boasted, at that period, a collection of pictures that not only every
lover of painting, but every British patriot in the arts, must lament
that it can boast no longer.[14]
It had, however, in the heir and grandson of its founder, Sir Robert
Walpole, first Earl of Orford, a possessor of the most liberal cast; a
patron of arts and artists; munificent in promoting the prosperity of
the first, and blending pleasure with recompense to the second, by the
frank equality with which he treated all his guests; and the ease and
freedom with which his unaffected good-humour and good sense cheered,
to all about him, his festal board.
Far, nevertheless, from meriting unqualified praise was this noble
peer; and his moral defects, both in practice and example, were
as dangerous to the neighbourhood, of which he ought to have been
the guide and protector, as the political corruption of his famous
progenitor, the statesman, had been hurtful to probity and virtue, in
the courtly circles of his day, by proclaiming, and striving to bring
to proof, his nefarious maxim, “that every man has his price.”
At the head of Lord Orford’s table was placed, for the reception of
his visitors, a person whom he denominated simply “Patty;” and that so
unceremoniously, that all the most intimate of his associates addressed
her by the same free appellation.
Those, however, if such there were, who might conclude from this
degrading familiarity, that the Patty of Lord Orford was “every
body’s Patty,” must soon have been undeceived, if tempted to make any
experiment upon such a belief. The peer knew whom he trusted, though he
rewarded not the fidelity in which he confided; but the fond, faulty
Patty loved him with a blindness of passion, that hid alike from her
weak perceptions, her own frailties, and his seductions.
In all, save that blot, which, on earth, must to a female be ever
indelible, Patty was good, faithful, kind, friendly, and praise-worthy.
The table of Lord Orford, then commonly called Arthur’s Round Table,
assembled in its circle all of peculiar merit that its neighbourhood,
or rather that the county produced, to meet there the great, the
renowned, and the splendid, who, from their various villas, or the
metropolis, visited Haughton Hall.
Mr. Burney was soon one of those whom the penetrating peer selected for
a general invitation to his repasts; and who here, as at Wilbury House,
formed sundry intimacies, some of which were enjoyed by him nearly
through life. Particularly must be mentioned
Mr. Hayes, who was a scholar, a man of sense, and a passionate
lover of books and of prints. He had a great and pleasant turn for
humour, and a fondness and facility for rhyming so insatiable and
irrepressible, that it seemed, like Strife in Spencer’s Faerie Queene,
to be always seeking occasion.
Yet, save in speaking of that propensity, Strife and John Hayes ought
never to come within the same sentence; for in character, disposition,
and conduct, he was a compound of benevolence and liberality.
There was a frankness of so unusual a cast, and a warmth of affection,
that seemed so glowing from the heart, in Mr. Hayes for Lord Orford;
joined to so strong a resemblance in face and feature, that a belief,
if not something beyond, prevailed, that Mr. Hayes was a natural son
of Sir Robert Walpole, the first Earl of Orford, and, consequently, a
natural uncle of his Lordship’s grandson.