For his public character, even those who admire him in his private relations have not ventured to offer any apology; and his utter disregard of the honour, the religion, the liberty, and the material interests of the nation over which he ruled cannot be made the subject of laudation. It is suggested that a certain reckless gaiety formed some excuse for his defects as a sovereign; but monarchy in sport becomes tyranny in earnest, when its affairs are conducted by a negligent and heartless libertine. His reign was one long hoax as far as religion was concerned, for he was a Catholic at heart while pursuing the Papists with the most cruel persecution; and though his behaviour towards that class would, under any circumstances, have been hateful, it seems doubly detestable when we remember that he was himself guilty of holding the opinions for which he sent so many to the scaffold.
There can be no doubt that the fate of his father, and the disgust occasioned by the tyranny arising out of the ascendency of the rabid friends of freedom during the Commonwealth, were mainly instrumental in obtaining toleration for the vices and oppressive cruelties of Charles the Second. The dissatisfaction caused by the abuse of the royal power in the preceding reign must have burst out with more earnestness had it been kept bottled up until the accession of the libertine monarch, whose supposed sufferings during exile had attracted towards him a large share of sympathy. Had he comc to the throne in due course, without the intervention of a republic, he would have been swept off by a storm of general indignation; but the rebound of public feeling in favour of monarchy carried him in triumph to the same position that his father had occupied.
It was remarked of Charles the Second, that he never said a foolish thing or ever did a wise one; an observation which either he—or some one for him—happily turned to account, by observing that his words were his own, while his acts where those of his ministry. He has left nothing very valuable to posterity, notwithstanding the alleged wit or wisdom of his words, for the only persons who have been able to turn him to profitable account are the dramatists, who have founded a few farces on the career of that sad scamp—the Merry Monarch.
HOUGH James had not been popular as heir-presumptive to the crown, he had no sooner got it on his head than loyal addresses poured in upon him from all sides, for the attachment manifested towards the throne on these occasions refers rather to the upholstery than to the individual. In his capacity of Duke of York, few would have exclaimed, "York, you're wanted!" to fill the regal office, but when he had once succeeded to it, every one was ready to declare that the diadem became him as if it had been expressly made for him.
James and his wife were greatly puzzled about their coronation, for they had an objection to the ceremony being performed by a Protestant prelate, and unfortunately for them "No other was genuine, own conscience—a party, by the way, that is sometimes not very obstinate in coming to terms—James and his queen not only-accepted the crown from Protestant hands, but got over an awkward oath or two by means of some mental quibbles. As the crown was being put upon his head, it tottered and almost fell, which caused a bystander to paraphrase the old saying about the slip 'twixt cup and lip, exclaiming:
an observation that, happily for him who made it, was uttered in a tone that was scarcely audible.
A few days after the coronation, Titus Oates was brought to the bar of the Queen's Bench to be tried over again, though he was already under sentence of perpetual imprisonment. James, however, was desirous of feeding his revenge on Oates, who had done his worst against the Catholics; and Jeffreys, that judicial flail, was set to work to administer to Oates a sound thrashing.
The prisoner assumed a very bold front, and there was a sort of desperate restlessness in his manner, which got him the name of Wild Oates at the time he was undergoing his trial. He was convicted on two indictments, and ordered to pay a thousand marks in respect of each. "But," said the inhuman Jeffreys, "we will supply him with marks in return, for he shall be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate, and from Newgate to Tyburn." He was also granted a life interest, by way of annuity, in the pillory, where he was adjudged to stand five days every year, as long as he lived, and where voluntary contributions of eggs were shelled out in most unwelcome profusion by the populace.
Parliament met on the 22nd of May, 1685, and James delivered a speech from the throne, with notes introduced ad libitum, and a running accompaniment of threats, remarkable for their extreme impudence. This effrontery had its effect, for the Commons, having retired to their chamber, voted him an income of a million and a quarter for his life, with other contingencies which only required asking for. The Court party supported him with zeal, and chiefly recommended him as a king that had never broken his word, which appears to have placed him in the light of a royal phenomenon. In the midst of all this comfortable and complimentary confidence between the Parliament and James, news arrived that Monmouth had landed in the west, with a tremendous standard, round which the mob, who will rush anywhere to see a flag fly, were rapidly rallying. Monmouth had only got a force of one hundred men by way of nucleus to a larger assemblage, or, in other words, as the tag to which the string of rag and bobtail would be most likely to attach itself. The rebellion raised by Monmouth was very soon put down, and Monmouth himself was found cowering at the bottom of a ditch, in the mud of which he must have expired, had it not been for an opponent of his dy-nasty, who would not leave him to die in such a very disagreeable manner. Poor Monmouth was taken, tried, and condemned; and, not to be out of fashion, he gave money to the headsman—thus paying the costs of his own execution even upon the scaffold.
