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The following inscription, though professedly written on a Swedish nobleman, the English reader will at once apply to a certain great statesman of British manufacture:—
“Hic situs est
Senatus Princeps, et Regni Præfectus;
Vir nobilis, splendidus, affabilis, blandus,
At animo non magno, nec magnâ corporis dignitate.
Cujus nomen et laudes tota jamdiu celebrat Academia;
Quem sacerdotes aulici omnes imprimis observant;
Quem reverendissimi Præsules, ut Deum colunt.
Qui cibi conquisitissimi perquàm intelligens,
Et convivia sumptuosè apparandi unicus instructor,
Doctissimos Trimalchionis coquos,
Mercede amplissimâ conductos,
In patriam, inque patriæ, scilicet, honorem,
Primus curavit arcessendos.
Qui indisertus, loquax, obscurus,
Disertissimos oratores, et sapientissimos
Non modò vicit omnes,
Sed hos ipsos semper habuit
Sententiæ suæ astipulatores.
Quippe populi captandi, et corrumpendi mirus artifex,
Atque ad conservandam, quam consecutus est, potentiam,
Ut alius nemo, callidus,
Summam Imperii diu tenuit.
Rei tamen publicæ administrandæ,
Perinde atque suæ,
Minimè peritus.
Tria millia talentûm ex agris et fortunis suis,
Totidemque fortasse e regio, cui præest, ærario
Exhausit, et dissipavit.
Neque quemquam hominem probissimum,
Deque republicâ, aut re literariâ optimè meritum,
Liberalitate suâ decoravit, aut adjuvit.
Solus ex omnibus
Belli et pacis arbiter fuit constitutus:
At belli legitimè suscipiendi, et persequendi,
Aut pacis honestè retinendæ, aut firmandæ
Solus ex omnibus expers et ignarus.
Semper vehementissimè occupatus,
Ac res permagnas visus agere,
Omninò nihil agit.
Semper festinans, properansque,
Atque ad metam tendere prorsùm simulans,
Nunquam pervenit.
Hæc fortassis, Viator, rides:
Sta verò et tristem lege Epilogum;
Hujus unius hominis inscitia
Tantum impressit dedecus,
Tantum attulit detrimentum reipublicæ,
Ut omnibus appareat,
Nisi Sueciæ Genius, siquis est, sese interponat,
Sueciam futuram non esse.”
Henrietta, daughter of Sir Henry Hobart, was first married to Colonel Henry Howard, afterwards Earl of Suffolk, by whom she had an only son, Henry, who succeeded his father, but died a young man. Mr. Howard and she travelled in very mean circumstances to Hanover before the accession of that family to the Crown; and after it, she was made a Woman of the Bedchamber to the Princess; and being confidante of the Prince’s passion for a lady, who was in love with, and soon after privately married to, a Colonel, Mrs. Howard had the address to divert the channel of his inclination to herself. Her husband bore it very ill, and attempted to force her from St. James’s, but was at last quieted with a pension of 1200l. per annum. Yet Mrs. Howard had little interest with the King. The Queen persecuted whoever courted her; and Sir R. Walpole directing all his worship to the uncommonly-powerful wife, Mrs. Howard naturally became his enemy, and as naturally attached herself to Lord Bolingbroke; the more intimate connexion of which intercourse, carelessly concealed by a mistress that was tired, and eagerly hunted out by a wife still jealous, was unravelled by the Princess Emily at the Bath, and at last laid open by the cautious Queen; the King stormed; the mistress was glad he did, left him in his moods, and married George Berkeley, brother to the late Earl, by whom she was again left a widow in 1746.