He shall sit next to Brutus!
]
[Footnote 248: The fine, fixed originally at £2000, was mitigated, and
the corporal punishment remitted, at the desire of the Bishop of
London.]
[Footnote 249: The MS. letter giving this account observes, that the
words concerning his majesty were not read in open court, but only those
relating to the duke and Felton.]
[Footnote 250: Clarendon notices that Felton was "of a gentleman's
family in Suffolk, of good fortune and reputation." I find that during
his confinement, the Earl and Countess of Arundel, and Lord Maltravers,
their son, "he being of their blood," says the letter-writer,
continually visited him, gave many proofs of their friendship, and
brought his "winding-sheet," for to the last they attempted to save him
from being hung in chains: they did not succeed.]
[Footnote 251: Rushworth, vol. i. 638.]
[Footnote 252: The original reads "It is for our sins our hearts are
hardened."]
[Footnote 253: Lansdowne MSS. No. 203, f. 147. The original paper above
described was in the possession of the late William Upcott; he had it
from Lady Evelyn, who found it among John Evelyn's papers at Wotton, in
Surrey. Evelyn married the daughter of Sir Richard Browne, who had
married the only daughter of Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State,
and one of the persons before whom Felton was examined at Portsmouth.
The words on this remarkable paper differ from the transcripts just
given, and are exactly these:--"That man is cowardly, base, and
deserveth not the name of a gentleman or souldier, that is not willinge
to sacrifice his life for the honor of his God, his Kinge, and his
countrie. Lett noe man commend me for doinge of it, but rather
discommend themselves as the cause of it, for if God had not taken away
our hearts for our sinnes, he would not have gone so longe unpunished."]
[Footnote 254: Harl. MSS. 7000. J. Mead to Sir Matt. Stuteville, Sept.
27, 1628.]
[Footnote 255: The rack, or brake, now in the Tower, was introduced by
the Duke of Exeter in the reign of Henry VI., as an auxiliary to his
project of establishing the civil law in this country; and in derision
it was called his daughter.--Cowel's Interp. voc. _Rack_.]
[Footnote 256: This remarkable document is preserved by Dalrymple: it is
an indorsement in the handwriting of Secretary Winwood, respecting the
examination of Peacham--a record whose graduated horrors might have
charmed the speculative cruelty of a Domitian or a Nero. "Upon these
interrogatories, Peacham this day was examined _before torture, in
torture, between torture, and after torture;_ notwithstanding, nothing
could be drawn from him, he persisting still in his obstinate and
insensible denials and former answer."--Dalrymple's "Memoirs and Letters
of James I." p. 58.]
[Footnote 257: Z. Townley, in 1624, made the Latin oration in memory of
Camden, reprinted by Dr. Thomas Smith at the end of "Camden's
Life."--Wood's "Fasti." I find his name also among the verses addressed
to Ben Jonson prefixed to his works.]
[Footnote 258: The allusion here is to Charles Townley, Esq., whose
noble collection of antique marbles now enrich our British Museum. He
was born 1737, and died January 3, 1805. The collection was purchased by
a national grant of 28,200 _l_.; and a building being expressly erected
for them, in connexion with Montague House, then converted into a
national museum, was opened to the public in 1808.]
[Footnote 259: This poem has been collated afresh from the original in
the Sloane MS. No. 603. It concludes with the four lines forming the
duke's epitaph, as printed in p. 369.]
[Footnote 260: He has added in the Life the name of _Burlington_.]
[Footnote 261: In the Life, Johnson gives Swift's complaint that Pope
was never at leisure for conversation, because _he had always some
poetical scheme in his head_.]
[Footnote 262: Johnson, in the Life, has given Watts' opinion of Pope's
poetical diction.]
[Footnote 263: Ruffhead's "Life of Pope."]
[Footnote 264: In the Life Johnson says, "Expletives he very early
rejected from his verses; but he now and then admits an epithet rather
commodious than important. Each of the six first lines of the "Iliad"
might lose two syllables with very little diminution of the meaning; and
sometimes, after all his art and labour, one verse seems to be made for
the sake of another.]
