66 66 66 66 on the goodness of God, which had allowed us to meet once more before we parted for ever. She is 66 'gone, and I must follow her. When I do, may my lat"ter end be like hers! It was my business to have "taught her to die; instead of it she has taught me. I am not ashamed, and wish I may be able to learn that "lesson from her. What I feel upon her loss is not "to be expressed, but a reflection of the manner of it "makes me some amends. Yet at my age, under my infirmities, among utter strangers, how shall I find 66 out proper reliefs and supports? I can have none but "those with which reason and religion furnish me, and "those I lay hold on and grasp as fast as I can. I hope "that He who laid the burden upon me (for wise and "good purposes, no doubt,) will enable me to bear it in "like manner as I have borne others, with some degree "of fortitude and firmness."*-Who, at such expressions, would not forget Atterbury's failings! Who might not often observe how often it pleases Providence to call to itself the best and worthiest of its creatures in their youth, and leave only the less noble spirits to struggle on to age! And how true and touching seems the remark of the great poet of our time in speaking of one of his early friends "He was such a good amiable being as "rarely remains long in this world!"† If, however, there be any relief in such afflictions, it is, next to religion, to be found in employment either of business or study, and to these Atterbury had recourse. The favour of Inverness was now upon the wane, and the Pretender beginning to repent his folly in alienating by far the ablest man of his party. He seems about this time to have solicited Atterbury to return to Paris and resume the chief management of his affairs; the Bishop complied, but from the state of European politics could * Atterbury to Pope, November 20.; and to Mr. Dicconson, December 4. 1729. Mr. Evans, who had attended Mr. and Mrs. Morice from England, concludes a letter to his own brother by "a reflection "I made at the time, that it was well worth my while to have taken "so long a voyage, though I was immediately to return home again, "and reap no other benefit from it than the seeing what passed in the "last hours of Mrs. Morice." (Nov. 30. 1729.) Lord Byron of Mr. Edward Long. See Moore's Life, vol. i. p. 96. 12mo. ed. render no signal service. He held several conferences at Paris with the Duchess of Buckingham, an illegitimate daughter of James the Second by Mrs. Sedley, and now upon her way to Italy on a visit to her brother. This Dowager was one of the heads of the Jacobites in England - a sort of Tory Duchess of Marlborough, and a counterpoise to that illustrious relict-like her, full of pride and passion but like her also, with enormous wealth to make herself respected. Atterbury used his influence over her to prevent the Duke of Berwick from giving a Roman Catholic preceptor to her son, the young Duke of Buckingham, and even quarrelled with Berwick when he found the latter insist on his design. He also induced the Duchess to exert herself in Italy, and complete the dismissal of the Invernesses from her brother's service. But Inverness, still hoping to recover his lost ground, had recourse to an expedient that strongly marks his base and unscrupulous character: he abjured the Protestant for the Roman Catholic religion. The very last letter which Atterbury ever wrote was to upbraid him with his apostasy - for so we may surely call a conversion in which conscience has no part. * The studies of Atterbury, at this period, were, in some measure, forced upon him. Oldmixon, a virulent party writer of small reputation or merit, had made an attack upon him, Bishop Smalridge, and Dean Aldrich, as joint editors of Clarendon's History, accusing them of having altered and interpolated that noble work. Atterbury, as the only survivor of the three †, thought it incumbent upon him to write in their vindication and his own. *Atterbury to Lord Inverness, February, 1732. See Appendix. Inverness, it appears, had the effrontery to observe:-"Since I see 'nothing is likely to be done for the King at present, I think it high "time to take care of my soul!" 66 † Bishop Smalridge had died in 1719, and Dean Aldrich in 1710. The latter was a man not only of great learning, but of wit and jovial temper. His five reasons for drinking are well known : - a friend. "Good wine "Or any other good reason why!" His Compendium of Logic is less agreeably remembered by Oxonians. Accordingly, in 1731, he published a temperate and satisfactory answer. The last sentence contains a prophecy on Oldmixon, which has been verified by time: 66 "His "attack on me, and on the dead, who he thought might "be insulted with equal safety, is no proof of a generous " and worthy mind; nor has he done any honour to his own history by the fruitless pains he has taken to dis"credit that of my Lord Clarendon, which, like the "character of its author, will gain strength by time, and "be in the hands and esteem of all men, when Mr. Old"mixon's unjust censure of it will not be remembered, or "not be regarded!' 