Part 49 (1/2)
”Truth's a discovery made by travelling minds.”
”Honour's the moral conscience of the great.”
”They grow so certain as to need no hope.”
”Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds.”
I conclude with one complete stanza, of the same cast of reflection. It may be inscribed in the library of the student, in the studio of the artist, in every place where excellence can only be obtained by knowledge.
”Rich are the diligent, who can command Time, nature's stock! and, could his hour-gla.s.s fall, Would, as for seed of stars, stoop for the sand, And by incessant labour gather all!”
[325] Can one read such pa.s.sages as these without catching some of the sympathies of a great genius that knows itself?
”He who writes an heroic poem leaves an estate entailed, and he gives a greater gift to posterity than to the present age; for a public benefit is best measured in the number of receivers; and our contemporaries are but few when reckoned with those who shall succeed.
”If thou art a malicious reader, thou wilt remember my preface boldly confessed, that a main motive to the undertaking was a desire of fame; and thou mayest likewise say, I may very possibly not live to enjoy it. Truly, I have some years ago considered that Fame, like Time, only gets a reverence by long running; and that, like a river, 'tis narrowest where 'tis bred, and broadest afar off.
”If thou, reader, art one of those who have been warmed with poetic fire, I reverence thee as my judge; and whilst others tax me with vanity, I appeal to thy conscience whether it be more than such a necessary a.s.surance as thou hast made to thyself in like undertakings? For when I observe that writers have many enemies, such inward a.s.surance, methinks, resembles that forward confidence in men of arms, which makes them proceed in great enterprise; since the right examination of abilities begins with inquiring whether we doubt ourselves.”
Such a composition is injured by mutilation. He here also alludes to his military character: ”Nor could I sit idle and sigh with such as mourn to hear the drum; for if the age be not quiet enough to be taught virtue a pleasant way, the next may be at leisure; nor could I (like men that have civilly slept till they are old in dark cities) think war a novelty.”
Shakspeare could not have expressed his feelings, in his own style, more eloquently touching than D'Avenant.
[326] It is said there were four writers. The Clinias and Dametas were probably Sir John Denham and Jo. Donne; Sir Allan Broderick and Will Crofts, who is mentioned by the clubs as one of their fellows, appear to be the Sancho and Jack Pudding. Will Crofts was a favourite with Charles II: he had been a skilful agent, as appears in Clarendon. [In the accounts of moneys disbursed for secret services in the reign of Charles II., published by the Camden Society, his name appears for 200_l._, but that of his wife repeatedly figures for large sums, ”as of free guift.” In this way she receives 700_l._ with great regularity for a series of years, until the death of Charles II.] Howell has a poem ”On some who, blending their brains together, plotted how to bespatter one of the Muses' choicest sons, Sir William D'Avenant.”
[327] The story was current in D'Avenant's time, and it is certain he encouraged the believers in its truth. Anthony Wood speaks of the lady as ”a very beautiful woman, of a good wit and conversation, in which she was imitated by none of her children but by this William.” He also notes Shakspeare's custom to lodge at the Crown Inn, Oxford, kept by her husband, ”in his journies between Warwicks.h.i.+re and London.” Aubrey tells the same tale, adding that D'Avenant ”would sometimes, when he was pleasant over a gla.s.s of wine with his most intimate friends, _e.g._ Sam. Butler (author of 'Hudibras,'
&c.,) say, that it seemed to him that he writ with the very same spirit that Shakspeare did, and was contented enough to be thought his son;” he adds that ”his mother had a very light report.” It was Pope who told Oldys the jesting story he had obtained from Betterton, of little Will running from school to meet Shakspeare, in one of his visits to Oxford, and being asked where he was running, by an old townsman, replied, to ”see my G.o.dfather Shakspeare.” ”There's a good boy,” said the old gentleman, ”but have a care that you don't take G.o.d's name in vain.”--ED.
[328] The scene where the story of ”Gondibert” is placed, which the wits sometimes p.r.o.nounced _Lumber_ and _Lumbery_.
THE PAPER-WARS OF THE CIVIL WARS.
The ”Mercuries” and ”Diurnals,” archives of political fictions--”The Diurnals,” in the pay of the Parliament, described by BUTLER and CLEVELAND--Sir JOHN BIRKENHEAD excels in sarcasm, with specimens of his ”Mercurius Aulicus”--how he corrects his own lies--Specimens of the Newspapers on the side of the Commonwealth.
Among these battles of logomachy, in which so much ink has been spilt, and so many pens have lost their edge--at a very solemn period in our history, when all around was distress and sorrow, stood forwards the facetious ancestors of that numerous progeny who still flourish among us, and who, without a suspicion of their descent, still bear the features of their progenitors, and inherit so many of the family humours. These were the MERCURIES and DIURNALS--the newspapers of our Civil Wars.
The distinguished heroes of these Paper-Wars, Sir John Birkenhead, Marchmont Needham, and Sir Roger L'Estrange, I have elsewhere portrayed.[329] We have had of late correct lists of these works; but no one seems as yet to have given any clear notion of their spirit and their manner.
The London Journals in the service of the Parliament were usually the _Diurnals_. These politicians practised an artifice which cannot be placed among ”the lost inventions.” As these were hawked about the metropolis to spur curiosity, often languid from over-exercise, or to wheedle an idle spectator into a reader, every paper bore on its front the inviting heads of its intelligence. Men placed in the same circ.u.mstances will act in the same manner, without any notion of imitation; and the pa.s.sions of mankind are now addressed by the same means which our ancestors employed, by those who do not suspect they are copying them.
These _Diurnals_ have been blasted by the lightnings of Butler and Cleveland. Hudibras is made happy at the idea that he may be
Register'd by fame eternal, In deathless pages of DIURNAL.
But Cleveland has left us two remarkable effusions of his satiric and vindictive powers, in his curious character of ”A Diurnal Maker,” and ”A London Diurnal.” He writes in the peculiar vein of the wit of those times, with an originality of images, whose combinations excite surprise, and whose abundance fatigues our weaker delicacy.
”A Diurnal-Maker is the Sub-Almoner of History; Queen Mab's Register; one whom, by the same figure that a North-country pedler is a merchantman, you may style an author. The silly countryman who, seeing an ape in a scarlet coat, blessed his young wors.h.i.+p, and gave his landlord joy of the hopes of his house, did not slander his compliment with worse application than he that names this shred an historian. To call him an Historian is to knight a Mandrake; 'tis to view him through a perspective, and, by that gross hyperbole, to give the reputation of an engineer to a maker of mousetraps. When these weekly fragments shall pa.s.s for history, let the poor man's box be ent.i.tled the Exchequer, and the alms-basket a Magazine. Methinks the Turke should license Diurnals, because he prohibits learning and books.” He characterises the Diurnal as ”a puny chronicle, scarce pin-feathered with the wings of time; it is a history in sippets; the English Iliads in a nutsh.e.l.l; the Apocryphal Parliament's Book of Maccabees in single sheets.”
But Cleveland tells us that these Diurnals differ from a _Mercurius Aulicus_ (the paper of his party),--”as the Devil and his Exorcist, or as a black witch doth from a white one, whose office is to unravel her enchantments.”
The _Mercurius Aulicus_ was chiefly conducted by Sir JOHN BIRKENHEAD, at Oxford, ”communicating the intelligence and affairs of the court to the rest of the kingdom.” Sir John was a great wag, and excelled in sarcasm and invective; his facility is equal to repartee, and his spirit often reaches to wit: a great forger of tales, who probably considered that a romance was a better thing than a newspaper.[330]