ous nous aimez comme vous aimez la
votre_,' was the sharp and clever answer.

On the death of Charles II., in 1685, Buckingham retired to the small
remnant of his Yorkshire estates. His debts were now set down at the sum
of L140,000. They were liquidated by the sale of his estates. He took
kindly to a country life, to the surprise of his old comrade in
pleasure, Etherege. 'I have heard the news,' that wit cried, alluding to
this change, 'with no less astonishment than if I had been told that the
Pope had begun to wear a periwig and had turned beau in the
seventy-fourth year of his age!'

Father Petre and Father Fitzgerald were sent by James II. to convert the
duke to Popery. The following anecdote is told of their conference with
the dying sinner:--'We deny,' said the Jesuit Petre, 'that any one can
be saved out of our Church. Your grace allows that our people may be
saved.'--'No,' said the duke, 'I make no doubt you will all be damned to
a man!' 'Sir,' said the father, 'I cannot argue with a person so void of
all charity.'--'I did not expect, my reverend father,' said the duke,
'such a reproach from you, whose whole reasoning was founded on the very
same instance of want of charity to yourself.'

Buckingham's death took place at Helmsby, in Yorkshire, and the
immediate cause was an ague and fever, owing to having sat down on the
wet grass after fox-hunting. Pope has given the following forcible, but
inaccurate account of his last hours, and the place in which they were
passed:--

'In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,
The floors of plaster and the walls of dung,
On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw,
With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw;
The George and Garter dangling from that bed,
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies:--alas! how changed from him,
That life of pleasure and that soul of whim!
Gallant and gay, in Claverdon's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love,
Or, just as gay, at council in a ring
Of mimic'd statesmen and their merry King.
No wit to flatter left of all his store,
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more,
Then victor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.'

Far from expiring in the 'worst inn's worst room,' the duke breathed his
last in Kirby Moorside, in a house which had once been the best in the
pla