"The man of sense will read a work of note
In the like humour as the author wrote."
To which end we must try to identify the reign of King George I. and the
manners of that era with these fables; for manners change with every
age, and every age has its transitions of political and social manners:
"Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times."
It was in the era of the two first Georges that Gay wrote and applied
these fables, filled with diatribes against ministers, courtiers, and
misers, and inveighing against court corruption and bribery.
It was a period of transition, such as had before occurred, from feudal
to monarchial, and now from monarchial to ministerial rule. We had
entered into another phase--one of civil and religious liberty; but, at
the same time, the royal court was a scene devoid of any graces: the
kings could not speak our language, and their feminine favourites were
the reverse of fair or virtuous; whilst domestic hate ruled in the
palace. Power then ran into a new groove of corruption and bribery; and
the scene, vile in itself, was made viler by exaggeration and the
retaliations of one political party on the other, whilst either side was
equally lauded by its own party. Therefore we may reasonably conclude
that matters were not so bad as they were painted, and moreover that it
was but a change and transition of evils, to play a part and disappear.
The advent of the third George to the throne, and the rigid integrity of
the first and second Pitt, reversed the story as read in these fables;
the court became pure, the king true, the ministers honest, and the
nation progressed from the miserable peace of Utrecht, in 1714, to the
proud position we held on its centenary at Vienna, in 1814. We may
grant, then, that Gay had reason on his side when he inveighed so
bitterly against courts and kings; and, granting that, we may recognise
the amelioration of the court of the present day, wholly free from
corruption and presenting a school to be followed rather than contemned.
In the fable of the 'Degenerate Bees,' Gay takes the part of the Tory
ministry,--Oxford, Bolingbroke, Dean Swift, and Mat. Prior; and in the
'Ant in Office' he alludes to a Whig minister of that day. We must not
be too hard on ministers. Kings and the nation have been open to bribes
and assenting to French diplomacy,--
"When policy regained what arms had lost."
Louis XI. purchased the retreat of Edward IV. in 1475, when he seized
on the domains of King Réné--Provence, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and
Lorraine, and Burgundy from the domains of Charles the Bold; when we
abandoned our blood allies for bribes. Again, in 1681, Charles II. was
the pensioner of Louis XIV., when Louis seized on Strasbourg. William
III. reluctantly let it pass at the peace and treaty of Ryswick, which
Louis dictated; and it was very basely abandoned by us at the peace of
Utrecht, in 1714, when we abandoned our ally the emperor, and the
degenerate Bees of the fable suffered exile and the Tower, barely
escaping death from the indignant nation. Again, in the treaty of
Vienna, 1814, we sacrificed the interests of Austria to France, in
ceding to the latter the pillaged counties of the Messin and of Alsace.
Finding, therefore, like results from wholly different causes, we must
not be extreme to judge, but, with Gay, admit the ministers of 1714 to
grace, for they only then did what we sanctioned in 1814, and which 1870
sees righted, and the German towns restored to Germany.
I am now rounding off half a century in which I have wandered in this
wilderness of a world, and in all that time I have never known, or heard
of, corruption in a minister of state. I have seen and known many fall
untimely to ministerial labours and responsibility. Walking through the
streets and squares we may behold the noble brows of Pitt, Canning, Lord
George Bentinck, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston--men "on whose brows
shame is ashamed to sit"--and, we might add, another Canning, a Follett,
Sir George Lewis, and a hecatomb of Colonial rulers, who have died,
overtasked by toil and responsibility; but in all that time we have
never heard a minister accused of corruption, or building palaces, or
making a fortune from public treasure. Corruption, if so it may still be
termed, has taken another phase; it has bowed its head and courted
democracy, like to the Roman king, Ancus Martius, "nimium gaudens
popularibus auris"--cringing to popular suffrage--to ride into place and
power, by granting measures momentarily floating uppermost, and
suffering the tail to guide the head, as did the snake in Æsop's fable.
We attained the height of grandeur of 1814 under the guidance of the
head, and we are now upon our trial of democratical government, and
whether it be equal to the old. Under such auspices commerce has been
the petted minion of the last thirty years. Not the native forest tree
of Pitt, Huskisson, and Canning, but the hot-bed plant of the advocates
of a predominant trade. No British statesman ever dreamt of restricting
commerce,--which ever was the bond of unity of nations; but we have sunk
every interest at home to swell the exports and imports, to make Britain
what Egypt was in the days of the patriarch--the storehouse of the
world. Egypt and England both put their agriculturists to pain, and the
rural population to serfdom; but they only exchange the stable basis of
well-being for an unstable one, for commerce is proverbially of a
fleeting nature.