[Footnote 265: He has a few double rhymes, but always, I think,
unsuccessfully, except one, in the Rape of the Lock.--"Life of Pope."
Mrs. Thrale, in a note on this passage, mentions the couplet Johnson
meant, for she asked him: it is
The meeting points the fatal lock dissever
From the fair head--for ever and for ever.
]
[Footnote 266: Lanzi, Storia Pittorica, v. 85.]
[Footnote 267: D'Argenville, Vies des Peintres, ii. 46.]
[Footnote 268: The curious reader of taste may refer to Fuseli's Second
Lecture for a _diatribe_ against what he calls "the Electic School;
which, by selecting the beauties, correcting the faults, supplying the
defects, and avoiding the extremes of the different styles, attempted to
form a perfect system." He acknowledges the greatness of the Caracci;
yet he laughs at the mere copying the manners of various painters into
one picture. But perhaps--I say it with all possible deference--our
animated critic forgot for a moment that it was no mechanical imitation
the Caracci inculcated: _nature_ and _art_ were to be equally studied,
and _secondo il nativo talento e la propria sua disposizione_. Barry
distinguishes with praise and warmth. "Whether," says he, "we may
content ourselves with adopting the _manly plan of art_ pursued by the
Caracci and their school at Bologna, in uniting the perfections of all
the other schools; or whether, which I rather hope, we look farther into
the style of design upon our own studies after nature; whichever of
these plans the nation might fix on," &c., ii. 518. Thus, three great
names, Du Fresnoy, Fuseli, and Barry, restricted their notions of the
Caracci plan to a mere imitation of the great masters; but Lanzi, in
unfolding Lodovico's project, lays down as his first principle the
observation of nature, and, secondly, the imitation of the great
masters; and all modified by the natural disposition of the artist.]
[Footnote 269: D'Argenville, Vies des Peintres, ii. 47-68.]
[Footnote 270: Bellori, Le Vite de Pittori, &c.]
[Footnote 271: Passeri, Vite de Pittori.]
[Footnote 272: D'Argenville, ii. 26.]
[Footnote 273: Fuseli describes the gallery of the Farnese palace as a
work of uniform vigour of execution, which nothing can equal but its
_imbecility and incongruity of conception_. This deficiency in Annibale
was always readily supplied by the taste and learning of Agostino; the
vigour of Annibale was deficient both in sensibility and correct
invention.]
[Footnote 274: Long after this article was composed, the _Royal Society
of Literature_ was projected. It was founded by King George IV., and is
said to have originated in a conversation between Dr. Burgess,
afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, and a member of the royal household, who
reported its substance to the king. The bishop was again sent for, and
the formation of the society commenced by the offer of premiums for an
essay on Homer, the prize being one hundred guineas; a poem on Dartmoor,
prize fifty guineas (awarded to Mrs. Hemans); and one of twenty-five
guineas, for an essay on the Ancient and Modern Languages of Greece. In
1823 the king granted the society a charter, and placed the annual sum
of eleven hundred guineas at its disposal, to be spent in endowing ten
associates for life, who were to receive one hundred guineas each yearly
(as a delicate mode of aiding needy literary men); the remaining one
hundred guineas to be expended on two gold medals, to be also awarded to
eminent men of letters. Coleridge, Dr. Jameson, Malthus, Roscoe, Todd,
and Sharon Turner received annuities among other well-known literary
characters; and Mitford, Southey, Scott, Crabbe, Hallam, and Washington
Irving received medals. On the death of George IV., the grant was
discontinued, and the society now exists by the subscriptions of its
members.]
[Footnote 275: See an article "On the ridiculous titles assumed by the
Italian Academies," in a future page of this volume.]
