142

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

VIII.

1687 .

born in a humble rank, might well have raised him to theheight of civil greatness. All these advantages he had so im-proved that, before he was of age, he was allowed to be one ofthe finest gentlemen and finest scholars of his time. Hislearning is proved by notes which are still extant in his hand-writing on books in almost every department of literature. Hespoke French like a gentleman of Lewis’s bedchamber, andItalian like a citizen ofFlorence. It was impossible that ayouthof such parts should not be anxious to understand the groundson which his family had refused to conform to the religion ofthe state. He studied the disputed points closely, submittedhis doubts to priests of his own faith, laid their answers beforeTillotson, weighed the arguments on both sides long andattentively, and, after an investigation which occupied twoyears, declared himself a Protestant. The Church of Eng-land welcomed the illustrious convert with delight. His po-pularity was great, and became greater when it was knownthat royal solicitations and promises had been vainly em-ployed to seduce him back to the superstition which he hadabjured. The character of the young Earl did not howeverdevelope itself in a manner quite satisfactory to those whohad borne the chief part in his conversion. His morals by nomeans escaped the contagion of fashionable libertinism. Intruth the shock which had overturned his early prejudices hadat the same time unfixed all his opinions, and left him to theunchecked guidance of his feelings. But, though his principleswere unsteady, his impulses were so generous, his temperso bland, his manners so gracious and easy, that it was impos-sible not to love him. He was early called the King of Hearts,and never, through a long, eventful, and chequered life, losthis right to that name.*

Shrewsbury was Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire andColonel of one of the regiments of horse which had been

* Core’s Shrewsbury Correspondence; Mackay’s Memoirs; Life ofCharles Duke of Shrewsbury, 1118; Burnet, i. 162.; Birch’s Life ofTillotson, where the reader will find a letter from Tillotson to Shrews-bury, which seems to me a model of serious, friendly, and gentlemanlikereproof.