Chapter XXI: Part 21

To attempt to develope this curious but obscure singularity in literary history, we must go further back among the first beginnings of these institutions. How were they looked on by the governments in which they first appeared? These academies might, perhaps, form a chapter in the history of secret societies, one not yet written, but of which many curious materials lie scattered in history. It is certain that such literary societies, in their first origins, have always excited the jealousy of governments, but more particularly in ecclesiastical Rome, and the rival principalities of Italy. If two great nations, like those of England and France, had their suspicions and fears roused by a select assembly of philosophical men, and either put them down by force, or closely watched them, this will not seem extraordinary in little despotic states. We have accounts of some philosophical associations at home, which were joined by Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Walter Raleigh, but which soon got the odium of atheism attached to them; and the establishment of the French Academy occasioned some umbrage, for a year elapsed before the parliament of Paris would register their patent, which was at length accorded by the political Richelieu observing to the president, that "he should like the members according as the members liked him." Thus we have ascertained one principle, that governments in those times looked on a new society with a political glance; nor is it improbable that some of them combined an ostensible with a latent motive.

There is no want of evidence to prove that the modern Romans, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, were too feelingly alive to their obscured glory, and that they too frequently made invidious comparisons of their ancient republic with the pontifical government; to revive Rome, with everything Roman, inspired such enthusiasts as Rienzi, and charmed the visions of Petrarch. At a period when ancient literature, as if by a miracle, was raising itself from its grave, the learned were agitated by a correspondent energy; not only was an estate sold to purchase a manuscript, but the relic of genius was touched with a religious emotion. The classical purity of Cicero was contrasted with the barbarous idiom of the Missal; the glories of ancient Rome with the miserable subjugation of its modern pontiffs; and the metaphysical reveries of Plato, and what they termed the "Enthusiasmus Alexandrinus"--the dreams of the Platonists--seemed to the fanciful Italians more elevated than the humble and pure ethics of the Gospels. The vain and amorous Eloisa could even censure the gross manners, as it seemed to her, of the apostles, for picking the ears of corn in their walks, and at their meals eating with unwashed hands. Touched by this mania of antiquity, the learned affected to change their vulgar Christian name, by assuming the more classical ones of a Junius Brutus, a Pomponius, or a Julius, or any other rusty name unwashed by baptism. This frenzy for the ancient republic not only menaced the pontificate, but their Platonic or their pagan ardours seemed to be striking at the foundation of Christianity itself. Such were Marcellus Ficinus, and that learned society who assembled under the Medici. Pomponius Lætus, who lived at the close of the fifteenth century, not only celebrated by an annual festival the foundation of Rome, and raised altars to Romulus, but openly expressed his contempt for the Christian religion, which this visionary declared was only fit for barbarians; but this extravagance and irreligion, observes Niceron, were common with many of the learned of those times, and this very Pomponius was at length formally accused of the crime of changing the baptismal names of the young persons whom he taught for pagan ones! "This was the taste of the times," says the author we have just quoted; but it was imagined that there was a mystery concealed in these changes of names.

At this period these literary societies first appear: one at Rome had the title of "Academy," and for its chief this very Pomponius; for he is distinguished as "Romanæ Princeps Academiæ," by his friend Politian, in the "Miscellanea" of that elegant scholar. This was under the pontificate of Paul the Second. The regular meetings of "the Academy" soon excited the jealousy and suspicions of Paul, and gave rise to one of the most horrid persecutions and scenes of torture, even to death, in which these academicians were involved. This closed with a decree of Paul's, that for the future no one should pronounce, either seriously or in jest, the very name of _academy_, under the penalty of heresy! The story is told by Platina, one of the sufferers, in his Life of Paul the Second; and although this history may be said to bear the bruises of the wounded and dislocated body of the unhappy historian, the facts are unquestionable, and connected with our subject. Platina, Pomponius, and many of their friends, were suddenly dragged to prison; on the first and second day torture was applied, and many expired under the hands of their executioners. "You would have imagined," says Platina, "that the castle of St. Angelo was turned into the bull of Phalaris, so loud the hollow vault resounded with the cries of those miserable young men, who were an honour to their age for genius and learning. The torturers, not satisfied, though weary, having racked twenty men in these two days, of whom some died, at length sent for me to take my turn. The instruments of torture were ready; I was stripped, and the executioners put themselves to their work. Vianesius sat like another Minos on a seat of tapestry-work, gay as at a wedding; and while I hung on the rack in torment, he played with a jewel which Sanga had, asking him who was the mistress which had given him this love-token? Turning to me, he asked, 'why Pomponio, in a letter, should call me Holy Father? Did the conspirators agree to make you pope?' 'Pomponio,' I replied, 'can best tell why he gave me this title, for I know not.' At length, having pleased, but not satisfied himself with my tortures, he ordered me to be let down, that I might undergo tortures much greater in the evening. I was carried, half dead, into my chamber; but not long after, the inquisitor having dined, and being fresh in drink, I was fetched again, and the archbishop of Spalatro was there. They inquired of my conversations with Malatesta. I said it only concerned ancient and modern learning, the military arts, and the characters of illustrious men, the ordinary subjects of conversation. I was bitterly threatened by Vianesius, unless I confessed the truth on the following day, and was carried back to my chamber, where I was seized with such extreme pain, that I had rather have died than endured the agony of my battered and dislocated limbs. But now those who were accused of heresy were charged with plotting treason. Pomponius being examined why he changed the names of his friends, he answered boldly, that this was no concern of his judges or the pope; it was, perhaps, out of respect for antiquity, to stimulate to a virtuous emulation. After we had now lain ten months in prison, Paul comes himself to the castle, where he charged us, among other things, that we had disputed concerning the immortality of the soul, and that we held the opinion of Plato; by disputing you call the being of a God in question. This, I said, might be objected to all divines and philosophers, who, to make the truth appear, frequently question the existence of souls and of God, and of all separate intelligences. St. Austin says, the opinion of Plato is like the faith of Christians. I followed none of the numerous heretical factions. Paul then accused us of being too great admirers of pagan antiquities; yet none were more fond of them than himself, for he collected all the statues and sarcophagi of the ancients to place in his palace, and even affected to imitate, on more than one occasion, the pomp and charm of their public ceremonies. While they were arguing, mention happened to be made of 'the Academy,' when the Cardinal of San Marco cried out, that we were not 'Academics,' but a scandal to the name; and Paul now declared that he would not have that term evermore mentioned under pain of heresy. He left us in a passion, and kept us two months longer in prison to complete the year, as it seems he had sworn."

