XXII.

FRANCIS ATTERBURY.

1662-3—1731-2.

FRANCIS ATTERBURY holds a conspicuous place in the political, ecclesiastical, and literary history of England. He was born at Middleton in Buckinghamshire, in 1662-3. He was admitted a King's Scholar at Westminster under Dr. Busby in 1676, and thence elected in 1680 a Student of Christ Church, Oxford, under Dr. Fell.

His application to study was intense, and he is known to have excelled in literature and even in mathematics. He remained at Oxford filling various offices at Christ Church and in the University, but an academic life was unsuited to his active and aspiring nature, and in 1691 he left the University and was ordained. He soon became distinguished as a preacher, and the controversies to which some of his sermons gave rise contributed to spread his reputation: in 1699 and for ten years after his efforts were directed to the vindication and restoration of the rights of Convocation and to the establishment of the independent action of the Lower House, in which for a time he succeeded. He was appointed Dean of Christ Church in 1711, and Bishop of Rochester with the Deanery of Westminster in commendam in 1713. At the Rebellion of 1715, on the accession of George the First, the tide of Atterbury's fortune began to turn. His refusal to sign the Declaration against Rebellion, and his persistent opposition to the Court and violent protests against its measures, made him the object of both fear and hatred to the Whigs. In 1722 he was committed to the Tower on a charge of high treason-a bill for his deposition and banishment passed the

Commons, and, after he had eloquently but unsuccessfully defended himself in the Lords, in a great speech, of which a portion is given below, the bill was passed, and Atterbury was put on board a man of war and landed in France. At Paris he threw himself into the cause of the Pretender, but met with such disgusts and ill treatment that he withdrew to Montpellier. He returned to Paris in 1730, and died there in his seventieth year, in 1731-2. His body was brought to England, and buried in Westminster Abbey.

Atterbury was an accomplished scholar, an ingenious and acute controversialist, and an eloquent preacher. His ability and energy were confessed even by his opponents, Burnet and Hoadly. His style has great rhetorical vigour, and no objection can be taken to it on the score of purity or refinement. If he wants depth and originality, his language is always clear and intelligible, and in his letters especially distinguished by elegance.

1. King Charles the First.

THE mind of man, filled with vain ideas of worldly pomp and greatness, is apt to admire those princes most, who are most fortunate, and have filled the world with the fame of their successful achievements.

But to those who weigh things in the balance of right reason and true religion, it will, I am persuaded, appear that the character of this excellent king, even while he was in his lowest and most afflicted state, had something in it, more truly great and noble, than all the triumphs of conquerors: something that raised him as far above the most prosperous princes, as they themselves are raised above the rest of mankind.

Many kings there have been, as happy as all worldly felicity could make them; and some of these have distinguished themselves as much by their virtues, as their

happiness. But the possessors of those virtues, being seated on a throne, displayed them from thence with all manner of advantage; their good actions appeared in the best light, by reason of the high orb, in which they moved, while performing them: whereas, the royal virtues, which we this day celebrate, shone brightest in affliction, and when all external marks of royal state and dignity were wanting to recommend them. Others, perhaps, may have been as just, as beneficent, as merciful, in the exercise of their royal power, as this good king was: but none surely did ever maintain such a majestic evenness and serenity of mind, when despoiled of that power; when stript of everything but a good cause, and a good conscience; when destitute of all hopes of succour from his friends, or of mercy from his enemies: then, even then, did he possess his soul in peace, and patiently expect the event, without the least outward sign of dejection or discomposure. He remembered himself to be a king, when all the world besides seemed to have forgotten it; when his inferiors treated him with insolence, and his equals with indifference; when he was brought before that infamous tribunal, where his own subjects sat as his judges; and even when he came to die by their sentence. In all these sad circumstances, on all these trying occasions, he spake, he did nothing, which misbecame the high character he bore, and will always bear, of a great king, and one of the best of Christians. this mixture of unaffected greatness and goodness, in the extremity of misery, was, I say, his peculiar and distinguishing excellence: other royal qualities, that adorn prosperity, he shared in common with others of his rank but in the decent and kingly exercise of these passive graces, he had, among the list of princes, no superior, no equal, no rival.

And

Indeed, the last scene of his sufferings was very dismal;

and such, from which mere human nature, unsupported by extraordinary degrees of grace, musts need have shrunk. back a little affrighted, and seemed desirous of declining. But those succours were not wanting to him; for he went even through this last trial, unshaken; and submitted his royal head to the stroke of the executioner, with as much tranquillity and meekness, as he had borne lesser barbarities. The passage through this Red Sea was bloody, but short; a divine hand strengthened him in it, and conducted him through it; and he soon reached the shore of bliss and immortality.-Sermon on the Martyrdom of King Charles the First.

2. Before the House of Lords, May 11, 1723. LET me speak, my Lords, (always, I hope, with that modesty which becomes an accused person, but yet) with the freedom of an Englishman. Had nothing been opened to you concerning this man's character and secret transactions, could you possibly have believed the romantic tales he has told? Could this pretender to secrets have had, or shall he still have, any weight with you? who threw away his life, rather than venture to stand to the truth of what he had said? Shall this man do more mischief by his death, than he could have done, if living? For then he would have been confronted, puzzled, confounded. Shame and consciousness might have made him unsay what he had said: but a dead man can retract nothing. What he has written, he has written the accusation must stand just as it is; and we are deprived of the advantages of those confessions, which truth and remorse had once extorted, and would again have extorted from him. However, I could have been glad to have had all that even this witness said; and would have hoped, that, by a comparison of the several parts of the

story he at several times told, some light might have been gained that now is wanting.

But he is gone to his place, and has answered for what he said at another Tribunal. I desire not to blemish his character, any farther than is absolutely necessary to my own just defence. . . .

...

Our Law has taken care that there should be a more clear and full proof of Treason than of any other crime whatsoever. And reasonable it is, that a crime attended with the highest penalties should be made out by the clearest and fullest evidence. And yet here is a charge of high treason brought against me, not only without full evidence, but without any evidence at all, that is, any such evidence as the law of the land knows and allows. And what is not evidence at law (pardon me what I am going to say) can never be made such, in order to punish what is past, but by a violation of the law: for the law which prescribes the nature of the proof required, is as much the law of the land, as that which declares the crime; and both must join to convict a man of guilt. And it seems equally unjust to declare any sort of proof legal, which was not so before a prosecution commenced for any act done, as it would be to declare the act itself ex-post-facto to be criminal.

Now there never was a charge of so high a nature so strongly pressed and so weakly supported-supported, not by any living or dead witness, speaking from his own knowledge, but by mere hearsays and reports from others; contradicted by the very persons from whom they are said to be derived-supported not by any one criminal deed proved to have been done, not by any one criminal line proved to have been either written or received, not even by any one criminal word proved to have been spoken by me; but by intercepted letters in a correspondence, to