CHAPTER V.

S we launched upon the days of Charles I., in

our last talk, we had somewhat to say of the King's advisers, lay and ecclesiastic; we came to quick sense of the war-clouds, fast gathering, through which Jeremy Taylor shot his flashes of pious eloquence; we heard a strain of Suckling's verse, to which might have been added other, and may be better, from such Royalist singers as Carew or Lovelace; but we cannot swoop all the birds into our net. We had glimpse of the crop-eared Prynne of the Histriomastix; and from Cowley, that sincere friend of both King and Queen in the days of their misfortunes, we plucked some "Poetical

*Carew, b. about 1589; d. 1639; full of lyrical arts and of brazen sensuality. Lovelace, b. 1618; d. 1658; a careless master of song, whom wealth and royal favor did not save from a death of want and despair.

Blossoms;" also a charming "Rose," from the orderly parterres of that great gardener, and pompous, time-serving man, Edmund Waller.

Then came Milton with the fairy melodies, always sweet, of "Comus"- the cantankerous pamphleteering the soured home-life-the bloody thrusts at the image of the King, and the grander flight of his diviner music into the courts of Paradise.

Charles II. and his Friends.

Some fourteen years or so before the death of Milton, the restoration of Charles II. had come about. He had drifted back upon the traces of the stout Oliver Cromwell, and of the feebler Richard Cromwell, on a great tide of British enthusiasm. Independents, Presbyterians, Church of England men, and Papists were all by the ears; and it did seem to many among the shrewdest of even the Puritan workers that some balance-wheel (of whatever metal), though weighted with royal traditions and hereditary privileges, might keep the governmental machinery to the steady working of old days.

So the Second Charles had come back, with a

great throwing up of caps all through the London streets; Presbyterians giving him welcome because he was sure to snub the Independents; the Independents giving him welcome because he was sure to snub the Presbyterians; the Church of England men giving him welcome because he was sure to snub both (as he did); and finally, the Papists giving him high welcome because all other ways their hopes were lean and few.

You know, or should know, what manner of man he was accomplished in his way; an expert swordsman; an easy talker-capable of setting a tableful of gentlemen in a roar; telling stories inimitably, and a great many of them; full of grimaces that would have made his fortune on the stage; saying sweetest things, and meaning the worst things; a daredevil who feared neither God nor man; generous, too—most of all in his cups; and liberal with other peoples' money; hating business with all his soul; loving pleasure with all his heart; ready always to do kindness that cost him nothing; laughing at all Puritans and purity; yet winning the maudlin affection of a great many people, and the respect of none.

Notwithstanding all this, the country gentlemen of England, of good blood, who had sniffed scornfully at the scent of the beer-vats which hung about the name of Cromwell, welcomed this clever, swarthy, black-haired, dissolute Prince, who had a pedigree which ran back on the father's side to the royal Bruce of Scotland, and on the mother's side to the great Clovis, and to the greater Charlemagne.

You will find a good glimpse of this scion of royalty in Scott's story of Peveril of the Peak. The novel is by no means one of the great romancer's best; but it is well worth reading for the clear and vivid idea it will give one of the social clashings between the reserves of old Puritanism and the incontinencies of new monarchism; you will find in it an excellent sample of the gruff, stalwart Cromwellian; and another of the hot-tempered, swearing cavalier; and still others of the mincing, scheming, gambling, roystering crew which overran all the purlieus of the court of Charles. Buckingham was there

that second Villiers,* of whom I had

George Villiers, b. 1627; d. 1688.

somewhat to say when the elder Buckingham came up for mention in the days of Charles I.; this younger Villiers running before the elder in all accomplishments and all villainies; courtly; of noble bearing; with daintiest of speeches; a pattern of manly graces; capable of a tender French song, with all his tones in exultant accord with best of court singers, and of a comedy that drew all the playgoers of London to the "Rehearsal;" capable too, of the wickedest of plots and of the foulest of lies. And yet this Buckingham was one of the best accredited advisers of the Crown.

To the same court belonged Rochester,* his great, fine wig covering a great, fine brain; he writing harmonious verses about "" 'Nothing". or worse

than nothing; and at the last wheedling Bishop Burnet into the belief that he had changed his courses, and that if he might rise from that ugly deathbed where the good-natured, pompous bishop sought him, he would be enrolled among the moralists. I think it was lucky that he died with such good impulse flashing at the top of his badnesses.

*Earl of Rochester (John Wilmot), b. 1647; d. 1680.