"A Discourse of Government, as examined by Reason, Scripture, and the
Law of the Land. Written in 1678, small 8vo.: London, 1694."
"Memoirs of the Reign of King Charles I., &c., 8vo.: London, 1702."
To one or the other of these publications there was prefixed a preface
which, as giving offence to the government, was suppressed. I agree with
Mr. Bindley, who says (writing to Mr. Granger),
"The account you have given in your books of the _suppressed preface_
to Sir Philip Warwick's _Memoirs_, is an anecdote too curious not to
make one wish it _authenticated_."--_Letters to Mr. Granger_, p. 389.
The statement of Granger is adopted also by the Edinburgh editor of the
_Memoirs_ in 1813 (query, Sir W. Scott?), who says in his preface,
"These Memoirs were first published by the learned Dr. Thomas Smith, a
nonjuring divine, distinguished by oriental learning, and his writings
concerning the Greek Church. The learned editor added a preface so much
marked by his political principles, that he was compelled to _alter and
retrench it_, for fear of a prosecution at the instance of the
crown."--_Preface_, p. ix.
So far as concerns the _Memoirs_. But in a note prefixed to a copy of the
_Discourse of Government_, now in the Bodleian among Malone's books, and in
his handwriting, it is stated,--
"This book was published by Dr. Thomas Smith, the learned writer
concerning the Greek Church. The preface, not being agreeable to the
Court at the time it was published (the 5th year of William III.), was
suppressed by authority, but is found in this and a few other copies.
Granger says (vol. iv. p. 60., vol. v. p. 267., new edit.) that this
preface by Dr. Smith was prefixed to Sir P. W.'s _Memoirs of Charles
I._; but this is a mistake. Whether Smith was the editor of the
_Memoirs_ I know not.--EDMOND MALONE."
The obnoxious preface is assigned to the _Discourse of Government_ also, by
a writer in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1790, p. 509., where is a
portrait of Warwick, and a notice of his life.
The Edinburgh editor of the _Memoirs_ gives the _original preface_ of that
work, which presents nothing at which exception could be taken. But as my
copy of the _Discourse_ is one of the few which (according to Malone)
retains the address of "the publisher to the reader," I transcribe the
following passages, which perhaps will sufficiently explain the suppression
in 1694:
"As to the disciples and followers of Buchanan, Hobbs and Milton, who
have exceeded their masters in downright impudence, scurrility, and
lying, and the new modellers of commonwealths, who, under a zealous
pretence of securing the rights of a _fancied original contract_
against the encroachments of monarchs, are sowing the seeds of eternal
disagreements, confusions, {269} and bloody wars throughout the world
(for the influence of evil principles hath no bounds, but, like
infectious air, spreads everywhere), the peaceable, sober, truly
Christian, and Church-of-England doctrine contained in this book, so
directly contrary to their furious, mad, unchristian, and fanatical
maxims, it cannot otherwise be expected but that they will soon be
alarmed, and betake themselves to their usual arts of slander and
reviling, and grow very fierce and clamorous upon it. Whatever shall
happen," &c.