By Heavens, thou liest! The man so called, my friend,
Was generous, honest, faithful, just, and valiant,
Noble in mind, and in his person lovely,

Dear to my eyes and tender to my heart:

But thou, a wretched, base, false, worthless coward,
Poor even in soul, and loathsome in thy aspect;
All eyes must shun thee, and all hearts detest thee.
Prithee avoid, nor longer cling thus round me,
Like something baneful, that my nature's chilled at.
Jaffier -

I have not wronged thee, by these tears I have not,
But still am honest, true, and hope, too, valiant;
My mind still full of thee: therefore still noble.
Let not thy eyes then shun me, nor thy heart
Detest me utterly: oh, look upon me,

Look back and see my sad, sincere submission!
How my heart swells, as even 'twould burst my bosom,
Fond of its goal, and laboring to be at thee!

What shall I do what say to make thee hear me?
Pierre-

Hast thou not wronged me? dar'st thou call thyself
Jaffier, that once loved, valued friend of mine,

And swear thou hast not wronged me? Whence these chains?
Whence the vile death which I may meet this moment?
Whence this dishonor, but from thee, thou false one?

Jaffier

All's true, yet grant one thing, and I've done asking. Pierre

What's that?

Jaffier

To take thy life on such conditions

The Council have proposed: thou and thy friends
May yet live long, and to be better treated.

Pierre

Life! ask my life? confess! record myself
A villain, for the privilege to breathe,
And carry up and down this cursed city
A discontented and repining spirit,
Burthensome to itself, a few years longer,
To lose it, maybe, at last in a lewd quarrel

For some new friend, treacherous and false as thou art!

No, this vile world and I have long been jangling,

And cannot part on better terms than now,

When only men like thee are fit to live in't.

Jaffier

By all that's just

Pierre

Swear by some other powers,

For thou hast broke that sacred oath too lately.
Jaffier-

Then, by that hell I merit, I'll not leave thee,
Till to thyself, at least, thou'rt reconciled,
However thy resentments deal with me.

Pierre

Not leave me!

Jaffier

No; thou shalt not force me from thee.
Use me reproachfully, and like a slave;
Tread on me, buffet me, heap wrongs on wrongs
On my poor head; I'll bear it all with patience,
Shall weary out thy most unfriendly cruelty:
Lie at thy feet and kiss them, though they spurn me,
Till, wounded by my sufferings, thou relent,

And raise me to thy arms with dear forgiveness.
Pierre-

All, all, and more, much more: my faults are numberless Pierre

And wouldst thou have me live on terms like thine?
Base as thou'rt false-

Jaffier

No; 'tis to me that's granted.

The safety of thy life was all I aimed at,

In recompense for faith and trust so broken. Pierre

I scorn it more, because preserved by thee:

And as when first my foolish heart took pity
On thy misfortunes, sought thee in thy miseries,
Relieved thy wants, and raised thee from thy state
Of wretchedness in which thy fate had plunged thee,
To rank thee in my list of noble friends,

All I received in surety for thy truth

Were unregarded oaths, and this, this dagger,

Given with a worthless pledge thou since hast stolen,
So I restore it back to thee again;

Swearing by all those powers which thou hast violated,
Never from this cursed hour to hold communion,
Friendship, or interest with thee, though our years
Were to exceed those limited the world.

Take it farewell! for now I owe thee nothing. Jaffier

Say thou wilt live then.

Pierre

For my life, dispose it

Just as thou wilt, because 'tis what I'm tired with.

Jaffier

O Pierre !

Pierre

No more.

Jaffier

My eyes won't lose the sight of thee,

But languish after thine, and ache with gazing.

Pierre

Leave me!-Nay, then thus, thus I throw thee from me,
And curses, great as is thy falsehood, catch thee!

[Exeunt PIERRE and Conspirators, guarded.

EPITAPH ON CHARLES II.

BY LORD ROCHESTER.

[1647-1680.]

HERE lies our Sovereign Lord the King,

Whose word no man relies on;

Who never said a foolish thing,

Nor ever did a wise one.

[Charles retorted that this was quite natural, as his words were his own and

his acts were his ministers'.]

A CHARACTER OF KING CHARLES II.

BY LORD HALIFAX.

