The Rehearsal

INSTEAD of the usual brief Chronicle, we shall on this occasion adduce a series of testimonies that have come down to us from contemporaries, all intimately acquainted with Villiers.

1. In the year 1758, was published in London, a 4to Catalogue of the Curious Collection of Pictures of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. The Catalogue is prefaced by the following

ADVERTISEMENT.

WE proceed to gratify the curiosity of the public with some other lists of valuable collections; the principal one belonged to that magnificent favourite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham; and was only such part of his Museum as was preserved by an old servant of the family, Mr. Traylman, and by him sent to Antwerp to the young duke, to be sold for his subsistence; great part having been embezzled, when the estate was sequestered by the parliament. Some of the pictures, on the assassination of the first duke, had been purchased by the king, the earl of Northumberland, and Abbot Montagu. The collection was kept at York-house in the Strand, and had been bought by the duke at great prices. He gave £10,000 for what had been collected by Sir Peter Paul Rubens; and Sir Henry Wootton, when ambassador at Venice, purchased many other capital ones for his grace. One may judge a little how valuable the entire collection must have been, by this list of what remained, where we find no fewer than nineteen by Titian, seventeen by Tintoret, twenty-one by Bassan, two by Julio Romano, two by Giorgione, thirteen by Paul Veronese, eight by Palma, three by Guido, thirteen by Rubens, three by Leonardo da Vinci, two by Corregio, and three by Raphael; besides other esteemed and scarce masters.

Mr. Duart of Antwerp bought some of them, but the greater part were purchased by the archduke Leopold, and added to his noble collection in the castle of Prague. He bought the chief picture, the Ecce Homo by Titian, in which were introduced the portraits of the pope, the emperor Charles the Fifth, and Solyman the magnificent. It appears by a note of Mr. Vertue, in the original manuscript, that Thomas earl of Arundel offered the first duke the value of £7,000 in money or land for that single piece. There is a copy of it at Northumberland house.

It may not be improper to mention in this place, that Villiers, when sent with the earl of Holland to the States, to negociate the restoration of the Palatinate, purchased a curious collection of Arabic manuscripts, collected by Erpinius, a famous linguist; which, according to the duke's designation of them, were after his death, bestowed on the university of Cambridge, of which his grace had been chancellor

Embedded in this Catalogue, at pp. 24-39, is the following Life of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the celebrated Poet. Written by Brian Fairfax Esq. and never before published. This Life is both able and graphic; and apparently authentic. As it will be new to most readers, we give it entire. BRIAN FAIRFAX, Esq. was the second son of Rev. Henry Fairfax, rector of Bolton Percy, and cousin to Thomas, 4th Lord Fairfax (the Parliamentary general), brother to Henry, 5th Lord, and uncle of Thomas oth Lord Fairfax. [See The Fairfax Correspondence. Ed. by G. W. Johnson, i. cxxCXXV. 1848.] In 1599, he edited Short Memorials of Thomas [4th] Lora Fairfax. Written by himself. The following gives the most favourable account of Villiers; and would seem to show that up to the Restoration, he was apparently no worse than his neighbours.

The original papers from whence this manuscript
is faithfully taken, were written by Mr.
BRIAN FAIRFAX, and in the possession of
the late bishop Atterbury.

Memoirs of the Life of GEORGE Villiers,
Duke of BUCKINGHAM.

CEORGE V'll'ers, duke of Buckingham, was the son of that noble favourite

to two kings; who, in the height of his fortune and flower of his age, engaged his estate and exposed his life, in the service of his king and country.

The name of Villiers is ancient and honourable in France and England. Philip de Villiers L'isle Adam, was the last great master of Rhodes, and defended it six months against the Turkish emperor, Solyman.

The duke's mother was the Lady Katherine Manners, sole daughter and heir of Francis earl of Rutland.

He was born at Wallingford house in Westminster, Jan. 30, 1627.

His elder brother, Charles, died an infant. His sister Mary was dutchess of Richmond and Lennox. His brother Francis was born at Chelsea, after his father's death.

The duke inherited from his father the greatest title, and from his mother the greatest estate of any subject in England; and from them both so graceful a body, as gave a lustre to the ornaments of his mind, and made him the glory of the English court at home and abroad.

The first visit the king made to the dutchess after her husband's death, he was pleased to say, He would be a husband to her, a father to her children; and he performed his promise.

The dutchess was then great with child, and the king said, He would be godfather: Francis earl of Rutland, the child's grandfather, was the other. They complimented who should give the name. The king named him Francis, and the grandfather gave him his benediction, seven thousand pounds a year. The duke and his brother, Francis, were bred up by king Charles,* *So in the with his own children, the same tutors and governors.

orig.

They were sent to Trinity College in Cambridge, their names entered in the college-book the same year with prince Charles.

Here the duke became acquainted with two excellent men, Mr. Ab. Cowley, and Mr. Martin Clifford, whom he loved ever after, and they as faithfully and affectionately served him. [To these two a third was added afterwards, who had an equal share with them in his affection, his domestic chaplain; and it was a good argument of his own wit and judgment, and good In the orig. nature, that he knew how to value a man who had all these this sentence and other good qualities to recommend him.t] is interlined.

From hence they went to the king at Oxford, laying their lives and fortunes at his feet, as a testimony of their loyalty and gratitude, worthy to be imprinted in the memory of the royal family. This they did, not in words and compliments; for they lost their estates, and one of them, soon after, his life. At Oxford they chose two good tutors to enter them in the war, prince Rupert and my lord Gerard; and went with them into very sharp service: the storming of the close at Litchfield.

At their return to Oxford, the dutchess, their mother, was very angry with my lord Gerard, for tempting her sons into such danger; but he told her, it was their own inclination, and the more danger the more honour.

For this the parliament seized on their estates, but by a rare example of their compassion, restored it again in consideration of their nonage: but the young men kept it no longer than till they came to be at age to forfeit it again. About this time their mother married the marquis of Antrim, and thereby offended the king, and ruined herself.

They were now committed to the care of the earl of Northumberland, and were sent to travel in France and Italy, where they lived in as great state as some of those sovereign princes. Florence and Rome were the places of their residence, and they brought their religion home again, wherein they had been educated under the eye of the most devout and best of kings. The duke did not, as his predecessor, in the title of Lord Ross, had done before him, who changed his religion at Rome, and left his tutor, Mr. Mole, in the inquisition, for having translated king James's book, his admonition to princes, into latin; and Du Pleffis Morney's book of the mass into english.

Their return into England was in so critical a time, as if they had now chosen the last opportunity, as they had done the first, of venturing all in the king's service.

In the year 1648 the king was a prisoner in the isle of Wight, and his friends in several parts of England designing to renew the war; duke Hamilton in

« السابقة متابعة »

كتب