On the Three Dukes killing the Beadle. 527 1 The Park alluded to as near Holborn is Whetstone's Park, beside Lincoln'sInn-Field: an unsavoury neighbourhood, now elevated into a Mews, but formerly notorious for the Doll Tearsheet sisterhood: mentioned already on p. 400, and in our Amanda Group of Bagford Ballads, *504, *515. Middle Park may be SpringGardens or St. James's Park. Hyde Park, and Tyburn Tree, in line 37. 2 A Gleek is three of a sort, here signifying "Three Dukes." The game of Gleek was played by three persons with twelve cards apiece, and eight extra cards used for the stock. Ben Jonson mentions it with Primero as of the best games, and Pepys calls it "a pretty game" (Diary, January 13th, 166). On our p. 203 is an allusion to "a Pair Royal," which we ought to have interpreted, not as indicating Charles and his brother James, but as being a card-phrase signifying the same as a Gleek-viz. three of a kind, and in this case the three "military chits" or the three "chits of state." 3 Three bastard Dukes, viz. James Fitzroy, Duke of Monmouth, Christopher, the young Duke of Albemarle, and another, " Dunbane, with seven or eight gentlemen." They were all pardoned, of course: this not being a Commons case. Queen Catharine's enthusiastic love of dancing was notorious. 5 Early in the century Richard Braithwayt had declared that "Laws are like cobwebs," which big bouncing flies break, but wherein small flies are enmeshed. 66 We entertain no doubt that the preceding poem was a veritable work of our excellent Friend, Mr. Andrew Marvell," who died on the 18th of August, 1678, and of whom it was written, at beginning of an Eulogium: While lazy Prelates lean'd their Mitred Heads There is not the smallest need to attribute his death to other than natural causes, although there evidently had been some suspicions regarding its extreme suddenMen of his ripe and brilliant nature have generally found their lives snapt short, not whittled away by slow disease. Yet it was declared, in the panegyric by the writer from whom we have already quoted the opening words of praise, ness. Athens may boast of virtuous Socrates, [Cicero "The Haymarket Hectors" was given to Marvell by common report. Whether he were also the author of the poem "On the Three Dukes killing the Beadle" (p. 526) is more open to dispute, but he is not unlikely to have been the author of both. No one has done for him such true service as Dr. A. B. Grosart, who in his four-volumed edition of Marvell's Prose and Poetry (Fuller Worthies Library, 1872-1875) nobly vindicated him from the aspersions of W. D. Christie, and said, "His beautiful and stainless life in a fallen and foul age has been as blinding sunlight over his Poetry, keeping our generation in ignorance of how cunning and nightingale-throated a Singer, and how peerless and manly a Satirist, he is." Valiant Monmouth Revived. "But now we talk of Maestricht, where is he Who (come what will) yet had no Brains to lose. Who must (forsooth) our future Monarch be! -Rochester's Farewell, 1680. BY GEORGE VILLIERS, Duke of Buckingham, distinct reference is made to the slaughter of the Beadle ("Murder an harmless Watchman on his knees"), and to the general depravity of the roystering blades among whom Monmouth wasted his youth. Villiers had early shared the same riotous life. His poem on Monmouth we now give: A Notion taken out of Tully's Dialogue De Senectute. F all the Gods should now a fancy take IF Some one of us a raw young blade to make, Nothing else now-a-days but slaves will be) That would not say, "Gods! in your Doom be steady : Would you be dully drunk? break open doors, There never was but one yet Sot enough Could wish to live for such base silly stuff. The Janus Face of History. 529 Although the earliest copy of the following ballad is our own, dated 1684 (a duplicate of which is preserved in the British Museum Collection, press-mark 1876, f. 1, fol. 23), no doubt need be entertained that it was 66 Revived" from one formerly issued in 1678, to which date it originally belonged. The events referred to have already been briefly mentioned in the fifth verse of "England's Darling," on p. 504. Raised too early to fill offices of high trust in the State, the Army, and the University, without the training and experience necessary for the due fulfilment of his duties, while sharing the dissipation of the Court at its most corruptly enervating time, it is no wonder that the abilities of Monmouth failed to gain their natural development, devoid of all wholesome study; or that he excited envy among the nobility, who found themselves compelled to yield precedence to one whose title was so flawed and besmirched. The gay young revellers who found in him a patron were no fitting substitutes for the trusty old Cavaliers who had suffered sorely for King Charles the First, and held aloof. Their sons were slow to recognize the pretensions of such a butterfly of the hour, until he could prove himself worthy of the sunshine, into which his fortune, not his merits, had raised him. That he should win renown on battle-fields abroad was felt to be great gain, and the favourable reception accorded to him by Louis XIV. prepared the way for what all admitted to be successful exhibitions of valour and military skill. On his return to the English Court, he found reward, flatteries served instead of fame. It was part of the grim irony of Fate, consequent on the shifting and self-contradictory foreign policy of those days, that the Duke of Monmouth, after winning renown alongside of Condé, under Louis XIV. before Maestricht and the Rhine fortresses, in our second Dutch War, 1672-73, should be so soon afterwards as August, 1678, fighting against the French, and in conjunction with William of Orange, at St. Denis, before Mons, in Flanders. Our State quarrels and our alliances seem to have been devoid of heartiness. The friends of to-day became the foes of to-morrow. The same absence of principle led the Dissenters to conjoin forces with any persons who appeared likely to be mischievous against a common enemy, in their phrensied terror of Popery, or their rebelliousness against Prerogative authority. Those who live from hand to mouth inevitably act with inconsistency to all except one motive-personal selfishness. For a man who had so little stability of purpose as James, Duke of Monmouth, this alternation of allies or antagonists was singularly appropriate. VOL. IV. 2 M [Ebsworth Collection, V. 3; B. M. Ditto, P. M. 1876. f. 1; fol. 23.] An account of Young JEMMY's Great Victory in his TO AN EXCELLENT NEW French TUNE, SUNG AT THE Duke's PLAY-HOUSE. Hen out of England we did go, Into Flanders, if you would know, And in Ostend for to lie, Because the French were got so nigh. Fa la, fa la, fa la, fa la. But when in that Garrison we did lye, Then on the Straw most pittifully, Which caused many a brave Souldier to dye. At length an order there did come, But when from Ostend we did march, Fa la, &c. 5 13 18 22 London, Printed for Absalom Chamberlain, 1684. [In White-letter. No woodcut. As shown in Introduction, this is probably a reprint (to maintain the Duke of Monmouth's popularity in the last days of Charles II.), of a ballad which seems to have been issued immediately after Monmouth's co-operation with William of Orange in 1678. Hence we place it here, preceding the expedition to Scotland.] The allusion to Maestricht, in line 18 of the Duke of Buckingham's poem already printed on our page 528, needs a word of explanation. Long anticipating Corporal Trim's practical use of Uncle Toby's Bowling-Green, in the immortal Tristram Shandy, wherein the gradual progress of the Allies was commemorated by the cannonading and razing of model fortresses, with defences of the counterscarp and construction of pontoons, King Charles II. at Windsor had constructed in 1673 a miniature representation of Maestricht, and sham-fights were organized to amuse the mistresses and courtiers, in honour of the returned Prodigal, Monmouth. 531 53 57 48 |