well! I am going amidst it all, very unwillingly; I had rather stay here, for I am sick of the storms, that once loved them so cordially: over and above, I am not well; this is the third winter my nightly fever has returned; it comes like the bellman before Christmas, to put me in mind of my mortality. : Sir Michael Foster is dead, a Whig of the old rock he is a greater loss to his country than the prim Attorney-General [Charles Yorke], who has resigned, or than the Attorney's father [Lord Hardwicke], who is dying, will be. My Gallery is still in such request, that, though the middle of November, I gave out a ticket to-day for seeing it. I see little of it myself, for I cannot sit alone in such state; I should think myself like the mad Duchess of Albemarle, who fancied herself Empress of China. Adieu ! 881. TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD. Arlington Street, Nov. 17, 1763. If the winter keeps up to the vivacity of its début, you will have no reason to complain of the sterility of my letters. I do not say this from the spirit of the House of Commons on the first day, which was the most fatiguing and dull debate I ever heard, dull as I have heard many; and yet for the first quarter of an hour it looked as if we were met to choose a King of Poland, and that all our names ended in isky. Wilkes, the night before, had presented himself at the Cockpit as he was listening to the Speech, George Selwyn said : 1 Sir Michael Foster, one of the judges in the court of King's Bench, died Nov. 7, 1763. He is made immortal by the Rosciad:— As Mansfield wise, and as old Foster just.-CUNNINGHAM. * Elizabeth Cavendish, widow of Christopher Duke of Albemarle, and wife of Ralph Duke of Montagu. See the story to which Walpole refers told in a note to Granger, ed. 1775, vol. iv. 158. Granger adds that he owes the note to Mr. Horace Walpole.CUNNINGHAM. 3 Parliament met on the 15th of November. The public mind was at this moment in a considerable ferment, and the King's speech invited Parliament "to discourage that licentious spirit which is repugnant to the true principles of liberty and of this happy constitution." It was expected that these words would, from their being understood as a direct attack on Mr. Wilkes, have opened a debate on his question, which was then uppermost in every mind; but the opposition were unwilling to put themselves under the disadvantage of opposing the address and of excepting against words, which, in their general meaning, were unexceptionable; they, therefore, had recourse to the proceedings so well described in this letter.-CROKER. The King's speech, which is now read at the house of the minister, to a selection of the friends of government, was formerly read at the Cockpit [at Whitehall, where the Secretary of State's office was], and all who chose attended.-CROKER. to him, in the words of the Dunciad, "May Heaven preserve the ears you lend!" We lost four hours debating whether or not it was necessary to open the session with reading a bill. The opposite sides, at the same time, pushing to get the start, between the King's message, which Mr. Grenville stood at the bar to present, and which was to acquaint us with the arrest of Wilkes and all that affair, and the complaint which Wilkes himself stood up to make. At six we divided on the question of reading a bill. Young Thomas Townshend' divided the House injudiciously, as the question was so idle; yet the whole argument of the day had been so complicated with this question, that in effect it became the material question for trying forces. This will be an interesting part to you, when you hear that your brother [Mr. Conway] and I were in the minority. You know him, and therefore know he did what he thought right; and for me, my dear lord, you must know that I would die in the House for its privileges, and the liberty of the press. But come, don't be alarmed: this will have no consequences. I don't think your brother is going into opposition; and for me, if I may name myself to your affection after him, nothing but a question of such magnitude can carry me to the House at all. I am sick of parties and factions, and leave them to buy and sell one another. Bless me! I had forgot the numbers: they were 300, we 111. We then went upon the King's message; heard the North Briton' read; and Lord North,' who took the prosecution upon him and did it very well, moved to vote it a scandalous libel, &c. tending to foment treasonable insurrections. Mr. Pitt gave up the paper, but fought against the last words of the censure. say Mr. Pitt, for indeed, like Almanzor, he fought almost singly, and spoke forty times: the first time in the day with much wit, afterwards with little energy. He had a tough enemy too; I don't mean in parts or argument, but one that makes an excellent bull-dog, the Solicitor-General Norton. Legge was, as usual, concise; and Charles Townshend, what is not usual, silent. We sat till within I 1 Yet oh, my sons! a father's words attend; -WRIGHT. 