thoroughly fallacious, as might be expected. And he actually snorts with contempt at the pious character of such men as Guthrie, Argyle, Warriston, and Carstairs. The great wonder is, that all men have not seen that Hume speaks of Charles just as a man standing where Hume stood, might be expected to speak of a man standing where Charles II. stood. That must, indeed, be a dull eye and a blunt sense which does not see the ever visible leanings to despotism and to infidelity in Hume's History. His praise of Charles, therefore, throws almost as clear a light on what that king really was, as do the filthy records of PEPYS' DAIRY itself.

It was in the reign of this king that two thousand illustrious and holy men the old non-conformists-were put out of the pulpits in England, on the sad Bartholomew's day, for disagreeing with the king on the point of church government. It was in the reign of this king that Vane, and Russell, and Sydney were judicially murdered, for being the friends of constitutional liberty in Church and State. It was in the reign of this king that the mountains, and the mosses, and the moors of Scotland were made red with the blood of eighteen thousand of her holiest men; and those same mountains, and mosses, and moors, made sacred forever by the glory of those martyrs, because they would not take this king to be the Head of their church, the lord of their conscience, their earthly Pope and spiritual father.

That we may have a better view of the times, we must have patience, therefore, to call up the various witnesses to the character of this king that we may clearly see what right he has to expect his people to bend their religion and their consciences to his command. Who, and what was this Head of the Church of England?

First Witness, David Hume: "If we survey the character of Charles II., in the different lights which it will admit of, it will appear various, and give rise to different and even opposite sentiments. When considered as a companion, he appears the most amiable and engaging of men; and, indeed, in this view, his deportment must be allowed altogether unexceptionable. His love of raillery was so tempered with good breeding that it was never offensive: His propensity to satire was so checked with discretion that his friends never dreaded their becoming the object of it: His wit, to use the expression of one who knew him well, and who was himself a good judge, (the Marquis of Halifax,) could not be said so much to be very refined or elevated,-qualities apt to beget jealousy and apprehension in company, as to be a plain, well-bred, recommending kind of wit. And although he talked, perhaps, more than strict rules of behaviour might. permit, men were so pleased with the affable communicative deportment of the monarch that they always went away contented both with him and with themselves.

"This is, indeed, the most shining part of the king's character-and he seems to have been sensible of it-for he was fond of dropping the formality of State, and of relapsing every moment into the companion.

"In the duties of private life, his conduct, though nct free from exception, was in the main, laudable. He was an easy generous lover (!!!) a civil and obliging husband, a friendly brother, an indulgent father, and a good natured master. The voluntary friendships, however, which this prince contracted, nay, even his sense of gratitude, were feeble; and he never attached himself to any of his ministers or courtiers with a sincere affection. He believed them to have no motive in serving him but selfinterest; and he was still ready, in his turn, to sacrifice them to present ease or convenience.

"With a detail of his private character we must set bounds to our panegyric on Charles. The other parts of his conduct may admit of some apology, but can deserve small applause. He was, indeed, so much fitted for private life, preferably to public, that he even possessed order, frugality, and economy in the former-was profuse, thoughtless, and negligent in the latter. When we consider him as a sovereign, his character, though not altogether destitute of virtue, was in the main dangerous to his people, and dishonourable to himself. Negligent of the interests of the nation, careless of its glory, averse to its religion, jealous of its liberty, lavish of its treasure, sparing only of its blood, he exposed it, by his measures, though he ever appeared but in sport, to the danger of a furious civil war, and even to the ruin and ignominy of a foreign conquest. Yet may all these enormities, if fairly and candidly examined, be imputed, in a great measure, to the indolence of his temper-a fault which, however unfortunate in a monarch, it is impossible for us to regard with great severity."

This is, indeed, an important witness-a significant testimony. The private life of Charles II. is then the exemplification of what Hume thought "in the main laudable," and deserving of "panegyric!" We are also compelled to accept this chaste, virtuous, and high-principled king as a specimen, at least for his own times, of those who choose a religion on the gentility principle. This man was the Head of the "gentility" church of his day!

