BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCXXIV. FEBRUARY, 1851. VOL. LXIX.
CONTENTS.
LATIMER AND RIDLEY, 131
MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. PART VI., 137
ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS FROM THE HISTORY OF JOHN BULL, 164
HARRY BOLTON'S CURACY, 180
THE DANGERS OF THE COUNTRY, 196
CURRAN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES, 222
LORD HOLLAND'S FOREIGN REMINISCENCES, 234
POPERY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 246
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET;
AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
_To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed._
SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCXXIV. FEBRUARY, 1851. VOL. LXIX.
LATIMER AND RIDLEY
BURNED AT THE STAKE IN OXFORD, A.D. 1555.
[The fires of Smithfield and the massacre of Bartholomew are truly
events of little consequence in history, if they fail to convince us of
the aggressive and unscrupulous policy of the Roman Catholic Church.
The claim of the Pope, which never has undergone or can undergo any
modification whatever, is nothing less than one of universal supremacy.
That claim is asserted now as broadly and boldly as it was three
hundred years ago; when, at the accession of Mary, Cardinal Pole was
sent over as legate to England, for the reduction of that realm to the
obedience of the See of Rome, and for the extirpation of heresy.
It matters not what may have been the private character of the
Cardinal. He has been represented as a man of mild nature, humane
disposition, and averse to the infamous cruelties which were then
perpetrated, the odium of which has been commonly thrown upon Bishops
Gardiner and Bonner. This much at least is plain, that, whatever may
have been his opinion as to the methods which were employed for the
suppression of Protestantism, he did not deem it expedient to exercise
his great power in mitigating the fury or tempering the cruelty of the
persecution. He was a passive witness of the enormities, and allowed
the mandates of the Church to supersede the dictates of humanity and
the merciful teaching of the Saviour.
The records of the reign of Mary ought, especially at the present time,
to be studied by those who, in their zeal for toleration, forget that
they have to contend with most bitter and uncompromising enemies. Not
only the sufferings and fortitude of the martyrs, (among whom were
numbered five bishops, and twenty-one clergymen of the Reformed faith
of England,) but the charges on which they were condemned, and the
noble testimony which they bore, will be found detailed in John Foxe's
_Acts and Monuments_. Next to that of Archbishop Cranmer, the names
of Latimer and Ridley can never be forgotten in this land, so long as
the voice of Protestantism is heard against Papal superstition and
supremacy. Political and ecclesiastical dominion are things inseparable
from each other in the eye of Rome; and wherever she has succeeded in
planting her foot, she has attempted to enforce spiritual submission,
and to extinguish liberty of conscience, by the power of the secular
arm. The following extract, from the work already referred to, narrates
the close of the terrible tragedy which consigned two English prelates
to the flames at Oxford:--
"Then they brought a faggot, kindled with fire, and laid the same
down at Dr Ridley's feet. To whom master Latimer spake in this
manner: 'Be of good comfort, master Ridley, and play the man. We
shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as
I trust shall never be put out.'
"And so the fire being given unto them, when Dr Ridley saw the
fire flaming up towards him, he cried with a wonderful loud voice,
'In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum: Domine, recipe
spiritum meum.' And after, repeated this latter part often in
English, 'Lord, Lord, receive my spirit;" master Latimer crying
as vehemently on the other side, 'O Father of heaven, receive my
soul!' who received the flame as it were embracing of it. After
that he had stroked his face with his hands, and as it were bathed
them a little in the fire, he soon died (as it appeareth) with very
little pain or none. And thus much concerning the end of this old
and blessed servant of God, master Latimer, for whose laborious
travails, fruitful life, and constant death, the whole realm hath
cause to give great thanks to Almighty God.