Such is the interesting narrative of Platina, from which we may surely infer, that if these learned men assembled for the communication of their studies--inquiries suggested by the monuments of antiquity, the two learned languages, ancient authors, and speculative points of philosophy--these objects were associated with others which terrified the jealousy of modern Rome.

Some time after, at Naples, appeared the two brothers, John Baptiste and John Vincent Porta, those twin spirits, the Castor and Pollux of the natural philosophy of that age, and whose scenical museum delighted and awed, by its optical illusions, its treasure of curiosities, and its natural magic, all learned natives and foreigners. Their names are still famous, and their treatises, _De Humana Physiognomia_ and _Magia Naturalis_, are still opened by the curious, who discover these children of philosophy wandering in the arcana of nature, to them a world of perpetual beginnings! These learned brothers united with the Marquis of Manso, the friend of Tasso, in establishing an academy under the whimsical name _degli Oziosi_ (the Lazy), which so ill-described their intentions. This academy did not sufficiently embrace the views of the learned brothers; and then they formed another under their own roof, which they appropriately named _degli Secreti_. The ostensible motive was, that no one should be admitted into this interior society who had not signalised himself by some experiment or discovery. It is clear that, whatever they intended by the project, the election of the members was to pass through the most rigid scrutiny; and what was the consequence? The court of Rome again started up with all its fears, and, secretly obtaining information of some discussions which had passed in this academy _degli Secreti_, prohibited the Porta's from holding such assemblies, or applying themselves to those illicit sciences, whose amusements are criminal, and turn us aside from the study of the Holy Scriptures.[307] It seems that one of the Porta's had delivered himself in the style of an ancient oracle; but what was more alarming in this prophetical spirit, several of his predictions had been actually verified! The infallible court was in no want of a new school of prophecy. Baptista Porta went to Rome to justify himself; and, content to wear his head, placed his tongue in the custody of his Holiness, and no doubt preferred being a member of the _Accademia degli Oziosi_ to that _degli Secreti_. To confirm this notion that these academies excited the jealousy of those despotic states of Italy, I find that several of them, at Florence as well as at Sienna, were considered as dangerous meetings, and in 1568 the Medici suddenly suppressed those of the "Insipids," the "Shy," the "Disheartened," and others, but more particularly the "Stunned," _gli Intronati_, which excited loud laments. We have also an account of an academy which called itself the _Lanternists_, from the circumstance that their first meetings were held at night, the academicians not carrying torches, but only _Lanterns_. This academy, indeed, was at Toulouse, but evidently formed on the model of its neighbours. In fine, it cannot be denied that these literary societies or academies were frequently objects of alarm to the little governments of Italy, and were often interrupted by political persecution.

From all these facts I am inclined to draw an inference. It is remarkable that the first Italian academies were only distinguished by the simple name of their founders. One was called the Academy of Pomponius Lætus, another of Panormita, &c. It was after the melancholy fate of the Roman academy of Lætus, which could not, however, extinguish that growing desire of creating literary societies in the Italian cities, from which the members derived both honour and pleasure, that suddenly we discover these academies bearing the most fantastical titles. I have not found any writer who has attempted to solve this extraordinary appearance in literary history; and the difficulty seems great, because, however frivolous or fantastical the titles they assumed, their members were illustrious for rank and genius. Tiraboschi, aware of this difficulty, can only express his astonishment at the absurdity, and his vexation at the ridicule to which the Italians have been exposed by the coarse jokes of Menkenius, in his _Charlatanaria Eruditorum_.[308] I conjecture that the invention of these ridiculous titles for literary societies was an attempt to throw a sportive veil over meetings which had alarmed the papal and the other petty courts of Italy; and to quiet their fears and turn aside their political wrath, they implied the innocence of their pursuits by the jocularity with which the members treated themselves, and were willing that others should treat them. This otherwise inexplicable national levity, of so refined a people, has not occurred in any other country, because the necessity did not exist anywhere but in Italy. In France, in Spain, and in England, the title of the ancient Academus was never profaned by an adjunct which systematically degraded and ridiculed its venerable character and its illustrious members.

Long after this article was finished, I had an opportunity of consulting an eminent Italian, whose name is already celebrated in our country, Il Sigr. Ugo Foscolo;[309] his decision ought necessarily to outweigh mine; but although it is incumbent on me to put the reader in possession of the opinion of a native of his high acquirements, it is not as easy for me, on this obscure and curious subject, to relinquish my own conjecture.

