Born: Izaak Walton,
author of The Complete Angler, 1593, Stafford; John
Dryden, poet, 1631, Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire; John
Oldham, satirical poet, 1653, Shipton,
Gloucestershire; Thomas Telford, eminent engineer,
1757, Westerkirk, Dumfriesshire.
Died: Simon Ockley,
orientalist (History of the Saracens), 1720, Swavesey;
Robert Potter, translator of �schylus, &c., 1804,
Lowestoft Norfolk; Mrs. Charles Mathews (Madame
Vestris), celebrated vocalist and actress, 1856,
Fulham.
Feast Day: St. Romanus,
martyr. St. Nathy, or David, priest in Ireland. St.
Fedlimid, or Felimy, bishop of Kilmore, confessor, 6th
century.
IZAAK WALTON
Uncanonized, Izaak Walton is
the patron saint of anglers. About scarce another
author centre memories of such unmixed gentleness and
peace. To speak of Walton is to fall to praising him.
As Charles Lamb
says:
'It might sweeten a man's
temper at any time to read the Complete Angler.'
Of Walton's early life little
is known beyond the fact that he was born at Stafford
in 1593. It is presumed he was apprenticed in London
to a sempster or linen-draper, for soon after coming
of age he had a shop of his own in the Royal Exchange,
Cornhill. In this situation he could hardly have had
elbow-room, for the shops in the Exchange were but 7.5
feet long by 5 wide. From this, in 1624, he moved to a
house 'on the north side of Fleet Street, two doors
west of the end of Chancery Lane,' thus under the very
shadow of Temple Bar. In the crowd and din of the
junction there of Fleet Street and the Strand, it is a
piquant reflection at this day, that an author whose
name is wedded with green fields and quiet waters once
abode. Subsequently he removed round the corner to the
seventh house on the west side of Chancery Lane.
In this neighbourhood Walton
tasted much sorrow. He married at Canterbury, in 1626,
Rachel Floud, maternally descended from Archbishop
Cranmer. Seven children were the fruit of this union,
but they all died in childhood, and last of all the
mother also, in 1640. The narrow accommodations which
London tradesmen then assigned to their families are
sufficient to account for such tragic results.
Meanwhile Walton's business as linen-draper prospered;
and for recreation he used 'to go a-fishing with
honest Nat, and R. Roe.' His favourite stream was the
Lea, a river which has its source above Ware, in
Hertfordshire, and gliding about the country to the
north-east of London, falls into the Thames a little
above Blackwall.
Amidst the troubles of the
civil war, while London was generally parliamentarian,
worthy Izaak remained a steady royalist and churchman.
Having accumulated a small independence, and anxious,
it is supposed, to escape from the scene of so many
domestic afflictions, and from possible annoyance on
the score of his faith and politics, he gave up
shopkeeping, about 1643, and retired into the country.
In 1646, he contracted a second marriage with
Anne Ken, sister of the saintly
bishop of Bath and Wells. She died in 1662, leaving
her husband a son Izaak and a daughter Anne to comfort
him in his prolonged old age.
Walton was fifty when he gave
up business, and forty years of leisure remained for
his enjoyment. Authorship he had begun before he left
his shop. In the parish church of St. Dunstan he had
been a hearer and, as he says, 'a convert' to the
preaching of Dean Donne, the
poet. An intimate friendship ensued between the divine
and the linen-draper, and when Donne died in 1631,
Walton was tempted into writing his elegy; and to a
collection of the dean's Sermons, published in 1640,
he prefixed The Life of Dr. John Donnie. His
success in this piece of biography led on to other
efforts of the same kind, as inclination and
opportunity offered. In 1651, appeared his Life of
Sir Henry Walton; in 1662, The Life of Mr.
Richard Hooker; in 1670, The Life of Mr. George
Herbert; and in 1678, The Life of Dr. Sanderson.
These five biographies, brief yet full, written in
sympathy yet with faithfulness, with reverence,
modesty, and discretion, have been accepted as choice
miniatures of the several worthies who are their
subjects, and are reprinted and read to this day with
unabated admiration.
Not the Lives, however, but
The Complete Angler or Contemplative Man's Recreation
is Walton's true title to fame. It was published in
1653, the year in which Oliver Cromwell was declared
Protector, and Walton lived to see it pass through
four other editions�namely, in 1655, 1664, 1668, and
1676. How often it has since been reprinted, annotated
by admiring editors, and extolled by critics of every
mind, time would fail to tell. The Angler has long ago
taken an undisputed place among English classics, and
to speak of its abounding poetry, wisdom, and piety
would be to repeat criticism which has passed into
commonplace.
