"Peters's bridle, fays, Good Mr. Peters, what "will you do with the King? I hope that you "will do his perfon no harm. That. Peters "might be Peters, he replies, He shall die the "death of a traitor, were there never a man in "England but he. The Captain forced to loofe his hold of the reins by a blow given him

"over his hand with Peters's staff, this trumpeter of forrow rides on finging his fad note, "We'll whisk him, we'll whisk him, I warrant 65 you, now we have him!"

Oliver Cromwell is faid to have put his hand to the neck of Charles as he was placed in his coffin, and to have made obfervations on the extreme appearance of health and a long life that his body exhibited upon diffection. Oliver was at first anxious to have stained the King's memory, by pretending that he had a fcandalous difeafe upon him at the time of his death, had he not been prevented by the bold and steady afsertion to the contrary made by a physician, who chanced to be prefent at the opening of the body.

Şir Thomas Herbert, who was Groom of the Bedchamber to Charles, and who waited on him for two years previous to his decapitation, has written a very curious and interesting account of that period.

He

He attended his master to the scaffold, but had not the heart to mount it with him. At the staircase he refigned him into the hands of good Bishop Juxon. He tells this curious anecdote respecting the Lord General Fairfax's ignorance of the King's death:---When the execution was over, Sir Thomas, in walking through the Long Gallery at Whitehall, met Lord Fairfax, who faid to him, "Sir Thomas, how does the King?" "which," adds he, " I thought very strange, (it "feemed thereby that the Lord General knew not “what had passed,) being all that morning (and "indeed at other times) ufing his power and in"tereft to have the execution deferred for fome "days." Cromwell, however, knew better; for on feeing Sir Thomas he told him, that he fhould have orders fpeedily for the King's burial. When Charles was told, that he was foon to be removed from Windfor to Whitehall, he only faid, "God is everywhere alike in wisdom, 66 power, and goodness."

Charles the First was a man of a very elegant mind. He had a good tafte in art, and drew tolerably well. A Gentleman at Bruffels has feveral original letters of Rubens in MS. In one of them he expreffes his fatisfaction at being foon to vifit England; "for (adds he) I am told

that the Prince of that country is the best.

judge of art of any of the Princes of his

"time."

The character of this Monarch is thus admirably delineated by the pen of Bishop Warburton in his excellent Sermon before the House of Lords on the Thirtieth of January:

"The King had many virtues, but all of fo "unfociable a turn as to do him neither fervice "nor credit.

"His religion, in which he was fincerely zea"lous, was over-run with fcruples; and the fimplicity if not the purity of his morals were "debased by cafuistry.

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"His natural affections (a rare virtue in that high fituation) were fo-exceffive as to render "him a flave to all his kin, and his focial fo mo"derate as only to enable him to lament, not to "preferve, his friends and fervants.

"His knowledge was extenfive though not "exact, and his courage clear though not keen; yet his modesty far furpaffing his magna

nimity, his knowledge only made him obnox"ious to the doubts of his more ignorant Mi"nisters, and his courage to the irrefolutions of "his lefs adventurous Generals.

"In a word, his princely qualities were neither great enough nor bad enough to fucceed in "that most difficult of all attempts, the enflav ❝ing a free and jealous people."

The full conviction of this truth made Laud, (who was not fo despicable a Politician as we commonly fuppofe him,) upon feeing his coadjutor Strafford led out to flaughter, lament his fate in these emphatic and indignant words: "He served a Prince who knew not how to be, nor to be made, great.

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According to the Compiler of the Apophthegms of Charles the First, that accomplished Prince used to say, "Fortune has no power over "Wisdom, only over Senfuality, and over the "lives of all those who swim and navigate with❝out the loadstone of Difcretion and Judge❝ment."

"Carry a watchful eye upon dangers," faid this acute Sovereign," till they come to ripe"ness, and when they are ripe let loose a speedy "hand. He that expects them too long meets "them too late; and he that meets them too "foon, gives advantage to the evil. Commit "the beginning of them to the eyes of Argus, " and the end of them to the hands of Briareus, and then thou art fafe."

Charles

Charles used to fay of the Presbyterian Preachers," that there were always two good "fentences in their fermons, the text and the "conclufion."

He profeffed that he could not fix his love. upon one that was never angry; " for," fays he,

•

"as a man that is without forrow is without "gladness, fo he that is without anger is with"out love."

He had often this fentence in his mouth : "The Devil of Rebellion doth commonly turn "himself into an Angel of Reformation."

HENRIETTA

MARIA,

QUEEN OF CHARLES THE FIRST.

HOWELL, in one of his Letters, dated “Lon"don, 16th May 1626," thus describes this beautiful and accomplished Princess:

"We have now a moft noble new Queen of England, who, in true beauty, is much beદ yond the long-woo'd Infanta. This daughter "of France---this youngest branch of Bourbon, "is of a more lovely and lafting complexion, a

"dark