Il Sigr. Foscolo is of opinion that the origin of the fantastical titles assumed by the Italian academies entirely arose from a desire of getting rid of the air of pedantry, and to insinuate that their meetings and their works were to be considered merely as sportive relaxations, and an idle business.

This opinion may satisfy an Italian, and this he may deem a sufficient apology for such absurdity; but when scarlet robes and cowled heads, laureated bards and _Monsignores_, and _Cavalleros_, baptize themselves in a public assembly "Blockheads" or "Madmen," we _ultramontanes_, out of mere compliment to such great and learned men, would suppose that they had their good reasons; and that in this there must have been "something more than meets the ear." After all, I would almost flatter myself that our two opinions are not so wide of each other as they at first seem to be.

ON THE HERO OF HUDIBRAS; BUTLER VINDICATED.

That great Original, the author of HUDIBRAS, has been recently censured for exposing to ridicule the Sir Samuel Luke, under whose roof he dwelt, in the grotesque character of his hero. The knowledge of the critic in our literary history is not curious; he appears to have advanced no further than to have taken up the first opinion he found; but this served for an attempt to blacken the moral character of BUTLER! "Having lived," says our critic, "in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's captains, at the very time he planned the Hudibras, of which he was pleased to make his _kind and hospitable patron_ the hero. We defy the history of Whiggism to match this anecdote,"[310] as if it could not be matched! Whigs and Tories are as like as two eggs when they are wits and satirists; their friends too often become their victims! If Sir Samuel resembled that renowned personification, the ridicule was legitimate and unavoidable when the poet had espoused his cause, and espoused it too from the purest motive--a detestation of political and fanatical hypocrisy.[311] Comic satirists, whatever they may allege to the contrary, will always draw largely and most truly from their own circle. After all, it does not appear that Sir Samuel sat for Sir Hudibras; although from the hiatus still in the poem, at the end of Part I., Canto I., his name would accommodate both the metre and the rhyme. But who, said Warburton, ever compared a person to himself? Butler might aim a sly stroke at Sir Samuel by hinting to him how well he resembled Hudibras, but with a remarkable forbearance he has left posterity to settle the affair, which is certainly not worth their while. But Warburton tells, that a friend of Butler's had declared the person was a Devonshire man--one Sir Harry Rosewell, of Ford Abbey, in that county. There is a curious life of our learned wit, in the great General Dictionary; the writer, probably Dr. Birch, made the most authentic researches, from the contemporaries of Butler or their descendants; and from Charles Longueville, the son of Butler's great friend, he obtained much of the little we possess. The writer of this Life believes that Sir Samuel was the hero of Butler, and rests his evidence on the hiatus we have noticed; but with the candour which becomes the literary historian, he has added the following marginal note: "Whilst this sheet was at press, I was assured by Mr. Longueville, that Sir Samuel Luke _is not the person_ ridiculed under the name of HUDIBRAS."

It would be curious, after all, should the prototype of Hudibras turn out to be one of the heroes of "the Rolliad;" a circumstance which, had it been known to the copartnership of that comic epic, would have furnished a fine episode and a memorable hero to their line of descent. "When BUTLER wrote his Hudibras, _one Coll. Rolle_, a Devonshire man, lodged with him, and was exactly like his description of the Knight; whence it is highly probable, that it was this gentleman, and not Sir Samuel Luke, whose person he had in his eye. The reason that he gave for calling his poem _Hudibras_ was, because the name of the old tutelar saint of Devonshire was _Hugh de Bras_." I find this in the Grubstreet Journal, January, 1731, a periodical paper conducted by two eminent literary physicians, under the appropriate names of Bavius and Mævius,[312] and which for some time enlivened the town with the excellent design of ridiculing silly authors and stupid critics.

It is unquestionably proved, by the confession of several friends of Butler, that the prototype of Sir Hudibras was a Devonshire man; and if Sir _Hugh de Bras_ be the old patron saint of Devonshire, (which however I cannot find in Prince's or in Fuller's Worthies,)[313] this discovers the suggestion which led Butler to the _name_ of his hero; burlesquing the _new saint_ by pairing him with the chivalrous saint of the county; hence, like the Knight of old, did

Sir _Knight_ abandon dwelling,
And out he rode a _Colonelling!_

This origin of the name is more appropriate to the character of the work than deriving it from the Sir Hudibras of Spenser, with whom there exists no similitude.

It is as honourable as it is extraordinary, that such was the celebrity of Hudibras, that the workman's name was often confounded with the work itself; the poet was once better known under the name of HUDIBRAS than of BUTLER. Old Southern calls him "Hudibras Butler;" and if any one would read the most copious life we have of this great poet in the great General Dictionary, he must look for a name he is not accustomed to find among English authors --that of _Hudibras_! One fact is remarkable: that, like Cervantes, and unlike Rabelais and Sterne, Butler in his great work has not sent down to posterity a single passage of indecent ribaldry, though it was written amidst a court which would have got such by heart, and in an age in which such trash was certain of popularity.

We know little more of Butler than we do of Shakspeare and of Spenser! Longueville, the devoted friend of our poet, has unfortunately left no reminiscences of the departed genius whom he so intimately knew, and who bequeathed to Longueville the only legacy a neglected poet could leave--all his manuscripts; and to his care, though not to his spirit, we are indebted for Butler's "Remains." His friend attempted to bury him with the public honours he deserved, among the tombs of his brother-bards in Westminster Abbey; but he was compelled to consign the bard to an obscure burial-place in Paul's, Covent Garden.[314] Many years after, when Alderman Barber raised an inscription to the memory of Butler in Westminster Abbey, others were desirous of placing one over the poet's humble gravestone. This probably excited some competition: and the following fine one, attributed to Dennis, has perhaps never been published. If it be Dennis's, it must have been composed in one of his most lucid moments.

