You must be sure to ruine Both, or none;
If one remain, you're sure to be undone :
For if you ruine Rome, on equal scores,
You shut the Window, but leave ope the Doors;
Unless you ruine the Fanaticks too,

For know one Nation can't hold Them and You.
Those men I fear against your Life combine,
That strive to cross you in your Good design;
And those men sure would yield to put you down,
That tell the People, You are not their own.
Pardon me, Sir, if I your quiet break,
For Poets dare at all Adventures speak.

FINIS.

145

149

155

LONDON: Printed by N[at]. T[hompson]. 1681. [White-letter. No woodcuts. We borrow one on our page 788 from Roxb. Coll., ii. 17. Date, April, 1681.]

POEMS ON THE DUKE OF MONMOUTH.

"Of all this numerous progeny was none
So beautiful, so brave, as Absalom:

In peace the thoughts of war he could remove,
And seemed as he were only born for love.
Whate'er he did was done with so much ease,
In him alone 't was natural to please;
With secret joy indulgent David view'd
His youthful image in his son renew'd;
To all his wishes nothing he denied,

And made the charming Annabel his bride.
What faults he had (for who from faults is free?)
His father could not, or he would not see.'

SEPARATED

Absalom and Achitophel. 1681.

EPARATED from "The Waking Vision," by a few poems (including "The Beggars' Wedding," Bagford Coll., iii. 67, to which we shall return hereafter, where the duplicate occurs on fol. 95), we come, on fol. 78, to two other poems on the Duke of Monmouth. These are too important to bear omission; we add a third that had accompanied them elsewhere. Both of the Bagford verses belong to the date 1680, or at latest to that debatable time between January 1st and the middle of March, which the old style gave to the preceding year, and which we write 168, or 1680-1.

One is a satirical address, supposed to be spoken by an Oxford Alderman, connected with that almost triumphal progress which Monmouth made; no doubt at the instigation of Shaftesbury, Grey, and Sir Thomas Armstrong, to confirm the good opinion generally entertained, and advance their ambitious views.

The other poem throws light on an incident of similar canvassing for fame, in his journey and public receptions. He never believed that any marriage of his mother had taken place; according to Burnet's declaration. Since there were some ugly rumours afloat, casting suspicion not only on his legitimacy, but even on his descent from Charles, the supposed inheritance of a divine power to cure the King's-Evil by a Royal Touch was considered proof positive, such as could leave gainsayers no excuse for incredulity. It was reported that, while in Somerset, Monmouth had actually effected such a cure by Touching for the Evil. The poem has much Hudibrastic vigour and grotesqueness. If he still remained alive at the time of its composition, it is not unlikely to have been written by EDMUND GAYTON (see our p. 633), author of the clever "Festivous Notes on Don Quixote," which is mentioned in the seventeenth line. At any rate, the author must have been well acquainted with the earlier dramatic

literature, especially works concerning the Alchemists. The allusions to Marlow, to Decker, those fourfold to Shakespeare, and others to Ben Jonson, prove this.

Not yet, at our date 1680, or until the discovery of the RyeHouse Plot in 1683, was Monmouth's party publicly disconcerted, or himself disgraced by a double recantation. Charles, it is true, forgave him each of his offences, and seems to have desired his presence and companionship to the last hour; although he was too faithful to his brother's interests to yield the Exclusion of James from the succession. No love, no recognized kinsmanship or familiarity united the brother and the favourite son.

There were many beside James who felt and expressed indignation at the favour shown to Monmouth, after the detection of his treasonable practices. His abject confession, given while Essex was imprisoned, when Russell and Algernon Sidney were about to be brought to the scaffold, was followed by as selfish a recantation, to secure fresh popularity in the City and the provinces, so soon as his own pardon was declared. Charles banished him for this duplicity, but was soon pacified, being always ready to believe in his contrition. A humorous Loyal Song of 1683,' to the tune of Suckling's Broughill-Wedding lyric, "I'll tell thee, Dick," begins, similarly, as a West-Country-man or Devonshire-Clown's narrative,

Chill tell thee, Tom, the strangest story,
Because thou art an honest Tory,
'Tis News beyond expressions.

