[255:1] The Pegnitz.
[257:1] Sir Thomas Robinson, whose name has dropped out of recollection in the ordinary biographical dictionaries, but is still familiar to the readers of the history of the period, was for some time ambassador at Vienna, and was plenipotentiary from Britain at the treaty of Aix La Chapelle in 1748. In 1754 he became secretary of state for a few months. In 1761 he was raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Grantham. "Sir Thomas," says Walpole, "had been bred in German courts, and was rather restored than naturalized to the genius of that country; he had German honour, loved German politics, and could explain himself as little as if he spoke only German."—Memoires of George III. 337. According to the same authority, he was subjected, on account of his name, to an identification with Robinson Crusoe, something like that with which Madame Talleyrand honoured Denon, owing to the accident of his being a great traveller whose name ended in "on."
Sir T. Robinson was a tall uncouth man, and his stature was often rendered still more remarkable by his hunting dress, a postilion's cap, a tight green jacket, and buckskin breeches. He was liable to sudden whims; and once set off on a sudden, in his hunting suit, to visit his sister, who was married and settled at Paris. He arrived while there was a large company at dinner. The servant announced Mr. Robinson, and he came in, to the great amazement of the guests. Among others a French abbé thrice lifted his fork to his mouth, and thrice laid it down, with an eager stare of surprise. Unable to restrain his curiosity any longer, he burst out with, "Excuse me, sir; are you the famous Robinson Crusoe so remarkable in history."—Walpoliana.
[260:1] An Irish baronet, grandson of Sir James Caldwell who was created a baronet in 1683, and distinguished himself in the service of William III. during the Irish revolutionary wars. The person commemorated in so flattering a manner by Hume, rose to considerable rank in the service of the empress, and was enabled to introduce to that service a brother, who obtained in it far more distinction, and who, in connexion with the relationship mentioned above, was called Hume Caldwell. He seems to have been strongly endowed with the mercurial disposition of his countrymen. On his first introduction to the service, he "took expensive lodgings, kept a chariot, a running footman, and a hussar, and was admitted into the highest circles;" the natural result of which was, that, on preparing to join his regiment, when he paid his debts, he found that he had just two gold ducats left; whereupon, as his biographer pathetically narrates, "the companion of princes, the friend of Count Conigsegg, the possessor of a splendid hotel and a gilt chariot, who had kept a hussar and an opera girl, figured at court, and had an audience of the empress, and was possessed of a letter of credit for £1000, set out from Vienna alone, on foot, in a mean habit, and with an empty pocket, for that army in which he was to rise by his merit to a distinguished command." His subsequent history is a little romance. Mr. Hume Caldwell, being lost sight of by the great world, is searched for hither and thither, and at length an Irish private soldier being questioned about the matter, turns out to be Caldwell himself, who is immediately restored to his proper station.—Ryan's Worthies of Ireland.
[264:1] Sic in MS. Perhaps he meant to allude to the junction with the Carpathians through the Bohemian ranges.
[265:1] Et qualem infelix amisit Mantua campum. Georg. ii. 198?
[271:1] Memoirs of the Political and Private Life of James Caulfield, Earl of Charlemont, by Francis Hardy, p. 8.
CHAPTER VII.
1748-1751. Æt. 37-40.