or however powerful. Beaumarchais pos- | apparently rested on an assured foundasessed unexampled skill in forming public tion. He was largely blessed with for. opinion, and employing it as a lever for tune, friends, and fame. But from this the accomplishment of his own purposes. time his undertakings were not so uniFor nearly three years he labored indefat-formly crowned with success as heretoigably to arouse in all the ranks of so- fore, and during the remaining years of ciety an ardent curiosity to see his new his life he gradually but surely declined work brought on to the stage. He gave in happiness and prosperity. Perhaps numberless readings at the houses of the with advancing years there was some little most influential persons, "so that," says loss of energy; though, even to the last, Madame Campan, “every day one heard any falling off in this respect was hardly people say, 'I was present,' or 'I am go- perceptible, and he was as ready as ever ing to be present at the reading of Beau- to engage in any new enterprise, or to marchais's piece.' He used all the rush into the midst of a fight whether the influence which he had acquired from the matter in dispute concerned him or not. success of his writings, from his wealth, But it seemed as if fortune had deterfrom his extensive connections, and from mined to bestow no more of her gifts the delicacy of the missions in which he upon him. He produced two more plays, had been engaged on behalf of the court, both of which were comparative failures to overcome the obstacles in his path. and have sunk into well-deserved oblivThe king and queen were besieged with ion; he was thrown into prison on a false solicitations from all sides. Several charge of having uttered words disrespecttimes he was on the point of succeeding. ful to the king; he was engaged in a In June, 1782, the piece was actually an- lawsuit in which another person played nounced for representation, tickets were the popular part which he himself had distributed, the theatre was half filled with enacted in connection with the Goëzman an eager crowd, and it was only at the case; and he launched into an unfortulast moment that an order was received nate speculation to supply the Revolutionunder the king's hand forbidding the per- ary government of France with guns, formance. In September, 1783, the play which involved him in innumerable diffi was privately acted by permission before culties and dangers. He was imprisoned, the Count d'Artois and a brilliant audi- exiled, deprived of his property, and reence at the country house of the Count de duced to extreme distress; but he never Vaudreuil; and at last, in the March fol- lost his courage or his natural gaiety, nor lowing, the resistance of the king was ever ceased to maintain a gallant struggle broken down, and the first public repre- against "the slings and arrows of outsentation took place at the Théâtre Fran- rageous fortune." Singularly in contrast çais. The crush was terrific, and several with the restless activity of this busy life persons were suffocated at the doors of was the calm of its closing scene. the theatre. was no long and weary combat with disease or decay. Peacefully and unexpectedly Beaumarchais passed away in the night, and was found dead in his bed on the morning of the 18th of May, 1799. There The high expectations which had been formed of the play were not disappointed. It was a brilliant success at the time, and has retained its popularity down to the present day; though, curiously enough, both this and Beaumarchais's previous comedy- "Le Barbier de Seville " have been restored to the operatic form in which they were originally intended to THE PROPHET OF WALNUT-TREE YARD. appear, Mozart and Rossini having supplied music of a very different class from any that the author's own skill could ever have produced. This was the culminating point in Beaumarchais's career. His unwearied industry and perseverance had won for him no small share of fortune's favors. All Paris crowded to the theatre to listen to his comedy, and to overwhelm the author with applause. His society was eagerly courted, he was happy in his domestic relations, his wealth was great and From The Nineteenth Century. "Did you ever hear tell of Lodowick Muggleton?" "Not I." "That is strange. Know then that he was the founder of our poor society, and after him we are frequently, though opprobriously, termed Muggletonians, for we are Christians. Here is his book; I will sell it cheap." — LavenGRO. SCRUPULOUS veracity was hardly a characteristic of the late George Borrow. A man of great memory, he was also a man of fertile imagination, and where the two are found in excess, side by side in the same intellect, they are apt to twine round one another, so to speak, and the product is something which the matter-of- | name-printed also by subscription, fillfact man abhors. I do not doubt that ing six hundred and twenty-one pages, Borrow did meet a Muggletonian at Bris- and showing pretty clearly that there had tol - I think it was there some sixty of late been a strange revival of the sect: years ago; but I am pretty sure that he an outburst of a new fervor having someknew very little indeed about the Muggle- how been awakened, and an irrepressible tonians, and that he could have hardly passion for writing" Songs" having disopened the book which he implies that he played itself, which had not been without purchased, and which I am almost certain its effect in resuscitating dormant enthu he never read. I have a strong suspicion siasm. The vagaries of the human mind that he very much antedated the incident in what, for want of any better designawhich he narrates, for I myself knew an tion, we call "religious belief" have al old second-hand bookseller in a back street ways had for me a peculiar fascination, as at Bristol who was a Muggletonian, with they have for others. Epiphanius, whose whom I made acquaintance when a lad. name