Thus also with us
the word indifferent has entirely changed: an historian, whose work was
indifferently written, would formerly have claimed our attention. In the

Liturgy it is prayed that “magistrates may indifferently minister justice.”
Indifferently originally meant impartially. The word extravagant, in its
primitive signification, only signified to digress from the subject. The
Decretals, or those letters from the popes deciding on points of
ecclesiastical discipline, were at length incorporated with the canon law,
and were called extravagant by wandering out of the body of the canon law,
being confusedly dispersed through that collection. When Luther had the
Decretals publicly burnt at Wittemberg, the insult was designed for the
pope, rather than as a condemnation of the canon law itself. Suppose, in the
present case, two persons of opposite opinions. The catholic, who had said
that the decretals were extravagant, might not have intended to depreciate
them, or make any concession to the Lutheran. What confusion of words
has the common sense of the Scotch metaphysicians introduced into
philosophy! There are no words, perhaps, in the language which may be so
differently interpreted; and Professor Dugald Stewart has collected, in a
curious note in the second volume of his “Philosophy of the Human Mind,”
a singular variety of its opposite significations. The Latin phrase, sensus
communis, may, in various passages of Cicero, be translated by our phrase
common sense; but, on other occasions, it means something different; the
sensus communis of the schoolmen is quite another thing, and is
synonymous with conception, and referred to the seat of intellect; with Sir
John Davies, in his curious metaphysical poem, common sense is used as
imagination. It created a controversy with Beattie and Reid; and Reid, who
introduced this vague ambiguous phrase in philosophical language, often
understood the term in its ordinary acceptation. This change of the meaning
of words, which is constantly recurring in metaphysical disputes, has made
that curious but obscure science liable to this objection of Hobbes, “with
many words making nothing understood!”

Controversies have been keenly agitated about the principles of morals,
which resolve entirely into verbal disputes, or at most into questions of

arrangement and classification, of little comparative moment to the points at
issue. This observation of Mr. Dugald Stewart’s might be illustrated by the
fate of the numerous inventors of systems of thinking or morals, who have
only employed very different and even opposite terms in appearance to
express the same thing. Some, by their mode of philosophising, have
strangely unsettled the words self-interest and self-love; and their
misconceptions have sadly misled the votaries of these systems of morals;
as others also by such vague terms as “utility, fitness,” &c.

When Epicurus asserted that the sovereign good consisted in pleasure,
opposing the unfeeling austerity of the Stoics by the softness of pleasurable
emotions, his principle was soon disregarded; while his word, perhaps
chosen in the spirit of paradox, was warmly adopted by the sensualist.
Epicurus, of whom Seneca has drawn so beautiful a domestic scene, in
whose garden a loaf, a Cytheridean cheese, and a draught which did not
inflame thirst,45 was the sole banquet, would have started indignantly at

The fattest hog in Epicurus’ sty!

Such are the facts which illustrate that principle in “the abuse of words,”
which Locke calls “an affected obscurity arising from applying old words to
new, or unusual significations.”

It was the same “confusion of words” which gave rise to the famous sect
of the Sadducees. The master of its founder Sadoc, in his moral purity, was
desirous of a disinterested worship of the Deity; he would not have men like
slaves, obedient from the hope of reward or the fear of punishment. Sadoc
drew a quite contrary inference from the intention of his master, concluding
that there were neither rewards nor punishments in a future state. The result
is a parallel to the fate of Epicurus. The morality of the master of Sadoc was
of the most pure and elevated kind, but in the “confusion of words,” the

libertines adopted them for their own purposes—and having once assumed
that neither rewards nor punishments existed in the after-state, they
proceeded to the erroneous consequence that man perished with his own
dust!

The plainest words, by accidental associations, may suggest the most
erroneous conceptions, and have been productive of the grossest errors. In
the famous Bangorian controversy, one of the writers excites a smile by a
complaint, arising from his views of the signification of a plain word,
whose meaning he thinks had been changed by the contending parties. He
says, “the word country, like a great many others, such as church and
kingdom, is, by the Bishop of Bangor’s leave, become to signify a
collection of ideas very different from its original meaning; with some it
implies party, with others private opinion, and with most interest, and
perhaps, in time, may signify some other country. When this good innocent
word has been tossed backwards and forwards a little longer, some new
reformer of language may arise to reduce it to its primitive signification—
the real interest of Great Britain!” The antagonist of this controversialist
probably retorted on him his own term of the real interest, which might be a
very opposite one, according to their notions! It has been said, with what
truth I know not, that it was by a mere confusion of words that Burke was
enabled to alarm the great Whig families, by showing them their fate in that
of the French noblesse; they were misled by the similitude of names. The
French noblesse had as little resemblance to our nobility as they have to the
Mandarins of China. However it may be in this case, certain it is that the
same terms misapplied have often raised those delusive notions termed
false analogies. It was long imagined in this country, that the parliaments of
France were somewhat akin to our own; but these assemblies were very
differently constituted, consisting only of lawyers in courts of law. A
misnomer confuses all argument. There is a trick which consists in

bestowing good names on bad things. Vices, thus veiled, are introduced to
us as virtues, according to an old poet,

As drunkenness, good-fellowship we call?

Sir Thomas Wiat.

Or the reverse, when loyalty may be ridiculed, as

The right divine of kings—to govern wrong!

The most innocent recreations, such as the drama, dancing, dress, have been
anathematised by puritans, while philosophers have written elaborate
treatises in their defence—the enigma is solved, when we discover that
these words suggested a set of opposite notions to each.

But the nominalists and the realists, and the doctores fundatissimi,
resolutissimi, refulgentes, profundi, and extatici, have left this heirloom of
logomachy to a race as subtle and irrefragable! An extraordinary scene has
recently been performed by a new company of actors, in the modern
comedy of Political Economy; and the whole dialogue has been carried on
in an inimitable “confusion of words!” This reasoning and unreasoning
fraternity never use a term as a term, but for an explanation, and which
employed by them all, signifies opposite things, but never the plainest! Is it
not, therefore, strange that they cannot yet tell us what are riches? what is
rent? what is value? Monsieur Say, the most sparkling of them all, assures
us that the English writers are obscure, by their confounding, like Smith, the
denomination of labour. The vivacious Gaul cries out to the grave Briton,
Mr. Malthus, “If I consent to employ your word labour, you must
understand me,” so and so! Mr. Malthus says, “Commodities are not
exchanged for commodities only; they are also exchanged for labour;” and
when the hypochondriac Englishman, with dismay, foresees “the glut of

markets,” and concludes that we may produce more than we can consume,
the paradoxical Monsieur Say discovers that “commodities” is a wrong
word, for it gives a wrong idea; it should be “productions;” for his axiom is,
that “productions can only be purchased with productions.” Money, it
seems, according to dictionary ideas, has no existence in his vocabulary; for
Monsieur Say has formed a sort of Berkleian conception of wealth being
immaterial, while we confine our views to its materiality. Hence ensues
from this “confusion of words,” this most brilliant paradox,—that “a glutted
market is not a proof that we produce too much but that we produce too
little! for in that case there is not enough produced to exchange with what is
produced!” As Frenchmen excel in politeness and impudence, Monsieur
Say adds, “I revere Adam Smith; he is my master; but this first of political
economists did not understand all the phenomena of production and
consumption.” We, who remain uninitiated in this mystery of explaining the
operations of trade by metaphysical ideas, and raising up theories to
conduct those who never theorise, can only start at the “confusion of
words,” and leave this blessed inheritance to our sons, if ever the science
survive the logomachy.

Caramuel, a famous Spanish bishop, was a grand architect of words.
Ingenious in theory, his errors were confined to his practice: he said a great
deal and meant nothing; and by an exact dimension of his intellect, taken at
the time, it appeared that “he had genius in the eighth degree, eloquence in
the fifth, but judgment only in the second!” This great man would not read
the ancients; for he had a notion that the moderns must have acquired all
they possessed, with a good deal of their own “into the bargain.” Two
hundred and sixty-two works, differing in breadth and length, besides his
manuscripts, attest, that if the world would read his writings, they could
need no other; for which purpose his last work always referred to the
preceding ones, and could never be comprehended till his readers possessed
those which were to follow. As he had the good sense to perceive that

metaphysicians abound in obscure and equivocal terms, to avoid this
“confusion of words,” he invented a jargon of his own; and to make
“confusion worse confounded,” projected grammars and vocabularies by
which we were to learn it; but it is supposed that he was the only man who
understood himself. He put every author in despair by the works which he
announced. This famous architect of words, however, built more labyrinths
than he could always get out of, notwithstanding his “cabalistical
grammar,” and his “audacious grammar.”46 Yet this great Caramuel, the
critics have agreed, was nothing but a puffy giant, with legs too weak for
his bulk, and only to be accounted as a hero amidst a “confusion of words.”

Let us dread the fate of Caramuel! and before we enter into discussion
with the metaphysician, first settle what he means by the nature of ideas;
with the politician, his notion of liberty and equality; with the divine, what
he deems orthodox; with the political economist, what he considers to be
value and rent! By this means we may avoid, what is perpetually recurring,
that extreme laxity or vagueness of words, which makes every writer, or
speaker, complain of his predecessor, and attempt sometimes, not in the best
temper, to define and to settle the signification of what the witty South calls
“those rabble-charming words, which carry so much wildfire wrapt up in
them.”

42 Turner’s “History of England,” i. 514

43 We owe this curious unpublished letter to the zeal and care of Professor Dugald Stewart,
in his excellent “Dissertations.”

44 It is still a Chancery word. An answer in Chancery, &c., is referred for impertinence,
reported impertinent—and the impertinence ordered to be struck out, meaning only what is
immaterial or superfluous, tending to unnecessary expense. I am indebted for this explanation to
my friend, Mr. Merivale; and to another learned friend, formerly in that court, who describes its
meaning as “an excess of words or matter in the pleadings,” and who has received many an

official fee for “expunging impertinence,” leaving, however, he acknowledges, a sufficient
quantity to make the lawyers ashamed of their verbosity.

45 Sen. Epist. 21.

46 Baillet gives the dates and plans of these grammars. The cabalistic was published in
Bruxelles, 1642, in 12mo. The audacious was in folio, printed at Frankfort, 1654.—Jugemens
des Savans. Tome ii. 3me partie.

POLITICAL NICKNAMES.

Political calumny is said to have been reduced into an art, like that of
logic, by the Jesuits. This itself may be a political calumny! A powerful
body, who themselves had practised the artifices of calumniators, may, in
their turn, often have been calumniated. The passage in question was drawn
out of one of the classical authors used in their colleges. Busembaum, a
German Jesuit, had composed, in duodecimo, a “Medulla Theologiæ
moralis,” where, among other casuistical propositions, there was found
lurking in this old Jesuit’s “marrow” one which favoured regicide and
assassination! Fifty editions of the book had passed unnoticed; till a new
one appearing at the critical moment of Damien’s attempt, the duodecimo
of the old scholastic Jesuit, which had now been amplified by its
commentators into two folios, was considered not merely ridiculous, but
dangerous. It was burnt at Toulouse, in 1757, by order of the parliament,

and condemned at Paris. An Italian Jesuit published an “apology” for this
theory of assassination, and the same flames devoured it! Whether
Busembaum deserved the honour bestowed on his ingenuity, the reader may
judge by the passage itself.

“Whoever would ruin a person, or a government, must begin this
operation by spreading calumnies, to defame the person or the government;
for unquestionably the calumniator will always find a great number of
persons inclined to believe him, or to side with him; it therefore follows,
that whenever the object of such calumnies is once lowered in credit by
such means, he will soon lose the reputation and power founded on that
credit, and sink under the permanent and vindictive attacks of the
calumniator.” This is the politics of Satan—the evil principle which
regulates so many things in this world. The enemies of the Jesuits have
formed a list of great names who had become the victims of such atrocious
Machiavelism.47

This has been one of the arts practised by all political parties. Their first
weak invention is to attach to a new faction a contemptible or an
opprobrious nickname. In the history of the revolutions of Europe,
whenever a new party has at length established its independence, the
original denomination which had been fixed on them, marked by the
passions of the party which bestowed it, strangely contrasts with the state of
the party finally established!

The first revolutionists of Holland incurred the contemptuous name of
“Les Gueux,” or the Beggars. The Duchess of Parma inquiring about them,
the Count of Barlamont scornfully described them to be of this class; and it
was flattery of the great which gave the name currency. The Hollanders
accepted the name as much in defiance as with indignation, and acted up to
it. Instead of brooches in their hats, they wore little wooden platters, such as
beggars used, and foxes’ tails instead of feathers. On the targets of some of

these Gueux they inscribed “Rather Turkish than Popish!” and had the print
of a cock crowing, out of whose mouth was a label, Vive les Gueux par tout
le monde! which was everywhere set up, and was the favourite sign of their
inns. The Protestants in France, after a variety of nicknames to render them
contemptible—such as Christodins, because they would only talk about
Christ, similar to our Puritans; and Parpaillots, or Parpirolles, a small base
coin, which was odiously applied to them—at length settled in the well-
known term of Huguenots, which probably was derived, as the Dictionnaire
de Trévoux suggests, from their hiding themselves in secret places, and
appearing at night, like King Hugon, the great hobgoblin of France. It
appears that the term has been preserved by an earthen vessel without feet,
used in cookery, which served the Huguenots on meagre days to dress their
meat, and to avoid observation; a curious instance, where a thing still in use
proves the obscure circumstance of its origin.

The atrocious insurrection, called La Jacquerie, was a term which
originated in cruel derision. When John of France was a prisoner in
England, his kingdom appears to have been desolated by its wretched
nobles, who, in the indulgence of their passions, set no limits to their luxury
and their extortion. They despoiled their peasantry without mercy, and when
these complained, and even reproached this tyrannical nobility with having
forsaken their sovereign, they were told that Jacque bon homme must pay
for all. But Jack good-man came forward in person—a leader appeared
under this fatal name, and the peasants revolting in madness, and being
joined by all the cut-throats and thieves of Paris, at once pronounced
condemnation on every gentleman in France! Froissart has the horrid
narrative; twelve thousand of these Jacques bon hommes expiated their
crimes; but the Jacquerie, who had received their first appellation in
derision, assumed it as their nom de guerre.

In the spirited Memoirs of the Duke of Guise, written by himself, of his
enterprise against the kingdom of Naples, we find a curious account of this
political art of marking people by odious nicknames. “Gennaro and
Vicenzo,” says the duke, “cherished underhand that aversion the rascality
had for the better sort of citizens and civiller people, who, by the
insolencies they suffered from these, not unjustly hated them. The better
class inhabiting the suburbs of the Virgin were called black cloaks, and the
ordinary sort of people took the name of lazars, both in French and English
an old word for leprous beggar, and hence the lazaroni of Naples.” We can
easily conceive the evil eye of a lazar when he encountered a black cloak!
The Duke adds—“Just as, at the beginning of the revolution, the revolters in
Flanders formerly took that of beggars; those of Guienne, that of eaters;
those of Normandy that of bare-feet; and of Beausse and Soulogne, of
wooden-pattens.” In the late French revolution, we observed the extremes
indulged by both parties chiefly concerned in revolution—the wealthy and
the poor! The rich, who, in derision, called their humble fellow-citizens by
the contemptuous term of sans-culottes, provoked a reacting injustice from
the populace, who, as a dreadful return for only a slight, rendered the
innocent term of aristocrate a signal for plunder or slaughter!

It is a curious fact that the French verb fronder, as well the noun
frondeur, are used to describe those who condemn the measures of
government; and more extensively, designates any hyperbolical and
malignant criticism, or any sort of condemnation. These words have only
been introduced into the language since the intrigues of Cardinal de Retz
succeeded in raising a faction against Cardinal Mazarin, known in French
history by the nickname of the Frondeurs, or the Slingers. It originated in
pleasantry, although it became the password for insurrection in France, and
the odious name of a faction. A wit observed, that the parliament were like
those school-boys, who fling their stones in the pits of Paris, and as soon as
they see the Lieutenant Civil, run away; but are sure to collect again directly

he disappears. The comparison was lively, and formed the burthen of songs;
and afterwards, when affairs were settled between the king and the
parliament, it was more particularly applied to the faction of Cardinal de
Retz, who still held out. “We encouraged the application,” says de Retz;
“for we observed that the distinction of a name heated the minds of people;
and one evening we resolved to wear hat-strings in the form of slings. A
hatter, who might be trusted with the secret, made a great number as a new
fashion, and which were worn by many who did not understand the joke;
we ourselves were the last to adopt them, that the invention might not
appear to have come from us. The effect of this trifle was immense; every
fashionable article was now to assume the shape of a sling; bread, hats,
gloves, handkerchiefs, fans, &c.; and we ourselves became more in fashion
by this folly, than by what was essential.” This revolutionary term was
never forgotten by the French, a circumstance which might have been
considered as prognostic of that after-revolution, which de Retz had the
imagination to project, but not the daring to establish. We see, however, this
great politician, confessing the advantages his party derived by encouraging
the application of a by-name, which served “to heat the minds of people.”

It is a curious circumstance that I should have to recount in this chapter
on “Political Nicknames” a familiar term with all lovers of art, that of
Silhouette! This is well understood as a black profile; but it is more
extraordinary that a term so universally adopted should not be found in any
dictionary, either in that of L’Académie, or in Todd’s, and has not even been
preserved, where it is quite indispensable, in Millin’s Dictionnaire des
Beaux-Arts! It is little suspected that this innocent term originated in a
political nickname! Silhouette was a minister of state in France in 1759; that
period was a critical one; the treasury was in an exhausted condition, and
Silhouette, a very honest man, who would hold no intercourse with
financiers or loan-mongers, could contrive no other expedient to prevent a
national bankruptcy, than excessive economy and interminable reform!

Paris was not the metropolis, any more than London, where a Plato or a
Zeno could long be minister of state without incurring all the ridicule of the
wretched wits! At first they pretended to take his advice, merely to laugh at
him:—they cut their coats shorter, and wore them without sleeves; they
turned their gold snuff-boxes into rough wooden ones; and the new-
fashioned portraits were now only profiles of a face, traced by a black
pencil on the shadow cast by a candle on white paper! All the fashions
assumed an air of niggardly economy, till poor Silhouette was driven into
retirement, with all his projects of savings and reforms; but he left his name
to describe the most economical sort of portrait, and one as melancholy as
his own fate!

This political artifice of appropriating cant terms, or odious nicknames,
could not fail to flourish among a people so perpetually divided by
contending interests as ourselves; every party with us have had their
watchword, which has served either to congregate themselves, or to set on
the ban-dogs of one faction to worry and tear those of another. We practised
it early, and we find it still prospering! The Puritan of Elizabeth’s reign
survives to this hour; the trying difficulties which that wise sovereign had to
overcome in settling the national religion, found no sympathy in either of
the great divisions of her people; she retained as much of the catholic rites
as might be decorous in the new religion, and sought to unite, and not to
separate, her children. John Knox, in the spirit of charity, declared, that “she
was neither gude protestant, nor yet resolute papist; let the world judge
quilk is the third.”

A jealous party arose, who were for reforming the reformation. In their
attempt at more than human purity, they obtained the nickname of Puritans;
and from their fastidiousness about very small matters, Precisians; these
Drayton characterises as persons that for a painted glass window would pull

down the whole church. At that early period these nicknames were soon
used in an odious sense; for Warner, a poet in the reign of Elizabeth, says,—

If hypocrites why puritaines we term be asked, in breese,
’Tis but an ironised terme; good-fellow so spels theese!

Honest Fuller, who knew that many good men were among these
Puritans, wished to decline the term altogether, under the less offensive one
of Non-conformists. But the fierce and the fiery of this party, in Charles the
First’s time had been too obtrusive not to fully merit the ironical
appellative; and the peaceful expedient of our moderator dropped away
with the page in which it was written. The people have frequently expressed
their own notions of different parliaments by some apt nickname. In
Richard the Second’s time, to express their dislike of the extraordinary and
irregular proceedings of the lords against the sovereign, as well as their
sanguinary measures, they called it “The wonder-working and the
unmerciful parliament.” In Edward the Third’s reign, when the Black Prince
was yet living, the parliament, for having pursued with severity the party of
the Duke of Lancaster, was so popular, that the people distinguished it as
the good parliament. In Henry the Third’s time, the parliament opposing the
king, was called “Parliamentum insanum,” the mad parliament, because the
lords came armed to insist on the confirmation of the great charter. A
Scottish parliament, from its perpetual shiftings from place to place was
ludicrously nicknamed the running parliament; in the same spirit we had
our long parliament. The nickname of Pensioner parliament stuck to the
House of Commons which sate nearly eighteen years without dissolution,
under Charles the Second; and others have borne satirical or laudatory
epithets. So true it is, as old Holingshed observed, “The common people
will manie times give such bie names as seemeth best liking to themselves.”

It would be a curious speculation to discover the sources of the popular
feeling; influenced by delusion, or impelled by good sense!

The exterminating political nickname of malignant darkened the nation
through the civil wars: it was a proscription—and a list of good and bad
lords was read by the leaders of the first tumults. Of all these inventions,
this diabolical one was most adapted to exasperate the animosities of the
people, so often duped by names. I have never detected the active man of
faction who first hit on this odious brand for persons, but the period when
the word changed its ordinary meaning was early; Charles, in 1642, retorts
on the parliamentarians the opprobrious distinction, as “The true malignant
party which has contrived and countenanced those barbarous tumults.” And
the royalists pleaded for themselves, that the hateful designation was ill
applied to them: “for by malignity you denote,” said they, “activity in doing
evil, whereas we have always been on the suffering side in our persons,
credits, and estates;” but the parliamentarians, “grinning a ghastly smile,”
would reply, that “the royalists would have been malignant had they proved
successful.” The truth is, that malignancy meant with both parties any
opposition of opinion. At the same period the offensive distinctions of
roundheads and cavaliers supplied the people with party names, who were
already provided with so many religious as well as civil causes of quarrel;
the cropt heads of the sullen sectaries and the people, were the origin of the
derisory nickname; the splendid elegance and the romantic spirit of the
royalists long awed the rabble, who in their mockery could brand them by
no other appellation than one in which their bearers gloried. In the
distracted times of early revolution, any nickname, however vague, will
fully answer a purpose, although neither those who are blackened by the
odium, nor those who cast it, can define the hateful appellative. When the
term of delinquents came into vogue, it expressed a degree and species of
guilt, says Hume, not exactly known or ascertained. It served, however, the
end of those revolutionists who had coined it, by involving any person in, or

colouring any action by, delinquency; and many of the nobility and gentry
were, without any questions being asked, suddenly discovered to have
committed the crime of delinquency! Whether honest Fuller be facetious or
grave on this period of nicknaming parties I will not decide; but, when he
tells us that there was another word which was introduced into our nation at
this time, I think at least that the whole passage is an admirable
commentary on this party vocabulary. “Contemporary with malignants is
the word plunder, which some make of Latin original, from planum dare, to
level, to plane all to nothing! Others of Dutch extraction, as if it were to
plume, or pluck the feathers of a bird to the bare skin.48 Sure I am we first
heard of it in the Swedish wars; and if the name and thing be sent back from
whence it came few English eyes would weep thereat.” All England had
wept at the introduction of the word. The rump was the filthy nickname of
an odious faction—the history of this famous appellation, which was at first
one of horror, till it afterwards became one of derision and contempt, must
be referred to another place. The rump became a perpetual whetstone for
the loyal wits,49 till at length its former admirers, the rabble themselves, in
town and country, vied with each other in “burning rumps” of beef, which
were hung by chains on a gallows with a bonfire underneath, and proved
how the people, like children, come at length to make a plaything of that
which was once their bugbear.

Charles the Second, during the short holiday of the restoration—all
holidays seem short!—and when he and the people were in good humour,
granted anything to every one,—the mode of “Petitions” got at length very
inconvenient, and the king in council declared that this petitioning was “A
method set on foot by ill men to promote discontents among the people,”
and enjoined his loving subjects not to subscribe them. The petitioners,
however, persisted—when a new party rose to express their abhorrence of
petitioning; both parties nicknamed each other the petitioners and the
abhorrers! Their day was short, but fierce; the petitioners, however weak in

their cognomen, were far the bolder of the two, for the commons were with
them, and the abhorrers had expressed by their term rather the strength of
their inclinations than of their numbers. Charles the Second said to a
petitioner from Taunton, “How dare you deliver me such a paper?” “Sir,”
replied the petitioner from Taunton, “my name is Dare!” A saucy reply, for
which he was tried, fined, and imprisoned; when lo! the commons
petitioned again to release the petitioner! “The very name,” says Hume, “by
which each party denominated its antagonists discovers the virulence and
rancour which prevailed; for besides petitioner and abhorrer, this year is
remarkable for being the epoch of the well-known epithets of whig and
tory.” These silly terms of reproach, whig and tory, are still preserved
among us, as if the palladium of British liberty was guarded by these exotic
names, for they are not English, which the parties so invidiously bestow on
each other. They are ludicrous enough in their origin. The friends of the
court and the advocates of lineal succession were, by the republican party,
branded with the title of tories, which was the name of certain Irish
robbers;50 while the court party in return could find no other revenge than
by appropriating to the covenanters and the republicans of that class the
name of the Scotch beverage of sour milk, whose virtue they considered so
expressive of their dispositions, and which is called whigg. So ridiculous in
their origin were these pernicious nicknames, which long excited feuds and
quarrels in domestic life, and may still be said to divide into two great
parties this land of political freedom. But nothing becomes obsolete in
political factions, and the meaner and more scandalous the name affixed by
one party to another the more it becomes not only their rallying cry or their
password, but even constitutes their glory. Thus the Hollanders long prided
themselves on the humiliating nickname of “Les Gueux:” the protestants of
France on the scornful one of the Huguenots; the non-conformists in
England on the mockery of the puritan; and all parties have perpetuated
their anger by their inglorious names. Swift was well aware of this truth in

political history: “each party,” says that sagacious observer, “grows proud
of that appellation which their adversaries at first intended as a reproach; of
this sort were the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, Huguenots and Cavaliers.”

Nor has it been only by nicknaming each other by derisory or
opprobrious terms that parties have been marked, but they have also worn a
livery, and practised distinctive manners. What sufferings did not Italy
endure for a long series of years under those fatal party-names of the
Guelphs and the Ghibellines; alternately the victors and the vanquished, the
beautiful land of Italy drank the blood of her children. Italy, like Greece,
opens a moving picture of the hatreds and jealousies of small republics; her
Bianchi and her Neri, her Guelphs and her Ghibellines! In Bologna, two
great families once shook that city with their divisions; the Pepoli adopted
the French interests; the Maluezzi the Spanish. It was incurring some danger
to walk the streets of Bologna, for the Pepoli wore their feathers on the
right side of their caps, and the Maluezzi on the left. Such was the party-
hatred of the two great Italian factions, that they carried their rancour even
into their domestic habits; at table the Guelphs placed their knives and
spoons longwise, and the Ghibellines across; the one cut their bread across,
the other longwise. Even in cutting an orange they could not agree; for the
Guelph cut his orange horizontally, and the Ghibelline downwards.
Children were taught these artifices of faction—their hatreds became
traditional, and thus the Italians perpetuated the full benefits of their party-
spirit from generation to generation.51

Men in private life go down to their graves with some unlucky name, not
received in baptism, but more descriptive and picturesque; and even
ministers of state have winced at a political christening. Malagrida the
Jesuit and Jemmy Twitcher were nicknames which made one of our
ministers odious, and another contemptible.52 The Earl of Godolphin caught
such fire at that of Volpone, that it drove him into the opposite party, for the

vindictive purpose of obtaining the impolitical prosecution of Sacheverell,
who, in his famous sermon, had first applied it to the earl, and unluckily it
had stuck to him.

“Faction,” says Lord Orford, “is as capricious as fortune; wrongs,
oppression, the zeal of real patriots, or the genius of false ones, may
sometimes be employed for years in kindling substantial opposition to
authority; in other seasons the impulse of a moment, a ballad, a nickname, a
fashion can throw a city into a tumult, and shake the foundations of a state.”

Such is a slight history of the human passions in politics! We might
despair in thus discovering that wisdom and patriotism so frequently
originate in this turbid source of party; but we are consoled when we reflect
that the most important political principles are immutable: and that they are
those which even the spirit of party must learn to reverence.

47 See Recueil Chronologique et Analytique de tout ce qui a fait en Portugal la Société de
Jesus. Vol. ii. sect. 406.

48 Plunder, observed Mr. Douce, is pure Dutch or Flemish—Plunderen, from Plunder,
which means property of any kind. May tells us it was brought by those officers who had
returned from the wars of the Netherlands.

49 One of the best collections of political songs written during the great Civil War, is entitled
“The Rump,” and has a curious frontispiece representing the mob burning rumps as described
above.

50 The “History of the Tories and Rapparees” was a popular Irish chapbook a few years ago,
and devoted to the daring acts of these marauders.

51 These curious particulars I found in a manuscript.

52 Lord Shelburne was named “Malagrida,” and Lord Sandwich was “Jemmy Twitcher;” a
name derived from the chief of Macheath’s gang in the Beggar’s Opera.

