[280] If there was any hardship in this step, it consisted in these gentlemen not having received previous notice from Mr. Fox that he should regard opposition to the vote in the light of such direct hostility to the Government as would be incompatible with the tenure of office under it. Previously, there appears to have been no settled rule as to the claims of the Government on the support of members in office. Mr. Pitt, when Paymaster, not only voted but frequently spoke against the Government. It would now be considered very extraordinary in any member of the administration, however subordinate, to vote against a Government measure without a previous intimation to the premier of his readiness to resign.—E.
[281] Fourth daughter of John Leveson, first Earl Gower, wife of General John Waldegrave, who succeeded his brother in the Earldom of Waldegrave.
[282] Giles Earle.
[283] Eldest son of Thomas, one of the Tellers of the Exchequer, second son of Charles Viscount Townshend, Secretary of State to George I. and II.
[284] Younger son of the Earl of Granard.
[285] A sufficient reason against his original appointment, but a bad one for his dismissal. Mr. Schutz was very rich, having succeeded by bequest to a large estate in Essex, from Sir J. Tyrrel.—E.
[286] This certainly was a very harsh proceeding. No Lord Lieutenant has since been dismissed without far more decided provocation.—E.
[287] This character of Lord Granville is not one of the author’s happiest efforts. He has, however, hit off some of the more salient traits of that nobleman’s character with great cleverness in his “Correspondence.” Lord Mahon and Mr. Macaulay have subsequently gone over the same ground with brilliant success, but the following sketch by Lord Chesterfield, to which they are both indebted, is so full of life and spirit, that the editor cannot refrain from inserting it.
“He had great parts and a most uncommon share of learning for a man of quality. He was one of the best speakers in the House of Lords, both in the declamatory and the argumentative way. He had a wonderful quickness and precision in seizing the stress of a question, which no art, no sophistry, could disguise in him. In business he was bold, enterprising, and overbearing. He had been bred up in high monarchical, that is, tyrannical principles of government, which his ardent and imperious temper made him think were the only rational and practical ones. He would have been a great first Minister in France, little inferior, perhaps, to Richelieu; in this government, which is yet free, he was neither ill-natured nor vindictive, and had a great contempt for money—his ideas were all above it. In social life he was an agreeable, good-humoured, and instructive companion, a great but interesting talker.
“He degraded himself by the vice of drinking, which, together with a great stock of Greek and Latin, he had brought from Oxford, and practised ever afterwards. By his own industry he had made himself master of all the modern languages, and had acquired great knowledge of the law. His political knowledge of the interests of princes and of commerce was extensive, and his notions were just and great. His character may be summed up in nice precision, great decision, and overbearing presumption.”—Chesterfield’s Miscell. Works, vol. iv. p. 49.—E.