[649] Townshend was not the man to make his jokes serve twice. Horace Walpole said of his Champagne Speech,—'It was Garrick writing and acting extempore scenes of Congreve.' Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iii. 25. Sir G. Colebrooke says:—'When Garrick and Foote were present he took the lead, and hardly allowed them an opportunity of shewing their talents of mimicry, because he could excel them in their own art.' Ib p. 101, note. '"Perhaps," said Burke, "there never arose in this country, nor in any country, a man of a more pointed and finished wit."' Payne's Burke, i. 146.
[650] The 'eminent public character' is no doubt Burke, and the friend, as Mr. Croker suggests, probably Reynolds. See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 15, 1773, for a like charge made by Johnson against Burke. Boswell commonly describes Burke as 'an eminent friend of ours;' but he could not do so as yet, for he first met him fifteen days later. (Post, April 30.)
[651] 'Party,' Burke wrote in 1770 (Thoughts on the Present Discontents), 'is a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed. For my part I find it impossible to conceive that any one believes in his own politics, or thinks them to be of any weight, who refuses to adopt the means of having them reduced into practice.' Payne's Burke, i. 86.
[652] On May 5, and again on Nov. 10, the play was commanded by the King and Queen. Prior's Goldsmith, ii. 394.
[653] Absalom and Achitophel, part i. l. 872.
[654] Paoli perhaps was thinking of himself. While he was still 'the successful rebel' in Corsica, he had said to Boswell:—'The arts and sciences are like dress and ornament. You cannot expect them from us for some time. But come back twenty or thirty years hence, and we'll shew you arts and sciences.' Boswell's Corsica, p. 172.
[655] 'The Duke of Cumberland had been forbidden the Court on his marriage with Mrs. Horton, a year before; but on the Duke of Gloucester's avowal of his marriage with Lady Waldegrave, the King's indignation found vent in the Royal Marriage Act: which was hotly opposed by the Whigs as an edict of tyranny. Goldsmith (perhaps for Burke's sake) helped to make it unpopular with the people: "We'll go to France", says Hastings to Miss Neville, "for there, even among slaves, the laws of marriage are respected." Said on the first night this had directed repeated cheering to the Duke of Gloucester, who sat in one of the boxes.' Forster's Goldsmith, ii. 358. See ante, ii. 152.
[656] Stenography, by John Angell, 1758.
[657] See post, April 10, 1778.
[658] See ante, ii.