Characters from the Histories & Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century Part 32

Burnet's History of His Own Time. Vol. i. (pp. 94-5.)

The author of most of the characters in this volume himself deserves a fuller character. The main portions of Burnet's original sketch (1683) are therefore given here, partly by way of supplement, and partly to ill.u.s.trate the nature of Burnet's revision (1703):

'The great man with the king was chancellor Hyde, afterwards made Earl of Clarendon. He had been in the beginning of the long parliament very high against the judges upon the account of the s.h.i.+p-money and became then a considerable man; he spake well, his style had no flaw in it, but had a just mixture of wit and sense, only he spoke too copiously; he had a great pleasantness in his spirit, which carried him sometimes too far into raillery, in which he sometimes shewed more wit than discretion. He went over to the court party when the war was like to break out, and was much in the late king's councils and confidence during the war, though he was always of the party that pressed the king to treat, and so was not in good terms with the queen. The late king recommended him to this king as the person on whose advices he wished him to rely most, and he was about the king all the while that he was beyond sea, except a little that he was amba.s.sador in Spain; he managed all the king's correspondences in England, both in the little designs that the cavaliers were sometimes engaged in, and chiefly in procuring money for the king's subsistence, in which Dr. Sheldon was very active; he had nothing so much before his eyes as the king's service and doated on him beyond expression: he had been a sort of governor to him and had given him many lectures on the politics and was thought to a.s.sume and dictate too much ... But to pursue Clarendon's character: he was a man that knew England well, and was lawyer good enough to be an able chancellor, and was certainly a very incorrupt man. In all the king's foreign negotiations he meddled too much, for I have been told that he had not a right notion of foreign matters, but he could not be gained to serve the interests of other princes. Mr. Fouquet sent him over a present of 10,000 pounds after the king's restoration and a.s.sured him he would renew that every year, but though both the king and the duke advised him to take it he very worthily refused it. He took too much upon him and meddled in everything, which was his greatest error. He fell under the hatred of most of the cavaliers upon two accounts. The one was the act of indemnity which cut off all their hopes of repairing themselves of the estates of those that had been in the rebellion, but he said it was the offer of the indemnity that brought in the king and it was the observing of it that must keep him in, so he would never let that be touched, and many that had been deeply engaged in the late times having expiated it by their zeal of bringing home the king were promoted by his means, such as Manchester, Anglesey, Orrery, Ashley, Holles, and several others. The other thing was that, there being an infinite number of pretenders to employments and rewards for their services and sufferings, so that the king could only satisfy some few of them, he upon that, to stand between the king and the displeasure which those disappointments had given, spoke slightly of many of them and took it upon him that their pet.i.tions were not granted; and some of them having procured several warrants from the secretaries for the same thing (the secretaries considering nothing but their fees), he who knew on whom the king intended that the grant should fall, took all upon him, so that those who were disappointed laid the blame chiefly if not wholly upon him. He was apt to talk very imperiously and unmercifully, so that his manner of dealing with people was as provoking as the hard things themselves were; but upon the whole matter he was a true Englishman and a sincere protestant, and what has pa.s.sed at court since his disgrace has sufficiently vindicated him from all ill designs' (_Supplement_, ed. Foxcroft, pp. 53-6).

There is a short character of Clarendon in Warwick's _Memoires_, pp.

196-8; compare also Pepys's _Diary_, October 13, 1666, and Evelyn's _Diary_, August 27, 1667, and September 18, 1683.

66.

Clarendon, MS. Life, pp. 638-9; _Continuation of the Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon_, ed. 1759, pp. 51-2.

Page 226, l. 8. He was released from Windsor Castle in March 1660.

Compare Burnet's character, p. 228, ll. 2-4.

l. 19. _the Chancellour_, i.e. Clarendon himself.

Page 227, ll. 5 ff. John Middleton (1619-74), created Earl of Middleton, 1656. He was taken prisoner at Worcester, but escaped to France. As Lord High Commissioner for Scotland and Commander-in-chief, he was mainly responsible for the unfortunate methods of forcing episcopacy on Scotland.

William Cunningham (1610-64), ninth Earl of Glencairn, Lord Chancellor of Scotland.

John Leslie (1630-81), seventh Earl and first Duke of Rothes, President of the Council in Scotland; Lord Chancellor, 1667.

On the composition of the ministry in Scotland, compare Burnet, ed.

Osmund Airy, vol. i, pp. 199, ff.

67.

Burnet's History of His Own Time. Vol. i. (pp. 101-2.)

We are fortunate in having companion characters of Lauderdale by Clarendon and Burnet. Their point of view is different. Clarendon describes the Lauderdale of the Restoration who is climbing to power and is officially his inferior. Burnet looks back on him at the height of power and remembers how it was made to be felt. But the two characters have a strong likeness. Burnet is here seen at his best.

Page 228, ll. 14-17. Compare Roger North's _Lives of the Norths_, ed.

1890, vol. i, p. 231: 'the duke himself, being also learned, having a choice library, took great pleasure ... in hearing him talk of languages and criticism'. Compare also Evelyn's _Diary_, August 27, 1678. His library was dispersed by auction--the French, Italian, and Spanish books on May 14, and the English books on May 27, 1690: copies of the sale catalogues are in the Bodleian. The catalogue of his ma.n.u.scripts, 1692, is printed in the _Bannatyne Miscellany_, vol. ii, 1836, p. 149.

l. 30. As Professor of Theology in the University of Glasgow Burnet had enjoyed the favour of Lauderdale, and had dedicated to him, in fulsome terms, _A Vindication of the Church and State of Scotland_.

