the unchecked guidance of his feelings. But, though his
principles were unsteady, his impulses were so generous, his temper so
bland, his manners so gracious and easy, that it was impossible not to
love him. He was early called the King of Hearts, and never, through a
long, eventful, and chequered life, lost his right to that name. [315]
Shrewsbury was Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire and Colonel of one
of the regiments of horse which had been raised in consequence of
the Western insurrection. He now refused to act under the board of
regulators, and was deprived of both his commissions.

None of the English nobles enjoyed a larger measure of public favour
than Charles Sackville Earl of Dorset. He was indeed a remarkable man.
In his youth he had been one of the most notorious libertines of the
wild time which followed the Restoration. He had been the terror of the
City watch, had passed many nights in the round house, and had at least
once occupied a cell in Newgate. His passion for Betty Morrice, and for
Nell Gwynn, who called him her Charles the First, had given no small
amusement and scandal to the town. [316] Yet, in the midst of follies
and vices, his courageous spirit, his fine understanding, and his
natural goodness of heart, had been conspicuous. Men said that the
excesses in which he indulged were common between him and the whole race
of gay young Cavaliers, but that his sympathy with human suffering and
the generosity with which he made reparation to those whom his freaks
had injured were all his own. His associates were astonished by the
distinction which the public made between him and them. "He may do what
he chooses," said Wilmot; "he is never in the wrong." The judgment
of the world became still more favourable to Dorset when he had been
sobered by time and marriage. His graceful manners, his brilliant
conversation, his soft heart, his open hand, were universally praised.
No day passed, it was said, in which some distressed family had not
reason to bless his name. And yet, with all his goodnature, such was
the keenness of his wit that scoffers whose sarcasm all the town feared
stood in craven fear of the sarcasm of Dorset. All political parties
esteemed and caressed him; but politics were not much to his taste. Had
he been driven by necessity to exert himself, he would probably have
risen to the highest posts in the state; but he was born to rank so high
and wealth so ample that many of the motives which i