by study; Beaumont especially being so accurate a judge of plays, that Ben Jonson, while he lived, submitted all his writings to his censure, and 'tis thought, used his judgment in correcting, if not contriving all his plots. What value he had for him, appears by the verses he writ to him; and therefore I need speak no farther of it. The first play that brought Fletcher and him in esteem, was their Philaster; for before that, they had written two or three very unsuccessfully: as the like is reported of Ben Jonson, before he writ Every Man in his Humor. Their plots were generally more regular 15 than Shakspere's, especially those which were made before Beaumont's death; and they understood and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better; whose wild debaucheries, and quickness 20 of wit in repartees, no poet before them could paint as they have done. Humor, which Ben Jonson derived from particular persons, they made it not their business to describe; they represented all 25 the passions very lively, but above all, love. I am apt to believe the English language in them arrived to its highest perfection; what words have since been taken in, are rather superfluous than ornamental. Their plays are now the most pleasant and frequent entertainments of the stage; two of theirs being acted through the year for one of Shakspere's or Jonson's: the reason is, because 35 there is a certain gaiety in their comedies, and pathos in their more serious plays, which suits generally with all men's humors. Shakspere's language is likewise a little obsolete, and Ben Jonson's wit comes short of theirs. him; but something of art was wanting to the drama, till he came. He managed his strength to more advantage than any who preceded him. You seldom find him 5 making love in any of his scenes, or endeavoring to move the passions; his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew he came after those who had performed both o to 30 40 such a height. Humor was his proper sphere; and in that he delighted most to represent mechanic people. He was deeply conversant in the ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from them: there is scarce a poet or historian among the Roman authors of those times, whom he has not translated in Sejanus and Catiline. But he has done his robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets, is only victory in him. With the spoils of these writers he so represents old Rome to us, in its rites, ceremonies, and customs, that if one of their poets had written either of his tragedies, we had seen less of it than in him. If there was any fault in his language, it was, that he weaved it too closely and laboriously, in his comedies especially perhaps, too, he did a little. too much Romanize our tongue, leaving the words which he translated almost as much Latin as he found them; wherein, though he learnedly followed their language, he did not enough comply with the idiom of ours. If I would compare him with Shakspere, I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakspere the greater wit. Shakspere was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing; I admire him, but I love Shakspere. To conclude of him; as he has given us the most correct plays, so in the precepts which he has laid down in his Discoveries, we have as many and profitable rules for perfecting the stage, As for Jonson, to whose character I am now arrived, if we look upon him while he was himself (for his last plays were but his dotages), I think him the 45 most learned and judicious writer which any theater ever had. He was a most severe judge of himself, as well others. One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it. In 50 as any wherewith the French can furnish as his works you find little to retrench or alter. Wit and language, and humor also in some measure, we had before 55 us. (1667) DANIEL DEFOE (1661-1731) Defoe was the son of a nonconformist butcher, and attended a dissenting school, where, according to his own account, he received a sound training in English and other modern languages as well as in the classics; his master, Morton, was a man of advanced ideas in education, and afterwards became vice-president of Harvard University. Defoe took part in the rebellion of Monmouth, engaged unsuccessfully in trade, and welcomed the Revolution. When William III was attacked as a foreigner, Defoe took up his defence in a satirical poem, The True-born Englishman, which ran through twenty-one editions and was sold in thousands in the streets. He published a number of political pamphlets, and one of them, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, was so successful in its irony that it deceived both parties into accepting it as a serious plea for high church principles. When it became known that the author was a dissenter and that the tract was really a plea for toleration, the high church party were furious at the fraud practised upon them, and the dissenters were too sore and bewildered to defend him. Defoe was fined, imprisoned, and condemned to be exposed to public derision in the pillory (1703). But the people covered the pillory with flowers, drank his health, and bought copies of his Hymn to the Pillory, in which he denounced his antagonists as scandals to the times,' who are at a loss to find his guilt, and can't commit his crimes.' Defoe was not kept long in prison, and in 1704 he began the publication of the Review, which was continued till 1713 and marks an important advance in the development of journalism. As a journalist Defoe showed unwearied diligence, unsurpassed enterprise and resourcefulness, and a keen sense of popular interest. There are few features of the modern newspaper which are not represented in his writings. He wrote sometimes for one party, sometimes for another, and for some years he conducted Tory papers in the interests of the Whig government, by which he was employed in the secret service. His style is remarkably simple and direct, and the 'stories' he invented can hardly be distinguished from genuine narratives. Of his numerous works, which would make a considerable library if reprinted, the one which has earned most enduring popularity is Robinson Crusoe (1720), a realistic autobiography of a sailor cast away upon a desolate island. It has been translated into almost every literary language and has been followed by countless imitations. From a mixture of gel bean do be That heterogeneous then g ་ ག ་ 286 35 But England, modern to the last degree, M[ohu]ns and M[ontag]ues, D[ura]s, and Not one have English names, yet all are English peers! 40 Your Houblons, Papillons, and Lethuliers Pass now for true born English knights and squires, And make good senate members, or lord And openly disown the vile degenerate race! For fame of families is all a cheat; Tis personal virtue only makes us great! (1701) THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of Fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses; and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, 'Pray, gentle folks! let us stand still! for fear we should tread upon one another!' There are some people in the world, who, now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin with Esop's cock, to preach up peace and union and the christian duty of moderation; forgetting that when they had the power in their hands, those graces were strangers in their gates! It is now near fourteen years, that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in his providence has suffered to insult over her, and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with an invincible patience the reproach of the wicked; and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now, they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments. Now, they cry out, 'Peace!' ' Union!' Forbearance!' and 'Charity!': as if the Church had not too long harbored