CHARLES THE SECOND, HIS WIFE

AND MISTRESSES.

It is not the least fortunate circumstance in the present condition of England, that those startling outrages against morality and decorum which were formerly witnessed at court, are now unknown. The country must have been degraded in the eyes of foreigners, by such scenes as were common in the reign of Charles II. It was not the occasional condescending freaks in which he indulged that could console the nation for the culpable extravagance of "the good-natured monarch." The satires of the day, which have come down to us, give ample evidence of the disgust inspired by his mad dissipation. In the school of adversity he had failed to learn wisdom. Rochester's sarcasm, that

"He never said a foolish thing,

And never did a wise one,"

was too lenient, for he often spoke as absurdly as he acted.

It is possible, however, that had he been more happy in the choice of a wife, he would have been less enslaved by his favourites. That he did not love his royal partner was known, and this encouraged the sordid and the depraved to throw temptation in his way. The queen seems to have been greatly deficient in attraction. We are told, when Catherine first arrived in England she was dressed after the antiquarian fashion of Portugal, in a high boddice, ruff, and farthingale, which excited some insolent merriment in her new court, and which the king obliged her to alter. She had brought with her from Lisbon a bevy of Portuguese attendants, of whom De Grammont has left us a ludicrous description. Six "monsters," alias, Maids of Honour, ruffed and farthingaled like their mistress, surrounded her person; they were governed by an old duenna, (or guar da damas), more hideous than all her damsels, as stiff as pride and buckram could make her, with, we may suppose, double solemnity of ruff, and treble expansion of farthingale. Besides these, Catherine had in her retinue six almoners, a confessor, a Jewish perfumer, and an officer, whose function seems to have puzzled the whole court, entitled the "queen's barber." These foreigners, by their ignorance, bigotry, and officiousness, caused as much confusion as the French attendants of her predecessor, Henrietta Maria; and Charles soon followed the example of his father by shipping the whole cargo back to their own country, and surrounded the queen with creatures of his own. In the list of her new attendants laid before Catherine for her approbation, Charles had the effrontery to include lady Castlemaine, his acknowledged mistress. Catherine instantly drew

her pen across the name, and when the King insisted, she replied haughtily, "that she would return to her own country, rather than be forced to such an indignity." Her spirit, however, availed her little : Charles, spurred on by the female fury who governed him, was steady to his cruel purpose. On one particular occasion, when the queen held what we should now call a drawing-room at Hampton Court, lady Castlemaine was introduced in form by the king, Catherine, who did not know her, and heard the name imperfectly, received her with as much grace and dignity as the rest:-but in the next moment, recollecting herself, and aware of the public insult which had been offered to her, all her passions were roused; she started from her chair, turned pale as ashes; then red with shame and anger; the blood gushed from her nose, and she swooned in the arms of her women. The court was immediately broken up: but Charles, though probably touched with some compunction, had been persuaded by the profligates about his person, that the queen wished to govern him; that his dignity and authority would be comprised if he gave up the point; and fancied he was imitating his model Louis Quatorze, by forcing the queen to acquiesce in her own dishonour. Lord Clarendon, during this degrading contest between the wife and the mistress, had vainly opposed the king's intention; and at length, in disgust, absented himself from the court: upon which the king wrote to him a letter, of which the following is an extract:-"I wish I may be unhappy in this world, and the world to come, if I fail in the least degree of what I have resolved, which is of making my lady Castlemaine of my wife's bed chamber; and whosoever I find use any endeavours to hinder this resolution of mine, except it be only to myself, I will be his enemy to the last moment of my life. You know how true a friend I have been to you. If you will oblige me eternally, make this business as easy to me as you can, what opinion soever you are of; for I am resolved to go through this matter, let what will come of it, which again I swear before Almighty God: therefore, if you desire to have the continuance of my friendship, meddle no more with this business, except it be to beat down all false and scandalous reports, and to facilitate what I am sure my honour is so much concerned in; and whosoever I find to be my lady Castlemaine's enemy in the matter, I do promise, upon my word, to be his enemy as long as I live."

