[Illustration: _Harl. MS., Brit. Mus., N^o. 5353, fo. 111_]
G. F. TUPPER, LITHOG: LONDON. 1868.
DIARY
OF
JOHN MANNINGHAM,
OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE,
AND OF BRADBOURNE, KENT, BARRISTER-AT-LAW,
1602-1603.
EDITED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT BY
JOHN BRUCE, ESQ.,
AND PRESENTED TO THE CAMDEN SOCIETY BY
WILLIAM TITE, ESQ., M.P., F.R.S., F.S.A.,
PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY.
WESTMINSTER:
PRINTED BY J. B. NICHOLS AND SONS.
M.DCCC.LX.VIII
WESTMINSTER:
J. B. NICHOLS AND SONS, PRINTERS,
25, PARLIAMENT STREET.
TO
THE COUNCIL AND MEMBERS
OF
THE CAMDEN SOCIETY.
GENTLEMEN,
When you did me the honour to appoint me President of your most useful
Society as the successor of the Marquess Camden, I felt anxious to
express my sense of that honour by some appropriate acknowledgment.
I at first thought of printing a MS. from my own library, but, not
finding one that seemed exactly suitable, in my difficulty I applied to
my old and valued friend Mr. Bruce, and he pointed out to me
Manningham's Diary in the British Museum as possessing a varied interest
in the literary world which was likely to commend it to your notice. I
willingly adopted his suggestion; and I owe to him my sincere
acknowledgments for the pains he has bestowed in seeing the work through
the press, and in prefacing it with an interesting essay.
I have now to offer you this copy of Manningham's little book, and to
assure you how sincerely I am
Your obedient and obliged servant,
WILLIAM TITE.
42, Lowndes Square,
3rd October, 1868.
PREFACE.
The original of MANNINGHAM'S DIARY, which is here printed, is No. 5353
in the Harleian collection of MSS. in the British Museum. It is a
diminutive 12mo. volume, measuring not quite six inches by four, and
containing 133 leaves. The handwriting, of which an admirable
representation is given in the fac-simile prefixed, is small, and in the
main extremely legible; yet in some few places, from haste in the
writer, from corrections, from blotting, from the effects of time, and
from other obvious causes, difficulties have occurred in a word or two,
which, even with the assistance of gentlemen most skilful in reading the
old hands, have not been entirely overcome. The few instances in which
the collater has been baffled are indicated by marks of doubt.
The first historical writer who noticed this little volume for a
literary purpose was Mr. John Payne Collier. In his Annals of the Stage,
published in 1831 (i. 320), Mr. Collier quoted from this Diary various
passages connected with his special subject, and drew attention to the
principal personal facts disclosed by the writer respecting himself,
namely, that he had many relations in Kent, and had probably been a
member of the Middle Temple.
The late Mr. Joseph Hunter was the next writer who used the work for an
historical purpose.[1] With his well-known fondness for genealogical
inquiries he applied himself to determine who the writer was whom Mr.
Collier had designated merely as a barrister. In this inquiry Mr. Hunter
was completely successful. Pursuing the clue given by the mention of
relationships in Kent in the various ways which would occur to a person
skilled in such investigations, Mr. Hunter fell upon a track in which
coincidences between the facts stated in the MS. and those elicited by
his own researches followed one another so rapidly as in the end to
leave not even the shadow of a doubt that the desired result had been
obtained.
[Footnote 1: See his Illustrations of Shakespeare, i. 365.]
We shall briefly indicate the course by which Mr. Hunter arrived at his
conclusions. It looks easy enough after the end has been attained, but
it will be borne in mind that inquiries of this kind are extremely
discursive. The statement of a few leading facts upon the establishment
of which the final conclusion is arrived at, gives no idea of the time
lost in investigations which are merely tentative. In all such inquiries
we are soon reminded of the pretty passages which, after turnings and
windings almost _ad libitum_, are ultimately found to lead to nothing.
Besides cousins of at least seven different names who are alluded to by
the Diarist, several of them in connection with Canterbury, Sandwich,
and Godmersham, there is one whom he specially commemorates as "my
cousin in Kent" (p. 19), and whom he frequently vouches by that
designation, or merely as his cousin, as his authority for information
which he chronicles. This cousin was evidently the writer's most
important connection--the great man of the family. To visit him and his
somewhat wayward second wife was the principal object of the Diarist's
journeys into Kent. It also appears that this cousin was a man advanced
in life,--roughly stated to be 62 years of age in March 1602-3, and that
he resided at a place called Bradbourne, in the neighbourhood of
Maidstone. This last fact led directly to the identification desired.
Bradbourne was easily found. It has been for centuries a family seat in
the parish of East Malling. Hasted has represented the house in one of
his pictorial illustrations pretty much as it yet exists. It has been
shorn indeed of many of the noble trees, of the deer, and of some of the
other aristocratic adornments with which the county historian surrounded
it, but it still stands a stately old-fashioned red-brick mansion,
probably of the date of the reign of Queen Anne. Long before that period
the same spot was occupied by a previous residence of a county family.
From the time of the Protectorate it has belonged to a branch of the old
Kentish stock, the Twysdens; and before they purchased it--"in the reign
of Queen Elizabeth," as Hasted remarks[2]--"it was in the possession of
a family named Manningham."--Manningham! Our diarist slightly alludes to
a cousin of that name, "G. Manningham, deceased."[3] The clue was vague,
but at that little chink there entered light sufficient to guide the
researches of an antiquary.
