for some time at Kensington; and on the
twelfth day of April was deposited in a vault of Henry's chapel
in Westminster-abbey. In the beginning of May, a will which he had
intrusted with Monsieur Schuylemberg was opened at the Hague. In this
he had declared his cousin prince Frison of Nassau, stadtholder of
Friesland, his sole and universal heir, and appointed the states-general
his executors. By a codicil annexed, he had bequeathed the lordship of
Breevert, and a legacy of two hundred thousand guilders, to the earl of
Albemarle.

William III. was in his person of the middle stature, a thin body, a
delicate constitution, subject to an asthma and continual cough from his
infancy. He had an aquiline nose, sparkling eyes, a large forehead, and
a grave solemn aspect. He was very sparing of speech; his conversation
was dry, and his manner disgusting, except in battle, when his
deportment was free, spirited, and animating. In courage, fortitude, and
equanimity, he rivalled the most eminent warriors of antiquity; and his
natural sagacity made amends for the defects in his education, which had
not been properly superintended. He was religious, temperate, generally
just and sincere, a stranger to violent transports of passion, and might
have passed for one of the best princes of the age in which he
lived, had he never ascended the throne of Great Britain. But the
distinguishing criterion of his character was ambition. To this he
sacrificed the punctilios of honour and decorum, in deposing his own
father-in-law and uncle; and this he gratified at the expense of the
nation that raised him to sovereign authority. He aspired to the honour
of acting as umpire in all the contests of Europe; and the second object
of his attention was the prosperity of that country to which he owed
his birth and extraction. Whether he really thought the interests of
the continent and Great Britain were inseparable, or sought only to
drag England into the confederacy as a convenient ally, certain it is he
involved these kingdoms in foreign connexions which in all probability
will be productive of their ruin. In order to establish this favourite
point, he scrupled not to employ all the engines of corruption by
which the morals of the nation were totally debauched. He procured
a parliamentary sanction for a standing army, which now seems to be
interwoven in the constitution. He introduced the pernicious practice
of borrowing upon remote funds; an expedient