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 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY' 
 
 3 1924 087 999 82" 
 
WW 
 
 Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://archive.org/details/cu31924087999821 
 

THE 
 
 \Y'TS AND 3eAUX of 5oC1ETY. 
 
 BY 
 
 GRACE AND PHILIP WHARTON, 
 
 AUTHORS OF "THE QUEENS OF SOCIETY." 
 
 IV I TH ILL US TRA TIONS. 
 
 VOL. 1. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 HENRY T. COATES & CO. 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 In revising this publication, it has scarcely been 
 found necessary to recall a single opinion relative to 
 the subject of the Work. The general impressions of 
 characters adopted by the Authors have received little 
 modification from any remarks elicited by the appear- 
 ance of "The Wits and Beaux of Society." 
 
 It is scarcely to be expected that even our descend- 
 ants will know much more of the Wits and Beaux of 
 former days than we now do. The chests at Straw- 
 berry Hill are cleared of their contents ; Horace Wal- 
 pole's latest letters are before us ; Pepys and Evelyn 
 have thoroughly dramatized the days of Charles II. ; 
 Lord Hervey's Memoirs have laid bare the darkest 
 secrets of the Court in which he figures ; voluminous 
 memoirs of the less historic characters among the Wits 
 and Beaux have been published ; still it is possible that 
 some long-disregarded treasury of old letters, like that 
 in the Gallery at Wotton, may come to light. From 
 that precious deposit a housemaid — blotted for ever be 
 her name from memory's page — was purloining sheets 
 of yellow paper, with antiquated writing on them, to 
 
 3 
 
4 PEEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 light her fires with, when the late William Upcott came 
 to the rescue, and saved Evelyn's " Diary " for a grate- 
 ful world. It is just possible that such a discovery may 
 again be made, and that the doings of George Villiers, 
 or the exile life of Wharton, or the inmost thoughts of 
 other Wits and Beaux may be made to appear in clearer 
 lights than heretofore ; but it is much more likely that 
 the popular opinions about these witty, worthless men 
 are substantially true. 
 
 All that has been collected, therefore, to form this 
 work — -and, as in the " Queens of Society," every 
 known source has been consulted — assumes a sterling 
 value as being collected ; and, should hereafter fresh 
 materials be disinterred from any old library closet in 
 the homes of some one descendant of our heroes, ad- 
 vantage will be gladly taken to improve, correct, and 
 complete the lives. 
 
 One thing must, in justice, be said : if they have 
 been written freely, fearlessly, they have been written 
 without passion or prejudice. The writers, though not 
 quite of the stamp of persons who would never have 
 "dared to address" any of the subjects of their 
 biography, " save with courtesy and obeisance," have 
 no wish to " trample on the graves " of such very amus- 
 ing personages as the "Wits and Beaux of Society." 
 They have even been lenient to their memory, hail- 
 ing every good trait gladly, and pointing out with 
 no unsparing hand redeeming virtues ; and it cannot 
 certainly be said, in this instance, that the good has 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 5 
 
 been " interred with the bones " of the personages 
 herein described, although the evil men do " will live 
 after them." 
 
 But whilst a biographer is bound to give the fair as 
 well as the dark side of his subject, he has still to 
 remember that biography is a trust, and that it should 
 not be an eulogium. It is his duty to reflect that in 
 many instances it must be regarded even as a warning. 
 
 The moral conclusions of these lives of " Wits and 
 Beaux" are, it is admitted, just: vice is censured; 
 folly rebuked ; ungentlemanly conduct, even in a beau 
 of the highest polish, exposed ; irreligion finds no toler- 
 ation under gentle names — heartlessness no palliation 
 from its being the way of the world. There is here no 
 separate code allowed for men who live in the world, 
 and for those who live out of it. The task of portray- 
 ing such characters as the " Wits and Beaux of Society " 
 is a responsible one, and does not involve the mere at- 
 tempt to amuse, or the mere desire to abuse, but requires 
 truth and discrimination; as embracing just or unjust 
 views of such characters, it may do much harm or 
 much good. Nevertheless, in spite of these obvious 
 considerations, there do exist worthy persons, even in 
 the present day, so unreasonable as to take offence at 
 the revival of old stories anent their defunct grand- 
 fathers, though those very stories were circulated by 
 accredited writers employed by the families themselves. 
 Some individuals are scandalized when a man who was 
 habitually drunk, is called a drunkard ; and ears polite 
 
6 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 cannot bear the ajDplication of plain names to well- 
 known delinquencies. 
 
 There is something foolish, but respectably foolish, 
 in this wish to shut out light which has been streaming 
 for years over these old tombs and memories. The 
 flowers that are cast on such graves cannot, however, 
 cause us to forget the corruptioij within and under- 
 neath. In consideration, nevertheless, of a pardon- 
 able weakness, all expressions that can give pain, or 
 which have been said to give pain, have been, in this 
 Second Edition, omitted ; and whenever a mis-state- 
 ment has crept in, care has been taken to amend the 
 error. 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 The success of the " Queens of Society " will have 
 pioneered the way for the "Wits and Beaux:" with 
 whom, during the holiday time of their lives, these 
 fair ladies were so greatly associated. The " Queens," 
 whether all wits or not, must have been the cause of 
 wit in others ; their influence over dandyism is noto- 
 rious : their power to make or mar a man of fashion, 
 almost historical. So far, a chronicle of the sayings 
 and doings of the "Wits" is worthy to serve as a 
 pendant to that of the "Queens:" happy would it 
 be for society if the annals of the former could more 
 closely resemble the biography of the latter. But it 
 may not be so : men are subject to temptations, to 
 failures, to delinquencies, to calamities, of which women 
 can scarcely dream, and which they can only lament 
 and pity. 
 
 Our " Wits," too — to separate them from the 
 "Beaux" — were men who often took an active part 
 in the stirring events of their day : they assumed to be 
 statesmen, though, too frequently, they were only poli- 
 
 7 
 
8 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 ticians. They were brave and loyal : indeed, in the 
 time of the Stuarts, all the Wits were Cavaliers, as 
 well as the Beaux. One hears of no repartee among 
 Cromwell's followers ; no dash, no merriment, in Fair- 
 fax's staff; eloquence, indeed, but no wit in the Par- 
 liamentarians ; and, in truth, in the second Charles's 
 time, the king might have headed the lists of the Wits 
 himself — such a capital man as his Majesty is known 
 to have been for a wet evening or a dull Sunday ; such 
 a famous teller of a story — such a perfect diner-out : no 
 wonder that in his reign we had George Villiers, second 
 Duke of Buckingham of that family, "mankind's epit- 
 ome," who had every pretension to every accomplish- 
 ment combined in himself. No wonder we could 
 attract De Grammont and Saint Evremond to our 
 court ; and own, somewhat to our discredit be it 
 allowed, Rochester and Beau Fielding. Every reign 
 has had its wits, but those in Charles's time were so 
 numerous as to distinguish the era by an especial 
 brilliancy. Nor let it be supposed that these annals 
 do not contain a moral application. They show how 
 little the sparkling attributes herein portrayed con- 
 ferred happiness ; how far more the rare, though cer- 
 tainly real touches of genuine feeling and strong aifec- 
 tion, which appear here and there even in the lives of 
 the most thoughtless "Wits and Beaux," elevate the 
 character in youth, or console the spirit in age. They 
 prove how wise has been that change in society which 
 now repudiates the " Wit " as a distinct class ; and re- 
 
PKEFACE TO THE FIKST EDITION. 9 
 
 quires general intelligence as a compensation for lost 
 repartees, or long obsolete practical jokes. 
 
 "Men are not all evil:" so in the life of George 
 Villiers, we find him kind-hearted, and free from 
 hypocrisy. His old servants — and the fact speaks 
 in extenuation of one of our wildest Wits and Beaux 
 — loved him faithfully. De Grammont, we all own, 
 has little to redeem him except his good nature : 
 Rochester's latest days were almost hallowed by his 
 penitence. Chesterfield is saved by his kindness to 
 the Irish, and his affection for his son. Horace Wal- 
 pole had human affections, though a most inhuman 
 pen : and Wharton was famous for his good-humor. 
 
 The periods most abounding in the Wit and the Beau 
 have, of course, been those most exempt from wars, 
 and rumors of wars. The Restoration ; the early 
 period of the Augustan age; the commencement of 
 the Hanoverian dynasty, — have all been enlivened by 
 Wits and Beaux, who came to light like mushrooms 
 after a storm of rain, as soon as the political horizon 
 was clear. We have Congreve, who affected to be 
 the Beau as well as the Wit ; Lord Hervey, more 
 of the courtier than the Beau — a Wit by inheritance 
 — a peer, assisted into a pre-eminent position by royal 
 preference, and consequent prestige ; and all these men 
 were the offspring of the particular state of the times 
 in which they figured : at earlier periods, they would 
 have been deemed effeminate ; in later ones, absurd. 
 
 Then the scene shifts : intellect had marched forward 
 
10 PEEFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 gigantically : the world is growing exacting, disputa- 
 tious, critical, and such, men as Horace Walpole and 
 Brinsley Sheridan appear ; the characteristics of wit 
 which adorned that age being well diluted by the 
 feebler talents of Selwyn and Hook. 
 
 Of these, and others, " table traits," and other traits, 
 are here given : brief chronicles of their life's stage, 
 over which a curtain has so long been dropped, are 
 supplied carefully from well-established sources : it is 
 with characters, not with literary history, that we 
 deal ; and do our best to make the portraitures life- 
 like, and to bring forward old memories, which, with- 
 out the stamp of antiquity, might be suffered to pass 
 into obscurity. 
 
 Your Wit and your Beau, be he French or English, 
 is no mediaeval personage : the aristocracy of the pres- 
 ent day rank among his immediate descendants : he is 
 a creature of a modern and an artificial age ; and with 
 his career are mingled many features of civilized life, 
 manners, habits, and traces of family history which are 
 still, it is believed, interesting to the majority of Eng- 
 lish readers, as they have long been to 
 
 Grace and Philip Wharton. 
 
 October, 1860. 
 
COITTEl^TS. 
 
 GEORGE VILLIEES, SECOND DUKE OF BUCK- 
 INGHAM. 
 
 Signs of the Restoration. — Samuel Pepys in his Glory. — Who was 
 Samuel Pepys ? — A Royal Company. — Pepys " ready to Weep." 
 — The Playmate of Charles II. — George Villiers. — George Vil- 
 liers's Inheritance. — Two Gallant Young Noblemen. — Murder 
 of Francis Villiers. — After the Battle of Worcester. — Boscobel. 
 — At the White-Ladies. — Disguising the King. — ^Villiers in 
 Hiding. — He appears as a Mountebank. — Buckingham's Hab- 
 its. — He sees his Sister. — Cromwell's Saintly Daughter. — In 
 love with a Mountebank. — Villiers and the Rabbi. — The Buck- 
 ingham Pictures and Estates. — York House. — Villiers returns 
 to England. — Poor Mary Fairfax. — York House Sold. — Vil- 
 liers in the Tower. — Abraham Cowley, the Poet. — Cowley and 
 Villiers. — The Greatest Ornament of Whitehall. — Bucking- 
 ham's Wit and Beauty. — Flecknoe's Opinion. — The Countess 
 of Shrewsbury. — Duel with the Earl of Shrewsbury. — Villiers 
 as a Poet. — As a Dramatist. — A Fearful Censure ! — Villiers's 
 Influence in Parliament. — A Scene in the Lords. — The Cabal. 
 — The Duke of Ormond in Danger. — Rochester's Epigram. — 
 Wallingford House. — Ham House. — "Madame Ellen." — The 
 Cabal. — Villiers again in the Tower. — A Change. — Nearing the 
 End.— The Duke of York's Theatre.— The Duchess of Buck- 
 ingham Leaves. — Villiers and the Princess of Orange. — ^Vil- 
 liers's Last Hours. — Death of Villiers. — Duchess of Bucking- 
 ham Page 19 
 
 COUNT DE GEAMMONT, ST. EVEEMOND, AND 
 LORD ROCHESTER. 
 
 The Church or the Army ? — De Grammont's Choice. — His Influence 
 with Turenne. — An Adventure at Lyons. — A Brilliant Idea. — 
 Gambling upon Credit. — De Grammont's Generosity. — A Horse 
 
 11 
 
12 CONTENTS. 
 
 "for the Cards."— Knight-Cicisbeism.—De Grammont's First 
 Love. — His Witty Attacks on Mazarin. — De Grammont's In- 
 dependence.— Anne Lucie de la Motlie Houdancourt. — Beset 
 witli Snares. — l)e Grammont's Xiaits to England. — Charles II. 
 —Life at Whitehall.— Court of Charles II.— Introduction of 
 Country Dances. — Norman Peculiarities. — St. Evremond, the 
 Handsome Norman. — The Most Beautiful Woman in Europe. 
 — The Child-Wife.— Hortense Mancini's Adventures. — Life at 
 Chelsea. — Anecdote of Lord Dorset. — Lord Dorset as a Poet. 
 Lord Rochester in his Zenith. — His Courage and Wit. — As a 
 Writer and a Man. — Banished from Court. — Credulity, Past 
 and Present. — " Dr. Bendo " and La Belle Jennings. — Bishop 
 Burnet's Description. — La Triste Heritiere. — Elizabeth, Coun- 
 tess of Kochester. — Retribution and Reformation. — Conversion. 
 — E.xhortation to Mr. Fanshawe. — Beaux without Wit. — Little 
 Jermyn. — An Incomparable Beauty. — Anthony Hamilton. — 
 De Grammont's Biographer. — The Three Courts. — " La Belle 
 Hamilton." — An Intellectual Beauty. — Sir Peter Lely's Por- 
 trait. — Infatuation. — The Household Deity of Whitehall. — 
 Who shall have the Caleche? — A Chaplain in Livery. — At 
 the French Court. — De Grammont's Last Hours. . . Pac/e 78 
 
 BEAU FIELDING. 
 
 On Wits and Beaux. — Fielding's Ancestry. — Scotland Yard. — Or- 
 lando of "The Tatler."—" A Complete Gentleman."— In Debt. 
 — Adonis in Search of a Wife. — The Sham Widow. — Ways 
 and Means. — A Fatal Intimacy. — Barbara Villiers, Lady Cas- 
 tlemaine. — Quarrels with the King. — The Duchess of Cleve- 
 land in Love. — The Beau's Second Marriage. — The Last Days 
 of Fops and Beaux .... Pac/e 136 
 
 OF CEKTAIN CLUBS AND CLUB-WITS UNDER 
 
 ANNE. 
 
 The Raison d'etre of Club-Life.— The Origin of Clubs.— The Estab- 
 lishment of Coffee-houses. — The October Club. — The Beef-steak 
 Club. — Its Modern Representative. — Estcourt, the Actor. — The 
 Kit-kat Club. — The Romance of the Bowl. — ^The Toasts of the 
 Kit-kat. — Portraits of Ladies of the Kit-kat. — The Members 
 of the Kit-kat.— A Good Wit, and a Bad Architect.—" Well- 
 natured Garth."—" A better Wit than Poet."— The Poets of 
 
CONTENTS. 13 
 
 the Kit-kat. — Poets and their Patrons. — Lord Halifax as a 
 Poet. — Chancellor Somers. — Charles Sackville, Lord Dorset. — 
 Less Celebrated Wits Page 152 
 
 WILLIAM CONGREVE. 
 
 When and Where was he Born ? — Conflicting Dates.— The Middle 
 Temple. — Congreve finds his Vocation. — Verses to Queen Mary. 
 — Old Betterton. — The Tennis Court Theatre. — Congreve aban- 
 dons the Drama. — Jeremy Collier. — The Immorality of the 
 Stage. — Honi soit qui mal y pense. — Very Improper Things. — 
 Congreve's Writings. — Promiscuous Attacks. — Jeremy's " Short 
 Views." — Dryden's Death.— Dryden's Funeral. — What came 
 of a "Drunken Frolic." — A Tub-Preacher. — A Mob in the 
 Abbey. — Dryden's Solicitude for his Son. — Congreve's Ambi- 
 tion. — Anecdote of Voltaire and Congreve. — Authorship as a 
 Profession. — The Profession of Msecenas. — Advantages of a 
 Patron. — Congreve's Private Life. — "Malbrook's" Daugh- 
 ter. — Legacies to Titled Friends.— Congreve's Death and 
 Burial Page 175 
 
 BEAU NASH. 
 
 Nash's Birthplace and Father. — Old Nash. — Nash at Oxford. — 
 Shifting for Himself. — Offer of Knighthood. — Nash's Gener- 
 osity. — Doing Penance at York. — Days of Folly. — A very Ko- 
 mantic Story. — Bath. — Sickness and Civilization. — Nash De- 
 scends upon Bath. — King of Bath. — Nash's Chef-d'cEuvre.-^ 
 The Ball. — Improvements in the Pump-room. — A Public 
 Benefactor. — Canes vs. Swords. — Life at Bath in Nash's Time. — 
 Compact with the Duke of Beaufort. — Gaming at Bath. — The 
 Fop's Vanity. — Anecdotes of Nash. — " Miss Sylvia." — A Gen- 
 erous Act. — The Setting Sun. — A Panegyric. — Nash's Old Age. 
 — His Funeral. — His Characteristics. — Beau Nash and his Flat- 
 terers • • Page 206 
 
 PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON. 
 
 Pope's Lines on Wharton. — The Duke'sAncestors. — His Early Years. 
 — Marriage at Sixteen. — Wharton takes Leave of his Tutor. — 
 Espouses the Chevalier's Cause. — Frolics at Paris. — Seeks a 
 Seat in Parliament. — " Pawning his Principles." — Zeal for the 
 
14 CONTENTS. 
 
 Orange Cause. — A Jacobite Hero. — The Trial of Atterbury. — 
 Wharton's Defence of the Bishop. — A Partisan of the Cheva- 
 Jier. — Hypocritical Signs of Penitence. — Sir Kobert Walpole 
 Duped. — A New Love. — Very Trying. — The Duke of Whar- 
 ton's "Whens."— Military Glory at Gibraltar.— A "Colonel 
 Aggregate."— "Uncle Horace."— Wharton to "Uncle Hor- 
 ace." — The Duke's Impudence. — Living beyond his Means. 
 — High Treason. — Wharton's Keady Wit. — Last Extremities. 
 — Sad Days in Paris. — His Last Journey to Spain. — His Activ- 
 ity of Mind. — His Death in a Convent Page 238 
 
 LOED HERVEY. 
 
 George II. Arriving from Hanover. — His Meeting with the Queen. 
 — Mrs. Clayton. — Lady Suffolk. — Queen Caroline. — Sir Eob- 
 ert Walpole. — A Statesman's Last Days. — Lord Hervey. — The 
 Macaroni. — Lord Hervey's Ancestry. — An Eccentric Pace. — 
 Carr, Lord Hervey. — A Fragile Boy. — A Butterfly Existence. 
 — George II.'s Family. — Anne Brett. — A Bitter Cup. — The 
 Darling of the Family. — The Younger Koyal Princesses. — 
 Evenings at St. James's. — Frederick, Prince of Wales. — Ame- 
 lia Sophia Walmoden. — Kingly Insults. — Poor Queen Caroline ! 
 ■ — Miss Vane. — Nocturnal Diversions. — "Neighbor George's 
 Orange-chest."— Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey. — Rivalry. — Lady 
 Mary Wortley Montagu. — Hervey^s Intimacy with Lady Mary. 
 —Visits to Twickenham. — Bacon's Opinion of Twickenham. — 
 A Visit to Pope's Villa. — Pope as a Host. — The Little Night- 
 ingale. — The Essence of Small-talk. — Hervey's Affectation.— 
 Pope's Quarrels. — Pope's Lines on Lord Hervey. — Hervey's 
 Duel with Pulteney. — " Death of Lord Hervey : a Drama." — 
 Card-table Conversation. — Queen Caroline's Last Drawing- 
 room.— Her Illness and Agony.— The Queen Keeps her Secret. 
 —A Painful Scene.— The Truth Discovered.— The Hated 
 "Griff."— The Queen's Dying Bequests.— Her Son's Loving At- 
 tentions.— Archbishop Potter is Sent for.— The Duty of Recon- 
 ciliation.— The Dying Queen.— The Death of Queen Caroline. 
 —A Change in Hervey's Life.— Loss of Court Influence.— 
 Lord Hervey's Death.— Platonic Love.— Memoirs of his Own 
 Time. . . . Page 211 
 
CONTENTS. 15 
 
 PHILIP DOEMEE STANHOPE, FOUETH EAEL OF 
 CHESTEEFIELD. 
 
 Early Years.— His Aim in Life.— Hervey's Description of Ches- 
 terfield. — Study of Oratory. — Duty of an Ambassador. — " His- 
 tory of the Eeign of George II."— George II.'s Opinion of his 
 Chroniclers. — Life in the Country. — Melnsina, Countess of Wal- 
 singham. — Chesterfield and Lady Suffolk.— George II. and his 
 Father's Will. — Dissolving Views. — Madame de Bouchet. — 
 Court Ladies. — Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. — A Wise and Just 
 Administration. — Eeformation of the Calendar. — In Middle 
 Life. — Chesterfield House. — Exclusiveness. — Chesterfield's 
 Neglect of Johnson. — Eecommending " Johnson's Dictionary." 
 —"Old Samuel" to Chesterfield.— " Defensive Pride."— Ches- 
 terfield's Rejoinder. — The Glass of Fashion. — Lord Scarbor- 
 ough's Friendship. — Death of Chesterfield's Son.— Chesterfield 
 growing Old. — His Interest in his Grandson. — " I must Go and 
 Eehearse my Funeral." — Chesterfield's WiU. — "A Man who 
 had no Friends." — His " Letters to his Son."— Les Manieres 
 Nobles Page 332 
 
 THE ABBE SCAEEON. 
 
 An Eastern Allegory. — Who Comes Here ? — A Mad Freak and its 
 Consequences. — Scarron's Early Years. — Making an Abb^ of 
 him. — The Mayfair of Paris. — A Helpless Cripple. — Scarron's 
 Lament to Pellisson. — Presented at Court. — The Office of the 
 Queen's Patient. — Scarron's Writings. — Scarron's Description 
 of Himself. — Improvidence and Servility. — The Society at 
 Scarron's. — Scarron's Lady Friends. — The Witty Conversation. 
 — Franpoise d'Aubign^'s d^but. — The Sad Story of La Belle 
 Indienne. — Scarron in Love. — Matrimonial Consideration. — 
 "An Ofier of Marriage." — " Scarron's Wife will Live for ever." 
 — Petits Soupers. — The Laugher's Death-bed. — Scarron's Last 
 Moments. — A Lesson for Gay and Grave Page 369 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Photogravures by the Gebeie & HussON Co. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Geokge Viluers, Second Duke of Buckingham . Frontispiece. 
 
 Philibert, Count db Geammont 78 
 
 Charles de St. Evkemond, Seigneur db St. Denis le 
 
 GUAST 100 
 
 John Wilmot, Eabl op Eochester 110 
 
 Colonel Egbert (Beau) Fielding 136 
 
 William Congkeve 175 
 
 Eichaed (Beau) Nash 206 
 
 Philip, Duke op Wharton 238 
 
 John, Lord Hervey 271 
 
 Philip Dormer Stanhope, Fourth Earl of Chester- 
 field 332 
 
 The Abbe Scarkon - 369 
 
 2 17 
 
THE 
 
 WITS AND BEAUX OF SOCIETY. 
 
 GEORGE VILLIERS, SECOND DUKE OF 
 BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 Samuel Pepys, the weather-glass of his time, hails 
 the first glimpse of the Restoration of Charles II. in 
 his usual quaint terms and vulgar sycophancy. 
 
 "To Westminster Hall," says he; "where I heard 
 how the Parliament had this day dissolved themselves, 
 and did pass very cheerfully through the Hall, and the 
 Speaker without his mace. The whole Hall was j oyful 
 thereat, as well as themselves ; and now they begin to 
 talk loud of the king." And the evening was closed, 
 he further tells us, with a large bonfire in the Exchange, 
 and people called out, " God bless King Charles !" 
 
 This was in March, 1660 ; and during that spring 
 Pepys was noting down how he did not think it pos- 
 sible that my "Lord Protector," Richard Cromwell, 
 should come into power again ; how there were great 
 hopes of the king's arrival ; how Monk, the Restorer, 
 was feasted at Mercers' Hall (Pepys's own especial) ; 
 how it was resolved that a treaty be oifered to the 
 king, privately ; how he resolved to go to sea with 
 
 19 
 
20 SIGNS OP THE EESTOKATION. 
 
 "my lord:" and how, while they lay at Gravesend, 
 the great afiair which brought back Charles Stuart 
 ■was virtually accomplished. Then, with various paren- 
 theses, inimitable in their way, Pepys carries on his 
 narrative. He has left his father's "cutting-room" 
 to take care of itself; and finds his cabin little, though 
 his bed is convenient, but is certain, as he rides at 
 anchor with "my lord," in the ship, that the king 
 "must of necessity come in," and the vessel sails 
 round and anchors in Lee Roads. " To the castles 
 about Deal, where our fleet" {our fleet, the saucy son 
 of a tailor!) "lay and anchored; great was the shoot 
 of guns from the castles, and ships, and our answers." 
 Glorious Samuel ! in his element, to be sure. 
 
 Then the wind grew high : he began to be " dizzy, 
 and squeamish ;" nevertheless employed " Lord's Day " 
 in looking through the lieutenant's glass at two good 
 merchantmen, and the women in them ; " being pretty 
 handsome;" then in the afternoon he first saw Calais, 
 and was pleased, though it was at a great distance. 
 All eyes were looking across the Channel just then — 
 for the king was at Flushing ; and, though the " Fa- 
 natiques " still held their heads up high, and the 
 Cavaliers also talked high on the other side, the cause 
 that Pepys was bound to, still gained ground. 
 
 Then " they begin to speak freely of King Charles ;" 
 churches in the City, Samuel declares, were setting up 
 his arms ; merchant-ships — more important in those 
 days — were hanging out his colors. He hears, too, 
 
SAMUEL PEPYS IN HIS GLOEY. 21 
 
 how the Mercers' Company were making a statue 
 of his gracious Majesty to set ujd in the Exchange. 
 Ah ! Pepys's heart is merry : he has forty shillings 
 (some shabby perquisite) given him by Captain Cowes 
 of the "Paragon;" and "my lord" in the evening 
 "falls to singing" a song upon the Rump to the 
 tune of the "Blacksmith." 
 
 The hopes of the Cavalier party are hourly increas- 
 ing, and those of Pepys we may be sure also ; for Pirn, 
 the tailor, spends a morning in his cabin " putting a 
 great many ribbons to a sail." And the king is to 
 be brought over suddenly, "my lord" tells him: and 
 indeed it looks like it, for the sailors are drinking 
 Charles's health in the streets of Deal, on their knees ; 
 " which, methinks," says Pepys, " is a little too much ;" 
 and " methinks " so, worthy Master Pepys, also. 
 
 Then how the news of the Parliamentary vote of 
 the king's declaration was received ! Pepys becomes 
 eloquent. 
 
 " He that can fancy a fleet (like burs) in her pride, 
 with pendants loose, guns roaring, caps flying, and the 
 loud ' Vive le Roi!' echoed from one ship's company to 
 another; he, and he only, can apprehend the joy this 
 enclosed vote was received with, or the blessing he 
 thought himself possessed of that bore it." 
 
 Next, orders come for " my lord " to sail forthwith 
 to the king ; and the painters and tailors set to work, 
 Pepys superintending, " cutting out some pieces of 
 yellow cloth in the fashion of a crown and C. R. ; 
 
22 WHO WAS SAMUEL PEPYS7 
 
 and putting it upon a fine sheet" — and that is to 
 supersede the States' arms, and is finished and set 
 up. And the next day, on May 14, the Hague is 
 seen plainly by us, " my lord going up in his night- 
 gown into the cuddy." 
 
 And then they land at the Hague; some "nasty 
 Dutchmen" come on board to ofier their boats, and 
 get money, which Pepys does not like ; and in time 
 they find themselves in the Hague, " a most neat place 
 in all respects :" salute the Queen of Bohemia and the 
 Prince of Orange — afterwards "William III. — and find 
 at their place of supper nothing but a " sallet " and 
 two or three bones of mutton provided for ten of us, 
 " which was very strange." Nevertheless, on they sail, 
 having returned to the fleet, to Schevelling : and, on 
 the 23d of the month, go to meet the king ; who, " on 
 getting into the boat, did kiss my lord with much af- 
 fection." An " extraordinary press of good company," 
 and great mirth all day, announced the Restoration. 
 Nevertheless Charles's clothes had not been, till this 
 time, Master Pepys is assured, worth forty shillings — 
 and he, as a connoisseur, was scandalized at the fact. 
 
 And now, before we proceed, let us ask who worthy 
 Samuel Pepys was, that he should pass such stringent 
 comments on men and manners ? His origin was lowly, 
 although his family ancient ; his father having followed, 
 until the Restoration, the calling of a tailor. Pepys, 
 vulgar as he was, had nevertheless received an uni- 
 versity education ; first entering Trinity College, Cam- 
 
A EOYAL COMPANY. 23 
 
 bridge, as a sizar. To our wonder we find him marry- 
 ing furtively and independently ; and his wife, at fifteen, 
 was glad with her husband to take up an abode in the 
 house of a relative, Sir Edward Montagu, afterwards 
 Earl of Sandwich, the " my lord " under whose shadow 
 Samuel Pepys dwelt in reverence. By this nobleman's 
 influence Pepys for ever left the "cutting-room;" he 
 acted first as secretary (always as toad-eater, one would 
 fancy), then became a clerk in the Admiralty ; and as 
 such went, after the Restoration, to live in Seething 
 Lane, in the parish of St. Olave, Hart Street — and 
 in St. Olave his mortal part was ultimately deposited. 
 
 So much for Pepys. See him now, in his full- 
 bottomed wig, and best cambric neckerchief, looking 
 out for the king and his suit, who are coming on board 
 the " Nazeby." 
 
 " Up, and made myself as fine as I could, with the 
 linning stockings on, and wide canons that I bought 
 the other day at the Hague." So began he the day. 
 " All day nothing but lords and persons of honor on 
 board, that we were exceeding full. Dined in great 
 deal of state, the royalle company by themselves in the 
 coache, which was a blessed sight to see." This royal 
 company consisted of Charles, the Dukes of York and 
 Gloucester, his brothers, the Queen of Bohemia, the 
 Princess Royal, the Prince of Orange, afterwards Wil- 
 liam III. — all of whose hands Pepys kissed, after din- 
 ner. The King and Duke of York changed the names 
 of the ships. The " Rumpers," as Pepys calls the Par- 
 
24 PEPYS "KEADY TO WEEP." 
 
 liamentarians, had given one the name of the " Nazeby ;" 
 and that was now christened the " Charles :" " Richard " 
 was changed into " James," the " Speaker " into 
 "Mary," the "Lambert," was "Henrietta," and so 
 on. How merry the king must have been whilst he 
 thus turned the Roundheads, as it were, off the ocean ; 
 and how he walked here and there, up and down (quite 
 contrary to what Samuel Pepys "expected"), and fell 
 into discourse of his escape from Worcester, and made 
 Samuel " ready to weep " to hear of his travelling four 
 days and three nights on foot, up to his knees in dirt, 
 with " nothing but a green coat and a pair of breeches 
 on " (worse and worse, thought Pepys), and a pair of 
 country shoes that made his feet sore ; and how, at one 
 place he was made to drink by the servants, to show he 
 was not a Roundhead ; and how, at another place — and 
 Charles, the best teller of a story in his own dominions, 
 may here have softened his tone — the master of the 
 house, an innkeeper, as the king was standing by the 
 fire, with his hands on the back of a chair, kneeled 
 down and kissed his hand " privately," saying he 
 could not ask him who he was, but bid " God bless 
 him, where he was going !" 
 
 Then, rallying after this touch of pathos, Charles 
 took his hearers over to Fecamp, in France — thence 
 to Rouen, where, he said, in his easy, irresistible way, 
 " I looked so poor that the people went into the rooms 
 before I went away, to see if I had not stolen something 
 or other." 
 
THE PLAYMATE OF CPIAKLES II. 25 
 
 With what reverence and sympathy did our Pepys 
 listen ; but he was forced to hurry off to get Lord 
 Berkeley a bed; and with "much ado" (as one may 
 believe) he did get " him to bed with My Lord Middle- 
 sex ;" so, after seeing these two peers of the realm in 
 that dignified predicament — two in a bed — " to my 
 cabin again," where the company were still talking 
 of the king's difficulties, and how his Majesty was 
 fain to eat a piece of bread and cheese out of a poor 
 body's pocket ; and, at a Catholic house, how he lay 
 a good while " in the Priest's Hole, for privacy." 
 
 In all these hairbreadth escapes — of which the king 
 spoke with infinite humor and good feeling — one name 
 was perpetually introduced : — George — George Villiers, 
 Villers, as the royal narrator called him ; for the name 
 was so pronounced formerly. And well he might ; for 
 George Villiers had been his playmate, classfellow, nay, 
 bedfellow sometimes, in priests' holes ; their names, 
 their haunts, their hearts, were all assimilated ; and 
 misfortune had bound them closely to each other. To 
 George Villiers let us now return ; he is waiting for his 
 royal master on the other side of the Channel — in Eng- 
 land. And a strange character have we to deal with : — 
 
 "A man so various, that he seemed to be 
 Not one, but all mankind's epitome : 
 Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, 
 Was everything by starts, and nothing long ; 
 But, in the course of one revolving moon, 
 Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon." ' 
 ' Dryden. 
 
26 GEORGE VILLIEES. 
 
 Sucli was George Villiers : the Alcibiades of that age. 
 Let us trace one of the most romantic, and brilliant, 
 and unsatisfactory lives that has ever been written. 
 
 George Villiers was born at Wallingford House, in 
 the parish of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields, on the 30th 
 January, 1627. The Admiralty now stands on the 
 site of the mansion in which he first saw the light. 
 His father was George Villiers, the favorite of James 
 I. and of Charles I. ; his mother, the Lady Katherine 
 Manners, daughter and heiress of Francis, Earl of 
 Rutland. Scarcely was he a year old, when the 
 assassination of his father, by Felton, threw the affairs 
 of his family into confusion. His mother, after the 
 Duke of Buckingham's death, gave birth to a son, 
 Francis ; who was subsequently, savagely killed by 
 the Roundheads, near Kingston. Then the Duchess 
 of Buckingham very shortly married again, and unit- 
 ing herself to Randolph Macdonald, Earl of Antrim, 
 became a rigid Catholic. She was therefore lost to 
 her children, or rather, they were lost to her ; for 
 King Charles I., who had promised to be a "husband 
 to her, and a father to her children," removed them 
 from her charge, and educated them with the royal 
 princes. 
 
 The youthful peer soon gave indications of genius ; 
 and all that a careful education could do was directed 
 to improve his natural capacity under private tutors. 
 He went to Cambridge ; and thence, under the care 
 of a preceptor named Aylesbury, travelled into France. 
 
GEOEGE VILLIEES'S INHEEITANCE. 27 
 
 He was accompanied by his young, handsome, fine- 
 spirited brother, Francis ; and this was the sunshine 
 of his life. His father had indeed left him, as his 
 biographer Brian Fairfax expresses it, " the greatest 
 name in England ; his mother, the greatest estate of 
 any subject." With this inheritance there had also 
 descended to him the wonderful beauty, the match- 
 less grace, of his ill-fated father. Great abilities, 
 courage, fascination of manners, were also his ; but 
 he had not been endowed with firmness of character, 
 and was at once energetic and versatile. Even at 
 this age, the qualities which became his ruin were 
 clearly discoverable. 
 
 George Villiers was recalled to England by the 
 troubles which drove the king to Oxford, and which 
 converted that academical city into a garrison, its 
 under-graduates into soldiers, its ancient halls into 
 barrack-rooms. Villiers was on this occasion entered 
 at Christ Church : the youth's best feelings were 
 aroused, and his loyalty was engaged to one to whom 
 his father owed so much. He was now a young man 
 of twenty-one years of age — able to act for himself; 
 and he went heart and soul into the cause of his 
 sovereign. Never was there a gayer, a more pre- 
 possessing Cavalier. He could charm even a Kound- 
 head. The harsh and Presbyterian-minded Bishop 
 Burnet, has told us that " he was a man of noble 
 presence ; had a great liveliness of wit, and a peculiar 
 faculty of turning everything into ridicule, with bold 
 
28 TWO GALLANT YOUNG NOBLEMEN. 
 
 figures and natural descriptions." How invaluable he 
 must have been in the Common-rooms at Oxford, then 
 turned into guard-rooms, his eye upon some unlucky- 
 volunteer Don, who had put off his clerky costume 
 for a buff jacket, and could not manage his drill ! 
 Irresistible as his exterior is declared to have been, 
 the original mind of Villiers was even far more in- 
 fluential. De Grammont tells us, "he was extremely 
 handsome, but still thought himself much more so 
 than he really was ; although he had a great deal 
 of discernment, yet his vanities made him mistake 
 some civilities as intended for his person which were 
 only bestowed on his wit and drollery." 
 
 But this very vanity, so unpleasant in an old man, 
 is only amusing in a younger wit. AVhilst thus a 
 gallant of the court and camp, the young nobleman 
 proved himself to be no less brave than witty. Juve- 
 nile as he was, with a brother still younger, they fought 
 on the royalist side at Lichfield, in the storming of tht 
 Cathedral Close. For thus allowing their lives to be 
 endangered, their mother blamed Lord Gerard, one of 
 the Duke's guardians ; whilst the Parliament seized the 
 pretext of confiscating their estates, which were after- 
 wards returned to them, on account of their being 
 under age at the time of confiscation. The youths 
 were then placed under the care of the Earl of 
 Northumberland, by whose permission they travelled 
 in France and Italy, where they appeared — their 
 estates having been restored — with princely magnifi- 
 
MURDER OF FRANCIS VILLIERS. 29 
 
 cence. Nevertheless, on hearing of the imprisonment 
 of Charles I. in the Isle of Wight, the gallant youths 
 returned to England and joined the army under the 
 Earl of Holland, who was defeated near Nonsuch, in 
 Surrey. 
 
 A sad episode in the annals of these eventful times 
 is presented in the fate of the handsome, brave Francis 
 Villiers. His murder, for one can call it by no other 
 name, shows how keenly the personal feelings of the 
 Roundheads were engaged in this national quarrel. 
 Under most circumstances. Englishmen would have 
 spared the youth, and respected the gallantry of the 
 free young soldier, who, planting himself against an 
 oak-tree which grew in the road, refused to ask for 
 quarter, but defended himself against several assail- 
 ants. But the name of Villiers was hateful in Puritan 
 ears. " Hew them down, root and branch!" was the 
 sentiment that actuated the soldiery. His very loveli- 
 ness exasperated their vengeance. At last, " with nine 
 wounds on his beautiful face and body," says Fairfax, 
 " he was slain." " The oak-tree," writes the devoted 
 servant, "is his monument," and the letters of F. V. 
 were cut in it in his day. His body was conveyed by 
 water to York House, and was entombed with that of 
 his father, in the Chapel of Henry VII. 
 
 His brother fled towards St. Neot's, where he 
 encountered a strange kind of peril. Tobias Rustat 
 attended him ;■ and was with him in the rising in Kent 
 for King Charles I., wherein the Duke was engaged; 
 
30 AFTEE THE BATTLE OF WOECESTER. 
 
 and they, being put to the flight, the Duke's helmet, 
 by a brush under a tree, was turned upon his back, 
 and tied so fast with a string under his throat, " that 
 without the present help of T. R.," writes Fairfax, 
 "it had undoubtedly choked him, as I have credibly 
 heard." ' 
 
 Whilst at St. Neot's, the house in which Villiera had 
 taken refuge was surrounded with soldiers. He had a 
 stout heart, and a dexterous hand ; he took his resolu- 
 tion ; rushed out upon his foes, killed the officer in com- 
 mand, galloped off and joined the Prince in the Downs. 
 
 The sad story of Charles I. was played out; but 
 Villiers remained stanch, and was permitted to return 
 and to accompany Prince Charles into Scotland. Then 
 came the battle of Worcester in 1651 : there Charles II. 
 showed himself a worthy descendant of James IV. of 
 Scotland. He resolved to conquer or die : with des- 
 perate gallantry the English Cavaliers and the Scotch 
 Highlanders seconded the monarch's valiant onslaught 
 on Cromwell's horse, and the invincible Life Guards 
 were almost driven back by the shock. But they were 
 not seconded ; Charles II. had his horse twice shot 
 
 ' The day after the battle at Kin.spton, the Duke's estates were 
 confiscated (8th July, 1648).— Nichols's History of Leioestei-shire, 
 iii. 213; who also says that the Duke offered marriage to one of 
 the daughters of Cromwell, but was refused. He went abroad in 
 1648, but returned with Charles II. to Scotland in 1650, and 
 again escaped to France after the battle of Worcester, 16.51. The 
 sale of the pictures would seem to have commenced during his first 
 exile. 
 
BOSCOBEL. 31 
 
 under him, but, nothing daunted, he was the last to 
 tear himself away from the field, and then only upon 
 the solicitations of his friends. 
 
 Charles retired to Kidderminster that evening:. The 
 Duke of Buckingham, the gallant Lord Derby, Wilmot, 
 afterwards Earl of Rochester, and some others, rode 
 near him. They were followed by a small body of 
 horse. Disconsolately they rode on northwards, a faith- 
 ful band of sixty being resolved to escort his Majesty 
 to Scotland. At length they halted on Kinver Heath, 
 near Kidderminster : their guide having lost the way. 
 In this extremity Lord Derby said that he had been 
 received kindly at an old house in a secluded woody 
 country, between Tong Castle and Brewood, on the 
 borders of Staffordshire. It was named " Boscobel," 
 he said ; and that word has henceforth conjured up to 
 the mind's eye the remembrance of a band of tired 
 heroes, riding through woody glades to an ancient 
 house, where shelter was given to the worn-out horses 
 and scarcely less harassed riders. 
 
 But not so rapidly did they in reality proceed. A 
 Catholic family, named Giffard, were living at White- 
 Ladies, about twenty-six miles from Worcester. This 
 was only about half a mile from Boscobel : it had been 
 a convent of Cistercian nuns, whose long white cloaks 
 of old had once been seen, ghost-like, amid forest 
 glades or on hillock green. The White-Ladies had 
 other memories to grace it besides those of holy 
 vesta^"*, or of unholy Cavaliers. From the time of 
 
32 AT THE WHITE-LADIES. 
 
 the Tudors, a respectable family named Somers had 
 owned the White-Ladies, and inhabited it since its 
 white-garbed tenants had been turned out, and the 
 place secularized. " Somers's House," as it was 
 called (though more happily, the old name has been 
 restored), had received Queen Elizabeth on her prog- 
 ress. The richly cultivated old conventual gardens 
 had supplied the Queen with some famous pears, and, 
 in the fulness of her approval of the fruit, she had 
 added them to the City arms. At that time one of 
 these vaunted pear-trees stood securely in the market- 
 place of Worcester. 
 
 At the White-Ladies, Charles rested for half an 
 hour ; and here he left his garters, waistcoat, and 
 other garments, to avoid discovery, ere he proceeded. 
 They were long kept as relics. 
 
 The mother of Lord Somers had been placed in this 
 old house for security, for she was on the eve of giving 
 birth to the future statesman, who was born in that 
 sanctuary just at this time. His father at that very 
 moment commanded a troop of horse in Cromwell's 
 army, so that the risk the Cavaliers ran was imminent. 
 The King's horse was led into the hall. Day was 
 dawning; and the Cavaliers, as they entered the 
 old conventual tenement, and saw the sunbeams on 
 its walls, perceived their peril. A family of servants 
 named Penderell held various offices there, and at 
 Boscobel. William took care of Boscobel, George 
 was a servant at White-Ladies ; Humphrey was the 
 
DISGUISING THE KING. 33 
 
 miller to that house; Richard lived close by, at 
 Hebbal Grange. He and William were called into 
 the royal presence. Lord Derby then said to them, 
 " This is the King ; have a care of him, and preserve 
 him as thou didst me." 
 
 Then the attendant courtiers began undressing the 
 King. They took off his bufF-coat, and put on him a 
 "noggon coarse shirt," and a green suit and another 
 doublet — Richard Penderell's woodman's dress. Lord 
 Wilmot cut his sovereign's hair with a knife, but 
 Richard Penderell took up his shears and finished 
 the work. " Burn it," said the king ; but Richard 
 kept the sacred locks. Then Charles covered his 
 dark face with soot. Could anything have taken 
 away the expression of his half-sleepy, half-merry 
 eyes ? 
 
 They departed, and half an hour afterwards Colonel 
 Ashenhurst, with a troop of Roundhead horse, rode up 
 to the White-Ladies. The King, meantime, had been 
 conducted by Richard Penderell into a coppice-wood, 
 with a bill-hook in his hands for defence and disguise. 
 But his followers were overtaken near Newport ; and 
 here Buckingham, with Lords Talbot and Leviston, 
 escaped ; and henceforth, until Charles's wanderings 
 were transferred from England to France, George 
 Villiers was separated from the Prince. Accompanied 
 by the Earls of Derby and Lauderdale, and by Lord 
 Talbot, he proceeded northwards, in hopes of joining 
 General Leslie and the Scotch horse. But their hopes 
 
 Vol. I.— 3 
 
34 VILLIEES IN HIDING. 
 
 were soon dashed : attacked by a body of Roundheads, 
 Buckingham and Lord Leviston were compelled to 
 leave the high road, to alight from their horses, and 
 to make their way to Bloore Park, near Newport, 
 where Villiers found a shelter. He was soon, how- 
 ever, necessitated to depart : he put on a laborer's 
 dress ; he deposited his George, a gift from Henrietta 
 Maria, with a companion, and set oif for Billstrop, in 
 Nottinghamshire, one Matthews, a carpenter, acting as 
 his guide ; at Billstrop he was welcomed by Mr. Hawley, 
 a Cavalier ; and from that place he went to Brookesby, 
 in Leicestershire, the original seat of the Villiers family, 
 and the birthplace of his father. Here he was received 
 by Lady Villiers — the widow, probably, of his father's 
 brother. Sir William Villiers, one of those contented 
 country squires who not only sought no distinction, but 
 scarcely thanked James I. when he made him a baronet. 
 Here might the hunted refugee see, on the open battle- 
 ments of the church, the shields on which were exhibited 
 united quarterings of his father's family with those of 
 his mother ; here, listen to old tales about his grand- 
 father, good Sir George, who married a serving-woman 
 in his deceased wife's kitchen ;' and that serving-woman 
 became the leader of fashions in the court of James. 
 
 ' Sir George Villiers's second wife was Mary, daugliter of jVntony 
 Beaumont, Esr|,, of (ileniield (Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. 193), 
 who was son of AVm. Beaumont, Esq., of Cole Orton. She after- 
 wards was married successively to Sir AVm. Earner and Sir Thom.-is 
 Compton, and was created Countess of Buckingham in 1618. 
 
HE APPEARS AS A MOUNTEBANK. 35 
 
 Here he might ponder on the vicissitudes which marked 
 the destiny of the house of Villiers, and wonder what 
 should come next. 
 
 That the spirit of adventure was strong within him, 
 is shown by his daring to go up to London, and disguis- 
 ing himself as a mountebank. He had a coat made, 
 called a " Jack Pudding Coat : " a little hat was stuck 
 on his head, with a fox's tail in it, and cocks' feathers 
 here and there. A wizard's mask one day, a daubing 
 of flour another, completed the disguise it was then so 
 usual to assume : witness the long traiBc held at Exeter 
 Change by the Duchess of Tyrconnel, Frances Jennings, 
 in a white mask, selling laces, and French gew-gaws, a 
 trader to all appearance, but really carrying on political 
 intrigues ; every one went to chat with the " White 
 Milliner," as she was called, during the reign of Wil- 
 liam and Mary. The Duke next erected a stage at 
 Charing Cross — in the very face of the stern Rumpers, 
 who, with long faces, rode past the sinful man each day 
 as they came ambling up from the Parliament House. 
 A band of puppet-players and violins set up their 
 shows ; and music covers a multitude of incongruities. 
 The ballad was then the great vehicle of personal 
 attack, and Villiers's dawning taste for poetry was 
 shown in the ditties which he now composed, and in 
 which he sometimes assisted vocally. Whilst all the 
 other Cavaliers were forced to fly, he thus bearded his 
 enemies in their very homes : sometimes he talked to 
 them face to face, and kept the sanctimonious citizens 
 
36 BUCKINGHAM'S HABITS. 
 
 in talk, till they found themselves sinfully disposed to 
 laugh. But this vagrant life had serious evils : it 
 broke down all the restraints which civilized society 
 naturally, and beneficially, imposes. The Duke of 
 Buckingham, Butler, the author of Hudibras, writes, 
 " rises, eats, goes to bed by the Julian account, long 
 after all others that go by the new style, and keeps 
 the same hours with owls and the Antipodes. He 
 is a great observer of the Tartar customs, and never 
 eats till the great cham, having dined, makes proclama- 
 tion that all the world may go to dinner. He does not 
 dwell in his house, but haunts it like an evil spirit, that 
 walks all night, to disturb the family, and never appears 
 by day. He lives perpetually benighted, runs out of 
 his life, and loses his time as men do their ways in the 
 dark : and as blind men are led by their dogs, so he is 
 governed by some mean servant or other that relates to 
 his pleasures. He is as inconstant as the moon which 
 he lives under ; and although he does nothing but 
 advise with his pillow all day, he is as great a stranger 
 to himself as he is to the rest of the world. His mind 
 entertains all things that come and go ; but like guests 
 and strangers, they are not welcome if they stay long. 
 This lays him open to all cheats, quacks, and impostors, 
 who apply to every particular humor while it lasts, and 
 afterwards vanish. He deforms nature, while he in- 
 tends to adorn her, like Indians that hang jewels in 
 their lips and noses. His ears are perpetually drilling 
 
HE SEES HIS SISTEE. 37 
 
 with a fiddlestick, and endures pleasures with less 
 patience than other men do their pains." 
 
 The more effectually to support his character as a 
 mountebankjVilliers sold mithridate and galbanum plas- 
 ters : thousands of spectators and customers thronged 
 every day to see and hear him. Possibly many guessed 
 that beneath all this fantastic exterior some ulterior 
 project was concealed ; yet he remained untouched by 
 the City Guards. Well did Dryden describe him : — 
 
 " Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, 
 Beside ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. 
 Blest madman, -vvho could every hour employ 
 With something new to wish or to enjoy." 
 
 His elder sister, Lady Mary Villiers, had married 
 the Duke of Richmond, one of the loyal adherents of 
 Charles I. The duke was, therefore, in durance at 
 Windsor, whilst the duchess was to be placed under 
 strict surveillance at Whitehall. 
 
 Villiers resolved to see her. Hearing that she was 
 to pass into Whitehall on a certain day, he set up his 
 stage where she could not fail to perceive him. He 
 had something important to say to her. As she drew 
 near, he cried out to the mob that he would give them 
 a song on the Duchess of Richmond and the Duke of 
 Buckingham : nothing could be more acceptable. " The 
 mob," it is related, " stopped the coach and the duchess 
 . . . Nay, so outrageous were the mob, that they forced 
 the duchess, who was then the handsomest woman in 
 
38 CKOMWELL'S SAINTLY DAUGHTER 
 
 England, to sit in the boot of the coach, and to hear 
 him sing all his impertinent songs. Having left off 
 singino;, he told them it was no more than reason that 
 he should present the duchess with some of the songs. 
 So he alighted from the stage, covered all over with 
 papers and ridiculous little pictures. Having come to 
 the coach, he took off a black piece of taffeta, which 
 he always wore over one of his eyes, when his sister 
 discovered immediately who he was, yet had so much 
 presence of mind as not to give the least sign of mis- 
 trust ; nay, she gave him some very opprobrious lan- 
 guage, but was very eager at snatching the papers he 
 threw into her coach. Among them was a packet of 
 letters, which she had no sooner got but she went for- 
 ward, the duke, at the head of the mob, attending and 
 hallooing her a good way out of the town." 
 
 A still more daring adventure was contemplated also 
 by this young, irresistible duke. Bridget Cromwell, 
 the eldest daughter of Oliver, was, at that time, a bride 
 of twenty-six years of age ; having married, in 1647, 
 the saintly Henry Ireton, Lord Deputy of Ireland. 
 Bridget was the pattern heroine of the " unco guid" 
 the quintessence of all propriety ; the impersonation 
 of sanctity ; an ultra republican, who scarcely accorded 
 to her father the modest title of Protector. She was 
 esteemed by her party a " personage of sublime growth :" 
 " humbled, not exalted," according to Mrs. Hutchinson, 
 by her elevation : " nevertheless," says that excellent 
 lady, "as my Lady Ireton was walking in the St. 
 
IN LOVE WITH A MOUNTEBANK. 39 
 
 James's Park, the Lady Lambert, as proud as her hus- 
 band, came by where she was, and as the present prin- 
 cess always hath precedency of the relict of the dead, so 
 she put by my Lady Ireton, who, notwithstanding her 
 piety and humility, was a little grieved at the aifront." 
 After this anecdote one cannot give much credence 
 to this lady's humility : Bridget was, however, a woman 
 of powerful intellect, weakened by her extreme, and, to 
 use a now common term, crotchety opinions. Like most 
 esprits forts, she was easily imposed upon. One day 
 this paragon saw a mountebank dancing on a stage in 
 the most exquisite style. His fine shape, too, caught 
 the attention of one who assumed to be above all folly. 
 It is sometimes fatal to one's peace to look out of a 
 window ; no one knows what sights may rivet or dis- 
 please. Mistress Ireton was sitting at her window un- 
 conscious that any one with the hated and malignant 
 name of " Villiers " was before her. After some unholy 
 admiration, she sent to speak to the mummer. The 
 duke scarcely knew whether to trust himself in the 
 power of the bloodthirsty Ireton's bride or not — yet his 
 courage — his love of sport — prevailed. He visited her 
 that evening : no longer, however, in his jack -pudding 
 coat, but in a rich suit, disguised with a cloak over it. 
 He wore still a plaster over one eye, and was much dis- 
 posed to take it off, but prudence forbade ; and thus he 
 stood in the presence of the prim and saintly Bridget 
 Ireton. The particulars of the interview rest on his 
 statement, and they must not, therefore, be accepted 
 
40 VILLIERS AND THE EABBI. 
 
 implicitly. Mistress Ireton is said to have made ad- 
 vances to the handsome incognito. What a triumph 
 to a man like Villiers, to have intrigued with my Lord 
 Protector's sanctified daughter ! But she inspired him 
 with disgust. He saw in her the presumption and hy- 
 pocrisy of her father ; he hated her as Cromwell's daugh- 
 ter and Ireton's wife. He told her, therefore, that he 
 was a Jew, and could not by his laws become the para- 
 mour of a Christian woman. The saintly Bridget stood 
 amazed ; she had imprudently let him into some of the 
 most important secrets of her party. A Jew I It was 
 dreadful ! But how could a person of that persuasion 
 be so strict, so strait-laced ? She probably entertained 
 all the horror of Jews which the Puritanical party 
 cherished as a virtue ; forgetting the lessons of toler- 
 ation and liberality inculcated by Holy Writ. She 
 sent, however, for a certain Jewish Rabbi to converse 
 with the stranger. What was the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham's surprise, on visiting her one evening, to see the 
 learned doctor armed at all points with the Talmud, 
 and thirsting for dispute, by the side of the saintly 
 Bridget. He could noways meet such a body of con- 
 troversy ; but thought it best forthwith to set off for the 
 Downs. Before he departed he wrote, however, to INIis- 
 tress Ireton, on the plea that she might wish to know 
 to what tribe of Jews he belonged. So he sent her a 
 note written with all his native wit and point.' 
 
 * This incident is taken from Madame Dunois' Memoirs, part i. 
 p. 86. 
 
THE BUCKINGHAM PICTUKES AND ESTATE. 41 
 
 Buckingham now experienced all the miseries that a 
 man of expensive pleasures with a sequestrated estate is 
 likely to endure. One friend remained to watch over 
 his interests in England. This was John Traylman, a 
 servant of his late father's, who was left to guard the 
 collection of pictures made by the late duke, and de- 
 posited in York House. That collection was, in the 
 opinion of competent judges, the third in point of value 
 in England, being only inferior to those of Charles I. 
 and the Earl of Arundel. 
 
 It had been bought, with immense expense, partly 
 by the duke's agents in Italy, the Mantua Gallery sup- 
 plying a great portion — partly in France — partly in 
 Flanders ; and to Flanders a great portion was destined 
 now to return. Secretly and laboriously did old Trayl- 
 man pack up and send oif these treasures to Antwerp, 
 where now the gay youth whom the aged domestic had 
 known from a child was in want and exile. The pic- 
 tures were eagerly bought by a foreign collector named 
 Duart. The proceeds gave poor Villiers bread ; but 
 the noble works of Titian and Leonardo da Vinci, and 
 others, were lost for ever to England. 
 
 It must have been very irritating to Villiers to know 
 that whilst he just existed abroad, the great estates en- 
 joyed by his father were being subjected to pillage by 
 Cromwell's soldiers, or sold for pitiful sums by the 
 Commissioners appointed by the Parliament to break 
 up and annihilate many of the old properties in Eng- 
 land. Burleigh-on-the-Hill, the stately seat on which 
 
42 YORK HOUSE. 
 
 the first duke had lavished thousands, had been taken 
 by the Roundheads. It was so large, and presented 
 so long a line of buildings, that the Parliamentarians 
 could not hold it without leaving in it a great garrison 
 and stores of ammunition. It was therefore burnt, and 
 the stables alone occupied ; and those even were formed 
 into a house of unusual size. York House was doubt- 
 less marked out for the next destructive decree. There 
 was something in the very history of this house which 
 might be supposed to excite the wrath of the Round- 
 heads. Queen jNIary (whom we must not, after Miss 
 Strickland's admirable life of her, call Bloody Queen 
 Mary, but who will always be best known by that un- 
 pleasant title) had bestowed York House on the See of 
 York, as a compensation for York House, at Whitehall, 
 which Henry VIII. had taken from Wolsey. It had 
 afterwards come into possession of the Keepers of the 
 Great Seal. Lord Bacon was born in York House, his 
 father having lived there ; and the 
 
 " Greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind " 
 
 built here an aviary which cost ^300. When the 
 Duke of Lennox wished to buy York House, Bacon 
 thus wrote to him : — " For this you will pardon me : 
 York House is the house where my father died, and 
 where I first breathed ; and there will I yield my last 
 breath, if it so please God and the King." It did 
 not, however, please the King that he should ; the 
 house was borrowed only by the first Duke of Buck- 
 
YORK HOUSE. 43 
 
 ingham from the Archbishop of York, and then ex- 
 changed for another seat, on the plea that the duke 
 ■would -want it for the reception of foreign potentates, 
 and for entertainments given to royalty. 
 
 The duke pulled it down : and the house, which was 
 erected as a temporary structure, was so superb that 
 even Pepys, twenty years after it had been left to bats 
 and cobwebs, speaks of it in raptures, as of a place in 
 which the great duke's soul was seen in every chamber. 
 On the walls were shields on which the arms of Manners 
 and of Villiers — peacocks and lions — were quartered. 
 York House was never, however, finished ; but a,s the 
 lover of old haunts enters Buckingham Street in the 
 Strand, he will perceive an ancient water-gate, beau- 
 tifully proportioned, built by Inigo Jones — smoky, 
 isolated, impaired — but still speaking volumes of re- 
 membrance of the glories of the assassinated duke, 
 who had purposed to build the whole house in that 
 style. 
 
 ''■ Yorschaux," as he called it — York House — the 
 French ambassador had written word to his friends 
 at home, " is the most richly fitted up of any that I 
 saw." The galleries and state rooms were graced by 
 the display of the Roman marbles, both busts and 
 statues, which the first duke had bought from Rubens ; 
 whilst in the gardens the Cain and Abel of John of 
 Bologna, given by Philip IV. of Spain to King Charles, 
 and by him bestowed on the elder George Villiers, made 
 that fair pleasaunce famous. It was doomed — as were 
 
44 VILLIERS RETURNS TO ENGLAND. 
 
 ■what were called the " superstitious " pictures in the 
 house — to destruction: henceforth all was in decay 
 and neglect. "I went to see York House and 
 gardens," Evelyn writes in 1655, "belonging to the 
 former greate Buckingham, but now much ruined 
 throua;h neglect." 
 
 Traylman, doubtless, kept George Villiers the 
 younger in full possession of all that was to happen 
 to that deserted tenement in which the old man mourned 
 for the departed, and thought of the absent. 
 
 The intelligence which he had soon to communicate 
 was all-important. York House was to be occupied 
 again ; and Cromwell and his coadjutors had bestowed 
 it on Fairfax. The blow was perhaps softened by the 
 reflection that Fairfax was a man of generous temper ; 
 and that he had an only daughter, ]\Iary Fairfax, 
 young, and an heiress. Though the daughter of a 
 Puritan, a sort of interest was attached, even by Cav- 
 aliers, to Mary Fairfax, from her having, at five years 
 of age, followed her father through the civil wars on 
 horseback, seated before a maid-servant ; and having, 
 on her journey, frequently fainted, she was so ill as to 
 have been left in a house by the roadside, her father 
 never expecting to see her again. 
 
 In reference to this young girl, then about eighteen 
 years of age, Buckingham now formed a plan. He 
 resolved to return to England disguised, to offer his 
 hand to Mary Fairfax, and so recover his property 
 through the influence of Fairfax. He was confident 
 
POOK MARY FAIRFAX! 45 
 
 of liis own attractions ; and indeed, from every account, 
 he appears to have been one of those reckless, hand- 
 some, speculative characters that often take the fancy 
 of better men than themselves. " He had," says 
 Burnet, " no sort of literature, only he was drawn 
 into chymistry ; and for some years he thought he 
 was very near the finding of the philosopher's stone, 
 which had the eifect that attends on all such men as he 
 was, when they are drawn in, to lay out for it. He had 
 no principles of religion, virtue, or friendship ; pleasure, 
 frolic, or extravagant diversion, was all he laid to heart. 
 He was true to nothing ; for he was not true to himself. 
 He had no steadiness nor conduct ; he could keep no 
 secret, nor execute any design without spoiling it ; he 
 could never fix his thoughts, nor govern his estate, 
 though then the greatest in England. He was bred 
 about the king, and for many years he had a great 
 ascendant over him ; but he spoke of him to all persons 
 with that contempt, that at last he drew a lasting dis- 
 grace upon himself. And he at length ruined both 
 body and mind, fortune and reputation, equally." 
 
 This was a sad prospect for poor Mary Fairfax, but 
 certainly if in their choice 
 
 " Weak women go astray, 
 
 Their stare are more in fault than they,'' 
 
 and she was less to blame in her choice than her 
 father, who ought to have advised her against the 
 marriage. Where and how they met is not known. 
 
46 YOBK HOUSE SOLD. 
 
 Mary was not attractive in person: she was in her 
 youth little, brown, and thin, but became a " short 
 fat body," as De Grammont tells us, in her early 
 married life ; in the later period of her existence she 
 was described by the Vicomtesse de Longueville as a 
 "little round crumpled woman, very fond of finery;" 
 and she adds that, on visiting the duchess one day, she 
 found her, though in mourning, in a kind of loose robe 
 over her, all edged and laced with gold. So much for 
 a Puritan's daughter ! 
 
 To this insipid personage the duke presented himself. 
 She soon liked him, and in spite of his outrageous in- 
 fidelities, continued to like him after their marriage. 
 
 He carried his point: Mary Fairfax became his wife 
 on the 6th of September, 1675, and, by the influence 
 of Fairfax, his estate, or, at all events, a portion of 
 the revenues, about £4000 a year, it is said, were 
 restored to him. Nevertheless, it is mortifying to find 
 that in 1672, he sold York House, in which his father 
 had taken such pride, for ,£30,000. The house was 
 pulled down ; streets were erected on the gardens : 
 George Street, Villiers Street, Duke Street, Buck- 
 ingham street. Off" Alley, recall the name of the ill- 
 starred George, first duke, and of his needy, profligate 
 son ; but the only trace of the real greatness of the 
 family importance thus swept away is in the motto in- 
 scribed on the point of old Inigo's water-gate towards 
 the street: '^Fidei coticula crux." It is sad for all 
 good royalists to reflect that it was not the rabid 
 
VILLIEES IN THE TOWER. 47 
 
 Roundhead, but a degenerate Cavalier, who sold and 
 thus destroyed York House. 
 
 The marriage with Mary Fairfax, though one of in- 
 terest solely, was not a misalliance : her father was con- 
 nected by the female side with the Earls of Rutland ; 
 he was also a man of a generous spirit, as he had shown, 
 in handing over to the Countess of Derby the rents 
 of the Isle of Man, which had been granted to him 
 by the Parliament. In a similar spirit he was not 
 sorry to restore York House to the Duke of Buck- 
 ingham. 
 
 Cromwell, however, was highly exasperated by the 
 nuptials between Mary Fairfax and Villiers, which 
 took place at Nun-Appleton, near York, one of Fair- 
 fax's estates. The Protector had, it is said, intended 
 Villiers for one of his own, daughters. Upon what 
 plea he acted it is not stated : he committed Villiers 
 to the Tower, where he remained until the death of 
 Oliver, and the accession of Richard Cromwell. 
 
 In vain did Fairfax solicit his release : Cromwell 
 refused it, and Villiers remained in durance until 
 the abdication of Richard Cromwell, when he was 
 set at liberty, but not without the following con- 
 ditions, dated February 21st, 1658-9 : — 
 
 " The humble petition of George Duke of Bucking" 
 ham was this day read. Resolved that George Duke 
 of Buckingham, now prisoner at Windsor Castle, upon 
 his engagement upon his honor at the bar of this 
 House, and upon the engagement of Lord Fairfax 
 
48 ABEAHAM COWLEY, THE POET. 
 
 in £20,000 that the said duke shall peaceably demain 
 himself for the future, and shall not join with, or abet, 
 or have any correspondence with, any of the enemies of 
 the Lord Protector, and of this Commonwealth, in any 
 of the parts beyond the sea, or within this Common- 
 wealth, shall be discharged of his imprisonment and 
 restraint ; and that the Governor of Windsor Castle 
 be required to bring the Duke of Buckingham to the 
 bar of this House on Wednesday next, to engage his 
 honor accordingly. Ordered, that the security of 
 ,£20,000 to be given by the Lord Fairfax, on the 
 behalf of the Duke of Buckingham, be taken in the 
 name of His Highness the Lord Protector." 
 
 During his incarceration at Windsor, Buckingham 
 had a companion, of whom many a better man might 
 have been cn^'ious : this was Abraham Cowley, an old 
 college friend of the duke's. Cowley was the son of a 
 grocer, and owed his entrance into academic life to 
 having been a King's Scholar at Westminster. One 
 day he happened to take up from his mother's parlor 
 window a copy of Spenser's "Faerie Queene." He 
 eagerly perused the delightful volume, though he was 
 then only twelve years old: and this impulse being 
 given to his mind, became at fifteen a reciter of verses. 
 His "Poetical Blossoms," published whilst he was still 
 at school, gave, however, no foretaste of his future em- 
 inence. He proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 wliera his friendship with Villiers was formed ; and 
 where, perhaps, from that circumstance, Cowley's pre- 
 
COWLEY AND VILLIEES. 49 
 
 dilections for the cause of the Stuarts was ripened into 
 loyalty. 
 
 No two characters could be more dissimilar than those 
 of Abraham Cowley and George Villiers. Cowley was 
 quiet, modest, sober, of a thoughtful, philosophical 
 turn, and of an aifectionate nature ; neither boasting 
 of his own merits nor depreciating others. He was the 
 friend of Lucius Gary, Lord Falkland ; and yet he 
 loved, though he must have condemned, George Vil- 
 liers. It is not unlikely that, whilst Cowley imparted 
 his love of poetry to Villiers, Villiers may have in- 
 spired the pensive and blameless poet with a love of 
 that display of wit then in vogue, and heightened that 
 sense of humor which speaks forth in some of Cow- 
 ley's productions. Few authors suggest so many new 
 thoughts, really his own, as Cowley. "His works," 
 it has been said, " are a flower-garden run to weeds, 
 but the flowers are numerous and brilliant, and a search 
 after them will repay the pains of a collector who is not 
 too indolent or fastidious." 
 
 As Cowley and his friend passed the weary hours in 
 durance, many an old tale could the poet tell the peer 
 of stirring times ; for Cowley had accompanied Charles 
 I. in many a perilous journey, and had protected Queen 
 Henrietta Maria in her escape to France : through Cow- 
 ley had the correspondence of the royal pair, when 
 separated, been carried on. The poet had before suf- 
 fered imprisonment for his loyalty ; and, to disguise his 
 actual occupation, had obtained the degree of Doctor 
 
 Vol. I.— 4 
 
50 THE GBEATEST ORNAMENT OF WHITEHALL. 
 
 of Medicine, and assumed the character of a physician, 
 on the strength of knowing the virtues of a few plants. 
 
 Many a laugh, doubtless, had Buckingham at the 
 expense of Dr. Cowley : however, in later days, the 
 duke proved a true friend to the poet, in helping to 
 procure for him the lease of a farm at Chertsey from 
 the queen, and here Cowley, rich upon ,£300 a year, 
 ended his days. 
 
 For some time after Buckingham's release, he lived 
 quietly and respectably at Nun-Appleton, with General 
 Fairfax and the vapid Mary. But the Restoration — 
 the first dawnings of which have been referred to in 
 the commencement of this biography — ruined him, 
 body and mind. 
 
 He was made a Lord of the Bedchamber, a Member 
 of the Privy Council, and afterwards Master of the 
 Horse,* and Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire. He lived 
 in great magnificence at Wallingford House, a tene- 
 ment next to York House, intended to be the habitable 
 and useful appendage to that palace. 
 
 He was henceforth, until he proved treacherous to 
 his sovereign, the brightest ornament of Whitehall. 
 Beauty of person was hereditary : his father was styled 
 the " handsomest-bodied man in England," and George 
 Villiers the younger equalled George Villiers the elder 
 in all personal accomplishments. When he entered the 
 Presence-Chamber all eyes followed him ; every move- 
 
 ' The duke became Master of the Horse in 1688 : he iiaid £20,000 
 to the Duke of Albemarle i'ur the post. 
 
