High feasting was there there — the gilded¹ roofs

Rung to the wassail-health — the dancer’s step

Sprung to the chord responsive — the gay gamester

To fate’s disposal flung his heap of gold,

And laugh’d alike when it increased or lessen’d:

Such virtue² hath court-air to teach us patience

Which schoolmen preach in vain.

WHY COME YE NOT TO COURT?

Upon the afternoon of this eventful day, Charles held his Court in the Queen’s apartments, which were opened at a particular hour to invited guests of a certain lower degree, but accessible without restriction³ to the higher classes of nobility who had from birth, and to the courtiers who held by office the privilege of the entrée.

It was one part of Charles’s character, which unquestionably rendered him personally popular, and postponed⁵ to a subsequent reign⁶ the precipitation of his family from the throne, that he banished⁷ from his Court many of the formal restrictions⁸ with which it was in other reigns⁹ surrounded. He was conscious of the good-natured grace of his manners, and trusted to it, often not in vain, to remove evil impressions arising from actions, which he was sensible could not be justified¹⁰ on the grounds of liberal or national policy.

In the daytime the King was commonly seen in the public walks alone, or only attended by one or two persons; and his answer to the remonstrance¹¹ of his brother, on the risk of thus exposing his person, is well known:—“Believe me, James,” he said, “no one will murder me, to make you King.”

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