The author of "The Grounds and Reasons of Monarchy," whose historical
libel is perpetuated in the works of Harrington, is JOHN HALL, of Gray's
Inn, sometimes described of Durham; one of those fervid spirits who take
the bent of the times in a revolutionary period. He must be classed
among those precocious minds which astonish their contemporaries by
acquisitions of knowledge, combined with the finest genius, and in their
boyhood betray no immaturity. We may receive with some suspicion
accounts of such gifted youths, though they come from competent judges;
but when we are reminded of the Rowley of Chatterton, and find what HALL
did, we must conclude that there are meteorous beings, whose eccentric
orbits we know not how to describe. HALL, prevented by the civil wars
from entering the university, pursued his studies in the privacy of the
library at Durham. When the war ceased, he was admitted at Cambridge;
and in 1646 published, in his nineteenth year, _Horae Vacivae_, or
"Essays, with some Occasional Considerations." These are essays in
prose; and at a time when our literature could boast of none except the
masterpieces of Lord Bacon, a boy of nineteen sends forth this
extraordinary volume. Even our plain Anthony caught the rapture; for he
describes its appearance--"the sudden breaking forth of which amazed not
only the university, but the more serious part of men in the three
nations, when they (the Essays) were spread." Here is the puerility of a
genius of the first order! A boy's essays raised the admiration of "the
three nations!" and they remain still remarkable! This youth seems to
have modelled his manner on Bacon for the turn of his thoughts, and on
Seneca for the point and sparkle of his periods. The dwarf rose strong
as a giant.[1]
The boy having astonished the world by a volume of his prose, amazed
them in the succeeding year by a volume of his verse, poetry as graceful
as the prose was nervous; his verses still adorn the most elegant of our
modern anthologies.[2]
Attracted to the metropolis, he entered as a student at Gray's Inn; and
there his political character soon assumed the supremacy over his
literary. He sided with the independents, the ultra-commonwealth-men,
and satirised the presbyterians, the friends of monarchy. He plunged
into extreme measures; courting his new masters by the baseness of a
busy pen, he justified Barebones' parliament, got up a state-pamphlet
against the Hollanders, proposed the reform of the universities, "to
have the Frier-like list of the fellowships _reduced_, and _the rest of
the revenue_ of the university _sequestered into the hands of the
committee_," of which, probably, he might himself have been one. The
exchequer was opened; he received "present sums of money;" and the
council granted their scribe a considerable pension.
During this life of political activity, Hall, in 1650, was commanded by
the council of state to repair to Scotland, to attend on Cromwell, for
the purpose of settling affairs in favour of the commonwealth, and to
wean the Scots from their lingering affection for the surviving Stuart.
It was then that Hall, in his vocation, sent forth the thunder of a
party-pamphlet, "The Grounds and Reasons of Monarchy." This
extraordinary tract consists of two parts: the first, more elaborately
composed, is an argumentative exposition of anti-monarchical doctrines;
in the second, to bring the business home to their bosoms, he offers a
demonstration of his principles, in a review of the whole Scottish
history, sarcastically reminding them of their kings "crowned with happy
reigns, and quiet deaths (two successively scarce dying naturally)." It
is a mass of invectives and calumnies in the disguise of grave history;
and this historical libel, concocted for a particular time and a
particular place, was eagerly received at Edinburgh, and immediately
republished in London, where it was sure of as warm a reception.[3]
Hall's passion for literature must have been intense; for amid these
discordant days, he found time to glide into hours of refreshing
studies. He gave us the first vernacular version of "The Sublime" of
Longinus,[4] and left another of the moral Hierocles. This gifted youth
with sportive facility turned English into Latin, or Latin into English;
it has been recorded of him that he translated the greater part of a
singular work of the Alchemical Maier, in one afternoon over his wine at
a tavern; and he entranced the ear of that universal patron, Edward
Bendlowes, by turning into Latin verse three hundred lines of his
mystical poem of "Theophila," at one sitting.
In this impassioned existence, excited by the acrimony of politics, and
the enthusiasm of study, he fell into reckless dissipation, and
undermined a constitution which, probably, had all the delicacy and
sensitiveness of his genius. He sunk in the struggle of celebrity and
personal indulgence, and hastened back to his family to die, when he had
hardly attained to manhood.
A true prodigy of genius was this JOHN HALL; for not only he could warm
into admiration our literary antiquary, but the greater philosopher
Hobbes, not prone to flattery, has left a memorial of this impassioned
and precocious being. "Had not his debauches and intemperance diverted
him from the more severe studies, he had made an extraordinary person;
for no man had ever done so great things at his age."