Part 49 (2/2)
The royal party were so delighted with his witty buffoonery, that Sir John was recommended to be Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford.
Did political lying seem to be a kind of moral philosophy to the feelings of a party? The originality of Birkenhead's happy manner consists in his adroit use of sarcasm: he strikes it off by means of a parenthesis. I shall give, as a specimen, one of his summaries of what the _Parliamentary Journals_ had been detailing during the week.
”The Londoners in print this week have been pretty copious. They say that _a troop of the Marquess of Newcastle's horse have submitted to the Lord Fairfax_. (They were part of the _German_ horse which came over in the _Danish_ fleet.)[331] That the Lord _Wilmot hath been dead five weeks, but the Cavaliers concealed his death_. (Remember this!) That _Sir John Urrey[332] is dead and buried at Oxford_. (He died the same day with the Lord Wilmot.) That the _Cavaliers, before they have done, will HURREY all men into misery_. (This quibble hath been six times printed, and n.o.body would take notice of it; now let's hear of it no more!) That _all the Cavaliers which Sir William Waller took prisoners (besides 500) tooke the National Covenant_. (Yes, all he took (besides 500) tooke the Covenant.) That 2000 _Irish Rebels landed in Wales_. (You called them English Protestants till you cheated them of their money.) That _Sir William Brereton left 140 good able men in Hawarden Castle_. ('Tis the better for Sir Michael Earnley, who hath taken the Castle.) That _the Queen hath a great deafnesse_. (Thou hast a great blister on thy tongue.) That _the Cavaliers burned all the suburbs of Chester, that Sir William Brereton might find no shelter to besiedge it_. (There was no hayrick, and Sir William cares for no other shelter.)[333] The SCOTTISH DOVE says (there are Doves in Scotland!) that _Hawarden Castle had but forty men in it when the Cavaliers took it_. (Another told you there were 140 l.u.s.ty stout fellows in it: for shame, gentlemen! conferre Notes!) That _Colonel Norton at Rumsey took 200 prisoners_. (I saw them counted: they were just two millions.) Then the _Dove_ hath this sweet pa.s.sage: _O Aulicus, thou profane wretch, that darest scandalize G.o.d'S saints, darest thou call that loyal subject Master Pym a traitor_? (Yes, pretty _Pigeon_,[334] he was charged with six articles by his Majesty's Atturney Generall.) Next he says, that _Master Pym died like Moses upon the Mount_. (He did not die upon the mount, but should have done.) Then he says _Master Pym died in a good old age, like Jacob in Egypt_. (Not like Jacob, yet just as those died in Egypt in the days of Pharaoh.”)[335]
As Sir John was frequently the propagator of false intelligence, it was necessary at times to seem scrupulous, and to correct some slight errors. He does this very adroitly, without diminis.h.i.+ng his invectives.
”We must correct a mistake or two in our two last weeks. We advertised you of certain money speeches made by Master _John_ Sedgwick: on better information, it was not _John_, but _Obadiah_, Presbyter of Bread-street, who in the pulpit in hot weather used to unb.u.t.ton his doublet, which John, who wanteth a thumbe, forbears to practise. And when we told you last week of a committee of _Lawyers_ appointed to put their new _Seale_ in execution, we named, among others, Master George Peard.[336] I confess this was no small errour to reckon Master Peard among the _Lawyers_, because he now lies sicke, and so farre from being their new _Lord Keeper_, that he now despairs to become their _Door Keeper_, which office he performed heretofore. But since Master Peard has become desperately sick; and so his vote, his law, and haire have all forsook him, his corporation of Barnstable have been in perfect health and loyalty. The town of Barnstable having submitted to the King, this will no doubt be a special cordial for their languis.h.i.+ng Burgess. And yet the man may grow hearty again when he hears of the late defeat given to his Majesty's forces in Lincolns.h.i.+re.”
This paper was immediately answered by MARCHMONT NEEDHAM, in his ”Mercurius Britannicus,” who cannot boast the playful and sarcastic bitterness of Sir John; yet is not the dullest of his tribe. He opens his reply thus:
”Aulicus will needs venture his soule upon the other _half-sheet_; and this week he _lies_, as completely as ever he did in _two full sheets_; full of as many scandals and fictions, full of as much stupidity and ignorance, full of as many tedious untruths as ever. And because he would _recrute_ the reputation of his wit, he falls into the company of our _Diurnals_ very furiously, and there lays about him in the midst of our weekly pamphlets; and he casts in the few squibs, and the little wildfire he hath, das.h.i.+ng out his conceits; and he takes it ill that the poore scribblers should tell a story for their living; and after a whole week spent at Oxford, in inke and paper, to as little purpose as _Maurice_ spent his shot and powder at _Plimouth_, he gets up, about Sat.u.r.day, into a jingle or two, for he cannot reach to a full jest; and I am informed that the three-quarter conceits in the last leafe of his Diurnall cost him fourteen pence in _aqua vitae_.”
