magnificence, the most eminent citizens forming part of the pro cession, all well mounted, all in black velvet coats, with chains of gold about their necks, and every one his footman with suit, cassock and ribbands of the colour of his company. The houses were hung with tapestry, carpets and costly stuffs; bands of music were stationed in the streets, and the conduits ran with claret as he past. Such multitudes followed that they were seven hours in passing the city,' even from two in the afternoon till nine at night I stood in the Strand,' says Evelyn, and beheld it, and blest God Within the rails, where Charing Cross had stood, before the Puritans, in their brutal bigotry, destroyed it, was a stand of six hundred pikes, consisting of knights and gentlemen who had been officers in the late king's armies, Sir John Stowell at their head.' Ill as the old cavaliers were requited, it is not to be believed that Charles could at that moment have looked upon the subjects of his father who had served him so well, and suffered so severely in his service, without emotion. And at the moment when the guns announced his entrance into Whitehall, some of the bishops and of their long oppressed brethren performed Te Deum in Henry the Seventh's chapel.

The demonstrations of joy in all parts of the kingdom were so general and sincere, that Charles frequently said it could be nobody's fault but his own that he had staid so long abroad when all mankind wished him so heartily at home. The loyalty of the people seemed to be met with corresponding confidence on his part, so that both from the temper of the king and of the nation the reign might have been expected to proceed as auspiciously as it had begun. According to Burnet's opinion, all the errors of that reign may be imputed to the king's coming in without condi→ tions. Sir Matthew Hale had moved that a committee might be appointed to look into the concessions which the late king had offered during the war, particularly at the treaty of Newport, and digest from thence such proposals as they should think fit to be sent over to Charles. But when Monk represented the imminent danger of throwing the country again into confusion, if the government were left in an unsettled state while such a point was in discussion, the house rejected the proposal by acclamation. The truth is, that, in receiving the king unconditionally, they neither intended to surrender the liberties of the nation, nor in the slightest degree endangered them. The Commons retained their constitutional power, with all that increase which recent events and the progress of society had given it; the King was dependent upon them for those supplies without which even the ordinary expenses of government could not be supported; and there was more indication of a disposition on their part to make him feel that de pendence,

pendence, than of any desire on his to throw it off and render himself an arbitrary sovereign. He would gladly have been as absolute as the king of France, if circumstances had brought the English monarchy to that form; for he thought 'government was a much safer and easier thing when the authority was believed infallible, and the faith and submission of the people was implicit.' But his good sense and his constitutional temper prevented this opinion from influencing his conduct: he loved ease and indulgence too well, and had wisely determined that no imprudence of his own should ever compel him to set out again on his travels.

Yet the reign which commenced thus auspiciously proved in its course deeply disgraceful both to the king and to the nation. Even at this distance of time it is difficult to determine whether the one party or the other were more sinned against or sinning, so much is there on either side which must appear utterly indefensible to those who consider it impartially. Much of this must undoubtedly be ascribed to the King's personal misconduct; more to the profligacy of those who were at one time his ministers, at another the most inveterate and dangerous of his enemies. But mostly the events of this reign may be traced to those predisposing causes whereby the character not of Charles alone and the politicians of his age, but of the nation and the times had been formed. The sins of the father were visited upon the children. So it was announced by revelation to the Israelites that it should be; and so upon the great scale of things it is, and must be in the order of Providence; for in this respect mankind are and always will be under a visible dispensation. I have heard, indeed,' says Dryden, ' of some virtuous persons who have ended unfortunately, but never of any virtuous nation; Providence is engaged too deeply when the cause becomes so general.' It is equally true that no wicked nation has ever escaped its deserved punishment.

The extreme profligacy of the lower orders in Paris, which the better part of the French people perceived and deplored, even before the Revolution called it into full action, was ascribed by many of the French themselves to the extreme misery which had prevailed in that city during the time of the League. Private afflictions, when they come in the ordinary course of nature, are not more salutary to the individuals whom they chasten, than great and overwhelming national calamities are destructive to general virtue. In this respect, ages of revolution and anarchy are like seasons of pestilence, which is less frightful for its ravages, even when death is in every house, than for the horrible dissolution of social and moral ties which it produces. How,' says Quarles, when he describes the feelings of the plague affrighted man,' 'how is the bitterness of thy death multiplied by the quality of thy fears! were

it a sickness whose distraction took not away thy means of preparation, it were an easy calamity were it a sickness whose contagion dissolved not the comfortable bonds of sweet. society, it were but half a misery. But as it is,—sudden, solitary, incurable, -what so terrible! what so comfortless?' At such times

:

Heaven's music, which is order, seems unstrung,

And this brave world,

The mystery of God, unbeautified,

Disordered, marr'd, where such strange scenes are acted. The Restoration was the only possible remedy for the evils which so many years of misery and triumphant wickedness had induced. But remedies are always slower in their operation than the evils for which they are administered; and the state of England, when that desired event by which alone legitimate order could be restored was brought about, may be likened to the condition of a cultivated and fertile country, after the waters of some wide and terrible inundation have subsided: landmarks obliterated, roads broken up, houses overthrown, foundations laid bare, the labours and the hopes of the year destroyed; fields and gardens covered with slime and wreck, or rendered barren, some because the soil has been swept away, others because it is buried beneath stones: and gravel; yet even these are less mournful than the consequences: of a revolution, for they may sooner and more surely be repaired.

