No More Learning

Here, labouring muse! those glorious chiefs relate,
That turned the doubtful scale of David's fate;
The rest of that illustrious band rehearse,
Immortalized in laureled Asaph's verse:
Hard task! yet will not I thy flight recall;
View heaven, and then enjoy thy glorious fall.
First write Bezaliel,[395] whose illustrious name
Forestals our praise, and gives his poet fame.
The Kenites rocky province his command,
A barren limb of fertile Canaan's land;
Which, for its generous natives, yet could be
Held worthy such a president as he.
Bezaliel with each grace and virtue fraught,
Serene his looks, serene his life and thought;
On whom so largely nature heaped her store,
There scarce remained for arts to give him more.
To aid the crown and state his greatest zeal,
His second care, that service to conceal;
Of dues observant, firm to every trust,
And to the needy always more than just;
Who truth from specious falsehood can divide,
Has all the gownsmen's skill without their pride;
Thus crowned with worth, from heights of honour won,
Sees all his glories copied in his son,[396]
Whose forward fame should every muse engage,
Whose youth boasts skill denied to others' age.
Men, manners, language, books of noblest kind,
Already are the conquest of his mind;
Whose loyalty, before its date, was prime,
Nor waited the dull course of rolling time;
The monster faction early he dismayed,
And David's cause long since confessed his aid.
Brave Abdael[397] o'er the prophet's school was placed;
Abdael, with all his father's virtue graced;
A hero who, while stars looked wondering down,
Without one Hebrew's blood restored the crown.
That praise was his; what therefore did remain
For following chiefs, but boldly to maintain
That crown restored? and in this rank of fame,
Brave Abdael with the first a place must claim.
Proceed, illustrious, happy chief proceed!
Fore-seize the garlands for thy brow decreed;
While the inspired tribe attend with noblest strain,
To register the glories thou shalt gain:
For sure the dew shall Gilboah's hills forsake,
And Jordan mix his stream with Sodom's lake;
Or seas retired their secret stores disclose,
And to the sun their scaly brood expose;
Or, swelled above the cliffs, their billows raise,
Before the muses leave their patron's praise.
Eliab[398] our next labour does invite
And hard the task to do Eliab right.
Long with the royal wanderer he roved,
And firm in all the turns of fortune proved.
Such ancient service, and desert so large,
Well claimed the royal household for his charge.
His age with only one mild heiress blessed,
In all the bloom of smiling nature dressed;
And blessed again, to see his flower allied
To David's stock, and made young Othriel's[399] bride.
The bright restorer of his father's youth,
Devoted to a son's and subject's truth:
Resolved to bear that prize of duty home,
So bravely sought, while sought by Absalom.
Ah, prince! the illustrious planet of thy birth,
And thy more powerful virtue, guard thy worth,
That no Achitophel thy ruin boast!
Israel too much in one such wreck has lost.
Even envy must consent to Helon's[400] worth;
Whose soul, though Egypt glories in his birth,
Could for our captive ark its zeal retain,
And Pharaoh's altars in their pomp disdain:
To slight his gods was small; with nobler pride,
He all the allurements of his court defied.
Whom profit nor example could betray,
But Israel's friend, and true to David's sway.
What acts of favour in his province fall,
On merit he confers, and freely all.
Our list of nobles next let Amri[401] grace,
Whose merits claimed the Abethdin's high place;
Who, with a loyalty that did excel,
Brought all the endowments of Achitophel.
Sincere was Amri, and not only knew,
But Israel's sanctions into practice drew;
Our laws, that did a boundless ocean seem,
Were coasted all, and fathomed all by him.
No rabbin speaks like him their mystic sense,
So just, and with such charms of eloquence;
To whom the double blessing does belong,
With Moses' inspiration, Aaron's tongue.
Than Sheva[402] none more loyal zeal have shown,
Wakeful as Judah's lion for the crown;
Who for that cause still combats in his age,
For which his youth with danger did engage.
In vain our factious priests the cant revive;
In vain seditious scribes with libel strive
To inflame the crowd; while he, with watchful eye,
Observes, and shoots their treasons as they fly:
Their weekly frauds his keen replies detect;
He undeceives more fast than they infect.
So Moses, when the pest on legions preyed,
Advanced his signal, and the plague was stayed.
Once more, my fainting muse, thy pinions try,
And strength's exhausted store let love supply.
What tribute, Asaph,[403] shall we render thee?
We'll crown thee with a wreath from thy own tree!
Thy laurel-grove no envy's flash can blast;[404]
The song of Asaph shall for ever last.
With wonder late posterity shall dwell
On Absalom and false Achitophel:
Thy strains shall be our slumbering prophets' dream,
And when our Zion virgins sing their theme,
Our jubilees shall with thy verse be graced;
The song of Asaph shall for ever last.
How fierce his satire, loosed; restrained, how tame;
How tender of the offending young man's fame!
How well his worth, and brave adventures stiled;
Just to his virtues, to his error mild!
No page of thine that fears the strictest view,
But teems with just reproof, or praise, as due;
Not Eden could a fairer prospect yield,
All paradise, without one barren field
Whose wit the censure of his foes has past:
The song of Asaph shall for ever last.
What praise for such rich strains shall we allow?
What just rewards the grateful crown bestow?
While bees in flowers rejoice, and flowers in dew,
While stars and fountains to their course are true,
While Judah's throne, and Zion's rock stand fast,
The song of Asaph, and the fame shall last.
Still Hebron's honoured happy soil retains
Our royal hero's beauteous dear remains;[405]
Who now sails off, with winds nor wishes slack,
To bring his sufferings' bright companion back.
But ere such transport can our sense employ,
A bitter grief must poison half our joy;
Nor can our coasts restored those blessings see
Without a bribe to envious destiny!
Cursed Sodom's doom forever fix the tide,
Where, by inglorious chance, the valiant died.
Give not insulting Askalon to know,
Nor let Gath's daughters triumph in our woe!
No sailor with the news swell Egypt's pride,
By what inglorious fate our valiant died!
Weep, Arnon! Jordan, weep thy fountains dry,
While Zion's rock dissolves for a supply.
Calm were the elements, night's silence deep,
The waves scarce murmuring, and the winds asleep;
Yet fate for ruin takes so still an hour,
And treacherous sands the princely bark devour;[406]
Then death unworthy seized a generous race,
To virtue's scandal, and the stars' disgrace!
Oh, had the indulgent powers vouchsafed to yield,
Instead of faithless shelves, a listed field;
A listed field of heaven's and David's foes,
Fierce as the troops that did his youth oppose,
Each life had on his slaughtered heap retired,
Not tamely and unconquering thus expired.
But destiny is now their only foe,
And, dying, even o'er that they triumph too;
With loud last breaths their masters 'scape applaud,
Of whom kind force could scarce the fates defraud;
Who, for such followers lost, O, matchless mind!
At his own safety now almost repined! --
Say, royal Sir, by all your fame in arms,
Your praise in peace, and by Urania's charms,
If all your suffering's past so nearly prest,
Or pierced with half so painful grief, your breast?
Thus some diviner muse her hero forms,
Not soothed with soft delights, but tossed in storms;
Nor stretched on roses in the myrtle grove,
Nor crowns his days with mirth, his nights with love,
But far removed in thundering camps is[407] found,
His slumbers short, his bed the herbless ground;
In tasks of danger always seen the first,
Feeds from the hedge, and slakes with ice his thirst.
Long must his patience strive with fortune's rage,
And long opposing gods themselves engage;
Must see his country flame, his friends destroyed,
Before the promised empire be enjoyed:
Such toil of fate must build a man of fame,
And such, to Israel's crown, the god-like David came.
What sudden beams dispel the clouds so fast,
Whose drenching rains laid all our vineyards waste?
The spring so far behind her course delayed,
On the instant is in all her bloom arrayed;
The winds breathe low, the element serene,
Yet, mark! what motion in the waves is seen!
Thronging and busy as Hyblæan swarms,
Or straggled soldiers summoned to their arms.
See where the princely bark in loosest pride,
With all her guardian fleet, adorns the tide!
High on her deck the royal lovers stand,
Our crimes to pardon e'er they touched our land.
Welcome to Israel and to David's breast!
Here all your toils, here all your sufferings rest.
This year did Ziloah[408] rule Jerusalem,
And boldly all sedition's syrtes[409] stem,
Howe'er encumbered with a viler pair
Than Ziph or Shimei,[410] to assist the chair;
Yet Ziloah's loyal labours so prevailed,
That faction, at the next election, failed;
When even the common cry did justice sound,
And merit by the multitude was crowned;
With David then was Israel's peace restored,
Crowds mourned their error, and obeyed their lord.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 351: First edit. _Goodness was e'en_. ]

