The editors of contemporary memoirs have often suffered an impenetrable
mystery to hang over their publications, by an apparent suppression of
the original. By this studious evasion of submitting the manuscript to
public inspection, they long diminished the credit of the printed
volumes. Enemies whose hostility the memorialists had raised up, in the
meanwhile practised every artifice of detraction, racking their
invention to persuade the world that but little faith was due to these
pretended revelations; while the editors, mute and timorous, from
private motives which they wished to conceal, dared not explain, in
their lifetime, the part which they had really taken in editing these
works. In the course of years, circumstances often became too
complicated to be disentangled, or were of too delicate a nature to be
nakedly exposed to the public scrutiny; the accusations grew more
confident, the defence more vague, the suspicions more probable, the
rumours and the hearsays more prevalent--the public confidence in the
authenticity of these contemporary memoirs was thus continually shaken.
Such has been the fate of the history of the Earl of Clarendon, which,
during a long interval of time, had to contend with prudential editors,
and its perfidious opponents. And it is only at this late day that we
are enabled to draw the veil from the mystery of its publication, and to
reconcile the contradictory statements, so positively alleged by the
assertors of the integrity of the text, and the impugners of its
genuineness. We now can adjust with certainty so many vague
protestations of its authenticity, by those who could not themselves
have known it, with the sceptical cavils which at times seemed not
always doubtful, and with one infamous charge which was not less
positive than it proved to be utterly fictitious. The fate and character
of this great historical work was long involved in the most intricate
and obscure incidents; and this bibliographical tale offers a striking
illustration of the disingenuity alike of the assailants and the
defenders.
The history of Lord CLARENDON was composed by the express desire of
Charles the First. This prince, in the midst of his fugitive and
troubled life, seemed still regardful of posterity; and we might think,
were it not too flattering to his judgment, that by his selection of
this historian, he anticipated the genius of an immortal writer. We know
the king carefully conveyed to the noble author many historical
documents, to furnish this vindication, or apology, of the calamitous
measures to which that fated sovereign was driven. The earnest
performance of this design, fervid with the eloquence of the writer,
proceeding on such opposite principles to those of the advocates of
popular freedom, and bearing on its awful front the condemnatory title
of "The Rebellion," provoked their indignant feelings; and from its
first appearance they attempted to blast its credit, by sinking it into
a mere party production. But the elevated character of "The Chancellor
of Human Nature," as Warburton emphatically described him, stood almost
beyond the reach of his assailants: it was by a circuitous attack that
they contrived to depreciate the work, by pointing their assault on the
presumed editors of the posthumous history. And though the genius of the
historian, and the peculiarity of his style, could not but be apparent
through the whole of this elaborate work, yet rumours soon gathered from
various quarters, that the text had been tampered with by "the Oxford
editors;" and some, judging by the preface, and the heated and party
dedication to the queen, which, it has been asserted, afterwards induced
the Tory frenzy of Sacheverell, imagined that the editors had converted
the history into a vehicle of their own passions. The "History of
Clarendon" was declared to be mutilated, interpolated, and, at length,
even forged; the taint of suspicion long weakened the confidence of
general readers. Even Warburton suspected that the editors had taken the
liberty of omitting passages; but, with a reliance on their honour, he
believed they had never dared to incorporate any additions of their own.
