HISTORIES AND MEMOIRS OF PUBLIC TRANSACTIONS.
History is one of the departments of literature in which it is easiest
to approach the unsurpassable perfection of antiquity. Poets must in
general be accepted as inspiring influences rather than as models; but
the methods of historians may be studied and even copied without undue
servility. This was soon perceived by the Latin races, and by the middle
of the seventeenth century the vernacular literatures of Italy, Spain,
and Portugal possessed many truly classical historians. It is difficult
to understand why England should have been so backward. The Restoration
found its historical literature in an intermediate stage, half way
between the artless old chroniclers and the consummate examples of
historical style and construction which the next century was to produce.
It left historical composition, however, much more advanced than it had
found it. The chief history of the age, though far from perfect, at all
events was a history and not a chronicle. Clarendon's great work, it is
true, belongs to the preceding generation in everything but the date of
its composition; and will, accordingly, be found to be treated in a
previous section of this history. His successor, Burnet, on the other
hand, was in literary matters a perfect representative of his own day, a
man of his times; and their works taken together, while illustrating
the mutations of taste and the gradual popularization of culture, may be
regarded as the Iliad and Odyssey of the period, the former a high
epical treatment of a tragic theme, decreed by the Fates and directed by
the Gods; the second a bustling tragi-comedy true to human nature and
crowded with domestic incident. The writers, moreover, have these things
in common: that both are men of original and marked character, whose
personality is vividly embodied in their productions; that both had been
busy actors in many of the events which they detail; that both,
therefore, had unusual means of information, and the narrative of
neither could miss the liveliness imparted by actual contact with the
transactions they relate. Both were inevitably prejudiced, but both were
high-minded and conscientious; and the bias against which they vainly
contended is too visible and too much a matter of course to detract
seriously from the value of their histories.
Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, was born at Edinburgh, September
18th, 1643. By the wish of his father he selected the Church as his
profession, which placed him in the invidious position of an
Episcopalian ministering amid a nation of Presbyterians. His moderation,
nevertheless, gained the confidence of the dissidents, and his great
influence with Lauderdale, the ruler of Scotland, was exerted in favour
of the most conciliatory measures and the widest toleration possible.
When at length Lauderdale had become hopelessly committed to a violent
course, Burnet withdrew from Scotland, and settled in London as preacher
at the Rolls and at St. Clement Danes. During Charles's reign, though an
object of great suspicion to the court, he maintained his ground, but at
the accession of James found it expedient to go abroad. After travelling
in France, and proceeding as far as Rome, he settled in Holland,
returning with William III. in 1688. William's proclamation was drafted
by him, and he drew up the engagement signed by the nobility who joined
the prince. These and many other services were rewarded by the bishopric
of Salisbury, where, by the confession of his adversaries, he proved as
charitable and exemplary a prelate as the Church had ever seen. He is
especially memorable in this capacity as the author of the scheme for
the augmentation of poor livings commonly known as Queen Anne's Bounty.
He died in 1715. His moral character was of the highest; his
intellectual character was disfigured by some foibles, unimportant in
themselves, but which, not being of the kind usually found in
conjunction with first-rate abilities, have occasioned his powers to be
considerably undervalued. The man, however, who was respected by the
cynical Charles and trusted by the jealous William, cannot have been of
ordinary mould; nor can it be said of many authors that they have
produced three books which, after the lapse of two centuries, are still
regarded as standard authorities. The _History of the Reformation_ was
published in 1679-1714; the _Exposition of the Articles_ in 1699; the
_History of his Own Times_ in 1723-34.
