WILLOUGHBY BERTIE, EARL OF ABINGDON, [Was born in 1740; succeeded his father William, the third earl, in 1760; married Charlotte, daughter of sir Peter Warren, in 1768, by whom he had several children; and died on the 26th of October 1799. His lordship was educated at Geneva, and imbibed some of the democratic principles of the philosophists in that republic. He generally opposed the measures of administration with declamatory vehemence, and his frequent speeches in the house of peers were singularly eccentric. It was customary with the earl to send copies of those speeches to the different newspapers, which placed him at one time in an irksome predicament; for having made a violent attack on the character of an attorney who practised in the king's bench, the court sentenced his lordship to a few months imprisonment as the publisher of a libel 2. In 1777 he put forth a pamphlet which excited much attention, entitled, "Thoughts on the Letter of Edmund Burke, Esq. to the Sheriffs of Bristol, on the Affairs of America. By the Earl of Abingdon." Oxford, 8vo.3. • Gent. Mag. vol. Ixix. p. 903. 3 Warton says, in a letter to Mr. Pierce, librarian of the Bodleian, dated Sept. 16, 1777, "I see a ballad on lord Abingdon's republican pamphlet, which I am sure is written This went through five editions; and in 1780 was addressed a sixth time in a dedication-" To the collective Body of the People of England, in which the Source of our present political Distractions is pointed out, and a Plan proposed for their Remedy and Redress." The pamphlet thus concludes: 66 1 Upon the whole, when I perceive a war, and such a war too so weakly supported, and yet so violently pursued; when I find the most elevated of the church, preaching and publishing to the world passive obedience and non-resistance to the supremacy of law,' whether that law be right or wrong, whether it be good or bad, whether it be to establish popery or protestantism, whether it be enacted by an honest or by a corrupt and abandoned parliament: when I see men that were pilloried in the reign of good old George II. pensioned in this, and for the same reasons when I hear of others hired to root out the very idea of public virtue from the minds, and tear benevolence from the hearts of Englishmen when I reflect but why add more to the black catalogue of public dangers? It is time to look at home: it is time, even with Stentorian voice, to call for union among the friends of the constitution: it is time that private opinion should yield to public safety: it is by Dr. Cooper of Queen's." An anonymous reply of much ironical repute followed its publication; and a letter by major Cartwright addressed to the earl, discussing a position rela tive to a fundamental right of the constitution, was printed in 1778. This drew forth his lordship's epistle dedicatory to the people of England. 4 • Vide archbishop of York's Sermon, p. 19. 384 WILLOUGHBY, EARL OF ABINGDON. time that we keep both watch and ward;' for if the liberties of our fellow-subjects in America are to be taken from them, it is for the ideot only to suppose that we can preserve our own. The dagger uplifted against the breast of America is meant for the heart of Old England. Non agitur de vectigalibus, libertas in dubio est. "In fine, these are my sentiments, and these my principles. They are the principles of the constitution and under this persuasion, whilst I have signed them with my name, I will (if necessary) as readily seal them with my blood." In 1798 lord Abingdon is recorded 5 to have published a rhapsodical "Letter to Lady Loughborough, in consequence of her Presentation of the Colours to the Bloomsbury and Inns of Court Association; with a public Letter to the University of Oxford."] › See Gent. Mag. vol. lxviii. p. 970. MARY COWPER, LADY WALSINGHAM, [DAUGHTER of William Cowper, esq. of the Park, near Hertford, married in 1743 to sir William De Grey, chief justice of the court of common pleas, created baron Walsingham, of Walsingham in Norfolk, 1780. Her ladyship died on the 2d of September 1800, eight months before her lord". Lady Walsingham was niece to the mother of Cowper 3, the poet of Christianity," and has entwined a garland of regret around her tomb, by the hand of affinity and affection. "EPITAPH ON MRS. ANN COWPER, "WHO DIED IN 1737, AGED THIRTY-FOUR, AND WAS BURIED IN THE Chancel of ST. PETER'S CHURCH, AT BERKHAMSTEAD, HERTS. "Here lies, in early years bereft of life, The best of mothers and the kindest wife; • Debrett's Peerage, p. 286. "To have lost a parent of a character so virtuous and en. dearing," says Hayley, "at an early period of his childhood, was the prime misfortune of Cowper, and what contributed perhaps in the highest degree to the dark colouring of his subsequent life. The influence of a good mother on the first years of her children, whether nature has given them peculiar strength or peculiar delicacy of frame, is equally inestimable. It is the prerogative and the felicity of such a mother to temper the arrogance of the strong, and to dissipate the timidity of the tender." Life of Cowper, vol. i. p. 6. Who neither knew, nor practis'd any art, Secure in all she wish'd, her husband's heart! Pray'd Heaven to bless him with her latest breath. These lines, though weak, are as herself sincere."] |