THE DOMESTIC LIFE OF A POET.—SHENSTONE
VINDICATED.

The dogmatism of Johnson, and the fastidiousness of Gray, the critic who
passed his days amidst “the busy hum of men,” and the poet who mused in
cloistered solitude, have fatally injured a fine natural genius in Shenstone.
Mr. Campbell, with a brother’s feeling, has (since the present article was
composed) sympathised with the endowments and the pursuits of this poet;
but the facts I had collected seemed to me to open a more important view. I
am aware how lightly the poetical character of Shenstone is held by some
great contemporaries—although this very poet has left us at least one poem
of unrivalled originality. Mr. Campbell has regretted that Shenstone not
only “affected that arcadianism” which “gives a certain air of masquerade
in his pastoral character,” adopted by our earlier poets, but also has “rather
incongruously blended together the rural swain with the disciple of virtù.”
All this requires some explanation. It is not only as a poet, possessing the
characteristics of poetry, but as a creator in another way, for which I claim
the attention of the reader. I have formed a picture of the domestic life of a
poet, and the pursuits of a votary of taste, both equally contracted in their
endeavours, from the habits, the emotions, and the events which occurred to
Shenstone.

Four material circumstances influenced his character, and were
productive of all his unhappiness. The neglect he incurred in those poetical

studies to which he had devoted his hopes; his secret sorrows in not having
formed a domestic union, from prudential motives, with one whom he
loved; the ruinous state of his domestic affairs, arising from a seducing
passion for creating a new taste in landscape gardening and an ornamented
farm; and finally, his disappointment of that promised patronage, which
might have induced him to have become a political writer; for which his
inclinations, and, it is said, his talents in early life, were alike adapted: with
these points in view, we may trace the different states of his mind, show
what he did, and what he was earnestly intent to have done.

Why have the “Elegies” of Shenstone, which forty years ago formed for
many of us the favourite poems of our youth, ceased to delight us in mature
life? It is perhaps that these Elegies, planned with peculiar felicity, have
little in their execution. They form a series of poetical truths, devoid of
poetical expression; truths,—for notwithstanding the pastoral romance in
which the poet has enveloped himself, the subjects are real, and the feelings
could not, therefore, be fictitious.

In a Preface, remarkable for its graceful simplicity, our poet tells us, that
“He entered on his subjects occasionally, as particular incidents in life
suggested, or dispositions of mind recommended them to his choice.” He
shows that “He drew his pictures from the spot, and, he felt very sensibly
the affections he communicates.” He avers that all those attendants on rural
scenery, and all those allusions to rural life, were not the counterfeited
scenes of a town poet, any more than the sentiments, which were inspired
by Nature. Shenstone’s friend Graves, who knew him in early life, and to
his last days, informs us that these Elegies were written when he had taken
the Leasowes into his own hands;53 and though his ferme ornée engaged his
thoughts, he occasionally wrote them, “partly,” said Shenstone, “to divert
my present impatience, and partly, as it will be a picture of most that passes
in my own mind; a portrait which friends may value.” This, then, is the

secret charm which acts so forcibly on the first emotions of our youth, at a
moment when, not too difficult to be pleased, the reflected delineations of
the habits and the affections, the hopes and the delights, with all the
domestic associations of this poet, always true to Nature, reflect back that
picture of ourselves which we instantly recognise. It is only as we advance
in life that we lose the relish of our early simplicity, and that we discover
that Shenstone was not endowed with high imagination.

These Elegies, with some other poems, may be read with a new interest
when we discover them to form the true Memoirs of Shenstone. Records of
querulous but delightful feelings! whose subjects spontaneously offered
themselves from passing incidents; they still perpetuate emotions which
will interest the young poet and the young lover of taste.

Elegy IV., the first which Shenstone composed, is entitled “Ophelia’s
Urn,” and it was no unreal one! It was erected by Graves in Mickleton
Church, to the memory of an extraordinary young woman, Utrecia Smith,
the literary daughter of a learned but poor clergyman. Utrecia had formed
so fine a taste for literature, and composed with such elegance in verse and
prose, that an excellent judge declared that “he did not like to form his
opinion of any author till he previously knew hers.” Graves had been long
attached to her, but from motives of prudence broke off an intercourse with
this interesting woman, who sunk under this severe disappointment. When
her prudent lover, Graves, inscribed the urn, her friend Shenstone, perhaps
more feelingly, commemorated her virtues and her tastes. Such, indeed, was
the friendly intercourse between Shenstone and Utrecia, that in Elegy
XVIII., written long after her death, she still lingered in his reminiscences.
Composing this Elegy on the calamitous close of Somerville’s life, a
brother bard, and victim to narrow circumstances, and which he probably
contemplated as an image of his own, Shenstone tenderly recollects that he
used to read Somerville’s poems to Utrecia:—

Oh, lost Ophelia; smoothly flow’d the day
To feel his music with my flames agree;
To taste the beauties of his melting lay,
To taste, and fancy it was dear to thee!

How true is the feeling! how mean the poetical expression!

The Seventh Elegy describes a vision, where the shadow of Wolsey
breaks upon the author:

A graceful form appear’d,
White were his locks, with awful scarlet crown’d.

Even this fanciful subject was not chosen capriciously, but sprung from an
incident. Once, on his way to Cheltenham, Shenstone missed his road, and
wandered till late at night among the Cotswold Hills on this occasion he
appears to have made a moral reflection, which we find in his “Essays.”
“How melancholy is it to travel late upon any ambitious project on a
winter’s night, and observe the light of cottages, where all the unambitious
people are warm and happy, or at rest in their beds.” While the benighted
poet, lost among the lonely hills, was meditating on “ambitious projects,”
the character of Wolsey arose before him; the visionary cardinal crossed his
path, and busied his imagination. “Thou,” exclaims the poet,

Like a meteor’s fire,
Shot’st blazing forth, disdaining dull degrees.
Elegy vii.

And the bard, after discovering all the miseries of unhappy grandeur, and
murmuring at this delay to the house of his friend, exclaims—

Oh if these ills the price of power advance,
Check not my speed where social joys invite!

The silent departure of the poetical spectre is fine:

The troubled vision cast a mournful glance,
And sighing, vanish’d in the shades of night.

And to prove that the subject of this elegy thus arose to the poet’s fancy, he
has himself commemorated the incident that gave occasion to it, in the
opening:—

On distant heaths, beneath autumnal skies,
Pensive I saw the circling shades descend;
Weary and faint, I heard the storm arise,
While the sun vanish’d like a faithless friend.
Elegy vii.

The Fifteenth Elegy, composed “in memory of a private family in
Worcestershire,” is on the extinction of the ancient family of the Penns in
the male line.54 Shenstone’s mother was a Penn; and the poet was now the
inhabitant of their ancient mansion, an old timber-built house of the age of
Elizabeth. The local description was a real scene—“the shaded pool”—“the
group of ancient elms”—“the flocking rooks,” and the picture of the simple
manners of his own ancestors, were realities; the emotions they excited
were therefore genuine, and not one of those “mockeries” of amplification
from the crowd of verse-writers.

The Tenth Elegy, “To Fortune, suggesting his Motive for repining at her
Dispensations,” with his celebrated “Pastoral Ballad, in four parts.” were

alike produced by what one of the great minstrels of our own times has so
finely indicated when he sung—

The secret woes the world has never known;
While on the weary night dawn’d wearier day,
And bitterer was the grief devour’d alone.

In this Elegy Shenstone repines at the dispensations of Fortune, not for
having denied him her higher gifts, nor that she compels him to

Check the fond love of art that fired my veins;

nor that some “dull dotard with boundless wealth” finds his “grating reed”
preferred to the bard’s, but that the “tawdry shepherdess” of this dull dotard,
by her “pride,” makes “the rural thane” despise the poet’s Delia.

Must Delia’s softness, elegance, and ease,
Submit to Marian’s dress? to Marian’s gold?
Must Marian’s robe from distant India please?
The simple fleece my Delia’s limbs infold!
Ah! what is native worth esteemed of clowns?
’Tis thy false glare, O Fortune! thine they see;
Tis for my Delia’s sake I dread thy frowns,
And my last gasp shall curses breathe on thee!

The Delia of our poet was not an “Iris en air.” Shenstone was early in life
captivated by a young lady, whom Graves describes with all those mild and
serene graces of pensive melancholy, touched by plaintive love-songs and
elegies of woe, adapted not only to be the muse but the mistress of a poet.
The sensibility of this passion took entire possession of his heart for some

years, and it was in parting from her that he first sketched his exquisite
“Pastoral Ballad.” As he retreated more and more into solitude, his passion
felt no diminution. Dr. Nash informs us that Shenstone acknowledged that it
was his own fault that he did not accept the hand of the lady whom he so
tenderly loved; but his spirit could not endure to be a perpetual witness of
her degradation in the rank of society, by an inconsiderate union with poetry
and poverty. That such was his motive, we may infer from a passage in one
of his letters. “Love, as it regularly tends to matrimony, requires certain
favours from fortune and circumstances to render it proper to be indulged
in.” There are perpetual allusions to these “secret woes” in his
correspondence; for, although he had the fortitude to refuse marriage, he
had not the stoicism to contract his own heart in cold and sullen celibacy.
He thus alludes to this subject, which so often excited far other emotions
than those of humour:—“It is long since I have considered myself as
undone. The world will not, perhaps, consider me in that light entirely till I
have married my maid!”

It is probable that our poet had an intention of marrying his maid. I
discovered a pleasing anecdote among the late Mr. Bindley’s collections,
which I transcribed from the original. On the back of a picture of Shenstone
himself, of which Dodsley published a print in 1780, the following
energetic inscription was written by the poet on his new-year’s gift:—

“This picture belongs to Mary Cutler, given her by her master, William
Shenstone, January 1st, 1754, in acknowledgment of her native genius, her
magnanimity, her tenderness, and her fidelity.

“W. S.”

“The Progress of Taste; or the Fate of Delicacy,” is a poem on the temper
and studies of the author; and “Economy; a Rhapsody addressed to Young

Poets,” abounds with self-touches. If Shenstone created little from the
imagination, he was at least perpetually under the influence of real
emotions. This is the reason why his truths so strongly operate on the
juvenile mind, not yet matured: and thus we have sufficiently ascertained
the fact, as the poet himself has expressed it, “that he drew his pictures from
the spot, and he felt very sensibly the affections he communicates.”

All the anxieties of a poetical life were early experienced by Shenstone.
He first published some juvenile productions, under a very odd title,
indicative of modesty, perhaps too of pride.55 And his motto of Contentus
paucis lectoribus, even Horace himself might have smiled at, for it only
conceals the desire of every poet who pants to deserve many! But when he
tried at a more elaborate poetical labour, “The Judgment of Hercules,” it
failed to attract notice. He hastened to town, and he beat about literary
coffee-houses; and returned to the country from the chase of Fame, wearied
without having started it.

A breath revived him—but a breath o’erthrew.

Even “The Judgment of Hercules” between Indolence and Industry, or
Pleasure and Virtue, was a picture of his own feelings; an argument drawn
from his own reasonings; indicating the uncertainty of the poet’s dubious
disposition; who finally by siding with Indolence, lost that triumph which
his hero obtained by a directly opposite course.

In the following year begins that melancholy strain in his correspondence
which marks the disappointment of the man who had staked too great a
quantity of his happiness on the poetical die. This is the critical moment of
life when our character is formed by habit, and our fate is decided by
choice. Was Shenstone to become an active or contemplative being? He
yielded to nature!56

It was now that he entered into another species of poetry, working with
too costly materials, in the magical composition of plants, water, and earth;
with these he created those emotions which his more strictly poetical ones
failed to excite. He planned a paradise amidst his solitude. When we
consider that Shenstone, in developing his fine pastoral ideas in the
Leasowes, educated the nation into that taste for landscape-gardening,
which has become the model of all Europe, this itself constitutes a claim on
the gratitude of posterity.57 Thus the private pleasures of a man of genius
may become at length those of a whole people. The creator of this new taste
appears to have received far less notice than he merited. The name of
Shenstone does not appear in the Essay on Gardening by Lord Orford: even
the supercilious Gray only bestowed a ludicrous image on these pastoral
scenes, which, however, his friend Mason has celebrated; and the genius of
Johnson, incapacitated by nature to touch on objects of rural fancy, after
describing some of the offices of the landscape designer, adds, that “he will
not inquire whether they demand any great powers of mind.” Johnson,
however, conveys to us his own feelings, when he immediately expresses
them under the character of a “sullen and surly speculator.” The anxious life
of Shenstone would, indeed, have been remunerated, could he have read the
enchanting eulogium of Wheatley on the Leasowes; which, said he, “is a
perfect picture of his mind—simple, elegant, and amiable; and will always
suggest a doubt whether the spot inspired his verse, or whether in the scenes
which he formed, he only realized the pastoral images which abound in his
songs.” Yes! Shenstone would have been delighted, could he have heard
that Montesquieu, on his return home, adorned his “Château gothique, mais
orné de bois charmans, dont j’ai pris l’idée en Angleterre;” and Shenstone,
even with his modest and timid nature, had been proud to have witnessed a
noble foreigner, amidst memorials dedicated to Theocritus and Virgil, to
Thomson and Gesner, raising in his grounds an inscription, in bad English,
but in pure taste, to Shenstone himself for having displayed in his writings

“a mind natural,” and in his Leasowes “laid Arcadian greens rural.”
Recently Pindemonte has traced the taste of English gardening to
Shenstone. A man of genius sometimes receives from foreigners, who are
placed out of the prejudices of his compatriots, the tribute of posterity!

Amidst these rural elegancies which Shenstone was raising about him,
his muse has pathetically sung his melancholy feelings—

But did the Muses haunt his cell,
Or in his dome did Venus dwell?—
When all the structures shone complete,
Ah, me! ’twas Damon’s own confession,
Came Poverty, and took possession.
The Progress of Taste.

The poet observes, that the wants of philosophy are contracted, satisfied
with “cheap contentment,” but

Taste alone requires
Entire profusion! days and nights, and hours
Thy voice, hydropic Fancy! calls aloud
For costly draughts.——
Economy.

An original image illustrates that fatal want of economy which conceals
itself amidst the beautiful appearances of taste:—

Some graceless mark,
Some symptom ill-conceal’d, shall soon or late
Burst like a pimple from the vicious tide
Of acid blood, proclaiming want’s disease

Amidst the bloom of show.
Economy.

He paints himself:—

Observe Florelio’s mien;
Why treads my friend with melancholy step
That beauteous lawn? Why pensive strays his eye
O’er statues, grottos, urns, by critic art
Proportion’d fair? or from his lofty dome
Returns his eye unpleased, disconsolate?

The cause is, “criminal expense,” and he exclaims—

Sweet interchange
Of river, valley, mountain, woods, and plains,
How gladsome once he ranged your native turf,
Your simple scenes how raptured! ere Expense
Had lavish’d thousand ornaments, and taught
Convenience to perplex him, Art to pall,
Pomp to deject, and Beauty to displease.
Economy.

While Shenstone was rearing hazels and hawthorns, opening vistas, and
winding waters;

And having shown them where to stray,
Threw little pebbles in their way;

while he was pulling down hovels and cowhouses, to compose mottos and
inscriptions for garden-seats and urns; while he had so finely obscured with
a tender gloom the grove of Virgil, and thrown over, “in the midst of a
plantation of yew, a bridge of one arch, built of a dusty-coloured stone, and
simple even to rudeness,”58 and invoked Oberon in some Arcadian scene,

Where in cool grot and mossy cell
The tripping fauns and fairies dwell;

the solitary magician, who had raised all these wonders, was, in reality, an
unfortunate poet, the tenant of a dilapidated farm-house, where the winds
passed through, and the rains lodged, often taking refuge in his own kitchen
—

Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth!

In a letter59 of the disconsolate founder of landscape gardening, our
author paints his situation with all its misery—lamenting that his house is
not fit to receive “polite friends, were they so disposed;” and resolved to
banish all others, he proceeds:

“But I make it a certain rule, ‘arcere profanum vulgus.’ Persons who will
despise you for the want of a good set of chairs, or an uncouth fire-shovel,
at the same time that they can’t taste any excellence in a mind that
overlooks those things; with whom it is in vain that your mind is furnished,
if the walls are naked; indeed one loses much of one’s acquisitions in virtue
by an hour’s converse with such as judge of merit by money—yet I am now
and then impelled by the social passion to sit half an hour in my kitchen.”

But the solicitude of friends and the fate of Somerville, a neighbour and a
poet, often compelled Shenstone to start amidst his reveries; and thus he has
preserved his feelings and his irresolutions. Reflecting on the death of
Somerville, he writes—

“To be forced to drink himself into pains of the body, in order to get rid
of the pains of the mind, is a misery which I can well conceive, because I
may, without vanity, esteem myself his equal in point of economy, and
consequently ought to have an eye on his misfortunes—(as you kindly
hinted to me about twelve o’clock, at the Feathers.)—I should retrench—I
will—but you shall not see me—I will not let you know that I took it in
good part—I will do it at solitary times as I may.”

Such were the calamities of “great taste” with “little fortune;” but in the
case of Shenstone, these were combined with the other calamity of
“mediocrity of genius.”

Here, then, at the Leasowes, with occasional trips to town in pursuit of
fame, which perpetually eluded his grasp; in the correspondence of a few
delicate minds, whose admiration was substituted for more genuine
celebrity; composing diatribes against economy and taste, while his income
was diminishing every year; our neglected author grew daily more indolent
and sedentary, and withdrawing himself entirely into his own hermitage,
moaned and despaired in an Arcadian solitude.60 The cries and the “secret
sorrows” of Shenstone have come down to us—those of his brothers have
not always! And shall dull men, because they have minds cold and obscure,
like a Lapland year which has no summer, be permitted to exult over this
class of men of sensibility and taste, but of moderate genius and without
fortune? The passions and emotions of the heart are facts and dates only to
those who possess them.

To what a melancholy state was our author reduced, when he thus
addressed his friend:—

“I suppose you have been informed that my fever was in a great measure
hypochondriacal, and left my nerves so extremely sensible, that even on no
very interesting subjects, I could readily think myself into a vertigo; I had
almost said an epilepsy; for surely I was oftentimes near it.”

The features of this sad portrait are more particularly made out in another
place.

“Now I am come home from a visit, every little uneasiness is sufficient to
introduce my whole train of melancholy considerations, and to make me
utterly dissatisfied with the life I now lead, and the life which I foresee I
shall lead. I am angry and envious, and dejected and frantic, and disregard
all present things, just as becomes a madman to do. I am infinitely pleased
(though it is a gloomy joy) with the application of Dr. Swift’s complaint,
‘that he is forced to die in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.’ My soul is
no more fitted to the figure I make, than a cable rope to a cambric needle; I
cannot bear to see the advantages alienated, which I think I could deserve
and relish so much more than those that have them.”

There are other testimonies in his entire correspondence. Whenever
forsaken by his company he describes the horrors around him, delivered up
“to winter, silence, and reflection;” ever foreseeing himself “returning to the
same series of melancholy hours.” His frame shattered by the whole train of
hypochondriacal symptoms, there was nothing to cheer the querulous
author, who with half the consciousness of genius, lived neglected and
unpatronised. His elegant mind had not the force, by his productions, to
draw the celebrity he sighed after, to his hermitage.

Shenstone was so anxious for his literary character, that he contemplated
on the posthumous fame which he might derive from the publication of his

letters: see Letter lxxix., On hearing his letters to Mr. Whistler were
destroyed; the act of a merchant, his brother, who being a very sensible
man, as Graves describes, yet with the stupidity of a Goth, destroyed the
whole correspondence of Shenstone, for “its sentimental intercourse.”—
Shenstone bitterly regrets the loss, and says, “I would have given more
money for the letters than it is allowable for me to mention with decency. I
look upon my letters as some of my chefs-d’œuvre—they are the history of
my mind for these twenty years past.” This, with the loss of Cowley’s
correspondence, should have been preserved in the article, “of Suppressors
and Dilapidators of Manuscripts.”

Towards the close of life, when his spirits were exhausted, and “the silly
clue of hopes and expectations,” as he termed them, was undone, the notice
of some persons of rank began to reach him. Shenstone, however, deeply
colours the variable state of his own mind—”Recovering from a nervous
fever, as I have since discovered by many concurrent symptoms, I seem to
anticipate a little of that ‘vernal delight’ which Milton mentions and thinks

———able to chase
All sadness but despair—

at least I begin to resume my silly clue of hopes and expectations.”

In a former letter he had, however, given them up: “I begin to wean
myself from all hopes and expectations whatever. I feed my wild-ducks, and
I water my carnations. Happy enough if I could extinguish my ambition
quite, to indulge the desire of being something more beneficial in my
sphere.—Perhaps some few other circumstances would want also to be
adjusted.”

What were these “hopes and expectations,” from which sometimes he
weans himself, and which are perpetually revived, and are attributed to “an

ambition he cannot extinguish”? This article has been written in vain, if the
reader has not already perceived, that they had haunted him in early life;
sickening his spirit after the possession of a poetical celebrity, unattainable
by his genius; some expectations too he might have cherished from the
talent he possessed for political studies, in which Graves confidently says,
that “he would have made no inconsiderable figure, if he had had a
sufficient motive for applying his mind to them.” Shenstone has left several
proofs of this talent.61 But his master-passion for literary fame had
produced little more than anxieties and disappointments; and when he
indulged his pastoral fancy in a beautiful creation on his grounds, it
consumed the estate which it adorned. Johnson forcibly expressed his
situation: “His death was probably hastened by his anxieties. He was a lamp
that spent its oil in blazing. It is said, that if he had lived a little longer, he
would have been assisted by a pension.”

53 This once-celebrated abode of the poet is situated at Hales-Owen, Shropshire.

54 This we learn from Dr. Nash’s History of Worcestershire.

55 While at college he printed, without his name, a small volume of verses, with this title,
“Poems upon various Occasions, written for the Entertainment of the Author, and printed for the
Amusement of a few Friends, prejudiced in his Favour.” Oxford, 1737. 12mo.—Nash’s “History
of Worcestershire,” vol. i. p. 528.

I find this notice of it in W. Lowndes’s Catalogue; 4433 Shenstone (W.) Poems, 3l. 13s. 6d.—
(Shenstone took uncommon pains to suppress this book, by collecting and destroying copies
wherever he met with them.)—In, Longman’s Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica, it is valued at 15l.
Oxf. 1737. Mr. Harris informs me, that about the year 1770, Fletcher, the bookseller, at Oxford,
had many copies of this first edition, which he sold at Eighteen pence each. These prices are
amusing! The prices of books are connected with their history.

56 On this subject Graves makes a very useful observation. “In this decision the happiness of
Mr. Shenstone was materially concerned. Whether he determined wisely or not, people of taste

and people of worldly prudence will probably be of very different opinions. I somewhat suspect,
that ‘people of worldly prudence’ are not half the fools that ‘people of taste’ insist they are.”

57 Shenstone’s farm was surrounded by winding walks, decorated with vases and statues,
varied by wood and water, and occasionally embracing fine views over Frankley and Clent
Hills, and the country about Cradley, Dudley, Rawley, and the intermediate places. Some of his
vases were inscribed to the memory of relatives and friends. One had a Latin inscription to his
cousin Maria, another was dedicated to Somerville his poet-friend. In different parts of his
domain he constructed buildings at once useful and ornamental, destined to serve farm-
purposes, but to be also grateful to the eye. A Chinese bridge led to a temple beside a lake, and
near was a seat inscribed with the popular Shropshire toast to “all friends round the Wrekin,” the
spot commanding a distant view of the hill so named. A wild path through a small wood led to
an ingeniously constructed root-house, beside which a rivulet ran which helped to form the lake
already mentioned; on its banks was a dedicatory urn to the Genio Loci. The general effect of
the whole place was highly praised in the poet’s time. It was neglected at his death; and its
description is now but a record of the past.

58 Wheatley, on “Modern Gardening,” p. 172. Edition 5th.

59 In “Hull’s Collection,” vol. ii. letter ii.

60 Graves was supposed to have glanced at his friend Shenstone in his novel of “Columella;
or, the Distressed Anchoret.” The aim of this work is to convey all the moral instruction I could
wish to offer here to youthful genius. It is written to show the consequence of a person of
education and talents retiring to solitude and indolence in the vigour of youth. Nichols’s
“Literary Anecdotes,” vol. iii. p. 134. Nash’s “History of Worcestershire,” vol. i. p. 528.

61 See his “Letters” xl. and xli., and more particularly xlii. and xliii., with a new theory of
political principles.

SECRET HISTORY OF THE BUILDING OF BLENHEIM.

The secret history of this national edifice derives importance from its
nature, and the remarkable characters involved in the unparalleled
transaction. The great architect, when obstructed in the progress of his work
by the irregular payments of the workmen, appears to have practised one of
his own comic plots to put the debts on the hero himself; while the duke,
who had it much at heart to inhabit the palace of his fame, but tutored into
wariness under the vigilant and fierce eye of Atossa,62 would neither
approve nor disapprove, silently looked on in hope and in grief, from year
to year, as the work proceeded, or as it was left at a stand. At length we find
this comédie larmoyante wound up by the duchess herself, in an attempt
utterly to ruin the enraged and insulted architect!63

Perhaps this was the first time that it had ever been resolved in
parliament to raise a public monument of glory and gratitude—to an
individual! The novelty of the attempt may serve as the only excuse for the
loose arrangements which followed after parliament had approved of the
design, without voting any specific supply for the purpose! The queen
always issued the orders at her own expense, and commanded expedition;
and while Anne lived, the expenses of the building were included in her
majesty’s debts, as belonging to the civil list sanctioned by parliament.64

When George the First came to the throne, the parliament declared the
debt to be the debt of the queen, and the king granted a privy seal as for
other debts. The crown and the parliament had hitherto proceeded in perfect
union respecting this national edifice. However, I find that the workmen

were greatly in arrears; for when George the First ascended the throne, they
gladly accepted a third part of their several debts!

The great architect found himself amidst inextricable difficulties. With
the fertile invention which amuses in his comedies, he contrived an
extraordinary scheme, by which he proposed to make the duke himself
responsible for the building of Blenheim!

However much the duke longed to see the magnificent edifice concluded,
he showed the same calm intrepidity in the building of Blenheim as he had
in its field of action. Aware that if he himself gave any order, or suggested
any alteration, he might be involved in the expense of the building, he was
never to be circumvented—never to be surprised into a spontaneous
emotion of pleasure or disapprobation; on no occasion, he declares, had he
even entered into conversation with the architect (though his friend) or with
any one acting under his orders, about Blenheim House! Such impenetrable
prudence on all sides had often blunted the subdolous ingenuity of the
architect and plotter of comedies!

In the absence of the duke, when abroad in 1705, Sir John contrived to
obtain from Lord Godolphin, the friend and relative of the Duke of
Marlborough, and probably his agent in some of his concerns, a warrant,
constituting Vanbrugh surveyor, with power of contracting on the behalf of
the Duke of Marlborough. How he prevailed on Lord Godolphin to get this
appointment does not appear—his lordship probably conceived it was
useful, and might assist in expediting the great work, the favourite object of
the hero. This warrant, however, Vanbrugh kept entirely to himself; he
never mentioned to the duke that he was in possession of any such power;
nor, on his return, did he claim to have it renewed.

The building proceeded with the same delays, and the payments with the
same irregularity; the veteran now foresaw what happened, that he should

never be the inhabitant of his own house! The public money issued from the
Treasury was never to be depended on; and after 1712, the duke took the
building upon himself, for the purpose of accommodating the workmen.
They had hitherto received what was called “crown pay,” which was high
wages and uncertain payment—and they now gladly abated a third of their
prices. But though the duke had undertaken to pay the workmen, this could
make no alteration in the claims on the Treasury. Blenheim was to be built
for Marlborough, not by him; it was a monument raised by the nation to
their hero, not a palace to be built by their mutual contributions.

Whether Marlborough found that his own million might be slowly
injured while the Treasury remained still obdurate, or that the architect was
still more and more involved, I cannot tell; but in 1715, the workmen
appear to have struck, and the old delays and stand-still again renewed. It
was then Sir John, for the first time, produced the warrant he had extracted
from Lord Godolphin, to lay before the Treasury; adding, however, a
memorandum, to prevent any misconception, that the duke was to be
considered as the paymaster, the debts incurred devolving on the crown.
This part of our secret history requires more development than I am enabled
to afford: as my information is drawn from “the Case” of the Duke of
Marlborough in reply to Sir John’s depositions, it is possible Vanbrugh may
suffer more than he ought in this narration; which, however, incidentally
notices his own statements.

A new scene opens! Vanbrugh not obtaining his claims from the Treasury,
and the workmen becoming more clamorous, the architect suddenly turns
round on the duke, at once to charge him with the whole debt.

