The History of King George the Third. Horace Walpole

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СКАЧАТЬ John Wilkes.—Churchill, Wilkes’s Associate.—Earl Temple.—Capture and recapture of Newfoundland.—The French camp surprised by Prince Ferdinand.—Propensity of the Court for Peace.—General Conway—Peter the Third.—The Czarina Elizabeth.—The Empress Catherine.—Horrible Conspiracy against Peter.—Catherine raised to the Throne.—Murder of Peter.—Effect of the Russian Revolution on the King of Prussia.

      Every honour the Crown could bestow was now to be heaped on the Favourite. He was fond of his own person, and obtained the Garter in company with Prince William.228 His first levée was crowded like a triumph. Archbishop Secker, who waited at it, pretended that, seeing a great concourse as he came from Lambeth,229 he had inquired the occasion, and had gone in. Lincoln’s-inn-fields, where the Duke of Newcastle lived, was not now in the way to Lambeth. About the same time died Lord Anson, and left the Admiralty too at the disposal of the Favourite. He wished to bestow it on Lord Sandwich, to make room for Rigby, as Vice-Treasurer of Ireland; but the shyness of the Duke of Cumberland, whose creature Sandwich was, made that measure impracticable; and the Admiralty was bestowed on Lord Halifax, with permission to retain Ireland for a year. Elliot,230 a chief confident of the Favourite, was appointed Treasurer of the Chambers; and Lord Melcombe a cabinet councillor: but there ended all the ambition of the latter, he dying of a dropsy in his stomach a few weeks afterwards.

      These successes and the tide of power swelled the weak bladder of the Favourite’s mind to the highest pitch. His own style was haughty and distant; that of his creatures insolent. Many persons who had absented themselves from his levée were threatened with the loss of their own, or the places of their relations, and were obliged to bow the knee. But this sunshine drew up very malignant vapours. Scarce was the Earl seated but one step below the throne, when a most virulent weekly paper appeared, called the North Briton. Unawed by the prosecution of the Monitor (another opponent periodic satire, the author of which had been taken up for abusing favourites), and though combated by two Court papers called the Briton and the Auditor (the former written by Smollet,231 and the latter by Murphy,232 and both which the new champion fairly silenced in a few weeks), the North Briton proceeded with an acrimony, a spirit, and a licentiousness unheard of before even in this country. The highest names, whether of statesmen or magistrates, were printed at length, and the insinuations went still higher. In general, favouritism was the topic, and the partiality of the Court to the Scots. Every obsolete anecdote, every illiberal invective, was raked up and set forth in strong and witty colours against Scotland. One of the first numbers was one of the most outrageous, the theme taken from the loves of Queen Isabella and Mortimer. No doubt but it lay open enough to prosecution, and the intention was to seize the author. But on reflection it was not thought advisable to enter on the discussion of such a subject in Westminster Hall; and, as the daring audaciousness of the writer promised little decorum, it was held prudent to wait till he should furnish a less delicate handle to vengeance: a circumspection that deceived and fell heavy on the author, who, being advised to more caution in his compositions, replied, he had tried the temper of the Court by the paper on Mortimer, and found they did not dare to touch him.

      This author, who must be so often mentioned in the following pages, was John Wilkes, member of Parliament for Ailesbury. He was of a plebeian family,233 but inherited a tolerable fortune in Buckinghamshire, and had been bred at Oxford, where he distinguished himself by humorous attacks on whatever was esteemed most holy and respectable. Unrestrained either in his conduct or conversation, he was allowed to have more wit than in truth he possessed; and, living with rakes and second-rate authors, he had acquired fame such as it was, in the middling sphere of life, before his name was so much as known to the public. His appearance as an orator had by no means conspired to make him more noticed. He spoke coldly and insipidly, though with impertinence; his manner was poor, and his countenance horrid. When his pen, which possessed an easy impudent style, had drawn the attention of mankind towards him, and it was asked, who this saucy writer was? Fame, that had adopted him, could furnish but scurvy anecdotes of his private life. He had married a woman of fortune, used her ill, and at last cruelly, to extort from her the provision he had made for her separate maintenance; he had debauched a maiden of family by an informal promise of marriage, and had been guilty of other frauds and breaches of trust. Yet the man, bitter as he was in his political writings, was commonly not ill-natured or acrimonious. Wantonness, rather than ambition or vengeance, guided his hand; and, though he became the martyr of the best cause, there was nothing in his principles or morals that led him to care under what government he lived. To laugh and riot and scatter firebrands, with him was liberty. Despotism will for ever reproach Freedom with the profligacy of such a saint!

