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 THE EXETER LINE 135

violent and unscrupulous politician, and at his death, in 1729, well deserved Pope's epitaph :

" Here lies Lord Coningsby : be civil, The rest God knows, or else the devil." l

John, fifth Earl of Exeter, was a man of some talent and considerable taste. Keenly interested in art and letters, he travelled extensively on the Continent, and' acquired a reputation for learning and culture. After the Revolution, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to William III., and when the King paid a visit to Burghley, while passing through Stamford in 1695, Lord Exeter contrived to be absent. William was so much pleased with the place, that he repeated his visit on the following day, and when one of his attendants asked him how he liked Burghley, he is said to have replied, " that the house was too large for a subject." 2

To the fifth Earl is mainly due the fine collection of pictures and works of art of which Burghley is justly proud. Unfortunately, during a long residence in Rome at the time when Luca Giordano and Carlo Dolci were flourishing, he employed these two second-rate painters to such an extent as to produce " a surfeit " of their pictures. 3 He also made considerable alterations to the house itself, and was responsible for the carvings by Grinling Gibbons and the ceilings by Laguerre and Verrio, of whom the last-named

1 Spence's Anecdotes, 1820, p. 13.

3 Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, I. 237 ; Charlton, p. 141.

8 Walpole's Letters, Mrs. Paget Toynbee's ed. XIV. 291.

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