The break came suddenly, and with no apparent cause, in 1673, when Burnet was appointed royal chaplain and was winning the ears of the King. Henceforward Lauderdale continued a 'violent enemy'. Their relations at this time are described in Clarke and Foxcroft's _Life of Gilbert Burnet_, 1907, pp. 109 ff., where Burnet's concluding letter of December 15, 1673, is printed in full.

Page 229, ll. 2-7. Richard Baxter delivered himself to Lauderdale in a long letter about his lapse from his former professions of piety--'so fallne from all that can be called serious religion, as that sensuality and complyance with sin is your ordinary course.' The letter (undated, but before 1672) is printed in _The Landerdale Papers_, ed. Osmund Airy, Camden Society, vol. iii, 1885, pp. 235-9.

ll. 8-12. 'The broad and pungent wit, and the brutal _bonhomie_..

probably went as far as anything else in securing Charles's favour.'

Osmund Airy, Burnet's _History_, vol. i, p. 185.

68.

Burnet's History of His Own Time. Vol. i. (pp. 96-7.)

Page 230, l. 14. He was chosen for Tewkesbury in March 1640, but he did not sit in the Long Parliament.

l. 18, _a town_, Weymouth: see p. 70, l. 21 note. He had been appointed governor of it in August 1643 after some dispute, but was shortly afterwards removed (Clarendon, vol. iii, pp. 163-5, 362).

Page 231, l. 2. Shaftesbury writes about the prediction of 'Doctor Olivian, a German, a very learned physician', in his autobiographical fragment: see No. 14 note.

ll. 14, 15. Compare Burnet's first sketch of Shaftesbury, ed.

Foxcroft, p. 59: 'he told some that Cromwell offered once to make him king, but he never offered to impose so gross a thing on me.'

ll. 17, 18. See the Newsletter of December 28, 1654, in _The Clarke Papers_, ed. C.H. Firth, Camden Society, 1899, p. 16: 'a few daies since when the House was in a Grand Committee of the whole House upon the Government, Mr. Garland mooved to have my Lord Protectour crowned, which mocion was seconded by Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Mr. Hen.

Cromwell, and others, but waved.'

l. 26. After 'party' Burnet wrote (autograph, fol. 49) 'He had no sort of virtue: for he was both a leud and corrupt man: and had no regard either to trueth or Justice.' But he struck out 'no sort ... and had'.

The sentence thus read in the transcript (p. 76) 'He had no regard either to Truth or Justice'. This in turn was struck out, either by Burnet himself or by the editor.

The following words are likewise struck out in the transcript, after 'manner' (l. 28): 'and was not out of countenance in owning his unsteadiness and deceitfullness.'

69.

Absalom and Achitophel. A Poem ... The Second Edition; Augmented and Revised. London, 1681. (ll. 142-227.)

The first edition was published on November 17, 1681, a few days before Shaftesbury's trial for high treason. In the second, which appeared within a month, the character of Shaftesbury was 'augmented'

by twelve lines (p. 233, ll. 17-28).

Shaftesbury had been satirized by Butler in the Third Part of _Hudibras_, 1678, three years before the crisis in his remarkable career, and while his schemes still prospered. To Butler he is the unprincipled turn-coat who thinks only of his own interests:

So Politick, as if one eye Upon the other were a Spye;...

H'had seen three Governments Run down, And had a Hand in ev'ry one, Was for 'em, and against 'em all.

But Barb'rous when they came to fall:...

By giving aim from side, to side, He never fail'd to save his Tide, But got the start of ev'ry State, And at a Change, ne'r came too late....

Our _State-Artificer_ foresaw, Which way the World began to draw:...

He therefore wisely cast about, All ways he could, t'_insure his Throat_; And hither came t'observe, and smoke What Courses other Riscers took: And to the utmost do his Best To Save himself, and Hang the Rest.

(Canto II, ll. 351-420).

Dryden's satire should be compared with Butler's. But a comparison with the prose character by Burnet, which had no immediate political purpose, will reveal even better Dryden's mastery in satirical portraiture. Another verse character is in _The Review_ by Richard Duke, written shortly after Dryden's poem.

Absalom is Monmouth, David Charles II, Israel England, the Jews the English, and a Jebusite a Romanist.

Page 232, l. 28. Compare Seneca, _De Tranquillitate Animi_, xvii. 10: 'nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit.'

Page 233, l. 7. The humorous definition of man ascribed to Plato in Diogenes Laertius, Lib. vi. 40 (Life of Diogenes), [Greek: Platonos horisamenou, anthropos esti zoon dipoun apteron.]

The son was a handsomer man than the father, though he did not inherit his ability. His son, the third earl, was the critic and philosopher who wrote the _Characteristicks_.

l. 12. _the Triple Bond_, the alliance of England, Holland, and Sweden against France in 1667, broken by the war with France against Holland in 1672. But Shaftesbury then knew nothing of the secret Treaty of Dover, 1670.