boy for visiting with immoderate vengeance an insult offered to his father; and soon the stain left by loose amours and midnight brawls was effaced by honourable exploits. When Charles and Louis uinted their forces against Holland, Monmouth commanded the English auxiliaries who were sent to the Continent, and approved himself a gallant soldier and a not unintelligent officer. On his return he found himself the most popular man in the kingdom. Nothing was withheld from him but the crown; nor did even the crown seem to be absolutely beyond his reach. The distinction which had most injudiciously been made between him and the highest nobles, had produced evil consequences. When a boy, he had been invited to put on his hat in the presence chamber, while Howards and Seymours stood uncovered round him. When foreign princes died, he had mourned for them in the long purple cloak, which no other subject, except the Duke of York and Prince Rupert, was permitted to wear. It was natural that these things should lead him to regard himself as a legitimate prince of the house of Stuart. Charles, even at a ripe age, was devoted to his pleasures and regardless of his dignity. It could hardly be thought incredible that he should at twenty have gone through the form of espousing a lady whose beauty had fascinated him, and who was not to be won on easier terms. While Monmouth was still a child, and while the Duke of York still passed for a Protestant, it was rumoured throughout the country, and even in circles which ought to have been well informed, that the king had made Lucy Walters his wife, and that, if every one had his right, her son would be Prince of Wales. Much was said of a certain black box, which, according to the vulgar belief, contained the contract of marriage. When Monmouth had returned from the Low Countries, with a high character for valour and conduct, and when the Duke of York was known to be a member of a Church detested by the great majority of the nation, this idle story became important. For it there was not the slightest evidence. Against it there was the solemn asseveration of the king, made before his council, and by his order communicated to his people; but the multitude, always fond of romantic adventures, drank in eagerly the

H

tale of the secret espousals and the black box. Some
chiefs of the Opposition acted on this occasion as they
acted with respect to the more odious fable of Oates, and
countenanced a story which they must have despised.
The interest which the populace took in him whom they
regarded as the champion of the true religion, and the
rightful heir of the British throne, was kept up by every
artifice. When Monmouth arrived in London at midnight,
the watchmen were ordered by the magistrates to proclaim
the joyful event through the streets of the city; the peo-
ple left their beds; bonfires were lighted; the windows
were illuminated; the churches were opened; and a merry
peal rose from all the steeples. When he travelled, he
was everywhere received with not less pomp, and with far
more enthusiasm, than had been displayed when kings
had made progresses through the realm. He was escorted
from mansion to mansion by long cavalcades of armed
gentlemen and yeomen. Cities poured forth their whole
population to receive him. Electors thronged round him,
to assure him that their votes were at his disposal.
such a height were his pretensions carried, that he not only
exhibited on his escutcheon the lions of England and the
lilies of France without the baton sinister under which,
according to the laws of heraldry, they were debruised in
token of his illegitimate birth, but ventured to touch for
the king's evil. At the same time, he neglected no art of
condescension by which the love of the multitude could be
conciliated. He stood godfather to the children of the
peasantry, mingled in every rustic sport, wrestled, played
at quarter-staff, and won foot-races in his boots against
fleet runners in shoes.

To

It is a curious circumstance that, at two of the greatest conjunctures in our history, the chiefs of the Protestant party should have committed the same error, and should by that error have greatly endangered their country and their religion. At the death of Edward the Sixth, they set up the Lady Jane, without any show of birthright, in opposition, not only to their enemy Mary, but also to Elizabeth, the true hope of England and of the Reformation. Thus the most respectable Protestants, with Elizabeth at their head, were forced to make common cause with the

papists. In the same manner, a hundred and thirty years later, a part of the Opposition, by setting up Monmouth as a claimant of the crown, attacked the rights, not only of James, whom they justly regarded as an implacable enemy of their faith and their liberties, but also of the Prince and Princess of Orange, who were eminently marked out, both by situation and by personal qualities, as the defenders of all free governments and of all Reformed churches.

LAWRENCE HYDE, EARL OF ROCHESTER.