WE CALL A Second Witness-T. B. Macaulay: "On the ignoble nature of the restored exile, adversity had exhausted all her discipline in vain. He had one immense advantage over most other princes. Though born in the purple, he was far better acquainted with the vicissitudes of life and the diversities of character than most of his subjects. He had known restraint, danger, penury, and dependence. He had often suffered from ingratitude, insolence, and treachery. He had received many signal proofs of faithful and heroic attachment. He had seen, if ever man saw, both sides of human nature. But only one side remained in his memory. He had learned only to distrust and despise his species-to consider integrity in man and modesty in woman as mere acting. Nor did he think it worth while to keep his opinion to himself. He was incapable of friendship; yet he was perpetually led by favourites without being in the smallest degree duped by them. He knew that their regard to his interests was all simulated; but from a certain easiness, which had no connection with humanity, he submitted, half-laughing at himself, to be made the tool of any woman whose person attracted him, or of any man whose tattle diverted him. He

thought little, and cared less about religion. He seems to have passed his He was crowned life in dawdling suspense between Hobbism and Popery. in his youth with the covenant in his hand; he died at last with the Host sticking in his throat; and during most of the intermediate years, was occupied in persecuting both Covenanters and Catholics. He was not a tyrant from the ordinary motives. He valued power for its own sake little, and fame still less. He does not appear to have been vindictive, or to have found any pleasing excitement in cruelty. What he wanted was to be amused-to get through the twenty-four hours pleasantly without sitting down to dry business. Sauntering was, as Sheffield expresses it, the Sultana Queen of his Majesty's affections. A sitting in council would have been insupportable to him, if the Duke of Buckingham had not been there to make mouths at the Chancellor. It has been said, and is highly probable, that in his exile, he was quite disposed to sell his rights to Cromwell for a good round sum. To the last his only quarrel with the Parliament was, they often gave him trouble and would not always give him money. If there was a person for whom he felt a real regard that person was his brother. If there was a point about which he really entertained a scruple Yet he was of conscience or of honour, it was the descent of the crown. willing to consent to the Exclusion Bill for 600,000 pounds; and the negotiation was broken off only because he insisted on being paid beforehand. To do him justice, his temper was good; his manners agreeable; his natural talents above mediocrity. But he was sensual, frivolous, false, and cold-hearted, beyond almost any prince of whom history makes mention."

Such is the picture of Charles II. drawn by the pen of the prince of modern historians, in an article in the Edinburg Review for 1835, upon MacIntosh. This, too, is just such as might have been expected from a witness intending to be fair, but occupying Macaulay's stand point. It is a first principle of the Christian religion, very often strangely overlooked in hearing the testimony of historians, that he that is not heartily under its spiritual influence does not comprehend the nature of its power, but is actually averse to its spirit. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." This is as true of historians as of other men. Mr. Macaulay never has professed, but often laughed at, evangelicalism. He understands almost as little, and seems not to care much more than did Charles II. himself, about the tremendous inward and outward workings of the spiritual powers, and that grand era of conflict between Jesus Christ, as rightful head of the Church, and the World's Prince who claimed to be head of the Church. Some say, Macaulay is not to be trusted at all; because he is superficial, flippant, and obstinate. We think this judgment too severe. He appears to us to be unreliable only when the very actings of the religious principle, in its deep, grave, unearthly moods, is the matter in hand. Of religious loyalty, faith, and conscience; the deep struggles of renewed souls for immortal principles; and of the peculiar conflicts and trials, and gifts from the throne of the Divine grace, to religious souls to die martyrs for

inspired truths, he comprehends little more than David Hume himself. Of course he failed to see the true nature of the conflict between the English dragoons, to execute the decrees of Charles II. as Head of the Church, and the Scottish Covenanters maintaining that the Lord Jesus was Head of the Church. This he failed to see; and no man can be much surprised at it, but one who thinks that historians are not fallen men; or one who thinks that the veils on men's minds, which are woven out of their own spiritual condition, do not apply to writers of history.