"But master Ridley, by reason of the evil making of the fire unto
him, because the wooden faggots were laid about the gorse, and
over-high built, the fire burned first beneath, being kept down by
the wood; which when he felt, he desired them for Christ's sake to
let the fire come unto him. Which when his brother-in-law heard,
but not well understood, intending to rid him out of his pain
(for the which cause he gave attendance,) as one in such sorrow
not well advised what he did, heaped faggots upon him, so that
he clean covered him, which made the fire more vehement beneath,
that it burned clean all his nether parts, before it once touched
the upper; and that made him leap up and down under the faggots,
and often desire them to let the fire come unto him, saying, 'I
cannot burn.' Which indeed appeared well; for, after his legs were
consumed by reason of his struggling through the pain (whereof he
had no release, but only his contentation in God,) he showed that
side toward us clean, shirt and all untouched with flame. Yet in
all this torment he forgot not to call unto God still, having in
his mouth, 'Lord, have mercy upon me!' intermingling his cry, 'Let
the fire come unto me: I cannot burn.' In which pangs he laboured
till one of the standers-by with his bill pulled off the faggots
above, and where he saw the fire flame up, he wrested himself unto
that side. And when the flame touched the gunpowder, he was seen to
stir no more, but burned on the other side, falling down at master
Latimer's feet; which, some said, happened by reason that the chain
loosed; others said, that he fell over the chain by reason of the
poise of his body, and the weakness of the nether limbs.
"Some said, that before he was like to fall from the stake, he
desired them to hold him to it with their bills. However it was,
surely it moved hundreds to tears, in beholding the horrible sight;
for I think there was none that had not clean exiled all humanity
and mercy, which would not have lamented to behold the fury of the
fire so to rage upon their bodies."]
I.
'Tis good to sing of champions old
The honour and renown;
To tell how truth and loyalty
Have saved an earthly crown.
But shame to us, if on the day
When higher themes are given--
When man's device and man's decree
Usurp the word of Heaven--
We dare forget the nobler names
Of those who vanquished death,
To keep unstained, from sire to son,
Our freedom and our faith!
II.
We bend the knee and bow the head
Upon the Christmas morn,
In token that, for sinful men,
The Saviour, Christ, was born.
Nor less, unto the faithful heart,
That time must hallowed be,
On which our Lord and Master died
In anguish on the tree;
And Easter brings its holy hymn,
Its triumph o'er the grave,
When He, the dead, arose in might,
Omnipotent to save.
III.
We worship as our fathers did,
In this our English home,
Not asking grace from mortal man
Nor craving leave from Rome.
Once more the warning note is heard,
The hour of strife is near--
What seeks he, with his mitred pomp,
That rank Italian, here?
What sought they in the former days,
When last that mission came?
The will, the craft, the creed of Rome
Remain for aye the same!
IV.
Woe, woe to those who dared to dream
That England might be free;
That Papal power and Papal rule
Were banished o'er the sea;
That he who sate in Peter's chair,
Had lost the will to harm,
Was powerless as a withered crone
Who works by spell and charm!
Woe, woe to those who dared deny
The Roman Pontiff's sway!
His red right arm is bared in wrath,
To smite, and burn, and slay!
V.
Light up, light up the ready fires!
Sound trumpet, fife, and drum;
Give welcome meet to him who brings
The sovereign hests of Rome.
No humble barefoot messenger--
No sandalled monk is he;
A stately priest--a Cardinal--
Proclaims the Pope's decree.
And see! upon her royal knees
The Queen of England falls,
In homage to a mightier Prince,
Within her fathers' halls!
VI.
'Tis done. Fair England! bow thy head,
And mourn thy grievous sin!
What though the Universal Church
Will gladly let thee in?
The stain is still upon thy brow,
The guilt is on thy hand;
For thou hast dared to worship God,
Against the Pope's command.
And thou hast scoffed at saint and shrine,
Denied the Queen of heaven,
And opened up with impious hands
The Holy Book unshriven.
VII.
For this, and for thy stubborn will
In daring to be free,
A fearful penance must be done
Ere guilt shall pass from thee.
