enterprises. If the will of the nation be not
taken as to their defence, — if they should per-
chance think they need no armed defence, and
lose their passion for conquest, whence must
come the hire of their servants, — the soldierv?"

" They must help themselves with it," replied
the Duke, carelessly.

11 And if they find a giant at every man's door,
— a lion in the path to every one's field V* said
the divine.

" Thy learning hath perplexed thee, man.
These are not the days of enchantment, of wild
beasts, and overtopping men."

" Pardon me ; there are no days when men
may not be metamorphosed, if the evil influence
be but strong enough. There are no days when
a man's household gods will not make a giant of
him for the defence of their shrine. There are
no days when there are not such roarings in the
path of violence as to sink the heart of the spoiler
within him."

11 Let but the art of war improve like other
arts," said the Duke, "and our cannon will easily
out-roar all your lions, and beat down the giants
you speak of."

" Rather the reverse, I conceive," said the
plain-spoken clergyman. " The expense of im-
proved war is aggravated, not only in the outfit,
but in the destruction occasioned. The soldier
is a destructive labourer, and, as such, will not



SECOND AGE. 59

be overlong tolerated by an impoverished nation,
whose consent to strife is the more necessary the
more chargeable such strife becomes to them.
Furthermore, men even now look upon blood as
something more precious than water, and upon
human souls as somewhat of a higher nature than
the fiery bubbles that our newly-wise chemists
send up into the ether, to wander whither no eye
can follow them. Our cannon now knock down
a file where before a battle-axe could cleave but a
single skull. Men begin already to tremble over
their child's play of human life ; and if the day
comes when some mighty engine shall be pre-
pared to blow to atoms half an army, there may
be found a multitude of stout hearts to face it ;
but where is he who will be brave enough to fire
the touch-hole, even for the sure glory of being
God's arch enemy ?"

M Is this brother of thine seeking a patent for
some new device of war-engines?" inquired Charles
of the divine. " Methinks your discourse seems
like a preface to such a proposal. Would it were
so ! for patents aid the exchequer."

" Would it were so 1" said the Duke, " for a
king might follow his own will with such an
engine in his hand."

" Would it were so!" said Dr. Reede, " for
then would the last days of war be come, and
Satan would find much of his occupation gone.
Edmund, if thou wilt invent such an engine as
may mow down a host at a blow, I will promise
thee a triumph on that battle-field, and the inter-
cession of every church in Christendom. Such
a deed shall one day be done. War shall one



60 SECOND AOE.

day be ended ; but not by you, Edmund. Men
must enact the wild beast vet a few centuries
longer, to furnish forth a barbarous show to their
rulers, till men shall call instead for a long age
of fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes."

" Meantime," said Edmund, " they call im-
pertinently for certain accounts of the charges
of our wars which his Majesty is over gracious in
permitting them to demand."

" Do they think so V*

u They cannot but see," said the Duke, " by
the way his Majesty gave his speech to the Par-
liament, that he desires no meddling from them."

"And how did I speak?" asked the King.
" Did I not assure the Commons that I would
not have asked for their subsidies if I had not had
need ; and that through no extravagance of my
own, but the disorder of the times? And is not
that much to say when I am daily told by my
gentlemen of the palace, and others who know
better still, that my will is above all privilege of
Parliament or citv, and that I have no need to
account to any at all ? Plow did I speak ?"

" Only as if your wits were with your queen,
or some other ladv, while the words of vour
speech lay under your eye. Some words your
Commons must needs remember, from the many
times they were said over ; but further "

" Pshaw !" cried the King, vexed at the de-
scription he had himself asked for. " This learned
divine knows not what our Parliament is made
of. There are but two seamen and about twenty
merchants, and the rest have no scruple in com-
ing drunk to the house, and making a mockery



SECOND AGE. 61

of the country people when they are sober. How
matters it how I give my speech to them V*

" They are indeed not the people," observed
Beede ; " and I forewarn your Majesty that their
consent is not the consent of the people ; and
that however they may clap the hands at your
Majesty's enterprises and private sales, the people
will not be the less employed in looking back
upon Oliver "

" And forward to me?" inquired the Duke,
laughing.

