Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third (Vol. 1-4). Horace Walpole
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1769. The murderer was convicted, and only escaped execution by hanging himself in prison. Wood’s Peerage of Scotland, vol. i.—E.
39 George Broderick, Viscount Middleton. He had married the eldest daughter of the Honourable Thomas Townshend, and great-niece of the Duke of Newcastle, and died in 1765, aged 35. He was the grandson of Lord Chancellor Broderick.—E.
40 Andrew Stone, of whom see more in the preceding reign, and infra.
41 Smith de Burgh, Earl of Clanrickard.
42 Richard Rigby, of Mistley, near Manningtree, in Essex, Secretary to the Duke of Bedford.
43 This tract may still be read with interest. It is a masterly production. The style is clear and persuasive, the tone calm, and the reasoning close and logical. The examples from English history with which the author supports his positions are skilfully chosen and agreeably introduced, and his strictures on the King of Prussia have a smartness and pungency that show no small command over the weapons of controversy. Mr. Mauduit was agent for Massachusetts. He wrote several tracts on the differences between England and her American Colonies, as well as on subjects connected with the Dissenting interests, of which he was a zealous and munificent promoter. He died unmarried, in June 1787, aged 72. See Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes, vol. viii. p. 466; and Chalmers’s Biographical Dictionary, Art. Mauduit.—E.
44 Basil Fielding, Earl of Denbigh, Lord of the Bedchamber.
45 Son of Mr. Grenville, of Wooton, and afterwards First Lord of the Treasury. He had for some time been looked upon as a very promising statesman. Mr. Glover, in writing of him a few years before, says, “George Grenville will, I believe, make the most useful and able Parliament man of the three, though not of equal eloquence with Pitt.”—Mem. of a Distinguished Pol. and Lit. Character, p. 20.
His memory is embalmed in the brilliant panegyric of Mr. Burke (speech on American Taxation); and a more sober, though not less friendly estimate of his merits, has been since given by Mr. Knox. (Cited in an interesting note to the Chatham Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 486.) These prove how highly he was esteemed by his friends; and it will be perceived in the course of this work that Walpole was not always blind to his great knowledge of the Constitution, his capacity for business, and his powers as a speaker in Parliament. The unfavourable opinion, however, expressed of Mr. Grenville in the text was by no means confined to Walpole, his unpopularity being remarkable. Justice, indeed, was never shown to his abilities by the public—even Dr. Johnson wrote of him, “Let him not be depreciated in his grave. He had powers not universally possessed; could he have enforced payment of the Manilla ransom, he could have counted it.” (Cited in Boswell, vol. ii. p. 113.)—E.
46 Archibald Campbell, Duke of Argyle, died suddenly, March 15, 1761.
47 The King.
48 Sir Henry Erskine, though a moderate poet, was not meanly accomplished. He cultivated literature, and was a very lively companion. He spoke frequently in the House of Commons, and always fluently and with spirit, but in a style better suited to the hustings than to a deliberative assembly. His career was singular. He was the second son of Sir John Erskine, Bart., of Alva, and succeeded to his title on the death of his brother, Major Sir Charles Erskine, at Holst, just before the battle of Lafeldt. He accompanied the expedition to L’Orient, as Deputy Quarter-Master General of the Forces, under his uncle, General St. Clair. Devoting himself afterwards to politics, he shared the proscription which fell on the adherents of Leicester House, and was dismissed the service. The new reign amply restored his fortunes. With his commission he soon received the command of the Royal Scots; and in four years he had already attained the rank of Lieutenant-General, when he died, in 1765, in middle life. His marriage with Miss Wedderburn, little as it promised at the time of worldly advantage, brought wealth and rank into his family; the earldom and property of her brother, Lord Chancellor Rosslyn, having devolved subsequently on their eldest son, owing to the death of that nobleman and his brother, General Wedderburn, without issue.—E.
49 John Home, author of the tragedies of Douglas, Agis, and Siege of Aquileia; of which none save Douglas (says Sir Walter Scott) were exhibited with remarkable applause, and one or two with marked disapprobation. Mr. Home, though not a first-rate dramatist, was a pleasing writer, well-informed, and very agreeable in society. George the Third became much attached to him, and provided for him on coming to the throne. He died in 1808, aged 84. His memoirs have been elegantly written by Mackenzie, and form the subject of one of Walter Scott’s beautiful criticisms in the Quarterly Review for June 1827.—E.
50 Thomas Worseley, Surveyor General of the Board of Works.
51 George Cooke, prothonotary of the Common Pleas, and member for Middlesex. Walpole calls him elsewhere a “pompous Jacobite.” He conducted the celebrated Westminster Petition against Lord Trentham in 1751; afterwards attaching himself to Mr. Pitt, he was appointed joint Paymaster-General in 1766, and died in 1768.—E.
52 Thomas Coventry, member for Bridport. A barrister, and director of the South Sea Company. He was son of Thomas Coventry, who was brother of William fifth Earl of Coventry.—E.
53 Alderman William Beckford, of Jamaica, member for the City of London.
54 Henry Bilson Legge, a younger son of the first Earl of Dartmouth, was at this time Chancellor of the Exchequer. It should be remembered that Mr. Legge had abandoned Lord Winchelsea, and attached himself to Mr. Pelham in the Cabinet schism of 1744. He shared, with many respectable statesmen of that day, the charge of having served several masters, the partial changes so frequently made in the Government having rendered coalitions almost inevitable, especially at a time when, owing to the decline of Jacobitism, the lines of demarcation between the different political parties had become very indistinct. None, however, with whom he acted, could deny his eminent qualifications as a man of business, or as a debater in the House of Commons on all questions of trade and finance. His political integrity is less commendable. Dodington says, that his thoughts were “tout pour la trippe”—all for quarter-day (Diary, 407); and has, in common with Walpole, reproached him with perfidy, in disclosing to the Duke of Newcastle the negotiations of Leicester House with the Court in 1757. The more detailed account of the transaction, since published in the posthumous memoirs of Mr. Glover, makes it far more probable that the secret was insidiously drawn from him by the Duke, whose skill in imposing on men of superior ability to his own, is one of the most remarkable traits of his character; and that Mr. Legge was very open to such arts, may reasonably be inferred, from the well-known fact of his having incurred the serious displeasure of George the Second by an indiscreet slip in conversation, when minister at Berlin. He had the laxity of principle that belonged to the school of Walpole, but there is no ground for believing him to have been actually dishonest; and Mr. Pelham, who knew him well, said, “that he thought him as good as his neighbours: more able, and as willing, to serve them that served him as anybody he had been acquainted with for some time.” Whatever