Part 19

[124] The figure is, I believe, intended for the boy of Bilson, who, with an ostrich-like appetite, swallowed as many tenpenny nails as would have furnished a petty ironmonger's shop. This young gentleman, who in his day deceived a whole county, was only thirteen years of age. His extraordinary fits, agitations, and the surprising distempers with which he seemed to be afflicted, induced those who saw him to believe he was bewitched, and possessed with a devil. During the time he was in fits, he appeared both deaf and blind; writhing, groaning, and panting; and although often pinched, pricked with needles, tickled, severely whipped, and otherwise corrected, never seemed sensible of what was done to him. When he was thought to be out of his fits, he digested nothing that was given him for nourishment, but would often astonish those present by bringing up thread, straw, crooked pins, nails, needles, etc. At this period his throat swelled, his tongue grew rigid, and he appeared to be incapable of speaking.

This juvenile impostor accused a poor honest industrious old woman of witchcraft, and asserted that she had bewitched him. By his artful behaviour when she was brought into the room where he was, he raised in the minds of those about him a strong presumption of his accusations being founded. Under these impressions, the woman was tried at Stafford assizes, but the jury had sense enough to acquit her. By the judge's recommendation, the boy was committed to the care of the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, who happened to be present in court. His Grace took him to his palace at Eccleshall, and there, having the previous advice of several physicians, intended to try the effect of severity; but being in the meantime informed that the boy always fell into violent agitations upon hearing that verse of St. John's Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word," etc., resolved to try another experiment. Assuming a grave and austere countenance, he thus addressed him:--

"Boy, it is either thou thyself or the devil that abhorrest these words of the Gospel; and if it be the devil, there is no doubt of his understanding all languages, so that he cannot but know and show his abhorrence when I recite the same sentence out of the Gospel in the Greek text; but if it be thyself, then thou art an execrable wretch, who playest the devil's part in loathing that portion of the Gospel of Christ, which above all other scripture doth express the admirable union of the Godhead in one Christ and Saviour, which union is the arch pillar of man's salvation. Wherefore look unto thyself, for now thou art to be put unto trial, and mark diligently whether it be the same scripture which shall be read unto thee out of the Greek Testament, at the reading whereof in the English tongue thou dost seem to be so much troubled and tormented."

This experiment succeeded, for neither the boy nor the devil understood the Greek version.

[125] It was deemed an approved remedy for witchcraft, to put a small wax model of any one under this baneful influence into a quart bottle with water, cork it up to confine the spirit, and place it before the fire. Notwithstanding all these precautions, the spirit sometimes forced the cork, and cast the contents of the bottle a considerable height.

[126] Of the writings of this paragon of English monarchs--so wise that he was called the Solomon of Great Britain--it has been truly said, "They are to be found in chandlers' shops even unto this day."

[127] A very grave historian relates, that the ghost of Sir George Villiers appeared to one who had been his servant, charging him to inform his son of the plan laid to destroy him! The servant obeyed his instructions, and informed his Grace, but the Duke wanted faith--was negligent--and was assassinated: though it does not seem probable that the crazed enthusiast who committed the murder had sufficient coherence of mind to lay any regular plan.

[128] Drelincourt's _Defence against the Fears of Death_ is well written; and in the confidence that a translation would sell, the bookseller struck off a very large impression. They lay undisturbed in his warehouse until Daniel Defoe added this ridiculous narrative, which carried the book through one-and-twenty editions.

[129] This drummer was in the early part of his life a trooper in Cromwell's army; and as almost all this regiment of saints considered themselves in St. Paul's dragoons, our drummer occasionally preached, exhorted, and expounded. When the Parliamentary army was disbanded, or put under other commanders, the manners of the people had a sudden and violent change; extreme strictness was succeeded by universal dissipation, and the whole nation displayed their abhorrence of their late rulers, and loyalty to their new sovereign, by general licentiousness. A drum beat to a psalm tune would no longer attract an audience; but still it was a favourite instrument, and our heroic trooper, being free from military engagements, drummed his way through the kingdom with a forged pass. Happening to beat up in the neighbourhood of Tedworth, he attracted the notice of a Mr. Mompesson, who seized the martial instrument, and punished the bearer. From that time his ears were assailed by a perpetual drumming, and his house for two or three years haunted by apparitions. It attracted the notice of several of the neighbouring clergy, and his Majesty Charles the Second, wishing to be satisfied about every particular, sent down a number of persons to converse with this noisy spirit; but during the time they stayed no spirit appeared, neither was the sound of a drum heard. Notwithstanding this, poor dub-a-dub was tried at Salisbury assizes, found guilty of being a wizard, and luckily escaped with only transportation for life.

