in behalf of the cause of which Luther was the great advocate. To
the kaiser himself he addressed many a daring epistle, as logical as
audacious, in order to induce him to shake off the yoke of Rome, and
be master of the Roman world, by other sanction than that of German
election and papal consent. Von Hutten was more bold and quite as
logical in his witheringly sarcastic epistles addressed to the pope’s
legates at Worms. These epistles show that if at the time there was
neither a recognised liberty of the press nor of individual expression,
the times themselves were so out of joint that men dared do much which
their masters dared not resent.
To the entire body of the priesthood assembled at Worms to confront
Luther, he addressed similar epistles. They abound in “thoughts that
breathe, and words that burn.” In every word there is defiance. Every
sentence is a weapon. Every paragraph is an engine of war. The writer
scatters his deadly missiles around him, threatening all, wounding
many, sometimes indeed breaking his own head by rash management, but
careless of all such accidents as long as he can reach, terrify, maul,
and put to flight the crowd of enemies who have conspired to suppress
both learning and religion in Germany.
In unison with Sickingen, he earnestly entreated Luther to repair to
Ebernburg rather than to Worms, as there his knightly friends would
protect him from all assailants. The reply of the great reformer is
well known. He would go to Worms, he said, though there were as many
devils as tiles on the roofs, leagued against him to oppose his journey
thither. We can not doubt but that Luther would have been judicially
assassinated in that ancient city but for the imposing front assumed by
his well-armed and well-organized adherents, who not only crowded into
the streets of Worms, but who announced by placards, even in the very
bedchamber of the emperor, that a thousand lives should pay for the
loss of one hair of the reformer’s head.
Had it depended on Von Hutten, the reformers would not have waited
till violence had been inflicted on Luther, ere they took their own
revenge for wrongs and oppressions done. But he was overruled, and his
hot blood was kept cool by profuse and prosaic argument on the part of
the schoolmen of his faction. He chafed, but he obeyed. He had more
difficulty in reducing to the same obedience the bands of his adherents
who occupied the city and its vicinity. These thought that the safety
of Luther could only be secured by rescuing him at once from the hands
of his enemies. The scholar-knight thought so too; and he would gladly
have charged against such enemies. He made no signal, however, for
the onslaught; on the contrary he issued orders forbidding it; and
recommended the confederates to sheathe their swords, but yet to have
their hands on the hilt. The elector of Saxony was adverse to violence,
and Luther left Worms in safety, after defying Rome to her face.
Then came those unquiet times in which Charles V. so warmly welcomed
volunteers to his banner. Seduced by his promises, Franz von Sickingen,
with a few hundreds of strong-sinewed men, passed over to the Imperial
quarters. The old brotherly gathering at Ebernberg was thus broken up;
and Ulrich, who had offended both pope and emperor by his denunciations
of ecclesiastical and civil tyranny, betook himself to Switzerland,
where he hoped to find a secure asylum, and a welcome from Erasmus.
This amphibious personage, however, who had already ceased to laud
Luther, affected now a horror against Von Hutten. He wrote of him as a
poor, angry, mangy wretch, who could not be content to live in a room
without a stove, and who was continually pestering his friends for
pecuniary loans. The fiery Ulrich assailed his false friend in wrathful
pamphlets. Erasmus loved the species of warfare into which such
attacks drew or impelled him. He replied to Ulrich more cleverly than
conclusively, in his “Sponge to wipe out the Aspersions of Von Hutten.”
But the enmity of Erasmus was as nothing compared with the loss of
Von Sickingen himself. In the tumultuary wars of his native land he
perished, and Ulrich felt that, despite some errors, the good cause had
lost an iron-handed and a clear-sighted champion.
There is little doubt that it was at the instigation of Erasmus
that the priestly party in Basle successfully urged the government
authorities to drive Ulrich from the asylum he had temporarily found
there. He quietly departed on issue of the command, and took his
solitary and painful way to Muhlhausen, where a host of reformers
warmly welcomed the tottering skeleton into which had shrunk the once
well-knit man. Here his vigor cast aloft its last expiring light.
