the respective years-which alone makes, when they belong to a scries, a preposterous confusion.

With regard to the correspondence itself, we have already intimated that it is of little or no value in any view; but our readers may wish for some general idea of it.

We begin by repeating all that is known of Lady Sundon-that is to say, what Horace Walpole tells us in his Letters, his Reminiscences, and the Walpoliana :-to which the editor of the Memoirs of Viscountess Sundon' has not, that we have discovered, added one iota-not so much as telling us the dates of her birth, or her marriage, or her death (which was on January 1st, 1742), nor, in fact, one additional particular about her.

On the 7th of June, 1742, Walpole writes thus to Mann:

'Lady Sundon is dead, and Lady M. disappointed: she who is full as politic as my Lord Hervey, had made herself an absolute servant to Lady Sundon; but I don't hear that she has left her even her old clothes. Lord Sundon is in great grief: I am surprised, for she had fits of madness ever since her ambition met such a check by the death of the Queen. She had great power with her, though the Queen pretended to despise her; but had unluckily told her, or fallen into her power by some secret. I was saying to Lady Pomfret, "To be sure she is dead very rich!" She replied with some warmth, "She never took money." When I came home I mentioned this to Sir R. "No," said he, "but she took jewels." Lord Pomfret's place of Master of the Horse to the Queen was bought of her for a pair of diamond earrings of 1400l. value. One day that she wore them at a visit at old Marlborough's, as soon as she was gone, the Duchess said to Lady Mary Wortley, "How can that woman have the impudence to go about in that bribe?" "Madam," said Lady Mary, "how would you have people know where wine is sold unless there is a sign hung out?" Sir R. told me that, in the enthusiasm of her vanity, Lady Sundon had proposed to him to unite with her, and govern the kingdom together. He bowed, begged her patronage, but said he thought nobody fit to govern the kingdom but the King and Queen."

In his Reminiscences' he says

On my mother's death, who was of the Queen's age, Her Majesty asked Sir Robert many physical questions; but he remarked that she oftenest reverted to a rupture, which had not been the illness of his wife. When he came home, he said to me, "Now, Horace, I know by possession of what secret Lady Sundon has preserved such an ascendant over the Queen." He was in the right. How Lady Sundon had wormed herself into that mystery was never known. As Sir Robert maintained his influence over the clergy by Gibson, Bishop of London, he often met with troublesome obstructions from Lady Sundon, who espoused the heterodox clergy; and Sir Robert could never shake her credit.

'The

'The Queen's chief study was divinity, and she had rather weakened her faith than enlightened it; she was at least not orthodox, and her confidante, Lady Sundon, an absurd and pompous simpleton, swayed her countenance towards the less believing clergy.'

In one point of his statement we suspect Walpole to have been in error. There is sufficient evidence that Mrs. Clayton's remarkable favour began soon after her introduction to the Princess -at least as early as 1717-and therefore probably long before the appearance of the disease of which, twenty years later, the Queen died. It is most likely that it was her pre-existent favour which led to her being admitted into her Majesty's personal

secret.

The editor informs us that the collection intrusted to her skill consists of seven MS. volumes, but affords no information as to where they were preserved-when found-to whom they belong, or by what authority they are now published. All this surely should have been told. Not that we at all doubt their authenticity, but we think that, as a general rule, such papers-produced after the lapse of above a century-should carry with them some species of attestation.

The great bulk of correspondence consists of appeals for Mrs. Clayton's interest at Court, and is duller than that dullest and most worthless species of correspondence usually is. The editor of course is of a different opinion. The most ordinary note is introduced 'as well worthy consideration'-the most insignificant letter is highly characteristic'-the most lamentable commonplaces are very amusing'—and this exaggeration extends to every part of the correspondence, and is not the result of mere inexperience or ignorance:-it is, as we have already said, part of the system on which the book is formed-that of bolstering out trifles into factitious magnitude and importance. It would indeed seem on the face of the volumes as if the Queen's favourite had not one intimate and disinterested friend in the world-even the persons of her own family appear to address her officially. The explanation of this may be that all merely private letters were thrown aside, and those only preserved that savoured of business. There can also, we think, be little doubt that a prudential selection must have been made of the papers before they were collected into the formal shape of volumes. Care would of course be taken to remove the evidence of any very flagrant scandal. We suspect that Mrs. Clayton's influence was by no means so extensive as it was generally thought to be-her power was certainly far short of the representation which the editor chooses to give us. There is no doubt, however, that she had in

