The English Spy Part 43

10 The present Duke of Leeds.

11 Dr. Cyril Jackson, afterwards sub-preceptor to his Majesty, George the Fourth, and since canon of Christ Church, Oxford. He refused the primacy of Ireland; was an excellent governor of his college, and died universally respected at Fulpham, in Suss.e.x, in 1819. Dr. William Jackson, his brother, who was Bishop of Oxford, was also Regius Professor of Greek to that university; he died in 1815.

12 His lords.h.i.+p's attachment to the turf is as notorious as his undeviating practice of the purest principles of honour.

It will not excite surprise, that such conduct has not been in such pursuits successful.

13 The member for Durham.

~75~~Lord Deerhurst (now Earl of Coventry) had then, as now, very quick parts, and early insight into beautiful composition. Whatever good thing he met with, he was always ready with an immediate parallel; Latin, Greek, or from honesty into English, nothing came amiss to him. He had a quick sense of the ridiculous; and could scout a character at all absurd and suspicious, with as much pleasant scurrility as a gentleman need have.

Banks always made his own exercises, as his exercises have since made him. He was a diligent and good boy; and though an early arithmetician, and fond of numbers, he was as soon distinguished for very honourable indifference to number one.

Douglas (now, I believe, Marquis of Queensberry) was remarkable for the worst penmans.h.i.+p in the school, and the economy of last moments; till then he seldom thought of an exercise. His favourite exercise was in Tothill-fields; from whence returning once very late, he instantly conceived and executed some verses, that were the best of his day. On another day, he was as prompt, and thought to have been more lucky than before; when, lo, the next morning he was flogged! for the exercise was so ill written, that it was not legible even by himself.

Lord Maiden was remarkable for his powers of engaging, and he then, as since, made some engagements, which might as well have been let alone.

He made an early promise of all he has since performed. He was very fond of dramatic entertainments, and he enacted much; was accounted a good actor; so was his crony, Jack Wilson, so well known at Mrs. Hobart's, &c., for his fal de ral t.i.t and for his duets with Lady Craven, Lady A.

Foley, &c, &c.

Lord MANSFIELD, then William Murray, here began his career. When at school, he was not remarkable for personal courage, or for mental bravery; though one of the stoutest boys of his standing, he was often beat by boys a year or two below him; and though then acute and voluble, his opinions were suppressed and retracted before minds less powerful but more intrepid than his own. Of his money allowance he was always so good a manager, ~70~~that he could lend to him who was in need. The famous exercise which Nicois made such a rout about, was in praise of abundance: an English theme on this thesis, from Horace--

"_Dulce est de magno tollore acervo_. "

He was in college; and no man on earth could conjecture that in his own _acervo_ there would ever be aggrandizement, such as it has since occurred.

Lord Stormont at school began his knack of oral imitations, and when a child, could speak quite as well as afterwards; after his uncle, the disgusting p.r.o.nunciation of the letter o then too infected his language; he made it come to the ear like an a. Humorously glancing at this affectation, Onslow or Stanhope said "Murray's horse is an a.s.s."

Markham, the Archbishop of York, made an early display of cla.s.sical taste, and the diligent cultivation of it. Some of his school exercises are extant, and show more than a promise of that refinement and exactness, which afterwards distinguished his performances at Christ Church. The Latin version of the fragment of Simonides, as beautiful as any thing in the whole range of poetical imitation, though published in the Oxford Lachrymo as Mr. Bournes, is known to be written by Mr.

Markham.

At school, too, Markham's conversation had a particularity known to distinguish it. War was his favourite topic, and caught, perhaps, from the worthy major, his father, and from his crony Webb, afterwards the general. It was apparent upon all occasions; when he was to choose his reading as a private study, in the sixth form, Caesar was his first book; and so continuing through most of his leisure time addicted to this sort of inquiry, the archbishop was afterwards able to talk war with any soldier in England. But, indeed, what is there he could not talk equal to any compet.i.tor? To the Archbishop Markham, and through him to Westminster, attach the credit of the good scholars.h.i.+p of the present king. This is little less than a credit to the country.

