The Duke of Devonshire has at last resigned, for the unaccountable and unenvied pleasure of shutting himself up at Chatsworth with his ugly mad Duchess;(49) the more extraordinary sacrifice, as he turned her head, rather than give up a favourite match for his son. She has consented to live with him there, and has even been with him in town for a few days, but did not see either her son or Lady Harrington. On his resignation he asked and obtained an English barony for Lord Besborough, whose son Lord Duncannon, you know, married the Duke's eldest daughter. I believe this is a great disappointment to my uncle, who hoped he would ask the peerage for him or Pigwiggin. The Duke of Marlborough succeeds as lord steward. Adieu!
(46) Henry Lowther, third Viscount Lonsdale, of the first creation. He was the second son of John, the first Viscount, and succeeded his elder brother Richard in the title in 1713. He was a lord of the bedchamber, and at one period of his life was privy seal.-D.
(47) Madame de Mirepoix, French ambassadress in England, to whom her father, Prince Craon, had written a letter of introduction for Horace Walpole.- D.
(48) Count Richcourt, and some Florentines, his creatures, had been very impertinent about Mr. Mann's family, which was very good, and which made it necessary to have his pedigree drawn out, and sent over to Florence.
(49) Coxe, in his Memoirs of Lord Walpole, vol ii. p. 264, says that the Duke of Devonshire resigned, because be was disgusted with the feuds in the cabinet, and perplexed with the jealous disposition of Newcastle and the desponding spirit of Pelham. He adds, " that the Duke was a man of sound judgment and unbiased integrity, and that Sir Robert Walpole used to declare, that, on a subject which required mature deliberation, he would prefer his sentiments to those of any other person in the kingdom."-E.
32 Letter 7 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, June 25, 1749.
Don't flatter yourself with your approaching year of jubilee; its pomps and vanities will be nothing to the shows and triumphs we have had, and are having. I talk like an Englishman: here you know we imagine that a jubilee is a season of pageants, not of devotion but our Sabbath has really been all tilt and tournament. There have been, I think, no less than eight masquerades, the fire-works, and a public act at Oxford: to-morrow is an installation of six Knights of the Bath, and in August of as many Garters: Saturday, Sunday, and Monday next, are the banquets(50) at Cambridge, for the instalment of the Duke of Newcastle as chancellor. The whole world goes to it: he has invited, summoned, pressed the entire body of nobility and gentry from all parts of England. His cooks have been there these ten days, distilling essences of every living creature, and massacring and confounding all the species that Noah and Moses took such pains to preserve and distinguish. It would be pleasant to see the pedants and professors searching for etymologies of strange dishes, and tracing more wonderful transformations than any in the Metamorphoses. How miserably Horace's unde et quo Catius will be hacked about in clumsy quotations! I have seen some that will be very unwilling performers at the creation of this ridiculous MaMaMOUChi.(51) I have set my heart on their giving a doctor's degree to the Duchess of Newcastle's favourite—this favourite is at present neither a lover nor an apothecary, but a common pig, that she brought from Hanover: I am serious; and Harry Vane, the new lord of the treasury, is entirely employed, when he is not -,it the Board, in opening and shutting the door for it. Tell me, don't you very often throw away my letters in a passion, and believe that I invent the absurdities I relate! Were not we as mad when you was in England?
The King, who has never dined out of his own palaces, has just determined to dine at Claremont to-morrow—all the cooks are at Cambridge; imagine the distress!
Last Thursday, the Monarch of my last paragraph gave away the six vacant ribands; one to a Margrave of Anspach, a near relation of the late Queen; others to the Dukes of leeds(52) and Bedford, lords Albemarle and Granville: the last, you may imagine gives some uneasiness. The Duke of Bedford has always been unwilling to take one, having tied himself up in the days of his patriotism to forfeit great sums if ever he did. The King told him one day this winter, that he would give none away but to him and to Anspach. This distinction struck him: he could not refuse the honour; but he has endeavoured to waive it, as one imagines, by a scruple he raised against the oath, which obliges the knights, whenever they are within two miles of Windsor, to go and offer. The King would not abolish the oath, but has given a general dispensation for all breaches of it, past, present, and to come. Lord Lincoln and Lord Harrington are very unhappy at not being in the list. The sixth riband is at last given to Prince George; the ministry could not prevail for it till within half an hour of the ceremony; then the Bishop of Salisbury was sent to notify the gracious intention. The Prince was at Kew, so the message was delivered to Prince George(53) himself. The child, with great good sense, desired the Bishop to give his duty and thanks, and to assure the King that he should always obey him; but that, as his father was out of town, he could send no other answer. Was not it clever? The design of not giving one riband to the Prince's children had made great noise; there was a Remembrancer(54) on that subject ready for the press. This is the Craftsman of the present age, and is generally levelled at the Duke,(55) and filled with very circumstantial cases of his arbitrary behaviour. It has absolutely written down Hawly, his favourite general and executioner, who was to have been upon the staff.
Garrick is married to the famous Violette, first at a Protestant, and then at a Roman Catholic chapel. The chapter of this history is a little obscure and uncertain as to the consent of the protecting Countess,(56) and whether she gives her a fortune or not.