[Footnote 352: First edit. _Flatterie's_. ]

[Footnote 353: Catholics. Note I. ]

[Footnote 354: Titus Oates. See note II. ]

[Footnote 355: The queen, accused by Oates of being engaged in the
conspiracy against the king's life. See note XXXI. on Part I. ]

[Footnote 356: The great plague. ]

[Footnote 357: The Dutch wars. ]

[Footnote 358: The fire of London. ]

[Footnote 359: See note II. as above. ]

[Footnote 360: Note III. ]

[Footnote 361: Note IV. ]

[Footnote 362: Alluding to the Duke of Monmouth's return from Holland
without the king's license. See Vol. viii. p. 7. ]

[Footnote 363: Note V. ]

[Footnote 364: The Earl of Shaftesbury was at the head of the Cabal,
which advised the measures of repealing the test, of shutting the
Exchequer, of breaking the triple alliance and uniting with France, to
the destruction of Holland. See the Earl of Ossory's spirited speech
against him, p. 297. ]

[Footnote 365: Parliaments. ]

[Footnote 366: See the introduction to the "Medal" for Shaftesbury's
proposed Association. ]

[Footnote 367: Sir Robert Clayton. See note VI. ]

[Footnote 368: Sir Thomas Player, chamberlain of London. See note VII. ]

[Footnote 369: Note VIII. ]

[Footnote 370: What follows is entirely written by Dryden, down to the
conclusion of the character of Og. ]

[Footnote 371: Robert Ferguson. See note IX. ]

[Footnote 372: Scotland. ]

[Footnote 373: Forbes. See note X. ]

[Footnote 374: Note XI. ]

[Footnote 375: Julian the Apostate. ]

[Footnote 376: Burnet. See note XII. ]

[Footnote 377: Pordage. See note XIII. ]

[Footnote 378: Hall. See note XIV. ]

[Footnote 379: Settle. See note XV. ]

[Footnote 380: In Settle's poem, he calls the Duke of York Absalom. For
his apology, see note XV. ]

[Footnote 381: There is a ballad on this loathsome story among the Rump
Songs. ]

[Footnote 382: Settle gave his poem, in answer to Dryden, the title
of "Absalom Senior, or Absalom and Achitophel _transprosed_. " And the
first verse runs thus:

In gloomy times, when priestcraft bore the sway.
And made heaven's gate a lock to their own key.
]

[Footnote 383: Shadwell, See note XVI. ]

[Footnote 384: Note XVII. ]

[Footnote 385: Sir William Waller. See Note XVIII. ]

