(879) In Mr. Yorke's MS. parliamentary journal, the words are"an execrable, a sole minister, who had renounced the British nation, and seemed to have drunk of the potion described in poetic fictions."-E.
352 Letter 125 To Sir Horace Mann. Dec. 15, 1743.
I write in a great fright, lest this letter should come too late. My lord has been told by a Dr. Bragge, a virtuoso, that, some ye(irs ago, the monks asked ten thousand pounds for our Correggio,(880) and that there were two copies then made of it: that afterwards, he is persuaded, the King of Portugal bought the original; he does not know at what price. Now, I think it very possible that this doctor, hearing the picture was to be come at, may have invented this Portuguese history; but as there is a possibility, too, that it may be true, you must take all imaginable precautions to be sure it is the very original-a copy would do neither you nor me great honour.
We have entered upon the Hanoverian campaign. Last Wednesday, Waller moved in our House an address to the King, to continue them no longer in our pay than to Christmas-day, the term for which they were granted. The debate lasted till half an hour after eight at night. Two young officers (881) told some very trifling stories against the Hanoverians, which did not at all add any weight to the arguments of the Opposition; but we divided 231 to 181. On Friday,' Lord Sandwich and Lord Halifax, in good speeches, brought the same motion into the Lords. I was there, and heard Lord Chesterfield make the finest oration I ever did hear.(882) My father did not speak, nor Lord Bath. They threw out the motion by 71 to 36. These motions will determine the bringing on the demand for the Hanoverians for another year in form; which was a doubtful point, the old part of the ministry being against it, though very contrary to my lord's advice.
Lord Gower, finding no more Tories were to be admitted, resigned on Thursday; and Lord Cobham in the afternoon. The privy-seal was the next day given to Lord Cholmondeley. Lord Gower's resignation is one of the few points in which I am content the prophecy in the old Jacobite ballad should be fulfilled-"The King shall have his own again."
The changes are begun, but will not be completed till the recess, as the preferments will occasion more re-elections than they can spare just now in the House of Commons. Sandys has resigned the exchequer to Mr. Pelham; Sir John Rushout is to be treasurer of the navy; Winnington, paymaster; Harry Fox, lord of the treasury: Lord Edgcumbe, I believe, lord of the treasury,(883) and Sandys, cofferer and a peer. I am so scandalized at this, that I will fill up my letter (having told you all the news) with the first fruits of my indignation.
VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE HOUSE OF LORDS ON ITS RECEIVING A NEW PEER,
THou senseless Hall, whose injudicious space,
Like Death, confounds a various mismatched race,
Where kings and clowns, th' ambitious and the mean,
Compose th' inactive soporific scene,
Unfold thy doors!-and a promotion see
That must amaze even prostituted thee!
Shall not thy sons, incurious though they are,
Raise their dull lids, and meditate a stare?
Thy sons, who sleep in monumental state,
To show the spot where their great fathers sate.
Ambition first, and specious warlike worth,
Call'd our old peers and brave patricians forth;
And subject provinces produced to fame
Their lords with scarce a less than regal name.
Then blinded monarchs, flattery's fondled race,
Their favourite minions stamp'd with titled grace,
And bade the tools of power succeed to Virtue's place,
Hence Spensers, Gavestons, by crimes grown great,
Vaulted into degraded Honour's seat:
Hence dainty Villiers sits in high debate,
Where manly Beauchamps, Talbots, Cecils sate
Hence Wentworth,(884) perjured patriot, burst each tie,
Profaned each oath, and gave his life the lie:
Renounced whate'er he sacred held and dear,
Renounced his country's cause, and sank into a Peer.
Some have bought ermine, venal Honour's veil,
When set by bankrupt Majesty to sale
Or drew Nobility's coarse ductile thread
>From some distinguished harlot's titled bed.
Not thus ennobled Samuel!-no worth
from his mud the sluggish reptile forth;
No parts to flatter, and no grace to please,
With scarce an insect's impotence to tease,
He struts a Peer-though proved too dull to stay,
Whence (885) even poor Gybbons is not brush'd away.
Adieu! I am just going to Leicester House, where the Princess sees company to-day and to-morrow, from seven to nine, on her lying-in. I mention this per amor del Signor Marchese Cosimo Riccardi.(886)