Chapter 196

Arlington Street, April 12, 1764. (page 310)

Make yourself perfectly easy, my dear lord, about newspapers and their tattle; they are not worth a moment's regard. In times of party it is impossible to avoid abuse. If attached to one side, one is pelted by the other; if to neither, by both. One can place oneself above deserving invectives; and then it signifies little whether they are escaped or not. But when one is conscious that they are unmerited, it is noblest to scorn them- -perhaps, I even think, that such a situation is not ineligible. Character is the most precious of all blessings; but, pray allow that it is too sacred to be hurt by any thing but itself: does it depend on others, or on its own existence? That character must be fictitious, and formed for man, which man can take away. Your reputation does not depend on Mr. Wilkes,(576) like his own. It is delightful to deserve popularity, and to despise it.

You will have heard of the sad misfortune that has happened to Lord Ilchester by his daughter's marriage(577) with O'Brien the actor. But, perhaps, you do not know the circumstances, and how much his grief must be aggravated by reflection on his own credulity and negligence. The affair has been in train for eighteen months. The swain had learned to counterfeit Lady Sarah Bunbury's(578) hand so well that in the country Lord Ilchester has himself delivered several of O'Brien's letters to Lady Susan; but it was not till about a week before the catastrophe that the family was apprised of the intrigue. Lord Cathcart went to Miss Reade's, the paintress; she said softly to him, "My lord, there is a couple in the next room that I am sure ought not to be together; I wish your lordship would look in." He did, shut the door again, and went directly and informed Lord Ilchester. Lady Susan was examined, flung herself at her father's feet, confessed all, vowed to break off but--what a but!--desired to see the loved object, and take a last leave. You will be amazed-even this was granted. The parting scene happened the beginning of the week. On Friday she came of age, and on Saturday morning-- instead of being under lock and key in the country--walked down stairs, took her footman, said she was going to breakfast with Lady Sarah, but would call at Miss Reade's; in the street, pretended to recollect a particular cap in which she was to be drawn, sent the footman back for it, whipped into a hackney chair, was married at Covent-garden church, and set out for Mr. O'Brien's villa at Dunstable. My Lady--my Lady Hertford! what say you to permitting young ladies to act plays, and go to painters by themselves?

Poor Lord Ilchester is almost distracted; indeed, it is the completion of disgrace,(579)--even a footman were preferable; the publicity of the hero's profession perpetuates the Unification. Il ne sera pas milord, tout comme un autre. I could not have believed that Lady Susan would have stooped so low. She may, however, still keep good company, and say, "nos numeri sumus"-- Lady Mary Duncan,(580) Lady Caroline Adair,(581) Lady Betty Gallini(582)--the shopkeepers of next age will be mighty well born. If our genealogies had been so confused four hundred years ago, Norborne Berkeley would have had still more difficulty with his obsolete Barony of Bottelourt, which the House of Lords at last has granted him. I have never attended the hearings, though it has been much the fashion, but nobody cares less than I about what they don't care for. I have been as indifferent about other points, of which all the world is talking, as the restriction of franking, and the great cause of Hamilton and Douglas. I am almost as tired of what is still more in vogue, our East India affairs. Mir Jaffeir(583) and Cossim Aly Cawn, and their deputies Clive and Sullivan, or rather their principals, employ the public attention, instead of Mogul Pitt and Nabob Bute; the former of whom remains shut Up in Asiatic dignity at Hayes, while the other is again mounting his elephant and levying troops. What Lord Tavistock meaned of his invisible Haughtiness'S(584) invective on Mr. Neville, I do not know. He has not been in the House of Commons since the war of privilege. It must have been something he dropped in private.

I was diverted just now with some old rhymes that Mr. Wilkes would have been glad to have North-Britonized for our little bishop of Osnaburgh.(585)

Eligimus puerum, puerorum testa colentes, Non nostrum morem, sed Regis jussa sequentes.

They were literally composed on the election of a juvenile bishop.