[Footnote 2: Vol. ii. p. 215, ed. 1782.]
[Footnote 3: P. 108.]
The inscriptions on the older monuments in East Malling church are
printed in Thorpe's _Registrum Roffense_.[4] To them Mr. Hunter had
recourse, and with good success. Amongst them he found one upon a
monument[5] still standing on the north side of the chancel of the
church to a Richard Manningham, evidently a person of importance in that
neighbourhood. It is not stated in the inscription that he was the
owner of Bradbourne, but he lived at the time when our author paid his
visits thither, and his age, as given on the monument, although not
coincident with that stated by the Diarist,--for the monument declares
that Richard Manningham died on the 25th April, 1611, in his 72nd
year,--was sufficiently near to stimulate to further inquiries. But
without following Mr. Hunter step by step it will be enough to state
that from the inscription he went to Doctors' Commons, where, under the
vicious system of mismanagement which then prevailed, he was one of the
favoured two or three who were permitted to use the testamentary
records, whilst all other inquirers were excluded with a most offensive
disregard of courtesy. The will of Richard Manningham helped on the
inquiry very considerably. It was further advanced by an heraldic
Visitation of Kent, and was finally and triumphantly concluded by an
inspection of the register-books of the Middle Temple.
[Footnote 4: Lond. 1769, fol. p. 793.]
[Footnote 5: The inscription is surmounted by a bust of singular
coarseness, evidently the work of some country sculptor, and
executed in the worst taste and manner.]
Without derogating in the slightest degree from the merit of Mr.
Hunter's investigations, or desiring to deprive his memory of one atom
of the credit which attaches to it on that account, we prefer to state
the facts respecting the Manninghams in words of our own, which will
enable us to weave into the narrative some additions to the results of
Mr. Hunter's inquiries.
About the middle of the sixteenth century the Manninghams were a
numerous family of the middle class,[6] branches of which were scattered
about in various parts of England. The Richard Manningham of the
monument at East Malling was born at St. Alban's; Robert Manningham,
descended from a stock which removed out of Bedfordshire into
Cambridgeshire, lived and died at Fen Drayton in that county; George
Manningham dwelt in Kent, and from the marriages of his female
descendants in that county there probably sprang the numerous cousinred
of the family to which we have already alluded. Their _status_ in Kent
before Richard Manningham settled at Bradbourne may be inferred from one
fact which appears in the Diary, namely, that George Manningham was
bound as surety with William Somner, father of the well known antiquary
of Canterbury, for the father's performance of the duties of the
registrarship of the Ecclesiastical Court, in which office he preceded
his son.
[Footnote 6: "_Honestâ natus familiâ_" are the words of the
inscription to Richard Manningham, the very words used also as
descriptive of the descent of Sir Thomas More on his monument in
Chelsea church; _familiâ non celebri sed honestâ natus_. (Faulkner's
Chelsea, i. 207.)]
Richard, Robert, and George Manningham are all stated to have been
relations, and probably they all stood about upon a par in worldly
circumstances, but Richard pursued a way of life which enabled him to
shoot ahead of all the members of his family. Of his youth we have no
particulars, but he was well educated even according to present notions.
He united an acquaintance with modern languages to the share of
classical knowledge taught in our old grammar-schools, and is
commemorated as having spoken and written Latin, French, and Dutch, with
freedom and elegance, and as having been able at the age of sixty-two to
repeat _memoriter_ almost the whole of the first and second books of the
Æneid.
Brought up to some branch of commerce, he was a member of the Mercers'
Company of London, and in his business days resided in the metropolis,
but age found him with a competency, and brought with it some customary
infirmities. He retired from London, purchased the quiet sheltered
Bradbourne, and passed the evening of his days in occupations in which
literature bore a considerable share.
He was twice married; the first time to a native of Holland, a family
connection of the Lady Palavicini, afterwards wife of Sir Oliver
Cromwell, the uncle of the future Protector.[7] This marriage was a
happy one. The lady survived the purchase of Bradbourne,[8] and was
buried in the church of East Malling. Richard Manningham's second match
was with a Kentish widow. The traces we find of her in the Diary do not
leave an impression that she added much to her husband's happiness. She
is not alluded to in his will. We may therefore conclude that she died
between 1602 and 1611.[9] There is no mention of issue by either
marriage.
[Footnote 7: Diary, pp. 49, 51.]
[Footnote 8: The last notice we have of her is under the date of
1595, when her husband, "at her request and for her sake," lent her
kinsmen, Arnold Verbeck, Abraham Verbeck, and Goris Besselles,
merchant-strangers, 400_l._ which remained due with all interest
upon it up to the 21st January 1611-12, the date of his will. He
forgave his debtors the amount, provided they paid 40_l._ a piece to
Margarita and Susanna Verbeck, daughters of Arnold, and to the
testator's niece Janeken Vermeren, daughter of his first wife's
sister, within twelve months after his decease.]
[Footnote 9: The registers of East Malling do not begin until 1640.
We beg warmly to acknowledge our obligations to the Rev. W. L.
Wigan, the rector, who in the kindest manner searched from 1640 to
1660 for entries relating to the Manninghams, but without finding
anything about them.]