Near this place lies interred
The body of Mr. Samuel Butler,
Author of Hudibras.
He was a whole species of Poets in one!
Admirable in a Manner
In which no one else has been tolerable;
A Manner which began and ended in Him;
In which he knew no Guide,
And has found no Followers.[315]

To this too brief article I add a proof that that fanaticism which is branded by our immortal Butler can survive the castigation. Folly is sometimes immortal, as nonsense is sometimes irrefutable. Ancient follies revive, and men repeat the same unintelligible jargon: just as contagion keeps up the plague in Turkey by lying hid in some obscure corner, till it breaks out afresh. Recently we have seen a notable instance where one of the school to which we are alluding declares of Shakspeare that "it would have been happy if he had never been born, for that thousands will look back with incessant anguish on the guilty delight which the plays of Shakspeare ministered to them."[316] Such is the anathema of Shakspeare! We have another of Butler, in "An Historic Defence of Experimental Religion;" in which the author contends, that the best men have experienced the agency of the Holy Spirit in an immediate illumination from heaven. He furnishes his historic proofs by a list from Abel to Lady Huntingdon! The author of Hudibras is denounced, "_One_ Samuel Butler, a celebrated _buffoon_ in the abandoned reign of Charles the Second, wrote a mock-heroic poem, in which he undertook to burlesque the pious puritan. He ridicules all the gracious promises by comparing the _divine illumination_ to an _ignis fatuus_, and dark lantern of the spirit."[317] Such are the writers whose ascetic spirit is still descending among us from the monkery of the deserts, adding poignancy to the very ridicule they would annihilate. The satire which we deemed obsolete, we find still applicable to contemporaries!

The FIRST part of Hudibras is the most perfect; that was the rich fruit of matured meditation, of wit, of learning, and of leisure. A mind of the most original powers had been perpetually acted on by some of the most extraordinary events and persons of political and religious history. Butler had lived amidst scenes which might have excited indignation and grief; but his strong contempt of the actors could only supply ludicrous images and caustic raillery. Yet once, when villany was at its zenith, his solemn tones were raised to reach it.[318]

The SECOND part was precipitated in the following year. An interval of fourteen years was allowed to elapse before the THIRD and last part was given to the world; but then everything had changed! the poet, the subject, and the patron! The old theme of the sectarists had lost its freshness, and the cavaliers, with their royal libertine, had become as obnoxious to public decency as the Tartuffes. Butler appears to have turned aside, and to have given an adverse direction to his satirical arrows. The slavery and dotage of Hudibras to the widow revealed the voluptuous epicurean, who slept on his throne, dissolved in the arms of his mistresses. "The enchanted bower," and "The amorous suit," of Hudibras reflected the new manners of this wretched court; and that Butler had become the satirist of the party whose cause he had formerly so honestly espoused, is confirmed by his "Remains," where, among other nervous satires, is one, "On the licentious age of Charles the Second, contrasted with the puritanical one that preceded it." This then is the greater glory of Butler, that his high and indignant spirit equally satirised the hypocrites of Cromwell and the libertines of Charles.

SHENSTONE'S SCHOOL-MISTRESS.

The inimitable "School-Mistress" of Shenstone is one of the felicities of genius; but the purpose of this poem has been entirely misconceived. Johnson, acknowledging this charming effusion to be "the most pleasing of Shenstone's productions" observes, "I know not what claim it has to stand among the _moral works_." The truth is, that it was intended for quite a different class by the author, and Dodsley, the editor of his works, must have strangely blundered in designating it "a moral poem." It may be classed with a species of poetry, till recently, rare in our language, and which we sometimes find among the Italians, in their _rime piacevoli_, or _poesie burlesche_, which do not always consist of low humour in a facetious style with jingling rhymes, to which form we attach our idea of a burlesque poem. There is a refined species of ludicrous poetry, which is comic yet tender, lusory yet elegant, and with such a blending of the serious and the facetious, that the result of such a poem may often, among its other pleasures, produce a sort of ambiguity; so that we do not always know whether the writer is laughing at his subject, or whether he is to be laughed at. Our admirable Whistlecraft met this fate![319] "The School-Mistress" of Shenstone has been admired for its simplicity and tenderness, not for its exquisitely ludicrous turn!

This discovery I owe to the good fortune of possessing the edition of "The School-Mistress," which the author printed under his own directions, and to his own fancy.[320] To this piece of LUDICROUS POETRY, as he calls it, "lest it should be mistaken," he added a LUDICROUS INDEX, "purely to show fools that I am in jest." But "the fool," his subsequent editor, who, I regret to say, was Robert Dodsley, thought proper to suppress this amusing "ludicrous index," and the consequence is, as the poet foresaw, that his aim has been "mistaken."

The whole history of this poem, and this edition, may be traced in the printed correspondence of Shenstone. Our poet had pleased himself by ornamenting "A sixpenny pamphlet," with certain "seemly" designs of his, and for which he came to town to direct the engraver; he appears also to have intended accompanying it with "The deformed portrait of my old school-dame, Sarah Lloyd." The frontispiece to this first edition represents the "Thatched-house" of his old schoolmistress, and before it is the "birch-tree," with "the sun setting and gilding the scene." He writes on this, "I have the first sheet to correct upon the table. I have laid aside the thoughts of fame a good deal in this unpromising scheme; and fix them upon the landskip which is engraving, the red letter which I propose, and the fruit-piece which you see, being the most seemly ornaments of the first sixpenny pamphlet that was ever so highly honoured. I shall incur the same reflection with Ogilby, of having nothing good but my decorations. I expect that in your neighbourhood and in Warwickshire there should be twenty of my poems sold. I print it myself. I am pleased with Mynde's engravings."

