Or had the rankness of the soil been freed Echard) "a project for establishing a perFrom cockle that oppressed the noble seed, petual fund to free the King from his deDavid for him his tuneful harp had strung pendence on Parliament." Before ShaftesAnd Heaven had wanted one immortal song!" bury had done speaking, the Duke of York With regard to Charles II.'s criticism, it whispered the King, who was standing at must be remembered that, shortly before the fire, "What a rogue you have for a Shaftesbury broke with the Court, his Lord Chancellor." The King replied, Majesty asseverated, with his favorite oath," Cods-fish, what a fool have you for a Lord that his Lord Chancellor knew more law Treasurer." Clifford, a bigoted Catholic, than all his judges, and more divinity than all his bishops. The royal praise may serve to counterbalance the royal censure; but both were valueless. Shaftesbury had full credit for law and divinity only so long as he was ready to aid in superseding law by prerogative and divinity by papal infallibility. At the opening of the first Session after he reached the Great Seal, his devotion to the King's wishes was exuberant and unrestrained. He attacked Holland, exclaiming, "Delenda est Carthago;" he justified the shutting up of the Exchequer, and he sneered at the Triple Alliance. His speech was preceded by a scene which might well have ruffled his nerves, if it did not check the effusion of his loyalty. It had been settled at the Restoration that the King's brothers should occupy seats on the left of the throne, the seat on the right being reserved for the Prince of Wales. Some years afterwards (as the incident is related by Martyn), "upon the queen's apparent barrenness, the Duke of York being looked on as the certain successor to the crown, and his power increasing at court, he took the chair on the right-hand of the throne. Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury, the first day he sat as speaker, resolved to replace the Duke in his proper seat. He informed him that he was in the wrong chair, and that his place was on the other side of the throne, as only heir presumptive. The Duke being unwilling to quit his seat, Lord Shaftesbury told him that he could not proceed upon business till the house was in form. At length the Duke was obliged to submit, but said, in a passion, "My lord, you are a rascal and a villain." He, with great composure, immediately replied, "I am much obliged to your royal highness for not calling me likewise a coward and a papist." Shaftesbury speedily repented of his speech on the opening of the Session, and apologised for it on the untenable ground that he spoke it as the mouthpiece of the Cabinet or Cabal. That he was not their mouthpiece was proved, within a few days, by his speech in answer to Clifford, the Lord Treasurer, in a debate on the Declaration of Indulgence, or (according to went heart and hand with the Duke: and one of Shaftesbury's objects in supporting the Test Act, including the declaration against Transubstantiation, was to dis place, on the chance of replacing, the Lord Treasurer. On Clifford's resignation the coveted staff was given to Osborne, afterwards Earl of Danby: and Shaftesbury saw that his power, instead of being on the increase, was on the wane. Although he did not at once break with the Court, he seems to have scented the Popish Plot and the great Exclusion battles from afar; for, affecting to think his life in danger from the Papists, he turned his house into a garrison all the summer; and, when Parliament met for the autumn Session of 1673, he stirred up a formidable opposition in the Commons to the projected marriage of the Duke with Mary of Modena. The cup of his trangressions was now full to overflowing, and the King shared the distrust of the Popish junto headed by the Duke. It was after supper at the Duchess of Portsmouth's, when the King had drunk freely, that they pressed him to dissolve Parliament. They so far succeeded that he sent the next morning for Shaftesbury, and, taking him into the closet, after some immaterial conversation, asked him if he had brought his robes, as the instant prorogation of Parliament had been resolved upon. Shaftesbury interpreted this reso lution as involving his own dismissal, and ended a manly remonstrance with these words: "But, sir, you may fancy what you please of the Romish religion, I shall, leave this as a maxim with you: if you eat sage and butter in the morning, and govern well, it will make you more healthy and happy here, and bring you to heaven much sooner, than Popery or the exorcisms of its priests." The prorogation took place and Shaftes bury was required to give up the Great Seal to the Attorney-General, Finch; the next morning but one, Sunday, November 9th, being fixed for the purpose. According to Martyn and Stringer, who are fol lowed by Lord Campbell and doubted by Mr. Christie, as soon as he (Shaftesbury) arrived at Whitehall, he presently attended the King in the closet, while the prevailing party waited in triumph to see self at any time, by a short turn, as if he him return without the purse. Being had learnt the art of his great High Chanalone with the King, he said, "Sir, I know cellor." you intend to give the Seals to