Part 3

Your fears are too hasty. This was still a trial of my wit: and after a few wanton circles, as it were to breathe and exercise my muse, I drew her in from these amusements to a stricter manage and more severe discipline. The long interval of parliaments now followed; and in this suspension of business I applied myself to every virtuous pursuit that could be likely to improve my mind, or purify my morals. Believe me, I cannot to this day, without pleasure, reflect on the golden hours, I passed in the society of such accomplished men as FALKLAND, HYDE, and CHILLINGWORTH. And, for my more retired amusements at this place, you will judge of the good account I might render of these, when I add, they were constantly shared with that great prelate, who now, with so much dignity, fills the throne of _Winchester_[20].

DR. MORE.

This enthusiasm of your’s is catching, and raises in me an incredible impatience to come at the triumphs of a virtue, trained and perfected in her best school, the conversations of heroes and sages.

MR. WALLER.

You shall hear. The jealousies, that had alarmed the nation for twelve years, were now to have a vent given them, by the call of the parliament in _April 1640_. As the occasion, on which it met, was in the highest degree interesting, the assembly itself was the most august, that perhaps had ever deliberated on public councils. There was a glow of honour, of liberty, and of virtue in all hearts, in all faces: and yet this fire was tempered with so composed a wisdom, and so sedate a courage, that it seemed a synod of heroes; and, as some would then say of us, could only be matched by a senate of old Rome in its age of highest glory. To this parliament I had the honour to be deputed, whither I went with high-erected thoughts, and a heart panting for glory and the true service of my country. The dissolution, which so unhappily followed, served only to increase this ardour. So that, on our next meeting in _November_, I went freely and warmly into the measures of those, who were supposed to mean the best. I voted, I spoke, I impeached[21]. In a word, I gave a free scope to those generous thoughts and purposes which had been collecting in me for so many years, and was in the foremost rank of those, whose pulse beat highest for liberty, and who were most active for the interest of the public.

DR. MORE.

This was indeed a triumph, the very memory of which warms you to this moment. So bright a flame was not easily extinguished.

MR. WALLER.

It continued for some time in all its vigour. High as my notions were of public liberty, they did not transport me, with that zeal which prevailed on so many others, to act against the just prerogative of the crown, and the ancient constitution. I owe it to the conversation and influence of the excellent society, before-mentioned, that neither the spirit, the sense, nor, what is more, the relationship and intimate acquaintance of Mr. HAMPDEN[22], could ever bias me to his deeper designs, or any irreverence to the unhappy king’s person. Many things concurred to preserve me in this due mean. The violent tendencies of many councils on the parliament’s side; many gracious and important compliances on the king’s; the great examples of some who had most authority with good men; and, lastly, my own temper, which, in its highest fervours, always inclined to moderation; these and other circumstances kept me from the excesses, on either hand, which so few were able to avoid in that scene of public confusion.

DR. MORE.

This moderation carries with it all the marks of a real and confirmed virtue.

MR. WALLER.

I rather expected you would have considered it as another _sacrifice to Insincerity_. Such, I remember, was the language of many at that time. The enthusiasts on both sides agreed to stigmatize this temper with the name of _Neutrality_. Yet this treatment did not prevent me, when the war broke out, from taking a course, which I easily foresaw, would tend to increase such suspicions; for now, to open a fresh scene to you, I had assumed, if not new principles, yet new notions of the manner in which good policy required me to exert my old ones. The general virtue, or what had the appearance of it at least, had hitherto made plain-dealing an easy and convenient conduct. But things were now changed. The minds of all men were on fire: deep designs were laid, and no practice stuck at that might be proper to advance the execution of them. In this situation of affairs, what could simple honesty do, but defeat the purpose and endanger the safety of its master? I now, first, began to reflect that this was a virtue for other times: at least, that not to qualify it, in some sort, was, at such a juncture, not honesty, but imprudence: and when I had once fallen into this train of thinking, it is wonderful how many things occurred to me to justify and recommend it. The humour of acting always on one principle was, I said to myself, like that of sailing with one wind: whereas the expert mariner wins his way by plying in all directions, as occasions serve, and making the best of all weathers. Then I considered with myself the bad policy, in such a conjuncture, of CATO and BRUTUS, and easily approved in my own mind the more pliant and conciliating method of CICERO. Those stoics, thought I, ruined themselves and their cause by a too obstinate adherence to their system. The liberal and more enlarged conduct of the academic, who took advantage of all winds that blew in that time of civil dissension, had a chance at least for doing his country better service. Observation, as well as books, furnish me with these reflections. I perceived with what difficulty the Lord FALKLAND’S rigid principles had suffered him to accept an office of the greatest consequence to the public safety[23]: and I understood to what an extreme his scruples had carried him in the discharge of it[24]. This, concluded I, can never be the office of virtue in such a world, and in such a period. And then that of the poet, so skilled in the knowledge of life, occurred to me,

—aut virtus nomen inane est, Aut decus et pretium recte petit EXPERIENS vir;

that is, as I explained it, “The man of a ready and dexterous turn in affairs; one who knows how to take advantage of all circumstances, and is not restrained, by his bigotry, from varying his conduct, as occasions serve, and making, as it were, _experiments_ in business.”

