Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/198

 178 caricature called "election troops bringing their accounts to the Pay table Westminster," in which Pitt is depicted behind the Treasury gate, blandly professing his own ignorance of any promises of money and referring the clamorous crowd of applicants to old George Rose.

Lord John retired from the representation of Westminster at the general election of 1790 and never again stood for a popular constituency, but he sat for the borough of Knaresborough from 30 March 1793 to 1818, when he withdrew from public life. The right of election in this Yorkshire borough was vested in the owners of between 80 and 90 burgage houses, and the duke of Devonshire owned all but four. The constituency consequently returned his nominees and it was his wish that one of them should be lord John Townshend. He never became a conspicuous figure in parliamentary life, and never filled any important position in office. From 30 March to 13 July 1782 and from 8 April to 30 Dec. 1783 he was a lord of the admiralty and when the ministry of "all the talents" was formed in Feb. 1806 he was created a privy councillor and was joint paymaster of the army from that month until the 4 April 1807. He contented himself for the most part with voting silently, but consistently, for his friend Fox and the political principles which he advocated.

Two special gifts were his. One was the art of mimicry. He could not only reproduce the manner of any person but he could improvise a subject and talk upon it as his victim would. Such was the testimony of the celebrated lady Holland. In her opinion he was "one of the wittiest men there is; his verses are excellent." That was his other talent; he possessed an unrivalled facility for writing verses. That imperious lady's husband wrote to Samuel Rogers about 1818, "I am as full of my own verses as our friend Jack Townshend could be."