A Metrical History of England Or, Recollections, in Rhyme, Of some of the most prominent Features in our National Chronology, from the Landing of Julius Caesar to the Commencement of the Regency, in 1812. In Two Volumes ... By Thomas Dibdin |
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 | A Metrical History of England |  |
10. PART THE TENTH.
From the Restoration of Charles II. to the Revolution in 1688.
CONTENTS.
Disappearance of the Fanatics.—Levity of the Court of Charles II.—James II.—National discontents, arising from his arbitrary Government, and partiality to the Church of Rome.—Abdication of the King, and Joint Accession of William Prince of Orange, and Mary, Daughter of James II.
Horace Walpole.
“Nor ever did a wise one.”
Rochester.
“To teach dull mortals what is life:
“Life's a jest—and all things shew it;
“So said Charles, so said the Poet;
“Then live to laugh, since life's a jest,
“Who laughs the most enjoys it best.”
Mark Lonsdale.
“And Charl'y lov'd good brandy;
“And Charl'y lov'd a pretty girl”—
Old Ballad.
“And zeal, which burnt it, only warms the land.”
Dryden.
CHARLES THE SECOND.
Has been pluck'd from their saintships so dev'lish good;
But whose stiff-neck'd nobility now must bow down.
Derry down.
In a war that look'd much more religious than civil,
Presbyterians and Papists alike draw the sword,
'Till Protestant Charles by a Monk was restored.
Derry down.
Where round headed rumps in the market-place play'd;
Now the arts and the loves and the graces unite,
To make formal extremes grow extremely polite.
Derry down.
Unequall'd by any, (but those of our day);
I mean the dear girls who surrounded his throne,
For of personal beauty he'd none of his own.
Derry down.
Indecency clothed so, with talents' best grace;
That whether he wish'd us to reckon each line
More brilliant or beastly, 'tis hard to define.
Derry down.
Shines Clarendon, conscience still taking for guide,
Of honest intentions who truly may boast,
And with most spirit wrote when his theme was a ghost.
Derry down.
“Yet comely in each of the thousand appears;”
And Shaftebsury placed at the helm of the state,
Liv'd when Butler's Muse found admirers too late.
Derry down.
With France very little, with Holland too much;
Van Tromp and De Ruyter in each left a name,
With Rupert and Sandwich coeval in fame.
Derry down.
With plots to invent plots, most curiously mixt;
For Dangerfield, Bedloe and Oates found a Tongue,
To affirm half the natives deserv'd to be hung.
Derry down.
“Shaftesbury,” said Charles, “thou art certainly the greatest rogue in England.” His Lordship replied, “Of a Subject perhaps I am, Sir.”
“He ask'd for bread and he received a stone,” as the poverty he suffer'd while living, and his monument when dead conjointly testify.
[“And Dryden, in immortal strain]
“And Dryden, in immortal strain,“Had raised the “table round” again:
“But that a ribbald King and Court
“Bade him toil on to make them sport,
“Demanded for their niggard pay,
“Fit for their souls, a looser lay,
“Licentious satire, song and play.”
[How shall we here pursue th' unpolish'd strain]
How shall we here pursue th' unpolish'd strain,That labours to describe a motley reign?
Who shall pourtray the horrors of that year,
Which saw death-dealing Pestilence appear?
When London's guardianGenius droop'd his head,
To mourn o'er countless crouds untimely dead?
Or who shall paint the all-devouring flame,
Which left the capital an empty name?
While Britain thus was humbled to the dust,
Two foes were added, Discord and Distrust;
More fell than recent pestilence or fire,
Came plague of party and religious ire:
Witness that “Shaft which pointing to the skies,”
Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies;
Be it remember'd, a momentous fact,
This reign produced the Habeas Corpus Act.
And, much less creditable to the state,
(But we must bad and good alike relate),
Dunkirk to France disgracefully was sold,
For some four hundred thousand pounds in gold;
The enervating vices of the court.
Cromwell and his most hypocritic crew,
('Tis fit the devil should receive his due),
Altho' subversive of domestic law,
Still kept our foreign enemies in awe;
While Charles by stern adversity untaught,
Bought folly,—and we paid for what he bought.
At Charles's death a strange suspicion rose,
That poison brought his being to a close;
His quondam friends enquiry seem to shun,
In haste to bow before the rising sun.
No splendid rites the monarch's corpse await,
Befitting Charles's rank and England's state;
Coldly to earth consigning his remains,
His brother mourns,—I mean his brother reigns.