DR. MORE.

You poets, I suppose, have an exclusive right to explain one another; or these words might seem to bear a more natural interpretation.

MR. WALLER.

You will understand from this account, which I have opened so particularly to you, on what reasons I was induced to alter my plan, or rather to pursue it with those arts of prudence and address, which the turn of the times had now rendered necessary. The conclusion was, I resolved to pursue steadily the king’s, which at the same time was manifestly the nation’s interest, and yet to keep fair with the parliament, and the managers on that side; for this appeared the likeliest way of doing him real service. And yet some officious scruples, which forced themselves upon me at first, had like to have fixed me in other measures. In the stream of those who chose to desert the houses rather than share in the violent counsels that prevailed in them, the general disgust had also carried me to withdraw myself. But this start of zeal was soon over. I presently saw, and found means to satisfy the king, that it would be more for his service that I should return to the parliament. I therefore resumed my seat, and took leave (to say the truth, it was not denied me by the house, who had their own ends to serve by this indulgence[25]) to reason and debate in all points with great freedom. At the same time my affections to the common interest were not suspected; for, having no connexion with the court, nobody thought of charging me with private views; and not forgetting, besides, to cultivate a good understanding with the persons of chief credit in the house, the plainness I used could only be taken for what it was, an honest and parliamentary liberty. This situation was, for a time, very favourable to me: for the king’s friends regarded me as the champion of their cause; whilst the prudence of my carriage towards the leading members secured me, in a good degree, from their jealousy.

DR. MORE.

Your policy, I observe, had now taken a more refined turn. The juncture of affairs might possibly justify this address: but the ground you stood upon was slippery; and I own myself alarmed at what may be the consequence of this solicitous pursuit of popularity.

MR. WALLER.

No exception, I think, can be fairly taken at the methods by which I pursued it. However, this _popularity_ it was, as you rightly divine, which drew upon me all the mischiefs that followed. For the application of all men, disposed to the king’s service, was now made to me. I had an opportunity, by this means, of knowing the characters and views of particular persons, and of getting an insight into the true state of the king’s affairs. And these advantages, in the end, drove me on the project, which, on the discovery, came to be called my _Plot_: an event, which, with all its particulars, you understand too well to need any information from me about it.

DR. MORE.

The story, as it was noised abroad, I am no stranger to: but this being one of those occasions, as they say, in which both your policy and virtue were put to the sharpest trial, it would be much to the purpose you have in view by this recital, to favour me with your own account of it.

MR. WALLER.

To lead you through all particulars, would not suit with the brevity you require of me. But something I will say to obviate the misconceptions you may possibly have entertained of this business[26]. For the plot itself, the utmost of my design was only to form such a combination among the honest and well-affected of all sorts, as might have weight enough to incline the houses to a peace, and prevent the miseries that were too certainly to be apprehended from a civil war. It was never in my thoughts to surprize the parliament or city by force, or engage the army in the support and execution of my purpose. But my design in this affair, though the fury of my enemies, and the fatal jealousy of the time, would not suffer it to be rightly understood, is not that which my friends resented, and which most men were disposed to blame in me. It was my behaviour afterwards, and the obliquity of some means which I found expedient to my own safety, that exposed me to so rude a storm of censure. It continues, I know, to beat upon me even at this distance. But the injustice hath arisen from the force of vulgar prejudices, and from the want of entering into those enlarged principles, on which it was necessary for me to proceed in that juncture.

DR. MORE.

Yet the ill success of this plot itself might have shewn you, what the design of acting on these _enlarged principles_ was likely to come to. It was an unlucky experiment, this, you had made in the _new_ arts of living; and should have been a warning to you, not to proceed in a path which, at the very entrance of it, had involved you in such difficulties.

MR. WALLER.

No, it was not the new path, you object to me, but the good old road of Sincerity, which misled me into those brambles. I, in the simplicity of my heart, thought it my duty to adhere to the injured king’s cause, and believed my continuance in parliament the fairest, as well as the likeliest method, that could be taken to support it. Had I temporized so far as either to desert my prince, and strike in with the parliament, or, on the other hand, had left the house and gone with the seceders to _Oxford_, either way I had been secure. But resolving, as I did, to hold my principles, and follow my judgment, I fell into those unhappy circumstances, from which all the dexterity I afterwards assumed was little enough to deliver me.