Upon this story was founded Addison's play of _The Drummer, or the Haunted House_, which has too much good sense to be generally relished at the theatres.

The Cock Lane ghost was engaged in scratching and hammering a very short time before the plate was published. This ridiculous imposture attracted the notice of many respectable characters. That one man, whose writings are a mirror of truth and philosophy, and whose life was an honour to human nature, should be so far under the influence of superstition as to attend this nocturnal nonsense, draws a pitying sigh.

[130] On the late John Wesley's particular opinions I do not presume to make any comment; but his zealous and unremitting exertions in what he deemed a good cause, added to the primitive simplicity of his manners, entitled him to high respect.

Mr. Glanville was the patriarch of witchcraft, and therefore a very proper high priest in the temple of credulity. As his book gained him a good benefice, and as a number of his proselytes consider _Sadducismus Triumphatus_ entitled to equal credence with holy writ, I have subjoined a few extracts for the edification of those who may not think the volume from which they are taken worth perusal. It abounds with examples of barbarity, flowing from a blind and bigoted credulity, at which human nature shudders.

A relation of the strange witchcraft, discovered in the village of Mohra, in Swedeland, about the year 1670:--

"The news of this witchcraft coming to the king's ear, his Majesty was pleased to appoint commissioners, some of the clergy and some of the laity, to make a journey to the town above mentioned to examine the whole business. The commissioners met on the 12th of August at the parson's house, and to them the minister and several people of fashion complained, with tears in their eyes, of the miserable condition they were in, and therefore begged of them to think of some way whereby they might be delivered from that calamity. They gave the commissioners very strange instances of the devil's tyranny among them: how, by the help of witches, he had drawn some hundreds of children to him, and made them subject to his power; how he hath been seen to go in a visible shape through the country, and appeared daily to the people; how he had wrought upon the poorer sort, by presenting them with meat and drink, and this way allured them to himself; with other circumstances to be mentioned hereafter. They therefore begged of the Lords Commissioners to root out this hellish crew, that they might regain their former rest and quietness; and the rather, because the children, which used to be carried away in the country or district of Esdaile, since some witches had been burnt there, remained unmolested.

"Examination being made, there were discovered no less than three-score and ten witches in the village aforesaid; three-and-twenty of which, freely confessing their crimes, were condemned to die; the rest, one pretending she was with child, and the others denying, and pleading not guilty, were sent to Faluna, where most of them were afterwards executed.

"Fifteen children, which likewise confessed they were engaged in this witchery, died as the rest; six-and-thirty of them, between nine and sixteen years, who had been less guilty, were forced to run the gauntlet: twenty more, who had no great inclination, yet had been seduced to these hellish enterprises, because they were very young, were condemned to be lashed with rods upon their hands for three Sundays together, at the church door; and the aforesaid six-and-thirty were also doomed to be lashed this way once a week for a whole year together. The number of seduced children was about three hundred, etc. The above narrative is taken out of the public register, where all this, with more circumstances, is related."--_Glanville_, p. 494.

"At Stockholm, in the year 1676, a young woman accused her mother of being a witch, and swore positively that she had carried her away at night; whereupon both the judges and ministers of the town exhorted the old woman to confession and repentance. But she stiffly denied the allegations, pleaded innocence; and though they burnt another witch before her face, and lighted the fire she was to burn in before her, yet she still justified herself, and continued to do so till the last; and remaining obstinate, was burnt. A fortnight or three weeks after, her daughter, who had accused her, came to the judges in open court (weeping and howling), confessed that she had accused her mother falsely, out of a spleen she had against her for not gratifying her in a thing she desired, and had charged her with a crime of which she was perfectly innocent. Hereupon the judges gave orders for _her_ immediate execution."--Horneck's _Introduction to a Narrative of Witchcraft, etc._--_Glanville_, p. 481.

These are the horrid effects of credulity. For the dreadful devastations made among the human race by superstition, we may read the history of the Inquisition. Among myriads of examples, I was much struck by the following:--

"Along with the Jews that were to be burnt at an _auto-da-fe_, there was a girl not seventeen years of age, who, standing on that side where the queen sat, petitioned for mercy. She was wonderfully pretty; and looking at the queen, while her eyes streamed with tears, in a most pathetic tone of voice exclaimed, 'Will not the presence of my sovereign make an alteration in my fate? Consider how short a period I have lived, and that I suffer for adherence to a religion which I imbibed with my mother's milk. Mercy! mercy! mercy!' The queen turned away her eyes,--was evidently moved by compassion, but--durst not ask the holy fathers for even a respite."--_M. d'Aunoy_, p. 66.

