Chapter IV: Part 4

_Nonchalant_ manners were the tone of the time; and to cut one's country acquaintance (a habit learned among the French _noblesse_) was high breeding. An old haunter of the pump-room in Bath, who had frequently conversed with Selwyn in his visits there, meeting him one day in St James's Street, attempted to approach him with his usual familiarity. Selwyn passed him as if he had never seen him before. His old acquaintance followed him, and said, "Sir, you knew me very well in Bath." "Well, sir," replied Selwyn, "in Bath I may possibly know you again," and walked on.

When _High Life Below Stairs_ was announced, Selwyn expressed a wish to be present at its first night. "I shall go," said he, "because I am tired of low life above stairs."

One of the waiters at Arthur's had committed a felony, and was sent to jail. "I am shocked at the committal," said Selwyn; "what a horrid idea the fellow will give of us to the people in Newgate."

Bruce's Abyssinian stories were for a long time the laugh of London. Somebody at a dinner once asked him, whether he had seen any relics of musical instruments among the Abyssinians, or any thing in the style of the ancient sculptures of the Thebaid. "I think I saw one lyre there," was the answer. "Ay," says Selwyn to his neighbour, "and that one left the country along with him."

Selwyn did not always spare his friends. When Fox's pecuniary affairs were in a state of ruin, and a subscription was proposed; one of the subscribers said that their chief difficulty was to know "how Fox would take it." Selwyn, who knew that necessity has nothing to do with delicacies of this order, replied, "Take it, why, quarterly to be sure!"

Mr. Jesse's anecdotes are generally well told, but their version is sometimes different from ours. Selwyn was one day walking up St James's Street with Lord Pembroke, when a couple of sweeps brushed against them. "Impudent rascals!" exclaimed Lord Pembroke. "The sovereignty of the people," said Selwyn. "But such dirty dogs," said Pembroke. "Full dress for the court of St Giles's," said Selwyn, with a bow to their sable majesties.

But Selwyn, with all his affability and pleasantry, had his dislikes, and among them was the celebrated Sheridan. The extraordinary talent and early fame of that most memorable and unfortunate man, had fixed all eyes upon him from the moment of his entering into public life; and Selwyn, who had long sat supreme in wit, probably felt some fears for his throne. At all events, he determined to keep one place clear from collision with this dangerous wit; and, on every attempt to put up Sheridan's name for admission into Brookes's, two black balls were found in the balloting-box, one of which was traced to Selwyn, while the other was supposed to be that of Lord Besborough. One ball being sufficient to exclude, the opposition was fatal; but Fox and his friends were equally determined, on their side, to introduce Sheridan; and for this purpose a curious, though not very creditable, artifice was adopted. On the evening of the next ballot, and while George and Lord Besborough were waiting, with their usual determination, to blackball the candidate, a chairman in great haste brought in a note, apparently from Lady Duncannon, to her father-in-law Lord Besborough, to tell him that his house in Cavendish Square was on fire, and entreating him to return without a moment's delay. His lordship instantly quitted the room, and hurried homewards. Immediately after, a message was sent to George Selwyn that Miss Fagniani, the child whom he had adopted, and whom he supposed to be his own, was suddenlly seized with a fit, and that his presence was instantly required. He also obeyed the summons. Both had no sooner left the room than the ballot was proceeded with, the two ominous balls were not to be found, and Sheridan was unanimously chosen. In the midst of the triumph, Selwyn and Lord Besborough returned, indignant at the trick, but of course unable to find out its perpetrators. How Sheridan and his friends looked may be imagined. The whole scene was perfectly dramatic.

Burke's speeches, which were destined to become the honour of his age, and the delight of posterity, were sometimes negligently received by the house. His splendid prolixity, which was fitter for an assembly of philosophers than an English Parliament, sometimes wearied mere men of business, as much as his fine metaphysics sometimes perplexed them; and the man who might have sat between Plato and Aristotle, and been listened to with congenial delight by both, was often left without an audience. One night, when Selwyn was hurrying into the lobby with a crowd of members, a nobleman coming up asked him, "Is the house up?" "No," was the reply, "but Burke is."

A model of fashionable life, Selwyn unhappily indulged in that vice which was presumed to be essential to the man of fashion. The early gaming propensities of Charles Fox are well known; he was ruined, estate, personal fortune, sinecures and reversions, and all, before he was five years in public life--ruined in every possible shape of ruin. There were times when he could not command a guinea in the world. Yet there were times when he won immensely. At one sitting he carried off £8000, but in a few more he lost £11,000. He was a capital whist player; and in the cool calculation of the clubs on such subjects, it was supposed that he might have made £4000 a-year, if he had adhered to this profitable direction of his genius. But, like many other great men, he mistook his forte, and disdained all but the desperation of hazard. There he lost perpetually and prodigiously, until he was stripped of every thing, and pauperised for life.

It gives a strong conception of the universality of this vice, to find so timid and girlish a nature as the late William Wilberforce's initiated into the same career.