The age in which Gay wrote was eminently what we now designate as
conservative. Excise was hateful then; as customs are denounced now, so
home taxation was denounced then. So wonderfully do systems change, that
in the monthly table of the revenue of this period (December, 1870), the
customs do not raise one-third of the revenue, of which the other
two-thirds are raised by home taxation.
From ministers proceed we to the misers. I doubt whether any domestic
changes have wrought so great an amelioration in our well-being as banks
and banking. It has saved us from burglars; it has, by cheques, redeemed
us from the tyranny of tradesmen's books. It has put personal property
on a stronger foundation than it held, and the banker keeps an excellent
private account, gratuitously, of your receipts and expenditure. The
trouble that the possession of gold gave to its possessor before this
wonderful institution was brought to bear, may be told by a few
instances of divers epochs. There is a tale of a man who was supposed to
have discovered the treasures of Croesus, in the treasury--such as is
shown now at Mycenæ and Orchomenos as the treasuries of old. The hero of
the tale having discovered the crypt and its hoard, built another, and
spent half of his life in secretly removing the treasures of Croesus
to his new treasury; which was no sooner a deed accomplished than he
perceived the original treasury was superior to the new, and he spent an
equal amount of years in secretly restoring the treasures to their
original crypt, where doubtless they are now, for he died whilst he was
the slave to the gold. Herodotus has stories quite as marvellous as
this, of the fortunate finder of the treasures of Croesus. But our
friend Mr. Pepys--who, I believe, has given us more amusement than any
other Englishman, be he whom he may--is more amusing and instructive.
His story is written in 1667, the year after the fire of London, and
whilst the invasion of the Dutch was apprehended, and we will see how
Mr. Pepys fulfilled the adage of "as much trouble as all my money." On
30th March, 1666, we find him write:--"I to Lombard St., and there
received 2200_l._, and brought it home, and, contrary to expectation,
received 35_l._ for the use of 2000_l._ of it for a quarter of a year,
where it hath produced me this profit, and hath been a conveniency to me
as to care and security at my house, and demandable at two days'
warning, as this has been."
On 12th November: "This day I received 450 pieces of gold, which cost me
22-1/2_d._ change. But I am well contented with it, I having now nearly
2800_l._ in gold, and will not rest till I get full 3000_l._" But on the
13th June, 1667, on the sad news of the taking of the 'Royal Charles,'
and sinking ships at Barking Creek, "put me into such a fear, that I
presently resolved of my father's and wife's going into the country; and
at two hours' warning they did go by the coach this day with 1300_l._ in
gold in their night-bag. Pray God give them good passage, and good care
to hide it when they come home! But my heart is full of fear. They gone,
I continued in frights and fear what to do with the rest."
And on the 10th October, when the Dutch were gone, we read:--"Up, and
to walk up and down in the garden with my father, to talk of all our
concernments: about a husband for my sister, whereof there is at present
no appearance; but we must endeavour to find her one now, for she grows
old and ugly. My father and I with a dark lantern, it being now light,
into the garden with my wife, and there went about our great work to dig
up my gold. But, Lord, what a tosse I was for some time in, that they
could not justly tell where it was: but by-and-bye, poking with a spit,
we found it, and then began with a spudd. But, good God! to see how
sillily they did it, not half a foot under ground, and in the sight of
the world from a hundred places, and within sight of a neighbour's
window. Only my father says that he saw them all gone to church before
he began the work when he laid the money. But I was out of my wits
almost, and the more from that, upon my lifting the earth with my spudd,
I did discern that I had scattered the pieces of gold in the loose
earth, and, taking up the iron head-pieces whereon they were put, I
perceived the earth had gotten among the gold, and wet, so that the bags
were all rotten and notes; so that I could not tell what in the world to
say to it, not knowing how to judge what was wanting, or what had been
lost by Gibson in his journey down, which, all put together, did make me
mad. And at last I was obliged to take up the pieces, dirt and all, by
candle-light, and carry them into my brother's chamber, and there lock
them up, whilst I eat a little supper; and then, all people going to
bed, William Hewer and I did, all alone, with pails of water and besoms,
wash the dirt off the pieces, and then began to tell them, by a note
which I had of the value of the whole in my pocket, and do find that
there was short above a hundred pieces, which did make me mad.... So
William Hewer and I out again about midnight, and there by candle-light
did make shift to gather forty pieces more; and so to bed, and there lay
in some disquiet until daylight. 11th.--And then William Hewer and I,
with pails and a sieve, did lock ourselves into the garden, and did
gather the earth and then sift those pails in one of the summer-houses
(just as they do for diamonds in other parts), and there, to our great
content did, by nine o'clock, make the last night's forty-five up to
seventy-nine; so that we are come to some twenty or thirty of what I
think the true number should be. So do leave my father to make a second
examination of the dirt, and my mind at rest on it, being but an
accident; and so give me some kind of content to remember how painful it
is sometimes to keep money as well as to get it, and how doubtful I was
to keep it all night, and how to secure it to London.
