(1746.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he players and the playwrights were zealous
Whigs throughout the rebellion. The Drury Lane company to a man
became volunteers, under their manager, Mr. Lacy, who had asked the
royal permission to raise a couple of hundred men, in defence of
his Majesty’s person and Government. To attract loyal audiences at
a time when the public could not be readily tempted to the theatre,
‘The Nonjuror’ was revived, at both houses. Two players, Macklin and
Elderton, set to work to produce plays for their respective theatres,
on the subject of Perkin Warbeck. While Macklin was delivering what
he wrote, piecemeal, to the actors, for study, and Elderton was
perspiring over his laborious gestation of blank-verse, the proprietors
of the playhouse in Goodman’s Fields forestalled both by bringing out
Ford’s old play, which is named after the Pretender to the throne
of Henry VII. Macklin called his piece ‘Henry VII., or the Popish
Impostor.’ This absurd allusion to Perkin was a shaft aimed at the
actual Pretender. The Whigs approved of both title and play, and
they roared at every line which they could apply against Tories and
Jacobites. ◆[Sidenote: _THE PLAYERS._]◆ At both houses, occasional
prologues stirred the loyal impulses or provoked the indignation of
the audience. At Covent Garden, ‘Tamerlane,’ which was always solemnly
brought out when the popular wrath was to be excited against France,
was preceded by a patriotic prologue which Mrs. Pritchard delivered in
her best manner, and Dodsley sold the next day, as fast as he could
deliver copies over the counter of his shop in Pall Mall. Rich and his
Covent Garden players did not turn soldiers, but he gave the house,
_gratis_, for three days for the benefit of a scheme that was to be to
the advantage of the veterans of the army; and this brought 600_l._
to the funds. The actors sacrificed their salaries, and charming Mrs.
Cibber sang as Polly, in the ‘Beggars’ Opera’ more exquisitely than
ever, to prove (as she said) that, ‘though she was a Catholic, she was
sincerely attached to the family who was in possession of the Throne,
and she acknowledged the favour and honour she had received from
them.’ On the night when the first report of the victory at Culloden
was circulated, Drury Lane got up a play that had not been acted for
thirty years, ‘The Honours of the Army,’ and Mrs. Woffington, as ‘The
Female Officer,’ ‘new dressed,’ spoke a dashing prologue. A night or
two later, Theophilus Cibber wrote and delivered a prologue on the Duke
of Cumberland’s victories. At Covent Garden were revived two pieces,
by Dennis: ‘Liberty Asserted’ and ‘Plot and no Plot.’ Genest says of
the first piece that it was revived ‘for the sake of the invectives
against the French; and “Plot and no Plot,” for the sake of the cuts on
the Jacobites,――at this time almost every play was revived, which might
be expected to attract, from its political tendency.’
The minor, or unlicensed, theatres tempted loyal people with coarser
fare,――to the same end, keeping up a hostile feeling against the French
and the Jacobites. Observe with what quaint delicacy the matter is put
in the following advertisements.
[Sidenote: _SADLER’S WELLS AND THE NEW WELLS._]
‘As the Proprietors of Sadler’s Wells have diligently embraced every
opportunity of giving their audiences satisfaction, they would have
thought themselves guilty of the highest Error to have been silent upon
the present happy occasion. Every Class of Britons must be pleased at
the least Hint of Gratitude to the excellent Prince who has exposed
himself to so many Difficulties for the sake of his country, and
therefore they have endeavour’d to show a Natural Scene of what perhaps
may happen to many a honest Countryman in consequence of the late happy
Victory, in a new Interlude of Music, called Strephon’s Return, or the
British Hero, which will be perform’d this Night, with many advantages
of Dress and Decoration.’
But ‘how the wit brightens and the style refines’ in the following
announcement from Mr. Yeates!