is and used to be a terror to her He was a slow-speaking, wary, suspicious, Royal Highness in days gone by when I and dirty old man, and as I had not suffi- insisted upon reading to her about the cient funds to be a good customer, I dare peculiar people who made it a matter of say he did not think it worth his while to faith to eat bread and cheese at the Eube communicative, but he told me one charist - Epiphanius is to me positively day that he had been one of the original entertaining, and Pagitt's "Heresiograsubscribers to the "Spiritual Epistles," | phy" is none the less instructive because which were reprinted in quarto years be- it is a vulgar, catch-penny little book, made fore I was born; though, as he confessed, up, like Peter Pindar's razors, to sell. To his name does not appear on the list of me it seems that to dismiss even the wildnames printed at the end of the preface, est and foolishest opinion which makes which list, he assured me, was very in- way as if it were a mere absurdity that complete, as he from his own knowledge does not deserve notice, is to show a cercould certify. This old man would have tain flippancy and superficiality. After been very old indeed if he had been old all, do we not all pass through certain when Borrow was a youth; and yet, as I stages of intellectual growth, and are not say, I suspect he was the very man of the convictions of our youth held very whom mention is made in the extract I differently from those which we find ourhave given above. He was the only Mug- selves swayed by in our later years? The gletonian I ever knew, but he certainly beliefs which the multitude take up with was not the last of his sect, and I should are such as the untrained and the halfnot be at all surprised to hear that it is a trained are always captivated by, whether flourishing sect still, and that it still has its individually or in the mass. There are assemblies, its votaries, its literature, and limits to our powers of assimilation acits propaganda. It is true that the name cording as our development has been Muggletonians does not appear in that arrested or is still going on, and he who astonishing list of religious denominations hopes to understand the course of human which the registrar-general was enabled affairs, or to make any intelligent forecast to compile for the year 1883; but that of what is coming, can never afford to negproves little, inasmuch as the closer a lect the study of morbid appetites or morreligious corporation is, the more exclu- bid anatomy in the domain of mind. sive, the less does it care to register the name of the building in which it may choose to assemble for worship; and I observe that the Southcotians are no longer to be found upon that list, though I happen to know that they are not extinct yet, nor has their faith in their prophetess and her mission quite died out from the face of the earth. There is a strong family likeness among all fanatics; and this is characteristic of them all, that they are profusely communicative and absolutely honest. Prophets have no secrets, no reserve, no doubts, they are always true men. John Reeve and Lodowick Muggleton are no exception to the general rule. We can follow their movements pretty closely for some years. The book of "The Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit" furnishes us with quite as much as we want to know about the sayings and doings of the gro tesque pair and their early extravagances; and Muggleton's letters cover a period of forty years, during all which time he was going in and out among the artisans and small traders of the city, obstinately as serting himself in season and out of season, and leaving behind him in his eccentric chronicle such a minute and faithful picture of London life among the middle the lower middle-class during the last half of the seventeenth century as is to be found nowhere else. The reader must be prepared for the most startling freaks of language, for very vulgar profanity, the more amazing because so manifestly unintended. When people break away from all the traditions of the past and surrender themselves to absolute anarchy in morals and religion, the old terminology ceases to be employed in the old way, ceases indeed to have any meaning. The prophet or the philosopher who sets himself to invent a new theory of the universe or a new creed for his followers to embrace, can hardly avoid shocking and horrifying those who are content to use words as their forefathers did, and attach to these words the same sort of sacredness that the Hebrews did to the divine name. There is no need to do more than allude to this side of the Muggletonian writing. What we are concerned with is the story of the prophet's life, which has been told with the utmost frankness and simplicity; a more unvarnished tale it would be difficult to find, or one which bears more the stamp of truth upon its every line. "The Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit" is a posthumous work written by Muggleton when he was very old, and left behind him in manuscript with directions that it should be published after his death. It was a quarto volume of one hundred and eighty pages, and is a book of some rarity. It was published in 1699, with an epistle dedicatory to all true Christian people apparently written by Thomas Tomkinson, one of the chosen seed. After preparing us for what is coming by dwelling upon the wonderful stories of the Old Testament and the New, Muggleton plunges into his subject by giving us a brief account of his own and his brother prophet's parentage and early biography. Let the reader understand that here beginneth the third chapter of the "Acts of the Witnesses " at the third verse: "3. As for John Reeve, he was born in Wiltshire; his father was clerk to a deputy of Ireland, a gentleman as we call them, by his place, but fell to decay. "4. So he put John Reeve apprentice here at London to a tailor by trade. He