Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/33

Rh expedition or two against Wales, either by himself or his generals, they were very inconsiderable both in action and event, nor attended with any circumstances that might render a relation of them of any use to posterity, either for instruction or example.

His death was violent and unexpected, the effect of casualty; although this perhaps is the only misfortune of life to which the person of a prince is generally less subject than that of other men. Being at his beloved exercise of hunting, in the New Forest in Hampshire, a large stag crossed the way before him; the king, hot on his game, cried out in haste to Walter Tyrrel, a knight of his attendants, to shoot; Tyrrel immediately let fly his arrow, which glancing against a tree, struck the king through the heart, who fell dead to the ground without speaking a word. Upon the surprise of this accident, all his attendants, and Tyrrel among the rest, fled different ways; until the fright being a little over, some of them returned; and causing the body to be laid in a collier's cart, for want of other conveniency, conveyed it in a very unbecoming contemptuous manner to Winchester, where it was buried the next day without solemnity; and which is worse, without grief.

I shall conclude the history of this prince's reign, with a description and character of his body and mind, impartially, from the collections I have made; which method I shall observe likewise in all the succeeding reigns.

He was in stature somewhat below the usual size, and big-bellied; but he was well and strongly knit. His hair was yellow or sandy; his face red, which got