A SUCCESSION of problems or puzzles in the uterary and political history of modern times nas occasionally occupied some ingenious writers, and amused many idle readers. Those who think nothing useful which does not yield some palpable and direct advantage, have, indeed, scornfully rejected such inquiries as frivolous and useless. But their disdain has not repressed such discussions: and it is fortunate that it has not done so. Amusement is itself an advantage. The vigour which the understanding derives from exercise on every subject is a great advantage. If there is to be any utility in history, the latter must be accurate,—which it never will be, unless there be a solicitude to ascertain the truth even of its minutest parts. History is read with pleasure, and with moral effect, only as far as it engages our feelings in the merit or demerit, in the fame or forune, of historical personages. The breathless anxiety with which the obscure and conflicting evidence on a trial at law is watched by the bystander is but a variety of the same feeling which prompts the reader to examine the proofs against Mary, Queen of Scots, with as deep an interest as if she were alive, and were now on her trial. And it is wisely ordered that it should be so: for our condition would not, upon the whole, be bettered

* Contributed to the Edinburgh Review (vol. xliv. p. 1.) as a review of "Who wrote Einr Barixian?" by Christopher Wordsworth, D. D., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. London, 1824.-ED.

by our feeling less strongly about each other's concerns.

The question "Who wrote Icôn Basilike ?" seemed more than once to be finally deter mined. Before the publication of the private letters of Bishop Gauden, the majority of historical inquirers had pronounced it spurious; and the only writers of great acuteness who maintained its genuinenessWarburton and Hume-spoke in a tone which rather indicated an anxious desire that others should believe, than a firm belief in their own minds. It is perhaps the only matter on which the former ever expressed himself with diffidence; and the case must indeed have seemed doubtful, which compelled the most dogmatical and arrogant of disputants to adopt a language almost sceptical. The successive publications of those letters in Maty's Review, in the third volume of the Clarendon Papers, and lastly, but most decisively, by Mr. Todd, seemed to have closed the dispute.

The main questions on which the whole dispute hinges are, Whether the acts and words of Lord Clarendon, of Lord Bristol, of Bishop Morley, of Charles II., and James II., do not amount to a distinct acknowledgment of Gauden's authorship? and, Whether an admission of that claim by these persons be not a conclusive evidence of its truth? If these questions can be answered affirmatively, the other parts of the case will not require very long consideration.

The Icon Basilikè was intended to produce a favourable effect during the King's

trial; but its publication was retarded till some days after his death, by the jealous and rigorous precautions of the ruling powers. The impression made on the public by a work which purported to convey the pious and eloquent language of a dying King, could not fail to be very considerable; and, though its genuineness was from the beginning doubted or disbelieved by some, it would have been wonderful and unnatural, if unbounded faith in it had not become one of the fundamental articles of a Royalist's oreed. Though much stress, therefore, is laid by Dr. Wordsworth on passages in anonymous pamphlets published before the Restoration, we can regard these as really no inore than instances of the belief which tnust then have only prevailed among that great majority of Royalists who had no peculiar reasons for doubt. Opinion, even when it was impartial, of the genuineness of a writing given before its authenticity was seriously questioned, and when the attention of those who gave the opinion was not strongly drawn to the subject, must be classed in the lowest species of historical evidence. One witness who bears testimony to a forgery, when the edge of his discernment is sharpened by an existing dispute, outweighs many whose language only indicates a passive acquiescence in the unexamined sentiments of their own party. It is obvious, indeed, that such testimonies must be of exceedingly little value; for every imposture, in any degree successful, must be able to appeal to them. Without them, no question on such a subject could ever be raised; since it would be idle to expose the spuriousness of what no one appeared to think authentic.