was out of his apprenticeship before I came acquainted with him; he was of an honest, just nature, and harmless. "5. But a man of no great natural wit or wisdom; no subtlety or policy was in him, nor no great store of religion; he had lost what was traditional; only of an innocent life. "7. And I, Lodowick Muggleton, was born in Bishop-gate Street, near the Earl of Devonshire's house, at the corner house called Walnut-tree Yard. "8. My father's name was John Muggleton; he was a smith by trade - that is, a farrier or horse doctor; he was in great respect with the postmaster in King James's time; he had three children by my mother, two sons and one daughter. I was the youngest and my mother loved me." 66 His mother died, his father married again, whereupon the boy was sent into the country. • boarded out as we say — and kept there till his sixteenth year, when he was brought back to London and apprenticed to a tailor one John Quick a quiet, peaceable man, not cruel to servants, which liked me very well." Muggleton took to his trade and pleased his master. The journeymen were a loose lot, "bad husbands and given to drunkenness, but my nature was inclined to be sober." Hitherto the young man had received no religious training; when he had served his time, however, "hearing in those days great talk among the vulgar people and especially amongst youth, boys, and young maids, of a people called Puritans I liked their discourse upon the Scriptures, and pleaded for a holy keeping of the Sabbath day, which my master did not do, nor I his servant." This must have been about the year 1630- for Muggleton was born in June, 1610 - when the Sabbatarian controversy was at its height, and the feeling of the country was approaching fever heat, and when Charles the First had resolved to try and govern without a Parliament, and when Archbishop Abbot was in disgrace, and Laud had begun to exercise his predominant influence. Muggleton was but little impressed by "the people called Puritans," and he went on his old way. When he had nearly served his time, he began to look about him. The tailor's trade did not seem likely to lead to much, unless it were combined with something else, and a brilliant opening offered itself, as he was at work for a pawnbroker in Hounsditch. "The broker's wife had one daughter alive. The mother, being weli persuaded of my good natural temper, and of my good husbandry, and that I had no poor kindred come after me to be any charge or burthen to her daughter, proposed to me that she would give me a hundred pounds with her to set up. So the maid and I were made sure by promise, and I was resolved to have the maid to wife and to keep a broker's shop, and lend money on pawns, and grow rich as others did." Muggleton had not yet been admitted to the freedom of the city, and the marriage was arranged to take place after he should have done so. In the mean time he found himself working side by side with William Reeve, Prophet John Reeve's brother, at this time a very zealous Puritan," with whom he talked of his prospects. "I loved the maid, and desired to be rich," he tells us; but these Puritan people were horrified at his deliberately intending to live the life of a usurer, and they "threatened great judgments, and danger of damnation here after." It is clear that the frightful eschatology of the time was exercising a far greater power upon the imagination of the masses than anything else. People were dwelling upon all that was terrible and gloomy in the picture of a future life; the one thought with the visionaries was this, Save yourselves from the wrath to come. "I was extremely fearful of eternal damnation," says Muggleton, "thinking my soul might go into hell fire without a body, as all people did at that time." There was evidently a struggle between conviction and inclination, and it ended as we should have expected the marriage was broken off. Then followed some years of vehement religious conflict: "Neither did I hear any preach in these days but the Puritan ministers, whose hair was cut short. For if a man with long hair had gone into the pulpit to preach, I would have gone out of the Church again, though he might preach better than the other." All through this time visions of hell and torment, and devils and damnation troubled him; now and then there were "elevations in my mind, but these were few and far between; a while after all was lost again." He soon consoled himself for his matrimonial disappointment; he married and had three daughters, then his first wife died. He throve in his calling, "only the spirit of fear of hell was still upon me, but not so extreme as it was before." He took a second wife, and the civil war began. "And generally the Puritans were all for the Parliament, and most of my society and acquaintance did fall away and declined in love one towards another. Some of them turned to Presbytery, and some turned Independents; others fell to be Ranters, and some fell to be mere Atheists. So that our Puritan people were so divided and scattered in our religion, that I was altogether at a loss; for all the zeal we formerly had was quite worn out. For I had seen the utmost perfection and satisfaction that could be found in that way, except I would do it for loaves, but loaves was never my aim." The civil war ran its course, but Muggleton cared nothing for the general course of events. What were kings and bishops and Lords and Commons to him? he was living in quite another world. As for Laud and Strafford, and Pym and Hampden, he does not even once name them. He makes not the slightest allusion to the death of Charles the First, though he was living within half a mile of Whitehall when the king's head fell on the block. Prophets of the Muggleton type are so busied about their own souls and their own spiritual condition, that the battles, murders, and sudden deaths of other men, great or small, give them no concern whatever. A couple of