t, where he lead
some adventures that became very public. He was a man of a sweet
and caressing temper, had no malice in his heart, but too great a
love of pleasure. He had been sent envoy to Holland in the year
1679, where he entered into such particular confidences with the
prince, that he had the highest measure of his trust and favour that
any Englishman ever had."--History of his Own Times, vol. ii., p.
494.

In the Essay on Satire, by Dryden and Mulgrave, he is spoken of in
no very decent terms.

"And little Sid, for simile renown'd,
Pleasure has always sought, but never found
Though all his thoughts on wine and women fall,
His are so bad, sure he ne'er thinks at all.
The flesh he lives upon is rank and strong;
His meat and mistresses are kept too long.
But sure we all mistake this pious man,
Who mortifies his person all he can
What we uncharitably take for sin,
Are only rules of this odd capuchin;
For never hermit, under grave pretence,
Has lived more contrary to common sense."

These verses, however, have been applied to Sir Charles Sedley,
whose name was originally spelt Sidley. Robert Sydney died at
Pensburst, 1674.]

had not sufficient vivacity to support the impression which his figure
made; but little Jermyn was on all sides successful in his intrigues.
The old Earl of St. Albans, his uncle, had for a long time adopted him,
though the youngest of all his nephews. It is well known what a table
the good man kept at Paris, while the King his master was starving at
Brussels, and the Queen Dowager, his mistress, lived not over well in
France.

[To what a miserable state the queen was reduced may be seen in the
following extract from De Retz.--"Four or five days before the king
removed from Paris, I went to visit the Queen of England, whom I
found in her daughter's chamber, who hath been since Duchess of
Orleans. At my coming in she said, 'You see I am come to keep
Henrietta company. The poor child could not rise to-day for want of
a fire.' The truth is, that the cardinal for six months together
had not ordered her any money towards her pension; that no
trades-people would trust her for anything; and that there was not at
her lodgings in the Louvre one single billet. You will do me the
justice to suppose that the Princess of England did not