d
his surprise that his brother of England should be so long in being
delivered of his big belly. The king sent him word, that, as soon as he
was up, he would present so many lights at Notre-dame, as would perhaps
give little pleasure to the king of France; alluding to the usual
practice at that time of women after childbirth. Immediately on his
recovery, he led an army into L'Isle de France, and laid every thing
waste with fire and sword. He took the town of Mante, which he reduced
to ashes. But the progress of these hostilities was stopped by an
accident which soon after put an end to William's life. His horse
starting aside of a sudden, he bruised his belly on the pommel of the
saddle; and being in a bad habit of body, as well as somewhat advanced
in years, he began to apprehend the consequences, and ordered himself
to be carried in a litter to the monastery of St Gervas. Finding his
illness increase, and being sensible of the approach of death, he
discovered at last the vanity of all human grandeur, and was struck with
remorse for those horrible cruelties and acts of violence, which, in the
attainment and defence of it, he had committed during the course of
his reign over England. He endeavored to make atonement by presents to
churches and monasteries; and he issued orders that Earl Morcar, Siward,
Bearne, and other English prisoners, should be set at liberty. He was
even prevailed on, though not without reluctance, to consent, with his
dying breath, to release his brother Odo, against whom he was extremely
incensed. He left Normandy and Maine to his eldest son, Robert: he
wrote to Lanfranc, desiring him to crown William king of England; he
bequeathed to Henry nothing but the possessions of his mother, Matilda;
but foretold that he would one day surpass both his brothers in power
and opulence. He expired in the sixty-third year of his age, in the
twenty-first year of his reign over England, and in the fifty-fourth of
that over Normandy.

Few princes have been more fortunate than this great monarch, or were
better entitled to grandeur and prosperity, from the abilities and the
vigor of mind which he displayed in all his conduct. His spirit was
bold and enterprising, yet guided by prudence; his ambition, which was
exorbitant, and lay little under the restraints of justice, still less
under those of humanity, ever submitted to the dictates of sound policy.
Born in an age when the minds of men were intractable, and unac