The pitiable history of this magnificent monument of public gratitude,
from its beginnings, is given by Vanbrugh in his deposition. The great
architect represents himself as being comptroller of her majesty’s works;
and as such was appointed to prepare a model, which model of Blenheim

House her majesty kept in her palace, and gave her commands to issue
money according to the direction of Mr. Travers, the queen’s surveyor-
general; that the lord treasurer appointed her majesty’s own officers to
supervise these works; that it was upon defect of money from the Treasury
that the workmen grew uneasy; that the work was stopped, till further
orders of money from the Treasury; that the queen then ordered enough to
secure it from winter weather; that afterwards she ordered more for
payment of the workmen; that they were paid in part; and upon Sir John’s
telling them the queen’s resolution to grant them a further supply (after a
stop put to it by the duchess’s order), they went on and incurred the present
debt; that this was afterwards brought into the House of Commons as the
debt of the crown, not owing from the queen to the Duke of Marlborough,
but to the workmen, and this by the queen’s officers.

During the uncertain progress of the building, and while the workmen
were often in deep arrears, it would seem that the architect often designed
to involve the Marlboroughs in its fate and his own; he probably thought
that some of their round million might bear to be chipped, to finish his great
work, with which, too, their glory was so intimately connected. The famous
duchess had evidently put the duke on the defensive; but once, perhaps, was
the duke on the point of indulging some generous architectural fancy, when
lo! Atossa stepped forwards and “put a stop to the building.”

When Vanbrugh at length produced the warrant of Lord Godolphin,
empowering him to contract for the duke, this instrument was utterly
disclaimed by Marlborough; the duke declares it existed without his
knowledge; and that if such an instrument for a moment was to be held
valid, no man would be safe, but might be ruined by the act of another!

Vanbrugh seems to have involved the intricacy of his plot, till it fell into
some contradictions. The queen he had not found difficult to manage; but
after her death, when the Treasury failed in its golden source, he seems to

have sat down to contrive how to make the duke the great debtor. Vanbrugh
swears that “He himself looked upon the crown, as engaged to the Duke of
Marlborough for the expense; but that he believes the workmen always
looked upon the duke as their paymaster.” He advances so far, as to swear
that he made a contract with particular workmen, which contract was not
unknown to the duke. This was not denied; but the duke in his reply
observes, that “he knew not that the workmen were employed for his
account, or by his own agent:”—never having heard till Sir John produced
the warrant from Lord Godolphin, that Sir John was “his surveyor!” which
he disclaims.

Our architect, however opposite his depositions appear, contrived to
become a witness to such facts as tended to conclude the duke to be the
debtor for the building; and “in his depositions has taken as much care to
have the guilt of perjury without the punishment of it, as any man could
do.” He so managed, though he has not sworn to contradictions, that the
natural tendency of one part of his evidence presses one way, and the
natural tendency of another part presses the direct contrary way. In his
former memorial, the main design was to disengage the duke from the debt;
in his depositions, the main design was to charge the duke with the debt.
Vanbrugh, it must be confessed, exerted not less of his dramatic than his
architectural genius in the building of Blenheim!

“The Case” concludes with an eloquent reflection, where Vanbrugh is
distinguished as the man of genius, though not, in this predicament, the man
of honour. “If at last the charge run into by order of the crown must be upon
the duke, yet the infamy of it must go upon another, who was perhaps the
only architect in the world capable of building such a house; and the only
friend in the world capable of contriving to lay the debt upon one to whom
he was so highly obliged.”

There is a curious fact in the depositions of Vanbrugh, by which we
might infer that the idea of Blenheim House might have originated with the
duke himself; he swears that “in 1704, the duke met him, and told him he
designed to build a house, and must consult him about a model, &c.; but it
was the queen who ordered the present house to be built with all
expedition.”

The whole conduct of this national edifice was unworthy of the nation, if
in truth the nation ever entered heartily into it. No specific sum had been
voted in parliament for so great an undertaking; which afterwards was the
occasion of involving all the parties concerned in trouble and litigation;
threatened the ruin of the architect; and I think we shall see, by Vanbrugh’s
letters, was finished at the sole charge, and even under the superintendence,
of the duchess herself! It may be a question, whether this magnificent
monument of glory did not rather originate in the spirit of party, in the
urgent desire of the queen to allay the pride and jealousies of the
Marlboroughs. From the circumstance to which Vanbrugh has sworn, that
the duke had designed to have a house built by Vanbrugh, before Blenheim
had been resolved on, we may suppose that this intention of the duke’s
afforded the queen a suggestion of a national edifice.

Archdeacon Coxe, in his Life of Marlborough, has obscurely alluded to
the circumstances attending the building of Blenheim. “The illness of the
duke, and the tedious litigation which ensued, caused such delays, that little
progress was made in the work at the time of his decease. In the interim a
serious misunderstanding arose between the duchess and the architect,
which forms the subject of a voluminous correspondence. Vanbrugh was in
consequence removed, and the direction of the building confided to other
hands, under her own immediate superintendence.”

This “voluminous correspondence” would probably afford “words that
burn” of the lofty insolence of Atossa, and “thoughts that breathe” of the

comic wit; it might too relate, in many curious points, to the stupendous
fabric itself. If her grace condescended to criticise its parts with the frank
roughness she is known to have done to the architect himself, his own
defence and explanations might serve to let us into the bewildering fancies
of his magical architecture. Of that self-creation for which he was so much
abused in his own day as to have lost his real avocation as an architect, and
stands condemned for posterity in the volatile bitterness of Lord Orford,
nothing is left for us but our own convictions—to behold, and to be for ever
astonished!—But “this voluminous correspondence?” Alas! the historian of
war and politics overlooks with contempt the little secret histories of art and
of human nature!—and “a voluminous correspondence” which indicates so
much, and on which not a solitary idea is bestowed, has only served to
petrify our curiosity!

Of this quarrel between the famous duchess and Vanbrugh I have only
recovered several vivacious extracts from confidential letters of Vanbrugh’s
to Jacob Tonson. There was an equality of the genius of invention, as well
as rancour, in her grace and the wit: whether Atossa, like Vanbrugh, could
have had the patience to have composed a comedy of five acts I will not
determine; but unquestionably she could have dictated many scenes with
equal spirit. We have seen Vanbrugh attempting to turn the debts incurred
by the building of Blenheim on the duke; we now learn, for the first time,
that the duchess, with equal aptitude, contrived a counterplot to turn the
debts on Vanbrugh!

“I have the misfortune of losing, for I now see little hopes of ever getting
it, near 2000l. due to me for many years’ service, plague, and trouble, at
Blenheim, which that wicked woman of ‘Marlborough’ is so far from
paying me, that the duke being sued by some of the workmen for work done
there, she has tried to turn the debt due to them upon me, for which I think
she ought to be hanged.”

In 1722, on occasion of the duke’s death, Vanbrugh gives an account to
Tonson of the great wealth of the Marlboroughs, with a caustic touch at his
illustrious victims.

“The Duke of Marlborough’s treasure exceeds the most extravagant
guess. The grand settlement, which it was suspected her grace had broken to
pieces, stands good, and hands an immense wealth to Lord Godolphin and
his successors. A round million has been moving about in loans on the land-
tax, &c. This the Treasury knew before he died, and this was exclusive of
his ‘land;’ his 5000l. a year upon the post-office; his mortgages upon a
distressed estate; his South-Sea stock; his annuities, and which were not
subscribed in, and besides what is in foreign banks; and yet this man could
neither pay his workmen their bills, nor his architect his salary.

“He has given his widow (may a Scottish ensign get her!) 10,000l. a year
to spoil Blenheim her own way; 12,000l. a year to keep herself clean and go
to law; 2000l. a year to Lord Rialton for present maintenance; and Lord
Godolphin only 5000l. a year jointure, if he outlives my lady: this last is a
wretched article. The rest of the heap, for these are but snippings, goes to
Lord Godolphin, and so on. She will have 40,000l. a year in present.”

Atossa, as the quarrel heated and the plot thickened, with the
maliciousness of Puck, and the haughtiness of an empress of Blenheim,
invented the most cruel insult that ever architect endured!—one perfectly
characteristic of that extraordinary woman. Vanbrugh went to Blenheim
with his lady, in a company from Castle Howard, another magnificent
monument of his singular genius.

“We staid two nights in Woodstock; but there was an order to the
servants, under her grace’s own hand, not to let me enter Blenheim! and lest
that should not mortify me enough, she having somehow learned that my
wife was of the company, sent an express the night before we came there,

with orders that if she came with the Castle Howard ladies, the servants
should not suffer her to see either house, gardens, or even to enter the park:
so she was forced to sit all day long and keep me company at the inn!”

This was a coup-de-théâtre in this joint comedy of Atossa and Vanbrugh!
The architect of Blenheim, lifting his eyes towards his own massive
grandeur, exiled to a dull inn, and imprisoned with one who required rather
to be consoled, than capable of consoling the enraged architect!

In 1725, Atossa still pursuing her hunted prey, had driven it to a spot
which she flattered herself would enclose it with the security of a preserve.
This produced the following explosion!

“I have been forced into chancery by that B. B. B. the Duchess of
Marlborough, where she has got an injunction upon me by her friend the
late good chancellor (Earl of Macclesfield), who declared that I was never
employed by the duke, and therefore had no demand upon his estate for my
services at Blenheim. Since my hands were thus tied up from trying by law
to recover my arrear, I have prevailed with Sir Robert Walpole to help me in
a scheme which I proposed to him, by which I got my money in spite of the
hussy’s teeth. My carrying this point enrages her much, and the more
because it is of considerable weight in my small fortune, which she has
heartily endeavoured so to destroy as to throw me into an English Bastile,
there to finish my days, as I began them, in a French one.”

Plot for plot! and the superior claims of one of practised invention are
vindicated! The writer, long accustomed to comedy-writing, has excelled
the self-taught genius of Atossa. The “scheme” by which Vanbrugh’s fertile
invention, aided by Sir Robert Walpole, finally circumvented the avaricious,
the haughty, and the capricious Atossa, remains untold, unless it is alluded
to by the passage in Lord Orford’s “Anecdotes of Painting,” where he
informs us that the “duchess quarrelled with Sir John, and went to law with

him; but though he proved to be in the right, or rather because he proved to
be in the right, she employed Sir Christopher Wren to build the house in St.
James’s Park.”

I have to add a curious discovery respecting Vanbrugh himself, which
explains a circumstance in his life not hitherto understood.

In all the biographies of Vanbrugh, from the time of Cibber’s Lives of the
Poets, the early part of the life of this man of genius remains unknown. It is
said he descended from an ancient family in Cheshire, which came
originally from France, though by the name, which properly written would
be Van Brugh, he would appear to be of Dutch extraction. A tale is
universally repeated that Sir John once visiting France in the prosecution of
his architectural studies, while taking a survey of some fortifications,
excited alarm, and was carried to the Bastile: where, to deepen the interest
of the story, he sketched a variety of comedies, which he must have
communicated to the governor, who, whispering it doubtless as an affair of
state to several of the noblesse, these admirers of “sketches of comedies”—
English ones no doubt—procured the release of this English Molière. This
tale is further confirmed by a very odd circumstance. Sir John built at
Greenwich, on a spot still called “Van Brugh’s Fields,” two whimsical
houses; one on the side of Greenwich Park is still called “the Bastile-
House,” built on its model, to commemorate this imprisonment.

Not a word of this detailed story is probably true! that the Bastile was an
object which sometimes occupied the imagination of our architect, is
probable; for by the letter we have just quoted, we discover from himself
the singular incident of Vanbrugh’s having been born in the Bastile.65

Desirous, probably, of concealing his alien origin, this circumstance cast
his early days into obscurity. He felt that he was a Briton in all respects but
that of his singular birth. The father of Vanbrugh married Sir Dudley

Carleton’s daughter. We are told he had “political connexions;” and one of
his “political” tours had probably occasioned his confinement in that state-
dungeon, where his lady was delivered of her burden of love. This odd
fancy of building a “Bastile-House” at Greenwich, a fortified prison!
suggested to his first life-writer the fine romance; which must now be
thrown aside among those literary fictions the French distinguish by the
softening and yet impudent term of “Anecdotes hasardées!” with which
formerly Varillas and his imitators furnished their pages; lies which looked
like facts!

62 The name by which Pope ruthlessly satirized Sarah Duchess of Marlborough.

63 I draw the materials of this secret history from an unpublished “Case of the Duke of
Marlborough and Sir John Vanbrugh,” as also from some confidential correspondence of
Vanbrugh with Jacob Tonson, his friend and publisher.

64 Parliament voted 500,000l. for the building, which was insufficient. The queen added
thereto the honour of Woodstock, an appanage of the crown, on the simple condition of
rendering at Windsor Castle every year on the anniversary of the victory of Blenheim, a flag
adorned with three fleur-de-lys, “as acquittance for all manner of rents, suits and services due to
the crown.”

65 Cunningham, in his “Lives of the British Architects,” does not incline to the conclusions
above drawn. He says, “I suspect that Vanbrugh, in saying he began his days in the Bastile,
meant only that he was its tenant in early life—at the commencement of his manhood.” The
same author tells us that Vanbrugh’s grandfather fled from Ghent, his native city, to avoid the
persecutions of the Duke of Alva, and established himself as a merchant in Walbrook, where his
son lived after him, and where John Vanbrugh (afterwards the great architect) was born in the
year 1666. His father was at this time Comptroller of the Treasury Chamber. Cunningham thinks
the Cheshire part of the genealogy “unlikely to be true.”

SECRET HISTORY OF SIR WALTER RAWLEIGH.66

Rawleigh exercised in perfection incompatible talents, and his character
connects the opposite extremes of our nature! His “Book of Life,” with its
incidents of prosperity and adversity, of glory and humiliation, was as
chequered as the novelist would desire for a tale of fiction. Yet in this
mighty genius there lies an unsuspected disposition, which requires to be
demonstrated, before it is possible to conceive its reality. From his earliest
days, probably by his early reading of the romantic incidents of the first
Spanish adventurers in the New World, he himself betrayed the genius of an
adventurer, which prevailed in his character to the latest; and it often
involved him in the practice of mean artifices and petty deceptions; which
appear like folly in the wisdom of a sage; like ineptitude in the profound
views of a politician; like cowardice in the magnanimity of a hero; and
degrade by their littleness the grandeur of a character which was closed by a
splendid death, worthy the life of the wisest and the greatest of mankind!

The sunshine of his days was in the reign of Elizabeth. From a boy,
always dreaming of romantic conquests (for he was born in an age of
heroism), and formed by nature for the chivalric gallantry of the court of a
maiden queen, from the moment he with such infinite art cast his rich
mantle over the miry spot, his life was a progress of glory. All about
Rawleigh was as splendid as the dress he wore: his female sovereign, whose
eyes loved to dwell on men who might have been fit subjects for “the Faerie
Queene” of Spenser, penurious of reward, only recompensed her favourites
by suffering them to make their own fortunes on sea and land; and
Elizabeth listened to the glowing projects of her hero, indulging that spirit

which could have conquered the world, to have laid the toy at the feet of the
sovereign!

This man, this extraordinary being, who was prodigal of his life and
fortune on the Spanish Main, in the idleness of peace could equally direct
his invention to supply the domestic wants of every-day life, in his project
of “an office for address.” Nothing was too high for his ambition, nor too
humble for his genius. Pre-eminent as a military and a naval commander, as
a statesman and a student, Rawleigh was as intent on forming the character
of Prince Henry, as that prince was studious of moulding his own aspiring
qualities by the genius of the friend whom he contemplated. Yet the active
life of Rawleigh is not more remarkable than his contemplative one. He
may well rank among the founders of our literature; for composing on a
subject exciting little interest, his fine genius has sealed his unfinished
volume with immortality. For magnificence of eloquence, and massiveness
of thought, we must still dwell on his pages.67 Such was the man who was
the adored patron of Spenser; whom Ben Jonson, proud of calling other
favourites “his sons,” honoured by the title of “his father;” and who left
political instructions which Milton deigned to edit.

But how has it happened that, of so elevated a character, Gibbon has
pronounced that it was “ambiguous,” while it is described by Hume as “a
great but ill-regulated mind!”

There was a peculiarity in the character of this eminent man; he practised
the cunning of an adventurer—a cunning most humiliating in the narrative!
The great difficulty to overcome in this discovery is, how to account for a
sage and a hero acting folly and cowardice, and attempting to obtain by
circuitous deception what it may be supposed so magnanimous a spirit
would only deign to possess himself of by direct and open methods.

Since the present article was written, a letter, hitherto unpublished,
appears in the recent edition of Shakspeare which curiously and minutely
records one of those artifices of the kind which I am about to narrate at
length. When, under Elizabeth, Rawleigh was once in confinement, it
appears that seeing the queen passing by, he was suddenly seized with a
strange resolution of combating with the governor and his people, declaring
that the mere sight of the queen had made him desperate, as a confined
lover would feel at the sight of his mistress. The letter gives a minute
narrative of Sir Walter’s astonishing conduct, and carefully repeats the
warm romantic style in which he talked of his royal mistress, and his formal
resolution to die rather than exist out of her presence.68 This extravagant
scene, with all its cunning, has been most elaborately penned by the
ingenious letter-writer, with a hint to the person whom he addresses, to
suffer it to meet the eye of their royal mistress, who could not fail of
admiring our new “Orlando Furioso,” and soon after released this tender
prisoner! To me it is evident that the whole scene was got up and concerted
for the occasion, and was the invention of Rawleigh himself; the romantic
incident he well knew was perfectly adapted to the queen’s taste. Another
similar incident, in which I have been anticipated in the disclosure of the
fact, though not of its nature, was what Sir Toby Matthews obscurely
alludes to in his letters, of “the guilty blow he gave himself in the Tower;” a
passage which had long excited my attention, till I discovered the curious
incident in some manuscript letters of Lord Cecil. Rawleigh was then
confined in the Tower for the Cobham conspiracy; a plot so absurd and
obscure that one historian has called it a “state-riddle,” but for which, so
many years after, Rawleigh so cruelly lost his life.

Lord Cecil gives an account of the examination of the prisoners involved
in this conspiracy. “One afternoon, whilst divers of us were in the Tower
examining some of these prisoners, Sir Walter attempted to murder himself;
whereof, when we were advertised, we came to him, and found him in some

agony to be unable to endure his misfortunes, and protesting innocency,
with carelessness of life; and in that humour he had wounded himself under
the right pap, but no way mortally, being in truth rather a cut than a stab,
and now very well cured both in body and mind.”69 This feeble attempt at
suicide, this “cut rather than stab,” I must place among those scenes in the
life of Rawleigh so incomprehensible with the genius of the man. If it were
nothing but one of those

Fears of the Brave!

we must now open another of the

Follies of the Wise!

Rawleigh returned from the wild and desperate voyage of Guiana, with
misery in every shape about him.70 His son had perished; his devoted
Keymis would not survive his reproach; and Rawleigh, without fortune and
without hope, in sickness and in sorrow, brooded over the sad thought, that
in the hatred of the Spaniard, and in the political pusillanimity of James, he
was arriving only to meet inevitable death. With this presentiment, he had
even wished to give up his ship to the crew, had they consented to land him
in France; but he was probably irresolute in this decision at sea, as he was
afterwards at land, where he wished to escape, and refused to fly: the
clearest intellect was darkened, and magnanimity itself became humiliated,
floating between the sense of honour and of life.

Rawleigh landed in his native county of Devon: his arrival was the
common topic of conversation, and he was the object of censure or of
commiseration: but his person was not molested, till the fears of James
became more urgent than his pity.

The Cervantic Gondomar, whose “quips and quiddities” had concealed
the cares of state, one day rushed into the presence of James, breathlessly
calling out for “audience!” and compressing his “ear-piercing” message into
the laconic abruptness of “piratas! piratas! piratas!” There was agony as
well as politics in this cry of Gondomar, whose brother, the Spanish
governor, had been massacred in this predatory expedition.71 The timid
monarch, terrified at this tragical appearance of his facetious friend, saw at
once the demands of the whole Spanish cabinet, and vented his palliative in
a gentle proclamation. Rawleigh having settled his affairs in the west, set
off for London to appear before the king, in consequence of the
proclamation. A few miles from Plymouth he was met by Sir Lewis Stucley,
vice-admiral of Devon, a kinsman and a friend, who, in communication
with government, had accepted a sort of surveillance over Sir Walter. It is
said (and will be credited, when we hear the story of Stucley), that he had
set his heart on the ship, as a probable good purchase; and on the person,
against whom, to colour his natural treachery, he professed an old hatred.
He first seized on Rawleigh more like the kinsman than the vice-admiral,
and proposed travelling together to London, and baiting at the houses of the
friends of Rawleigh. The warrant which Stucley in the meanwhile had
desired was instantly despatched, and the bearer was one Manoury, a
French empiric, who was evidently sent to act the part he did—a part
played at all times, and the last title, in French politics, that so often had
recourse to this instrument of state, is a Mouton!

Rawleigh still, however, was not placed under any harsh restraint: his
confidential associate, Captain King, accompanied him; and it is probable,
that if Rawleigh had effectuated his escape, he would have conferred a great
favour on the government.

They could not save him at London. It is certain that he might have
escaped; for Captain King had hired a vessel, and Rawleigh had stolen out

by night, and might have reached it, but irresolutely returned home; another
night, the same vessel was ready, but Rawleigh never came! The loss of his
honour appeared the greater calamity.

As he advanced in this eventful journey, everything assumed a more
formidable aspect. His friends communicated fearful advices; a pursuivant,
or king’s messenger, gave a more menacing appearance; and suggestions
arose in his own mind, that he was reserved to become a victim of state.
When letters of commission from the Privy Council were brought to Sir
Lewis Stucley, Rawleigh was observed to change countenance, exclaiming
with an oath, “Is it possible my fortune should return upon me thus again?”
He lamented, before Captain King, that he had neglected the opportunity of
escape; and which, every day he advanced inland, removed him the more
from any chance.

Rawleigh at first suspected that Manoury was one of those instruments of
state who are sometimes employed when open measures are not to be
pursued, or when the cabinet have not yet determined on the fate of a
person implicated in a state crime; in a word, Rawleigh thought that
Manoury was a spy over him, and probably over Stucley too. The first
impression in these matters is usually the right one; but when Rawleigh
found himself caught in the toils, he imagined that such corrupt agents were
to be corrupted. The French empiric was sounded, and found very
compliant; Rawleigh was desirous by his aid to counterfeit sickness, and for
this purpose invented a series of the most humiliating stratagems. He
imagined that a constant appearance of sickness might produce delay, and
procrastination, in the chapter of accidents, might end in pardon. He
procured vomits from the Frenchman, and, whenever he chose, produced
every appearance of sickness; with dimness of sight, dizziness in his head,
he reeled about, and once struck himself with such violence against a pillar
in the gallery, that there was no doubt of his malady. Rawleigh’s servant one

morning entering Stucley’s chamber, declared that his master was out of his
senses, for that he had just left him in his shirt upon all fours, gnawing the
rushes upon the floor. On Stucley’s entrance, Rawleigh was raving, and
reeling in strong convulsions. Stucley ordered him to be chafed and
fomented, and Rawleigh afterwards laughed at this scene with Manoury,
observing that he had made Stucley a perfect physician.

But Rawleigh found it required some more visible and alarming disease
than such ridiculous scenes had exhibited. The vomits worked so slowly,
that Manoury was fearful to repeat the doses. Rawleigh inquired whether
the empiric knew of any preparation which could make him look ghastly,
without injuring his health. The Frenchman offered a harmless ointment to
act on the surface of the skin, which would give him the appearance of a
leper. “That will do!” said Rawleigh, “for the lords will be afraid to
approach me, and besides it will move their pity.” Applying the ointment to
his brows, his arms, and his breast, the blisters rose, the skin inflamed, and
was covered with purple spots. Stucley concluded that Rawleigh had the
plague. Physicians were now to be called in; Rawleigh took the black silk
ribbon from his poniard, and Manoury tightened it strongly about his arm,
to disorder his pulse; but his pulse beat too strong and regular. He appeared
to take no food, while Manoury secretly provided him. To perplex the
learned doctors still more, Rawleigh had the urinal coloured by a drug of a
strong scent. The physicians pronounced the disease mortal, and that the
patient could not be removed into the air without immediate danger. Awhile
after, being in his bed-chamber undressed, and no one present but Manoury,
Sir Walter held a looking-glass in his hand to admire his spotted face,72 and
observed in merriment to his new confidant, “how they should one day
laugh for having thus cozened the king, council, physicians, Spaniards, and
all.” The excuse Rawleigh offered for this course of poor stratagems, so
unworthy of his genius, was to obtain time and seclusion for writing his
Apology, or Vindication of his Voyage, which has come down to us in his

“Remains.” “The prophet David did make himself a fool, and suffered
spittle to fall upon his beard, to escape from the hands of his enemies,” said
Rawleigh in his last speech. Brutus, too, was another example. But his
discernment often prevailed over this mockery of his spirit. The king
licensed him to reside at his own house on his arrival in London; on which
Manoury observed that the king showed by this indulgence that his majesty
was favourably inclined towards him; but Rawleigh replied, “They used all
these kinds of flatteries to the Duke of Biron, to draw him fairly into prison,
and then they cut off his head. I know they have concluded among them
that it is expedient that a man should die, to re-assure the traffick which I
have broke with Spain.” And Manoury adds, from whose narrative we have
all these particulars, that Sir Walter broke out into this rant: “If he could but
save himself for this time, he would plot such plots as should make the king
think himself happy to send for him again, and restore him to his estate, and
would force the King of Spain to write into England in his favour.”

Rawleigh at length proposed a flight to France with Manoury, who
declares it was then he revealed to Stucley what he had hitherto concealed,
that Stucley might double his vigilance. Rawleigh now perceived that he
had two rogues to bribe instead of one, and that they were playing into one
another’s hands. Proposals are now made to Stucley through Manoury, who
is as compliant as his brother-knave. Rawleigh presented Stucley with a
“jewel made in the fashion of hail powdered with diamonds, with a ruby in
the midst.” But Stucley observing to his kinsman and friend, that he must
lose his office of vice-admiral, which had cost him six hundred pounds, in
case he suffered Rawleigh to escape; Rawleigh solemnly assured him that
he should be no loser, and that his lady should give him one thousand
pounds when they got into France or Holland. About this time the French
quack took his leave: the part he had to act was performed: the juggle was
complete: and two wretches had triumphed over the sagacity and
magnanimity of a sage and a hero, whom misfortune had levelled to folly;

and who, in violating the dignity of his own character, had only equalled
himself with vulgar knaves; men who exulted that the circumventer was
circumvented; or, as they expressed it, “the great cozener was cozened.”
But our story does not here conclude, for the treacheries of Stucley were
more intricate. This perfect villain had obtained a warrant of indemnity to
authorise his compliance with any offer to assist Rawleigh in his escape;
this wretch was the confidant and the executioner of Rawleigh; he carried
about him a license to betray him, and was making his profit of the victim
before he delivered him to the sacrifice. Rawleigh was still plotting his
escape; at Salisbury he had despatched his confidential friend Captain King
to London, to secure a boat at Tilbury; he had also a secret interview with
the French agent. Rawleigh’s servant mentioned to Captain King, that his
boatswain had a ketch73 of his own, and was ready at his service for “thirty
pieces of silver;” the boatswain and Rawleigh’s servant acted Judas, and
betrayed the plot to Mr. William Herbert, cousin to Stucley, and thus the
treachery was kept among themselves as a family concern. The night for
flight was now fixed, but he could not part without his friend Stucley, who
had promised never to quit him; and who indeed, informed by his cousin
Herbert, had suddenly surprised Rawleigh putting on a false beard. The
party met at the appointed place; Sir Lewis Stucley with his son, and
Rawleigh disguised. Stucley, in saluting King, asked whether he had not
shown himself an honest man? King hoped he would continue so. They had
not rowed twenty strokes, before the watermen observed, that Mr. Herbert
had lately taken boat, and made towards the bridge, but had returned down
the river after them. Rawleigh instantly expressed his apprehensions, and
wished to return home; he consulted King—the watermen took fright—
Stucley acted his part well; damning his ill-fortune to have a friend whom
he would save, so full of doubts and fears, and threatening to pistol the
watermen if they did not proceed. Even King was overcome by the earnest
conduct of Stucley, and a new spirit was infused into the rowers. As they

drew near Greenwich a wherry crossed them. Rawleigh declared it came to
discover them. King tried to allay his fears, and assured him that if once
they reached Gravesend, he would hazard his life to get to Tilbury. But in
these delays and discussions, the tide was failing; the watermen declared
they could not reach Gravesend before morning; Rawleigh would have
landed at Purfleet, and the boatswain encouraged him; for there it was
thought he could procure horses for Tilbury. Sir Lewis Stucley too was
zealous; and declared he was content to carry the cloak-bag on his own
shoulders, for half-a-mile, but King declared that it was useless, they could
not at that hour get horses to go by land.

