Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/132

  of his wife, as the favourite resort of the whig leaders. Erskine, when taken ill at one of Payne's banquets, replied to Lady Payne's anxious inquiries with the lines—

It was rumoured in 1783 that Payne might be the secretary to Lord Northington, the new lord lieutenant of Ireland; but the post was given to Windham. In 1788 he made a lengthened tour on the continent, visiting Vienna, Zurich, and Lyons (, Memoir of Sir R. M. Keith, ii. 198–200). With the support of the Prince of Wales as Duke of Cornwall, he contested the borough of Fowey, in the whig interest, in 1790, when a double return was made, Payne and Lord Shuldham being credited with a majority of votes; but they were unseated by the House of Commons. At a by-election he was returned for Woodstock (21 Oct. 1795), and represented it until 1799.

But after his election disappointment in 1790 he wavered in his attachment to the whigs, and on 15 Aug. 1793 he gave a ‘considerable dinner’ at his house, at which Pitt was a guest. Windham was also invited, but did not go, and thought that Payne should have told him of the invitation to the premier (, Diary, pp. 198, 288, 310). This change of politics was rendered necessary by the shrinking of his resources, and it soon bore fruit. He was created Baron Lavington of Lavington in the peerage of Ireland on 1 Oct. 1795, and a privy councillor on 30 Oct. 1799. In February 1799 he was reappointed as governor of the Leeward Islands, and the assembly voted him an allowance of 2,000l. a year, that he might the better support the dignity of the position. His Christmas balls and his routs were magnificent, and were distinguished by the observance of the strictest etiquette. He was attended by an army of servants, but he would not allow any of the black servitors about him to wear shoes or stockings, their legs being rubbed daily with butter so that they shone like jet; and he would not, if he could avoid it, handle a letter or parcel from their fingers. To escape the indignity, he designed a golden instrument, like a tongs, with which he held any article which was given him by a black servant.

Lord Lavington died at Government House, Antigua, on 3 Aug. 1807, being then the senior member of the order of the Bath. He was interred on his mother's estate of Carlisle. The tomb was still visible in 1844, but the garden was overgrown with weeds, and the walls were falling into ruins. An elaborate monument of marble was erected to his memory by the legislature of Antigua, in St. John's Church in that island. As his widow was left all but destitute, a compassionate allowance of 300l. a year was voted to her by the assembly, for her life. Her married life appears to have been unhappy, and Sheridan once found her in tears, ‘which she placed, with more adroitness than truth, to the account of her monkey, who had just died.’ He thereupon exclaimed:

Payne's speeches are in the ‘Debates’ of Sir Henry Cavendish, i. 133, 368–70, 372, and many letters from him are among the Rosslyn MSS., two being printed in Lord Campbell's ‘Lives of the Lord Chancellors,’ vi. 161–2, 359.



PAYNE, ROBERT (fl. 1589), writer on agriculture, was born apparently in Nottinghamshire. He subsequently described himself of Poynes-End, co. Cork. He was presumably the author of ‘Rob. Payn his Hillman's Table, which sheweth how to make Ponds to continue water in high and drie grounde, of what nature soeuer. Also the Vale-man's Table, shewing how to draine moores, and all other wette grounds, and to lay them drie for euer. Also how to measure any roufe ground, wood or water, that you cannot come into,’ &c., 1583 (, Typogr. Antiq. iii. 1662). In consequence of the exceptional inducements offered by government to Englishmen to settle in Munster after the suppression of the rebellion of, fifteenth earl of Desmond [q. v.], Payne and twenty-five of his neighbours proposed to remove thither. But Englishmen were chary of risking their lives and fortunes in Ireland, and it was accordingly thought advisable to send Payne over to report on the situation. The result was: ‘A Briefe Description of Ireland: Made in this Yeere 1589, by Robert Payne.