him by any of his favourites, either male or female; the Duke of Buckingham, as Tracy had anticipated, declared that he had hated him long enough; and, as he sadly wanted a change of sensations, he was willing to receive him into his especial favour and protection. Lady Castlemaine had been the last to hold out, resisting all the solicitations of the Duke of Monmouth, who had been indefatigable in his behalf; nor would her wrath have been ultimately appeased, but for a little manoeuvre of his friend Lord Rochester. That nobleman presented to her one morning a most bitter and scurrilous lampoon upon her two mortal enemies, Lady Gerrard and the Duchess of Richmond, with which she was so immeasurably delighted, that she desired him to name his own reward, binding herself by an oath to grant it. According to the scandalous chronicle of the courtiers, who had for some time observed a growing penchant between the parties, she expected that he would gladly seize this opportunity for indulging his love of gallantry, and of affording her the excuse of her vow to permit it; but his Lordship,

whose capricious humour sometimes found more pleasure in vexing and disappointing others, than even in advancing his own intrigues, stipulated for her forgiveness of Jocelyn, and her consent to his recall. These points she was bound in honour to concede; but she had never spoken since to Lord Rochester, and Jocelyn was warned that this extorted reconciliation, with a woman of her haughty character, was likely to prove hollow and insincere.

Not many hours had elapsed after his arrival at Oxford, when he was presented to the Queen, who received him with extraordinary condescension and kindness, inquiring into all the circumstances of his exile, as well as his recovery from the plague, and expressing her regret that he should have been exposed to so much peril and suffering upon her account. She cautioned him, however, against any future indulgence in such intemperate language as that which had led to his disgrace, particularly desiring him never to let his zeal for the Queen lead him to forget his duty to the King. Although his situation of vice-chamberlain had been bestowed upon ano

ther, she declared that she held herself accountable to him for the salary up to the period of his return, which she should desire her treasurer to pay over to him: and added, that if he considered the post of her private secretary a desirable substitution for his former office, he might kiss her hand upon receiving the appointment. With a smile of affability, she held it out to him for that purpose; and Jocelyn, falling upon one knee, acknowledged in suitable terms his grateful sense of the honour conferred upon him. Her Majesty informed him that his duties would be very trifling, as she was so mere a cypher in the state, as to have little or no correspondence; adding, that she should hardly have filled up the appointment, unless for the pleasure of obliging one who had suffered from his imprudence in her behalf; and finally declared that if he desired to absent himself from the court, until his health was more fully reestablished, he was at perfect liberty to do so.

Of this permission he could have hardly found leisure to avail himself, even had he desired it, for it was no sooner buzzed abroad, that he had re

turned to court, had been nominated to a better appointment than the one he had lost, and was likely to be in greater favour than ever, than his apartment was thronged with the minions and parasites, who came to congratulate him on his good fortune, and express their unfeigned regard for a man, whose name, but the week before, they would not have mentioned without some disparaging adjunct. Among others who thus presented themselves, was Mark Walton, his second in the duel with Bagot, who was so delighted at learning the Queen's liberality in paying him his arrears, that he condescended to borrow nearly the whole of the money, to advance some project which he had at that moment in hand, and in which, if successful, he declared that his fortune would be made for life. "You are happy," he exclaimed, "in serving the Queen instead of the King, for I have not yet received one farthing of my salary since the Restoration, and this is almost universally the case; though for any of the King's mistresses, or other pleasurable purpose, there is a lavish expenditure of money, even to waste and wanton

ness.

However," continued the cautious young

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courtier, we must not rashly blame his Majesty, in whose defence much may be said. The tragical death of his father, his wandering and necessitous life in early youth, the perils to which he was exposed, and the treason and ingratitude that he so often encountered, have probably combined to disgust him with public business, to render him distrustful of mankind, and to persuade him that the summum bonum consists in ease, indolence, and sensual indulgence, an error from which his own good sense would have long ago redeemed him, had he not been confirmed in it by satellites and flatterers."

"I differ with you, toto cælo," cried Jocelyn; "his father's fate should have warned him against the causes that produced it; his wandering life, by giving him experience, might have taught him wisdom; the good sense that is not proof against the grossest flattery, cannot be rated very high; and surely Charles the Second is the last man that can be allowed to talk of treachery and ingratitude, when we recollect, that for many years, the support of his cause

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