who had been so long connected with him, and with whose agreeable talents he was now so familiarized, was, on every account, singled out by him as the person who could best introduce him historically to the public.  It is ridiculous to mention Grammont as the author of his own Memoirs:  his excellence, as a man of wit, was entirely limited to conversation.  Bussy Rabutin, who knew him perfectly, states that he wrote almost worse than any one.  If this was said, and very truly, of him in his early days, it can hardly be imagined that he would, when between eighty and ninety years of age, commence a regular, and, in point of style, most finished composition.  Besides, independent of everything else, what man would so outrage all decorum as to call himself the admiration of the age? for so is Grammont extolled in the Memoirs, with a variety of other encomiastic expressions; although, perhaps, such vanity has not been without example.  Hamilton, it is true, says that he acts as Grammont’s secretary, and only holds the pen, whilst the Count dictates to him such particulars of his life as were the most singular, and least known.  This is said with great modesty, and, as to part of the work, perhaps with great truth:  it requires, however, some explanation.  Grammont was more than twenty years older than Hamilton; consequently, the earlier part of his life could only have been known, or was best known, to the latter from repeated conversations, and the long intimacy which subsisted between them.  Whether Grammont formally dictated the events of his younger days, or not, is of little consequence from his general character, it is probable that he did not.  However, the whole account of such adventures as he was engaged in, from his leaving home to his interview with Cardinal Mazarin (excepting the character of Monsieur de Senantes, and Matta, who was well known to Hamilton), the relation of the siege of Lerida, the description of Gregorio Brice, and the inimitable discovery of his own magnificent suit of clothes on the ridiculous bridegroom at Abbeville; all such particulars must have been again and again repeated to Hamilton by Grammont, and may therefore be fairly grounded on the count’s authority.  The characters of the court of Charles ii., and its history, are to be ascribed to Hamilton:  from his residence, at various times, in the court of London, his connection with the Ormond family, not to mention others, he must have been well acquainted with them.  Lady Chesterfield, who may be regarded almost as the heroine of the work, was his cousin-german.

   [She was born at the castle of Kilkenny, July, 1640, as appears from
   Carte’s life of her father, the Duke of Ormond.]