No More Learning

On the tenth of
September the Ambassadors of France, England, Spain and the United
Provinces, met at Ryswick. Three treaties were to be signed, and there
was a long dispute on the momentous question which should be signed
first. It was one in the morning before it was settled that the treaty
between France and the States General should have precedence; and the
day was breaking before all the instruments had been executed. Then the
plenipotentiaries, with many bows, congratulated each other on having
had the honour of contributing to so great a work. [816]

A sloop was in waiting for Prior. He hastened on board, and on the
third day, after weathering an equinoctial gale, landed on the coast of
Suffolk. [817]

Very seldom had there been greater excitement in London than during the
month which preceded his arrival. When the west wind kept back the
Dutch packets, the anxiety of the people became intense. Every morning
hundreds of thousands rose up hoping to hear that the treaty was signed;
and every mail which came in without bringing the good news caused
bitter disappointment. The malecontents, indeed, loudly asserted that
there would be no peace, and that the negotiation would, even at this
late hour, be broken off. One of them had seen a person just arrived
from Saint Germains; another had had the privilege of reading a letter
in the handwriting of Her Majesty; and all were confident that Lewis
would never acknowledge the usurper. Many of those who held this
language were under so strong a delusion that they backed their opinion
by large wagers. When the intelligence of the fall of Barcelona arrived,
all the treason taverns were in a ferment with nonjuring priests
laughing, talking loud, and shaking each other by the hand. [818]

At length, in the afternoon of the thirteenth of September, some
speculators in the City received, by a private channel, certain
intelligence that the treaty had been signed before dawn on the morning
of the eleventh. They kept their own secret, and hastened to make a
profitable use of it; but their eagerness to obtain Bank stock, and
the high prices which they offered, excited suspicion; and there was
a general belief that on the next day something important would be
announced. On the next day Prior, with the treaty, presented himself
before the Lords justices at Whitehall. Instantly a flag was hoisted on
the Abbey, another on Saint Martin's Church. The Tower guns proclaimed
the glad tidings. All the spires and towers from Greenwich to Chelsea
made answer. It was not one of the days on which the newspapers
ordinarily appeared; but extraordinary numbers, with headings in large
capitals, were, for the first time, cried about the streets. The price
of Bank stock rose fast from eighty-four to ninety-seven. In a few
hours triumphal arches began to rise in some places. Huge bonfires were
blazing in others. The Dutch ambassador informed the States General that
he should try to show his joy by a bonfire worthy of the commonwealth
which he represented; and he kept his word; for no such pyre had ever
been seen in London. A hundred and forty barrels of pitch roared and
blazed before his house in Saint James's Square, and sent up a flame
which made Pall Mall and Piccadilly as bright as at noonday. [819]

Among the Jacobites the dismay was great. Some of those who had betted
deep on the constancy of Lewis took flight. One unfortunate zealot of
divine right drowned himself. But soon the party again took heart. The
treaty had been signed; but it surely would never be ratified. In a
short time the ratification came; the peace was solemnly proclaimed by
the heralds; and the most obstinate nonjurors began to despair. Some
divines, who had during eight years continued true to James, now swore
allegiance to William. They were probably men who held, with Sherlock,
that a settled government, though illegitimate in its origin, is
entitled to the obedience of Christians, but who had thought that the
government of William could not properly be said to be settled while
the greatest power in Europe not only refused to recognise him, but
strenuously supported his competitor. [820] The fiercer and more
determined adherents of the banished family were furious against Lewis.
He had deceived, he had betrayed his suppliants. It was idle to talk
about the misery of his people. It was idle to say that he had drained
every source of revenue dry, and that, in all the provinces of his
kingdom, the peasantry were clothed in rags, and were unable to eat
their fill even of the coarsest and blackest bread. His first duty was
that which he owed to the royal family of England. The Jacobites
talked against him, and wrote against him, as absurdly, and almost as
scurrilously, as they had long talked and written against William. One
of their libels was so indecent that the Lords justices ordered the
author to be arrested and held to bail. [821]