James proceeded to punish all whom he believed to be the enemies of his Government, with a sanguinary fury worthy of the revolutionary tribunals of France during the ascendency of Robespierre. Colonel Kirk, a soldier who had become savage by service at Tangier, and who, having once tasted blood, never knew when he had had enough of it, was sent to use the sword of war upon real or suspected rebels, while Jeffreys hacked about him right and left with the sword of justice. The king himself, with brutal appreciation of the judge's ferocious career, gave it the name of "Jeffreys' campaign," and this disgrace to the ermine inflamed by drink the natural fierceness of his character. He hiccuped out sentences of death with an idiotic stare of counterfeit solemnity, and he rolled about the Bench in such a disgraceful manner, that a junior, who had nothing to do in court but make bad jokes, observed that Jeffreys could never have acted as a standing counsel, and it was, therefore, lucky for him that he had been raised to a post of dignity which he could conveniently lean against. This monster in judicial form was elevated to the office of Lord Chancellor, with the title of Baron Wem, on the death of Lord Keeper North; when, by way of earning his promotion, Jeffreys went hanging away at a much more rapid rate than before, and the only misfortune was, that there was not sufficient rope for him to hang himself, notwithstanding the abundance of that material which was supplied to him. Jeffreys added to the trade of a butcher the less sanguinary pursuits of bribery and corruption, which enabled him to make a certain sum per head of the prisoners, while their heads remained upon their shoulders. He and Father Petre, the king's confessor, divided £6000 paid by Hampden, who was in gaol, to put aside a capital charge of high treason with which he had been threatened; and poor Prideaux, a barrister who had talked himself into the Tower by an unfortunate "gift of the gab," purchased his impunity for £1500, the probable amount of his entire life's professional earnings.
The Marquess of Halifax had sat at the council board for some time with Rochester, who, though swearing from morning till night, and drunk from night till morning, was the recognised head of the high church party, and the great hope of the religious section of the community. Halifax, not exactly liking the projects of his royal master, and the character of his colleague, turned a little refractory; and being dismissed from office, became in the natural order of things the leader of the opposition. His hostility told even upon the haughty Jeffreys, who was made to perform the unpleasant operation of biting the dust—a fate to which those who are always opening their mouths and showing their teeth are necessarily reduced when they are brought to a prostrate condition. James was so much disgusted and disappointed that he dissolved the Parliament, to avoid further discussion, thus as it were turning off the gas by which a light was being thrown upon his own real views and character.
The undisguised object of James was to Catholicise the whole country by dismissing from office all who had the slightest shade of Protestantism in their principles; and even Rochester, the head of the high church party, having got argumentative and disputatious over his drink, was turned out of the council. This ejectment was judicious in the main, though the immediate cause for it scarcely warranted the act; but the council room had been little better than a public-house parlour during the whole time that Rochester had been suffered to sit in it. James next drew up a declaration of liberty of conscience, to be read in all the churches, but the bishops, with very great spirit, resisted the introduction of the obnoxious document. They were consequently summoned on a charge of high misdemeanor before the King's Bench, when Jeffreys tried to cajole them with such amiable observations as "Now then, what's this little affair? There's some mistake, is there not? but we shall soon put it all to rights, I dare say;"—a style of conciliation to which the bishops did not take as kindly as the king and his creatures desired. The people were greatly in favour of the prelates, who were cheered on their way to their trial by an enthusiastic mob of juveniles; for it is worthy of remark, that the boys are ever in advance of their age, as the pioneers of popular opinion.
The jury, having in their own hearts an echo to the general voice, acquitted the defendants, after an adjournment and a locking up for a night, which had been rendered necessary by the obstinacy of a Mr. Arnold, the king's brewer, who supplied the palace with beer, and insisted upon putting what he called "nice pints," for the purpose of raising difficulties in the minds of his colleagues. A verdict of "Not guilty" was however eventually returned, and a round of applause having started in the court itself, passed from group to group till it got to Temple Bar, where the porters taking it up with terrific force, gave it a lift down Fleet Street, and it was thence forwarded by easy stages as far as the Tower. London was illuminated in honour of the occasion, and the Pope having been hanged in effigy, some wag put "a light in his laughing eye," which caused it to twinkle for a few moments, until, like the fire of genius, it consumed the frame in which it was deposited.
On the 10th of June, 1688, the queen, Mary d'Este, the second wife of James, was declared to have been delivered of a "fine bouncing boy," but the people, who would have no Papist heir to the throne, declared the alleged "bouncing boy" to be a bounce altogether. There was not over nicety in the mode chosen to account for the presence of the child, by those who would not believe that it was the son of the king and queen; but the most popular story was, that the little fellow had been brought in a warming-pan into the royal bedchamber. This was hauling the young Pretender rather prematurely over the coals, but as the contents of the warming-pan were never regularly sifted, we cannot vouch for the truth or falsehood of the account that has been handed down to us. The event, whether real or fictitious, was celebrated by a brilliant display of fireworks, which proved a sad failure; for the lightning, which was exceedingly vivid, completely took the shine out of the feu d'artifice, and thoroughly "paled," as if with a pail of cold water, "their ineffectual fires."
All eyes were now turned upon William, Prince of Orange, who, naturally enough, became as proud as a peacock at having so many eyes upon him. Having received a very pressing invitation from England, he determined to come over and question the legitimacy of the alleged Prince of Wales—our young friend of the warming-pan. On Friday, the 16th of October, 1688, William of Orange set sail, and stood over for the English coast; but old Boreas, who stands as sentinel over the British Isles, began railing and blustering in such a boisterous manner, that the invading fleet was driven out of its course, and the order on board every ship was to "Ease her," "Back her," or "Turn her astarn," to prevent a collision that might have proved disagreeable. The fleet, however, sailed definitively on the 1st of November, and arriving at Torbay on the 4th, he landed there amid the usual kissing of hands, grasping of legs, hanging on at the coat tails, and tugging affectionately at the cloak skirts, which form the ordinary demonstrations of affectionate loyalty towards any new object, who can bid tolerably high for it. Nevertheless, the people did not come out half so strongly as he could have desired; and, indeed, he complained that the warmth of his first reception had soon cooled down to mere politeness with the chill off. It is said that he even threatened to return, but recollecting that such quick returns would be productive of no profit, he abandoned the notion of going home, and said to himself, very sensibly, "Well, well! now I am here, I suppose I must make the best of it."