"When I left the University," says Wilberforce, in his later reminiscences, "so little did I know of general society, that I came up to London stored with arguments to prove the authenticity of 'Rowley's Poems,' (the academic and pedantic topic of the day,) and now I was at once immersed in politics and fashion. The very first time I went to Boodle's, I won twenty-five guineas of the Duke of Norfolk. I belonged at this time to five clubs, Miles' and Evans', Brookes', Boodle's, White's, and Goosetree's. The first time I was at Brookes', scarcely knowing any one, I joined, from mere shyness, in play at the faro-table, where George Selwyn kept bank. A friend who knew my inexperience, and regarded me as a victim dressed out for sacrifice, called to me--'What, Wilberforce, is that you?' Selwyn quite resented the interference, and turning to him, said in his most expressive tone--'Oh, sir, don't interrupt Mr Wilberforce, he could not be better employed.' Nothing could be more harmonious than the style of those clubs--Fox, Sheridan, Fitzpatrick, and all your leading men frequented them, and associated upon the easiest terms. You either chatted, played at cards, or gambled, as you pleased."

We have no idea of entering into any of the scandals of the time. The lives of all the men of fashion of that day were habitually profligate. The "Grand Tour" was of but little service to their morals, and Pope's sarcastic lines were but too true.

"He travell'd Europe round,
And gather'd every vice on foreign ground;
Till home return'd, and perfectly well-bred,
With nothing but a solo in his head;
Stolen from a duel, follow'd by a nun,
And, if a borough choose him--not undone."

But this vice did not descend among the body of the people. It was limited to the idlers of high life, and even among them it was extinguished by the cessation of our foreign intercourse at the French revolution; or was at least so far withdrawn from the public eye, as to avoid offending the common decencies of a moral people.

Selwyn was probably more cautious in his habits than his contemporaries, for he survived almost every man who had begun life with him; and he lived to a much greater age than the chief of the showy characters who rose into celebrity during his career. He died at the age of seventy-two, January 25, 1791. He had long relinquished gaming, assigning the very sufficient reason, "It was too great a consumer of four things--time, health, fortune, and _thinking_." But what man of his day escaped the gout, and the natural termination of that torturing disease in dropsy? After seven years' suffering from both, with occasional intervals of relief, he sank at last. Walpole, almost the only survivor among his early friends, thus wrote on the day of his expected death:--"I have lost, or am on the point of losing, my oldest acquaintance and friend, George Selwyn, who was yesterday at the extremity. Those misfortunes, though they can be so but for a short time, are very sensible to the old: but him I loved, not only for his infinite wit, but for a thousand good qualities." He writes a few days after, "Poor Selwyn is gone; to my sorrow; and no wonder. Ucalegon feels it."

Selwyn, with all his pleasantry, had evidently a quick eye for his own interest. He contrived to remain in parliament for half a century, and he gathered the emoluments of some half dozen snug sinecures. Among those were the Registrar of Chancery in Barbadoes, and surveyor-general of the lands. Thus he lived luxuriously, and died rich.

Orator Henley is niched in an early part of this correspondence. The orator was known in the last century as a remarkably dirty fellow in his apparel, and still more so in his mind. He was the son of a gentleman, and had received a gentleman's education at St John's, Cambridge. There, or subsequently, he acquired Hebrew, and even Persian; wrote a tragedy on the subject of Esther, in which he exhibited considerable poetic powers; and finished his scholastic fame by a grammar of ten languages! On leaving college, he took orders, and became a country curate. But the decency of this life did not suit his habits, and he resolved to try his chance in London for fortune and fame. Opening a chapel near Newport market, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, he harangued twice a-week, on theological subjects on Sundays, and on the sciences and literature on Wednesdays. The audience were admitted by a shilling ticket, and the butchers in the neighbourhood were for a while his great patrons. At length, finding his audience tired of common sense, he tried, like other charlatans since his day, the effect of nonsense. His manner was theatrical, his style eccentric, and his topics varied between extravagance and buffoonery. The history of such performances is invariably the same--novelty is essential, and novelty must be attained at all risks. He now professed to reform all literature, and all religion. But even this ultimately failed him. At length the butchers deserted him, and, falling from one disgrace to another, he sank into dirt and debauchery, and died in 1750 at the age of sixty-four, remembered in the world only by being pilloried in the Dunciad.

"Embrown'd with native bronze, lo! Henley stands,
Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands;
How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue,
How sweet the periods neither said nor sung.
Still break the benches, Henley, with thy strain,
While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain."

The orator's contribution consists but of two notes; the first to Selwyn--

"I dine at twelve all the year, but shall be glad to take a glass
with you at the King's Arms any day from four to six. If I have
disobliged Mr Parsons, (who I hear was with you,) or any of you
gentlemen, I never intended it, and ask your pardons. I shall be
proud to oblige my Lord Carteret, or you, or the rest, at any time.
Pray let them see this."

"J. HENLEY."

There appears to have been some kind of riot at one of Henley's lectures, probably a rough burlesque of his manner, in which Selwyn, then a student of Oxford, made himself conspicuous. At least the letter is addressed to him.

"I am accountable for the peace of my congregation; and among the rules and articles of my consent and conditions as owner and minister, one rule is, to go out directly, forfeiting what has been given, if any person cannot or will not preserve those conditions; for the smallest circumstance of disorder has been inflamed to the highest outrage. The bishop's nephew began something of the kind two months ago, and made me retribution; so have others, and I must send an attorney to warn them not to come whom I suspect hereafter. You have been at his sport before."