But the rage and mortification were confined to a very small minority.
Never, since the year of the Restoration, had there been such signs
of public gladness. In every part of the kingdom where the peace was
proclaimed, the general sentiment was manifested by banquets, pageants,
loyal healths, salutes, beating of drums, blowing of trumpets, breaking
up of hogsheads. At some places the whole population, of its own accord,
repaired to the churches to give thanks. At others processions of girls,
clad all in white, and crowned with laurels, carried banners inscribed
with "God bless King William. " At every county town a long cavalcade of
the principal gentlemen, from a circle of many miles, escorted the mayor
to the market cross. Nor was one holiday enough for the expression of
so much joy. On the fourth of November, the anniversary of the King's
birth, and on the fifth, the anniversary of his landing at Torbay, the
bellringing, the shouting, and the illuminations were renewed both in
London and all over the country. [822] On the day on which he returned
to his capital no work was done, no shop was opened, in the two thousand
streets of that immense mart. For that day the chiefs streets had, mile
after mile, been covered with gravel; all the Companies had provided new
banners; all the magistrates new robes. Twelve thousand pounds had been
expended in preparing fireworks. Great multitudes of people from all the
neighbouring shires had come up to see the show. Never had the City been
in a more loyal or more joyous mood. The evil days were past. The guinea
had fallen to twenty-one shillings and sixpence. The bank note had risen
to par. The new crowns and halfcrowns, broad, heavy and sharply
milled, were ringing on all the counters. After some days of impatient
expectation it was known, on the fourteenth of November, that His
Majesty had landed at Margate. Late on the fifteenth he reached
Greenwich, and rested in the stately building which, under his auspices,
was turning from a palace into a hospital. On the next morning, a bright
and soft morning, eighty coaches and six, filled with nobles, prelates,
privy councillors and judges, came to swell his train. In Southwark he
was met by the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen in all the pomp of office.
The way through the Borough to the bridge was lined by the Surrey
militia; the way from the bridge to Walbrook by three regiments of the
militia of the City. All along Cheapside, on the right hand and on the
left, the livery were marshalled under the standards of their trades. At
the east end of Saint Paul's churchyard stood the boys of the school of
Edward the Sixth, wearing, as they still wear, the garb of the sixteenth
century. Round the Cathedral, down Ludgate Hill and along Fleet Street,
were drawn up three more regiments of Londoners. From Temple Bar to
Whitehall gate the trainbands of Middlesex and the Foot Guards were
under arms. The windows along the whole route were gay with tapestry,
ribands and flags. But the finest part of the show was the innumerable
crowd of spectators, all in their Sunday clothing, and such clothing
as only the upper classes of other countries could afford to wear. "I
never," William wrote that evening to Heinsius, "I never saw such a
multitude of welldressed people. " Nor was the King less struck by the
indications of joy and affection with which he was greeted from the
beginning to the end of his triumph. His coach, from the moment when
he entered it at Greenwich till he alighted from it in the court of
Whitehall, was accompanied by one long huzza. Scarcely had he reached
his palace when addresses of congratulation, from all the great
corporations of his kingdom, were presented to him. It was remarked that
the very foremost among those corporations was the University of Oxford.
The eloquent composition in which that learned body extolled the wisdom,
the courage and the virtue of His Majesty, was read with cruel vexation
by the nonjurors, and with exultation by the Whigs. [823]

