discourse he told me of your speaking on Friday, and that your speech was reckoned hostile to the duke of Newcastle. Then talking of regiments going abroad, he said, *** * With regard to your reserve to me, I can easily believe that your natural modesty made you unwilling to talk of yourself to me, I don't suspect you of any reserve to me: I only mention it now for an occasion of telling you that I don't like to have any body think that I would not do whatever you do. I am of no consequence: but at least it would give me some, to act invariably with you; and that I shall most certainly be ever ready to do. Adieu ! Yours ever. To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq. Arlington-street, March 7, 1761. I REJOICE, you know, in whatever rejoices you, and, though I am not certain what your situation1 is to be, I am glad you go as you like it. I am told it is black rod. Lady Anne Jekyll2 said, she had written to you on Saturday night. I asked when her brother was to go, if before August; she answered: Yes, if possible." Long before October you may depend upon it; in the quietest times no lord lieutenant ever went so late as that. Shall not you come to town first? You cannot pack up yourself, and all you will want, at Greatworth. We are in the utmost hopes of a peace; a congress is agreed upon at Augsbourg, but yesterday's mail brought bad news. Prince Ferdinand has been obliged to raise the siege of Cassel, and to retire to Paderborn; the hereditary prince having been again defeated, with the loss of two generals, and to the value of five thousand men, in prisoners and exchanged. If this defers the peace it will be grievous news to me, now Mr. Conway is gone to the army. The town talks of nothing but an immediate queen, yet I am certain the ministers know not of it. Her picture is come, and lists of her family given about; but the latter I do not send you, as I believe it apocryphal. Adieu! Yours ever. 1 Mr. Montagu was appointed usher of the black rod in Ireland. [Or.] 2 Sister of the earl of Halifax. [Or.] P. S. Have you seen the advertisement of a new noble author? A Treatise of Horsemanship, by Henry earl of Pembroke! As George Selwyn said of Mr. Greville; "so far from being a writer, I thought he was scarce a courteous reader." To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq. Arlington-street, March 17, 1761. If my last letter raised your wonder, this will not allay it. Lord Talbot is lord steward! The stone, which the builders refused, is become the head-stone of the corner. My lady Talbot, I suppose, would have found no charms in cardinal Mazarin. As the duke of Leeds was forced to give way to Jemmy Grenville, the duke of Rutland has been obliged to make room for this new earl. Lord Huntingdon is groom of the stole, and the last duke I have named, master of the horse: the red liveries cost lord Huntingdon a pang. Lord Holderness has the reversion of the Cinque ports for life, and I think may pardon his expulsion. If you propose a fashionable assembly, you must send cards. to lord Spenser, lord Grosvenor, lord Melcomb, lord Grantham, lord Boston, lord Scarsdale, lady Mountstuart, the earl of Tyrconnell, and lord Wintertown. The two last you will meet in Ireland. No joy ever exceeded your cousin's or Doddington's: the former came last night to lady Hilsborough's to display his triumph; the latter, too, was there, and advanced to me. I said, "I was coming to wish you joy”—“ I concluded so,” replied he, 3 It was under the patronage and advice of this nobleman that Mr. Davis, who was for so many years the respected proprietor of Astley's amphitheatre, acquired his unequalled knowledge of the " Manège." [Ed.] 1 His lordship was appointed Lord Steward, and received the earldom on the occasion. He married, February 1734, Mary, daughter and sole heir of Adam de Cardonell, esq., by whom, who died 5th April, 1787, he had a son, William lord Hensol, born November 5th, 1739, died and an only surviving daughter Lady Cecil. His lordship was created in 1780, baron Dynevor, with remainder failing his issue male, to his daughter Cecil and her issue male: and dying in 1782, the earldom became extinct, the barony of Talbot devolved on his nephew John Chetwynd, third lord, in whose favour the earldom was revived, and the barony of Dynevor on his daughter. [Ed.] "and came to receive it." He left a good card yesterday at lady Petersham; a very young lord to wait on lady Petersham, to make her ladyship the first offer of himself. I believe she will be content with the exchequer: Mrs. Grey has a pension of eight hundred pounds a-year. Mrs. Clive is at her villa for Passion-week; I have written to her for the box, but I don't doubt of its being gone; but, considering her alliance, why does not Miss Price bespeak the play and have the stage box. I shall smile if Mr. Bentley, and Müntz, and their two Hannahs meet at St. James's; so as I see neither of them, I care not where they are. Lady Hinchinbrook and lady Mansel are at the point of death; lord Hardwicke is to be poet-laureate; and, according to modern usuage, I suppose it will be made a cabinet-counsellor's place. Good night! Yours ever. To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq. Arlington-street, March 19, 1761. All I CAN now tell you, with great pleasure, that your cousin' is certainly named lord-lieutenant. I wish you joy. You will not be sorry, too, to hear that your lord North is much talked of for succeeding him at the board of trade. I tell you this with great composure, though to-day has been a day of amazement. 