room," it was under a humble roof, and on a coarse pallet, that Buckingham closed his chequered life.
"The spacious domain," adds Macaulay, "passed to a new race; and in a few years a palace more splendid and costly than had ever been inhabited by the magnificent Villiers rose amidst the beautiful woods and waters which had been his, and was called by the once humble name of Duncombe."
There are among the Mitchell Papers some letters from Sir Thomas Villiers, created Lord Hyde in 1756, and Earl of Clarendon in 1776, to Sir Andrew Mitchell, his successor at the Court of Berhn as the representative of England, which show that this member of the elder branch of the family of Villiers of Brooksley, was a man of a totally different character from either the first or the second Duke of Buckingham of the name of Villiers. In a letter dated 27th June, 1761, to Mitchell, Lord Hyde says:—
"My dear Mitchell,—Though I can't say that I am fond of unnecessary writing or unnecessary talking, I was happy in receiving a letter from an old friend that I love; having heard that his health which endured the follies of youth had been injured by ministerial toils. By matrimony it seems I am freed from both, and enjoy life in a plain, insignificant way, with a wife that I value, and three boys and a girl. I give no flattery and receive no favours. I am not out of humour, but see things, as far as my sight will reach, without
