the girl
home and then prostituted her to the duke's pleasure, after he had
been cloyed himself. The old man going home, and finding his sitter
asleep, his wife fled, and his money gone, was thrown into a state of
madness, and soon hanged himself. The news was soon spread about the
neighbourhood, and reached the inn, where both lovers, now as weary of
their purchase as desirous of it before, advised her to go to London,
with which she complied, and in all probability followed there the
trade of prostitution for a subsistance.

The King, soon after this infamous adventure, coming that way, found
them both in their posts at the inn, took them again into favour, and
suffered them to go with him to Newmarket. This exploit of lord
Rochester is not at all improbable, when his character is considered;
His treachery in the affair of the miser's wife is very like him; and
surely it was one of the greatest acts of baseness of which he was
ever guilty; he artfully seduced her, while her unsuspecting husband
was entertained by the duke of Buckingham; he contrived a robbery, and
produced the death of the injured husband; this complicated crime was
one of those heavy charges on his mind when he lay on his death-bed,
under the dreadful alarms of his conscience.

His lordship's amours at court made a great noise in the world of
gallantry, especially that which he had with the celebrated Mrs.
Roberts, mistress to the King, whom she abondoned for the possession
of Rochester's heart, which she found to her experience, it was not in
her power long to hold. The earl, who was soon cloyed with the
possession of any one woman, tho' the fairest in the world, forsook
her. The lady after the first indignation of her passion subsided,
grew as indifferent, and considered upon the proper means of
retrieving the King's affections. The occasion was luckily given her
one morning while she was dressing: she saw the King coming by, she
hurried, down with her hair disheveled, threw herself at his feet,
implored his pardon, and vowed constancy for the future. The King,
overcome with the well-dissembled agonies of this beauty, raised her
up, took her in his arms, and protested no man could see her, and not
love her: he waited on her to her lodging, and there compleated the
reconciliation. This easy behaviour of the King, had, with many other
instances of the same kind, determined my lord Hallifax to assert,
"That the love of King Charles II, lay as much a