inally intended for a trade, before his friends
preferred him to be a page at court; which some have very unjustly
objected as a reproach. He hath risen gradually in four reigns, and was
much more constant to his second master King James than some others, who
had received much greater obligations; for he attended the abdicated
King to the sea-side, and kept constant correspondence with him till the
day of his death. He always professed a sort of passion for the Queen at
St. Germain's; and his letters were to her in the style of what the
French call _double entendre_. In a mixture of love and respect, he used
frequently to send her from hence little presents of those things which
are agreeable to ladies, for which he always asked King William's leave,
as if without her privity; because, if she had known that circumstance,
it was to be supposed she would not accept them. Physiognomists would
hardly discover, by consulting the aspect of this lord, that his
predominant passions were love and play; that he could sometimes scratch
out a song in praise of his mistress, with a pencil and card; or that he
hath tears at command, like a woman, to be used either in an intrigue of
gallantry or politics. His alliance with the Marlborough family, and his
passion for the Duchess, were the cords which dragged him into a party,
whose principles he naturally disliked, and whose leaders he personally
hated, as they did him. He became a thorough convert by a perfect
trifle; taking fire at a nickname[26] delivered by Dr. Sacheverell, with
great indiscretion, from the pulpit, which he applied to himself: and
this is one among many instances given by his enemies, that magnanimity
is none of his virtues.

[Footnote 25: See note in vol. v., p. 68, of present edition. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 26: Volpone. [ORIGINAL NOTE.]]

The Earl of Sunderland[27] is another of that alliance. It seems to have
been this gentleman's fortune, to have learned his divinity from his
uncle,[28] and his politics from his tutor.[29] It may be thought a
blemish in his character, that he hath much fallen from the height of
those republican[30] principles with which he began; for in his father's
lifetime, while he was a Member of the House of Commons, he would often,
among his familiar friends, refuse the title of Lord (as he hath done to
myself), swear he would never be called otherwise than Charles Spencer,
and hoped to see the day when there should not be a peer in England.