Chapter IV: Part 4

'His dogs would sit in council boards
Like judges in their seats:
We question much which had most sense,
The master or the curs.'

Then what capital stories Charles would 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 embellished 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 ceremonies and punctilios of the region over which Louis XIV. presided. Wherever Charles was, his palace appeared to resemble a large hospitable house--sometimes town, sometimes country--in which every one did as he liked; and where distinctions of rank were 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 gaiety and spirit. Corneille, Racine, Molière, Boileau, were encouraged by _le Grand 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 sabbath saw Whitehall lighted up, and heard the tabors sound for a _branle_, (Anglicised 'brawl'). This was a dance which mixed up everybody, and called a brawl, from the foot being shaken to a quick time. Gaily 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 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 noblemen 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 hospitably 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, perhaps, he would even here have been unsuccessful, had it not been for the society and advice of the famous St. 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 company of foot given him after serving two or three campaigns. Like De Grammont, he owed the facilities of his early career to his being the descendant of an ancient and honourable 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 Condé; 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 honour 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 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 fearless; generous, but, unlike the English, somewhat crafty. You may know him by the fresh colour, 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 handsomest specimens of this fine locality (so mixed up as it is with _us_); and his blue eyes sparkled with humour; 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,' he answered, 'With all my heart; I would fain be reconciled to my stomach, which no longer performs its usual functions.' And his talk, we are told, during the fortnight that preceded his death, was not regret for a life we should, in seriousness, call misspent, 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 honour and morality. The object of St. Evremond's devotion, though he had, at the æra 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 reckless, 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. Hortense, at the age of thirteen, had been married to Armand Duc 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 enormous fortune of £1,625,000; yet she died in the greatest difficulties, and her corpse was seized by her creditors.

The Duc 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 dormitories 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 sorry gaiety 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 favourable was doubtful: therefore, 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 Switzerland; 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 settled on her a pension of £4,000 a year, and gave her rooms in St. James's. Waller sang her praise:--

'When through the world fair Mazarine had 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 Récamier, adored to the last the exiled niece of Mazarin. Every day, when in her old age and his, the warmth of love had subsided into the serener affection of pitying, and yet admiring friendship, 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 more respect than at court. It is true that there are frequent disputes there, but they are those of knowledge 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 commonest meats have the rarest relish imparted to them. There is neither a plenty which gives a notion of extravagance, nor a frugality that discovers penury or meanness.'

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 Dorset can do anything, and is never to blame.' He had, in truth, a heart; he could bear to hear others praised; he despised the arts of courtiers; he befriended the unhappy; he was the most engaging of men in manners, the most loveable 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 gaiety, so high-bred, so lax, so courteous, 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-humour. 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 been mentioned, the judge inquired whether 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 begging 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.[9] Buckhurst, in society, the most good-tempered of men, was thus referred to by Prior, in his poetical epistle to Fleetwood Sheppard:--

'When crowding folks, with strange ill faces,
Were making legs, and begging places:
And some with patents, some with merit,
Tired out my good Lord Dorset'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.'

Still more celebrated as a beau and wit of his time, was John 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 Clarendon, then Chancellor of the University of Oxford, when he took his degree as Master of Arts, with a kiss.[10] The young nobleman then travelled, according to custom; and then most unhappily for himself and for others, whom he corrupted by his example, he presented himself at the court of Charles II. He was at this time a youth of eighteen, and one of the handsomest 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 perfectly 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 gown in folds over a suit of light steel armour--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 simplicity, the intelligence, and modesty of one who was then an ingenuous youth, with good aspirations, and a staid and decorous demeanour.

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 deference 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 honourable 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 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 favourite 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 remarkable 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, favoured a series of pranks with which Lord Rochester, during the period of his living concealed in London, diverted himself. The success of his scheme was perfect. He established himself, since he could not go to Whitehall, in the City. 'His first design,' De Grammont relates, 'was only to be initiated into the mysteries of those fortunate and happy inhabitants; that is to say, by changing his name and dress, to gain admittance to their feasts and entertainments.... As he was able to adapt himself to all capacities and humours, he soon deeply insinuated himself into the esteem of the substantial wealthy aldermen, and into the affections 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 government; he joined their wives in railing against the profligacy of the court ladies, and in inveighing against the king's mistresses: he agreed with them, that the industrious poor were to pay for these cursed extravagances; 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 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 gratitude 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.

But now, with shame be it spoken, in the full noonday genial splendour of our Reformed Church, with newspapers, the leading articles of which rise to a level with our greatest didactic writers, and are competent 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 acquainted with the then small circle of the court--was soon noted for his wonderful revelations. Chamber-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 anxious faces, their fortunes; whilst the cunning, sarcastic 'Dr. Bendo,' noted in his diary all the intrigues 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, disguising themselves as orange girls, 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 dissolute 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: afterwards, 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 Burnet's forcible description of his career:--

'He seems to have freed himself from all impressions of virtue or religion, of honour or good nature.... He had but one maxim, to which he adhered firmly, that he has to do everything, and deny himself 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 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 Brentford 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 Grammont calls _La triste heritière_: 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 Uxbridge, 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.