      Associated with Wilkes in pleasure and in the composition of the North Briton was a clergyman named Churchill, who stepped out of obscurity about the same period, and was as open a contemner of decency as Wilkes himself, but far his superior in the endowments of his mind. Adapted to the bear-garden by his athletic mould, Churchill had frequented no school so much as the theatres. He had existed by the lowest drudgery of his function, while poetry amused what leisure he could spare, or rather what leisure he would enjoy; for his Muse, and his mistress, and his bottle were so essential to his existence, that they engrossed all but the refuse of his time. Yet for some years his poetry had proved as indifferent as his sermons, till a cruel and ill-natured satire on the actors had, in the first year of this reign, handed him up to public regard. Having caught the taste of the town, he proceeded rapidly, and in a few more publications started forth a giant in numbers, approaching as nearly as possible to his model Dryden, and flinging again on the wild neck of Pegasus the reins which Pope had held with so tight and cautious a hand. Imagination, harmony, wit, satire, strength, fire, and sense crowded on his compositions; and they were welcome for him—he neither sought nor invited their company. Careless of matter and manner, he added grace to sense, or beauty to nonsense, just as they came in his way; and he could not help being sonorous, even when he was unintelligible. He advertised the titles of his poems, but neither planned nor began them till his booksellers, or his own want of money, forced him to thrust out the crude but glorious sallies of his uncorrected fancy. This bacchanalian priest, now mouthing patriotism, and now venting libertinism, the scourge of bad men, and scarce better than the worst, debauching wives, and protecting his gown by the weight of his fist, engaged with Wilkes in his war on the Scots; and sometimes learning, and as often not knowing, the characters he attacked,234 set himself up as the Hercules that was to cleanse the State, and punish its oppressors: and, true it is, the storm that saved us was raised in taverns and night-cellars; so much more effectual were the orgies of Churchill and Wilkes than the daggers of Cato and Brutus. The two former saved their country, while Catiline could not ruin his,—a work to which such worthies seemed much better adapted.

      But while the wit and revelry of Wilkes and Churchill ran riot, and were diverted by their dissipation to other subjects of pleasantry or satire, they had a familiar at their ear, whose venom was never distilled at random, but each drop administered to some precious work of mischief. This was Earl Temple, who whispered them where they might find torches, but took care never to be seen to light one himself. Characters so rash and imprudent were proper vehicles of his spite; and he enjoyed the two points he preferred even to power,—vengeance, and a whole skin.

      This triumvirate has made me often reflect that nations are most commonly saved by the worst men in them. The virtuous are too scrupulous to go the lengths that are necessary to rouse the people against their tyrants.

      While Wilkes and Churchill attacked the plenitude of the Favourite’s power, another cloud overcast it, which, though inconsiderable and of short duration, contributed to lower him in the estimation of the people. An account arrived of the French having surprised and made themselves masters of Newfoundland. General Amherst235 did not wait for orders from hence, but, detaching his brother with a body of forces, recovered the island, and made the French commander prisoner.

      Prince Ferdinand, not less active and vigilant, had surprised the French camp, desirous of embarking us farther in the war, and hoping that new successes would animate the nation to resist the propensity of the Court for peace. General Conway took the castle of Waldeck by stratagem; and the Hessians triumphed in other attempts.236 The Prince told Mr. Conway that we might СКАЧАТЬ