Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/250

240 Sovereign. However miſtaken he might be in this furious zeal for a Prince, the chief ſcope of whoſe reign was to overthrow the law, and introduce abſolute dominion, yet he appears to be perfectly ſincere. In a letter he wrote to his father upon the expected approach of the Prince of Orange’s fleet, he expreſſes the moſt ardent deſire to ſerve the King in perſon. This letter we ſhall inſert, but beg our readers patience to make a digreſſion, which will juſtify what we have ſaid concerning James II.

The genuine mark of a tyrant is cruelty, and it is with concern we can produce an inſtance of the moſt inhuman barbarity in that Prince, which ever ſtained the Annals of any reign. Cruelty ſhould be the badge of no party; it ought to be equally the abhorrence of all; and whoever is tainted with it, ſhould be ſet up to view, as a terror to the world, as a monſter, whom it is the intereſt of mankind to deſtroy.

After the ſuppreſſion of Monmouth’s rebellion, many of the unfortunate perſons engaged in it fled to London, and took ſhelter there, ’till the Act of Indemnity ſhould be publiſhed. They who afforded them ſhelter, were either of the Monmouth faction, or induced from principles of humanity, to adminiſter to their ſafety: what would become of the world, if our friends were always to forſake us in diſtreſs? There lived then in London an amiable lady, attached to no party, who enjoyed a large fortune, which ſhe ſpent in the exerciſe of the moſt extenſive beneficence. She made it her buſineſs to viſit the Jails, and the priſoners who were moſt neceſſitous and deſerving, ſhe relieved. Her houſe was an aſylum for the poor; ſhe lived but for charity, and ſhe had every hour the hour