[Footnote 276: In J.T. Smith's "Historical and Literary Curiosities" is
engraved a fac-simile of a series of designs for the arms of the Royal
Society, drawn by Evelyn, but not used, because the king gave them the
choice of using the Royal Arms in a canton. The first of Evelyn's
designs exhibits a ship in full sail, with the motto _Et Augebitur
Scientia_. The other are as follows:--A hand issuing from the clouds
holding a plumb-line--motto, _Omnia probate_; two telescopes
saltier-wise, the earth and planets above--motto, _Quantum nescimus_;
the sun in splendour--motto, _Ad majorem lumen_; a terrestrial globe,
with the human eye above--motto, _Rerum cognoscere causas_.]
[Footnote 277: Evelyn notes in his Diary, August 20, 1662--"The king
gave us the armes of England, to be borne in a canton in our armes; and
sent us a mace of silver-gilt, of the same fashion and bigness as those
carried before his majestie, to be borne before our president on
meeting-days." This mace is still used.]
[Footnote 278: It was revived in 1707, by Wanley, the librarian to the
Earl of Oxford, who composed its rules; he was joined by Bagford,
Elstob, Holmes (keeper of the Tower records), Maddox, Stukely, and
Vertue the engraver. They met at the Devil Tavern, Fleet-street, and
afterwards in rooms of their own in Chancery-lane. They ultimately
removed to apartments granted them in Somerset House by George III.,
where they still remain.]
[Footnote 279: It was said of Prynne, and his custom of quoting
authorities by hundreds in the margins of his books to corroborate what
he said in the text, that "he always had his wits beside him in the
margin, to be beside his wits in the text." This jest is Milton's.]
[Footnote 280: Southey says--"A quotation may be likened to a text on
which a sermon is preached."]
[Footnote 281: Hone had this faculty in a large degree, and one of his
best political satires, the "Political Showman at Home," is entirely
made out of quotations from older authors applicable to the real or
fancied characteristics of the politicians he satirized.]
[Footnote 282: In MS. Bib. Reg. inter lat. No. 2447, p. 134.]
[Footnote 283: In the recent edition of Dante, by Romanis, in four
volumes, quarto, the last preserves the "Vision of Alberico," and a
strange correspondence on its publication; the resemblances in numerous
passages are pointed out. It is curious to observe that the good
Catholic _Abbate Cancellieri_, at _first_ maintained the _authenticity
of the Vision_, by alleging that _similar revelations_ have not been
unusual!--the Cavaliere _Gherardi Rossi_ attacked the whole as the crude
legend of a boy who was only made the instrument of the monks, and was
either a liar or a parrot! We may express our astonishment that, at the
present day, a subject of mere literary inquiry should have been
involved with "the faith of the Roman church." Cancellieri becomes at
length submissive to the lively attacks of Rossi; and the editor gravely
adds his "conclusion," which had nearly concluded nothing! He discovers
pictures, sculptures, and a mystery acted, as well as Visions in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, from which he imagines the Inferno,
the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso owe their first conception. The
originality of Dante, however, is maintained on a right principle; that
the poet only employed the ideas and the materials which is found in his
own country and his own times.]
[Footnote 284: Michelet, in his "Life of Luther," says the Spanish
soldiers mocked and loaded him with insults, on the evening of his last
examination before the Diet at Worms, on his leaving the town-hall to
return to his hostelry: he ceased to employ arguments after this, and
when next day the archbishop of Treves wished to renew them, he replied
in the language of Scripture, "If this work be of men, it will come to
nought, but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it."]
[Footnote 285: The miracles of Clovis consisted of a shield, which was
picked up after having fallen from the skies; the anointing oil,
conveyed from heaven by a white dove in a phial, which, till the reign
of Louis XVI. consecrated the kings of France; and the oriflamme, or
standard with golden flames, long suspended over the tomb of St. Denis,
which the French kings only raised over the tomb when their crown was in
imminent peril. No future king of France can be anointed with the
_sainte ampoule_, or oil brought down to earth by a white dove; in 1794
it was broken by some profane hand, and antiquaries have since agreed
that it was only an ancient lachrymatory!]