[GEORGE SAVILE, Marquis of Halifax, a leading English statesman of the later seventeenth century, and one of the ablest pamphleteers of any age, was born about 1630, of two powerful families, Savile and Coventry. For his part in the Restoration he was raised from baronet to viscount; and, though soon alienating the king by his independence, was admitted to the Privy Council because the government dared not leave so formidable a master of debate and of ridicule outside. Though taking part in weighty business and embassies, he was not trusted with the scandalous secrets of the now Catholic government, and was ousted by Danby in 1676; but in 1679 was made an earl, and again admitted after Danby's fall. He was always a moderate, -a "Trimmer," as the name went, opposed the Test Bill of 1675, and in 1679 the Exclusion Bill to bar out Catholics from the succession, aimed at James II., and alone secured its rejection by a narrow majority. This cost him the good-will of the great middle class, without gaining that of James, whose hands his restrictive measures would tie as king. On James's accession he was first given a powerless office; then, on refusing to vote for the repeal of the Test and Habeas Corpus Acts, dismissed from the Council. He nevertheless disfavored William's invasion, and tried to stop it by securing concessions from James; failing, and James fleeing, he joined in placing William on the throne. The ruling orders and High Church class wished a regency, but Halifax voted against it, and thereby alienated the other half of the country, though he did so because William absolutely refused anything short of a complete kingship. He was made a marquis and Lord Privy Seal by William; but the whole nation now distrusted him, his political usefulness was at an end, and he shortly resigned. He died in 1695. His most famous pamphlets were "A Letter to a Dissenter," to keep the Nonconformists from accepting James's offer of joint relief for them and the Catholics; "The Anatomy of an Equivalent" (i.e., for letting the king dispense with the test laws by his own prerogative); and the "Character of a Trimmer." His "Advice to his Daughter" and other papers are also of high quality.]

I. OF HIS RELIGION.

A CHARACTER differeth from a picture only in this; every part of it must be like, but it is not necessary that every feature should be comprehended in it as in a picture, only some of the most remarkable.

This prince at his first entrance into the world had adversity for his introducer; which is generally thought to be no ill one, but in his case it proved so, and laid the foundation of most of those misfortunes or errors that were the causes of the great objections made to him.

The first effect it had was in relation to his religion.

The ill-bred familiarity of the Scotch divines had given him a distaste of that part of the Protestant religion. He was left,

then, to the little remnant of the Church of England on the Fauxbourg St. Germain, which made such a kind of figure as might easily be turned in such a manner as to make him lose his veneration for it. In a refined country, where religion appeared in pomp and splendor, the outward appearance of such unfashionable men was made an argument against their religion, and a young prince not averse to raillery was the more susceptible of a contempt for it.

The company he kept, the men in his pleasures, and the arguments of state that he should not appear too much a Protestant whilst he expected assistance from a Popish prince; all these, together with a habit encouraged by an application to his pleasures, did so loosen and untie him from his first impressions, that I take it for granted after the first year or two he was no more a Protestant. If you ask me what he was, my answer must be that he was of the religion of a young prince in his warm blood, whose inquiries were more applied to find arguments against believing than to lay any settled foundations for acknowledging Providence, mysteries, etc. A general creed, and no very long one, may be presumed to be the utmost religion of one whose age and inclination could not well spare any thoughts that did not tend to his pleasures.

In this kind of indifference or unthinkingness, which is too natural in the beginnings of life to be heavily censured, I will suppose he might pass some considerable part of his youth. I must presume, too, that no occasions were lost during that time to insinuate everything to bend him towards Popery. Great art without intermission against youth and easiness, which are seldom upon their guard, must have its effect. A man is to be admired if he resisteth, and therefore cannot reasonably be blamed if he yieldeth to them. When the critical minute was I'll not undertake to determine, but certainly the inward conviction doth generally precede the outward declarations, at what distances dependeth upon men's several complexions and circumstances; no stated period can be fixed.

It will be said that he had not religion enough to have conviction; that is a vulgar error. Conviction, indeed, is not a proper word but where a man is convinced by reason; but in the common acceptation it is applied to those who cannot tell why they are so. If men can be at least as positive in a mistake as when they are in the right, they may be as clearly convinced when they do not know why as when they do.