Private Letters of Edward Gibbon (1753-1794) Volume 1 (of 2)

Footnote_92_92

Son of Sir Matthew Ridley, Bart., Major in the Welsh Fusiliers. He had served in Germany during the Seven Years' War, and was at this time Mr. Holroyd's travelling companion.

Footnote_93_93

M. Deyverdun had known Gibbon at Lausanne, and from 1766-69 was a frequent guest at Beriton. With his assistance Gibbon published the Mémoires Littéraires de la Grande Bretagne pour l'an 1767 (Londres: Chez T. Becket and P. A. de Hondt dans le Strand, 1767), which were discontinued in 1768, when Deyverdun, on his friend's recommendation, left England as tutor to the son of Sir T. Worsley, afterwards the Right Hon. Sir Richard Worsley. In 1783 Gibbon took up his abode with Deyverdun at the latter's house at Lausanne. Deyverdun died in July, 1789, leaving his house and land by will to Gibbon for his life.

Footnote_94_94

Lady Diana Spencer married in 1757 Frederick St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, the "Bully" who figures in George Selwyn's correspondence, from whom she was divorced, March 10, 1768. Two days later she married Topham Beauclerk, grandson of the first Duke of St. Albans, the friend of Dr. Johnson, and the collector of a magnificent library. During his long illness she nursed him, as Johnson, no friendly witness, admits, "with very great assiduity." He died in 1780. Lady Diana, whose skill as an artist is frequently alluded to by Walpole, died in 1808.

Footnote_95_95

Hugh, Lord Warkworth, eldest son of Sir Hugh Smithson, Bart., of Stanwick, who was created Duke of Northumberland in 1766, married July 2, 1764, Lady Anne Stuart, third daughter of the Earl of Bute. They were divorced in 1779. As Earl Percy he served in the American War at the battle of Lexington and elsewhere.

Footnote_96_96

See note to Letter 126.

Footnote_97_97

Sir James Lowther, Bart., first Earl of Lonsdale, married (1761) Lady Mary Stewart, eldest daughter of the Earl of Bute, and sister of Lady Warkworth.

Footnote_98_98

Dr. William Heberden (1710-1801), one of the most famous physicians of the century, and a distinguished scholar. He was called by Dr. Johnson "Ultimus Romanorum" (a title which might be as justly applied to Sir H. Halford), as being "the last of our learned physicians." He is hailed by Cowper as "virtuous and faithful," perhaps because, as Dr. G. B. Hill suggests, he bought and destroyed an unpublished manuscript by Dr. Middleton on The Inefficacy of Prayer.

Footnote_99_99

Up Park, near Stansted in Sussex, the seat of Sir Matthew Featherstonhaugh, F.R.S., formerly M.P. for Morpeth, at this time M.P. for Portsmouth; Port Eliot, St. Germans, Cornwall, that of Gibbon's cousin, Mr. Edward Eliot, M.P. for Liskeard, afterwards for Cornwall, created in 1784 Baron Eliot of St. Germans; and Hartley Manduit that of Sir Simeon Stuart, M.P. for the county of Southampton.

Footnote_100_100

Under Lord Bute, the Ministerial Club, as it was at first called, used to meet at the Cocoa Tree Tavern, in St. James's Street. In 1745 it had been the great resort of the Jacobites. Gibbon describes a supper at the club in his Journal for November, 1762. [Memoirs of My Life and Writings – Miscellaneous Works, vol. i. p. 154 (second edition, 1814).] By the "School of Vice" it is more than probable Gibbon meant White's Club, formed in 1736, at this time the great Tory gaming club. It contained within its walls an Old and a Young Club, the Old being recruited from among the members of the Young. Hence, perhaps, arose its name of the "School of Vice."

Footnote_101_101

The Stamp Act, charging stamp duties on all legal documents executed in the Colonies, received the royal assent March 22, 1765, and came into operation November 1, 1765. When Parliament reassembled on January 14, 1766, Pitt attacked the policy of the Act. General Conway, one of the Secretaries of State, who replied to him, said that the sentiments which he had expressed were substantially those of the ministers, and that, for his own part, he would gladly resign his office if Pitt would take it. Grenville, who followed, defended the Act, and it was in reply to him, on the same evening, that Pitt delivered one of the most eloquent and famous of his speeches. Ireland took a keen interest in the question, and the debate happens to be fully reported by two Irish gentlemen, Sir Robert Dean and Lord Charlemont; otherwise, like many others of the time, it might have passed without record. In the same session, February 24 to March 17, two resolutions were carried in both Houses, one declaring the right of Great Britain to tax the Colonies, the other repealing the Stamp Act. Two Acts of Parliament expressed these resolutions in legislative form.

