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The revival of Loyalty in public spirit.

The clouds dispers'd, and drove away Despair,
When in the Throne appear'd the much-wrong'd Heir:
Whom Heaven preserve! and may he ever be
Secure from all pretending Loyalty.

Princes are God's Anoynted, and the Crown,
None can detain but Heaven's great Prince alone.
When Nature's Law hath been impeach'd, such things
Are wrought by Pow'r Divine, the King of Kings;
By that great Pow'r they rule, and by no less,
And he who only rais'd them can depress.

All Officers, whether of Sword or Gown,

Are sworn t' uphold the Rights of England's Crown;
The Commons, too, before they voice can claim,
Are duly sworn i' th' House to right the same.

How can we judge of this but as a Plot
When such a Solemn Oath can be forgot?
"It's a high crime to let a Papist reign!
But Perjury we'll piously maintain
For a great vertue, when self-interest
In whispers tells us all goes for the Best!
That monster Faction evermore did range
In these three Kingdoms to promote a Change;
Which being upheld by Frenzy, Pride and Scorn
Of Monarchy, 'tis that's the wounding thorn
To publick Peace, and makes the greatest scars,
That fills men's mouths with armies, bloud and wars;
'Tis that deposes Princes, blackens Fame,

Whitens the Negro, makes the sound man lame.

"A Prince o' th' Bloud is a regardless thing!
And, if we durst, we'd tell you, so's a KING!"
Vertue's bright lustre can't her self protect
From base ingratitude and disrespect:

It once hath been admir'd in that bright Prince,
And still may 't be his glorious Defence,
Against the tongue of every senseless Brute
That dare Succession to the Crown dispute.

[In White-letter: as re-issued in 1685.]

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40

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60

Attempts have been made in more modern days to annul or degrade the Oath of Allegiance, which is here so emphatically mentioned. These attempts have hitherto failed, and long may they do so.

We give three poems, probably by distinct authors, which must have powerfully influenced public opinion in March, 1681. The broadside version of the earliest of the three poems is entitled A Dialogue between the Ghosts of the Two Last Parliaments, at their late interview: which title we reserve for the two later portions.

[Bagford Collection, III. 40.]

The Ghost of the Old House of Commons to the New Dne, appointed to meet at Oxford, 168%.

[=The Westminster's Ghost's Advice.]

FROM

ROM deepest Dungeons of Eternal Night,
The seat of horror, sorrow, pains and spight,

I have been sent to tell your tender Youth

A seasonable and important Truth.

I feel (but Oh! too late) that no disease
Is like a surfeit of luxurious Ease;

And, of all other, the most tempting things

5

Are too much Wealth and too indulgent Kings.
None ever was superlatively ill

But by Degrees, with industry and skill:

10

And some, whose meaning hath at first been fair,

Grow Knaves by use and Rebels by despair.
My time is past, and your's will soon begin :

Keep the first Blossoms from the blast of Sin;
And by the fate of my tumultuous ways
Preserve your self, and bring serener days.
The busie subtil Serpents of the Law

Did first my mind from true Obedience draw,
While I did Limits to the King prescribe,
And took for Oracles that Canting Tribe;

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20

I chang'd true Freedom for the Name of Free,
And grew seditious for variety:

All that oppos'd me were to be accus'd,

And by the Laws illegally abus'd.1

The Robe was summon'd, M[aynar]d in the head,2 25
In Legal Murder none so deeply read.

1 In some copies this is printed " And by the Law I Legally abus'd." I=Aye. 2 Sir John Maynard, born 1602, and survived until 1690. A serviceable man to any ruthless faction who desired their victims to be slaughtered: he had successfully managed the condemnation of Wentworth Earl of Strafford in 1649, of Archbishop Laud in 1644, and of William Viscount Stafford in 1680. The innocence of each was of no account, so long as a show of legality could be made and their heads removed. Truly is it said of Maynard, "in legal murder none was so deeply read," and none so willing to ensure its perpetration.

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Westminster-Parliament Ghost's Advice.

I brought him to the Bar, where once he stood
Stain'd with the (yet-unexpiated) Blood

Of the brave Strafford, when three kingdoms rung
With his accumulative Hackney-tongue;

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Pris'ners and Witnesses were waiting by,

These had been taught to swear, and those to dye,
And to expect their arbitrary fates,—
Some for ill faces, some for good Estates.
To fright the People and alarm the Town,

Burnet] and O[ates] employ'd the Reverend Gown.
But while the Triple-Mitre bore the blame,

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The King's Three Crowns were their rebellious aim.
I seem'd (and did but seem) to fear the Guards,

[Sir Patience W.,

Slingsby B.

