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the restoration had seemed of all events the most improbable. There was now a greater resort to the queen mother's palace, than to the French court itself-balls were given-fêtes cele brated-and a grand mask danced at the Louvre, in which the king and the princess Henrietta of England performed to ad- t.. miration. Himself speaking the language of the country, and 1 dancing pretty well, the young princess, then about fifteen years of age, behaved towards him with all the civil freedom.. that might be; she made him dance with her, played on the harpsicord to him in her chamber, suffered him to wait on her as she walked in the garden, and sometimes to toss her in a swing between two trees; in fine, to be present at all her innocent diversions. The queen mother was a woman of con-›› siderable wit and humour, and had a great affection for England, notwithstanding the severe usage she and her's had met with there. "With the great men and ladies of France she discoursed much in praise of the people and country, of their courage, their generosity, their good nature; and would excuse all the late misfortunes, as brought about by some desperate enthusiast, rather than proceeding from the genius and temper of the nation." Had she looked nearer home for the cause of her misfortunes, she probably would not have been farther' from the truth. Lord Essex used to say, "He was amazed to see that a woman, who in the drawing-room was the liveliest of the age, and had a vivacity of imagination which surprised all who came near her, yet after all her practice in affairs, had so little either of judgement or conduct. And he did not wonder at the miscarriage of the late king's counsels, since she had such a share in them." It was on her kindness for him, and the influence she had over the king, her son, that Sir John Reresby chiefly relied for the promotion of his views at court. But this pleasing superstructure soon fell to the ground, in consequence of the queen's departure from England for the French court, where she died not many years after. "She was a great princess, and my very good mistress." Such is Sir John's short and emphatic eulogy.

That our author ever obtained any adequate recompense for his assiduous attendance at court, and uniform support in parliament, does not appear from the Memoirs he has left us. Though evidently a useful man to the party whose interests he espoused, his services, perhaps, were not of that marked nature to entitle him to demand a reward, with the authority necessary in a court, where a man was obliged to cry loud, indeed, if he hoped to be heard-when there were many to petition, and where there was but little to give. Without any of the evil qualities generally attached to the character, he discharged the functions of an useful go-between to the succes

sive ministers, the Lords Danby and Halifax. Added to this, that he was a pleasant companion may be gathered, we think, from the style of his Memoirs :-that he was an accomplished man, we are told, though not ostentatiously, by himself. He could converse in Italian and French, and both the king and the dukes " were great lovers of the French tongue, and kind to those who spoke it." He had travelled, and could tell in an agreeable manner what he had seen; a great collector of news, he had the art of retailing it pleasantly, and Charles was as great a gossip as his grandfather James. Above all, he could lean on the back of the king's chair as he sat at supper, and-what we have the authority of these Memoirs for believing, he would do passing well-relate all that had been done and said in the house that night. In return for this-he was liberally rewarded with gracious looks and kind promises, that meant little or nothing, and were forgotten as soon as he had withdrawn from the royal presence. If ever Sir John hinted his desire for some appointment in stronger terms than ordinary, Charles would lay his hand upon his shoulder, and say," he was very sensible of his services, and that they should be rewarded." If put in mind of some former promise-" he remembered it particularly well, and upon the very first occasion would be as good as his word." But that occasion never arrived; so that when Lord Halifax one day, during the violent debates on the Exclusion bill, observed to him," well, if it comes to a war, you and I must go together;"" I told his lordship," says Sir John, " I should be ready to follow happen what would; but if the king expected his friends to be hearty in his cause, and steady to his person, he should consider with himself, and encourage them a little; and thereupon I acquainted him with some of my disappointments at court, notwithstanding the most solemn reiterated promises." That this was not for want of duly shewing himself there, and a proper regard to his interest, is clear from his own confession. In the year 1683, when the king was taking new measures with regard to affairs in general, and officers in particular, we find him posting up to town, thinking it necessary, as he himself owns, that at such a critical juncture, he should be near his majesty's person. All, however, that he obtained, during a life spent at court, was an appointment to be high sheriff of his county, to which his rank alone entitled him,-the government of a city, that had no garrison, and the command of a fort, which never appears to have been built. What the emolument, arising from these two sinecure places is likely to have been, may be inferred from the following deplorable statement.

"Meanwhile the kingdom in general had a very melancholy aspect; the king was poor; the officers of the crown and of the

household were clamorous for their salaries and dues, which had not of a long time been paid, and no wonder, when Sir Robert Howard, one of the chief officers of the exchequer, declared in the House of Commons, that there was not money sufficient for bread for the king's family; there were no stores any where, either for the sea service or the land; the garrisons were all out of repair, the platforms decayed, and the cannon dismounted; the army divided for the Duke of York and against him, the officers of state the same; the parliament, for the most part, in a ferment, and glad of these public misunderstandings, as favouring their design of clipping the wings of prerogative, &c.'

When it is recollected, that parliament had originally granted Charles a revenue, three times more than had been enjoyed by any King of England before, so that, to use Reresby's own words, "the country groaned under the pressure," it is not the parsimony of the Commons we shall be disposed to blame for all this, but the extravagant profuseness of the court. And those, who censure the House for dealing out their grants with such a cautious and frugal hand, ought, in justice, to remember the suspicions which were generally and, as appears, not unreasonably entertained, that the very money, which they furnished, might be employed to effect the ruin of those who gave it. For it is clear from Danby's correspondence with the French court, laid before the House of Commons by the ambassador Montague, that at the very time Charles was soliciting parliament for money to raise an army for the war, he was in actual treaty with France for money to make a peace; " which," as Sir John confesses, "looked as if a standing army was designed to humble England, and not France."

