of mind, he had no taste for literature, none for the sciences, none for the beautiful arts. He paid no attention to music, he understood no poetry; he disregarded learning, he encouraged no men of letters, no painters, no artists of any kind. In fortification and the mathematics he had a considerable degree of knowledge. Though unsuccessful in the field, he understood military operations by land; but he neither possessed nor pretended to any skill in maritime affairs. In the distribution of favours he was cold and injudicious. In the punishment of crimes often too easy, and sometimes too severe. He was parsimonious where he should have been liberal; where he ought to be sparing, frequently profuse. In his temper he was silent and reserved, in his address ungraceful; and though not destitute of dissimulation, and qualified for intrigue, less apt to conceal his passions than his designs: these defects, rather than vices of the mind, combining with an indifference about humouring mankind through their ruling passions, rendered him extremely unfit for gaining the affections of the English nation. His reign, therefore, was crowded with mortifications of various kinds; the discontented parties among his subjects found no difficulty in estranging the minds of the people from a prince possessed of few talents to make him popular. He was trusted, perhaps, less than he deserved, by the most obsequious of his parliament; but it seems, upon the whole, apparent that the nation adhered to his government more from a fear of the return of his predecessor, than from any attachment to his own person, or respect for his right to the throne. MACPHERSON. QUEEN ANNE. THUS died Anne Stuart, queen of Great Britain and Ireland, in the fiftieth year of her age, and thirteenth of her reign. In her person she was of a middle stature, and before she bore children well made. Her hair was dark, her complexion sanguine, her features strong, but not irregular; her whole countenance more dignified than agreeable. In the accomplishments of the mind, as a woman, she was not deficient: she understood music; she loved painting: she had even some taste for works of genius; she was always generous; sometimes liberal, but never profuse. Like the rest of the family, she was good natured to a degree of weakness; indolent in her disposition, timid by nature, devoted to the company of her favourites, easily led. She possessed all the virtues of her father, except political courage; she was subject to all his weaknesses, except enthusiasm in religion; she was jealous of her authority, and sullenly irreconcilable towards those who treated either herself or prerogative with disrespect; but, like him also, she was much better qualified to discharge the duties of a private life, than to act the part of a sovereign. As a friend, a mother, a wife, she deserved every praise. Her conduct as a daughter could scarcely be exceeded by a virtue much superior to all these. Upon the whole, though her reign was crowded with great events, she cannot, with any justice, be called a great princess. Subject to terror, beyond the constitutional timidity of her sex, she was altogether incapable of decisive counsels; and nothing but her irresistible popularity could have supported her authority amidst the ferment of those distracted times. MACPHERSON. PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART. As to his person, he is tall and well made, but stoops a little, owing perhaps to the great fatigue which he underwent in his northern expedition. He has a handsome face and good eyes (I think his busts, which about this time were commonly sold in London, are more like him than any of his pictures which I have yet seen); but in a polite company he would not pass for a genteel man. He hath a quick apprehension, and speaks French, Italian, and English; the last with a little of a foreign accent. As to the rest, very little care seems to have been taken of his education. He had not made the belles lettres or any of the finer arts his study, which surprised me much, considering his preceptors, and the noble opportunities he must have always had in that nursery of all the elegant and liberal arts and sciences. But I was still more astonished when I found him unacquainted with the history and constitution of England, in which he ought to have been very early instructed. I never heard him express any noble or benevolent sentiments, the certain indications of a great soul and a good heart; or discover any sorrow or compassion for the misfortunes of so many worthy men who had suffered in his cause *. But the worst part of his character is his love of money, a vice which I do not remember to have been imputed by our historians to any of his ancestors, and is the certain index of a base and little mind. I know it may be urged in his vindication, that a prince in exile ought to be an economist. And so he ought; but nevertheless his purse should be always open, as long as there is any thing in it, to relieve the necessities of his friends and adherents. King Charles the Second, during his banishment, would have shared the last pistole in his pocket with his little family. But I have known this gentleman, with two thousand louis-d'ors in his strong box, pretend he was in great distress, and borrow money from a lady in Paris, who was not in affluent circumstances. His most faithful servants, who had closely attended him in all his difficulties, were ill rewarded. Two Frenchmen, who had left every thing to follow his fortune, who had been sent as couriers half through Europe, and executed their commissions with great punctuality and exactness, were suddenly discharged, without any fault imputed to them, or any recompense * As to his religion, he is certainly free from all bigotry and superstition, and would readily conform to the religion of the country. With the catholics he is a catholic; with the protestants he is a protestant; and, to convince the latter of his sincerity, he often carried an English Common Prayer Book in his pocket; and sent to Gordon (whom I have mentioned before), a nonjuring clergyman, to christen the first child he had by Mrs. W. for their past services. To this spirit of avarice may be added his insolent manner of treating his immediate dependants, very unbecoming a great prince, and a sure prognostic of what might be expected from him if ever he acquired sovereign power. Sir J. Harrington and Colonel Goring, who suffered themselves to be imprisoned with him, when the rest of his family and attendants fled, were afterwards obliged to quit his service on account of his illiberal behaviour. But there is one part of his character which I must particularly insist on, since it occasioned the defection of the most powerful of his friends and adherents in England, and by some concurring accidents totally blasted all his hopes and pretensions. When he was in Scotland, he had a mistress, whose name is Walkenshaw, and whose sister was at that time, and still is, housekeeper at Leicester House. Some years after he was released from his prison, and conducted out of France, he sent for this girl, who soon acquired such a dominion over him, that she was acquainted with all his schemes, and trusted with his most secret correspondence. As soon as this was known in England, all those persons of distinction who were attached to him were greatly alarmed; they imagined that this wench had been placed in his family by the English ministers; and, considering her sister's situation, they seemed to have some ground for their suspicion; wherefore they dispatched a gentleman to Paris, where the prince then was, who had instructions to insist that Mrs. Walkenshaw should be removed to a convent for a certain time; but her gallant abso |