WTLDTAM AND MART.

53

about elopements, duels, and playdebts, by asking the tattlers,very quietly yet significantly, whether they had ever read herfavourite sermon, Doctor Tillotson’s on Evil Speaking. Hercharities were munificent and judicious; and, though she madeno ostentatious display of them, it was known that she re-trenched from her own state in order to relieve Protestantswhom persecution had driven from France and Ireland, andwho were starving in the garrets of London. So amiable washer conduct, that she was generally spoken of with esteem andtenderness by the most respectable of those who disapprovedof the manner in which she had been raised to the throne, andeven of those who refused to acknowledge her as Queen. In theJacobite lampoons of that time, lampoons which, in virulenceand malignity, far exceed any thing that our age has produced,she was not often mentioned with severity. Indeed she some-times expressed her surprise at finding that libellers who re-spected nothing else respected her name. God, she said, knewwhere her weakness lay. She was too sensitive to abuse andcalumny; He had mercifully spared her a trial W'hich wasbeyond her strength; and the best return which she could maketo Him was to discountenance all malicious reflections on thecharacters of others. Assured that she possessed her husband’sentire confidence and affection, she turned the edge of hissharp speeches sometimes by soft and sometimes by playful

only copy that I have ever seen of it was kindly given to mo by Sir RobertAdair. “Lo Roi,” Dolma says, “avoit une autre quality trbs estimable,qui est celle do n’aimer point qu’on rendit de mauvais offices U personaepar dcs railleries.” The Marquis de La Foret tried to entertain His Majestyat tho expense of an English nobleman. “Cc prince,” says Dolma, “pritson air stfvbrc, ct, lo regardant sans mot dire, lui fit rentrer les parolesdans le ventre. Le Marquis m’en fit ses plaintcs quelques heures aprbs.

‘ J’ai mal pris ma bisque, 1 dit-il; ‘j’ai cru fairo l’agrdable sur Ie cliapitre deMilord . . . mais j’ai trouvd it qui parler, et j’ai attraptS un regard du roiqui m’a fait passer l’cnvie de rirc. 1 ” Dolma supposed that William mightbo less sensitive about the character of a Frenchman, and tried the experi-ment. But, says he, “j’eus iipeu prbs le meme sort que M. de la Foret. 1 *

CHAP,

XI.

Ui8‘J.