Send me "Walpoliana," I have lost or mislaid mine. Are there any memoirs about the date of 1743, or later, beside Bubb's?
That Mr. Croker made all haste and exercised his usual painstaking industry in doing "this little job" for Mr. Murray will be evident from the following letters:
Mr. Croker to John Murray.
December 27, 1820.
DEAR MURRAY,
I have done "Lady Hervey." I hear that there is a Mr. Vincent in the Treasury, the son of a Mr. and Mrs. Vincent, to whom the late General Hervey, the favourite son of Lady Hervey, left his fortune and his papers. Could you find out who they are? Nothing is more surprising than the ignorance in which I find all Lady Hervey's descendants about her. Most of them never heard her maiden name. It reminds one of Walpole writing to George Montagu, to tell him who his grandmother was! I am anxious to knock off this task whilst what little I know of it is fresh in my recollection; for I foresee that much of the entertainment of the work must depend on the elucidations in the Notes.
Yours,
J.W.C.
The publication of Lady Hervey's letters in 1821 was so successful that Mr. Croker was afterwards induced to edit, with great advantage, letters and memorials of a similar character. [Footnote: As late as 1848, Mr. Croker edited Lord Hervey's "Memoirs of the Court of George II. and Queen Caroline," from the family archives at Ickworth. The editor in his preface said that Lord Hervey was almost the Boswell of George II. and Queen Caroline.]
The next important mémoires pour servir were brought under Mr.
Murray's notice by Lord Holland, in the following letter: