The Irreconcileable Puritan: his vera effigies. xi Sufficiency of tragic incidents fill our new pages to form excuse, if any such excuse were needed, for our jesting here upon the door-mat with the Reader; unless he be impatient, either to enter in exultingly, or to turn his back in sullenness, and depart. The motto on our tesselated threshold reads, according to your humour, Vale! or Cave Canem! Grim Cynic, who art scowling at us Cavaliers, because we laugh and sing a jovial stave, or quaff the wine-cup in these Bowers of the Fancy: no one asks you to make one of the guests at our festive board, or lend your croaking voice to swell the Chorus. Is it not enough that you, and more of your complexion, have trodden down the flowerets with your hoofs, and desecrated every fane, in your intolerant and selfconceited Puritanism, since Queen Bess tried to curb you, in her sovereignty? Wearing a change of vizards, a change of names, a change of Shibboleth, as time wore on, you, the Fanatic Misanthrope, remained unaltered in your bitterness, in all your sanctimonious hypocrisy, foul heart, rude hands, and blighting breath. What innocent enjoyment have you left unassailed, unpolluted, in this our country, once called Merry England? Perils enough we have, present and future, chiefly from such as you. Many still rave as being "true Blue Protestants." But, sound Churchmen that we are, we admit no fear of Popery ever again enslaving us. Little we dread the noisy atheism, or smug self-conceit of the agnostics; the mock-valour of fools and cowards who gibber against Religion. Foreign domination would not be endured; home tyranny soon brings its own defeat. But who shall save us from the poisonous leprosy of Cant? The mobs of old were gulled by hypocrites and liars, by wretches like Titus Oates; there were swarms of sectaries, all declaring themselves pious, yet full of slanderous hatred against the Church; there were Slingsby Bethel, Ben Harris, Frank Smith, Elkanah Settle, Henry Care, Robert Ferguson, Wily Waller and Patience Ward. As they whined and cheated, two centuries ago, so can such sanctimonious sinners cheat men still. Religion suffers by their profanation of her Robes. Not unneeded for their lesson now are given these Roxburghe Ballads. Surely not in vain do they offer signatures and miniatures of the "Holy League" among the tricksters and shampatriots who prepared the Revolution. What pure deed could come from such besmirched intriguers? What honest word ever fell from their lips? Not the virtues of his foes, but the marvellous folly, vice, and bigotry of James with his rash advisers soon brought defeat to him, and victory to the plotting William. Yet what was the first result of the struggle, and for many years, but a change of tyrants? from an incapable despot to a more inexorable and cunning alien. At present, however, we have only to do with the last Stuarts who reigned on English soil. xii "Come, let's go cry, God save him at Whitehall!'" Before 1680, probably about 1673, the heartless and sarcastic John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, had written of King Charles the Second the memorable lines, There reigns, and long may he live and thrive, [=Louis XIV. During the few remaining years of life between 1680 and February 168, if it came to pass that Charles ceased to be "the easiest prince, and best-bred man alive," while he was forced to assert his prerogative of sovereignty, with somewhat of tyrannical usurpation, against men who continued to plot his ruin, surely the blame is deserved by them, far more than by "Old Rowley," who struck in self-defence. We close the pages of our present Group with the death of Charles. To us it is a bereavement, the loss of a friend, and we shall miss his figure from the brief remainder of our story. The longer we have studied the secret and the public records of his day, the less we wonder at his failings; the more we prize his easy disposition, his tolerance of other people's weaknesses and errors. He never assumed to be a moralist for the rebuke of their sins, while continuing self-indulgent to his own. "Live and let live!" was his unspoken motto. If only people would have left him to his quiet! but they refused to do so, and in his last hours he felt contrite for omitted duties or neglected opportunities. We believe that our incidental portraiture of him will be pronounced just, by all those readers whose opinion we value. We show in these two companion-volumes only the closing years of his career, and were not called upon at once to examine in detail the circumstances that disastrously perverted him from what he might have been. This task is not neglected in our forthcoming Ballads of the Civil- War, the Commonwealth, and the Restoration. The hour is late: tarry till we meet you on the morrow. Gute Nacht! Schlafen sie wohl, Meine Herr'n! Seine Freund', Das ältliche Josephchen, J. WOODFALL EBSWORTH. MOLASH VICARAGE, BY ASHFord, Kent. 27, xi. '83. CONTENTS OF PART XIV., Being the Middle-Portion of Vol. V. PAGE More of the Rye-House Plot Second Temporary Preface. Dr. Callcott's use of Anna Steele's verses on James Hervey A Scotch Song, sung at the Artillery Feast, 1682 . Vive Le Roy; or, London's Joy (on Lord Mayor Moore) Advice to the City: by Tom D'Urfey, from the Tory side Discoverers Discovered: M. Taubman's Medley on the Plot A Song: "I told Young Jenny I lov'd her " An Offering to the Reader (in Church) vii xvi 257 257 263 265 267 271 274 276 279 281 283 293 294 On the King's Deliverance at Newmarket 300 Dr. Thomas Sprat's "Particular Account of the Rye-House' 307 Murder out at Last, in a Ballad on the New Plot The Conspiracy; or, Discovery of the Fanatick Plot An Elegy on the Earl of Essex, who cut his own Throat A Terror for Traitors; or, Treason justly Punished. A New Song, by D'Urfey, Sung at Winchester to the King. Anticipatory Epitaph on Roger L'Estrange 332 339 340 347 On the Relief of Vienna: A Hymn for all true Protestants 352 The Loyalists' Encouragement 353 The Siege of Vienna, in 1683 355 359 Vienna's Triumph, with the Whigs' Lamentation, &c. A Carouse to the Emperor of Austria, the Royal Pole and the much-wronged Duke of Lorraine The Christian Conquest, at Vienna, 1683 On Refusal of Aid between Nations The Christians' New Victory, at Barcan Monmouth in Hiding at Toddington, Berks. The Twin-Flame (Poem from Monmouth's MS.). Good News in Bad Times; or, Absalom's Return to David's Bosom. Monmouth's Entanglement in the Plot The Prodigal: Monmouth's Return to Favour Monmouth Pardoned by King Charles Monmouth's Entertainment at Court A New Song of a Devonshire Lad. A Merry New Ballad on Prince Perkin (from Trowbesh MS.) "Hail to the Myrtle Shade!" An Epitaph, on Algernon Sydney 361 369 371 377 383 384 385 392 393 394 Ibid. Ibid. 395 399 401 405 407 413 417 421 422 423 Colonel Sydney's Overthrow; or, An Account of his Execution Pluto, the Prince of Darkness, his Entertainment of Sydney 426 429 431 432 Petitions to save Lord William Russell Congratulatory Pindaric Poem, by C. P. (summarized) A New Song of the Times, 1683: by the Hon. Wm, Wharton A New Song on the Old Plot,' issued in 1682 The Whigs' Hard Heart for the Cause of the Hard Frost Frost Fair in 1683. A New Song on Perkin-Monmouth's Disgrace Tangier's Lamentation, on the Demolishment Robert Ferguson's double Epitaph on Armstrong 446 447 448 455 . 457, 463 461 466 469 470 471 474 477 479 481 The Newcastle Associators; or, The Trimmers' Loyalty Tom Brown's Song in Praise of the Bottle "The Best Bred Man alive" grown weary. (Compare p. xii.) Loyal Poems on the Death of King Charles the Second 503 504 508 Editorial Entr' Acte: The Watcher at Whitehall 510 |