seem to imply, it rather excites our astonishment to find him subject to the dotage of astrology. A story, which Burnet tells to this effect, was long considered as a fable of the reverend author's; but like many other of that historian's supposed fables, it has been found to rest upon the basis of truth. There is in the British Museum*, a letter from the Dutchess of Cleveland to the King Charles, dated Paris, which verifies Burnet's relation in every particular:-" When I was to come over," says she, "he (Mountague) brought me two letters to bring to you, which he read both to me, before he sealed them. The one was a man's, that he said you had great faith in; for that he had at several times foretold things to you that were of conconsequence, and that you believed him in all things, like a changeling as you were." The letter goes on to say, that Mountague designed to make this cunning man subservient to his own intrigues, by causing him to foretel to the king such and such events. 66 The man," she continues, "though he was infirm and ill, should go into England, and there, after having been a little time soliciting you for money; for that you were so base, that though you employed him, you let him starve," &c. Enough for our purpose is what we have already quoted.

Burnet, in his strong and unmeasured language, has expressed his sense of Charles's profligacy, by saying that he delivered himself up to a most enormous course of vice, without any restraint; and then follows an insinuation, which is likely, with candid readers, to do the bishop himself more injury than the monarch, at whom it is aimed. He had great vices, he continues, and scarcely any virtues; but some of his vices were less hurtful than the rest, and these served to correct the more pernicious. A saying of Lord Rothes, the king's commissioner in Scotland, was much noised about at the time. He abandoned himself to pleasure, and when he was censured for it, all the answer he made was couched in a severe piece of raillery :"the king's commissioner," he said, "ought to represent his person." In one vice, however, to which the Scottish commissioner addicted himself, he received little or no countenance from the authority he represented; and that was drunkenness. Upon a frolic, indeed, with a few choice spirits, in whose company he took delight, Charles would sometimes run into excess; yet this was only on rare occasions; and he entertained a bad opinion of all that fell into that habit. On the same occasion, on which he presented Jefferies with that jewel, which was called the latter's blood-stone, from its being given him a few days after the conviction of Sidney, he added a piece of advice,

* Harris's Life of King Charles II.

"it

odd enough as coming from a king to a judge. He said, was a hot summer, and he (Jefferies) was going the circuit; he, therefore, desired he would not drink too much." Now, Jefferies was a notorious drunkard. In another respect the manners of the king lay more open to exception. "He was apter to make broad allusions upon any thing that gave the least occasion, than was altogether suitable with the very good breeding he shewed in most other things. The company he kept, whilst abroad, had so used him to that sort of dialect, that he was so far from thinking it a fault or indecency, that he made it a matter of raillery upon them, who could not prevail on themselves to join in it..... In his more familiar conversations with the ladies, even they must be passive, if they would not enter into it."

In the habits of his life, he was equally prone to outrage decorum. For, a little while after his marriage, he carried things decently; but he soon threw off all restraint, he would go from his mistress's apartments to church, even on sacrament days, and held as it were, a court in them, whilst to the "lady," (as she is respectfully termed by Clarendon, who however would never descend to notice her) for the time being, they all made application. How little careful he was to save appearances, the following curious extracts from Mr. Evelyn's Journal abundantly shew. March 1, 1671.-After mention of some particulars not material to the present purpose, he goes on-"I thence walked with him (the king) through St. James's park to the garden, when I both saw and heard a very familiar discourse, between . and Mrs. Nellie, as they called an impudent comedian, she looking out of her garden on a terrace at the top of a wall, and standing on the green walk under it. I was heartily sorry at this scene. Thence the king walked to the Dutchess of Cleaveland, another lady of pleasure, and curse of our nation." But perhaps the reader would be glad to see one of Charles's family parties. On the day of the king's death, Mr. Evelyn calls to mind a scene which he had witnessed not many days before. "I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming, and all dissoluteness, and, as it were, total forgetfulness of God, (it being Sunday evening) which this day se'nnight I was witness of, the king sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Mazarine, &c., a French boy singing love songs, in that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were at basset round a large table, a bank of, at least, two thousand in gold before them.

Marquis of Halifax. Character of Charles II.

+ Burnet,

Six days after, was all in the dust!" This, we suppose, is what the king meant by a little irregular pleasure. When, once upon telling Burnet, he was no atheist, he added, " but he could not think God would make a man miserable only for taking a little pleasure out of the way." This, however, appears to have been only a quiet party at home; the following is a more formal and solemn entertainment.

"This evening I was at the entertainment of the Morocco ambassador, at the Dutchess of Portsmouth's glorious apartments at Whitehall, where was a great banquet of sweetmeats and music, but at which, both the ambassador and her retinue behaved themselves with extraordinary moderation and modesty, though placed about a long table, a lady between two Moors, and amongst these were the king's natural children, viz. Lady Litchfield and Sussex, the Dutchess of Portsmouth and Nelly, &c., concubines and cattle of that sort, as splendid as jewels and excess of bravery could make them. The Moors neither admiring nor seeming to regard any thing, furniture, or the like, with any earnestness, and but decently tasting of the banquet. They drank a little milk and water, but not a drop of wine: they also drank of a sorbett and a jacolatt; did not look about or stare at the ladies, or express the least surprise, but with a courtly negligence in face and countenance, and whole behaviour, answering only to such questions as were asked, with a great deal of wit and gallantry, and so gravely took leave with this compliment, That God would bless the Dutchess of Portsmouth and the prince her son, meaning the little Duke of Richmond. The king came in at the latter end, just as the ambassador was going away. . . . . . In a word the Russian ambassador, still at court, behaved himself like a clown, compared to this heathen.

