Jonson was now made “Master of the Revells,” and was nearly being

knighted. He passed his time in going from one country seat to

another; every Twelfth-day he was ordered to produce, or to repeat a

masque. Charles I. was now rising to maturity, and, like his

deceased brother, Henry, he loved the poetry of Jonson, and the

fancy of Inigo Jones. The match-making propensities of King James

were as yet undeveloped, and had neither troubled his repose nor

maddened the nation into a dread of his mistakes. Villiers was

young, gay, and unmarried; and the world was at peace. Those were

happy and busy days for Jonson--yet, amid all his labours, he found

time to collect an excellent library. He was not only a collector,

but a lender of his books--an unusual combination; a man must be

generous, indeed, to unite the two characters; nay, he gave them

also, liberally, to those qualified to value the rare editions which

he bought. “I am fully warranted in saying,” Mr. Gifford writes,

“that more valuable books given to individuals by Jonson are yet to

be met with than by any person of that age. Scores of them have

fallen under my own observation, and I have heard of abundance of

others.”[222] This is rare praise. Nevertheless, since brilliant

success always has its alloy, it was the lot of Jonson to suffer

from the ingratitude of his coadjutor, Inigo Jones; and the excuse,

perhaps, of Inigo was, that he was tried and tempted by the temper

and irony of Jonson. Their quarrel was inconvenient, and must have

caused some trouble in the representation of those masques and

revels over which Jonson presided.

Footnote 222:

Life, p. 49.

“Whoever was the aggressor,” says Horace Walpole, “the turbulence

and brutality of Jonson was sure to place him most in the wrong.”

This is a hard judgment. Let it be remembered that the circumstances

of the two men were different. Jonson was poor, diseased, and in

that miserable plight when a generous temper is continually checked

by pecuniary difficulties. Inigo Jones had realized a handsome

fortune, and was then in the full enjoyment of wealth and

reputation. Unfortunately he was a poet; some of the masques printed

had their joint names as the composers. Jealousies arose, which

ought to have soon subsided, had either of these celebrated men

known how to curb his wrath. In Jonson’s case, his temper was his

worst enemy; but for this defect he had an excuse which might have

pleaded for him even with Inigo. In 1625, Jonson composed for King

James “Pan’s Anniversary,” the last piece that he presented to that

monarch; towards the end of that year he was attacked with palsy,

and a threatening of dropsy added to his accumulated trials. Poverty

and ill-health are pleas for indulgence. For the first evil,

Jonson’s improvidence, his hospitality, his utter want of prudence

in his affairs, may justly be blamed. The last was also partially

his own fault, for his habits were intemperate--and partly

ascribable to an hereditarily diseased constitution. Nature, which

had endowed him with that wonderful intellect, that indomitable

energy, had modified her gift by the infliction of a cruel malady,

which, being in the blood, was aggravated by the weakness of

approaching age. The suppers at the Mermaid were now finally

abandoned; and the club at the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, was no

longer enlivened by his wit. His intellect was affected to some

extent, but he recovered sufficiently to write the anti-masque of

“Jophiel” for the Court; after which, none of his productions were

commanded by the King during the space of three years. In his

necessities, unable to leave his room, or to move without

assistance, the poor invalid turned to the theatre as a source of

revenue, and produced “The New Inn.” It was hissed from the stage;

and, notwithstanding the dramatist’s plea in his epilogue that he

was “sick and sad,” he was persecuted with contemptuous verses, and

pursued with remorseless cruelty by the many enemies that his rough

manners had excited--among them, Inigo was the most inveterate.

There was, however, one kind heart that pitied him--that of Charles

I. The monarch was touched by the lines which the hard critics in

the theatre could hear without compassion:--

“If you expect more than you had to-night,

The Maker is sick and sad; he sent things fit

In all the numbers both of verse and wit,

If they have not miscarried: if they have,

All that his faint and faltering tongue doth crave

Is, that you not impute it to his brain--

That’s yet unhurt, although set round with pain.

It cannot long hold out: all strength must yield;

Yet judgment would the last be in the field

With the true poet.”

Charles sent him a hundred pounds: the poet, in the fulness of

gratitude, wrote "A petition from poor Ben to the best of monarchs,

masters, and men"--full of gaiety and good-humour, yet touching,

even in its sparkling wit. The petition prayed that His Majesty

would make his father’s “hundred marks a hundred pounds,” alluding

to the pension granted by King James. The petition was granted, and

in the patent by which the annuity was confirmed, it was said,

“especially to encourage Jonson to proceed in those services of his

wit and penn, which we have enjoined unto him.”

A tierce of Canary accompanied this act of bounty. It was Jonson’s

favourite wine, and the King, from his private bounty, sent it to

the sick poet. It was to be a yearly gift, not only to Jonson, but

to his successors; and the wine--Spanish Canary--was to be taken

from his Majesty’s cellars at Whitehall, out of the stores of wine

“remaining therein.” Charles little anticipated that even his love

of the drama should be made a cause of reproach to him at his trial.

“Had the King but studied Scripture half as much as he studied Ben

Jonson or Shakspeare!” was the cry of the Puritans.

Jonson might now have been tolerably happy, had not his former

coadjutor, Inigo, still borne him enmity for having, during the

preceding year, placed his own name before that of the royal

architect. The conduct of Jones in this respect has been placed in

its true light by a letter from a Mr. Perry to Sir Thomas

Pickering.[223] In that letter it is stated that Inigo used his

“predominant power” at Court to injure Jonson, then bed-ridden and

impoverished, as the poet was. Henceforth, Aurelian Townshend, a

poet scarcely known, was employed to invent the masques represented

at Court, in conjunction with Inigo Jones.

Footnote 223:

This was communicated to Gifford by the late Mr. D’Israeli, to

whom historical literature owes indeed much.

The same year that was marked by the death of Buckingham witnessed

poor Jonson’s “fatal stroke,” as he termed it, of palsy. He never

recovered this attack of 1628, and his days were overclouded by

successive mortifications. Hitherto the city of London had given him

a pension for his services. At the very time when it was most needed

by the forlorn dramatist, it was withdrawn, but restored three years

afterwards. The office for which he received this annuity was that

of City Chronologer. The plea made for its cessation was that there

had been “no fruits of his labours in that his place,” which place

was to commemorate signal events; other sources of emolument were

also withheld, on the plea that the fruits of that now exhausted

brain were no longer forthcoming.

But bright instances of compassion and generosity stood forth amid

all this gloom. Amongst the great patrons of the drama was William

Cavendish, the first Earl of Newcastle, declared by Cibber to be

“one of the most finished gentlemen and distinguished patriots of

his time.” He had been constituted governor to Prince Charles, for

whom he ever retained the most loyal affection. Of this nobleman it

was said that he understood horsemanship, music, and poetry; but

that he was a better horseman than a musician, a better musician

than a poet. His wife, the eccentric Margaret Lucas, wrote of him

that “his mind was above his fortune, his generosity above his

purse, his courage above danger, his justice above bribers, his

friendship above self-interest, his truth too firm for falsehood,

his temperance beyond temptation.”

It was by no means prejudicial to the popularity of this fine

specimen of an English nobleman that “he was fitter to break Pegasus

for a _manège_ than to mount him on the steps of Parnassus.” He

wrote a work entitled, “A new Method and Extraordinary Invention to

Dress Horses and Work them according to Nature, as also to Perfect

Nature by the Subtlety of Art.” The work, a folio, was succeeded by

various comedies, several of them written when Lord Newcastle was in

banishment, and acted, after his return to England, at Blackfriars.

He wrote, it is said, in the manner of Ben Jonson, to whom he was a

kind patron. The Earl was a singular compound of military skill and

ardour with literary tastes; by him Sir William Davenant,

poet-laureate after Jonson’s death, was made Lieutenant-General of

the Ordnance.[224]

Footnote 224:

Grainger, Biog. Hist., vol. i., p. 194.

His wife, who at the time Ben Jonson knew her was Countess of

Newcastle, and afterwards Duchess, is one of the most voluminous of

writers among the (now) long catalogue of literary ladies in this

country. She was at once ridiculous and estimable--a combination of

qualities painful to friends, but never acknowledged by her

husband, who revered her talents, and tried to defend what was

incomprehensible to the learned--her philosophy. In private life she

was reserved, living almost entirely among her books, or in

contemplation, or writing indefatigably. Even during the night, one

of the Duke’s secretaries is said to have slept on a truckle bed in

a closet in her bedroom, in order to be ready to answer any sudden

bursts of inspiration that might occur; and the summonses to John,

“to get up and write down her Grace’s suggestions,” were frequent

and wearisome. Kind, pious, charitable, generous, and really gifted,

though romantic and visionary, this excellent lady’s peculiarities

might have furnished Molière with a model for his “Precieuses

Ridicules;” but, to Ben Jonson, they were lessened by the vast

amount of amiability that welcomed the poet to her stately abode,

or, better still, relieved him in his poverty and want.

When the Earl and Countess of Newcastle heard of the poet’s play

being condemned--when they learned that various copies of

complimentary verses had been addressed to him by admirers, pitying

his humiliation--the Earl, worthy of the name of Cavendish (so dear

to England), sent to request a transcript of them. The reply is very

touching:--[225]

"MY NOBLEST LORD, and my Patron by Excellence--I have here obeyed

your commands, and sent you a packet of my own praises, which I

should not have done if I had any stock of modesty in store; but

‘obedience is better than sacrifice,’ and you command it. I am now

like an old bankrupt in wit, that am driven to pay debts on my

friends’ credit; and, for want of satisfying letters, to subscribe

bills of exchange.

“Your devoted

“BEN JONSON.

"4th February, 1632.

“To the Right Hon. the Earl of Newcastle.”

Footnote 225:

Gifford, p. 48.

Also note, same page:--

"MY NOBLEST LORD AND BEST PATRON--I send no borrowing epistle to

provoke your lordship, for I have neither fortune to repay, nor

security to engage, that will be taken; but I make a most humble

petition to your lordship’s bounty to succour my present necessities

this good time of Easter; and it shall conclude a begging request

hereafter on behalf of

"Your truest bondsman and

"Most thankful servant,

“B. J.”

One of these complimentary poems was written by Lucius Cary, Lord

Falkland--a patriot, a soldier, and a poet, the very model of that

refined spirit of chivalry which never recovered itself after the

Rebellion. There must have been consolation in such a strain, from

such a man; but poor “old Ben,” as he was now called, was almost

past consolation. He was engaged on another play, “The Majestic

Lady.” The world, who had then deemed the old man dead,[226]

received it as the injudicious effort of a mind enfeebled. Dryden,

even, who should have forborne from the poor triumph over him whom

he wrongly considered a “driveller and a show,” called these last

plays “Ben’s dotages;” but, though feebler than his former dramas,

they exhibit no traces of _dotage_--that invidious and almost cruel

expression.[227]

Footnote 226:

Gifford, p. 49.

Footnote 227:

With a gentler feeling, Charles Lamb made numerous extracts from

“The New Inn,” to show that the mind that produced the “Fox” was

still there.--Ibid.

Sustained by the Earl of Newcastle, praised by the noble Falkland,

pensioned by the King, one might have supposed that Jonson’s last

days would have been peaceful, though no longer cheerful. But he had

debts; and he was forced--bed-ridden, shaken in body and mind--to

write on to the very last. His latest effort was an interlude

welcome of King Charles to Welbeck, on his way to Scotland; for

which a tribute from Jonson’s muse was commanded by the

ever-friendly and munificent Newcastle.