The marquis of Halifax in some degree excuses the libertiness in which he indulged on the score of constitution, and Hume seems disposed to advocate the apology. Having known such awful reverses, and

been so happily restored to his birthright, moderate reflection would have rendered him temperate, but throughout his life he appears to have been a heartless sensualist. The marquis says:

"It may be said, that king Charles's inclinations to love were the effects of health and a good constitution, with as little mixture of the seraphic part as ever man had. And though from that foundation men often raise their passions, I am apt to think his stayed as much as any man's ever did in the lower region. This made him like easy mistresses: they were generally resigned to him while he was abroad, with an implied bargain. After he was restored, mistresses were recommended to him, which is no small matter in a court, and not unworthy the thoughts even of a party. A mistress either dexterous in herself, or well-instructed by those that are so, may be very useful to her friends, not only in the immediate hours of her ministry, but by her influences and insinuations at other times. It was resolved generally by others whom he should have in his arms, as well as whom he should have in his councils. Of a man who was so capable of choosing, he chose as seldom as any man that ever lived. He had more properly, at least in the beginning of his time, a good stomach to his mistresses, than any great passion for them. His taking them from others was never learnt in a romance, and, indeed, fitter for a philosopher than a knight-errant. His patience for their frailties showed him no exact lover. It is a heresy, according to a true lover's creed, ever to forgive an infidelity, or the appearance of it. Love of ease will not do it, where the heart is much engaged; but where mere nature is the motive, it is possible for a man to think righter than the common opinion, and to argue that a rival taketh away nothing but the heart, and leaveth all the rest. In his latter times he had no love, but insensible engagements, that made it harder than most might apprehend to untie them. The politics might have their part; a secret, a commission, a confidence in critical things, though it doth not give a lease for a precise term of years, yet there may be difficulties in dismissing them; there may be no love all the while; perhaps, the contrary. He was said to be as little constant as they were thought to be. Though he had no love, he must have some appetite, or else he could not keep them for mere ease, or for the love of sauntering. Mistresses are frequently apt to be uneasy; they are in all respects craving creatures. He had wit enough to suspect, and he had wit enough too not to care. The ladies got a great deal more than would have been allowed to be an equal bargain in chancery, for what they did for

it. Little inducements at first grew into strong reasons by degrees. Men who do not consider circumstances, but judge at a distance, by a general way of arguing, conclude, if a mistress in some cases is not immediately turned off, it must needs be that the gallant is incurably subjected. This will by no means hold in private men, much less in princes, who are under more entanglements, from which they can. not so easily loosen themselves. His mistresses were as different in their humours, as they were in their looks. They gave matter of very different reflections. The last (the duchess of Portsmouth) especially was quite out of the definition of an ordinary mistress; the causes and manner of her being first introduced were very different. A very peculiar distinction was spoken of, some extraordinary solemnities that might dignify though not sanctify her function. Her chamber was the true cabinet council. The king did always by his councils, as he did sometimes by his meals; he sat down out of form with the queen, but he supped below stairs. To have the secrets of a king, who happens to have too many, is to have a king in chains; he must not only not part with her, but he must in his own defence dissemble his dislike; the less kindness he hath, the more he must show. The thing called sauntering, is a stronger temptation to princes that it is to others. The being galled with importunities, pursued from one room to the other with asking faces,-the dismal sound of unreasonable complaints, and ill-grounded pretences,-the deformity of fraud ill-disguised, all these would make any man run away from them; and I used to think it was the motive for making him walk so fast. So it was more properly taking sanctuary. To get into a room where all business was to stay at the door, excepting such as he was disposed to admit, must be very acceptable to a younger man than he was, and less given to his ease. He slumbered after dinner, had the noise of the company to divert him, without their solicitations to importune him. In those hours where he was more unguarded, no doubt the cunning men of the court took their time to make their observations, and there is as little doubt but he made his upon them too;-where men had clinks, he would see through them as soon as any man about him. In short, without endeavouring to find more arguments, he was used to it. Men do not care to put off a habit, nor do often succeed when they go about it. His was not an unthinkingness; he did not perhaps think so much of his subjects as they might wish; but he was far from being wanting to think of himself."