Childless, solitary, and infirm, Richard Manningham was in no degree
misanthropic. Out of his abundance he applied considerable sums in
charity, and for the benefit of his kindred, and at an early period
looked around for a Manningham who might inherit the principal portion
of his property and carry on his name. His choice fell upon John
Manningham, a son of Robert of Fen Drayton, and his wife Joan, a
daughter of John Fisher of Bledlow in the county of Bedford. That person
is our Diarist.
Richard Manningham carried out the obligations of this adoption in the
most liberal way. It is obvious from the Diary that John Manningham,
whom Richard Manningham designated by the several titles of "cousin,"
"kinsman," and "son in love," received a generous education of the best
kind. He was intended for the practice of the law, and on the 16th
March, 1597-8, was entered of the Middle Temple, as the son and heir of
Robert Manningham of Fen Drayton, gentleman, deceased. John Chapman,
probably the same person who is mentioned in the Diary as one of the
cousins who lived at Godmersham,[10] and John Hoskyns, were the members
of the Inn who were his sureties upon his admission.
[Footnote 10: Diary, pp. 108, 111.]
On the 7th June 1605, having kept his exercises and been on the books
for the needful seven years, he was called to the degree of an utter
barrister; whether afterwards advanced to the dignity of being permitted
to plead in actual causes in court does not appear.
Whilst in the Temple he had for his chamber-fellow Edward Curle, son
of William Curle, a retainer of Sir Robert Cecil, who procured him to
be appointed one of the auditors of the Court of Wards. Several
persons of this family are quoted in the Diary, and the close
relationship of chamber-fellow ripened not merely into lasting
friendship with Edward Curle, and with his brother Walter, who
afterwards became Bishop of Winchester, but into affection towards
their sister Anne. John Manningham and Anne Curle were married
probably about 1607. A son was born to them in 1608, who was named
Richard after the _quasi_-grandfather at Bradbourne. Two other sons
were subsequently named John and Walter, and three daughters, Susanna,
Anne, and Elizabeth. Where John Manningham lived after he quitted the
Temple, whether in London with a view to practice at the Bar, at
Hatfield which was the place of residence of the Curles, or at
Bradbourne with his "father in love," then a second time a widower,
does not appear.
On the 3rd January 1609-10, the old merchant proved the reality of his
assumed fatherhood by executing a deed of gift to John Manningham of the
mansion-house of Bradbourne and the lands surrounding it in East
Malling, and two years afterwards, on the 21st January, being, as he
states, "in tolerable health of body in regard of mine age and
infirmities," he made his will. It confirmed, "if needful," the deed of
gift to John Manningham, appointed him sole executor, and with some
slight exceptions and the charge of a considerable number of legacies,
most of them tokens of remembrance, gave him all the residue of his
property. The multitude of the old man's legacies and not less so their
character tell of his continuing interest in the connections of his past
life. They read like the last utterances of a warm and affectionate
spirit casting back its glance upon those from whom it was about to
part; whilst his adjuration to his adopted son to discharge the amounts
with punctuality, although deformed by the verbiage of legal formality,
and smacking a little of the mercantile estimate of the indispensable
importance of payment on the very day, is not devoid of real solemnity.
Omitting some of the tautologous expressions it reads thus:--"I charge
John Manningham, by all the love and duty which he oweth me, for all my
love and liberality which I have always borne [to] him and his
heretofore, but chiefly in this my will, that he pay every legacy within
six months after my death, those excepted that are appointed to be paid
at certain days, and those to be duly paid at their days appointed, as
my trust is in him, and as he will answer afore God and me at the latter
day!" Nor is the pious close of the document without a share of true
impressiveness:--"Having thus, I thank God, finished my will, and set an
order in my worldly affairs, I will henceforward await God's will to
depart hence in peace, most humbly beseeching him that when the day of
my dissolution shall be come, I may by his grace be armed with a true
and lively faith, firm hope, and constant patience, and be ready to
forsake all to go to my blessed Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ. Amen,
good Lord!"
He had not long to wait. His will was dated, as we have remarked, on the
21st January, 1611-12. On the 25th of the following April,[11] Richard
Manningham entered into his rest, and John Manningham into possession
as adopted heir. On the following 1st of May he proved the will of his
"father in love" at Doctors' Commons.
[Footnote 11: The year 1611, given on the monument as that of the
death, is contradicted by the date of the will and other
circumstances. It should have been 1612.]
The few particulars we have been able to gather of the course of this
family after the death of Richard Manningham are little more than a
brief register of dates. On the 16th April 1617, William Curle the
father died. He was interred in Hatfield church, where a monument
commemorates his fidelity as a public officer, his good-fortune in his
children and friends, and his calm and happy death.[12]
[Footnote 12: "_Verâ fide Christianâ_" are the words of the epitaph,
which were deemed an authority by the Index-maker for Clutterbuck's
Hertfordshire, ii. 370, for entering a "Christiana Curle" in his
list of names.]
In 1619, John Philipot, York Herald, made a Visitation for Kent as
Deputy for Camden, the Clarencieux. On this occasion John Manningham
registered his arms and pedigree. It is observable that he did not
introduce into it the descent of his cousin Richard Manningham from
their common ancestor, nor even his name. If the Visitation may be
depended upon we may infer that between the time when the return was
made and the 21st January 1621-2, when John Manningham made his own
will, he lost his daughter Anne by death, and his youngest son, to whom
he gave the name of his brother-in-law Walter, was born. Before the same
day his other brother-in-law and chamber-fellow Edward Curle had also
died. The last trace we have found of him is in 1613.
