consistent age? they don't know them themselves? In short, Charles Yorke is not attorney-general, nor Norton master of the rolls. A qualm came across the first, and my Lord Chancellor across the second, who would not have Norton in his court. I cannot imagine why; it is so gentle, amiable, honest a being ! But I think the Chancellor says, Norton does not understand equity, so he remains prosecutor-general. Yorke would have taken the rolls, if they would have made it much more considerable; but as they would not, he has recollected that it will be clever for one Yorke to have the air of being disinterested, so he only disgraces himself,1 and takes a patent of precedence over the Solicitor-General:- but do not depend upon this he was to have kissed hands on Friday, but has put it off till Wednesday next-between this and that, his virtue may have another fit. The court ridicule him even more than the opposition. What diverts me most, is, that the pious and dutiful house of Yorke, who cried and roared over their father's memory, now throw all the blame on him, and say, he forced them into opposition amorem nummi How should I know people's minds, if We can venture to state, that there never was any idea of Mr. Yorke's accepting the rolls; and it is believed that they never were offered to him; certainly, he himself never thought of taking that office. The patent of precedence which he did accept, was an arrangement, which, though convenient for the conduct of the business in court, could give no addition of either rank or profit to a person in Mr. Yorke's circumstances. The facts were as follow: when Mr. Yorke, in 1756, was made solicitor-general, he was not a King's counsel; he succeeded to be attorney-general, but on his resignation in October 1763, he lost the precedence which his offices had given him, and he returned to the outer bar and a stuff gown. It was a novel and anomalous sight to see a inan who had led the Chancery bar so long, and filled the greatest offices of the law, retire to, comparatively, so humble a rank in the court in which he might be every day expected to preside; and accordingly, on his first appearance after his resignation, the Chancellor, with the concurrence (indeed, it has been said on the suggestion) of the bar, called to Mr. Yorke, out of his turn, next after the King's counsel: this irregular pre-audience had lasted above a year, when it was thought more proper and more convenient for the business of the court to give Mr. Yorke that formal patent of precedence, the value and circumstances of which Mr. Walpole so much misunderstands. We have heard from old lawyers, that Mr. Yorke's business at this period was more extensive and lucrative than any other man ever possessed in Chancery, and we find no less than four other barristers had at this time patents of precedence.-C. expellas furcâ, licet usque recurret.1 rolls. 2 Sewell is master of the Well! I may grow a little more explicit to you; besides, this letter goes to you by a private hand. I gave you little hints, to prepare you for the separation in the house of Grafton. It is so, and I am heartily sorry for it. Your brother is chosen by the Duke, and General Ellison by the Duchess, to adjust the terms, which are not yet settled. The Duke takes all on himself, and assigns no reason but disagreement of tempers. He leaves Lady Georgiana with her mother, who, he says, is the properest person to educate her, and Lord Charles, till he is old enough to be taken from the This behaviour is noble and generous women. wish they could have agreed ! 3 still I This is not the only parting that makes a noise. His grace of Kingston has taken a pretty milliner from Cranborn-alley, and carried her to Thoresby. Miss Chudleigh, at the Princess's birth-day on Friday, beat her side till she could not help having a real pain in it, that people might inquire what was the matter; on which she notified a pleurisy, and that she is going to the baths of Carlsbad, in Bohemia. I hope she will not meet with the Bulgares that demolished the Castle of Thunderten-tronck. My Lady Harrington's robbery is at last come to light, and was committed by the porter, who is in Newgate. Lady Northumberland (who, by the way, has added an eighth footman since I wrote to you last) told me this morn The reader is requested to look back to p. 349, where he will find Mr. Walpole himself stating - long before Lord Hardwicke's death, and even before his illness-that "the old Chancellor was violent against the court, and that Mr. Charles Yorke had resigned, contrary to his own and Lord Royston's inclination." The fact was in no way true; for it is well known that there never was the slightest difference of opinion between the old Lord Hardwicke and his son Charles upon their political conduct.-C. 2 Sir Thomas Sewell, Knight.-E. 3 Evelyn, last Duke of Kingston : he soon after married Miss Chudleigh, who was supposed to have been already married to Mr. Augustus Hervey, afterwards Earl of Bristol.-C. 4 An allusion to a loose incident in Voltaire's Candide.-C. 5 See ante, p. 333. ing that the Queen is very impatient to receive an answer from Lady Hertford, about Prince George's letters coming through your hands, as she desired they might. A correspondence between Legge and Lord Bute about the Hampshire election is published to-day, by the express desire of the former, when he was dying.1 He showed the letters to me in the spring, and I then did not think them so strong or important as he did. I am very clear it does no honour to his memory to have them printed now. It implies want of resolution to publish them in his life-time, and that he died with more resentment than I think one should care to own. I would send them to you, but I know Dr. Hunter takes care of such things. I hope he will send you, too, the finest piece that I think has been written for liberty since Lord Somers. It is called an Inquiry into the late Doctrine on Libels, and is said to be written by one Dunning, a lawyer lately started up, who makes a great noise. He is a sharp thorn in the sides of Lord Mansfield and Norton, and, in truth, this book is no plaster to their pain. It is bitter, has much unaffected wit, and is the only tract that ever made me understand law. If Dr. Hunter does not send you these things, I suppose he will convey 'Mr. Legge had, in 1759, while chancellor of the exchequer to George II, been requested by Lord Bute, in the name of the Prince of Wales, to pledge himself to support a Mr. Stuart at the next election for Hampshire: this, Mr. Legge, for very sufficient reasons, refused to do; and for this refusal (as he thought, and wished to persuade the public) he was turned out of office at the accession of the young King.