We now come to a man of more importance, Richard Rigby, the "blushing Rigby" of Junius. He was the son of a linen-draper, who, as factor to the South Sea Company, acquired considerable property. This, however, his son, who had adopted public life as his pursuit, rapidly squandered in electioneering, in pleasure, and the irresistible vice of the time, play. Frederic, Prince of Wales, was the first object of all needy politicians, and Rigby for a while attached himself to this feeble personage with all the zeal of a prospective placeman. But the prince remained too long in opposition for the fidelity of courtiership, and Rigby glided over to the Duke of Bedford; who unquestionably exhibited himself a steady and zealous friend to his new adherent. The duke lent him money to pay his debts; gave him the secretaryship for Ireland on his appointment to the viceroyalty; gave him a seat in Parliament for Tavistock; was the means of his being made a privy counsellor; obtained for him a sinecure of L.4000 a-year; and at that period when most men are sincere, on his deathbed, appointed Rigby his executor, and cancelled his bond for the sum which he had originally lent to him.

We know few instances of such steady liberality in public life, and the man who gave, and the man who received those munificent tokens of confidence, must have had more in them than the world was generally inclined to believe. The duke has been shot through and through by the pungent shafts of Junius: and Rigby was covered with mire throughout life by all the retainers of party. Yet both were evidently capable of strong friendship, and thus possessed the redeeming quality most unusual in the selfishness and struggles of political existence.

Amongst official men, Rigby is recorded as one of the most popular personages of his time. One art of official popularity, and that too a most unfailing one, he adopted in a remarkable degree--he kept an incomparable table. Sir Robert Walpole, one of the shrewdest of men, had long preserved his popularity by the same means. Rigby's paymastership of the forces enabled him to support a splendid establishment, and it was his custom, after the debates in the House of Commons, to invite the ministers and the pleasantest men of the time, to supper at his apartments in Whitehall. His wines were exquisite, his cookery was of the most _recherché_ order; and by the help of a good temper, a broad laugh, natural joviality, and a keen and perfect knowledge of all that was going on round him in the world of fashion, he made his parties a delightful resource to the wearied minds of the Cabinet.

Wraxall, a very pleasant describer of men and manners, thus sketches him:--"In Parliament he was invariably habited in a full-dress suit of clothes, commonly of a dark colour, without lace or embroidery, close buttoned, with his sword thrust through the pocket. His countenance was very expressive, but not of genius; still less did it indicate timidity or modesty. All the comforts of the pay-office seemed to be eloquently depicted in it; his manner, rough yet frank, admirably set off whatever sentiments he uttered in Parliament. Like Jenkinson, he borrowed neither from ancient nor modern authors; his eloquence was altogether his own, addressed not to the fancy, but to the plain comprehension of his hearers. There was a happy audacity about him, which must have been the gift of nature--art could not obtain it by any efforts. He seemed not to fear, nor even to respect, the House, whose composition he well knew; and to the members of which assembly he never appeared to give credit for any portion of virtue, patriotism, or public spirit. Far from concealing those sentiments, he insinuated, or even pronounced them, without disguise; and from his lips they neither excited surprise, nor even commonly awaked reprehension."

But this flow of prosperity was to have its ebb. The jovial placeman was to feel the uncertainties of office; and on Lord North's resignation in 1782, and the celebrated Edmund Burke's appointment to the paymastership, Rigby found himself suddenly called on for a considerable arrear. It had been the custom to allow the paymaster to make use of the balances in his hands until they were called for, and this formed an acknowledged and very important part of his income. But his expenses left him no resource to meet the demand. Whether fortunately or unfortunately, Sir Thomas Rumbold, the recalled governor of Madras, had just then returned to England, under investigation by the House of Commons for malpractices in his office. It was the rumour of the day that Rigby, on the advance of a large sum by Rumbold, had undertaken to soften the prosecution against him. Whether this were the fact or not, it is certain that the charges soon ceased to be pursued, and that Rigby's nephew and heir was soon after married to Rumbold's daughter. Rigby, who had never been married, died in 1788, in his sixty-seventh year.

His letter to Selwyn, in 1745, is characteristic of the man and the time. "I am just got home from a cock match, where I have won forty pounds in ready money, and not having dined, am waiting till I hear the rattle of the coaches from the House of Commons, in order to dine at White's.

"I held my resolution of not going to the Ridotto till past three o'clock, when, finding that nobody was willing to sit any longer but Boone, who was _not able_, I took, as I thought, the least of two evils, and so went there rather than to bed; but found it so infinitely dull, that I retired in half an hour. The next morning I heard that there had been extreme deep play, and that Harry Furnese went drunk from White's at six o'clock, and won the dear memorable sum of one thousand guineas.

"I saw Garrick in _Othello_ that same night, in which, I think, he was very unmeaningly dressed, and succeeded in no degree of comparison with Quin, except in the second scene, where Iago gives the first suspicions of Desdemona."

As the letter does not describe Garrick's dress, we can only suppose it to have been remarkably absurd, when it could have attracted the censure of any one accustomed to the stage in the middle of the last century. Nothing could be more ignorant, unsuitable, or unbecoming, that the whole system of theatrical costume. Garrick, for example, usually played Macbeth in the uniform of an officer of the Guards--scarlet coat, cocked hat, and regulation sword, were the exhibition of the Highland chieftain's wardrobe, and the period, too, when the Highland dress was perfectly known to the public eye. It must be acknowledged that we owe the reformation of the stage, in this important point, to the French. It was commenced by the celebrated Clairon, and perfected by the not less celebrated Talma.

