The rare Ballad of "Lamentable Lory." Thus Lory from an humble and penitent swain He threatens and thunders, but dares do no harm. To those that ask boons, He swears by God zoons, 573 And not give good words, when nought else thou couldst pay? But tho' all mankind was by him thus abus'd, He himself by his Lordship was much better us'd. It was strictly observed, he never did rant At Guy, Duncomb, Brydges, Sir Bradshaw, nor Trant.' When you Oh Lory! tho' like a madman thou dost rave, The cheat was too fulsom not to be decry'd, 100 109 Like a wild beast in toyles, He tumbles and moyles, So unquiet in 's harness, that his Majesty found Then turn him to grass, Like a young skittish ass, The King, who is gracious to great and to small, 118 126 [=Charles. For if you believe, 'Tis from cares to relieve, 66 [Date, probably the end of August, 1684, immediately after "Lory Hyde" had been kicked up stairs" from being first Commissioner of the Treasury to become Lord President of Council. But he was again made Treasurer, by James, in Feb. 168; Halifax got the Presidentship, which he had formerly ridiculed.] 574 Notes to the Ballad of "Lamentable Lory." 1 Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon, whose elder son Henry succeeded him in the title; Laurence or "Lory" Hyde being the second son. At his father's impeachment and fall in 1667, Laurence defended him "with so much skill and with such modesty and resolution as to give a very advantageous opinion of his talent for public business. The reverse in his father's fortunes seems to have had no ill effect upon those of Laurence Hyde; he was now in high favour at Court, and in habits of friendship with most of the distinguished courtiers." (Samuel Weller Singer's Preface to the Clarendon Correspondence, I. p. xiv.) 2 This contumelious nickname (applied to Lory, Sunderland, and Sidney Godolphin) has been noticed in Vol. IV. pp. 83, 170, 204. 3 The sleeveless errant" probably alludes to Hyde, after quitting Sobieski, having gone on his way to Vienna, to condole with the Emperor Leopold, who had recently lost his wife. But the tears were dried and the Emperor had already found consolation in a fresh wife: so Lory' left the task unattempted and retired privately to Holland, where his next mission appointed him one of the mediators on the Nimeguen treaty of peace, opened in 1675. See Note 5. . 4 The first entrance of Laurence on public life had been in 1661, when he was chosen as one of the members to represent Oxford University. "In October of that year he accompanied Lord Crofts and Sir Charles Berkeley on their mission to congratulate the King of France on the birth of the Dauphin. On his return he was appointed Master of the Robes to Charles II." In 1676 Laurence Hyde "was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary to John Sobieski, King of Poland." Dr. Robert South accompanied him. The Diary then kept by Hyde is nearly all preserved, and was printed in 1828, and published by Henry Colburn. 5 Treaty of Nimeguen, signed in 1678, between France and United Province. Sir Leoline Jenkins, so often mentioned in these pages in connection with his office as Secretary of State. Lord Fountainhall writes of him as "a most loyal man." He probably died soon after Monmouth, in July, 1685. On the 31st March, 1684, his letter was received by Bulstrode, telling that he had resigned the Secretaryship, and that Sidney Godolphin had taken his place. It was wrongly said that Jenkins had been superseded, but his own words set this slander at rest"My great concern is, that this [resignation] being a pure effect of my most humble Supplication, and even intolerable importunity with his Majesty [Charles II.] and the Duke, it may not be imputed to any surprize upon me at Court, much less to my disliking the present measures there. This I say, because I know that the fanaticks will put the most malicious constructions they can invent upon an incident at Court."-B.'s Memoirs and Reflections, p. 372. 7 The mission to the Prince of Orange, for negotiating a Peace, in 1677, arose from a recommendation of Hyde by Sir William Temple. Lory satisfied King Charles, and was in 1679 made a Lord of the Treasury, and when the Earl of Essex resigned became First Lord. Afterwards sworn of the Privy Council. 8"Burlington Bay" refers to Laurence Hyde's wife Henrietta, being the fifth daughter of Richard Earl of Burlington. Laurence became Baron of WootonBasset and Viscount Hyde of Kenilworth in 1681; and in 1683 was raised to the title of Earl of Rochester. His wife, singularly fair and stately in her delicate beauty, was painted by Lely. That her husband was jealous is true enough, he being of almost ungovernable temper. An extant MS. ballad begins by declaring, against a wife, that she is “The Clog of all pleasures, the Luggage of Life." ''The yellows' = Jealousy. A manuscript song (beginning" There's Sunderland the Tory, Godolphin and gentle Lory, A triangle of Chits," etc.) declares that, Lory's daughter and wife divide all his life, And pray they ne're be discompos'd a! This daughter Anne (Lady Ossory) deserved love; she died young, Jan. 168. R. Bridges cut leaves from Chimney-tax book; joined Trant and Kingdon in revenue-frauds, detected Jan. 1683. For Henry Guy, and the rest, see Index. AN Uanity and Ueration of Spirit. "Ich hab' mein Sach auf Nichts gestellt, Juchhe! Drum ist's so wohl mir in der Welt; Juchhe! Und wer will mein Camerade seyn, Der stoße mit an, der stimme mit ein, -Goethe's Vanitas! Vanitatum Vanitas. N unpleasant interval was being spent by the English and Scottish refugees in Holland. Few among them had any real business there. They were proud, irascible, unaccommodating, but for the most part without money, influence or abilities. More than a few were leading the lives of sharpers and hypocrites, attaching themselves as satellites to such of the richer citizens as were willing to support them for the sake of the flattery they bestowed; and especially open to their inroads were the few wealthy widows who considered themselves particularly pious, but whose wisdom was scarcely