Muhlhausen threw off the papal yoke, but the papist party was strong
enough there to raise an insurrection; and rather than endanger the
safety of the town, the persecuted scholar and soldier once more walked
forth to find a shelter. He reached Zurich in safety. He went at once
to the hearth of Zuinglius, who looked upon the terrible spectre in
whom the eyes alone showed signs of life; and he could hardly believe
that the pope cared for the person, or dreaded the intellect, of so
ghostlike a champion as this.
Ulrich, excommunicated, outlawed and penniless, was in truth sinking
fast. His hand had not strength to enfold the pommel of his sword. From
his unconscious fingers dropped the pen.
“Who will defend me against my calumniators?” asked the yet willing but
now incapable man.
“I will!” said the skilful physician, Otto Brunfels; and the cooper’s
son stoutly protected the good name of Ulrich, after the latter was at
peace in the grave.
The last hours of the worn-out struggler for civil and religious
liberty, were passed at Ufnau, a small island in the Lake of Zurich. He
had been with difficulty conveyed thither, in the faint hope that his
health might profit by the change. There he slowly and resignedly died
on the last day of August, 1523, and at the early age of thirty-eight.
A few dearly-loved books and some letters constituted all his property.
He was interred on the island, but no monument has ever marked the spot
where his wornout body was laid down to repose.
Through life, whether engaged with sword or pen, his absorbing desire
was that his memory might be held dear by his survivors. He loved
activity, abhorred luxury, adored liberty; and, for the sake of civil
and religious freedom, he fought and sang with earnest alacrity. Lyre
on arm, and sword in hand, he sang and summoned, until hosts gathered
round him, and cheered the burthen of all he uttered. “The die is
thrown! I’ve risked it for truth and freedom’s sake.” Against pope and
kaiser, priest and soldier, he boldly cried, “Slay my frame you may,
but my soul is beyond you!” He was the star that harbingered a bright
dawn. His prevailing enemies drove him from his country; the grave
which they would have denied him, he found in Switzerland, and “after
life’s fitful fever,” the scholar-knight sleeps well in the island of
the Zurich-Zee.
From the Zurich-Zee we will now retrace our steps, and consider the
Sham Knights.
SHAM KNIGHTS.
Between Tooting and Wandsworth lies a village of some celebrity for
its sham knights or mayors--the village of Garrat. The villagers, some
century ago, possessed certain common rights which were threatened
with invasion. They accordingly made choice of an advocate, from among
themselves, to protect their privileges. They succeeded in their
object, and as the selection had been originally made at the period
of a general election, the inhabitants resolved to commemorate the
circumstance by electing a mayor and knighting him at each period of
election for a new parliament. The resolution was warmly approved by
all the publicans in the vicinity, and the Garrat elections became
popular festivities, if not of the highest order, at least of the
jolliest sort.
Not that the ceremony was without its uses. The politicians and wits
of the day saw how the election might be turned to profit; and Wilkes,
and Foote, and Garrick, are especially named as having written some of
the addresses wherein, beneath much fustian, fun, and exaggeration of
both fact and humor, the people were led to notice, by an Aristophanic
process, the defects in the political system by which the country was
then governed. The publicans, however, and the majority of the people
cared more for the saturnalia than the schooling; and for some years
the sham mayors of Garrat were elected, to the great profit, at least,
of the tavern-keepers.
The poorer and the more deformed the candidate, the greater his chance
of success. Thus, the earliest mayor of whom there was any record,
was Sir John Harper, a fellow of infinite mirth and deformity, whose
ordinary occupation was that of an itinerant vender of brick-dust. His
success gave dignity to the brick-dust trade, and inspired its members
with ambition. They had the glory of boasting that their friend and
brother “Sir John” sat, when not sufficiently sober to stand, during
two parliaments. A specimen of his ready wit is given in his remark
when a dead cat was flung at him, on the hustings during the period of
his first election. A companion remarked with some disgust upon the
unpleasant odor from the animal. “That’s not to be wondered at,” said
Sir John, “you see it is a pole-cat.”
