was overtaken and arrested: and was then asked to name his accomplices.
'No,' he replied, 'the fear of danger shall never tempt me to deny guilt
or to betray a friend.' Charles II., with undignified curiosity, wished
to see the culprit. On inquiring of Blood how he dared to make so bold
an attempt on the crown, the bravo answered, 'My father lost a good
estate fighting for the crown, and I considered it no harm to recover it
by the crown.' He then told his majesty how he had resolved to
assassinate him: how he had stood among the reeds in Battersea-fields
with this design; how then, a sudden awe had come over him: and Charles
was weak enough to admire Blood's fearless bearing and to pardon his
attempt. Well might the Earl of Rochester write of Charles--

'Here lies my sovereign lord the king,
Whose word no man relies on;
Who never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one.'

Notwithstanding Blood's outrages--the slightest penalty for which in
our days would have been penal servitude for life--Evelyn met him, not
long afterwards, at Lord Clifford's, at dinner, when De Grammont and
other French noblemen were entertained. 'The man,' says Evelyn, 'had not
only a daring, but a villanous, unmerciful look, a false countenance;
but very well-spoken, and dangerously insinuating.'

Early in 1662, the Duke of Buckingham had been engaged in practices
against the court: he had disguised deep designs by affecting the mere
man of pleasure. Never was there such splendour as at Wallingford
House--such wit and gallantry; such perfect good breeding; such
apparently openhanded hospitality. At those splendid banquets, John
Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, 'a man whom the Muses were fond to inspire,