beyond queen Anne's time, when an ingenious satire, entitled the History of John Bull, was written by the celebrated Dr. Arbuthnot, the friend of Swift. The object of this satire was to throw ridicule on the politics of the Spanish succession. John Bull is the Englishman, Nic Frog is the Dutchman, and Charles II. of Spain and Louis XIV. are called Lord Strut and Louis Baboon.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

WILLIAM III.

[Years after Christ, 1689-1702.]

A gentleman and a rustic of William the Third's time.

WILLIAM of Nassau was son of William prince of Orange, and Mary, the eldest daughter of Charles I. He was in the thirty-ninth year of his age, when the general voice of the people of England called upon him to ascend the throne. Some years before he had been chosen stadtholder of Holland, and had long been accustomed to an active life, and had shown much firmness and military skill in the wars between Louis XIV. and the Dutch.

He was a man of a cold, inflexible mind, calm in his temper, and moderate in all his habits, close and reserved, but neither artful nor insincere. He had a plain understanding, unimproved by cultivation. Nothing enlivened him but the animation of a battle. He then seemed to put on a different nature, and was full of spirit and alacrity. At the siege of Maestricht, when he was only prince of Orange, he received a shot in the arm, and to animate and assure his men, who were alarmed by the accident, he took off his hat with his wounded arm, and waved it in the air.

With regard to his appearance, he had a high forehead, an aquiline nose, fine eyes, and a very grave countenance. He was of the middle height, and very thin, being worn down by an asthma and perpetual cough from his infancy. I have somewhere seen it said that he was so feeble, that he was commonly obliged to be lifted on horseback ; but that when once mounted, he managed his horse with admirable skill, and seemed as if he imbibed the strength and spirit of the animal he rode. He married, as you already know, the princess Mary, daughter of James II. This princess had a fine person, with an engaging countenance, accompanied by an air of great dignity. She was a truly good woman, and little ambitious of governing.

After a long debate in both houses of parliament, it was settled that the prince and princess of Orange should be made king and queen of England, and

that the administration of government should be placed in the hands of the prince only. The two houses at the same time made a declaration, called the Bill of Rights, by which the prerogatives of the crown were limited and defined, and the liberty of the subject placed in greater security.

At first all was harmony and satisfaction: but William had not long been king of England before he and his new subjects became mutually discontented with each other. William, a thorough soldier, had been accustomed to the implicit obedience which is paid in camps to the authority of the general. He found the management of a free people extremely troublesome; and was so much harassed by the mutual jealousies of the different parties into which England was split, that once, in a moment of disgust, he was very near resigning a throne which he found encompassed by so many cares and vexations. The English, on their side, were equally out of humour with a monarch who, instead of living amongst his people in that sort of social way to which their former kings had accustomed them, spent most of his time either alone in his closet, or at a camp which he had formed at Hounslow. And when he did show himself in his court, which was very seldom, he appeared sullen and out of humour. After a time, finding that this secluded way of life made him very unpopular, he tried to rouse himself, and, on various public occasions, exerted himself so far as to conduct him

self with affability to those about him. He even condescended to ingratiate himself with the citizens of London by accepting the post of grand master of the Grocers' Company; but still the whole bent of his mind was fixed on humbling the power of France, and this more for the sake of revenging the quarrels of his native country, than from any motive in which England was concerned.

Soon after the settlement of the crown of England, the Scots declared the crown of Scotland vacant, and offered it to William and Mary. Thus the title of the new sovereign became established in both kingdoms. Lord Dundee alone collected a body of Highlanders. With a few hundred men he defeated a large body of William's troops at the pass at Killicrankie. Dundee himself was, however, mortally wounded in the action, and died on the day following. His death so broke down the spirit of the Highland clans, that they, after a short time, accepted the pardon offered them by William, and acknowledged his authority.

A few months before the battle of Killicrankie, James himself, being assisted by Louis XIV. with arms and money, landed at Kinsale in Ireland. That island, in which the greater part of the people were Papists, still adhered to him. In March, 1689, he made a public entry into Dublin, where he was joyfully received. He afterwards laid siege to Londonderry; but the besieged, though reduced by famine to the last extremity, made a most