Page images
PDF
EPUB

6

saints in that age of lace and embroidery. The ladies of his family dressed like gentlewomen,-wore caps and buckles, silk gowns and golden ornaments. Penn had no less than four wigs in America, all purchased in the same year, at a cost of nearly twenty pounds.' Yet the periwig had been a special cause of offence to the early Quakers. Did they not boast (says Leslie) 'how John Millner, a Friend about Northampton, a wig maker, left off the trade, and was made to burn one in his prentice's sight, and print against it? And that John Hall, a gentleman of Northumberland, being convinced, sitting at a meeting, was shaken by the Lord's power, plucked off and threw down his wig.' And was not Richard Richardson moved to make an especial declaration against 'wigs,' in which, among other things, he shows distinctly, from the case of Elisha in the Second Book of Kings, that they formed no part of the prophetic costume?

[ocr errors]

These were partly the causes we are sorry to say that worldly policy might furnish another—which made so many of his religious partisans shrink from supporting their eminent leader during the saddest period of his fortunes, from 1688 to 1694: when his substance fell to decay, the wife of his first affection was lost to him, and, from having been a royal favourite, he became the object of political persecution,-when, in his own words, his enemies had darkened the very air against him.' More grievous to read of, because more wholly undeserved, was the treatment which Penn had to experience from his subject colonists,-the first Anglo-Pennsylvanians. We know few chapters in the long and dreary history of the ingratitude of mankind towards its benefactors, more painful than Mr. Dixon's account of the persevering injustice and shameless exactions which were the requital of all his devotion to his Holy Experiment.' He had, indeed, sacrificed to it the best part of his fortune as well as of his life. He estimated his loss on the first foundation of Pennsylvania, at 120,0007,—a sum which should be much more than doubled for the purpose of fair comparison with similar expenditure in our times, but which, if doubled, would nearly equal the sum by which Parlia ment, in 1842, found it advisable to cover the losses sustained in the experiment (rather philosophical than holy) of that day, -the colonisation of South Australia. So mistaken is the fashionable notion that the art of colonisation was either more perfect or less expensive in his time than ours. So uniform the evidence to the fact, that a colony cannot be established on any great scale without preliminary sacrifices. But Penn's profusé expenditure had at all events forced the Friendly City into pre

[ocr errors]

1851.

Penn's Loss of Fortune in Pennsylvania.

[ocr errors]

6

249

mature wealth and greatness. The only effect produced on the mind of its drab-coated inhabitants, seems to have been the persuasion that a source, which had yielded so much, might be made to yield more by draining. In 1693, when Penn's affairs at home were at the lowest ebb, he was roused by the Crown's supposed intention to abrogate the charter of Pennsylvania, and form a common government of all the northern colonies. But he was actually in want of money to make the journey. Could he obtain it by borrowing small sums from the wealthier of his colonists, secured on the quit rents of the province? He wrote to an old ally in Philadelphia to make this proposal, but not a man came forward to help him. They 'said they loved him much, but they had no mind to lend 'money.' He went at last but he had not been two years in the colony (1699-1701) when he wanted to return home in order to oppose the Colony Bill,' by which it was designed to transfer the proprietary rights to the Crown-a transfer which Penn deprecated, from his still prevailing desire to carry his own plans into execution; but which affected him much less than the settlers, whose dread of their proposed assignment to King Stork was natural and extreme. But when he consulted the Assembly for means to effect the voyage and negotiation, he obtained nothing but a list of demands which were equally 'insulting and unjust.' He was forced to sell land to cover his expenses home. His correspondent, Logan, thus briefly described the feeling of the colony: There are few,' he said to Penn in one of his letters, that think it sin to hawl any thing they can from thee.' They invaded his rights, they seized his land, they withheld his rents.

[ocr errors]

Their affairs, in the absence of the founder, fell speedily into disorder; his few remaining rights were seriously menaced; and religious disputes began to disturb a community in which his measures had hitherto prevented, at least, this one fertile seed of strife from germinating. He became anxious to go over once more. I assure thee,' he wrote to his agent, if the people 'would only settle 600l. a year upon me as governor, I would 'hasten over. . . . . Cultivate this among the best Friends.' But the best Friends would do nothing. A governor who expected to receive instead of paying by no means suited their views.

But, in the very decline of his life, one gleam of hopefulness was permitted to bless the vision of the departing founder. An earnest remonstrance, which he addressed in 1710 to the people of Pennsylvania, produced, we are told, a sudden revo'lution in his favour.' The colony was stung with the mild

[ocr errors]

reproaches of its founder, now in his old age, enduring poverty brought on by his too great liberality; and the session which ensued was the most cordial and harmonious, as well as the 'most useful, in the history of the Assembly.' This is a pleasant reminiscence wherewith to conclude his eventful history; and it is satisfactory also to reflect that, even in a pecuniary point of view, his sacrifices remained ultimately not unrecompensed to his family. For some years before his death he had been ready to sell the government to the Crown. But he insisted on keeping the charter and fundamental laws; and on these terms Queen Anne's Government would not treat, because their great object, like King William's, was the union of the North American colonies for purposes of defence, which the peculiar constitution of Pennsylvania, and its central position, impeded. The negotiation, therefore, came to nothing. By Penn's will, in 1710, he left the remnant of his English and Irish estates to his children by his first wife, Pennsylvania to those by the second. It had been worth nothing to him until the last year or two previous, and he naturally regarded it as the inferior fund.

