[194] The family of Richard Owen Cambridge.
[195] Samuel Foote's Bankrupt was produced at the Haymarket in July, 1773, Foote himself taking the part of Sir Robert Riscounter. The play was published in 1776, with a dedication to the Marquis of Granby. It contains a vigorous attack on the licence of the press and of the "impudent, rascally Printer." "The tyranny exercised by that fellow," says Sir Robert, "is more despotic and galling than the most absolute monarch's in Asia.... I wonder every man is not afraid to peep into a paper, as it is more than probable that he may meet with a paragraph that will make him unhappy for the rest of his life."
[196] Gibbon quotes incorrectly from Juvenal (Sat. 2, 1. 24)—
"Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes?"
[197] Gibbon's housekeeper.
[198] Alluding to negotiations between Mr. Eliot and himself for a seat in Parliament.
[199] Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son, Philip Stanhope, were sold by that son's widow, Mrs. Eugenia Stanhope, and published in 1774, "from the originals in her possession." M. Deyverdun was at this time tutor to the young Lord Chesterfield [1755-1815], a distant kinsman of the deceased Earl. According to Walpole, an injunction was applied for to prevent the publication of the letters. Terms were, however, arranged by which the publication was permitted, on condition that the family expunged certain passages, and regained possession of such copies as had been made of the unpublished Portraits, or Characters (Walpole to Mason, April 7, 1774).
[200] Probably Sir William Guise.
[201] Shute Barrington, afterwards Bishop of Durham.
[202] A tax had been proposed in the Irish Parliament of two shillings in the pound on the estates of absentee landlords. The motion was lost by 122 to 102.