Part 18

[87] The life of Andrew Marvel forms a fine contrast to the life of a modern patriot. He was the son of a clergyman who resided at Kingston-upon-Hull, in Yorkshire, at which town he was born in the year 1624. His first appearance in public business was as an assistant to John Milton, when that inspired poet was Latin secretary to the Protector. A little before the Restoration he was chosen representative for his native town, and afterwards re-elected for the same place, and had a seat in that Parliament which began at Westminster, May 8, 1661. In this station he discharged his trust with the utmost fidelity, and always displayed a particular regard for those by whom he was elected; for he regularly sent the particulars of every proceeding in the House to the heads of the town which he represented, and to these accounts always joined his own opinion. This gained so much upon their affections, that they allowed him an honourable pension during the whole time he sat in Parliament, which was until his death. By his actions and writings he rendered himself obnoxious to the ruling powers; notwithstanding which, Charles the Second much delighted in his company. Having one evening passed some hours with this good-humoured monarch, his Majesty next morning sent Lord Treasurer Danby to find out his lodgings. Mr. Marvel's apartments were up two pair of stairs, in a little court in the Strand, where he was writing when the Lord Treasurer rather abruptly opened the door. Surprised at so unexpected a visitor, Mr. Marvel told his Lordship he believed he had mistaken his way. Lord Danby replied, "Not, now I have found Mr. Marvel;" adding, "I come with a message from his Majesty, who wishes to know what he can do to serve you." "I know," replied Marvel, "the nature of courts too well to lay myself under the obligation; for whoever is distinguished by a prince's favours, is certainly expected to vote in his interest." Lord Danby told him that his Majesty was sensible of his merits, and on that account alone desired to know if there were any place at Court which he would be pleased with. These offers, though urged with the greatest earnestness, had no effect. He told the nobleman, that to accept them with honour was impossible; because, added he, "I must either be ungrateful to the King in voting against him, or false to my country in giving in to the measures of the Court. The only favour therefore which I beg of his Majesty is, that he will esteem me to be as dutiful a subject as any he has; and more in his proper interest by refusing these offers than if I had accepted them." The Lord Danby, finding that no argument would prevail, told him that the King had ordered him a thousand pounds, which he requested him to receive as a token of royal favour. This last offer was rejected with the same stedfastness as the first, though, soon after the Lord Treasurer was gone, he was under the necessity of sending to a friend to borrow a guinea. The greatest temptations of riches or honours could never bribe him to depart from what he thought the interest of his country, neither could the most imminent dangers deter him from pursuing it.

He died, not without strong suspicions of being poisoned, August the 16th, 1678, in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and was interred in the Church of St. Giles' in the Fields. Highly to the honour of the inhabitants of Kingston-upon-Hull, they in the year 1683 contributed a sum of money for a monument to the memory of this best of men and most incorruptible of senators; but the then minister of St. Giles' forbade its being erected in that church, on account of the following epitaph which was inscribed on it:--

"Near this place lieth the body of Andrew Marvel, Esq., a man so endowed by nature, so improved by education, study, and travel; so consummated by experience and learning, that joining the most peculiar graces of wit with a singular penetration and strength of judgment, and exercising all these in the whole course of his life with unalterable steadiness in the ways of virtue, he became the ornament and example of his age; beloved by good men, feared by bad, admired by all, though imitated, alas, by few, and scarce paralleled by any. But a tombstone can neither contain his character, nor is marble necessary to transmit it to posterity; it is engraved in the minds of this generation, and will be always legible in his inimitable writings. Nevertheless, he having served near twenty years successively in Parliament, and that with such wisdom, dexterity, integrity, and courage as became a true patriot, the town of Kingston-upon-Hull, from whence he was constantly returned to that assembly, lamenting in his death the public loss, have erected this monument of their grief and gratitude.

"Heu fragile humanum genus! Heu terrestria vana! Heu quem spectatum continet urna virum!"

