olly discontinued, or, at least, had become very remiss in, the
payments of Charles's pension; and it is not unlikely that this
consideration induced him either really to think of calling a parliament,
or at least to threaten Louis with such a measure, in order to make that
prince more punctual in performing his part of their secret treaty. But
whether or not any secret change was really intended, or if it were to
what extent, and to what objects directed, are points which cannot now be
ascertained, no public steps having ever been taken in this affair, and
his majesty's intentions, if in truth he had any such, becoming abortive
by the sudden illness which seized him on the 1st of February, 1685, and
which, in a few days afterwards, put an end to his reign and life. His
death was by many supposed to have been the effect of poison; but
although there is reason to believe that this suspicion was harboured by
persons very near to him, and, among others, as I have heard, by the
Duchess of Portsmouth, it appears, upon the whole, to rest upon very
slender foundations.

With respect to the character of this prince, upon the delineation of
which so much pains have been employed, by the various writers who treat
of the history of his time, it must be confessed that the facts which
have been noticed in the foregoing pages furnish but too many
illustrations of the more unfavourable parts of it. From these we may
collect that his ambition was directed solely against his subjects, while
he was completely indifferent concerning the figure which he or they
might make in the general affairs of Europe; and that his desire of power
was more unmixed with love of glory than that of any other man whom
history has recorded; that he was unprincipled, ungrateful, mean, and
treacherous, to which may be added, vindictive and remorseless. For
Burnet, in refusing to him the praise of clemency and forgiveness, seems
to be perfectly justifiable, nor is it conceivable upon what pretence his
partisans have taken this ground of panegyric. I doubt whether a single
instance can be produced of his having spared the life of any one whom
motives either of policy, or of revenge, prompted him to destroy. To
allege that of Monmouth as it would be an affront to human nature, so
would it likewise imply the most severe of all satires against the
monarch himself, and we may add, too, an undeserved one; for, in order to
consider it as an act of meritorious for