2 Afterwards [1783] Lord Sydney [of Chisleshurst and St. Leonards, died June 13, 1800]. The Townshends were supposed to be very unsteady, if not fickle, in their political conduct; a circumstance which gives point to Goldsmith's mention of this Mr. Townshend in his character of Burke : : yet straining his throat To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote.-CROKER. 3 Lord North was at this time one of the junior lords of the Treasury.-WRIGHT. few minutes of two, after dividing again; we, our exact former number, 111; they, 273; and then we adjourned to go on the point of privilege the next day; but now Listen, lordings, and hold you still; Of doughty deeds tell you I will. Martin,' in the debate, mentioned the North Briton,' in which he himself had been so heavily abused; and he said, "whoever stabs a reputation in the dark, without setting his name, is a cowardly, malignant, and scandalous scoundrel." This, looking at Wilkes, he repeated twice, with such rage and violence, that he owned his passion obliged him to sit down. Wilkes bore this with the same indifference as he did all that passed in the day. The House too, who from Martin's choosing to take a public opportunity of resentment, when he had so long declined any private notice, and after Wilkes's courage was become so problematic, seemed to think there was no danger of such champions going further; but the next day, when we came into the House, the first thing we heard was that Martin had shot Wilkes: so he had; but Wilkes has six lives still good. It seems Wilkes had writ, to avow the paper, to Martin, on which the latter challenged him. They went into Hyde-park about noon; Humphrey Cotes, the wine-merchant, waiting in a postchaise to convey Wilkes away if triumphant. They fired at the distance of fourteen yards: both missed. Then Martin fired and lodged a ball in the side of Wilkes; who was going to return it, but dropped his pistol. He desired Martin to take care of securing himself, and assured him he would never say a word against him, and he allows that Martin behaved well. The wound yesterday was thought little more than a flesh-wound, and he was in his old spirits. To-day the account is worse, and he has been delirious: so you will think when you hear what is to come. I think, from the agitation his mind must be in, from his spirits, and from drinking, as I suppose he will, that he probably will end here. He puts me in mind of two lines of Hudibras," which, by the arrangement of the words combined with Wilkes's story, are stronger than Butler intended them : But he that fights and runs away 1 Wilkes' and Walpole's Samuel Martin, ante, p. 69.-CUNNINGHAM. 2 These lines, and two others, usually appended to them "He that is in battle slain Can never rise to fight again," His adventures with Lord Talbot,' Forbes,' and Martin, make these lines history. Now for Part the Second. On the first day, in your House, where the address was moved by Lord Hillsborough and Lord Suffolk, after some wrangling between Lord Temple, Lord Halifax, the Duke of Bedford, and Lord Gower; Lord Sandwich' laid before the House the most blasphemous and indecent poem that ever was composed, called "An Essay on Woman, with notes, by Dr. Warburton." I will tell you none of the particulars: they were so exceedingly bad, that Lord Lyttelton begged the reading might be stopped. The House was amazed; nobody ventured even to ask a question so it was easily voted everything you please, and a breach of privilege into the bargain. Lord Sandwich then informed your Lordships that Mr. Wilkes was the author. Fourteen copies alone were printed, one of which the ministry had are not in Hudibras. Butler has the same thought in two lines "For those that fly may fight again, Part iii. Cant. 3, 243.-CROKER. 1 At the coronation, Lord Talbot, as lord steward, appeared on horseback in Westminster-hall. His horse had been, at numerous rehearsals, so assiduously trained to perform what was thought the most difficult part of his duty, namely, the retiring backwards from the royal table, that, at the ceremony itself, no art of his rider could prevent the too docile animal from making his approaches to the royal presence tail foremost. This ridiculous incident was the occasion of some sarcastic remarks in the 'North Briton,' of the 21st August, which led to a correspondence between Lord Talbot and Mr. Wilkes, and ultimately to a duel in the garden of the Red Lion Inn, at Bagshot.-CROKER. 