The timely gratuity sent to the poet, when the interlude was

ordered, “fell,” he wrote, “like the dew of Heaven on his

necessities.” He wrote to his patron in terms of gratitude, warm and

expressive, and creditable to himself and that benefactor.

He continued at his desk; and a fragment of the “Last Shepherd,” one

of his last efforts which is preserved, proves that his fancy was

unclouded. Hitherto it has been painful to trace his decay--to

record his distress; but now light came to his death-bed, and came

from on high. Penitence, prayer, conviction of the true faith in our

Holy Apostolic Church, confession of sins, hope, and rest--these

were the Heavenly lights that broke over the gloom of his latter

hours.

Happily--and let the fact he impressively recorded--his parents had

carefully impressed on his infancy deep religious convictions.

As he lay, neglected by his former associates, and even believed by

the worldly to be dead--and dead, indeed, was he to them--the

impressions of his duty to his Maker grew more frequent and stronger

in his affection.[228]

Footnote 228:

Gifford, p. 48.

To the Bishop of Winchester, who visited him during his long

illness, he expressed the deepest contrition for having profaned the

sacred name of his Creator in his plays. His “remorse was poignant;”

and doubtless this sense of the responsibility which is devolved on

great talents, which comes to many too late, was the foundation of

his heartfelt penitence and sorrow. He died on the 5th of April,

1637--and on the 9th his remains were entombed in Westminster Abbey,

on the north side, just opposite the escutcheon of Robertus de Ros.

A common pavement stone was placed over his grave; but Sir John

Young, of Great Milton, Oxfordshire, passing through the Abbey,

noticed that the stone was without any inscription to mark where the

great poet lay. Sir John, or, as Aubrey calls him, “Jack” Young,

gave one of the workmen eighteen-pence to cut an inscription; and

the words, “O rare Ben Jonson!” were carved as a temporary

distinction. Meantime, the admirers of the deceased poet were

collecting a subscription to defray the expense of a suitable[229]

monument to “poor Ben;” but the Rebellion breaking out, the project

was abandoned, and the money returned to the subscribers.

Footnote 229:

Gifford.

No fewer than thirty-four elegies on Ben Jonson were collected by

Dr. Duppa, the Bishop of Winchester, and published under the title

of “Jonson’s Verbius;” and amongst the authors were Lord Falkland,

Ford, Waller, George Donne, Lord Buckhurst, and other illustrious

names. But perhaps there is no tribute more gratifying to the

admirers of Ben Jonson than that of Taylor, the water-poet, who had

met him at Leith. Jonson, be it remembered, had walked to Edinburgh,

yet he could not see the humble poet without giving him what he

could ill afford to bestow.

“At Leith,” says Taylor, “I found my long-approved and assured good

friend, Master Benjamin Jonson, at one Master John Stuart’s house. I

thank him for his great kindness; for at my taking leave of him, he

give me a piece of gold, of two-and-twenty shillings value, to drink

his health in England; and withall willed me to remember his kind

commendations to all his friends. So, with a friendly farewell, I

left him as well as I hope never to see him in a worse state; for he

is among noblemen and gentlemen that know his true worth, and their

own honours, where with much respective love he is entertained.”

The sum, as Gifford remarks, was not, in those days, an

inconsiderable one; and there was something graceful and touching in

the kindness of one placed so high, as Jonson was in literary fame,

to the humbler poet.

This sketch of Ben Jonson’s life and writings may serve to

illustrate the manners of those times, and the nature of that

society in which George Villiers lived. In every revel Buckingham

was the most distinguished courtier. In every masque, during King

James’s life, he played a part. He knew the poet at Wilton; there

can be little doubt that the friends of Villiers were the patrons of

poor Ben. The panegyrist of the Duke, Lord Clarendon, lived, as he

has himself declared, “many years on terms of the most friendly

intercourse with Jonson.” In that conversation, praised by this

historian “as very good, with men of most note,” Villiers must have

borne a part; whilst Camden and Selden mingled with poor Ben, with

the Sackvilles, the Sidneys, the Herberts, and the numerous family

of Villiers.

CHAPTER VI.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER--THEIR ORIGIN--THEIR JOINT

PRODUCTIONS--CHARACTER OF BISHOP FLETCHER--ANECDOTES ABOUT THE

USE OF TOBACCO--FORD, THE DRAMATIST--HOWELL--SIR HENRY

WOTTON--THE CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM CONSIDERED.

CHAPTER VI.

Among the young Templars who devoted themselves to the drama during

the times of George Villiers, was Francis Beaumont. Born in the same

county as that in which Buckingham’s family were settled, and

bearing the same name as the Duke’s mother, there is every

probability of there being some tie of consanguinity between the

poet and the peer.

Beaumont, like his colleague Fletcher, was one of ancient and

honourable family; and, as such, entitled to be called to the Bar.

It might be satisfactory to some of the lovers of literature to find

that its pursuit, in the days of the Stuart Kings, was most

frequently the choice of men of high connections, and by them

considered as equal in position to the calling of the Bar, and far

superior to that of the Church, or of medicine. The personal tastes

of James, the passionate love of the drama evinced by Charles, by

Henrietta Maria, and by Villiers, encouraged aspiring men to a

display of genius which might have long been hidden in a lawyer’s

wig, or extinguished for ever beneath the coif. Men were less

shackled then by conventionalities than in the present day.

The father of Francis Beaumont was one of the judges of the Court of

Common Pleas during the reign of Elizabeth, and the family seat was

Grace-Dieu, in Leicestershire. Two gifted sons emerged from this

ancient Manor-house to the universities--John Beaumont,[230] who

became a Gentleman Commoner at Broad-gate Hall, Oxford; and Francis,

who was educated at Cambridge. Both were entered at the Inns of

Court: Francis at the Inner Temple, the popular resort of Cambridge

men; John, however, retired to Grace-Dieu, married into the family

of Fortescue, and devoted his peaceful days to translations of the

classics, and to religious poems, which even Ben Jonson eulogized.

Amongst them is the “Crown of Thorns,” a poem in eight books.

Whether from Buckingham’s influence, or from his own merit, or from

both conjoined, is not known, but he was knighted by Charles in

1626. He survived that honour only two years, dying in the same year

in which Buckingham was killed.

Footnote 230:

For some particulars of Sir John Beaumont, see Appendix.

His brother, Francis Beaumont, born in 1586, had a less peaceful

career. Endowed with no ordinary abilities, he became acquainted

with those whose example was not calculated to promote the due

attention to legal studies. Ben Jonson and John Fletcher were then

in favour with the public. Jonson in the decline of life, Fletcher

almost in the dawn of his celebrity.

The Fletchers, like the Beaumonts, were a family of talent; and the

famous friendship, or partnership, which produced so much, and to

which we owe some of the most beautiful passages of poetry, linked

to the most unreadable, was the result of that community of tastes

and studies which is promoted by the education at an English

university.

Fletcher, as well as Beaumont, had been at Cambridge; and his

father, Dr. Richard Fletcher, Bishop of London, having been a

benefactor to Benet College, that society was chosen for his

matriculation. He came to London, and meeting, at some one or other

of the clubs, with Francis Beaumont, they wrote plays in concert.

Fletcher, who was ten years younger than his partner, had the most

wit, the greatest luxuriance of fancy, the most extended conception,

and lavish prodigality of improprieties. Beaumont had the soundest

judgment, and employed it in cutting down young Fletcher’s daring

flights of fancy. Both assisted in forming the plots; since Beaumont

happened to be the elder of the two, his name appears first in the

literary firm, but it ought, in strict propriety, to be Fletcher and

Beaumont, instead of Beaumont and Fletcher.

They worked out the plots together; and one night, as they sat in a

tavern, concocting a play, Fletcher undertook “To kill the King.” He

was overheard by a waiter, who gave information of their traitorous

designs; instantly the two young men were apprehended, and all the

terrors of the law were before them--until they succeeded in

justifying themselves, when the affair ended in mirth.

Beaumont, meantime, was gaining the confidence even of the

formidable Ben Jonson, who submitted some of his works to his

criticism before publication. The young lawyer had that skill in

forming plots which seems like a natural gift, and which even good

writers are unable to acquire; and he is said to have concocted some

of those on which Jonson’s plays are founded.

Meantime, he wrote a little drama called “A Mask of Gray’s Inn

Gentleman,” and a poem entitled “The Inner Temple.” Jonson, grateful

for his aid, and admiring his talents, poured forth his delight in

these lines:--

“How I do love thee, Beaumont, and thy muse,

That unto me do’st such religion use

How I do fear myself that am not worth

The least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth;

At once thou mak’st me happy, and unmak’st;

And giving largely to me more than tak’st.

What fate is mine that so itself bereaves?

What fate is thine, that so thy friend deceives?

When, even there when most thou praisest me,

For writing better I must envy thee.”

But, unhappily, Beaumont’s career was ended before he had attained

the age of thirty. He was buried in St. Benedict’s within St.

Peter’s, Westminster. No inscription on his tomb recalls the merits

so soon closed in death; but Bishop Corbet, the author of the “Grave

Poem,” and Sir John Beaumont, commemorated them in epitaphs which

are to be found in their works. Frances Beaumont, the poet’s only

daughter, survived him many years; but lost some of her father’s

manuscript poems as she went to Ireland by sea. Beaumont died in

1615, just at the crisis of Villiers’ early career, when he became

first the subject of King James’s notice. Notwithstanding his

premature death, his plays attained an almost unrivalled popularity.

Dryden tells us that they were the most popular entertainments of

the time--two of them being acted through the year for one of

Shakspeare’s or Jonson’s; there being, he adds, a certain gaiety in

the comedies of Beaumont and Fletcher, and a pathos in their serious

plays, which accorded with the taste or humour of all men.

Posterity, however, does not admit of the comparison; but it is

impossible to say whether, if the lives of these two dramatists had

been spared, their powers might not have enabled them far to exceed

even the fanciful and poetical works which they found time to

accomplish.

Fletcher died of the plague, in 1625, at the age of forty-five, and

his remains were carried to the church of St. Mary Overie, where

those of Massinger were deposited--and it has been said that they

were both interred in the same tomb; but of this there is no

certainty.

It is, perhaps, the greatest compliment we can pay to the present

state of society to say that the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher can

never be listened to by an English audience, as long as Englishwomen

have one principle of delicacy, or Englishmen any respect for

virtue, remaining. Those, however, who desire to judge of the

poetical power of Fletcher will delight in his poem of the “Faithful

Shepherdess,” which Milton thought worthy of imitation in his mask

of “Comus.” Little is known of John Fletcher personally; but he

lived in times when every nerve was touched by stirring events, and

when many of the old memories which clung to men’s minds were

dramatic and tragical. His father, when Dean of Peterborough, had

attended Mary, Queen of Scots, to her execution. The good man,

looking, perhaps, for that preferment which followed, and forgetting

the peril, the misery of sudden conversions, had urged the heroic

Queen to change her religion, even at that solemn hour when the

heart clings the most closely to the impressions of youth. He

repeated his arguments; then she begged him three or four times to

desist. “I was born,” she said, “in this religion--I have lived in

this religion--and am resolved to die in this religion.”

