der the malice of his
foes. As a younger brother, he was expected to be the founder of his own
fortune. His education, therefore, had been most carefully conducted; he
had had the best tutors in every branch of learning; and he had
travelled under the guidance of an enlightened friend. The pacific
character of King James furnishing no employment in arms, he had sought
the court as his sphere of action; but while he was displaying the
accomplishments he possessed, and acquiring the knowledge of mankind
which is necessary to a statesman, he at once attracted the notice of
Princes and the envy of their favourites. That fearless candour, and
that self-depending integrity which generally attends the finest
qualities and noblest dispositions, rendered him careless of the frowns
of those whom he discovered to be rather crafty rivals than generous
competitors, and determined him rather to despise opposition than to
conciliate esteem.

The haughty Duke of Buckingham was then in the zenith of his power. By
bringing Prince Charles back from Spain he had relieved the national
anxiety; and the short-sighted multitude, forgetting who had endangered
the heir-apparent's safety, heaped on him undeserved popularity. Hence
his extraordinary good fortune in pleasing all parties so elated him as
to make him shew in his conduct that contempt for his benefactor, King
James, which he had long secretly entertained. By the impeachment of the
Earl of Middlesex, a confidential adviser and personal favourite of the
King's, from motives of private pique, and by hurrying the nation into a
war with Spain, for which the Parliament had not provided resources, he
laid the foundation of the pecuniary difficulties, and created those
evil precedents which ultimately contributed to overthrow the regal
authority. These fatal results of his pernicious measures formed an
awful lesson to Kings on the mischiefs incident to favouritism, and on
the folly of erecting a pile of ill-constructed greatness, which, in its
fall, often endangers the stability of the throne.

To this vain, ambitious man, practised in all the smooth graces and
insidious arts of a court, the aspiring, but frank and honourable
Neville, more enlightened, equally engaging, and animated by purer
motives, was an object both of envy and of fear. He scrupled not to
lament the indignities which the declining King suffered from his former
cup-bearer, who had danced himself into the highest honours En