They rowed a mile beyond Woolwich, approaching two or three ketches,
when the boatswain doubted whether any of these were the one he had
provided to furnish them. “We are betrayed!” cried Rawleigh, and ordered
the watermen to row back: he strictly examined the boatswain; alas! his
ingenuity was baffled by a shuffling villain, whose real answer appeared
when a wherry hailed the boat: Rawleigh observed that it contained
Herbert’s crew. He saw that all was now discovered. He took Stucley aside;
his ingenious mind still suggesting projects for himself to return home in
safety, or how Stucley might plead that he had only pretended to go with
Rawleigh, to seize on his private papers. They whispered together, and
Rawleigh took some things from his pocket, and handed them to Stucley;
probably more “rubies powdered with diamonds.”—Some effect was
instantaneously produced; for the tender heart of his friend Stucley relented,
and he not only repeatedly embraced him with extraordinary warmth of
affection, but was voluble in effusions of friendship and fidelity. Stucley
persuaded Rawleigh to land at Gravesend, the strange wherry which had
dogged them landing at the same time; these were people belonging to Mr.
Herbert and Sir William St. John, who, it seems, had formerly shared in the
spoils of this unhappy hero. On Greenwich bridge, Stucley advised Captain
King that it would be advantageous to Sir Walter, that King should confess

that he had joined with Stucley to betray his master; and Rawleigh lent
himself to the suggestion of Stucley, of whose treachery he might still be
uncertain; but King, a rough and honest seaman, declared that he would not
share in the odium. At the moment he refused, Stucley arrested the captain
in the king’s name, committing him to the charge of Herbert’s men. They
then proceeded to a tavern, but Rawleigh, who now viewed the monster in
his true shape, observed, “Sir Lewis, these actions will not turn out to your
credit;” and on the following day, when they passed through the Tower-
gate, Rawleigh, turning to King, observed, “Stucley and my servant
Cotterell have betrayed me. You need be in no fear of danger, but as for me,
it is I who am the mark that is shot at.” Thus concludes the narrative of
Captain King. The fate of Rawleigh soon verified the prediction.

This long narrative of treachery will not, however, be complete, unless
we wind it up with the fate of the infamous Stucley. Fiction gives perfection
to its narratives, by the privilege it enjoys of disposing of its criminals in the
most exemplary manner; but the labours of the historian are not always
refreshed by this moral pleasure. Retribution is not always discovered in the
present stage of human existence, yet history is perhaps equally delightful
as fiction, whenever its perfect catastrophes resemble those of romantic
invention. The present is a splendid example.

I have discovered the secret history of Sir Lewis Stucley, in several
manuscript letters of the times.

Rawleigh, in his admirable address from the scaffold, where he seemed
to be rather one of the spectators than the sufferer, declared he forgave Sir
Lewis, for he had forgiven all men; but he was bound in charity to caution
all men against him, and such as he is! Rawleigh’s last and solemn notice of
the treachery of his “kinsman and friend” was irrevocably fatal to this
wretch. The hearts of the people were open to the deepest impressions of
sympathy, melting into tears at the pathetic address of the magnanimous

spirit who had touched them; in one moment Sir Lewis Stucley became an
object of execration throughout the nation; he soon obtained a new title, that
of “Sir Judas,” and was shunned by every man. To remove the Cain-like
mark, which God and men had fixed on him, he published an apology for
his conduct; a performance which, at least for its ability, might raise him in
our consideration; but I have since discovered, in one of the manuscript
letter-writers, that it was written by Dr. Sharpe, who had been a chaplain to
Henry Prince of Wales. The writer pleads in Stucley’s justification, that he
was a state-agent; that it was lawful to lie for the discovery of treason; that
he had a personal hatred towards Rawleigh, for having abridged his father
of his share of some prize-money; and then enters more into Rawleigh’s
character, who “being desperate of any fortune here, agreeable to the height
of his mind, would have made up his fortune elsewhere, upon any terms
against his sovereign and his country. Is it not marvel,” continues the
personifier of Stucley, “that he was angry with me at his death for bringing
him back? Besides, being a man of so great a wit, it was no small grief that
a man of mean wit as I should be thought to go beyond him. No? Sic ars
deluditur arte. Neque enim lex justior ulla est quam necis artifices arte
perire suâ. [This apt latinity betrays Dr. Sharpe.] But why did you not
execute your commission bravely [openly]?—Why? My commission was to
the contrary, to discover his pretensions, and to seize his secret papers,”
&c.74

But the doctor, though no unskilful writer, here wrote in vain; for what
ingenuity can veil the turpitude of long and practised treachery? To keep up
appearances, Sir Judas resorted more than usually to court; where, however,
he was perpetually enduring rebuffs, or avoided, as one infected with the
plague of treachery. He offered the king, in his own justification, to take the
sacrament, that whatever he had laid to Rawleigh’s charge was true, and
would produce two unexceptionable witnesses to do the like. “Why, then,”
replied his majesty, “the more malicious was Sir Walter to utter these

speeches at his death.” Sir Thomas Badger, who stood by, observed, “Let
the king take off Stucley’s head, as Stucley has done Sir Walter’s, and let
him at his death take the sacrament and his oath upon it, and I’ll believe
him; but till Stucley loses his head, I shall credit Sir Walter Rawleigh’s bare
affirmative before a thousand of Stucley’s oaths.” When Stucley, on
pretence of giving an account of his office, placed himself in the audience
chamber of the lord admiral, and his lordship passed him without any
notice, Sir Judas attempted to address the earl; but with a bitter look his
lordship exclaimed—“Base fellow! darest thou, who art the scorn and
contempt of men, offer thyself in my presence? Were it not in my own
house, I would cudgel thee with my staff for presuming on this sauciness.”
This annihilating affront Stucley hastened to convey to the king; his majesty
answered him—“What wouldst thou have me do? Wouldst thou have me
hang him? Of my soul, if I should hang all that speak ill of thee, all the trees
of the country would not suffice, so great is the number!”

One of the frequent crimes of that age, ere the forgery of bank-notes
existed, was the clipping of gold; and this was one of the private
amusements suitable to the character of our Sir Judas. Treachery and
forgery are the same crime in a different form. Stucley received out of the
exchequer five hundred pounds, as the reward of his espionnage and
perfidy. It was the price of blood, and was hardly in his hands ere it was
turned into the fraudulent coin of “the cheater!” He was seized on in the
palace of Whitehall, for diminishing the gold coin. “The manner of the
discovery,” says the manuscript-writer, “was strange, if my occasions would
suffer me to relate the particulars.” On his examination he attempted to shift
the crime to his own son, who had fled; and on his man, who, being taken,
in the words of the letter-writer, was “willing to set the saddle upon the
right horse, and accused his master.” Manoury, too, the French empiric, was
arrested at Plymouth for the same crime, and accused his worthy friend. But
such was the interest of Stucley with government, bought, probably, with

his last shilling, and, as one says, with his last shirt, that he obtained his
own and his son’s pardon, for a crime that ought to have finally concluded
the history of this blessed family.75 A more solemn and tragical catastrophe
was reserved for the perfidious Stucley. He was deprived of his place of
vice-admiral, and left destitute in the world. Abandoned by all human
beings, and most probably by the son whom he had tutored in the arts of
villany, he appears to have wandered about, an infamous and distracted
beggar. It is possible that even so seared a conscience may have retained
some remaining touch of sensibility.

All are men,
Condemned alike to groan;
The tender for another’s pain,
The unfeeling for his own.

And Camden has recorded, among his historical notes on James the First,
that in August, 1620, “Lewis Stucley, who betrayed Sir Walter Rawleigh,
died in a manner mad.” Such is the catastrophe of one of the most perfect
domestic tales; an historical example, not easily paralleled, of moral
retribution.

The secret practices of the “Sir Judas” of the court of James the First,
which I have discovered, throw light on an old tradition which still exists in
the neighbourhood of Affeton, once the residence of this wretched man. The
country people have long entertained a notion that a hidden treasure lies at
the bottom of a well in his grounds, guarded by some supernatural power: a
tradition no doubt originating in this man’s history, and an obscure allusion
to the gold which Stucley received for his bribe, or the other gold which he
clipped, and might have there concealed. This is a striking instance of the
many historical facts which, though entirely unknown or forgotten, may be
often discovered to lie hid, or disguised, in popular traditions.

66 Rawleigh, as was much practised to a much later period, wrote his name various ways. I
have discovered at least how it was pronounced in his time—thus, Rawly. This may be
additionally confirmed by the Scottish poet Drummond, who spells it (in his conversations with
Ben Jonson) Raughley. The translation of Ortelius’ “Epitome of the Worlde,” 1603, is dedicated
to Sir Walter Rawleigh. See vol. ii. p. 261, art. “Orthography of Proper Names.” It was also
written Rawly by his contemporaries. He sometimes wrote it Ralegh, the last syllable probably
pronounced ly, or lay. Ralegh appears on his official seal.

67 I shall give in the article “Literary Unions” a curious account how “Rawleigh’s History of
the World” was composed, which has hitherto escaped discovery.

68 It is narrated in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil from Mr. (afterwards Sir) Arthur Gorges, and
runs as follows:—“Upon a report of her majesty’s being at Sir George Carew’s, Sir W. Ralegh
having gazed and sighed a long time at his study window, from whence he might discern the
barges and boats about the Blackfriars stairs, suddenly brake out into a great distemper, and
sware that his enemies had on purpose brought her majesty thither to break his gall in sunder
with Tantalus’s torments, that when she went away he might see death before his eyes; with
many such like conceits. And, as a man transported with passion, he sware to Sir George Carew
that he would disguise himself, and get into a pair of oars to ease his mind but with a sight of the
queen, or else he protested his heart would break.” This of course the gaoler refused, and so they
fell to fighting, “scrambling and brawling like madmen,” until parted by Gorges. Sir Walter
followed up his absurdity by another letter to Cecil, couched in the language of romance, in
which he declares that, while the queen “was yet near at hand, that I might hear of her once in
two or three days my sorrows were the less, but now my heart is cast into the depth of all
misery.”

69 These letters were written by Lord Cecil to Sir Thomas Parry, our ambassador in France,
and were transcribed from the copy-book of Sir Thomas Parry’s correspondence which is
preserved in the Pepysian library at Cambridge.

70 He had undertaken the expedition immediately upon his release from the Tower in 1617.
The king had never pardoned him, and his release was effected by bribing powerful court

favourites, who worked upon the avarice of James I. by leading him to hope for the possession
of Guiana, which, though discovered by the Spaniards, had never been conquered by them; and
which Rawleigh promised to colonise.

71 This occurred during the attack on the town of St. Thomas; a settlement of the Spaniards
near the gold mines. It ended disastrously to Rawleigh: his ships mutinied; and he never
recovered his ill-fortune; but sailed to Newfoundland, and thence, after a second mutiny,
returned to Plymouth.

72 A friend informs me, that he saw recently at a print-dealer’s a painted portrait of Sir
Walter Rawleigh, with the face thus spotted. It is extraordinary that any artist should have
chosen such a subject for his pencil; but should this be a portrait of the times, it shows that this
strange stratagem had excited public attention.

73 A small coasting-vessel, made round at stem and stern like the Dutch boats. The word is
still used in some English counties to denote a tub.

74 Stucley’s Humble Petition, touching the bringing up Sir W. Rawleigh, 4to. 1618;
republished in Somers’ Tracts, vol. iii. 751.

75 The anecdotes respecting Stucley I have derived from manuscript letters, and they were
considered to be of so dangerous a nature, that the writer recommends secrecy, and requests,
after reading, that “they may be burnt.” With such injunctions I have generally found that the
letters were the more carefully preserved.

AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE OF THE LAST HOURS OF
SIR WALTER RAWLEIGH.

The close of the life of Sir Walter Rawleigh was as extraordinary as many
parts of his varied history; the promptitude and sprightliness of his genius,
his carelessness of life, and the equanimity of this great spirit in quitting the
world, can only be paralleled by a few other heroes and sages. Rawleigh
was both! But it is not simply his dignified yet active conduct on the
scaffold, nor his admirable speech on that occasion, circumstances by which
many great men are judged, when their energies are excited for a moment to
act so great a part, before the eyes of the world assembled at their feet; it is
not these only which claim our notice.

We may pause with admiration on the real grandeur of Rawleigh’s
character, not from a single circumstance, however great, but from a tissue
of continued little incidents, which occurred from the moment of his
condemnation till he laid his head on the block. Rawleigh was a man of
such mark, that he deeply engaged the attention of his contemporaries; and
to this we owe the preservation of several interesting particulars of what he
did and what he said, which have entered into his life; but all has not been
told in the published narratives. Contemporary writers in their letters have
set down every fresh incident, and eagerly caught up his sense, his wit, and,
what is more delightful, those marks of the natural cheerfulness of his
invariable presence of mind: nor could these have arisen from any
affectation or parade, for we shall see that they served him even in his last
tender farewell to his lady, and on many unpremeditated occasions.

I have drawn together into a short compass all the facts which my
researches have furnished, not omitting those which are known, concerning
the feelings and conduct of Rawleigh at these solemn moments of his life;

to have preserved only the new would have been to mutilate the statue, and
to injure the whole by an imperfect view.

Rawleigh one morning was taken out of his bed, in a fit of fever, and
unexpectedly hurried, not to his trial, but to a sentence of death. The story is
well known.—Yet pleading with “a voice grown weak by sickness and an
ague he had at that instant on him,” he used every means to avert his fate:
he did, therefore, value the life he could so easily part with. His judges,
there, at least, respected their state criminal, and they addressed him in a
tone far different from that which he had fifteen years before listened to
from Coke. Yelverton, the attorney-general, said—“Sir Walter Rawleigh
hath been as a star at which the world have gazed; but stars may fall, nay,
they must fall, when they trouble the sphere where they abide.” And the
lord chief-justice noticed Rawleigh’s great work:—“I know that you have
been valiant and wise, and I doubt not but you retain both these virtues, for
now you shall have occasion to use them. Your book is an admirable work;
I would give you counsel, but I know you can apply unto yourself far better
than I am able to give you.” But the judge ended with saying, “execution is
granted.” It was stifling Rawleigh with roses! the heroic sage felt as if
listening to fame from the voice of death.

He declared that now being old, sickly, and in disgrace, and “certain were
he allowed to live, to go to it again, life was wearisome to him, and all he
entreated was to have leave to speak freely at his farewell, to satisfy the
world that he was ever loyal to the king, and a true lover of the
commonwealth; for this he would seal with his blood.”

Rawleigh, on his return to his prison, while some were deploring his fate,
observed that “the world itself is but a larger prison, out of which some are
daily selected for execution.”

That last night of his existence was occupied by writing what the letter-
writer calls “a remembrancer to be left with his lady, to acquaint the world
with his sentiments, should he be denied their delivery from the scaffold, as
he had been at the bar of the King’s Bench.” His lady visited him that night,
and amidst her tears acquainted him that she had obtained the favour of
disposing of his body; to which he answered smiling, “It is well, Bess, that
thou mayst dispose of that, dead, thou hadst not always the disposing of
when it was alive.” At midnight he entreated her to leave him. It must have
been then, that, with unshaken fortitude, Rawleigh sat down to compose
those verses on his death, which being short, the most appropriate may be
repeated.

Even such is Time, that takes on trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days!

He has added two other lines expressive of his trust in his resurrection.
Their authenticity is confirmed by the writer of the present letter, as well as
another writer, enclosing “half a dozen verses, which Sir Walter made the
night before his death, to take his farewell of poetry, wherein he had been a
scribbler even from his youth.” The enclosure is not now with the letter.
Chamberlain, the writer, was an intelligent man of the world, but not
imbued with any deep tincture of literature. On the same night Rawleigh
wrote this distich on the candle burning dimly:—

Cowards fear to die; but courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.

At this solemn moment, before he lay down to rest, and at the instant of
parting from his lady, with all his domestic affections still warm, to express
his feelings in verse was with him a natural effusion, and one to which he
had long been used. It is peculiar in the fate of Rawleigh, that having before
suffered a long imprisonment with an expectation of a public death, his
mind had been accustomed to its contemplation, and had often dwelt on the
event which was now passing. The soul, in its sudden departure, and its
future state, is often the subject of his few poems; that most original one of
“The Farewell,”

Go, soul! the body’s guest,
Upon a thankless errand, &c.

is attributed to Rawleigh, though on uncertain evidence. But another,
entitled “The Pilgrimage,” has this beautiful passage:—

Give me my scallop-shell of quiet,
My staff of truth to walk upon,
My scrip of joy immortal diet;
My bottle of salvation;
My gown of glory, Hope’s true gage,
And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage—

Whilst my soul, like a quiet palmer,
Travelleth towards the land of Heaven—

Rawleigh’s cheerfulness was so remarkable, and his fearlessness of death
so marked, that the Dean of Westminster, who attended him, at first
wondering at the hero, reprehended the lightness of his manner, but
Rawleigh gave God thanks that he had never feared death, for it was but an

opinion and an imagination; and as for the manner of death, he would rather
die so than of a burning fever; and that some might have made shows
outwardly, but he felt the joy within. The dean says, that he made no more
of his death than if he had been to take a journey: “Not,” said he, “but that I
am a great sinner, for I have been a soldier, a seaman, and a courtier.” The
writer of a manuscript letter tells us, that the dean declared he died not only
religiously, but he found him to be a man as ready and as able to give as to
take instruction.

On the morning of his death he smoked, as usual, his favourite tobacco,
and when they brought him a cup of excellent sack, being asked how he
liked it, Rawleigh answered—“As the fellow, that, drinking of St. Giles’s
bowl, as he went to Tyburn, said, ‘that was good drink if a man might tarry
by it.’”76 The day before, in passing from Westminster Hall to the Gate-
house, his eye had caught Sir Hugh Beeston in the throng, and calling on
him, Rawleigh requested that he would see him die to-morrow. Sir Hugh, to
secure himself a seat on the scaffold, had provided himself with a letter to
the sheriff, which was not read at the time, and Sir Walter found his friend
thrust by, lamenting that he could not get there. “Farewell!” exclaimed
Rawleigh, “I know not what shift you will make, but I am sure to have a
place.” In going from the prison to the scaffold, among others who were
pressing hard to see him, one old man, whose head was bald, came very
forward, insomuch that Rawleigh noticed him, and asked “whether he
would have aught of him?” The old man answered—“Nothing but to see
him, and to pray God for him.” Rawleigh replied—“I thank thee, good
friend, and I am sorry I have no better thing to return thee for thy good
will.” Observing his bald head, he continued, “but take this night-cap
(which was a very rich wrought one that he wore), for thou hast more need
of it now than I.”

His dress, as was usual with him, was elegant, if not rich.77 Oldys
describes it, but mentions, that “he had a wrought nightcap under his hat;”
this we have otherwise disposed of; he wore a ruff-band, a black wrought
velvet night-gown over a hare-coloured satin doublet, and a black wrought
waistcoat; black cut taffety breeches, and ash-coloured silk stockings.

He ascended the scaffold with the same cheerfulness as he had passed to
it; and observing the lords seated at a distance, some at windows, he
requested they would approach him, as he wished that they should all
witness what he had to say. The request was complied with by several. His
speech is well known; but some copies contain matters not in others. When
he finished, he requested Lord Arundel that the king would not suffer any
libels to defame him after death.—“And now I have a long journey to go,
and must take my leave.” “He embraced all the lords and other friends with
such courtly compliments, as if he had met them at some feast,” says a
letter-writer. Having taken off his gown, he called to the headsman to show
him the axe, which not being instantly done, he repeated, “I prithee let me
see it, dost thou think that I am afraid of it?” He passed the edge lightly
over his finger, and smiling, observed to the sheriff, “This is a sharp
medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases,” and kissing it laid it down.
Another writer has, “This is that that will cure all sorrows.” After this he
went to three several corners of the scaffold, and kneeling down, desired all
the people to pray for him, and recited a long prayer to himself. When he
began to fit himself for the block, he first laid himself down to try how the
block fitted him; after rising up, the executioner kneeled down to ask his
forgiveness, which Rawleigh with an embrace gave, but entreated him not
to strike till he gave a token by lifting up his hand, “and then, fear not, but
strike home!” When he laid his head down to receive the stroke, the
executioner desired him to lay his face towards the east. “It was no great
matter which way a man’s head stood, so that the heart lay right,” said
Rawleigh; but these were not his last words. He was once more to speak in

this world with the same intrepidity he had lived in it—for, having lain
some minutes on the block in prayer, he gave the signal; but the
executioner, either unmindful, or in fear, failed to strike, and Rawleigh,
after once or twice putting forth his hands, was compelled to ask him, “Why
dost thou not strike? Strike! man!” In two blows he was beheaded; but from
the first his body never shrunk from the spot by any discomposure of his
posture, which, like his mind, was immovable.

“In all the time he was upon the scaffold, and before,” says one of the
manuscript letter-writers, “there appeared not the least alteration in him,
either in his voice or countenance; but he seemed as free from all manner of
apprehension as if he had been come thither rather to be a spectator than a
sufferer; nay, the beholders seemed much more sensible than did he, so that
he hath purchased here in the opinion of men such honour and reputation,
as it is thought his greatest enemies are they that are most sorrowful for his
death, which they see is like to turn so much to his advantage.”

The people were deeply affected at the sight, and so much, that one said
that “we had not such another head to cut off;” and another “wished the
head and brains to be upon Secretary Naunton’s shoulders.” The observer
suffered for this; he was a wealthy citizen, and great newsmonger, and one
who haunted Paul’s Walk. Complaint was made, and the citizen was
summoned to the Privy Council. He pleaded that he intended no disrespect
to Mr. Secretary, but only spoke in reference to the old proverb, that “two
heads were better than one!” His excuse was allowed at the moment; but
when afterwards called on for a contribution to St. Paul’s Cathedral, and
having subscribed a hundred pounds, the Secretary observed to him, that
“two are better than one, Mr. Wiemark!” Either from fear or charity, the
witty citizen doubled his subscription.78

Thus died this glorious and gallant cavalier, of whom Osborne says, “His
death was managed by him with so high and religious a resolution, as if a

Roman had acted a Christian, or rather a Christian a Roman.”79

After having read the preceding article, we are astonished at the
greatness, and the variable nature of this extraordinary man and this happy
genius. With Gibbon, who once meditated to write his life, we may pause,
and pronounce “his character ambiguous;” but we shall not hesitate to
decide that Rawleigh knew better how to die than to live. “His glorious
hours,” says a contemporary, “were his arraignment and execution;” but
never will be forgotten the intermediate years of his lettered imprisonment;
the imprisonment of the learned may sometimes be their happiest leisure.

76 In the old time, when prisoners were conveyed from Newgate to Tyburn, they stopped
about midway at the “Old Hospital,” at St. Giles’s-in-the-fields, “and,” says Stow, “were
presented with a great bowl of ale, thereof to drink at their pleasure, as to be their last
refreshment in this life.”

77 Rawleigh’s love of dress is conspicuous in the early portraits of him we possess, and
particularly so in the one engraved by Lodge.

78 The general impression was so much in disfavour of this judicial murder, that James
thought it politic to publish an 8vo pamphlet, in 1618, entitled, “A Declaration of the Demeanor
and Cariage of Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight, as well in his Voyage, as in and sithence his Returne:
and of the true motives and inducements which occasioned his Maiestie to proceed in doing
justice upon him, as hath beene done.” It takes the whole question apologetically of the licence
given him to Guiana, “as his Majestie’s honour was in a manner engaged, not to deny unto his
people the adventure and hope of such great riches” as the mines of that island might yield. It
afterwards details his proceedings there, which are declared criminal, dangerous to his Majesty’s
allies, and an abuse of his commission. It ends by defending his execution, “because he could
not by law be judicially called in question, for that his former attainder of treason is the highest
and last worke of the law (whereby hee was civiliter mortuus) his Maiestie was enforced (except
attainders should become priviledges for all subsequent offences) to resolve to have him
executed upon his former attainder.”

79 The chief particulars in this narrative are drawn from two manuscript letters of the day, in
the Sloane Collection, under their respective dates, Nov. 3, 1618, Larkin to Sir Thos. Pickering;
Oct. 13, 1618, Chamberlain’s letters.

LITERARY UNIONS.

SECRET HISTORY OF RAWLEIGH’S HISTORY OF THE WORLD, AND VASARI’S
LIVES.

A union of talents, differing in their qualities, might carry some important
works to a more extended perfection. In a work of great enterprise, the aid
of a friendly hand may be absolutely necessary to complete the labours of
the projector, who may have neither the courage, the leisure, nor all
necessary acquisitions for performing the favourite task which he has
otherwise matured. Many great works, commenced by a master-genius,
have remained unfinished, or have been deficient for want of this friendly
succour. The public would have been grateful to Johnson, had he united in
his dictionary the labours of some learned etymologist. Speed’s Chronicle
owes most of its value, as it does its ornaments, to the hand of Sir Robert
Cotton, and other curious researchers, who contributed entire portions.
Goguet’s esteemed work of the “Origin of the Arts and Sciences” was
greatly indebted to the fraternal zeal of a devoted friend. The still valued
books of the Port Royal Society were all formed by this happy union. The

secret history of many eminent works would show the advantages which
may be derived from that combination of talents, differing in their nature.
Cumberland’s masterly versions of the fragments of the Greek dramatic
poets would never have been given to the poetical world, had he not
accidentally possessed the manuscript notes of his relative, the learned
Bentley. This treasure supplied that research in the most obscure works,
which the volatile studies of Cumberland could never have explored; a
circumstance which he concealed from the world, proud of the Greek
erudition which he thus cheaply possessed. Yet by this literary union,
Bentley’s vast erudition made those researches which Cumberland could
not; and Cumberland gave the nation a copy of the domestic drama of
Greece, of which Bentley was incapable.

There is a large work, which is still celebrated, of which the composition
has excited the astonishment even of the philosophic Hume, but whose
secret history remains yet to be disclosed. This extraordinary volume is
“The History of the World by Rawleigh.” I shall transcribe Hume’s
observations, that the reader may observe the literary phenomenon. “They
were struck with the extensive genius of the man, who being educated
amidst naval and military enterprises, had surpassed in the pursuits of
literature, even those of the most recluse and sedentary lives; and they
admired his unbroken magnanimity, which at his age, and under his
circumstances, could engage him to undertake and execute so great a work,
as his History of the World.” Now when the truth is known, the wonderful
in this literary mystery will disappear, except in the eloquent, the grand, and
the pathetic passages interspersed in that venerable volume. We may,
indeed, pardon the astonishment of our calm philosopher, when we consider
the recondite matter contained in this work, and recollect the little time
which this adventurous spirit, whose life was passed in fabricating his own
fortune, and in perpetual enterprise, could allow to such erudite pursuits.
Where could Rawleigh obtain that familiar acquaintance with the rabbins,

of whose language he was probably entirely ignorant? His numerous
publications, the effusions of a most active mind, though excellent in their
kind, were evidently composed by one who was not abstracted in curious
and remote inquiries, but full of the daily business and the wisdom of
human life. His confinement in the Tower, which lasted several years, was
indeed sufficient for the composition of this folio volume, and of a second
which appears to have occupied him. But in that imprisonment it singularly
happened that he lived among literary characters with most intimate
friendship. There he joined the Earl of Northumberland, the patron of the
philosophers of his age, and with whom Rawleigh pursued his chemical
studies; and Serjeant Hoskins, a poet and a wit, and the poetical “father” of
Ben Jonson, who acknowledged that “It was Hoskins who had polished
him;” and that Rawleigh often consulted Hoskins on his literary works, I
learn from a manuscript. But however literary the atmosphere of the Tower
proved to Rawleigh, no particle of Hebrew, and perhaps little of Grecian
lore, floated from a chemist and a poet. The truth is, that the collection of
the materials of this history was the labour of several persons, who have not
all been discovered. It has been ascertained that Ben Jonson was a
considerable contributor; and there was an English philosopher from whom
Descartes, it is said even by his own countrymen, borrowed largely—
Thomas Hariot, whom Anthony Wood charges with infusing into
Rawleigh’s volume philosophical notions, while Rawleigh was composing
his History of the World. But if Rawleigh’s pursuits surpassed even those of
the most recluse and sedentary lives, as Hume observes, we must attribute
this to a “Dr. Robert Burrel, Rector of Northwald, in the county of Norfolk,
who was a great favourite of Sir Walter Rawleigh, and had been his
chaplain. All, or the greatest part of the drudgery of Sir Walter’s History for
criticisms, chronology, and reading Greek and Hebrew authors, was
performed by him for Sir Walter.”80 Thus a simple fact, when discovered,
clears up the whole mystery; and we learn how that knowledge was

acquired, which, as Hume sagaciously detected, required “a recluse and
sedentary life,” such as the studies and the habits of a country clergyman
would have been in a learned age.

The secret history of another work, still more celebrated than the History
of the World, by Sir Walter Rawleigh, will doubtless surprise its numerous
admirers.

