he
deserved; being a person, throughout his whole life, never notorious
for anything but the highest degree of impudence, and stooping to
the most infamous offices, and playing very well at chess, which
preferred him more than the most virtuous qualities could have
done."--Continuation of Clarendon's Life, p. 270.]

Of all the men at court, he had the least regard for the fair sex, and
the least attention to their reputation: he was not young, nor was his
person agreeable; however, with a great deal of wit he had a violent
passion for women. He did himself justice respecting his own merit; and,
being persuaded that he could only succeed with those who were desirous
of having his money, he was at open war with all the rest. He had a
little country-house four or five miles from London always well stocked
with girls: in other respects he was a very honest man, and the best
chess-player in England.

Price, alarmed at being thus closely examined by the most dangerous enemy
they could encounter, turned her head the other way, bid her companion do
the same, and told the coachman to drive on. Brounker followed them
unperceived on foot; and the coach having stopped twenty or thirty yards
farther up the street, they alighted. He was just behind them, and
formed the same judgment of them which a man much more charitable to the
sex must unavoidably have done, concluding that Miss Jennings was a young
courtesan upon the look-out, and that Miss Price was the mother-abbess.
He was, however, surprised to see them have much better shoes and
stockings than women of that rank generally wear, and that the little
orange girl, in getting out of a very high coach, showed one of the
handsomest legs he had ever seen: but as all this was no obstruction to
his designs, he resolved to purchase her at any rate, in order to place
her in his seraglio.

He came up to them, as they were giving their baskets in guard to the
coachman, with orders to wait for them exactly in that place. Brounker
immediately pushed in between them: as soon as they saw him, they gave
themselves up for lost; but he, without taking the least notice of their
surprise, took Price aside with one hand, and his purse with the other,
and began immediately to enter upon business, but was astonished to
perceive that she turned away her face, without either answering or
looking at him: As this conduct appeared to him unnatural, he stared her
full in the face, notwith