The rejoicings were not yet over. At a council which was held a
few hours after the King's public entry, the second of December was
appointed to be the day of thanksgiving for the peace. The Chapter of
Saint Paul's resolved that, on that day, their noble Cathedral, which
had been long slowly rising on the ruins of a succession of pagan
and Christian temples, should be opened for public worship. William
announced his intention of being one of the congregation. But it was
represented to him that, if he persisted in that intention, three
hundred thousand people would assemble to see him pass, and all the
parish churches of London would be left empty. He therefore attended
the service in his own chapel at Whitehall, and heard Burnet preach a
sermon, somewhat too eulogistic for the place. [824] At Saint Paul's the
magistrates of the City appeared in all their state. Compton ascended,
for the first time, a throne rich with the sculpture of Gibbons, and
thence exhorted a numerous and splendid assembly. His discourse has not
been preserved; but its purport may be easily guessed; for he preached
on that noble Psalm: "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go
into the house of the Lord. " He doubtless reminded his hearers that, in
addition to the debt which was common to them with all Englishmen, they
owed as Londoners a peculiar debt of gratitude to the divine goodness,
which had permitted them to efface the last trace of the ravages of the
great fire, and to assemble once more, for prayer and praise, after
so many years, on that spot consecrated by the devotions of thirty
generations. Throughout London, and in every part of the realm, even
to the remotest parishes of Cumberland and Cornwall, the churches were
filled on the morning of that day; and the evening was an evening of
festivity. [825]

These was indeed reason for joy and thankfulness. England had passed
through severe trials, and had come forth renewed in health and
vigour. Ten years before, it had seemed that both her liberty and her
independence were no more. Her liberty she had vindicated by a just and
necessary revolution. Her independence she had reconquered by a not
less just and necessary war. She had successfully defended the order of
things established by the Bill of Rights against the mighty monarchy of
France, against the aboriginal population of Ireland, against the avowed
hostility of the nonjurors, against the more dangerous hostility of
traitors who were ready to take any oath, and whom no oath could bind.
Her open enemies had been victorious on many fields of battle. Her
secret enemies had commanded her fleets and armies, had been in charge
of her arsenals, had ministered at her altars, had taught at her
Universities, had swarmed in her public offices, had sate in her
Parliament, had bowed and fawned in the bedchamber of her King.
More than once it had seemed impossible that any thing could avert
a restoration which would inevitably have been followed, first by
proscriptions and confiscations, by the violation of fundamental laws,
and the persecution of the established religion, and then by a third
rising up of the nation against that House which two depositions and two
banishments had only made more obstinate in evil. To the dangers of
war and the dangers of treason had recently been added the dangers of
a terrible financial and commercial crisis. But all those dangers were
over. There was peace abroad and at home. The kingdom, after many years
of ignominious vassalage, had resumed its ancient place in the first
rank of European powers. Many signs justified the hope that the
Revolution of 1688 would be our last Revolution. The ancient
constitution was adapting itself, by a natural, a gradual, a peaceful
development, to the wants of a modern society. Already freedom of
conscience and freedom of discussion existed to an extent unknown in any
preceding age. The currency had been restored. Public credit had been
reestablished. Trade had revived. The Exchequer was overflowing. There
was a sense of relief every where, from the Royal Exchange to the
most secluded hamlets among the mountains of Wales and the fens
of Lincolnshire. The ploughmen, the shepherds, the miners of the
Northumbrian coalpits, the artisans who toiled at the looms of Norwich
and the anvils of Birmingham, felt the change, without understanding
it; and the cheerful bustle in every seaport and every market town
indicated, not obscurely, the commencement of a happier age.

***** *****


[Footnote 1: Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majeste Britannique en
Hollande, enrichie de planches tres curieuses, 1692; Wagenaar; London
Gazette, Jan. 29. 1693; Burnet, ii. 71]

[Footnote 2: The names of these two great scholars are associated in a
very interesting letter of Bentley to Graevius, dated April 29. 1698.
"Sciunt omnes qui me norunt, et si vitam mihi Deus O. M. prorogaverit,
scient etiam posteri, ut te et ton panu Spanhemium, geminos hujus
aevi Dioscuros, lucida literarum sidera, semper praedicaverim, semper
veneratus sim. "]