'Twou'd ask a larger field and better brains
To give more samples of the British muse,
Whose works are extant,—read 'em if you chuse;
Who wou'd the ages current style peruse,
Two subjects I'll select of common prose;
Subjects which might a Milton's pen inspire,
The dreadful Plague and swift succeeding Firf.
The Reign of Charles II. which some preposterously represent as our augustan age, retarded the progress of polite literature, and the immeasurable licentiousness indulged, or rather applauded at Court, was more destructive to the refined arts, than even the Court nonsense and enthusiasm of the preceding period. Hume.
There were apparent suspicions of his having been poisoned, but, I must add, I never heard any laid those suspicions on his Brother. Bishop Burnet's History of his own Times.
The King's body was indecently neglected: his funeral was very mean; he did not lie in state; no mourning was given; and the expence of it was not equal to what an ordinary nobleman's funeral will rise to. Ibid.
T. Dibdin's Song.
“To quit the realm, and many a scheme resolves;
“But let him go, nor heed, though thus you make
“The gentle Duke his lonely journey take.”
Hoole's Ariosto.
“Pour fouler a vos pieds les loix et la patrie
“Je la defends, Siegneur, au péril de ma vie.”
Voltaire.
JAMES THE SECOND.
We nought inscribe but homely truth
Would we could mingle as we write
With information more delight;
Which might instruct and yet amuse;
So should our pen be spared the pain
Of tracing James the Second's reign.
In north and southern British lands;
To answer every stated want,
Two millions revenue we grant.
Scotia, on loyalty's best grounds,
Adds near three hundred thousand pounds;
Yet unpropitious in the main
Commenced King James the Second's reign.
In doom severe of Titus Oates;
(When perjury was much in vogue)
Was of his sacred order stripp'd,
And, nearly to death's threshold, whipp'd;
Mortal more smart did ne'er sustain
Than he, in James the Second's reign.
With rebel banner lands at Lyme;
At Taunton caus'd the bells to ring,
While fools proclaim'd him England's King,
But forced on Sedgemore plain to yield
To Feversham, in hard fought field;
His bold attempt proved rash and vain
To shorten James the Second's reign.
Of Monmouth's downfall and disgrace;
The hapless Duke, half starved, half drown'd,
In covert of a ditch was found.
Sans trial, shorter by the head,
A month beheld him crown'd,—and dead;
While his best friends their life blood drain,
For thwarting James the Second's reign.
Lands, but to fall, the bold Argyle;
Him too a month sufficed to try
His fortune in the field and die.
While dread proscription's reckless work,
By Jefferies and relentless Kirk,
Forbids repentance to obtain
Mercy in James the Second's reign.
Of who by legal murder fell,
From hospitable Lady Lisle,
(Disgrace befal the jury vile,
Her angel sex, her silver hair)
To meanest varlet, meanly slain
By tools of James the Second's reign.
A gibbet high was bade prepare,
To execute some rebel elf,
Then forced to hansel it himself,
By one who more enjoy'd the jest,
Because he was the victim's guest;
Who on that day did entertain
The friend of James the Second's reign.
Such agony refined to plan,
As promise to a weeping maid
Her father's life, and when betray'd,
Shew'd her his corse! thou void of shame,
“Thine own Gods damn thee!” beastly stain
To James the Second's luckless reign!
Or ere they on the scaffold died;
And Gaunt, whose sex nor virtue claims
Exemption from tormenting flames,
With hundreds more of victims, swell
The catalogue of those who fell;
And bid the Muse, in mournful strain,
Weep James the Second's gloomy reign.
The King demands, in which foul cause
And prelates punish'd with the Tower;
While Cam and Isis feel the rod,
And whips profane the man of God:
Sinks freedom bound in slavery's chain,
Under King James the Second's reign.
To Innocents most holy see,
And homage pay to Peter's rights,
The Nuncio Dada James invites;
And sends ambassador to Rome,
Where most himself had been at home,
One Palmer, Earl of Castlemain,
A wight of James the Second's reign.
For health of church begin to arm,
United, zealous in the cause
Of trampled rights and spurn'd at laws,
With great Nassau for freedom treat;
Nassau equips a gallant fleet,
Our dying charters to maintain,
And finish James the Second's reign.
