return to court. From that time he, for many
years, surrendered himself to a career of dissipation, often abandoning
the paths of decency and decorum, pursuing vice in its most daring and
eccentric fashion, employing his genius in the composition of lampoons
which spared not even the king, and in the writing of ribald verses, the
very names of which are not proper to indite. Lord Orford speaks of him
as a man "whom the muses were fond to inspire, and ashamed to avow; and
who practised, without the least reserve, that secret which can make
verses more read for their defects than for their merits." More of my
Lord Rochester and his poems anon.

Thomas Killigrew, another courtier, was a poet, dramatist, and man of
excellent wit. He had been page in the service of his late majesty, and
had shared exile with the present monarch, to whose pleasures abroad and
at home he was ever ready to pander. At the restoration he was appointed
a groom of the bedchamber, and, moreover, was made master of the
revels--an office eminently suited to his tastes, and well fitted to
exercise his capacities. His ready wit amused the king so much, that
he was occasionally led to freedoms of speech which taxed his majesty's
good-nature. His escapades diverted the court to such an extent, that he
frequently took the liberty of affording it entertainment at the expense
of its reputation. The "beau Sidney," a man "of sweet and caressing
temper," handsome appearance, and amorous disposition; Sir George
Etherege, a wit and a playwright; and Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset,
a poet and man of sprightly speech, were likewise courtiers of note.

Among such congenial companions the merry monarch abandoned himself
wholly to the pursuit of pleasure, and openly carried on his intrigue
with Barbara Palmer. According to the testimony of her contemporaries,
she was a woman of surpassing loveliness and violent passions. Gilbert
Burnet, whilst admitting her beauty, proclaims her defects. She was, he
relates, "most enormously vicious and ravenous, foolish but imperious,
very uneasy to the king, and always carrying on intrigues with other
men, while she yet pretended she was jealous of him." Pepys testifies
likewise to her physical attractions so long as she reigned paramount
in the king's affections; but when another woman, no less fair, came
betwixt my lady and his majesty's favour, Mr. Pepys, being a loyal
man and a frail, found greater beauty in the new love, who