"About ten o'clock, took coach, my wife and I, and Willett and W. Hewer,
and Mumford and Bowles (whom my lady sent me to go along with me my
journey, not telling her the reason, but it was only to secure my gold),
and my brother John on horseback; and with these four I thought myself
pretty safe. My gold I put into a basket, and set it under one of the
seats; and so my work every quarter of an hour was to look to see
whether all was well; and I did ride in great fear all the day.
12th.--By five o'clock got home, and did bring my gold to my heart's
content very safe, having not this day carried it in a basket, but in
our hands; the girl took care of one, and my wife of another bag, and I
the rest, I being afraid of the bottom of the coach lest it should
break." Such is Mr. Pepys' story.
"Nor light nor darkness brings his pains relief:
One shows the plunder, and one hides the thief."
Mr. Crabbe has portrayed the marvel of an honest inhabitant of
Aldborough, when first he learnt, in his graphic phrase, "that money
would breed,"--that it could afford to pay yearly interest. Shakespeare
has several references to the fact. Shylock, and a clown in 'Twelfth
Night' making very quaint allusions. I shall only add one more tale from
Mr. S. Trench's late stories of 'Realities of Irish Life.' A neighbour,
who had saved two hundred pounds in gold, kept it in the thatch of his
roof. One day he appeared before Mr. Trench bearing his gold, and
requesting him to be his depositee, expressing the comfort it would
afford him. Mr. Trench declined the unprofitable duty, and pointed out
to him the bank, which would accept his deposit and give him interest.
The eye of Patrick flashed with intelligence and foresight as he warned
Mr. Trench from the delusion of banks, which every year wasted the
original sum by paying the stipend, and when you wished to reclaim the
original, lo, it had disappeared. No, no, he would have no dividend,
forsooth, to eat away his capital; which he bore back again (about five
pounds' weight) and replaced it in his thatch. It was neither lost nor
wasted there; it became the inheritance of his only daughter, a woman of
extreme energy, who had from childhood loved--more, methinks, as a
mother loves a helpless child--a good-hearted, unvicious piece of
indolence and sloth. She followed him to New York and married him,
_nolens volens_; and Providence assigned to him an energetic woman, to
make his castle of indolence a bed of roses to the satisfaction of them
both,--supplying for each the energy and the repose, both
constitutional, both unvicious, which the other lacked.
Highwaymen beset the highways, as burglars invaded the residences; and
Macaulay chuckles over the fact that his _bête noire_--the noble
Marlborough--was eased of 5000_l._ in gold in one of his trips between
London and St. Alban's.
From the regions of ministers and misers we may descend to the equally
disputed realms of the muses. Horace terms it "the peevish and inhuman
muse," which those who drink of Aganippe's fountain woo; whilst others
are apt to equal their Castalian spring and Parnassus with the height of
the empyreal, regarding with pity the toilers on the land and deep. But
herein, as in aught else, it is the mind, and not the outward
circumstances, which makes the happiness suited to its strength and
position; for it must be confessed it is from the weak in bodily frame,
the lame, and the blind, that we draw our poets: and when we find a rare
bodily exception to the rule, we find too often a mind insatiate of
applause, and pining for more appreciation of their productions. The
votaries of the muse cannot be set down as so happy and contented as
many a ploughman, nor does the smoothness of the lines gratify the eye
more than the smoothness of the furrow. But these rhymes of Gay hardly
aspire to the height of poesy, nor do they possess the banter and
raciness, such as we find in Butler's 'Hudibras':--
"When oyster-women lock their fish up,
And trudge away to bawl, 'No bishop!'"
Neither has it the deep pathos of the Spenserian stanza, which perhaps
strives at the deepest vein of poetry. Take two of Thomson's, for
example:--
"O mortal man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate;
That like an emmet thou must ever moil,
Is a hard sentence of an ancient date:
And, certes, there is for it reason great;
For though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,
And curse thy star, and early drudge and late,
Withouten that would come a heavier bale,--
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale."