(Edinburgh Review, October, 1838.)
Mr. Courtenay {1}has long been well known to politicians as an
industrious and useful official man, and as an upright and consistent
member of Parliament. He has been one of the most moderate, and, at the
same time, one of the least pliant members of the Conservative party.
His conduct has, indeed, on some questions, been so Whiggish, that both
those who applauded and those who condemned it have questioned his claim
to be considered as a Tory. But his Toryism, such as it is, he has held
fast through all changes of fortune and fashion; and he has at last
retired from public life, leaving behind him, to the best of our belief,
no personal enemy, and carrying with him the respect and good will of
many who strongly dissent from his opinions.
This book, the fruit of Mr. Courtenay’s leisure, is introduced by a
preface in which he informs us that the
(1) _Memoirs of the Life, Works, and Correspondence of Sir
William Temple_. By the Right Hon. Thomas Peregrine
Courtenay. 2 vols. 6vo. London: 1836.
{2}assistance furnished to him from various quarters “has taught him
the superiority of literature to politics for developing the kindlier
feelings, and conducing to an agreeable life.” We are truly glad that
Mr. Courtenay is so well satisfied with his new employment, and we
heartily congratulate him on having been driven by events to make an
exchange which, advantageous as it is, few people make while they can
avoid it. He has little reason, in our opinion, to envy any of those who
are still engaged in a pursuit from which, at most, they can only expect
that, by relinquishing liberal studies and social pleasures, by passing
nights without sleep and summers without one glimpse of the beauty of
nature, they may attain that laborious, that invidious, that closely
watched slavery which is mocked with the name of power.
The volumes before us are fairly entitled to the praise of diligence,
care, good sense, and impartiality; and these qualities are sufficient
to make a hook valuable, but not quite sufficient to make it readable.
Mr. Courtenay has not sufficiently studied the arts of selection and
compression. The information with which he furnishes us, must still, we
apprehend, be considered as so much raw material. To manufacturers it
will be highly useful; but it is not yet in such a form that it can be
enjoyed by the idle consumer. To drop metaphor, we are afraid that this
work will be less acceptable to those who read for the sake of reading,
than to those who read in order to write.
We cannot help adding, though we are extremely unwilling to quarrel
with Mr. Courtenay about politics, that the book would not be at all the
worse if it contained fewer snarls against the Whigs of the present day.
Not only are these passages out of place in a {3}historical work, but
some of them are intrinsically such that they would become the editor of
a third-rate party newspaper better than a gentleman of Mr. Courtenay’s
talents and knowledge. For example, we are told that, “it is a
remarkable circumstance, familiar to those who are acquainted with
history, but suppressed by the new Whigs, that the liberal politicians
of the seventeenth century and the greater part of the eighteenth, never
extended their liberality to the native Irish, or the professors of
the ancient religion.” What schoolboy of fourteen is ignorant of this
remarkable circumstance? What Whig, new or old, was ever such an idiot
as to think that it could be suppressed? Really we might as well say
that it is a remarkable circumstance, familiar to people well read
in history, but carefully suppressed by the Clergy of the Established
Church, that in the fifteenth century England was in communion with
Rome. We are tempted to make some remarks on another passage, which
seems to be the peroration of a speech intended to have been spoken
against the Reform Bill: but we forbear.
We doubt whether it will be found that the memory of Sir William Temple
owes much to Mr. Courtenay’s researches. Temple is one of those men whom
the world has agreed to praise highly without knowing much about them,
and who are therefore more likely to lose than to gain by a close
examination. Yet he is not without fair pretensions to the most
honourable place among the statesmen of his time. A few of them equalled
or surpassed him in talents; but they were men of no good repute for
honesty. A few may be named whose patriotism was purer, nobler, and
more disinterested than his; but they were men of no eminent ability.
Morally, he was above Shaftesbury; intellectually, he was above Russell.
{4}To say of a man that lie occupied a high position in times of
misgovernment, of corruption, of civil and religious faction, that
nevertheless he contracted no great stain and bore no part in any great
crime, that he won the esteem of a profligate Court and of a turbulent
people, without being guilty of any disgraceful subserviency to either,
seems to be very high praise; and all this may with truth be said of
Temple.
Yet Temple is not a man to our taste. A temper not naturally good, but
under strict command; a constant regard to decorum; a rare caution in
playing that mixed game of skill and-hazard, human life; a disposition
to be content with small and certain winnings rather than to go on
doubling the stake; these seem to us to be the most remarkable features
of his character. This sort of moderation, when united, as in him it
was, with very considerable abilities, is, under ordinary circumstances,
scarcely to be distinguished from the highest and purest integrity, and
yet may be perfectly compatible with laxity of principle, with coldness
of heart, and with the most intense selfishness. Temple, we fear, had
not sufficient warmth and elevation of sentiment to deserve the name
of a virtuous man. He did not betray or oppress his country: nay, he
rendered considerable services to her; but he risked nothing for her. No
temptation which either the King or the Opposition could hold out ever
induced him to come forward as the supporter either of arbitrary or
of factious measures. But he was most careful not to give offence by
strenuously opposing such measures. He never put himself prominently
before the public eye, except at conjunctures when he was almost
certain to gain and could not possibly lose, at conjunctures when the
{5}interest of the State, the views of the Court, and the passions of
the multitude, all appeared for an instant to coincide. By judiciously
availing himself of several of these rare moments, he succeeded in
establishing a high character for wisdom and patriotism. When the
favourable crisis was passed, he never risked the reputation which he
had won. He avoided the great offices of State with a caution almost
pusillanimous, and confined himself to quiet and secluded departments of
public business, in which he could enjoy moderate but certain advantages
without incurring envy. If the circumstances of the country became such
that it was impossible to take any part in politics without some danger,
he retired to his library and his orchard, and, while the nation groaned
under oppression, or resounded with tumult and with the din of civil
arms, amused himself by writing memoirs and tying up apricots. His
political career bore some resemblance to the military career of Lewis
the Fourteenth. Lewis, lest his royal dignity should be compromised by
failure, never repaired to a siege, till it had been reported to him by
the most skilful officers in his service’, that nothing could prevent
the fall of the place. When this was ascertained, the monarch, in his
helmet and cuirass, appeared among the tents, held councils of war,
dictated the capitulation, received the keys, and then returned to
Versailles to hear his flatterers repeat that Turenne had been beaten at
Mariendal, that Condé had been forced to raise the siege of Arras, and
that the only warrior whose glory had never been obscured by a single
check was Lewis the Great. Yet Coudé and Turenne will always be
considered as captains of a very different order from the invincible
Lewis; and we must own that many statesmen who have committed {6}great
faults, appear to us to be deserving of more esteem than the faultless
Temple. For in truth his faultlessness is chiefly to be ascribed to
his extreme dread of all responsibility, to his determination rather
to leave his country in a scrape than to run any chance of being in a
scrape himself. He seems to have been averse from danger; and it must
be admitted that the dangers to which a public man was exposed, in those
days of conflicting tyranny and sedition, were of the most serious kind.
He could not bear discomfort, bodily or mental. His lamentations when,
in the course of his diplomatic journeys, he was put a little out of his
way, and forced, in the vulgar phrase, to rough it, are quite amusing.
