provoked him to great indiscretions.  Once in particular, the ambassador extolling the merit, and noble behaviour of the marquis’s father, added, ’That he hoped he would follow so illustrious an example of fidelity to his prince, and love to his country, by treading in the same steps.’—­Upon which the marquis immediately answered, ’That he thanked his excellency for his good advice, and as his excellency had also a worthy and deserving father, he hoped he would likewise copy so bright an original and tread in all his steps.’  This was a severe sarcasm, as the ambassador’s father had betrayed his master in a manner that was quite shameful.  He acted the same part in Scotland, which Sunderland did in England.  They pushed on king James the IId. to take violent and unconstitutional measures, to make his ruin certain:  They succeeded in their scheme, and after the Revolution, boasted their conduct as meritorious; but however necessary it might be for king William, upon principles of policy to reward the betrayers, he had yet too good a heart to approve the treachery.—­But to return to the marquis, we shall mention another of his juvenile fights, as an instance to what extravagant and unaccountable excesses, the inconstancy of his temper would sometimes transport him.

A young English surgeon, who went to Paris, to improve himself in his business, by observing the practice in the celebrated hospitals, passing by the embassador’s house on the 10th of June at night, took the liberty to break his excellency’s windows because there was no bonfire before his door.  Upon this outrage he was seized and committed prisoner to Fort L’Eveque.  This treatment of the young surgeon was resented by the marquis; but he fought for no other satisfaction than to break the ambassador’s windows a second time.  Accordingly his lordship proposed it to an Irish lieutenant-general, in the service of France, a gentleman of great honour and of the highest reputation for abilities in military affairs, desiring his company and assistance therein.  The general could not help smiling at the extravagance of the proposal, and with a great deal of good-nature advised his lordship by all means not to make any such attempts; ’but if he was resolutely bent upon it, he begg’d to be excused from being of the party, for it was a method of making war to which he had never been accustomed.’  We might here enumerate more frolics of the same kind which he either projected, or engaged in, but we chuse rather to omit them as they reflect but little honour on the marquis.—­We shall only observe, that before he left France, an English gentleman of distinction expostulating with him, for swerving so much from the principles of his father and his whole family, his lordship answered, ’That he had pawned his principles to Gordon the Pretender’s banker for a considerable sum; and till he could repay him, he must be a Jacobite, but that when that was done he would again return to the Whigs.’