2

HISTOKY OF ENGLAND.

chap- properties of mercury. His temper seemed to have suffered— from confinement. He had no apparent cause for disquiet.His kingdom was tranquil: he was not in pressing want ofmoney: his power was greater than it had ever been: the partywhich had long thwarted him had been beaten down; but thecheerfulness which had supported him against adverse fortunehad vanished in this season of prosperity. A trifle now suf-ficed to depress those elastic spirits which had borne upagainst defeat, exile, and penury. His irritation frequentlyshowed itself by looks and words such as could hardly havobeen expected from a man so eminently distinguished by goodhumour and good breeding. It was not supposed howeverthat his constitution was seriously impaired.* '

His palace had seldom presented a gayer or a more scan-dalous appearance than on the evening of Sunday the first ofFebruary 1685.’* Some grave persons who had gone thither,after the fashion of that age, to pay their duty to their so-vereign, and who had expected that, on such a day, his courtwould wear a decent aspect, were struck with astonishmentand horror. The great gallery of Whitehall, an admirablerelic of the magnificence of the Tudors, was crowded withrevellers and gamblers. The King sate there chatting andtoying with three women, whose charms were the boast, andwhose vices were the disgrace, of three nations. BarbaraPalmer, Duchess of Cleveland, was there, no longer young,but still retaining some traces of that superb and voluptuousloveliness which twenty years before overcame the hearts ofall men. There too was the Duchess of Portsmouth, whosesoft and infantine features were lighted up with the vivacity ofFrance. HortensiaMancini, Duchess of Mazarin, and niece

* Burnet, i. 605, 606.; Welwood, 138.; North’s Life of Guildford, 251.

** 1 may take this opportunity of mentioning that whenever 1 giveonly one date, I follow the old style, which was, in the seventeenth cen-tury,' the style of England; but I reckon the year from the first of Ja-nuary.