[Footnote 286: This fact was probably quite unknown to us, till it was
given in the "Quarterly Review," vol. xxix. However, the same event was
going on in Italy.]
[Footnote 287: One of the most absurd reports that ever frightened
private society was that which prevailed in Paris at the end of the
seventeenth century. It was, that the Jesuits used a poisoned snuff
which they gave to their opponents, with the fashionable politeness of
the day in "offering a pinch;" and which for a time deterred the
custom.]
[Footnote 288: It is now about thirty-seven years ago since I first
published this anecdote; at the same time I received information that
our female historian and dilapidator had acted in this manner more than
once. At that distance of time this rumour, so notorious at the British
Museum, it was impossible to authenticate. The Rev. William Graham, the
surviving husband of Mrs. Macaulay, intemperately called on Dr. Morton,
in a very advanced period of life, to declare that "it appeared to him
that the note does not contain any evidence that the leaves were torn
out by Mrs. Macaulay." It was more apparent to the unprejudiced that the
doctor must have singularly lost the use of his memory, when he could
not explain his own official note, which, perhaps, at the time he was
compelled to insert. Dr. Morton was not unfriendly to Mrs. Macaulay's
political party; he was the editor of Whitelocke's "Diary of his Embassy
to the Queen of Sweden," and has, I believe, largely castrated the work.
The original lies at the British Museum.]
[Footnote 289: There was one passage he recollected:--
Just left my bed
A lifeless trunk, and scarce a dreaming head!
]
[Footnote 290: I have seen a transcript, by the favour of a gentleman
who sent it to me, of Gray's "Directions for Heading History." It had
its merit, at a time when our best histories had not been published, but
it is entirely superseded by the admirable "Méthode" of Lenglet du
Fresnoy.]
[Footnote 291: Henry Stephen appears first to have started this subject
of _parody_; his researches have been borrowed by the Abbé Sallier, to
whom, in my turn, I am occasionally indebted. His little dissertation is
in the French Academy's "Mémoires," tome vii. 398.]
[Footnote 292: See a specimen in Aulus Gellius, where this parodist
reproaches Plato for having given a high price for a book, whence he
drew his noble dialogue of the Timæus. Lib. iii. c. 17.]
[Footnote 293: See Spanheim Les Césars de L'Empéreur Julien in his
"Preuves," Remarque 8. Sallier judiciously observes, "Il peut nous
donner une juste idée de cette sorte d'ouvrage, mais nous ne savons pas
précisement en quel tems il a été composé;" no more truly than the Iliad
itself!]
[Footnote 294: The first edition of this play is a solemn parody
throughout. In the preface the author defends it from being, as
"maliciously" reported, "a burlesque on the loftiest parts of Tragedy,
and designed to banish what we generally call fine writing from the
stage." When he afterwards quotes parallel passages from popular plays
which he has parodied, he does so saying, "whether this sameness of
thought and expression which I have quoted from them proceeded from an
agreement in their way of thinking, or whether they have borrowed from
our author, I leave the reader to determine!"]
[Footnote 295: Les Parodies du Nouveau Théâtre Italien, 4 vols. 1738.
Observations sur la Comédie et sur le Génie de Molière, par Louis
Riccoboni. Liv. iv.]
[Footnote 296: _The Tailors; a Tragedy for Warm Weather_, was originally
brought out by Foote in 1767. There had been great disturbances between
the master tailors and journeymen about wages at this time; and the
author has amusingly worked out the disputes and their consequences in
the heroic style of a blank verse tragedy.]
[Footnote 297: Beattie on Poetry and Music, p. 111.]
[Footnote 298: I have arranged many facts, connected with the present
subject, in the fifth chapter of "The Literary Character," in the
enlarged and fourth edition, 1828.]
[Footnote 299: A physician of eminence has told us of the melancholy
termination of the life of a gentleman who in a state of mental
aberration cut his throat; the loss of blood restored his mind to a
healthy condition; but the wound unfortunately proved fatal.]
[Footnote 300: It would be polluting these pages with ribaldry,
obscenity, and blasphemy, were I to give specimens of some hymns of the
Moravians and the Methodists, and some of the still lower sects.]
