LIVES OF EMINENT BRITISH STATESMEN. JOHN PYM. 1584-1643. 66 JOHN PYM, the son of a Somersetshire "esquire," was born at Brymore, in his father's county, in the year 1584. His family, though described by Clarendon as of a private quality and condition of life 1," were rich and of very old descent; his mother was afterwards Lady Rous 2; and this boy, the only issue of her first marriage 3, was sent, in the beginning of the year 1599, to Broadgates Hall, now Pembroke College, Oxford, where he entered as a gentleman commoner.4 Here he made himself remarkable not only by quick natural talents, but by a sleepless and unwearied pursuit of every study he took in hand. Lord Clarendon has indulged a sneer at his "parts," as having been "rather acquired by industry than supplied by nature or adorned by art 5 ;" but we have it on the better authority of Anthony à Wood, that Pym's lighter 1 Clarendon's History, vol. iv. (Oxford edition of 1826.) p. 437. 2 See the dedication to the sermon delivered at the funeral of this lady, among the pamphlets at the British Museum. 3 The dedication in the sermon I have just referred to, evidently restricts her issue by Mr. Pym, to the great subject of this memoir. 4 "In the year of his age," says Anthony à Wood, "fifteen, being then, or soon after, put under the tuition of Degory Whear." 5 Clarendon's History, vol. iv. (Oxford edition 1826.) p. 437. accomplishments of literature, no less than his great learning and " pregnant parts," were admired in the university. "Charles Fitz-Geoffry, the poet, styled the said Pym, in 1601, Phœbi delicia—Lepos puelli.” 1 It is stated in some of the histories that, on leaving Oxford, Pym entered one of the inns of court, with a view to the bar; but it is difficult to find good authority for this. 2 He was throughout life, however, remarkable for his thorough knowledge of the laws; and no doubt he studied them, at this time, with the almost certain expectation of being called upon, at no distant day, to serve in parliament by the side of that great party, who had already, by no unequivocal signs of their power and resolution, startled the misgoverned people into hope. He had certainly, even thus early, attracted the attention of the great Whig nobleman of the day, the earl of Bedford; and to his influence, it is probable, he owed that appointment to a responsible office in the Exchequer, in which, according to lord Clarendon, many after years of his youth were passed, and where, it is to be supposed, he acquired the knowledge and habits of business, and great financial skill, which, scarcely less than his genius for popular government, distinguished him through the long course of his public life. In the parliamentary returns of the year 1614, the name of "John Pym" is to be found, as member for the borough of Calne.3 These were the returns of that "addle" parliament, which has been before described 4, and which, "meeting according to their summons, such faces appeared there as made the court droop 5;"-among the new faces were those of Pym and Wentworth. Upon the precipitate dissolution of this parliament, after a sitting of two months, several of the more for 1 Wood's Ath. Oxon. Ed. Bliss. vol. iii. p. 73. 2 Anthony à Wood merely says, "Before he (Pym) took a degree, he left the university, and went, as I conceive, to one of the inns of court." 3 It has been incorrectly stated that Pym first sat as member for Tavistock; he did not sit for the latter borough till some years after. the same influence, however, which returned him for both places. 4 Life of Strafford, p. 196, 197. 5 Wilson-in Kennet, vol ii. p. 696. It was ward members were called before the council and committed to the Tower. If Rushworth is correct in saying that Pym was twice imprisoned in the reign of James, it may reasonably be supposed that he was one of those committed on the present occasion.1 It is certain that he at once took an active share 2 in the measures of the opposition, and the "maiden speech" of such an accession to the popular party is not unlikely to have been rewarded by a warrant from the council-table. About this time Pym married Anna, the daughter of John Hooker, esquire, a country gentleman of Somersetshire. For the next six years his name is not to be found in connection with public affairs. These years were probably passed in retirement, where the mind does not find it difficult to imagine him, strengthening himself, in the calmness of domestic quiet, for the absolute devotion of his great faculties and deep affections to that old cause which was now again, not dimly, dawning upon the world. The pri In the year 1620, the wife of Pym died. vate memorials of this great man are too rare, and obtained with the cost of too much labour, to be thought unworthy of the reader's attention, however scanty they may be. What I shall now quote gives a grateful sketch of the character of this lady, on the authority of an excellent and accomplished man. The year in which she died witnessed also the death of Philippa, lady Rous, Pym's mother; and on the occasion of the funeral of of lady Rous, a sermon was delivered by the famous Charles Fitz-Geoffry 3, which, on its subsequent publication, he dedicated to Pym. 1 In the Reliquæ Wottonianæ (p. 443) some of the "refractory" members so committed are characteristically described :-1st, Sir Walter Chute "who, to get the opinion of a bold man after he had lost that of a wise, fell one morning into an insipid and unseasonable declamation against the times;" 2d, John Hoskins, who "is in for more wit, and for licentiousness baptised freedom; 3d, Wentworth, a lawyer, "whose fault was, the application of certain texts in Ezekiel and Daniel, to the matter of impositions;" and, 4th, Christopher Nevil, "a young gentleman fresh from the schools, who having gathered together divers Latin sentences against kings, bound them up in a long speech." These are the only names specified, but it is known that upwards of ten men were committed. 