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cause in former times by meekness, humility, patience to bear with the weakness and infirmities of their brethren; they taught obedience to magistracy, even for conscience' sake; they divided. not their estates into factions; they detracted from none; they sought the salvation of men's souls, and guided their bodies and affections answerably; they gave to Cæsar the things that were Cæsar's; if princes were bad, they prayed for them; if good, they praised God for them; however, they bore with them. This was the doctrine of the primitive Church, and this they did. I appeal to my lords, they that have read this book, if Mr. Prynne has not, with breach of faith, discharged his great Master's end. My lords, when God had made all his works, he looked upon them and saw that they were good.

This gentleman, the devil having put spectacles on his nose, says that all is bad; no recreation, vocation, no condition good; neither sex, magistrate, ordinance, custom, divine and human, things animate, inanimate, all, my lords, wrapt up in massa damnata, all in the ditch of destruction. Here, my lords, we may observe the great prudence of this prince of darkness, a soul so fraught of malice, so void of humanity, that it gorgeth out all the filth, impiety, and iniquity that the discontent of this age doth contract against the State and Church. But it may be that some follower of his will say it was the pride and wickedness of the times that prompted him to this work, and set his zeal, through tenderness of conscience, to write this book. My lords, you may know an unclean bird by his feathers; let him be unplumed, unmasked, pull off the deceitful wizard, and see how he appeareth: this brittle-conscienced brother, that perhaps starts at the sight of the corner-cap, sweats at the surplus, swoons at the sign of the cross, and will rather die than put on woman's apparel to save his life; yet, he is so zealous for the advancement of his babel, that he invents legions, coins new statutes, corrupts and misapplies texts with false interpretations, dishonors all men, defames all women, equivocates lies! And yet this man is a holy man, a pillar of the Church! Do you, Mr. Prynne, find fault with the "court and courtiers' habit, silk and satin divines"? I may say of you, you are all purple within, all pride, malice, and all disloyalty. You are a tumbler, who is commonly squinteyed; you look one way and run another way; though you seemed by the title of your book to scourge stage-plays, yet it

1901

was to make people believe that there was an apostasy in the magistrates. But, my lords, admit all this to be venial and pardonable, this pigmy groweth a giant, and invades the gods themselves. Where we enjoy this felicity under a gracious prince, with so much advantage as to have the light of the Gospel, whilst others are kept in darkness, the happiness of the recreations to the health of the body, the blessed government we now have. When did ever Church so flourish, and State better prosper? And since the plagues happened, none have been sent among us such as this caterpillar is. What vein hath opened his anger? Or, who hath let out his fury? When did ever man see such a quietus as in these days? Yet in this golden age is there not a Shimei amongst us, that curseth the anointed of the Lord? So puffed with pride, now can the beams of the sun thaw his frozen heart, and this man appeareth yet. And now, my lords, pardon me, as he hath wounded his Majesty in his head, power, and government, and her Majesty, his Majesty's dear consort, our royal Queen, and my gracious mistress, I can spare him no longer, I am at his heart. Oh! quantum! If any cast infamous aspersions and censures on our Queen and her innocency, silence would prove impiety rather than ingratitude in me, that do daily contemplate her virtues; I will praise her for that which is her own; she drinks at the springhead, whilst others take up at the stream. I shall not alter the great truth that hath been said, with a heart as full of devotion, as a tongue of eloquence, the other day, as it came to his part [meaning Sir John Finch]. My lords, her own example to all virtues, the candor of her life, is a more powerful motive than all precepts, than the severest of laws; no hand of fortune nor of power can hurt her; her heart is full of honor, her soul of chastity; majesty, mildness, and meekness are so married together, and so impaled in her, that where the one begetteth admiration, the other love; her soul of that excellent temper, so harmoniously composed; her zeal in the ways of God unparalleled; her affections to her Lord so great, if she offend him it is no sunset in her anger; in all her actions and affections so elective and judicious, and a woman so constant for the redemption of all her sex from all imputations, which men (I know not how justly) sometimes lay on them; a princess, for the sweetness of her disposition, and for compassion, always relieving some oppressed