What unlimited power! A queen dares not intercede for the pardon of a young girl, guilty of no other crime than adhering to the faith of her ancestors!

One of the most shocking circumstances that attend these consecrated murders, is the indulgences which the Roman pontiffs have attached to the executioners. Those who lead the poor condemned wretches to the fire, and throw them into the flames, gain indulgences for one hundred years. They who content themselves with only seeing them executed, obtain fifty. What horror! The most detestable crimes, the most unnatural cruelties, are made a means of obtaining pardons from the God of mercy!

[131] Whitfield's _Hymns_, p. 130.

[132] See Mr. Burke's pamphlet on the French Revolution.

[133] This is a fair representation of what the Guards were then. The highly-disciplined troop commanded by his Royal Highness of York defy satire.

[134] See John Wilkes' history of the man after God's own heart.

[135] Hogarth seems to have thought that Mr. Pitt wished to be a perpetual dictator; and, in truth, the Secretary's own assertion in some degree justified the supposition: "He would not be responsible for measures which he was no longer allowed to guide." Whether the artist was right or wrong in his opinion, I do not presume to assert: I have endeavoured to describe characters as he has delineated them; but with respect to this great man, the safest way will be to quote his contemporaries. I have subjoined two portraits, drawn in his own day; let the reader adopt that which pleases him best. They prove how difficult it is to ascertain what were the abilities of a statesman from any accounts given during his life. One party assert that Mr. Pitt unites, with the eloquence of Cicero and the force of Demosthenes, the conciseness of Sallust and the polished periods of Isocrates! Another,--but to extract a part is not doing justice to the writers.

CHATHAM.

"As this lord has long been dead to the world, we shall speak of him as a man that has been.

"A remarkable reflection, arising from the character of Lord Chatham, strikes us: No statesman was ever more successful, and no statesman ever deserved less to have been so.

"This man entered into the army very early in life, and there he ought to have remained. His enterprise, his rashness, and his scrupulous sense of honour, were qualities extremely proper in the profession of arms, and would have adorned any military station, except that of a chief commander. But the field he renounced for the Cabinet, and ceased to be a good soldier that he might be a bad statesman. In nature, he was rash, impetuous, haughty, and uncontrollable; and these dangerous properties were neither tempered nor improved by education. To those advantages which are acquired by study, and those great views which are communicated by habits of reflection, he was entirely a stranger. His quickness was not corrected by judgment, and his mind frequently was tired of the objects presented to it before it could perceive or comprehend them. In a country where eloquence is little known, his noise and vociferation acquired that name; and without the experience of common sense, he was extolled as superior to Demosthenes or Tully. His speeches were not wanting in fire, but they were innocent of thought. He was perhaps the only man of his time who could harangue for many hours without communicating one distinct and well-digested idea to his audience. In estimating his own merit he knew no bounds. His vanity was excessive: he saw every man inferior to himself: on every man, therefore, he lavished his contempt. Capricious to the most boyish excess, he was perpetually forming resolutions, which he abandoned before he could put them in execution. Yet his instability, through a fortuitous and whimsical concurrence of circumstances, generally led the way to success. The happy blunders of his administration procured him a reputation to which he had no title. Every scheme he planned ought to have miscarried. We admire his good fortune, not his wisdom. Popularity was the idol to which he bowed--a certain proof that his conduct was not influenced by those superior ideas which arise in high, liberal, and virtuous minds. Yet to this idol he would have sacrificed everything: it would have sacrificed everything to him. He possessed that intemperate pride which, instead of guarding him from indecent errors, led him to indiscretions; and a respectable character was seldom a security from the licentious fury of his tongue. In private life he was restless, fretful, unsocial, and perpetually affecting complaints which he did not feel: in public life he was weak, headstrong, imprudent, and had no quality of a good minister but enterprise. If he had continued in his first profession, he might have served his country with honour; but his ambition prompted him to assume the character of a statesman, and he abused it.

"On the whole, he possessed virtues; but his passions hurried them into excess, and he did not even wish to restrain them."

Hear the other side:--

CHARACTER OF THE LATE EARL OF CHATHAM.

