I avoid dwelling on the bitter anguish of the Beaumont family at the dreadful catastrophe of the long-imprisoned King. Its pious head added largely to his intercessory prayers, imploring heaven to avert its vengeance from all who had inadvertently been accessary to the fact, to forgive those who repented of the heinous sin, and to soften the hearts of those who still gloried in having murdered their Sovereign. For the English nation, his petitions were most fervent and impressive. The character of the young King had in it some traits which excited his apprehension; he prayed earnestly that they might be found (as many people said they were) merely the exuberance of youth; and that the acknowledged grace and affability of his manners, and the placableness of his temper, might ornament, but not supplant, those christian virtues and noble principles which had so eminently distinguished his father. Considering the provocations the people had committed, the great dissoluteness of one sort, and the wild fanaticism or palpable hypocrisy of the others, added to the furious passions and implacable resentments which were excited, especially by this last desperate deed, he saw little hope that true religion and regular liberty could be speedily restored; he feared, therefore, the sun of England's glory would suffer a long eclipse: yet England was his country, nor could affluence or distinction have tempted him to quit it while he thought his example, his labours, or his prayers could afford assistance to its inhabitants. The existing Government allowed Dr. Beaumont and his family personal security: in return, he resolved to abstain from plotting its overthrow. The young King wished his friends not to hazard their own safety by rash undertakings; and Dr. Beaumont considered that to labour at the gradual introduction of right principles, the removal of mistakes, and the regulation of false doctrines; and, above all, to lead a life of holiness, universal charity, and meek simplicity, were the most likely means to heal the wounds made by violence, to soften the Divine anger, and to prepare the people for the restoration of legitimate rule. The reformation of individuals must, he knew, precede that of the nation; and he considered that the man, who employed himself diligently at his post, and strove to revive the sentiments of loyalty and piety in a country village, more truly served his God and his King than he who engaged in weak and unweighed efforts against a power which now wielded the energies of the kingdom. He lamented to see such enterprizes successively come to no better issue than that of giving fresh instances of the often-recorded fact, that loyalty and truth can die on the scaffold, or in the field of battle, without bending to their persecutors, or relinquishing the principles interwoven with life.