his folly from him who praises beauty which he never saw; complains of
jealousy which he never felt; supposes himself sometimes invited, and
sometimes forsaken; fatigues his fancy, and ransacks his memory, for
images which may exhibit the gaiety of hope, or the gloominess of
despair; and dresses his imaginary Chloris or Phyllis, sometimes in
flowers fading as her beauty, and sometimes in gems lasting as her
virtues.

At Paris, as secretary to lord Jermyn, he was engaged in transacting
things of real importance with real men and real women, and, at that
time, did not much employ his thoughts upon phantoms of gallantry. Some
of his letters to Mr. Bennet, afterwards earl of Arlington, from April
to December, in 1650, are preserved in Miscellanea Aulica, a collection
of papers, published by Brown. These letters, being written, like those
of other men, whose minds are more on things than words, contribute no
otherwise to his reputation, than as they show him to have been above
the affectation of unseasonable elegance, and to have known, that the
business of a statesman can be little forwarded by flowers of rhetorick.
One passage, however, seems not unworthy of some notice. Speaking of the
Scotch treaty, then in agitation: "The Scotch treaty," says he, "is the
only thing now in which we are vitally concerned; I am one of the last
hopers, and yet cannot now abstain from believing that an agreement will
be made; all people upon the place incline to that of union. The Scotch
will moderate something of the rigour of their demands; the mutual
necessity of an accord is visible, the king is persuaded of it. And, to
tell you the truth, which I take to be an argument above all the rest,
Virgil has told the same thing to that purpose."

This expression from a secretary of the present time would be considered
as merely ludicrous, or, at most, as an ostentatious display of