d and dangerous course, to become the secret pensioner of
Louis, to whom, in return for his gold, he sacrificed the honour and
interests of Britain. He was too lazy and sensual to delight in playing
the part of a tyrant himself; but he never checked tyranny in others,
save in one instance. He permitted beastly butchers to commit
unmentionable horrors on the feeble, unarmed, and disunited Covenanters
of Scotland, but checked them when they would fain have endeavoured to
play the same game on the numerous, united, dogged, and warlike
Independents of England. To show his filial piety, he bade the hangman
dishonour the corpses of some of his father's judges, before whom, when
alive, he ran like a screaming hare; but permitted those who had lost
their all in supporting his father's cause, to pine in misery and want.
He would give to a painted harlot a thousand pounds for a loathsome
embrace, and to a player or buffoon a hundred for a trumpery pun, but
would refuse a penny to the widow or orphan of an old Royalist soldier.
He was the personification of selfishness; and as he loved and cared for
no one, so did no one love or care for him. So little had he gained the
respect or affection of those who surrounded him, that after his body had
undergone an after-death examination, parts of it were thrown down the
sinks of the palace, to become eventually the prey of the swine and ducks
of Westminster.

His brother, who succeeded him, James the Second, was a Papist, but
sufficiently honest to acknowledge his Popery, but, upon the whole, he
was a poor creature; though a tyrant, he was cowardly; had he not been a
coward he would never have lost his throne. There were plenty of lovers
of tyranny in England who would have stood by him, provided he would have
stood by them, and would, though not Papists, have encouraged him in his
attempt to bring back England beneath the sway of Rome, and perhaps would
eventually have become Papists themselves; but the nation raising a cry
against him, and his son-in-law, the Prince of Orange, invading the
country, he forsook his friends--of whom he had a host, but for whom he
cared little--left his throne, for which he cared a great deal, and
Popery in England, for which he cared yet more, to their fate, and
escaped to France, from whence, after taking a little heart, he repaired
to Ireland, where he was speedily joined by a gallant army of Papists
whom he basely abandoned at the Boyne, running awa