same writer, "has been drawn by four masterly hands: Burnet has hewn it out with his rough chisel,—Count Hamilton touched it with that slight delicacy, that finishes while it seems but to sketch,-Dryden catched the living likeness,-Pope completed the historical resemblance." To these we may add the dark outline of Butler. His sketch of the libertine Duke,-prompted, however, it must be admitted to have been, by the bitterest feelings of personal dislike,—is one of the most disagreeable portraits in the gallery of human character.

JAMES, DUKE OF MONMOUTH.

CHAPTER I.

Summary of Monmouth's Character-His Parentage and EducationHis brilliant Appearance at the Court of Charles II.-Monmouth kills a Beadle in a midnight Frolic-His Marriage with the Heiress of Buccleugh-Character of the Duchess-Monmouth's Military Services-His Popularity-General Belief in his LegitimacyCharles denies having been married to Monmouth's MotherMonmouth banished to Holland.

THIS spoiled child of fortune was as remarkable for the smiles which were lavished on him in his lifetime, as for the tears which were showered on his grave. There was a grace in his manners, and a charm in his countenance, which produced an imperceptible effect on all hearts. He was far from being deficient in many amiable qualities. He appears to have been a staunch friend, an enemy to oppression, and a firm adherer to his word. His courage almost amounted to rashness. Gay and gallant with one sex, and easy and affable with the other; joyous, unaffected, and obliging; no wonder that he was the darling of a libertine Court, nor that his rank grace, and surpassing beauty, rendered him its chiefest

ornament.

But Monmouth was not without faults. Weak-minded and vain of his accomplishments; inflated by the applause of the vulgar, and mistaking their empty clamours for substantial fame; he imagined himself the leader of a party, while in fact he was but their tool. Overmatched

and mystified by the subtle Shaftesbury, Monmouth, the visionary subverter of a government, was in fact but the foil of that unprincipled statesman. Formed by nature to figure in the silken pageants of the Paphian Court of Charles, his genius was unequal to his ambition, and in the end he found himself in a vortex of difficulties from which he had neither the talent nor the firmness of

purpose to extricate himself. Impetuous and highspirited, he appears throughout to have been fanciful in his projects, rash in his undertakings, and irresolute in his conduct.

James Duke of Monmouth was the eldest son of Charles the Second, by Lucy Walters, a beautiful woman of dissolute morals. He was born at Rotterdam on the 9th of April 1649. His guardian was Lord Crofts, whose surname he bore till the Restoration. His childhood was passed under the eye of the Queen-mother, Henrietta Maria, at Paris. King James tells us that his nephew was bred up a Catholic under the tuition of Father Gough, English Oratorian; and Algernon Sydney, who had made love to Monmouth's mother previous to her intimacy with Charles, gives the same account: "By the direction," he says, "of Lord Crofts, he was brought up under the discipline of the Pères de L'Oratoire."* "I Ι was placed," says the Duke of Berwick, in his Memoirs, "by Father Gough, priest of the Oratoire, at Jully, a college of his society, where the Duke of Monmouth, natural son of Charles the Second, had also studied." The good fathers apparently paid but little attention to his education; indeed, in after-life Monmouth bitterly lamented how much he had suffered by their neglect.

When Queen Henrietta returned to England, in January 1662, she carried thither "young Crofts" in

* Letters from Algernon Sydney to Henry Saville, p. 68.

VOL. III.

I

her train, and introduced him to the voluptuous Court of her son. He was presented to Charles at Hampton Court, who, struck with his singular grace and beauty, was unable to conceal his pride and gratification. "The Duchess of Cleveland," says De Grammont, "was quite out of humour with the King: the children she had by his Majesty were like so many little puppets, compared with this new Adonis." Though only in his fourteenth year, his appearance at Court was as brilliant as if he had been a prince of the blood. The same year he was created Duke of Orkney, and, on the 25th of February following, Duke of Monmouth. Apartments were prepared for him in the Privy gallery at Whitehall; he was allowed a retinue and equipages befitting an heir-apparent; he took his seat in the House of Peers, and in April 1663 was installed a Knight of the Garter.

His appearance at this period is thus described by the fastidious De Grammont. "His figure and the external graces of his person were such, that nature, perhaps, never formed anything more complete. His face was extremely handsome, and yet it was a manly face, neither inanimate nor effeminate, each feature having its peculiar beauty and delicacy. He had a wonderful genius for every sort of exercise, an engaging aspect, and an air of grandeur. The astonishing beauty of his outward form excited universal admiration: those who before were looked upon as handsome, were now entirely forgotten at Court; and all the gay and beautiful of the fair sex were at his devotion. He was particularly beloved by the King, but the universal terror of husbands and lovers. This, however, did not long continue; for nature not having endowed him with qualifications to secure the possession of the heart, the fair sex soon perceived the defect." "He was very handsome," says Madame

Dunois, "extremely well made, and had an air of greatness answerable to his birth. He was brave, even to a fault, and exposed himself in the service abroad with a courage not to be excelled. He danced extremely well, and with an air that charmed all that saw him. His heart was always divided between love and glory. He was rich, young, gallant, and, as I have before said, the handsomest and best shaped of men. It will not after this appear strange that many ladies made it their business to engage his heart." According to Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, "he was always engaged in some amour." Dryden's beautiful description of him in his "Absalom and Achitophel," shall complete the picture.

"Of all the numerous progeny were none
So beautiful, so brave as Absalom.

Early in foreign fields he won renown,
With kings and states allied to Israel's crown.
In peace the thoughts of war he could remove,
And seem'd as he were only born for love.
Whate'er he did was done with so much ease,
In him alone 'twas natural to please.
His motions all accompanied with grace,
And Paradise was opened in his face.
With secret joy indulgent David viewed
His youthful image in himself renewed.
To all his wishes nothing he denied,

And made the charming Annabel his bride.
What faults he had--for who from faults is free?

His father could not, or he would not see!

Some warm excesses, which the law forebore,

Were construed youth that purged by boiling o'er
And Amnon's murder, by a specious name,

Was called a just revenge for injured fame."

The allusion to "Amnon's murder" in the last couplet, is far from clear. Sir Walter Scott, in his notes on Dryden, supposes it to allude to the slitting of Sir John Coventry's nose, by Monmouth's agency, in consequence