BUCKINGHAM'S WIT AND BEAUTY. 51 
 
 ment was graceful and stately. Sir John Reresby pro- 
 nounced him " to be the finest gentleman he ever saw." 
 "He was born," Madame Dunois declared, "for gal- 
 lantry and magnificence." His wit was faultless, but 
 his manners engaging ; yet his sallies often descended 
 into buffoonery, and he spared no one in his merry 
 moods. One evening a play of Dryden's was repre- 
 sented. An actress had to spout forth this line — 
 
 " My wound is great because it is so small !" 
 
 She gave it out with pathos, paused, and was theatri- 
 cally distressed. Buckingham was seated in one of the 
 boxes. He rose, all eyes were fixed upon a face well 
 known in all gay assemblies, in a tone of burlesque he 
 answered — 
 
 "Then 'twould be greater were it none at all." 
 
 Instantly the audience laughed at the Duke's tone of 
 ridicule, and the poor woman was hissed off the stage. 
 The king himself did not escape Buckingham's 
 shafts ; whilst Lord Chancellor Clarendon fell a victim 
 to his ridicule : nothing could withstand it. There, 
 not in that iniquitous gallery at Whitehall, but in the 
 king's privy chambers, Villiers might be seen, in all 
 the radiance of his matured beauty. His face was long 
 and oval, with sleepy, yet glistening eyes, over which 
 large arched eyebrows seemed to contract a brow on 
 which the curls of a massive wig (which fell almost 
 to his shoulders) hung low. His nose was long, well 
 
52 FLECKNOE'S OPINION. 
 
 formed, and flexible ; his lips thin and compressed, and 
 defined, as the custom was, by two very short, fine, 
 black patches of hair, looking more like strips of stick- 
 ing-plaster than a moustache. As he made his rever- 
 ence, his rich robes fell over a faultless form. He was 
 a beau to the very fold of the cambric band round his 
 throat ; with long ends of the richest, closest point that 
 was ever rummaged out from a foreign nunnery to be 
 placed on the person of this sacrilegious sinner. 
 
 Behold, now, how he changes. Villiers is Villiers 
 no longer. He is Clarendon, walking solemnly to the 
 Court of the Star Chamber : a pair of bellows is hang- 
 ing before him for the purse ; Colonel Titus is walking 
 with a fire shovel on his shoulder, to represent a mace ; 
 the king himself a capital mimic, is sjjlitting his sides 
 with laughter ; the courtiers are fairly in a roar. Then 
 how he was wont to divert the king with his descrip- 
 tions ! " Ipswich, for instance," he said, " was a town 
 without inhabitants — a river it had without water — 
 streets without names ; and it was a place where asses 
 wore boots:" alluding to the asses, when employed in 
 rolling Lord Hereford's bowling green, having boots on 
 their feet to prevent their injuring the turf. 
 
 Flecknoe, the poet, describes the duke at this period, 
 in "Euterpe Revived" — 
 
 "The gallant'st person, and the noblest minde, 
 In all the world his prince could ever finde, 
 Or to participate his private cares, 
 Or bear the public weight of his affaii-s, 
 
THE COUNTESS OF SHKEWSBUEY. 53 
 
 Like well-built arches, stronger with their weight, 
 And well-built minds, the steadier with their height; 
 Such was the composition and frame 
 O' the noble and the gallant Buckingham." 
 
 The praise, however, even in the duke's best days, 
 was overcharged. Villiers was no "well-built arch," 
 nor could Charles trust to the fidelity of one so versa- 
 tile for an hour. Besides, the moral character of Vil- 
 liers must have prevented him, even in those days, 
 from bearing "the public weight of affairs." 
 
 A scandalous intrigue soon proved the unsoundness 
 of Flecknoe's tribute. Amongst the most licentious 
 beauties of the court was Anna Maria, Countess of 
 Shrewsbury, the daughter of Robert Brudenel, Earl 
 of Cardigan, and the wife of Francis, Earl of Shrews- 
 bury : amongst many shameless women she was the 
 most shameless, and her face seems to have well ex- 
 pressed her mind. In the round, fair visage, with its 
 languishing eyes, and full, pouting mouth, there is 
 something voluptuous and bold. The forehead is 
 broad, but low ; and the wavy hair, with its tendril 
 curls, comes down almost to the fine arched eyebrows, 
 and then, falling into masses, sets off white shoulders 
 which seem to designate an elegant amount of emhon- 
 •point. There is nothing elevated in the whole coun- 
 tenance, as Lely has painted her, and her history is a 
 disgrace to her age and time. 
 
 She had numerous lovers (not in the refined sense of 
 the word), and, at last, took up with Thomas Killigrew. 
 
54 DUEL WITH THE EAEL OF SHEEWSBUBY. 
 
 He had been, like Villiers, a royalist : first a page to 
 Charles I., next a companion of Charles II., in exile. 
 He married the fair Cecilia Croft ; yet his morals were 
 so vicious that even in the Court of Venice to which he 
 was accredited, in order to borrow money from the mer- 
 chants of that city, he was too profligate to remain. 
 He came back with Charles II., and was Master of 
 the Revels, or King's Jester, as the court considered 
 him, though without any regular appointment, dur- 
 ing his life : the butt, at once, and the satirist of 
 Whitehall. 
 
 It was Killigrew's wit and descriptive powers which, 
 when heightened by wine, were inconceivably great, 
 that induced Villiers to select Lady Shrewsbury for the 
 object of his admiration. When Killigrew perceived 
 that he was supplanted by Villiers, he become frantic 
 with rage, and poured out the bitterest invectives 
 against the countess. The result was that, one night, 
 returning from the Duke of York's apartments at St. 
 James's, three passes with a sword were made at him 
 through his chair, and one of them pierced his arm. 
 This, and other occurrences, at last aroused the at- 
 tention of Lord Shrewsbury, who had hitherto never 
 doubted his wife : he challenged the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham ; and his infamous wife, it is said, held her para- 
 mour's horse, disguised as a page. Lord Shrewsbury 
 was killed,* and the scandalous intimacy went on as 
 
 ' The duel with the Earl of Shrewsbury took place 17th January, 
 1667-8. 
 
VILLIEES AS A POET. 55 
 
 before. No one but the queen, no one but the Duchess 
 of Buckingham, appeared shocked at this tragedy, and 
 no one minded their remarks, or joined in their indig- 
 nation : all moral sense was suspended, or wholly stifled ; 
 and Villiers gloried in his depravity, more witty, more 
 amusing, more fashionable than ever ; and yet he seems, 
 by the best-known and most extolled of his poems, to 
 have had some conception of what a real and worthy 
 attachment might be. 
 
 The following verses are to his " Mistress ": — 
 
 "What a dull fool was I 
 
 To think so gross a lie, 
 As that I ever was in love before ! 
 I have, perhaps, known one or two, 
 
 With whom I was content to be 
 
 At that which they call keeping company. 
 But after all that they could do, 
 
 I still could be with more. 
 
 Their absence never made me shed a tear; 
 
 And I can truly swear, 
 That, till my eyes first gazed on you, 
 
 I ne'er beheld the thing I could adore. 
 
 " A world of things must curiously be sought : 
 A world of things must be together brought 
 
 To make up charms which have the power to move, 
 
 Through a discerning eye, true love ; 
 
 That is a master-piece above 
 
 What only looks and shape can do ; 
 There must be wit and judgment too, 
 
 Greatness of thought, and worth, which draw, 
 
 From the whole world, respect and awe. 
 
56 VILLIERS AS A POET. 
 
 "She that would raise a noble love must find 
 Ways to beget a passion for her mind ; 
 She must be that which slie to be would seem, 
 For all true love is grounded on esteem : 
 Plainness and truth gain more a generous heart 
 Than all the crooked subtleties of art. 
 She must be — what said I? — she must be you: 
 None but yourself that miracle can do. 
 At least, I'm sure, thus much I plainly see, 
 None but yourself e'er did it ujjon me. 
 'Tis you alone that can my heart subdue, 
 To you alone it always shall be true.'' 
 
 The next lines are also remarkable for the delicacy 
 and happy turn of the expressions : — 
 
 "Though Phillis, from prevailing charms. 
 Have forc'd my Delia from my arms. 
 Think not your conquest to maintain 
 By rigor or unjust disdain. 
 In vain, fair nymph, in vain you strive. 
 For Love doth seldom Hope survive. 
 My heart may languish for a time, 
 As all beauties in their prime 
 Have justified such cruelty, 
 By the same fate that conquered me. 
 AVhen age shall come, at whose command 
 Those troops of beauty must disband — 
 A rival's strength once took away. 
 What slave's so dull as to obey? 
 But if you'll learn a noble way 
 To keep his empire from decay. 
 And there for ever fix your throne. 
 Be kind, but kind to me alone." 
 
 Like his father, who ruined himself by building, 
 
VILLIEES AS A DRAMATIST. 57 
 
 Villiers liaci a monomania for bricks and mortar, yet 
 he found time to write " [Ebc^TThoniTOnil," a play on 
 which Mr. Reed in his " Dramatic Biography " makes 
 the following observation : " It is so perfect a master- 
 piece in its way, and so truly original, that notwith- 
 standing its prodigious success, even the task of imi- 
 tation, which most kinds of excellence have invited 
 inferior geniuses to undertake, has appeared as too 
 arduous to be attempted with regard to this, which 
 through a whole century stands alone, notwithstanding 
 that the very plays it was written expressly to ridicule 
 are forgotten, and the taste it was meant to expose 
 totally exploded." 
 
 The reverses of fortune which brought George 
 Villiers to abject misery were therefore, in a very 
 great measure, due to his own misconduct, his de- 
 pravity, his waste of life, his perversion of noble 
 mental powers : yet in many respects he was in ad- 
 vance of his age. He advocated, in the House of 
 Lords, toleration to Dissenters. He wrote a " Short 
 Discourse on the Reasonableness of Men's having a 
 Religion, or Worship of God ;" yet, such was his 
 inconsistency, that in spite of these works, and of 
 one styled a " Demonstration of the Deity," written 
 a short time before his death, he assisted Lord 
 Rochester in his atheistic poem upon "Nothing." 
 
 Butler, the author of Hudibras, too truly said of 
 Villiers " that he had studied the whole hody of vice;" 
 a most fearful censure — a most significant description 
 
58 A FEARFUL CENSUEE. 
 
 of a bad man. "His parts," lie adds, "are dispro- 
 portionate to the whole, and like a monster, he has 
 more of some, and less of others, than he should have. 
 He has pulled down all that nature raised in him, and 
 built himself up again after a model of his own. He 
 has dammed up all those lights that nature made into the 
 noblest prospects of the world, and opened other little 
 blind loopholes backward by turning day into night, 
 and night into day." 
 
 The satiety and consequent misery produced by this 
 terrible life are ably described by Butler. And it was 
 perhaps partly this wearied, worn-out spirit that caused 
 Villiers to rush madly into politics for excitement. In 
 1666 he asked for the office of Lord President of the 
 North ; it was refused : he became disaffected, raised 
 mutinies, and, at last, excited the indignation of his 
 too-indulgent sovereign. Charles dismissed him from 
 his office, after keeping him for some time in confine- 
 ment. After this epoch little is heard of Buckingham 
 but what is disgraceful. He was again restored to 
 Whitehall, and, according to Pepys, even closeted 
 with Charles, whilst the Duke of York was excluded. 
 A certain acquaintance of the duke's remonstrated 
 with him upon the course which Charles now took 
 in Parliament. " How often have you said to me," 
 this person remarked, "that the king was a weak 
 man, unable to govern, but to be governed, and that 
 you could command him as you liked? Why do you 
 suffer him to do these things ?" 
 
VILLIEES'S INFLUENCE IN PARLIAMENT. 59 
 
 " Why," answered tlie duke, " I do suifer him to 
 do these things, that I may hereafter the better com- 
 mand him." A reply -which betrays the most depraved 
 principle of action, whether towards a sovereign or a 
 friend, that can be expressed. His influence was for 
 some time supreme, yet he became the leader of the 
 opposition, and invited to his table the discontented 
 peers, to whom he satirized the court, and condemned 
 the king's want of attention to business. Whilst the 
 theatre was ringing with laughter at the inimitable 
 character of Bayes in the " Rehearsal," the House 
 of Lords was listening with profound attention to 
 the eloquence that entranced their faculties, making 
 wrong seem right, for Buckingham was ever heard 
 with attention. 
 
 Taking into account his mode of existence, " which," 
 says Clarendon, " was a life by night more than by day, 
 in all the liberties that nature could desire and wit in- 
 vent," it was astonishing how extensive an influence 
 he had in both Houses of Parliament. " His rank 
 and condescension, the pleasantness of his humors 
 and conversation, and the extravagance and keenness 
 of his wit, unrestrained by modesty or religion, caused 
 persons of all opinions and dispositions to be fond of 
 his company, and to imagine that these levities and 
 vanities would wear off with age, and that there would 
 be enough of good left to make him useful to his coun- 
 try, for which he pretended a wonderful affection." 
 But this brilliant career was soon checked. The 
 
60 A SCENE IN THE LOBDS. 
 
 varnish over the hollow character of this extraordinary- 
 man was eventually rubbed off. We find the first hint 
 of that famous coalition styled the Cabal in Pepys's 
 Diary, and henceforth the duke must' be regarded 
 as a ruined man. 
 
 "lie" (Sir H. Cholmly) "tells me that the Duke 
 of Buckingham his crimes, as far as he knows, are 
 his being of a cabal with some discontented persons 
 of the late House of Commons, and opposing the 
 desires of the king in all his matters in that House ; 
 and endeavoring to become popular, and advising how 
 the Commons' House should proceed, and how he 
 would order the House of Lords. And he hath been 
 endeavoring to have the king's nativity calculated ; 
 which was done, and the fellow now in the Tower 
 about it. . . . This silly lord hath provoked, by his 
 ill carriage, the Duke of York, my Lord Chancellor, 
 and all the great persons, and therefore most likely 
 will die." 
 
 One day, in the House of Lords, during a conference 
 between the two Houses, Buckingham leaned rudely 
 over the shoulder of Henry Pierrepont Marquis of 
 Dorchester. Lord Dorchester merely removed his 
 elbow. Then the duke asked him if he was uneasy. 
 "Yes," the marquis replied, adding, "the duke dared 
 not do this if he were anywhere else." Buckingham 
 retorted, " Yes, he would : and he was a better man 
 than my lord marquis :" on which Dorchester told him 
 that he lied. On this Buckingham struck off Dorches- 
 
THE CABAL. 61 
 
 ter's hat, seized him by the periwig, pulled it aside, 
 and held him. The Lord Chamberlain and others in- 
 terposed and sent them both to the Tower. Neverthe- 
 less, not a month afterwards, Pepys speaks of seeing 
 the duke's play of " The Chances " acted at Whitehall. 
 "A good play," he condescends to say, " I find it, and 
 the actors most good in it ; and pretty to hear Knipp 
 sing in the play very properly ' All night I v/eepe,' 
 and sung it admirably. The whole play pleases me 
 well : and most of all, the sight of many fine ladies, 
 amongst others, my Lady Castlemaine and Mrs. Mid- 
 dleton. 
 
 The whole management of public aifairs was, at this 
 period, intrusted to five persons, and hence the famous 
 combination, the united letters of whicli formed the 
 word "Cabal:" — Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, 
 Ashley, and Lauderdale. Their reprehensible schemes, 
 their desperate characters, rendered them the oppro- 
 brium of their age, and the objects of censure to all pos- 
 terity. Whilst matters were in this state a daring 
 outrage, which spoke fearfully of the lawless state of 
 the times, was ascribed, though wrongly, to Bucking- 
 ham. The Duke of Ormond, the object of his inveter- 
 ate hatred, was at that time Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 
 Colonel Blood, — a disaffected disbanded officer of the 
 Commonwealth, who had been attainted for a conspir- 
 acy in Ireland, but had escaped punishment, — came to 
 England, and acted as a spy for the " Cabal," who did 
 not hesitate to countenance this daring scoundrel. 
 
62 THE DUKE OF ORMOND IN DANGER. 
 
 His first exploit was to attack the Duke of Ormond's 
 coach one night in St. James's Street : to secure his 
 person, bind him, put him on horseback after one of 
 his accomplices, and carry him to Tyburn, where he 
 meant to hang his grace. On their way, however, Or- 
 mond, by a violent effort, threw himself on the ground ; 
 a scufHe ensued : the duke's servants came up, and 
 after receiving the fire of Blood's pistols, the duke 
 escaped. Lord Ossory, the Duke of Ormond's son, on 
 going afterward to court, met Buckingham, and ad- 
 dressed him in these words : — 
 
 " My lord, I know well that you are at the bottom 
 of this late attempt on my father ; but I give you 
 warning, if he by any means come to a violent end, I 
 shall not be at a loss to know the author. I shall con- 
 sider you as an assassin, and shall treat you as such ; 
 and wherever I meet you I shall pistol you, though 
 you stood behind the king's chair ; and I tell it you in 
 his Majesty's presence, that you may be sure I shall 
 not fail of performance." 
 
 Blood's next feat was to carry oif from the Tower 
 the crown jewels. He was overtaken and arrested: 
 and was then asked to name his accomplices. "No," 
 he replied, " the fear of danger shall never tempt me 
 to deny guilt or to betray a friend." Charles II., with 
 undignified curiosity, wished to see the culprit. On 
 inquiring of Blood how he dared to make so bold an 
 attempt on the crown, the bravo answered, " My father 
 lost a good estate fighting for the crown, and I con- 
 
KOCHESTEK'S EPIGRAM. 63 
 
 sidered it no harm to recover it by the crown." He 
 then told his Majesty how he had resolved to assassi- 
 nate him : how he had stood among the reeds in Bat- 
 tersea-fields with this design ; how then, a sudden awe 
 had come over him : and Charles was weak enough to 
 admire Blood's fearless bearing and to pardon his 
 attempt. Well might the Earl of Rochester write of 
 Charles — 
 
 " Here lies my sovereign lord the king, 
 Whose word no man relies on ; 
 Who never said a foolish thing, 
 And never did u, wise one.'' 
 
 Notwithstanding Blood's outrages — the slightest pen- 
 alty for which in our days would have been penal ser- 
 vitude for life — Evelyn met him, not long afterwards, 
 at Lord Clifford's, at dinner, when De Grammont and 
 other French noblemen were entertained. " The man," 
 says Evelyn, " had not only a daring, but a villanous, 
 unmerciful look, a false countenance ; but very well- 
 spoken, and dangerously insinuating." 
 
 Early in 1662, the Duke of Buckingham had been 
 engaged in practices against the court : he had dis- 
 guised deep designs by affecting the mere man of pleas- 
 ure. Never was there such splendor as at Wallingford 
 House — such wit and gallantry ; such perfect good 
 breeding ; such apparently openhanded hospitality. 
 At those splendid banquets, John Wilmot, Earl of 
 Rochester, " a man whom the Muses were fond to in- 
 
64 WALLINGFOKD HOUSE AND HAM HOUSE. 
 
 spire, but ashamed to avow," showed his " beautiful 
 face," as it was called ; and chimed in with that wit for 
 which the age was famous. The frequenters at Wall- 
 ingford House gloried in their indelicacy. " One is 
 amazed," Horace WaljDole observes, "at hearing the 
 age of Charles II. called polite. The Puritans have 
 affected to call everything by a Scripture' name ; the 
 new comers aifected to call everything by its right 
 name ; 
 
 ' As if preposterously they would confess 
 A forced hypocrisy in wickedness.'" 
 
 Walpole compares the age of Charles II. to that of 
 Aristophanes — " which called its own grossness polite." 
 How bitterly he decries the stale poems of the time as 
 " a heap of senseless ribaldry ;" how truly he shows 
 that licentiousness weakens as well as depraves the 
 judgment. "When Satyrs are brought to court," he 
 observes, " no wonder the Graces would not trust them- 
 selves there." 
 
 The Cabal is said, however, to have been concocted, 
 not at Wallingford House, but at Ham House, near 
 Kingston-on-Thames. 
 
 In this stately old manor-house, the abode of the 
 Tollemache family, the memory of Charles II. and of 
 his court seems to linger still. Ham House was in- 
 tended for the residence of Henry, Prince of Wales, 
 and was built in 1610. It stands near the river 
 Thames ; and is flanked by noble avenues of elm and 
 of chestnut trees, down which one may almost, as it 
 
HAM HOUSE. 65 
 
 were, hear the king's talk with his courtiers ; see 
 Arlington approach with the well-known patch across 
 his nose ; or spy out the lovely, childish Miss Stuart 
 and her future husband, the Duke of Richmond, slip- 
 ping behind into the garden, lest the jealous mortified 
 king should catch a sight of the "conscious lovers." 
 
 This stately structure was given by Charles II., in 
 1672, to the Duke and Duchess of Lauderdale : she, 
 the supposed mistress of Cromwell ; he, the cruel, hate- 
 ful Lauderdale of the Cabal. This detestable couple, 
 however, furnished with massive grandeur the apart- 
 ments of Ham House. They had the ceilings painted 
 by Verrio ; the furniture was rich, and even now the 
 bellows and brushes in some of the rooms are of silver 
 filigree. One room is furnished with yellow damask, 
 still rich, though faded; the very seats on which 
 Charles, looking around him, saw Clifford, Arlington, 
 Buckingham, Ashley (the infamous Shaftesbury), and 
 Lauderdale — and knew not, good easy man, that he 
 was looking on a band of traitors — are still there. 
 Nay, he even sat to Sir Peter Lely for a portrait for 
 this very place — in which, schemes for the ruin of the 
 kingdom were concocted. All, probably, was smooth 
 and pleasing to the monarch as he ranged down the 
 fine gallery, ninety-two feet long ; or sat at dinner 
 amid his foes in that hall, surrounded with an open 
 balustrade ; or disported himself on the river's green 
 brink. Nay, one may even fancy Nell Gwynn taking 
 a days pleasure in this then lone and ever sweet local- 
 VoL. I.— 5 
 
66 "MADAME ELLEN." 
 
 ity. We liear her swearing, as she was wont to do, 
 perchance at the dim looking-glasses, her own house 
 in Pall Mall, given her by the king, having been filled 
 up, for the comedian, entirely, ceiling and all, with 
 looking-glass. How bold and pretty she looked in 
 her undress ! Even Pepys — no very sound moralist, 
 though a vast hypocrite — tells us : Nelly, " all un- 
 ready " was " very pretty, prettier far than he thought." 
 But to see how she was " painted," Avould, he thought, 
 "make a man mad." 
 
 " Madame Jilllen," as after her elevation, as it was 
 termed, she was called, might, since she held long 
 a great sway over Charles's fancy, be suffered to 
 scamper about Ilam House — where her merry laugh 
 perhaps scandalized the now saintly Duchess of Lau- 
 derdale, — just to impose on the world; for Nell was 
 regarded -as the Protestant champion of the court, in 
 opposition to her French rival, the Duchess of Ports- 
 mouth. 
 
 Let us suppose that she has been at Ham House, 
 and is gone off to Pall Mall again, where she can see 
 her painted face in every turn. The king has departed, 
 and Killigrew, who, at all events, is loyal, and the true- 
 hearted Duke of Richmond, all are away to London. In 
 yon sanctimonious-looking closet, next to the duchess's 
 bed-chamber, with her psalter and her prayer-book on 
 her desk, which is fixed to her great chair, and that 
 very cane which still hangs there serving as her sup- 
 port when she comes forth from that closet, murmur 
 
THE CABAL. 67 
 
 and wrangle the component parts of that which was 
 never mentioned without fear — the Cabal. The con- 
 spirators dare not trust themselves in the gallery : there 
 is tapestry there, and we all know what coverts there 
 are for eavesdroppers and spiders in tapestried walls : 
 then the great Cardinal spiders do so click there, are 
 so like the death-watch, that Villiers, who is inveterately 
 superstitious, will not abide there. The hall, with its 
 enclosing galleries, and the buttery near, are manifestly 
 unsafe. So they herd, nay, crouch, mutter, and concoct 
 that fearful treachery which, as far as their country is 
 concerned, has been a thing apart in our annals, in 
 "my Lady's" closet. Englishmen are turbulent, am- 
 bitious, unscrupulous ; but the craft of Maitland, Duke 
 of Lauderdale — the subtlety of Ashley, seem hardly 
 conceivable either in a Scot or Southron. 
 
 These meetings had their natural consequence. One 
 leaves Lauderdale, Arlington, Ashley, and Clifford, to 
 their fate. But the career of Villiers inspires more 
 interest. He seemed born for better things. Like 
 many men of genius, he was so credulous that the faith 
 he pinned on one Heydon, an astrologer, at this time, 
 perhaps buoyed him up with false hopes. Be it as it 
 may, his plots now tended to open insurrection. In 
 1666, a proclamation had been issued for his appre- 
 hension — he having then absconded. On this occasion 
 he was saved by the act of one whom he had injured 
 grossly — his wife. She managed to outride the ser- 
 jeant-at-arms, and to warn him of his danger. She 
 
68 VILLIEES AGAIN IN THE TO WEE. 
 
 had borne his infidelities, after the fashion of the day, 
 as a matter of course : j ealousy was then an imperti- 
 nence — constancy, a chimera ; and her husband, what- 
 ever his conduct, had ever treated her with kindness 
 of manner ; he had that charm, that attribute of 
 his family, in perfection, and it had fascinated Mary 
 Fairfax. 
 
 He fled, and played for a year successfully the 
 pranks of his youth. At last, worn out, he talked 
 of giving himself up to justice. "Mr. Fenn, at the 
 table, says that he hath been taken by the Avatch two 
 or three times of late, at unseasonable hours, but so 
 disguised they did not know him ; and when I come 
 home, by and by, Mr. Lowther tells me that the Duke 
 of Buckingham do dine publickly this day at Wadlow's, 
 at the Sun Tavern ; and is mighty merry, and sent word 
 to the Lieutenant of the Tower, that he would come to 
 him as soon as he dined." So Pepys states. 
 
 Whilst in the Tower — to which he was again com- 
 mitted — Buckingham's pardon was solicited by Lady 
 Castlemaine ; on which account the king was very 
 angry with her; called her a meddling "jade;" she 
 calling him " fool," and saying if he was not a fool he 
 never would suffer his best subjects to be imprisoned — 
 referring to Buckingham. And not only did she ask 
 his liberty, but the restitution of his places. No wonder 
 there was discontent when such things were done, and 
 public affairs -were in such a state. We must again 
 quote the graphic, terse language of Pepys : — " It 
 
A CHANGE. 69 
 
 ■was computed that the Parliament had given the 
 king for this war only, besides all prizes, and besides 
 the <£200,000 which he was to spend of his own 
 revenue, to guard the sea, above ,£5,000,000, and 
 odd £100,000 ; which is a most prodigious sum. Sir 
 H. Cholmly, as a true English gentleman, do decry the 
 king's expenses of his privy purse, which in King 
 James's time did not rise to above £5000 a year, 
 and in King Charles's to £10,000, do now cost us 
 above £100,000, besides the great charge of the 
 monarchy, as the Duke of York has £100,000 of 
 it, and other limbs of the royal family." 
 
 In consequence of Lady Castlemaine's intervention, 
 Villiers was restored to liberty — a strange instance, as 
 Pepys remarks, of the " fool's play " of the age. Buck- 
 ingham was now as presuming as ever : he had a theatre 
 of his own, and he soon showed his usual arrogance by 
 beating Henry Killigrew on the stage, and taking away 
 his coat and sword; all very "innocently" done, ac- 
 cording to Pepys. In July he appeared in his place 
 in the House of Lords, as " brisk as ever," and sat in 
 his robes, " which," says Pepys, " is a monstrous thing 
 that a man should be proclaimed against, and put in 
 the Tower, and released without any trial, and yet not 
 restored to his places." 
 
 We next find the duke intrusted with a mission to 
 France, in concert with Halifax and Arlington. In 
 the year 1680, he was threatened with an impeachment, 
 in which, with his usual skill, he managed to exculpate 
 
70 HEARING THE END. 
 
 himself by blaming Lord Arlington. The House of 
 Commons passed a vote for his removal ; and he entered 
 the ranks of the opposition. 
 
 But this career of public meanness and private prof- 
 ligacy was drawing to a close. Alcibiades no longer — 
 his frame wasted by vice — his spirits broken by pecu- 
 niary difficulties — Buckingham's importance visibly 
 sank away. "He remained, at last," to borrow the 
 words of Hume, " as incapable of doing hurt as he had 
 ever been little desirous of doing good to mankind." 
 His fortune had now dwindled down to £300 a year 
 in land ; he sold Wallingford House, and removed 
 into the City. 
 
 And now the fruits of his adversity, not, we hope, 
 too late, began to appear. Like Lord Kochester, who 
 had ordered all his immoral works to be burnt, Buck- 
 ingham now wished to retrieve the past. In 1685 he 
 wrote the religious works which form so striking a con- 
 trast with his other productions. 
 
 That he had been up to the very time of his ruin 
 perfectly impervious to remorse, dead also to shame, is 
 amply manifested by his conduct soon after his duel 
 with the Earl of Shrewsbury. 
 
 Sir George Etherege had brought out a new play at 
 the Duke of York's Theatre. It was called, " She 
 Would if she Could." Plays in those days began at 
 what we now consider our luncheon hour. Though 
 Pepys arrived at the theatre on this occasion at two 
 o'clock — his wife having gone before — about a thou- 
 
THE DUKE OF YOEK'S THEATRE. 71 
 
 sand people had then been put back from the pit. At 
 last, seeing his wife in the eighteen-ponny box, Samuel 
 " made shift " to get there and there saw, " but lord !" 
 (his own words are inimitable) " how dull, and how silly 
 the play, there being nothing in the world good in it, 
 and few people pleased in it. The king was there ; but 
 I sat mightily behind, and could see but little, and hear 
 not at all. The play being done, I went into the pit 
 to look for my wife, it being dark and raining, but 
 could not find her ; and so staid, going between the two 
 doors and through the pit an hour and a half, I think, 
 after the play was done ; the people staying there till 
 the rain was over, and to talk to one another. And 
 among the rest, here was the Duke of Buckingham 
 to-day openly in the pit ; and there I found him with 
 my Lord Buckhurst, and Sedley, and Btheridge the 
 poet, the last of whom I did hear mightily find fault 
 with the actors, that they were out of humor, and had 
 not their parts perfect, and that Harris did do nothing, 
 nor could so much as sing a ketch in it ; and so was 
 mightily concerned, while all the rest did, through the 
 whole pit, blame the play as a silly, dull thing, though 
 there was something very roguish and witty ; but the 
 design of the play, and end, mighty insipid." 
 
 Buckingham had held out to his Puritan friends 
 the hope of his conversion for some years ; and when 
 they attempted to convert him, he liad appointed a 
 time for them to finish their work. They kept their 
 promise, and discovered him in the most profligate 
 
72 THE DUCHESS OF BUCKINGHAM LEAVES. 
 
 society. It was indeed impossible to know in what 
 directions his fancies might take him, when we find 
 him believing in the predictions of a poor fellow in 
 a wretched lodging near Tower Hill, who, having 
 cast his nativity, assured the duke he would be king. 
 
 He had continued for years to live with the Countess 
 of Shrewsbury, and two months after her husband's 
 death, had taken her to his home. Then, at last, the 
 Duchess of Buckingham indignantly observed, that 
 she and the countess could not possibly live together. 
 " So I thought, madam," was the reply. " I have 
 therefore ordered your coach to take you to your 
 father's." It has been asserted that Dr. Sprat, the 
 duke's chaplain, actually married him to Lady Shrews- 
 bury, and that his legal wife was thenceforth styled 
 "The Duchess-dowager." 
 
 lie retreated with his mistress to Claverdon, near 
 Windsor, situated on the summit of a hill which is 
 washed by the Thames. It is a noble building, Avith 
 a great terrace in front, under which are twenty-six 
 niches, in which Buckingham had intended to place 
 twenty-six statues as large as life ; and in the middle 
 is an alcove with stairs. Here he lived with the in- 
 famous countess, by whom he had a son, whom he 
 styled Earl of Coventry (his second title), and who 
 died an infant. 
 
 One lingers still over the social career of one whom 
 Louis XIV. called " the only English gentleman he 
 had ever seen." A capital retort was made to Buck- 
 
VILLIEES AND THE PKINCESS OF OEANGE. 73 
 
 ingham by the Princess of Orange, during an inter- 
 view, ■when he stopped at the Hague, between her and 
 the Duke. He was trying diplomatically to convince 
 her of the affection of England for the States. " We 
 do not," he said, "use Holland like a mistress, we love 
 her as a wife." '■'■ Vraiment je crois que vous nous 
 aimez comine vous aimez la vdtre" was the sharp and 
 clever answer. 
 
 On the death of Charles II., in 1685, Buckingham 
 retired to the small remnant of his Yorkshire estates. 
 His debts were now set down at the sum of £140,000. 
 They were liquidated by the sale of his estates. He 
 took kindly to a country life, to the surprise of his old 
 comrade in pleasure, Etherege. " I have heard the 
 news," that wit cried, alluding to this change, "with 
 no less astonishment than if I had been told that the 
 Pope had begun to wear a periwig and had turned beau 
 in the seventy-fourth year of his age !" 
 
 Father Petre and Father Fitzgerald were sent by 
 James II. to convert the duke to Popery. The follow- 
 ing anecdote is told of their conference with the dying 
 sinner : — " We deny," said the Jesuit Petre, " that any 
 one can be saved out of our Church. Your grace 
 allows that our people may be saved." — "No," said 
 the duke, " I make no doubt you will all be damned to 
 a man!" — " Sir," said the father, "I cannot argue 
 with a person so void of all charity." — " I did not ex- 
 pect, my reverend father," said the duke, "such a 
 reproach from you, whose whole reasoning was founded 
 
74 VILLIERS'S LAST HOUBS. 
 
 on the very same instance of want of charity to your- 
 self." 
 
 Buckingham's death took place at Helmsby, in York- 
 shire, and the immediate cause was an ague and fever, 
 owing to having sat down on the wet grass after fox- 
 hunting. Pope has given the following forcible, but 
 inaccurate account of his last hours, and the place in 
 which they were passed : — 
 
 " In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung, 
 The floors of plaster and the walls of dung. 
 On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw, 
 Witli tape-tied curtains never meant to draw; 
 The George and Garter dangling from that bed, 
 "Where tawdi-y yellow strove with dirty red, 
 G reat Yilliers lies : — alas ! how changed from him. 
 That life of pleasure and that soul of whim ! 
 Gallant and gay, in Claverdon's proud alcove, 
 The bower of wanton Shrewsliury and love; 
 Or, just as gay, at council in a ring 
 Of mimic'd statesmen and their merry King. 
 No wit to flatter left of all his store, 
 Ko fool to laugh at, which he valued more. 
 Then victor of his health, of fortune, friends. 
 And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends." 
 
 Far from expiring in the " worst inn's worst room," 
 the duke breathed his last in Kirby Moorside, in a 
 house which had once been the best in the place. 
 Brian Fairfax, who loved this brilliant reprobate, has 
 left the only authentic account on record of his last 
 hours. 
 
 The night previous to the duke's death Fairfax had 
 
DEATH OF VILLIEES. 75 
 
 received a message from him desiring him to prepare a 
 bed for him in his house, Bishop Hill, in York. The 
 next day, however, Fairfax was sent for to his master, 
 whom he found dying. He was speechless, but gave 
 the afflicted servant an earnest look of recognition. 
 
 The Earl of Arran, son of the Duke of Hamilton, 
 and a gentleman of the neighborhood, stood by his 
 bedside. He had then received the Holy Commu- 
 nion from a neighboring clergyman of the Established 
 Church. When the minister came it is said that he 
 inquired of the duke what religion he professed. " It 
 is," replied the dying man, " an insignificant question, 
 for I have been a shame and a disgrace to all religions : 
 if you can do me any good, pray do." When a popish 
 priest had been mentioned to him, he answered vehe- 
 mently, "No, no !" 
 
 He was in a very low state when Lord Arran had 
 found him. But though that nobleman saw death in 
 his looks, the duke said he "' felt so well at heart that 
 he knew he could be in no danger." 
 
 He appeared to have had inflammation in the bowels, 
 which ended in mortification. He begged of Lord 
 Arran to stay with him. The house seems to have 
 been in a most miserable condition, for in a letter from 
 Lord Arran to Dr. Sprat, he says, " I confess it made 
 my heart bleed to see the Duke of Buckingham in so 
 pitiful a place, and so bad a condition, and what made 
 it worse, he was not at all sensible of it, for he thought 
 in a day or two he should be well , and when we re- 
 
76 DEATH OF VILLIERS. 
 
 minded him of his condition, he said it was not as we 
 apprehended. So I sent for a worthy gentleman, Mr. 
 Gibson, to be assistant to me in this work ; so we joint- 
 ly represented his condition to him, who I saw was at 
 first very uneasy ; but I think we should not have dis- 
 charged the duties of honest men if we had suffered 
 him to go out of this world without desiring him to pre- 
 pare for death." The duke joined heartily in the beau- 
 tiful prayers for the dying, of our Church, and yet 
 there was a sort of selfishness and indifference to others 
 manifest even at the last. 
 
 "Mr. Gibson," writes Lord Arran, "asked him if 
 he had made a will, or if he would declare who was to 
 be his heir ? but to the first, he answered he had made 
 none ; and to the last, whoever was named he answered, 
 'No.' First, my lady duchess was named, and then I 
 think almost everybody that had any relation to him, 
 but his answer always was, ' No.' I did fully repre- 
 sent my lady duchess' condition to him, but nothing that 
 was said to him could make him come to any point." 
 
 In this "retired corner," as Lord Arran terms it, 
 did the former wit and beau, the once brave and fine 
 cavalier, the reckless plotter in after-life, end his exist- 
 ence. His body was removed to Helmsby Castle, there 
 to wait the duchess' pleasure, being meantime embalmed. 
 Not one farthing could his steward produce to defray 
 his burial. His George and blue ribbon were sent to 
 the King James, with an account of his death. 
 
 In Kirby Moorside the following entry in the regis- 
 
DUCHESS OF BUCKINGHAM. 77 
 
 ter of burials I'ecords the event, whicli is so replete with 
 a singular retributive justice — so constituted to impress 
 and sadden the mind : — 
 
 "Georges Villus Lord dooke of Buckingham." 
 
 He left scarcely a friend to mourn his life ; for to no 
 man had he been true. He died on the 16th of April 
 according to some accounts ; according to others, on the 
 third of that month, 1687, in the sixty-first year of his 
 age. His body, after being embalmed, was deposited 
 in the family vault in Henry VII. 's chapel.* He left 
 no children, and his title was therefore extinct. The 
 Duchess of Buckingham, of whom Brian Fairfax re- 
 marks, " that if she had none of the vanities, she had 
 none of the vices of the court," survived him several 
 years. She died in 1705, at the age of sixty-six, and 
 was buried in the vault of the Villiers' family, in the 
 chapel of Henry VII. 
 
 Such was the extinction of all the magnificence and 
 intellectual ascendency that at one time centred in the 
 great and gifted family of Villiers. 
 
 ' Brian Fairfax states, that at his death (the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham's) he charged his debts on his estate, leaving much more than 
 enough to cover them. By the register of Westminster Abbey it 
 appears that he was buried in Henry VH.'s Chapel, 7th June, 1687. 
 
COUNT DE GRAMMONT, ST. EVREMOND, 
 AND LORD ROCHESTER. 
 
 It has been observed by a Frencli critic that the 
 Memoires de Grammont afford the truest specimens 
 of French character in our language. To this it may- 
 be added, that the subject of that animated narrative 
 was most completely French in principle, in intelli- 
 gence, in wit that hesitated at nothing, in spirits that 
 were never daunted, and in that incessant activity 
 which is characteristic of his countrymen. Grammont, 
 it was said, " slept neither night nor day ;" his life was 
 one scene of incessant excitement. 
 
 His father, supposed to have been the natural son 
 of Henry the Great, of France, did not suppress that 
 fact, but desired to publish it : for the morals of his 
 time were so depraved, that it was thought to be more 
 honorable to be the illegitimate son of a king than the 
 lawful child of lowlier parents. Born in the Castle 
 of Semeae, on the banks of the Garonne, the fame 
 of two fair ancestresses, Corisande and Menadame, 
 had entitled the family of De Grammont to expect in 
 each successive member an inheritance of beauty. 
 Wit, courage, good nature, a charming address, and 
 boundless assurance, were the heritage of Philibert 
 
 78 
 
^ijilihcrt, (Count iic (Brammont. 
 
I 
 
 Cduc it Pair cU France 
 
THE CHURCH OE THE ARMY. 79 
 
 de Grammont. Beauty was not in his possession ; 
 good nature, a more popular quality, he had in abun- 
 dance : 
 
 "His wit to scandal never stooping, 
 His mirtli ne'er to bufToonery drooping.'' 
 
 As Philibert grew up, the two aristocratic professions 
 of France were presented for his choice : the army, or 
 the church. Neither of these vocations constitutes now 
 the ambition of the high-born in France : the church, 
 to a certain extent, retains its prestige, but the army, 
 ever since officers have risen from the ranks, does not 
 comprise the same class of men as in England. In 
 the reign of Louis XIII., when De Grammont lived, it 
 was otherwise. All political power was vested in the 
 church. Richelieu was, to all purposes, the ruler of 
 France, the dictator of Europe ; and, with regard to 
 the church, great men, at the head of military aifairs, 
 were daily proving to the world, how much intelligence 
 could effect with a small numerical power. Young 
 men took one course or another : the sway of the 
 cabinet, on the one hand, tempted them to the church ; 
 the brilliant exploits of Turenne, and of Condd, on 
 the other, led them to the camp. It was merely the 
 difference of dress between the two that constituted 
 the distinction : the soldier might be as pious as the 
 priest, the priest was sure to be as worldly as the sol- 
 dier ; the soldier might have ecclesiastical preferment ; 
 the priest sometimes turned out to fight. 
 
80 DE GEAMMONT'S CHOICE. 
 
 Philibert de Grammont chose to be a soldier. He 
 was styled the Chevalier de Grammont, according to 
 custom, his father being still living. He fought under 
 Turenne, at the siege of Trino. The army in which 
 he served was beleaguering that city when the gay 
 youth from the banks of the Garonne joined it, to aid 
 it not so much by his valor as by the fun, the raillery, 
 the oflF-hand anecdote, the ready, hearty companionship 
 which lightened the soldier's life in the trenches : adieu 
 to impatience, to despair, even to gravity. The very 
 generals could not maintain their seriousness when the 
 light-hearted De Grammont uttered a repartee — 
 
 "Sworn enemy to all long speeches, 
 Lively and brilliant, frank and free, 
 Author of many a repartee: 
 Remember, over all, that he 
 Was not renowned for storming breaches." 
 
 Where he came, all was sunshine, yet there breathed 
 not a colder, graver man than the Calvinist Turenne : 
 modest, serious, somewhat hard, he gave the young no- 
 bility who served under him no quarter in their short- 
 comings ; but a word, a look, from De Grammont 
 could make him, malgre hd, unbend. The gay chev- 
 alier's white charger's prancing, its gallant rider fore- 
 most in every peril, were not forgotten in after-times, 
 when De Grammont, in extreme old age, chatted over 
 the achievements and pleasures of his youth. 
 
 Amongst those who courted his society in Turenne's 
 army was Matta, a soldier of simple manners, hard 
 
HIS INFLUENCE WITH TUEENNE. 81 
 
 habits, and handsome person, joined to a candid, hon- 
 est nature. He soon persuaded De Grammont to share 
 his quarters, and there they gave splendid entertain- 
 ments, which, Frenchman-like, De Grammont paid for 
 out of the successes of the gaming-tables. But chances 
 were against them ; the two officers were at the mercy 
 of their maitre d'hdtel, who asked for money. One 
 day, when De Grammont came home sooner than 
 usual, he found Matta fast asleep. Whilst De Gram- 
 mont stood looking at him, he awoke, and burst into a 
 violent fit of laughter. 
 
 "What is the matter?" cried the chevalier. 
 
 " Faith, chevalier," answered Matta, " I was dream- 
 ing that we had sent away our maitre d'hdtel, and were 
 resolved to live like our neighbors for the rest of the 
 campaign." 
 
 " Poor fellow !" cried De Grammont. " So you are 
 knocked down at once : what would have become of 
 you if you had been reduced to the situation I was in 
 at Lyons, four days before I came here ? Come, I will 
 tell you all about it." 
 
 " Begin a little farther back," cried Matta, " and 
 tell me about the manner in which you first paid your 
 respects to Cardinal Richelieu. Lay aside your pranks 
 as a child, your genealogy, and all your ancestors 
 together; you cannot know anything about them." 
 
 " Well," replied De Grammont, " it was my father's 
 own fault that he was not Henry IV. 's son : see what 
 the Grainmonts have lost by this cross-grained fellow ! 
 
 Vol. I.— 6 
 
82 THE CHURCH OR THE ARMY. 
 
 Faith, we might have walked before the Counts de 
 Vend6me at this very moment." 
 
 Then he went on to relate how he had been sent to 
 Pau, to the college, to be brought up to the church, 
 with an old servant to act both as his valet and his 
 guardian. How his head was too full of gaming to 
 learn Latin. How they gave him his rank at college, 
 as the youth of quality, when he did not deserve it ; 
 how he travelled up to Paris to his brother to be pol- 
 ished, and went to court in the character of an abb^. 
 " Ah, Matta, you know the kind of dress then in 
 vogue. No, I would not change my dress, but I con- 
 sented to draw over it a cassock. I had the finest 
 head of hair in the world, well curled and powdered 
 above my cassock, and below were my white buskins 
 and spurs." 
 
 Even Richelieu, that hypocrite, he went on to relate, 
 could not help laughing at the parti-coloi'ed costume, 
 sacerdotal above, soldier-like below ; but the cardinal 
 was greatly oifended — not with the absence of decorum, 
 but with the dangerous wit, that could laugh in public 
 at the cowl and shaven crown, points which constituted 
 the greatest portion of Richelieu's sanctity. 
 
 De Grammont's brother, however, thus addressed 
 the Chevalier: — "Well, my little parson," said he, as 
 they went home, "you have acted your part to perfec- 
 tion ; but now you must choose your career. If you 
 like to stick to the church, you will possess great 
 revenues, and nothing to do ; if you choose to go into 
 
AN ADVENTURE AT LYONS. 83 
 
 the army, you will risk your arm or your leg, but in 
 time you may be a major-general with a wooden leg 
 and a glass eye, the spectacle of an indifferent, un- 
 grateful court. Make your choice." 
 
 The choice, Philibert went on to relate, was made. 
 For the good of his soul, he renounced the church, but 
 for his own advantage, he kept his abbacy. This was 
 not difficult in days when secular abb^s were common ; 
 nothing would induce him to change his resolution of 
 being a soldier. Meantime he was perfecting his ac- 
 complishments as a fine gentleman, one of the requi- 
 sites for which was a knowledge of all sorts of games. 
 No matter that his mother was miserable at his decis- 
 ion. Had her son been an abb^, she thought he would 
 have become a saint : nevertheless, when he returned 
 home, with the air of a courtier and a man of the 
 world, boy as he was, and the very impersonation of 
 what might then be termed la jeune France, she was so 
 enchanted with him that she consented to his going to 
 the wars, attended again by Brinon, his valet, equerry, 
 and Mentor in one. Next in De Grammont's narra- 
 tive came his adventure at Lyons, where he spent the 
 200 louis his mother had given Brinon for him, in 
 play, and very nearly broke the poor old servant's 
 heart ; where he had duped a horse-dealer ; and he 
 ended by proposing plans, similarly honorable, to be 
 adopted for their present emergencies. 
 
 The first step was to go to head-quarters, to dine with 
 a certain Count de Cameran, a Savoyard, and invite 
 
84 A BRILLIANT IDEA. 
 
 him to supper. Here Matta interposed. "Are you 
 mad?" he exclaimed. "Invite him to supper! we 
 have neither money nor credit; we are ruined; and 
 to save us you intend to give a supper!" 
 
 " Stupid fellow !" cried De Grammont. " Cameran 
 plays at quinze : so do I : we want money. He has 
 more than he knows what to do with : we give a sup- 
 per, he pays for it. However," he added, "it is neces- 
 sary to take certain precautions. You command the 
 Guards : when night comes on, order your Sergent- 
 de-place to have iifteen or twenty men under arms, and 
 let them lay themselves flat on the ground between this 
 and head-quarters. Most likely we shall win this stupid 
 fellow's money. Now the Piedmontese are suspicious, 
 and he commands the Horse. Now, you know, Matta, 
 you cannot hold your tongue, and are very likely to let 
 out some joke that will vex him. Supposing he takes 
 it into his head that he is being cheated ? He has 
 always eight or ten horsemen : we must be prepared." 
 
 "Embrace me!" cried Matta, "embrace me! for 
 thou art unparalleled. I thought you only meant to 
 prepare a pack of cards and some false dice. But 
 the idea of protecting a man who plays at quinze by 
 a detachment of foot is excellent : thine own, dear 
 Chevalier." 
 
 Thus, like some of Dumas' heroes, hating villany as 
 a matter of course, but being by no means ashamed to 
 acknowledge it, the Piedmontese was asked to supper. 
 He came. Nevertheless, in the midst of the affair, 
 
GAMBLING UPON CREDIT. 85 
 
 wlien De Cameran was losing as fast as he could, 
 Matta's conscience touched him : he awoke from a 
 deep sleep, heard the dice shaking, saw the poor 
 Savoyard losing, and advised him to play no more. 
 
 " Don't you know, Count, you cannot win ?" 
 
 "Why?" asked the Count. 
 
 "Why, faith, because we are cheating you," was the 
 reply. 
 
 The Chevalier turned round impatiently, " Sieur 
 Matta," he cried, "do you suppose it can be any 
 amusement to Monsieur le Comte to be plagued with 
 your ill-timed jests ? For my part, I am so weary of 
 the game, that I swear by Jupiter I can scarcely play 
 any more." Nothing is more distasteful to a losing 
 gamester than a hint of leaving oif; so the Count 
 entreated the Chevalier to continue, and assured him 
 that " Monsieur Matta might say what he pleased, for 
 it did not give him the least uneasiness to continue." 
 
 The Chevalier allowed the Count to play upon credit, 
 and that act of courtesy was taken very kindly : the 
 dupe lost 1500 pistoles, which he paid the next morn- 
 ing, when Matta was sharply reprimanded for his 
 interference. 
 
 " Faith," he answered, " it was a point of conscience 
 with me ; besides, it would have given me pleasure to 
 have seen his Horse engaged with my Infantry, if he 
 had taken anything amiss." 
 
 The sum thus gained set the spendthrifts up ; and 
 De Grammont satisfied his conscience by giving it 
 
86 DE GEAMMONT'S GENEBOSITY. 
 
 away, to a certain extent, in charity. It is singular 
 to perceive in the history of this celebrated man that 
 moral taint of character which the French have never 
 lost : this total absence of right reasoning on all points 
 of conduct, is coupled in our Gallic neighbors with the 
 greatest natural benevolence, with a generosity only 
 kept back by poverty, with impulsive, impressionable 
 dispositions, that require the guidance of a sound Prot- 
 estant faith to elevate and correct them. 
 
 The Chevalier hastened, it is related, to find out dis- 
 tressed comrades, officers who had lost their baggage, or 
 who had been ruined by gaming ; or soldiers who had 
 been disabled in the trenches ; and his manner of re- 
 lieving them was as graceful and as delicate as the 
 bounty he distributed was welcome. He was the 
 darling of the army. The poor soldier knew him 
 personally, and adored him ; the general was sure to 
 meet him in the scenes of action, and to seek his 
 company in those of security. 
 
 And, having thus retrieved his finances, the gay- 
 hearted Chevalier used, henceforth, to make De Cam- 
 eran go halves with him in all games in which the 
 odds were in his own favor. Even the staid Calvinist, 
 Turenne, who had not then renounced, as he did in 
 after-life, the Protestant faith, delighted in the off-hand 
 merriment of the Chevalier. It was towards the end of 
 the siege of Trino, that De Grammont went to visit that 
 general in some new quarters, where Turenne received 
 him, surrounded by fifteen or twenty officers. Accord- 
 
A I-IOESE "FOE THE CAEDS." 87 
 
 ing to the custom of the day, cards were introduced, 
 and the general asked the Chevalier to play. 
 
 " Sir," returned the young soldier, " my tutor taught 
 me that when a man goes to see his friends it is neither 
 prudent to leave his own money behind him nor civil to 
 take theirs." 
 
 "Well," answered Turenne, "I can tell you you 
 will find neither much money nor deep play among 
 us ; but that it cannot be said that we allowed you to 
 go off without playing, suppose we each of us stake a 
 horse." 
 
 De Grammont agreed, and, lucky as ever, won from 
 the officers some fifteen or sixteen horses, by way of a 
 joke; but seeing several faces pale, he said, " Gentle- 
 men, I should be sorry to see you go away from your 
 general's quarters on foot ; it will do very well if you 
 all send me to-morrow your horses, except one, which 
 I give for the cards." 
 
 The valet-de-chamhre thought he was jesting. " I 
 am serious," cried the Chevalier. '■'■Parole d'honneur 
 I give a horse for the cards ; and what's more, take 
 which you please, only don't take mine." 
 
 "Faith," said Turenne, pleased with the novelty of 
 the affair, " I don't believe a horse was ever before 
 given for the cards." 
 
 Young people, and indeed old people, can perhaps 
 hardly remember the time when, even in England, 
 money used to be put under the candlesticks " for the 
 cards," as it was said, but in fact for the servants, who 
 
88 KNIGHT-CICISBEISM. 
 
 waited. Winner or loser, the tax was to be paid, and 
 this custom of vails was also prevalent in France. 
 
 Trino at last surrendered, and the two friends rushed 
 from their campaigning life to enjoy the gayeties of 
 Turin, at that time the centre of pleasure ; and resolved 
 to perfect their characters as military heroes — by falling 
 in love, if respectably, well ; if disreputably, well too, 
 perhaps all the more agreeable, and venturesome, as 
 they thought. 
 
 The court of Turin was then presided over by the 
 Duchess of Savoy, Madame Royale, as she was called 
 in France, the daughter of Henry IV. of France, the 
 sister of Henrietta Maria of England. She was a 
 woman of talent and spirit, worthy of her descent, 
 and had certain other qualities which constituted a 
 point of resemblance between her and her father ; she 
 was, like him, more fascinating than respectable. 
 
 The customs of Turin were rather Italian than 
 French. At that time every lady had her professed 
 lover, who wore the liveries of his mistress, bore her 
 arms, and sometimes assumed her very name. The 
 office of the lover was, never to quit his lady in public, 
 and never to approach her in private : to be on all 
 occasions her esquire. In the tournament her chosen 
 knight-cicisbeo came forth with his coat, his housings, 
 his very lance distinguished •with the cyphers and 
 colors of her who had condescended to invest him 
 with her preference. It was the remnant of chivalry 
 that authorized this custom ; but of chivalry demoral- 
 
DE GRAMMONT'S FIEST LOVE. 89 
 
 ized — chivalry denuded of her purity, her respect, the 
 chivalry of coiTupted Italy, not of that which, perhaps, 
 fallaciously, we assign to the earlier ages. 
 
 Grammont and Matta enlisted themselves at once in 
 the service of two beauties. Grammont chose for the 
 queen of beauty, who was to " rain influence " upon 
 him. Mademoiselle de St. Germain, who was in the 
 very bloom of youth. She was French, and, probably, 
 an ancestress of that all-accomplished Comte de St. 
 Germain, whose exploits so dazzled successive Euro- 
 pean courts,, and the fullest account of whom, in all its 
 brilliant colors, yet tinged with mystery, is given in the 
 Memoirs of Maria Antoinette, by the Marquise d'Ad- 
 hgmar, her lady of the bed-chamber. 
 
 The lovely object of De Grammont's "first love" 
 was a radiant brunette belle, who took no pains to set 
 off by art the charms of nature. She had some 
 defects : her black and sparkling eyes were small ; 
 her forehead, by no means " as pure as moonlight 
 sleeping upon snow," was not fair, neither were her 
 hands ; neither had she small feet — but her form 
 generally was perfect ; her elbows had a peculiar 
 elegance in them ; and in old times to hold the elbow 
 out well, and yet not to stick it out, was a point of 
 early discipline. Then her glossy black hair set off 
 a superb neck and shoulders ; and, moreover, she was 
 gay, full of mirth, life, complaisance, perfect in all the 
 acts of politeness, and invariable in her gracious and 
 graceful bearing. 
 
90 KNIGHT-CICISBEISM. 
 
 Matta admired her ; but De Grammont ordered him 
 to attach himself to the Marquise de Senantes, a mar- 
 ried beauty of the court ; and Matta, in full faith that 
 all Grammont said and did was sure to succeed, obeyed 
 his friend. The Chevalier had fallen in love with 
 Mademoiselle de St. Germain at first sight, and 
 instantly arrayed himself in her color, which was 
 green, whilst Matta wore blue, in compliment to the 
 marquise ; and they entered the next day upon duty, 
 at La Venerie, where the Duchess of Savoy gave a 
 grand entertainment. De Grammont, with his native 
 tact and unscrupulous mendacity, played his part to 
 perfection ; but his comrade, Matta, committed a hun- 
 dred solecisms. The very second time he honored the 
 marquise with his attentions, he treated her as if she 
 were his humble servant : when he pressed her hand, 
 it was a pressure that almost made her scream. When 
 he ought to have ridden by the side of her coach, he 
 set off, on seeing a hare start from her form ; then he 
 talked to her of partridges when he should have been 
 laying himself at her feet. Both these affairs ended 
 as might have been expected. Mademoiselle de St. 
 Germain was diverted by Grammont, yet he could not 
 touch her heart. Her aim was to marry ; his was 
 merely to attach himself to a reigning beauty. They 
 parted without regret; and he left the then remote 
 court of Turin for the gayer scenes of Paris and 
 Versailles. Here he became as celebrated for his 
 alertness in play as for his readiness in repartee ; as 
 
HIS WITTY ATTACKS ON MAZAEIN. 91 
 
 noted for his intrigues, as he afterwards was for his 
 bravery. 
 
 Those were stirring days in France. Anne of Austria, 
 then in her maturity, was governed by Mazarin, the 
 most artful of ministers, an Italian to the very heart's 
 core, with a love of amassing wealth engrafted in his 
 supple nature that amounted to a monomania. The 
 whole aim of his life was gain. Though gaming was 
 at its height, Mazarin never played for amusement ; 
 he played to enrich himself; and when he played, he 
 cheated. 
 
 The Chevalier de Grammont was now rich, and 
 Mazarin worshipped the rich. He was witty ; and 
 his wit soon procured him admission into the clique 
 whom the wily Mazarin collected around him in Paris. 
 Whatever were De Grammont's faults, he soon per- 
 ceived those of Mazarin ; he detected, and he detested, 
 the wily, grasping, serpent-like attributes of the Italian ; 
 he attacked him on every occasion on which a "wit 
 combat " was possible : he gracefully showed Mazarin 
 off in his true colors. With ease he annihilated him, 
 metaphorically, at his own table. Yet De Grammont 
 had something to atone for : he had been the adherent 
 and companion in arms of Cond6; he had followed 
 that hero to Sens, to Nordlingen, to Fribourg, and 
 had returned to his allegiance to the young king, 
 Louis XIV., only because he wished to visit the court 
 at Paris. Mazarin's policy, however, was that of par- 
 don and peace — of duplicity and treachery — and the 
 
92 DE GEAMMONT'S INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 Chevalier seemed to be forgiven on his return to Paris, 
 even by Anne of Austria. Nevertheless, De Gram- 
 mont never lost his independence ; and he could boast 
 in after-life that he owed the two great cardinals who 
 had governed France nothing that they could have 
 refused. It was true that Richelieu had left him his 
 abbacy ; but he could not refuse it to one of De 
 Grammont's rank. From Mazarin he had gained 
 nothing except what he had Avon at play. 
 
 After Mazarin's death the Chevalier intended to 
 secure the favor of the king, Louis XIV., to whom, as 
 he rejoiced to find, court alone was' now to be paid. 
 lie had now somewhat rectified his distinctions be- 
 tween right and wrong, and was resolved to have no 
 regard for favor unless supported by merit ; he deter- 
 mined to make himself beloved by the courtiers of 
 Louis, and feared by the ministers ; to dare to under- 
 take anything to do good, and to engage in nothing 
 at the expense of innocence. He still continued to 
 be eminently successful in play, of which he did not 
 perceive the evil, nor allow the wickedness ; but 
 he was unfortunate in love, in which he was equally 
 unscrupulous and more rash than at the gaming- 
 table. 
 
 Among the maids of honor of Anne of Austria was 
 a young lady named Anne Lucie de la Mothe Houdan- 
 court. Louis, though not long married, showed some 
 symptoms of admiration for this debutante in the 
 wicked ways of the court. 
 
ANNE LUCIE DE lA MOTIIE HOUDANCOUET. 93 
 
 Gay, radiant in the bloom of youth atid innocence, 
 the story of this young girl presents an instance of the 
 unhappiness which, -without guilt, the sins of others 
 bring upon even the ^'irtuous. The queen-dowager, 
 Anne of Austria, was living at St. Germains when 
 Mademoiselle de la Mothe Houdancourt was received 
 into her household. The Duchess de Noailles, at that 
 time Grande Maitresse, exercised a vigilant and 
 kindly rule over the maids of honor ; nevertheless, she 
 could not prevent their being liable to the attentions 
 of Louis : she forbade him however to loiter, or indeed 
 even to be seen in the room appropriated to the young 
 damsels under her charge ; and when attracted by the 
 beauty of Anne Lucie de la Mothe, Louis was obliged 
 to speak to her through a hole behind a clock which 
 stood in a corridor. 
 
 Anne Lucie, notwithstanding this apparent encour- 
 agement of the king's addresses, was perfectly indiffer- 
 ent to his admiration. She was secretly attached to 
 the Marquis de Richelieu, who had, or pretended to 
 have, honorable intentions towards her. Everything 
 was tried, but tried in vain, to induce the poor girl to 
 give up all her predilections for the sake of a guilty 
 distinction — that of being the king's mistress : even 
 her mother reproached her with her coldness. A 
 family council was held, in hopes of convincing her of 
 her wilfulness, and Anne Lucie was bitterly reproached 
 by her female relatives ; but her heart still clung to the 
 faithless Marquis de Richelieu, who, however, when 
 
94 BESET WITH SNAKES. 
 
 lie saw that a royal lover was his rival, meanly with- 
 drew. 
 
 Her fall seemed inevitable ; but the firmness of 
 Anne of Austria saved her from her ruin. That 
 queen insisted on her being sent away ; and she re- 
 sisted even the entreaties of the queen, her daughter- 
 in-law, and the wife of Louis XIV. ; who, for some 
 reasons not explained, entreated that the young lady 
 might remain at the court. Anne was sent away in a 
 sort of disgrace to the convent of Chaillot, which was 
 then considered to be quite out of Paris, and suf- 
 ficiently secluded to protect her from visitors. Ac- 
 cording to another account, a letter full of reproaches, 
 which she wrote to the Marquis de Richelieu upbraid- 
 ing him for his desertion, had been intercepted. 
 
 It was to this young lady that De Grammont, who 
 was then, in the very centre of the court, " the type of 
 fashion and the mould of form," attached himself to 
 her as an admirer who could condescend to honor with 
 his attentions those whom the king pursued. The 
 once gay girl was thus beset with snares : on one side 
 was the king, whose disgusting preference was shown 
 when in her presence by sighs and sentiment ; on the 
 other, De Grammont, whose attentions to her were 
 importunate, but failed to convince her that he was in 
 love ; on the other was the time-serving, heartless De 
 Richelieu, whom her reason condemned, but whom her 
 heart cherished. She soon showed her distrust and 
 dislike of De Grammont : she treated him with con- 
 
DE GEAMMONT'S VISITS TO ENGLAND. 95 
 
 tempt ; she threatened him with exposure, yet he would 
 not desist : then she complained of him to the king. 
 It was then that he perceived that though love could 
 equalize conditions, it could not act in the same way 
 between rivals. He was commanded to leave the 
 court. Paris, therefore, Versailles, Fontainebleau, and 
 St. Germains were closed against this gay Chevalier ; 
 and how could he live elsewhere ? Whither could he 
 go ? Strange to say, he had a vast fancy to behold 
 the man who, stained with the crime of regicide, and 
 sprung from the people, was receiving magnificent 
 embassies from continental nations, whilst Charles II. 
 was seeking security in his exile from the power of 
 Spain in the Low Countries. He was eager to see 
 the Protector, Cromwell. But Cromwell, though in 
 the height of his fame when beheld by De Grammont 
 — though feared at home and abroad — was little calcu- 
 lated to win suffrage from a mere man of pleasure like 
 De Grammont. The court, the city, the country, were 
 in his days gloomy, discontented, joyless : a proscribed 
 nobility was the sure cause of the thin though few 
 festivities of the now lugubrious gallery of Whitehall. 
 Puritanism drove the old jovial churchmen into retreat, 
 and dispelled every lingering vestige of ancient hospi- 
 tality : long graces and long sermons, sanctimonious 
 manners, and grim, sad faces, and sad-colored dresses 
 were not much to De Grammont's taste ; he returned 
 to France, and declared that he had gained no advan- 
 tage from his travels. Nevertheless, either from choice 
 
96 ■ CHARLES 11. 
 
 or necessity, lie made another trial of the damps and 
 fogs of England.^ 
 
 When he again visited our country, Charles II. had 
 been two years seated on the throne of his father. 
 Everything was changed, and the British court was in 
 its fullest splendor ; whilst the rejoicings of the people 
 of England at the Restoration were still resounding 
 through the land. 
 
 If one could include royal personages in the rather 
 gay than worthy category of the " wits and beaux of 
 society," Charles II. should figure at their head. He 
 was the most agreeable companion, and the worst king 
 imaginable. In the first place, he was, as it were, a 
 citi-zen of the world : tossed about by fortune from his 
 early boyhood ; a witness at the tender age of twelve 
 of the battle of Edge Hill, where the celebrated Har- 
 vey had charge of him and of his brother. That in- 
 auspicious commencement of a wandering life had per- 
 haps been amongst the least of his early trials. The 
 fiercest was his long residence as a sort of royal prisoner 
 in Scotland. A travelled, humbled man, he came back 
 to England with a full knowledge of men and manners, 
 in the prime of his life, with spirits unbroken by ad- 
 versity, with a heart unsoured by that "stern nurse," 
 with a gayety that was always kindly, never uncourt- 
 eous, ever more French than English ; far more natural 
 
 'M. de Grammont visited England during the Protectorate. 
 His second visit, after being forbidden tlie court by Louis XIV., 
 was in 1C02. 
 
LIFE AT WHITEHALL. 97 
 
 did he appear as the son of Henrietta Maria than as 
 the offspring of the thoughtful Charles. 
 
 In person, too, the king was then agreeable, though 
 rather what the French would call distingu& than dig- 
 nified ; he was, however, tall, and somewhat elegant, 
 with a long French face, which in his boyhood was 
 plump and full about the lower part of the cheeks, but 
 now began to sink into that well-known, lean, dark, 
 flexible countenance, in which we do not, however, 
 recognize the gayety of the man whose very name 
 brings with it associations of gayety, politeness, good 
 company, and all the attributes of a first-rate wit, ex- 
 cept the almost inevitable ill-nature. There is in the 
 physiognomy of Charles II. that melancholy which is 
 often observable in the faces of those who are mere men 
 of pleasure. 
 
 De Grrammont found himself completely in his own 
 sphere at Whitehall, where the habits were far more 
 French than English. Along that stately Mall, over- 
 shadowed with umbrageous trees, which retains — and 
 it is to be hoped ever will retain — the old name of the 
 "_^Birdcage Walk," one can picture to one's self the king 
 walking so fast that no one can keep up with him ; yet 
 stopping from time to time to chat with some acquaint- 
 ances. He is walking to Duck Island, which is full of 
 his favorite water-fowl, and of which he has given St. 
 Evremond the government. How pleasant is his talk 
 to those who attend him as he walks along ; how well 
 the quality of good-nature is shown in his love of dumb 
 Vol. I.— 7 
 
98 COURT OF CHAELES II. 
 
 animals ; how completely he is a boy still, even in that 
 brown wig of many curls, and with the George and 
 Garter on his breast ! Boy, indeed, for he is followed 
 by a litter of young spaniels : a little brindled grey- 
 hound frisks beside him ; it is for that he is ridiculed 
 by the '^ psalm " sung at the Calves' Head Club : these 
 favorites were cherished to his death. 
 
 " His dogs would sit in council boards 
 Like judges in their seats: 
 AVe question much which had most sense, 
 The master or the curs.'' 
 
 Then what capital stories Charles Avould tell, as he 
 unbent at night amid the faithful, though profligate, 
 companions of his exile ! He told his anecdotes, it is 
 true, over and over again, yet they were always embel- 
 lished with some fresh touch — like the repetition of a 
 song which has been encored on the stage. Whether 
 from his inimitable art, or from his royalty, we leave 
 others to guess, but his stories bore repetition again 
 and again : they were amusing, and even novel to the 
 very last. 
 
 To this seducing court did De Grammont now come. 
 It was a delightful exchange from the endless cere- 
 monies and punctilios of the region over which Louis 
 XIV. presided. Wherever Charles was, his palace 
 appeared to resemble a large hospitable house — some- 
 times town, sometimes country — in which every one 
 did as he liked ; and where distinctions of rank were 
 
INTRODUCTION OF COUNTRY DANCES. 99 
 
 kept up as a matter of convenience, but were only- 
 valued on that score. 
 
 In other respects, Charles had modelled his court 
 very much on the plan of that of Louis XIV., which 
 he had admired for its gayety and spirit. Corneille, 
 Racine, Moliere, Boileau, were encouraged by le Cfrand 
 Monarque. Wycherley and Dryden were attracted by 
 Charles to celebrate the festivities, and to amuse the 
 great and the gay. In various points De Grammont 
 found a resemblance. The queen-consort, Catherine 
 of Braganza, was as complacent to her husband's vices 
 as the queen of Louis. These royal ladies were merely 
 first sultanas, and had no right, it was thought, to feel 
 jealousy, or to resent neglect. Each returning Sab- 
 bath saw Whitehall lighted up, and heard the tabors 
 sound for a branle (Anglicized "brawl"). This was 
 a dance which mixed up everybody, and called a 
 brawl, from the foot being shaken to a quick time. 
 Gayly did his Majesty perform it, leading to the hot 
 exercise Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, stout and 
 homely, and leaving Lady Castlemaine to his son, 
 the Duke of Monmouth. Then Charles, with ready 
 grace, would begin the coranto, taking a single lady 
 in this dance along the gallery. Lords and ladies one 
 after another followed, and " very noble," writes Pepys, 
 "and great pleasure it was to see." Next came the 
 country dances, introduced by Mary, Countess of 
 Buckingham, the grandmother of the graceful duke 
 who is moving along the gallery ; — and she invented 
 
100 NOEMAN PECULIAEITIES. 
 
 those once popular dances in order to introduce, with 
 less chance of failure, her rustic country cousins, who 
 could not easily be taught to carry themselves well in 
 the brawl, or to step out gracefully in the coranto, both 
 of which dances required practice and time. In all 
 these dances the king shines the most, and dances 
 much better than his brother the Duke of York. 
 