[Footnote 386: Member of Parliament. ]

[Footnote 387: Note XIX. ]

[Footnote 388: Note XX. ]

[Footnote 389: Dutch wars. ]

[Footnote 390: Note XXI. ]

[Footnote 391: Note XXII. ]

[Footnote 392: Lord Dartmouth. See Note XXIII. ]

[Footnote 393: General Sackville. See Note XXIV. ]

[Footnote 394: Note XXV. ]

[Footnote 395: Duke of Beaufort, President of Wales. --See Note XXVI. ]

[Footnote 396: Lord Herbert. ]

[Footnote 397: The second Duke of Albemarle, son of General Monk. --See
Note XXVII. ]

[Footnote 398: Earl of Arlington. --Note XXVIII. ]

[Footnote 399: Duke of Grafton. Note XXIX. ]

[Footnote 400: Earl of Feversham. --Note XXX. ]

[Footnote 401: Sir Heneage Finch, Earl of Winchelsea and Lord
Chancellor. Note XXXI. ]

[Footnote 402: First edit. _Ziba_. Sir Roger L'Estrange. --Note XXXII. ]

[Footnote 403: Dryden. ]

[Footnote 404: The thunder was anciently supposed to spare the laurel. ]

[Footnote 405: The Duchess of York. ]

[Footnote 406: Note XXXIII. ]

[Footnote 407: The grammar requires to read, _he's_. ]

[Footnote 408: Sir John Moore, Lord Mayor of London. --Note XXXIV. ]

[Footnote 409: First edit. _Syrges_. ]

[Footnote 410: Mr Pilkington and Mr Shute, Sheriffs. --Note XXXV. ]




NOTES

ON

ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.

PART II.


Note I.

_That arts of foreign sway he did affect,
And guilty Jebusites from law protect,
Whose very chiefs, convict, were never freed;
Nay, we have seen their sacrificers bleed. _--P. 320.

It is certain, that, whatever the private wishes of Charles may have
been, he neither did nor durst interfere, by his royal prerogative, to
prevent the execution of Stafford, Coleman, Langhorne, Plunket, and
other Catholics of rank, who were condemned on account of the Popish
Plot. Ireland, Fenwic, Gavan, Turner, and Harcourt, Jesuits, with
Whitebread, the provincial of the order, were all tried, sentenced, and
executed for the same conspiracy; persisting, to their last breath,
in the most solemn and deliberate asseverations of innocence: But
their dying testimonies only irritated the populace the more against
a religion, which taught its votaries to go down to the grave with a
manifest lie, as they supposed, in their right hand.


Note II.

_Mere truth was dull, nor suited with the port
Of pampered Corah, when advanced to court. _

* * * * *

_Meanwhile a guard on modest Corah wait,
If not for safety, needful yet for state. _--P. 320.

The Parliament, before whom Oates was examined, did not confine
themselves to simple approbation of his conduct. He was treated in a
manner suitable to the sense they had of his merit and importance. The
charge of his personal safety was recommended by the House of Commons
to the Lord General, the care of his lodgings and accommodation to the
Lord Chamberlain, and that of supplying him with money to the Lord High
Treasurer of England.

The state of Oates, in his splendour, is very well described by North:
"He was now in his trine exaltation; his plot in full force, efficacy,
and virtue; he walked about with his guards, assigned for fear of the
Papists' murdering him. He had lodgings at Whitehall, and L. 1200 _per
annum_ pension; and no wonder, after he had the impudence to say to the
House of Lords, in plain terms, that, if they would not help him to
more money, he must be forced to help himself. He put on an episcopal
garb, (except the lawn sleeves,) silk gown and cassock, great hat,
sattin hatband and rose, long scarf, and was called, or blasphemously
called himself, the Saviour of the Nation. Whoever he pointed at was
taken up and committed; so that many people got out of his way as from
a blast, and glad they could prove their last two years conversation.
The very breath of him was pestilential; and if it brought not
imprisonment or death over such on whom it fell, it surely poisoned
reputation, and left good Protestants arrant Papists, and something
worse than that, in danger of being put into the plot as traitors. "
_Examen. _ p. 205.


Note III.

_To have told his knowledge of the intrigue in gross,
Had been, alas! to our deponent's loss. _--P. 322.

Oates never would say he had told all he knew, but always reserved
some part of his evidence to be changed or altered with the shifting
wind of faction or popularity. According to his first narrative, the
plot was laid against the persons of the king and Duke of York; and
their assassination was to take place during the fire of London. But he
had the impudence to say, in his picture of King James, that both his
brother and he were in that very plot for firing the city, a secret
which, he alleges, he could not discover at the time, on account of
a promise to Prince Rupert; and is pleased to add, that the prince
heartily repented of giving, and he of taking, that counsel. When he
was asked, in the House of Commons, whether he had told all he knew of
the conspiracy? this cautious witness, who was determined to have the
whole credit of saving the kingdom his own way, instead of entrusting
the House with the secret, told them a parable of a fox, who, having
occasion to cross a frozen stream with a goose, and being unwilling to
hazard his spoil, first carried over a stone of equal weight with the
goose, to see if the ice would bear it. In short, neither he, nor any
of his imitators, would say more, than that their immediate evidence
was all which they as yet thought meet to declare.

This would have been tolerated no where but in England, and during
that period of terror, suspicion, and infatuation, when these perjured
caitiffs were as dear to the people as those who tell stories of
Rawhead and Bloody-bones are to their nursery audience.
The author has
said, and with much truth,

'Twas worse than plotting to suspect his plot.

