" whisk him, we'll whifk him, I warrant 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 observations on the extreme appearance of health and a long life that his body exhibited upon diffection. Oliver was at first anxious to have ftained the King's memory, by pretending that he had a fcandalous disease upon him at the time of his death, had he not been prevented by the bold and steady affertion to the contrary made by a physician, who chanced to be present at the opening of the body.

Sir 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 attended his mafter to the fcaffold, 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 refpecting 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

"feemed thereby that the Lord General knew not "what had paffed,) 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 seeing Sir Thomas he told him, that he should 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, power, and goodness."

Charles the First was a man of a very elegant mind. He had a good taste 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 Houfe of Lords on the Thirtieth of January:

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

"His religion, in which he was fincerely zealous, was over-run with fcruples; and the fim

""

plicity

"plicity if not the purity of his morals were de"based by cafuistry.

"His natural affections (a rare virtue in that high fituation) were so exceffive as to render him

"c

a flave to all his kin, and his focial fo moderate "as only to enable him to lament, not to preserve, "his friends and fervants.

"His knowledge was extenfive though not "exact, and his courage clear though not keen: yet his modefty far furpaffing his magnanimity, "his knowledge only made him obnoxious to the "doubts of his more ignorant Ministers, and his "courage to the irrefolutions of his lefs adventu"rous Generals.

"In a word, his princely qualities were neither great enough nor bad enough to fucceed in that "most difficult of all attempts, the enslaving a free

and jealous people."

The full conviction of this truth made Laud, (who was not so despicable a Politician as we commonly suppose 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."

According to the Compiler of the Apophthegms of Charles the Firft, 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 er 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."

"c

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

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, so he that is without anger is without " love."

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

་

QUEEN OF CHARLES THE FIRST.

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

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

dark brown; fhe hath eyes that sparkle like "ftars; and for her phyfiognomy, she may be "faid to be a mirror of perfection. She had a rough paffage in her transfretation to Dover "Caftle; and in Canterbury the King bedded "firft with her. There were a goodly train of "choice Ladies attended her coming upon the Bowling-green at Barham Downs, upon the way, who divided themselves into two rows, " and they appeared like fo many conftellations; "but methought the country ladies outfhined the " courtiers.

HENRIETTA MARIA,

"The Queen brought over with her two hun"dred thousand crowns in gold and filver, as "half her portion, and the other moiety is to be

་ paid at the year's end. Her first suite of fer"vants (by article) are to be French; and as they

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