Trying To Change A Sovereign.

alternative by-the-bye appears almost in process of adoption . Tom Hood has expressed the same apprehension more poetically" Ah mo ; it makes one shudder to think How often humanity stands on the brink Of tho grave , without any misgiving !" Now Charles the Secondas I have saidperfectly well appreciated the

, , risks he ran every clay of his life , but we have never heard that he experimented -with a ball-proof coat of mail , as the late Celui-ci ancl Old Noll are said to have done . I never read that he wore quilted silk armour beneath his just-aa-eorps as his grandfather ( blown up , in more senses than one , Henry Darnley ' s son ) did under his doublet . I do not know whether he relied upon his unpopular brother as his buffer , as the retort I have quoted would seem to

imply ; the witty king would probably have substituted a " d " for the initial letter had he lived in the present clay and aclojDted its slang—which no doubt he would have clone con , amore—for , attached as he was to James , the " merry monarch " was too acute an observer of human nature to be insensible of his brother ' s defects . Probably Macaulay ' s estimate of James the Second differed in no essential respect from Charles ' s contemporaneous view . The Duke of

York , according to the historian , was mentally a very dull man , possessing about enough capacity to have carried him , with a decent amount of credit , through the routine duties of such an office as clerk to the Admiralty . If there be any truth in physiognomy , his portraits , especially those in the National

Portrait Gallery at South Kensington , bear out this view . But in whatever li ght the king regarded his brother , certain it is that no English monarch was ever in such constant peril of assassination , for no English monarch was ever so accessible as Charles the Second . The fifth monarch y insurrection , and certain minor incidents springing from it , at the actual commencement of his reign , absurdly tortured into an assassination plot—the Popish plotthe " Meal tub " lotthe Rhouse lot .

, p , ye p Conspiracy succeeded conspiracy ; warning followed warning throughout a Quarter of a century , ancl the tall , robust figure , in deep mourning , never intermitted any of his usual habits . He used to say , and he spoke from some experience , that of all the climates of the earth the English was after all the best—the most enjoyable , the most convenient—for that there was never a clay out of the whole three hundred and sixt y five in the year in England that a

man could not get abroad for at least an hour or two at some time out of the twenty-four . Fxperto crecle . Every clay he was walking ; up early , taking tremendous " constitutionals , " and striding along at a pa . ee that few strong men could keep up with for any length of time ; midday ancl afternoon saw him sauntering about the parks , approachable by everyone , from the highest to the meanest . A noteworthinstance of this accessibilitis afforded bthe

y y y first preposterous imputation of an attempt to change a sovereign soon after the Restoration . Vernier ' s emeute in Coleman Street has been treated of already in these columns . * It is uncertain whether the hero of the following tragedy was concerned in this affair ; the probability is that he was . One John James , who had followed the calling of a " small coal man '''

dont you remember Thomas Britton , the musical " small coal man , " immortalised by Slat Prior" Though doomed to small coal , yet to arts allied , Rich without wealth , and famous without pride , " etc . ? Well , John James , of Goodman ' s Fields , finding the itinerant hawking of fuel in a poor neighbourhood too severe a strain upon his constitution , took to weaving , then , and even now , a not uncommon form of East London