[Sidenote: _CULLODEN ON THE STAGE._]
‘The Applause that was so universally express’d last Night, by the
numbers of Gentlemen _et cætera_ who honoured the New Wells near
the London Spaw, Clerkenwell, with their Company, is thankfully
acknowledg’d; but Mr. Yeates humbly hopes that the Ideas of Liberty
and Courage (tho’ he confesses them upon the present Occasion extremely
influencing) will not for the future so far transport his Audiences
as to prove of such Detriment to his Benches; several hearty Britons,
when _Courage_ appeared (under which Character, the illustrious Duke,
whom we have so much reason to admire, is happily represented) having
exerted their Canes in such a Torrent of Satisfaction as to have
render’d his Damage far from inconsiderable.’
The other ‘New Wells’ declined to be outdone. There too, love and
liquor were shown to be the reward due to valiant Strephons returning
from Culloden to London. There, they were taught to ‘hate a Frenchman
like the Devil;’ and there, they and the public might see all the
phases of the half-hour’s battle, and of some striking incidents before
and after it, all painted on one canvas.
‘At the New Wells, the Bottom of Lemon Street, Goodman’s Fields,
this present Evening will be several new Exercises of Rope-dancing,
Tumbling, Singing, and Dancing, with several new Scenes in grotesque
Characters call’d Harlequin a Captive in France, or the Frenchman trapt
at last. The whole to conclude with an exact view of our Gallant Army
under the Command of their Glorious Hero passing the River Spey, giving
the Rebels Battle and gaining a Complete Victory near Culloden House,
with the Horse in pursuit of the Pretender.’
To these unlicensed houses, admission was gained not by entrance
money, but by paying for a certain quantity of wine or punch.
[Sidenote: _MRS. WOFFINGTON._]
It would, however, appear as if some of the bards, like Bubb Dodington
with his transparency, had so contemplated the result of the war,
as to be ready to hail any issue, and any victor. One of these, the
Jacobites being defeated, wrote an epilogue, ‘designed to be spoken by
Mrs. Woffington, in the character of a Volunteer;’――but the poem was
not finished till interest in the matter had greatly evaporated, and
the poet was told he was ‘too late.’ Of course, he shamed the rogues by
printing his work,――which is one illustrating both the morals and the
manners of the time. It illustrates the former by infamously indecent
inuendo, and the latter by the following outburst, for some of the
ideas of which the writer had rifled Addison’s ‘Freeholder.’
Joking apart, we women have strong reason
To sap the progress of this popish treason;
For now, when female liberty’s at stake,
All women ought to bustle for its sake.
Should these malicious sons of Rome prevail,
Vows, convents, and that heathen thing, a veil,
Must come in fashion; and such institutions
Would suit but oddly with our constitutions.
What gay coquette would brook a nun’s profession?
And I’ve some private reasons ’gainst confession.
Besides, our good men of the Church, they say
(Who now, thank Heaven, may love as well as pray)
Must then be only wed to cloister’d houses;――
Stop! There we’re fobb’d of twenty thousand spouses!
And, faith! no bad ones, as I’m told; then judge ye,
Is’t fit we lose our benefit of clergy?
In Freedom’s cause, ye patriot fair, arise!
Exert the sacred influence of your eyes.
On valiant merit deign alone to smile,
And vindicate the glory of our isle.
To no base coward prostitute our charms;
Disband the lover who deserts his arms.
So shall ye fire each hero to his duty,
And _British_ rights be saved by _British_ beauty.
[Sidenote: _THE PRESS, ON CULLODEN._]
The Whig press was, of course, jubilant. The papers in the opposite
interest put as good a face as they could on the matter, and expressed
a conviction that they ‘ventured no treason in hoping that the _weather
might change_.’
