ON Pedro Giron knight of

"D the Golden Fleece, and a

grandee of the first clafs of Spain, inherited from a long line of anceftors the pride of noble birth, and the command of a princely fortune: circumftances which are fometimes indeed found in conjunction with meanness of fentiment, but which fostered that natural fublimity of imagination that carried Offuna to purfue grand defigns by extraordi nary means. His temper was uncommonly fervent, and his fancy lively even to extravagance. Hence, though his understanding was quick and penetrating, his conduct was neither regulated by the common maxims of policy and prudence, nor his demeanour, in the intercourfes of life, by the rules of propriety and decorum. In the prefence of his fovereign, he would talk with a gaiety and boldnefs unknown in the courts of kings, and which appeard to the fage gravity of his compatriots to border upon madness. But his converfation in

all companies, and on all occafions, was adorned with a brilliancy of wit, which, in the eyes of moit men, would more than compenfate many levities and indifcretions. This duke is justly cenfured by grave hiftorians for his gallantries, which were not veiled or palliated by delicacy of fentiment; but on the contrary, fenfual, open, and licentious. Yet that groffer fpecies of love was attended with this advantage, that it left his mind free and difengaged, and did not interfere in any refpect with his projects of ambition. He had ferved in the army in the war with the United Provinces, in a high rank, and with great glory; and his merit as a foldier, was either the caufe, or as oftener happens in courts, the pretext for his preferment to the important ftation of viceroy of Naples. In this ftation he amazed the world with the fingularity of his character, and disturbed its repofe by the boldness of his ambition."

“IN

'N the month of February the king's illness returned in all its malignity. Soon after his return from the chapel he was taken with a fever, which continued with various intermiffions about the fpace of a month. During all this time his Spirits were depreffed with the deep

eft melancholy, and he perfevered notwithstanding fome encouragement from the phyficians, in expreffing his full affurance that he thould die. He defired that the image of the Holy Virgin of Antiochia fhould be carried about, which was performed on Sunday the

twenty

twenty eight, in a folemn proceffion, at which the counfellors of Spain and many of the other nobles affifted. In the evening of that day commandment was given to all the churches of Madrid to place the bleffed facrament upon the altars. On Monday, about four o'clock in the evening, the king grew worse than ever. He had before been feized at different times with a violent vomiting and a diarrhoea. Blifters now appeared on his limbs and other parts of his body; and the phyficians feeling his pulfe, faid unanimoufly, "That they undoubtedly affented to the king in the opinion he entertained of his infirmity." He then, in the prefence of his confeffor, with other divines, the grandees of Spain, the prefidents of the different councils, and the first lord of his bed chamber, authorised the prefident of Caftile to affix in his name, for his hand fhook greatly, the royal fignature to a codicil he dictated in addition to his teftament, which he had already made at Cafa Rubios. This being done, he gave orders that other prefents, befides thofe he had already appointed, fhould be given to his contefior, and to his ferAfter this, his phyficians perfuaded him to take fome food; they alfo advised him to compofe himfelf for fleep; but he aniwered "On fo long a journey, and in fo fhort a time for performing it, I must not reft." He now defired, as the latt action of his life, to fee, to addrefs, and to blefs his children. He told the prince that he had fent for him that he might behoid the vanity of crowns and tiaras, and learn to prepare for eternity. To the child Don Carlos he spoke long and in a low tone of voice. He then faid aloud to the prince," I recommend the child, to your prorection. It grieves me that I fhould

leave him unprovided; but I hope that I leave him in the hands of a good and affectionate brother." Then appeared the infanta Maria, and the infant cardinal. At the approach of the infant he burst into tears, and faid, "Maria, I am full forry that 1 muft die before I have married thee; but this thy brother will take care of thee:" and turning about he faid, "Prince do not forfake her till you have made her an emprefs." He then fpoke to the cardinal infant, whom he had appointed, when he fhould be of a fit age, to be archbishop of Toledo. He fhould be much grieved, he said, if he thought that he would not undertake, and faithfully difcharge the duties of that facred office. He alfo fent, for the princefs of Spain; but the fainted away as foon as the entered the kings's bed-chamber, and was conducted back to her own apartment. It was not thought proper that fhe fhould make a fecond effort to fee the dying king, 'as the was now in the fourth month of her pregnancy. When what had happened to the princefs was reported to the king, he was melted into compaffion, and greatly affected at fo ftriking an inftance of fenfibility and filial love. He protefled a firm belief that the princefs loved him as well as any of his own children. She would lofe a good father, he added, and that he had always loved her tenderly. Afterwards, giv. ing them all his blefling, he difmiffed them with many prayers for their happiness, both here and hereafter. The bleffed facrament was adminiftered to him about midnight. He received the extreme unction at two o'clock in the morn ing. During the whole time of his inefs he made a conftant confeflion of his fins, and implored divine mercy. He confeffed to all around

