Part 21

[61] “And this I am the rather obliged to believe, because, the last time I had any discourse with your Highness of things of this nature, you did seriously affirm to me, that never any priest of the church of Rome had ever been so bold as to enter into any discourse of religion with you. Whereupon, when I humbly besought your Highness, that if any of them should be so bold at any time afterwards, and you should think fit to hear what they could say, either for their own church, or against ours; your Highness would be pleased to command them to give it you in writing, and that you would be pleased to show me, or my lord of Oxford, any such papers, or paper, they should give you to consider of, and to reply to: the which, because you were pleased to promise me you would do, and have never as yet done, (not to me I am sure, nor to him either for aught I know,) I cannot believe that any thing of that kind hath been as yet said to you, at least, not so as to make any impression on you, and much less to gain an absolute belief from you, that there is no salvation to be had but in the church of Rome only, and consequently, that if ever you mean to be saved, you must of necessity quit our communion, and embrace theirs.”—_Letter to the Duchess_.

[62] Sheldon, and Blandford. The former, as already mentioned, was bishop of London, and afterwards archbishop of Canterbury; the latter bishop of Oxford, afterwards of Worcester.

[63] Blandford.

[64] The bishop of Winchester had only heard of this paper from Maimbourg’s publication, “wherein,” says Morley, “he reciteth something, which he saith was written by the late Duchess of York, to justify her leaving the communion of the church of England, to embrace that of Rome. But why should I say any more, or indeed so much as I have said of a _non-ens_, or of what I believe never was in _rerum naturâ_; I mean such a discourse, as is pretended to have been betwixt the Dutchess of York, and two of the most learned bishops of England; I know no proof we have, that there was ever any such thing, at least in print, or publicly known, and avowed, but this attestation of Maimbourg the Jesuit, who I am sure was neither eye nor ear witness of it, but must have it by hearsay only, from others, who had it from others, that might be the devisers of it.”

[65] Heylin’s extreme animosity against the Puritans, hurries him into the opposite extreme of favouring the Catholics. Nicolson has observed, that he falls foul of all the princes of the time, without regard to their good or ill wishes to the Protestant interest. _Historical Library_, p. 98.—Burnet even charges him with delivering “many things in such a manner, and so strangely, that one would think he had been secretly set on to it by those of the church of Rome;” but adds, “I doubt not he was a sincere Protestant, but violently carried away by some particular conceits.”—_Burnet’s History of the Reformation_, Preface.

[66] The treatise alluded to, seems to be “An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England, in the several Articles proposed by the late Bishop of Condom,” 4to, 1689. This was circulated by the Protestant divines, in reply to “An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church in Matters of Controversy. By the Reverend James Benigne Bossuet, Counsellor to the King, Bishop of Meaux, formerly of Condom. Done into English,” &c. 4to, 1685.

[67] This alludes to a story of an Oxford divine, who imagined he had utterly confounded the grand advocate of the Catholic church, by the stout, though unsupported asseveration, “Bellarmine, thou liest!” This egregious argument is alluded to in the Preface to “The Royal Medal Vindicated;” and in another tract, entitled, “Letter to a Friend concerning Dr Owen’s Principles,” 1670.

[68] Sir Henry Wotton, provost of Eton College, who died in 1639, directed his grave-stone to be thus inscribed:

_Hic jacet hujus Sententiæ primus Author; Disputandi Pruritus, Ecclesiæ Scabies, Nomen Alias Quære._

Wotton’s biographer, honest Isaac Walton, seems to allow, that this sentence, or something like it, was to be elsewhere found, and that Sir Henry was not the first author of it. But he contends, that reason, mixed with charity, must persuade all readers to believe that a holy lethargy had surprised his memory when he assumed the merit of inventing it.

[69] Dr Seth Ward, an eminent mathematician.

[70] Sheldon and Blandford. _Vide Supra_, p. 198.

[71] Dr Blandford, at the time of the conference with the duchess of York, was bishop of Oxford. Being afterwards translated to the diocese of Worcester, he is elsewhere always in this tract called by the latter title. He died bishop of Worcester in 1675.—MALONE.

[72] In allusion to the game of chess, where one of the two pieces, called bishops, always moves on the white, and the other on the black spaces of the chequer.

[73] From the French _rompre en visiere_; a phrase taken from tilting, and used metaphorically for giving an open affront.