On the publication Shenstone has opened his idea on its poetical characteristic. "I dare say it must be very incorrect; for I have added eight or ten stanzas within this fortnight. But inaccuracy is more excusable in _ludicrous poetry_ than in any other. If it strikes _any_, it must be merely people of _taste_; for people of _wit_ without taste, which comprehends the larger part of the critical tribe, will unavoidably despise it. I have been at some pains to recover myself from A. Phi**** misfortune of mere _childishness_, 'Little charm of placid mien,' &c. I have added a _ludicrous index_ purely to show (fools) that I am in jest; and my motto, 'O, quà sol habitabiles illustrat oras, maxima principum!' is calculated for the same purpose. You cannot conceive how large the number is of those that mistake burlesque for the very foolishness it exposes; which observation I made once at the _Rehearsal_, at _Tom Thumb_, at _Chrononhotonthologos_, all which, are pieces of elegant humour. I have some mind to pursue this caution further, and advertise it 'The School-Mistress,' &c. a very _childish_ performance everybody knows (_novorum more_). But if a person seriously calls this, or rather burlesque, a childish or low species of poetry, he says wrong. For the most regular and formal poetry may be called trifling, folly, and weakness, in comparison of what is written with a more _manly_ spirit in ridicule of it.'

This edition is now lying before me, with its splendid "red-letter," its "seemly designs," and, what is more precious, its "Index." Shenstone, who had greatly pleased himself with his graphical inventions, at length found that his engraver, Mynde, had sadly bungled with the poet's ideal. Vexed and disappointed, he writes, "I have been plagued to death about the ill-execution of my designs. Nothing is certain in London but expense, which I can ill bear." The truth is, that what is placed in the landskip over the thatched-house, and the birch-tree, is like a falling monster rather than a setting sun; but the fruit-piece at the end, the grapes, the plums, the melon, and the Catharine pears, Mr. Mynde has made sufficiently tempting. This edition contains only twenty-eight stanzas, which were afterwards enlarged to thirty-five. Several stanzas have been omitted, and they have also passed through many corrections, and some improvements, which show that Shenstone had more judgment and felicity in severe correction than perhaps is suspected. Some of these I will point out.[321]

In the second stanza, the _first_ edition has,

In every mart that stands on Britain's isle,
In every village less reveal'd to fame,
Dwells there in cottage known about a mile,
A matron old, whom we schoolmistress name.

Improved thus:--

In every village mark'd with little spire,
Embower'd in trees, and hardly known to fame,
There dwells in lowly shed and mean attire,
A matron old, whom we schoolmistress name.

The eighth stanza, in the _first_ edition, runs,

The gown, which o'er her shoulders thrown she had,
Was russet stuff (who knows not russet stuff?)
Great comfort to her mind that she was clad
In texture of her own, all strong and tough;
Ne did she e'er complain, ne deem it rough, &c.

More elegantly descriptive is the dress as now delineated:--

A russet stole was o'er her shoulders thrown,
A russet kirtle fenced the nipping air;
'Twas simple russet, but it was her own:
'Twas her own country bred the flock so fair,
'Twas her own labour did the fleece prepare, &c.

The additions made to the first edition consist of the 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15th stanzas, in which are so beautifully introduced the herbs and garden stores, and the psalmody of the schoolmistress; the 29th and 30th stanzas were also subsequent insertions. But those lines which give so original a view of genius in its infancy,

A little bench of heedless bishops here,
And there a chancellor in embryo, &c.

were printed in 1742; and I cannot but think that the far-famed stanza in Gray's Elegy, where he discovers men of genius in peasants, as Shenstone has in children, was suggested by this original conception:

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood,

is, to me, a congenial thought, with an echoed turn of expression of the lines from the School-Mistress.

I shall now restore the ludicrous INDEX, and adapt it to the stanzas of the later edition.

Stanza
Introduction 1
The subject proposed 2
A circumstance in the situation of the MANSION OF EARLY
DISCIPLINE, discovering the surprising influence of the
connexions of ideas 3
A simile; introducing a deprecation of the joyless effects
of BIGOTRY and SUPERSTITION 4
Some peculiarities indicative of a COUNTRY SCHOOL, with a
short sketch of the SOVEREIGN presiding over it 5
Some account of her NIGHTCAP, APRON, and a tremendous
description of her BIRCHEN SCEPTER 6
A parallel instance of the advantages of LEGAL GOVERNMENT
with regard to children and the wind 7
Her gown 8
Her TITLES, and punctilious nicety in the ceremonious
assertion of them
A digression concerning her HEN'S presumptuous behaviour, with
a circumstance tending to give the cautious reader a more
accurate idea of the officious diligence and economy
of an old woman. 10
A view of this RURAL POTENTATE as seated in her chair of state,
conferring HONOURS, distributing BOUNTIES, and dispersing
PROCLAMATIONS 16
Her POLICIES 17
The ACTION of the poem commences with a general summons,
follows a particular description of the artful structure,
decoration, and fortifications of an HORN-BIBLE 18
A surprising picture of sisterly affection
by way of episode 20, 21
A short list of the methods now in use to avoid a
whipping--which nevertheless follows 22
The force of example 23
A sketch of the particular symptoms of obstinacy as they
discover themselves in a child, with a simile illustrating
a blubbered face 24, 25, 26
A hint of great importance 27
The piety of the poet in relation to that school-dame's memory,
who had the first formation of a CERTAIN patriot.
[This stanza has been left out in the later editions; it refers
to the Duke of Argyle.]
The secret connexion between WHIPPING and RISING IN THE WORLD,
with a view, as it were, through a perspective, of the same
LITTLE FOLK in the highest posts and reputation 28
An account of the nature of an EMBRYO-FOX-HUNTER.--
[Another stanza omitted.]
A deviation to an huckster's shop 32
Which being continued for the space of three stanzas, gives the
author an opportunity of paying his compliments to a particular
county, which he gladly seizes; concluding his piece with
respectful mention of the ancient and loyal city of SHREWSBURY.