In spite of his vehement Protestantism, the Bishop had some small

and great failings; he was an inveterate taker of tobacco, which was

then not only imported, but reared in Ireland and England. The

Bishop probably considered tobacco to be, as Burton, in his “Anatomy

of Melancholy,” describes it, “a vertuous herbe, if it be well

qualified, opportunely taken, and medecinally used;” but he did not

follow the advice of that admirable writer in the moderation with

which the snuff-box and the pipe should be indulged in. The prelate

fell into an excess in the use of tobacco, to which Camden, in his

History of England, imputed his death. The narcotic weed was indeed

one of those luxuries of the age, which was most abused in the time

of Buckingham. Burton anathematizes it--“as it is commonly used by

most men, who take it as tinkers do ale; ’tis a plague, a mischiefe,

a violent purger of goods, lands, healthe, hellish, devilish, damned

tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of bodye and soule.”[231]

Footnote 231:

Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy,” vol i., p. 235.

But no considerations of this nature could either restrain Bishop

Fletcher, or convince the gallants of the day that they were ruining

either body or soul in their love of tobacco. It was very generally

employed in the form of snuff by both sexes in the seventeenth

century, and was allowed even in the royal presence.[232] “Before

the meat came smoking to the board,” says Dekker, “our gallant must

draw out his tobacco-box, and the ladle for the cold snuff into the

nostril, all which artillery may be of gold or silver, if he can

reach his several tricks in taking it, as the whiff, the ring, &c.,

for these are complements that gain gentlemen no mean respect.”[233]

It was the custom to raise the snuff with a spoon to the nose; the

snuff or pouncet-box having been long in vogue, charged, before the

discovery of Ralegh, with cephalic powder, known since the time of

Herodotus:--

“He was perfumed like a milliner,

And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held

A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

He gave his nose.”[234]

Footnote 232:

Stowe’s “Annals.”

Footnote 233:

Gull’s “Horn-book,” pp. 119, 120.

Footnote 234:

Henry IV.

It was in vain that every power was combined to crush the practice

of smoking, of the inveteracy of which Bishop Fletcher affords a

memorable example. Monarchs united to oppose it, and it was even

condemned on religious grounds; but that plea made no impression on

Bishop Fletcher. Elizabeth had published an edict against it,

assigning as a reason that her subjects, by employing the same

luxuries as barbarians, would become barbarous. James I. published

his famous counterblast to tobacco, comparing it to the “horrible

Stygian smoake of the pit that is bottomless;” and imposed on it a

prohibitory duty of six shillings and eight-pence per pound on its

importation--an impost which Charles continued, making tobacco a

royal monopoly, as it still is in France and the Netherlands--the

duty having been only twopence a pound in the reign of Elizabeth.

Still smoking prevailed; Ralegh had introduced it after the return

of Sir Francis Drake from America, and all fashionable men practised

it. Villiers, more especially, was probably among the most

inveterate, after his residence in Spain; a pipe, a mug of ale, and

a nutmeg were the right style at the Mitre and the Mermaid; and

probably found toleration even in the hall of Burleigh, or at

New-hall.

It seems hard to challenge the self-indulgence of Bishop Fletcher,

or to grudge him a luxury which assisted Sir Isaac Newton in his

contemplative mood, and soothed Hooker when a shrewish wife nearly

drove him mad with vexation. Nevertheless, smoking, or taking snuff,

is said to have ended Dr. Fletcher’s days. He had also trials of

another kind to his health. He was the bishop who offended Elizabeth

by taking a second wife, and that wife a handsome widow, Lady Baker,

of Kent. The Queen, thinking that one wife was enough for a bishop,

forbade him her presence, and ordered Archbishop Whitgift to suspend

him, and whether from her Majesty’s displeasure, or from the effects

of tobacco, he died suddenly in his chair; “being well, sick, and

dead in one quarter of an hour.”

The family of Fletcher were largely imbued with poetic fervour.

Giles, the bishop’s brother, was a man of great learning; and his

two sons, John and Phineas, were conspicuous during the reign of

James I. for their learning and poetry. Phineas, whose name occurs

in the biography of Villiers, wrote “The Purple Island,” an

allegorical description of man--a much extended version of

“Spenser’s Allegory” in his second book. He also composed “Piscatory

Eclogues and Miscellanies;” and his time was divided between the

duties of his calling (for he was a clergyman) and the delight of

composition. His brother Giles was, says Anthony Wood, equally

“beloved of the muses and the graces.” The Fletchers were, indeed,

remarkable for their gifts. Benlowes, in his verses to Phineas, thus

expresses his sense of their family attributes:--

“For ’twere a stain, Nature’s, not thy own;

For thou art poet born; who know thee know it;

Thy brother, sire--thy very name’s a poet.”

The fame of Giles Fletcher rests chiefly on his poem called

“Christ’s Victory,” which is printed with the “Purple Island” by his

brother Phineas.

Another of the young lawyers whose genius irradiated the drama in

the time of Villiers--was John Ford, a great genius, and a prudent

man, as far as we can judge by the close of his career. Like

Fletcher and Beaumont, Ford was well-born, and had a great advantage

in being descended, on his mother’s side, from the Chief Justice

Popham. He came to London and entered at Gray’s Inn, then, as Stowe

tells us, “a goodly house,” now the very _acmé_ of dismal and

decaying dinginess. It was illumined by the presence of Lord Bacon,

as it had recently been by that of Lord Burleigh; and when Ford took

chambers in the Inn, there were pleasant gardens for the gay young

students, in which they could walk and ruminate at their leisure;

whilst Gray’s Inn Lane, furnished with fair buildings and many

tenements, as Stowe also tells us, opened on the north with a view

of the fields leading to Highgate and Hampstead; and there, too,

dwelt Hampden and Pym, the vicinity of whom must have stirred up the

spirits of the young disputants, whose ardour for liberty was

excited during the days of the Remonstrance--the time of

Buckingham’s impeachment--and in those when the first tax for the

navy was levied.

Ford, however, cared little, it appears, for those stormy questions,

but much for the drama, and more for the law, to which he was

brought up, and in the practice of which he was wise enough to

continue. A young man of a dramatic turn had many temptations, in

those days, to sacrifice the hopes of a slow advancement for the

brilliant success of a poet’s career. Ford, however, had a staid

cousin at Gray’s Inn, at the time when he became a member of the

Middle Temple, in 1602. This relative, also a John Ford, persuaded

him “to stick to the law;” and Ford, in after-life, recorded the

obligation with gratitude.

Ford’s first production was not dramatic. When only seventeen years

of age, he wrote “Fame’s Memorial,” a tribute to one of the most

popular, and at the same time one of the most unfortunate, noblemen

of the day. The fate of the ill-starred Charles Blount, Lord

Mountjoy--afterwards Earl of Devonshire--impressed the young poet so

forcibly as to impel him, without any personal knowledge of this

hero, to write this _In Memoriam_. “The life of Lord Mountjoy,”

remarks Hartley Coleridge, “is the finest subject of biography

unoccupied.” He was the generous rival of Essex, with whom,

nevertheless, he had in early life fought a duel. Blount being “a

very comely man,” attracted the attention of Queen Elizabeth. He

distinguished himself at a tilt, and she sent him a chess-queen of

gold, enamelled, which he tied on his arm with a crimson ribbon.

Essex, on seeing this, laughed scornfully, and said, “Now I perceive

every fool must have a favour!” Blount challenged him, and they

fought at Marylebone, where the Earl was disarmed and wounded.

Nevertheless, the combatants became firm friends even in early life,

and, in their later days, generous rivals.

Unhappily, an attachment was formed between the handsome Charles

Blount and the Lady Penelope, the sister of Essex. She was, however,

under the guardianship of what was then called the Court of Wards.

She was, therefore, forced to marry Lord Rich. The result was

melancholy; and she became henceforth the mistress of the brave, but

unhappy, Blount, now Lord Mountjoy, and their connection was well

known. On the death of Rich, the guilty pair were married by Laud,

then Bishop of London. King James, on that occasion, said to

Mountjoy, “You have married a fair woman with a foul heart.” Perhaps

he was too severe in his judgment, yet the gallant Mountjoy felt the

opprobrium. His worldly prospects were marred by the union; so long

as the attachment with Lady Penelope had been merely understood, the

world had received her, and honoured him; but, when they were

married, the guilty pair were slighted and contemned. “However

bitter the cup of duty may be, duty commands us to drink it even to

the dregs.”[235] The sentiment is just, and Mountjoy felt it so. His

error was redeemed by suffering. He died, it is said, of a broken

heart, having long pined away under neglect and mortification.[236]

Footnote 235:

Hartley Coleridge.

Footnote 236:

Ibid--Note.

To the Lady Penelope, the survivor of this sad romance, Ford

addressed his “Fame’s Memorial.” Mountjoy’s great valour in

Ireland--of which he was the true conqueror--had won him undying

renown. His domestic life touched the young poet’s feelings; and

upon it he wrote his tragedy of the “Broken Heart.” _Penthea’s_

lamentation for her “enforced marriage” recalls, in that exquisite

play, poor Lady Penelope’s story:--

"_Penthea._--How, Orgilus, by promise I was thine

The heavens do witness!

. . . . . How I do love thee

Yet, Orgilus, and yet, must best appear

In tendering thy freedom.

. . . . . Live, live happy--

Happy in thy next choice.

And oh! when thou art married, think on me

With mercy, not contempt! I hope thy wife,

Hearing my story, will not scorn my fall.

Now let us part."

For some time Ford merely assisted other dramatists in their

compositions; it was not until 1628 that he produced “The Lover’s

Melancholy,” which he dedicated to the “Noble Society of Gray’s

Inn.” This play was suggested by Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy,”

from which Ford, as well as Sterne, freely borrowed. After

describing the rapidity, the impelling necessity with which the

works of Massinger and Jonson were produced, it is agreeable to

think of an author who was able “to write up to his own ideal.” Ford

not only disdained all pandering to the public taste, but even

regarded the emolument arising from his plays as a secondary

consideration, after he was once fairly established in his

profession. Nor was it then thought incompatible to unite the

character of a play-writer with that of a lawyer. The Templars, and

other learned societies, were the great patrons of the drama. Often

were the quaint halls of the Temple and of Gray’s Inn formed into

temporary theatres for some favourite piece; and the talk of the

young Templar was always of Blackfriars, the Curtain, or the

Rose--of Will Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson, and Ford.

Ford conceived that his powers lay in the delineation of dark and

horrible crimes; in the exhibition of a mysterious and hopeless

melancholy. The moral of his dramas, whatever aspect it may bear in

our days, was intended to be good; but the grossness of the times

marred that intention, and his works show how impossible it is to be

at once moral and indelicate. Even _Penthea_ in the “Broken Heart,”

exquisitely as her character is drawn, lessens our sympathy by

expressions which no woman of the present day would utter in the

presence of a lover, and that lover for ever severed from her by her

indissoluble bonds with another man.

But Ford wrote in the spirit and language of his time, with a high

purpose, and a coarse taste. “His genius,” it has been well

remarked, “is as a telescope, ill-adapted for neighbouring objects,

but powerful to bring within the sphere of vision what nature has

wisely placed at an unsociable distance.”[237]

Footnote 237:

Hartley Coleridge.

He chose for the subject of his historical play the story of “Perkin

Warbeck.” With great skill he made this hero believe in his own

royalty; and he has left in this play, according to the opinion of

good judges, the best specimen of an historical tragedy after

Shakspeare.

