iii.
10. The king of Navarre (Henry IV.), by his manifesto, published in
1585, after discussing sundry points of state with the leaguers,
defied the Duke of Guise, their loader, to mortal combat, body to
body, or two to two, or ten to ten, or twenty to twenty. To this
romantic defiance the Duke returned no direct answer; but his
partizans alleged, that as the quarrel betwixt the king of Navarre
and their patron did not arise from private enmity, it could not
become the subject of single combat. _Davila_ lib. vii.]
11. This alludes to the defacing the Duke of York's picture at
Guildhall; an outrage stigmatized in the epilogue to "Venice
Preserved," where Otway says,
Nothing shall daunt his pen, when truth does call;
No, not the picture-mangler at Guildhall.
The rebel tribe, of which that vermin's one.
Have now set forward, and their course begun;
And while that prince's figure they deface,
As they before had massacred his name,
Durst their base fears but look him in the face,
They'd use his person as they've used his fame;
A face, in which such lineaments they read
Of that great Martyr's, whose rich blood they shed.
The picture-mangler is explained by a marginal note to be, "the
rascal, that cut the Duke of York's picture." The same circumstance
is mentioned in "_Musa Praefica_, or the London Poem, or a humble
Oblation on the sacred Tomb of our late gracious Monarch King
Charles II., of ever blessed and eternal Memory; by a Loyal
Apprentice of the honourable City of London." The writer mentions
the Duke of York as
--loaded with indignity,
Already martyred in effigy.
O blast the arm, that dared that impious blow!
Let heaven reward him with a vengeance meet,
Who God's anointed dared to overthrow!
His head had suffered, when they pierced his feet.
Explained to allude to the Duke of York's "picture in Guildhall,
cut from the legs downward undiscovered."
In another tory ballad, we have this stanza in the character of a
fanatic:
We'll smite the idol in Guildhall,
And then, as we are wont,
We'll cry it was a Popish plot,
And swear these rogues have done't.
12. This speech depends on the gesticulation of the sorcerer: Guise
first desires him report the danger to the people,--then bids him
halt, and express his judgment more fu
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