Without the aid of a friendly hand, we should probably have been
deprived of the delightful History of Artists by Vasari: although a mere
painter and goldsmith, and not a literary man, Vasari was blessed with the
nice discernment of one deeply conversant with art, and saw rightly what
was to be done, when the idea of the work was suggested by the celebrated
Paulus Jovius as a supplement to his own work of the “Eulogiums of
Illustrious Men.” Vasari approved of the project; but on that occasion
judiciously observed, not blinded by the celebrity of the literary man who
projected it, that “It would require the assistance of an artist to collect the
materials, and arrange them in their proper order; for although Jovius
displayed great knowledge in his observations, yet he had not been equally
accurate in the arrangement of his facts in his book of Eulogiums.”
Afterwards, when Vasari began to collect his information, and consulted
Paulus Jovius on the plan, although that author highly approved of what he
saw, he alleged his own want of leisure and ability to complete such an
enterprise; and this was fortunate: we should otherwise have had, instead of
the rambling spirit which charms us in the volumes of Vasari, the verbose
babble of a declaimer. Vasari, however, looked round for the assistance he
wanted; a circumstance which Tiraboschi has not noticed: like Hogarth, he
required a literary man for his scribe. I have discovered the name of the
chief writer of the Lives of the Painters, who wrote under the direction of
Vasari, and probably often used his own natural style, and conveyed to us
those reflections which surely come from their source. I shall give the

passage, as a curious instance where the secret history of books is often
detected in the most obscure corners of research. Who could have imagined
that in a collection of the lives de’ Santi e Beati dell’ Ordine de’ Predicatori,
we are to look for the writer of Vasari’s lives? Don Serafini Razzi, the
author of this ecclesiastical biography, has this reference: “Who would see
more of this may turn to the Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects,
written for the greater part by Don Silvano Razzi, my brother, for the
Signor Cavaliere M. Giorgio Vasari, his great friend.”81

The discovery that Vasari’s volumes were not entirely written by himself,
though probably under his dictation, and unquestionably, with his
communications, as we know that Dr. Morell wrote the “Analysis of
Beauty” for Hogarth, will perhaps serve to clear up some unaccountable
mistakes or omissions which appear in that series of volumes, written at
long intervals, and by different hands. Mr. Fuseli has alluded to them in
utter astonishment; and cannot account for Vasari’s “incredible dereliction
of reminiscence, which prompted him to transfer what he had rightly
ascribed to Giorgione in one edition to the elder Parma in the subsequent
ones.” Again: “Vasari’s memory was either so treacherous, or his rapidity in
writing so inconsiderate, that his account of the Capella Sistina, and the
stanze of Raffaello, is a mere heap of errors and unpardonable confusion.”
Even Bottari, his learned editor, is at a loss how to account for his mistakes.
Mr. Fuseli finely observes—“He has been called the Herodotus of our art;
and if the main simplicity of his narrative, and the desire of heaping
anecdote on anecdote, entitle him in some degree to that appellation, we
ought not to forget that the information of every day adds something to the
authenticity of the Greek historian, whilst every day furnishes matter to
question the credibility of the Tuscan.” All this strongly confirms the
suspicion that Vasari employed different hands at different times to write
out his work. Such mistakes would occur to a new writer, not always
conversant with the subject he was composing on, and the disjointed

materials of which were often found in a disordered state. It is, however,
strange that neither Bottari nor Tiraboschi appears to have been aware that
Vasari employed others to write for him; we see that from the first
suggestion of the work he had originally proposed that Paulus Jovius should
hold the pen for him.

The principle illustrated in this article might be pursued; but the secret
history of two great works so well known is as sufficient as twenty others of
writings less celebrated. The literary phenomenon which had puzzled the
calm inquiring Hume to cry out “a miracle!” has been solved by the
discovery of a little fact on Literary Unions, which derives importance from
this circumstance.82

80 I draw my information from a very singular manuscript in the Lansdowne collection,
which I think has been mistaken for a boy’s ciphering book, of which it has much the
appearance, No. 741, fo. 57, as it stands in the auctioneer’s catalogue. It appears to be a
collection closely written, extracted out of Anthony Wood’s papers; and as I have discovered in
the manuscript numerous notices not elsewhere preserved, I am inclined to think that the
transcriber copied them from that mass of Anthony Wood’s papers, of which more than one
sackful was burnt at his desire before him when dying. If it be so, this MS. is the only register of
many curious facts.

Ben Jonson has been too freely censured for his own free censures, and particularly for one he
made on Sir Walter Rawleigh, who, he told Drummond, “esteemed more fame than conscience.
The best wits in England were employed in making his History; Ben himself had written a piece
to him of the Punic War, which he altered and set in his book.” Jonson’s powerful advocate, Mr.
Gifford, has not alleged a word in the defence of our great bard’s free conversational strictures;
the secret history of Rawleigh’s great work had never been discovered; on this occasion,
however, Jonson only spoke what he knew to be true—and there may have been other truths, in
those conversations which were set down at random by Drummond, who may have chiefly
recollected the satirical touches.

81 I find this quotation in a sort of polemical work of natural philosophy, entitled “Saggio di
Storia Litteraria Fiorentina del Secolo XVII. da Giovanne Clemente Nelli,” Lucca, 1759, p. 58.
Nelli also refers to what he had said on this subject in his Piante ad alzati di S.M. del Fiore, p.
vi. e vii.; a work on architecture. See Brunet; and Haym, Bib. Ital. de Libri rari.

82 Mr. Patrick Fraser Tytler, in his recent biography of Sir Walter Rawleigh, a work of
vigorous research and elegant composition, has dedicated to me a supernumerary article in his
Appendix, entitled Mr. D’Israeli’s Errors!

He has inferred from the present article, that I denied that Rawleigh was the writer of his own
great work!—because I have shown how great works may be advantageously pursued by the aid
of “Literary Union.” It is a monstrous inference! The chimera which plays before his eyes is his
own contrivance; he starts at his own phantasmagoria, and leaves me, after all, to fight with his
shadow.

Mr. Tytler has not contradicted a single statement of mine. I have carefully read his article
and my own, and I have made no alteration.

I may be allowed to add that there is much redundant matter in the article of Mr. Tytler; and,
to use the legal style, there is much “impertinence,” which, with a little candour and more
philosophy, he would strike his pen through, as sound lawyers do on these occasions.

OF A BIOGRAPHY PAINTED.

There are objects connected with literary curiosity, whose very history,
though they may never gratify our sight, is literary; and the originality of

their invention, should they excite imitation, may serve to constitute a class.
I notice a book-curiosity of this nature.

This extraordinary volume may be said to have contained the travels and
adventures of Charles Magius, a noble Venetian; and this volume, so
precious, consisted only of eighteen pages, composed of a series of highly-
finished miniature paintings on vellum, some executed by the hand of Paul
Veronese. Each page, however, may be said to contain many chapters; for,
generally, it is composed of a large centre-piece, surrounded by ten small
ones, with many apt inscriptions, allegories, and allusions; the whole
exhibiting romantic incidents in the life of this Venetian nobleman. But it is
not merely as a beautiful production of art that we are to consider it; it
becomes associated with a more elevated feeling in the occasion which
produced it. The author, who is himself the hero, after having been long
calumniated, resolved to set before the eyes of his accusers the sufferings
and adventures he could perhaps have but indifferently described: and
instead of composing a tedious volume for his justification, invented this
new species of pictorial biography. The author minutely described the
remarkable situations in which fortune had placed him; and the artists, in
embellishing the facts he furnished them with to record, emulated each
other in giving life to their truth, and putting into action, before the
spectator, incidents which the pen had less impressively exhibited. This
unique production may be considered as a model to represent the actions of
those who may succeed more fortunately by this new mode of perpetuating
their history; discovering, by the aid of the pencil, rather than by their pen,
the forms and colours of an extraordinary life.

It was when the Ottomans (about 1571) attacked the Isle of Cyprus, that
this Venetian nobleman was charged by his republic to review and repair the
fortifications. He was afterwards sent to the pope to negociate an alliance:
he returned to the senate to give an account of his commission. Invested

with the chief command, at the head of his troops, Magius threw himself
into the island of Cyprus, and after a skilful defence, which could not
prevent its fall, at Famagusta he was taken prisoner by the Turks, and made
a slave. His age and infirmities induced his master, at length, to sell him to
some Christian merchants; and after an absence of several years from his
beloved Venice, he suddenly appeared, to the astonishment and
mortification of a party who had never ceased to calumniate him; while his
own noble family were compelled to preserve an indignant silence, having
had no communications with their lost and enslaved relative. Magius now
returned to vindicate his honour, to reinstate himself in the favour of the
senate, and to be restored to a venerable parent amidst his family; to whom
he introduced a fresh branch, in a youth of seven years old, the child of his
misfortunes, who, born in trouble, and a stranger to domestic endearments,
was at one moment united to a beloved circle of relations.

I shall give a rapid view of some of the pictures of this Venetian
nobleman’s life. The whole series has been elaborately drawn up by the
Duke de la Vallière, the celebrated book-collector, who dwells on the detail
with the curiosity of an amateur.83

In a rich frontispiece, a Christ is expiring on the cross; Religion, leaning
on a column, contemplates the Divinity, and Hope is not distant from her.
The genealogical tree of the house of Magius, with an allegorical
representation of Venice, its nobility, power, and riches: the arms of Magius,
in which is inserted a view of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, of which he
was made a knight; his portrait, with a Latin inscription: “I have passed
through arms and the enemy, amidst fire and water, and the Lord conducted
me to a safe asylum, in the year of grace 1571.” The portrait of his son,
aged seven years, finished with the greatest beauty, and supposed to have
come from the hand of Paul Veronese; it bears this inscription: “Overcome
by violence and artifice, almost dead before his birth, his mother was at

length delivered of him, full of life, with all the loveliness of infancy; under
the divine protection, his birth was happy, and his life with greater
happiness shall be closed with good fortune.”

A plan of the Isle of Cyprus, where Magius commanded, and his first
misfortune happened, his slavery by the Turks.—The painter has expressed
this by an emblem of a tree shaken by the winds and scathed by the
lightning; but from the trunk issues a beautiful green branch shining in a
brilliant sun, with this device—“From this fallen trunk springs a branch full
of vigour.”

The missions of Magius to raise troops in the province of La Puglia.—In
one of these Magius is seen returning to Venice; his final departure,—a
thunderbolt is viewed falling on his vessel—his passage by Corfu and
Zante, and his arrival at Candia.

His travels to Egypt.—The centre figure represents this province raising
its right hand extended towards a palm-tree, and the left leaning on a
pyramid, inscribed “Celebrated throughout the world for her wonders.” The
smaller pictures are the entrance of Magius into the port of Alexandria;
Rosetta, with a caravan of Turks and different nations; the city of Grand
Cairo, exterior and interior, with views of other places; and finally, his
return to Venice.

His journey to Rome.—The centre figure an armed Pallas seated on
trophies, the Tyber beneath her feet, a globe in her hands, inscribed Quod
rerum victrix ac domina,—“Because she is the Conqueress and Mistress of
the World.” The ten small pictures are views of the cities in the pope’s
dominion. His first audience at the conclave forms a pleasing and fine
composition.

His travels into Syria.—The principal figure is a female, emblematical of
that fine country; she is seated in the midst of a gay orchard, and embraces

a bundle of roses, inscribed Mundi deliciæ—“The delight of the universe.”
The small compartments are views of towns and ports, and the spot where
Magius collected his fleet.

His pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he was made a knight of the Holy
Sepulchre.—The principal figure represents Devotion, inscribed Ducit—“It
is she who conducts me.” The compartments exhibit a variety of objects,
with a correctness of drawing which is described as belonging to the class,
and partaking of the charms of the pencil of Claude Lorraine. His vessel is
first viewed in the roadstead at Venice beat by a storm; arrives at Zante to
refresh; enters the port of Simiso; there having landed, he and his
companions are proceeding to the town on asses, for Christians were not
permitted to travel in Turkey on horses. In the church at Jerusalem the
bishop, in his pontifical habit, receives him as a knight of the Holy
Sepulchre, arraying him in the armour of Godfrey of Bouillon, and placing
his sword in the hands of Magius. His arrival at Bethlehem, to see the
cradle of the Lord—and his return by Jaffa with his companions, in the
dress of pilgrims; the groups are finely contrasted with the Turks mingling
amongst them.

The taking of the city of Famagusta, and his slavery.—The middle figure,
with a dog at its feet, represents Fidelity, the character of Magius, who ever
preferred it to his life or his freedom, inscribed Captivat—“She has reduced
me to slavery.” Six smaller pictures exhibit the different points of the island
of Cyprus where the Turks effected their descents. Magius retreating to
Famagusta, which he long defended, and where his cousin, a skilful
engineer, was killed. The Turks compelled to raise the siege, but return with
greater forces—the sacking of the town and the palace, where Magius was
taken.—One picture exhibits him brought before a bashaw, who has him
stripped, to judge of his strength and fix his price, when, after examination,
he is sent among other slaves. He is seen bound and tied up among his

companions in misfortune—again he is forced to labour, and carries a cask
of water on his shoulders.—In another picture, his master, finding him weak
of body, conducts him to a slave-merchant to sell him. In another we see
him leading an ass loaded with packages; his new master, finding him
loitering on his way, showers his blows on him, while a soldier is seen
purloining one of the packages from the ass. Another exhibits Magius
sinking with fatigue on the sands, while his master would raise him up by
an unsparing use of the bastinado. The varied details of these little paintings
are pleasingly executed.

The close of his slavery.—The middle figure kneeling to Heaven, and a
light breaking from it, inscribed, “He breaks my chains,” to express the
confidence of Magius. The Turks are seen landing with their pillage and
their slaves.—In one of the pictures are seen two ships on fire; a young lady
of Cyprus preferring death to the loss of her honour and the miseries of
slavery, determined to set fire to the vessel in which she was carried; she
succeeded, and the flames communicated to another.

His return to Venice.—The painter for his principal figure has chosen a
Pallas, with a helmet on her head, the ægis on one arm, and her lance in the
other, to describe the courage with which Magius had supported his
misfortunes, inscribed Reducit—“She brings me back.” In the last of the
compartments he is seen at the custom-house at Venice; he enters the house
of his father; the old man hastens to meet him, and embraces him.

One page is filled by a single picture, which represents the senate of
Venice, with the Doge on his throne; Magius presents an account of his
different employments, and holds in his hand a scroll, on which is written,
Quod commisisti perfeci; quod restat agendum, pare fide complectar—“I
have done what you committed to my care; and I will perform with the
same fidelity what remains to be done.” He is received by the senate with

the most distinguished honours, and is not only justified, but praised and
honoured.

The most magnificent of these paintings is the one attributed to Paul
Veronese. It is described by the Duke de la Vallière as almost unparalleled
for its richness, its elegance, and its brilliancy. It is inscribed Pater meus et
fratres mei dereliquerunt me; Dominus autem assumpsit me!—“My father
and my brothers abandoned me; but the Lord took me under his protection.”
This is an allusion to the accusation raised against him in the open senate
when the Turks took the Isle of Cyprus, and his family wanted either the
confidence or the courage to defend Magius. In the front of this large
picture, Magius leading his son by the hand, conducts him to be reconciled
with his brothers and sisters-in-law, who are on the opposite side; his hand
holds this scroll, Vos cogitastis de me malum; sed Deus convertit illud in
bonum—”You thought ill of me; but the Lord has turned it to good.” In this
he alludes to the satisfaction he had given the senate, and to the honours
they had decreed him. Another scene is introduced, where Magius appears
in a magnificent hall at a table in the midst of all his family, with whom a
general reconciliation has taken place: on his left hand are gardens opening
with an enchanting effect, and magnificently ornamented, with the villa of
his father, on which flowers and wreaths seem dropping on the roof, as if
from heaven. In the perspective, the landscape probably represents the rural
neighbourhood of Magius’s early days.

Such are the most interesting incidents which I have selected from the
copious description of the Duke de la Vallière. The idea of this production is
new: an autobiography in a series of remarkable scenes, painted under the
eye of the describer of them, in which, too, he has preserved all the fulness
of his feelings and his minutest recollections; but the novelty becomes
interesting from the character of the noble Magius, and the romantic fancy
which inspired this elaborate and costly curiosity. It was not, indeed,

without some trouble that I have drawn up this little account; but while thus
employed, I seemed to be composing a very uncommon romance.

83 The Duke’s description is not to be found, as might be expected, in his own valued
catalogue, but was a contribution to Gaignat’s, ii. 16, where it occupies fourteen pages. This
singular work sold at Gaignat’s sale for 902 livres. It was then the golden age of literary
curiosity, when the rarest things were not ruinous; and that price was even then considered
extraordinary, though the work was an unique. It must consist of about 180 subjects, by Italian
artists.

CAUSE AND PRETEXT.

It is an important principle in morals and in politics, not to mistake the
cause for the pretext, nor the pretext for the cause, and by this means to
distinguish between the concealed and the ostensible motive. On this
principle, history might be recomposed in a new manner; it would not often
describe circumstances and characters as they usually appear. When we
mistake the characters of men, we mistake the nature of their actions; and
we shall find in the study of secret history, that some of the most important
events in modern history were produced from very different motives than
their ostensible ones. Polybius, the most philosophical writer of the
ancients, has marked out this useful distinction of cause and pretext, and
aptly illustrates the observation by the facts which he explains. Amilcar, for

instance, was the first author and contriver of the second Punic war, though
he died ten years before the commencement of it. “A statesman,” says the
wise and grave historian, “who knows not how to trace the origin of events,
and discern the different sources from whence they take their rise, may be
compared to a physician who neglects to inform himself of the causes of
those distempers which he is called in to cure. Our pains can never be better
employed than in searching out the causes of events; for the most trifling
incidents give birth to matters of the greatest moment and importance.” The
latter part of this remark of Polybius points out another principle which has
been often verified by history, and which furnished the materials of the little
book of “Grands Evénemens par les petites Causes.”

Our present inquiry concerns “cause and pretext.”

Leo X. projected an alliance of the sovereigns of Christendom against the
Turks. The avowed object was to oppose the progress of the Ottomans
against the Mamelukes of Egypt, who were more friendly to the Christians;
but the concealed motive with his holiness was to enrich himself and his
family with the spoils of Christendom, and to aggrandise the papal throne
by war; and such, indeed, the policy of these pontiffs had always been in
those mad crusades which they excited against the East.

The Reformation, excellent as its results have proved in the cause of
genuine freedom, originated in no purer source than human passions and
selfish motives: it was the progeny of avarice in Germany, of novelty in
France, and of love in England. The latter is elegantly alluded to by Gray—

And gospel-light first beam’d from Bullen’s eyes.

The Reformation is considered by the Duke of Nevers, in a work printed in
1590, as it had been by Francis I., in his Apology in 1537, as a coup-d’état
of Charles V. towards universal monarchy. The duke says, that the emperor

silently permitted Luther to establish his principles in Germany, that they
might split the confederacy of the elective princes, and by this division
facilitate their more easy conquest, and play them off one against another,
and by these means to secure the imperial crown hereditary in the house of
Austria. Had Charles V. not been the mere creature of his politics, and had
he felt any zeal for the Catholic cause, which he pretended to fight for,
never would he have allowed the new doctrines to spread for more than
twenty years without the least opposition.

The famous League in France was raised for “religion and the relief of
public grievances;” such was the pretext! After the princes and the people
had alike become its victims, this “league” was discovered to have been
formed by the pride and the ambition of the Guises, aided by the
machinations of the Jesuits against the attempts of the Prince of Condé to
dislodge them from their “seat of power.” While the Huguenots pillaged,
burnt, and massacred, declaring in their manifestoes that they were only
fighting to release the king, whom they asserted was a prisoner of the
Guises, the Catholics repaid them with the same persecution and the same
manifestoes, declaring that they only wished to liberate the Prince of
Condé, who was the prisoner of the Huguenots. The people were led on by
the cry of “religion;” but this civil war was not in reality so much Catholic
against Huguenot, as Guise against Condé. A parallel event occurred
between our Charles I. and the Scotch Covenanters; and the king expressly
declared, in “a large declaration, concerning the late tumults in Scotland,”
that “religion is only pretended, and used by them as a cloak to palliate their
intended rebellion,” which he demonstrated by the facts he alleged. There
was a revolutionary party in France, which, taking the name of Frondeurs,
shook that kingdom under the administration of Cardinal Mazarin, and held
out for their pretext the public freedom. But that faction, composed of some
of the discontented French princes and the mob, was entirely organized by
Cardinal de Retz, who held them in hand, to check or to spur them as the

occasion required, from a mere personal pique against Mazarin, who had
not treated that vivacious genius with all the deference he exacted. This
appears from his own Memoirs.

We have smiled at James I. threatening the States-general by the English
ambassador, about Vorstius, a Dutch professor, who had espoused the
doctrines of Arminius against those of the contra-remonstrants, or
Calvinists; the ostensible subject was religious, or rather metaphysical-
religious doctrines, but the concealed one was a struggle for predominance
between the Pensionary Barnevelt, assisted by the French interest, and the
Prince of Orange, supported by the English. “These were the real sources,”
says Lord Hardwicke, a statesman and a man of letters, deeply conversant
with secret and public history, and a far more able judge than Diodati the
Swiss divine, and Brandt the ecclesiastical historian, who in the synod of
Dort could see nothing but what appeared in it, and gravely narrated the idle
squabbles on phrases concerning predestination or grace. Hales, of Eaton,
who was secretary to the English ambassador at this synod, perfectly
accords with the account of Lord Hardwicke. “Our synod,” writes that
judicious observer, “goes on like a watch; the main wheels upon which the
whole business turns are least in sight; for all things of moment are acted in
private sessions; what is done in public is only for show and entertainment.”

The cause of the persecution of the Jansenists was the jealousy of the
Jesuits; the pretext was la grace suffisante. The learned La Croze observes,
that the same circumstance occurred in the affair of Nestorius and the
church of Alexandria; the pretext was orthodoxy, the cause was the jealousy
of the church of Alexandria, or rather the fiery and turbulent Cyril, who
personally hated Nestorius. The opinions of Nestorius, and the council
which condemned them, were the same in effect. I only produce this remote
fact to prove that ancient times do not alter the truth of our principle.

When James II. was so strenuous an advocate for toleration and liberty of
conscience in removing the Test Act, this enlightened principle of
government was only a pretext with that monk-ridden monarch; it is well
known that the cause was to introduce and make the Catholics predominant
in his councils and government. The result, which that eager and blind
politician hurried on too fast, and which therefore did not take place, would
have been that “liberty of conscience” would soon have become an “overt
act of treason” before an inquisition of his Jesuits!

In all political affairs drop the pretexts and strike at the causes; we may
thus understand what the heads of parties may choose to conceal.

POLITICAL FORGERIES AND FICTIONS.

A writer, whose learning gives value to his eloquence, in his Bampton
Lectures has censured, with that liberal spirit so friendly to the cause of
truth, the calumnies and rumours of parties, which are still industriously
retailed, though they have been often confuted. Forged documents are still
referred to, or tales unsupported by evidence are confidently quoted. Mr.
Heber’s subject confined his inquiries to theological history; he has told us
that “Augustin is not ashamed, in his dispute with Faustus, to take
advantage of the popular slanders against the followers of Manes, though
his own experience (for he had himself been of that sect) was sufficient to
detect this falsehood.” The Romanists, in spite of satisfactory answers, have

continued to urge against the English protestant the romance of Parker’s
consecration;84 while the protestant persists in falsely imputing to the
catholic public formularies the systematic omission of the second
commandment. “The calumnies of Rimius and Stinstra against the
Moravian brethren are cases in point,” continues Mr. Heber. “No one now
believes them, yet they once could deceive even Warburton!” We may also
add the obsolete calumny of Jews crucifying boys—of which a monument
raised to Hugh of Lincoln perpetuates the memory, and which a modern
historian records without any scruple of doubt; several authorities, which
are cited on this occasion, amount only to the single one of Matthew Paris,
who gives it as a popular rumour. Such accusations usually happened when
the Jews were too rich and the king was too poor!85

The falsehoods and forgeries raised by parties are overwhelming! It
startles a philosopher, in the calm of his study, when he discovers how
writers, who, we may presume, are searchers after truth, should, in fact, turn
out to be searchers after the grossest fictions. This alters the habits of the
literary man: it is an unnatural depravity of his pursuits—and it proves that
the personal is too apt to predominate over the literary character.

I have already touched on the main point of the present article in the one
on “Political Nicknames.” I have there shown how political calumny
appears to have been reduced into an art; one of its branches would be that
of converting forgeries and fictions into historical authorities.

When one nation is at war with another, there is no doubt that the two
governments connive at, and often encourage, the most atrocious libels on
each other, to madden the people to preserve their independence, and
contribute cheerfully to the expenses of the war. France and England
formerly complained of Holland—the Athenians employed the same policy
against the Macedonians and Persians. Such is the origin of a vast number
of supposititious papers and volumes, which sometimes, at a remote date,

confound the labours of the honest historian, and too often serve the
purposes of the dishonest, with whom they become authorities. The crude
and suspicious libels which were drawn out of their obscurity in Cromwell’s
time against James the First have overloaded the character of that monarch,
yet are now eagerly referred to by party writers, though in their own days
they were obsolete and doubtful. During the civil wars of Charles the First
such spurious documents exist in the forms of speeches which were never
spoken; of letters never written by the names subscribed; printed
declarations never declared; battles never fought, and victories never
obtained! Such is the language of Rushworth, who complains of this evil
spirit of party forgeries, while he is himself suspected of having rescinded
or suppressed whatever was not agreeable to his patron Cromwell. A
curious, and perhaps a necessary list might be drawn up of political
forgeries of our own, which have been sometimes referred to as genuine,
but which are the inventions of wits and satirists! Bayle ingeniously
observes, that at the close of every century such productions should be
branded by a skilful discriminator, to save the future inquirer from errors he
can hardly avoid. “How many are still kept in error by the satires of the
sixteenth century! Those of the present age will be no less active in future
ages, for they will still be preserved in public libraries.”

The art and skill with which some have fabricated a forged narrative
render its detection almost hopeless. When young Maitland, the brother to
the secretary, in order to palliate the crime of the assassination of the Regent
Murray, was employed to draw up a pretended conference between him,
Knox, and others, to stigmatise them by the odium of advising to dethrone
the young monarch, and to substitute the regent for their sovereign,
Maitland produced so dramatic a performance, by giving to each person his
peculiar mode of expression, that this circumstance long baffled the
incredulity of those who could not in consequence deny the truth of a
narrative apparently so correct in its particulars! “The fiction of the

warming-pan enclosing the young Pretender brought more adherents to the
cause of the Whigs than the Bill of Rights,” observes Lord John Russell.

Among such party narratives, the horrid tale of the bloody Colonel Kirk
has been worked up by Hume with all his eloquence and pathos; and, from
its interest, no suspicion has arisen of its truth. Yet, so far as it concerns
Kirk, or the reign of James the Second, or even English history, it is, as
Ritson too honestly expresses it, “an impudent and a bare-faced lie!” The
simple fact is told by Kennet in a few words: he probably was aware of the
nature of this political fiction. Hume was not, indeed, himself the fabricator
of the tale; but he had not any historical authority. The origin of this fable
was probably a pious fraud of the Whig party, to whom Kirk had rendered
himself odious; at that moment stories still more terrifying were greedily
swallowed, and which, Ritson insinuates, have become a part of the history
of England. The original story, related more circumstantially, though not
more affectingly, nor perhaps more truly, may be found in Wanley’s
“Wonders of the Little World,”86 which I give, relieving it from the
tediousness of old Wanley.

A governor of Zealand, under the bold Duke of Burgundy, had in vain
sought to seduce the affections of the beautiful wife of a citizen. The
governor imprisons the husband on an accusation of treason; and when the
wife appeared as the suppliant, the governor, after no brief eloquence,
succeeded as a lover, on the plea that her husband’s life could only be
spared by her compliance. The woman, in tears and in aversion, and not
without a hope of vengeance only delayed, lost her honour! Pointing to the
prison, the governor told her, “If you seek your husband, enter there, and
take him along with you!” The wife, in the bitterness of her thoughts, yet
not without the consolation that she had snatched her husband from the
grave, passed into the prison; there in a cell, to her astonishment and horror,
she beheld the corpse of her husband laid out in a coffin, ready for burial!

Mourning over it, she at length returned to the governor, fiercely
exclaiming, “You have kept your word! you have restored to me my
husband! and be assured the favour shall be repaid!” The inhuman villain,
terrified in the presence of his intrepid victim, attempted to appease her
vengeance, and more, to win her to his wishes. Returning home, she
assembled her friends, revealed her whole story, and under their protection
she appealed to Charles the Bold, a strict lover of justice, and who now
awarded a singular but an exemplary catastrophe. The duke first
commanded that the criminal governor should instantly marry the woman
whom he had made a widow, and at the same time sign his will, with a
clause importing that should he die before his lady he constituted her his
heiress. All this was concealed from both sides, rather to satisfy the duke
than the parties themselves. This done, the unhappy woman was dismissed
alone! The governor was conducted to the prison to suffer the same death
he had inflicted on the husband of his wife; and when this lady was desired
once more to enter the prison, she beheld her second husband headless in
his coffin as she had her first! Such extraordinary incidents in so short a
period overpowered the feeble frame of the sufferer; she died—leaving a
son, who inherited the rich accession of fortune so fatally obtained by his
injured and suffering mother.

