Like many other men, Rochester might have been saved by being kept far from the scene of temptation.  Whilst he remained in the country he was tolerably sober, perhaps steady.  When he approached Brentford on his route to London, his old propensities came upon him.

When scarcely out of his boyhood he carried off a young heiress, Elizabeth Mallett, whom De Grammont calls La triste heritiere:  and triste, indeed, she naturally was.  Possessed of a fortune of L2500 a year, this young lady was marked out by Charles II. as a victim for the profligate Rochester.  But the reckless young wit chose to take his own way of managing the matter.  One night, after supping at Whitehall with Miss Stuart, the young Elizabeth was returning home with her grandfather, Lord Haly, when their coach was suddenly stopped near Charing Cross by a number of bravos, both on horseback and on foot—­the ‘Roaring Boys and Mohawks,’ who were not extinct even in Addison’s time.  They lifted the affrighted girl out of the carriage, and placed her in one which had six horses; they then set off for Uxbridge, and were overtaken; but the outrage ended in marriage, and Elizabeth became the unhappy, neglected Countess of Rochester.  Yet she loved him—­perhaps in ignorance of all that was going on whilst she stayed with her four children at home.

‘If,’ she writes to him, ’I could have been troubled at anything, when I had the happiness of receiving a letter from you, I should be so, because you did not name a time when I might hope to see you, the uncertainty of which very much afflicts me....  Lay your commands upon me what I am to do, and though it be to forget my children, and the long hope I have lived in of seeing you, yet will I endeavour to obey you; or in the memory only torment myself, without giving you the trouble of putting you in mind that there lives a creature as

    ‘Your faithful, humble servant.’

And he, in reply:  ’I went away (to Rochester) like a rascal, without taking leave, dear wife.  It is an unpolished way of proceeding, which a modest man ought to be ashamed of.  I have left you a prey to your own imaginations amongst my relations, the worst of damnations.  But there will come an hour of deliverance, till when, may my mother be merciful unto you!  So I commit you to what I shall ensue, woman to woman, wife to mother, in hopes of a future appearance in glory....

’Pray write as often as you have leisure, to your

    ‘ROCHESTER.’

To his son, he writes:  ’You are now grown big enough to be a man, if you can be wise enough; and the way to be truly wise is to serve God, learn your book, and observe the instructions of your parents first, and next your tutor, to whom I have entirely resigned you for this seven years; and according as you employ that time, you are to be happy or unhappy for ever.  I have so good an opinion of you, that I am glad to think you will never deceive me.  Dear child, learn your book and be obedient, and you will see what a father I shall be to you.  You shall want no pleasure while you are good, and that you may be good are my constant prayers.’