The prophets of the new-born faith,
The leaders of the blind--
Arise, and take them in the midst--
Leave not a man behind!
In London's streets and Oxford's courts
A solemn fast proclaim,
And let the sins of England's Church
Be purged away by flame!
VIII.
In order long, the monkish throng
Wind through the Oxford street,
With up-drawn cowls, and folded hands,
And slow and noiseless feet.
Before their train the Crucifix
Is borne in state on high,
And banners with the Agnus wave,
And crosiers glitter by:
With spangled image, star-becrowned,
And gilded pyx they come,
To lay once more on English necks
The hateful yoke of Rome.
IX.
The mail-clad vassels of the Church
With men-at-arms are there,
And England's banner overhead
Floats proudly in the air.
And England's bishops walk beneath--
Ah me! that sight of woe!
An old, old man, with tottering limbs
And hair as white as snow.
Another, yet in manhood's prime,
The blameless and the brave--
And must they pass, O cruel Rome,
To yonder hideous grave?
X.
"Ay--for the Church reclaims her own;
To her all power is given--
The faggot and the sword on earth--
The keys of hell and heaven.
To sweep the heretics away,
'Tis thus the Church commands--
What means that wailing in the crowd?
Why wring they so their hands?
Why do the idle women shriek--
The men, why frown they so?
Lift up the Host, and let them kneel,
As onwards still we go."
XI.
The Host was raised--they knelt not yet--
Nor English knee was bowed,
Till Latimer and Ridley came,
Each in his penance shroud.
Then bent the throng on either side,
Then knelt both sire and dame,
And thousand voices, choked with sobs,
Invoked the martyr's name.
No chaunted hymn could drown the cry,
No tramp, nor clash of steel--
O England! in that piteous hour,
Was this thy sole appeal?
XII.
What more? That cry arose on high;
'Twas heard, where all is calm,
By Him who, for the martyr's pang,
Vouchsafes the martyr's palm;
By Him who needs no human arm
To work his righteous will:--
"The LORD is in his holy place,
Let all the earth be still."
They said it--they who gave the doom,
In that most awful name--
And if they spoke in blasphemy,
So shall they die in shame!
XIII.
To death--to death! The stake is near,
The faggots piled around;
The men-at-arms have made their ring,
The spearmen take their ground;
The torches, reeking in the sun,
Send up their heavy fume;
And by the pile the torturer
Is waiting for the doom.
With earnest eye and steadfast step,
Approach the martyr twain--
"Our cross!" they said--then kissed the stake,
And bowed them to the chain.
XIV.
Short be the pang!--Not yet, not yet!
The Tempter lingers near--
Rome parts not with her victims so;
A Priest is at their ear.
"Life--life, and pardon! say the word,
Why still so stubborn be?
Do homage to our Lord the Pope--
One word, and you are free!
O brothers! yield ye even now--
Speak but a single name--
Salvation lies not but with Rome;
Why die in raging flame?"
XV.
Then out spoke aged Latimer:--
"I tarry by the stake,
Not trusting to my own weak heart,
But for the Saviour's sake.
Why speak of life or death to me,
Whose days are but a span?
Our crown is yonder--Ridley--see!
Be strong, and play the man.
God helping, such a torch this day
We'll light on English land,
That Rome and all her Cardinals
Shall never quench the brand!"
XVI.
They died. O ask not how they died!
May never witness tell,
That once again on English ground
Was wrought that deed of hell!
The Consul, mad for Christian blood,
Even in his deadliest rage,
Was human when he opened up
The famished lion's cage--
More human far than they of Rome,
Who claimed the Christian name,
When those, the ministers of Christ,
Were writhing in the flame!
XVII.
Harlot of Rome! and dost thou come
With bland demeanour now?
The bridal-smile upon thy lips,
The flush upon thy brow--
The cup of sorcery in thy hand,
Still in the same array,
As when our fathers in their wrath
Dashed it and thee away?
