Sir Godfrey Kneller latterly painted more for profit than for praise,
and is said to have used some whimsical preparations in his colours
which made them work fair and smoothly off, but not endure. A friend
noticing it to him said, "What do you think posterity will say, Sir
Godfrey Kneller, when they see these pictures some years hence?"

"Say!" replied the artist: "Why they'll say Sir Godfrey Kneller never
painted them!"

An extraordinary prosecution for a singular libel occurred under the
administration of the Duke of Buckingham. Some fiddlers at Staines were
indicted for singing scandalous songs of the Duke. The songs also did
not fail to libel both James and Charles. The Bench were puzzled how to
proceed. The offensive passages they would not permit to be openly read
in court, lest the scandals should spread. It was a difficult point to
turn. They were anxious that the people should see that they did not
condemn these songs without due examination. They hit upon this
expedient. Copies of the songs were furnished to every Lord and Judge
present; and the Attorney-General in his charge, when touching on the
offending passages, did not, as usual, read them out, but noticed them
by only repeating the first and the final lines, and when he had closed
they were handed to the fiddlers at the bar, interrogating them whether
these were not the songs which they had sung of the Duke? To this they
confessed, and were condemned in a heavy fine of 500_l._ and to be
pilloried and whipped.

This novel and covert mode of trial excited great discontent among the
friends of civil freedom. It was asserted, that all trials should be
open, and that a court of justice was always a public place, where the
judges publicly delivered the reasons and the grounds of their judgment.