he reduced the country to obedience by his military skill and valour, and preserved it in a state of tranquillity and order by the wise and impartial administration of justice. Successful in all his warlike enterprises, he never once tarnished the laurels of victory by cruelty or unnecessary rigour to the vanquished. He knew how to maintain the authority of the laws, and to bridle the licentious, by salutary severity, and at the same time to temper the rigour of justice by the interposition {170} of mercy. He used to sit personally in the courts of judicature, and exerted himself to obtain for all the subjects an easy and expeditious decision of litigated causes. His hospitality, his unostentatious charity, his uncommon liberality to the learned, and the anxiety he showed to confer his favours in the manner least calculated to hurt their feelings, have been celebrated by one who had the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with these amiable traits of his character.[207] Nor has the breath of calumny, which has attempted in many ways to blast his reputation, ever insinuated that he oppressed or burdened the public, during his regency, in order to enrich himself or his family. Add to all these qualities, his exemplary piety, the only source of genuine and exalted virtue. His family was so regulated as to resemble a church rather than a court. Not a profane or lewd word was to be heard from any of his domestics. A chapter of the bible was always read at table after dinner and supper; and it was his custom, on such occasions, to require his chaplain, or some learned man present, to give his opinion upon the passage, for his own instruction and that of his family. “A man truly good,” says archbishop Spotswood, “and worthy to be ranked among the best governors that this kingdom hath enjoyed, and, therefore, to this day honoured with the title of The Good Regent.”[208]