James was completely taken aback at the news of what had occurred, and tried to get up a little bit of popularity by turning quack doctor and running about in all directions to touch people for tne king's evil. It was, however, a mere piece of claptrap, or, as some term it, touch and go; for directly the people had been touched they were found to go without evincing the smallest symptoms of attachment to their doctor and master. James had certainly got a considerable number of soldiers; but he could not rely upon them for three reasons—first, because they were not to be trusted; secondly, because they were not to be depended upon; and thirdly, because there was no reliance to be placed upon them. Any one of these causes would of itself have been sufficient; but James was almost as difficult of conviction as the celebrated angler, who only abandoned his fishing expedition upon finding that there were, in the first place, no fish; secondly, that he had no fishing-rod; and thirdly, that if there were any fish, he did not think they would allow him to catch them.
The soldiers soon began to justify James's doubt of their fidelity, by rapidly deserting him. Lord Colchester went first, and the example was so catching that it ran through all the forces, and when James made up his mind to join the army, he made the mortifying discovery that there was nothing to join, for all the officers were unattached to the cause of the sovereign. The bishops advised him to call a Parliament, and the little Prince of Wales was packed off in a parcel, with "This side upwards" legibly inscribed on the crown of his hat, to Portsmouth. In the midst of his other distresses, the king's nose began to bleed, in consequence, it was said, of the repeated blows he had endured from the soldiery, who had flown in his face with the utmost disloyalty. He consequently made up his mind and his portmanteau to retreat, when, in stopping at Andover, he asked his son-in-law, Prince George of Denmark, and the young Duke of Ormond, to sup with him. They accepted the invitation; but in the morning they were both missing, having run off—without paying their bills—to join the Prince of Orange, whom they found in quarters. On arriving at Whitehall, James found that even his daughter Anne had followed her husband's example and joined the enemy.
As every one else was flying, James began to think that it was high time for himself to run for it. The little Prince of Wales, who had been forwarded to Portsmouth, was actually declined as a parcel on which the carriage had not been paid, and was sent back like a returned letter to London. The queen, putting the little fellow under her arm, walked over Westminster Bridge, popped into the Gravesend coach, and hailed a yacht, which took her and her infant to Calais. James, only waiting to pocket the great seal, ran after his wife; but finding the bauble heavy, and that the great seal, by making him look conspicuous, would perhaps seal his doom, he pitched it into the river. On reaching Lambeth they exclaimed, "Hoy, a hoy!" and a hoy was provided in which he took his passage; but the vessel putting in at the Isle of Sheppy for ballast, the people attacked him with great rudeness, and called him, without knowing who he was, a "hatchet-faced Jesuit." This proves he must have had a very sharp expression, for with a face like a hatchet, he would no doubt have had teeth like a saw, and presented altogether a rather formidable aspect. To save himself from outrage he announced himself as the king, but this disclosure had only the effect of making them rob as well as insult him, for knowing he had money of his own, they were determined to get it out of him. He was seized by a mob of fish-women, sailors, and smugglers, who turned his pockets inside out, and bullied him so severely that he howled out piteously for mercy, and adopted a favourite oath of his brother Charles's, when a salmon lighting rather heavily on his eye, he exclaimed, "Odds fish!" with considerable earnestness. He at length "put up" at the nearest public-house, where he wrote a note to Lord Winchilsea. Upon the arrival of this nobleman, the king sat down and had a good cry, but Winchilsea sagaciously observed to him, "Come, come; it's no use taking on so; you had much better take yourself off as speedily as possible."
The moment the flight of James from his palace was known, the city was thrown into the utmost excitement, and by way of making each other more nervous than need be, the inhabitants set all the bells ringing with incessant vehemence. The people might have knocked each other down with feathers, so agitated had they become; and in their frenzy they not only began burning all the Popish chapels, but looked everywhere for Father Petre to make the same use of him that his namesake saltpetre might have been turned to on such a very explosive occasion. Father Petre had taken himself off to France, but the pope's nuncio, who was in general denounced by the mob, disguised himself as a footman, and kept jumping up behind a carriage, to look as if he was in service, whenever he observed any one apparently watching him with suspicion. Judge Jeffreys having been stupidly intoxicated over some sittings in banco at a public-house, followed by a trial at bar of some cream gin that had been strongly recommended to his lordship for mixing, was unable of course to fly—or even to stand—but, disguised as a sailor, he was perambulating the streets of Wapping. Having been discovered, he was seized by the mob, who, instead of exercising a summary jurisdiction, and hanging him at once, as they might have done had they determined to pay him in his own coin, turned him over to the Lord Mayor as a preliminary to a regular trial.
