Chapter XLIV: Epilogue: TO

CONSTANTINE THE GREAT.

BY MR N. LEE, 1684.

_The play, to which this is the prologue, is but a second-rate
performance. It is founded on the story of Faustina and Crispus,
which the learned will find in Ammianus Marcellinus, and the
English reader in Gibbon. Arius, the heretic, is the villain of the
piece, which concludes fortunately._

Our hero's happy in the play's conclusion;
The holy rogue at last has met confusion:
Though Arius all along appeared a saint,
The last act showed him a True Protestant.[382]
Eusebius,--for you know I read Greek authors,--
Reports, that, after all these plots and slaughters,
The court of Constantine was full of glory,
And every Trimmer turned addressing Tory.
They followed him in herds as they were mad:
When Clause _was_ king, then all the world was glad.[383]
Whigs kept the places they possest before,
And most were in a way of getting more;
Which was as much as saying, Gentlemen,
Here's power and money to be rogues again.
Indeed, there were a sort of peaking tools,
Some call them modest, but I call them fools;
Men much more loyal, though not half so loud,
But these poor devils were cast behind the crowd;
For bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,
But good men starve for want of impudence.
Besides all these, there were a sort of wights,
(I think my author calls them Tekelites,)
Such hearty rogues against the king and laws,
They favoured e'en a foreign rebel's cause,
When their own damned design was quashed and awed;
At least they gave it their good word abroad.
As many a man, who, for a quiet life,
Breeds out his bastard, not to noise his wife,
Thus, o'er their darling plot these Trimmers cry, }
And, though they cannot keep it in their eye, }
They bind it 'prentice to Count Tekely.[384] }
They believe not the last plot; may I be curst,
If I believe they e'er believed the first!
No wonder their own plot no plot they think,--
The man, that makes it, never smells the stink.
And, now it comes into my head, I'll tell
Why these damned Trimmers loved the Turks so well.
The original Trimmer,[385] though a friend to no man,
Yet in his heart adored a pretty woman;
He knew that Mahomet laid up for ever
Kind black-eyed rogues for every true believer;
And,--which was more than mortal man e'er tasted,--
One pleasure that for threescore twelvemonths lasted.
To turn for this, may surely be forgiven;
Who'd not be circumcised for such a heaven?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 382: Alluding to the Whigs, who called themselves so. See Vol. IX. p. 211.]

[Footnote 383: Alluding to the gratulating speech of Orator Higgins to Clause, when elected King of the Beggars:

Who is he here that did not wish thee chosen,
Now thou _art_ chosen? Ask them; all will say so,
Nay, swear't--'tis for the king,--but let that pass.

_Beggars' Bush_, Act II. Scene I.
]

[Footnote 384: The severity of the Austrian government, in Hungary particularly, towards those who dissented from the Roman Catholic faith, occasioned several insurrections. The most memorable was headed by Count Teckeli, who allied himself with the sultan, assumed the crown of Transylvania, as a vassal of the Porte, and joined, with a considerable force, the large army of Turks which besieged Vienna, and threatened to annihilate the Austrian empire. A similarity of situation and of interest induced the Whig party in England to look with a favourable eye upon this Hungarian insurgent, as may be fully inferred from the following passage in De Foe's "Appeal to Honour and Justice:"

"The first time I had the misfortune to differ with my friends, was about the year 1683, when the Turks were besieging Vienna, and the Whigs in England, generally speaking, were for the Turks taking it; which I, having read the history of the cruelty and perfidious dealings of the Turks in their wars, and how they had rooted out the name of the Christian religion in above threescore and ten kingdoms, could by no means agree with; and, though then but a young man, and a younger author, I opposed it, and wrote against it, which was taken very unkindly indeed."

The incongruity of the opinion combated by De Foe, with the high pretences of religion set up by the Whigs, was the constant subject of ridicule to the Tory wits. In a poem, entitled, "The Third Part of Advice to the Painter," dated by Luttrell 28th May, 1684, we find the following passage:

Paint me that mighty powerful state a shaking,
And their great prophet, Teckely, a quaking;
Who for religion made such bustling work,
That, to reform it, he brought in the Turk.
Next, paint our English muftis of the tub,
Those great promoters of the Teckelites' club.
Draw me them praying for the Turkish cause,
And for the overthrow of Christian laws.

Another Tory poet prophecies of the infant son of James II.,--

His conquering arm shall soon subdue
Teckelite Turks and home-bred Jew,
Such as our great forefathers never knew.

_Pindaric Ode on the Queen's Delivery, by Caleb Calle._

Another ballad, written shortly after the defeat of Monmouth, is entitled, "A Song upon the Rendezvous on Hounsley-heath, with a Parallel of the Destruction of our English Turks in the West, and the Mahometans in Hungary." The expression occurs also in the Address of the Carlisle Citizens on the Declaration of Indulgence, who "thank his majesty for his royal army, which is really both the honour and safety of the nation, let the Teckelites think and say what they will." An indignant Whig commentator on this effusion of loyalty, says, "What the good men of Carlisle mean by Teckelites, we know not any more than they know themselves. However, the word has a pretty effect at a time when the Protestant Hungarians, under Count Teckely, were well beaten by the Popish standing army in Hungary." _History of Addresses_, p. 161.]

[Footnote 385: The _original Trimmer_ was probably meant for Lord Shaftesbury, once a member of the Cabal, and a favourite minister, though afterwards in such violent opposition. His lordship's turn for gallantry was such as distinguished him even at the court of Charles.--See Vol. IX. p. 446. The party of Trimmers, properly so called, only comprehended the followers of Halifax; but our author seems to include all those who, professing to be friends of monarchy, were enemies of the Duke of York, and who were as odious to the court as the fanatical republicans. Much wit, and more virulence, was unchained against them. Among others, I find in Mr Luttrell's Collection, a poem, entitled, "The Character of a Trimmer," beginning thus:

Hang out your cloth, and let the trumpet sound,
Here's such a beast as Afric never owned:
A twisted brute, the satyr in the story,
That blows up the Whig heat, and cools the Tory;
A state hermaphrodite, whose doubtful lust
Salutes all parties with an equal gust.
Like Ireland shocks, he seems two natures joined;
Savage before, and all betrimmed behind;
And the well-tutored curs like him will strain,
Come over for the king, and back again, &c.
]