No More Learning

And though, after the duke of Guise's murder at Blois, the
city of Paris revolted from their obedience to their king, pretending,
that he was fallen from the crown, by reason of that and other
actions, with which they charged him; yet the sum of all their power
to renounce him, and create the duke of Mayenne lieutenant-general,
depended ultimately on the Pope's authority; which, as you see, but
three years before, they had peremptorily denied.

The college of Sorbonne began the dance, by their determination, that
the kingly right was forfeited; and, stripping him of all his
dignities, they called him plain Henry de Valois: after this, says my
author, "sixteen rascals (by which he means the council of that
number) having administered the oath of government to the duke of
Mayenne, to take in quality of lieutenant-general of the estate and
crown of France, the same ridiculous dignity was confirmed to him by
an imaginary parliament, the true parliament being detained prisoners,
in divers of the city gaols, and two new seals were ordered to be
immediately made, with this inscription,--the Seal of the Kingdom of
France. " I need not enlarge on this relation: it is evident from
hence, that the Sorbonnists were the original, and our Schismatics in
England were the copiers of rebellion; that Paris began, and London
followed.

The next lines of my author are, that "a gentleman of Paris made the
duke of Mayenne's picture to be drawn, with a crown imperial on his
head;" and I have heard of an English nobleman, who has at this day a
picture of old Oliver, with this motto underneath it,--_Utinam
vixeris. _ All this while, this cannot be reckoned an act of state, for
the deposing king Henry III. , because it was an act of overt rebellion
in the Parisians; neither could the holding of the three estates at
Paris, afterwards, by the same duke of Mayenne, devolve any right on
him, in prejudice of king Henry IV. ; though those pretended states
declared his title void, on the account of his religion; because those
estates could neither be called nor holden, but by, and under the
authority of, the lawful king. It would take more time than I have
allowed for this Vindication, or I could easily trace from the French
history, what misfortunes attended France, and how near it was to
ruin, by the endeavours to alter the succession. For first, it was
actually dismembered, the duke of Mercæur setting up a principality in
the dutchy of Bretagne, independent of the crown. The duke of Mayenne
had an evident design to be elected king, by the favour of the people
and the Pope: the young dukes of Guise and of Nemours aspired, with
the interest of the Spaniards, to be chosen, by their marriage with
the Infanta Isabella. The duke of Lorraine was for cantling out some
part of France, which lay next his territories; and the duke of Savoy
had, before the death of Henry III. , actually possessed himself of the
marquisate of Saluces. But above all, the Spaniards fomented these
civil wars, in hopes to reduce that flourishing kingdom under their
own monarchy. To as many, and as great mischiefs, should we be
evidently subject, if we should madly engage ourselves in the like
practices of altering the succession, which our gracious king in his
royal wisdom well foresaw, and has cut up that accursed project by the
roots; which will render the memory of his justice and prudence
immortal and sacred to future ages, for having not only preserved our
present quiet, but secured the peace of our posterity.

It is clearly manifest, that no act of state passed, to the exclusion
of either the King of Navarre, or of Henry the fourth, consider him in
either of the two circumstances; but Oracle Hunt, taking this for
granted, would prove _à fortiori_, "that if a protestant prince were
actually excluded from a popish kingdom, then a popish successor is
more reasonably to be excluded from a protestant kingdom; because,"
says he, "a protestant prince is under no obligation to destroy his
popish subjects, but a popish prince is to destroy his protestant
subjects:" Upon which bare supposition, without farther proof, he
calls him insufferable tyrant, and the worst of monsters.

Now, I take the matter quite otherwise, and bind myself to maintain
that there is not, nor can be any obligation, for a king to destroy
his subjects of a contrary persuasion to the established religion of
his country; for, _quatenus_ subjects, of what religion soever he is
infallibly bound to preserve and cherish, and not to destroy them; and
this is the first duty of a lawful sovereign, as such, antecedent to
any tie or consideration of his religion. Indeed, in those countries
where the Inquisition is introduced, it goes harder with protestants,
and the reason is manifest; because the protestant religion has not
gotten footing there, and severity is the means to keep it out; but to
make this instance reach England, our religion must not only be
changed, (which in itself is almost impossible to imagine,) but the
council of Trent received, and the Inquisition admitted, which many
popish countries have rejected. I forget not the cruelties, which were
exercised in Queen Mary's time against the protestants; neither do I
any way excuse them; but it follows not, that every popish successor
should take example by them, for every one's conscience of the same
religion is not guided by the same dictates in his government; neither
does it follow, that if one be cruel, another must, especially when
there is a stronger obligation, and greater interest to the contrary:
for, if a popish king in England should be bound to destroy his
protestant people, I would ask the question, over whom he meant to
reign afterwards? And how many subjects would be left?

In Queen Mary's time, the protestant religion had scarcely taken root;
and it is reasonable to be supposed, that she found the number of
papists equalling that of the protestants, at her entrance to the
kingdom; especially if we reckon into the account those who were the
Trimmers of the times; I mean such, who privately were papists, though
under her protestant predecessor they appeared otherwise; therefore
her difficulties in persecuting her reformed subjects, were far from
being so insuperable as ours now are, when the strength and number of
the papists is so very inconsiderable. They, who cast in the church of
England as ready to embrace popery, are either knaves enough to know
they lie, or fools enough not to have considered the tenets of that
church, which are diametrically opposite to popery; and more so than
any of the sects.

Not to insist on the quiet and security, which protestant subjects at
this day enjoy in some parts of Germany, under popish princes; where I
have been assured, that mass is said, and a Lutheran sermon preached
in different parts of the same church, on the same day, without
disturbance on either side; nor on the privileges granted by Henry the
fourth of France to his party, after he had forsaken their opinions,
which they quietly possessed for a long time after his death.

