Printed for P. Brooksby, in West-Smithfield. [In Black-letter. Printer's name cut off from first copy, which is but a thin single-column slip, full of misprints: n.w.c. Second copy has three woodcuts, now given one on p. 366, and the other two here. The early copy of the music is given in Playford's Dancing Master, seventh edition, p. 203, 1686, under the title of Vienna. Original date, 1683.] The Christian Conquest, at Wienna, 1683. "My Janizary Slaves, your pow'r alone I need not question to secure my Throne : Which Christian Fields with Christian blood has dy'd. Of crazy Europe's ill-supported States, Bow to that Hand which has subdu'd the East. A Pow'r not humane does their States invade. Your courage, no less than provoke their shame." [=Mines. -The Grand Seignior's Speech to the Ottoman Forces at Belgrade, who are now at war with the Christians, 1683.1 OUR English people in 1683 had not grown enthusiastically cos mopolitan. They held fewer sympathies with foreigners than the earlier generation surrounding Milton, who expressed a brotherhood with the Vaudois. The chief exception to this rule of insular narrowness was in the case of the Germanic races warring with the Turks around Vienna, and two years later the French Huguenots were welcomed heartily, after Lewis XIV. had revoked the Edict of Nantes, in October, 1685, when shelter and employment were afforded to the fugitives; on the whole to the advantage of the country which yielded them her hospitality.2 It is a good principle in private life to be guided by the maxim of Squire Broadlands, "The Old Country Squire," which was this: A Smile for a Friend, A Frown for a Foe, And a full front to every one. This is a single-sheet, printed on both sides, London, for John Smith, 1683; preserved in the British Museum "Poetical Broadsides," C. 20. f. fol. 126. 2 William Durant Cooper in the Camden Society, No. LXXXII., 1862, furnished, from the State Paper Office, Lists of Foreign Protestants and Aliens resident in England, 1618-1688. The subject was pursued in the Herald and Genealogist, vol. i. pp. 159 to 174. Valuable additional Lists of Huguenots who settled in Sussex are preserved by the Sussex Archæological Society, Vol. 13. VOL. V. 2 B 370 Non-intervention languid, when no Profit invites. Nationally, we have always been moved more strongly by our enmities and antagonisms, by indignation or jealousy, than by spontaneous warmth of friendship, or willingness to protect the persecuted. If we help any victim, it is from hatred to the wrongdoer. But it is only in recent times that we gush sympathetically in all directions, with sentimental yearnings, whenever our newspapers make capital out of their foreign correspondents' interminable reports from everywhere; for the editorial leaders re-combine the scattered items of information, to arouse a fiery anger with large sale, by exposure of all conceivable and inconceivable abuses, oppressions or misfortunes, that cry aloud to Sirius and the nebulæ in Orion for redress in ready money. Since we possess these three Roxburghe Ballads on the Warfare around Vienna, let England hail at once, with sufficient gratitude, the token afforded of our solitary enthusiasm for somebody outside of ourselves at the time when disaffection was weltering through the land, and the Rye-House Plot recently discovered, but not yet fully punished. Since that date were seen the strangest alternations in the fickle-minded populace of England; the hot and cold fits of meddlesome interference or selfish isolation of non-intervention; but generally wrong in either case, and repented. The generosity was always denounced by noisy demagogues, who on the plea of political economy objected to pay the cost of bygone wars, whilst themselves too cowardly to risk their own person in battle. The abstention was undeserving of laudation, because not due to moral or religious objections, though these were sometimes named in extenuation as an after-thought. The paltriest timidity and mercantile caution held back our rulers from daring to step in for defence of former friends and allies, to keep them from being ruthlessly destroyed by brute force, since it was "no affair of ours." Some of us will never forget the national degradation, and shame at this selfish withdrawal from yielding substantial aid, when honour, friendship, and the due reverence to a brave people were disregarded. It is only a mockery when we drug our conscience by boastfully proffering non-belligerent ambulance-service to both combatants, while shrinking from the decision to cast our own sword in the balance. Burdened with the charges of old-time payments to hireling forces on the Continent, while we fought their battles with a prodigal outlay, since William of Orange first imposed the yoke on our people, we yet should rise superior to all fear for future days, sooner than yield to pusillanimous or miserly advisers of "Peace at any Price." Englishmen have read, with glowing cheeks and throbbing pulse, the noble sonnet by Milton, beginning "Avenge, O Lord! thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold." Spirit-stirring though it be, still dearer to some of us already, and destined to be no less memorable a land-mark, in later years, is the solemn protest uttered "How it strikes a Contemporary" Poet. 371 by one who stood alone in our time, excellent in two kindred arts, and whose hallowed dust lies pillowed where the sea-waves break on the shores of Thanet, at Birchington, the well-loved poet and painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti : On Refusal of Aid between Nations. Ot that the earth is changing, O my God! N° Nor that the seasons totter in their walk,- Seethes ever as a wine-press ever trod,— Not therefore are we certain that the rod Weighs in thine hand to smite the world; though now So many kings:-not therefore, O my God!- Even thus; because, for any wrongful blow No man not stricken asks, I would be told That the earth falls asunder, being old. We must return to 1683, viz. "The Christian Conquest," and the Siege of Vienna. The woodcut, copied on page 372, is a wormeaten and striking illustration of some much earlier siege ("All's one for that!" Falstaff says), apparently of German workmanship, Wherever it may have wandered from, it suited the ballad-publisher more characteristically than borrowed pictures often did. But the beleaguering force ought to have been Turks, not medieval warriors in armour, cuisses, grevières, helmets, and breast-plates as here shown. Genuine representations of the siege operations, engraved on copper-plates by Roman van Hooge, to accompany G. V. Geelen's Relation succinct. . . le Siège de Vienne, and published at Brussels in 1684, give so forcible a representation of the horrors inseparable from such a contest, that we add elsewhere our own slight sketches of these elaborate works, to enrich the present bicentenary record of Vienna's great Deliverance. "For many thousand men," said he, Roxburghe Collection (= B. H. Bright's), IV. 34.] The Christian Conquest. Being an Account of the great overthrow of the Turks before the Emperial City of Vienna in Germany, who, by God's Blessing and the happy Conduct of the King of Poland, the Duke of Lorain, &c., were totally routed; having lost near One hundred thousand men in the Field, sixty thousand Tents, and two Millions of Money in the Grand Visier's Tent, &c. TO THE TUNE OF, When the King enjoys his own again. (See p. 139.) Such a Deliverance he hath shown The like before scarce e're was known; For the Infidels and Turks Had raised mighty works Before Vienna's stately walls: ' But God did them defend, And will prove a certain friend To such as for help on him calls. With a hundred and fifty thousand strong The Infidels did vaunt along, And for to take this City fair This Army great they did prepare: But it proved all in vain, For they beat them back again, Such resistance they did meet, Did frighten them to see't, 10 20 |