 In these gay scenes De Grammont met with the 
 most fashionable belles of the court : fortunately for 
 him they all spoke French tolerably ; and he quickly 
 made himself welcome amongst even the few — and 
 few indeed there were — who plumed themselves upon 
 untainted reputations. Hitherto those French noble- 
 men who had presented themselves in England had 
 been poor and absurd. The court had been thronged 
 with a troop of impertinent Parisian coxcombs, who 
 had pretended to despise everything English, and who 
 treated the natives as if they were foreigners in their 
 own country. De Grammont, on the contrary, was 
 familiar with every one : he ate, he drank, he lived, in 
 short, according to the custom of the country that hos- 
 pitably received him, and accorded him the more respect 
 because they had been insulted by others. 
 
 He now introduced the petits soupers, which have 
 never been understood anywhere so well as in France, 
 and which are even there dying out to make way for 
 the less social and more expensive dinner ; but, per- 
 haps, he would even here have been unsuccessful, had 
 it not been for the society and advice of the famous St. 
 
Seigneur ire 3t. MtniB U Suast, 
 
ST. EVEEMOND. 101 
 
 Evremond, who at this time was exiled in France, and 
 took refuge in England. 
 
 This celebrated and accomplished man had some 
 points of resemblance with De Grammont. Like him, 
 he had been originally intended for the church ; like 
 him, he had turned to the military profession ; he was 
 an ensign before he was full sixteen ; and had a com- 
 pany of foot given him after serving two or three cam- 
 paigns. Like De Grammont, he owed the facilities of 
 his early career to his being the descendant of an ancient 
 and honorable family. St. Evremond was the Seigneur 
 of St. Denis le Guast, in Normandy, where he was born. 
 
 Both these sparkling wits of society had at one 
 time, and, in fact, at the same period, served under 
 the great Condd ; both were pre-eminent, not only in 
 literature, but in games of chance. St. Evremond 
 was famous at the University of Caen, in which he 
 studied, for his fencing; and "St. Evremond's pass" 
 was well known to swordsmen of his time ; — both 
 were gay and satirical ; neither of them pretended 
 to rigid morals ; but both were accounted men of 
 honor among their fellow-men of pleasure. They 
 were graceful, kind, generous. 
 
 In person St. Evremond had the advantage, being 
 a Norman — a race which combines the handsomest 
 traits of an English countenance with its blond hair, 
 blue eyes, and fair skin. Neither does the slight 
 tinge of the Gallic race detract from the attractions 
 of a true, well-born Norman, bred up in that province 
 
102 ST. EVEEMOND, THE HANDSOME NORMAN. 
 
 ■which is called the Court-end of France, and polished 
 in the capital. Your Norman is hardy, and fond of 
 field-sports : like the Englishman, he is usually fear- 
 less ; generous, but, unlike the English, somewhat 
 crafty. You may know him by the fresh color, the 
 peculiar blue eye, long and large ; by his joyousness 
 and look of health, gathered up in his own marshy 
 country, for the Norman is well fed, and lives on the 
 produce of rich pasture-land, with cheapness and plenty 
 around him. And St. Evremond was one of the hand- 
 somest specimens of this fine locality (so mixed up as 
 it is with Ms) ; and his blue eyes sparkled with humor ; 
 his beautifully-turned mouth was all sweetness ; and 
 his noble forehead, the whiteness of which was set off 
 by thick dark eyebrows, was expressive of his great 
 intelligence, until a wen grew between his eyebrows, 
 and so changed all the expression of his face that the 
 Duchess of Mazarin used to call him the " Old Satyr." 
 St. Evremond was also Norman in other respects : he 
 called himself a thorough Roman Catholic, yet he 
 despised the superstitions of his church, and prepared 
 himself for death without them. When asked by an 
 ecclesiastic sent expressly from the court of Florence 
 to attend his death-bed, if he "would be reconciled," 
 ho answered, " "With all my heart ; I Avould fain be 
 reconciled to my stomach, which no longer performs 
 its usual functions." And his talk, we are told, dur- 
 ing the fortnight that preceded his death, was not 
 regret for a life we should, in seriousness, call mis- 
 
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN EUKOrE. 103 
 
 spent, but because partridges and pheasants no longer 
 suited his condition, and he was obliged to be reduced 
 to boiled meats. No one, however, could tell what 
 might also be passing in his heart. We cannot always 
 judge of a life, any more than of a drama, by its last 
 scene ; but this is certain, that in an age of blasphemy 
 St. Evremond could not endure to hear religion insulted 
 by ridicule. " Common decency," said this man of 
 the world, " and a due regard to our fellow-creatures, 
 would not permit it." He did not, it seems, refer his 
 displeasure to a higher source — to the presence of the 
 Omniscient, — who claims from us all not alone the 
 tribute of our poor frail hearts in serious moments, 
 but the deep reverence of every thought in the hours 
 of careless pleasure. 
 
 It was now St. Evremond who taught De Grammont 
 to collect around him the wits of that court, so rich in 
 attractions, so poor in honor and morality. The object 
 of St. Evremond's devotion, though he had, at the 
 era of the Restoration, passed his fiftieth year, was 
 Hortense Mancini, once the richest heiress, and still 
 the most beautiful woman in Europe, and a niece, on 
 her mother's side, of Cardinal Mazarin. Hortense 
 had been educated, after the age of six, in France. 
 She was Italian in her accomplishments, in her reck- 
 less, wild disposition, opposed to that of the French, 
 who are generally calculating and wary, even in their 
 vices : she was Italian in the style of her surpassing 
 beauty, and French to the core in her principles. 
 
104 THE CHILD-WIFE. 
 
 Ilortense, at the age of thirteen, had been married to 
 Armand Due de Meilleraye and Mayenne, who had 
 fallen so desperately in love with this beautiful child, 
 that he declared "if he did not marry her he should 
 die in three months." Cardinal Mazarin, although 
 he had destined his niece Mary to this alliance, gave 
 his consent on condition that the duke should take the 
 name of Mazarin. The cardinal died a year after 
 this marriage, leaving his niece Hortense the enor- 
 mous fortune of £1,625,000 ; yet she died in the 
 greatest difficulties, and her corpse was seized by 
 her creditors. 
 
 The Due de Mayenne proved to be a fanatic, who 
 used to waken his wife in the dead of the night to hear 
 his visions ; who forbade his child to be nursed on fast- 
 days ; and who believed himself to be inspired. After 
 six years of wretchedness poor Hortense petitioned for 
 a separation and a division of property. She quitted 
 her husband's home and took refuge first in a nunnery, 
 where she showed her unbelief, or her irreverence, by 
 mixing ink with holy-water, that the poor nuns might 
 black their faces when they crossed themselves ; or, in 
 concert with Madame de Courcelles, another handsome 
 married woman, she used to walk through the dormi- 
 toi'ies in the dead of night, with a number of little dogs 
 barking at their heels ; then she filled two great chests 
 that were over the dormitories with water, which ran 
 over, and, penetrating through the chinks of the floor, 
 wet the holy sisters in their beds. At length all this 
 
HOETENSE MANCINI'S ADVENTUKE8. 105 
 
 sorry gayety was stopped by a decree that Hortense 
 was to return to the Palais Mazarin, and to remain 
 there until the suit for a separation should be decided. 
 That the result should be favorable was doubtful : there- 
 fore, one fine night in June, 1667, Hortense escaped. 
 She dressed herself in male attire, and, attended by a 
 female servant, managed to get through the gate at 
 Paris, and to enter a carriage. Then she fled to Swit- 
 zerland ; and, had not her flight been shared by the 
 Chevalier de Rohan, one of the handsomest men in 
 France, one could hardly have blamed an escape from 
 a half-lunatic husband. She was only twenty-eight 
 when, after various adventures, she came in all her 
 unimpaired beauty to England. Charles was captivated 
 by her charms, and, touched by her misfortunes, he set- 
 tled on her a pension of ,£4000 a year, and gave her 
 rooms in St. James's. Waller sang her praise : 
 
 ''When through the world fair Mazarine liad run, 
 Bright as her fellow-traveller, the sun: 
 Hither at length the Roman eagle flies, 
 As the last triumph of her conquering eyes.'' 
 
 If Hortense failed to carry off from the Duchess of 
 Portsmouth — then the star of Whitehall — the heart of 
 Charles, she found, at all events, in St. Evremond one 
 of those French, platonic, life-long friends, who, as 
 Chateaubriand worshipped Madame R^camier, adored 
 to the last the exiled niece of Mazarin. Every day, 
 when in her old age and his, the warmth of love had 
 
106 LIFE AT CHELSEA. 
 
 subsided into the serener affection of pitying, and yet 
 admiring friendsliip, St. Evremond was seen, a little 
 old man in a black coif, carried along Pall Mall in a 
 sedan chair, to the apartment of Madame Mazarin, in 
 St. James's. He always took with him a pound of 
 butter, made in his own little dairy, for her breakfast. 
 When De Grammont was installed at the court of 
 Charles, Hortense was, however, in her prime. Her 
 house at Chelsea, then a country village, was famed 
 for its society and its varied pleasures. St. Evremond 
 has so well described its attractions that his words 
 should be literally given. " Freedom and discretion 
 are equally to be found there. Every one is made 
 more at home than in his own house, and treated with 
 moi'e respect than at court. It is true that there are 
 frequent disputes there, but they are those of know- 
 ledge and not of anger. There is play there, but it is 
 inconsiderable, and only practised for its amusement. 
 You discover in no countenance the fear of losing, nor 
 concern for what is lost. Some are so disinterested that 
 they are reproached for expressing joy when they lose, 
 and regret when they win. Play is followed by the 
 most excellent repasts in the world. There you will 
 find whatever delicacy is brought from France, and 
 whatever is curious from the Indies. Even the com- 
 monest meats have the rarest relish imparted to them. 
 There is neither a plenty which gives a notion of ex- 
 travagance, nor a frugality that discovers penury or 
 meanness." 
 
ANECDOTE OF LORD DORSET. 107 
 
 What an assemblage it must have been ! Here lolls 
 Charles, Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Lord Dorset, the 
 laziest, in matters of business or court advancement — 
 the boldest, in point of frolic and pleasure, of all the 
 wits and beaux of his time. His youth had been full 
 of adventure and of dissipation. " I know not how it 
 is," said Wilmot, Lord Rochester, " but my Lord Dor- 
 set can do anything, and is never to blame." Pie had, 
 in truth, a heart ; he could bear to hear others praised; 
 he despised the arts of courtiers ; he befriended the un- 
 happy ; he was the most engaging of men in manners, 
 the most lovable and accomplished of human beings ; 
 at once poet, philanthropist, and wit ; he was also 
 possessed of chivalric notions, and of daring courage. 
 
 Like his royal master, Lord Dorset had travelled ; 
 and when made a gentleman of the bedchamber to 
 Charles II., he was not unlike his sovereign in other 
 traits ; so full of gayety, so high-bred, so lax, so court- 
 eous, so convivial, that no supper was complete without 
 him: no circle "the right thing," unless Buckhurst, 
 as he was long called, was there to pass the bottle 
 round, and to keep every one in good-humor. Yet, 
 he had misspent a youth in reckless immorality, and 
 had even been in Newgate on a charge, a doubtful 
 charge it is true, of highway robbery and murder, but 
 had been found guilty of manslaughter only. He was 
 again mixed up in a disgraceful affair with Sir Charles 
 Sedley. When brought before Sir Robert Hyde, then 
 Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, his name having 
 
108 LORD DOESET AS A POET. 
 
 been mentioned, the judge inquired -wlietlier that was 
 the Buckhurst lately tried for robbery ? and when told 
 it was, he asked him whether he had so soon forgotten 
 his deliverance at that time : and whether it would not 
 better become him to have been at his prayers beg- 
 ging God's forgiveness than to come into such courses 
 again ? 
 
 The reproof took effect, and Buckhurst became what 
 was then esteemed a steady man ; he volunteered and 
 fought gallantly in the fleet under James Duke of 
 York : and he completed his reform, to all outward 
 show, by marrying Lady Falmouth.' Buckhurst, in 
 society the most good-tempered of men, was thus re- 
 ferred to by Prior, in his poetical epistle to Fleetwood 
 Sheppard : 
 
 " When crowding folks, with strange ill faces, 
 AVere making legs, and begging places: 
 And some with patents, some with merit, 
 Tired out my good Lord Doi-set's spirit." 
 
 Yet his pen was full of malice, whilst his heart was 
 tender to all. Wilmot, Lord Rochester, cleverly said 
 of him : — 
 
 "For pointed satire I would Buckhurst chuse, 
 The best good man with the worst-natured muse." 
 
 ' The Earl of Dorset married Elizabeth, widow of Charles Berk- 
 eley, Earl of Falmouth, and daughter of Hervey Bagot, Esq., of 
 Pipe Hall, Warwickshire, who died without issue. He married, 
 7th March, 1684-5, Lady Mary Compton, daughter of James Earl 
 of Northampton. 
 
LOED EOCHESTEK IN HIS ZENITH. 109 
 
 Still more celebrated as a beau and wit of bis time 
 ■was Jobn Wilmot, Lord Rochester. He was the son 
 of Lord Wilmot, the cavalier who so loyally attended 
 Charles II. after the battle of Worcester : and, as the 
 offspring of that royalist, was greeted by Lord Claren- 
 don, then Chancellor of the University of Oxford, 
 when he took his degree as Master of Arts, with a 
 kiss.' The young nobleman then travelled, according 
 to custom ; and then, most unhappily for himself and 
 for others, whom he corrupted by his example, he pre- 
 sented himself at the court of Charles 11. He was at 
 this time a youth of eighteen, and one of the hand- 
 somest persons of his age. The face of Buckhurst 
 was hard and plain ; that of De Grammont had little 
 to redeem it but its varying intelligence ; but the 
 countenance of the young Earl of Rochester was per- 
 fectly symmetrical : it was of a long oval, with large, 
 thoughtful, sleepy eyes ; the eyebrows arched and high 
 above them ; the brow, though concealed by the curls 
 of the now modest wig, was high and smooth ; the nose, 
 delicately shaped, somewhat aquiline ; the mouth full, 
 but perfectly beautiful, was set off by a round and 
 well-formed chin. Such was Lord Rochester in his 
 zenith ; and as he came forward on state occasions, his 
 false light curls hanging down on his shoulders — a 
 cambric kerchief loosely tied, so as to let the ends, 
 worked in point, fall gracefully down : his scarlet 
 
 'Lord Eochester succeeded to the Earldom in 1659. It was 
 created by Charles II. in 1652, at Paris. 
 
110 HIS COURAGE AND WIT. 
 
 gown in folds over a suit of light steel armor — for 
 men had become carpet knights then, and the coat of 
 mail worn by the brave cavaliers was now less warlike, 
 and was mixed up with robes, ruffles, and rich hose — 
 and when in this guise he appeared at Whitehall, all 
 admired ; and Charles was enchanted with the sim- 
 plicity, the intelligence, and modesty of one who was 
 then an ingenuous youth, with good aspirations, and 
 a staid and decorous demeanor. 
 
 Woe to Lady Rochester — woe to the mother who 
 trusted her son's innocence in that vitiated court ! 
 Lord Rochester forms one of the many instances we 
 daily behold, that it is those most tenderly cared for, 
 who often fall most deeply, as well as most early, into 
 temptation. He soon lost every trace of virtue — of 
 principle, even of defei'ence to received notions of 
 propriety. For a while there seemed hopes that he 
 would not wholly fall : courage was his inheritance, 
 and he distinguished himself in 1665, when as a 
 volunteer he went in quest of the Dutch East India 
 fleet, and served with heroic gallantry under Lord 
 Sandwich. And when he returned to court, there 
 was a partial improvement in his conduct. He even 
 looked back upon his former indiscretions with horror : 
 he had now shared in the realities of life : he had 
 grasped a high and honorable ambition ; but he soon 
 fell away — soon became almost a castaway. " For 
 five years," he told Bishop Burnet, when on his death- 
 bed, "I was never sober." His reputation as a wit 
 
Joi)n amilmot, CJarl of laoctestet. 
 
AS A WRITER AND A MAN. Ill 
 
 must rest, in the present day, chiefly upon productions 
 which have long since been condemned as unreadable. 
 Strange to say, when not under the influence of wine, 
 he was a constant student of classical authors, perhaps 
 the worst reading for a man of his tendency : all that 
 was satirical and impure attracting him most. Boileau, 
 among French writers, and Cowley among the English, 
 were his favorite authors. He also read many books of 
 physic ; for long before thirty his constitution was so 
 broken by his life, that he turned his attention to 
 remedies, and to medical treatment ; and it is remark- 
 able how many men of dissolute lives take up the same 
 sort of reading, in the vain hope of repairing a course 
 of dissolute living. As a writer, his style was at once 
 forcible and lively ; as a companion, he was wildly 
 vivacious : madly, perilously, did he outrage decency, 
 insult virtue, profane religion. Charles II. liked him 
 on first acquaintance, for Rochester was a man of the 
 most finished and fascinating manners ; but at length 
 there came a coolness, and the witty courtier was 
 banished from Whitehall. Unhappily for himself, he 
 was recalled, and commanded to wait in London until 
 his Majesty should choose to readmit him into his 
 presence. 
 
 Disguises and practical jokes were the fashion of the 
 day. The use of the mask, which was put down by 
 proclamation soon after the accession of Queen Anne, 
 favored a series of pranks with which Lord Rochester, 
 during the period of his living concealed in London, 
 
112 BANISHED FKOM COUET. 
 
 diverted himself. The success of his scheme was per> 
 feet. He established himself, since he could not go to 
 "Whitehall, in the City. " His first design," De Gram- 
 mont relates, " was only to be initiated into the mys- 
 teries of those fortunate and happy inhabitants ; that is 
 to say, by changing his name and dress, to gain admit- 
 tance to their feasts and entertainments. ... As he 
 was able to adapt himself to all capacities and humors, 
 he soon deeply insinuated himself into the esteem of 
 the substantial wealthy aldermen, and into the aifec- 
 tions of their more delicate, magnificent, and tender 
 ladies ; he made one in all their feasts and at all their 
 assemblies ; and whilst in the company of the husbands, 
 he declaimed against the faults and mistakes of govern- 
 ment, he joined their wives in railing against the prof- 
 ligacy of the court ladies, and in inveighing against the 
 king's mistresses : he agreed with them, that the in- 
 dustrious poor were to pay for these cursed extrava- 
 gances ; that the City beauties were not inferior to 
 those at the other end of the town, . . . after which, 
 to outdo their murmurings, he said that he wondered 
 Whitehall was not yet consumed by fire from heaven, 
 since such rakes as Rochester, Killigrew, and Sidney 
 were suffered there." 
 
 This conduct endeared him so much to the City, and 
 made him so welcome at their clubs, that at last he grew 
 sick of their cramming, and endless invitations. 
 
 He now tried a new sphere of action ; and instead of 
 returning, as he might have done, to the court, retreated 
 
CREDULITY, PAST AND PRESENT. 113 
 
 into the most obscure corners of the metropolis ; and 
 again changing his name and dress, gave himself out 
 as a German doctor named Bendo, who professed to 
 find out inscrutable secrets, and to apply infallible 
 remedies ; to know, by astrology, all the past, and to 
 foretell the future. 
 
 If the reign of Charles was justly deemed an age 
 of high civilization, it was also one of extreme credulity. 
 Unbelief in religion went hand in hand with blind faith 
 in astrology and witchcraft ; in omens, divinations, and 
 prophecies : neither let us too strongly despise, in these 
 their foibles, our ancestors. They had many excuses 
 for their superstitions ; and for their fears, false as their 
 hopes, and equally groundless. The circulation of 
 knowledge was limited : the public journals, that part 
 of the press to which we now owe inexpressible grati- 
 tude for its general accuracy, its enlarged views, its 
 purity, its information, was then a meagre statement 
 of dry facts : an announcement, not a commentary. 
 " The Flying Post," the " Daily Courant," the names 
 of which may be supposed to imply speed, never 
 reached lone country places till weeks after they had 
 been printed on their one duodecimo sheet of thin coarse 
 paper. Religion, too, just emerging into glorious light 
 from the darkness of popery, had still her superstitions ; 
 and the mantle that priestcraft had contrived to throw 
 over her exquisite, radiant, and simple form, was not 
 then wholly and finally withdrawn. Romanism still 
 hovered in the form of credulity. 
 
 Vol. I.— 8 
 
lU "DE. BENDO" AND LA BELLE JENNINGS. 
 
 But now, with shame be it spoken, in the full noon- 
 day genial splendor of our Reformed Church, with 
 newspapers, the leading articles of which rise to a 
 level with our greatest didactic writers, and are com- 
 petent even to form the mind as well as to amuse the 
 leisure hours of the young readers : with every species 
 of direct communication, we yet hold to fallacies from 
 which the credulous in Charles's time would have 
 shrunk in dismay and disgust. Table-turning, spirit- 
 rapping, clairvoyance, Swedenborgianism, and all that 
 family of follies, would have been far too strong for 
 the faith of those who counted upon dreams as their 
 guide, or looked up to the heavenly planets with a 
 belief, partly superstitious, partly reverential, for their 
 guidance ; and in a dim and flickering faith trusted to 
 their stars. 
 
 " Dr. Bendo," therefore, as Rochester was called — 
 handsome, witty, unscrupulous, and perfectly ac- 
 (juainted with the then small circle of the court — 
 was soon noted for his wonderful revelations. Cham- 
 ber-women, waiting-maids, and shop-girls were his first 
 customers : but, very soon, gay spinsters from the court 
 came in their hoods and masks to ascertain, with anx- 
 ious faces, their fortunes ; whilst the cunning, sar- 
 castic "Dr. Bendo," noted in his diary all the in- 
 trigues which were confided to him by these lovely 
 clients. La Belle Jennings, the sister of Sarah 
 Duchess of Marlborough, was among his disciples; 
 she took with her the beautiful Miss Price, and, dis- 
 
BISHOP BUENET'S DESCRIPTION. 115 
 
 guising themselves as orange gii'ls, these young ladies 
 set off in a hackney-coach to visit Dr. Bendo ; but 
 when within half a street of the supposed fortune- 
 teller's, were prevented by the interruption of a dis- 
 solute courtier named Brounker. 
 
 " Everything by turns and nothing long." When 
 Lord Rochester was tired of being an astrologer, he 
 used to roam about the streets as a beggar ; then he 
 kept a footman who knew the Court well, and used to 
 dress him up in a red coat, supply him with a musket, 
 like a sentinel, and send him to watch at the doors of 
 all the fine ladies, to find out their goings on : after- 
 wards. Lord Rochester would retire to the country, 
 and write libels on these fair victims, and, one day, 
 offered to present the king with one of his lampoons ; 
 but being tipsy, gave Charles, instead, one written 
 upon himself. 
 
 At this juncture we read with sorrow Bishop Bur- 
 net's forcible description of his career : — 
 
 " He seems to have freed himself from all impres- 
 sions of virtue or religion, of honor or good nature. 
 . . . He had but one maxim, to which he adhered 
 firmly, that he has to do everything, and deny him- 
 self in nothing that might maintain his greatness. 
 He was unhappily made for drunkenness, for he had 
 drunk all his friends dead, and was able to subdue two 
 or three sets of drunkards one after another ; so it 
 scarce ever appeared that he was disordered after the 
 greatest drinking : an hour or two of sleep carried all 
 
116 LA TKISTE HEEITIERE. 
 
 off SO entirely, that no sign of them remained. . . . 
 This had a terrible conclusion." 
 
 Like many other men, Rochester might have been 
 saved by being kept far from the scene of temptation. 
 Whilst he remained in the country he was tolerably 
 sober, perhaps steady. When he approached Brent- 
 ford on his route to London, his old propensities came 
 upon him. 
 
 When scarcely out of his boyhood he carried off a 
 young heiress, Elizabeth Mallett, whom De Gram- 
 mont calls La triste heritiere : and triste, indeed, she 
 naturally was. Possessed of a fortune of £2500 a 
 year, this young lady was marked out by Charles II. 
 as a victim for the profligate Rochester. But the 
 reckless young wit chose to take his own way of 
 managing the matter. One night, after supping at 
 Whitehall with Miss Stuart, the young Elizabeth was 
 returning home with her grandfather. Lord Haly, when 
 their coach was suddenly stopped near Charing Cross 
 by a number of bravos, both on horseback and on foot 
 — the "Roaring Boys and Mohawks," who were not 
 extinct even in Addison's time. They lifted the 
 affrighted girl out of the carriage, and placed her in 
 one which had six horses ; they then set off for Ux- 
 bridge, and were overtaken ; but the outrage ended in 
 marriage, and Elizabeth became the unhappy, neglected 
 Countess of Rochester. Yet she loved him — perhaps 
 in ignorance of all that was going on whilst she stayed 
 with her four children at home. 
 
ELIZABETH, COUNTESS OF KOCIIESTEE. 117 
 
 " If," she writes to liim, " I could have been troubled 
 at anything, when I had the happiness of receiving a 
 letter from you, I should be so, because you did not 
 name a time when I might hope to see you, the uncer- 
 tainty of Avhich very much afflicts me. . . . Lay your 
 commands upon me what I am to do, and though it be 
 to forget my children, and the long hope I have lived 
 in of seeing you, yet will I endeavor to obey you ; or 
 in the memory only torment myself, without giving 
 you the trouble of putting you in mind that there 
 lives a creature as 
 
 "Your faithful, humble servant." 
 
 And he, in reply: "I went away (to Rochester) 
 like a rascal, without taking leave, dear wife. It is 
 an unpolished way of proceeding, which a modest man 
 ought to be ashamed of. I have left you a prey to 
 your own imaginations amongst my relations, the worst 
 of damnations. But there will come an hour of deliver- 
 ance, till when, may my mother be merciful unto you ! 
 So I commit you to what I shall ensue, woman to 
 woman, wife to mother, in hopes of a future appear- 
 ance in glory. . . . 
 
 " Pray write as often as you have leisure, to your 
 
 " Rochester." 
 
 To his son he writes : " You are now grown big 
 enough to be a man, if you can be wise enough ; and 
 the way to be truly wise is to serve God, learn your 
 
118 BETEIBUTION AND EEFORMATION. 
 
 book, and observe the instructions of your parents 
 first, and next your tutor, to whom I have entirely 
 resigned you for this seven years ; and according as 
 you employ that time, you are to be happy or un- 
 happy for ever. I have so good an opinion of you, 
 that I am glad to think you will never deceive me. 
 Dear child, learn your book and be obedient, and you 
 will see what a father I shall be to you. You shall 
 want no pleasure while you are good, and that you may 
 be good are my constant prayers." 
 
 Lord Rochester had not attained the age of thirty, 
 when he was mercifully awakened to a sense of his 
 guilt here, his peril hereafter. It seemed to many 
 that his very nature was so warped that penitence in 
 its true sense could never come to him ; but the mercy 
 of God is unfathomable ; He judges not as man judges ; 
 He forgives, as man knows not how to forgive. 
 
 " God, our kind Master, merciful as just, 
 Knowing our frame, remembers man is dust: 
 He marks the dawn of every virtuous aim, 
 And fans the smoking flax into a flame ; 
 He hears the language of a silent tear, 
 And sighs are incense from a heart sincere." 
 
 And the reformation of Rochester is a confirmation 
 of the doctrine of a special Providence, as well as of 
 that of a retribution, even in this life. 
 
 The retribution came in the form of an early but 
 certain decay ; of a suffering so stern, so composed of 
 mental and bodily anguish, that never was man called 
 
CONVERSION. 119 
 
 to repentance by a voice so distinct as Rocliester. The 
 reformation was sent through the instrumentality of 
 one who had been a sinner like himself, who had 
 sinned with him ; an unfortunate lady, who, in her 
 last hours, had been visited, reclaimed, consoled by 
 Bishop Burnet. Of this. Lord Rochester had heard. 
 He was then, to all appearances, recovering from his 
 last sickness. He sent for Burnet, who devoted to him 
 one evening every week of that solemn winter Avhen the 
 soul of the penitent sought reconciliation and peace. 
 
 The conversion was not instantaneous ; it was gradual, 
 penetrating, eifective, sincere. Those who wish to 
 gratify curiosity concerning the death-bed of one who 
 had so notoriously sinned, will read Burnet's account 
 of Rochester's illness and death with deep interest ; 
 and nothing is so interesting as a death-bed. Those 
 who delight in works of nervous thought, and elevated 
 sentiments, will read it too, and arise from the perusal 
 gratified. Those, however, who are true, contrite 
 Christians will go still farther ; they will own that 
 few works so intensely touch the holiest and highest 
 feelings ; few so absorb the heart ; few so greatly 
 show the vanity of life ; the unspeakable value of 
 purifying faith. "It is a book Avhich the critic," 
 says Dr. Johnson, " may read for its elegance, the 
 philosopher for its arguments, the saint for its piety." 
 
 Whilst deeply lamenting his own sins. Lord Roches- 
 ter became anxious to redeem his former associates 
 from theirs. 
 
120 EXHORTATION TO MB. FANSIIAWE. 
 
 "When Wilmot, Earl of Rochester,"' writes Wil. 
 liam Thomas, in a manuscript preserved in the Brit- 
 ish Museum, " lay on his death-bed, Mr. Fanshawe 
 came to visit him, with an intention to stay about a 
 week with him. Mr. Fanshawe, sitting by the bed- 
 side, perceived his lordship praying to God, through 
 Jesus Christ, and acquainted Dr. Radcliffe, who at- 
 tended my Lord Rochester in this illness and was 
 then in the house, with what he had heard, and told 
 him that my lord waa- certainly delirious, for to his 
 knowledge, he said, he believed neither in God nor in 
 Jesus Christ. The doctor, who had often heard him 
 pray in the same manner, proposed to Mr. Fanshawe 
 to go up to his lordship to be further satisfied touching 
 tills affair. When they came to his room the doctor 
 told my lord what Mr. Fanshawe said, upon which his 
 lordship addressed himself to Mr. Fanshawe to this 
 effect : ' Sir, it is true, you and I have been very 
 bad and profane together, and then I was of the 
 opinion you mention. But now I am quite of another 
 mind, and happy am I that I am so. I am very sen- 
 sible how miserable I was whilst of another opinion. 
 Sir, you may assure yourself that there is a Judge and 
 a future state;' and so entered into a very handsome 
 discourse concerning the last judgment, future state, 
 &c., and concluded with a serious and pathetic exhor- 
 
 ' Mr. William Thomas, the writer of this statement, heard it 
 from Dr. Eadcliffe at the table of Speaker Harley (afterwards 
 Earl of Oxford), 16th June, 1702. 
 
BEAUX WITHOUT WIT. 121 
 
 tation to Mr. Fansliawc to enter into another course 
 of life ; adding that he (Mr. F.) kneAV him to be his 
 friend ; that he never was more so than at this time ; 
 and ' Sir,' said he, ' to use a Scripture expression, I 
 am not mad, but speak the words of truth and sober- 
 ness.' Upon this Mr. Fanshawe trembled, and went 
 immediately afoot to Woodstock, and there hired a 
 horse to Oxford, and thence took coach to London." 
 
 There were other butterflies in that gay court ; 
 beaux without wit ; remorseless rakes, incapable of 
 one noble thought or high pursuit; and amongst the 
 most foolish and fashionable of these was Henry 
 Jermyn, Lord Dover. As the nephew of Henry 
 Jermyn, Lord St. Albans, this young simpleton was 
 ushered into a court life with the most favorable' 
 auspices. Jermyn street (built in 1667) recalls to us 
 the residence of Lord St. Albans, the supposed hus- 
 band of Henrietta Maria. It was also the centre of 
 fashion when Henry Jermyn the younger was launched 
 into its unholy sphere. Near Eagle Passage lived at 
 that time La Belle Stuart, Duchess of Richmond; 
 next door to her Henry Savile, Rochester's friend. 
 The locality has since been purified by worthier asso- 
 ciations : Sir Isaac Newton lived for a time in Jer- 
 myn street, and Gray lodged there. 
 
 It was, however, in De Grammont's time, the scene 
 of all the various gallantries which were going on. 
 Henry Jermyn was supported by the wealth of his 
 uncle, that uncle who, whilst Charles II. was starv- 
 
122 LITTLE JEEMYN. 
 
 ing at Brussels, had kept a lavish table in Paris: 
 little Jermyn, as the younger Jermyn was called, 
 owed much indeed to his fortune, which had pro- 
 cured him great eclat at the Dutch court. His head 
 was large ; his features small ; his legs short ; his 
 physiognomy was not positively disagreeable, but he 
 was affected and trifling, and his wit consisted in ex- 
 pressions learnt by rote, which supplied him either 
 with raillery or with compliments. 
 
 This petty, inferior being had attracted the regard 
 of the Princess Royal — afterwards Princess of Orange 
 — the daughter of Charles I. Then the Countess of 
 Castlemaine — afterwards Duchess of Cleveland — be- 
 came infatuated with him ; he captivated also the 
 lovely Mrs. Hyde, a languishing beauty, whom Sir 
 Peter Lely has depicted in all her sleepy attractions, 
 with her ringlets falling lightly over her snowy fore- 
 head and down to her shoulders. This lady was, at 
 the time when Jermyn came to England, recently 
 married to the son of the great Clarendon. She fell 
 desperately in love with this unworthy being ; but, 
 happily for her peace, he preferred the honor (or dis- 
 honor) of being the favorite of Lady Castlemaine, and 
 Mrs. Hyde escaped the disgrace she, perhaps, merited. 
 
 De Grammont appears absolutely to have hated Jer- 
 myn; not because he was immoral, impertinent, and 
 contemptible, but because it was Jermyn's boast that 
 no woman, good or bad, could resist him. Yet, in re- 
 spect to their unprincipled life, Jermyn and De Gram- 
 
AN INCOMPARABLE BEAUTY. 123 
 
 mont had much in common. The Chevalier was at this 
 time an admirer of the foolish beauty, Jane Middleton ; 
 one of the loveliest women of a court where it was im- 
 possible to turn without seeing loveliness. 
 
 Mrs. Middleton was the daughter of Sir Roger Need- 
 ham ; and she has been described, even by the grave 
 Evelyn, as a "famous, and, indeed, incomparable beau- 
 ty." A coquette, she was, however, the friend of 
 intellectual men ; and it was probably at the house of 
 St. Evremond that the Count first saw her. Her figure 
 was good, she was fair and delicate ; and she had so 
 great a desire, Count Hamilton relates, to " appear 
 magnificently, that she Avas ambitious to vie with those 
 of the greatest fortunes, though unable to support the 
 expense." 
 
 Letters and presents now flew about. Perfumed 
 gloves, pocket looking-glasses, elegant boxes, apricot 
 paste, essences, and other small wares arrived weekly 
 from Paris ; English jewelry still had the preference, 
 and was liberally bestowed ; yet Mrs. Middleton, af- 
 fected and somewhat precise, accepted the gifts, but did 
 not seem to encourage the giver. 
 
 The Count de Grammont, piqued, was beginning to 
 turn his attention to Miss Warmestre, one of the queen's 
 maids of honor, a lively brunette, and a contrast to the 
 languid Mrs. Middleton ; when, happily for him, a 
 beauty appeared on the scene, and attracted him, by 
 higher qualities than mere looks, to a real, fervent, 
 and honorable attachment. 
 
124 ANTHONY HAMILTON. 
 
 Amongst the few respected families of that period 
 was that of Sir George Hamilton, the fourth son of 
 James, Earl of Abercorn, and of Mary, granddaughter 
 of Walter, eleventh Earl of Ormond. Sir George had 
 distinguished himself during the Civil Wars : on the 
 death of Charles I. he had retired to France, but re- 
 turned, after the Restoration, to London, with a large 
 family, all intelligent and beautiful. 
 
 From their relationship to the Ormond family, the 
 Hamiltons were soon installed in the first circles of 
 fashion. The Duke of Ormond's sons had been in ex- 
 ile with the king ; they now added to the lustre of the 
 court after his return. The Earl of Arran, the second, 
 was a beau of the true Cavalier order ; clever at games, 
 more especially at tennis, the king's favorite diversion ; 
 he touched the guitar well ; and made love ad libitum. 
 Lord Ossory, his elder brother, had less vivacity but 
 more intellect, and possessed a liberal, honest nature, 
 and an heroic character. 
 
 All the good qualities of these two young noblemen 
 seem to have been united in Anthony Hamilton, of 
 whom De Grammont gives the following character : — 
 " The elder of the Hamiltons, their cousin, was the 
 man who, of all the court, dressed best ; he was well 
 made in his person, and possessed those happy talents 
 which lead to fortune, and procure success in love : he 
 was a most assiduous courtier, had the most lively wit, 
 the most polished manners, and the most punctual 
 attention to his master imaginable ; no person danced 
 
DE GEAMMONT'S BIOGRAPHER. 125 
 
 better, nor was any one a more general lover — a merit 
 of some account in a court entirely devoted to love and 
 gallantry. It is not at all surprising that, -with these 
 qualities, he succeeded my Lord Falmouth in the king's 
 favor. ' ' 
 
 The fascinating person thus described was born in 
 Ireland : he had already experienced some vicissitudes, 
 which were renewed at the Revolution of 1688, when 
 he fled to France — the country in which he had spent 
 his youth — and died at St. Germains, in 1720, aged 
 seventy-four. His poetry and his fairy tales are for- 
 gotten ; but his " Memoirs of the Count de Grammont" 
 is a work which combines the vivacity of a French 
 writer with the truth of an English historian. 
 
 Ormond Yard, St. James's Square, was the London 
 residence of the Duke of Ormond : the garden wall of 
 Ormond House took up the greater part of York Street : 
 the Hamilton family had a commodious house in the 
 same courtly neighborhood ; and the cousins mingled 
 continually. Here persons of the greatest distinction 
 constantly met; and here the "Chevalier de Gram- 
 mont," as he was still called, was received in a manner 
 suitable to his rank and style ; and soon regretted that 
 he had passed so much time in other places ; for, after 
 he once knew the charming Hamiltons, he wished for 
 no other friends. 
 
 There were three courts at that time in the capital ; 
 that at Whitehall, in the king's apartments ; that in 
 the queen's, in the same palace ; and that of Henrietta 
 
126 THE THREE COURTS. 
 
 Maria, the Queen-Mother, as she was styled, at Somer- 
 set House. Charles's was pre-eminent in immorality, 
 and in the daily outrage of all decency ; that of the 
 unworthy widow of Charles I. was just bordering on 
 impropriety ; that of Katherine of Braganza was still 
 decorous, though not irreproachable. Pepys, in his 
 Diary, has this passage : — " Visited Mrs. Ferrers, and 
 stayed talking with her a good while, there being a 
 little, proud, ugly, talking lady there, that was much 
 crying up the queene-mother's court at Somerset House, 
 above our queen's ; there being before her no allowance 
 of laughing and mirth that is at the other's ; and, in- 
 deed, it is observed that the greatest court now-a-days 
 is there. Thence to Whitehall, where I carried my 
 wife to see the queene in her presence-chamber ; and 
 the maydes of honor and the young Duke of Mon- 
 mouth, playing at cards." 
 
 Queen Katherine, notwithstanding that the first 
 words she was ever known to say in English were 
 "Tom lie!" was one of the gentlest of beings. Pepys 
 describes her as having a modest, innocent look, among 
 all the demireps with whom she was forced to associate. 
 Again we turn to Pepys, an anecdote of whose is cha- 
 racteristic of poor Katherine's submissive, uncomplain- 
 ing nature : — 
 
 " With Creed, to the King's Head ordinary ; . . . 
 and a pretty gentleman in our company, who confirms 
 my Lady Castlemaine's being gone from court, but 
 knows not the reason ; he told us of one wipe the 
 
"LA BELLE HAMILTON." 127 
 
 queene, a little while ago, did give her •when she came 
 in and found the queene under the dresser's hands, and 
 had been so long. ' I wonder your Majesty,' says she, 
 ' can have the patience to sit so long a-dressing ?' — ' I 
 have so much reason to use patience,' says the queene, 
 ' that I can very well bear with it.' " 
 
 It was in the court of this injured queen that De 
 Grammont went one evening to Mrs. Middleton's 
 house : there was a ball that night, and amongst the 
 dancers was the loveliest creature that De Grammont 
 had ever seen. His eyes were riveted on this fair 
 form ; he had heard, but never till then seen her, 
 whom all the world consented to call " La Belle Hamil- 
 ton," and his heart instantly echoed the expression. 
 From this time he forgot Mrs. Middleton, and despised 
 Miss Warmestre : "he found," he said, that he "had 
 seen nothing at court till this instant." 
 
 "Miss Hamilton," he himself tells us, "was at the 
 happy age when the charms of the fair sex begin to 
 bloom ; she had the finest shape, the loveliest neck, 
 and most beautiful arms in the world ; she was majestic 
 and graceful in all her movements ; and she was the 
 original after which all the ladies copied in their taste 
 and air of dress. Her forehead was open, white, and 
 smooth ; her hair was well set, and fell with ease into 
 that natural order which it is so diiBcult to imitate. 
 Her complexion was possessed of a certain freshness, 
 not to be equalled by borrowed colors ; her eyes were 
 not large, but they were lively, and capable of express- 
 
128 AN INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 
 
 ing whatever she pleased." ' So far for her person ; but 
 De Grammont was, it seems, weary of external charms : 
 it was the intellectual superiority that riveted his feel- 
 ings, whilst his connoisseurship in beauty was satisfied 
 that he had never yet seen any one so perfect. 
 
 " Her mind," he says, " was a proper companion for 
 such a form : she did not endeavor to shine in conversa- 
 tion by those sprightly sallies which only puzzle, and 
 with still greater care she avoided that aifected solemnity 
 in her discourses which produces stupidity ; but, without 
 any eagerness to talk, she just said what she ought, and 
 no more. She had an admirable discernment in dis- 
 tinguishing between solid and false wit ; and far from 
 making an ostentatious display of her abilities, she 
 was reserved, though very just in her decisions. Her 
 sentiments were always noble, and even lofty to the 
 highest extent, when there was occasion ; nevertheless, 
 she was less prepossessed with her own merit than is 
 usually the case with those who have so much. Formed 
 as wo have described, she could not fail of commanding 
 love ; but so far was she from courting it, that she was 
 scrupulously nice with respect to those whose merit 
 might entitle them to form any pretensions to her." 
 
 Born in 1641, Elizabeth — for such was the Chris- 
 tian name of this lovely and admirable woman — was 
 scarcely in her twentieth year when she first appeared 
 at Whitehall. Sir Peter Lely was at that time paint- 
 ing the Beauties of the Court, and had done full justice 
 ' See De Grammont's Memoirs. 
 
Sm PETEK LELY'S POETRAIT. 129 
 
 to the intellectual and yet innocent face that riveted 
 De Grammont. He had depicted her with her rich 
 dark hair, of which a tendril or two fell on her ivory 
 forehead, adorned at the back with large pearls, under 
 which a gauze-like texture was gathered up, falling 
 over the fair shoulders like a veil : a full corsage, bound 
 by a light band either of ribbon or of gold lace, con- 
 fining, with a large jewel or button, the sleeve on the 
 shoulder, disguised somewhat the exquisite shape. A 
 frill of fine cambric set ofi", whilst in whiteness it scarce 
 rivalled, the shoulder and neck. 
 
 The features of this exquisite face are accurately 
 described by De Grammont, as Sir Peter has painted 
 them. " The mouth does not smile, but seems ready 
 to break out into a smile. Nothing is sleepy, but 
 everything is soft, sweet, and innocent in that face so 
 beautiful and so beloved." 
 
 While the colors were fresh on Lely's palettes, James 
 Duke of York, that profligate who aped the saint, saw 
 it, and henceforth paid his court to the original, but 
 was repelled with fearless hauteur. The dissolute 
 nobles of the court followed his example, even to the 
 " lady-killer " Jermyn, but in vain. Unhappily for 
 La Belle Hamilton, she became sensible to the attrac- 
 tions of De Grammont, whom she eventually married. 
 
 Miss Hamilton, intelligent as she was, lent herself 
 to the fashion of the day, and delighted in practical 
 jokes and tricks. At the splendid masquerade given 
 by the queen she continued to plague her cousin, Lady 
 
 Vol. I.— 9 
 
130 INFATUATION. 
 
 Muskerry ; to confuse and expose a stupid court beau- 
 ty, a Miss Blaque ; and at the same time to produce 
 on the Count de Grammont a still more powerful effect 
 than even her charms had done. Her success in hoax- 
 ing — which we should now think both perilous and 
 indelicate — seems to have only riveted the chain, which 
 was drawn around him more strongly. 
 
 His friend, or rather his foe, St. Evremond, tried in 
 vain to discourage the Chevalier from his new passion. 
 The former tutor was, it appeared, jealous of its influ- 
 ence, and hurt that De Grammont was now seldom at 
 his house. 
 
 De Grammont's answer to his remonstrances was 
 very characteristic. " My poor philosopher," he cried, 
 "you understand Latin well — you can make good 
 verses — you are acquainted with the nature of the 
 stars in the firmament — but you are wholly ignorant 
 of the luminaries in the terrestrial globe." 
 
 He then announced his intention to persevere, not- 
 withstanding all the obstacles which attached to the 
 suit of a man without either fortune or character, who 
 had been exiled from his own country, and whose 
 chief mode of livelihood was dependent on the gaming- 
 table. 
 
 One can scarcely read of the infatuation of La Belle 
 Hamilton without a sigh. During a period of six 
 years their marriage was in contemplation only ; and 
 De Grammont seems to have trifled inexcusably with 
 the feelings of this once gay and ever-lovely girl. It 
 
THE HOUSEHOLD DEITY OF WHITEHALL. 131 
 
 was not for want of means that De Grammont thus de- 
 layed the fulfillment of his engagement. Charles II., 
 inexcusably lavish, gave him a pension of 1500 Jaco- 
 buses : it was to be paid to him until he should be re- 
 stored to the favor of his own king. The fact was that 
 De Grammont contributed to the pleasure of the court, 
 and pleasure was the household deity of Whitehall. 
 Sometimes, in those days of careless gayety, there were 
 promenades in Spring Gardens, or the Mall ; sometimes 
 the court beauties sallied forth on horseback ; at other 
 times there were shows on the river, which then washed 
 the very foundations of Whitehall. There in the sum- 
 mer evenings, when it was too hot and dusty to walk, 
 old Thames might be seen covered with little boats, 
 filled with court and city beauties, attending the royal 
 barges ; collations, music, and fireworks completed 
 the scene, and De Grammont always contrived some 
 surprise — some gallant show : once a concert of vocal 
 and instrumental music, which he had privately brought 
 from Paris, struck up unexpectedly : another time a 
 collation brought from the gay capital surpassed that 
 supplied by the king. Then the Chevalier, finding 
 that coaches with glass windows, lately introduced, dis- 
 pleased the ladies, because their charms were only 
 partially seen in them, sent for the most elegant and 
 superb caleche ever seen : it came after a month's jour- 
 ney, and was presented by De Grammont to the king. 
 It was a royal present in price, for it had cost two thou- 
 sand livres. The famous dispute between Lady Cas- 
 
132 WHO SHALL HAVE THE CALECHE? 
 
 tlemaine and Miss Stuart, afterwards Duchess of 
 Riclimond, arose about this caleche. The Queen and 
 the Duchess of York appeared first in it in Hyde Park, 
 which had then recently been fenced in with brick. 
 Lady Castlemaine thought that the caliche showed oflf 
 a fine figure better than the coach ; Miss Stuart was of 
 the same opinion. Both these grown-up babies wished 
 to have the coach on the same day, but Miss Stuart 
 prevailed. 
 
 The Queen condescended to laugh at the quarrels 
 of these two foolish women, and complimented the 
 Chevalier de Grammont on his present. " But how 
 is it," she asked, "that you do not even keep a foot- 
 man, and that one of the common runners in the street 
 lights you home with a link ?" 
 
 "Madame," he answered, "the Chevalier de Gram- 
 mont hates pomp : my link-boy is faithful and brave." 
 Then he told the Queen that he saw she was unac- 
 quainted with the nation of link-boys, and related 
 how that he had, at one time, had one hundred and 
 sixty around his chair at night, and people had asked 
 " whose funeral it was ? As for the parade of coaches 
 and footmen," he added, " I despise it. I have some- 
 times had five or six valets-de-chambre, without a sin- 
 gle footman in livery except my chaplain." 
 
 " How !" cried the Queen, laughing, " a chaplain in 
 livery ? surely he was not a priest." 
 
 " Pardon, Madame, a priest, and the best dancer in 
 the world of the Biscay an gig." 
 
A CHAPLAIN IN LIVEKY. 133 
 
 "Chevalier," said tlie king, "tell us the history of 
 your chaplain Poussatin." 
 
 Then De Grammont related how, when he was with 
 the great Cond^, after the campaign of Catalonia, he 
 had seen among a company of Catalans, a priest in a 
 little black jacket, skipping and frisking : how Cond^ 
 was charmed, and how they recognized in him a 
 Frenchman, and how he oifered himself to De Gram- 
 mont for his chaplain. De Grammont had not much 
 need, he said, for a chaplain in his hbuse, but he took 
 the priest, who had afterwards the honor of dancing 
 before Anne of Austria, in Paris. 
 
 Suitor after suitor interfered with De Grammont's 
 at last honorable address to La Belle Hamilton. At 
 length an incident occurred which had very nearly 
 separated them for ever. Philibert de Grammont was 
 recalled to Paris by Louis XIV. He forgot, French- 
 man-like, all his engagements to Miss Hamilton, and 
 hurried off. He had reached Dover, when her two 
 brothers rode up after him. " Chevalier de Gram- 
 mont," they said, "have you forgotten nothing in 
 London ?" 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he answered, " I forgot to 
 marry your sister." It is said that this story sug- 
 gested to Moli&re the idea of La Manage force. 
 They were, however, married. 
 
 In 1669, La Belle Hamilton, after giving birth to 
 a child, went to reside in France. Charles II., who 
 thought she would pass for a handsome woman in 
 
134 AT THE FBENCH COURT. 
 
 France, recommended her to liis sister, Henrietta, 
 Duchess of Orleans, and begged her to be kind to her. 
 
 Henceforth the Chevalier de Grammont and his 
 wife figured at Versailles, where the Countess de 
 Grammont was appointed Dame du Palais. Her 
 career was less brilliant than in England. The 
 French ladies deemed her haughty and old, and even 
 termed her une Anglaise insupportable. 
 
 She had certainly too much virtue, and perhaps too 
 much beauty still, for the Parisian ladies of fashion at 
 that period to admire her. 
 
 She endeavored, in vain, to reclaim her libertine 
 husband, and to call him to a sense of his situation 
 when he was on his death-bed. Louis XIV. sent the 
 Marquis de Dangeau to convert him, and to talk to 
 him on a subject little thought of by De Grammont 
 — the world to come. After the Marquis had been 
 talking for some time, De Grammont turned to his 
 wife and said, " Countess, if you don't look to it, 
 Dangeau will juggle you out of my conversion." St. 
 Evremond said he would gladly die to go off with so 
 successful a bon-mot. 
 
 He became, however, in time, serious, if not devout 
 or penitent. Ninon de I'Enclos having written to St. 
 Evremond that the Count de Grammont had not only 
 recovered, but had become devout, St. Evremond an- 
 swered her in these words : — 
 
 " I have learned with a great deal of pleasure that 
 the Count de Grammont has recovered his former 
 
DE GRAMMONT'S LAST HOURS. 135 
 
 health, and acquired a new devotion. Hitherto I 
 have been contented with being a plain, honest man ; 
 but I must do something more : and I only wait for 
 your example to become a devotee. You live in a 
 country where people have wonderful advantages of 
 saving their souls : there, vice is almost as opposite to 
 the mode as virtue ; sinning passes for ill-breeding, 
 and shocks decency and good-manners, as much as re- 
 ligion. Formerly it was enough to be wicked, now one 
 must be a scoundrel withal to be damned in France." 
 
 A report having been circulated that De Grammont 
 was dead, St. Evremond expressed deep regret. The 
 report was contradicted by Ninon de I'Enclos. The 
 Chevalier was then eighty-six years of age ; " never- 
 theless, he was," Ninon says, "so young, that I think 
 him as lively as when he hated sick people, and loved 
 them after they had recovered their health ;" a trait very 
 descriptive of a man whose good-nature was always on 
 the surface, but whose selfishness was deep as that of 
 most wits and beaux, who are spoiled by the world, 
 and who, in return, distrust and deceive the spoilers. 
 With this long life of eighty-six years, endowed as De 
 Grammont was with elasticity of spirits, good fortune, 
 considerable talent, an excellent position, a wit that 
 never ceased to flow in a clear current ; — with all these 
 advantages, what might he not have been to society, 
 had his energy been well applied, his wit innocent, 
 his talents employed worthily, and his heart as sure 
 to stand muster as his manners ? 
 
BEAU FIELDING. 
 
 "Let us be wise, boys, here's a fool coming," said 
 a sensible man, when he saw Beau Nash's splendid car- 
 riage draw up to the door. Is a beau a fool ? Is a 
 sharper a fool ? Was Bonaparte a fool ? If you reply 
 "no" to the last two questions, you must give the 
 same answer to the first A beau is a fox, but not a 
 fool — a very clever fellow, who, knowing the weakness 
 of his brothers and sisters in the world, takes advantage 
 of it to make himself a fame and a fortune. Nash, the 
 son of a glass-merchant — Brummell, the hopeful of a 
 small shopkeeper — became the intimates of princes, 
 dukes, and fashionables ; were petty kings of Vanity 
 Fair, and were honored by their subjects. In the 
 kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king ; in 
 the realm of folly, the sharper is a monarch. The 
 only proviso is, that the cheat come not within the 
 jurisdiction of the law. Such a cheat is the beau or 
 dandy, or fine gentleman, who imposes on his public by 
 his clothes and appearance. Bond-fide monarchs have 
 done as much : Louis XIV. won himself the title of Le 
 Grand Monarque by his manners, his dress, and his 
 vanity. Fielding, Nash, and Brummell did nothing 
 more. It is not a question whether such roads to 
 
 136 
 
aroloncl Uotext (Beau) jf ieHring. 
 
ON WITS AND BEAUX. 137 
 
 eminence be contemptible or not, but whether their 
 adoption in one station of life be more so than in 
 another. Was Brummell a whit more contemptible 
 than "Wales"? Or is John Thomas, the pride and 
 glory of the "Domestics' Free-and-Easy," whose 
 whiskers, figure, face, and manner are all superb, one 
 atom more ridiculous than your recognized beau ? I 
 trow not. What right, then, has your beau to a place 
 among wits ? I fancy Chesterfield would be much dis- 
 gusted at seeing his name side by side with that of 
 Nash in this volume ; yet Chesterfield had no objection, 
 when at Bath, to do homage to the king of that city, 
 and may have prided himself on exchanging pinches 
 from diamond-set snuff-boxes with that superb gold- 
 laced dignity in the Pump-room. Certainly, people 
 who thought little of Philip Dormer Stanhope, thought 
 a great deal of the glass-merchant's reprobate son when 
 he was in power, and submitted without a murmur to 
 his impertinences. The fact is, that the beaux and the 
 wits are more intimately connected than the latter 
 would care to own : the wits have all been, or aspired 
 to be, beaux, and beaux have had their fair share of 
 wit ; both lived for the same purpose — to shine in soci- 
 ety ; both used the same means — coats and bon-mots. 
 The only distinction is, that the garments of the beaux 
 were better, and their sayings not so good as those of 
 the wits ; while the conversation of the wits was better, 
 and their apparel not so striking as that of the beaux. 
 So, my Lord Chesterfield, who prided yourself quite as 
 
138 FIELDING'S ANCESTRY. 
 
 much on being a fine gentleman as on being a fine wit, 
 you cannot complain at your proximity to Mr. Nash 
 and others who ^ocrc fine gentlemen, and would have 
 been fine wits if they could. 
 
 Robert Fielding was, perhaps, the least of the beaux, 
 but then, to make up for this, he belonged to a noble 
 family : he married a duchess, and, what is more, he 
 beat her. Surely in the kingdom of fools such a man 
 is not to be despised. You may be sure he did not 
 think he was, for was he not made the subject of two 
 papers in "The Tatler"? and what more could such 
 a man desire ? 
 
 His father was a Suffolk squire, claiming relation- 
 ship with the Earls of Denbigh, and therefore with the 
 Ilapsljurgs, from whom the Beau and the Emperors of 
 Austria had the common honor of being descended. 
 Perhaps neither of them had sufficient sense to be proud 
 of the greatest intellectual ornament of their race, the 
 author of " Tom Jones ;" but as our hero was dead be- 
 fore the humorist was born, it is not fair to conjecture 
 what he might have thought on the subject. 
 
 It does not appear that very much is known of this 
 great gem of the race of Hapsburg. He had the mis- 
 fortune to be very handsome, and the folly to think 
 that his face would be his fortune : it certainly stood 
 him in good stead at times, but it also brought him into 
 a lamentable dilemma. 
 
 His father was not rich, and sent his son to the Tem- 
 ple to study laws which he was only fitted to break. 
 
SCOTLAND YARD. 139 
 
 The young Adonis had sense enough to see that destiny- 
 did not beckon him to fame in the gloom of a musty 
 law-court, and removed a little further up to the Thames, 
 and the more fashionable region of Scotland Yard. 
 Here, ■where now Z 300 repairs to report his investiga- 
 tions to a Commissioner, the young dandies of Charles 
 II. 's day strutted in gay doublets, swore hasty oaths 
 of choice invention, smoked the true Tobago from 
 huge pipebowls, and ogled the fair but not too bashful 
 dames who passed to and fro in their chariots. The 
 court took its name from the royalties of Scotland, who, 
 when they visited the South, were there lodged, as be- 
 ing conveniently near to Whitehall Palace. It is odd 
 enough that the three architects, Inigo Jones, Vanbrugh, 
 and Wren, all lived in this yard. 
 
 It was not to be supposed that a man who could so 
 well appreciate a handsome face and well-cut doublet 
 as Charles II. should long overlook his neighbor, Mr. 
 Robert Fielding, and in due course the Beau, who had 
 no other diploma, found himself in the honorable posi- 
 tion of a justice of the peace. 
 
 The emoluments of this office enabled Orlando, as 
 " The Tatler " calls him, to shine forth in all his glory. 
 With an enviable indifference to the future, he launched 
 out into an expenditure which alone would have made 
 him popular in a country where the heaviest purse 
 makes the greatest gentleman. His lacqueys were 
 arrayed in the brightest yellow coats with black sashes 
 — the Hapsburg colors. He had a carriage, of course. 
 
140 OELANDO OF "THE TATLEK." 
 
 but, like Sheridan's, it was hired, though drawn by his 
 own horses. This carriage was described as being 
 shaped like a sea-shell ; and " The Tatler " calls it " an 
 open tumbril of less size than ordinary, to show the 
 largeness of his limbs and the grandeur of his person- 
 age to the best advantage." The said limbs were 
 Fielding's especial pride : he gloried in the strength 
 of his leg and arm ; and when he walked down the 
 street, he was followed by an admiring crowd, Avhom 
 he treated with as much haughtiness as if he had been 
 the emperor himself, instead of his cousin five hundred 
 times removed. He used his strength to good or bad 
 purposes, and was a redoubted fighter and bully, though 
 good-natured withal. In the Mall, as he strutted, he 
 was the cynosure of all female eyes. His dress had all 
 the elegance of which the graceful costume of that 
 period was capable, though Fielding did not, like 
 Brummell, understand the delicacy of a quiet but 
 studied style. Those were simpler, • somewhat more 
 honest days. It was not necessary for a man to cloak 
 his vices, nor be ashamed of his cloak. The beau 
 then-a-day openly and arrogantly gloried in the grand- 
 eur of his attire, and bragging was a part of his cha- 
 racter. Fielding was made by his tailor ; Brummell 
 made his tailor : the only point in common to both was 
 that neither of them paid the tailor's bill. 
 
 The fine gentleman, under the Stuarts, was fine only 
 in his lace and his velvet doublet ; his language was 
 coarse, his manners coarser, his vices the coarsest of 
 
"A COMPLETE GENTLEMAN." 141 
 
 all. No wonder when the king himself could get so 
 drunk with Sedley and Buckhurat as to be unable to 
 give an audience appointed for ; and when the chief 
 fun of his two companions was to divest themselves of 
 all the habiliments which civilization has had the ill 
 taste to make necessary, and in that state run about 
 the streets. 
 
 " Orlando " wore the finest ruffles and the heaviest 
 SAvord ; his wig was combed to perfection ; and in his 
 pocket he carried a little comb with which to arrange it 
 from time to time, even as the dandy of to-day pulls out 
 his whiskers or curls his moustache. Such a man could 
 not be passed over ; and accordingly he numbered half 
 the officers and gallants of the town among his intimates. 
 He drank, swore, and swaggered, and the snobs of the 
 day proclaimed him a " complete gentleman." 
 
 His impudence, however, was not always tolerated. 
 In the playhouses of the day, it was the fashion for 
 some of the spectators to stand upon the stage, and 
 the places in that position were chiefly occupied by 
 young gallants. The ladies came most in masques : 
 but this did not prevent Master Fielding from making 
 his remarks very freely, and in no very refined strain 
 to them. The modest damsels, whom Pope has de- 
 scribed, 
 
 "The fair sat pouting at the courtier's play, 
 And not a mask went unimproved away : 
 The modest fan was lifted up no more, 
 And virgins smiled at what they blushed before," 
 
142 IN DEBT. 
 
 were not too coy to be pleased with the fops' attentions, 
 and replied in like strain. The players were unheeded ; 
 the audience laughed at the improvised and natural wit, 
 when carefully prepared dialogues failed to fix their 
 attention. The actors were disgusted, and, in spite 
 of Master Fielding's herculean strength, kicked him 
 oif the stage, with a warning not to come again. 
 
 The rSle of a beau is expensive to keep up ; and 
 our justice of the peace could not, like Nash, double 
 his income by gaming. He soon got deeply into debt, 
 as every celebrated dresser has done. The old story, 
 not new even in those days, was enacted, and the bril- 
 liant Adonis had to keep watch and ward against 
 tailors and bailiffs. On one occasion they had nearly 
 caught him ; but his legs being lengthy, he gave them 
 fair sport as far as St. James's Palace, where the officers 
 on guard rushed out to save their pet, and drove off the 
 myrmidons of the law at the point of the sword. 
 
 But debts do not pay themselves, nor die, and 
 Orlando with all his strength and prowess could not 
 long keep off the constable. Evil days gloomed at 
 no very great distance before him, and the fear of a 
 sponging-house and debtors' prison compelled him to 
 turn his handsome person to account. Had he not 
 broken a hundred hearts already ? had he not charmed 
 a thousand pairs of beaming eyes ? was there not one 
 owner of one pair who was also possessed of a pretty 
 fortune ? Who should have the honor of being the 
 wife of such an Adonis ? who, indeed, but she who 
 
ADONIS IN SEARCH OF A WIFE. 143 
 
 could pay highest for it ; and who could pay with 
 a handsome income but a well-dowered widow ? A 
 widow it must be — a widow it should be. Noble in- 
 deed was the sentiment which inspired this great man 
 to sacrifice himself on the altar of Hymen for the good 
 of his creditors. Ye young men in the Guards, who 
 do this kind of thing every day — that is, every day 
 that you can meet with a widow with the proper quali- 
 fications — take warning by the lamentable history 
 of Mr. Robert Fielding, and never trust to " third 
 parties." 
 
 A widow was found, fat, fair, and forty — and oh ! — 
 charm greater far than all the rest — with a fortune of 
 sixty thousand pounds ; this was a Mrs. Deleau, who 
 lived at Whaddon in Surrey, and at Copthall-court in 
 London. Nothing could be more charming ; and the 
 only obstacle was the absence of all acquaintance be- 
 tween the parties — for, of course, it was impossible for 
 any widow, whatever her attractions, to be insensible 
 to those of Robert Fielding. Under these circum- 
 stances, the Beau looked about for an agent, and 
 found one in the person of a Mrs. Villars, hairdresser 
 to the widow. He offered this person a handsome 
 douceur in case of success, and she was to undertake 
 that the lady should meet the gentleman in the most 
 unpremeditated manner. Various schemes were re- 
 sorted to : with the alias, for he was not above an 
 alias, of Major-General Villars, the Beau called at 
 the widow's country house, and was permitted to see 
 
144 THE SHAM WIDOW. 
 
 the gardens. At a window he espied a lady, whom he 
 took to be the object of his pursuit — bowed to her 
 majestically, and went away, persuaded he must have 
 made an impression. But, whether the widow was 
 wiser than the wearers of weeds have the reputation 
 of being, or whether the agent had really no power 
 in the matter, the meeting never came on. 
 
 The hairdresser naturally grew anxious, the douceur 
 was too good to be lost, and as the widow could not be 
 had, some one must be supplied in her place. 
 
 One day while the Beau was sitting in his splendid 
 "night-gown," as the morning-dress of gentlemen was 
 then called, two ladies were ushered into his august 
 presence. He had been warned of this visit, and was 
 prepared to receive the yielding widow. The one, of 
 course, was the hairdresser, the other a young, pretty, 
 and apparently modest creature, who blushed much — 
 though with some difficulty — at the trying position in 
 which she found herself The Beau, delighted, did his 
 best to reassure her. He flung himself at her feet, 
 swore, with oaths more fashionable than delicate, that 
 she was the only woman he ever loved, and prevailed 
 on the widow so far as to induce her to " call again to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Of course she came, and Adonis was in heaven. 
 He wrote little poems to her — for, as a gallant, he 
 could of course make verses — serenaded her through 
 an Italian donna, invited her to suppers, at which the 
 delicacies of the season were served without regard to 
 
WAYS AND MEANS. 145 
 
 the purveyor's account, and to ■which, coy as she was, 
 she consented to come, and clenched the engagement 
 with a ring, on which was the motto, " Tibi Soli." 
 Nay, the Beau had been educated, and had some 
 knowledge of " the tongues," so that he added to 
 these attentions, the further one of a song or two 
 translated from the Greek. The widow ought to 
 have been pleased, and was. One thing only she 
 stipulated, namely, that the marriage should be pri- 
 vate, lest her relations should forbid the banns. 
 
 Having brought her so far, it was not likely that 
 the fortune-hunter would stick at such a mere trifle, 
 and accordingly an entertainment was got up at the 
 Beau's own rooms, a supper suitable to the rank and 
 wealth of the widow, provided by some obligingly 
 credulous tradesman ; a priest found — for, be it pre- 
 mised, our hero had changed so much of his religion 
 as he had to change in the reign of James II., when 
 Romanism was not only fashionable, but a sure road 
 to fortune — and the mutually satisfied couple swore to 
 love, honor, and obey one another till death them 
 should part. 
 
 The next morning, however, the widow left the gen- 
 tleman's lodgings, on the pretext that it was injudi- 
 cious for her friends to know of their union at present, 
 and continued to visit her sposo and sup somewhat 
 amply at his chambers from time to time. We can 
 imagine the anxiety Orlando now felt for a cheque- 
 book at the heiress's bankers, and the many insinua- 
 
 VOL. I.— 10 
 
146 A FATAL INTIMACY. 
 
 tions lie may have delicately made, touching ways and 
 means. We can fancy the artful excuses with which 
 these hints were put aside by his attached wife. But 
 the dupe was still in happy ignorance of the trick 
 played on him, and for a time such ignorance was 
 bliss. It must have been trying to him to be called 
 on by Mrs. Villars for the promised douceur, but he 
 consoled himself with the pleasures of hope. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, he had formed the acquaint- 
 ance of a woman of a very different reputation to the 
 real Mrs. Deleau, and the intimacy which ensued was 
 fatal to him. 
 
 When Charles II. was wandering abroad, he was 
 joined, among others, by a Mr. and Mrs. Palmer. 
 The husband was a staunch old Romanist, with the 
 qualities which usually accompanied that faith in those 
 days — little respect for morality, and a good deal of 
 bigotry. In later days he was one of the victims sus- 
 pected of the Titus Gates plot, but escaped, and event- 
 ually died in Wales, in 1705, after having been James 
 il.'s ambassador to Rome. This, in a few words, is 
 the , history of that Roger Palmer, afterwards Lord 
 Castlemaine, who by some is said to have sold his wife 
 — not at Smithfield, but at Whitehall — to his Majesty 
 King Charles II., for the sum of one peerage — an Irish 
 one, taken on consideration : by others, is alleged to 
 have been so indignant with the king as to have re- 
 mained for some time far from court ; and so disgusted 
 with his elevation to the peerage as scarcely to assume 
 
BAEBAEA VILLIEES, LADY CASTLEMAINE. 147 
 
 his title ; and this last is the most authenticated version 
 of the matter. 
 
 Mrs. Palmer belonged to one of the oldest families 
 in England, and traced her descent to Pagan de Vil- 
 liers, in the days of William Rufus, and a good deal 
 farther among the nobles of Normandy. She was the 
 daughter of William, second Viscount Grandison, and 
 rejoiced in the appropriate name of Barbara, for she 
 could be savage occasionally. She was very beautiful, 
 and very wicked, and soon became Charles's mistress. 
 On the Restoration she joined the king in England, 
 and when the poor neglected queen came over was 
 foisted upon her as a bedchamber-woman, in spite of 
 all the objections of that ill-used wife. It was neces- 
 sary to this end that she should be the wife of a peer ; and 
 her husband accepted the title of Earl of Castlemaine, 
 well knowing to what he owed it. Pepys, who admired 
 Lady Castlemaine more than any woman in England, 
 describes the husband and wife meeting at Whitehall 
 with a cold ceremonial bow : yet the husband was 
 there. A quarrel between the two, strangely enough 
 on the score of religion, her ladyship insisting that her 
 child should be christened by a Protestant clergyman, 
 while his lordship insisted on the ceremony being per- 
 formed by a Romish priest, brought about a separation, 
 and from that time Lady Castlemaine, lodged in White- 
 hall, began her empire over the king of England. That 
 man, " who never said a foolish thing, and never did 
 a wise one," was the slave of this imperious and most 
 
148 QUAEEELS WITH THE KING. 
 
 impudent of ■women. She forced him to settle on her 
 an immense fortune, much of which she squandered at 
 the basset-table, often staking a thousand pounds at 
 a time, and sometimes losing fifteen thousand pounds 
 a-night. 
 