" And forward to the time when the proud
father shall not be liable to see his only son re-
turn barefoot and tattered from a war where he
has spilled his blood ; or a daughter made the
victim, first of violence, and then of mockery,
through the example of the King's court ; and
no justice to be had but by him who ^brings the
heaviest bribe: — forward to the time when drunken
cavaliers shall be thought unfitting representa-
tives of a hungering people ; and when the money
which is raised bv the toils of the nation shall be
spent for the benefit of the nation ; when men
shall inquire how Rome fell, and why France is
falling; and shall find that decay ensues when
that which is a trust is still pertinaciously used
as prerogative, and when the profusion in high
places is answerable to the destitution below !"

" Nay ; I am sure there is destitution in high
places," cried the King, " and luxury in the
lower. I see not a few ladies outshining my
Queen in gallantry of jewels; and if you like to
look in at certain low houses that I could tell vou

G



62 SECOND AGE.

of, you will see wliat vast heaps of gold are squan-
dered in deep and most prodigious gaming. "

u True ; and therein is found the excuse of the
court ; that whenever the nation is over-given to
luxury, the court is prodigious in its extrava-
gance."

" Hold, man !" cried the King. " Wouldst
thou be pilloried for a libel?''

" Such is too common a sight to draw due
regard," coolly replied the divine. " Libels are
in some sort the primers of the ignorant mul-
titude, scornfully despised for their ignorance.
There are not means wherewith to give the
people letters in an orderly way ; so that they gape
after libels first, and then they gape to see them
burned by the hangman ; and learn one sort of
hardness by flinging stones at a pilloried wretch,
and another sort of hardness by watching the
faces of traitors who pray confidently on the scaf-
fold, and look cheerfully about them on the hang-
man's hellish instruments; and all this hardness,
which may chance to peril your Majesty, is not
always mollified by such soft things as they may
witness at the theatres which profanely give and
take from the licentious times. If the people
would become wise, such is the instruction that
awaits them."

" Methinks you will provoke us to let the peo-
ple see how cheerfully you would look on certain
things that honest gazers round a scaffold shrink
from beholding. It were better for you to pray
for me from your pulpit, like a true subject of
Christ and your King."



SECOND AGE. 63

H Hitherto I have done so ; but it pleases your
Majesty that from my pulpit I should pray no
longer. Alas !" cried he, casting a glance through
the window as he perceived that the vessel drew
to land, " alas ! what a raging fire ! And
another ! And a third !"

" The bonfires for the victory," quietly ob-
served Edmund.

Dr. Reede was forbidden to throw any doubts
abroad on the English having gained a splendid

DO 1

victorv. The King had ordered these bonfires
at the close of the fast day, They were lighted,
it appeared, somewhat prematurely, as the sun
vet glittered along the Thames ; but this only
showed the impatient joy of the people. The
church bells were evidently preparing to ring
merry peals as soon as the last hour of humilia-
tion should have expired. The King's word had
gone forth. It suited his purposes to gain a vic-
tory just now; and a victory he was determined
it should be, to the last moment. When the
people should discover the cheat, the favours oc-
casioned by it would be past recall. They could
only do what they had done before, — go home
and be angry.

This was all that now remained for Dr. Reede,
the King's landing being waited for bv a throng
of persons whose converse had little affinity with
wise counsel. Certain courtiers, deplorably cn-
nityes by the king's absence, sauntered about the
gardens, and looked abroad upon the river, in
hopes of his approach. An importation of French
coxcombs from Dunkirk, in fantastical habits, was

Q 2



64 SECOND A.GE.

already here to offend the eyes of the insulted
English people. It was not till Edmund (who
was not dismissed with Dr. Reede) hegan to ex-
hibit at home the confidence with which he had
been treated, that Dr. Reede and his lady became
aware how much these accomplished cadets could
teach Charles on the part of their own extrava-
gant master. Louis the Fourteenth knew of
more ways of raising money than even Charles.
He had taken to creating offices for sale, for
which the court ladies amused themselves in
making names. The pastime of divining their ob-
ject and utility was left to the people who paid for
them. They read, or were told, — and it made a
very funny riddle, — that the inspector of fresh-
butter had kissed hands on his appointment ;
that the ordainer of faggots had had the honour
of dining with his Majesty ; and that some mighty
and wealthy personage had been honoured with
the office of licenser of barber-wi^-makers.

