"Why are my thoughts upon a crown employed, My regal power how will my foes resent, 125 130 "And if the imagined guilt thus wound my thought, 135 "What will it, when the tragic scene is wrought? "Dire war must first be conjured from below, "The realm we'd rule we first must overthrow; "And when the civil Furies are on wing "That blind and undistinguished slaughters fling, 140 "Who knows what impious chance may reach the King? "Oh! rather let me perish in the strife, *" Than have my crown the price of David's life! "Or if the tempest of the war he stand, "In peace some vile officious villain's hand 145 "His soul's anointed temple may invade, "Or, pressed by clamorous crowds, myself be made 150 66 A new usurper crowned, and I destroyed. He said. The statesman with a smile replies, "The crown's true heir, a prince severe and wise, 155 160 165 170 The lines 165-170 are a diluted paraphrase of lines in Dryden's "Absalom and Achitophel," 441-446. "Let not a parent's name deceive your sense, "To doom you little less than banishment, 66 "What rage must your presumption since inspire, "And open court of popularity, 175 180 The factious tribes "And this reproof from thee!" 185 The Prince replies, "O statesman's winding skill, They first condemn that first advised the ill!” "A monarch's crown with fate surrounded lies, "Who reach lay hold on death that miss the prize.* 190 26 For this your glorious progress next ordain, "With chariots, horsemen, and a numerous train, Oh, from the heights you've reached but take a view, And turned the scale where your desires were laid, "I not dispute," the royal youth replies, "The known perfection of your policies; "Nor in Achitophel yet grudge or blame The privilege that statesmen ever claim; 195 200 205 210 "Who, saving his own neck, not saved the State? "From hence on every humourous wind that veered "That seemed like absolute, but sprung from you? 215 The meaning of this line is, that those who reach out the hand to seize a crown lay hold of death, if they miss their object. + Lines 190-195 are taken from Dryden's poem 688-9, and 729-734 1 Shaftesbury, who had in April 1679 been appointed President of the Council, in the hope of conciliating him, was dismissed in October, on account of his persevering advocacy of the exclusion of the Duke of York from the succession. Lord Macaulay has erroneously stated that Shaftesbury resigned. (History of England, i. 253.) Form of sway, printed by Derrick from a sway; very likely a misprint, but followed by Scott and other editors. "Who at your instance quashed each penal law 220 225 It *The Declaration of Indulgence for Protestant D yoman Catholics, issued by Chork in March 1672, during the existenc ce of what and inestabal Ministry, and cancelled in the following year, in consequence of the cheinent remonstrances of Parliament. Of that measure of religious toleration Shaftesbury was, in consistency with his previous course, a cordial approver; in the following year, he, being then Lord Chancellor, counselled the King to withdraw The Declait, as a matter of prudence, in deference to the strong adverse feeling of Parliament. ration had permitted the worship of Protestant Dissenters in licensed chapels, and of Roman Catholics only in private houses: the measure had been thought expedient as a means of encouraging foreigners to come into England, as well as on the principle of religious toleration. was an exercise of the royal prerogative, then still claimed, though disputed. In 1662, Clarendon had proposed to the House of Lords a clause to be inserted in the Act of Uniformity saving the King's dispensing power in ecclesiasticals. In 1663, a bill declaring the same dispensing power had been zealously supported by Shaftesbury, then Lord Ashley. As late as 1670 the Lords had introduced into the Conventicle bill a proviso regarding the King's ecclesiastical supremacy, of which Andrew Marvel says that "there was never so compendious a piece of absolute universal tyranny," and that it was thought it would give the King power "to dispense with the execution of the whole bill." The proviso was "retrenched," according to Marvel, by the Commons, but it ultimately stood in the act as follows, leaving the extent of the supremacy undetermined: vided that neither this act nor anything therein contained shall extend to invalidate or avoid his Majesty's supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, as fully and amply as himself or any of his prede(22 Car. II. c. 1; Marvel's Works, i. 146. This cessors have or might have done the same." prerogative has long since been abolished; it made the King so far absolute; the poet's argument against it is good; but the prerogative was then held to be in existence, and it was used in this Declaration for a good purpose. Lord Macaulay has admitted that the argument for the existence of the prerogative was plausible. "Pro There is incontrovertible evidence to prove that Shaftesbury disapproved of