Chapter XXVI: Part 26

[411] The controversies of Whitgift and Cartwright were of a nature
which could never close, for toleration was a notion which
never occurred to either. These rivals from early days wrote
with such bitterness against each other, that at length it
produced mutual reproaches. Whitgift complains to Cartwright:
"If you were writing against the veriest Papist, or the
ignorantest dolt, you could not be more spiteful and
malicious." And Cartwright replies: "If peace had been so
precious unto you as you pretend, you would not have brought
so many hard words and bitter reproaches, as it were sticks
and coals, to double and treble the heat of contention."

After this it is curious, even to those accustomed to such
speculations, to observe some men changing with the times, and
furious rivals converted into brothers. Whitgift, whom
Elizabeth, as a mark of her favour, called "her black
husband," soliciting Cartwright's pardon from the Queen; and
the proud Presbyter Cartwright styling Whitgift his Lord the
Archbishop's Grace of Canterbury, and visiting him!

[412] Sir George Paul, a contemporary, attributes his wealth "to the
benevolence and bounty of his followers." Dr. Sutcliffe, one
of his adversaries, sharply upbraids him, that "in the
persecution he perpetually complained of, he was grown rich."
A Puritan advocate reproves Dr. Sutcliffe for always carping
at Cartwright's purchases:--"Why may not Cartwright sell the
lands he had from his father, and buy others with the money,
as well as some of the bishops, who by bribery, simony,
extortion, racking of rents, wasting of woods, and such like
stratagems, wax rich, and purchase great lordships for their
posterity?"

To this Sutcliffe replied:

"I do not carpe alway, no, nor once, at Master Cartwright's
purchase. I hinder him not; I envy him not. Only thus much I
must tell him, that Thomas Cartwright, a man that hath more
landes of his own in possession than any bishop that I know,
and that fareth daintily every day, and feedeth fayre and
fatte, and lyeth as soft as any tenderling of that brood, and
hath wonne much wealth in short time, and will leave more to
his posterity than any bishop, should not cry out either of
persecution or of excess of bishop's livinges."--SUTCLIFFE'S
_Answer to Certain Calumnious Petitions._

[413] "The author of these libels," says Bishop Cooper, in his
"Admonition to the People of England," 1589, "calleth
himself by a feigned name, _Martin Mar-Prelate_, a very
fit name undoubtedly. But if this outrageous spirit of
boldness be not stopped speedily, I fear he will prove
himself to be, not only _Mar-Prelate_, but Mar-Prince,
Mar-State, Mar-Law, Mar-Magistrate, and altogether, until he
bring it to an Anabaptistical equality and community."--ED.

[414] Cartwright approved of them, and well knew the concealed
writers, who frequently consulted him: this appears by Sir G.
Paul's "Life of Whitgift," p. 65. Being asked his opinion of
such books, he said, that "since the bishops, and others there
touched, would not amend by grave books, it was therefore meet
they should be dealt withal to their farther reproach; and
that some books must be _earnest_, some _more mild and
temperate_, whereby they may be both of the spirit of Elias
and Eliseus;" the one the great mocker, the other the more
solemn reprover. It must be confessed Cartwright here
discovers a deep knowledge of human nature. He knew the power
of ridicule and of invective. At a later day, a writer of the
same stamp, in "The Second Wash, or the _Moore_ Scoured _once
more_," (written against Dr. Henry More, the Platonist), in
defence of that vocabulary of _names_ which he has poured on
More, asserts it is a practice allowed by the high authority
of Christ himself. I transcribe the curious passage:--"It is
the practice of Christ himself to character _men_ by those
_things_ to which they assimilate. Thus hath he called _Herod_
a _fox_; _Judas_ a _devil_; _false pastors_ he calls _wolves_;
the _buyers and sellers_, _theeves_; and those Hebrew Puritans
the _Pharisees_, _hypocrites_. This rule and justice of his
Master St. Paul hath well observed, and he acts freely
thereby; for when he reproves the Cretians, he makes use of
that ignominious proverb, _Evil beasts and slow bellies_. When
the high priest commanded the Jews to _smite_ him on the face,
he replied to him, not without some bitterness, _God shall
smite thee, thou white wall_. I cite not these places to
justify an injurious spleen, but to argue the liberty of the
truth."--_The Second Wash, or the +Moore+ Scoured once_ more.
1651. P. 8.