The History of Lord CLARENDON thus, from its first appearance, was
attended by the concomitant difficulties of contemporary history, as we
shall find the editors soon discovered when they sat down to their task;
difficulties which occasioned their peculiar embarrassments. Even the
noble author himself had considered that "a piece of this nature,
wherein the infirmities of some, and the malice of others, both things
and persons, must be boldly looked upon and mentioned, is not likely to
appear in the age in which it was written." Lord Clarendon seems to have
been fully aware that the freedom of the historical pen is equally
displeasing to all parties. A contemporary historian is doomed to the
peculiar unhappiness of encountering living witnesses, prompt to
challenge the correctness of his details, and the fairness of his views;
for him the complaints of friends will not be less unreasonable than the
clamours of foes. And this happened to the present work. The history was
not only assailed by men of a party, but by men of a family. They whose
relatives had immolated their persons, and wrecked their fortunes, by
their allegiance to the royal cause, were mortified by the silence of
the historian; the writer was censured for omissions which had never
entered into his design; for he was writing less a general history of
the civil war, than a particular one of "the Rebellion," as he deemed
it. Others eagerly protested against the misrepresentation of the
characters of their ancestors; but as all family feelings are in reality
personal ones, such interested accusers may not be less partial and
prejudiced than the contemporary historian himself. He, at least, should
be allowed to possess the advantage of a more immediate knowledge of
what he narrates, and the right of that free opinion, which deprived of,
he would cease to be "the servant of posterity." Lord Lansdowne was
indignant at the severity of the military portrait of his ancestor, Sir
Richard Greenvill, and has left a warm apology to palliate a conduct
which Clarendon had honestly condemned; and recently, the late Earl of
Ashburnham wrote two agreeable volumes to prove that Clarendon was
jealous of the royal favour which the feeble Ashburnham enjoyed, and to
which the descendant ascribed the depreciation of that favourite's
character.
The authenticity of the history soon became a subject of national
attention. The passions of the two great factions which ruled our
political circles had broken forth from these kindling pages of the
recent history of their own day. They were treading on ashes which
covered latent fires. Whenever a particular sentence raised the anger of
some, or a provoking epithet for ever stuck to a favourite personage,
the offended parties were willing to believe that these might be
interpolations; for it was positively affirmed that such there were.
Twenty years after its first publication, we find Sir Joseph Jekyl, in
the House of Commons, solemnly declaring that he had reason to believe
that the "History of the Rebellion" had not been printed faithfully.
An incident of a very singular nature had occurred, even before the
publication of the History, which assuredly was unknown to the editors.
Dr. Calamy, the historian of the non-conformists, at the time that Lord
Clarendon's History was printing at Oxford, was himself on the point of
publishing his Narrative of Baxter, and was anxious to ascertain the
statements of his lordship on certain matters which entered into his own
history. This astute divine, with something of the cunning of the
serpent, whatever might be his dove-like innocence, hit upon an
extraordinary expedient, by submitting the dignity of his order to pass
through a most humiliating process. The crafty doctor posted to Oxford,
and there, cautiously preserving the incognito, after ingratiating
himself into the familiarity of the waiter, and then of the perruquier,
he succeeded in procuring a secret communication with one of the
printers. The good man exults in the wonders which sometimes may be
opened to us by what he terms "a silver key rightly applied." The doctor
had invented the treason, and now had only to seek for the traitor. A
faithless workman supplied him with a sight of all the sheets printed,
and, with a still grosser violation of the honour of the craft, exposed
the naked manuscript itself to the prying eyes of the critical
dissenter. To the honour of Clarendon, as far as concerned Calamy's
narrative, there was no disagreement; but the aspect of the manuscript
puzzled the learned doctor. It appeared not to be the original, but a
transcript, wherein he observed "alterations and interlineations;"
paragraphs were struck out, and insertions added. Here seemed an
important discovery, not likely to remain buried in the breast of the
historian of the non-conformists; and he gradually let it out among his
literary circle. The appearance of the manuscript fully warranted the
conviction, of him who was not unwilling to believe, that the History of
Clarendon had been moulded by the hands of those dignitaries of Oxford
who were supposed to be the real editors. The History was soon called in
contempt, "The Oxford History." The earliest rumours of a corrupt text
probably originated in this quarter, as it is now certain, since the
confession of Dr. Calamy appears in his diary, that he was the first who
had discovered the extraordinary state of the manuscript.
Some inaccuracies, great negligence of dates, certain apparent
contradictions, and some imperfect details--often occasioned by the
noble emigrant's distant retirements, deprived, as we now know, of his
historical collections--did not tend to dissipate the prevalent
suspicions. The manuscript was frequently called for, but on inquiry it
was not found in the Bodleian Library--it was said to be locked up in a
box deposited in the library of the Earl of Rochester, who had died
since the publication. Sometimes they heard of a transcript and
sometimes of an original; it was reported that the autograph work by
Lord Clarendon, among other valuables, had been destroyed in the fire of
the Earl of Rochester's house at New Park. The inquirers became more
importunate in their demands, and more clamorous in their
expostulations.
