Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/33

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WILLIAM THE SECOND.
25

successful expedition or two against Wales, either by himself or his generals, they were very inconsiderable both in action and event, nor attended with any circumstances that might render a relation of them of any use to posterity, either for instruction or example.

His death was violent and unexpected, the effect of casualty; although this perhaps is the only misfortune of life to which the person of a prince is generally less subject than that of other men. Being at his beloved exercise of hunting, in the New Forest in Hampshire, a large stag crossed the way before him; the king, hot on his game, cried out in haste to Walter Tyrrel, a knight of his attendants, to shoot; Tyrrel immediately let fly his arrow, which glancing against a tree, struck the king through the heart, who fell dead to the ground without speaking a word. Upon the surprise of this accident, all his attendants, and Tyrrel among the rest, fled different ways; until the fright being a little over, some of them returned; and causing the body to be laid in a collier's cart, for want of other conveniency, conveyed it in a very unbecoming contemptuous manner to Winchester, where it was buried the next day without solemnity; and which is worse, without grief.

I shall conclude the history of this prince's reign, with a description and character of his body and mind, impartially, from the collections I have made; which method I shall observe likewise in all the succeeding reigns.

He was in stature somewhat below the usual size, and big-bellied; but he was well and strongly knit. His hair was yellow or sandy; his face red, which

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