7

his liveries, his equipages, his table, and above all his politeness; nay his conviviality* and good choice of his company, many of whom I well know capable of fharing it as men of fashion fhould, I mean with taste and honour, however the foi-difant wife and virtuous may both contradict and reject it all, (and welcome) are still indeed to me, no bad prognoftics of that by no means inconfiderable adjunct of royalty. And is it objectionable to hope from it for every poffible diffufion of elegant, while manly, and British taste, for all those elegant—existencies at least of human nature; and that we may have ever read of, or poffibly seen, in other states and kingdoms? I will not fay, up to all Louis XIVth's excefs; though fo far perhaps up to it, as we may fee in Madame Sevigne's, or other letters, &c. (all still I mean in English not French manners†) and L12

as

* Say you men of, fhall I say, (tell me which) philofophy or of apathy, do you stop or start at my term of conviviality? Alas, would you, I mean ye latter, would you take away this counterpoise from human nature, this counterpoifing balance of woe? of that you all allow there is enough. Nay say, that this conviviality fhould perchance exceed at all its limits; does not luxuriancy at least demonstrate growth, and even flourishing growth? Yes furely; thofe trees that grow luxuriant, even thereby prove their strength. You prune them; and has not nature its too affured pruner ever at hand, even old Time himself? If he has nothing to prune from your branches at the time of their utmost perfection, what will he have when the growing state is gone beyond it?

†Though it were Parfon Sly, or any body else, I must beg to be indulged with my note; aye, though whole shoals of friendly jokers flung their "laudator, &c." at me. It is this; that I cannot (even with all my efforts) stop myself from suspecting that the English manners had more dignity among their first ranks of people; or, to express it by a term we even have not, "le ton de la bonne compagnie," than we have in this age. Our great, about the time I came into the world, and after it, would methinks have ftruck foreigners more than the present ones; perhaps there were philosophical reasons for it, in the absence of thofe all-confounding clubs we now have. "Be hid, (you'll fay, perhaps) to be "revered the more." But no, they were not formal, though polite; the best of them, at least. May I name the old Duke of Richmond, Lord Cobham, Dukes of Montague and Grafton, old Lord Craven, (a delightful man, though much a fox-hunter, and in the country) and many more, General Churchill for inftance, &c.? then they were (forgive me, large-wigged gentlemen) gallant, and at least does not that "Emollit mores, nec finit esse feros?" much more then, I should think too, of the intermixture of the bon-vivant character, and if I dared adopt the expreffive word, of spunk. That the general country was not near so easy and familiar as now, I grant, and may perhaps mistake all through, for certainly I know the present youth but little. I am then ready on occafion to retract all this. I must not forget that no one was more the fine and agreeable gentleman than the late Lord Chatham, if he had pleased to fling himself out; though perhaps a little stiff or formal. But what! forget Lord Chesterfield? his politeness, &c. every one knows; yet I should have preferred many of the other bon

vivants;

as much, if not more, in another female book, to me one of the most favourite in the world; as containing all the charms of the most charming of novels, (have not they charms, when good? to me they then have infinite ones, even to the carrying you to a world that should be, of gratitude, nobleness, every thing; in happy oblivion, perhaps, of the dirt that occafion may more or less give you to know, yours is;) but yes, Madame De Stahl's Memoirs, I say, afford this with much of true historical anecdote, in the Regent's time, intermixed with the Duchefs of Mayne's, &c. &c. and with Fontenelle's, Chaulien, and many other people of note befide; all given forth in fuch excellent good fenfe and true taste as goes far beyond any female writing I know; fuperior indeed, in depth of reflection, to Madame Sevigne's; truly as I admire the flow, and many attractions of that eminent Lady's Letters. I think I have read Madame De Stahl three, if not four times, in my life; yet muft it not be supposed, not very difcernedly, fince it is an abfolute circulating-library book, as far as I know, read only by the misses. But this feems deviation, yet have I not affumed defultoriness too?

To return: May I not afk then, if even the prospect of poffibility in the Erector of Carlton-House encouraging hereafter thofe public buildings that I

vivants; his maxims of politeness and of life, are excellent in many respects; but to think English fine gentlemen are to be French ones, is like the foolish player who thinks that the more like Garrick the better he acts. Yes, as to myself, I fay, certainly I should have preferred either of the names here marked, nay many others not marked. No, my Lord, nature is not so circumscribed as you would make her; may one not taste at one and the fame time a Rembrandt and an Albano, Alexander's Feaft and the Bath Guide? To the Graces, tafte and feeling forbid that I should object; but forbid it also, both of you, that I should not love Nature too, where the chufes (and fuch is her power!) to charm even without one of them! and I hope in this my own place, it must be thought allowable to offer from my ownself a specimen to judge from in my own portrait (it was partly taken from real nature) of Adrafius; who is meant, if not to shine, to please at least, and to attract, even because he has not, and from his not having, even the shadow of them in his compofition.

