It may be quite true that the ultimate advantages to England, beside a few that were immediately felt, have been sufficiently great to make us thankful that the Revolution of 1688 was consummated, and in the event which this ballad celebrates. But there can be no necessity for us to blind ourselves to the true circumstances of the case, and the character of the servile and intriguing factions who were severally plotting for their own advantage. As in the struggle between King and Commons during the reign of the earlier Charles, so had it been in the days of the Protestant Revolution: there were grievous faults on both sides. Any attempt to elevate into sublime heroism the very commonplace humanity of either James or William ought to fail, before the judgment of common sense. The errors of James secured the almost undisputed supremacy of William. His own reign was less satisfactory, while it lasted, and afterwards by bequeathed results, than can suffice to establish the reputation claimed for him by his partizans. To him much was committed, and by him much was misused. He never sought to understand the English nation, but merely to rule them and suit his own purposes. Such an opportunity of gaining a country's love did not recur until her present Majesty began her happy reign. We pay her not only allegiance, but heartfelt affection and devotion. affection: but her demeanour shocked the Tories, and was not thought faultless even by the Whigs. A young woman, placed, by a destiny as mournful and awful as that which brooded over the fabled houses of Labdacus and Pelops, in such a situation that she could not, without violating her duty to her God, her husband, and her country, refuse to take her seat on the throne from which her father had just been hurled, should have been sad, or at least serious. Mary was not merely in high, but in extravagant, spirits. She entered Whitehall, it was asserted, with a girlish delight at being mistress of so fine a house [! yet she was of the mature age of twenty-seven, and had been married nearly twelve years], ran about the rooms, peeped into the closets, and examined the quilt of the state bed, without seeming to remember by whom these stately apartments had last been occupied." (Hist. England, cap. x.) After this, it is idle for Gilbert Burnet or any one to plead that she was doing it in obedience to her husband's commands, "to make her first appearance with an air of cheerfulness." The mendacious apology, under censure, reminds one ludicrously of the gentleman leaping over chairs and tables in order to be lively. No wonder that "her deportment was the subject of reams of scurrility in prose and verse: it lowered her in the opinion of some whose esteem she valued." (Ibid.) But, after all, it merely betrayed the same heartlessness which showed itself speedily towards her maternal relation, Clarendon, and even to her sister Anne. [Bagford Collection, II. 172.] The Protestants Joy : An Excellent New Song on the Glorious Coronation of King William and Queen Mary, which in much Triumph was celebrated at Westminster on the 11th. of this instant April. TUNE OF, Grim Ring of the Ghosts: OR, Hail to the Mirtle Shades. Licensed according to Order. [The woodcut, of full size, is given on opposite page.] ET Protestants freely allow their Spirits a happy good chear, Th' Eleventh of April now has prov'd the best day in the year: Brave Boys, let us merrily Sing, whilst smiling full Bumpers go round, King William and Mary is Crown'd. afford them a prosperous Reign, did flye from the East to the West, The Nobles that sits at the Helm, who makes it their study and care, To settle the peace of the Realm, they did in their order repair, 4 8 12 16 20 20 24 28 28 To wait on the numerous Train, Their Majesties true Dignity, all Protestants ever will own, It was by the Heavens decree, that they should be plac'd in the Throne: To govern with mercy and love, that peace in the Land may abound, O blest be the powers above, that William and Mary is Crown'd. They'll root out the Relicks of Rome, and make this a flourishing Isle, And truth in its glory shall bloom, which Romans did enjoy a while; The Mass and the Rosary too, was all but a meer empty sound, The Papists look pittiful blew, now William and Mary is Crown'd. But every Protestant Soul, was sensible of their Relief, Therefore in a full flowing bowl, they drown all the relicks of grief, And drink their good Majesties health, with reverend knees to the ground, And wishing them honour and wealth, who is with a Diadem Crown'd. We'll tender our Lives at his feet, who stood for the Protestant Cause, And made the proud Romans retreat, defending Religion and Laws. We'll Conquer or fight till we dye, to make our Monarch Renown'd, Now thanks to Heavens on high, King William and Mary is Crown'd. Printed for J. Deacon, in Guiltspur-street. Advice to the Ladies. "You do not think, Monsieur Huet, that there is wit in these jeux de mots-perhaps you do not admire wit at all?" "Yes, I admire wit as I do the wind. When it shakes the trees, it is fine; when it cools the wave, it is refreshing; when it steals over flowers, it is enchanting: but when, Monsieur Hamilton, it whistles through the key-hole, it is unpleasant." Bulwer Lytton's Devereux, Bk. iv. cap. 5. THE HE Earl of Dorset's "Song written before an engagement with the Dutch," beginning "To all you Ladies now at land, we men at sea endite" (to the tune of which the following ballad, and a score beside, was written), gained an instantaneous popularity, and has retained it to this day. Pepys mentions it in his Diary, January 2, 1664-5:-"To my Lord Brouncker's, by appointment, in the Piazza in Covent Garden: where I occasioned much mirth with a ballet I brought with me, made from the Seamen at sea to their ladies in towne; saying Sir W. Pen, Sir G. Ascue, and Sir J. Lawson, made them." Yet Pepys, in the Admiralty, ought to have known that the author was Lord Dorset; Nelly's early associate, Buckhurst. It is given in Popular Music, complete, 510. Our Bagford "Advice to the Ladies," like the other pages which follow to the end of Vol. II., is of much later date than any we have yet given. It was printed in white-letter, as a quarto pamphlet. We give the group of poems in smaller type, in preference to omitting it altogether. They are somewhat incongruous with the seventeenth century ditties.2 1 It is not necessary to mention more than a few, in proof of adaptability of the tune for political squibs. "To you, dear Brothers, who in vain," is of 1712. The following belong to the earlier Jacobite insurrection of 1715. "To you, dear Jemmy, at Lorraine" (The Tories' Letter to the 'Pretender'); "To you, dear Osmond, cross the seas; "To you, dear Topers, at the Court; "To you, fair Traders, now ashore" (The South-Sea Whim). A little later came Meriel and Rachel's Eloping-song, Jovial Crew, 1731, "To you, dear Father, and our home; "To you, fair Ladies, now in Town, We Country-men do write" (An Invitation into the Country, before 1728); and "To you, gay folks in London Town," July 1778, &c. 2 But they possess interest of a different kind, somewhat gossipping and scandalous though they be. They take us to the days of Pope and Gay, the Herveys and Dean Swift: consule Planco, Sir Robert being in power. The woodcut on p. 624 appears to be a burlesque of Walpole's armorial bearings: the supporters being a gold-beater, with his hammer, and a mountebank, with a Bauble. These are to indicate his trust in bribery and buffoonery. "Aurum is in the legend, and a fool's cap for the crest; unless it be a turtle, in allusion to civic feasts. |