Part 9

Is 't come to this? What? shall the cheeks of Fame, Stretched with the breath of learned Loudoun's name, Be flagged again? And that great piece of sense, As rich in loyalty as eloquence, Brought to the test, be found a trick of state? Like chemists' tinctures, proved adulterate? The Devil sure such language did achieve To cheat our unforewarned Grandam Eve, As this impostor found out to besot Th' experienced English to believe a Scot! 10 Who reconciled the Covenant's doubtful sense, The Commons' argument, or the City's pence? Or did you doubt persistence in one good Would spoil the fabric of your brotherhood, Projected first in such a forge of sin, Was fit for the grand Devil's hammering? Or was 't ambition that this damned fact Should tell the world you know the sins you act? The infamy this super-treason brings Blasts more than murders of your sixty kings; 20 A crime so black, as being advis'dly done, Those hold with this no competition. Kings only suffered then; in this doth lie Th' assassination of Monarchy. Beyond this sin no one step can be trod, If not t' attempt deposing of your God. Oh, were you so engaged that we might see Heaven's angry lightning 'bout your ears to flee Till you were shrivelled to dust, and your cold Land Parched to a drought beyond the Lybian sand! 30 But 'tis reserved! Till Heaven plague you worse, Be objects of an epidemic curse. First, may your brethren, to whose viler ends Your power hath bawded, cease to count you friends, And, prompted by the dictate of their reason, Reproach the traitors though they hug the treason: And may their jealousies increase and breed Till they confine your steps beyond the Tweed: In foreign nations may your loath'd name be A stigmatizing brand of infamy, 40 Till forced by general hate you cease to roam The world, and for a plague go live at home; Till you resume your poverty and be Reduced to beg where none can be so free To grant: and may your scabby Land be all Translated to a general hospital: Let not the sun afford one gentle ray To give you comfort of a summer's day; But, as a guerdon for your traitorous war, Live cherished only by the Northern Star: 50 No stranger deign to visit your rude coast, And be to all but banished men as lost: And such, in heightening of the infliction due, Let provoked princes send them all to you: Your State a chaos be where not the Law, But power, your lives and liberties may awe: No subject 'mongst you keep a quiet breast, But each man strive through blood to be the best; Till, for those miseries on us you've brought, By your own sword our just revenge be wrought. 60 To sum up all--let your religion be, As your allegiance, masked hypocrisy, Until, when Charles shall be composed in dust, Perfumed with epithets of good and just, HE saved, incenséd Heaven may have forgot T' afford one act of mercy to a Scot, Unless that Scot deny himself and do (What's easier far) renounce his Nation too.

[_The Scots' Apostasy_ was first printed as a broadside in _1646_, and assigned at the time to Cleveland by Thomas Old. It was included in _1651_, but not admitted by the 'Vindicators' in _1677_. But it is in all the central group of editions except _Cleaveland Revived_, where absence is usually a strong proof of genuineness; and it is extremely like him. Mr. Berdan has admitted it, and so do I. Professor Case has noted a catalogue entry of _The Scot's Constancy, an answer to J. C's._ [_al._ Or an Answer to Cleveland's] _Scots' Apostasy_ (G. R. Bastick) [_al._ Robin Bostock], London April 1647. The 'J. C's' is of course pertinent.]

[Line: 2 John Campbell (1598-1633), from 1620 Baron Loudoun in his wife's right, was, after taking a violent part on the Covenant side in the earlier Scotch-English war, instrumental in concluding peace; and was made in 1641 Chancellor of Scotland and Earl of Loudoun.]

[Line: 4 as] 'and' _1653_.]

[Line: 9 'imposture' _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 20 The celebrated and grisly collection of Scottish monarchs in Holyrood was not yet in existence; for its imaginative creator only painted it in 1684, and there are 106, not sixty. But the remoteness of Scottish pedigrees was popularly known: and if it be not true that all Scottish kings were murdered, not a few had been.]

[Line: 24 'Assassination' is valued at six syllables.]

[Line: 28 'to' _1651_, &c.: 'into' _1646_.]

[Line: 31 Till] and tell _1646_, _1651_.]

[Line: 34 'count you' _1646_, _1651_, _1653_, &c.: 'be your' _1687_. This prayer, at any rate, was heard pretty soon.]

[Line: 38 'steps' _1651_, &c.: 'ships' _1646_.]

[Line: 42 'go', misprinted 'to' in _1653_, &c.]

[Lines: 67-8 Not in _1646_.]

Rupertismus.

