Read The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 Online

Authors: David Hume

The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (326 page)

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we can judge from Elizabeth’s compositions, we may pronounce, that, notwithstanding her application, and her excellent parts, her taste in literature was but indifferent: She was much inferior to her successor in this particular, who was himself no perfect model of eloquence.

Unhappily for literature, at least for the learned of this age, the queen’s vanity lay more in shining by her own learning, than in encouraging men of genius by her liberality. Spencer himself, the finest English writer of his age, was long neglected; and after the death of Sir Philip Sydney, his patron, was allowed to die almost for want. This poet contains great beauties, a sweet and harmonious versification, easy elocution, a fine imagination: Yet does the perusal of his work become so tedious, that one never finishes it from the mere pleasure which it affords: It soon becomes a kind of task-reading; and it requires some effort and resolution to carry us on to the end of his long performance. This effect, of which every one is conscious, is usually ascribed to the change of manners: But manners have more changed since Homer’s age; and yet that poet remains still the favourite of every reader of taste and judgment. Homer copied true natural manners, which, however rough or uncultivated, will always form an agreeable and interesting picture: But the pencil of the English poet was employed in drawing the affectations, and conceits, and fopperies of chivalry, which appear ridiculous as soon as they lose the recommendation of the mode. The tediousness of continued allegory, and that too seldom striking or ingenious has also contributed to render the
Fairy Queen
peculiarly tiresome; not to mention the too great frequency of its descriptions, and the languor of its stanza. Upon the whole, Spencer maintains his place in the shelves among our English classics: But he is seldom seen on the table; and there is scarcely any one, if he dares to be ingenuous, but will confess, that, notwithstanding all the merit of the poet, he affords an entertainment with which the palate is soon satiated. Several writers of late have amused themselves in copying the stile of Spencer; and no imitation has been so indifferent as not to bear a great resemblance to the original: His manner is so peculiar, that it is almost impossible not to transfer some of it into the copy.

[a]Burnet, vol. ii. p. 373.

[b]Burnet, vol. ii. p. 374.

[c]Ibid. Heylin, p. 102.

[d]Camden in Kennet, p. 370. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 375.

[e]Father Paul, lib. 5.

[f]Strype’s Ann. vol. i. p. 5.

[g]Burnet, vol. ii. p. 377. Camden, p. 370.

[h]Burnet, vol. ii. p. 378. Camden, p. 371.

[i]Heylin, p. 103.

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[k]Heylin, p. 104. Strype, vol. i. p. 41.

[l]Camden, p. 371. Heylin, p. 104. Strype, vol. i. p. 54. Stowe, p. 635.

[m]Burnet, vol. ii. p. 380. Strype, vol. i. p. 29.

[n]Notwithstanding the byass of the nation towards the protestant sect, it appears, that

some violence, at least according to our present ideas, was used in these elections: Five candidates were nominated by the court to each borough and three to each county; and by the sheriff’s authority the members were chosen from among these candidates.
See state papers collected by Edward earl of Clarendon,
p. 92.

[o]1 Eliz. cap. 3.

[p]Camden, p. 372. Heylin, p. 107, 108.

[q]1 Eliz. cap. 1. This last power was anew recognized in the act of uniformity. 1 Eliz.

cap. 2.

[r]1 Eliz. cap. 2.

[s]Strype, vol. i. p. 79.

[t]Ibid. p. 95.

[u]1 Eliz. cap. 2.

[NOTE [A]]
The parliament also granted the queen the duties of tonnage and poundage; but this concession was at that time regarded only as a matter of form, and she had levied these duties before they were voted by parliament: But there was another exertion of power, which she practiced, and which people, in the present age, from their ignorance of ancient practices, may be apt to think a little extraordinary.

Her sister, after the commencement of the war with France, had, from her own authority, imposed four marks on each ton of wine imported, and had encreased the poundage a third on all commodities. Queen Elizabeth continued these impositions, as long as she thought convenient. The parliament, who had so good an opportunity of restraining these arbitrary taxes, when they voted the tonnage and poundage, thought not proper to make any mention of them. They knew, that the sovereign, during that age, pretended to have the sole regulation of foreign trade, and that their intermeddling with that prerogative would have drawn on them the severest reproof, if not chastisement. See Forbes, vol. i. p. 132, 133. We know certainly from the statutes and journals, that no such impositions were granted by parliament.

[x]Camden, p. 375. Sir Simon d’Ewes.

[y]It is thought remarkable by Camden, that though this session was the first of the

reign, no person was attainted; but on the contrary, some restored in blood by the parliament. A good symptom of the lenity, at least of the prudence, of the queen’s PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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government; and that it should appear remarkable, is a proof of the rigour of preceding reigns.

[z]Camden, p. 376. Heylin, p. 115. Strype, vol. i. p. 73, with some small variations.

[a]Heylin, p. 111.

[b]Burnet, vol. ii. p. 376, 397. Camden, p. 371.

