daunt, then in greate favour, for his pardon, whe obtain'd at the cost of 10001. as I heard. O ye selfish omission of this gentleman! what did I not undergo of danger in this negotiation, to have brought him over to his Majesty's interest, when it was intirely in his hands.

The active part which Mr. Evelyn took in this business, is almost the only instance of his busying himself in political affairs. A detailed account of his communications with Col. Morley, is given in the Appendix, Morley had much in his power: as Lieutenant of the Tower, he was absolute master of the city; he was Lieutenant of the confederate counties of Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, &c.; his brother-in-law was Governor of Portsmouth, and his own brother, Governor of Arundel castle. But his fatal diffidence' of Monk, who at that time was not suspected of having any design to bring in the King, if indeed he had conceived the project, is assigned as the reason of Morley's vacillating and temporizing conduct. The knowledge of Morley's sentiments, however, had no doubt some influence on Monk's decision, whose task was in fact one which required little cunning and involved little difficulty. Finding how the people and 'magistrates were disposed,' says the MSS. account drawn up by Sir Thomas Clarges,' (whatever his general intentions were, or first seemed to be,) he boldly and fortunately brought to pass that noble Revolution, following it to his eternal honour by restoring a banished Prince and the People's freedom.' We again transcribe from Mr. Evelyn's diary.

29 May. This day his Majestie Charles the Second came to London, after a sad and long exile and calamitous suffering both of the King and Church, being 17 yeares. This was also his birthday, and with a triumph of above 20,000 horse and foote, brandishing their swords and shouting with inexpressible joy; the wayes strew'd with flowers, the bells ringing, the streetes hung with tapissry, fountaines running with wine; the Maior, Aldermen, and all the Companies in their liveries; chaines of gold and banners; Lords and Nobles clad in cloth of silver, gold, and velvet; the windows and balconies all set with ladies; trumpets, music, and myriads of people flocking, even so far as from Rochester, so as they were seven houres in passing the Citty, even from 2 in ye afternoone till 9 at night.

I stood in the Strand and beheld it, and bless'd God. And all this was don without one drop of bloud shed, and by that very army which rebell'd against him; but it was ye Lord's doing, for such a Restauration was never mention'd in any history antient or modern, since the returne of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity; nor so joyfull a day and so bright ever scene in this Nation, this hapning when to expect or effect it was past all human policy.'

Mr. Evelyn's parallel is quite in the taste of the times; and some extravagance of expression may reasonably be allowed to the first paroxysms of joy which the re-establishment of a settled government, the anticipated gratitude and moderation of Vol. XIV. N. S.

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the recalled monarch, the brilliant prospects of personal honour and advantage that opened to the faithful royalists, and the setting up again of all the high places of their intellectual idolatry, would excite in the minds of the church and king party. Mr. Evelyn was but two and twenty when the differences between Charles I. and the Parliament were ripened into a civil war; too young to appreciate the grounds of the quarrel, but just of an age to enter with enthusiasm into the royal cause. That cause had acquired a sacredness in his imagination, from the tragical fate of one sovereign, and the adverse fortunes of another, the exiled heir. Charles the First, deposed and in exile, would in time have become an object of as little interest as James the Second was, after his abdication of the throne; but Charles the Martyr was at once exalted into the saint. Repugnant both to reason and to religion as is so gross a misapplication of the terms, (for Charles's reputed piety could no more constitute him a martyr, than his tyranny could make him a saint,) it is by a natural operation of feeling that we invest an illustrious sufferer with a character of sanctity: an illusion is thrown over the unearthly object of our reverence, when beheld in the shadowy light of the sepulchre, which at once heightens its stature, and softens down all the harsher traits of its character. Many a man has awakened simply by his death, emotions the very opposite of those which all the actions of his life conspired to perpetuate. This was signally the case with Charles I., who could in no other way have won the affections of the subjects he had oppressed; but the short-sighted politicians who condemned him to suffer, did an unintentional service to his fame, cancelling by that act, at least in the minds of a large proportion of his former subjects, all his political delinquencies. In the Blessed Martyr of Mr. Evelyn, we in vain attempt to trace any resemblance to the Charles the First of history. In place of the murdered king, a shadowy abstraction took possession of men's imaginations, the concrete idea of all that is venerable, captivating, or commanding in the attributes of royalty; and the title of king became itself a higher style in consequence of its association with this ideal object of adulation. That adulation went into the greater excess, because, as being paid to the deceased, it seemed to lose some of the essential meanness of flattery it had a shew of disinterestedness and sincerity, which disguised its true character, and thus favoured its most unbounded licence. But this was not all. The monarch was also regarded as invested with a sacerdotal character, as the head of the Anglican Episcopacy, which suffered an eclipse in his downfal; and the devoted loyalty of its members was ultimately blended, therefore, with their religious feelings. During the interregnum, when the use of the Common Prayer Book was

