Bloomsbury.
"_The Good Old Cause_" (Vol. vi., _passim_).--Mrs. Behn, who gained some
notoriety for her licentious writings even in Charles II.'s days, was the
author of a play called _The Roundheads, or the Good Old Cause_: London,
1682. In the Epilogue she puts into the mouth of the Puritans the following
lines respecting the Royalists:
"Yet then they rail'd against _The Good Old Cause_;
Rail'd foolishly for loyalty and laws:
But when the Saints had put them to a stand,
We left them loyalty, and took their land:
Yea, and the pious work of Reformation
Rewarded was with plunder and sequestration."
The following lines are quoted by Mr. Teale in his _Life of Viscount
Falkland_, p. 131.:
"The wealthiest man among us is the best:
No grandeur now in Nature or in book
Delights us--repose, avarice, expense,
This is the idolatry; and these we adore:
Plain living and high thinking are no more;
The homely beauty of _The Good Old Cause_
Is gone: our peace and fearful innocence,
And pure religion breathing household laws."
Whence did Mr. Teale get these lines? Either _The Good Old Cause_ is here
used in a peculiar sense, or Mr. Teale makes an unhappy use of the
quotation.