“Himself the vainest of men, ’tis scarce wonderful that he takes vanity to be the mainspring that moves the human species,” said De Malfort, when some one had found fault with the Duke’s analysis. “Oh, now we shall hear nothing but stale Rochefoucauldisms, sneers at love and friendship, disparagement of our ill-used sex! Where has my grave husband been, I wonder?” said Hyacinth. “Upon my honour, Fareham, your brow looks as sombre as if it were burdened with the care of the nation.” “I have been with one who has to carry the greater part of that burden, my lady, and my spirits may have caught some touch of his uneasiness.” “You have been prosing with that pragmatical personage at Dunkirk—nay, I beg the Lord Chancellor’s pardon, Clarendon House. Are not his marbles and tapestries much finer than ours? And yet he began life as a sneaking lawyer, the younger son of a small Wiltshire squire——” “Lady Fareham, you allow your tongue too much licence——” “Nay, I speak but the common feeling. Everybody is tired of a Minister who is a hundred years behind the age. He should have lived under Elizabeth.” “A pretty woman should never talk politics, Hyacinth.” “Of what else can I talk when the theatres are closed, and you deny me the privilege of seeing the last comedy performed at Whitehall? Is it not rank tyranny in his lordship, Lady Sarah?” turning to one of her intimates, a lady who had been a beauty at the court of Henrietta Maria in the beginning of the troubles, and who from old habit still thought herself lovely and beloved. “I appeal to your ladyship’s common sense. Is it not monstrous to deprive me of the only real diversion in the town? I was not allowed to enter a theatre at all last year, except when his favourite Shakespeare or Fletcher was acted, and that was but a dozen times, I believe.” “Oh, hang Shakespeare!” cried a gentleman whose periwig occupied nearly as much space against the blue of a vernal sky as all the rest of his dapper little person. “Gud, my lord, it is vastly old-fashioned in your lordship to taste Shakespeare!” protested Sir Ralph Masaroon, shaking a cloud of pulvilio out of his cataract of curls. “There was a pretty enough play concocted t’other day out of two of his—a tragedy and comedy—_Measure for Measure_ and _Much Ado about Nothing_, the interstices filled in with the utmost ingenuity. But Shakespeare unadulterated—faugh!” “I am a fantastical person, perhaps, Sir Ralph; but I would rather my wife saw ten of Shakespeare’s plays—in spite of their occasional coarseness—than one of your modern comedies.” “I should revolt against such tyranny,” said Lady Sarah. “I have always appreciated Shakespeare, but I adore a witty comedy, and I never allowed my husband to dictate to me on a question of taste.” “Plays which her Majesty patronises can scarcely be unfit entertainment for her subjects,” remarked another lady.