[74] During the parliamentary struggles of 1680, the Commons used many arbitrary measures to support their authority, and especially by summarily committing those who, having expressed by petition to the king their abhorrence of addresses for calling a parliament, were called _abhorrers_. “Scarce a day passed, but some _abhorrer_ was dragged before them, and committed to the custody of the serjeant at arms, at the pleasure of the House; and this strange despotism they exercised with so much wantonness, as well as cruelty, that Mr Treby was pleased to say, _they kept an hawk_, (meaning the said serjeant,) _and they must every day find flesh for him_. And the quantity he was this sessions gorged with, gave rise to this proverbial expression—_Take him, Topham!_ [the name of the serjeant,] in all discourse of peremptory commitment.”—_North’s Examen_, p. 561. These arbitrary commitments are elsewhere censured by Dryden, particularly in the Postscript to the History of the League.—See p. 179.

[75] _Nolo episcopare._

[76] Morley is anxious to vindicate himself from being one of the two bishops consulted, for, in Maimbourg’s copy of the Duchesses paper, they were not named. “Supposing,” said he, “there was such a conference betwixt her Highness and two bishops of the church of England, and that what they said to her did increase her desire to embrace the Roman Catholic religion; yet what doth that concern you, (may some man say,) as to your own particular? Are you one of the two of the most learned bishops of the church of England? (for so it is said they were, to whom the Duchess proposed her scruples,) No; I am not, I know I am not, I am sure I am not; but yet (how unlearned, and how unworthy soever,) I am a bishop, and a bishop of the church of England; and therefore as he, to whom it was said, _Tantumne otii tibi à re tuâ est, aliena ut cures?_ answered, _Homo sum, Humani nihil à me alienum puto_; so say I, _Episcopus sum, et Episcopus Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ_, and therefore think myself concerned in whatsoever was said in reproach of episcopacy; especially in reproach of any of the bishops of our own church.”

[77] Probably her brothers, Clarendon and Rochester.

[78] Such was James’s account of the dying hours of his first wife. Burnet gives a different statement, which may be here transcribed:—

“While things were in fermentation, the Duchess of York died. It was observed, that for fifteen months before that time, she had not received the sacrament; and that upon all occasions, she was excusing the errors that the church of Rome was charged with, and was giving them the best colours they were capable of. An unmarried clergy was also a common topic with her. Morley had been her father confessor; for he told me, she practised secret confession to him from the time that she was twelve years old; and, when he was sent away from the court, he put her in the hands of Blandford, who died bishop of Worcester. Morley also told me, that upon the reports that were brought him of her slackness in receiving the sacrament, she having been for many years punctual to once a month, he had spoken plainly to her about it, and told her what inferences were made upon it. She pretended ill health, and business; but protested to him, she had no scruples with relation to her religion, and was still of the church of England; and assured him, that no Popish priest had ever taken the confidence to speak to her of those matters. He took a solemn engagement of her, that if scruples should arise in her mind, she would let him know them, and hear what he should offer to her upon all of them. And he protested to me, that to her death she never owned to him that she had any scruples, though she was for some days entertained by him at Farnham, after the date of the paper, which was afterwards published in her name. All this passed between the bishop and me, upon the duke’s shewing me that paper, all writ in her own hand, which was afterwards published by Maimbourg. He would not let me take a copy of it; but he gave me leave to read it twice. And I went immediately to Morley, and gave him an account of it; from whom I had all the particulars already mentioned. And upon that he concluded, that that unhappy princess had been prevailed on to give falsehoods under her hand, and to pretend that these were the grounds of her conversion. A long decay of health came at last to a quicker crisis than had been apprehended. All of the sudden she fell into the agony of death. Blandford was sent for, to prepare her for it, and to offer her the sacrament. Before he could come, the queen came in, and sat by her. He was modest and humble, even to a fault. So he had not presence of mind enough to begin prayers, which probably would have driven the queen out of the room. But, that not being done, she pretending kindness, would not leave her. The bishop spoke but little, and fearfully. He happened to say, he hoped she continued still in the truth: Upon which she asked, what is truth; and then, her agony encreasing, she repeated the word truth, truth, often; and in a few minutes after she died, very little beloved, or lamented. Her haughtiness had raised her many enemies. She was indeed a firm and a kind friend: But the change of her religion made her friends reckon her death rather a blessing than a loss at that time to them all. Her father, when he heard of her shaking in her religion, was more troubled at it, than at all his own misfortunes. He writ her a very grave and long letter upon it, enclosed in one to the duke. But she was dead before it came into England.”—_Burnet’s History of his own Times_, Book II.

[79] History of Henry VIII. p. 402, according to Dryden. I cannot find the passage alluded to.

[80] Clement the Tenth.

[81] The church of England Divines made a common cause at this important crisis. Those who directed the warfare, were Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Tennison, and Patrick; and under their banners, Burnet numbers Sherlock, Williams, Claget, Gee, Aldrich, Atterbury, Whitby, Hooper, and Wake. It is probable, that when a piece of such consequence as the Answer to the Royal Papers was to be brought forward, more than one of these would be employed in revising, at least, and correcting it.