In Mr. Mason's animated _Ode to Independency_, the dignified virtue of this truly patriotic character is described

"In thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."

[88] "Such were the words of the bards in the days of song, when the king heard the music of harps, and the tales of other times."--_Songs of Selma_, p. 302.

[89] In the early impressions it is spelt _Prusia_. It has been said with great confidence, that after twenty-five were worked off, this error in orthography was discovered and amended. I have seen at least fifty, and think it probable that all which were subscribed for were delivered before any alteration was made in the spelling.

[90] This word is explained in the _Slang Dictionary_ as a cant expression for the threat of a blow.

[91] The fifer is designed for the portrait of a young lad who was much noticed by the late William Duke of Cumberland; and who, from the propriety of his conduct, was first rewarded with a halberd, and afterwards promoted to a pair of colours.

[92] This is said to be the portrait of a fellow known by the name of Jockey James, a most frequent attendant on the nursery for bruising, under the management of the mighty Broughton. Jockey had a son who rendered himself eminent by boxing with Smallwood, and many other athletic pugilists. The French pieman, grenadier, and chimney-sweeper, are also taken from the life, and said, by those who recollect their persons, to be very faithful resemblances of the persons intended.

[93] This gentleman displays the great difference between _an_ officer, and _a officer_: he comes under the latter description.

[94] This is Mr. Thornton's remark, and rather too severe. Lord North once declared in the House of Commons that he saw no harm in the officers of the Guards. "They have nothing to do," added he, "but walk in the park, kiss the nursery-maids, and drink the children's milk."

[95] This figure is introduced in the very curious print of "Enthusiasm Delineated," and in the eleventh print of "Industry and Idleness," and was designed as a portrait of Mother Douglass of the Piazza.

[96] Lavater's character of this people is not exactly similar to Hogarth's delineation; it is, however, curious: "The form of a Frenchman is different from that of all other nations, and difficult to describe in words. No other man has so little of the firm or deep traits, or so much motion. He is all appearance, all gesture; therefore the first impression seldom deceives, but declares who and what he is. His imagination is incapable of high flights; and the sublime in all arts is to him offence. Hence his dislike of whatever is antique in art or literature, his deafness to true music, his blindness to the highest beauties of painting. His last most striking trait is, that he is astonished at everything, and cannot imagine how it is possible men should be any other than they are at Paris."

[97] Among the number of ingenious allusions which the seekers of Hogarth's meanings have pointed out, I have never heard it remarked that the standard waves immediately over this under-sized hero, who is consequently _under the standard_!

[98] Let not the reader imagine that this quotation alludes to the Duke's ponderous equestrian statue in Cavendish Square. That glittering monument of burnished brass bears no very striking resemblance to either an angel or a fiery Pegasus. It must, however, be considered as a monument of the taste, vanity, and gratitude of Colonel Salter.

[99] Grotesque delineations have more influence upon the populace than the philosopher is apt to imagine. Sir Robert Walpole inspected every political print and political ballad that was published, and said that from these vulgar effusions he could form a certain judgment of the genuine spirit and local prejudices which actuated the multitude.

[100] Election is, I believe, in its general sense, the act of choosing. We see by the application of the word in this book, it was not then confined to choosing a member of Parliament, but applied indiscriminately to either bird or beast.

[101] This is mere conjecture; but from Jackson the humpbacked jockey, and some other sedate personages who were present, I think it is more likely to be designed for that place than any other.

[102] A man of rank with these plebeian propensities might in the year 1759 be considered as a phenomenon: in this age of elegant accomplishment and universal refinement, the thing is common. We now see men of family and fortune ambitious of becoming umpires in battles between Big Ben and the Ruffian!

[103] The "March to Finchley."