LAWRENCE HYDE was the second son of the Chancellor Clarendon, and was brother of the first Duchess of York. He had excellent parts, which had been improved by parliamentary and diplomatic experience; but the infirmities of his temper detracted much from the effective strength of his abilities. Negotiator and courtier as he was, he never learned the art of governing or of concealing his emotions. When prosperous he was insolent and boastful; when he sustained a check, his undisguised mortification doubled the triumph of his enemies; very slight provocations sufficed to kindle his anger; and when he was angry, he said bitter things which he forgot as soon as he was pacified, but which others remembered many years. His quickness and penetration would have made him a consummate man of business but for his self-sufficiency and impatience. His writings prove that he had many of the qualities of an orator, but his irritability prevented him from doing himself justice in debate; for nothing was easier than to goad him into a passion; and from the moment when he went into a passion, he was at the mercy of opponents far inferior to him in capacity.

Unlike most of the leading politicians of that generation, he was a consistent, dogged, and rancorous party man, a Cavalier of the old school, a zealous champion of the crown and of the Church, and a hater of Republicans and Nonconformists. He had, consequently, a great body

of personal adherents. The clergy especially looked on him as their own man, and extended to his foibles an indulgence of which, to say the truth, he stood in some need; for he drank deep; and when he was in a rage—and he very often was in a rage—he swore like a porter.

SIDNEY GODOLPHIN.

GODOLPHIN had been bred a page at Whitehall, and had early acquired all the flexibility and the self-possession of a veteran courtier. He was laborious, clear-headed, and profoundly versed in the details of finance. Every government, therefore, found in him a useful servant; and there was nothing in his opinions or in his character which could prevent him from serving any government. ney Godolphin," said Charles, "is never in the way, and never out of the way." This pointed remark goes far to explain Godolphin's extraordinary success in life.

"Sid

He acted at different times with both the great political parties, but he never shared in the passions of either. Like most men of cautious tempers and prosperous fortunes, he had a strong disposition to support whatever existed. He disliked revolutions; and, for the same reason for which he disliked revolutions, he disliked counter-revolutions. His deportment was remarkably grave and reserved, but his personal tastes were low and frivolous; and most of the time which he could save from public business was spent in racing, card-playing, and cockfighting.

FRANCIS NORTH, LORD GUILDFORD.

THE moderate and constitutional counsels of Halifax were timidly and feebly seconded by Francis North, Lord Guildford, who had lately been made keeper of the great

seal. The character of Guildford has been drawn at full length by his brother Roger North, a most intolerant Tory, a most affected and pedantic writer, but a vigilant observer of all those minute circumstances which throw light on the dispositions of men. It is remarkable that the biographer, though he was under the influence of the strongest fraternal partiality, and though he was evidently anxious to produce a most flattering likeness, was yet unable to portray the lord keeper otherwise than as the most ignoble of mankind; yet the intellect of Guildford was clear, his industry great, his proficiency in letters and science respectable, and his legal learning more than respectable. His faults were selfishness, cowardice, and meanness. He was not insensible to the power of female beauty, nor averse from excess in wine; yet neither wine nor beauty could ever seduce the cautious and frugal libertine, even in his earliest youth, into one fit of indiscreet generosity. Though of noble descent, he rose in his profession by paying ignominious homage to all who possessed influence in the courts. He became chief justice of the Common Pleas, and, as such, was party to some of the foulest judicial murders recorded in our history. He had sense enough to perceive from the first that Oates and Bedloe were impostors; but the Parliament and the country were greatly excited; the government had yielded to the pressure; and North was a man not to risk a good place for the sake of justice and humanity. Accordingly, while he was in secret drawing up a refutation of the whole romance of the Popish Plot, he declared in public that the truth of the story was as plain as the sun in heaven, and was not ashamed to browbeat, from the seat of judgment, the unfortunate Roman Catholics who were arraigned before him for their lives. He had at length reached the highest post in the law; but a lawyer who, after many years devoted to professional labour, engages in politics for the first time at an advanced period of life, seldom distinguishes himself as a statesman, and Guildford was no exception to the general rule. He was, indeed, so sensible of his deficiencies, that he never attended the meetings of his colleagues on foreign affairs. Even on questions relating to his own profession, his opinion had less weight at