[Footnote 301: There is a rare tract, entitled "Singing of Psalmes,
vindicated from the charge of Novelty," in answer to Dr. Russell, Mr.
Marlow, &c., 1698. It furnishes numerous authorities to show that it was
practised by the primitive Christians on almost every occasion. I shall
directly quote a remarkable passage.]
[Footnote 302: In the curious tract already referred to, the following
quotation is remarkable; the scene the fancy of MAROT pictured to him,
had _anciently occurred_. St. Jerome, in his seventeenth Epistle to
Marcellus, thus describes it: "In Christian villages little else is to
be heard but Psalms; for which way soever you turn yourself, either you
have the ploughman at his plough singing _Hallelujahs_, the weary brewer
refreshing himself with a _psalm_, or the vine-dresser chanting forth
somewhat of _David's_."]
[Footnote 303: Mr. Douce imagined that this alludes to a common practice
at that time among the Puritans of _burlesquing the plain chant_ of the
Papists, by adapting vulgar and ludicrous music to psalms and pious
compositions.--_Illust. of Shakspeare_, i. 355. Mr. Douce does not
recollect his authority. My idea differs. May we not conjecture that the
intention was the same which induced Sternhold to versify the Psalms, to
be sung instead of lascivious ballads; and the most popular tunes came
afterwards to be adopted, that the singer might practise his favourite
one, as we find it occurred in France?]
[Footnote 304: Ed. Philips in his "Satyr against Hypocrites," 1689,
alludes to this custom of the pious citizens--
---- Singing with woful noise,
Like a cracked saint's bell jarring in the steeple,
Tom Sternhold's wretched prick-song to the people.
* * * * *
Now they're at home and have their suppers eat,
When "Thomas," cryes the master, "come, repeat."
And if the windows gaze upon the street,
To sing a Psalm they hold it very meet.
]
[Footnote 305: Crescembini, at the close of "La bellezza della Volgar
Poesia." Roma, 1700.]
[Footnote 306: History of the Middle Ages, ii. 584. See also Mr. Rose's
Letters from the North of Italy, vol. i. 204. Mr. Hallam has observed,
that "such an institution as the society _degli Arcadi_ could at no time
have endured public ridicule in England for a fortnight."]
[Footnote 307: Niceron, vol. xliii., Art. Porta.]
[Footnote 308: See Tiraboschi, vol. vii. cap. 4, _Accademie_, and
Quadrio's _Della Storia e della Ragione d'ogni Poesia._ In the immense
receptacle of these seven quarto volumes, printed with a small type, the
curious may consult the voluminous Index, art. _Accademia_.]
[Footnote 309: Ugo Foscolo was born in Padua, where he achieved an early
success as an author. He entered the Italian army in 1805, but soon
quitted it, and became Professor of Literature in the university of
Pavia; but his lectures alarmed Napoleon by their boldness of speech,
and he suppressed the professorship. He came to England in 1815, and was
exceedingly well received; he wrote much in the Edinburgh and Quarterly
Reviews, besides publishing several books. He died in 1827, and is
buried at Chiswick.]
[Footnote 310: Edinburgh Review, No. 67-159, on Jacobite Relics.]
[Footnote 311: In a pamphlet entitled "Mercurius Menippeus; the Loyal
Satyrist, or Hudibras in Prose," published in 1682, and said to be
"written by an unknown hand in the time of the late Rebellion, but never
till now published," is the following curious notice of Sir Samuel,
which certainly seems to point him out as the prototype of Hudibras;
Whose back, or rather burthen, show'd
As if it stoop'd with its own load.
The author is speaking of Cromwell, and says, "I wonder how _Sir Samuel
Luke_ and he should clash, for they are both cubs of the same ugly
litter. This Urchin is as ill carved as that Goblin painted. The grandam
bear sure had blistered her tongue, and so left him unlicked. He looks
like a snail with his house upon his back, or the Spirit of the Militia
with a natural snapsack, and may serve both for tinker and budget too.