Burnet's _History of his Own Times_ actually deserves the character
which Clarendon incorrectly gives of his own; it is rather the material
for history than history itself. This is not a consequence of crude
treatment, for all is well arranged and lively, nor from the encumbrance
of original documents, of which it is nearly destitute. It arises rather
from the predominance of the autobiographic tone, much more marked than
in Clarendon, though Clarendon also relates as an eyewitness, which
almost brings the book down to the level of personal memoirs. It must
nevertheless be classed with histories, and, if not one of the most
dignified, it is undoubtedly one of the most entertaining. Burnet's deep
interest in the events in which he had taken so large a share insures
vivacious and effective treatment; his personages breathe and move, and
impress themselves indelibly upon the reader's imagination, though he
usually abstains from set efforts at the depicting of character. The
defects of his method are no less apparent; in relating what he has not
himself heard or seen, he relies upon hearsay, and sinks into a gossip.
The extent, nevertheless, to which he speaks as an eyewitness, renders
his work very valuable. Well acquainted with Charles and James, admitted
to the favour of William and the full confidence of Mary, he is able to
introduce us into their presence, and summon them as it were from the
dead. His point of view, being so largely personal, is inevitably
partial; he can tell us, for example, of the defects in Shaftesbury's
character, which he discovered from actual acquaintance, but nothing of
the surprising enlightenment of the statesman, which could only be
learned from speeches which he never heard and documents which he never
saw. Impartiality is the last virtue to be expected from a busy actor in
a troubled age, but Burnet approaches it as nearly as can with any
reason be demanded. It is hardly in human nature that he should be
entirely fair to adversaries by whom he had himself been maligned, but
his intention of being so is very apparent. The most impartial and
generally the most valuable portion of his work is his narrative up to
the Revolution. When he wrote this, animosities had become mellowed by
time; when he lived it his contact with affairs had been more intimate
as the political agent than afterwards as the spiritual peer.
Disappointment with the course of events colours his account of Anne's
reign, and renders him splenetic and querulous. His perspicuous and
animated diction does not always attain the dignity of history; he
hardly ever attempts eloquence, except in the noble and deeply-felt
conclusion of his work, a portion of which must be cited, although it is
no fair example of his ordinary style:
'So that by religion I mean, such a sense of divine truth as
enters into a man, and becomes a spring of a new nature within
him; reforming his thoughts and designs, purifying his heart,
and sanctifying him, and governing his whole deportment, his
words as well as his actions; convincing him that it is not
enough, not to be scandalously vicious, or to be innocent in
his conversation, but that he must be entirely, uniformly, and
constantly, pure and virtuous, animating him with a zeal to be
still better and better, more eminently good and exemplary,
using prayers and all outward devotions, as solemn acts
testifying what he is inwardly and at heart, and as methods
instituted by God, to be still advancing in the use of them
further and further into a more refined and spiritual sense of
divine matters. This is true religion, which is the perfection
of human nature, and the joy and delight of every one that
feels it active and strong within him: it is true, this is not
arrived at all at once; and it will have an unhappy alloy,
hanging long even about a good man; but, as those ill mixtures
are the perpetual grief of his soul, so it is his chief care to
watch over and to mortify them; he will be in a continual
progress, still gaining ground upon himself; and as he attains
to a good degree of purity, he will find a noble flame of life
and joy growing upon him. Of this I write with the more concern
and emotion, because I have felt this the true, and indeed the
only joy which runs through a man's heart and life: it is that
which has been for many years my greatest support; I rejoice
daily in it: I feel from it the earnest of that supreme joy
which I pant and long for; I am sure there is nothing else can
afford any true or complete happiness. I have, considering my
sphere, seen a great deal of all that is most shining and
tempting in this world: the pleasures of sense I did soon
nauseate; intrigues of state, and the conduct of affairs, have
something in them that is most specious; and I was for some
years, deeply immersed in these, but still with hopes of
reforming the world, and of making mankind wiser and better:
but I have found that which is crooked cannot be made straight.
