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Notes.
PARTY-SIMILES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY--NO. I. "FOXES AND FIREBRANDS."
NO. II. "THE TROJAN HORSE."
With Englishmen, at least, the seventeenth was a century pre-eminent for
quaint conceits and fantastic similes: the literature of that period,
whether devotional, poetical, or polemical[1], was alike infected with the
universal mania for strained metaphors, and men vied with each other in
giving extraordinary titles to books, and making the {486} contents justify
the title. Extravagance and the far-fetched were the gauge of wit: Donne,
Herbert, and many a man of genius foundered on this rock, as well as
Cowley, who acted up to his own definition:
"In a true Piece of Wit _all things_ must be,
Yet all things there agree;
As in the _Ark_, join'd without force or strife,
All creatures dwelt--all creatures that had life."
It is not, however, for the purpose of illustrating this mania that I am
about to dwell on the two similes which form the subject of my present
Note: I selected them as favourite party-similes which formed a standing
dish for old Anglican writers; and also because they throw light on the
history of religious party in England, and thus form a suitable supplement
to my article on "High Church and Low Church" (Vol. viii., p. 117.).
As the object of the Church of England, in separating from Rome, was the
_reformation_, not the _destruction_ of her former faith, by the very act
of reformation she found herself opposed to two bodies; namely, _that_ from
which she separated, and the ultra-reformers or Puritans, who clamoured for
a _radical_ reformation.
Taking these as the Scylla and Charybdis--the two extremes to be
avoided--the Anglican Church hoped to attain the safe and golden mean by
steering between these opposites, and find, in this _via media_ course, the
path of truth.
Accordingly, her divines abound with warnings against the aforesaid Scylla
and Charybdis, and with exhortations to cleave to the middle line of
safety. Acting on the proverb that _extremes meet_, they were ever drawing
parallels between their two opponents. On the other hand, the Puritans
stoutly contended that _they_ were the true middle-men; and in their turn
traced divers similarities and parallels betwixt "Popery and Prelacy," the
"Mass Book and Service Book."[2]
Without farther preface, I shall give the title of a curious work, which
will tell its own story:
"_Foxes and Firebrands_; or _A Specimen of the Danger and Harmony of
Popery and Separation_. Wherein is proved from undeniable Matter of
Fact and Reason, that Separation from the Church of England is, in the
Judgment of Papists, and by Experience, found the most Compendious way
to introduce Popery, and to ruine the Protestant Religion:
'_Tantum Religio potuit suadere Malorum._'"
A work under this title was published, if I mistake not, in London in 1678
by Dr. Henry Nalson; in 1682, Robert Ware reprinted it with a second part
of his own; and in 1689 he added a _third_ and last part in 12mo., uniform
with the previous volume.[3] In the Epist. Ded. to Part II. the writer says
of the Church of England:
"The Papists on the one hand, and the Puritans on the other, did
endeavour to sully and bespatter the glory of her Reformation: the one
taxing it with innovation, and the other with superstition."
The Preface to the Third Part declares that the object of the whole work is
"to reclaim the most haggard Papists" and Puritans.
Wheatly, in treating of the State Service for the 29th of May, remarks:
"The Papists and Sectaries, like Sampson's Foxes, though they look
contrary ways, do yet both join in carrying Fire to destroy us: their
End is the same, though the method be different."--_Rational Illust. of
the Book of Common Prayer_, 3rd edit., London, 1720, folio.
The following passage occurs in _A Letter to the Author of the Vindication
of the Clergy_, by Dr. Eachard, London, 1705:
"I have put in hard, I'll assure you, in all companies, for two or
three more: as for example, _The Papist and the Puritan being tyed
together like Sampson's Foxes_. I liked it well enough, and have
beseeched them to let it pass for a phansie; but I could never get the
rogues in a good humour to do it: for they say that _Sampson's foxes_
have been so very long and so very often tied together, that it is high
time to part them. It may be because something very like it is to be
found in a printed sermon, which was preached thirty-eight years ago:
it is no flam nor whisker. It is the forty-third page upon the right
hand. Yours go thus, viz. _Papist and Puritan, like Sampson's Foxes,
though looking and running two several ways, yet are ever joyned
together the tail._ My author has it thus, viz. _The Separatists and
the Romanists consequently to their otherwise most distant principles
do fully agree, like Sampson's Foxes, tyed together by the tails, to
set all on fire, although their faces look quite contrary ways._"--P.
34.
It would be easy to multiply passages in which this simile occurs; but what
I have given is {487} suffcient for my purpose, and I must leave room for
"The Trojan Horse."[4]
I must content myself with giving the title of the following work, as I
have never met with the book itself: _The Trojan Horse, or The Presbyterian
Government Unbowelled_, London, 1646.