The Marquis of Stafford had fame for his English exercises; and after saying this of his Wednesday nights' themes, let it also be noted, that he had fame for other exercises of old England. He could ride, run, row, and bat better than most of his comtemporaries; in his potations, too, he was rather deep; but though deep, yet clear; and though gentle, yet not dull. At once a most jolly fellow, and the most magnificent of his time,--and so "_ab incepto processerit_."

The Duke of Dorset, then Sackville, (since dead) was good-humoured, manly, frank, and pa.s.sionately fond of various school ~77~~exercises; as billiards, at the alehouse in Union-street, (then perhaps a tavern) and _double-fives_ between the two walls at the school-door. For Tothill-fields fame as to cricket, he was yet more renowned: there he was the champion of the town-boys against those in college; and in the great annual match, he had an innings that might have lasted till the time Baccelli _run him out_, had not the other side given up the game.

As to the school itself, there it was easy to catch him out; though such was his address, that he was seldom caught out. When he was in school, really few boys were there to better purpose; he made several good prose exercises both in English and Latin; and, what is rare for a boy of rank, with but small aid from the tutor.

At school, he shot and rowed pretty well; and as he could not always pay for his boat in specie, somebody proposed a barter of _Tothill-fields game_; but he had a soul above it, and what was more, at his elbow another soul, saying, _Carpamus dulcia_, and of my dressing. That friend was

Lord Edward Bentinck, whose culinary fame began on the sparrows and fieldfares knocked down about the Five Chimnies and Jenny's whim. At a bill of fare, and the science how dinner should be put before him, he was then, as since, unrivalled; yet more to his good memorial, he knew how a dinner should be put before other people. For one day, as he was beginning to revel in a surrept.i.tious banquet in the Bowling-alley, his share of the mess Lord Edward gave to the relief of want, which then happened to be wandering by the window.--"This praise shall last."

Old Elwes, the late member for Berks, may occur, on the mention of want wandering by, though, notwithstanding appearance, he suffered n.o.body about him to be in such wants as himself. Penurious, perhaps, on small objects; in those which are greater, he was certainly liberal almost to prodigality. The h.o.a.rding principle might be strong in him, but in the conduct of it he was often generous, always easy. No man in England probably lost more money in large sums, for want of asking for it: for small money, as in farthings to street beggary, few men probably have lost less. What he had not sufficiently cultivated, was the habit of letting money easily go. So far, he was the reverse of Charles the Second; for on greater occasions, again I say it, he seemed to own the act under the enn.o.bling impulse of systematic generosity, expanding equally in self-denial, and in social sympathy. He was among the most dispa.s.sionate and tender-tempered men alive; and, considering ~78~~all things, it might be reasonable to allot him the meed of meekness upon earth, and of that virtue which seeketh not her own reward.

His ruling pa.s.sion was the love of ease.

The beginnings of all this were more or less discernible at school, where Lord Mansfield gave him the nick-name of Jack Meggot.

His other little particularities were the best running and walking in the school, and the commencement of his fame for riding, which, in the well-known trials in the Swiss Academy, outdid all compet.i.tion. Worsley, of the Board of Works, alone divided the palm; he rode more gracefully.

Elwes was by far the boldest rider.

The Duke of Portland (who died in 1809) was among the _delicciae_ of each form at Westminster, in all that appertained to temper, the tenderness and warmth of feeling, suavity of approach, and the whole pa.s.sive power of pleasing. Thus much internal worth, tempered with but little of those showy powers which dazzle and seduce, gave early promise that he would escape all intriguing politics, and never degrade himself by the projects of party; for a party-man must always be comparatively mean, even on a scale of vicious dignity; in violence, subordinate to the ruffian; in chicane, below a common town-sharper.

He had, happily, no talents for party; he was better used by nature.

He seemed formed for the kindliest offices of life; to appreciate the worth, and establish the dignity of domestic duties; to exemplify the hardest tasks of friends.h.i.+p and affinity; to display each hospitable charm.