A provisional Government of the bishops and peers was formed in London, and a note despatched to the Prince of Orange, saying, "that the first time he came that way, if he would drop in they should be very happy to see him." James showed considerable obstinacy before he could be got rid of; and he continued exercising, as long as he could, some of the smaller functions of royalty. He came back to London, and to the surprise of everybody, sat down to dinner as usual at Whitehall, forgetting, perhaps, that his father had taken a chop there on a previous occasion for having given offence to his people. Four battalions of the Dutch Guards were marched into Westminster by way of hint, which James for some time refused to take, and he had actually gone to bed, when Halifax roused him up by the information that he must start off to Ham, as the Prince of Orange was expected at Whitehall the first thing in the morning. James observed that the place suggested to him was very chilly, and as he could not bear cold Ham, he had much rather go to Rochester if it was all the same to Halifax. This was agreed to on behalf of the Prince of Orange; and James, taking the Gravesend boat, quitted London with a very few followers. There was an explosion of cockney sentimentality on this occasion; for the citizens, who had been the first to demand his expulsion, began shedding tears in teacupfuls when they witnessed the departure of the sovereign. Having remained for the night at Gravesend, he started the next morning for Rochester, and after a very brief stay, he went in a fishing-smack smack across the channel to Ambleteuse, a small town in Picardy. From thence he hastened to the Court of Louis the Fourteenth, where James still enjoyed the empty title of king, which was not the only empty thing he possessed, for his pockets were in the same condition until Louis replenished them. He sometimes compared them to a couple of exhausted non-receivers, for these were utterly exhausted, and were not in the receipt of anything but what he obtained from his brother sovereign's munificence. Some historians tell us that James had made a purse, but if he had, it is doubtful whether he had any money remaining to stock it with after the fishermen, who made all fish that came to their net, had encountered him at Torbay, and deprived him of all the loose cash he had about him.
William of Orange could not exactly make up his mind what to do upon the flight of James; but he very wisely declined to follow the advice of some injudicious friends, who recommended him to appear in the character of William the Conqueror. He sagaciously observed that imitations were always bad, evincing an utter absence of any original merit in the imitator, and certain in the end to have their hollowness detected. He admitted that the idea of entering England as William the Conqueror might have been a very good one at first; but that he should very justly be denounced as an impudent humbug if he endeavoured to obtain popularity by trading on the reputation of another. Scorning, therefore, to be a servile copyist, he determined on striking out a path for himself, and tried the "moderately constitutional dodge," which succeeded so well, that he is to this day recognised as the hero of what is termed the "glorious Revolution." He called together some members of Charles the Second's Parliaments, and recommended them, with the assistance of the Lord Mayor and forty Common Councilmen, to consider what had better be done under the peculiar circumstances of the nation. There is something richly ludicrous, according to modern notions, in the idea of consulting a Lord Mayor and forty Common Councilmen on a great political question; for though we would cheerfully be guided by such authorities in the choice of a sirloin of beef or the framing of a bill of fare, their views on the cooking up of a constitution would not in these days be gravely listened to. The peers and bishops had already recommended the summoning of a convention, and the Lord Mayor having proposed that the Commons should say "ditto to that," the suggestion was forthwith adopted.
The Convention having met, the first question it proceeded to discuss was whether James had not, in leaving the kingdom, run away, in fact, from his creditors, for every king owes a debt to his people; and whether the throne, crown and sceptre might not be seized for the benefit of those to whom he was under liabilities. The Commons soon came to the resolution that the throne was vacant, a conclusion which we must not examine too strictly; for if the principle involved in it were to be generally admitted, we should find that a freeholder running away from his freehold house to avoid meeting his Christmas bills, would, by that act, not only oust himself from his property, but cut off all his successors from their right of inheritance. Upon the broad and vulgar principle that the Stuarts were a bad lot, the Convention was justified perhaps in changing the succession to the throne; but, for our own parts, we must confess our disinclination to let in such a plea for the wholesale setting aside of a reigning family. As the last of the Pretenders is happily defunct, we may venture upon taking the line of argument we have adopted, without running the risk of a public meeting being called on the appearance of this number, to consider the immediate restoration of the Stuarts, a measure which our loyalty to the reigning sovereign, who fortunately unites in her own person all claims to the crown, would never tolerate. Had it been otherwise, we should not have been surprised by the announcement of a league, with the usual staff of a chairman, a boy, a brass plate, and a bell, to restore to the house of Stuart the crown of England.
To return, however, to William of Orange, whom we left waiting to be asked to walk up the steps of the throne; and we have great pleasure in taking him by the hand, for the purpose of giving him a lift to that exalted station he was now called to occupy. Some were for engaging him as regent during the minority of the Prince of Wales; but William flatly refused to become a warming-pan for one whose alleged introduction into the royal bed-chamber through the medium of a warming-pan, rendered the simile at once striking and appropriate. "All or none" was the motto adopted by William in his negotiations with the Convention, and it was at length resolved to settle the crown on the joint heads of himself and the Princess of Orange, with a stipulation that the prince should hold the reins of government. A declaration of rights was drawn up, so that everything was reduced to writing, and put down in black and white, for the purpose of avoiding disputes between the king and the people.
James's reign was now hopelessly at an end, and entirely by his own act; for, after he had absconded, it would have been idle for the nation to have been satisfied with writing, "Gone away; not known where," over the throne of England. A sketch of the character of this king is scarcely required from the English historian, who may fairly say, "My former man, James, quitted my service, and you had better make inquiries in his last place, for I have ceased to have anything to do with him. I can venture to say he was sober; but I am not quite sure about his honesty; for though in looking over the plate basket where I kept the regalia, I found the crown, sceptre, and other articles of that description perfectly right, I had missed from time to time a great deal of money, which I verily believe that man James had pocketed. I should say that the fellow was very weak, and not being strong enough for his place, he left his work a great deal to inferior servants, who behaved very shamefully. I think the fellow was willing, and it might be said of him, that he would if he could, but he couldn't—a state in which the servant of a nation is not likely to give much satisfaction to those who require his services." Such is the character that may be fairly written of James the Second, who, we may as well add, was promoted to a saintdom in France, by way of compensation for his forfeiture of the "right divine to govern wrong" in England.
