ment than he himself desired,) shall be laid here without circumlocutions at his own door. That they who from the first beginning, or but now of late, by what unhappiness I know not, are so much affatuated, not with his person only, but with his palpable faults, and dote upon his deformities, may have none to blame but their own folly, if they live and die in such a stricken blindness, as next to that Clarendon observes, that the "proclamation, at the breaking up of the last parliament, and which was commonly understood to inhibit all men to speak of another parliament,' produced two very ill effects of different natures," which he goes on to describe. (vol. i. p. 118, sqq.) Upon this passage Warburton remarks: "That this interpretation of the proclamation concerning parliaments, that the king intended that the people should think no more of them than he did," (he means "was correct,") "appears plainly from the following fact. In the year 1633, the king agreed upon a draught (which was by his direction drawn up by his ministers) of a circular letter for a voluntary contribution to the support of the Queen of Bohemia and her children; which, to put the people in better humour, concluded with these words: ' after our having so long forborne to demand any of them (the people) for foreign affairs; assuring them that as the largeness of their free gift will be a clear evidence to us of the measure of their affections towards us,' (no doubt! that is the way to measure affection,) which we esteem our greatest happiness, so their forwardness to assist us in this kind, shall not make us more backward to require their aid in another way, no less agreeable to us than to them, when the season shall be proper for it.' This paragraph the king struck out of the draught, and with his own hand hath added these words; I have scored out these eight lines, as not judging them fit to pass. See the Clarendon collection of State Papers. (vol. i. 8vo. published 1767, p. 113.)" He had no objection to send out begging circulars for money, but for their affections, or for their parliaments, where they might best show their affections, he did not judge the least hint at such a desire" fit to pass." 6 of Sodom hath not happened to any sort of men more gross, or more misleading. Yet neither let his enemies expect to find recorded here all that hath been whispered in the court, or alleged openly, of the king's bad actions; it being the proper scope of this work in hand, not to rip up and relate the misdoings of his whole life, but to answer only and refute the missayings of his book. 6. First, then, that some men (whether this were by him intended, or by his friends) have by policy accomplished after death that revenge upon their enemies, which in life they were not able, hath been oft related. And among other examples we find, that the last will of Cæsar being read to the people, and what bounteous legacies he had bequeathed them, wrought more in that vulgar audience to the avenging of his death, than all the art he could ever use to win their favour in his lifetime. (9) And how much their intent, who (9) Shakspeare, with his usual art of depicting every phasis of human nature, has seized on this circumstance to work up, in his "Julius Cæsar," one of the most splendid exhibitions anywhere to be found of dramatic eloquence. He represents Antony with the only virtue a person of an inborn slavish temper could have-attachment to his master; and brings him forward, with that secret contempt for the crowd which one slave always feels for another; yet, to gain his purpose, smothering this disdain, and enumerating with apparent undesign the baits the departed tyrant had intended to cozen them with. At these, to rouse their curiosity, he glances now and then, but presently flies off to other circumstances calculated to enhance their admiration both of Cæsar and himself. Having powerfully wrought upon their passions, they are about to rush away to execute their stupid rage upon the patriots; but, the more completely published these over-late apologies and meditations of the dead king, drives to the same end of stirring up the people to bring him that honour, that affection, and by consequence that revenge to his dead corpse, which he himself living could never gain to his person, it appears both by the conceited portraiture before his book, drawn out to the full measure of a masking scene, and set there to catch fools and silly gazers; and by those Latin words after the end, Vota dabunt quæ bella negarunt; to warp their ignorant minds, he returns to the will, and says: "You have forgot the will I told you of. All. Most true--the will-let's stay and hear the will. To every Roman citizen he gives, To ev'ry several man, seventy-five drachmas. 2 Pleb. Most noble Cæsar! we'll revenge his death. 3 Pleb. O royal Cæsar! Ant. Hear me with patience. All. Peace, ho! Ant. Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, On that side Tiber he hath left them you, : And to your heirs for ever; common pleasures And with the brands fire all the traitors' houses. 2 Pleb. Go fetch fire. 3 Pleb. Pluck down benches. 4 Pleb. Pluck down forms, windows, any thing. [Exeunt Plebeians with the body. Ant. Now let it work. Mischief thou art afoot; Take thou what course thou wilt !" intimating, that what he could not compass by war, he should achieve by his meditations: for in words which admit of various sense, the liberty is ours, to choose that interpretation, which may best mind us of what our restless enemies endeavour, and what we are timely to prevent. 7. And here may be well observed the loose and negligent curiosity of those, who took upon them to adorn the setting out of this book; for though the picture set in front would martyr him and saint him to befool the people, yet the Latin motto in the end, which they understand not, leaves him, as it were, a politic contriver to bring about that interest, by fair and plausible words, which the force of arms denied him. But quaint emblems and devices, begged from the old pageantry of some twelfth night's entertainment (10) at Whitehall, will do but ill to make a saint or martyr: and if the people resolve to take him sainted at the canonizing, I shall suspect their calendar more than the Gregorian. In one thing I must commend openness, who gave the title to this book, Εικών Barn, that is to say, The King's Image; and his (10) Christmas was, among our ancestors, the grand season for theatrical representations; and, as we learn from that curious MS. containing the Establishment of the Household of Henry Percy, fifth Earl of Northumberland, A. D. 1512, "the exhibiting of the old mysteries or Scripture plays entered into the stated regulations of domestic economy in the houses of our ancient nobility, and that it was as much the business of the chaplain, in those days, to compose plays for the family, as it is now for him to make sermons.' 99 (Additions to the Essay on the Origin of the English Stage, p. 227.) From this valuable old MS. we VOL. II. C by the shrine he dresses out for him, certainly would have the people come and worship him. For which reason this answer also is entitled, Eikonoklastes, the famous surname of many Greek emperors, who in their zeal to the command of God, after long tradition of idolatry in the church, took courage and broke all superstitious images to pieces. 8. But the people, exorbitant and excessive in all their motions, are prone ofttimes not to a religious only, but to a civil kind of idolatry, in idolizing their kings: though never more mistaken in the object of their worship; heretofore being wont to repute for saints those faithful and courageous barons, who lost their lives in the field, making glorious war against tyrants for the common liberty; as Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, against Henry III.; Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, against Edward II. But now, with a besotted and degenerate baseness of spirit, except some few who yet retain in them the old English fortitude and love of freedom, and have testified it by their matchless deeds, the rest, im learn that they had their plays adapted to the several holidays on which they were performed, in the chapel; on Christmasday the play of the Nativity; on Easter-day, that of the Resurrection. But the "twelve days" of Christmas were the principal acting season. "My lord useth and accustometh yearly to give him which is ordained to be the Master of the Revels yearly in my lord's house, in Christmas, for the overseeing and ordering of his lordship's plays, interludes, and dressing, that is played before his lordship in his house, in the twelve days of Christmas, and they to have a reward for that cause yearly, twenty shillings." |