unable to do more mischief, sate down, and gnawed the straw on the floor." Another time, it is added, on the same authority, "when a page presented a letter, the king attempted to tear out his eyes, nor did the boy escape without severe scars." These were doubtless demonstrations, supposing them not exaggerated in the recital, that had better have been avoided; but Henry had often that to contend with which was enough to make the wisest mad; such oubhreaks do not appear to have been frequent; and, if the storm was sufficiently terrific while it lasted, it never lasted long. Nor were the rash and furious words usually followed by any corresponding ferocity of action. If Henry was passionate, he was certainly neither vindictive nor cruel. He may have put little restraint upon his passions in other respects as well as in giving way to excesses of rage, and he had probably his share in the general licentiousness of his time; but he nowhere revolts us by showing either want of heart or any thing of coarseness or baseness of nature. It is probable, from all that history and tradition tell us of him, that there was always as much of sentiment as of sensuality in his licentiousness. His affection for his children, so long as they would suffer him to love them, seems to have been only too tender and indulgent; and even after their repeated ingratitude he was always to the last ready to forgive them and to take them again to his heart. Ambitious he was, indisputably, and fond of power; and as such, he was necessarily unscrupulous, and in pursuing his great and aspiring schemes, would at times break his way in a somewhat reckless and startling fashion through restraints that checked more timid spirits. Having also frequently to act by policy as well as by force, and to contend with the one as much as with the other--for it was an age of overreaching and trickery--he may have sometimes gone farther in the way of artifice and deception than would now be thought correct. But a fair consideration of his conduct as recorded does not at all bear out the charge made against him by some hostile declaimers--principally or exclusively ecclesiastics--during his contest with the church, that he was a shameless and systematic liar, that he never pledged his word except with the intention of breaking it at the first opportunity. This is the mere extravagance of party malice or passion. When Cardinal Viviani, after conversing with Henry, declared that he had never known his equal in lying, we can only conclude that the churchman found himself no match in diplomatic subtlety and stratagem for the king.