most desperate attempts and practices against the constitution, rather than deny himself the gratification of his vices, and that it is even very probable, upon the face of Burnet's account, from the nature of a licentious character like this, that he descended to the meanness and criminality of receiving money from Louis, under some disguise or other; sometimes that he might consent to assist, and sometimes that he might not impede that monarch's unprincipled enterprises on the continent. This, it appears to me, would be the general conclusion, deducible from the acknowledged facts of the times, though not the slightest assistance could be obtained from any private memorials, or confidential documents whatever and this remark I may have occasion to recall to your remembrance hereafter.

After Burnet, we may turn to Hume, and read him in conjunction with the debates in the houses. Nothing can be more attractive, nothing can more strongly exemplify the charms and the merits of his seductive pages, than his life of Charles the Second. Ready, however, as every reader will naturally be to give his confidence to so masterly a writer, he cannot but perceive that the character of Charles the Second, as given by. the historian, reflects not to his mind the true image of the original; but resembles rather one of those portraits which we so often see presented to us by the skill of a superior artist, where every grace and beauty, that can consist with the likeness, is transferred to the canvass, while every the most inherent deformity or defect is withdrawn or disguised.

It had not escaped the most ordinary politicians in the times of Charles, that there must have been some secret alliance between the king and Louis. It was indeed known as a fact to some of the popular leaders; proofs of the corruption of Charles were at last produced, even in the House of Commons, and became the apparent cause of Danby's impeachment. All the political writers of this period evidently suppose, that not only the House of Commons was bribed by the king, but the court itself by France. In the fourth page of the eighth volume of Hume, there is a remarkable passage, in which he says, that, on the whole, we are obliged to acknowledge (though there remains no direct evidence of it), that a

formal plan was laid for changing the religion and subverting the constitution of England, and that the king and the ministry (the cabal) were in reality conspirators against the people.

But after his sagacity and good sense had dragged him into this conclusion, he made inquiries in France during his residence there, and saw with his own eyes that direct evidence which he had not supposed in existence. This evidence was found in some manuscript volumes kept in the Scotch college at Paris, and which Mr. Hume was permitted to peruse. These manuscript volumes were neither more nor less than a journal written by James the Second in his own hand, of his own life, during the most critical period of our history.

From such a treasure as this, it is a matter to be lamented, and indeed deserving of extreme surprise, that such an historian as Hume did no more than produce a single extract. This extract was important, but it might surely have been conceived, that such manuscripts would have opened a boundless field of observation to one who was so capable of remarking on human character and political events. But on some account or other, not explained (and which I think cannot be explained favorably to Hume,) he contented himself with adding to his History a single note, and nothing more.

There is yet again in Mr. Hume's History a second note on this reign of Charles (page 206,) which deserves our attention; this second note is drawn from another source, not from the papers or Life of James the Second, but the papers of Barillon, who was the French ambassador at the time.

Charles, towards the close of his reign, dismissed his parliament (says Mr. Hume in his text,) and determined to govern by prerogative alone; whether any money (he continues) was now remitted to England, we do not certainly know, but we may fairly presume that the king's necessities were in some degree relieved by France. And then follows a note, the note I now allude to, in which he gives an extract from one of the letters of Barillon, containing an account of a regular agreement verbally entered into, between Charles and Louis, where good services are promised by the one and money by the other, for the purpose, it is said, of putting his Britannic majesty out of the reach of all constraint, from his parliament, which could interfere with his new engagements with Louis.

This curious treaty was communicated to Mr. Hume while in France, and by him to the public; but Mr. Hume gives no account of any further attempt to become acquainted with these despatches of the French ambassador, which it was however evident would unveil, wherever they could be inspected, the most curious scenes of intrigue and corruption. Hume himself thought them important, as appears by one of his letters to Robertson.

After the perusal of Mr. Hume, we may turn to the Life of Charles the Second by Harris. The notes are full of information and of particulars which the reader may not have an opportunity of selecting from their original sources, nor indeed of readily finding in any other manner.

