"I dine at twelve all the year, but shall be glad to take a glass
with you at the King's Arms any day from four to six. If I have
disobliged Mr Parsons, (who I hear was with you,) or any of you
gentlemen, I never intended it, and ask your pardons. I shall be
proud to oblige my Lord Carteret, or you, or the rest, at any time.
Pray let them see this."
"J. HENLEY."
There appears to have been some kind of riot at one of Henley's lectures,
probably a rough burlesque of his manner, in which Selwyn, then a student
of Oxford, made himself conspicuous. At least the letter is addressed to
him.
"I am accountable for the peace of my congregation; and among the rules
and articles of my consent and conditions as owner and minister, one rule
is, to go out directly, forfeiting what has been given, if any person
cannot or will not preserve those conditions; for the smallest
circumstance of disorder has been inflamed to the highest outrage. The
bishop's nephew began something of the kind two months ago, and made me
retribution; so have others, and I must send an attorney to warn them not
to come whom I suspect hereafter. You have been at his sport before."
We now come to a man of more importance, Richard Rigby, the "blushing
Rigby" of Junius. He was the son of a linen-draper, who, as factor to the
South Sea Company, acquired considerable property. This, however, his son,
who had adopted public life as his pursuit, rapidly squandered in
electioneering, in pleasure, and the irresistible vice of the time, play.
Frederic, Prince of Wales, was the first object of all needy politicians,
and Rigby for a while attached himself to this feeble personage with all
the zeal of a prospective placeman. But the prince remained too long in
opposition for the fidelity of courtiership, and Rigby glided over to the
Duke of Bedford; who unquestionably exhibited himself a steady and zealous
friend to his new adherent. The duke lent him money to pay his debts; gave
him the secretaryship for Ireland on his appointment to the viceroyalty;
gave him a seat in Parliament for Tavistock; was the means of his being
made a privy counsellor; obtained for him a sinecure of L.4000 a-year; and
at that period when most men are sincere, on his deathbed, appointed Rigby
his executor, and cancelled his bond for the sum which he had originally
lent to him.
We know few instances of such steady liberality in public life, and the
man who gave, and the man who received those munificent tokens of
confidence, must have had more in them than the world was generally
inclined to believe. The duke has been shot through and through by the
pungent shafts of Junius: and Rigby was covered with mire throughout life
by all the retainers of party. Yet both were evidently capable of strong
friendship, and thus possessed the redeeming quality most unusual in the
selfishness and struggles of political existence.
Amongst official men, Rigby is recorded as one of the most popular
personages of his time. One art of official popularity, and that too a
most unfailing one, he adopted in a remarkable degree--he kept an
incomparable table. Sir Robert Walpole, one of the shrewdest of men, had
long preserved his popularity by the same means. Rigby's paymastership of
the forces enabled him to support a splendid establishment, and it was his
custom, after the debates in the House of Commons, to invite the ministers
and the pleasantest men of the time, to supper at his apartments in
Whitehall. His wines were exquisite, his cookery was of the most
_recherché_ order; and by the help of a good temper, a broad laugh,
natural joviality, and a keen and perfect knowledge of all that was going
on round him in the world of fashion, he made his parties a delightful
resource to the wearied minds of the Cabinet.
Wraxall, a very pleasant describer of men and manners, thus sketches
him:--"In Parliament he was invariably habited in a full-dress suit of
clothes, commonly of a dark colour, without lace or embroidery, close
buttoned, with his sword thrust through the pocket. His countenance was
very expressive, but not of genius; still less did it indicate timidity or
modesty. All the comforts of the pay-office seemed to be eloquently
depicted in it; his manner, rough yet frank, admirably set off whatever
sentiments he uttered in Parliament. Like Jenkinson, he borrowed neither
from ancient nor modern authors; his eloquence was altogether his own,
addressed not to the fancy, but to the plain comprehension of his hearers.
There was a happy audacity about him, which must have been the gift of
nature--art could not obtain it by any efforts. He seemed not to fear, nor
even to respect, the House, whose composition he well knew; and to the
members of which assembly he never appeared to give credit for any portion
of virtue, patriotism, or public spirit. Far from concealing those
sentiments, he insinuated, or even pronounced them, without disguise; and
from his lips they neither excited surprise, nor even commonly awaked
reprehension."
