Why do you suffer him to do these things?'

'Why,' answered the duke, 'I do suffer him to do these things, that I
may hereafter the better command him.' A reply which betrays the most
depraved principle of action, whether towards a sovereign or a friend,
that can be expressed. His influence was for some time supreme, yet he
became the leader of the opposition, and invited to his table the
discontented peers, to whom he satirized the court, and condemned the
king's want of attention to business. Whilst the theatre was ringing
with laughter at the inimitable character of Bayes in the 'Rehearsal,'
the House of Lords was listening with profound attention to the
eloquence that entranced their faculties, making wrong seem right, for
Buckingham was ever heard with attention.

Taking into account his mode of existence, 'which,' says Clarendon, 'was
a life by night more than by day, in all the liberties that nature could
desire and wit invent,' it was astonishing how extensive an influence he
had in both Houses of Parliament. 'His rank and condescension, the
pleasantness of his humours and conversation, and the extravagance and
keenness of his wit, unrestrained by modesty or religion, caused persons
of all opinions and dispositions to be fond of his company, and to
imagine that these levities and vanities would wear off with age, and
that there would be enough of good left to make him useful to his
country, for which he pretended a wonderful affection.'

But this brilliant career was soon checked. The varnish over the hollow
character of this extraordinary man was eventually rubbed off. We find
the first hint of that famous coalition styled the _Cabal_ in Pepys's
Diary, and henceforth the duke must be regarded as a ruined man.