DR. MORE.

But if your intentions were so pure, and the methods, by which you resolved to prosecute them, so blameless, how happened it that any plot could be worked up of so much danger to your life and person?

MR. WALLER.

This was the very thing I was going to explain to you. My intentions towards the parliament were fair and honourable: as I retained my seat there, I could not allow myself in the use of any but parliamentary methods to promote the cause I had undertaken. And this, as I said, was the whole purpose of the _combination_, which was made the pretence to ruin me: for my unhappy project of a reconciliation was so inextricably confounded with another of more dangerous tendency, the _commission of array_, sent at that time from _Oxford_, that nothing, I presently saw, could possibly disentangle so perplexed a business, or defeat the malice of my enemies, if I attempted, in the more direct way, to stand on my defence. Presumptions, if not proofs, they had in abundance: the consternation of all men was great; their rage, unrelenting; and the general enthusiasm of the time, outrageous. Consider all this, and see what chance there was for escaping their injustice, if I had restrained myself to the sole use of those means, which you men of the cloister magnify so much, under I know not what names of _Sincerity_ and _Honour_. And, indeed, this late experience, of what was to be expected from the way of plain dealing, had determined me, henceforth, to take a different route; and, since I had drawn these mischiefs on myself by _Sincerity_, to try what a little management could do towards bringing me out of them.

DR. MORE.

It was not, I perceive, without cause, that the subtlety you had begun to have recourse to, filled me with apprehensions. Sincerity and Honour, Mr. WALLER, are plain things, and hold no acquaintance with this ingenious casuistry.

MR. WALLER.

What, not in such a situation? It should seem then, as if you moralists conceived a man owed nothing to himself: that _self-preservation_ was not what God and Nature have made it, the first and most binding of all laws: that a man’s family, not to say his country, have no interest in the life of an innocent and deserving citizen; and, in one word, that _prudence_ is but an empty name, though you give it a place among your _cardinal virtues_. All this must be concluded before you reject, as unlawful, the means I was forced upon, at this season, for my defence: means, I presume to say, so sagely contrived, and, as my very enemies will own, executed so happily, that I cannot to this day reflect on my conduct in that affair without satisfaction.

DR. MORE.

Yet it had some consequences which a man of your generosity would a little startle at.—

MR. WALLER.

I understand you: my friends—But I shall answer that objection in its place.

Let me at present go on with the particulars of my defence. The occasion, as you see, was distressful to the last degree. To deny or defend myself from the charge was a thing impossible. What remained then but to confess it, and in so frank and ample a manner, as might bespeak the pity or engage the protection of my accusers? I resolved to say nothing but the _truth_; and, if ever the _whole_ truth may be spoken, it is when so alarming an occasion calls for it. Besides, what had others, who might be affected by the discovery, to complain of? I disclaimed no part of the guilt myself: nor could any confession be made, that did not first and chiefly affect me. And if I, who was principal in the contrivance, had the best chance for escaping by such confession, what had they, who were only accomplices, to apprehend from it? Add to this, that the number and credit of the persons, who were charged with having a share in the design, were, of all others, the likeliest considerations to prevail with the houses to drop the further prosecution of it.

Well, the discovery had great effects. But there was no stopping here. Penitence, as well as confession, is expected from a sinner. I had to do with hypocrites of the worst sort. What fairer weapons, then, than hypocrisy and dissimulation? I counterfeited the strongest remorse, and with a life and spirit that disposed all men to believe, and most to pity me. My trial was put off in very compassion to my disorder; which, in appearance, was so great, that some suspected my understanding had been affected by it. In this contrivance I had two views; to gain time for my defence, and to keep it off till the fury of my prosecutors was abated. In this interval, indeed, some of my accomplices suffered. But how was it possible for me to apprehend that, when, if any, I myself might expect to have fallen the first victim of their resentment?

DR. MORE.

If this apology satisfy yourself, I need not interrupt your story with any exceptions.

MR. WALLER.

It was, in truth, the only thing which afflicted me in the course of this whole business. But time and reflection have reconciled me to what was, in some sense, occasioned, but certainly not intended, by me. And it would be a strange morality that should charge a man with the undesigned consequences of his own actions.

DR. MORE.

And were all the symptoms of a disturbed mind, you made a shew of, then entirely counterfeit?

MR. WALLER.

As certainly as those of the Roman BRUTUS, who, to tell you the truth, was my example on that occasion. It was the business of both of us to elude the malice of our enemies, and reserve ourselves for the future service of our respective countries.

