Opposed theories of Government: Monarchy v. Anarchy. 7 evils of rebellion, with the actual distractions and tyranny of anarchists, following the fall of Richard Cromwell. People knew nothing of the thoughtful writings of Sir John Eliot, which had remained hidden away in manuscripts, not given to the world until within these recent years.' John Locke took upon himself the task of answering Filmer in Two Treatises on Government, but not until 1690; while Algernon Sydney's earlier work on Government found few readers, its weighty arguments being conveyed with too much ponderosity of style to suit popular comprehension. But it should be remembered that such subjects cannot often be treated with the flippant wit or sparkling brilliancy such as Samuel Butler employs in conveying the soundest truths and wisest maxims. And even he, so full of glitter on paper, was usually dull in conversation, never quite at ease save when alone. It was a spiteful action against Dryden, by his malignant political enemies, to taunt him with having written praisefully in 1658 on Oliver Cromwell; even as the detractors of "the melancholy Cowley" used against him his earlier authorship of the Pindaric Ode entitled "Brutus" (beginning "Excellent Brutus, of all human race"), to turn back any current of favour from carrying him into port. By J. Smith in 1681 was re-issued on a sheet, printed on both sides, John Dryden's Ode, commencing "And now 'tis time for their Officious haste;" the poem being thus headed: "An Elegy on the Usurper O.C., by the Author of Absalom and Achitophel, published to shew the Loyalty and Integrity of the POET" (sic). The men who thus insinuated that Dryden was a changeling, at heart opposed to Monarchy, and only for filthy lucre fawning on the King whose father Oliver had helped to murder, were precisely those devoid of all loyal principle, and inclined to rancorously defame others because their own thoughts dwelt familiarly on baseness. Meeting this particular instance of short-sighted malignity, it had been with a grim propriety of reprisal that other weapons of offence were drawn forth from the ancient armoury by the opposite class of politicians. Thus a " Panegyrick upon Monarchy," said to have been written in 1658, was reprinted and circulated. We here give it from two broadsides in the Bagford Collection, annotating variations found in a later reprint as a "Loyal Poem " issued in 1685. 1 It had remained for Dr. Alexander Balloch Grosart, in his quarto edition, a hundred copies, 1879, to print for the first time from the Harleian MS. 2,228, the whole of Sir John Eliot's Monarchie of Man, in two vols. (to which the present Editor had the pleasure of furnishing a copper-plate fac-simile of Eliot's own ornamental title-page), with praiseworthy exactitude. John Forster had issued only garbled extracts and analysis in his two memoirs of Eliot. In 1881 Dr. Grosart followed up his good work with another couple of quarto volumes, containing Eliot's Apology for Socrates and Negotium Posterorum; finishing by two others in 1882, De Jure Majestatis, and The Letter-Book of Sir John Eliot, all for the first time printed verbatim, and of great value for students of History. [Bagford Collection, III. 37 and 89; Luttrell Coll., II. 142.] A Worthy Panegyrick upon Monarchy; WRITTEN ANNO MDCLVIII. By a Learned and truly Loyal Gentleman, for Enformation of the miserably mis-led Commonwealths-Men (falsely so called) of that Beluded Age; and now revived by One that honours the Author, and the Established Government of these Nations. IF F wanting Wings one may ascend the Skies, Let the Grand Subject of thy Measures be, 6 *Original Note.-" Monarchia & Monos Archôn, The Rule of one Prince or Governour without a Peer, or the Government of one man over many. As in England, etc. Britannia ab initio mundi semper fuit Regia, & Regimen illius simile ille Cœlorum. Howel." [The reprint, of 1685, reads "No Rule in England like a Monarchy." But compare line 25, for mention of "The Rational Soul."] A Worthy Panegyric upon Monarchy. It is the Image of that Domination, By which Jehovah rules the whole Creation; As old as that paternal Sovereignty Disown'd of None, but them whose Minds aspire, For be 't a Few or Many we live under, 9 12 Such shall repine, still, whilst not of the Number. 18 The Antients did a Monarchy prefer, The Rational Soul performs a Prince's part, Poor Cranes, and silly Bees (with shivering Wings,) Nature her self disdains a Crowded Throne, 24 The Body's Monstrous, has more Heads than One. 30 A Monarchy's that Politick simple State, Consists in Unity (inseparate, Pure and entire); a Government that stands When others fall, touch'd but with levelling hands; So Natural, and with such Skill endu❜d, It makes One Body of a Multitude. In Order (wherein latter things depend 36 For where or All, or Many bear the Sway, 42 10 A Worthy Panegyric upon Monarchy. A Monarchy more quickly doth attain Treason, nor Force, so suddenly divides 48 Results an Object of the Prince's fear; Than when an Empire, Rome was ne'r so strong, 54 A Monarchy abates those Feverish Fits Of Emulation a Free-State begets: A Prince can not his Reins so quickly slack, Or throw his Burthen on another's Back: But where so many Rulers have Command, The Work's transferr'd, and toss'd from Hand to Hand. The People, or the Nobles to debate The deep Concernments of a troubled State, Set Times and Places have assigned them, they But hold! Me thinks I see the three Estates 66 And yet!... with Patience they abound, In Hopes of Better, now the Wheel go's round. London, Printed for W.B. ["9 March "], MDCLXXX. 72 [In White-letter, double-columns: no woodcut. We add one from our Roxburghe Ballads of previous volume. The final verse of the present broadside was not reprinted in the Loyal Poem of 1685, which ended abruptly with "never's off his Throne." The date it assigns to the original is 1656, not 1658. The Broadside re-issue was on March the Ninth, 168f. W.B. William Bucknall.] = Attempts to Exclude James from the Succession. 11 The differences here noted, between the broadside of 1680 and the Loyal Poem of 1685, are comparatively trifling, but they are much greater in the two similar versions of another poem, contemporary, entitled "The Succession." Where the disparity is so marked, it would but clumsily represent the differences were they merely shown by footnotes. We therefore give at once the brief Loyal Poem, in small type, and will add the more important Bagford Collection broadside version on our p. 54, after the two Roxburghe Ballads on the Oxford Parliament. It is interesting to compare the enlarged with the abbreviated version of "The Succession: " the former having been published while resistance was offered against the Duke of York's rightful claims to wear the Crown after his brother Charles; the shorter poem was re-issued after James had mounted the throne. The obstinacy wherewith the Oxford Parliament pressed forward the Exclusion of James, (although the Peers had so recently thrown out the Bill in the former year), resisting all warnings that this wrong to his brother was the one thing which Charles would not yield, was akin to that ill-omened pertinacity of their attempt to assume entire management of the mysterious Fitz-Harris case,' instead of leaving him to the ordinary law-courts. It was evident that no rational or loyal conduct was to be expected from the Commons, and their week-long session was not an hour too short. A Poem [entitled, The Succession]. THat Hat precious gem call'd Loyalty grows scarce, Would turn the Frame of Nature off its pins. All wild attempts against your reason tame; Nor think your selves who are but Subjects, Kings, 10 Late reeling times sufficiently have shown When Charles the Great, whose memory shall live, And those who dare oppose Succession Wou'd play the same Game over with the Son. This speaks your trust, the Wounds continue green 20 Since that Blest Martyr was the bloody scene Of their impieties; This Land was wrack'd, Its bowels torn, Nature's chief fabrick crack'd, |