Part 51 (1/2)
Clarendon's profound genius could not expand into the same liberal feelings. He highly commends May for his learning, his wit and language, and for his Supplement to Lucan, which he considered as ”one of the best epic poems in the English language;” but this great spirit sadly winces in the soreness of his feelings when he alludes to May's ”History of the Parliament;” then we discover that this late ”ingenious person” performed his part ”so meanly, that he seems to have lost his wit when he left his honesty.” Behold the political criticism in literature! However we may incline to respect the feelings of Clarendon, this will not save his judgment nor his candour. We read May now, as well as Clarendon; nor is the work of May that of a man who ”had lost his wits,” nor is it ”meanly performed.”
Warburton, a keen critic of the writers of that unhappy and that glorious age for both parties, has p.r.o.nounced this ”History” to be ”a just composition, according to the rules of history; written with much judgment, penetration, manliness, and spirit, and with a candour that will greatly increase your esteem, when you understand that he wrote by order of his masters the Parliament.”
Thus have authors and their works endured the violations of party feelings; a calamity in our national literature which has produced much false and unjust criticism.[347] The better spirit of the present times will maintain a safer and a more honourable principle,--the true objects of LITERATURE, the cultivation of the intellectual faculties, stand entirely unconnected with POLITICS and RELIGION, let this be the imprescriptible right of an author. In our free country unhappily they have not been separated--they run together, and in the ocean of human opinions, the salt and bitterness of these mightier waves have infected the clear waters from the springs of the Muses. I once read of a certain river that ran through the sea without mixing with it, preserving its crystalline purity and all its sweetness during its course; so that it tasted the same at the Line as at the Poles. This stream indeed is only to be found in the geography of an old romance; literature should be this magical stream!
FOOTNOTES:
[338] A forcible description of Locke may be found in the curious ”Life of Wood,” written by himself. I shall give the pa.s.sage where Wood acknowledges his after celebrity, at the very moment the bigotry of his feelings is attempting to degrade him.
Wood belonged to a club with Locke and others, for the purpose of hearing chemical lectures. ”John Locke of Christchurch was afterwards a noted writer. This John Locke was a man of a turbulent spirit, clamorous, and never contented. The club wrote and took notes from the mouth of their master, who sat at the upper end of a table, but the said John Locke scorned to do it; so that while every man besides of the club were writing, he would be prating and troublesome.”
[339] This anecdote deserves preservation. I have drawn it from the MSS. of Bishop KENNET.
”In the Epitaph on JOHN PHILIPS occurs this line on his metre, that
'Uni in hoc laudis genere Miltono secundus, Primoque pene par.'
These lines were ordered to be razed out of the monument by Dr. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester. The word Miltono being, as he said, not fit to be in a Christian church; but they have since been restored by Dr. ATTERBURY, who succeeded him as Bishop of Rochester, and who wrote the epitaph jointly with Dr.
FREIND.”--Lansdowne MSS., No. 908, p. 162.
The anecdote has appeared, but without any authority. Dr.
SYMMONS, in his ”Life of Milton,” observing on what he calls Dr. Johnson's ”biographical libel on Milton,” that Dr. Johnson has mentioned this fact, seems to suspect its authenticity; for, if true, ”it would cover the respectable name of Sprat with eternal dishonour.” Of its truth the above gives sufficient authority; but at all events the prejudices of Sprat must be pardoned, while I am showing that minds far greater than his have shared in the same unhappy feeling. Dr.
Symmons himself bears no light stain for his slanderous criticism on the genius of THOMAS WARTON, from the motive we are discussing; though Warton, as my text shows, was too a sinner! I recollect in my youth a more extraordinary instance than any other which relates to Milton. A woman of no education, who had retired from the business of life, became a very extraordinary reader; accident had thrown into her way a large library composed of authors who wrote in the reigns of the two Charleses. She turned out one of the _malignant_ party, and an abhorrer of the Commonwealth's men. Her opinion of CROMWELL and MILTON may be given. She told me it was no wonder that the rebel who had been secretary to the usurper should have been able to have drawn so finished a character of SATAN, and that the Pandaemonium, with all the oratorical devils, was only such as he had himself viewed at Oliver's council-board.
[340] I throw into this note several curious notices respecting BURNET, and chiefly from contemporaries.
Burnet has been accused, after a warm discussion, of returning home in a pa.s.sion, and then writing the character of a person.