prohibited, some of the papists and other sectaries, it seems, used to taunt the good churchmen with the non-visibility of that which, if a part of the true Church, must needs suffer no interruption of existence. Some of our readers may be tempted to smile at hearing the way in which this objection was repelled. Sir Richard Browne, Mr. Evelyn's father-in-law, during the whole of his nineteen years' exile,' kept up in his chapel the 'Liturgy and Offices of the Church of England, to his no small bonour, and in a time when it was so low, and, as many 'thought, utterly lost, that in various controversies both with papists and sectaries, our divines used to argue for the visi'bility of the Church, from his chapel and congregation!! No wonder that they should have found in the restoration of the monarchy in the person of Charles II., a parallel to the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity.

But there were more rational grounds for rejoicing, or at least for acquiescing in that event. There were sober-minded men who regarded the King's return as the only means of re-establishing a constitutional, in place of a military government. Cromwell was no more, who alone could tame the violence of rival factions, and give bond, by his personal energy, for the security of men's social interests. The wizard was dead, whose spells the army, his demon servant, obeyed, which now threatened to turn against its masters, and would be exorcised only by the name of king. To escape from the evils of anarchy, or even from the uncertainties of an unsettled government, a very large portion of the nation would have been glad to submit to almost any arrangement that promised to be permanent; and they suffered themselves to be quietly made over by Monk to a Stuart, without taking a single precaution to secure their dearly purchased liberties. What it was that they had consented to have restored, and what they had parted with, it was not long before they were enabled very feelingly to ascertain. A few extracts from subsequent pages of Mr. Evelyn's diary, will place the matter in a sufficiently clear point of view.

6 July. [1660. About five weeks after the King's return] His Majestie began first to touch for ye evil, according to costome, thus: his Ma'tie sitting under his State in ye Banquetting House, the Chirurgeons cause the sick to be brought or led up to the throne, where they kneeling, ye King strokes their faces or cheekes with both his hands at once, at which instant a Chaplaine in his formalities says, "He put his hands upon them and he healed them." This is sayd to every one in particular. When they have ben all touch'd they come up againe in the same order, and the other Chaplaine kneeling, and having Angel gold strung on white ribbon on his arme, delivers them one by one to his Mitie, who puts them about the necks of the touched as they passe, whilst the first Chaplaine repeats," That is y true

light who came into ye world." Then follows an Epistle (as at first a Gospell) with the Liturgy, prayers for the sick, with some alteration, lastly ye blessing; and then the Lo. Chamberlaine and Comptroller of the Household bring a basin, ewer and towell, for his Ma'tie to wash.'

25 Jan. 1661.

After divers yeares since I had seen any play, I went to see acted "The Scornful Lady," at a New Theater in Lincoln's Inn Fields.'

'6 Jan. 1662. This evening, according to costome, his Majesty open'd the revells of that night by throwing the dice himselfe in the privy chamber, where was a table set on purpose, and lost his 1001. (The yeare before he won 15001.) The ladies also plaied very deepe. I came away when the Duke of Ormonde had won about 1000l. and left them still at passage, cards, &c. At other tables, both there and at ye Groom-porters, observing the wicked folly and monstrous excesse of passion amongst some loosers; sorry I am that such a wretched costome as play to that excesse should be countenanc'd in a Court which ought to be an example of virtue to the rest of the kingdome.