The example of Louis in this and other matters
was too good not to be followed by one in cir-
cumstances of equal necessity. Edmund was not
by any means to delay the " discreet composure''
by which the minds of the people were to be
propitiated and satisfied. He was to laud to
the utmost the Duke's conduct of naval affairs,
— (whose 'credit rested on the ability of his
complaisant Clerk of the Acts.) He was to
falsify the navy accounts as much as could be
ventured, exaggerating the expenses and extenu-
ating the receipts, while he made the very best of
the results. lie was to take for granted the



SECOND AGE. 65

willingness of a grateful people to support the
dignity of the sovereign, while he insinuated
threats of the establishment of a civil list, — (a
thing at that time unknown.) All this was to be
done not the less for room being required for
eloquence about the sale of Dunkirk, and the
loan from France, and the bribe from Holland ;
— monuments of kingly wisdom all, and of
paternal solicitude to spare the pockets of the
people. All this was to be done not the less for
the bright idea which had occurred to some
courtier's mind that the making of a few new
ambassadors might bring money to his Majesty's
hands. There was more than one man about the
court who was very willing to accept of the dignity
of such an office, and to pay to the power that
appointed him a certain fair proportion of the
salary which the people must provide. One
gentleman was accordingly sent to Spain, to
amuse himself in reading Calderon, and another
to some eastern place where he might sit on
cushions, and smoke at the expense of the people
of England, and to the private profit of their
monarch. Amidst all these clever arrangements,
nothing was done for the security or the ad-
vancement of the community. No new measures
of defence ; no better administration of justice ;
no advantageous public works, no apparatus of
education, were originated ; and, as for the
dignify of the sovereign, that was a matter past
hope. 13 ut by means of the treacherous sale of
the nation's property and of public offices, by
bribes, bv falsification of the public accounts,

g 3



66 SECOND AGE.

breaches of royal credit were for the present
stopped, and the day of reckoning deferred. If
the Duke of York could have foreseen from whom
and at what time this reckoning would be de-
manded, he might have been less acute in his
suggestions, and less bold in his advice; and
both he and the King might have employed
to less infamous purpose this day of solemn fast
and deprecation of God's judgments. But, how-
ever true might be Dr. Reede's doctrine that the
sins of government are the sins of the nation, it
happened in this case, as in a multitude of others,
that the accessaries to the crime offered the
atonement, while the principals made sport of
both crime and atonement.

The false report about the late engagement
had gained ground sufficiently to answer the
temporary purposes of those who spread it. As
Dr. Reede took his way homewards, bonfires
gleamed reflected in the waters of the river, and
exhibited to advantage the picturesque fronts of
the wooden houses in the narrow streets, and
sent trains of sparks up into the darkening sky,
and illuminated the steeples that in a few more
seasons were to fall into the surging mass of a
more awful conflagration. On reach in if the
comfortable dwelling which he expected to be
soon compelled to quit, he gave himself up, first
to humiliation on account of the guilt against
which lie had in vain remonstrated, and then to
addressing to the King a strong written appeal
on behalf of the conscientious presby terian clergy,
who had, on the faith of the royal word, believed



SECOND AGE. 67

themselves safe from such temptations to violate
their consciences as they were now suffering
under.

On a certain Saturday of the same month
might be seen the most magnificent triumph that
ever floated on the Thames. It far exceeded the
Venetian pageantry on occasion of espousing the
Adriatic. The city of London was entertaining
the King and Queen ; and the King was not at
all sorry that the people were at the same time
entertained, while he was making up his mind
whether, on dissolving the Parliament, he should
call another which would obligingly give him the
dean and chapter lands, or whether he should
let it be seen, according to the opinion of his
brother, that there was no need of any more
parliaments. As he sat beside his Queen, in an
antique-shaped vessel, under a canopy of cloth of
gold, supported by Corinthian pillars, wreathed
with flowers, festoons, and garlands, he meditated
on the comfort that would accrue, on the one
hand, from all his debts being paid out of these
church lands, and, on the other, from such an
entire freedom from responsibility as he should
enjoy when there should be no more speeches to
make to his Commons, and no more remonstrances
to hear from them, grounded on dismal tales of
the distresses of his people which lie had rather
not hear. The thrones and triumphal arches
might do for the corporation of London to amuse
itself with, and for the little boys and girls on
either side of the river to stare at and admire:
but it was in somewhat too infantine a taste to



