An animated snatch from court life:

"I passed a delightful winter, carrying messages, going to plays, dining,
drinking, dressing, and hearing the King and his courtiers talk. By
degrees I was encouraged to talk myself. I got a reputation for being both
a hearty and a judicious admirer of wit and poetry, and this procured me
the regard of the men I was most anxious to please. Lord Buckhurst liked
me because I was discriminating; Sir John Denham, because I listened with
respect; Sir Charles Sedley, because none of his similes were lost on me;
and Mr. Waller, because I thought him the greatest poet that ever was, I
had some misgiving on that point, when I thought of poor Mr. Cowley, who
died not long afterwards. Mr. Sprat (lately made Bishop of Rochester, then
the Duke of Buckingham's chaplain,) took me to see that great and good man
in his retreat in the country, where he talked so delightfully of rural
pleasures, that I began to sigh after my old fields, till I heard him say
he had realized nothing but agues, and that the Arcadians in his vicinity
were anything but what they should be. He thought, however, he should find
them a little higher up the river."

_Lely's Portrait of Cromwell_

is thus introduced in the second volume:

"Oliver now stood erect, with his back to a fire-place, and resembled the
picture which had been lately painted of him by Lely. The artist flattered
him perhaps in the general air, as far as it implied ordinary good
breeding, and an habitual urbanity of carriage; and yet the momentary look
may not have been flattered even in that respect; for as the greater
includes the less, so the princely serenity which Cromwell could assume as
well as any man, or rather which was natural to him in his princely