Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/98

90 whom he had already compounded for his quiet by a considerable pension: yet with all these advantages he seldom was master of above half the kingdom at once, and that by the force of perpetual struggling, and with frequent danger of losing the whole. The principal difficulties he had to encounter, appear to have been manifest consequences of several most imprudent steps in his conduct, whereof many instances have been produced in the history of his reign; such as the unlimited permission of building castles; his raising the siege of a weak place where the empress was shut up, and must, in a few days, have fallen into his hands; his employing the Flemings in his wars, and favouring them above his own subjects; and lastly, that abortive project of crowning his son, which procured him at once the hatred and contempt of the clergy, by discovering an inclination to violence and injustice that he durst not pursue: whereas, it was nothing else but an effect of that hasty and sudden disposition usually ascribed to those of his country, and in a peculiar manner charged to this prince: for, authors give it as a part of his diaracter, to be hot and violent in the beginning of an enterprise, but to slacken and grow cold in the prosecution.

He had a just sense of religion, and was frequent in attending the service of the church, yet reported to be no great friend of the clergy; which, however, is a general imputation upon all the kings of this realm in that and some succeeding reigns, and by no means personal to this prince, who deserved it as little as any.

I do not find any alterations during this reign in the meetings of general assemblies, farther than that the