Dunton, his contemporary, says he was set in the conspicuous place of lord lieutenant of Ireland, on purpose to guide the people into the path of love and obedience to their God and king. "He is a person,” he adds, "of extraordinary sense and very close thinking, a refined politician, and was ever a firm adherer to the royal line: but his zeal for the church is the most remarkable quality in him, and so perfumes the actions of his whole life, that it makes him whatever is brave, generous, merciful, just, and good 4," &c. Macky describes him as "one who had all the improvement of education and experience, with a good capacity;" and says he was, when very young, employed by Charles the second in foreign negotiations. He opposed king William's coming to the throne, and generally thwarted the measures of that court, till the king, to gain him and his party, made him lord lieutenant of Ireland, and when he was thrown out of office, gave him a very considerable pension during his reign. "He is easily wound up to a passion," observes the same writer, "which is the reason why he often loses himself in the debates of the house of peers; and the opposite party know so well how to attack him, as to make his great stock of knowledge fail him. He is, notwithstanding, one of the finest men in England for interest, especially the church party, and is very zealous for his friends." 5 Burnet, a more accredited judge, speaks of lord Rochester as a man of great parts and incorrupt practices, though

4 Idea of a new Life, p. 425.

5 Characters of the Court of Great Britain, p. 51.

of austere manners. Before he rose to high posts, he was thought the smoothest man in the court; and during all the dispute concerning his father, managed so dexterously, that no resentments were excited against him. 6

His lordship merits honourable notice in the present work, as the conceived author of a preface to the first edition of his noble father's History, which abounds with dignified sentiment and filial reverence. It is injustice to transcribe so small a portion of it as can only here be admitted:

"Many perhaps may not unreasonably believe, that the marriage of the then duke of York with the daughter of this author, might have been one great occasion, if not the foundation of his fall: and though it be undoubtedly true, that this very unequal allyance was brought to pass entirely without the knowledge or privity of this author, but so much the contrary, that when the king at that time made him more than ordinary expressions of his grace to him, with assurances that this accident should not lessen the esteem and favour his majesty had for him: yet his own good judgment made him immediately sensible, and declare it too, to those he was intimate with, that this must certainly be the occasion of the diminution of his credit.

"The continual dropping of water does not more infallibly make an hollow in a stone, than the perpetual

6 History of Charles II. vol. i. p. 362.

7 Afterwards James II. married Anne Hyde, the eldest daughter of lord Clarendon. See vol. iii. p. 124.

whispers of ill men must make impression in the heart of any prince that will always lie open to hear them: nor can any man's mind be sufficiently guarded from the influence of continued calumny and back-biting.

"When the duke of York had made this marriage, it was not unnatural to those ill-minded men to suggest, that for the time to come that minister would be contriving advantages for the good of his own posterity, to the prejudice of his sovereign and master. What their wickedness possibly would have allowed them to practise, was ground enough to them for an accusation of his innocency. It was true that the duke of York was become the chancellor's son-in-law, and therefore they hoped to be believed when they said, that to satisfy his ambition he would forfeit his integrity, which God knows was not true. Thus what Tacitus observes in the time of Tiberius, of Granius Marcellus, who was informed against to have spoken ill words of that emperour, was here in some sort verified on our author: Inevitabile crimen, nam quia ' vera erant, etiam dicta credebantur.""]