The connexion of Charles with France, and the dishonorable nature of it, was sufficiently clear to this diligent investigator from the common authorities; but in his note (page 228, vol. ii.), he extracts a passage "from a letter written to him by a friend, who had that morning heard read a letter from a gentleman who, while in France, had been permitted to see the memoirs of King James;" his account is the same as Hume's. And now it is observable enough, that there is a passage in Voltaire's History of Louis the Fourteenth, which Harris quotes, and which tells the reader in a few simple words every thing which he can desire to know on this subject, and the sum and substance of every thing that there is to be known. "Louis," says Voltaire, writing this long before the publication of Dalrymple's History, which I shall hereafter mention, "designed the conquest of the Low Countries, which he intended to commence with that of Holland; but England was to be detached. Louis did not find it difficult to engage Charles the Second in his designs; his passion was to enjoy his pleasures. Louis, who to have money needed only to speak, promised a great sum to Charles, who could never get any without the sense of his parliament. The secret treaty concluded between the two kings was "

"Charles signed every thing Louis desired," &c. &c.; and then the treaty is given, with the addition of some material circumstances. Such is the important information given by Voltaire.

But Voltaire is a writer who, on account of his universality,

his liveliness, and his known misrepresentations on sacred subjects, is never believed on any other, further than he is seen; or rather, as he never intimates, which he ought always to have done, his authorities, every one believes as much of his historical accounts, or as little, as he thinks proper.

The corruption therefore of Charles, and his conspiracy against his people, was an historical fact very fairly made out, when Mr. Macpherson repaired to Paris; an author not a little celebrated in the literary world (the author or editor of Ossian), one who could find manuscripts or make them, produce or withhold them, and in short, as it was understood, proceed with equal rapidity and success with them or without them. Two quarto volumes could not fail to be the consequence of this journey; the memoirs of King James could not possibly escape him; and the readers of history were at last gratified with extracts from this interesting performance, and with a regular work, entitled "Original Papers, containing the Secret History of Great Britain," &c. &c.

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But when we come to open the volumes of Macpherson, we shall, in the first place, be somewhat dissatisfied with the introduction Macpherson tells his story, but not with simplicity; while simplicity, detail, minuteness, are on occasions like this, not only the best test in point of literary composition, but indispensably necessary; for what the reader ought to know, and all that he desires to know, is the exact authority on which he is left to depend. When, in the next place, the Papers themselves are consulted, they seem not a journal written by the king himself in the first person, but a narrative where he appears in the third; (this however might have been the king's mode of writing, and is not decisive) but it is soon observable that the Duchess of Cleveland is mentioned by that name, when the period of which the writer speaks is nine years and a half before the title was conferred upon her; so that the journal, or narrative, evidently was not written while the events it alludes to were taking place, but long after; it therefore comes not warm from the heart, has nothing in it of that unpremeditated statement, exhibits none of those prompt and genuine impressions of the moment, which are the great delight and study of the philosopher and historian, whenever they can be

surveyed, and is therefore at all events not as valuable as might have been expected.

In the extracts furnished by Mr. Macpherson, little comment can be found on what are known to be the most critical points of the history of the times; and, on the whole, as far as the reign of Charles is concerned, the reader is extremely disappointed in the matter and in the manner, in the author and in the editor of this journal or narrative, as exhibited by Macpherson.

But these memoirs of King James were destined to meet with one inquirer more. The late Mr. Fox having formed a serious design of writing a more faithful account than he conceived had as yet been given of the great era in our history, the revolution in 1688, repaired, as Mr. Macpherson had done, to Paris; and the journal of King James was, of course, one of the objects which occupied his attention. The history of his researches is contained in Lord Holland's Preface to Mr. Fox's posthumous work. From this it appears that there was deposited in the Scotch college, not only an original journal by King James, but a narrative compiled from it, either by the younger Dryden, or one of the superiors of the society; and that it is the narrative from which extracts have been taken by Macpherson, not the journal. Mr. Fox declared, in a private letter to Mr. Laing, that he had made out that Macpherson never saw the journal. And, on turning to Macpherson's introduction, the student will find that, though this skilful artist leads his reader to suppose that he saw this journal and copied it, still that he nowhere exactly says that he ever did see it; and his not having done so, and his wishing to be thought to have done so, has given rise to that want of simplicity in his statement which we have already noticed, and of which the necessity in all such prefaces is thus rendered more than ever apparent.

The fate of the original journal is curious: it was burned from terror under the horrors of the French revolution, when any thing connected with royalty, it was supposed, would have been fatalto the possessor. The narrative is still safe, and is in the possession of Dr. Cameron, of Edinburgh.

Since I wrote the last paragraph, another copy of the narrative has been purchased in Italy. It was published by the