Ford resembled Shakspeare in some particulars of his fate. Happier

in that than his associates, he was able to retire, at an early age,

to his native Devonshire, where, tradition says, he lived to old

age. It is stated that he married, and had children; but even of

this there is no certainty. One thing alone is clearly shown, even

in Ford’s dim history, that he regarded literature as the

relaxation, and not the labour of his life; that he steadily pursued

the profession in which untiring work, honourable conduct, and fair

talents generally find an ultimate reward; that he was independent

of patronage; that he could treat those to whom he addressed his

dedications as men whom he was complimenting, not benefactors whom

he was suing; and lastly, that he was able to leave the world of law

and letters before that world’s enjoyments had been exhausted, or

its disappointments had soured and wearied his spirit.

His last play was the “Lady’s Trial;” but his fame chiefly rests on

“Perkin Warbeck” and the “Broken Heart.” It is a proof of the great

esteem entertained for genius by the Earl of Newcastle, “poor Ben’s”

patron, that he was also friendly to Ford, who dedicated “Perkin

Warbeck” to that nobleman.

It was not only by necessitous men of obscure extraction that poetry

was cultivated in those times; on the contrary, some acquaintance

with the Muses, although not thought essential in those who would

fain rise to distinction as courtiers, was, at all events, deemed

ornamental and advantageous. The name of Thomas Carew was

distinguished in the reign of Charles I., as one of the most

intellectual of his young courtiers.

He was a man of an ancient Gloucestershire family; a branch of that

race settled in Devonshire, and his education was that usually

assigned to youths of good birth and expectations. He was entered at

Corpus Christi College, in Oxford, and his academical career was

succeeded, as was customary in those times, by travelling. From the

grand tour, Carew returned replete with wit, fancy, and with a high

reputation for accomplishments.

He was, therefore, almost instantly noticed by Charles I., and, it

is evident, enjoyed the favour of Buckingham, to whom he addressed

“Lines on the Lord Admiral’s recovery from sickness.” Charles made

him one of his gentlemen of the Bedchamber, and Sewer in

ordinary--appointments which brought the poet into an immediate

contact with the principal characters of the Court; and he became

the intimate associate of Lord Clarendon, the eulogist of

Villiers, and the friend of Ben Jonson. As a writer of love

sonnets, Carew has had few equals; and he may be termed, in that

respect, the Moore of his age. His charming qualities as a

companion, and the elegance of his verses, are praised by

Clarendon; whilst his contemporaries--even those less happy than

himself--saw in him, whom they declared to be one of a “mob of

gentlemen,” who aspired to be eminent in polite literature, one

whose career added lustre to the pursuits of literature. Strange

to say, Carew was beloved and extolled by his less fortunate

contemporaries; and even Ben Jonson gave him his meed of praise,

which Carew returned with sympathy and admiration.

After Jonson’s unlucky play, “The New Inn,” had been hissed off the

stage, and Jonson had vented his rage in an ode, Carew addressed the

angry poet in lines full of good sense, wit, and good feeling; and

yet, he hints, with a sincerity as rare as it is fearless, that his

powers were somewhat weakened since poor Ben had brought out the

“Alchemist.”

“And yet ’tis true

Thy cousin muse from the exalted line,

Touched by the alchemist, doth since decline

From that her zenith, and foretells a red

And blushing evening when she goes to bed;

Yet such as shall outshine the glimmering light

With which all stars shall gild the following night.”

Again he adds:--

“Let others glut on the extorted praise

Of vulgar breath, trust thou to after-days:

Thy laboured works shall live when Time devours

The abortive offering of their hasty hours.

Thou art not of their rank--the quarrel lies

Within thine own verge; then let this suffice

The wiser world doth greater thee confess

Than all men else, than thyself only less.”

Carew, notwithstanding the highly virtuous tone of the Court in

which he lived, led an irregular life; and lived to mourn, in deep

repentance, for that more than wasted portion of his existence, in

which he gave way to the worst parts of his otherwise fine nature.

When Ben Jonson had ceased to write, Carew was selected as the poet

most calculated to supply the place of that great genius in

providing masques for the Court. Only one, however, produced by him,

remains. It is called “Cœlum Britannicum.”

Inigo Jones was again summoned to be one of the “Inventors,” to

place the masque on the stage, and Henry Lawes composed the airs,

and superintended the musical performance; but those to whose

splendour and genius the perfection of this species of entertainment

was owing, were no longer there. Villiers was gone; Ben Jonson had

virtually quitted “the detracting world,” which he had once defied

from his proud pre-eminence. The country was even then split up into

factions. Happily for himself, Carew escaped their outbreak. He died

in 1639, expressing heartfelt religious convictions and penitence.

Amongst the gentlemen writers, as they were styled, was Edmund

Waller, who, at the time of Buckingham’s death, was a young man of

twenty-three years of age. The lines addressed by him to Charles I.,

on the extraordinary composure which the King showed on hearing of

that event, are well known. Even then Waller had been a member of

Parliament, and had been elected to sit in that assembly whilst he

was in his seventeenth year. Waller’s circumstances, his destiny,

his views of life, his genius, his disposition, were as opposite to

those of Massinger and Ben Jonson as can possibly be conceived. He

seemed born a courtier; and every effort he made was to advance

himself at first in that career, and afterwards as a politician. His

first appearance as a poet, in his eighteenth year, was to

congratulate King James on the escape of Prince Charles at St.

Audera, when returning from Spain; and in this poem his polished

verses, perfected, he alleged, by the study of Fairfax’s “Tasso,”

were so turned as to excite the admiration of the literary world, by

whom he was deemed the model of English versifiers. But, in spite of

his alleged devotion to Charles, and notwithstanding his continuing

to sit in Parliament, Waller sheltered himself during the storm that

ensued, and went to study chemistry under the guidance of his

kinsman, Bishop Morley--emerging only from his retreat at

Beaconsfield to mingle in the delightful circle of wits and

incipient heroes of whom the noble Falkland was the centre.

He married early; having, with a fortune of nearly four thousand

a-year, espoused a city heiress, who died and left him a widower at

the age of twenty-five. Then this accomplished man of the world

looked out for rank, and paid his addresses, poetically at all

events, to the lovely Dorothy Sidney, the eldest daughter of the

Earl of Sidney. He apostrophized her as Saccharissa. She was, or he

made her out to be, a proud and scornful beauty, and he turned to

his "Amoret"--Lady Sophia Murray; but, though well-born, rich,

favoured by Charles, and nephew of John Hampden by his mother’s

side, so that he seemed secure of rising under any faction, Waller’s

loves did not prosper in the direction to which he at first guided

them; for he was wise in his generation, and could control his

fancies by views of interest.

He married, therefore, a second time, “loving, doubtless, wisely and

not too well;” but neither the name, condition, nor fortune of his

second wife is mentioned by his biographers.

From this time Edmund Waller’s career was despicable. In his heart a

Royalist, he absented himself from the House of Commons whenever

there was a chance of his being of service to the King, or of his

committing himself. Yet he sent Charles a thousand gold pieces when

the Royal standard at Nottingham was set up--and concocted, with a

conspirator named Tomkyns, a plot for delivering the City and the

Parliament into the hands of the Royalists. Nevertheless, he had

been seconding “my Uncle Hampden” in the House, in his censure of

Ship-money. When his plot--still called in history Waller’s plot,

for he had the chief blame--when this base conspiracy, unworthy of

any cause, was discovered, Waller confessed everything, and

criminated everybody. Confounded with fear, he had yet the

consummate hypocrisy to talk of his “remorse of conscience,” adding

one to the long list of crimes which that abused word is called to

sanction or excuse. It is a satisfaction to know that he was nearly

being hanged--that he was expelled the House--fined ten thousand

pounds--and then “contemptuously suffered to go into exile.” Never

was that party more fortunate than in getting rid of such a man.

He took refuge at Rouen, and lived there and in Paris until all his

wife’s jewels were sold--for on them he lived. He was, however, at

last allowed to return home, and again he sullied Beaconsfield with

his presence. He hastened to flatter Cromwell, and even to propose,

in his smooth and flattering verses, the substitution of a crown of

gold for bays:--

“His conquering head has no more room for bays,

Then let it be as the glad nation prays;

Let the rich ore be melted down,

And the State fix’d by making him a crown:

With ermine clad and purple, let him hold

A royal sceptre made of Spanish gold!”

Cromwell, however, was far too wise to take the bait. The sycophant

thought it expedient to write an ode on his death--for he was not

certain that the great man’s power might not be perpetuated by his

son. The instant, however, that the Restoration placed Charles II.

on the throne, Waller was ready with his congratulatory ode. He

dwelt on the guilt of the Rebellion; and, except that the flavour of

spicy flattery was so poor as to provoke a _bon mot_ from Charles

II. he might have succeeded. “Poets,” said the witty monarch,

“succeed better in fiction than in truth.” But with Waller it was

all fiction.

He was soon a favourite at that easy, merry court; his poetry caused

his unconquerable duplicity to be forgotten--or, if not forgotten,

looked on even complacently by courtiers who held all virtue to be

hypocrisy. He managed to please everybody; though a water-drinker,

he was the life of Bacchanalian parties. It is owing to Clarendon

that the renegade was not made Provost of Eton--a post for which he

had actually the audacity to ask. He thence became the friend and

ally of George Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham, to whose age

and time, rather than that of the subject of this memoir, one would

gladly consign the apostate poet.

One of his worst acts was to vote for the impeachment of Lord

Clarendon; and here one would gladly end the record of the misdeeds

of an able and accomplished man, distinguished almost as much for

his eloquence as for his poetic productions. But Waller lived on; he

was favoured by James II., who seems to have been cajoled by the

flatteries which his royal brother had detected. Waller again in

parliament, and now eighty years old, was permitted to speak

jocularly with the monarch. One day he called Queen Elizabeth, in

James’s presence, the “greatest woman in the world.” "I wonder,"

answered his Majesty, “you should think so; but it must be allowed

she had a wise council.”

"And when, sire," cried Waller, “did you ever hear of a fool

choosing a wise one?”

When it was known that the veteran courtier was going to marry his

daughter to Dr. Birch, a clergyman, James sent a French gentleman to

ask him how he could think of marrying his daughter to a falling

church.

“The King does me great honour,” was the reply, “to concern himself

about my affairs; but I have lived long enough to observe that this

falling church has got a trick of rising again.”

He foresaw the coming crisis, but lived not to have an opportunity

of writing odes to William III. and his Queen. He now composed

“Divine Poems,” and began to think, at the age of eighty-three, that

possibly this world, and the courts of the Charles’s and James’s,

were not everything that there was to value in life. When he found

himself sinking, he said, “Take me to Coleshill” (his native place);

“I should be glad to die, like the stag, where I was roused.”

He was, however, too near death to be removed; and he expired at

Beaconsfield, in October, 1678, and thus escaped being the witness

of another revolution.

Such were some of the eminent contemporaries of George Villiers, in

an age so rich in intellectual force as to constitute it, in that

respect alone, one of the most remarkable periods of English

history.

But there were, among the _literati_ of that day, two men whose

observations were peculiarly directed towards the career of

Villiers--these were James Howell, the letter-writer, and Sir Henry

Wotton.

Howell’s well-known name is mixed up repeatedly in the various

passages of the Duke of Buckingham’s foreign life. Howell was the

son of a clergyman, at Abernant, in Carmarthenshire; was accordingly

entered at Jesus College, Oxford, the great emporium of the Jones’s,

Williams’s, Morgans, and Howells.

He was, like many of his countrymen, “a true cosmopolite,” born,

says Anthony Wood, neither to “house, land, lease, or office.” He

had not the misfortune of having a position in life to lose, so he

went to London, and became, through the interest of Sir Robert

Mansel, steward to a glass-house in Bond Street, glass being a

monopoly; whilst his elder brother rose to be Bishop of Bristol.