He talks of riding a day or two on a bad Westphalian road, of sleeping
on straw for one night, of travelling in winter when the snow lay on the
ground, as if he had gone on an expedition to the North Pole or to the
source of the Nile. This kind of valetudinarian effeminacy, this habit
of coddling himself, appears in all parts of his conduct. He loved fame,
but not with the love of an exalted and generous mind. He loved it as
an end, not at all as a means; as a personal luxury, not at all as an
instrument of advantage to others. He scraped it together and treasured
it up with a timid and niggardly thrift; and never employed the hoard in
any enterprise, however virtuous and useful, in which there was hazard
of losing one particle. No wonder if such a person did little, or
nothing which deserves positive blame. But much more than this may
justly be demanded of a man possessed of such abilities, and placed
in such a situation. Had Temple been brought before Dante’s infernal
tribunal, he would not have been condemned to the deeper recesses of the
abyss. He would not have {7}been boiled with Dundee in the crimson pool
of Bulicame, or hurled with Danby into the seething pitch of Malebolge,
or congealed with Churchill in the eternal ice of Giudecca; but he would
perhaps have been placed in the dark vestibule next to the shade of that
inglorious pontiff--
“Che fece per viltate il gran rifiuto.”
Of course a man is not bound to be a politician any more than he is
bound to be a soldier; and there are perfectly honourable ways of
quitting both politics and the military profession. But neither in the
one way of life, nor in the other, is any man entitled to take all the
sweet and leave all the sour. A man who belongs to the army only in time
of peace, who appears at reviews in Hyde Park, escorts the Sovereign
with the utmost valour and fidelity to and from the House of Lords,
and retires as soon as he thinks it likely that he may be ordered on an
expedition, is justly thought to have disgraced himself. Some portion
of the censure due to such a holiday-soldier may justly fall on the mere
holiday-politician, who flinches from his duties as soon as those duties
become difficult and disagreeable, that is to say, as soon as it becomes
peculiarly important that he should resolutely perform them.
But though we are far indeed from considering Temple as a perfect
statesman, though we place him below many statesmen who have committed
very great errors, we cannot deny that, when compared with his
contemporaries, he makes a highly respectable appearance. The reaction
which followed the victory of the popular party over Charles the First,
had produced a hurtful effect on the national character; and this effect
was most discernible in the classes and in the places {8}which had been
most strongly excited by the recent revolution. The deterioration was
greater in London than in the country, and was greatest of all in the
courtly and official circles. Almost all that remained of what had been
good and noble in the Cavaliers and Roundheads of 1642, was now to be
found in the middling orders. The principles and feelings which prompted
the Grand Remonstrance were still strong among the sturdy yeomen, and
the decent God-fearing merchants. The spirit of Derby and Capel still
glowed in many sequestered manor-houses; but among those political
leaders who, at the time of the Restoration, were still young or in the
vigour of manhood, there was neither a Southampton nor a Vane, neither
a Falkland nor a Hampden. The pure, fervent, and constant loyalty which,
in the preceding reign, had remained unshaken on fields of disastrous
battle, in foreign garrets and cellars, and at the bar of the High Court
of Justice, was scarcely to be found among the rising courtiers. As
little, or still less, could the new chiefs of parties lay claim to the
great qualities of the statesmen who had stood at the head of the Long
Parliament. Hampden, Pym, Vane, Cromwell, are discriminated from the
ablest politicians of the succeeding generation, by all the strong
lineaments which distinguish the men who produce revolutions from the
men whom revolutions produce. The leader in a great change, the man who
stirs up a reposing community, and overthrows a deeply-rooted system,
may be a very depraved man; but he can scarcely be destitute of some
moral qualities which extort even from enemies a reluctant admiration,
fixedness of purpose, intensity of will, enthusiasm, which is not the
less fierce or persevering because it is sometimes disguised under the
{9}semblance of composure, and which bears down before it the force of
circumstances and the opposition of reluctant minds. These qualities,
variously combined with all sorts of virtues and vices, may be found, we
think, in most of the authors of great civil and religious movements, in
Cæsar, in Mahomet, in Hildebrand, in Dominic, in Luther, in Robespierre;
and these qualities were found, in no scanty measure, among the chiefs
of the party which opposed Charles the First. The character of the men
whose minds are formed in the midst of the confusion which follows
a great revolution is generally very different. Heat, the natural
philosophers tell us, produces rarefaction of the air; and rarefaction
of the air produces cold. So zeal makes revolutions; and revolutions
make men zealous for nothing. The politicians of whom we speak,
whatever may be their natural capacity or courage, are almost always
characterised by a peculiar levity, a peculiar inconstancy, an easy,
apathetic way of looking at the most solemn questions, a willingness to
leave the direction of their course to fortune and popular opinion, a
notion that one public cause is nearly as good as another, and a firm
conviction that it is much better to be the hireling of the worst cause
than to be a martyr to the best.
This was most strikingly the case with the English statesmen of
the generation which followed the Restoration. They had neither the
enthusiasm of the Cavalier nor the enthusiasm of the Republican. They
had been early emancipated from the dominion of old usages and feelings;
yet they had not acquired a strong passion for innovation. Accustomed to
see old establishments shaking, falling, lying in ruins all around them,
accustomed to live under a succession of {10}constitutions of which
the average duration was about a twelvemonth, they had no religious
reverence for prescription, nothing of that frame of mind which
naturally springs from the habitual contemplation of immemorial
antiquity and immovable stability. Accustomed, on the other hand, to
see change after change welcomed with eager hope and ending in
disappointment, to see shame and confusion of face follow the
extravagant hopes and predictions of rash and fanatical innovators, they
had learned to look on professions of public spirit, and on schemes of
reform, with distrust and contempt. They sometimes talked the language
of devoted subjects, sometimes that of ardent lovers of their country.
But their secret creed seems to have been, that loyalty was one great
delusion, and patriotism another. If they really entertained any
predilection for the monarchical or for the popular part of the
constitution, for episcopacy or for presbyterianism, that predilection
was feeble and languid, and instead of overcoming, as in the times of
their fathers, the dread of exile, confiscation, and death, was rarely
of power to resist the slightest impulse of selfish ambition or of
selfish fear. Such was the texture of the presbyterianism of Lauderdale,
and of the speculative republicanism of Halifax. The sense of political
honour seemed to be extinct. With the great mass of mankind, the test
of integrity in a public man is consistency. This test, though very
defective, is perhaps the best that any, except very acute or very near
observers, are capable of applying; and does undoubtedly enable the
people to form an estimate of the characters of the great, which, on the
whole, approximates to correctness. But during the Latter part of the
seventeenth century, inconsistency {11}had necessarily ceased to be a
disgrace; and a man was no more taunted with it, than he is taunted with
being black at Timbuctoo. Nobody was ashamed of avowing what was common
between him and the whole nation. In the short space of about seven
years, the supreme power had been held by the Long Parliament, by a
Council of Officers, by Barebones’ Parliament, by a Council of Officers
again, by a Protector according to the Instrument of Government, by
a Protector according to the Humble Petition and Advice, by the Long
Parliament again, by a third Council of Officers, by the Long Parliament
a third time, by the Convention, and by the King. In such times,
consistency is so inconvenient to a man who affects it, and to all who
are connected with him, that it ceases to be regarded as a virtue, and
is considered as impracticable obstinacy and idle scrupulosity. Indeed,
in such times, a good citizen may be bound in duty to serve a succession
of Governments. Blake did so in one profession and Hale in another; and
the conduct of both has been approved by posterity. But it is clear that
when inconsistency with respect to the most important public questions
has ceased to be a reproach, inconsistency with respect to questions
of minor importance is not likely to be regarded as dishonourable. In a
country in which many very honest people had, within the space of a few
months, supported the government of the Protector, that of the Rump, and
that of the King, a man was not likely to be ashamed of abandoning his
party for a place, or of voting for a bill which he had opposed.