The discovery of Coleman's letters, however irreconcileable with the
tale of the witnesses, above all, the murder of Godfrey, gave such
a bloody confirmation, that the people swallowed all that could be
told them about the horrors of the conspiracy; and, to use the warm
expression of the author of the "_Examen_," one might have denied his
Redeemer with less contest than attainted the veracity of Oates.

This popular ferment began to abate after the execution of Lord
Stafford; and, as the witnesses sunk in reputation, the king began
by degrees to discountenance Oates. He expelled him from Whitehall,
withdrew his guards, and reduced his pension to L. 600. Upon this
Oates altered his dress, assumed a sword, and associated with the
more desperate of the popular faction, such as Rumbold, Colledge, and
Fergusson. In the reign of James II. , his fortunes suffered a yet
more melancholy reverse; for, being most satisfactorily convicted of
perjury, by upwards of eighty witnesses, he was sentenced to two fines
of 1000 merks each; to be whipped, on two different days, from Aldgate
to Newgate, and from Newgate to Tyburn; to be imprisoned for life,
and to be pilloried five times every year. James had the imprudence
to exult in this cruel punishment. He told Sir John Reresby, that
the Popish plot was now dead; and, when that courtier obsequiously
answered, "and buried, please your majesty," he thought the jest worth
repeating, which his brother would hardly have done. It is true, no
punishment could be bad enough for the author of so many legal murders;
but the severity of the sentence was an injury to the law of the
land, though done through the person of so vile a criminal. The man's
impudence supported him under the conviction; and his fortitude under
the punishment was the means of regaining a share of his fallen credit.
After the Revolution, he was pardoned, and received a pension of L. 400,
with the amount of which he was much dissatisfied, as well as with the
refusal of the Parliament to reverse his sentence, and restore his
capacity for his old trade of bearing evidence.


Note IV.

_Even Absalom------
Perceives the plot, too foul to be excused,
To aid designs, no less pernicious, used. _--P. 323.

North, and other Tory writers, have affected to consider Shaftesbury
as the original author of the Popish plot. Of this there is no proof
whatever; and the internal evidence derived from the account of the
plot itself, is altogether inconsistent with the very idea. Shaftesbury
could never have given birth to such a heap of inconsistent fables; a
plan which he had forged would have been ingenious, consistent with
itself, accommodated to the circumstances of parties, and the times,
and therefore, in all probability, being less suited to the vulgar
palate, would not have made half the impression on the public. But we
can easily believe the truth of what he is alleged to have said, "that
whoever started the game, he had the full advantage of the chase. " In
fact, this wonderful tale, probably at first invented by two or three
obscure knaves, with the sordid view of profiting by the credulity of
the English nation, would have fallen to the ground, had it not been
fostered and cherished by Shaftesbury, who very soon perceived it could
be made the means of turning out Lord Danby, and driving matters to
extremity against the Catholic faction. He might well indeed exult in
his management in the former particular, since Danby was the first
to introduce into the House of Commons that very discussion about
the plot, to which, as Shaftesbury managed it, he himself fell a
sacrifice. [411] But it was chiefly as a means of bringing forward the
Bill of Exclusion, and of crushing for ever the hopes of his mortal
foe the Duke of York,[412] that Shaftesbury became the patron of all
investigations connected with the plot, pushed them on with vigour
and vehemence, and dipped himself deep in the blood of the innocent
persons who fell sacrifices to the popular clamour he had excited, and
to evidence, which much less than Shaftesbury's abilities might easily
have discovered to be inconsistent and fabulous.

A humorous pamphlet, already quoted, represents Shaftesbury as
abandoning his pretensions to the crown of Poland, for the purpose of
following up the discovery of the Popish plot. "In the very height of
all this expectation, one night as his majesty elect lay musing upon
his bed, restless with the thoughts and expectation of the approaching
empire, there appeared to him, by the light of a lamp that was burning
in his chamber, a dreadful and most monstrous vision. The shape and
figure of it was very confused and irregular: sometimes it looked like
the whore of Babylon, naked, and of immense privities; presently, in
the twinkling of an eye, the form was changed, and it appeared like a
justice of the peace, strangled by a crew of ruffians, who afterwards
ran him through the body with his own sword, that it might be thought
he hanged himself; on a sudden it was altered again, and seemed a troop
of pilgrims, armed with black bills, that came the Lord knows whence,
landed the Lord knows where, and are gone the Lord knows whither.
His majesty seeing it vary so often, and so terribly, calling up all
the faith he had to his assistance, boldly demanded 'In the name of,
&c. what art thou? ' Instantly, after a terrible clap of thunder,
accompanied with several flashes of lightning, it contracted itself
into the shape of a doctor of Salamanca, and, in a hideous tone, cried
out, 'I am a PLOT. Woe to England! farewell till 78;' and vanished.
No sooner was it gone, but a stupid amazement seized upon the majesty
of Poland, and cast him into a deep sleep, where he lay till morning,
when, awakening, he found himself stript of all the high and aspiring
thoughts that before had filled his mind; pity and compassion towards
his native country utterly cooled his ambition, and from that moment he
laid by all thoughts of converting the Turk, and resolved to stay at
home for confounding the pope.

"Thus has this good man, (for he is no more his majesty,) again
refused the highest promotion that perhaps any subject of England was
ever raised to, merely to stand in a gap here, and slay the plague that
was coming upon us. "[413]


Note V.

_Have I for this------
Even when at helm, a course so dangerous moved,
To land your hopes, as my removal proved. _
P. 325.

