Volume V Part 10 (2/2)

Wickedness! barbarian! monster-- What had she done, alas!--Sweet innocence!

She would have interceded for thy crimes.

CARTISMAND

Too well I knew the purpose of thy soul.-- Didst thou believe I would submit?--resign my crown?-- Or that thou only hadst the power to punish?

VANOC

Yet I will punish;--meditate strange torments!-- Then give thee to the justice of the G.o.ds.

CARTISMAND

Thus Vanoc, do I mock thy treasur'd rage.-- My heart springs forward to the dagger's point.

Vanoc

Quick, wrest it from her!--drag her hence to chains.

CARTISMAND

There needs no second stroke-- Adieu, rash man!--my woes are at an end:-- Thine's but begun;--and lasting as thy life.

Mr. Philips in this play has shewn how well he was acquainted with the stage; he keeps the scene perpetually busy; great designs are carrying on, the incidents rise naturally from one another, and the catastrophe is moving. He has not observed the rules which some critics have established, of distributing poetical justice; for Gwendolen, the most amiable character in the play is the chief sufferer, arising from the indulgence of no irregular pa.s.sion, nor any guilt of hers.

The next year Mr. Philips introduced another tragedy on the stage called Humfrey Duke of Gloucester, acted 1721. The plot of this play is founded on history. During the minority of Henry VI. his uncle, the duke of Gloucester, was raised to the dignity of Regent of the Realm. This high station could not but procure him many enemies, amongst whom was the duke of Suffolk, who, in order to restrain his power, and to inspire the mind of young Henry with a love of independence, effected a marriage between that Prince, and Margaret of Anjou, a Lady of the most consummate beauty, and what is very rare amongst her s.e.x, of the most approved courage. This lady entertained an aversion for the duke of Gloucester, because he opposed her marriage with the King, and accordingly resolves upon his ruin.

She draws over to her party cardinal Beaufort, the Regent's uncle, a supercilious proud churchman. They fell upon a very odd scheme to shake the power of Gloucester, and as it is very singular, and absolutely fact, we shall here insert it.

The duke of Gloucester had kept Eleanor Cobham, daughter to the lord Cobham, as his concubine, and after the dissolution of his marriage with the countess of Hainault, he made her his wife; but this did not restore her reputation: she was, however, too young to pa.s.s in common repute for a witch, yet was arrested for high treason, founded on a pretended piece of witchcraft, and after doing public penance several days, by sentence of convocation, was condemned to perpetual imprisonment in the Isle of Man, but afterwards removed to Killingworth-castle. The fact charged upon her, was the making an image of wax resembling the King, and treated in such a manner by incantations, and sorceries, as to make him waste away, as the image gradually consumed. John Hume, her chaplain, Thomas Southwell, a canon of St. Stephen's Westminster, Roger Bolingbroke, a clergyman highly esteemed, and eminent for his uncommon learning, and merit, and perhaps on that account, reputed to have great skill in necromancy, and Margery Jourdemain, commonly called The Witch of Eye, were tried as her accomplices, and condemned, the woman to be burnt, the others to be drawn, hanged, and quartered at Tyburn[2]. This h.e.l.lish contrivance against the wife of the duke of Gloucester, was meant to shake the influence of her husband, which in reality it did, as ignorance and credulity cooperated with his enemies to destroy him. He was arrested for high treason, a charge which could not be supported, and that his enemies might have no further trouble with him, cardinal Beaufort hired a.s.sa.s.sins to murder him. The poet acknowledges the hints he has taken from the Second Part of Shakespear's Henry VI, and in some scenes has copied several lines from him. In the last scene, that pathetic speech of Eleanor's to Cardinal Beaufort when he was dying in the agonies of remorse and despair, is literally borrowed.

WARWICK

See how the pangs of death work in his features.

YORK

Disturb him not--let him pa.s.s peaceably.

ELEANOR

Lord Cardinal;--if thou think'st of Heaven's bliss Hold up thy hand;--make signal of that hope.

He dies;--and makes no sign!--

In praise of this tragedy, Mr. Welsted has prefixed a very elegant copy of verses.

Mr. Philips by a way of writing very peculiar, procured to himself the name of Namby Pamby. This was first bestowed on him by Harry Cary, who burlesqued some little pieces of his, in so humorous a manner, that for a long while, Harry's burlesque, pa.s.sed for Swift's with many; and by others were given to Pope: 'Tis certain, each at first, took it for the other's composition.

In ridicule of this manner, the ingenious Hawkins Brown, Esq; now a Member of Parliament, in his excellent burlesque piece called The Pipe of Tobacco, has written an imitation, in which the resemblance is so great, as not to be distinguished from the original. This gentleman has burlesqued the following eminent authors, by such a close imitation of their turn of verse, that it has not the appearance of a copy, but an original.

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