120

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XI.

1689 .

Promo-

tions.

tion. A chariot appeared conspicuous on the reverse; andplain people were at a loss to understand what this emblemhad to do with William and Mary. The disaffected wits solvedthe difficulty by suggesting that the artist meant to alludeto that chariot which a Roman princess, lost to all filial affec-tion, and blindly devoted to the interests of an ambitioushusband, drove over the still warm remains of her father.*

Honours were, as usual, liberally bestowed at this festiveseason. Three garters which happened to be at the disposalof the Crown were given to Devonshire, Ormond, and Schom-berg. Prince George was created Duke of Cumberland.

* A specimen of the prose which the Jacobites wrote on this subjectwill be found in the Somers Tracts. The Jacobite verses were generallytoo loathsome to be quoted. I select some of the most decent lines from avery rare lampoon:

“The eleventh of April has come about,

To Westminster went the rabble rout,

In order to crown a bundle of clouts,

A dainty line King indeed.

“Descended he is from the Orange tree;

But, if I can read his destiny,

lie’ll once more descend from another tree,

A dainty fine King indeed.

“He has gotten part of the shape of a man,

But more of a monkey, deny it who can;

He has the head of a goose, but the legs of a crane,

A dainty fine King indeed.”

A Frenchman, named Le Noble , who had been banished from his owncountry for his crimes, but, by the connivance of the police, lurked inParis, and earned a precarious livelihood as a bookseller’s hack, publishedon this occasion two pasquinades, now extremely scarce, “Le Conronne-ment de Guillemot et de Guillemctte, avec le Sermon du grand DocteurBurnet,” and “Le Festin de Guillemot.” In wit, taste and good sense, LeNoble’s writings are not inferior to the English poem which I have quoted.He tells us that the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London had aboxing match in the Abbey; that the champion rode up the Hall on anass, which turned restive and kicked over the royal table with all theplate; and that the banquet ended in a fight between the peers armed withstools and benches, and the cooks armed with spits. This sort of pleasantry,strange to say, found readers; and the writer’s portrait was pompouslyengraved with the motto “Latrantes ride; te.tna fama manet."