BOOKS.
DIXON'S LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN..* Ma. HEPWORTH Drxox has shown the same judgment in choos- ing William Penn for the subject of a biography, as he displayed in his previous Life of Howard. The world at large is familiar enough with the name of Penn, but knows very little about him continu- ously, or critically; for no really good life of him existed, and such biographies as there were belonged to another age. It is probable that the founder of Pennsylvania was not, in Mr. Dixon's phrase, looked upon rather as a "myth than a man " ; but the zeal of a sect, the pointed phrases of Voltaire, and even some late attacks upon the memory of the Quaker founder, have caused him to loom large, and as a consequence rather indistinctly. His life is in- teresting both directly and in its concomitants. Penn was a remarkable man; for although Fox founded Quakerism, Penn shaped it, endowed it with decent grace, and made it presentable. His embodiment of a great principle connected him with events that were great in themselves and were to be greater hereafter. An active mind, a capacity for affairs, the genial taste which is now known as wet Quakerism, with a handsome allowance of the wisdom of the serpent, associated him with nobles and princes. These features give interest to his character and career. There was something striking also in the persons connected with him. His father, Admiral Penn, was a thorough seaman, rather than a naval genius; a favourite both of Charles and James, who entirely trusted him,—and rightly, for although he offered to betray Cromwell, he had no means of betraying them. The royal brothers personally liked him ; which might be without impugning their jug •• ent, as the Admiral was a complete
man of the world. e family of William Penn's first wife was remarkable : and Gulielma Springett herself, besides her own graces, was a neighbour of Milton at Chalfont, and a sort of platonic and knightly flame of his friend Elgood. The religious ferment of the age, the leading principles and peculiar practices of the fanatical Qnakprs, the state of Protestant Dissent abroad, and many collateral circumstances connected with the foundation and fortunes of Pennsylvania, if not absolutely essential to Penn's bio- graphy, may appropriately be introduced to relieve and vary it. All this is skilfully though too artificially done by Mr. Dixon.
Admiral Penn had fished in the troubled waters of the Com- monwealth and the Restoration with some success ; and he had built his hopes upon his son William, as capable of worthily re- presenting the family he was to found and the peerage (of Wey- mouth) he was promised. No expense was spared upon his educa- tion, no management omitted to introduce him to courtly and noble connexions ; and during Penn's successive internal religious struggles, and several outward changes from drab-coloured religion and back again, the Admiral, in spite of his anger, adopted the most conciliatory measures, endeavouring to divert his son from his fanaticism rather than to force him. It was only when Penn, then about three-and-twenty, refused the "compliment of the hat," and on the question being formally put to him, declined, after an hour's prayer and consideration, to uncover to the King, that the old sailor's patience gave way. He seems to have dealt out deck discipline ; he certainly turned Master William out of doors. But when his first passion was over, the Admiral does not apyear to have objected to his mother's furnishing her son with assistance ; when a publication (for Penn printed as well as preached) got him committed to the Tower through the Bishop of London, the Ad- miral interfered to procure his liberation, and even condescended to see him : but the Quaker was not thoroughly forgiven till the man of the world was on his deathbed. Then the father acknow- ledged the emptiness of his own ambition, " and in the end came not only to forgive but applaud the erratic course of his son." He also sent a message to the King and the Duke of York, requesting their protection. Both brothers returned a gracious promise ; which James especially kept.
