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 it self:  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 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 topicks.  He went over these in a very graceful manner; but so often, and so copiously, that all those who had been long accustomed to them grew weary of them:  And when he entred 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 wondred 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 hearkned 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, and his coming afterwards to reign, makes the comparison in that respect come pretty near.  His hating of business, and his love of pleasures; his raising of favourites, and trusting them entirely; and his pulling them down, and hating them excessively; his art of covering deep designs, particularly of revenge, with an appearance of softness, brings them so near a likeness, that I did not wonder much to observe the resemblance of their face and person.  At Rome I saw one of the last statues made for Tiberius, after he had lost his teeth.  But, bating the alteration which that made, it was so like King Charles, that Prince Borghese, and Signior Dominica to whom it belonged, did agree with me in thinking that it looked like a statue made for him.