66

66

66

66

"and statutes, and pray for more. That is the language "best understood of them, and most welcome to them. They do not expect to hear any other stories of what "you have done, much less promises of what you will do. "Mr. Speaker," he added, "when I first heard of a "Remonstrance, I presently imagined that, like faithful "counsellors, we should hold up a glass unto his Majesty. "I thought to represent, unto the King, the wicked "counsels of pernicious counsellors; the restless turbu"lency of practical papists; the treachery of false judges; "the bold innovations, and some superstition, brought in "by some pragmatical bishops and the rotten part of the clergy. I did not dream that we should remonstrate downward, tell stories to the people, and talk of the King as of a third person." The orator was here upon delicate ground, and had perhaps some warning as he spoke that his footing was unsafe. He did not dispute, he already had remarked, the excellent use and worth of many pieces of the Declaration; but what was that to him, if he might not have them without other parts that were both doubtful and dangerous? He felt strongly, with the learned noble lord who spoke last (Falkland), that to attribute an introduction of idolatry to the command of the bishops was to charge those dignitaries with a high crime. He did not deny that there had been some superstition in doctrines and in practices by some bishops, but flat idolatry introduced by express command was quite another thing. He objected that to refer to the decision of Parliament the order and discipline that were to regulate the Church, would be to encourage sectarianism; and he further objected that these, and other similar passages, appeared to have been introduced by the Committee without being first discussed and recommended to them from the House. Then, taking up the closing averments in the Declaration as to the desire of its promoters for the advancement of learning by a more general and equal distribution of its rewards, he avowed his opinion that this object would be defeated if the great prizes in the Church were

abolished. "Great rewards," he said, "do beget great "endeavours; and certainly, Sir, when the great Basin "and Ewer are taken out of the lottery, you shall have "few adventurers for small plate and spoons only.'

If

any man could cut the moon out all into little stars,although we might still have the same moon, or as “much in small pieces, yet we should want both light and "influence."

Much beyond this flight, even the member for Kent could not be expected to soar; and forcible and lively as many parts of his speech had been, its general tone and tendency had also been such, that greatly must the impatience and fears of his friends have been relieved by his preparation to resume his seat, after some further enlargements of his argument for the patronage and diffusion of learning. He ended by stating, that because he neither looked for cure of complaints from the common people, nor did desire to be cured by them; because the House had not recommended all the heads of the Remonstrance to the Committee which brought it in; and because they passed his Majesty, and remonstrated to the people; he should give his vote with Mr. Hyde.

When Dering resumed his seat, Sir Benjamin Rudyard rose. It could hardly fail but that much interest should be felt as to the part he would take on this occasion. He was not a leader in the house; but his speeches had the influence derived from singularly eloquent expression, from his age and character, from that long experience of parliaments in which he rivalled even Pym himself, and from his gravity, courtesy, and moderation of tone. In these qualities the Historian of the parliament reports him as pre-eminent. Cujus erant mores,' he says, "qualis facundia ;" instancing his oration at the

1 There is no new thing under the sun; and it hardly needs to remind the reader that Sydney Smith's famous argument in defence of the "prizes in the Church," in those three letters to Archdeacon Singleton

66

which must for ever rank among the wittiest prose compositions in the language, had been exactly and almost literally reproduced from this speech of Sir Edward Dering's.

opening of the session as "a perfect exemplar" at once of the unsparing exposure of grievances, and of " the way of "sparing the King." His known desire in this latter respect gave peculiar significance to what should now fall from him.

66

He began by stating that in his opinion it was absolutely requisite that the House should publish a Declaration, because this parliament had been slandered by so many. Of the slanderers he then spoke, as consisting of the papists, to whom all parliaments were hateful, but this worst of all; of the delinquents, whom the parliament had punished; and of the reckless class of libertines, who sought ever to throw off the restraints of parliament and law. Next he commented on the malignancy of the libels they had propagated so busily. Nevertheless, he continued, "whatsoever they traduce, by God's assistance we have done great "things this parliament-things of the first magnitude. "We have vindicated the liberty of our persons, the free"dom of our estates. We have gotten, by the King's grace "and favour, a triennial, a perpetual parliament, wherein all other remedies and liberties are included. We have "done something, too, for religion; though I reckon that "last, because, I am sorry to speak it, we have done least "in that." Then, as if to guard against a too decisive tone against Hyde and his party, with whom he was never on unfriendly terms, he desired Mr. Speaker not to imagine that he approved ordinarily of parliament putting forth what might be called an apology. Truly he thought it went hard with a parliament when it was put to make an apology for itself, because apologies were commonly accounted suspicious; but the malignity and machinations of the times had here enforced it, in this instance had made it necessary. To the particular Declaration before the House, however, he had yet one objection to make. His vote went freely with the narrative part of it; but he must