The French histories are full of examples, manifestly proving, that
the fiercest of their popish princes have not thought themselves bound
to destroy their protestant subjects; and the several edicts, granted
under them, in favour of the reformed religion, are pregnant instances
of this truth. I am not much given to quotations, but Davila lies open
for every man to read. Tolerations, and free exercise of religion,
granted more amply in some, more restrainedly in others, are no sign
that those princes held themselves obliged in conscience to destroy
men of a different persuasion. It will be said, those tolerations were
gained by force of arms. In the first place, it is no great credit to
the protestant religion, that the protestants in France were actually
rebels; but the truth is, they were only Geneva protestants, and their
opinions were far distant from those of the church of England, which
teaches passive obedience to all her sons, and not to propagate
religion by rebellion. But it is further to be considered, that those
French kings, though papists, thought the preservation of their
subjects, and the public peace, were to be considered, before the
gratification of the court of Rome; and though the number of the
papists exceeded that of the protestants, in the proportion of three
to one, though the protestants were always beaten when they fought,
and though the pope pressed continually with exhortations and
threatenings to extirpate Calvinism, yet kings thought it enough to
continue in their own religion themselves, without forcing it upon
their subjects, much less destroying them who professed another. But
it will be objected, those edicts of toleration were not kept on the
papists' side: they would answer, because the protestants stretched
their privileges further than was granted, and that they often
relapsed into rebellion; but whether or no the protestants were in
fault, I leave history to determine. It is matter of fact, that they
were barbarously massacred, under the protection of the public faith;
therefore, to argue fairly, either an oath from protestants is not to
be taken by a popish prince; or, if taken, ought inviolably to be
preserved. For, when we oblige ourselves to any one, it is not his
person we so much consider, as that of the Most High God, who is
called to witness this our action; and it is to Him we are to
discharge our conscience. Neither is there, or can be any tie on human
society, when that of an oath is no more regarded; which being an
appeal to God, He is immediate judge of it; and chronicles are not
silent how often He has punished perjured kings. The instance of
Vladislaus King of Hungary, breaking his faith with Amurath the Turk,
at the instigation of Julian the Pope's legate, and his miserable
death ensuing it, shews that even to infidels, much more to
Christians, that obligation ought to be accounted sacred[33]. And I
the rather urge this, because it is an argument taken almost
_verbatim_ from a papist, who accuses Catharine de Medicis for
violating her word given to the protestants during her regency of
France. What securities in particular we have, that our own religion
and liberties would be preserved though under a popish successor, any
one may inform himself at large in a book lately written by the
reverend and learned doctor Hicks, called Jovian, in answer to Julian
the Apostate[34]; in which that truly Christian author has satisfied
all scruples which reasonable men can make, and proved that we are in
no danger of losing either; and wherein also, if those assurances
should all fail, (which is almost morally impossible,) the doctrine of
passive obedience is unanswerably demonstrated; a doctrine delivered
with so much sincerity, and resignation of spirit, that it seems
evident the assertor of it is ready, if there were occasion, to seal
it with his blood.

I have done with mannerly Mr Hunt, who is only _magni nominis umbra_;
the most malicious, and withal, the most incoherent ignorant scribbler
of the whole party. I insult not over his misfortunes, though he has
himself occasioned them; and though I will not take his own excuse,
that he is in passion, I will make a better for him, for I conclude
him cracked; and if he should return to England, am charitable enough
to wish his only prison might be Bedlam. This apology is truer than
that he makes for me; for writing a play, as I conceive, is not
entering into the Observator's province; neither is it the
Observator's manner to confound truth with falsehood, to put out the
eyes of people, and leave them without understanding. The quarrel of
the party to him is, that he has undeceived the ignorant, and laid
open the shameful contrivances of the new vamped Association; that
though he is "on the wrong side of life," as he calls it, yet he
pleads not his age to be _emeritus_; that, in short, he has left the
faction as bare of arguments, as Æsop's bird of feathers; and plumed
them of all those fallacies and evasions which they borrowed from
jesuits and presbyterians.

Now for my templar and poet in association for a libel, like the
conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in a fiery sign. What the one wants
in wit, the other must supply in law. As for malice, their quotas are
indifferently well adjusted; the rough draught, I take for granted, is
the poet's, the finishings the lawyer's. They begin,--that in order to
one Mr Friend's commands, one of them went to see the play. This was
not the poet, I am certain; for nobody saw him there, and he is not of
a size to be concealed. But the mountain, they say, was delivered of a
mouse. I have been gossip to many such labours of a dull fat
scribbler, where the mountain has been bigger, and the mouse less. The
next sally is on the city-elections, and a charge is brought against
my lord mayor, and the two sheriffs, for excluding true electors. I
have heard, that a Whig gentleman of the Temple hired a livery-gown,
to give his voice among the companies at Guild-hall; let the question
be put, whether or no he were a true elector? --Then their own juries
are commended from several topics; they are the wisest, richest, and
most conscientious: to which is answered, _ignoramus_. But our juries
give most prodigious and unheard-of damages. Hitherto there is nothing
but boys-play in our authors: _My mill grinds pepper and spice, your
mill grinds rats and mice. _ They go on,--"if I may be allowed to
judge;" (as men that do not poetize may be judges of wit, human
nature, and common decencies;) so then the sentence is begun with _I_;
there is but one of them puts in for a judge's place, that is, he in
the grey; but presently it is--_men_; two more in buckram would be
judges too. Neither of them, it seems, poetize; that is true, but both
of them are in at rhime doggrel; witness the song against the bishops,
and the Tunbridge ballad[35]. By the way, I find all my scribbling
enemies have a mind to be judges, and chief barons. Proceed,
gentlemen:--"This play, as I am informed by some, who have a nearer
communication with the poets and the players, than I have,--". Which
of the two Sosias is it that now speaks? If the lawyer, it is true he
has but little communication with the players; if the poet, the
players have but little communication with him; for it is not long
ago, he said to somebody, "By G----, my lord, those Tory rogues will
act none of my plays. " Well, but the accusation,--that this play was
once written by another, and then it was called the "Parisian
Massacre. " Such a play I have heard indeed was written; but I never
saw it[36]. Whether this be any of it or no, I can say no more than
for my own part of it. But pray, who denies the unparalleled villainy
of the papists in that bloody massacre? I have enquired, why it was
not acted, and heard it was stopt by the interposition of an
ambassador, who was willing to save the credit of his country, and not
to have the memory of an action so barbarous revived; but that I
tempted my friend to alter it, is a notorious whiggism, to save the
broader word. The "Sicilian Vespers" I have had plotted by me above
these seven years: the story of it I found under borrowed names in
Giraldo Cinthio; but the rape in my tragedy of "Amboyna" was so like
it, that I forbore the writing. But what had this to do with
protestants? For the massacrers and the massacred were all papists.