BEN JONSON ON TRANSLATION.

I have discovered a poem by this great poet, which has escaped the researches of all his editors. Prefixed to a translation, translation is the theme; with us an unvalued art, because our translators have usually been the jobbers of booksellers; but no inglorious one among our French and Italian rivals. In this poem, if the reader's ear be guided by the compressed sense of the massive lines, he may feel a rhythm which, should they be read like our modern metre, he will find wanting; here the fulness of the thoughts forms their own cadences. The mind is musical as well as the ear. One verse running into another, and the sense often closing in the middle of a line, is the Club of Hercules; Dryden sometimes succeeded in it, Churchill abused it, and Cowper attempted to revive it. Great force of thought only can wield this verse.

_On the_ AUTHOR, WORKE, _and_ TRANSLATOR, _prefixed to the translation
of Mateo Alemans's Spanish Rogue_, 1623.

Who tracks this author's or translator's pen
Shall finde, that either hath read bookes, and men:
To say but one were single. Then it chimes,
When the old words doe strike on the new times,
As in this Spanish Proteus; who, though writ
But in one tongue, was formed with the world's wit:
And hath the noblest marke of a good booke,
That an ill man dares not securely looke
Upon it, but will loath, or let it passe,
As a deformed face doth a true glasse.
Such bookes deserve translators of like coate
As was the genius wherewith they were wrote;
And this hath met that one, that may be stil'd
More than the foster-father of this child;
For though Spaine gave him his first ayre and vogue
He would be call'd, henceforth, _the English rogue_,
But that hee's too well suted, in a cloth
Finer than was his Spanish, if my oath
Will be receiv'd in court; if not, would I
Had cloath'd him so! Here's all I can supply
To your desert who have done it, friend! And this
Faire aemulation, and no envy is;
When you behold me wish myselfe, the man
That would have done, that, which you only can!
BEN JONSON.

The translator of _Guzman_ was James Mabbe, which he disguised under the Spanish pseudonym of _Diego Puede-ser_; _Diego_ for _James_, and _Puede-ser_ for _Mabbe_ or _May-be_! He translated, with the same spirit as his Guzman, _Celestina, or the Spanish Bawd_, that singular tragi-comedy,--a version still more remarkable. He had resided a considerable time in Spain, and was a perfect master of both languages,--a rare talent in a translator; and the consequence is, that he is a translator of genius.

THE LOVES OF "THE LADY ARABELLA."[322]

Where London's towre its turrets show
So stately by the Thames's side,
Faire Arabella, child of woe!
For many a day had sat and sighed.

And as shee heard the waves arise,
And as shee heard the bleake windes roare,
As fast did heave her heartfelte sighes,
And still so fast her teares did poure!
_Arabella Stuart, in Evans's Old Ballads_.
(Probably written by Mickle.)

The name of Arabella Stuart, Mr. Lodge observes, "is scarcely mentioned in history." The whole life of this lady seems to consist of secret history, which, probably, we cannot now recover. The writers who have ventured to weave together her loose and scattered story are ambiguous and contradictory. How such slight domestic incidents as her life consisted of could produce results so greatly disproportioned to their apparent cause may always excite our curiosity. Her name scarcely ever occurs without raising that sort of interest which accompanies mysterious events, and more particularly when we discover that this lady is so frequently alluded to by her foreign contemporaries.

The historians of the Lady Arabella have fallen into the grossest errors. Her chief historian has committed a violent injury on her very person, which, in the history of a female, is not the least important. In hastily consulting two passages relative to her, he applied to the Lady Arabella the defective understanding and headstrong dispositions of her aunt, the Countess of Shrewsbury; and by another misconception of a term, as I think, asserts that the Lady Arabella was distinguished neither for beauty nor intellectual qualities.[323] This authoritative decision perplexed the modern editor, Kippis, whose researches were always limited; Kippis had gleaned from Oldys's precious manuscripts a single note which shook to its foundations the whole structure before him; and he had also found, in Ballard, to his utter confusion, some hints that the Lady Arabella was a learned woman, and of a poetical genius, though even the writer himself, who had recorded this discovery, was at a loss to ascertain the fact! It is amusing to observe honest George Ballard in the same dilemma as honest Andrew Kippis. "This lady," he says, "was not more distinguished for the dignity of her birth than celebrated for her fine parts and learning; and yet," he adds, in all the simplicity of his ingenuousness, "I know so little in relation to the two last accomplishments, that I should not have given her a place in these memoirs had not Mr. Evelyn put her in his list of learned women, and Mr. Philips (Milton's nephew) introduced her among his modern poetesses."

