Lucretius, endeavouring to prove from the principles of his philosophy,
that the world had a casual beginning from the concourse of atoms, and
that men, as well as the rest of animals, were produced from the vital
heat and moisture of their mother earth, from the same principles is
bound to answer this objection,—why men are not daily formed after
the same manner; which he tells us, is, because the kindly warmth and
procreative faculty of the ground is now worn out; the sun is a disabled
lover; and the earth is past her teeming time.
Though religion has informed us better of our origin, yet it appears
plainly, that not only the bodies, but the souls of men, have decreased
from the vigour of the first ages; that we are not more short of the
stature and strength of those gigantic heroes, than we are of their
understanding and their wit. To let pass those happy patriarchs who were
striplings at fourscore, and had afterwards seven or eight hundred years
before them to beget sons and daughters, and to consider man in reference
only to his mind, and that no higher than the age of Socrates, how vast a
difference is there betwixt the productions of those souls, and these of
ours? How much better Plato, Aristotle, and the rest of the philosophers
understood nature; Thucydides and Herodotus adorned history; Sophocles,
Euripides, and Menander advanced poetry, than those dwarfs of wit and
learning who succeeded them in after times? That age was most famous
amongst the Greeks which ended with the death of Alexander; amongst the
Romans, learning seemed again to revive and flourish in the century which
produced Cicero, Varro, Sallust, Livy, Lucretius, and Virgil: and after
a short interval of years, wherein nature seemed to take a breathing
time for a second birth, there sprung up under the Vespasians, and those
excellent princes who succeeded them, a race of memorable wits, such
as were the two Plinies, Tacitus, and Suetonius; and, as if Greece was
emulous of the Roman learning, under the same favourable constellation
was born the famous philosopher and historian, Plutarch; than whom
antiquity has never produced a man more generally knowing, or more
virtuous; and no succeeding age has equalled him.
His Lives, both in his own esteem and that of others, accounted the
noblest of his works, have been long since rendered into English; but
as that translation was only from the French,[1] so it suffered this
double disadvantage; first, that it was but a copy of a copy, and that
too but lamely taken from the Greek original; secondly, that the English
language was then unpolished, and far from the perfection which it has
since attained; so that the first version is not only ungrammatical and
ungraceful, but in many places almost unintelligible. For which reasons,
and lest so useful a piece of history should lie oppressed under the
rubbish of antiquated words, some ingenious and learned gentlemen have
undertaken this task; and what would have been the labour of one man’s
life, will, by the several endeavours of many, be accomplished in the
compass of a year. How far they have succeeded in this laudable attempt,
to me it belongs not to determine, who am too much a party to be a
judge. But I have the honour to be commissioned from the translators of
this volume to inscribe their labours and my own, with all humility, to
your Grace’s name and patronage; and never was any man more ambitious
of an employment of which he was so little worthy. Fortune has at last
gratified that earnest desire I have always had to shew my devotion
to your Grace, though I despair of paying you my acknowledgments. And
of all other opportunities, I have happened on the most favourable to
myself, who, having never been able to produce any thing of my own,
which could be worthy of your view, am supplied by the assistance of
my friends, and honoured with the presentation of their labours. The
author they have translated, has been long familiar to you, who have
been conversant in all sorts of history both ancient and modern, and
have formed the idea of your most noble life from the instructions and
examples contained in them, both in the management of public affairs,
and in the private offices of virtue; in the enjoyment of your better
fortune, and sustaining of your worse; in habituating yourself to an easy
greatness; in repelling your enemies, in succouring your friends; and
in all traverses of fortune, in every colour of your life, maintaining
an inviolable fidelity to your Sovereign. It is long since that I have
learned to forget the art of praising, but here the heart dictates to the
pen; and I appeal to your enemies, (if so much generosity and good nature
can have left you any,) whether they are not conscious to themselves that
I have not flattered.