years or so after the execution of the king, "it came to pass I heard of several prophets and prophetesses that were about the streets. . . . Also I heard of two other men that were counted greater than prophets to wit, John Tannye and John Robins. John Tannye, he declared himself to be the Lord's high priest, therefore he circumcised himself according to the law. Also he declared that he was to gather the Jews out of all nations, with many other strange and wonderful things. And as for John Robins, he declared himself to be God Almighty. Also he said that he had raised from the dead several of the prophets, as Jeremiah and others. Also I saw several others of the prophets that was said to be raised by him, for I have had nine or ten of them at my house at a time, of those that were said to be raised from the dead." Is madness contagious? Or is it that, while the sane can exercise but a very limited power over the insane, there is no limit to the influence which the insane can gain over one another? Living in a world of their own, where delusions pass for palpable facts, where the logical faculty accepts the wildest visions as of equal significance with actual realities, these dreamers have a calculus of their own which includes the symbols in use among the sane, but comprehends besides a notation which these latter attach no meaning to, reject, and deride. "Would you be so kind as tell me, sir, what's a ohm?" said the worthy Mr. Stiggins to me the other day. "It's a modern term used in electricity, which I am too ignorant to explain to you." He looked full at me for more than five sec onds without a word, then he said, "I'm thinking that this man was a fool to talk about ohms when not even you knew what a ohm means. And he came from Cambridge College too, and he's got a wote! I reckon when a man can't talk the same as other folks he'd ought to be shut up." Indignant Stiggins! But are we not all intolerant? would be as well with me as it would be if I were in eternal happiness . . . for I did not care whether I was happy so I might not be miserable. I cared not for heaven so I might not go to hell. These things pressed hard upon my soul, even to the wounding of it." The battle within him went on fiercely for some time, and it ended as we should have expected. "I was so well satisfied in my mind as to my eternal happiness, that I was resolved now to be quiet and to get as good a living as I could in this world and live as comfortably as I could here, thinking that this revelation should have been beneficial to nobody but my self." The "motional voices," and visions, and questionings, continued from April, 1651, to January, 1652; and it was during this time that the intimacy between Muggleton and Reeve became more closely cemented, for "John Reeve was so taken with my language that his desires were extreme earnest that he might have the same revelation as I had. His desires were so great that he was troublesome unto me, for if I went into one room, into another, he would follow me to talk to me." His persistence was rewarded, and just when Muggleton's visions ceased, "in the month of January 1652, about the middle of the month, John Reeve came to me very joyful and said, Cousin Lodowick, now said he, I know what revelation of Scripture is, as well as thee." Reeve's relations increased and never ceased for two weeks. First visions, "then by voice of words to the hear. John Robins had acquired an almost unlimited ascendency over his crazy proph. ets, and speedily acquired the like ascendency over Muggleton. What specially fascinated him was that all Jolin Robins's prophets "had power from him to damn any that did oppose or speak evil of him. So his prophets gave sentence of damnation upon many, to my knowledge, for speaking evil of him, they not knowing him whether he was true or false." Muggleton was profoundly impressed, but according to his own account he was a silent observer, and waited. One of the prophets often came to his house and was welcome; he "spake as an angel of God, and I never let him go without eating and drinking," for Muggleton was a man of large appetite and demanded large suping of the ear three mornings together the plies of food, nor did he stint himself of meat and drink or withhold creature comforts from those he loved. Just at this time Muggleton "fell into a melancholy." He had arrived at the prophetic age; he had completed his fortieth year. "Then did two motives arise in me and speak in me as two lively voices, as if two spirits had been speaking in me, one answering the other as if they were not my own spirit." So that our noble laureate was anticipated by two centuries, unless indeed "two lively voices" make themselves heard at times to most men who have ears to hear them. Muggleton's voices were not very high-toned voices; they were voices that spake of heaven and hell, nothing more. Love and duty never seem to have formed the subject of his meditations. "For I did not so much mind to be saved, as I did to escape being damn'd. For I thought, if I could but lie still in the earth forever, it third, fourth, and fifth days of February, 1652, and the year of John Reeve's life forty-two, and the year of my life fortyone." Two men in this curious ecstatic condi. dition obviously could not stop at this point. It was a critical moment would they enter into rivalry or spiritual partnership? If the latter, then who was to be the leader, who would make the first move? It was soon settled. "The first evening God spake to John Reeve, he came to my house and said, Cousin Lodowick, God hath given thee unto me forever, and the tears ran down both sides his cheeks amain. So I asked him what was the matter, for he looked like one that had been risen out of the grave, he being a fresh-colored man the day before, and the tears ran down his cheeks apace." John Reeve was not yet prepared to deliver his commission with authority; it was coming, but not yet. |