was a fine opportunity for those who had experience and ambition. The Duke of Buckingham formed the design of governing her in order to ingratiate himself with the king: God knows what a governor he would have been, and what a head he was possessed of, to guide another; however, he was the properest man in the world to insinuate himself with Miss Stewart: she was childish in her behaviour, and laughed at every thing, and her taste for frivolous amusements, though unaffected, was only allowable in a girl about twelve or thirteen years old. A child, however, she was, in every other respect, except playing with a doll: blind-man's buff was her most favourite amusement: she was building castles of cards, while the deepest play was going on in her apartments, where you saw her surrounded by eager courtiers, who handed her the cards, or young architects, who endeavoured to imitate her.

She had, however, a passion for music, and had some taste for singing. The Duke of Buckingham, who built the finest towers of cards imaginable, had an agreeable voice:

she had no aversion to scandal: and the duke was both the father and the mother of scandal: he made songs, and invented old women's stories with which she was delighted; but his particular talent consisted in turning into ridicule whatever was ridiculous in other people, and in taking them off, even in their presence, without their perceiving it: In short, he knew how to act all parts, with so much grace and pleasantry, that it was difficult to do without him, when he had a mind to make himself agreeable; and he made himself so necessary to Miss Stewart's amusement, that she sent all over the town to seek for him, when he did not attend the king to her apartments.

He was extremely handsome, and still thought himself much more so than he really was: although he had a great deal of discernment, yet his vanity made him mistake some civilities as intended for his person, which were only bestowed on his wit and drollery: In short, being seduced by too good an opinion of his own merit, he forgot his first project and his Portuguese mistress,

in order to pursue a fancy in which he mistook himself; for he no sooner began to act a serious part with Miss Stewart, than he met with so severe a repulse, that he abandoned, at once, all his designs upon her: however, the familiarity she had procured him with the king, opened the way to those favours to which he was afterwards advanced.

Lord Arlington took up the project which the Duke of Buckingham had abandoned, and endeavoured to gain possession of the mind of the mistress, in order to govern the master. A man of greater merit, and higher birth than himself, might, however, have been satisfied with the fortune he had already acquired. His first negociations were during the treaty of the Pyrennees: and though he was unsuccessful in his proceedings for his employer, yet he did not altogether lose his time; for he perfectly acquired, in his exterior, the serious air and profound gravity of the Spaniards, and imitated pretty well their tardiness in business: he had a scar across which was covered by a long patch,

his nose,