[Footnote 3: Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majeste Britannique en Hollande
1692; London Gazette, Feb. 2. 1691,; Le Triomphe Royal ou l'on voit
descrits les Arcs de Triomphe, Pyramides, Tableaux et Devises an Nombre
de 65, erigez a la Haye a l'hounneur de Guillaume Trois, 1692; Le
Carnaval de la Haye, 1691. This last work is a savage pasquinade on
William. ]

[Footnote 4: London Gazette, Feb. 5. 1693; His Majesty's Speech to the
Assembly of the States General of the United Provinces at the Hague the
7th of February N. S. , together with the Answer of their High and Mighty
Lordships, as both are extracted out of the Register of the Resolutions
of the States General, 1691. ]

[Footnote 5: Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majeste Britannique en
Hollande; Burnet, ii. 72. ; London Gazette, Feb. 12. 19. 23. 1690/1;
Memoires du Comte de Dohna; William Fuller's Memoirs. ]

[Footnote 6: Wagenaar, lxii. ; Le Carnaval de la Haye, Mars 1691; Le
Tabouret des Electeurs, April 1691; Ceremonial de ce qui s'est passe
a la Haye entre le Roi Guillaume et les Electeurs de Baviere et de
Brandebourg. This last tract is a MS. presented to the British Museum by
George IV,]

[Footnote 7: London Gazette, Feb. 23. 1691. ]

[Footnote 8: The secret article by which the Duke of Savoy bound himself
to grant toleration to the Waldenses is in Dumont's collection. It was
signed Feb. 8, 1691. ]

[Footnote 9: London Gazette from March 26. to April 13. 1691; Monthly
Mercuries of March and April; William's Letters to Heinsius of March
18. and 29. , April 7. 9. ; Dangeau's Memoirs; The Siege of Mons, a
tragi-comedy, 1691. In this drama the clergy, who are in the interest of
France, persuade the burghers to deliver up the town. This treason calls
forth an indignant exclamation,

"Oh priestcraft, shopcraft, how do ye effeminate
The minds of men! "]

[Footnote 10: Trial of Preston in the Collection of State Trials. A
person who was present gives the following account of Somers's opening
speech: "In the opening the evidence, there was no affected exaggeration
of matters, nor ostentation of a putid eloquence, one after another, as
in former trials, like so many geese cackling in a row. Here was nothing
besides fair matter of fact, or natural and just reflections from thence
arising. " The pamphlet from which I quote these words is entitled, An
Account of the late horrid Conspiracy by a Person who was present at the
Trials, 1691. ]

[Footnote 11: State Trials. ]

[Footnote 12: Paper delivered by Mr. Ashton, at his execution, to Sir
Francis Child, Sheriff of London; Answer to the Paper delivered by Mr.
Ashton. The Answer was written by Dr. Edward Fowler, afterwards Bishop
of Gloucester. Burnet, ii. 70. ; Letter from Bishop Lloyd to Dodwell, in
the second volume of Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa. ]

[Footnote 13: Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. ]

[Footnote 14: Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Burnet, ii. 71. ]

[Footnote 15: Letter of Collier and Cook to Sancroft among the Tanner
MSS. ]

[Footnote 16: Caermarthen to William, February 3. 1690/1; Life of James,
ii. 443. ]

[Footnote 17: That this account of what passed is true in substance is
sufficiently proved by the Life of James, ii. 443. I have taken one or
two slight circumstances from Dalrymple, who, I believe, took them from
papers, now irrecoverably lost, which he had seen in the Scotch College
at Paris. ]

[Footnote 18: The success of William's "seeming clemency" is admitted by
the compiler of the Life of James. The Prince of Orange's method, it is
acknowledged, "succeeded so well that, whatever sentiments those Lords
which Mr. Penn had named night have had at that time, they proved in
effect most bitter enemies to His Majesty's cause afterwards. "-ii. 443. ]

[Footnote 19: See his Diary; Evelyn's Diary, Mar. 25. , April 22. , July
11. 1691; Burnet, ii. 71. ; Letters of Rochester to Burnet, March 21. and
April 2. 1691. ]

