[247] Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay.
[248] Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay, 1786.
[249] Charles Churchill (1731-1764), author of "The Rosciad" and other satires.
[250] Grenville, speaking in the House of Commons, on the Cyder Tax, explained that the bill was brought in because funds must be found, and turned to Pitt who had been speaking against the measure. "I call upon the honourable gentleman opposite to me to say where they would wish to have a tax laid? I say, Sir, let them tell me where! I repeat it, Sir! I am entitled to say to them—tell me where?" Thereupon Pitt, mimicking the monotonous tones of the speaker, murmured audibly in the words of the then popular ballad: "Gentle Shepherd, tell me where." The House roared with laughter, and the nickname "Gentle Shepherd" clung to Grenville for life.
[251] Sir Charles Pratt, afterwards first Earl Camden, 1714-1794.
[252] The New Foundling Hospital for Wit.
[253] "The destruction of one man has been for many years the sole object of your government."—Junius, December 19, 1769.
[254] John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792).
[255] Thomas Potter (1718-1759), son of John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury.
[256] It is said that demon worship and mock celebrations of the rites peculiar to monastic orders were the most reputable of the ceremonies. Over the principal entrance to the Abbey Sir Francis Dashwood had placed the motto from Rabelais' Abbey of Theleme, "Fay ce que voudras."
[257] History of the Four Georges.
[258] Walpole: Memoirs of George III.
[259] Churchill: The Duellist.
[260] Lines addressed to the Earl of Sandwich.
[261] The Duellist.
[262] The Duellist.
[263] It has been said that Wilkes had to leave Paris hastily, a letter de cachet having been signed to lodge him in the Bastille, probably as the supposed author of "The Origin of Despotism." This supposition is, however, a direct contradiction of a statement in Walpoliana attributed to Horace Walpole. "Depend upon it that Wilkes was in the pay of France, during the Wilkes and Liberty days. Calling one day on the French minister, I observed a book on his table, with Wilkes's name in the first page. This led to a conversation, which convinced me. Other circumstances, too long and minute to be repeated, strengthened, if necessary, that conviction. I am as sure of it, as of any fact I know. Wilkes at first cringed to Lord Bute. The embassy to Constantinople was the object of his ambition. It was refused, and you know what followed."
[264] History of England in the Eighteenth Century.
[265] "In the public press, on the platform, on the stage, his influence was enormous. His good pleasure sent politicians to Parliament; his good pleasure made London sheriffs, made provincial mayors."—Justin McCarthy: History of the Four Georges.
[266] Henry Lawes Luttrell (1743-1821), succeeded his father as second Earl of Carhampton, 1787.
[267] Chatham Correspondence.
[268] Subsequently George asked: "Has she cut my waistcoat? for I have had no time to examine. Nothing could have been done easier, for there was nothing for her to go through but a thin linen and fat."
[269] Mrs. Delany: Autobiography and Correspondence.
Epitaph on a Stone thrown at A Very Great Man, but which missed him.
[271] The Jerningham Letters.
[272] The Jerningham Letters.
[273] Wraxall: Historical Memoirs of My Own Times.
[274] Wraxall: Historical Memoirs of My Own Times.
[275] Correspondence of George III with Lord North.
[276] Grenville Papers.
[277] The Vision of Judgment.
[278] Grenville Papers.
[279] Lecky: History of England in the Eighteenth Century.
[280] "We entered into the King's service to hinder the law from being indecently and unconstitutionally given to him."—Grenville Papers.
[281] Walpole: Memoirs of George III.
[282] Walpole: Memoirs of George III.
[283] William Cavendish, fourth Duke of Devonshire (1720-1764).
[284] Charles Watson Wentworth, second Marquis of Rockingham (1730-1782).
[285] "A severity of which there had been no precedent in the last reign, but in the cases of Lord Bath and Lord George Sackville; the first, in open and virulent opposition; the second on his ignominious sentence after the Battle of Minden."—Walpole: Memoirs of George III.
[286] Augustus Henry Fitzroy, third Duke of Grafton (1735-1811).
[287] "I have reason to believe that there will be a general déroute from the Duke of Grafton's Lieutenancy of the county of Suffolk to the underlings of the Custom House," Rigby wrote at the time, "and I think, if military men are excepted, as I trust they will be, the measure entirely right."—Bedford Correspondence.
[288] Grenville Papers.
[289] Lecky: History of England in the Eighteenth Century.
[290] Sir William Petty, second Earl of Shelburne (1737-1805), created Marquis of Lansdowne, 1784.
[291] Grenville Papers.
[292] An example of the care taken not to let the truth be known is given by Adolphus in his History of England (new edition, 1840). "The malady with which his Majesty was afflicted exhibited similar symptoms to those which, in 1788, and during the last years of his life, gave so much unhappiness to the nation. I did not mention the fact in former editions of this work, because I knew that the King, and all who loved him, were desirous that it should not be drawn into notice; so anxious were they on this point, that Smollett, having intimated it in his 'Complete History of England,' the text was revised in the general impression; a very few copies in the original form were disposed of, and they are now rare."
[293] John Nicholls: Recollections and Reflections.
[294] Wraxall: Historical Memoirs of My Own Times.
[295] Grenville Papers.
[296] Lord Holland's Memoir in The Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox.
[297] Grenville Papers.
[298] Lord Hardwicke: Memorial.
[299] Walpole: Memoirs of George III.
[300] Albemarle: Memoirs of Rockingham.
[301] "There is no animal on the face of the earth that the Duke has a more thorough contempt for, or a greater aversion to, than Grenville."—Stuart Mackenzie.
[302] Prior: Life of Burke.
[303] The Duke of Cumberland's Statement in The Memoirs of Rockingham.
[304] "The reconciliation between Lord Temple and George Grenville took place on May 22 at Lord Temple's house in Pall Mall. In the course of the following month we find Grenville happily domesticated at Stow; nor was the renewed good understanding between the two brothers ever afterwards interrupted."—Grenville Papers.
[305] George, first Baron Lyttelton (1703-1773).
"No man so propense to art was less artful; no man staked his honesty to less purpose, for he was so awkward that honesty was the only quality that seemed natural to him. His cunning was so often in default that he was a kind of beacon that warned men not to approach the shallows on which he founded his attachments always at the wrong season." Thus was Lyttelton's character depicted by Walpole, who described his person: "With the figure of a spectre, and the gesticulations of a puppet, he talked heroics through his nose."
[306] The Honourable James Archibald Stuart, Lord Bute's brother, took the name of Mackenzie on succeeding to the estate of his great-grandfather, Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh.
[307] Adolphus: History of England.
[308] Ellis: Original Letters.
[309] The fifth Duke, who succeeded to the title in 1764.
[310] Albemarle: Memoirs of Rockingham; Walpole: Memoirs of George III.
[311] Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox.
[312] Grenville Papers.
[313] Lady Sarah Bunbury to Lady Susan O'Brien, June 22, 1765.
[314] Pitt, Lord Temple, and George Grenville.
[315] Virgil: Æneid, IV, 682. It is rendered in Pitt's translation:
[316] Chatham Correspondence.