Page:The Story of Nell Gwyn.djvu/61

Rh reign of Charles II., but something for the taste of the humble orange-girl, that the lover who had attracted her, and with whom she was now living in the lovely neighborhood of Epsom, was long looked up to as the best bred man of his age:

None ever had so strange an art
 * His passion to convey

Into a list'ning virgin's heart,
 * And steal her soul away.

But Buckhurst had other qualities to recommend him than his youth (he was thirty at this time), his rank, his good heart, and his good breeding. He had already distinguished himself by his personal intrepidity in the war against the Dutch; had written the best song of its kind in the English language, and some of the severest and most refined satires we possess; was the friend of all the poets of eminence in his time, as he was afterwards the most munificent patron of men of genius that this country has yet seen. The most eminent masters in their several lines asked and abided by his judgment, and afterwards dedicated their works to him in grateful acknowledgment of his taste and favours. Butler owed to him that