The ‘Craftsman’ was, or affected to be, beside itself for joy at the
thought that no foreign mercenaries had helped to reap the laurels at
Culloden. The victory was won by British troops only; and the duke
might say, like Coriolanus, ‘Alone, I did it!’ The ‘True Patriot’
insisted on some share of the laurels being awarded to the king, since
he stood singly in refusing to despair of the monarchy, when all other
men were, or seemed, hopeless and helpless. To which the ‘Western
Journal’ added that not merely was the king far-seeing, and the duke
victorious at the head of English troops without foreign auxiliaries,
but that never before had an English army made its way so far into
the country, to crush a Scottish foe. The ‘Journal,’ much read in all
London coffee-houses resorted to by Western gentlemen, was opposed to
the killing of rebels in cold blood, and could not see what profit was
to be got by hanging them. This paper suggested that some benefit
might be obtained by making slaves of them; not by transporting them
to the Plantations, but by compelling them to serve in the herring and
salmon fisheries, for the advantage of the compellers, that is, the
Government!
[Sidenote: _SAVAGERY AND SATIRE._]
In the ‘General Advertiser,’ a man who probably had reached the age
when a sense of humanity fails before any of the other senses, asked
what objection was to be found with such terms as ‘Extermination,’
‘Extirpation,’ and similar significances applied to those savages, the
Highlanders? This ogre, in his easy chair, cared not to see that, in
driving out a whole race, more cruelty would be deliberately inflicted
on innocent human beings, than the savage Highlanders had inflicted in
their fury. And indeed, the latter did not spare their own people, if
the milkmaids’ song be true, in which the illustrative line occurs, ‘We
dare na gae a milkin’ for fear o’ Charlie’s men.’ However, the least
punishment which the correspondent of the ‘Advertiser’ would accept
was a general transportation of the race to Africa and America, and a
settlement on their lands of English tenants at easy rents! This sort
of Highlander-phobia and the threatened application of severe laws
which included the suppression of what has been called ‘the Garb of old
Gael,’ or Highland dress, gave rise to some good-natured satire. ‘We
hear,’ said one of the newspapers, ‘that the dapper wooden Highlanders,
who guard so heroically the doors of snuff shops, intend to petition
the Legislature in order that they may be excused from complying with
the Act of Parliament with regard to their change of dress, alleging
that they had ever been faithful subjects to his Majesty, having
constantly supplied his Guards with a pinch out of their Mulls, when
they marched by them; and so far from engaging in any Rebellion, that
they have never entertained a rebellious thought, whence they humbly
hope that they shall not be put to the expense of buying new Cloaths.’
[Sidenote: _THE CARICATURISTS._]
So spoke the fun-loving spirits; but there were baser spirits on the
conquering side, and these speedily exhibited an indecent exultation.
The ignominious caricaturists attracted crowds to the print shops
to gaze at the facility with which vulgar minds can degrade solemn
and lofty themes. On the one hand, the defeat of the Highlanders
and the consternation of Sullivan, the standard-bearer in Charles
Edward’s army, attracted laughter. On the other hand, the too early,
and altogether vain, boast conveyed on the young Chevalier’s banner,
‘Tandem triumphans,’ was more legitimately satirised in an engraving
in which the standard-bearer is an ass, and on his standard are three
crowns surmounted by a coffin, with the motto ‘Tandem triumphans,’ done
into English by the Duke of Cumberland, as equivalent to ‘Every dog has
his day;’――which, after all, was no great compliment to the duke. The
triple crown and coffin represented the issue of crown or grave; in
one print the Devil is seen flying with it over Temple Bar, as if it
merited to be planted there, as were afterwards the spiked heads of
Towneley and of Fletcher.
[Sidenote: _PSEUDO-PORTRAIT OF CHARLES EDWARD._]
Jacobite sympathies were attracted and puzzled by a portrait of
‘The young Chevalier,’ which was to be seen, for sale, in every
printshop. Alexander Carlyle gives an amusing account of it in his
‘Autobiography.’ ‘As I had seen,’ he says, ‘the Chevalier Prince
Charles frequently in Scotland, I was appealed to, if a print that was
selling in all the shops was not like him? My answer was, that it had
not the least resemblance. Having been taken one night, however, to a
meeting of the Royal Society, by Microscope Baker, there was introduced
a Hanoverian Baron, whose likeness was so strong to the print which
passed for the young Pretender, that I had no doubt that, he being a
stranger, the printsellers had got him sketched out, that they might
make something of it before the _vera effigies_ could be had. The
latter, when it could at last be procured, was advertised in cautious
terms, as ‘A curious Head, painted from the Life, by the celebrated M.
