and
ambition. The Duke of Buckingham formed the design of governing her, in
order to ingratiate himself with the king: God knows what a governor he
would have been, and what a head he was possessed of, to guide another;
however, he was the properest man in the world to insinuate himself
with Miss Stewart: she was childish in her behaviour, and laughed at
everything, and her taste for frivolous amusements, though unaffected,
was only allowable in a girl about twelve or thirteen years old. A
child, however, she was, in every other respect, except playing with
a doll: blind man's buff was her most favourite amusement: she was
building castles of cards, while the deepest play was going on in her
apartments, where you saw her surrounded by eager courtiers, who handed
her the cards, or young architects, who endeavoured to imitate her.

She had, however, a passion for music, and had some taste for singing.
The Duke of Buckingham, who built the finest towers of cards imaginable,
had an agreeable voice: she had no aversion to scandal: and the duke was
both the father and the mother of scandal, he made songs, and invented
old women's stories, with which she was delighted; but his particular
talent consisted in turning into ridicule whatever was ridiculous in
other people, and in taking them off, even in their presence, without
their perceiving it: in short, he knew how to act all parts with so much
grace and pleasantry, that it was difficult to do without him, when he
had a mind to make himself agreeable; and he made himself so necessary
to Miss Stewart's amusement, that she sent all over the town to seek for
him, when he did not attend the king to her apartments.

He was extremely handsome, and still thought himself much more so than
he really was: although he had a great deal of discernment, yet his
vanity made him mistake some civilities as intended for his person,
which were only bestowed on his wit and drollery: in short, being
seduced by too good an opinion of his own merit, he forgot his first
project and his Portuguese mistress, in order to pursue a fancy in which
he mistook himself; for he no sooner began to act a serious part with
Miss Stewart, than he met with so severe a repulse that he abandoned,
at once, all his designs upon her: however, the familiarity she had
procured him with the king, opened the way to those favours to which he
was afterwards advanced.

[George Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham, was