And as this kind of creation was more perfectly his own work than any other, he seems to have indulged an unlimited fondness for his minion, beyond even that which he bore to his own children.

He soon knighted him, created him Viscount Rochester, gave him the garter, brought him into the privy council, and, though at first without assigning him any particular office, bestowed on him the supreme direction of all his business and political concerns.

Agreeable to this rapid advancement in confidence and honor, were the riches heaped upon the needy favorite; and while Salisbury and all the wisest ministers could scarcely find expedients sufficient to keep in motion the overburdened machine of government, James, with unsparing hand, loaded with treasures this insignificant and useless pageant.[*] * Kennet, p.

685, 686, etc.
It is said, that the king found his pupil so ill educated as to be ignorant even of the lowest rudiments of the Latin tongue; and that the monarch, laying aside the sceptre, took the birch into his royal hand, and instructed him in the principles of grammar.

During the intervals of this noble occupation, affairs of state, would be introduced; and the stripling, by the ascendant which he had acquired, was now enabled to repay on political, what he had received in grammatical instruction.
Such scenes, and such incidents, are the more ridiculous, though the less odious, as the passion of James seems not to have contained in it any thing criminal or flagitious.