’What a dull fool was I
To think so gross a lie,
As that I ever was in love before! 
I have, perhaps, known one or two,
With whom I was content to be
At that which they call keeping company. 
But after all that they could do,
I still could be with more. 
Their absence never made me shed a tear;
And I can truly swear,
That, till my eyes first gazed on you,
I ne’er beheld the thing I could adore.

’A world of things must curiously be sought: 
A world of things must be together brought
To make up charms which have the power to make,
Through a discerning eye, true love;
That is a master-piece above
What only looks and shape can do;
There must be wit and judgment too,
Greatness of thought, and worth, which draw,
From the whole world, respect and awe.

’She that would raise a noble love must find
Ways to beget a passion for her mind;
She must be that which she to be would seem,
For all true love is grounded on esteem: 
Plainness and truth gain more a generous heart
Than all the crooked subtleties of art. 
She must be—­what said I?—­she must be you: 
None but yourself that miracle can do. 
At least, I’m sure, thus much I plainly see,
None but yourself e’er did it upon me. 
’Tis you alone that can my heart subdue,
To you alone it always shall be true.’

The next lines are also remarkable for the delicacy and happy turn of the expressions—­

’Though Phillis, from prevailing charms,
Have forc’d my Delia from my arms,
Think not your conquest to maintain
By rigour or unjust disdain. 
In vain, fair nymph, in vain you strive,
For Love doth seldom Hope survive. 
My heart may languish for a time,
As all beauties in their prime
Have justified such cruelty,
By the same fate that conquered me. 
When age shall come, at whose command
Those troops of beauty must disband—­
A rival’s strength once took away,
What slave’s so dull as to obey? 
But if you’ll learn a noble way
To keep his empire from decay,
And there for ever fix your throne,
Be kind, but kind to me alone.’

Like his father, who ruined himself by building, Villiers had a monomania for bricks and mortar, yet he found time to write ’The Rehearsal,’ a play on which Mr. Reed in his ‘Dramatic Biography’ makes the following observation:  ’It is so perfect a masterpiece in its way, and so truly original, that notwithstanding its prodigious success, even the task of imitation, which most kinds of excellence have invited inferior geniuses to undertake, has appeared as too arduous to be attempted with regard to this, which through a whole century stands alone, notwithstanding that the very plays it was written expressly to ridicule are forgotten, and the taste it was meant to expose totally exploded.’