"I supped that night, _tête-à-tête_, with Metham, who was d----d angry with Hubby Bubby (Doddington) for having asked all the Musquetaires to supper but him. He went to sleep at twelve, and I to White's, where _I staid till six_. Yesterday I spent a good part of the day with my Lord Coke at a _cock match_; and went, towards the latter end of Quin's benefit, to Mariamne.

"The coaches rattle by fast, and George brings me word the House is up, and I assure you I am extremely hungry."

We now come to the name of a man who attained a considerable celebrity in his own time, but has almost dropped into oblivion in ours, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams. He was the third son of John Hanbury, Esq., a Monmouthshire gentleman, and took the name of Williams on succeeding to the property of his grandfather. His mother was aunt to George Selwyn. Entering Parliament early in life, he adopted the ministerial side, and was a steady adherent to Sir Robert Walpole. He had his reward in ministerial honours, being created a Knight of the Bath; and though Sir Robert died in 1745, Williams had so far established his court influence, that he was successively appointed envoy to Saxony, minister at Berlin, and ambassador at St Petersburg. He was a man of great pleasantry, some wit, and perpetual verse-making--the name of poetry is not to be stooped to such compositions as his; but their liveliness and locality, their application to existing times and persons, and their occasional hits at politics and principles, made both them and their author popular. But the fashionable language of the day had tendencies which would not now be tolerated; and Sir Charles, a fashionable voluptuary, is charged with having written what none should wish to revive. After a residence of ten years on the Continent, he fell into a state of illness which deranged his understanding. From this he recovered, but subsequently relapsed into the same unhappy state, and died, it was surmised, by his own hand in 1759. His letter details, in his own flighty style, one of the frolics of fashion.

"The town-talk for some time past has been your child, (a note says 'apparently the Honourable John Hobart, afterwards Earl of Buckinghamshire;') the moment you turned your back he flew out, went to Lady Tankerville's drum-major, (a rout,) having unfortunately dined that day with Rigby, who plied his head with too many bumpers, and also made him a present of some Chinese crackers. Armed in this manner, he entered the assembly, and resolving to do something that should make a noise, he gave a string of four and twenty crackers to Lady Lucy Clinton, and bid her put it in the candle, which she very innocently did, to her and the whole room's astonishment. But when the first went off she threw the rest upon the tea-table, where, one after the other, they all went off, with much noise and not a little stench, to the real joy of most of the women present, who don't dislike an opportunity of finding fault. Lady Lucy, indeed, was plentifully abused, and Mr Hobart had his share; and common fame says he has never had a card since. Few women will curtsy to him; and I question if he ever will lead any one to their chair again as long as he lives. I leave you to judge how deeply he feels this wound. Every body says it would never have happened if you had not retired to your studies; and you are a little blamed for letting him out alone. He has sunk his chairman's wages 5s. a-week upon this accident, and intends to turn them off in Passion week, because he then can go nowhere at all. All private houses are already shut against him, and at that holy time no public place is open."

We have then some letters written in a time of great public anxiety, 1745.

"All our forces are come from Flanders. The Pretender's second son (Henry Stuart, afterwards Cardinal of York) is come to Dunkirk, where it is said there are forty transports. The rebels, it is said, are very advantageously encamped between two rivers, and are fortifying their camp."

Another hurried letter says.

"An express arrives to-day, (Dec. 8th,) while his Majesty was at chapel, which brought an account of the rebels being close to Derby, and that the Duke of Cumberland was at Meredan, four miles beyond Coventry observing their motions."

Another of the same date, six o'-clock at night, says, "The Tower guns have not fired to-day. A letter has been received, stating that the rebels had retreated towards Ashbourne."

Walpole, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, on the 9th repeats the news, and says, "The Highlanders got nine thousand pounds at Derby, and had the books brought to them, and obliged everybody to give them what they had subscribed against them. They then retreated a few miles, but returned again to Derby, got £10,000 more, and plundered the town; they are gone again, and got back to Leake in Staffordshire, but miserably harassed; they have left all their cannon behind them, and twenty waggons of sick."

Nothing can give a stronger example of the changes which may take place in a country, than the different state of preparation for an invader, exhibited by England in 1745, and in little more than half a century after. On the threat of Napoleon's invasion, England exhibited an armed force of little less than a million, which would have been quadrupled in case of an actual descent. In 1745, the alarm was extravagant, and almost burlesque. The Pretender, with but a few thousand men--brave undoubtedly, but almost wholly unprovided for a campaign--marched into the heart of England, and reached within a hundred and thirty miles of the capital. But the enterprise was then felt to be wholly beyond his means. A powerful force under the Duke of Cumberland was already thrown between him and London. What was more ominous still, no man of English rank had joined him, London was firm, the Protestant feeling of the nation, though slowly excited, was beginning to be roused, by its recollection of the bigotry of James, and in England, this feeling will always be ultimately victorious. Even if Charles Edward had arrived in London, and seized the throne, he would have only had to commence a civil war against the nation. His retreat to the north saved England from this great calamity, and probably saved himself, and his adherents in both countries, from a more summary fate than that which drove his miserable and bigoted father from the throne.