Such is the tale of which the party story of Kirk appeared to Ritson to
have been a rifacimento; but it is rather the foundation than the
superstructure. This critic was right in the general, but not in the particular.
It was not necessary to point out the present source, when so many others of
a parallel nature exist. This tale, universally told, Mr. Douce considers as
the origin of Measure for Measure, and was probably some traditional
event; for it appears sometimes with a change of names and places, without
any of incident. It always turns on a soldier, a brother or a husband,
executed; and a wife, a sister, a deceived victim, to save them from death. It
was, therefore, easily transferred to Kirk, and Pomfret’s poem of “Cruelty

and Lust” long made the story popular. It could only have been in this form
that it reached the historian, who, it must be observed, introduces it as a
“story commonly told of him;” but popular tragic romances should not enter
into the dusty documents of a history of England, and much less be
particularly specified in the index! Belleforest, in his old version of the tale,
has even the circumstance of the “captain, who having seduced the wife
under the promise to save her husband’s life, exhibited him soon afterwards
through the window of her apartment suspended on a gibbet.” This forms
the horrid incident in the history of “the bloody Colonel,” and served the
purpose of a party, who wished to bury him in odium. Kirk was a soldier of
fortune, and a loose liver, and a great blusterer, who would sometimes
threaten to decimate his own regiment, but is said to have forgotten the
menace the next day. Hateful as such military men will always be, in the
present instance Colonel Kirk has been shamefully calumniated by poets
and historians, who suffer themselves to be duped by the forgeries of
political parties!87

While we are detecting a source of error into which the party feelings of
modern historians may lead them, let us confess that they are far more
valuable than the ancient; for to us at least the ancients have written history
without producing authorities! Modern historians must furnish their readers
with the truest means to become their critics, by providing them with their
authorities; and it is only by judiciously appreciating these that we may
confidently accept their discoveries. Unquestionably the ancients have often
introduced into their histories many tales similar to the story of Kirk—
popular or party forgeries! The mellifluous copiousness of Livy conceals
many a tale of wonder; the graver of Tacitus etches many a fatal stroke; and
the secret history of Suetonius too often raises a suspicion of those
whispers, Quid rex in aurem reginæ dixerit, quid Juno fabulata sit cum
Jove. It is certain that Plutarch has often told, and varied too in the telling,
the same story, which he has applied to different persons. A critic in the

Ritsonian style has said of the grave Plutarch, Mendax ille Plutarchus qui
vitas oratorum, dolis et erroribus consutas, olim conscribillavit.88 “That
lying Plutarch, who formerly scribbled the lives of the orators, made up of
falsities and blunders!” There is in Italian a scarce book, of a better design
than execution, of the Abbate Lancellotti, Farfalloni degli Antichi Historici.
—“Flim-flams of the Ancients.” Modern historians have to dispute their
passage to immortality step by step; and however fervid be their eloquence,
their real test as to value must be brought to the humble references in their
margin. Yet these must not terminate our inquiries; for in tracing a story to
its original source we shall find that fictions have been sometimes grafted
on truths or hearsays, and to separate them as they appeared in their first
stage is the pride and glory of learned criticism.

84 Absurdly reported to have taken place at a meeting in the Nag’s-head Tavern, Cheapside.

85 M. Michel published in Paris, in 1834, a collection of poems and ballads concerning
Hugh of Lincoln, which were all very popular at home and abroad in the Middle Ages. One of
these, preserved in an Anglo-Norman MS. in the Bibliothèque Royale at Paris, was evidently
constructed to be sung by the people soon after the event, which is stated to have happened in
the reign of our Henry III.; but there are many ballads comparatively modern which show how
carefully the story was kept before the populace; and may be seen in the collections of Bishop
Percy, Jameson, Motherwell, &c.

86 Book iii. ch. 29, sec. 18.

87 A story still more absurd was connected with the name of Colonel Lunsford, a soldier
who consistently defended Charles I., and was killed in 1643. It is related by Echard as reported
of him, that he would kill and eat the children of the opposite party. This horridly grotesque
imputation has been preserved in the political ballads and poetry of the day. Cleveland ridicules
it in one of his poems, where he makes a Roundhead declare—

“He swore he saw, when Lunsford fell,

A child’s arm in his pocket.”

88 Taylor, Annot. ad Lysiam.

EXPRESSION OF SUPPRESSED OPINION.

A people denied the freedom of speech or of writing have usually left some
memorials of their feelings in that silent language which addresses itself to
the eye. Many ingenious inventions have been contrived to give vent to
their suppressed indignation. The voluminous grievance which they could
not trust to the voice or the pen they have carved in wood, or sculptured on
stone; and have sometimes even facetiously concealed their satire among
the playful ornaments designed to amuse those of whom they so fruitlessly
complained! Such monuments of the suppressed feelings of the multitude
are not often inspected by the historian—their minuteness escapes all eyes
but those of the philosophical antiquary; nor are these satirical appearances
always considered as grave authorities, which unquestionably they will be
found to be by a close observer of human nature. An entertaining history of
the modes of thinking, or the discontents of a people, drawn from such
dispersed efforts in every æra, would cast a new light of secret history over
many dark intervals.

Did we possess a secret history of the Saturnalia, it would doubtless have
afforded some materials for the present article. In those revels of venerable

radicalism, when the senate was closed, and the Pileus, or cap of liberty,
was triumphantly worn, all things assumed an appearance contrary to what
they were; and human nature, as well as human laws, might be said to have
been parodied. Among so many whimsical regulations in favour of the
licentious rabble, there was one which forbad the circulation of money; if
any one offered the coin of the state, it was to be condemned as an act of
madness, and the man was brought to his senses by a penitential fast for that
day. An ingenious French antiquary seems to have discovered a class of
wretched medals, cast in lead or copper, which formed the circulating
medium of these mob lords, who, to ridicule the idea of money, used the
basest metals, stamping them with grotesque figures, or odd devices—such
as a sow; a chimerical bird; an imperator in his car, with a monkey behind
him; or an old woman’s head, Acca Laurentia, either the traditional old
nurse of Romulus, or an old courtesan of the same name, who bequeathed
the fruits of her labours to the Roman people! As all things were done in
mockery, this base metal is stamped with S. C., to ridicule the Senatûs
consulto, which our antiquary happily explains,89 in the true spirit of this
government of mockery, Saturnalium consulto, agreeing with the legend of
the reverse, inscribed in the midst of four tali, or bones, which they used as
dice, Qui ludit arram det, quod satis sit—“Let them who play give a
pledge, which will be sufficient.” This mock-money served not only as an
expression of the native irony of the radical gentry of Rome during their
festival, but, had they spoken their mind out, meant a ridicule of money
itself; for these citizens of equality have always imagined that society might
proceed without this contrivance of a medium which served to represent
property in which they themselves must so little participate.

A period so glorious for exhibiting the suppressed sentiments of the
populace as were these Saturnalia, had been nearly lost for us, had not
some notions been preserved by Lucian; for we glean but sparingly from
the solemn pages of the historian, except in the remarkable instance which

Suetonius has preserved of the arch-mime who followed the body of the
Emperor Vespasian at his funeral. This officer, as well as a similar one who
accompanied the general to whom they granted a triumph, and who was
allowed the unrestrained licentiousness of his tongue, were both the organs
of popular feeling, and studied to gratify the rabble, who were their real
masters. On this occasion the arch-mime, representing both the exterior
personage and the character of Vespasian, according to custom, inquired the
expense of the funeral? He was answered, “ten millions of sesterces!” In
allusion to the love of money which characterised the emperor, his mock
representative exclaimed, “Give me the money, and, if you will, throw my
body into the Tiber!”

All these mock offices and festivals among the ancients I consider as
organs of the suppressed opinions and feelings of the populace, who were
allowed no other, and had not the means of the printing ages to leave any
permanent records. At a later period, before the discovery of the art which
multiplies with such facility libels or panegyrics, when the people could not
speak freely against those rapacious clergy who sheared the fleece and
cared not for the sheep, many a secret of popular indignation was confided
not to books (for they could not read), but to pictures and sculptures, which
are books which the people can always read. The sculptors and illuminators
of those times no doubt shared in common the popular feelings, and boldly
trusted to the paintings or the carvings which met the eyes of their luxurious
and indolent masters their satirical inventions. As far back as in 1300, we
find in Wolfius90 the description of a picture of this kind, in a MS. of
Æsop’s Fables found in the Abbey of Fulda, among other emblems of the
corrupt lives of the churchmen. The present was a wolf, large as life,
wearing a monkish cowl, with a shaven crown, preaching to a flock of
sheep, with these words of the apostle in a label from his mouth—“God is
my witness how I long for you all in my bowels!” And underneath was
inscribed—“This hooded wolf is the hypocrite of whom is said in the

Gospel, ‘Beware of false prophets!’” Such exhibitions were often
introduced into articles of furniture. A cushion was found in an old abbey, in
which was worked a fox preaching to geese, each goose holding in his bill
his praying beads! In the stone wall, and on the columns of the great church
at Strasburg, was once viewed a number of wolves, bears, foxes, and other
mischievous animals, carrying holy water, crucifixes, and tapers; and others
more indelicate. These, probably as old as the year 1300, were engraven in
1617 by a protestant; and were not destroyed till 1685, by the pious rage of
the catholics, who seemed at length to have rightly construed these silent
lampoons; and in their turn broke to pieces the protestant images, as the
others had done the papistical dolls. The carved seats and stalls in our own
cathedrals exhibit subjects not only strange and satirical, but even
indecent.91 At the time they built churches they satirised the ministers; a
curious instance how the feelings of the people struggle to find a vent. It is
conjectured that rival orders satirised each other, and that some of the
carvings are caricatures of certain monks. The margins of illuminated
manuscripts frequently contain ingenious caricatures, or satirical allegories.
In a magnificent chronicle of Froissart I observed several. A wolf, as usual,
in a monk’s frock and cowl, stretching his paw to bless a cock, bending its
head submissively to the wolf: or a fox with a crosier, dropping beads,
which a cock is picking up; to satirise the blind devotion of the bigots;
perhaps the figure of the cock alluded to our Gallic neighbours. A cat in the
habit of a nun, holding a platter in its paws to a mouse approaching to lick
it; alluding to the allurements of the abbesses to draw young women into
their convents; while sometimes I have seen a sow in an abbess’s veil,
mounted on stilts: the sex marked by the sow’s dugs. A pope sometimes
appears to be thrust by devils into a cauldron; and cardinals are seen
roasting on spits! These ornaments must have been generally executed by
the monks themselves; but these more ingenious members of the
ecclesiastical order appear to have sympathised with the people, like the

curates in our church, and envied the pampered abbot and the purple
bishop. Churchmen were the usual objects of the suppressed indignation of
the people in those days; but the knights and feudal lords have not always
escaped from the “curses not loud, but deep,” of their satirical pencils.

As the Reformation, or rather the Revolution, was hastening, this custom
became so general, that in one of the dialogues of Erasmus, where two
Franciscans are entertained by their host, it appears that such satirical
exhibitions were hung up as common furniture in the apartments of inns.
The facetious genius of Erasmus either invents or describes one which he
had seen of an ape in the habit of a Franciscan sitting by a sick man’s bed,
dispensing ghostly counsel, holding up a crucifix in one hand, while with
the other he is filching a purse out of the sick man’s pocket. Such are “the
straws” by which we may always observe from what corner the wind rises!
Mr. Dibdin has recently informed us, that Geyler, whom he calls “the herald
of the Reformation,” preceding Luther by twelve years, had a stone chair or
pulpit in the cathedral at Strasburg, from which he delivered his lectures, or
rather rolled the thunders of his anathemas against the monks. This stone
pulpit was constructed under his own superintendence, and is covered with
very indecent figures of monks and nuns, expressly designed by him to
expose their profligate manners. We see Geyler doing what for centuries
had been done!

In the curious folios of Sauval, the Stowe of France, there is a copious
chapter, entitled “Hérétiques, leurs attentats.” In this enumeration of their
attempts to give vent to their suppressed indignation, it is very remarkable
that, preceding the time of Luther, the minds of many were perfectly
Lutheran respecting the idolatrous worship of the Roman Church; and what
I now notice would have rightly entered into that significant Historia
Reformationis ante Reformationem, which was formerly projected by
continental writers.

Luther did not consign the pope’s decretals to the flames till 1520—this
was the first open act of reformation and insurrection, for hitherto he had
submitted to the court of Rome. Yet in 1490, thirty years preceding this
great event, I find a priest burnt for having snatched the host in derision
from the hands of another celebrating mass. Twelve years afterwards, 1502,
a student repeated the same deed, trampling on it; and in 1523, the resolute
death of Anne de Bourg, a counsellor in the parliament of Paris, to use the
expression of Sauval, “corrupted the world.” It is evident that the
Huguenots were fast on the increase. From that period I find continued
accounts which prove that the Huguenots of France, like the Puritans of
England, were most resolute iconoclasts. They struck off the heads of
Virgins and little Jesuses, or blunted their daggers by chipping the wooden
saints, which were then fixed at the corners of streets. Every morning
discovered the scandalous treatment they had undergone in the night. Then
their images were painted on the walls, but these were heretically scratched
and disfigured: and, since the saints could not defend themselves, a royal
edict was published in their favour, commanding that all holy paintings in
the streets should not be allowed short of ten feet from the ground! They
entered churches at night, tearing up or breaking down the prians, the
bénitoires, the crucifixes, the colossal ecce-homos, which they did not
always succeed in dislodging for want of time or tools. Amidst these battles
with wooden adversaries, we may smile at the frequent solemn processions
instituted to ward off the vengeance of the parish saint; the wooden was
expiated by a silver image, secured by iron bars and attended by the king
and the nobility, carrying the new saint, with prayers that he would protect
himself from the heretics!

In an early period of the Reformation, an instance occurs of the art of
concealing what we wish only the few should comprehend, at the same time
that we are addressing the public. Curious collectors are acquainted with
“The Olivetan Bible;” this was the first translation published by the

protestants, and there seems no doubt that Calvin was the chief, if not the
only translator; but at that moment not choosing to become responsible for
this new version, he made use of the name of an obscure relative, Robert
Pierre Olivetan. Calvin, however, prefixed a Latin preface, remarkable for
delivering positions very opposite to those tremendous doctrines of absolute
predestination which, in his theological despotism, he afterwards assumed.
De Bure describes this first protestant Bible not only as rare, but, when
found, as usually imperfect, much soiled and dog-eared, as the well-read
first edition of Shakspeare, by the perpetual use of the multitude. But a
curious fact has escaped the detection both of De Bure and Beloe; at the end
of the volume are found ten verses, which, in a concealed manner,
authenticate the translation; and which no one, unless initiated into the
secret, could possibly suspect. The verses are not poetical, but I give the
first sentence:—

Lecteur entends, si vérité adresse
Viens donc ouyr instament sa promesse
Et vif parler———&c.

The first letters of every word of these ten verses form a perfect distich,
containing information important to those to whom the Olivetan Bible was
addressed.

Les Vaudois, peuple évangélique,
Ont mis ce thrésor en publique.

An anagram would have been too inartificial a contrivance to have
answered the purpose of concealing from the world at large this secret.
There is an adroitness in the invention of the initial letters of all the words
through these ten verses. They contained a communication necessary to

authenticate the version, but which, at the same time, could not be
suspected by any person not intrusted with the secret.

When the art of medal-engraving was revived in Europe, the spirit we are
now noticing took possession of those less perishable and more circulating
vehicles. Satiric medals were almost unknown to the ancient mint,
notwithstanding those of the Saturnalia, and a few which bear miserable
puns on the unlucky names of some consuls. Medals illustrate history, and
history reflects light on medals; but we should not place such unreserved
confidence on medals as their advocates, who are warm in their favourite
study. It has been asserted that medals are more authentic memorials than
history itself; but a medal is not less susceptible of the bad passions than a
pamphlet or an epigram. Ambition has its vanity, and engraves a dubious
victory; and Flattery will practise its art, and deceive us in gold! A calumny
or a fiction on metal may be more durable than on a fugitive page; and a
libel has a better chance of being preserved when the artist is skilful, than
simple truths when miserably executed. Medals of this class are numerous,
and were the precursors of those political satires exhibited in caricature
prints.92 There is a large collection of wooden cuts about the time of Calvin,
where the Romish religion is represented by the most grotesque forms
which the ridicule of the early Reformers could invent. More than a
thousand figures attest the exuberant satire of the designers. This work is
equally rare and costly.93

Satires of this species commenced in the freedom of the Reformation; for
we find a medal of Luther in a monk’s habit, satirically bearing for its
reverse Catherine de Bora, the nun whom this monk married; the first step
of his personal reformation! Nor can we be certain that Catherine was not
more concerned in that great revolution than appears in the voluminous
Lives we have of the great reformer. However, the reformers were as great
sticklers for medals as the “papelins.” Of Pope John VIII., an effeminate

voluptuary, we have a medal with his portrait, inscribed Pope Joan! and
another of Innocent X., dressed as a woman holding a spindle; the reverse,
his famous mistress, Donna Olympia, dressed as a Pope, with the tiara on
her head, and the keys of St. Peter in her hands!94

When, in the reign of Mary, England was groaning under Spanish
influence, and no remonstrance could reach the throne, the queen’s person
and government were made ridiculous to the people’s eyes by prints or
pictures “representing her majesty naked, meagre, withered, and wrinkled,
with every aggravated circumstance of deformity that could disgrace a
female figure, seated in a regal chair; a crown on her head, surrounded with
M. R. and A. in capitals, accompanied by small letters; Maria Regina
Angliæ! a number of Spaniards were sucking her to skin and bone, and a
specification was added of the money, rings, jewels, and other presents with
which she had secretly gratified her husband Philip.”95 It is said that the
queen suspected some of her own council of this invention, who alone were
privy to these transactions. It is, however, in this manner that the voice
which is suppressed by authority comes at length in another shape to the
eye.

The age of Elizabeth, when the Roman pontiff and all his adherents were
odious to the people, produced a remarkable caricature, and ingenious
invention—a gorgon’s head! A church bell forms the helmet; the ornaments,
instead of the feathers, are a wolf’s head in a mitre devouring a lamb, an
ass’s head with spectacles reading, a goose holding a rosary: the face is
made out with a fish for the nose, a chalice and water for the eye, and other
priestly ornaments for the shoulder and breast, on which rolls of parchment
pardons hang.96

A famous bishop of Munster, Bernard de Galen, who, in his charitable
violence for converting protestants, got himself into such celebrity that he
appears to have served as an excellent sign-post to the inns in Germany,

was the true church militant: and his figure was exhibited according to the
popular fancy. His head was half mitre and half helmet; a crosier in one
hand and a sabre in the other; half a rochet and half a cuirass: he was made
performing mass as a dragoon on horseback, and giving out the charge
when he ought the Ite, missa est! He was called the converter! and the
“Bishop of Munster” became popular as a sign-post in German towns; for
the people like fighting men, though they should even fight against
themselves.

It is rather curious to observe of this new species of satire, so easily
distributed among the people, and so directly addressed to their
understandings, that it was made the vehicle of national feeling. Ministers
of state condescended to invent the devices. Lord Orford says that
caricatures on cards were the invention of George Townshend in the affair
of Byng, which was soon followed by a pack. I am informed of an ancient
pack of cards which has caricatures of all the Parliamentarian Generals,
which might be not unusefully shuffled by a writer of secret history.97 We
may be surprised to find the grave Sully practising this artifice on several
occasions. In the civil wars of France the Duke of Savoy had taken by
surprise Saluces, and struck a medal; on the reverse a centaur appears
shooting with a bow and arrow, with the legend Opportune! But when
Henry the Fourth had reconquered the town, he published another, on which
Hercules appears killing the centaur, with the word Opportunius. The great
minister was the author of this retort!98 A medal of the Dutch ambassador at
the court of France, Van Beuninghen, whom the French represent as a
haughty burgomaster, but who had the vivacity of a Frenchman and the
haughtiness of a Spaniard, as Voltaire characterises him, is said to have
been the occasion of the Dutch war in 1672; but wars will be hardly made
for an idle medal. Medals may, however, indicate a preparatory war. Louis
the Fourteenth was so often compared to the sun at its meridian, that some
of his creatures may have imagined that, like the sun, he could dart into any

part of Europe as he willed, and be as cheerfully received.99 The Dutch
minister, whose Christian name was Joshua, however, had a medal struck of
Joshua stopping the sun in his course, inferring that this miracle was
operated by his little republic. The medal itself is engraven in Van Loon’s
voluminous Histoire Médallique du Pays Bas, and in Marchand’s
Dictionnaire Historique, who labours to prove against twenty authors that
the Dutch ambassador was not the inventor; it was not, however, unworthy
of him, and it conveyed to the world the high feeling of her power which
Holland had then assumed. Two years after the noise about this medal the
republic paid dear for the device; but thirty years afterwards this very
burgomaster concluded a glorious peace, and France and Spain were
compelled to receive the mediation of the Dutch Joshua with the French
Sun.100 In these vehicles of national satire, it is odd that the phlegmatic
Dutch, more than any other nation, and from the earliest period of their
republic, should have indulged freely, if not licentiously. It was a republican
humour. Their taste was usually gross. We owe to them, even in the reign of
Elizabeth, a severe medal on Leicester, who, having retired in disgust from
the government of their provinces, struck a medal with his bust, reverse a
dog and sheep,

Non gregem, sed ingratos invitus desero;

on which the angry juvenile states struck another, representing an ape and
young ones; reverse, Leicester near a fire,

Fugiens fumum, incidit in ignem.

Another medal, with an excellent portrait of Cromwell, was struck by the
Dutch. The Protector, crowned with laurels, is on his knees, laying his head
in the lap of the commonwealth, but loosely exhibiting himself to the

French and Spanish ambassadors with gross indecency: the Frenchman,
covered with fleur de lis, is pushing aside the grave Don, and disputes with
him the precedence—Retire-toy; l’honneur appartient au roy mon maitre,
Louis le Grand. Van Loon is very right in denouncing this same medal, so
grossly flattering to the English, as most detestable and indelicate! But why
does Van Loon envy us this lumpish invention? why does the Dutchman
quarrel with his own cheese? The honour of the medal we claim, but the
invention belongs to his country. The Dutch went on commenting in this
manner on English affairs from reign to reign. Charles the Second declared
war against them in 1672 for a malicious medal, though the States-General
offered to break the die, by purchasing it of the workman for one thousand
ducats; but it served for a pretext for a Dutch war, which Charles cared
more about than the mala bestia of his exergue. Charles also complained of
a scandalous picture which the brothers de Witt had in their house,
representing a naval battle with the English. Charles the Second seems to
have been more sensible to this sort of national satire than we might have
expected in a professed wit; a race, however, who are not the most patient
in having their own sauce returned to their lips. The king employed Evelyn
to write a history of the Dutch war, and “enjoined him to make it a little
keen, for the Hollanders had very unhandsomely abused him in their
pictures, books, and libels.” The Dutch continued their career of conveying
their national feeling on English affairs more triumphantly when their
Stadtholder ascended an English throne. The birth of the Pretender is
represented by the chest which Minerva gave to the daughters of Cecrops to
keep, and which, opened, discovered an infant with a serpent’s tail:
Infantemque vident apporrectumque draconem; the chest perhaps alluding
to the removes of the warming-pan; and, in another, James and a Jesuit
flying in terror, the king throwing away a crown and sceptre, and the Jesuit
carrying a child; Ite missa est, the words applied from the mass.101 But in
these contests of national feeling, while the grandeur of Louis the

Fourteenth did not allow of these ludicrous and satirical exhibitions, and
while the political idolatry which his forty Academicians paid to him
exhausted itself in the splendid fictions of a series of famous medals,
amounting to nearly four hundred, it appears that we were not without our
reprisals; for I find Prosper Marchand, who writes as a Hollander, censuring
his own country for having at length adulated the grand monarque by a
complimentary medal. He says—“The English cannot be reproached with a
similar debonaireté.” After the famous victories of Marlborough, they
indeed inserted in a medal the head of the French monarch and the English
queen, with this inscription, Ludovicus Magnus, Anna Major. Long ere this
one of our queens had been exhibited by ourselves with considerable
energy. On the defeat of the Armada, Elizabeth, Pinkerton tells us, struck a
medal representing the English and Spanish fleets, Hesperidum regem
devicit virgo. Philip had medals dispersed in England of the same
impression, with this addition, Negatur. Est meretrix vulgi. These the queen
suppressed, but published another medal, with this legend:—

Hesperidum regem devicit virgo; negatur,
Est meretrix vulgi; res eo deterior.

An age fertile in satirical prints was the eventful æra of Charles the First:
they were showered from all parties, and a large collection of them would
admit of a critical historical commentary, which might become a vehicle of
the most curious secret history. Most of them are in a bad style, for they are
allegorical; yet that these satirical exhibitions influenced the eyes and minds
of the people is evident from an extraordinary circumstance. Two grave
collections of historical documents adopted them. We are surprised to find
prefixed to Rushworth’s and Nalson’s historical collections two such
political prints! Nalson’s was an act of retributive justice; but he seems to
have been aware that satire in the shape of pictures is a language very

attractive to the multitude, for he has introduced a caricature print in the
solemn folio of the Trial of Charles the First.102 Of the happiest of these
political prints is one by Taylor the Water-poet, not included in his folio, but
prefixed to his “Mad Fashions, Odd Fashions, or the Emblems of these
Distracted Times.” It is the figure of a man whose eyes have left their
sockets, and whose legs have usurped the place of his arms; a horse on his
hind legs is drawing a cart; a church is inverted; fish fly in the air; a candle
burns with the flame downwards; and the mouse and rabbit are pursuing the
cat and the fox!

The animosities of national hatred have been a fertile source of these
vehicles of popular feeling—which discover themselves in severe or
grotesque caricatures. The French and the Spaniards mutually exhibit one
another under the most extravagant figures. The political caricatures of the
French in the seventeenth century are numerous. The badauds of Paris
amused themselves for their losses by giving an emetic to a Spaniard, to
make him render up all the towns his victories had obtained: seven or eight
Spaniards are seen seated around a large turnip, with their frizzled
mustachios, their hats en pot-à-beurre; their long rapiers, with their
pummels down to their feet, and their points up to their shoulders; their
ruffs stiffened by many rows, and pieces of garlick stuck in their girdles.
The Dutch were exhibited in as great variety as the uniformity of frogs
would allow. We have largely participated in the vindictive spirit which
these grotesque emblems keep up among the people; they mark the secret
feelings of national pride. The Greeks despised foreigners, and considered
them only as fit to be slaves;103 the ancient Jews, inflated with a false idea
of their small territory, would be masters of the world: the Italians placed a
line of demarcation for genius and taste, and marked it by their mountains.
The Spaniards once imagined that the conferences of God with Moses on
Mount Sinai were in the Spanish language. If a Japanese become the friend
of a foreigner, he is considered as committing treason to his emperor, and

rejected as a false brother in a country which, we are told, is figuratively
called Tenka, or the Kingdom under the Heavens. John Bullism is not
peculiar to Englishmen; and patriotism is a noble virtue when it secures our
independence without depriving us of our humanity.

The civil wars of the League in France, and those in England under
Charles the First, bear the most striking resemblance; and in examining the
revolutionary scenes exhibited by the graver in the famous Satire Ménippée,
we discover the foreign artist revelling in the caricature of his ludicrous and
severe exhibition; and in that other revolutionary period of La Fronde, there
was a mania for political songs; the curious have formed them into
collections; and we not only have “the Rump Songs” of Charles the First’s
times, but have repeated this kind of evidence of the public feeling at many
subsequent periods.104 Caricatures and political songs might with us
furnish a new sort of history; and perhaps would preserve some truths, and
describe some particular events not to be found in more grave authorities.

89 Baudelot de Dairval, de l’Utilité des Voyages, ii. 645. There is a work, by Ficoroni, on
these lead coins or tickets. They are found in the cabinets of the curious medallist. Pinkerton, in
referring to this entertaining work, regrets that “such curious remains have almost escaped the
notice of medallists, and have not yet been arranged in one class, or named. A special work on
them would be highly acceptable.” The time has perhaps arrived when antiquaries may begin to
be philosophers, and philosophers antiquaries! The unhappy separation of erudition from
philosophy, and of philosophy from erudition, has hitherto thrown impediments in the progress
of the human mind and the history of man.

90 Lect. Mem. i. ad. an. 1300.

91 Many specimens may be seen in Carter’s curious volumes on “Ancient Architecture and
Painting.”

92 The series published during the wars in the Low Countries are the most remarkable, and
may be seen in the volumes by Van Loon.

93 Mr. Douce possessed a portion of this very curious collection: for a complete one De
Bure asked about twenty pounds.

94 The Roman satirists also invented a tale to ridicule what they dared not openly condemn,
in which it was asserted that a play called The Marriage of the Pope was enacted before
Cromwell, in which the Donna having obtained the key of Paradise from Innocent, insists on
that of Purgatory also, that she may not be sent there when he is wearied of her. “The wedding”
is then kept by a ball of monks and nuns, delighted to think they may one day marry also. Such
was the means the Romans took to notify their sense of the degradation of the pope.

95 Warton’s “Life of Sir Thomas Pope,” p. 58.

96 This ancient caricature, so descriptive of the popular feelings, is tolerably given in
Malcolm’s history of “Caricaturing,” plate ii. fig. 1.

