; 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 dishonorable 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.

It has been remarked of Charles, that he never said a foolish thing nor
ever did a wise one; a censure which, though too far carried, seems to
have some foundation in his character and deportment. When the king
was informed of this saying, he observed that the matter was easily
accounted for; for that his discourse was his own, his actions were the
ministry's.

If we reflect on the appetite for power inherent in human nature,
and add to it the king's education in foreign countries and among the
cavaliers, a party which would naturally exaggerate the late usurpations
of popular assemblies upon the rights of monarchy, it is not surprising
that civil liberty should not find in him a very zealous patron.
Harassed with domestic faction, weary of calumnies and complaints,
oppressed with debts, straitened in his revenue, he sought, though with
feeble efforts, for a form of government more simple in its structure
and more easy in its management. But his attachment to France, after all
the pains which we have taken by inquiry and conjecture to fathom
it, contains still something, it must be confessed, mysterious and
inexplicable. The hopes of rendering himself absolute by Lewis's
assistance seem so chimerical, that they could scarcely be retained with
such obstinacy by a prince of Charles's penetration: and as to pecuniary
subsidies, he surely spent much greater sums in one season, during the
second Dutch war, than were remitted him from France during the whole
course of his reign. I am apt, therefore, to imagine, that Charles was
in this particular guided chiefly by inclination, and by a prepossession
in favor of the French nation. He considered that people as