, 1687.]

[Footnote 208: The chief materials from which I have taken my
description of the Prince of Orange will be found in Burnet's History,
in Temple's and Gourville's Memoirs, in the Negotiations of the
Counts of Estrades and Avaux, in Sir George Downing's Letters to Lord
Chancellor Clarendon, in Wagenaar's voluminous History, in Van Kamper's
Karakterkunde der Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis, and, above all, in
William's own confidential correspondence, of which the Duke of Portland
permitted Sir James Mackintosh to take a copy.]

[Footnote 209: William was earnestly intreated by his friends, after the
peace of Ryswick, to speak seriously to the French ambassador about
the schemes of assassination which the Jacobites of St. Germains were
constantly contriving. The cold magnanimity with which these intimations
of danger were received is singularly characteristic. To Bentinck, who
had sent from Paris very alarming intelligence, William merely replied
at the end of a long letter of business,--"Pour les assasins je ne luy
en ay pas voulu parler, croiant que c'etoit au desous de moy." May 2/12
1698. I keep the original orthography, if it is to be so called.]

[Footnote 210: From Windsor he wrote to Bentinck, then ambassador at
Paris. "Jay pris avant hier un cerf dans la forest avec les chains du
Pr. de Denm. et ay fait on assez jolie chasse, autant que ce vilain
paiis le permest. March 20/April 1 1698." The spelling is bad, but not
worse than Napoleon's. William wrote in better humour from Loo. "Nous
avons pris deux gros cerfs, le premier dans Dorewaert, qui est un des
plus gros que je sache avoir jamais pris. Il porte seize." Oct 25/Nov 4
1697.]

[Footnote 211: March 3. 1679.]

[Footnote 212: "Voila en peu de mot le detail de nostre St. Hubert. Et
j'ay eu soin que M. Woodstoc" (Bentinck's eldest son) "n'a point este a
la chasse, bien moin au soupe, quoyqu'il fut icy. Vous pouvez pourtant
croire que de n'avoir pas chasse l'a on peu mortifie, mais je ne l'ay
pas ause prendre sur moy, puisque vous m'aviez dit que vous ne le
souhaitiez pas." From Loo, Nov. 4. 1697.]

[Footnote 213: On the 15th of June, 1688.]

[Footnote 214: Sept. 6. 1679.]

[Footnote 215: See Swift's account of her in the Journal to Stella.]

[Footnote 216: Henry Sidney's Journal of March 31. 1680, in Mr.
Blencowe's interesting collection.]

[Footnote 217: Speaker Onslow's note on Burnet, i. 596.; Johnson's Life
of Sprat.]

[Footnote 218: No perso