The last sentence gives but a sorry eulo

gium on the monarch of a great country. He did "think of himself," and it is to be regretted that so thinking, he did not consider that he might lose his head as his father had done before him, if he forgot what was due to his station. But like the wretched Louis XV, he judged the system as theu established would last his time, and cared not what might happen when he should be no more. As in the case of the last mentioned sovereign, it lasted while he lived. The people had been so thoroughly tired of the Puritans and their pretended reforms, that not even the heartless profligacy of Charles, (some instances were given in a late number) could produce such a storm as that which hurled his successor from the throne. France and England have dearly paid for the vices of their rulers. Both nations, if wise, will value the examples of propriety now offered by those who fill the high places.

A FORTUNATE ORPHAN. On Saturday, the 9th of August 1836, a poor woman with a child in arms, not a year old, called at the house of Mr. Nivison, farmer, Burnmouth, parish of Durrisdeer, and very modestly craved a lodging for the night-a request that was readily and charitably granted. The mother herself seemed of the age of 30; and her speech, manners, and appearance, altogether plainly indicated that her's was 110 common misery, although obviously of those who had seen better days. With gentle folks she was shy, modest, and bashful; but to a cottager's wife, who helped her to boiling water to make a cup of tea, she communicated the following scanty particulars, in the full conviction that the hand of death was upon her, and that all her earthly troubles would cease before the lapse of many days. She was a native of Glasgow, and had wealthy relations, who cast her off entirely at the age of sixteen, when she married a man to whom, right or wrong, they had decided objections. To her husband she bore two children, and after his death, which occurred seventeen months before, was delivered of the little child she carried in her arms. When the grave closed on his remains, she was left not only without a friend in the world, but in such destitute circumstances, that she felt compelled, shortly after her confinement, to adopt a wandering life, and beg, as she best could, her daily bread

"No a house to put her head in

No a friend to take her part." On one occasion, after a heavy fall of rain, she was permitted to retire to an out-house, but could not by entreaty obtain the privilege of warming her own and baby's clothes previous to stretching herself on a

straw pallet, where she wept and shivered rather than slept. Even in the morning her clothes were damp, and a severe attack of asthma supervened, which hourly became more severe. For her first-born children, who were cared for, she said, by a friend in Maxwelltown, she felt comparatively little anxiety; but the thought of leaving her baby among strangers distressed her unceasingly to such a degree that sometimes she wished, however unnatural the feeling might appear, that Providence would take it away before herself. This was the woman's statement, made a few hours before she breathed her last. On Sunday, Miss Nivison inquired of the servant girl whether she had seen the poor woman, and, on being answered in the negative, with the touching addition that the child had been heard crying early in the morning, instantly repaired to where she slept, and found the wanderer dead, with the baby behind her, resting on its face, and fast asleep.

The above facts were copied into the London and many other prints, and in this way attracted the notice of a lady of rank and fortune, who employed a friend to correspond with the editor of the paper in which the account first appeared, with the view of eliciting farther information. The editor did whatever he could, and in a few days, a most respectable female appeared in Dumfries, direct from London, for the purpose of conveying the child to the residence of its future protectress. A letter obtained from Mr. Cunningham, jeweller, Edinburgh, dissipated every doubt, had doubt existed, as to the perfect respectability of the agent in London, and with the consent of the Kirk Session, she was put in possession of a most interesting baby of the age of seven or eight months. The moment the temporary nurse saw the child, she exclaimed, "How like the infant the lady lost; it is its perfect picture; and these blue eyes are in themselves pearls beyond price." The generous lady determined from the first to adopt the child as her own, if certain questions were satisfactorily answered; and the orphan Scottish lassie, should health be granted, will receive a first-rate education, become a lady, and heiress to independence, if not to fortune.

Nine years have passed since the above striking narrative appeared in the Dumfries Courier with such happy effect. As the benefactress wished at the time that her name should be concealed, it would be wrong to make a revelation which might give her offence; but it could hardly be improper if those cognizant of the fact were to make known, whether the child lives to profit by the benevolence so mercifully extended to her in helpless infancy.