The advices which Walton gives
for the treatment of live-bait�as, for instance, the
dressing of a frog with hook and wire, needle and
thread, 'using him as though you loved him, that is,
harm him as little as you may possible, that he may
live the longer,' and the recommendation of a perch
for taking pike, as 'the longest-lived fish on a hook'
�have subjected him to the charge of cruelty. Hence
Byron writes in Don Juan of:
'Angling, too, that
solitary vice,
Whatever Izaak Walton sings or says;
The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet
Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.'
But people in the seventeenth
century concerned themselves little or nothing with
animal suffering. Boyle, a good Christian and
contemporary of Walton's, records experiments with
animals in the air-pump with a coolness which makes us
shudder. The Puritans objected to bull and bear
baiting, not, as Lord Macaulay observes, in pity for
bull or bear, but in aversion and envy at the pleasure
of the spectators. Strange as it may seem, compassion
for animals is a virtue, the coming in of which may be
remembered by living men.
Blessed with fine health,
Walton carried the vigour of manhood into old age; in
his eighty-third year, we find him professing a
resolution to begin a pilgrimage of more than a
hundred miles, to visit his friend Cotton on the Dove
in Derby-shire. In the great frost of 1683, which
covered the Thames with ice eleven inches thick, split
oaks and forest trees, and killed the hollies, and in
which nearly all the birds perished, old Izaak died in
his ninety-first year. He was at the time on a visit
to his daughter Anne, at Winchester, and in Winchester
Cathedral he lies buried. In a will made a few months
before, he declared his 'belief to be, in all points
of faith, as the Church of England now professeth;' a
declaration of some consequence, he asserts, on
account of 'a very long and very true friendship with
some of the Roman Church.'
DRYDEN�THE WEAPON
SALVE
What a blurred page is
presented to us in the life of Dryden�in one short
year bemoaning Cromwell and hailing Charles�afterwards
changing his religion, not without a suspicion of its
being done for the sake of court-favour�a noble,
energetic poet, yet capable of writing licentious
plays to please the debased society of his age�a
gentleman by birth, yet fain to write poetical
translations from the classics for Jacob Tonson at so
much a line! Notwithstanding all short-comings, Dryden
is not merely a venerated figure in the literary
Pantheon of England, but one not a little loved. We
all enter heartily into the praise of 'Glorious John.'
Dryden had many enemies; no
man could write in those days without incurring
hatred. Hence it arose that the following notice
appeared in a London newspaper in December 1679. 'Upon
the 17th instant, in the evening, Mr. Dryden, the
great poet, was set upon in Rose Street, in
Covent-Garden, by three persons, who called him a
rogue, and other bad names, knockt him down, and
dangerously wounded him, but upon his crying out "Murther!"
they made their escape. It is conceived that they had
their pay beforehand, and designed not to rob him, but
to execute on him some cruelty, if not popish
vengeance.' Soon afterwards the following
advertisement was issued: 'Whereas, &c., &c., if any
person shall make discovery of the said offenders, to
the said Mr. Dryden, or to any justice of peace for
the liberty of Westminster, he shall not only receive
fifty pounds, which is deposited in the hands of Mr.
Blandard, goldsmith, next door to Temple Bar, for the
said purpose; but if the discoverer himself be one of
the actors, he shall have the fifty pounds, without
letting his name be known, or receiving the least
trouble by any prosecution.'
In Dryden's version of
Shakspeare's Tempest, Ariel is made to save
Hippolito's life by directing Ferdinand's sword to be
anointed with weapon-salve and wrapped up close from
the air. Believers were not wanting in this
extraordinary nostrum, so well suited to an age when
every gentleman carried a sword as a matter of course,
which, equally as a matter of course, he was ready to
draw on the slightest provocation. Sconce, the hero of
Glapthorne's comedy of The Hollander, knew a
captain reported to have obtained some of the precious
ointment from the witches of Lapland, and is extremely
anxious to get some himself, that he may safely
'confront the glistering steel, outface the sharpest
weapon.' An apothecary's man gives him an unguent
which he warrants genuine, thirty citizens blown up by
an explosion of gun-powder having been saved by
dressing the smoke of the powder with the salve!
Sconce is so convinced by this evidence, that when he
has occasion to test the efficacy of the ointment, and
finds it of little avail, he attributes the failure to
some impediment in his, blood and fully credits the
doctor's assertion that
'The same salve will cure
At any distance�as if a person hurt
Should be at York, the weapon dressed at London
On which the blood is.'
