lence'. Her behaviour towards his majesty

before it, and its judgment will be regulated by facts and reasonings only.

7 Henrietta Maria, a lady of excellent beauty, &c.] Mr. Waller is very lavish in praise of the beauty of Henrietta Maria, in his poem inscribed to her on seeing her picture. The following lines are a specimen of his panegyric.

Your beauty more the fondest lover moves
With admiration, than his private loves;
With admiration! for a pitch so high

(Saved sacred Charles his) never love durst fly.
Heav'n, that preferr'd a sceptre to your hand,
Favour'd our freedom more than your command:
Beauty has crown'd you, and you must have been
The whole world's mistress other than a queen.
All had been rivals, and you might have spar'd
Or kill'd, and tyranniz'd, without a guard.

* * * * * * * * *
Such eyes as your's, on Jove himself have thrown
As bright and fierce a light'ning as his own.

And in another poem by the same gentleman, addressed to her, there are these lines :

Such a complexion, and so radiant eyes,
Such lovely motion, and such sharp replies;
Beyond our reach, and yet within our sight,

What envious pow'r has plac'd this glorious light!

Whether Mr. Waller has taken too great a poetical liberty, will appear from the following description of this lady by lord Kensington, whilst negotiating the match, in a letter to prince Charles, dated Feb. 26, 1624. "Sir, if your intentions proceed this way, as by many reasons of state and wisdom, (there is cause now rather to press it, than slacken it) you will find at lady of as much loveliness and sweetness to deserve your affection, as any creature under heaven can do. And, Sir, by all her fashions since my being here, and

will best of all appear by the following in

by what I hear from the ladies, it is most visible to me, her infinite value, and respect unto you. Sir, I say not this to betray your belief, but from a true observation, and knowledge of this to be so: I tell you this, and must somewhat more, in way of admiration of the person of madam; for the impressions I had of her were but ordinary, but the amazement extraordinary, to find her, as I protest before God I did, the sweetest creature in France. Her growth is very little short of her age, and her wisdom infinitely beyond it. I heard her discourse with her mother, and the ladies about her, with extraordinary discretion and quickness. She dances (the which I am a witness of) as well as ever I saw any creature. They say she sings most sweetly; I am sure she looks so a."

a

But whatever was her beauty, the temper of her mind was far from being amiable: she was bigotted to the Romish religion, industrious in promoting its interests, and an adviser and an encourager of the king in his most imprudent actions. "Go, coward,” said she to his majesty, (when about to seize the five members)" and pull these rogues out by the ears, or never see my face any more." When the civil war broke out, she went into Holland, and pawned the crown jewels, with which she bought ammunition, and sent to her husband. She soon afterwards returned, and gave him counsels most pernicious, as in the course of this work we shall see. Going again to Paris, she endeavoured to raise foreign forces for the king, though in vain; and, after his death, was reduced to great straits; insomuch that she requested

* Cabala, p. 312. b Echard. • Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, vol. I. p. 201. 12mo. Lond. 1723.

structions given to lord Carlton, dispatched

cardinal Mazarine to solicit Cromwell, that he would at least return her dowry: but his solicitations were ineffectual. During the exile of the royal family, she was full of intrigues to get the ascendancy in her son's councils, and frequently quarrelled with his most faithful servants. Some time before the restoration, "the lord Jermyn had the queen greatly in awe of him, and had great interest with her concerns, was married to her, and had children by her "." When Charles II. mounted the throne in reality, she came over to London; but again returned to Paris, where she died August 10, 1669.

The following extract will make a proper supplement to this note." The king's attachment to the counsels of the queen and her creatures, and his constant neglect of those of the truest friends of his own and the nation's real interest, is evident from the original letters of one of them, Sir Edward Nicholas, secretary of state to him and to his son and successor. I shall single out a few passages from these letters. In one to lord Hatton, then at Paris, dated Dec. 4, 1650, Sir Edward complains, that the counsels of the Louvre, where queen Henrietta resided, had been fatal to the crown of England. In another to the same lord, of the 1st of Feb. 1650-1, he expresses his fears, that those counsels, which ruined the father, and brought the good and hopeful king [Charles II.] into the sad condition in which he then was, would never do better. In one to the marquis of Ormond, of March 1, 1650-1, he observes, that for the king

Voltaire's Age of Lewis XIV. p. 88. vol. T. 8vo. Lond. 1752. b Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, p. 4. 8vo. Lond. 1735. c Formerly in 'the possession of William Nicholas, of West-Horsley in Surry, Esq. and now in that of Sir John Evelyn, of Wotton, in the same county, bart.

by him to Paris, dated at Wanstead, July 12, 16263.

[Charles II.] to put himself into the hands of those, whose counsels and conduct had been so apparently unfortunate to his blessed father and himself, was a prudence and policy that he could not fathom. And in one to lord Hatton, of the 7th of June, 1651, N. S. he prays, that the influence of those of the Louvre, which would be a great discouragement to honest men, might not prove as fatal to the young king as to his father"

"It is not unknown both to the French king and his mother, what unkindnesses and distastes have fallen between my wife and me, which hitherto I have borne with great patience, (as all the world knows) ever expecting and hoping an amendment; knowing her to be but young, and perceiving it to be the ill crafty counsels of her servants, for advancing of their own ends, rather than her own inclination: for at my first meeting of her at Dover, I could not expect more testimonies of respect and love than she shewed: as, to give one instance, her first suit to me was, that she being young, and coming to a strange country, both by her years and ignorance of the customs of the place, might commit many errors, therefore that I would not be angry with her for her faults of ignorance, before I had with my instructions learned her to eschew them, and desired me in these cases to use no third person, but to tell her myself, when I found she did any thing amiss. I both granted her request and thanked her for it; but desired her she would use me as she had

* Appendix to the Inquiry into the share which K. Charles I. had in the transactions of the Earl of Glamorgan, 1755.

This representation of king Charles to his

desired me to use her, which she willingly promised me, which promise she never kept: for a little after this, madam St. George taking a distaste, because I would not let her ride with us in the coach, when there was women of better quality to fill her room, claiming it as her due, (which in England we think a strange thing) set my wife in such an humour of distaste against me, as from that very hour to this, no man can say that ever she used me two days together with so much respect as I deserved of her; but, by the contrary, has put so many disrespects upon me, as it were too long to set down all. Some I will relate: as I take it, it was at her first coming to Hamptoncourt, I sent some of my council to her, with those orders that were kept in the queen my mother's house, desiring she would command the counte of Tilliers, that the same might be kept in her's: her answer was, she hoped that. I would give her leave to order her house as she list herself (now if she had said that she would speak with me, not doubting to give me satisfaction in it, I could have found no fault, whatsoever she would have said of this to myself; for I could only impute it to ignorance; but I could not imagine that she affronted me so, as to refuse me in such a thing. publicly). After I heard this answer, I took a time (when I thought we had both best leisure to dispute it) to tell her calmly both her fault in the public denial, as her mistaking the business itself. She, instead of acknowledging her fault and mistaking, gave me so ill an answer, that I omit, not to be tedious, the relation of that discourse, having too much of that nature hereafter to relate. Many little neglects I will not take the pains to set down, as her eschewing to be in my Company: when I have any thing to speak to her, I