"The Secretary stood alone; modern degeneracy had not reached him; original and unaccommodating--the features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. No State chicanery, no narrow system of vicious politics, no idle contest for ministerial victories, sunk him to the vulgar level of the great; but overbearing and persuasive, his object was--England; his ambition--fame! Without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous. France sunk beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded with the other the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite; and his schemes were to affect, not England and the present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which these schemes were accomplished; always seasonable, always adequate, the suggestion of an understanding animated by ardour, and enlightened by prophecy. The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and indolent--those sensations which allure and vulgarize--were unknown to him. A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, and the Treasury trembled at the name of Pitt through all her classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of his country and the calamity of his enemies answered and refuted her. Nor were his political abilities his only talents; his eloquence was an era in the senate, peculiar and spontaneous, familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments and instinctive wisdom: not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the conflagration of Tully; it resembled sometimes the thunder and sometimes the music of the spheres. He did not conduct the understanding through the painful subtlety of argumentation; nor was he for ever on the rack of exertion, but rather lightened on the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of the mind, which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be followed. Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could create, reform, or subvert; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and rule the wildness of free minds with unbounded authority: something that could establish or overwhelm empire, and strike a blow in the world that should resound through the universe."

At the time of Lord Chatham being interred, it was intimated in the public prints that an epitaph descriptive of his talents and services was to be inscribed on his tombstone; and that any one writing such an epitaph would render an acceptable service to the committee who had the management of his monument. The following was sent, but as it was unkindly rejected by them, it is here inserted:--

"HERE LIES THE BODY OF WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM; A GREAT AND ELOQUENT STATESMAN, WHOM THE KING DID NOT CONSULT OR EMPLOY, AND WHOM THE KING WAS RESOLVED NEVER TO CONSULT OR EMPLOY; A MOST INFORMED AND ENLIGHTENED SENATOR, A MOST CONVINCING AND PERSUASIVE ORATOR, WHOSE OPINIONS AND ADVICE THE PARLIAMENT HEARD WITH MOST ILLIBERAL IMPATIENCE, AND WHOSE ARGUMENTS THEY TREATED WITH MOST SOVEREIGN CONTEMPT. THESE WERE THE SENTIMENTS, AND THIS THE CONDUCT, OF BOTH KING AND PARLIAMENT. TO PERPETUATE THE MEMORY OF HIS ABILITIES, AND THEIR WISDOM, THAT KING AND THAT PARLIAMENT HAVE ERECTED THIS MONUMENT."

[136] It has been generally called a Cheshire cheese. Having never seen this pride of the English dairy with a hole bored through the middle, I have ventured to pronounce it a millstone.

[137] Lord Bute is said to be personified by one of the Highlanders: as I cannot ascertain which, my reader must discover it--if he can. The fireman is probably intended for the Duke of Bedford.

[138] If Hogarth must be so unmercifully abused for what he inserted, he is entitled to some credit for what he erased. I hope this blot in his original design will not be considered as an additional blot on his escutcheon.

[139] The small pyramid upon a little pedestal immediately behind him is, I think, an afterthought. It much resembles the ornament inscribed "Cyprus," which was painted on Hogarth's chariot, and might possibly be intended to carry some allusion to himself, for the stream of water from one of the garretteers just touches the point.

[140] Hogarth seems to have had a strong antipathy to the politics of this year. In later impressions of Plate 8 of "The Rake's Progress" will be found a halfpenny with the same date, in which Britannia is represented in the character of a maniac, with dishevelled hair, etc.

[141] If this sign of the Castle were not inscribed "_New_castle Inn," we should take it for a very old castle indeed. Its being in so ruinous a state, the frame shattered, and off one hook, describes the Duke's interest at that time. His Grace might be termed a Father of the Church, for he had promoted almost every bishop in the kingdom, and during the continuance of his administration an archbishop's levee could not have a more sable appearance. He resigned, or was turned out, which the reader pleaseth; and at his succeeding levee--there was not one ecclesiastic!

[142] Lord Besborough and the Honourable Robert Hampden were, I think, joint Postmasters-General this year; a short time after, Lord Egmont had the situation of Lord Besborough, but soon resigned.

[143] The Prince of Wales was born on the 12th of August 1762. Just after her Majesty was safely in her bed, the waggons with the treasure of the Hermione entered Saint James's Street, on which the king and the nobility went to the window over the palace gate to see them, and joined their acclamations on two such joyful occasions. From hence the procession, consisting of twenty waggons, etc., proceeded to the tower.--_Annual Register, 1762, Art. August_.

[144] In the _London Magazine_ for September 1762, I find the following explanation:--