O that I could but vote myself a poet, Or had the legislative knack to do it! Or, like the doctors militant, could get Dubbed at adventure Verser Banneret! Or had I Cacus' trick to make my rhymes Their own antipodes, and track the times! 'Faces about,' says the remonstrant spirit, 'Allegiance is malignant, treason merit.' Huntingdon colt, that posed the sage recorder, Might be a sturgeon now and pass by order. 10 Had I but Elsing's gift (that splay-mouthed brother That declares one way and yet means another), Could I thus write asquint, then, Sir, long since You had been sung a great and glorious Prince! I had observed the language of these days, Blasphemed you, and then periwigged the phrase With humble service and such other fustian, Bells which ring backward in this great combustion. I had reviled you, and without offence; The literal and equitable sense 20 Would make it good. When all fails, that will do 't; Sure that distinction cleft the Devil's foot! This were my dialect, would your Highness please To read me but with Hebrew spectacles; Interpret counter what is cross rehearsed; Libels are commendations when reversed. Just as an optic glass contracts the sight At one end, but when turned doth multiply 't. But you're enchanted, Sir, you're doubly free From the great guns and squibbing poetry, 30 Whom neither bilbo nor invention pierces, Proof even 'gainst th' artillery of verses. Strange that the Muses cannot wound your mail! If not their art, yet let their sex prevail. At that known leaguer, where the bonny Besses Supplied the bow-strings with their twisted tresses, Your spells could ne'er have fenced you, every arrow Had lanced your noble breast and drunk the marrow. For beauty, like white powder, makes no noise And yet the silent hypocrite destroys. 40 Then use the Nuns of Helicon with pity Lest Wharton tell his gossips of the City That you kill women too, nay maids, and such Their general wants militia to touch. Impotent Essex! Is it not a shame Our Commonwealth, like to a Turkish dame, Should have an eunuch guardian? May she be Ravished by Charles, rather than saved by thee! But why, my Muse, like a green-sickness girl, Feed'st thou on coals and dirt? A gelding earl 50 Gives no more relish to thy female palate Than to that ass did once the thistle sallet. Then quit the barren theme and all at once, Thou and thy sisters like bright Amazons, Give Rupert an alarum. Rupert! one Whose name is wit's superfetation, Makes fancy, like eternity's round womb, Unite all valour, present, past, to come! He who the old philosophy controls That voted down plurality of souls! 60 He breathes a Grand Committee; all that were The wonders of their age constellate here. And as the elder sisters, Growth and Sense, Souls paramount themselves, in man commence But faculties of reasons queen; no more Are they to him (who was complete before), Ingredients of his virtue. Thread the beads Of Caesar's acts, great Pompey's and the Swede's, And 'tis a bracelet fit for Rupert's hand, By which that vast triumvirate is spanned. 70 Here, here is palmistry; here you may read How long the world shall live and when 't shall bleed. What every man winds up, that Rupert hath, For Nature raised him of the Public Faith; Pandora's brother, to make up whose store The gods were fain to run upon the score. Such was the painter's brief for Venus' face; Item, an eye from Jane; a lip from Grace. Let Isaac and his cits flay off the plate That tips their antlers, for the calf of state; 80 Let the zeal-twanging nose, that wants a ridge, Snuffling devoutly, drop his silver bridge; Yes, and the gossip spoon augment the sum Although poor Caleb lose his christendom; Rupert outweighs that in his sterling self Which their self-want pays in commuting pelf. Pardon, great Sir, for that ignoble crew Gains when made bankrupt in the scales with you. As he, who in his character of Light Styled it God's shadow, made it far more bright 90 By an eclipse so glorious (light is dim And a black nothing when compared to Him), So 'tis illustrious to be Rupert's foil And a just trophy to be made his spoil. I'll pin my faith on the Diurnal's sleeve Hereafter, and the Guildhall creed believe; The conquests which the Common Council hears With their wide listening mouth from the great Peers That ran away in triumph. Such a foe Can make them victors in their overthrow; 100 Where providence and valour meet in one, Courage so poised with circumspection That he revives the quarrel once again Of the soul's throne; whether in heart, or brain, And leaves it a drawn match; whose fervour can Hatch him whom Nature poached but half a man; His trumpet, like the angel's at the last, Makes the soul rise by a miraculous blast. Was the Mount Athos carved in shape of man As 'twas designed by th' Macedonian 110 (Whose right hand should a populous land contain, The left should be a channel to the main), His spirit would inform th' amphibious figure And, strait-laced, sweat for a dominion bigger. The terror of whose name can out of seven, Like Falstaff's buckram men, make fly eleven. Thus some grow rich by breaking. Vipers thus, By being slain, are made more numerous. No wonder they'll confess no loss of men, For Rupert knocks 'em till they gig again. 120 They fear the giblets of his train, they fear Even his dog, that four-legged cavalier; He that devours the scraps that Lunsford makes; Whose picture feeds upon a child in steaks; Who, name but Charles, he comes aloft for him, But holds up his malignant leg at Pym. 'Gainst whom they have these articles in souse: First, that he barks against the sense o' th' House; Resolved delinquent, to the Tower straight, Either to th' Lions' or the Bishop's Grate: 130 Next, for his ceremonious wag o' th' tail. (But there the sisterhood will be his bail, At least the Countess will, Lust's Amsterdam, That lets in all religions of the game.) Thirdly, he smells intelligence; that 's better And cheaper too than Pym's from his own letter, Who 's doubly paid (Fortune or we the blinder!) For making plots and then for fox the finder: Lastly, he is a devil without doubt, For, when he would lie down, he wheels about, 140 Makes circles, and is couchant in a ring; And therefore score up one for conjuring. 'What canst thou say, thou wretch!' 'O quarter, quarter! I'm but an instrument, a mere Sir Arthur. If I must hang, O let not our fates vary, Whose office 'tis alike to fetch and carry!' No hopes of a reprieve; the mutinous stir That strung the Jesuit will dispatch a cur. 'Were I a devil as the rabble fears, I see the House would try me by my peers!' 150 There, Jowler, there! Ah, Jowler! 'st, 'tis nought! Whate'er the accusers cry, they're at a fault: And Glyn and Maynard have no more to say Than when the glorious Strafford stood at bay. Thus libels but annexed to him, we see, Enjoy a copyhold of victory. Saint Peter's shadow healed; Rupert's is such 'Twould find Saint Peter's work and wound as much. He gags their guns, defeats their dire intent; The cannons do but lisp and compliment. 160 Sure, Jove descended in a leaden shower To get this Perseus; hence the fatal power Of shot is strangled. Bullets thus allied Fear to commit an act of parricide. Go on, brave Prince, and make the world confess Thou art the greater world and that the less. Scatter th' accumulative king; untruss That five-fold fiend, the State's Smectymnuus, Who place religion in their vellum ears As in their phylacters the Jews did theirs. 170 England's a paradise (and a modest word) Since guarded by a cherub's flaming sword. Your name can scare an atheist to his prayers, And cure the chincough better than the bears. Old Sibyl charms the toothache with you; Nurse Makes you still children; and the ponderous curse The clowns salute with is derived from you, 'Now, Rupert take thee, rogue, how dost thou do?' In fine the name of Rupert thunders so, Kimbolton's but a rumbling wheelbarrow. 180