'He had no conception of the enormous increase of value which twenty years of peace, following on the Treaty of Utrecht, would give to Pennsylvania. Hannah's children became the lords proprietors of the colony, and the younger branch of his family stood before the world as the more conspicuous representatives of the Great founder.'

We believe that they ultimately received 130,000l. for it from the State of Pennsylvania.

Misfortune, however, never fell on one better prepared to meet it. Penn was not so much fortified against it by philosophy, or even by religious firmness, as by one of those happy temperaments which, though susceptible of every impression, are little apt to be profoundly affected by any. Neither loss of fortune, friends, nor political interest, nor the disappointment of high dreams of the purest ambition, seem to have permanently influenced his spirits, or could even for the moment ruffle his temper. He even preserved the same placid and radiant demeanour towards the outer world! The gaiety of disposition which had been the great charm of his society in youth had something in it which moved to reverence in later years, when those who witnessed it thought of the actions and sufferings of the man. He retained to the last that serene and somewhat self-satisfied look, that air béat, as the French call it, which marks his portraits; and the period of decaying intellect which preceded his death, however painful for others to witness, seems

1851.

Penn's Domestic Life.

251

to have been passed by him in a long dream of tranquil and child-like enjoyment.

Such was Penn, not in his mythical character, but a being of mixed strength and weakness, who by a combination of external facility of disposition, with pertinacity of resolution, made a greater impression on his age, and did more for posterity, than men of far more powerful intellect. What was he in domestic life? It would be of little use to ask Mr. Dixon. He paints without shade. He patches up every small fragment of biography he can find, to compound a hero not only of opposite but of scarcely reconcilable qualities. That Penn was of blameless life and very affectionate disposition is readily granted; he also wrote, and printed, good advice to his children. But far more than this is needed, to complete a character of real interest in respect of the qualities which pertain to home. Every man has his several Vocation in this world. That of the enthusiastic missionary is one, that of the conjux et paterfamilias another. It is idle to represent the same man as a model of perfection in both. Penn's temperament was restless, his love of variety and action strong, qualities which he shared with most men of his stamp, and which made toil and privation matters of less self-denial to him than silence and retirement. But the man who is fit for this work, cannot be at the same time bound by the enchanted tie of really strong domestic attachment; cannot be devoted to the society of one companion of the heart: cannot watch, with engrossing interest, the development of a second self. His choice should be celibacy. Wisdom that crieth daily in the streets, cannot possibly dwell with children at her knees. Passionate as may have been Penn's early attachment to the fair Guli Springett, Mr. Dixon's heroine, it appears that after the first three years of their marriage she rarely accompanied him in his incessant wanderings. Thenceforth their lot was mainly separate; and however duly fond of each other, they could never have lived in that constant communion of the heart which is the portion of more ordinary couples. Mr. Dixon wants words to paint the violence of her husband's sorrow when she died. Yet it is not the less the fact, that before two years were over, and that, too,

* We hardly know a more amusing instance of the modern art of weaving a fashionable biography out of scanty materials, than the charming history of unsuccessful love,' which Mr. Dixon has got up from poor Thomas Ellwood's little confessions about this lady. But it is hardly fair on the amiable Friend to speak of Guli as his 'lady-love,' when he escorted her to her uncle Herbert's (p. 132.), at which time he was engaged to Mary Ellis.

while his other cares and disappointments were pressing most heavily upon him, he married Hannah Callowhill, at fifty-four, and became the father of a second flourishing family. Nor do his children seem to have contributed much to his happiness, or towards the promotion of his views. What, indeed, were the achievements of the great philanthropist to them? Judging as children ordinarily judge of their parents in this unheroic world, they probably thought of him as a father whose heart had been far too exclusively devoted to other cares, to be to them either a confidential friend, or the object of the romantic filial worship of youth; and who had wasted on his wild schemes the fortune on which they counted for the gratification of their own desires in life. The eldest and most promising, Springett, died young. Of Letitia, the daughter, who married Mr. Aubrey, Mr. Dixon tells us little, except that she seems to have considered residence with her father in America as a very unwelcome banishment. William, Guli's only remaining son, took to bad courses, became profligate and debauched, was expelled by the Friends, deserted his family, and, in common phrase, went near to break his father's heart; but Penn's was not a heart of that order of fragility. His second family were children of his old age.

We have been the less scrupulous in dealing with Mr. Dixon's qualifications as a biographer, because he has himself so unscrupulously attacked others;-because he throws about charges of ignorance and malevolence against those who have regarded his hero's character from a different point of view from himself, with a petulance which would be unbecoming even if his own performance was as exact and conscientious as it is superficial. His want of the habit of discriminating criticism would greatly unfit him for the execution of such a work, even if he wrote less obviously with an object-in order to support particular views and please particular judges, at the same time captivating idle readers by romantic effect. But he is not without good qualities as a writer. His style seems to be easy and good, when not disfigured by an affectation of smartness, and there is life in his narrative and vigour in his descriptions. We would not do him the injustice which he so lavishly inflicts on others, of supposing that the errors into which his eagerness for defending his hero has led him, were in any degree intentional. As for the charge of irreverence towards the memory of a hero, which he so liberally dispenses, we are quite ready to submit to our share of it. Hero-worship is only possible so long as the hero remains a myth.' When he is dragged out of this reverential obscurity, it is neither manly nor philosophical to judge of him otherwise than of another man. Nor can we accept, without

« PreviousContinue »