In the Wake of Erasmus of Rotterdam:

An Outcry for Perpetual and Universal

Peace in England in 1793-1795

by EMILE V. TELLE I

HE Reverend Vicesimus Knox (1752-1821) and his family had T- L gone to Brighton "in pursuit of health, sea bathing and a salutary change of air and scene." On August 11, 1793, he preached a sermon on the text of Philippians 4:7: "The Peace of God, which passeth all un- derstanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." The sermon was greeted with pleasure and compliments. Dr. Knox was entreated to preach again the following Sunday. "I chose for my subject, the prospect of perpetual and universal peace to be established on the principles of Christian philanthropy." The text was Luke 2:14: "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will towards men." This time he aroused the ill will and animosity of some officers of the militia stationed in this channel harbor, and, on that evening of August 18, he overheard these words apparently aimed at him by an unknown gentle- man in uniform: "My prayer to God is, that the war with France may be long, and bloody-nay, an everlasting war." The following Tuesday, August 20, 1793, Knox went to the theatre to see The Agreeable Surprise. Between the play and the entertainment, several officers who had been sitting in a box on the opposite side of the theatre handed Mrs. Knox a note "written in pencil on a scrap of torn paper" which read: "Your discourse last Sunday was so offensive that the Gentlemen of this theatre desire you will quit it immediately. " Knox tried to have the ungentlemanly "gentlemen" come up and make them- selves known, but his efforts and words were drowned by such epithets as "d.... d Democrat, Scoundrel, Rascal, democratical Scoundrel." Lest a riot break out, he left the theatre with his wife and two young children. On the next day, the Knox family returned to London. "Brighton, I suppose, felt itself relieved, like Rome when it had vomited out Cati- line." Such are, in short, the highlights of a narrative of events as pro- fusely told, and truthfully, we may be sure, by Reverend Knox himself, smarting under the insult and the ensuing nasty publicity. A newspaper went so far as to back those "gentlemen of the theatre," suggesting that

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the "seditious" preacher was seeking safety by flight to America, but that he would probably be stopped in his course by the Attorney General! The tone of indignation and bitter irony permeating these "transac- tions" hardly hide the deep wound rankling the master of Tunbridge School (Kent), the respected clergyman and author whose literary fame and moral repute had spread from England to continental Europe and America. Had he not received a doctor of divinity degree from the Uni- versity of Philadelphia? He simply was overwhelmed by the cowardice and rudeness of his assailants, "for I know no more of them than our good friend the Pope of Rome...." "I know brave men, grey-headed veterans, whose swords would have leaped from their scabbards to de- fend a gentleman and a woman from the slightest insult at a public theatre." There must have been no such brave soldiers in the theatre at Brighton. Publish your sermon! his friends begged. Knox was content with giv- ing out, in 1793, a few extracts to correct quotations in The True Briton and The Sun, having decided that publication would serve no rational purpose, defeat its object, public peace, and disturb his own tranquillity. The full text of the sermon was to be printed posthumously in the Works 1 (1824) of our clergyman.

1 Knox's sermon prompted A Narrativeof TransactionsRelative to a Sermonpreached in the Parish Church of Brighton,August 18, 1793: with short Extractsfrom the Sermon,and occasionalremarks by VicesimusKnox, D. D. Masterof TunbridgeSchool, and Late Fellowof St. John's College,Oxford. London: Printed for C. Dilly, in the Poultry. 1793,in-8 (Library of Congress, SpecialCollections, shelfmark: AC 901/.MS, bound with four other pamphlets: MiscellaneousPamphlets, 306): (1) Prolegomena,III-XVII, signed at Tunbridge-Town, Kent, November 29, 1793; (2) The Prefaceto the Public,XIX-XLIII; (3) A Narrativeof Transactions... , pp. 1-97; (4) Appendix,pp. 99-132:Ten documents: i.e., letters to Knox defendingor attacking him; two of them (VII, IX) in the comical vein. The very bulk of the Narrativeshows that Vicesimusdid not take the affair of the sermon lightly. His collectedworks bear the title: The Worksof VicesimusKnox, D. D. witha Bio?raphical Prefacein sevenvolumes. London: printed for J. Mawman, Ludgate Street, 1824, in-8 (Li- brary of Congress: AC7/.K64.1824). The BiographicalPreface, I, I-XV, is particularly worthwhile. Unsigned; written very likely by someone who knew Vicesimus well (his son?). Knox edited Horace,Juvenal, Catullus. Influencedby Dr. Jortin, "that most amiable divine and classicalscholar," Knox "wrote and spoke Latin with the most classicalpurity"