The Third Witness-the Pictorial History of England. By CRAIK and MACFARLANE:

"When the crawling and foot-licking age of loyalty succeeded with the Restoration, there was exhibited by right reverend and most learned prelates, a fanaticism less fervid, indeed, but far more profane and mischievous than that of the Commonwealth-and God, the Church, and the king, became their Trinity, while it was hard to tell which person of the three was the most devoutly worshipped. Then, too, the duties of non-resistance and passive obedience were inculcated as the golden rule of Christian practice, while opposition to monarchy was represented as a crime in which if the sinner died, his salvation was hopeless. In the same way, Charles and his brother were fanatics, who vibrated to the very last between their confessors and their ministers; and those gay and guilty courtiers were fanatics, who even amid their excesses, would sometimes fast and pray and be visited by supersitious impulses more ridiculous than the worst that have been fabled of Cromwell himself."

And again:

"In this temper of the public mind, the restoration brought with it a tide, not only of levity, but of licentiousness-an inundation of all the debauchery of the French court, in which Charles and his followers had chiefly spent their exile. The strangest scenes were exhibited in the Duchess of Portsmouth's dressing-room, where Evelyn saw this worthless Cleopatra in her loose morning garment, as she had newly got out of bed, while his Majesty and the court gallants were standing about her. In some other points Charles' domestic habits were also very singular. His especial favourites were little spaniels, of a breed that still retains his name-to these he was so much attached that he not only suffered them to follow him everywhere, but even to litter and nurse their brood in his bed-chamber; on account of which the room, and, indeed, the whole Court was filthy and offensive. Court language was in no better taste. Charles, in quarrelling with Lady Castlemaine, called her a jade, and she, in return, called him a fool; and the first English phrase which the queen learned, and which she applied to her husband was, "you lie." The levity of the court is strikingly exemplified in the anecdote told by PEPYS, that on the evening of that day of national disgrace, when the Dutch had blocked up the mouth of the Thames and burned the English shipping, Charles was supping with

Lady Castlemaine, at the Duchess of Portsmouth's, where the company diverted themselves with hunting a moth."

This witness speaks from the stand-point of that liberal feeling in Great Britain, in modern times, which gathered chiefly under the lead of the conductors of the Edinburg Review-Sydney Smith, Brougham, Jeffrey, and MacIntosh-to put down religious persecution. The work seems in the main, impartial. But failing to distinguish between the persecuting spirit, the lamentable error of almost all Christendom in the seventeenth century, as it is the fault of all other religions, and even of mankind at large, before the benign principle became known that man is not lord of the conscience these writers seem impartial only in the hatred of all spiritual religion. It appears entirely fair, therefore, to give full credit to this witness, in reference to all matters not connected with the personal experience of spiritual religion.

Fourth Witness-WILBERFORCE, Lord Bishop of Oxford; taken from his Introduction to Evelyn's Life of Mrs. Godolphin. Published in 1847. See London Quarterly Review, for September, 1847.

"In the reign of Charles II., that revulsion of feeling which affects nations just as it does individuals, had plunged into dissipation all ranks, on their escape from the narrow austerities and gloomy sourness of Puritanism. The court, as was natural, shared to the full in these new excesses of an unrestrained indulgence-while many other influences led to its wider corruption. The foreign habits contracted in their banishment, by the returning courtiers, were ill-suited to the natural gravity of English manners, and introduced at once a wide-spread licentiousness. The personal character, moreover, of the king helped on the general corruption. Gay, popular, and witty, with a temper nothing could cross, and an affability nothing could repress, he was thoroughly sensual, selfish, and depraved;-vice in him was made so attractive by the wit and gaiety with which it was tricked out, that its utmost grossness seemed, for the time, rather to win than repulse beholders. Around the king clustered a band of congenial spirits, a galaxy of corruption, who spread the pollution on every side. The names of Buckingham and Rochester, of Etheridge, Lyttleton, and Sedley, still maintain a bad preeminence in the annals of English vice. As far as the common eye could reach, there was little to resist the evil."

The wild young Phæton, of the classic fable, could as easily have driven the horses of the chariot of the sun,-Pan and his satyrs could as easily have drawn up a system of orthodox, living, evangelical divinity, as this king and this court could play the part of Head of such a deep, grave, and vitally religious Church as that of Scotland. The witness is unexceptionable, too, on the points on which we have heard him. He is of that church of which monarchs and ministers of State are still controlling potentates.