In the will of John Manningham to which we have just alluded, and which
it will be observed was dated like that of his predecessor on a 21st
January, he described himself as of "East Malling, esquire," and devised
Bradbourne and all the lands derived from his "late dear cousin and
father in love" Richard Manningham, "who for ever," he remarks, "is
gratefully to be remembered by me and mine," to his widow for life and
after her decease entailed the same on his three sons in succession. He
gave to his daughter Susanna a marriage portion of 300_l._; to
Elizabeth, 250_l._; to the little Benjamin of his flock, the young
Walter, anything but a Benjamin's share of 100_l._; and to his executors
20 nobles a piece; all the rest of his personalty he divided between his
widow and his eldest son. He named as executors Dr. Walter Curle, who
had then ascended upon the ladder of preferment to the Deanery of
Lichfield, and John Manningham's cousin, Dr. William Roberts of Enfield.
The Will was proved on the 4th December, 1622, by Dr. Curle alone, Dr.
Roberts having renounced.
Two further facts bring to an end the brief glimmerings we have been
able to discover respecting the third generation of the Manninghams at
Bradbourne.
Bishop Walter Curle made his will on the 15th March 1646-7, and left to
his nephew and godson Walter Manningham a sum of 50_l._ To the boy's
mother--"my loving sister Mrs. Anne Manningham," the Bishop left "a
piece of plate of twenty ounces."[13]
[Footnote 13: See Lansd. MS. No. 985.]
Nine years afterwards the "loving sister" had followed the Bishop into
the better land. Where she was buried does not appear, certainly not at
East Malling. Bradbourne then fell to the second Richard Manningham, who
sold it in 1656 to Mr. Justice Twysden, in whose family it still
remains. Thus drops the curtain upon the connexion of the Manninghams
with East Malling.
Other persons of the same name appear in the succeeding century, one on
the episcopal bench as Bishop of Chichester, from 1709 to 1722, and his
son Sir Richard Manningham as a distinguished physician and discoverer
of the fraud of Mary Tofts the rabbit-breeder, but their connexion with
the subjects of our inquiry does not very clearly appear.
Turn we now from the Diarist and his family to the Diary. It was written
by John Manningham whilst a student in the Middle Temple, and runs
through the year 1602 down to April in 1603, Occasionally, as we have
remarked in one of our notes, some few of the entries are out of
chronological order, either from mistake of the binder or irregularity
of the Diarist. In some cases it clearly arose from the habit of the
latter of making his entries in any part of the book where there
happened to be a vacant space. The consequences are of so little moment
that we have thought it best in printing to follow the order of the
original MS. as it now stands.
Chronological sequence is the less important as the book is scarcely
what is generally understood by a Diary. It is rather a note-book in
which the writer has jotted down from time to time his impressions of
whatever he chanced to hear, read, or see, or whatever he desired to
preserve in his memory. The result is a curious patchwork. Anecdotes,
witticisms, aphoristic expressions, gossip, rumours, extracts from
books, large notes of sermons, occasional memoranda of journeys into
Kent and Huntingdonshire, with some little personal matter of the true
Diary kind, are all thrown together into a miscellany of odds and ends.
Our Diarist could not have lived in a better place than in an Inn of
Court for the compilation of such a book. The common dinner and the
common supper, the less formal gatherings at the buttery-bar and around
the hall fire, and in the summer time the exercise taken in the pleasant
garden--an indispensable accompaniment of an Inn of Court--brought
together multitudes of the "unbaked and doughy youth of the nation,"
full of life and spirit, most of them under training for legal practice
or public business, and sparkling with all the freshness and
volatility, the exuberance and glow which distinguish the opening of
young wits. This was the very place to furnish materials for such a
note-book as we have described. Among such companions the _bon mot_ of
the bar, the scandal of the Court, the tittle-tattle of the town, were
the very _pabulum_ of their daily conversation. A witty sarcasm would
tell among students not "past the bounds of freakish youth" with
infinite effect, and it mattered little--such was the universal freedom
of language and manners in those days--how literal the expression, or to
what kind of subject it related. Perhaps even additional zest was given
to a pithy speech by its want of reserve in relation to transactions
which we have come to regard as better left untalked about. Neither was
there found any greater difficulty in writing about such matters than in
speaking of them. The line of stars which occasionally will be found
stretching across our page indicates the occurrence of passages which
principally on this ground we have deemed it unadvisable to print.
The time in which our Diarist wrote was distinguished by one event of
surpassing interest--the death of the great Queen who had ruled the
country for more than forty years. In reference to that event he
possessed peculiar opportunities of acquiring information, and what he
has told us is essentially of historical authority. His channel of
communication with the Court was Dr. Henry Parry, subsequently Bishop of
Gloucester and afterwards of Worcester, at that time one of her
Majesty's chaplains and on duty in that character at the Queen's death.
