what sorts." He replied, "With cedars and cypresses." "Bless me, my lord," replied the gardener, "all the nurseries in this county would not furnish a hundredth part." "No matter, send for them from London: and they were brought by land carriage." Certainly, there was not much in this beyond the natural desire of every improver to shut out a disagreeable object, by putting an agreeable one in its place. His general object was the natural one of preventing all noise—a point of importance with every sufferer under a wakeful and miserable disease. His appetite was delicate and fanciful, and a succession of chickens were kept boiling and roasting at every hour, to be ready whenever he should call. He at length grew weary of his residence and, after selling Hayes, took a longing to return there. After considerable negotiation with Mr Thomas Walpole the purchaser, he obtained it again, and we hear no more of his madness.
The session was one of continual intrigues, constant exhibitions of subtlety amongst the leaders of the party, which at this distance of time are only ridiculous, and intricate discussions, which are now among the lumber of debate. Townshend, if he gained nothing else, gained the freedom of the city for his conduct on the East India and Dividend bills, for which, as Walpole says, "he deserved nothing but censure." A contemptuous epigram appeared on the occasion by "somebody a little more sagacious"—that "somebody" probably being Walpole himself:
"The joke of Townshend's box is little known,
Great judgment in the thing the cits have shown;
The compliment was an expedient clever,
To rid them of the like expense for ever.
Of so burlesque a choice the example sure
For city boxes must all longing cure,
The honor'd Ostracism at Athens fell,
Soon as Hyperbolus had got the shell."
It is scarcely possible to think that an epigram of this heavy order could have been praised by Walpole, if his criticism had not been tempered by the tenderness of paternity.
We then have a character of a man embalmed in the contempt poured upon him by Junius—the Duke of Grafton. Though less bitter, it is equally scornful. "Hitherto," says Walpole, "he had passed for a man of much obstinacy and firmness, of strict honour, devoid of ambition, and, though reserved, more diffident than designing. He retained so much of this character, as to justify those who had mistaken the rest. If he precipitated himself into the most sudden and inextricable contradictions, at least he pursued the object of the moment with inflexible ardour. If he abandoned himself to total negligence of business, in pursuit of his sports and pleasures, the love of power never quitted him; and, when his will was disputed, no man was more imperiously arbitrary. If his designs were not deeply laid, at least they were conducted in profound silence. He rarely pardoned those who did not guess his inclination. It was necessary to guess, so rare was any instance of his unbosoming himself to either friends or confidants. Why his honour had been so highly rated I can less account, except that he had advertised it, and that obstinate young men are apt to have high notions, before they have practised the world, and essayed their own virtue."
At length, after a vast variety of intrigues, which threw the public life of those days into the most contemptible point of view, the King being made virtually a cipher, while the families of the Hertfords, Buckinghams, and Rockinghams trafficked the high offices of state as children would barter toys; an administration was tardily formed. Walpole, who seemed to take a sort of dilettante pleasure in constructing those intrigues, and making himself wretched at their failure, while nobody suffered him to take advantage of their success; now gave himself a holiday, and went to relax in Paris for six weeks—his relaxation consisting of gossip amongst the literary ladies of the capital. During his absence an event happened which, though it did not break up the ministry, yet must have had considerable
effect in its influence on the House of Commons. This was the death of the celebrated Charles Townshend, on the 4th of September 1767, in the forty-second year of his age. The cause of his death was a neglected fever; if even this did not arise from his carelessness of health, and those habits which, if not amounting to intemperance, were certainly trespasses on his constitution. Walpole speaks of him with continual admiration of his genius, and continual contempt of his principles. He also thinks, that he had arrived at his highest fame, or, in his peculiar phrase, "that his genius could have received no accession of brightness, while his faults only promised multiplication." Walpole, with no pretence to rival, probably envied this singular personage; for, whenever he begins by panegyric, he uniformly ends with a sting. One of the Notes gives an extract on Sir George Colebrook's Memoirs, which perhaps places his faculties in a more favourable point of view than the high-coloured eulogium of Burke, or the polished insinuations of Walpole. Sir George tells us, that Townshend's object was to be prime minister, and that he would doubtless have attained that object had he lived to see the Duke of Grafton's resignation. Lord North succeeded him as chancellor of the exchequer, and Townshend would evidently have preceded him as prime minister. "As a private man, his friends were used to say, that they should not see his like again. Though they were often the butts of his wit, they always returned to his company with fresh delight, which they would not have done had there been either malice or rancour in what he said. He loved society, and in his choice of friends preferred those over whom he had a decided superiority of talent. He was satisfied when he had put the table in a roar, and he did not like to see it done by another. When Garrick and Foote were present, he took the lead, and hardly allowed them an opportunity of showing their talents for mimicry, because he could excel them in their own art. He shone particularly in taking off the principal members of the House of Commons. Among the few whom he feared was Mr Selwyn, and at a dinner at Lord Gower's they had a trial of skill, in which Mr Selwyn prevailed. When the company broke up, Mr Townshend, to show that he had no animosity, carried him in his carriage to White's; and, as they parted, Selwyn could not help saying—'Remember, this is the first set-down you have given me to-day.'"
As Townshend lived at a considerable expense, and had little paternal fortune, he speculated occasionally in both the French and English funds. One of the incidents related by Sir George, and without a syllable of censure too, throws on him an imputation of trickery which, in our later day, would utterly destroy any public man. "When he was chancellor of the exchequer, he came in his nightgown to a dinner given by the Duke of Grafton to several of the principal men of the city to settle the loan. After dinner, when the terms were settled, and every body present wished to introduce some friend on the list of subscribers, he pretended to cast up the sums already admitted, said the loan was full, huddled up his papers, got into a chair, and returned home, reserving to himself by this manœuvre a large share of the loan." An act of this kind exhibits the honesty of the last age in a very equivocal point of view. If proud of nothing else, we may be proud of the public sense of responsibility; in our day, it may be presumed that such an act would be impossible, for it would inevitably involve the ruin of the perpetrator, followed by the ruin of any ministry which would dare to defend him.
At this period died a brother of the king, Edward Duke of York, a man devoted to pleasure, headstrong in his temper, and ignorant in his conceptions. "Immoderate travelling, followed by immoderate balls and entertainments," had long kept his blood in a peculiar state of accessibility to disease. He died of a putrid fever. Walpole makes a panegyric on the Duke of Gloucester, his brother; of which a part may be supposed due to the Duke's marriage with Lady Waldegrave, a marriage which provoked the indignation of the King, and which
once threatened political evils of a formidable nature. Henry, the Duke of Cumberland, was also an unfortunate specimen of the blood royal. He is described as having the babbling loquacity of the Duke of York, without his talents; as at once arrogant and low; presuming on his rank as a prince, and degrading himself by an association with low company. Still, we are to remember Walpole's propensity to sarcasm, the enjoyment which he seems to have felt in shooting his brilliant missiles at all ranks superior to his own; and his especial hostility to George the Third, one of the honestest monarchs that ever sat upon a throne.