He was courteous and affable to all, and seemed to “court men as they courted him.” Free from all assumption, he still delighted to associate with the gentlemen in waiting, and to join in their amusements, which consisted, after supper, in leaping and exercises, in which none was so active as the young favorite.[106] He thus preserved in health and agility that noble form which excited the admiration of his country. Such was his popularity, even with the old and haughty nobility, that they were proud if they might aid in decking the “handsomest bodied man of England.”[107] His taste for gorgeous apparel now displaying itself, he was complimented by the nobles of James’s Court in the following manner:—one of them would send to “his tailor and his mercer to put good clothes upon the newly-made knight; another to his sempstress for curious linen; others took upon them to be his bravos, and all hands helped to piece up the new minion.”[108] So winning was the deportment of Villiers, that even his enemies were propitiated to acknowledge “that he was as inwardly beautiful, as he was outwardly, and that the world had not a more ingenious gentleman.”[109] He incurred, however, some risk in his ardour for amusement; and on one occasion over-strained himself in running, which greatly distressed the King.[110] So rapid was the rise of Villiers, that Lord Clarendon describes it by the term “germination.” “Surely had he been a plant,” says that great historian, “he would have been reckoned among the stoute nascentes, for he sprang without any help, by a sort of ingenious composure (as we may term it) to the likeness of our late sovereign and master, of blessed memory, who, taking him into his regard, taught him more and more to please himself, and moulded him, as it were, platonically, to his own idea, delighting first in the choice of his materials, because he found him susceptible of good form, and afterwards by degrees, as great architects used to do, in the workmanship of his regal hand.”[111] This flattering tribute to King James might have been spared, for the monarch, whose blind and almost wicked partiality emboldened, and perhaps corrupted, Somerset, can hardly be conceived to have formed the character of Villiers. Footnote 106: I have passed over the dreadful story of Overbury’s murder, and its concomitant circumstances, because Villiers had no participation in public affairs until shortly before the arraignment of the two culprits. A letter written by Lord Bacon immediately previous to that event is evidently in reply to one addressed to his Lordship by Villiers, by order of the King. This fixes the date of his acting as private secretary to James. See Lord Bacon’s Works, vol. ii., p. 173. Footnote 107: Carte. Footnote 108: Bishop Goodman’s Life, vol i., p. 225. Footnote 109: Carte, vol. ii., p. 43, from Weldon’s Court and Character of King James I. Footnote 110: Bishop Goodman’s Life, vol. i., p. 226.