[415] One of their works is "A Dialogue, wherein is laid open the
tyrannical dealing of L. Bishopps against God's children." It
is full of scurrilous stories, probably brought together by
two active cobblers who were so useful to their junto. Yet the
bishops of that day were not of dissolute manners; and the
accusations are such, that it only proves their willingness to
raise charges against them. Of one bishop they tell us, that
after declaring he was poor, and what expenses he had been at,
as Paul's church could bear witness, shortly after hanged four
of his servants for having robbed him of a considerable sum.
Of another, who cut down all the woods at Hampstead, till the
towns-women "fell a swaddling of his men," and so saved
Hampstead by their resolution. But when _Martin_ would give a
proof that the Bishop of London was one of the bishops of the
devil, in his "Pistle to the terrible priests," he tells this
story:--"When the bishop throws his bowl (as he useth it
commonly upon the Sabbath-day), he runnes after it; and if it
be too hard, he cries _Rub! rub! rub! the diuel goe with
thee!_ and he goeth himself with it; so that by these words he
names himself the Bishop of the Divel, and by his tirannical
practice prooveth himselfe to be." He tells, too, of a parson
well known, who, being in the pulpit, and "hearing his dog
cry, he out with this text: 'Why, how now, hoe! can you not
let my dog alone there? Come, Springe! come, Springe!' and
whistled the dog to the pulpit." One of their chief objects of
attack was Cooper, Bishop of Lincoln, a laborious student, but
married to a dissolute woman, whom the University of Oxford
offered to separate from him: but he said he knew his
infirmity, and could not live without his wife, and was tender
on the point of divorce. He had a greater misfortune than even
this loose woman about him--his _name_ could be punned on; and
this bishop may be placed among that unlucky class of authors
who have fallen victims to their _names_. Shenstone meant more
than he expressed, when he thanked God that he could not be
punned on. Mar-Prelate, besides many cruel hits at Bishop
Cooper's wife, was now always "making the _Cooper's hoops to
flye off_, and the bishop's tubs to leake out." In "The
Protestatyon of Martin Marprelat," where he tells of two
bishops, "who so contended in throwing down elmes, as if the
wager had bene whether of them should most have impoverished
their bishopricks. Yet I blame not _Mar-Elme_ so much as
Cooper for this fact, because it is no less given him by his
_name_ to spoil elmes, than it is allowed him by the secret
judgment of God to mar the Church. A man of _Cooper's_ age and
occupation, so wel seene in that trade, might easily knowe
that tubs made of green timber must needs leak out; and yet I
do not so greatly marvel; for he that makes no conscience to
be a deceiver in the building of the churche, will not stick
for his game to be a _deceitfull workeman in making of
tubbs_."--p. 19. The author of the books against Bishop Cooper
is said to have been Job Throckmorton, a learned man,
affecting raillery and humour to court the mob.

Such was the strain of ribaldry and malice which Martin
Mar-Prelate indulged, and by which he obtained full possession
of the minds of the people for a considerable time. His libels
were translated, and have been often quoted by the Roman
Catholics abroad and at home for their particular purposes,
just as the revolutionary publications in this country have
been concluded abroad to be the general sentiments of the
people of England; and thus our factions always will serve the
interests of our enemies. Martin seems to have written little
verse; but there is one epigram worth preserving for its
bitterness.

Martin Senior, in his "Reproofe of Martin Junior," complains
that "his younger brother has not taken a little paines in
ryming with _Mar-Martin_ (one of their poetical antagonists),
that the Cater-Caps may know how the meanest of my father's
sonnes is able to answeare them both at blunt and sharpe." He
then gives his younger brother a specimen of what he is
hereafter to do. He attributes the satire of _Mar-Martin_ to
Dr. Bridges, Dean of Sarum, and John Whitgift, Archbishop of
Canterbury.

"The first Rising, Generation, and Original of _Mar-Martin_.

"From Sarum came a goos's egg,
With specks and spots bepatched;
A priest of Lambeth coucht thereon,
Thus was _Mar-Martin_ hatched.

Whence hath _Mar-Martin_ all his wit,
But from that egge of Sarum?
The rest comes all from great Sir John,
Who rings us all this 'larum.

What can the cockatrice hatch up
But serpents like himselfe?
What sees the ape within the glasse
But a deformed elfe?

Then must _Mar-Martin_ have some smell
Of forge, or else of fire:
A sotte in wit, a beaste in minde,
For so was damme and sire."

[416] It would, however, appear that these revolutionary publications
reached the universities, and probably fermented "the green
heads" of our students, as the following grave admonition
directed to them evidently proves:--

"Anti-Martinus sive monitio cujusdam Londinensis ad
adolescentes vtrimque academiae contra personatum quendam
rabulam qui se Anglice Martin Marprelat, &c. Londini, 1589,
4o."

A popular favourite as he was, yet even Martin, _in propria
persona_, acknowledges that his manner was not approved of by
_either party_. His "Theses Martinianae" opens thus: "I see my
doings and my course misliked of many, both the good and the
bad; though also I have favourers of both sortes. The bishops
and their traine, though they stumble at the cause, yet
especially mislike my maner of writing. Those whom foolishly
men call _Puritanes_, like of the matter I have handled, but
the forme they cannot brooke. So that herein I have them both
for mine adversaries. But now what if I should take the course
in certain theses or conclusions, without _inveighing_ against
either _person_ or _cause_." This was probably written after
Martin had swallowed some of his own sauce, or taken his "Pap
(offered to him) with a Hatchet," as one of the most
celebrated government pamphlets is entitled. But these "Theses
Martinianae," without either scurrility or invective are the
dullest things imaginable; abstract propositions were not
palatable to the multitude; and then it was, after the trial
had been made, that _Martin Junior and Senior_ attempted to
revive the spirit of the old gentleman; but if sedition has
its progress, it has also its decline; and if it could not
strike its blow when strongest, it only puled and made
grimaces, prognostics of weakness and dissolution. This is
admirably touched in "Pappe with an Hatchet." "Now Old Martin
appeared, with a wit worn into the socket, twingling and
pinking like the snuffe of a candle; _quantum mutatus ab
illo_, how unlike the knave he was before, not for malice, but
for sharpnesse! The hogshead was even come to the hauncing,
and nothing could be drawne from him but dregs; yet the emptie
caske sounds lowder than when it was full, and protests more
in his waining than he could performe in his waxing. I drew
neere the sillie soul, whom I found quivering in two sheets of
protestation paper (alluding to the work mentioned here in the
following note). O how meager and leane he looked, so crest
falne that his combe hung downe to his bill; and had I not
been sure it was the picture of Envie, I should have sworn it
had been the image of Death: so like the verie anatomie of
Mischief, that one might see through all the ribbes of his
conscience."

In another rare pamphlet from the same school, "Pasquill of
England to Martin Junior, in a countercuffe given to Martin
Junior," he humorously threatens to write "The Owle's
Almanack, wherein your night labours be set down;" and "some
fruitful volumes of 'The Lives of the Saints,' which, maugre
your father's five hundred sons, shall be printed," with
"hays, jiggs, and roundelays, and madrigals, serving for
epitaphs for his father's hearse."

