Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/50

 30 previous May, but the right of election was declared to be vested in the aldermen and twelve capital burgesses, and Metcalfe was reported as duly elected. The patron of this borough was an apothecary called Edmund Wilkins who paid each capital burgess the retaining fee of £30 per annum. In the parliament of 1802 — 1806 Metcalfe again represented Plympton. His political career was inglorious. Once, and once only, do I find his name. This is in the diaries and letters of old George Rose, Pitt's right-hand man in corruption. The statesman reports to the place-giver that Metcalfe had brought him a letter from sir J. Honywood "applying for the receivership of Kent either for himself or for his son a child of five years old." Pitt's reflection was "the latter request is ridiculous. I told Mr. Metcalfe I could say nothing at present to the first."

Fanny Burney met him at the house of Miss Monckton, afterwards lady Cork, in Charles street, Berkeley square, in December, 1782. He kept chattering with her "with much satire but much entertainment" until Dr. Johnson found her out and ordered him away. The journal of the life in France from 1783 to 1786 of Madame Cradock, the wife of Joseph Cradock, the Leicestershire squire who fluttered in London Society for some years, was printed in 1896. They were in Paris in the winter of 1785-86 & among their friends were "M. Metcalf and les dames Lascels chez M. Pattle's." One day he called on madame with "un petit pot de beurre de Bretagne, véritable friandise très renommée à Paris"; on another he came with lord and lady Sussex and young Keppel Craven to take tea with her and stayed, playing cards dancing and singing until 11 o'clock. The Cradocks left for Holland in April 1786 when Metcalfe, an experienced observer of foreign life "who had travelled with Mr. Wraxall afterwards well-known as Sir Nathaniel Wraxall" informed them that they would "save five pounds