the Attorney- The City was the principal scene of General, but I am sure your Majesty never Shaftesbury's machinations, and he andesigned to dismiss me with contempt." The nounced an intention of taking a house King, always good-humoured, replied, there for fear of having his throat cut by "Cods-fish, my Lord, I will not do it with the Papists if he ventured to sleep west any circumstance as may look like an affront." of Temple Bar. The King, forgetting that "Then, sir," said the Earl, "I desire your he had not yet assimilated the English Majesty will permit me to carry the Seals be- monarchy to the French, sent a message fore you to Chapel, and send for them after- forbidding him, at his peril, to carry out wards to my own house." To this his Ma- the intention, and intimating that he jesty readily assenting, Shaftesbury enter- would do well to go down to the countained him with conversation, purposely try as soon as the weather would perto tease the courtiers and his successor, mit. Amongst other aggressive measures who, he knew, were upon the rack for fear against the Court, he carried addresses he should prevail upon the King to change for a public fast to implore the protection his mind. "The King and the Chancel- of the Almighty for the preservation of lor came out of the closet talking together Church and State against Popish recuand smiling as they went to the chapel, sants, for the removal from office of all which was so contrary to the expectations counsellors Popishly affected, and specifiof those who were present, that some cally for the dismissal of the Dukes of went immediately and told the Duke of Lauderdale and Buckingham, his former York that all their measures were broken." colleagues in the Cabinet. This was in After sermon, Shaftesbury carried the the spring session of 1674. In the spring Great Seal home with him; and in the session of 1675 he was joined by the Duke course of the afternoon his brother-in-law, of Buckingham, who had quarrelled with Mr. Secretary Coventry, came for it, and Charles, and the worthy couple worked is reported to have said: "My Lord, you the "No Popery" cry in concert. The are happy; you are out of danger, and Court party retaliated by the introduction all safe; but we shall all be ruined and of an Act, called "Danby's Test Act," reundone; I desired to be excused from this quiring from all persons in office or Paroffice, but, being your relation and friend, liament a declaration in favour of passive they put it as an affront on me." Shaftes- obedience, with an oath "never to endeavbury replied, with alacrity, "It is only lay- our the alteration of the government in ing down my gown and putting on my Church or State." This monstrous meassword." Martyn adds, that he immedi- ure would have become law but for Shaftesately sent for his sword - thus most pro- bury's opposition. "Heading a small saically converting a metaphorical form of party in the Lords, and with a decided expression into a fact.* majority against him in the Commons, by his skilful management he defeated the Court, and saved the country." Such is the enforced admission of Lord Campbell. It is clear, from one of Colbert's letters, than an attempt was made to induce Shaftesbury to resume office, backed by a covert bribe of ten thousand guineas from France. "But now," to adopt the keen and quaint expressions of Roger North, "our noble Earl and mighty statesman having, as it seems, missed his aim at Court, takes over to the country party (as it was called) openly. And from thenceforward we find the party itself at work upon a new foot. There was no more depending on the King, as formerly, to make him destroy himself the shortest way, since he showed a dexterity to save him When the Government, hard pressed, proposed that the oath should be merely not to alter the Protestant religion, he asked, Where are the boundaries, or how much is meant by the Protestant religion? Thereupon the Lord Keeper Finch exclaimed, "Tell it not in Gath, nor publish it in the streets of Ascalon, that a Peer of so great parts and eminence as my noble and learned friend, a member of the Church of England, and the champion of the Reformation, should confess that he does not know what is meant by the Protestant religion!" This (says Stringer) was seconded with great pleasantness by divers of the Lords the Bishops. "The Bishop of Winchester and some others of them were pleased to condescend to in- resolved that Shaftesbury, Buckingham struct that Lord that the Protestant reli- Salisbury, and Wharton should retract gion was comprehended in thirty-nine and apologize, or be committed to the Articles, the Liturgy, the Catechism, Tower. They were committed; and the Homilies, and the Canons." Then Shaftesbury, refusing to concur with the Shaftesbury rose again, as if for the ex- other three who made the required subpress purpose of justifying the remark of Charles, that he knew more divinity than all the Bishops put together; so learnedly did he expatiate on the fallibility of such tests and the difficulty of extracting a clear, well-defined rule of faith from any of them. Standing near the Bishops' bench, he overheard one of them, jealous probably of his encroachments on their peculiar field, remark to