nent a station, you have so much dishonoured God. Sir, I hope you believe there is a God, and a life to come, and that sin shall not pass unpunished. If your Majesty will reflect upon your having been twenty years upon the throne, and in that time how little you have glorified God, how much you have provoked him, and that your ill example has drawn so many after you to sin, that men are not now ashamed of their vices, you cannot but think that God is offended with you; and if you consider how ill your counsels at home, and your wars abroad have succeeded, and how much you have lost the hearts of your people, you may reasonably conclude this is of God, who will not turn away his anger from you, till you turn to him with your whole heart.

"I am no enthusiast, either in opinion or temper; yet I acknowledge I have been so pressed in my mind to make this address to you, that I could have no ease till I did it: and since you were pleased to direct me to send you, through Mr. Chiffinch's hands, such informations as I thought fit to convey to you, I hope your Majesty will not be offended, if I have made use of that liberty. I am sure I can have no other design in it but your good; for I know very well this is not the method to serve any ends of my own. I therefore throw

myself at your feet, and once more, in the name of God, whose servant I am, do most humbly beseech your Majesty to consider of what I have written, and not to despise it for the meanness of the person who has sent it; but to apply yourself to religion in earnest; and I dare assure you of many blessings both temporal and spiritual in this life, and of eternal glory in the life to come: but if you will go on in your sins, the judgments of God will probably pursue you in this life, so that you may be a proverb to after ages; and after this life, you will be for ever miserable; and I, your poor servant that now am, shall be a witness against you in the great day, that I gave you this free and faithful warning. Sir, no person alive knows that I have written to you to this purpose; and I chose this evening, hoping that your exercise to-morrow may put you into disposition to weigh it more carefully. I hope your Majesty will not be offended with this sincere expression of my duty to you; for I durst not have ventured on it, if I had not thought myself bound to it, both by the duty I owe to God, and that which will ever oblige me to be,

66

"May it please your Majesty," &c.

JOHN SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

[1649-1721.]

Two royal favourites of the name of Sir George Villiers, father and son, have given an unhappy celebrity to the name Buckingham which both bore successively. But their fatal influence on the government of their country was not the only outrage which they committed on morality and reason; both joined to it that irregular splendour by which, at certain times, the flippant insolence of men attached to the court delights to ornament the flagrancy of their life, and for which it is indebted to the blended display which they make of their accomplishments and their vices.

Vices and accomplishments contributed also to the reputation of a third Duke of Buckingham, who was distinguished rather in literature than in politics; I refer to John Sheffield, born in 1649, at first Earl of Mulgrave, and created afterwards Duke of Buckingham by Queen Anne. The career and the character of this man do not present anything specially worthy of attention, they do not show us that he possessed any strong individuality, he does but embody with some fidelity the leading features of his age. Being of a lively and bold disposition, and gifted with a handsome figure, he went to the wars, gave himself up to women and mirth, conforming thus to fashions which had been introduced in his time to the English court from the court of France, and he several times took part in public affairs without leaving behind him any very obvious traces of his influence. After having as a Tory united with the court in showing respect for Catholicism, so long as the favour of the prince was accessible by means of the Catholics, he joined the nation in its hostility to the Catholics when they on the contrary attempted to exclude from all favour every Protestant, however indifferent he might be to Protestantism. James II. had arrived

at that point when he would not accept the assistance of any to his projects, unless they would adopt his beliefs. But in order to gain adherents on these terms, more devotion and

* The first, a favourite of James I. and Charles I., was born on the 20th of August, 1592, and was assassinated at Portsmouth by Felton on the 28th of August, 1628. The second, his son, and a favourite of Charles II., was born on the 30th of January, 1627, and died on the 16th of April, 1688.

my

Sir,"

