FOOTNOTES:
[166] Lady Maria Walpole, since married to Charles Churchill.
[167] He and Mr. Benjamin Keene had the reversion of a place in the Revenue between them, after the death of the then Earl of Scarborough.
[168] Surveyor of the King’s Woods and Forests.
[169] They are contained in two letters still preserved by the Duke of Bedford.
[170] October 11, 1764.—Tuesday noon, an express arrived from the Duke of Devonshire (Lord Hartington in the text), at the Spa in Germany, which brought advice that his Grace was much better, and that there were great hopes of his recovery; but these agreeable hopes were soon damped by the arrival of Lord John Cavendish, the Duke’s youngest brother, at seven o’clock the same night, at Devonshire House, who brought the melancholy news, that his Grace had relapsed, and departed this life the 3rd instant, at half an hour past nine o’clock at night, at the above place.
His Grace was eldest son of William, late Duke of Devonshire, by his Duchess Catherine, daughter and sole heir of John Hoskins, Esq. In March, 1748, he married the Lady Charlotte Boyle, youngest daughter and heiress of Richard, late Earl of Burlington, which lady died in December, 1754, by whom he had issue,—1, William, Marquis of Hartington, born in December, 1748, who is now the fifth Duke of Devonshire, a minor, at Harrow school; 2, Lord Richard, born June 19, 1752; 3, Lord George Henry, born in March, 1754; and 4, Lady Dorothy, born August 27, 1750.
His Grace, at the time of his decease, was Lord High Treasurer, and a Privy Counsellor of Ireland, Governor of the county of Cork in that kingdom; a Governor of the Charter-house, Fellow of the Royal Society, and Knight of the Garter; but some time since had resigned all his places on the British establishment. The many amiable and truly excellent public and private virtues, and the very shining accomplishments which his Grace possessed, added a lustre to his high rank, and render his death a public loss.—(Public Journals.)
[171] Lord Duncannon, eldest son of the Earl of Besborough, who was created an English Baron, was one of the Lords of the Admiralty.
[172] So Sir Robert Walpole called him.
[173] The above sarcastic remarks may be ascribed to a recent family quarrel, in which the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Hartington had sided with Horace Walpole, the uncle, against the nephew, the author of these Memoirs. The injustice of them is sufficiently proved by the estimation in which both these noblemen (especially Lord Hartington) appear to have been held by their contemporaries, and by the conduct of the latter even in delicate and difficult times, as related by the author himself.—E.
[174] Robert Darcy, Earl of Holderness, Lord of the Bedchamber, had been Embassador at Venice and the Hague, where he married the Greffier Fagel’s niece. His mother was a daughter of Duke Schomberg, and married a second time to the Earl of Fitzwalter.
[175] George Montagu, third Earl of Halifax, of that house, and First Lord of Trade. He had set out in Opposition with Lord Sandwich, and came into place at the same time.
[176] Monday, June 10, 1771.—On Saturday morning, at four o’clock, died George Montagu Dunk, Earl of Halifax, Viscount Sunbury, Secretary of State for the northern department, Ranger and Warden of Salcey Forest and Bushy Park, Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of Northamptonshire, and one of his Majesty’s Most Hon. Privy Council, Knight of the Garter, a Governor of the Charter-house, and ranked as Lieutenant-General of his Majesty’s Forces. His Lordship was born October 5, 1716, succeeded George, his father, the preceding Earl, May 9, 1739, and married in 1741, Miss Anne Dunk, daughter and heir of —— Dunk, of Hawkhurst, in Kent, Esq., which lady dying in 1753, left three daughters,—viz., Lady Anne, who died in 1761; Lady Frances, who died in 1764; and Lady Elizabeth, married on March 1, 1766, to Lord Viscount Hinchinbroke, son and heir of the Earl of Sandwich. His Lordship, on the breaking out of the Rebellion in 1745, raised a regiment of Foot for his late Majesty. On March 20, 1761, his Lordship was nominated Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and his administration of the government of that kingdom did him great honour.—(Public Journals.)
