noon
-- DRYDEN . We must now transport the reader to the magnificent hotel in -- Street , inhabited at this time by the celebrated George Villiers , Duke of Buckingham , whom Dryden has doomed to a painful immortality by the few lines which we have prefixed to this chapter . Amid the gay and licentious of the laughing Court of Charles , the Duke was the most licentious and most gay ; yet , while expending a princely fortune , a strong constitution , and excellent talents , in pursuit of frivolous pleasures , he nevertheless nourished deeper and more extensive designs ; in which he only failed from want of that fixed purpose and regulated perseverance essential to all important enterprises , but particularly in politics . It was long past noon ; and the usual hour of the Duke 's levee -- if anything could be termed usual where all was irregular -- had been long past . His hall was filled with lackeys and footmen , in the most splendid liveries ; the interior apartments , with the gentlemen and pages of his household , arrayed as persons of the first quality , and , in that respect , rather exceeding than falling short of the Duke in personal splendour . But his antechamber , in particular , might be compared to a gathering of eagles to the slaughter , were not the simile too dignified to express that vile race , who , by a hundred devices all tending to one common end , live upon the wants of needy greatness , or administer to the pleasures of summer-teeming luxury , or stimulate the wild wishes of lavish and wasteful extravagance , by devising new modes and fresh motives of profusion . There stood the projector , with his mysterious brow , promising unbounded wealth to whomsoever might choose to furnish the small preliminary sum necessary to change egg-shells into the great _ arcanum _ .