But it is observable, they say, that "though the massacre could not be
acted, as it was first written against papists, yet when it was turned
upon protestants, it found reception. "

Now all is come out; the scandal of the story turns at last upon the
government: that patronizes popish plays, and forbids protestant[37].
Ours is to be a popish play; why? Because it exposes the villainy of
sectaries and rebels. Prove them first to be protestants, and see what
you will get by it when you have done. Your party are certainly the
men whom the play attacks, and so far I will help you; the designs and
actions, represented in the play, are such as you have copied from the
League; for though you have wickedness enough, yet you wanted the wit
to make a new contrivance. But for shame, while you are carrying on
such palpable villainy, do not assume the name of protestants. You
will tell us, you are friends to the government, and the king's best
subjects; but all the while you are aspersing both it and him. Who
shall be judges, whether you are friends or not? The government or
you? Have not all rebels always sung the same song? Was ever thief or
murderer fool enough to plead guilty? For your love and loyalty to the
king, they, who mean him best among you, are no better subjects than
Duke Trinculo; they would be content he should be viceroy, so they may
be viceroys over him[38].

The next accusation is particular to me,--"that I, the said Bayes,
would falsely and feloniously have robbed Nat. Lee of his share in the
representation of OEdipus. " Now I am culprit; I writ the first and
third acts of OEdipus, and drew the scenery of the whole play:
whenever I have owned a farther proportion, let my accusers speak:
this was meant mischievously, to set us two at variance. Who is the
old serpent and Satan now? When my friends help my barren fancy, I am
thankful for it: I do not use to receive assistance, and afterwards
ungratefully disown it.

Not long after, "exemplary punishment" is due to me for this most
"devilish parallel. " It is a devilish one indeed; but who can help it?
If I draw devils like one another, the fault is in themselves for
being so: I neither made their horns nor claws, nor cloven feet. I
know not what I should have done, unless I had drawn the devil a
handsome proper gentleman, like the painter in the fable, to have made
a friend of him[39]; but I ought to be exemplarily punished for it:
when the devil gets uppermost, I shall expect it. "In the mean time,
let magistrates (that respect their oaths and office)"--which words,
you see, are put into a parenthesis, as if (God help us) we had none
such now,--let them put the law in execution against lewd scribblers;
the mark will be too fair upon a pillory, for a turnip or a rotten egg
to miss it. But, for my part, I have not malice enough to wish him so
much harm,--not so much as to have a hair of his head perish, much
less that one whole side of it should be dismantled. I am no informer,
who writ such a song, or such a libel; if the dulness betrays him not,
he is safe for me. And may the same dulness preserve him ever from
public justice; it is a sufficient thick mud-wall betwixt him and law;
it is his guardian angel, that protects him from punishment, because,
in spite of him, he cannot deserve it. It is that which preserves him
innocent when he means most mischief, and makes him a saint when he
intends to be a devil. He can never offend enough, to need the mercy
of government, for it is beholden to him, that he writes against it;
and he never offers at a satire, but he converts his readers to a
contrary opinion.

Some of the succeeding paragraphs are intended for very Ciceronian:
there the lawyer flourishes in the pulpit, and the poet stands in
socks among the crowd to hear him. Now for narration, resolution,
calumniation, aggravation, and the whole artillery of tropes and
figures, to defend the proceedings at Guild-hall. The most minute
circumstances of the elections are described so lively, that a man,
who had not heard he was there in a livery-gown, might suspect there
was a _quorum pars magna fui_ in the case; and multitudes of electors,
just as well qualified as himself, might give their party the greater
number: but throw back their gilt shillings, which were told for
guineas, and their true sum was considerably less. Well, there was no
rebellion at this time; therefore, says my adversary, there was no
parallel. It is true there was no rebellion; but who ever told him
that I intended this parallel so far? if the likeness had been
throughout, I may guess, by their good will to me, that I had never
lived to write it. But, to show his mistake, which I believe wilful,
the play was wholly written a month or two before the last election of
the sheriffs. Yet it seems there was some kind of prophecy in the
case; and, till the faction gets clear of a riot, a part of the
comparison will hold even there; yet, if he pleases to remember, there
has been a king of England forced by the inhabitants from his imperial
town. It is true, the son has had better fortune than the father; but
the reason is, that he has now a stronger party in the city than his
enemies; the government of it is secured in loyal and prudent hands,
and the party is too weak to push their designs farther. "They rescued
not their beloved sheriffs at a time (he tells you) when they had a
most important use of them. " What the importancy of the occasion was,
I will not search: it is well if their own consciences will acquit
them. But let them be never so much beloved, their adherents knew it
was a lawful authority that sent them to the Tower; and an authority
which, to their sorrow, they were not able to resist: so that, if four
men guarded them without disturbance, and, to the contempt of their
strength, at broad noon-day and at full exchange-time, it was no more
their honesty to stand looking on with their hands in their pockets,
than it is of a small band of robbers to let a caravan go by, which is
too strong for them to assault.

After this, I am called, after the old rate, loose and infamous
scribbler; and it is well I escape so cheap. Bear your good fortune
moderately, Mr Poet; for, as loose and infamous as I am, if I had
written for your party, your pension would have been cut off as
useless. But they must take up with Settle, and such as they can get:
Bartholomew-fair writers[40], and Bartholemew-close printers; there is
a famine of wit amongst them, they are forced to give unconscionable
rates, and, after all, to have only carrion for their money.

Then, I am "an ignorant fellow for not knowing there were no juries in
Paris. " I do not remember to have written any such thing; but whoever
did, I am confident it was not his ignorance. Perhaps he had a mind to
bring the case a little nearer home: If they had not juries in Paris,
we had them from the Normans, who were Frenchmen; and, as you managed
them, we had as good have had none in London. Let it satisfy you we
have them now; and some of your loose and infamous scribblers may come
to understand it a little better.