I acquainted myself with knowledge and learning, and that in a
great variety, and with more compass than depth: but though
wisdom excelleth folly as much as light does darkness, yet as
it is a sore travail, so it is so very defective, that what is
wanting to complete it cannot be numbered. I have seen that two
were better than one, and that a threefold cord is not easily
loosed; and have therefore cultivated friendship with much zeal
and a disinterested tenderness; but I have found this was also
vanity and vexation of spirit, though it be of the best and
noblest sort. So that, upon great and long experience, I could
enlarge on the preacher's text, "Vanity of vanities, and all is
vanity," but I must also conclude with him; Fear God, and keep
his commandments, for this is the all of man, the whole, both
of his duty and of his happiness. I do therefore end all in the
words of David, of the truth of which, upon great experience
and a long observation, I am so fully assured, that I leave
these as my last words to posterity: "Come, ye children,
hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What
man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may
see good? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking
guile. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue
it. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears
are open to their cry; but the face of the Lord is against them
that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the
earth. The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth and delivereth
them out of all their troubles. The Lord is nigh unto them that
are of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite
spirit."'
Burnet's reputation as an historian also rests in considerable measure
upon another important work, his _History of the Reformation in
England_, published in 1679. This great subject, frequently, variously,
and never successfully handled, may some day make a first-class
reputation for an historian as yet concealed in the future. That a
satisfactory history of it should be written in Burnet's day was
impossible, and it was equally impossible that his work should either
exhibit the liveliness, or possess the unique value of his _History of
his Own Times_. The theme is one for a graver and more eloquent
historian than he, capable of rising to greater heights, and wielding
far more absolute command over the resources of language. Nor can his
laborious collections from state papers and former historians rival the
importance of his narrative of transactions in which he was a busy
actor, full of particulars only to be obtained from himself. With all
these inevitable imperfections, his _History of the Reformation_ is
still an excellent book, eminently readable, just and accurate in its
broad views, however needing correction on points of detail; and,
considering that it was the work of a Scotch Protestant writing in the
thick of the Popish Plot, surprisingly candid and impartial. It is of
course the work of a partisan, but he who does not feel sufficient
interest in the Reformation to be a partisan on one side or the other is
not likely to write its history at all, and had better not. Probably no
history of the English Reformation has since been written that does not
exhibit more party feeling than Burnet's, or that can reasonably claim
to supersede it.
Burnet's _History of his Times_, as we have seen, may be regarded as a
connecting link between history and _memoires pour servir_. The age of
Charles II. was favourable to this latter class of composition, which
is, indeed, the form which the narrators of public transactions in which
they themselves have borne a leading part, naturally fall. The period
was still more fertile in the diary, which may be defined as the
autobiographic memoir in a rudimentary stage. One writer of the day,
Samuel Pepys, has placed himself for all time at the head of this class
of composition, by an achievement little likely to be repeated. Among
memoir-writers proper the most important is Edmund Ludlow, the Cato of
the Commonwealth (1617-1692).
Ludlow, the son of a Wiltshire knight of extreme political views,
enlisted at the commencement of the Civil War in the bodyguard of the
Earl of Essex, and afterwards highly distinguished himself by his
obstinate, though unsuccessful defence of Wardour Castle, in his native
county. He was made prisoner, exchanged, and took part in several
encounters in the West of England. Elected member for Wiltshire, he
sided with the more extreme party, and was one of the king's judges. He
became a member of the Council of State, and at the beginning of 1651
was sent to Ireland as second in authority to Ireton, whom he assisted
in completing the subjugation of the country, and subsequently filled
the same position under Fleetwood. Bitterly opposed to Cromwell's
Protectorate, he resigned his civil appointment, but contrived to retain
his military position until 1655, when, coming over to England, he was
arrested and imprisoned in Beaumaris Castle. When at length he was
admitted to an audience of Cromwell, 'What,' asked the Protector, 'can
you desire more than you have?' 'That which we fought for,' replied
Ludlow, 'that the nation might be governed by its own consent'--words
which recall Augereau's repartee to Napoleon on the re-establishment of
Roman Catholicism in France. Ludlow was kept under surveillance until
the death of Cromwell, when he became exceedingly active, and upon the
abdication of Richard Cromwell was sent again to Ireland in a position
of authority. Returning, he sought in vain to mediate between the
Parliament and the army, and distinguished himself in the Convention
Parliament by a vain protest against the Restoration. He fled the
country to avoid the vengeance of the new government, and took refuge in
Switzerland, where he composed his memoirs, and abode in comfortable
circumstances, although occasionally molested by plots against his life
or liberty, until his death in 1692. The Revolution of 1688 had brought
him back to England for an instant, but the public feeling against
regicides was still too strong, and, returning to his refuge at Vevay,
he carved over his door:
'Omne solum forti patria quia Patris.'