of enough weight to fit them successfully for adventures in either world. It suited the humour of the extreme Sectaries to rail at the Romish Priesthood for establishing a tyrannical controul over their votaries, and for selling promises of posthumous bliss to those who bestowed by gifts or bequests their riches on the Church in charitable uses. But the same "True Blue Protestants were always ready to condone the sins of any wealthy patron, and to account as a saint each male or female sinner who protected, fed, and harboured them. Gilbert Burnet picked up a rich wife in one Amsterdam widow. Argyle found a kind friend in Mrs. Smith. Both men may have chuckled over the easy manner in which their unctuous compliments had trapanned their dupes, when they crept into houses and led captive silly women. The rebels had been clamourous while at home. Patience Ward, Slingsby Bethel, William Waller and Robert Ferguson had reaped considerable harvest, whilst obtaining a reputation for zeal against Popery. There was urgent need for them to exert themselves at once, and do something to regain their nearly lost credit. Of their former companions, left behind in England, many had already proved to be apostates, converted to Romanism, now that profit was to be made in that way. The despicable Elkanah Settle for mercenary motives thus acted, again to recant. John Dryden conscientiously accepted Catholic doctrine and ritual; owning the importance of Religious faith, which he had hitherto undervalued. Another changeling was the notorious Harry Care, who had been so libellous against the Romanists in his Weekly Paquet of Advice from Rome. 576 "And drive dull Care away." He attempted to rise when James of York came to the throne, and died, less than four months before the flight of James.1 A Epitaph on Harry Care. True Dissenter here does lie indeed, He ne'er with any or himself agreed: But rather than want subjects to his spite, Would Snake-like turn, and his own Tail would bite. But when he came by Suff'ring to be try'd, Of all he wrote, or fancy'd to be well. Thus purg'd from Good, and thus prepar'd by Evil, When the Earl of Shaftesbury died at Amsterdam, two years earlier 1 Harry Care died on the 8th of August, 1688, but we give at once the epitaph, written by some one of his foes, who had formerly been an intimate friend and had watched his career. One seldom has the privilege of reading (as Harry Brougham did) his own obituary notices, but we suspect that Care had the mortification of seeing these anticipatory monumental lines on himself. Libellers seldom chose to delay their thunderbolts until the actual demise of the victim. Vivisection was more satisfactory than a post-mortem. It was well to have in type beforehand some scandalous estimate of public characters, the " of their time" who were already moribund, and whose recovery would not stop the sale of such wares. Least of all men need this be objected to by this "Harry Lungs" a title which Care had won by his vehemence and bellowing. men 2 We suppose Abraham Kick (as he signs himself), alias Keck, to be the person called Krick (see Vol. IV. p. 611, Note, where "Ibid. i. 167" refers to the Sydney Correspondence: not to D'Avaux's Negotiations). Of October, 1679, Henry Sydney wrote, describing Monmouth's ingratiation of himself into the society of the disaffected Brownists:-" 18th. I went to Amsterdam. I had with me at supper Monsieur de Ruiter, Vice-Admiral, and Mr. Krick [query Abraham Kick?]. They told me how the Duke of Monmouth was at church in the afternoon; that he courted them mightily, told them how glad he would be to see them because they were good Protestants, upon which they invited him to dinner and afterwards to supper: he lay at one May's, a barber, a great enemy of the King's. The chief man that invited him was one [Israel] Hays, a phanatic; Stiles and [Francis] Prince, great merchants, would not be there. Krick is a man that sends over much shipping. The Duke of Monmouth had eighteen with him, and all came into the Church."-Sydney Correspondence, i. 168. How the double Insurrection was planned. 577 By this time Robert Ferguson was again in full plume, encouraging the formation of all plots, and contriving to snatch a handful out of everybody's sack of corn that came to be ground. He knew the singularly candid motto of his own North-countrymen, the Cranstouns. "Thou'lt want ere I'll want!" but found it convenient to act upon it sub silentio without mentioning it beforehand. Correspondence had been entrusted to him, on his having volunteered a declaration that he alone was fairly in the confidence of the disaffected in both countries, when the two schemes of insurrection simultaneously in Scotland and in South-western England were arranged to be mutually dependent. He maintained that the two revolts would paralyze the government. Some believed that the whole Scottish nation would rally to Argyle's standard, whilst all the Protestant zealots of England would desire to drive James of York from the throne in favour of "King Monmouth." Stories were revived of his triumphant progresses in 1680 and 1682. Devonshire and Cheshire were considered to be hand and heart devoted to his cause. The lost opportunities of former years, it was contended, could even now be regained. It was necessary to deceive both leaders by concealing the personal ambition of his rival. There was no love and scarcely any sympathy or trust between them. Each thought the other to be a serviceable tool, if cautiously managed; and the possibilities of success were mistaken for certainties. Even if they had succeeded in their aims, they would have found no happiness or stability. They were moths fluttering round a candle flame. The Scotch Earl would have refused to listen to the song of any stage play, but Monmouth might have remembered the words of James Shirley, the dramatist, which were revived and popularized in what is now a Roxburghe Ballad: "The Glories of our Birth and State." With the seven continuation-verses, we give it on our next page. [This cut belongs to our p. 613.] 2 P VOL. V. |