BOOKS.

GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.* Mas. THOMSON, the biographer of Sir Walter Raleigh and of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, feeling "a strong interest in the faulty but attractive character" of the handsome George Villiers, has written a history of his life and times, in three volumes, in which, without attempting to reverse the unfavourable verdict of competent judges, she has endeavoured to show that Bucking- ham possessed both energy and loftiness of purpose, and was not a merely rapacious, vain, remorseless oppressor. The memoir which she has produced of this brilliant and high-spirited prodi- gal was commenced more than ten years ago. In the interval, she has profited by the publication of the Calendars of State Papers, compiled by Mrs. Everett Green and Mr. Bruce, and has, she conceives, completed her task "with greater accuracy and fulness of information than could otherwise have been done." Of the recent Calendar for 1628-1629, Mrs. Thomson has not been able to avail herself to the same extent as of the previous volumes. In partial compensation, she has inserted in an appendix the ex- amination of Ben Jonson and some other papers of interest. More than half of the third volume consists of three supplementary chapters on the Duke's patronage of art, his collection of pictures, and on the dramatic literature and the dramatists of the early Stuart period : the greater part of which, though informing, might we think, have well been spared. Such an addition has all the awkward effect of "more last words"; and, though it may be defended as a contribution to the history of the times of Buck- ingham ; yet, after the close of the tragedy, the reader will scarcely welcome the two hundred pages of critical elucidation, with which the crowning catastrophe is followed. For the rest, Mrs. Thomson is an historian, who " neither loves nor hates in much excess," is generally liberal in her views, and brings to the execution of her enterprise a fair amount of ability and research. No deep reflective power, no illuminating imagination, character- izes her historical presentments. Yet she tells her story in an agreeable, intelligible manner, and not without some grace of style and a certain liveliness of description.

Her hero, George Villiers, was a scion of an ancient house. The

founder of the family, Philip de Yillers, of Lisle Adam, was a Norman Seigneur. He was also Grand Master of the island of Rhodes. Brokesby, in Leicestershire, was for many centuries the manorial residence of the race. From that retirement, George Vil- lieri, the father of Mrs. Thomson's hero, was summoned, during a royal progress, to the presence of Queen Elizabeth. Sir George, who was knighted by the Queen, when High Sheriff for Leicester- shire, married first the daughter of William Sanders of Harring- ton, in the county of Northampton ; and, after her death, Mary Beaumont, an inferior servant of his household, whose "ragged habit could not shade from Sir George's admiring gaze,' the beautiful and excellent frame of her person." This Mary Beau- mont, "the indigent daughter of an ancient family," was shrewd, ambitious, and clever. Her influence made her the acknow- ledged leader of the highest circles. By a second marriage, she became Lady Villiers Compton, and we find her inviting her rustic kindred to Court, providing them with the means of instruc- tion in courtlike manners, and introducing the so-called country dances, to facilitate the acquisition of the graces of movement, by her " ;low " provincial relations. Of Sir George and Lady Villiers, once Mary Beaumont, the future favourite of James I., was the second son. When George was about ten years old, his father died. His " beautiful and provident mother" then took the boy. into her special charge.

Soon discovering that he was neither inclined to reflection, nor

disposed to study," she directed his attention to such minor ac- complishments as dancing and fencing. Young Villiers remained illiterate throughout his life ; but he had, says Clarendon, " a nimble and fluent expression and delivery of his mind." His fond mother, no doubt, thought it ample compensation that her boy possessed a clear complexion, a smooth, high forehead, sweet, in- telligent, and brilliant eyes, though under " somewhat over-pen- dulous " eyebrows, refined, courteous, and social manners ; while, as he grew up, " certain traits of character, half folly, half ro- mance, won upon every one that approached him.' In his eighteenth year, he repaired to the continent, lived three years in Paris, studying the French language, and practising polite and martial exercises. At twenty-one years of age, he returned to England, an excellent fencer, an incomparable dancer, an artistic dresser, and " a fair-spoken gentleman.'

"It was at a horse-race in Cambridgeshire that Villiers first

attracted the attention of the king." He was present, not long after, at the performance of the famous play of Ignoramus in Clare Hall, when the king was completely fascinated by the per- sonal graces of the young adventurer. His introduction into the Engliah Court is attributed to Sir Thomas Lake. Befriended by Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury ' • favoured by the enemies of the reigning favourite, the Earl of Somerset ; patronized by the Queen, Anne of Denmark ; and finally knighted by the King, the young cup-bearer, for such was his first office, rapidly ascended Ambition's ladder. Somerset's star was now setting. Ere long, the unhappy man was prosecuted for the murder of Sir Thomas Oierbury. His degradation helped to accelerate Villiers' promo- tion. Early inthe year 1615-16, he had been appointed Master • The We and limes of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, g-c. By Mn. Thomson. In three volumes. Published by Hurst and Blackett.

of the Horse. In August of the same year, he was created Baron of Whaddon and Viscount Villiers. On the 7th of January fol- lowing, he was advanced to the Earldom of Buckingham. Within a year, his patent was made out as Marquis. A few years after, he exchanged this dignity for a ducal coronet. Eventually, he became Lord High Admiral of England, Master of the King's Bench Office, High Steward of Westminster, Constable of Windsor Castle, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, &c.