And took for mine the B[ethels] and the W[ards]: 40
Anti-Monarchick Hereticks of State,
Immoral Atheists, rich and reprobate.
But, above all, I got a little Guide,
Who every Ford of villainy had try'd;
None knew so well the old pernicious way
To ruin Subjects and make Kings obey:
And my small Jehu at a furious rate
Was driving 'Eighty back to 'Forty-Eight.
This the King knew, and was resolv'd to bear,
But I mistook his Patience for his Fear.

All that this happy Island could afford
Was sacrific'd to my Voluptuous Board.
In his whole Paradise one only Tree

[=Shaftesbury.

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50

He had excepted by a strict Decree;

A Sacred Tree, which Royal Fruit did bear,

55

I could attempt, and he endure no more.
My un-prepar'd and un-repenting breath
Was snatch'd away by the swift hand of Death,
And (I with all my Sins about me) hurl'd
To th' utter Darkness of the lower World:
A dreadful place, which you too soon will see,
you believe Seducers more than me.

If

[By Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon.]

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65

Roscommon's utterance was prophetic, and more speedily fulfilled than even the prophet himself could have expected. But the time was urgent, every unnecessary day's delay increased the danger, and two considerations hurried on the swift Dissolution. In the first place, the Commons by their uncompromising arrogance showed unmistakeably that no service to the King or country could possibly be done by them their irreconcileable hostility was displayed from their very entrance, with armed supporters, proud looks, and threatening words or gestures, as of men desirous to begin a revolt. Secondly, though they knew not this, the King had obtained certain intelligence of the fresh secret subsidy given to him by Louis XIV., and therefore not even the precarious chance of supplies being granted to him by the Commons was any longer of an importance sufficient to out-balance the danger of their longer sitting to work mischief with Exclusion, or perversion of evidence against the Court in the case of Fitz-Harris.

These three preceding poems form useful examples of the steadied Loyal spirit that was again pervading political society of the better class, at the date when the Oxford Parliament was summoned. Faction had been busy and clamorous, looking for certain victory. But it counted its chickens before they were hatched, and most of them were addled.

How well people understood that the Exclusion of James from succession to the throne was the "one thing forbidden them, one thing and no more," is shown in the following poem, as Answer to Wentworth Dillon's Ghost of the Westminster Parliament:

[Bagford Collection, III. 40; Luttrell Coll., II. 162.]

A Dialogue

Between the Ghosts of the Two Last Parliaments, at their late Interview,'

-Fuimus Troes. Nitimur in vetitum.2

Oxford Ghost.

[After the speedy Dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, March, 168f.]

H

Ail, great Prophetick Spirit! who could see

Through the dark glass of ripening time, what we Too true have found, and now too late complain,

That thou, great Spirit, shou'dst foretell in vain ;
Full well and faithfully did'st thou advise,

Had we been modestly and timely wise.

"Free may you range," said'st thou, "through every Field, And what else more luxurious Gardens yield

Is thine; what e're may please, what e're delight
The weakest stomach, nicest appetite:

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Of all the plenty of so vast a Store

One thing forbidden is, one [thing] and no more.

By late and sad Experience of what's past,

Probatum est, ipse Dixit: Do not taste!

Swift Ruine's there, and sure Destruction."

How great a Truth, had it in time been known!

16

This was the broadside-title employed when the three Ghostly addresses were reprinted. D.M. (David Mallet), London, issued a broadside, entitled "Great News from Westminster; or, A Congratulation upon the happy Assembling of the Lords and Commons in PARLIAMENT, according to his Majesties Prorogation of the 16th of this instant January," 1638. It begins thus:

All haile, great Isle ! still may thy Fame increase,
Glorious in Arms, no less renown'd in Peace;
Let sacred Hallows now thy Joys proclaim,

Since thy great Councils, who have rais'd thy name
Above the nations that enclose thee round.
With sacred Laws, etc.

2 Fuimus Troes; fuit Ilium, et ingens

Gloria Teucrorum.-Æneis, ii. 325.

(Luttrell Collection, II. 149.)

Nitimur in vetitum semper cupimusque negata.—Ovid. Amor. iii. 4.