No! by the ashes of the saints,
Who died beneath thy hand,
Thou shalt not dare to claim as thine
One foot of English land!
XVIII.
The echo of thy tread shall make
The light still higher burn--
A blaze shall rise from Cranmer's grave
And martyred Ridley's urn!
A blaze which they who own thy power
Shall stand aghast to see,
A blaze that in your infamy
Shall show both them and thee!
Yes! send thy Cardinals again--
Once more array thy powers--
Their watchword is, The Pope of Rome--
The Word of God, be ours!
W. I.
MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.--PART VI.
BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.
CHAPTER XIII.
Whatever may be the ultimate success of Miss Jemima Hazeldean's designs
upon Dr Riccabocca, the Machiavellian sagacity with which the Italian
had counted upon securing the services of Lenny Fairfield was speedily
and triumphantly established by the result. No voice of the Parson's,
charmed he ever so wisely, could persuade the peasant-boy to go and ask
pardon of the young gentleman, to whom, because he had done as he was
bid, he owed an agonising defeat and a shameful incarceration. And,
to Mrs Dale's vexation, the widow took the boy's part. She was deeply
offended at the unjust disgrace Lenny had undergone in being put in the
stocks; she shared his pride, and openly approved his spirit. Nor was
it without great difficulty that Lenny could be induced to resume his
lessons at school--nay, even to set foot beyond the precincts of his
mother's holding. The point of the school at last he yielded, though
sullenly; and the Parson thought it better to temporise as to the more
unpalatable demand. Unluckily Lenny's apprehensions of the mockery that
awaited him in the merciless world of his village were realised. Though
Stirn at first kept his own counsel, the Tinker blabbed the whole
affair. And after the search instituted for Lenny on the fatal night,
all attempt to hush up what had passed would have been impossible.
So then Stirn told his story, as the Tinker had told his own; both
tales were very unfavourable to Leonard Fairfield. The pattern boy had
broken the Sabbath, fought with his betters, and been well mauled into
the bargain; the village lad had sided with Stirn and the authorities
in spying out the misdemeanours of his equals: therefore Leonard
Fairfield, in both capacities of degraded pattern boy and baffled spy,
could expect no mercy;--he was ridiculed in the one, and hated in the
other.
It is true that, in the presence of the schoolmaster, and under the
eye of Mr Dale, no one openly gave vent to malignant feelings; but the
moment those checks were removed, popular persecution began.
Some pointed and mowed at him; some cursed him for a sneak, and all
shunned his society; voices were heard in the hedgerows, as he passed
through the village at dusk, "Who was put in the stocks?--baa!" "Who
got a bloody nob for playing spy to Nick Stirn?--baa!" To resist this
species of aggression would have been a vain attempt for a wiser head
and a colder temper than our poor pattern boy's. He took his resolution
at once, and his mother approved it; and the second or third day after
Dr Riccabocca's return to the Casino, Lenny Fairfield presented himself
on the terrace with a little bundle in his hand. "Please, sir," said
he to the Doctor, who was sitting cross-legged on the balustrade, with
his red silk umbrella over his head; "Please, sir, if you'll be good
enough to take me now, and give me any hole to sleep in, I'll work for
your honour night and day; and as for the wages, mother says 'just suit
yourself, sir.'"
"My child," said the Doctor, taking Lenny by the hand, and looking at
him with the sagacious eye of a wizard, "I knew you would come! and
Giacomo is already prepared for you! As to wages, we'll talk of them
by-and-by."
Lenny being thus settled, his mother looked for some evenings on the
vacant chair, where he had so long sate in the place of her beloved
Mark; and the chair seemed so comfortless and desolate, thus left all
to itself, that she could bear it no longer.
Indeed the village had grown as distasteful to her as to Lenny--perhaps
more so; and one morning she hailed the Steward as he was trotting his
hog-maned cob beside the door, and bade him tell the Squire that "she
would take it very kind if he would let her off the six months' notice
for the land and premises she held--there were plenty to step into the
place at a much better rent."