On the 23rd March 1602-3, the rumours respecting her Majesty's health
were most alarming. The public were even doubtful whether she was
actually alive. In satisfaction of his curiosity our Diarist proceeded
to the palace at Richmond, where the great business was in progress. He
found assembled there the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Keeper,
and others of the highest official dignitaries. The Queen still lived,
and the ordinary daily religious services were still kept up within the
sombre palace. Dr. Parry preached before the assembled visitors, and our
Diarist was permitted to be one of the audience. The sermon was as
little connected as could be with the urgent circumstances which must
have drawn off the thoughts of his congregation, but in the preacher's
prayers both before and after his discourse he interceded for her
Majesty so fervently and pathetically, that few eyes were dry.
Service over, Manningham dined in the privy chamber with Dr. Parry and a
select clerical company, who recounted to him the particulars of the
Queen's illness; how for a fortnight she had been overwhelmed with
melancholy, sitting for hours with eyes fixed upon one object, unable to
sleep, refusing food and medicine, and until within the last two or
three days declining even to go to bed. It was the opinion of her
physicians that if at an early period she could have been persuaded to
use means she would unquestionably have recovered, but she would not,
"and princes," our Diarist remarks, "must not be forced." Her fatal
obstinacy brought her at length into a condition which was irremediable.
For two days she had lain "in a manner speechless, very pensive and
silent,"--dying of her own perverseness. When roused she showed by signs
that she still retained her faculties and memory, but the inevitable
hour was fast approaching. The day before, at the instance of Dr. Parry,
she had testified by gestures her constancy in the Protestantism "which
she had caused to be professed," and had hugged the hand of the
archbishop when he urged upon her a hopeful consideration of the joys of
a future life. In these particulars our Diarist takes us nearer to the
dying bed of the illustrious Queen than any other writer with whom we
are acquainted.
Dr. Parry remained with the Queen to the last. It was amidst his prayers
that about three o'clock in the morning which followed Manningham's
visit to the palace she ceased to breathe.
For the last few years the public mind had been disturbed by claims put
forth on behalf of a multitude of pretenders to the now empty throne.
The people had been bewildered and alarmed by the production of no less
than fourteen different titles advanced on behalf of a number of
separate claimants. A strong impression prevailed that on the Queen's
death a struggle was inevitable--that the long peace which the country
had owed to the Tudors would come to an end with them. The vacancy had
now occurred, and every one was anxious to know in what manner the
claimants would prefer their claims, and who would arbitrate amongst
their clashing interests? Above all things, as likely to involve the
most important changes, what course would be taken by the Roman
Catholics? It seemed a great opportunity for them, so great that no one
imagined they would allow it to slip past.
The statements of our Diarist at this time are of particular interest.
The ministers of the late Queen acted with equal promptitude and
prudence. Sir Robert Cecil had settled the matter long ago, and all his
fellow-ministers now concurred in what he had done. Not an instant was
lost; at the very earliest moment, at day-break, in less than four hours
after the Queen had ceased to breathe at Richmond, a meeting of the
Council was held at Whitehall. A proclamation already prepared by Cecil,
and settled by the anxious King of Scotland, was produced and signed. At
10 o'clock the gates of Whitehall were thrown open. Cecil, with a roll
of paper in his hand, issued forth at the head of a throng of gentlemen,
and with the customary display of tabards and blare of trumpets
proclaimed the accession of King James.
"The proclamation," remarks our author, "was heard with great
expectation and silent joy, no great shouting." At night there were
bonfires and ringing of bells, but "no tumult, no contradiction, no
disorder in the city; every man went about his business as readily, as
peaceably, as securely, as though there had been no change nor any news
of competitors." The quickness and unanimity of the council, combined
with the popular feeling in favour of King James, fixed him at once in
the new dignity. Opponents were overawed and silenced when they found
that the supporters of the King had as it were stolen a march upon them,
and that, although he himself was absent, his friends were in possession
of all the powers of government on his behalf. The previous agitation
subsided almost instantly. The disturbed sea rocked itself to rest.
From this time general anxiety was directed towards the North. "The
people is full of expectation, and great with hope of our new King's
worthiness, of our nation's future greatness; every one promises himself
a share in some famous action to be hereafter performed for his prince
or country." The anticipations which the people framed for themselves
from the change of sex in their new governor, from the change of age,
and from the ambition which they imagined would be developed in him by
his transference from a small rough unsettled country to one which by
forty years of steady government had acquired a unity, a solidity, a
definite and noble position among the nations of the world, of which all
true Englishmen were proud, have no where been brought so clearly before
us, as in the pages of our Diarist. Such anticipations were like the
fire of brushwood. It is painful to think of the disappointment to which
they were doomed.
Besides these events of an historical character, there are scattered
through the Diary a multitude of notices of persons of less social
position than Elizabeth and James, but not by any means of less
interest. Living among lawyers, it was of course that many of the young
student's notes would relate to them. But many of the lawyers of that
day, both those who had earned the honours of their profession and those
who still remained _in statu pupillari_, were men about whom we can
never learn too much. In these notes we have glimpses of Sir Thomas
More, of Bacon, Coke, Lord Keeper Egerton, of Judges Anderson, Manwood,
and Catline, of the merry old Recorder Fleetwood, of his graver
successor Croke, and of the beggar's friend, Sir Julius Cæsar. Among the
younger men we may notice Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, the future Lord Chief
Justice Bramston, and the man who in the coming stormy times was for a
period more prominent than them all, the statesman Pym. It will be seen
in a note at p. 104, that the publication of this volume has given an
opportunity for the settlement of the question, whether Pym had what may
be termed a regular legal education, which his biographers have left in
doubt. The Middle Temple has clearly the high honour of reckoning him
upon their roll.