2 See the Journals. 3 For curious notices of this writer see Wood's Ath. Oxon. vol. ii. p. 607. - "I present you here," he writes in this dedication, "with that whereat you could not be present, your dearest mother's funerall, a labour I could willingly have spared, if God had been so pleased. But seeing the great Disposer hath otherwise decreed, I gladly publish what I sorrowfully preached. Neither will I use that triviall apology for this publication the importunitie of friends. I confess mine ambition to divulge my observance of that house to which I owe my best endeavours. What the religious cares of others received with some comfort, I here offer to your judicious eye; that as you are interested in the same sorrows, so you may be partaker of the same comforts. Poor, I confesse, are these of mine to those rich ones which the rare gifts of nature and grace afford to yourselfe; yet herein I would have you symbolize with the great ones of this world, who, although they possess whole cities and kingdoms, will yet accept an offer of a few acres." "You may well take up," Fitz-Geoffry continues to Pym," the complaint of the pathetical prophet - "I am the man that have seen affliction: a great affliction, first, in being deprived of a most loving, holy, helpfull wife; whose learning rare in that sex, whose virtues rarer in this age, whose religion the rarest ornament of all the rest, could not choose but level the sorrow of losing her with the former comfort of enjoying her. This crosse is now seconded with the losse of a dear mother, and such a mother as was worthy that sonne, who was worthy such a wife. With the prophet's complaynt I Mere's Wit's Commonwealth, part ii.-and Censura Literaria. He was thought a "high towering falcon " in poetry, on the strength of a really fine and loftily written account, in Latin verse, of the life, and actions of Sir Francis Drake. His minor compositions are touched with grace and feeling. I cannnot resist concluding this note with the following quaint lines by Hayman, ingeniously descriptive of a personal defect of Fitz-Geoffry's : Blind poet Homer you do equalise, Though he saw more with none than with most eyes: Our Geoffry Chaucer, who wrote quaintly neat, In verse you match, equal him in conceit: Featured you are like Homer in one eye, doubt not but you also take up his comfort- . It is good for a man that he beare the yoke in his youth.'" "I have fairly gayned by this publication," the writer concludes, " if hereby you take notice of my thankfulnesse to yourselfe; the world of my serviceablenesse to my patron. If God shall conferre a farther blessing (as commonly he doth in all good attempts) that as some received comfort in hearing, so many may be edified by reading these my weake endeavours: this I shall esteeme my happinesse. In this hope, bequeathing the successe to him who is able to doe above all that we can doe or thinke, yourselfe to his chiefest blessing, my best affections to your worthy selfe, remaineth yours in all love and duty. CHARLES FITZ-GEOFFRY." 1 1 Death's Sermon unto the living, delivered at the funeral of the religious lady Philippa. 4to. 1620. From the sermon itself one or two points, touching on the personal characteristics of Pym's mother, will be thought worth extracting. "Expect not," says the preacher," that I should speake of her ancestors, and make that the beginning of her prayse, which is rather the prayse of others." From the following it is evident that the first husband of lady Philippa, the father of Pym, must have died very soon after Pym's birth. She is spoken of as "A comfortable helper to her loving husband (her second husband), and no small support of so great a house for more than thirtie years' continuance, — and an especiall ornament unto hospitalitie, the long-continued praise of that house." One of the concluding passages of the sermon is eloquently descriptive of this excellent woman:- "She, who not long sithence came cheerfully unto this place on the Lord's day (as her godly manner was) hath caused us mournfully to repayre hither on this day. She who used to come in her coach, is now carried in a coffin. She who used to heare attentively and look steadfastly on the preacher, is here now (so much of her as remaineth) but can neither see nor hear the preacher; but in silence preacheth to the preacher himself, and to every hearer and beholder, that this is the end of all men. And by her own example (which is the life of preaching) she confirmeth the doctrine, that neither arms nor scutcheons, nor greatness of state, nor godliness of life, nor gifts of mind, nor sobriety of diet, nor art of physicke, nor husband's care, cost, nor diligence of attendants, nor children's tears, nor sighs of servants, nor prayers of the church, can except us from that common condition; for if they could, we had not seen this great and sad assembly here this day." men. Worthily, from the bosom of such a mother, can we imagine young Pym instructed to the great achievements of his after life! "The boy,' says our great poet Wordsworth, "is father to the man ;" so also, anticipating Wordsworth, Charles Fitz-Geoffry said in this very sermon. The passage is quaint and curious, but pregnant with meaning. Speaking from the text of death, he suddenly breaks forth thus" For that is the end of all Man is, as it were, a book; his birth is the title-page'; his baptism, the epistle dedicatory; his groans and crying, the epistle to the reader; his infancie and childhood, the argument or contents of the whole ensuing treatise; his life and actions, the subject; his crimes and errors, the faults escaped; his repentance, the connection. Now there are some large volumes in folio, some little ones in sixteens; some are fayrer bound, some playner; some in strong vellum, some in thin paper; some whose subject is piety and godliness, some (and too many such) pamphlets of wantonesse B S |