"Our life here for a while would not displease you, for we eat and drink
well, and the Earl (Coventry) holds a faro-bank every night to us, which
we have as yet plundered considerably.
"I want to know where to find you, and how long you stay at your
mansion-house; for it would not be pleasant to ride so far only to see
squinting Jenny and the gardener at the end of my journey. I suppose we
shall see you here, where you will find the Countess of Coventry in high
spirits and in great beauty."
We now come to a brief mention of two women, the most remarkable of their
day for popular admiration, if not for finish and fashion--the Gunnings,
afterwards Lady Coventry and the Duchess of Hamilton. They were the
daughters of an Irish country gentleman, John Gunning, of Castle Coote in
Ireland. On their first appearance at court in England, the elder was in
her nineteenth, and the second in her eighteenth year. They appear to have
excited a most unprecedented sensation in London. Walpole thus writes to
Sir Horace Mann--
"You, who knew England in other times, will find it difficult to conceive
what indifference reigns with regard to ministers and their squabbles. The
two Miss Gunnings are twenty times more the subject of conversation than
the two brothers (the Pelhams) and Lord Granville. They are two Irish
girls of no fortune, who are declared the handsomest women alive. I think
there being two so handsome, and both such perfect figures, is their chief
excellence, for, singly, I have seen much handsomer women than either.
However, they can't walk in the Park, or go to Vauxhall, but such crowds
follow them, that they are generally driven away." And this effect lasted;
for, two months after, Walpole writes--"I shall tell you a new story of
the Gunnings, who make more noise than any of their predecessors since the
days of Helen. They went the other day to see Hampton Court. As they were
going into the Beauty room, another company arrived, and the housekeeper
said--'This way, ladies, here are the beauties,' the Gunnings flew into a
passion, and asked her what she meant; they came to see the palace, not to
be shown as sights themselves."
To the astonishment, and perhaps to the envy, of the fashionable world,
those two unportioned young women made the most splendid matches of the
season. The Duke of Hamilton fell in love with the younger at a masquerade,
and made proposals to her. The marriage was to take place within some
months; but his passion was so vehement, that in two nights after he
insisted on marrying her at the moment. Walpole tells us that he sent for
a clergyman, who however refused to marry them without license or ring. At
this period marriages were frequently performed in a very unceremonious
and unbecoming manner. From the laxity of the law, they were performed at
all hours, frequently in private houses, and sometimes even in jails, by
pretended clergymen. The law, however, was subsequently and properly
reformed. The duke and duchess are said to have been married with a
curtain-ring, at half-past twelve-at night, at May Fair Chapel. This
precipitated the marriage of Lord Coventry, a personage of a grave stamp,
but who had long paid attention to the elder sister Maria. He married her
about three weeks after. Except that we are accustomed to hear of the
frenzy which seizes people in the name of fashion, we should scarcely
believe the effect which those two women, handsome as they were, continued
to produce. On the Duchess of Hamilton's presentation at Court on her
marriage, the crowd was immense; and so great was the curiosity, that the
courtly multitude got on the chairs and tables to look at her. Mobs
gathered round their doors to see them get into their chairs; people
crowded early to the theatres when they heard they were to be there. Lady
Coventry's shoemaker is said to have made a fortune by selling patterns of
her shoe; and on the duchess's going to Scotland, several hundred people
walked about all night round the inn where she slept, on the Yorkshire
road, that they might have a view of her as she went off next morning.
Yet they appear to have been strangely neglected in their education;
good-humoured and good-natured undoubtedly, but little better than hoydens
after all. Lord Down met Lord and Lady Coventry at Calais, and offered to
send her ladyship a tent-bed, for fear of bugs at the inn. "Oh dear!" said
she, "I had rather be bit to death than lie one night from my dear Cov."
She is, however, memorable for one _étourderie_, which amused the world
greatly. Old George II., conversing with her on the dulness of the season,
expressed a regret that there had been no masquerades during the year, the
handsome rustic answered him, that she had seen sights enough, and the
only one she wanted to see now was--"a coronation." The king, however,
had the good sense to laugh, and repeated it good-humouredly to his circle
at supper.
Lady Coventry died a few years after of consumption, at the age of
twenty-seven. It was said that her death was hastened by the habit of
using white lead as a paint, the fashionable custom of the time. The Duke
of Hamilton had died two years before, in 1758, and the duchess became
subsequently the wife of Colonel John Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyle.