Of non-legal persons who are here brought before us with more or less
prominency, we need scarcely allude to the entries relating to
Shakespeare and the performance of his Twelfth Night, which were first
noticed by Mr. Collier, and have been used by every subsequent writer on
dramatic subjects. The unfortunate Overbury comes before us several
times, such as we should have expected to find him, inconsiderate and
impetuous. Ben Jonson flits across the page. Of Marston there is a
disagreeable anecdote which has not been left unnoticed by poetical
antiquaries. Sir Thomas Bodley and Lord Deputy Mountjoy are alluded to.
There is an excellent account of an interview with old Stowe the
antiquary, a valuable glimpse of the Cromwell family during the boyhood
of the Protector, and references, some of them of importance, to Sir
Walter Raleigh, to his foolish friend Lord Cobham, to the wizard Earl of
Northumberland, and of course many allusions to the Cecils, both to Sir
William, and to that youngest son to whom, according to the joke which
is here preserved, his father's wisdom descended as if it had been held
by the tenure of Borough-English.
One peculiarity of this Diary is the very large proportion of it which
is given up to notes of sermons. There is something in this which is
characteristic of the time as well as of the writer. It was a
sermon-loving age, and that to a degree which it is scarcely possible
for us to understand in our degenerate days. Another thing which is
equally at variance with modern notions is that, when reading the
original manuscript, we pass at once from passages which we have been
obliged to reject as unfit for publication to notes of pulpit addresses
which inculcate a high-toned morality based upon those sound principles
which apply even to the thoughts and feelings. It is clear that the
incongruity in this contrast which is painful to us was not then
perceived. The coarseness of the popular language on the one hand, and
the affection for pulpit addresses, even among students of the Inns of
Court, on the other, were both parts of what we are accustomed to term
the manners of the age, and, like all things universally accepted, their
rights and wrongs were never very minutely criticised. The language we
have objected to is of course entirely indefensible. It was the slough
of a coarser generation, which our ancestors had not then entirely cast
off.
Of many of the sermons as represented in these notes we think highly,
but we have printed the whole of them in smaller type, so that they may
be distinguished at a glance, and if there be any of our readers to whom
they are less acceptable, they may be easily passed over.
Among the preachers who are here commemorated will be found some of the
most celebrated divines of the day;--Dr. Lancelot Andrewes, Dr. James
Montague, Dr. John Buckeridge, Dr. John King, Dr. Parry, and Dr. George
Abbot, none of them yet Bishops; Andrew Downes the Grecian; Dr. Thomas
Holland, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford; Dr. Giles Thompson,
afterwards Dean of Windsor; with two fervid orators, frowned upon by
many of their brethren, but most influential with the people,--one of
them Mr. Egerton, whose congregation assembled "in a little church or
chapel up stairs" in Blackfriars, and the other Mr. Clapham, who was the
incumbent of a church at Paul's Wharf.
In notes, for the most part very skilfully taken,[14] of sermons of men
so various in their acquirements, and many of them so eminently
distinguished, we have examples of the pulpit oratory of the age, with
evidences of the nature of the doctrines then generally prevalent in the
Church of England, and of some of the qualities which tended to make the
preaching of those doctrines popular.
[Footnote 14: So skilfully that one is inclined to suspect that the
business of note-taking may have been at that time one of the
branches of legal education. A few occasional mistakes of course
there are, and when extremely palpable we have sometimes not thought
it worth while to notice them.]
Nor is the book devoid of notices of many other circumstances which were
characteristical of the time. The following are examples. At p. 22 we
find an account of the operation of lithotomy, stated to be then first
brought into medical practice; at p. 46 we learn that "a certain kind of
compound called _Laudanum_" had been recently introduced as the
chloroform, and at p. 132 that the game of shuttlecock was the croquet,
of the day. In another place (p. 110) the fantastical and affectedly
humble salutation to the knee alluded to by dramatists of the period is
said to have been one of the many changes in fashion attributed to
English travellers returned from Italy. At p. 36 there is a notice of an
article apparently of fashionable costume which we are unable to
explain, "Kentish tails." It is said of these things, whatever they
were, that they "are now turned to such spectacles, so that if a man put
them on his nose he shall have all the land he can see." What
connection, if any, there may be between the tails here mentioned and
the old legend of Kentish tails, we are obliged to leave to the
consideration of persons versed in the antiquities of that county.[15]
There are other passages which deal with the fashions of the day. It was
a time in which ladies' dressing-rooms were nearly allied to
apothecaries' shops, and the art of manufacturing female beauty seems to
have fallen into the hands of probably a lower and irregular class of
medical practitioners. The poets are full of allusions to this subject.
Massinger sums it up in a passage which we may be excused for quoting:--
there are ladies
And great ones, that will hardly grant access,
On any terms, to their own fathers, as
They are themselves, nor willingly be seen
Before they have ask'd counsel of their doctor
How the ceruse will appear, newly laid-on,
When they ask blessing. . . . .
. . . . Such indeed there are
That would be still young in despite of time;
That in the wrinkled winter of their age
Would force a seeming April of fresh beauty,
As if it were within the power of art
To frame a second nature.
