fts hit the weaknesses at
which they aimed, that his productions were equally the terror of those
he victimized, and the delight of those he spared.

This liberal use of satire he was wont to excuse on the plea there were
some who could not be kept in order, or admonished, by other means.
Therefore, having the virtue of his friends keenly at heart, an
ingenious plan occurred to him by which he might secretly discover their
vices, and publicly reprove them. In order that he might fulfil this
purpose to his greater satisfaction, he promptly sought and found a
footman, who, by virtue of his employment, was well acquainted with the
courtiers. This man the "noble and beautiful earl" furnished with a red
coat and a musket, that he might pass as a sentinel, and then placed
him every night throughout one winter at the doors of certain ladies of
quality whom he suspected of carrying on intrigues.

In this disguise the footman readily passed as a soldier stationed at
his post by command of his officer, and was thus enabled to note
what gentlemen called on the suspected ladies at unreasonable but
not unfashionable hours. Accordingly, my lord made many surprising
discoveries, and when he had gained sufficient information on such
delicate points, he quietly retired into the country, that he might with
greater ease devote himself to the composition of those lively verses
which he subsequently circulated through the court, to the wonder and
dismay of many, and the delight and profit of few.

To these lampoons no name was attached, and my lord took precautions
that their authorship should not be satisfactorily proved, no matter how
sagely suspected. Moreover, in his conversation he was judicious
enough to keep the weapon of his satire in reserve; sheathing its fatal
keenness in a bewitching softness of civility until occasion required
its use; when forth it flashed all the brighter for its covering, all
the sharper for its rest. And satire being absent from his speech,
humour ever waited on his words; and never was he more extravagantly gay
than when assisting at the pleasant suppers given by the merry monarch
to his choicest friends.

Here, whilst drinking deep of ruddy wine from goblets of old gold, he
narrated his strange experiences, and illustrated them with flashes of
his wit. For it was the habit of this eccentric earl, when refinements
of the court began to pall upon him, or his absence from Whitehall
became a necessity, to