It is an age, indeed, which is only fit for satire, and the sharpest I
have shall never be wanting to lance its villainies, and its ingratitude
to the government. There are few men in it, who are capable of supporting
the weight of a just and deserved commendation; but amongst those few
there must always stand excepted the illustrious names of Ormond and
of Ossory; a father and a son only worthy of each other. Never was one
soul more fully infused into another’s breast; never was so strong an
impression made of virtue as that of your Grace’s into him; but though
the stamp was deep, the subject which received it was of too fine a
composition to be durable. Were not priority of time and nature in the
case, it might have been doubted which of you had been most excellent;
but heaven snatched away the copy, to make the original more precious.
I dare trust myself no farther on this subject; for after years of
mourning, my sorrow is yet so green upon me, that I am ready to tax
Providence for the loss of that heroic son: three nations had a general
concernment in his death, but I had one so very particular, that all
my hopes are almost dead with him; and I have lost so much, that I am
past the danger of a second shipwreck. But he sleeps with an unenvied
commendation; and has left your Grace the sad legacy of all those glories
which he derived from you: an accession which you wanted not, who were so
rich before in your own virtues, and that high reputation which is the
product of them.
A long descent of noble ancestors was not necessary to have made you
great, but heaven threw it in as overplus when you were born. What you
have done and suffered for two royal masters has been enough to render
you illustrious; so that you may safely wave the nobility of your birth,
and rely on your actions for your fame. You have cancelled the debt which
you owed to your progenitors, and reflect more brightness on their memory
than you received from them.
Your native country, which Providence gave you not leave to preserve
under one king, it has given you opportunity under another to restore.
You could not save it from the chastisement which was due to its
rebellion, but you raised it from ruin after its repentance; so that the
trophies of war were the portion of the conqueror, but the triumphs of
peace were reserved for the vanquished. The misfortunes of Ireland were
owing to itself, but its happiness and restoration to your Grace. The
rebellion against a lawful prince was punished by an usurping tyrant, but
the fruits of his victory were the rewards of a loyal subject. How much
that noble kingdom has flourished under your Grace’s government, both
the inhabitants and the crown are sensible: the riches of Ireland are
increased by it, and the revenues of England are augmented. That which
was a charge and burden of the government, is rendered an advantage and
support; the trade and interest of both countries are united in a mutual
benefit; they conspire to make each other happy; the dependance of the
one is an improvement of its commerce, the pre-eminence of the other is
not impaired by the intercourse, and common necessities are supplied by
both. Ireland is no more a scion, to suck the nourishment from the mother
tree; neither is it overtopped, or hindered from growth by the superior
branches; but the roots of England diving, if I may dare to say it,
underneath the seas, rise at a just distance on the neighbouring shore,
and there shoot up, and bear a product scarce inferior to the trunk from
whence they sprung.
I may raise the commendation higher, and yet not fear to offend the
truth; Ireland is a better penitent than England. The crime of rebellion
was common to both countries, but the repentance of one island has been
steady; that of the other, to its shame, has suffered a relapse; which
shews the conversions of their rebels to have been real, that of ours to
have been but counterfeit. The sons of guilty fathers there have made
amends for the disloyalty of their families; but here the descendants
of pardoned rebels have only waited their time to copy the wickedness
of their parents, and, if possible, to outdo it. They disdain to hold
their patrimonies by acts of grace and of indemnity; and by maintaining
their old treasonable principles, make it apparent that they are still
speculative traitors; for whether they are zealous sectaries, or prophane
republicans, (of which two sorts they are principally composed,) both our
reformers of church and state pretend to a power superior to kingship.