[Footnote 15: We referred the passage to our late dear friend the
eminent Kentish antiquary and founder of the Archæological Society
for that county, the Rev. Lambert B. Larking, and received in reply
one of his customary kindly and suggestive letters. Since we wrote
to him, his earthly career has come, alas! to an end. The Camden
Council have lost a distinguished member, and many persons a
singularly warm-hearted and unselfish friend. He was indeed one of
those attractive characters who carry into old age the fervour and
generosity of early life. There never lived a man in whose heart of
hearts there dwelt a deeper scorn of everything untruthful,
disingenuous, or mean, or who was more distinguished by a total
abandonment of all selfish interests. Deeply versed in the history
of his beloved native county, and possessed of large antiquarian
collections derived principally from unpublished materials, the
information which he had gathered through a course of many years was
at the service of every applicant, and frequently furnished valuable
materials for other writers, whilst an over-anxiety to attain an
impossible completeness prevented his bringing to an end works which
would have established his own right to a high position in the
literature of research. His work on the Domesday of Kent we trust
will soon be issued to the subscribers. We doubt not that it will
justify our estimate of the scholarship and diligence in inquiry of
our kind and amiable friend.]
The anecdotes jotted down by the young Templar speak for themselves.
They of course derive their principal value from the names to which they
are attached. Notices of personal peculiarities are so singularly
evanescent, they live so entirely in the observation and memory of
contemporaries, that it is a biographical gain to have them recorded in
any shape. Apparent trifles, such as the waddling gait of Sir John
Davies, the stately silence of Lord Montjoy at the dinner table, the
description of the popular preacher Clapham--"a black fellow with a sour
look but a good spirit, bold and sometimes bluntly witty," the fussy
particularity of Fleetwood the recorder, the vanity of old
Stowe,--these, and memoranda such as these, impart a life and reality to
our conceptions of the men to whom they relate, which cannot be derived
from volumes of mere dates and facts.
Of the recorded witticisms, the peculiarity which will strike the reader
in this case, as in all others of the same description, is their
singular want of originality. Good things which were current in the
classical period are here re-invented, or warmed up, for the amusement
of the contemporaries of King James. And the same thing occurs over and
over again, from generation to generation. _Mots_ which descended to the
times of Manningham reappeared in the pages of Joe Miller, are recorded
among the clever sayings of Archbishop Whateley, and in one instance at
least may be found among the pulpit witticisms of Rowland Hill.
The book is one which would bear a large amount of illustrative
annotation. We have endeavoured in most cases to keep down what we had
to say to mere citation of the ordinary standard books of reference--the
tools with which all literary men work. It is well for them that our
literature can boast of instruments so well suited to their purpose as
Dr. Bliss's edition of Wood's Athenæ, Mr. Hardy's edition of Le Neve's
Fasti, and Mr. Foss's Lives of the Judges--the books to which we have
principally referred. May the number of such works be increased!
Finally, we have the grateful task of returning thanks to two gentlemen
who have specially assisted us in issuing this book. To Mr. John
Forster, the author of the Life of Eliot and of many other valuable
historical works, we are indebted for the use of a transcript of part of
the Diary here printed; and to Mr. John Gough Nichols, like the Editors
of most of the volumes printed for the Camden Society, we owe the great
advantage of many most useful suggestions during the progress of the
work. The results of their kindness and of the liberality of Mr. Tite
will we hope be acceptable to the Society.
J. B.
MANNINGHAM'S DIARY.
[Sidenote: Harl. MS. 5353.
fo. 1.]
A puritan is a curious corrector of thinges indifferent.[16]
[Footnote 16: This and the subsequent memoranda up to fo. 5 have
been apparently jotted down at odd times upon the fly-leaves of the
little book in which what is more properly called the Diary was
written.]
SONG TO THE QUEENE AT THE MASKE AT COURT, NOV. 2.[17]
Mighty Princes of a fruitfull land,
In whose riche bosome stored bee
Wisdome and care, treasures that free
Vs from all feare; thus with a bounteous hand
You serue the world which yett you doe commaund.
Most gracious Queene, wee tender back
Our lynes as tributes due,
Since all whereof wee all partake
Wee freely take from you.
Blessed Goddess of our hopes increase,
Att whose fayre right hand
Attend Justice and Grace,
Both which commend
True beauties face;
Thus doe you neuer cease
To make the death of warr the life of peace.
Victorious Queene, soe shall you liue
Till Tyme it selfe must dye,
Since noe Tyme euer can depriue
You of such memory.
[Footnote 17: The Queen here mentioned was of course Queen
Elizabeth. The writing on this page is in many places so much worn
away as to be difficult to decipher.]
IN MOTLEYUM.
[Sidenote: fo. 2.]
O cruell death, to murder in thy rage
Our ages flower, in flower of his age. (_Holland._)
IN SPENSERUM.[18]
Famous aliue, and dead, here is the ods,
Then God of Poets, nowe Poet of the Gods.
[Footnote 18: Spenser died Jan. 16, 1598-9.]
MARCH 29, 1602.
I sawe Dr. Parryes[19] picture with a Bible in his hand, the word upon
it, _Huic credo_, and over his heade an heaven, with a motto, _Hoc
spero_.
[Footnote 19: Dr. Henry Parry was at this time a prebendary of York.
He was afterwards successively Dean of Chester, and Bishop of
Gloucester, and Worcester, and died 12 Dec. 1616. (Hardy's Le Neve,
i. 439; iii. 66, 177, 264.)]
