LORD ARRAN DEAD
On December 17 the Earl of Arran died; he had married Mr. Montagu’s relation, Elizabeth, daughter of Lord Crewe of Stene, who brought him a large fortune. It was an unhappy marriage, and Mrs. Montagu hints that, had Lady Arran treated her husband as he deserved, her money would have come to Mr. Montagu and Lady Mary Gregory. He died at eighty-eight. His sister, Lady Emily Butler,
“is a surprising woman, healthy and lively at past 99! Mr. Boscawen yesterday show’d us a box of horrid implements with which the French cannon was charged at Louisbourg, rusty locks, pieces of pokers, curling tongs, nails in abundance and all sorts of iron instruments, and this not for want of ammunition, but wanton cruelty. He found the cannons loaded with these as well as ball. General Wolfe had a gridiron shot at him; it fell short of him, but he had it taken up and straiten’d and eat a beef steak broil’d upon it.”
EDMUND BURKE
In a letter undated, but presumably at the end of December, Mrs. Montagu says—
“Lord Bath said there had been but three speeches in Parliament this year; one was Lord Middleton’s,[233] who said he would give all he was worth to support the war; the other Sir Michael Grosvenor’s,[234] who said he would lend all he was worth; and the third, Mr. Pitt’s, who said he would take all they were both worth.... If Mr. Isaacson wants any enquiries made at Cork, I can get good intelligence by means of Mr. Burke, a young lawyer by profession, tho’ an author by practice, for he wrote Natural History[235] preferable to Artificial; he has several acquaintance of credit at Cork, you have often heard me mention him.”
[233] 3rd Viscount Middleton.
[234] Sir Richard Grosvenor, afterwards 1st Earl Grosvenor.
[235] “Vindication of Natural Society,” his first avowed work copied for him by Emin, and published in 1756.
This is the third mention of Edmund Burke, the first being in a letter of Emin’s, whose patron he was, to Dr. Monsey.