66 66 66 66 66 A copy of this vindication was sent by Atterbury to the Prince whom he had so zealously and so unhappily served, and his letter, on that occasion, reverts almost involuntarily to his own desolate feelings: "Whilst I was justifying the Earl of Clarendon's History, I own myself to have been tempted to say somewhat likewise "in defence of his character and conduct, particularly as "to the aspersion with which he has been loaded, of advising King Charles the Second to gain his enemies and neglect his friends. A fatal advice! which he certainly never gave, though he smarted under the effects of it, "and was sacrificed by his master to please those who were not afterwards found to be any great importance "to his service. . . . You may, perhaps, not have "heard, Sir, that what happened to my Lord Clarendon was the first instance in the English story of banishing any person by an Act of Parliament, wherein a clause was expressly inserted to make all correspondence with "him penal, even to death. Permit me to add, that I am "the second instance of a subject so treated, and may, "perhaps, be the last, since even the inflictors of such "cruelties seem now to be aweary and ashamed of them. Having the honour to be like him in my sufferings, I "wish I could have been like him too in my services; "but that has not been in my power. I can, indeed, die "in exile, asserting the Royal cause as he did; but I see "not what other way is now left me of contributing to "the support of it!"* Such are almost the last expres 66 66 66 66 * Bishop Atterbury to James, November 12. 1731. Appendix. sions of this most eloquent man; his infirmities were daily growing upon him, and he died a few weeks afterwards, on the 15th of February, 1732, in the 70th year of his age. How grievous is the fate of exiles! How still more grievous the party division which turns their talents against their country! Even in his shroud Atterbury was not allowed to rest. His body being brought to England to be buried in Westminster Abbey, the government gave orders to seize and search his coffin. There was a great public outcry against the Ministers on this occasion, as though their animosity sought to pursue him beyond the grave; and undoubtedly none but the strongest reasons could excuse it. They had received intelligence of some private papers of the Jacobites to be sent over by what seemed so safe and unsuspected a method of conveyance. This mystery they determined to unravel; and with the same view was Mr. Morice arrested and examined before the Privy Council. * Atterbury's own papers had been disposed of by his own care before his death. The most secret he had destroyed; for the others he had claimed protection as an Englishman from the English ambassador, Lord Waldegrave; that a seal might be placed upon them, and that they might be safely delivered to his executors. Lord Waldegrave declined this delicate commission, alleging that Atterbury was no longer entitled to any rights as a British subject. The Bishop next applied to the French government, but his death intervening, the papers were sent to the Scots College at Paris, and the seal of office was affixed to them, Mr. Morice obtaining only such as related to family affairs. *Coxe, in his Narrative, speaks of smuggled brocades, not of papers. But the letter from the Under Secretary of State, which he produces as his authority, speaks only of papers, and says nothing of brocades. Mem. of Walpole, vol. i. p. 175., vol. ii. p. 237. Boyer glides over this unpopular transaction (vol. xlii. p. 499.). 66 † Mr. Delafaye, Under Secretary of State, writes to Lord Waldegrave: As to your Excellency's getting the scellé put to his effects if your own seal would have done, and that you could "that means have had the fingering of his papers, one would "done him that favour." (May 11.-1732.) A most delicate sens honour ! It may be observed, that the Government of George seems always to have possessed great facilities in either openly seizing or privately perusing the Jacobite correspondence. We have already seen how large a web of machinations was laid bare at Atterbury's trial. In 1728, Mr. Lockhart found that some articles of his most private letters to the Pretender were well known at the British Court, where, fortunately for himself, he had a steady friend; and on his expressing his astonishment, he was answered "What is proof against the money "of Great Britain?"* The testimony of Lord Chesterfield, as Secretary of State, is still more positive. "The rebels, who have fled to France and elsewhere, "think only of their public acts of rebellion, believing "that the Government is not aware of their secret cabals "and conspiracies, whereas, on the contrary, it is fully "informed of them. It sees two-thirds of their letters; they betray one another; and I have often had the very same man's letters in my hand at once, some to try to make his peace at home, and others to the Pre"tender, to assure him that it was only a feigned recon"ciliation that they might be the better able to serve “ him. . . . . . The spirit of rebellion seems to be rooted "in these people; their faith is a Punic faith; clemency "does not touch them, and the oaths which they take to "Government do not bind them."† 66 66 66 Nothing certainly tended more than these frequent disclosures of letters to cool the ardour of the High Tory gentlemen in England, or, at least, to redouble their caution. They came, at length, to prefer, in nearly all cases, verbal messages to any written communication, and prudently kept themselves in reserve for the landing of a foreign force. Without it, they always told James that they could only ruin themselves without assisting him. It was a frequent saying of Sir Robert Walpole 66 If you see the Stuarts come again, they will begin by "their lowest people; their chiefs will not appear till the "end."+ * Lockhart's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 400. †To Madame de Monconseil, August 16. 1750. Orig. in French. Works, vol. iii. p. 207, ed. 1779. H. Walpole to Sir H. Mann, Sept. 27. 1745. |