The fanatics derive their authority from the Bible, and plead religion
to be antecedent to any secular obligation; by virtue of which argument,
taking it for granted that their own worship is only true, they arrogate
to themselves the right of disposing the temporal power according to
their pleasure,—as that which is subordinate to the spiritual; so
that the same reasons and scriptures which are urged by popes for the
deposition of princes, are produced by sectaries for altering the
succession. The episcopal reformation has manumized kings from the
usurpation of Rome, for it preaches obedience and resignation to the
lawful secular power; but the pretended reformation of our schismatics,
is to set up themselves in the papal chair, and to make their princes
only their trustees; so that, whether they or the Pope were uppermost
in England, the royal authority were equally depressed: the prison of
our kings would be the same; the gaolers only would be altered. The
broad republicans are generally men of atheistic principles, nominal
Christians, who are beholding to the font only, that they are so called;
otherwise Hobbists in their politics and morals. Every church is obliged
to them that they own themselves of none, because their lives are too
scandalous for any. Some of the sectaries are so proud, that they think
they cannot sin; those commonwealth men are so wicked, that they conclude
there is no sin. Lewdness, rioting, cheating, and debauchery, are their
work-a-day practice; their more solemn crimes are unnatural lusts, and
horrid murders.[2] Yet these are the patrons of the nonconformists;
these are the swords and bucklers of God’s cause, if His cause be that
of separatists and rebels. It is not but these associates know each other
at the bottom as well as Simeon knew Levi: the republicans are satisfied
that the schismatics are hypocrites, and the schismatics are assured that
the republicans are atheists; but their common principles of government
are the chains that link them; for both hold kings to be creatures of
their own making, and by inference to be at their own disposing; with
this difference, notwithstanding, that the canting party face their
pretences with a call from God, the debauched party with a commission
from the people. So that if ever this ill-contrived and equivocal
association should get uppermost, they would infallibly contend for the
supreme right; and as it was formerly on their money, so now it would be
in their interest; “God with us” would be set up on one side, and “The
Commonwealth of England” on the other.[3] But I the less wonder at the
mixture of these two natures, because two savage beasts of different
species and sexes shut up together, will forget their enmity, to satisfy
their common lust; and it is no matter what kind of monster is produced
betwixt them, so the brutal appetite be served. I more admire at a third
party, who were loyal when rebellion was uppermost, and have turned
rebels, (at least in principle,) since loyalty has been triumphant. Those
of them whose services have not been rewarded, have some pretence for
discontent; and yet they give the world to understand, that their honour
was not their principle, but their interest. If they are old royalists,
it is a sign their virtue is worn out, and will bear no longer; if sons
to royalists, they have probably been grafted on whig stocks, and grown
out of kind,—like China oranges in Portugal; their mother’s part has
prevailed in them, and they are degenerated from the loyalty of their
fathers.
But if they are such, as many of them evidently are, whose service has
been not only fully but lavishly recompensed with honours and preferment,
theirs is an ingratitude without parallel; they have destroyed their
former merits, disowned the cause for which they fought, belied their
youth, dishonoured their age; they have wrought themselves out of present
enjoyments for imaginary hopes, and can never be trusted by their new
friends, because they have betrayed their old. The greater and the
stronger ties which some of them have had, are the deeper brands of
their apostacy; for archangels were the first and most glorious of the
whole creation; they were the morning work of God, and had the first
impressions of his image, what creatures could be made; they were of kin
to eternity itself, and wanting only that accession to be deities. Their
fall was therefore more opprobrious than that of man, because they had
no clay for their excuse; though I hope and wish the latter part of the
allegory may not hold, and that repentance may be yet allowed them. But I
delight not to dwell on so sad an object; let this part of the landscape
be cast into shadows, that the heightenings of the other may appear more
beautiful. For, as contraries, the nearer they are placed are brighter,
and the Venus is illustrated by the neighbourhood of the lazar, so the
unblemished loyalty of your Grace will shine more clearly, when set in
competition with their stains.