The next is, the justification of a noble peer deceased; the case is
known, and I have no quarrel to his memory: let it sleep; he is now
before another judge. Immediately after, I am said to have intended an
"abuse to the House of Commons;" which is called by our authors "the
most august assembly of Europe. " They are to prove I have abused that
House; but it is manifest they have lessened the House of Lords, by
owning the Commons to be the "more august assembly. "--"It is an House
chosen (they say) by every protestant who has a considerable
inheritance in England;" which word _considerable_ signifies forty
shillings _per annum_ of free land. For the interest of the loyal
party, so much under-valued by our authors, they have long ago
confessed in print, that the nobility and gentry have disowned them;
and the yeomanry have at last considered, _queis hæc consevimus arva_?
They have had enough of unlawful and arbitrary power; and know what an
august assembly they had once without a King and House of Peers.

But now they have me in a burning scent, and run after me full cry:
"Was ever such licence connived at, in an impious libeller and
scribbler, that the succession, so solemn a matter, that is not fit to
be debated of but in parliament, should be profaned so far as to be
played with on the stage? "

Hold a little, gentlemen, hold a little; (as one of your fellow
citizens says in "The Duke of Guise,") is it so unlawful for me to
argue for the succession in the right line upon the stage; and is it
so very lawful for Mr Hunt, and the scribblers of your party, to
oppose it in their libels off the stage? Is it so sacred, that a
parliament only is suffered to debate it, and dare you run it down
both in your discourses, and pamphlets out of parliament? In
conscience, what can you urge against me, which I cannot return an
hundred times heavier on you? And by the way, you tell me, that to
affirm the contrary to this, is a _præmunire_ against the statute of
the 13th of Elizabeth. If such _præmunire_ be, pray, answer me, who
has most incurred it? In the mean time, do me the favour to look into
the statute-book, and see if you can find the statute; you know
yourselves, or you have been told it, that this statute is virtually
repealed, by that of the 1st of king James, acknowledging his
immediate lawful and undoubted right to this imperial crown, as the
next lineal heir; those last words are an implicit anti-declaration to
the statute in queen Elizabeth, which, for that reason, is now omitted
in our books. The lawful authority of an House of Commons I
acknowledge; but without fear and trembling, as my Reflectors would
have it. For why should I fear my representatives? they are summoned
to consult about the public good, and not to frighten those who chose
them. It is for you to tremble, who libel the supreme authority of the
nation. But we knavish coxcombs and villains are to know, say my
authors, that "a vote is the opinion of that House. " Lord help our
understandings, that know not this without their telling! What
Englishman, do you think, does not honour his representatives, and
wish a parliament void of heat and animosities, to secure the quiet of
the nation? You cite his majesty's declaration against those that dare
trifle with parliaments; a declaration, by the way, which you
endeavoured not to have read publicly in churches, with a threatening
to those that did it. "But we still declare (says his majesty) that no
irregularities of parliament shall make us out of love with them. " Are
not you unfortunate quoters? why now should you rub up the remembrance
of those irregularities mentioned in that declaration, which caused,
as the king informs us, its dissolution?

The next paragraph is already answered; it is only a clumsy
commendation of the Duke of Monmouth, copied after Mr Hunt, and a
proof that he is unlike the Duke of Guise.

After having done my drudgery for me, and having most officiously
proved, that the English duke is no parallel for the French, which I
am sure he is not, they are next to do their own business, which is,
that I meant a parallel betwixt Henry III. and our most gracious
sovereign. But, as fallacies are always couched in general
propositions, they plead the whole course of the drama, which, they
say, seems to insinuate my intentions. One may see to what a miserable
shift they are driven, when, for want of any one instance, to which I
challenge them, they have only to allege, that the play SEEMS to
insinuate it. I answer, it does not seem; which is a bare negative to
a bare affirmative; and then we are just where we were before. Fat
Falstaff was never set harder by the Prince for a reason, when he
answered, "that, if reasons grew as thick as blackberries, he would
not give one. " Well, after long pumping, lest the lie should appear
quite barefaced, they have found I said, that, at king Henry's birth,
there shone a regal star; so there did at king Charles the Second's;
therefore I have made a parallel betwixt Henry III. and Charles II. A
very concluding syllogism, if I should answer it no farther.

Now, let us look upon the play; the words are in the fourth act. The
conjurer there is asking his devil, "what fortune attended his master,
the Guise, and what the king? " The familiar answers concerning the
king,--"He cannot be deposed, he may be killed; a violent fate attends
him; but, at his birth, there shone a regal star. "--_Conj. _ "My master
had a stronger. "--_Devil. _ "No, not a stronger, but more popular. " Let
the whole scene, (which is one of the best in the tragedy, though
murdered in the acting) be read together, and it will be as clear as
day light, that the Devil gave an astrological account of the French
king's _horoscope_; that the regal star, then culminating, was the sun
in the tenth house, or mid-heaven; which, _cæteris paribus,_ is a
regal nativity in that art. The rest of the scene confirms what I have
said; for the Devil has taken the position of the heavens, or scheme
of the world, at the point of the sun's entrance into Aries. I dispute
not here the truth or lawfulness of that art; but it is usual with
poets, especially the Italians, to mix astrology in their poems.
Chaucer, amongst us, is frequent in it: but this revolution
particularly I have taken out of Luigi Pulci; and there is one almost
the same in Boiardo's "_Orlando Inamorato. _" Now, if these poets knew,
that a star were to appear at our king's birth, they were better
prophets than Nostradamus, who has told us nothing of it. Yet this
they say "is treason with a witness," and one of the crimes for which
they condemned me to be hanged, drawn and quartered. I find they do
not believe me to be one of their party at the bottom, by their
charitable wishes to me; and am proud enough to think, I have done
them some little mischief, because they are so desirous to be rid of
me. But if Jack Ketch must needs have the handling of us poets, let
him begin first where he may take the deepest say[41]; let me be
hanged, but in my turn; for I am sure I am neither the fattest
scribbler, nor the worst; I'll be judged by their own party. But, for
all our comforts, the days of hanging are a little out of date; and I
hope there will be no more treason with a witness or witnesses; for
now there is no more to be got by swearing, and the market is
overstocked besides.

