Mem. Rec. vol. vi. 131.
It is quoted in the "Remarques Critiques sur le Dictionnaire de Bayle," Paris, 1748. This anonymous folio volume was written by Le Sieur Joly, a canon of Dijon, and is full of curious researches, and many authentic discoveries. The writer is no philosopher, but he corrects and adds to the knowledge of Bayle. Here I found some original anecdotes of Hobbes, from MS. sources, during that philosopher's residence at Paris, which I have given in "Quarrels of Authors."
Montresor, attached to the Duke of Orleans, has left us some very curious memoirs, in two small volumes; the second preserving many historical documents of that active period. This spirited writer has not hesitated to detail his projects for the assassination of the tyrannical minister.
At page 154 of this work is a different view of the character of this extraordinary man: those anecdotes are of a lighter and satirical nature; they touch on "the follies of the wise."
In "The Disparity." to accompany "The Parallel" of Sir Henry Wotton; two exquisite cabinet-pictures, preserved in the Reliquiæ Wottonianæ; and at least equal to the finest "Parallels" of Plutarch.
The singular openness of his character was not statesmanlike. He was one of those whose ungovernable sincerity "cannot put all their passions in their pockets." He told the Count-Duke Olivarez, on quitting Spain, that "he would always cement the friendship between the two nations; but with regard to you, sir, in particular, you must not consider me as your friend, but must ever expect from me all possible enmity and opposition." The cardinal was willing enough, says Hume, "to accept what was proffered, and on these terms the favourites parted." Buckingham, desirous of accommodating the parties in the nation, once tried at the favour of the puritanic party, whose head was Dr. Preston, master of Emanuel College. The duke was his generous patron, and Dr. Preston his most servile adulator. The more zealous puritans were offended at this intimacy; and Dr. Preston, in a letter to some of his party, observed that it was true that the duke was a vile and profligate fellow, but that there was no other way to come at him but by the lowest flattery; that it was necessary for the glory of God that such instruments should be made use of; and more in this strain. Some officious hand conveyed this letter to the duke, who, when Dr. Preston came one morning as usual, asked him whether he had ever disobliged him, that he should describe him to his party in such black characters. The doctor, amazed, denied the fact; on which the duke instantly produced the letter, then turned from him, never to see him more. It is said that from this moment he abandoned the puritan party, and attached himself to Laud. This story was told by Thomas Baker to W. Wotton, as coming from one well versed in the secret history of that time.—Lansdowne MSS. 872, fo. 88.
A well-known tract against the Duke of Buckingham, by Dr. George Eglisham, physician to James the First, entitled "The Forerunner of Revenge," may be found in many of our collections. Gerbier, in his manuscript memoirs, gives a curious account of this political libeller, the model of that class of desperate scribblers. "The falseness of his libels," says Gerbier, "he hath since acknowledged, though too late. During my residence at Bruxelles, this Eglisham desired Sir William Chaloner, who then was at Liege, to bear a letter to me, which is still extant: he proposed, if the king would pardon and receive him into favour again, with some competent subsistence, that he would recant all that he had said or written to the disadvantage of any in the court of England, confessing that he had been urged thereunto by some combustious spirits, that for their malicious designs had set him on work." Buckingham would never notice these and similar libels. Eglisham flew to Holland after he had deposited his political venom in his native country, and found a fate which every villanous factionist who offers to recant for "a competent subsistence" does not always; he was found dead, assassinated in his walks by a companion. Yet this political libel, with many like it, are still authorities. "George Duke of Buckingham," says Oldys, "will not speedily outstrip Dr. Eglisham's 'Forerunner of Revenge.'"
The misery of prime ministers and favourites is a portion of their fate which has not always been noticed by their biographers; one must be conversant with secret history to discover the thorn in their pillow. Who could have imagined that Buckingham, possessing the entire affections of his sovereign, during his absence had reason to fear being supplanted? When his confidential secretary, Dr. Mason, slept in the same chamber with the duke, he would give way at night to those suppressed passions which his unaltered countenance concealed by day. In the absence of all other ears and eyes he would break out into the most querulous and impassioned language, declaring that "never his despatches to divers princes, nor the great business of a fleet, of an army, of a siege, of a treaty, of war and peace both on foot together, and all of them in his head at a time, did not so much break his repose as the idea that some at home under his majesty, of whom he had well deserved, were now content to forget him." So short-lived is the gratitude observed to an absent favourite, who is most likely to fall by the creatures his own hands have made.
Sloane MSS. 4181.
Gerbier gives a curious specimen of Grondomar's pleasant sort of impudence. When James expressed himself with great warmth on the Spaniards, under Spinola, taking the first town in the Palatinate, under the eyes of our ambassador, Gondomar, with Cervantic humour, attempted to give a new turn to the discussion, for he wished that Spinola had taken the whole Palatinate at once, for "then the generosity of my master would be shown in all its lustre, by restoring it all again to the English ambassador, who had witnessed the whole operations." James, however, at this moment was no longer pleased with the inexhaustible humour of his old friend, and set about trying what could be done.