has said, "It is now not much read, nor perhaps generally understood; yet, a slight acquaintance with the history of the period removes all obscurity; and, though we cannot sympathise with the fervour of politics which it contains, the poetry has claims to popularity widely independent of the temporary nature of the subject."

As the reader is now to take a long farewell of Lord Shaftesbury, it may not be unnecessary to remind him that, when freed from the accusation of high treason, the Earl continued to agitate plans of opposition to the Government, which became more and more violent as the ascendancy of the court became more powerful, until open force seemed to be the only means left of accomplishing what undoubtedly he had at first hoped to carry through by political intrigue. At length he found it necessary to fly from his house in Aldersgate Street, and take refuge in the suburbs of the city, from whence he sent messages to his associates, urging them to take arms. But he was now doomed to experience what his ardent temper had before prevented him from considering. When they came to the crisis, the different views and dispositions of the allies began to discover themselves. Russell limited his wishes to security for liberty; Monmouth stipulated his own succession on Charles's death; Sidney demanded a free commonwealth; and all dreaded Shaftesbury, who, they were sensible, was determined to be at the head of the kind of government adopted, whatever that might be. Nor were their tempers less discordant than their plans. While an inferior order of conspirators were organising plans for assassinating the whole royal family, Monmouth was anxious for the life of his father, Russell averse to shedding the blood of his countrymen, Grey, Howard, and Trenchard, from meaner motives, unwilling to encounter the dangers of war. After a desperate threat to commence the rising, and make the honour and danger all his own, Shaftesbury at length fled to Holland, where he landed in November 1682. The magistrates of Amsterdam gave him welcome, and enrolled him among their citizens, to evade any claim by the court of England on his person; yet they failed not to remind him of his former declaration of Delenda est Carthago, accompanying the freedom which they presented to him with these words: Ab nostra Carthagine, nondum deleta, salutem accipe. Here, while pondering the consequences of former intrigues, and perhaps adjusting new machinations, Shaftesbury was seized with the gout in his stomach, and expired on the 21st January 1682-3.

To sift the character of this extraordinary man, and divide

his virtues from his vices, his follies from his talents, would be a difficult, perhaps an impossible task. Charles is said to have borne testimony that he had more law than all his judges, and more divinity than all his bishops. But his shining qualities were sullied by that inordinate ambition which brought its own punishment in an unworthy flight, an untimely, at least a precipitated death, and a dubious reputation.

Sleep, thou most active of mankind! oh make

Thy last low bed, and death's long requiem take,
Thou who, whilst living, kept'st the world awake.*

[Unwilling as I am to take up room with merely critical remarks, a word of comment must be given to the admirable "Epistle" which prefaces the Poem. With Halifax's pamphlets, it is the original of all good party journalism in England. ED.]

EPISTLE TO THE WHIGS.

FOR to whom can I dedicate this Poem with so much justice as to you? 'Tis the representation of your own hero; 'tis the picture drawn at length, which you admire and prize so much in little. None of your ornaments are wanting; neither the landscape of your Tower, nor the rising sun, nor the anno domini of your new sovereign's coronation. This must needs be a grateful undertaking to your whole party; especially to those who have not been so happy as to purchase the original. I hear the graver has made a good market of it; all his kings are bought up already, or the value of the remainder so enhanced that many a poor Polander,* who would be glad to worship the image, is not able to go to the cost of him, but must be content to see him here. I must confess I am no great artist; but sign-post painting will serve the turn to remember a friend by, especially when better is not to be had. Yet, for your comfort, the lineaments are true; and, though he sat not five times to me, as he did to B.,† yet I have consulted history; as the Italian painters do, when they would draw a Nero or a Caligula : though they have not seen the man, they can help their imagination by a statue of him, and

* See note, p. 42336

† William Bower, who engraved the medal.

find out the colouring from Suetonius and Tacitus. Truth is, you might have spared one side of your medal; the head would be seen to more advantage if it were placed on a spike of the Tower, a little nearer to the sun, which would then break out to better purpose.*

You tell us, in your Preface to the "NoProtestant Plot,"+ that you shall be forced hereafter to leave off your modesty; I suppose you mean that little which is left you, for it was worn to rags when you put out this medal. Never was there practised such a piece of notorious impudence in the face of an established government. I believe, when he is dead, you will wear him in thumb-rings, as the Turks did Scanderbeg, as if there were virtue in his bones to preserve you against monarchy. Yet all this while you pretend not only zeal for the public good, but a due veneration for the person of the King. But all men, who can see an inch

* See the engraving of Shaftesbury's medal, where the sun breaks from a cloud over the Tower, in which he had lately been imprisoned. Dryden intimates his head should have been placed there; and indeed the gory heads and members of Shaftesbury's adherents were shortly afterwards too common a spectacle on Tower Hill, the Bridge, Temple Bar, etc. Roger North mentions it as a very unpleasant part of his brother Dudley's office of Sheriff, that the executioner came to him for orders touching the disposal of the limbs of those who had suffered. 66 Once, while he was abroad, a cart, with some of them, came into the courtyard of his house, and frightened his lady almost out of her wits. she could never be reconciled to the dog hangman's saying 'he came to speak with his master.'"-Life of the Hon. Sir Dudley North, p. 158.

And

A tract, in three parts, written to prove the innocence of Shaftesbury, Colledge, and the Whigs from the alleged machinations against the King at Oxford. The first part is said to have been written chiefly by the Earl himself; the two last by Robert Ferguson, the plotter.

before them, may easily detect those gross fallacies. That it is necessary for men in your circumstances to pretend both, is granted you; for without them there could be no ground to raise a faction. But I would ask you one civil question, What right has any man among you, or any association* of men, to come nearer to you, who, out of Parliament, cannot be considered in a public capacity, to meet, as you daily do, in factious clubs, to vilify the government in your discourses, and to libel it in all your writings? Who made you judges in Israel? Or how is it consistent with your zeal of the public welfare, to promote sedition? Does your definition of loyal, which is, "to serve the King according to the laws," allow you the licence of traducing the executive power with which you own he is invested? You complain that his Majesty has lost the love and confidence of his people; and by your very urging it, you endeavour what in you lies to make him lose them. All good subjects abhor the thought of arbitrary power, whether it be in one or many: if you were the patriots you would seem, you would not at this rate incense the multitude to assume it; for no sober man can fear it, either from the King's disposition or his practice; or even where you would odiously lay it, from his ministers. Give us leave to enjoy the government and benefit of laws under which we were born, and which we desire to transmit to our posterity. You are not the trustees of the

* [This word is not used in a merely general sense, but in direct reference to Shaftesbury's projected or imputed "Association" for defending Protestantism and the King's person.-ED.]