[52] The “cornuted” effect of these peculiarly fashioned wigs, especially when seen from the back, is, perhaps, accountable—with the pun on the parson’s Christian name of Horne—for the quotation engraved above the plate in question,—“Mine horn shall be exalted, like the horn of an Unicorn (Psalm 93).”
[53] The Duke of Grafton was first lord of the treasury, 1767 to 1780.
[54] John Wilkes.
[55] George Fletcher, executed 1746.
[56] Samuel Turner and Sir Robert Ladbrooke were unstable, and a few months later, “ratted” and becoming subservient to Court influence, did their best to betray the liberties of the citizens confided to their championship.
[57] A mark being equivalent to 13s. 4d.
[58] According to the return of 1826 there were three hundred voters.
[59] Sheridan, according to Lord Byron’s dictum, had produced the three best compositions of his age in their respective lines: the best comedy, “The School for Scandal;” the best parliamentary philippic, the “Begum speech” against Warren Hastings; and pronounced the finest funeral oration, the monody on Garrick.
“The pride of the palace, the bower, and the hall,
The orator, dramatist, minstrel who ran
Through each mode of the lyre and was master of all.”
[60] A necessary qualification, members being, by supposition, expected to reside in the places they represented.