Glass being by no means in its perfection, the proprietors of the

work sent James Howell abroad, in order to hire foreign workmen, and

to buy the best materials for a manufacture which they wished to

improve; and James Howell joyfully accepted the mission. He

travelled into France, Holland, Flanders, Spain, and Italy; and,

setting off in 1619, encountered George Villiers in his French tour,

came across him in Spain, and heard of him all the good and bad that

he has detailed in his letters to England.

He gave up his stewardship, and posted again into Spain, in 1623,

and was in that country when Charles I. and Buckingham were at

Madrid. Like persons in the pit of a great theatre, Howell, in his

half-commercial, half-diplomatic capacity, saw a great deal which

the actors in that brilliant scene overlooked.

His ostensible reason for going to Spain was to reclaim a rich

English ship which had been seized by the Viceroy of Sardinia; his

real occupation was that of watching the Royal “wooer,” and his

scarcely less conspicuous companion, Buckingham. Meantime, Howell

was made a Fellow of Jesus College; and, in accepting this honour,

he said he “should reserve his Fellowship, and lay it by as a warm

garment against rough weather, should any fall on him.” And

certainly he was destined to experience the changes and chances of

fortune in no ordinary degree. He returned to London, and was

appointed secretary to Lord Scrope, who was made Lord-President of

the North. Howell, therefore, was transplanted to York; and, whilst

there, was chosen member for Richmond, an honour for which he had

not canvassed. He sat, therefore, in the parliament which opened in

1627--a session so important to Buckingham, and so fraught with

consequences to the country.

Still, the apparently fortunate man was without any fixed

employment. He had, however, talents which were then rare in this

country; he spoke seven modern languages--and, without recording his

own remark, which borders on levity, on that score, it must be

admitted that few Englishmen either in that age or this can do the

same. His merits were, in this respect, estimated by Charles I., who

sent him in the quality of secretary to Robert, Earl of Leicester,

to Denmark, when it became necessary to condole with the King of

that State on the death of his consort, Charles’s Danish

grandmother. Next, Howell was despatched to France, and subsequently

to Ireland, where the Earl of Strafford appreciated his wonderful

industry, and welcomed him kindly; he was intrusted by that

ill-fated nobleman with business, first in Edinburgh and then in

London; but his hopes of rising were crushed by the ruin of

Strafford, and by the crash which ensued.

Charles, however, again despatched him to France, and made him, on

his return, Clerk of the Council.

Poor Howell now believed that he had secured a permanent post, a

fixed income, and a most agreeable residence, an apartment being

allotted to him in Whitehall. The greater part of the old Tudor

palace was then still standing; the noble gates built by Henry VIII.

remained; the Banqueting-house was partially finished; all but the

paintings by Vandyck, who was to have adorned the sides of that

room, now used as a chapel, with paintings of all the history and

procession of the Order of the Garter, were completed--that

symmetrical fragment stood then as it now stands. Charles I. could

as little have anticipated that George of Hanover would have made

the room he destined for Ben Jonson’s masques into a chapel, with

the apotheosis of James I. upon the ceiling, as he could have

foreseen that one day he should be led out from one of the windows

of the Banqueting-house to Whitehall-gate, where “cords to tie him

down to the block had been prepared, had he made any resistance to

that cruel and bloody stroke.”[238]

Footnote 238:

See Cunningham’s “London,” Art. “Whitehall,” from Dugdale’s

“Troubles in England.”

Equally unconscious of his royal patron’s doom as of his own fate,

Howell established himself in that palace, the only danger of which

seemed to be the frequent inundations of the Thames, by which

Whitehall was often half submerged. But shortly afterwards the King

left that palace to which he never returned but as a captive; and

Howell also departed. But, coming back to London on private

business, he was, in 1643, thrown into prison, his papers were

seized, and he was committed in close custody to the Fleet.

This ancient prison had been, until that time, a place of durance

for persons sentenced by the Council Table, then called the Court of

the Star Chamber--so that Howell had the additional vexation of

being apprehended by one of the warrants which he would himself have

issued had the troubles of the Rebellion never commenced;--had

things remained as they were when Lord Surrey suffered from its

pestilent atmosphere, and when the importunate Lady Dorset was

silenced in what was truly called by Surrey, “that noisome place.”

The Star Chamber was, however, it appears, abolished before the time

when James Howell, descending Whitehall stairs, was rowed up the

river Fleet, to a gate as portentous in its aspect and associations

as the Traitor’s-gate at the Tower; and thence conducted to what was

afterwards called the Common side of the prison.[239] When the

letter-writer entered its miserable courts, the Fleet had lost the

dignity of a state prison for minor political offences, and was a

place for debtors, and divided into two sides, the Master’s side and

the Common side. In the Common side, to complete the horrors, was a

strong-room, or vault, which has been described “to be like those in

which the dead are interred, and wherein the bodies of persons dying

are usually deposited till the coroner’s inquest has passed them.”

Footnote 239:

See Cunningham, vol. i., p. 311. The Author cannot avoid

expressing obligations to this excellent work.

Howell, as he entered the Common side, probably thought that he

might live to be one of the mute inhabitants of that ghastly

chamber--for he was not only suspected by the Parliament, but in

debt. Wood, indeed, ascribes his captivity wholly to the curse of

debt, brought on by his own extravagance; and since Howell, like

many public men of the day, had no “income but such as he scrambled

for,” and since it was an age of careless expenditure, Wood is,

perhaps, in this statement, as he generally is, correct.

The character of the man of desultory life rose under the trial.

During five years the once free and happy James Howell lay in that

den of misery--rendered more miserable by all that was going on in

the world, of which he heard enough in his durance, perhaps too

much. During that period Charles was beheaded; the gay precincts of

Whitehall were stained with the blood of one whom Howell had

reverenced as a royalist, but whose advisers, Buckingham, Laud, and

Strafford, he had censured, as a man of the world, of sense and

candour, could not fail to do. Whilst he lay in the place where

Falkland had been sent for sending a challenge--where Prynne had

paid the penalty for his “Histriomastix,” Howell’s thoughts no doubt

reverted to the pleasant days of Charles’s youth, in the fields near

Madrid, where plumed knights ran a course--or to the arena of the

bull-fight. He dreamed, perhaps, of the incomparable Infanta, or of

the stately Philip, and his gallant, flattered, sanguine English

guests.

But he did better. Howell is not the only writer who has tried to

bind up the wounds of a broken heart by authorship; or has succeeded

in dissipating the hours of a long imprisonment by communicating not

only with the world of letters, which was nearly extinct in general

literature during the first year of the Protectorate, but with those

among the free, the sympathetic, and the celebrated who remembered

the poor debtor in his cell. One of his most notable efforts was his

own epitaph, beginning--

“Here lies entomb’d a walking thing,

Whom Fortune with the Fates did fling

Between these walls.”

He wrote now his “Familiar Letters, Domestic and Foreign,” wisely

putting no date on the epistles as to place. He composed also

"Casual Discourses and Interlocutions between Patricius and

Peregrin, touching the Distractions of the Times"--this work was the

result of the Battle of Edge Hill--“Parables reflecting on the

Times;” "England’s Tears for the Present War;" “Vindications of some

Passages reflecting upon himself in Mr. Prynne’s book called the

‘Popish Royal Favourite,’” a work which coupled his name with that

of Buckingham; and his “Epistolæ-Hoelianæ.” These works came out

year after year. It is said by Wood that most of Howell’s letters

were written in the Fleet, though some of them purported to have

been sent from Madrid and other places. The fact is, he wrote for

subsistence; and his works were popular and productive. His

statements may, indeed, have been made so long after the events they

relate occurred, as to render them doubtful; yet it is acknowledged

that they contain a good view of the actors in those stirring

times--whilst they are almost the only letters that still preserve

the memory of the writer among us.

Most of his other writings were political; one of his imaginative

flights recalls, in the idea that originated it, the title of the

pleasant brochure, “_Voyage autour de ma chambre_,” in our own

times. Howell’s composition is styled, “A Nocturnal Progress; or, a

perambulation of such Countries in Christendom performed in one

night by strength of imagination.” All the titles of his works are

striking: “Winter Dream,” "A Trance, or News from Hell, brought

first to town by Mercurius Acheronticus;"--this was published in

1649, after the King’s death. He still, Royalist as he was, bore his

misfortunes cheerfully; yet his loyalty sank at last beneath the

pressure of starvation, and he yielded to expediency. It was not,

however, until 1653 that his constancy broke down, and that he

addressed to Oliver Cromwell his “Sober’s Inspections made into the

carriage and consult of the late Long Parliament.” One may know the

views he took from the title; but when he compliments the Lord

Protector, compares him to Charles Martel, and descends to flattery,

Howell loses our respect. Neither does he regain it by his “Cordial

for the Cavaliers,” published in 1660, and answered by the “Caveat

for the Cavaliers” of Sir Roger L’Estrange.

Payne Fisher, who had been poet-laureate to Cromwell, edited

“Howell’s Works,” in which he calls the author the “prodigy of the

age for the variety of his writings.” These were forty in number,

and in “them all,” says Fisher, “there is something still new,

either in the matter, method, or fancy, and in an untrodden tract.”

For the change of politics in the famous letter-writer his friends

were prepared, when, after the King’s death, he wrote with what some

call prudence, others pusillanimity, these words:--“I will attend

with patience how England will thrive, now that she is let blood in

the Basilican vein, and cured, as they say, of the King’s evil.”

Nevertheless, Howell was made Historiographer-Royal in England by

Charles II., who was so lenient to his enemies, so ungrateful to his

friends. The place was even created for him; but death soon caused

him to vacate it. He ended his chequered life in 1660, and-was

buried in the Temple Church.

Among the few who remembered George Villiers with gratitude, or

who endeavoured to rescue his memory from opprobrium, Henry

Wotton, his biographer, appears in a conspicuous and favourable

light. Most of the eminent men of the time had been reared, and

even trained, to public service, during the reign of Elizabeth,

when strength of purpose, honesty, ability, and learning were

the grounds of promotion in all the minor, as well as in the

superior departments of the State. Henry Wotton, born in 1568,

at Bocton Hall,[240] in Kent, and descended from an ancient

family, was a thoroughly-educated English gentleman. After some

years’ instruction at Winchester School, he was entered at New

College, Oxford. Close to that grand old college was Hart Hall,

a sort of subsidiary establishment; and Wotton, perhaps from

being a freshman, had his rooms in Hart Hall Lane. Here his

chamber-fellow, as he was then called, was Richard Baker, the

historian, who was entered at the same time, and born the same

year, and whose predilections for letters resembled those of

young Henry Wotton. The inestimable advantage of a companionship

of such a nature cannot be too highly appreciated by those who

watch the dawning mind of youth, and who desire them to have

recourse to the only sure preventive of dissipation--employment.

Baker, well known for his Chronicle, was also a writer on

theological subjects, and a young man of sincere piety. His

friend Wotton was then less distinguished for historical studies

than for his wit and learning. For some reason, not explained,

he left New College, and established himself in the then

old-fashioned tenement of Queen’s College, in the High Street,

where he was soon complimented by being selected to write a play

for the inmates of that house to perform. He produced a tragedy

called “Tancredo,” which was declared to manifest, in a very

striking manner, his abilities for composition, his wit, and

knowledge. Thus, like the gay Templar, or the student of Gray’s

Inn, did the young Oxonian delight in the drama--which formed,

to borrow a French expression, a sort of _debût_ for wits; nor

did Baker, though serious and plodding, despise the drama; and

even when, in after life, he had been knighted at Theobald’s by

King James, and Baker’s reputation stood high, he vindicated the

stage against Prynne, in a work entitled “Theatrum Redivivum.”

