UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND.

1G7

given up whole provinces to rapine and oppression, merelyfrom a wish to see none but happy faces round his own board -and in his own walks. No man is fit to govern great societieswho hesitates about disobliging the few who have access tohim for the sake of the many whom he will never see. Thefacility of Charles was such as has perhaps never been foundin any man of equal sense. He was a slave without being adupe. Worthless men and women to the very bottom ofwhose hearts he saw, and whom he knew to be destitute ofaffection for him and undeserving of his confidence, couldeasily wheedle him out of titles, places, domains, state secretsand pardons. He bestowed much; yet he neither enjoyed thepleasure nor acquired the fame of beneficence. He nevergave spontaneously; but it was painful to him to refuse. Theconsequence was that his bounty generally went, not to thosewho deserved it best, nor even to those whom he liked best,but to the most shameless and importunate suitor who couldobtain an audience.

The motives which governed the political conduct ofCharles the Second differed widely from those by which hispredecessor and his successor were actuated. He was not aman to be imposed upon by the patriarchal theory of govern-ment and the doctrine of divine right. He was utterly withoutambition. He detested business, and would sooner haveabdicated his crown than have undergone the trouble of reallydirecting the administration. Such was his aversion to toil,and such his ignorance of affairs, that the very clerks whoattended him when he sate in council could not refrain fromsneering at his frivolous remarks, and at his childish im-patience. Neither gratitude nor revenge had any share indetermining his course; for never was there a mind on whichboth services and injuries left such faint and transitory im-pressions. He wished merely to be a King such as Lewisthe Fifteenth of France afterwards was; a King who could

CHAP.

n.