Lord L'Estrange

“ And yet for all this, Citt, I have no minde in the World to be taken.
Citt. And that's because th' art an arrant buzzard; the Lord deliver me from a fellow that has neither Mony, nor Friends, and yet's afraid of being Taken. Why 'tis the very making of many a mans Fortune to be Taken. How many men are there that give mony to be Taken, and make a Trade on't; Nay happy is the man that can but get any body to Take him. Why I tell ye, there are people that will quarrel for't, and make Friends to be Taken. ”

“ But the Lord may send me such Another Husband; I shall never have such Another Dog. Every Trivial Cross makes us think we are Weary of the World; but our Tongues run quite to Another Tune when we come once to parting with it in Earnest. ”

“ It was all essential, however, that her brother should not think of enlisting Lord Culduff in his cause, or asking his Lordship's aid or influence in any way; and when L'Estrange carelessly said, “Could not our distinguished friend and guest be of use here?” she hastened to reply, “Do not think of that, George. These men are so victimized by appeals of this sort that they either flatly refuse their assistance, or give some flippant promise of an aid they never think of according. ”

“ Although the duke’s carriage is in waiting, these two purposely refrain from entering it, so as to avoid the crowd and the inevitable demonstration which would follow recognition thereby. In this manner they escape detection by the populace.
Not entirely, however. Sharp eyes have recognised Hector D’Estrange. He has not gone many steps when a hand is laid on his shoulder.
“Mr. D’Estrange,” he hears a voice saying, “I arrest you in the name of the law.”
“On what charge?” he inquires in a quick, startled voice.
141“On the charge, sir, of murdering Lord Westray,” is the reply. ”

“ James then tried, through Lord Castlemain, to get him a cardinal's hat, but with as little success.
[127] "Above twenty years together," says Sir Roger L'Estrange, perhaps himself a disguised catholic, in his reply to the reasons of the clergy of the diocese of Oxford against petitioning (Somers Tracts, viii. 45) , "without any regard to the nobility, gentry, and commonalty, our clergy have been publishing to the world that the king can do greater things than are done in his declaration ”

“ He had always rejoiced in the tenderness of his heart. His very [Pg 255] objection to the sight of suffering had been laid to this account in the self-analyses which with him had been so frequent: and now what did he find himself doing? Coolly inflicting torture on a woman and child—two of the weakest of God's creatures—and all for the gratification, not of the best but of the worst feelings of his nature. Once more L'Estrange threw himself to the ground, but this time his face was turned earthward and buried in his hands, while wave after wave of bitterness passed over his troubled soul. ”

“ Pride, false pride! The devil whispered, what will the Captain think? what will Musgrave think? what will they all think? Will they not regard you as more fickle than a woman—a traitor too—a base ingrate; have they not worked for you; for you risked everything? The pause was fatal,—he lifted his hand off the latch, and returned. Oh, how many a soul has been lost by a pause,—the pilgrim has looked back, turned back, and lost all. That moment L'Estrange felt his good angel take her flight. ”

“ Thirdly, The Affront of the Refusal, as it was accompanied with Raillery and Scorn. ‘Twere well if we had not too many of these Brutal Mockeries in our Daily Conversation for we have Banterers in Religion, in Point of Honour, and upon all the Distesses of Human Life. He that has no Pity or Compassion for the Miserable, is not in Truth of a Reasonable Make; for Tenderness of Nature is but a kind of Lay-Charity; and a Body can be no more a Good Man without the One, then a Good Christian without the Other. ”

“ Then—L'Estrange acknowledged it to himself with a sigh—the suffering whose ravages he dreaded did not overcloud his intellect, did not bewilder his brain, as its antidote had done; rather, like the purging fire, it seemed to draw out and develop the greatness of the soul that was in him.
The strong man shivered as he turned from his only hope, [Pg 344] and began once again in the unhealthy activity of his heart and brain to think and reason, to live an inner life that was gradually, by its overpowering force, drawing away the life from his body. ”

“ In the latter he characterised L'Estrange as 'stiffly principled in the Puritan tenets, a semi-presbiterian at least in the form of church government, a nonconformist in the matter of ceremony, and a rigid sabbatarian in point of doctrine.' To these charges L'Estrange replied in his great work: 6. ”

