without blemish: and he possessed many qualities, which fitted him for his high station, and which rendered his usurpation of it, though pernicious in after times, rather salutary, during his own reign, to the English nation. Hume.

CHARACTER OF HENRY V.

THIS prince possessed many eminent virtues; and, if we give indulgence to ambition in a monarch, or rank it, as the vulgar do, among his virtues, they were unstained by any considerable blemish; his abilities appeared equally in the cabinet and in the field: the boldness of his enterprises was no less remarkable than his personal valour in conducting them. He had the talent of attaching his friends by affability, and gaining his enemies by address and clemency.

The English, dazzled by the lustre of his character, and still more by that of his victories, were reconciled to the defects of his title. The French almost forgot he was an enemy; and his care of maintaining justice in his civil administration, and preserving discipline in his armies, made some amends to both nations for the calamities inseparable from those wars in which his short reign was almost occupied. That he could forgive the earl of Marche, who had a better right to the throne than himself, is a sure proof of his magnanimity; and that the earl relied so on his friendship, is no less a proof of his established character for candour and sincerity.

There remain, in history, few instances of such

mutual trust; and still fewer, where neither found reason to repent it.

The exterior figure of this great prince, as well as his deportment, was engaging. His stature was somewhat above the middle size; his countenance beautiful, his limbs genteel and slender, but full of vigour; and he excelled in all warlike and manly exercises. Hume.

CHARACTER OF HENRY VI.

THIS insurrection* in all probability hastened the death of the unfortunate Henry, who was found dead in the Tower, in which he had been confined since the restoration of Edward. The greater part of historians have alleged, that he was assassinated by the duke of Gloucester, who was a prince of the most brutal disposition; while some moderns, from an affectation of singularity, affirm that Henry died of grief and vexation. This, no doubt, might have been the case; and it must be owned that nothing appears in history, from which either Edward or Richard could be convicted of having contrived or perpetrated his murder: but, at the same time, we must observe some concurring circumstances that amount to strong presumption against the reigning monarch. Henry was of a hale constitution, but just turned of fifty, naturally insensible of affliction, and hackneyed in the vicissitudes of fortune, so that one would not expect he should have died of age and infirmity, or that his life would have been affected * Revolt of Falconbridge.

:

by grief arising from his last disaster. His sudden death was suspicious, as well as the conjuncture at which he died, immediately after the suppression of a rebellion, which seemed to declare that Edward would never be quiet, while the head of the house of Lancaster remained alive and lastly, the suspicion is confirmed by the characters of the reigning king and his brother Richard, who were bloody, barbarous, and unrelenting. Very different was the disposition of the ill-fated Henry, who, without any princely virtue or qualification, was totally free from cruelty or revenge; on the contrary, he could not, without reluctance, consent to the punishment of those malefactors who were sacrificed to the public safety; and frequently sustained indignities of the grossest nature, without discovering the least mark of resentment. He was chaste, pious, compassionate, and charitable; and so inoffensive, that the bishop, who was his confessor for ten years, declares, that in all that time he had never committed any sin that required penance or rebuke. In a word, he would have adorned a cloister, though he disgraced a crown; and was rather respectable for those vices he wanted, than for those virtues he possessed. He founded the colleges of Eton and Windsor, and King's College in Cambridge, for the reception of those scholars who had begun their studies at Eton.

On the morning that succeeded his death, his body was exposed at St. Paul's Church, in order to prevent unfavourable conjectures, and, next day, sent by water to the abbey of Chertsey,

where he was interred: but it was afterwards removed, by order of Richard III., to Windsor, and there buried with great funeral solemnity.

Smollett.

CHARACTER OF EDWARD IV.

WHEN Edward ascended the throne, he was one of the handsomest men in England, and perhaps in Europe. His noble mien, his free and easy way, his affable carriage, won the hearts of all at first sight. These qualities gained him esteem and affection, which stood him in great stead in several circumstances of his life. For some time he was exceedingly liberal: but at length he grew covetous, not so much from his natural temper, as out of a necessity to bear the immediate expenses which his pleasures ran him into.

Though he had a great deal of wit, and a sound judgment, he committed, however, several oversights. But the crimes Edward is most justly charged with, are his cruelty, perjury, and incon-. tinence. The first appears in the great number of princes and lords he put to death on the scaffold, after he had taken them in battle. If there ever was reason to show mercy in case of rebellion, it was at that fatal time, when it was almost impossible to stand neuter, and so difficult to choose the justest side between the two houses that were contending for the crown.

And yet we do not see that Edward had any regard to that consideration. As for Edward's incontinence, one may say, that his whole life was.

one continued scene of excess that way; he had abundance of mistresses, but especially three, of whom he said, that one was the merriest, the other the wittiest, and the other the holiest in the world, since she would not stir from the church but when he sent for her.-What is most astonishing in the life of this prince is his good fortune, which seemed to be prodigious.

He was raised to the throne, after the loss of two battles, one by the duke his father, the other by the earl of Warwick, who was devoted to the house of York. The head of the father was still upon the walls of York, when the son was proclaimed in London.

Edward escaped, as it were, by miracle, out of his confinement at Middleham. He was restored to the throne, or at least received into London, at his return from Holland, before he had overcome, and whilst his fortune yet depended upon the issue of a battle, which the earl of Warwick was ready to give him. In a word, he was ever victorious in all the battles wherein he fought in person. Edward died the 9th of April, in the 42d year of his age, after a reign of twenty-two years and one month. Rapin.

EDWARD V.

IMMEDIATELY after the death of the fourth Edward, his son was proclaimed king of England, by the name of Edward V. though that young prince was but just turned of twelve years of age, never received the crown, nor exercised any