IV.
V.
The jest of his being "a prophet, formed to make a female proselyte," was more cutting, as he had just acquired a right of naturalization in Holland, by marrying Mrs Mary Scott, a Dutch lady, but of Scottish extraction, being descended of the noble house of Buccleuch.
It must be owned, that, with all Bishop Burnet's good qualities, there are particulars in his history which give colour for this accusation. His opinions were often hastily adopted, and of course sometimes awkwardly retracted, and his patrons were frequently changed. Thus, he vindicated the legality of divorce for barrenness on the part of the wife, and even that of polygamy, in his resolution of two important cases of conscience. These were intended to pave the way for Charles divorcing his barren wife Catherine, or marrying another; and so raising a family of his own to succeed him, instead of the Duke of York. These opinions he formally retracted. Notwithstanding his zeal for liberty, his first work is said by Swift to have been written in defense of arbitrary power. Above all, his great intimacy with the Dukes of Hamilton and Lauderdale, the King and the Duke of York, the Pope and the Prince of Orange; in short, his having the address to attach himself for a time to almost every leading character, whom he had an opportunity of approaching, gives us room to suspect, that if Burnet did not change his opinions, he had at least the art of disguising such as could not be accommodated to those of his immediate patron. When the king demanded that Burnet should be delivered up by the States, he threatened, in return, to justify himself, by giving an account of the share he had in affairs for twenty years past; in which he intimated, he might be driven to mention some particulars, which would displease the king. This threat, as he had enjoyed a considerable share of his confidence when Duke of York, may seem, in some degree, to justify Dryden's heavy charge against him, of availing himself of past confidence to criminate former patrons. It is remarkable, also, that even while he was in the secret of all the intrigues of the Revolution, and must have considered it as a near attempt, he continued to assert the doctrine of passive obedience; and in his letter to Middleton, in vindication of his conduct against the charge of high treason, there is an affectation of excessive loyalty to the reigning monarch. Against these instances of dissimulation, forced upon him perhaps by circumstances, but still unworthy and degrading, we may oppose many others, in which, when his principles and interest were placed at issue, he refused to serve the latter at the expence of the former.
This applies to the sketches of characters introduced by Burnet in his controversial tracts. But long after the period when Dryden wrote, the publication of the History of his Own Times confirmed, to a certain extent, the censure here imposed. It is a general and just objection to the bishop's historical characters, that they are drawn up with too much severity, and that the keenness of party has induced him, in many cases, to impose upon the reader a caricature for a resemblance. Yet there appears to have been perfect good faith upon his own part; so that we may safely acquit him of any intention to exaggerate the faults, or conceal the virtues, of his political enemies. He seems himself to have been conscious of a disposition to look upon the dark side of humanity. "I find," says he, "that the long experience I have had of the baseness, the malice, and the falsehood of mankind, has inclined me to be apt to think generally the worst of men, and of parties." Burnet therefore candidly puts the reader upon his guard against this predominant foible, and expressly warns him to receive what he advances with some grains of allowance.
But whatever was Burnet's private opinion of the conduct of others, and however much he might be misled by prejudice in drawing their characters, it should not be forgotten, that, in the moments of triumph which succeeded the Revolution, he not only resisted every temptation to revenge for personal injuries, but employed all his influence to recommend mild and conciliating conduct to the successful party. Some, who had suffered under the severity of James's reign, were extremely indignant at what seemed to them to argue too much feeling for their discomfited adversaries, and too little sympathy with their own past distresses. Samuel Johnson, in particular, reprobates the Scottish bishop's exhortations to forgiveness and forgetfulness of injuries. "And, besides, we have Scotch doctors, to teach us the art of forgetfulness. Pray you have gude memories, gude memories; do not remember bad things, (meaning the murders and oppressions of the last reigns,) but keep your memories for gude things, have gude memories." To this mimicry of the bishop's dialect, in which, however, he seems to have conveyed most wholesome and sound council, Johnson adds, that, during the sitting of King William's first parliament, while his complaints were before them, the bishop sent to him his advice, "Not to name persons." "I gave, says he, an English reply to that message; 'Let him mind his business, I will mind mine.' His bookseller, Mr Chiswell, by whom I had the message, seemed loth to carry him that blunt answer. Oh! said I, he has got the title of a Lord lately, I must qualify my answer: 'Let him please to mind his own business, I will mind mine."—This was very natural for one smarting under sufferings, who complains, that "while a certain traveller," meaning Burnet, "was making his court to the cardinals at Rome, he got such an almanack in his bones, (from scourging,) as to incapacitate him from learning this Scotch trick of a gude memory."[283] But it is the very character of moderate councils to be disgusting to those who have been hurried beyond their patience by oppression; and Johnson's testimony, though given with a contrary view, is highly honourable to the bishop's prudence.
