From love of England by long absence wean'd,
From every court he every folly glean'd,
And was, so close do evil habits cling,

580

Till crown'd a beggar, and when crown'd, no king. Those grand and general powers which Heaven design'd

An instance of his mercy to mankind

585

Were lost, in storms of dissipation hurl'd,
Nor would he give one hour to bless a world;
Lighter than levity which strides the blast,
And of the present fond, forgets the past,
He changed and changed, but every hope to curse,
Changed only from one folly to a worse:
State he resign'd to those whom state could
please;

Careless of majesty, his wish was ease;
Pleasure, and pleasure only, was his aim;
Kings of less wit might hunt the bubble fame;
Dignity through his reign was made a sport,
Nor dared Decorum shew her face at court:
Morality, was held a standing jest,
And faith, a necessary fraud at best:
Courtiers, their monarch ever in their view,
Possess'd great talents, and abused them too:
Whate'er was light, impertinent, and vain,
Whate'er was loose, indecent, and profane,
(So ripe was folly, folly to acquit)
Stood all absolved in that poor bauble, wit.
In gratitude, alas! but little read,
He let his father's servants beg their bread

590

595

600

605

His father's faithful servants and his own,
To place the foes of both around his throne.

Bad counsels he embraced through indolence, Through love of ease, and not through want of sense;

He saw them wrong, but rather let them go 611
As right, than take the pains to make them so.
Women ruled all, and ministers of state
Were for commands at toilets forced to wait:
Women, who have as monarchs graced the land,
But never govern'd well at second hand.
To make all other errors slight appear,

In

memory fix'd stand Dunkirk and Tangier;

616

606 The Cavaliers were much disappointed at the neglect their claims experienced at the restoration, and expressed great dissatisfaction at the preferments bestowed upon the Presbyterians, whose adherence to royalty was thus conciliated and confirmed. They said of the "act of oblivion and of indemnity," that the King had passed an act of oblivion for his friends, and of indemnity for his enemies.

The celebrated Dr. Isaac Barrow, in a neat distich conveyed his sense of the inattention he experienced

Te magis optavit rediturum, Carole, nemo,

Et nemo sensit te rediisse minus.

Oh how my breast did ever burn
To see my lawful king return;
Yet, whilst his happy fate I bless,

No one has felt his influence less.

618 Dunkirk, which was delivered to Cromwell in 1658 was, in 1662, sold by Charles II. to the French for £400,000 which sum was immediately squandered away upon his mis

61C

623

In memory fix'd so deep, that time in vain
Shall strive to wipe those records from the brain,
Amboyna stands-Gods! that a king could hold
In such high estimate vile paltry gold,
And of his duty be so careless found,
That when the blood of subjects from the ground
For vengeance call'd, he should reject their cry,
And, bribed from honour, lay his thunders by,
Give Holland peace, whilst English victims
groan'd,

And butcher'd subjects wander'd unatoned!

tresses and their creatures. Hume artfully endeavours to exculpate Charles II. from this measure by imputing it to the advice of Clarendon and the parsimony of Parliament.

618 Tangier, in Africa, formed a part of the dowry brought by Catherine of Portugal to Charles II. Vast sums of money were expended on the fortifications during the space of twenty years, after which, to save the necessity of calling a Parliament for the purpose of obtaining farther supplies for its support, Lord Dartmouth was sent with a fleet to destroy the works, and to bring home all the men, which was effected in 1684.

621 The poet is guilty of an anachronism in imputing to Charles II. a tame submission to insult, of which no one but a James could have been guilty. The dreadful cruelties inflicted by the Dutch upon the English at Amboyna, in 1622, were never surpassed under the Roman Emperors, nor in the cells of the Inquisition. A detailed account of the transaction may be found in the first volume of Harris's Collection of Voyages. As characteristic of the commercial jealousy of the Dutch it is worthy of perusal, but too shocking to admit of an extract; but the steady apologist for all the crimes of the Stuarts endeavours to invent a plausible excuse for the in famous apathy of James.

O dear, deep injury to England's fame,
To them, to us, to all! to him deep shame!
Of all the passions which from frailty spring,
Avarice is that which least becomes a king.

620

635

To crown the whole, scorning the public good, Which through his reign he little understood, Or little heeded, with too narrow aim He reassumed a bigot brother's claim, And having made time-serving senates bow, Suddenly died, that brother best knew how.

No matter how-he slept amongst the dead, And James his brother reigned in his stead: But such a reign-so glaring an offence In every step 'gainst freedom, law, and sense, 'Gainst all the rights of Nature's general plan, 'Gainst all which constitutes an Englishman, That the relation would mere fiction seem, The mock creation of a poet's dream; And the poor bard's would, in this sceptic age, Appear as false as their historian's page.

640

645

638 This line appears to imply that Charles was poisoned by his brother; his death was certainly sudden, attended with some suspicious appearances, and happened at a critical period; but Burnet, who cannot be accused of partiality to James, admits that he never heard any one suspect him of being accessory to his brother's death.

648 Mr. Hume, in his History of the House of Stuart, which he published before that of the House of Tudor, has omitted no opportunity that offered for defending or palliating the arbitrary proceedings under the Scottish dynasty, and very ingeniously endeavours to prove that the cruelties exercised by the Dutch on the English factors, at Amboyna, could not be resented as they ought.

Ambitious folly seized the seat of wit, Christians were forced by bigots to submit; Pride without sense, without religion zeal, Made daring inroads on the commonweal; Stern Persecution raised her iron rod, And call'd the pride of kings the power of God; Conscience and fame were sacrificed to Rome, And England wept at Freedom's sacred tomb.

Her laws despised, her constitution wrench'd From its due natural frame, her rights retrench'd Beyond a coward's sufferance, conscience forced, And healing justice from the crown divorced, 660 Each moment pregnant with vile acts of power, Her patriot Bishops sentenced to the Tower, Her Oxford (who yet loves the Stuart name) Branded with arbitrary marks of shame, She wept but wept not long; to arms she flew, At Honour's call the avenging sword she drew,

662 Alluding to the circumstances attending the commit tal to the Tower, and acquittal in 1688 of Dr. Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Dr. Turner, Bishop of Ely, Dr. Lake, Bishop of Chichester, Dr. White, Bishop of Peterborough, and Sir Jonathan Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol, who were, to prevent disturbances, carried to the Tower by water, the banks of the Thames being crowded with people imploring their blessing and expressing their indignation at the conduct of the court. Allusion is also made by the Poet to the illegal and violent proceedings adopted by James the Second against the fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, to compel them to elect a Roman Catholic for their President