The public men of the times which followed the Restoration were by no
means deficient in courage or ability; and some kinds of talent appear
to have been developed {12}amongst them to a remarkable, we might almost
say, to a morbid and unnatural degree. Neither Theramenes in ancient,
nor Talleyrand in modern times, had a finer perception of all the
peculiarities of character, and of all the indications of coming change,
than some of our countrymen in that age. Their power of reading
things of high import, in signs which to others were invisible or
unintelligible, resembled magic. But the curse of Reuben was upon them
all: “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.”
This character is susceptible of innumerable modifications, according
to the innumerable varieties of intellect and temper in which it may be
found. Men of unquiet minds and violent ambition followed a fearfully
eccentric course, darted wildly from one extreme to another, served
and betrayed all parties in turn, showed their unblushing foreheads
alternately in the van of the most corrupt administrations and of the
most factious oppositions, were privy to the most guilty mysteries,
first of the Cabal, and then of the Rye-House Plot, abjured their
religion to win their sovereign’s favour while they were secretly
planning his overthrow, shrived themselves to Jesuits with letters in
cipher from the Prince of Orange in their pockets, corresponded with
the Hague whilst in office under James, and began to correspond with St.
Germain’s as soon as they had kissed hands for office under William. But
Temple was not one of these. He was not destitute of ambition. But his
was not one of those souls in which unsatisfied ambition anticipates the
tortures of hell, gnaws like the worm which dieth not, and burns like
the fire which is not quenched. His principle was to make sure of
safety and comfort, and to let greatness come if it would. It came:
he enjoyed it: and, in the very {13}first moment in which it could no
longer be enjoyed without danger and vexation, he contentedly let it go.
He was not exempt, we think, from the prevailing political immorality.
His mind took the contagion, but took it _ad modum recipientis_, in
a form so mild that an undiscerning judge might doubt whether it were
indeed the same fierce pestilence that was raging all around. The
malady partook of the constitutional languor of the patient. The general
corruption, mitigated by his calm and unadventurous temperament, showed
itself in omissions and desertions, not in positive crimes; and his
inactivity, though sometimes timorous and selfish, becomes respectable
when compared with the malevolent and perfidious restlessness of
Shaftesbury and Sunderland.
Temple, sprang from a family which, though ancient and honourable, had,
before his time, been scarcely mentioned in our history, but which,
long after his death, produced so many eminent men, and formed
such distinguished alliances, that it exercised, in a regular and
constitutional manner, an influence in the state scarcely inferior to
that which, in widely different times, and by widely different arts, the
House of Neville attained in England, and that of Douglas in Scotland.
During the latter years of George the Second, and through the whole
reign of George the Third, members of that widely spread and powerful
connection were almost constantly at the head either of the Government
or of the Opposition. There were times when the cousinhood, as it was
once nicknamed, would of itself have furnished almost all the materials
necessary for the construction of an efficient Cabinet. Within the space
of fifty years, three First Lords of the Treasury, three Secretaries of
State, two Keepers {14}of the Privy Seal, and four First Lords of
the Admiralty were appointed from among the sons and grandsons of the
Countess Temple.
So splendid have been the fortunes of the main stock of the Temple
family, continued by female succession. William Temple, the first of the
line who attained to any historical eminence, was of a younger branch.
His father, Sir John Temple, was Master of the Rolls in Ireland, and
distinguished himself among the Privy Councillors of that kingdom by the
zeal with which, at the commencement of the struggle between the Crown
and the Long Parliament, he supported the popular cause. He was arrested
by order of the Duke of Ormond, but regained his liberty by an exchange,
repaired to England, and there sate in the House of Commons as burgess
for Chichester. He attached himself to the Presbyterian party, and was
one of those moderate members who, at the close of the year 1648, voted
for treating with Charles on the basis to which that Prince had himself
agreed, and who were, in consequence, turned out of the House, with
small ceremony, by Colonel Pride. Sir John seems, however, to have made
his peace with the victorious Independents; for, in 1653, he resumed his
office in Ireland.
Sir John Temple was married to a sister of the celebrated Henry Hammond,
a learned and pious divine, who took the side of the King with
very conspicuous zeal during the civil war, and was deprived of his
preferment in the church after the victory of the Parliament. On account
of the loss which Hammond sustained on this occasion, he has the honour
of being designated, in the cant of that new brood of Oxonian sectaries
who unite the worst parts of the Jesuit to the worst parts of the
Orangeman, as Hammond, Presbyter, Doctor, and Confessor. {15}William
Temple, Sir John’s eldest son, was born in London in the year 1628. He
received his early education under his maternal uncle, was subsequently
sent to school at Bishop-Stortford, and, at seventeen, began to reside
at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where the celebrated Cudworth was his
tutor. The times were not favourable to study. The Civil War disturbed
even the quiet cloisters and bowling-greens of Cambridge, produced
violent revolutions in the government and discipline of the colleges,
and unsettled the minds of the students. Temple forgot at Emmanuel all
the little Greek which he had brought from Bishop-Stortford, and never
retrieved the loss; a circumstance which would hardly be worth noticing
but for the almost incredible fact that, fifty years later, he was
so absurd as to set up his own authority against that of Bentley on
questions of Greek history and philology. He made no proficiency either
in the old philosophy which still lingered in the schools of Cambridge,
or in the new philosophy of which Lord Bacon was the founder. But to
the end of his life he continued to speak of the former with ignorant
admiration, and of the latter with equally ignorant contempt.
After residing at Cambridge two years, he departed without taking a
degree, and set out upon his travels. He seems to have been then a
lively, agreeable young man of fashion, not by any means deeply read,
but versed in all the superficial accomplishments of a gentleman, and
acceptable in all polite societies. In politics he professed himself a
Royalist. His opinions on religious subjects seem to have been such as
might be expected from a young man of quick parts, who had received a
rambling education, who had not thought, deeply, who had been disgusted
by the morose austerity {16}of the Puritans, and who, surrounded from
childhood by the hubbub of conflicting sects, might easily learn to feel
an impartial contempt for them all.
On his road to France he fell in with the son and daughter of Sir Peter
Osborne. Sir Peter held Guernsey for the King, and the young people
were, like their father, warm for the royal cause. At an inn where they
stopped in the Isle of Wight, the brother amused himself with inscribing
on the windows his opinion of the ruling powers. For this instance
of malignancy the whole party were arrested, and brought before the
governor. The sister, trusting to the tenderness which, even in those
troubled times, scarcely any gentleman of any party ever failed to
show where a woman was concerned, took the crime on herself, and was
immediately set at liberty with her fellow-travellers.