The narrative observes the remarkable circumstance, that the untitled
daughter of an Irish commoner should have been the wife of two dukes and
the mother of four. By her first husband she was the mother of James,
seventh duke, and of Douglas, eighth duke, of Hamilton; and by her second
husband, of William, sixth duke, and of Henry, seventh duke, of Argyle.
The duchess, though at the time of Lady Coventry's illness supposed to be
in a consumption, survived for thirty years, dying in 1790.
Mason the poet commemorated Lady Coventry's death in a long elegy, which
had some repute in those days, when even Hayley was called a poet. They
are dawdling and dulcified to a deplorable degree.
"Yes, Coventry is dead; attend the strain,
Daughters of Albion, ye that, light as air,
So oft have trips in her fantastic train,
With hearts as gay, and faces half as fair;
For she was fair beyond your highest bloom;
This envy owns, since now her bloom is fled.
&c. &c. &c.
We have then a sketch of a man of considerable celebrity in his day, Lord
Sandwich. Educated at Eton and Cambridge; on leaving college, he made the
then unusual exertion of a voyage round the Mediterranean, of which a
volume was published by his chaplain on his return. Shortly after, taking
his seat in the House of Lords, he came into ministerial employment as a
Lord of the Admiralty. In 1746, he was appointed minister to the States
General. And from that period, for nearly thirty years, he was employed in
high public offices; was twice an ambassador, three times first Lord of
the Admiralty, and twice Secretary of State. Lord Sandwich's personal
character was at least accused of so much profligacy, that, if the charges
be true, we cannot comprehend how he was suffered to retain employments of
such importance for so many years. Wilkes, who had known him intimately,
describes him, in his letters to the electors of Aylesbury, as "the most
abandoned man of the age." He is even said not to have been a man of
business; yet the Admiralty was a place which can scarcely be managed by
an idler, and the Secretaryship of State, in this country, can never be a
sinecure. He had certainly one quality which is remarkable for
conciliation, and without which no minister, let his talents be what they
may, has ever been personally popular; he was a man of great affability,
and of shrewd wit. The latter was exhibited, in peculiarly cutting style,
to Mr Eden, afterwards Lord Auckland. Eden, sagacious in his generation,
had suddenly ratted to Pitt, adding, however, the monstrous absurdity of
sending a circular to his colleagues by way of justification. Obviously,
nothing could be more silly than an attempt of this order, which could
only add their contempt for his understanding to their contempt for his
conduct. Lord Sandwich's answer was in the most cutting spirit of scorn:--
"Sir,--Your letter is now before me, and in a few minutes will be _behind
me_."
An unhappy circumstance brought Lord Sandwich with painful prominence
before the world. A Miss Ray, a person of some attraction, had
unfortunately lived under his protection for several years. It happened,
however, that a young officer on the recruiting service, who had dined
once or twice at Lord Sandwich's house in the country, thought proper to
pay her some marked attentions, which, after allowing them, as it appears,
to proceed to some extent, she suddenly declined. On this the officer,
whose name was Hackman, and who was evidently of a fantastic and violent
temperament, rushed from England in a state of desperation, flew over to
Ireland, threw up his commission, and took orders in the church. But
instead of adopting the quietude which would have been suitable for his
new profession, the clerical robes seem to have made him more intractable
than the military uniform. After some months of rambling and romance in
Ireland, he rushed over to England again, resolving to conquer or die at
her feet; but the lady still rejected him, and, being alarmed at his
violence, threatened to appeal to Lord Sandwich. There are many
circumstances in the conduct of this unfortunate man, amounting to that
perversion of common sense which, in our times, is fashionably and
foolishly almost sanctioned as monomania. But nothing can be clearer than
the fact, that the most unjustifiable, dangerous, and criminal passion,
may be pampered, until it obtains possession of the whole mind, and leads
to the perpetration of the most atrocious offences against society. The
modern absurdity is, to look, in the violence of the passion for the
excuse of the crime; instead of punishing the crime for the violence of
the passion. We might as well say, that the violences of a drunkard were
more innocent the more furiously he was intoxicated; the whole being a
direct encouragement to excessive guilt. The popular feeling of justice in
the last century, however, was different; robbers and murderers were put
to death as they deserved, and society was relieved without burlesquing
the common understandings of man. Mr Hackman was a murderer, however he
might be a monomaniac, and he was eventually hanged as he deserved. The
trial, which took place in April 1779, excited the most extraordinary
public curiosity. By the statement of the witnesses, it appeared that a Mr
Macnamara, being in the lobby of Covent Garden Theatre when the audience
were coming away, and seeing Miss Ray making her way with some difficulty
through the crowd to her carriage, he went forward with Irish gallantry to
offer her his arm, which she accepted; and as they reached the door of the
carriage, a pistol was fired close to them, when Miss Ray clapped her hand
to her forehead and fell, when instantly another pistol-report followed.
