y the ghost of his father.

"And ghastly Charles, turning his collar low,
The purple thread about his neck does show."

The pensive king resolves on Clarendon's disgrace, and on rising next
morning seeks out Lady Castlemaine, Bennet, and Coventry, who give him
the same advice. He knows them all three to be false to one another and
to him, but is for the moment content to do what they wish.

I have omitted, in this review of a long poem, the earlier lines which
deal with the composition of the House of Commons. All its parties are
described, one after another--the old courtiers, the pension-hunters,
the king's procurers, then almost a department of State.

"Then the Procurers under Prodgers filed
Gentlest of men, and his lieutenant mild
Bronkard, love's squire; through all the field arrayed,
No troop was better clad, nor so well paid."

Clarendon had his friends, soon sorely to be needed, and after them,

"Next to the lawyers, sordid band, appear,
Finch in the front and Thurland in the rear."

Some thirty-three members are mentioned by their names and habits. The
Speaker, Sir Edward Turner, is somewhat unkindly described. Honest men
are usually to be found everywhere, and they existed even in Charles the
Second's pensionary Parliament:--

"Nor could all these the field have long maintained
But for the unknown reserve that still remained;
A gross of English gentry, nobly born,
Of clear estates, and to no faction sworn,
Dear lovers of their king, and death to meet
For country's cause, that glorious thing and sweet;
To speak not forward, but in action brave,
In giving generous, but in council grave;
Candidly credulous for once, nay twice;
But sure the devil cannot cheat them thrice."

No member of Parliament's library is complete without Marvell, who did
not forget the House of Commons smoking-room:--

"Even iron Strangways chafing yet gave back
Spent with fatigue, to breathe awhile tabac."

Charles hastened to make peace with Holland. He was not the man to
insist on vengeance or to mourn over lost prestige. De Ruyter had gone
after suffering repulses at Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Torbay. Peace was
concluded at Breda on the 21st of July. We gave up Poleroone. _Per
contra_ we gained a more famous place, New Amsterdam, rechristened New
York in honour of the duke. All prisoners were to be liberated, and the
Dutch, despite Sheerness a