It would be long, at least for our space, to follow William Penn through his public career as the apostle of a new sect, exposed to persecution, and as the founder of a state, from which the soldier should be banished as a principle : for religious toleration already existed in Holland, and had been established as a fundamental law in one of the Eastern States of America ; and if in practice toleration gave way under pressure, the " Peace principle " did the same. It may, however, be observed, that the profane accomplishments to which the worldly ambition of his father trained him did Penn good service among the Friends. His studies for the bar enabled him on several occasions to baffie his High Church enemies, when they at- tempted to entrap him by legal snares. His skill in the use of the sword gave grace to his carriage and dignity to his presence ; his excellence in manly sports not only strengthened his constitution and steeled him to exertion, but enabled -him to beat the Red In- dians in their own way. If his scholarship was not profound, his reading was wide; he could enforce his positions by examples and illustrations drawn from the wise of all nations, and infuse into his works more of method and style—more of literature—than the Quakers had hitherto among them. The courtly company in which he passed his youth not only gave self-possession and elegance to his manners, but suavity to his tongue : he seems to have been an admirable suitor, never offending by his mode of urging his request, if he did not attain the request itself. From • William Penn ; an Historical Biography. With an Extra Chapter on " the Mac- aulay Charges."' By Wilham Hepworth Dixon, Author of "Life of Howard." With a Portrait. Published by Chapman and Hall-
lived beyond his income. A lawyer of his sect, who managed his
boyhood, till paralysis destroyed his mental powers, he had that I ing, which he had acquired at Oxford, to the last; and that love of fine aptitude for business and that disposition to look after the main horses which the Englishman shares with the Arab did not forsake him in
the New World. At his first visit to America he carried over three blood chance which popular opinion ascribes to the Quakers, except in the mares, a fine white horse not of full breed, and other inferior animals, not matter of his own affairs. Like Wilberforce, Howard, and other phi- for breeding but for labour. His inquiries about the mares were as fr lanthropists, he neglected his family and fortune, and in a worldly quent and minute as those about the gardens; and when he went out for sense hardly succeeded in his political schemes. His eldest son the second time, in 1699, he took with him the magnificent colt Tamerlane, by the celebrated Godolphin Barb, to which the best horses in England trace turned out a rake, and may be said to have died of dissipation. Penn their pedigree. Yet Tamerlane himself could not win his master's affections from his yacht,—a fine vessel of six oars, with a regular crew, who received affairs as steward, so entangled them by his rascality, that Penn their wages as such, and well deserved them while the Governor was in the was involved in a Chancery suit and other proceedings, and obliged country. In giving some directions about his house and effects after his re- ns a precaution to lodge in the rules of the Fleet. " Qualis ab turn to England, he writes of this yacht—' But above all dead things, I hope incept° " might be the motto of modern Pennsylvania. Penn de- nobody uses her on any account, and that she is kept in a dry dock, or at voted his life and fortune to the colony : his grants were liberal ; least covered from the weather.'
" The dress and habits of the Penns at Pennsbury had as little of the he carried on the government at his own expense ; he imposed sourness and formality which have been ascribed to the early followers of little more than nominal quit-rents, which he did not collect ; and, George Fox as the mansion and its furnishings. There was nothing to mark like other benefactors of the race, he experienced the ingratitude them as different to most well-bred families of high rank in England and of mankind. In compliance with his views of the rights of man, America at the present day. Pennsbury was renowned throuehout the Penn had founded the colony as a pure democracy ; universal suf- country for its juudlo cious hospitalities. The ladies dressed like gentlewomen; frage and popular election to every office heading the list of rights. wore four and in America, all gowns and golden ornaments. P nn had no less e ca, all purchased in the same year, at a cost of nearly The " men of drab " had ever sought to infringe his proprietary twenty pounds. To innocent dances and country fairs he not only made no privileges and encroach upon his power as ruler ; when age and objection, but countenanced them by his own and his family's presence."
misfortune overtook him, they refused to pay their rents or assist In the fulfilment of his task Mr. Dixon has displayed great in- him by the loan of money. dustry and great ability. He has made use of all the channels of Whether William Penn illustrated the truth of proverbial ob- information which modern publication has offered to him, whether servation, "the best saint is made out of an old sinner," does not directly, as in American publications on Penn and Pennsylvania, altogether appear from Mr. Dixon's researches. It may be sur- or indirectly, in such books as the Memoirs of Pepys. He is also raised that he did : that he had a touch of the gallant, is evident entitled to the praise of original research. He has had recourse from a story told of him during his first tour abroad, whither his to the State Paper Office, the British Museum, and less public re- father had sent him on an early appearance of his serious symptoms. positories ; he has been assisted by the family of Penn, and pro-
" Sonic of his college friends were about to commence the grand tour, and cured transcripts from the archives of Holland. From these an- it was arranged by all parties that he should join them. They were a gay thorities Mr. Dixon has judiciously selected the essential facts that and graceful set; some of them of the best blood in England. At Paris they bear upon the life of Penn ; skilfully arranged them ; and presented staid some time. Penn was presented to Louis Quatorze, and became a fre- them in a narrative of much Life vigour and -.variety.. In point of quent and welcome guest at court. There he made the acquaintance of Ro- bert Spencer, son of the first Earl of Sunderland and Lady Dorothy Sidney, freshness and interest, the Life of Penn is superior to that of (sister of the famous Algernon Sidney,) and of several other persons of dis- Howard ; but the defects have grown as well as the merits. There traction in the fashionable circles of Paris and Versailles. In this brilliant is too much artifice in the arrangement, too much of obvious effort society the young Penn soon forgot the austere gravity of his demeanour : in the manner : the book is new, informing, and attractive, but has not many details of his life at this period are preserved, but the little that is known is characteristic. Returning late one night from a party, he was ac- often the air of a succession of articles. The life of Penn seems costed in the dark street by a man, who shouted to him in an angry tone to subordinate to the headings of successive chapters, each of which draw and defend himself; at the same moment a sword gleamed past his serves the author as a text ; and though the collateral matter is pro- eyes. The fellow would not listen to reason : Penn, he said, had treated perly introduced as an illustration and a variety, Penn is too him with contempt ; he had bowed his head and taken off his hat in civil much put aside for it. The following admirable sketch of the salutation ; his courtesy had been slighted, and he would have satisfaction
made to his wounded honour. In vain the young Englishman protested he various sects of religionists in England at the time of the Great had not seen him, that he could have no motive for offering such an insult Rebellion, and afterwards, will show the inherent qualities of these to a stranger : the more he showed the absurdity of the quarrel, the more extrinsic passages.
