Kitabı oku: «Notes and Queries, Number 40, August 3, 1850», sayfa 2

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PULTENEY'S BALLAD OF "THE HONEST JURY."

On the application for a new trial, in the case of The King against William Davies Shipley, Dean of St. Asaph (1784), wherein was raised the important and interesting question, whether in libel cases the jury were judges of the law as well as the fact, Lord Mansfield, in giving judgment, remarked in reference to trials for libel, before Lord Raymond:

"I by accident (from memory only I speak now) recollect one where the Craftsman was acquitted; and I recollect it from a famous, witty, and ingenious ballad that was made at the time by Mr. Pulteney; and though it is a ballad, I will cite the stanza I remember from it, because it will show you the idea of the able men in opposition, and the leaders of the popular party in those days. They had not an idea of assuming that the jury put it upon another and much better ground. The stanza I allude to is this:—

"'For Sir Philip well knows,
That his innuendos
Will serve him no longer,
In verse or in prose;
For twelve honest men have decided the cause,
Who are judges of fact, though not judges of laws.'

"It was the admission of the whole of that party; they put it right; they put it upon the meaning of the innuendos; upon that the jury acquitted the defendant; and they never put up a pretence of any other power, except when talking to the jury themselves."

In Howell's State Trials (xxi. 1038.) is a note on this passage. This note (stated to be from the Speeches of Hon. Thomas Erskine) is as follows:—

"It appears by a pamphlet printed in 1754, that Lord Mansfield is mistaken. The verse runs thus:—

"'Sir Philip well knows,
That his innuendos
Will serve him no longer in verse or in prose:
For twelve honest men have determined the cause,
Who are judges alike of the facts and the laws.'"

Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Chancellors (v. 25.) and Lives of the Lord Chief Justices (ii. 543.), and Mr. Harris, in his Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke (i. 221.), give the lines as quoted by Lord Mansfield, with the exception of the last and only important line, which they give, after the note to Erskine's speeches, as

"Who are judges alike of the facts and the laws."

And Lord Campbell (who refers to State Trials, xxi.) says that Lord Mansfield, in the Dean of St. Asaph's Case, misquoted the lines "to suit his purpose, or from lapse of memory."

I know not what is the pamphlet referred to as printed in 1754; but on consulting the song itself, as given in the 5th volume of the Craftsman, 337., and there entitled "The Honest Jury; or, Caleb Triumphant. To the tune of 'Packington's Pound,'" I find not only that Lord Mansfield's recollection of the stanza he referred to was substantially correct, but that the opinion in support of which he cited it is expressed in another stanza besides that which he quoted. The first verse of the song is as follows:

"Rejoice, ye good writers, your pens are set free;
Your thoughts and the press are at full liberty;
For your king and your country you safely may write,
You may say black is black, and prove white is white;
Let no pamphleteers
Be concerned for their ears;
For every man now shall be tried by his peers.
Twelve good honest men shall decide in each cause,
And be judges of fact, tho' not judges of laws."

In the third verse are the lines Lord Mansfield cited from memory:—

"For Sir Philip well knows
That innuen-does
Will serve him no longer in verse or in prose;
Since twelve honest men have decided the cause,
And were judges of fact, tho' not judges of laws."

Lord Campbell and Mr. Harris both make another mistake with reference to this ballad which I may perhaps be excused if I notice. They say that it was composed on an unsuccessful prosecution of the Craftsman by Sir Philip Yorke, and that this unsuccessful prosecution was subsequent to the successful prosecution of that paper on December 3rd, 1731. This was not so: Sir Philip Yorke's unsuccessful prosecution, and to which of course Pulteney's ballad refers, was in 1729, when Francklin was tried for printing "The Alcayde of Seville's Speech," and, as the song indicates, acquitted.

C.H. COOPER.

Cambridge, July 29. 1850.

NOTES ON MILTON

(Continued from Vol. ii., p. 115)

Comus.

On l. 8. (G.):—

"After life's fitful fever he sleeps well."

Macbeth, iii. 2.

On l. 101. (M.):—

"The bridegroom Sunne, who late the Earth had spoused,
Leaves his star-chamber; early in the East
He shook his sparkling locks."

Fletcher's Purple Island C. ix. St. 1.

On l. 102. (M.):—

"And welcome him and his with joy and feast."
Fairfax's Tasso, B. i. St. 77.

On l. 155. (D.):—

"For if the sun's bright beams do blear the sight
Of such as fix'dly gaze against his light."

Sylvester's Du Bartas. Week i. Day 1.

On l. 162. (G.):—

"Such reasons seeming plausible."

Warners Albion's England, p. 155. ed. 1612.

On l. 166. (G.):—

"We are a few of those collected here
That ruder tongues distinguish villager."

Beaumont and Fletcher's Two Noble Kinsmen, iii. 5.

On l. 215. (G.) "Unblemished" was originally (Trin. Coll. Cam. MSS.) written "unspotted," perhaps from Drayton:—

"Whose form unspotted chastity may take,"

On l. 254. (G.) Add to Mr. Warton's note, that after the creation of Sir Robert Dudley to be Earl of Leicester by Queen Elizabeth in 1564, "He sat at dinner in his kirtle." So says Stow in Annals, p. 658. edit. 1633.

On l. 290. (G.):—

"My wrinckl'd face,
Grown smooth as Hebe's."

Randolph's Aristippus, p. 18. 4to. ed. 1630.

On l. 297. (G.):—

"Of frame more than celestial."

Fletcher's Purple Island, C. 6. S. 28. p. 71. ed. 1633.

