matter, and have given him a good round pension, he might have been induced to resign his title to him. During his exile, he delivered himself so entirely to his pleasures, that he became incapable of application. He spent little of his time in reading and study; and yet less in thinking. And in the state his affairs were then in, he accustomed himself to say to every person, and upon all occasions, that which he thought would please most; so that words or promises went very easily from him. And he had so ill an opinion of mankind, that he thought the great art of living and governing was to manage all things and all persons, with a depth of craft and dissimulation. He desired to become absolute, and to overturn both our religion and laws; yet he would neither run the risk, nor give himself the trouble, which so great a design required. He had an appearance of gentleness in his outward deportment; but he seemed to have no bowels nor tenderness in his nature; and in the end of his life he became cruel.

Burnet,

§ 108. Another Character of CHARLES II. The character of Charles the Second, like the transactions of his reign, has assumed various appearances, in proportion to the passions and prejudices of different writers. To affirm that he was a great and good king, would be as unjust as to allege that he was destitute of all virtue, and a bloody and inhuman tyrant. The indolence of his disposition, and the dissipation occasioned by his pleasures, as they were at first the source of his misfortunes, became afterwards the safety of the nation. Had he joined the ambition of power, and the perseverance and attention of his brother, to his own insinuating and engaging address, he might have secured his reputation with writers, by enslaving them with the nation.

In his person he was tall and well made. His complexion was dark, the lines of his face strong and harsh, when singly traced: but when his features were comprehended in one view, they appeared dignified and even pleasing. In the motions of his person he was easy, graceful, and firm. His constitution was strong, and communicated an active vigour in all his limbs. Though a lover of ease of mind, he was fond of bodily exercise. He rose early, he walked much,

he mixed with the meanest of his subjects, and joined in their conversation, without diminishing his own dignity, or raising their presumption. He was acquainted with many persons in the lower stations of life. He captivated them with sprightly turns of humour, and with a kind of good-natured wit, which rendered them pleased with themselves. His guards only attended him on public occasions. He took the air frequently in company with a single friend; and though crowds followed him, it was more from a wish to attract his notice, than from an idle curiosity. When evident designs against his life were daily exhibited before the courts of justice, he changed not his manner of appearing in public. It was soon after the Rye-house plot was discovered, he is said to have been severe on his brother's character, when he exhibited a striking feature of his own. The Duke returning from hunting with his guards, found the king one day in Hyde Park. He expressed his surprise how his majesty could venture his person alone at such a perilous time. "James," replied the king, "take you care of yourself, and I am safe. No man in England will kill "ME, to make you king."

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When he was opposed with most violence in parliament, he continued the most popular man in the kingdom. His good-breeding as a gentleman overcame the opinion conceived of his faults as a king. His affability, his easy address, his attention to the very prejudices of the people, rendered him independent of all the arts of his enemies to inflame the vulgar. He is said with reason to have died opportunely for his country. Had his life extended to the number of years which the strength of his constitution seemed to promise, the nation would have lost all memory of their liberties. Had his fate placed Charles the Second in those latter times, when influence supplied the place of obvious power; when the crown had ceased to be distressed through the channel of its necessities; when the representatives of the people, in granting supplies for the public service, provide for themselves; his want of ambition would have precluded the jealousy, and his popular qualities secured the utmost admiration of his subjects. His gallantry itself would be construed into spirit, in an age where decency is only an improvement on vice. Macpherson.

power with which both sovereigns are accused, owed their origin to the same source; the errors arising from a bad education, aggravated and extended by the impious flattery of designing priests; we shall also be obliged to confess, that the parliament itself, by an unprecedented servility, helped to confirm James in the exalted idea he had entertained of the royal office, and that the doctrines of an absolute and unconditional submission on the part of subjects, which, in the reign of his father, was in a great measure confined to the precepts of a Laud, a Sibthorpe, and Maynwaring, were now taught as the avowed doctrines of the Church of England, were acknowledged by the two Universities, and implicitly avowed by a large majority of the nation; so great, indeed, was the change in the temper, manners, and opinions of the people, from the commencement of the reign of Charles the First to the commencement of the reign of his son James, that at this shameful period the people gloried in having laid all their privileges at the foot of the throne, and execrated every generous principle of freedom, as arising from a spirit totally incompatible with the peace of society, and altogether repugnant to the doctrines of Christianity.

This was the situation of affairs at the accession of the unfortunate James; and had he been equally unprincipled as his brother, the deceased king; had he professed himself a Protestant, whilst he was in his heart a Papist; had he not regarded it as his duty to use his omnipotent power for the restoring to some parts of its ancient dignity a Church which he regarded as the only true Church of Christ; or had he, instead of attacking the prerogative of the prelacy, suffered them to share the regal despotism which they had fixed on the basis of conscience, the most flagrant abuses of civil power would never have been called in judgment against him, and parliament themselves would have lent their constitutional authority to have riveted the chains of the empire in such a manner as should have put it out of the power of the most determined votaries of freedom to have re-established the government on its ancient foundation. From this immediate evil England owes its deliverance to the bigoted sincerity of James; a circumstance which ought, in some measure, to conciliate our affections to the memory of the sufferer, and induce us to treat

those errors with lenity, which have led to the enjoyment of privileges which can never be entirely lost, but by a general corruption of principle and depravity of

manners.