Ludlow was not one of the greatest or wisest characters of his time, but
is one of the most estimable in virtue of his sturdy honesty. He was one
of that hopelessly inconsistent class of persons, the believers in the
divine right of a republic as the sole form of political institution
consistent with reason, who in the same breath assert and take away the
nation's right to choose its own form of government by forbidding its
exercise unless the form has the allowance of a theory impersonated in
themselves. On the principle of popular sovereignty, no form of
government could be more legitimate than the Restoration monarchy,
which, nevertheless, Ludlow was always seeking to overthrow. Cromwell's
title was by no means so clear, and Ludlow's firm resistance to the
Protector at the height of his power, if proving his inability to
'swallow formulas,' and look solely to the public good, is nevertheless
most honourable to his courage and fortitude. If inaccessible to reason,
he was even more so to self-interest. The historical value of his
memoirs is very great, especially for the troubled interval between
Cromwell's death and the Restoration. Carlyle, Guizot, and Firth unite
in following him with implicit confidence when he speaks as an
eyewitness, when he relies upon others he is frequently inaccurate and
confused. The _Memoirs_ virtually commence with the outbreak of the
Civil War, and extend to 1672. The interest of the latter years is of
course mainly personal. The style is clear and unadorned. The following
passage is a good example of the writer's power of conveying antipathy
by sarcasm:
'Different were the effects that the death of Cromwell produced
in the nation: those men who had been sharers with him in the
usurped authority were exceedingly troubled, whilst all other
parties rejoiced at it: each of them hoping that this
alteration would prove advantageous to their affairs. The
Commonwealthsmen were so charitable to believe that the
soldiery being delivered from their servitude to the General,
to which they were willing to attribute their former
compliance, would now open their eyes and join with them, as
the only means left to preserve themselves and the people.
Neither were the Cavaliers without great hopes that new
divisions might arise, and give them an opportunity of
advancing their minion, who had been long endeavouring to unite
all the corrupt interests of the nation to his party. But
neither the sense of their duty, nor the care of their own
safety, nor the just apprehensions of being overcome by their
irreconcilable enemy, could prevail with the army to return to
their proper station. So that having tasted of sovereignty
under the shadow of their late master, they resolved against
the restitution of the Parliament. And in order to this it was
agreed to proclaim Richard Cromwell, eldest son of Oliver,
Protector of the Commonwealth, in hopes that he, who by
following his pleasures had rendered himself unfit for public
business, would not fail to place the administration of the
government in the hands of those who were most powerful in the
army. Accordingly the proclamation was published in
Westminster, at Temple-Bar, and at the Old Exchange, with as
few expressions of joy as had ever been observed on the like
occasion. This being done, the Council issued out orders to the
officers of civil justice to act by virtue of their old
commissions till new ones could be sent to them: and that
nothing might be omitted to fortify the new government, various
means were used to procure addresses from all parts, which were
brought in great numbers from the several counties in England,
Scotland, and Ireland, as also from divers regiments of the
army. One of the first acts of the new government was, to
order the funeral of the late usurper; and the Council having
resolved that it should be very magnificent, the care of it was
referred to a committee of them, who sending for Mr.
