was driven by his royal father from St. James's, and took up his abode in it until the death of George I. The once honoured home of the Sydneys henceforth becomes loathsome in a moral sense. Here William, Duke of Cumberland—the hero, as court flatterers called him the butcher, as the poor Jacobite designated him—of Culloden, first saw the light. Peace and respectability then dignified the old house for ever. Prince Frederick was its next inmate here the Princess of Wales, the mother of George III., had her lyingsin, and her royal husband held his public tables; and at these and in every assembly, as well as in private, one figure is conspicuous.

Grace Boyle-for she unworthily bore that great namewas the daughter and heiress of Richard, Viscount Shannon. She married Lord Middlesex, bringing him a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. Short, plain, 'very yellow,' as her contemporaries affirm, with a head full of Greek and Latin, and devoted to music and painting; it seems strange that Frederick should have been attracted to-one far inferior to his own princess both in mind and person. But so it was, for in those days every man liked his neighbour's wife better than his own. Imitating the forbearance of her royal mother-in-law, the princess tolerated such of her husband's mistresses as did not interfere in politics Lady Middlesex was the 'my good Mrs. Howard,' of Leicester House. She was made Mistress of the Robes : her favour soon 'grew,' as the shrewd Horace remarks, 'to be rather more than Platonic.' She lived with the royal pair constantly, and sat up till five o'clock in the morning at their suppers; and Lord Middlesex saw and submitted to all that was going on with the loyalty and patience of a Georgian courtier. Lady Middlesex was a docile politician, and on that account, retained her position probably long after she had lost her influence.

Her name appears constantly in the 'Diary,' out of which everything amusing has been carefully expunged.

'Lady Middlesex, Lord Bathurst, Mr. Breton, and I, waited on their Royal Highnesses to Spitalfields, to see the manufacture of silk.' In the afternoon off went the same party to

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Norwood Forest, in private coaches, to see a 'settlement of gypsies.' Then returning, went to find out Bettesworth, the conjuror; but not discovering him, went in search of the little Dutchman. Were disappointed in that; but 'concluded,' relates Bubb Dodington, the peculiarities of this day by supping with Mrs. Cannon, the princess's midwife.

All these elegant modes of passing the time were not only for the sake of Lady Middlesex, but, it was said, of her friend, Mrs. Granville, one of the Maids of Honour, daughter of the first Lord Lansdown, the poet. This young lady, Eliza Gran ville, was scarcely pretty: a far, red-haired girl.

All this thoughtless, if not culpable, gallantry was abruptly checked by the rude hand of death. During the month of March, Frederick was attacked with illness, having caught cold. Very little apprehension was expressed at first, but, about eleven days after his first attack, he expired. Half an hour before his death, he had asked to see some friends, and had called for coffee and bread and butter: a fit of coughing came on, and he died instantly from suffocation. An abscess, which had been forming in his side, had burst; nevertheless, his two physicians, Wilmot and Lee, 'knew nothing of his distemper.' According to Lord Melcombe, who thus refers to their blunders, 'They declared, half an hour before his death, that his pulse was like a man's in perfect health. They either would not see or did not know the consequences of the black thrush, which appeared in his mouth, and quite down in his throat. Their ignorance, or their knowledge of his disorder, renders them equally inexcusable for not calling in other assistance.'

The consternation in the prince's household was great, not for his life, but for the confusion into which politics were thrown by his death. After his relapse, and until just before his death, the princess never suffered any English, man or woman, above the degree of valet-de-chambre to see him; nor did she herself see any one of her household until absolutely necessary. After the death of his eldest born, George II. vented his diabolical jealousy upon the cold remains of one thus cut off in the prime of life. The funeral was ordered to

be on the model of that of Charles II., but private counter orders were issued to reduce the ceremonial to the smallest degree of respect that could be paid.

On the 13th of April, 1751, the body of the prince was. entombed in Henry VII.'s chapel. Except the lords appointed to hold the pall, and attend the chief mourner, when the attendants were called over in their ranks, there was not a single English lord, not one bishop, and only one Irish lord (Lord Limerick), and three sons of peers. Sir Johr Rushout and Dodington were the only privy counsellors who followed. It rained heavily, but no covering was provided for the procession. The service was performed without organ or anthem. Thus,' observes Bubb Dodington, 'ended this sad day.'