[_Rupertismus_] '_To P. Rupert_' in the _1647_ texts (Bodley and Case copies). The odd title _Rupertismus_ was first given in _1651_. This poem expresses the earlier and more sanguine Cavalier temper, when things on the whole went well. Rupert's admirable quality as an officer naturally made him a sort of Cavalier cynosure and (with his being half a foreigner) a bugbear to the Roundheads; while neither party had yet found out his fatal defects as a general. Hence 'Rupertismus' not ill described the humour of both sides. The dog who figures so largely was a real dog (said of course to be a familiar spirit), and Professor Firth tells me that he has a pamphlet (1642) entitled _Observations upon P. R.'s white dog called Boy, carefully taken by T. B._, with a picture of the animal. It was replied to by _The Parliament's Unspotted Bitch_ next year.]

[Lines: 1, 2 The 'legislative knack' to vote oneself everything good and perfect has always been a gift of Houses of Commons. It was rather shrewd of Cleveland to formulate it so early and so well.]

[Line: 4 Bannerets being properly dubbed on the field of battle. 'Adventure' _1677_: 'Adventures' _1647_, _1651_, _1687_: 'adventurers' _1653_ and its group.]

[Line: 5 Cacus' trick] of dragging his cattle by the tails.]

[Line: 7 spirit] A word their abuse of which was constantly thrown in the face of the Puritans till Swift's thrice rectified vitriol almost destroyed the abuse itself.]

[Line: 8 malignant] in the technical Roundhead sense.]

[Line: 9 The gibe at Huntingdon, clear enough from the passage, is one of many old local insults. I can remember when it was a little unsafe, in one of the Channel islands, to speak of a donkey. This particular jest recurs in Pepys (May 22, 1677), who was in a way a Huntingdon man.]

