succeeded, a la mode de France, to which this Favorite was a declared enemy vpon my certaine knowledge. There were indeede heinous matters laied to his charge, which I could neuer see prov'd; & you & I can tell of many that haue fall'n and yet suffer under that calamitie.'

What were the heinous matters laied to his charge' we are not informed. Clarendon certainly laboured under the suspicion of having been privy to the infamous money-transactions between Charles and Louis XIV., and this passage may refer to them but it could hardly relate to the disgraceful sale of Dunkirk to the French for 400,000l., because the Chancellor's forwardness in promoting that sale was avowed and notorious, and forms certainly a dark stain on his character. A suggestion also prevailed that his Majesty's marriage with the Infanta of Portugal, who was reported to be naturally incapable of bearing children, was principally promoted by this minister. Mr. Evelyn mentions the story: but he was in an error if he believed it. That Clarendon, whose daughter had married the Duke of York, should prefer a barren to a fertile wife for the King, is extremely natural : but, although she had no living issue, the Queen was twice declared to be pregnant; and Clarendon, who was an honest man, says in his Memoirs that he never either opposed or promoted the Portuguese match.

From another character, of a very opposite nature, Mr. Evelyn ought to have shrunk as from a tiger or a hyæna ; and it is with pain that we find him congratulating the savage monster on receiving the rewards of his ferocity. After this description, it is, perhaps, superfluous to write the name of Jefferies, with whom our worthy author was acquainted.

There was at the wedding,' of one Mrs. Castle, ' ye Lord Maior, the Sheriff, several Aldermen & persons of qualitie; above all, Sr. Geo. Jeffries, newly made Lord Cheife Justice of England, with Mr. Justice Withings, daunc'd with the bride and were exceeding merrie. These greate men spent the rest of the afternoone, till 11 at night, in drinking healths, taking tobacco, and talking much beneath the gravity of Judges that had but a day or two before condemned Mr. Algernon Sidney, who was executed the 7th on Tower Hill, on the single witnesse of that monster of a man, Lord Howard of Escrick,' &c.

It appears, too, that Mr. Evelyn knew his character:I dined,' says he, at our greate Lord Chancellor Jefferies, who used me with much respect :- he is of an assured and undaunted spirit, and has served the court-interest on all the hardiest occasions; is of nature cruel, and a slave to the court.' Mr. E. mentions, likewise, much too coolly, the exe

cution of Sir Thomas Armstrong without trial, for being engaged in Monmouth's conspiracy. When brought up for judgment, Sir Thomas insisted on his right of trial, the act giving that right to those who should deliver themselves up within a year, and the year not being expired: but Jefferies refused it; and, when Armstrong insisted that he asked nothing but law, Jefferies told him he should have it to the full, and ordered his execution in six days. When Jefferies went to the King at Windsor soon after the trial, the King took a ring from his finger and gave it to him. Yet Mr. Evelyn, one of the most compassionate of men, could dine at the table of this fiend, and call to give him joy on his promotion to a barony! The ingenuity which the crown-lawyers exercised in justification of Sir Thomas Armstrong's execution is remarkable. A year was allowed for the outlaws to surrender themselves but Sir Thomas was seized in Holland before the term expired; and, as he had not voluntarily surrendered himself within the allowed time, they contended that he could not claim the privilege of trial! Mr. Hume himself, unhappily the advocate of the Stuarts, does not palliate this act of injustice; observing that the seizure of Sir Thomas's person ought, in equity, to be supposed to be the accident which prevented his surrender.

James II. was a zealous and bigoted Catholic; very soon instituted public mass at Whitehall; established Popish justices in all the different counties; sent Lord Tyrconnel to succeed the Earl of Clarendon* in Ireland; and dismissed most of the great officers of state †, who would not promise him to consent to the repeal of the test and penal statutes against Popish recusants. The people seemed incomparably more alive to their spiritual than their temporal concerns; and, if James had not made the most open attack on the Protestant religion of the nation, he might, perhaps, with impunity, have exercised over it a despotic sway. Not contented, however, with enjoining the ministers to read in their churches his declaration for giving liberty of conscience, he imprisoned several of the bishops who had protested against it, and who refused to give bail for their appearance. The effect was prodigious: immense crowds of people, on their knees, begging the blessing of these prelates, and praying for them as they passed out of the barge along the Tower wharf. On their acquittal, says Mr. Evelyn, there was a lane of people, on their knees, as

* Son of the late Chancellor.

The Privy Seal was given to Lord Arundel, a zealous Catholic.

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the bishops passed and re-passed, to beg their blessing.' With such a feeling excited, the Prince of Orange advanced through an unresisting medium to the crown of England; and the daughter of the unhappy James did not suffer the joy which she felt at her own elevation to be disturbed by any idle pang for her father's misfortune:

I saw the new Queene and King proclaim'd the very next day after her coming to Whitehall, Wednesday, 13 Feb., with greate acclamation and generall good reception. Bonfires, bells, guns, &c. It was believ'd that both, especialy the Princesse, would have shew'd some (seeming) reluctance at least, of assuming her father's Crown, and made some apology, testifying by her regret that he should by his mismanagement necessitate the Nation to so extraordinary a proceeding, wch would have shew'd very handsomely to the world, and according to the character given of her piety; consonant also to her husband's first declaration, that there was no intention of deposing the King, but of succouring the Nation; but nothing of all this appear'd; she came into Whitehall laughing and jolly, as to a wedding, so as to seem quite transported. She rose early the next morning, and in her undresse, as it was reported, before her women were up, went about from roome to roome to see the convenience of Whitehall; lay in the same bed and apartmt where the late Queene lay, and within a night or two sate down to play at basset, as the Queene her predecessor used to do. She smil❜d upon and talk'd to every body, so that no change seem'd to have taken place at Court since her last going away, save that infinite crouds of people throng'd to see her, and that she went to our prayers. This carriage was censur'd by many. She seems to be of a good nature, and that she takes nothing to heart; whilst the Prince her husband has a thoughtful countenance, is wonderfull serious and silent, and seems to treate all persons alike gravely, and to be very intent on affaires; Holland, Ireland, and France calling for his care.'

