plunged himself into real to avoid imaginary evils. Hence the characteristic feature of his policy was delay: a hasty decision could not be recalled: but he persuaded himself that procrastination would allow him to improve every advantage which accident might offer. In his own dominions he wished, says a contemporary, to concentrate all power within his own person. He was jealous of every species of authority which did not emanate from himself, and which was not subservient to his will. His pride delighted in confounding the most haughty of his nobles, and depressing the most powerful families. He abridged their rights, divided their possessions, and married their heiresses to men of inferior rank. He was careful that his favourites should owe every thing to himself, and gloried in the parade of their power and opulence, because they were of his own creation. But if he was a bountiful master, he was a most vindictive enemy. His temper could not brook contradiction. Whoever hesitated to obey his will, or presumed to thwart his desires was marked out for his victim, and was pursued with the most unrelenting vengeance. His passion was the raving of a madman, the fury of a savage beast. In its paroxysms his eyes were spotted with blood, his countenance seemed of flame, his tongue poured forth a torrent of abuse and imprecation, and his hands were employed to inflict vengeance on whatever came within his reach. On one occasion Humet, a favourite minister, had ventured to offer a plea, in justification of the king of Scots: Henry's anger was instantly kindled. He called Humet a traitor, threw down his cap, ungirt his clothes, pulled the silk coverlet from his couch, and, unable to do more mischief, sat down, and gnawed the straw on the floor, Hence the reader will perceive that pride and passion, caution and duplicity, formed the distinguishing traits in his character. LINGARD. RICHARD I. IN many respects a striking parallel presents itself between this ancient king of England and Charles XII. of Sweden. They were both inordinately desirous of war, and rather generals than kings. Both were rather fond of glory than ambitious of empire. Both of them made and deposed sovereigns. They both carried on their wars at a distance from home. They were both made prisoners by a friend and ally. They were both reduced by an adversary inferior in war, but above them in the arts of rule. After spending their lives in remote adventures, each perished at last near home, in enterprises not suited to the splendour of their former exploits. Both died childless and both, by the neglect of their affairs, and the severity of their government, gave their subjects provocation and encouragement to revive their freedom. In all these respects the two characters were alike; but Richard fell as much short of the Swedish hero in temperance, chastity, and equality of mind, as he exceeded him in wit and eloquence. Some of his sayings are the most spirited that we find in that time; and some of his verses remain, which in a barbarous age might have passed for poetry. BURKE. To a degree of muscular strength, which falls to the lot of few, Richard added a mind incapable of fear. Hence in the ancient annalists he towers as a warrior above all his contemporaries. Nor was this preeminence conceded to him by the Christians alone. Even a century after his death his name was employed by the Saracen cavalier to chide his horse, and by the Saracen mother to terrify her children. But when we have given him the praise of valour, his panegyric is finished. His laurels were steeped in blood, and his victories purchased with the impoverishment of his people. Of the meanness to which he could stoop to procure money, and the injustices into which he was hurried by the impetuosity of his passions, the reader has found numerous instances in the preceding pages. To his wife he was as faithless as he had been rebellious to his father. If in a fit of repentance he put away his mistress, there is reason to believe that his reformation did not survive the sickness by which it was suggested. LINGARD. JOHN. THE arbitrary taxes, which he imposed very early in his reign, which offended even more by the improper use made of them than their irregularity, irritated the people extremely, and joined with all the preceding causes to make his government contemptible. Henry the Second, during his contest with the church, had the address to preserve the barons in his interests. Afterwards, when the barons had joined in the rebellion of his children, this wise prince found means to secure the bishops and ecclesiastics. But John drew upon himself at once the hatred of all orders of his subjects. His struggle with the Pope weakened him; his submission to the Pope weakened him yet more. The loss of his foreign territories, besides what he lost along with them in reputation, made him entirely dependent upon England; whereas his predecessors made one part of their territories subservient to the preservation of their authority in another, where it was endangered. Add to all these causes the personal character of the king, in which there was nothing uniform or sincere, and which introduced the like unsteadiness into all his government. He was indolent, yet restless in his disposition; fond of working by violent methods, without any vigour; boastful, but continually betraying his fears; showing, on all occasions, such a desire of peace as hindered him from ever enjoying it. Having no spirit of order he never looked forward; content by any temporary expedient to extricate himself from a present difficulty. Rash, arrogant, perfidious, irreligious, unquiet, he made a tolerable head of a party, but a bad king; and had talents fit to disturb another's government, not to support his own. A most striking contrast presents itself between the conduct and fortune of John and his adversary Philip. Philip came to the crown when many of the provinces of France, by being in the hands of too powerful vassals, were in a manner dismembered from the kingdom; the royal authority was very low in what remained. He reunited to the crown a country as valuable as what belonged to it before; he reduced his subjects of all orders to a stricter obedience than they had given to his predecessors. He withstood the papal usurpation, and yet used it as an instrument in his designs; whilst John, who inherited a great territory, and an entire prerogative, by his vices and weakness gave up his independency to the Pope, his prerogative to his subjects, and a large part of his dominions to the king of France. BURKE. When Giraldus delineated the characters of the four sons of Henry, John had already debased his faculties by excess and voluptuousness. The courtly eye of the preceptor could indeed discover the germ of future excellence in his pupil; but history has recorded only his vices: his virtues, if such a monster could possess virtues, were unseen or forgotten. He stands before us polluted with meanness, cruelty, perjury, and murder; uniting with an ambition, which rushed through every crime to the attainment of its object, a pusillanimity which often, at the sole appearance of opposition, sank into despondency. Arrogant in prosperity, abject in adversity, he neither conciliated affection in the one, nor excited esteem in the other. His dissimulation was so well known, that it seldom deceived: his suspicion served only to multiply his enemies: and the knowledge of his vindictive temper contributed to keep open the breach between him and those who had incurred his displeasure. Seldom per |