[104] When Garrick first came on the stage, and one very sultry evening in the month of May performed the character of Lear, he in the first four acts received the customary tribute of applause. At the conclusion of the fifth, when he wept over the body of Cordelia, every eye caught the soft infection--the big round tear ran down every cheek. At this interesting moment, to the astonishment of all present, his face assumed a new character, and his whole frame appeared agitated by a new passion: it was not tragic, for he was evidently endeavouring to suppress a laugh. In a few seconds the attendant nobles appeared to be affected in the same manner; and the beauteous Cordelia, who was reclined upon a crimson couch, opening her eyes to see what occasioned the interruption, leapt from her sofa, and with the majesty of England, the gallant Albany, and tough old Kent, ran laughing off the stage. The audience could not account for this strange termination of a tragedy in any other way than by supposing the _dramatis personæ_ were seized with a sudden frenzy; but their risibility had a different source. A fat Whitechapel butcher, seated on the centre of the front bench in the pit, was accompanied by his mastiff, who being accustomed to sit on the same seat with his master at home, naturally thought he might enjoy the like privilege here. The butcher sat very back, and the quadruped finding a fair opening, got upon the bench, and fixing his fore-paws on the rail of the orchestra, peered at the performers with as upright a head and as grave an air as the most sagacious critic of his day. Our corpulent slaughter-man was made of melting stuff, and not being accustomed to a playhouse heat, found himself much oppressed by the weight of a large and well-powdered Sunday peruke, which, for the gratification of cooling and wiping his head, he pulled off, and placed on the head of his mastiff. The dog being in so conspicuous, so obtrusive a situation, caught the eye of Mr. Garrick and the other performers. A mastiff in a churchwarden's wig (for the butcher was a parish officer) was too much: it would have provoked laughter in Lear himself, at the moment he was most distressed; no wonder, then, that it had such an effect on his representative.

[105] In the second canto of a poem entitled _The Gamblers_, are the following notes:--

"By the cockpit laws, the man who cannot or who will not pay his debts of honour, is liable to exaltation in a basket."

"Stephen's exaltation in a basket, and his there continuing to bet though unable to pay, is taken from a scene in one of Hogarth's prints, humorously setting forth that there are men whom a passion for gaming does not forsake, even in the very hour that they stand proclaimed insolvents."

[106] Frequently called Deptford Nan, and sometimes dignified with a title--Duchess of Deptford! She was a famous cock-feeder, well known at Newmarket, and did the honours of the gentlemen's ordinary at Northampton, while a bachelor presided at the table appropriated to the ladies.

[107] A small print published in the year 1732, of which there are three copies.

[108] I have inserted the name of Gay on the authority of Mr. Nichols' _Anecdotes_, in page 177 of which is the following remark from a correspondent:--

"That Pope was silent on the merits of Hogarth (as one of your readers has observed) should excite little astonishment, as our artist's print on the South Sea exhibits the translator of Homer in no very flattering point of view. He is represented with one of his hands in the pocket of a fat personage, who wears a horn-book at his girdle. For whom this figure was designed is doubtful; perhaps it was meant for Gay, who was a fat man, and a loser in the scheme, etc. The horn-book he wears at his girdle perhaps refers to the fables he wrote for the Duke of Cumberland. The conclusion to the inscription under this plate--'Guess at the rest, you'll find out more'--seems also to imply a consciousness of such personal satire as it was not prudent to explain."

The conjecture that this is designed for Gay is fair, but I think not quite conclusive. Hogarth would not have represented the translator of Homer diving into the coat pocket of a brother bard for coin, and Gay could not be robbed of anything else. May not the label with A--B--, etc., be intended to point out Arbuthnot: he also was a fat man, and so careless of fame, that he suffered Pope, and some other eminent contemporary authors, to plunder him of the best part of his writings, which they afterwards modestly published as their own; _vide_ a very large portion of _Martinus Scriblerus_, particularly Pope's own edition, published in 1742.

Pope is again introduced in a print published about the year 1728, entitled "Rich's Glory, or The Triumphant Entry into Covent Garden," improperly said to be the production of Hogarth.