The bishops were hardly treated in this affair. For preserving the very existence of the Protestant church, they were not only threatened but punished by James; who, for his own sake, on the rumour of the Prince of Orange's invasion, not only pardoned them but solicited their intercession to compromise matters. The invasion was successful: but the bishops, although not adverse to it, under all the circumstances, were not by any means prepared for the consequences. They liked not so sudden and unceremonious an assumption of the crown, and would have appointed a regency till some conditions were offered to the royal fugitive. The Archbishop of Canterbury not only declined to officiate at the coronation, but refused, together with many other prelates, to renounce his former oath of allegiance, or to swear obediREV. MARCH, 1820.

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ence to the new government; and the penalty, under this new government, being the loss of dignity and spiritual preferment, his Grace, and many others, were actually displaced. The Archbishop, however, (Sancroft,) considering that no canon or Divine law would justify the removal of the present incumbents, left Lambeth, when he retreated from it himself, -to be kept in possession by his nephew; and the latter, refusing to deliver it up to Dr. Tillotson, who was appointed primate, was dispossessed by the sheriff and imprisoned. Thus, between the two kings, the non-juring bishops fared very ill: but, says Mr. Evelyn, slyly enough, the truth is the whole cleargy had, till now, stretch'd the duty of passive obedience, so that the proceedings against these bishops gave no little occasion of exceptions.' The clergy, however, had, in more than one instance, within the preceding five-and-twenty years, made a barter of their power for profit. In the year 1664, they voluntarily resigned their right to tax themselves in convocation; and, from that time to the present, they have been taxed, in common with the people, by parliament. The king's influence over the church, in consequence of the ecclesiastical preferments which he could bestow, was more considerable than over the laity, so that the subsidies granted by the convocation were commonly greater than those which were voted by parliament; and the church, therefore, had no difficulty in making a quiet cession of the right to tax itself, and allow the commons to lay impositions on ecclesiastical revenues. Burnet says of this transaction of the clergy, that "it proved indeed a lighter burden, but was not so honorable as when it was given by themselves. Yet interest prevailing above the point of honour, they acquiesced in it. So the convocations being no more necessary to the crown, this made that there was less regard had to them afterwards; they were often discontinued and prorogued, and when they met, it was only for form." Another instance is mentioned in Mr. Evelyn's Diary, where he complains of the swarms of Papists and sectaries now [in 1672] boldly shewing themselves in their public meetings, in consequence of Charles's declaration of indulgence. He says, "The truth is, our bishops slip'd the occasion; for had they held a steady hand upon his Matys restauration, as they might easily have done, the Church of England had emerged and flourished without interruption; but they were then remisse, and covetous after advantages of another kind, whilst his Maty suffered them to come into an harvest, with which, without any injustice, he might have remunerated innumerable gallant gentlemen for their services, who had ruined themselves in the late rebellion;' referring, in this passage, to

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the fines for renewals of leases, which had not been filled up during the Interregnum, and were now to be immediately demanded.

The latter part of Mr. Evelyn's Diary becomes meagre. Under the date of May, 1694, he says, I went this day with my wife and four servants from Says Court, removing much furniture of all sorts, books, pictures, &c. to furnish the apartment my brother assigned me, and now after more than 40 years, to spend the rest of my days with him at Wotton, where I was born.' This brother died at the age of 83, in 1699, and the estate devolved on Mr. Evelyn, who remained there till the period of his own decease, in the fullness of age and honour, February, 1705. He enjoyed his faculties to the last: but, far from retiring from labour, he considered these faculties, his good health, and the stock of knowlege obtained from experience, as talents intrusted to him by Providence for the benefit of mankind; and he scorned in his old age to perform less diligently the duty which he had discharged in his youth. His latter years, therefore, were employed in carefully reviewing, correcting, and augmenting his original works. His virtuous and excellent wife, the companion of his fortunes, and in some measure also of his studies, for almost threescore years *" survived him about three years, and was buried by his side in the family-vault at Wotton. They had five sons and two daughters, who all died young except one; whose son was created a baronet in 1713.

Mrs. Evelyn (who outlived Mr. Evelyn) by her Will, dated 9 Feb. 1708, desired to be buried in a stone coffin near that of 66 my dear husband, whose love & friendship I was happy in 58 years 9 months, but by Gods Providence left a disconsolate widow the 27 day of February 1705 in the 71 year of my age. His care of my education was such as might become a father, a lover, a friend, and husband, for instruction, tenderness, affection & fidelity to the last moment of his life; which obligation I mention with a gratitude to his memory, ever dear to me; & I must not omit to own the sense I have of my Parents care & goodnesse in placing me in such worthy hands.""

The Diary is followed by some extracts from Mr. Evelyn's correspondence with many great men of the day, and by a few of his unpublished Essays: as also by several original letters from Charles I. to his Secretary of State, Sir Edward Nicholas. They begin at the time the King made his journey into Scotland in 1641; continue during his stay there; recommence on Sir Edward being appointed one of the com

* Biographia Britannica,

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