among the several controversies which have arisen there is no other wherein the natural rights of man on the one hand, and the authority of artificial institution on the other, as applied respectively by the Whigs and Tories to the English constitution, are so fairly put in issue, nor by which the line of separation between the two parties is so strongly and distinctly marked. There is some reason for believing that the court of Versailles had either wholly discontinued, or, at least, had become very remiss in, the payments of Charles's pension; and it is not unlikely that this consideration induced him either really to think of calling a parliament, or at least to threaten Louis with such a measure, in order to make that prince more punctual in performing his part of their secret treaty. But whether or not any secret change was really intended, or if it were to what extent, and to what objects directed, are points which cannot now be ascertained, no public steps having ever been taken in this affair, and his majesty's intentions, if in truth he had any such, becoming abortive by the sudden illness which seized him on the 1st of February, 1685, and which, in a few days afterwards, put an end to his reign and life. His death was by many supposed to have been the effect of poison; but although there is reason to believe that this suspicion was harboured by persons very near to him, and, among others, as I have heard, by the Duchess of Portsmouth, it appears, upon the whole, to rest upon very slender foundations.