Davenant
says (The Unfortunate
Lovers, Act II., scene I.):
Greatness hath still a
little taint i' th' blood;
And often 'tis corrupted near the heart;
But these are not diseases held, till by
The monarch spied who our ambition feeds,
Till at surfeits with his love; nor do we strive
To cure or take it from ourselves, but from
His eyes, and then our medicine we apply
Like the weapon-salve, not to ourselves but him
Who was the sword that made the wound.'
The 'ever-memorable'
John Hales, of Eton, thought
it worth while to make a serious attack on the
weapon-salve, in a 'letter to an honourable person'
(1630). He declares it is :
"but "a child of yesterday's birth." one
amongst the many pleasant phantasies of the Rosicrucians; and as for the cures
it has worked, 'the effect is wrought by one thing,
and another carries the glory of it. A man is
wounded; the weapon taken, and a wound-working salve
applied to it; in the meanwhile, the wounded person
is commanded to use abstinence as much as may be,
and to keep the wound clean. Whilst he thus doth, he
heals, and the weapon-salve bears the bell away.'
No man in his right senses
would ever have thought of curing a wound by
anointing the weapon that inflicted it; therefore
the discovery must have been the result of
experience, in which case there must have been a
fortuitous concurrence of circumstances scarcely
credible. 'First the salve, made for some other end,
must fall on the weapon, and that upon the place
where the blood was, and there rest, and then some
man must observe it, and find that it wrought the
cure.'
He then shews that if the
doctrine be true, that it is through the blood that
the cure is worked, the salve would be just as
efficacious applied whereon the blood fell, and is
therefore foolishly called weapon-salve; and having
thus deprived it both of reputation and name, he winds
up his letter triumphantly thus:
'I have read that a learned
Jew undertook to persuade Albertus, one of the Dukes
of Saxony, that by certain Hebrew letters and words,
taken out of the Psalms, and written on parchment,
strange cures might be done upon any wound; as he
one day walked with the duke, and laboured him much
to give credit to what he discoursed in that
argument, the duke suddenly drew his sword, and
wounding him in divers places, tells him he would
now see the conclusion tried upon himself. But the
poor Jew could find no help in his Semhamphoras, nor
his Hebrew characters, but was constrained to betake
himself to more real chirurgery. I wish no man any
harm, and therefore I desire not the like fortune
might befall them who stand for the use of
weapon-salve; only this much I will say, that if
they should meet with some Duke of Saxony, he would
go near to cure them of their errors, howsoever they
would shift to cure their wounds.'
The latest allusion to this
wonderful medicine we can find, is in Mrs. Behn's
Young King, published in 1690, in which play one of
the characters is cured of a wound by a balm
'That like the
weapon-salve
Heals at a distance.'
QUEEN
ELIZABETH AT TILBURY FORT
During the first week of
August, in the eventful year 1588, there was doubt in
England whether the much-dreaded Spanish Armada would
or would not enter the Thames, in its attack upon the
freedom and religion of England. Both sides of the
Thames were hastily fortified, especially at Gravesend
and Tilbury, where a chain of boats was established
across the river to bar the passage. There was a great
camp at Tilbury Fort, in which more than twenty
thousand troops were assembled. After having reviewed
the troops assembled in London, the queen went down to
encourage those encamped at Tilbury, where her
energetic demeanour filled the soldiery with
enthusiasm.
Riding on a warcharger,
wearing armour on her back, and holding a marshal's
truncheon in her hand�with the Earls of Essex and
Leicester holding her bridle-rein, she harangued them
thus:
'My loving people, we have
been persuaded by some that are careful of our
safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to
armed multitudes, for fear of treachery. But I
assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my
faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear! I have
always so behaved myself that, under God, I have
placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the
loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and,
therefore, I have come amongst you at this time, not
as for my recreation and sport, but being resolved
in the midst and heat of the battle to live or die
amongst you all�to lay down for my God, for my
kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood,
even in the dust. I know that I have but the body of
a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a
king, and of a king of England too, and think foul
scorn that Parma, or Spain, or any prince of Europe,
should dare to invade the borders of my realm! To
which, rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I
myself will take up arms, I myself will be your
general, the judge and rewarder of every one of your
virtues in the field. I know already by your
forwardness, that you have deserved rewards and
crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a
prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the
meantime, my lieutenant-general shall be in my
stead, than whom never prince commanded more noble
or more worthy subject. Nor will I suffer myself to
doubt, but that by your obedience to my general, by
the concord in the camp, and your valour in the
field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over
those enemies of my God, my kingdom, and my people.'
The harangue is given in
slightly different form by different historians; but
the substance is the same in all.
