The Wits and Beaux of Society

The Wits and Beaux of Society,
by

Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton This eBook is for the use of anyone
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Title: The Wits and Beaux of Society Volume 1
Author: Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
Release Date: March 19, 2006 [EBook #18020]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE WITS AND BEAUX OF SOCIETY
BY GRACE AND PHILIP WHARTON

New Edition with a Preface
BY JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY, M.P.
And the original illustrations by H. K. BROWNE AND JAMES
GODWIN
TWO VOLS.--VOL. I.
New York WORTHINGTON CO., 747 BROADWAY 1890
[Illustration: WHARTON'S ROGUISH PRESENT.]

DEDICATION.
DEAR MR. AUGUSTIN DALY,
May I write your name on the dedication page of this new edition of an
old and pleasant book in token of our common interest in the people
and the periods of which it treats, and as a small proof of our
friendship?
Sincerely yours, JUSTIN HUNTLY M'CARTHY.
LONDON, July, 1890.

CONTENTS.
PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION p. xi PREFACE TO THE
SECOND EDITION p. xxv PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION p.
xxix
GEORGE VILLIERS, SECOND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.
Signs of the Restoration.--Samuel Pepys in his Glory.--A Royal
Company.--Pepys 'ready to Weep.'--The Playmate of Charles

II.--George Villiers's Inheritance.--Two Gallant Young
Noblemen.--The Brave Francis Villiers.--After the Battle of
Worcester.--Disguising the King.--Villiers in Hiding.--He appears as a
Mountebank.--Buckingham's Habits.--A Daring
Adventure.--Cromwell's Saintly Daughter.--Villiers and the
Rabbi.--The Buckingham Pictures and Estates.--York House.--Villiers
returns to England.--Poor Mary Fairfax.--Villiers in the
Tower.--Abraham Cowley, the Poet.--The Greatest Ornament of
Whitehall.--Buckingham's Wit and Beauty.--Flecknoe's Opinion of
Him.--His Duel with the Earl of Shrewsbury.--Villiers as a Poet.--As a
Dramatist.--A Fearful Censure!--Villiers's Influence in Parliament.--A
Scene in the Lords.--The Duke of Ormond in Danger.--Colonel Blood's
Outrages.--Wallingford House and Ham House.--'Madame Ellen.'--The
Cabal.--Villiers again in the Tower.--A Change.--The Duke of York's
Theatre.--Buckingham and the Princess of Orange.--His last
Hours.--His Religion.--Death of Villiers.--The Duchess of Buckingham.
p. 1
COUNT DE GRAMMONT, ST. EVREMOND, AND LORD
ROCHESTER.
De Grammont's Choice.--His Influence with Turenne.--The Church or
the Army?--An Adventure at Lyons.--A brilliant Idea.--De Grammont's
Generosity.--A Horse 'for the Cards.'--Knight-Cicisbeism.--De
Grammont's first Love.--His Witty Attacks on Mazarin.--Anne Lucie
de la Mothe Houdancourt.--Beset with Snares.--De Grammont's Visits
to England.--Charles II.--The Court of Charles II.--Introduction of
Country-dances.--Norman Peculiarities.--St. Evremond, the Handsome
Norman.--The most Beautiful Woman in Europe.--Hortense Mancini's
Adventures.--Madame Mazarin's House at Chelsea.--Anecdote of Lord
Dorset.--Lord Rochester in his Zenith.--His Courage and
Wit--Rochester's Pranks in the City.--Credulity, Past and Present--'Dr.
Bendo,' and La Belle Jennings.--La Triste Heritière.--Elizabeth,
Countess of Rochester.--Retribution and
Reformation.--Conversion.--Beaux without Wit.--Little Jermyn.--An
Incomparable Beauty.--Anthony Hamilton, De Grammont's
Biographer.--The Three Courts.--'La Belle Hamilton.'--Sir Peter Lely's

Portrait of her.--The Household Deity of Whitehall.--Who shall have
the Calèche?--A Chaplain in Livery.--De Grammont's Last
Hours.--What might he not have been? p. 41
BEAU FIELDING.
On Wits and Beaux.--Scotland Yard in Charles II.'s day.--Orlando of
'The Tatler.'--Beau Fielding, Justice of the Peace.--Adonis in Search of
a Wife.--The Sham Widow.--Ways and Means.--Barbara Villiers, Lady
Castlemaine.--Quarrels with the King.--The Beau's Second
Marriage.--The Last Days of Fops and Beaux. p. 80
OF CERTAIN CLUBS AND CLUB-WITS UNDER ANNE.
The Origin of Clubs.--The Establishment of Coffee-houses.--The
October Club.--The Beef-steak Club.--Of certain other Clubs.--The
Kit-kat Club.--The Romance of the Bowl.--The Toasts of the
Kit-kat.--The Members of the Kit-kat.--A good Wit, and a bad
Architect.--'Well-natured Garth.'--The Poets of the Kit-kat.--Charles
Montagu, Earl of Halifax.--Chancellor Somers.--Charles Sackville,
Lord Dorset.--Less celebrated Wits. p. 91
WILLIAM CONGREVE.
When and where was he born?--The Middle Temple.--Congreve finds
his Vocation.--Verses to Queen Mary.--The Tennis-court
Theatre.--Congreve abandons the Drama.--Jeremy Collier.--The
Immorality of the Stage.--Very improper Things.--Congreve's
Writings.--Jeremy's 'Short Views.'--Rival Theatres.--Dryden's
Funeral.--A Tub-Preacher.--Horoscopic Predictions.--Dryden's
Solicitude for his Son.--Congreve's Ambition.--Anecdote of Voltaire
and Congreve.--The Profession of Mæcenas.--Congreve's Private
Life.--'Malbrook's' Daughter.--Congreve's Death and Burial. p. 106
BEAU NASH.
The King of Bath.--Nash at Oxford.--'My Boy Dick.'--Offers of
Knighthood.--Doing Penance at York.--Days of Folly.--A very

Romantic Story.--Sickness and Civilization.--Nash descends upon
Bath.--Nash's Chef-d'oeuvre.--The Ball.--Improvements in the
Pump-room, &c.--A Public Benefactor.--Life at Bath in Nash's
time.--A Compact with the Duke of Beaufort.--Gaming at
Bath.--Anecdotes of Nash.--'Miss Sylvia.'--A Generous Act.--Nash's
Sun setting.--A Panegyric.--Nash's Funeral.--His Characteristics. p. 127
PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON.
Wharton's Ancestors.--His Early Years.--Marriage at
Sixteen.--Wharton takes leave of his Tutor.--The Young Marquis and
the Old Pretender.--Frolics at Paris.--Zeal for the Orange Cause.--A
Jacobite Hero.--The Trial of Atterbury.--Wharton's Defence of the
Bishop.--Hypocritical Signs of Penitence.--Sir Robert Walpole
duped.--Very Trying.--The Duke of Wharton's 'Whens.'--Military Glory
at Gibraltar.--'Uncle Horace.'--Wharton to 'Uncle Horace.'--The Duke's
Impudence.--High Treason.--Wharton's Ready Wit.--Last
Extremities.--Sad Days in Paris.--His Last Journey to Spain.--His
Death in a Bernardine Convent.