Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/131

 9>s.v.FEB.i7,i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

123

Again, in a letter to the Countess of Ailesbury (vol. iii. p. 443), describing the procession of peeresses at the coronation of George III., Wai pole says :

" Lady Harrington was noble at a distance, and so covered with diamonds, that you would have thought she had bid somebody or other, like Falstaff, rob me the Exchequer."

Caroline Fitzroy, Countess of Harrington, mentioned in the preceding extracts, was a conspicuous personage in the society of her day. Her adventures (not always of an edifying sort) were often the theme of Wai pole's letters.

In 1759 the object of her preference for the time being was evidently Lord Barrington, to judge from an anecdote related by Horace Wai pole in a letter to Montagu of 23 Decem- ber, 1759. He writes :

'The cry in Ireland has been against Lord Hilsborough, supposing him to meditate an union ( f the two countries. George Selwyn seeing him t'other night between my Lady Harrington and Lord Barrington, said, ' Who can say that my Lord Hilsborough is not au enemy to an union ? ' "

The connexion between Lady Harrington and the Exchequer is not obvious at first sight, but is easily explained when it is remembered that Lord Barrington (whose penchant for Lady Harrington is hinted at above) had just been appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer.

There is further allusion of the same kind in Walpole's letter to Conway of 10 April, 1761 (vol. iii. p. 393). Conway was on his way to join the army in Germany, and had left England accompanied by his wife, the Countess of Ailesbury. Walpole writes :

" Don't let Lady Ailesbury proceed to Brunswick : you might have had a wire who would not have thought it so terrible to fall into the hands (arms) of hussars ; but as I don't take that to be your Countess's turn, leave her with the Dutch, who are not so boisterous as Cossacks or Chancellors of the Exchequer."

The wife that Conway " might have had' was no other than Lady Harrington, who, as Lady Caroline Fitzroy, had been the object of his youthful affections ; so that here again the allusion is to her and Lord Barrington as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This office Lord Barrington held from March, 1761, till May, 1762, within which period all the above allusions fall. No explanation of these allu- sions is attempted by any of the editors of the ' Letters.'

Letter 719 (vol. iii. p. 395), to the Countess of Suffolk, is dated "Friday night, April, 1761." The dates of the month and year do not appear in the original MS. They were by Croker when the letter was first

orinted, viz., in the 'Suffolk Correspondence' ' London, 1824). The letter was certainly written in 1761, but it appears that it aelongs to the letters of March, not to those of April. A general election was in progress. Walpole writes :

" Mr. Conway (and I need say no more) has negotiated so well, that the Duke of Grafton is disposed to bring Mr. Beauclerk in for Thetford."

The Mr. Beauclerk here in question was the Hon. Aubrey Beauclerk, son of Lord Vere of Han worth, and afterwards fifth Duke of St. Albans. He entered Parliament in 1761 as member for Thetford, his colleague being General Conway, mentioned above. Walpole continues :

"It will be expected, I believe, that Lord Vere should resign Windsor in a handsome manner to the Duke of Cumberland."

Windsor here is the borough of New Wind- sor, apparently a pocket borough of the Beauclerk family. The members elected at this election were General the Hon. John Fitzwilliam and the Hon. Augustus Keppel. The first is elsewhere described by Horace Walpole as "one of the Duke's military spies " ; the second was the brother of the Duke's prime favourite, the Earl of Albe- marle. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that the Duke nominated both members. The Windsor election took place on 25 March, that at Thetford on 28 March. The letter under consideration must therefore have been written, at any rate, before 25 March. It may be placed between Nos. 711 and 712 in vol. iii.

Letter 794 (vol. iii. p. 511), addressed to George Montagu, is dated Wednesday night, 1 June, 1762. The original letter is dated only "Wednesday night"; "1 June" was added by the editor of the quarto edition (1819) of the * Letters to Montagu ' ; " 1762 " was added by Cunningham. As 1 June fell on Tuesday in 1762, the date 1 June is an impossibility. From the following considera- tions it appears that the letter was written on Wednesday, 30 June.

1. The letter begins "Since you left Straw- berry," implying that Montagu had recently been there. In his letter to Montagu, dated Strawberry Hill, 8 June, 1762, Walpole writes :

" He [Mr. Chutel gives me a good account of your health and spirits, but does not say when you come hither. I hope the General, as well as your brother John, know how welcome they would be if they would accompany you, I trust it will be before the end of this month, for the very beginning of July I am to make a little visit to Lord Ilchest'ers," &c. It appears from these passages that Montagu