was naturally of a found and folid judgment. This was visible by her whole management, from one end of her reign to the other. Nothing fhews her capacity more, than her addrefs in furmounting all the difficulties and troubles created by her enemics, especially when it is confidered who thefe enemies were; perfons the most powerful, the most artful, the most fubtile, and the leaft fcrupulous in Europe. The following are the maxims which the laid down for the rule and measures of her whole conduct, and from which the never fwerved: "To make herfelf beloved by "her people: To be frugal of her trea"fure: To keep up diffention amongst her "neighbours." Her enemies pretend that her abilities confifted wholly in overftrained diffimulation, and a profound hypocrify. In a word, they fay fhe was a perfect comedian. For my part, I don't deny that the made great ufe of diffimulation, as well with regard to the courts of France and Spain, as to the queen of Scotland and the Scots. I am alfo perfuaded that, being as much concerned to gain the love and efleem of her subjects, the affected to fpeak frequently, and with exaggeration, of her tender affection for them. And that the had a mind to make it believed that the did fome things from an exceffive love to her people, which he was ied to more by her own interest. Avarice is another failing which her own friends reproach her with. I will not deny that the was too parfimonious, and upon fome occafions fuck too close to the maxims fhe had laid down, not to be at any expence but what was abfolutely neceffary. However in general I maintain, that if her circumstances did not require her to be covetous, at least they required that the fhould not part with her money but with great caution, both in order to preferve the affection of her people, and to keep herfelf always in a condition to withstand her enemies. She is accufed alfo of not being fo chafte, as fhe affected to appear. Nay, fome pretend that there are now in England, the defcendants of a daughter fhe had by the Earl of Leicefter; but as hitherto nobody has undertaken to produce any proofs of this accufation, one may fafely reckon it among the flanders which they endeavoured to ftain her reputation with, both in her life-time and after her decease. It is not fo eafy to justify her concerning the death of the queen of Scots. Here it must be owned the facrificed equity, juftice, and it may be her own confcience, to her fafety. If Mary was guilty of the mur der of her husband, as there is ground to believe, it was not Elizabeth's business to punish her for it. And truly it was not for that he took away her life; but she made ufe of that pretence to detain her in prifon, under the deceitful colour of making her innocence appear. On this occafion her diffimulation was blame-worthy. This first piece of injuftice, drew her in afterwards to use a world of artful devices to get a pretence to render Mary's imprifonment perpetual. From hence arose in the end, the neceffity of putting her to death on the fcaffold. This doubtless is Elizabeth's great blemish, which manifeftly proves to what degree the carried the fear of lofing a crown. The continual fear and uneafinefs fhe was under on that account, is what characterises her reign, because it was the main fpring of almost all her actions. The bell thing that can be faid in Elizabeth's behalf is, that the queen of Scots and her friends had brought matters to fuch a pafs, that one of the two queens must perish, and it was natural that the weakest should fall. I don't believe anybody ever questioned her being a true Proteltant. But, as it was her interest to be fo, fome have taken occafion to doubt whether the zeal the expreffed for her religion, was the effect of her perfuafion or policy. All that can be faid is, that the happened fometimes to prefer her temporal concerns, before thofe of religion. To fum up in two words what may ferve to form Elizabeth's character, I fhall add, fhe was a good and illuftrious queen, with many virtues and noble qualities, and few faults. But what ought above all things to make her memory precious is, that the caufed the English to enjoy a ftate of felicity unknown to their ancestors, under most part of the kings, her predeceflors. Died March 24, 1603, aged 70, having reigned 44 years, 4 months, and 8 days. Rapin. § 90. Another Character of ELIZABETH. There are few great perfonages in hiftory who have been more expofed to the calumny of enemies, and the adulation of friends, than queen Elizabeth; and yet there is fcarce any whofe reputation has been more certainly determined, by the unanimous unanimous confent of pofterity. The unufual length of her administration, and the ftrong features of her character, were able to overcome all prejudices; and obliging her detractors to abate much of their invectives, and her admirers fomewhat their panegyricks, have at laft, in fpite of political factions, and, what is more, of religious animofities, produced an uniform judgment with regard to her conduct. Her vigour, her conftancy, her magnanimity, her penetration, and vigilance, are allowed to merit the highest praise, and appear not to have been furpaffed by any person who ever filled a throne. A conduct lefs vigorous, less imperious; more fincere, more indulgent to her people, would have been requifite to form a perfect character. By the force of her mind, the controuled all her more active and ftronger qualities, and prevented them from running into excefs. Her heroifm was exempt from all temerity, her frugality from avarice, her friendship from partiality, her active spirit from turbulency and a vain ambition. She guarded not herfelf with equal care, or equal fuccefs from leffer infirmities; the rivalship of beauty, the