But are you in earnest when you say, I have made Henry III. "fearful,
weak, bloody, perfidious, hypocritical, and fawning, in the play? " I
am sure an unbiassed reader will find a more favourable image of him
in the tragedy, whatever he was out of it. You would not have told a
lie so shameless, but that you were resolved to second it with a
worse--that I made a parallel of that prince. And now it comes to my
turn, pray let me ask you,--why you spend three pages and a half in
heaping up all the villainies, true or false, which you can rake
together, to blast his memory? Why is all this pains taken to expose
the person of king Henry III. ? Are you leaguers, or covenanters, or
associators? What has the poor dead man done to nettle you? Were his
rebels your friends or your relations? Were your Norman ancestors of
any of those families, which were conspirators in the play? I smell a
rat in this business; Henry III. is not taken thus to task for
nothing. Let me tell you, this is little better than an implicit
confession of the parallel I intended. This gentleman of Valois sticks
in your stomachs; and, though I do not defend his proceedings in the
States, any otherwise than by the inevitable necessity which caused
them, yet acknowledging his crime does not extenuate their guilt that
forced him to it. It was bad on both sides, but the revenge was not so
wicked as the treason; for it was a voluntary act of theirs, and a
compelled one of his. The short on't is, he took a violent course to
cut up the Covenant by the roots; and there is your quarrel to him.

Now for a long-winded panegyric of the king of Navarre; and here I am
sure they are in earnest, when they take such overpains to prove there
is no likeness where they say I intended it. The hero, at whom their
malice is levelled, does but laugh at it, I believe; and, amongst the
other virtues of that predecessor, wants neither his justice nor his
clemency, to forgive all the heads of the League, as fast as they
submit. As for obliging them, (which our author would fain hook in for
an ingredient) let them be satisfied, that no more enemies are to be
bought off with places and preferments; the trial which has been made
in two kings reigns, will warn the family from so fruitless and
dangerous an expedient. The rest is already answered, in what I have
said to Mr Hunt; but I thank them, by the way, for their instance of
the fellow whom the king of Navarre had pardoned and done good to,
"yet he would not love him;" for that story reaches home somewhere.

I must make haste to get out of hearing from this Billingsgate
oratory; and, indeed, to make an end with these authors, except I
could call rogue and rascal as fast as they. Let us examine the little
reason they produce concerning the Exclusion.

"Did the pope, the clergy, the nobility and commonalty of France think
it reasonable to exclude a prince for professing a different religion;
and will the papists be angry if the protestants be of the same
opinion? No, sure, they cannot have the impudence. "

First, here is the difference of religion taken for granted, which was
never proved on one side, though in the king of Navarre it was openly
professed. Then the pope, and the three estates of France had no power
to alter the succession, neither did the king in being consent to it:
or afterwards, did the greater part of the nobility, clergy, and
gentry adhere to the Exclusion, but maintained the lawful king
successfully against it; as we are bound to do in England, by the
oaths of allegiance and supremacy, made for the benefit of our kings,
and their successors? the objections concerning which oath are fully
answered by Dr Hicks, in his preface to Jovian; and thither I refer
the reader.

They tell us, that what it concerns protestants to do in that case,
enough has been heard by us in parliament debates.

I answer, that debates coming not by an act to any issue, conclude,
that there is nothing to be done against a law established, and
fundamental of the monarchy. They dare not infer a right of taking up
arms, by virtue of a debate or vote, and yet they tacitly insinuate
this. I ask them, what it does concern protestants to do in this case,
and whether they mean anything by that expression? They have hampered
themselves before they were aware; for they proceed in the very next
lines to tell us, they believe "the crown of England being hereditary,
the next in blood have an undoubted right to succeed, unless God make
them, or they make themselves uncapable of reigning. " So that
according to them, if either of those two impediments shall happen,
then it concerns the protestants of England to do that something,
which, if they had spoken out, had been direct treason. Here is fine
legerdemain amongst them: they have acknowledged a vote to be no more
than the opinion of an house, and yet from a debate, which was
abortive before it quickened into a vote, they argue after the old
song, "that there is something more to be done, which you cannot chuse
but guess. " In the next place, there is no such thing as incapacity to
be supposed, in the immediate successor of the crown. That is, the
rightful heir cannot be made uncapable on any account whatsoever to
succeed. It may please God, that he may be _inhabilis_, or _inidoneus
ad gerendam rempublicam_,--unfit or unable to govern the kingdom; but
this is no impediment to his right of reigning: he cannot either be
excluded or deposed for such imperfection; for the laws which have
provided for private men in this case, have also made provision for
the sovereign, and for the public; and the council of state, or the
next of blood, is to administer the kingdom for him.
Charles the Sixth
of France, (for I think we have no English examples which will reach
it) forfeited not his kingdom by his lunacy, though a victorious king
of England was then knocking at his gates; but all things under his
name, and by his authority were managed. The case is the same, betwixt
a king _non compos mentis_, and one who is _nondum compos mentis_; a
distracted or an infant-king. Then the people cannot incapacitate the
king, because he derives not his right from them, but from God only;
neither can any action, much less opinion of a sovereign, render him
uncapable, for the same reason; excepting only a voluntary resignation
to his immediate heir, as in the case of Charles the Fifth: for that
of our Richard the Second was invalid, because forced, and not made to
the next successor.

Neither does it follow, as our authors urge, that an unalterable
succession supposes England to be the king's estate, and the people
his goods and chattels on it. For the preservation of his right
destroys not our propriety, but maintains us in it. He has tied
himself by law, not to invade our possessions; and we have obliged
ourselves as subjects to him, and all his lawful successors: by which
irrevocable act of ours, both for ourselves and our posterity, we can
no more exclude the successor, than we can depose the present king.
The estate of England is indeed the king's; and I may safely grant
their supposition, as to the government of England: but it follows
not, that the people are his goods and chattels on it; for then he
might sell, alienate, or destroy them as he pleased: from all which he
has tied himself by the liberties and privileges which he has granted
us by laws.

There is little else material in this pamphlet: for to say, "I would
insinuate into the king a hatred to his capital city," is to say, he
should hate his best friends, the last, and the present Lord Mayor,
our two honourable Sheriffs, the Court of Aldermen, the worthy and
loyal Mr Common Serjeant, with the rest of the officers, who are
generally well affected and who have kept out their factious members
from its government. To say, I would insinuate a scorn of authority in
the city, is, in effect, to grant the parallel in the play: for the
authority of tumults and seditions is only scorned in it,--an
authority which they derived not from the crown, but exercised against
it. And for them to confess I exposed this, is to confess, that London
was like Paris.

