The History of King George the Third. Horace Walpole

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СКАЧАТЬ sanction of their names, had kept together an appearance of numbers, which dwindled away as our hopes of success vanished. What farther regards us as a party will be mentioned in its place. I now return to the other occurrences of the year.

       Two vacant garters were bestowed on the Duke of Mecklenberg476 and Lord Halifax. About the same time died at Paris the King’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour. She retained her power to the last, though their amour had long been exhausted. The Duc de Choiseul, whom she had destined for Minister, succeeded her in the King’s confidence without a rival.

      May 4th, Beardmore, one of the persecuted writers, carried his cause against the messengers, and recovered one thousand pounds for damages.

      On the 9th Mr. Conway’s late regiment was given to the Earl of Pembroke; not without occasioning remarks a little disadvantageous to the standard of his Majesty’s piety. Lord Pembroke, one of the wildest young men of the times, had been dismissed from the King’s bedchamber for debauching and eloping with a young lady of distinction, though married to a more beautiful woman, sister of the Duke of Marlborough. Nobody could tell what the King had to do to interfere in that intrigue: but having done so, it seemed little consistent to reward a young profligate477 with the spoils of a man strictly virtuous and conscientious. It was now remembered that at the beginning of this reign, the Earl of Dartmouth, a young nobleman as pious as Lord Pembroke was licentious, had applied to be of the King’s bedchamber, but had been rejected by Lord Bute, lest so sanctimonious a man should gain too far on his Majesty’s piety. An instance that if it proved the religion of the King, did not bear witness to that of the Favourite. But in such a theatre of hypocrisy, it mattered little who was the principal impostor.

      On the 15th died Dr. Osbaldiston, Bishop of London; and the next day Lord Chancellor Henley was created Earl of Northington, a step not communicated to the Duke of Bedford, who much resented it. But Grenville was more mortified, who found himself excluded from the nomination of the new Bishop of London. He had wished to raise Newton478 to that mitre, but Lord Bute procured it for Terrick. This man, with no glimmering of parts or knowledge, had, on the merit of a sonorous delivery, and by an assiduity of back-stairs address, wriggled himself into a sort of general favour; and by timing his visits luckily, had been promoted by the Duke of Devonshire to the See of Peterborough. Yet he had been of the first, notoriously obliged to that Duke, to abandon him on his fall, sailing headlong with the tide after the Favourite’s triumph. Again, when the Favourite retired, Terrick, who was minister of my parish,479 was lavish to me of invectives against that Lord; and sifted me eagerly to learn in what channel Court favour was likely to flow. Having soon perceived his mistake, he had made out a distant affinity with Worseley,480 a creature of Lord Bute, and a kind of riding-master to the King; and now to Grenville’s surprise rose, all unworthy as he was, to so eminent a station in the Church. This detail I communicated to Dr. Lyttelton, Bishop of Carlisle, who adhered to George Grenville amidst their family breaches; and who, being both gossiping and mischievous, kept up an acquaintance with me of ancient date, that he might from my warmth collect materials to carry to Grenville. I took care to furnish him according to his wish. It was wormwood to Grenville to learn this proof of the Favourite’s still subsisting ascendant; and when I had once set them on the scent, I knew they would touch on it in more instances than this.

      On the 22nd Philip Carteret Webbe was tried for perjury, being accused of having forsworn himself in the cause against Wilkes. The jury stayed out fifty-five minutes, but at last acquitted him: a vindication that no more cleared his character than conviction would have made it worse.

      The Earl of Northumberland481 returned from Ireland, where his profusion and ostentation had been so great,482 that it seemed to lay a dangerous precedent for succeeding governors, who must risk unpopularity if more parsimonious; or the ruin of their fortune, should they imitate his example. At his departure he broke with William Gerard Hamilton,483 his secretary, and dismissed him to make way for the Earl of Drogheda,484 the favourite both of Lady Northumberland and the Primate.

      Lord Northumberland had an advantageous figure and much courtesy in his address, which being supported by the most expensive magnificence, made him exceedingly popular with the meaner sort. They who viewed him nearer, were not the dupes of his affability or pretensions. The old nobility beheld his pride with envy and anger; and thence were the less disposed to overlook the littleness of his temper, or the slender portion he possessed of abilities; for his expense was a mere sacrifice to vanity, as appeared by his sordid and illiberal behaviour at play. Nor were his talents more solid than his generosity. With mechanic application to every branch of knowledge, he possessed none beyond the surface; and having an unbounded propensity to discussion, he disgusted his hearers without informing them. Yet his equals were but ill-grounded in their contempt of him. Very few of them knew so much; and there were still fewer that had not more noxious vices, and as ungenerous hearts. Lord Northumberland’s foibles ought to have passed almost for virtues in an age so destitute of intrinsic merit.485

      The Countess of Northumberland was a jovial heap of contradictions. The blood of all the Percies and Seymours swelled in her veins and in her fancy; while her person was more vulgar than anything but her conversation, which was larded indiscriminately with stories of her ancestors and her footmen. Show, and crowds, and junketting, were her endless pursuits. She was familiar with the mob, while stifled with diamonds; and yet was attentive to the most minute privileges of her rank, while almost shaking hands with a cobbler. Nothing was more mean than her assiduity about the King and Queen, whom she termed her Master and Mistress; and yet, though indirectly reprimanded by the latter, she persisted in following her Majesty to the theatres with a longer retinue of domestics than waited on the Queen herself. She had revived the drummers and pipers and obsolete minstrels of her family; and her own buxom countenance at the tail of such a procession, gave it all the air of an antiquated pageant or mumming. She was mischievous under the appearance of frankness; generous and friendly without delicacy or sentiment.486

      Lord Northumberland’s son, Lord Warkworth, was married to the third daughter of the Favourite;487 on which foundation the father was admitted to the private junto, which now met daily at Mr. Stone’s.488 It was composed of Lord Bute, Lord Northumberland, Lord Mansfield, Norton, Stone, and the brother of the latter, the famous Primate of Ireland, who bad followed the Lord-Lieutenant to London; coming, as he outwardly professed, to promote harmony and reconciliation. As he died soon after, before he had given any specimens of his arts here, I pretend not to say what were the real motives of his journey. He did visit Mr. Pitt; but a man so notorious for cunning as the Primate, was not likely to win on the caution of Mr. Pitt, who never was explicit, and least of all to men of abilities. It appeared, however, from the meetings I have mentioned, and other symptoms, that the Favourite was peeping out of his lurking-hole, and was disposed to let his power be felt. Grenville, though drunk with vanity, was sober enough to be stung with any competition; and yet his obstinacy disgusted those whom it was most necessary for him to attach. He offended the Duke of Bedford and Lord Halifax by refusing to let the Treasury bear the whole charge of the fines imposed on the messengers. The Duke experienced so many slights, that he kept retired in the country, and Rigby went to France, professing that it was to be absent, lest he should be blamed if the Duke should submit to such ignominious treatment; but Rigby had, no doubt, secured the Duke’s submission before he ventured to leave him, as he called it, to himself. However, the Duke of Cumberland was so much misled by those wayward humours, that before the end of the summer he sent Lord Albemarle489 to Woburn, to sound their dispositions, and endeavour to draw them from the Court. Not one, not his own sister, Lady Tavistock, would talk to him on politics; only the Duchess said drily, that her husband was Minister, and that everything was done that he desired. Mr. Pitt had said more truly, some time before, “They will disgust the Duke of Bedford in the spring, that they may not be teazed with his solicitations; and they will sweeten him again by winter, with some trifling favour, that he may give them no trouble in Parliament.”

      END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

      FOOTNOTES

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