LORD HALIFAX.

109 time at Eastbury with my wife and her father, Mr. Ridge, obtained an English peerage, and Lord Halifax was honored with the high office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and was preparing to open his majesty's first Parliament in that kingdom; I had reason to believe myself at this time very much in his confidence, and in the conduct of a certain private transaction, which I am not called upon to explain, I had done him.

father of George III. He became a great favorite with the Prince and Princess; took a part in the private theatricals exhibited for their amusement, and gradually laid the foundations of his subsequent elevation. After the death of the Prince, his intimacy with the Princess gave rise to rumors which compromised her character and injuriously affected him. The Earl's handsome person was supposed to be an irresistible attraction to the plastic and pleasure-loving Princess. To his external accomplishments, says Wraxall, 'he added a cultivated mind, illuminated by a taste for many branches of the fine arts and letters. For the study of botany he nourished a decided passion, which he gratified to the utmost; and, in the indulgence of which predilection, he manifested on some occasions a princely liberality. Of a disposition naturally retired and severe, he was not formed for an extensive commerce with mankind, or endowed by nature with talents for managing popular assemblies. Even in his family he was austere, harsh, difficult of access, and sometimes totally inaccessible to his own children. In the House of Lords he neither displayed eloquence nor graciousness of manners. But he proved himself likewise deficient in a quality still more essential for a first minister, firmness of character. Yet, with these political defects of mind, and of personal deportment, he undertook to displace, and he aspired to succeed Mr. Pitt, at a moment when that minister had carried the glory of the British arms to an unexampled height by sea and land. We cannot sufficiently regret that George the Third should not have contented himself with heaping honors and dignities on him, carefully excluding him from any political employment. Few princes, however, of whom history preserves any record, have manifested, at twenty-three, a judgment so superior to the natural partialities of youth. Even Elizabeth, though she placed Cecil at the head of her councils, yet committed her armies successively to Leicester and to Essex. After an administration of about two years, passed either in the post of Secretary of State or as First Lord of the Treasury, during which time he brought the war with France and Spain to a conclusion, Lord Bute, abandoning his royal master, quitted his situation, and again withdrew to privacy; no testimonies of national regret, or of national esteem, accompanied him at his departure from office. His magnificent residence in Berkeley Square exposed him to very malignant comments, respecting the means by which he had reared so expensive a pile. His enemies asserted that he could not possibly have possessed the ability, either from his patrimonial fortune, or in consequence of his marriage, to erect such a structure. As little could he be supposed to have amassed wherewithal, during his very short administration, to suffice for its construction. The only satisfactory solution of the difficulty, therefore, lay in imagining that he had either received presents from France, or had made large purchases in the public funds previous to the signature of the preliminaries.'-Historical Memoirs, p. 175, vide Mahon's Character of Bute, History of England, vol. iv. p. 23; and Chesterfield's Characters. The violence of his opponents and the lukewarmness of his friends drove Bute into retirement. The popular displeasure followed him even there, and his influence was supposed still to control public measures. He was disliked by his contemporaries, and his character seems to have inspired no other feeling in their posterity.

faithful service; happy for him it would have been, and the prevention of innumerable troubles and vexations, if my zealous efforts had been permitted to take effect, but a fatal propensity had again seized possession of him, and probably the more strongly for the interruption it had received-but of this enough.

His family was now to be formed upon an establishment suitable to his high office. In these arrangements there was much to do, and I was fully occupied. Some few persons of obscure characters were pressed upon him for subordinate situations from a quarter where I had no communication or connection; but I had the satisfaction to see his old and faithful friend, Doctor Crane, prepare himself to head the list of his chaplains, and Doctor Oswald, afterwards Bishop of Raphoe, with my good father, completed that department. I obtained a situation for a gentleman, who had married my eldest sister, but what gave me peculiar satisfaction was to have it in my power to gratify the wishes of one of the best and bravest young officers of his time, Captain William Ridge, brother to my wife. He had served the whole war in America with distinguished reputation; had been shot and carried off the field in the fatal affair of Ticonderoga, and was now returned with honorable wounds and the praises and esteem of his general and brother officers. This amiable, this excellent friend, whose heart was as it were my own, and whose memory will be ever dear to me, I caused to be put upon the staff of aids-de-camp, and had the happiness of making him one of my family during the whole time of my residence in Dublin Castle, as Ulster Secretary.