When the malady which had seized the nobler parts of Britain threw itself
out into the limbs, and the first sores of it appeared in Scotland, yet
no effects of it reached your province; Ireland stood untainted with that
pest; the care of the physician prevented the disease, and preserved the
country from infection. When that ulcer was rather stopped than cured,
(for the causes of it still remained,) and that dangerous symptoms
appeared in England; when the royal authority was here trodden under
foot; when one plot was prosecuted openly, and another secretly fomented,
yet even then was Ireland free from our contagion. And if some venomous
creatures were produced in that nation, yet it appeared they could not
live there; they shed their poison without effect; they despaired of
being successfully wicked in their own country, and transported their
evidence to another, where they knew it was vendible; where accusation
was a trade, where forgeries were countenanced, where perjuries were
rewarded, where swearing went for proof, and where the merchandize
of death was gainful. That their testimony was at least discredited,
proceeded not from its incoherence, for they were known by their own
party when they first appeared; but their folly was then managed by the
cunning of their tutors; they had still been believed had they still
followed their instructors; but when their witness fell foul upon their
friends, then they were proclaimed villains, discarded and disowned by
those who sent for them; they seemed then first to be discovered for
what they had been known too well before; they were decried as inventors
of what only they betrayed; nay their very wit was magnified, lest,
being taken for fools, they might be thought too simple to forge an
accusation.[4] Some of them still continue here detested by both sides,
believed by neither; (for even their betters are at last uncased;) and
some of them have received their hire in their own country. For perjury,
which is malice to mankind, is always accompanied with other crimes; and
though not punishable by our laws with death, yet draws a train of vices
after it. The robber, the murderer, and the sodomite, have often hung
up the foresworn villain; and what one sin took on trust, another sin
has paid. These travelling locusts are at length swallowed up in their
own Red Sea. Ireland, as well as England, is delivered from that flying
plague; for the sword of justice in your Grace’s hand, like the rod of
Moses, is stretched out against them; and the third part of his Majesty’s
dominions is owing for its peace to your loyalty and vigilance.
But what Plutarch can this age produce, to immortalize a life so noble?
May some excellent historian at length be found, some writer not unworthy
of his subject; but may his employment be long deferred! May many happy
years continue you to this nation and your own; may your praises be
celebrated late, that we may enjoy you living rather than adore you
dead! And since yet there is not risen up amongst us any historian who
is equal to so great an undertaking, let us hope that Providence has
not assigned the workman, because his employment is to be long delayed;
because it has reserved your Grace for farther proofs of your unwearied
duty, and a farther enjoyment of your fortune; in which, though no man
has been less envied, because no other has more nobly used it, yet some
droppings of the age’s venom have been shed upon you. The supporters of
the crown are placed too near it, to be exempted from the storm which
was breaking over it. It is true, you stood involved in your own virtue,
and the malice of your libellers could not sink through all those folds
to reach you. Your innocence has defended you from their attacks, and
your pen has so nobly vindicated that innocence, that it stands in need
of no other second. The difference is as plainly seen betwixt sophistry
and truth, as it is betwixt the style of a gentleman and the clumsy
stiffness of a pedant. Of all historians, God deliver us from bigots;
and of all bigots, from our sectaries! Truth is never to be expected
from authors whose understandings are warped with enthusiasm; for they
judge all actions, and their causes, by their own perverse principles,
and a crooked line can never be the measure of a straight one. Mr Hobbes
was used to say,—that a man was always against reason, when reason was
against a man:—so these authors are for obscuring truth, because truth
would discover them. They are not historians of an action, but lawyers
of a party; they are retained by their principles, and bribed by their
interests; their narrations are an opening of their cause; and in the
front of their histories there ought to be written the prologue of a
pleading,—“I am for the plaintiff,” or “I am for the defendant.”
We have already seen large volumes of state collections, and church
legends, stuffed with detected forgeries in some parts, and gaping with
omissions of truth in others; not penned, I suppose, with so vain a hope
as to cheat posterity, but to advance some design in the present age; for
these legerdemain authors are for telling stories to keep their trick
undiscovered, and to make their conveyance the more clean. What calumny
your Grace may expect from such writers, is already evident: but it will
fare with them as it does with ill painters; a picture so unlike in all
its features and proportions, reflects not on the original, but on the
artist; for malice will make a piece more unresembling than ignorance;
and he who studies the life, yet bungles, may draw some faint imitation
of it, but he who purposely avoids nature, must fall into grotesque, and
make no likeness. For my own part, I am of the former sort, and therefore
presume not to offer my unskilfulness for so excellent a design as is
your illustrious life. To pray for its prosperity and continuance is my
duty, as it is my ambition to appear on all occasions,
Your Grace’s most obedient and devoted servant,