They conclude with a prayer to Almighty God, in which I therefore
believe, the poet did not club. To libel the king through all the
pamphlet, and to pray for him in the conclusion, is an action of more
prudence in them than of piety. Perhaps they might hope to be
forgiven, as one of their predecessors was by king James; who, after
he had railed at him abundantly, ended his lampoon with these two
verses:

Now God preserve our king, queen, prince and peers,
And grant the author long may wear his ears[42].

To take a short review of the whole. --It is manifest, that there is no
such parallel in the play, as the faction have pretended; that the
story would not bear one where they have placed it; and that I could
not reasonably intend one, so contrary to the nature of the play, and
so repugnant to the principles of the loyal party. On the other side,
it is clear that the principles and practices of the public enemies,
have both formerly resembled those of the League, and continue to hold
the same resemblance. It appears by the outcry of the party before the
play was acted, that they dreaded and foresaw the bringing of the
faction upon the stage: and by the hasty printing of Mr Hunt's libel,
and the Reflections, before the tragedy was published, that they were
infinitely concerned to prevent any farther operation of it. It
appears from the general consent of the audiences, that their party
were known to be represented; and themselves owned openly, by their
hissings, that they were incensed at it, as an object which they could
not bear. It is evident by their endeavours to shift off this parallel
from their side, that their principles are too shameful to be
maintained. It is notorious, that they, and they only, have made the
parallel betwixt the Duke of Guise and the Duke of Monmouth, and that
in revenge for the manifest likeness they find in the parties
themselves, they have carried up the parallel to the heads of the
parties, where there is no resemblance at all; under which colour,
while they pretend to advert upon one libel, they set up another. For
what resemblance could they suggest betwixt two persons so unlike in
their descent, the qualities of their minds, and the disparity of
their warlike actions, if they grant not, that there is a faction
here, which is like that other which was in France? so that if they do
not first acknowledge one common cause, there is no foundation for a
parallel. The dilemma therefore lies strong upon them; and let them
avoid it if they can,--that either they must avow the wickedness of
their designs, or disown the likeness of those two persons. I do
further charge those audacious authors, that they themselves have made
the parallel which they call mine, and that under the covert of this
parallel they have odiously compared our present king with king Henry
the Third; and farther, that they have forced this parallel expressly
to wound His Majesty in the comparison: for, since there is a parallel
(as they would have it) it must be either theirs or mine. I have
proved that it cannot possibly be mine: and in so doing, that it must
be theirs by consequence. Under this shadow all the vices of the
French king are charged by those libellers (by a side-wind) upon ours;
and it is indeed the bottom of their design to make the king cheap,
his royal brother odious, and to alter the course of the succession.

Now, after the malice of this sputtering triumvirate (Mr Hunt, and the
two Reflectors), against the person and dignity of the king, and
against all that endeavour to serve him (which makes their hatred to
his cause apparent), the very charging of our play to be a libel, and
such a parallel as these ignoramuses would render it, is almost as
great an affront to His Majesty, as the libellous picture itself, by
which they have exposed him to his subjects. For it is no longer our
parallel, but the king's, by whose order it was acted, without any
shuffling or importunity from the poets. The tragedy (cried the
faction) is a libel against such and such illustrious persons. Upon
this the play was stopt, examined, acquitted, and ordered to be
brought upon the stage: not one stroke in it of a resemblance, to
answer the scope and intent of the complaint. There were some
features, indeed, that the illustrious Mr Hunt and his brace of
beagles (the Reflectors) might see resembling theirs; and no other
parallel either found or meant, but betwixt the French leaguers and
ours: and so far the agreement held from point to point, as true as a
couple of tallies. But when neither the king, nor my lord chamberlain,
with other honourable persons of eminent faith, integrity, and
understanding, upon a strict perusal of the papers, could find one
syllable to countenance the calumny; up starts the defender of the
charter, &c. opens his mouth, and says, "What do ye talk of the king?
he's abused, he's imposed upon. Is my lord chamberlain, and the
scrutineers that succeed him, to tell us, when the king and the duke
of York are abused? " What says my lord chief baron of Ireland to the
business? What says the livery-man templer? What says Og the king of
Basan to it? "We are men that stand up for the king's supremacy in all
causes, and over all persons, as well ecclesiastical as civil, next
and immediately under God and the people. We are for easing His Royal
Highness of his title to the crown, and the cares that attend any such
prospect; and we shall see the king and the Royal Family paralleled at
this rate, and not reflect upon it? "

But to draw to an end. Upon the laying of matters fairly together,
what a king have these balderdash scribblers given us, under the
resemblance of Henry the Third! How scandalous a character again, of
His Majesty, in telling the world that he is libelled, and affronted
to his face, told on't, pointed to it; and yet neither he, nor those
about him, can be brought to see or understand it. There needs no more
to expound the meaning of these people, than to compare them with
themselves: when it will evidently appear, that their lives and
conversations, their writings and their practices, do all take the
same bias; and when they dare not any longer revile His Majesty or his
government point blank, they have an intention to play the libellers
in masquerade, and do the same thing in a way of mystery and parable.
This is truly the case of the pretended parallel. They lay their heads
together, and compose the lewdest character of a prince that can be
imagined, and then exhibit that monster to the people, as the picture
of the king in the "Duke of Guise. " So that the libel passes for
current in the multitude, whoever was the author of it; and it will be
but common justice to give the devil his due. But the truth is, their
contrivances are now so manifest, that their party moulders both in
town and country; for I will not suspect that there are any of them
left in court. Deluded well-meaners come over out of honesty, and
small offenders out of common discretion or fear. None will shortly
remain with them, but men of desperate fortunes or enthusiasts: those
who dare not ask pardon, because they have transgressed beyond it, and
those who gain by confusion, as thieves do by fires: to whom
forgiveness were as vain, as a reprieve to condemned beggars; who must
hang without it, or starve with it.


Footnotes:
1. As the whole passage from Davila is subjoined to the text in the
play, the reader may easily satisfy himself of the accuracy of what
is here stated. But, although the scene may have been written in
1661, we must be allowed to believe, that its extreme resemblance
to the late events occasioned its being revived and re-presented in
1682.