[177] Paul Whitehead, author, among other satiric writings, of the State Dunces, and Manners; for the last of which he was ordered by the House of Lords to be taken into custody. He was a man of most infamous character.
[178] She was christened Caroline Matilda.
[179] Sir Thomas Lyttelton had been a Lord of the Admiralty, but retired with a pension on his son’s going so warmly into Opposition.
[180] Vienna.
[181] He came over very privately during the war, and negotiated the first overtures of peace.—Vide Lord Chesterfield’s Apology.
[182] [Vide Appendix, F. G. and H.]
[183] The title of it was, “The Conquered Duchess.” [It has been frequently printed, and is probably familiar to the reader.]—E.
[184] He died, [after much bodily and mental illness] November 2nd, 1759.
[185] The Princess Royal was so proud and ambitious, that one day, when very young, telling the Queen how much she wished that she had no brothers, that she herself might succeed to the Crown, and the Queen reproving her, she said, “I would die to-morrow to be Queen to-day!” On the Queen’s death, the Princess Royal, like others, imagining the King must be governed by a woman, pretended ill-health, and that her physicians had ordered her to Bath, and came over; but having been so indiscreet as to let her motive be known, the King would not sutler her to stop in London, but sent her directly to Bath, and, on her return, back to Holland; nor ever forgave her.
[186] Edward Coke, only son of Thomas, Earl of Leicester.
[187] Lord Chesterfield told Mr. Pelham from Lord Bolingbroke, that Lord Egmont being sent by the Prince to Lord Bolingbroke to consult on measures for opening his approaching reign, Lord Bolingbroke desired him to open his plan; Lord Egmont said it would be necessary for the Prince to begin with some popular act, and proposed for that end, immediately to restore feudal tenures! Lord Bolingbroke dissenting, they parted in heat.
[189] This alludes to the proposal in the foregoing session, of confining Murray in the dungeon called Little Ease.
[190] Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, Secretary of State to Queen Anne, had, on the accession of George the First, been impeached for his share in the treaty of Utrecht, and fled. Sir Robert Walpole (strongly against the inclination of his brother Horace, Lord Townshend, and others of his friends) obtained his pardon, though Lord Bolingbroke and his advocates afterwards pretended that the Minister had no hand in it. The day after his return he dined at Chelsea, to thank Sir Robert; but his confusion and uneasiness were so great, that he had like to have been choked with the first bit he ate, and was forced to rise from table. He soon endeavoured to supplant Sir Robert, by the assistance of his enemy the Duchess of Kendal, who obtained an audience for him in the late King’s closet, where he presented a representation against Sir Robert, which the King immediately afterwards delivered to Sir Robert, and repeated the conversation to him. A parallel case happened afterwards to the same Minister. Lord Stair endeavoured to supplant him with Queen Caroline, and even was so hardy as to make love to her, which not succeeding, he wrote a long letter to her, and went the next morning for an answer. She sent him out word by her Chamberlain, Lord Grantham, that she had given his letter to Sir Robert Walpole, and had ordered him to deliver her answer. Lord Stair saw his situation, and set out next morning for Scotland.
[191] On history, published since his death.
[192] See Lord Walpole’s answer to these letters. All Lord Bolingbroke’s art, all his beauties of style, vanish before these plain, unadorned, argumentative, demonstrative replies.
[193] In a late apology for Lord Bolingbroke, the author (supposed to be Campbell) has endeavoured to deny this known fact, but without the least proof.
