should never have been found out during the long time he was wandering about!

Mrs. M. It was a great security to him that, having been so long abroad, his person was the less known in England.

CHARLES was thirty years old when, after sixteen years exile, he was so unexpectedly placed on the throne of his ancestors. He had a good figure, and though his features were harsh, there was something agreeable in his countenance; and his cheerful, easy, and graceful deportment made him altogether a very engaging person. He had a great deal of cleverness, shrewdness, and wit; and with

common application might have been any thing he pleased. But he loved amusement, and hated business, and to live idly and merrily was all he cared for. His good humour proceeded merely from the selfish principle of driving away care: his freedom from ambition was only the love of ease. He had no wish to be a great or a good monarch, and he only valued his country, because he found it an agreeable dwelling-place. He had a good head, but a bad heart, or rather he had no heart at all: he was devoid of feeling, and only feared foes and valued friends, as they could injure or serve him. His constitutional good-nature was all he had to recommend him; and this concealed, for a time, his entire want of better qualities.

The king began his reign by forming a ministry from amongst the best and wisest men of all parties, and he gave general satisfaction by the choice he made. An act of indemnity, or of general pardon, was then passed towards all those who had taken part against the crown, excepting only the judges who had sat on the late king's trial, and all those who had in any other way been immediately accessary to his death. About sixty persons had been concerned in that act. Of these many were dead, and others had left the kingdom. Of those who could be brought to trial, ten only were executed: the rest were reprieved, and placed in different prisons. Harrison, who had conducted Charles I. from Hurst Castle, was amongst those who suf

fered. He died justifying his conduct to the last. Hugh Peters also was executed. He had been one of Cromwell's fanatical preachers, and had not only been very active in stirring up the minds of the people against the king; but also, it was supposed, was one of the masked executioners who beheaded him. General Lambert, and sir Henry Vane, though they were not absolutely regicides, were yet thought too guilty to be included in the act of indemnity. Vane was executed: Lambert was reprieved, and exiled to the island of Guernsey, where he lived thirty years, and from being a rigid Puritan, became a Roman Catholic.

This act of retribution being performed, the ministry applied themselves to the business of the state. The chancellor, lord Clarendon, who had attended the king during his exile, had the chief weight in the council, and by his integrity and wisdom the government was carried on for a time with justice and moderation. The old standing army of the republicans was disbanded: the king retained only a few guards and garrisons; and most of the fortified places that had not been destroyed in the civil wars were dismantled. Episcopacy was restored; nine of the old bishops, who still survived, were replaced in their sees, and all the ejected clergy returned to their livings. The Presbyterians saw these measures with dissatisfaction; but an insurrection of one of the fanatical sects among the republicans gave the ministry a pretext

to insist on the restoration of the church without any modifications. An act of uniformity was passed, which required the assent of all the clergy to several articles very obnoxious to the Presbyterians. Those who refused to sign these articles were disabled from holding their livings; and, in consequence, two thousand of them were deprived.

The Scots had joyfully seen the restoration of the kingly authority: but when Charles proceeded to settle the affairs of that country, he found the people altogether averse to receive the hierarchy, which he was exceedingly desirous to establish amongst them, perhaps the more desirous, because, in spite of his naturally careless temper, he could not have forgot all the indignities and insults which the spiritual pride of the Scotch Presbyterians had made him suffer when he had formerly been amongst them. He won over Sharp, a Presbyterian leader, to accept the archbishopric of St. Andrew's. Sharp was a vindictive and bigoted man, whose conduct only exasperated the people more against episcopacy. He was at last assassinated by a zealous fanatic of the name of Balfour of Burley; who, with a small party of men, chanced to meet him, as he was travelling with his daughter, dragged him out of his carriage, and murdered him. This brutal assassination put an entire stop to the attempt to introduce episcopacy into the Scotch church.

In 1662 Charles married Catherine of Braganza, daughter of the king of Portugal. The new queen