tion with insane and brutal joy-the informer was set at liberty with all, whom he had not denounced-the accused were put instantly upon their trial, condemned, and executed. The blood. of the best and noblest in Athens flowed freely; and the city having thus, as it were, breathed a vein, the fever abated-the passions of the people cooled-the judgement resumed its seat and office-and men began to wonder at the delirium into which they had been betrayed.

As in its origin, so in the conclusion, the oligarchal conspiracy at Athens, for such was it considered to have been, differed widely from the popish plot in England. The Shaftesbury of his age and country, who had hitherto steered successfully amid the conflicting factions of the state, instead of being the 66 arch-demon" who bestrode the tempest, was himself wrecked in the storm,-and, by a long train of remote consequences, involved in his fall that of the imperial democracy itself. Our own constitution, framed of more durable materials than the Athenian, weathered the storm of protestant fury; and the popish plot, destructive only to its victims, and a few of its managers, has left behind, among many other similar warnings, an awful but salutary memorial of the danger of spreading religious delusion among a devotional and deeply feeling people-affording us additional reason to thank God for the increasing light of the present age, which makes it less easy for designing men to practise upon the superstition of the vulgar. One other distinction, honourable to the nation, however grievously sinning, exists between our own plot and the one with which we have compared it; and this was owing neither to the temper of parliament nor the conduct of government, but solely to the spirit of the people. It has lately been remarked by a writer, whose works will distinguish the present age of our country more memorably than any thing else that has been done, said, or written in it, by any man or any set of men, that the English people, though clamorous in the pursuit of vengeance, yet, like the sleuth hound, desist from the chace, as soon as blood is sprinkled on their path.* And so it happened on the present occasion: the appetite for vengeance was quickly sated; and after the execution of the aged and venerable Lord Stafford, the Roman catholic plot lingered and died away. "It was the deepest solemnity," says Sir John Reresby, speaking of that nobleman's trial, "I have ever seen-and great were the expectations of the issue." He had been selected for impeachment, as being supposed less able to defend himself than any of the other lords in the Tower; but "he deceived the managers so far, as to plead his cause to a miracle."

* Peveril of the Peak.

"The three chief evidences against him were Dr. Oates, Dugdale, and Tuberville: the first swore, that his lordship had brought him a commission signed by the pope, to be paymaster of the army to be raised against the king; the second, that he had offered him five hundred pounds to kill the king; and the third, that he had offered him a reward for the dreadful deed, but at a different time. And so positive seemingly were they in this and other dangerous evidence, that I, who sat and heard most of the trial, had not known what to think, had the witnesses been but men of any the least credit. But such were the incoherences, and indeed contradictions, which seemed to me to arise towards the latter end, that considering them, and the very evil name of the people that swore against this lord, I was fully satisfied that all was untruth they laid to his charge: but the poor gentleman was condemned by a majority of twenty-two. He heard his accusers, and defended himself with great steadiness and resolution, and received his sentence with great courage and composure; nor did he stoop beneath the weight of his doom, till he submitted his head to the block, with his last breath protesting his innocence, and the cruel wrong he suffered."

"The king,” adds Sir John, "who heard all the trial, was extremely concerned at the rigour and abruptness of his fate." He disbelieved too, it is supposed, the whole of the plot,-why, then, did he allow the glorious prerogative of mercy to be idle in his hands? It is said he dared not exercise it-he dared do, however, or, at least, attempt things much more dangerous and equivocal. The patient and manly demeanour of this unfortunate nobleman on the scaffold seems to have excited the pity, and awakened the late repentance of the people. His protestations of innocence were answered by broken exclamations from the assembled multitude" God bless you, my lord; we believe you." Of this, the most illustrious victim to the fanatical delusions of the time, we were lately unexpectedly reminded, by reading in the public papers of a new claimant to the dormant title of Stafford; and it was with some surprise and considerable regret we found that the attainder so iniquitously passed against its last possessor, had never, during so many ages of better feeling and juster sentiments, been reversed. When, however, we reflect how long the illiberal prejudices against the catholic sect, derived, in great measure, from the very imposture of which we have been speaking, were allowed to influence the counsels of the nation, perhaps we should be justified in attributing this omission to some other cause than simple neglect. For, to use the words of the author above alluded to, when, divested of his masquerade habiliments, he is officiating in the humbler duty of a commentator-“ after this last victim, the popish plot, like a serpent, which had wasted its poison, though its wreaths entangled many, and its terrors held their sway over more, did little effectual mischief. Even

when long lifeless and extinguished, this chimera, far in the succeeding reigns, continued, like the dragon slain by the Redcross knight, to be the object of popular fear, and the theme of credulous terrorists". n

"Some feared, and fled; some feared, and well it fained.

