h perhaps
scandalised the now Saintly Duchess of Lauderdale,--just to impose on
the world; for Nell was regarded as the Protestant champion of the
court, in opposition to her French rival, the Duchess of Portsmouth.

Let us suppose that she has been at Ham House, and is gone off to Pall
Mall again, where she can see her painted face in every turn. The king
has departed, and Killigrew, who, at all events, is loyal, and the
true-hearted Duke of Richmond, all are away to London. In yon
sanctimonious-looking closet, next to the duchess's bed-chamber, with her
psalter and her prayer-book on her desk, which is fixed to her great
chair, and that very cane which still hangs there serving as her support
when she comes forth from that closet, murmur and wrangle the component
parts of that which was never mentioned without fear--the Cabal. The
conspirators dare not trust themselves in the gallery: there is tapestry
there, and we all know what coverts there are for eaves-droppers and
spiders in tapestried walls: then the great Cardinal spiders do so click
there, are so like the death-watch, that Villiers, who is inveterately
superstitious, will not abide there. The hall, with its enclosing
galleries, and the buttery near, are manifestly unsafe. So they heard,
nay crouch, mutter, and concoct that fearful treachery which, as far as
their country is concerned, has been a thing apart in our annals, in 'my
Lady's' closet. Englishmen are turbulent, ambitious, unscrupulous; but
the craft of Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale--the subtlety of Ashley, seem
hardly conceivable either in a Scot or Southron.

These meetings had their natural consequence. One leaves Lauderdale,
Arlington, Ashley, and Clifford, to their fate. But the career of
Villiers inspires more interest. He seemed born for better things. Like
many men of genius, he was so credulous that the faith he pinned on one
Heydon, an astrologer, at this time, perhaps buoyed him up with false
hopes. Be it as it may, his plots now tended to open insurrection. In
1666, a proclamation had been issued for his apprehension--he having
then absconded. On this occasion he was saved by the act of one whom he
had injured grossly--his wife. She managed to outride the
serjeant-at-arms, and to warn him of his danger. She had borne his
infidelities, after the fashion of the day, as a matter of course:
jealousy was then an impertinence--constancy, a chimera; and her
husband, whatever his conduct, had ever