another, "I wonder when he will have done preaching." He immediately turned round, "When I am made a Bishop, my Lord," and proceeded with his speech. mission after a few months, remained a This was not the only occasion on which he came into conflict with the Bishops. Speaking on a question of privilege and defending the purity of the judicial decisions of the House of Lords in spite of notorious attempts to corrupt them, he said: "Pray, my Lords, forgive me if, on this occasion, I put you in mind of committee dinners, and the scandal of it; as also, those droves of ladies that attend all causes. It was come to that pass, that men hired, or borrowed of their friends, handsome sisters or handsome daughters to deliver their petitions; but yet for all this, I must say that your judgments have been sacred, unless in one or two causes, If Shaftesbury did nothing worse than and those we owe most to that Bench from prove the king himself a Jebusite (a Rowhence we now apprehend the most dan-man Catholic), which he notoriously was, ger. Like O'Connell, Shaftesbury was vain of and renowned for his skill in defying authority without infringing the letter of the law, and, like O'Connell, he got caught by trusting too much to his dexterity. On the meeting of Parliament, which had been prorogued for a year and three months, in February, 1677, he and his party contended that so prolonged a proroga tion was tantamount to a dissolution, and that there was no lawful Parliament in existence. Their arguments were treated as an insult and contempt, and after a debate of five hours the House of Lords During the debate upon the same question in the House of Commons, some ladies were in the gallery peeping over the gentlemen's shoulders. The Speaker spying them called out, "What borough do those ladies serve for?" To which Mr. William Coventry replied, "They serve for the Speaker's chamber." Sir Thomas Littleton suggested that the Speaker should suppose they were gentlemen with fine sleeves dressed like ladies. "Yes; but I am sure I saw petticoats," rejoined the Speaker.- Grey. The wished occasion of the Plot he takes; the plot would have left no stain on his memory. But although neither its inventor lent his sanction to its absurdities; nor is nor the suborner of Oates, he certainly it wholly without warrant that Lord Campbell accuses him of suggesting to the Londoners to prepare for the defence of the city as if a foreign enemy were at their the Chamberlain, with the noted saying gates, and prompting Sir Thomas Player, that, "were it not for these precautions, all the Protestant citizens might rise next morning with their throats cut." There was also real danger from the secret compact with Louis: : "Some truth there was, but dashed and brewed with lies To please the fools and puzzle all the wise: This was rivalled or outdone by Sir Boyle Roche in the Irish House of Commons, when he said that, if the rebels of 1798 had their way, a guillotine would be set up in College green, and our heads will be thrown upon that table to stare us in the face." Succeeding times did equal folly call The manner in which Macaulay endevaours to clear Russell and Sidney is characteristic of the great champion of the Whigs. "The leaders of the country party encouraged the prevailing delusion. The most respectable among them, indeed, were themselves so far deluded as to believe the greater part of the evidence of the plot to be true. Such men as Shaftesbury and Buckingham doubtless perceived that the whole was a romance. But it was a romance that served their turn; and to their seared consciences, the death of an innocent man gave no more uneasiness than the death of a partridge." The mere death of an innocent man brought about by this romance was not enough for the most respectable of the respectables, Lord Russell, who denied the king's power to remit the hanging and quartering; and thus, when the tables were turned, was met by the vindictive and terrible retort of Charles: "My lord Russell shall find that I am possessed of that prerogative which, in the case of Lord Strafford, he thought fit to deny me." * debate in the Lords beyond a dim and con- barrenness: "One of the peers represented that the remedy of divorce was very uncertain, it not being sure that the King would have children by another wife. Upon this Lord Shaftesbury rose, and, pointing to the King, who is almost doubted from the King's mien that he is in a always by the fireplace, said: Can it be condition to have children? He is not more than fifty. I know people who are more than sixty, and do not despair of progeny.' All the House burst out laughing, and the King laughed with the rest. "Lord Clarendon gave occasion for another great ridicule, saying-to contest what had been alleged of the barrenness of the Queen that he knew her to be like other women; that she had been enceinte, and given premature birth to a child bigger than a rabbit. The King remarked, laughingly, to those near, I am not overpleased to find Lord Clarendon so well informed of everything relating to my If faction had seared Shaftesbury's conscience, there are no signs at any time of its having hardened his heart: an impulsive is seldom a cruel nature; and his aims were uniformly high. The two most important measures of the period were his handiwork- the Roman Catholic Disqualification Act, repealed in 1829; and the Habeas Corpus Act, which the soundest political thinkers at home and abroad still look upon as the keystone of British liberty.