 Nor did her wickedness end here. We have some 
 pity for one, who, like La Vallifere, could be attracted 
 by the attentions of a handsome, fascinating prince : 
 we pity though we blame. But Lady Castlemaine was 
 vicious to the very marrow : not content with a king's 
 favor, she courted herself the young gallants of the 
 town. Quarrels ensued between Charles and his mis- 
 tress, in which the latter invariably came off victorious, 
 owing to her indomitable temper ; and the scenes re- 
 corded by De Grammont — when she threatened to burn 
 down Whitehall, and tear her children in pieces — are 
 too disgraceful for insertion. She forced the reprobate 
 monarch to consent to all her extortionate demands : 
 rifled the nation's pockets as well as his own ; and at 
 every fresh diiference, forced Charles to give her some 
 new pension. An intrigue with Jermyn, discovered 
 and objected to by the king, brought on a fresh and 
 more serious difference, which was only patched up by 
 a patent of the Duchy of Cleveland. The Duchess of 
 Cleveland was even worse than the Countess of Castle- 
 maine. Abandoned in time by Charles, and detested 
 by all people of any decent feeling, she consoled her- 
 self for the loss of a real king by taking up with a 
 stage one. Hart and Goodman, the actors, were sue- 
 
THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND IN LOVE. 149 
 
 cessively her cavalieri ; the former had been a captain 
 in the army ; the latter a student at Cambridge. Both 
 were men of the coarsest minds and most depraved 
 lives. Goodman in after years was so reduced that 
 finding, as Sheridan advised his son to do, a pair of 
 pistols handy, a horse saddled, and Hounslow Heath 
 not a hundred miles distant, he took to the pleasant 
 and profitable pastime of which Dick Turpin is the 
 patron saint. He was all but hanged for his daring 
 robberies, but unfortunately not quite so. He lived 
 to suffer such indigence, that he and another rascal had 
 but one under-garment between them, and entered into 
 a compact that one should lie in bed while the other 
 wore the article in question. Naturally enough, the two 
 fell out in time, and the end of Goodman — sad mis- 
 nomer — was worse than his beginning : such was the 
 gallant whom the imperious Duchess of Cleveland 
 vouchsafed to honor. 
 
 The life of the once beautiful Barbara Villiers grew 
 daily more and more depraved : at the age of thirty 
 she retired to Paris, shunned and disgraced. After 
 numerous intrigues abroad and at home, she put the 
 crowning point to her follies by falling in love with 
 the handsome Fielding, when she herself numbered 
 sixty-five summers. 
 
 Whether the Beau still thought of fortune, or whether, 
 having once tried matrimony, he was so enchanted with 
 it as to make it his cacoethes, does not appear : the 
 legend explains not for what reason he married the 
 
150 THE BEAU'S SECOND MAEEIAGE. 
 
 antiquated beauty only three weeks after he had been 
 united to the supposed widow. For a time he wavered 
 between the two, but that time was short : the widow 
 discovered his second marrriage, claimed him, and in 
 so doing revealed the well-kept secret that she was not 
 a widow ; indeed, not even the relict of John Deleau, 
 Esq., of Whaddon, but a wretched adventurer of the 
 name of Mary Wadsworth, who had shared with Mrs. 
 Villars the plunder of the trick. The Beau tried to 
 preserve his dignity, and throw over his duper, but in 
 vain. The first wife reported the state of aifairs to the 
 second ; and the duchess, who had been shamefully 
 treated by Master Fielding, was only too glad of an 
 opportunity to get rid of him. She offered Maiy 
 Wadsworth a pension of ^100 a year, and a sum of 
 £200 in ready money, to prove the previous marriage. 
 The case came on, and Beau Fielding had the honor of 
 playing a part in a famous state trial. 
 
 With his usual impudence he undertook to defend 
 himself at the Old Bailey, and hatched up some old 
 story to prove that the first wife was married at the 
 time of their union to one Brady ; but the plea fell to 
 the ground, and the fine gentleman was sentenced to be 
 burned in the hand. His interest in certain quarters 
 saved him this ignominious punishment, which would, 
 doubtless, have spoiled a limb of which he was par- 
 ticularly proud. He was pardoned : the real widow 
 married a far more honorable gentleman, in spite of 
 the unenviable notoriety she had acquired ; the sham 
 
THE LAST DAYS OF FOPS AND BEAUX. 151 
 
 one was somehow quieted, and the duchess died some 
 four years later, the more peacefully for being rid of 
 her tyrannical mate. 
 
 Thus ended a petty scandal of the day, in which all 
 the parties were so disreputable that no one could feel 
 any sympathy for a single one of them. How the 
 dupe himself ended is not known. The last days of 
 fops and beaux are never glorious. Brummell died in 
 slovenly penury ; Nash in contempt. Fielding lapsed 
 into the dimmest obscurity ; and as far as evidence goes, 
 there is as little certainty about his death as of that of 
 the Wandering Jew. Let us hope that he is not still 
 alive : though his friends seemed to have cared little 
 whether he were so or not, to judge from a couple of 
 verses written by one of them : 
 
 " If Fielding is dead, 
 
 And rests under this stone, 
 Then he is not alive, 
 You may bet two to one. 
 
 "But if he's alive, 
 
 And does not lie there — 
 Let him live till he's hanged, 
 For which no man will care." 
 
OF CERTAIN CLUBS AND CLUB-WITS 
 UNDER ANNE. 
 
 I SUPPOSE that, long before the building of Babel, 
 man discovered that he was an associative animal, 
 with the universal motto, " L' union c' est la force ;" 
 and that association, to be of any use, requires talk. 
 A history of celebrated associations from the building- 
 society just mentioned down to the thousands which 
 are represented by an office, a secretary, and a brass 
 plate, in the present day, would give a curious scheme 
 of the natural tendencies of man ; while the story of 
 their failures — and how many have not failed, sooner 
 or later ! — would be a pretty moral lesson to your 
 anthropolaters who Babelize now-a-days, and believe 
 there is nothing which a company with capital cannot 
 achieve. I wonder what object there is, that two men 
 can possibly agree in desiring, and which it takes more 
 than one to attain, for which an association of some 
 kind has not been formed at some time or other, since 
 first the swarthy savage learned that it was necessary 
 to unite to kill the lion which infested the neighbor- 
 hood ? Alack for human nature ! I fear by far the 
 larger proportion of the objects of associations would 
 be found rather evil than good, and, certes, nearly all 
 
 162 
 
THE RAISON D'fiXKE OF CLUB-LIFE. 153 
 
 of them might be ranged under two heads, according 
 as the passions of hate or desire found a common object 
 in several hearts. Gain on the one hand — destruction 
 on the other — have been the chief motives of clubbing 
 in all time. 
 
 A delightful exception is to be found, though — to 
 wit, in associations for the purpose of talking. I do 
 not refer to parliaments and philosophical academies, 
 but to those companies which have been formed for 
 the sole purpose of mutual entertainment by inter- 
 change of thought. 
 
 Now, will any kind reader oblige me with a deriva- 
 tion of the word " Club " ? I doubt if it is easy to 
 discover. But one thing is certain, whatever its 
 origin, it is, in its present sense, purely English in 
 idea and in existence. Dean Trench points this out, 
 and, noting the fact that no other nation (he might 
 have excepted the Chinese) has any word to express 
 this kind of association, he has, with very pardonable 
 natural pride, but unpardonably bad logic, inferred 
 that the English are the most sociable people in the 
 world. The contrary is true ; nay, was true, even in 
 the days of Addison, Swift, Steele — even in the days 
 of Johnson, AYalpole, Selwyn ; ay, at all time since 
 we have been a nation. The fact is, we are not the 
 most sociable, but the most associative race ; and the 
 establishment of clubs is a proof of it. We cannot, 
 and never could, talk freely, comfortably, and gener- 
 ally, without a company for talking. Conversation 
 
154 THE ORIGIN OF CLUBS. 
 
 has always been with us as much a business as rail~ 
 road-making, or what not. It has always demanded 
 certain accessories, certain condiments, certain stimu- 
 lants to work it up to the proper pitch. " We all 
 know " we are the cleverest and wittiest people under 
 the sun ; but then our wit has been stereotyped. 
 Fi-ance has no "Joe Miller;" for a bon-mot there, 
 however good, is only appreciated historically. Our 
 wit is printed, not spoken ; our best wits behind an 
 inkhorn have sometimes been the veriest logs in 
 society. On the Continent clubs were not called 
 for, because society itself was the arena of conver- 
 sation. In this country, on the other hand, a man 
 could only chat when at his ease ; could only be at 
 his case among those who agreed with him on the 
 main points of religion and politics, and even then 
 wanted the aid of a bottle to make him comfortable. 
 Our want of sociability was the cause of our clubbing, 
 and therefore the word " club " is purely English. 
 
 This was never so much the case as after the Hestora- 
 tion. Religion and politics never ran higher than when 
 a monarch, who is said to have died a papist because he 
 had no religion at all during his life, was brought back 
 to supplant a furious puritanical Protectorate. Then, 
 indeed, it was difficult for men of opposite parties to 
 meet without bickering ; and society demanded separate 
 meeting-places for those who differed. The origin of 
 clubs in this country is to be traced to two causes — 
 the vehemence of religious and political partisanship, 
 
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF COFFEE-HOUSES. 155 
 
 and the establishment of coffee-houses. These cer- 
 tainly gave the first idea of clubbery. The taverns 
 which had preceded them had given the English a 
 zest for public life in a small way. " The Mermaid " 
 was, virtually, a club of wits long before the first real 
 club was opened, and, like the clubs of the eighteenth 
 century, it had its presiding geniuses in Shakespeare 
 and Rare Ben. 
 
 The coffee-houses introduced somewhat more refine- 
 ment and less exclusiveness. The oldest of these was 
 the " Grecian." "One Constantine, a Grecian," ad- 
 vertised in "The Intelligencer" of January 23d, 
 1664-5, that "the right coffee bery or chocolate," 
 might be had of him " as cheap and as good as is 
 anywhere to be had for money," and soon after be- 
 gan to sell the said "coffee bery" in small cups at 
 his own establishment in Devereux Court, Strand. 
 Some two years later we have news of " Will's," the 
 most famous, perhaps, of the coffee-houses. Here 
 Dryden held forth with pedantic vanity : and here was 
 laid the first germ of that critical acumen which has 
 since become a distinguishing feature in English litera- 
 ture. Then, in the City, one Garraway, of Exchange 
 Alley, first sold " tea in leaf and drink, made according 
 to the directions of the most knowing, and travellers 
 into those eastern countries;" and thus established the 
 well-known " Garraway's," whither, in Defoe's day, 
 "foreign banquiers " and even ministers resorted, to 
 drink the said beverage. "Robin's," "Jonathan's," 
 
156 THE OCTOBER CLUB. 
 
 and many another, were all opened about this time, 
 and the rage for coffee-house life became general 
 throughout the country. 
 
 In these places the company was of course of all 
 classes and colors ; but, as the conversation was general, 
 there was naturally at first a good deal of squabbling, 
 till, for the sake of peace and comfort, a man chose 
 his place of resort according to his political principles ; 
 and a little later there were regular Whig and Tory 
 coffee-houses. Thus, in Anne's day, " The Cocoa- 
 nut," in St. James's Street, was reserved for Jacobites, 
 while none but Whigs frequented " The St. James's." 
 Still, there was not suflScient exclusiveness ; and as 
 early as in Charles II. 's reign men of peculiar opinions 
 began to appropriate certain coffee-houses at certain 
 hours, and to exclude from them all but approved 
 members. Hence the origin of clubs. 
 
 The October Club was one of the earliest, being 
 composed of some hundred and fifty rank Tories, 
 chiefly country members of Parliament. They met 
 at the "Bell," in King Street, Westminster, that 
 street in which Spenser starved, and Dryden's brother 
 kept a grocer's shop. A portrait of Queen Anne, by 
 Dahl, hung in the club-room. This and the Kit-kat, 
 the great Whig club, were chiefly reserved for politics ; 
 but the fashion of clubbing having once come in, it was 
 soon followed by people of all fancies. No reader of 
 " The Spectator " can fail to remember the ridicule to 
 which this was turned by descriptions of imaginary 
 
THE BEEF-STEAK CLUB. 157 
 
 clubs for -which the qualifications were absurd, and 
 of which the business, on meeting, was preposterous 
 nonsense of some kind. The idea of such fraternities 
 as the Club of Fat Men, the Ugly Club, the Sheromp 
 Club, the Everlasting Club, the Sighing Club, the 
 Amorous Club, and others, could only have been 
 suggested by real clubs almost as ridiculous. The 
 names, too, were almost as fantastical as those of the 
 taverns in the previous century, which counted " The 
 Devil," and "The Heaven and Hell," among their 
 numbers. Many derived their titles from the standing 
 dishes preferred at supper, the Beef-steak and the Kit- 
 kat (a sort of mutton-pie), for instance. 
 
 The Beef-steak Club, still in existence, was one of 
 the most famous established in Anne's reign. It had 
 at that time less of a political than a jovial character. 
 Nothing but that excellent British fare, from which it 
 took its name, was, at first, served at the supper-table. 
 It was an assemblage of wits of every station, and 
 very jovial were they supposed to be when the juicy 
 dish had been discussed. Early in the century, Est- 
 court, the actor, was made provider to this club, and 
 wore a golden gridiron as a badge of office, and is 
 thus alluded to in Dr. King's "Art of Cookery" 
 (1709) :— 
 
 "He that of honor, wit, and mirth partakes, 
 May be a fit companion o'er beef-stakes ; 
 His name may be to future times enrolled 
 In Estcourt's boolt, whose gridiron's framed of gold." 
 
158 ESTCOUBT, THE ACTOE. 
 
 Estcourt was one of the best mimics of the day, and 
 a keen satirist to boot ; in fact he seems to have owed 
 much of his success on the stage to his power of imita- 
 tion, for while his own manner was inferior, he could 
 at pleasure copy exactly that of any celebrated actor. 
 He would be a player. At fifteen he ran away from 
 home, and, joining a strolling company, acted Roxana 
 in woman's clothes : his friends pursued him, and, 
 changing his dress for that of a girl of the time, he 
 tried to escape them, but in vain. The histrionic 
 youth was captured, and bound apprentice in London 
 town; the "seven long years" of which did not cure 
 him of the itch for acting. But he was too good a 
 wit for the stage, and amused himself, though not 
 always his audience, by interspersing his part with his 
 own remarks. The great took him by the hand, and 
 old Marlborough especially patronized him : he wrote 
 a burlesque of the Italian operas then beginning to be 
 in vogue ; and died in 1712—13. Estcourt was not 
 the only actor belonging to the Beef-steak, nor even 
 the only one who had concealed his sex under emer- 
 gency ; Peg WofRngton, who had made as good a boy 
 as he had done a girl, was afterwards a member of 
 this club. 
 
 In later years the beef-steak was cooked in a room 
 at the top of Covent Garden Theatre, and counted 
 many a celebrated wit among those who sat around its 
 cheery dish. Wilkes the blasphemer, Churchill, and 
 
ITS MODEKN EEPEESENTAXrVE. 150 
 
 Lord Sandwich, were all members of it at the same 
 time. Of the last, Walpole gives us infoi-mation in 
 1763 at the time of Wilkes's duel Avith Martin in 
 Hyde Park. He tells us that at the Beef-steak Club 
 Lord Sandwich talked so profusely, " that he drove 
 harlequins out of the company." To the honor of the 
 club be it added, that his lordship was driven out after 
 the harlequins, and finally expelled : it is sincerely 
 to be hoped that Wilkes was sent after his lordship. 
 This club is now represented by one held behind the 
 Lyceum, with the thoroughly British motto, " Beef 
 and Liberty:" the name was happily chosen and 
 therefore imitated. In the reign of George II. we 
 meet with a "Rump-steak, or Liberty Club;" and 
 somehow steaks and liberty seem to be the two ideas 
 most intimately associated in the Britannic mind. 
 Can any one explain it ? 
 
 Other clubs there were under Anne, — political, crit- 
 ical, and hilarious — -but the palm is undoubtedly car- 
 ried oif by the glorious Kit-kat. 
 
 It is not every eating-house that is immortalized by 
 a Pope, though Tennyson has sung " The Cock " with 
 its " plump head-waiter," who, by the way, was might- 
 ily offended by the Laureate's verses — or pretended to 
 
 be so — and thought it "a great liberty of Mr. , 
 
 Mr. , what is his name ? to put respectable pri- 
 vate characters into his books." Pope, or some say 
 Arbuthnot, explained the etymology of this club's 
 extraordinary title : — 
 
160 THE KIT-KAT CLUB. 
 
 "Whence deathless Kit-kat took its name, 
 Few critics can unriddle : 
 Some say from pastrycook it came, 
 And some from Cat and Fiddle. 
 
 "From no trim beaux its name it boasts, 
 Grey statesmen or green wits; 
 But from the pell-mell pack of toasts 
 Of old cats and young kits." 
 
 Probably enough the title was hit on at hap-hazard, 
 and retained because it was singular, but as it has 
 given a poet a theme, and a painter a name for pic- 
 tures of a peculiar size, its etymology has become 
 important. Some say that the pastrycook in Shire 
 Lane, at whose house it was held, was named Christo- 
 pher Katt. Some one or other was certainly cele- 
 brated for the manufacture of that forgotten delicacy, 
 a mutton-pie, which acquired the name of a Kit-kat. 
 
 " A Kit-kat is a supper for a lord," 
 
 says a comedy of 1700, and certes it afforded at this 
 club evening nourishment for many a celebrated noble 
 profligate of the day. The supposed sign of the Cat 
 and Fiddle (Kitt), gave another solution, but after all. 
 Pope's may be satisfactorily received. 
 
 The Kit-kat was, far excellence^ the Whig Club of 
 Queen Anne's time : it was established at the begin- 
 ning of the eighteenth century, and was then composed 
 of thirty-nine member*, among whom were the Dukes 
 of Marlborough, Devonshire, Grafton, Richmond, and 
 
THE ROMANCE OF THE BOWL. 161 
 
 Somerset. In later days it numbered the greatest wits 
 of the age, of whom anon. 
 
 This club was celebrated more than any for its 
 toasts. 
 
 Now, if men must drink — and sure the vine was 
 given us for use, I do not say for abuse — they had better 
 make it an occasion of friendly intercourse ; nothing 
 can be more degraded than the solitary sanctimonious 
 toping in which certain of our northern brethren are 
 known to indulge. They had better give to the 
 quaffing of that rich gift, sent to be a medicine for the 
 mind, to raise us above the perpetual contemplation of 
 worldly ills, as much of romance and elegance as possi- 
 ble. It is the opener of the heart, the awakener of 
 nobler feelings of generosity and love, the banisher of 
 all that is narrow, and sordid, and selfish ; the herald 
 of all that is exalted in man. No wonder that the 
 Greeks made a god of Bacchus, that the Hindu wor- 
 shipped the mellow Soma, and that there has been 
 scarce a poet who has not sung its praise. There was 
 some beauty in the feasts of the Greeks, when the gob- 
 let was really wreathed with flowers; and even the 
 German student, dirty and drunken as he may be, re- 
 moves half the stain from his orgies with the rich har- 
 mony of his songs and the hearty good-fellowship of 
 his toasts. We drink still, perhaps we shall always 
 drink till the end of time, but all the romance of the 
 bowl is gone ; the last trace of its beauty went with the 
 frigid abandonment of the toast. 
 
 Vol. I.— H 
 
162 THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-KAT. 
 
 There was some excuse for wine when it brought out 
 that now forgotten expression of good-will. Many a 
 feud was reconciled in the clinking of glasses ; just as 
 many another was begun when the cup was drained too 
 deeply. The first quarter of the last century saw the 
 end of all the social glories of the wassail in this coun- 
 try, and though men drank as much fifty years later, 
 all its poetry and romance had then disappeared. 
 
 It was still, however, the custom at that period to 
 call on the name of some fair maiden, and sing her 
 praises over the cup as it passed. It was a point of 
 honor for all the company to join the health. Some 
 beauties became celebrated for the number of their 
 toasts ; some even standing toasts among certain sets. 
 In the Kit-kat Club the custom was carried out by 
 rule, and every member was compelled to name a beau- 
 ty, whose claims to the honor were then discussed, and 
 if her name was approved, a separate bowl was conse- 
 crated to her, and verses to her honor engraved on it. 
 Some of the most celebrated toasts had even their por- 
 traits hung in the club-room, and it was no slight dis- 
 tinction to be the favorite of the Kit-kat. When only 
 eight years old. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu enjoyed 
 this privilege. Her father, the Lord Dorchester, after- 
 wards Evelyn, Duke of Kingston, in a fit of caprice, 
 proposed "the pretty little child" as his toast. The 
 other members, who had never seen her, objected ; the 
 Peer sent for her, and there could no longer be any 
 question. The forward little girl was handed from 
 
POKTRAITS OF LADIES OF THE KIT-KAT. 163 
 
 knee to knee, petted, probably, by Addison, Congreve, 
 Vanbrugh, Garth, and many another famous wit. An- 
 other celebrated toast of the Kit-kat, mentioned by 
 Walpole, was Lady Molyneux, who, he says, died smok- 
 ing a pipe. 
 
 This club was no less celebrated for its portraits than 
 for the ladies it honored. They, the portraits, were all 
 painted by Kneller, and all of one size, which thence 
 got the name of Kit-kat ; they were hung round the 
 club-room. Jacob Tonson, the publisher, was secretary 
 to the club. 
 
 Defoe tells us the Kit-kat held the first rank among 
 the clubs of the early part of the last century, and cer- 
 tainly the names of its members comprise as many wits 
 as we could expect to find collected in one society. 
 
 Addison must have been past forty when he became 
 a member of the Kit-kat. His " Cato " had won him 
 the general applause of the Whig party, who could not 
 allow so fine a writer to slip from among them. He 
 had long, too, played the courtier, and was " quite a 
 gentleman." A place among the exclusives of the 
 Kit-kat was only the just reward of such attainments, 
 and he had it. I shall not be asked to give a notice 
 of a man so universally known, and one who ranks 
 rather with the humorists than the wits. It will suf- 
 fice to say, that it was not till after the publication of 
 " The Spectator," and some time after, that he joined 
 our society. 
 
 Congreve I have chosen out of this set for a sep- 
 
164 THE MEMBERS OF THE KIT-KAT. 
 
 arate life, for this man happens to present a very 
 average sample of all their peculiarities. Congreve 
 was a literary man, a poet, a wit, a beau, and. — what 
 unhappily is quite as much to the purpose — a prof- 
 ligate. The only point he, therefore, wanted in 
 common with most of the members, was a title ; but 
 few of the titled members combined as many good 
 and bad qualities of the Kit-kat kind as did William 
 Congreve. 
 
 Another dramatist, whose name seems to be insep- 
 arable from Congreve's, was that mixture of bad and 
 good taste — Vanbrugh. The author of " The Re- 
 lapse," the most licentious play ever acted; — the 
 builder of Blenheim, the ugliest house ever erected, 
 was a man of good family, and Walpole counts him 
 among those who " wrote genteel comedy, because 
 they lived in the best company." We doubt the 
 logic of this ; but if it hold, how is it that Van 
 wrote plays which the best company, even at that 
 age, condemned, and neither good nor bad company 
 can read in the present day without being shocked ? 
 If the conversation of the Kit-kat was anything like 
 that in this member's comedies, it must have been 
 highly edifying. However, I have no doubt Van- 
 brugh passed for a gentleman, whatever his conver- 
 sation, and he was certainly a wit, and apparently 
 somewhat less licentious in his morals than the rest. 
 Yet what Pope said of his literature may be said, too, 
 of some acts of his life : — 
 
A GOOD WIT AND A BAD ARCIilTECT. 165 
 " How Van wants grace, who never wanted wit." 
 
 And his quarrel with " Queen Sarah " of Marlborough, 
 though the duchess was by no means the most agree- 
 able woman in the world to deal with, is not much to 
 Van's honor. When the nation voted half a million 
 to build that hideous mass of stone, the irregular and 
 unsightly piling of which caused Walpole to say that 
 the architect " had emptied quarries, rather than built 
 houses," and Dr. Evans to write this epitaph for the 
 builder — 
 
 " Lie heavy on him, Earth, for he 
 Laid many a heavy load on thee,'' 
 
 Sarah haggled over " seven-pence halfpenny a bushel ;" 
 Van retorted by calling her " stupid and troublesome," 
 and "that wicked woman of Marlborough," and after 
 the Duke's death, wrote that the Duke had left her 
 " twelve thousand pounds a-year to keep herself clean 
 and go to law." Whether she employed any portion 
 of it on the former object we do not pretend to say, 
 but she certainly spent as much as a miser could on 
 litigation, Van himself being one of the unfortunates 
 she attacked in this way. 
 
 The events of Vanbrugh's life were varied. He be- 
 gan life in the army, but in 1697 gave the stage " The 
 Relapse." It was sufficiently successful to induce him 
 to follow it up with the "Provoked Wife," one of the 
 wittiest pieces produced in those days. Charles, Earl 
 of Carlisle, Deputy Earl Marshal, for whom he built 
 
166 "WELL-NATURED GARTH." 
 
 Castle Howard, made him Clarencieux King-at-arms 
 in 1704, and he was knighted by George I., 9th of 
 September, 1714. In 1705 he joined Congreve in 
 the management of the Haymarket, which he himself 
 built. George I. made him Comptroller-general of 
 the royal works. He had even an experience of the 
 Bastille, where he was confined for sketching fortifica- 
 tions in France. He died in 1726, with the reputa- 
 tion of a good wit, and a bad architect. His conver- 
 sation was, certainly, as light as his buildings were 
 heavy. 
 
 Another member, almost as well known in his day, 
 was Sir Samuel Garth, the physician, " well-natured 
 Garth," as Pope called him. He won his fame by his 
 satire on the apothecaries in the shape of a poem called 
 "The Dispensary." When delivering the funeral 
 oration over Dryden's body, which had been so 
 long unburied that its odor began to be disagreeable, 
 he mounted a tub, the top of which fell through and 
 left the doctor in rather an awkward position. He 
 gained admission to the Kit-kat in consequence of a 
 vehement eulogy on King William which he had in- 
 troduced into his Harveian oration in 1697.' It was 
 Garth, too, who extemporized most of the verses which 
 were inscribed on the toasting-glasses of their club, so 
 that he may, par excellence, be considered the Kit-kat 
 poet. He was the physician and friend of Marlborough, 
 with whose sword he was knighted by George I., who 
 1 The Kit-kat club was not founded till 1703. 
 
"A BETTEE WIT THAN POET." 167 
 
 made him his physician in ordinary. Garth was a 
 very jovial man, and, some say, not a very religious 
 one. Pope said he was as good a Christian as ever 
 lived, "without knowing it." He certainly had no 
 affectation of piety, and if charitable and good- 
 natured acts could take a man to heaven, he de- 
 served to go there. He had his doubts about faith, 
 and is said to have died a Romanist. This he did in 
 1719, and the poor and the Kit-kat must both have 
 felt his loss. He was perhaps more of a wit than a 
 poet, although he has been classed at times with Gray 
 and Prior; he can scarcely take the same rank as 
 other verse-making doctors, such as Akenside, Darwin, 
 and Armstrong. He seems to have been an active, 
 healthy man — perhaps too much so for a poet — for it 
 is on record that he ran a match in the Mall with the 
 Duke of Grafton, and beat him. He was fond, too, of 
 a hard frost, and had a regular speech to introduce on 
 that subject : " Yes, sir, 'fore Gad, very fine weather, 
 sir — very wholesome weather, sir — kills trees, sir — 
 very good for man, sir." 
 
 Old Marlborough had another intimate friend at 
 the club, who was probably one of its earliest mem- 
 bers. This was Arthur Maynwaring, a poet, too, in a 
 way, but more celebrated at this time for his liaison 
 with Mrs. Oldfield, the famous but disreputable actress, 
 with whom he fell in love when he was forty years old, 
 and whom he instructed in the niceties of elocution, 
 making her rehearse her parts to him in private. 
 
168 THE POETS OF THE KIT-KAT. 
 
 Maynwaring was born in 16G8, educated at Oxford, 
 and destined for the bar, for wbich he studied. He 
 began life as a vehement Jacobite, and even sup- 
 ported that party in sundry pieces ; but like some 
 others, he was easily converted, when, on coming to 
 town, he found it more fashionable to be a Whig. He 
 held two or three posts under the Government, whose 
 cause he now espoused : had the honor of the dedica- 
 tion of " The Tatler " to him by Steele, and died sud- 
 denly in 1712. He divided his fortune between his 
 sister and his mistress, Mrs. Oldfield, and his son by 
 the latter. Mrs. Oldfield must have grown rich in her 
 sinful career, for she could afford, when ill, to refuse to 
 take her salary from the theatre, though entitled to it. 
 She acted best in Vanbrugh's " Provoked Husband," 
 so well, in fact, that the manager gave her an extra 
 fifty pounds by way of acknowledgment. 
 
 Poetizing seems to have been as much a polite 
 accomplishment of that age as letter-writing was of 
 a later, and a smattering of science is of the present 
 day. Gentlemen tried to be poets, and poets gentle- 
 men. The consequence was, that both made fools of 
 themselves. Among the poetasters who belonged to 
 the Kit-kat, we must mention Walsh, a country gen- 
 tleman, member of Parliament, and very tolerable 
 scholar. He dabbled in odes, elegies, epitaphs, and 
 all that small fry of the muse which was then so 
 plentiful. He wrote critical essays on Virgil, in which 
 he tried to make out that the shepherds in the days of 
 
POETS AND THEIR PATRONS. 169 
 
 tlie Roman poet were very well-bred gentlemen of good 
 education ! He was a devoted admirer and friend of 
 Dryden, and he encouraged Pope in his earlier career 
 so kindly that the little viper actually praised him ! 
 Walsh died somewhere about 1709 in middle life. 
 
 We have not nearly done with the poets of the Kit- 
 kat. A still smaller one than Walsh was Stepney, 
 who, like Garth, had begun life as a violent Tory, 
 and turned coat when he found his interest lay the 
 other way. He was well repaid, for from 1692 to 
 1706 he was sent on no less than eight diplomatic 
 missions, chiefly to German courts. He owed this pref- 
 erment to the good luck of having been a schoolfellow 
 of Charles Montagu, afterwards Earl of Halifax. He 
 died about 1707, and had as grand a monument and 
 epitaph in Westminster Abbey as if he had been a 
 Milton or Dryden. 
 
 When you meet a dog trotting along the road, you 
 naturally expect that his master is not far off. In the 
 same way, where you find a poet, still more a poetaster, 
 there you may feel certain you will light upon a patron. 
 The Kit-kat was made up of Maecenases and their 
 humble servants ; and in the same club with Addison, 
 Congreve, Vanbrugh, and the minor poets, we are not 
 at all surprised to find Sir Robert Walpole, the Duke 
 of Somerset, Halifax, and Somers. 
 
 Halifax was, par excellence, the Maecenas of his 
 day, and Pope described him admirably in the charac- 
 ter of Bufo : — 
 
170 LORD HALIFAX AS A POET. 
 
 "Proud as Apollo, on his forked hill, 
 Sat full-blown Bufo, pufF'd by every quill ; 
 Fed with soft dedication all day long, 
 Horace and he went hand in hand in song." 
 
 The dedications poured in thickly. Steele, Tickell, 
 Philips, Smith, and a crowd of lesser lights, raised my 
 lord each one on a higher pinnacle ; and in return the 
 powerful minister was not forgetful of the douceur 
 which well-tuned verses were accustomed to receive. 
 He himself had tried to be a poet, and in 1703 wrote 
 verses for the toasting-cups of the Kit-kat. His lines 
 to a Dowager Countess of * * * * are good enough to 
 make us surprised that he never wrote any better. 
 Take a specimen : — 
 
 "Fair Queen of Fop-land in her royal style; 
 Fop-land the greatest part of this great isle I 
 Nature did ne'er so equally divide 
 A female heart 'twixt piety and pride : 
 Her waiting-maids prevent the peep of day. 
 And all in order at her toilet lay 
 Prayer-books, patch-boxes, aermon-notes, and paint, 
 At once t' improve the sinner and the saint." 
 
 A Maecenas who paid for his dedications was sure to 
 be well spoken of, and Halifax has been made out a 
 wit and a poet, as well as a clever statesman. Halifax 
 got his earldom and the Garter from George I., and 
 died, after enjoying them less than a year, in 1715. 
 
 Chancellor Somers, with whom Halifax was associ- 
 ated in the impeachment case in 1701, was a far better 
 
CHANCELLOE SOMEES. 171 
 
 man in every respect. His was probably tbe purest cha- 
 racter among those of all the members of the Kit-kat. 
 He was the son of a Worcester attorney, and born in 
 1652. He was educated at Trinity, Oxford, and rose 
 purely by merit, distinguishing himself at the bar and 
 on the bench, unwearied in his application to business, 
 and an exact and upright judge. At school he was a 
 terribly good boy, keeping to his book in play-hours. 
 Throughout life his habits were simple and regular, 
 and his character unblemished. He slept but little, 
 and in later years had a reader to attend him at wak- 
 ing. With such habits he can scarcely have been a 
 constant attender at the club ; and as he died a bach- 
 elor, it would be curious to learn what ladies he 
 selected for his toasts. In his latter years his mind 
 was weakened, and he died in 1716 of apoplexy. 
 Walpole calls him " one of those divine men who, like 
 a chapel in a palace, remained unprofaned, while all 
 the rest is tyranny, corruption, and folly." 
 
 A huge stout figure rolls in now to join the toasters 
 in Shire Lane. In the puffy, once handsome face, 
 there are signs of age, for its owner is past sixty ; yet 
 he is dressed in superb fashion ; and in an hour or so, 
 when the bottle has been diligently circulated, his wit 
 will be brighter and keener than that of any young 
 man present. I do not say it will be repeatable, for 
 the talker belongs to a past age, even coarser than that 
 of the Kit-kat. He is Charles Sackville,^ famous as 
 ' For some notice of Lord Dorset, see p. 107. 
 
172 CHAELES SACKVII-LE, LORD DOESET. 
 
 a companion of the merriest and most disreputable of 
 the Stuarts, famous — or, rather, infamous — for his 
 mistress, Nell Gwynn, famous for his verses, for his 
 patronage of poets, and for his wild frolics in early 
 life, when Lord Buckhurst. Rochester called him 
 
 "The best good man with the worst-natured muse;" 
 
 and Pope says he was 
 
 "The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great, 
 Of fops in learning and of knaves in state." 
 
 Our sailors still sing the ballad which he is said to 
 have written on the eve of the naval engagement 
 between the Duke of York and Admiral Opdam, 
 which begins — 
 
 "To all you ladies now on land, 
 We men at sea indite." 
 
 With a fine classical taste and a courageous spirit, 
 he had in early days been guilty of as much iniquity 
 as any of Charles's profligate court. He was one of a 
 band of young libertines who robbed and murdered a 
 poor tanner on the high-road, and were acquitted, less 
 on account of the poor excuse they dished up for this 
 act than of their rank and fashion. Such fine gentle- 
 men could not be hanged for the sake of a mere work- 
 man in those days — no ! no I Yet he does not seem to 
 have repented of this transaction, for soon after he Avas 
 engaged with Sedley and Ogle in a series of most in- 
 
LESS CELEBRATED WITS. 173 
 
 decent acts at the Cock Tavern in Bow-street, where 
 Sedley, in "birthday attire," made a blasphemous 
 oration from the balcony of the house. In later years 
 he was the pride of the poets : Dryden and Prior, 
 Wycherley, Hudibras, and Rymer, were all encour- 
 aged by him, and repaid him with praises. Pope and 
 Dr. King were no less bountiful in their eulogies of 
 this Maecenas. His conversation was so much appre- 
 ciated that gloomy William III. chose him as his com- 
 panion, as merry Charles had done before. The 
 famous Irish ballad, which my Uncle Toby was always 
 humming, " Lillibullero bullen-a-lah," but which Percy 
 attributes to the Marquis of Wharton, another mem- 
 ber of the Kit-kat, was said to have been written by 
 Buckhurst. He retained his wit to the last ; and 
 Congreve, who visited him when he was dying, said, 
 " Faith, he stutters more wit than other people have in 
 their best health." He died at Bath in 1706. 
 
 Buckhurst does not complete the list of conspicuous 
 members of this club, but the remainder were less 
 celebrated for their wit. There was the Duke of 
 Kingston, the father of Lady Mary Wortley Mon- 
 tagu ; Granville, who imitated Waller, and attempted 
 to make his "Myra" as celebrated as the court-poet's 
 Saccharissa, who, by the way, was the mother of the 
 Earl of Sunderland ; the Duke of Devonshire, whom 
 Walpole calls " a patriot among the men, a gallant 
 among the ladies," and who founded Chatsworth ; and 
 other noblemen, chiefly belonging to the latter part of 
 
174 THE MEMBERS OF THE KIT-KAT. 
 
 the seventeenth century, and all devoted to William 
 III., though they had been bred at the courts of 
 Charles and James. 
 
 With such an array of wits, poets, statesmen, and 
 gallants, it can easily be believed that to be the toast of 
 the Kit-kat was no slight honor ; to be a member of it 
 a still greater one ; and to be one of its most distin- 
 guished, as Congreve was, the greatest. Let us now 
 see what title this conceited beau and poet had to that 
 position. 
 
32EiUiam (Eongreb;. 
 
WILLIAM CONGREVE. 
 
 When " Queen Sarah " of Marlborough read the 
 silly epitaph which Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, 
 had written and had engraved on the monument she set 
 up to Congreve, she said, with one of the true Blenheim 
 sneers, " I know not what happiness she might have 
 in his company, but I am sure it was no honor," allud- 
 ing to her daughter's eulogistic phrases. 
 
 Queen Sarah was right, as she often was when con- 
 demnation was called for : and however amusing a 
 companion the dramatist may have been, he was not a 
 man to respect, for he had not only the common vices 
 of his age, but added to them a foppish vanity, toady- 
 ism, and fine gentlemanism (to coin a most necessary 
 word), which we scarcely expect to meet with in a 
 man who sets up for a satirist. 
 
 It is the fate of greatness to have falsehoods told of 
 it, and of nothing in connection with it more so than 
 of its origin. If the converse be true, Congreve ought 
 to have been a great man, for the place and time of 
 his birth are both subjects of dispute. Oh ! happy 
 Gilford ! or happy Croker ! why did you not — perhaps 
 you did — go to work to set the world right on this 
 matter — you, to whom a date discovered is the highest 
 
 175 
 
176 WHEN AND WHEEE WAS HE BORN? 
 
 palm (no pun intended, I assure you) of glory, and who 
 would rather Shakespeare had never written " Hamlet," 
 or Homer the " Iliad," than that some miserable little 
 forgotten scrap which decided a year or a place should 
 have been consigned to flames before it fell into your 
 hands ? Why did you not bring the thunder of your 
 abuse and the pop-gunnery of your satire to bear upon 
 the question, " How, when, and where was William 
 Congreve born ?" 
 
 It was Lady Morgan, I think, who first " saw the 
 light" (that is, if she was born in the day-time) in the 
 Irish Channel. If it had been only some one more 
 celebrated, we should have had by this time a series 
 of philosophical, geographical, and ethnological pam- 
 phlets to prove that she was English or Irish, according 
 to the fancies or prejudices of the writers. It was cer- 
 tainly a very Irish thing to do, which is one argument 
 for the Milesians, and again it was done in the Irish 
 Channel, which is another and a sti'onger one ; and 
 altogether we are not inclined to go into forty-five 
 pages of recondite facts and fine-drawn arguments, 
 mingled with the most vehement abuse of anybody 
 who ever before wrote on the subject, to prove that 
 this country had the honor of producing her ladyship 
 — the Wild Irish Girl. We freely give her up to the 
 sister island. But not so William Congreve, though 
 we are equally indifferent to the honor in his case. 
 
 The one party, then, assert that he was born in this 
 country, the other that he breathed his first air in the 
 
CONFLICTING DATES. 177 
 
 Emerald Isle. Whichever be the true state of the 
 case, we, as Englishmen, prefer to agree in the com- 
 monly received opinion that he came into this 'wicked 
 world at the village of Bardsea, or Bardsey, not far 
 from Leeds in the county of York. Let the Bard- 
 seyans immediately erect a statue to his honor, if 
 they have been remiss enough to neglect him here- 
 tofore. 
 
 But our difficulties are not ended, for there is a sim- 
 ilar doubt about the year of his birth. His earliest 
 biographer assures us he was born in 1672, and others 
 that he was baptized three years before, in 1669. 
 Such a proceeding might well be taken as a proof of 
 his Hibernian extraction, and accordingly we find Ma- 
 lone supporting the earlier date, producing, of course, 
 a certificate of baptism to support himself; and as we 
 have a very great respect for his authority, we beg also 
 to support Mr. Malone. 
 
 This being settled, we have to examine who were his 
 parents ; and this is satisfactorily answered by his earl- 
 iest biographer, who informs us that he was of a very 
 ancient family, being " the only surviving son of Wil- 
 liam Congreve, Esq. (who was second son to Richard 
 Congreve, Esq., of Congreve and Stretton in that 
 county)," to wit, Yorkshire. Congreve pire held a 
 military command, which took him to Ireland soon 
 after the dramatist's birth, and thus young William 
 had the incomparable advantage of being educated at 
 Kilkenny, and afterwards at Trinity, Dublin, the 
 
 Vol. I.— 12 
 
178 THE MIDDLE TEMPLE. 
 
 "silent sister," as it is commonly called at our uni- 
 versities. 
 
 At the age of nineteen, this youth sought the classic 
 shades of the Middle Temple, of which he was entered 
 a student, but by the honorable society of which -he 
 was never called to the bar ; but whether this was from 
 a disinclination to study " Coke upon Lyttleton," or 
 from an incapacity to digest the requisite number of 
 dinners, the devouring of which qualify a young gen- 
 tleman to address an enlightened British j ury, we have 
 no authority for deciding. He was certainly not the 
 first, nor the last, young Templar who has quitted 
 special pleading on a crusade to the heights of Parnas- 
 sus, and he began early to try the nib of his pen and 
 the color of his ink in a novel. Eheu ! how many a 
 novel has issued from the dull, dirty chambers of that 
 same Temple ! The waters of the Thames just there 
 seem to have been augmented by a mingled flow of 
 sewage and Helicon, though the former is undoubtedly 
 in the greater proportion. This novel, called " Incog- 
 nita ; or. Love and Duty Reconciled," seems to have 
 been — for I confess that I have not read more than a 
 chapter of it, and hope I never may be forced to do so 
 — great rubbish, with good store of villains and ruffians, 
 love-sick maidens who tune their lutes — always conve- 
 niently at hand — and love-sick gallants who run their 
 foes through the body with the greatest imaginable 
 ease. It was, in fact, such a novel as James might 
 have written, had he lived a century and a half ago. 
 
CONGBEVE FINDS HIS VOCATION. 179 
 
 It brouglit its author but little fame, and accordingly 
 he turned his attention to another branch of literature, 
 and in 1693 produced " The Old Bachelor," a play of 
 which Dry den, his friend, had so high an opinion that 
 he called it the "best first play he had ever read." 
 However, before being put on the stage it was sub- 
 mitted to Dryden, and by him and others prepared for 
 representation, so that it was well fathered. It was 
 successful enough, and Congreve thus found his voca- 
 tion. In his dedication — a regular piece of flummery 
 of those days, for which authors were often well paid, 
 either in cash or interest — he acknowledges a debt of 
 gratitude to Lord Halifax, who appears to have taken 
 the young man by the hand. 
 
 The young Templar could do nothing better now 
 than write another play. Play-making was as fashion- 
 able an amusement in those days of Old Drury, the only 
 patented theatre then, as novel-writing is in 1860 ; and 
 when the young ensign, Vanbrugh, could write comedies 
 and take the direction of a theatre, it was no derogation 
 to the dignity of the Staffordshire squire's grandson to 
 do as much. Accordingly, in the following year he 
 brought out a better comedy, " The Double Dealer," 
 with a prologue which was spoken by the famous Anne 
 Bracegirdle. She must have been eighty years old when 
 Horace Walpole wrote of her to that other Horace — 
 Mann : " Tell Mr. Chute that his friend Bracegirdle 
 breakfasted with me this morning. As she went out 
 and wanted her clogs, she turned to me and said : ' I 
 
180 VERSES TO QUEEN MARY. 
 
 remember at the playhouse they used to call, Mrs. 
 Oldfield's chair ! Mrs. Barry's clogs ! and Mrs. Brace- 
 girdle's pattens !' " These three ladies were all buried 
 in Westminster Abbey, and, except Mrs. Gibber, the 
 most beautiful and most sinful of them all — though 
 they were none of them spotless — are the only actresses 
 whose ashes and memories are hallowed by the place, 
 for we can scarcely say that they do it much honor. 
 
 The success of "The Double Dealer" was at first 
 moderate, although that highly respectable woman. 
 Queen Mary, honored it with her august presence, 
 which forthwith called up verses of the old adulatory 
 style, though with less point and neatness than those 
 addressed to the Virgin Queen : 
 
 " Wit is again the care of majesty," 
 
 said the poet, and 
 
 " Thus flourished wit in our forefathers' age, 
 And thus the Roman and Athenian stage. 
 Whose wit is best, we'll not presume to tell, 
 But this we know, our audience will excel; 
 For never was in Rome nor Athens seen 
 So fair a circle, and so bright a queen." 
 
 But this was not enough, for when Her Majesty de- 
 parted for another realm in the same year, Congreve 
 put her into a highly eulogistic pastoral, under the 
 name of Pastora, and made some compliments on 
 her, which were considered the finest strokes of poetry 
 
OLD BETTEETON. 181 
 
 and flattery combined, that an age of addresses and 
 eulogies could produce. 
 
 "As lofty pines o'ertop the lowly steed, 
 So did her graceful height all nymphs exceed, 
 To which excelling height she bore a mind 
 Humble as osiei's, bending to the wind. 
 
 ****** 
 I mourn Pastora dead; let Albion mourn, 
 And sable clouds her chalkie cliffs adorn." 
 
 This play was dedicated to Lord Halifax, of whom 
 we have spoken, and who continued to be Congreve's 
 patron. 
 
 The fame of the young man was now made; but 
 in the following year it was destined to shine out 
 more brilliantly still. Old Betterton — one of the 
 best Hamlets that ever trod the stage, and of whom 
 Booth declared that when he was playing the Ghost 
 to his Hamlet, his look of surprise and horror was so 
 natural, that Booth could not for some minutes recover 
 himself — was now a veteran in his sixtieth year. For 
 forty years he had walked the boards, and made a for- 
 tune for the patentees of Drury. It was very shabby 
 of them, therefore, to give some of his best parts to 
 younger actors. Betterton was disgusted, and deter- 
 mined to set up for himself, to which end he managed 
 to procure another patent, turned the Queen's Court in 
 Portugal Row, Lincoln's Inn, into a theatre, and opened 
 it on the 30th of April, 1695. The building had been 
 before used as a theatre in the days of the Merry 
 
182 THE TENNIS COURT THEATRE. 
 
 Monarch, and Tom Killigrew had acted here some 
 twenty years before ; but it had again become a 
 " tennis-quatre of the lesser sort," says Gibber, and 
 the new theatre was not very grand in fabric. But 
 Betterton drew to it all the best actors and actresses of 
 his former company ; and Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Brace- 
 girdle remained true to the old man. Congreve, to his 
 honor, espoused the same cause, and the theatre opened 
 with his play of " Love for Love," which was more suc- 
 cessful than either of the former. The veteran him- 
 self spoke the prologue, and fair Braeegirdle the epi- 
 logue, in which the poet thus alluded to their change 
 of stage : 
 
 "And thus our audience, which did once resort 
 To shining theatres to see our sport, 
 Now find us tost into a tennis-court. 
 Thus from the past, we hope for future grace: 
 
 I beg it 
 
 And some here know I have a begging face.'' 
 
 The king himself completed the success of the opening 
 by attending it, and the theatre in Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields might have ruined the older house, if it had 
 not been for the rapidity with which Vanbrugh and 
 Gibber, who wrote for Old Drury, managed to concoct 
 their pieces ; while Gongreve was a slower, though 
 perhaps better, writer. " Love for Love " was here- 
 after a favorite of Betterton's, and when in 1709, a year 
 before his death, the company gave the old man — then 
 in ill health, poor circumstances, and bad spirits — a 
 
CONGREVE ABANDONS THE DRAMA. 183 
 
 benefit, he chose this play, and himself, though more 
 than seventy, acted the part of Valentine, supported 
 by Mrs. Bracegirdle as Angelina, and Mrs. Barry as 
 Frail. 
 
 The young dramatist, with all his success, was not 
 satisfied with his fame, and resolved to show the world 
 that he had as much poetry as wit in him. This he 
 failed to do ; and, like better writers, injured his own 
 fame, by not being contented with what he had. Con- 
 greve — the wit, the dandy, the man about town — took 
 it into his head to write a tragedy. In 1697 " The 
 Mourning Bride" was acted at the Tennis Court 
 Theatre. The author was wise enough to return to his 
 former muse, and some time after produced his best 
 piece, so some think, " The Way of the World," which 
 was also performed by Betterton's company ; but, alas ! 
 for overwriting — that cacoethes of imprudent men — it 
 was almost hissed off the stage. Whether this was 
 owing to a weariness of Congreve's style, or whether 
 at the time of its first appearance Collier's attacks, of 
 which anon, had already disgusted the public with the 
 obscenity and immorality of this writer, I do not know : 
 but, whatever the cause, the consequence was that Mr. 
 William Congreve, in a fit of pique, made up his mind 
 never to write another piece for the stage — a wise reso- 
 lution, perhaps — and to turn fine gentleman instead. 
 With the exception of composing a masque called the 
 "Judgment of Paris," and an opera, " Gemele," which 
 was never performed, he kept this resolution very hon- 
 
184 JEEEMY COLLIER 
 
 estly ; and so Mr. William Congreve's career as a 
 playwright ends at the early age of thirty. 
 
 Bat though he abandoned the drama, he was not 
 allowed to retire in peace. There was a certain worthy, 
 but jseppery little man, who, though a Jacobite and a 
 clergyman, was staunch and true, and as superior in 
 character — even, indeed, in vigor of writing — to Con- 
 greve, as Somers was to every man of his age. This 
 very Jeremy Collier, to whom we owe it that there is 
 any English drama fit to be acted before our sisters and 
 wives in the present day, Jeremy, the peppery, purged 
 the stage in a succession of Jeremiads. 
 
 Born in 1650, educated at Cambridge as a poor 
 scholar, ordained at the age of twenty-six, presented 
 three years later with the living of Ampton, near Bury 
 St. Edmunds, Jeremy had two qualities to recommend 
 him to Englishmen — respectability and pluck. In an 
 age when the clergy were as bad as the blackest sheep 
 in their flocks, Jeremy was distinguished by purity of 
 life ; in an age when the only safety lay in adopting 
 the principles of the Vicar of Bray, Jeremy was a 
 Nonjuror, and of this nothing could cure him. The 
 Revolution of 1688 was scarcely eifected, when the 
 fiery little partisan published a pamphlet, which was 
 rewarded by a residence of some months in Newgate, 
 not in capacity of chaplain. But he was scarcely let 
 out, when again went his furious pen, and for four 
 years he continued to assail the new government, till 
 his hands were shackled and his mouth closed in the 
 
THE IMMOEALITY OF THE STAGE. 185 
 
 pi'ison of " The Gate-liouse. " Now, see the character 
 of the man. He was liberated upon giving bail, 
 but had no sooner reflected on this liberation than 
 he came to the conclusion that it was wrong, by offer- 
 ing security, to recognize the authority of magistrates 
 appointed by a usurper, as he held William to be, and 
 voluntarily surrendered himself to his judges. Of 
 course he was again committed, but this time to the 
 King's Bench, and would doubtless in a few years 
 have made the tour of the London prisons, if his 
 enemies had not been tired of trying him. Once 
 more at liberty, he passed the next three years in 
 retirement. 
 
 After 1693, Jeremy Collier's name was not brought 
 before the public till 1696, when he publicly absolved 
 Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins, at their 
 execution for being concerned in a plot to assassinate 
 King William. His "Essays on Moral Subjects" 
 were published in 1697; 2d vol., 1705; 3d vol., 
 1709. But the only way to put out a firebrand like 
 this is to let it alone, and Jeremy, being no longer 
 persecuted, began, at last, to think the game was 
 grown stupid, and gave it up. He was a well-mean- 
 ing man, however, and as long as he had the luxury 
 of a grievance would injure no one. 
 
 He found one now in the immorality of his age, and 
 if he had left politics to themselves from the first, he 
 might have done much more good than he did. Against 
 the vices of a court and courtly circles it was useless to 
 
186 HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE. 
 
 start a crusade single-handed ; but Ms quaint clever 
 pen might yet dress out a powerful Jeremiad against 
 those who encouraged the licentiousness of the people. 
 Jeremy was no Puritan, for he was a Nonjuror and a 
 Jacobite, and we may therefore believe that the cause 
 was a good one, when we find him adopting precisely 
 the same line as the Puritans had done before him. 
 In 1698 he published, to the disgust of all Drury and 
 Lincoln's Inn, his " Short View of the Immorality and 
 Profaneness of the English Stage, together with the 
 Sense of Antiquity upon this Argument." 
 
 While the King of Naples is supplying his ancient 
 Venuses with gowns, and putting his Marses and Her- 
 culeses into pantaloons, there are — such are the varie- 
 ties of opinion — respectable men in this country who 
 call Paul de Kock the greatest moral writer of his 
 age, and who would yet like to see " The Relapse," 
 "Love for Love," and the choice specimens of 
 Wycherley, Farquhar, and even of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, acted at the Princess's and the Haymarket 
 in the year of grace 1860. I am not writing "A 
 Short View " of this or any other moral subject ; but 
 this I must say — the effect of a sight or sound on a 
 human being's silly little passions must of necessity 
 be relative. Staid people read "Don Juan," Lewis's 
 "Monk," the plays of Congreve, and any or all of the 
 publications of Holywell Street, without more than 
 disgust at their obscenity and admiration for their 
 beauties. But could we be pardoned for putting these 
 
VEEY IMPKOPEE THINGS. 187 
 
 works into the hands of "sweet seventeen," or mak- 
 ing Christmas presents of them to our boys? Ignor- 
 ance of evil is, to a certain extent, virtue : let boys be 
 boys in purity of mind as long as they can : let the 
 unrefined " great unwashed " be treated also much in 
 the same way as young people. I maintain that to a 
 coarse mind all improper ideas, however beautifully 
 clothed, suggest only sensual thoughts — nay, the very 
 modesty of the garments makes them the more insid- 
 ious — the more dangerous. I would rather give my 
 boy John, Massinger, or Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 whose very improper things " are called by their prop- 
 er names," than let him dive in the prurient innuendo 
 of these later writers. 
 
 But there is no need to argue the question — the 
 public has decided it long since, and, except in indel- 
 icate ballets, and occasional rather French passages in 
 farce, our modern stage is free from immorality. Even 
 in Garrick's days, when men were not much more re- 
 fined than in those of Queen Anne, it was found im- 
 possible to put the old drama on the stage without con- 
 siderable weeding. Indeed I doubt if even the liberal 
 upholder of Paul de Kock would call Congreve a moral 
 writer ; but I confess I am not a competent judge, for 
 risum teneatis, my critics, I have not read his works 
 since I was a boy, and what is more, I have no inten- 
 tion of reading them. I well remember getting into 
 my hands a large thick volume, adorned with miser- 
 able woodcuts, and bearing on its back the title 
 
188 CONGKEVE'S WRITINGS. 
 
 " Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar." 
 I devoured it at first with the same avidity with 
 which one might welcome a bottle-imp, who at the 
 hour of one's dulness turned up out of the carpet and 
 oiFered you delights new and old for nothing but a 
 tether on your soul : and with a like horror, boy 
 though I was, I recoiled from it when any better 
 moment came. It seemed to me, when I read this 
 book, as if life were too rotten for any belief, a nest 
 of sharpers, adulterers, cut-throats, and prostitutes. 
 There was none — as far as I remember — of that 
 amiable weakness, of that better sentiment, which 
 in Ben Jonson or Massinger reconcile us to human 
 nature. If truth be a test of genius, it must be a 
 proof of true poetry that man is not made uglier 
 than he is. Nay, his very ugliness loses its inten- 
 sity and falls upon our diseased tastes, for want of 
 some goodness, some purity and honesty to relieve it. 
 I will not say that there is none of this in Congreve. 
 I only know, that my recollection of his plays is like 
 that of a vile nightmare, which I would not for any- 
 thing have return to me. I have read, since, books as 
 bad, perhaps worse in some respects, but I have found 
 the redemption here and there. I would no more 
 place Shandy in any boy's hands than Congreve 
 and Farquhar ; and yet I can read Tristram again 
 and again with delight ; for amid all that is bad there 
 stand out Trim and Toby, pure specimens of the best 
 side of human nature, coming home to us and telling 
 
PEOMISCUOUS ATTACKS. 189 
 
 US that the world is not all bad. There may be such 
 touches in "Love for Love," or "The Way of the 
 World" — I know not and care not. To my remem- 
 brance Congreve is but a horrible nightmare, and may 
 the fates forbid I should be forced to go through his 
 plays again. 
 
 Perhaps, then, Jeremy was not far wrong, when he 
 attacked these specimens of the drama with an unre- 
 lenting Nemesis ; but he was not before his age. It 
 was less the obvious coarseness of these productions 
 with which he found fault than their demoralizing ten- 
 dency in a direction which we should now, perhaps, 
 consider innocuous. Certainly the Jeremiad overdid 
 it, and like a swift, but not straight bowler at cricket, 
 he sent balls which no wicket-keeper could stop, and 
 which, therefore, were harmless to the batter. He did 
 not want boldness. He attacked Dryden, now close 
 upon his grave ; Congreve, a young man ; Vanbrugh, 
 Cibber, Farquhar, and the rest, all alive, all in the 
 zenith of their fame, and all as popular as writers could 
 be. It was as much as if a man should stand up to- 
 day and denounce Dickens and Thackeray, with the 
 exception that well-meaning people went along with 
 Jeremy, whereas very few would do more than smile at 
 the zeal of any one who tilted against our modern pets. 
 Jeremy, no doubt, was bold, but he wanted tact, and 
 so gave his enemy occasion to blaspheme. He made 
 out cases where there were none, and let alone what we 
 moderns should denounce. So Congreve took up the 
 
190 JEREMY'S "SHORT VIEWS." 
 
 cudgels against him with much wit and much coarse- 
 ness, and the two fought out the battle in many a 
 pamphlet and many a letter. But Jeremy was not to 
 be beaten. His " Short View " was followed by "A 
 Defence of the Short View," a " Second Defence of the 
 Short View," " A Farther Short View," and, in short, 
 a number of "Short Views," which had been better 
 merged into one "Long Sight." Jeremy grew coarse 
 and bitter ; Congreve coarser and bitterer ; and the 
 whole controversy made a pretty chapter for the " Quar- 
 rels of Authors." But the Jeremiad triumphed in the 
 long run, because, if its method was bad, its cause was 
 good, and a succeeding generation voted Congreve im- 
 moral. Enough of Jeremy. We owe him a tribute 
 for his pluck, and though no one reads him in the 
 present day, we may be thankful to him for having led 
 the way to a better state of things.' 
 
 Congreve defended himself in eight letters addressed 
 to Mr. Moyle, and we can only say of them, that, if 
 anything, they are yet coarser than the plays he would 
 excuse. 
 
 The works of the young Templar, and his connection 
 with Betterton, introduced him to all the writers and 
 wits of his day. He and Vanbrugh, though rivals, 
 were fellow-workers, and our glorious Haymarket 
 Theatre, which has gone on at times when Drury and 
 Covent Garden have been in despair, owes its origin 
 
 ' Dryden, in the Preface to his Fables, acknowledged that Collier 
 "had, in many points, taxed him justly." 
 
DKYDEN'S DEATH. 191 
 
 to their confederacy. But Vanbrugh's theatre was 
 on the site of the present Opera House, and the Hay- 
 market was set up as a rival concern. Vanbrugh's 
 was built in 1705, and met the usual fate of theatres, 
 being burnt down some eighty-four years after. It is 
 curious enough that this house, destined for the " legit- 
 imate drama" — often a very illegitimate performance 
 — was opened by an opera set to Italian music, so that 
 "Her Majesty's" has not much departed from the 
 original cast of the place. 
 
 Perhaps Congreve's best friend was Dryden. This 
 man's life and death are pretty well known, and even 
 his funeral has been described time and again. But 
 Corinna — as she was styled — gave of the latter an ac- 
 count which has been called romantic, and much dis- 
 credited. There is a deal of characteristic humor in 
 her story of the funeral, and as it has long been lost 
 sight of, it may not be unpalatable here : Dryden died 
 on May-day, 1701, and Lord Halifax ^ undertook to 
 give his body a, private funeral in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 " On the Saturday following," writes Corinna, " the 
 Company came. The Corps was put into a Velvet 
 Hearse, and eighteen Mourning Coaches filled with 
 Company attending. When, just before they began 
 to move. Lord Jeffreys,^ with some of his rakish Com- 
 
 ^ Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax. Lord Halifax was born in 
 1661, and died in 1715. He was called " Mouse Montagu." 
 
 ' Son of Judge Jeffries : satirized by Pope under the name 
 "Bufo." 
 
192 DRYDEN'S FUNEEAL. 
 
 panions, coming by, in Wine, ask'd whose Funeral? 
 And being told ; ' What !' cries he, ' shall Dryden, the 
 greatest Honor and Ornament of the Nation, be buried 
 after this private Manner ? No, Gentlemen ! let all 
 that lov'd Mr. Dryden, and honor his Memory, alight, 
 and join with me in gaining my Lady's Consent, to 
 let me have the Honor of his Interment, which shall 
 be after another manner than this, and I will bestow 
 XIOOO on a Monument in the Abbey for him.' The 
 Gentlemen in the Coaches, not knowing of the Bishop 
 of Rochester's Favor, nor of Lord Halifax's generous 
 Design (these two noble Spirits having, out of Respect 
 to the Family, enjoin'd Lady Elsabeth and her Son to 
 keep their Favor concealed to the World, and let it 
 pass for her own Expense), readily came out of the 
 Coaches, and attended Lord Jeffreys up to the Lady's 
 Bedside, who was then sick. He repeated the purport 
 of what he had before said, but she absolutely refusing, 
 he fejl on his knees, vowing never to rise till his request 
 was granted. The rest of the Company, by his Desire, 
 kneeled also ; she being naturally of a timorous Dis- 
 position, and then under a sudden surprise, fainted 
 away. As soon as she recover'd her Speech, she 
 cry'd, 'No, no!' 'Enough, gentlemen,' reply'd he 
 (rising briskly), ' My Lady is very good, she says, 
 Go, go !' She repeated her former Words with all 
 her Strength, but alas in vain ! her feeble voice was 
 lost in their Acclamations of Joy ! and Lord Jeffreys 
 ordered the Hearseman to carry the Corps to Russell's, 
 
WHAT CAME OF A "DRUNKEN FROLIC." 193 
 
 an undertaker in Cheapside, and leave it there, till he 
 sent orders for the Embalment, which, he added, should 
 be after the Royal Manner. His Directions were 
 obey'd, the Company dispersed, and Lady Elsabeth 
 and Mr. Charles remained Inconsolable. Next Morn- 
 ing Mr. Charles waited on Lord Halifax, etc., to ex- 
 cuse his Mother and self, by relating the real Truth. 
 Eut neither his Lordship nor the Bishop would admit 
 of any Plea ; especially the latter, who had the Abbey 
 lighted, the ground open'd, the Choir attending, an 
 Anthem ready set, and himself waiting for some Hours, 
 without any Corps to bury. Russell, after three days' 
 Expectance of Orders for Embalment, without receiv- 
 ing any, waits on Lord Jeffreys, who, pretending Ig- 
 norance of the Matter, turn'd it off with an ill-natured 
 Jest, saying, ' Those who observed the orders of a 
 drunken Frolick, deserved no better ; that he re- 
 membered nothing at all of it, and he might do what 
 he pleased with the Corps.' On this Mr. Russell waits 
 on Lady Elsabeth and Mr. Dryden ; but alas, it was 
 not in their power to answer. The season was very 
 hot, the Deceas'd had liv'd high and fast ; and being 
 corpulent, and abounding with gross Humors, grew 
 very offensive. The Undertaker, in short, threat- 
 en'd to bring home the Corps, and set it before the 
 Door. It cannot be easily imagin'd what grief, shame, 
 and confusion seized this unhappy Family. They 
 begged a Day's Respite, which was granted. Mr. 
 Charles wrote a very handsome Letter to Lord Jef- 
 
 VoL. I.— 13 
 
194 A TUB-PKEACHER. 
 
 freys, who returned it with this cool Answer, ' He 
 knew nothing of the Matter, and would be troubled 
 no more about it.' He then addressed the Lord Hali- 
 fax and Bishop of Rochester, who were both too justly 
 tho' unhappily incensed, to do anything in it. In this 
 extream distress. Dr. Garth, a man who entirely lov'd 
 Mr. Dryden, and was withal a Man of Generosity and 
 great Humanity, sends for the Corps to the College of 
 Physicians in Warwick Lane, and proposed a Funeral 
 by Subscription, to which himself set a most noble 
 example. Mr. Wycherley, and several others, among 
 whom must not be forgotten Henry Cromwell, Esq., 
 Captain Gibbons, and Mr. Christopher Metcalfe, Mr. 
 Dryden's Apothecary and intimate Friend (since a Col- 
 legiate Physician), who with many others contributed 
 most largely to the Subscription ; and at last a Day, 
 about three weeks after his Decease, was appointed for 
 the Interment at the Abbey. Dr. Garth pronounced a 
 fine Latin Oration over the Corps at the College ; but 
 the Audience being numerous, and the Room large, it 
 was requisite the Orator should be elevated, that he 
 might be heard. But as it unluckily happen'd there was 
 nothing at hand but an old Beer-Barrel, which the Doc- 
 tor with much good-nature mounted ; and in the midst of 
 his Oration, beating Time to the Accent with his Foot, 
 the Head broke in, and his Feet sunk to the Bottom, 
 which occasioned the malicious Report of his Enemies, 
 ' That he was turned a Tub-Preacher.' However, he 
 finished the Oration with a superior grace and genius, 
 
A MOB IN THE ABBEY. 195 
 
 to the loud Acclamations of Mirth, which inspir'd the 
 mix'd or rather Mob-Auditors. The Procession began 
 to move, a numerous Train of Coaches attended the 
 Hearse : But, good God ! in what Disorder can only 
 be express'd by a Sixpenny Pamphlet, soon after pub- 
 lished, entitled ' Dry den's Funeral.' At last the Corps 
 arrived at the Abbey, which was all unlighted. No 
 Organ played, no Anthem sung ; only two of the Sing- 
 ing boys preceded the Corps, who sung an Ode of Hor- 
 ace, with each a small candle in their Hand. The 
 Butchers and other Mob broke in like a Deluge, so 
 that only about eight or ten Gentlemen could gain 
 Admission, and those forced to cut the "Way with their 
 drawn Swords. The Coffin in this Disorder was let 
 down into Chaucer's Grave, with as much confusion, 
 and as little Ceremony, as was possible ; every one 
 glad to save themselves from the Gentlemen's Swords, 
 or the Clubs of the Mob. When the Funeral was 
 over, Mr. Charles sent a Challenge to Lord Jeffreys, 
 who refusing to answer it, he sent several others, and 
 went often himself, but could neither get a Letter de- 
 liver'd, nor Admittance to speak to him, that he re- 
 solved, since his Lordship refused to answer him like 
 a Gentleman, he would watch an Opportunity to meet 
 him, and fight ofi-hand, tho' with all the Rules of 
 Honor ; which his Lordship hearing, left the Town, 
 and Mr. Charles could never have the satisfaction to 
 meet him, tho' he sought it till his death with the 
 utmost Application." 
 
196 DRYDEN'S SOLICITUDE FOR HIS SON. 
 
 Dryden was, perhaps, the last man of learning that 
 believed in astrology ; though an eminent English au- 
 thor, now living, and celebrated for the variety of his 
 acquirements, has been known to procure the casting 
 of horoscopes, and to consult a noted " astrologer," 
 who gives opinions for a small sum. The coincidences 
 of prophecy are not more remarkable than those of 
 star-telling ; and Dryden and the author I have re- 
 ferred to were probably both captivated into belief by 
 some fatuitous realization of their horoscopic predictions. 
 Nor can we altogether blame their credulity, when we 
 see biology, table-turning, rapping, and all the family 
 of imposture, taken up seriously in our own time. 
 
 On the birth of his son Charles, Dryden immedi- 
 ately cast his horoscope. The following account of 
 Dryden's paternal solicitude for his son, and its result, 
 may be taken as embellished, if not apocryphal. Evil 
 hour, indeed — Jupiter, Venus, and the Sun were all 
 " under the earth ;" Mars and Saturn were in square : 
 eight, or a multiple of it, would be fatal to the child — 
 the square foretold it. In his eighth, his twenty-third, 
 or his thirty-second year, he was certain to die, though 
 he might possibly linger on to the age of thirty-four. 
 The stars did all they could to keep up their reputa- 
 tion. When the boy was eight years old he nearly 
 lost his life by being buried under a heap of stones out 
 of an old wall, knocked down by a stag and hounds in 
 a hunt. But the stars were not to be beaten, and 
 though the child recovered, went in for the game a 
 
CONGEE VE'S AMBITION. 197 
 
 second time in his twenty-third year, when he fell, in 
 a fit of giddiness, from a tower, and, to use Lady Elsa- 
 beth's words, was "mash'd to a mummy." Still the 
 battle was not over, and the mummy returned in due 
 course to its human form, though considerably dis- 
 figured. Mars and Saturn were naturally disgusted 
 at his recovery, and resolved to finish the disobedient 
 youth. As we have seen, he in vain sought his fate at 
 the hand of Jeffreys ; but we must conclude that the 
 offended constellations took Neptune in partnership, 
 for in due course the youth met with a watery grave. 
 