[82] The Duke of York, who commanded the fleet in the Dutch wars.

[83] Robert Wisdom was a fugitive in the reign of Queen Mary; in that of Elizabeth, he became rector of Stysted in Essex, and of Settrington in Yorkshire, and died in 1568. He was a zealous puritan, and the author of a hymn, printed at the end of Sternhold’s psalms, which begins with the passage referred to in the text:

Preserve us, Lord, by thy dear word; From Turk and Pope defend us, Lord.

The witty Bishop Corbet thus addresses the ghost of Robert Wisdom:

Thou, once a body, now but aire, Arch-botcher of a psalme or prayer, From Carfax come; And patch me up a zealous lay, With an old _ever and for aye_, Or _all and some_. Or such a spirit lend mee, As may a hymne down send mee, To purge my braine. So, Robert, look behind thee, Least _Turk or Pope_ do find thee, And goe to bed againe.

[84] This assertion Stillingfleet denied. See the conclusion of his Answer to the Defence, where he affirms “such a book had been lately published in London.” To this Dryden replied, that “the magnified piece of Duncombe on this subject, which his opponent must have meant, was stolen, or translated, without acknowledgment, from the Spanish of Rodriguez;” meaning, probably, the Jesuit Alonso Rodriguez, who wrote “_Exercio de perfecion y Virtudes Christianas, Sevilla, 1609_.” But while Dryden claimed for the Catholic church the merit of this work, he seems to have mistaken the name of the translator; for in the preface to the “Town and Country Mouse,” Prior, or Montague, upbraid him with having confounded _Allen_ with _Duncombe_; names which did not so much as rhyme. In a list of books subjoined to “The Practice of a Holy Life, by Thomas Allen, rector of Kettering, in Northamptonshire,” I find “The Virtue of Humility, recommended to be printed by the late Reverend and Learned Dr Henry Hammond,” which may be the book alluded to by Stillingfleet. See Vol. X. pages 114. 249.

[85] Hitherto Stillingfleet had been encountering the person who defended the two papers which were found in the king’s strong box, with which part of the controversy Dryden had nothing to do.

[86] Defence, p. 250.

[87] Defence, p. 219.

[88] Defence, p. 217.

[89] Ibid. p. 210.

[90] Defence, p. 211.

[91] Defence, p. 220.

[92] Ibid. p. 232.

[93] Defence, p. 232.

[94] Defence, p. 212.

[95] Defence, p. 213.

[96] Ibid, p. 217, 218.

[97] Defence, p. 222.

[98] Defence, p. 242.

[99] Nicholas Sanders, some time regius professor of the canon law at Oxford. Upon the Reformation, he fled to Rome, where he was long a retainer of Cardinal Hosius. At last Gregory XIII. sent him as Nuncio into Ireland, where he died in 1580. His work here alluded to, is a history of the Reformation, under the opprobrious title _De Origine et Progressu Schismatis Anglicani_. Stillingfleet refers to the passage, l. i. p. 11.

[100] Page 15.

[101] Page 10.

[102] Page 18.

[103] Acworth. c. Sander. l. 2. c. 14, 17.

[104] Page 22.

[105] History of Hen. VIII. p. 216.

[106] _Servi Fidelis Responsio, &c._

[107] Lord Herbert, p. 219.

[108] Apology for the Oath of Allegiance.

[109] Defence, p. 243.

[110] Ibid.

[111] Conference, § 24. p. 156.

THE ART OF PAINTING;

BY C. A. DU FRESNOY.

WITH REMARKS.

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH; WITH AN ORIGINAL PREFACE, CONTAINING A PARALLEL BETWEEN PAINTING AND POETRY. FIRST PRINTED IN QUARTO IN 1695.

ART OF PAINTING, &c.

Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy, as we learn from his life by Mason, was born in Paris in the year 1611. He studied the art of painting in Rome and Venice, and afterwards practised it in France with great reputation. Meanwhile, he did not neglect the sister pursuit of poetry; and combining it with the studies of an artist, he composed his poem on the Art of Painting. It did not appear till after the author’s death, in 1658, when it was published with the French version, and remarks of De Piles. The first edition was printed in 1661. This poem, as containing, in elegant and perspicuous language, the most just rules for artists and amateurs, has been always held in esteem by the admirers of the art which it professes to teach.

