and walked aside in conference near an hour, none but his own servants being at that hour near the place, and they and Sir Ralph at such a distance, that they could not hear a word, though the duke sometimes spoke, and with great commotion, which Sir Ralph the more easily perceived, because he kept his eyes always fixed upon the duke; having procured the conference, upon somewhat he knew, there was of extraordinary; and the man told him in his return over the water, that when he mentioned those particulars, which were to gain him credit, the substance whereof he said he durst not impart to him, the duke’s colour changed, and he swore he could come by that knowledge only by the devil, for that those particulars were known only to himself, and to one person more, who, he was sure, would never speak of it.

’The duke pursued his purpose of hunting, but was observed to ride all the morning with great pensiveness, and in deep thoughts, without any delight in the exercise he was upon, and before the morning was spent, left the field, and alighted at his mother’s lodgings at Whitehall, with whom he was shut up for the space of two or three hours, the noise of their discourse frequently reaching the ears of those who attended in the next rooms and when the duke left her, his countenance appeared full of trouble, with a mixture of anger:  a countenance that was never before observed in him in any conversation with her, towards whom he had a profound reverence, and the countess herself was, at the duke’s leaving her, found overwhelmed in tears, and in the highest agony imaginable; whatever there was of all this, it is a notorious truth, that when the news of the duke’s murder (which happened within a few months) was brought to his mother, she seemed not in the least degree surprized, but received it as if she had foreseen it, nor did afterwards express such a degree of sorrow, as was expected from such a mother, for the loss of such a son.’

This is the representation which lord Clarendon gives of this extraordinary circumstance, upon which I shall not presume to make any comment; but if ever departed spirits were permitted to interest themselves with human affairs, and as Shakespear expresses it, revisit the glimpses of the moon, it seems to have been upon this occasion:  at least there seems to be such rational evidence of it, as no man, however fortified against superstition, can well resist.

But let us now enter upon the life of the son of this great man; who, if he was inferior to his father as a statesman, was superior in wit, and wanted only application to have made a very great figure, even in the senate, but his love of pleasure was immoderate, which embarrassed him in the pursuit of any thing solid or praise-worthy.