[329] Charles Jenkinson, private secretary to Lord Bute [afterwards Earl of Liverpool.—E.]
[330] It was again offered to me afterwards, and I again refused it.
[331] This was not the only favour that the count owed to the English Government, for they prevented his recall soon after the king’s accession; and it was entirely at their instance that he obtained permission to give up his embassy to his son. He had also received a portrait set in diamonds, and a suite of Gobelin hangings from the King of France. Upon his resignation he retired to his estates in Savoy, where he intrigued until he succeeded in replacing the Count de St. Germaine as first Minister of Savoy.—Mem. of a Traveller, vol. ii. p. 70.—E.
[332] The negotiation was conducted by Count Virri (Duke?) Envoy in England, and by the Bailli de Solar, the Sardinian Minister at Paris, the intimate friend of the Duchess de Choiseul; and that convenience was probably a reason why Lord Bute yielded to the treaty being settled at Paris, though the King of France had offered to treat here vis-à-vis du Roi de la Grande Brétagne. [Vide notes in p. 157 and 160, supra, for more details respecting the part taken by these Sardinian Ministers in the negotiation.—E.]
[333] These Memoirs were published in 1821, with a very able introduction by the late Lord Holland. A critic, who cannot be suspected of partiality (Quarterly Review, vol. xxv. p. 413), pronounces them “a model of this species of writing.” It is to be regretted that they embrace only four years, and those not the most interesting, of the reign of George II. Lord Waldegrave possessed sound sense and respectable abilities. He was highly esteemed by his contemporaries, and few men have passed through life, and, above all, public life, with a character so entirely unblemished.—A masterly critique of Lord Waldegrave’s Memoirs is given in the seventy-third number of the Edinburgh Review, from the pen of the late Mr. John Allen.—E.
[334] George Grenville, next brother of Richard Earl Temple. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Windham, and sister of Charles Earl of Egremont, and of Percy Windham Obrien, Earl of Thomond.
[335] Treasurer of the Navy.
[336] Sir Charles Windham, Earl of Egremont, eldest son of the celebrated orator, Sir William Windham, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the four last years of Queen Anne, and of Lady Catherine Seymour, daughter of Charles Duke of Somerset, the proudest man of his age.
[337] Had Lord Egremont been a liar of the “monstrous magnitude” stated in the text, he certainly would never have had the opportunity of refusing the offer of being Secretary of State from a man of such strict honour and integrity as Lord Waldegrave; an offer, be it observed, which Walpole notices in his Memoirs of George the Second without censure. It was to his refusal of that offer, and to his subsequent connection with Mr. Grenville, that Lord Egremont owed this severe imputation. He was proud, obstinate, and hot-tempered; but that he was not without talent is proved by his answer to the Spanish memorial, a State paper of acknowledged merit. Bishop Newton, who knew him well, says, “that if he had entered earlier into business, he might have made as considerable a figure as his father had. He had seldom occasion to speak in Parliament, but, when he did, it was with great clearness, force, and energy; and he was thought to resemble his father in manner as well as in good matter, having a little catch and impediment in his voice, as his father had.”—Newton’s Mem. p. 89.—E.
[338] Many interesting anecdotes of Lord Halifax are given in the Memoirs of Mr. Cumberland, who had been his private secretary for many years. He describes him thus: “I am persuaded he was formed to be a good man, he might also have been a great one: his mind was large, his spirit active, his ambition honourable; he had a carriage noble and imposing; his first approach attracted notice; his consequent address ensured respect. If his talents were not quite so solid as some, nor altogether so deep as others, yet they were brilliant, popular, and made to glitter in the eyes of men: splendour was his passion; his good-fortune threw opportunities in his way to have supported it; his ill-fortune blasted all those energies which should have been reserved for the crisis of his public fame. The first offices of the State, the highest honours which his Sovereign could bestow, were showered upon him when the spring of his mind was broken; and his genius, like a vessel overloaded with treasure, but far gone in decay, was only precipitated to ruin by the very freight that, in its better days, would have crowned it with prosperity and riches.” Vol. i. p. 242. This is a generous portrait, considering that Cumberland had certainly been unkindly treated by Lord Halifax; and, had he always felt thus, he would not have furnished Sheridan with the model of Sir Fretful Plagiary.—E.