A long disease foretold his certain fate;
No near relations, and a vast estate;
What numbers courted, who with eager eyes
Beheld and wish'd to gain the golden prize;
But far beyond the rest to gain his love,
Horace and Hambden diligently strove;

*

But Horace flatt'ry was too thick and coarse, And

Hambden's conversations ten times

worse;

Thither did Horace ev'ry day repair,
While politics were but his second care;

by women. Richard Hambden, one of the expectants here mentioned, was only collaterally descended. Sir Richard Ellys pretended to learning on the credit of a very expen. sive library, which he likewise bequeathed to Mr. Hobart. Horatio, brother of Sir Robert Walpole, was the other candidate for Sir Richard's wealth; wrote a Latin ode to him to flatter his pretensions; gave his portrait to Sir Richard, and had Sir Richard's in his own Library-in vain.-W.

* Horace, first Lord Walpole, younger brother of Sir Robert, was a great master of the commercial and political interest of the British Empire; he was a most able negociator; his manner was plain and unassuming, but with great coolness and address in adapting himself to the characters and prejudices of those with whom he negociated. -Ob. 1757.

To him, before the King, his court he made,
And left the council, tho' they sat on trade.
For him the dear Dutch mail for hours has laid,
Unop'd, and Fleury's letters been unread;
All care t'amuse, all pains to please him took,
And Pug* and Whist and Europe he forsook.
In strict attendance Hambden did the same,
Arm'd with the strong pretensions of his name;
By ties of blood he claim'd the foremost place,
As the last branch of patriot Hambden's race.
His daily visits punctually he paid,

From morn till noon, from noon till night he stayd;

Still the same race of dull discourse was run, Till by himself the blockhead was undone :

* Mary Lambard, wife of Mr. H. Walpole, whom he always called Pug. One day, as some members were walking from the House of Commons, a steam issued from Mrs Walpole's wash-house at Whitehall; one of them said, "What does that dirty creature, Horace's wife, ever wash her linen ?" "No," said Gyles Earle, "but she takes in other people's."-W.

Poor in his nature, and untaught by art,

He strove, but vainly strove, to act his part.
But to a nobler object turn your eyes,

See Pult'ney loaded with a weighty prize :
He in these kingdoms once did foremost stand,
And balanc'd England with a doubtful hand;
Each party's idol then, tho' now their hate,
The arbiter of Whig and Tory fate;
Yet then neglecting place, the game of fools,
He wisely stuck to my unerring rules.
Muse let this tale in smoothest verse be

sung,

While Pult'ney's praises flow from Peter's tongue:
False to his country, falser to his friends,

And true to nothing but his private ends;
Immensely rich, yet lab'ring still for more,
Flatters alike a Duchess or a whore;
And first old haughty Buckingham* he tried,
To all her weaknesses his arts applied,
Flatter'd her vanity, and swell'd her pride;

* The Duchess of Buckingham was as much elated by owing her birth to James II. as the Marlborough was by the favour of his daughter. Lady Dorchester, the mother

* Lady Dorchester was well-known for her wit, and for saying that she

Took care no loyal words should e'er offend her, And pity'd the unfortunate Pretender.

of the former, endeavoured to curb that pride, and, one should have thought, took an effectual method, though one few mothers would have practised: "You need not be so vain," said the old profligate, "for you are not the King's daughter, but Colonel Graham's." Graham was a fashionable man of those days, and noted for dry humour. His legitimate daughter the Countess of Berkshire was extremely like to the Duchess of Buckingham: "Well! well!" said Graham, "kings are all powerful, and one must not complain; but certainly the same man begot those two women." To discredit the wit of both parents, the Duchess never ceased labouring to restore the House of Stuart, and to mark her filial devotion to it. Frequent were her journeys to the continent for that purpose. She always stopped at Paris, visited the church where lay the unburied body of James, and wept over it. A poor Bene

wondered for what James chose his mistresses: "We are none of us handsome, "said she; "and if we have wit, he has not enough to find it out."But I do not know whether it is as public, that her style was gross and shameless. Meeting the duchess of Portsmouth and lady Orkney, the favourite of king William, at the drawing-room of George the First, "God!'' said she, "who would have thought that we three whores should have met here?" Having after the King's abdication married Sir David Collyer, by whom she had two sons, she said to them, "If any body should call you sons of a whore, you must bear it; for you are so: but if they call you bastards, fight till you die; for you are an honest man's sons."

Susan Lady Bellasis, another of King James's mistresses, had wit too and no beauty. Mrs. Godfrey had neither. Grammont has recorded why she was chosen.-W.

But grown impatient, from my paths astray
He went, and thought he'd found a nearer way;

dictine of the convent, observing her filial piety, took notice to her grace that the velvet pall that covered the coffin was become thread-bare-and so it remained!

Finding all her efforts fruitless, and perhaps aware that her plots were not undiscovered by Sir Robert Walpole, who was remarkable for his intelligence, she made an artful double, and resolved to try what might be done through him himself. I forget how she contracted an acquaintance with him. I do remember that more than once he received letters from the Pretender himself, which probably were transmitted through her. Sir Robert always carried them to George II. who endorsed and returned them. That negotiation not succeeding, the Duchess made a more home push. Learning his extreme fondness for his daughter (afterwards Lady Mary Churchill), she sent for Sir Robert, and asked him if he recollected what had not been thought too great a reward to Lord Clarendon for restoring the royal family? He affected not to understand her " Was not he allowed,” urged the zealous Duchess, “to match his daughter to the Duke of York ?" Sir Robert smiled, and left her.

Sir Robert being forced from court, the Duchess thought the moment favourable, and took a new journey to Rome;

* I am not quite certain that, writing by memory at the distance of fifty years, I place that journey exactly at the right period, nor whether it did not take place before Sir Robert's fall. Nothing material depends on the precise period.-W.