[Line: 11 Elsing] Clerk to the House of Commons.]

[Line: 13 'thus' _1677_: 'but' _1647_ and the earlier texts. write] _1653_, 'right'--evidently one of the numerous mistakes due to dictating copy.]

[Line: 14 '_The_ Prince' was a title which Rupert monopolized early and kept till his death.]

[Line: 15 'these' _1677_: 'the' _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, _1687_.]

[Line: 20 _1677_ 'th' equitable'.]

[Line: 24 The rhyme of '-cles' to an _ee_ syllable occurs in Dryden.]

[Line: 31 'Who' _1653_ and its group.]

[Line: 35 Carthage. Rupert's devotion to ladies was lifelong.]

[Line: 39 'White' or noiseless powder was a constant object of research.]

[Line: 45 Essex was _twice_ divorced on the ground mentioned, and his efficiency in the field was not to be much greater than that in the chamber.]

[Line: 53 _1677_, &c., '_his_ barren theme'.]

[Line: 65 _1654_ 'faculty'. _1677_ 'Reason Queen'. I am not sure which is right.]

[Lines: 66-7 So punctuated in _1677_. Earlier texts and _1687_ 'who were to him complete before. Ingredients of his virtue thread' ... _1677_ reads 'virtues'.]

[Line: 68 '_the_ Swede': of course Gustavus Adolphus.]

[Line: 73 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ 'Whatever'.]

[Line: 74 _1677_, apparently alone, 'o_n_ the'].

[Line: 78 _1653_, evidently by slip, '_for_ Jane'.]

[Line: 79 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ 'Cit'z' (not quite bad for '_citiz_ens) and 'flea of the place'. 'Flea' for 'flay' is not uncommon: the rest is absurd. 'Isaac' was Isaac Pennington, father of that Judith whose obliging disposition Mr. Pepys has commemorated.]

[Line: 80 'Antl_ets_', which occurs in all, is not impossible for 'antl_ers_' (the everlastingly ridiculed citizen 'horns'). But _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ forgot the Golden Calf altogether in their endeavour to provide a rhyme for their own misprint (l. 79) by reading 'Stace'.]

[Line: 83 'Gossip's' (_1651_, _1677_) is not wanted and hisses unnecessarily.]

[Line: 86 'self-wants' _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, _1687_. _1677_, most improbably, 'committee'. The whole passage refers to the subscriptions of plate and money in lieu of personal service which Pennington, as Lord Mayor, promised 'on the Public Faith'. Rupert's self outweighs all this vicarious performance.]

[Line: 89 'whom' _1653_, _1654._]

[Line: 92 to] with _1677_.]

[Line: 95 Diurnal] Which Cleveland satirized in his first published (prose) work.]

[Line: 98 As Wharton at Edgehill. 'Mouths' _1647_, _1687_.]

[Line: 100 them] men _1677_.]

[Line: 109 Was the] 'Twas the _1647_, _1651_, _1653_: Was that _1677_. 'Was' = 'if it were'.]

[Line: 110 designed] _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ 'defin'd', with a clear _f_, not long _s_.]

[Line: 113 would] _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ might.]

[Line: 114 The text is _1677_, which, however, reads (with the usual want of strait-lacedness) 'straight'. _1651_, _1653_, have 'Yet' for 'And', which is corrected in some of their own group, and 'sweats'.]

[Line: 117 some] Like Mr. Badman a little later.]

[Line: 120 gig] = 'spin like a top'. Dryden uses the word in the same sense and almost in the same phrase in the Prologue to _Amphitryon_, l. 21: _v. sup._, p. 17.]

[Line: 121 giblets] Apparently in the sense of 'offal', 'refuse'.]

[Line: 123 Lunsford] Sir Thomas, 1610?-1653. The absurd legends about this Cavalier's 'child-eating' are referred to in, originally, _Hudibras_ and in Lacy's _Old Troop_, and at second-hand (probably from the text also, though it is not quoted) in the notes to Scott's _Woodstock_. _1651_ and _1653_ have 'which' for second 'that'.]

[Line: 124 steaks] All old editions 'stakes'--a very common spelling, which Mr. Berdan keeps. As he modernizes the rest, his readers may be under the impression that the ogre impaled the infants before devouring them, which was not, I think, alleged by the most savoury professor on the Roundhead side.]

[Line: 127 souse] = 'pickle'. 'they have these' _1677_: 'they've several' _1647_, _1651_: 'they have several' _1653_.]