The version of Dryden first appeared in 4to, in 1695, and was republished by Richard Graham in 1716, by whom it is inscribed to Lord Burlington. The editor of 1716, informs us, that Mr Jervas had undertaken to correct such passages of the translation as Dryden had erred in by following, too closely, the French version of De Piles. To Graham’s edition is prefixed the epistle from Pope to Jervas, with Dryden’s version; an honourable and beautiful testimony from the living to the dead poet, which I have retained with pleasure, as also the epistle from Mason to Sir Joshua Reynolds, which contains some remarks on Dryden’s version.

The late Mr Mason, as a juvenile exercise, executed a poetical version of Fresnoy’s poem, which has had the honour to be admitted into the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, vol. iii. and might have superseded the necessity of here reprinting the prose of Dryden. But there is something so singular in a great poet undertaking to render into prose the admired poem of a foreign bard, that, as a specimen of such an uncommon task, as well as on account of its brevity, I have retained this translation.

Being no judge of the art to which the poem refers, I follow the readings of Jervas, as published by Graham in 1716.

Mason has retained the Parallel between Painting and Poetry, in his edition of Fresnoy, with the following note:

“It was thought proper to insert in this place the pleasing preface, which Mr Dryden printed before his translation of M. Du Fresnoy’s poem. There is a charm in that great writer’s prose, peculiar to itself; and though, perhaps, the parallel between the two arts, which he has here drawn, be too superficial to stand the test of strict criticism, yet it will always give pleasure to readers of taste, even when it fails to satisfy their judgment.”

TO MR JERVAS, WITH FRESNOY’S ART OF PAINTING, TRANSLATED BY MR DRYDEN.

This verse be thine, my friend; nor thou refuse This from no venal or ungrateful muse. Whether thy hand strike out some free design, Where life awakes, and dawns at every line; Or blend in beauteous tints the coloured mass, And from the canvas call the mimic face; Read these instructive leaves, in which conspire Fresnoy’s close art, and Dryden’s native fire; And reading wish, like theirs, our fate and fame, So mixed our studies, and so joined our name; Like them to shine through long succeeding age, So just thy skill, so regular my rage. Smit with the love of sister-arts we came, And met congenial, mingling flame with flame; Like friendly colours found our arts unite, And each from each contract new strength and light. How oft in pleasing tasks we wear the day, While summer suns roll unperceived away? How oft our slowly growing works impart, While images reflect from art to art? How oft review; each finding like a friend Something to blame, and something to commend? What flattering scenes our wandering fancy wrought, Rome’s pompous glories rising to our thought! Together o’er the Alps methinks we fly, Fired with ideas of fair Italy. With thee, on Raphael’s monument I mourn, Or wait inspiring dreams at Maro’s urn; With thee repose where Tully once was laid, Or seek some ruin’s formidable shade; While fancy brings the vanished piles to view, And builds imaginary Rome anew. Here thy well studied marbles fix our eye; A fading Fresco here demands a sigh; Each heavenly piece unwearied we compare, Match Raphael’s grace, with thy loved Guido’s air, Caracci’s strength, Correggio’s softer line, Paulo’s free stroke, and Titian’s warmth divine. How finished with illustrious toil appears, This small well polished gem, the work of years![112] Yet still how faint by precept is exprest, The living image in the painter’s breast? Thence endless streams of fair ideas flow, Strike in the sketch, or in the picture glow; Thence beauty, waking all her forms, supplies An angel’s sweetness, or Bridgewater’s eyes. Muse! at that name thy sacred sorrows shed, Those tears eternal that embalm the dead; Call round her tomb each object of desire, Each purer frame informed with purer fire; Bid her be all that chears or softens life, The tender sister, daughter, friend, and wife! Bid her be all that makes mankind adore; Then view this marble, and be vain no more! Yet still her charms in breathing paint engage; Her modest cheek shall warm a future age. Beauty, frail flower, that every season fears, Blooms in thy colours for a thousand years. Thus Churchil’s race shall other hearts surprise, And other beauties envy Wortley’s eyes; Each pleasing Blount shall endless smiles bestow, And soft Belinda’s blush for ever glow. Oh! lasting as those colours may they shine, Free as thy stroke, yet faultless as thy line! New graces yearly, like thy works, display; Soft without weakness, without glaring gay; Led by some rule, that guides, but not constrains; And finished more through happiness than pains! The kindred arts shall in their praise conspire, One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre. Yet should the Graces all thy figures place, And breath an air divine on every face; Yet should the Muses bid my numbers roll, Strong as their charms, and gentle as their soul; With Zeuxis’ Helen thy Bridgewater vie, And these be sung till Granville’s Myra die; Alas! how little from the grave we claim? Thou but preservest a Form, and I a Name.

A. POPE.

TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.