This incident, as was natural, made a deep impression on Temple. He was
only twenty. Dorothy Osborne was twenty-one. She is said to have been
handsome; and there remains abundant proof that she possessed an ample
share of the dexterity, the vivacity, and the tenderness of her sex.
Temple soon became, in the phrase of that time, her servant, and she
returned his regard. But difficulties, as great as ever expanded a novel
to the fifth volume, opposed their wishes. When the courtship commenced,
the father of the hero was sitting in the Long Parliament; the father of
the heroine was commanding in Guernsey for King Charles. Even when the
war ended, and Sir Peter Osborne returned to his seat at Chicksands, the
prospects of the lovers were scarcely less gloomy. Sir John Temple had
a more advantageous alliance in view for his son. Dorothy Osborne was in
the mean {17}time besieged by as many suitors as were drawn to Belmont
by the fame of Portia. The most distinguished on the list was Henry
Cromwell. Destitute of the capacity, the energy, the magnanimity of his
illustrious father, destitute also of the meek and placid virtues of
his elder brother, this young man was perhaps a more formidable rival in
love than either of them would have been. Mrs. Hutchinson, speaking the
sentiments of the grave and aged, describes him as an “insolent foole,”
and a “debauched ungodly cavalier.” These expressions probably mean that
he was one who, among young and dissipated people, would pass for a fine
gentleman. Dorothy was fond of dogs of larger and more formidable breed
than those which lie on modern hearth rugs; and Henry Cromwell promised
that the highest functionaries at Dublin should be set to work
to procure her a fine Irish greyhound. She seems to have felt his
attentions as very flattering, though his father was then only
Lord-General, and not yet Protector. Love, however, triumphed over
ambition, and the young lady appears never to have regretted her
decision; though, in a letter written just at the time when all England
was ringing with the news of the violent dissolution of the Long
Parliament, she could not refrain from reminding Temple, with pardonable
vanity, “how great she might have been, if she had been so wise as to
have taken hold of the offer of H. C.”
Nor was it only the influence of rivals that Temple had to dread. The
relations of his mistress regarded him with personal dislike, and spoke
of him as an unprincipled adventurer, without honour or religion, ready
to render service to any party for the sake of preferment. This
is, indeed, a very distorted view of Temple’s {18}character. Yet a
character, even in the most distorted view taken of it by the most angry
and prejudiced minds, generally retains something of its outline. No
caricaturist ever represented Mr. Pitt as a Falstaff, or Mr. Fox as a
skeleton; nor did any libeller ever impute parsimony to Sheridan, or
profusion to Marlborough. It must be allowed that the turn of mind
which the eulogists of Temple have dignified with the appellation of
philosophical indifference, and which, however becoming it may be in an
old and experienced statesman, has a somewhat ungraceful appearance in
youth, might easily appear shocking to a family who were ready to
fight or to suffer martyrdom for their exiled King and their persecuted
church. The poor girl was exceedingly hurt and irritated by these
imputations on her lover, defended him warmly behind his back, and
addressed to himself some very tender and anxious admonitions, mingled
with assurances of her confidence in his honour and virtue. On one
occasion she was most highly provoked by the way in which one of her
brothers spoke of Temple. “We talked ourselves weary,” she says; “he
renounced me, and I defied him.”
Near seven years did this arduous wooing continue. We are not accurately
informed respecting Temple’s movements during that time. But he seems
to have led a rambling life, sometimes on the Continent, sometimes in
Ireland, sometimes in London. He made himself master of the French and
Spanish languages, and amused himself by writing essays and romances, an
employment which at least served the purpose of forming his style. The
specimen which Mr. Courtenay has preserved of these early compositions
is by no means contemptible: indeed, there is one passage on {19}Like
and Dislike which could have been produced only by a mind habituated
carefully to reflect on its own operations, and which reminds us of the
best things in Montaigne.
Temple appears to have kept up a very active correspondence with his
mistress. His letters are lost, but hers have been preserved; and many
of them appear in these volumes. Mr. Courtenay expresses some doubt
whether his readers will think him justified in inserting so large a
number of these epistles. We only wish that there were twice as many.
Very little indeed of the diplomatic correspondence of that generation
is so well worth reading. There is a vile phrase of which bad historians
are exceedingly fond, “the dignity of history.” One writer is in
possession of some anecdotes which would illustrate most strikingly the
operation of the Mississippi scheme on the manners and morals of the
Parisians. But he suppresses those anecdotes, because they are too low
for the dignity of history. Another is strongly tempted to mention
some facts indicating the horrible state of the prisons of England two
hundred years age. But he hardly thinks that the sufferings of a dozen
felons, pigging together on bare bricks in a hole fifteen feet square,
would form a subject suited to the dignity of history. Another, from
respect for the dignity of history, publishes an account of the reign
of George the Second, without ever mentioning Whitefield’s preaching
in Moorfields. How should a writer, who can talk about senates, and
congresses of sovereigns, and pragmatic sanctions, and ravelines, and
counterscarps, and battles where ten thousand men are killed, and six
thousand men with fifty stand of colours and eighty guns taken, stoop
to the Stock-Exchange, to Newgate, to the theatre, to the tabernacle?
{20}Tragedy has its dignity as well as history; and how much the tragic
art has owed to that dignity any man may judge who will compare the
majestic Alexandrines in which the Seigneur Oreste and Madame Andromaque
utter their complaints, with the chattering of the fool in Lear and of
the nurse in Romeo and Juliet.
That a historian should not record trifles, that he should confine
himself to what is important, is perfectly true. But many writers seem
never to have considered on what the historical importance of an event
depends. They seem not to be aware that the importance of a fact, when
that fact is considered with reference to its immediate effects, and the
importance of the same fact, when that fact is considered as part of
the materials for the construction of a science, are two very different
things. The quantity of good or evil which a transaction produces is by
no means necessarily proportioned to the quantity of light which that
transaction affords, as to the way in which good or evil may hereafter
be produced. The poisoning of an emperor is in one sense a far more
serious matter than the poisoning of a rat. But the poisoning of a
rat may be an era in chemistry; and an emperor may be poisoned by such
ordinary means, and with such ordinary symptoms, that no scientific
journal would notice the occurrence. An action for a hundred thousand
pounds is in one sense a more momentous affair than an action for
fifty-pounds. But it by no means follows that the learned gentlemen
who report the proceedings of the courts of law ought to give a fuller
account of an action for a hundred thousand pounds, than of an action
for fifty pounds. For a cause in which a large sum is at stake may
be important only to the particular {21}plaintiff and the particular
defendant. A cause, on the other hand, in which a small sum is at stake,
may establish some great principle interesting to half the families in
the kingdom. The case is exactly the same with that class of subjects of
which historians treat. To an Athenian, in the time of the Peloponnesian
war, the result of the battle of Delium was far more important than the
fate of the comedy of The Knights. But to us the fact that the comedy of
The Knights was brought on the Athenian stage with success is far more
important than the fact that the Athenian phalanx gave way to Delium.