[Footnote 20: Life of James, ii. 443. 450. ; Legge Papers in the
Mackintosh Collection. ]

[Footnote 21: Burnet, ii. 71; Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 4. and 18. 1690,;
Letter from Turner to Sancroft, Jan. 19. 1690/1; Letter from Sancroft to
Lloyd of Norwich April 2. 1692. These two letters are among the Tanner
MSS. in the Bodleian, and are printed in the Life of Ken by a Layman.
Turner's escape to France is mentioned in Narcissus Luttrell's Diary
for February 1690. See also a Dialogue between the Bishop of Ely and
his Conscience, 16th February 1690/1. The dialogue is interrupted by the
sound of trumpets. The Bishop hears himself proclaimed a traitor, and
cries out,

"Come, brother Pen, 'tis time we both were gone. "]

[Footnote 22: For a specimen of his visions, see his Journal, page 13;
for his casting out of devils, page 26. I quote the folio edition of
1765. ]

[Footnote 23: Journal, page 4]

[Footnote 24: Ibid. page 7. ]

[Footnote 25: "What they know, they know naturally, who turn from the
command and err from the spirit, whose fruit withers, who saith that
Hebrew, Greek, and Latine is the original: before Babell was, the earth
was of one language; and Nimrod the cunning hunter, before the Lord
which came out of cursed Ham's stock, the original and builder of
Babell, whom God confounded with many languages, and this they say is
the original who erred from the spirit and command; and Pilate had his
original Hebrew, Greek and Latine, which crucified Christ and set over
him. "--A message from the Lord to the Parliament of England by G. Fox,
1654. The same argument will be found in the journals, but has been put
by the editor into a little better English. "Dost thou think to make
ministers of Christ by these natural confused languages which sprung
from Babell, are admired in Babylon, and set atop of Christ, the Life,
by a persecutor? "-Page 64. ]

[Footnote 26: His journal, before it was published, was revised by men
of more sense and knowledge than himself, and therefore, absurd as it
is, gives us no notion of his genuine style. The following is a fair
specimen. It is the exordium of one of his manifestoes. "Them which the
world who are without the fear of God calls Quakers in scorn do deny all
opinions, and they do deny all conceivings, and they do deny all sects,
and they do deny all imaginations, and notions, and judgments which
riseth out of the will and the thoughts, and do deny witchcraft and all
oaths, and the world and the works of it, and their worships and their
customs with the light, and do deny false ways and false worships,
seducers and deceivers which are now seen to be in the world with the
light, and with it they are condemned, which light leadeth to peace and
life from death which now thousands do witness the new teacher Christ,
him by whom the world was made, who raigns among the children of light,
and with the spirit and power of the living God, doth let them see and
know the chaff from the wheat, and doth see that which must be shaken
with that which cannot be shaken nor moved, what gives to see that which
is shaken and moved, such as live in the notions, opinions, conceivings,
and thoughts and fancies these be all shaken and comes to be on heaps,
which they who witness those things before mentioned shaken and removed
walks in peace not seen and discerned by them who walks in those things
unremoved and not shaken. "--A Warning to the World that are Groping in
the Dark, by G. Fox, 1655. ]

[Footnote 27: See the piece entitled, Concerning Good morrow and Good
even, the World's Customs, but by the Light which into the World is come
by it made manifest to all who be in the Darkness, by G. Fox, 1657. ]

[Footnote 28: Journal, page 166. ]

[Footnote 29: Epistle from Harlingen, 11th of 6th month, 1677. ]

[Footnote 30: Of Bowings, by G. Fox, 1657. ]

[Footnote 31: See, for example, the Journal, pages 24. 26. and 51. ]

[Footnote 32: See, for example, the Epistle to Sawkey, a justice of
the peace, in the journal, page 86. ; the Epistle to William Larnpitt,
a clergyman, which begins, "The word of the Lord to thee, oh Lampitt,"
page 80. ; and the Epistle to another clergyman whom he calls Priest
Tatham, page 92. ]

