Eugene's stay at Leicester House was brief; but it must have been fully occupied. 'Je caressais beaucoup les gens en place,' he writes in his 'Mémoires,' and it is clear that, however attentive he may have been to his fallen comrade-in-arms of Blenheim and Oudenarde, he did not omit to pay assiduous court to those in power. 'He has been every day entertain'd at some great man's,' says gossiping Peter Wentworth. Lord Portland gives him 'dinner, musick and a dancing' all at once; the Duke of Shrewsbury has Nicolini to sing for him; the Duke of Buckingham turns out the militia in his honour. And so forth. He, in his turn, was not backward in responding. 'Prince Eugene,' says Lady Strafford, 'has given an order to six ladys and six men. The ladys are the four Marlborough daughters and the Duchess of Bolton and Lady Berkely. 'Tis a medall--Cupid on won side with a sword in won hand and a fann in the othere, and the othere side is Cupid with a bottle in his hand with a sword run through it. And the motto's are in French which I dare not write to you but the English "won don't hinder the othere" ["L'un n'empêche pas l'autre"].' He had arrived in London on January 5, and he returned to Holland on March 17, carrying with him nothing but the diamond hiked sword ('very rich and genteele, and the diamonds very white,' says Lord Berkeley of Stratton), which, at a cost of £5,000, had been presented to him by Queen Anne. * * If he received royal gifts, he was also princely in his acknowledgments. According to Hearne (Dohle, 1889, iii. 329), he paid twenty guineas for Joshua Barnes's quarto 'Homer' of 1711, and fifteen guineas for Wiston's 'Heretical Book.' he also paid thirty guineas for Samuel Clarke's edition of 'Caesar's Commentaries (Tonson, 1712),' then just published with a magnificent portrait of Marlborough, to whom it was dedicated. A large paper copy of this, sumptuously bound, fetched sixteen guineas at Dr. Mead's sale of 1754-5; but though it is praised by Addison in 'Spectator,' No. 367, as doing 'Honour to the English Press,' Eugene certainly gave too much. Probably he meant to do so. 'Je fis des présens,' he says ('Mémoires,' 1811, p. 107); 'ear'--he adds significantly--'on achète beaucoup en Angleterre.' After this Leicester House continued to be the home of the German Resident, apparently one Hoffmann, whom Swift calls a 'puppy.' But he had also called his predecessor, Count Gallas, a 'fool,' and too much importance may easily be attached to these flowers of faction. 'Scandal between Whig and Tory goes for nothing,' said Mrs. Manley of the 'New Atalantis'--and Mrs. Manley's knowledge was experimental. About 1718, the house, being again to let, was bought for £6,000 by George Augustus, Prince of Wales, who had quarrelled with his father; and a residence of the Prince of Wales it continued for forty years to come.