“My lodging is on the cold ground, and very hard is my case,
But that which grieves me most of all is the losing of my place.”
T. ROWLANDSON: THE HANOVERIAN HORSE AND THE BRITISH LION. MARCH, 1784.
[Page 268.
The royal physician, Dr. Munro, is examining the patient through his eye-glass, and attesting, “As I have not the least hope of his recovery, let him be removed amongst the Incurables.”
“Dazzled with hope, he could not see the cheat
Of aiming with impatience to be great.
With wild ambition in his heart, we find,
Farewell content and quiet of his mind;
For glittering clouds he left the solid shore,
And wonted happiness returns no more.”
The most active and successful of Fox’s canvassers was undoubtedly the Duchess of Devonshire, who, by the influence of her personal charms and her winning affability, succeeded in procuring for the Whig chief votes which would never have otherwise been polled in his favour. It was of the beautiful and winsome Georgiana Spencer, that Hannay said the Spencers had laid the world under further obligations by sending forth a second “Fairy Queen,” and it was the Westminster Election of 1784 which first brought into celebrity this gay and graceful leader of fashion, who, by universal suffrage, was the Queen of the Foxites. In the earlier stages Fox was behind both his opponents, and although Cecil Wray had only a small majority, Fox was at his last gasp. The story is told in Wraxall’s “Posthumous Memoirs” by an eye-witness of the incidents:—
THE DEVONSHIRE, OR MOST APPROVED MANNER OF SECURING VOTES. 1784. BY T. ROWLANDSON.
“However courtiers take offence,
And cits and prudes may join, Sir,
Beauty will ever influence
The free and generous mind, Sir.