man received more personal attentions from the highest characters at home and abroad. Alas! this only hastened his ruin; for in this not only the magnificence of his disposition found greater cause for display, but he made it a sort of point of honour to indulge it to the utmost, in order to shew how far his personal consequence was above what he called the injustice of the world.

Foreign as well as native princes were his frequent guests; the splendour of his house and housekeeping was increased; his kitchen rivalled that of the king; and the Greek physician, who visited Anthony's at Alexandria, and came away astonished, though he might not have seen eight wild boars roasting for one supper,* yet would have blessed himself at the profusion of the English nobleman.

Being a colonel in the army, he thought it was no more than became him, on the king's birth-day, to give dinners to his whole regiment, not only officers and men, but their wives and children, to the amount of near a thousand souls; and from this feast no officer's lady retired without an expensive present.

The subject of presents, indeed, occasioned sad reminiscences; for, emulating the magnificent customs of Spain, if a person of consequence professed great admiration of any particular valuable, of the

* See Plutarch's Vit. Anton.

many Lord Rochfort possessed, it was sent to him as a gift; while a gift made to himself was returned a hundred-fold. Thus the ambassador of France, having presented him with a plume of feathers, worn, it was said, by Henri Quatre, a picture of Titian, which the ambassador had admired, and which had cost many hundred pounds, was sent him in return. The pounds had not been paid out of current income, but capital; but the reputation of the marquess was highly raised by this trait of grandeur d'ame, at the court of Versailles.

This, and other instances of the same kind made Lord Castleton, who lamented the evident consequences of such prodigality, tremble for his friend, with whom he remonstrated upon its imprudence, but in vain. It was hence that Lord Castleton used to compare him, as well as Lord Felix (though for very different reasons), to Timon of Athens, particularly in that description of him, which he said he so resembled, that he thought he must have sat for it

"If I want gold, steal but a beggar's dog,

And give it Timon, why, the dog coins gold:
If I would sell my horse, and buy twenty more
Better than he, why, give my horse to Timon;
Ask nothing; give it him, it foals me, straight,
And able horses. No porter at his gate,

But rather one that smiles, and still invites
All that pass by."

"It is, indeed, lamentable," observed Granville, who heard Lord Castleton make this remark, "to

see those fine qualities which raise him so much. above other men-genius, integrity, spirit, eloquence, and penetrating judgment in every thing but what concerns himself-all thrown away, from the mere want of what no man so low but he may possess it-prudence. For, pursuing your comparison out of the same scene you have cited, I fear the time fast approaches when, if

Every feather sticks in his own wing,

Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,
Which flashes now a phoenix.""

"It is certain," said Lord Castleton, in reply, "that with the vehemence and energy of Cardinal de Retz, he has all his recklessness as to money, when, on being reproached with his debts, the Cardinal said, 'Cæsar, at my age, owed more." "

"I have heard," remarked Granville, “that it is this that disinclines the king to him; at least the on dit says that formerly, when there was a question of placing him at the Treasury, his majesty, with characteristic terseness, replied, What, trust him with my money, when he cannot take care of his own! No, no; that won't do.'"

Lord Castleton, though in a grave humour, prompted by the subject, could not help smiling at this, and rallied Granville upon his gossipping anecdote; which, however, he owned, though it might be false, was very well got up, for it was quite in character.

Some time after this conversation, I had an opportunity of seeing many of these traits realized in this remarkable, and, in many respects, superior person; for Lord Castleton's melancholy prognostics were sooner realized than he had expected. Execution after execution was levied in his houses both in town and country, and the further dissipation of his fortune by presents or other magnificence was effectually prevented.

This was hard to bear by one of his turn; but it was made worse by the falling off of almost all his followers, who, as he could no longer feast them, no longer flattered him. Lord Castleton did what he could to soften his reverse, by endeavouring to persuade him to accept the richest of the governments abroad which happened to be vacant; but with proud obstinacy he refused, still asserting his claims to one of the highest seats in the cabinet, glancing at his following in the House of Commons, which had been not inconsiderable. But, to his dismay and eternal mortification, the two or three members who owed their seats to him, and the whole of the small party which had hitherto acknowledged him as their leader, refused to follow him any longer, and gave their unqualified support to the government.

This disappointment cankered his heart, and, like many other disappointed politicians, he renounced the world, and fled away in earnest, to

nurse his resentment in solitude; not now, as it had sometimes been before, in his country palace a short distance from London, but in an ancient and unvisited old border castle in the extremity of the north, called Belford Tower.

This betokened a more permanent resolve than usual, and from this place his letters to Lord Castleton, the only one of the ministry with whom he kept terms, breathed nothing but misanthropy, though he softened it by calling them essays de contemptu mundi.

Lord Castleton had attempted, for many months, to recal him, in vain; and at length, still anxious for his active support, particularly on measures then pending, to which there was a very threatening opposition, and upon which he was particularly well informed, he resolved to lay the whole government scheme before him, in all its details, declaring they looked upon him as their chief ally. He added his firm promise to renew his endeavours to overcome the repugnance of some of his colleagues to act with him in the cabinet, and particularly of a duke minister, whom Lord Rochfort considered as much his inferior, but to whom, from his personal court favour, not only he chiefly attributed his exclusion, but accused him of having undermined him with the sovereign.

This offer, Lord Castleton thought, would be the most powerful appeal he could make to him; and as,