the forfeitures; against "libellous and seditious pamphlets and
discourses from Scotland," framed by factious spirits, and republished
in London--this was in 1640; and Charles, at the crisis of that great
insurrection in which he was to be at once the actor and the spectator,
fondly imagined that the possessors of these "scandalous" pamphlets
would bring them, as he proclaimed "to one of his majesty's justices of
peace, to be by him sent to one of his principal secretaries of state!"

On the Restoration, Charles the Second had to court his people by his
domestic regulations. He early issued a remarkable proclamation, which
one would think reflected on his favourite companions, and which
strongly marks the moral disorders of those depraved and wretched times.
It is against "vicious, debauched, and profane persons!" who are thus
described:--

"A sort of men of whom we have heard much, and are sufficiently
ashamed; who spend their time in taverns, tippling-houses and
debauches; giving no _other evidence of their affection to us but in
drinking our health_, and inveighing against all others who are not
of their own dissolute temper; and who, in truth, have _more
discredited our cause_, by the license of their manners and lives,
than they could ever advance it by their affection or courage. We
hope all persons of honour, or in place and authority, will so far
assist us in discountenancing such men, that their discretion and
shame will persuade them to reform what their conscience would not;
and that the displeasure of good men towards them may supply what the
laws have not, and, it may be, cannot well provide against; there
being by the license and corruption of the times, and the depraved
nature of man, many enormities, scandals, and impieties in practice
and manners, which _laws cannot well describe, and consequently not
enough provide against_, which may, by the example and severity of
virtuous men, be easily discountenanced, and by degrees suppressed."

Surely the gravity and moral severity of Clarendon dictated this
proclamation! which must have afforded some mirth to the gay, debauched
circle, the loose cronies of royalty!

It is curious that, in 1660, Charles the Second issued a long
proclamation for the strict observance of Lent, and alleges for it the
same reason as we found in Edward the Sixth's proclamation, "for the
good it produces in the employment of _fis