[Footnote 33: Journal, page 55. ]

[Footnote 34: Ibid. Page 300. ]

[Footnote 35: Ibid. page 323. ]

[Footnote 36: Ibid. page 48. ]

[Footnote 37: "Especially of late," says Leslie, the keenest of all the
enemies of the sect, "some of them have made nearer advances towards
Christianity than ever before; and among them the ingenious Mr. Penn has
of late refined some of their gross notions, and brought them into some
form, and has made them speak sense and English, of both which George
Fox, their first and great apostle, was totally ignorant. . . . . They
endeavour all they can to make it appear that their doctrine was uniform
from the beginning, and that there has been no alteration; and therefore
they take upon them to defend all the writings of George Fox, and others
of the first Quakers, and turn and wind them to make them (but it is
impossible) agree with what they teach now at this day. " (The Snake in
the Grass, 3rd ed. 1698. Introduction. ) Leslie was always more civil to
his brother Jacobite Penn than to any other Quaker. Penn himself says of
his master, "As abruptly and brokenly as sometimes his sentences would
fall from him about divine things; it is well known they were often as
texts to many fairer declarations. " That is to say, George Fox talked
nonsense and some of his friends paraphrased it into sense. ]

[Footnote 38: In the Life of Penn which is prefixed to his works, we
are told that the warrants were issued on the 16th of January 1690, in
consequence of an accusation backed by the oath of William Fuller, who
is truly designated as a wretch, a cheat and. an impostor; and this
story is repeated by Mr. Clarkson. It is, however, certainly false.
Caermarthen, writing to William on the 3rd of February, says that there
was then only one witness against Penn, and that Preston was that one
witness. It is therefore evident that Fuller was not the informer on
whose oath the warrant against Penn was issued. In fact Fuller
appears from his Life of himself, to have been then at the Hague. When
Nottingham wrote to William on the 26th of June, another witness had
come forward. ]

[Footnote 39: Sidney to William, Feb. 27. 1690,. The letter is in
Dalrymple's Appendix, Part II. book vi. Narcissus Luttrell in his Diary
for September 1691, mentions Penn's escape from Shoreham to France. On
the 5th of December 1693 Narcissus made the following entry: "William
Penn the Quaker, having for some time absconded, and having compromised
the matters against him, appears now in public, and, on Friday last,
held forth at the Bull and Month, in Saint Martin's. " On December 18/28.
1693 was drawn up at Saint Germains, under Melfort's direction, a paper
containing a passage of which the following is a translation

"Mr. Penn says that Your Majesty has had several occasions, but never
any so favourable, as the present; and he hopes that Your Majesty
will be earnest with the most Christian King not to neglect it: that a
descent with thirty thousand men will not only reestablish Your Majesty,
but according to all appearance break the league. " This paper is among
the Nairne MSS. , and was translated by Macpherson. ]

[Footnote 40: Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, April 11. 1691. ]

[Footnote 41: Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, August 1691; Letter from
Vernon to Wharton, Oct. 17. 1691, in the Bodleian. ]

[Footnote 42: The opinion of the Jacobites appears from a letter which
is among the archives of the French War Office. It was written in London
on the 25th of June 1691. ]

[Footnote 43: Welwood's Mercurius Reformatus, April 11. 24. 1691;
Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, April 1691; L'Hermitage to the States
General, June 19/29 1696; Calamy's Life. The story of Fenwick's rudeness
to Mary is told in different ways. I have followed what seems to me the
most authentic, and what is certainly the last disgraceful, version. ]

[Footnote 44: Burnet, ii. 71. ]

[Footnote 45: Lloyd to Sancroft, Jan. 24. 1691. The letter is among the
Tanner MSS. , and is printed in the Life of Ken by a Layman. ]

