thering a
number of friends and retainers, in company with whom he gave chase to
those who had abducted his granddaughter; and so fast did they ride that
Mistress Mallett was overtaken at Uxbridge, and carried back in safety
to town. For this outrageous attempt, my Lord Rochester was by the
king's command committed to the Tower, there to await his majesty's good
pleasure. It seemed now as if the earl's chance of gaining the heiress
had passed away for ever; inasmuch as Charles regarded the attempted
abduction with vast displeasure, and my Lord Hawley with terrible
indignation.

But the ways of women being inexplicable, it happened in a brief
while Mistress Mallett was inclined to regret my Lord Rochester's
imprisonment, and therefore moved to have him released; and, moreover,
she was subsequently pleased to regard his suit and accept him as her
wedded lord. It speaks favourably for his character that with all
his faults she loved him well: nor did Rochester, though occasionally
unfaithful, ever treat her with unkindness. At times the old spirit of
restlessness and passion for adventure would master him, when he would
withdraw himself from her society for weeks and months. But she, though
sadly afflicted by such conduct, did not resent it. "If I could have
been troubled at anything, when I had the happiness of receiving a
letter from you," she writes to him on one occasion when he had absented
himself from her for long, "I should be so because you did not name a
time when I might hope to see you, the uncertainty of which very much
afflicts me." And again the poor patient wife tells him, "Lay your
commands upon me, what I am to do, and though it be to forget my
children, and the long hope I have lived in of seeing you, yet I will
endeavour to obey you; or in memory only torment myself, without giving
you the trouble of putting you in mind that there lives such a creature
as your faithful humble servant." At length dissipation undermined his
naturally strong constitution; and for months this once most gay and
gallant man, this "noble and beautiful earl," lay dying of that cruel
disease consumption. The while such thoughts as come to those who reason
of life's vanities beset him; and as he descended into the valley of
shadows, the folly of this world's ways was made clear to him. And
repenting of his sins, he died in peace with God and man at the age of
three-and-thirty.

George Villiers second Duke of Buckingham, was not