afterwards, Lord Rochester would retire to the country, and write libels
on these fair victims, and, one day, offered to present the king with
one of his lampoons; but being tipsy, gave Charles, instead, one written
upon himself.

At this juncture we read with sorrow Bishop Burnet's forcible
description of his career:--

'He seems to have freed himself from all impressions of virtue or
religion, of honour or good nature.... He had but one maxim, to which he
adhered firmly, that he has to do everything, and deny himself in
nothing that might maintain his greatness. He was unhappily made for
drunkenness, for he had drunk all his friends dead, and was able to
subdue two or three sets of drunkards one after another; so it scarce
ever appeared that he was disordered after the greatest drinking: an
hour or two of sleep carried all off so entirely, that no sign of them
remained.... This had a terrible conclusion.'

Like many other men, Rochester might have been saved by being kept far
from the scene of temptation. Whilst he remained in the country he was
tolerably sober, perhaps steady. When he approached Brentford on his
route to London, his old propensities came upon him.

When scarcely out of his boyhood he carried off a young heiress,
Elizabeth Mallett, whom De Grammont calls _La triste heritière_: and
triste, indeed, she naturally was. Possessed of a fortune of £2500 a
year, this young lady was marked out by Charles II. as a victim for the
profligate Rochester. But the reckless young wit chose to take his own
way of managing the matter. One night, after supping at Whitehall with
Miss Stuart, the young Elizabeth was returning home with her