But as his feelings were warm, it is probable he might have often practised the reverse. An anecdote of the times is preserved in ”The Memoirs of Grub-street,” vol. ii. p. 291. ”A n.o.ble peer now living declares he stood with a very ill grace in the history, till he had an opportunity put into his hands of obliging the bishop, by granting a favour at court, upon which the bishop told a friend, within an hour, that he was mistaken in such a lord, and must go and alter his whole character; and so he happens to have a pretty good one.” In this place I also find this curious extract from the MS.
”Memoirs of the M---- of H----.” ”Such a day Dr. B----t told me King William was an obstinate, conceited man, that would take no advice; and on this day King William told me that Dr.
B----t was a troublesome, impertinent man, whose company he could not endure.” These anecdotes are very probable, and lead one to reflect. Some political tergiversation has been laid to his charge; Swift accused him of having once been an advocate for pa.s.sive obedience and absolute power. He has been reproached with the deepest ingrat.i.tude, for the purpose of gratifying his darling pa.s.sion of popularity, in his conduct respecting the Duke of Lauderdale, his former patron. If the following piece of secret history be true, he showed too much of a compliant humour, at the cost of his honour. I find it in Bishop Kennet's MSS. ”Dr. Burnet having _over night_ given in some important depositions against the Earl of Lauderdale to the House of Commons, was, _before morning_, by the intercession of the D----, made king's chaplain and preacher at the Rolls; so he was bribed to hold the peace.”--Lansdowne MSS., 990. This was quite a politician's short way to preferment! An honest man cannot leap up the ascent, however he may try to climb. There was something morally wrong in this transaction, because Burnet notices it, and acknowledges--”I was much blamed for what I had done.” The story is by no means refuted by the _nave_ apology.
Burnet's character has been vigorously attacked, with all the nerve of satire, in ”Faction Displayed,” attributed to s.h.i.+ppen, whom Pope celebrates--
----”And pour myself as plain As honest s.h.i.+ppen or as old Montaigne.”
s.h.i.+ppen was a Tory. In ”Faction Displayed,” Burnet is represented with his Cabal (so some party nicknames the other), on the accession of Queen Anne, plotting the disturbance of her government. ”Black Aris's fierceness,” that is Burnet, is thus described:--
”A Scotch, seditious, unbelieving priest, The brawny chaplain of the calves'-head feast, Who first his patron, then his prince betray'd, And does that church he's sworn to guard, invade, Warm with rebellious rage, he thus began,” &c.
One hardly suspects the hermit Parnell capable of writing rather harsh verses, yet stinging satire; they are not in his works; but he wrote the following lines on a report of a fire breaking out in Burnet's library, which had like to have answered the purpose some wished--of condemning the author and his works to the flames--
”He talks, and writes, that Popery will return, And we, and he, and all his works will burn; And as of late he meant to bless the age With _flagrant prefaces of party rage_, O'ercome with pa.s.sion and the subject's weight, Lolling he nodded in his elbow-seat; Down fell the candle! Grease and zeal conspire, Heat meets with heat, and pamphlets burn their sire; Here crawls a _preface_ on its half-burn'd maggots, And there an _introduction_ brings its f.a.gots; Then roars the prophet of the northern nation, Scorch'd by a flaming speech on moderation.”
Thomas Warton smiles at Burnet for the horrors of Popery which perpetually haunted him, in his ”Life of Sir T. Pope,” p. 53.
But if we subst.i.tute the term arbitrary power for popery, no Briton will join in the abuse Burnet has received on this account. A man of Burnet's fervid temper, whose foible was strong vanity and a pa.s.sion for popularity, would often rush headlong into improprieties of conduct and language; his enemies have taken ample advantage of his errors; but many virtues his friends have recorded; and the elaborate and spirited character which the Marquis of Halifax has drawn of Burnet may soothe his manes, and secure its repose amid all these disturbances around his tomb. This fine character is preserved in the ”Biographia Britannica.” Burnet is not the only instance of the motives of a man being honourable, while his actions are frequently the reverse, from his impetuous nature. He has been reproached for a want of that truth which he solemnly protests he scrupulously adhered to; yet, of many circ.u.mstances which were at the time condemned as ”lies,” when Time drew aside the mighty veil, Truth was discovered beneath.
Tovey, with his visual good humour, in his ”Anglia Judaica,”