[234] Mr. Southey, opposed as he was to the political creed of Churchill, thought more favourably of him. He praises the generosity and straightforwardness of his character, and says of his poems that “manly sense is their characteristic, deriving strength from indignation, and that they contain passages of sound morality and permanent truth.” Cowper had a higher opinion of him than of any other contemporary writer, and even goes so far as to style him “the great Churchill.”—Southey’s Cowper, p. 87.—E.
[235] Groom of the Bedchamber to William Duke of Cumberland, and Commander in America. He was afterwards Knight of the Bath, and called Sir Joseph Amherst. He was subsequently made a Peer and Commander-in-Chief, [and lastly Field-Marshal. He had been the favourite aide-de-camp of Lord Ligonier during the German wars, and bore through life the reputation of a very able and zealous officer. He distinguished himself particularly in America. He died in 1797, in his eighty-first year.—E.]
[236] Alluding to the defeat of the French near Giessau, by Prince Ferdinand, on the 26th September, when he drove them from all their posts, and obliged them to fly with precipitation behind the Nahn.—Annual Register, 1762, p. 49.—E.
[237] This narrative of the dethronement of Peter the Third has been confirmed in many essential points by later writers.—Tooke’s Catherine the Second.—Castera.—Levesque, Hist. de Russie, vol. v. 298. The precise extent of the guilt of the Empress is still a subject of dispute. The dethronement of her husband might be an act of self-defence, for he seems to have contemplated raising his mistress to the throne. His murder certainly had her ready forgiveness, if not her acquiescence, and there is nothing in her character to controvert its having been committed at her instigation. The attempt to exculpate her in the recently published Memoirs of the Princess Dashkau is very far from satisfactory, though it in some degree elevates the character of the authoress above the level of her contemporaries at the Court of St. Petersburgh, a court in those days without a parallel for the prevalence of the crimes and vices of a semi-barbarous age.—E.
[238] George third Earl, Augustus, and William, sons of William Anne second Earl of Albemarle. Frederick, the fourth son, was on this occasion promoted to the Bishoprick of Exeter. Of Augustus (afterwards Lord Keppel) see more in the preceding reign, under the History of Admiral Byng.—Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 174. [A very interesting account of his life was lately published by his kinsman, the Honourable and Reverend Thomas Augustus Keppel.—E.]
[239] Madame Geoffrin was proprietor of a great manufacture of glass; yet by her wit, parts, riches, and cabals, and by patronizing authors, and the modern philosophers and painters, statuaries and architects, and by keeping an open house for foreigners of all nations, she was much considered, and had great respect paid to her by persons of the first rank in France. [Marmontel draws a spirited portrait of her in his Memoirs.—E.]
[240] This is a very one-sided view of the character of the Duc de Nivernois. He had no pretensions to the character of a soldier, having been obliged to quit the army from ill-health at an early age. As a diplomatist, he certainly failed at Berlin—as all other diplomatists did, who brought proposals that did not suit the views of the King of Prussia. In England he gave great satisfaction to all parties. His popularity is noticed by Lord Chesterfield. He was a generous, though not perhaps a very discriminating, patron of letters, and a respectable writer for one who made literature only an amusement. His private life was exemplary; and he showed no common strength of mind in the firmness with which he bore the loss of his rank and property, and, above all, his heavy domestic misfortunes. His second wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, died a few days after marriage. Of his two sons-in-law, the Count de Gisors, his destined heir, an élève of Marmontel, fell at the battle of Crevelt: the remaining one, the Duc de Brissac, was torn to pieces by the mob at Paris, at the beginning of the Revolution. The Duke of Nivernois died in 1798, at a very advanced age.—E.
[241] Besides his crime of being the favourite of the Duke of Cumberland, Fox had deeply offended the Princess by advising Mr. Pelham, the very day after the death of her husband, to take her son, the present King, from her, that she might not get an ascendant over him. I one day mentioned this fact to Lord Mansfield: he said, “It was very true, and he believed the measure was not followed, only because Mr. Fox had advised it”—so jealous was Mr. Pelham of Fox!
[242] James Earl Waldegrave, Governor to George the Third when Prince.
[243] William Cavendish, fourth Duke of Devonshire, Lord Chamberlain.