Mrs. M. Had he been a private gentleman, and not rich enough to have afforded to live in idleness, he might, perhaps, have left a better name behind him. He had great good-nature, and was admirably qualified to be an agreeable companion; but he wanted all the virtues that are required to make a great man. Still there was a kind of dignity about him that prevented those he conversed with from taking too great liberties in return for the freedom with which he often treated them. It is said that he could be, when he pleased, a perfect model of good-breeding.

Richard. Then I think his being so agreeable was only so much the worse; for people must have liked him so much that they would forget his faults.

Mrs. M. He was certainly a much greater favourite with his subjects than he deserved to be. This might, in part, be owing to his entire freedom from suspicion and pride, and his never showing the least fear of his people. He was very fond of the park at St. James's; and that part of it, called the Bird-cage Walk, he caused to be planted with trees, on which birds in cages were hung. He would sit for hours on the benches in the walk, amusing himself with some tame ducks and his dogs, amidst a crowd of people, with whom he would talk and joke.

Mary. I am glad you have said something about

his dogs, because I wanted to know why people always say that our dog, Pompey, is a king Charles's dog.

Mrs. M. It is because people fancy he is the same kind of dog which Charles II. was accustomed to keep but I rather believe that no dogs are left of the true breed, except some very beautiful black and tan spaniels, which belonged to the late duke of Norfolk, and which used to riot over Arundel Castle, much in the same way in which I suppose their ancestors formerly racketed about the palace at Whitehall. Charles was quite troublesomely fond of dogs. He had always so many in his bed-room, and his other apartments, that Mr. Evelyn says that the whole court was made offensive and disagreeable by them.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

JAMES II.

[Years after Christ, 1685-1688.]

Gentlemen of Charles the Second's court.

JAMES was in the fifty-third year of his age when he succeeded to the throne of England. He had not his brother's talent and brilliancy, but he was a man of much perseverance and steady application to business. He had been by his mother brought up a Papist, and had acquired from his religion a harshness and bigotry which does not appear to have belonged naturally to his character. He meant

to act rightly, and to be, according to his own ideas, a good king. But he mistook, or to speak more properly, he did not regard the feelings, opinion, or character of the people he had to govern.

As he had been very young when the civil war broke out, and had been bandied about from place to place, sometimes living under the care of his father, and being at other times in the hands of the parliament, it is probable that he received no regular education. He was about thirteen when he was permitted to see his father (the last time they met), at Hampton Court. The king then told him, that as he was old enough to be trusted with a secret, he would tell him one which he must keep. This secret was, that a colonel Bamfield was to contrive the means of conveying him abroad, and that he must be ready to do all that the colonel should desire, and be discreet. James then returned to London, and was placed by the parliament with his sister Elizabeth, in St. James's palace. At last Bamfield found means to let him know that all was ready, and that he would wait for him at one of the doors of the park.

James and his sister were allowed to play in a room which opened on a back stairs that led to a door into the garden. That evening they had been left alone, and James took the opportunity of running down into the garden: and thence, without either hat or cloak, he contrived to get unper

ceived to the door where Bamfield was waiting, who hurried him into a house not far off, where he had provided for him a woman's dress. Thus disguised, he took him to the Custom-house stairs, where a vessel was prepared to sail for Holland. They embarked, and crossed the sea in safety; and James was placed for a short time under the care of his sister, the princess of Orange. From that time to the restoration, he passed many uncomfortable years, sometimes at Paris with his mother, who treated him with great rigour, and sometimes at Bruges or Brussels, in his brother's court; if that could be called a court which had nothing but high-sounding titles to distinguish it. The lords of the bed-chamber, and masters of the horse, were obliged to walk on foot, and many of them had scarcely a bed to lie on. But the good humour and easiness of Charles, who would never find a vexation in any thing that he could turn into a joke, cheered and enlivened the circle which surrounded him.

James was always glad to be with his brother, but towards the end of the year 1659, Charles was reduced to the utmost distress; and James was on the point of accepting an offer made to him by the king of Spain to take the command of the Spanish fleet, when his brother's restoration placed him at the head of the English navy; a situation that suited him well, for he was a man of great personal courage, and naturally inclined to an enter