In 1679, the national discontent running exceedingly high, both on
account of the Popish plot, and for other reasons, the king, by the
advice of Sir William Temple, summoned a council of thirty persons,
fifteen of whom were the great officers of the crown, and fifteen
chosen from the country party. Shaftesbury was made president of this
council, against the opinion of Temple; and quickly found the means of
pressing his favourite measure of the Exclusion Bill. Monmouth, upon
whose interest in the king's affections he had great reliance, was
the person whom he proposed to nominate as successor, either by a law
to be passed for the purpose, or by prevailing on the king to declare
him legitimate. For this purpose, the interest of Shaftesbury was
exerted to have the duke sent down to Scotland, to oppose the insurgent
Covenanters, whom he defeated at Bothwell Bridge. The king's illness,
and the sudden revolution which took place in his councils, upon the
unexpected return of the Duke of York from Flanders, ruined this
project, and occasioned the disgrace of Monmouth, and the dismissal of
Shaftesbury.


Note VI.

_Amongst these, extorting Ishban first appears,
Pursued by a meagre troop of bankrupt heirs. _
P. 328.

Sir Robert Clayton, alderman of London, and one of the representatives
of the city during the two last parliaments of King Charles II. , was
warmly attached to the Whig party. He took an active concern, as a
magistrate, in examining the sham-plotter, Fitz-Harris; and was charged
by the Tories with an attempt to suborn that person to swear, that
he had been hired by the court to fix a plot upon the Protestants.
The examination of Fitz-Harris, who swore, and counter-swore, in many
different ways, besides avouching that he was bribed to concoct a
sham-plot, and to ascribe it to the Whigs, (a base manœuvre, too
often played off by both parties to be incredible,) added a thousand
improbable falsehoods about a Papist plot against the Protestants.
When removed from the city jail, and committed to the Tower, he told
another story: He was then in the power of the king, and alleged, that
Howard, and others, were in a plot to seize the king's person, and
that they had employed him to contrive the aforesaid sham-plot, in
order to charge upon the court the crime of subornation, &c. He added,
that Clayton, Bethel, Cornish, and Treby, the city-recorder, extorted
from him, by threats, his previous declaration concerning the Popish
plot, and used the most urgent means to compel him to impute the guilt
of Godfrey's murder to Danby, and to fix an accession to the Popish
conspiracy on the queen and Duke of York. The man was executed adhering
to this last story. Clayton, and the others accused of such infamous
practices, exculpated themselves in a pamphlet, entitled, "Truth
Vindicated," in which they showed many objections to Fitz-Harris's
final declaration. We must be contented to leave the affair in mystery;
and to regret there ever was a time in England, when the character and
common practices of both the leading parties in the kingdom were by no
means pure enough to exempt either from such foul suspicions.

Sir Robert Clayton, with the other London members, all of whom were
zealous Whigs, and whose re-election was hailed by the acclamations
of their party,[414] attended the Oxford Parliament in formidable
array; they were escorted by a numerous band of armed partizans,
who wore on their hats ribbons, bearing the label, "No Popery, no
Slavery," and were obviously prepared for something more than an usual
attendance upon their duty in the House of Commons. According to
Dugdale's evidence, Sir Robert Clayton was present at a carousal at
Lord Lovelace's, near Oxford, where Colledge, one of their principal
myrmidons, sung the unlucky ballad, which went so far towards his
condemnation. [415]

The story, that Sir Robert Clayton wished to purchase a peerage, seems
to have become popular. In the last will and testament of the Charter
of London is this, among other jocular bequests; "To Sir Robert Clayton
I bequeath all that the chamberlain has left of the common stock, to
purchase Paddington manor, with the demesnes and appurtenances thereto,
since there are now no _dukedoms_ to be purchased; and it is thought
that Tyburn, paying his arrears next year to the city, will yield a
better rate than 20l. _per cent. _ in the banker's hands. "--_Somers'
Tracts_, p. 185. His usury is also hinted at in a poem called, "The
Duke of Buckingham's Litany," and its consequences are enumerated among
the other follies of that prodigal peer:

From learning new morals from Bedlam Sir Payton;
And truth and modesty from Sir Ellis Layton;
From making our heirs, to be Morrice and Clayton,
_Libera nos, Domine. _

It ought to be mentioned to Sir Robert Clayton's honour, that out of
his wealth, howsoever procured, he dedicated a portion to found the
mathematical school in Christ Church Hospital.


Note VII.

_Next him, let railing Rabsheka have place,
So full of zeal, he has no need of grace;
A saint, that can both flesh and spirit use,
Alike haunt conventicles and stews. _--P. 328.

Sir Thomas Player, chamberlain of the city of London, was, like Sir
Robert Clayton, one of the city members, both in the Westminster
and Oxford parliaments; and, being as zealous as his colleague in
the popular cause, what has been said concerning their mode of
marching to Oxford, applies to him as well as to the other. He is
accused of libertinism, in the pasquinade quoted in the last note,
where the Charter of London makes him this bequest: "To Sir Thomas
Player, I leave all the manor of Moorfields, with all the wenches and
bawdy-houses thereunto belonging, with Mrs Cresswells[416] for his
immediate inheritance, to enjoy and occupy all, from the bawd to the
whore downward, at nineteen shillings in the pound cheaper than any
other person, because he may not exhaust the chamber by paying old
arrears, nor embezzle the stock by running into new scores. "[417]


Note VIII.

_Let David's brother but approach the town,
Double our guards, he cries, we are undone. _
P. 328.