GS SECOND AGE.

please tLe majority of the gazers otherwise tlum
as a revival of antique amusements. The most
idly luxurious about the court preferred entertain-
ments which had a little more meaning in them,
— dramatic spectacles, pictures, music, and fine
buildings and gardens. War is also a favourite
excitement in the middle age of refinement ; and
the best part of this day's entertainments, next
to the music, was the peals of ordnance both from
the vessels and the shore, which might prettily
remind the gallants, amidst their mirth and their
soft flirtations, of the cannonading that was going
on over the sea. Within a small section of the
city of London, many degrees of mirth might be
found this day.

In the royal barge, the Queen cast her " lan-
guishing and excellent eyes " over the pageant
before her, and returned the salutations of the
citizens who made obeisances in passing, and
now and then exchanged a few words with her
Portuguese maids of honour, the King being too
thoughtful to attend to her ; — altogether not very
merry.

In the barge immediately following, certain of
the King's favourites made sport of the Queen's
foretop, — turned aside very strangely, — of the
monstrous fardingales and olivada complexions
and unagreeable voices of her Portuguese ladies,
— and of the old knight, her friend, whose bald pate
was covered by a huge lock of hair, bound on by
a thread, very oddly. The King's gravity also
made a good joke ; and there was an amusing
incident of a boat being upset, which furnished



SECOND AGE. 6 9

laughter for a full half hour. A family of Presby-
terians, turned out of a living because the King
had broken his word, were removing their chattels
to some poor place on the other side of the river,
and had unawares got their boat entangled in the
procession, and were run down by a royal barge.
It was truly laughable to see first the divine, and
then his pretty daughters, with their dripping long
hair, picked up from the water, while all their
little wealth went to the bottom: and yet more
so to witness how, when the King, of his bounty,
threw gold to the sufferers, the clergyman tossed
it back so vehementlv that it would have struck

4

the Duke of York on the temple, if he had not
dexterously contrived to receive it on the crown
of his periwig. It was a charming adventure to
the King's favourites ; — very merry.

In the mansions by the river side, certain
gentlemen from the country were settling them-
selves, in preparation for taking office under the
government. They and their fathers had been
out of habits of business for fourscore vears, and
were wholly incapable of it, and knew themselves
to be so ; the best having given themselves to
rural employments, and others to debauchery ;
but, as all men were now declared incapable of
. employment who had served against the King,
and as these cavaliers knew that their chief busi-
ness was to humour his Majesty, they made
themselves easy about their responsibilities, looked
after their tapestries, plate, and pictures, talked
of the toils and cares of office, and were — very
merrv.



70 second age.

In the narfow streets in their neighbourhood
might be hourly seen certain of the King's
soldiers, belted and armed, cursing, swearing, and
stealing; running into public-houses to drink,
and into private ones to carry off whatever they
had a mind to; leaving the injured proprietors
disposed to reflect upon Oliver, and to commend
him, — what brave things he did, and how safe a
place a man's own house was in his time, and
how lie made the neighbour princes fear him ;
while now, a prince that came in with all the
love, and prayers, and good-liking of his people,
who had given greater signs of lovaltv and wil-
lingness to serve him with their estates than ever
was done by any people, could get nothing but
contempt abroad, and discontent at home ; and
had indeed lost all so soon, that it was a miracle
how any one could devise to lose so much in so
little time. These housekeepers, made sage by
circumstance, looked and spoke with something
very little like mirth. Those who had given oc-
casion to such thoughts were, meantime, — very
merrv.