" as

He relates his adventures: how he obtained admittance to Whitehall, in his best array, and went up the stairs, broad, and dirty too, as any road," and felt that it looked as though "His Majesty had kept no Maid." Indeed, people believed that article was one which Charles seldom retained long in stock. But this is scandal. Amid the richly-clad and gay crowd within the palace, the countryman was puzzled to distinguish the King. They were only his Guard (of whom Monmouth had been Captain). He found plenty of cringing

1 White-letter, no date or printer's name: Ashm. G. fol. 16.
2 This is referred to, as if by Charles, in Royal Resolutions:-
I'll have a rare Son, in marrying tho' marr'd,
Shall govern (if not my Kingdom) my Guard;
And shall be successor to me or Gerard.

We feel sure, in opposition to other commentators, that "in marrying though marred" refers not in any degree to Monmouth's illegitimacy or legitimacy, in regard to Lucy Walter; but to his own early and not happy marriage unto Lady Anne Scott. We also differ from other writers in reference to the allusion to

and servility, but when the King appeared, his quiet ease and dignity excited awe :

He look'd, methought, above the rest,

Tho' not by half zo vinely drest,
Which made me vall a zwearing,

A Pox upon the Parliament,
That will not let us pay him Rent,
Gold's only for his wearing.

A Ribbon vine came cross avore,
Zich as our Landlord's Bridemen wore;
At end of which was hung

A curious thing, that shone as bright
As Maudlin's eyes, or morning light,
When guilded by the Zun.

But now the News, Chil tell thee Truth;
Hard by His zide there stood a Youth,
That look'd as trim and gay,

As if he had not guilty bin
Of wishing e'r to be a King,
Unless a King of May.

It was the zame our Vicar zed

Vor Treason shou'd have lost his Head,

Vor which vive hundred Pound

By Proclamation offer'd was

To any that shou'd take his Grace

In any Kerson ground.

Won Zunday morn, thou mayst remember

I think the twontieth of Zeptember,

Our Parson read a thing,

How this zame Spark, (a vengeance on him!)
With vorty moor, did take upon him

To kill our Gracious King.

[Christian]

It is, in fact, the Duke of Monmouth whom he sees. The parallel between David with Absalom, and Charles with Monmouth, was exact enough, regarding the treason and the forgiveness. The song ends thus:

With that, that Mon that brought me in
By the Jacket pull'd me back again;
Quoth he, "Pray hear ye reason;
He was a What-dey-call' t, 'tis true,
But's Pardon makes him vree as you,
Vrom Knavery or Treason."

Gerard. It is not to Monmouth's succeeding Gerard of Brandon, in Sept. 1668. It is to the brave Cavalier, John Gerrard, who was executed on Tower-Hill, 10 July, 1654, on the same day when his associate Mr. Vowel suffered at CharingCross. They had conspired for the Restoration of Monarchy and the Stuarts. See Clarendon's Hist. bk. xiv. Portrait of Col. Gerard is in Caulfield, 1823, p. 20.

Whaw, whaw! quoth I, a pretty nick,
To make Rogues honest by a trick
Zo often try'd in vain;

As if my Bull shou'd gore me once,
I'd trust the zenseless Beast with horns
To gore me o're again.

Chil e'n to Devonshire agen,

Where honest Men are honest Men,

And Rogues are hang'd for Rogues.
Ods wounds! were I His Majesty,

E'r zich a Zon shou'd countenanc'd be,
Chid prize him as my Dogs.

But the dogs, King Charles's breed of spaniels, were themselves in high favour, and each dog had his (or her) day, until "Old Rowley" passed away "to where beyond these voices there is peace (not without suspicion of poison). Then the gloomier monarch assumed his place, and seized the opportunity, after Monmouth's first offence, to take good care that there should be no wasted clemency in the future. The succession had been, not to King Charles, but "to Gerard," after all.

[Bagford Collection, III. 78; 86 Loyal Poems, 25.]

The Orford Alderman's' Speech To the D[uke] of M[onmouth], when His Grace made His Entrance into that City, about September, 1680.

Tout Hanibal, before He came to Age,

STou

Perpetual Wars with Rome was sworn to wage!
You lead us to such Wars; Oh happy We!
Great Prince! You are a Soldier good as He:
Though some will say (to give the Devil his due)
He was as good a Protestant as You.

You to the whore of whores, the whore of Rome,
Devoted from your own chaste Mothers womb;

1 Alderman William Wright: on whom see pp. 817, 818, text and notes. 2 See p. 786, and the poem of "Tom Ross's Ghost'

on p. 805.

8