Footnote_102_102

The name was so spelt in the newspapers. John Baker Holroyd married in 1767 Miss Abigail Way, only daughter of Lewis Way, of Richmond, Surrey.

Footnote_103_103

The motto of the regiment of light dragoons, called Royal Foresters, in which Mr. Holroyd had been captain, and which was disbanded in 1763.

Footnote_104_104

A nickname for Mr. Guise.

Footnote_105_105

At Southampton Gibbon attended every spring the monthly exercise of the militia, of which, by the resignation of his father and the death of Sir T. Worsley (1768), he eventually became lieutenant-colonel commandant.

Footnote_106_106

Parliament was dissolved March 11, 1768, and the elections took place in March. Gibbon seems to have assisted the Worsleys in the Isle of Wight against the Castle interest and that of the Holmes family. In 1586, when the Crown sought to create a parliamentary party in the House of Commons, six members were returned to Parliament by the three boroughs of Newport, Newtown, and Yarmouth, because in the Isle of Wight, through its military captain and governor, the influence of the Crown was paramount. Gradually the leading families of the island acquired control over the three boroughs, and at this period they were disputed by the Worsley, Barrington, and Holmes families, the latter being descended from Sir Robert Holmes, who took New York from the Dutch, and "first bewitched our eyes with Guinea gold." At the election of 1768 the following members were elected for the respective boroughs: – Newport: Hans Sloane, Esq., and John Eames, Esq., one of the Masters in Chancery. Newtown: Sir J. Barrington, Bart., and Harcourt Powell, Esq. (re-elected). Yarmouth: Jervoise Clarke, Esq., and William Strode, Esq.

Footnote_107_107

A convivial club, meeting once a week, established by Gibbon and other travellers.

Footnote_108_108

Gibbon was a member of Boodle's Club, known as the Savoir vivre.

Footnote_109_109

Ranelagh Gardens, now part of Chelsea Hospital Gardens, stood on the site of a villa belonging to Lord Ranelagh, the Jones of Grammont's Memoirs. The Rotunda, an amphitheatre, with an orchestra in the centre, surrounded by "balconies full of little alehouses," was opened to the public May 24, 1742. The last entertainment given there was the installation ball of the Knights of the Bath in 1802. The gardens were closed in 1803. A staple, fixed in one of the trees of the avenue, preserved, till a few years ago, the traditions of the glories of Ranelagh when the gardens were lighted by a thousand lamps.

Footnote_110_110

The Earl of Abingdon married, on June 7, 1768, the daughter of Admiral Sir Peter Warren.

Footnote_111_111

Serjeant Glynn, well known as the advocate of Wilkes, was afterwards elected as second member for Middlesex at a by-election. He married a daughter of Sir J. Oglander, of Nunwell, in the Isle of Wight, and had been an unsuccessful candidate for one of the Isle of Wight constituencies at the general election of 1768.

Footnote_112_112

John Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton.

Footnote_113_113

Sir Peter Leycester and Sir Frank Standish were found, November 29, 1768, not duly elected.

Footnote_114_114

The return for Yarmouth, I.W., was amended by order of the House of Commons, dated January 19th, 1769, by erasing the names of Jervoise Clarke and William Strode, and substituting those of George Lane Parker and Thomas Lee Dummer.

Footnote_115_115

On February 14, 1769, Sir George Osborne was found not duly elected, and Thomas Howe was declared duly elected. The return of Sir George Rodney was held to be valid. A note by Sir Denis le Marchant, appended to Lord Orford's Memoirs, states that the expenses of the contest and petition cost Lord Spencer £70,000.

Footnote_116_116

John Wilkes was expelled from the House of Commons in January, 1764, and outlawed in the following August. He returned to England in February, 1768, and was at the bottom of the poll for the City (March 23). He headed the poll for Middlesex, March 28, 1768. His outlawry was reversed as technically illegal by the Court of King's Bench in the same year; but his two convictions for republishing No. 45 of the North Briton, and the Essay on Woman, were affirmed, and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. He was expelled the House February 3, 1769; re-elected February 16 and expelled February 27; re-elected March 16 and expelled March 17. At the election on April 13 he polled 1147 votes to the 296 of Colonel Luttrell; but the House resolved (April 15) that the election of Wilkes was void, and Luttrell duly elected. He was discharged from his imprisonment in 1770.