This inimitable description refers, as is well known, to the famous George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, son of the favourite of Charles I., who was murdered by Felton. The Restoration put into the hands of the most lively, mercurial, ambitious, and licentious genius, who ever lived, an estate of 20,000l a-year, to be squandered in every wild scheme which the lust of power, of pleasure, of licence, or of whim, could dictate to an unrestrained imagination. Being refused the situation of President of the North, he was suspected of having favoured the disaffected in that part of England, and was disgraced accordingly. But, in 1666, he regained the favour of the king, and became a member of the famous administration called the Cabal, which first led Charles into unpopular and arbitrary measures, and laid the foundation for the troubles of his future reign. Buckingham changed sides about 1675, and, becoming attached to the country party, made a most active figure in all proceedings which had relation to the Popish plot; intrigued deeply with Shaftesbury, and distinguished himself as a promoter of the bill of exclusion. Hence, he stood an eminent mark for Dryden's satire; which, we may believe, was not the less poignant, that the poet had sustained a personal affront, from being depicted by his grace under the character of Bayes in the Rehearsal. As Dryden owed the Duke no favour, he has shewn him none. Yet, even here, the ridiculous, rather than the infamous part of his character, is touched upon; and the unprincipled libertine, who slew the Earl of Shrewsbury while his adulterous countess held his horse in the disguise of a page, and who boasted of caressing her before he changed the bloody cloaths in which he had murdered her husband,[314] is not exposed to hatred, while the spendthrift and castle-builder are held up to contempt. So just, however, is the picture drawn by Dryden, that it differs little from the following sober historical character.