defire of admiration, the jealoufy of love, and the fallies of anger. Her fingular talents for government were founded equally on her temper and on her capacity. Endowed with a great command of herfelf, fhe obtained an uncontrouled afcendant over her people; and while fhe merited all their efteem by her real virtues, she also engaged their affection by her pretended ones. Few fovereigns of England fucceeded to the throne in more difficult circumstances: and none ever conducted the government with fuch uniform fuccefs and felicity. Though unacquainted with the practice of toleration, the true fecret for managing religious factions, the preferved her people, by her fuperior. providence, from thofe confufions in which theological controversy had involved all the neighbouring nations: and though her enemies were the most powerful princes in Europe, the most active, the moft enterprizing, the leaft fcrupulous, fhe was able by her vigour to make deep impreffions on their ftate; her own greatnefs mean while untouched and unimpaired. The wife minifters and brave warriors, who flourished during her reign, fhare the praife of her fuccefs; but inftead of lefiening the applaufe due to her, they make great addition to it. They owed all of them their advancement to her choice, they were fupported by her conftancy; and with all their ability they were never able to acquire any undue afcendant over her. In her family, in her court, in her kingdom, fhe remained equally miftrefs. The force of the tender paffions was great over her, but the force of her mind was ftill fuperior; and the combat which her victory visibly coft her, ferves only to display the firmness of her refolution, and the loftiness of her ambitious fentiments. The fame of this princefs, though it has furmounted the prejudices both of faction and bigotry, yet lies ftill expofed to another prejudice which is more durable, becaufe more natural, and which, according to the different views in which we furvey her, is capable either of exalting beyond meafure, or diminishing the luftre of her character. This prejudice is founded in confideration of her fex. When we contemplate her as a woman, we are apt to be ftruck with the higheft admiration of her great qualities and extenfive capacity; but we are apt alfo to require fome more foftnefs of difpofition, fome greater lenity of temper, fome of thofe amiable weakneffes by which her fex is diftinguished. But the true method of eftimating her merit is, to lay afide all thofe confiderations, and confider her merely as a rational being, placed in authority, and entrusted with the government of mankind. We may find it difficult to reconcile our fancy to her as a wife, or a mistress; but her qualities as a fovereign, though with fome confiderable exceptions, are the object of undisputed applaufe and approbation. $.91. Another Character of ELIZABETH. Elizabeth, in her perfon, was mafculine, tall, ftraight, and ftrong-limbed, with an high round forehead, brown eyes, fair complexion, fine white teeth, and yellow hair; fhe danced with great agility; her voice was ftrong and thrill; the understood mufic, and played upon feveral inftruments. She poffeffed an excellent memory, and understood the dead and living languages, and made good proficiency in the fciences, and was well read in hiftory. Her converfation was fprightly and agreeable, her judgment folid, her apprehenfion acute, her application indefatigable, and her cou rage invincible. She was the great bulwark wark of the Proteftant religion; she was highly commendable for her general regard to the impartial adminiftration of juftice; and even for her rigid economy. which faved the public money, and evinced that love for her people which the fo warmly profeffed. Yet the deviated from juftice in fome inftances when her intereft and paffions were concerned; and, notwith landing all her great qualities, we cannot deny the was vain, proud, imperious, and in fome cafes cruel: her predominant paffion was jealoufy and avarice; though he was alfo fubject to fuch violent gufts of anger as overwhelmed all regard to the dignity of her ftation, and even hurried her beyond the common bounds of decency. She was wife and fteady in her principles of government, and above all princes fortunate in a ministry. Smollett. $92. Character of JAMES I. James was of a middle ftature, of a fine complexion, and a foft fkin; his perfon plump, but not corpulent, his eyes large and rolling, his beard thin, his tongue too big for his mouth, his countenance difagreeable, his air awkward, and his gait remarkably ungraceful, from a weakness in his knees that prevented his walking without affiftance; he was tolerably temperate in his diet, but drank of little elfe than rich and ftrong wines. His character, from the variety of grotefque qualities that .compose it, is not eafy to be delineated. The virtues he poffeffed were fo loaded with a greater proportion of their neighbouring vices, that they exhibit no lights, to fet off the dark fhades; his principles of generofity were tainted by fuch a childish profufion, that they left him without means of paying his juft obligations, and fubjected him to the neceffity of attempting irregular, illegal, and unjuft methods of acquiring money. His friendship, not to give it the 'name of vice, was directed by fo puerile a fancy, and fo abfurd a caprice, that the objects of it were contemptible, and its confequences attended with fuch an unmerited profufion of favours, that it was perhaps the most exceptionable quality of any he poffeffed. His diftinctions were formed on principles of felfifhnefs; he valued no perfon for any endowments that could not be made fubfervient to his pleasures or his intereft; and thus he rarely advanced any