Dr. Gauden, a divine of considerable talents, but of a temporizing and interested character, was, at the beginning of the Civil War, chaplain to the Earl of Warwick, a Presbyterian leader. In November 1640, after the close imprisonment of Lord Strafford, he preached a sermon before the House of Commons, so agreeable to that assembly, that it is said they presented him with a silver tankard,-a token of their esteem which (if the story be true) may seem to be the stronger for its singularity and unseemliness. This discourse seems to have contained a warm invective against the ecclesiastical policy of the Court; and it was preached not only at a most critical time, but on the solemn occasion of the sacrament being first taken by the whole House. As a reward for so conspicuous a service to the Parliamentary cause, he soon after received

Milton, Goodwyn, Lilly, &c. +See Wagstaffe's Vindication of King Charles, pp. 77-79. London, 1711.

The Journals say nothing of the tankard, which was probably the gift of some zealous members, but bear, "That the thanks of this house be given to Mr. Gaudy and Mr. Morley for their sermons last Sunday, and that they be desired, if hey please, to print the same." Vol. ii. p. 40.

the valuable living of Bocking in Essex, which he held through all the succeeding changes of government,-forbearing, of necessity, to use the Liturgy, and complying with all the conditions which the law then required from the beneficed clergy. It has been disputed whether he took the Covenant, though his own evasive answers imply that he had: but it is certain that he published a Protest against the trial of the King in 1648, though that never could have pretended to the same merit with the sclemn Declaration of the whole Presbyterian clergy of London against the same proceeding, which, however, did not save them at the Restoration.

At the moment of the Restoration of Charles II., he appears, therefore, to have had as little public claim on the favour of that prince as any clergyman who had conformed to the ecclesiastical principles of the Parliament and the Protectorate; and he was, accordingly, long after called by a zealous Royalist "the false Apostate !"† Bishoprics were indeed offered to Baxter, who refused, and to Reynolds, who accepted, a mitre; but if they had not been, as they were, men venerable for every virtue, they were the acknowledged leaders of the Presbyterians, whose example might have much effect in disposing that powerful body to conformity. No such benefit could be hoped from the preferment of Gauden: and that his public character must have rendered him rather the object of disfavour than of patronage to the Court at this critical and jealous period, will be obvious to those who are conversant with one small, but not insignificant circumstance. The Presbyterian party is well known to have predominated in the Convention Parliament, especially when it first assembled; and it was the policy of the whole assembly to give a Presbyterian, or moderate and mediatorial colour, to their collective proceedings. On the 25th April 1660, they chose Mr. Calamy, Dr. Gauden, and Mr. Baxter, to preach before them, on the fast which they then appointed to be held,-thus placing Gauden between two eminent divines of the Presbyterian persuasion, on an occasion when they appear studiously to have avoided the appointment of an Episcopalian. It is evident that Gauden was then thought nearer in principle to Baxter than to Juxon. He was sufficiently a Presbyterian in party to make him no favourite with the Court: yet he was not so deci ded a Presbyterian in opinion as to have the influence among his brethren which could make him worth so high a price as a mitre. They who dispute his claim to be the writer of the Icôn, will be the last to ascribe his preferment to transcendent abilities: he is not mentioned as having ever shown kindness to Royalists; there is no trace of his correspondence with the exiled Court; he

The Religious and Loyal Protestation of John Gauden, &c. London, 1648. + Kennet, Register, p. 773.

Let the reader then suppose himself to be acquainted only with the above circumstances, and let him pause to consider whether, in the summer of 1660, there could be many clergymen of the Established Church who had fewer and more scanty pretensions to a bishopric than Gauden: yet he was appointed Bishop of Exeter on the 3d of November following. He received, in a few months, 20,000l. in fines for the renewal of leases and yet he had scarcely arrived at his epispocal palace when, on the 21st of December, he wrote a letter to the Lord Chancellor Clarendon,† bitterly complaining of the "distress," "infelicity," and "horror" of such a bishopric!-"a hard fate which" (he reminds the Chancellor) "he had before deprecated."- "I make this complaint," (he adds,) "to your Lordship, because you chiefly put me on this adventure. Your Lordship commanded mee to trust in your favour for an honourable maintenance and some such additional support as might supply the defects of the bishopric."

