t really
would seem to have been his own fault that he had not come long ago,
since everybody told him that he had always wished for him with all his
heart.

CHAPTER XXXV--ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND, CALLED THE MERRY MONARCH

There never were such profligate times in England as under Charles the
Second. Whenever you see his portrait, with his swarthy, ill-looking
face and great nose, you may fancy him in his Court at Whitehall,
surrounded by some of the very worst vagabonds in the kingdom (though
they were lords and ladies), drinking, gambling, indulging in vicious
conversation, and committing every kind of profligate excess. It has
been a fashion to call Charles the Second 'The Merry Monarch.' Let me
try to give you a general idea of some of the merry things that were
done, in the merry days when this merry gentleman sat upon his merry
throne, in merry England.

The first merry proceeding was--of course--to declare that he was one of
the greatest, the wisest, and the noblest kings that ever shone, like the
blessed sun itself, on this benighted earth. The next merry and pleasant
piece of business was, for the Parliament, in the humblest manner, to
give him one million two hundred thousand pounds a year, and to settle
upon him for life that old disputed tonnage and poundage which had been
so bravely fought for. Then, General Monk being made EARL OF ALBEMARLE,
and a few other Royalists similarly rewarded, the law went to work to see
what was to be done to those persons (they were called Regicides) who had
been concerned in making a martyr of the late King. Ten of these were
merrily executed; that is to say, six of the judges, one of the council,
Colonel Hacker and another officer who had commanded the Guards, and HUGH
PETERS, a preacher who had preached against the martyr with all his
heart. These executions were so extremely merry, that every horrible
circumstance which Cromwell had abandoned was revived with appalling
cruelty. The hearts of the sufferers were torn out of their living
bodies; their bowels were burned before their faces; the executioner cut
jokes to the next victim, as he rubbed his filthy hands together, that
were reeking with the blood of the last; and the heads of the dead were
drawn on sledges with the living to the place of suffering. Still, even
so merry a monarch could not force one of these dying men to say that he
was sorry for what he had done. Nay, the most memorable t