[417] Some of these works still bear evident marks that the
"pursuivants" were hunting the printers. "The Protestatyon
of Martin Mar-Prelate, wherein, notwithstanding the
surprising of the printer, he maketh it knowne vnto the
world that he feareth neither proud priest, tirannous prelate,
nor godlesse cater-cap; but defieth all the race of them,"
including "a challenge" to meet them personally; was
probably one of their latest efforts. The printing and the
orthography show all the imperfections of that haste in
which they were forced to print this work. As they lost their
strength, they were getting more venomous. Among the little
Martins disturbed in the hour of parturition, but already
christened, there were: "Episto Mastix;" "The Lives and
Doings of English Popes;" "Itinerarium, or Visitations;"
"Lambethisms." The "Itinerary" was a survey of every
clergyman of England! and served as a model to a similar
work, which appeared during the time of the Commonwealth. The
"Lambethisms" were secrets divulged by Martin, who, it seems,
had got into the palace itself! Their productions were,
probably, often got up in haste, in utter scorn of the
Horatian precept. [These pamphlets were printed with
difficulty and danger, in secrecy and fear, for they were
rigidly denounced by the government of Elizabeth. Sir George
Paul, in his "Life of Archbishop Whitgift," informs us that
they were printed with a kind of wandering press, which was
first set up at Moulsey, near Kingston-on-Thames, and from
thence conveyed to Fauseley in Northamptonshire, and from
thence to Norton, afterwards to Coventry, from thence to
Welstone in Warwickshire, from which place the letters were
sent to another press in or near Manchester; where by the
means of Henry, Earl of Derby, the press was discovered in
printing "More Work for a Cooper;" an answer to Bishop
Cooper's attack on the party, and a work so rare Mr. Maskell
says, "I believe no copy of it, in any state, remains."]

As a great curiosity, I preserve a fragment in the _Scottish_
dialect, which well describes them and their views. The title
is wanting in the only copy I have seen; but its extreme
rarity is not its only value: there is something venerable in
the criticism, and poignant in the political sarcasm.

"Weil lettred clarkis endite their warkes, quoth Horace,
slow and geasoun,
Bot thou can wise forth buike by buike, at every spurt and
seasoun;
For men of litrature t'endite so fast, them doth not fitte,
Enanter in them, as in thee, their pen outrun thair witte.
The shaftis of foolis are soone shot out, but fro the merke
they stray;
So art thou glibbe to guibe and taunte, but rouest all the
way,
Quhen thou hast parbrackt out thy gorge, and shot out all
thy arrowes,
See that thou hold thy clacke, and hang thy quiver on the
gallows.
Els Clarkis will soon all be Sir Johns, the priestis craft
will empaire,
And Dickin, Jackin, Tom, and Hob, mon sit in Rabbies
chaire.
Let Georg and Nichlas, cheek by jol, bothe still on
cock-horse yode,
That dignitie of Pristis with thee may hau a long abode.
Els Litrature mon spredde her wings, and piercing welkin
bright,
To Heaven, from whence she did first wend, retire and take
her flight."

[418] "Pasquill of England to Martin Junior, in a countercuffe given
to Martin Junior."

[419] "Most of the books under Martin's name were composed by John
Penry, John Udall, John Field, and Job Throckmorton, who all
concurred in making Martin. See 'Answer to Throgmorton's
Letter by Sutcliffe,' p. 70; 'More Work for a Cooper;' and
'Hay any Work for a Cooper;' and 'Some layd open in his
Colours;' were composed by Job Throckmorton."--MS. Note by
Thomas Baker. Udall, indeed, denied having any concern in
these invectives, and professed to disapprove of them. We see
Cartwright, however, of quite a different opinion. In Udall's
library some MS. notes had been seen by a person who
considered them as materials for a Martin Mar-Prelate work in
embryo, which Udall confessed were written "by a friend." All
the writers were silenced ministers; though it is not
improbable that their scandalous tales, and much of the
ribaldry, might have been contributed by their lowest
retainers, those purveyors for the mob, of what they lately
chose to call their "Pig's-meat."

[420] The execution of Hacket, and condemnation of his party, who had
declared him "King of Europe," so that England was only a
province to him, is noted in our "General History of England."
This was the first serious blow which alarmed the Puritanic
party. Doubtless, this man was a mere maniac, and his
ferocious passions broke out early in life; but, in that day,
they permitted no lunacy as a plea for any politician.
Cartwright held an intercourse with that party, as he had with
Barrow, said to have been a debauched youth; yet we had a sect
of Barrowists; and Robert Brown, the founder of another sect,
named after him _Brownists_; which became very formidable.
This Brown, for his relationship, was patronised by Cecil,
Earl of Burleigh. He was a man of violent passions. He had a
wife, with whom he never lived; and a church, wherein he never
preached, observes the characterising Fuller, who knew him
when Fuller was young. In one of the pamphlets of the time I
have seen, it is mentioned that being reproached with beating
his wife, he replied, "I do not beat Mrs. Brown as my wife,
but as a curst cross old woman." He closed his life in prison;
not for his opinions, but for his brutality to a constable.
The old women and the cobblers connected with these Martin
Mar-Prelates are noticed in the burlesque epitaphs on Martin's
death, supposed to be made by his favourites; a humorous
appendix to "Martin's Monthminde." Few political conspiracies,
whenever religion forms a pretext, is without a woman. One
Dame Lawson is distinguished, changing her "silke for sacke;"
and other names might be added of ladies. Two cobblers are
particularly noticed as some of the industrious purveyors of
sedition through the kingdom--Cliffe, the cobbler, and one
Newman. Cliffe's epitaph on his friend Martin is not without
humour:--

"Adieu, both naule and bristles now for euer;
The shoe and soale--ah, woe is me!--must sever.
Bewaile, mine awle, thy sharpest point is gone;
My bristle's broke, and I am left alone.
Farewell old shoes, thumb-stall, and clouting-leather;
Martin is gone, and we undone together."