 After abandoning the drama, Congreve appears to 
 have come out in the light of an independent gentle- 
 man. He was already sufficiently introduced into liter- 
 ary society ; Pope, Steele, Swift, and Addison were not 
 only his friends but his admirers, and we can well be- 
 lieve that their admiration was considerable, when we 
 find the one dedicating his " Miscellany," the other his 
 translation of the "Iliad," to a man who was qualified 
 neither by rank nor fortune to play Maecenas. 
 
 At what time he was admitted to the Kit-kat I am 
 not in a position to state, but it must have been after 
 1715, and by that time he was a middle-aged man ; his 
 fame was long since achieved ; and whatever might be 
 thought of his works and his controversy with Collier, 
 he was recognized as one of the literary stars at a 
 period when the great courted the clever, and wit was 
 a passport to any society. Congreve had plenty of 
 that, and probably at the Kit-kat was the life of the 
 
198 ANECDOTE OF VOLTAIKE AND CONGREVE. 
 
 party when Vanbrugli was away or Addison in a 
 graver mood. Untroubled by conscience, he could 
 launch out on any subject whatever ; and his early life, 
 spent in that species of so-called gayety which was then 
 the routine of every young man of the world, gave him 
 ample experience to draw upon. But Congreve's am- 
 bition was greater than his talents. No man so little 
 knew his real value, or so grossly asserted one which 
 he had not. Gay, handsome, and in good circum- 
 stances, he aspired to be, not Congreve the poet, not 
 Congreve the wit, not Congreve the man of mind, but 
 simply Congreve the fine gentleman. Such humility 
 would be charming if it were not absurd. It is a vice 
 of scribes to seek a character for which they have little 
 claim. Moore loved to be thought a diner-out rather 
 than a poet ; even Byron affected the fast man when 
 he might have been content with the name of " genius ;" 
 but Congreve went farther, and was ashamed of being 
 poet, dramatist, genius, or what you will. An anec- 
 dote of him, told by Voltaire, who may have been an 
 " awfu' liar," but had no temptation to invent in such 
 a case as this, is so consistent with what we gather of 
 the man's character, that one cannot but think it is 
 true. 
 
 The philosopher of Ferney was anxious to see and 
 converse with a brother dramatist of such celebrity as 
 the author of " The Way of the World." He expected 
 to find a man of a keen satirical mind, who would join 
 him in a laugh against humanity. He visited Con- 
 
AUTHOESIIIP AS A PROFESSION. 199 
 
 greve, and naturally began to talk of his works. The 
 fine gentleman spoke of them as trifles utterly beneath 
 his notice, and told him, with an affectation which per- 
 haps was sincere, that he wished to be visited as a gen- 
 tleman, not as an author. One can imagine the dis- 
 gust of his brother dramatist. Voltaire replied, that 
 had Mr. Congreve been nothing more than a gentleman, 
 he should not have taken the trouble to call on him, 
 and therewith retired with an expression of merited 
 contempt. 
 
 It is only in the present day that authorship is 
 looked upon as a profession, though it has long been 
 one. It is amusing to listen to the sneers of men who 
 never wrote a book, or who, having written, have 
 gained thereby some more valuable advantage than 
 the publisher's cheque. The men who talk with hor- 
 ror of writing for money, are glad enough if their works 
 introduce them to the notice of the influential, and aid 
 them in procuring a place. In the same way, Congreve 
 was not at all ashamed of fulsome dedications, which 
 brought him the favor of the great. Yet we may ask, 
 if, the laborer being worthy of his hire, and the labor 
 of the brain being the highest, finest, and most ex- 
 hausting that can be, the man who straightforwardly 
 and without affectation takes guineas from his publisher, 
 is not honester than he who counts upon an indirect 
 reward for his toil ? Fortunately, the question is 
 almost settled by the example of the first writers of 
 the present day ; but there are still people who think 
 
200 THE PROFESSION OP MiECENAS. 
 
 that one should sit down to a year's — ay, ten years' — 
 hard mental work, and expect no return but fame. 
 Whether such objectors have always private means to 
 return to, or whether they have never known what it 
 is to write a book, we do not care to examine, but they 
 are to be found in large numbers among the educated ; 
 and indeed, to this present day, it is held by some 
 among the upper classes to be utterly derogatory to 
 write for money. 
 
 Whether this was the feeling in Congreve's day or 
 not is not now the question. Those were glorious days 
 for an author, who did not mind playing the sycophant 
 a little. Instead of having to trudge from door to 
 door in Paternoster Row, humbly requesting an inter- 
 view, which is not always granted — instead of sending 
 that heavy parcel of MS., which costs you a fortune 
 for postage, to publisher after publisher, till it is so 
 often "returned with thanks " that you hate the very 
 sight of it, the young author of those days had a much 
 easier and more comfortable part to play. An intro- 
 duction to an influential man in town, who again would 
 introduce you to a patron, was all that was necessary. 
 The profession of Maecenas was then as recognized and 
 established as that of doctor or lawyer. A man of 
 money could always buy brains ; and most noblemen 
 considered an author to be as necessary a part of his 
 establishment as the footmen who ushered them into 
 my Lord's presence. A fulsome dedication in the 
 largest type was all that he asked : and if a writer 
 
ADVANTAGES OP A PATRON. 201 
 
 were sufficiently profuse in his adulation, he might 
 dine at Maecenas' table, drink his sack and canary 
 without stint, and apply to him for cash whenever he 
 found his pockets empty. Nor was this all : if a 
 writer were sufficiently successful in his works to re- 
 flect honor on his patron, he was eagerly courted by 
 others of the noble profession. He was offered, if not 
 hard cash, as good an equivalent, in the shape of a 
 comfortable government sinecure ; and if this was not 
 to be had, he was sometimes even lodged and boarded 
 by his obliged dedicatee. In this way he was intro- 
 duced into the highest society ; and if he had wit 
 enough to support the character, he soon found himself 
 facile princeps in a circle of the highest nobility in 
 the land. Thus it is that in the clubs of the day we 
 find title and wealth mingling with wit and genius ; 
 and the writer who had begun life by a cringing dedi- 
 cation, was now rewarded by the devotion and assiduity 
 of the men he had once flattered. When Steele, Swift, 
 Addison, Pope, and Congreve were the kings of their 
 sets, it was time for authors to look and talk big. 
 Eheu ! those happy days are gone ! 
 
 Our dramatist, therefore, soon discovered that a good 
 play was the key to a good place, and the Whigs took 
 care that he should have it. Oddly enough, when the 
 Tories came in they did not turn him out. Perhaps 
 they wanted to gain him over to themselves ; perhaps, 
 like the Vicar of Bray, he did not mind turning his 
 coat once or twice in a lifetime. However this may 
 
202 CONGEEVE'S PEIVATE LIFE. 
 
 be, he managed to keep his appointment without of- 
 fending his own party ; and when the latter returned 
 to power, he even induced them to give him a com- 
 fortable little sinecure, which went by the name of 
 Secretary to the Island of Jamaica, and raised the 
 income from his appointments to £1200 a year. 
 
 From this period he was little before the public. 
 He could afford now to indulge his natural indolence 
 and selfishness. His private life was perhaps not 
 worse than that of the majority of his contemporaries. 
 He had his intrigues, his mistresses, the same love of 
 wine, and the same addiction to gluttony. He had the 
 reputation of a wit, and with wits he passed his time, 
 sufficiently easy in his circumstances to feel no damp- 
 ing to his spirits in the cares of this life. The Island 
 of Jamaica probably gave him no further trouble than 
 that of signing a few papers from time to time, and 
 giving a receipt for his salary. His life, therefore, 
 presents no very remarkable feature, and he is hence- 
 forth known more on account of his friends than for 
 aught he may himself have done. The best of these 
 friends was Walter Moyle, the scholar, who translated 
 parts of Lucian and Xenophon, and was pretty well 
 known as a classic. He was a Cornish man of inde- 
 pendent means, and it was to him that Congreve ad- 
 dressed the letters in which he attempted to defend 
 himself from the attacks of Collier. 
 
 It was not to be expected that a wit and a poet 
 should go through life without a platonic, and accord- 
 
"MALBROOK'S" DAUGHTER. 203 
 
 ingly we find our man not only attached, but devoted 
 to a lady of great distinction. This was no other than 
 Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, the daughter of 
 " Malbrook " himself, and of the famous " Queen 
 Sarah." Henrietta was the eldest daughter, and there 
 was no son to inherit the prowess of Churchill and the 
 parsimony of his wife. The nation — to which, by the 
 way, the Marlboroughs were never grateful — would 
 not allow the title of their pet warrior to become ex- 
 tinct, and a special Act of Parliament gave to the 
 eldest daughter the honors of the duchy.' The two 
 Duchesses of Marlborough hated each other cordially. 
 Sarah's temper was probably the main cause of their 
 bickering ; but there is never a feud between pa- 
 rent and child in which both are not more or less 
 blameable. 
 
 The Duchess Henrietta conceived a violent fancy 
 for the wit and poet, and whatever her husband. Lord 
 Godolphin, may have thought of it, the connection 
 ripened into a most intimate friendship, so much so 
 that Congreve made the duchess not only his execu- 
 trix, but the sole residuary legatee of all his property.' 
 His will gives us some insight into the toadying cha- 
 racter of the man. Only four near relations are men- 
 tioned as legatees, and only ^540 is divided among 
 them ; whereas, after leaving £200 to Mrs. Brace- 
 
 ' See Burke's " Peerage." 
 
 ' The Duchess of Marlborough received £10,000 by Mr. Con- 
 greve's will. 
 
204 LEGACIES TO TITLED FRIENDS. 
 
 girdle, the actress ; ^100, " and all my apparel and 
 linnen of all sorts " to a Mrs. Rooke, he divides the 
 rest between his friends of the nobility, Lords Cob- 
 ham and Shannon, the Duchess of Newcastle, Lady 
 Mary Godolphin, Colonel Churchill (who receives 
 " twenty pounds, together with my gold-headed 
 cane"), and, lastly, "to the poor of the parish" the 
 magnificent sum of ten pounds. " Blessed are those 
 who give to the rich ;" these words must surely have 
 expressed the sentiment of the worldly Congreve. 
 
 However, Congreve got something in return from 
 the Duchess Henrietta, which he might not have re- 
 ceived from "the poor of the parish," to wit, a monu- 
 ment, and an inscription on it written by her own 
 hand. I have already said what "Queen Sarah" 
 thought of the latter, and, for the rest, those who 
 care to read the nonsense on the walls of Westmin- 
 ster Abbey can decide for themselves as to the honor 
 the poet received from his titled friend. 
 
 The latter days of William Congreve w^ere passed 
 in wit and gout : the wine, which warmed the one, 
 probably brought on the latter. After a course of 
 ass's milk, which does not seem to have done him 
 much good, the ex-dramatist retired to Bath, a very 
 fashionable place for departing life in, under easy and 
 elegant circumstances. But he not only drank of the 
 springs beloved of King Bladud, of apocryphal mem- 
 ory, but even went so far as to imbibe the snail-water, 
 which was then the last species of quack cure in vogue. 
 
CONGEEVE'S DEATH AND BURIAL. 205 
 
 This, probably, despatched him. But it is only just 
 to that disagreeable little reptile that infests our gar- 
 dens, and whose slime was supposed to possess pecu- 
 liarly strengthening properties, to state that his death 
 was materially hastened by being overturned when 
 driving in his chariot. He was close upon sixty, had 
 long been blind from cataracts in his eyes, and as he 
 was no longer either useful or ornamental to the world 
 in general, he could perhaps be spared. He died soon 
 after this accident in January, 1729. He had the 
 sense to die at a time when Westminster Abbey, 
 being regarded as a mausoleum, was open to receive 
 the corpse of any one who had a little distinguished 
 himself, and even of some who had no distinction 
 whatever. He was buried there with great pomp, 
 and his dear duchess set up his monument. So much 
 for his body. What became of the soul of a disso- 
 lute, vain, witty, and unprincipled man, is no con- 
 cern of ours. Requiescat in pace, if there is any 
 peace for those who are buried in Westminster 
 Abbey. 
 
BEAU NASH. 
 
 There is notliing new under the sun, said Walpole, 
 by way of a very original remark. " No," whispered 
 George Selwyn, " nor under the grandson, either." 
 
 Mankind, as a body, has proved its silliness in a 
 thousand ways, but in none, perhaps, so ludicrously as 
 in its respect for a man's coat. He is not always a 
 fool that knows the value of dress ; and some of the 
 wisest and greatest of men have been dandies of the 
 first water. King Solomon was one, and Alexander 
 the Great was another ; but there never was a more 
 despotic monarch, nor one more humbly obeyed by 
 his subjects, than the King of Bath, and he won his 
 dominions by the cut of his coat. But as Hercules 
 was killed by a dress-shirt, so the beaux of the modern 
 world have generally ruined themselves by their ward- 
 robes, and brought remorse to their hearts, or contempt 
 from the very people who once worshipped them. The 
 husband of Mrs. Damer, who appeared in a new suit 
 twice a-day, and whose wardrobe sold for ,£15,000, 
 blew his brains out at a coifee-house. Beau Fielding, 
 Beau Nash, and Beau Brummell all expiated their con- 
 temptible vanity in obscure old age of want and 
 misery. As the world is full of folly, the history of a 
 
 206 
 

NASH'S BIRTHPLACE AND FATHER. 207 
 
 fool is as good a mirror to hold up to it as another ; but 
 in the case of Beau Nash the only question is, whether 
 he or his subjects -were the greater fools. So now for 
 a picture of as much folly as could •well be crammed 
 into that hot basin in the Somersetshire hills, of which 
 more anon. 
 
 It is a hard thing for a man not to have had a father 
 — harder still, like poor Savage, to have one whom he 
 cannot get hold of; but perhaps it is hardest of all, 
 when you have a father, and that parent a very re- 
 spectable man, to be told that you never had one. 
 This was Nash's case, and his father was so little 
 known, and so seldom mentioned, that the splendid 
 Beau was thought almost to have dropped from the 
 clouds, ready dressed and powdered. He dropped in 
 reality from anything but a heavenly place — the ship- 
 ping town of Swansea : so that Wales can claim the 
 honor of having produced the finest beau of his age. 
 
 Old Nash was, perhaps, a better gentleman than his 
 son ; but with far less pretension. He was a partner 
 in a glass-manufactory. The Beau, in after years, 
 often got rallied on the inferiority of his origin, and 
 the least obnoxious answer he ever made was to Sarah 
 of Marlborough, as rude a creature as himself, who 
 told him he was ashamed of his parentage. "No, 
 madam," replied the King of Bath, " I seldom men- 
 tion my father in company, not because I have any 
 reason to be ashamed of him, but because he has some 
 reason to be ashamed of me." Nash, though a fop 
 
208 OLD NASH. 
 
 and a fool, was not a bad-hearted man, as we shall see. 
 And if there were no other redeeming point in his 
 character, it is a great deal to say for him, that in an 
 age of toadyism, he treated rank in the same manner 
 as he did the want of it, and did his best to remove 
 the odious distinctions which pride would have kept 
 up in his dominions. In fact, King Nash may be 
 thanked for having, by his energy in this respect, in- 
 troduced into society the first elements of that middle 
 class which is found alone in England. 
 
 Old Nash — whose wife, by the way, was niece to 
 that Colonel Poyer who defended Pembroke Castle in 
 the days of the first Revolution — was one of those silly 
 men who want to make gentlemen of their sons, rather 
 than good men. He had his wish. His son Richard 
 was a very fine gentleman, no doubt ; but, unfortu- 
 nately, the same circumstances that raised him to that 
 much coveted position, also made him a gambler and a 
 profligate. Oh ! foolish papas, when will you learn 
 that a Christian snob is worth ten thousand irreligious 
 gentlemen ? When will you be content to bring up 
 your boys for heaven rather than for the brilliant 
 world ? Nash, senior, sent his son first to school and 
 then to Oxford, to be made a gentleman of. Richard 
 was entered at Jesus College, the haunt of the Welsh. 
 In my day, this quiet little place was celebrated for 
 little more than the humble poverty of its members, 
 one-third of whom rejoiced in the cognomen of Jones. 
 They were not renowned for cleanliness, and it was a 
 
NASH AT OXPOBD. 209 
 
 standing joke with us silly boys, to ask at the door for 
 " that Mr. Jones who had a tooth-brush." If the col- 
 lege had the same character then, Nash must have 
 astonished its dons, and we are not" surprised that in 
 his first year they thought it better to get rid of 
 him. 
 
 His father could ill afford to keep him at Oxford, 
 and fondly hoped he would distinguish himself " My 
 boy Dick " did so at the very outset, by an offer of 
 marriage to one of those charming sylphs of that aca- 
 demical city, who are always on the look-out for cred- 
 ulous undergraduates. The affair was discovered, and 
 Master Richard, who was not seventeen, was removed 
 from the University.^ Whether he ever, in after-life, 
 made another offer, I know not, but there is no doubt 
 that he ought to have been married, and that the con- 
 nections he formed in later years were far more dis- 
 reputable than his first love-affairs. 
 
 The worthy glass manufacturer, having failed to 
 make his son a gentleman in one way, took the best 
 step to make him a blackguard, and, in spite of the 
 wild inclinations he had already evinced, bought him 
 a commission in the army. In this new position the 
 incipient Beau did everything but his duty ; dressed 
 superbly, but would not be in time for parade ; spent 
 more money than he had, but did not obey orders ; 
 and finally, though not expelled from the army, he 
 
 ' Warner (" History of Bath," p. 366) says, " Kash was removed 
 from Oxford by his friends.'' 
 Vol. I.— U 
 
210 SHIFTINa FOE HIMSELF. 
 
 found it convenient to sell his commission, and return 
 home, after spending the proceeds. 
 
 Papa was noAv disgusted, and sent the young Hope- 
 less to shift for himself. What could a well-disposed, 
 handsome youth do to keep body and, not soul, hut 
 clothes together ? He had but one talent, and that 
 was for dress. Alas, for our degenerate days ! When 
 we are pitched upon our own bottoms, we must work ; 
 and that is a highly ungentlemanly thing to do. But 
 in the beginning of the last century, such a degrading 
 resource was quite unnecessary. There were always 
 at hand plenty of establishments where a youth could 
 obtain the necessary funds to pay his tailor, if fortune 
 favored him ; and if not, he could follow the fashion 
 of the day, and take to what the Japanese call " the 
 Happy Despatch." Nash probably suspected that he 
 had no brains to blow out, and he determined the more 
 resolutely to made fortune his mistress. He went to 
 the gaming-table, and turned his one guinea into ten, 
 and his ten into a hundred, and was soon blazing 
 about in gold lace and a new sword, the very delight 
 of dandies. 
 
 He had entered his name, by way of excuse, at the 
 Temple, and Ave can quite believe that he ate all the 
 requisite dinners, though it is not so certain that he 
 paid for them. He soon found that a fine coat is not 
 so very far beneath a good brain in worldly estimation, 
 and when, on the accession of William the Third, the 
 Templars, according to the old custom, gave his Majes- 
 
OFFER OF KNIGHTHOOD. 211 
 
 ty a banquet, Nash, as a promising Beau, was selected 
 to manage the establishment. It was his first experi- 
 ence of the duties of an M. C, and he conducted him- 
 self so ably on this occasion that the king even offered 
 to make a knight of him. Probably Master Richard 
 thought of his empty purse, for he replied with some 
 of that assurance which afterwards stood him in such 
 good stead, " Please your Majesty, if you intend to 
 make me a knight, I wish I may be one of your poor 
 knights of Windsor, and then I shall have a fortune, 
 at least able to support my title." William did not see 
 the force of this argument, and Mr. Nash remained 
 Mr. Nash till the day of his death. He had another 
 chance of the title, however, in days when he could 
 have better maintained it, but again he refused. Queen 
 Anne once asked him why he declined knighthood. 
 He replied : " There is Sir William Read, the mounte- 
 bank, who has just been knighted, and I should have 
 to call him ' brother.' " The honor was, in fact, rather 
 a cheap one in those days, and who knows whether a 
 man who had done such signal service to his country 
 did not look forward to a peerage ? Worse men than 
 even Beau Nash have had it. 
 
 Well, Nash could afford to defy royalty, for he was 
 to be himself a monarch of all he surveyed, and a 
 good deal more ; but before we follow him to Bath, 
 let us give the devil his due — which, by the way, he 
 generally gets — and tell a pair of tales in the Beau's 
 favor. 
 
212 NASH'S GENEROSITY. 
 
 Imprimis, his accounts at the Temple were ,£10 
 deficient. Now I don't mean that Nash was not as 
 great a liar as most of his craft, but the truth of this 
 tale rests on the authority of " The Spectator," though 
 Nash took delight in repeating it. 
 
 " Come hither, young man," said the Benchers, 
 coolly: "whereunto this deficit?" 
 
 " Pri'thee, good masters," quoth Nash, " that £10 
 was spent on making a man happy." 
 
 "A man happy, young sir; pri'thee explain." 
 
 "Odds donners," quoth Nash, "the fellow said in 
 my hearing that his wife and bairns were starving, 
 and £10 would make him the happiest man sub sole, 
 and on such an occasion as his Majesty s accession, 
 could I refuse it him?" 
 
 Nash was, proverbially, more generous than just. 
 He would not pay a debt if he could help it, but 
 would give the very amount to the first friend that 
 begged it. There Avas much ostentation in this, but 
 then my friend Nash was ostentatious. One friend 
 bothered him day and night for £20 that was owing 
 to him, and he could not get it. Knowing his debtor's 
 character, he hit, at last, on a happy expedient, and 
 sent a friend to borroiv the money, " to relieve his 
 urgent necessities." Out came the bank-note, before 
 the story of distress was finished. The friend carried' 
 it to the creditor, and when the latter again met Nash 
 he ought to have made him a pretty compliment on 
 his honesty. 
 
DOING PENANCE AT YOEK. 213 
 
 Perliaps the King of Bath would not have tolerated 
 in any one else the juvenile frolics he delighted in 
 after years to relate of his own early days. When 
 at a loss for cash, he would do anything, but work, 
 for a fifty pound note, and having, in one of his trips, 
 lost all his money at York, the Beau undertook to 
 " do penance " at the minster door for that sum. He 
 accordingly arrayed himself — not in sackcloth and 
 ashes — but in an able-bodied blanket, and nothing 
 else, and took his stand at the porch, just at the hour 
 when the dean would be going in to read service. 
 " He, ho," cried that dignitary, who knew him, 
 "Mr. Nash in masquerade?" — "Only a Yorkshire 
 penance, Mr. Dean," quoth the reprobate; "for 
 keeping bad company, too," pointing therewith to 
 the friends who had come to see the sport. 
 
 This might be tolerated, but when in the eighteenth 
 century a young man emulates the hardiness of Godiva, 
 without her merciful heart, we may not think quite so 
 well of him. Mr. Richard Nash, Beau Extraordinary 
 to the Kingdom of Bath, once rode through a village 
 in that costume of which even our first parent was 
 rather ashamed, and that, too, on the back of a cow ! 
 The wager was, I believe, considerable. A young Eng- 
 lishman did something more respectable, yet quite 
 as extraordinary, at Paris, not a hundred years ago, 
 for a small bet. He was one of the stoutest, thickest- 
 built men possible, yet being but eighteen, had neither 
 whisker nor moustache to masculate his clear English 
 
214 DAYS OF FOLLY. 
 
 complexion. At the Maison Doree one night he of- 
 fered to ride in the Champs Elysdes in a lady's habit, 
 and not be mistaken for a man. A friend undertook 
 to dress him, and went all over Paris to hire a habit 
 that would fit his round figure. It was hopeless for a 
 time, but at last a good-sized body was found, and 
 added thereto, an ample skirt. F^lix dressed his hair 
 with mainte plats and a 7iet. He looked perfect, but 
 in coming out of the hairdresser's to get into his fly, 
 unconsciously pulled up his skirt and displayed a 
 sturdy pair of well-trousered legs. A crowd — there 
 is always a ready crowd in Paris — was waiting, and 
 the laugh was general. This hero reached the horse- 
 dealer's — "mounted," and rode down the Champs. 
 "A very fine woman that," said a Frenchman in 
 the promenade, "but what a back she has!" It 
 was in the return bet to this that a now well-known 
 diplomat drove a goat-chaise and six down the same 
 fashionable resort, with a monkey, dressed as a foot- 
 man, in the back seat. The days of folly did not, 
 apparently, end with Beau Nash. 
 
 There is a long lacuna in the history of this worthy's 
 life, which may have been filled up by a residence in a 
 spunging-house, or by a temporary appointment as 
 billiard-marker; but the heroic Beau accounted for 
 his disappearance at this time in a much more romantic 
 manner. He used to relate that he was once asked to 
 dinner on board of a man-of-war under orders for the 
 Mediterranean, and that such was the affection the 
 
A VERY KOM ANTIC STORY. 215 
 
 officers entertained for him, that, having made him 
 drunk — no difficult matter — they weighed anchor, set 
 sail, and carried the successor of King Bladud away 
 to the wars. Having gone so far, Nash was not the 
 man to neglect an opportunity for imaginary valor. 
 He therefore continued to relate, that, in the apocry- 
 phal vessel, he was once engaged in a yet more apocry- 
 phal encounter, and wounded in the leg. This was a 
 little too much for the good Bathonians to believe, but 
 Nash silenced their doubts. On one occasion, a lady 
 who was present when he was telling this story, ex- 
 pressed her incredulity. 
 
 " I protest, madam," cried the Beau, lifting his leg 
 up, " it is true, and if I cannot be believed, your lady- 
 ship may, if you please, receive further information and 
 feel the ball in my leg." 
 
 Wherever Nash may have passed the intervening 
 years, may be an interesting speculation for a German 
 professor, but is of little moment to us. We find him 
 again, at the age of thirty, taking first steps towards 
 the complete subjugation of the kingdom he afterwards 
 ruled. 
 
 There is, among the hills of Somersetshire, a huge 
 basin formed by the river Avon, and conveniently 
 supplied with a natural gush of hot water, which can 
 be turned on at any time for the cleansing of diseased 
 bodies. This hollow presents many curious anomalies ; 
 though sought for centuries for the sake of health, it 
 is one of the most unhealthily-situated places in the 
 
216 BATH. 
 
 kingdom ; here the body and the pocket are alike 
 cleaned out, but the spot itself has been noted for its 
 dirtiness since the days of King Bladud's wise pigs ; 
 here, again, the diseased flesh used to be healed, but 
 the healthy soul within it speedily besickened ; you 
 came to cure gout and rheumatism, and caught in ex- 
 change dice-fever. 
 
 The mention of those pigs reminds me that it would 
 be a shameful omission to speak of this city without 
 giving the story of that apocryphal British monarch, 
 King Bladud. But let me be the one exception ; let 
 me respect the good sense of the reader, and not insult 
 him by supposing him capable of believing a mythic 
 jumble of kings and pigs and dirty marshes, which he 
 will, if he cares to, find at full length in any " Bath 
 Guide " — price sixpence. 
 
 But whatever be the case with respect to the Celtic 
 sovereign, there is, I presume, no doubt, that the 
 Romans were here, and probably the centurions and 
 tribunes cast the alea in some pristine assembly-room, 
 or wagged their plumes in some well-built Pump-room, 
 with as much spirit of fashion as the full-bottomed-wig 
 exquisites in the reign of King Nash. At any rate 
 Bath has been in almost every age a common centre 
 for health-seekers and gamesters — two antipodal races 
 who always flock together — and if it has from time to 
 time declined, it has only been for a period. Saxon 
 churls and Norman lords Avere too sturdy to catch 
 much rheumatic gout ; crusaders had better things to 
 
SICKNESS AND CIVILIZATION. 217 
 
 think of than their imaginary ailments ; good health 
 was in fashion under Plantagenets and Tudors ; doc- 
 tors were not believed in ; even empirics had to praise 
 their wares with much wit, and Morrison himself must 
 have mounted a bank and dressed in Astleyian cos- 
 tume in order to find a customer ; sack and small-beer 
 were harmless when homes were not comfortable enough 
 to keep earl or churl by the fireside, and " out-of- 
 doors ' ' was the proper drawing-room for a man : in 
 short, sickness came in with civilization, indisposition 
 with immoral habits, fevers with fine gentlemanliness, 
 gout with greediness, and valetudinarianism — there is 
 no Anglo-Saxon word for that — with what we falsely 
 call refinement. So, whatever Bath may have been to 
 pampered Romans, who over-ate themselves, it had 
 little importance to the stout, healthy middle ages, and 
 it was not till the reign of Charles II. that it began to 
 look up. Doctors and touters — the two were often one 
 in those days — thronged there, and fools were found in 
 plenty to follow them. At last the blest countenance 
 of portly Anne smiled on the pig styes of King 
 Bladud. In 1703 she went to Bath, and from that 
 time "people of distinction" flocked there. The as- 
 semblage was not perhaps very brilliant or very refined. 
 The visitors danced on the green, and played privately 
 at hazard. A few sharpers found their way down 
 from London ; and at last the Duke of Beaufort in- 
 stituted an M.C. in the person of Captain Webster — 
 Nash's predecessor — whose main act of glory was in 
 
218 NASH DESCENDS UPON BATH. 
 
 setting up gambling as a public amusement. It re- 
 mained for Nash to make the place what it afterwards 
 was, when Chesterfield could lounge in the Pump-room 
 and take snuff with the Beau ; when Sarah of Marl- 
 borough, Lord and Lady Hervey, the Duke of Whar- 
 ton, Congreve, and all the little-great of the day 
 thronged thither rather to kill time with less ceremony 
 than in London, than to cure complaints more or less 
 imaginary. 
 
 The doctors were only less numerous than the 
 sharpers ; the place was still uncivilized ; the com- 
 pany smoked and lounged without etiquette, and 
 played without honor : the place itself lacked all 
 comfort, all elegance, and all cleanliness. 
 
 Upon this delightful place the avatar of the God 
 of Etiquette, personified in Mr. Richard Nash, de- 
 scended somewhere about the year 1705, for the pur- 
 pose of regenerating the barbarians. He alighted 
 just at the moment that one of the doctors we have 
 alluded to, in a fit of disgust at some slight on the 
 part of the town, was threatening to destroy its repu- 
 tation, or, as he politely expressed it, " to throw a toad 
 into the spring." The Bathonians were alarmed and 
 in consternation, when young Nash, who must have 
 already distinguished himself as a macaroni, stepped 
 forward and offered to render the angry physician 
 impotent. " We'll charm his toad out again with 
 music," quoth he. He evidently thought very little 
 of the watering-place, after his town experiences, and 
 
KING OF BATH. 219 
 
 prepared to treat it accordingly. He got up a band 
 in the Pump-room, brought thither in this manner the 
 healthy as well as the sick, and soon raised the renown 
 of Bath as a resort for gayetj^ as well as for mineral 
 waters. In a word, he displayed a surprising talent 
 for setting everything and everybody to rights, and 
 was, therefore, soon elected, by tacit voting, the King 
 of Bath. 
 
 He rapidly proved his qualifications for the position. 
 First he seci ;d his Orphean harmony by collecting a 
 band-o>^bS' ipuon, which gave two guineas a-piece to 
 six periormers ; then he engaged an official pumper 
 for the Pump-room ; and lastly, finding that the bathers 
 still gathered under a booth to drink their tea and talk 
 their scandal, ue iduced one Harrison to build assem- 
 bly-rooms, gu. iweeing him three guineas a week to be 
 raised by subboription. 
 
 All this demanded a vast amount of impudence on 
 Mr. Nash ^ part, and this he possessed to a liberal 
 extent. The subscriptions fiowed in regularly, and 
 Nash felt his power increase with the responsibility. 
 So, then, our minor monarch resolved to be despotic, 
 and in a short time laid down laws for the guests, 
 which they obeyed most obsequiously. Nash had 
 not much wit, though a great deal of assurance, but 
 these laws were his chef d'oeuvre. Witness some of 
 them : — 
 
 1. " That a visit of ceremony at first coming and 
 another at going away, are all that are expected or 
 
220 NASH'S CHEF D'CEUVEE. 
 
 desired by ladies of quality and fashion — except im- 
 pertinents. 
 
 4. " That no person takes it ill that any one goes to 
 another's play or breakfast, and not theirs — except 
 captious nature. 
 
 5. " That no gentleman give his ticket for the balls 
 to any but gentlewomen. N. B. — Unless he has none 
 of his acquaintance. 
 
 6. " That gentlemen crowding before the ladies at 
 the ball, show ill manners ; and that none do so for 
 the future — except such as respect nobody but them- 
 selves. 
 
 9. " That the younger ladies take notice how many 
 eyes observe them. N. B. — This does not extend to 
 the Have-at-alls. 
 
 10. " That all whisperers of lies and scandal be 
 taken for their authors." 
 
 Really this law of Nash's must have been repealed 
 some time or other at Bath. Still more that which 
 follows : — 
 
 11. " That repeaters of such lies and scandal be 
 shunned by all company — except such as have been 
 guilty of the same crime." 
 
 There is a certain amount of satire in these Lycurgus 
 statutes that shows Nash in the light of an observer of 
 society ; but, query, whether any frequenter of Bath 
 would not have devised as good? 
 
 The dances of those days must have been somewhat 
 tedious. They began with a series of minuets, in 
 
THE BALL. 221 
 
 ■which, of course, only one couple danced at a time, 
 the most distinguished opening the ball. These 
 solemn performances lasted about two hours, and 
 we can easily imagine that the rest of the company 
 were delighted when the country dances, which in- 
 cluded everybody, began. The ball opened at six ; 
 the country dances began at eight : at nine there 
 was a lull for the gentlemen to offer their partners 
 tea ; in due course the dances were resumed, and at 
 eleven Nash held up his hand to the musicians, and 
 under no circumstances was the ball allowed to con- 
 tinue after that hour. Nash well knew the value 
 of early hours to invalids, and he would not destroy 
 the healing reputation of Bath for the sake of a little 
 more pleasure. On one occasion the Princess Amelia 
 implored him to allow one dance more. The despot re- 
 plied, that his laws were those of Lycurgus, and could 
 not be abrogated for any one. By this we see that 
 the M. C. was already an autocrat in his kingdom. 
 
 Nor is it to be supposed that his Majesty's laws were 
 confined to such merely professional arrangements. 
 Not a bit of it ; in a very short time his impudence 
 gave him undenied right of interference with the 
 coats and gowns, the habits and manners, even the 
 daily actions of his subjects, for so the visitors at 
 Bath were compelled to become. Si parvis componere 
 magna recibit, we may admit that the rise of Nash and 
 that of Napoleon were owing to similar causes. The 
 French emperor found France in a state of disorder, 
 
222 IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PUMP-ROOM. 
 
 ■with which sensible people were growing more and 
 more disgusted ; he offered to restore order and pro- 
 priety ; the French hailed him, and gladly submitted 
 to his early decrees ; then, when he had got them into 
 the habit of obedience, he could make what laws he 
 liked, and use his power without fear of opposition. 
 The Bath emperor followed the same course, and it 
 may be asked whether it does not demand as great 
 an amount of courage, assurance, perseverance, and 
 administrative power to subdue several hundreds of 
 English ladies and gentlemen as to rise supreme above 
 some millions of French republicans. Yet Nash ex- 
 perienced less opposition than Napoleon ; Nash reigned 
 longer, and had no infernal machine prepared to blow 
 him up. 
 
 Everybody was delighted with the improvements in 
 the Pump-room, the balls, the promenades, the chair- 
 men — the Rouge ruffians of the mimic kingdom — 
 whom he reduced to submission, and therefore nobody 
 complained when Emperor Nash went further, and 
 made war upon the white aprons of the ladies and 
 the boots of the gentlemen. The society was in fact 
 in a very barbarous condition at the time, and people 
 who came for pleasure liked to be at ease. Thus 
 ladies lounged into the balls in their riding-hoods 
 or morning dresses, gentlemen in boots, with their 
 pipes in their mouths. Such atrocities were intol- 
 erable to the late frequenter of London society, and 
 in his imperious arrogance, the new monarch used 
 
A PUBLIC BENEFACTOE. 223 
 
 actually to pull off the white aprons of ladies who 
 entered the assembly-rooms with that dSgagS article, 
 and throw them upon the back seats. Like the 
 French emperor, again, he treated high and low in 
 the same manner, and when the Duchess of Queens- 
 berry appeared in an apron, coolly pulled it off, and 
 told her it was only fit for a maid-servant. Her grace 
 made no resistance. 
 
 The men were not so submissive ; but the M. C. 
 turned them into ridicule, and whenever a gentleman 
 appeared at the assembly-rooms in boots, would walk 
 up to him, and in a loud voice remark, " Sir, I think 
 you have forgot your horse." To complete his 
 triumph, he put the offenders into a song called 
 " Trentinella's Invitation to the Assembly." 
 
 "Come, one and all, 
 To Hoyden Hall, 
 
 For there's the assembly this night: 
 Kone but proud fools 
 Mind manners and rules; 
 
 We Hoydens do decency slight. 
 
 "Come trollops and slatterns, 
 Cockt hats and white aprons; 
 
 This best our modesty suits: 
 For why should not we 
 In a dress be as free 
 
 As Hogs-Norton squires in boots?" — 
 
 and as this was not enough, got up a puppet-show of a 
 sufficient coarseness to suit the taste of the time, in 
 which the practice of wearing boots was satirized. 
 
224 CANES VS. SWORDS. 
 
 His next onslaught was upon that of carrying 
 swords ; and in this respect Nash became a public 
 benefactor, for in those days, though Chesterfield was 
 the writer on etiquette, people were not well-bred 
 enough to keep their tempers, and rivals for a lady's 
 hand at a minuet, or gamblers who disputed over their 
 cards, invariably settled the matter by an option 
 between suicide or murder under the polite name 
 of duel. The M. C. wisely saw that these affairs 
 would bring Bath in bad repute, and determined to 
 supplant the rapier by the less dangerous cane. In 
 this he was for a long time opposed, until a notorious 
 torchlight duel between two gamblers, of whom one 
 was run through the body, and the other, to show his 
 contrition, turned Quaker, brought his opponents to a 
 sense of the danger of a weapon always at hand ; and 
 henceforth the sword was abolished. 
 
 These points gained, the autocrat laid down rules for 
 tlie employment of the visitors' time, and these, from 
 setting the fashion to some, soon became a law to all. 
 The first thing to be done was, sensibly enough, the 
 ostensible object of their residence in Bath, the use of 
 the baths. At an early hour four lusty chairmen 
 waited on every lady to carry her, wrapped in flan- 
 nels, in 
 
 " A little black box, just the size of a coffin," 
 
 to one of the five baths. Here, on entering, an attend- 
 ant placed beside her a floating tray, on which were 
 
LIFE AT BATH IN NASH'S TIME. 225 
 
 set her handkerchief, bouquet, and snuff-box, for our 
 great-great-grandmothers did take snuff; and here she 
 found her friends in the same bath of naturally hot 
 water. It was, of course, a reunion for society on the 
 plea of health ; but the early hours and the exercise 
 secured the latter, whatever the baths may have done. 
 A walk in the Pump-room, to the music of a tolerable 
 band, was the next measure ; and there, of course, the 
 gentlemen mingled with the ladies. A coffee-house 
 was ready to receive those of either sex ; for that was 
 a time when madame and miss lived a great deal in 
 public, and English people were not ashamed of eating 
 their breakfast in public company. These breakfasts 
 were often enlivened by concerts paid for by the rich 
 and enjoyed by all. 
 
 Supposing the peacocks now to be dressed out and 
 to have their tails spread to the best advantage, we 
 next find some in the public promenades, others in the 
 reading-rooms, the ladies having their clubs as well as 
 the men ; others riding ; others, perchance, already 
 gambling. Mankind and womankind then dined at 
 a reasonable hour, and the evening's amusements 
 began early. Nash insisted on this, knowing the 
 value of health to those, and they were many at 
 that time, who sought Bath on its account. The 
 balls began at six, and took place every Tuesday 
 and Friday, private balls filling up the vacant nights. 
 About the commencement of his reign, a theatre was 
 built, and whatever it may have been, it afterwards 
 
 Vol. I.— 15 
 
226 COMPACT WITH THE DUKE OF BEAUFOET. 
 
 became celebrated as the nursery of tbe London stage, 
 and now, tempo passato ! is almost abandoned. It 
 is needless to add that tbe gaming-tables were thronged 
 in the evenings. 
 
 It was at them that Nash made the money which 
 sufficed to keep up his state, which was vulgarly regal. 
 He drove about in a chariot, flaming with heraldry, 
 a-nd drawn by six grays, with outriders, running foot- 
 men, and all the appendages which made an impression 
 on the vulgar minds of the visitors of his kingdom. 
 His dress was magnificent ; his gold lace unlimited, 
 his coats ever new ; his hat alone was always of the 
 same color — white ; and as the emperor Alexander 
 was distinguished by his purple tunic and Brummell 
 by his bow. Emperor Nash was known all England 
 over by his Avhite hat. 
 
 It is due to the King of Bath to say that, however 
 much he gained, he always played fair. He even 
 patronized young players, and after fleecing them, 
 kindly advised them to play no more. When he 
 found a man fixed upon ruining himself, he did his 
 best to keep him from that suicidal act. This was 
 the case with a young Oxonian, to whom he had 
 lost money, and whom he invited to supper, in order 
 to give him his parental advice. The fool would not 
 take the Beau's counsel and " came to grief." Even 
 noblemen sought his protection. The Duke of Beau- 
 fort entered on a compact with him to save his purse, 
 if not his soul. He agreed to pay Nash ten thousand 
 
GAMING AT BATH. 227 
 
 guineas, whenever he lost the same amount at a sitting. 
 It was a comfortable treaty for our Beau, who accord- 
 ingly watched his grace. Yet it must be said, to 
 Nash's honor, that he once saved him from losing 
 eleven thousand, when he had already lost eight, 
 by reminding him of his compact. Such was play 
 in those days ! It is said that the duke had after- 
 wards to pay the fine, from losing the stipulated sum 
 at Newmarket. 
 
 He displayed as much honesty with the young Lord 
 Townshend, who lost him his whole fortune, his estate, 
 and even his carriage and horses — what madmen are 
 gamblers ! — and actually cancelled the whole debt, on 
 condition my lord should pay him £5000 whenever he 
 chose to claim it. To Nash's honor it must be said 
 that he never came down upon the nobleman during 
 his life. He claimed the sum from his executors, who 
 paid it. — " Honorable to both parties." 
 
 But an end was put to the gaming at Bath and 
 everywhere else — except in a royal palace, and Nash 
 swore that, as he was a king, Bath came under the 
 head of the exception — by an act of Parliament. Of 
 course Nash and the sharpers who frequented Bath — 
 and their name was Legion — found means to evade this 
 law for a time, by the invention of new games. But 
 this could not last, and the Beau's fortune went with 
 the death of the dice. 
 
 Still, however, the very prohibition increased the 
 zest for play for a time, and Nash soon discovered that 
 
228 THE FOPS VANITY. 
 
 a private table was more comfortable than a public one. 
 He entered into an arrangement with an old woman at 
 Bath, in virtue of which he was to receive a fourth 
 share of the profits. This was probably not the only 
 " hell "-keeping transaction of his life, and he had once 
 before quashed an action against a cheat in consider- 
 ation of a handsome bonus ; and, in fact, there is no 
 saying what amount of dirty work Nash would not have 
 done for a hundred or so, especially when the game of 
 the table was shut up to him. The man was immensely 
 fond of money ; he liked to show his gold-laced coat 
 and superb new waistcoat in the Grove, the Abbey 
 Ground, and Bond Street, and to be known as Le 
 Grand Nash. But, on the other hand, he did not love 
 money for itself, and never hoarded it. It is, indeed, 
 something to Nash's honor, that he died poor. He 
 delighted, in the poverty of his mind, to display his 
 great thick-set person to the most advantage ; he was 
 as vain as any fop, without the affectation of that cha- 
 racter, for he was always blunt and free-spoken, but, 
 as long as he had enough to satisfy his vanity, he cared 
 nothing for mere wealth. He had generosity, though 
 he neglected the precept about the right hand and the 
 left, and showed some ostentation in his charities. 
 When a poor ruined fellow at his elbow saw him win 
 at a throw ^£200, and murmured " How happy that 
 would make me!" Nash tossed the money to him, 
 and said, " Go and be happy then." Probably the 
 witless beau did not see the delicate satire implied in 
 
ANECDOTES OF NASH. 229 
 
 his speecli. It was only the triumph of a gamester. 
 On other occasions he collected subscriptions for poor 
 curates, and so forth, in the same spirit, and did his 
 best towards founding an hospital, which has since 
 proved of great value to those afflicted with rheumatic 
 gout. In the same spirit, though himself a gamester, 
 he often attempted to win young and inexperienced 
 boys, who came to toss away their money at the rooms, 
 from seeking their own ruin ; and, on the whole, there 
 was some goodness of heart in this gold-laced bear. 
 
 That he was a bear there are anecdotes enough to 
 show, and whether true or not, they sufficiently prove 
 what the reputation of the man must have been. Thus, 
 when a lady, afflicted with a curvature of the spine, 
 told him that " She had come straight from London 
 that day," Nash replied with utter heartlessness, 
 " Then, ma'am, you've been damnably warpt on the 
 road." The lady had her revenge, however, for meet- 
 ing the beau one day in the Grove, as she toddled 
 along with her dog, and being impudently asked by 
 him if she knew the name of Tobit's dog, she answered 
 quickly, " Yes, sir, his name was Nash, and a most 
 impudent dog he was too." 
 
 It is due to Nash to state that he made many at- 
 tempts to put an end to the perpetual system of scandal, 
 which from some hidden cause seems always to be con- 
 nected with mineral springs ; but as he did not banish 
 the old maids, of course he failed. Of the young ladies 
 and their reputation he took a kind of paternal care, 
 
230 "MISS SYLVIA." 
 
 and in that day they seem to have needed it, for even 
 at nineteen, those who had any money to lose, staked it 
 at the tables with as much gusto as the wrinkled, puck- 
 ered, greedy-eyed "single woman," of a certain or un- 
 certain age. Nash pi'otected and cautioned them, and 
 even gave them the advantage of iiis own unlimited 
 experience. Witness, for instance, the care he took 
 of " Miss Sylvia," a lovely heiress who brought her 
 face and her fortune to enslave some and enrich others 
 of the loungers of Bath. She had a terrible love of 
 hazard, and very little prudence, so that Nash's good 
 offices were much needed in the case. The young lady 
 soon became the standing toast at all the clubs and 
 suppers, and lovers of her, or her ducats, crowded 
 round her ; but though at that time she might have 
 made a brilliant match, she chose, as young women 
 will do, to fix her affections upon one of the worst men 
 in Bath, who, naturally enough, did not return them. 
 When this individual, as a climax to his misadventures, 
 was clapt into prison, the devoted young creature gave 
 the greater part of her fortune in order to pay off his 
 debts, and falling into disrepute from this act of gener- 
 osity, which was, of course, interpreted after a worldly 
 fashion, she seems to have lost her honor with her fame, 
 and the fair Sylvia took a position which could not be 
 creditable to her. At last the poor girl, weary of 
 slights, and overcome with shame, took her silk sash 
 and hanged herself. The terrible event made a nine 
 hours' — not nine days' — sensation in Bath, which was 
 
A GENEROUS ACT. 231 
 
 too busy with mains and aces to care about the fate of 
 one who had long sunk out of its circles. 
 
 When Nash reached the zenith of his power, the 
 adulation he received was somewhat of a parody on 
 the flattery of courtiers. True, he had his bards from 
 Grub Street who sang his praises, and he had letters 
 to show from Sarah of Marlborough and others of that 
 calibre, but his chief worshippers were cooks, musi- 
 cians, and even imprisoned highwaymen — one of whom 
 disclosed the secrets of the craft to him — who wrote 
 him dedications, letters, poems, and what not. The 
 good city of Bath set up his statue, and did Newton 
 and Pope^ the great honor of playing "supporters" 
 to him, which elicited from Chesterfield some well- 
 known lines : — 
 
 "This statue, placed the busts between, 
 Adds to the satire strength ; 
 Wisdom and "Wit are little seen, 
 But Folly at full length." 
 
 Meanwhile his private character was none of the 
 best. He had in early life had one attachment, be- 
 sides that unfortunate affair for which his friends had 
 removed him from Oxford, and in that had behaved 
 with great magnanimity. The young lady had hon- 
 estly told him that he had a rival ; the Beau sent for 
 him, settled on her a fortune equal to that her father 
 
 ' A full-length statue of Nash was placed between the busts of 
 Newton and Pope. 
 
232 THE SETTING SUN. 
 
 intended for her, and himself presented her to the 
 favored suitor. Now, however, he seems to have given 
 up all thoughts of matrimony, and gave himself up to 
 mistresses, who cared more for his gold than for him- 
 self. It was an awkward conclusion to Nash's gener- 
 ous act in that one case, that before a year had passed, 
 the bride ran away with her husband's footman ; yet, 
 though it disgusted him with ladies, it does not seem 
 to have cured him of his attachment to the sex in 
 general. 
 
 In the height of his glory Nash was never ashamed 
 of receiving adulation. He was as fond of flattery as 
 Le Grand Monarque — and he paid for it too — whether 
 it came from a prince or a chairman. Every day 
 brought him some fresh meed of praise in prose or 
 verse, and Nash was always delighted. 
 
 But this sun was to set in time. His fortune went 
 when gaming was put down, for he had no other means 
 of subsistence. Yet he lived on : he had not the good 
 sense to die ; and he reached the patriarchal age of 
 eighty-seven. In his old age he was not only garru- 
 lous, but bragging : he told stories of his exploits, in 
 which he, Mr. Richard Nash, came out as the first 
 swordsman, swimmer, leaper, and what not. But by 
 this time people began to doubt Mr. Richard Nash's 
 long-bow, and the yarns he spun were listened to with 
 impatience. He grew rude and testy in his old age ; 
 suspected Quin, the actor, who was living at Bath, of 
 an intention to supplant him ; made coarse, imperti- 
 
A PANEGYBIC. 233 
 
 nent repartees to the visitors at that city, and in gen- 
 eral raised up a dislike to himself. Yet as other mon- 
 archs have had their eulogists in sober mind, Nash had 
 his in one of the most depraved ; and Anstey, the low- 
 minded author of " The New Bath Guide," panegy- 
 rized him a short time after his death in the following 
 verses : — 
 
 " Yet here no confusion — no tumult is known ; 
 Fair order and beauty establish their throne ; 
 For order, and beauty, and just regulation. 
 Support all the works of this ample creation. 
 For this, in compassion to mortals below, 
 The gods, their peculiar favor to show. 
 Sent Hermes to Bath in the shape of a beau : 
 That grandson of Atlas came down from above 
 To bless all the regions of pleasure and love ; 
 To lead the fair nymph thro' the various maze. 
 Bright beauty to marshal, his glory and praise ; 
 To govern, improve, and adorn the gay scene, 
 By the Graces instructed, and Cyprian queen : 
 As when in a garden delightful and gay. 
 Where Flora is wont all her charms to display. 
 The sweet hyacinth us with pleasure we view 
 Contend with narcissus in delicate hue ; 
 The gard'ner, industrious, trims out his border. 
 Puts each odoriferous plant in its order; 
 The myrtle he -ranges, the rose and the lily. 
 With iris, and crocus, and daffa-down-dilly ; 
 Sweet peas and sweet oranges all he disposes, 
 At once to regale both your eyes and your noses. 
 Long reign'd the great Nash, this omnipotent lord, 
 Respected by youth, and by parents ador'd; 
 
234 NASH'S OLD AGE. 
 
 For him not enough at a ball to preside, 
 
 The unwary and beautiful nymph would he guide; 
 
 Oft tell her a tale, how the credulous maid 
 
 By man, by perfidious man, is betrayed : 
 
 Taught Charity's hand to relieve the distrest. 
 
 While tears have his tender compassion exprest; 
 
 But alas ! he is gone, and the city can tell 
 
 How in years and in glory lamented he fell. 
 
 Him mourn'd all the Dryads on Claverton's mount; 
 
 Him Avon deplor'd, him the nymph of the fount, 
 
 The crystalline streams. 
 
 Then perish his picture — his statue decay — 
 
 A tribute more lasting the Muses shall pay. 
 
 If true, what philosophers all will assure us, 
 
 AVho dissent from the doctrine of great Epicurus, 
 
 That the spirit's immortal (as poets allow) : 
 
 In reward of his labors, his virtue and pains. 
 
 He is footing it now in the Elysian plains. 
 
 Indulged, as a token of Proserpine's favor, 
 
 To preside at her balls in a creara-color'd beaver. 
 
 Then peace to his ashes — our grief be supprest, 
 
 Since we find such a phcenix has sprung from his nest; 
 
 Kind Pleaven has sent us another professor. 
 
 Who follows the' steps of his great predecessor." 
 
 The end of the Bath Beau was somewhat less 
 tragical than that of his London successor — Brum- 
 mell. Nash, in his old age and poverty, hung about 
 the clubs and supper-tables, button-holed youngsters, 
 who thought him a bore, spun his long yarns, and tried 
 to insist on obsolete fashions, when near the end of his 
 life's century. 
 
 The clergy took more care of him than the young- 
 sters. They heard that Nash was an octogenarian. 
 
HIS FUNEEAL. 235 
 
 and likely to die in his sins, and resolved to do their 
 best to shrive him. Worthy and well-meaning men 
 accordingly wrote him long letters, in which there 
 was a deal of warning, and there was nothing which 
 Nash dreaded so much. As long as there was imme- 
 diate fear of death, he was pious and humble; the 
 moment the fear had passed, he was jovial and indif- 
 ferent again. His especial delight, to the last, seems 
 to have been swearing against the doctors, whom he 
 treated like the individual in Anstey's " Bath Guide," 
 shying their medicines out of the window upon their 
 own heads. But the wary old Beckoner called him in, 
 in due time, with his broken, empty-chested voice ; and 
 Nash was forced to obey. Death claimed him — and 
 much good it got of him — in 1761, at the age of 
 eighty-seven : there are few beaux who lived so long. 
 Thus ended a life of which the moral lay, so to 
 speak, out of it. The worthies of Bath were true to 
 the worship of Folly, whom Anstey so well, though 
 indelicately, describes as there conceiving Fashion ; 
 and though Nash, old, slovenly, disrespected, had long 
 ceased to be either beau or monarch, treated his huge 
 unlovely corpse with the honor due to the great — or 
 little. His funeral was as glorious as that of any 
 hero, and far more showy, though much less solemn, 
 than the burial of Sir John Moore. Perhaps for a 
 bit of prose flummery, by way of contrast to Wolfe's 
 lines on the latter event, there is little to equal the 
 account in a contemporary paper : — " Sorrow sate 
 
236 HIS CHAKACTEEISTICS. 
 
 upon every face, and even children lisped that their 
 sovereign was no more. The awfulness of the solem- 
 nity made the deepest impression on the minds of the 
 distressed inhabitants. The peasant discontinued his 
 toil, the ox rested from the plough, all nature seemed 
 to sympathize with their loss, and the muffled bells 
 rung a peal of bob-major." 
 
 The Beau left little behind him, and that little not 
 worth much, even including his renown. Most of the 
 presents which fools or flatterers had made him, had 
 long since been sent cMz ma tante ; a few trinkets 
 and pictures, and a few books, which probably he had 
 never read, constituted his little store."^ 
 
 Bath and Tunbridge — for he had annexed that 
 lesser kingdom to his own — had reason to mourn him, 
 for he had almost made them what they were ; but the 
 country has not much cause to thank the upholder of 
 gaming, the institutor of silly fashion, and the high- 
 priest of folly. Yet Nash was free from many vices 
 we should expect to find in such a man. He did not 
 drink, for instance ; one glass of wine, and a moderate 
 quantity of small beer, being his allowance for dinner. 
 He was early in his hours, and made others sensible 
 in theirs. He was generous and charitable when he 
 had the money ; and when he had not he took care to 
 make his subjects subscribe it. In a word, there have 
 
 ' In the " Annual Eegister " (vol. v. p. 37) it is stated that a 
 pension of ten guineas a month was paid to Nash during the latter 
 years of his life by the Corporation of Bath. 
 
BEAU NASH AND HIS FLATTEREES. 237 
 
 been worse men and greater fools ; and we may again 
 ask whether those who obeyed and flattered him were 
 not more contemptible than Beau Nash himself. 
 
 So much for the powers of impudence and a fine 
 coat! 
 
PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON. 
 
 If an illustration Avere wanted of that character un- 
 stable as water which shall not excel, this duke would 
 at once supjDly it : if we had to warn genius against 
 self-indulgence — some clever boy against extravagance 
 — some poet against the bottle — this is the "shocking 
 example " we should select : if Ave wished to show how 
 the most splendid talents, the greatest wealth, the most 
 careful education, the most unusual advantages, may all 
 prove useless to a man who is too vain or too frivolous 
 to use them properly, it is enough to cite that nobleman 
 whose acts gained for him the name of the infamous 
 Duke of Wharton. Never Avas character more mer- 
 curial, or life more unsettled than his ; never, perhaps, 
 were more changes crowded into a feAver number of 
 years, more fame and infamy gathered into so short a 
 space. SuiSce it to say, that Avhen Pope wanted a man 
 to hold up to the scorn of the world as a sample of 
 Avasted abilities, it Avas Wharton that he chose, and his 
 lines rise in grandeur in proportion to the vileness of 
 the theme : 
 
 " Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, 
 Whose ruling passion was a loA'e of praise. 
 23S 
 
^i)Uip, mntt of smi)atton. 
 
POPE'S LINES ON WHARTON. 239 
 
 Born with whate'er could win it from the wise, 
 Women and fools must like him or he dies ; 
 Though raptured senates hung on all he spoke, 
 The club must hail him master of the joke. 
 Shall parts so various aim at nothing new? 
 He'll shine a TuUy and a Wilmot too. 
 * « * * 
 
 Thus with each gift of nature and of art. 
 And wanting nothing but an honest heart; 
 Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt. 
 And most contemptible, to shun contempt; 
 His passion still to covet general praise. 
 His life to forfeit it » thousand ways ; 
 A constant bounty which no friend has made ; 
 An angel tongue which no man can persuade; 
 A fool with more of wit than all mankind; 
 Too rash for thought, for action too refined." 
 
 And then those memorable lines — 
 
 "A tyrant to the wife his heart approved, 
 A rebel to the very king he loved ; 
 He dies, sad outcast of each church and state ; 
 And, harder still ! flagitious, yet not great." 
 
 Though it may be doubted if the " lust of praise " was 
 the cause of his eccentricities, so much as an utter 
 restlessness and instability of character, Pope's de- 
 scription is sufficiently correct, and will prepare us for 
 one of the most disappointing lives we could well have 
 to read. 
 
 Philip, Duke of Wharton, was one of those men of 
 whom an Irishman would say, that they were fortu- 
 nate before they were born. His ancestors bequeathed 
 
240 THE DUKE'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 him a name that stood high in England for bravery 
 and excellence. The first of the house, Sir Thomas 
 Wharton, had won his peerage from Henry VIII. Tor 
 routing some 15,000 Scots with 600 men, and other 
 gallant deeds. From his father the marquis he in- 
 herited much of his talents ; but for the heroism of the 
 former, he seems to have received it only in the ex- 
 travagant form of foolhardiness. Walpole remembered, 
 but could not tell where, a ballad he wrote on being 
 arrested by the guard in St. James's Park, for singing 
 the Jacobite song, " The King shall have his own 
 again," and quotes two lines to show that he was not 
 ashamed of his own cowardice on the occasion : — 
 
 "The duke lie drew out half his sword, 
 the guard drew out the rest." 
 
 At the siege of Gibraltar, where he took up arms 
 against his own king and country, he is said to have 
 gone alone one night to the very walls of the town, 
 and challenged the outpost. They asked him who 
 he was, and when he replied, openly enough, " The 
 Duke of Wharton," they actually allowed him to re- 
 turn without either firing on or capturing him. The 
 story seems somewhat apocryphal, but it is quite possi- 
 ble that the English soldiers may have refrained from 
 violence to a well-known mad-cap nobleman of their 
 own nation. 
 
 Philip, son of the Marquis of Wharton, at that time 
 only a baron, was born in the last year but one of the 
 
HTS EARLY YEARS. 241 
 
 seventeenth century, and came into the world endowed 
 with every quality which might have made a great 
 man, if he had only added wisdom to them. His 
 father wished to make him a brilliant statesman, and, 
 to have a better chance of doing so, kept him at home, 
 and had him educated under his own eye. He seems 
 to have easily and rapidly acquired a knowledge of 
 classical languages ; and his memory was so good that 
 when a boy of thirteen he could repeat the greater 
 part of the "^neid " and of Horace by heart. His 
 father's keen perception did not allow him to stop at 
 classics ; and he wisely prepared him for the career to 
 which he was destined by the study of history, ancient 
 and modern, and of English literature, and by teach- 
 ing him, even at that early age, the art of thinking and 
 writing on any given subject, by proposing themes for 
 essays. There is certainly no surer mode of develop- 
 ing the reflective and reasoning powers of the mind ; 
 and the boy progressed with a rapidity which was al- 
 most alarming. Oratory, too, was of course cultivated, 
 and to this end the young riobleman was made to re- 
 cite before a small audience passages from Shakespeare, 
 and even speeches which had been delivered in the 
 House of Lords, and we may be certain he showed no 
 bashfulness in this display. 
 
 He was precocious beyond measure, and at sixteen 
 was a man. His first act of folly — or, perhaps, he 
 thought, of manhood — came off at this early age. He 
 fell in love with the daughter of a Major-General 
 
 Vol. I.— 16 
 
242 MAEEIAGE AT SIXTEEN. 
 
 Holmes ; and though there is nothing extraordinary in 
 that, for nine-tenths of us have been love-mad at as 
 early an age, he did what fortunately very few do in a 
 first love affair, he married the adored one. Early 
 marriages are often extolled, and justly enough, as 
 safeguards against profligate habits, but this one seems 
 to have had the contrary eifect on young Philip. His 
 wife was in every sense too good for him : he was 
 madly in love with her at first, but soon shamefully 
 and openly faithless. Pope's line — 
 
 "A tyrant to the wife his heart approved," 
 
 requires explanation here. It is said that she did not 
 present her boy-husband with a son for three years 
 after their marriage, and on this child he set great 
 value and great hopes. About this time he left his 
 wife in the country, intending to amuse himself in 
 town, and ordered her to remain behind with the 
 child. The poor deserted woman well knew what was 
 the real object of this journey, and could not endure 
 the separation. In the hope of keeping her young 
 husband out of harm, and none the less because 
 she loved him very tenderly, she followed him soon 
 after, taking the little Marquis of Malmsbury, as 
 the young live branch was called, with her. The 
 duke was, of course, disgusted, but his anger was 
 turned into hatred, when the child, which he had 
 hoped to make his heir and successor, caught in 
 town the small-pox, and died in infancy. He was 
 
WHARTON TAKES LEAVE OF HIS TUTOE. 243 
 
 furious with his wife, refused to see her for a long 
 time, and treated her with unrelenting coldness. 
 
 The early marriage was much to the distaste of 
 Philip's father, who had been lately made a marquis, 
 and who hoped to arrange a very grand "alliance" 
 for his petted son. He was, in fact, so much grieved 
 by it that he was fool enough to die of it in 1715, and 
 the marchioness survived him only about a year, be- 
 ing no less disgusted with the licentiousness which she 
 already discovered in her Young Hopeful. 
 
 She did what she could to set him right, and the 
 young married man was shipped off with a tutor, 
 a French Huguenot, who was to take him to Geneva 
 to be educated as a Protestant and a Whig. The 
 young scamp declined to be either. He was taken, 
 by way of seeing the world, to the petty courts of 
 Germany, and of course to that of Hanover, which 
 had kindly sent us the worst family that ever dis- 
 graced the English throne, and by the various princes 
 and grand-dukes received with all the honors due to a 
 young British nobleman. 
 
 The tutor and his charge settled at last at Geneva, 
 and my young lord amused himself with tormenting 
 his strict guardian. Walpole tells us that he once 
 roused him out of bed only to borrow a pin. There 
 is no doubt that he led the worthy man a sad life of 
 it ; and to put a climax to his conduct ran away from 
 him at last, leaving with him, by way of hostage, 
 a young bear-cub — probably quite as tame as him- 
 
244 ESPOUSES THE CHEVALIEE'S CAUSE. 
 
 self — whicli he had picked up somewhere, and grown 
 very fond of — birds of a feather, seemingly — with a 
 message, which showed more wit than good-nature, to 
 this eifect : — " Being no longer able to bear with your 
 ill-usage, I think proper to be gone from you ; how- 
 ever, that you may not want company, I have left you 
 the bear, as the most suitable companion in the world 
 that could be picked out for you." 
 
 The tutor had to console himself with a tu quoque, 
 for the young scapegrace had found his way to Lyons 
 in October, 1716, and then did the very thing his 
 father's son should not have done. The Chevalier de 
 St. George, the Old Pretender, James III., or by 
 whatever other alias you prefer to call him, having 
 failed in his attempt " to have his own again " in the 
 preceding year, was then holding high court in high 
 dudgeon at Avignon. Any adherent would, of course, 
 be welcomed with open arms; and when the young 
 marquis wrote to him to offer his allegiance, sending 
 with his letter a fine entire horse as a peace offering, 
 he was warmly responded to. A person of rank was 
 at once despatched to bring the youth to the ex-regal 
 court ; he was welcomed with much enthusiasm, and 
 the empty title of Duke of Northumberland at once 
 most kindly conferred on him. However, the young 
 marquis does not seem to have go-dti the exile's court, 
 for he stayed there one day only, and returning to 
 Lyons, set off to enjoy himself at Paris. With much 
 wit, no prudence, and a plentiful supply of money. 
 
FEOLICS AT PARIS. 245 
 
 whicli he tljrew about Tvith the recklessness of a boy- 
 just escaped from his tutor, he could not fail to succeed 
 in that capital ; and, accordingly, the English received 
 him with open arms. Even the ambassador, Lord 
 Stair, though he had heard rumors of his wild doings, 
 invited him repeatedly to dinner, and did his best, by 
 advice and warning, to keep him out of harm's way. 
 Young Philip had a horror of preceptors, paid or 
 gratuitous, and treated the plenipotentiary with the 
 same coolness as he had served the Huguenot tutor. 
 When the former, praising the late marquis, expressed 
 — by way of a slight hint — a hope " that he would 
 follow so illustrious an example of fidelity to his prince, 
 and affection to his country, by treading in the same 
 steps," the young scamp replied, cleverly enough, 
 " That he thanked his excellency for his good advice, 
 and as his excellency had also a worthy and deserving 
 father, he hoped he would likewise copy so bright an 
 example, and tread in all his steps ;" the pertness of 
 which was pertinent enough, for old Lord Stair had 
 taken a disgraceful part against his sovereign in the 
 massacre of Glencoe. 
 
 His frolics at Paris were of the most reckless cha- 
 racter for a young nobleman. At the ambassador's 
 own table he would occasionally send a servant to some 
 one of the guests, to ask him to join in the Old Chev- 
 alier's health, though it was almost treason at that 
 time to mention his name even. And again, when the 
 windows at the embassy had been broken by a young 
 
246 SEEKS A SEAT IN PAKLIAMENT. 
 
 English Jacobite, who was forthwith committed to 
 Fort I'EvSque, the hare-brained marquis proposed, 
 out of revenge, to break them a second time, and only 
 abandoned the project because he could get no one to 
 join him in it. Lord Stair, however, had too much 
 sense to be offended at the follies of a boy of seventeen, 
 even though that boy was the representative of a great 
 English family ; he probably thought it would be bet- 
 ter to recall him to his allegiance by kindness and 
 advice, than, by resenting his behavior, to drive him 
 irrevocably to the opposite party ; but he was doubt- 
 less considerably relieved when, after leading a wild 
 life in the capital of France, spending his money lav- 
 ishly, and doing precisely everything which a young 
 English nobleman ought not to do, my lord marquis 
 took his departure in December, 1716. 
 
 The political education he had received now made 
 the unstable youth ready and anxious to shine in the 
 State ; but being yet under age, he could not, of course, 
 take his seat in the House of Lords. Perhaps he was 
 conscious of his own wonderful abilities ; perhaps, as 
 Pope declares, he was thirsting for praise, and wished 
 to display them ; certainly he was itching to become 
 an orator, and as he could not sit in an English Par- 
 liament, he remembered that he had a peerage in Ire- 
 land as Earl of Rathfernhame and Marquis of Cath- 
 erlogh, and off he set to see if the Milesians would 
 stand upon somewhat less ceremony. He was not dis- 
 appointed there. "His brilliant parts," we are told 
 
"PAWNING HIS PRINCIPLES." 247 
 
 by contemporary -writers, but rather, we sliould think, 
 his reputation for wit and eccentricity, " found favor 
 in the eyes of Hibernian quicksilvers, and in spite 
 of his years, he was admitted to the Irish House of 
 Lords." 
 
 When a friend had reproached him, before he left 
 France, with infidelity to the principles so long es- 
 poused by his family, he is reported to have replied, 
 characteristically enough, that " he had pawned his 
 principles to Gordon, the Chevalier's banker, for a 
 considerable sum, and, till he could repay him, he 
 must be a Jacobite ; but when that was done, he would 
 again return to the Whigs." It is as likely as not that 
 he borrowed from Gordon on the strength of the Chev- 
 alier's favor, for though a marquis in his own right, he 
 was even at this period always in want of cash ; and 
 on the other hand, the speech, exhibiting the grossest 
 want of any sense of honor, is in thorough keeping 
 with his after-life. But whether he paid Gordon on 
 his return to England — which is highly improbable — 
 or whether he had not honor enough to keep his com- 
 pact — which is extremely likely — there is no doubt 
 that my lord marquis began, at this period, to qualify 
 himself for the post of parish weathercock to St. 
 Stephen's. 
 
 His early defection to a man who, whether rightful 
 heir or not, had that of romance in his history which 
 is even now sufficient to make our young ladies 
 " thorough Jacobites " at heart, was easily to be ex- 
 
248 ZEAL FOE THE OEANGE CAUSE. 
 
 cused, on the plea of youth and high spirit. The 
 same excuse does not explain his rapid return to 
 Whiggery — in which there is no romance at all — the 
 moment he took his seat in the Irish House of Lords. 
 There is only one way to explain the zeal with which 
 he now advocated the Orange cause : he must have 
 been either a very designing knave, or a very unprin- 
 cipled fool. As he gained nothing by the change 
 but a dukedom for which he did not care, and as he 
 cared for little else that the government could give 
 him, we may acquit him of any very deep motives. 
 On the other hand, his life and some of his letters 
 show that, with a vast amount of bravado, he was suf- 
 ficiently a coward. When supplicated, he was always 
 obstinate ; \yhen neglected, always supplicant. Now 
 it required some courage in those days to be a Jacobite. 
 Perhaps he cared for nothing but to astonish and dis- 
 gust everybody with the facility with which he could 
 turn his coat, as a hippodromist does with the ease with 
 which he changes his costume. He was a boy and a 
 peer, and he would make pretty play of his position. 
 He had considerable talents, and now, as he sat in the 
 Irish House, devoted them entirely to the support of 
 the government. 
 