He thought that she had fainted away through fright; but when he raised
her up, he found that she was wounded, and assisted the people in carrying
her into the Shakspeare Tavern; and on Hackman's being seized, and being
asked what could possess him to be guilty of such a deed, his only answer
was to give his name, and say, "It is not a proper place to ask such
questions." It appeared in evidence, that Hackman had been waiting some
time for Miss Ray's coming out of the theatre; that he followed her to the
carriage door, and pulling out two pistols, fired one at the unfortunate
woman, the ball of which went through her brain, and the other at himself,
crying out as he fell, "Kill me--kill me!"
Of course, after evidence like this, there could be no defence, and none
as attempted. Hackman evidently wished to have died by his own hand; but
having failed there, his purpose was to perish by the law, and plead
guilty. However, on being brought to trial, he said that he now pleaded
not guilty, that he might avoid the appearance of contemning death--an
appearance not suitable to his present condition; that, on second thoughts,
he had considered the plea of guilty as rendering him accessory to a
second peril of his life; and that he thought that he could pay his debt
more effectually to the justice of the country by suffering his offences
to be proved by evidence, and submitting to the forms of a regular trial.
This, though it was penitence too late, was at least decorous language.
His whole conduct on the trial showed that, intemperate as his passions
were, he possessed abilities and feelings worthy of a wiser career, and a
less unhappy termination. Part of his speech was even affecting.
"I stand here this day," he said, "the most wretched of human beings, and
confess myself criminal in a high degree; yet while I acknowledge, with
shame and repentance, that my determination against my own life was formal
and complete, I protest, with that regard which becomes my situation, that
the will to destroy her who was ever dearer to me than life, was never
mine till a momentary frenzy overpowered me, and induced me to commit the
deed I deplore. Before this dreadful act, I trust, nothing will be found
in the tenor of my life which the common charity of mankind will not
excuse. I have no wish to avoid the punishment which the laws of my
country appoint for my crime; but being already too unhappy to feel a
punishment in death, or a satisfaction in life, I submit myself with
penitence and patience to the disposal and judgment of Almighty God, and
to the consequences of this enquiry into my conduct and intentions."
After a few minutes' consultation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty,
and he was executed two days after. It is surprising how strong an
interest was felt on this subject by persons of every condition; by the
populace, who loved excitement from whatever quarter it may come; by the
middle order, to whom the romance of the early part of the transaction and
the melancholy catastrophe were subjects of natural impression; and by the
nobility, to whom the character of Miss Ray and the habits of Lord
Sandwich were equally known.
The Earl of Carlisle thus writes to Selwyn, beginning with a sort of
customary allusion to Selwyn's extraordinary fondness for those displays:--
"Hackman, Miss Ray's murderer, is hanged. I attended his execution in
order to give _you_ an account of his behaviour, and from no curiosity of
my own. I am this moment returned from it. Every one enquired after you.
_You have friends_ every where. The poor man behaved with great fortitude;
no appearances of fear were to be perceived, but very evident signs of
contrition and repentance."
A novel, of some pathos and considerable popularity, was founded on this
unhappy transaction, and "The Letters of Mr Hackman and Miss Ray" long
flourished in the circulating libraries. But the groundwork was vulgar,
mean, and vicious, after all; and, divested of that colouring which
imagination may throw on any event, was degrading and criminal in all its
circumstances. The shame of the wretched woman herself, living in a state
of open criminality from year to year; the grossness of Hackman in his
proposal to make this abandoned woman his wife; the strong probability
that his object might have been the not uncommon, though infinitely vile
one, of obtaining Lord Sandwich's patronage, by relieving him of a
connexion of which that notorious profligate, after nine years, might be
weary--all characterise the earlier portion of their intercourse as
destitute of all pretence to honourable feelings. The catastrophe is
merely the work of an assassin. If there may be some slight allowance for
overwhelming passion, for suddenly excited jealousy, or for remediless
despair, yet those impulses act only to the extent of inflicting injury on
ourselves. No love ever seeks the death of its object. It is then mere
ruffianism, brute cruelty, savage fury; and even this becomes more the act
of a ruffian, when the determination to destroy is formed in cold blood.
