fhewed a little of both, when, upon fight of the dutchefs of Newcastle's verfes on the death of a Stag, he declared that he would give all his own compofitions to have written them; and being charged with the exorbitance of his adulation, answered, that " nothing was "too much to be given, that a lady “might be faved from the difgrace of "fuch a vile performance." This however was no very mischievous or very unusual deviation from truth: had his hypocrify been confined to fuch tranfactions, he might have been forgiven, though not praised; for who forbears to flatter an author or a lady?

Of the laxity of his political principles, and the weakness of his refolution,

he experienced the natural effect, by lofing the efteem of every party. From Cromwell he had only his recall; and from Charles the Second, who delighted in his company, he obtained only the pardon of his relation Hampden, and the safety of Hampden's fon.

As far as conjecture can be made from the whole of his writing, and his conduct, he was habitually and deliberately a friend to monarchy. His deviation towards democracy proceeded from his connection with Hampden, for whofe fake he profecuted Crawley with great bitternefs; and the invective which he pronounced on that occafion was so popular, that twenty thousand copies are faid by his bio

grapher

grapher to have been fold in one

day.

It is confeffed that his faults ftill loft him many friends, at least many companions. His convivial power of pleasing is univerfally acknowledged; but those who converfed with him intimately, found him not only paffionate, efpecially in his old age, but refentful; fo that the interpofition of friends was fometimes neceffary.

His wit and his poetry naturally connected him with the polite writers of his time he was joined with lord Buckhurft in the tranflation of Corneille's Pompey; and is faid to have added his help to that of Cowley in the original draught of the Rehearsal.

The care of his fortune, which Clarendon imputes to him in a degree little lefs than criminal, was either not conftant or not fuccessful; for, having inherited a patrimony of three thousand five hundred a year in the time of James the First, and augmented it at leaft by one wealthy marriage, he left, about the time of the Revolution, an income of not more than twelve or thirteen hundred; which, when the different value of money is reckoned, will be found perhaps not more than a fourth part of what he once poffeffed.

Of this diminution, part was the confequence of the gifts which he was forced to fcatter, and the fine which he was condemned to pay at the detection

of his plot; and if his eftate, as is related in his Life, was fequeftered, he had probably contracted debts when he lived in exile; for we are told that at Paris he lived in fplendor, and was the only Englishman except the lord St. Albans that kept a table.

His unlucky plot compelled him to fell a thousand a year; of the waste of the reft there is no account, except that he is confeffed by his biographer to have been a bad economift. He feems

to have deviated from the common practice; to have been a hoarder in his first years, and a fquanderer in his laft.

Of his courfe of ftudies, or choice of books, nothing is known more than that

he profeffed himself unable to read