memory, or to trouble his thoughts, with the sense of any of the services that had been done him. While he was abroad at Paris, Cologne, or Brussels, he never seemed to lay anything to heart. He pursued all his diversions and irregular pleasures in a free career, and seemed to be as serene under the loss of a crown as the greatest philosopher could have been. Nor did he willingly hearken to any of those projects with which he often complained that his chancellor presented him. That in which he seemed most concerned was, to find money for supporting his expense. And it was often said, that if Cromwell would have compounded the matter, and have given him a good round pension, that he might have been induced to resign his title to him. During his exile, he delivered himself so entirely to his pleasures, that he became incapable of application. He spent little of his time in reading or study, and yet less in thinking. And, in the state his affairs were then in, he accustomed himself to say to every person and upon all occasions that which he thought would please most, so that words or promises went very easily from him. And he had so ill an opinion of mankind, that he thought the great art of living and governing was, to manage all things and all persons with a depth of craft and dissimulation. And in that few men in the world could put on the appearances of sincerity better than he could ; under which so much artifice was usually hid, tbat in conclusion he could deceive none, for all were become distrustful of him. He had great vices but scarce any virtues to correct them. He had in him some vices that were less hurtful, which corrected his more hurtful ones. He was, during the active part of his life, given up to sloth and lewdness to such a degree, that he hated business, and could not bear the engaging in anything that gave him much trouble, or put him under any constraint. And though he desired to become absolute, and to overturn both our religion and our laws, yet he would neither run the risk, nor give himself the trouble, which so great a design required. He had an appearance of gentleness in his outward deportment; but he seemed to have no bowels nor tenderness in his nature, and in the end of his life he became cruel. He was apt to forgive all crimes, even blood itself, yet he never forgave anything that was done against himself, after his first and general act of indemnity which was to be reckoned as done rather upon maxims of state than inclinations of mercy. He delivered himself up to a most enormous course of vice, without any sort of restraint, even from the consideration of the nearest relations. The most studied er. travagances that way seemed, to the very last, to be much delighted in and pursued by him. He had the art of making all people grow fond of him at first, by a softness in his whole way of conversation, as he was certainly the best bred man of the age. But, when it appeared how little could be built on his promise, they were cured of the fondness that he was apt to raise in them. When he saw young men of quality, who had something more than ordinary in them, he drew them about him, and set himself to corrupt them both in religion and morality; in which he proved so unhappily successful that he left England much changed at his death from what he had found it at his restoration. He loved to talk over all the stories of bis life to every new man that came about him. His stay in Scotland, and the share he had in the war of Paris, in carrying messages from the one side to the other, were bis common topics. He went over these in a very graceful manner, but so often and so copioasly, that all those who had been long accustomed to them grew weary of them; and, when he entered on these stories, they usually withdrew. So that he often began them in a full audience, and before he had done there were not above four or five persons left about him, which drew a severe jest from Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. He said he wondered to see a man have so good a memory as to repeat the same story without losing one circumstance of it, and yet not remember that he had told it to the very same persons the day before. This made him fond of strangers, for they hearkened to all his often-repeated stories, and went away as in rapture at such an uncommon condescension in a king.

Ilis person and temper, his vices as well as his fortune, resemble the character that we have given us of Tiberius so much, that it were easy to draw the parallel between them. Tiberius's banishment, and his coming afterwards to reign, makes the comparison in that respect come pretty near. His hating of business and his love of pleasure ; his raising of favorites, and trusting them en

tirely; and his pulling them down, and hating them excessively ; his art of covering deep designs, particularly of revenge, with an appearance of softness, brings them so near a likeness, that I did not wonder much to observe the resemblance of their faces and persons. At Rome I saw one of the last statues made for Tiberius, after he had lost his teeth. But, bating the alteration which that made, it was so like King Charles, that Prince Borghese and Signior Dominico, to whom it belonged, did agree with me in thinking that it looked like a statue made for him.

361,--ANOTHER YEAR. (We are arrived at the period when that series of our poetical extracts, which may be called . The Year of the Poets,' must at length close. Upon the threshhold of ' Another Year,' we give passages from Tennyson,-from Herrick, the great poet of old festivals,—from Keats, -and from Bishop Corbet.)

THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR.

I.

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll

ye

the church-bells sad and slow,
And tread softly, and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.

Old year, you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.

II.

He lieth still: he doth not move:
He will not see the dawn of day.
He hath no other life above.
He gave me a friend, and a true true love,
And the new year will take 'em away.

VOL. IV.

25

He was full of joke and jest,
But all his merry quips are o'er.
To see him die, across the waste
His son and heir doth ride post-haste,
But he 'll be dead before.

Every one for his own.
The night is starry and cold, my friend,
And the New Year, blithe and bold, my friend,
Comes up to take his own.

V.

How hard he breathes ! over the snow
I heard just now the crowing cock.
The shadows flicker to and fro:
The cricket chirps : the light burns low :
"Tis nearly twelve o'clock.

Shake hands before you die :
Old year, we'll dearly rue for you:
What is it we can do for you?
Speak out before you die.

VI.

His face is growing sharp and thin.
Alack / our friend is

gone.
Close up his eyes : tie up his chin :
Step from the corpse, and let him in
That standeth there alone,

And waiteth at the door.
There's a new foot on the floor, my friend,
And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door.

TENNYSON

also

TWELFTH NIGHT.
Now, now the mirth comes,

With the cake full of plums,
Where bean's the king of the sport here ;

Beside we must know,
The

pea
Must revel as queen in the court here.

Begin then to choose

This night as ye use,
Who shall for the present delight here ;

Be a king by the lot,

And who shall not
Be Twelfth-day queen for the night here.

Which known, let us make

Joy-sops with the cake ;
And let not a man then be seen here,

Who unurged will not drink,

To the base from the brink,
A health to the king and the queen here.

Next crown the bowl full

With gentle lamb's-wool; Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,

With store of ale too;

And thus ye may do
To make the wassail a swinger.