Sir John never condescends formally to reply to Needham, for which he gives this singular reason:--”As for this libeller, we are still resolved to take no notice till we find him able to spell his own name, which to this hour BRITANNICUS never did.”
In the next number of Needham, who had always written it _Brittanicus_, the correction was silently adopted. There was no crying down the etymology of an Oxford malignant.
I give a short narrative of the political temper of the times, in their unparalleled gazettes.
At the first breaking out of the parliament's separation from the royal party, when the public mind, full of consternation in that new anarchy, shook with the infirmity of childish terrors, the most extravagant reports were as eagerly caught up as the most probable, and served much better the purposes of their inventors.
They had daily discoveries of new conspiracies, which appeared in a pretended correspondence written from Spain, France, Italy, or Denmark: they had their amusing literature, mixed with their grave politics; and a dialogue between ”a Dutch mariner and an English ostler,” could alarm the nation as much as the last letter from their ”private correspondent.” That the wildest rumours were acceptable appears from their contemporary Fuller. Armies were talked of, concealed under ground by the king, to cut the throats of all the Protestants in a night. He a.s.sures us that one of the most prevailing dangers among the Londoners was ”a design laid for a mine of powder under the Thames, to cause the river to drown the city.”
This desperate expedient, it seems, was discovered just in time to prevent its execution; and the people were devout enough to have a public thanksgiving, and watched with a little more care that the Thames might not be blown up. However, the plot was really not so much at the bottom of the Thames as at the bottom of their purses.
Whenever they wanted 100,000_l._ they raised a plot, they terrified the people, they appointed a thanksgiving-day, and while their ministers addressed to G.o.d himself all the news of the week, and even reproached him for the rumours against their cause, all ended, as is usual at such times, with the gulled mult.i.tude contributing more heavily to the adventurers who ruled them than the legal authorities had exacted in their greatest wants. ”The Diurnals” had propagated thirty-nine of these ”Treasons, or new Taxes,” according to one of the members of the House of Commons, who had watched their patriotic designs.
These ”Diurnals” sometimes used such language as the following, from _The Weekly Accompt_, January, 1643:--
”This day afforded no newes at all, but onely what was _heavenly_ and _spiritual_;” and he gives an account of the public fast, and of the grave divine Master Henderson's sermon, with his texts in the morning; and in the afternoon, another of Master Strickland, with his texts--and of their spiritual effect over the whole parliament![337]
Such news as the following was sometimes very agreeable:--
”From Oxford it is informed, that on Sunday last was fortnight in the evening, Prince Rupert, accompanied with some lords, and other cavaliers, _danced through the streets openly, with music before them_, to one of the colleges; where, after they had stayed about half an houre, they returned back again, dancing with the same music; and immediately there followed _a pack of women, or curtizans_, as it may be supposed, for they were hooded, and could not be knowne; and this the party who related affirmed he saw with his own eyes.”
On this the Diurnal-maker pours out severe anathemas--and one with a _note_, that ”_dancing_ and _drabbing_ are inseparable companions, and follow one another close at the heels.” He a.s.sures his readers, that the malignants, or royalists, only fight like sensual beasts, to maintain their dancing and drabbing!--Such was the revolutionary tone here, and such the arts of faction everywhere. The matter was rather peculiar to our country, but the principle was the same as practised in France. Men of opposite characters, when acting for the same concealed end, must necessarily form parallels.
FOOTNOTES:
[329] ”Curiosities of Literature,” vol. i. p. 158 (last edition).
[330] There is a small poem, published in 1643, ent.i.tled ”The Great a.s.sizes holden in Parna.s.sus,” in the manner of a later work, ”The Sessions of the Poets,” in which all the Diurnals and Mercuries are arraigned and tried. An impartial satire on them all; and by its good sense and heavy versification, is so much in the manner of GEORGE WITHER, that some have conjectured it to be that singular author's. Its rarity gives it a kind of value. Of such verses as Wither's, who has been of late extolled too highly, the chief merit is their sense and truth; which, if he were not tedious, might be an excellence in prose. Antiquaries, when they find a poet adapted for their purposes, conjecture that he is an excellent one. This prosing satirist, strange to say, in some pastoral poetry, has opened the right vein.
Aulicus is well characterized:--
--------------”hee, for wicked ends, Had the Castalian spring defiled with gall, And changed by Witchcraft most satyricall, The bayes of Helicon and myrtles mild, To p.r.i.c.king hawthornes and to hollies wild.
--------------with slanders false, With forged fict.i.tious calumnies and tales-- He added fewel to the direful flame Of civil discord; and domestic blowes, By the incentives of malicious prose.
For whereas he should have composed his inke Of liquors that make flames expire, and shrink Into their cinders-- --He laboured hard for to bring in The exploded doctrines of the Florentine, And taught that to dissemble and to lie Were vital parts of human policie.”
<script>