But this flow of prosperity was to have its ebb. The jovial placeman was
to feel the uncertainties of office; and on Lord North's resignation in
1782, and the celebrated Edmund Burke's appointment to the paymastership,
Rigby found himself suddenly called on for a considerable arrear. It had
been the custom to allow the paymaster to make use of the balances in his
hands until they were called for, and this formed an acknowledged and very
important part of his income. But his expenses left him no resource to
meet the demand. Whether fortunately or unfortunately, Sir Thomas Rumbold,
the recalled governor of Madras, had just then returned to England, under
investigation by the House of Commons for malpractices in his office. It
was the rumour of the day that Rigby, on the advance of a large sum by
Rumbold, had undertaken to soften the prosecution against him. Whether
this were the fact or not, it is certain that the charges soon ceased to
be pursued, and that Rigby's nephew and heir was soon after married to
Rumbold's daughter. Rigby, who had never been married, died in 1788, in
his sixty-seventh year.
His letter to Selwyn, in 1745, is characteristic of the man and the time.
"I am just got home from a cock match, where I have won forty pounds in
ready money, and not having dined, am waiting till I hear the rattle of
the coaches from the House of Commons, in order to dine at White's.
"I held my resolution of not going to the Ridotto till past three o'clock,
when, finding that nobody was willing to sit any longer but Boone, who was
_not able_, I took, as I thought, the least of two evils, and so went
there rather than to bed; but found it so infinitely dull, that I retired
in half an hour. The next morning I heard that there had been extreme deep
play, and that Harry Furnese went drunk from White's at six o'clock, and
won the dear memorable sum of one thousand guineas.
"I saw Garrick in _Othello_ that same night, in which, I think, he was
very unmeaningly dressed, and succeeded in no degree of comparison with
Quin, except in the second scene, where Iago gives the first suspicions of
Desdemona."
As the letter does not describe Garrick's dress, we can only suppose it to
have been remarkably absurd, when it could have attracted the censure of
any one accustomed to the stage in the middle of the last century. Nothing
could be more ignorant, unsuitable, or unbecoming, that the whole system
of theatrical costume. Garrick, for example, usually played Macbeth in the
uniform of an officer of the Guards--scarlet coat, cocked hat, and
regulation sword, were the exhibition of the Highland chieftain's wardrobe,
and the period, too, when the Highland dress was perfectly known to the
public eye. It must be acknowledged that we owe the reformation of the
stage, in this important point, to the French. It was commenced by the
celebrated Clairon, and perfected by the not less celebrated Talma.
"I supped that night, _tête-à-tête_, with Metham, who was d----d angry
with Hubby Bubby (Doddington) for having asked all the Musquetaires to
supper but him. He went to sleep at twelve, and I to White's, where _I
staid till six_. Yesterday I spent a good part of the day with my Lord
Coke at a _cock match_; and went, towards the latter end of Quin's benefit,
to Mariamne.
"The coaches rattle by fast, and George brings me word the House is up,
and I assure you I am extremely hungry."
We now come to the name of a man who attained a considerable celebrity in
his own time, but has almost dropped into oblivion in ours, Sir Charles
Hanbury Williams. He was the third son of John Hanbury, Esq., a
Monmouthshire gentleman, and took the name of Williams on succeeding to
the property of his grandfather. His mother was aunt to George Selwyn.
Entering Parliament early in life, he adopted the ministerial side, and
was a steady adherent to Sir Robert Walpole. He had his reward in
ministerial honours, being created a Knight of the Bath; and though Sir
Robert died in 1745, Williams had so far established his court influence,
that he was successively appointed envoy to Saxony, minister at Berlin,
and ambassador at St Petersburg. He was a man of great pleasantry, some
wit, and perpetual verse-making--the name of poetry is not to be stooped
to such compositions as his; but their liveliness and locality, their
application to existing times and persons, and their occasional hits at
politics and principles, made both them and their author popular. But the
fashionable language of the day had tendencies which would not now be
tolerated; and Sir Charles, a fashionable voluptuary, is charged with
having written what none should wish to revive. After a residence of ten
years on the Continent, he fell into a state of illness which deranged his
understanding. From this he recovered, but subsequently relapsed into the
same unhappy state, and died, it was surmised, by his own hand in 1759.