In 1675, the House of Commons being resolved to assail the Duke of Lauderdale, and knowing that Burnet, in whom he had once reposed much confidence, could bear witness to some dangerous designs and expressions, appointed the doctor to attend and be examined. His own account of this delicate transaction is as follows:
"In April 1675, a session of parliament was held, as preparatory to one that was designed next winter, in which money was to be asked; but none was now asked, it being only called to heal all breaches, and to beget a good understanding between the king and his people. The House of Commons fell upon Duke Lauderdale; and those who knew what had passed between him and me, moved, that I should be examined before a committee. I was brought before them. I told them how I had been commanded out of town; but though that was illegal, yet since it had been let fall, it was not insisted on. I was next examined concerning his design of arming the Irish Papists. I said, I, as well as others, had heard him say, he wished the Presbyterians in Scotland would rebel, that he might bring over the Irish Papists to cut their throats. I was next examined concerning the design of bringing a Scottish army into England. I desired to be excused, as to what had passed in private discourse; to which I thought I was not bound to answer, unless it were high treason. They pressed me long, and I would give them no other answer; so they all concluded, that I knew great matters; and reported this specially to the House. Upon that I was sent for, and brought before the House. I stood upon it as I had done at the committee, that I was not bound to answer; that nothing had passed that was high treason; and as to all other things, I did not think myself bound to discover them. I said farther, I knew the Duke Lauderdale was apt to say things in a heat, which he did not intend to do; and, since he had used myself so ill, I thought myself the more obliged not to say any thing that looked like revenge, for what I had met with from him. I was brought four times to the bar; at last I was told, the House thought they had a right to examine into every thing that concerned the safety of the nation, as well as into matters of treason; and they looked on me as bound to satisfy them, otherwise they would make me feel the weight of their heavy displeasure, as one that concealed what they thought was necessary to be known. Upon this I yielded, and gave an account of the discourse formerly mentioned. They laid great weight on this, and renewed their address against Duke Lauderdale.
"I was much blamed for what I had done. Some, to make it look the worse, added, that I had been his chaplain, which was false; and that I had been much obliged to him, though I had never received any real obligation from him, but had done him great services, for which I had been very unworthily requited: Yet the thing had an ill appearance, as the disclosing of what had passed in confidence; though I make it a great question, how far even that ought to bind a man when the designs are very wicked, and the person continued still in the same post and capacity of executing them. I have told the matter as it was, and must leave myself to the censure of the reader. My love to my country, and my private friendship, carried me, perhaps, too far; especially since I had declared much against clergymen's meddling in secular affairs, and yet had run myself so deep in them."—History of his Own Times, Vol. I. p. 375.
The discourse to which Burnet refers was of the following dangerous tendency, and took place in September 1673.
"Duke. If the king should need an army from Scotland, to tame those in England, might the Scots be depended upon?
"Burnet. Certainly not. The commons in the southern parts are all Presbyterians. The nobility thought they had been ill used, were generally discontented, and only waited for an opportunity to show it.
"Duke. I am of another mind. The hope of the spoil of England will bring them all in.
"Burnet. The king is ruined if he trusts to that; for even indifferent persons, who might otherwise have been ready enough to push their fortunes without any anxious enquiries into the grounds they went upon, will not now trust the king, since he has so lately said, he would stick to his declaration,[284] and yet has so soon given it up.
"Duke. Hinc illæ lacrymæ. The king was forsaken in that matter, and none sticks to him but Lord Clifford and myself."—Ralph, with the Authorities he quotes, Vol. I. p. 275.
James II. afterwards revived the plan of maintaining a Scottish standing army, to bridle his English subjects.