"The Lady Arabella," for by that name she is usually noticed by her contemporaries, rather than by her maiden name of Stuart, or by her married one of Seymour, as she latterly subscribed herself, was, by her affinity with James the First and our Elizabeth, placed near the throne; too near, it seems, for her happiness and quiet![324] In their common descent from Margaret, the elder daughter of Henry the Seventh, she was cousin to the Scottish monarch, but born an Englishwoman, which gave her some advantage in a claim to the throne of England. "Her double relation to royalty," says Mr. Lodge, "was equally obnoxious to the jealousy of Elizabeth and the timidity of James, and they secretly dreaded the supposed danger of her having a legitimate offspring." Yet James himself, then unmarried, proposed for the husband of the Lady Arabella one of her cousins, Lord Esme Stuart, whom he had created Duke of Lennox, and designed for his heir. The first thing we hear of "the Lady Arabella" concerns a marriage: marriages are the incidents of her life, and the fatal event which terminated it was a marriage. Such was the secret spring on which her character and her misfortunes revolved.

This proposed match was desirable to all parties; but there was one greater than them all who forbad the banns. Elizabeth interposed; she imprisoned the Lady Arabella, and would not deliver her up to the king, of whom she spoke with asperity, and even with contempt.[325] The greatest infirmity of Elizabeth was her mysterious conduct respecting the succession to the English throne; her jealousy of power, her strange unhappiness in the dread of personal neglect, made her averse to see a successor in her court, or even to hear of a distant one; in a successor she could only view a competitor. Camden tells us that she frequently observed, that "most men neglected the setting sun," and this melancholy presentiment of personal neglect this political coquette not only lived to experience, but even this circumstance of keeping the succession unsettled miserably disturbed the queen on her death-bed. Her ministers, it appears, harassed her when she was lying speechless; a remarkable circumstance, which has hitherto escaped the knowledge of her numerous historians, and which I shall take an opportunity of disclosing in this work.

Elizabeth leaving a point so important always problematical, raised up the very evil she so greatly dreaded; it multiplied the aspirants, while every party humoured itself by selecting its own claimant, and none more busily than the continental powers. One of the most curious is the project of the Pope, who, intending to put aside James the First on account of his religion, formed a chimerical scheme of uniting Arabella with a prince of the house of Savoy; the pretext, for without a pretext no politician moves, was their descent from a bastard of our Edward the Fourth; the Duke of Parma was, however, married; but the Pope, in his infallibility, turned his brother the Cardinal into the Duke's substitute by secularising the churchman. In that case the Cardinal would then become King of England in right of this lady!--provided he obtained the crown![326]

We might conjecture from this circumstance that Arabella was a catholic, and so Mr. Butler has recently told us; but I know of no other authority than Dodd, the catholic historian, who has inscribed her name among his party. Parsons, the wily Jesuit, was so doubtful how the lady, when young, stood disposed towards Catholicism, that he describes "her religion to be as tender, green, and flexible as is her age and sex, and to be wrought hereafter and settled according to future events and times." Yet, in 1611, when she was finally sent into confinement, one well informed of court affairs writes, "that the Lady Arabella hath _not been found inclinable to popery_."[327]

Even Henry the Fourth of France was not unfriendly to this papistical project of placing an Italian cardinal on the English throne. It had always been the state interest of the French cabinet to favour any scheme which might preserve the realms of England and Scotland as separate kingdoms. The manuscript correspondence of Charles the Ninth with his ambassador at the court of London, which I have seen, tends solely to this great purpose, and perhaps it was her French and Spanish allies which finally hastened the political martyrdom of the Scottish Mary.

Thus we have discovered _two_ chimerical husbands of the Lady Arabella. The _pretensions_ of this lady to the throne had evidently become an object with speculating politicians; and perhaps it was to withdraw herself from the embarrassments into which she was thrown, that, according to De Thou, she intended to marry a son of the Earl of Northumberland; but, to the jealous terror of Elizabeth, an English Earl was not an object of less magnitude than a Scotch Duke. This is the _third_ shadowy husband.

When James the First ascended the English throne, there existed an Anti-Scottish party. Hardly had the northern monarch entered into the "Land of Promise," when his southern throne was shaken by a foolish plot, which one writer calls "a state riddle;" it involved Rawleigh, and unexpectedly the Lady Arabella. The Scottish monarch was to be got rid of, and Arabella was to be crowned. Some of these silly conspirators having written to her, requesting letters to be addressed to the King of Spain, she laughed at the letter she received, and sent it to the king. Thus for a _second_ time was Arabella to have been Queen of England. This occurred in 1603, but was followed by no harsh measures from James the First.

In the following year, 1604, I have discovered that for the _third_ time the lady was offered a crown! "A great ambassador is coming from the King of Poland, whose chief errand is to demand my Lady Arabella in marriage for his master. So may your princess of the blood grow a great queen, and then we shall be safe from _the danger of missuperscribing letters_."[328] This last passage seems to allude to something. What is meant by "the danger of missuperscribing letters?"

If this royal offer were ever made, it was certainly forbidden. Can we imagine the refusal to have come from the lady, who, we shall see, seven years afterwards, complained that the king had neglected her, in not providing her with a suitable match? It was at this very time that one of those butterflies, who quiver on the fair flowers of a court, writes that "My Ladye Arbella spends her time in lecture, reiding, &c., and she will not hear of marriage. Indirectly there were speaches used in the recommendation of Count Maurice, who pretendeth to be Duke of Guildres. I dare not attempt her."[329] Here we find another princely match proposed. Thus far, to the Lady Arabella, crowns and husbands were like a fairy banquet seen at moonlight, opening on her sight, impalpable and vanishing at the moment of approach.