His letter details, in his own flighty style, one of the frolics of
fashion.
"The town-talk for some time past has been your child, (a note says
'apparently the Honourable John Hobart, afterwards Earl of
Buckinghamshire;') the moment you turned your back he flew out, went to
Lady Tankerville's drum-major, (a rout,) having unfortunately dined that
day with Rigby, who plied his head with too many bumpers, and also made
him a present of some Chinese crackers. Armed in this manner, he entered
the assembly, and resolving to do something that should make a noise, he
gave a string of four and twenty crackers to Lady Lucy Clinton, and bid
her put it in the candle, which she very innocently did, to her and the
whole room's astonishment. But when the first went off she threw the rest
upon the tea-table, where, one after the other, they all went off, with
much noise and not a little stench, to the real joy of most of the women
present, who don't dislike an opportunity of finding fault. Lady Lucy,
indeed, was plentifully abused, and Mr Hobart had his share; and common
fame says he has never had a card since. Few women will curtsy to him; and
I question if he ever will lead any one to their chair again as long as he
lives. I leave you to judge how deeply he feels this wound. Every body
says it would never have happened if you had not retired to your studies;
and you are a little blamed for letting him out alone. He has sunk his
chairman's wages 5s. a-week upon this accident, and intends to turn them
off in Passion week, because he then can go nowhere at all. All private
houses are already shut against him, and at that holy time no public place
is open."
We have then some letters written in a time of great public anxiety, 1745.
"All our forces are come from Flanders. The Pretender's second son (Henry
Stuart, afterwards Cardinal of York) is come to Dunkirk, where it is said
there are forty transports. The rebels, it is said, are very
advantageously encamped between two rivers, and are fortifying their camp."
Another hurried letter says.
"An express arrives to-day, (Dec. 8th,) while his Majesty was at chapel,
which brought an account of the rebels being close to Derby, and that the
Duke of Cumberland was at Meredan, four miles beyond Coventry observing
their motions."
Another of the same date, six o'-clock at night, says, "The Tower guns
have not fired to-day. A letter has been received, stating that the rebels
had retreated towards Ashbourne."
Walpole, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, on the 9th repeats the news, and
says, "The Highlanders got nine thousand pounds at Derby, and had the
books brought to them, and obliged everybody to give them what they had
subscribed against them. They then retreated a few miles, but returned
again to Derby, got £10,000 more, and plundered the town; they are gone
again, and got back to Leake in Staffordshire, but miserably harassed;
they have left all their cannon behind them, and twenty waggons of sick."
Nothing can give a stronger example of the changes which may take place in
a country, than the different state of preparation for an invader,
exhibited by England in 1745, and in little more than half a century after.
On the threat of Napoleon's invasion, England exhibited an armed force of
little less than a million, which would have been quadrupled in case of an
actual descent. In 1745, the alarm was extravagant, and almost burlesque.
The Pretender, with but a few thousand men--brave undoubtedly, but almost
wholly unprovided for a campaign--marched into the heart of England, and
reached within a hundred and thirty miles of the capital. But the
enterprise was then felt to be wholly beyond his means. A powerful force
under the Duke of Cumberland was already thrown between him and London.
What was more ominous still, no man of English rank had joined him, London
was firm, the Protestant feeling of the nation, though slowly excited, was
beginning to be roused, by its recollection of the bigotry of James, and
in England, this feeling will always be ultimately victorious. Even if
Charles Edward had arrived in London, and seized the throne, he would have
only had to commence a civil war against the nation. His retreat to the
north saved England from this great calamity, and probably saved himself,
and his adherents in both countries, from a more summary fate than that
which drove his miserable and bigoted father from the throne.
One of the chief contributors to this correspondence is George James
Williams, familiarly styled Gilly Williams; a man of high life, uncle by
marriage to the minister Lord North, and lucky in the possession of an
opulent office--that of receiver-general of the excise. He, with George
Selwyn and Dick Edgecumbe, who met at Strawberry Hill at certain seasons,
formed what Walpole termed his out-of-town party. Life seems to have
glided smoothly with him, for he lived till 1785, dying at the ripe age of
eighty-six.