[29] During Sir Robert Walpole’s administration, a troop of French Players had been brought over, but the audience and populace would not suffer them to perform. Another company came over in 1750, but with no better success. Several young men of quality had drawn their swords in the riot, endeavouring to support them: Lord Trentham’s being present had been exaggerated into his being their chief protector. French Players had been no uncommon spectacle in England. The foundation of the late animosity against them was this. The opposition to the Court had proceeded so far, as to be on the point of ridiculing the King publicly on the stage of the little theatre in the Haymarket, in a dramatic satire, called the “Golden Rump,” written by Fielding. Sir R. Walpole, having intelligence of this design, got the piece into his hands—[I have in my possession the imperfect copy of this piece, as I found it among my father’s papers after his death]—and then procured the act to be passed for regulating the stage, by which all theatres were suppressed but such as should be licensed by the Lord Chamberlain. This provoked the people so much, that the French company having a licence granted soon after, when several English companies were cashiered, it was made a party point to silence foreign performers.
[30] Granville Leveson Gower, eldest son of John, Earl Gower.—A. Created Marquis of Stafford in 1786. Died, 1803.—E.
[31] Alexander Hume Campbell, brother to the Earl of Marchmont, a very masterly speaker and able lawyer, had been Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales, which post he resigned when his Royal Highness erected his last Opposition, and was supposed to have a considerable pension, on which he neglected the House of Commons, giving himself up entirely to his profession.
[32] Nugent very absurdly told the House, “that he could not help recollecting the epitaph on Lord Brooke, Here lies the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, which he begged leave to apply, by acquainting them that Mr. Crowle was the friend of that excellent man, Lord Lonsdale, who then lay dying, and that he hoped they would not disturb his death-bed by any harsh treatment of his friend.” Henry, the last Lord Viscount Lonsdale, died soon after this. He had been Constable of the Tower and Lord Privy Seal, which he resigned with outgoing into Opposition. He was a man of very conscientious and disinterested honour, a great disputant, a great refiner—no great genius. Nugent published two or three poems on his virtues.
[33] Crowle was a noted punster. Once, on a circuit with Page, a person asked him if the Judge was not just behind? He replied, “I don’t know; but I am sure he never was just before.”
[34] When Sir Charles Wager and Lord Sundon were declared illegally chosen by military influence, on the prevailing of the opposition against Sir Robert Walpole; and the Justices of Peace who had called in the soldiers were committed at five o’clock in the morning, the Speaker having been seventeen hours in the chair.
[35] Sir John Cotton and Sir Charles Fynte.
[36] August 10, 1755.—Sunday died at his seat at Escott, near Honiton in Devonshire, the Right Hon. Sir William Yonge, Bart., LL.D., F.R.S., Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, one of his Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council, and Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of Carnarvonshire. He was chosen to represent the borough of Honiton in the sixth Parliament of Great Britain, which was summoned to meet on the 10th of May, 1722, and served for that borough in the five succeeding Parliaments; for though chosen for Ashburton in the eighth, and Tiverton in the seventh and tenth, he each time made his election for Honiton, and was five times re-elected on his accepting places. In the present Parliament he represented Tiverton. He was appointed to be one of the Lords of the Treasury in March, 1724; a Lord of the Admiralty in May, 1728; again a Lord of the Treasury in May, 1730; Secretary at War in May, 1735; and in May, 1746, joint Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. He is succeeded in his estates and title of Baronet by his only son, now Sir George Yonge, member for Honiton.—[From a printed paper of 1755, annexed as a note to MS. text by the author of the Memoirs.]
[37] He was vain, extravagant, and trifling: simple out of the House, and too ready at assertions in it. His eloquence, which was astonishing, was the more extraordinary, as it seemed to come upon him by inspiration, for he could scarce talk common sense in private on political subjects, on which in public he would be the most animated speaker. Sir Robert Walpole has often, when he did not care to enter early into the debate himself, given Yonge his notes, as the latter has come late into the House, from which he could speak admirably and fluently, though he had missed all the preceding discussion. He had been kept down for some time by the prevailing interest of General Churchill with Sir Robert Walpole, on the following occasion. Yonge, in a poetic epistle (to which he had great proneness, though scanty talents) addressed to Hedges, who was supposed to be well with Mrs. Oldfield, said, speaking of that actress in the character of Cleopatra,
“But thou who know’st the dead and living well.”