a great desire to understand affairs:  and in order to that he kept a constant journal of all that passed, of which he showed me a great deal.  The Duke of Buckingham gave me once a short but severe character of the two brothers.  It was the more severe, because it was true:  the king, (he said,) could see things if he would:  and the duke would see things if he could.  He had no true judgment, and was soon determined by those whom he trusted:  but he was obstinate against all other advices.  He was bred with high notions of kingly authority, and laid it down for a maxim, that all who opposed the king were rebels in their hearts.  He was perpetually in one amour or other, without being very nice in his choice:  upon which the king once said, he believed his brother had his mistress given him by his priests for penance.  He was naturally eager and revengeful:  and was against the taking off any, that set up in an opposition to the measures of the court, and who by that means grew popular in the house of commons.  He was for rougher methods.  He continued many years dissembling his religion, and seemed zealous for the church of England, but it was chiefly on design to hinder all propositions, that tended to unite us among ourselves.  He was a frugal prince, and brought his court into method and magnificence, for he had L100,000. a-year allowed him.  He was made high admiral, and he came to understand all the concerns of the sea very particularly.”]

His morality and justice, struggling for some time with prejudice, had at last triumphed, by his acknowledging for his wife Miss Hyde, maid of honour to the Princess Royal, whom he had secretly married in Holland.  Her father, from that time prime minister of England, supported by this new interest, soon rose to the head of affairs, and had almost ruined them:  not that he wanted capacity, but he was too self-sufficient.

The Duke of Ormond possessed the confidence and esteem of his master:  the greatness of his services, the splendour of his merit and his birth, and the fortune he had abandoned in adhering to the fate of his prince, rendered him worthy of it nor durst the courtiers even murmur at seeing him grand steward of the household, first lord of the bed-chamber, and lord-lieutenant of Ireland.  He exactly resembled the Marshal de Grammont, in the turn of his wit and the nobleness of his manners:  and like him was the honour of his master’s court.

The Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of St. Albans were the same in England as they appeared in France:  the one full of wit and vivacity, dissipated, without splendour, an immense estate upon which he had just entered:  the other, a man of no great genius, had raised himself a considerable fortune from nothing, and by losing at play, and keeping a great table, made it appear greater than it was.