Arabella from certain circumstances was a dependent on the king's bounty, which flowed very unequally; often reduced to great personal distress, we find by her letters that "she prayed for present money, though it should not be annually." I have discovered that James at length granted her a pension. The royal favours, however, were probably limited to her good behaviour.[330]

From 1604 to 1608 is a period which forms a blank leaf in the story of Arabella. In this last year this unfortunate lady had again fallen out of favour, and, as usual, the cause was mysterious, and not known even to the writer. Chamberlain, in a letter to Sir Ralph Winwood, mentions "the Lady Arabella's business, _whatsoever it was_, is ended, and she restored to her former place and graces. The king gave her a cupboard of plate, better than 200_l._, for a new year's gift, and 1000 marks to pay her debts, besides some yearly addition to her maintenance, want being thought the chiefest cause of her discontentment, though _shee be not altogether free from suspicion of being collapsed_."[331] Another mysterious expression, which would seem to allude either to politics or religion but the fact appears by another writer to have been a discovery of a new project of marriage without the king's consent. This person of her choice is not named; and it was to divert her mind from the too constant object of her thoughts, that James, after a severe reprimand, had invited her to partake of the festivities of the court in that season of revelry and reconciliation.

We now approach that event of the Lady Arabella's life which reads like a romantic fiction: the catastrophe, too, is formed by the Aristotelian canon; for its misery, its pathos, and its terror even romantic fiction has not exceeded!

It is probable that the king, from some political motive, had decided that the Lady Arabella should lead a single life; but such wise purposes frequently meet with cross ones; and it happened that no woman was ever more solicited to the conjugal state, or seems to have been so little averse to it. Every noble youth who sighed for distinction ambitioned the notice of the Lady Arabella; and she was so frequently contriving a marriage for herself, that a courtier of that day writing to another, observes, "these affectations of marriage in her do give some advantage to the world of impairing the reputation of her constant and virtuous disposition."[332]

The revels of Christmas had hardly closed when the Lady Arabella forgot that she had been forgiven, and again relapsed into her old infirmity. She renewed a connexion, which had commenced in childhood, with Mr. William Seymour, the second son of Lord Beauchamp, and grandson of the Earl of Hertford. His character has been finely described by Clarendon: he loved his studies and his repose; but when the civil wars broke out, he closed his volumes and drew his sword, and was both an active and a skilful general. Charles the First created him Marquis of Hertford, and governor of the prince; he lived to the Restoration, and Charles the Second restored him to the dukedom of Somerset.

This treaty of marriage was detected in February, 1609, and the parties summoned before the privy council. Seymour was particularly censured for daring to ally himself with the royal blood, although that blood was running in his own veins. In a manuscript letter which I have discovered, Seymour addressed the lords of the privy council. The style is humble; the plea to excuse his intended marriage is, that being but "A young brother, and sensible of mine own good, unknown to the world, of mean estate, not born to challenge anything by my birthright, and therefore my fortunes to be raised by mine own endeavour, and she a lady of great honour and virtue, and, as I thought, of great means, I did plainly and honestly endeavour lawfully to gain her in marriage." There is nothing romantic in this apology, in which Seymour describes himself as a fortune-hunter! which, however, was probably done to cover his undoubted affection for Arabella, whom he had early known. He says, that "he conceived that this noble lady might, without offence, make the choice of any subject within this kingdom; which conceit was begotten in me upon a general report, after her ladyship's _last being called before your lordships_,[333] that it might be." He tells the story of this ancient wooing--"I boldly intruded myself into her ladyship's chamber in the court on Candlemas-day last, at what time I imparted my desire unto her, which was entertained, but with this caution on either part, that both of us resolved not to proceed to any final conclusion without his majesty's most gracious favour first obtained. And this was our first meeting! After that we had a second meeting at Briggs's house in Fleet-street, and then a third at Mr. Baynton's; at both which we had the like conference and resolution as before." He assures their lordships that both of them had never intended marriage without his majesty's approbation.[334]

But Love laughs at privy councils and the grave promises made by two frightened lovers. The parties were secretly married, which was discovered about July in the following year. They were then separately confined, the lady at the house of Sir Thomas Parry at Lambeth, and Seymour in the Tower, for "his contempt in marrying a lady of the royal family without the king's leave."

This, their first confinement, was not rigorous; the lady walked in her garden, and the lover was a prisoner at large in the Tower. The writer in the "Biographia Britannica" observes that "Some intercourse they had by letters, which, after a time, was discovered." In this history of love these might be precious documents, and in the library at Long-leat these love-epistles, or perhaps this volume, may yet lie unread in a corner.[335] Arabella's epistolary talent was not vulgar: Dr. Montford, in a manuscript letter, describes one of those effusions which Arabella addressed to the king. "This letter was penned by her in the best terms, as she can do right well. It was often read without offence, nay it was even commended by his highness, with the applause of prince and council." One of these amatory letters I have recovered. The circumstance is domestic, being nothing more at first than a very pretty letter on Mr. Seymour having taken cold, but, as every love-letter ought, it is not without a pathetic _crescendo_; the tearing away of hearts so firmly joined, her solitary imprisonment availed little; for that he lived and was her own, filled her spirit with that consciousness which triumphed even over that sickly frame so nearly subdued to death. The familiar style of James the First's age may bear comparison with our own. I shall give it entire.

"LADY ARABELLA TO MR. WILLIAM SEYMOUR.

"SIR,