man of real worth to preferment. His familiar converfation, both in writing and in fpeaking, was stuffed with vulgar and indecent phrafes. Though proud and arrogant in his temper, and full of the importance of his ftation, he defcended to buffoonry, and fuffered his favourites to addrefs him in the most disrespectful terms of grofs familiarity. Himfelf affected a fententious wit, but rofe no higher in thofe attempts than to quaint, and often ftale conceits. His education had been a more learned one than is commonly bestowed on princes; this, from the conceit it gave him, turned out a very difadvantageous circumftance, by contracting his opinions to his own narrow views; his pretences to a confummate knowledge in divinity, politics, and the art of governing, expofe him to a high degree of ridicule; his conduct fhewing him more than commonly deficient in all thefe points. His romantic idea of the natural rights of princes, caufed him publicly to avow pretenfions that impreffed into the minds of the people an incurable jealoufy; this, with an affectation of a profound skill in the art of diffembling, or kingcraft, as he termed it, rendered him the object of fear and diftruft; when at the fame time he was himfelf the only dupe to an impertinent, useless hypocrify. If the laws and conftitution of England received no prejudice from his government, it was owing to his want of ability to effect a change fuitable to the purpose of an arbitrary fway. Stained with thefe vices, and fullied with these weakneffes, if he is even exempt from our hatred, the exemption muft arife from motives of contempt. Defpicable as he appears through his own. Britannic government, his behaviour when king of Scotland was in many points unexceptionable; but, intoxicated with the power he received over a people whofe privileges were but feebly effablished, and who had been long fubjected to civil and ecclefiaftical tyranny, he at once flung off that moderation that hid his deformities from the common eye. It is alledged, that the corruption he met with in the court of England, and the time-ferving genius of the English noblemen, were the great means that debauched him from his circumfpect conduct. Among the forwardest of the worthless tribe was Cecil, afterwards Earl of Salisbury, who told him on his coming to the crown, that he should find his English fubjects like affes, on whom he might lay any burden, and should need neither 3 C bit While he endeavoured, by an exact neutrality, to acquire the good-will of all his neighbours, he was able to preferve fully the esteem and regard of none. His capacity was confiderable, but fitter to dif courfe on general maxims than to conduct any intricate bufinefs. His intentions were juft, but more adapt $93. Another Character of JAMES. James was in his flature of the middle fize, inclining to corpulency; his forehead was high, his beard fcanty, and his afpected to the conduct of private life, than to mean; his eyes, which were weak and languid, he rolled about inceffantly, as if in queft of novelty; his tongue was fo large, that in fpeaking or drinking, he beflabbered the by-ftanders; his knees were fo weak as to bend under the weight of his body; his addrefs was awkward, and his appearance flovenly. There was nothing dignified either in the compofition of his mind or perfon. We have in the courfe of his reign exhibited repeated inftances of his ridiculous vanity, prejudices, profufion, folly, and littleness of foul. All that we can add in his favour is, that he was averfe to cruelty and injuftice; very little addicted to excefs, temperate in his meals, kind to his fervants, and even defirous of acquiring the love of his fubjects, by granting that as a favour, which they claimed as a privilege. His reign, though ignoble to himfelf, was happy to his people. They were enriched by commerce, which no war interrupted. They felt no fevere impofitions; and the commons made confiderable progrefs in afcertaining the liberties of the Smollett. the government of kingdoms. Awkward in his perfon, and ungainly in his manners, he was ill qualified to command refpect: partial and undifcerning in his af fections, he was little fitted to acquire general love. Of a feeble temper more than of a frugal judgment; expofed to our ridicule from his vanity, but exempt from our hatred by his freedom from pride and arrogance. And upon the whole it may be pronounced of his character, that all his qualities were fullied with weakness, and embellished by humanity. Political courage he was certainly devoid of; and from thence chiefly is derived the ftrong prejudice which prevails against his perfonal bravery: an inference, however, which must be owned, from general experience, to be extremely fallacious. Hume. nation. 994. Another Character of JAMES. No prince, fo little enterprizing and fo inoffenfive, was ever fo much expofed to the oppofite extremes of calumny and flattery, of fatire and panegyric. And the factions which began in his time, being ftill continued, have made his character be as much difputed to this day, as is commonly that of princes who are our contemporaries. Many virtues, however, it must be owned, he was poffeffed of; but not one of them pure, or free from the contagion of the neighbouring vices. His generofity bordered on profufion, his learning on pedantry, his pacific difpofition on pufillanimity, his wifdom on cunning, his friendfhip on light fancy, and boyish fondness. While he imagined that he was only maintaining his own authority, he may perhaps be fufpected in fome of his actions, and fill more of his pretenfions, to have encroached on the liberties of his people. $95, Another Character of JAMES. The principal thing which is made to ferve for matter for king James's