devotion have made her name imperishable. Of
course, he was found guilty, and was sentenced
to be beheaded in Lincoln's Inn Fields, not
many yards from his own house. When he
had parted from his children on the evening
before his death, his wife still stayed with
him until ten o'clock at night; and when
their final separation in this world was over,
and he had kissed her many times, he still
sat for a long while in his prison, talking of
her goodness. Hearing the rain fall fast at
that time, he calmly said, "Such a rain
tomorrow will spoil a great show, which is a
dull thing on a rainy day." At midnight, he
went to bed, and slept till four; even when
his servant called him, he fell asleep again
while his clothes were being made ready.
He rode to the scaffold in his own carriage,
attended by two famous clergymen, TILLOTSON
and BURNET, and sang a psalm to himself
very softly, as he went along. He was as
quiet and as steady, as if he had been going
out for an ordinary ride. After saying that he
was surprised to see so great a crowd, he laid
down his head upon the block, as if it had
been the pillow of his bed, and had it struck
off at the second blow. His noble wife was
busy for him even then, for the true-hearted
lady printed and widely circulated his last
words, of which he had given her a copy.
They made the blood of all the honest men
in England boil.

The University of Oxford distinguished
itself on the very same day by pretending
to believe that the accusation against Lord
Russell was true, and by calling the King, in
a written paper, the Breath of their Nostrils
and the Anointed of the Lord. This paper
the Parliament afterwards caused to be
burned by the common hangman, which I am
sorry for, as I wish it had been framed and
glazed and hung up in some public place, as
a monument of baseness for the scorn of
mankind.

Next came the trial of Algernon Sidney,
at which Jeffreys presided, like a great
crimson toad, sweltering and swelling with
rage. "I pray God, Mr. Sidney," said this
Chief Justice of a merry reign, after passing
sentence, "to work in you a temper fit to go
to the other world, for I see you are not fit
for this." "My lord," said the prisoner,
composedly holding out his arm, "feel my
pulse, and see if I be disordered. I thank
Heaven I never was in better temper than I
am now." Algernon Sidney was executed on
Tower Hill, on the seventh of December,
one thousand six hundred and eighty three.
He died a hero, and died, in his own words,
"For that good old cause in which he had
been engaged from his youth, and for which
God had so often and so wonderfully declared
himself."

The Duke of Monmouth had been making
his uncle, the Duke of York, very jealous, by
going about the country in a royal sort of
way, playing at the people's games, becoming
godfather to their children, and even touching
for the king's evil, or stroking the faces of
the sick to cure them—” though for the matter
of that, I should say he did them about as
much good as any crowned king could have
done. His father had got him to write a
letter, confessing his having had a part in the
conspiracy, for which Lord Russell had been
beheaded; but he was ever a weak man, and
as soon as he had written it, he was ashamed
of it, and got it back again. For this, he was
banished to the Netherlands; but he soon
returned and had an interview with his
father, unknown to his uncle. It would seem
that he was coming into the Merry Monarch's
favour again, and that the Duke of York
was sliding out of it, when Death appeared
to the merry galleries at Whitehall, and
astonished the debauched lords and gentlemen,
and the shameless ladies, very considerably.

On Monday, the second of February, one
thousand six hundred and eighty-five, the
merry pensioner and servant of the King of
France fell down in a fit of apoplexy. By
the Wednesday his case was hopeless, and
on the Thursday he was told so. As he made
a difficulty about taking the sacrament from
the Protestant Bishop of Bath, the Duke of
York got all who were present away from
the bed, and asked his brother, in a whisper,
if he should send for a Catholic priest. The
King replied, "For God's sake, brother, do."
The Duke smuggled in, up the back stairs,
disguised in a wig and gown, a priest named
HUDDLESTON, who had saved the King's life
after the battle of Worcester: telling him
that this worthy man in the wig had once
saved his body, and was now come to save
his soul.

The Merry Monarch lived through that
night, and died before noon on the next day,
which was Friday the sixth. Two of the
last things he said were of a human sort,
and your remembrance will give him the full
benefit of them. When the Queen sent to
say she was too unwell to attend him and to
ask his pardon, he said, "Alas! poor woman,
she beg my pardon! I beg hers with all my
heart. Take back that answer to her." And
he also said, in reference to Nell Gwyn, "Do
not let poor Nelly starve."

He died in the fifty-fifth year of his age,
and the twenty-fifth of his reign.