97 This pack was probably executed in Holland in the time of Charles the Second. There are
other sets of political cards of the same reign, particularly one connected with the so-called
“popish plots,” and the murder of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey. The South-Sea Bubble was made
the subject of a similar pack, after it had exploded.

98 The royal house of Navarre was fancifully derived by the old heraldic writers from
Hispalus, the son of Hercules; and the pageant provided by the citizens of Avignon to greet his
entrance there in 1600, was entirely composed in reference thereto, and Henry indicated in its
title, L’Hercule Gaulois Triumphant.

99 He took for a device and motto on his shield on the occasion of tilting-matches and court
festivities, a representation of the sun in splendour, and the words, Nec Pluribus Impar.

100 The history of this medal is useful in more than one respect; and may be found in
Prosper Marchand.

101 Another represents the young prince holding the symbol of the Romish faith in his right
hand, and crowning himself with the left; Truth opens a door below and discovers Father Petre,

as the guiding influence of all.

102 It represents Cromwell as an armed monster, carrying the three kingdoms captive at his
feet in a triumphal car driven by the devil over the body of liberty, and the decapitated Charles I.
The state of the people is emblematized by a bird flying from its cage to be devoured by a hawk;
and sheep breaking from the fold to be set on by ravening wolves.

103 A passage may be found in Aristotle’s Politics, vol. i. c. 3-7; where Aristotle advises
Alexander to govern the Greeks like his subjects, and the barbarians like slaves; for that the one
he was to consider as companions, and the other as creatures of an inferior race.

104 The following may be mentioned as the most important of these collections:—

“Rome rhymed to Death.” 1683.

“A Collection of the newest and most ingenious Poems, Songs, Catches, &c, against Popery.”
1689.

“Poems on Affairs of State.” 1703-7.

“Whig and Tory; or, Wit on both sides.” 1712.

“Political Merriment; or, Truths told to some Tune.” 1714.

AUTOGRAPHS.105

The art of judging of the characters of persons by their handwriting can
only have any reality when the pen, acting without restraint, becomes an

instrument guided by, and indicative of, the natural dispositions. But
regulated as the pen is now too often by a mechanical process, which the
present race of writing-masters seem to have contrived for their own
convenience, a whole school exhibits a similar handwriting; the pupils are
forced in their automatic motions, as if acted on by the pressure of a steam-
engine; a bevy of beauties will now write such fac-similes of each other,
that in a heap of letters presented to the most sharp-sighted lover to select
that of his mistress—though, like Bassanio among the caskets, his
happiness should be risked on the choice—he would despair of fixing on
the right one, all appearing to have come from the same rolling-press. Even
brothers of different tempers have been taught by the same master to give
the same form to their letters, the same regularity to their line, and have
made our handwritings as monotonous as are our characters in the present
habits of society. The true physiognomy of writing will be lost among our
rising generation: it is no longer a face that we are looking on, but a
beautiful mask of a single pattern; and the fashionable handwriting of our
young ladies is like the former tight-lacing of their mothers’ youthful days,
when every one alike had what was supposed to be a fine shape!

Assuredly nature would prompt every individual to have a distinct sort of
writing, as she has given a peculiar countenance—a voice—and a manner.
The flexibility of the muscles differs with every individual, and the hand
will follow the direction of the thoughts and the emotions and the habits of
the writers. The phlegmatic will portray his words, while the playful haste
of the volatile will scarcely sketch them; the slovenly will blot and efface
and scrawl, while the neat and orderly-minded will view themselves in the
paper before their eyes. The merchant’s clerk will not write like the lawyer
or the poet. Even nations are distinguished by their writing; the vivacity and
variableness of the Frenchman, and the delicacy and suppleness of the
Italian, are perceptibly distinct from the slowness and strength of pen
discoverable in the phlegmatic German, Dane, and Swede. When we are in

grief, we do not write as we should in joy. The elegant and correct mind,
which has acquired the fortunate habit of a fixity of attention, will write
with scarcely an erasure on the page, as Fenelon, and Gray, and Gibbon;
while we find in Pope’s manuscripts the perpetual struggles of correction,
and the eager and rapid interlineations struck off in heat. Lavater’s notion of
handwriting is by no means chimerical; nor was General Paoli fanciful,
when he told Mr. Northcote that he had decided on the character and
dispositions of a man from his letters, and the handwriting.

Long before the days of Lavater, Shenstone in one of his letters said, “I
want to see Mrs. Jago’s handwriting, that I may judge of her temper.” One
great truth must however be conceded to the opponents of the physiognomy
of writing; general rules only can be laid down. Yet the vital principle must
be true that the handwriting bears an analogy to the character of the writer,
as all voluntary actions are characteristic of the individual. But many causes
operate to counteract or obstruct this result. I am intimately acquainted with
the handwritings of five of our great poets. The first in early life acquired
among Scottish advocates a handwriting which cannot be distinguished
from that of his ordinary brothers; the second, educated in public schools,
where writing is shamefully neglected, composes his sublime or sportive
verses in a school-boy’s ragged scrawl, as if he had never finished his tasks
with the writing-master; the third writes his highly-wrought poetry in the
common hand of a merchant’s clerk, from early commercial avocations; the
fourth has all that finished neatness which polishes his verses; while the
fifth is a specimen of a full mind, not in the habit of correction or alteration;
so that he appears to be printing down his thoughts, without a solitary
erasure. The handwriting of the first and third poets, not indicative of their
character, we have accounted for; the others are admirable specimens of
characteristic autographs.106

Oldys, in one of his curious notes, was struck by the distinctness of
character in the handwritings of several of our kings. He observed nothing
further than the mere fact, and did not extend his idea to the art of judging
of the natural character by the writing. Oldys has described these
handwritings with the utmost correctness, as I have often verified. I shall
add a few comments.

“Henry the Eighth wrote a strong hand, but as if he had seldom a good
pen.”—The vehemence of his character conveyed itself into his writing;
bold, hasty, and commanding, I have no doubt the assertor of the Pope’s
supremacy and its triumphant destroyer split many a good quill.

“Edward the Sixth wrote a fair legible hand.”—We have this promising
young prince’s diary, written by his own hand; in all respects he was an
assiduous pupil, and he had scarcely learnt to write and to reign when we
lost him.

“Queen Elizabeth writ an upright hand, like the bastard Italian.” She was
indeed a most elegant caligrapher, whom Roger Ascham107 had taught all
the elegancies of the pen. The French editor of the little autographical work
I have noticed has given the autograph of her name, which she usually
wrote in a very large tall character, and painfully elaborate. He accompanies
it with one of the Scottish Mary, who at times wrote elegantly, though
usually in uneven lines; when in haste and distress of mind, in several
letters during her imprisonment which I have read, much the contrary. The
French editor makes this observation: ”Who could believe that these
writings are of the same epoch? The first denotes asperity and ostentation;
the second indicates simplicity, softness, and nobleness. The one is that of
Elizabeth, queen of England; the other that of her cousin, Mary Stuart. The
difference of these two handwritings answers most evidently to that of their
characters.”

“James the First writ a poor ungainly character, all awry, and not in a
straight line.” James certainly wrote a slovenly scrawl, strongly indicative
of that personal negligence which he carried into all the little things of life;
and Buchanan, who had made him an excellent scholar, may receive the
disgrace of his pupil’s ugly scribble, which sprawls about his careless and
inelegant letters.

“Charles the First wrote a fair open Italian hand, and more correctly
perhaps than any prince we ever had.” Charles was the first of our
monarchs who intended to have domiciliated taste in the kingdom, and it
might have been conjectured from this unfortunate prince, who so finely
discriminated the manners of the different painters, which are in fact their
handwritings, that he would not have been insensible to the elegancies of
the pen.

“Charles the Second wrote a little fair running hand, as if wrote in haste,
or uneasy till he had done.” Such was the writing to have been expected
from this illustrious vagabond, who had much to write, often in odd
situations, and could never get rid of his natural restlessness and vivacity.

“James the Second writ a large fair hand.” It is characterised by his
phlegmatic temper, as an exact detailer of occurrences, and the matter-of-
business genius of the writer.

“Queen Anne wrote a fair round hand;” that is the writing she had been
taught by her master, probably without any alteration of manner naturally
suggested by herself; the copying hand of a common character.108

The subject of autographs associates itself with what has been dignified
by its professors as caligraphy, or the art of beautiful writing. As I have
something curious to communicate on that subject considered
professionally, it shall form our following article.

105 A small volume which I met with at Paris, entitled “L’Art de juger du Caractère des
Hommes sur leurs Ecritures,” is curious for its illustrations, consisting of twenty-four plates,
exhibiting fac-similes of the writing of eminent and other persons, correctly taken from the
original autographs. Since this period both France and Germany have produced many books
devoted to the use of the curious in autographs. In our own country J.T. Smith published a
curious collection of fac-similes of letters, chiefly from literary characters.

106 It will be of interest to the reader to note the names of these poets in the consecutive
order they are alluded to. They are Scott, Byron, Rogers, Moore, and Campbell.

107 He was also the tutor of Lady Jane Grey, and the author of one of our earliest and best
works on education.

108 Since this article was written, Nichols has published a cleverly-executed series of
autographs of royal, noble, and illustrious persons of Great Britain, in which the reader may
study the accuracy of the criticism above given.

THE HISTORY OF WRITING-MASTERS.

There is a very apt letter from James the First to Prince Henry when very
young, on the neatness and fairness of his handwriting. The royal father
suspecting that the prince’s tutor, Mr., afterwards Sir Adam, Newton, had
helped out the young prince in the composition, and that in this specimen of
caligraphy he had relied also on the pains of Mr. Peter Bales, the great
writing-master, for touching up his letters, his majesty shows a laudable

anxiety that the prince should be impressed with the higher importance of
the one over the other. James shall himself speak. “I confess I long to
receive a letter from you that may be wholly yours, as well matter as form;
as well formed by your mind as drawn by your fingers; for ye may
remember, that in my book to you I warn you to beware with (of) that kind
of wit that may fly out at the end of your fingers; not that I commend not a
fair handwriting; sed hoc facito, illud non omittito: and the other is multo
magis præcipuum.” Prince Henry, indeed, wrote with that elegance which
he borrowed from his own mind; and in an age when such minute elegance
was not universal among the crowned heads of Europe. Henry IV., on
receiving a letter from Prince Henry, immediately opened it, a custom not
usual with him, and comparing the writing with the signature, to decide
whether it were of one hand, Sir George Carew, observing the French
King’s hesitation, called Mr. Douglas to testify to the fact; on which Henry
the Great, admiring an art in which he had little skill, and looking on the
neat elegance of the writing before him, politely observed, “I see that in
writing fair, as in other things, the elder must yield to the younger.”

Had this anecdote of neat writing reached the professors of caligraphy,
who in this country have put forth such painful panegyrics on the art, these
royal names had unquestionably blazoned their pages. Not indeed that these
penmen require any fresh inflation; for never has there been a race of
professors in any art who have exceeded in solemnity and pretensions the
practitioners in this simple and mechanical craft. I must leave to more
ingenious investigators of human nature to reveal the occult cause which
has operated such powerful delusions on these “Vive la Plume!” men, who
have been generally observed to possess least intellectual ability in
proportion to the excellence they have obtained in their own art. I suspect
this maniacal vanity is peculiar to the writing-masters of England; and I can
only attribute the immense importance which they have conceived of their
art to the perfection to which they have carried the art of short-hand writing;

an art which was always better understood, and more skilfully practised, in
England than in any other country. It will surprise some when they learn
that the artists in verse and colours, poets and painters, have not raised
loftier pretensions to the admiration of mankind. Writing-masters, or
caligraphers, have had their engraved “effigies,” with a Fame in flourishes,
a pen in one hand and a trumpet in the other; and fine verses inscribed, and
their very lives written! They have compared

The nimbly-turning of their silver quill

to the beautiful in art and the sublime in invention; nor is this wonderful,
since they discover the art of writing, like the invention of language, in a
divine original; and from the tablets of stone which the Deity himself
delivered, they trace their German broad text, or their fine running-hand.
One, for “the bold striking of those words, Vive la Plume,” was so sensible
of the reputation that this last piece of command of hand would give the
book which he thus adorned, and which his biographer acknowledges was
the product of about a minute,—(but then how many years of flourishing
had that single minute cost him!)—that he claims the glory of an artist;
observing,—

We seldom find
The man of business with the artist join’d.

Another was flattered that his writing could impart immortality to the most
wretched compositions!—

And any lines prove pleasing, when you write.

Sometimes the caligrapher is a sort of hero:—

To you, you rare commander of the quill,
Whose wit and worth, deep learning, and high skill,
Speak you the honour of Great Tower Hill!

The last line became traditionally adopted by those who were so lucky as to
live in the neighbourhood of this Parnassus. But the reader must form some
notion of that charm of caligraphy which has so bewitched its professors,
when,

Soft, bold, and free, your manuscripts still please.

How justly bold in Snell’s improving hand
The pen at once joins freedom with command!
With softness strong, with ornaments not vain,
Loose with proportion, and with neatness plain;
Not swell’d, not full, complete in every part,
And artful most, when not affecting art.

And these describe those pencilled knots and flourishes, “the angels, the
men, the birds, and the beasts,” which, as one of them observed, he could

Command
Even by the gentle motion of his hand,

all the speciosa miracula of caligraphy;

Thy tender strokes, inimitably fine,
Crown with perfection every flowing line;
And to each grand performance add a grace,
As curling hair adorns a beauteous face:

In every page new fancies give delight,
And sporting round the margin charm the sight.

One Massey, a writing-master, published in 1763, “The Origin and
Progress of Letters.” The great singularity of this volume is “a new species
of biography never attempted before in English.” This consists of the lives
of “English Penmen,” otherwise writing-masters! If some have foolishly
enough imagined that the sedentary lives of authors are void of interest
from deficient incident and interesting catastrophe, what must they think of
the barren labours of those who, in the degree they become eminent, to use
their own style, in the art of “dish, dash, long-tail fly,” the less they become
interesting to the public; for what can the most skilful writing-master do but
wear away his life in leaning over his pupil’s copy, or sometimes snatch a
pen to decorate the margin, though he cannot compose the page? Montaigne
has a very original notion on writing-masters: he says that some of those
caligraphers who had obtained promotion by their excellence in the art,
afterwards affected to write carelessly, lest their promotion should be
suspected to have been owing to such an ordinary acquisition!

Massey is an enthusiast, fortunately for his subject. He considers that
there are schools of writing, as well as of painting or sculpture; and
expatiates with the eye of fraternal feeling on “a natural genius, a tender
stroke, a grand performance, a bold striking freedom, and a liveliness in the
sprigged letters, and pencilled knots and flourishes;” while this Vasari of
writing-masters relates the controversies and the libels of many a rival pen-
nibber. “George Shelley, one of the most celebrated worthies who have
made a shining figure in the commonwealth of English caligraphy, born I
suppose of obscure parents, because brought up in Christ’s Hospital, yet
under the humble blue-coat he laid the foundation of his caligraphic
excellence and lasting fame, for he was elected writing-master to the
hospital.” Shelley published his “Natural Writing;” but, alas! Snell, another

blue-coat, transcended the other. He was a genius who would “bear no
brother near the throne.”—“I have been informed that there were jealous
heart-burnings, if not bickerings, between him and Col. Ayres, another of
our great reformers in the writing commonweal, both eminent men, yet, like
our most celebrated poets Pope and Addison, or, to carry the comparison
still higher, like Cæsar and Pompey, one could bear no superior, and the
other no equal.” Indeed, the great Snell practised a little stratagem against
Mr. Shelley, for which, if writing-masters held courts-martial, this hero
ought to have appeared before his brothers. In one of his works he procured
a number of friends to write letters, in which Massey confesses “are some
satyrical strokes upon Shelley,” as if he had arrogated too much to himself
in his book of “Natural Writing.” They find great fault with pencilled knots
and sprigged letters. Shelley, who was an advocate for ornaments in fine
penmanship, which Snell utterly rejected, had parodied a well-known line
of Herbert’s in favour of his favourite decorations:—

A Knot may take him who from letters flies,
And turn delight into an exercise.

These reflections created ill-blood, and even an open difference amongst
several of the superior artists in writing. The commanding genius of Snell
had a more terrific contest when he published his “Standard Rules,”
pretending to have demonstrated them as Euclid would. “This proved a
bone of contention, and occasioned a terrific quarrel between Mr. Snell and
Mr. Clark. This quarrel about ‘Standard Rules’ ran so high between them,
that they could scarce forbear scurrilous language therein, and a treatment
of each other unbecoming gentlemen! Both sides in this dispute had their
abettors; and to say which had the most truth and reason, non nostrum est
tantas componere lites; perhaps both parties might be too fond of their own
schemes. They should have left them to people to choose which they liked

best.” A candid politician is our Massey, and a philosophical historian too;
for he winds up the whole story of this civil war by describing its result,
which happened as all such great controversies have ever closed. “Who
now-a-days takes those Standard Rules, either one or the other, for their
guide in writing?” This is the finest lesson ever offered to the furious heads
of parties, and to all their men; let them meditate on the nothingness of their
“Standard Rules,” by the fate of Mr. Snell.

It was to be expected, when once these writing-masters imagined that
they were artists, that they would be infected with those plague-spots of
genius—envy, detraction, and all the jalousie du métier. And such to this
hour we find them! An extraordinary scene of this nature has long been
exhibited in my neighbourhood, where two doughty champions of the quill
have been posting up libels in their windows respecting the inventor of a
new art of writing, the Carstairian, or the Lewisian? When the great German
philosopher asserted that he had discovered the method of fluxions before
Sir Isaac, and when the dispute grew so violent that even the calm Newton
sent a formal defiance in set terms, and got even George the Second to try
to arbitrate (who would rather have undertaken a campaign), the method of
fluxions was no more cleared up than the present affair between our two
heroes of the quill.

A recent instance of one of these egregious caligraphers may be told of
the late Tomkins. This vainest of writing-masters dreamed through life that
penmanship was one of the fine arts, and that a writing-master should be
seated with his peers in the Academy! He bequeathed to the British
Museum his opus magnum—a copy of Macklin’s Bible, profusely
embellished with the most beautiful and varied decorations of his pen; and
as he conceived that both the workman and the work would alike be darling
objects with posterity, he left something immortal with the legacy, his fine
bust, by Chantrey, unaccompanied by which they were not to receive the

unparalleled gift! When Tomkins applied to have his bust, our great sculptor
abated the usual price, and, courteously kind to the feelings of the man, said
that he considered Tomkins as an artist! It was the proudest day of the life
of our writing-master!

But an eminent artist and wit now living, once looking on this fine bust
of Tomkins, declared, that “this man had died for want of a dinner!”—a
fate, however, not so lamentable as it appeared! Our penman had long felt
that he stood degraded in the scale of genius by not being received at the
Academy, at least among the class of engravers; the next approach to
academic honour he conceived would be that of appearing as a guest at their
annual dinner. These invitations are as limited as they are select, and all the
Academy persisted in considering Tomkins as a writing-master! Many a
year passed, every intrigue was practised, every remonstrance was urged,
every stratagem of courtesy was tried; but never ceasing to deplore the
failure of his hopes, it preyed on his spirits, and the luckless caligrapher
went down to his grave—without dining at the Academy! This authentic
anecdote has been considered as “satire improperly directed”—by some
friend of Mr. Tomkins—but the criticism is much too grave! The foible of
Mr. Tomkins as a writing-master presents a striking illustration of the class
of men here delineated. I am a mere historian—and am only responsible for
the veracity of this fact. That “Mr. Tomkins lived in familiar intercourse
with the Royal Academicians of his day, and was a frequent guest at their
private tables,” and moreover was a most worthy man, I believe—but is it
less true that he was ridiculously mortified by being never invited to the
Academic dinner, on account of his caligraphy? He had some reason to
consider that his art was of the exalted class to which he aspired to raise it,
when this friend concludes his eulogy of this writing-master thus—“Mr.
Tomkins, as an artist, stood foremost in his own profession, and his name
will be handed down to posterity with the Heroes and Statesmen, whose

excellences his penmanship has contributed to illustrate and to
commemorate.” I always give the Pour and the Contre!

Such men about such things have produced public contests, combats a
l’outrance, where much ink was spilled by the knights in a joust of goose-
quills; these solemn trials have often occurred in the history of writing-
masters, which is enlivened by public defiances, proclamations, and judicial
trials by umpires! The prize was usually a golden pen of some value. One as
late as in the reign of Anne took place between Mr. German and Mr. More.
German having courteously insisted that Mr. More should set the copy, he
thus set it, ingeniously quaint!

As more, and More, our understanding clears,
So more and more our ignorance appears.

The result of this pen-combat was really lamentable; they displayed such an
equality of excellence that the umpires refused to decide, till one of them
espied that Mr. German had omitted the tittle of an i! But Mr. More was
evidently a man of genius, not only by his couplet, but in his “Essay on the
Invention of Writing,” where occurs this noble passage: “Art with me is of
no party. A noble emulation I would cherish, while it proceeded neither
from, nor to malevolence. Bales had his Johnson, Norman his Mason, Ayres
his Matlock and his Shelley; yet Art the while was no sufferer. The
busybody who officiously employs himself in creating misunderstandings
between artists, may be compared to a turn-stile, which stands in every
man’s way, yet hinders nobody; and he is the slanderer who gives ear to the
slander.”109

Among these knights of the “Plume volante,” whose chivalric exploits
astounded the beholders, must be distinguished Peter Bales in his joust with
David Johnson. In this tilting-match the guerdon of caligraphy was won by

the greatest of caligraphers; its arms were assumed by the victor, azure, a
pen or; while the “golden pen,” carried away in triumph, was painted with a
hand over the door of the caligrapher. The history of this renowned
encounter was only traditionally known, till with my own eyes I pondered
on this whole trial of skill in the precious manuscript of the champion
himself; who, like Cæsar, not only knew how to win victories, but also to
record them. Peter Bales was a hero of such transcendent eminence, that his
name has entered into our history. Holinshed chronicles one of his
curiosities of microscopic writing at a time when the taste prevailed for
admiring writing which no eye could read! In the compass of a silver penny
this caligrapher put more things than would fill several of these pages. He
presented Queen Elizabeth with the manuscript set in a ring of gold covered
with a crystal; he had also contrived a magnifying glass of such power, that,
to her delight and wonder, her majesty read the whole volume, which she
held on her thumb-nail, and “commended the same to the lords of the
council and the ambassadors;” and frequently, as Peter often heard, did her
majesty vouchsafe to wear this caligraphic ring.110

“Some will think I labour on a cobweb”—modestly exclaimed Bales in
his narrative, and his present historian much fears for himself! The reader’s
gratitude will not be proportioned to my pains, in condensing such copious
pages into the size of a “silver penny,” but without its worth!

For a whole year had David Johnson affixed a challenge “To any one
who should take exceptions to this my writing and teaching.” He was a
young friend of Bales, daring and longing for an encounter; yet Bales was
magnanimously silent, till he discovered that he was “doing much less in
writing and teaching” since this public challenge was proclaimed! He then
set up his counter-challenge, and in one hour afterwards Johnson arrogantly
accepted it, “in a most despiteful and disgraceful manner.” Bales’s
challenge was delivered “in good terms.” “To all Englishmen and

strangers.” It was to write for a gold pen of twenty pounds value in all kinds
of hands, “best, straightest, and fastest,” and most kind of ways; “a full, a
mean, a small, with line, and without line; in a slow set hand, a mean facile
hand, and a fast running hand;” and further, “to write truest and speediest,
most secretary and clerk-like, from a man’s mouth, reading or pronouncing,
either English or Latin.”

Young Johnson had the hardihood now of turning the tables on his great
antagonist, accusing the veteran Bales of arrogance. Such an absolute
challenge, says he, was never witnessed by man, “without exception of any
in the world!” And a few days after meeting Bales, “of set purpose to
affront and disgrace him what he could, showed Bales a piece of writing of
secretary’s hand, which he had very much laboured in fine abortive
parchment,”111 uttering to the challenger these words: “Mr. Bales, give me
one shilling out of your purse, and if within six months you better, or equal
this piece of writing, I will give you forty pounds for it.” This legal deposit
of the shilling was made, and the challenger, or appellant, was thereby
bound by law to the performance.

The day before the trial a printed declaration was affixed throughout the
city, taunting Bales’s “proud poverty,” and his pecuniary motives, as “a
thing ungentle, base, and mercenary, and not answerable to the dignity of
the golden pen!” Johnson declares he would maintain his challenge for a
thousand pounds more, but for the respondent’s inability to perform a
thousand groats. Bales retorts on the libel; declares it as a sign of his rival’s
weakness, “yet who so bold as blind Bayard, that hath not a word of Latin
to cast at a dog, or say Bo! to a goose!”

On Michaelmas day, 1595, the trial opened before five judges: the
appellant and the respondent appeared at the appointed place, and an
ancient gentleman was intrusted with “the golden pen.” In the first trial, for
the manner of teaching scholars, after Johnson had taught his pupil a

fortnight, he would not bring him forward! This was awarded in favour of
Bales.

The second, for secretary and clerk-like writing, dictating to them both in
English and in Latin, Bales performed best, being first done; written
straightest without line, with true orthography: the challenger himself
confessing that he wanted the Latin tongue, and was no clerk!

The third and last trial for fair writing in sundry kinds of hands, the
challenger prevailed for the beauty and most “authentic proportion,” and for
the superior variety of the Roman hand. In the court hand the respondent
exceeded the appellant, and likewise in the set text; and in bastard secretary
was also somewhat perfecter.

At length Bales, perhaps perceiving an equilibrium in the judicial
decision, to overwhelm his antagonist presented what he distinguishes as
his “masterpiece,” composed of secretary and Roman hand four ways
varied, and offering the defendant to let pass all his previous advantages if
he could better this specimen of caligraphy! The challenger was silent! At
this moment some of the judges perceiving that the decision must go in
favour of Bales, in consideration of the youth of the challenger, lest he
might be disgraced to the world, requested the other judges not to pass
judgment in public. Bales assures us, that he in vain remonstrated; for by
these means the winning of the golden pen might not be so famously spread
as otherwise it would have been. To Bales the prize was awarded. But our
history has a more interesting close; the subtle Machiavelism of the first
challenger!

When the great trial had closed, and Bales, carrying off the golden pen,
exultingly had it painted and set up for his sign, the baffled challenger went
about reporting that he had won the golden pen, but that the defendant had
obtained the same by “plots and shifts, and other base and cunning

practices.” Bales vindicated his claim, and offered to show the world his
“masterpiece” which had acquired it. Johnson issued an “Appeal to all
Impartial Penmen,” which he spread in great numbers through the city for
ten days, a libel against the judges and the victorious defendant! He
declared that there had been a subtle combination with one of the judges
concerning the place of trial; which he expected to have been “before
penmen,” but not before a multitude like a stage-play, and shouts and
tumults, with which the challenger had hitherto been unacquainted. The
judges were intended to be twelve; but of the five, four were the
challenger’s friends, honest gentlemen, but unskilled in judging of most
hands; and he offered again forty pounds to be allowed in six months to
equal Bales’s masterpiece. And he closes his “appeal” by declaring that
Bales had lost in several parts of the trial, neither did the judges deny that
Bales possessed himself of the golden pen by a trick! Before judgment was
awarded, alleging the sickness of his wife to be extreme, he desired she
might have a sight of the golden pen to comfort her! The ancient gentleman
who was the holder, taking the defendant’s word, allowed the golden pen to
be carried to the sick wife; and Bales immediately pawned it, and
afterwards, to make sure work, sold it at a great loss, so that when the
judges met for their definite sentence, nor pen nor pennyworth was to be
had! The judges being ashamed of their own conduct, were compelled to
give such a verdict as suited the occasion.

Bales rejoins: he publishes to the universe the day and the hour when the
judges brought the golden pen to his house, and while he checks the
insolence of this Bobadil, to show himself no recreant, assumes the golden
pen for his sign.

Such is the shortest history I could contrive of this chivalry of the pen;
something mysteriously clouds over the fate of the defendant; Bales’s

history, like Cæsar’s, is but an ex-parte evidence. Who can tell whether he
has not slurred over his defeats, and only dwelt on his victories?

There is a strange phrase connected with the art of the caligrapher, which
I think may be found in most, if not in all modern languages, to write like
an angel! Ladies have been frequently compared with angels; they are
beautiful as angels, and sing and dance like angels; but, however intelligible
these are, we do not so easily connect penmanship with the other celestial
accomplishments. This fanciful phrase, however, has a very human origin.
Among those learned Greeks who emigrated to Italy, and afterwards into
France, in the reign of Francis I., was one Angelo Vergecio, whose beautiful
caligraphy excited the admiration of the learned. The French monarch had a
Greek fount cast, modelled by his writing. The learned Henry Stephens,
who, like our Porson for correctness and delicacy, was one of the most
elegant writers of Greek, had learnt the practice from our Angelo. His name
became synonymous for beautiful writing, and gave birth to the vulgar
proverb or familiar phrase to write like an angel!