Nor is Newman, the other cobbler, less mortified and pathetic.
"The London Corresponding Society" had a more ancient origin
than that sodality was aware.

"My hope once was, my old shoes should be sticht;
My thumbs ygilt, that were before bepicht:
Now Martin's gone, and laid full deep in ground,
My gentry's lost, before it could be found."

Among the Martin Mar-Prelate books was one entitled "The
Cobbler's Book." This I have not seen; but these cobblers
probably picked up intelligence for these scandalous
chronicles. The writers, too, condescended to intersperse the
cant dialect of the populace, with which the cobblers
doubtless assisted these learned men, when busied in their
buffoonery. Hence all their vulgar gibberish; the Shibboleth
of the numerous class of their admirers--such as, "O, whose
_tat_?" John _Kan_kerbury, for Canterbury; _Paltri_-politans,
for Metropolitans; _See Villains_, for Civilians; and Doctor
of _Devility_, for Divinity! and more of this stamp. Who could
imagine that the writers of these scurrilities were learned
men, and that their patrons were men of rank! We find two
knights heavily fined for secreting these books in their
cellars. But it is the nature of rebellion to unite the two
extremes; for _want_ stirs the populace to rise, and _excess_
the higher orders. This idea is admirably expressed in one of
our elder poets:--

"Want made them murmur; for the people, who
To get their bread, do wrestle with their fate,
Or those, who in superfluous riot flow,
Soonest rebel. Convulsions in a State,
Like those which natural bodies do oppress,
Rise from repletion, or from emptiness."
ALEYNE'S _Henry VII_.

[421] The writer of Algernon Sidney's Memoirs could not have known
this fact, or he would not have said that "this was the first
indictment of high treason upon which any man lost his life
for _writing anything without publishing it_."--Edit. 1751, p.
21. It is curious to have Sidney's own opinion on this point.
We discover this on his trial. He gives it, assuming one of
his own noble principles, not likely to have been allowed by
the wretched Tories of that day. Addressing the villanous
Jeffries, the Lord Chief Justice:--"My Lord, I think it is _a
right of mankind, and 'tis exercised by all studious men_, to
write, in their own closets, what they please, for their own
memory; and no man can be answerable for it, unless they
publish it." Jeffries replied:--"Pray don't go away with _that
right of mankind_, that it is lawful for me to write what I
will in my own closet, so I do not publish it. We must not
endure men to talk thus, that by the _right of nature_ every
man may contrive mischief in his own chamber, and is not to be
punished till he thinks fit to be called to it." Jeffries was
a profligate sophist, but his talents were as great as his
vices.

[422] Penry's unfinished petition, which he designed to have
presented to the Queen before the trial, is a bold and
energetic composition; his protestation, after the trial, a
pathetic prayer! Neale has preserved both in his "History of
the Puritans." With what simplicity of eloquence he
remonstrates on the temporising government of Elizabeth. He
thus addresses the Queen, under the title of Madam!--"Your
standing is, and has been, by the Gospel: it is little
beholden to you for anything that appears. The practice of
your government shows that if you could have ruled without the
Gospel, it would have been doubtful whether the Gospel
should be established or not; for now that you are established
in your throne by the Gospel, you suffer it to reach no
farther than the end of your sceptre limiteth unto it." Of a
milder, and more melancholy cast, is the touching language,
when the hope of life, but not the firmness of his cause had
deserted him. "I look not to live this week to an end. I
never took myself for a rebuker, much less for a reformer of
states and kingdoms. I never did anything in this cause for
contention, vainglory, or to draw disciples after me.
Great things, in this life, I never sought for: sufficiency I
had, with great outward trouble; but most content I was with
my lot, and content with my untimely death, though I leave
behind me a friendless widow and four infants."--Such is often
the pathetic cry of the simple-hearted, who fall the
victims to the political views of more designing heads.

We could hardly have imagined that this eloquent and serious
young man was that Martin Mar-Prelate who so long played the
political ape before the populace, with all the mummery of
their low buffoonery, and even mimicking their own idioms. The
populace, however, seems to have been divided in their
opinions respecting the sanity of his politics, as appears by
some ludicrous lines, made on Penry's death, by a northern
rhymer.

"The Welshman is hanged,
Who at our kirke flanged,
And at the state banged,
And brened are his buks.
And though he be hanged,
Yet he is not wranged;
The deil has him fanged
In his kruked kluks."
WEEVER'S _Funerall Monuments_, p. 56. Edit. 1631.

[423] Observe what different conclusions are drawn from the same fact
by opposite writers. Heylin, arguing that Udall had been
justly condemned, adds, "the man remained a _living
monument_ of the archbishop's extraordinary goodness to
him in the preserving of that life which by the law he had
forfeited." But Neale, on the same point, considers him as
one who "died for his conscience, and stands upon record
_as a monument_ of the oppression and cruelty of the
government." All this opposition of feeling is of the nature
of party-spirit; but what is more curious in the history of
human nature, is the change of opinion in the same family in
the course of the same generation. The son of this Udall
was as great a zealot for Conformity, and as great a
sufferer for it from his father's party, when they possessed
political power. This son would not submit to their oaths
and covenants, but, with his bedridden wife, was left
unmercifully to perish in the open streets,--WALKER'S
_Sufferings of the Clergy_, part ii. p. 178.

SUPPLEMENT TO MARTIN MAR-PRELATE.