“ As they neared the end of their journey and rest became a possibility, L'Estrange once more tried to refrain from his death-winged potion. He felt that languor and weakness were possessing themselves of his being, and strength of mind would be more needful than strength of body for the work he had to do.
Only those who have known what this refraining means can understand his sufferings. Racked with pain, that reckless gnawing pain which seems to be verily eating into life, he lay for two nights and days on a bed in the hotel at Grindelwald, where he had decided to remain for a few days. ”

“ This Unequal, and Unreasonable Judgment of Things, brings many a Great Man to the Stool of Repentance; for when he has Swallow’d more then he can Digest, it flicks upon his Conscience, and will neither Up, nor Down, Now in the Sight of Heaven, the Greater the Temptation, the Less is the Sins and yet in the Vogue of the World, it passes for an Exploit of Honour, for Kings and States to run away with Whole Countries that they have no Colour, or Pretence to ”

“ Under These Circumstances, the Bare Sense of a Calamity is call'd Grumbling, and if a man does but make a Face upon the Boot, he's presently a Male-Content. It may be a Question now, whether the Wickedness, or the Imprudence of this Iniquity be the more Pernicious; for over and above the Inhumanity, 'tis a Doctrine of Ill Consequence to the Master Himself, to shew the World how Impossible a Thing it is for a Servant to Oblige and Please him: Nay, it is some sort of Temptation also to Impiety and Injustice, when Virtue and Duty come to be made Dangerous. ”

“ The Herds-man was in a State of Freedom, we see, till he made himself a Voluntary Slave, by Entering into a Dangerous, and Unnecessary Vow; which he could neither Contract without Folly, nor Keep without Loss and Shame; For Heaven is neither to be Wheedled, nor Brib'd. Men should so Pray as_not to Repent of their Prayers, and turn the most Christian and Necessary Office of our Lives into a Sin. We must not Pray in One Breath to Find a Thief, and in the Next to get shut of him. ”

“ A darkness not of this world settled on his soul; a new power took possession of his heart; the last waning spark of goodness went out. No power, human or divine, could relight it. While the good spirit dwells in the heart, be it never so faint, never so tremblingly alive, there is hope! When that spark is quenched, hope is for ever gone,—the unhappy bearer falls from heaven, "like Lucifer, never to rise again!"
When Captain L'Estrange returned from the door, he was an altered man ”

“ We find it to be much the same Case in the Government of our Affections and Appetites, that it is in These Bodyly Frailties of Temperament and Complexion. Providence has Arm'd us with Powers and Faculties, sufficient for the Confounding of All the Enemies we have to Encounter. We have Life and Death before us: That is to say, Good and Evil ”

“ Neither is it possible that there should be any, without a Violence to the Order of the Universe, and to the Dictates of Reasonable Nature: For All men Living are in Some sort or Other, and upon some Penalty or Other, Subjected to a Superior Power; That is to say, the Laws of Morality are Above them: But the Case wherein All men are upon the Behaviour is not here the Question, To Wind up the Moral, in short; Liberty is a Jewel, and a Blessing. The Wolfe was well enough pleas’d here with the State of the Dogs Body, but he had no fancy to his Collar. ”

“ I have since learned that they served as a medium for the correspondence of the French clergy with the pope, then a prisoner at Savonne. Certainly, although this does not at all excuse the rigor with which they were treated by Bonaparte, it gives a sufficient explanation of it. (End of editor's note.)
I know not of what M. de L'Estrange was accused; but it is scarcely probable that such a man should have meddled with the affairs of the world, much less the monks, who never quitted their solitude. ”

“ Wickedness comes on by Degrees, as well as Virtue; and Sudden Leaps from One Extreme to Another, are Unnatural Motions in the Course of our Lives and Humours. Here's first a Rash, and a Knavish Promise; for the Promiser knew he was notable to make it Good. When he has broken the Ice, he Advances, from Cozening of God, to making Sport with him, and pays him with Past for Flesh: But Vengeance Overtook him in the Conclusion, and gave him to Understand, that God will not be Mocked. The Moral of This Sick Man is the Case of Every Soul of us in the Making, and the Breaking of our Vows. ”

“ Why should there be so much railing about the body of Christ, when there was none about the body of Moses in the act kept betwixt the devil and Michael, the Archangel?" On schoolmasters he wrote, "That schoolmaster deserves to be beaten himself, who beats Nature in a boy for a fault. And I question whether all the whipping in the world can make their parts, that are naturally sluggish, rise one minute before the hour Nature hath appointed."
The following are some good sayings that have been selected from his works by an eminent humorist:—
Virtue in a short person. ”