Torcque, and engraved in France, by J. G. Will, with proper decorations
in a new taste.’ Beneath the portrait, the following verses were
inscribed:――
‘Few know my face, though all men do my fame,
Look strictly and you’ll quickly guess my name.
Through deserts, snows, and rain I made my way,
My life was daily risk’d to gain the day.
Glorious in thought, but now my hopes are gone,
Each friend grows shy, and I’m at last undone.’
Fear of him, and of his followers, was far from having died out.
A letter in the ‘Malmesbury Correspondence,’ dated May, might
almost have been written by the advocate of Extermination, in the
‘Advertiser;’――the rev. writer says: ‘A Bill is now preparing and will
soon be brought into the House of Lords, for putting the Highlands of
Scotland under quite a new regulation, and you may be assured, until
some bill is passed effectually to subdue that herd of savages, we
shall never be free from alarms of invasion in the North of England.’
Lord Stair, then in London, was more hopeful, and expressed a belief
that the king would now have weight in the affairs of Europe. ‘Fifty
battalions and fifty squadrons well employed, can cast the balance
which way his Majesty pleases.’ Derby captains now looked to shake
themselves out of mere tavern-life; while spirited young fellows
thought of commissions, and the figure they would cut in new uniforms.
[Sidenote: _THE DUKE OF ORMOND._]
Meanwhile, the Government was not meanly hostile to their dead enemies.
The Duke of Ormond, the boldest and frankest of conspirators against
the Hanoverian succession; the man who more than once would have
invaded his country at the head of foreign troops; he who had fostered
rebellion, and maintained foiled rebels, during his thirty years’
exile, had, at last, died in his eighty-third year. King and ministers
made no opposition to the interment of this splendid arch-traitor in
Westminster Abbey. His anonymous biographer (1747), after stating that
the duke died, on November 14th, 1745, at Avignon, says: ‘On the 18th,
his body was embalmed by four surgeons and three physicians, and in
the following month, May, as a bale of goods, brought through France to
England, and lodg’d in the Jerusalem Chamber, and soon after, decently
enterr’d.’
[Sidenote: _BURIAL OF ORMOND._]
There was something more than mere ‘decency.’ In the ‘General
Advertiser,’ May 23rd, it is announced, but without a word of comment
on the great Jacobite:――‘Last night, about Eleven o’Clock, the Corps
of the late Duke of Ormond was, after lying in State, in the Jerusalem
Chamber, Westminster Abbey, interr’d in great Funeral Pomp and
Solemnity, in the Ormond Vault in King Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, the
whole Choir attending, and the Ceremony was perform’d, by the Right
Rev. the Lord Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster.’
But the popular attention was directed to the other ‘Duke.’ Whatever
Tories may have said at the time, or people generally, since that
period as to the character of the Duke of Cumberland, he was the
popular hero from the moment he arrived in London, after the victory
at Culloden. The papers were full of his praises. They lauded not only
his valour but his piety. After the battle, so they said, he had gone
unattended over the battle-field, and he was not only seen in profound
meditation, but was heard to exclaim,――his hands on his breast, and
his eyes raised to heaven――‘Lord! what am I that I should be spared,
when so many brave men lie dead upon the spot?’ Even Scotsmen have
owned that the duke attributed his victory to God, alone, and that he
was unmoved by the adulation of that large body of Englishmen who
were grateful at having been relieved by him from a great danger. They
compared him with the Black Prince, who won the day at Poictiers, when
he was about the same age as the duke, when _he_ triumphed at Culloden.
The latter was then in his twenty-sixth year.
