try as unseasonable as important.

Equally amiable and great was the character of lord Hardwicke in every point in which it can be viewed. 9

When the whole nation was inflamed with exaggerated accounts of injuries sustained by British merchants and seamen from the rapacity and cruelty of the Spaniards, lord Hardwicke opposed in the cabinet the pacific disposition of the prime minister, and in the house of lords made so strenuous a speech for vigorous measures, that Walpole, who stood behind the throne, exclaimed to those around him, "Bravo, colonel Yorke !" 2

"The style of his eloquence," says Mr. Coxe, "was more adapted to the house of lords than to the house of commons. The tone of his voice was pleasing and melodious; his manner was placid and dignified. Precision of arrangement, closeness of argument, fluency of expression, elegance of diction, great knowledge of the subject on which he spoke, were his particular characteristics. He seldom rose into great animation: his chief aim was more to convince than amuse; to appeal to the judgment rather than to the feelings of his auditors. He possessed a perfect command over himself, and his even temper was never ruffled by petulant opposition, or malignant invective." 3

8 British Cabinet, ut sup.

? Dr. Drake's Sketches, ut sup.

2 Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, vol. i. p. 621.

3 Ut sup. p. 428.

It has been affirmed on the authority of Dr. Birch, that lord Hardwicke was the writer of two papers in the Spectator. Only one of these, however, can now be ascertained, and this is a letter on travelling, in No. 364, signed Philip Homebred. If not remarkable for originality or depth of thought, it is a sensible and entertaining production, observes the ingenious Dr. Drake, not deficient in humour, and in its style easy and perspicuous. *

From the Preface to Hurd's Life of Bishop Warburton, we learn that lord Hardwicke published anonymously,

"The legal Judicature in Chancery stated." Lond. 1727;

which was republished with large additions in 1728.

This notice was accidentally obtained from the information of his son, the hon. Charles Yorke; and gives an additional plea for the introduction of his lordship on on these pages, though it supplies no aid towards their literary embellishment.

Two speeches by lord Hardwicke,

"On the Militia Bill," and "Abolition of heritable Jurisdictions in Scotland," were at first privately printed, and afterward published by Almon, as the "Speeches of a late Lord Chancellor." 5

An Original letter, from his lordship to the marquis of Annandale, appeared in the Europ. Mag. for Dec. 1799.

4 Sketches, ut sup. p. 321.

See Monthly Review for 1770, p. 405.

The following lines were handed about, as a specimen of his classical attainments.

EPIGRAM TO A FRIEND, WITH A HARE.

Mitto tibi leporem, gratos mihi mitte lepores
Sal, mea commendat munera, vestra sales.]

CHARLES,

VISCOUNT TOWNSHEND,

Son of Charles, and father of George, the present viscount, published a pamphlet against the Bounty on Corn.

[This lord was in his father's lifetime summoned to the house of peers, by the stile and title of baron Lynn, of Lynn-Regis, on May 24, 1723; and took his place according to his grandfather's patent of creation. On the same day his majesty appointed him a gentleman of his bedchamber, and in June following, lord-lieutenant and custos rotulorum of the county of Norfolk, in the room of his father, who resigned. At the same time he had a grant of the office of master, or treasurer, of the king's jewels; which he relinquished, on succeeding to the estates and honours of his father in 1738-9. His lordship erected and endowed at Raynham, in Norfolk, a charity-school for clothing and educating thirty boys and twenty girls, the latter to be brought up in spinning. He died at Bath, whither he had gone for the benefit of his health, on March 12, 1764, and was succeeded by his eldest son, created marquis of Townshend. 2

2 Collins's Peerage, vol. vi. p. 252.

"Remarks upon the solar and the lunar Years, the Cycle of nineteen Years, commonly called the Golden Number, the Epact, and a Method of finding the Time of Easter, as it is now observed in most Parts of Europe. Being part of a Letter from the Right Hon. George, earl of Macclesfield, to Martin Folkes, Esq. President of the Royal Society." Lond. 1751,

4to.

These Remarks, as well as his lordship's Speech, require to be read in continuity, to do the noble author critical justice.

Lord Chesterfield was the mover of the bill in the house of peers for a reformation in the calendar, and displayed so much wit and graceful eloquence on the occasion, that he' eclipsed lord Macclesfield, who seconded his motion, and who was far better informed on the subject. This lord Chesterfield frankly avows, in one of his familiar letters, and attributes entirely to his own artifice of utterance and skilful management of so dry a theme, the superior power of captivating the attention and securing the favour of his hearers. 4]

See Maty's Memoirs of Lord Chesterfield, p. 199. A MS. Catalogue of a large library of the earl of Macclesfield, was advertised in March 1770, as "supposed to have been entrusted to some person whose memory it might have slipped, or to have been disposed of, in the sale of some of the late earl of Macclesfield's books, soon after his death." Five guineas were offered as a reward.