The ill-fated monarch, looking at him through the long vista of two centuries, was greatly to be pitied. The son of a king, who disregarded the instructions of his wise preceptor, George Buchanan, and who, in his rule over the English people, was prodigal, unprincipled, and tyrannical, he ascended the throne with a corrupt education, and urged to despotism and injustice by his infamous minister Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, he speedily exhibited in his regal capacity, a passion for power, which, as Macauley remarks, soon became “a predominant vice; idolatry to his regal prerogative, his governing principle. The interests of the crown legitimated every measure, and sanctified in his eye the widest deviation from moral rule.” Such was the son of a kingly father who was fond of cockfighting, and the brutal pleasures of inebriation, who utterly neglected the affairs of state on the plea that “he should not make a slave of himself;” who sold titles and privileges of all kinds, that his vices might be fed; and who basely deprived people of their patents, after having paid for them to himself. These were only a small portion of the sire’s iniquities. What surprise then can be entertained that Charles, his son, walked much in the father’s footsteps! Notwithstanding his despotic and infatuated measures, to which all the evils of the civil wars may be traced, yet he had many excellencies; and the closing scene of his unhappy life proved that had he been blessed with a wiser tutelage, and taught to govern with a just and righteous hand, he might have descended into the tomb with virtue and honour, embalmed in the grateful recollections of his country.