Morning journal and courier., 1881-02-25
shefield scientific school.

mechanics under the auspices of the Sheffield
Scientific School was given last evening be-
fore large and appreciative audience by
Prof Thomas r. Lounsbury. The well
known high literary culture of the speaker
amply bespoke fine lecture, one eminently
interesting and enjoyable, and such was the
experience of the audience. A lively and
highly entertaining vein throughout pervad-
ed the lecture, the title of which by itself sa-
vored of ponderous tones and dusty historic
pathways. Rrynne was born in 1900; he
died in 1862 He was on eminent English
lawyer, who in 1852 was tried in the Star
chamber for writing a libel against
the Queen under the title of 'tHis-
triomastix: or a Discourse on Stage
Plays" For this he was sentenced
to stand in the pillory, to lose both his ears,
| and to pay fine of $4,000. In another
pamphlet he attacked Laud and the bishops,
for which he was condemned to lose the re-
! mainder of his ears, to pay fine of Sc, 200,
to be branded in both cheeks and to be i'm
prisoned for life. These atrocious sentences
were rigidly carried into effect The House
of Commons released him in 1641. He sat In
the Long Parliament, but though he had
been active in promoting the rebellion, he
was an enemy to Cromwell, who caused him
to be imprisoned At the restoration he was
made keeper of records in the tower. BE
| wrote very large number of books, chiefly
| on politics and religion; also the "Ristory
| of Archbishop Laud" and the tLives of
King John, Henry III. and Edward T. 'fHis
career" the speaker said, sis commensurate
II st eGI.z
| periods of English history,-the period of
preliminary struggles between the Crown
and Parliament; of the great civil war; of
the protectorate of Cromwell; of the res
| toration and of the reign. of Charles
H. When he entered upon
| tive life the questions that divided
| the men of the day were much religious
political" The speaker reviewed the politi-
| cal and religious situation of the period in
England and sketched the early career of
Prynne, enriching the subject with chances at
English society, life and scholarship. OF
Prynne's first book he says:
| It was s'full of innumerable references to
| innumerable authorities, - and che reversed
| entirely the favorite conception of rivulet
| of text flowing through meadow of margin;
| for with him it was broad stream of text
| winding its way through banks of marginal
Il
| and the banks were very dirty" OF Prynne's
great work the speaker said: "The Histrio-
| mastix is in some respects so remarkable
work that it is important to furnish of it a
precise description. The printed book is in
&C type of the mind of the man who
| wrote it. 1t is small it is clumsy it is
heavy. It is a stout, thick quaSto, which
with its original binding is u inches long, g.
| inches broad and 81 inches thick. describe
it in this way because the figures of mensura-
| ton give one good an idea of it could
| any kind of rhetorical figure. It contains
1,OO6 pages of matter treating directly upon
| the subject, beside eighteen pages of an
epistle dedicatory, ten pages of an apo1ogetic
preface to the Christian reader, and at the
end forty pages of table of contents" ''The
H1striomastix was divided into ten parts, and
| each part was further divided into acts and
| scenes. The whole was prefaced by a pro-
| logue Choruses of condensed vituperation
were interspersed, and at the end was sort
of summing up addressed to the reader,
which was called the catastrophe" Of
Prynne's character the speaker said: 'Suf-
| ferings such these may seem to entitle
Prynne to a more honorable mention than I
have made of him; but this is feeling in
which cannot share. His was nature essenti-
| ally coarse, and the injuries he received he
was ever ready to repay in kind. THE lecturer,
when closing his reference to Prynne,s career
| in prison, saidE Here he remained about three
years; and after his release he published a
/ volume of verses which he had contrived by
| some means to compose while there. But
| the muse that he invoked and who came at
his call never haunted Helicon or had her
birth by the Pierean spring. We can well
| believe his condition was pitiable enough, if
he experienced half the misery in writing his
verses which we do in reading them. But
| though absent, he was not forgotten. When
| the Long Parliament met in 1910, one of the
earliest of the minor matters it attended to
was to order the three prisoners who had
| suffered together and had been then sent
| apart to remote prisons to be brought back
/ to the spot of their first confinement.
Prynne and Burton landed at Southampton
and proceeded together to London. Far
| different was their return from their de-
parture and the incidents of the Journey
| are a vivid picture of the temper of the
| times. AS they passed through the various
places on the road the inhabitants
were out to meet and welcome
| them, and escorted them for distance on
| their way. When they came to the neighbor-
hood of London they were met by multi
| tude of friends and sympathizers on horse
| back and in carriages bearing in their hats
sprigs of bay and of rosemary, q multitude
/ which swelled from hundreds into thousands
| as they approached nearer the capital So
| thronged was the broad highway with men
/ on foot and on horseback and in coaches,
/ that they were scarcely able to move forward
| at the rate of mile an hour. They entered
| the city proper at nightfall from the direc-
| ton of Charing Cross. Before them the
| road was strewn with herbs and flowers
from the church steeples the bells rang as
| they passed by, and cries of 'tWelcome
| home'' and God be thanked for your safe
| return fell on their from every side
and at last the press became SO great that a
passage through the roaring streets had to be
| cleared by troops. This was the beginning
of the end In few weeks the Parliament
01,,@S f1ao@A Sy,lr,
| the case of Prynne was illegal, unjust and
| against the liberty of the subject. It ordered
Oxford University and Lincoln's Inn to re-
ceive back and reinstate the man they had
expelled. 1t voted him for compensation the
sum of e5 900, which was to be paid him out
of the estates of the Archbishop of Canter-
bury and of the Lords who had sentenced
| him in the Star chamber. The vote
was all the compensation he ever re-
ceived. The money was doubtless put where it
would do more good. But there was q
pleasure dearer to his heart that was to be
his and history, in its record of clumsy
efforts to right the wrong, can hardly show q
more striking instance of poetic justice than
that which was exemplifed now. When in
prison in the Tower after his first shameful
punishment, Prynne, in the bitterness of his
heart, had written letter to Laud, in which
he told that naughty prelate that high as he
then was in honor and power, the day
might come when he would be more con-
temptible spectacle of misery and justice
than he was himself. The remark was pro-
phetic. In 1913 Prynne was elected member
of Parliament from Newport, and in that
position he was charged with the execution
of the secret order to search the chamber
and pockets of the archbishop, now in turn
prisoner in the Tower. He secured Laud's
private papers he set to work with all the
industry and all the malignity of his
nature to show that the primate
had sought to introduce Popery; and
he never abandoned the pursuit of the man
who had SO savagely prosecuted him till the
archbishop's head fell from his shoulders
He did even more than he designed. Iaud
had made him temporarily martyr. He
reversed the process and succeeded in turn
ing this narrow minded and prosecuting
bigot into a martyr who from that day to
this has been heldin holy reverence by large
share of the English church, who doubtless
felt comfortable consciousness that they
were superior to the worshipers of stocks
and stones. So His work therefore not
merely died with him it usually died before
him, and he himself had the qualification or
grief of living long enough to see the varity
M Of off He he