Kinnersley, master of the wardrobe, desired him to find out
some precedent, by which they might govern themselves in this
important affair. After examination of his books and papers,
Mr. Kinnersley, who was suspected to be inclined to popery,
recommended to them the solemnities used upon the like occasion
for Philip the Second, king of Spain, who had been represented
to be in purgatory for about two months. In the like manner was
the body of this great reformer laid in Somerset House: the
apartment was hung with black, the daylight was excluded, and
no other but that of wax tapers to be seen. This scene of
purgatory continued till the first of November, which being the
day preceding that commonly called All Souls, he was removed
into the great hall of the said house, and represented in
effigy, standing on a bed of crimson velvet covered with a gown
of the like coloured velvet, a sceptre in his hand, and a crown
on his head. That part of the hall wherein the bed stood was
railed in, and the rails and ground within them covered with
crimson velvet. Four or five hundred candles set in flat
shining candlesticks were so placed round near the roof of the
hall, that the light they gave seemed like the rays of the sun:
by all which he was represented to be now in a state of glory.
This folly and profusion so far provoked the people, that they
threw dirt in the night on his escutcheon that was placed over
the great gate of Somerset House. I purposely omit the rest of
the pageantry, the great number of persons that attended on the
body, the procession to Westminster, the vast expense in
mourning, the state and magnificence of the monument erected
for him, with many other things that I care not to remember.'
William Lilly, the astrologer (1602-1682), to be discussed more fully
among the writers of personal memoirs, claims a few words here as the
author of an account of Charles I. whose justice and liveliness would
have met more general recognition, but for the author's character as a
fortune-teller, and if it had not been mingled with the apparently
serious exposition of idle prophecies respecting the White King. So
long as he keeps clear of the occult, Lilly is a shrewd and
discriminating, as well as a highly entertaining writer. His enumeration
of individual traits in Charles's character is correct and instructive,
and free from any misleading bias. He was in fact a time-server, whose
main purpose was to stand well with the powers that were, and whose
sketch of Charles would have worn another aspect if he had written after
the Restoration; but this frame of mind, at all events, exempts him from
political passion, nor does his complacency carry him to the length of
misrepresentation, much less calumny. He is destitute of the literary
power which would have enabled him to fuse single traits into an
harmonious character; but he has supplied others with very valuable
material towards such an undertaking. One merit the book certainly
possesses in an eminent measure, it is one of the most readable in the
language. The following passage indicates the author's real insight into
Charles's attractive, but infirm character; and, adversary as he is, his
remarkable agreement with Clarendon, of whose work he had no knowledge:
'He had much of self-ends in all that he did, and a most
difficult thing it was to hold him close to his own promise or
word: he was apt to recede, unless something therein appeared
compliable, either unto his own will, profit, or judgment; so
that some foreign princes bestowed on him the character of a
most false prince, and one that never kept his word, unless for
his own advantage. Had his judgment been as sound, as his
conception was quick and nimble, he had been a most
accomplished gentleman: and though in most dangerous results,
and extraordinary serious consultations, and very material,
either for state or commonwealth, he would himself give the
most solid advice, and sound reasons, why such or such a thing
should be so, or not so; yet was he most easily withdrawn from
his own most wholesome and sound advice or resolutions; and
with as much facility drawn on, inclined, to embrace a far
more unsafe, and nothing so wholesome a counsel. He would argue
logically, and frame his arguments artificially; yet never
almost had the happiness to conclude or drive on a design in
his own sense, but was ever baffled with meaner capacities. He
feared nothing in this world, or disdained any thing more than
the convention of a Parliament; the very name was a bugbear
unto him. He was ever refractory against the summoning of a
Parliament, and as willingly would embrace an opportunity to
break it off. This his averseness being well known to some
grave members, they contrived at last by wit, and the necessity
of the times, that his hands were fast tied up in granting a
triennial sitting, or a perpetuity as it were unto this present
Parliament, a thing he often blamed himself for subscribing
unto, and as often those who importuned him thereunto.'
Bulstrode Whitelocke (1605-1676) has few pretensions to rank as a man of
letters; but his _Memorials_ are far too valuable a source of historical
information to be omitted from a survey of the literature of the period.