But whoever was to blame for the notorious poverty of his household, so he had but money for his own expensive pleasures and his brother Louis took care he should not want that at least-Charles cared very little what became of his dependants. The history of Sir John Reresby certainly is not calculated to inspire the reader with any very strong passion for the life and profession of a courtier; but rather to make him wonder, that a sensible man, like the author, of good birth and respectable fortune, should have chosen to wear out the prime of his life in a hopeless attendance upon court, when he might have spent it with so much more honour and profit to himself in almost any other situation. The licentiousness which reigned in it could not have many charms for one, who, besides being married, appears also to have been a virtuous man; we can only suppose, therefore, that there is a pleasure in the obsequiousness and humility of that mode of life, which we wot not of, and that, contrary to the vulgar belief on

the subject, it is pleasanter to serve in a higher sphere than to command in a lower.

At first, being of an age when men do not " pursue their advantages" as they ought to do, Sir John went to court, as to the common temple of pleasure, to converse and look about him; but, in process of time, he began to imagine that other ends might be obtained than those of mere private amusement. To this purpose, therefore, it was his business to get a seat in the House of Commons, and, if possible, make himself of consequence in parliament. Here, at the outset, he was without any other rule to go by, than what reason and conscience suggested; and this inculcated moderation between the two extremes, and an equal regard for the prerogative of the king and the liberty of the subject. But it was not long before his neighbour, Sir Thomas Osborne, who, in a wonderfully short space of time, had risen to be Earl of Danby, and Lord High Treasurer, undertook to enlighten him on this head, and to infuse into him much more correct notions of the duty! of a member of parliament. He, with many protestations, assured him, that the jealousies of those who called themselves the country party, were entirely groundless-that, to his cer tain knowledge, the king meant no other than to preserve the government and religion, by law established that, if the constitution were in any danger, it was to be apprehended only from those who pretended a mighty zeal for it; and, in conclusion, he intreated him to be careful how he embarked himself with that sort of people. To these asseverations of the Treasurer, though wholly unsupported by any thing like argument, and contrary, we may add, to probability, Sir John, from some cause or other, found himself unable to refuse belief; and he was "pretty clearly convinced," on the sudden, that the chiefs of the country party had most at heart their own private interest, whatever they asserted in favour and defence of the public." To make sure of his convert, and to confirm him in these sound political views, Danby next carries him to kiss his Majesty's hand; and he is presented as one, whose family having been "always loyal," is perfectly disposed himself to tread in their footsteps. With that apparent frankness and most profound dissimulation-that seeming benevolence; and most callous indifference, which he could so inimitably put on the one to cloak the other-Charles condescended to shew him," how little truth there was in the pretences, set on foot to deceive gentlemen, and draw them from their duty."

«The king said he had known me long, and hoped I knew him so well, as to give no ear to such reports of him. I know, says he, it,

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is said I aim at the subversion of the government and religion—that I intend to lay aside parliaments, and to raise money another way; but every man, nay those who insist the most thereon, know the thing in all its circumstances to be false. There is not a subject that lives under me, whose safety and welfare I desire less than my own and I should be as sorry to invade his liberties and property, as that another should invade mine. Those members, continued the king, who boast this mighty friendship for the public, are of two sorts, either those who would actually and irretrievably subvert the government, and reduce it to a commonwealth once more; or else those, who seem only to join with the former, and talk loud against the court, purely in hopes to have their mouths stopped with places or preferments."

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The effect produced upon our author by this plausible language, was not such as to give the reader any very high idea of his understanding or discernment; but we ought, in justice, to recollect from the mouth of what an accomplished dissembler these flattering assurances proceeded-a prince, who had, in his time, made dupes of men of much greater sagacity, and much less prone to believe and trust him than a country gentleman, like Sir John Reresby, can be supposed to have been. Indeed, there never was, in this world, a man who could put on the air of honest, downright sincerity, better than Charles; and when his interest led him to court any man, whom he wished to make subservient to his views, he had such a command of himself, and could do it with such rare dexterity, that even those who had previous experience of his duplicity, could hardly prevail upon themselves to refuse him their confidence. Whilst his professions, on the one hand, were such as we have seen, and facts, on the other, were contradicting them in the plainest and most positive manner, there were other men besides our author, in whom the candour and openness of his demeanour wrought a similar conviction.Among these, Sir William Temple, whose honesty and discernment are unquestioned, appears to have given him credit for the good intentions he so liberally expressed. At one time, the Prince of Orange, being then in England, after his marriage with the Duke's daughter, Temple imagined he had brought Charles to a hearty resolution of uniting cordially with the states, to demand certain terms of the French king. For this purpose, he was ordered to make ready for a journey to Paris, where he was to require a positive answer to the terms within two days. But the evening before he was to set out, meeting his Majesty in the park, Charles, "a little out of countenance, told him he had been thinking of his journey and errand, and how unwelcome both he and his message would be in Francethat having a mind to gain peace, he was unwilling to anger them more than there was occasion.