Hackman carried two loaded pistols with him to the theatre. What other man
carried loaded pistols there? and what could be his purpose but the one
which he effected, to fire them both, one at the wretched woman, and the
other at himself? The clear case is, that he was neither more nor less
than a furious villain, resolved to have the life of a profligate
milliner's apprentice, who preferred Lord Sandwich's house and carriage,
to Mr Hackman's hovel and going on foot. We shall find that all similar
acts originate in similar motives--lucre, licentiousness, and rage--the
three stimulants of the highwayman, the debauchee, and the ruffian; with
only the distinction, that, in the case of those who murder when they
cannot possess, the three criminalities are combined.
Even with the execution of the criminal, the excitement did not cease. The
papers of the day tell us, that when the body was conveyed to the
surgeon's hall, so great a crowd was assembled, and the efforts to obtain
entrance were so violent, that caps, gowns, wigs, were torn and cast away
in all directions. Old and young, men, women, and children, were trampled
in the multitude. In the afternoon, the crowd diminished, and several
persons of the better order made their way in, but with not a less
vexatious result; for, on reaching the staircase leading to the theatre,
they found themselves saluted with a shower from some engine worked under
the staircase. This was rather a rough mode of tranquillizing public
excitement, but seems to have been effectual. It was probably a trick of
some of the young surgeons, and excited great indignation at the time.
Hackman was but four-and-twenty, and rather a striking figure.
The letters to which we have alluded, entitled "Love and Madness,"
attracted attention in higher quarters, and even perplexed the
fastidiousness of Walpole himself. In one of his letters of March 1780, he
thus writes:--"Yesterday was published an octavo, pretending to contain
the correspondence of Hackman and Miss Ray. I doubt whether the letters
are genuine, and yet, if fictitious, they are executed well, and enter
into his character. This appears less natural, and yet the editors were
certainly more likely to be in possession of hers than his. It is not
probable that Lord Sandwich should have sent what he found in her
apartments to the press; no account is pretended to be given of how they
came to light."
After having thus puzzled the dilettanti, it transpired that it was
written by Sir Herbert Croft, Bart.
Another singular character, who, in connexion with one still more singular,
remarkably occupied the ear and tongue of the _beau monde_ of his day, is
introduced in these volumes. This was Augustus John, Earl of Bristol,
third son of John, Lord Hervey, by the beautiful Mary Lepel. He entered
the sea service at an early age, and prospered as the sons of men of rank
prospered in those days, being made a post-captain in 1747, when he was
but three and twenty years old. Promotion was heaped upon him, and he was
rapidly advanced to the rank of vice-admiral and colonel of marines. He
was, however, said to be a brave and skilful officer. More good fortune
was in store for him; he was placed in the king's household, was a member
of Parliament, was appointed one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and
finally rounded the circle of his honours by succeeding to the earldom of
Bristol. The history of his wife is a continued adventure. Miss Chudleigh,
maid of honour to the Princess of Wales, had, immediately on her
appearance at court, become the observed of all observers. She was
regarded as one of the most beautiful women of her time, was remarkably
quick and witty in her conversation, of a most capricious temper and a
most fantastic imagination--all qualities which naturally rendered her a
topic in every circle of the country. The circumstances of her marriage
rendered her if possible, still more a topic. On a visit at the house of a
relation, she met Lord Bristol, then but a lieutenant in the navy, and
plain Mr Hervey, and disregarding all the formalities of high life, they
were privately married at Lainston, in Northamptonshire. They were,
however, separated the very next day, the lady declaring her determination
never to see her husband's face again. This, of course, produced an ample
fund of conversation of every kind; but the lady returned to court, and
the gentleman returned to his ship, and went to sea. However, they met
again, and the result was, she became a mother. From her determination to
keep her marriage secret, she retired for her accouchement to a secluded
spot in Chelsea, where her child was born, and where it soon after died.