Neither the one event nor the other has now any intrinsic importance. We
are in no danger of being speared by the Thebans. We are not quizzed in
The Knights. To us the importance of both events consists in the value
of the general truth which is to be learned from them. What general
truth do we learn from the accounts which have come down to us of the
battle of Delium? Very little more than this, that when two armies
fight, its not improbable that one of them will be very soundly beaten,
a truth which it would not, we apprehend, be difficult to establish,
even if all memory of the battle of Delium were lost among men. But a
man who becomes acquainted with the comedy of The Knights, and with
the history of that comedy, at once feels his mind enlarged. Society
is presented to him under a new aspect. He may have read and travelled
much. He may have visited all the countries of Europe, and the civilised
nations of the East. He may have observed the manners of many barbarous
races. But here is something altogether different from every thing
which he has seen, either among polished men or among savages. Here is a
community politically, intellectually, {22}and morally unlike any other
community of which he has the means of forming an opinion. This is the
really precious part of history, the corn which some threshers carefully
sever from the chaff, for the purpose of gathering the chaff into the
garner, and flinging the corn into the fire.
Thinking thus, we are glad to learn so much, and would willingly
learn more, about the loves of Sir William and his mistress. In the
seventeenth century, to be sure, Lewis the Fourteenth was a much more
important person than Temple’s sweetheart. But death and time equalise
all things. Neither the great King, nor the beauty of Bedfordshire,
neither the gorgeous paradise of Marli nor Mistress Osborne’s favourite
walk “in the common that lay hard by the house, where a great many young
wenches used to keep sheep and cows and sit in the shade singing of
ballads,” is any thing to us. Lewis and Dorothy are alike dust. A
cotton-mill stands on the rains of Marli; and the Osbornes have ceased
to dwell under the ancient roof of Chicksands. But of that information
for the sake of which alone it is worth while to study remote events, we
find so much in the love letters which Mr. Courtenay has published,
that we would gladly purchase equally interesting billets with ten times
their weight in state-papers taken at random. To us surely it is as
useful to know how the young ladies of England employed themselves a
hundred and eighty years ago, how far their minds were cultivated, what
were their favourite studies, what degree of liberty was allowed to
them, what use they made of that liberty, what accomplishments they most
valued, in men, and what proofs of tenderness delicacy permitted them
to give to favoured suitors, as to know all about the {23}seizure of
Franche Comté and the treaty of Nimeguen. The mutual relations of the
two sexes seem to us to be at least as important as the mutual relations
of any two governments in the world; and a series of letters written by
a virtuous, amiable, and sensible girl, and intended for the eye of her
lover alone, can scarcely fail to throw some light on the relations of
the sexes; whereas it is perfectly possible, as all who have made any
historical researches can attest, to read bale after bale of despatches
and protocols, without catching one glimpse of light about the relations
of governments.
Mr. Courtenay proclaims that he is one of Dorothy Osborne’s devoted
servants, and expresses a hope that the publication of her letters will
add to the number. We must declare ourselves his rivals. She really
seems to have been a very charming young woman, modest, generous,
affectionate, intelligent, and sprightly; a royalist, as was to be
expected from her connections, with-out any of that political asperity
which is as unwomanly as a long beard; religious, and occasionally
gliding into a very pretty and endearing sort of preaching, yet not
too good to partake of such diversions as London afforded under the
melancholy rule of the puritans, or to giggle a little at a ridiculous
sermon from a divine who was thought to be one of the great lights of
the Assembly at Westminster; with a little turn for coquetry, which was
yet perfectly compatible with warm and disinterested attachment, and
a little turn for satire, which yet seldom passed the bounds of
good-nature. She loved reading; but her studies were not those of Queen
Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey. She read the verses of Cowley and Lord
Broghill, French Memoirs recommended by her lover, and the travels of
Fernando {24}Mendez Pinto. But her favourite books were those ponderous
French romances which modern readers know chiefly from the pleasant
satire of Charlotte Lennox. She could not, however, help laughing at
the vile English into which they were translated. Her own style is very
agreeable; nor are her letters at all the worse for some passages in
which raillery and tenderness are mixed in a very engaging namby-pamby.
When at last the constancy of the lovers had triumphed over all the
obstacles which kinsmen and rivals could oppose to their union, a yet
more serious calamity befell them. Poor Mistress Osborne fell ill of
the smallpox, and, though she escaped with life, lost all her beauty.
To this most severe trial the affection and honour of the lovers of that
age was not unfrequently subjected. Our readers probably remember what
Mrs. Hutchinson tells us of herself. The lofty Cornelia-like spirit of
the aged matron seems to melt into a long forgotten softness when she
relates how her beloved Colonel “married her as soon as she was able to
quit the chamber, when the priest and all that saw her were affrighted
to look on her. But God,” she adds, with a not ungraceful vanity,
“recompensed his justice and constancy, by restoring her as well as
before.” Temple showed on this occasion the same justice and constancy
which did so much honour to Colonel Hutchinson. The date of the marriage
is not exactly known. But Mr. Courtenay supposes it to have taken place
about the end of the year 1654. From this time we lose sight of Dorothy,
and are reduced to form our opinion of the terms on which she and her
husband were from very slight indications which may easily mislead us.
Temple soon went to Ireland, and resided with his father, partly at
Dublin, partly in the county of Carlow. {25}Ireland was probably then
a more agreeable residence for the higher classes, as compared with
England, than it has ever been before or since. In no part of the
empire were the superiority of Cromwell’s abilities and the force of his
character so signally displayed. He had not the power, and probably
had not the inclination, to govern that island in the best way. The
rebellion of the aboriginal race had excited in England a strong
religious and national aversion to them: nor is there any reason to
believe that the Protector was so far beyond his age as to be free from
the prevailing sentiment. He had vanquished them; he knew that they
were in his power; and he regarded them as a band of malefactors and
idolaters, who were mercifully treated if they were not smitten with the
edge of the sword. On those who resisted he had made war as the Hebrews
made war on the Canaanites. Drogheda was as Jericho; and Wexford as Ai.
To the remains of the old population the conqueror granted a peace, such
as that which Israel granted to the Gibeonites. He made them hewers of
wood and drawers of water. But, good or bad, he could not be otherwise
than great. Under favourable circumstances, Ireland would have found in
him a most just and beneficent ruler. She found in him a tyrant; not a
small teasing tyrant, such as those who have so long been her curse and
her shame, but one of those awful tyrants who, at long intervals, seem
to be sent on earth, like avenging angels, with some high commission of
destruction and renovation.
