His sport had a beast in view.
But it is less credible, were it not a historical fact, that the wars of Charles the First "brought nothing about;" since royal prerogative, and popular encroachment, far from being adjusted by so many years bloodshed, were as much themes of mutual dissention betwixt the Court and the House of Commons in the reign of Charles II. as during that of his father. But so bloody a lesson was not entirely lost. The contending parties at the Revolution lived too near that eventful period, not to be aware of the direful consequences of civil war, and thence, by mutual concession, were determined to avoid the repetition of similar calamities. The nation gained by the compromise; for freedom is always benefited by the equal balance of contending factions, and as certainly suffers by the decided ascendancy of either.
A thousand lampoons bear witness, that, during the reign of Venus, under the auspices of Charles II. her
——Lovers were all untrue.
The modern reader will find the most decent, and, at the same time, the most lively record of their infidelities, in Count Hamilton's Memoires du Compte de Grammont.
From the "Secular Masque" being performed in the beginning of the year 1700, it appears, that, by a blunder, or rather confusion of ideas, the century was supposed to terminate with 1699; in other words, a hundred years were considered as accomplished when the hundredth was just commenced:—an error of calculation which, though it could not puzzle a horse-jockey, who, if he was to ride twenty miles, would hardly think he had accomplished the match by riding nineteen, did, nevertheless, find patrons in the year 1800, though hardly any of such account as Dryden.
The original music of the Masque was very much approved. It is mentioned in the Travels of John Buncle. Mr Malone believes Daniel Purcel to have been the composer. It was set anew by Dr Boyce, and afterwards revived with success at Drury-Lane in 1749. The hunting song was long popular.