in London, to call upon Alderman Staunton, for the purpose of renewing a more formal expression of his gratitude to Constantia, as well as of repaying the money she had lent him; for his proud spirit was impatient of pecuniary obligation, and the Queen's continued bounty now enabled him to cancel his debt without inconvenience. That, which he still owed to Constantia for his recovery, was of course beyond all power of acquittance; though had his heart been at his own disposal, he would gladly have dedicated to her service the life she had preserved. Being informed that she had left the city some days before, on a visit to Mr. Ashmole, at South Lambeth, he proceeded to Turret House, where he was courteously received by that gentleman, to whom he explained the purport of his visit. Instead, however, of being enabled to gain an interview with Constantia, he received from her a cold message, intimating that she had never doubted his being the most punctual of all debtors, and that as there were now no further

accounts to settle between them, she would dispense with his future visits. Having satisfied his conscience, as far as he was enabled to do so, and feeling somewhat piqued at this repulsive communication, which he conceived to be calculated to lower him with Mr. Ashmole, he abruptly quitted the house, and returned to his own apartments at Whitehall, fully determined to obey the unceremonious notice he had received, and to drop an acquaintance, the continuance of which, by again bringing him in communication with Julia, might only serve to foster a passion which every prudential consideration most imperatively called upon him to forget.

The serious impressions which his escape from the plague had awakened, were not of any long continuance. If the Queen, with her deeperrooted religious principles, and more habitual rigour of morality, had been obliged to adapt herself to the licentiousness with which she was surrounded, it was not likely that a youth

of ardent passions would be enabled to resist the whirl of Court dissipation, that brought every thing within its vortex. It was as difficult to avoid the contagion of the moral as of the physical plague; and Jocelyn, who had been assailed by the one, was now as deeply tainted by the other infection, of which he was indeed peculiarly susceptible from the state of his feelings. Spite of all his worldly wisdom and cold prudence, his bosom retained enough of its attachment to Julia to render him not only indifferent to every other beauty, but dissatisfied with himself and out of humour with the world; a predicament in which he flew to the common but vain expedient of endeavouring to derive from the senses that pleasure which was denied to the heart, by making libertinism a substitute for love. So far as licentious companions could advance this hopeful project, he had every assistance that could be desired; for he was now on intimate terms with the Duke of Buckingham; his former friendship with Rochester and

the Duke of Monmouth was cemented by community of dissipation; and Sedley, Etherege, and Killigrew were received into the number of his intimates.

Under such auspices he plunged into all the dissolute courses of the time, with the ignorance as well as with the zeal of a novice. He gave suppers, and lived upon a scale of expenditure that speedily involved him in embarrassment; he lounged about Covent Garden; he haunted the taverns and the play-houses; he took one of the actresses of the Duke's theatre under his special protection, and furnished apartments for her, opposite to those of Moll Davies, the King's mistress, in Suffolk Street. But this liaison was speedily dissolved. His friend, Lord Rochester, introduced himself into the house, under the disguise of the lady's cousin, a country bumpkin from Yorkshire, which he performed so admirably, that although he dined with Jocelyn and sang several clownish songs, he remained undiscovered, and was allowed

to accompany his pretended relation to the Mulberry Garden, whence, instead of restoring her to Suffolk-street, he carried her off in triumph to his own house at Westminster. Not that he had any attachment to the woman, whom he had presently spurned away from him again; but that he enjoyed the joke, was proud of his powers of mimicry, and delighted in an opportunity of outwitting and laughing at a friend. In further proof that he was a greenhorn in the practices of a modish life, Jocelyn was weak enough to take his friend's behaviour in dudgeon, and actually to call upon him for satisfaction, an instance of simplicity at which his lordship laughed most heartily. "My dear Faunus," he exclaimed, "surely it were better to sing Pepys's song of 'Beauty, retire!' and give the Fair Inconstant to the winds, than to be tragical and heroical about a trull. Because you have lost your wench, you need not lose your temper, still less your friend, least of all your own life. Fight for a petticoat! Fie, fie! you should

VOL. III.