He was no man of half measures, of mean affronts and ungracious
concessions. His Protestant ascendency was not an ascendency of ribands,
and fiddles, and statues, and processions. He would never have dreamed
of abolishing the penal code and withholding {26}from Catholics the
elective franchise, of giving them the elective franchise and excluding
them from Parliament, of admitting them to Parliament, and refusing to
them a full and equal participation in all the blessings of society
and government. The thing most alien from his clear intellect and his
commanding spirit was petty persecution. He knew how to tolerate; and he
knew how to destroy. His administration in Ireland was an administration
on what are now called Orange principles, followed out most ably,
most steadily, most undauntedly, most unrelentingly, to every extreme
consequence to which those principles lead; and it would, if continued,
inevitably have produced the effect which he contemplated, an entire
decomposition and reconstruction of society. He had a great and definite
object in view, to make Ireland thoroughly English, to make Ireland
another Yorkshire or Norfolk. Thinly peopled as Ireland then was, this
end was not unattainable; and there is every reason to believe that,
if his policy had been followed during fifty years, this end would have
been attained. Instead of an emigration, such as we now see from Ireland
to England, there was, under his government, a constant and large
emigration from England to Ireland. This tide of population ran almost
as strongly as that which now runs from Massachusetts and Connecticut to
the states behind the Ohio. The native race was driven back before the
advancing van of the Anglo-Saxon population, as the American Indians
or the tribes of Southern Africa are now driven back before the white
settlers. Those fearful phænomena which have almost invariably attended
the planting of civilised colonies in uncivilised countries, and which
had been known to the nations of Europe only by distant and questionable
rumour, were now publicly exhibited in {27}their sight. The words,
“extirpation,” “eradication,” were often in the mouths of the English
back-settlers of Leinster and Munster, cruel words, yet, in their
cruelty, containing more mercy than much softer expressions which have
since been sanctioned by universities and cheered by Parliaments. For it
is in truth more merciful to extirpate a hundred thousand human beings
at once, and to fill the void with a well-governed population, than to
misgovern millions through a long succession of generations. We can much
more easily pardon tremendous severities inflicted for a great object,
than an endless series of paltry vexations and oppressions inflicted for
no rational object at all.
Ireland was fast becoming English. Civilisation and wealth were making
rapid progress in almost every part of the island. The effects of
that iron despotism are described to us by a hostile witness in very
remarkable language. “Which is more wonderful,” says Lord Clarendon,
“all this was done and settled within little more than two years, to
that degree of perfection that there were many buildings raised for
beauty as well as use, orderly and regular plantations of trees, and
fences and inclosures raised throughout the kingdom, purchases made
by one from another at very valuable rates, and jointures made upon
marriages, and all other conveyances and settlements executed, as in a
kingdom at peace within itself, and where no doubt could be made of the
validity of titles.”
All Temple’s feelings about Irish questions were those of a colonist and
a member of the dominant caste. He troubled himself as little about
the welfare of the remains of the old Celtic population, as an English
farmer on the Swan River troubles himself about the New Hollanders, or a
Dutch boor at the Cape about {28}the Caffres. The years which he passed
in Ireland, while the Cromwellian system was in full operation, he
always described as “years of great satisfaction.” Farming, gardening,
county business, and studies rather entertaining than profound,
occupied his time. In politics he took no part, and many years later he
attributed this inaction to his love of the ancient constitution, which,
he said, “would not suffer him to enter into public affairs till the way
was plain for the King’s happy restoration.” It does not appear, indeed,
that any offer of employment was made to him. If he really did refuse
any preferment, we may, without much breach of charity, attribute the
refusal rather to the caution which, during his whole life, prevented
him from running any risk, than to the fervour of his loyalty.
In 1660 he made his first appearance in public life. He sat in the
convention which, in the midst of the general confusion that preceded
the Restoration, was summoned by the chiefs of the army of Ireland
to meet in Dublin. After the King’s return an Irish parliament was
regularly convoked, in which Temple represented the county of Carlow.
The details of his conduct in this situation are not known to us. But we
are told in general terms, and can easily believe, that he showed great
moderation, and great aptitude for business. It is probable that he also
distinguished himself in debate; for many years afterwards he remarked
that “his friends in Ireland used to think that, if he had any talent at
all, it lay in that way.”
In May, 1668, the Irish parliament was prorogued, and Temple repaired to
England with his wife. His income amounted to about five hundred pounds
a year, a sum which was then sufficient for the wants of a family mixing
in fashionable circles. He passed two {29}years in London, where he
seems to have led that easy, lounging life which was best suited to his
temper.
He was not, however, unmindful of his interest. He had brought with him
letters of introduction from the Duke of Ormond, then Lord-Lieutenant
of Ireland, to Clarendon, and to Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, who was
Secretary of State. Clarendon was at the head of affairs. But his power
was visibly declining, and was certain to decline more and more every
day. An observer much less discerning than Temple might easily perceive
that the Chancellor was a man who belonged to a by-gone world, a
representative of a past age, of obsolete modes of thinking, of
unfashionable vices, and of more unfashionable virtues. His long exile
had made him a stranger in’ the country of his birth. His mind, heated
by conflict and by personal suffering, was far more set against popular
and tolerant courses than it had been at the time of the breaking out of
the civil war. He pined for the decorous tyranny of the old Whitehall;
for the days of that sainted king who deprived his people of their
money and their ears, but let their wives and daughters alone; and could
scarcely reconcile himself to a court with a seraglio and without a
Star-chamber. By taking this course he made himself every day more
odious, both to the sovereign, who loved pleasure much more than
prerogative, and to the people, who dreaded royal prerogatives much more
than royal pleasures; and thus he was at last more detested by the Court
than any chief of the Opposition, and more detested by the Parliament
than any pandar of the Court.
Temple, whose great maxim was to defend no party, was not likely to
cling to the falling fortunes of a minister the study of whose life
was to offend all {30}parties. Arlington, whose influence was gradually
rising as that of Clarendon diminished, was the most useful patron to
whom a young adventurer could attach himself. This statesman, without
virtue, wisdom, or strength of mind, had raised himself to greatness
by superficial qualities, and was the mere creature of the time, the
circumstances, and the company. The dignified reserve of manners which
he had acquired during a residence in Spain provoked the ridicule of
those who considered the usages of the French court as the only standard
of good breeding, but served to impress the crowd with a favourable
opinion of his sagacity and gravity. In situations where the solemnity
of the Escurial would have been out of place, he threw it aside without
difficulty, and conversed with great humour and vivacity. While the
multitude were talking of “Bennet’s grave looks,” (1) his mirth made his
presence always welcome in the royal closet. While Buckingham, in the
antechamber, was mimicking the pompous Castilian strut of the Secretary,
for the diversion of Mistress Stuart, this stately Don was ridiculing
Clarendon’s sober counsels to the King within, till his Majesty cried
with laughter, and the Chancellor with vexation. There perhaps never
was a man whose outward demeanour made such different impressions on
different people. Count Hamilton, for example, describes him as a
stupid formalist, who had been made secretary solely on account of his
mysterious and important looks. Clarendon, on the other hand, represents
him as a man whose “best faculty was raillery,” and who was “for his
pleasant and agreeable humour acceptable unto the King.”
(1) “Bennet’s grave looks were a pretence” is a line in one
of the best political poems of that age.
{31}The truth seems to be that, destitute as Bennet was of all the
higher qualifications of a minister, he had a wonderful talent for
becoming, in outward semblance, all things to all men. He had two
aspects, a busy and serious one for the public, whom he wished to awe
into respect, and a gay one for Charles, who thought that the greatest
service which could be rendered to a prince was to amuse him. Yet both
these were masks which he laid aside when they had served their turn.
Long after, when he had retired to his deer park and fish-ponds in
Suffolk, and had no motive to act the part either of the hidalgo or of
the buffoon, Evelyn, who was neither an unpractised nor an undiscerning
judge, conversed much with him, and pronounced him to be a man of
singularly polished manners and of great colloquial powers.