About this period, Oldmixon, one of the renowned of the Dunciad, stepped
forth as a political adventurer in history. He enlisted on the popular
side; he claimed the honours of the most devoted patriotism; but in what
degree he may have merited these will best appear when we shall more
intimately discover the man himself. Oldmixon had wholly engaged with a
party, and being an industrious hand, had assigned to himself a good
deal of work. Preparatory to his copious History of the Stuarts, he had
preluded by two smaller works his "Critical History of England," and his
"Clarendon and Whitelocke Compared." He had repeatedly insinuated his
suspicions that the "History of the Rebellion" was not the entire work
of Clarendon; but the more formal attack, by specifying the falsified
passages, at length appeared in the preface to his History of the
Stuarts. The subject of the genuineness of Clarendon's text had so long
engaged public discussion, that it evidently induced this writer to
particularise it, among other professed discoveries, on his extensive
titlepage, as one not the least likely to invite the eager curiosity of
his readers. The heavy charge was here announced to be at length brought
to a positive demonstration. We perceive the writer's complacency, when
with an air of triumph he declared, "to all which is prefixed some
account of the liberties taken with Clarendon's History _before it came
to the press_, such liberties as make it doubtful what part of it is
Clarendon's and what not."
It is here we find the anonymous communication of "A gentleman of
distinction," who was soon known to be Colonel Ducket, an M.P., and a
Commissioner of the Excise. The colonel details a conversation with
Edmund Smith, the poet, who died at his seat, that "there had been a
fine History written by Lord Clarendon; but what was published under his
name was patchwork, and might as properly be called the history of the
deans Aldrich, Smalridge, and Atterbury; for to his knowledge it was
altered, and he himself was employed to interpolate the original." In a
copy of the history, Smith had scored numerous passages of this sort,
and particularly the famous one of Cinna, which had been applied to the
character of Hampden.
We may conceive the sensation produced by this apparently authenticated
tale. Oldmixon in triumph confirms it too from another quarter; for he
appeals to "A reverend divine now living, who saw the Oxford copy by
which the book was printed, altered, and interpolated." This divine was
our Dr. Calamy, who could not deny what he had truly affirmed.
The anonymous voucher for this extraordinary charge which appears in the
preface, was an after-thought of our historical scribe at the late hour
of publication, when it must have occurred to him that the world would
require the most positive testimony of such a foul forgery. It is
remarkable that Oldmixon had already, in the body of his work, broadly
embroidered the narrative. We may form some notion of the mode in which
this impetuous writer composed history, blending his passions with his
facts, by observing what he did in the present matter. In the text of
his history we discover the tale solemnly worked up into a tragic scene
of penitential remorse on a death-bed; and, still farther to appropriate
and confirm the exciting narrative of this forgery, he had artfully
bolstered it up by an accompanying anecdote. When Smith the poet had
foisted in the description of Cataline, (or Cinna, as it is erroneously
written in Clarendon,) one of the doctors slapped him on the back,
exclaiming with an asseveration, "_It will do!_" And our historian
proceeds: "The remorse he expressed for being concerned in this
imposture were his last words." He then declares that in the
highly-finished portraits of Clarendon, "all likeness is lost in a
barren superfluity of words, and the workings of a prejudiced
imagination, where one may suppose the drawing was his own. But that
there has been much daubing in some places, and more dirt in others, put
in by his editors, is now incontestable. In those clumsy painters into
whose hands his work fell, there is something so very false and base,
that such coin could only come from a college mint." Thus,
inconsiderately, but not the less maliciously, Oldmixon filled his rapid
page, and betrays his eagerness to snatch at any floating rumour or
loose conversation, which he gives the world with the confidence, though
he could not with the dignity, of historical truth. And it is this
reckless abandonment of his pen in his post-haste and partial works of
history, which must ever weaken our trust in those more interesting
portions for whose authority he refers to unknown manuscripts; and the
more so, when we often detect his maimed and warped, and even
interpolated quotations; and farther, recollect that Oldmixon stands
himself a convicted criminal at the bar of history, having been detected
in interpolating the historian Daniel when employed as editor by Kennet,
which sunk the value of the first edition of that historical collection.
