Last of the Barons | Page 3

in which printing is said to have been actually introduced into
England.] were accomplished in all the "witte and lere" of their age.
Princes and peers vied with each other in their patronage of Caxton,
and Richard III., during his brief reign, spared no pains to circulate to
the utmost the invention destined to transmit his own memory to the
hatred and the horror of all succeeding time. But when we look around
us, we see, in contrast to the gracious and fostering reception of the
mere mechanism by which science is made manifest, the utmost
intolerance to science itself. The mathematics in especial are deemed
the very cabala of the black art. Accusations of witchcraft were never
more abundant; and yet, strange to say, those who openly professed to

practise the unhallowed science, [Nigromancy, or Sorcery, even took
its place amongst the regular callings. Thus, "Thomas Vandyke, late of
Cambridge," is styled (Rolls Parl. 6, p. 273) Nigromancer as his
profession.--Sharon Turner, "History of England," vol iv. p. 6. Burke,
"History of Richard III."] and contrived to make their deceptions
profitable to some unworthy political purpose, appear to have enjoyed
safety, and sometimes even honour, while those who, occupied with
some practical, useful, and noble pursuits uncomprehended by prince or
people, denied their sorcery were despatched without mercy. The
mathematician and astronomer Bolingbroke (the greatest clerk of his
age) is hanged and quartered as a wizard, while not only impunity but
reverence seems to have awaited a certain Friar Bungey, for having
raised mists and vapours, which greatly befriended Edward IV. at the
battle of Barnet.
Our knowledge of the intellectual spirit of the age, therefore, only
becomes perfect when we contrast the success of the Impostor with the
fate of the true Genius. And as the prejudices of the populace ran high
against all mechanical contrivances for altering the settled conditions of
labour, [Even in the article of bonnets and hats, it appears that certain
wicked falling mills were deemed worthy of a special anathema in the
reign of Edward IV. These engines are accused of having sought, "by
subtle imagination," the destruction of the original makers of hats and
bonnets" by man's strength,--that is, with hands and feet; "and an act of
parliament was passed (22d of Edward IV.) to put down the fabrication
of the said hats and bonnets by mechanical contrivance.] so probably,
in the very instinct and destiny of Genius which ever drive it to a war
with popular prejudice, it would be towards such contrivances that a
man of great ingenuity and intellect, if studying the physical sciences,
would direct his ambition.
Whether the author, in the invention he has assigned to his philosopher
(Adam Warner), has too boldly assumed the possibility of a conception
so much in advance of the time, they who have examined such of the
works of Roger Bacon as are yet given to the world can best decide; but
the assumption in itself belongs strictly to the most acknowledged
prerogatives of Fiction; and the true and important question will
obviously be, not whether Adam Warner could have constructed his
model, but whether, having so constructed it, the fate that befell him

was probable and natural.
Such characters as I have here alluded to seemed, then, to me, in
meditating the treatment of the high and brilliant subject which your
eloquence animated me to attempt, the proper Representatives of the
multiform Truths which the time of Warwick the King-maker affords to
our interests and suggests for our instruction; and I can only wish that
the powers of the author were worthier of the theme.
It is necessary that I now state briefly the foundation of the Historical
portions of this narrative. The charming and popular "History of
Hume," which, however, in its treatment of the reign of Edward IV. is
more than ordinarily incorrect, has probably left upon the minds of
many of my readers, who may not have directed their attention to more
recent and accurate researches into that obscure period, an erroneous
impression of the causes which led to the breach between Edward IV.
and his great kinsman and subject, the Earl of Warwick. The general
notion is probably still strong that it was the marriage of the young king
to Elizabeth Gray, during Warwick's negotiations in France for the
alliance of Bona of Savoy (sister-in- law to Louis XI.), which
exasperated the fiery earl, and induced his union with the House of
Lancaster. All our more recent historians have justly rejected this
groundless fable, which even Hume (his extreme penetration supplying
the defects of his superficial research) admits with reserve. ["There
may even some doubt arise with regard to the proposal of marriage
made to Bona of Savoy," etc.--HUME, note to p. 222, vol. iii. edit.
1825.] A