[Lord Orford’s contrast to this character of Prince Rupert is too just to be here omitted.  “Born with the taste of an uncle whom his sword was not fortunate in defending, Prince Rupert was fond of those sciences which soften and adorn a hero’s private hours, and knew how to mix them with his minutes of amusement, without dedicating his life to their pursuit, like us, who, wanting capacity for momentous views, make serious study of what is only the transitory occupation of a genius.  Had the court of the first Charles been peaceful, how agreeably had the prince’s congenial propensity flattered and confirmed the inclination of his uncle!  How the muse of arts would have repaid the patronage of the monarch, when, for his first artist, she would have presented him with his nephew!  How different a figure did the same prince make in a reign of dissimilar complexion!  The philosophic warrior, who could relax himself into the ornament of a refined court, was thought a savage mechanic, when courtiers were only voluptuous wits.  Let me transcribe a picture of Prince Rupert, drawn by a man who was far from having the least portion of wit in that age, who was superior to its indelicacy, and who yet was so overborne by its prejudices, that he had the complaisance to ridicule virtue, merit, talents.  —­But Prince Rupert, alas! was an awkward lover!” Lord Orford here inserts the character in the text, and then adds, “What pity that we, who wish to transmit this prince’s resemblance to posterity on a fairer canvas, have none of these inimitable colours to efface the harsher likeness!  We can but oppose facts to wit, truth to satire.  —­How unequal the pencils! yet what these lines cannot do they may suggest:  they may induce the reader to reflect, that if the prince was defective in the transient varnish of a court, he at least was adorned by the arts with that polish which alone can make a court attract the attention of subsequent ages.”—­Catalogue of Engravers, p 135, 8vo ed.]

He was brave and courageous, even to rashness; but cross-grained and incorrigibly obstinate:  his genius was fertile in mathematical experiments, and he possessed some knowledge of chemistry:  he was polite even to excess, unseasonably; but haughty, and even brutal, when he ought to have been gentle and courteous:  he was tall, and his manners were ungracious:  he had a dry hard-favoured visage, and a stern look, even when he wished to please; but, when he was out of humour, he was the true picture of reproof.

The queen had sent for the players, either that there might be no intermission in the diversions of the place, or, perhaps, to retort upon Miss Stewart, by the presence of Nell Gwyn, part of the uneasiness she felt from hers.  Prince Rupert found charms in the person of another player called Hughes, who brought down and greatly subdued his natural fierceness.