[109] This satire is wound up with a well-turned apology for the folly, but even here a dart must be hurled at the Duke.--The dart recoils, and returns to him who threw it; for although his Grace was vainly ostentatious, and absurdly extravagant, he was kind-hearted and beneficent to a fault:--

"Yet hence the poor are cloth'd, the hungry fed: Health to himself, and to his infants bread, The lab'rer bears: what his hard heart denies, His charitable vanity supplies. Another age shall see the golden ear Embrown the slope, and nod on the parterre; Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann'd, And laughing Ceres re-assume the land."

It is a singular circumstance that the prophecy in the last four lines (for a prophecy it must be called) should be fulfilled, I had almost said in the poet's lifetime. A very few years after his death, when Hallet the upholsterer purchased Canons, the park was ploughed up and sown with corn.

I have somewhere seen an epigram, written soon after the publication of this epistle:--

"What Chandos builds let Pope no more deride, Because he took not Nature for his guide, Since, mighty Bard--in thy own form we see That nature may mistake, as well as he."

[110] We have amateurs of boxing, and why not of cock-fighting?

[111] This noble diversion may with more propriety be called royal in India than in England, for it is not peculiar to Great Britain, neither is it confined within the narrow boundaries of Europe. In a picture which Mr. Zoffani designed from nature, he has exhibited the Nabob of Oude, and a crowd of his courtiers, dressed in their robes of state surrounding a cockpit. The Asiatic Sovereign, his brother, and his attendants, display as much eagerness for gain, and rapacity of physiognomy, as is to be seen in the most notorious of our Newmarket gamblers.

[112] Throwing at cocks on this day is, I hope and believe, a less prevalent custom than it once was. Our ancestors must have formed strange notions of the duties that were acceptable to the Deity on commencement of Lent, when they set apart the eve as a proper time for the martyrdom of this inoffensive animal.

[113]

"Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods, Draw near them then in being merciful; Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge."

[114] "A beautiful Diana, with her trussed-up robes, the crescent alone wanting, stands on the high altar to receive homage in the character of St. Agnes, in a pretty church dedicated to her (_fuor della Porte_), where it is supposed she suffered martyrdom: and why? Why, for not venerating that very goddess Diana, and for refusing to walk in her procession at the new moons, like a good Christian girl. Such contradictions put one from oneself, as Shakspeare says."--Mrs. Piozzi's _Letters_.

[115] A catalogue of the massacres, slaughters, and assassinations which have taken place for little differences of opinion, would fill a library. Superstition has been the general cause of man destroying man.

[116] The infatuation of the lower order of the people during the drawing of a lottery is hardly to be conceived. They cannot consult Virgil, but they consult every star in the firmament, and every male and female astrologer in the parish, to find out lucky numbers. Figures chalked on the wall, and dreams, have great credit; and much respect is paid to the year of their birth, a husband's or wife's death, etc. etc. The destructive consequences of this thirst for divination it is not necessary to enumerate,--they are recorded in the annals of Bethlehem Hospital and the Newgate Calendar.

[117] A field preacher in one of the provinces, from the strength of his lungs and length of his extemporary harangues, being for some months attended by a more numerous congregation than the parson of the parish, began to think himself the more orthodox man. Fraught with this idea, he one Sunday evening went to the vestry-room, waited until the service concluded, and then very rudely attacked the clergyman, telling him he came to convince him, to confound him, and to convert him by the word! This was followed by the recital of a thousand texts from various parts of the Holy Scriptures, so combined as to prove whatever he wished; and concluded by, "This is all from the Bible, and by the Bible I desires to abide.--Answer me by the same book." The clergyman being a man of some humour, after hearing him with much patience, very coolly asked this labourer in the vineyard if he recollected a text in the book of Kings, where it is written, "Then Ahithophel set his house in order, and went and hanged himself." "Certainly," replied the man, "I know it to be scripture." "Good," added the divine; "examine the Gospel of St. Luke, and you will find it written, 'Go and do thou likewise.' This I earnestly recommend, and so farewell."