9. I saw acted" The 3rd Part of the Siege of Rhodes." In this acted ye faire and famous comedian call'd Roxalana from ye part she performed; and I think it was the last, she being taken to be the Earle of Oxford's misse (as at this time they began to call lewd women.)

15. There was a general fast thro' ye whole nation, and now celebrated at London, to avert God's heavy judgments on this land. There had fallen greate raine without any frost or seasonable cold, not only in England, but in Sweden, and the most Northern parts, being here neere as warme as at midsommer in some yeares. This solemn fast was held for ye House of Commons at St. Margaret's. Dr. Reeves, Dean of Windsor, preach'd on 7 Joshua, 12. Shewing how ye neglect of exacting justice on offenders (by which he insinuated such of the old King's murderers as were yet reprieved and in ye Tower) was a maine cause of God's punishing a land. He brought in that of the Gibeonites as well as Achan and others, concluding with an eulogie of the Parliament for their loyaltie in restoring ye Bishops and Cleargie, and vindicating the Church from sacrilege.

16. This night was acted before his Ma" "The Widow," a lewd play.'

'6 April. Being of the Vestry, in the afternoone we order'd that the Communion Table should be set as usual altar-wise, with a decent raile before it, as before the Rebellion.'

17 Aug. Being the Sunday when the Common Prayer Booke reformed and ordered to be used for the future, was appointed to be read, and the solemn League and Covenant to be abjured by all the incumbents of England under penalty of looseing their livings; our Vicar read it this morning.

20. There were strong guards in ye Citty this day, apprehending some tumults, many of the Presbyterian ministers not conforming. 21 Dec. One of his Maty's Chaplains preach'd, after which, in

stead of ye antient, grave, and solemn wind musiq accompanying y organ, was introduc'd a concert of 24 violins betweene every pause, after the French fantastical light way, better suiting a tavern or playhouse than a church.'

These were early days, which exhibited but a sample and earnest of what the nation gained by the restoration of the Court, the Church and the Theatre, and their simultaneous efforts to de-puritanize the community. All was not indeed, even in good Mr. Evelyn's opinion, as it should have been; but the King smiled upon him, and occupations of the most honourable and patriotic nature now devolving upon him, and engrossing his time, left little leisure for superfluous rumination or boding augury. He dined with the King, or with the Chancellor, or with the Queen Mother, and he went to royal balls and royal theatricals, till he was tired of the hurry of a court life, while at home he received the visits of Majesty and all its satellites. He could now go to church without seeing a me chanic, or one whose ordination was of doubtful validity, ascend the pulpit; he saw Ash Wednesday and Christmas day reinstituted, and the Communion Table again set altar-wise, the Presbyterians turned out, and the carcasses of those archrebels Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Ireton dragged out of their 'superb tombs in Westminster among the Kings, to Tyburne, hanged on the gallows there, and then buried in a deep pit.' He saw, and he records, these magnanimous triumphs, and I could he but feel elated at such a Restoration? It is a most salutary exercise of the feelings, to compel one's self to think none the worse of a man's integrity, piety, and even amiableness, on account of what seem to us palpable incongruities, but which, perhaps, taking all the circumstances into consideration, do not exceed what may be fairly allowed as the average proportion of human infirmity which forms the set off against the truest excellence of character. In our next Number, we shall endeavour to do justice to Mr. Evelyn's exemplary discharge of all the social relations, his devout and resigned temper, his scientific ardour, and his unaffected philanthropy.

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Art. IV. An Autumn near the Rhine; or Sketches of Courts, Society, Scenery, &c. in some of the German States bordering on the Rhine. 8vo. pp. 524. London, 1818.

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HE Rhine, the magnificent Rhine, while its very name calls up the idea of all that is wild, and rich, and majestic in scenery, forms a kind of central point in our historical recollec tions of marking periods and of illustrious individuals. With out ascending to the times of romance or plausible conjecture, we