One of the chief contributors to this correspondence is George James Williams, familiarly styled Gilly Williams; a man of high life, uncle by marriage to the minister Lord North, and lucky in the possession of an opulent office--that of receiver-general of the excise. He, with George Selwyn and Dick Edgecumbe, who met at Strawberry Hill at certain seasons, formed what Walpole termed his out-of-town party. Life seems to have glided smoothly with him, for he lived till 1785, dying at the ripe age of eighty-six.

He thus begins:--

"Dear George--I congratulate you on the near approach of Parliament, and figure you before a glass at your rehearsals. I must intimate to you not to forget to begin closing your periods with a significant stroke of the breast, and recommend Mr Barry as a pattern, (the actor.)

"You must observe, in letters from the country, every sentence begins with being either sorry or glad. Apropos, I am glad to hear B. Bertie (son of the Duke of Ancaster) is returned from Scarborough, having laid in such a stock of health and spirits by the waters, as to dedicate the rest of his days altogether to wine."

In another letter he says--"I had almost forgot to tell you, that I rode near ten miles on my way home with the ordinary of Gloucester, and have several anecdotes of the late burnings and hangings, which I reserve for your own private ear. I do not know whether he was sensible you had a partiality for his profession; but he expressed the greatest regard for you, and I am sure you may command his services."

Gilly writes from Crome, Lord Coventry's seat in Worcestershire--

"Our life here for a while would not displease you, for we eat and drink well, and the Earl (Coventry) holds a faro-bank every night to us, which we have as yet plundered considerably.

"I want to know where to find you, and how long you stay at your mansion-house; for it would not be pleasant to ride so far only to see squinting Jenny and the gardener at the end of my journey. I suppose we shall see you here, where you will find the Countess of Coventry in high spirits and in great beauty."

We now come to a brief mention of two women, the most remarkable of their day for popular admiration, if not for finish and fashion--the Gunnings, afterwards Lady Coventry and the Duchess of Hamilton. They were the daughters of an Irish country gentleman, John Gunning, of Castle Coote in Ireland. On their first appearance at court in England, the elder was in her nineteenth, and the second in her eighteenth year. They appear to have excited a most unprecedented sensation in London. Walpole thus writes to Sir Horace Mann--

"You, who knew England in other times, will find it difficult to conceive what indifference reigns with regard to ministers and their squabbles. The two Miss Gunnings are twenty times more the subject of conversation than the two brothers (the Pelhams) and Lord Granville. They are two Irish girls of no fortune, who are declared the handsomest women alive. I think there being two so handsome, and both such perfect figures, is their chief excellence, for, singly, I have seen much handsomer women than either. However, they can't walk in the Park, or go to Vauxhall, but such crowds follow them, that they are generally driven away." And this effect lasted; for, two months after, Walpole writes--"I shall tell you a new story of the Gunnings, who make more noise than any of their predecessors since the days of Helen. They went the other day to see Hampton Court. As they were going into the Beauty room, another company arrived, and the housekeeper said--'This way, ladies, here are the beauties,' the Gunnings flew into a passion, and asked her what she meant; they came to see the palace, not to be shown as sights themselves."

To the astonishment, and perhaps to the envy, of the fashionable world, those two unportioned young women made the most splendid matches of the season. The Duke of Hamilton fell in love with the younger at a masquerade, and made proposals to her. The marriage was to take place within some months; but his passion was so vehement, that in two nights after he insisted on marrying her at the moment. Walpole tells us that he sent for a clergyman, who however refused to marry them without license or ring. At this period marriages were frequently performed in a very unceremonious and unbecoming manner. From the laxity of the law, they were performed at all hours, frequently in private houses, and sometimes even in jails, by pretended clergymen. The law, however, was subsequently and properly reformed. The duke and duchess are said to have been married with a curtain-ring, at half-past twelve-at night, at May Fair Chapel. This precipitated the marriage of Lord Coventry, a personage of a grave stamp, but who had long paid attention to the elder sister Maria. He married her about three weeks after. Except that we are accustomed to hear of the frenzy which seizes people in the name of fashion, we should scarcely believe the effect which those two women, handsome as they were, continued to produce. On the Duchess of Hamilton's presentation at Court on her marriage, the crowd was immense; and so great was the curiosity, that the courtly multitude got on the chairs and tables to look at her. Mobs gathered round their doors to see them get into their chairs; people crowded early to the theatres when they heard they were to be there. Lady Coventry's shoemaker is said to have made a fortune by selling patterns of her shoe; and on the duchess's going to Scotland, several hundred people walked about all night round the inn where she slept, on the Yorkshire road, that they might have a view of her as she went off next morning.

Yet they appear to have been strangely neglected in their education; good-humoured and good-natured undoubtedly, but little better than hoydens after all. Lord Down met Lord and Lady Coventry at Calais, and offered to send her ladyship a tent-bed, for fear of bugs at the inn. "Oh dear!" said she, "I had rather be bit to death than lie one night from my dear Cov."