Nature intended him to play at bowls, and therefore clapt a bias upon
him. One would think a mole had crept into his carcass before 'tis laid
in the churchyard, and rooted in it. He looks like the visible tie of
Æneas bolstering up his father, or some beggarwoman endorsed with her
whole litter, and with a child behind."]
[Footnote 312: Bavius and Mævius were Dr. Martyn, the well-known author
of tha dissertation on the Æneid of Virgil, and Dr. Russel, another
learned physician, as his publications attest. It does great credit to
their taste, that they were the hebdomadal defenders of Pope from the
attacks of the heroes of the Dunciad.]
[Footnote 313: There is great reason to doubt the authenticity of this
information concerning a Devonshire tutelar saint. Mr. Charles Butler
has kindly communicated the researches of a Catholic clergyman, residing
at Exeter, who having examined the voluminous registers of the See of
Exeter, and numerous MSS. and records of the diocese, cannot trace that
any such saint was particularly honoured in the county. It is lamentable
that ingenious writers should invent fictions for authorities; but with
the hope that the present authors have not done this, I have preserved
this apocryphal tradition.]
[Footnote 314: He was buried outside the church in the angle at the
north-west corner, where the wall originally stood which bounded the
churchyard.]
[Footnote 315: A monument was put up in the church in 1786 by a
subscription among the parishioners. It exhibits a bust of Butler and a
rhyming inscription in very bad taste.]
[Footnote 316: See Quarterly Review, vol. viii. p. 111, where I found
this quotation justly reprobated.]
[Footnote 317: This work, published in 1795, is curious for the
materials the writer's reading has collected.]
[Footnote 318: The case of King Charles the First truly stated against
John Cook, Master of Gray's Inn, in Butler's "Remains."]
[Footnote 319: "Prospectus and specimen of an intended national work by
William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket, in Suffolk; harness and
collar makers; intended to comprise the most interesting particulars
relating to King Arthur and his Round Table." The real author of Mr.
Whistlecraft's specimen was the Right Hon. J. Hookham Frere, who has the
merit of having first introduced the Italian burlesque style into our
literature. Lord Byron composed his "Beppo" confessedly after this
example. "It is," he writes, "a humorous poem; in, and after, the
excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft;" who published this "specimen"
only, which was little read.]
[Footnote 320: The original edition was printed in 1757 without
engravings. They occur only in that which is described in our text.]
[Footnote 321: I have usually found the School-Mistress printed without
numbering the stanzas; to enter into the present view it will be
necessary for the reader to do this himself with a pencil-mark.]
[Footnote 322: Long after this article was composed, Miss Aikin
published her "Court of James the First." That agreeable writer has
written her popular volumes without wasting the bloom of life in the
dust of libraries; and our female historian has not occasioned me to
alter a single sentence in these researches.]
[Footnote 323: Morant in the "Biographia Britannica." This gross blunder
has been detected by Mr. Lodge. The other I submit to the reader's
judgment. A contemporary letter-writer, alluding to the flight of
Arabella and Seymour, which alarmed the Scottish so much more than the
English party, tells us, among other reasons of the little danger of the
political influence of the parties themselves over the people, that not
only their pretensions were far removed, but he adds, "They were
UNGRACEFUL both in their _persons_ and their _houses_." Morant takes the
term UNGRACEFUL in its modern acceptation; but in the style of that day,
I think UNGRACEFUL is opposed to GRACIOUS in the eyes of the people,
meaning that their _persons_ and their _houses_ were not considerable to
the multitude. Would it not be absurd to apply _ungraceful_ in its
modern sense to a _family_ or _house_? And had any political danger been
expected, assuredly it would not have been diminished by the want of
_personal grace_ in these lovers. I do not recollect any authority for
the sense of _ungraceful_ in opposition to _gracious_, but a critical
and literary antiquary has sanctioned my opinion.]