How was this positive and particularising charge to be refuted? Years
had elapsed, and Smith had never whispered such an important secret to
any friend. The original manuscript had not yet appeared to confront the
detractor, and to prove the fidelity of the editors. There are
difficulties which truth cannot always surmount. It is not only easier
to raise a falsehood than to prove a truth, but it is possible that
there may be accidents which may wholly prevent the discovery of truth.
Of an accusation made years after the event, and the persons no longer
in existence, we may never be enabled to remove the objections which it
has succeeded in raising.
From this calamity the History of Clarendon had a narrow escape. All the
parties concerned were no longer in life, save one, who seemed as much
lost to the world--Atterbury, forgotten in exile. The authenticity of
the History of Clarendon was, however, the concern of literary Europe.
Foreign journalists conveyed the astounding tale, assuring the literary
exile that if he remained silent, the accusation must be considered as
proved. The reply did not linger, for a simple fact demolished this
inartificial fabric. Atterbury solemnly declared that he had never seen
any manuscript of Lord Clarendon's History; that he believed he had
never exchanged a word in his life with Smith, whose habitual conduct
was too loose to tolerate; and if that were true which Ducket had
affirmed, that "Smith had died with a lie in his mouth." Atterbury added
some new information respecting the real editors, who were Dean Aldrich
and Bishop Sprat, and the late Earl of Rochester, the son of Lord
Clarendon.
This unexpected confutation from the sole survivor of the accused
parties revived the dismayed Clarendonians. The cards had changed; and
these in their turn called for a sight of that copy of Clarendon said to
have been scored by Smith. Oldmixon, baffled and mortified, appealed to
his communicator; the most idle prevarications were alleged; and Colonel
Ducket even cavilled at the wording of the letter which Oldmixon had
published. Both parties were anxious to fling the odium on the other,
but neither had the honesty to retract the slander. We may believe that
they were both convinced that the manuscript of Clarendon had been
tampered with, but that neither could ascertain either the matter or the
manner. Ducket died during their embarrassment, and to his last day
persisted in confirming his account, and even furnishing fresh
particulars, as Oldmixon assures us.
In this extraordinary history of the fate of a disputed manuscript,
which all had inquired after, and none had found, an incident occurred
which put to rout Oldmixon and the numerous objectors to its
authenticity. Seven books of the Clarendon manuscripts at length were
discovered lodged in the custody of a lawyer in Bartlett's Buildings,
Holborn, who was one of the executors of the second Earl of Clarendon;
and, to the utter dismay of Oldmixon, the often-controverted passage of
Hampden was to be seen in the original writing of the noble author.
Several distinguished personages were admitted to consult the autograph;
but when others applied, who came formally armed with an autograph
letter of Lord Clarendon, to compare the writing with the manuscript,
the lawyer was alarmed at the hostile investigation, and cautiously
evaded an inspection by these eager inquirers, perhaps judging that
whatever might be the consequence, the trouble was certain.
Oldmixon, in his last distress, persisted in declaring that he was not
bound to trust in the genuineness of a manuscript of which he was
refused the examination. It must be acknowledged, that any partial view
of the Clarendon manuscript, seen by a few, was not sufficient to
establish its authority with the public; and certainly till the recent
edition by Dr. Bandinel appeared, admirably collated, the aspersions and
surmises of the objectors to its genuineness had by no means been
removed, and, we may add, were not wholly unfounded.
This history of the great work of Lord Clarendon would be imperfect did
we not develope the real causes which so long continued to obscure the
inquiry, and involve its mysterious publication in the most perplexing
intricacy.
Lord Clarendon himself not only doubted the propriety of the
publication, but had even consented to its suppression till a "fit
season, which was not likely to be in the present age." His elevated
genius looked far onward to posterity. In his remarkable will, he
recommended his sons to consult Archbishop Sancroft and Bishop Morley;
and it was only his second son, the Earl of Rochester, who took an
active part. The position of editors was as delicate as it was perilous,
and it has been aptly described by the last editor, who at length has
furnished us with a complete Clarendon. "The immediate descendants of
the principal actors were alive; many were high in favour; others were
connected by the closer links of friendship or alliance." The change of
a virulent epithet might be charitable, and spare the ulcerated memories
of a family; and time, which blunts the keen edge of political
animosities, might plead for the omission of "the unfavourable part of a
character," which happened to be rather of a domestic than of a public
nature.
