The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I
General
The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I
Literature -- Collections
Born in 1643, died in 1715; accompanied William III from
Holland to England as chaplain in 1688; made Bishop of
Salisbury in 1689; his "History of Our Own Times" published
after his death in 1723-34, having been edited by his son;
other works published in his lifetime.
CHARLES II[105]
Thus lived and died King Charles II. He was the greatest instance in
history of the various revolutions of which any one man seemed
capable. He was bred up the first twelve years of his life with the
splendor that became the heir of so great a crown. After that, he
passed through eighteen years of great inequalities: unhappy in the
war, in the loss of his father, and of the crown of England. Scotland
did not only receive him, tho upon terms hard of digestion, but made
an attempt upon England for him, tho a feeble one. He lost the battle
of Worcester with too much indifference. And then he shewed more care
of his person than became one who had so much at stake. He wandered
about England for ten weeks after that, hiding from place to place.
But, under all the apprehensions he had then upon him, he shewed a
temper so careless, and so much turned to levity, that he was then
diverting himself with little household sports, in as unconcerned a
manner as if he had made no loss, and had been in no danger at all. He
got at last out of England. But he had been obliged to so many who had
been faithful to him, and careful of him, that he seemed afterwards to
resolve to make an equal return to them all; and finding it not easy
to reward them all as they deserved, he forgot them all alike. Most
princes seem to have this pretty deep in them, and to think that they
ought not to remember past services, but that their acceptance of them
is a full reward. He, of all in our age, exerted this piece of
prerogative in the amplest manner; for he never seemed to charge his
memory, or to trouble his thoughts, with the sense of any of the
services that had been done him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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