"You're a fool," said the good-natured Steward; "and I'm very glad you
did not speak to that fellow Stirn instead of to me. You've been doing
extremely well here, and have the place, I may say, for nothing."
"Nothin' as to rent, sir, but a great deal as to feeling," said the
widow. "And now Lenny has gone to work with the foreign gentleman, I
should like to go and live near him."
"Ah yes--I heard Lenny had taken himself off to the Casino--more fool
he; but, bless your heart, 'tis no distance--two miles or so. Can't he
come home every night after work?"
"No, sir," exclaimed the widow almost fiercely; "he shan't come home
here, to be called bad names and jeered at!--he whom my dead goodman
was so fond and proud of. No, sir; we poor folks have our feelings, as
I said to Mrs Dale, and as I will say to the Squire hisself. Not that I
don't thank him for all favours--he be a good gentleman if let alone;
but he says he won't come near us till Lenny goes and axes pardin.
Pardin for what, I should like to know? Poor lamb! I wish you could
ha' seen his nose, sir--as big as your two fists. Ax pardin! If the
Squire had had such a nose as that, I don't think it's pardin he'd been
ha' axing. But I let's the passion get the better of me--I humbly beg
you'll excuse it, sir. I'm no scollard, as poor Mark was, and Lenny
would have been, if the Lord had not visited us otherways. Therefore
just get the Squire to let me go as soon as may be; and as for the bit
o' hay and what's on the grounds and orchard, the new comer will no
doubt settle that."
The Steward, finding no eloquence of his could induce the widow
to relinquish her resolution, took her message to the Squire. Mr
Hazeldean, who was indeed really offended at the boy's obstinate
refusal to make the _amende honorable_ to Randal Leslie at first only
bestowed a hearty curse or two on the pride and ingratitude both of
mother and son. It may be supposed, however, that his second thoughts
were more gentle, since that evening, though he did not go himself to
the widow, he sent his "Harry." Now, though Harry was sometimes austere
and _brusque_ enough on her own account, and in such business as might
especially be transacted between herself and the cottagers, yet she
never appeared as the delegate of her lord except in the capacity of a
herald of peace and mediating angel. It was with good heart, too, that
she undertook this mission, since, as we have seen, both mother and
son were great favourites of hers. She entered the cottage with the
friendliest beam in her bright blue eye, and it was with the softest
tone of her frank cordial voice that she accosted the widow. But she
was no more successful than the Steward had been. The truth is, that
I don't believe the haughtiest duke in the three kingdoms is really
so proud as your plain English rural peasant, nor half so hard to
propitiate and deal with when his sense of dignity is ruffled. Nor are
there many of my own literary brethren (thin-skinned creatures though
we are) so sensitively alive to the Public Opinion, wisely despised
by Dr Riccabocca, as that same peasant. He can endure a good deal of
contumely sometimes, it is true, from his superiors, (though, thank
Heaven! _that_ he rarely meets, with unjustly;) but to be looked down
upon, and mocked, and pointed at by his own equals--his own little
world--cuts him to the soul. And if you can succeed in breaking this
pride, and destroying this sensitiveness, then he is a lost being. He
can never recover his self-esteem, and you have chucked him half way--a
stolid, inert, sullen victim--to the perdition of the prison or the
convict-ship.
Of this stuff was the nature both of the widow and her son. Had the
honey of Plato flowed from the tongue of Mrs Hazeldean, it could not
have turned into sweetness the bitter spirit upon which it descended.
But Mrs Hazeldean, though an excellent woman, was rather a bluff
plain-spoken one--and, after all, she had some little feeling for
the son of a gentleman, and a decayed fallen gentleman, who, even
by Lenny's account, had been assailed without any intelligible
provocation; nor could she, with her strong common sense, attach all
the importance which Mrs Fairfield did to the unmannerly impertinence
of a few young cubs, which, she said truly, "would soon die away if
no notice was taken of it." The widow's mind was made up, and Mrs
Hazeldean departed--with much chagrin and some displeasure.