 For the next four years he was employed, on the 
 one hand in political, on the other in profligate, life. 
 He shone in both ; and was no less admired, by 
 the wits of those days, for his speeches, his argu- 
 ments, and his zeal, than for the utter disregard 
 
A JACOBITE HERO. 249 
 
 of public decency he displayed in his vices. Such a 
 promising youth, adhering to the government, merited 
 some mark of its esteem, and accordingly, before attain- 
 ing the age of twenty-one, he was raised to a dukedom. 
 Being of age, he took his seat in the English House of 
 Lords, and had not been long there before he again 
 turned coat, and came out in the light of a Jacobite 
 hero. It was now that he gathered most of his 
 laurels. 
 
 The Hanoverian monarch had been on the English 
 throne some six years. Had the Chevalier's attempt 
 occurred at this period, it may be doubted if it would 
 not have been successful. The "Old Pretender" 
 came too soon, the "Young Pretender" too late. 
 At the period of the first attempt, the public had 
 had no time to contrast Stuarts and Gruelphs ; at that 
 of the second, they had forgotten the one and grown 
 accustomed to the other ; but at the moment when 
 our young duke appeared on the boards of the senate, 
 the vices of the Hanoverians were beginning to draw 
 down on them the contempt of the educated and the 
 ridicule of the vulgar ; and perhaps no moment could 
 have been more favorable for advocating a restoration 
 of the Stuarts. If Wharton had had as much energy 
 and consistency as he had talent and impudence, he 
 might have done much towards that desirable, or 
 undesirable, end. 
 
 The grand question at this time before the House 
 Was the trial of Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, 
 
250 THE TRIAL OF ATTEEBUEY. 
 
 demanded by Sir Robert Walpole. The man bad 
 a spirit almost as restless as bis defender. Tbe son 
 of a man wbo migbt bave been tbe original of tbe 
 Vicar of Bray, he was very little of a poet, less 
 of a priest, but a great deal of a politician. He 
 was born in 1662, so that at this time he must 
 bave been nearly sixty years old. He had bad by 
 no means a bard life of it, for family interest, to- 
 gether with eminent talents, procured bim one ap- 
 pointment after another, till he reached the bench 
 at the age of fifty-one, in tbe reign of Anne. He 
 bad already distinguished himself in several ways, 
 most, perhaps, by controversies with Hoadley, and by 
 sundry high-church motions. But after his ele^'^ation, 
 he displayed bis principles more boldly, refused to sign 
 tbe Declaration of the Bishops, which was somewhat 
 servilely made to assure George the First of tbe fidelity 
 of the Established Church, suspended the curate of 
 Gravesend for three years because he allowed tbe 
 Dutch to have a service performed in his church, 
 and even, it is said, on the death of Anne, offered 
 to proclaim King James III., and head a procession 
 himself in his lawn sleeves. The end of this and 
 other vagaries was, that in 1722, the Government sent 
 him to the Tower, on suspicion of being connected 
 with a plot in favor of tbe Old Chevalier. The case 
 excited no little attention, for it was long since a 
 bishop had been charged with high treason ; it Avas 
 added that his jailers used him rudely ; and, in short, 
 
WHAETOiST'S DEFENCE OF THE BISHOP. 251 
 
 public sympathy rather went along with him for a time. 
 In March, 1723, a bill was presented to the Commons, 
 for " inflicting certain pains and penalties on Francis, 
 Lord Bishop of Rochester," and it passed that House in 
 April ; but when carried up to the Lords, a defence 
 was resolved on. The bill was read a third time 
 on May 15th, and on that occasion the Duke of 
 Wharton, then only twenty-four years old, rose and 
 delivered a speech in favor of the bishop. This 
 oration far more resembled that of a lawyer sum- 
 ming up the evidence than of a parliamentary orator 
 enlarging on the general issue. It was remarkable for 
 the clearness of its argument, the wonderful memory of 
 facts it displayed, and the ease and rapidity with which 
 it annihilated the testimony of various witnesses ex- 
 amined before the House. It was mild and moderate, 
 able and sufiicient, but seems to have lacked all the 
 enthusiasm we might expect from one who was after- 
 wards so active a partisan of the Chevalier's cause. 
 In short, striking as it was, it cannot be said to give 
 the duke any claim to the title of a great orator ; 
 it would rather prove that he might have made a 
 first-rate lawyer. It shows, however, that had he 
 chosen to apply himself diligently to politics, he might 
 have turned out a great leader of the Opposition. 
 
 Neither this speech nor the bishop's able defence 
 saved him ; and in the following month he was ban- 
 ished the kingdom, and passed the rest of his days in 
 Paris. 
 
252 A PAETISAN OF THE CIIEVALIEE. 
 
 Wharton, however, was not content with the House 
 as an arena of political agitation. He was now old 
 enough to have matured his principles thoroughly, and 
 he completely espoused the cause of the exiled family. 
 He amused himself with agitating throughout the coun- 
 try, influencing elections, and seeking popularity by 
 becoming a member of the Wax-chandlers' Company. 
 It is a proof of his great abilities, so shamefully thrown 
 away, that he now, during the course of eight months, 
 issued a paper, called " The True Briton," every Mon- 
 day and Friday, written by himself, and containing 
 varied and sensible arguments in support of his opin- 
 ions, if not displaying any vast amount of original 
 genius. This paper, on the model of "The Tatler," 
 "The Spectator," etc., had a considerable sale, and 
 attained no little celebrity, so that the Duke of Whar- 
 ton acquired the reputation of a literary man as well as 
 of a political leader. 
 
 But, whatever he might have been in either capacity, 
 his disgraceful life soon destroyed all hope of success 
 in them. He was now an acknowledged wit about 
 town, and, what was then almost a recognized concom- 
 itant of that character, an acknowledged' profligate. 
 He scattered his large fortune in the most reckless and 
 foolish manner : though married, his moral conduct was 
 as bad as that of any bachelor of the day : and such 
 vas his extravagance and open licentiousness, that, 
 having wasted a princely revenue, he was soon caught 
 in the meshes of Chancery, which very sensibly vested 
 
HYPOCRITICAL SIGNS OF PENITENCE. 253 
 
 his fortune in the hands of trustees, and compelled him 
 to be satisfied with an income of twelve hundred pounds 
 a year. 
 
 The young rascal now showed hypocritical signs 
 of penitence — he was always an adept in that line — 
 and protested he would go abroad and live quietly, till 
 his losses should be retrieved. There is little doubt 
 that, under this laudable design, he concealed one of 
 attaching himself closer to the Chevalier party, and 
 even espousing the faith of that unfortunate prince, or 
 pretender, whichever he may have been. He set off 
 for Vienna, leaving his wife behind to die, in April, 
 1726. He had long since quarrelled with her, and 
 treated her with cruel neglect, and at her death he was 
 not likely to be much afflicted. It is said, that, after 
 that event, a ducal family oiFered him a daughter and 
 large fortune in marriage, and that the Duke of Whar- 
 ton declined the ofier, because the latter was to be tied 
 up, and he could not conveniently tie up the former. 
 However this may be, he remained a widower for a 
 short time: we may be sure, not long. 
 
 The hypocrisy of going abroad to retrench was not 
 long undiscovered. The fascinating scapegrace seems 
 to have delighted in playing on the credulity of others ; 
 and Walpole relates that, on the eve of the day on 
 which he delivered his famous speech for Atterbury, 
 he sought an interview with the minister, Sir Robert 
 Walpole, expressed great contrition at having espoused 
 the bishop's cause hitherto, and a determination to 
 
254 SIE EOBEET WALPOLE DUPED. 
 
 speak against him the following day. The minister 
 was taken in, and at the duke's request, supplied him 
 with all the main arguments, pro and con. The de- 
 ceiver, having got these well into his brain — one of the 
 most retentive — repaired to his London haunts, passed 
 the night in drinking, and the next day produced all 
 the arguments he had digested, in the bishop's favor. 
 
 At Vienna he was well received, and carried out his 
 private mission successfully, but was too restless to stay 
 in one place, and soon set off for Madrid. Tired now 
 of politics, he took a turn at love. He was a poet after 
 a fashion, for the pieces he has left are not very good : 
 he was a fine gentleman, always spending more money 
 than he had, and is said to have been handsome. His 
 portraits do not give us this impression : the features 
 are not very regular, and, though not coarse, are cer- 
 tainly not refined. The mouth, somewhat sensual, is 
 still much firmer than his character would lead us to 
 expect ; the nose sharp at the point, but cogitative at 
 the nostrils ; the eyes long but not large ; while the 
 raised brow has all that openness which he displayed 
 in the indecency of his vices, but not in any honesty in 
 his political career. In a word, the face is not attract- 
 ive. Yet he is described as having had a brilliant 
 complexion, a lively, varying expression, and a charm 
 of person and manner that was quite irresistible. 
 Whether on this account, or for his talents and wit, 
 which were really shining, his new Juliet fell as deeply 
 in love with him as he with her. 
 
A NEW LOVE. 255 
 
 She was maid of honor — and a highly honorable 
 maid — to the Queen of Spain. The Irish regiments 
 long employed in the Spanish service had become 
 more or less haturalized in that country, which ac- 
 counts for the great number of thoroughly Milesian 
 names still to be found there, some of them, as 
 O'Donnell, owned by men of high distinction. 
 Among other officers who had settled with their 
 families in the peninsula was a Colonel O'Byrne, 
 who, like most of his countrymen there, died penni- 
 less, leaving his widow with a pension and his daugh- 
 ter without a sixpence. It can well be imagined that 
 an oifer from an English duke was not to be sneezed 
 at by either Mrs. or Miss O'Byrne ; but there were 
 some grave obstacles to the match. The duke was a 
 Protestant. But what of that ? — he had never been 
 encumbered with religion, nor even with a decent 
 observance of its institutions, for it is said that 
 when in England, at his country seat, he had, to 
 show how little he cared for respectability, made a 
 point of having the hounds out on a Sunday morn- 
 ing. He was not going to lose a pretty girl for the 
 sake of a faith with which he had got disgusted 
 ever since his Huguenot tutor tried to make him a 
 sober Christian. He had turned coat in politics, and 
 would now try his weathercock capabilities at relig- 
 ion. Nothing like variety, so Romanist he became. 
 
 But this was not all : his friends on the one hand 
 objected to his marrying a penniless girl, and hers, on 
 
256 VERY TRYING. 
 
 the other, warned her of his disreputable character. 
 But when two people have made up their minds to 
 be one, such trifles as these are of no consequence. 
 A far more trying obstacle was the absolute refusal 
 of her Most Catholic Majesty to allow her maid of 
 honor to marry the duke. 
 
 It is a marvel that after the life of dissipation he 
 had led, this man should have retained the power of 
 loving at all. But everything about him was extrava- 
 gant, and now that he entertained a virtuous attach- 
 ment, he was as wild in it as he had been reckless in 
 less respectable connections. He must have been sin- 
 cere at the time, for the queen's refusal was followed 
 by a fit of depression that brought on a low fever. 
 The queen heard of it, and, touched by the force of 
 his devotion, sent him a cheering message. The 
 moment was not to be lost, and, in spite of his weak 
 state, he hurried to court, threw himself at her 
 Majesty's feet, and swore he must have his lady- 
 love or die. Thus pressed, the queen was forced to 
 consent, but warned him that he would repent of it. 
 The marriage took place, and the couple set off to 
 Rome. 
 
 Here the Chevalier again received him with open 
 arms, and took the opportunity of displaying his 
 imaginary sovereignty by bestowing on him the 
 Order of the Garter — a politeness the duke returned 
 by wearing while there the no less unrecognized title 
 of Duke of Northumberland, which "his Majesty" 
 
THE DUKE OF WHARTON'S "WHENS." 257 
 
 had formerly conferred on him. But James III., 
 though no saint, had more respect for decent con- 
 duct than his father and uncle ; the duke ran off into 
 every species of excess, got into debt as usual — 
 
 " When Wharton's just, and learns to pay his debts, 
 And reputation dwells at Mother Brett's, 
 
 -T~ ^ 'K ^ 
 
 Then, Celia, shall my constant passion cease, 
 And my poor suiF'ring heart shall be at peace," 
 
 says a satirical poem of the day, called " The Duke 
 of Wharton's Wliens" — was faithless to the wife he 
 had lately been dying for ; and in short, such a 
 thorough blackguard, that not even the Jacobites 
 could tolerate him, and they turned him out of the 
 Holy City till he should learn not to bring dishonor 
 on the court of their fictitious sovereign. 
 
 The duke was not the man to be much ashamed of 
 himself, though his poor wife may now have begun to 
 think her late mistress in the right, and he was prob- 
 ably glad of an excuse for another change. At this 
 time, 1727, the Spaniards were determined to wrest 
 Gibraltar from its English defenders, and were sending 
 thither a powerful army under the command of Los 
 Torres. The duke had tried many trades with more 
 or less success, and now thought that a little military 
 glory would tack on well to his highly honorable 
 biography. At any rate, there was novelty in the din 
 of war, and for novelty he would go anywhere. It 
 
 Vol. I.— 17 
 
258 MILITAKY GLOBY AT GIBRALTAR 
 
 mattered little that he should fight against his own 
 king and own countrymen ; he was not half blackguard 
 enough yet, he may have thought ; he had played 
 traitor for some time, he would now play rebel outright 
 — the game ivas worth the candle. 
 
 So what does my lord duke do but write a letter 
 (like the Chinese behind their mud-walls, he was al- 
 ways bold enough when well secured under the protec- 
 tion of the post, and was more absurd in ink even than 
 in action) to the King of Spain, offering him his ser- 
 vices as a volunteer against " Gib." Whether his 
 Most Catholic Majesty thought him a traitor, a mad- 
 man, or a devoted partisan of his own, does not appear, 
 for without waiting for an answer — waiting was always 
 too dull work for Wharton — he and his wife set oiF for 
 the camp before Gibraltar, introduced themselves to 
 the Conde in command, were received with all the 
 honor — let us say honors — due to a duke — and estab- 
 lished themselves comfortably in the ranks of the 
 enemy of England. But all the duke's hopes of 
 prowess were blighted. He had good opportunities. 
 The Conde de los Torres made him his aide-de-camp, 
 and sent him daily into the trenches to see how matters 
 went on. When a defence of a certain Spanish out- 
 work was resolved upon, the duke, from his rank, was 
 chosen for the command. Yet in the trenches he got 
 no worse wound than a slight one on the foot from a 
 splinter of a shell, and this he afterwards made an ex- 
 cuse for not fighting a duel with swords ; and as to the 
 
A " COLONEL-AGGEEGATE." 259 
 
 outwork, the English abandoned the attack, so that 
 there was no glory to he found in the defence. He 
 soon grew weary of such inglorious and rather dirty 
 work as visiting trenches before a stronghold ; and well 
 he might ; for if there be one thing duller than another 
 and less satisfactory, it must be digging a hole out of 
 which to kill your brother mortals ; and thinking he 
 should amuse himself better at the court, he set off for 
 Madrid. Here the king, by way of reward for his 
 brilliant services in doing nothing, made him colonel- 
 aggregate — whatever that may be — of an Irish regi- 
 ment; a very poor aggregate, we should think. But 
 my lord duke wanted something livelier than the com- 
 mand of a band of Hispaniolized Milesians ; and hav- 
 ing found the military career somewhat uninteresting, 
 wished to return to that of politics. He remembered 
 with gusto the frolic life of the Holy City and the 
 political excitement in the Chevalier's court, and sent 
 off a letter to "his Majesty James III.," expressing, 
 like a rusticated Oxonian, his penitence for having 
 been so naughty the last time, and offering to come 
 and be very good again. It is to the praise of the 
 Chevalier de St. George that he had worldly wisdom 
 enough not to trust the gay penitent. He was tired, 
 as everybody else was, of a man who could stick to 
 nothing, and did not seem to care about seeing him 
 again. Accordingly, he replied in true kingly style, 
 blaming him for having taken up arms against their 
 common country, and telling him in polite language^ 
 
260 "UNCLE HORACE." 
 
 as a policeman does a riotous drunkard — that he had 
 better go home. The duke thought so too, was not at 
 all offended at the letter, and set off, by way of return- 
 ing towards his Penates, for Paris, where he arrived in 
 May, 1728. 
 
 Horace Walpole — not the Horace — but " Uncle Hor- 
 ace," or " old Horace," as he was called, was then am- 
 bassador to the court of the Tuileries. Mr. Walpole 
 was one of the Houghton "lot," a brother of the 
 famous minister Sir Robert, and, though less celebra- 
 ted, almost as able in his line. He had distinguished 
 himself in various diplomatic appointments, in Spain, 
 at Hanover and the Hague, and having successfully 
 tackled Cardinal Fleury, the successor of the Riche- 
 lieus and Mazarins at Paris, he was now in high favor 
 at home. In after years he was celebrated for his duel 
 with Chetwynd, who, when " Uncle Horace " had in 
 the House expressed a hope that the question might be 
 carried, had exclaimed, " I hope to see you hanged 
 first !" " You hope to see me hanged first, do you ?" 
 cried Horace, with all the ferocity of the Walpoles ; 
 and thereupon, seizing him by the most prominent 
 feature of his face, shook him violently. This was 
 matter enough for a brace of swords and coffee for four, 
 and Mr. Chetwynd had to repent of his remark after 
 being severely wounded. In those days our honorable 
 House of Commons was as much an arena of wild 
 beasts as the American Senate of to-day.^ 
 ' i. e. in 1860 ; before the War. 
 
WHAKTON TO "UNCLE HORACE." 261 
 
 To this minister our noble duke wrote a hypocritical 
 letter, whicli, as it shows how the man could write peni- 
 tently, is worth transcribing : 
 
 " Lions, June 28, 1728. 
 
 " Sir, — Your excellency will be surpris'd to receive 
 a letter from me ; but the clemency with which the 
 government of England has treated me, which is 
 in a great measure owing to your brother's regard to 
 my father's memory, makes me hope that you will give 
 me leave to express my gratitude for it. 
 
 " Since his present majesty's accession to the throne 
 I have absolutely refused to be concerned with the 
 Pretender or any of his affairs ; and during my stay 
 in Italy have behaved myself in a manner that Dr. 
 Peters, JSIr. Godolphin, and Mr. Mills can declare 
 to be consistent with my duty to the present king. 
 I was forc'd to go to Italy to get out of Spain, 
 where, if my true design had been known, I should 
 have been treated a little severely. 
 
 " I am coming to Paris to put myself entirely under 
 your excellency's protection ; and hope that Sir Robert 
 Walpole's good-nature will prompt him to save a family 
 which his generosity induced him to spare. If your 
 excellency would permit me to wait upon you for 
 an hour, I am certain you would be convinc'd of 
 the sincerity of my repentance for my former mad- 
 ness, would become an advocate with his majesty 
 to grant me his most gracious pardon, which it is 
 my comfort I shall never be required to purchase 
 
262 THE DUKE'S IMPUDENCE. 
 
 by any step unworthy of a man of honor. I do 
 not intend, in case of the king's allowing me to 
 pass the evening of my days under the shadow of 
 his royal protection, to see England for some years, 
 but shall remain in France or Germany, as my friends 
 shall advise, and enjoy country sports till all former 
 stories are buried in oblivion. I beg of your excel- 
 lency to let me receive your orders at Paris, which I 
 will send to your hostel to receive. The Dutchess 
 of Wharton, who is with me, desires leave to wait 
 on Mrs. Walpole, if you think proper. 
 
 " I am, etc." 
 
 After this, the ambassador could do no less than 
 receive him ; but he was somewhat disgusted when 
 on leaving him the duke frankly told him — forgetting 
 all about his penitent letter, probably, or too reckless 
 to care for it — that he was going to dine with the 
 Bishop of Eochester — Atterbury himself, then living 
 in Paris — whose society was interdicted to any subject 
 of King George. The duke, with his usual folly, 
 touched on other subjects equally dangerous, his visit 
 to Rome, and his conversion to Romanism ; and, in 
 short, disgusted the cautious Mr. Walpole. There is 
 something delightfully impudent about all these acts 
 of Wharton's ; and had he only been a clown at Drury 
 Lane instead of an English nobleman, he must have 
 been successful. As it is, when one reads of the petty 
 hatred and humbug of those days, when liberty of 
 
LIVING BEYOND HIS MEANS. 263 
 
 speech was as unknown as any other liberty, one 
 cannot but admire the impudence of his Grace of 
 Wharton, and wish that most dukes, without being 
 as profligate, would be as free-spoken. 
 
 With six hundred pounds in his pocket, our young 
 Lothario now set up house at Rouen, with an establish- 
 ment "equal," say the old-school writers, "to his 
 position, but not to his means." In other words, 
 he undertook to live in a style for which he could 
 not pay. Twelve hundred a year may be enough 
 for a duke, as for any other man, but not for one 
 who considers a legion of servants a necessary ap- 
 pendage to his position. My lord duke, who was 
 a good French scholar, soon found an ample number 
 of friends and acquaintances, and, not being par- 
 ticular about either, managed to get through his half- 
 year's income in a few weeks. Evil consequence : he 
 was assailed by duns. French duns know nothing 
 about forgiving debtors ; " your money first, and then 
 my pardon," is their motto. My lord duke soon found 
 this out. Still he had an income, and could pay them 
 all oif in time. So he drank and was merry, till one 
 fine day came a disagreeable piece of news, which 
 startled him considerably. The government at home 
 had heard of his doings, and determined to arraign 
 him for high treason. 
 
 He could expect little else, for had he not actually 
 taken up arms against his sovereign ? 
 
 Now Sir Robert Walpole was, no doubt, a vulgarian. 
 
264 HIGH TREASON. 
 
 He was not a man to love or sympathize with ; but he 
 was good-natured at bottom. Our " frolic grace " had 
 reason to acknowledge this. He could not complain 
 of harshness in any measures taken against him, and 
 he had certainly no claim to consideration from the 
 government he had treated so ill. Yet Sir Robert 
 was willing to give him every chance ; and so far did 
 he go, that he sent over a couple of friends to him to 
 induce him only to ask pardon of the king, with a 
 promise that it would be granted. For sure the Duke 
 of Wharton's character was anomalous. The same man 
 who had more than once humiliated himself when un- 
 asked, who had written to Walpole's brother the letter 
 we have read, would not now, when entreated to do so, 
 write a few lines to that minister to ask mercy. Nay, 
 when the gentleman in question offered to be content 
 even with a letter fi-om the duke's valet, he refused to 
 allow the man to write. Some people may admire what 
 they will believe to be firmness, but when we review 
 the duke's character and subsequent acts, we cannot 
 attribute this refusal to anything but obstinate pride. 
 The consequence of this folly was a stoppage of sup- 
 plies, for as he was accused of high treason, his estate 
 was of course sequestrated. He revenged himself by 
 Avriting a paper which was published in " Mist's Jour- 
 nal," and which, under the cover of a Persian tale, con- 
 tained a species of libel on the government. 
 
 His position was now far from enviable ; and, assailed 
 by duns, he had no resource but to humble himself, not 
 
WHARTON'S READY WIT. 265 
 
 before those he had offended, but before the Chevalier, 
 to ■whom he wrote in his distress, and who sent him 
 £2000, which he soon frittered away in follies. This 
 gone, the duke begged and borrowed, for there are 
 some people such fools that they would rather lose a 
 thousand pounds to a peer than give sixpence to a 
 pauper, and many a tale was told of the artful manner 
 in which his grace managed to cozen his friends out of 
 a louis or two. His ready wit generally saved him. 
 
 Thus on one occasion an Irish toady invited him to 
 dinner : the duke talked of his wardrobe, then sadly 
 defective ; what suit should he wear ? The Hibernian 
 suggested black velvet. " Could you recommend a 
 tailor?" "Certainly." Snip came, an expensive suit 
 was ordered, put on, and the dinner taken. In due 
 course the tailor called for his money. The duke was 
 not a bit at a loss, though he had but a few francs to 
 his name. "Honest man," quoth he, " you mistake 
 the matter entirely. Carry the bill to Sir Peter ; for 
 know that whenever I consent to wear another man's 
 livery, my master pays for the clothes," and inasmuch 
 as the dinner-giver was an Irishman, he did actually 
 discharge the account. 
 
 At other times he would give a sumptuous entertain- 
 ment, and in one way or another induce his guests to 
 pay for it. He was only less adroit in coining excuses 
 than Theodore Hook, and had he lived a century later, 
 we might have a volume full of anecdotes to give of his 
 ways and no means. Meanwhile his unfortunate duchess 
 
266 LAST EXTREMITIES. 
 
 was living on the charity of friends, while her lord and 
 master, when he could get any one to pay for a band, 
 was serenading young ladies. Yet he was jealous 
 enough of his wife at times, and once sent a challenge 
 to a Scotch gentleman, simply because some silly friend 
 asked him if he had forbidden his wife to dance with 
 the lord. He went all the way to Flanders to meet his 
 opponent ; but, perhaps fortunately for the duke. Mar- 
 shal Berwick arrested the Scotchman, and the duel 
 never came off. 
 
 Whether he felt his end approaching, or whether he 
 was sick of vile pleasures which he had recklessly pur- 
 sued from the age of fifteen, he now, though only thirty 
 years of age, retired for a time to a convent, and was 
 looked on as a penitent and devotee. Penury, doubt- 
 less, cured him in a measure, and poverty, the porter 
 of the gates of heaven, warned him to look forward be- 
 yond a life he had so shamefully misused. But it was 
 only a temporary repentance ; and when he left the 
 religious house, he again rushed furiously into evei"y 
 kind of dissipation. 
 
 At length, utterly reduced to the last extremities, he 
 bethought himself of his colonelcy in Spain, and deter- 
 mined to set out to join his regiment. The following 
 letter from a friend who accompanied him will best 
 show what circumstances he was in : — 
 
 " Paris, June 1, 1729. 
 " Dear Sir, — I am just returned from the Gates 
 
SAD DAYS IN PAEIS. 267 
 
 of Death, to return you Thanks for your hist kind 
 Letter of Accusations, -which I am persuaded was 
 intended as a seasonable Help to my Recollection, 
 at a Time that it was necessary for me to send an 
 Inquisitor General into my Conscience, to examine 
 and settle all the Abuses that ever were committed in 
 that little Court of Equity ; but I assure you, your 
 long Letter did not lay so much my Faults as my 
 
 Misfortunes before me, which believe me, dear , 
 
 have fallen as heavy and as thick upon me as the 
 
 Shower of Hail upon us two in E Forest, and 
 
 has left me much at a Loss which way to turn myself. 
 The Pilot of the Ship I embarked in, who industriously 
 ran upon every Rock, has at last split the Vessel, and 
 so much of a sudden, that the whole Crew, I mean his 
 Domesticks, are all left to swim for their Lives, without 
 one friendly Plank to assist them to Shore. In short, 
 he left me sick, in Debt, and without a Penny ; but as 
 I begin to recover, and have a little time to Think, I 
 can't help considering myself, as one whisk'd up behind 
 a Witch upon a Broomstick, and hurried over Moun- 
 tains and Dales through confus'd Woods and thorny 
 Thickets, and when the Charm is ended, and the poor 
 Wretch dropp'd in a Desart, he can give no other Ac- 
 count of his enchanted Travels, but that he is much 
 fatigued in Body and Mind, his Cloaths torn, and 
 worse in all other Circumstances, without being of 
 the least Service to himself or any body else. But 
 I will follow your Advice with an active Resolution, 
 
268 HIS LAST JOURNEY TO SPAIN. 
 
 to retrieve my bad Fortune, and almost a Year mis- 
 erably misspent. 
 
 " But notwithstanding wbat I have suffered, and 
 what my Brother Mad-man has done to undo himself, 
 and every body who was so unlucky to have the least 
 Concern with him, I could not but be movingly touch'd 
 at so extraordinary a Vicissitude of Fortune, to see a 
 great Man fallen from that shining Light, in which I 
 beheld him in the House of Lords, to such a Degree 
 of Obscurity, that I have observ'd the meanest Com- 
 moner here decline, and the Few he would sometimes 
 fasten on, to be tired of his Company ; for you know 
 he is but a bad Orator in his Cups, and of late he has 
 been but seldom sober. 
 
 " A week before he left Paris, he was so reduced, 
 that he had not one single Crown at Command, and 
 was forc'd to thrust in with any Acquaintance for 
 a Lodging ; Walsh and I have had him by Turns, 
 all to avoid a Crowd of Duns, which he had of all 
 Sizes, from Fourteen hundred Livres to Four, who 
 hunted him so close, that he was forced to retire to 
 some of the neighboring Villages for Safety. I, sick 
 as I was, hurried about Paris to raise Money, and 
 to St. Germain's to get him Linen ; I bought him one 
 Shirt and a Cravat, which with 500 Livres, his whole 
 Stock, he and his Duchess, attended by one Servant, 
 set out for Spain. All the News I have heard of them 
 since is that a Day or two after, he sent for Captain 
 Brierly, and two or three of his Domesticks, to follow 
 
HIS ACTIVITY OF MIND. 269 
 
 him ; but none but the Captain ohey'd the Summons. 
 Where they are now, I can't tell, but fear they must 
 be in great Distress by this Time, if he has no other 
 Supplies ; and so ends my Melancholy Story. 
 
 " I am, etc." 
 
 Still his good-humor did not desert him ; he joked 
 about their poverty on the road, and wrote an amusing 
 account of their journey to a friend, winding up with 
 the well-known lines : — 
 
 " Be kind to my remains, and oh ! defend, 
 Against your judgment, your departed friend." 
 
 His mind was as vigorous as ever, in spite of the 
 waste of many debauches ; and when recommended to 
 make a new translation of " Telemachus," he actually 
 devoted one whole day to the work ; the next he forgot 
 all about it. In the same manner he began a play on 
 the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Lady M. W. 
 Montagu wrote an epilogue for it, but the piece never 
 got beyond a few scenes. His genius, perhaps, was 
 not for either poetry or the drama. His mind was 
 a keen, clear one, better suited to argument and to 
 grapple tough polemic subjects. Had he but been 
 a sober man, he might have been a fair, if not a great 
 writer. The "True Briton," with many faults of 
 license, shows what his capabilities were. His absence 
 of moral sense may be guessed from his poem on the 
 
270 HIS DEATH IN A CONVENT. 
 
 preaching of Atterbury, in whicli is a parallel almost 
 blasphemous. 
 
 At length he reached Bilboa and his regiment, and 
 had to live on the meagre pay of eighteen pistoles a 
 month. The Duke of Ormond, then an exile, took 
 pity on his -vvife, and supported her for a time : she 
 afterwards rejoined her mother at Madrid. 
 
 Meanwhile, the year 1730 brought about a salutary 
 change in the duke's morals. His health was fast 
 giving way from the eifects of divers excesses ; and 
 there is nothing like bad health for purging a bad 
 soul. The end of a misspent life was fast drawing 
 near, and he could only keep it up by broth with eggs 
 beaten up in it. He lost the use of his limbs, but not 
 of his gayety. In the mountains of Catalonia he met 
 with a mineral spring which did him some good ; so 
 much, in fact, that he was able to rejoin his regiment 
 for a time. A fresh attack sent him back to the 
 waters ; but on his way he was so violently attacked 
 that he was forced to stop at a little village. Here he 
 found himself without the means of going farther, 
 and in the worst state of health. The monks of a 
 Bernardino convent took pity on him and received 
 him into their house. He grew worse and worse ; 
 and in a week died on the 31st of May, without a 
 friend to pity or attend him, among strangers, and at 
 the early age of thirty-two. 
 
 Thus ended the life of one of the cleverest fools 
 that have ever disgraced our peerage. 
 
Jlof)n, ILorU l^erbeg. 
 
LORD HERVEY. 
 
 The village of Kensington was disturbed in its 
 sweet repose one day, more than a century ago, by 
 the rumbling of a ponderous coach and six, with four 
 outriders and two equerries kicking up the dust ; 
 whilst a small body of heavy dragoons rode solemnly 
 after the huge vehicle. It waded, with inglorious 
 struggles, through a deep mire of mud, between the 
 Palace and Hyde Park, until the cortege entered 
 Kensington Park, as the gardens were then called, 
 and began to track the old road that led to the red- 
 brick structure to which William III. had added a 
 higher story, built by Wren. There are two roads by 
 which coaches could approach the house: "one," as 
 the famous John, Lord Hervey, wrote to his mother, 
 " so convex, the other so concave, that, by this ex- 
 treme of faults, they agree in the common one of 
 being, like the high-road, impassable." The rum- 
 bling coach, with its plethoric steeds, toils slowly on, 
 and reaches the dismal pile, of which no association 
 is so precious as that of its having been the birth- 
 place of our loved Victoria Regina. All around, as 
 the emblazoned carriage impressively veers round 
 into the grand entrance, savors of William and 
 
272 GEOEGE II. ABRIVING FROM HANOVER. 
 
 Mary, of Anne, of Bishop Burnet and Harley, Atter- 
 bury and Bolingbroke. But those were pleasant days 
 compared to those of the second George, whose return 
 from Hanover in this mountain of a coach is now 
 described. 
 
 The panting steeds are gracefully curbed by the 
 state coachman in his scarlet livery, with his cocked- 
 hat and gray wig underneath it : now the horses are 
 foaming and reeking as if they had come from the 
 world's end to Kensington, and yet they have only 
 been to meet King George on his entrance into Lon- 
 don, which he has reached from Helvoetsluys, on his 
 way from Hanover, in time, as he expects, to spend his 
 birthday among his English subjects. 
 
 It is Sunday, and repose renders the retirement of 
 Kensington and its avenues and shades more sombre 
 than ever. Suburban retirement is usually so. It is 
 noon ; and the inmates of Kensington Palace are just 
 coming forth from the chapel in the palace. The 
 coach is now stopping, and the equerries are at hand 
 to offer their respectful assistance to the diminutive 
 figure that, in full Field-marshal regimentals, a cocked- 
 hat stuck cross-wise on his head, a sword dangling even 
 down to his heels, ungraciously heeds them not, but 
 stepping down, as the great iron gates are thrown open 
 to receive him, looks neither like a king nor a gentle- 
 man. A thin, worn face, in which weakness and 
 passion are at once pictured ; a form buttoned and 
 padded up to the chin ; high Hessian boots without a 
 
HIS MEETING WITH THE QUEEN. 273 
 
 Avrinkle ; a sword and a swagger, no more constituting 
 him the military character than the "your Majesty" 
 from every lip can make a poor thing of clay a king. 
 Such was George II. : brutal, even to his submissive 
 wife. Stunted by nature, he was insignificant in form, 
 as he was petty in character ; not a trace of royalty 
 could be found in that silly, tempestuous physiognomy, 
 with its hereditary small head : not an atom of it in 
 his made-up, paltry little presence ; still less in his 
 bearing, language, or qualities. 
 
 The queen and her court have come from chapel, to 
 meet the royal absentee at the great gate : the consort, 
 who was to his gracious Majesty like an elder sister 
 rather than a wife, bends down, not to his knees, but 
 yet she bends, to kiss the, hand of her royal husband. 
 She is a fair, fat woman, no longer young, scarcely 
 comely ; but with a charm of manners, a composure, 
 and a savoir faire that causes one to regard her as 
 mated, not matched to the little creature in that cocked- 
 hat, which he does not take off even when she stands 
 before him. The pair, nevertheless, embrace : it is a 
 triennial ceremony performed when the king goes or 
 returns from Hanover, but suffered to lapse at other 
 times ; but the condescension is too great : and Caro- 
 line ends, where she began : " glueing her lips " to the 
 ungracious hand held out to her in evident ill-humor. 
 
 They turn, and walk through the court, then up the 
 grand staircase, into the queen's apartment. The king 
 has been swearing all the way at England and the 
 
 Vol. I.— 18 
 
274 MES. CLAYTON. 
 
 English, because he has been obliged to return from 
 Hanover, where the German mode of life and new mis- 
 tresses were more agreeable to him than the English 
 customs and an old wife. He displays, therefore, even 
 on this supposed happy occasion, one of the worst out- 
 breaks of his insufferable temper, of which the queen 
 is the first victim. All the company in the palace, 
 both ladies and gentlemen, are ordered to enter : he 
 talks to them all, but to the queen he says not a 
 word. 
 
 She is attended by Mrs. Clayton, afterwards Lady 
 Sundon, whose lively manners and great good temper 
 and good will — lent out like leasehold to all, till she 
 saw what their friendship might bring, — are always 
 useful at these tristes rencontres. Mrs. Clayton is the 
 amalgamating substance between chemical agents which 
 have, of themselves, no cohesion ; she covers with ad- 
 dress what is awkward ; she smooths down with some- 
 thing pleasant what is rude ; she turns oif — and her 
 office in that respect is no sinecure at that court — what 
 is indecent, so as to keep the small majority of the 
 company who have respectable notions in good humor. 
 To the right of Queen Caroline stands another of her 
 Majesty's household, to whom the most deferential 
 attention is paid by all present ; nevertheless, she is 
 queen of the court, but not the queen of the royal 
 master of that court. It is Lady Suffolk, the mistress 
 of King George II., and long mistress of the robes to 
 Queen Caroline. She is now past the bloom of youth, 
 
LADY SUFFOLK. 275 
 
 but her attractions are not in their wane ; but endured 
 until she had attained her seventy-ninth year. Of a 
 middle height, well made, extremely fair, with very 
 fine light hair, she attracts regard from her sweet, fresh 
 face, which had in it a comeliness independent of regu- 
 larity of feature. According to her invariable custom, 
 she is dressed with simplicity ; her silky tresses are 
 drawn somewhat back from her snowy forehead, and 
 fall in long tresses on her shoulders, not less transpar- 
 ently white. She wears a gown of rich silk, opening 
 in front to display a chemisette of the most delicate 
 cambric, which is scarcely less delicate than her skin. 
 Her slender arms are without bracelets, and her taper 
 fingers without rings. As she stands behind the queen, 
 holding her Majesty's fan and gloves, she is obliged, 
 from her deafness, to lean her fair face with its sunny 
 hair first to the right side, then to the left, with the 
 helpless air of one exceedingly deaf — for she has been 
 afiiicted with that infirmity for some years : yet one 
 cannot say whether her appealing looks, which seem to 
 say, "Enlighten me if you please," — and the sort of 
 softened manner in which she accepts civilities which 
 she scarcely comprehends, do not enhance the wonderful 
 charm which drew every one who knew her towards 
 this frail, but passionless woman. 
 
 The queen forms the centre of the group. Caroline, 
 daughter of the Marquis of Brandenburg-Anspach, 
 notwithstanding her residence in England of many 
 years, notwithstanding her having been, at the era at 
 
276 QUEEN CAKOLINE. 
 
 ■whicli this biography begins, ten years its queen — is 
 still German in every attribute. She retains, in her 
 fair and comely face, traces of having been handsome ; 
 but her skin is deeply scarred by the cruel small-pox. 
 She is now at that time of life when Sir Robert Wal- 
 pole even thought it expedient to reconcile her to no 
 longer being an object of attraction to her royal con- 
 sort. As a woman, she has ceased to be attractive to 
 a man of the character of George II. ; but, as a queen, 
 she is still, as far as manners are concerned, incompar- 
 able. As she turns to address various members of the 
 assembly, her style is full of sweetness as well as of 
 courtesy, yet on other occasions she is majesty itself. 
 The tones of her voice, with its still foreign accent, are 
 most captivating ; her eyes penetrate into every coun- 
 tenance on which they rest. Her figure, plump and 
 matronly, has lost much of its contour ; but is well 
 suited for her part. Majesty in women should be 
 embonpoint. Her hands are beautifully white, and 
 faultless in shape. The king always admired her bust ; 
 and it is, therefore, by royal command, tolerably ex- 
 posed. Her fair hair is upraised in full short curls 
 over her brow : her dress is rich, and distinguished in 
 that respect from that of the Countess of Suffolk. — 
 "Her good Howard" — as she was wont to call her, 
 when, before her elevation to the peerage, she was lady 
 of the bedchamber to Caroline, — had, when in that 
 capacity, been often subjected to servile offices, which 
 the queen, though apologizing in the sweetest manner, 
 
SIR EGBERT WALPOLE. 277 
 
 delighted to make her perform. " My good Howard " 
 having one day placed a handkerchief on the back of 
 her royal mistress, the king, who half worshipped his 
 intellectual wife, pulled it off in a passion, saying, 
 " Because you have an ugly neck yourself, you hide the 
 queen's !" All, however, that evening was smooth as 
 ice, and perhaps as cold also. The company are quickly 
 dismissed, and the king, who has scarcely spoken to 
 the queen, retires to his closet, where he is attended 
 by the subservient Caroline, and by two other persons. 
 Sir Robert Walpole, prime minister, has accompanied 
 the king in his carriage, from the very entrance of 
 London, where the famous statesman met him. He is 
 now the privileged companion of their Majesties, in 
 their seclusion for the rest of the evening. His cheer- 
 ful face, in its full evening disguise of wig and tie, his 
 invariable good humor, his frank manners, his wonder- 
 ful sense, his views, more practical than elevated, suffi- 
 ciently account for the influence which this celebrated 
 minister obtained over Queen Caroline, and the readi- 
 ness of King George to submit to the tie. But Sir 
 Robert's great source of ascendancy was his temper. 
 Never was there in the annals of our country a min- 
 ister so free of access : so obliging in giving, so un- 
 offending when he refused ; so indulgent and kind to 
 those dependent on him ; so generous, so faithful to his 
 friends, so forgiving to his foes. This was his cha- 
 racter under one phase : even his adherents sometimes 
 blamed his easiness of temper ; the impossibility in his 
 
278 A STATESMAN'S LAST DAYS. 
 
 nature to cherisli the remembrance of a wrong, or even 
 to be roused by an insult. But, whilst such were the 
 amiable traits of his character, history has its lists of 
 accusations against him for corruption of the most 
 shameless description. The end of this veteran states- 
 man's career is well known. The fraudulent contracts 
 which he gave, the peculation and profusion of the 
 secret service money, his undue influence at elections, 
 brought around his later life a storm, from which he 
 retreated into the Upper House, when created Earl of 
 Orford. It was before this timely retirement from 
 ofiice that he burst forth in these words : "I oppose 
 nothing ; give in to everything : am said to do every- 
 thing ; and to answer for everything ; and yet, God 
 knows, I dare not do what I think is right." 
 
 With his public capacity, however, we have not here 
 to do : it is in his character of a courtier that we view 
 him following the queen and king. His round, com- 
 placent face, with his small glistening eyes, arched 
 eyebrows, and with a mouth ready to break out 
 aloud into a laugh, are all subdued into a respect- 
 ful gravity as he listens to King George grumbling 
 at the necessity for his return home. No English 
 cook could dress a dinner ; no English cook could 
 select a dessert ; no English coachman could drive, 
 nor English jockey ride; no Englishman — such were 
 his habitual taunts — knew how to come into a room ; 
 no Englishwoman understood how to dress herself. 
 The men, he said, talked of nothing but their dull 
 
LOED HERVEY. 279 
 
 politics, and the women of nothing but their ugly 
 clothes. Whereas, in Hanover, all these things were 
 at perfection : men ^Ycre patterns of politeness and 
 gallantry ; women, of beauty, wit, and entertainment. 
 His troops there were the bravest in the Avorld ; his 
 manufacturers the most ingenious ; his people the 
 happiest : in Hanover, in short, plenty reigned, riches 
 flowed, arts flourished, magnificence abounded, every- 
 thing was in abundance that could make a prince great 
 or a people blessed. 
 
 There was one standing behind the queen who 
 listened to these outbreaks of the king's bilious 
 temper, as he called it, with an apparently respect- 
 ful solicitude, but with the deepest disgust in his 
 heart. A slender, elegant figure, in a court suit, 
 faultlessly and carefully perfect in that costume, stands 
 behind the queen's chair. It is Lord Hervey. His 
 lofty forehead, his features, which have a refinement 
 of character, his well-turned mouth, and full and 
 dimpled chin, form his claims to that beauty which 
 won the heart of the lovely Mary Lepel ; whilst the 
 somewhat thoughtful and pensive expression of his 
 physiognomy, when in repose, indicated the sympa- 
 thizing, yet, at the same time, satirical character 
 of one who won the afiections, perhaps unconsciously, 
 of the amiable Princess Caroline, the favorite daugh- 
 ter of George II. 
 
 A general air of languor, ill concealed by the most 
 studied artifice of countenance, and even of posture, 
 
280 THE MACABONI. 
 
 characterizes Lord Hervey. He would have abhorred 
 robustness ; for he belonged to the clique then called 
 Macaronis ; a set of fine gentlemen, of whom the 
 present world would not be worthy, tricked out for 
 show, fitted only to drive out fading majesty in a 
 stage-coach ; exquisite in every personal append- 
 age, too fine for the common usages of society ; 
 point-device, not only in every curl and ruffle, but in 
 every attitude and step ; men with full satin roses on 
 their shining shoes ; diamond tablet rings on their 
 forefingers ; with snuff-boxes, the worth of which 
 might almost purchase a farm ; lace worked by the 
 delicate fingers of some religious recluse of an ances- 
 tress, and taken from an altar-cloth ; old point-lace, 
 dark as coffee-water could make it ; with embroidered 
 waistcoats, wreathed in exquisite tambour-work round 
 each capricious lappet and pocket ; with cut steel but- 
 tons that glistened beneath the courtly wax-lights : 
 with these and fifty other small but costly character- 
 istics that established the reputation of an aspirant 
 Macaroni. Lord Hervey was, in truth, an effeminate 
 creature : too dainty to walk ; too precious to commit 
 his frame to hor'seback ; and prone to imitate the some- 
 what recluse habits which the German rulers introduced 
 within the court : he was disposed to candle-light pleas- 
 ures and cockney diversions ; to Marybone and the 
 Mall, and shrinking from the athletic and social rec- 
 reations which, ■ like so much that was manly and 
 English, were confined almost to the English squire 
 
LOED HEEVEY'S ANCESTEY. 281 
 
 pur et simple after the Hanoverian accession ; when 
 so much degeneracy for a while obscured the English 
 character, debased its tone, enervated its best races, 
 vilified its literature, corrupted its morals, changed its 
 costume, and degraded its architecture. 
 
 Beneath the effeminacy of the Macaroni, Lord Her- 
 vey was one of the few who united to intense _^men/ in 
 every minute detail, an acute and cultivated intellect. 
 To perfect a Macaroni it was in truth advisable, if not 
 essential, to unite some smattering of learning, a pre- 
 tension to wit, to his super-dandyism ; to be the author 
 of some personal squib, or the translator of some classic. 
 Queen Caroline was too cultivated herself to suffer fools 
 about her, and Lord Hervey was a man after her own 
 taste ; as a courtier he was essentially a fine gentle- 
 man ; and, more than that, he could be the most de- 
 lightful companion, the most sensible adviser, and the 
 most winning friend in the court. His ill-health, 
 which he carefully concealed, his fastidiousness, his 
 ultra-delicacy of habits, formed an agreeable contrast 
 to the coarse robustness of " Sir Robert," and consti- 
 tuted a relief after the society of the vulgar, strong- 
 minded minister, who was born for the hustings and 
 the House of Commons rather than for the courtly 
 drawing-room. 
 
 John, Lord Hervey, long vice-chamberlain to Queen 
 Caroline, was, like Sir Robert Walpole, descended from 
 a commoner's family, one of those good old squires who 
 lived, as Sir Henry Wotton says, " without lustre and 
 
282 AN ECCENTRIC EACE. 
 
 without obscurity." The Duchess of Marlborough had 
 procured the elevation of the Herveys of Ickworth to 
 the peerage. She happened to be intimate with Sir 
 Thomas Felton, the father of Mrs. Hervey, afterwards 
 Lady Bristol, whose husband, at first created Lord 
 Hervey, and afterwards Earl of Bristol, expressed his 
 obligations by retaining as his motto, when raised to 
 the peerage, the words " Je n'oublieray jamais," in 
 allusion to the service done him by the Duke and 
 Duchess of Marlborough. 
 
 The Herveys had always been an eccentric race ; 
 and the classification of " men, women, and Herveys," 
 by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, was not more witty 
 than true. There was in the whole race an eccentricity 
 which bordered on the ridiculous, but did not imply 
 want of sense or of talent. Indeed this third species, 
 "the Herveys," were more gifted than the generality 
 of "men and women." The father of Lord Hervey 
 had been a country gentleman of good fortune, living 
 at Ickworth, near Bury in Suffolk, and representing 
 the town in Parliament, as his father had before him, 
 until raised to the peerage. Before that elevation he 
 had lived on in his own county, uniting the character 
 of the English squire, in that fox-hunting county, with 
 that of a perfect gentleman, a scholar, and a most ad- 
 mirable member of society. He was a poet, also, 
 aifecting the style of Cowley, who wrote an elegy upon 
 his uncle, William Hervey, an elegy compared to Mil- 
 ton's " Lycidas " in imagery, music, and tenderness 
 
CAEB, LOED HERVEY. 283 
 
 of thought. The shade of Cowley, ■whom Charles II. 
 pronounced, at his death, to be " the best man in Eng- 
 land," haunted this peer, the first Earl of Bristol. He 
 aspired especially to the poet's wit ; and the ambition 
 to be a wit flew like wildfire among his family, espe- 
 cially infecting his two sons, Carr, the elder brother of 
 the subject of this memoir, and Lord Hervey. 
 
 It would have been well could the Earl of Bristol 
 have transmitted to his sons his other qualities. He 
 was pious, moral, affectionate, sincere ; a consistent 
 Whig of the old school, and, as such, disapproving of 
 Sir Robert Walpole, of the standing army, the corrup- 
 tions, and that doctrine of expediency so unblushingly 
 avowed by the ministers. 
 
 Created Earl of Bristol in 1714, the heir-apparent 
 to his titles and estates was the elder brother, by a 
 former marriage, of John, Lord Hervey ; the dissolute, 
 clever, whimsical Carr, Lord Hervey. Pope, in one 
 of his satirical appeals to the second Lord Hervey, 
 speaks of his friendship with Carr, "whose early death 
 deprived the family " (of Hervey) " of as much wit and 
 honor as he left behind him in any part of it." The 
 wit was a family attribute, but the honor was dubious : 
 Carr was as deistical as any Macaroni of the day, and, 
 perhaps, more dissolute than most : in one respect he 
 has left behind him a celebrity which may be as ques- 
 tionable as his wit, or his honor ; he is reputed to be the 
 father of Horace Walpole, and if we accept presumptive 
 evidence of the fact, the statement is clearly borne out, 
 
284 A FEAGILE BOY. 
 
 for in his Avit, his indifference to religion, to say the 
 least, his satirical turn, his love of the world, and his 
 contempt of all that was great and good, he strongly 
 resembles his reputed son ; whilst the levity of Lady 
 Walpole's character, and Sir Kobert's laxity and dis- 
 soluteness, do not furnish any reasonable doubt to the 
 statement made by Lady Louisa Stuart, in the intro- 
 duction to Lord Wharncliffe's " Life of Lady Mary 
 Wortley Montagu." Carr, Lord Hervey, died early, 
 and his half-brother succeeded him in his title and 
 expectations. 
 
 John, Lord Hervey, was educated first at Westmin- 
 ster School, under Dr. Freind, the friend of ]Mrs. 
 Montagu ; thence he was removed to Clare Hall, 
 Cambridge : he graduated as a nobleman, and be- 
 came M. A. in 1715. 
 
 At Cambridge Lord Hervey might have acquired 
 some manly prowess ; but he had a mother who was 
 as strange as the family into which she had married, 
 and who was passionately devoted to her son : she 
 evinced her affection by never letting him have a 
 chance of being like other English boys. When his 
 father was at Newmarket, Jack Hervey, as he was 
 called, was to ride a race, to please his father ; but 
 his mother could not risk her dear boy's safety, and 
 the race was won by a jockey. He was as precious 
 and as fragile as porcelain : the elder brother's death 
 made the heir of the Herveys more valuable, more 
 effeminate, and more controlled than ever by his 
 
A BUTTEEPLY EXISTENCE. 285 
 
 eccentric mother. A court was to be his hemi- 
 sphere, and to that all his views, early in life, tended. 
 He went to Hanover to pay his court to -George I. : 
 Carr had done the same, and had come back en- 
 chanted with George, the heir-presumptive, who made 
 him one of the lords of the bedchamber. Jack Her- 
 vey also returned full of enthusiam for the Prince of 
 Wales, afterwards George II., and the Princess ; and 
 that visit influenced his destiny. 
 
 He now proposed making the grand tour, which 
 comprised Paris, Germany, and Italy. But his 
 mother again interfered : she wept, she exhorted, 
 she prevailed. Means were refused, and the strip- 
 ling was recalled to hang about the court, or to loiter 
 at Ickworth, scribbling verses, and causing his father 
 uneasiness lest he should be too much of a poet, and 
 too little of a public man. 
 
 Such was his youth : disappointed by not obtaining 
 a commission in the Guards, he led a desultory but- 
 terfly-like life ; one day at Richmond with Queen 
 Caroline, then Princess of Wales ; another, at Pope's 
 villa at Twickenham ; sometimes in the House of 
 Commons, in which he succeeded his elder brother 
 as member for Bury ; and, at the period when he 
 has been described as forming one of the quartett in 
 Queen Caroline's closet at St. James's, as vice-cham- 
 berlain to his partial and royal patroness. 
 
 His early marriage with Mary Lepel, the beautiful 
 maid of honor to Queen Caroline, insured his felicity, 
 
286 GEORGE II.'S FAMILY. 
 
 though it did not curb his predilections for other 
 ladies. 
 
 Henceforth Lord Hervey lived all the year round in 
 what were then called lodgings, that is, apartments 
 appropriated to the royal household, or even to others, 
 in St. James's, or at Richmond, or at Windsor. In 
 order fully to comprehend all the intimate relations 
 which he had with the court, it is necessary to present 
 the reader with some account of the family of George 
 II. Five daughters had been the female issue of his 
 Majesty's marriage with Queen Caroline. Three of 
 these princesses, the three elder ones, had lived, dur- 
 ing the life of George I., at St. James's with their 
 grandfather ; who, irritated by the diiferences between 
 him and his son, then Prince of Wales, adopted that 
 measure rather as showing his authority than from 
 any affection to the young princesses. It was, in 
 truth, difficult to say which of these royal ladies 
 was the most unfortunate. 
 
 Anne, the eldest, had shown her spirit early in life 
 whilst residing with George I. ; she had a proud, im- 
 perious nature, and her temper was, it must be owned, 
 put to a severe test. The only time that George I. 
 did the English the honor of choosing one of the 
 beauties of the nation for his mistress, was during 
 the last year of his reign. The object of his choice 
 was Anne Brett, the eldest daughter of the infamous 
 Countess of Macclesfield by her second husband. 
 The neglect of Savage, the poet, her son, was merely 
 
ANNE BRETT. 287 
 
 one passage in the iniquitous life of Lady Maccles- 
 field. Endowed ■with singular taste and judgment, 
 consulted by CoUey Gibber on every new play he 
 produced, trie mother of Savage was not only wholly 
 destitute of all virtue, but of all shame. One day, 
 looking out of the window, she perceived a very 
 handsome man assaulted by some bailiifs who were 
 going to arrest him : she paid his debt, released, and 
 married him. The hero of this story was Colonel 
 Brett, the father of Anne Brett. 
 
 The child of such a mother was not likely to be 
 even decently respectable ; and Anne was proud of 
 her disgraceful pre-eminence and of her disgusting and 
 royal lover. She was dark, and her flashing dark eyes 
 resembled those of a Spanish beauty. Ten years after 
 the death of George I., she found a husband in Sir 
 William Leman, of Northall, and was announced, on 
 that occasion, as the half-sister of Richard Savage. 
 
 To the society of this woman, when at St. James's 
 as "Mistress Brett," the three princesses were sub- 
 jected: at the same time the Duchess of Kendal, the 
 king's German mistress, occupied other lodgings at 
 St. James's. 
 
 Miss Brett was to be rewarded with the coronet of a 
 countess for her degradation, the king being absent on 
 the occasion at Hanover ; elated by her expectations, 
 she took the liberty, during his Majesty's absence, of 
 ordering a door to be broken out of her apartment 
 into the royal garden, where the princesses walked. 
 
288 A BITTER CUP. 
 
 The Princess Anne, not deigning to associate with her, 
 commanded that it should be forthwith closed. Miss 
 Brett imperiously reversed that order. In the midst 
 of the affair, the king died suddenly, and Anne Brett's 
 reign was over, and her influence soon as much forgot- 
 ten as if she had never existed. The Princess Anne 
 was pining in the dulness of her royal home, when a 
 marriage with the Prince of Orange was proposed for 
 the consideration of his parents. It was a miserable 
 match as well as a miserable prospect, for the prince's 
 revenue amounted to no more than ,£12,000 a year ; and 
 the state and pomp to which the Princess Royal had 
 been accustomed could not be contemplated on so small 
 a fortune. It was still worse in point of that poor 
 consideration, happiness. The Prince of Orange was 
 both deformed and disgusting in his person, though 
 his face was sensible in expression ; and if he inspired 
 one idea more strongly than another when he appeared 
 in his uniform and cocked hat, and spoke bad French 
 or worse English, it was that of seeing before one a 
 dressed-up baboon. 
 
 It was a bitter cup for the princess to drink, but she 
 drank it : she reflected that it might be the only way 
 of quitting a court where, in case of her father's death, 
 she would be dependent on her brother Frederick, or on 
 that weak prince's strong-minded wife. So she con- 
 sented and took the dwarf; and that consent was re- 
 garded by a grateful people, and by all good courtiers, 
 as a sacrifice for the sake of Protestant principles, the 
 
THE DAELING OF THE FAMILY. 289 
 
 House of Orange being, par excellence, at the head of 
 the orthodox dynasties in Europe. A dowry of £80,000 
 was forthwith granted by an admiring Commons — 
 just double what had ever been given before. That 
 sum was happily lying in the exchequer, being the 
 purchase-money of some lands in St. Christopher's 
 which had lately been sold ; and King George was 
 thankful to get rid of a daughter whose haughtiness 
 gave him trouble. In person, too, the Princess Royal 
 was not very ornamental to the Court. She was ill- 
 made, with a propensity to grow fat ; her complexion, 
 otherwise very fine, was marked with the small-pox ; 
 she had, however, a lively, clean look — one of her 
 chief beauties — and a certain royalty of manner. 
 
 The Princess Amelia died, as the world thought, 
 single, but consoled herself with various love flirtations. 
 The Duke of Newcastle made love to her, but her af- 
 fections were centred on the Duke of Grafton, to 
 whom she was privately married, as is confidently 
 asserted. 
 
 The Princess Caroline was the darling of her family. 
 Even the king relied on her truth. When there was 
 any dispute, he used to say, " Send for Caroline ; she 
 will tell us the right story." 
 
 Her fate had its clouds. Amiable, gentle, of un- 
 bounded charity, with strong aifections, which were not 
 suffered to flow in a legitimate channel, she became 
 devotedly attached to Lord Hervey : her heart was 
 bound up in him ; his death drove her into a per- 
 VoL. I.— 19 
 
290 THE YOUNGEE EOYAL PRINCESSES. 
 
 manent retreat from the world. No debasing connec- 
 tion existed between them ; but it is misery, it is sin 
 enoug-h to love another woman's husband — and that 
 sin, that misery, was the lot of the royal and otherwise 
 virtuous Caroline. 
 
 The Princess Mary, another victim to conventional- 
 ities, was united to Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse Cas- 
 sel ; a barbarian, from whom she escaped, whenever 
 she could, to come, with a bleeding heart, to her Eng- 
 lish home. She was, even Horace Walpole allows, 
 '' of the softest, mildest temper in the world," and 
 fondly beloved by her sister Caroline, and by the 
 "Butcher of Culloden," William, Duke of Cumber- 
 land. 
 
 Louisa became Queen of Denmark in 1746, after 
 some years' marriage to the Crown Prince. " We are 
 lucky," Horace Walpole writes on that occasion, "in 
 the death of kings." 
 
 The two princesses who were still under the paternal 
 roof were contrasts. Caroline was a constant invalid, 
 gentle, sincere, unambitious, devoted to her mother, 
 whose death nearly killed her. Amelia affected popu- 
 larity, and assumed the esprit fort — was fond of med- 
 dling in politics, and after the death of her mother, 
 joined the Bedford faction, in opposition to her father. 
 But both these princesses were outwardly submissive 
 when Lord Hervey became the queen's chamberlain. 
 
 The evenings at St. James's were spent in the same 
 way as those at Kensington. 
 
EVEXIKGS AT' ST. JAMES'S. 291 
 
 Quadrille formed her Majesty's pastime, and, ■whilst 
 Lord Hervey played pools of cribbage with the Princess 
 Caroline and the maids of honor, the Duke of Cumber- 
 land amused himself and the Princess Amelia at " buf- 
 fet." On Mondays and Fridays there were drawing- 
 rooms held ; and these receptions took place, very 
 wisely, in the evening. 
 
 Beneath all the show of gayety and the freezing 
 ceremony of those stately occasions, there was in 
 that court as much misery as family dissensions, or, 
 to speak accurately, family hatreds, can engender. 
 Endless jealousies, which seem to us as frivolous as 
 they were rabid, and contentions, of which even the 
 origin is still unexplained, had long severed the queen 
 from her eldest son. George II. had always loved his 
 mother : his affection for the unhappy Sophia Dorothea 
 was one of the very few traits of goodness in a character 
 utterly vulgar, sensual, and entirely selfish. His son, 
 Frederick, Prince of Wales, on the other hand, hated 
 his mother. He loved neither of his parents : but the 
 queen had the pre-eminence in his aversion. 
 
 The king, during the year 1736, was at Hanover. 
 His return was announced, but under circumstances 
 of danger. A tremendous storm arose just as he was 
 prepared to embark at Helvoetsluys. All London was 
 on the look-out, weathercocks were watched, tides, 
 winds, and moons formed the only subjects of con- 
 versation ; but no one of his Majesty's subjects was 
 so demonstrative as the Prince of Wales, and his 
 
292 FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES. 
 
 cheerfulness, and his triumph even, on the occasion, 
 were of course resentfully heard of by the queen. 
 
 During the storm, when anxiety had almost amounted 
 to fever, Lord Hervey dined with Sir Robert Walpole. 
 Their conversation naturally turned on the state of 
 affairs, prospectively. Sir Robert called the prince 
 a " poor, weak, irresolute, false, lying, contemptible 
 wretch." Lord Hervey did not defend him, but sug- 
 gested that Frederick, in case of his father's death, 
 might be more influenced by the queen than he had 
 hitherto been. '-'Zounds, my lord!" interrupted Sir 
 Robert, " he would tear the flesh oif her bones with 
 red-hot irons sooner ! The distinctions she shows to 
 you, too, I believe, would not be forgotten. Then the 
 notion he has of his great riches, and the desire he has 
 of fingering them, would make him pinch her, and 
 pinch her again, in order to make her buy her ease, 
 till she had not a groat left." 
 
 What a picture of a heartless and selfish character ! 
 The next day the queen sent for Lord Hervey to ask 
 him if he knew the particulars of a great dinner which 
 the prince had given to the lord mayor the previous 
 day, whilst the whole country, and the court in par- 
 ticular, was trembling for the safety of the king, his 
 father. Lord Hervey told her that the prince's speech 
 at the dinner was the most ingratiating piece of popu- 
 larity ever heard ; the healths, of course, as usual. 
 "Heavens!" cried the queen: "popularity always 
 makes me sick, but Fritzs popularity makes me 
 
AMELIA SOPHIA WALMODEN. 293 
 
 vomit ! I hear that yesterday, on the prince's side 
 of the House, they talked of the king's being cast 
 away with the same sang froid as you would talk 
 of an overturn, and that my good son strutted about 
 as if he had been already king. Did you mark the 
 airs with which he came into my drawing-room in 
 the morning ? though he does not think fit to honor 
 me with his presence, or ennui me with his wife's, of 
 an evening ? I felt something here in my throat that 
 swelled and half-choked me." 
 
 Poor Queen Caroline ! with such a son, and such a 
 husband, she must have been possessed of a more than 
 usual share of German imperturbability to sustain her 
 cheerfulness, writhing, as she often was, under the 
 pangs of a long-concealed disorder, of which eventually 
 she died. Even on the occasion of the king's return 
 in time to spend his birthday in England, the queen's 
 temper had been sorely tried. Nothing had ever vexed 
 her more than the king's admiration for Amelia Sophia 
 Walmoden, who, after the death of Caroline, was cre- 
 ated Countess of Yarmouth. Madame Walmoden had 
 been a reigning belle among the married women at 
 Hanover when George II. visited that country in 
 1735. Not that her Majesty's affections were wounded ; 
 it was her pride that was hurt by the idea that people 
 would think that this Hanoverian lady had more influ- 
 ence than she had. In other respects the king's ab- 
 sence was a relief: she had the ^lat of the regency ; 
 she had the comfort of having the hours which her 
 
294 KINGLY INSULTS. 
 
 royal torment decreed were to be passed in amusing 
 his dulneas, to herself; she was free froin his " quotid- 
 ian sallies of temper, which," as Lord Her vey relates, 
 " let it be charged by what hand it would, used always 
 to discharge its hottest fire, on some pretence or other, 
 upon her." 
 
 It is quite true that from the first dawn of his prefer- 
 ence for Madame Walmoden, the king wrote circum- 
 stantial letters of fifty or sixty pages to the queen, 
 informing her of every stage of the aifair ; the queen, 
 in reply, saying that she was only one woman, and an 
 old woman, and adding, " that he might love more and 
 younger women." In return, the king wrote, "Yon 
 must love the Walmoden, for she loves you;" a civil 
 insult, which he accompanied with so minute a descrip- 
 tion of his new favorite, that the queen, had she been 
 a painter, might have drawn her portrait at a hundred 
 miles' distance. 
 
 The queen, subservient as she seemed, felt the 
 humiliation. Such was the debased nature of George 
 II. that he not only wrote letters unworthy of a man 
 to write, and unfit for a woman to read, to his wife, 
 but he desired her to show them to Sir Robert Walpole. 
 He used to "tag several paragraphs," as Lord Her- 
 vey expresses it, with these words, " Montrez ceci, et 
 consultez la-dessus de gros homme" meaning Sir Rob- 
 ert. But this was only a portion of the disgusting dis- 
 closures made by the vulgar, licentious monarch to his 
 too degraded consort. 
 
POOR QUEEN CAROLINE! 295 
 
 In the bitterness of her moi'tification the queen con- 
 sulted Lord Hervey and Sir Robert as to the possibility 
 of her losing her influence, should she resent the king's 
 delay in returning. They agreed that her taking the 
 "fi&re turn" would ruin her with her royal consort; 
 Sir Robert adding, that if he had a mind to flatter her 
 into her ruin, he might talk to her as if she were 
 twenty-five, and try to make her imagine that she 
 could bring the king back by the apprehension of 
 losing her affection. He said it was now too late in 
 her life to try new methods ; she must persist in the 
 soothing, coaxing, submissive arts which had been 
 practised with success, and even press his Majesty to 
 bring this woman to England ! " He taught her," 
 says Lord Hervey, "this hard lesson till she tvept." 
 Nevertheless, the queen expressed her gratitude to the 
 minister for his advice. " My lord," said Walpole to 
 Hervey, " she laid her thanks on me so thick that I 
 found I had gone too far, for I am never so much afraid 
 of her rebukes as of her commendations." 
 
 Such was the state of affairs between this singular 
 couple. Nevertheless, the queen, not from attachment 
 to the king, but from the horror she had of her son's 
 reigning, felt such fears of the prince's succeeding to 
 the throne as she could hardly express. He would, 
 she was convinced, do all he could to ruin and injure 
 her in case of his accession to the throne. 
 
 The consolation of such a friend as Lord Hervey can 
 easily be conceived, when he told her Majesty that he 
 
296 MISS VANE. 
 
 had resolved, in case the king had been lost at sea, to 
 have retired from her service, in order to prevent any 
 jealousy or irritation that might arise from his sup- 
 posed influence with her Majesty. The queen stopped 
 him short, and said, " No, my lord, I should never 
 have suffered that ; you are one of the greatest pleas- 
 ures of my life. But did I love you less than I do, or 
 less like to have you about me, I should look upon the 
 suffering you to be taken from me as such a meanness 
 and baseness that you should not have stirred an inch 
 from me. You," she added, "should have gone with 
 me to Somerset House " (which was hers in case of the 
 king's death). She then told him she should have 
 begged Sir Robert Walpole on her knees not to have 
 sent in his resignation. 
 
 The animosity of the Prince of Wales to Lord Her- 
 vey augmented, there can be no doubt, his unnatural 
 aversion to the queen, an aversion which he evinced 
 early in life. There was a beautiful, giddy maid of 
 honor, who attracted not only the attention of Fred- 
 erick, but the rival attentions of other suitors, and 
 among them, the most favored was said to be Lord 
 Ilervey, notwithstanding that he had then been for 
 some years the husband of one of the loveliest orna- 
 ments of the court, the sensible and virtuous Mary 
 Lepel. jMiss Vane became eventually the avowed 
 favorite of the prince, and after giving birth to a son, 
 who was christened Fitz-Frederick Vane, and who 
 died in 1736, his unhappy mother died a few months 
 
NOCTURNAL DIVERSIONS. 297 
 
 afterwards. It is melancholy to read a letter from 
 Lady Hervey to Mrs. Howard, portraying the frolic 
 and levity of this once joyous creature among the 
 other maids of honor ; and her strictures show at once 
 the unrefined nature of the pranks in which they in- 
 dulged, and her own sobriety of demeanor. 
 
 She speaks, on one occasion, in which, however. 
 Miss Vane did not share the nocturnal diversion, of 
 some of the maids of honor being out in the winter 
 all night in the gardens at Kensington — opening and 
 rattling the windows, and trying to frighten people out 
 of their wits ; and she gives Mrs. Howard a hint that 
 the queen ought to be informed of the way in which 
 her young attendants amused themselves. After levi- 
 ties such as these, it is not surprising to find poor 
 Miss Vane writing to Mrs. Howard, with complaints 
 that she was unjustly aspersed, and referring to her 
 relatives, Lady Betty Nightingale and Lady Hewet, 
 in testimony of the falsehood of reports which, un- 
 happily, the event verified. 
 