[Footnote 46: London Gazette, June 1. 1691; Birch's Life of Tillotson;
Congratulatory Poem to the Reverend Dr. Tillotson on his Promotion,
1691; Vernon to Wharton, May 28. and 30. 1691. These letters to
Wharton are in the Bodleian Library, and form part of a highly curious
collection, which was kindly pointed out to me by Dr. Bandinel. ]

[Footnote 47: Birch's Life of Tillotson; Leslie's Charge of Socinianism
against Dr. Tillotson considered, by a True Son of the Church 1695;
Hickes's Discourses upon Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson, 1695; Catalogue
of Books of the Newest Fashion to be Sold by Auction at the Whigs Coffee
House, evidently printed in 1693. More than sixty years later Johnson
described a sturdy Jacobite as firmly convinced that Tillotson died an
Atheist; Idler, No, 10. ]

[Footnote 48: Tillotson to Lady Russell, June 23. 1691. ]

[Footnote 49: Birch's Life of Tillotson; Memorials of Tillotson by his
pupil John Beardmore; Sherlock's sermon preached in the Temple Church on
the death of Queen Mary, 1694/5. ]

[Footnote 50: Wharton's Collectanea quoted in Birch's Life of
Tillotson. ]

[Footnote 51: Wharton's Collectanea quoted in D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft;
Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. ]

[Footnote 52: The Lambeth MS. quoted in D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft;
Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Vernon to Wharton, June 9. 11. 1691. ]

[Footnote 53: See a letter of R. Nelson, dated Feb. 21. 1709/10, in
the appendix to N. Marshall's Defence of our Constitution in Church and
State, 1717; Hawkins's Life of Ken; Life of Ken by a Layman. ]

[Footnote 54: See a paper dictated by him on the 15th Nov. 1693, in
Wagstaffe's letter from Suffolk. ]

[Footnote 55: Kettlewell's Life, iii. 59. ]

[Footnote 56: See D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, Hallam's Constitutional
History, and Dr. Lathbury's History of the Nonjurors. ]

[Footnote 57: See the autobiography of his descendant and namesake the
dramatist. See also Onslow's note on Burnet, ii. 76. ]

[Footnote 58: A vindication of their Majesties' authority to fill the
sees of the deprived Bishops, May 20. 1691; London Gazette, April 27.
and June 15. 1691; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, May 1691. Among the
Tanner MSS. are two letters from Jacobites to Beveridge, one mild and
decent, the other scurrilous even beyond the ordinary scurrility of the
nonjurors. The former will be found in the Life of Ken by a Layman. ]

[Footnote 59: It does not seem quite clear whether Sharp's scruple about
the deprived prelates was a scruple of conscience or merely a scruple of
delicacy. See his Life by his Son. ]

[Footnote 60: See Overall's Convocation Book, chapter 28. Nothing can be
clearer or more to the purpose than his language

"When, having attained their ungodly desires, whether ambitious kings
by bringing any country into their subjection, or disloyal subjects
by rebellious rising against their natural sovereigns, they have
established any of the said degenerate governments among their people,
the authority either so unjustly established, or wrung by force from the
true and lawful possessor, being always God's authority, and therefore
receiving no impeachment by the wickedness of those that have it, is
ever, when such alterations are thoroughly settled, to be reverenced
and obeyed; and the people of all sorts, as well of the clergy as of the
laity, are to be subject unto it, not only for fear, but likewise for
conscience sake. "

Then follows the canon

"If any man shall affirm that, when any such new forms of government,
begun by rebellion, are after thoroughly settled, the authority in them
is not of God, or that any who live within the territories of any such
new governments are not bound to be subject to God's authority which is
there executed, but may rebel against the same, he doth greatly err. "]