All these were important causes which perplexed the editorship of the
History of Lord Clarendon; and there were also minor ones which operated
on the publication. Difficulties occurred in the arrangement of the
parts. The Earl hardly lived to revise his work; portions of the "Life"
had been marked by him to be transferred to the "History." The first
transcript by Shaw, the secretary of the author, was discovered to be
very incorrect. It was necessary that a fairer copy should repair the
negligence of the secretary's. Dean Aldrich read the proofs, and
transmitted them to the Earl of Rochester, accompanied by the manuscript
copy which the earl preserved. The corrections on the proofs were by his
hand. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, who then had the reputation of being
the most skilful critic in our vernacular idiom, it appears, suggested
some verbal alterations. But it was affirmed, that the Earl of Rochester
had been so scrupulous in altering the style of his father, and so
cautious not to allow of any variations from the original, that the
strictures of Sprat had not been complied with, which however was not
true; for though the Earl of Rochester would allow no hand but his own
to correct the proofs, there were omissions and verbal alterations, and
occasionally may be found what went far beyond the mere change of words
or phrases.
The manuscript which Calamy saw at the press shows that the transcript,
however fair, had required corrections, and probably some confusion had
sometimes occurred in transferring passages from the "Life" into the
"History." This only can account for the reasonable suspicions of "The
Curious Impertinent," which part had been so gratuitously acted by the
learned Doctor on this occasion, and evidently spread the first rumours
of a corrupted or an altered text.
The pretended forgery on Clarendon was nothing but a gross imposture.
Who was most deeply concerned in the fabricated lie, we cannot now
ascertain. Of the poet, however, we know that after frequent admonitions
he had been expelled his college, for habitual irregularities; and
having lost his election of the censorship of the college, indulged
vindictive feelings towards Dean Aldrich. It was his delight to ridicule
and vituperate the Christ Church deans,--and he might have called the
History of Clarendon, "patch-work," from some imperfect knowledge picked
up at the Oxford press. The poet, whose conversation flowed with his
wine, on a visit at the seat of Colonel Ducket, indulging to excess his
Epicurean tastes, there died suddenly of repletion, by prescribing for
himself so potent a dose, that the apothecary warned him of "the
perilous stuff," which advice was received with contempt. As the scored
Clarendon by Smith was never brought forth, it probably never existed to
the extent described; and as Smith died unexpectedly, there could have
been no scene of a death-bed repentance, about a forgery which had never
been committed. The party-lie caught up in conversation was too suitable
to the purposes of Oldmixon's History not to be preserved, and even
exaggerated; Ducket found a ready tool in a popular historian, who was
not too critical in his researches, whenever they answered his end.
But Truth is the daughter of Time--all the Clarendon manuscripts at
length were collected together, and now securely repose in the Bodleian
Library, where had they been deposited at first, the anxiety and
contention which for half a century disturbed the peace of honest
inquirers had been spared. Why they were not there placed, open to
public inspection, is no longer difficult to conjecture. Although no
historical fact in the main had been altered, yet omissions and
variations, and some of a delicate nature, there were, sufficient to
awaken the keen glance of a malicious or an offended observer. The
anxious solicitude to withdraw the manuscripts till they might more
safely be examined, at a remote period, was the real and the sole cause
of their mysterious concealment; and led many from party-motives to
question the authenticity, and others to defend the genuineness, of
which they were so many years without any evidence.
This bibliographical tale affords a striking illustration of the nature
of hearsays, surmises, and cavils; of confident accusations, but ill
parried by vague defences; of the infamous fictions to which party-men
can be driven; all which were the consequences of that apparent
suppression of the original work, which had occurred from the critical
difficulties which await the editors of contemporary memoirs. The
disingenuity of both parties, however, is not less observable, for while
the Clarendonians maintained that the editors, as these had protested,
scrupulously followed the manuscript, they themselves had never seen the
original, and the Oldmixons as audaciously assumed that it was
interpolated and mutilated, without, however, producing any other
evidence than their own surmises, or gross fictions of popular rumours.
