The subject of Pope's lines is of a more striking nature than the delineation of the moral features of this eccentric man. They describe his bed of death, under circumstances peculiarly contrasted with the splendour and vivacity of a previous life of infinite profusion, thoughtlessness, and crime. After a long indulgence (for he lived till the age of sixty) in every species of guilt and expense; after having plotted to take away the life of the Duke of Ormond, and conspired against the fond master who protected him from the merited punishment of such an attempt; after having been raised to the highest dignities of the state, and again opposed his royal patron, and incurred his indignation; after having enjoyed an income of fifty thousand a-year, inhabited palaces, and had the homage of thousands; the items of his last worldly accounts were, comparative penury, desertion of friends, selfreproach, neglect, contempt, and oblivion.

"Behold! what blessings wealth to life can lend!
And see what comfort it affords our end!
In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung,
The doors of plaster, and the walls of dung,

On once a flock-bed, but repair'd 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 chang'd from him,
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!
Gallant and gay, in Cliefden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love :*
Or just as gay at council, in a ring

Of mimick'd statesmen, and their merry king.
No wit to flatter, left of all his store!
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more.
There, vietor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.t

The following anecdote is told of the duke's behaviour almost articulo mortis. It is, doubtless, characteristic of his previous levity

* The Countess of Shrewsbury, whom he seduced, and killed her Lord in a duel on her account. She is said to have been present at the combat, disguised as a page, and to have held the duke's horse, whilst he honourably murdered her husband!

+ Epistle to Lord Bathurst, v. 297. The duke's death happened at a tenant's house at KirbyMoorside in Yorkshire, (16th April, 1688,) after three days illness of ague and fever, from a cold, caught by sitting on the ground after a fox-chase. Biog. Dict. v. xi. p. 341. There is a very interesting. Letter on this event,. Maty's Review, Dec. 1783.

and profligacy; but one would hope, for the honour of human nature, the accounts which attribute penitence and seriousness to his last hour may be nearer the truth.

When his Grace was dying, the Duke of Queensbury, going down to Scotland, heard of his situation, when within a few miles of the place of his confinement, and made him a a visit. "Will you not have a clergyman ?” said the Duke of Queensbury. 'I look upon them,' said Buckingham, to be a parcel of very silly fellows, who don't trouble themselves about what they teach.' "Will you not have your chaplain?" (who was a nonconformist).

No: these fellows always make me sick, with their whining and cant." The Duke of Q., who took it for granted that the dying man must be of some religion, and apprehending it might be the Popish faith, told him that there was a Roman Catholic lord in the neighbourhood, and begged that his chaplain might be summoned. No,' (replied Villiers,) those rascals eat G-d; but, if you know of any set of fellows who eat the devil, send for one of them quickly." He desired to

:6.

be left alone, and died in about half an hour.*

COLONEL BLOOD.t

One of the most powerful sketches in "Peveril of the Peak" is the character of this notorious ruffian. But though the hardness of his dark heart, the ferocity of his manners, and the inconceivable impudence of his general bearing, are all touched with the force and spirit of Rembrandt or Salvator Rosa; yet there is no artist, whatever his imitative powers might be, who could reach the transcendent villany of the living man. Universal in crime, it is hard to say in what particular description of it he most excelled; but the desperate act

From the Portfolio of a Man of Letters, Month. Mag. 1800, vol. ii. page 477. A very different account of the duke's exit is given in the Biog. Dict. xii. page 342.

vol.

+ Granger says, "he was not of the rank of a colonel."-Biog. Hist. vol. vi. page 15.

which rendered him most notorious in his own day, and has chiefly recommended him to the curiosity of after-times, was his attempt to steal the regalia from the Tower of London. Strype has given us the following very interesting account of this unparalleled transaction, together with a few other particulars of Blood's history.

"But among all the memorable accidents. that have happened in the Tower, hardly any history of our country can equal that cunning, audacious, and villanous attempt of one Blood, in King Charles the Second's time, in stealing the Crown, and his comrade the Globe, out of the safe place where they with the rest of the regalia were kept; and carrying them out of the Tower, though they were discovered at last and seized. A faithful relation deserves to stand upon record; and such a relation is this that follows, which I had from the favour of Mr. Edwards himself, the late keeper of the regalia.

"About three weeks before this Blood made his attempt upon the Crown, he came to the Tower, in the habit of a parson, with a long