Volume III Part 26 (1/2)
[Footnote 103: The sermon deserves to be read. See the London Gazette of April 14. 1689; Evelyn's Diary; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; and the despatch of the Dutch Amba.s.sadors to the States General.]
[Footnote 104: A specimen of the prose which the Jacobites wrote on this subject will be found in the Somers Tracts. The Jacobite verses were generally too loathsome to be quoted. I select some of the most decent lines from a very rare lampoon:
”The eleventh of April has come about, To Westminster went the rabble rout, In order to crown a bundle of clouts, a dainty fine King indeed.
”Descended he is from the Orange tree; But, if I can read his destiny, He'll once more descend from another tree, a dainty fine King indeed.
”He has gotten part of the shape of a man, But more of a monkey, deny it who can; He has the head of a goose, but the legs of a crane, A dainty fine King indeed.”
A Frenchman named Le n.o.ble, who had been banished from his own country for his crimes, but, by the connivance of the police, lurked in Paris, and earned a precarious livelihood as a bookseller's hack published on this occasion two pasquinades, now extremely scarce, ”Le Couronnement de Guillemot et de Guillemette, avec le Sermon du grand Docteur Burnet,”
and ”Le Festin de Guillemot.” In wit, taste and good sense, Le n.o.ble's writings are not inferior to the English poem which I have quoted. He tells us that the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London had a boxing match in the Abbey; that the champion rode up the Hall on an a.s.s, which turned restive and kicked over the royal table with all the plate; and that the banquet ended in a fight between the peers armed with stools and benches, and the cooks armed with spits. This sort of pleasantry, strange to say, found readers; and the writer's portrait was pompously engraved with the motto ”Latrantes ride: to tua fama manet.”]
[Footnote 105: Reresby's Memoirs.]
[Footnote 106: For the history of the devastation of the Palatinate, see the Memoirs of La Fare, Dangeau, Madame de la Fayette, Villars, and Saint Simon, and the Monthly Mercuries for March and April, 1689. The pamphlets and broadsides are too numerous to quote. One broadside, ent.i.tled ”A true Account of the barbarous Cruelties committed by the French in the Palatinate in January and February last,” is perhaps the most remarkable.]
[Footnote 107: Memoirs of Saint Simon.]
[Footnote 108: I will quote a few lines from Leopold's letter to James: ”Nunc autem quo loco res nostrae sint, ut Serenitati vestrae auxilium praestari possit a n.o.bis, qui non Turcico tantum bello impliciti, sed insuper etiam crudelissimo et iniquissimo a Gallis, rerun suarum, ut putabant, in Anglia securis, contra datam fidem impediti sumus, ipsimet Serenitati vestrae judicandum relinquimus.... Galli non tantum in nostrum et totius Christianae orbis perniciem foedifraga arma c.u.m juratis Sanctae Crucis hostibus sociare fas sibi duc.u.n.t; sed etiam in imperio, perfidiam perfidia c.u.mulando, urbes deditione occupatas contra datam fidem immensis tributis exhaurire exhaustas diripere, direptas funditus exscindere aut flammis delere Palatia Principum ab omni antiquitate inter saevissima bellorum incendia intacta servata exurere, templa spoliare, dedit.i.tios in servitutem more apud barbaros usitato abducere, denique pa.s.sim, imprimis vero etiam in Catholicorum ditionibus, alia horrenda, et ipsam Turcorum tyrannidem superantia immanitatis et saevitiae exempla edere pro ludo habent.”]
[Footnote 109: See the London Gazettes of Feb. 25. March 11. April 22.
May 2. and the Monthly Mercuries. Some of the Declarations will be found in Dumont's Corps Universel Diplomatique.]
[Footnote 110: Commons Journals, April 15. 16. 1689.]
[Footnote 111: Oldmixon.]
[Footnote 112: Commons' Journals, April 19. 24. 26. 1689.]
[Footnote 113: The Declaration is dated on the 7th of May, but was not published in the London Gazette till the 13th.]
[Footnote 114: The general opinion of the English on this subject is clearly expressed in a little tract ent.i.tled ”Aphorisms relating to the Kingdom of Ireland,” which appeared during the vacancy of the throne.]
[Footnote 115: King's State of the Protestants of Ireland, ii. 6. and iii. 3.]
[Footnote 116: King, iii. 3. Clarendon, in a letter to Rochester (June 1. 1686), calls Nugent ”a very troublesome, impertinent creature.”]
[Footnote 117: King, iii. 3.]
[Footnote 118: King, ii. 6., iii. 3. Clarendon, in a letter to Ormond (Sep. 28. 1686), speaks highly of Nagle's knowledge and ability, but in the Diary (Jan. 31. 1686/7) calls him ”a covetous, ambitious man.”]
[Footnote 119: King, ii. 5. 1, iii. 3. 5.; A Short View of the Methods made use of in Ireland for the Subversion and Destruction of the Protestant Religion and Interests, by a Clergyman lately escaped from thence, licensed Oct. 17. 1689.]
[Footnote 120: King, iii. 2. I cannot find that Charles Leslie, who was zealous on the other side, has, in his Answer to King, contradicted any of these facts. Indeed Leslie gives up Tyrconnel's administration. ”I desire to obviate one objection which I know will be made, as if I were about wholly to vindicate all that the Lord Tyrconnel and other of King James's ministers have done in Ireland, especially before this revolution began, and which most of any thing brought it on. No; I am far from it. I am sensible that their carriage in many particulars gave greater occasion to King James's enemies than all the other in maladministrations which were charged upon his government.” Leslie's Answer to King, 1692.]
[Footnote 121: A True and Impartial Account of the most material Pa.s.sages in Ireland since December 1688, by a Gentleman who was an Eyewitness; licensed July 22. 1689.]
[Footnote 122: True and Impartial Account, 1689; Leslie's Answer to King, 1692.]
[Footnote 123: There have been in the neighbourhood of Killarney specimens of the arbutus thirty feet high and four feet and a half round. See the Philosophical Transactions, 227.]