It may easily be supposed, that the sudden disappearance of so conspicuous
a person from the most conspicuous society, must have given rise to
rumours and ridicule of every kind. She returned to court nevertheless,
and constantly denying her marriage, fought it out with the effrontery
which is so easily forgiven, in fashionable life, to youth, wit, and
beauty.
Yet she could not quite escape the flying shafts of wit herself. One day
after her return, meeting the memorable Lord Chesterfield--"Think, my
lord," said she, with an air of indignation, "to what lengths the
scandalous chronicle will go, when it absolutely says that I have had
twins." "My dear," said Lord Chesterfield, "I make it a rule never to
believe above half what the world says."
She now received the attentions of many suitors, extraordinary as the
circumstance may be, when the mystery of her own conduct and the surmises
of the public are considered; and, to make assurance doubly sure, she
determined to extinguish all proof of her hasty marriage. Ascertaining
that the clergyman who had married her was dead, she went to Lainston
church, and contrived to carry away the entry of her marriage from the
register. Some time after this, Miss Chudleigh (for she never would take
her husband's name) married the Duke of Kingston. It was strongly asserted,
though the circumstance is so dishonourable that it can scarcely be
believed, that the silence of the real husband was purchased by the
advance of a large sum of money from the pretended one. The marriage
remained undisturbed until the death of the duke. She then came into
possession of his very large disposable property, and traveled in great
pomp to Rome; but the duke's nephew and heir, having his suspicious of the
fact excited, commenced proceedings against the duchess for bigamy. She
was tried before her peers in Westminster hall, and found guilty of the
offence, in April 1776; but by claiming the privilege of peerage, she was
discharged on payment of the usual fees.
It is scarcely possible to believe that a man of the rank and profession
of Lord Bristol, could have been base enough to connive at his wife's
marriage with the Duke of Kingston. But there can be no question, that in
the prevalent opinion of the time, he had even taken a large sum of money
for the purpose. In one of Walpole's letters, subsequently to the trial,
he says, "if the Pope expects his duchess back, he must create her one,
for her peers have reduced her to a countess. Her folly and her obstinacy
here appear in the full vigour, at least her faith in the ecclesiastical
court, trusting to the infallibility of which she provoked this trial in
the face of every sort of detection. The living witness of the first
marriage, a register of it fabricated long after by herself, the widow of
the clergyman who married her, many confidants to whom she had entrusted
the secret, and even Hawkins, the surgeon, privy to the birth of the child,
appeared against her. The Lords were tender, and would not probe the
earl's collusion; but the ecclesiastical court, who so readily accepted
their juggle, and sanctified the second match, were brought to shame--they
care not if no reformation follows. The duchess, who could produce nothing
else in her favour, tried the powers of oratory, and made a long oration,
in which she cited the protection of her late mistress, the Princess of
Wales. Her counsel would have curtailed this harangue; but she told them
they might be good lawyers, but did not understand speaking to the
passions. She concluded her rhetoric with a fit, and retired with rage
when convicted of the bigamy."
The charge to which Walpole alludes, was, that the earl had given her a
bond for L.30,000 not to molest her; but as there was no proof, this gross
charge certainly has no right to be implicitly received. Still it is
unaccountable why he should have suffered her to have married the Duke of
Kingston without any known remonstrance, and why he should have allowed
her to retain the title of the duke's widow until the rightful heir
instituted the proceedings. The earl died in 1779, within three years from
the trial.
Among the characters which pass through this magic-lantern, is Topham
Beauclerk, so frequently mentioned, and mentioned with praise, in
Boswell's _Johnson_. He seems to have been a man of great elegance of
manner, and peculiarity of that happy talent of conversation whose wit
seems to be spontaneous, and whose anecdotes, however _recherché_, seem to
flow from the subject. "Every thing," remarked Johnson, "comes from
Beauclerk so easily, that it appears to me that I labour when I say a good
thing."
Beauclerk was the only son of Lord Sydney Beauclerk, a son of Charles,
first Duke of St Albans. He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, and,
from the moment of his entering fashionable life, was remarked for the
elegance of manner, and the liveliness of conversation, which continued to
be his distinctions to the close of his career. Unfortunately, the fashion
of the time not only allowed, but seems to have almost required, an
irregularity of life which would tarnish the character of any man in our
more decorous day. His unfortunate intercourse with Viscountess
Bolingbroke, better known by her subsequent name of Lady Diana Beauclerk,
produced a divorce, and in two days after a marriage. She was the eldest
daughter of Charles, the second Duke of Marlborough, and was in early life
as distinguished for her beauty, as in later years she was for her wit.