[Footnote 324: "She was the only child of Charles Stuart, fifth earl of
Lennox, by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Cavendish of Hardwick, in
Derbyshire, and is supposed to have been born in 1577. Her father,
unhappily for her, was of the royal blood both of England and Scotland;
for he was a younger brother of King Henry, father of James the Sixth,
and great-grandson through his mother, who was daughter of Margaret,
Queen of Scots, to our Henry the Seventh." Such is Lodge's account of
"this illustrious misfortune," which made the life of a worthy lady
wretched.]
[Footnote 325: A circumstance which we discover by a Spanish memorial,
when our James the First was negotiating with the cabinet of Madrid. He
complains of Elizabeth's treatment of him; that the queen refused to
give him his father's estate in England, nor would deliver up his
uncle's daughter, Arabella, to be married to the Duke of Lennox, at
which time the queen _uso palabras muy asperas y de mucho disprechia
contra el dicho Rey de ascocia;_ she used harsh words, expressing much
contempt of the king. Winwood's Mem. i. 4.]
[Footnote 326: See a very curious letter, the CCXCIX. of Cardinal
d'Ossat, vol. v. The catholic interest expected to facilitate the
conquest of England by joining their armies with those of "Arbelle;" and
the commentator writes that this English lady had a party, consisting of
all those English who had been the judges or the avowed enemies of Mary
of Scotland, the mother of James the First.]
[Footnote 327: Winwood's Memorials, iii. 281.]
[Footnote 328: This manuscript letter from William, Earl of Pembroke, to
Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury, is dated from Hampton Court, October 3,
1604.--_Sloane MSS._ 4161.]
[Footnote 329: Lodge's "Illustrations of British History," iii. 286. It
is curious to observe, that this letter, by W. Fowler, is dated on the
same day as the manuscript letter I have just quoted, and it is directed
to the same Earl of Shrewsbury; so that the Earl must have received, in
one day, accounts of two different projects of marriage for his niece!
This shows how much Arabella engaged the designs of foreigners and
natives. Will. Fowler was a rhyming and fantastical secretary to the
queen of James the First.]
[Footnote 330: Two letters of Arabella, on distress of money, are
preserved by Ballard. The discovery of a _pension_ I made in Sir Julius
Cæsar's manuscripts; where one is mentioned of 1600_l._ to the Lady
Arabella.--_Sloane MSS_. 4160. Mr. Lodge has shown that the king once
granted her the duty on oats.]
[Footnote 331: Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. 117-119.]
[Footnote 332: Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. 119.]
[Footnote 333: This evidently alludes to the gentleman whose name
appears not, which occasioned Arabella to incur the king's displeasure
before Christmas; the Lady Arabella, it is quite clear, was resolvedly
bent on marrying herself!]
[Footnote 334: Harl. MSS. 7003.]
[Footnote 335: It is on record that at Long-leat, the seat of the
Marquis of Bath, certain papers of Arabella are preserved. I leave to
the noble owner the pleasure of the research.]
[Footnote 336: Harl. MSS. 7003.]
[Footnote 337: These particulars I derive from the manuscript letters
among the papers of Arabella Stuart. Harl. MSS. 7003.]
[Footnote 338: "This emphatic injunction," observed a friend, "would be
effective when the messenger could read;" but in a letter written by the
Earl of Essex about the year 1597, to the Lord High Admiral at Plymouth,
I have seen added to the words "Hast, hast, hast, for lyfe!" the
expressive symbol of _a gallows prepared with a halter_, which could not
be well misunderstood by the most illiterate of Mercuries, thus
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[Footnote 339: Lodge says she "was remanded to the Tower, where she soon
afterwards sank into helpless idiocy, surviving in that wretched state
till September, 1615," when, with miserable mockery of state, she was
buried in Westminster Abbey, beside the body of Henry Prince of Wales.
Bishop Corbet wrote some lines on her death, very indicative of the poor
lady's thoughts:--
How do I thank ye, death, and bless thy power,
That I have passed the guard, and 'scaped the Tower!