Clarendon, proud and imperious by nature, soured by age and disease, and
relying on his great talents and services, sought out no new allies. He
seems to have taken a sort of morose pleasure in slighting and provoking
all the rising talent of the kingdom. His connections were almost
entirely confined to the small circle, every day becoming smaller, of
old cavaliers who had been friends of his youth or companions of his
exile. Arlington, on the other hand, beat up everywhere for recruits. No
man had a greater personal following, and no man exerted himself more
to serve his adherents. It was a kind of habit with him to push up his
dependents to his own level, and then to complain bitterly of their
ingratitude because they did not choose to be his dependents any longer.
It was thus that he quarrelled with two successive Treasurers, Gifford
and Danby. To Arlington Temple attached himself, and was not sparing of
warm professions of {32}affection, or even, we grieve to say, of gross
and almost profane adulation. In no long time he obtained his reward.
England was in a very different situation with respect to foreign powers
from that which she had occupied during the splendid administration of
the Protector. She was engaged in war with the United Provinces, then
governed with almost regal power by the Grand Pensionary, John de Witt;
and though no war had ever cost the kingdom so much, none had ever been
more feebly and meanly conducted. France had espoused the interests of
the States-General. Denmark seemed likely to take the same side. Spain,
indignant at the close political and matrimonial alliance which Charles
had formed with the House of Braganza, was not disposed to lend him
any assistance. The great plague of London had suspended trade, had
scattered the ministers and nobles, had paralysed every department
of the public service, and had increased the gloomy discontent which
misgovernment had begun to excite throughout the nation. One continental
ally England possessed, the Bishop of Munster, a restless and ambitious
prelate, bred a soldier, and still a soldier in all his tastes and
passions. He hated the Dutch for interfering in the affairs of his see,
and declared himself willing to risk his little dominions for the
chance of revenge. He sent, accordingly, a strange kind of ambassador to
London, a Benedictine monk, who spoke bad English, and looked, says
Lord Clarendon, “like a carter.” This person brought a letter from the
Bishop, offering to make an attack by land on the Dutch territory. The
English ministers eagerly caught at the proposal, and promised a subsidy
of 500,000 rix-dollars to their new ally. It was determined to send an
English {33}agent to Munster; and Arlington, to whose department the
business belonged, fixed on Temple for this post.
Temple accepted the commission, and acquitted himself to the
satisfaction of his employers, though the whole plan ended in nothing,
and the Bishop, finding that France had joined Holland, made haste,
after pocketing an instalment of his subsidy, to conclude a separate
peace. Temple, at a later period, looked back with no great satisfaction
to this part of his life; and excused himself for undertaking a
negotiation from which little good could result, by saying that he was
then young and very new to business. In truth, he could hardly have
been placed in a situation where the eminent diplomatic talents which he
possessed could have appeared to less advantage. He was ignorant of the
German language, and did not easily accommodate himself to the manners
of the people. He could not bear much wine; and none but a hard drinker
had any chance of success in Westphalian Society. Under all these
disadvantages, however, he gave so much satisfaction that he was created
a baronet, and appointed resident at the viceregal court of Brussels.
Brussels suited Temple far better than the palaces of the boar-hunting
and wine-bibbing princes of Germany. He now occupied one of the
most important posts of observation in which a diplomatist could be
stationed. He was placed in the territory of a great neutral power,
between the territories of two great powers which were at war with
England. From this excellent school he soon came forth the most
accomplished negotiator of his age.
In the mean time the government of Charles had suffered a succession of
humiliating disasters. The {34}extravagance of the court had dissipated
all the means which Parliament had supplied for the purpose of carrying
on offensive hostilities. It was determined to wage only a defensive
war; and even for defensive war the vast resources of England, managed
by triflers and public robbers, were found insufficient. The Dutch
insulted the British coasts, sailed up the Thames, took Sheerness, and
carried their ravages to Chatham. The blaze of the ships burning in the
river was seen at London: it was rumoured that a foreign army had landed
at Gravesend; and military men seriously proposed to abandon the Tower.
To such a depth of infamy had a bad administration reduced that proud
and victorious country, which a few years before had dictated its
pleasure to Mazarine, to the States-General, and to the Vatican. Humbled
by the events of the war, and dreading the just anger of Parliament, the
English Ministry hastened to huddle up a peace with France and Holland
at Breda.
But a new scene was about to open. It had already been for some
time apparent to discerning observers, that England and Holland were
threatened by a common danger, much more formidable than any which
they had reason to apprehend from each other. The old enemy of their
independence and of their religion was no longer to be dreaded. The
sceptre had passed away from Spain. That mighty empire, on which the sun
never set, which had crushed the liberties of Italy and Germany, which
had occupied Paris with its armies, and covered the British seas with
its sails, was at the mercy of every spoiler; and Europe observed with
dismay the rapid growth of a new and more formidable power. Men looked
to Spain and saw only weakness disguised and increased by pride,
{35}dominions of vast bulk and little strength, tempting, unwieldy, and
defenceless, an empty treasury, a sullen and torpid nation, a child
on the throne, factions in the council, ministers who served only
themselves, and soldiers who were terrible only to their countrymen. Men
looked to France, and saw a large and compact territory, a rich soil, a
central situation, a bold, alert, and ingenious people, large revenues,
numerous and well-disciplined troops, an active and ambitious prince, in
the flower of his age, surrounded by generals of unrivalled skill. The
projects of Lewis could be counteracted only by ability, vigour, and
union on the part of his neighbours. Ability and vigour had hitherto
been found in the councils of Holland alone, and of union there was no
appearance in Europe. The question of Portuguese independence
separated England from Spain. Old grudges, recent hostilities, maritime
pretensions, commercial competition separated England as widely from the
United Provinces.
The great object of Lewis, from the beginning to the end of his reign,
was the acquisition of those large and valuable provinces of the Spanish
monarchy, which lay contiguous to the eastern frontier of France.
Already, before the conclusion of the treaty of Breda, he had invaded
those provinces. He now pushed on his conquest with scarcely any
resistance. Fortress after fortress was taken. Brussels itself was in
danger; and Temple thought it wise to send his wife and children.
to England. But his sister, Lady Giffard, who had been some time his
inmate, and who seems to have been a more important personage in his
family than his wife, still remained with him.
De Witt saw the progress of the French arms with painful anxiety. But
it was not in the power of {36}Holland alone to save Flanders; and the
difficulty of forming an extensive coalition for that purpose appeared
almost insuperable. Lewis, indeed, affected moderation. He declared
himself willing to agree to a compromise with Spain. But these offers
were undoubtedly mere professions, intended to quiet the apprehensions
of the neighbouring powers; and, as his position became every day more
and more advantageous, it was to be expected that he would rise in his
demands.
Such was the state of affairs when Temple obtained from the English
Ministry permission to make a tour in Holland incognito. In company
with Lady Gif-fard he arrived at the Hague. He was not charged with
any public commission, but he availed himself of this opportunity of
introducing himself to De Witt. “My only business, sir,” he said, “is to
see the things which are most considerable in your country, and I should
execute my design very imperfectly if I went away without seeing you.”
