Excerpt from Sir Ralph Esher, or Memoirs of a Gentleman of the Court of Charles the Second: Including Those of His Friend Sir Philip Herne The work originated m a design which the author had contemplated of writing a book, entitled The Wits of the Age of Charles the Second. He had indeed set about executing the design, but found such a deplorable failure of materials, - the gentry who figured under that title having been, for the most part, persons not producible in good company, even on the score of the wit they boasted, that the intention became changed into the present work in which, while it is hoped that the animal spirits of those times are not absent, and divers of the scape-graces are to be found, an attempt has been made to pourtray the good-heartedness that was still beating in the bosoms of some of their associates, and the wisdom which a more serious and suffering nurture had produced in some of their friends, notwithstanding the pangs caused it by the mistakes both of levity and bigotry. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.