[118] "Some witches, examined and executed at Mohra, in Sweden, in 1670, confessed that the devil gives them a beast about the bigness and shape of a young cat, which they call a carrier, etc."--Glanville _On Witches_, p. 494.

"For their being sucked by their familiar, we know so little of the nature of demons and spirits, that it is no wonder we cannot certainly divine the reason of so strange an action. And yet we may conjecture at some things that may render it less improbable. For some have thought that the Genii (whom both the Platonic and Christian antiquity thought embodied) are re-created by the reeks and vapours of human blood, and the spirits that proceed from them: which supposal (if we grant them bodies) is not unlikely, everything being refreshed and nourished by its like. And that they are not perfectly abstracted from all body and matter; besides the reverence we owe to the wisest antiquity, there are several considerable arguments I could allege to render it probable: which things supposed, the devil's suckling the sorceress is no great wonder, nor difficult to be accounted for. Or perhaps this may be only a diabolical sacrament and ceremony to confirm the hellish covenant."--_Glanville_, p. 10.

In the above, and any future quotations I may find it necessary to make from this great and sagacious author, I beg it may be observed that I quote from the fourth edition, published in 1726.

[119] Master Lilly remarketh that angels (and he must unquestionably mean to include fallen angels) very rarely speak unto any one; but when they do, it is like the Irish--very much in the throat.--_Lilly's Life_, p. 88.

[120] Curses are not peculiar to one church; John Boys, D.D., Dean of Canterbury, 1629, educated at Clare Hall, in Cambridge, was famous for his postils in defence of our liturgy, and was also much esteemed for his good life. He gained great applause by turning the Lord's Prayer into the following execration, when he preached at Paul's Cross:--"Our Pope which art in Rome, cursed be thy name; perish may thy kingdom; hindered may thy will be, as it is in heaven, so in earth. Give us this day our cup in the Lord's Supper, and remit our monies which we have given for thy indulgences, as we send them back unto thee; and lead us not into heresy, but free us from misery, for thine is the infernal pitch and sulphur, for ever and ever. Amen."

[121] "Several of the female devotees have waxen images in their hands. Master Glanville observeth that the devil frequently bringeth unto witches a waxen picture, which they, having christened it by the name of the person they wish to torment, thrust pins into; using these words as they perform their ceremonies, _Thout tout, a tout, tout, throughout and about.--Rentum, tormentum, etc. etc._"--_Glanville_, p. 297.

How wonderful has Shakspeare appropriated these idle tales in his tragedy of _Macbeth_! He did not build upon the fables of Greece and Rome; but leaving the mob of heathen deities to range over the classic ground which gave them birth, leaving those writers who draw all their supplies from the fountain of antiquity to take their copious draughts unmolested, he adopted the creed of his own nation, and on the dim legends of superstition, and oral traditions of credulity, raised a superstructure which has stood the test of ages, become more admired as it has been more minutely examined, and is now gazed at with an almost idolatrous veneration.

[122] The influence of these men is astonishing. They have the mind, body, and outward estate of their proselytes under their absolute direction; all their assertions are considered as prophecies, and every request has the force of a command.

Men seem to have a natural tendency to a belief in divination; and we have many instances where the commanders of armies have made great use of this easy faith. When Cromwell was in Scotland, a soldier stood with Lilly's _Almanac_ in his hand, and as the troops passed him, roared out, "Lo! hear what Lilly saith: you are promised victory! Fight it out, brave boys; and when you have conquered--read the month's prediction."

[123] Whosoever wisheth to know more of this Surrey Semiramis and her brood of rabbits, may consult the _Memoirs of M. St. Andre_, and some twelve or fifteen ingenious pamphlets, published about the year 1726, at which time a number of surgeons subscribed a guinea each to Mr. Hogarth, for a print from a whimsical design he had previously made on this very philosophical subject.