[Line: 130 Bishop's] _1677_, _1687_ editions have the apostrophe. Laud is probably referred to in 'Bishop's'. The force of all this, and its application to other times, are admirable.]

[Line: 133 The Countess--pretty clearly Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle (1599-1660)--beauty, wit, harlot, and traitress (though, too late, she repented). Amsterdam] The religious indifference of the Dutch being a common reproach.

_1677_ and its followers read 'with' for 'will', which would alter the sense completely.]

[Line: 134 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ have 'religious' in the well-known noun sense, and it is possibly better.]

[Line: 144 Sir Arthur Haselrig (died 1661)--a very busy person throughout the troubles, but not considered as exactly a prime mover.]

[Line: 148 _1677_ '_the_ cur'.]

[Line: 149 'rabble' is _1677_ and seems good, though the earlier 'rebel' might do.]

[Line: 152 a fault] _1677_ default--not so technical.]

[Line: 153 Serjeants John Glyn[ne] (1607-66) and John Maynard (1602-90) were well-known legal bandogs on the Roundhead side in the earlier stages; but both trimmed cleverly during the later, and sold themselves promptly to the Crown at the Restoration. Glynne died soon. Maynard lived to prosecute the victims of the Popish Plot, and to turn his coat once more, at nearly ninety, for William of Orange.]

[Line: 155 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ 'l_a_bels': _1677_ 'Thus libels but amount to him we see T' enjoy'.]

[Line: 158 _1677_ 'St. Peter', which looks plausible, though I am not sure that it is better than the genitive. _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ have 'yet' for 'and' as in other cases.]

[Line: 167 the accumulative king] Pym? who was nicknamed 'king' Pym, and if not exactly 'accumulative' (for his debts were paid by Parliament) must have been expensive and was probably rapacious. Others think it means 'the Committee', 'accumulative' being = 'cumulative' (or rather 'plural'). They quote, not without force, our poet's prose _Character of a Country Committee man_, 'a Committee man is a name of multitude', the phrase 'accumulative treason' occurring in the context.]

[Line: 175 _1677_ transfers 'the' to before 'Nurse'--a great loss, the unarticled and familiar 'Nurse' being far better--and reads 'Sibils charm'.]

[Line: 176 'and' _1653_, 1677: 'nay and' _1647_, _1651_, _1687._]

[Line: 177 _1677_ 'Clown salutes'.]

Epitaph on the Earl of Strafford.

Here lies wise and valiant dust Huddled up 'twixt fit and just; Strafford, who was hurried hence 'Twixt treason and convenience. He spent his time here in a mist; A Papist, yet a Calvinist; His Prince's nearest joy and grief He had, yet wanted all relief; The prop and ruin of the State; The People's violent love and hate; 10 One in extremes loved and abhorred. Riddles lie here, or in a word, Here lies blood; and let it lie Speechless still and never cry.

[_Epitaph, &c._ In the Bodleian copy of _1647_ and in Professor Case's (3rd issue) and in all others except _Cleaveland Revived_ (_1659_) and _1677_; but in some of the earliest classed with the work of 'Uncertain Authors'. Winstanley (no very strong authority, it is true) calls it Cleveland's and 'excellent'. It is perhaps too much to say with Mr. Berdan, that it is 'unlike his manner'. There is certainly in it a manner which he does not often display, but the pity and the terror of that great tragedy might account for part of this, and the difficulty (for any Royalist) of speaking freely of it for more. It is rather fine, I think.]

[Line: 4 The pitiful truth could hardly be better put.]

[Line: 6 Obscure, but not un-Clevelandish.]

[Lines: 7-8 Punctuation altered to get what seems the necessary sense. A comma which _1653_ has at 'grief' (not to mention a full stop in the _1647_ texts) obscures this, and a comma at 'wanted', which Mr. Berdan puts, does so even more. The phrase is once more fatally just and true. He enjoyed all his master's affection and received all his grief, but 'wanted' his support and relief. Professor Case, however, would cling to the stop, at least the comma, at 'grief'.]

[Line: 12 or] Other editions 'and'. For 'Riddles' cf. _The King's Disguise_, ll. 89-90.]

[Lines: 13-14 For the third time 'he says it', and there is no more to say.--In _1653_ there follows a Latin Epitaph on Strafford which has nothing to do with this. It is in some phrases enigmatic enough to be Cleveland's, but it is not certainly his, and as it is neither English nor verse we need hardly give it.]

An Elegy upon the Archbishop of Canterbury.