THOMAS ELLWOOD [The autobiography of Thomas Ellwood (1639-1713) goes down to the year 1683 it was published in 1714, the year after his death, with a supplement by Joseph Wyeth. A number of his works were published in his lifetime, most of them controversial, in defence of the Quakers. A Sacred History, in folio (two volumes), appeared in 1705: Davideis, a sacred poem, in five books, in 1712.] THE History of Thomas Ellwood, written by himself, is the only one of his many works that is still worth reading. His controversial tracts have nothing much to distinguish them: the preface to his sacred poem may be read as an appendix to his biography. The History of Thomas Ellwood is the history of a character such as most commonly has to wait for some imaginative and humorous artist to do it justice. The exceptional value of this book is that it anticipates the imagination of the novelist, and, in a natural and uncalculated way, reaches the same effects as are obtained by the novelist intentionally or ironically. The beauty of Ellwood's narrative consists in the perpetual discrepancy between the author's own simple-minded view of the circumstances, and the other views that are at once suggested by his story. Thomas Ellwood expects to be taken at his own valuation, but he is always giving grounds for a quite different estimate from his own, which often (and this makes the great charm of his book) is much higher than his own with regard to virtues of which he is unconscious. He demands credit for his verses, or for his discovery of the truth in the year 1659; for his use of Thou, and his refusal of "Hat-honour." The reader admires him for his stubborn downright wilfulness, for the spirit (though he repented of it) which made him so quick with his rapier when he was young, and did not leave him meek or submissive to insults even after his conversion. "I suppose they took me for a confident young man," he says, in describing his appearance at the Old Bailey : and the reader is inclined to sympathise with "them"; while, at the same time, it is impossible to be seriously irritated by his "confidence," even in his insubordination to his father, after he had satisfied himself that "honour due to parents did not consist in uncovering the head and bowing the body to them," and therefore kept on his hat before his father, and called him "thee." It is true that "this exercise," as Thomas Ellwood called it, brought him under a good deal of discipline from his father ("a whirret on the ear" coming in as part of it), all of which seems to be required in strict justice, to counterpoise one's sentiment of lenity towards the "confident young man "who had discovered this new interpretation of the commandment. The extraordinary truthfulness and vividness of Ellwood's memory, and the simplicity of his character, make it all but impossible for him to misrepresent his antagonists. He does not understand them, but he does not try to paint them in black and red: he describes them as he saw them, and so impartially that it is generally easy to understand them even after all this interval of time. The sketches of Ellwood's father, or of the Warden of Maidenhead (“a budge old man ") are not in the least distorted by reason of Ellwood's conviction that he was right and they were wrong. He gives the enemy the benefit of every point he can fairly claim to have won. A proof of this is his note of the very sufficient repartee made to him by one of the persecutors :— "In this work none seemed so eager and active as their leader Major Rosewell; which I observing stepped boldly to him as he was passing by me, and asked him if he intended a massacre, for of that in those days there was a great apprehension and talk. The suddenness of the question, from such a young man especially, somewhat startled him; but, recollecting himself, he answered, 'No, but I intend to have you all hanged by the wholesome laws of the land.'” Ellwood's manner is often very like Defoe's. He always gets the right points in his description; never better than in the first story in the book, of the dispute with the two churls at night. Thereupon my father, turning his head to me, said, 'Tom, disarm them,' ,'" this, with "the bright blade glittering in the dark night," and the panic of the two clowns, and, above all, the readiness of "Tom," make up a story in which nothing is blundered by the author. The later encounter with the servants of the Duke of York is almost as well told. Ellwood says very little about his "quondam master, Milton." Possibly for once he was made unjust, but by his own poetical ambitions, not by his religious principles. These seem never to have embittered his view, though there are traces of a worldly humour in his account of the punishment and consequent dejection of "two braving Baptists," "topping blades, that looked high and spoke big," contrasted with the resistance made by a Friend, "a poor little man of a low condition and mean appearance," who would not give in. nothing antique or He does not seem As regards diction and rhetoric, there is