It was said by the witty Duke of Buckingham, "that Charles the Second might "do well if he would, and that James "would do well if he could;" an observation which says little for the understanding of James, but a great deal for his heart; and, with all the blemishes with which his public character is stained, he was not deficient in several qualities necessary to compose a good sovereign. His industry and business were exemplary, he was frugal of the public money, he cherished and extended the maritime power of the empire, and his encouragement of trade was attended with such success, that, according to the observation of the impartial historian Ralph, as the frugality of his administration helped to increase the number of malcontents, so his extreme attention to trade was not

less alarming to the whole body of the Dutch, than his resolution not to rush into a war with France was mortifying to their stadtholder.

In domestic life, the character of James, though not irreproachable, was comparatively good. It is true, he was in a great measure tainted with that licentiousness of manners, which at this time pervaded the whole society, and which reigned triumphant within the circle of the court; but he was never carried into any excesses which trenched deeply upon the duties of social life; and if the qualities of his heart were only to be judged by his different conduct in the different characters of husband, father, master, and friend, he might be pronounced a man of very amiable disposition. But those who know not how to forgive injuries, and can never pardon the errors, the infirmities, the vices, or even the virtues of their fellow-creatures, when in any respect they affect personal interest, or inclination, will aim against them the sensibility of every humane mind, and can never expect from others that justice and commiseration which themselves have never exercised: but whilst we execrate that rancorous cruelty with which James, in the short hour of triumph, persecuted all those who endeavoured to thwart his ambitious hopes, it is but justice to observe, that the rank vices of pride, malice, and

and that neither himself, nor his Protestant abettors, could fathom the consequences of that enlarged toleration which he endeavoured to establish.

Macaulay.

$111. Character of WILLIAM III. William III. was in his person of the middle stature, a thin body, and delicate constitution, subject to an asthma and continual cough from his infancy. He had an aquiline nose, sparkling eyes, a large forehead, and grave solemn aspect. He was very sparing of speech; his conversation was dry, and his manner disgusting, except in battle, when his deportment was free, spirited, and animating. In courage, fortitude, and equanimity, he rivalled the most eminent warriors of antiquity; and his natural sagacity made amends for the defects of his education, which had not been properly superintended. He was religious, temperate, generally just and sincere, a stranger to violent transports of passion, and might have passed for one of the best princes of the age in which he lived, had he never ascended the throne of Great Britain. But the distinguishing criterion of his character was ambition; to this he sacrificed the punctilios of honour and decorum, in deposing his own father-in-law and uncle; and this he gratified at the expence of the nation that raised him to sovereign authority. He aspired to the honour of acting as umpire in all the contests of Europe; and the second object of his attention was, the prosperity of that country to which he owed his birth and extraction. Whether he really thought the interests of the Continent and Great Britain were inseparable, or sought only to drag England into the confederacy as a convenient ally; certain it is, he involved these kingdoms in foreign connexions, which, in all probability, will be productive of their ruin. In order to establish this favourite point, he scrupled not to employ all the engines of corruption, by which means the morals of the nation were totally debauched. He procured a parliamentary sanction for a standing army, which now seems to be interwoven in the constitution. He introduced the pernicious practice of borrowing upon remote funds; an expedient that necessarily hatched a brood of usurers, brokers, and stock-jobbers, to prey upon the vitals of their country. He

§ 112. Another Character of WILLIAM III:

William the Third, king of Great Britain and Ireland, was in his person of middle size, ill-shaped in his limbs, somewhat round in his shoulders, light brown in the colour of his hair, and in his complexion. The lines of his face were hard, and his nose was aquiline; but a good and penetrating eye threw a kind of light on his countenance, which tempered its severity, and rendered his harsh features, in some measure, agreeable. Though his constitution was weak, delicate, and infirm, he loved the manly exercises of the field; and often indulged himself in the pleasures, and even sometimes in the excesses, of the table.

In his private character he was fre quently harsh, passionate, and severe, with regard to trifles; but when the subject rose equal to his mind, and in the tumult of battle, he was dignified, cool, and serene. Though he was apt to form bad impressions, which were not easily removed, he was neither vindictive in his disposition, nor obstinate in his resentment. Neglected in his education, and perhaps destitute by nature of an elegance of mind, he had no taste for literature, none for the sciences, none for the beautiful arts. He paid no attention to music, he understood no poetry; he disregarded learning; he encouraged no men of letters, no painters, no artists of any kind. In fortification and the mathematics he had a considerable degree of knowledge. Though unsuccessful in the field, he understood military operations by land; but he neither possessed nor pretended to any skill in maritime affairs.

In the distribution of favours he was cold and injudicious. In the punishment of crimes, often too easy, and sometimes too severe. He was parsimonious where he should have been liberal; where he ought to be sparing, frequently profuse.