"Of this nobleman personally," answered Mr. Walsingham, "I know little. Indeed, from every motive moral and prudential, I have been solicitous to avoid any interview with him, and, fortunately, my situation in life is such as does not render me liable to be thrown in his way. From what has transpired, however, concerning him, during the short period he has been at Helmsley, for it is only since the death of the late king that he has visited these estates, it would appear that his sole object, notwithstanding the very precarious state of his health, is to bury reflection in the hurry and tumult of dissipation; for he is seldom without much company, and this, too, of such a description as is calculated to engage him in a continued series of hunting and convivial entertainments.

"I apprehend, therefore, that as neither sickness, nor the advance of life, for the Duke is near sixty, has hitherto produced any amelioration of conduct, the career of this accomplished but unprincipled man will terminate as it began, in thoughtless vice and selfish gratification. It is, indeed, a most melancholy reflection, that with property such as Villiers once

possessed, and which, from its magnitude, and the influence necessarily connected with it, might, if properly employed, and in conjunction with his acknowledged talents, have rendered him a blessing to his country and his friends; scarcely one good, or just, or truly generous action should have been united. The only circumstances which I can recollect, as palliating in the smallest degree the general profligacy of his life, are to be drawn from the recollection that he lost his father by the hand of assassination, when he was not yet two years old, a deprivation often more disastrously injurious to those who are born to inherit rank and affluence, than to any other class of society; and that with a very handsome and interesting figure, and with ȧ promptitude and splendour of wit seldom equalled, and perhaps never surpassed, he was destined to live and move in the dissolute and voluptuous court of Charles the Second.

rose,

"In short, to indulge every whim, and to follow every caprice, to gratify each passion as it and to sacrifice all that is laudable and moral at the shrine of ridicule and folly, have been, and still are, the leading features of his

character. Had consistency or stability of design formed any part of it, the result might have been, in a mind thus constituted, truly formidable both to the nation and to individuals; for such was the speciousness of his talents, and such the fascination of his address, that he became alike the favourite of the presbyterian Fairfax and of the dissipated Charles. But I am attempting to give you a portrait of this extraordinary man, when it has been already executed in so masterly a manner by that living ornament of England, the celebrated Dryden. So admirably, indeed, are the prominent traits of his Grace's character condensed in this exquisite miniature, that, without enquiring whether they are fresh in your recollection or not, I cannot avoid gratifying myself, and at the same time sparing the pencil of a very inferior artist, by hazarding their repetition. I may, in fact, affirm, that in the whole compass of English poetry, there does not exist a likeness drawn with equal spirit and fidelity. Speaking of the chief personages in the court of the late king, who are all masked, you remember, under He

brew appellations, he thus paints our singularly accomplished, and, I am afraid, somewhat dangerous neighbour.

In the first rank of these did Zimri stand;
A man so various, that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong;
Was every thing by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon:
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman! who could every hour employ
With something new to wish or to enjoy!
Railing and praising were his usual themes,
And, both to show his judgment, in extremes;
So over violent, or over civil,

That every man with him was God or Devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded, but desert:
Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late;
He had his jest, and they had his estate.

He laugh'd himself from Court; then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief:
For, spite of him, the weight of business fell
On Absalom, and wise Achitophel :

Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left.*

That there is little or no

* Absalom and Achitophel. exaggeration in this poetical picture, may be inferred from what has been given us from the sober pen of history; for it is thus that Carte, in his Life of the Duke of Ormond, has drawn the character of his Grace of Buckingham.

"The Duke of Buckingham was a man of great parts, and an infinite deal of wit and humour; but wanted judgment, and had no virtue or principle of any kind. These essential defects made his whole life one continued train of inconsistencies. He was ambitious beyond measure, and implacable in his resentments; these qualities were the effects, or different faces of his pride; which, whenever he pleased to lay aside, no man living could be more entertaining in conversation... He had a wonderful talent in turning all things into ridicule; but, by his own conduct, made a more ridiculous figure in the world, than any other he could, with all his vivacity of wit, and turn of imagination, draw of others. Frolick and pleasure took up the greatest part of his life; and in these he neither had any taste, nor set himself any bounds; running into the wildest extravagancies, and pushing his debaucheries to a height, which even a libertine age could not help censuring as downright madness. He inherited the best estate which any subject had at that time in England; yet his profuseness made him always necessitous; as that necessity made him grasp at every thing that could help to support his expences. He was lavish without generosity, and proud without magnanimity; and, though he did not want some bright talents, yet no good one ever made part of his composition; for there was nothing so mean that he would not stoop to, nor any thing so flagrantly impious, but he was capable of undertaking."

Vol. ii. p. 345.