Rattles and toys employ and please our childhood.
Wealth, pomp, and pleasure, full as arrant trifles,
Commence the idols of our riper years,
And fill the mind with images as wild;
Absurd, fantastic, as a sick man's dreams,
Disquieting this span of life in vain.
He truly lives and makes the most of life
Who well hath studied its intrinsic worth,
And learnt to lay it down with resignation;
Can like thee, Balmerino! lay it down,
And deem it not his own, when honour claims it.
See the unconquer'd captive (matchless man!),
Collected in his own integrity;
Facing with such a brow the king of terrors,
And treading on the utmost verge of life,
Serene as on a summer's ev'ning walk;
Draws more amazing eyes upon his scaffold [fol. 114.]
Than ever gaz'd on laurell'd heroes car;
Triumphant in his fall o'er all that crusht him.
Amazement seiz'd the crowded theatre,
Struck with the awful scene; and throb'd a heart
In ev'ry breast but his. The headsman trembl'd
That rais'd the fatal axe. Nor trembl'd he
On whom 'twas falling. Falls the fell edge;
Nor shrinks the mangl'd victim! What are stars and garters?
All titles, dignities, all crowns and sceptres,
Compar'd with such an exit? When these perish
Their owners be as they had never been,
In deep oblivion sunk. This greater name,
As long as any sense of virtue lasts,
Shall live and fragrant smell to after times,
Exhibiting a pattern how to die,
And far the fairest former times have seen.
Copy of a Letter to a gentleman in Holland, vindicating the character of Arthur, Lord Balmerino, in a certain important point
1746 Sept.
Dear Sir, – I have not yet been able to answer the cries of the officers for beating orders, and I can conceive no other reason for our Ministry's refusing them than that of the [fol. 115.] Young Chevalier's being in Scotland, and that they thought that his escape might have been saved through their means. But now that he is safe arrived in France, I hope that we shall meet with no more difficulties.
I had the honour to be of Lord Balmerino's acquaintance, and it was my misfortune to be pitch'd upon to attend upon him in the Tower at his last moments, and upon the scaffold, where I was witness to a behaviour that even exceeded all that we read of in the heroes of antiquity. His whole behaviour was so composed, so decent that it greatly surprized the sheriffs, the clergymen, his friends and the spectators; and at the same time not a soldier present but was moved by his intrepidity.
My Lady Balmerino is now at my elbow, and she has desired me to write to your Heer Pensioner that she is greatly offended at a passage in your Amsterdam Gazette of Tuesday, September 6th, 1746, where, in giving an account of that Lord's unhappy end, the author is so insolent as to insert so notorious a falsehood that it can in no sort be justified. He has no authority from my lord, from the sheriffs, from the clergymen, nor even from our lying newspapers. The government here had a power over his body, and he has suffered for his rebellion. But neither they nor their agents abroad have any just power over [fol. 116.] his reputation. 'Tis barbarous to the greatest degree, and lays us under a necessity, let the consequences be what they will, to give you my lord's own words on that point, a point which he had greatly at heart to clear up; and they are as follows:
'I have heard since I came to this place that there has been a most wicked report spread, and mentioned in several of the newspapers that his royal highness, the Prince, before the battle of Culloden, had given out in orders, that no quarters should be given to the enemy. This is such an unchristian thing, and so unlike that gallant Prince that nobody that knows him will believe it. It is very strange if there had been any such orders that neither the Earl of Kilmarnock, who was Colonel of the regiment of foot-guards, nor I, who was Colonel of the 2d troop of life-guards, should never have heard any thing of it, especially since we were both at the head-quarters the morning before the battle. I am convinced that it is a malicious report industriously spread to excuse themselves for the murders they were guilty of in calm blood after the battle.'
[fol. 116.] I shall take it as a very great favour if you are so kind as to lay the above before the proper person, whose authority it is to take cognizance of it that he may be obliged to retract in the most solemn manner, a falshood, uttered to the prejudice of the reputation of one of the greatest men that ever was born, let his principles have been what they will. It is my Lady Balmerino's desire. It is mine, as his friend, and as a friend to truth and justice.
I dare not presume to write to so great a man as the first person of so great a republick. Therefore I beg that you will lay it before him, and you will very much oblige, Dear Sir, your, etc.
London, 6⁄16 September 1746.
P.S.– The above is writ by the direction of my Lady Balmerino.
Speech of the Revd. Mr. Thomas Coppach of Brazenose Colledge, Oxford, commonly (but foolishly) called Bishop of Carlisle. 55
1746 18 Oct.
[fol. 117.] Dear Countrymen, – I am now on the brink and confines of eternity, being to suffer a scandalous, ignominious death for my duty to God, my King and country, for taking up arms to restore the royal and illustrious house of Stewart, and to banish from a free, but inslaved people a foreigner, a tyrant, and an usurper. For never was the British nation since the Norman Conquest govern'd more arbitrarily, or enjoyed more precariously. Never was a nation under the canopy of Heaven more grossly abused, more scandalously imposed upon, or more notoriously deceived. Liberty has been banished. Tyranny and oppression, like a deluge, have overflowed the land. Places of the utmost importance have been taken from the most deserving and given to the illiterate, unexperienced or unqualified. Our fleets and armies, once the terror of Europe, are now the scorn, contempt and derision of all nations. The one, like Æsop's mountain, has brought forth a silly, ridiculous mouse; the other has brought home eternal infamy, shame and disgrace. Such a Ministry and such a Parliament was [fol. 118.] nation never curs'd with. The former for these thirty years past has exhausted our treasures, drain'd our purses on foolish idle treaties and negotiations to procure us allies and friends; and no friend or ally have we in the world we can trust, rely on or confide in. The latter, vassals, creatures equally despicable, void of honour and conscience, compos'd of pensioners and placemen, have sacrificed their country, their all, to the boundless ambition and insatiable avarice of a beggarly Hanoverian electorate. Estimates, supplies and subsidies have been granted, nemine contradicente, though never so illegal, unreasonable and unjustifiable. Such heavy taxes and such a monstrous load of national debt this kingdom never groan'd under since Julius Cæsar's invasion; so that justice may say, never was Parliament (some few members excepted, rara avis in terris, nigro simillima cygno) more slavishly devoted or more sottishly infatuated.
Here it will not be amiss to introduce that worthy honest gentleman, the Elector's Earl of Oxford.56 When a motion was made by some true patriots to bring him to give an account of his stewardship of the nation's money, did not his Elector solemnly declare that a