Mrs. Thomson shows us the splendid adventurer in his prospe- rous estate. She allows us to see something of the Court of the British Solomon ; of those old Stuart times, with their bad, beau- tiful, men and women ; of that faun and satyr court, where Comus led his rabble rout, while dainty ladies joined the tipsy revelry ; where a lovely and remorseless Countess of Somerset meditated murder ; where coarse orgies and shameless intrigues were of customary occurrence. This was the period when the gallant Raleigh pined in prison, till, as his touching letter indicates, his misery goaded him to thoughts of suicide, till suicide possibly was only precluded by death on the scaffold. It was the period of a misrule which served as herald of the Great Rebellion. The au- tumn of 1621, witnessed the dissolution of Parliament,—a mea- sure imputed to the advice of Buckingham ; it witnessed the pro- test of the House of Commons, and the king's destruction of the written record of that protest with his own hands. It was the period of the persecution of Vere, of Southampton and Coke, by Buckingham and the King, of the exactions of Mompesson and Mitchell ; of the abusive patents which Bacon advised Bucking- ham not to have anything to do with, while yet avowing his readiness if the grievance must continue, "to mould it in the best manner and help it forward." It was the period, too, of the disgrace and fall of this greatest of " Lord Keepers," for whom, be it said, in passing, Mrs. Thomson can find no word of extenua- tion. Patient inquiry, we will hope, may show how far the " large-browed Verulam " deserves the elaborate accusation of the eloquent historian Macaulay, or the laudatory invective of the sarcastic epigrammatist, Pope. Meanwhile, we are content to await the resolution of recently suggested doubts, postponing all expression of opinion to a season of maturer knowledge.

To return to Buckingham. The favourite of the King, and now high in place and power, he determined still further to im- prove his fortunes by a successful marriage. Lady Catharine Manners, the only daughter of Francis, sixth earl of Rutland, at once attracted him by her riches, her spirit and her wit. To ter- minate his suspense or secure his prize, Buckingham induced the heiress of Belvoir to leave her father's house and elope with him. It is possible that the King himself favoured the abduction. Happily, the reputation of the lady, owing to the protecting pre- sence of her future mother-in-law, the Countess of Buckingham, sustained no injury ; and, in 1620, she became the wife of the new Lord High Admiral ; for this dignity had been attained by the favourite in the previous year. About two years afterwards, the cherished project, known as the Spanish Treaty, was brought under consideration. In omitting to avenge the defeat of the Elector Palatine, his unfortunate son-in-law, and " leaving the darling of her country, Elizabeth of Bohemia, to her fate," James, says the author of British Statesmen, " subjected himself to the derision of Europe, and to the self-reproach (if he were able to have felt it), of having sacrificed the noblest opportunity of making himself popular in his own nation, and honoured every- where, as the asserter of civil and religious liberty." The Duke of Lerma, had already opened a negotiation with Digby, (Bristol) the English ambassador at Madrid, which had for its object the arrangement of a marriage between Prince Charles and Donna Maria, the Infanta. This proposal, Mr. Forster characterizes as a politic bait intended to lure the pusillanimous James into the Anti-Protestant league with the House of Austria. A jealous rivalry with Bristol decided Buckingham on carrying the Prince, clandestinely to Spain. The King reluctantly consented to the project, and "Jack and Tom Smith," (great personages in dis- guise in earlier days than ours, seem to have had a passion for the name of Smith,) set out on the 15th of February 1623, from New Hall in Essex, reached Dover after some romantic incidents, and arriving at the French capital, saw, from a gallery in the royal palace, Henrietta Maria, the future Queen of England, and the beautiful Anne of Austria, the wife of Louis XIII., who inspired Buckingham with a frantic affection. Mrs. Thomson gives a full and interesting account of the " momentous frolic" of the Prince and the Marquis in Spain, interspersing characteristic letters from the King to his " sweett boyes, ' and from " Babie " (Charles) and " your humble slave and Doge Steenie " (a dimi- nutive conferred on Buckingham from his resemblance to a pic- ture of the protomartyr) to "Dear Dad and Gossope " (the King). Passing over the business and romance of this temporary residence in Spain ; the attempts to convert Charles ; the Prince 'a adventure in the gardenhis interview with the Infanta ; the mutual repul- sion of Bristol and Buckingham; and the return of the Duke and Prince to England, we come to an entire change of court policy.

