ded to him the wonderful beauty, the
matchless grace, of his ill-fated father. Great abilities, courage,
fascination of manners, were also his; but he had not been endowed with
firmness of character, and was at once energetic and versatile. Even at
this age, the qualities which became his ruin were clearly discoverable.

George Villiers was recalled to England by the troubles which drove the
king to Oxford, and which converted that academical city into a
garrison, its under-graduates into soldiers, its ancient halls into
barrack-rooms. Villiers was on this occasion entered at Christ Church:
the youth's best feelings were aroused, and his loyalty was engaged to
one to whom his father owed so much. He was now a young man of
twenty-one years of age--able to act for himself; and he went heart and
soul into the cause of his sovereign. Never was there a gayer, a more
prepossessing Cavalier. He could charm even a Roundhead. The harsh and
Presbyterian-minded Bishop Burnet, has told us that 'he was a man of a
noble presence; had a great liveliness of wit, and a peculiar faculty of
turning everything into ridicule, with bold figures and natural
descriptions.' How invaluable he must have been in the Common-rooms at
Oxford, then turned into guard-rooms, his eye upon some unlucky
volunteer Don, who had put off his clerkly costume for a buff jacket,
and could not manage his drill. Irresistible as his exterior is declared
to have been, the original mind of Villiers was even far more
influential. De Grammont tells us, 'he was extremely handsome, but still
thought himself much more so than he really was; although he had a great
deal of discernment, yet his vanities made him mistake some civilities
as intended for his person which were only bestowed on his wit and
drollery.'

But this very vanity, so unpleasant in an old man, is only amusing in a
younger wit. Whilst thus a gallant of the court and camp, the young
nobleman proved himself to be no less brave than witty. Juvenile as he
was, with a brother still younger, they fought on the royalist side at
Lichfield, in the storming of the Cathedral Close. For thus allowing
their lives to be endangered, their mother blamed Lord Gerard, one of
the Duke's guardians; whilst the Parliament seized the pretext of
confiscating their estates, which were afterwards returned to them, on
account of their being under age at the time of confiscation. The youths
were then placed under the care of the Ear