Though Charles the Second had few virtues, he was not without some redeeming qualities which are akin to them; and it would be disparaging human nature were we to doubt that, when he landed, his intentions were just and his feelings generous. But he was soon made to feel how impossible it was to set right a time so; out of joint,' and to lament that he had neither the means of being generous, nor the power of being just. When be past the act of indemnity, he told parliament that he had not been able to give his brother one shilling since he came into England, nor to keep any table in his house but that at which he ate himself; adding, with; characteristic good nature,' that which troubles me most is to see many of you come to me to Whitehall, and to think that you must go somewhere else to seek your dinner.' The bill which he then past was called by those whose hopes it defeated, an act of oblivion for his friends and of indemnity for his enemies. The Earl of Bristol had supported it in a remarkable speech, and with: a feeling worthy his better days, though he thought it defective: in many things reasonable, and redundant in many things unreasonable. This, my lords,' said he, may appear a surprizing motion from a person thought to be (as indeed I am) as much. inflamed as any man living with indignation at the detestable proceedings of the late usurped power, so pernicious to the public,

3

and

and so injurious to my own particular; in whom the motion may seem yet more surprizing, when I shall have told you with truth, that I am irreparably ruined in my fortune for my loyalty, if this bill of indemnity to others for their disloyalty should pass. But the ground I go upon is this received maxini as to all public sanctions, better a mischief than an inconvenience: yea, better innumerable mischiefs to particular persons or families, than one heavy inconvenience to the public. My lords, I profess unto you, I find myself set on fire when I think that the blood of so many virtuous and meritorious peers, and persons, and others of all ranks, so cruelly and impiously shed, should cry so loud for vengeance, and not find it from us! That many of the wretchedest and meanest of the people should remain, as it were, rewarded for their treasons, rich and triumphant in the spoils of the most eminent in virtue and loyalty, of all the nobility and gentry of the kingdom! What generous spirit can make reflection upon these things and not find his heart burn into rage within him? Here it is, my lords, that we sufferers have need of all our philosophy! But when I consider that these are mischiefs only to the sufferers, and that to insist upon a remedy might perhaps expose the public to an irreparable inconvenience, I thank God I find in an instant all my resentments calmed and submitted to my primary duty.'

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6

The principle upon which Digby thus argued could not be contested. But the Cavaliers had some reason for saying, when they compared themselves to Job, both for poverty and patience, that they had been tried with severer provocations. Men were well enough contented,' says Clarendon, that the King should grant indemnity to all men that had rebelled against him; that he should grant their lives and fortunes to them who had forfeited them to him. But they thought it very unreasonable and unjust that the King should release those debts which were immediately due to them, and forgive those trespasses which had been committed to their particular damage. They could not endure to meet the same men on the king's highway, now it was the king's highway again, who had heretofore affronted them in those ways, because they were not the king's, and only because they knew they could obtain no justice against them. They could not with any patience see those men who not only during the war had oppressed them, plundered their houses, and had their own adorned with the furniture they had robbed them of, ride upon the same horses which they had then taken from them, upon no other pretence but because they were better than their own; but after the war was ended, had committed many insolent trespasses upon them wantonly, and to show their power of justices of the peace, or committee men, and had from the lowest beggary raised great estates,'

out

out of which they were well able to satisfy, at least in some degree, the damages the other had sustained.' This is indeed jus datum sceleri, and must have been more galling than the injury itself to those who, amid all their sacrifices, had cheered themselves with believing all would be well, when the king enjoyed his own again. The necessity of thus sacrificing justice to expediency was too evident, but this necessity is one of the most fatal consequences which revolutions leave behind them. Claudian tells us in one of his finest passages, that the prosperity of the wicked made him doubt the providence and even existence of the gods, satisfied as bis understanding had been of both when he contemplated the manifestations of their wisdom and power in the visible creation. Sæpe mihi dubiam traxit sententia mentem, Curarent Superi terras, an nullus inesset Rector, et incerto fluerent mortalia casu? Nam cum dispositi quæsîssem fœdera mundi, Præscriptosque mari fines, annisque meatus, Et lucis noctisque vices; tunc omnia rebar Consilio firmata Dei, qui lege moveri Sidera, qui fruges diverso tempore nasci, Qui variam Phoeben alieno jusserit igni Compleri, Solemque suo; porrexerit undis Littora, tellurem medio libraverit axe. Sed cum res hominum tantâ caligine volvi Adspicerem, lætosque diu florere nocentes, Vexarique pios; rursus labefacta cadebat Relligio, causæque viam non sponte sequebar Alterius, vacuo quæ currere semina motu Affirmat, magnumque novas per inane figuras Fortuna non arte regi; quæ Numina sensu Ambiguo vel nulla putat, vel nescia nostrî.

The heathen poet proceeds to say, that by the punishment of Rufinus, his mind was relieved from this disquietude, and the gods were acquitted:

Abstulit hunc tandem Rufini pœna tumultum
Absolvitque Deos.

That just and right-minded man Sir Philip Warwick confesses that he had been led into the same temptation. When he arrives in his Memoirs at the last stage of his royal master's life, he says, 'knowing his goodness and Christian patience, I ever expected (and there were often rational hopes to feed that desire) such a deliverance from God in his behalf, as He had at other times afforded unto David, by teaching his hands to fight, and giving victory unto his Anointed. But his end, (I speak it to my shame,) as it flung me into great melancholy so it did into some diffidence; and was the occasion to me of attempting an essay about knowing God

VOL. XXIX. NO. LVII.

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