2. The poem, alluded to, was probably the _Religio Laici_, first
published in November l682.

3. Dryden and Shadwell had once been friends. In the preface to "The
Humourists," acted, according to Mr Malone, in 1676, Shadwell thus
mentions his great contemporary:

"And here I must make a little digression, and take liberty to
dissent from my particular friend, for whom I have a very great
respect, and whose writings I extremely admire; and, though I will
not say, his is the best way of writing, yet, I am sure his manner
of writing is much the best that ever was. And I may say of him, as
was said of a celebrated poet, _Cui unquam poetarum magis proprium
fuit subito astro incalescere? Quis ubi incaluit, fortius et
fæclicius debacchatur_? His verse is smoother and deeper, his
thoughts more quick and surprising, his raptures more mettled and
higher, and he has more of that in his writings, which Plato calls
_sôphrona manian_ than any other heroic poet. And those who shall
go about to imitate him, will be found to flutter and make a noise,
but never to rise. "

Such a compliment, from a rival dramatist, could only have been
extracted by previous good offices and kindly countenance.
Accordingly we find, that Dryden, in 1678-9, wrote a prologue to
Shadwell's play, of "The True Widow. "

4. "The Female Prelate, or Pope Joan," is a bombast, silly performance
of Elkanah Settle; the catastrophe of which consists in the
accouchement of the Pope in the streets of Rome. The aid necessary
in the conclusion of an English tragedy, (usually loudly called
for, but never brought) is of a surgical nature; but here Lucina
was the deity to be implored, and the midwife's assistance most
requisite.

Shadwell's comedy of "The Lancashire Witches," was popular for many
years after the Revolution, chiefly, because the papists were
reflected upon in the character of Teague O'Divelly, an Irish
Priest, the high-church clergy ridiculed under that of Smerk, and
the whole Tory faction generally abused through the play. It is by
no means one of Shadwell's happiest efforts. The introduction of
the witches celebrating their satanical sabbath on the stage,
besides that the scene is very poorly and lamely written, is at
variance with the author's sentiments, as delivered through Sir
Edward Hartfort, "a worthy, hospitable, true English gentleman, of
good understanding and honest principles," who ridicules the belief
in witches at all. A different and totally inconsistent doctrine is
thus to be collected from the action of the piece and the
sentiments expressed by those, whose sentiments are alone marked as
worthy of being attended to. This obvious fault, with many others,
is pointed out in a criticism on the "Lancashire Witches,"
published in the Spectator. The paper is said to have been written
by Hughes, but considerably softened by Addison.

5. Half-a-crown was then the box price.

You visit our plays and merit the stocks,
For paying half-crowns of brass to our box;
Nay, often you swear when places are shewn ye,
That your hearing is thick,
And so by a love trick,
You pass through our scenes up to the balcony.
_Epilogue to_ "The Man's the Master. "

The farce, alluded to, seems to have been "The Lancashire Witches. "
See Shadwell's account of the reception of that piece, from which
it appears, that the charge of forming a party in the theatre was a
subject of mutual reproach betwixt the dramatists of the contending
parties.

6. This single remark is amply sufficient to exculpate Dryden from
having intended any general parallel between Monmouth and the Duke
of Guise. To have produced such a parallel, it would have been
necessary to unite, in one individual, the daring political courage
of Shaftesbury, his capacity of seizing the means to attain his
object, and his unprincipled carelessness of their nature, with the
fine person, chivalrous gallantry, military fame, and courteous
manners of the Duke of Monmouth. Had these talents, as they were
employed in the same cause, been vested in the same person, the
Duke of Guise must have yielded the palm. The partial resemblance,
in one point of their conduct, is stated by our poet, not to have
been introduced as an _intended_ likeness, betwixt the Duke of
Guise, and the Protestant Duke. We may observe, in the words of
Bertran,

The dial spoke not--but it made shrewd signs.
_Spanish Friar. _

7. Alluding to a book, called "The Parallel," published by J.
Northleigh L. L. B. the same who afterwards wrote "the Triumph of the
Monarchy," and was honoured by a copy of verses from our author.

8. "Julian the Apostate, with a short account of his life, and a
parallel betwixt Popery and Paganism," was a treatise, written by
the Rev. Samuel Johnson, chaplain to Lord Russell, for the purpose
of forwarding the bill of exclusion, by shewing the consequences to
Christianity of a Pagan Emperor attaining the throne. It would
seem, that one of the sheriffs had mistaken so grossly, as to talk
of Julian the Apostle; or, more probably, such a blunder was
circulated as true, by some tory wit. Wood surmises, that Hunt had
some share in composing Julian. _Ath. Ox. _ II. p. 729. ]

9. This probably alludes to L'Estrange, who answered Hunt in the
"Lawyer Outlawed. "

10. "Curse ye Meroz," was a text much in vogue among the fanatic
preachers in the civil wars. It was preached upon in Guildhall,
before the Lord Mayor, 9th May, 1630, by Edmund Hickeringill,
rector of All Saints, in Colchester:

There's Colchester Hickeringil, the fanatic's delight,
Who Gregory Greybeard and Meroz did write,
You may see who are saints in a pharisee's sight.
_The Assembly of the Moderate Divines, stanza 18. _

Gregory Greybeard was probably some ballad, alluding to the
execution of Charles I, who was beheaded by a person disguised by a
visor and greybeard. The name of the common hangman, at that time,
was Gregory.

11. Jaques Clement, a Jacobin Monk, stabbed Henry III. on the 1st of
August, 1589. He expired the following day.

12. "All crowned heads by poetical right are heroes. This character is
a flower, a prerogative so certain, so inseparably annexed to the
crown as by no poet, no parliament of poets, ever to be invaded. "
_Rymer's Remarks on the Tragedies of the last age_, p. 6l. This
critical dogma, although here and else-where honoured by our
author's sanction, fell into disuse with the doctrines of passive
obedience, and indefeasible right.

13. The Earl of Arlington, Lord Chamberlain.

14. Charles II. and his brother the Duke of York, were grandchildren
of Henry IV. of France, by their mother Henrietta Maria.

15. A very poor imitation of Moliere's "Festin de Pierre;" with the
story of which the admirers of mute-shew have since been
entertained, under the title of Don Juan. In the preface, Shadwell,
after railing abundantly at Settle, is at the pains to assure us,
there is no act in the piece which cost him above four days
writing, and the last two (the play-house having great occasion for
a play) were both written in four days. The Libertine, and his
companions, travel by sea and land over the whole kingdom of Spain.