Footnote 240:

Otherwise Bougton Place (or Palace). See Izaak Walton’s “Life of

Sir H. Wotton.”

Wotton, after proceeding Master of Arts in his twentieth year, left

Oxford, and passed a year in France; and then going on to Geneva,

formed there the friendship of Casaubon and of Beza. He remained

nine years in Germany and Italy, and returned to England an

accomplished and enlightened, as well as a learned man; being, says

his biographer, “a dear lover of painting, sculpture, chemistry, and

architecture.” He was soon appreciated by Robert Devereux, Earl of

Essex, then high in favour with Elizabeth; and became one of that

nobleman’s secretaries, and the most devoted of his friends. The

parallel which he has left the world between Essex and Buckingham,

and which Lord Clarendon answered, is written with an enthusiasm for

the character of Wotton’s first patron, which can only have sprung

from intimate acquaintance, and from that true affection which

generous, impulsive natures, such as that of Essex, are likely to

inspire.

With Essex, Wotton remained until his patron was apprehended and

attainted of treason; then he fled to France, and scarcely had he

landed there when he heard that the Earl had been beheaded. He took

refuge from solitude, and perhaps peril, in Florence, where the

Grand Duke[241] of Tuscany received him cordially. James I. was then

reigning over Scotland; a plot threatened his life, and the Grand

Duke having become aware of this, by some intercepted letters, sent

Wotton, in disguise, to warn James of his danger. Wotton spoke

Italian perfectly; he, therefore, assumed the name and dress of an

Italian, and, thus disguised, set off on his hazardous journey.

Having been so deeply concerned in the affairs of Essex, he did not

venture to pass into England. He travelled, therefore, into Norway,

and, by that route, reached Scotland. He found the King at Stirling,

and was introduced into his presence under the name of Octavio

Baldi. He soon found an opportunity of disclosing himself to the

King, and, after remaining three months in Scotland, he returned to

Florence.

Footnote 241:

Ferdinand I., of the House of Medici, who, in 1589, succeeded his

brother Francis.

Queen Elizabeth’s death brought him back to England, where his

favour with the new King was ensured. When James I. saw Sir Edward

Wotton, he inquired if “he knew not Henry Wotton?”

"I know him well," was the reply, “for he is my brother.”

The King then asked where he was, and ordered him to be sent for.

When Wotton first saw his Majesty, James took him into his arms, and

saluted him by the name of Octavio Baldi; then he knighted him, and

nominated him Ambassador to Venice. But it was not easy, in those

days, to avoid giving offence. The new Ambassador, passing through

Augsburg, met there, amongst other learned men, his old friend, one

Christopher Flecamore, who requested him to write something in his

Album, a book which even then Germans usually carried about with

them; Sir Henry, complying, wrote a definition of an Ambassador in

the Album. The sentence was given in Latin, as being a language

common to all that erudite company, but the definition was, in

English, this--“An Ambassador is an honest man sent to _lie_ abroad

for the good of his country.”

This sentence was imparted, eight years afterwards, to one of King

James’s literary opponents, a jealous Romanist priest, named

Scioppius, who printed it in a work directed against the royal

polemic, and which pretended to show upon what a degraded principle

a Protestant acted. The book reached King James, who had the

mortification of hearing that this definition of an ambassador,

which happened to be then the correct one, whatever may now be the

case, was exhibited in glass windows at Venice. For some time James

was displeased, but on receiving Sir Henry’s explanation, he forgave

him, saying that the delinquent “had commuted sufficiently for a

greater offence.”

The various embassies in which Sir Henry Wotton was engaged detained

him abroad until 1623, when he came home finally. A great piece of

preferment was then vacant; and, by the influence of the Duke of

Buckingham, it was bestowed on Wotton. This was the post of Provost

of Eton; but one great obstacle presented itself--Wotton had been

everything that was useful and important, but he was not in orders;

nevertheless, anything could be accomplished in those days--he was

made a deacon, and held the Provostship from 1623 to 1639, when he

died. The appointment did no discredit to him who procured it, for

Wotton was an able, honest man, singularly liberal in his religious

tenets for his time. He ordered that upon his grave, in the Chapel

of Eton College, there should be a sentence, in Latin, decrying the

itch for disputation as the real disease of the Church. He was a

great enemy to disputation. On being asked, “Do you believe that a

Papist can be saved?” he answered, “_You_ may be saved without

knowing that; look to yourself.” When he heard some one railing at

the Romanists with stupid rancour, he said:--“Pray, sir, forbear,

till you have studied these points better. There is an Italian

proverb which says, ‘he that understands amiss concludes worse;’

forbear of thinking that the farther you go from the Church of Rome

the nearer you are to God.”

Nevertheless, he was, like most lenient judges of the faith of

others, a staunch adherent to his own. “Where was your religion to

be found before Luther?” wrote a jocose Priest at Rome, seeing Sir

Henry in an obscure corner of a church, listening to the beautiful

service of the Vespers, and enjoying the exquisite music of a faith

which appeals so much to the senses. “Where yours is not to be

found--in the written Word of God,” was the answer, scribbled on a

piece of paper underneath the interrogation.

Another evening Sir Henry sent one of the choir boys to his priestly

friend with this question:--“Do you believe those many thousands of

poor Austrians damned who were excommunicated because the Pope and

the Duke of Venice could not agree about their temporalities?” To

which inquiry the priest wrote in French underneath--"_Excusez moi,

Monsieur._"

Such was the man whom Buckingham favoured; and who afterwards repaid

the obligation by a beautiful, somewhat florid, but authentic

biographical account of the Duke’s origin, his rise, his dangers,

his services, and his death. Quaint but expressive language, genuine

enthusiasm, and personal acquaintance, render this sketch one of the

most delightful compositions of Sir Henry’s pen. In comparing him,

in prosperity and in adversity, to Essex, the master whom he loved,

Wotton pays the Duke of Buckingham what he conceived to be the

highest compliment. He was commencing a life of Martin Luther, and

intending to interweave in it a history of the Reformation in

Germany, when Charles I. prevailed on him to lay it aside, and to

begin a history of England. That undertaking has something

unfortunate associated with it. Rapin and Hume never lived to

complete their works. Mackintosh died after leaving a noble fragment

to increase our sorrow for his loss. Macaulay has expired before

half his glorious task has been given to the world. Sir Henry Wotton

had sketched out some short characters as materials, when his

intentions and Charles’s commands were frustrated by death. His

“Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, or a collection of Lives, Letters, and Poems,

with characters of sundry personages, and other incomparable pieces

of Language and Art, by the ever-memorable Sir Henry Wotton,”[242]

is a small octavo volume; yet large enough to create regret that one

of such rare powers and opportunities had not written, with the

candour of his nature, a history of the times in which he

flourished. His “State of Christendom, or a most exact and curious

discovery of many secret passages and hidden mysteries of the

times,” supplies in some measure that deficiency.

Footnote 242:

Collected and edited by Izaak Walton, in 1672.

Successful in life, Wotton was, in his death, fortunate in being the

subject of an elegy from the pen of Cowley, then a young man of

twenty-one, at Trinity College, Cambridge.[243]

Footnote 243:

Cowley was born in 1618.

If we except the encouragement given by the Duke of Buckingham to

the masque, and the preference evinced by him for literature as one

of the essential ingredients of civilized society, the progress of

letters, it must be avowed, has owed little to his direct

intervention.

Clarendon, though at the time of the Duke’s death patronized by

Laud, was then a young lawyer, little more than twenty years of

age.[244] Being brought into contact with Archbishop Laud, during

the course of a cause in which he was even then retained by some

London merchants, Clarendon, at that time Edward Hyde, must not only

have heard much of Buckingham, but have known him personally; but

the public career of the future historian did not commence till

1640. As, however, Hyde then affected the fine gentleman and the man

of letters rather than the lawyer, he probably, in those characters,

had opportunities of seeing Buckingham on the same footing as that

on which he became acquainted with Falkland, Selden, Waller, Carew,

and others; but he owed nothing, as far as we can trace, to the

friendship of Villiers.

Footnote 244:

He was born in 1608, and was only seventeen when he began the

study of the law under his uncle, Sir Nicholas Hyde.

Ralegh and Bacon were above the patronage of the favourite; the one

was suffered to die in prison, the other was long alienated from his

early admirer and sometime pupil, the Duke. Nevertheless, there were

not a few persons, as it has been seen, eminent as writers, who were

indirectly assisted and protected by Buckingham, and who paid him

the tribute of their gratitude or admiration. Still the aid he gave

to art was far more liberal than any that he afforded to letters.

* * * * *

Such is the view taken of the redeeming services performed to

society by a man who had much in his public career to be forgiven.

With respect to the acts to which he prompted Charles, to screen

himself, no defence can be offered: but for the general bearing of

that King’s conduct towards his Parliament, he must be deemed

irresponsible, since his death neither changed his Sovereign’s line

of principle, nor moderated his actions. Buckingham was less a man

of evil intentions than of expediency; to get out of a difficulty,

he imperiled the freedom of the people, and the safety of the Crown,

when he might bravely have courted inquiry, and profited by counsel.

It was one of his great misfortunes that he never made a true and

worthy friendship with any man so nearly his equal as to be able

frankly to advise him against what Clarendon calls the “current, or

rather the torrent, of his passions.” He was surrounded by needy

brothers, and influenced by an ambitious, unscrupulous mother. One

faithful friend would not only have saved him from many perils, but

might have prompted him to do “as transcendant worthy actions” as

any man in his sphere. In spite of prosperity, he was of a

persuadable nature; he was naturally candid, just, and generous; no

record remains of the temptation of money leading him to do any

unkind action. “If,” says Lord Clarendon, “he had an immoderate

ambition, it doth not appear that it was in his nature, or that he

brought it to the Court, but rather found it there. He needed no

ambition, who was so seated in the hearts of two such masters.”

No man was more vilified in his private life than Buckingham. Like

all persons of weak principles and impulsive nature, he was at once

engaging and disappointing; warm-hearted one instant, selfish the

next; the idol of his family, whom he befriended unceasingly; the

object, during his life, of his young wife’s most devoted affection,

which he often forgot or betrayed. Nevertheless, whilst his moral

character was sullied by many blemishes, it was free from the

unblushing profligacy of some of his predecessors, and superior to

the hypocritical sensuality of his contemporary, Richelieu. Happily

for the age, the almost blameless early career of Charles enforced

that virtue should be respected, and that vice, where it existed,

should remain concealed. Buckingham probably owed to this necessity

much of what, at all events, may be endowed with the praise of

decorum.

The popular error of many historians, who depict him as an arrogant

favourite, a remorseless extortioner, a reckless invader of liberty,

the minion of his own King, and the instrument of foreign Courts,

yields before the more intimate view of Buckingham’s character which

has been unfolded in the collections now laid open to all readers of

history. That he was impetuous, but kind in nature--careless of

forms, but courteous in spirit--led widely astray by mad passions,

yet returning in love and penitence to his home--is now confessed.

No instances have been found to substantiate against him charges of

corruption, such as that which was commonly practised in those days;

he was loaded with presents of land, of money--he spent freely what

had been thus bestowed--and the affection borne to him by his

dependents is the best earnest of his many good qualities as a

master and a patron.