and protested against the stop of the Exchequer, and that the measure was Clifford's, who was at the time Commissioner of the Treasury, and was soon after made Lord Treasurer. The order for stopping payments from the Exchequer was made on January 2, 1672. A strong protest against the measure, presented by Shaftesbury then Lord Ashley to the King, is printed in Martyn's "Life of Shaftesbury," vol. i. p. 415. There is also a positive denial by Shaftesbury that he was in any way author of the measure in a letter to Locke, November 23, 1674; in this letter he represents Clifford as the author (Martyn's Life, vol. i. p. 418.) Evelyn, an attached friend of Clifford, ascribes the measure to him, and discredits a rumour that Ashley had been the author. (Diary, March 12, 1672.) The main charge against Shaftesbury in connexion with the stop of the Exchequer being untrue, the additional imputation that Shaftesbury's bankers received timely secret information may be presumed to be calumny. Bishop Burnet, however, gave currency to this imputation. He says that "Lord Shaftesbury was the chief man in the advice;" he proceeds to say that Shaftesbury excused the measure to him by the "usury and extortions" of the bankers, and adds that Shaftes bury "certainly knew of it beforehand, and took all his own money out of the bankers' hands, and warned some of his friends to do the like." (Own Time, i. 533.) It is not unlikely that Shaftesbury, in conversation with Burnet, blamed the bankers; he does this also in his letter to Locke, in which he declares his disapproval of the measure. In a Vindication of Shaftesbury from Burnet's strictures, which exists in manuscript among Lord Shaftesbury's papers, and was probably written by a Mr. Wyche, who had acted for many years as his amanuensis, the writer says: "I know well the banker with whom the Earl placed his money, and that he was one that never had any dealing with the Exchequer to lend money to the King, as most other bankers had done." It is to be observed that Dryden, who had been patronized by Lord Clifford, made no allusion to the stop of the Exchequer either in his "Absalom and Achitophel," or in "The Medal." Two lines taken from Dryden's poem, 175-7. P "Nor here your counsels' fatal progress stayed, "But sent our levied powers to Pharaoh's aid; "Hence Tyre and Israel, low in ruins laid, 230 "And Egypt, once their scorn, their common terror made. "Even yet of such a season we can dream, "When royal rights you made your darling theme, "For power unlimited could reasons draw “And place prerogative above the law; 235 "Which on your fall from office grew unjust, "The laws made king, the king a slave in trust: "On ours the safety of the crowd depends, "Secure the crowd, and we obtain our ends, 66 To your ambition next he clears the way; For if succession once to nought they bring, Their next advance removes the present King: 245 250 255 260 64 Persisting else his senates to dissolve "Our tribes, whom Pharaoh's power so much alarms, I steer was changed into you steer in the third edition of 1716, probably by a misprint, but the mistake has been continued in Scott's and other editions. + The meaning of these two lines is that Charles must, without the passing of an Exclusion bill, debar his heir, or he must starve. 1 A line taken from Dryden's poem, 752. "Tis a drawn game at worst, and we secure our stake.” 275 He said, and for the dire success depends 280 285 Yet Mammon has not so engrossed him quite Who for those pardons from his Prince he draws Returns reproaches, and cries up the cause. That year in which the City he did sway, 290 He left rebellion in a hopeful way; Yet his ambition once was found so bold Let David's brother but approach the town, "Double our guards," he cries, we are undone!" "Lest he should rise next morn without his head." § Next these, a troop of busy spirits press, Of little fortunes and of conscience less ; 310 With them the tribe, whose luxury had drained Ishban, Sir Robert Clayton, an alderman of London, and one of the members for the City in the two last parliaments; a zealous Whig, said to have amassed great wealth by usury. Rabsheka, Sir Thomas Player, Chamberlain of the city of London, and another of its representatives in the House of Commons. When the Duke of York unexpectedly returned from Brussels to London in August 1679, on an alarm of the King's illness, Sir Thomas Player went at the head of a deputation to the Lord Mayor, to declare fear of the Papists and to ask that the city-guards should be doubled. He was said to have told the Lord Mayor in his speech on this occasion, that he hardly dared to go to sleep for fear of waking with his throat cut. Another example of conventicle with the accent on the third syllable. See note on "The Medal," line 284. Among other instances is one in "The Hind and the Panther," book i. 314: "In fields their sullen conventicles found." The beginning of Dryden's distinct contribution to this poem. |