[68] The Duchess had inherited the island from the Earls of Derby, from whom she was descended. [Her ancestor John, the first Marquis of Athol, having married Lady Amelia Stanley, daughter of James seventh Earl of Derby and his celebrated Countess. The Duchess was daughter and heiress of James, second Duke of Athol, and had married her cousin John, the third Duke, by whom she left a large family.—E.]
[69] Afterwards Sir Grey Cooper, Baronet, Secretary of the Treasury, and a Privy Councillor. He was generally a dull speaker, but had considerable abilities, and was much esteemed in his department. He died in 1801. His speech is reported in the Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 21.—E.
[70] Mr. Adolphus, in the new edition of his History, says, “The malady with which his Majesty was afflicted, exhibited symptoms similar to those which, in 1788, and during the last years of his life, gave so much unhappiness to the nation. I did not mention the fact in former editions of this work, because I knew that the King and all who loved him were desirous that it should not be brought into notice. So anxious were they on this point, that Smollet having intimated it in his complete History of England, the text was revised in the general impression—a very few copies in the original form were disposed of, and they are now rare.” Adolphus, vol. i. p. 175.—E.
[71] Afterwards Sir William Duncan, Bart., a Scot; he married Lady Mary Tufton, sister of the Earl of Thanet.
[72] Mr. Nicholson Calvert’s speech is given in the Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 42, where it is said that he was very inefficiently supported by Serjeant Hewet.—E.
[73] Bishop of Gloucester. Voltaire always calls him by mistake Bishop of Worcester.
[74] This sermon is noticed by Gray in a letter written at the time.—Works, vol. iv. p. 49. Warburton did not carry his imprudence so far as to print it. He had been a candidate for the see of London in 1761, and was not a little disappointed by the preference given to Bishop Hayter, to which he thus modestly alludes in a letter to Hurd. “You and your poet say true, ‘I will bet at any time on a fool or a knave against the field.’ Though the master of the course be changed, yet the field is the same, where the race is not to the swift.” (Letters from a Late Eminent Prelate, &c., p. 328.) His hopes must have been rekindled by the early death of Bishop Hayter, only to be again dashed by the appointment of Bishop Osbaldiston; and his ambition received a deathblow by the elevation of Terrick. His contempt of his successful competitors appears to have been expressed in every way calculated to be most offensive to them: even at a dinner at Archbishop Secker’s, about this period, he taunted the Bench with leaving the defence of the Church against its various assailants to their chaplains, and not performing the task themselves, as Ridley and Jewel had done of old; and quoted, at the same time, the saying of Jewel: “Why are we distinguished from the rest of our brethren with superior titles and riches, but that we may out-do them in the service of the public, so that when men see our great achievements, they may say these men deserve their superior titles and riches who perform them thus nobly.” The prelates wisely indulged him in this freedom. He never rose beyond the see of Gloucester, which it may be remarked he owed not to his learning and theological reputation, but to Mr. Pitt’s regard for Allen. Perhaps Mr. Pitt was the only statesman who would have had the courage to place him on the Bench. Notwithstanding his friendship with Mr. Yorke, he was neglected by Lord Hardwicke, who, he says, “amidst all his acquaintance, chose the most barren and sapless, on which dry plants to shower down his most refreshing rain.”—Letters, p. 433. The violence of his temper, his overbearing disposition, and the vagueness of his political creed, gave Ministers some excuse, yet it shows an imperfection in the system of ecclesiastical patronage, that a man of his genius and attainments should have been so often set aside for the obscure and now long forgotten individuals whom Court or Ministerial favour continually placed in the higher offices of the Church. He resented this treatment to the last. It embittered a lot which ought to have been happy, for he had wealth, rank, reputation, and domestic prosperity; but his letters breathe an air of discontent unworthy of a great man. He died at an advanced age in 1776.—E.
[75] At the end of 1768. It was triumphantly answered by Burke.—E.
[76] Thomas Gilbert, Esq., M. P. for Newcastle-under-Line, and Controller of the King’s Wardrobe. See Walpole’s Letters, vol. v. p. 15.—E.
[77] The bill proposed to divide every county into large districts, comprising a whole hundred, or at least a great number of parishes, in order to remedy the evils caused by the distresses of the poor, and the misapplication of the money raised for their relief. It has the merit of being one of the earliest efforts made in Parliament for the amendment of the Poor-laws. In 1782 Mr. Gilbert succeeded in carrying a bill containing the main features by his plan for the incorporation of parishes, so well known as the Gilbert Act. An account of these and other bills, prepared by Mr. Gilbert, of the same tendency, is given in Eden’s History of the Poor, vol. i. p. 362.—E.