When the Duke of York unexpectedly returned from Brussels, on the
news of the king's illness, his arrival spread discomfiture through
Shaftesbury's party in court, and rage and alarm among those in the
city. Sir Thomas Player, at the head of a numerous body of citizens,
or persons who called themselves so, made his appearance before the
lord-mayor, and court of aldermen; and after having expatiated, in a
set speech, upon the horrors of Popery, and upon the return of the
Duke of York, whose religion had first led to the conspiracy, and
whose recent arrival must necessarily give it new life, he gravely
demanded, that the city-guards should be doubled, and that four
companies, instead of two, should be appointed to duty every night.
The lord-mayor, after some discussion, evaded Sir Thomas's request,
by referring it to the livery. In the vehemence of the chamberlain's
oratory, a remarkable expression, noticed in the text, chanced to
escape him, "that he durst hardly go to sleep, for fear of awaking
with his throat cut. " In the pretended account of this interview, he
is only made to say, that it was now out of doubt, that the Papists
had burnt the city; "And if they had not been disappointed, would have
cut our throats too at the same time, while we were endeavouring to
save the small remainder of our goods. " But the publisher acknowledges,
he could give but an imperfect account of the "speech of this worthy
and deserving knight, and the Lord Mayor's generous reply thereunto. "
"Cutting throats," indeed, appears to have been a frequent terror of
the zealous knight. In the Westminster parliament, he made a speech
on the Exclusion Bill, in which, after stating that he had read in
Scripture of one man dying for a nation, but never of three nations
dying for one man; he assured the House, that they "would be embroiled
in blood before they were aware of it;" that he had "_no patience to
think of sitting still while his throat was a cutting_;" and therefore
prayed, they would endeavour to have laws that might enable them
to defend themselves. [418] In the parliament of Oxford, Sir Thomas
Player made a violent speech, upon Fitzharris being withdrawn from the
city jail, and sent to the Tower, with a view, as he contended, of
stifling his evidence against the Duke of York and the Papists; and
concluded by making a motion, which was carried, that if any judge,
justice, or jury, should proceed upon him, and he be found guilty,
they be declared guilty of his murder, and betrayers of the rights of
the commons of England. In short, Sir Thomas Player was a hot-headed
violent factionary; but Rouse, one of his dependants who suffered for
the Rye-house plot, with his dying breath cleared Sir Thomas of any
accession to that conspiracy; and declared, that he broke with Lord
Shaftesbury, upon perceiving the violent plans which he agitated after
his being freed from the Tower. _State Trials_, p. 750.


Note IX.

_Judas, that keeps the rebels' pension-purse;
Judas, that pays the treason-writer's fee;
Judas, that well deserves his name-sake's tree;
Who at Jerusalem's own gates erects
His college for a nursery of sects. _--P. 329.

Under the name of Judas, Dryden describes the famous Robert Ferguson,
a native of Scotland, and, by profession, an independant preacher, and
teacher of an academy at Islington. --_Ath. Ox. _ Vol. II. p. 743. He
was one of those dark, intriguing, subtile, and ferocious characters,
that emerge into notice in times of turmoil and civil dissension, and
whose appearance as certainly bodes revolution, as the gambols of
the porpoise announce a tempest. Through the whole of his busy and
desperate career, he appears to have been guided less by any principle,
moral or political, than by the mere pleasure of dealing in matters
deep and dangerous, and exerting his ingenuity to shake the quiet
of the kingdom at the risk of his own neck. In organizing dark and
bloody intrigues; in maintaining the courage of the zealots whom he
engaged in them; in carrying on the mystic correspondence by which the
different parts of the conspiracy were to be cemented and conjoined;
in guarding against the risque of discovery, and, lastly, in effecting
with nicety a hairbreadth escape when it had taken place,--all these
perilous, dubious, and criminal manœuvres, at which the noble-minded
revolt, and the peaceful are terrified, were the scenes in which the
genius of Ferguson delighted to exert itself. When the magistracy of
London was thrown into the hands of the crown, the charter annulled,
and all means of accomplishing a revolution by the ancient existing
authorities, were annihilated, such a character as Ferguson became of
inestimable value to Shaftesbury, considering the new plans which he
had in agitation, and the persons by whom they were to be accomplished.
Accordingly, he shared much of that politician's confidence, while his
influence, as a popular and violent preacher in the city, gave him
every facility of selecting and training the persons fittest to assist
in the meditated insurrection. His chapel, in Moorfields, was crowded
with multitudes of fanatics, whom fired by his political sermons, and
occasionally stimulated by libels and pamphlets, from a private press
of which he had the management, as well as of a purse that maintained
it. He distributed most of the pamphlets written on the Whig party,
and was by no means averse to father even the most dangerous of them;
his vanity, according to Burnet, getting the better of his prudence.
Some notable pieces, however, of his composition, are still known;
his style was of that diffuse, coarse, and periphrastic nature, best
suited to the apprehension of the vulgar, upon whose dull intellects
sentiments are always impressive, in proportion to the length of
time they are forced to dwell on them. He wrote the "Appeal from the
Country to the City," where, in plain words, he points out the Duke of
Monmouth as successor to the crown, and that because he had a dubious,
or rather no title at all to claim it. "No person is fitter than his
Grace the Duke of Monmouth, as well for quality, courage, and conduct,
as for that his life and fortune stand on the same bottom with yours.
He will stand by you, and therefore you ought to stand by him. And
remember the old rule is, _He, that has the worst title, ever makes
the best king_; as being constrained, by a gracious government, to
supply what he wants in title; that, instead of _God and my right_, his
motto may be, _God and my people_. " He proceeds to quote a historical
example for putting Monmouth on the throne, under the tutelage of
Shaftesbury, by stating that, after the death of Alexander, nothing
would pacify the dissensions which ensued, "but the choosing of King
Philip's illegitimate son, Aridæus, who, notwithstanding that he was a
man but of reasonable parts himself, might, as they thought, perform
the office well enough, by the help of his wise protector Perdiceas. "
This extraordinary piece is filled with the most violent declamations
against the Papists, in that tawdry, bombastic, and inflammatory
eloquence, wherewith, to speak according to Dryden's parable, he
"tempted Jerusalem to sin. "[419]

