Mr. Fox said nothing about your brother; if the offer was ill-designed from one quarter, I think you may make the refusal of it have its weight in another.
It would be odd to conclude a letter from White's without a bon-mot of George Selwyn's; he came in here t'other night, and saw James Jefferies playing at piquet with Sir Everard Falkener, "Oh!" says he, "now he is robbing the mail." Good night! when do you come back?
(357) On the death of the Prince of Wales in 1751, his eldest son, Prince George, was committed to the care of the Earl of Harcourt as governor.
151 Letter 69 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, Dec. 11, 1752, N. S.
I don't know whether I may not begin a new chapter of revolutions: if one may trust prognosticators, the foundations of a revolution in earnest are laying. However, as I am only a simple correspondent, and no almanack-maker, I shall be content with telling you facts, and not conjectures, at least if I do tell you conjectures they shall not be my own. Did not I give you a hint in the summer of some storms gathering in the tutorhood? They have broke out; indeed there wanted nothing to the explosion but the King's arrival, for the instant he came, it was pretty plain that he was prepared for the grievances he was to hear—not very impartially it seems, for he would not speak to Lord Harcourt. In about three days he did, and saw him afterwards alone in his closet. What the conversation was, I can't tell you: one should think not very explicit, for in a day or two afterwards it was thought proper to send the Archbishop and Chancellor to hear his lordship's complaints; but on receiving a message that they would wait on him by the King's orders, he prevented the visit by going directly to the Chancellor; and on hearing their commission, Lord Harcourt, after very civil speeches of regard to their persons, said, he must desire to be excused, for what he had to say was of a nature that made it improper to be said to any body but the King. You may easily imagine that this is interpreted to allude to a higher person than the mean people who have offended Lord Harcourt and the Bishop of Norwich. Great pains were taken to detach the former from the latter; "dear Harcourt, we love you, we wish to make you easy; but the Bishop must go." I don't tell you these were the Duke of Newcastle's words; but if I did, would they be unlike him? Lord Harcourt fired, and replied with spirit, "What! do you think to do me a favour by offering me to stay! know, it is I that will not act with such fellows as Stone and Cresset, and Scott: if they are kept, I will quit, and if the Bishop is dismissed, I will quit too." After a few days, he had his audience and resigned. It is said, that he frequently repeated, "Stone is a Jacobite," and that the other person who made up the t`ete-`a-t`ete cried, "Pray, my lord! pray, my lord!"—and would not hear upon that subject. The next day the Archbishop went to the King, and begged to know whether the Bishop of Norwich might have leave to bring his own resignation, or whether his Majesty would receive it from him, the Archbishop, The latter was chosen, and the Bishop' was refused an audience.
You will now naturally ask me what the quarrel was: and that is the most difficult point to tell you; for though the world expects to see some narrative, nothing has yet appeared, nor I believe will, though both sides have threatened. The Princess says, the Bishop taught the boys nothing; he says, he never was suffered to teach them any thing. The first occasion of uneasiness was the Bishop's finding the Prince of Wales reading the Revolutions of England, written by P`ere d'Orl`eans to vindicate James II. and approved by that Prince. Stone at first peremptorily denied that he had seen that book these thirty years, and offered to rest his whole justification upon the truth or falsehood of this story. However, it is now confessed that the Prince was reading that book, but it is qualified with Prince Edward's borrowing it of Lady Augusta. Scott, the under-preceptor, put in by Lord Bolingbroke, and of no very orthodox odour, was another complaint. Cresset, the link of the connexion, has dealt in no very civil epithets, for besides calling Lord Harcourt a groom, he qualified the Bishop with bastard and atheist,' particularly to one of the Princess's chaplains, who, begged to be excused from hearing such language against a prelate of the church, and not prevailing, has drawn up a narrative, sent it to the Bishop, and offered to swear to it. For Lord Harcourt, besides being treated with considerable contempt by the Princess, he is not uninformed of the light in which he was intended to stand, by an amazing piece of imprudence of the last, but not the most inconsiderable performer in this drama, the Solicitor-general, Murray—pray, what part has his brother, Lord Dunbar, acted in the late squabbles in the Pretender's family? Murray, early in the quarrel, went officiously to the Bishop, and told him Mr. Stone ought to have more consideration in the family: the Bishop was surprised, and got rid of the topic as well as he could. The visit and opinion were repeated: the Bishop said, he believed Mr. Stone had all the regard shown him that was due; that lord Harcourt, who was the chief person, was generally present. Murray interrupted him, "Pho! Lord Harcourt! he is a cipher, and must be a cipher, and was put in to be a cipher." Do you think after this declaration, that the employment will be very agreeable? Every body but Lord Harcourt understood it before; but