To run a-muck, is a phrase derived from a practice of the Malays. When one of this nation has lost his whole substance by gaming, or sustained any other great and insupportable calamity, he intoxicates himself with opium; and, having dishevelled his hair, rushes into the streets, crying Amocca, or Kill, and stabbing every one whom he meets with his creeze, until he is cut down, or shot, like a mad dog.
Burnet may have been thus denominated, from having written the following pamphlets, in the controversy respecting the Test, against Parker, the apostate bishop of Oxford:
"An Enquiry into the Reasons for Abrogating the Test imposed on all Members of Parliament, offered by Dr Samuel Parker, Bishop of Oxford."
"A Second Part of the Enquiry into the Reasons offered by Doctor Samuel Parker, bishop of Oxford, for Abrogating the Test; or an Answer to his plea for Transubstantiation, and for Acquitting the Church of Rome of Idolatry."
"A Continuation of the Second Part of the Enquiry into the Reasons offered by Dr Samuel Parker, Bishop of Oxford, for Abrogating the Test relating to the Idolatry of the Church of Rome."
These two last pamphlets were afterwards thrown together in one tract, entitled, "A Discourse concerning Transubstantiation and Idolatry, being an Answer to the Bishop of Oxford's plea relating to these two points."
Burnet himself admits, that his papers, in this controversy with Parker, were written with an acrimony of style which nothing but such a time and such a man could excuse. His papers were so bitter, that nobody durst offer them to the bishop of Oxford, till the king himself sent them to him, in hopes to stimulate him to an answer.
Several of these pieces seem to have been published after "The Hind and the Panther;" but it must have been generally known at the time, that Burnet had placed himself in the front of this controversy.
The passage particularly referred to in these lines occurs in a tract, entitled, "Reasons against repealing the Act of Parliament, concerning the Test," which is the first of six papers published by Dr Burnet when in Holland, and reprinted at London in 1689. His words are these:
"IX. I am told some think it very indecent to have a test for our parliaments, in which the king's religion is accused of idolatry; but if this reason is good in this particular, it will be full as good against several of the articles of our church, and many of the homilies. If the church and religion of this nation is so formed by law, that the king's religion is declared over and over again to be idolatrous, what help is there for it? It is no other than it was when his majesty was crowned, and swore to maintain our laws.
"I hope none will be wanting in all possible respect to his sacred person; and as we ought to be infinitely sorry to find him engaged in a religion which we must believe idolatrous, so we are far from the ill manners of reflecting on his person, or calling him an idolater: for as every man that reports a lie, is not for that to be called a liar; so that, though the ordering the intention, and the prejudice of a mis-persuasion, are such abatements, that we will not rashly take on us to call every man of the church of Rome an idolater; yet, on the other hand, we can never lay down our charge against the church of Rome as guilty of idolatry, unless at the same time we part with our religion."
We cannot suppose that Burnet was insensible to the poignancy of Dryden's satire; for, although he attempts to treat the poem with contempt, in the defence of his "Reflections on Varillas' History," his coarse and virulent character of the poet plainly shows his inward feelings. "I have been informed from England, that a gentleman, who is known both for poetry and other things, had spent three months in translating M. Varillas's History; but that, as soon as my Reflections appeared, he discontinued his labour, finding the credit of his author was gone. Now, if he thinks it is recovered by his Answer, he will perhaps go on with his translation; and this may be, for aught I know, as good an entertainment for him as the conversation that he had set on between the Hinds and Panthers, and all the rest of animals, for whom M. Varillas may serve well enough for an author: and this history and that poem are such extraordinary things of their kind, that it will be but suitable to see the author of the worst poem, become likewise the translator of the worst history, that the age has produced. If his grace and his wit improve both proportionably, he will hardly find that he has gained much by the change he has made, from having no religion to choose one of the worst. It is true, he had something to sink from, in matter of wit; but as for his morals, it is scarce possible for him to grow a worse man than he was. He has lately wreaked his malice on me for spoiling his three months' labour; but in it he has done me all the honour that any man can receive from him, which is to be railed at by him. If I had ill-nature enough to prompt me to wish a very bad wish for him, it should be, that he would go on and finish his translation. By that it will appear, whether the English nation, which is the most competent judge in this matter, has, upon the seeing our debate, pronounced in M. Varillas's favour, or in mine. It is true, Mr D. will suffer a little by it; but at least it will serve to keep him in from other extravagancies; and if he gains little honour by this work, yet he cannot lose so much by it, as he has done by his last employment."