Young Dundas marries Lady Charlotte Fitzwilliam;(586) Sir Lawrence(587) settles four thousand per annum in present, and six more in future--compare these riches got in two years and a half, with D'Eon's account of French economy! Lord Garlies remarries himself with the Duchess of Manchester's(588) next sister, Miss Dashwood. The youngest is to have Mr. Knightly--a-propos to D'Eon, the foreign ministers had a meeting yesterday morning, at the imperial minister's, and Monsieur de Guerchy went from thence to the King, but on what result I do not know, nor can I find that the lawyers agree that any thing can be done against him. There has been a plan of some changes among the Dii Minores, your Lord Norths, and Carysforts, and Ellises, and Frederick Campbellsl(589) and such like; but the supposition that Lord Holland would be willing to accommodate the present ministers with the paymaster's place, being the axle on which this project turned, and his lordship not being in the accommodating humour, there are half a dozen abortions of new lords of the treasury and admiralty--excuse me if I do not send you this list of embryos;(5 I do not load my head with such fry. I am little more au fait of the confusion that happened yesterday at the East India House; I only know it was exactly like the jumble at Cambridge. Sullivan's list was chosen, all but himself-his own election turns on one disputed vote.(590) Every thing is intricate--a presumption that we have few heads very clear. Good night, for I am tired; since dinner I have been at an auction of prints, at the Antiquarian Society in Chancery-lane, at Lady Dalkeith's(591) in Grosvenor-square, and at loo at my niece's in Pall Mall; I left them going to supper, that I might come home and finish this letter; it is half @n hour after twelve, and now I am going to supper myself. I suppose all this sounds very sober to you!

(576) See ant`e, p. 301, letter 197.-E.

(577) Lady Susan Fox, born in 1743, eldest daughter of the first Lord Ilchester.-E.

(578) Daughter of the Duke of Richmond, wife of Sir T. C. Bunbury, and afterwards of Colonel Napier.-C.

(579) It must be observed how little consistent this aristocratical indignation is with the Roman sentiments expressed in page 262, letter 185, and signed so emphatically Horatius.-C.

(580) Daughter of the seventh Earl of Thanet, married, in September 1763, to Doctor Duncan, M.D., soon after created a baronet.-E.

(581) Daughter of the second Earl of Albemarle, married, in 1759, to Mr. Adair, a surgeon.-C.

(582) Daughter of the third Earl of Abingdon, married to Sir John Gallini. She died in 1804, at the age of eighty.-E.

(583) See ante, p. 281, letter 191.

(584) Mr. Pitt.

(585) Frederick, Duke of York, born in August 1763, elected Bishop of Osnaburgh, 27th of February, 1764.-E.

(586) Second daughter of the third Earl Fitzwilliam, born in 1746.-E.

(587) Sir Lawrence Dundas, father of the first Lord Dundas, is said to have made his fortune in the commissariat, during the Scotch rebellion of 1745.-C.

(588) Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Dashwood, Bart. and wife of the fourth Duke of Manchester.-E.

(589) Second son of the fourth Duke of Argyle. He was successively keeper of the privy seal in Scotland, secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and lord register of' Scotland, in which office he died.-C.

(590) "On the 25th of April, a very warm contest took place. Mr. Sullivan brought forward one list of twenty-five directors, and Mr. Rous, who was supported by Lord Clive, produced another. Notwithstanding his friend Lord Bute was no longer minister, Mr. Sullivan succeeded in bringing in half his numbers; but the attack of Lord Clive had so shaken the power of this lately popular director, that his own election was only carried by one vote." Malcolm's Memoirs of Lord Clive, vol. ii. p. 235.-E.

(591) The eldest daughter of John Duke of Argyle and Greenwich, the widow of Francis Earl of Dalkeith, son of the second Duke of Buccleugh, and wife of Mr. Charles Townshend. She was, in 1767, created Baroness Greenwich, with remainder to her sons by Mr. Townshend. She, however, died leaving none.-C.