And offers ample aid to James,
Who tries by lenitives, too late,
To ward his near impending fate;
And fools who dared their trust abuse,
'Gin tremble in their recreant shoes,
As rapidly they mark the wane
Of ill-star'd James the Second's reign.
And Auverquerque, the willing wave
To govern Britain's sea-girt shore.
Britain, who now successful fights
To gain her native Bill of Rights:
Whose independent sons disdain
To bend to James the Second's reign.
From Faversham an ill-judged flight;
Whence, by persuasion led to town,
He virtually yields the crown;
His second flight and abdication,
Seal the deliverance of the nation;
Nor explanation did he deign
For closing James the Second's reign.
Receives the man of feeble mind;
Britons with ardent zeal embrace
The royal pair who claim his place:
Nor, tho' without success essayed,
Have we for his re-entrance pray'd;
Incalculable ours the gain,
When James the Second ceas'd to reign.
Oates, Dangerfield, and others, had perjured themselves in accusing James, while Duke of York, of a plot against his brother; the Author by no means seeks to extenuate this man's guilt, but to throw deserved odium on the sanguinary severity with which corporal punishments were inflicted in this Reign; compared to many of which hanging or decollation had been mild and merciful. Burnet, and other respected Historians, tell us that James was naturally cruel; and when in Scotland, (in his Brother's Reign) where several were tortured before the Privy Council, to force confession relative to plots, and where, to use the Prelate's words, “the sight was so dreadful, that without an order restraining such a member to stay, the board would be forsaken, the Duke was so far from withdrawing, that he looked on, all the while, with indifference, and with an attention as if he had been to look on some curious experiment; this gave a terrible idea of him to all that observed it, as of a man that had no bowels nor humanity in him.”
The Earl of Feversham defeated Monmouth, (whose plea was, that Mrs. Barlow, also called Lucy Walters, his mother, had been lawfully married to Charles II.); and the unfortunate Duke was beheaded a month and four days from his ill-advised landing.
Alicra, Lady Lisle, above eighty years old, was tried for concealing two fugitives from the battle of Sedgemoor. The Jury acquitted her three times, but were as often sent back; and Jefferies' threats at last prevailed on them to find her guilty; she was condemned to be burnt the same afternoon, and, as a great favour, permitted to lose her head.
This monster in human shape was a Sir Anthony Kingston, who dined with the Mayor immediately prior to his unlooked-for execution.
By some 'tis said her brother was the victim; that she was seduced to sacrifice her virtue to Kirk, on a solemn promise of her relative's pardon, whose corpse afterwards shewn to her hanging on a sign-post; which dreadful sight deprived her of her reason is incontestibly true. Kirk caused ninety others to be executed at Taunton, his drums and trumpets playing in derision of their dying agonies. Jefferies condemned above six hundred in the West of England, most of whom suffered. Vide Pomfret's Pathetic Poem of “Cruelty & Lust.”
Cornish had been Sheriff of London. Bateman was an eminent Surgeon. Elizabeth Gaunt was burnt for giving momentary shelter to one of Monmouth's fugitive adherents.
The Bishop of London was suspended, and Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishops of St. Asaph, Ely, Chichester, Bath and Wells, Peterborough, and Bristol, for their attachment to the Protestant Religion were imprisoned in the Tower; afterwards tried in the King's Bench, and acquitted, for which the Judges in their favour were displaced.
The Reverend Mr. Johnson, for espousing the cause of the established Church, was most cruelly whipped, pillored, and fined 500 marks.
This Nobleman puns on a Palmer being sent to Rome; he published several pieces, and is celebrated in the Catalogue of Noble Authors.
The King of France offered a fleet, and an army of 30,000 men; King James refused this succour, under a supposition he should have no occasion for it.
The Prince of Orange and suite had embarkad on the 19th of October, but were driven back by stress of weather. The Earl of Dartmouth, who commanded the King's fleet, made no opposition, and Lord Cranbury, son to the Earl of Clarendon, set an example in the Army, which was soon forward of declaring against King James. Prince George of Denmark, married to the King's Daughter; Lord Churchill, (afterwards the great Duke of Marlborough, the King's favorite); the Dukes of Ormond, Grafton, &c. &c. joined the Prince of Orange.
He had desired to withdraw to Rochester, where he threw the great seal into the river, from whence he privately and suddenly embarked. Jefferies was taken, and escaped in female apparel from the enraged populace; who, however, accoiding to Hume, discovered, and so abused him, that he died in consequence.
| A Metrical History of England | |