(1253) Thomas Watson Wentworth, Earl of Malton, created Marquis of Rockingham, in 1746. [He died In 1782, when his title became extinct.)
495 Letter 213 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Aug. 5, 1746.
Though I can't this week accept your invitation, I can prove to you that I am most desirous of passing my time with you, and therefore en attendant Harley House, if you can find me out any clean, small house in Windsor, ready furnished, that is not -,absolutely in the middle of the town, but near you, I should be glad to take it for three or four months.(1254) I have been about Sir Robert Rich's, but they will only sell it. I am as far from guessing why they send Sandwich in embassy, as you are; and, when I recollect of what various materials our late ambassadors have been composed, I can only say, "ex quovis ligno fit Mercurius." Murray(1255) has certainly been discovering, and warrants are out; but I don't yet know who are to be their prize. I begin to think that the ministry had really no intelligence till now. I before thought they had, but durst not use it. A-propos to not daring, I went t'other night to look at my poor favourite Chelsea,(1256) for the little Newcastle is gone to be dipped in the sea. In one of the rooms is a bed for her Duke, and a press-bed for his footman; for he never dares lie alone, and, till be was married, had always a servant to sit up with him. Lady Cromartie presented her petition to the King last Sunday. He was very civil to her, but would not at all give her any hopes. She swooned away as soon as he was gone.(1257) Lord Corn-wallis told me that her lord weeps every time any thing of his fate is mentioned to him. Old Balmerino keeps up his spirits to the same pitch of gaiety. In the cell at Westminster he showed Lord Kilmarnock how he must lay his head; bid him not wince, lest the stroke should cut his skull or his shoulders, and advised him to bite his lips. As they were to return, he begged they might have another bottle together, as they should never meet any more till—-, and then pointed to his neck. At getting into the coach, he said to the gaoler, "Take care, or you will break my shins with this damned axe."(1258)
I must tell you a bon-mot of George Selwyn's at the trial. He saw Bethel's(1259) sharp visage looking wistfully at the rebel lords; he said, What a shame it is to turn her face to the prisoners till they are condemned." If you have a mind for a true foreign idea, one of the foreign ministers said at the trial to another, "Vraiment cela est auguste." "Oui," replied the other, "cela est vrai, mais cela n'est pas royale." the I am assured that the old Countess of Errol made her son Lord Kilmarnock(1260) go into the rebellion on pain of disinheriting him. I don't know whether I told you that the man at the tennis-court protests that he has known him dine at the man that sells pamphlets at Storey's Gate; "and," says he, "he would often have been glad if I would have taken him home to dinner." He was certainly so poor, that in one of his wife's intercepted letters she tells him she has plagued their steward for a fortnight for money, and can get but three shillings. Can any one help pitying such distress?(1261) I am vastly softened, too, about Balmerino's relapse, for his pardon was only granted him to engage his brother's vote in the election of Scotch peers.
My Lord Chancellor has got a thousand pounds in present for his high stewardship, and has @(it the reversion of clerk of the crown (twelve hundred a-year) for his second son. What a long time it will be before his posterity are drove into rebellion for want, like Lord Kilmarnock!
The Duke gave his ball last night to Peggy Banks at Vauxhall. It was to pique my Lady Rochford, in return for the Prince of Hesse. I saw the company get into their barges at Whitehall Stairs, as I was going myself, and just then passed by two city companies in their great barges, who had been a swan-hopping:. They laid by and played "God save our noble King," and altogether it was a mighty pretty show. When they came to Vauxhall, there were assembled about five-and-twenty hundred people, besides crowds without. They huzzaed, and surrounded him so, that he was forced to retreat into the ball-room. He was very near being drowned t'other night going from Ranelagh to Vauxhall, and politeness of Lord Cathcart's, who, stepping on the side of the boat to lend his arm, overset it, and both fell into the water up to their chins.
I have not yet got Sir Charles's ode;(1262) when I have, you shall see it: here are my own lines. Good night!
(1260) The Earl of Kilmarnock was not the son of the Countess of Errol. His wife, the Lady Anne Livingstone, daughter of the Earl of Linlithgow, was her niece, and, eventually, her heiress.—E.
(1261) The Duke of Argyle, telling him how sorry he was to see him engaged in such a cause, 'MY Lord,' says be, 'for the two Kings and their rights, I care not a farthing which prevailed; but I was starving, and by God, if Mahomet had set up his standard in the highlands, I had been a good Mussulman for bread, and stuck close to the party, for I must eat.'" Gray, vol. 5.-E.
(1262) On the Duchess of Manchester, entitled Isabella, or the Morning.-E.