Ferguson also wrote the second part of "No Protestant Plot," another
very violent pamphlet, and several treatises on the same subject.
Meanwhile, other means were prepared to effect the desired change
of government. It is not necessary to enter particularly into the
well-known history of the Rye-house plot. Every body knows, that,
while Russel, Sidney, Monmouth, and others, undertook to raise an
insurrection in the country, Shaftesbury promised to head ten thousand
brisk boys in the city of London. Among these brisk boys were a fanatic
party, who agitated projects of assassinating the King and the Duke
of York, unknown to the more generous nobles, who proposed only to
secure the king's person. In all and each of these cabals, Ferguson
acted a distinguished part. When Shaftesbury fled from his house into
lurking places about Wapping, he trusted Ferguson with the secret of
his residence, although concealed from the noble-minded Russel, and the
generous Monmouth. By his intervention, he heartened and encouraged the
associates to break forth into open insurrection. With the inferior
conspirators, Ferguson was yet more intimate, and seems, in fact, to
have given life to the vague and desperate plans of _lopping_, as they
called the assassination of the royal brothers, by the countenance
which he pretended to procure the conspirators from those of superior
rank. He told West, he would procure the Duke of Monmouth's written
consent to his father's murder; although he afterwards allowed, he
durst not even mention such a plan to him. At length, when Shaftesbury,
weary of the delays of the other conspirators, left England for ever,
Ferguson and Walcot were the companions of his flight. By this the
plan of insurrection was for a time confounded, for the higher order
of the malcontents were ignorant of the lines of communication by
which the city cabal was conducted. Ferguson was therefore recalled,
and in an evil hour returned from Holland. His arrival gave new life
both to the upper and inferior conspiracy: in the former, six of the
leaders formed themselves into a regular committee, to extend their
influence and correspondence through the kingdom, and unite measures
with the disaffected in Scotland. The lower band of assassins matured
and prepared their plan for assassinating the king and duke as they
returned from Newmarket. Ferguson, who still acted in the capacity of
treasurer, which Dryden has assigned him, paid for the arms provided
for the enterprize; and, by his daring language, encouraged them to
proceed. He offered, in mockery, to consecrate the blunderbuss with
which Rumbold was to fire into the carriage; and when Sunday was fixed
for the day of action, he quoted the old Scottish proverb, "the better
day, the better deed. " Even when, by the treachery of Keeling, the
plot was finally discovered, and the conspirators were dispersing in
dismay and terror, Ferguson took his leave of them with great gaiety,
and, trusting to the plots of Argyle and Jerviswood, with which he
was also intimate, told them, he hoped to meet them all at Dunbar.
This indifference, at such a crisis, led to a supposition, that he had
some secret correspondence with government: it was even said, that
the messenger who arrested Ferguson suffered him to escape, but of
this there seems no evidence. He retired to Holland, where he joined
the unfortunate Monmouth, and was a principal agent in pushing him
on to his western invasion, when, if left to himself, he would have
remained in quiet. He drew the proclamation which Monmouth issued
at his landing, a prolix, ill-worded production, stuffed with all
the true, and all the false accusations against James II. , and where
the last so much drowned the others, that it was only calculated to
make an impression on the lowest vulgar. He was always earnest with
Monmouth, to take upon himself the title of king; and may be said to
have contributed greatly to every false step which he made, and to
the final destruction in which they ended. Of this Monmouth was so
sensible, that he told the king in their last interview, "That Ferguson
was chiefly the person who instigated him to set up his title of king,
and had been a main adviser and contriver of the whole affair, as
well to the attempting, as acting, what had been done;" but he had
little to answer when Halifax expressed his surprise, that he should
have given ear to him who, as he had long before told the late king,
"was a bloody rogue, and always advised to the cutting of throats. "
Ferguson was taken, on this occasion, the third day after the battle
of Sedgemore. Yet, when so much blood was spilt, both with, and
without the forms of law, this man, who had been most active in the
conspiracy against the king, when Duke of York, and had now organized
an invasion and insurrection in his dominions, was, by the inexorable
James, freely pardoned and dismissed, to council and assist the next
conspiracy. Perhaps his life was saved by Sunderland, lest he had
disclosed what he probably knew of his intercourse with the Prince
of Orange, and even with Monmouth himself. Ferguson seems, on his
liberation, to have returned to Holland; and did not fail to take a
share in the intrigues which preceded the Revolution. He managed the
dissenters for the interest of the Prince of Orange; and endeavoured
to press upon William a sense of their importance. But other, and more
important engines, were now at work; and Ferguson seems to have enjoyed
but a subaltern consideration: Burnet, who made such a figure in the
expedition, avers, he did not even know him by sight. [420] When the
Prince of Orange was at Exeter, the dissenters refused him the keys of
their meeting house. But Ferguson was accustomed to surmount greater
obstacles. "I will take," said he, laughing, "the kingdom of heaven by
storm," and broke open the door with his own hand. After the Revolution
was accomplished, one would have thought Ferguson's machinations might
have ended. He had seen his party triumphant; he had been rewarded with
a good post;[421] and, what was probably dearer to him than either
principle or profit, his intrigues had successfully contributed to the
achievement of a great change of government. But it was not in his
nature to be in repose; and, having spent all the former part of his
life in caballing to drive James from the throne, he now engaged with
the same fervour in every conspiracy for his restoration. In the very
year which succeeded that of the Revolution, we find him deeply engaged
with Sir James Montgomery, and the other Scottish presbyterians,
who, discontented with King William, had united with the Jacobites.
The Marquis of Anandale having absconded on account of his share in
this conspiracy, Ferguson secreted him for several weeks; a kindness
which the Marquis repaid, by betraying him to government. [422] With
his usual good fortune, he was dismissed; either in consideration of
former services, or because a full proof against him was not to be
obtained. After this, he continued to engage in every plot against the
government; and each year published one or two pamphlets, which put
his ears, if not his neck, in peril. His last grand exhibition was an
attack upon Trenchard, the secretary of state, for the use of blank and
general warrants. [423] But that adventure, as the romance writers say,
was reserved for another demagogue. Finally, Ferguson, who had in this
remarkable manner kept his promise of being engaged in every conspiracy
of his time, and, had gained the honourable epithet of "The Plotter,"
died quietly, and in peace, after having repeatedly seen the scaffold
stream with the blood of the associates of his various machinations.
One touch alone softens the character of this extraordinary incendiary.
In all his difficulties, he is never charged with betraying his
associates. His person is thus remarkably described in the proclamation
for apprehending his person, among the other Rye-house assassins.