But Sir John was ousted by an uglier, dirtier, more deformed, and
merrier fellow than himself. The lucky personage in question was Sir
Jeffrey Dunstan. He was a noted individual, hunched like Esop, and with
as many tales, though not always with the like “morals.” He was a noted
dealer in old wigs, for it was before men had fallen into what was then
considered the disreputable fashion of wearing their own hair, under
round hats. Sir John was a republican; but he did not despise either
his office of mayor or his courtesy title of knight. Had he possessed
more discretion and less zeal, he probably would have prospered in
proportion. In the best, that is, in the quietest, of times, Sir
Jeffrey could with difficulty keep his tongue from wagging. He never
appeared in the streets with his wig-bag on his shoulder, without a
numerous crowd following, whom he delighted with his sallies, made
against men in power, whose weak points were assailable. The French
Revolution broke out when Sir Jeffrey was mayor, and this gave a loose
to his tongue, which ultimately laid him up by the heels. The knight
grew too political, and even seditious, in his street orations, and
he was in consequence committed to prison, in 1793, for treasonable
practices. This only increased his popularity for a time, but it tamed
the spirit of the once chivalrous mayor. When he ceased to be wittily
bold, he ceased to be cared for by the constituents whose presence made
the electors at Garrat. After being thrice elected he was successfully
opposed and defeated, under a charge of dishonesty. The pure electors
of Garrat could have borne with a political traitor; but as they
politely said, they “could not a-bear a petty larcenist,” and Sir
Jeffrey Dunstan was, metaphorically and actually presented “with the
sack.”
When Manners Sutton ceased to be Speaker, he claimed, I believe, to be
made a peer; on the plea that it was not becoming that he who had once
occupied the chair, should ever be reduced to stand upon the floor, of
the House of Commons. Sir Jeffrey Dunstan had something of a similar
sense of dignity. Having fallen from the height of mayor of Garrat,
what was then left for Sir Jeffrey? He got as “drunk as a lord,” was
never again seen sober, and, in 1797, the year following that of his
disgrace, the ex-mayor died of excess. So nice of honor was Sir Jeffrey
Dunstan!
He was succeeded by Sir Harry Dimsdale, the mutilated muffin-seller,
whose tenure of office was only brief, however brilliant, and who has
the melancholy glory of having been the last of the illustriously
dirty line of knighted mayors of Garrat. It was not that there was any
difficulty in procuring candidates, but there was no longer the same
liberality on the part of the peers and publicans to furnish a purse
for them. Originally, the purse was made up by the inhabitants, for
the purpose of protecting their collective rights. Subsequently, the
publicans contributed in order that the attractions of something like
a fair might be added, and therewith great increase of smoking and
drinking. At that time the peerage did not disdain to patronize the
proceeding, and the day of election was a holyday for thousands. Never
before or since have such multitudes assembled at the well-known place
of gathering; nor the roads been so blocked up by carts and carriages,
honorable members on horses, and dustmen on donkeys. Hundreds of
thousands sometimes assembled, and, through the perspiring crowd, the
candidates, dressed like chimney-sweepers on May-day, or in the mock
fashion of the period, were brought to the hustings in the carriages
of peers, drawn by six horses, the owners themselves condescending to
become their drivers.
The candidate was ready to swear anything, and each elector was
required to make oath, on a brick-bat, “quod rem cum aliquâ muliere
intra limites istius pagi habuissent.” The candidates figured under
mock pseudonyms. Thus, at one election there were against Sir Jeffrey,
Lord Twankum, Squire Blowmedown, and Squire Gubbings. His lordship
was Gardener, the Garrat grave-digger, and the squires were in humble
reality, Willis, a waterman, and Simmonds, a Southwark publican. An
attempt was made to renew the old saturnalia in 1826, when Sir John
Paul Pry offered himself as a candidate, in very bad English, and with
a similarly qualified success. He had not the eloquent power of the
great Sir Jeffrey, who, on presenting himself to the electors named
his “estate in the Isle of Man” as his qualification; announced his
intention of relieving the king in his want of money, by abolishing
its use; engaged to keep his promises as long as it was his interest
to do so, and claimed the favorable influence of married ladies, on
the assurance that he would propose the annulling of all marriages,
which, as he said, with his ordinary logic, “must greatly increase the
influence of the crown, and vastly lower Indian bonds.” He intimated
that his own ambition was limited to the governorship of Duck Island,
or the bishopric of Durham. The latter appointment was mentioned for
the purpose of enabling the usually shirtless, but for the moment
court-dressed knight, to add that he was “fond of a clean shirt and
lawn-sleeves.” He moreover undertook to show the governors of India the
way which they ought to be going, to Botany Bay; and to discover the
longitude among the Jews of Duke’s Place.