She is, however, memorable for one _étourderie_, which amused the world greatly. Old George II., conversing with her on the dulness of the season, expressed a regret that there had been no masquerades during the year, the handsome rustic answered him, that she had seen sights enough, and the only one she wanted to see now was--"a coronation." The king, however, had the good sense to laugh, and repeated it good-humouredly to his circle at supper.

Lady Coventry died a few years after of consumption, at the age of twenty-seven. It was said that her death was hastened by the habit of using white lead as a paint, the fashionable custom of the time. The Duke of Hamilton had died two years before, in 1758, and the duchess became subsequently the wife of Colonel John Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyle. The narrative observes the remarkable circumstance, that the untitled daughter of an Irish commoner should have been the wife of two dukes and the mother of four. By her first husband she was the mother of James, seventh duke, and of Douglas, eighth duke, of Hamilton; and by her second husband, of William, sixth duke, and of Henry, seventh duke, of Argyle. The duchess, though at the time of Lady Coventry's illness supposed to be in a consumption, survived for thirty years, dying in 1790.

Mason the poet commemorated Lady Coventry's death in a long elegy, which had some repute in those days, when even Hayley was called a poet. They are dawdling and dulcified to a deplorable degree.

"Yes, Coventry is dead; attend the strain,
Daughters of Albion, ye that, light as air,
So oft have trips in her fantastic train,
With hearts as gay, and faces half as fair;
For she was fair beyond your highest bloom;
This envy owns, since now her bloom is fled.
&c. &c. &c.

We have then a sketch of a man of considerable celebrity in his day, Lord Sandwich. Educated at Eton and Cambridge; on leaving college, he made the then unusual exertion of a voyage round the Mediterranean, of which a volume was published by his chaplain on his return. Shortly after, taking his seat in the House of Lords, he came into ministerial employment as a Lord of the Admiralty. In 1746, he was appointed minister to the States General. And from that period, for nearly thirty years, he was employed in high public offices; was twice an ambassador, three times first Lord of the Admiralty, and twice Secretary of State. Lord Sandwich's personal character was at least accused of so much profligacy, that, if the charges be true, we cannot comprehend how he was suffered to retain employments of such importance for so many years. Wilkes, who had known him intimately, describes him, in his letters to the electors of Aylesbury, as "the most abandoned man of the age." He is even said not to have been a man of business; yet the Admiralty was a place which can scarcely be managed by an idler, and the Secretaryship of State, in this country, can never be a sinecure. He had certainly one quality which is remarkable for conciliation, and without which no minister, let his talents be what they may, has ever been personally popular; he was a man of great affability, and of shrewd wit. The latter was exhibited, in peculiarly cutting style, to Mr Eden, afterwards Lord Auckland. Eden, sagacious in his generation, had suddenly ratted to Pitt, adding, however, the monstrous absurdity of sending a circular to his colleagues by way of justification. Obviously, nothing could be more silly than an attempt of this order, which could only add their contempt for his understanding to their contempt for his conduct. Lord Sandwich's answer was in the most cutting spirit of scorn:--

"Sir,--Your letter is now before me, and in a few minutes will be _behind me_."

An unhappy circumstance brought Lord Sandwich with painful prominence before the world. A Miss Ray, a person of some attraction, had unfortunately lived under his protection for several years. It happened, however, that a young officer on the recruiting service, who had dined once or twice at Lord Sandwich's house in the country, thought proper to pay her some marked attentions, which, after allowing them, as it appears, to proceed to some extent, she suddenly declined. On this the officer, whose name was Hackman, and who was evidently of a fantastic and violent temperament, rushed from England in a state of desperation, flew over to Ireland, threw up his commission, and took orders in the church. But instead of adopting the quietude which would have been suitable for his new profession, the clerical robes seem to have made him more intractable than the military uniform. After some months of rambling and romance in Ireland, he rushed over to England again, resolving to conquer or die at her feet; but the lady still rejected him, and, being alarmed at his violence, threatened to appeal to Lord Sandwich. There are many circumstances in the conduct of this unfortunate man, amounting to that perversion of common sense which, in our times, is fashionably and foolishly almost sanctioned as monomania. But nothing can be clearer than the fact, that the most unjustifiable, dangerous, and criminal passion, may be pampered, until it obtains possession of the whole mind, and leads to the perpetration of the most atrocious offences against society. The modern absurdity is, to look, in the violence of the passion for the excuse of the crime; instead of punishing the crime for the violence of the passion. We might as well say, that the violences of a drunkard were more innocent the more furiously he was intoxicated; the whole being a direct encouragement to excessive guilt. The popular feeling of justice in the last century, however, was different; robbers and murderers were put to death as they deserved, and society was relieved without burlesquing the common understandings of man. Mr Hackman was a murderer, however he might be a monomaniac, and he was eventually hanged as he deserved. The trial, which took place in April 1779, excited the most extraordinary public curiosity. By the statement of the witnesses, it appeared that a Mr Macnamara, being in the lobby of Covent Garden Theatre when the audience were coming away, and seeing Miss Ray making her way with some difficulty through the crowd to her carriage, he went forward with Irish gallantry to offer her his arm, which she accepted; and as they reached the door of the carriage, a pistol was fired close to them, when Miss Ray clapped her hand to her forehead and fell, when instantly another pistol-report followed. He thought that she had fainted away through fright; but when he raised her up, he found that she was wounded, and assisted the people in carrying her into the Shakspeare Tavern; and on Hackman's being seized, and being asked what could possess him to be guilty of such a deed, his only answer was to give his name, and say, "It is not a proper place to ask such questions." It appeared in evidence, that Hackman had been waiting some time for Miss Ray's coming out of the theatre; that he followed her to the carriage door, and pulling out two pistols, fired one at the unfortunate woman, the ball of which went through her brain, and the other at himself, crying out as he fell, "Kill me--kill me!"

