Parliament to limit, restrain, or qualify the title to the succession; the Tory, or High Church, party and the Catholics opposed all interference with the principle of absolute hereditary right. In support of the Whig It doctrine Somers, in 1680, published a very able tract, entitled "A Brief History of the Succession, collected out of the Records and the most Authentic Historians." influenced the opinions of many by its clear exposition of the thesis it was designed to support. In the House of Commons the Exclusion Bill passed by large majorities; but it was defeated in the Lords, who found themselves in taking this step supported by public opinion. The nation was not prepared for the extreme measure of excluding the rightful heir, and was even less disposed to endorse Shaftesbury's project of legitimatising the Duke of Monmouth. Flushed with triumph, the Tory party took to itself a courageous spirit, and, after the "breaking" of the Oxford Parliament, in 1681, instigated the issue of a royal "Declaration," drawn up by Lord Chief Justice North, in explanation and defence of the prompt dissolution of the last two Parliaments. A reply immediately appeared, under the title of "A Just and Modest Vindication," in which the action taken by these unlucky Parliaments was maintained with cogency and ease. It is possibly true, as alleged, that Sir William Jones, and perhaps Sydney, had a hand in it; but the internal evidence shows that it was mainly composed by Somers. "To vindicate the proceedings of the last two Parliaments, by proving the extent and nature of the powers lodged by the Constitution in the House of Commons, was the design of this excellent tract; and if it should be thought that the writer has argued in support of some privileges conferring too unlimited a power upon the Commons, it must be remembered, that he wrote at a period when the representatives of the people could ill afford to relinquish any means of withstanding the arbitrary designs of the Court. So broken were the spirits of the Opposition by the triumphs of the Court, that this excellent publication produced very little effect.* It was most creditable to Somers that, at a time when the hopes even of the brave and the good were thus depressed, he ventured to call the nation to a sense of its rights and its danger." † It is lucidly and forcibly We have read this tract. written, and contains a complete treasury of constitutional aphorisms. To the Court party it must have been unpleasant reading, as when it hints that "kings were instituted for the good of the people, and the government ordained for the sake of those that are to be governed." It is our belief that a judicious selection from the Somers tracts, with such annotations as are necessary for their elucidation or illustration, would be acceptable to a large circle of readers, and tend to advance and broaden their political education. In the intoxication of victory, the Government aimed a blow at one of the most eloquent and powerful of their adversaries, and resolved that the Earl of Shaftesbury should be brought to trial for his life. Evidence was collected for the purpose of sustaining a charge of high treason; but when the bill came before the grand jury of London, they threw it out, in spite of the threats and remonstrances of the two chief justices, Pemberton and North. Enraged at their defeat, the king's advisers flung opprobrium on the grand jurors, declaring them *Such is the statement of Bishop Burnet; but unquestionably it added largely to the reputation of Somers. + Roscoe, p. 144. perjured and dishonest. Somers again leaped into the arena with ready pen, and defended with equal vigour and success the institution of the grand jury in general, and the action of the Old Bailey grand jury in particular, in his pamphlet, "The Security of Englishmen's Lives; or, the Trust, Power, and Duty of the Grand Juries of England Explained, according to the Fundamentals of the English Government, and the Declaration of the same made in Parliament by many statutes." As in all Somers's tracts, constitutional maxims, forcibly put, are very numerous. Here is a specimen : "The king's interest is more concerned in the protection of the innocent than in the punishment of the guilty.” And again : "Every design of changing the constitution ought to be most warily observed and timely opposed; nor is it only the interest of the people that such fundamentals should be duly guarded, for whose benefit they are at first so carefully laid, and whom the judges are sworn to serve, but of the king too, for whose sake those pretend to act who would subvert them." Somers did not allow his energies to be wholly absorbed by political contention. He found or made time to gratify his ardent love of letters; and in 1681, gave a proof of the versatility of his powers and the extent of his acquirements, by his translation into English of Ovid's Epistles from "Dido to Æneas," and "Ariadne to Theseus." No one will suppose that Somers thought himself a worthy rival of Dryden. Poetry is a jealous mistress, and he who would gain the smiles of the muse, must devote himself wholly to her service. But the writing of verse is an elegant accomplishment, with which a statesman or a jurist may profitably grace his learned leisure. Somers did not write better than the mob of gentlemen who write with ease, but he rendered his original with spirit and accuracy, and if not a good poet, was far from being a bad translator. The following passage is a fair specimen of his merits : "With cruel haste, to distant lands you fly, You know not where they are nor where they lie; And should you reach at last this promised land, And new occasions new-made vows to break? So true a wife no search could ever find. "Scorched up with love's fierce fire, my life does waste, But the strong flame burns on against my will; A further proof of his scholarship was his version of "The Life of Alcibiades," which he contributed to the translation of Plutarch by "various hands," published in the same year. The evidence which connects him with the authorship of the strong and vigorous, but coarse invective, "Dryden's Satire to his Muse," a reply to glorious John's "Absalom and Ahitophel," is far from satisfactory. Dr. Johnson says it was ascribed to Somers, but in Pope's opinion, "falsely." He adds:-"The poem, whosesoever it was, has much virulence and some sprightliness. The writer tells all the ill that he can collect of Dryden and his friends." Horace Walpole remarks, that "the gross ribaldry of it cannot be supposed to have flowed from so humane and polished a nature as Lord Somers's." This, however, cannot count for much, as, in the heat of political warfare, a satirist will allow himself an exceptional license; but more weight may be allowed to the fact that Somers himself positively disavowed the authorship.* The generous patronage which he extended to men of letters and to literary enterprises is a matter beyond doubt. It was at his instigation that the first folio edition of Milton was printed, and he encouraged the rising genius of the author of "The Rape of the Lock.” "The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read." Blackmore refers to him as an acknowledged arbiter elegantiarum. ""Twill Somers' scales and Talbot's test abide, And with their mark please all the world beside." He was the friend of Addison and the correspondent of Tillotson. Talent or scholarship never appealed to his sympathies in vain. Soon after the death of his father in 1681, Somers bade farewell to the classic shades of Oxford, and having taken his bachelor's degree, finally removed to London, where he began to practise at the bar. A competent authority observes that Sir Walter Scott, "Life of Dryden,” p. 257. |