The author, a barrister and a Templar, was elected to the Long
Parliament in 1641, and appointed chairman of the committee for drawing
up the charges against Strafford. He held various offices under the
Parliament, and was employed in negotiations with Charles, of whose
execution he disapproved. He was subsequently a member of the Council of
State, and one of the commissioners of the Great Seal. In 1653 he was
sent on an embassy to Sweden, which he has described in a valuable work.
During the confused period between the death of Cromwell and the
Restoration he was successively a commissioner of the Great Seal and a
member of the Council of State. He had some difficulty in obtaining
pardon at the Restoration; but ultimately Charles II. admitted him to
his presence, and received him graciously, with a speech which
Whitelocke's biographer thinks extraordinary, but which appears very
sensible: 'Mr. Whitelocke, go into the country; don't trouble yourself
any more about state affairs; and take care of your wife and your
sixteen children.' Whitelocke profited by the royal admonition, and died
at a good old age. His _Memorials_ extend from 1625 to 1659, and are a
valuable body of material, being for most of the time a diurnal record
of all occurrences of importance. They are the student of history's
indispensable companion for the period, but aim at no more exalted
position in literature than that of a matter-of-fact register.
Another diarist of a similar description to Whitelocke, but not, like
him, a busy actor in the scenes which he describes, is Narcissus
Luttrell (1657-1732), a scion of the well-known family of Luttrell of
Dunster, Somersetshire. Luttrell, who was a man of literary and
antiquarian tastes, and the collector of the Luttrell Ballads, now in
the British Museum, kept a diary from 1675 to 1714, which attracted
little attention until Macaulay's frequent references to the MS. induced
the University of Oxford to publish it in 1857.
Leaving diarists out of account, the most important writer of historical
memoirs after Ludlow is Sir William Temple (1628-1699), whose memoirs
treat of his own political career from 1672 to 1680. Temple, the son of
an Irish judge, entered the diplomatic service after the Restoration
under the auspices of Arlington, and soon found himself minister at
Brussels. While occupying that post it was his good fortune to perform
one of the most creditable diplomatic achievements on record, the
negotiation of the triple alliance between England, Holland, and Sweden,
which checked the conquests of Louis XIV., and, but for the venality and
faithlessness of Charles II., would have long secured peace to Europe.
When Temple's work was undone he retired into private life, but the
failure of Charles's disgraceful policy brought him again into
diplomacy, and his memoirs down to 1679 are occupied with foreign
affairs. In 1677 he had rendered his country one of the greatest
services that any man ever did, by bringing about, in conjunction with
Danby, the marriage of William of Orange with the Princess Mary; and in
1679 he found himself, to his discomfort and dismay--for if wise as a
serpent he was timid as a dove--charged with the mission of reconciling
king and people, who, from the discovery of Charles's baseness in
accepting a pension from France, seemed on the verge of entire
estrangement. Temple attempted to attain this end by the creation of a
council of thirty advisers, as a perpetual check upon the king's
actions. The scheme might have succeeded if thirty disinterested
politicians had been forthcoming; but the entire kingdom could barely
have furnished the number requisite for the redemption of Sodom.
Temple's memoirs give a lively picture of the mortifications he
underwent as he gradually dwindled into a cipher; but the modern reader
will prefer to study the story in Macaulay's famous essay, which, if
exaggerated in his expression of scorn for Temple's irresolution, is not
unfair as a statement of fact. At length he escaped to his books and
gardens, and spent the rest of his life in the enjoyment of a character
for consummate statesmanship, which he took care never to bring to the
test. Wisdom and virtue he certainly did possess, but both with him were
too much of the self-regarding order. His claims to rank as a restorer
of English prose are better founded, though these, too, have been
exaggerated. Johnson's assertion that Temple was the first writer who
attended to cadence in English prose merely evinces how completely the
power of appreciating the grand harmonies of the Elizabethan period had
died out in the eighteenth century. He must, notwithstanding, be allowed
an honourable place among those who have rendered English prose lucid,
symmetrical, and adapted for business; and Macaulay has justly pointed
out that the apparent length of his sentences is mainly a matter of
punctuation. The elegance of the writer, and the egotistic caution of
the man, are excellently represented by the concluding passage of his
_Memoirs_:
'Upon the survey of all these circumstances, conjunctions, and
dispositions, both at home and abroad, I concluded in cold
blood, that I could be of no further use or service to the king
my master, and my country, whose true interests I always
thought were the same, and would be both in danger when they
came to be divided, and for that reason had ever endeavoured
the uniting them; and had compassed it, if the passions of some
few men had not lain fatally in the way, so as to raise
difficulties that I saw plainly were never to be surmounted.