Consultations of Buckingham's adherents, says Mrs. Thomson, " were now held at Wallingford House, to consider what would be the best way of promoting, not the interests of the nation, but the Duke's own personal advancement." The Spanish marriage, accordingly, was abandoned, " with, it must be confessed, little regard to honour." Jealousy of Olivarez, in Mr: Forster'sjudg- ment, had induced Buckingham to effect a rupture with Spain. " He saw an expedient," says that writer, " for securing the edifice of his power' on a wider and more solid basis." Wel coined in England as the saviour of the Prince, " he threw him- self into the arms of the (deceived) popular party, and drove the unhappy James from his boasted kingcraft ' into a declaration of war against Spain." How the treaty with that country was broken off; how the matri- monial alliance with France was proposed; how Charles eventu- ally married the Princess Henrietta ; how Buckingham, during his embassy to Paris, betrayed his mad passion for Anne of Aus- tria ; how he retained an influence over Charles, after his ac- cession, is told by our authoress in several ensuing chapters. A little later, we find Buckingham " using every effort to return to that country, where, either as a lover or as a conqueror, he hoped to see Anne of Austria once more." To this determination, Mrs. Thomson ascribes the origin of the war which was now on the point of commencing. Hostilities opened at La Rochelle, where, however, Buckingham's operations proved entirely unsuccessful. His attempt, too, on the neighbouring Isle of Rhe, ended in de- feat • and, if Hume's evidence may be accepted, he returned to England " totally discredited, both as an admiral and a general, and bringing no praise with him but the vulgar one of valour and personal bravery." It is possible, indeed, that if he had been " reinforced in good time," the event might have been different ; but there seems sufficient reason for accepting the historian's judg- ment of Buckingham's strategic incompetency. He had allowed the Fort of St. Rhe to remain open to French occupation, which even his present biographer acknowledges to have been a fatal mistake.

Another expedition was projected for the relief of La Rochelle ; and the Duke went to Portsmouth to superintend the preparations. It was at a few miles from this town that the deadly knife was sharpened that terminated his career. Felton, who seems to us to have been simply a political and religious fanatic, stabbed Buckingham a little above the heart, as he was bending down his head in conversation with Sir Thomas Fryer. " The knife was left in the body ; the Duke, with a sudden effort, drew it out, and exclaiming, the villain has killed me, pursued the assassin out of the parlour into the hall or ante-chamber where he sank down, and, falling under a table, drew a deep breath, and expired."

In tracing the ascending fortunes of this dazzling minion of royal favour, we have never lost sight of Mrs. Thomson's narra- tive ; ' and on her own showing Buckingham, we think, deserves sentence of condemnation, at the bar of historical judicature. He had glorious opportunities of despotic rule for a nation's welfare ; he might have " played providence," since he had acquired a sort of political omnipotence, in beneficent supervision and direction of England's destinies, had he possessed any of the qualities which form the divine appanage of the true statesman. But as we read Buckingham's history and interpret Buckingham's character, we see in this favoured adventurer, a total absence of all high pa- triotic motive, a deplorable deficiency of the intellectual and moral conditions for the government of a great and noble people, who might then willingly have listened, for their own profit and his honour, to the wise and worthy counsels of a really magnani- mous leader. We are far from refusing Buckingham all merit. We allow that he had a certain mental as well as mere physical handsomeness. We admire his brilliance, his magnificent vitality, his love of romantic adventure, but, after all these admissions, he remains little more, in our eyes, than the rash, sparkling, selfish favourite of one silly king, and the misleading companion and bad counsellor of another.

Let Buckingham, however, have his deserts. Mrs. Thomson claims for him both energy and occasional loftiness of purpose. It would also seem, on the testimony of Lord Dorchester, that Buckingham had had good intentions, that he had formed a firm resolution " to walk new ways, but upon old grounds and maxims, both of religion and policy." Mrs. Thomson refers also to the State Papers for proof of the restoration of the Navy, by the strenuous efforts of the Duke. She tells us that, during the reign

of James I., the number of the ships of war was nearly doubled, the increase being attributable almost entirely to Buckingham's exertions. The Duke's care to clear the channel from pirates, the light erected on the Lizard Point, the inspection of forts and de- fences, under his auspices, are also noticed, as illustrative of his active and valuable services.

Buckingham has yet another claim preferred for him. He was a lover of the arts; a patron of the drama in the days when Ben Jenson threw a grace over the court of " Comus," and the music of Lewes silenced for awhile its insolent din. He was acquainted with Rubens, and purchased the entire collection of statues, paintings, and other works of art, " which that master had formed at a cost of about a thousand pounds, and which he sold to the Duke for ten thousand." In fact, his biographer ascribes " the love and reverence" for art which now prevail in this country, principally to the unceasing efforts of George Villiers and his friend and sovereign, Charles I. The chapter in which these benefactions are recorded, will be found to give many interesting details relating to the picture-collections of the King and the Duke of Buckingham ; to the Spanish Court, and to distinguished or meritorious artists. Such were some "of the redeeming ser- vices performed to society by a man who had much in his public career to be forgiven."