Courtesy was imperative on all the candidates toward each other.
When Sir Jeffrey Dunstan opposed Sir William Harper, there were five
other candidates, namely--“Sir William Blaze, of high rank in the
army--a corporal in the city train-bands; Admiral Sir Christopher
Dashwood, known to many who has (_sic_) felt the weight of his hand on
their shoulders, and showing an execution in the other. Sir William
Swallowtail, an eminent merchant, who supplies most of the gardeners
with strawberry baskets; Sir John Gnawpost, who carries his traffic
under his left arm, and whose general cry is ‘twenty-five if you
win and five if you lose;’ and Sir Thomas Nameless, of reputation
unmentionable.” Sir John Harper was the only knight who forgot
chivalrous courtesy, and who allowed his squire in armor to insult Sir
Jeffrey. But this was not done with impunity. That knight appealed to
usage, compelled his assailant to dismount, drop his colors, walk six
times round the hustings, and humbly ask pardon.
Sir William Swallowtail, mentioned above, “was one William Cock, a
whimsical basket-maker of Brentford, who, deeming it proper to have
an equipage every way suitable to the honor he aspired to, built his
own carriage, with his own hands, to his own taste. It was made of
wicker work, and was drawn by four, high, hollow-backed horses, whereon
were seated dwarfish boys, whimsically dressed, for postillions. In
allusion to the American War, two footmen, tarred and feathered, rode
before the carriage. The coachman wore a wicker hat, and Sir William
himself, from the seat of his vehicle, maintained his mock dignity,
in grotesque array, amid unbounded applause.” It should be added that
Foote, who witnessed the humors of the election more than once, brought
Sir Jeffrey upon the stage in the character of _Doctor Last_; but the
wretched fellow, utterly incapable and awfully alarmed, was driven from
the stage by the hisses of the whole house. Let us now look abroad for
a few “Shams.”
If foreign lands have sent no small number of pseudo-chevaliers to
London, they have also abounded in many by far too patriotic or prudent
to leave their native land. The Hôtel Saint Florentin, in Paris, was
the residence of the Prince Talleyrand, but before his time it was the
stage and the occasional dwelling-place of an extraordinary actor,
known by the appellation of the Chevalier, or the Count de St. Germain.
He was for a time the reigning wonder of Paris, where his history
was told with many variations; not one true, and all astounding. The
popular voice ascribed to him an Egyptian birth, and attributed to him
the power of working miracles. He could cure the dying, and raise the
dead; could compose magic philters, coin money by an impress of his
index finger; was said to have discovered the philosopher’s stone, and
to be able to make gold and diamonds almost at will. He was, moreover,
as generous as he was great, and his modest breast was covered with
knightly orders, in proof of the gratitude of sovereigns whom he had
obliged. He was supposed to have been born some centuries back, was
the most gigantic and graceful impostor that ever lived, and exacted
implicit faith in his power from people who had none in the power of
God.
The soirées of the Hôtel St. Florentin were the admiration of all
Paris, for there alone, this knight-count of many orders appeared to
charm the visiters and please himself. His prodigality was enormous,
so was his mendacity. He was graceful, witty, refined, yet not lacking
audacity when his story wanted pointing, and always young, gave himself
out for a Methuselah.
The following trait is seriously told of him, and is well
substantiated. “Chevalier,” said a lady to him one night, at a crowded
assembly of the Hôtel St. Florentin, “do you ever remember having,
in the course of your voyages, encountered our Lord Jesus Christ?”
“Yes,” replied the profane impostor, without hesitation and raising
his eyes to heaven. “I have often seen and often spoken to Him. I have
frequently had occasion to admire his mildness, genius, and charity.