As to the French gallantry, on the other hand, fo much recommended and fo vehemently decried, I can not forbear asking the Gentlemen What-D'ye-Call-'ems whether they never heard of right or wrong being at all local? no; if Sparta now exifted, I suppose they would immediately hang fome boy there they found ftealing: and what should they not do in eaftern countries, where, worse than feducing, they compel, females by hundreds? nay, as to feduction any where; does it all lie at the men's doors? Say, ye attractive males, were ye never feduced by females? fay too, ye less attractive, were ye never met half way?

have

have already said would grace and honour his great kingdom, is not a profpect of fome fatisfaction, though not for me, for my descendants and the rifing generation? And if what has delivered down to us the name and fame of I forget which of the great men who so amazingly adorned Athens by his public edifices, would then do nothing fimilar to this name? But his Royal Highness has been publicly even attacked for this; nay, alas! has he been, though a prince, free from the very prefs-calumnies that I, who have fo largely vented my complaints of for myself and the public, have here breathed forth? Yes, he has; and does any one think, that if I can feel these things as a perfonal grievance, I will not fay to myself, but even to the poor players; and particularly, to the two defenceless while innocent females among them, can be otherwise than shocked when I fee it so exercifed against an amiable young Prince; and fince a public, nay alas, a parliamentary event, may I not improperly venture to allude to another perfon intimately connected with his Royal Highness?

Yes, I do certainly hope that all this enforces very much all I have ventured to fling out towards the general improvement of my country, wifely, at least warmly and well-intentioned. What has happened to the great and amiable lady I allude to has fhocked me fo much every way, that perhaps defultory as I have allowed myself to be, fome readers may not object to some few words more of the fame, when fure in so good (nay, fhall I not venture to add national?) a cause. Still more, I cannot forbear venting fome of that reflection I am so prone to, even on that great body the Parliament itself, as to this fubject, or at least a confiderable part of it, for its procedure therein, and in which, in my humble opinion, I must think they have incurred not a little cenfure, and merited animadverfion. Shall I then be allowed to fay a word to this, as an object both national and rational, though now a past one?

I fay then hardily, that the difcuffion of the Prince's marriage or connection in any shape whatever, was at once highly indelicate, and offenfive to his Royal Highnefs, and completely abfurd and ufelefs in itself. Is it

not

not folly in the extreme to enquire whether the Prince was married or not, when he could not be married? My very old and worthy and judicious friend did exactly what every one should have done, though no one else did; not make replies to speeches of air, but fhew the act of parliament. Forgive me, Sir and Madam, if the love of propriety, decency, and all their accompaniments, draws this from me, and if I farther add to it, that even fuppofing there were a fecret marriage, for reasons delicacy may suggest, and honour though not declare, avow; what indecency and indelicacy to drag into the light, from the retired secrecy and filence of nature, fuch arcana as these!

The lengths my too prolific mind has happened to draw me into, first from my ideal public improvements, and from thence to those real ones of Carlton-House, have naturally, I mean, when not discouraged, naturally, carried me in the concatenation of human events, to that certainly not unconnected link, the Poffeffor of Carlton-Houfe; and then, to that surely still closer link of connection, the future as well as prefent National fituation and existence. (Did not the famous Bishop of Cloyne fet out with the profeffed title of Tar-Water, and finish it by the Trinity?) but when my concatenation has carried me to say so much from so private a person as myself, about even fuch perfonalities as is feen; will it, can it, be supposed in me, that perhaps that ftill more common while not lefs odious thing than detraction-adulation, has any ways been my fpur and spring to it? I will immediately (without a word of its fo entire ufeleffnefs) obviate the fuppofal, and even at the rifque of that affuredly not uncommon human thing neither, even the wiping out of twenty impreffions of fatisfaction, in the mind, by one of perhaps, very small, diffatisfaction. In truth, as to politics, (as, to me, it is strangely called,) have I not begun by doing, and already forerun, what I own I allude to, by all the honours I have fo freely given from my infignificant store, to our national minifter Mr. Pitt; not the minifter of the heart, as not the affociate friend, and honoured companion, of his Royal Highness? He has chofen in the rival, I, among all others, defire to declare, one than whom none can be more amiable or more worthy; and, that youth, in royalty, fhould, at the entry of life, enter on the endearments of nature, with

thofe

those that can participate them, rather than those that can not, is it furprifing, or illaudable? rather, would not the reverse be both?

But what do I more particularly allude to above?. Why fairly to this; that I believe few men in the nation more warmly wifhed for the King's recovery, when under the preffure of one of those human evils my past attempted effufions have pretty minutely exposed my sense of on this our destined planet; or, while suspended, and too reasonably doubted of, more warmly wished for all, yes all the preferved emblems of royalty; royalty,-no, not apparent, yet ftill exiftent; however, alas, fhadowed over; as well as the then present and existing ones, for his Royal Confort, over whom they were finally spread, and bestowed. And further I will fay, that when the Chancellor gave forth that speech of pathos as well as of pertinence, and not the lefs, (it may be credited,) in my eyes, from the discovery of the lovely while unlooked-for intermixture in the heart of the tuneful Nine along with the feverer influence of the rugged law; yes, when the Chancellor breathed this forth, even with tenderness, with affection,-with those fofter emotions of the foul (and fay how increased, improved, from their contrafted breathings?) that sometimes at once blefs and adorn the human character; a kind of fympathy arofe in my own heart, and I could almoft have kiffed his black cheeks. Nor is this (no Sir, though you yourself were to fee it— much more, though I knew you were to fee it) adulation! Adulation! who fufpects me of it?-amid all my infirmities-my innumerable oneswho suspects me of it?

Let me add one word more as to thefe royal concerns, fince I am gotinto them, viz. that (if I understand it right,) the claim to Regency as conftitutional right, who can blame in its affumption? if, I fay, I understand it right: I mean, that the declaration of it originated in one of the greateft, if I am not to say the greatest, lawyer of the nation? That after knowledge of miftake, the claim was dropped, I imagine was the cafe;—but ftill to pursue this one great difcuffion to its end,-will not honest truth allow too, that if Mr. Pitt declared, through fome comparison I forget,

that