IT is now necessary to sink the historian for a time in the reviewer, and to take a retrospect of the literature of the period through which our narrative has passed. The republic of politics was not favourable to the republic of letters, and the Elizabethan dramatists were followed by a few playwrights of a very inferior class. The mantle of Shakespeare, or even of Beaumont and Fletcher, who had flourished under the monarchy, was caught by no worthy object, and it fell upon Shirley, for whom it was evidently a great deal too large. Denham and Waller, those two commonplace songsters, set up a faint warbling, and Hobbes had sufficient fire to burn with philosophic ardour, though his thoughts were fettered by his royalist principles. Hobbes, however, was a fireside companion to many, though they dared scarcely hang over Hobbes in the broad light of day.
Milton had written little till he gave to the world—which is true enough, for the world can hardly be said to have bought it—his "Paradise Lost," which he brought out in 1667, and though the sale was limited, it was sufficiently encouraging to induce him to baffle the crowd of imitators by advertising a new poem, to be called "Paradise Regained." He feared the sort of impertinent opposition which echoes every new work, and which, when an original writer takes it into his head to bid anyone "Go where the aspens quiver," "Meet him in the willow-glen," or commit some other foolery, will reply by expressing a desire to come where the aspens are actually quivering, and to be punctual at the willow-glen, for which the invitation is forwarded. "Paradise Regained" had the fate of all merely imitative literature, for it never acquired, and will never attain, the reputation its prototype or predecessor has enjoyed.
The Restoration seemed to act as a restorative to Milton's powers, for he published many of his finest things after Charles the Second returned to the throne. Cowley was one of the earliest writers who took to diluting the works of other people in some stuff of his own; and, taking the materials of Donne, he set an example of the modern practice of seizing upon another man's original ideas, for the purpose of beating or spinning them out into a shape that may, if possible, prevent the real authorship from being recognised. There was, however, a great deal of true genius among the literary men of the age, through which our narrative has just carried us. Spenser, whose tales were only too short, would have been sufficient to redeem the period from the imputation of mediocrity.
The stage was, during the reign of Charles the Second, in a very degraded state; but the cry for the restoration of the drama has been kept up so long, that we really do not know what there is to restore, if everything has been always bad, except the works of two or three writers, whose productions are being so constantly performed that the public cannot reasonably complain of not getting enough of them. The "palmy days of dramatic literature" are, according to the ordinary acceptation of those who use the term, any days but the present, and it is not improbable that our own will be looked back upon and lamented as the genuine "palmy days" by the generation of grumblers who may come after us. If everything is objected to in its turn—and such has been the fate of every successive crop of writings for the stage—we of course cannot tell with accuracy what it would be considered worth while to restore in the judgment of those who are clamorous for the restoration of the drama. There is also considerable difference of opinion as to how the restoration is to be effected; and we may perhaps be excused, therefore, for suggesting that some good strong salts—attic salts, of course—are likely to prove the most effectual restoratives to a drama in a languishing condition.
There was an immense increase in the family of science at or about the period we have been speaking of, and indeed science had so many sons, that it would not have been very surprising if the fate of the domestic circle of the old lady who lived in a shoe—namely, an abundance of broth and a scarcity of bread—had been their inheritance.
The illustrious Boyle might frequently have been left without a roast by the number of competitors who were seeking a living round him through the exercise of their talents; and amidst his curious experiments on air, that of trying to live upon it might, if successful, have been of the greatest use to him. He was an enthusiast in the splendid career he had long and perseveringly pursued; nor is it going beyond the truth to say of him, that he combined ecstatics with hydrostatics, by the eagerness and animation with which he threw himself into water, whose properties were almost the only property he ever realised. There were several other scientific luminaries in this age, and we must not forget Hooke, who always had an eye to the capabilities of the microscope, and took an enlarged view of everything that fell under his observation. For Sydenham, the restorer of true physio, we have not so much veneration; but Newton is a name that we cannot pass over so slightingly. This great man, to whom science was the apple of his eye, and to whose eye the apple had revealed one of the greatest truths ever discovered, lived for some time a most retired life, which he passed in tranquil obscurity. Such was his position when the fruits of his contemplation came home to him in the shape of a golden pippin, which he revolved in his mind as it revolved in the air, and the result was the great fact by the perception of which his name has been immortalised. Though Newton was a pattern of modesty in his intercourse with the external world, he was bold enough in his approaches to Dame Nature, and would not allow her to hide her face from him, if by any amount of perseverance he could get a peep at it. He even had the audacity to go the length of tearing off her veil, for the purpose of revealing her beauties; and Nature, instead of becoming indignant at this rough treatment, was evidently flattered by his attentions, to which she offered every encouragement.
It is a curious fact, that the institution of the Royal Society commenced under the auspices of a brother-in-law of Cromwell, one Wilkins, a clergyman, who, although so nearly allied to the republican leader, had no objection to accept facilities from a regal hand for promoting the objects of science, in which he felt a zealous interest. This brother-in-law of Cromwell was Bishop of Chester under the Restoration, which he liked just as well as the Commonwealth, and perhaps better, for his mitre was rather safer under a royal rule than it could have been during a republican government.