All that he afterwards did for Chace Price, and Lord Eduard, appeared as a flower in its bud, in Dean's-yard and Tothill-fields, with the fruit-woman under the Gateway, and the coffee-house then opposite.

In his school-exercises, fame is not remembered to have followed any but his Wednesday evening themes: some of them were incomparably the best of the standing. In the rest of the school business, said the master to him one day, "you just keep on this side whipping."

His smaller habits were none remarkable, except that his diet was rather more blameable in the article of wine. A little too early; a little too much.

This, probably, more than any hereditary taint, made him, in immediate manhood, a martyr to the gout.

Against this, his ancestor's nostrum was tried in vain; the disease would not yield, till it was overborne by abstinence, which, to the praise of the duke's temper, he began and continued, with a splendour of resolution not any where exceeded.

~79~~The duke had been long estranged from all animal food but fish, and every fermented liquor. According to the old Latin distich, the poetry of a water-drinker is said to be short-lived, and not fit to live: was this proverbial doom extended to what was not poetry, it might be checked by the prose of the Duke of Portland. Most of his common letters were among the models of epistolary correspondence.

The Duke of Beaufort{14} exhibited at school more of the rudiments of a country gentleman, than the rudiments of Busby; he knew a horse practically, while other boys took it only from description in Virgil.

_Stare loco nescit_, was however his motto; and through all the demesnes adjacent to his little reign, on the water, and in the water, he was well; on horseback he was yet better; and to ride, or tie, on foot, or on horseback, no boy of his time was more ready at every good turn. He loved his friend; and, such were the engaging powers of his very frank and pleasant manner, his friends all loved him.

Some enc.u.mbrances, _solito de more_ of all boys, with the coffee-house, for jellies, fruit, &c, left when he left school, he afterwards discharged with singular eclat.

In regard to scholars.h.i.+p, he was by no means wanting; though it must be owned, he wanted always to be better strangers with them. Like many other boys, he knew much more than he was aware of; for he had as much aversion to the Greek Epigrams, as the best critic could have; and in Terence, as he could find nothing to laugh, Lloyd often raised an opposite emotion. Lloyd, had he lived to this time, would have taken Terence as a main ingredient in his enjoyments. So benevolent is nature to fit the feelings of man to his destiny.

M'Donald, afterwards Solicitor General, was in college, and had then about him much that was remarkable for good value.

The different ranks in college are rather arduous trials of temper; and he that can escape without imputation through them, and be, as it is called, a junior without meanness, and a senior without obduracy, exhibits much early promise, both as to talents and virtue.

This early promise was M 'Donald's. He was well-respected in either rank, and he deserved it; for he obeyed the time, without being time-serving; he commanded, as one not forgetting what it was to obey.

_Par negotiis, neque supra_, characterised his scholars.h.i.+p.

14 Died in 1803.

~80~~He had in every form sufficiency, and sometimes eminence. He had more facility in Greek than most boys; his English exercises were conspicuous for language and neatness of turn.

He was a very uncorrupt boy, and his manners were rather elevated; yet it is not remembered that he lost popularity even with the worst boys in the school; the whole secret of which was _specie minus quam vi_. He was better than he seemed. There was no pride, no offending wish at seclusion.

Though not so remarkable for book knowledge as his brother Sir James, who thus, indeed, was nothing less than a prodigy, yet was M'Donald extremely well and very variously read. In miscellaneous information, far more accomplished than any boy of his time.

Markham, the master, had a high opinion of him; and once, in the midst of strong and favourable prognostics, said, "There was nothing against him but what was for him; rank and connections, and the too probable event of thence advancing into life too forward and too early."

Markham spoke with much sagacity. The _rosa sera_ is the thing, for safe and spreading efflorescence. Well as the wreath might be about M'Donald's brow, it had probably been better, if gathered less eagerly, if put on later.

c.o.c.k Langford was the son of the auctioneer--

And there never was an inheritance of qualities like it. He would have made as good an auctioneer as his father; a better could not bo.