[458] Son of Sir Orlando Bridgman, after whose death he became Sir Henry; [and having succeeded to the estates of his cousin Thomas, the last Earl of Bradford, who had died without issue, was in 1794 created Baron Bradford. He died at an advanced age in 1800. He was grandfather of the present Earl.—E.]
[459] Younger brother of Henry Vernon, of Hilton in Staffordshire; and married to Lady Evelyn Leveson, Countess Dowager of Ossory. [Mr. Vernon’s later life was more creditable. He became a great traveller, and visited the East; and he served with distinction as a volunteer in the Spanish expedition to Algiers. He was one of the handsomest men of his day.—E.]
[460] Charles Sloane Cadogan, only son of Charles Lord Cadogan, [afterwards created Earl Cadogan. His second wife was Miss Churchill, a niece of Horace Walpole. He died in 1807, aged 78.—E.]
[461] Dr. Akenside, by some thought a Poet, was of the same principles with, and an intimate friend of, Dyson, who obtained his being named Physician to the Queen. To that mistress and to that friend he made a sacrifice of the word Liberty, in the last edition of his poem on the Pleasures of the Imagination. It was uncourtly, a personification to be invoked by one who felt the pulse of royalty. [The alteration to which Walpole refers is as follows. In the old editions there is the passage—
Wilt thou, kind Harmony, descend,
And join the festive train, for with thee comes,
Majestic Truth; and where Truth deigns to come,
Her sister Liberty will not be far.
In the later editions it stands thus—
... for with thee comes
Wise Order; and where Order deigns to come,
Her sister Liberty will not be far.
Nichols’s Liter. Anec. vol. viii. p. 525.
Akenside’s political tergiversation is an unpleasant commentary on a work so full of elevated thoughts as his poem. Personal attachment to Dyson probably influenced him. He died in 1770, in his forty-ninth year.—E.]
[462] Mr. Dyson had changed his politics on the King’s accession, when he became at once a determined Tory, having previously professed the opposite creed. He afterwards formed one of the party that went under the name of the King’s friends, a political section which can hardly be said to have existed in preceding reigns, and which the personal character of George the Third rendered very influential on public measures. A more valuable recruit could not easily have been found. He was certainly a most able parliamentary lawyer, and the exactness and precision that characterised his mind, caused his opinion to be always depended upon. These qualities, added to his discretion, gave him a moral influence over the House which could not be the result of his political conduct. His manners were obliging, and his private life irreproachable. It is highly to his credit that, when Clerk of the House, he departed from the example of his predecessors, by making no profit of his patronage. Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes, vol. viii. p. 523; Hatsell’s Parliamentary Precedents.—E.