him that he had been often guilty of diffimulation in matters of government; he regretted his fupine indolence, and blamed himfelf greatly for having devolved the cares of the ftate on his minifters ; and when he reflected that he had not in all things made the will of God the rule of his government, he trembled, crying out at different times, "Oh! if it fhould pleafe heaven to prolong my life, how different fhould my future be from my paft conduct!" But in the midst of his troubled thoughts he found confolation in the mercies of God; and embracing a crucifix, he expreffed his hope, that the Redeemer of the world would not leave his foul in hell, but that, after many ages of painful purification, he would receive him at laft into the manfions of the bleffed. At devotion fo affecting the fpectators burst into tears; and at that instant father Jerome of Florence came up to the bed on which the king lay. The father, unwilling to bruife a broken reed, held up to the view of the pious monarch

the confolations of religion, and expatiated on the exemplary purity of his life, and that zeal which had appeared throughout the whole of his reign for the Roman catholic religion. The alternate tumults of hope and fear that had fo long agitated the mind of the king, at last sub. fided into a gentle calm, and he died in all the tranquillity of faith, on the last day of March, in the forty-third year of his life, and the twenty-third of his reign.

"The pliant, mild, and religious difpofition of this prince would have well entitled him to the praise of pious and good, if the natural benevolence of his temper had not been controlled, in many important inftances, by the bigotry, and his piety deeply tinctured with the follies of fuperftition. His amiable and inoffentive manners would have adorned a private station; but he was averfe to the trouble, and destitute of the talents for governing a great kingdom."

"TH

"THE drawing the characters of those unfortunate individuals whofe conduct is the proper object of fatire rather than of panegyric, is the most invidious and the most distressful part of hiftoric compofition; becaufe defcriptions fufficient ly animated to point out the oppofite nature and confequences of vice and virtue to the vulgar, are con trary to the judgments and feelings of philofophy, which regards with an eye of compaffion that infatuation of mind which leads men to prefer

the difgrace and mifery confequent to the one, to the tranquillity, hap pinefs, and true honour which must neceffarily attend the other; and because it is an undoubted fact, that it is education and circumftances which alone form the man, and which alone preferve the innocence of the weak, and give the luftre of virtue to the fplendid qualities of genius and understanding. It is an obfervation among the vulgar, when they wish to exprefs a high degree of acrimony against an unfortunate

finner,

finner, that the wretch had a fufficient understanding to have acted better; but the hiftory of human mifery very fatally fhews, that a quick and enlightened understanding, as it is neceffarily attended with a warm imagination and strong paffions, if not guarded by a good education, and fupported by virtuous habits, will always, in proportion to the ftrength of its abilities, deviate from the rule of right; becaufe it will naturally purfue with more energy the objects of mistaken happines. It is under the laft of thefe deferiptions, that we may justly clafs Charles the Second, on whom nature had bestowed powers, which, if properly exerted, might have confituted an heroic character; but which, by an adverfe fate, enabled him to exceed in wickedness and folly all the princes who had ever fat on the English throne.

