The Rehearsal

INSTEAD of the usual brief Chronicle, we shall on this occasion adduce a series of testimonies that have come down to us from contemporaries, all intimately acquainted with Villiers.

1. In the year 1758, was published in London, a 4to Catalogue of the Curious Collection of Pictures of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. The Catalogue is prefaced by the following

ADVERTISEMENT.

WE proceed to gratify the curiosity of the public with some other lists of valuable collections; the principal one belonged to that magnificent favourite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham; and was only such part of his Museum as was preserved by an old servant of the family, Mr. Traylman, and by him sent to Antwerp to the young duke, to be sold for his subsistence; great part having been embezzled, when the estate was sequestered by the parliament. Some of the pictures, on the assassination of the first duke, had been purchased by the king, the earl of Northumberland, and Abbot Montagu. The collection was kept at York-house in the Strand, and had been bought by the duke at great prices. He gave £10,000 for what had been collected by Sir Peter Paul Rubens; and Sir Henry Wootton, when ambassador at Venice, purchased many other capital ones for his grace. One may judge a little how valuable the entire collection must have been, by this list of what remained, where we find no fewer than nineteen by Titian, seventeen by Tintoret, twenty-one by Bassan, two by Julio Romano, two by Giorgione, thirteen by Paul Veronese, eight by Palma, three by Guido, thirteen by Rubens, three by Leonardo da Vinci, two by Corregio, and three by Raphael; besides other esteemed and scarce masters.

Mr. Duart of Antwerp bought some of them, but the greater part were purchased by the archduke Leopold, and added to his noble collection in the castle of Prague. He bought the chief picture, the Ecce Homo by Titian, in which were introduced the portraits of the pope, the emperor Charles the Fifth, and Solyman the magnificent. It appears by a note of Mr. Vertue, in the original manuscript, that Thomas earl of Arundel offered the first duke the value of £7,000 in money or land for that single piece. There is a copy of it at Northumberland house.

It may not be improper to mention in this place, that Villiers, when sent with the earl of Holland to the States, to negociate the restoration of the Palatinate, purchased a curious collection of Arabic manuscripts, collected by Erpinius, a famous linguist; which, according to the duke's designation of them, were after his death, bestowed on the university of Cambridge, of which his grace had been chancellor.

Embedded in this Catalogue, at pp. 24-39. is the following Life of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the celebrated Poet. Written by Brian Fairfax Esq. and never before published. This Life is both able and graphic; and apparently authentic. As it will be new to most readers, we give it entire.

BRIAN FAIRFAX, Esq. was the second son of Rev. Henry Fairfax, rector of Bolton Percy, and cousin to Thomas, 4th Lord Fairfax (the Parliamentary general), brother to Henry, 5th Lord, and uncle of Thomas 6th Lord Fairfax. [See The Fairfax Correspondence. Ed. by G. W. Johnson, i. cxxCXXV. 1848.] I1: 1599, he edited Short Memorials of Thomas [4th] Lord Fairfax. Written by himself. The following gives the most favourable account of Villiers; and would seem to show that up to the Restoration, he was apparently no worse than his neighbours.

The original papers from whence this manuscript
is faithfully taken, were written by Mr.
BRIAN FAIRFAX, and in the possession of
the late bishop Atterbury.

Memoirs of the Life of GEORGE VILLIERS,

Duke of BUCKINGHAM.

GEORGE Villiers, duke of Buckingham, was the son of that noble favourite

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The Rehearsal: With Illustrations from Previous Plays, Etc