'the world is staring, whispering, and questioning. Lord Holderness has resigned the seals, and they are given to lord Bute. Which of the two secretaries of state is first minister? the latter or Mr. Pitt? Lord Holderness received the command but yesterday, at two o'clock, till that moment thinking himself extremely well at court; but it seems the king said he was tired of having two secretaries, of which one would do nothing, and t'other could do nothing; he would have a secretary who both could act and would. Pitt had as short notice of this resolution as the sufferer, and was little better pleased. He is something The earl of Halifax. [Or.] 2 His lordship was sworn in on the 25th March, 1761. [Ed.] 3 softened for the present by the offer of cofferer for Jemmy Grenville, which is to be ceded by the duke of Leeds, who returns to his old post of justice in Eyre, from whence lord Sandys is to be removed, some say to the head of the board of trade. Newcastle, who enjoys this fall of Holderness's, who had deserted him for Pitt, laments over the former, but seems to have made his terms with the new favourite: if the Bedfords have done so, too, will it surprise you? It will me, if Pitt submits to this humiliation; if he does not, I take for granted the duke of Bedford will have the other seals. The temper with which the new reign has hitherto proceeded seems a little impeached by this sudden act, and the earl now stands in the direct light of a minister, if the house of commons should cavil at him. Lord Delawar kissed hands to-day for his earldom, the other new peers are to follow on Monday. There are horrid disturbances about the militia in Northumberland, where the mob have killed an officer and three of the Yorkshire militia, who, in return, fired, and shot twenty-one.5 Adieu! I shall be impatient to hear some consequence of my first paragraph. Yours ever. P.S. Saturday. I forgot to tell you that lord Hardwicke has written some verses to lord Lyttelton, upon those the latter 3 The right hon. James Grenville, brother of Richard, second earl Temple, brother to the first marquis, and uncle of the present duke of Buckingham. [Ed.] 4 Samuel Sandys, was made chancellor of the Exchequer in the room of sir Robert Walpole, in 1742. "Let Sands unenvied hug the Exchequer seal," say sir C. H. Williams. He was created lord Sandys, baron of Ombersley, in 1743. [Ed.] 5 On the 9th March, 1761, at Hexham, on the deputy lieutenant's meeting to ballot for the militia, a number of pit-men attacked a party of the Yorkshire militia, of which an ensign and two privates were killed. The men were obliged to fire, and forty-two of the mob were killed, or afterwards died of their wounds, and forty-eight were wounded. [Ed.] 6 The following are the lines alluded to, “addition extempore to the verses on lady Egremont. "Fame heard with pleasure-straight replied, First on my roll stands Wyndham's bride, My trumpet oft I've raised to sound Her modest praise the world around; made on lady Egremont.7 If I had been told that he had put on a bag, and was gone off with Kitty Fisher, I should not have been more astonished. Poor lady Gower is dead this morning of a fever in her lying-in. I believe the Bedfords are very sorry, for there is a new opera this evening. To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq. March 21, 1761. Or the enclosed, as you perceive, I tore off the seal, but it has not been opened. I grieve at the loss of your suit, and for the injustice done you; but what can one expect but injury, when forced to have recourse to law? Lord Abercorn asked me this evening if it was true that you are going to Ireland? I gave a vague answer, and did not resolve him how much I knew of it. I am impatient for the reply to your compliment. There is not a word of newer news than what I sent you last. The speaker has taken leave, and received the highest compliments, and substantial ones, too; he did not over-act, and it was really a handsome scene. I go to my election on Tuesday, and, if I do not tumble out of the chair and break my neck, you But notes were wanting-canst thou find A friend of yours-'tis Lyttleton." We don't know whether our readers will agree with lord Lyttleton, who declared in his answer, "If you can write such witty extempore, it is well for other poets that you chose to be a lord Chancellor rather than a laureat." Lord Lyttleton's original verses, and those he addressed to lord Hardwicke in reply, may be seen in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1761. [Ed.] Alicia Maria, daughter of George lord Carpenter, and wife of Charles Wyndham earl of Egremont, who, on the death of his uncle, Algernon duke of Somerset, without issue male, succeeded him as earl of Egremont and baron Cockermouth, in the county of Cumberland. [Ed.] 8 A well-known courtesan of the day: she is introduced in the comedy of The Belle's Stratagem.' [Ed.] 9 Daughter of Scroope, duke of Bridgewater. [Or.] |