Part of the controversy which now raged, turned on the precise meaning of the king's promise, to maintain the church of England as by law established. The church party insisted, that the Declaration of Indulgence was a breach of this promise, as it suspended their legal safeguards, the test and penal laws. The advocates for the toleration answered, that the promise was conditional, and depended on the church consenting to the abrogation of these laws. This was stated by Penn, in his "Good Advice;" to which the following indignant answer is made by a champion of the church, perhaps Burnet himself:
"And if there be no other way of giving the king an opportunity of keeping his word with the church of England, in preserving her, and maintaining our religion, but the repealing of the penal and test laws, as he intimates unto us, (Good Advice, p. 50.) we have not found the royal faith so sacred and inviolable in other instances, as to rob ourselves of a legal defence and protection, for to depend upon the precarious one of a base promise, which his ghostly fathers, whensoever they find it convenient, will tell him it was unlawful to make, and which he can have a dispensation for the breaking of, at what time he pleaseth. Nor do we remember, that when he pledged his faith unto us, in so many promises, that the parting with our laws was declared to be the condition upon which he made, and undertook to perform them. Neither can any have the confidence to allege it, without having recourse to the Papal doctrine of mental reservation. Which being one of the principles of that order, under whose conduct he is, makes us justly afraid to rely upon his word without further security. However, we do hereby see, with what little sincerity Mr Penn writes; and what small regard he hath to his majesty's honour, when he tells the church of England, that if she please, and like the terms of giving up the penal and test laws against Papists, that then the king will perform his word with her; (Good Advice, p. 17.) but that otherwise, it is she who breaks with him, and not he with her." (Ibid. p. 44.)
The declaration for liberty of conscience was a strange and incongruous, as well as most impolitic performance. It set out with declaring, that although the king heartily wished that all his subjects were members of the Catholic church, (which they returned, by heartily wishing that he were a Protestant,) yet he abhorred all idea of constraining conscience; and therefore, making no doubt of the concurrence of Parliament, declared, 1. That he would protect and maintain the bishops, &c. of the church of England, as by law established, in the free exercise of their religion, and quiet enjoyment of their possessions. 2. That all execution of penal laws against non-conformists be suspended. 3. That all his majesty's subjects should be at liberty to serve God after their own way, in public and private, so nothing was preached against the royal authority. 4. That the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, and the tests made in the 25th and 30th years of Charles II., be discontinued. 5. That all non-conformists be pardoned for former offences against the penal laws and test. 6. That abbey and church lands be assured to the possessors.
Such were the contents of this memorable Declaration, in which a bigotted purpose was cloaked under professions of the highest liberality; and prevarication and falsehood were rendered more disgusting, by being mingled with very unseasonable truth.
When the king had irreconcileably quarrelled with the church, he began to affect a great favour for the dissenters; and, as has been often hinted, endeavoured to represent the measure of universal toleration to be intended as much for the benefit of the Protestant dissenters as of the Catholics. He dwelt upon the rigour of the church courts, and directed an inquiry to be made into all the vexatious suits which had been instituted against the dissenters, and the compositions which had been exacted from them, under pretence of enforcing the laws. In short, Burnet assures us, that the royal bed-chamber and drawing-room were as full of stories to the prejudice of the clergy, as they used formerly to abound with declamations against the fanatics.
In the preceding lines, the poet had intimated the increase of trade and wealth; an effect of toleration, much dwelt upon in James's proclamation for liberty of conscience, and, indeed, the ostensible cause of its being issued. But Dryden, as every one else, further augured from the Declaration of Indulgence, under the circumstances of the time, the speedy downfall of the church of England, though he is willing to spare the king the odium of hastening what he represents as the natural consequence of her own ambition and intolerance. A writer of his party is less scrupulous in expressing the king's intentions: "So, on the whole matter, the loyal church of England must either change her old principles of loyalty, and take example by her Catholic neighbours, how to behave herself towards a prince who is not of her persuasion, or she must give his majesty leave not to nourish a snake in his own bosom, but rather to withdraw his royal protection, which was promised on account of her constant fidelity: For it is an approved axiom in philosophy, Cessante causa, tollitur effectus; and we have a common saying of our own, No longer pipe, no longer dance. And now let us leave the holy mother church at liberty to consult what new measures of loyalty she ought to take for her own dear interest, and, for aught I know, it may be worth her serious consideration."—New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty.
