The History of King George the Third. Horace Walpole

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of all ranks thronged to the house. Two methodist clergymen constantly attended the child, who lay in bed in a wretched chamber, with only a dim rushlight at one end. These worthy divines affected to cast an air of most serious import on the whole transaction, and by their interposition prompted Fanny and the girl on any dilemma. A servant wench commented and explained Fanny’s oracle. The father would accept no money from the various visitants, for which he was promised an adequate recompense by the chiefs of the sect. When the story had gained a requisite footing, Fanny had the indiscreet confidence to declare that her body was not in the vault where it had been interred. Samuel Johnson, author of the Dictionary, was in the number of the deluded, and with some others as wise as himself, visited the vault, where, to the disappointment of their credulity, they found the body.189 Had the precaution been taken of conveying it away, the fury of the people might have been actuated to strange lengths; for so much credit had the story gained, that Parsons, the accused, fearing a prosecution, began first. A regular trial190 instantly unravelled the cheat: the girl was detected of performing the scratchings herself, and one of the clergymen proved to be her abettor. Lord Chief Justice Mansfield tried the cause: the divine had the impudence to present a letter to him on the bench from the Archbishop of Canterbury,191 interceding on his behalf, for Secker had a fellow feeling for hypocritical enthusiasm. The Chief Justice put the letter into his pocket unopened, saying it was impossible it could relate to the cause in question. Yet the punishment of these impostors was very moderate: whereas the same judge inflicted most severe penalties on one Anett, who published weekly papers against the book of Genesis. The methodists did not take shame. They turned informers against profaners of the Sabbath, tried to establish great rigour on Good Friday and the fast-days, and to revive the superstition of holidays, when even the late Pope himself, Benedict XIV.,192 had struck several out of the calendar. But the ritual of the Church of Rome was too rich in materials not to be copied by new zealots. They introduced into their service hymns sung in parts by children, as very captivating to the multitude; and the Countess of Huntingdon,193 the patroness of the rising Church, erected a chapel at Bath, and at other places of drinking waters, the sick and diseased being an obvious prey to Reformers. Hogarth exerted his last stroke of genius on the occasion above mentioned: the print he published on the Cock-lane Ghost had a mixture of humorous and sublime satire, that not only surpassed all his other performances, but which would alone immortalize his unequalled talents.

      The expectations conceived of the new Czar were now verified. He declared to the Empress Queen, to France, and to Sweden, that he was ready to abandon his conquests for peace, and hoped they were in the same disposition—not at the same price. France, indeed, had many losses to regain, few acquisitions to restore—but her hopes were placed on Spain. Sweden had made no conquests, and must obey the dictates of so powerful a mediator; but the Empress Queen was far from being equally tractable. Peter, however, having sacrificed the first moments to decency, gave the next to the gratification of his will; and without stipulating for his allies, whose politics and procrastination were incompatible with his ardour, he not only made peace with his favourite monarch,194 but promised the same troops, which under the late Czarina had almost crushed him. Nor was this a bare promise, but faithfully executed. Such admiration of a hero was not likely to content itself with merely becoming his ally. Few men idolize heroism but they who feel the passion in their own breasts. Having obliged Sweden to make peace too, the young Czar turned his eye towards military exploits in a new field, and determined to attempt the conquest of the duchy of Sleswick from Denmark. Yet if he was dazzled by the martial talents of the King of Prussia, Peter had a heart susceptible of the most extensive humanity. One of his first acts on his accession was to bestow liberty on the Russian nobility. For the poor he lessened the tax on salt, and for the relief of all, abolished the Inquisition of the State. All the exiles were recalled, or received great mitigation of their punishments. There was one man to whom the Czar, though not so bountiful as he ought to have been, was very kind. This was Count Schouvalow, the favourite and supposed husband of the late Czarina. A man, who in twelve years of absolute power had never made an enemy; and who, had he ambitioned a crown as much as he deserved one, might have reigned. This upright man told the Czar that he had in his possession a very large sum of money, which he believed the Empress, his late mistress, had intended he should take for his own use, but not having been a specific gift, he thought it his duty to surrender it to his Majesty. The Emperor said he was in great want of money, took it, but ordered him to choose two thousand pounds a year in land wherever he pleased. I knew this amiable person afterwards, wandering about Europe,195 possessed of nothing beyond that revenue, and sighing after a country to which it had been imprudent to return.

      The Czar and the King of Prussia wished to engage us in the war with Denmark; but though the Council was divided on the measure, Denmark was too intimately connected with us, and as a maritime power, was too near a neighbour to Scotland. In this exigence the King of Denmark marched with a considerable force to Hamburgh, and obliged that opulent city to furnish him with a million of rix-dollars.

      In Ireland seemed approaching a scene of a new kind. The jealousy of commerce had ever swayed England to keep that kingdom in a state of humiliation and restraint; consequently of poverty. The lowest class of people in no country less enjoyed the sweets of being; and in no country sought less to emerge from their state of barbarism. Proud and slothful, they created a kind of dignity to themselves from inactivity. To labour no more than noblemen, was a sort of nobility; and ignorance of a happier fate was happiness. They preserved their ancient poetry and traditional genealogies; hated the English settled amongst them as invaders, and necessarily were bigoted to their old superstitions in opposition to the religion of their masters. In short, they wanted but luxury, to have all the passions and prejudices of great lords. A considerable part of the island was plunged in this dismal darkness and misery. As a spirit of opposition and independence had spread amongst the Protestant inhabitants, a spirit of improvement had gone forth too. Manufactures were established, roads and bridges made, and rivers rendered navigable. Inclosures for cultivation of lands had followed. Occupation of commons seemed usurpation to a race of lazy savages; and the first murmurs were carefully blown up to rage by their priests. A massacre had been the last instance in which the Catholics of Ireland had had any superiority; and Popish priests are historians enough to be ignorant of no such era. It was the cause of property to throw down inclosures; of heaven, to cut the throats of inclosers—and of France and Spain, to promote the good work. The tumults, however, began upon the single foot of their grievances. Great insurrections appeared in Waterford, the chief improvements having been made upon the Burlington estate. The rabble soon distinguished itself by the name of White Boys; and their instructors, to veil one nonsense under a greater, taught them to give out that they were subject to the Queen of the Fairies, whom they called Sieve Oltugh, in whose name their manifestoes were signed. It appeared afterwards on the trials of some of their chiefs, that this fairy sovereign resided at Versailles. French officers were discovered among them; and during the Duke of Bedford’s regency, a rising had actually been made in the same quarter just as Thurot landed. After many outrages, they proceeded to cruelty, and buried three persons up to their chins, who had declared they knew the ringleaders. As their numbers and impunity increased, so did their insolence. They obliged the town of Lismore to hang out lights, and forced a justice of peace to fix up a proclamation by which they regulated the price of provisions, and forbad any cheese to be made till after Lent, that the poor might have the milk—a proof that the devotees of the Queen of the Fairies, and of the Virgin Mary, were equally attached to the observation of the Fast.

      For six weeks this insurrection was neglected; and two regiments of dragoons, that were sent against them, proved unequal to the work. At last the House of Commons took up the affair, and foot being ordered out against the seditious, the matter was quashed, though not entirely suppressed, till the Earl of HertfordСКАЧАТЬ