In these scenes of debauchery, there was more, we suspect, of the bravery and show, than the substance of vice, as far as regarded the king himself: the following just observations nicely discriminate his character in this respect, and serve as an ingenious commentary on the passages above quoted." He was rather abandoned than luxurious, and, like our female libertines, apter to be debauched for the satisfaction of others, than to seek with choice where most to please himself. I am of opinion also, that, in his latter times, there was as much of laziness, as of love, in all those hours he passed among his mistresses; who, after all, served only to fill up his seraglio; while a bewitching kind of pleasure, called sauntering, and talking without any constraint, was the true sultana queen he delighted in!"* The facility with which he was induced to entertain any new favourite proposed to him, as well as the

* Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham. Character of King Charles II.

apathy he, on different occasions, discovered to the lady's open infidelity, "neither angry with rivals, nor in the least nice as to being beloved," substantiate this opinion. The mode in which his intimacy with the French lady (afterwards Dutchess of Portsmouth) commenced, and her introduction at Whitehall, are extremely characteristic of all the parties concerned. The Duke of Buckingham had fallen out with the Dutchess of Cleveland, and, after attempting to detach the king from her, by leading him to form various new connexions, he finally met with an auxiliary, who did the business effectually. Having observed the "king pay particular attention to a certain Mad. Querouaille, a maid of honour to madame, his sister, at the time when he went to meet the latter at Dover, he said to him ' that it was only a decent piece of tenderness for his sister, to take care of some of her servants.' So the king consented to invite her over. The duke also, when at Paris, assured the King of France, that he could never reckon himself secure of his master, but by giving him a mistress that should be true to his interest. The matter being settled, Buckingham sent her, with part of his baggage, to Dieppe, and said he would presently follow; but being, of all men, the most inconstant and forgetful, he never thought of her more, and went to England, by the way of Calais. Hearing of this, the ambassador, Mountague, sent over for a yacht for her; and despatched some of his servants to wait on her, and defray her charges till she was brought to Whitehall and then Lord Arlington took care of her. Thus did Buckingham bring over a mistress, whom his own strange and capricious conduct threw into the hands of his enemies. The king was presently taken with her, and she studied to please and observe him in every thing. Mr. Evelyn often saw them, on her first arrival at Euston, a seat of Lord Arlington's, where he said, "it was with confidence believed she was first made a misse, as they call those unhappy creatures, with solemnity," the stocking having been flung after the manner of a married bride. "Nay, it was said that I was present at the ceremony, but it is utterly false." He acknowledges to have seen fondness and toying enough with that young wanton, as he unceremoniously calls her; but though he had observed all passages with sufficient curiosity, he saw nothing more. Though generally held to be one of the prime beauties of the day, she appeared to him of a childish, simple, and baby face. The king passed away the rest of his life in great fondness for her, and kept her at an enormous charge; she, by many fits of sickness, some real, and others thought only pretended, gaining of him every thing she desired. With what success she had acted her part with the royal lover, we

may form some conception, from another passage of Evelyn, dated so late as 1683:

"Following his majesty this morning through the gallery, I went with the few who attended him into the Dutchess of Portsmouth's dressing-room within her bed-chamber, when she was in her morning loose garment, her maids combing her, newly out of bed, his majesty and gallants standing about her: but that which engaged my curiosity, was the rich and splendid furniture of this woman's apartment, now twice or thrice pulled down to satisfy her prodigal and expensive pleasures, whilst her majesty's does not exceed some gentlemen's ladies, in furniture and accommodation."

She was not, however, absolutely without a rival in his favour and affections. Madame de Sevigné, speaking of her in one of her letters, says, "she amasses treasure, and makes herself feared and respected by as many as she can. But she did not foresee, that she should find a young actress in her way, whom the king doats on; and she has it not in her power to withdraw him from her. He divides his care, his time, and his health, between these two. The actress is as haughty as Mademoiselle she insults her, she makes grimaces at her, she attacks her, she frequently steals the king from her, and boasts whenever he gives her the preference. She is young, indiscreet, confident, wild, and of an agreeable humour. She sings, she dances, and she acts her part with a good grace. .... This creature gets the upper-hand, and discountenances and embarrasses the dutchess extremely." The lively young lady was no other than Mrs. Ellen Gwyn, whom Burnet, with more than usual gaiety, characterizes as "the wildest and indiscreetest thing that ever was in a court;" who acted all persons in a lively manner, and was such a constant diversion to the king, that even a new mistress could not drive her away. The Duke of Buckingham told him, that when she was brought to the king, she asked only £500 a year, and the king refused it. But at the time he told him this, four years after her first introduction, she had got of the king above £60,000.

66

In Charles's extravagant expenditure of money, there was a singular compound of parsimony and profusion. While he sacrificed all things to his mistresses, he would use to grudge, and be uneasy at their losing a little of it again at play, though ever so necessary for their diversion. Nor would he venture five pounds to those who might obtain as many thousands, either before he came thither, or as soon as he left off*." He sometimes, however, ventured deeper.

* Sheffield Duke of Buckingham's Character.