William Gerard Hamilton, a name well known, had negotiated himself into the office of Chief Secretary. I need say no more than that he did not owe this to the choice of Lord Halifax; of course it was not easy for that gentleman to find himself in the confidence of his principal, to whom he was little known, and in the first instance not altogether acceptable. I do not think he

1 William Gerard Hamilton was born in 1729, at Lincoln's Inn, where his father was a barrister. His father,' says Walpole, 'had been the first Scot who ever pleaded at the English bar, and, as it was said of him, should have been the last; the son had much more parts.'-Memoirs of the Reign of George II., vol. ii. p. 44. Hamilton was educated at Winchester School, and Oriel College, Oxford. He studied his father's profession; but was never called to the bar. In 1754, he was elected a member of Parliament, and made the memorable speech, which gave him the name of Single Speech Hamilton. 'He spoke for the first time,' wrote Walpole to Conway, and was at once perfection; his speech was set and full of antitheses, but these antitheses were full of argument; indeed, his speech was the most argumentative of the whole day, and he broke through the regularity of his own composition, answered other people, and fell

"THE BANISHMENT OF CICERO.'

111

took much pains to conquer first impressions, and recommend himself to the confidence of Lord Halifax; it is certain he did. not possess it, and the consequence was, that I, who held the secondary post of Ulster Secretary, became involved in business of a nature, that should not in the course of office have belonged to me. Affairs of this sort, which I did not court, and had no right to be concerned in, made my situation very delicate and not a little dangerous, whilst at the same time the entire superintendence of Lord Halifax's private finances, then very far from being in a flourishing condition, was a task which no prudent man would covet, yet such an one as for his sake I made no scruple to undertake. It was his lot to succeed the Duke of Bedford, and his high spirit would not suffer him to sink upon the comparison; I found him therefore resolute to start on his career with great magnificence, and leave behind him all attentions to expense. All that was in my power I did with unwearied diligence and attention to his interest, inspecting his accounts and paying his bills every week, to the minutest article. I put his Green Cloth upon a liberal, but regulated, establishment; I placed a faithful and well experienced servant of my father's at the head of his stables and equipages, and gave charge of the household articles to his principal domestic, of whose honesty he had many years' experience.

I had published my tragedy of "The Banishment of Cicero,' by Mr. J. Walter, at Charing Cross, upon quarto paper in a handsome type; I found it pirated and published in a sixpenny edition at Dublin, from the press of George Faulkner of immortal memory; if he had subjoined a true and faithful list of errata, I doubt if he could have afforded it at the price. I also, upon the king's accession, composed and published a poem addressed to the young sovereign, in which I attempted to delineate the character of the people he was to govern, and the principles of that conduct, which, if pursued, would insure their

into his own track again with the greatest ease.' Nov. 15, 1755. 'His voice, manner, and language,' says the same ear-witness, in recording this display on the historic page, were most advantageous; his arguments sound, though pointed; and his command of himself easy and undaunted.'-Memoirs of the Reign of George II., vol. ii. p. 51. Hamilton was subsequently made one of the lords of trade; and, as stated by Cumberland, went to Ireland as the Secretary of Lord Halifax. In the Irish Parliament, he stood high as an orator; though he did not realize the promise of excellence, which his famous speech had made, vide post, p. 120. He held for many years the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland; and when he retired from that employment, in 1784, he gave the remainder of his life to literary pursuits. He died in 1796. On a subsequent page the reader will find Cumberland's estimate of his character and talents. (Post, p. 120.)

attachment, and establish his own happiness and glory. This I wrote in blank verse; it was published by Mr. Dodsley, and I did not give my name to it. Of the extent of its circulation I cannot speak, neither did I make any search into the reviews of that time for the character, good or ill, which they thought fit to give it.

I had taken leave of Lord Melcombe the day preceding the coronation, and found him before a looking-glass in his new robes practising attitudes and debating within himself upon the most graceful mode of carrying his coronet in the procession. He was in high glee with his fresh and blooming honors, and I left him in the act of dictating a billet to Lady Hervey, apprising her that a young lord was coming to throw himself at her feet. He conjured me to keep my Lord Lieutenant firmly attached to Lord Bute, and we parted.