panegyric, is the conflant peace he caufed his fubjects to enjoy. This cannot be faid to be the effect of chance, fince it clearly appears, it was his fole, or at least his chief aim in the whole courfe of his adminiftration. Nothing, fay his friends, is more worthy a great king than fuch a defign. But the fame defign lofes all its merit, if the prince difcovers by his conduct, that he preferves peace only out of fear, careleffhefs, exceffive love of ease and repofe; and king James's whole behaviour fhews he acted from thefe motives, though he coloured it with the pretence of his affection for the people. His liberality, which fome praife him for, is exclaimed against by others as pro. digality. Thefe laft pretend he gave without measure and difcretion, without any regard to his own wants, or the merit of thofe whom he heaped his favours upon. As to his manners, writers are no lefs divided: fome will have him to be looked on as a very wife and virtuous prince; a diffolute life, given to drinking, and a whilft others fpeak of him as a prince of great great fwearer in common converfation, efpecially when in a paffion. He is likewife taxed with diffolving the Earl of Effex's marriage, the pardoning the Earl and Countess of Somerfet, the death of Sir Walter Raleigh, and the confidence wherewith in full parliament he called God to witnefs, that he never had any thoughts of giving the Papifts a toleration, which he could not affirm but by means of fome mental refervation. But whatever may be faid for or against James's perfon, it is certain England never flourished lefs than in his reign; the English faw themselves expofed to the infults and jefts of other nations, and all the world in general threw the blame on the king. Rapin. $96. Character of CHARLES I. Such was the unworthy and unexampled fate of Charles I. king of England, who fell a facrifice to the moft atrocious infolence of treafon, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and in the twenty-fourth of his reign. He was a prince of a middling ftature, robust, and well-proportioned. His hair was of a dark colour, his forehead high, his complexion pale, his vifage long, and his afpect melancholy. He excelled in riding, and other manly exercifes; he inherited a good understanding from nature, and had cultivated it with great affiduity. His perception was clear and acute, bis judgment folid and decifive; he poffeffed a refined talte for the liberal arts, and was a munificent patron to thofe who excelled in painting, fculpture, mufic and architecture. In his private morals he was altogether unblemished and exemplary. He was merciful, mcdeft, chaite, temperate, religious, perfonally brave, and we may join the noble hiftorian in faying, He was the worthieft gentleman, the belt mafter, the best friend, the best husband, "the best father, and the best chriftian of "the age in which he lived." He had the misfortune to be bred up in high notions of the prerogative, which he thought his honour and his duty obliged him to maintain. He lived at a time when the fpirit of the people became too mighty for thofe retraints which the regal power derived from the conftitution; and when the tide of fanaticifm began to overbear the religion of his country, to which he was confcientiously devoted, he fuffered himself to be guided by counsellors, who were not ly inferior to himself in knowledge and 66 judgment, but generally proud, partial, and inflexible; and from an excess of conjugal affection that bordered upon weaknefs, he paid too much deference to the advice and defires of his confort, who was fuperflitioufly attached to the errors of popery, and importuned him incefiantly in favour of the Roman Catholics. Such were the fources of all that miígovernment which was imputed to him during the first fifteen years of his reign. From the beginning of the civil war to his fatal catastrophe, his conduct feems to have been unexceptionable. His infirmities and imperfections have been candidly owned in the courfe of this narration. He was not very liberal to his dependants; his converfation was not eafy, nor his addrefs pleafing; yet the probity of his heart, and the innocence of his manners, won the affection of all who attended his perfon, not of his confinement. In a word, he cereven excepting thofe who had the charge tainly deferved the epithet of a virtuous prince, though he wanted fome of those thining qualities which conftitute the character of a great monarch. Beheaded January 30, 1648-9. Smollett. § 97. Another Character of CHARLES I. The character of this prince, as that of moft men, if not of all men, was mixed, but his virtues predominated extremely above his vices; or, more properly fpeaking, his imperfections: for fcarce any of his faults arofe to that pitch, as to merit the appellation of vices. To confider him in the mott favourable light, it may be affirmed, that his dignity was exempted from pride, his humanity from weakness, his bravery from rafhnefs, his temperance from auferity, and his frugality from avarice: all thefe virtues in him maintained their proper bounds, and merited unreferved praife. To fpeak the most harfhly of him, we may affirm, that many of his good qualities were attended with fome latent frailty, which, though feemingly inconfiderable, was able, when feconded by the extreme malevolence of his fortune, to difappoint them of all their influence. His beneficent difpofition was clouded by a manner not gracious, his virtue was tinctured with fuperftition, his good fenfe was disfigured by a deference to perfons of a capacity much inferior to his own, and his moderate temper exempted him not from haily and precipitate refolutions. He deferves the epithet of a good, rather than a great man; and was 3 C 2 more |