[Bagford Collection, II. 169 reverso.] Englands Royal Reno[wn], En the Coronation of our Gracious King James the Second, and his Royal Consort Qu[een Mary,] which was accordingly Celebrated in a most Glorious splendor, on the 23d of A[pril last, 1685.] Let us agree in Loyalty, the King and Queen adore, } And that the Crown with much R[enown] TO THE TUNE OF, [Hark] The [thund'ring] Cannons rore. Printed for J. Deacon, at the Sign of the Angel in Guiltspur-street. [In Black-letter. Mutilated by binder, in pasting in. Date, 1685.] 1 Probably, money from Oran in Algiers? Otherwise it is, as John Jasper says, in Edwin Drood, "Unintelligible." Tangiers had formed part of Queen Catherine's dowry: See Bagford Coll., iii. 30. 2 The plain English seems to be this: Loyal subjects gave guineas abundantly for the hire of windows, from basement to garret, in order to obtain a sight of the King passing. "This, after what flourish your nature will," Mr. Jonah Deacon. 3 Thus Lord Lansdowne writes, of her : Our future hopes all from thy womb arise; Our present joy and safety from your eyes; In fact, when the expected heir was born, in 1688, the stubborn isle lent a credulous ear to interested politicians, who asserted that it was surreptitious. Two Wanton Ladies. "But why do you go?' said the lady, while both sat under the yew, And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the Kraken beneath the sea-blue. 'Because I fear you,' he answered;-because you are far too fair, And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your gold-coloured hair." Elizabeth Barrett Browning. NELL Gwynn and Louise Renée de Penencovet de Quérouailles, Duchess of Portsmouth, figure in the two following ballad-dialogues, which mark the conclusion of Charles the Second's reign. We know not another copy, or a reprint. Readers who desire to read any amount of prosy moralizing, on the profligacy of those times, can find ample material provided elsewhere. Nothing is easier than to denounce unblushing wickedness in high places, and to set forth the evils caused by rioting in sensuality or prodigal expenditure. There is a close connexion between a wasteful Court and an over-taxed country; a niggardly House of Commons and an indignant Monarch, who is thus driven into tyrannical acts whereby money may be extorted, since it is otherwise refused. Thus the mistresses of Charles attain an historical importance. But we leave to others the invidious task of flinging stones at them. Andrew Marvel indulged in this plentifully, to the no-small damage of the respect we might otherwise accord him. Worthy Samuel Pepys had retained much of the Commonwealth Puritanism, of occasional sanctimoniousness, while ready enough in general to enjoy all pleasures with a Cavalier's freedom. He makes many an entry in his inestimable Diary, in rebuke of the waste and riot of the reigning favourites. No doubt words fell from him to the same effect, although he had seen quite enough of formal hypocrisy cloaking immorality during the days of "the Rump." He, therefore, was too sensible a man to hold himself qualified as a public corrector of morals. John Evelyn is careful to wear a grave face in reprobation of the prevailing libertinism, being a cold steady man, free from temptation. But we should have esteemed his virtue to be of a higher caste if he had avoided the scenes of debauchery, on which he bestows his censure, and not made profit and repute by his presence in a Court which he held to be contaminated.' We Thus, on Sunday, the 25th of January, 1685, he records, "Dr. Dove preached before the King. I saw this evening such a profuse gaming, and the King in the midst of his three concubines, as I had never before seen. Luxurious dallying and prophanenesse." Charles died early on 6th Feb., and Evelyn returns to the subject in the well-known passage, "I can never forget the inexpressible luxury are thankful to De Grammont and the Chevalier Hamilton for all they tell us, concerning the free-and-easy fair ones who intrigued, quarrelled, coquetted, and came to grief, surrounding the Merry Monarch. If these ladies, with the beauty of person which Sir Peter Lely has made immortal, seem devoid of soul, and only rarely are capable of any nobility of passion, even in love itself, the deficiency in them makes us less exorbitant in demand for heroic qualities in the men whom they enslaved. Frivolity tainted every one. It is quite as well that the full development was not arrested, of their reaction against the intolerable tyranny of the canting Puritans which had ended in making religion and virtue seem nothing beyond a name. Thus Venus victrix, even when she became Venus meretrix, courted homage from those who felt disgusted by the sullen hypocrisy and intolerance of the self-elected Saints. It is natural, after experience of repulsive Puritanical morality, that such a foolish pendulum as man swings himself in an opposite direction: Thou wert fair in the fearless old fashion, What ailed us, O gods, to desert you For creeds that refuse and restrain ? Some hankering after an enthroned life of pleasure, some unsatisfied yearnings to see the revival of that cheerful exuberance of spirit, which had earlier kept our country celebrated as "Merry England," might have haunted the world incessantly, if the experiment had not been made, with its ensuing nausea. The conviction nationally arrived at, since their date, is that both extremes are as foolish as they are insupportable. We reserve for the next ballad's introduction the little we have to write concerning the "Two Wanton Ladies of Pleasure." The death of Charles II., in February, 1685, was speedily followed by the Duchess of Portsmouth's preparations for return and prophanenesse, gaming and all dissoluteness, and as it were total forgetfulnesse of God (it being Sunday evening), which this day se'nnight I was witnesse of, the King sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleaveland, and Mazarine, &c., a French boy singing love-songs in that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty of the greate courtiers and other dissolute persons were at Basset round a large table, a bank of at least two thousand [pounds] in gold before them; upon which two gentlemen who were with me made reflexions with astonishment. Six days after was all in the dust."-Evelyn's Diary. BAGFORD. 2 R |