in his Compleat History of Highwaymen, is habitually inaccurate, and gives the date of Whitney's execution as "the 19th of December, 1694." Luttrell is likely to be correct. We mentioned on p. 235 our suspicion that FRANCIS WINTER was not a highwayman, but simply a rioter; and the tumult in which he figured as a leader proves to have been of political origin. Thus it is recorded: "The Sessions is now [viz. April, 1693], where Captain Winter who headed the mob about two years since in White Fryars against the Sheriffs of London, where 2 or 3 persons were killed, was found guilty of murder, and 2 persons swore at that time he proclaimed King James" (ibid. iii. 86). Winter was respited on 8th May, 1693, but the Lord Mayor and Aldermen were bent on his death, and he was executed on Wednesday, the 17th May, in Fleet Street. "He died very penitently" (iii. 100). An account of the Alsatian riot, of June, 1691, is in Macaulay's History, cap. xxii.; but without naming Captain Winter. We have taken, for our motto to the present work, the initial lines of the racy old song which bears the title and burden of the VICAR OF BRAY. Southey and others have told the story of the original Vicar of Bray in Berkshire, one Simon Aleyn, Canon of Windsor, who enjoyed the living, and kept out of theological controversies, as well as from Smithfield bonfires of martyrdom. Mr. Chappell gives the music and words, and quotes Nichol's declaration that the song "was written by a soldier in Colonel Fuller's troop of Dragoons, in the reign of George I." We possess a few modern imitations of it. One is a jovial Bacchanalian ditty, belonging to near the end of last century, beginning, In Charles the Second's merry days, For wanton frolics noted, A lover of Cabals I was, With wine like Bacchus floated. And this is law, I will maintain, The song does not lack point, and satirizes James the Second, "Will, the tippling Dutchman," "Brandy Nan," and the two earlier Georges. It ends with a laudation of the then reigning sovereign, George III. There were time-servers and trimmers in all ages, no doubt. Quite distinct from "A Turncoat of the Times," and perhaps of the same date, 1661, is the poetic original of our ditty. To our thinking, the true inspiration of the Vicar of Bray song is found in one attributed (without trustworthy authority) to Samuel Butler. It is in the amusing, although for the most part fraudulent, Posthumous Works of Mr. Samuel Butler, Author of Hudibras, 3rd edition, 1730, p. 69. It is extant in a broadsheet of much earlier date, beginning, I lov'd no King in Forty-One, In regard to the waning Protestantism of Charles, he sings: The King's religion I profest, And found there was no harm in't; I tugg'd and flatter'd, like the rest, The title of the broadsheet (earliest that we have noted, but probably a reprint) is, "The Religious Turn-Coat; or, a Late Jacobite Divine turn'd Williamite. To the tune of London is a fine Town! London, Printed for Richard Kell, West Smithfield, 1694" (British Museum Coll. of Poetical Broadsides, fol. 161). The same publisher, and at the same date, printed the lively ditty entitled "A Trimmer's Confession of Faith; The True Principles of A Jack of Both-Sides." Tune, Which no body can deny. Printed for R. Kell, near West Smithfield, 1694. On the same leaf of Poetical Broadsides. or, 1 "As I was walking through Hide-park," etc., Douce Coll., ii. 218 verso. 2 To our mind this verse alone proves "The Religious Turn-Coat" to be the poetic forefather of "The Vicar of Bray." The coincidence is stronger than any possible accident could make it. Compare the later version, In good King Charles's golden days, A zealous High-Church-man was I, 2nd Div. b 2 Although this copy be dated 1694, it is probably of a few months' earlier date, but not before October, 1693: Pray lend me your ears, if you've any to spare, You that love Common-wealth as you hate Common-Prayer, I'm first on the wrong-side, and then on the right, I for either King pray, but for neither dare fight: The writer declares his abhorrence of the Scarlet-Lady of Babylon, and, also, of swearing; which he hates "like any Non-Juror." He professes love for "our gracious King William," yet acknowledges himself to take "side with a Party that Prays for another." Thus he is willing to "drink the King's Health, take it one way or other;" which includes drinking to the King-over the water!-as the Jacobites already began to do. Poor fellow, he has an uneasy time of it, alongside of his Conventicle associates, the ultra-Protestant revolutionists, as he describes himself: Precisely I creep like a Snail to the Meeting, And then I sing Psalms, as if never weary; Which no body can deny. I can pledge ev'ry Health my companions drink round, I can hold with the Hare, and run with the Hound: 3 1 Evidently the old catch, "A boat, a boat, haste to the Ferry, And we'll go over to be merry, To laugh, and quaff, and drink old Sherry." With music, by John Jenkins, it is on p. 71 of John Hilton's amusing "Catch that Catch Can," 1652-many leaves of which book are gathered into the first volume of our Bagford Collection. The Catch, still popular, was mentioned in "Folly in Print," 1667. 2 Byron declared that he had seen, and shook to see it, "The king hooted— and caress'd;" but even he could "not presume to settle which was best." 3 Near the close of the 18th century a song was sung, beginning, “I am a right honest man, if you would know," of which the burden is, "To hold with the Hare, and run with the Hound." Its title is, "The Countryman's Contrivance; or, a politic Turn-Coat." It is in The Time-Server's Garland. I can Pray for a Bishop, and Curse an Archdeacon,1 Even the reign of "the People's William" does not bring happiness to William's own people, as the nation finds out in time; for our "Trimmer" whispers the desire of his heart to go back to such days as the Commonwealth, in preference to the tight rule of the Dutchman and his Whig Parliament, which was always impeaching somebody and quarrelling with everybody. Sometimes for a good Common-wealth I am wishing, The Times are so ticklish, I vow and profess With the Jacks I rejoyce that Savoy's defeated,3 Each Party, you see, is thus full of great Hope, Deny one? Oh, certainly not! While there is so much need of hemp among you, gentlemen Trimmers, it seems a pity that wide tracks of English land should lie idle, even with Why he was asked to curse an archdeacon is as inexplicable as is the reason of his praying for a bishop; or, at least, it would have been if he had lived in the days of a Fraser and a Temple, who, however, sorely need somebody's prayers. 2 Charleroi was taken by the French, soon after William's defeat at Landen (our p. 179), July, 1693. 3 This refers to the defeat of the Confederates, with a loss of nearly 8000 men, under the command of the Duke of Savoy and the Prince Eugene, at Marsaglia, near Turin, 24th Sept., 1693. The British troops were commanded by Charles, Duke of Schomberg, who fell there. The French used the bayonet, for the first time, it is said, and were commanded by M. de Catinat. The Irish troops, united with them, distinguished themselves by bravery. Plain speaking. Like "God with us" and "Commonwealth :" on different sides. 5 Of Shaftesbury it was sung, in 1682, "the time draws nigh, Achitophel shan't need to hang himself!" out permitting our commons to be inclosed by spoliators. Give every one rope enough, and a happy despatch! The ballad's first line suggested the probability of hearers having had some acquaintance with the public executioner (as appears to have befallen both man and horse, here depicted). He lopt ears and slit noses of notorious libellers: to quote Macaulay's graphic description, Till the tir'd hangman, in despair, Shall curse his blunted shears, And vainly pinch, and scrape, and tear, This had been in an earlier day, it is true, but not so remote as to make it improbable that some of "the crop-eared rout," |