Of course, after evidence like this, there could be no defence, and none as attempted. Hackman evidently wished to have died by his own hand; but having failed there, his purpose was to perish by the law, and plead guilty. However, on being brought to trial, he said that he now pleaded not guilty, that he might avoid the appearance of contemning death--an appearance not suitable to his present condition; that, on second thoughts, he had considered the plea of guilty as rendering him accessory to a second peril of his life; and that he thought that he could pay his debt more effectually to the justice of the country by suffering his offences to be proved by evidence, and submitting to the forms of a regular trial. This, though it was penitence too late, was at least decorous language. His whole conduct on the trial showed that, intemperate as his passions were, he possessed abilities and feelings worthy of a wiser career, and a less unhappy termination. Part of his speech was even affecting.

"I stand here this day," he said, "the most wretched of human beings, and confess myself criminal in a high degree; yet while I acknowledge, with shame and repentance, that my determination against my own life was formal and complete, I protest, with that regard which becomes my situation, that the will to destroy her who was ever dearer to me than life, was never mine till a momentary frenzy overpowered me, and induced me to commit the deed I deplore. Before this dreadful act, I trust, nothing will be found in the tenor of my life which the common charity of mankind will not excuse. I have no wish to avoid the punishment which the laws of my country appoint for my crime; but being already too unhappy to feel a punishment in death, or a satisfaction in life, I submit myself with penitence and patience to the disposal and judgment of Almighty God, and to the consequences of this enquiry into my conduct and intentions."

After a few minutes' consultation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and he was executed two days after. It is surprising how strong an interest was felt on this subject by persons of every condition; by the populace, who loved excitement from whatever quarter it may come; by the middle order, to whom the romance of the early part of the transaction and the melancholy catastrophe were subjects of natural impression; and by the nobility, to whom the character of Miss Ray and the habits of Lord Sandwich were equally known.

The Earl of Carlisle thus writes to Selwyn, beginning with a sort of customary allusion to Selwyn's extraordinary fondness for those displays:--

"Hackman, Miss Ray's murderer, is hanged. I attended his execution in order to give _you_ an account of his behaviour, and from no curiosity of my own. I am this moment returned from it. Every one enquired after you. _You have friends_ every where. The poor man behaved with great fortitude; no appearances of fear were to be perceived, but very evident signs of contrition and repentance."

A novel, of some pathos and considerable popularity, was founded on this unhappy transaction, and "The Letters of Mr Hackman and Miss Ray" long flourished in the circulating libraries. But the groundwork was vulgar, mean, and vicious, after all; and, divested of that colouring which imagination may throw on any event, was degrading and criminal in all its circumstances. The shame of the wretched woman herself, living in a state of open criminality from year to year; the grossness of Hackman in his proposal to make this abandoned woman his wife; the strong probability that his object might have been the not uncommon, though infinitely vile one, of obtaining Lord Sandwich's patronage, by relieving him of a connexion of which that notorious profligate, after nine years, might be weary--all characterise the earlier portion of their intercourse as destitute of all pretence to honourable feelings. The catastrophe is merely the work of an assassin. If there may be some slight allowance for overwhelming passion, for suddenly excited jealousy, or for remediless despair, yet those impulses act only to the extent of inflicting injury on ourselves. No love ever seeks the death of its object. It is then mere ruffianism, brute cruelty, savage fury; and even this becomes more the act of a ruffian, when the determination to destroy is formed in cold blood. Hackman carried two loaded pistols with him to the theatre. What other man carried loaded pistols there? and what could be his purpose but the one which he effected, to fire them both, one at the wretched woman, and the other at himself? The clear case is, that he was neither more nor less than a furious villain, resolved to have the life of a profligate milliner's apprentice, who preferred Lord Sandwich's house and carriage, to Mr Hackman's hovel and going on foot. We shall find that all similar acts originate in similar motives--lucre, licentiousness, and rage--the three stimulants of the highwayman, the debauchee, and the ruffian; with only the distinction, that, in the case of those who murder when they cannot possess, the three criminalities are combined.

Even with the execution of the criminal, the excitement did not cease. The papers of the day tell us, that when the body was conveyed to the surgeon's hall, so great a crowd was assembled, and the efforts to obtain entrance were so violent, that caps, gowns, wigs, were torn and cast away in all directions. Old and young, men, women, and children, were trampled in the multitude. In the afternoon, the crowd diminished, and several persons of the better order made their way in, but with not a less vexatious result; for, on reaching the staircase leading to the theatre, they found themselves saluted with a shower from some engine worked under the staircase. This was rather a rough mode of tranquillizing public excitement, but seems to have been effectual. It was probably a trick of some of the young surgeons, and excited great indignation at the time. Hackman was but four-and-twenty, and rather a striking figure.