Although the prince left a brother and sisters, the Duke of Somerset acted as chief mourner. The king hailed the event of the prince's death as a relief, which was to render happy` his remaining days; and Bubb Dodington hastened, in a few months, to offer to the Pelhams 'his friendship and attachment.' His attendance at court was resumed, although George II. could not endure him; and the old Walpolians, nick-named the Black-tan, were also averse to him.

Such were Bubb Dodington's actions. His expressions, on occasion of the prince's death, were in a very different tone.

'We have lost,' he wrote to Sir Horace Mann, 'the delight and ornament of the age he lived in, the expectations of the public in this light I have lost more than any subject in England; but this is light, public advantages confined to myself do not, ought not, to weigh with me. But we have lost the refuge of private distress-the balm of the afflicted heart the shelter of the miserable against the fury of private adversity; the arts, the graces, the anguish, the misfortunes of society, have lost their patron and their remedy.

'I have lost my companion-my protector—the friend that loved me, that condescended to hear, to communicate, to share in all the pleasures and pains of the human heart where the social affections and emotions of the mind only presided without regard to the infinite disproportion of my rank and con

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dition. This is a wound that cannot, ought not to heal. It I pretended to fortitude here, I should be infamous-a monster of ingratitude-and unworthy of all consolation, if I was not inconsolable.'

'Thank you,' writes the shrewd Horace Walpole, addressing Sir Horace Mann, 'for the transcript from Bubb de Tristibus. I will keep your secret, though I am persuaded that a man who had composed such a funeral oration on his master had himself fully intended that its flowers should not bloom and wither in obscurity.'

Well might George II., seeing him go to court say: 'I see Dodington here sometimes, what does he come for?'

It was, however, clearly seen what he went for, when, in 1753, two years after the death of his 'benefactor,' Dodington humbly offered His Majesty his services in the house, and 'five members,' for the rest of his life, if His Majesty would give Mr. Pelham leave to employ him for His Majesty's service. Nevertheless he continued to advise with the Princess of Wales, and to drop into her house as if it had been a sister's house-sitting on a stool near the fireside, and listening to her accounts of her children.

In the midst of these intrigues for favour on the part of Dodington, Mr. Pelham died, and was succeeded by his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, the issue of whose administration is well known.

In 1760 death again befriended the now veteran wit, beau and politician. George II. died; and the intimacy which Dodington had always taken care to preserve between himself and the Princess of Wales, ended advantageously for him; and he instantly, in spite of all his former professions to Pelham, joined hand and heart with that minister, from whom he obtained a peerage. This, as we have seen, was not long enjoyed. Lord Melcombe, as this able, intriguing man was now styled, died on the 28th of July, 1762; and with him terminated the short-lived distinction for which he had sacrificed even a decent pretext of principle and consistency.

So general has been the the contempt felt for his character, that it seems almost needless to assert that Bubb Dodingtor

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Defend us from our Executors and Editors.

was eminently to be despised. Nothing much more severe can be said of him than the remarks of Horace Walpole-upon his 'Diary' in which he observes that Dodington records little but what is to his own disgrace; as if he thought that the world would forgive his inconsistencies as readily as he forgave himself. Had he adopted,' Horace well observes, 'the French title "Confessions," it would have seemed to imply some kind of penitence.'

But vain-glory engrossed him: 'He was determined to raise an altar to himself, and for want of burnt offerings, lighted the pyre, like a great author (Rousseau), with his own character.'

It was said by the same acute observer, both of Lord Hervey and of Bubb Dodington, that they were the only two persons he ever knew that were always aiming at wit and never finding it.' And here, it seems, most that can be testified in praise of a heartless, clever man, must be summed up.

Lord Melcombe's property, with the exception of a few legacies, devolved upon his cousin Thomas Wyndham, of Ham mersmith, by whom his Lordship's papers, letters, and poems, were bequeathed to Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, with an injunction, that only such as 'might do honour to his memory should be made public.'

After this, in addition to the true saying, defend us from our friends, one may exclaim, 'defend us from our executors and editors