British Museum.
[Footnote 1: I have been unable to refer to these letters, as no copy
exists in the British Museum library.]
[Footnote 2: As M.P. for Bewdley. He was returned in 1768, and unseated in
January, 1769.]
[Footnote 3: In the _Public Advertiser_ for January 1, 1779 [1780],
appeared a notice of the _Poems_, said to have been "published yesterday;"
and although two pieces are extracted at length, not a syllable of doubt is
expressed as to their genuineness.]
[Footnote 4: The estate at Arley was left to the Hon. George Annesley
(afterwards Earl of Mountnorris), son of Lord Valentia, by the will of
Thomas Lord Lyttelton, and Mr. Roberts was one of the trustees appointed.]
* * * * *
Minor Queries.
_Lord Chatham._--I would suggest as a Query, whether Lord Chatham's famous
comparison of the Fox and Newcastle ministry to the confluence of the Rhone
and Saone at Lyons (_Speech_, Nov. 13, 1755), was not adapted from a
passage in Lord Roscommon's _Essay on translated Verse_. Possibly Lord
Chatham may have merely quoted the lines of Roscommon, and reporters may
have converted his quotation into prose. Lord Chatham (then of course Mr.
Pitt) is represented to have said:
"_I remember_ at Lyons to have been carried to the conflux of the Rhone
and the Soane: the one a gentle, feeble, languid stream, and, though
languid, of no depth; the other, a boisterous and _impetuous_ torrent."
Lord Roscommon says:
"Thus _have I seen_ a rapid headlong tide,
With foaming waves the passive Saone divide,
Whose lazy waters without motion lay,
While he, with eager force, urg'd his _impetuous_ way."