[The most accessible works are Sir Harris Nicolas' _Chronology of
History_, and _Companion to the Almanack_ for 1830, pp. 32, 33.
Consult also _L'Art de Verifier les Dates_ and, above all,
Professor De Morgan's _Book of Almanacks_.]
_John Lilburne._--A list of the pamphlets published by, or relating to,
John Lilburne, or any facts respecting his life or works, will be of
service to one who is collecting for a biography of "Free-born John."
EDWARD PEACOCK, Jun.
Bottesford Moors, Kirton in Lindsey.
[Watt's _Bibliotheca Britannica_ contains a list of Lilburne's
pamphlets, which would occupy two pages of "NOTES AND QUERIES!" A
collection of tracts relating to Lilburne, 1646, 4to., 2 vols.,
will be found in the Towneley Catalogue, Part I. p. 636. Sold for
1_l._ 13_s._ _Truth's Victory over Tyrants, being the Trial of
John Lilburne_, London, 1649, 4to., contains a portrait of him
standing at the bar. Butler, in _Hudibrus_, Part III., Canto ii.,
has vividly drawn his character in the paragraph commencing at
line 421.:--
"To match this saint, there was another,
As busy and perverse a brother,
An haberdasher of small wares,
In politics and state-affairs," &c.
"This character," says Dr. Grey, "exactly suits John Lilburne and
no other. For it was said of him, when living, by Judge Jenkins,
'That if the world was emptied of all but himself, Lilburne would
quarrel with John, and John with Lilburne;' which part of his
character gave occasion for the following lines at his death:--
"'Is John departed, and is Lilburne gone?
Farewell to both, to Lilburne and to John.
Yet, being dead, take this advice from me,
Let them not both in one grave buried be:
Lay John here, and Lilburne thereabout,
For, if they both should meet, they would fall out.'
"Lilburne died a Quaker, August 28, 1657. See _Mercurius
Politicus_, No. 379. p. 1597.; Mr. Peek's _Desiderata Curiosa_,
from Mr. Smith's _Obituary_, vol. ii. lib. xiv. p. 30. Also a
character of Lilburne, in Thurloe's _State Papers_, vol. iii. p.
512; and an account of his obstinacy, in his _Trial_, reprinted in
the _State Trials_."]
Replies.
"LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL."
(Vol. iii., p. 464.)
I am obliged to M. for his notice of my paper upon this poem, and
gratified by his concurrence with my remarks.
Very likely M. may be right in his explanations of the "_incuria_"
imputed by me to the great author, and I may have made a _mistake_,
without pleading guilty to the same charge: but if M. will refer to the
4th and two following Sections of sixth canto of the _Lay_, he will find
it thus written:
"Me lists not at this tide declare
The splendour of _the spousal rite_," &c.
Again, Sec. V.:
"Some bards have sung, the Ladye high
Chapel or altar came not nigh;
Nor dust the _rites of spousal grace_
So much she feared each holy place," &c.
Again, Sec. VI.:
"_The spousal rites_ were ended soon."
And again, in Sect. VIII. are these words:
"To quit them, on the English side,
Red Roland Forster loudly cried,
'A deep carouse to yon fair _bride_!'"
Now, in the ordinary acceptation of these words the _spousal rite_ means
nuptials, and a _bride_ means a newly married wife; and as the ceremony
of the _spousal rite_ is described as taking place with much pomp in the
chapel, and at the altar, it looks very like a wedding indeed. But if,
after all, it were only a betrothal, I willingly withdraw the charge of
"_incuria_," and subscribe to the propriety of the "Minstrel's"
information, that the bridal actually "befel a short space;"
"And how brave sons and daughters fair
Blest Teviot's flower and Cranstoun's heir."
And now a word touching M.'s hint of giving a corner in the "NOTES AND
QUERIES" to the "Prophecy of Criticism." If he will forgive me the
remark, I do not think the phrase a very happy one. Criticism does not
_prophecy_, it _pronounces_, and is valuable only in proportion to the
judgment, taste, and knowledge displayed in its sentence. Above all, the
critic should be impartial, and by no means allow himself to be biassed
by either prejudice or prepossession, whether personal or political.
Still less should he sacrifice his subject in order to prove the
acuteness and point of his own weapon, which is too often dipped in gall
instead of honey. To what extent these qualifications are found in our
modern reviewers let each man answer according to his own experience:
but as critics are not infallible, and as authors generally see more,
feel more, and think more than the ordinary run of critics and readers
give them credit for, I doubt not that a place will always be open in
the "NOTES AND QUERIES," in answer to the _fallacies_ of criticism,
wherever they may be detected.