veristy of Oxford, where they are now reposited. Her ladyship died in December 1761, leaving a numerous family. "A neat cenotaph has been erected to her memory in St. Mary's church, Oxon. 6

Lord Orford intimates in his Anecdotes of Painting7, that the mother of the last earl of Pomfret, who was at Rome with her lord, wrote

"A Life of Vandyck,"

with some description of his works; and this is echoed by the editor of lady Pomfret's Letters, but no specimen is given. From such intimations, however, her ladyship may demand an entry on the list of noble authoresses; and this hiatus in her literary remains "must be supplied from her epistolary reliques, which are lively, courteous, and polite, and afford proofs as the editor observes, of a heart susceptible of amiable virtues and unaffected devotion. 8

POMERET waves her tutelary wand,

And full on learning's consecrated bowers
Th' invigorating rays of kindly favour pours."

Hence the Wreaths of Virtue are invok'd

"To bloom immortal o'er the genuine great ;

E'en as at this illustrious hour

Her justest chaplets on a POMFRET shine,

Grac'd with the smiles of learning and of pow'r,

And thron'd in Virtue's beams, on Merit's brightest shrine."

5. Her daughter, lady Charlotte Finch, long survived, and was a continued favourite at court.

• Pref. Mem. to her Letters, p. xxvi.

>

The following is part of a metrical letter written from Florence, Dec. 1740, and is creditable at least to her maternal feelings and mental reflections.

"Forc'd from my friends in former days, had been
As the last trumpet to the dead in sin :
But I, alas! have prov'd the vain deceit,
And know, for one that 's true, a million cheat.
To talk, to laugh, to dine, to see a play,
Or at the most, to wait for you a day,
Is all they mean whatever t' is they say.
Yet in that place where constancy's a sport,.
That dull, designing whirligiga court!
By chance conducted, or by fate constrain❜d,
▾ Experience has at last the wisdom gain'd
To sift the corn and throw the chaff away,
Which were too like when they together lay:
And since from absence I this good receive,
Can I with reason even absence grieve?.
"My children I confess the tenderest part
Still in my mind, and ever at my heart:
Yet for their good, (at least I meant it so,
And nothing else had ever made me go,)
I place the lesser three till my return,

(Too young to want me, and too young to mourn,
Under her care who taught my early youth;

Long known her merit, and well prov'd her truth:

The other two, more ready to receive

Th' improvements that an education give,

I to a wise and tender parent leave.

With youth's vain pleasures, youth's vain cares I quit:
And simply fortune never pain'd me yet;

For to that Being, merciful and just,
Who call'd me into life, my fate I trust.

"Arm'd with these thoughts, I take my destin'd way,

· Return contented, or contented stay;

Rise with the sun, and breathe the morning air,

Or to the bay-tree shade at noon repair;
Walk and reflect within the conscious grove
Where fair Bianca 9 fed unlawful love,

What different cares its different owners prove;
Review in every light each various scene,
Where I have actor or spectator been,
And live in fancy all my life again;

Content, my follies past, and prospects gone,

To find integrity is still my own!"]

9 Bianca Capello was kept by the great duke Francis the first

at this house, till, his wife dying, he married her.

A

GEORGE BUBB DODINGTON,

LORD MELCOMBE,
MEI

MAN of more wit and more unsteadiness than Pulteney, earl of Bath; as ambitious, but less acrimonious; no formidable enemy no sure political, but an agreeable friend. Lord Melcombe's speeches were as dainty and pointed, as lord Bath's were copious and wandering from the subject. Ostentatious in his person, houses, and furniture, he wanted in his expence the taste he never wanted in his conversation. Pope and Churchill treated him more severely than he deserved: a fate that may attend a man of the greatest wit, when his parts are more suited to society than to composition. The verse remains, the bons mots and sallies are forgotten.

"

It had been well for lord Melcombe's memory, if his fame had been suffered to rest on the tradition of his wit, and the evidence of his poetry. The posthumous publication of his own Diary has not enlarged the stock of his reputation, nor reflected more credit on his judgment than on his steadiness.

Very sparingly strewed with his brightest talent, wit; the book strangely displays a complacency in his own versatility, and seems to look back with triumph on the scorn and derision with which his political levity was treated by all to whom he attached or attempted to attach himself. He records conversations in which he alone did not perceive, what every reader must discover, that he was always a dupe. And so blind was his selflove, that he appears to be satisfied with himself, though he relates little but what tended to his disgrace: as if he thought the world would forgive his inconsistencies as easily as he forgave himself. Had he adopted the French title Confessions, it would have seemed to imply some kind of penitence. But vainglory engrossed Lord Melcombe. He was determined to raise an altar to himself; and for want of burnt-offerings, lighted the pyre, like a great author (Rousseau), with his own character.

However, with all its faults and curtailments, the book is valuable. They who have. seen much of courts, and are faithful, as Lord Melcombe was, in relating facts, (whether they meant to palliate or over-charge,) still leave much undisguised, which it did not an