, pp. 73, 74). Already well known in London society, Carlisle was a close friend of George Selwyn, a familiar figure at White's and Brookes's, an inveterate gambler, an adorer of Lady Sarah Bunbury, who, as Lady Sarah Lennox, had won the heart of George III. The flirtation provoked from Lord Holland an adaptation of
Lydia, dic per omnes
:—
"Sally, Sally, don't deny,
But, for God's sake, tell me why
You have flirted so, to spoil
That once lively youth, Carlisle?
He used to mount while it was dark;
Now he lies in bed till noon,
And, you not meeting in the park,
Thinks that he gets up too soon," etc.
In 1770 Lord Carlisle married Lady Margaret Leveson Gower, a beautiful and charming woman. "Everybody," writes Lord Holland to George Selwyn (May 2, 1770), "says it is impossible not to admire Lady Carlisle." But matrimony did not at once steady his character. For the next few years — though in 1773 he published a volume of
Poems
— his pursuits were mainly those of a young man of fashion, and he impoverished himself at the gaming-table. From 1777 onwards, however, his life took a more serious turn. In that year he became Treasurer of the Household, and was sworn a member of the Privy Council. In 1778 he was the chief of the three commissioners sent out by Lord North to negotiate with the United States. There he declined a challenge from Lafayette, provoked by reflections on the French court and nation, which he had issued with his fellow-commissioners in their political capacity. In 1779 he was nominated Lord-Lieutenant of Yorkshire, and First Lord of Trade and Plantations. He was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland from 1780 to 1782, and held the post of Lord Privy Seal in the Duke of Portland's administration of 1783. Till the outbreak of the French Revolutionary wars, he was an opponent of Pitt; but after 1792 he consistently supported the Government.
Carlisle was a collector of pictures, statuary, and works of art. He was also a writer of verse, tragedies, and pamphlets; but, in literature, his admirable letters are his best claim to be remembered. One of his two tragedies,
The Father's Revenge
(1783), was praised by Walpole, and received the guarded approval of Dr. Johnson. His published poetry consisted of an ode on the death of Gray, verses on that of Lord Nelson, "Lines for the Monument of a favourite Spaniel," an address to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and translations from Dante. The first two poems provoked Richard Tickell to write the