As a literary curiosity, I shall preserve a very rare poetical tract, which describes with considerable force the Revolutionists of the reign of Elizabeth. They are indeed those of wild democracy; and the subject of this satire will, I fear, be never out of time. It is an admirable political satire against a mob-government. In our poetical history, this specimen too is curious, for it will show that the stanza in alternate rhymes, usually denominated elegiac, is adapted to very opposite themes. The solemnity of the versification is impressive, and the satire equally dignified and keen.

The taste of the mere modern reader had been more gratified by omitting some unequal passages; but, after deliberation, I found that so short a composition would be injured by dismembering extracts. I have distinguished by italics the lines to which I desire the reader's attention, and have added a few notes to clear up some passages which might appear obscure.

RYTHMES AGAINST MARTIN MARRE-PRELATE.[424]

_Ordo Sacerdotum fatuo turbatur ab omni,
Labitur et passim Religionis honos._

Since Reason, _Martin_, cannot stay thy pen,
We 'il see what rime will do; have at thee then!

A Dizard late skipt out upon our stage,
But in a sacke, that no man might him see;
And though we know not yet the paltrie page,
Himselfe hath _Martin_ made his name to bee.
A proper name, and for his feates most fit;
The only thing wherein he hath shew'd wit.

Who knoweth not, that Apes, men _Martins_ call,[425]
Which beast, this baggage seemes as 't were himselfe:
So as both nature, nurture, name, and all,
Of that's expressed in this apish elfe.
Which Ile make good to Martin Marre-als face,
In three plaine poynts, and will not bate an ace.

For, first, _the Ape delights with moppes and mowes,
And mocketh Prince and Peasants all alike_;
_This jesting Jacke_, that no good manners knowes,
_With his Asse-heeles presumes all states to strike_.
Whose scoffes so stinking in each nose doth smell,
As all mouthes saie of Dolts he beares the bell.

Sometimes his chappes do walke in poynts too high,
Wherein the Ape himself a Woodcock tries.
Sometimes with floutes he drawes his mouth awrie,
And sweares by his ten bones, and falselie lies.
Wherefore be he what he will I do not passe;
He is the paltriest Ape that euer was.

Such fleering, leering, jeering fooles bopeepe,
Such hahas! teehees! weehees! wild colts play;
Such Sohoes! whoopes and hallowes; hold and keepe;
Such rangings, ragings, reuelings, roysters ray;
With so foule mouth, and knaue at euery catch,
'Tis some knaue's nest did surely _Martin_ hatch.

_Now out he runnes with Cuckowe king of May,
Then in he leapes with a wild Morrice daunce_;
Then strikes he up _Dame Lawson's_[426] lustie lay;
Then comes Sir _Jeffrie's_ ale-tub, tapp'd by chaunce,
Which makes me gesse, and I can shrewdly smell,
He loues both t' one and t'other passing well.

_Then straight, as though he were distracted quite,
He chafeth like a cut-purse layde in warde_;
_And rudely railes with all his maine and might,
Against both knights and lords without regard_:
So as _Bridewell_ must tame his dronken fits,
And _Bedlem_ help to bring him to his wits.

But, _Martin_, why, in matters of such weight,
Dost thou thus _play the dawe, and dauncing foole_?
O sir (quoth he) _this is a pleasant baite
For men of sorts_, to traine them to my schoole.
_Ye noble states, how can you like hereof,
A shamelesse Ape at your sage head should scoffe?_

Good Noddie, now leaue scribbling in such matters;
They are no tooles for fooles to tend unto;
Wise men regard not what mad monkies patters!
'Twere trim a beast should teach men what to do.
Now _Tarleton's_ dead, the consort lackes a Vice.
For knaue and foole thou maist bear prick and price.

The sacred sect, and perfect pure precise,
Whose cause must be by _Scoggin's_ jests mainteinde,
Ye shewe, although that Purple, Apes disguise,
Yet Apes are still, and so must be, disdainde.
_For though your Lyons lookes weake eyes escapes,
Your babling bookes bewraies you all for Apes._

The next point is, _Apes use to tosse and teare
What once their fidling fingers fasten on_;
_And clime aloft, and cast downe euery where,
And neuer staie till all that stands be gon!_
Now whether this in _Martin_ be not true,
You wiser heads marke here what doth ensue.

What is it not that _Martin_ doth not rent?
Cappes, tippets, gownes, black chiuers, rotchets white;
Communion bookes, and homelies: yea, so bent
To teare, as women's wimples feele his spite.
Thus tearing all, as all apes use to doo,
He teares withall the Church of Christ in two.

Marke now what thinges he meanes to tumble downe,
For to this poynt to look is worth the while,
In one that makes no choice 'twixt cap and crowne,
Cathedral churches he would fain untile,
And snatch up bishops' lands, and catch away
All gaine of learning for his prouling pray.

_And thinke you not he will pull downe at length
As well the top from tower as cocke from steeple_;
_And when his head hath gotten some more strength,
To play with Prince as now he doth with People_:
Yes, he that now saith, Why should Bishops bee?
Will next crie out, _Why Kings? The Saincts are free!_

The Germaine boores with Clergiemen began,
But neuer left till Prince and Peeres were dead.
_Jacke Leyden was a holy zealous man,
But ceast not till the Crowne was on his head._
And _Martin's_ mate, _Jacke Strawe_, would alwaies ring,
The Clergie's faults, but sought to kill the King.

"Oh that," quoth _Martin_, "_chwere_ a Nobleman!"[427]
Avaunt, vile villain! 'tis not for such swads.
And of the Counsell, too: marke Princes then:
These roomes are raught at by these lustie lads.
_For Apes must climbe, and neuer stay their wit,
Untill on top of highest hilles they sit._

What meane they els, in euery towne to craue
Their Priest and King like Christ himself to be:
_And for one Pope ten thousand Popes to have,
And to controll the highest he or she?_
Aske Scotland that, whose King so long they crost,
As he was like his kingdome to haue lost.