at least the cipher -ism was not notified in form. Lord Lincoln, the intimate friend of that lord, was so friendly to turn his back upon him as he came out of the closet—and yet Lord Harcourt and the Bishop have not at all lessened their characters by any part of their behaviour in this transaction. What will astonish you, is the universal aversion that has broke out against Stone: and what heightens the disgusts, is, the intention there has been of making Dr. Johnson, the new Bishop of Gloucester, preceptor. He was master of Westminster School, of Stone's and Murray's year, and is certainly of their principles—to be sure, that is, Whig—but the Whigs don't seem to think so. As yet no successors are named; the Duke of Leeds,(359) Lord Cardigan, Lord Waldegrave, Lord Hertford, Lord Bathurst, and Lord Ashburnham,(360) are talked of for governor. The two first are said to have refused; the third dreads it; the next I hope will not have it; the Princess is inclined to the fifth, and the last I believe eagerly wishes for it. Within this day or two another is named, which leads me to tell you another interlude in our politics. This is poor Lord Holderness —to make room in the secretary's office for Lord Halifax. Holderness has been in disgrace from the first minute of the King's return: besides not being spoken to, he is made to wait at the closet-door with the bag in his hand, while the Duke of Newcastle is within; though the constant etiquette has been for both secretaries of state to go in together, or to go in immediately, if one came after the other. I knew of this disgrace; but not being quite so able a politician as Lord Lincoln, at least having an inclination to great men in misfortune, I went the other morning to visit the afflicted. I found him alone: he said, "You are very good to visit any body in my situation." This lamentable tone had like to have made me laugh; however I kept my countenance, and asked him what he meant? he said, "Have not you heard how the world abuses me only for playing at blindman's-buff in a private room at Tunbridge?" Oh! this was too much! I laughed out. I do assure you, this account of his misfortunes was not given particularly to me: nay, to some he goes so far as to say, "Let them go to the office, and look over my letters and see if I am behindhand!" To be sure, when he has done his book, it is very hard he may not play! My dear Sir, I don't know what apologies a P`ere d'Orl`eans must make for our present history! it is too ridiculous!
The preceptor is as much in suspense as the governor. The Whigs clamour so much against Johnson, that they are regarded,- -at least for a time. Keene,(361) Bishop of Chester, and brother of your brother minister, has been talked of. He is a man that will not prejudice his fortune by any ill-placed scruples. My father gave him a living of seven hundred pounds a year to marry one of his natural daughters; he took the living; and my father dying soon after, he dispensed with himself from taking the wife, but was so generous as to give her very near one year's income of the living. He then was the Duke of Newcastle's- tool at Cambridge, which university be has half turned Jacobite, by cramming down new ordinances to carry measures of that Duke; and being rewarded with the bishopric, he was at dinner at the Bishop of Lincoln's when he received the nomination. He immediately rose from the table, took his host into another room, and begged he would propose him to a certain great fortune, to whom he never spoke, but for whom he now thought himself a proper match.(362) Don't you think he would make a very proper preceptor? Among other candidates, they talk of Dr. hales, the old philosopher, a poor good primitive creature, whom I call the Santon Barsisa; do you remember the hermit in the Persian tales, who after living in the odour of sanctity for above ninety years, was tempted to be naughty with the King's daughter, who had been sent to his cell for a cure? Santon Hales but two years ago accepted the post of clerk of the closet to the Princess, after literally leading the life of a studious anchorite till past seventy. If he does accept the preceptorship, I don't doubt but by the time the present clamours are appeased, the wick of his old life will be snuffed out, and they will put Johnson in his socket. Good night! I shall carry this letter to town to-morrow, and perhaps keep it back a few days, till I am able to send you this history complete.
Arlington Street, Dec. 17th.
Well! at last we shall have a governor: after meeting with divers refusals, they have forced lord Waldegrave(364) to take it; and he kisses hands to-morrow. He has all the time declared that nothing but the King's earnest desire should make him accept it-and so they made the King earnestly desire it! Dr. Thomas, the Bishop of Peterborough, I believe, is to be the tutor—I know nothing of him: he had lain by for many years, after having read prayers to the present King when he lived at Leicester House, which his Majesty remembered, and two years ago popped him into a bishopric.
There is an odd sort of manifesto arrived from Prussia, which does not make us in better humour at St. James's. It stops the payment of the interest on the Silesian loan, till satisfaction is made some Prussian captures during the war. The omnipotence of the present ministry does not reach to Berlin! Adieu! All the world are gone to their several Christmases, as I should do, if I could have got my workmen out of Strawberry Hill; but they don't work at all by the scale of my impatience.