Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

176

CHARACTER OF THE CONVOCATION.

a strong desire to symbolize with the ceremonies of the Church of Rome; for it was shrewdly expected, that in proportion as these were multiplied, a greater degree of authority would accrue to their dispensers. "The English clergy now loudly asserted an hereditary right to the crown, and a perpetual and uninterrupted succession of bishops and holy orders in the church. These they contended for so eagerly, that they would rather renounce all the doctrines of the Church of England, than give up these points; though the Romanists themselves, and many learned men make a jest of the perpetual succession of their orders, and acknowledge that it has suffered many interruptions."* Encouragement was now given to a controversy concerning what the divines of the period termed "Lay-Baptism;" by which they pretended, that the clergy of the English and Romish churches were the only divine commissioners for administering the rite, which was null and void when performed by any other persons, and exposed both giver and receiver to the penalty of eternal damnation. This ingenious device was not new, Leslie having before asserted the same thing. In the course of his controversy with De Foe, he had said, with equal modesty and elegance, "That it was better to be baptized by a porter, than by the Moderator of the General Assembly." That many simple people were imposed upon by the craft of these cunning men is not surprising, since ignorance is always ready to swallow any delusion. But their folly was justly exposed by the more rational men of their own church; and they incurred the contempt of those who did not belong to it. This was, indeed, a sad mortification, and gave rise to so much noise about heresy and profaneness; for it was a mortal sin to pronounce upon their stupidity. In the opinion of these men, the Reformation, which had shorn the clergy of their honors and despoiled

* Cunningham, ii. 356.

CHARACTER OF THE CLERGY AT THIS PERIOD. 177

the church of its independent jurisdiction, was an injury to religion; and they were right if it consisted in the matters they pretended. The appetite for power is never satiated as long as any room is left for encroachment; and those who assisted the pretensions of the clergy at this period, for political purposes, had the mortification to see them lording it over the people, until they were become too powerful for their own management. But the charm was happily broken a few years afterwards, by the accession of a new family, which restored the nation once more to its senses.

VOL. III.

CHAPTER VII.

De Foe still in Scotland.-Appointed Publisher of the Edinburgh Courant. -He is attacked by Dr. King-Story of the Coventry Horse.-De Foe's Explanation.-Seventh Volume of the "Review."-Pursues a middle course in Politics.-Prospect of its drawing towards a close.—The Work yields no Profit.-Violence of Parties.--De Foe's Contempt for his Opponents—Dyer, the News-writer.-De Foe's Letter inviting him to Peace.-His Contest with the "Examiner."-- His ill usage by the High Party.—He satirizes the Examiner.-Scandalous Conduct of a Justice.-And of the Master of a Trading Vessel.-Projected Tax upon Papers.-De Foe's Sentiments upon it.-Impolitic as concerns the Government.--And ruinous to Trade.- Discords in the Ministry.—Pretensions of its Leaders.-Harley's temporizing Conduct. He gives offence to the Tories-October Club.-De Foe's Account of it.-Publications upon the Subject.-Guiscard's Attempt to Assassinate Harley.-Honors paid to the Minister.-His Scheme for Paying off the National Debt.-De Foe's Sentiments upon a Trade to the South Seas. He Publishes a Pamphlet upon the Subject.—And “ Eleven Opinions about Mr. Harley."- His Defence from the Charge of Versatility. —Motives that governed his Political Conduct.-Accusations of Oldmixon and others. His own Defence of Himself.

1711.

At the opening of the year 1711, De Foe was still in Scotland, but how employed, we no where learn. During his absence, he continued his Reviews, which were transmitted to London with great regularity, and afforded matter for the speculation of party-writers, as their humour dictated. One incident relating to him at this time has been preserved, and is a testimony of the favor in which he was still held by the Scots. Upon the first of February, the corporation of Edinburgh, grateful for his past services, empowered him to

DE FOE ATTACKED BY DR. KING.

179

publish the Edinburgh Courant, in the room of Adam Booge, deceased, and prohibited any other person to print news

This was the second newsbeing established by James The first effort of the kind

under the name of that paper. paper published in Scotland, Watson, in February, 1705. was the Edinburgh Gazette, projected by the same writer, and published by authority, in February, 1699. After he had issued forty-five numbers of the Courant, he relinquished it to the heirs and successors of Andrew Anderson, printer to the queen, the city, and the college. Watson is still remembered as the author of "A History of the Art of Printing." Before he ventured upon the experiment of a National Gazette, the Scots were content to receive their news from England, by re-printing some of the London papers; and even some years afterwards, De Foe's Review was circulated in that way. The Scots Courant was published twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays, in a folio half-sheet, with double columns. It is apprehended that De Foe did not continue long to edify the good people of Edinburgh with his weekly lucubrations, as affairs of a more pressing nature recalled him to London about the month of March.*

In the month of January, Dr. King, a high-church writer already mentioned, sported his wit upon a respectable Whig clergyman, in a pamphlet pretended to be "Mr. Bisset's Recantation: In a Letter to the Rev. Dr. Henry Sacheverell. Occasioned by his reading the Doctor's Vindication, lately published by Henry Clements, at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church Yard. Lond. 1711." In this attempt to palm a forgery upon the public, Bisset is made to unsay all the scandals he had charged upon the hero of the church, in his "Modern Fanatic;" but the joke did not succeed,

Chalmers's Life of Ruddiman, pp. 119, 120.

180

STORY OF THE COVENTRY HORSE.

for he renewed them with additional force in a second part of the same work, in which he exposed the deception. King, in his pamphlet, had associated De Foe with Bisset, and pretended that he was preparing a work to assist in the same design of exposing the church, and implicating some of her greatest men in a correspondence with the Pretender. But the whole was a mere hoax of the writer, to white-wash the character of a criminal, and hold up the Whigs to popular odium.

During his absence in Scotland, De Foe was assailed in a penny pamphlet, called "A Hue and Cry after Daniel De Foe, and his Coventry Beast: with a Letter from that worthy Horse-Courser, to a friend of Mr. Mayo in Coventry, that lent it him. Lond. 1711." 4to. This libel recites, that De Foe's travelling occasions leading him about three years since into Warwickshire, "to encourage the faction there, as well as elsewhere, he could not but pay his respects to the brethren who at that time were very numerous in Coventry;" that he there hired a horse of one Mayo, which he took with him into Scotland; and that neither the animal nor the hire of him had been heard of since. A letter is added, said to be written by De Foe, in reply to one that had been left for him at his printer's; but its contents prove it a manifest forgery. In reply to this libel, De Foe published the true state of the case in one of his Reviews, from which it appears, that "about three years since, the author going to Scotland, a gentleman who went with him, his horse falling lame, was obliged to leave him at Coventry, and hire another. So that in the first place, the story is a falsity as to the person; for that the author of the Review, hired no horse at all, neither was the other person any servant or otherwise belonging to him, but a travelling companion." It appears, that the hire of the horse was paid down, and a further sum agreed upon for the purchase, in case it was not returned. De Foe's friend

« AnteriorContinuar »