16. See the full passage prefixed to the Vindication.

17. The club alluded to seems to be the same which originally met at
the King's-Head tavern, of which North gives the following lively
account. "The gentlemen of that worthy society held their evening
session continually at the King's-Head tavern, over against the
Inner Temple gate. But upon occasion of the signal of a green
ribbon, agreed to be worn in their hats in the days of secret
engagements, like the coats of arms of valiant knights of old,
whereby all the warriors of the society might be distinguished, and
not mistake friends for enemies, they were called also the Green
Ribbon Club. Their seat was in a sort of carrefour, at
Chancery-Lane end, a centre of business and company, most proper
for such anglers of fools. The house was double-balconied in front,
as may be yet seen, for the clubsters to issue forth, in fresco,
with hats and no peruques, pipes in their mouths, merry faces, and
diluted throats, for vocal encouragement of the canaglia below, at
bonfires, on usual and unusual occasions. They admitted all
strangers that were confidingly introduced; for, it was a main end
of their institution to make proselytes, especially of the raw
estated youths newly come to town. This copious society were, to
the faction in and about London, a sort of executive power, and by
correspondence all over England. The resolves of the more retired
councils and ministry of the faction, were brought in here, and
orally insinuated to the company, whether it were lies,
defamations, commendations, projects, &c. and so, like water
diffused, spread over all the town; whereby that which was digested
at the club over night, was, like nourishment, at every assembly,
male and female, the next day. And thus the younglings tasted of
political administration, and took themselves for notable
counsellors. " _Examen_, p. 572. The place of meeting is altered by
Dryden, from the King's-Head, to the Devil-Tavern, either because
he thought the name more appropriate, or wished slightly to
disguise what he plainly insinuated.

18. Our author never omits an opportunity of twitting Hunt with his
expected preferment of lord chief baron of exchequer in Ireland;
L'Estrange, whose ready pen was often drawn for the court, answered
Hunt's defence of the charter by a pamphlet entitled "The Lawyer
Outlawed," in which he fails not to twit his antagonist with the
same disappointment.

19. The foul practice of taking away lives by false witness, casts an
indelible disgrace on this period. Oates, Dugdale, and Turberville,
were the perjured evidences of the Popish plot. To meet them with
equal arms, counter-plots were sworn against Shaftesbury and
others, by Haines, Macnamara, and other Irishmen. But the true
Protestant juries would only swallow the perjuries which made for
their own opinions; nay, although they believed Dugdale, when he
zealously forswore himself for the cause of the Protestant faith,
they refused him credit when he bore false witness for the crown.
"Thus," says Hume, "the two parties, actuated by mutual rage, but
cooped up within the narrow limits of the law, levelled with
poisoned daggers the most deadly blows against each other's breast,
and buried in their factious divisions all regard to truth, honour,
and humanity. "--

20. In the Dramatis Personæ to Shadwell's play of Epsom-Wells, we have
Rains, Bevil, Woodly, described as "men of wit and pleasure. "

21. Dryden had already distinguished Shadwell and Settle by those
names, which were destined to consign the poor wights to a painful
immortality, in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel,
published in 1682.

22. See note on p. 222. Vol. VI. describing this famous procession.

23. This passage, in Hunt's defence of the charter, obviously alludes
to the Duke of York, whom he elsewhere treats with little ceremony,
and to the king, whose affection for his brother was not without a
mixture of fear, inspired by his more stubborn and resolved temper.

24. William Viscount Stafford, the last who suffered for the Popish
plot, was tried and executed in 1680. It appears, that his life was
foully sworn away by Dugdale and Turberville. The manly and patient
deportment of the noble sufferer went far to remove the woful
delusion which then pervaded the people. It would seem that Hunt
had acted as his solicitor.

25. A quip at his corpulent adversary Shadwell.

26. The infamous Titus Oates pretended, amongst other more abominable
falsehoods, to have taken a doctor's degree at Salamanca. In 1679,
there was an attempt to bring him to trial for unnatural practices,
but the grand jury threw out the bill. These were frequent subjects
of reproach among the tory authors. In the Luttrel Collection,
there is "An Address from Salamanca to her unknown offspring Dr
T. O. concerning the present state of affairs in England. " Also a
coarse ballad, entitled, "The Venison Doctor, with his brace of
Alderman Stags;"

Showing how a Doctor had defiled
Two aldermen, and got them both with child,
Who longed for venison, but were beguiled.

27. Our author has elsewhere expressed, in the same terms, his
contempt for the satire of "The Rehearsal. " "I answered not the
Rehearsal, because I knew the author sat to himself when he drew
the picture, and was the very Bayes of his own farce. " _Dedication
to Juvenal. _--The same idea occurs in a copy of verses on the Duke
of Buckingham sometimes ascribed to Dryden:

But when his poet, John Bayes, did appear,
'Twas known to more than one-half that were there,
That the great'st part was his Grace's character;

For he many years plagued his friends for their crimes,
Repeating his verses in other men's rhymes,
To the very same person ten thousand times.
_State Poems_, Vol. II, p. 216.

28. Besides those who were alarmed for civil liberty, and those who
dreaded encroachment on their religion, the whig party, like every
one which promises to effect a great political change, was embraced
by many equally careless of the one motive or the other; but who
hoped to indulge their licentious passions, repair their broken
fortunes, or gratify their inordinate ambition amidst a
revolutionary convulsion.

29. The motto to Hunt's pamphlet.

30. _Tantivi_ was a cant phrase for furious tories and high-flyers. In
one of College's unlucky strokes of humour, he had invented a print
called _Mac Ninny_, in which the Duke of York was represented
half-jesuit half-devil; and a parcel of tories, mounted on the
church of England, were driving it at full gallop, _tantivy_, to
Rome. Hickeringill's poem, called "The Mushroom," written against
our author's "Hind and Panther," is prefaced by an epistle to the
tories and tantivies.

31. This passage is inaccurately quoted. Mr Hunt wrote, "Such monsters
as Theseus and Hercules _are_, renowned throughout all ages for
destroying. " The learned gentleman obviously meant that Dryden's
heroes (whom he accounted tyrants) resembled not the demi-gods, but
the monsters whom they destroyed.