a civilian, seemed to entertain these
principles in the utmost rigour. But it was only seeming. The exactness
of deportment, which procured him great honour and influence among
the _sober party_, as they were wont to term themselves, covered a
voluptuous disposition, the gratification of which was sweet to him as
stolen waters, and pleasant as bread eaten in secret. While, therefore,
his seeming godliness brought him worldly gain, his secret pleasures
compensated for his outward austerity; until the Restoration, and the
Countess's violent proceedings against his brother interrupted the
course of both. He then fled from his native island, burning with the
desire of revenging his brother's death--the only passion foreign to
his own gratification which he was ever known to cherish, and which was
also, at least, partly selfish, since it concerned the restoration of
his own fortunes.

He found easy access to Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who, in right of
his Duchess, claimed such of the Derby estate as had been bestowed
by the Parliament on his celebrated father-in-law, Lord Fairfax. His
influence at the Court of Charles, where a jest was a better plea than
a long claim of faithful service, was so successfully exerted, as to
contribute greatly to the depression of that loyal and ill-rewarded
family. But Buckingham was incapable, even for his own interest, of
pursuing the steady course which Christian suggested to him; and his
vacillation probably saved the remnant of the large estates of the Earl
of Derby.

Meantime, Christian was too useful a follower to be dismissed. From
Buckingham, and others of that stamp, he did not affect to conceal the
laxity of his morals; but towards the numerous and powerful party to
which he belonged, he was able to disguise them by a seeming gravity of
exterior, which he never laid aside. Indeed, so wide and absolute was
then the distinction betwixt the Court and the city, that a man might
have for some time played two several parts, as in two different
spheres, without its being discovered in the one that he exhibited
himself in a different light in the other. Besides, when a man of talent
shows himself an able and useful partisan, his party will continue to
protect and accredit him, in spite of conduct the most contradictory to
their own principles. Some facts are, in such cases, denied--some are
glossed over--and party zeal is permitted to cover at least as many
defects as ever doth charity