Mrs Fairfield, however, tacitly understood that the request she had
made was granted, and early one morning her door was found locked--the
key left at a neighbour's to be given to the Steward; and, on farther
inquiry, it was ascertained that her furniture and effects had been
removed by the errand-cart in the dead of the night. Lenny had
succeeded in finding a cottage, on the road-side, not far from the
Casino; and there, with a joyous face, he waited to welcome his mother
to breakfast, and show how he had spent the night in arranging her
furniture.
"Parson!" cried the Squire, when all this news came upon him, as he was
walking arm in arm with Mr Dale to inspect some proposed improvement in
the Alms-house, "this is all your fault. Why did not you go and talk to
that brute of a boy, and that dolt of a woman? You've got 'soft sawder
enough,' as Frank calls it in his new-fashioned slang."
"As if I had not talked myself hoarse to both!" said the Parson in a
tone of reproachful surprise at the accusation. "But it was in vain!
O Squire, if you had taken my advice about the Stocks--_quieta non
movere!_"
"Bother!" said the Squire. "I suppose I am to be held up as a tyrant,
a Nero, a Richard the Third, or a Grand Inquisitor, merely for having
things smart and tidy! Stocks indeed!--your friend Rickeybockey said he
was never more comfortable in his life--quite enjoyed sitting there.
And what did not hurt Rickeybockey's dignity (a very gentlemanlike
man he is, when he pleases) ought to be no such great matter to
Master Leonard Fairfield. But 'tis no use talking! What's to be done
now? The woman must not starve; and I'm sure she can't live out of
Rickeybockey's wages to Lenny--(by the way, I hope he don't board him
upon his and Jackeymo's leavings: I hear they dine upon newts and
sticklebacks--faugh!) I'll tell you what, Parson, now I think of it--at
the back of the cottage which she has taken there are some fields of
capital land just vacant. Rickeybockey wants to have 'em, and sounded
me as to the rent when he was at the Hall. I only half promised him
the refusal. And he must give up four or five acres of the best land
round the cottage to the widow--just enough for her to manage--and
she can keep a dairy. If she want capital, I'll lend her some in your
name--only don't tell Stirn; and as for the rent--we'll talk of that
when we see how she gets on, thankless obstinate jade that she is!
You see," added the Squire, as if he felt there was some apology due
for this generosity to an object whom he professed to consider so
ungrateful, "her husband was a faithful servant, and so--I wish you
would not stand there staring me out of countenance, but go down to the
woman at once, or Stirn will have let the land to Rickeybockey, as sure
as a gun. And hark-ye, Dale, perhaps you can contrive, if the woman is
so cursedly stiff-backed, not to say the land is mine, or that it is
any favour I want to do her--or, in short, manage it as you can for the
best." Still even this charitable message failed. The widow knew that
the land was the Squire's, and worth a good £3 an acre. 'She thanked
him humbly for that and all favours; but she could not afford to buy
cows, and she did not wish to be beholden to any one for her living.
And Lenny was well off at Mr Rickeybockey's, and coming on wonderfully
in the garden way--and she did not doubt she could get some washing; at
all events, her haystack would bring in a good bit of money, and she
should do nicely, thank their honours.'
Nothing farther could be done in the direct way, but the remark about
the washing suggested some mode of indirectly benefiting the widow.
And a little time afterwards, the sole laundress in that immediate
neighbourhood happening to die, a hint from the Squire obtained from
the landlady of the inn opposite the Casino such custom as she had to
bestow, which at times was not inconsiderable. And what with Lenny's
wages, (whatever that mysterious item might be,) the mother and son
contrived to live without exhibiting any of those physical signs
of fast and abstinence which Riccabocca and his valet gratuitously
afforded to the student in animal anatomy.