1902

soul, or rewarding some deserving subject; were all such saints as she, I think the Roman Church were not to be condemned: on my conscience, she troubleth the ghostly father with nothing, but that she hath nothing to trouble him withal. And so when I have said all in her praise, I can never say enough of her excellency; in the relation whereof an orator cannot flatter, nor poet lie: yet is there not Doeg among us, notwithstanding all the tergiversations his counsel hath used at the bar? I can better prove that he meant the King and Queen by that infamous Nero, etc., than he proves players go to hell. But Mr. Prynne, your iniquity is full, it runs over, and judgment is come; it is not Mr. Attorney that calls for judgment against you, but it is all mankind; they are the parties grieved, and they call for judg. ment.

Mr. Prynne, I do declare you to be a schism maker in the Church, a sedition sower in the commonwealth, a wolf in sheep's clothing; in a word, omnium malorum nequissimus. I shall fine you ten thousand pounds sterling, which [addressing the other lords] is more than he is worth, yet less than he deserveth; I will not set him at liberty no more than a plagued man or a mad dog, who though he cannot bite, he will foam; he is so far from being a sociable soul that he is not a rational soul; he is fit to live in dens with such beasts of prey as wolves and tigers like himself. Therefore, I do condemn him to perpetual imprisonment as those monsters that are no longer fit to live among men, nor to see light. Now for corporal punishment, my lords, whether I should burn him in the forehead, or slit him in the nose? He that was guilty of murder was marked in a place where he might be seen, as Cain was. I should be loath he should escape with his ears, for he may get a periwig, which he now so much inveighs against, and so hide them, or force his conscience to make use of his unlovely love-locks on both sides. Therefore, I would have him branded in the forehead, slit in the nose, and his ears cropped too. My lords, I now come to this ordure; I can give no better term to it, to burn it, as it is common in other countries, or otherwise we shall bury Mr. Prynne and suffer his ghost to walk. I shall, therefore, concur to the burning of the book; but let there be a proclamation made, that whosoever shall keep any of the books in his hands and not bring them to some public magistrate to be burnt in the fire, let them fall under the

sentence of this court; for if they fell into wise men's hands, or good men's hands, that were no fear, but if among the common sort, and into weak men's hands, then tenderness of conscience will work something. Let this sentence be recorded, and let it be sent to the library of Sion [meaning a college in London], whither a woman, by her will, will allow Mr. Prynne's work to be sent.

[The sentence against Prynne was executed the seventh and tenth days of May following.]

DANIEL DOUGHERTY

(1826-1892)

ANIEL DOUGHERTY was for almost a generation one of the favorite orators of Philadelphia. He was a Democrat in politics and made the speech nominating Hancock, which fixed on him the title of "Hancock the Superb." He also put Cleveland in nomination at the St. Louis convention of 1888. He died September 5th, 1889. His reputation as an orator was national, but his speeches have never been collected, and as he did not attempt a congressional career, it is possible that he will become one more addition to the already long list of those who are praised as "silvertongued by their generation, without transmitting themselves adequately to posterity.

« HANCOCK THE SUPERB »

(Delivered in the Democratic National Convention at Cincinnati, June 1880, Nominating Winfield Scott Hancock for the Presidency)

I

PROPOSE to present to the thoughtful consideration of the convention the name of one who, though on the field of battle he was styled the "The Superb," won still nobler renown as a military governor, whose first act when in command of Louisiana and Texas was to salute the Constitution by proclaiming that military rule shall ever be subservient to the civil power. The plighted word of the soldier was made good by the acts of the statesman. I nominate one whose name, suppressing all fac tions, will be alike acceptable to the North and to the South— a name that will thrill the Republic; the name of a man who, if nominated, will crush the last embers of sectional strife—a man whose name will be hailed as the dawning of a day of perpetual brotherhood. With him we can fling away our shields, and wage an aggressive war. We can appeal to the supreme tribunal of the American people against the corruption of the Republican party and its untold violations of constitutional liberty. With him as our chieftain, the bloody banner of the