innocent, to assault the peaceable, to violate the chaste, to reproach religion, to brave upon authority, to revile their parents, to rend the heavens, and damn their own souls; yet if they can shew but a coat of arms, and call a squire their father, no bench of justice will touch them; as if drunkenness were a kind of generous quality, or progeny were a dispensation to riot.

"And would to God that this were but only a masculine sin; but it hath spread itself into both sexes: neither the bashfulness nor modesty of women can restrain them from participating in the guilt. If the breaths of women were tried, as Cato the censor commanded they should be in Rome, I doubt the criminal smell would be found to proceed from too many of them. Domitius deprived a woman of her dowry, because she was proved culpable of this trespass; and a matron was adjudged to be starved, because she did but open a box where were the keys of a wine cellar; and Fatua Fanna was whipped to death with myrtle rods, because she drank wine out of a bottle secretly. Oh, if such heavy sentences were pronounced and executed in these days, what should become of many women? For is not this a feminine vice? Yes; Martial need not write of his drunken Fescennia, nor Ausonius of his Merce, nor lian of his Cleio; for we, amongst ourselves, may find a multitude of these intemperate, sottish women, which will quaff

with the most riotous, and give pledge for pledge, and take off cup for cup. Oh, blemish of the nation, and affrightment to the very heavens!"

"As the English (says Chamberlayne in his Angliæ Notitia), returning from the wars in the Holy Land, brought home the foul disease of leprosy, now almost extinct here, though not yet in our neighbouring countries: so, in our fathers' days, the English, returning from the service in the Netherlands, brought with them the foul vice of drunkenness; as, besides other testimonies, the term of carous, from gar auz, allout, learnt of the High Dutch there in the same. service; so quaff, &c. This vice of late was more; though at present so much, that some persons, and those of quality, may not safely be visited in an afternoon, without running the hazard of excessive drinking of healths (whereby, in a short time, twice as much liquor is consumed as by the Dutch, who sip and prate); and, in some places, it is esteemed a piece of wit to make a man drunk; for which purpose, some swilling, insipid, trencher buffoon is always at hand. However, it may be truly affirmed, that at present there is generally less excess in drinking (especially about London) since the use of

coffee."

The inhuman passions of mankind, ever in action, and stimulated by the selfish principle which prompts the weak and the wicked to grasp

at every object within their reach calculated in appearance to promote their interest, seem to have existed in full vigour when Mr. Reeve composed "God's Plea for Nineveh;" who, in the quaint manner of his age, introduces them to our notice in the following words: "For all the noise of our sermon bells, and the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven preached amongst us, here is nothing but shaving and fleecing, pinching and biting, catching and crushing, supplanting and circumventing, consuming and confounding, decocting and despoiling, slaying and flaying, prosecuting and persecuting, mingling and powdering, glozing and varnishing, sophisticating and adulterating, lengthening out of suits and spinning out of quarrels, siding and shouldering, trampling and shivering, dreadful decrees in the court of conscience, and horrid orders (divers times) in the best court of judicature; as if oppression were a science, and tyranny a trade. It would perplex a man to think how many writs are filed, how many records are entered, how many bills are preferred, how many judgments and executions are passed, how many regiments there are of serjeants and bailiffs, how many brigades of attorneys and counsellors, in this one little kingdom.

"If violence were not predominant, what need there be called in so many necessary agents to restrain it? If the house were not ruinous,

what

what need there so many master-workmen be employed to repair it? These are fangs enough of oppression but come forth, and I will shew thee more abominations. How many are there that seek places to suck the veins of the people? How many buy offices to shark upon the commonwealth? How many turn informers, promoters, waiters, searchers, not to discover, but to distill; not to punish, but to prey upon errors!"

The character of Charles II. was compounded of very different materials from those of most men. Adversity, which is generally acknowledged to be the best monitor in the government of life, seems to have had little effect upon him; unless we admit the probability that he might have acted with still greater impropriety, had not Boscobel-house and the Royal Oak sometimes reminded him of his almost miraculous steps to the throne of his ancestors. It is said by his enemies, that he had an unaccountable partiality, in his very early age, for a billet of wood; which he was in the habit of carrying in his arms during the day, and sleeping with at night. It is admitted by all parties, that he gave the Scotch great offence by his unprincipled behaviour after they had administered the covenant to him, and accepted him for their king. Douglas, one of the committee of Ministers, was commissioned to reprove him for certain liberties taken with a female; and he did it in a way highly creditable

U 2

able to his character, by advising the Monarch to take care in future that the windows were closed; particularly as it had been observed, that Charles treated the frequent sermons he was compelled to hear with something strongly resembling contempt.

The secret history of this sovereign, published in 1690, charges him with a dissimulation equal to that of Richard III. who exhibited himself to the view of the Citizens of London between two Churchmen, before he usurped the crown. Thus Charles, when at Breda, received a deputation of the Dissenting Ministers from London, conducted by Mr. Case, whose ears were saluted with a "sound of groaning piety. Such was the curiosity of Mr. Case, that he would needs go and lay his ear to the closet-door. But, heavens! how was the good old man ravished to hear the pious ejaculations that fell from the King's lips. After which, the King coming out of his closet, * the deluded Ministers were ready to prostrate themselves at his feet."

After his Restoration, these Ministers experienced severely enough they were deceived; and the publick at large saw with regret the licentious conduct of the man they had hoped would exceed all other kings in an exemplary life. When his folly, in wandering abroad at all hours with the most dissolute characters of the age, is added to his ingratitude, and the neglect

of