You will find a good glimpse of this scion of royalty in Scott’s story of _Peveril of the Peak_. The novel is by no means one of the great romancer’s best; but it is well worth reading for the clear and vivid idea it will give one of the social clashings between the reserves of old Puritanism and the incontinencies of new monarchism; you will find in it an excellent sample of the gruff, stalwart Cromwellian; and another of the hot-tempered, swearing cavalier; and still others of the mincing, scheming, gambling, roystering crew which overran all the purlieus of the court of Charles. Buckingham was there--that second Villiers,[70] of whom I had somewhat to say when the elder Buckingham came up for mention in the days of Charles I.; this younger Villiers running before the elder in all accomplishments and all villainies; courtly; of noble bearing; with daintiest of speeches; a pattern of manly graces; capable of a tender French song, with all his tones in exultant accord with best of court singers, and of a comedy that drew all the play-goers of London to the “Rehearsal;” capable too, of the wickedest of plots and of the foulest of lies. And yet this Buckingham was one of the best accredited advisers of the Crown. To the same court belonged Rochester,[71] his great, fine wig covering a great, fine brain; he writing harmonious verses about--“Nothing”--or worse than nothing; and at the last wheedling Bishop Burnet into the belief that he had changed his courses, and that if he might rise from that ugly deathbed where the good-natured, pompous bishop sought him, he would be enrolled among the moralists. I think it was lucky that he died with such good impulse flashing at the top of his badnesses. Dorset belonged to this court, with his pretty verselets, and Sedley and Etherege; also the Portsmouth and Lady Castelmaine, and the rest of those venturesome ladies who show their colors of cheek and bosom, even now, in the well-handled paintings of Sir Peter Lely. When you go to Hampton Court you can see these fair and frail beauties by the dozen on the walls of the King William room. Sir Peter Lely[72] was a rare painter, belonging to these times; a great favorite of Charles; and he loved such subjects for his brush; he drew the delicatest hands that were ever put on canvas--too delicate and too small, unfortunately, to cover the undress of his figures.