However much historians may
have differed, and still do differ, concerning the
character of Elizabeth, there can be no
doubt of the
fitness of such an harangue to rouse the people to an
heroic resistance. She was no longer youthful; but her
sex and her high spirit recommended her to the hearts
of her people. 'By the spirited behaviour,' says Hume,
she revived the tenderness and admiration of the
soldiery; an attachment to her person became a kind of
enthusiasm among them; and they asked one another,
whether it were possible Englishmen could abandon this
glorious cause, could display less fortitude than
appeared in the female sex, or could ever by any
dangers be induced to relinquish the defence of their
heroic princess. The so-called Invincible Armada,' as
most English readers are aware, did not afford an
opportunity for Elizabeth's land-forces to show their
valour; its destruction was due to other agencies.
THE
DUKE OF SUSSEX'S ANNULLED MARRIAGE
The annulling of the late Duke
of Sussex's first marriage, in August 1794, was one of
the sad consequences of the Royal Marriage Act. That
statute was passed about twenty years before, at the
request, and almost at the command, of George III.
The king, who held very high
notions concerning royal prerogatives, had been
annoyed by the marriages of two of his brothers with
English ladies. He wished to see the regal dignity
maintained in a twofold way�by forbidding the marriage
of English princes and princesses with English
subjects; and by rendering the consent of the reigning
sovereign necessary, even when the alliance was with
persons of royal blood.
The Royal Marriage Act, by
making provision for the last-named condition,
virtually insured the first-named so long as the king
should live: seeing that he had resolved never to give
his consent to the marriage of any of his children
with any of his own subjects. The nation sympathised
deeply with the amiable prince whose happiness was so
severely marred on this particular occasion. While
travelling in Italy in 1792, the duke formed an
attachment to Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of the
Earl of Dunmore. The earl was not in Italy at that
time; but Lady Dunmore consented to a private marriage
of her daughter with the Duke of Sussex (who was then
about twenty years of age). The duke could not have
been ignorant of the Royal Marriage Act, nor is it
likely that the existence of such a statute could have
been unknown to Lady Dunmore; this afterwards afforded
an argument in the hands of the king's party.
The young couple, after a
residence at Rome of several months, came to England.
At the desire of the lady and her friends, the duke
consented to a second marriage-ceremony, more public
and regular than the first. The couple took lodgings
in South Molton Street, at the house of a
coal-merchant; merely that they might, by a residence
of one month in the parish of St. George's, Hanover
Square, be entitled to have their banns asked in the
church of that parish. They were regularly married on
the 5th of December 1793, under the names of Augustus
Frederick, and Augusta Murray. It was an anxious time
for the lady, seeing that she was about to become a
mother, and had every motive for wishing to be
recognised as a true wife. She was, however, destined
to disappointment.
The king never forgave the
duke for this marriage, which he inflexibly determined
not to recognise. In his own name, as if personally
aggrieved in the matter, the obstinate monarch
instituted a suit against his own son in the Court of
Arches, for a nullity of the marriage. Within one week
of Lady Augusta's confinement, the king's proctor
served a citation on the Duke of Sussex, to answer the
charges of the suit. The investigations underwent many
costly changes. At one time the privy-council made
searching inquiries; at other times other tribunals;
and the fact of the marriage at St. George's Church
had to be rendered manifest by the testimony of the
mother and sister of Lady Augusta, the clergyman who
had performed the marriage-ceremony, the coal-merchant
and his wife, and another witness who was present.
So far as the church was
concerned, the marriage was in all respects a valid
one; but the terms of the Royal Marriage Act were
clear and decided; and after many months of anxious
doubt, the duke and Lady Augusta were informed, by the
irreversible judgment of the courts, that their
marriage was no marriage at all in the eyes of the
English law, and that their infant son was
illegitimate. Later sovereigns sought to alleviate the
misery thus occasioned to an amiable family (a
daughter was born before the Duke of Sussex and Lady
Augusta finally separated), by giving a certain degree
of rank and position to those who were taboo'd from
the royal circle; but nothing could fully compensate
for the misery and disappointment that had been
occasioned. Lady Augusta, in a letter to a friend
written in 1811, said:
'Lord Thurlow told me my
marriage was good in law; religion taught me it was
good at home; and not one device of my powerful
enemies could make me believe otherwise, nor ever
will.'
The Duke of Sussex settled an
income on Lady Augusta, out of the allowance he
received from parliament; and the king took care,
during the whole remainder of his life, not to give
the duke a single office or post that would augment
his resources. In 1826, Lord (then Mr.) Brougham, in a
speech relating to the duke, characterised the Royal
Marriage Act, which had produced so much misery, as
'the most unfortunate of all acts;' while Mr.
Wilberforce stigmatised it as 'the most
unconstitutional act that ever disgraced the
statutebook.