 The prince, however, never forgave Lord Hervey 
 for being his rival with Miss Vane, nor his mother for 
 her favors to Lord Hervey. In vain did the queen 
 endeavor to reconcile Fritz, as she called him, to his 
 father; — nothing could be done in a case where the 
 one was all dogged selfishness, and where the other, 
 the idol of the opposition party, as the prince had 
 ever been, so legere de tSte as to swallow all the adula- 
 tion offered to him, and to believe himself a demigod. 
 
298 " NEIGHBOE GEORGE'S OEANGE-CHEST." 
 
 " Tlie queen's dread of a rival," Horace Walpole re- 
 marks, " was a feminine weakness : the behavior of 
 her eldest son was a real thorn." Some time before 
 his marriage to a princess who was supposed to aug- 
 ment his hatred of his mother, Frederick of Wales 
 had contemplated an act of disobedience. Soon after 
 his arrival in England, Sarah, Duchess of Marl- 
 borough, hearing that he was in want of money, had 
 sent to offer him her granddaughter. Lady Diana 
 Spencer, with a fortune of ^100,000. The prince ac- 
 cepted the young lady, and a day was fixed for his mar- 
 riage in the duchess's lodge at the Great Park, Wind- 
 sor. But Sir Robert Walpole, getting intelligence of 
 the plot, the nuptials were stopped. The duchess 
 never forgave either Walpole or the royal family, and 
 took an early opportunity of insulting the latter. 
 When the Prince of Orange came over to marry the 
 Princess Royal, a sort of boarded gallery was erected 
 from the windows of the great drawing-room of the 
 palace, and was constructed so as to cross the garden 
 to the Lutheran chapel in the Friary, where the 
 duchess lived. The Prince of Orange being ill, went 
 to Bath, and the marriage was delayed for some weeks. 
 Meantime the windows of Marlborough House were 
 darkened by the gallery. "I wonder," cried the old 
 duchess, " when my neighbor George will take away 
 his crange-chest ?" — the structure, with its pent-house 
 roof, really resembling an orange-chest. 
 
 Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey, whose attractions, great 
 
MABY LEPEL, LADY HERVEY. 299 
 
 as they were, proved insuiBcient to rivet the exclusive 
 admiration of the accomplished Hervey, had become 
 his wife in 1720, some time before her husband had 
 been completely enthralled with the gilded prison 
 doors of a court. She was endowed with that intel- 
 lectual beauty calculated to attract a man of talent : 
 she was highly educated, of great talent ; possessed 
 of savoir faire, infinite good temper, and a strict sense 
 of duty. She also derived from her father. Brigadier 
 Lepel, who was of an ancient family iij Sark, a con- 
 siderable fortune. Good and correct as she was. Lady 
 Hervey viewed with a fashionable composure the 
 various intimacies formed during the course of their 
 married life by his lordship. 
 
 The fact is, that the aim of both was not so much 
 to insure their domestic felicity as to gratify their 
 ambition. Probably they were disappointed in both 
 these aims — certainly in one of them ; talented, in- 
 defatigable, popular, lively, and courteous, Lord Her- 
 vey, in the House of Commons, advocated in vain, in 
 brilliant orations, the measures of Walpole. Twelve 
 years, fourteen years elapsed, and he was left in the 
 somewhat subordinate position of vice-chamberlain, in 
 spite of that high order of talents which he possessed, 
 and which would have been displayed to advantage in 
 a graver scene. The fact has been explained : the 
 queen could not do without him ; she confided in 
 him ; her daughter loved him ; and his influence in 
 that court was too powerful for Walpole to dispense 
 
300 EIVALBY. 
 
 with an aid so valuable to his own plans. Some 
 episodes in a life thus frittered away until, too late, 
 promotion came, alleviated his existence, and gave his 
 wife only a passing uneasiness, if even indeed they 
 imparted a pang. 
 
 One of these was his dangerous passion for Miss 
 Vane ; another, his platonic attachment to Lady Mary 
 Wortley Montagu. 
 
 Whilst he lived on the terms with his wife which is 
 described even by the French as being a ^^ Menage de 
 Paris" Lord Hervey found in another quarter the 
 sympathies which, as a husband, he was too well-bred 
 to require. It is probable that he always admired his 
 wife more than any other person, for she had qualities 
 that were quite congenial to the tastes of a wit and a 
 beau in those times. Lady Hervey was not only singu- 
 larly captivating, young, gay, and handsome ; but a 
 complete model also of the polished, courteous, high- 
 bred woman of fashion. Her manners are said by 
 Lady Louisa Stuart to have " had a foreign tinge, 
 which some called affected ; but they were gentle, easy, 
 and altogether exquisitely pleasing." She was in 
 secret a Jacobite— and resembled in that respect most 
 of the fine ladies in Great Britain. Whiggery and 
 Walpolism were vulgar : it was hant ton to take of- 
 fence when James II. was anathematized, and quite 
 good taste to hint that some people wished well to the 
 Chevalier's attempts : and this way of speaking owed 
 its fashion probably to Frederick of Wales, whose in- 
 
LADY MAEY WOETLEY MONTAGU. 301 
 
 terest in Flora Macdonald, and whose concern for 
 the exiled family, were among the few amiable traits 
 of his disposition. Perhaps they arose from a wish to 
 plague his parents, rather than from a greatness of 
 character foreign to this prince. 
 
 Lady Hervey was in the bloom of youth, Lady 
 Mary in the zenith of her age, when they became 
 rivals : Lady Mary had once excited the jealousy of 
 Queen Caroline when Princess of Wales. 
 
 " How becomingly Lady Mary is dressed to-night!" 
 whispered George II. to his wife, whom he had called 
 up from the card-table to impart to her that important 
 conviction. "Lady Mary always dresses well," was 
 the cold and curt reply. 
 
 Lord Hervey had been married about seven years 
 when Lady Mary Wortley Montagu reappeared at the 
 court of Queen Caroline, after her long residence in Tur- 
 key. Lord Hervey was thirty-three years of age ; Lady 
 Mary was verging on forty. She was still a pretty wom- 
 an, with a piquant, neat-featured face ; which does not 
 seem to have done any justice to a mind at once mascu- 
 line and sensitive, nor to a heart capable of benevolence 
 — capable of strong attachments, and of bitter hatred. 
 
 Like Lady Hervey, she lived with her husband on 
 well-bred terms : there existed no quarrel between 
 them, no avowed ground of coldness; it was the icy 
 boundary of frozen feeling that sevei'ed them ; the 
 sure and lasting though polite destroyer of all bonds, 
 indifference. Lady Mary was full of repartee, of 
 
302 HERVEY'S INTIMACY WITH LADY MAEY. 
 
 poetry, of anecdote, and was not averse to admira- 
 tion ; but she was essentially a woman of common 
 sense, of views enlarged by travel, and of ostensibly 
 good principles. A woman of delicacy was not to be 
 found in those days, any more than other productions 
 of the nineteenth century : a telegraphic message 
 would have been almost as startling to a courtly 
 ear as the refusal of a fine lady to suffer a double 
 entendre. Lady Mary was above all scruples, and 
 Lord Hervey, who had lived too long with George 
 II. and his queen to have the moral sense in her 
 perfection, liked her all the better for her courage — 
 her merry, indelicate jokes, and her putting things 
 down by their right names, on which Lady Mary 
 plumed herself: she was what they term in the north 
 of England, "Emancipated." They formed an old 
 acquaintance with a confidential, if not a tender friend- 
 ship ; and that their, intimacy was unpleasant to Lady 
 Hervey was proved by her refusal — when, after the 
 grave had closed over Lord Hervey, late in life. Lady 
 Mary, ill and broken down by age, returned to die in 
 England — to resume an acquaintance which had been 
 a painful one to her. 
 
 Lord Hervey was a martyr to illness of an epileptic 
 character ; and Lady Mary gave him her sympathy. 
 She was somewhat of a doctor — and being older than 
 her friend, may have had the art of soothing sufferings, 
 which were the worse because they were concealed. 
 Whilst he writhed in pain, he was obliged to give 
 
VISITS TO TWICKENHAM. 303 
 
 vent to his agony by alleging that an attack of cramp 
 bent him double : yet he lived by rule — a rule harder to 
 adhere to than that of the most conscientious homoeo- 
 path in the present day. In the midst of court gayeties 
 and the duties of office, he thus wrote to Dr. Cheyne : — 
 
 ..." To let you know that I continue one of your 
 most pious votaries, ard to tell _you the method I am 
 in. In the first place, I never take wine or malt drink, 
 nor any liquid but water and milk-tea ; in the next, I 
 eat no meat but the whitest, youngest, and tenderest, 
 nine times in ten nothing but chicken, and never more 
 than the quantity of a small one at a meal. I seldom 
 eat any supper, but if any, nothing absolutely but 
 bread and water ; two days in the week I eat no flesh ; 
 my breakfast is dry biscuit, not sweet, and green tea ; 
 I have left ofi" butter as bilious ; I eat no salt, nor any 
 sauce but bread-sauce." 
 
 Among the most cherished relaxations of the royal 
 household were visits to Twickenham, whilst the court 
 was at Richmond. The River Thames, which has 
 borne on its waves so much misery in olden times — 
 which was the highway from the Star-chamber to the 
 Tower — which has been belabored in our days with so 
 much wealth, and sullied with so much impurity ; that 
 river, whose current is one hour rich as the stream of 
 a gold river, the next hour, foul as the pestilent church- 
 yard, — was then, especially between Richmond and 
 Teddington, a glassy, placid stream, reflecting on its 
 margin the chestnut-trees of stately Ham, and the 
 
304 BACON'S OPIKIO>r OF TWICKENHAM. 
 
 reeds and wild flowers which grew undisturbed in the 
 fertile meadows of Petersham. 
 
 Lord Hervey, with the ladies of the court, Mrs. 
 Howard as their chaperon, delighted in being wafted 
 to that village, so rich in names which give to Twicken- 
 ham undying associations with the departed great. 
 Sometimes the effeminate valetudinarian, Hervey, was 
 content to attend the Princess Caroline to Marble Hill 
 only, a villa residence built by George II. for Mrs. 
 Howard, and often referred to in the correspondence 
 of that period. Sometimes the royal barge, with its 
 rowers in scarlet jackets, was seen conveying the gay 
 party ; ladies in slouched hats, pointed over fair brows 
 in front, with a fold of sarsenet round them, termin- 
 ated in a long bow and ends behind — with deep falling 
 mantles over dresses never cognizant of crinoline : gen- 
 tleman, with cocked -hats, their bag-wigs and ties ap- 
 pearing behind ; and beneath their puce-colored coats, 
 delicate silk tights and gossamer stockings were visible, 
 as they trod the mossy lawn of the Palace Gardens at 
 Richmond, or, followed by a tiny greyhound, prepared 
 for the lazy pleasures of the day. 
 
 Sometimes the visit was private ; the sickly Princess 
 Caroline had a fancy to make one of the group who are 
 bound to Pope's villa. Twickenham, where that great 
 little man had, since 1715, esta-blished himself, was 
 pronounced by Lord Bacon to be the finest place in 
 the world for study. "Let Twitnam Park," he wrote 
 to his steward, Thomas Bushell, " which I sold in my 
 
A VISIT TO POPE'S VILLA. 305 
 
 younger days, be purcliased, if possible, for a residence 
 for such deserving persons to study in (since I experi- 
 mentally found the situation of that place much con- 
 venient for the trial of my philosophical conclusions) 
 — expressed in a paper sealed, to the trust — which I 
 myself had put in practice and settled the same by act 
 of Parliament, if the vicissitudes of fortune had not 
 intervened and prevented me." 
 
 Twickenham continued, long after Bacon had penned 
 this injunction, to be the retreat of the poet, the states- 
 man, the scholar ; the haven where the retired actress 
 and broken novelist found peace ; the abode of Henry 
 Fielding, who lived in one of the back streets ; the 
 temporary refuge, from the world of London, of Lady 
 Mary Wortley Montagu, -and the life-long home of 
 Pope. 
 
 Let us picture to ourselves a visit from the princess 
 ' to Pope's villa : — As the barge, following the gentle 
 bendings of the river, nears Twickenham, a richer 
 green, a summer brightness, indicates it is approach- 
 ing that spot of which even Bishop Warburton says 
 that " the beauty of the owner's poetic genius appeared 
 to as much advantage in the disposition of these roman- 
 tic materials as in any of his best-contrived poems." 
 And the loved toil which formed the quincunx, which 
 perforated and extended the grotto until it extended 
 across the road to a garden on the opposite side — the 
 toil which showed the gentler parts of Pope's better 
 nature — has been respected, and its effects preserved. 
 
 Vol. I.— 20 
 
306 POPE AS A HOST. 
 
 The enamelled lawn, green as no other grass save that 
 by the Thames side is green, was swept until late years 
 by the light boughs of the famed willow. Every me- 
 morial of the bard was treasured by the gracious hands 
 into which, after 1744, the classic spot fell — those of 
 Sir William Stanhope. 
 
 In the subterranean passage this verse appears ; 
 adulatory it must be confessed : — 
 
 " The humble roof, the garden's scanty line, 
 111 suit the genius of the bard divine ; 
 But fancy now assumes a fairer scope, 
 And Stanhope's plans unfold the soul of Pope." 
 
 It should have been Stanhope's "gold," — a metal 
 which was not so abundant, nor indeed so much 
 wanted in Pope's time as in our own. Let us picture 
 to ourselves the poet as a host. 
 
 As the barge is moored close to the low steps which 
 lead up from the river to the villa, a diminutive figure, 
 then in its prime (if prime it ever had), is seen moving 
 impatiently forward. By that young-old face, with its 
 large lucid sjjeaking eyes that light it up, as does a rush- 
 light in a cavern — by that twisted figure with its emaci- 
 ated legs — by the large, sensible mouth, the pointed, 
 marked, well-defined nose — by the wig, or hair pushed 
 off in masses from the broad forehead and falling be- 
 hind in tresses — by the dress, that loose, single-breasted 
 black coat — by the cambric band and plaited shirt, 
 without a frill, but fine and white, for the poor poet 
 
THE LITTLE NIGHTINGALE. 307 
 
 has taken infinite pains that day in self-adornment — 
 hy the delicate ruflSe on that large thin hand, and still 
 more by the clear, most musical voice which is heard 
 welcoming his royal and noble guests, as he stands 
 bowing low to the Princess Caroline, and bending to 
 kiss hands — by that voice which gained him more espe- 
 cially the name of the little nightingale — is Pope at 
 once recognized, and Pope in the perfection of his days, 
 in the very zenith of his fame. 
 
 One would gladly have been a sprite to listen from 
 some twig of that then stripling willow which the poet 
 had planted with his own hand, to talk of those who 
 chatted for a while under its shade, before they went 
 in-doors to an elegant dinner at the usual hour of 
 twelve. How delightful to hear, unseen, the repartees 
 of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who comes down, it 
 is natural to conclude, from her villa near to that of 
 Pope. How fine a study might one not draw of the 
 fine gentleman and the wit in Lord Hervey, as he is 
 commanded by the gentle Princess Caroline to sit on 
 her right hand ; but his heart is across the table, with 
 Lady Mary ! How amusing to observe the dainty but 
 not sumptuous repast contrived with Pope's exquisite 
 taste, but regulated by his habitual economy — for his 
 late father, a worthy Jacobite hatter, erst in the Strand, 
 disdained to invest the fortune he had amassed, from 
 the extensive sale of cocked-hats, in the Funds, over 
 which an Hanoverian stranger ruled ; but had lived on 
 his capital of 420,000 (as spendthrifts do, without 
 
308 THE ESSENCE OF SMALL-TALK. 
 
 either moral, religious, or political reasons) as long as 
 it lasted him ; yet he was no spendthrift. Let us look, 
 therefore, with a liberal eye, noting, as we stand, how 
 that fortune, in league with nature, who made the poet 
 crooked, had maimed two of his fingers, such time as, 
 passing a bridge, the poor little poet was overturned 
 into the I'iver, and he would have been drowned, had 
 not the postilion broken the coach window and dragged 
 the tiny body through the aperture. We mark, how- 
 ever, that he generally contrives to hide this defect, as 
 he would fain have hidden every other, from the lynx 
 eyes of Lady Mary, who knows him, however, thorough- 
 ly, and reads every line of that poor little heart of his, 
 enamored of her as it was. 
 
 Then the conversation ! How gladly would we 
 catch here some drops of what must have been the 
 very essence of small-talk, and small-talk is the only 
 thing fit for early dinners ! Our host is noted for his 
 easy address, his engaging manners, his delicacy, 
 politeness, and a certain tact he had of showing every 
 guest that he was welcome in the choicest expressions 
 and most elegant terms. Then Lady Mary ! how 
 brilliant is her slightest turn ! how she banters Pope 
 — how she gives double entendre for double entendre 
 to Hervey ! How sensible, yet how gay is all she 
 says ; how bright, how cutting, yet how polished is the 
 iquivoque of the witty, high-bred Hervey ! He is 
 happy that day — away from the coarse, passionate 
 king, whom he hated with a hatred that burns itself 
 
HEEVEY'S AFFECTATION. 309 
 
 out in his lordship's " Memoirs ;" away from the some- 
 what exacting and pitiable queen ; away from the 
 hated Pelham, and the rival Grafton. 
 
 And conversation never flags when all, more or less, 
 are congenial ; when all are well-informed, well-bred 
 and resolved to please. Yet there is a canker in that 
 whole assembly ; that canker is a want of confidence ; 
 no one trusts the other ; Lady Mary's encouragement 
 of Hervey surprises and shocks the Princess Caroline, 
 who loves him secretly ; Hervey's attentions to the 
 queen of letters scandalizes Pope, who soon afterwards 
 makes a declaration to Lady Mary. Pope writhes 
 under a lash just held over him by Lady Mary's hand. 
 Hervey feels that the poet, though all suavity, is ready 
 to demolish him at any moment, if he can ; and the 
 only really happy and complacent person of the whole 
 party is, perhaps, Pope's old mother, who sits in the 
 room next to that occupied for dinner, industriously 
 spinning. 
 
 This happy state of things came, however, as is 
 often the case in close intimacies, to a painful conclu- 
 sion. There was too little reality, too little earnestness 
 of feeling, for the friendship between Pope and Lady 
 Mary, including Lord Hervey, to last long. His lord- 
 ship had his affectations, and his effeminate nicety was 
 proverbial. One day being asked at dinner if he 
 would take some beef, he is reported to have answered, 
 "Beef? oh no! faugh! don't you know I never eat 
 beef, nor horse, nor curry, nor any of those things ?" 
 
310 POPE'S QUAERELS. 
 
 Poor man ! it was probably a pleasant way of turning 
 oiT what lie may have deemed an assault on a digestion 
 that could hardly conquer any solid food. This affec- 
 tation offended Lady Mary, whose mot, that there 
 were three species, "Men, women, and Herveys " — 
 implies a perfect perception of the eccentricities even 
 of her gifted friend, Lord Hervey, whose mother's 
 friend she had been, and the object of whose admira- 
 tion she undoubtedly was. 
 
 Pope, who was the most irritable of men, never for- 
 got or forgave even the most trifling offence. Lady 
 Bolingbroke truly said of him that he played the 
 politician about cabbages and salads, and everybody 
 agrees that he could hardly tolerate the wit that was 
 more successful than his own. It was about the year 
 1725 that he began to hate Lord Hervey with such a 
 hatred as only he could feel ; it was unmitigated by a 
 single touch of generosity or of compassion. Pope 
 afterwards owned that his acquaintance with Lady 
 Mary and with Hervey was discontinued, merely be- 
 cause they had too much wit for him. Towards the 
 latter end of 1732, "The Imitation of the Second 
 Satire of the First Book of Horace " appeared, and in 
 it Pope attacked Lady Mary with the grossest and 
 most indecent couplet ever printed : she was called 
 Sappho, and Hervey, Lord Fanny ; and all the world 
 knew the characters at once. 
 
 In retaliation for this satire, appeared " Verses to 
 the Imitator of Horace ;" said to have been the joint 
 
POPE'S LINES ON LOED HEEVEY. 311 
 
 production of Lord Hervey and Lady Mary. This 
 was followed by a piece entitled " Letter from a 
 Nobleman at Hampton Court to a Doctor of Divin- 
 ity." To this composition Lord Hervey, its sole 
 author, added these lines, by way, as it seems, of 
 extenuation. 
 
 Pope's first reply was in a prose letter, on which 
 Dr. Johnson has passed a condemnation. " It ex- 
 hibits," he says, "nothing but tedious malignity." 
 But he was partial to the Herveys, Thomas and Henry 
 Hervey, Lord Hervey's brothers, having been kind to 
 him — " If you call a dog Hervey," he said to Boswell, 
 "I shall love him." 
 
 Next came the epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, in which 
 every infirmity and peculiarity of Hervey are handed 
 down in calm, cruel irony, and polished verses, to pos- 
 terity. The verses are almost too disgusting to be re- 
 vived in an age which disclaims scurrility. After the 
 most personal rancorous invective, he thus writes of 
 Lord Hervey's conversation : 
 
 His wit all see-saw between this and thai — 
 Now high, now low — now master up, now mi&t — 
 And he himself one wild antithesis. 
 
 * * * * -it- * 
 
 Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board, 
 
 Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord. 
 
 Eve's tempter, thus the rabbins have expressed — • 
 
 A cherub's face — a reptile all the rest. 
 
 Beauty that shocks you, facts that none can trust, 
 
 Wit that can creep, and pride that bites the dust." 
 
312 HEEVEY'S DUEL WITH PULTENEY. 
 
 " It is impossible," Mr. Croker thinks, " not to ad- 
 mire, however we may condemn, the art by which 
 acknowledged wit, beauty, and gentle manners — the 
 queen's favor — and even a valetudinary diet, are 
 travestied into the most odious offences." 
 
 Pope, in two lines, pointed to the intimacy between 
 Lady Mary and Lord Hervey : — 
 
 " Once, and but once, this heedless youth was hit, 
 And liked that dangerous thing, a female wit." 
 
 Nevertheless, he afterwards pretended that the name 
 of Sajjpho was not applied to Lady Mary, but to women 
 in general ; and acted with a degree of mean prevari- 
 cation which greatly added to the amount of his offence. 
 The ([uarrel with Pope was not the only attack 
 whicli Lord Ilervey had to encounter. Among the 
 most zealous of his foes was Pulteney, afterwards 
 Lord Bath, the rival of Sir Robert Walpole, and the 
 confederate with Bolingbroke in opposing that minister. 
 The " Craftsman," contained an attack on Pulteney, 
 written, with great ability, by Hervey. It provoked 
 a Reply from Pulteney. In this composition he spoke 
 of Hervey as " a thing below contempt," and ridiculed 
 his personal appearance in the grossest terms. A duel 
 was the result, the parties meeting behind Arlington 
 House, in Piccadilly, where Mr. Pulteney had the 
 satisfaction of almost running Lord Hervej' through 
 with his sword. Luckily the poor man slipped down, 
 so the blow was evaded, and the seconds interfered : 
 
"DEATH OF LOED HERVEY: A DEAMA." 313 
 
 Mr. Pulteney then embraced Lord Hervey, and express- 
 ing his regret for their quarrel, declared that he would 
 never again, either in speech or writing, attack his lord- 
 ship. Lord Hervey only bowed, in silence ; and thus 
 they parted. 
 
 The queen having observed what an alteration in 
 the palace Lord Hervey's death would cause, he said 
 he could guess how it would be, and he produced " The 
 Death of Lord Hervey ; or, a Morning at Court ; a 
 Drama:" the idea being taken, it is thought, from 
 Swift's verses on his own death, of which Hervey 
 might have seen a surreptitious copy. The following 
 scene will give some idea of the plot and structure of 
 this amusing little piece. The part allotted to the 
 Princess Caroline is in unison with the idea prevalent 
 of her attachment to Lord Hervey : — 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 Scene : The Queen's Oallery. The time, nine in the morning. 
 
 Enter the Queen, Princess Emily, Princess Caroline, fol- 
 lowed by Lord Lifford, and Mrs. Purcel. 
 
 Queen. Mon Dieu, quelle chaleur ! en v^rit^ on ^touffe. Pray 
 open a little those windows. 
 
 Lord Lifford. Hasa your Majesty heara de news ? 
 
 Queen. What news, my dear Lord ? 
 
 Lord Lifford. Dat my Lord Hervey, as he was coming last night 
 to tone, was rob and murdered by highwaymen and tron in a 
 ditch. 
 
 Priiicess Caroline. Eh ! grand Dieu ! 
 
 Queen \jitriking her hand upon her knee.'] Comment est-il vdritable- 
 ment raort ? Purcel, mj' angel, shall I not have a little breakfast ? 
 
314 CAED-TABLE CONVERSATION. 
 
 Mrs. Purcel. What would your Majesty please to have ? 
 
 Queen. A little chocolate, my soul, if you give me leave, and a 
 little sour cream and some fruit. [Exit Mes. Purcel. 
 
 Queen [to Lord Lifpord.] Eh bien ! my Lord Lifford, dites-nous 
 un peu comment cela est arrive. I cannot imagine what he had to 
 do to be putting his nose there. Seulement pour un sot voyage 
 avec ce petit mousse, eh bien? 
 
 Lord Lifford. jNIadame, on scait quelque chose de celui de Mon. 
 Maran, qui d'abord qu'il a vu les voleurs s'est enfin venu a grand 
 galoppe a Londres, and after dat a wagoner take up the body and 
 put it in his cart. 
 
 Queen [to Princess Emily.] Are you not ashamed, Amalie, to 
 laugh ? 
 
 Princess Emily. I only laughed at the cart, mamma. 
 
 Queen. Oh ! that is very fade plaisanterie. 
 
 Princess Emily. But if I may say it, mamma, I am not very 
 sorry. 
 
 Queen. Oh ! fie done ! Eh bien ! my Lord Lifford ! My God ! 
 where is this chocolate, Purcel? 
 
 As Mr. Croker remarks, Queen Caroline's break- 
 fast-table, and her parentheses, reminds one of the 
 card-table conversation of Swift : — 
 
 "The Dean's dead: (pray what are trumps?) 
 Then Lord have mercy on his soul ! 
 (Ladies, I'll venture for the vole.) 
 Six Deans, they say, must bear the pall ; 
 (I wish I knew what king to call.)" 
 
 Fragile as was Lord Hervey's constitution, it was 
 his lot to witness the death-bed of the queen, for whose 
 amusement he had penned the jeu d'esprit just quoted, 
 in which there was, perhaps, as much truth as wit. 
 
QUEEN CAROLINE'S LAST DRAWING-ROOM. 315 
 
 The wretclied Queen Caroline had, during fourteen 
 years, concealed from every one, except Lady Sundon, 
 an incurable disorder, that of hernia. In November 
 (1737) she was attacked with what we should now call 
 English cholera. Dr. Tessier, her house-physician, 
 was called in, and gave her Daifey's elixir, which was 
 not likely to aiford any relief to the deep-seated cause 
 of her sufferings. She held a drawing-room that night 
 for the last time, and played at cards, even cheerfully. 
 At length she whispered to Lord Hervey, " I am not 
 able to entertain people." " For heaven's sake, 
 madam," was the reply, "go to your room: would to 
 heaven the king would leave off talking of the Dragon 
 of Wantley, and release you !" The Dragon of Want- 
 ley was a burlesque on the Italian opera, by Henry 
 Carey, and was the theme of the fashionable world. 
 
 The next day the queen was in fearful agony, very 
 hot, and willing to take anything proposed. Still she 
 did not, even to Lord Hervey, avow the real cause of 
 her illness. None of the most learned court physicians, 
 neither Mead nor Wilmot, were called in. Lord Her- 
 vey sat by the queen's bed-side, and tried to soothe 
 her, whilst the Princess Caroline joined in begging 
 him to give her mother something to relieve her agony. 
 At length, in utter ignorance of the case, it was pro- 
 posed to give her some snakeroot, a stimulant, and, at 
 the same time. Sir Walter Raleigh's cordial ; so singu- 
 lar was it thus to find that great mind still influencing 
 a court. It was that very medicine which was admin- 
 
316 HEE ILLNESS AND AGONY. 
 
 istered by Queen Anne of Demmark, however, to 
 Prince Henry ; that medicine -whicli Raleigh said, 
 " would cure him, or any other, of a disease, except in 
 case of poison." 
 
 However, Ranby, house-surgeon to the king, and a 
 favorite of Lord Hervey's, assuring him that a cordial 
 with this name or that name was mere quackery, some 
 usquebaugh was given instead, but was rejected by the 
 queen soon afterwards. At last Raleigh's cordial was 
 administered, but also rejected about an hour after- 
 wards. Her fever, after taking Raleigh's cordial, was 
 so much increased, that she was ordered instantly to 
 be bled. 
 
 Then, even, the queen never disclosed the fact that 
 could alone dictate the course to be pursued. George 
 II., with more feeling than judgment, slept on the 
 outside of the queen's bed all that night ; so that the 
 unhappy invalid could get no rest, nor change her 
 position, not daring to irritate the king's temper. 
 
 The next day the queen said touchingly to her gen- 
 tle, affectionate daughter, herself in declining health, 
 " Poor Caroline ! you are very ill, too : we shall soon 
 meet again in another place." 
 
 Meantime, though the queen declared to every one 
 that she was sure nothing could save her, it was re- 
 solved to hold a levee. The foreign ministers were to 
 come to court, and the king, in the midst of his real 
 grief, did not forget to send word to his pages to be 
 sure to have his last new ruffles sewed on the shirt he 
 
THE QUEEN KEEPS HEK SECRET. 317 
 
 was to put on that day ; a trifle whicli often, as Lord 
 Hervey remarks, shows more of the real character 
 than events of importance, from which one frequently 
 knows no more of a person's state of mind than one 
 does of his natural gait from his dancing. 
 
 Lady Sundon was, meantime, ill at Bath, so that 
 the queen's secret rested alone in her own heart. " I 
 have an ill," she said, one evening, to her daughter 
 Caroline, "that nobody knows of." Still, neither the 
 princess nor Lord Hervey could guess at the full mean- 
 ing of that sad assertion. 
 
 The famous Sir Hans Sloane was then called in ; but 
 no remedy except large and repeated bleedings were 
 suggested, and blisters were put on her legs. There 
 seems to have been no means left untried by the 
 faculty to hasten the catastrophe — thus working in the 
 dark. 
 
 The king now sat up with her whom he had so 
 cruelly wounded in every nice feeling. On being 
 asked, by Lord Hervey, what was to be done in case 
 the Prince of Wales should come to inquire after the 
 queen, he answered in the following terms, worthy of 
 his ancestry — worthy of himself. It is difficult to say 
 which was the most painful scene, that in the chamber 
 where the queen lay in agony, or without, where the 
 curse of family dissensions came like a ghoul to hover 
 near the bed of death, and to gloat over the royal 
 corpse. This was the royal dictum : — " If the puppy 
 should, in one of his impertinent airs of duty and 
 
318 A PAINFUL SCENE. 
 
 affection, dare to come to St. James's, I order you to 
 20 to the scoundrel, and tell him I wonder at his im- 
 pudence for daring to come here ; that he has my 
 orders already, and knows my pleasure, and bid him 
 go about his business ; for his poor mother ig not in a 
 condition to see him act his false, whining, cringing 
 tricks now, nor am I in a humor to bear with his im- 
 pertinence ; and bid him trouble me with no more mes- 
 sages, but get out of my house." 
 
 In the evening, whilst Lord Hervey sat at tea in the 
 queen's outer apartment with the Duke of Cumberland, 
 a page came to the duke to speak to the prince in the 
 passage. It was to prefer a request to see his mother. 
 This message was conveyed by Lord Hervey to the 
 king, whose reply was uttered in the most vehement 
 rage possible. "This," said he, "is like one of his 
 scoundrel tricks ; it is j ust of a piece with his kneeling 
 down in the dirt before the mob to kiss her hand at the 
 coach door when she came home from Hampton Court 
 to see the Princess, though he had not spoken one word 
 to her during her whole visit. I always hated the 
 rascal, but now I hate him worse than ever. He wants 
 to come and insult his poor dying mother ; but she shall 
 not see him : you have heard her, and all my daugh- 
 ters have heard her, very often this year at Hampton 
 Court desire me if she should be ill, and out of her 
 senses, that I would never let him come near her; 
 and whilst she bad her senses she was sure she should 
 
THE TKUTH DISCOVERED. 319 
 
 never desire it. No, no ! he shall not come and act 
 any of his silly plays here." 
 
 In the afternoon the queen said to the king, she 
 wondered the G-riff, a nickname she gave to the prince, 
 had not sent to inquire after her yet ; it would be so 
 like one of his paroitres. " Sooner or later," she added, 
 " I am sure we shall be plagued with some message of 
 that sort, because he will think it will have a good air 
 in the world to ask to see me ; and, perhaps, hopes I 
 shall be fool enough to let him come, and give him the 
 pleasure of seeing the last breath go out of my body, 
 by which means he would have the joy of knowing I 
 was dead five minutes sooner than he could know it in 
 Pall Mall." 
 
 She afterwards declared that nothing would induce 
 her to see him except the king's absolute commands. 
 " Therefore, if I grow worse," she said, " and should I 
 be weak enough to talk of seeing him, I beg you, sir, 
 to conclude that I dote — or rave." 
 
 The king, who had long since guessed at the queen's 
 disease, urged her now to permit him to name it to her 
 physicians. She begged him not to do so ; and for the 
 first time, and the last, the unhappy woman spoke 
 peevishly and warmly. Then Ranby, the house-sur- 
 geon, who had by this time discovered the truth, said, 
 " There is no more time to be lost ; your Majesty has 
 concealed the truth too long : I beg another surgeon 
 may be called in immediately." 
 
 The queen, who had, in her passion, started up in 
 
320 THE HATED "GKIFF." 
 
 her bed, lay down again, turned her head on the other 
 side, and, as the king told Lord Hervey, " shed the 
 only tear he ever saw her shed whilst she was ill." 
 
 At length, too late, other and more sensible means 
 were resorted to : but the queen's strength was failing 
 fast. It must have been a strange scene in that cham- 
 ber of death. Much as the king really grieved for the 
 queen's state, he was still sufficiently collected to grieve 
 also lest Richmond Lodge, which was settled on the 
 queen, should go to the hated Griff :^ and he actually 
 sent Lord Hervey to the lord chancellor to inquire 
 about that point. It was decided that the queen could 
 make a will, so the king informed her of his inquiries, 
 in order to set her mind at ease, and to assure her it 
 was impossible that the prince could in any way benefit 
 pecuniarily from her death. The Princess Emily now 
 sat up with her mother. The king went to bed. The 
 Princess Caroline slept on a couch in the ante-chamber, 
 and Lord Hervey lay on a mattress on the floor at the 
 foot of the Princess Caroline's couch. 
 
 On the following day (four after the first attack) 
 mortification came on, and the weeping Princess Caro- 
 line and Lord Hervey were informed that the queen 
 could not hold out many hours. Lord Hervey was 
 ordered to withdraw. The king, the Duke of Cumber- 
 land, and the queen's four daughters alone remained, 
 the queen begging them not to leave her until she ex- 
 pired ; yet her life was prolonged many days. 
 ' Prince Frederick. 
 
THE QUEEN'S DYING BEQUESTS. 321 
 
 When alone with her family, she took from her 
 finger a ruby ring, which had been placed on it at 
 the time of the coronation, and gave it to the king. 
 "This is the last thing," she said, " I have to give 
 you ; naked I came to you, and naked I go from you ; 
 I had everything I ever possessed from you, and to 
 you whatever I have I return." She then asked for 
 her keys, and gave them to the king. To the Princess 
 Caroline she intrusted the care of her younger sisters ; 
 to the Duke of Cumberland, that of keeping up the 
 credit of the family. " Attempt nothing against your 
 brother, and endeavor to mortify him by showing 
 superior merit," she said to him. She advised the 
 king to marry again ; he heard her in sobs, and with 
 much difficulty got out this sentence : " Non, jaurai 
 des maitresses." To which the queen made no other 
 reply than "Ah, mon Dieu! cela n'empSche pas." 
 " I know," says Lord Hervey, in his Memoirs, " that 
 this episode will hardly be credited, but it is literally 
 true." 
 
 She then fancied she could sleep. The king kissed 
 her, and wept over her ; yet wher she asked for her 
 watch, which hung near the chimney, that she might 
 give him the seal to take care of, his brutal temper 
 broke forth. In the midst of his tears he called out, 
 in a loud voice, " Let it alone ! mon Dieu ! the queen 
 has such strange fancies ; who should meddle with 
 your seal? It is as safe there as in my pocket." 
 
 The queen then thought she could sleep, and, in 
 
 Vol. I.— 21 
 
322 HER SON'S LOVING ATTENTIONS. 
 
 fact, sank to rest. She felt refreshed on awakening 
 and said, "I wish it was over; it is only a reprieve 
 to make me suffer a little longer ; I cannot recover, 
 but my nasty heart will not break yet." She had an 
 impression that she should die on a Wednesday : she 
 had, she said, been born on a Wednesday, married 
 on a Wednesday, crowned on a Wednesday, her first 
 child was born on a Wednesday, and she had heard 
 of the late king's death on a Wednesday. 
 
 On the ensuing day she saw Sir Robert Walpole. 
 "My good Sir Robert," she thus addressed him, "you 
 see me in a very indifferent situation. I have nothing 
 to say to you but to recommend the king, my children, 
 and the kingdom to your care." 
 
 Lord Hervey, when the minister retired, asked him 
 what he thought of the queen's state. 
 
 "My lord," was the reply, "she is as much dead 
 as if she was in her coffin ; if ever I heard a corpse 
 speak, it was just now in that room !" 
 
 It was a sad, an awful death-bed. The Prince of 
 Wales having sent tc inquire after the health of his 
 dying mother, the '"^ueen became uneasy lest he should 
 hear the true state of her case, asking " if no one 
 would send those ravens," meaning the prince's at- 
 tendants, out of the house. " They were only," she 
 said, " watching her death, and would gladly tear her 
 to pieces whilst she was alive." Whilst thus she 
 spoke of her son's courtiers, that son was sitting up 
 all night in his house in Pall Mall, and saying, when 
 
ARCHBISHOP POTTER IS SENT FOR. 323 
 
 any messenger came in from St. James's, " Well, sure, 
 we shall soon have good news, she cannot hold out 
 much longer." And the princesses were writing let- 
 ters to prevent the Princess Royal from coming to 
 England, where she was certain to meet with brutal 
 unkindness from her father, who could not endure to 
 be put to any expense. Orders were, indeed, sent to 
 stop her if she set out. She came, however, on pre- 
 tence of taking the Bath waters ; but George II., 
 furious at her disobedience, obliged her to go direct 
 to and from Bath without stopping, and never forgave 
 her. 
 
 Notwithstanding her predictions, the queen survived 
 the fatal Wednesday. Until this time no prelate had 
 been called in to pray by her Majesty, nor to admin- 
 ister the Holy Communion; and as people about the 
 court began to be scandalized by this omission. Sir 
 Robert Walpole advised that the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury should be sent for : his opinion was couched 
 in the following terms, characteristic at once of the 
 man, the times, and the court : — 
 
 "Pray, madam," he said to the Princess Emily, 
 " let this farce be played ; the archbishop will act it 
 very well. You may bid him be as short as you 
 will : it will do the queen no hurt, no more than any 
 good ; and it will satisfy all the wise and good fools, 
 who will call us atheists if we don't pretend to be as 
 great fools as they are." 
 
 Unhappily, Lord Hervey, who relates this anecdote. 
 
324 THE DUTY OF RECONCILIATION. 
 
 was himself an unbeliever ; yet the scoffing tone adopted 
 by Sir Robert seems to have shocked even him. 
 
 In consequence of this advice, Archbishop Potter 
 prayed by the queen morning and evening, the king 
 always quitting the room when his grace entered it. 
 Her children, however, knelt by her bedside. Still 
 the whisperers who censured were unsatisfied — the con- 
 cession was thrown away. Why did not the queen 
 receive the communion ? Was it, as the world believed, 
 either " that she had reasoned herself into a very low 
 and cold assent to Christianity?" or "that she was 
 heterodox?" or "that the archbishop refused to ad- 
 minster the sacrament until she should be reconciled 
 to her son?" Even Lord Hervey, who rarely left the 
 antechamber, has only by his silence proved that she 
 did 7iot take the communion. That antechamber was 
 crowded with persons who, as the prelate left the 
 chamber of death, crowded around, eagerly asking, 
 "Has the queen received?" "Her Majesty," was 
 the evasive reply, "is in a heavenly disposition:" 
 the public were thus deceived. Among those who 
 were near the queen at this solemn hour was Dr. But- 
 ler, author of the "Analogy." He had been made 
 clerk of the closet, and became, after the queen's death. 
 Bishop of Bristol. He was in a remote living in Dur- 
 ham when the queen, remembering that it was long 
 since she had heard of him, asked the Archbishop of 
 York "whether Dr. Butler was dead?" — "No, mad- 
 am," replied that prelate (Dr. Blackburn), "but he is 
 
THE DYING QUEEN. 325 
 
 buried;" upon which she had sent for him to court. 
 Yet he was not courageous enough, it seems, to speak 
 to her of her son, and of the duty of reconciliation ; 
 whether she ever sent the prince any message or not is 
 uncertain ; Lord Hervey is silent on that point, so that 
 it is to be feared that Lord Chesterfield's line — 
 
 ' " And, unforgiving, unforgiven, dies !" 
 
 had but too sure a foundation in fact ; so that Pope's 
 sarcastic verses — 
 
 "Hang the sad verse on Carolina's urn, 
 And hail her passage to the realms of rest; 
 All parts 'perfm-med and all her children blest," 
 
 may have been but too just, though cruelly bitter. 
 The queen lingered till the 20th of November. Dur- 
 ing that interval of agony her consort was perpet- 
 ually boasting to every one of her virtues, her sense, 
 her patience, her softness, her delicacy ; and ending 
 with the praise, " Comme elle soutenoit sa dignite avec 
 grace, avec politesse, avec douceur!" Nevertheless he 
 scarcely ever went into her room. Lord Hervey states 
 that he did, even in this moving situation, snub her 
 for something or other she did or said. One morning, 
 as she lay with her eyes fixed on a point in the air, as 
 people sometimes do when they want to keep their 
 thoughts from wandering, the king coarsely told her 
 " she looked like a calf which had just had its throat 
 cut." He expected her to die in state. Then, with 
 
326 THE DEATH OF QUEEN CAEOLINE. 
 
 all his bursts of tenderness he always mingled his own 
 praises, hinting that though she was a good wife he 
 knew he had deserved a good one, and remarking, 
 when he extolled her understanding, that he did not 
 " think it the worse for her having kept him company 
 so many years." To all this Lord Hervey listened 
 with, doubtless, well-concealed disgust ; for cabals were 
 even then forming for the future influence that might 
 or might not be obtained. 
 
 The queen's life, meantime, was softly ebbing away 
 in this atmosphere of selfishness, brutality, and unbe- 
 lief. One evening she asked Dr. Tessier impatiently 
 how long her state might continue. 
 
 "Your Majesty," was the reply, "will soon be re- 
 leased." 
 
 " So much the better," the queen calmly answered. 
 
 At ten o'clock that night, whilst the king lay at the 
 foot of her bed, on the floor, and the Princess Emily 
 on a couch-bed in the room, the fearful death-rattle in 
 the throat was heard. Mrs. Purcel, her chief and old 
 attendant, gave the alarm : the Princess Caroline and 
 Lord Hervey were sent for ; but the princess was too 
 late, her mother had expired before she arrived. All 
 the dying queen said was, " I have now got an asthma ; 
 open the window:" then she added, '■'■ Pray V That 
 was her last word. As the Princess Emily began to 
 read some prayers, the sufiierer breathed her last sigh. 
 The Princess Caroline held a looking-glass to her lips, 
 and flnding there was no damp on it, said, " 'Tis 
 
A CHANGE IN HERVEY'S LIFE. 327 
 
 over !" Yet she shed not one tear upon the arrival of 
 that event, the prospect of which had cost her so many- 
 heart-rending sobs. 
 
 The king kissed the lifeless face and hands of his 
 often-injured wife, and then retired to his own apart- 
 ment, ordering that a page should sit up with him for 
 that and several other nights, for his Majesty was 
 afraid of apparitions, and feared to be left alone. He 
 caused himself, however, to be buried by the side of 
 his queen, in Henry VII. 's chapel, and ordered that 
 one side of his coffin and of hers should be withdrawn ; 
 and in that state the two coffins were discovered not 
 many years ago. 
 
 With the death of Queen Caroline, Lord Hervey's 
 life, as to court, was changed. He was afterwards 
 made lord privy seal, and had consequently to enter 
 the political world, with the disadvantage of knowing 
 that much was expected from a man of so high a repu- 
 tation for wit and learning. He was violently opposed 
 by Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, who had been adverse 
 to his entering the ministry, and since, with Walpole's 
 favor, it was impossible to injure him by fair means, it 
 was resolved to oppose Lord Hervey by foul ones. One 
 evening, when he was to speak, a party of fashionable 
 Amazons, with two duchesses — her grace of Queens- 
 berry and her grace of Ancaster — at their head, 
 stormed the House of Lords and disturbed the de- 
 bate with noisy laughter and sneers. Poor Lord 
 Hervey was completely daunted, and spoke miser- 
 
328 LOSS OF COURT INFLUENCE. 
 
 ably. After Sir Robert Walpole's fall Lord Hervey 
 retired. Tbe following letter from him to Lady Mary 
 Wortley Montagu fully describes his position and cir- 
 cumstances :— 
 
 " I must now," he writes to her, " since you take so 
 friendly a part in what concerns me, give you a short 
 account of my natural and political health ; and when 
 I say I am still alive, and still privy seal, it is all I 
 can say for the pleasure of one or the honor of the 
 other ; for since Lord Orford's retiring, as I am too 
 proud to offer my service and friendship Avhere I am 
 not sure they will be accepted of, and too inconsiderable 
 to have those advances made to me (though I never 
 forgot or failed to return any obligation I ever re- 
 ceived), so I remain as illustrious a nothing in this 
 office as ever filled it since it was erected. There 
 is one benefit, however, I enjoy from this loss of 
 my court interest, which is, that all those flies which 
 were buzzing about me in the summer sunshine and 
 full ripeness of that interest, have all deserted its 
 autumnal decay, and from thinking my natural death 
 not far off, and my political demise already over, have 
 all forgot the death-bed of the one and the coffin of the 
 other." 
 
 Again he wrote to her a characteristic letter : — 
 "I have been confined these three weeks by a fever, 
 which is a sort of annual tax my detestable constitution 
 pays to our detestable climate at the return of every 
 
LORD IIERVEY'S DEATH. 329 
 
 spring ; it is now mucli abated, though not quite 
 gone off." 
 
 He Avas long a helpless invalid ; and on the 8th of 
 August, 1743, his short, unprofitable, brilliant, un- 
 happy life was closed. He died at Ickworth, attended 
 and deplored by his wife, who had ever held a second- 
 ary part in the heart of the great wit and beau of the 
 court of George II. After his death his son George 
 returned to Lady Mary all the letters she had written 
 to his father : the packet was sealed : an assurance was 
 at the same time given that they had not been read. 
 In acknowledging this act of attention. Lady Mary 
 wrote that she could almost regret that he had not 
 glanced his eye over a correspondence which might 
 have shown him what so young a man might perhaps 
 be inclined to doubt — " the possibility of a long and 
 steady friendship subsisting between two persons of 
 different sexes without the least mixture of love." 
 
 Nevertheless some expressions of Lord Hervey's 
 seem to have bordered on the tender style, when 
 writing to Lady Mary in such terms as these. She 
 had complained that she was too old to inspire a pas- 
 sion (a sort of challenge for a compliment), on which 
 he wrote : " I should think anybody a great fool that 
 said he liked spring better than summer, merely 
 because it is further from autumn, or that they loved 
 green fruit better than ripe only because it was further 
 from being rotten. I ever did, and believe ever shall, 
 like woman best — 
 
330 PLATONIC LOVE. 
 
 'Just in tlie noon of life — tliose golden days, 
 When the mind ripens ere the form decays.' " 
 
 Certainly this looks very unlike a pure Platonic, 
 and it is not to be wondered at that Lady Hervey 
 refused to call on Lady Mary when, long after Lord 
 Harvey's death, that fascinating woman returned to 
 England. A wit, a courtier at the very fount of all 
 politeness. Lord Hervey wanted the genuine source of 
 all social qualities — Christianity. That moral refrig- 
 erator which checks the kindly current of neighborly 
 kindness, and which prevents all genial feeling from 
 expanding, produced its usual effect — misanthropy. 
 Lord Hervey's lines, in his " Satire after the man- 
 ner of Persius," describe too well his own mental 
 canker: — 
 
 "JVIankind I know, their motives and their art. 
 Their vice their own, their virtue best apart. 
 Till played so oft, that all the cheat can tell, 
 And dangerous only when 'tis acted well." 
 
 Lord Hervey left in the possession of his family a 
 manuscript work, consisting of memoirs of his own 
 time, written in his own autograph, which was clean 
 and legible. This work, which has furnished many 
 of the anecdotes connected with his court life in the 
 foregoing pages, was long guarded from the eye of any 
 but the Hervey family, owing to an injunction given 
 in his will by Augustus, third Earl of Bristol, Lord 
 Hervey's son, that it should not see the light until 
 
MEMOIRS OF HIS OAVN TIME. 331 
 
 after the death of his Majesty George III. It was not 
 therefore published until 1848, when they were edited 
 by Mr. Croker. They are referred to both by Hor- 
 ace Walpole, who had heard of them, if he had not 
 seen them, and by Lord Hailes, as affording the most 
 intimate portraiture of a court that has ever been pre- 
 sented to the English people. Such a delineation as 
 Lord Hervey has left ought to cause a sentiment of 
 thankfulness in every British heart for not being ex- 
 posed to such influences, to such examples as he gives, 
 in the present day, when goodness, aifection, purity, 
 benevolence, are the household deities of the court of 
 our beloved, inestimable Queen Victoria. 
 
PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, FOURTH 
 EARL OP CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 The subject of this memoir may be thought by some 
 rather the modeller of wits than the original of that 
 class ; the great critic and judge of manners rather 
 than the delight of. the dinner-table : but we are told 
 to the contrary by one who loved him not. Lord Her- 
 vey says of Lord Chesterfield that he was " allowed by 
 everybody to have more conversable entertaining table- 
 wit than any man of his time ; his propensity to ridi- 
 cule, in which he indulged himself with infinite humor 
 and no distinction ; and his inexhaustible spirits, and 
 no discretion ; made him sought and feared — liked and 
 not loved — by most of his acquaintance." 
 
 This formidable personage was born in London on 
 the 2d day of September, 1694. It was remarkable 
 that the father of a man so vivacious should have been 
 of a morose temper ; all the wit and spirit of intrigue 
 displayed by him remind us of the frail Lady Chester- 
 field, in the time of Charles II.' — that lady who was 
 looked on as a martyr because her husband was jealous 
 
 'The Countess of Chesterfield here alluded to was the second 
 wife of Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield. Philip Dormer, fourth 
 Earl, was grandson of the second Earl, by his third wife. 
 332 
 

EARLY YEARS. 333 
 
 of her : " a prodigy," says De Grammont, " in the city 
 of London," where indulgent critics endeavored to ex- 
 cuse his lordship on account of his bad education, and 
 mothers vowed that none of their sons should ever set 
 foot in Italy, lest they should " bring back with them 
 that infamous custom of laying restraint on their 
 wives." 
 
 Even Horace Walpole cites Chesterfield as the 
 "witty earl," apropos to an anecdote which he re- 
 lates of an Italian lady, who said that she was only 
 four-and-twenty ; "I suppose," said Lord Chester- 
 field, "she means four-and-twenty stone." 
 
 By his father the future wit, historian, and orator 
 was utterly neglected ; but his grandmother, the 
 Marchioness of Halifax, supplied to him the place 
 of both parents, his mother — her daughter, Lady 
 Elizabeth Saville — having died in his childhood. 
 At the age of eighteen, Chesterfield, then Lord 
 Stanhope, was entered at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. 
 It was one of the features of his character to fall at 
 once into the tone of the society into which he hap- 
 pened to be thrown. One can hardly imagine his 
 being "an absolute pedant," but such was, actually, 
 his own account of himself : — "When I talked my 
 best, I quoted Horace ; when I aimed at being face- 
 tious, I quoted Martial ; and when I had a mind to be 
 a fine gentleman, I talked Ovid. I was convinced 
 that none- but the ancients had common sense; that 
 the classics contained everything that was either neces- 
 
334 HIS AIM IN LIFE. 
 
 sary, useful, or ornamental to men; and I was not 
 even without thoughts of wearing the toga virilis of 
 the Romans, instead of the vulgar and illiberal dress 
 of the moderns." 
 
 Thus, again, when in Paris, he caught the manners, 
 as he had acquired the language, of the Parisians. 
 " I shall not give you my opinion of the French, be- 
 cause I am very often taken for one of them, and 
 several have paid me the highest compliment they 
 think it in their power to bestow — which is, ' Sir, 
 you are just like ourselves.' I shall only tell you 
 that I am insolent ; I talk a great deal ; I am very 
 loud and peremptory ; I sing and dance as I walk 
 along ; and, above all, I spend an immense sum in 
 hair-powder, feathers, and white gloves." 
 
 Although he entered Parliament before he had 
 attained the legal age, and was expected to make a 
 great figure in that assembly, Lord Chesterfield pre- 
 ferred the reputation of a wit and a beau to any other 
 distinction. " Call it vanity, if you will," he wrote 
 in after-life to his son, " and possibly it was so ; but 
 my great object was to make every man and everj' 
 woman love me. I often succeeded : but why ? by 
 taking great pains." 
 
 According to Lord Hervey's account, he often even 
 sacrificed his interest to his vanity. The description 
 given of Lord Chesterfield by one as bitter as himself 
 implies, indeed, that great pains were requisite to 
 counterbalance the defects of nature. Wilkes, one 
 
HEEVEY'S DESCEIPTION OF CHESTERFIELD. 335 
 
 of the ugliest men of his time, used to say, that with 
 an hour's start he would carry off the affections of any 
 woman from the handsomest man breathing. Lord 
 Chesterfield, according to Lord Hervey, required to 
 be still longer in advance of a rival. 
 
 "With a person," Hervey writes, "as disagreeable 
 as it was possible for a human figure to be without 
 being deformed, he affected following many women of 
 the first beauty and the most in fashion. He was very 
 short, disproportioned, thick and clumsily made ; had 
 a broad, rough-featured, ugly face, with black teeth, 
 and a head big enough for a Polyphemus. One Ben 
 Ashurst, who said a few good things, though admired 
 for many, told Lord Chesterfield once, that he was 
 like a stunted giant — which was a.humorous idea and 
 really apposite." 
 
 Notwithstanding that Chesterfield, when young, in- 
 jured both soul and body by pleasure and dissipation, 
 he always found time for serious study : when he could 
 not have it otherwise, he took it out of his sleep. How 
 late soever he went to bed, he resolved always to rise 
 early ; and this resolution he adhered to so faithfully, 
 that at the age of fifty-eight he could declare that for 
 more than forty years he had never been in bed at 
 nine o'clock in the morning, but had generally been 
 up before eight. He had the good sense, in this re- 
 spect, not to exaggerate even this homely virtue. He 
 did not rise with the dawn, as many early risers pride 
 themselves in doing, putting all the engagements of 
 
336 STUDY OF ORATOEY. 
 
 ordinary life out of their usual beat, just as if the 
 clocks had been set two hours forward. The man in 
 ordinary society, who rises at four in this country, and 
 goes to bed at nine, is a social and family nuisance. 
 
 Strong good sense characterized Chesterfield's early 
 pursuits. Desultory reading he abhorred. He looked 
 on it as one of the resources of age, but as injurious 
 to the young in the extreme. " Throw away," thus he 
 writes to his son, " none of your time upon those triv- 
 ial, futile books published by idle, necessitous authors 
 for the amusement of idle and ignorant readers." 
 
 Even in those days such books " swarm and buzz 
 about one:" "flap them away," says Chesterfield, 
 "they have no sting." The earl directed the whole 
 force of his mind to oratory, and became the finest 
 speaker of his time. Writing to Sir Horace Mann, 
 about the Hanoverian debate (in 1743, Dec. 15), Wal- 
 pole, praising the speeches of Lords Halifax and Sand- 
 wich, adds, " I was there, and heard Lord Chester- 
 field make the finest oration I have ever heard there." 
 This from a man who had listened to Pulteney, to 
 Chatham, to Carteret, was a singularly valuable tribute. 
 
 Whilst a student at Cambridge, Chesterfi^d was 
 forming an acquaintance with the Hon. George Berke- 
 ley, the youngest son of the second Earl of Berkeley, 
 and remarkable rather as being the second husband of 
 Lady Suffolk, the favorite of George IL, than from 
 any merits or demerits of his own. 
 
 This early intimacy probably brought Lord Chester- 
 
DUTY OF AN AMBASSADOR. 337 
 
 field into the close friendship which afterwards subsisted 
 between him and Lady Suffolk, to whom many of his 
 letters are addressed. 
 
 His first public capacity was a diplomatic appoint- 
 ment : he afterwards attained to the rank of an ambas- 
 sador, whose duty it is, according to a witticism of Sir 
 Henry Wotton's, " to lie abroad for the good of his 
 country;" and no man was in this respect more com- 
 petent to fulfil these requirements than Chesterfield. 
 Hating both wine and tobacco, he had smoked and 
 drunk at Cambridge, "to be in the fashion;" he 
 gamed at the Hague, on the same principle ; and, un- 
 happily, gaming became a habit and a passion. Yet 
 never did he indulge it when acting, afterwards, in a 
 ministerial capacity. Neither when Lord-Lieutenant 
 of Ireland, or as Under-secretary of State, did he 
 allow a gaming-table in his house. On the very night 
 that he resigned office he went to White's. 
 
 The Hague was then a charming residence : among 
 others who, from political motives, were living there, 
 were John Duke of Marlborough and Queen Sarah, 
 both of whom paid Chesterfield marked attention. 
 Naturally industrious, with a ready insight into cha- 
 racter — a perfect master in that art which bids us keep 
 one's thoughts close and our countenances open, Ches- 
 terfield was admirably fitted for diplomacy. A master 
 of modern languages and of history, he soon began to 
 like business. When in England, he had been accused 
 of having " a need of a certain proportion of talk in 
 
 Vol. I.— 22 
 
338 " HISTOKY OF THE EEIGN OF GEORGE II." 
 
 a day:" "that," he wrote to Lady Suffolk, "is now 
 changed into a need of such a proportion of writing in 
 a day." 
 
 In 1728 he was promoted, being sent as ambassa- 
 dor to the Hague, where he was popular, and where he 
 believed his stay would be beneficial both to soul and 
 body, there being " fewer temptations, and fewer op- 
 portunities to sin," as he wrote to Lady Suffolk, "than 
 in England." Here his days passed, he asserted, in 
 doing the king's business, very ill — and his own still 
 worse : — sitting down daily to dinner with fourteen or 
 fifteen people ; whilst at five the pleasures of the even- 
 ing began with a lounge on the Voorhoot, a public 
 walk planted by Charles V. : — then, either a very bad 
 French play, or a "reprise quadrille," with three 
 ladies, the youngest of them fifty, and the chance of 
 losing, perhaps, three florins (besides one's time) — 
 lasted till ten o'clock ; at which time ""His Excellency " 
 went home, " reflecting with satisfaction on the inno- 
 cent amusements of a well-spent day, that left nothing 
 behind them," and retired to bed at eleven, "with the 
 testimony of a good conscience." 
 
 All, however, of Chesterfield's time was not passed 
 in this serene dissipation. He began to compose " The 
 History of the Reign of George II." at this period. 
 About only half a dozen characters were written. 
 The intention was not confined to Chesterfield : Car- 
 teret and Bolingbroke entertained a similar design, 
 which was completed by neither. When the subject 
 
GEOEGE II.'S OPINION OF HIS CHKONICLEBS. 339 
 
 was broached before George II., he thus expressed 
 himself; and his remarks are the more amusing as 
 they were addressed to Lord Hervey, who was, at that 
 very moment, making his notes for that bitter chroni- 
 cle of his Majesty's reign, which has been ushered 
 into the world by the late Wilson Croker — " They will 
 all three," said King George II., " have about as much 
 truth in them as the Mille et Tine Nuits. Not but I 
 shall like to read Bolingbroke's, who of all those ras- 
 cals and knaves that have been lying against me these 
 ten years has certainly the best parts, and the most 
 knowledge. He is a scoundrel, but he is a scoundrel 
 of a higher class than Chesterfield. Chesterfield is a 
 little, tea-table scoundrel, that tells little womanish lies 
 to make quarrels in families : and tries to make women 
 lose their reputations, and make their husbands beat 
 them, without any object but to give himself airs ; as 
 if anybody could believe a woman could like a dwarf 
 baboon." 
 
 Lord Hervey gave a preference to Bolingbroke ; 
 stating as his reason, that " though Lord Bolingbroke 
 had no idea of wit, his satire was keener than any one's. 
 Lord Chesterfield's, on the other hand, would have a 
 great deal of wit in them ; but, in every page you see 
 he intended to be witty : every paragraph would be an 
 epigram. Polish, he declared, would be his bane ;" 
 and Lord Hervey was perfectly right. 
 
 In 1732 Lord Chesterfield was obliged to retire from 
 his embassy on the plea of ill-health, but probably. 
 
340 LIFE IN THE COUNTRY. 
 
 from some political cause. He was in the oj)posi- 
 tion against Sir Robert Walpole on the Excise Bill ; 
 and felt the displeasure of that all-powerful min- 
 ister by being dismissed from his office of High 
 Steward. 
 
 Being badly received at court, he now lived in the 
 country ; sometimes at Buxton, where his father drank 
 the waters, where he had his recreations, when not per- 
 secuted by two young brothers, Sir William Stanhope 
 and John Stanhope, one of whom performed " tolerably 
 ill upon a broken hautboy, and the other something 
 worse upon a cracked flute." There he won three 
 half-crowns from the curate of the place, and a shilling 
 from " Gaffer Foxeley " at a cock-match. Sometimes 
 he sought relaxation in Scarborough, where fashionable 
 beaux "danced with the pretty ladies all night," and 
 hundreds of Yorkshire county bumpkins " played the 
 inferior parts ; and, as it were, only tumble, whilst the 
 others dance upon the high ropes of gallantry." Scar- 
 borough was full of Jacobites : the popular feeling was 
 then all rife against Sir Robert Walpole's excise scheme. 
 Lord Chesterfield thus wittily satirized that famous 
 measure : — 
 
 " The people of this town are, at present, in great 
 consternation upon a report they have heard from Lon- 
 don, which, if true, they think will ruin them. They 
 are informed, that considering the vast consumption 
 of these waters, there is a design laid of excising them 
 next session ; and, moreover, that as bathing in the 
 
MELUSINA, COUNTESS OF WALSINGHAM. 341 
 
 sea is become the general practice of both sexes, and 
 as the kings of England have always been allowed to 
 be masters of the seas, every person so bathing shall be 
 gauged, and pay so much per foot square, as their cubi- 
 cal bulk amounts to." 
 
 In 1733, Lord Chesterfield married Melusina, the 
 supposed niece, but, in fact, the daughter of the Duchess 
 of Kendal, the mistress of George I. This lady was 
 presumed to be a great heiress, from the dominion 
 which her mother had over the king. Melusina had 
 been created (for life) Baroness of Aldborough, county 
 Suffolk, and Countess of Walsingham, county Norfolk, 
 nine years previous to her marriage. 
 
 Her father being George I., as Horace Walpole 
 terms him, " rather a good sort of man than a shining 
 king," and her mother "being no genius," there was 
 probably no great attraction about Lady Walsingham, 
 except her expected dowry. 
 
 During her girlhood Melusina resided in the apart- 
 ments at St. James's — opening into the garden ; and 
 here Horace Walpole describes his seeing George I., 
 in the rooms appropriated to the Duchess of Kendal, 
 next to those of Melusina Schulemberg, or, as she was 
 then called, the Countess of Walsingham. The Duchess 
 of Kendal was then very "lean and ill-favored." 
 "Just before her," says Horace, "stood a tall, elderly 
 man, rather pale, of an aspect rather good-natured than 
 august : in a dark tie-wig, a plain coat, waistcoat, and 
 breeches of snuff-colored cloth, with stockings of the 
 
342 CHESTERFIELD AND LADY SUFFOLK. 
 
 same color, and a blue ribbon over all. That was 
 George I." 
 
 The Duchess of Kendal had been maid of honor to 
 the Electress Sophia, the mother of George I. and the 
 daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia. The duchess was 
 always frightful ; so much so that one night the elect- 
 ress, who had acquired a little English, said to Mrs. 
 Howard, afterwards Lady Suifolk, — glancing at Mad- 
 emoiselle Schulemberg — " Look at that mawkin, and 
 think of her being my son's passion!" 
 
 The duchess, however, like all Hanoverians, knew 
 how to profit by royal preference. She took bribes : — 
 she had a settlement of £3000 a year. But her 
 daughter was eventually disappointed of the expected 
 bequest from her father, the king.^ 
 
 In the apartments at St. James's, Lord Chesterfield 
 for some time lived, when he was not engaged in oiEce 
 abroad ; and there he dissipated large sums in play. It 
 was here, too, that Queen Caroline, the wife of George 
 II., detected the intimacy that existed between Chester- 
 field and Lady Suifolk. There was an obscure window 
 in Queen Caroline's apartments, which looked into a 
 dark passage, lighted only by a single lamp at night. 
 
 ^ In the " Annual Register," for 1774, p. 20, it is stated that as 
 George I. had left Lady Walsingham a legacy which his successor 
 did not think proper to deliver, the Earl of Chesterfield was de- 
 termined to recover it by a suit in Chancery, had not his Majesty, 
 on questioning the Lord Chancellor on the subject, and being 
 answered that he could give no opinion extra-judicially, thought 
 proper to fulfil the bequest. 
 
GEORGE II. AND HIS FATHER'S WILL. 343 
 
 One Twelfth Night, Lord Chesterfield, having won a 
 large sum at cards, deposited it with Lady 'Suffolk, 
 thinking it not safe to carry it home at night. He 
 was watched, and his intimacy with the mistress of 
 George II. thereupon inferred. Thenceforth he could 
 obtain no court influence ; and, in desperation, he 
 went into the opposition. 
 
 On the death of George I., a singular scene, with 
 which Lord Chesterfield's interests were connected, 
 occurred in the Privy Council. Dr. Wake, Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, produced the king's will, and 
 delivered it to his successor, expecting that it would 
 be opened and read in the council ; what was his con- 
 sternation, when his Majesty, without saying a word, 
 put it into his pocket, and stalked out of the room 
 with real German imperturbability ! Neither the as- 
 tounded prelate nor the subservient council ventured 
 to utter a word. The will Avas never more heard of: 
 and rumor declared that it was burnt. The contents, 
 of course, never transpired ; and the legacy of ,£40,000, 
 said to have been left to the Duchess of Kendal, was 
 nevermore spoken of, until Lord Chesterfield, in 1733, 
 married the Countess of Walsingham. In 1743, it 
 is said, he claimed the legacy — in right of his wife — 
 the Duchess of Kendal being then dead: and was 
 "quieted" with ^20,000, and got, as Horace Wal- 
 pole observes, nothing from the duchess — " except his 
 wife." 
 
 The only excuse that was urged to extenuate this 
 
344 DISSOLVING VIEWS. 
 
 act on the part of George II., was that his royal father 
 had burned two wills Avhich had been made in his favor. 
 These were supposed to be the wills of the Duke and 
 Duchess of Zell and of the Electress Sophia. There 
 was not even common honesty in the House of Hanover 
 at that period. 
 
 Disappointed in his wife's fortune, Lord Chesterfield 
 seems to have cared very little for the disappointed 
 heiress. Their union was childless. His opinion of mar- 
 riage appears very much to have coincided with that 
 of the world of malcontents who rush, in the present 
 day, to the court of Judge Cresswell, with " dissolv- 
 ing views." On one occasion he writes thus : " I have 
 at last done the best office that can be done to most 
 married people ; that is, I have fixed the separation 
 between my brother and his wife, and the definitive 
 treaty of peace will be proclaimed in about a fort- 
 night." 
 
 Horace Walpole related the following anecdote of 
 Sir William Stanhope (Chesterfield's brother) and his 
 lady, whom he calls " a fond couple." After their 
 return from Paris, when they arrived at Lord Ches- 
 terfield's house at Blackheath, Sir William, w'ho had, 
 like his brother, a cutting, polite wit, that was proba- 
 bly expressed with the "allowed simper" of Lord 
 Chesterfield, got out of the chaise and said, with a 
 low bow, " Madame, I hope I shall never see your 
 face again." She replied, "Sir, I will take care that 
 you never shall ;" and so they parted. 
 
MADAME DU BOUCHET. 345 
 
 There was little probability of Lord Chesterfield's 
 participating in domestic felicity, when neither his 
 heart nor his fancy was engaged in the union which 
 he had formed. The lady to whom he was really 
 attached, and by whom he had a son, resided in the 
 Netherlands : she passed by the name of Madame 
 du Bouchet, and survived both Lord Chesterfield 
 and her son. A permanent provision was made for 
 her, and a sum of five hundred pounds bequeathed to 
 her, with these words : " As a small reparation for the 
 injury I did her." " Certainly," adds Lord Mahon, 
 in his Memoir of his illustrious ancestor, " a small 
 one." 
 
 For some time Lord Chesterfield remained in Eng- 
 land, and his letters are dated from Bath, from Tun- 
 bridge, from Blackheath. He had, in 1726, been 
 elevated to the House of Lords upon the death of his 
 father. In that assembly his great eloquence is thus 
 well described by his biographer: — ' 
 
 "Lord Chesterfield's eloquence, the fruit of much 
 study, was less characterized by force and compass 
 than by elegance and perspicuity, and especially by 
 good taste and urbanity, and a vein of delicate irony 
 which, while it sometimes inflicted severe strokes, 
 never passed the limits of decency and propriety. It 
 was that of a man who, in the union of wit and good 
 sense with politeness, had not a competitor. These 
 
 ' Lord Mahon, now Earl of Stanhope, if not the most eloquent, 
 one of the most honest historians of our time. 
 