her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood, till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them! No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over, you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration. You have told us you are the Church established by law, as well as 10 others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors; and the Church and her members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not! 15 Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that, having sworn 20 allegiance to their lawful and rightful king, could not dispense with that oath, their king being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch government? These have been turned 25 out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by! What account can you give of the 30 multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are 35 turned upon you, you must not be persecuted! It is not a christian spirit! You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third, and yet, you could have the 40 face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth! Anybody that did not know the temper of your party, would stand amazed at the impudence as well as the folly to think of it! 45 Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clubs, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from com- 50 ing into your clutches; and, God be thanked, the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you! There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a 55 power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The ex ecution of the known laws of the land, and that with but a gentle hand neither, was all that the fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution. This they have magnified to a height that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with them. Now to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after having first been voluntarily consenting to the making of those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James I; and what did it amount to? Truly, the worst they suffered was, at their own request, to let them go to New England, and erect a new colony; and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers; keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders; and receive no taxes or revenue from them! This was the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal lenity! It was the ruin of that excellent prince, King Charles I. Had King James sent all the Puritans in England away to the West Indies, we had been a national unmixed church. The Church of England had been kept unIdivided and entire! To requite the lenity of the father, they take up arms against the son, conquer, pursue, take, imprison, and at last put to death the anointed of God, and destroy the very being and nature of government: setting up a sordid impostor, who had neither title to govern, nor understanding to manage, but supplied that want, with power, bloody and desperate counsels and craft, without conscience. Had not King James I withheld the full execution of the laws: had he given them strict justice, he had cleared the nation of them! And the consequences had been plain; his son had never been murdered by them, nor the monarchy overwhelmed. It was too much mercy shown them that was the ruin of his posterity, and the ruin of the nation's peace. One would think the Dissenters should not have the face to believe that we are to be wheedled and canted into peace and toleration, when they know that they have once requited us with a civil war, and once with an intolerable and unrighteous persecution, for Our former civility. Nay, to encourage us to be easy with them, it is apparent that they never had the upper hand of the Church but they treated her with all the severity, with all the reproach and contempt as was possible! What peace and what mercy did they show the loyal gentry of the Church 10 of England, in the time of their triumphant Commonwealth? How did they put all the gentry of England to ransom, whether they were actually in arms for the king or not, making people com- 15 pound for their estates, and starve their families! How did they treat the clergy of the Church of England, sequester the ministers, devour the patrimony of the Church and divide the spoil, by sharing 20 the Church lands among their soldiers, and turning her clergy out to starve! Just such measure as they have meted, should be measured to them again! Charity and love is the known doctrine 25 of the Church of England, and it is plain she has put it in practise towards the Dissenters, even beyond what they ought, till she has been wanting to herself, and in effect unkind to her own sons; par- 30 ticularly, in the too much lenity of King James I, mentioned before. Had he so rooted the Puritans from the face of the land, which he had an opportunity early to have done, they had not had 35 the power to vex the Church, as since they have done. mistaken prince, thinking to win them by gentleness and love, proclaimed a versal liberty to them, and rather discountenanced the Church of England 5 than them. How they requited him, all the world knows! The late reign is too fresh in the memory of all the world to need a comment. How under pretense of joining with the Church in redressing some grievances, they pushed things to that extremity, in conjunction with some mistaken gentlemen, as to depose the late king; as if the grievance of the nation could not have been redressed but by the absolute ruin of the prince. Here is an instance of their temper, their peace, and charity! To what height they carried themselves during the reign of a king of their own, how they crept into all places of trust and profit; how they insinuated themselves into the favor of the king, and were at first preferred to the highest places in the nation, how they engrossed the ministry; and, above all, how pitifully they managed, is too plain to need any remarks. But particularly, their mercy and charity, the spirit of union they tell us so much of, has been remarkable in Scotland. If any man would see the spirit of a Dissenter, let him look into Scotland. There, they made entire conquest of the Church, trampled down the sacred orders and suppressed the episcopal government, with an absolute, and, as they supposed, irretrievable victory; though it is passible they may find themselves mistaken! Now it would be a very proper question to ask their impudent advocate, the Observator, Pray how much mercy and favor did the members of the Episcopal Church find in Scotland from the Scotch Presbyterian government?' And I shall undertake for the Church of England, that the Dissenters shall still receive as much here, though they de In the days of King Charles II, how did the Church reward their bloody doings with lenity and mercy! Except the 40 barbarous regicides of the pretended court of justice, not a soul suffered for all the blood in an unnatural war. King Charles came in all mercy and love, cherished them, preferred them, em- 45 ployed them, withheld the rigor of the law and oftentimes, even against the advice of his Parliament, gave them liberty of conscience; and how did they requite him? With the villainous con- 50 serve but little. trivance to depose and murder him and his successor, at the Rye House Plot! King James II, as if mercy was the inherent quality of the family, began his reign with unusual favor to them. Nor 55 could their joining with the Duke of Monmouth against him, move him to do himself justice upon them. But that In a small treatise of The Sufferings of the Episcopal Clergy in Scotland, it will appear what usage they met with. How they not only lost their livings; but, in several places, were plundered and abused in their persons, the ministers that could not conform, were turned out, with numerous families and no mainte |