In his liberality to all around him, he is said by Wotton, who

thoroughly understood the noble nature which he compared to that of

Essex, to have been “cheerfully magnificent,” whilst he conferred

his favours with such a grace, that the manner was as gratifying as

the gift, “and men’s understandings were as much puzzled as their

wits.”

His disposition was full of tenderness and compassion. The man who

fell by the assassin’s hand had a horror of capital punishment,

“Those,” Lord Clarendon observes, “who think the laws dead if they

are not severely executed, censured him for being too merciful; and

he believed, doubtless, hanging the worst use a man could be put

to.” Consistent with this sweetness of character were his affability

and gentleness to men younger than himself, as well as his ready

forgiveness of injuries, an “easiness to reconcilement,” which

caused him even too soon to forget the circumstances of affronts and

evil deeds, and, therefore, exposed him to a repetition.

Of all the imputations which were fixed on Buckingham, that of a

desire to enrich himself, from motives of avarice, is the most

completely refuted by facts. During the four years that he enjoyed

the unbounded confidence of Charles I. he became every day poorer.

His affairs were investigated, and the result was proved. It is,

indeed, a question, and a very serious one,--how far any man is

justified in spending, even on noble purposes, and certainly not in

mere show, largely beyond his income, as Buckingham did; but his

conduct is, at all events, more pardonable than the mere desire to

collect a great fortune, from sources which he seems to have

considered should be expended either in doing honour to his

Sovereign abroad in his embassies--a notion paramount in those days,

though out of date in ours--or by the encouragement of arts and

sciences, and the duties of hospitality at home.

When we recapitulate the errors of this celebrated man--his

omissions, his sins, his want of good faith, his overlooking the

benefits he might have conferred on his country, until it was almost

too late for repentance, his sacrifice of his Sovereign’s best

interests to his own will--we must, at the same time, admit great

extenuation. No mercy was shown to his faults by the historians of

his time, nor of the age succeeding; they wrote under a sense of the

deep injuries from which the Rebellion received its first impulse.

We must not look for fairness in such a ferment. Even after the tomb

had long been closed over his remains, it was scarcely safe,

certainly scarcely prudent, to palliate the faults, or to place the

virtues of Buckingham in a fair light. We have now, however, the

satisfactory assurance that Buckingham was conscious of his faults;

contrite for his misdeeds; and earnest in his resolution to repair

them, had his life been spared.[245]

Footnote 245:

State Papers, vol. cxiv., No. 17; August 27, 1627. Calendar,

edited by Mr. Bruce.

Lord Clarendon closes his “Disparity” between the Earl of Essex and

the Duke of Buckingham in these words:--

“He that shall continue this argument further may haply begin his

parallel after their deaths, and not unfitly. He may say that they

were both as mighty in obligations as any subjects; and both their

memories and families as unrecompensed by such as they had raised.

He may tell you of the clients that buried the pictures of the one,

and defaced the arms of the other, lest they might be too long

suspected for their dependants, and find disadvantage by being

honest to their memories. He may tell you of some that drew

strangers to their houses, lest they might find the track of their

own footsteps, that might upbraid them with their former attendance.

He may say that both their memories shall have a reverend fervour

with all posterity, and all nations. He may tell you many more

particulars, which I dare not do.”

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

In the Calendar edited by Mr. Bruce (1859), there are the following

details, amongst other curious particulars, of the state of affairs

after the Duke of Buckingham’s unfortunate expedition to Rhé:--

"Lionel Sharp to Buckingham, reports his sermon preached (at St

Margaret’s, Westminster), in which he had alluded to the censure

thrown upon the Duke for his late failure at Rhé, and had declared

that he who had ventured all that was dearest in the world for a

foreign church, would, if he ‘had as many lives as hairs,’ venture

them all for his own, with other laudatory personal allusions to the

Duke. Is ready to ‘do the rest’ within two days, ‘if he may have the

place in Westminster, or on Sunday next.’"--_Vol. cii., Domestic,

No. 76, April, 1628._

This is a singular letter, not only as showing the alarm which led

the Duke to have recourse to the Elizabeth plan of “tuning the

pulpits,” but also as an instance of the almost impious mixture of

political and worldly affairs with sacred subjects.

SECOND ATTEMPT ON LA ROCHELLE.

_Sir Henry Palmer to Secretary Nicholas, from on board the

“Garland,” before La Rochelle, under the Earl of Denbigh_:--"In this

letter Sir Henry states that what was here given out to be feasible

they find directly impossible. On the approach of the English Fleet,

the French retreated under their ordnance. The palisadoes across the

river described. The Council of War determined that they should put

out to sea, and spend their victual abroad. Lord Denbigh cruising

between Ushant and Scilly. The writer between Portsmouth and Cape La

Hogue. No man but looked back upon the poor town but with eyes of

pity, though not able to help them."--_Vol. ciii., No. 50, May 8,

1628._

_Letter from the Earl of Denbigh to the same._--"Men have ever been

the censure of the world who are unsuccessful from public

employments. Misinformation has been the cause of this misfortune.

They found Rochelle so blocked up, that in eight days’ stay they

never heard from them. The palisado is so strengthened with two

floats of ships, both within and without, moored and fastened

together from their ports to half-mast high, that, lying in shoal

water, it is impossible to be forced."--_Vol. ciii., No. 57, dated

May 9, at sea._

Various letters seem to clear Lord Denbigh of cowardice in turning

back. See letters from Rowland Woodward to Francis Windebank. "The

report is, that Lord Denbigh was overruled by Ned Clarke, that would

not hazard the Fleet. The King was never seen to be so much moved,

saying, ‘if the ships had been lost, he had timber enough to build

more.’"--_Vol. civ., No. 47._

In a letter from Sir Henry Hungate to William, Earl of Denbigh, it

is stated, "the King’s pleasure is that not a single man should go

ashore."--_Vol. civ., No. 69._

RESPECTING THE “REMONSTRANCE.”

"Message on Wednesday from the King, that he would not yield to any

alteration in his answer, but would close the Session on the 11th

inst. The house proceeded with the Remonstrance, until another

message, which absolutely forbade them to do so. Scene which

ensued:--Most part of the house _fell a-weeping_. Sir Robert Philips

could not speak for weeping. Others blamed those that wept, and said

they had swords to cut the throats of the King’s enemies.

"That afternoon the King and the Lords were in council from two to

eight on the question whether the Parliament should be dissolved.

The negative was resolved on. On the following morning the Speaker

explained away his message, and the house proceeded with the

Remonstrance. The King agreed thereunto, and came that afternoon,

gave the customary royal assent, adding other observations which are

repeated. It is impossible to express with what joy this was heard,

nor what joy it causes in the city, where they are making bonfires

at every door, such as was never seen but upon his Majesty’s return

from Spain."--_Letter from Sir Francis Nethersole to the Queen of

Bohemia, vol. cvi., No. 55, dated June 5. The Strand._

"Sends a copy of the Remonstrance of the Commons. It was presented

to the King on Tuesday last. The Duke was present in the

Banqueting-house at the time, and on his Majesty rising from his

chair, kneeled down, with a purpose, it was conceived, to have

besought his Majesty to say something. But the King, saying only

‘No,’ took him up with his hand, which the Duke kissed, and so his

Majesty retired. This was all that passed at the time, and all that

is like to come of the Remonstrance. His Majesty’s favour to the

Duke is no way diminished, but the ill-will of the people is like to

be much increased."--_The same to the same, vol. cvii., No. 78, June

19. The Strand._

DEATH OF BUCKINGHAM.

Some further particulars of this event and its effects are related

in a letter from Sir Francis Nethersole to James Earl of Carlisle.

“The King took the Duke’s death very heavily, keeping his chamber

that day, as is well to be believed. But the base multitude in the

town drink healths to Felton, and these are infinitely more cheerful

than sad faces of better degrees.”

FELTON.

_Examination of Richard Harward_:--"George Willoughby taught him to

write. Saw Felton at Willoughby’s within a month; Felton complained

of the Duke as a cause why he lost a captain’s place, and the

obstacle why he could not get his pay, being four score and odd

pounds. Went together to the Windmill, where examinant read the

Remonstrance to him, and Felton took it and carried it away."--_Vol.

cxiv., No. 128._

"Sir Robert Savage committed to the Tower for saying that if Felton

had not killed the Duke he would have done it."--_Vol. cxvi., No.

95, Sept. 10, 1628._

Report by Dr. Brian Duppa of an interview held by himself and others

with John Felton in the Tower. (Dr. Duppa was afterwards tutor to

Charles II.):--

"On stating to him that though he had no mercy on the Duke, the King

had so much compassion on his soul as to give directions to send

divines to draw him to a feeling of the horror of his sin, he fell

on his knees with humble acknowledgment of so great grace to him.

Throughout he confessed his offence to be a fearful and crying sin;

attributed it, “upon his soul, to nothing but the Remonstrance.”

Being asked whether some dangerous propositions, found in his

handwriting, had not stimulated him, he denied, saying they were

gathered long ago out a book called the “Soldier’s Epistles.” He

denied that any creature knew of his resolution but himself, and

requested that he might do some public penance before his death, in

sackcloth, with ashes on his head, and ropes about his neck."--_Vol.

cxvi., No. 101, Sept. 2, 1628._

Felton, it appears, had two letters found in his bag, perhaps

duplicates. The knife was sewed into his dress. It appears that

Felton was, at one time, puffed up by the popular applause. The

state of rabid enmity to the Duke existing in the country, was

exhibited in inhuman verses on his death, such as these:--

“Make haste, I pray thee; launch out your ships with speed;

Our noble Duke had never greater need

Of sudden succour, and these vessels must

Be his main help, for there’s his only trust.”

Satire upon the Duke, beginning--

“And art thou dead, who whilom thought’st thy state

To be exempted from the power of Fate?

Thou that but yesterday, illustrious, bright,

And like the sun, did’st with thy pregnant light

Illuminate other orbs?”

One of the poems of the day excited more than ordinary attention. It

was addressed by the writer to “his confined friend, Mr. John

Felton!” Suspicion fell on Ben Jonson; and even in the house of his

friend, Sir Robert Cotton, the belief that he had written the poem

found credence. Jonson was then paralytic, and his mind may have

been somewhat embittered, perhaps enfeebled, but he was guiltless of

this act of ingratitude to his deceased patron, and to his living

sovereign, King Charles. His examination upon this charge is, as Mr.

Bruce remarks in his preface, p. 8, ix., a new incident in Jonson’s

life. The original examination before the Attorney-General is to be

found in the Calendar before referred to, vol. cxix., No. 33. See

Preface by Mr. Bruce, p. 9.

"The examination of Benjamin Jonson, of Westminster, gentleman,

taken this 26th day of October, 1628, by me, Sir Robert Heath, his

Majesty’s Attorney-General:--

"The said examinant being asked whether he had ever seen

certain verses beginning thus--‘Enjoy thy bondage,‘ and ending

thus--‘England’s ransom here doth lie,’ and entitled thus--‘To

his confined friend,’ &c., and the papers of these verses

being showed unto him, he answereth that he hath seen the like

verses to these. And being asked where he saw them, he saith,

at Sir Robert Cotton’s house, as he often doth, the papers of

these verses lying there upon the table after dinner. This

examinant was asked concerning these verses as if himself had

been the author thereof; thereupon this examinant read them,

and condemned them, and with deep protestations affirmed that

they were not made by him, nor did he know who made them, or

had ever seen or heard them before. And the like protestations

he now maketh upon his Christianity and hope of salvation. He

saith he took no copy of them, nor ever had copy of them. He

saith he hath heard of them since, but ever with detestation.

