66 360.-CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. BURNET. [JOHNSON described the first part of Burnet's History of his own Times that part in which he was actually engaged in what he has told-as one of the most entertaining books in the English language." Violently attacked by the Tory wits of the time of Anne, it has preserved many valuable materials for the historian. His History of the Reformation' is still a standard book. Gilbert Burnet was born at Edinburgh in 1643. He was always a zealous politician, and as such was always obnoxious to the Stuarts, from his bold opposition to their public and private conduct. After the Revolution he was made Bishop of Salisbury. He died in 1715.] Thus lived and died King Charles II. He was the greatest instance in history of the various revolutions of which any one man seemed capable. He was bred up the first twelve years of his life with the splendour that became the heir of so great a crown. After that, he passed through eighteen years of great inequalities; unhappy in the war, in the loss of his father, and of the crown of England. Scotland did not only receive him, though upon terms hard of digestion, but made an attempt upon England for him, though a feeble one. He lost the battle of Worcester with too much indifference. And then he showed more care of his person than became one who had so much at stake. He wandered about England for ten weeks after that, hiding from place to place. But, under all the apprehensions he had then upon him, he showed a temper so careless, and so much turned to levity, that he was then diverting himself with little household sports, in as unconcerned a manner as if he had made no loss, and had been in no danger at all. He got at last out of England. But he had been obliged to so many who had been faithful to him, and careful of him, that he seemed afterwards to resolve to make an equal return to them all; and, finding it not easy to reward them all as they deserved, he forgot them all alike. Most princes seem to have this pretty deep in them, and to think that they ought never to remember past services, but that their acceptance of them is a full reward. He, of all in our age, exerted this piece of prerogative in the amplest manner; for he never seemed to charge his memory, or to trouble his thoughts, with the sense of any of the services that had been done him. While he was abroad at Paris, Cologne, or Brussels, he never seemed to lay anything to heart. He pursued all his diversions and irregular pleasures in a free career, and seemed to be as serene under the loss of a crown as the greatest philosopher could have been. Nor did he willingly hearken to any of those projects with which he often complained that his chancellor presented him. That in which he seemed most concerned was, to find money for supporting his expense. And it was often said, that if Cromwell would have compounded the matter, and have given him a good round pension, that he might have been induced to resign his title to him. During his exile, he delivered himself so entirely to his pleasures, that he became incapable of application. He spent little of his time in reading or study, and yet less in thinking. And, in the state his affairs were then in, he accustomed himself to say to every person, and upon all occasions, that which he thought would please most; so that words or promises went very easily from him. And he had so ill an opinion of mankind, that he thought the great art of living and governing was, to manage all things and all persons with a depth of craft and dissimulation. And in that few men in the world could put on the appearances of sincerity better than he could; under which so much artifice was usually hid, that in conclusion he could deceive none, for all were become distrustful of him. He had great vices, but scarce any virtues to correct them. He had in him some vices that were less hurtful, which corrected his more hurtful ones. He was, during the active part of his life, given up to sloth and lewdness to such a degree, that he hated business, and could not bear the engaging in anything that gave him much trouble, or put him under any constraint. And though he desired to become absolute, and to overturn both our religion and our laws, yet he would neither run the risk, nor give himself the trouble, which so great a design required. He had an appearance of gentleness in 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 itself, yet he never forgave anything 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 extravagances 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 topics. 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 entered on these 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 persons left about him, which drew a severe jest from Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. He said he wondered to see a man have so good a memory as to repeat the same story without losing one circumstance of it, and yet not remember that he had told it to the very same persons the day before. This made him fond of strangers, for they hearkened to all his oftenrepeated stories, and went away as in rapture at such an uncommon condescension in a king. His person and temper, his vices as well as his fortune, 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 pleasure; 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 faces and persons. 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 Dominico, to whom it belonged, did agree with me in thinking that it looked like a statue made for him. 361.-ANOTHER YEAR. [WE are arrived at the period, when that series of our poetical extracts, which may be called 'The Year of the Poets,' must at length close. Upon the threshold of 'Another Year,' we give passages from Tennyson,-from Herrick, the great poet of old festivals,-from Keats, and from Bishop Corbet.] THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. I. Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, For the old year lies a-dying. II. He lieth still: he doth not move: He hath no other life above. He gave me a friend, and a true true-love, Old year, you must not go; So long as you have been with us, III. He froth'd his bumpers to the brim; He was full of joke and jest, To see him die, across the waste His son and heir doth ride post-haste, Every one for his own. The night is starry and cold, my friend, And the New Year, blithe and bold, my friend, V. How hard he breathes! over the snow The cricket chirps: the light burns low: Shake hands before you die : Old year, we 'll dearly rue for you: Speak out before you die. VI. His face is growing sharp and thin. Close up his eyes: tie up his chin: Step from the corpse, and let him in That standeth there alone, And waiteth at the door. There's a new foot on the floor, my friend, TENNYSON. |