SIR FLETCHER NORTON.-GEORGE THE THIRD. 101

the coarse satires or caricatures of that day, by the epithet of Sir Bullface Doublefee;' yet possessed eminent parliamentary, as well as legal talents."-Wraxall. Note. One of which I remember, except the second line, which is not exact:

"Careless of censure, and no fool to fame,

Firm in his double post and double fees; Sir Fletcher standing without fear or shame, Pockets the cash, and let's them laugh that please.

"So on a market day, stands Whatley's bear,
In spite of all their noise and hurly burley;
Fixed on his double post, secure in air,

Munching his bunch of grapes, and looking surly."

The Bear at Devizes was then kept by one Whatley, and stood upon a monstrous double signpost high up in the air, when some wag wrote these verses with a diamond on the window of an eating-room belonging to the inn. They were taken of course into everybody's scrap book, or everybody's memory.

Note on George the Third.

When the present King was quite a lad, there was a young fellow about the Prince's Court, who being thought natural son to my uncle Robert, was petted and provided for in some. manner by the family, and used to visit familiarly at my mother's; who said that he told her how one day the two eldest boys were playing in the Princess's apartment, when the second said suddenly, "Brother,

when you and I are men grown, you shall marry a wife and I'll keep a mistress." "What you say there? you naughty boy," exclaimed the mother; "you better to learn your pronouns as preceptor bid you; I believe you not know what it is a pronoun."

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"Be quiet, Eddy," says the King; we shall have anger presently for your nonsense. Fletcher! (to my courtier cousin) give us the books." "Let them alone," cries Prince Edward; "I know what it is without a book: a pronoun is to a noun what a mistress is to a wife a substitute and a representative." The Princess burst out o' laughing and turned them all out of the

room.

Prince Edward was the Duke of York, who died at Monaco in Italy.

Mrs. Crewe and Mrs. Bouverie. The two fashionable belles about the Court and town had been painted by Reynolds in a character of two shepherdesses, with a pensive air as if appealing to each other, about the year 1770, or perhaps earlier; and there was written under the picture: "Et in Arcadia ego." When the Exhibition was arranging, the members and their friends went and looked the works over; "What can this mean?" said Dr. Johnson; "it seems very nonsensical - I am in Arcadia." "Well! what of that! The King could have told you,” replied the painter. "He saw it yesterday, and said at once, 'Oh, there is a tombstone in the back-grouud. Ay, ay, death is even in Arcadia.''

The thought is borrowed from Poussin; where the gay frolickers stumble over a death's head, with a scroll proceeding from his mouth, saying, " Et in Arcadia ego."

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"Tis said that those who seek one thing, often find a better which was not the primary object of their search. Queen Caroline looked for popular applause, and gained private esteem. In pursuit of her original desire to please every one who was presented, however, she made herself acquainted with the well-known events in English History; and having been told that a Derbyshire baronet, Sir Woolston Dixie, lived near the spot where Richard the Third lost his life and crown, readily adverted to that occurrence, and when his name was mentioned, said "Oh, Sir! it has been related to me your connexion with Bosworth Field and the memorable battle fought there." The gentleman's face, even redder than before, swelled with indignation, till at last he broke out with no very decorous vehemence of protestation, that all her Majesty had heard concerning it was false and groundless; and that he would find a way to make those repent who had filled the ears of his Sovereign with such gross untruths. "God forgive my great sin!" cried the astonished Princess; and Sir Woolston Dixie left the drawing-room in an agony scarce to be described.

The misintelligence, as the French call it, was occasioned by the baronet's utter ignorance of historic literature. He was a brutal fellow, and having assaulted a tinker some day crossing Bosworth Field, the tinker. laid down his tools and beat him severely; which

his merry neighbours heard with pleasure, and called this luckless encounter, naturally enough, The Battle of Bosworth: while poor Sir Woolston, having never heard of any other contest in the place, except his own, made no doubt but that the Queen had heard of his disgrace, and took that opportunity to ridicule him for it.

I must add, that such instances of gross ignorance in country gentlemen were not-as now-incompatible with birth, rank, or fortune; I mean in the days when Caroline of Anspach canvassed her drawing-room at St. James's.*

Lady Archibald Hamilton formed during many years, the object of Frederick's avowed and particular attach

ment.

She was mother to Archdeacon Hamilton, who lived his last years and died in the Circus here at Bath. He was very unhappy in his family; and when one observed accidentally on another friend's ill-fortune" has he three children?" says poor Hamilton; "and are they like mine?"† His mother was the Delamira of the "Tatler.” His daughter is the Countess of Aldborough.

"The inglorious naval engagement in the Mediterranean, between Byng and La Galissoniere, for his con

Miss Berry relates that Sir John Germaine left a legacy to Sir Matthew Decker, under the impression that he was the author of the Gospel according to St. Matthew.

"What, have his daughters brought him to this pass?

Lear.

BYNG.-LORD CHATHAM.-JUNIUS.

duct in which the former of those admirals suffered." Wraxall.

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Note. See "Retrospection," 2nd vol., page 423, near the bottom. I had more grace than to name my own father and uncle in a quarto volume meant for public view; but I may tell you thus privately, and after more than half a century has past, how my uncle (who was then judge of the Admiralty) felt affected, when the old Duke of Newcastle wrung him by the hand and said, "My dear Sir Thomas, England has seen her best days. We are all undone. This dfellow has done for us, and all is over."

"The Treasury, the Admiralty, the War Office, all obeyed his (the first Pitt's) orders with prompt and implicit submission. Lord Anson and the Duke of Newcastle, sometimes, it is true, remonstrated, and often complained; but always finished by compliance.” Wraxall.

Note. Their compliance was submission of the most unqualified kind, and the patience with which they waited in the anti-room, while Mr. Pitt was examining some machinery brought for his inspection by Nuttal the engine maker in Long Acre, was truly laughable.

"All circumstances fully weighed, my own conviction is, that the Letters of Junius' were written by the Right Honourable William Gerard Hamilton commonly designated by the nickname of 'Single Speech Hamilton.' Wraxall.