Therefore, upon the whole, I took that firm resolution, in the
end of the year 1680, and the interval between the Westminster
and Oxford parliaments, never to charge myself more with any
public employments; but retiring wholly to a private life, in
that posture take my fortune with my country, whatever it
should prove: which as no man can judge, in the variety of
accidents that attend human affairs, and the chances of every
day, to which the greatest lives as well as actions are
subject; so I shall not trouble myself so much as to
conjecture: _fata viam inveniant_.
'Besides all these public circumstances, I considered myself in
my own humour, temper, and dispositions, which a man may
disguise to others, though very hardly, but cannot to himself.
I had learned by living long in courts and public affairs, that
I was fit to live no longer in either. I found the arts of a
court were contrary to the frankness and openness of my nature;
and the constraints of public business too great for the
liberty of my humour and my life. The common and proper ends of
both are the advancement of men's fortunes; and that I never
minded, having as much as I needed, and, which is more, as I
desired. The talent of gaining riches I ever despised, as
observing it to belong to the most despisable men in other
kinds: and I had the occasions of it so often in my way, if I
would have made use of them, that I grew to disdain them, as a
man does meat that he has always before him. Therefore, I never
could go to service for nothing but wages, nor endure to be
fettered in business when I thought it was to no purpose. I
knew very well the arts of a court are, to talk the present
language, to serve the present turn, and to follow the present
humour of the prince, whatever it is: of all these I found
myself so incapable, that I could not talk a language I did not
mean, nor serve a turn I did not like, nor follow any man's
humour wholly against my own. Besides, I have had, in twenty
years experience, enough of the uncertainty of princes, the
caprices of fortune, the corruption of ministers, the violence
of factions, the unsteadiness of counsels, the infidelity of
friends; nor do I think the rest of my life enough to make any
new experiments.
'For the ease of my own life, if I know myself, it will be
infinitely more in the retired, than it has been in the busy
scene: for no good man can, with any satisfaction, take part in
the divisions of his country, that knows and considers, as I
do, what they have cost Athens, Rome, Constantinople, Florence,
Germany, France and England: nor can the wisest man foresee how
ours will end, or what they are like to cost the rest of
Christendom as well as ourselves. I never had but two aims in
public affairs; one, to see the king great as he may be by the
hearts of his people, without which I know not how he can be
great by the constitutions of this kingdom: the other, in case
our factions must last, yet to see a revenue established for
the constant maintaining a fleet of fifty men of war, at sea or
in harbour, and the seamen in constant pay; which would be at
least our safety from abroad, and make the crown still
considered in any foreign alliances, whether the king and his
parliaments should agree or not in undertaking any great or
national war. And such an establishment I was in hopes the last
parliament at Westminster might have agreed in with the king,
by adding so much of a new fund to three hundred thousand
pounds a year out of the present customs. But these have both
failed, and I am content to have failed with them.
'And so I take leave of all those airy visions which have so
long busied my head about mending the world; and at the same
time, of all those shining toys or follies that employ the
thoughts of busy men: and shall turn mine wholly to mend
myself; and, as far as consists with a private condition, still
pursuing that old and excellent counsel of Pythagoras, that we
are, with all the cares and endeavours of our lives, to avoid
diseases in the body, perturbations in the mind, luxury in
diet, factions in the house, and seditions in the state.'