[Sidenote: _THE QUESTION OF INHUMANITY._]
The orderly-books of the Duke of Cumberland, recently published, fail
to confirm the reports of his cruelty after Culloden. The Jacobites
exaggerated his severity, and they gave the provocation. That an order
was given to the Highlanders to refuse quarter to the troops under the
Duke of Cumberland is proved by Wolfe’s well-known letter. The only
trace of retaliatory rigour is to be found in the following entry in
the above book (Maclachlan’s ‘William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland,’
p. 293): ‘Inverness, April 17th.――The ‘Officers next from Duty to come
from Camp, in order to divide and search the Town for Rebels, their
effects, stores, and baggage. A Captain and 50 Men to march immediately
to the field of Battle, and search all cottages in the neighbourhood
for Rebels. The Officers and Men will take notice that the public
orders of the Rebels yesterday were to give us no quarter.’ In Wolfe’s
letter (he was then on the staff, and one of Hawley’s aides-de-camp),
written on the day the above order was issued, that young officer says:
‘Orders were publicly given in the rebel army, the day before the
action, that no quarter should be given to our troops.’ The latter,
it is equally true, had said on leaving London for the North that
they would neither give nor take quarter; but they had no orders to
such cruel effect. It was soldierly swagger. At the very outset, what
savagery there was, was fostered by the London gentlemen who lived at
home at ease. Walpole suggested if Cumberland were sent against the
Jacobite army, ‘it should not be with that sword of Mercy with which
the present Family have governed their people. Can rigour be displaced
against bandits?’ But, if the young duke should be full of compassion
after victory, Walpole rejoiced to think that in General Hawley there
was a military magistrate of some fierceness, who would not sow the
seeds of disloyalty by too easily pardoning the rebels.
[Sidenote: _INSTIGATORS OF CRUELTY._]
It was said in the London newspapers that the French did not act at
the Battle of Culloden, by reason of their being made acquainted with
the order of giving no quarter to our troops; and that the French
Commanding Officer declared that rather ‘than comply with such a
Resolution he would resign himself and Troops into the Hands of the
Duke of Cumberland; for his directions were to fight and not to commit
Murder.’
[Sidenote: _THE PRISONERS IN LONDON._]
While London was awaiting the return of the hero, whose triumphs had
already been celebrated, the anti-Jacobites were disappointed by being
deprived of greeting in their rough way the arrival of the captured
rebel lords. As early, indeed, as November 1745, Charles Radcliffe
(calling himself Lord Derwentwater) had been taken with his son on
board the ‘Soleil,’ bound for Scotland and high treason, and these
had been got into the Tower, at peril to their lives. But others were
expected. The Earl of Cromartie and his son, Lord Macleod, had been
taken at Dunrobin the day before Culloden. The Earl of Kilmarnock had
been captured in the course of the fight; Lord Balmerino a day or two
after. The old Marquis of Tullibardine, who had been in the fray of
’15, the attempt in ’19, and had escaped after both, missed now his
old luck; _that_ passed to his brother, Lord George Murray, who got
clear off to the Continent. Lord Tullibardine being sorely pressed and
in great distress, sought the house of Buchanan of Drummakill. It is
a question whether Tullibardine asked asylum or legally surrendered
himself. In either case, he was given up. The above lords were
despatched to London by sea in two separate voyages. Thus they were
spared the insults undergone thirty years before by Lord Derwentwater
and his unfortunate companions. On June 29th, Walpole writes: ‘Lady
Cromartie went down _incog._ to Woolwich to see her son pass by,
without the power of speaking to him. I never heard a more melancholy
instance of affection.’ Lord Elcho, who had escaped, solicited a
pardon; but, says Walpole, ‘as he has distinguished himself beyond
all the rebel commanders by brutality and insults and cruelty to our
prisoners, I think he is likely to remain where he is.’ Walpole was of
opinion that the young Chevalier was allowed to escape. He also says:
‘The duke gave Brigadier Mordaunt the Pretender’s coach, on condition
he rode up to London in it. “That I will, sir,” said he, “and drive
till it stops of its own accord at the Cocoa Tree”――the Jacobite Coffee
House in St. James’s Street.’
