*

A.D. 1665. the conquest of the Low Countries; and, there

De Lyonne's letter to the French

king.

fore, he fomented the war, in order to weaken the maritime powers, and prevent their obstructing his measures. He followed very closely the advice given in the following paper by the Count de Lyonne, who had been bred under Cardinal Richelieu, constantly employed under Mazarine, and was for many years secretary of state.

"SIRE,

"The present conjuncture of affairs abroad requires nothing more from your majesty's prudence than to respite for a little time the war against Spain. That which is already begun betwixt England and the United Provinces is the most fortunate occasion that can possibly be wished; and which the Divine Providence seems to present your majesty, not only to constitute you arbiter of the differences between those two nations, but by which you may exhaust them at a little charge, (being the only powers which can, and are, indeed, obliged to engage for the de

* By Lord Clarendon's letter to Count d'Estrades, Oct. 27, 1662, this conquest seems to have been projected long

before-to have been in a man

ner concerted with the English court, at least with the chancellor; and the war seems to have been the consequence of it.

fence and protection of the Low Countries,) and A.D. 1666. reduce them to such a condition, that it shall not be in their power to remedy it, though they would; provided, I say, your majesty will but foment this war, so as it may continue. The English will find themselves necessitated to implore your majesty's alliance and friendship; and the United Provinces absolutely depend upon your will, as having need of your assistance; and both will at last be reduced to an impossibility of opposing your just designs. But if once your majesty should undertake anything against the said provinces unseasonably, and with too much empressement, before your majesty be well assured that the strength of both nations is sufficiently weakened, your majesty will find the scene quite changed in a moment; and the same powers which are at present at variance, to the mutual destruction of each other, will unite themselves together by the motive and maxim of a stronger interest, the defence of the common rampart. It would be a stroke of admirable prudence to let them go on and ruin one another, and to behold the game at a distance, to blow the coals with address, and, by making a bustle, seem to be much concern

VOL. I.

X

A.D. 1666. ed to assert and defend the Hollanders your allies; from time to time encouraging them with some inconsiderable aid, whilst the whole stress of the war lies still upon their arms; till your majesty sees them reduced to the point of being no more able to oppose those conquests which your majesty has formed in your mind. Sire, there is only one thing to be apprehended in this design, namely, a league or confederacy between England, Sweden, and the house of Austria; to which, also, the Hollanders may haply be inclined of themselves, as well as other princes of the north. Experience, Sire, of former times, and the knowledge of the present, oblige me in all humility to declare, that there could nothing happen more fatal to the crown than such a league and union.

"1666.

"To the French King his master."

DE LYONNE.

Shaftesbury was celebrated for the strong power he possessed of delineating the characters of those with whom he was brought in contact. It is said that the earl was much in the habit of amusing himself by sketching the characters of his friends, and that many specimens of his talent

in this kind of composition yet remain among A.D. 1666. the papers in the possession of his descendant.

The only one which has ever been published

is the following, which was first printed in the third volume of the Connoisseur.

66 SKETCH OF THE CHARACTER OF THE HON. WM. HASTINGS, OF WOODLANDS, IN THE COUNTY OF SOUTHAMPTON,

"In the year 1638 lived Mr. Hastings, by his quality, son, brother, and uncle to the Earl of Huntingdon. He was, peradventure, an original in our age, or rather the copy of our ancient nobility in hunting, not in warlike, times. He was low, very strong, and very active; of a reddish flaxen hair. His clothes always green cloth, and never all worth (when new) five pounds. His house was perfectly of the old fashion, in the midst of a large park well stocked with deer; and near the house rabbits to serve his kitchen, many fish-ponds, great store of wood and timber; a bowling-green in it, long but narrow, full of high ridges, it being never levelled since it was ploughed: they used round sand bowls and it had a banquetting-house like a stand, a large one built in a tree.

A.D. 1666.

He kept all manner of sport-hounds, that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger; and hawks long and short winged. He had all sorts of nets for fish: he had a walk in the New Forest, and the manor of Christ's Church; this last supplied him with red deer, sea and river fish; and, indeed, all his neighbours' grounds and royalties were free to him, who bestowed all his time on these sports, but what he borrowed to caress his neighbours' wives and daughters; there being not a woman in all his walks of the degree of a yeoman's wife or under, and under the age of forty, but it was extremely her fault if he was not intimately acquainted with her. This made him very popular; always speaking kindly to the husband, father, or brother, who was, to boot, very welcome to his house whenever he came. There he found beef, pudding, and small beer, in great plenty; a house not so neatly kept as to shame him or his dusty shoes; a great hall strewed with marrow-bones, full of hawks' perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers; the upper side of the hall hung with the fox-skins of this and the last year's killing, here and there a polecat intermixed; gamekeepers' and hunters' poles in great abundance.