[271b] Pontack, of Abchurch Lane, son of Arnaud de Pontac, President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, was proprietor of the most fashionable eating-house in London. There the Royal Society met annually at dinner until 1746. Several writers speak of the dinners at a guinea a head and upwards served at Pontack’s, and Swift comments on the price of the wine.
[272a] “His name was Read” (Scott).
[272b] Up to the end of 1709 the warrants for the payment of the works at Blenheim had been regularly issued by Godolphin and paid at the Treasury; over £200,000 was expended in this manner. But after the dismissal of the Whigs the Queen drew tight the purse-strings. The £20,000 mentioned by Swift was paid in 1711, but on June 1, 1712, Anne gave positive orders that nothing further should be allowed for Blenheim, though £12,000 remained due to the contractors.
[273a] The piercing of the lines before Bouchain, which Villars had declared to be the non plus ultra of the Allies, one of the most striking proofs of Marlborough’s military genius.
[274a] A fashionable gaming-house in St. James’s Street.
[274b] See p. [37]. The Grange, near Alresford, Hampshire, was Henley’s seat. His wife (see p. [117]) was the daughter of Peregrine Bertie, son of Montagu Bertie, second Earl of Lindsey; and Earl Poulett (see p. [190]) married Bridget, an elder daughter of Bertie’s.
[274c] William Henry Hyde, Earl of Danby, grandson of the first Duke of Leeds (see p. [60]), and eldest son of Peregrine Osborne, Baron Osborne and Viscount Dunblane, who succeeded to the dukedom in 1712. Owing to this young man’s death (at the age of twenty-one), his brother, Peregrine Hyde, Marquis of Caermarthen, who married Harley’s daughter Elizabeth, afterwards became third Duke of Leeds.