however solemn, which he might have made to them.  Of them, it would be difficult to say whether they most hated or despised him.  Religion he had none.  One day he favoured Popery; the next, on hearing certain clamours of the people, he sent his wife’s domestics back packing to France, because they were Papists.  Papists, however, should make him a saint, for he was certainly the cause of the taking of Rochelle.

His son, Charles the Second, though he passed his youth in the school of adversity, learned no other lesson from it than the following one—­take care of yourself, and never do an action, either good or bad, which is likely to bring you into any great difficulty; and this maxim he acted up to as soon as he came to the throne.  He was a Papist, but took especial care not to acknowledge his religion, at which he frequently scoffed, till just before his last gasp, when he knew that he could lose nothing, and hoped to gain everything by it.  He was always in want of money, but took care not to tax the country beyond all endurable bounds; preferring to such a bold and dangerous course, to become the pensioner of Louis, to whom, in return for his gold, he sacrificed the honour and interests of Britain.  He was too lazy and sensual to delight in playing the part of a tyrant himself; but he never checked tyranny in others save in one instance.  He permitted beastly butchers to commit unmentionable horrors on the feeble, unarmed, and disunited Covenanters of Scotland, but checked them when they would fain have endeavoured to play the same game on the numerous united, dogged, and warlike Independents of England.  To show his filial piety, he bade the hangman dishonour the corpses of some of his father’s judges, before whom, when alive, he ran like a screaming hare; but permitted those who had lost their all in supporting his father’s cause, to pine in misery and want.  He would give to a painted harlot a thousand pounds for a loathsome embrace, and to a player or buffoon a hundred for a trumpery pun, but would refuse a penny to the widow or orphan of an old Royalist soldier.  He was the personification of selfishness; and as he loved and cared for no one, so did no one love or care for him.  So little had he gained the respect or affection of those who surrounded him, that after his body had undergone an after-death examination, parts of it were thrown down the sinks of the palace, to become eventually the prey of the swine and ducks of Westminster.

His brother, who succeeded him, James the Second, was a Papist, but sufficiently honest to acknowledge his Popery, but upon the whole, he was a poor creature; though a tyrant, he was cowardly, had he not been a coward he would never have lost his throne.  There were plenty of lovers of tyranny in England who would have stood by him, provided he would have stood by them, and would, though not Papists, have encouraged him in his attempt to bring back England beneath the sway of Rome, and perhaps would eventually