'If,' she writes to him, '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 uncertainty of which 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 endeavour 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 deliverance, 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 appearance 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 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 unhappy 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 to repentance by a voice so distinct as Rochester. 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 appearance, recovering from his last sickness. He sent for Burnet, who devoted to him one evening every week of that solemn winter when the soul of the penitent sought reconciliation and peace.

The conversion was not instantaneous; it was gradual, penetrating, effective, 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 which the critic,' says Doctor Johnson, 'may read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, the saint for its piety.'

Whilst deeply lamenting his own sins, Lord Rochester became anxious to redeem his former associates from theirs.

'When Wilmot, Earl of Rochester,'[11] writes William Thomas, in a manuscript preserved in the British 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 bedside, perceived his lordship praying to God, through Jesus Christ, and acquainted Dr. Radcliffe, who attended my Lord Rochester in this illness and was then in the house, with what he had heard, and told him that my lord was 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 this 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 sensible 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 exhortation to Mr. Fanshawe to enter into another course of life; adding that he (Mr. F.) knew 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 soberness." Upon this Mr. Fanshawe trembled, and went immediately a-foot 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 favourable auspices. Jermyn Street (built in 1667) recalls to us the residence of Lord St. Albans, the supposed husband 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 associations: Sir Isaac Newton lived for a time in Jermyn 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 starving 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 procured him great _éclat_ 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 expressions 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--became 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 forehead 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 honour (or dishonour) of being the favourite of Lady Castlemaine, and Mrs. Hyde escaped the disgrace she, perhaps, merited.

De Grammont appears absolutely to have hated Jermyn; 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 respect to their unprincipled life, Jermyn and De Grammont 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 impossible to turn without seeing loveliness.

Mrs. Middleton was the daughter of Sir Roger Needham, and she has been described, even by the grave Evelyn, as a 'famous, and, indeed, incomparable beauty.' 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 was 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 jewellery still had the preference, and was liberally bestowed; yet Mrs. Middleton, affected 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 honour, 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 honourable attachment.

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, grand-daughter 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 returned, 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 exile 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 favourite 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 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 favour.'

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 forgotten; 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 neighbourhood; and the cousins mingled continually. Here persons of the greatest distinction constantly met; and here the 'Chevalier de Grammont,' 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 Maria, the Queen-Mother, as she was styled, at Somerset 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, indeed, 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 honour and the young Duke of Monmouth, playing at cards.'

Queen Katherine, notwithstanding that the first words she was ever known to say in English were '_You 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 characteristic of poor Katherine's submissive, uncomplaining 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 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 Hamilton,' 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 difficult to imitate. Her complexion was possessed of a certain freshness, not to be equalled by borrowed colours; her eyes were not large, but they were lively, and capable of expressing whatever she pleased.'[12] So far for her person; but De Grammont was, it seems, weary of external charms: it was the intellectual superiority that riveted his feelings, 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 endeavour to shine in conversation by those sprightly sallies which only puzzle, and with still greater care she avoided that affected 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 distinguishing 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 we 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 Christian 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 painting the Beauties of the Court, and had done full justice 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, confining, with a large jewel or button, the sleeve on the shoulder, disguised somewhat the exquisite shape. A frill of fine cambric set off, 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.'

Whilst the colours 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 attractions 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 Muskerry; to confuse and expose a stupid court beauty, 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 hoaxing--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 influence, 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, notwithstanding 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 was not for want of means that De Grammont thus delayed the fulfilment of his engagement. Charles II., inexcusably lavish, gave him a pension of 1500 Jacobuses: it was to be paid to him until he should be restored to the favour of his own king. The fact was that De Grammont contributed to the pleasures of the court, and pleasure was the household deity of Whitehall. Sometimes, in those days of careless gaiety, 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 summer 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, displeased the ladies, because their charms were only partially seen in them, sent for the most elegant and superb _calèche_ ever seen: it came after a month's journey, and was presented by De Grammont to the king. It was a royal present in price, for it had cost two thousand livres. The famous dispute between Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stuart, afterwards Duchess of Richmond, arose about this _calèche_. 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 _calèche_ showed off 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 footman, and that one of the common runners in the street lights you home with a link?'

'Madame,' he answered, 'the Chevalier de Grammont hates pomp: my link-boy is faithful and brave.' Then he told the Queen that he saw she was unacquainted 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 sometimes had five or six _valets-de-chambre_, without a single 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 Biscayan gig.'

'Chevalier,' said the king, 'tell us the history of your chaplain Poussatin.'

Then De Grammont related how, when he was with the great Condé, after the campaign of Catalonia, he had seen among a company of Catalans, a priest in a little black jacket, skipping and frisking: how Condé was charmed, and how they recognized in him a Frenchman, and how he offered himself to De Grammont for his chaplain. De Grammont had not much need, he said, for a chaplain in his house, but he took the priest, who had afterwards the honour of dancing before Anne of Austria, in Paris.

Suitor after suitor interfered with De Grammont's at last honourable 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, Frenchman-like, all his engagements to Miss Hamilton, and hurried off. He had reached Dover, when her two brothers rode up after him. 'Chevalier de Grammont,' 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 suggested to Molière the idea of _Le Mariage forcé_. 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 France, recommended her to his 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.