Charles the Second was without doubt a lover of the sciences to a certain extent; but his disgusting depravities left him neither money nor time for the advancement of genius and literary merit. His contemporary, Louis the Fourteenth, was more liberal of his bounty to those whose intellect formed their chief claim to consideration; but even this magnificent monarch scarcely devoted to literature, science, and art, as much as he often lavished on one worthless courtier. It is, however, a matter for humiliation and regret that we have not advanced upon the munificence of Charles the Second and Louis the Fourteenth; for, notwithstanding all the acknowledgment that talent in these days receives by way of personal consideration and respect, a few paltry thousands a year form the whole amount that the nation will afford to pension its instructors or entertainers, when their powers of instruction and entertainment have failed to afford them the means of comfortable livelihood.
Of the condition of the people during the period described in the few last chapters, we had rather say very little, as we can say nothing complimentary. Hypocrisy, during the Commonwealth, and unbridled licentiousness at the Restoration, were the characteristic features of the two divisions of a period which cast upon the respectability of the nation a blot that time has only turned to iron-mould. The fame of a nation, like a damask table-cloth, when once stained is never thoroughly restored; for, send them both to the wash—immersing the former in tears of regret, and the latter in the soapsuds—the stain is still indelibly there, beyond the power of pearl-ash or penitence.
THE crown of England stood for almost two months in the same position as Mahomet's tomb, for the diadem no longer rested on the head of James, nor had it yet lighted on that of the Prince of Orange. On the 13th of February, 1689, both Houses waited on the Prince and Princess of Orange with a bill and a request that they would put their names to it. This document was a Declaration of Rights, in which it was asserted that "elections ought to be free," that "jurors ought to be duly empanelled and returned," besides a number of those "oughts" which are highly respected at the commencement of a reign, but frequently stand for nothing before the end of it. The Prince of Orange was by no means so squeezable as his name would seem to imply, for he refused to accept the crown unless he could have the power as well as the name of king, and he stipulated that his wife should have no share in the government. He probably knew the lady's temper pretty well, and felt that neither the country nor himself would have had much peace had she been allowed to interfere, and indeed it was a saying of one of the ancients, whose name we have not been able to learn, that "when a woman rules the roast, a quantity of broils may be looked for." He threatened to return to Holland if Parliament gave his wife any share of his authority, and the once popular but now almost obsolete menace of "If you do I'm a Dutchman," * originated no doubt in the intimation of William that he would cut his English connections, and return to his Dutch duchy if his views were thwarted by his adopted countrymen.
A country in want of a king is naturally prone to accept one upon almost any terms; and though England might have been very particular in ordinary circumstances about its chief magistrate, there was so much unpleasantness in being without a person of the sort, that the nation was very anxious to suit itself. William's stipulations were therefore listened to, and it was even arranged that Mary, in whose right alone he had any claim to the British Crown, should have but a nominal share in it. The Commons voted that James had abdicated, or, in other words, bolted, and thereby shut himself out; while the Lords resolved that the throne was vacant; and thus by two different modes they came to the same conclusion, namely, that there was an opening for any one to "step up," if the terms were agreed upon. After some negociation it was arranged that William should take the vacant situation, which should be considered to some extent a single-handed place, though nominally filled by "a man and his wife," it being understood that the former should do all the work, and that the latter should make herself generally useless.
It will naturally occur to the curious reader to inquire what has become of the fugitive James, and we shall therefore commission our research to set out as a policeman in pursuit of him. We first trace him to Versailles, where he met with a very friendly reception from Louis the Fourteenth, who made him as comfortable as circumstances would admit, and lent him a lot of French soldiers to play at an invasion with.
Ireland was then, as it has been always, our weakest point, and it was resolved that James should hit us on that unhappy raw, which all our attempts to heal have only tended to aggravate. James repaired to Brest, where he found himself in the bosom of a ragamuffin crowd of exiles; and forming the best of these into a sort of army, he landed with a force of about two thousand five hundred at Kinsale. Having taken the English by surprise, James's party obtained a bit of a victory at Bantry Bay, for the numbers of the former being comparatively few, their commander, Admiral Herbert, thought it would be sheer folly not to sheer off, and he made for Scilly, which he acknowledged to a friend was exceedingly ridiculous. James made the most of the opportunity, and summoned an Irish Parliament, which, with true Irish generosity, began voting away money at a tremendous rate before it came in, and had bestowed upon James £20,000 a month, out of nothing a year, within the few first days of their sitting.
The Treasury was of course not in a condition to meet the liberal orders that were made upon it, and James had no means of replenishing it, except with what he brought over in his pocket from France, and this, though it had come some distance, would not go very far, when he began to try the experiment. Having a scarcity of gold and silver, he deter-, mined to try the effect of brass, which he knew to be in many cases a perfect substitute for both the precious metals, and he ordered that his brazen coinage should pass for a hundred times its value, which has furnished a monumentum cere perennius of his brazen impudence.