[Sidenote: _THE DUKE IN ABERDEEN._]
With leafy June came the duke; but before him arrived his baggage. When
that baggage which the duke and General Hawley brought with them from
Scotland was unpacked in London, the articles of which it consisted
must have excited some surprise. To show what it was, it is necessary
to go northward to the house of Mr. Thompson, advocate, in the Great
Row, Aberdeen. The duke had his quarters in that house, after his state
entry into the granite city, in February 1746. Six weeks were the
Thompsons constrained to bear with their illustrious but unprofitable
lodger. They had to supply him with coals, candles, the rich liquids
in the advocate’s cellars, and all the milk of his sole cow. The bed
and table linen was both used and abused. The duke is even charged with
breaking up a press which was full of sugar, of which he requisitioned
every grain. At the end of the six weeks, when about to march from
the city, the duke left among the three servants of the house as
many guineas. This was not illiberal; but Mr. and Mrs. Thompson were
chiefly aggrieved by his Highness’s lack of courtesy. He went away
without asking to see them, or leaving any acknowledgment of their
hospitality by sending even a curt thank ye! General Hawley behaved
even more rudely in the house of Mrs. Gordon of Hallhead. Before he
took possession it was understood that everything was to be locked up,
and that the general was only to have the use of the furniture. This
gallant warrior, as soon as he had flung his plumed hat on the table,
demanded the keys. ◆[Sidenote: _LOOTING._]◆ Much disputation followed,
with angry squabbling, and the keys were only given up on the general’s
threat that he would smash every lock in the house. The yielding came
too late. General and duke together declared all the property of Mrs.
Gordon to be confiscated, except the clothes she wore. ‘Your loyalty,
Madam,’ said Major Wolfe to her, ‘is not suspected;’ which made the
poor lady only the more perplexed as to why she was looted. The major
politely offered to endeavour to get restored to her any article she
particularly desired to recover. ‘I should like to have all my tea
back,’ said Mrs. Gordon. ‘It is good tea,’ said the major. ‘Tea is
scarce in the army. I do not think it recoverable.’ It was the same
with the chocolate and many other things agreeable to the stomach.
‘At all events,’ said the lady, ‘let me have my china again!’ ‘It is
very pretty china,’ replied the provoking major, ‘there is a good deal
of it; and we are fond of china ourselves; but, we have no ladies
travelling with us. I think you should have some of the articles.’ Mrs.
Gordon, however, obtained nothing. She petitioned the duke, and he
promised restitution; but, says the lady herself, ‘when I sent for a
pair of breeches for my son, for a little tea for myself, for a bottle
of ale, for some flour to make bread, because there was none to be
bought in the town, all was refused me!’ ‘In fact, Hawley, on the eve
of his departure,’ Mrs. Gordon tells us, ‘packed up every bit of china
I had, all my bedding and table linen, every book, my repeating clock,
my worked screen, every rag of my husband’s clothes, the very hat,
breeches, night-gown, shoes, and what shirts there were of the child’s;
twelve tea-spoons, strainer and tongs, the japanned board on which the
chocolate and coffee cups stood; and he put them on board a ship in the
night time.’
[Sidenote: _THE DUKE AND HIS PLUNDER._]
Out of this miscellaneous plunder, a tea equipage and a set of coloured
table china, addressed to the Duke of Cumberland at St. James’s,
reached their destination. With what face his Highness could show to
his London friends the valuable china he had stolen from a lady whose
loyalty, he allowed, was above suspicion, defies conjecture. The
spoons, boy’s shirts, breeches, and meaner trifles, were packed up
under an address to General Hawley, London. ‘A house so plundered,’
wrote the lady, ‘I believe was never heard of. It is not 600_l._ would
make up my loss; nor have I at this time a single table-cloth, napkin,
or towel, teacup, glass, or any one convenience.’ One can hardly
believe that any but the more costly articles reached London. Moreover,
whatever censure the Londoners may have cast upon the plunderers, the
duke was not very ill thought of by the Aberdeen authorities. When the
duke was perhaps sipping his tea from the cups, or banquetting his
friends at St. James’s off Mrs. Gordon’s dinner-service, a deputation
from Aberdeen brought to his Highness the ‘freedom’ of the city, with
many high compliments on the bravery and good conduct of the victor at
Culloden!
