presence with indignation and contempt the wretches who had
slandered her. But one of the peculiarities of James's character
was that no act, however wicked and shameful, which had been
prompted by a desire to gain his favour, ever seemed to him
deserving of disapprobation. Talbot continued to frequent the
court, appeared daily with brazen front before the princess whose
ruin he had plotted, and was installed into the lucrative post of
chief pandar to her husband. In no long time Whitehall was thrown
into confusion by the news that Dick Talbot, as he was commonly
called, had laid a plan to murder the Duke of Ormond. The bravo
was sent to the Tower: but in a few days he was again swaggering
about the galleries, and carrying billets backward and forward
between his patron and the ugliest maids of honour. It was in
vain that old and discreet counsellors implored the royal
brothers not to countenance this bad man, who had nothing to
recommend him except his fine person and his taste in dress.
Talbot was not only welcome at the palace when the bottle or the
dicebox was going round, but was heard with attention on matters
of business. He affected the character of an Irish patriot, and
pleaded, with great audacity, and sometimes with success, the
cause of his countrymen whose estates had been confiscated. He
took care, however, to be well paid for his services, and
succeeded in acquiring, partly by the sale of his influence,
partly by gambling, and partly by pimping, an estate of three
thousand pounds a year. For under an outward show of levity,
profusion, improvidence, and eccentric impudence, he was in truth
one of the most mercenary and crafty of mankind. He was now no
longer young, and was expiating by severe sufferings the
dissoluteness of his youth: but age and disease had made no
essential change in his character and manners. He still, whenever