**

I

"Nor am I so unconscious to the service I have done to the Church and to his Majesty's family, as to beare with patience such a ruine most undeservedly put upon mee. Are these the effects of his liberall expressions, who told mee might have what I would desire? * * * Yf your Lordship will not concern yourselfe in my affaire, I must make my last complaint to the King." In five days after (26th December 1660) he wrote another long letter, less angry and more melancholy, to the same great person, which contains the following remarkable sentence:-"Dr. Morly once offered mee my option, upon account of some service which he thought I had done extraordinary for the Church and the Royall Family, of which he told mee your Lordship was informed. This made mee modestly secure of your Lordship's favour; though I found your Lordship would never owne your consciousnes to mee, as if it would have given mee too much confidence of a proportionable expectation. * * I knew your Lordship knew my service and merit to be no way inferior to the best of your friends, or enemyes."‡

In these two letters, more covertly in the first, more openly in the second,-Gauden apprises Lord Clarendon, that Dr. Morly (who was Clarendon's most intimate friend) had acknowledged some extraordinary service done by Gauden to the Royal Family, which had been made known to the Chancellor though that nobleman had avoided a direct acknowledgment of it to the bishop before he left London. Gauden appears soon after to have written to Sir E. Nicholas, Secretary of State, a letter of so peculiar a character

Biographia Britannica, article "Gauden." + Wordsworth, Documentary Supplement, p. Ibid. pp. 11-13.

on the 19th January 1661, in which the following sentence deserves attention:—" Af for your owne particular, he desires you not to be discouraged at the poverty of your bishoprick at present; and if that answer not the expectation of what was promised you, His Majesty will take you so particularly into his care, that he bids me assure you, that you shall have no cause to remember Bocking," These remarkable words by no means imply that Gauden did not then believe that the nature of his "extraordinary service" had been before known to the King. They evidently show his letter to have consisted of a complaint of the poverty of his bishoprie, with an intelligible allusion to this service, probably expressed with more caution and reserve than in his addresses to the Chancellor. What was really then first made known to the King was not his merits, but his poverty. On the 21st January, the importunate prelate again addressed to Claren. don a letter, explicitly stating the nature of his services, probably rendered necessary in his opinion by the continued silence of Clarendon, who did not answer his applica tions till the 13th March. From this letter the following extract is inserted :

"All I desire is an augment of 5007. per annum, y if cannot bee at present had in a commendam; yet possible the King's favor to me will not grudg mee this pension out of the first fruits and tenths of this diocesse; till I bee removed or otherwayes provided for: Nor will y Lordship startle at this motion, or wave the presenting of it to hys Mamay have beyond any of my calling, not as to jesty, yf you please to consider the pretensions merit, but duty performed to the Royall Family. True, I once presumed y Lordship had fully known that arcanam, for soe Dr. Morley told mee, at the King's first coming; when he assured mee the greatnes of that service was such, that

I might have any preferment I desired. This consciousnes of your Lordship (as I supposed) and Dr. Morley, made mee confident my affaires would bee carried on to some proportion of what I had done, and he thought deserved. Hence my silence of it to your Lordship: as to the King I acquainted with it, when I saw myself not so and Duke of York, whom before I came away much considered in my present disposition as I did hope I should have beene, what trace their Royall goodnes hath of it is best expressed by themselves; nor do I doubt but I shall, by your Lordship's favor, find the fruits as to somthing to what was known to the world under my name, extraordinary, since the service was soe: not as in order to vindicate the Crowne and the Church, but what goes under the late blessed King's name, the six or portraiture of hys Majesty in hys solitudes and sufferings.' This book and figure designe; in order to vindicate the King's wisdome was wholy and only my invention, making and honor and piety. My wife indeed was conscious to it, and had an hand in disguising the letters of that copy which I sent to the King in the ile of Wight, by favor of the late Marquise of Hartford, which was delivered to the King by the now Bishop of Winchester:† hys Majesty graciously accepted, owned, and adopted it as hys sense and

* Wordsworth, Documentary Supplement. p. 14 + Duppa.