On l. 331. (G.):—

"Night begins to muffle up the day."

Wither's Mistresse of Philarete.

On l. 335. (G.):—

"That whiles thick darkness blots the light,
My thoughts may cast another night:
In which double shade," &c.

Cartwright's Poems, p. 220. ed. 1651.

On l. 345. (G.):—

"Singing to the sounds of oaten reed."

Drummond, p. 128.

On l. 373. (G.):—

"Virtue gives herself light thro' darkness for to wade."

Spenser's F. Queene.

(D.) For what is here finely said, and again beautifully expressed (v. 381.), we may perhaps refer to Ariosto's description of the gems which form the walls of the castle of Logistilla, or Reason:—

"Che chi l'ha, ovunque sia, sempre che vuole,
Febo (mal grado tuo) si può far giorno."

Orl. Fur. x. 60.

On l. 404. (G.):—

"Whiles a puft and rechlesse libertine,
Himselfe the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And reakes not his owne reed."

Hamlet> i. 3.

On l. 405. (G.):—

"Where death and danger dog the heels of worth."

All's Well that ends Well, iii. 4.

On l. 421. (M.):—

"Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just:
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted."

2 Henry IV., iii. 2.

On l. 424. (G.):—

"And now he treads th' infamous woods and downs."

Ph. Fletcher's Eclog., i. p. 4. ed. 1633.

On l. 494. (G.) The same sort of compliment occurs in Wither's Sheperd's Hunting. (See Gentleman's Mag. for December 1800, p. 1151.)

"Thou wert wont to charm thy flocks;
And among the massy rocks
Hast so cheered me with thy song,
That I have forgot my wrong."

He adds:—

"Hath some churle done thee a spight?
Dost thou miss a lamb to-night?"

Juvenilia, p. 417. ed. 12mo. 1633.

On l. 535. (M.):—

"Not powerful Circe with her Hecate rites."

Ph. Fletcher's Poetical Miscellanies, p. 65. ed. 1633.

On l. 544. (D.):—

"The soft sweet moss shall be thy bed
With crawling woodbine overspread."

Herrick's Hesperides, p. 223.

On l. 554 (G.):—

"And flattery to his sinne close curtain draws."

Ph. Fletcher's Purple Island, p. 112. ed. 1633.

On l. 635. (G.):—

"His clouted shoon were nailed for fear of wasting."

Ph. Fletcher's Purple Island, p. 113.

On l. 707. (G.) A passage in the Spanish Tragedy confirms Mr. Warton's reasoning—

"After them doth Hymen hie as fast,
Clothed in sable and a saffron robe."

Old Plays, vol. iii. p. 214. ed. 1780.

On l. 734. (G.):—

"Saw you not a lady come this way on a sable horse
studded with stars of white?"

Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster, Act iv.

On l. 752. (G.):—

"A sweet vermilian tincture stained
The bride's fair cheek."

Quarles' Argalus and Parthenia, p. 118. ed. 1647.

On l. 812. (G.):—

"Bathed in worldly bliss."

Drayton, p. 586. ed. 1753.

"The fortunate who bathe in floods of joys."

E. of Sterline's Works, p. 251. ed. 1637.

On l. 834. (D.):—

"The lily-wristed morn."

The Country Life, Herrick's Hesperides, p. 269.

(G.):—

"Reacht him her ivory hand."

Ph. Fletcher's Purple Island, p. 117.

On l. 853. (G.) Compare this line of Drayton in his Baron's Warrs:—

"Of gloomy magicks and benumbing charms."

Vol. i. p. 110. ed. 1753.

On l. 861. (G.):—

"Through whose translucent sides much light is born."

Ph. Fletcher's Pur. Island, C. 5. St. 31. p. 54.

On l. 862. (M.):—

"All hundred nymphs, that in his rivers dwell,
About him flock, with water-lilies crowned."

Ph. Fletcher's Poet. Miscell., p 67. ed. 1633.

On l. 863. (G.) The use of Ambergris, mentioned in Warton's note, appears from Drayton, v. ii. p. 483.:—

"Eat capons cooked at fifteen crowns apiece,
With their fat bellies stuft with ambergrise."

On l. 886. (G.):—

"The wealth of Tarsus nor the rocks of pearl,
That pave the court of Neptune, can weigh down
That virtue."

Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster, Act iv.

On l. 894. (G.):—

"Beset at th' end with emeralds and turches."

Lingua iv. 4. Old Plays, v. 5. p. 202. ed. 1780.

On l. 924. (M.) Mr. Warton says this votive address was suggested by that of Amoret in the Faithful Shepherdess; but observes that "the form and subject, rather than the imagery, is copied." In the following maledictory address from Ph. Fletcher's 2nd eclogue, st. 23., the imagery is precisely similar to Milton's, the good and evil being made to consist in the fulness or decrease of the water, the clearness or muddiness of the stream, and the nature of the plants flowing on its banks:—

"But thou, proud Chame, which thus hast wrought me spite,
Some greater river drown thy hatefull name;
Let never myrtle on thy banks delight;
But willows pale, the leads of spite and blame,
Crown thy ungratefull shores with scorn and shame:
Let dirt and mud thy lazie waters seize,
Thy weeds still grow, thy waters still decrease;
Nor let thy wretched love to Gripus ever cease."

P. 13. ed. 1633.

See also the "Masque," in Beaumont and Fletcher's Maid's Tragedy, Act I. vol. i. p. 17. edit. 1750.

On l. 936. (G.):—