He being further asked whether he doth know who made or hath

heard who made them, he answereth he doth not know, but he

hath heard by common fame that one Mr. Townley should make

them, but he confesseth truly that he cannot name any one

singular person who hath reported it. Being asked of what

quality that Mr. Townley is, he saith his name is Zouch

Townley; he is a scholar, and a divine by profession, and a

preacher, but where he liveth or abideth he knoweth not, but

he is a student of Christ Church in Oxford.

“Being further asked whether he gave a dagger to the said Mr.

Townley, and upon what occasion, and when, he answereth, that on a

Sunday after this examinant had heard the said Mr. Townley preach at

St. Margaret’s Church in Westminster, Mr. Townley, taking a liking

to a dagger with a white haft which this examinant ordinarily wore

at his girdle, and was given to this examinant, this examinant gave

it to him two nights after, being invited by Mr. Townley to supper,

but without any circumstance and without any relation to those or

any other verses; for this examinant is well assured this was so

done before he saw those verses, or had heard of them; and this

examinant doth not remember that since he hath seen Mr. Townley.

”BEN JONSON."

Zouch Townley, to whom the verses were ascribed, was one of the

Townleys of Cheshire. He escaped a prosecution, with which he was

threatened in the Star-chamber, by taking refuge at the Hague. He

was evidently on terms of intimacy with Jonson, to whom he addressed

commendatory verses, beginning--

“Ben,

The world is much in debt, and though it may

Some petty reckonings to small poets pay,

Pardon if at thy glorious sum they stick,

Being too large for their arithmetic.”

It is agreeable to find that Ben Jonson stands wholly acquitted of

the charge of being the writer of the offensive and discreditable

verses in question.

----------

The following letter from Edmund Windham to Dr. Plot, author of the

history of Staffordshire, relative to the ghost story related by

Clarendon, is taken from the “Biographia Britannica”:--

"SIR--According to your desire and my promise, I have written downe

what I remember (divers things being slipt out of my memory) of the

relation made me by Mr. Nicholas Towse, concerning the apparition

which visited him about 1627.

"I and my wife, upon occasion being in London, lay at my brother’s,

Pym’s, house, without Bishopsgate, which was next house unto Mr.

Nicholas Towse’s, who was his kinsman and familiar acquaintance--in

consideration of whose society and friendship he took a house in

that place; the said Towse being a very fine musician and very good

company--for aught I ever saw or heard, a virtuous, religious, and

well-disposed gentleman. About that time, the said Mr Towse told me

that, one night being in bed and perfectly waking, and a candle

burning by him (as he usually had), there came into his chamber, and

stood by his bed-side, an old gentleman, in such a habit as was in

use in Queen Elizabeth’s time; at whose first appearance Mr. Towse

was very much troubled; but after a little while, recollecting

himself, he demanded of him in the name of God, _What he

was?--whether he were a man?_ And the Apparition replied, _Noe_.

Then he asked him _if he were a devil_? And the Apparition answered,

_Noe_. Then said Mr. Towse, _In the name of God, what art thou

then_? And, as I remember, Mr. Towse told me that the Apparition

answered him that _he was the ghost of Sir George Villiers, father

to the then Duke of Buckingham, whom he might very well remember,

since he went to schole at such a place in Leicestershire_--naming

the place, which I have forgotten. And Mr. Towse told me that the

Apparition had perfectly the resemblance of the said Sir George

Villiers in all respects, and in the same habit that he had often

seen him wear in his lifetime. The said Apparition also told him

that he could not but remember the much kindness that he, the said

Sir George Villiers, had expressed to him whilst he was a scholar in

Leicestershire, as aforesaid; and that, out of that consideration,

he believed that he loved him, and that therefore he made choice of

him, the said Mr. Towse, to deliver a message to his son, the Duke

of Buckingham, thereby to prevent such mischief as would otherwise

befall the said Duke, whereby he would be inevitably ruined. And

then, as I remember Mr. Towse told me, that the Apparition

instructed him what message he should deliver to the Duke; unto

which Mr. Towse replied that he should be very unwilling to go to

the Duke of Bucks upon such an errand, whereby he should gaine

nothing but reproach and contempt, and be esteemed a madman, and

therefore desired to be excused from the employment. But the

Apparition prest him with much earnestness to undertake it, telling

him that the circumstances and secret discoveries (which he should

be able to make to the Duke of such passages in the course of his

life which were known to none but himselfe) would make it appeare

that his message was not the fancy of a distempered braine, but a

reality. And so the Apparition tooke his leave of him for that

night, telling him that he would give him leave to consider until

the next night, and then he would come to receive his answer,

whether he would undertake his message to the Duke of Buckingham or

noe. Mr. Towse passed the next day with much trouble and perplexity,

debateing and reasoning with himselfe whether he should deliver this

message to the Duke of Buckingham or not; but in the conclusion he

resolved to doe it. And the next night, when the Apparition came, he

gave his answer accordingly, and then received full instructions.

"After which Mr. Towse went and found out Sir Thomas Bludder and Sir

Ralph Freeman, by whom he was brought to the Duke of Buckingham, and

had several private and long audiences of him. I myselfe, by the

favour of a friend, was once admitted to see him in private

conference with the Duke, where (although I heard not their

discourse) I observed much earnestness in their actions and

gestures. After which conference Mr. Towse told me that the Duke

would not follow the advice that was given him, which was (as I

remember) that he intimated the casting off and rejection of some

men who had great interest in him--and, as I take it, he named

Bishop Laud; and that he, the Duke, was to do some popular acts in

the ensueing parliament, of which the Duke would have had Mr. Towse

to have been a Burgess, but he refused it, alledging that, unless

the Duke had followed his directions, he must doe him hurt if he

were of the parliament. Mr. Towse also then told me that the Duke

confessed that he had told him those things that no creature knew

but himselfe, and that none but God or the Divell could reveale to

him. The Duke offered Mr. Towse to have the King knighte him, and to

have given him preferment (as he told me), but that he refused it,

saying that, unless he would follow his advice, he should receive

nothing from him. Mr. Towse, when he made this relation, told me the

Duke would inevitably be destroyed before such a time (which he then

named), and accordingly the Duke’s death happened before that time.

He likewise told me that he had written downe all the discourses he

had had with the Apparition; and that _at last his comeing to him

was so familiar, that he was as little troubled with it as if it had

been a friend or acquaintance that had come to visit him_. Mr. Towse

told me further, that the Archbishop (then Bishop of London) Dr.

Laud, should, by his counsels, be the author of a very great trouble

to the kingdome, by which it should be reduced to that extremity of

disorder and confusion that it should seem to be past all hope of

recovery without a miracle; but yet, when all people were in

despaire of happy days againe, the kingdome should suddenly be

reduced and resettled again in a most happy condition.

"At this time my father Pym was in trouble, and committed to the

Gatehouse by the Lords of the Councill, about a quarrel between him

and the Lord Pawlett, upon which one night I sayd unto my cousin

Towse, by way of jest, _I pray you ask your Apparition what shall

become of my father Pym’s business_?--which he promised to doe; and

the next day told me that my father Pym’s enemies were ashamed of

their malicious prosecution, and that he would be at liberty within

a weeke, or some few days, which happened accordingly.

"Mr. Towse’s wife (since his death) told me that her husband and

she, living in Windsor Castle, where he had an office, that summer

the Duke of Buckingham was killed, told her the very day that the

Duke was set upon by the mutinous mariners in Portsmouth, saying the

... would be his death, which accordingly fell out--and that at the

very instant the Duke was killed (as upon strict enquiry they found

afterwards) Mr. Towse, sitting amongst some company, suddenly

started up and said, _The Duke of Buckingham is slain_. Mr. Towse

lived not long after; which is as much as I can remember of this

Apparition, which, according to your desire, is written by,

“Sir, yours, &c.,

“EDMUND WINDHAM.

“Boulogne, Aug. 5, 1652.”

----------

The following letter has been adduced as a proof that Villiers owed

his favour with Charles to an incident in the Monarch’s early

life--his sole dereliction from propriety, as it is said.

Buckingham, it is said, was Charles’s confidant, and mediator

between him and King James:--

"Steenie, I have nothing now to wryte to you, but to give you

thankes bothe for the good counsell ye gave me, and for the event of

it. The King gave mee a good sharpe potion, but you took away the

working of it by the well-relished comfites ye sent after. I have

met with the partie that must not be named, once alreddie, and the

cullor of wryting this letter shall make mee meete with her on

Saturday, although it is written the day being Thursday. So assuring

you that this business goes safelie on, I rest

“Your constant loving friend,

“CHARLES."[246]

“I hope ye will not shew the King this letter, but put it in the

safe custodie of Mister Vulcan.”

Footnote 246:

“Historia et vitae et regni Ricardi II.,” p. 104, by Mr. T.

Hearne, who tells us the letter is said to have once belonged to

Archbishop Sancroft, and observes it is the only intrigue he had

ever heard this Prince was concerned in.

THE END.

R. BORN, PRINTER, GLOUCESTER STREET, REGENT’S PARK.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s Note

There are several anomolies in the footnoting. Footnotes were

numbered from 1 to 99, and then the sequence was repeated, starting

with ‘1’. There are also a number notes which are denoted only with

a traditional asterisk, etc. There is no apparent reason for the

dual system. There is one instance, on p. 130, where a numbered

footnote (138) is to be found referenced in a note (137) indicated

with an asterisk. For this text, all footnotes have been

re-sequenced numerically across the whole volume, to assure

uniqueness.

At the bottom of p. 25, the letter opening ‘MY DERE LORD’ is

prefixed by an apparent footnote anchor, for which there is no

matching note. This has been deemed a stray printer’s mark and

removed.

On p. 284, the paragraph ending ‘bonds with another man.’ was

printed with, in the original, a footnote anchor ‘1’, but there is

no matching footnote. The ‘1’ anchor is repeated on the following

page, with the expected note. The anomolous anchor has been removed.

Given the frequent quotations, it was inevitable that opening and

closing quotation marks would sometimes be lost or misplaced. A

sampling of these problematic passages reveals that the author has a

tendency to paraphrase and otherwise misquote. They are placed here

where the context or voice makes their position obvious, or where an

inspection of the original sources was possible and allowed for the

proper placement.

29.18 to himself and all good men.[”] Added.

29.20 [“]Sir George Goring, writing Removed.

32.2 than with his victuals.[”] Added.

45.5 which were by the Duke so freely Added.

forgiven,[”]

59.2 [“]and then, when should they be paid?” Added.

60.17 were now content to forget him.[’]” Added.

80.13 on any minister of start[.] Added.

87.15 says Lord Clarend[e/o]n Replaced.

87.18 for the pardon of his errors;[”] Added.

87.21 even Lord Clarend[e/o]n observes Replaced.

92.13 apparently cau[ /s]eless melancholy Restored.

114.2 looking down into y[^e] hall Added.

118.25 his end was upon Satterdau morning[.] Added.

217.15 in which Shak[s/e]speare had a share Replaced.

238.8 “authorizing Thomas Gyles,[”] Added.

240.22 to have first drank of it herself[.] Added.

244.215.1 Jo[u/n]son,” p. 59. Replaced.

259.20 sent [to ]request a transcript Restored.

326.21 Letter from Sir Francis Netherso[t/l]e Replaced.