“ Such knowledge of the workings of the human mind as L'Estrange had gained by means of keen observation and long study of his fellows is perhaps the strongest element of all. For L'Estrange knew how to take men, what chord to strike in their natures, often strange and complex, to make them answer to his hand—how to render them actually desirous of doing his will. ”

“ Here was No Dashing of the Two Tables one against the Other, for an Office, or an Egg at Easter, as the Fellow ferw'd his Idol here. The Whole Summe of the Moral is in short, Comprized in the Old Saying: He that serves God for Mony, will serve the Devil for Better Wages. ”

“ And he is not only Tormented by Others, but the very Tormenter of Himself too. Nay, rather than want a Colourable Ground of Trouble, he Creates it. His Pride is a Continual Drought upon him, and a Thirst never to be Quench'd. His Conscience, his Fancy, his Fears, Jealousies, and Mistakes; Every thing helps on toward his Undoing. And now to the Infinite Variety of Plagues that Wait upon Pride, there is likewise as Great a Diversity of Imperious Humours for This Misery to Work upon. ”

“ This is the beginning of the words of Esdras, before he was taken up: and I said,
20 O Lord, thou that dwellest in everlastingness, which beholdest from above things in the heaven and in the air;
21 Whose throne is inestimable; whose glory may not be comprehended; before whom the hosts of angels stand with trembling,
22 Whose service is conversant in wind and fire; whose word is true, and sayings constant; whose commandment is strong, and ordinance fearful ”

“ We are All Mortal; but if This Man would have forborn Wines, and Us'd Clysters, I'd have Warranted his Life This Bout for God-a-Mercy. Well, says one, but why did you not rather give him This Advice when it might have done him Good, then stand Talking of it to no manner of Purpose Now the Man is Dead? ”

“ But it is Our Part yet to Act according to Reason, and commit our selves to Heaven for the rest. We have our Blind Sides in the World, as well as the Stag had his by the Sea-side, and we have our Enemies too, that are still Watching to make Advantage of that Weakness. One Man is Transported out of his Reason, and his Honesty, by Sensual Pleasures: Another by Mony, perhaps, or by Ambition. Every Man, in short, by Somewhat or other: And it is but striking him in the Right Vein, to do his Bus'ness. The Wiseft of Men have their Follies ”

“ Nay the Attempt of any thing above our Force, with Vanity, and Presumption, most certainly ends in a Mis-carriage that makes the Pretender Ridiculous. The Our-doing of a Great Man in his Own Way, Savours in some degree of Ill Manners, as it is upon the Main, a High Point of Indiscretion. One man cakes it for an Affront to be Out-witted; Another to be Out-Fool'd, as Nero could not Endure to be Out-Fiddled; But in short, be the Matter never so Great, or never so Trivial, 'tis the same Case as to the Envy of the Competition. ”

“ When a Battle is Lost, This or That, we say, might have Prevented it. When a Tumult is Emprov‘d into a Rebellion, and a Government Oyer-turn'd by't, 'tis just to as much purpose to say, This or That might have Sav'd All; As for our Dr. here to say, when his Patient was Dead, that it was for want of going such or such a way to Work. We have abundance of These Wise-Men in the World that are still looking backward without seeing One Inch of the way before them. ”

“ No man's nature was ever bettered for being bullied.”
L'Estrange laughed heartily, not in the least degree angered by the other's somewhat coarse candor.
“It's a queer world altogether; but maybe if each of us was doing the exact thing he was fit for, life would n't be half as good a thing as it is. The whole thing would be like a piece of machinery, and instead of the hitches and makeshifts that we see now, and that bring out men's qualities and test their natures, we'd have nothing but a big workshop, where each did his own share of the work, and neither asked aid nor gave it. ”

“ Writing to a zealous Catholic in London, he says "that he grudges the heretics their due, because that, whereas winter is approaching, it will raise the price of fagots." In another place he attacks dignities: "No situation," he says, "could be more wretched than that of the vicegerents of Christ, if they endeavoured to follow Christ's life." There was scarcely anything sacred or profane which was safe from the lash of his ridicule, and if, as some say, he sowed the seeds of the Reformation, it was mostly because he could not resist the temptation to laugh at the clergy. ”