[Footnote 61: A list of all the pieces which I have read relating to
Sherlock's apostasy would fatigue the reader. I will mention a few
of different kinds. Parkinson's Examination of Dr. Sherlock's Case of
Allegiance, 1691; Answer to Dr. Sherlock's Case of Allegiance, by a
London Apprentice, 1691; the Reasons of the New Converts taking the
Oaths to the present Government, 1691; Utrum horum? or God's ways of
disposing of Kingdoms and some Clergymen's ways of disposing of
them, 1691; Sherlock and Xanthippe 1691; Saint Paul's Triumph in his
Sufferings for Christ, by Matthew Bryan, LL. D. , dedicated Ecclesim sub
cruce gementi; A Word to a wavering Levite; The Trimming Court Divine;
Proteus Ecclesiasticus, or observations on Dr. Sh--'s late Case of
Allegiance; the Weasil Uncased; A Whip for the Weasil; the Anti-Weasils.
Numerous allusions to Sherlock and his wife will be found in the ribald
writings of Tom Brown, Tom Durfey, and Ned Ward. See Life of James, ii.
318. Several curious letters about Sherlock's apostasy are among the
Tanner MSS. I will give two or three specimens of the rhymes which the
Case of Allegiance called forth.

"When Eve the fruit had tasted,
She to her husband hasted,
And chuck'd him on the chin-a.
Dear Bud, quoth she, come taste this fruit;
'Twill finly with your palate suit,
To eat it is no sin-a. "

"As moody Job, in shirtless ease,
With collyflowers all o'er his face,
Did on the dunghill languish,
His spouse thus whispers in his ear,
Swear, husband, as you love me, swear,
'Twill ease you of your anguish. "

"At first he had doubt, and therefore did pray
That heaven would instruct him in the right way,
Whether Jemmy or William he ought to obey,
Which nobody can deny,

"The pass at the Boyne determin'd that case;
And precept to Providence then did give place;
To change his opinion he thought no disgrace;
Which nobody can deny.

"But this with the Scripture can never agree,
As by Hosea the eighth and the fourth you may see;
'They have set up kings, but yet not by me,'
Which nobody can deny. "]

[Footnote 62: The chief authority for this part of my history is the
Life of James, particularly the highly important and interesting passage
which begins at page 444. and ends at page 450. of the second volume. ]

[Footnote 63: Russell to William, May 10 1691, in Dalrymple's Appendix,
Part II. Book vii. See also the Memoirs of Sir John Leake. ]

[Footnote 64: Commons' Journals, Mar. 21. 24. 1679; Grey's Debates;
Observator. ]

[Footnote 65: London Gazette, July 21. 1690. ]

[Footnote 66: Life of James, ii. 449. ]

[Footnote 67: Shadwell's Volunteers. ]

[Footnote 68: Story's Continuation; Proclamation of February 21. 1690/1;
the London Gazette of March 12. ]

[Footnote 69: Story's Continuation. ]

[Footnote 70: Story's Impartial History; London Gazette, Nov. 17. 1690. ]

[Footnote 71: Story's Impartial History. The year 1684 had been
considered as a time of remarkable prosperity, and the revenue from the
Customs had been unusually large. But the receipt from all the ports
of Ireland, during the whole year, was only a hundred and twenty-seven
thousand pounds. See Clarendon's Memoirs. ]

[Footnote 72: Story's History and Continuation; London Gazettes of
September 29. 1690, and Jan. 8. and Mar. 12. 1690/1. ]

[Footnote 73: See the Lords' Journals of March 2. and 4. 1692/3 and the
Commons' Journals of Dec. 16. 1693, and Jan. 29. 1695/4. The story, bad
enough at best, was told by the personal and political enemies of the
Lords justices with additions which the House of Commons evidently
considered as calumnious, and which I really believe to have been
so. See the Gallienus Redivivus. The narrative which Colonel Robert
Fitzgerald, a Privy Councillor and an eyewitness delivered in writing to
the House of Lords, under the sanction of an oath, seems to me perfectly
trustworthy. It is strange that Story, though he mentions the murder of
the soldiers, says nothing about Gafney. ]

[Footnote 74: Burnet, ii. 66.