* feizing upon young children, and hurrying "them on fhip-board, where, having their heads "fhaven, they were fo transformed that their

parents could not know them, and fo were "carried over for new fchifmatical plantations "to New England, and other feminaries of "rebellion. My Lord," fays Howell, (this Treatife is addreffed to Philip Earl of Pembroke,) "there is no villainy that can enter into the

imagination of man hath been left here un"committed; no crime, from the highest trea"fon to the meaneft trefpaffe, but these Re ❝formers are guilty of!"

Howell, in his Dialogue intitled "Patricus "&Peregrinus," thus defcribes fome of the preludes that ushered in the Civil Wars between Charles and his Parliament:

"It is," fays he, "a long time that both "Judges, Bishops, and Privy Councillors have "been muttered at, whereof the first should be "the oracles of the law, the other of the Gof

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pel, and the laft of State Affairs. It was "common for every ignorant Client to arraign “his Judge, for every puny Curate to censure "his Bishop, for every fhallow-brained home"bred fellow to defcant upon the refults of the

Council-Table; and this fpirit of contradic

❝tion

❝tion and of contumacy has been a long time ❝ fermenting in the minds of the people,”

“I have heard," fays Dr. Waller in his Fu, neral Sermon on the Death of the Countefs of Warwick," that it was the obfervation of that

great Antiquary Charles the First, that the "three ancienteft families of Europe for Nobility "are in England the Veres Earls of Oxford, "the Fitzgeralds in Ireland Earls of Kildare, "and the Montmorencies in France."

Charles used to say of himself, that he knew so much of arts and manufactures in general, that he believed he could get his living by any of them, except weaving in tapestry.

This unfortunate Monarch moft probably met with his very fevere fate in confequence of his duplicity. Cromwell declared that he could not trust him. His fate is a striking instance of the truth of the maxim of Menander, thus tranflated by Grotius;

In re omni conducibile eft quovis tempore
Verum proloquier. Idque in vitâ fpondeo
Securitatis effe partem maximam.

At every time, and upon all occafions,

"Tis right to speak the truth. And this I vouch

In every various ftate of human life

The greatest part of our fecurity,

Of

Of the letter which is faid to have been the cause of the death of Charles, the Author of the "Richardfoniana" has preferved the following very curious account:

"Lord Bolingbroke told us* (June 12, 1742) "that Lord Oxford had often told him that "he had feen, and had in his hands, an original "letter that King Charles the First wrote to the 66 Queen, in anfwer to one of her's that had "been intercepted, and then forwarded to him; "wherein the reproached him for having made "thofe villains too great conceffions (viz. that "Cromwell fhould be Lord Lieutenant of Ire"land for life without account; that that king"dom fhould be in the hands of the

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party, with an army there kept which fhould know no "head but the Lieutenant; that Cromwell "fhould have a garter, &c.). That in this letter "of the King's it was faid, that she should leave "him to manage, who was better informed of "all circumstances than fhe could be; but she

might be entirely eafy as to whatever concef"fions he should make them, for that he should

know in due time how to deal with the rogues, "who instead of a filken garter fhould be fitted " with a hempen cord. So the letter ended: "which answer, as they waited for, fo they in

*"Mr. Pope, Lord Marchmont, and myself.”

"tercepted accordingly, and it determined his "fate. This letter Lord Oxford faid he had "offered 500l. for."

Charles, according to Sir Philip Warwick, never appeared to so much advantage as in the Conference in the Ifle of Wight. "He fhewed," fays Sir Philip," that he was conversant in di"vinity, law, and good reafon; infomuch as "one day, whilft I turned the King's chair "when he was about to rife, the Earl of Salif "bury came fuddenly upon me, and called me ❝ by my name, and said, The King is wonder

re

fully improved; to which I as fuddenly re

plied, No, my Lord, he was always fo, but your Lordship too late difcerned it."

When Charles was preffed by the Parliament Ministers to give way to a small Catechism for Children which they had composed; "I will

not," said he, "take upon me to determine "that all those texts which you quote are rightly "applied, and have their true fenfe given them; " and I affure you, Gentlemen, I would licenfe cc a Catechifm, at a venture, fooner for men "than I would for children, because they can judge for themselves, and I make a great con"science to permit that children fhould be cof"rupted in their first principles.".

Speaking

Speaking one day of fome propofitions made to him by the two Houses respecting the government of England, he prophetically faid, "Well,

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they will ask so much, and use it so ill, that "the People of England will be glad to replace "the power they have taken from the Crown " where it is due; and I have offended against ❝ them more in the things which I have granted "them, than in any thing which I ever defigned "against them."

The Parliament affected to be outrageous that Charles employed Catholics in his army; the following paffage from Salmoneto will fhew that the Parliament were not more fcrupulous in this refpect:

"That which did ye moft furprise every body, "was, that they found amongst the dead, of "those which were flain on the Parliament fide, "feveral Popish priests. For, although in their "Declarations they called the King's army a Popish army, thereby to render it odious to "the People, yet they had in their army two companies of Walloons and other Roman Catholicks. Befides, they omitted no endeavours to engage to their party Sir A' Afton, K. "an eminent Roman Catholic Commander. "True it is, that the King had permitted to "serve him in his army fome Roman Catholick

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"Officers,