The letters to which we have alluded, entitled "Love and Madness," attracted attention in higher quarters, and even perplexed the fastidiousness of Walpole himself. In one of his letters of March 1780, he thus writes:--"Yesterday was published an octavo, pretending to contain the correspondence of Hackman and Miss Ray. I doubt whether the letters are genuine, and yet, if fictitious, they are executed well, and enter into his character. This appears less natural, and yet the editors were certainly more likely to be in possession of hers than his. It is not probable that Lord Sandwich should have sent what he found in her apartments to the press; no account is pretended to be given of how they came to light."

After having thus puzzled the dilettanti, it transpired that it was written by Sir Herbert Croft, Bart.

Another singular character, who, in connexion with one still more singular, remarkably occupied the ear and tongue of the _beau monde_ of his day, is introduced in these volumes. This was Augustus John, Earl of Bristol, third son of John, Lord Hervey, by the beautiful Mary Lepel. He entered the sea service at an early age, and prospered as the sons of men of rank prospered in those days, being made a post-captain in 1747, when he was but three and twenty years old. Promotion was heaped upon him, and he was rapidly advanced to the rank of vice-admiral and colonel of marines. He was, however, said to be a brave and skilful officer. More good fortune was in store for him; he was placed in the king's household, was a member of Parliament, was appointed one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and finally rounded the circle of his honours by succeeding to the earldom of Bristol. The history of his wife is a continued adventure. Miss Chudleigh, maid of honour to the Princess of Wales, had, immediately on her appearance at court, become the observed of all observers. She was regarded as one of the most beautiful women of her time, was remarkably quick and witty in her conversation, of a most capricious temper and a most fantastic imagination--all qualities which naturally rendered her a topic in every circle of the country. The circumstances of her marriage rendered her if possible, still more a topic. On a visit at the house of a relation, she met Lord Bristol, then but a lieutenant in the navy, and plain Mr Hervey, and disregarding all the formalities of high life, they were privately married at Lainston, in Northamptonshire. They were, however, separated the very next day, the lady declaring her determination never to see her husband's face again. This, of course, produced an ample fund of conversation of every kind; but the lady returned to court, and the gentleman returned to his ship, and went to sea. However, they met again, and the result was, she became a mother. From her determination to keep her marriage secret, she retired for her accouchement to a secluded spot in Chelsea, where her child was born, and where it soon after died.

It may easily be supposed, that the sudden disappearance of so conspicuous a person from the most conspicuous society, must have given rise to rumours and ridicule of every kind. She returned to court nevertheless, and constantly denying her marriage, fought it out with the effrontery which is so easily forgiven, in fashionable life, to youth, wit, and beauty.

Yet she could not quite escape the flying shafts of wit herself. One day after her return, meeting the memorable Lord Chesterfield--"Think, my lord," said she, with an air of indignation, "to what lengths the scandalous chronicle will go, when it absolutely says that I have had twins." "My dear," said Lord Chesterfield, "I make it a rule never to believe above half what the world says."

She now received the attentions of many suitors, extraordinary as the circumstance may be, when the mystery of her own conduct and the surmises of the public are considered; and, to make assurance doubly sure, she determined to extinguish all proof of her hasty marriage. Ascertaining that the clergyman who had married her was dead, she went to Lainston church, and contrived to carry away the entry of her marriage from the register. Some time after this, Miss Chudleigh (for she never would take her husband's name) married the Duke of Kingston. It was strongly asserted, though the circumstance is so dishonourable that it can scarcely be believed, that the silence of the real husband was purchased by the advance of a large sum of money from the pretended one. The marriage remained undisturbed until the death of the duke. She then came into possession of his very large disposable property, and traveled in great pomp to Rome; but the duke's nephew and heir, having his suspicious of the fact excited, commenced proceedings against the duchess for bigamy. She was tried before her peers in Westminster hall, and found guilty of the offence, in April 1776; but by claiming the privilege of peerage, she was discharged on payment of the usual fees.

It is scarcely possible to believe that a man of the rank and profession of Lord Bristol, could have been base enough to connive at his wife's marriage with the Duke of Kingston. But there can be no question, that in the prevalent opinion of the time, he had even taken a large sum of money for the purpose. In one of Walpole's letters, subsequently to the trial, he says, "if the Pope expects his duchess back, he must create her one, for her peers have reduced her to a countess. Her folly and her obstinacy here appear in the full vigour, at least her faith in the ecclesiastical court, trusting to the infallibility of which she provoked this trial in the face of every sort of detection. The living witness of the first marriage, a register of it fabricated long after by herself, the widow of the clergyman who married her, many confidants to whom she had entrusted the secret, and even Hawkins, the surgeon, privy to the birth of the child, appeared against her. The Lords were tender, and would not probe the earl's collusion; but the ecclesiastical court, who so readily accepted their juggle, and sanctified the second match, were brought to shame--they care not if no reformation follows. The duchess, who could produce nothing else in her favour, tried the powers of oratory, and made a long oration, in which she cited the protection of her late mistress, the Princess of Wales. Her counsel would have curtailed this harangue; but she told them they might be good lawyers, but did not understand speaking to the passions. She concluded her rhetoric with a fit, and retired with rage when convicted of the bigamy."