"Among thofe favourable incidents which affifted to complete the good fortune of the popular ElizaBeth, the adverfities of her youth, and the maturity of her age when fhe was advanced to the dignity of fovereign power, have been justly confidered as the most advantageous; because by the infight it gave her into the human character, it enabled her fo artfully to adapt a fyftem of felfifhnefs, to the appearances of magnanimity, and the prejudices of the vulgar, as to reconcile a very high degree of injustice and tyranny with that reputation which, in the eye of reafon, is alone due to the benefactors of mankind: but, as in the current of human affairs, a very trifling difference, even in minute circumftances, is attended with fuch important confequences as to produce an entire oppofition of effects, fo the unhapy fate of the first Charles, and the adverfity into which it neceffarily threw his fon,

by depriving him of the advantages of parental care, and expofing him, at a time of life when the paffions are the strongest, and the judgment the weakest, to the perfidious licen tioufnefs which prevailed in the court of France, gave fuch a ftrength and power to the natural bias of his difpofition, as totally to efface every veftige of that moral fenfe which helps to form the mixt character of the generality of mankind, and which is feldom entirely loft, even by the moft flagitious. If with the jaundiced eye of prejudice we can excufe, and even applaud the mean hypocrify ufed by Charles, during his abode with the Scotch Covenanters, the breach of his oaths, and the barbarity with which he afterwards treated this people, when exalted to a kind of defpotic power over them, with the perfecutions with which he repaid the fervices of the English prefbyterians; what can even the voice of faction fay to the ingratitude with which he treated the ancient and faithful friends of the fortunes of his family; and the difiniffing all thofe with ignominy who endeavoured to reconcile the prerogative of the king with the faftey of the nation and the exiftence of the conftitution? What can the voice of faction fay to the palpable neglect which this prince, in feveral inftances, paid to his father's memory; and, in particular, insthe accepting a fum of money for the expence of his funeral, and the pocketing of it for his private use? What can the voice of faction say to the treatment of their avowed and fteady patron, the earl of Clarendon ; what to the king's behaviour to the duke of Ormond, in the cafe of Blood, &c. and what to the indifference with which he treated the memory of a fifter, whom he pretended to love with the highest degree of affection ?

affection? If with the men of pleafure, and the thoughtlefs companions of the bottle, we view with complacency, and even with applaufe, the licentious manners of a prince infected with the vices of every country which had yielded an afylum to his wandering fteps, is it poffible not to reficct, that Charles was totally deficient in that kind of fympathy and indolent good-nature which often accompany the effeminacy of a luxurious life; and that the unjust feverity, and even cruelty with which he treated all thofe whom he regarded as his enemies, are blemishes not to be excufed, when united to the feverest manners and the highest rectitude of principle.

"If with the papifts, we applaud the king for the pious defign he had entertained of restoring the British empire to the church of Rome; what can we fay to the eafy manner in which he abandoned this defign, and the whole party, to their inveterate enemies? What can we fay to the breach of the promife he had made to this body, that he would declare his converfion, and avow his patronage after the receiving a fum of money for this pur pofe from the court of France? And what can we fay to the mean manner in which he concealed his pre. dilection to popery till the hour of his decease, in which he vainly hoped to fecure a fafe paffage to the regions of eternal blifs, from the merits of a fubmiffion extorted by the terrors of an affrightened conscience? And if with the zealous churchmen, we regard him as the patron of the restored privileges of that holy body, what excufe can we make for the deep defigns he had entered into, of facrificing all thofe facred rights to the ambition of pa

pifts, and the interests of the papal chair?

"In the duties of private life, we are told by the panegyrifts of Charles, that his conduct, though not free from exception, was in the main laudable: but though a large meafure of indulgence is to be given to the foibles, the infirmities, and even the vices of every man or woman, who has not received the be nefits which arife from a perfect form of education, yet we cannot poflibly trefpafs fo highly on our fenfe of propriety, decency, and the inestimable virtues of fobriety, as to rank that facility with which the king became the conftant dupe of his amorous inclinations and paffion for variety, among the good qualities of a rational agent; nor can we agree to the obfervation, that Charles was a civil and obliging huf band, merely on the merit of his not having facrificed an innocent woman to the venom of party fpirit. On the contrary, fetting afide the advantages of affluence, and the fplendor of rank, the queen's fituation must be confidered as equally mortifying to that in which every other female is involved, whom a fevere fate unites in the indiffoluble bonds of matrimony with a profligate rake. On the fubject of the king's conitancy to the duke of York's intereft, it is obfervable, that a coldness and mutual jealoufy prevailed between the two brothers till the period of the first French treaty; a circumstance which rendered all future diffenfion dangerous to the peace and happiness of both. Burnet afferts, that Charles both hated and feared his brother; and Sir John Rerefby, who has manifefted the higheft degree of partiality to the conduct of the king, allows that it was motives of policy alone which