gitives, and hurried across the fields to seize them. Advancing towards the pursuers as they approached, Jocelyn told them they might sheathe their swords, as Lord Rochester surrendered himself their prisoner; he then informed them, that he had arrested the cavalcade and carriage the moment he had heard the cries of Mistress Mallett, and described the exact spot where the whole party would be found. After receiving their thanks, he walked at a brisk pace towards the inn, hearing the most insulting and opprobrious epithets applied to his lordship, without their appearing to extort a single syllable of angry rejoinder, or being otherwise noticed than by his whistling the air of a fashionable song. Mounting his horse, Jocelyn retraced the road to London, utterly ashamed of the part he had acted in the adventure, and not less indignant at the manner in which he had been duped by his lordship, than amazed at the childish levity, avowed heartlessness, want of principle, and inexplicable inconsistency of his character.

On the morning after his return to London he felt more acutely and angrily the embarrassing situation in which he had been placed, for he learned that the King, in high dudgeon at Lord Rochester's attempt, after having himself condescended to interfere with the lady in his behalf, had instantly ordered his committal to the Tower; a measure which was expected to be followed by his banishment from court, and the loss of all his preferments. A

word from his lordship would instantly blight the budding honours of the Vice-Chamberlain; and he had the mortification to find his fortunes in the power of a man, who possessed an utter disregard to moral obligation, and whose uncalculating caprice might lead him to divulge even that which his governing principle of self-interest would have rendered it prudent to suppress. It was obvious, however, that nothing could be at present gained by Jocelyn's inculpation; and in the hope that the part he had acted, under his first erroneous impression, would remain unknown, he betook himself on the following morning to Hampton Court, conformably to the orders he had received.

The royal party, he found, were gone on a water-excursion, an opportunity of which the Queen's gentleman-usher availed himself to instruct him in his duties, and show him the apartments of the palace, particularly those appropriated to her Majesty. In her dressing-room he saw the gold cup presented to her by the city upon her arrival, and the massy toilet of the same material, made for her by the King's orders, at an expense of four thousand pounds. Thence he was ushered to the Queen's bed-chamber and closet, in the former of which was the magnificent bed of crimson velvet embroidered with silver, which the States of Holland had presented to the King upon his restoration. In other respects the room was sufficiently plain, being fitted up with pious pictures and books of devotion; 10*

VOL. II.

a receptacle for holy water was adjusted to the head of her bed, by the side of which stood a large clock, provided with a lamp to show the hour in the night-time; and in one corner of the room, amid others of rare Indian manufacture, was an ebony cabinet inlaid with silver, which upon touching a spring opened, and was converted into a Priedieu, furnished with a crucifix, a little altar, a missal, and every customary ornament and appendage of the Romish worship, but all of a diminutive size. In passing through the apartments he encountered some of the Guard-Infantas, or Portuguese maids of honour, whose forbidding looks, olive complexions, and preposterously unbecoming dresses, seemed to afford abundant evidence that they had not been selected, like their English sisters, for their personal recommendations. Two friars, who stood in the window of the next apartment, in black robes and cowls, with ropes about their waists, and sandals upon their naked feet, eyed them with a scowl as they passed, and then renewed their conversation in a low whisper; so that our hero, in spite of the rich ornaments in the dressing-room, thought there was something peculiarly gloomy in the grandeur of these apartments, and concluded that their mistress must be of an austere and bigotted turn.

Of the Monarch most assuredly no such opinion would be formed, from a contemplation of the chambers appropriated to his purposes of state or privacy. Here every thing was magnificent and

joyous, for all had been splendidly refitted and furnished since the Restoration. Here every thing betokened that the gay and effeminate Sybarites had succeeded to the stern snd solemn men of iron, Hangings designed by Raphael, and richly wrought with gold; unrivalled tapestries, among which the story of Abraham and Tobit was particularly admired; rare pictures, especially the Cæsarian Triumphs by Mantegna, formerly belonging to the Duke of Mantua; the gallery of horns, with its huge antlers of stags, elks, and antelopes; the great hall gorgeously decorated; the chapel, whose fretted roof had been newly gilt; the wardrobe of tents and other furniture of state; were all admired in succession; while from the windows of the palace they were enabled to view the improvements making in the park, part of which was laid out for a hare-preserve, while in another a canal was being dug, shaded by plantations of lime-trees. In the garden was a rich and noble fountain, adorned with syrens and statues, cast in copper by Fanelli, and terminated by a parterre known by the name of Paradise, in which was a banqueting-house, set over a cave or cellar.

Upon entering the presence-chamber he found that the maps, plans, and statistical tables, which, had been hanging there upon his former visit, had been replaced by portraits of the wanton beauties who figured in the court of the licentious Monarch, or formed part of his acknowledged seraglio; while

the closet, with its voluptuous paintings and lascivious works, intermixed with cabinet pictures by the first artists, and rare antiques that evinced a taste for the purer specimens of art-its miniatures and plays, its costly knick-nacks and gew-gaws, its trinkets and trumpery, presented a no less striking contrast to its state when he had visited it with Colonel Lilburne. Even in the most sumptuously furnished apartments of the palace, spaniels and lapdogs of all descriptions were allowed to litter and feed their puppies, spoiling the chairs and rich carpets, and tainting the air with their filth; so that from the mixture of nastiness and magnificence, the visitor might rather fancy himself to be in the camp of an Asiatic satrap, than the palace of a refined and polished monarch.

But a little time had elapsed, after his having completed this inspection of the royal apartments, when he was summoned to be introduced to the Queen, who had now returned from her excursion. So much had been said of her homeliness, and the sight of her apartments had so impressed him with a notion of her austerity, that he was not less agreeably surprised by her personal appearance, than by the cheerful courtesy with which she received him. In the former respect she fully justified the description of an eye-witness, who, speaking of her Majesty and her Portuguese ladies, says, "She was yet of the handsomest countenance of all the rest, and though low of stature, prettily shaped, languishing