2 A young Scotch officer, of the name of Forbes, fastened a quarrel on Mr. Wilkes, in Paris, for having written against Scotland, and insisted on his fighting him. Wilkes declined until he should have settled an engagement of the same nature which he had with Lord Egremont. Just at this time Lord Egremont died, and Wilkes immediately offered to meet Captain Forbes at Menin, in Flanders. By some mistake Forbes did not appear, and the affair blew over. A long controversy was kept up on the subject by partisans in the newspapers; but on the whole it is impossible to deny that Forbes's conduct was hasty and foolish, and that Wilkes behaved himself like a man of temper and honour.-CROKER. 3 At this time secretary of state. "It is a great mercy," says Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to his son, of the 3rd of December, "that Mr. Wilkes, the intrepid defender of our rights and liberties, is out of danger; and it is no less a mercy, that God has raised up the Earl of Sandwich, to vindicate and promote true religion and morality. These two blessings will justly make an epoch in the annals of this country."-WRIGHT. 4 The Bishop of Gloucester, whose laborious commentaries on Pope's Essay on Man gave Wilkes the idea of fathering on him the notes on the Essay on Woman.— CROKER. 5 The author of this " indecent patchwork " as Walpole himself afterwards discovered was not Wilkes, but Thomas Potter, son of the late Archbishop of Canterbury. See Walpole's George III., vol. i. p. 310-312, and Churchill's Dedication of his Sermons to Warburton. See also Notes and Queries for July, 1857. For Potter, who died in 1759, see vol. ii. p. 99. CUNNINGHAM. bribed the printer to give up. Lord Temple then objected to the manner of obtaining it; and Bishop Warburton, as much shocked at infidelity as Lord Sandwich had been at obscenity, said, "the blackest fiends in hell would not keep company with Wilkes when he should arrive there." Lord Sandwich moved to vote Wilkes the author; but this Lord Mansfield stopped, advertising the House that it was necessary first to hear what Wilkes could say in his defence. To-day, therefore, was appointed for that purpose; but it has been put off by Martin's lodging a careat.' This bomb was certainly well conducted, and the secret, though known to many, well kept. The management is worthy of Lord Sandwich, and like him. It may sound odd for me, with my principles, to admire Lord Sandwich; but besides that he has in several instances been very obliging to me, there is a good humour and an industry about him that are very uncommon. I do not admire politicians; but when they are excellent in their way, one cannot help allowing them their due. Nobody but he could have struck a stroke like this. Yesterday we sat till eight on the address, which yet passed without a negative: we had two very long speeches from Mr. Pitt and Mr. Grenville; many fine parts in each. Mr. Pitt has given the latter some strong words, yet not so many as were expected." To-morrow we go on the great question of privilege; but I must send this away, as we have no chance of leaving the House before midnight, if before next morning. This long letter contains the history of but two days; yet if two days furnish a history, it is not my fault. The Ministry, I think, 1 Dr. Birch, in a letter to Lord Royston, gives the following account of what passed in the House of Lords on this occasion: "The session commenced with a complaint made by Lord Sandwich against Mr. Wilkes for a breach of privilege in being the author of a poem full of obscenity and blasphemy, intituled 'An Essay on Woman,' with notes, under the name of the Bishop of Gloucester. His letters, which discovered the piece was his, had been seized at Kearsley's the bookseller, when the latter was taken up for publishing No. 45 of the North Briton.' Lord Temple and Lord Sandys objected to the reading letters, till the secretary of state's warrant, by which Kearsley had been arrested, had been produced and shown to be a legal act; but this objection being overruled, the Lords voted the Essay a most scandalous, obscene, and impious libel, and adjourned the farther consideration of the subject, as far as concerned the author, till the Thursday following."-WRIGHT. 2 Lord Barrington, in a letter to Sir Andrew Mitchell, gives the following account of Mr. Pitt's speech :-" He spoke with great ability, and the utmost degree of temper: he spoke civilly, and not unfairly, of the ministers; but of the King he said everything which duty and affection could inspire. The effect of this was a vote for an address, nem. con. I think, if fifty thousand pounds had been given for that speech, it would have been well expended. It secures us a quiet session." See Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 262.-WRIGHT. |