Here, however, I must take leave to pause upon a period in the life of my uncle, Mr. Bentley, when fortune smiled upon him, and his genius was drawn forth into exertion by the patronage of Lord Bute. Through my intimacy with Mr. Dodington, I had been the lucky instrument of opening that channel which, for a time at least, brought him affluence, comfort, and consideration. There was not a man of literary talents then in the kingdom who stood so high, and so deservedly in fame and favor with the Premier as Mr. Bentley; and though when that great personage went out of office, my uncle lost every place of profit that could be taken from him, he continued to enjoy a pension of five hundred pounds per annum, in which his widow had her life, and received it many years after his decease.

Lord Bute had all the disposition of a Mecenas, and fondly hoped he would be the auspicious instrument of opening an Augustan reign. He sent out his runners upon the search for men of talents; and Dodington was perfectly reconciled to the honor of being his provider in that laudable pursuit, for which no man was better qualified. He was not wanting in intuition to discern what the powers of Bentley's genius were; and none could better point out the purposes to which they might be usefully directed. Opposition was then beginning to look up, and soon felt the sharp point of Bentley's pen in one of the

To my Lord Melcombe; address as many lords and lordships as you please, and you cannot err; he is as fond of his title as his child could be, if he had one.'-Walpole to Sir Horace Man, May 14, 1761, vide Walpole's Letters. Dodington did not live long to enjoy his coveted honors. He died July 28, 1762, of a dropsy in his stomach, 'just when,' says Walpole, 'the views of his life were nearest being realized.'

keenest and wittiest satires extant in our language; Lord Temple, Wilkes, and others of the party were attacked with unsparing asperity and much classical acumen. Churchill, the Dryden of his age, and indisputably a man of first-rate genius, was too candid not to acknowledge the merit of the poem; and when he declined taking up the gauntlet so pointedly thrown down to him, it was not because he held his challenger in contempt. It was this poem that brought an accumulation of favors on its author; but I don't know that he ever had an interview with the bestower of them, and I am rather inclined to think they never met. About the same time, my uncle composed his witty, but eccentric drama of 'The Wishes,' in which he introduces the speaking harlequin, after the manner of the Italians. This curious production, after being circulated in manuscript, admired and applauded by all who had seen it, and those the very party which led the taste of the time under the auspices of Lord Bute, was privately rehearsed at Lord Melcombe's villa of La Trappe. It was on a beautiful summer's evening when it was recited upon the terrace on the banks of the Thames by Obrien, Miss Elliot, Mrs. Haughton, and some few others, under the management of Foote and Murphy, who attended on the occasion.' At this rehearsal, there was present a youth unknown to fame, who was understood to be protected by Lord Bute, and came thither in a

He

1 Walpole, in a letter to George Montague, thus gossips about his quondam friend Bentley's play: 'If you will stay with me a fortnight or three weeks, perhaps I may be able to carry you to a play of Mr. Bentley's-you stare, but I am in earnest; nay, and de par le roy. In short, here is the history of it. You know the passion he always had for the Italian comedy; about two years ago, he wrote one, intending to get it offered to Rich, but without his name. would have died to be supposed an author and writing for gain. I kept this an inviolable secret. Judge, then, of my surprise, when about a fortnight or three weeks ago, I found my Lord Melcombe reading this very Bentleian in a circle at my Lady Hervey's. Cumberland had carried it to him with a recommendatory copy of verses, containing more incense to the King and my Lord Bute, than the Magi brought in their portmanteaus to Jerusalem. The idols were propitious, and, to do them justice, there is a great deal of wit in the piece, which is called 'The Wishes, or Harlequin's Mouth Opened.' A bank note of two hundred pounds was sent from the treasury to the author, and the play ordered to be performed by the summer company. Foote was summoned to Lord Melcombe's, where Parnassus was composed by the Peer himself, who, like Apollo, as I am going to tell you, was dozing, the two Chief Justices and Lord B. Bubo read the play himself,' with handkerchief and orange by his side.' But the curious part is a prologue, which I never saw. It represents the God of Verse fast asleep by the side of Helicon; the race of modern bards try to wake him, but the more they repeat their works the louder he snores. At last ruin, seize thee, ruthless king!' is heard, and the god starts from his trance. This is a good thought, but will offend the bards so much that I think Dr. Bentley's son will be abused at least as much as his father was. The prologue concludes with young Augustus, and how much he excels the ancient one by the choice