But all I have told you was only a prelude to a further, and still more necessary, act of dissimulation. Had the house been left to itself, it might possibly have absolved me, on the merits of so large a confession, and so lively a repentance. But I had to do with another class of men, with holy inquisitors of sordid minds, and sour spirits; priestly reformers, whose sense was noise, and religion fanaticism, and that too fermented with the leven of earthly avarice and ambition. These had great influence both within doors and without, and would regard what had hitherto passed as nothing, if I went not much further. To these, having begun in so good a train, I was now to address myself. I had studied their humours, and understood to a tittle the arts that were most proper to gain them.

The first step to the countenance and good liking of these restorers of primitive parity was, I well knew, the most implicit subjection both of will and understanding. I magnified their gifts, I revered their sanctity. I debased myself with all imaginable humility: I extolled them with the grossest flattery.

Having thus succeeded to my wish in drawing the principal of these saints around me, I advanced further: I sought their instruction, solicited their advice, and importuned their ghostly consolation. This brought me into high favour; they regarded me as one, who wished and deserved to be enlightened: they strove which should impart most of their lights and revelations to me. I besought them to expound, and pray, and preach before me: nay, I even preached, and prayed, and expounded before them. I out-canted the best-gifted of them; and out-railed the bitterest of all their decriers of an anti-christian prelacy. In short, it would have moved your laughter or your indignation to observe, how submissively I demeaned myself to these spiritual fathers; how I hung on their words, echoed their coarse sayings, and mimicked their beggarly tones and grimaces.

To complete the farce, I intreated their acceptance of such returns for their godly instructions, as fortune had enabled me to make them. I prevailed with them to give leave that so unworthy a person might be the instrument of conveying earthly accommodations to these dispensers of heavenly treasures; and it surpasses all belief, with what an avidity they devoured them! It is true, this last was a serious consideration: in all other respects, the whole was a perfect comedy; and of so ridiculous a cast, that, though my situation gave me power of face to carry it off gravely then, I have never reflected on it since without laughter.

DR. MORE.

Truly, as you describe it, it was no serious scene. But what I admire most, is the dexterity of your genius, and the prodigious progress you had now made in your favourite arts of _accommodation_.

MR. WALLER.

Necessity is the best master. Besides, can you blame me for taking more than common pains to outdo these miscreants in their own way; I might say, to excel in an art which surpasses, or at least comprises in it the essence of all true wisdom? The precept of your admired ANTONINUS, as you reminded me to-day, is SIMPLIFY YOURSELF[27]. That, I think, was the quaint expression. It had shewn his reach and mastery in the trade he professed, much more, if instead of it, he had preached up, ACCOMMODATE YOURSELF; the grand secret, as long experience has taught me, _bene beateque vivendi_.

All matters thus prepared, there was now no hazard in playing my last game. I requested and obtained leave to make my defence before the parliament. I had acquired a knack in speaking; and had drawn on myself more credit, than fine words deserve, by a scenical and specious eloquence. If ever I acquitted myself to my wish, it was on this occasion. I soothed, I flattered, I alarmed: every topic of art which my youth had learned, every subject of address which experience had suggested, every trick and artifice of popular adulation, was exhausted. All men were prepared by the practices of my saintly emissaries to hear me with favour; and, which is the first and last advantage of a speaker, to believe me seriously and conscientiously affected.

In the end I triumphed; and for a moderate fine obtained leave to shelter myself from the following storm, which almost desolated this unhappy country, by retiring into an exile, at that time more desirable than any employment of those I left behind me.

DR. MORE.

You retired, I think, to _France_, whither, no doubt, you carried with you all those generous thoughts and consolatory reflexions, which refresh the spirit of a good man under a consciousness of suffering virtue.

MR. WALLER.

Why not, if _prudence_ be a virtue? for what, but certain prudential regards (which in common language and common sense are quite another thing from vicious compliances) have hitherto, as you have seen, appeared in my conduct? But be they what they will, they had a very natural effect, and one which will always attend on so reasonable a way of proceeding. For, since you press me so much, I shall take leave to suggest an observation to you, more obvious as well as more candid than any you seem inclined to make on the circumstances of this long relation. It is, “that the _pretended_ penitence for my past life, and the readiness I shewed to acquiesce in the _false_ accounts which the parliament gave of my plot, saved my life, and procured my liberty; whilst the _real and true_ discoveries I made to gain credit to _both_, hurt my reputation.” But such a reflexion might have shocked your system too much. For it shews that all the benefit, I drew to myself in this affair, arose from those _prudential maxims_ you condemn; and that all the injury, I suffered, was owing to the _sincerity_ I still mixed with them.

DR. MORE.

Seriously, Sir——

MR. WALLER.

I can guess what you would say: but you promised to hear me out, without interruption.

What remains I shall dispatch in few words, having so fully vindicated the most obnoxious part of my life, and opened the general principles, I acted upon, so clearly.