[c]Camden, p. 378. Strype, vol. i. p. 150, 370.

[d]Forbes’s Full View, vol. i. p. 59.

[e]Forbes, vol. i. p. 54.

[f]Forbes, p. 68. Rymer, tom. xv. p. 505.

[g]Keith, p. 66. Knox, p. 101.

[h]The reformers used at that time king Edward’s liturgy in Scotland. Forbes, p. 155.

[i]Keith, p. 66. Knox, p. 101.

[k]Knox, p. 122.

[l]Knox, p. 121.

[m]Ibid. p. 123.

[n]Keith, p. 78, 81, 82.

[o]Melvil’s Memoirs, p. 24. Jeb, vol. ii. p. 446.

[NOTE [B]]
Knox, p. 127. We shall suggest afterwards some reasons to suspect, that, perhaps, no express promise was ever given. Calumnies easily arise during times of faction, especially those of the religious kind, when men think every art lawful for promoting their purpose. The congregation in their manifesto, in which they enumerate all the articles of the regent’s maladministration, do not reproach her with this breach of promise. It was probably nothing but a rumour spread abroad to catch the populace. If the papists have sometimes maintained, that no faith was to be kept with heretics, their adversaries seem also to have thought, that no truth ought to be told of idolaters.

[q]Spotswood, p. 121. Knox, p. 127.

[r]Knox, p. 129.

[s]Knox, p. 131.

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[t]Ibid. p. 133.

[u]A contemptuous term for a priest.

[w]Keith, p. 85, 86, 87. Knox, p. 134.

[x]Knox, p. 139.

[y]Ibid. Spotswood, p. 123.

[NOTE [C]]
Spotswood, p. 146. Melvil, p. 29. Knox, p. 225, 228. Lesley, lib. x. That there was really no violation of the capitulation of Perth, appears from the manifesto of the congregation in Knox, p. 184, in which it is not so much as pretended. The companies of Scotch soldiers were, probably, in Scotch pay, since the congregation complains, that the country was oppressed with taxes to maintain armies. Knox, p.

164, 165. And even if they had been in French pay, it had been no breach of the capitulation, since they were national troops, not French. Knox does not say, p. 139, that any of the inhabitants of Perth were tried or punished for their past offences; but only that they were oppressed with the quartering of soldiers: And the congregation, in their manifesto, say only that many of them had fled for fear. This plain detection of the calumny with regard to the breach of the capitulation of Perth, may make us suspect a like calumny with regard to the pretended promise not to give sentence against the ministers. The affair lay altogether between the regent and the laird of Dun; and that gentleman, though a man of sense and character, might be willing to take some general professions for promises. If the queen, overawed by the power of the congregation, gave such a promise in order to have liberty to proceed to a sentence; How could she expect to have power to execute a sentence so insidiously obtained? And to what purpose could it serve?

[a]Keith, p. 89. Knox, p. 138.

[NOTE [D]]
Knox, p. 153, 154, 155. This author pretends that this article was agreed to verbally, but that the queen’s scribes omitted it in the treaty which was signed. The story is very unlikely, or rather very absurd; and in the mean time it is allowed, that the article is not in the treaty: Nor do the congregation, in their subsequent manifesto insist upon it. Knox, p. 184. Besides, Would the queen regent in an article of a treaty, call her own religion idolatry?

[c]Spotswood, p. 134. Thuan, lib. xxiv. c. 10.

[d]Forbes, vol. i. p. 139. Thuan, lib. xxiv. c. 13.

[NOTE [E]]
The Scotch lords in their declaration say, “How far we have sought support of England, or of any other prince, and what just cause we had and have so to do, we shall shortly make manifest unto the world, to the praise of God’s holy name, and to the confusion of all those that slander us for so doing: For this we fear not to confess, that, as in this enterprize against the devil, against idolatry and the maintainers of the same, we chiefly and only seek God’s glory to be notified unto PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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men, sin to be punished, and virtue to be maintained; so where power faileth of ourselves, we will seek it, wheresoever God shall offer the same.” Knox, p. 176.

[f]Forbes, vol. i. p. 134, 136, 149, 150, 159, 165, 181, 194, 229, 231, 235–241, 253.

[g]Forbes, vol. i. p. 387. Jebb, vol. i. p. 448. Keith, append. 24.

[h]Forbes, vol. i. p. 454, 460.

[i]Spotswood, p. 146.

[k]Knox, p. 217. Haynes’s State Papers, vol. i. p. 153. Rymer, tom. xv. p. 569.

[l]Haynes, vol. i. p. 256, 259.

[m]Haynes, vol. i. p. 223.

[n]Rymer, vol. xv, p. 593. Keith, p. 137. Spotswood, p. 147. Knox, p. 229.

[o]Forbes, vol. i. p. 354, 372. Jebb, vol. ii. p. 452.

[p]Knox, p. 237, 238.

[q]Ibid. p. 254.

[r]Forbes, vol. i. p. 214. Throgmorton, about this time, unwilling to entrust to letters