it was
said, perhaps falsely, was ordered not to chaunt her praises in his
doggrel verse under the windows of Berkeley House. [190]

That Anne was in the wrong is clear; but it is not equally clear that
the King and Queen were in the right. They should have either dissembled
their displeasure, or openly declared the true reasons for it.
Unfortunately, they let every body see the punishment, and they let
scarcely any body know the provocation. They should have remembered
that, in the absence of information about the cause of a quarrel, the
public is naturally inclined to side with the weaker party, and that
this inclination is likely to be peculiarly strong when a sister is,
without any apparent reason, harshly treated by a sister. They should
have remembered, too, that they were exposing to attack what was
unfortunately the one vulnerable part of Mary's character. A cruel fate
had put enmity between her and her father. Her detractors pronounced
her utterly destitute of natural affection; and even her eulogists,
when they spoke of the way in which she had discharged the duties of the
filial relation, were forced to speak in a subdued and apologetic tone.
Nothing therefore could be more unfortunate than that she should a
second time appear unmindful of the ties of consanguinity. She was now
at open war with both the two persons who were nearest to her in blood.
Many who thought that her conduct towards her parent was justified by
the extreme danger which had threatened her country and her religion,
were unable to defend her conduct towards her sister. While Mary, who
was really guilty in this matter of nothing more than imprudence, was
regarded by the world as an oppressor, Anne, who was as culpable as her
small faculties enabled her to be, assumed the interesting character of
a meek, resigned sufferer. In those private letters, indeed, to which
the name of Morley was subscribed, the Princess expressed the sentiments
of a fury in the style of a fishwoman, railed savagely at the whole
Dutch nation, and called her brother in law sometimes the abortion,
sometimes the monster, sometimes Caliban. [191] But the nation heard
nothing of her language and saw nothing of her deportment but what was
decorous and submissive. The truth seems to have been that the rancorous
and coarseminded Countess gave the tone to Her Highness's confidential
correspondence, while the graceful, serene and politic Earl was suffered
to prescribe the cour