after the greatest drinking: an
hour or two of sleep carried all off so entirely, that no sign of them
remained.... This had a terrible conclusion.'

Like many other men, Rochester might have been saved by being kept far
from the scene of temptation. Whilst he remained in the country he was
tolerably sober, perhaps steady. When he approached Brentford on his
route to London, his old propensities came upon him.

When scarcely out of his boyhood he carried off a young heiress,
Elizabeth Mallett, whom De Grammont calls _La triste heritiere_: and
triste, indeed, she naturally was. Possessed of a fortune of L2500 a
year, this young lady was marked out by Charles II. as a victim for the
profligate Rochester. But the reckless young wit chose to take his own
way of managing the matter. One night, after supping at Whitehall with
Miss Stuart, the young Elizabeth was returning home with her
grandfather, Lord Haly, when their coach was suddenly stopped near
Charing Cross by a number of bravos, both on horseback and on foot--the
'Roaring Boys and Mohawks,' who were not extinct even in Addison's time.
They lifted the affrighted girl out of the carriage, and placed her in
one which had six horses; they then set off for Uxbridge, and were
overtaken; but the outrage ended in marriage, and Elizabeth became the
unhappy, neglected Countess of Rochester. Yet she loved him--perhaps in
ignorance of all that was going on whilst _she_ stayed with her four
children at home.

'If,' she writes to him, 'I could have been troubled at anything, when I
had the happiness of receiving a letter from you, I should be so,
because you did not name a time when I might hope to see you, the
uncertainty of which very much afflicts me.... Lay your commands upon me
what I am to do, and though it be to forget my children, and the long
hope I have lived in of seeing you, yet will I endeavour to obey you; or
in the memory only torment myself, without giving you the trouble of
putting you in mind that there lives a creature as

'Your faithful, humble servant.'

And he, in reply: 'I went away (to Rochester) like a rascal, without
taking leave, dear wife. It is an unpolished way of proceeding, which a
modest man ought to be ashamed of. I have left you a prey to your own
imaginations amongst my relations, the worst of damnations. But there
will come an hour of deliverance, till when, may my mother be merciful
unto you! So I commit you to what I shall ensue, wom