346 COURT LADIES. 
 
 qualities were matured by the advantage which he 
 assiduously sought and obtained, of a familiar acquaint- 
 ance with almost all the eminent wits and writers of his 
 time, many of whom had been the ornaments of a pre- 
 ceding age of literature, while others were destined to 
 become those of a later period." 
 
 The accession of George II., to whose court Lord 
 Chesterfield had been attached for many years, brought 
 him no political preferment. The court had, however, 
 its attractions even for one who owed his polish to the 
 belles of Paris, and who was almost always, in taste 
 and manners, more foreign than English. Henrietta, 
 Lady Pomfret, the daughter and heiress of John Jef- 
 freys, the son of Judge Jeifreys, was at that time the 
 leader of fashion. 
 
 Six daughters, one of them. Lady Sophia, surpass- 
 ingly lovely, recalled the perfections of that ancestress, 
 Arabella Fermor, whose charms Pope has so exquisitely 
 touched in the "Rape of the Lock." Lady Sophia 
 became eventually the wife of Lord Carteret, the min- 
 ister, whose talents and the charms of whose eloquence 
 constituted him a sort of rival to Chesterfield. With 
 ^11 his abilities, Lord Chesterfield may be said to have 
 failed both as -a courtier and as a political character, 
 as far as permanent influence in any ministry was con- 
 cerned, until 1744, when what was called the " Broad- 
 bottomed administration" was formed, when he was 
 admitted into the cabinet. In the following year, how- 
 ever, he went, for the last time, to Holland, as ambas- 
 
LOED-LIEUTENANT OP IBELAND. 347 
 
 sador, and succeeded beyond the expectations of his 
 party in the purposes of his embassy. He took leave 
 of the States-General just before the battle of Fonte- 
 noy, and hastened to Ireland, where he had been nom- 
 inated Lord-Lieutenant previous to his journey to 
 Holland. He remained in that country only a year ; 
 but long enough to prove how liberal were his views — 
 how kindly the dispositions of his heart. 
 
 Only a few years before Lord Chesterfield's arrival 
 in Dublin, the Duke of Shrewsbury had given as a 
 reason for accepting the vice-regency of that country 
 (of which King James I. had said, there was "more 
 ado " than with any of his dominions), " that it was a 
 place where a man had business enough to keep him 
 from falling asleep, and not enough to keep him 
 awake." 
 
 Chesterfield, however, was not of that opinion. He 
 did more in one year than the duke would have accom- 
 plished in five. He began by instituting a principle 
 of impartial justice. Formerly, Protestants had alone 
 been employed as "managers;" the Lieutenant was 
 to see with Protestant eyes, to hear with Protestant 
 ears. 
 
 " I have determined to proscribe no set of persons 
 whatever," says Chesterfield, "and determined to be 
 governed by none. Had the Papists made any attempt 
 to put themselves above the law, I should have taken 
 good care to have quelled them again. It was said my 
 lenity to the Papists had wrought no alteration either 
 
348 A WISE AND JUST ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 in their religious or their political sentiments. I did 
 not expect that it would : but surely that was no reason 
 for cruelty towards them." 
 
 Often by a timely jest Chesterfield conveyed a hint, 
 or even shrouded a reproof. One of the ultra-zealous 
 informed him that his coachman was a Papist, and 
 went every Sunday to mass. " Does he indeed ? I 
 will take care he never drives me there," was Chester- 
 field's cool reply. 
 
 It was at this critical period, when the Hanoverian 
 dynasty was shaken almost to its downfall by the in- 
 surrection in Scotland of 1745, that Ireland was im- 
 perilled : " With a weak or wavering, or a fierce and 
 headlong Lord-Lieutenant — with a Grafton or a Straf- 
 ford," remarks Lord Mahon, " there would soon have 
 been a simultaneous rising in the Emerald Isle." But 
 Chesterfield's energy, his lenity, his wise and just 
 administration, saved the Irish from being excited 
 into rebellion by the emissaries of Charles Edward, 
 or slaughtered, when conquered, by the " Butcher," 
 and his tigei'-like dragons. When all was over, and 
 that sad page of history in which the deaths of so 
 many faithful adherents of the exiled family are re- 
 corded, had been held up to the gaze of bleeding Cale- 
 donia, Chesterfield recommended mild measures, and 
 advised the establishment of schools in the Highlands ; 
 but the age was too narrow-minded to adopt his views. 
 In January, 1748, Chesterfield retired from public 
 life. " Could I do any good," he wrote to a friend, 
 
360 IN MIDDLE LIFE. 
 
 "impious transaction," the alteration of the calendar. 
 But they were not less homes in their notions than the 
 Duke of Newcastle, then prime minister. Upon Lord 
 Chesterfield giving him notice of his Bill, that bus- 
 tling premier, who had been in a hurry for forty years, 
 who never " walked but always ran," greatly alarmed, 
 begged Chesterfield not to stir matters that had been 
 long quiet ; adding, that he did not like " new-fangled 
 things." He was, as we have seen, overruled, and 
 henceforth the New Style was adopted ; and no special 
 calamity has fallen on the nation, as was expected, in 
 consequence. Nevertheless, after Chesterfield had 
 made his speech in the House of Lords, and when 
 every one had complimented him on the clearness of 
 his explanation — " God knows," he wrote to his son, 
 " I had not even attempted to explain the Bill to 
 them ; I might as soon have talked Celtic or Sclavonic 
 to them as astronomy. They would have understood 
 it full as well." So much for the "Lords" in those 
 days ! 
 
 After his furore for politics had subsided, Chester- 
 field returned to his ancient passion for play. We 
 must linger a little over the still brilliant period of 
 his middle life, whilst his hearing was spared ; whilst 
 his wit remained, and the charming manners on which 
 he had formed a science, continued ; and before we see 
 him in the mournful decline of a life wholly given to 
 the world. 
 
CHESTERFIELD HOUSE. 351 
 
 He had now established himself in Chesterfield 
 House. Hitherto his progenitors had been satisfied with 
 Bloomsbury Square, in which the Lord Chesterfield 
 mentioned by De Grammont resided ; but the accom- 
 plished Chesterfield chose a site near Audley Street, 
 which had been built on what was called Mr. Aud- 
 ley 's land, lying between Great Brook Field and the 
 " Shoulder of Mutton Field." And near this locality 
 with the elegant name, Chesterfield chose his spot, for 
 which he had to wrangle and fight with the Dean and 
 Chapter of Westminster, who asked an exorbitant sum 
 for the ground. Isaac Ware, the editor of " Palladio," 
 was the architect to whom the erection of this hand- 
 some residence was intrusted. Happily it is still 
 untouched by any renovating hand. Chesterfield's 
 favorite apartments, looking on the most spacious 
 private garden in London, are just as they were in 
 his time ; one especially, which he termed the " finest 
 room in London," was furnished and decorated by 
 him. " The walls," says a writer in the " Quarterly 
 Review," " are covered halfway up with rich and 
 classical stores of literature ; above the cases are in 
 close series the portraits of eminent authors, French 
 and English, with most of whom he had conversed ; 
 over these, and immediately under the massive cornice, 
 extend all round in foot-long capitals the Horatian 
 lines : — 
 
 "Nunc, veterum. libris. Nunc, somno. et. Inertibus. Horis. 
 Lucen. solicter. jucunda. oblivia. vitea. 
 
352 EXCLUSIVENESS. 
 
 " On the mantel-pieces and cabinets stand busts of 
 old orators, interspersed with voluptuous vases and 
 bronzes, antique or Italian, and airy statuettes in 
 marble or alabaster of nude or semi-nude opera 
 nymphs." 
 
 What Chesterfield called the " cannonical pillars" 
 of the house were columns brought from Cannons, 
 near Edgeware, the seat of the Duke of Chandos. 
 The antechamber of Chesterfield House has been 
 erroneously stated as the room in which Johnson 
 waited the great lord's pleasure. That state of en- 
 durance was probably passed by "Old Samuel" in 
 Bloomsbury. 
 
 In this stately abode — one of the few, the very few, 
 that seem to hold noblesse apart in our levelling me- 
 tropolis — Chesterfied held his assemblies of all that 
 London, or indeed England, Paris, the Hague, or 
 Vienna, could furnish of what was polite and charm- 
 ing. Those were days when the stream of society did 
 not, as now, flow freely, mingling with the grace of 
 aristocracy the acquirements of hard-working profes- 
 sors ; there was then a strong line of demarcation ; it 
 had not been broken down in the same way as now, 
 when people of rank and wealth live in rows, instead 
 of inhabiting hotels set apart. Paris has sustained a 
 similar revolution, since her gardens were built over, 
 and their green shades, delicious in the centre of that 
 hot city, are seen no more. In the very Faubourg 
 St. Germain, the grand old hotels are rapidly dis- 
 
CHESTERFIELD'S NEGLECT OF JOHNSON. 353 
 
 appearing, and with tliem something of the exclusive- 
 ness of the higher orders. Lord Chesterfield, how- 
 ever, triumphantly pointing to the fruits of his taste 
 and distribution of his wealth, witnessed, in his library 
 at Chesterfield House, the events which time produced. 
 He heard of the death of Sarah, Duchess of Marl- 
 borough, and of her bequest to him of twenty thou- 
 sand pounds, and her best and largest brilliant dia- 
 mond ring, " out of the great regard she had for his 
 merit, and the infinite obligations she had received 
 from him." He witnessed the change of society and 
 of politics which occurred when George II. expired, 
 and the Earl of Bute, calling himself a descendant 
 of the house of Stuart, " and humble enough to be 
 proud of it," having quitted the isle of Bute, which 
 Lord Chesterfield calls " but a little south of Nova 
 Zemhla," took possession, not only of the affections, 
 hut even of the senses of the young king, George III., 
 who, assisted by the widowed Princess of Wales (sup- 
 posed to be attached to Lord Bute), was " lugged out 
 of the seraglio," and "placed upon the throne." 
 
 Chesterfield lived to have the honor of having the 
 plan of "Johnson's Dictionary " inscribed to him, and 
 the dishonor of neglecting the great author. Johnson, 
 indeed, denied the truth of the story which gained 
 general belief, in which it was asserted that he had 
 taken a disgust at being kept waiting in the earl's 
 antechamber, the reason being assigned that his lord- 
 ship "had company with him ;" when at last the door 
 
 Vol. I.— 23 
 
356 "DEFENSIVE PRIDE." 
 
 been kind ; but it has been delayed till I am indif- 
 ferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and 
 cannot impart it ; till I am known and do not want 
 it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to con- 
 fess obligations where no benefit has been received, or 
 to be unwilling that the publick should consider me as 
 owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled 
 me to do for myself." 
 
 The conduct of Johnson, on this occasion, was ap- 
 proved by most manly minds, except that of his pub- 
 lisher, Mr. Robert Dodsley ; Dr. Adams, a friend of 
 Dodsley, said he was sorry that Johnson had written 
 that celebrated letter (a very model of polite contempt). 
 Dodsley said he was sorry too, for he had a property in 
 the Dictionary, to which his lordship's patronage might 
 be useful. He then said that Lord Chesterfield had 
 shown him the letter. "I should have thought," said 
 Adams, " that Lord Chesterfield would have concealed 
 it." " Pooh !" cried Dodsley, " do you think a letter 
 from Johnson could hurt Lord Chesterfield ? not at all, 
 sir. It lay on his table, where any one might see it. 
 He read it to me; said, ' This man has great powers,' 
 pointed out the severest passages, and said, ' how 
 well they were expressed.' " The art of dissimula- 
 tion, in which Chesterfield was perfect, imposed on 
 Mr. Dodsley. 
 
 Dr. Adams expostulated with the doctor, and said 
 Lord Chesterfield declared he would part with the best 
 servant he had, if he had known that he had turned 
 
CHESTERFIELD'S BEJOINDER. 357 
 
 away a man who ■wa.s" always welcome." Then Adams 
 insisted on Lord Chesterfield's aiFability, and easiness 
 of access to literary men. But the sturdy Johnson 
 replied, " Sir, that is not Lord Chesterfield ; he is the 
 proudest man existing." " I think," Adams rejoined, 
 " I know one that is prouder ; you, by your own 
 account, are the prouder of the two." "But mine," 
 Johnson answered, with one of his happy turns, " was 
 defensive pride." " This man," he afterwards said, 
 referring to Chesterfield, " I thought had been a 
 lord among wits, but I find he is only a wit among 
 lords." 
 
 In revenge, Chesterfield in his Letters depicted 
 Johnson, it is said, in the character of the " respect- 
 able Hottentot." Amongst other things, he observed 
 of the Hottentot, " he throws his meat anywhere but 
 down his throat." This being remarked to Johnson, 
 who was by no means pleased at being immortalized as 
 the Hottentot — " Sir," he answered, " Lord Chester- 
 field never saw me eat in his life." 
 
 Such are the leading points of this famous and last- 
 ing controversy. It is amusing to know that Lord 
 Chesterfield was not always precise as to directions to 
 his letters. He once directed to Lord Pembroke, who 
 was always swimming, " To the Earl of Pembroke, in 
 the Thames, over against Whitehall." This, as Horace 
 Walpole remarks, " was sure of finding him within a 
 certain fathom." 
 
 Lord Chesterfield was now admitted to be the very 
 
356 "DEFENSIVE PEIDE." 
 
 been kind ; but it has been delayed till I am indif- 
 ferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and 
 cannot impart it ; till I am known and do not want 
 it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to con- 
 fess obligations where no benefit has been received, or 
 to be unwilling that the publick should consider me as 
 owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled 
 me to do for myself." 
 
 The conduct of Johnson, on this occasion, was ap- 
 proved by most manly minds, except that of his pub- 
 lisher, Mr. Robert Dodsley ; Dr. Adams, a friend of 
 Dodsley, said he was sorry that Johnson had written 
 that celebrated letter (a very model of polite contempt). 
 Dodsley said he was sorry too, for he had a property in 
 the Dictionary, to which his lordship's patronage might 
 be useful. He then said that Lord Chesterfield had 
 shown him the letter. " I should have thought," said 
 Adams, " that Lord Chesterfield would have concealed 
 it." " Pooh !" cried Dodsley, " do you think a letter 
 from Johnson could hurt Lord Chesterfield ? not at all, 
 sir. It lay on his table, where any one might see it. 
 He read it to me; said, ' This man has great powers,' 
 pointed out the severest passages, and said, ' how 
 well they were expressed.' " The art of dissimula- 
 tion, in which Chesterfield was perfect, imposed on 
 Mr. Dodsley. 
 
 Dr. Adams expostulated with the doctor, and said 
 Lord Chesterfield declared he would part with the best 
 servant he had, if he had known that he had turned 
 
CHESTERFIELD'S EEJOINDEB. 357 
 
 away a man who vas^^ always welcome." Then Adams 
 insisted on Lord Chesterfield's affability, and easiness 
 of access to literary men. But the sturdy Johnson 
 replied, " Sir, that is not Lord Chesterfield; he is the 
 proudest man existing." " I think," Adams rejoined, 
 " I know one that is prouder ; you, by your own 
 account, are the prouder of the two." "But mine," 
 Johnson answered, with one of his happy turns, " was 
 defensive pride." " This man," he afterwards said, 
 referring; to Chesterfield, " I thought had been a 
 lord among wits, but I find he is only a wit among 
 lords." 
 
 In revenge, Chesterfield in his Letters depicted 
 Johnson, it is said, in the character of the " respect- 
 able Hottentot." Amongst other things, he observed 
 of the Hottentot, " he throws his meat anywhere but 
 down his throat." This being remarked to Johnson, 
 who was by no means pleased at being immortalized as 
 the Hottentot — "Sir," he answered, "Lord Chester- 
 field never saw me eat in his life." 
 
 Such are the leading points of this famous and last- 
 ing controversy. It is amusing to know that Lord 
 Chesterfield was not always precise as to directions to 
 his letters. He once directed to Lord Pembroke, who 
 was always swimming, " To the Earl of Pembroke, in 
 the Thames, over against Whitehall." This, as Horace 
 "Walpole remarks, " was sure of finding him within a 
 certain fathom." 
 
 Lord Chesterfield was now admitted to be the very 
 
358 THE GLASS OF FASHION. 
 
 "glass of fashion," though age, and, according to Lord 
 Hervey, a hideous person, impeded his being the 
 " mould of form." " I don't know why," writes Hor- 
 ace Walpole, in the dog-days, from Strawberry Hill, 
 " but people are always more anxious about their hay 
 than their corn, or twenty other things that cost them 
 more : I suppose my Lord Chesterfield, or some such 
 dictator, made it fashionable to care about one's hay. 
 Nobody betrays solicitude about getting in his rents." 
 "The prince of wits," as the same authority calls him 
 — " his entrance into the world was announced by his 
 bon-mots, and his closing lips dropped repartees that 
 sparkled with his juvenile fire." 
 
 No one, it was generally allowed, had such a force 
 of table-wit as Lord Chesterfield ; but while the 
 "Graces" were ever his theme, he indulged himself 
 without distinction or consideration in numerous sallies. 
 He was, therefore, at once sought and feared ; liked 
 but not loved ; neither sex nor relationship, nor rank, 
 nor friendship, nor obligation, nor profession, could 
 shield his victim from what Lord Hervey calls, " those 
 pointed, glittering weapons, that seemed to shine 
 only to a stander-by, but cut deep into those they 
 touched. ' ' 
 
 He cherished " a voracious appetite for abuse ;" fell 
 upon every one that came in his way, and thus treated 
 each one of his companions at the expense of the other. 
 To him Hervey, who had probably often smarted, ap- 
 plied the lines of Boileau — 
 
LORD SCARBOEOUGH'S FRIENDSHIP. 359 
 
 " Mais c'est un petit fou qui se croit tout permis, 
 Et qui pour un bon mot va perdre vingt amis." 
 
 Horace Walpole (a more lenient judge of Chester- 
 field's merits) observes that " Chesterfield took no less 
 pains to be the phoenix of fine gentlemen, than TulJy 
 did to qualify himself as an orator. Both succeeded : 
 Tully immortalized his name ; Chesterfield's reign 
 lasted a little longer than that of a fashionable 
 beauty." It was, perhaps, because, as Dr. Johnson 
 said, all Lord Chesterfield's witty sayings were puns, 
 that even his brilliant wit failed to please, although it 
 amused, and surprised its hearers. 
 
 Notwithstanding the contemptuous description of 
 Lord Chesterfield's personal appearance by Lord Her- 
 vey, his portraits represent a handsome, though hard 
 countenance, well-marked features, and his figure and 
 air appear to have been elegant. With his command- 
 ing talents, his wonderful brilliancy and fluency of con- 
 versation, he would perhaps sometimes have been even 
 tedious, had it not been for his invariable cheerfulness. 
 He was always, as Lord Hervey says, "present" in 
 his company. Amongst the few friends who really 
 loved this thorough man of the world, was Lord Scar- 
 borough, yet no two characters were more opposite. 
 Lord Scarborough had judgment, without wit : Ches- 
 terfield wit, and no judgment ; Lord Scarborough had 
 honesty and principle ; Lord Chesterfield had neither. 
 Everybody liked the one, but did not care for his 
 company. Every one disliked the other, but wished 
 
360 DEATH OF CHESTERFIELD'S SON. 
 
 for liis company. The fact was, Scarborough was 
 "splendid and absent." Chesterfield "cheerful and 
 present : ' ' wit, grace, attention to what is passing, the 
 surface, as it were, of a highly-cultured mind, produced 
 a fascination with which all the honor and respectabil- 
 ity in the Court of George II. could not compete. 
 
 In the earlier part of Chesterfield's career. Pope, 
 Bolingbroke, Hervey, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 
 and, in fact, all that could add to the pleasures of the 
 then early dinner-table, illumined Chesterfield House 
 by their wit and gayety. Yet in the midst of this ex- 
 citing life. Lord Chesterfield found time to devote to 
 the improvement of his natural son, Philip Stanhope, 
 a great portion of his leisure. His celebrated Letters 
 to that son did not, however, appear during the earl's 
 life ; nor were they in any way the source of his 
 popularity as a wit, which was due to his merits in 
 that line alone. 
 
 The youth to whom these letters, so useful and yet 
 so objectionable, were addressed, was intended for a 
 diplomatist. He was the very reverse of his father : 
 learned, sensible, and dry ; but utterly wanting in the 
 graces, and devoid of eloquence. As an orator, there- 
 fore, he failed ; as a man of society, he must also have 
 failed ; and his death, in 1768, some years before that 
 of his father, left that father desolate, and disappointed. 
 Philip Stanhope had attained the rank of envoy to 
 Dresden, where he expired. 
 
 During the five years in which Chesterfield dragged 
 
CHESTERFIELD GROWING OLD. 361 
 
 out a mournful life after this event, he made the pain- 
 ful discovery that his son had married without confiding 
 that step to the father to whom he owed so much. This 
 must have been almost as trying as the awkward, un- 
 graceful deportment of him whom he moui-ned. The 
 world now left Chesterfield ere he had left the world. 
 He and his contemporary Lord Tyrawley were now 
 old and infirm. "The fact is," Chesterfield wittily 
 said, " Tyrawley and I have been dead these two 
 years, but we don't choose to have it known." 
 
 "The Bath," he wrote to his friend Dayrolles, " did 
 me more good than I thought anything could do me ; 
 but all that good does not amount to what builders 
 call half-repairs, and only keeps up the shattered fabric 
 a little longer than it would have stood without them ; 
 but, take my word for it, it will stand but a very little 
 while longer. I am now in my grand climacteric, and 
 shall not complete it. Fontenelle's last words at a hun- 
 dred and three were, Je souffre d'itre : deaf and in- 
 firm as I am, I can with truth say the same thing at 
 sixty-three. In my mind it is only the strength of 
 our passions, and the weakness of our reason, that 
 makes us so fond of life ; but when the former sub- 
 side and give way to the latter, we grow weary of 
 being, and willing to withdraw. I do not recommend 
 this train of serious reflections to you, nor ought you 
 to adopt them. . . . You have children to educate and 
 provide for, you have all your senses, and can enjoy all 
 the comforts both of domestic and social life. I am in 
 
362 HIS INTEREST IN HIS GEANDSON. 
 
 every sense isole, and have wound up all my bottoms ; 
 I may now walk off quietly, without missing nor being 
 missed." 
 
 The kindness of his nature, corrupted as it was by 
 a life wholly worldly, and but little illumined in 
 its course by religion, shone now in his care of his 
 two grandsons, the oifspring of his lost son, and of 
 their mother, Eugenia Stanhope. To her he thus 
 wrote : — 
 
 " The last time I had the pleasure of seeing you, I 
 was so taken up in playing with the boys, that I forgot 
 their more important affairs. How soon would you 
 have them placed at school ? When I know your 
 pleasure as to that, I will send to Monsieur Perny, 
 to prepare everything for their reception. In the 
 mean time, I beg that you will equip them thoroughly 
 with clothes, linen, etc., all good, but plain ; and give 
 me the amount, which I will pay ; for I do not intend, 
 from this time forwards, the two boys should cost you 
 one shilling." 
 
 He lived, latterly, much at Blackheath, in the house 
 which, being built on Crown land, has finally become 
 the Ranger's lodge ; but which still sometimes goes by 
 the name of Chesterfield House. Here he spent large 
 sums, especially on pictures, and cultivated Cantelupe 
 melons ; and here, as he grew older, and became per- 
 manently afflicted with deafness, his chief companion 
 was a useful friend, Solomon Dayrolles — one of those 
 indebted hangers-on whom it was an almost invariable 
 
"I MUST GO AND REHEAKSE MY FUNERAL." 363 
 
 custom to find, at tliat period, in great houses — and 
 perhaps too frequently in our own day. 
 
 Dayrolles, who was employed in the embassy under 
 Lord Sandwich at the Hague, had always, to borrow 
 Horace Walpole's ill-natured expression, " been a led- 
 captain to the Dukes of Richmond and Grafton, used 
 to be sent to auctions for them, and to walk in the 
 parks with their daughters, and once went dry-nurse 
 in Holland with them. He has belonged, too, a good 
 deal to my Lord Chesterfield, to whom I believe he 
 owes this new honor, 'that of being minister at the 
 Hague,' as he had before made him black-rod in 
 Ireland, and gave the ingenious reason that he had 
 a black face." But the great " dictator " in the 
 empire of politeness was now in a slow but sure 
 decline. Not long before his death he was visited 
 by Monsieur Suard, a French gentleman who was 
 anxious to see " Thomme le plus aimahle, le plus poli 
 et le plus spiritual des trois royaumes," but who found 
 him fearfully altered ; morose from his deafness, yet 
 still anxious to please. "It is very sad," he said, 
 with his usual politeness, " to be deaf, when one would 
 so much enjoy listening. I am not," he added, "so 
 philosophic as my friend the President de Montes- 
 quieu, who says, ' I know how to be blind, but I do 
 not yet know how to be deaf" "We shortened 
 our visit," says M. Suard, "lest we should fatigue 
 the earl." "I do not detain you," said Chesterfield, 
 "for I must go and rehearse my funeral." It was 
 
364 CHESTERFIELD'S WILL. 
 
 thus that he styled his daily drive through the streets 
 of London. 
 
 Lord Chesterfield's wonderful memory continued till 
 his latest hour. As he lay, gasping in the last agonies 
 of extreme debility, his friend, Mr. DayroUes, called 
 in to see him half an hour before he expired. The 
 politeness which had become part of his very nature 
 did not desert the dying earl. He managed to say, in 
 a low voice, to his valet, " Give Dayrolles a chair." 
 This little trait greatly struck the famous Dr. Warren, 
 who was at the bedside of this brilliant and wonderful 
 man. He died on the 24th of March, 1773, in the 
 79th year of his age. 
 
 The preamble to a codicil (Feb. 11, 1773) contains 
 the following striking sentences, written when the in- 
 tellect was impressed with the solemnity of that solemn 
 change which comes alike to the unreflecting and to 
 the heartstricken, holy believer : — 
 
 " I most humbly recommend my soul to the extensive mercy of 
 that Eternal, Supreme, Intelligent Being who gave it me ; most 
 earnestly at the same time deprecating his justice. Satiated with 
 the pompous follies of this life, of which I have had an uncommon 
 share, I would have no posthumous ones displayed at my funeral, 
 and therefore desire to be buried in the next burying-place to the 
 place where I shall die, and limit the whole expense of my funeral 
 to £100." 
 
 His body was interred, according to his wish, in the 
 vault of the chapel in South Audley Street, but it was 
 afterwards removed to the family burial-place in Shel- 
 ford Church, Nottinghamshire. 
 
CHESTERFIELD'S WILL. 365 
 
 In his will he left legacies to his Servants.^ " I con- 
 sider them," he said, "as unfortunate friends; my 
 equals by nature, and my inferiors only in the differ- 
 ence of our fortunes." There was something lofty in 
 the mind that prompted that sentence. 
 
 His estates reverted to a distant kinsman, descended 
 from a younger son of the first earl ; and it is remark- 
 able, on looking through the Peerage of Great Britain, 
 to perceive how often this has been the case in a race 
 remarkable for the absence of virtue. Interested mar- 
 riages, vicious habits, perhaps account for the fact ; 
 but retributive justice, though it be presumptuous to 
 trace its course, is everywhere. 
 
 He had so great a horror in his last days of gam- 
 bling, that in bequeathing his possessions to his heir, 
 as he expected, and godson, Philip Stanhope, he inserts 
 this clause : — 
 
 " In case my said godson, Philip Stanhope, shall at any time 
 hereinafter keep, or be concerned in keeping of, any race-horses, or 
 pack of hounds, or reside one night at Newmarket, that infamous 
 seminary of iniquity and ill-manners, during the course of the races 
 there ; or shall resort to the said races ; or shall lose, in any one 
 day, at any game or bet whatsoever, the sum of £500, then, in any 
 the cases aforesaid, it is my express will that he, my said godson, 
 shall forfeit and pay, out of my estate, the sum of £5000 to and for 
 the use of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster." 
 
 When we say that Lord Chesterfield was a man who 
 had no friend, we sum up his character in those few 
 words. Just after his death a small but distinguished 
 ' Two years' wages were left to the servants. 
 
366 "A MAN WHO HAD KO FEIENDS." 
 
 party of men dined together at Topham Beauclerk's. 
 There was Sir Joshua Reynolds ; Sir William Jones, 
 the orientalist ; Bennet Langton ; Steevens ; Boswell ; 
 Johnson. The conversation turned on Garrick, who, 
 Johnson said, had friends, but no friend. Then Bos- 
 well asked, " What is a friend ?" " One who comforts 
 and supports you, while others do not." " Friendship, 
 you know, sir, is the cordial drop to make the nauseous 
 draught of life go down." Then one of the company 
 mentioned Lord Chesterfield as one who had no friend ; 
 and Boswell said : " Garrick was pure gold, but beat 
 out to thin leaf, Lord Chesterfield was tinsel." And, 
 for once, Johnson did not contradict him. But not so 
 do we judge Lord Chesterfield. He was a man who 
 acted on false principles through life ; and those prin- 
 ciples gradually undermined everything that was noble 
 and generous in character; just as those deep under- 
 ground currents, noiseless in their course, work through 
 fine-grained rock, and produce a chasm. Everything 
 with Chesterfield was self : for self, and self alone, were 
 agreeable qualities to be assumed ; for self, was the 
 country to be served, because that country protects 
 and serves us : for self, were friends to be sought and 
 cherished, as useful auxiliaries, or pleasant accessories : 
 in the very core of the cankered heart, that advocated 
 this corrupting doctrine of expediency, lay unbelief; 
 that worm which never died in the hearts of so many 
 illustrious men of that period — the refrigerator of the 
 feelings. 
 
HIS "LETTERS TO HIS SON." 367 
 
 One only gentle and genuine sentiment possessed 
 Lord Chesterfield, and that was his love for his son. 
 Yet in this aifection the worldly man might be seen in 
 mournful colors. He did not seek to render his son 
 good ; his sole desire was to see him successful : every 
 lesson that he taught him, in those matchless Letters 
 which have carried down Chesterfield's fame to us when 
 his other productions have virtually expired, exposes a 
 code of dissimulation which "Philip Stanhope, in his 
 marriage, turned upon the father to whom he owed so 
 much care and advancement. These Letters are, in 
 fact, a complete exposition of Lord Chesterfield's cha- 
 racter and views of life. No other man could have 
 written them ; no other man have conceived the notion 
 of existence being one great eifort to deceive, as well 
 as to excel, and of society forming one gigantic lie. 
 It is true they were addressed to one who was to enter 
 the maze of a diplomatic career, and must be taken, 
 on that account, with some reservation. 
 
 They have justly been condemned on the score of 
 immorality ; but we must remember that- the age in 
 which they were written was one of lax notions, es- 
 pecially among men of rank, who regarded all women 
 accessible, either from indiscretion or inferiority of 
 rank, as fair game, and acted accordingly. But whilst 
 we agree with one of Johnson's bitterest sentences as 
 to the •immorality of Chesterfield's letters, we disagree 
 with his styling his code of manners the manners of a 
 dancing-master. Chesterfield was in himself a perfect 
 
368 LES MANIEEES NOBLES. 
 
 instance of what he calls les manieres nobles ; and this 
 even Johnson allowed. 
 
 " Talking of Chesterfield," Johnson said, " his man- 
 ner was exquisitely elegant, and he had more know- 
 ledge than I expected." Boswell : " Did you find, sir, 
 his conversation to be of a superior sort?" — Johnson: 
 " Sir, in the conversation which I had with him, I had 
 the best right to superiority, for it was upon philology 
 and literature." 
 
 It was well remarked how extraordinary a thing it 
 was that a man who loved his son so entirely should 
 do all he could to make him a rascal. And Foote 
 even contemplated bringing on the stage a father who 
 had thus tutored his son ; and intended to show the 
 son an honest man in everything else, but practising 
 his father's maxims upon him, and cheating him. 
 
 "It should be so contrived," Johnson remarked, 
 referring to Foote's plan, " that the father should be 
 the only sufferer by the son's villainy, and thus there 
 would be poetical justice." " Take out the immoral- 
 ity," he added, on another occasion, "and the book 
 (Chesterfield's Letters to his Son) should be put into 
 the hands of every young gentleman." 
 
 We are inclined to diff'er, and to confess to a moral 
 taint throughout the whole of the Letters ; and even 
 had the immorality been expunged, the false motives, 
 the deep, invariable advocacy of principles of ex- 
 pediency, would have poisoned what otherwise might be 
 of effectual benefit to the minor virtues of polite society. 
 
tH'^z Mti Sbcwcxon. 
 
THE ABB£ SCAREON. 
 
 There is an Indian or Chinese legend, I forget 
 which, from which Mrs. Shelley may have taken 
 her hideous idea of Frankenstein. We are told in 
 this allegory that, after fashioning some thousands 
 of men after the most approved model, endowing 
 them with all that is noble, generous, admirable, and 
 lovable in man or woman, the eastern Prometheus 
 grew weary in his work, stretched his hand for the 
 beer-can, and draining it too deeply, lapsed presently 
 into a state of what Germans call " other-man-ness." 
 There is a simpler Anglo-Saxon term for this con- 
 dition, but I spare you. The eastern Prometheus went 
 on seriously with his work, and still produced the same 
 perfect models, faultless alike in brain and leg. But 
 when it came to the delicate finish, when the last 
 touches were to be made, his hand shook a little, 
 and the more delicate members went awry. It was 
 thus that instead of the power of seeing every color 
 properly, one man came out with a pair of optics 
 which turned everything to green, and this verdancy 
 probably transmitted itself to the intelligence. An- 
 other, to continue the allegory, whose tympanum had 
 slipped a little under the unsteady fingers of the man- 
 
 VOL. I.— 24 369 
 
370 AN EASTERN ALLEGOKY. 
 
 maker, heard everything in a wrong sense, and his life 
 was miserable, because, if you sang his praises, he 
 believed you were ridiculing him, and if you heaped 
 abuse upon him, he thought you were telling lies of 
 him. 
 
 But as Prometheus Orientalis grew more jovial, it 
 seems to have come into his head to make mistakes 
 on purpose. "I'll have a friend to laugh with," quoth 
 he ; and when warned by an attendant Yaksha, or 
 demon, that men who laughed one hour often wept the 
 next, he swore a lusty oath, struck his thumb heavily 
 on a certain bump in the skull he was completing, and 
 holding up his little doll, cried, " Here is one who will 
 laugh at everything !" 
 
 I must now add what the legend neglects to tell. 
 The model laugher succeeded well enough in his own 
 reign, but he could not beget a large family. The 
 laughers who never weep, the real clowns of life, who 
 do not, Avhen the curtain drops, retire, after an infini- 
 tesimal allowance of "cordial," to a half-starved com- 
 plaining family, with brats that cling round their parti- 
 colored stockings, and cry to them — not for jokes — but 
 for bread, these laughers, I say, are few and far between. 
 You should, therefore, be doubly grateful to me for in- 
 troducing to you now one of the most famous of them ; 
 one who with all right and title to be lugubrious, was 
 the merriest man of his age. 
 
 On Shrove Tuesday, in the year 1638, the good city 
 of Mans was in a state of great excitement : the carni- 
 
WHO COMES HEEE? 371 
 
 val was at its height, and everybody had gone mad for 
 one day before turning pious for the long, dull forty 
 days of Lent. The market-place was filled with 
 maskers in quaint costumes, each wilder and more 
 extravagant than the last. Here were magicians with 
 high peaked hats covered with cabalistic signs, here 
 Eastern sultans of the mediaeval model, with very fierce 
 looks and very large scimitars : here Amadis de Gaul 
 with a wagging plume a yard high, here Pantagruel, 
 here harlequins, here Huguenots ten times more lugu- 
 brious than the despised sectaries they mocked, here 
 Caesar and Pompey in trunk hose and Roman helmets, 
 and a mass of other notabilities who were great favor- 
 ites in that day, appeared. 
 
 But who comes here ? What is the meaning of these 
 roars of laughter that greet the last mask who runs into 
 the market-place ? Why do all the women and children 
 hurry together, calling upon one another, and shout- 
 ing with delight ? What is this thing ? Is it some 
 new species of bird, thus covered with feathers and 
 down ? In a few minutes the little figure is surrounded 
 by a crowd of boys and women, who begin to pluck 
 him of his borrowed plumes, while he chatters to them 
 like a magpie, whistles like a song-bird, croaks like a 
 raven, or in his natural character showers a mass of 
 funny nonsense on them, till their laughter makes 
 their sides ache. The little wretch is literally covered 
 with small feathers from head to foot, and even his 
 face is not to be recognized. The women pluck him 
 
372 A MAD FEEAK AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 behind and before ; he dances round and tries to evade 
 their fingers. This is impossible ; he breaks away, 
 runs down the market pursued by a shouting crowd, is 
 again surrounded, and again subjected to a plucking 
 process. The bird must be stripped ; he must be dis- 
 covered. Little by little his back is bared, and little 
 by little is seen a black jerkin, black stockings, and, 
 wonder upon wonder ! the bands of a canon. Now 
 they have cleared his face of its plumage, and a cry 
 of disgust and shame hails the disclosure. Yes, this 
 curious masker is no other than a reverend abb^, a 
 young canon of the cathedral of Mans ! " This is too 
 much — it is scandalous — it is disgraceful. The church 
 must be respected, the sacred order must not descend 
 to such frivolities." The people, lately laughing, are 
 now furious at the shameless abb^, and not his liveliest 
 wit can save him ; they threaten and cry shame on 
 him, and in terror of his life, he beats his way through 
 the crowd, and takes to his heels. The mob follows, 
 hooting and savage. The little man is nimble ; those 
 well-shaped legs — qui ont si Men dansS — stand him in 
 good stead. Down the streets, and out of the town 
 go hare and hounds. The pursuers gain on him — a 
 bridge, a stream filled with tall reeds and delightfully 
 miry, are all the hope of refuge he sees before him. 
 He leaps gallantly from the bridge in among the osiers, 
 and has the j oy of listening to the disappointed curses 
 of the mob when, reaching the stream, their quarry is 
 nowhere to be seen. The reeds conceal him, and there 
 
SCAERON'S EAELY YEAES. 373 
 
 he lingers till nightfall, when he can issue from his 
 lurking-place, and escape from the town. 
 
 Such was the mad freak which deprived the Abbd 
 Scarron of the use of his limbs for life. His health 
 was already ruined when he indulged this caprice ; the 
 damp of the river brought on a violent attack, which 
 closed vfith palsy, and the gay young abb^ had to pay 
 dearly for the pleasure of astonishing the citizens of 
 Mans. The disguise was easily accounted for — he had 
 smeared himself with honey, ripped open a feather-bed 
 and rolled himself in it. 
 
 This little incident gives a good idea of what Scar- 
 ron was in his younger days — ready at any time for 
 any wild caprice. 
 
 Paul Scarron was the son of a Conseiller du Parle- 
 ment of good family, resident in Paris. He was born 
 in 1610, and his early days would have been wretched 
 enough, if his elastic spirits had allowed him to give 
 way to misery. His father was a good-natured, weak- 
 minded man, who on the death of his first wife married 
 a second, who, as one hen will peck at another's chicks, 
 would not, as a step-mother, leave the little Paul in 
 peace. She was continually putting her own children 
 forward, and ill-treating the late "anointed" son. 
 The father gave in too readily, and young Paul was 
 glad enough to be set free from his unhappy home. 
 There may be some excuse in this for the licentious 
 living to which he now gave himself up. He was heir 
 to a decent fortune, and of course thought himself jus- 
 
374 MAKING AN ABBE OF HIM. 
 
 tified in spending it beforehand. Then, in spite of 
 his quaint little figure, he had something attractive 
 about him, for his merry face -was good-looking, if not 
 positively handsome. If we add to this, spirits as 
 buoyant as an Irishman's — a mind that not only saw 
 the ridiculous wherever it existed, but could turn the 
 most solemn and awful themes to laughter, a vast deal 
 of good-nature, and not a little assurance — we can un- 
 derstand that the young Scarron was a favorite with 
 both men and women, and among the reckless pleasure- 
 seekers of the day soon became one of the w'ildest. 
 In short, he was a fast young Parisian, with as little 
 care for morality or religion as any youth who saun- 
 ters on the Boulevards of the French capital to this 
 day. 
 
 But his step-mother was not content with getting rid 
 of young Paul, but had her eye also on his fortune, and 
 therefore easily persuaded her husband that the service 
 of the church was precisely the career for which the 
 young reprobate was fitted. There was an uncle who 
 was Bishop of Grenoble, and a canonry could easily be 
 got for him. The fast youth was compelled to give in 
 to this arrangement, but declined to take full orders ; 
 so that while drawing the revenue of his stall, he had 
 nothing to do with the duties of his calling. Then, . 
 too, it was rather a fashionable thing to be an abb^, 
 especially a gay one. The position placed you on a 
 level with people of all ranks. Half the court was 
 composed of love-making ecclesiastics, and the soutane 
 
THE MAYFAIE OF PAEIS. 375 
 
 was a kind of diploma for wit and wickedness. Viewed 
 in this light, the church was as jovial a profession as 
 the army, and the young Scarron went to the full 
 extent of the letter allowed to the black gown. It 
 was only such stupid superstitious louts as those of 
 Mans, who did not know anything of the ways of Paris 
 life, who could object to such little freaks as he loved 
 to indulge in. 
 
 The merry little abb^ was soon the delight of the 
 Marais. This distinct and antiquated quarter of Paris 
 was then the Mayfair of that capital. Here lived in 
 ease, and contempt of the bourgeoisie, the great, the 
 gay, the courtier, and the wit. Here Marion de Lorme 
 received old cardinals and young abb^s ; here were 
 the salons of Madame de Martel, of the Comtesse de 
 la Suze, who changed her creed in order to avoid see- 
 ing her husband in this world or the next, and the 
 famous — or infamous — Ninon de I'Enclos ; and at these 
 houses young Scarron met the courtly Saint-Evremond, 
 the witty Sarrazin, and the learned but arrogant Voi- 
 ture. Here he read his skits and parodies, here tra- 
 vestied Virgil, made epigrams on Richelieu, and 
 poured out his indelicate but always laughable wit- 
 ticisms. But his indulgences were not confined to 
 intrigues; he also drank deep, and there was not a 
 pleasure within his reach which he ever thought of 
 denying himself He laughed at religion, thought 
 morality a nuisance, and resolved to be merry at all 
 costs. 
 
376 A HELPLESS CRIPPLE. 
 
 The little account was brought in at last. At the 
 age of five-and-twenty his constitution was broken up. 
 Gout and rheumatism assailed him alternately or in 
 leash. He began to feel the annoyance of the con- 
 straint they occasioned ; he regretted those legs which 
 had figured so well in a ronde or a minuet, and those 
 hands which had played the lute to dames more fair 
 than modest ; and to add to this, the pain he suffered 
 was not slight. He sought relief in gay society, and 
 was cheerful in spite of his sufferings. At length 
 came the Shrove Tuesday and the feathers ; and the 
 consequences were terrible. He was soon a prey to 
 doctors, whom he believed in no more than in the 
 church of which he was so great a light. His legs 
 were no longer his own, so he was obliged to borrow 
 those of a chair. He was soon tucked down into a 
 species of dumb-waiter on casters, in which he could 
 be rolled about in a party. In front of this chair was 
 fastened a desk, on which he wrote ; for too wise to be 
 overcome by his agony, he drove it away by cultivat- 
 ing his imagination, and in this way some of the most 
 fantastic productions in French literature were com- 
 posed by this quaint little abb<5. 
 
 Nor was sickness his only trial now. Old Scarron 
 was a citizen, and had, what was then criminal, sun- 
 dry ideas of the liberty of the nation. He saw with 
 disgust the tyranny of Richelieu, and joined a party 
 in the Parliament to oppose the cardinal's measures. 
 He even had the courage to speak openly against one 
 
SCAEEON'S LAMENT TO PELLISSON. 377 
 
 of the court edicts ; and the pitiless cardinal, who never 
 overlooked any offence, banished him to Touraine, and 
 naturally extended his animosity to the conseiller's son. 
 This happened at a moment at which the cripple be- 
 lieved himself to be on the road to favor. He had 
 already won that of Madame de Hautefort, on whom 
 Louis XIII. had set his affections, and this lady had 
 promised to present him to Anne of Austria. The 
 father's honest boldness put a stop to the son's in- 
 tended servility, and Scarron lamented his fate in a 
 letter to Pellisson : 
 
 " O mille ^cus, par malheur retranch^s, 
 Que vous pouviez m'epargner de pech&! 
 Quand un valet me dit, tremblant et have, 
 Kous n'avons plus de buches dans la cave 
 Que pour aller jusqu'a, demain matin, 
 Je peste alors sur ipon chien de destin, 
 Sur le grand froid, sur le bois de la greve, 
 Qu'on vend si cher, et qui si-tot s'aoheve. 
 Je jure alors, et meme je medis 
 De Taction de men p6re ^tourdi, 
 Quand sans songer a ce qu'il allait faire 
 II mVbaucha sous un astre contraire, 
 Et m'acheva par un discours mandit 
 Qu'il fit depuis sur un certain edit," 
 
 The father died in exile : his second wife had spent 
 the greater part of the son's fortune, and secured the 
 rest for her own children. Scarron was left with a 
 mere pittance, and, to complete his troubles, was in- 
 volved in a lawsuit about the property. The cripple, 
 
378 PRESENTED AT COURT. 
 
 with his usual impudence, resolved to plead his own 
 cause, and did it only too well ; he made the judges 
 laugh so loud that they took the whole thing to be a 
 farce on his part, and gave — most ungratefully — judg- 
 ment against him. 
 
 Glorious days were those for the penniless — halcyon 
 days for the toady and the sycophant. There was still 
 much of the old oriental munificence about the court, 
 and sovereigns like Mazarin and Louis XIV. granted 
 pensions for a copy of flattering verses, or gave away 
 places as the reward of a judicious speech. Sinecures 
 were legion, yet to many a holder they were no sine- 
 cures at all, for thej entailed constant servility and a 
 complete abdication of all freedom of opinion. 
 
 Scarron was nothing more than a merry buffoon. 
 Many another man has gained a name for his mirth, 
 but most of them have been at least independent. 
 Scarron seems to have cared for nothing that was hon- 
 orable or dignified. He laughed at everything but 
 money, and at that he smiled, though it is only fair to 
 say that he was never avaricious, but only cared for 
 ease and a little luxury. 
 
 When Richelieu died, and the gentler but more 
 subtle Mazarin mounted his throne, Madame de 
 Hautefort made another attempt to present her protege 
 to the queen, and this time succeeded. Anne of Aus- 
 tria had heard of the quaint little man who could laugh 
 over a lawsuit in which his whole fortune was staked, 
 and received him graciously. He begged for some 
 
THE OFFICE OF THE QUEEN'S PATIENT. 379 
 
 place to support him. What could he do ? What was 
 he fit for? "Nothing, your Majesty, but the import- 
 ant office of The Queen's Patient ; for that I am fully 
 qualified." Anne smiled, and Scarron from that time 
 styled himself " par la grace de Dieu, le malade de la 
 Eeine." But there was no stipend attached to this 
 novel office. Mazarin procured him a pension of 500 
 crowns. He was then publishing his " Typhon, or the 
 Gigantomachy," and dedicated it to the cardinal, with 
 an adulatory sonnet. He forwarded the great man a 
 splendidly bound copy, which was accepted with noth- 
 ing more than thanks. In a rage the author suppressed 
 the sonnet and substituted a satire. This piece was 
 bitterly cutting, and terribly true. It galled Mazarin 
 to the heart, and he was undignified enough to revenge 
 himself by cancelling the poor little pension of ,£60 per 
 annum which had previously been granted to the writer. 
 Scarron having lost his pension, soon afterwards asked 
 for an abbey, but was refused. " Then give me," said 
 he, " a simple benefice, so simple, indeed, that all its 
 duties will be comprised in believing in God." But 
 Scarron had the satisfaction of gaining a great name 
 among the cardinal's many enemies, and with none 
 more so than De Retz, the coadjuteur^ to the Arch- 
 bishop of Paris, and already deeply implicated in the 
 Fronde movement. To insure the favor of this rising 
 man, Scarron determined to dedicate to him a work he 
 was just about to publish, and on which he justly 
 ' Coadjuimr. — A high office in the Church of Kome. 
 
380 SCAREON'S WEITIKGS. 
 
 prided himself as by far his best. This was the 
 "Roman Comique," the only one of his productions 
 which is still read. That it should be read, I can 
 quite understand, on account not only of the ease of its 
 style, but of the ingenuity of its improbable plots, the 
 truth of the characters, and the charming bits of satire 
 which are found here and there, like gems amid a mass 
 of mere fun. The scene is laid at Mans, the town in 
 which the author had himself perpetrated his chief fol- 
 lies ; and many of the characters were probably drawn 
 from life, while it is likely enough that some of the 
 stories were taken from facts which had there come to 
 his knowledge. As in many of the romances of that 
 age, a number of episodes are introduced into the main 
 story, which consists of the adventures of a strolling 
 company. These are mainly amatory, and all indel- 
 icate, while some are as coarse as anything in French 
 literature. Scarron had little of the clear wit of Rabe- 
 lais to atone for this ; but he makes up for it, in a 
 measure, by the utter absurdity of some of his inci- 
 dents. Not the least curious part of the book is the 
 Preface, in which he gives a description of himself, in 
 order to contradict, as he affirms, the extravagant re- 
 ports circulated about him, to the effect that he was 
 set upon a table, in a cage, or that his hat was fast- 
 ened to the ceiling by a pulley, that he might " pluck 
 it up or let it down, to do compliment to a friend, 
 who honored him with a visit." This description is 
 a tolerable specimen of his style, and we give it in 
 
SCAEKON'S DESCKIPTION OF PIIMSELF. 381 
 
 the quaint language of an old translation, published 
 in 1741 :— 
 
 " I am past thirty, as thou may'st see by the back 
 of my Chair. If I live to be forty, I shall add the 
 Lord knows how many Misfortunes to those I have 
 already suffered for these eight or nine Years past. 
 There was a Time when my Stature was not to be 
 found fault with, tho' now 'tis of the smallest. My 
 Sickness has taken me shorter by a Foot. My Head 
 is somewhat too big, considering my Height ; and my 
 Face is full enough, in all Conscience, for one that 
 carries such a Skeleton of a Body about him. I 
 have Hair enough on my Head not to stand in need 
 of a Peruke ; and 'tis gray, too, in spite of the 
 Proverb. My Sight is good enough, tho' my Eyes 
 are large ; they are of a blue Color, and one of them 
 is sunk deeper into my Head than the other, which 
 was occasion'd by my leaning on that Side. My Nose 
 is well enough mounted. My Teeth, which in the Days 
 of Yore look'd like a Row of square Pearl, are now of 
 an Ashen Color ; and in a few Years more, will have 
 the Complexion of a Small-coal Man's Saturday Shirt. 
 I have lost one Tooth and a half on the left Side, and 
 two and a half precisely on the right ; and I have two 
 more that stand somewhat out of their Ranks. My 
 Legs and Thighs, in the first place, compose an obtuse 
 Angle, then a right one, and lastly an acute. My 
 Thighs and Body make another ; and my Head, leaning 
 perpetually over my Belly, I fancy makes me n9t very 
 
382 IMPEOVIDENCE AND SERVILITY. 
 
 unlike the Letter Z. My Arms are shortened, as -well 
 as my Legs ; and my Fingers as well as my Arms. In 
 short, I am a living Epitome of human Misery. This, 
 as near as I can give it, is my Shape. Since I am got 
 so far, I will e'en tell thee something of my Humor. 
 Under the Rose, be it spoken. Courteous Reader, I do 
 this only to swell the Bulk of my Book, at the Request 
 of the Bookseller — the poor Dog, it seems, being afraid 
 he should be a loser by this Impression, if he did not 
 give the Buyer enough for his Money." 
 
 This allusion to the publisher reminds us that, on 
 the suppression of his pension — on hearing of which 
 Scarron only said, " I should like, then, to suppress 
 myself" — he had to live on the profits of his works. 
 In later days it was Madame Scarron herself who often 
 carried them to the bookseller's, when there was not a 
 penny in the house. The publisher was Quinet, and 
 the merry wit, when asked whence he drew his income, 
 used to reply with mock haughtiness, " De mon Mar- 
 quisat de Quinet." His comedies, which have been 
 described as mere burlesques — I confess I have never 
 read them, and hoped to be absolved — were successful 
 enough, and if Scarron had known how to keep what 
 he made, he might sooner or later have been in easy 
 circumstances. He knew neither that nor any other 
 art of self-restraint, and, therefore, was in perpetual 
 vicissitudes of riches and penury. At one time he 
 could afford to dedicate a piece to his sister's grey- 
 
THE SOCIETY AT SCARRON'S. 383 
 
 hound, at another he was servile in his address to some 
 priuce or duke. 
 
 In the latter spirit, he humbled himself before 
 Mazarin, in spite of the publication of his " Mazarin- 
 ade," and was, as he might have expected, repulsed. 
 He then turned to Fouquet, the new Surintendant de 
 Finances, who was liberal enough with the public 
 money, which he so freely embezzled, and extracted 
 from him a pension of 1600 francs (about £64). In 
 one way or another, he got back a part of the property 
 his step-mother had alienated from him, and obtained a 
 prebend in the diocese of Mans, which made up his 
 income to something more respectable. 
 
 He was now able to indulge to the utmost his love 
 of society. In his apartment, in the Rue St. Louis, 
 he received all the leaders of the Fronde, headed by 
 De Retz, and bringing with them their pasquinades 
 on Mazarin, which the easy Italian read and laughed 
 at and pretended to heed not at all. Politics, however, 
 was not the staple of the conversation at Scarron's. He 
 was visited as a curiosity, as a clever buffoon, and those 
 who came to see, remained to laugh. He kept them all 
 alive by his coarse, easy, impudent wit ; in which there 
 was more vulgarity and dirtiness than ill-nature. He 
 had a fund of bon-hommie, which set his visitors at their 
 ease, for no one was afraid of being bitten by the 
 chained dog they came to pat. His salon became 
 famous ; and the admission to it was a diploma of 
 wit. He kept out all the dull, and ignored all the 
 
384 SCAERON'S LADY FEIENDS. 
 
 simply great. Any man who could say a good thing, 
 tell a good story, write a good lampoon, or mimic a 
 fool, was a welcome guest. Wits mingled with pedants, 
 courtiers with poets. Abbes and gay women were at 
 home in the easy society of the cripple, and circulated 
 freely round his dumb-waiter. 
 
 The ladies of the party were not the most respectable 
 in Paris, yet some who were models of virtue met there, 
 without a shudder, many others who were patterns of 
 vice. Ninon de I'Enclos — then young — though age 
 made no alteration in her — and already slaying her 
 scores, and ruining her hundreds of admirers, there 
 met Madame de S6vign^, the most respectable, as well 
 as the most agreeable woman of that age. Made- 
 moiselle de Scudery, leaving, for the time, her twelve- 
 volume romance about Cyrus and Ibrahim, led on a 
 troop of Molifere's Pr^cieuses Ridicules, and here re- 
 cited her verses, and talked pedantically to Pellisson, 
 the ugliest man in Paris, of whom Boileau wrote : 
 
 "L'or mSme a Pellisson donne un teint de beaute." 
 
 Then there was Madame de la Sabli^re, who was as 
 masculine as her husband the marquis was effeminate ; 
 the Duchesse de Lesdiguiferes, who was so anxious to be 
 thought a wit that she employed the Chevalier de M^re 
 to make her one ; and the Comtesse de la Suze, a clever 
 but foolish woman. 
 
 The men were poets, courtiers, and pedants. Manage 
 with his tiresome memory, Montreuil and Marigni 
 
THE WITTY CONVERSATION. 385 
 
 the song-writers, the elegant De Grammont, Turenne, 
 Coligni, the gallant Abb6 T6tu, and many another 
 celebrity, thronged the rooms where Scarron sat in his 
 curious wheelbarrow. 
 
 The conversation was decidedly light ; often, indeed, 
 obscene, in spite of the presence of ladies ; but always 
 witty. The hostility of Scarron to the reigning car- 
 dinal was a great recommendation, and when all else 
 flagged, or the cripple had an unusually sharp attack, 
 he had but to start with a line of his " Mazarinade," 
 and out came a fresh lampoon, a new caricature, or 
 fresh rounds of wit fired off at the Italian from the 
 well-filled cartridge-boxes of the guests, many of whom 
 kept their mots ready made up for discharge. 
 
 But a change came over the spirit of the paralytic's 
 dream. In the Rue St. Louis, close to Scarron's, 
 lived a certain Madame Neuillant, who visited him as 
 a neighbor, and one day excited his curiosity by the 
 romantic history of a mother and daughter, who had 
 long lived in Martinique, who had been ruined by the 
 extravagance and follies of a reprobate husband and 
 father; and were now living in great poverty — the 
 dauo-hter being supported by Madame de Neuillant 
 herself. The good-natured cripple was touched by this 
 story, and begged his neighbor to bring the unhappy 
 ladies to one of his parties. The evening came ; the 
 abb6 was, as usual, surrounded by a circle of lady wits, 
 dressed in the last fashions, flaunting their fans, and 
 laughing merrily at his sallies. Madame de Neuillant 
 
 Vol. I.— 25 
 
386 FEANgOISE D'AUBIGNE'S DEBUT. 
 
 was announced, and entered, followed by a simply- 
 dressed lady, with the melancholy face of one broken- 
 down by misfortunes, and a pretty girl of fifteen. The 
 contrast between the new-comers and the fashionable 
 liabitu&es around him at once struck the abb6. The 
 girl was not only badly, but even shabbily dressed, and 
 the shortness of her gown showed that she had grown 
 out of it, and could not afford a new one. The grandes 
 dames turned upon her their eye-glasses, and whispered 
 comments behind their fans. She was very pretty, 
 they said, very interesting, elegant, lady-like, and so 
 on ; but, j^cti-bleu ! how shamefully mal mise ! The new- 
 comers were led up to the cripple's dumb-waiter, and 
 the grandes dames drew back their ample petticoats as 
 they passed. The young girl was overcome with shame ; 
 their whispers reached her ; she cast down her pretty 
 eyes, and growing more and more confused, she could 
 bear it no longer, and burst into tears. The abb^ and 
 his guests were touched by her shyness, and endeavored 
 to restore her confidence. Scarron himself leant over, 
 and whispered a few kind words in her ear ; than break- 
 ing out into some happy pleasantry, he gave her time 
 to recover her composure. Such was the first debut 
 in Parisian society of Frangoise d'AubignS, who was 
 destined, as Madame Scarron, to be afterwards one 
 of its leaders, and, as Madame de Maintenon, to be 
 its ruler. 
 
 Some people are cursed with bad sons — some with 
 erring daughters. Frangoise d'Aubign^ was long the 
 
THE SAD STOEY OP LA BELLE INDIENNE. 387 
 
 victim of a wicked father. Constans d'Aubign^ be- 
 longed to an old and honorable family, and -vvas the 
 son of that famous old Huguenot general, Thdodore- 
 Agrippa d'Aubigne, who fought for a long time under 
 Henry of Navarre, and in his old age wrote the history 
 of his times. To counterbalance this distinction, the 
 son Constans brought all the discredit he could on the 
 family. After a reckless life, in which he squandered 
 his patrimony, he married a rich widow, and then, it 
 is said, contrived to put her out of the way. He was 
 ilajprisoned as a murderer, but acquitted for want of 
 evidence. The story goes, that he was liberated by 
 the daughter of the governor of the jail, whom he had 
 seduced in the prison, and whom he married when free. 
 He sought to retrieve his fortune in the island of Mar- 
 tinique, ill-treated his wife, and eventually ran away, 
 and left her and her children to their fate. They fol- 
 lowed him to France, and found him again incarcer- 
 ated. Madame d'Aubignd was foolishly fond of her 
 good-for-nothing spouse, and lived with him in his cell, 
 where the little Fran§oise, who had been born in prison, 
 was now educated. 
 
 Rescued from starvation by a worthy Huguenot 
 aunt, Madame de Vilette, the little girl was brought 
 up as a Protestant, and a very staunch one she proved 
 for a time. But Madame d'Aubign^, who was a 
 Romanist, would not allow her to remain long under 
 the Calvinist lady's protection, and sent her to be con- 
 verted by her godmother, the Madame de Neuillant 
 
388 SCAKKON IN LOVE. 
 
 above mentioned. This woman, -who was as merciless 
 as a woman can be, literally broke her into Roman- 
 ism, treated her like a servant, made her groom the 
 horses and comb the maid's hair, and when all these 
 efforts failed, sent her to a convent to be finished off. 
 The nuns did by specious reasoning what had been 
 begun by persecution, and young Fran9oise, at the 
 time she was introduced to Scarron, was a highly re- 
 spectable member of "the only true church." 
 
 Madame d'Aubign^ was at this time supporting her- 
 self by needlework. Her sad story won the sympathy 
 of Scarron's guests, who united to relieve her wants. 
 La belle Indienne, as the cripple styled her, soon be- 
 came a favorite at his parties, and lost her shyness by 
 degrees. Ninon de I'Enclos, who did not want heart, 
 took her by the hand, and a friendship thus com- 
 menced between that inveterate Lais and the future 
 wife of Louis XIV. which lasted till death. 
 
 The beauty of Fran9oise soon brought her many 
 admirers, among whom was even one of Ninon's slaves ; 
 but as marriage was not the object of those attentions, 
 and the young girl would not relinquish her virtue, 
 she remained for some time unmarried, but respectable. 
 Scarron was particularly fond of her, and well knew 
 that, portionless as she was, the poor girl would have 
 but little chance of making a match. His kindness 
 touched her, his wit charmed her ; she pitied his in- 
 firmities, and as his neighbor, frequently saw and tried 
 to console him. On the other hand, the cripple, though 
 
MATBIMONIAL CONSIDEEATION. 389 
 
 forty years old, and in a state of health which it is 
 impossible to describe, fell positively in love with the 
 young girl, who alone of all the ladies who visited him 
 combined wit with perfect modesty. He pitied her 
 destitution. There was mutual pity, and we all know 
 what passion that feeling is akin to. 
 
 Still, for a paralytic, utterly unfit for marriage in 
 any point of view, to offer it to a beautiful young girl, 
 would have seemed ridiculous, if not unpardonable. 
 But let us take into account the difference in ideas of 
 matrimony between ourselves and the French. We 
 must remember that marriage has always been re- 
 garded among our neighbors as a contract for mutual 
 benefit, into which the consideration of money of 
 necessity entered largely. It is true that some qual- 
 ties are taken as equivalents for actual cash : thus, if 
 a young man has a straight and well-cut nose he may 
 sell himself at a higher price than a youUg man there 
 with the hideous pug ; if a girl is beautiful, the mar- 
 quis will be content with some thousands of francs less 
 for her dower than if her hair were red or her com- 
 plexion irreclaimably brown. If Julie has a pretty 
 foot, a svelte waist, and can play the piano thunder- 
 ingly, or sing in the charmingest soprana, her ten 
 thousand francs are quite as acceptable as those of 
 stout, awkward, glum-faced Jeannette. The faultless 
 boots and yellow kids of young Adolphe counterbalance 
 the somewhat apocryphal vicomt^ of ill-kempt and ill- 
 attired Henri. 
 
390 "AN OFFER OF MABEIAGE." 
 
 But then there must be some fortune. A French- 
 man is so much in the habit of expecting it, that he 
 thinks it almost a crime to fall in love where there is 
 none. Fran9oise, pretty, clever, agreeable as she was, 
 was penniless, and even worse, she was the daughter 
 of a man who had been imprisoned on suspicion of 
 murder, and a woman who had gained her livelihood 
 by needlework. All these considerations made the 
 fancy of the merry abb4 less ridiculous, and Fran- 
 goise herself, being sufficiently versed in the ways of 
 the world to understand the disadvantage under which 
 she labored, was less amazed and disgusted than another 
 girl might have been, when, in due course, the cripple 
 offered her himself and his dumb-waiter. He had little 
 more to give — his pension, a tiny income from his pre- 
 bend and his Marquisat de Quinet. 
 
 The offer of the little man was not so amusing as 
 other episodes of his life. He went honestly to work ; 
 represented to her what a sad lot would hers be if 
 Madame de Neuillant died, and what were the tempta- 
 tions of beauty without a penny. His arguments were 
 more to the point than delicate, and he talked to the 
 young girl as if she was a woman of the world. Still, 
 she accepted him, cripple as he was. 
 
 Madame de Neuillant made no objection, for she was 
 only too glad to be rid of a beauty who ate and drank, 
 but did not marry. 
 
 On the making of the contract, Scarron's fun re- 
 vived. When asked by the notary what was the 
 
"SCAEEON'S WIFE WILL LIVE FOE EVEE." 391 
 
 young lady's fortune, he replied : " Four louis, two 
 large wicked eyes, one fine figure, one pair of good 
 hands, and lots of mind." "And what do you give 
 her?" asked the lawyer. — "Immortality," replied he, 
 with the air of a bombastic poet. " The names of the 
 wives of kings die with them — that of Scarron's wife 
 will live for ever !" 
 
 His marriage obliged him to give up his canonry, 
 which he sold to Menage's man-servant, a little bit of 
 simony which was not even noticed in those days. It 
 is amusing to find a man who laughed at all religion, 
 insisting that his wife should make a formal avowal of 
 the Romish faith. Of the character of this marriage 
 we need say no more than that Scarron had at that 
 time the use of no more than his eyes, tongue, and 
 hands. Yet such was then, as now, the idea of matri- 
 mony in France, that the young lady's friends con- 
 sidered her fortunate. 
 
 Scarron in love was a picture which amazed and 
 amused the whole society of Paris, but Scarron mar- 
 ried was still more curious. The queen, when she 
 heard of it, said that Fran9oise would be nothing 
 but a useless bit of furniture in his house. She 
 proved not only the most useful appendage he could 
 have, but the salvation alike of his soul and his 
 reputation. The woman who charmed Louis XIV. 
 by her good sense, had enough of it to see Scarron's 
 faults, and prided herself on reforming him as far as 
 it was possible. Her husband had hitherto been the 
 
392 PETITS SOITPEES. 
 
 great Nestor of indelicacy, and when he was induced 
 to give it up, the rest followed his example. Madame 
 Scarron checked the license of the abb6's conversation, 
 and even worked a beneficial change in his mind. 
 
 The joviality of their parties still continued. Scar- 
 ron had always been famous for his petits soupers, the 
 fashion of which he introduced, but as his poverty 
 would not allow him to give them in proper style, 
 his friends made a pic-nic of it, and each one either 
 brought or sent his own dish of ragout, or whatever 
 it might be, and his own bottle of wine. This does 
 not seem to have been the case after the marriage, 
 however ; for it is related as a proof of Madame 
 Scarron's conversational powers, that, when, one even- 
 ing a poorer supper than usual was served, the waiter 
 whispered in her ear, " Tell them another story, Ma- 
 dame, if you please, for we have no joint to-night." 
 Still both guests and host could well afford to dispense 
 with the coarseness of the cripple's talk, which might 
 raise a laugh, but must sometimes have caused disgust, 
 and the young wife of sixteen succeeded in making 
 him purer both in his conversation and his writings. 
 
 The household she entered was indeed a villainous 
 one. Scarron rather gloried in his early delinquencies, 
 and, to add to this, his two sisters had characters far 
 from estimable. One of them had been maid of honor 
 to the Princess de Conti, but had given up her appoint- 
 ment to become the mistress of the Due de Tr§mes. 
 The laugher laughed even at his sister's dishonor, and 
 
THE LAUGHER'S DEATH-BED. 393 
 
 allowed her to live in the same house on a higher &tage. 
 When, on one occasion, some one called on him to solicit 
 the lady's interest with the duke, he coolly said, " You 
 are mistaken ; it is not I who know the duke ; go up 
 to the next storey." The offspring of this connection 
 he styled " his nephews after the fashion of the Marais." 
 Fran9oise did her best to reclaim this sister and to con- 
 ceal her shame, but the laughing abb6 made no secret 
 of it. 
 
 But the laugher was approaching his end. His 
 attacks became more and more violent : still he 
 laughed at them. Once he was seized with a terrible 
 choking hiccup, which threatened to suffocate him. 
 The first moment he could speak he cried, " If I get 
 well, I'll write a satire on the hiccup." The priests 
 came about him, and his wife did what she could to 
 bring him to a sense of his future danger. He laughed 
 at the priests and at his wife's fears. She spoke of 
 hell. " If there is such a place," he answered, "it 
 won't be for me, for without you I must have had my 
 hell in this life." The priests told him, by way of 
 consolation, that " God had visited him more than 
 any man." — " He does me too much honor," answered 
 the mocker. "You should give him thanks," urged 
 the ecclesiastic. " I can't see for what," was the shame- 
 less answer. 
 
 On his death-bed he parodied a will, leaving to Cor- 
 neille " two hundred pounds of patience ; to Boileau 
 (with whom he had a long feud), the gangrene ; and to 
 
394 SCAEEON'S LAST MOMENTS. 
 
 the Academy, the power to alter the French language 
 as they liked." His legacy in verse to his wife is 
 grossly disgusting, and quite unfit for quotation. Yet 
 he loved her well, avowed that his chief grief in dy- 
 ing was the necessity of leaving her, and begged her 
 to remember him sometimes, and to lead a virtuous 
 life. 
 
 His last moments were as jovial as any. When he 
 saw his friends weeping around him he shook his head 
 and cried, " I shall never make you weep as much as I 
 have made you laugh." A little later a softer thought 
 of hope came across him. " No more sleeplessness, no 
 more gout," he murmured; "the Queen's patient will 
 be well at last." At length the laugher was sobered. 
 In the presence of death, at the gates of a new world, 
 he muttered, half afraid, " I never thought it was so 
 easy to laugh at death," and so expired. This was in 
 October, 1660, when the cripple had reached the age 
 of fifty. 
 
 Thus died a laugher. It is unnecessary here to 
 trace the story of his widow's strange rise to be the 
 wife of a king. Scarron was no honor to her, and in 
 later years she tried to forget his existence. Boileau 
 fell into disgrace for merely mentioning his name before 
 the king. Yet Scarron was in many respects a better 
 man than Louis ; and, laugher as he was, he had a 
 good heart. There is a time for mirth and a time 
 for mourning, the Preacher tells us. Scarron never 
 learned this truth, and he laughed too much and too 
 
A LESSON FOR GAY AND GEAVE. 395 
 
 long. Yet let us not end the laugher's life in 
 sorrow : 
 
 " It is well to be merry and wise," etc. 
 
 Let us be merry as the poor cripple, who bore his suf- 
 ferings so well, and let us be wise too. There is a 
 lesson for gay and grave in the life of Scarron, the 
 laugher. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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