His household was poverty-stricken in the extreme, and Black Rod had nothing but an old Awkward Mistake, birch as the emblem of his office. The Court was, in fact, rendered as bad as the lowest alley by the turmoils and turbulence that prevailed in consequence of the shortness of cash, and after some little hesitation, James deter-mined to go to Londonderry for ammunition to carry on the war; but on his arrival the only powder and shot he received came to him in the shape of the firing of the garrison. Finding the place—or rather the inhabitants—unwilling to surrender, James drew off, and arrived in Dublin, where some of the famous Dublin stout in the shape of a few stalwart adherents still sustained him in his enterprise.
William had no doubt a very troublesome part to play, for he was surrounded by a discontented set, which must always arise upon a change of dynasty, when the good things to be given away form a proportion of about one-eighth per cent,—or half a crown in the £100—to the expectations of the would-be recipients. When a plan is fixed upon for dividing £1000 into fifty thousand equal shares of £100,000 each, there will be some probability that the promoters of a revolution will, when the revolution is complete, be all equally and perfectly satisfied. William was speedily surrounded by a number of adherents to his cause, who had stuck to it with the leech-like intention of drawing upon it to the fullest possible extent; and his hangers-on were consequently more weakening to him than otherwise.
On the 19th of October he opened the second session of his first Parliament, and was soon pestered by the pecuniary importunities of the Princess Anne of Denmark, who declared that her income was scarcely enough to keep her in gloves and Denmark satin slippers; and that she must have £70,000 a year settled upon her, quite independent of her brother-in-law and her sister. A family quarrel ensued upon this demand, and Queen Mary insisted that "Nancy must be mad" to prefer a request so shamefully exorbitant. The matter was eventually compromised, by a settlement of £50,000 a year on "Sister Anne," who was completely under the influence of Churchill, now Earl of Marlborough.
In the beginning of 1690, William dissolved the Parliament; and a new one met on the 20th of March; when the king announced his intention of going to Ireland, and intimated his necessity for cash to enable him to undertake the journey. He requested the assistance of the Commons in settling the amount of his revenue, upon which he proposed to borrow a considerable sum, thus acting on the dangerous and unprofitable system of drawing a salary in advance, and spending to-day what will not come to-morrow. He intended, in fact, to eat his pudding first, and to have it afterwards, or rather to eat his own, and then come down upon that of other people to supply the deficiency. The Commons, instead of checking this improvidence, granted him £2,200,000, which was presented to William in the shape of an elegant extract from the pockets of his people. Money was not all that the new king required, for he was anxious to cement his power, and like all those who feel the doubtful character of their claims, was continually insisting on their being formally recognised. Bills were passed, though not without some difficulty, abjuring James and his title to the crown; but some nobles objected to take the oaths, and Lord Wharton, who was a very old man, declared he was unwilling to go swearing on to the end of his days, that "he had taken so many affidavits, he scarcely knew one from the other, and he must beg to be excused from any more oath-taking during the brief remainder of his existence."
The Parliament having served its purpose, in a pecuniary point of view, was prorogued rather early, and William started for Ireland. Previous to the king's departure, the queen very reasonably suggested that as he could not take the royal authority away with him, it would be a great deal like a dog in the manger, if he refused to let her have the enjoyment of the sovereign power during his brief absence. With some reluctance he consented to the arrangement, observing coarsely, that he knew she would make a mess of it, but as he should not be gone very long, it did not much signify. With this surly concession, having agreed to a temporary transfer of the sceptre into her grasp, he quitted her, with the discouraging and discourteous words, "There, take it! and let all the world see how right I was in preventing you from having a hand in the use of it."
On his arrival at Belfast he began to look about him for James, whose army was at length pounced upon on the banks of the Boyne, and a battle became unavoidable. William was looking about him, when the enemy loading two immense field-pieces, aimed them both at him; but, as between two stools, one often goes to the ground, so, between two cannon balls, one may occasionally come off without injury. William, when he saw the balls bouncing by him, may have thought that he was lucky in escaping a ball'd head, but he soon received a real wound on the shoulder, which positively tore his coat, and grazed the skin, to the utter horror of Lord Coningsby, who stuffed his pocket-handkerchief into the sleeve, to staunch the blood that might have been, but, fortunately, was not, flowing. William was more frightened than hurt, and his officers were more frightened than William, while the enemy were more frightened than either, and allayed their trepidation by giving out that William was certainly dead, which we need not say was a mere penny-a-line report, without the smallest foundation. A poultice soon set his shoulder to rights, and at all events enabled him to put it to the wheel, which he did, by calling a meeting of the officers at nine in the evening. He told them he should cross the river the next day, and he gave orders about their dress, observing to them playfully, that as they would have to pass through the tide, they had better make themselves as tidy as possible. Hearing that the enemy wore cockades, made of white paper, he remarked that he would not have his men in such foolscaps, but that he desired to see them all with green boughs in their hats; and in this very guyish guise the soldiers of William met the adherents of James in combat.
The gallant Duke of Schomberg, who was extremely touchy, had been somehow or other offended at the Council of War, and had retired in a huff to his tent, exclaiming pettishly, "Settle it yourselves how you like, for it seems I'm nobody." In vain did some of his comrades call after him, "Schomberg, Schomberg! Come back, come back;" for the general withdrew within his quarters, and letting down his camp-curtains, sat smoking his pipe with interjectional mutterings to himself on that fruitful topic to a gentleman in the sulks—"The obstancy of some people." The order of battle being formed, a copy of it was sent to him, when, snatching it from the messenger with a loud "Umph!" he declared that he had scarcely made up his mind whether he should obey or light his pipe with the document. Having looked at it, however, the old soldier gave a whistle of satisfaction as if in an ardent anticipation of the work before him; and putting on his armour as coolly as if he had been dressing for dinner, he made his way to the spot appointed for the coming contest. His reception by his sovereign and his fellow-soldiers was cheerful if not çordial; but it was evident by the twinkle of the veteran's eye, that Schomberg was "himself again" when he stood in the presence of an enemy.