[194] Lord Egmont gave me the following instances. Lord Bolingbroke gave the Prince a scheme for vesting the Revenue in the Crown for every six years, without a Civil List, and for having Parliaments holden every five or six years. The Court he paid to the Prince was to a degree of adoration. One day that he dined with Lord Egmont, the Prince came in as they were drinking coffee, and bad them not mind him. Lord Egmont, who knew that to obey was to respect, gave Lord Bolingbroke a dish; but he, who thought that to disobey from respect was more respectful (and who perhaps knew, that though the Prince seemed to encourage familiarity, he never forgave it), started and cried, “Good God! my Lord, what are you doing? Do you consider who is present?” One of his views was to be an Earl; and, knowing that the Prince had had an inclination for his sister, Lady St. John, he took her son into his own house, under pretence of educating him and making him his heir, as an inducement to the Prince to promise him the Earldom. The Prince often sent his first Minister, Dr. Lee, to him; and one day said to Lord Egmont of Lord Bolingbroke, “That man is at fourscore just what he was at forty! I know how he flatters Lee to his face, and yet he is always teasing me to discard him, and telling him that he is not fit to hold a candle to an Administration.”
A few years after this note was written, I met with the following words in the eleventh letter of the Dissertation on Parties, p. 151, of the quarto edition: “Should a King obtain, for many years at once, the supplies and powers which used to be granted annually to him, this would be deemed, I presume, even in the present age, an unjustifiable measure, and an intolerable grievance; for this plain reason, because it would alter our constitution in the fundamental article, that requires frequent assemblies of the whole legislature, in order to assist, and control too, the executive power, which is entrusted with one part of it.” What must be the heart of that man, who, merely to load an envied Minister, could suppose instances of wicked administration, which had not entered into the head of any other man; and who could afterwards adopt those suppositions himself, and try to recommend himself to a Prince by those individual bad measures, the creatures of his own brain: and this at past seventy years old! hazarding, for a very few years of unenjoyable power, to entail so calamitous a system on his country!
[195] Lord Bolingbroke had trusted him to get six copies printed off of his Letters on Patriotism; after Pope’s death, it was discovered that he had secured a vast number of copies for his own benefit. [Vide the Preface] to the Idea of a Patriot King, where this story is exposed. What aggravated Lord Bolingbroke’s exposing his friend was, that after his own death it was discovered that he had secretly preserved a copy of Dr. Middleton’s Essay on Prayer, which his lordship had persuaded the doctor’s executors to burn.
[197] Sir Robert Walpole was killed by Jurin’s medicine for the stone; Lord Bolingbroke by a man who had pretended to cure him of a cancer in his face.
[198] In quibusdam virtutes non habent gratiam, in quibusdam vitia ipsa delectant.—Quintil.
[199] This allusion is manifestly borrowed from Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, who, in an epistle written in 1745, but not printed till many years afterwards, thus draws the character of Mr. Pelham, and contrasts him with Sir Robert Walpole. Apostrophizing the Goddess of Prudence, he says—
Turn to your altars, on your votaries shine,
See Pelham ever kneeling at thy shrine;
By you at first by slow degrees he rose,
To you the zenith of his power he owes;
You taught him in your middle course to steer,
Impartial, moderate, candid to appear;
Fearful of enmity, to friendship cold,
Cautiously frank, and timorously bold,
And so observant, never to offend
A foe, he quite forgets to fix a friend.
Long versed in politics, but poor in parts,
The courtier’s tricks, but not the statesman’s arts;
His smile obedient to his purpose still,
Some dirty compromise his utmost skill;
In vain his own penurious soil he till’d;
In vain he glean’d from Walpole’s plenteous field;
In vain th’ exchequer robes about him flow,
The mantle does not make the prophet now.—E.
[200] As he gave up the Hanover troops, to pave the way for Mr. Pitt’s coming to Court—and voting for them himself next year!
[201] As Lord Sunderland, Lord Stanhope, Craggs, and Lord Townshend.
[202] How little he shone in formal ornamental eloquence appeared from his speech at Sacheverell’s trial, which was the only written one, and perhaps the worst he ever made.
[203] That Lord Granville, Pitt, and Lyttelton, recanted all their invectives, must not be produced as unbiassed evidence; but the Duke of Bedford and Lord Cornbury will be allowed too honest to have acted from any motives but conviction.