audacity was required than the king could infuse into his partisans. Of those attached to his person, Lord Mulgrave was considered especially trustworthy. He had been appointed, on the accession of James II., Lord Chamberlain and member of the Privy Council. When the negotiations were being carried on which prepared for the revolution of 1688, one of the agents employed by the Prince of Orange to treat with the disaffected lords proposed that Lord Mulgrave should be admitted into their confidence; upon which the Earl of Shrewsbury said, "If you do, you will spoil all; he will never join with us." After the revolution of 1688, King William, relating this circumstance to Lord Mulgrave, asked him, "Pray, my lord, what would you have done if agent had acquainted you with the whole business ?" said Lord Mulgrave, "I should have discovered it to the master I served." He had no fear of losing favour with his new master by giving such an answer. The king replied, “I cannot blame you.' ""* His attachment to the interests of his old master did not carry him beyond the bounds of that resignation which events, when they have been once accomplished, demand. He spoke in the House of Lords in favour of the Prince of Orange, and that he should reign conjointly with his wife. But without committing himself entirely to the new government, voting and speaking often in aid of the opposition, he knew how to keep up the position of a man whose alliance is sought for and conciliated by power, but whose constant adherence can never be reckoned upon. Buckingham had no great liking for William III., and even viewed only with a kind of frivolous disdain that taciturn adroitness, that vigorous circumspection, not to be disturbed by any expressions of flattery, and the frigid exterior of that genius which only betrayed itself by great actions. He consented, however, to accept from the king a pension of three thousand pounds, and a seat in the Privy Council. Under Queen Anne, to whom, it is said, he had made his addresses in his youth, he entered more conspicuously into public life; withdrew, therefore, returned, and took part in all the ministerial movements of a reign directed far more than the preceding had been by court influences. This was the appropriate sphere for the Duke of Buckingham: skilful in ruining his friends, unscrupulous as to the agency he em* Biographia Britannica, art. Sheffield, vol. vi., p. 3659.

ployed, but, too proud to lower his own personal position, he sometimes compromised it by his flippancy, and knew how to retain it by his audacity. In his youth the freedom of his pleasantries with the mistresses of Charles II. had brought on him the displeasure of the king; and, on one occasion, it is said the king went so far as to take an opportunity to send the Earl of Mulgrave to Tangier in a vessel which was unfit to endure the voyage. The earl, warned of the danger, and not having been able to obtain a better vessel, was unwilling to give up an expedition which he had himself solicited; but he advised several volunteers, who had engaged to follow him, not to expose themselves to such dangers, since their honour was not equally concerned. Many profited by his advice, others persisted, as a matter of honour, in their first resolution. Among these last was the Earl of Plymouth, a natural son of Charles II. The weather was so favourable to the travellers that, notwithstanding the miserable state of the vessel, which leaked in numerous places, they arrived in health and safety at Tangier; but during the whole passage the earl would not allow the king's health to be drunk at his table.

Literature occupied the time of the Duke of Buckingham which was not given to intrigues with the world or with the court. His rank, his friendships with the literary men of his time, the eulogies of Pope and Dryden, have given to his verses far more celebrity than they deserve to possess. As to his few writings in prose, none of them are beyond what we should expect from a man of the world accustomed to be easily satisfied with the most simple efforts of thought: two alone still possess any real interest. The first, entitled "Memoirs in the Reign of Charles II.," seems to have had for its object merely to relate a fact personal to the author, but which is not without importance, as bearing upon the history of the time. We find in it some details, delicately hinted at, concerning what takes place behind the scene, which is the true history for a courtier, and which, under the frivolous, as well as corrupt government of Charles II., were in fact the basis and true cause of events. Such Memoirs, referring to such a time, are as instructive as they are amusing; and it is to be regretted that Buckingham did not extend them to a greater length.

In the fragment which he has written on the "Revolution

of 1688," we can recognise a seriousness which was reflected from the times which were approaching, and the tone of a man who begins to interest himself in the destiny of his country. Nothing can better demonstrate the necessity of the revolution then accomplished in England, than the almost affectionate feeling of pity for James II., and of enmity for the Prince of Orange, which shows itself without disguise in this short narrative, without being accompanied with the least expression of regret for the government which fell. We might be inclined to say that the author endeavours to represent an historical event long since consummated, and which is no longer able to inspire any sentiment except the desire to form a correct estimate of the conduct of the principal actors. Such was, in fact, the character of the revolution of 1688-it was at the time of its accomplishment as much a necessity as if it already belonged to the past. This rendered its progress so tranquil and easy.

After having enjoyed, rather as a courtier than as a statesman, the uninterrupted favour of Queen Anne, the Duke of Buckingham, on the accession of George I., retired entirely from court life, and died in 1721, aged seventy-two years. He had been married three times; the last was during the reign of Queen Anne, to a natural daughter of James II. The periods of lying-in were generally, it appears, very dangerous to his last wife, the only one by whom he had any children; and the author of a kind of biography, wishing to defend him from the charge of avarice which had been brought against him, says, that during the pregnancy of his wife he was always at the pains to secure for her the services of an excellent physician,-an attention, he adds, in which many of those who passed for being more generous than he were deficient. The corruption of morals leads to a refinement of egotism and coldness which the most distrustful observer of human nature could not of himself discover.

SIR JOHN RERESBY.

SIR JOHN RERESBY would have been entirely unknown had he not undertaken to write his own Memoirs." The manuscript of this work originally contained long personal