One, that would wiser seem than all the rest,

Warned him not touch; for yet, perhaps, remained

Some lingering life within his hollow breast;
Or, in his womb, might lurk some hidden nest
Of many dragonettes, his fruitful seed;

Another said, that in his eyes did rest

Yet sparkling fire, and bade thereof take heed;

Another said he saw him move his eyes indeed.re 15 arun pen9*

TY

Whilst the terrors of the plot were thus agitating the kingdom from one extremity to the other, the houses of parliament were the theatres, in which opinions were conflicting with extraordinary violence, on a question of greater moment than has, perhaps, ever therein been discussed. We allude to the ever me¬ morable debates on the bill of exclusion, the argument for and against which, though our author has drawn them up in some thing like battle array, he has neither fully nor faithfully stated. We shall not, however, travel over ground that has been so re peatedly trod before; but content ourselves with observing, that the palpable and gross absurdity of the disposition, on which every plan of limitations necessarily proceeded, suffi ciently evinces the duplicity of the sovereign, with whom these plans originated. To imagine, for a moment, that James, a man by no means easy to be governed, but one, whom his brother himself had repeatedly pronounced "as obstinate as a mule" and who was indubitably the most wrong-headed gentleman that ever wore a crown, should voluntarily, or without the most violent struggles, be compelled to submit either to, legal restrictions, or to the authority of a regent, whether administered in the person of his nephew or his daughter, was that species of wilful blindness that argued the deepest insincerity in the person, who could profess such a monstrous belief. Had the country leaders suddenly thrown up the exclusion bill turned short round upon his majesty, and accepted his limitations, it is hardly possible to conceive the embarrassment, into which he would have been thrown. To have extricated himself from this dilemma, he must have taken a quicker turn upon the toe," than any, to which, during a reign of crooked politics, his own or the dangerous machinations of his ministers had ever yet reduced him. The uniform adherence of the exclusionists to their original plan, founded upon the presumption

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that Charles would finally accede to it, though it proved fatal in the end, was authorized by every thing that, till that time, had been observed of his political conduct. It It appears from the present Memoirs, how very distrustful the courtiers were of their master's firmness and constancy-how dreadfully alarmed, lest the offers of parliament so very fair, and the temptation of money so miserably wanting, should prevail upon his majesty to give up his brother, and part with "a snip of the prerogative" into the bargain. But there was a peculiarity in the present case, which distinguished it from all those, in which the king had been known to retract or change his resolution. The interest, or welfare, of any mortal on earth, when his own did not happen in some way or other to be involved in it, was never, for a moment, put by him in competition with his own ease and pleasure. Danby might rot in the Tower for signing letters, which himself had dictated-the innocent catholic archbishop Plunket, at a time when no personal fears could be alleged in excuse of his not exerting his prerogative, might perish on the scaffold, without his thinking it so much as worth his while to release the one, or save the other. Nohis spirit of resistance was husbanded with the utmost frugality, and systematically confined to the defence of his own prerogative and power. This Lord Halifax appears to have well understood, when he calmed the fears of Sir John Reresby, by an assurance that there was not the least danger of his majesty's complying with the liberal offers of parliament; observing-"it was like offering a man money to cut off his nose." ~This peculiarity in Charles's character is repeatedly avowed and even extolled by his staunch defender, North:-The king's way was to let things have their full swing, without his interposing to protect any persons, who might happen to be endangered by the violence but all the while that he yielded thus to the current," he kept the reins of his authority tight in his hand, and would not quit an iota of his prerogative."

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This saving regard to himself and utter indifference as to every body else made his ministers, at length, afraid to serve him, when the aspect of the times happened to be cloudy and troubled. Early in the year 1680, when parties were at the highest, the Duke of Newcastle being offered employment, declined accepting it: his majesty, he said, had not given him any in better times; he, therefore, begged to be 'excused now that they were so dangerous. Lord Halifax, the ablest of Charles's ministers, who served him most effectually and at the most critical period of his reign, often complained feelingly to Sir John Reresby of the slipperiness and precarious condition of the path he was obliged to tread; so that occasionally he would even talk of retiring from court. Particu

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larly the vote of the House of Commons, "that he was a promoter of popery, and a betrayer of the people"-too heavy, as he said, for the shoulders of an individual, however innocent, to bear unsupported, seems almost to have alarmed him into retirement. The example of so many ministers driven by similar votes from the helm of affairs into prison, or banishment, must have been to him a fearful warning, however signal were the services on which he rested his claim and protection. Nor, after the experience of so many ministerial downfalls,and happy was the man, who, on going out of office, was allowed to hide his head in the country-after the signal ruin of so many who had served the monarch in high official situations, by each of whom, in succession, he had resolutely sworn to stick, was any reliance to be placed on his assurances of support, however deeply and solemnly pledged. "For," says North, "when by saying aye to the projects of the ministry they thought they had him fast by his personal assent, as soon as he found himself among the thorns and briars, he made no scruple to set himself right, whatever became of them." William Temple acknowledges "he was very easy to change hands, when those he employed seemed to have engaged him in difficulties;" at the same time that his softness of temper made him "apt to fall into the persuasions of whoever had his kindness and confidence for the time," how different soever from the opinions he had previously held. Nor was it merely the effects of terror upon his mind, or his abhorrence of all trouble and disquietude, which his ministers had to apprehend, though in that case they were sure to be "let down the wind to prey at fortune;" almost as much was to be dreaded from the indolence and facility,-the fickleness and incertitude of his temper. While he seemed perfectly, said Lord Halifax, to approve of the council you gave him, he would hearken to others from a back door-you were never sure of him. Being once asked, how he stood with the king, he answered he had not the making of the king-God had made him of a particular composition-he knew what the king said to himself-he did not know what he said to others. Sir William Temple says of him, that he had great quickness of conception, with a great variety of knowledge,-more observation and truer judgement of men and things, than one would have imagined from so careless and easy a manner as was natural to him in all he said and did :-and even Burnet allows him to have had a very good understanding, and a great compass of information. Yet he was as incapable of thinking justly as he was of acting honestly; and there was no man, according to Sheffield, who was easier to be imposed upon than he. So that though his service was hazardous it was extremely