Killigrew, made to the King himself in Cowley's hearing, without its point. This privileged wit, after telling the King the ill state of his affairs, was pleased to suggest a way to help all. "There is," says he, "a good honest able man that I could name, whom if your majesty would employ, and command to see things well executed, all things would soon be mended, and this is one Charles Stuart, who now spends his time in employing his lips about the court, and hath no other employment; but if you would give him this employment, he were the fittest man in the world to perform it."[1] He had what Sheffield called the foible of his family, to be easily imposed upon; for, as Clarendon truly remarks, it was the unhappy fate of the Stuart family to trust too much on all occasions to others.[2] To such an extent did he carry unnecessary confidence, that he would sign papers without inquiring what they were about.[3]
He drew well himself,[4] was fond of mathematics, fortification, and shipping; knew the secrets of many empirical medicines, passed many hours in his laboratory, and in the very month in which he died was running a process for fixing mercury.[5] The