With the fate of Clarendon before his eyes, a witness of the injury
which this mysterious mode of publishing the History of Lord Clarendon
had occasioned, the son of Bishop Burnet suffered that congenial work,
the "History of his own Times," to participate in the same ill-fortune.
On the publication of the first volume, this editor promised that the
autograph "should be deposited in the Cottonian Library for the
satisfaction of the public, as soon as the second volume should be
printed." This was not done; the editor was repeatedly called on to
perform that solemn contract in which he had engaged with the public. A
recent fire had damaged many of the Cottonian manuscripts, and this was
now pleaded as an excuse for not trusting the bishop's manuscript to the
chance of destruction. Expostulation only met with evasion. We are not
now ignorant of the real cause of this breach of a solemn duty. The
bishop in his will had expressly enjoined that his History should be
given in the state in which he had himself left it. But the freedom of
the paternal pen had alarmed the filial editor. He found himself in the
exact position which the son of Lord Clarendon had already preoccupied.
Omissions were made to abate the displeasure of those who would have
writhed under the severity of the historian's censure--characters were
but partially delineated, and the tale sometimes was left half told. It
happened that the bishop had often submitted his manuscript to the eyes
of many during his life-time. Curious researchers into facts, and
profound observers of opinions, had become diligent extractors, more
particularly the supervisor of the printed proofs; and when the printed
volumes appeared, most of these omissions stood as living testimonials
to the faithlessness of the prudential editor. The margins of various
copies, among the curious in Literature, overflowed with the
castrations: the forbidden fruit was plucked. We now have the History of
Burnet not entirely according to "the will" of the fervid chronicler,
but as far as its restored passages could be obtained; for some, it is
evident, have never been recovered.[1] Thus it happened, that the
editors of Clarendon and Burnet form a parallel case, suffering under
the inconveniences of editors of contemporary memoirs.
The perplexed feeling of the times in regard to both these Histories we
may catch from a manuscript letter of the great collector, Dr.
Rawlinson:--"Among Bishop Turner's[2] manuscripts," Rawlinson writes,
"are observations on Lord Clarendon's History, when sent him by old
Edward's son, the Nonjuror, who gave it to Alma Mater; _if alterations
were made_, this may be a means of discovering. I have often wondered
why _the original MS._ of that History is not put into some public place
to answer all objections; but when I consider _a whimsical family_, my
surprise is the less. Judge BURNET has promised under his hand, on the
backside of every title of the second volume of his father's History of
his Life and Times, to put in the originals into some public library;
but _quando_ is the case. I purchased the MS. of a gentleman who
corrected the press, when that book was printed, and amongst his papers
I have _all the castrations_, many of which, I believe, he communicated
to Dr. Beach's sons, whom T. Burnet had abused in a life of his father,
at the end of the second volume."[3] Here, then, the world possessed
sufficient evidence at the time of their early appearance, that these
Histories had suffered variations and omissions--by the heirs of their
authors, and the imperfect executors of their solemn and testamentary
will.
I cannot quit the present subject without a remark on these great party
Histories of Clarendon and Burnet. Both have passed through the fiery
ordeal of national opinion,--and both, with some of their pages singed,
remain unconsumed: the one criticized for its solemn eloquence, the
other ridiculed for its homely simplicity; the one depreciated for its
partiality, the other for its inaccuracy; both alike, as we have seen,
by their opposite parties, once considered as works utterly rejected
from the historical shelf.
But Posterity reverences Genius, for posterity only can decide on its
true worth. Time, potent over criticism, has avenged our two great
writers of the history of their own days. The awful genius of CLARENDON
is still paramount, and the vehement spirit of BURNET has often its
secret revelations confirmed. Such shall ever be the fate of those
precious writings, which, though they have to contend with the passions
of their own age, yet, originating in the personal intercourse of the
writers with the subject of their narratives, possess an endearing charm
which no criticism can dissolve, a reality which outlasts fiction, and a
truth which diffuses its vitality over pages which cannot die.[4]