And now my pardon is my epitaph,
And a small coffin my poor carcass hath;
For at thy charge both soul and body were
Enlarged at last, secur'd from hope and fear.
That amongst saints, this amongst kings is laid;
And what my birth did claim, my death hath paid.]
[Footnote 340: This conjecture may not be vain; since this has been
written, I have heard that the papers of Sir Edward Coke are still
preserved at Holkham, the seat of Mr. Coke; and I have also heard of
others in the possession of a noble family. The late Mr. Roscoe told me
that he was preparing a beautifully embellished catalogue of the Holkham
library, in which the taste of the owner would rival his munificence.
A list of those manuscripts to which I allude may be discovered in the
Lambeth MSS. No. 943, Art. 369, described in the catalogue as "A note of
such things as were found in a trunk of Sir Edward Coke's by the king's
command, 1634," but more particularly in Art. 371, "A Catalogue of Sir
Edward Coke's Papers then seized and brought to Whitehall."]
[Footnote 341: Lloyd's State Worthies, art. _Sir Nicholas Bacon_.]
[Footnote 342: Miss Aikin's Court of James the First appeared two years
after this article was written; it has occasioned no alteration. I refer
the reader to her clear narrative, ii. p. 30, and p. 63; but secret
history is rarely discovered in printed books.]
[Footnote 343: These particulars I find in the manuscript letters of J.
Chamberlain. Sloane MSS. 4172, (1616). In the quaint style of the times,
the common speech ran, that Lord Coke had been overthrown by four
P's--PRIDE, Prohibitions, _Præmunire_, and Prerogative. It is only with
his moral quality, and not with his legal controversies, that his
personal character is here concerned.]
[Footnote 344: In the Lambeth manuscripts, 936, is a letter of Lord
Bacon to the king, to prevent the match between Sir John Villiers and
Mrs. Coke. Art. 63. Another, Art. 69. The spirited and copious letter of
James, "to the Lord Keeper," is printed in "Letters, Speeches, Charges,
&c., of Francis Bacon," by Dr. Birch, p. 133.]
[Footnote 345: Stoke Pogis, in Buckinghamshire; the delightful seat of
J. Penn, Esq. It was the scene of Gray's "Long Story," and the chimneys
of the ancient house still remain, to mark the locality; a column on
which is fixed a statue of Coke, erected by Mr. Penn, consecrates the
former abode of its illustrious inhabitant.]
[Footnote 346: A term then in use for base or mixed metal.]
[Footnote 347: Lambeth MSS. 936, art. 69 and 73.]
[Footnote 348: State Trials.]
[Footnote 349: Prynne was condemned for his "Histriomastix," a book
against actors and acting, in which he had indulged in severe remarks on
female performers; and Henrietta Maria having frequently personated
parts in Court Masques, the offensive words were declared to have been
levelled at her. He was condemned to fine and imprisonment, was
pilloried at Westminster and Cheapside, and had an ear cut off at each
place.]
[Footnote 350: Prynne, who ultimately quarrelled with the Puritans, was
made Keeper of the Records of the Tower by Charles the Second, who was
advised thereto by men who did not know how else to keep "busy Mr.
Prynne" out of political pamphleteering. He went to the work of
investigation with avidity, and it was while so employed that he
followed the mode of life narrated in the preceding page.]
[Footnote 351: I cannot subscribe to the opinion that Anthony Wood was a
dull man, although he had no particular liking for works of imagination;
and used ordinary poets scurvily! An author's personal character is
often confounded with the nature of his work. Anthony has sallies at
times to which a dull man could not be subject; without the ardour of
this hermit of literature where would be our literary history?]
[Footnote 352: These two catalogues have always been of extreme rarity
and price. Dr. Lister, when at Paris, 1668, notices this circumstance. I
have since met with them in the very curious collections of my friend,
Mr. Douce, who has uniques, as well as rarities. The monograms of our
old masters in one of these catalogues are more correct than in some
later publications; and the whole plan and arrangement of these
catalogues of prints are peculiar and interesting.]