d pious
contemplation, below the current of the world's events, his thoughts, on
the contrary, never were for a moment diverted from the political surface
of the times. He read nothing but despatches; he wrote or dictated
interminable ones in reply, as dull and prolix as any which ever came
from his pen. He manifested a succession of emotions at the course of
contemporary affairs, as intense and as varied, as if the world still
rested in his palm. He was, in truth, essentially a man of action. He had
neither the taste nor talents which make a man great in retirement. Not a
lofty thought, not a generous sentiment, not a profound or acute
suggestion in his retreat has been recorded from his lips. The epigrams
which had been invented for him by fabulists have been all taken away,
and nothing has been substituted, save a few dull jests exchanged with
stupid friars. So far from having entertained and even expressed that
sentiment of religious toleration for which he was said to have been
condemned as a heretic by the inquisition, and for which Philip was
ridiculously reported to have ordered his father's body to be burned, and
his ashes scattered to the winds, he became in retreat the bigot
effectually, which during his reign he had only been conventionally.
Bitter regrets that he should have kept his word to Luther, as if he had
not broken faith enough to reflect upon in his retirement; stern
self-reproach for omitting to put to death, while he had him in his
power, the man who had caused all the mischief of the age; fierce
instructions thundered from his retreat to the inquisitors to hasten the
execution of all heretics, including particularly his ancient friends,
preachers and almoners, Cazalla and Constantine de Fuente; furious
exhortations to Philip--as if Philip needed a prompter in such a
work--that he should set himself to "cutting out the root of heresy with
rigor and rude chastisement;"--such explosions of savage bigotry as
these, alternating with exhibitions of revolting gluttony, with surfeits
of sardine omelettes, Estramadura sausages, eel pies, pickled partridges,
fat capons, quince syrups, iced beer, and flagons of Rhenish, relieved by
copious draughts of senna and rhubarb, to which his horror-stricken
doctor doomed him as he ate--compose a spectacle less attractive to the
imagination than the ancient portrait of the cloistered Charles.
Unfortunately it is the one which was painted from life.

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