ives a curious account of this political libeller,
the model of that class of desperate scribblers. "The falseness of his
libels," says Gerbier, "he hath since acknowledged, though too late.
During my residence at Bruxelles, this Eglisham desired Sir William
Chaloner, who then was at Liege, to bear a letter to me, which is still
extant: he proposed, if the king would pardon and receive him into
favour again, with some competent subsistence, that he would recant all
that he had said or written to the disadvantage of any in the court of
England, confessing that he had been urged thereunto by some combustious
spirits, that for their malicious designs had set him on work."
Buckingham would never notice these and similar libels. Eglisham flew to
Holland after he had deposited his political venom in his native
country, and found a fate which every villanous factionist who offers to
recant for "a competent subsistence" does not always; he was found dead,
assassinated in his walks by a companion. Yet this political libel, with
many like it, are still authorities. "George Duke of Buckingham," says
Oldys, "will not speedily outstrip Dr. Eglisham's 'Forerunner of
Revenge.'"]

[Footnote 229: The misery of prime ministers and favourites is a portion
of their fate which has not always been noticed by their biographers;
one must be conversant with secret history to discover the thorn in
their pillow. Who could have imagined that Buckingham, possessing the
entire affections of his sovereign, during his absence had reason to
fear being supplanted? When his confidential secretary, Dr. Mason, slept
in the same chamber with the duke, he would give way at night to those
suppressed passions which his unaltered countenance concealed by day. In
the absence of all other ears and eyes he would break out into the most
querulous and impassioned language, declaring that "never his despatches
to divers princes, nor the great business of a fleet, of an army, of a
siege, of a treaty, of war and peace both on foot together, and all of
them in his head at a time, did not so much break his repose as the idea
that some at home under his majesty, of whom he had well deserved, were
now content to forget him." So short-lived is the gratitude observed to
an absent favourite, who is most likely to fall by the creatures his own
hands have made.]

[Footnote 230: Sloane MSS. 4181.]

[Footnote 231: Gerbier gives a curious specimen of Grondomar's pleasant
sort o