Beware ye States and Nobles of this lande,
The Clergie is but one of these men's buttes.
_The Ape at last on master's necke will stande:
Then gegge betimes these gaping greedie gutts._
_Least that too soone, and then too late ye feele,
He strikes at head that first began with heele._

The third tricke is, _what Apes by flattering waies
Cannot come by with biting, they will snatch_;
Our _Martin_ makes no bones, but plainely saies,
Their fists shall walke, they will both bite and scratch.
He'll make their hearts to ake, and will not faile,
_Where pen cannot, their penknife shall prevail_.[428]

But this is false, he saith he did but mock:
A foole he was, that so his words did scanne.
He only meant with pen their pates to knocke;
A knaue he is, that so turns cat in pan.
But, _Martin_, sweare and stare as deepe as hell,
Thy sprite, thy spite and mischeuous minde doth tell.

_The thing that neither Pope with booke nor bull,
Nor Spanish King with ships could doe without,
Our MARTINS heere at home will worke at full:
If Prince curbe not betimes that rabble rout._
That is, destroy both Church and State and all;
For if t' one faile, the other needes must fall.

Thou England, then, whom God doth make so glad
Through Gospel's grace and Prince's prudent reigne,
Take heede lest thou at last be made as sad,
Through _Martin's_ makebates marring, to thy paine.
For he marrs all and maketh nought, nor will,
Saue lies and strife, and works for _England's_ ill.

_And ye graue men that answere MARTIN'S mowes,
He mocks the more, and you in vain loose times.
Leaue Apes to Doggs to baite, their skins to Crowes_,
And let old _Lanam_[429] lashe him with his rimes.
_The beast is proud when men read his enditings_;
Let his workes goe the waie of all wast writings.

Now, _Martin_, you that say you will spawne out
Your brawling brattes, in euery towne to dwell,
_We will provide in each place for your route,
A bell and whippe that Apes do loue so well._
And if yo skippe, and will not wey the checke,
We 'il haue a springe, and catche you by the necke.

And so adieu, mad _Martin_-mar-the-land
Leaue off thy worke, and "more work"[430] hearest thou me
Thy work's nought worth, take better worke in hand.
_Thou marr'st thy worke, and thy work will marre thee._
Worke not anewe, least it doth work thy wracke,
And then make worke for him that worke doth lacke.

And this I warn thee, Martin Monckies-face,
Take heed of me; my rime doth charm thee bad.
I am a rimer of the Irish race,
And haue alreadie rimde thee staring mad.
But if thou cease not thy bald jests to spread,
I'le never leave till I have rimde thee dead.

FOOTNOTES:

[424] In Herbert's "Typographical Antiquities," p. 1689, this tract is
intituled, "A Whip for an Ape, or Martin Displaied." I have
also seen the poem with this title. Readers were then often
invited to an old book by a change of title: in some cases, I
think the same work has been published with several titles.

[425] _Martin_ was a name for a _bird_, and a cant term for an _Ass_;
and, as it appears here, an _Ape_. Our _Martins_, considered
as birds, were often reminded that their proper food was
"hempen seed," which at length choked them. That it meant an
_Ass_, appears from "Pappe with a Hatchet." "Be thou Martin
the bird or Martin the beast, a bird with the longest bill, or
a _beast with the longest ears_, there's a net spread for your
neck."--Sign. B. 5. There is an old French proverb, quoted by
Cotgrave, _voce_ Martin:--"_Plus d'un ASNE a la foire, a nom
+Martin+_."

[426] Martin was a _protege_ of this _Dame Lawson_. There appear to
have been few political conspiracies without a woman, whenever
religion forms a part. This dame is thus noticed in the mock
epitaphs on Martin's funeral--

"Away with silk, for I will mourn in sacke;
Martin is dead, our new sect goes to wrack.
Come, gossips mine, put finger in the eie,
He made us laugh, but now must make us crie."
DAME LAWSON.

"Sir Jeffrie's Ale-tub" alludes to two knights who were
ruinously fined, and hardly escaped with life, for their
patronage of Martin.

[427] _Chwere_, _i.e._ "that I were," alluding to their frequently
adopting the corrupt phraseology of the populace, to catch the
ears of the mob.

[428] It is a singular coincidence that Arnauld, in his caustic retort
on the Jesuits, said--"I do not fear your _pen_, but your
_penknife_." The play on the word, tells even better in our
language than in the original--_plume_ and _canife_.

[429] I know of only one _Laneham_, who wrote "A Narrative of the
Queen's Visit at Kenilworth Castle," 1575. He was probably a
redoubtable satirist. I do not find his name in Ritson's
"Bibliographia Poetica."

[430] Alluding to the title of one of their most virulent libels
against Bishop Cooper ["Hay any worke for Cooper," which was a
pun on the Bishop's name, conveyed in the street cry of an
itinerant trader, and was followed by another entitled] "More
work for a Cooper." Cooper, in his "Admonition to the People
of England," had justly observed that this _Mar-Prelate_ ought
to have many other names. See note, p. 510.

I will close this note with an extract from "Pappe with a
Hatchet," which illustrates the ill effects of all sudden
reforms, by an apposite and original image.

