Frontispiece to Vol. IV. Sharp je DECORO INTER VERBA SILENTIO. Published Feb.1.1796, by Cadell & Davies, Strand. OF DISTINGUISHED PERSONS, CHIEFLY OF THE PRESENT AND TWO PRECEDING ILLUSTRATED BY ENGRAVINGS. INDOCTI DISCANT, ET AMENT MEMINISSE PERITI. THE FOURTH EDITION: CONSIDERABLY ENLARGEL NEWLY ARRANGED AND DIGESTED. IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. IV. LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. CADELL JUN. AND W. DAVIES, OF DISTINGUISHED PERSONS. FOREIG N. CHARLES THE NINTH, KING OF FRANCE. [1560-1574] THIS Prince was only eleven years of age when he was crowned. His mother, Catherine of Medicis, expreffing her apprehenfions, that the fatigue of the ceremony might be too much for him; he replied, "Madam, I will very willingly undergo as much fatigue, as often as have another Crown to bestow upon you "me." When the Constable de Montmorenci died, the young Prince did not immediately name another person to that place of power and consequence: VOL. IV. B carry my own fequence: "I will," faid he, " "fword in future." Charles spoke very much like a person fit to govern, when he said of himself one day to his Mother, who wished to keep him under her direction, "that he would no longer be kept in a box like the old jewels of the Crown." In his reign the infamous maffacre of St. Bartholomew was perpetrated. The old and excellent Chancelier de l'Hôpital, who was at his country-house when it happened, exclaimed, "How execrable a measure! I do not know who advised the King to confent to it; but "I fear that he will fuffer for it, as well as all “his kingdom 66 On the fatal day of St. Bartholomew, Charles fired with an arquebufe from the windows of the Louvre upon his Huguenot fubjects, (who were croffing the Seine in hopes to avoid the general carnage and maffacre) crying out at the fame time to the foldiers that were near him, "Fire! " fire !" One of the great amufements of this Prince was, to cut off the heads of the different animals which he met with, after having paid the 5 owners |