-Ċ. 2 Mr. Dunning soon rose into great practice and eminence; in 1767 he was made solicitor-general, which office he held till 1770. He then made a considerable figure in the opposition, till the accession to the ministry, in 1782, of his friend Lord Shelburne, when he was created Lord Ashburton; he died next year.-C. 3 Mr. Dunning's pamphlet was intituled "Inquiry into the Doctrine lately propagated concerning Juries, Libels, &c. upon the principles of the Law and the Constitution." Gray, in a letter to Walpole of the 30th, thus characterizes it :-" Your canonical book I have been reading with great satisfaction. He speaketh as one having authority. If Englishmen have any feeling, methinks they must feel now; and if the ministry have any feeling (whom nobody will suspect of insensibility) they must cut off the author's ears; for it is in all the forms a most wicked libel. Is the old man and the lawyer put on, or is it real?_ or has some real lawyer furnished a good part of the materials, and another person employed them? This I guess.' Works, vol. iv. p. 40.—E. them himself, as I hear there will be a fourteenth occasion for him. Charles Fitzroy says, Lord Halifax told Mrs. Cosby that you are to go to Ireland. I said he knows you are not the most communicative person in the world, and that you had not mentioned it- nor do I now, by way of asking impertinent questions; but I thought you would like to know what was said. He I return to Strawberry Hill to-morrow, but must return on Thursday, as there is to be something at the Duke of York's that evening, for which I have received a card. and his brother are most exceedingly civil and good-humoured - but I assure you every place is like one of Shakspeare's plays: Flourish, enter the Duke of York, Gloucester, and attendants. Lady Irwin1 died yesterday. Past eleven. I am just come from a little impromptu ball at Mrs. Ann Pitt's. I told you she had a new pension, but did I tell you it was five hundred pounds a year? It was entertaining to see the Duchess of Bedford and Lady Bute with their respective forces, drawn up on different sides of the room: the latter's were most numerous. My Lord Gower seemed very willing to promote a parley between the two armies. It would have made you shrug up your shoulders at dirty humanity, to see the two Miss Pelhams sit neglected, without being asked to dance. You may imagine this could not escape me, who have passed through the several gradations in which Lady Jane Stuart and Miss Pelham are and have been; but I fear poor Miss Pelham feels hers a little more than ever I did. The Duke of York's is to be a dinner and ball for Princess Amelia. 1 Anne Howard, daughter of the third Earl of Carlisle, and widow of the third Viscount Irwin. She was lady of the bedchamber to the Princess Dowager. Mr. Park has introduced her into his edition of the Noble Authors.-C. 2 Mr. Walpole means, that he was courted during his father's power, and neglected after his fall, as the daughters of a succeeding prime minister, Mr. Henry Pelham, now were: but as Lady Jane Stuart was but two-and-twenty years old, and Miss Pelham was thirty-six, we may account for the preference given to her ladyship at a ball, without any reference to the meanness and political time-serving of mankind. Both the Misses Pelham died unmarried.-C. Lady Mary Bowlby' gave me a commission, a genealogic one, from my Lady Hertford, which I will execute to the best of my power. I am glad my part is not to prove eighteen generations of nobility for the Bruces. I fear they have made some mes-alliances since the days of King Robert -at least, the present Scotch nobility are not less apt to go into Lombard-street than the English. My Lady Suffolk was at the ball; I asked the Prince of Masserano whom he thought the oldest woman in the room, as I concluded he would not guess she was. He did not know my reason for asking, and would not tell me. At last, he said very cleverly, his own wife. Mr. Sarjent has sent me this evening from you, "Les Considérations sur les Mours," and "Le Testament Politique," ," for which I give you, my dear lord, a thousand thanks. Good night! P. S. Manzoli3 is come a little too late, or I think he would have as many diamond watches and snuff-boxes as Farinelli had. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, Dec. 16, 1764. As I have not read in the paper that you died lately at Greatworth, in Northamptonshire, nor have met with any Montagu or Trevor in mourning, I conclude you are living: I send this, however, to inquire, and if you should happen to be departed, hope your executor will be so kind as to burn it. 1 Sister of the Duke of Montagu.—E. A French forgery called "Le Testament Politique du Chevalier Robert Walpole," of which Mr. Walpole drew up an exposure, which is to be found in the second volume of his works.-C. The enthusiasm, however, ran pretty high, as we learn from the following passage, in one of the periodical papers of the day :-" Signor Manzoli, the Italian singer at the Haymarket, got no less, after paying all charges of every kind, by his benefit last week (March 1765), than 1000 guineas. This added to a sum of 1500 which he has already saved, and the remaining profits of the season, is surely an undoubted proof of British generosity. One particular lady complimented the singer with a 2001. bill for a single ticket on that occasion."-C. |