1 May's History: lib. i. chap. vii. Rudyard was now verging on his

70th year, having been born in 1572.

object to what he would call the prophetical part. He meant those clauses which set forth acts that were waiting to be passed, and measures intended hereafter. In that, it appeared to him, there was danger; and he doubted if there was precedent for it. It was to foresee the whole work of this parliament to come, and to bind it up by anticipation and engagement of votes beforehand. And he would humbly wish the House to consider, whether, if they failed in performing some few of the things they so promised and the world would expect, they might not lose more by non-performance of those few than they would be likely to get by all the rest of the Declaration. He resumed his seat with the remark that in any of these his doubts he should be glad to be resolved by better judgments.

He was succeeded by Mr. Bagshaw, the member for Southwark, whose effective speech on grievances at the opening of the session had for a time given him a place in the House which he failed to make good. He had now joined Hyde's party, but did them small service in this discussion. All that has survived of his speech are two objections to a passage in the Declaration as to the abuses of the law courts; and against the tendency of one expression, "the rest of the clergy," to comprehend and blame the whole of that profession.

Sir John Culpeper, Dering's colleague in the representation of Kent, and, after Falkland, Hyde's strength and reliance in the debate, spoke next; and we may suppose the speech, from the fragment of it that remains, to have been highly characteristic of the man.' With a ready

1 "He seldom made an entire judg"ment of the matter in question, for "his apprehension was commonly "better than his resolution; and he "had an eagerness or ferocity that "made him less sociable than his other "colleagues; (for his education and "converse in the world had been in part "military) and his temper hasty."Sir Philip Warwick's Memoirs, p. 196.

"He might very well be thought a

'man of no very good breeding; hav"ing never sacrificed to the Muses, or "conversed in any polite company." -Clarendon's Life, i. 106-8. In his History (ii. 94), he says that he could upon occasion, when he spoke at the end of a debate, as his custom often was, recollect all that had been said of weight on all sides with great exact

elocution, he had a rough and hasty temper, and though, when he pleased, few were so qualified by memory and quickness to seize and reproduce all the points in a discussion, he seldom saw, or cared to see, more than that single point to which he chose to address himself. At all times in speaking, Hyde admits, he was warm and positive, uncourtly and ungraceful in his mien and motion, and somewhat indifferent to religion. His first objection now to the Remonstrance was that it spoke of altering the government of the Church, and would therefore offend the people; an argument which certainly no other speaker would have had the boldness to put in that form. He then declared his opposition to rest upon two grounds. The first was, that the Declaration was unnecessary. The parliament had not been "scandaled" by any public act, and therefore needed not to send out any declaration to clear themselves. The second was, that if this were not so, it was yet both unconstitutional and dangerous in its present form. Going but from that house, he said, it went but on one leg. All remonstrances should be addressed to the King, and not to the people, because it belonged to the King only to redress grievances. Their writs of election did not warrant them to send any declaration to the people, but only to treat with the King and the lords: nor had it ever been done by any parliament heretofore. It would be most dangerous for the public peace.

The member for Tavistock rose after him, and delivered a speech which in the manuscript record of the debate before me is characterised as an answer to what had been said by the various members who preceded him; and of which the fragment remaining, scanty as it is, shows that this was indeed its character. Even here its massive and equal proportions are manifest; and we may trace again the calm power and self-possession with which the veteran

ness, and express his own sense with much clearness, and such an application to the House, that no man more gathered a general concurrence

to his opinion than he. This description, however, from other accounts, would seem to be much more applicable to the speaking of Pym.