* Results are frequently in an inverse ratio to efforts and displays. The permanent traces of the fiercest faction fight recorded in the annals of party, must be sought rather in our political vocabulary than in the Statute Book. The year 1680, says Hume, is remarkable for being the epoch of the well known epithets of Whig " and "Tory;" "and in that same year," adds Macaulay, "our tongue was enriched with two words, Mob' and Want of space prevents us from revertSham,' remarkable memorials of a season ing to Shaftesbury's brief Presidency of of tumult and imposture." The great the Council formed by the advice of Tem"Exclusion" battle led to no legislative ple. The rejection of the Exclusion Bill action, and little remains of the decisive was the crisis or turning-point of his forex illo retro fluere et sublapsa referri: the tide of his popularity was so evidently on the ebb that the court took the strong step of arresting him on a charge 66 • Burnet's strange story, that the Habeas Corpus Act was practically carried in the Lords by the counting of a very fat peer for ten, is partially confirmed by Mr. Christie, who has ascertained, from a manuscript Journal of the Lords, that the recorded number of votes on the decisive division exceeded by five the total number actually present on that day. wife.' "The Bishop of Rochester said that a marriage with a barren woman was null by all laws; and that if a man bought a horse for his breeding-stud, and a mule were given him instead, he was not bound to pay the price." tunes Hume. Both Halifax and Sunderland were nephews-in-law of Shaftesbury. Sunderland acted i with him on this occasion. "A daring pilot in extremity Pleased with the danger when the waves went high, He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit." suggests, "explain this discrepancy: the "The dates of the two poems will," he in 1678, when the character of Shaftesbury third part of "Hudibras" having appeared had as yet been imperfectly developed." Whatever the difference in the mode of treatment, there is no discrepancy. The lines immediately preceding those which Macaulay quotes from "Hudibras thus : 29 run of high treason and committing him to the on Shaftesbury's skill in anticipating Tower. On his arrival there, one of the changes and providing for his own safety Popish lords, whom he had been instru- with the lines in which Dryden gives prommental in incarcerating, affecting sur- inence to "his violent passion, implacable prise at finding him among them, he coolly revenge, and boldness amounting to teobserved that he had been lately ill with merity: an ague, and was come to take some Jesuit's powder. The finding of an indictment was an indispensable step, and the London Grand Jury, summoned by friendly sheriffs, threw out the bill. When the word Ignoramus was read aloud by the officer, a prolonged shout arose in and about the Court, and before it had well died away the whole city was in a blaze with bonfires and illuminations. bearer of the good news to the prisoner The found him playing a game of piquet, which he calmly continued, with his Countess a got up scene, his maligners suggest, like that of Richard III. with the bishops and the Prayer-Book on receiving the offer of the Crown. When the unusual clamour was explained to Charles, he quietly remarked, "It is a hard case that I am the last man to have law and justice in the whole nation." It was all the harder, because the Court party, aided by venal lawyers and a corrupt press, had done their best to poison law and justice at their source. The pamphleteer, preacher, and the poet strove emulously the to prejudice the public from whence the jurors were to be taken: the bad pre-eminence was won by the highest genius, and the pride and pleasure with which we read one of the finest poems in our tongue are dashed by reflecting on the nature of its inspiration and its aim. and Achitophel" were published on the "Absalom 17th November, 1681, just one week before the bill of indictment was preferred at the old Bailey; and if not (like "The Medal") planned and paid for by the King, it was undeniably composed to curry favour with the Court.* Macaulay thinks that the reader will at once perceive a considerable difference between Butler's "Politician With more heads than a beast in vision." and the Achitophel of Dryden; and he contrasts the lines in which Butler dwells In the Memoir prefixed to the Globe edition of the "Poetical Works of John Dryden," and in the Biographical Introduction to his edition of "Select Poems of Dryden," printed at the Clarendon Press, Mr. Christie states that the subject of the poem of Absalom and Achitophel" is said to have been sug: gested by the King himself. More than a hundred corrections of the text, with many valuable notes, have been supplied by Mr. Christie in these editions. "So little did he understand The desp'rate feats he took in hand, To show his play at Fast and Loose, common estimate of his over-daring confi- |