De Witt, who from report had formed a high opinion of Temple, was
pleased by the compliment, and replied with a frankness and cordiality
which at once led to intimacy. The two statesmen talked calmly over
the causes which had estranged England from Holland, congratulated each
other on the peace, and then began to discuss the new dangers which
menaced Europe. Temple, who had no authority to say any thing on behalf
of the English Government, expressed himself very guardedly. De Witt,
who was himself the Dutch Government, had no reason to be reserved. He
openly declared that his wish was to see a general coalition formed for
the preservation of Flanders. His simplicity and openness amazed Temple,
who had been accustomed to the affected solemnity of his patron, the
Secretary, and to {37}the eternal doublings and evasions which passed
for great feats of statesmanship among the Spanish politicians at
Brussels. “Whoever,” he wrote to Arlington, “deals with M. de Witt must
go the same plain way that he pretends to in his negotiations, without
refining or colouring or offering shadow for substance.” Temple was
scarcely less struck by the modest dwelling and frugal table of the
first citizen of the richest state in the world. While Clarendon was
amazing London with a dwelling more sumptuous than the palace of his
master, while Arlington was lavishing his ill-gotten wealth on the
decoys and orange-gardens and interminable conservatories of Euston, the
great statesman who had frustrated all their plans of conquest, and the
roar of whose guns they had heard with terror even in the galleries of
Whitehall, kept only a single servant, walked about the streets in the
plainest garb, and never used a coach except for visits of ceremony.
Temple sent a full account of his interview with De Witt to Arlington,
who, in consequence of the fall of the Chancellor, now shared with the
Duke of Buckingham the principal direction of affairs. Arlington showed
no disposition to meet the advances of the Dutch minister. Indeed,
as was amply proved a few years later, both he and his master were
perfectly willing to purchase the means of misgoverning England by
giving up, not only Flanders, but the whole Continent, to France.
Temple, who distinctly saw that a moment had arrived at which it was
possible to reconcile his country with Holland, to reconcile Charles
with the Parliament, to bridle the power of Lewis, to efface the shame
of the late ignominious war, to restore England to the same place in
Europe {38}which she had occupied under Cromwell, became more and more
urgent in his representations. Arlington’s replies were for some time
couched in cold and ambiguous terms. But the events which followed the
meeting of Parliament, in the autumn of 1667, appear to have produced
an entire change in his views. The discontent of the nation was deep and
general. The administration was attacked in all its parts. The King and
the ministers laboured, not unsuccessfully, to throw on Clarendon the
blame of past miscarriages; but though the Commons were resolved that
the late Chancellor should be the first victim, it was by no means clear
that he would be the last. The Secretary was personally attacked with
great bitterness in the course of the debates. One of the resolutions of
the Lower House against Clarendon was in truth a censure of the foreign
policy of the Government, as too favourable to France. To these events
chiefly we are inclined to attribute the change which at this crisis
took place in the measures of England. The Ministry seem to have felt
that, if they wished to derive any advantage from Clarendon’s downfall,
it was necessary for them to abandon what was supposed to be Clarendon’s
system, and by some splendid and popular measure to win the confidence
of the nation. Accordingly, in December, 1667, Temple received a
despatch containing instructions of the highest importance. The plan
which he had so strongly recommended was approved; and he was directed
to visit De Witt as speedily as possible, and to ascertain whether the
States were willing to enter into an offensive and defensive league
with England against the projects of France. Temple, accompanied by his
sister, instantly set out for the Hague, and laid the propositions
of the English Government before the Grand Pensionary. {39}The Dutch
statesman answered with characteristic straightforwardness, that he was
fully ready to agree to a defensive confederacy, but that it was the
fundamental principle of the foreign policy of the States to make no
offensive alliance under any circumstances whatever. With this answer
Temple hastened from the Hague to London, had an audience of the King,
related what had passed between himself and De Witt, exerted himself to
remove the unfavourable opinion which had been conceived of the Grand
Pensionary at the English court, and had the satisfaction of succeeding
in all his objects. On the evening of the first of January, 1668, a
council was held, at which Charles declared his resolution to unite
with the Dutch on their own terms. Temple and his indefatigable sister
immediately sailed again for the Hague, and, after weathering a violent
storm in which they were very nearly lost, arrived in safety at the
place of their destination.
On this occasion, as on every other, the dealings between Temple and
De Witt were singularly fair and open. When they met, Temple began by
recapitulating what had passed at their last interview. De Witt, who was
as little given to lying with his face as with his tongue, marked his
assent by his looks while the recapitulation proceeded, and, when it
was concluded, answered that Temple’s memory was perfectly correct, and
thanked him for proceeding in so exact and sincere a manner. Temple then
informed the Grand Pensionary that the King of England had determined
to close with the proposal of a defensive alliance. De Witt had not
expected so speedy a resolution; and his countenance indicated surprise
as well as pleasure. But he did not retract, and it was speedily
arranged that England and Holland should unite for the purpose {40}of
compelling Lewis to abide by the compromise which he had formerly
offered. The next object of the two statesmen was to induce another
government to become a party to their league. The victories of Gustavus
and Torstenson, and the political talents of Oxenstiern, had obtained
for Sweden a consideration in Europe, disproportioned to her real power:
the princes of Northern Germany stood in great awe of her; and De Witt
and Temple agreed that if she could be induced to accede to the league,
“it would be too strong a bar for France to venture on.” Temple went
that same evening to Count Dona, the Swedish Minister at the Hague, took
a seat in the most unceremonious manner, and, with that air of frankness
and good-will, by which he often succeeded in rendering his diplomatic
overtures acceptable, explained the scheme which was in agitation.
Dona was greatly pleased and flattered. He had not powers which would
authorize him to conclude a treaty of such importance. But he strongly
advised Temple and De Witt to do their part without delay, and seemed
confident that Sweden would accede. The ordinary course of public
business in Holland was too slow for the present emergency; and De Witt
appeared to have some scruples about breaking through the established
forms. But the urgency and dexterity of Temple prevailed. The
States-General took the responsibility of executing the treaty with
a celerity unprecedented in the annals of the federation, and indeed
inconsistent with its fundamental laws. The state of public feeling
was, however, such in all the provinces, that this irregularity was not
merely pardoned but applauded. When the instrument had been formally
signed, the Dutch Commissioners embraced the English Plenipotentiary
with the warmest expressions {41}of kindness and confidence. “At Breda,”
exclaimed Temple, “we embraced as friends, here as brothers.”
This memorable negotiation occupied only five days. De Witt complimented
Temple in high terms on having effected in so short a time what must,
under other management, have been the work of months; and Temple, in his
despatches, spoke in equally high terms of De Witt. “I must add these
words, to do M. de Witt right, that I found him as plain, as direct and
square in the course of this business as any man could be, though often
stiff in points where he thought any advantage could accrue to his
country; and have all the reason in the world to be satisfied with him;
and for his industry, no man had ever more I am sure. For these five
days at least, neither of us spent any idle hours, neither day nor
night.”
Sweden willingly acceded to the league, which is known in history by the
name of the Triple Alliance; and, after some signs of ill-humour on the
part of France, a general pacification was the result.
The Triple Alliance may be viewed in two lights, as a measure of foreign
policy, and as a measure of domestic policy; and under both aspects it
seems to us deserving of all the praise which has been bestowed upon it.