1685. son, as I have set it down without adding the least circumstance to it, I thought it too important not to be mentioned in this history. It discovers both the knavery of confessors, and the practices of papists, so evidently, that there is no need of making any further reflections on it.

611

His chaacter.

Thus lived and died king Charles the second. He was the greatest instance in history of the various revolutions of which any one man seemed capable. He was bred up, the first twelve years of his life, with the splendor that became the heir of so great

ter.

a crown. After that he passed through eighteen 1685. years in great inequalities, unhappy in the war, in His characthe loss of his father, and of the crown of England. Scotland did not only receive him, though upon terms hard of digestion, but made an attempt upon England for him, though a feeble one. He lost the battle of Worcester with too much indifference: and then he shewed more care of his person than became one who had so much at stake m. He wandered about England for ten weeks after that, hiding from place to place. But, under all the apprehensions he had then upon him, he shewed a temper so careless, and so much turned to levity, that he was then diverting himself with little household sports, in as unconcerned a manner as if he had made no loss, and had been in no danger at all". He got at last out of England. But he had been obliged to so many, who had been faithful to him, and careful of him, that he seemed afterwards to resolve to make an equal return to them all: and finding it

more care of his person than became him, is to be reconciled to a thoughtless unconcernedness in the utmost danger, I am at a loss to find out; but there are so many contradictions and inconsistencies in this elaborate malicious character of king Charles the second, that whoever reads it, will soon find there is more of a disappointed churchman's revenge, than truth, in the whole composition. That the king had many faults and infirmities, is true, and who is without? But that he had many great perfections and good qualities, is as true. D.

Hh

1685. not easy to reward them all as they deserved, he

forgot them all alike. Most princes seem to have this pretty deep in them; and to think that they ought never to remember past services, but that their acceptance of them is a full reward. He, of all in our age, exerted this piece of prerogative in the amplest manner: for he never seemed to charge his memory, or to trouble his thoughts, with the sense of any of the services that had been done him.

While he was abroad at Paris, Colen, or Brussels, he never seemed to lay any thing to heart. He pursued all his diversions and irregular pleasures in a free career; and seemed to be as serene under the loss of a crown, as the greatest philosopher could have been. Nor did he willingly hearken to any of those projects, with which he often complained that his chancellor persecuted him. That in which he seemed most concerned was, to find money for supporting his expense. And it was often said, that, if Cromwell would have compounded the matter, and have given him a good round pension, that 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 or study, and yet less in thinking. And, in the state his affairs were then in, he accustomed himself to say to every 612 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. And in that few men in the world could put on the ap

pearances of sincerity better than he could: under 1685. which so much artifice was usually hid, that in conclusion he could deceive none, for all were become mistrustful of him. He had great vices, but scarce any virtues to correct them: he had in him some vices that were less hurtful, which corrected his more hurtful ones. He was during the active part of life given up to sloth and lewdness to such a degree, that he hated business, and could not bear the engaging in any thing that gave him much trouble, or put him under any constraint. And, though he desired to become absolute, and to overturn both our religion and our 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. He was apt to forgive all crimes, even blood itself: yet he never forgave any thing that was done against himself, after his first and general act of indemnity, which was to be reckoned as done rather upon maxims of state than inclinations of mercy. He delivered himself up to a most enormous course of vice, without any sort of restraint, even from the consideration of the nearest relations°: the most studied extravagancies that way seemed, to the very last, to be much delighted in and pursued by him. He had the art of making all people grow fond of him at first, by a softness in his whole way of conversation, as he was certainly the best bred man of the age. But when it

• Alluding to what was said of some gallantries, when he met his sister, the duchess of

Orleans, at Dover, p. 301. 0.
(But see a note on that place.)

1685. appeared how little could be built on his promise, they were cured of the fondness that he was apt to raise in them. When he saw young men of quality, who had something more than ordinary in them, he drew them about him, and set himself to corrupt them both in religion and morality; in which he proved so unhappily successful, that he left England much changed at his death from what he had found it at his restoration. He loved to talk over all the stories of his life to every new man that came about him. His stay in Scotland, and the share he had in the war of Paris, in carrying messages from the one side to the other, were his common topics. He went over these in a very graceful manner; but so often, 613 and so copiously, that all those who had been long accustomed to them grew weary of them: and when he entered on those stories they usually withdrew : so that he often began them in a full audience, and before he had done, there were not above four or five left about him: which drew a severe jest from Wilmot, earl of Rochester. He said, he wondered to see a man have so good a memory as to repeat the same story without losing the least circumstance, and yet not remember that he had told it to the same persons the very day before. This made him fond of strangers; for they hearkened to all his often repeated stories, and went away as in a rapture at such an uncommon condescension in a king.

His person and temper, his vices as well as his fortunes, resemble the character that we have given us of Tiberius so much, that it were easy to draw the parallel between them'. Tiberius's banishment,

P Malicious, and in many circumstances false. S.