It was not to these merry men, wise people
thought, that the King must look for help in the
day of war, but to the soldiers of the republican
army, who had been declared by act of parlia-
ment for evermore incapable of serving the king-
dom. But where were these men to be found,
if wanted? Not one could be met with begging
in the streets to tell how his comrades might be
reached. One captain in the old parliament
army was turned shoemaker, and another a



SECOND AGE. 71

baker. This lieutenant was now a haberdasher ;
that a brewer. Of the common soldiers, some
were porters, and others mechanics in their
aprons, and husbandmen in their frocks, and
all as quiet and laborious as if war had never
been their occupation. The spirits of these men
had been trained in contentment with God's
providences ; and though, as they sat at the loom
and the last, they had many discontented thoughts
of man's providences, it was clear to observers
among the King's own servants that he was a
thousand times safer from any evil meant by
them than from his own unsatisfied and insatiable
cavaliers. While the staid artizans who had
served under Cromwell looked out upon the river
as the procession passed, they dropped a few
words in their families about the snares of the
Evil One, and were — not very merry.

Within hearing of the ordnance in which the
young gallants of the court delighted was an
hospital, meagrely supplied with the comforts
which its inmates required, where languished, in
a crowded space, many of the soldiers and sailors
who had been set up to be fired at while it was
known in high quarters that there was such a
deficiency of ammunition as must deprive the
poor fellows of the power of effectual self-defence.
This fact had become known, and it had sunk
deep into the souls of the brave fellows who,
maimed, feverish, and heart-sore, — in pain for
want of the proper means of cure, and half suffo-
cated from the number of their fellow-sufferers,
listened with many a low-breathed curse to the



72 SECOND ACE.

peals of ordnance that shook their crazy place of
refuge, and forswore mirth and allegiance to-
gether.

Within hearing of the shouts and of a faint
occasional breath of music from the royal band,
were certain of the two thousand clergy, who
were to resign their livings the next morning,
and whose families were taking advantage of the
neighbourhood being deserted for the day to re-
move their furniture, and betake themselves to
whatever place they might have found wherein
the righteous could lay his head. Dr. Reede was
one of these. He had been toiling all dav with
his wife, demolishing the tout ensemble of com-
fort which had been formed under her manage-
ment. He was now, while she was engaged with
her infants, sitting alone in his study for the last
time. He was doing nothing ; for his business
in this place was closed. He let his eye be
amused by the quick flickering in the breeze of
the short, shining grass of his little court, which
stretched up to his window. The dark formal
shrubs, planted within the paling by his own
hand, seemed to nod to him as the wind passed
over their heads. The summer flowers in the
lozenge-shaped parterres which answered to each
other, danced and kissed unblamed beneath the
Rev. Doctor's gaze. All looked as if Nature's
heart were merry, however sad might be those of
her thoughtful children. The Doctor stepped
out upon the grass. There was yet more for
him to do there. He had, with his own hands,
mowed the plat, and clipped the borders ;



SECOND AGE. 73

and the little hands of the elder of his two chil-
dren had helped to pluck out the very few weeds
that had sprung up. But the weather had been
warm and dry, and, in order to leave the place
in the beauty desired by its departing tenant, it
was necessary to water the flower-court. It was
not a very inspiriting thing to glance at doors
and windows standing wide, displaying the naked-
ness of an empty dwelling within : so the Doc-
tor hastened to the well to fill his bucket. Mrs.
Reede heard the jingle of the chain, and showed
herself at an upper window, while the child that
could walk made her way down stairs with all
speed to help papa, and wonder at her own round
little face in the full bucket. Mrs. Reede was
glad that her husband had turned out of his
study, though she could not bring herself to
sympathize in his anxiety to leave all in a state
of the greatest practicable beauty. If a gale had
torn up the shrubs, or the hot sun of this summer
day had parched the grass and withered the
flowers, she did not think she could have been
sorry. But it was very well that her husband
had left his study open for the further operations
necessary there. This room had remained the
very last in its entireness. The time was now
come when she must have asked her husband to
quit his chair and desk, and let his books be dis-
lodged. She would make haste to complete the
work of spoliation, and she hoped he would make
a long task of watering the flower-court.

He was not likely to do that when he had
once perceived that she and one of her damsels
23 h



74 SECOND AGE.

were lifting heavy loads of books, while another