109 I have not met with More’s book, and am obliged to transcribe this from the Biog. Brit.

110 Howes, in his Chronicle under date 1576, has thus narrated the story:—“A strange piece
of work, and almost incredible, was brought to pass by an Englishman from within the city of
London, and a clerk of the Chancery, named Peter Bales, who by his industry and practice of his
pen contrived and writ, within the compass of a penny, the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, the Ten
Commandments, a prayer to God, a prayer for the queen, his posy, his name, the day of the
month, the year of our Lord, and the reign of the queen: and at Hampton Court he presented the
same to the queen’s majesty.”

111 This was written in the reign of Elizabeth. Holyoke notices “virgin-perchment made of
an abortive skin; membrana virgo.” Peacham, on “Drawing,” calls parchment simply an
abortive.

THE ITALIAN HISTORIANS.

It is remarkable that the country which has long lost its political
independence may be considered as the true parent of modern history. The
greater part of their historians have abstained from the applause of their
contemporaries, while they have not the less elaborately composed their
posthumous folios, consecrated solely to truth and posterity! The true
principles of national glory are opened by the grandeur of the minds of
these assertors of political freedom. It was their indignant spirit, seeking to

console its injuries by confiding them to their secret manuscripts, which
raised up this singular phenomenon in the literary world.

Of the various causes which produced such a lofty race of patriots, one is
prominent. The proud recollections of their Roman fathers often troubled
the dreams of the sons. The petty rival republics, and the petty despotic
principalities, which had started up from some great families, who at first
came forward as the protectors of the people from their exterior enemies or
their interior factions, at length settled into a corruption of power; a power
which had been conferred on them to preserve liberty itself! These factions
often shook, by their jealousies, their fears, and their hatreds, that divided
land, which groaned whenever they witnessed the “Ultramontanes”
descending from their Alps and their Apennines. Petrarch, in a noble
invective, warmed by Livy and ancient Rome, impatiently beheld the
French and the Germans passing the mounts. “Enemies,” he cries, “so often
conquered prepare to strike with swords which formerly served us to raise
our trophies: shall the mistress of the world bear chains forged by hands
which she has so often bound to their backs?” Machiavel, in his
“Exhortations to Free Italy from the Barbarians,” rouses his country against
their changeable masters, the Germans, the French, and the Spaniards;
closing with the verse of Petrarch, that short shall be the battle for which
virtue arms to show the world—

che l’ antico valore
Ne gl’ Italici cuor non è ancor morto.

Nor has this sublime patriotism declined even in more recent times; I
cannot resist from preserving in this place a sonnet by Filicaja, which I
could never read without participating in the agitation of the writer for the
ancient glory of his degenerated country! The energetic personification of

the close perhaps surpasses even his more celebrated sonnet, preserved in
Lord Byron’s notes to the fourth canto of “Childe Harold.”

Dov’ è Italia, il tuo braccio? e a che ti servi
Tu dell’ altrui? non è s’ io scorgo il vero,
Di chi t’ offende il defensor men fero:
Ambe nemici sono, ambo fur servi.
Così dunque l’ onor, così conservi
Gli avanzi tu del glorioso Impero?
Cosi al valor, cosi al valor primiero
Che a te fede giurò, la fede osservi?
Or va; repudia il valor prisco, e sposa
L’ ozio, e fra il sangue, i gemiti, e le strida
Nel periglio maggior dormi e riposa!
Dormi, Adultera vil! fin che omicida
Spada ultrice ti svegli, e sonnacchiosa,
E nuda in braccio al tuo fedel t’uccida!

Oh, Italy! where is thine arm? What purpose serves
So to be helped by others? Deem I right,
Among offenders thy defender stands?
Both are thy enemies—both were thy servants!
Thus dost thou honour—thus dost thou preserve
The mighty boundaries of the glorious empire?
And thus to Valour, to thy pristine Valour
That swore its faith to thee, thy faith thou keep’st?
Go! and divorce thyself from thy old Valiance,
And marry Idleness: and midst the blood,
The heavy groans and cries of agony,
In thy last danger sleep, and seek repose!
Sleep, vile Adulteress! the homicidal sword

Vengeful shall waken thee! and lull’d to slumber,
While naked in thy minion’s arms, shall strike!

Among the domestic contests of Italy the true principles of political
freedom were developed; and in that country we may find the origin of that
philosophical history which includes so many important views and so

many new results unknown to the ancients.

Machiavel seems to have been the first writer who discovered the secret
of what may be called comparative history. He it was who first sought in
ancient history for the materials which were to illustrate the events of his
own times, by fixing on analogous facts, similar personages, and parallel
periods. This was enlarging the field of history, and opening a new
combination for philosophical speculation. His profound genius advanced
still further; he not only explained modern by ancient history, but he
deduced those results or principles founded on this new sort of evidence
which guided him in forming his opinions. History had hitherto been, if we
except Tacitus, but a story well told; and by writers of limited capacity, the
detail and number of facts had too often been considered as the only
valuable portion of history. An erudition of facts is not the philosophy of
history; an historian unskilful in the art of applying his facts amasses
impure ore, which he cannot strike into coin. The chancellor D’Aguesseau,
in his instructions to his son on the study of history, has admirably touched
on this distinction. “Minds which are purely historical mistake a fact for an
argument; they are so accustomed to satisfy themselves by repeating a great
number of facts and enriching their memory, that they become incapable of
reasoning on principles. It often happens that the result of their knowledge
breeds confusion and universal indecision; for their facts, often
contradictory, only raise up doubts. The superfluous and the frivolous
occupy the place of what is essential and solid, or at least so overload and
darken it that we must sail with them in a sea of trifles to get to firm land.

Those who only value the philosophical part of history fall into an opposite
extreme; they judge of what has been done by that which should be done;
while the others always decide on what should be done by that which has
been: the first are the dupes of their reasoning, the second of the facts which
they mistake for reasoning. We should not separate two things which ought
always to go in concert, and mutually lend an aid, reason and example!
Avoid equally the contempt of some philosophers for the science of facts,
and the distaste or the incapacity which those who confine themselves to
facts often contract for whatever depends on pure reasoning. True and solid
philosophy should direct us in the study of history, and the study of history
should give perfection to philosophy.” Such was the enlightened opinion, as
far back as at the beginning of the seventeenth century, of the studious
chancellor of France, before the more recent designation of Philosophical
History was so generally received, and so familiar on our title-pages.

From the moment that the Florentine secretary conceived the idea that the
history of the Roman people, opening such varied spectacles of human
nature, served as a point of comparison to which he might perpetually recur
to try the analogous facts of other nations and the events passing under his
own eye, a new light broke out and ran through the vast extents of history.
The maturity of experience seemed to have been obtained by the historian
in his solitary meditation. Livy in the grandeur of Rome, and Tacitus in its
fated decline, exhibited for Machiavel a moving picture of his own
republics—the march of destiny in all human governments! The text of
Livy and Tacitus revealed to him many an imperfect secret—the fuller truth
he drew from the depth of his own observations on his own times. In
Machiavel’s “Discourses on Livy” we may discover the foundations of our
Philosophical History.

The example of Machiavel, like that of all creative genius, influenced the
character of his age, and his history of Florence produced an emulative

spirit among a new dynasty of historians.

The Italian historians have proved themselves to be an extraordinary
race, for they devoted their days to the composition of historical works
which they were certain could not see the light during their lives! They
nobly determined that their works should be posthumous, rather than be
compelled to mutilate them for the press. These historians were rather the
saints than the martyrs of history; they did not always personally suffer for
truth, but during their protracted labour they sustained their spirit by
anticipating their glorified after-state.

Among these Italian historians must be placed the illustrious
Guicciardini, the friend of Machiavel. No perfect edition of this historian
existed till recent times. The history itself was posthumous; nor did his
nephew venture to publish it till twenty years after the historian’s death. He
only gave the first sixteen books, and these castrated. The obnoxious
passages consisted of some statements relating to the papal court, then so
important in the affairs of Europe; some account of the origin and progress
of the papal power; some eloquent pictures of the abuses and disorders of
that corrupt court; and some free caricatures on the government of Florence.
The precious fragments were fortunately preserved in manuscript, and the
Protestants procured transcripts which they published separately, but which
were long very rare.112 All the Italian editions continued to be reprinted in
the same truncated condition, and appear only to have been reinstated in the
immortal history so late as in 1775! Thus, it required two centuries before
an editor could venture to give the world the pure and complete text of the
manuscript of the lieutenant-general of the papal army, who had been so
close and so indignant an observer of the Roman cabinet.

Adriani, whom his son entitles gentiluomo Fiorentino, the writer of the
pleasing dissertation “on the Ancient Painters noticed by Pliny,” prefixed to
his friend Vasari’s biographies, wrote as a continuation of Guicciardini, a

history of his own times in twenty-two books, of which Denina gives the
highest character for its moderate spirit, and from which De Thou has
largely drawn, and commends for its authenticity. Our author, however, did
not venture to publish his history during his lifetime: it was after his death
that his son became the editor.

Nardi, of a noble family and high in office, famed for a translation of
Livy which rivals its original in the pleasure it affords, in his retirement
from public affairs wrote a history of Florence, which closes with the loss
of the liberty of his country in 1531. It was not published till fifty years
after his death; even then the editors suppressed many passages which are
found in manuscript in the libraries of Florence and Venice, with other
historical documents of this noble and patriotic historian.

About the same time the senator Philip Nerli was writing his
“Commentarj de’ fatti civili,” which had occurred in Florence. He gave
them with his dying hand to his nephew, who presented the MSS. to the
Grand Duke; yet, although this work is rather an apology than a crimination
of the Medici family for their ambitious views and their overgrown power,
probably some state-reason interfered to prevent the publication, which did
not take place till 150 years after the death of the historian!

Bernardo Segni composed a history of Florence still more valuable,
which shared the same fate as that of Nerli. It was only after his death that
his relatives accidentally discovered this history of Florence, which the
author had carefully concealed during his lifetime. He had abstained from
communicating to any one the existence of such a work while he lived, that
he might not be induced to check the freedom of his pen, nor compromise
the cause and the interests of truth. His heirs presented it to one of the
Medici family, who threw it aside. Another copy had been more carefully
preserved, from which it was printed in 1713, about 150 years after it had
been written. It appears to have excited great curiosity, for Lenglet du

Fresnoy observes that the scarcity of this history is owing to the
circumstance “of the Grand Duke having bought up the copies.” Du
Fresnoy, indeed, has noticed more than once this sort of address of the
Grand Duke; for he observes on the Florentine history of Bruto that the
work was not common, the Grand Duke having bought up the copies to
suppress them. The author was even obliged to fly from Italy for having
delivered his opinions too freely on the house of the Medici. This honest
historian thus expresses himself at the close of his work:—“My design has
but one end—that our posterity may learn by these notices the root and the
causes of so many troubles which we have suffered, while they expose the
malignity of those men who have raised them up or prolonged them, as well
as the goodness of those who did all which they could to turn them away.”

It was the same motive, the fear of offending the great personages or their
families, of whom these historians had so freely written, which deterred
Benedetto Varchi from publishing his well-known “Storie Fiorentine,”
which was not given to the world till 1721, a period which appears to have
roused the slumbers of the literary men of Italy to recur to their native
historians. Varchi, who wrote with so much zeal the history of his
fatherland, is noticed by Nardi as one who never took an active part in the
events he records; never having combined with any party, and living merely
as a spectator. This historian closes the narrative of a horrid crime of Peter
Lewis Farnese with this admirable reflection: “I know well this story, with
many others which I have freely exposed, may hereafter prevent the reading
of my history; but also I know, that besides what Tacitus has said on this
subject, the great duty of an historian is not to be more careful of the
reputation of persons than is suitable with truth, which is to be preferred to
all things, however detrimental it may be to the writer.”113

Such was that free manner of thinking and of writing which prevailed in
these Italian historians, who, often living in the midst of the ruins of popular

freedom, poured forth their injured feelings in their secret pages; without
the hope, and perhaps without the wish, of seeing them published in their
lifetime: a glorious example of self-denial and lofty patriotism!

Had it been inquired of these writers why they did not publish their
histories, they might have answered, in nearly the words of an ancient sage,
“Because I am not permitted to write as I would; and I would not write as I
am permitted.” We cannot imagine that these great men were in the least
insensible to the applause they denied themselves; they were not of tempers
to be turned aside; and it was the highest motive which can inspire an
historian, a stern devotion to truth, which reduced them to silence, but not
to inactivity! These Florentine and Venetian historians, ardent with truth,
and profound in political sagacity, were writing these legacies of history
solely for their countrymen, hopeless of their gratitude! If a Frenchman114
wrote the English history, that labour was the aliment of his own glory; if
Hume and Robertson devoted their pens to history, the motive of the task
was less glorious than their work; but here we discover a race of historians,
whose patriotism alone instigated their secret labour, and who substituted
for fame and fortune that mightier spirit, which, amidst their conflicting
passions, has developed the truest principles, and even the errors, of
Political Freedom!

None of these historians, we have seen, published their works in their
lifetime. I have called them the saints of history, rather than the martyrs.
One, however, had the intrepidity to risk this awful responsibility, and he
stands forth among the most illustrious and ill-fated examples of historical
martyrdom!

This great historian is Giannone, whose civil history of the kingdom of
Naples is remarkable for its profound inquiries concerning the civil and
ecclesiastical constitution, the laws and customs of that kingdom. With
some interruptions from his professional avocations at the bar, twenty years

were consumed in writing this history. Researches on ecclesiastical
usurpations, and severe strictures on the clergy, are the chief subjects of his
bold and unreserved pen. These passages, curious, grave, and indignant,
were afterwards extracted from the history by Vernet, and published in a
small volume, under the title of “Anecdotes Ecclésiastiques,” 1738. When
Giannone consulted with a friend on the propriety of publishing his history,
his critic, in admiring the work, predicted the fate of the author. “You have,”
said he, “placed on your head a crown of thorns, and of very sharp ones.”
The historian set at nought his own personal repose, and in 1723 this
elaborate history saw the light. From that moment the historian never
enjoyed a day of quiet! Rome attempted at first to extinguish the author
with his work; all the books were seized on; and copies of the first edition
are of extreme rarity. To escape the fangs of inquisitorial power, the
historian of Naples flew from Naples on the publication of his immortal
work. The fugitive and excommunicated author sought an asylum at
Vienna, where, though he found no friend in the emperor, Prince Eugene
and other nobles became his patrons. Forced to quit Vienna, he retired to
Venice, when a new persecution arose from the jealousy of the state-
inquisitors, who one night landed him on the borders of the pope’s
dominions. Escaping unexpectedly with his life to Geneva, he was
preparing a supplemental volume to his celebrated history, when, enticed by
a treacherous friend to a catholic village, Giannone was arrested by an order
of the King of Sardinia; his manuscripts were sent to Rome, and the
historian imprisoned in a fort. It is curious that the imprisoned Giannone
wrote a vindication of the rights of the King of Sardinia, against the claims
of the court of Rome. This powerful appeal to the feelings of this sovereign
was at first favourably received; but, under the secret influence of Rome,
the Sardinian monarch, on the extraordinary plea that he kept Giannone as a
prisoner of state that he might preserve him from the papal power, ordered
that the vindicator of his rights should be more closely confined than

before; and, for this purpose, transferred his state-prisoner to the citadel of
Turin, where, after twelve years of persecution and of agitation, our great
historian closed his life!

Such was the fate of this historical martyr, whose work the catholic
Haym describes as opera scritta con molto fuoco e troppa libertà. He hints
that this history is only paralleled by De Thou’s great work. This Italian
history will ever be ranked among the most philosophical. But, profound as
was the masculine genius of Giannone, such was his love of fame, that he
wanted the intrepidity requisite to deny himself the delight of giving his
history to the world, though some of his great predecessors had set him a
noble and dignified example.

One more observation on these Italian historians. All of them represent
man in his darkest colours; their drama is terrific; the actors are monsters of
perfidy, of inhumanity, and inventors of crimes which seem to want a name!
They were all “princes of darkness;” and the age seemed to afford a triumph
of Manicheism! The worst passions were called into play by all parties. But
if something is to be ascribed to the manners of the times, much more may
be traced to that science of politics, which sought for mastery in an
undefinable struggle of ungovernable political power; in the remorseless
ambition of the despots, and the hatreds and jealousies of the republics.
These Italian historians have formed a perpetual satire on the contemptible
simulation and dissimulation, and the inexpiable crimes of that system of
politics, which has derived a name from one of themselves—the great, may
we add, the calumniated, Machiavel?

112 They were printed at Basle in 1569—at London in 1595—in Amsterdam, 1663. How
many attempts to echo the voice of suppressed truth—Haym’s Bib. Ital. 1803.

113 My friend, Mr. Merivale, whose critical research is only equalled by the elegance of his
taste, has supplied me with a note which proves but too well that even writers who compose

uninfluenced by party feelings, may not, however, be sufficiently scrupulous in weighing the
evidence of the facts which they collect. Mr. Merivale observes, “The strange and improbable
narrative with which Varchi has the misfortune of closing his history, should not have been even
hinted at without adding, that it is denounced by other writers as a most impudent forgery,
invented years after the occurrence is supposed to have happened, by the ‘Apostate’ bishop
Petrus Paulus Vergerius.” See its refutation in Amiani, “Hist. di Fano,” ii. 149, et seq. 160.

“Varchi’s character as an historian cannot but suffer greatly from his having given it insertion
on such authority. The responsibility of an author for the truth of what he relates should render
us very cautious of giving credit to the writers of memoirs not intended to see the light till a
distant period. The credibility of Vergerius, as an acknowledged libeller of Pope Paul III. and his
family, appears still more conclusively from his article in Bayle, note K.” It must be added, that
the calumny of Vergerius may be found in Wolfius’s Lect. Mem. ii. 691, in a tract de Idolo
Lauretano, published 1556. Varchi is more particular in his details of this monstrous tale.
Vergerius’s libels, universally read at the time though they were collected afterwards, are now
not to be met with, even in public libraries. Whether there was any truth in the story of Peter
Lewis Farnese I know not; but crimes of as monstrous a dye occur in the authentic Guicciardini.
The story is not yet forgotten, since in the last edition of Haym’s Biblioteca Italiana, the best
edition is marked as that which at p. 639 contains “la sceleratezza di Pier Lewis Farnese.” I am
of opinion that Varchi believed the story, by the solemnity of his proposition. Whatever be its
truth, the historian’s feeling was elevated and intrepid.

114 Rapin.

OF PALACES BUILT BY MINISTERS.

Our ministers and court favourites, as well as those on the Continent,
practised a very impolitical custom, and one likely to be repeated, although
it has never failed to cast a popular odium on their names, exciting even the
envy of their equals—in the erection of palaces for themselves, which
outvied those of their sovereign; and which, to the eyes of the populace,
appeared as a perpetual and insolent exhibition of what they deemed the ill-
earned wages of peculation, oppression, and court-favour. We discover the
seduction of this passion for ostentation, this haughty sense of their power,
and this self-idolatry, even among the most prudent and the wisest of our
ministers; and not one but lived to lament over this vain act of imprudence.
To these ministers the noble simplicity of Pitt will ever form an admirable
contrast; while his personal character, as a statesman, descends to posterity
unstained by calumny.

The houses of Cardinal Wolsey appear to have exceeded the palaces of
the sovereign in magnificence; and potent as he was in all the pride of
pomp, the “great cardinal” found rabid envy pursuing him so close at his
heels, that he relinquished one palace after the other, and gave up as gifts to
the monarch what, in all his overgrown greatness, he trembled to retain for
himself. The state satire of that day was often pointed at this very
circumstance, as appears in Skelton’s “Why come ye not to Court?” and
Roy’s “Rede me, and be not wrothe.”115 Skelton’s railing rhymes leave their
bitter teeth in his purple pride; and the style of both these satirists, if we use
our own orthography, shows how little the language of the common people
has varied during three centuries.

Set up a wretch on high
In a throne triumphantly;
Make him a great state

And he will play check-mate
With royal majesty——
The King’s Court
Should have the excellence,
But Hampton Court
Hath the pre-eminence;
And Yorke Place116

With my Lord’s grace,
To whose magnificence
Is all the confluence,
Suits, and supplications;
Embassies of all nations.

Roy, in contemplating the palace, is maliciously reminded of the
butcher’s lad, and only gives plain sense in plain words.

Hath the Cardinal any gay mansion?
Great palaces without comparison,
Most glorious of outward sight,
And within decked point-device,117

More like unto a paradise
Than an earthly habitation.
He cometh then of some noble stock?
His father could match a bullock,
A butcher by his occupation.

Whatever we may now think of the structure, and the low apartments of
Wolsey’s palace, it is described not only in his own times, but much later,
as of unparalleled magnificence; and indeed Cavendish’s narrative of the
Cardinal’s entertainment of the French ambassadors gives an idea of the

ministerial prelate’s imperial establishment very puzzling to the
comprehension of a modern inspector. Six hundred persons, I think, were
banqueted and slept in an abode which appears to us so mean, but which
Stowe calls “so stately a palace.” To avoid the odium of living in this
splendid edifice, Wolsey presented it to the king, who, in recompense,
suffered the Cardinal occasionally to inhabit this wonder of England, in the
character of keeper of the king’s palace;118 so that Wolsey only dared to live
in his own palace by a subterfuge! This perhaps was a tribute which
ministerial haughtiness paid to popular feeling, or to the jealousy of a royal
master.

I have elsewhere shown the extraordinary elegance and prodigality of
expenditure of Buckingham’s residences; they were such as to have
extorted the wonder even of Bassompierre, and unquestionably excited the
indignation of those who lived in a poor court, while our gay and
thoughtless minister alone could indulge in the wanton profusion.

But Wolsey and Buckingham were ambitious and adventurous; they rose
and shone the comets of the political horizon of Europe. The Roman tiara
still haunted the imagination of the Cardinal: and the egotistic pride of
having out-rivalled Richelieu and Olivarez, the nominal ministers but the
real sovereigns of Europe, kindled the buoyant spirits of the gay, the gallant,
and the splendid Villiers. But what “folly of the wise” must account for the
conduct of the profound Clarendon, and the sensible Sir Robert Walpole,
who, like the other two ministers, equally became the victims of this
imprudent passion for the ostentatious pomp of a palace. This magnificence
looked like the vaunt of insolence in the eyes of the people, and covered the
ministers with a popular odium.

Clarendon House is now only to be viewed in a print; but its story
remains to be told. It was built on the site of Grafton-street; and when
afterwards purchased by Monk, the Duke of Albemarle, he left his title to

that well-known street. It was an edifice of considerable extent and
grandeur. Clarendon reproaches himself in his Life for “his weakness and
vanity” in the vast expense incurred in this building, which he
acknowledges had “more contributed to that gust of envy that had so
violently shaken him, than any misdemeanour that he was thought to have
been guilty of.” It ruined his estate; but he had been encouraged to it by the
royal grant of the land, by that passion for building to which he owns “he
was naturally too much inclined,” and perhaps by other circumstances,
among which was the opportunity of purchasing the stones which had been
designed for the rebuilding of St. Paul’s; but the envy it drew on him, and
the excess of the architect’s proposed expense, had made his life “very
uneasy, and near insupportable.” The truth is, that when this palace was
finished, it was imputed to him as a state-crime; all the evils in the nation,
which were then numerous, pestilence, conflagration, war, and defeats,
were discovered to be in some way connected with Clarendon House, or, as
it was popularly called, either Dunkirk House, or Tangier Hall, from a
notion that it had been erected with the golden bribery which the chancellor
had received for the sale of Dunkirk and Tangiers.119 He was reproached
with having profaned the sacred stones dedicated to the use of the church.
The great but unfortunate master of this palace, who, from a private lawyer,
had raised himself by alliance even to royalty, the father-in-law of the Duke
of York, it was maliciously suggested, had persuaded Charles the Second to
marry the Infanta of Portugal, knowing (but how Clarendon obtained the
knowledge his enemies have not revealed) that the Portuguese princess was
not likely to raise any obstacle to the inheritance of his own daughter to the
throne. At the Restoration, among other enemies, Clarendon found that the
royalists were none of the least active; he was reproached by them for
preferring those who had been the cause of their late troubles. The same
reproach was incurred on the restoration of the Bourbons. It is perhaps more
political to maintain active men, who have obtained power, than to reinstate

inferior talents, who at least have not their popularity. This is one of the
parallel cases which so frequently strike us in exploring political history;
and the ultras of Louis the Eighteenth were only the royalists of Charles the
Second. There was a strong popular delusion carried on by the wits and the
Misses who formed the court of Charles the Second, that the government
was as much shared by the Hydes as the Stuarts. We have in the state-
poems, an unsparing lampoon, entitled “Clarendon’s House-warming;” but
a satire yielding nothing to it in severity I have discovered in manuscript;
and it is also remarkable for turning chiefly on a pun of the family name of
the Earl of Clarendon. The witty and malicious rhymer, after making
Charles the Second demand the Great Seal, and resolve to be his own
chancellor, proceeds, reflecting on the great political victim:

Lo! his whole ambition already divides
The sceptre between the Stuarts and the Hydes.
Behold in the depth of our plague and wars,
He built him a palace out-braves the stars;
Which house (we Dunkirk, he Clarendon, names)
Looks down with shame upon St. James;
But ’tis not his golden globe that will save him,
Being less than the custom-house farmers gave him;
His chapel for consecration calls,
Whose sacrilege plundered the stones from Paul’s.
When Queen Dido landed she bought as much ground
As the Hyde of a lusty fat bull would surround;
But when the said Hyde was cut into thongs,
A city and kingdom to Hyde belongs;
So here in court, church, and country, far and wide,
Here’s nought to be seen but Hyde! Hyde! Hyde!
Of old, and where law the kingdom divides,

’Twas our Hydes of land, ’tis now land of Hydes!

Clarendon House was a palace, which had been raised with at least as
much fondness as pride; and Evelyn tells us that the garden was planned by
himself and his lordship; but the cost, as usual, trebled the calculation, and
the noble master grieved in silence amidst this splendid pile of
architecture.120 Even when in his exile the sale was proposed to pay his
debts, and secure some provision for his younger children, he honestly tells
us that “he remained so infatuated with the delight he had enjoyed, that
though he was deprived of it, he hearkened very unwillingly to the advice.”
In 1683 Clarendon House met its fate, and was abandoned to the brokers,
who had purchased it for its materials. An affecting circumstance is
recorded by Evelyn on this occasion. In returning to town with the Earl of
Clarendon, the son of the great earl, “in passing by the glorious palace his
father built but a few years before, which they were now demolishing,
being sold to certain undertakers,121 I turned my head the contrary way till
the coach was gone past by, lest I might minister occasion of speaking of it,
which must needs have grieved him, that in so short a time this pomp was
fallen.” A feeling of infinite delicacy, so perfectly characteristic of Evelyn!

And now to bring down this subject to times still nearer. We find that Sir
Robert Walpole had placed himself exactly in the situation of the great
minister we have noticed; we have his confession to his brother Lord
Walpole, and to his friend Sir John Hynde Cotton. The historian of this
minister observes, that his magnificent building at Houghton drew on him
great obloquy. On seeing his brother’s house at Wolterton, Sir Robert
expressed his wishes that he had contented himself with a similar structure.
In the reign of Anne, Sir Robert, sitting by Sir John Hynde Cotton, alluding
to a sumptuous house which was then building by Harley, observed, that to
construct a great house was a high act of imprudence in any minister! It was
a long time after, when he had become prime minister, that he forgot the

whole result of the present article, and pulled down his family mansion at
Houghton to build its magnificent edifice; it was then Sir John Hynde
Cotton reminded him of the reflection which he had made some years ago:
the reply of Sir Robert is remarkable—“Your recollection is too late; I wish
you had reminded me of it before I began building, for then it might have
been of service to me!”

The statesman and politician then are susceptible of all the seduction of
ostentation and the pride of pomp! Who would have credited it? But
bewildered with power, in the magnificence and magnitude of the edifices
which their colossal greatness inhabits, they seem to contemplate on its
image!

Sir Francis Walsingham died and left nothing to pay his debts, as appears
by a curious fact noticed in the anonymous life of Sir Philip Sidney prefixed
to the Arcadia, and evidently written by one acquainted with the family
history of his friend and hero. The chivalric Sidney, though sought after by
court beauties, solicited the hand of the daughter of Walsingham, although,
as it appears, she could have had no other portion than her own virtues and
her father’s name. “And herein,” observes our anonymous biographer, “he
was exemplary to all gentlemen not to carry their love in their purses.” On
this he notices this secret history of Walsingham:

“This is that Sir Francis who impoverished himself to enrich the state,
and indeed made England his heir; and was so far from building up of
fortune by the benefit of his place, that he demolished that fine estate left
him by his ancestors to purchase dear intelligence from all parts of
Christendom. He had a key to unlock the pope’s cabinet; and, as if master
of some invisible whispering-place, all the secrets of Christian princes met
at his closet. Wonder not then if he bequeathed no great wealth to his
daughter, being privately interred in the choir of Paul’s, as much indebted to
his creditors though not so much as our nation is indebted to his memory.”