EPIGRAM; Mr. Kedgwyn.
The radiant splendor[20] of Tom Hortons nose
Amates the ruby and puts downe the rose,
Had I a iewell of soe rich an hewe,
I would present it to some monarchs viewe,
Subjects ought not to weare such gemms as those,
Therefore our Prince shall have Tom Horton's nose!
[Footnote 20: The word "lustre" is interlined above "splendor,"
as another suggested reading in place of the latter word.]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: fo. 2^b.]
EPITAPH IN THE CHAUNCERY[21] AT SANDEY IN BEDFORD[SHIRE.]
Cur caro lætatur dum vermibus esca paratur?
Terræ terra datur, caro nascitur ut moriatur;
Terram terra tegat, demon peccata resumat,
Mundus res habeat, spiritus alta petat.
Why growes our fleshe so proud,
Whiles 'tis but made wormes foode?
This earth must turne to earth.
To dye flesh tooke it birth,
The earth our earth must hyde,
Our synnes the deuill betyde,
The world our goodes must haue,
And God our soules will saue.
[Footnote 21: Chancel or chantry?]
[Sidenote: fo. 3.]
_Certayne devises and empresaes taken by the scucheons in the
Gallery[22] at Whitehall; 19 Martij 1601._
[Footnote 22: Pepys mentions on two occasions a gallery at Whitehall
called the Shield Gallery (Diary, i. 105, 133), and Hentzner
enumerates among things worthy of observation in that spacious and
memorable palace, "Variety of emblems on paper, out in the shape of
shields, with mottos, used by the nobility at tilts and tournaments,
hung up here for a memorial," Journey into England, p. 29, ed.
1757.]
The scucheon, twoe windmilles crosse sailed, and all the verge of the
scucheon poudred with crosses crosselets, the word _Vndique cruciatus_.
Vnder written these verses:
When most I rest behold howe I stand crost,
When most I moue I toyle for others gayne,
The one declares my labour to be lost,
The other shewes my quiet is but payne.
Vnhappy then whose destiny are crosses,
When standinge still and moveing breedes but losses.
The devise manie small tapers neere about a great burning, the word,
_Nec tibi minus erit_.
The devise a taper newe blowen out, with a fayre blast from a cloude,
the word, _Te flante relucet_.
The scucheon argent with a hand and a pen in it, the word, _Solus amor
depinget_.
Two garlandes in a shield, one of lawrell, the other of cypresse, the
word, _Manet vna cupressi_.
A ship in the sea, the word, _Meus error ab alto_.
A man falling from the top of a ladder, the word, _Non quo, sed unde
cado_.
A scrole of paper full of cypheres, the word, _Adde unum_.
A sunne with sweete face in it averted from an armed knight, shaddowed
in a cloud all but his handes and knees, which were bended; the word,
_Quousque auertes?_
[Sidenote: fo. 3^b.]
The scucheon, a grayhound coursing, with a word, _In libertate labor_;
and another grayhound tyed to a tree and chafinge that he cannot be
loosed to followe the game he sawe; the word, _In servitute dolor_.
A fayre sunne, the word, _Occidens occidens_.
A glorious lady in a cloud in the one syde, and a sunne in the other;
beneath a sacrifice of hands, hartes, armes, pennes, &c. the word,
_Soli, non soli_.
A kingfisher bird, sitting against the winde, the word, _Constans
contrariæ spernit_.
A palme tree laden with armor upon the bowes, the word, _Fero at
patior_.
An empty bagpipe, the word, _Si impleueris_.
An angle with the line and hooke, _Semper tibi pendent_.
A viall well strunge, the word, _Adhibe dextram_.
A sable field, the word, _Par nulla figura dolori_.
A partridge with a spaniell before hir, and a hauke over hir; the word,
_Quo me vertam_.
The man in the moone with thornes on his backe looking downwarde; the
word, _At infra se videt omnia_.
A large diamond well squared, the word, _Dum formas minuis_.
A pyramis standinge, with the mott _Ubi_ upon it, and the same fallen,
with the word _Ibi_ upon it.
A burning glas betwixt the sunne, and a lawne which it had sett on fire;
the word, _Nec tamen cales_.
A flame, the word, _Tremet et ardet_.
A torch light in the sunne, the word, _Quis furor_.
A stag having cast his head and standing amazedly, weeping over them;
the word over, _Inermis et deformis_; under, _Cur dolent habentes_.
A torche ready to be lighted, the word, _Spero lucem_.
A man attyred in greene, shoting at a byrd in the clowdes; the one
arrowe over, the other under; the 3. in his bowe drawne to the heade,
with this word upon it, _Spero vltimam_.
A foote treading on a worme, _Leviter ne peream_.
A dyall in the sunne, _In occasu desinit esse_.
A ballance in a hand, _Ponderare est errare_.
A fly in a hors eye, _Sic ultus peream_.
A scucheon argent, _Sic cum forma nulla placet_.
A ship sayling in the sea, _Portus in ignoto est_.
An eagle looking on the sunne, _Reliqua sordent_.
A branche sprung forth of an oake couped, the word, _Planta fuit
quercus_.
[Sidenote: fo. 5.]
MARCHE 28, 1602.[23]
[Footnote 23: This was Palm Sunday.]
At the Temple: sermon, the text, Mark, x. 20.