and, moreover, was made master of the revels--an office eminently
suited to his tastes, and well fitted to exercise his capacities.
His ready wit amused the king so much, that he was occasionally
led to freedoms of speech which taxed his majesty's good-nature.
His escapades diverted the court to such an extent, that he
frequently took the liberty of affording it entertainment at the
expense of its reputation. The "beau Sidney," a man "of sweet
and caressing temper," handsome appearance, and amorous
disposition; Sir George Etherege, a wit and a playwright; and
Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset, a poet and man of sprightly
speech, were likewise courtiers of note.

Among such congenial companions the merry monarch abandoned
himself wholly to the pursuit of pleasure, and openly carried on
his intrigue with Barbara Palmer. According to the testimony of
her contemporaries, she was a woman of surpassing loveliness and
violent passions. Gilbert Burnet, whilst admitting her beauty,
proclaims her defects. She was, he relates, "most enormously
vicious and ravenous, foolish but imperious, very uneasy to the
king, and always carrying on intrigues with other men, while she
yet pretended she was jealous of him." Pepys testifies likewise
to her physical attractions so long as she reigned paramount in
the king's affections; but when another woman, no less fair, came
betwixt my lady and his majesty's favour, Mr. Pepys, being a
loyal man and a frail, found greater beauty in the new love,
whose charms he avowed surpassed the old. To his most
interesting diary posterity is indebted for glimpses of the
manner in which the merry monarch and his mistress behaved
themselves during the first months of the restoration. Now he
tells of "great doings of musique," which were going on at Madame