"There was an aged man that lived in a well-ordered
Commonwealth by the space of threescore years, and finding,
at the length, that by the heate of some men's braines, and
the warmness of other men's blood, that newe alterations
were in hammering, and that it grewe to such an height, that
all the desperate and discontented persons were readie to
runne their heads against their head; comming into the midst
of these mutiners, cried, as loude as his yeeres would
allow:--'Springalls, and vnripened youthes, whose wisedomes
are yet in the blade, when this snowe shall be melted (laying
his hand on his siluer haires) then shall you find store
of dust, _and rather wish for the continuance of a long frost,
than the incomming of an vntimely thaw_.'"--_Sig. D. 3.
verso._

LITERARY QUARRELS

FROM PERSONAL MOTIVES

Anecdote of a BISHOP and a DOCTOR--Dr. MIDDLETON and Dr.
BENTLEY--WARBURTON and Dr. TAYLOR--WARBURTON and EDWARDS--SWIFT
and DRYDEN--POPE and BENTLEY--why fiction is necessary for satire,
according to Lord ROCHESTER'S confession--ROWE and ADDISON--POPE
and ATTERBURY--Sir JOHN HAWKINS and GEORGE STEEVENS--a fierce
controversial author a dangerous neighbour--a ludicrous instance
of a literary quarrel from personal motives between BOHUN and the
WYKEHAMISTS.

Literary Quarrels have abundantly sprung from mere personal motives; and controversies purely literary, sometimes of magnitude, have broken out, and been voluminously carried on, till the public are themselves involved in the contest, while the true origin lies concealed in some sudden squabble; some neglect of petty civility; some unlucky epithet; or some casual observation dropped without much consideration, which mortified or enraged the author. How greatly has passion prevailed in literary history! How often the most glorious pages in the chronicles of literature are tainted with the secret history which must be placed by their side, so that the origin of many considerable works, which do so much honour to the heads of their authors, sadly accuse their hearts. But the heaven of Virgil was disturbed with quarrels--

Tantaene animis coelestibus irae?
_AEneid._

Can heavenly minds such high resentment show?
_Dryden._

And has not a profound observer of human affairs declared, _Ex privatis odiis respublica crescit?_ individual hatreds aggrandize the republic. This miserable philosophy will satisfy those who are content, from private vices, to derive public benefits. One wishes for a purer morality, and a more noble inspiration.

To a literary quarrel from personal motives we owe the origin of a very remarkable volume. When Dr. Parr delivered his memorable sermon, which, besides the "_sesquipedalia verba_," was perhaps the longest that ever was heard--if not listened to--Bishop Hurd, who had always played the part of one of the most wary of politicians in private life, and who had occasion once adroitly to explain the French word _Retenue_, which no man better understood, in a singularly unguarded moment, sarcastically observed that he did not like "the doctor's long vernacular sermon." The happy epithet was soon conveyed to the classical ear of the modern Grecian: it was a wasp in it! The bishop had, in the days of literary adventure, published some pieces of irony, which were thought more creditable to his wit than his feelings--and his great patron, Warburton, certain juvenile prose and verse--all of which they had rejected from their works. But this it is to be an author!--his errors remain when he has outlived and corrected them. The mighty and vindictive Grecian in rage collected them all; exhausted his own genius in perpetuating follies; completed the works of the two bishops in utter spite; and in "Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian," has furnished posterity with a specimen of the force of his own "vernacular" style, giving a lesson to the wary bishop, who had scarcely wanted one all his life--of the dangers of an unlucky epithet!

Dr. Conyers Middleton, the author of the "Life of Cicero," seldom wrote but out of pique; and he probably owed his origin as an author to a circumstance of this nature. Middleton when young was a _Dilettante_ in music; and Dr. Bentley, in contempt, applied the epithet "fiddling Conyers." Had the irascible Middleton broken his violin about the head of the learned Grecian, and thus terminated the quarrel, the epithet had then cost Bentley's honour much less than it afterwards did. It seems to have excited Middleton to deeper studies, which the great Bentley not long after felt when he published proposals for an edition of the New Testament in Greek. Middleton published his "Remarks, paragraph by paragraph, upon the proposals," to show that Bentley had neither talents nor materials proper for the work. This opened a great paper-war, and again our rabid wolf fastened on the majestic lion, "paragraph by paragraph." And though the lion did affect to bear in contempt the fangs of his little active enemy, the flesh was torn. "The proposals" sunk before the "paragraph by paragraph," and no edition of the Greek Testament by Bentley ever appeared. Bentley's proposals at first had met with the greatest success; the subscription-money amounted to two thousand pounds, and it was known that his nephew had been employed by him to travel abroad to collect these MSS. He declared he would make use of no MS. that was not a thousand years old, or above; of which sort he had collected twenty, so that they made up a total of twenty thousand years. He was four years studying them before he issued his proposals. The Doctor rested most on eight Greek MSS., the most recent of which was one thousand years old. All this wore a very imposing appearance. At a touch the whole magnificent edifice fell to pieces! Middleton says, "His twenty old MSS. shrink at once to eight, and he is forced again to own that even of these eight there are only four which had not been used by Dr. Mill;" and these Middleton, by his sarcastic reasoning, at last reduces to "some pieces only of the New Testament in MS." So that twenty MSS. and their twenty thousand years were battered by the "fiddling Conyers" into a solitary fragment of little value! Bentley returned the subscription-money, and would not publish; the work still lies in its prepared state, and some good judges of its value have expressed a hope to see it yet published. But Bentley himself was not untainted in this dishonourable quarrel: he well knew that Middleton was the author of this severe attack; but to show his contempt of the real author, and desirous, in his turn, of venting his disappointment on a Dr. Colbatch, he chose to attribute it to him, and fell on Colbatch with a virulence that made the reply perfectly libellous, if it was Bentley's, as was believed.