A description of several of the conspirators that are fled. London
Gazette, from August 2d, to August 6th, 1683.

"Robert Ferguson, a tall lean man, dark-brown hair, a great Roman
nose, thin jawed, heat in his face, speaks in the Scotch tone, a sharp
piercing eye, stoops a little in the shoulders. He has a shuffling
gait, that differs from all men; wears his periwig down almost over his
eyes; about 45 or 46 years old. "


Note X.

_Here Phaleg, the lay Hebronite, is come. _--P. 329.

Of James Forbes I can give but a slight account. He was placed by the
Duke of Ormond as travelling tutor to the young Earl of Derby, who had
married his grand-daughter. Carte says, he was a gentleman of parts,
virtue, and prudence, but of too mild a nature to manage his pupil.
In Paris the earl addicted himself to the society of one Merrit, a
worthless profligate; and the governor having cautioned his charge
against this acquaintance, was assaulted at disadvantage by Merrit,
and dangerously wounded. Lord Derby, it seems, not only countenanced
Merrit's assault upon Mr Forbes, but, at the instigation of some young
French rakes, consented to his governor's being tossed in a blanket.
The Duke of Ormond, finding that the earl was wild and impatient of
restraint, and that his tutor's sage remonstrances had but little
effect, recalled Forbes, and sent in his stead Colonel Thomas Fairfax,
a gallant and brave man, and roughly honest. Lord Derby was at first
restiff; but Fairfax telling him plainly, that he was sent to govern
him, and would govern him, and that his lordship must submit, and
should do it, the young nobleman had the sense to comply, broke off his
evil acquaintances, and behaved ever after with great propriety. [424]
Forbes's misadventures in Paris, though, according to Carte, they
inferred no real dishonour, are severely alluded to by Dryden in the
text. I am not anxious to unrip the ancient chronicle of scandal,
in order to trace Phaleg's amours. He appears to have become one of
Monmouth's dependants.


Note XI.

_Let Hebron, nay let hell, produce a man,
So made for mischief as Ben-Jochanan. _--P. 330.

The Reverend Samuel Johnson, a party-writer of considerable merit. He
was a native of Warwickshire, and took orders after a regular course
of study at Cambridge. He obtained the small living of Curingham,
in Essex, by the patronage of a Mr Biddolph. The emoluments of this
benefice did not exceed eighty pounds a-year; and it was the only
church preferment he ever enjoyed. Dryden alludes to his poverty in
describing his original situation. Mr Johnson's patron, observing his
turn for politics, exhorted him to study the English constitution in
Bracton and Fortescue; but by no means to make his sermons the vehicle
for his political sentiments. The opinions which he formed in the
course of study, were such as recommended him as chaplain to the famous
Lord Russell.

While he was in this situation, and during the dependance of the Bill
of Exclusion, he endeavoured at once to show the danger to a national
religion from a sovereign who held opposite tenets, and to explode
the doctrine of passive obedience, in a work entitled, "Julian the
Apostate; with a short Account of his Life, and a Parallel betwixt
Popery and Paganism. " In this performance, according to Wood, he was
assisted by Thomas Hunt the lawyer. This book, which made a good deal
of noise at the time, was answered by the learned Hickes, in a treatise
called "Jovian," in which, according to Anthony a Wood, the doctor
hath, with unquestionable clearness, laid open the folly, "ignorance,
weakness, and pernicious drift of that traitorous scribbler. " Without
entering into the controversy, there can be little doubt, that, so
far as the argument from the example of the primitive Christians is
sound, Johnson has fairly made out his case. Indeed Dryden has little
left to say, except, that if they did resist Julian, which he seems
to admit, they were very wrong in so doing, and the less that is said
about it, the more will be the credit of the ancient church. Johnson
prepared a reply to "Jovian," called, the "Arts of Julian to undermine
Christianity;" but the Rye-house Plot having intervened, he did not
judge it prudent to publish it. He was called before the Privy Council,
who insisted upon knowing why this book, which had been entered at
Stationers Hall, was not published? His answer alleged, that the
ferment of the nation was so great as to render the further discussion
of the question imprudent. They then demanded a copy of the book; and
added, that, if they approved it, it should be published. To this
insidious proposal he boldly replied, that, having suppressed the book,
it only contained his private thoughts, which he could be compelled
to disclose to no man on earth. For this answer he was committed to
prison, and his house searched for the copies, which had fortunately
been bestowed elsewhere. The court finding themselves unable to reach
Johnson for _not_ publishing his second work, determined to try him
for publishing his first.