The contending forces having a river between them, found their ardour a great deal damped, for it is not easy to be valorous with the water up to one's waist, and with every desire on both sides to make a splash, the soldiers could only dabble in hostilities without plunging deeply into them. William put his nag boldly across the stream, but the English had to deplore the loss of the gallant old Duke of Schomberg, who, there is too much reason to believe, was killed in mistake by one of his own men, though, we must confess, we always look with very great suspicion on these so-called accidents. James had taken his station at a most respectable distance from danger during the whole of the affray, and he no sooner saw that he had lost the day than he determined not to lose a minute in making his escape from England. He galloped on horseback to Dublin, hastened to Waterford, and embarked for France with a wretched retinue. William returned to England, and sent the Duke of Marlborough to Ireland, who reduced several places, and by putting the screw upon Cork, made it pull out very handsomely.
The bishops now began to feel very uncomfortable about their allegiance, and to doubt the validity of its transfer from James to William, though the truth seems to be that they had not found the transfer fee so large as they had expected. Several were deprived of their temporalities—the surest way of bringing them to their senses; but there were numerous instances of disinterestedness, in which a blindness to the advantages of the see was honourably conspicuous. William troubled himself comparatively little about what was going on at home, but was far more anxious to carry on with success the league against France; and to further this object he repaired to the Continent, where a warfare of a rather paltry character was persisted in. The hostilities, though of a contemptible kind, were sufficiently costly to render it necessary for William to return in the course of a few months, and ask for more money from the English Parliament. Large grants were made, but not without a great deal of grumbling, for John Bull always pays, though he parts with his money very reluctantly, and sometimes takes out half its value in surly remonstrances against being compelled to put his hand into his pocket. The general discontent was considerably aggravated by a necessity for the revival of the odious poll-tax, which was a regular rap on the head to all except paupers, children, and servants; for with these exceptions everybody—or rather every head—was charged so much a quarter for the privilege of remaining on its owner's shoulders.
William continued riding backwards and forwards between England and Holland, but he paid the former the compliment of making it his purse on every occasion. His majesty was constantly taking abroad with him both money and men, the former being invariably spent and the latter severely wounded, before the king came home again. Occasionally some impression was made on a French fort, but the damage done to the enemy cost more than it was worth to the English, whose patience and pockets continued to be taxed for the continental freaks of the foreign king they had permitted to rule over them. There were some able leaders on the side of the British, and among the most conspicuous may be cited Sir Cloudesley Shovel, who threw fresh coals on to the fire of enthusiasm that occasionally burned up among the English.
It would be wearisome to make a list of the various journeys of William to the Continent and back; nor, indeed, would the document amount to anything more interesting than a time-table, were we to take the trouble of preparing it. His people might with reason have complained that they never saw anything of him, unless he wanted something from them, and at length on the 12th of November, 1694, when William condescended to meet his Parliament and request the favour of £5,000,000 to "carry on the war," the opposition led by Mr. Harley, the statesman,—not the low comedian—forced upon nis majesty's acceptance a bill for the summoning of triennial Parliaments.
The assent he gave to this unpalatable measure has been attributed to the anxiety he felt on account of the dangerous illness of his wife, which may very naturally have incapacitated him for any serious resistance to a demand which Parliament urged with wonderful unanimity and energy. Poor Mary was seized with an attack of the small-pox, and it is a curious mark of the unfeeling character of the punsters of that happily remote age, that her malady was made the subject of a pun, which, as it was new at the period of which we are writing, we may be allowed for the three thousand and eighty-fourth time to chronicle.
When it was known that her majesty had caught the small-pox, or rather that the small-pox had caught her majesty, it was remarked with a savageness that loses none of its ferocity from the fact of its being a bitter truth, that she was "very much to be pitted." Whether the queen ever heard this unfeeling and poverty-stricken joke, the chroniclers do not relate, and we cannot answer with certainty for its having been the death of her; but, as she actually died, the supposition we have suggested is exceedingly feasible. She expired on the 28th of December, 1694, in the thirty-third year of her age, to the great grief of her husband, and the regret of the nation in general; for though she was not particularly beloved either by one or the other during her life, there was a decent show of sorrow on the part of both at losing her. William no doubt felt the bereavement in more ways than one, for he had a servant the less to wait upon him, a dependant the less to bully, and a subject the less to domineer over. He lamented her less as a partner and friend than he missed her as a companion and housekeeper. She was certainly a devoted wife, but the devotion of a woman to her husband's interests is, after all, only a second selfishness, which, when viewed in a proper light, is far more prudent than respectable. Her inveterate dislike of her sister, with whom she refused to be reconciled even on her death-bed, convinces us that it was not altogether a warmth of heart that bound her to her husband; and we therefore set her down as a cold unfeeling person who could sacrifice all other ties for the sake of one which she believed to be of the most importance to her interests.
We should not, however, be doing justice to the character of Mary if we were to omit to state that she was exceedingly skilful in the use of the needle, and by working curious devices on chairs or carpets, she in one way at least set a pattern to the female portion of the community.