enraged his assailant grew; he would say no more, his only answer was a "If in political ideas, from the school of Divine Right, through the edu- pass with his rapier. The blood of the youth was stirred, and, whipping cated Democracy of Milton, down to the wild Republicanism of the Fifth- his sword from its scabbard, he stood to the attack. There was but little Monarchy Men, all was confusion, the religion of the numberless sectaries light ; yet several persons were attracted by the clash of steel, and a num- was still less reducible to order. The mere names of the leading sects into her of roystorers gathered round to see fair play and decide upon any points which the church had dissolved itself in a few years are suggestive. Only of honour which might be raised. A few passes proved that Penn was the to name a few of them, there were—Anabaptists, Antinomians, Antiscrip- more expert swordsman ; and a dexterous movement left the French gallant turists, Antitrinitarians, Arians, Arminians, Baptists, Brownists, Calvinists, unarmed and at his mercy. The company rather expected him to finish his Enthusiasts, Familists, Fifth-Monarchy Men, Independents, Libertines, Mug- man, as they said he had a right to do by the laws of honour - but he took a gletonians, Perfectists, Presbyterians, Puritans, Ranters, Sceptics, Seekers, different view of the case, and returned the captured sword with a polite and Socinians. Feakes and Powell, worthies of the Anabaptist faith, openly bow to its owner. It is pretty clear from such an incident that Penn was preached at Blackfriars a war of conquest and extermination against the Con- more of a cavalier than a Quaker at this period of his life." tinent of Europe. Their eyes lay more especially on the inheritance of the Beyond the absurdity of refusing to uncover, and the affectation Dutchman : God, they proclaimed, had given up Holland as a dwelling-place of thecing and thouing, Penn had not much of the Quaker starch. for his saints, and a strong-hold from which they might wage war against the great harlot. The Fifth-Monarchy Men protested against every kind of law In his youth he wore love-locks, in his age a wig; he had a taste and government : Christ alone, in their opinion, ought to reign on earth ; for strong drinks as well as other creature comforts ; a liking for and in his behalf they were anxious to put down all lawgivers and magis- the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. Mr. Dixon has col- trates. The Levelers were at least as mad as any sect of Communists or Red lected a variety of particulars of the style of living of " the Gover- Republicans of modem date. The national mind was in a paroxysm of mor- bid activity; and the bolder sort of spirits had cast away every restraint nor " in Pennsylvania: after describing the house and grounds, he which creeds and councils, laws and experience, impose on men in ordinary
continues as follows. times. Institutions which are commonly treated with a grave respect, even
" The furnishing of Pennsbury was to match. Mahogany was a luxury by the unbelieving„ were made the subject of coarse jokes and indecent then unknown ; but his spider tables and high-backed carved chairs were of mummeries. In the cant of the time, a church was a tabernacle of the Devil, the finest oak. An inventory of the furniture is still extant : there were a the Lord's supper a twopenny ordinary. St. Paul's Cathedral and West- set of Turkey worked chairs, arm-chairs for ease, and couches with plush minster Abbey were both used as stables for horses and as shambles for and satin cushions for luxury and beauty. In the parlour stood the great butchers. Hogs and horses were taken to fonts filled with foul water, and bap- leather chair of the proprietor; in every room were found cushions and cur- tized according to the established ritual, for the amusement of common tains of satin, camlet, damask, and striped linen; and there is a carpet men- soldiers and the painted women who attended the camp as their paramours. tioned as being in one apartment, though at that period such an article was Mares were allowed to foal in cathedrals, and the lowest troopers to convert hardly ever seen except in the palaces of kings. His sideboard furniture the most sacred edifices into beer-shops. Even our venerable abbey, the was also that of a gentleman : it included a service of silver, plain but mas- resting-place of kings and heroes, was for a time used as a common brothel. sive, blue and white china, a complete set of Tunbridge ware, and a great The sarcasm of the soldiers was, that as the horses had now begun to attend quantity of damask tablecloths and fine napkins. The table was served as church the reformation was at length complete. Sober and religious men became his rank, plainly but plentifully. Ann Nichols was his cook ; and were equally insane. A sect arose which professed to believe that a woman he used to observe m his pleasantry, ' Ah, the book of cookery has outgrown has no