Dryden insinuates the improbability, that the high and low church party would long continue in union, since the authority assumed by Burnet, their present advocate, was inconsistent with that of Sancroft the primate, Compton bishop of London, and other leaders of the high church party among the clergy. He resumes the theme of Burnet's alleged disinclination for episcopacy. In fact, although his lot cast him into the church of England, the bishop of Sarum, in many parts of his writings, expresses an unfavourable opinion of her clergy, whom in one place he calls the most remiss of any in Europe. Even this harsh expression is nothing to the following account of the controversy between the clergy and dissenters, as it stands in the MS. of his history; for it is greatly softened in the printed copy:
"Many books came out likewise against the church of England. This alarmed the bishops and clergy much; so that they set up to preach against rebellion, and the late times, in such a strain, that it was visible they meant a parallel between these and the present time. And this produced at last that heat and rage into which the clergy has run so far, that it is like to end very fatally. They, on their part, should have shewed more temper, and more of the spirit of the gospel; whereas, for the greatest part, they are the worst natured, the fiercest, indiscreetest, and most persecuting sort of people that are in the nation. There is a sort of them do so aspire to preferment, that there is nothing so mean and indecent that they will not do to compass it; and when they have got into preferments, they take no care, either of themselves, or of the flocks committed to their charge, but do generally neglect their parishes. If they are rich enough, they hire some pitiful curate, at as low a price as they can, and turn all over on him; or, if their income will not bear out that, they perform the public offices in the slightest manner they can, but take no care of their people in the way of private instruction or admonition; and so do nothing to justify the character of pastors or watchmen, that feed the souls of their people, or watch over them. And they allow themselves in many indecent liberties, of going to taverns and ale-houses, and of railing scurrilously against all that differ from them: and they cherish the profaneness of their people, if they but come to church, and rail with them against the dissenters; and are implacably set on the ruin of all that separate from them, if the course of their lives were otherwise ever so good and unblameable. In a word, many of them are a reproach to Christianity and to their profession; and are now, perhaps, one of the most corrupt bodies of men in the nation."—Somers' Tracts, p. 116.
(BORN 10TH JUNE, 1688.)
The remarkable incident, which gave rise to the following poem, was hailed by the Catholics with the most unbounded joy. That party, whose transient prosperity depended upon the declining life of James II., could hardly enjoy their present power, embittered as it was by the reflection, that it must end with the reign of the king and the succession of the Princess of Orange. Many circumstances seemed to render the hopes of the king having a male heir of his body extremely precarious. His system was said to have been injured by early dissipation, and he was now advanced in life. The queen, also, had been in a bad state of health; had lost all her children soon after they were born; and had now, for several years, ceased to have any. Amidst these discouraging considerations, the queen's pregnancy was announced in 1687; and even before his birth, addressers and panegyrists in verse hailed the future prince, as a pledge for the maintenance of liberty of conscience, and the security of the royal line.[285]
But the Catholics were so transported with this unexpected happiness, that they could not refrain from spreading an hundred follies, tending to connect the queen's pregnancy with the efficacy of the king's faith. Some said, that the queen's conception took place at the very time when her mother made a vow to the Lady of Loretto, that her daughter might by her means have a son: Others attributed it to the queen's personal influence with Saint Xavier: Others to the intercessions of the Jesuits, among whom the king had enrolled himself: All ascribed so happy and unhoped an event to something more than mere natural causes, and ventured to presage, that the joyful fruit of the queen's conception would prove a son, since otherwise, it was said, God would have done his work by halves.[286] It is dangerous for a religious sect to cry, a miracle! for it is always echoed by their adversaries, shouting out, an imposture! The same circumstances which induced the Catholics to believe that this happy event was owing to a peculiar divine interposition, led the nation to ascribe so unexpected and opportune an occurrence to artifice and imposition; and they were prepared to pronounce a birth spurious, which their adversaries had incautiously pushed to the verge of miraculous.