affected in the History of Thomas Ellwood. to have been influenced much by the older generation of English authors; like Bunyan he seems to have adopted naturally a practical style of composition, not overweighted in any way, good at reporting conversations. In Ellwood's case, and from the character of his mind, there was one subject only, the history of his own life, to which this style could be applied with full success. The same conditions that went to make his History so good were those that kept him from writing any other work that can be compared with it. W. P. KER. AN ADVENTURE My father being then in the Commission of the Peace, and going to a Petty Sessions at Watlington, I waited on him thither. And when we came near the town, the coachman, seeing a nearer and easier way (than the common road) through a corn-field, and that it was wide enough for the wheels to run without damaging the corn, turned down there; which being observed by a husbandman who was at plough not far off, he ran to us, and stopping the coach, poured forth a mouthful of complaints, in none of the best language, for driving over the corn. My father mildly answered him, "That if there was an offence committed, he must rather impute it to his servant than himself, since he neither directed him to drive that way, nor knew which way he drove." Yet added, "That he was going to such an inn at the town, whither, if he came, he would make him full satisfaction for whatsoever damage he had sustained thereby." And so on we went, the man venting his discontent, as he went back, in angry accents. At the town, upon inquiry, we understood that it was a way often used, and without damage, being broad enough; but that it was not the common road, which yet lay not far from it, and was also good enough; wherefore my father bid his man drive home that way. It was late in the evening when we returned, and dark; very and this quarrelsome man, who had troubled himself and us in the morning, having gotten another lusty fellow like himself to assist him, waylaid us in the night, expecting we would return the same way we came. But when they found we did not, but took the common way, they, angry, that they were disappointed, and loth to lose their purpose (which was to put an abuse upon us), coasted over to us in the dark, and laying hold on the horses' bridles, stopped them from going on. My father, asking his man what the reason was that he went not on, was answered, "That there were two men at the horses' heads, who held them back, and would not suffer them to go forward." Whereupon my father, opening the boot, stepped out, and I followed close at his heels. Going up to the place where the men stood, he demanded of them the meaning of this assault. They said, "We were upon the corn." We knew by the route we were not on the corn, but in the common way, and told them so; but they told us, “They were resolved they would not let us go on any farther, but would make us go back again." My father endeavoured by gentle reasoning to persuade them to forbear, and not run themselves farther into the danger of the law, which they were run too far into already; but they rather derided him for it. Seeing therefore fair means would not work upon them, he spake more roughly to them, charging them to deliver their clubs (for each of them had a great club in his hand, somewhat like those which are called quarterstaves): they thereupon, laughing, told him, They did not bring them thither for that end." Thereupon my father, turning his head to me, said, "Tom, disarm them." I stood ready at his elbow, waiting only for the word of command. For being naturally of a bold spirit, full then of vouthful heat, and that, too, heightened by the sense I had, not only of the abuse, but insolent behaviour of those rude fellows, my blood began to boil, and my fingers itched, as the saying is, to be dealing with them. Wherefore, stepping boldly forward to ay hold on the staff of him that was nearest to me, I said, Sirrah, deliver your weapon." He thereupon raised his club, which was big enough to have knocked down an ox, intending no doubt to have knocked me down with it, as probably he would have done, had I not, in the twinkling of an eye, whipped out my rapier, and made a pass upon him. I could not have failed running of him through up to the hilt had he stood his ground, ut the sudden and unexpected sight of my bright blade glittering n the dark night, did so amaze and terrify the man, that, slipping aside, he avoided my thrust, and letting his staff sink, betook himself to his heels for safety; which his companion seeing, fled also. I followed the former as fast as I could, but timor addidit las (fear gave him wings), and made him swiftly fly; so that, although I was accounted very nimble, yet the farther we ran the more ground he gained on me; so that I could not overtake him, which made me think he took shelter under some bush, which he knew where to find, though I did not. Meanwhile, the coachman, who had sufficiently the outside of a man, excused himself from VOL. III U |