No Colonel Sydney's Overthrow. "Thrice happy they who with clean hands and heart Who in White Robes follow their Chief the Lamb, -Advice to the Carver. 1680. [Cf. p. 424. special tribute, worthy of the occasion, was laid by any Poet as an offering on the tomb of Algernon Sydney; for whom we once again claim as appropriate the words spoken by Shakespeare's Mark Antony, over the dead body of the less-deserving Brutus: This was the noblest Roman of them all! All the Conspirators, save only he, And common good to all, made one of them. Petty malignity attempted to dishonour the corpse and calumniate the name of the undaunted Republican, best of that family which gave so many heroes to the service of their country; but in our hearts we still cherish remembrance of him, and hold him enshrined. Sectarian partizans could rise no higher in enthusiasm than the following Poem against Popery, a declamatory and lame attempt at An Epitaph. Algernon Sydney fills this Tomb; An Atheist, by declaiming Rome; A Rebel bold, by striving still Crimes damn'd by Church and Government. Of Heaven it must needs despair, Where goes it then? Where 't ought to go: [scilicet, deemed. 424 "And drank delight of Battle with my peers." We needed the intervening distance of time and change before we could see the heroic proportions of Algernon Sydney. His figure rises like an Alpine height, far above the other men of his time. He belonged indeed to an older race, such as had waged war, like Titans, remorselessly and wrongly, on the aggressive side; but still, while in rebellion, with some largeness of purpose, opposing a rightful cause. They had crossed swords with their peers; they had met triumph or defeat, as either the fortune of war or the irony of fate determined; but nearly all of them, whether friend or foe, had perished before Algernon Sydney laid down his grey head on the block. Defamed and slain as a traitor, he had nevertheless lived stainlessly through memorable years that can never leave us uninfluenced by their dread warning. Little matter was it to him that baser passions of the hour swayed the servile hirelings who addressed the rabble, to which themselves belonged; who wrote such songs of exultation at his death as these which we now reproduce from their dark corners, songs of rejoicing at his downfall. The sole value of such libellous declamation is in showing the vileness of the mob, as result of indulgence in Revolutionary rancour. Of all who have eyes to see the grand simplicity of Algernon Sydney's nature, no one at this later date can possibly believe him to have been justly slain; for he was incapable of joining in an Assassination Plot, although willing to imperil life in a warlike struggle for Liberty. We feel this now, two centuries later, but others should have seen it, while he stood pleading at the bar. The crowning guilt of this execrable murder remains with the traitor and renegade, Lord Howard of Escrick, by whose evidence alone a condemnation could be secured. But the Court and Judges share the weight of blame. No less truly than in the case of William Viscount Stafford (see Advice to the Carver), must it be said of Algernon Sydney's trial, with its perversion of Justice :Lawyers to plead, with Witnesses to swear, People to gaze, Ladies to see and hear!— But this Assembly shall hereafter know God and his Angels were spectators too. With awful pomp here Justice sits enthron'd, The Sword she bare, the Ballance was post-pon'd. Ah, Carver, had thy steel the force to raze From Fate's eternal Book these Leaves of Brass! This dismal scene of Horrour we'd expunge, Which did in guilt of blood a nation plunge: For who false Oaths so easily believe, Resemble those who stolen Goods receive; And through such light belief, if blood be spilt, No Forms of Justice can wipe off the guilt. What cause in this corrupted age is tried That ever wants an Oath on either side? Judges themselves their way can hardly see, Through the thick mists of growing Perjury. ["Their crime r." "His Soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart." 425 The Roxburghe-Ballad here ensuing is chiefly interesting for its two But not a word!-there 's not one Ballad made. For Rhymers now begin to Renegade : [See p. 436. The truth is that, among his own party, he was never valued as he deserved to be. His uprightness rebuked their time-serving selfishness, their corrupt worldliness, their sanctimonious hypocrisy. He would neither cringe nor bluster; he would neither cant like Slingsby Bethel, Patience Ward, and Cornish, nor utter profane jests with Howard of Escrick. His dreams and theories were often above their understanding, and although a man of robust intellect, of unfailing energy, he was voted "impracticable" in their affairs. He was no declaimer against sensuality; while others, who talked more loudly, had indulged in the grossest vices. Of old he had retained his personal opinions, and lived outside of the intrigues or violence of Oliver Cromwell's faction and coterie; even so, in later time, when he survived as a Republican of the earlier race, he moved among the disaffected as one set apart, not entrusted with any large share in their darker designs. What he affirmed in his public defence is true of his whole existence : that thinks that I would kill the King that knows me. I am not a man to have such a design: perhaps I may say I have saved his life once." England should hold him in her heart, secure against slander, uplifted from neglect. He needed no funeral oration; needed no public prayers or obsequies. He faced Eternity without a tremor, and died as he had lived, incapable of meanness or flattery: even to the mob around him, or to the busy "divines" awaiting a farewell speech. The headsman asked him, "Are you ready, Sir? Will you rise again?" Like notes of doom came the reply of Sydney: "Not till the general resurrection. Strike on!" "There is no man [Roxburghe Collection, IV. 12.] Collonel Sidney's Overthrow; or, An account of his Execution upon Tower-Hill, on Friday the 7th of December, 1683, who was Condemned for High-Treason against his Sacred Majesty for endeavouring the Subversion of the Government, &c. TO THE TUNE OF, Now, now the Fight's done. [See pp. 354, 359.] Ood People, adieu! and fair England farewel, And you that survive me, pray never Rebell; Be Loyal and true, that your lives you may save, 6 Colonel Sydney's Overthrow. Take warning by me, that am now on the brink To your Prince then be Loyal, your lives seek to save, Then you that desire to live splendid and brave, Could I but redeem what is past and is gone, Yea, and strive to reverse what will now prove my doom, Then you that desire your lives for to save, 427 12 18 Bring not your gray hairs with grief to the Grave. 24 But in vain I lament, and my Sentence is past, And now I am ready to breath[e] out my last : Be kind, blessed Saviour, let me happy be, That I may live with thee to Eternity: O that I could now be so happy to save Poor Sidney's gray hairs with shame from the Grave. 30 'T was the Pollitick Pates, that once pleaded for States, That brought me to this, and my Glory abates; But now I do find it is all but in vain My case to lament, or of sorrow complain: All you that desire your lives for to save, Be true, and with Glory you 'l go to the Grave. Ther[e]'s some that before me already have gone, [Stafford, etc. or Russell. But now the same fate I must certainly have, God prosper and keep our most Soveraign King, But you that endeavour your lives for to save, 36 42 48 |