On the 10th of June, 1688, the prince was born, under circumstances which ought to have removed all suspicion of imposture. But these suspicions were too deeply rooted in party prejudices and fears; and it became a distinguishing mark of a true Protestant, to hold for spurious the birth of a prince, which took place in the presence of more people than is either consistent with custom or decency.
In the mean while, public rejoicings, of the most splendid kind, were solemnized at home and abroad;[287] and the poets flocked with their addresses of congratulation[288] on the birth of a Prince of Wales, who was doomed shortly to be distinguished through the English dominions by the ignominious appellation of Pretender, and abroad, by the dubious title of Chevalier de St George. It was peculiarly the part of our author, as poet-laureat, and a good Catholic, to solemnize an event of so much importance to the king, and those of his religion, and to bear down, if possible, the popular prejudice by the exertion of his poetical powers. "Britannia Rediviva" was written, nine days after the event celebrated, and published accordingly. It is licensed on the 19th of June.
In this poem, our author assumes the tone and feeling which we have described as general among the Catholics, upon this happy and unexpected event. It is less an address of congratulation than a solemn devotional hymn; and, even considered as such, abounds with expressions of awful gratitude, rather for a miraculous interposition of heaven and the blessed saints, than for a blessing conferred through the ordinary course of nature. Dryden, who knew how to assume every style that fitted the occasion, writes here in the character of a devout and grateful Catholic, with much of the unction which marks the hymns of the Roman church. In English poetry, we have hardly another example of the peculiar tone which the invocation of saints, and an enthusiastic faith in the mystic doctrines of the Catholic faith, can give to poetry. To me, I confess, that communion seems to offer the same facilities to the poet, which it has been long famous for affording to the painter; and the "Britannia Rediviva," while it celebrates the mystic influence of the sacred festivals of the Paraclete and the Trinity, and introduces the warlike forms of St Michael and St George, has often reminded me of one of the ancient altar pieces, which it is impossible to regard without reverence, though presenting miracles which never happened, or saints who never existed. These subordinate divinities are something upon which the imagination, dazzled and overwhelmed by the contemplation of a single Omnipotent Being, can fairly rest and expand itself. They approach nearer to humanity and to comprehension; yet are sufficiently removed from both, to have the full effect of sublime obscurity. Dryden has undoubtedly reaped considerable advantage from religion in the present poem. It must, however, be owned, that the effect of these passages is much injured by the frequent allusion to the deities of classical mythology; and that Dryden has ranked the gods and goddesses of ancient Rome with the saints of her modern church, in the same indiscriminate order in which they are classed in the Pantheon. We have the Giants' War immediately preceding the miracle wrought on the Shunamite's son; and the serpents of the infant Hercules are classed in the very sentence with the dragons of the Apocalypse. On one occasion he has stooped yet lower, and condescended to pun upon the child's being born on Trinity Sunday, as promising at least a trine of infant princes.
Still, however, the strain of the poem is, upon the whole, grave and exalted. Besides the general tone of "Britannia Rediviva," there are many passages in it deserving the reader's attention. The address to the queen, beginning, "But you, propitious queen," has all the smoothness with which Dryden could vary the masculine character of his general poetry, when he addressed the female sex, and forms a marked contrast to the more majestic tone of the rest of the piece. It may indeed be said of Dryden, as he himself says of Virgil, that though he is smooth where smoothness is required, yet he is so far from affecting that general character, that he seems rather to disdain it.
The original edition of the "Britannia Rediviva" is in quarto, printed, as usual, for Tonson, with a motto from the first book of the Georgics, which is now restored. The concluding lines refer to the death of so many Catholics by the perjured evidences of Oates and Bedlow:
The word perjuria, as well as Puerum, in the preceding passage, are marked by a difference of type; a mode of soliciting the attention of the reader to a pointed remark or inuendo, which was first used in Charles II.'s time, and seems to have been introduced by L'Estrange, who carried it to a most extravagant degree, chequering his Observators with all manner of characters, from the Roman to the Anglo-Saxon.