He was a celestial being; and I often prophesied what would befall
Him!” The hearers, far from being shocked, only continued to ply the
count with other questions. “Did you ever meet with the Wandering Jew?”
asked a young marquiss. “Often!” was the reply; and the count added
with an air of disdain:--“that wretched blasphemer once dared to salute
me on the high-road; he was then just setting out on his tour of the
world, and counted his money with one hand in his pocket, as he passed
along.” “Count,” asked a Chevalier de St. Louis, “who was the composer
of that brilliant sonata you played to-night, on the harpsichord?” “I
_really_ can not say. It is a song of victory, and I heard it executed
for the first time on the day of the triumph of Trajan.” “Will you be
indiscreet, dear count, for once,” asked a newly-married baronne, “and
tell us the names of the three ladies whom you have the most tenderly
loved?” “That is difficult,” said the honest knight with a smile, “but
I think I may say that they were Lucretia, Aspasia, and Cleopatra.”
The gay world of Paris said he was, at least two thousand years old;
and he did not take the pains to contradict the report. There is reason
to suppose that he was the son of a Portuguese Jew, who had resided at
Bordeaux. His career was soon ended.
There was a far more respectable chevalier in our own country to whom
the term of Sham Knight can hardly apply; but as he called himself “Sir
John,” and _that_ title was not admitted in a court of law, some notice
of him may be taken here.
There was then in the reign of George III., a knight of some notoriety,
whose story is rather a singular one. When Sir John Gallini is now
spoken of, many persons conclude that this once remarkable individual
received the honors of knighthood at the hands of King George. I
have been assured so by very eminent operatic authorities, who were,
nevertheless, completely in error. Sir John Gallini was a knight
of George III.’s time, but he was so created by a far more exalted
individual; in the opinion, at least, of those who give to popes, who
are elective potentates, a precedence over kings, who are hereditary
monarchs. The wonder is that Gallini was ever knighted at all, seeing
that he was simply an admirable ballet-dancer. But he was the first
dancer who ever received an encore for the dexterous use of his heels.
The Pope accordingly clapped upon them a pair of golden spurs, and
Gallini was, thenceforth, Cavaliere del Sperone d’Oro. Such a knight
may be noticed in this place.
Gallini came to England at a time when that part of the world, which
was included in the term “people of quality,” stood in need of a little
excitement. This was in 1759, when there was the dullest of courts,
with the heaviest of mistresses, and an opera, duller and heavier than
either. Gallini had just subdued Paris by the magic of his saltatory
movements. He thence repaired to London, with his reputation and
slight baggage. He did not announce his arrival. It was sufficient
that Gallini was there. He had hardly entered his lodgings when he was
engaged, on his own terms. He took the town by storm. His _pas seul_
was pronounced divine. The “quality” paid him more honor than if he
had invented something useful to his fellow-men. He could not raise
his toe, without the house being hushed into silent admiration. His
_entrechats_ were performed amidst thundering echoes of delight; his
“whirls” elicited shrieks of ecstacy; and when he suddenly checked
himself in the very swiftest of his wild career and looked at the
house with a complacent smile, which seemed to say--“What do you think
of that?” there ensued an explosion of tumultuous homage, such as
the spectators would have _not_ vouchsafed to the young conqueror of
Quebec. Gallini, as far as opera matters were concerned, was found
to be the proper man in the proper place. For four or five years he
was despotic master of the ballet. He was resolved to be master of
something else.
There was then in London a Lady Elizabeth Bertie. Her father, the
Earl of Abingdon, then lately deceased, had, in his youth, married a
Signora Collino, daughter to a “Sir John Collins.” The latter knight
was not English, but of English descent. His son, Signor Collino, was a
celebrated player of the lute in this country. He was indeed the last
celebrated player on that instrument in England.
Gallini then, the very head of his profession, ranking therein higher
than the Abingdons did in the peerage, was rather condescending than
otherwise, when he looked upon the Earl of Abingdon as his equal. The
earl whom he so considered was the son of the one who had espoused the
Signora Collino, and Lady Elizabeth Bertie was another child of the
same marriage. When Gallini the dancer, therefore, began to think of
proposing for the hand of that lady, he was merely thinking of marrying
the niece of an instrumental performer. Gallini did not think there was
derogation in this; but he did think, vain, foolish fellow that he was,
that such a union would confer upon him the title of “my lord.”