he earl defended himself with so much
resolution, that he dispatched one of the aggressors, while a
gentleman accidentally passing that way interposed, and disarmed
another; the third secured himself by flight. This generous assistant
was a disbanded officer of a good family and fair reputation; who by
what we call partiality of fortune, to avoid censuring the iniquities
of the times, wanted even a plain suit of clothes to make a decent
appearance at the castle; but his lordship on this occasion presenting
him to the duke of Ormond, with great importunity prevailed with his
grace that he might resign his post of captain of the guards to his
friend, which for about three years the gentleman enjoyed, and upon
his death, the duke returned the commission to his generous
benefactor.'[1]

His lordship having finished his affairs in Ireland, he returned to
London, was made master of the horse to the dutchess of York, and
married the lady Frances, eldest daughter of the earl of Burlington,
and widow of colonel Courtnay.

About this time, in imitation of those learned and polite assemblies,
with which he had been acquainted abroad; particularly one at Caen,
(in which his tutor Bochartus died suddenly while he was delivering an
oration) he began to form a society for refining and fixing the
standard of our language. In this design, his great friend Mr. Dryden
was a particular assistant; a design, says Fenton, of which it is much
more easy to conceive an agreeable idea, than any rational hope ever
to see it brought to perfection. This excellent design was again set
on foot, under the ministry of the earl of Oxford, and was again
defeated by a conflict of parties, and the necessity of attending only
to political disquisitions, for defending the conduct of the
administration, and forming parties in the Parliament. Since that time
it has never been mentioned, either because it has been hitherto a
sufficient objection, that it was one of the designs of the earl of
Oxford, by whom Godolphin was defeated; or because the statesmen who
succeeded him have not more leisure, and perhaps less taste for
literary improvements. Lord Roscommon's attempts were frustrated by
the commotions which were produced by King James's endeavours to
introduce alterations in religion. He resolved to retire to Rome,
alledging, 'it was best to sit next the chimney when the chamber
smoaked.'

It will, no doubt, surprize many of the present age, and be a just