The duke got tired of his tea-set. He is said to have presented it to
one of the daughters of husseydom, and the damsel sold it to a dealer
in such things. A friend of Mrs. Gordon’s saw the set exposed for sale
in the dealer’s window, and on inquiry he learnt, from the dealer
himself, through what clean hands it had come into his possession.
[Sidenote: _A HUMAN HEAD._]
If report might be credited the Duke of Cumberland brought with him to
London, and in his own carriage, a human head, which he believed to be
that of Charles Edward! Young Roderick Mackenzie called to the soldiers
who shot him down in the Braes of Glenmorristen, ‘Soldiers, you have
killed your lawful prince!’ These words, uttered to divert pursuit
from the young Chevalier, were believed, and when Roderick died, the
soldiers cut off his head and brought it to the Duke of Cumberland’s
quarters. Robert Chambers, in his ‘History of the Rebellion,’ qualifies
with an ‘_it is said_’ the story that the duke stowed away the head in
his chaise, and carried it to London. Dr. Chambers adds, as a fact,
that Richard Morrison, Charles Edward’s body-servant, and a prisoner
at Carlisle, was sent for to London, as the best witness to decide the
question of identity. Morrison fainted at this trial of his feelings;
but regaining composure, he looked steadily at the relic, and declared
that it was not the head of his beloved master.
[Sidenote: ‘_SWEET WILLIAM._’]
But all minor matters were forgotten in the general joy. Now the duke
was back in person, loyal London went mad about ‘the son of George, the
image of Nassau!’ Flattery, at once flowery and poetical, was heaped
upon him. A flower once dedicated to William III. was now dedicated
to him. The white rose in a man’s button-hole or on a lady’s bosom,
in the month of June, was not greater warranty of a Jacobite than the
‘Sweet-William,’ with its old appropriate name, was of a Whig to the
back-bone. Of the poetical homage, here is a sample:――
The pride of France is lily-white,
The rose in June is Jacobite;
The prickly thistle of the Scot
Is Northern knighthood’s badge and lot.
But since the Duke’s victorious blows,
The Lily, Thistle, and the Rose
All droop and fade and die away:
Sweet William’s flower rules the day.
’Tis English growth of beauteous hue,
Clothed, like our troops, in red and blue.
No plant with brighter lustre grows,
Except the laurel on his brows.
[Sidenote: _FLATTERY._]
Poetasters converted Horace’s laudation of Augustus into flattery of
Cumberland. Fables were written in which sweet William served at once
for subject and for moral. Epigrams from Martial, or from a worse
source――the writers’ own brains――were fresh but bluntly pointed in his
favour. Some of them compared him to the sun, at whose warmth ‘vermin
cast off their coats and took wing.’ Others raised him far above great
Julius; for Cumberland ‘conquers, coming; and before he sees.’ Sappho,
under the name of _Clarinda_, told the world, on hearing a report of
the duke’s illness, that if Heaven took him, it would be the death of
her, and that the world would lose a Hero and a Maid together. Heroic
writers, trying Homer’s strain, and not finding themselves equal to
it, blamed poor Homer, and declared that the strings of his lyre were
too weak to bear the strain of the modern warrior’s praise. Occasional
prologues hailed him as ‘the martial boy,’ on the day he entered his
twenty-sixth year. Pinchbeck struck a medal in his honour; punsters in
coffee-houses rang the changes on _metal_ and _mettle_, and Pinchbeck
became almost as famous for the medal as he subsequently became for his
invention of new candle-snuffers, when the poets besought him to ‘snuff
the candle of the state, which burned a little blue.’ In fine, ballads,
essays, apologues, prose and poetry, were exhausted in furnishing
homage to the hero. The homage culminated when the duke’s portrait
appeared in all the shops, bearing the inscription, ‘ECCE HOMO!’
[Illustration: Flowers]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]