soul, no more than a goose. Another body of grave men believed the Bible, and I fear is read oftener ; to be sure, it is of more use.' But he there is no difference between good and evil. Atheists became numerous; was no favourer of excess, because, as he said, ' it destroys hospitality and and, as usual atheism was attended with the lowest and most debasing su- wrongs the poor.' The French cuisine, then in great vogue, was a subject perstitions. In more than one part of the country prostitution was practised of his frequent ridicule. ' The sauce is now prepared before the meat,' says as a religious ordinance. One fellow was found with no less than seven he, in his maxims ; ' twelve pennyworth of flesh with five shillings of cook- wives; another had married his father's wife ; a third, after having seduced cry may happen to make a fashionable dish. Plain beef and mutton is be- a wretched woman, gave out that she was about to be delivered of the Mes- come dull food ; but by the time its natural relish is lost in the crowd of siah. Hundreds of persons set up as prophets ; and several men, a little . cook's ingredients, and the meat sufficiently disguised from the eaters, it madder than the rest, were sent to Coventry gaol for declaring themselves to passes under a French name for a rare dish.' His cellars were well stocked ; be God Almighty come down from heaven; but once locked up, their god- Canary, claret, sack, and Madeira, being the favourite wines consumed by his ships did not enable them to open the prison-gates. From Newgate down- family and their guests. Besides these nobler drinks, there was a plentiful wards, the prisons were full of these fanatics—fools or knaves, whom never- supply, on all occasions of Indian or general festivity, of ale and cider. theless thousands of their countrymen regarded as holy martyrs suffering Penn's own wine seems to have been Madeira ; and he certainly had no dis- from the children of this world the injustice which has ever been the portion like to the temperate pleasures of the table. In one of his letters to his of prophets and apostles. A fact that is particularly curious is, that the steward, Sotcher, he writes, ' Pray send us some two or three smoked fanaticism usually commenced in the higher classes—among magistrates, haunches of venison and pork—get them from the Swedes ; also some smoked colonels in the army, ministers of the gospel, and gentlemen of estate. It shads and beefs' ; adding, with delicious unction, ' the old priest at Phila- was only by degrees that the madness descended to the lower orders of so- sertion, and offered to prove it by showing the marks of the nails in his hands by which he had been fastened to the cross sixteen hundred years be- fore! When acting under any strong excitement, the folly of mankind is illimitable. To verify the text Man shall not live by bread alone,' one of the prophets tried to do without eating. The text proved to him a dead letter ; for he expired just as he was on the point of establishing the pre- diction. Yet these were not the most revolting incidents of the revolutionary period. A fiend in the guise of woman offered up her child as a sacrifice, in imitation of the Hebrew rites; another crucified her mother. Yet with all this folly, blasphemy, and madness, a deeply religious spirit possessed the nation; and a general toleration for the sects which grew up under the ex- citement was one of the happiest issues of the Commonwealth." A chapter has been added to the Life on what Mr. Dixon terms the " Macaulay Charges." These he considers under five heads ; and he answers four of them satisfactorily enough : the most im- portant, that Penn " extorted money from the girls of Taunton Cimplicated in Monmouth's rebellion] for the Maids of Honour," is very conclusively done. Mackintosh and Macaulay have got hold of the wrong Penne. We suspect Macaulay is right in part of the fifth charge—" That he (Penn) ' did his best to seduce' the Magdalen collegians ' from the path of right,' and was a broker in simony of a peculiarly discreditable kind." When a friend to both parties throws out the idea of a bishopric, as a substitute for the presidentship in dispute, we must take it as a feeler rather than an ill-timed jest. That the representatives of the College so under- stood it, is evident from the answers. Hough, the President elected by the Fellows, gravely declined it for himself; Craddock, one of the managers, expressed the determination of the College in a style of jocularity like Penn's, that the bishopric and the presidency would do very well together. The truth is, that the Quaker philan- thropist was a chip of the old block. He was, like many other re- ligionists, somewhat of a self-seeker; disposed "to compound for sins he felt inclined to," and, provided he was flattered in such un- important trifles as the beaver and the second person singular, was willing to yield in weightier matters.
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