Johnson in his old age became acquainted with Topham Beauclerk, through
their common friend, Langton, and even the sage and moralist acknowledged
the captivation of his manners. "What a coalition!" said Garrick, when he
heard of their acquaintance, "I shall have my old friend to bail out of
the roundhouse." But whatever might be the elegance of his companion's
laxity, Johnson did not hesitate to rebuke him. Beauclerk, like wits in
general, had a propensity to satire, on which Johnson once took him to
task in this rough style--"You never open your mouth but with the
intention to give pain; and you have now given me pain, not from the power
of what you have said, but from my seeing the intention." At another tine,
applying to him that line of Pope's, slightly altered, he said--
'Thy love of folly, and thy scorn of fools;'
everything you do shows the one, and every thing you say the other."
Another rather less intelligible rebuke occurred in his saying, "Thy body
is all vice and thy mind all virtue." As the actions of the body proceed
from the mind, it is difficult to conceive how the one can be impure
without the other. At least Beauclerk did not appear to relish the
distinction, and he was angry at the phrase. However, Johnson's attempt to
appease him was a curious specimen of his magniloquence. "Nay, sir,
Alexander the Great, marching in triumph into Babylon, could not have
desired to have had more said to him."
Topham Beauclerk had two daughters by Lady Diana, one of whom became Lady
Pembroke. He died at his house in Great Russell Street, then a place of
fashion, in 1780, in his 41st year.
Selwyn's seat, Matson, in Gloucestershire, received some pretty historical
reminiscences. One of Walpole's letters to Bentley, thus speaks of a visit
to his friend's villa in the autumn of 1753.
"I staid two days at George Selwyn's house, which lies on Robin Hood's
hill. It is lofty enough for an Alp, yet is a mountain of turf to the very
top, has woods scattered all over it, springs that long to be cascades in
twenty places; and from the summits it beats even Sir George Littleton's
views, by having the city of Gloucester at its foot, and the Severn
widening to the horizon. The house is small but neat; King Charles (the
First,) lay here at the siege, and the Duke of York, with typical fury,
hacked and hewed the windows of his chamber, as a memorandum of his being
there. The fact however being, that both the princes, Charles and James,
who were then mere boys, remained at Matson--a circumstance frequently
mentioned to Selwyn's grandfather by James II., observing:--'My brother
and I were generally shut up in a chamber on the second floor during the
day, where you will find that we have left the marks of our confinement
inscribed with our knives on the ledges of all the windows."'
The house must have been quite a treasure to Walpole, for he found in it a
good picture of the famous Earl of Leicester, which he had given to Sir
Francis Walsingham; and what makes it very curious, Walpole observes his
age is marked on it fifty-four, in 1752. "I had never been able to
discover before in what year he was born, and here is the very flower-pot
and counterfeit association for which Bishop Sprat was taken up, and the
Duke of Marlborough sent to the Tower."
It is, however, by no means clear, that this was a "counterfeit
association," though Walpole abandons his usual scepticism on all
disputable points with such facility. The "association" was a plot to
bring back that miserable blockhead and bigot, James II., said to be
signed by Marlborough, the Bishop of Rochester, Lords Salisbury, Cornberry,
and Sir Basil Firebrace. On the information of one Young, the draft of the
plot was found in a flower-pot in the Bishop's house at Bromley. But
fortunately the days of royal terror had passed by. The crown was strong
enough to treat conspiracy with contempt, and the affair was suffered to
fall into oblivion. Yet it is now so notorious that many of the highest
persons in the state were tampering with the exiled family, that the plot
is rendered sufficiently probable. There seems to have been some political
infatuation connected with the name of the Stuarts. Though, excepting the
bravery of Charles I. and the pleasantry of Charles II., they all were
evidently the dullest, most mulish, and most repulsive of mankind; yet
many brave men periled their lives to restore them, and many men of great
distinction hazarded their safety to correspond with them. The "Stuart
Correspondence" was less a breach of loyalty than a libel on the national
understanding.
On the whole, these volumes are interesting, in many parts--very much so.
The editor has evidently done his best to illustrate and explain. But can
he not discover any remnant of the letters of Selwyn himself? he might
then remove the objection to his title, and please all readers together.
* * * * *