The irascibility of Middleton, disguising itself in a literary form, was still more manifested by a fact recorded of him by Bishop Newton. He had applied to Sir Robert Walpole for the mastership of the Charter-house, who honestly informed him that Bishop Sherlock, with the other Bishops, were against his being chosen. Middleton attributed the origin of this opposition to Bishop Sherlock, and wreaked his vengeance by publishing his "Animadversions upon Sherlock's Discourses on Prophecy." The book had been long published, and had passed through successive editions; but Middleton pretended he had never seen them before, and from this time Lambeth-house was a strong provocative for his vindictive temper.

Nor was the other great adversary of Middleton, he who so long affected to be the lord paramount, the Suzerain in the feudal empire, rather than the republic of letters--Warburton himself--less easily led on to these murderous acts of personal rancour. A pamphlet of the day has preserved an anecdote of this kind. Dr. Taylor, the Chancellor of Lincoln, once threw out in company an opinion derogatory to the scholarship of Warburton, who seems to have had always some choice spirits of his legion as spies in the camp of an enemy, and who sought their tyrant's grace by their violation of the social compact. The tyrant himself had an openness, quite in contrast with the dark underworks of his satellites. He boldly interrogated our critic, and Taylor replied, undauntedly and more poignantly than Warburton might have suspected, that "he did not recollect ever _saying_ that Dr. Warburton was no scholar, but that indeed he had always _thought_ so." To this intrepid spirit the world owes one of the remarkable prefaces to the "Divine Legation"--in which the Chancellor of Lincoln, intrepid as he was, stands like a man of straw, to be buffeted and tossed about with all those arts of distortion which the wit and virulence of Warburton almost every day was practising at his "established places of execution," as his prefaces and notes have been wittily termed.

Even Warburton himself, who committed so many personal injuries, has, in his turn, most eminently suffered from the same motive. The personal animosity of a most ingenious man was the real cause of the utter destruction of Warburton's critical reputation. Edwards, the author of the "Canons of Criticism," when young and in the army, was a visitor at Allen's of Prior-park, the patron of Warburton; and in those literary conversations which usually occupied their evenings, Warburton affected to show his superiority in his acquaintance with the Greek writers, never suspecting that a red coat covered more Greek than his own--which happened unluckily to be the case. Once, Edwards in the library, taking down a Greek author, explained a passage in a manner which did not suit probably with some new theory of the great inventor of so many; a contest arose, in which Edwards discovered how Warburton came by his illegitimate knowledge of Greek authors: Edwards attempted to convince him that he really did not understand Greek, and that his knowledge, such as it was, was derived from French translations--a provoking act of literary kindness, which took place in the presence of Ralph Allen and his niece, who, though they could not stand as umpires, did as witnesses. An incurable breach took place between the parties, and from this trifling altercation, Edwards produced the bitter "Canons of Criticism," and Warburton those foaming notes in the _Dunciad_.

Such is the implacable nature of literary irascibility! Men so tenderly alive to intellectual sensibility, find even the lightest touch profoundly enter into the morbid constitution of the literary temper; and even minds of a more robust nature have given proof of a sickly delicacy hanging about them quite unsuspected. Swift is a remarkable instance of this kind: the foundation of the character of this great wit was his excellent sense. Yet having, when young, composed one of the wild Pindarics of the time, addressed to the Athenian Society, and Dryden judiciously observing that "cousin Jonathan would never be a poet," the enraged wit, after he had reached the maturity of his own admirable judgment, and must have been well aware of the truth of the friendly prediction, could never forgive it. He has indulged the utmost licentiousness of personal rancour; he even puns miserably on his name to degrade him as the _emptiest_ of writers. His spirited translation of Virgil, which was admired even by Pope, he levels by the most grotesque sarcastic images to mark the poet's diminutive genius--he says this version-maker is so lost in Virgil, that he is like "the lady in a lobster; a mouse under a canopy of state; a shrivelled beau within the penthouse of a full-bottomed perriwig." He never was generous enough to contradict his opinion, and persisted in it to the last. Some critic, about Swift's own time, astonished at his treatment of Dryden, declares he must have been biassed by some prejudice--the anecdote here recorded, not then probably known, discovers it.

What happened to Pope on the publication of his Homer shows all the anxious temper of the author. Being in company with Bentley, the poet was very desirous of obtaining the doctor's opinion of it, which Bentley contrived to parry as well as he could; but in these matters an author who calculates on a compliment, will risk everything to obtain it. The question was more plainly put, and the answer was as plainly given. Bentley declared that "the verses were good verses, but the work is not Homer--it is Spondanus!" From this interview posterity derives from the mortified poet the full-length figure of "_the slashing_ Bentley," in the fourth book of the Dunciad:

The mighty Scholiast, whose unwearied pains
Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton's strains.

When Bentley was told by some officious friend that Pope had abused him, he only replied, "Ay, like enough! I spoke against his Homer, and the _portentous cub_ never forgives!" Part of Pope's severe criticism only is true; but to give full effect to their severity, poets always infuse a certain quantity of fiction. This is an artifice absolutely necessary to practise; so I collect from a great master in the arts of satire, and who once honestly avowed that no satire could be composed unless it was _personal_; and no personalities would sufficiently adorn a poem without _lies_. This great satirist was Rochester. Burnet details a curious conversation between himself and his lordship on this subject. The bishop tells us that "he would often go into the country, and be for some months wholly employed in study, or the sallies of his wit chiefly directed to satire. And this he often defended to me by saying, there were some people that could not be kept in order, or admonished, but in this way." Burnet remonstrated, and Rochester replied--"A man could not write with life unless he were _heated by revenge_; for to make a satire without resentments, upon the cold notions of philosophy, was as if a man would, in cold blood, cut men's throats who had never offended him. And he said, the _lies_ in these libels came often in as _ornaments_, that could not be spared without _spoiling the beauty_ of the poem." It is as useful to know how the materials of satire are put together; as thus the secret of pulling it to pieces more readily may sometimes be obtained.