terest

terest enough to accredit Walpole's imputation of her having sometimes made a pecuniary traffic of it. The correspondence reveals some instances of offers; it appears that she rejected the bribe and refused the favour: the very offer, however, in such a case goes further in establishing a character of venality than an individual rejection can reach in refutation. The spirit of the age was very corrupt the Ministry and the Houses of Parliament set an example which the Court and the public-hoc fonte derivata-were not averse to imitate; but as Sir Robert himself admitted that she never took money, we are willing to hope, and indeed we believe, that the favourite of Queen Caroline may have received a present of a marble table from Lord Pembroke, or even of a pair of diamond ear-rings from Lord Pomfret-the ladies of both those peers being her court colleagues and personal friends— without having been guilty of systematic corruption. Indeed there are some reasons which induce us to receive the famous story of the Ear-rings cum grano salis. Sir Robert hated Mrs. Clayton, and probably vexed at being thwarted in his own disposal of the place, would naturally give the worst colour to her interference; and the sarcasms of the Duchess of Marlborough and Lady Mary prove only that there was such a rumour.

Our readers would not thank us for encumbering our pages with any specimens of the stupid flattery and greedy solicitation of the majority of Lady Sundon's correspondents: of the few that are of a different character, the best (though of no remarkable merit) are three or four of the celebrated Lord Hervey, of which we shall extract the liveliest, though we fear that some of the points may not be very intelligible, for want of those notes for which the editor has so much contempt, and which we have not room to supply:—

'MADAM,

Hampton Court, July 31, 1733. 'I am going this afternoon with the Duke of Richmond to Goodwood, for three or four days, but cannot leave this place without returning you my thanks for the favour of your letter; a debt, perhaps, you would be more ready to forgive than receive, but as it is of that sort, that one pays more for one's own sake than one's creditors', I plead no merit from the discharge of it, but the pleasure of taking any occasion to assure you how much I am your humble servant.

'I will not trouble you with any account of our occupations at Hampton Court. No mill-horse ever went in a more constant track or a more unchanging circle; so that, by the assistance of an almanack for the day of the week, and a watch for the hour of the day, you may inform yourself fully, without any other intelligence but your memory, of every transaction within the verge of the Court. Walking, chaises, levees, and audiences fill the morning; at night the King plays at commerce

and

and backgammon, and the Queen at quadrille, where poor Lady Charlotte runs her usual nightly gauntlet-the Queen pulling her hood, Mr. Schutz sputtering in her face, and the Princess Royal rapping her knuckles, all at a time. It was in vain she fled from persecution for her religion she suffers for her pride what she escaped for her faith; undergoes in a drawing-room what she dreaded from the inquisition, and will die a martyr to a Court, though not to a church.

The Duke of Grafton takes his nightly opiate of lottery, and sleeps as usual between the Princesses Amelia and Carolina; Lord Grantham strolls from one room to another (as Dryden says) like some discontented ghost that oft appears, and is forbid to speak, and stirs himself about, as people stir a fire, not with any design, but in hopes to make it burn brisker, which his lordship constantly does, to no purpose, and yet tries as constantly as if it had ever once succeeded. At last the King comes up, the pool finishes, and everybody has their dismission: their Majesties retire to Lady Charlotte and my Lord Lifford; the Princesses, to Bilderbec and Lony; my Lord Grantham, to Lady Frances and Mr. Clark; some to supper and some to bed; and thus (to speak in the Scripture phrase) the evening and the morning make the day.

Adieu, dear Madam, and believe me, without the formality of a conclusion, 'Most sincerely yours, HERVEY.'

--vol. ii. pp. 230–232.

There are also half a dozen gossiping letters from Mrs. Clayton's niece, Miss Dyves (afterwards the wife of Lord Chesterfield's friend, Chenevix, bishop of Waterford), who was about the Princess Royal, which have a little court tittle-tattle and se laissent lire; and there are a few letters from a Mrs. Strangways Horner, who was embarrassed with a crazy husband and an heiress daughter, and confided her conjugal and maternal anxieties to Mrs. Clayton, who had been employed to recommend one of the suitors. The young lady eventually married Stephen Fox, afterwards created Lord Ilchester. The publication of these letters might have vexed Lord Ilchester's family a century ago, but now can have little interest for them, and none at all for the public. The most considerable class in the collection are the letters of Lady Pomfret, already known to the literary world by her not very amusing correspondence with Lady Hertford. Those now produced are not worth the paper on which they are printed; and the only amusement that they can afford is that the editor makes them the occasion of exhibiting even more than her ordinary absurdity. For instance, she thus introduces them :

In the second of these letters the Countess shows how much she valued the guidance of Mrs. Clayton, in steering her difficult track between contending interests in the Court-that of the Queen and of the Princess of Wales-whose rival Courts divided the homage of the

great

great world. The humility of that epistle, from the lofty Lady Pomfret, is surprising; but some allowance must be made for the reverential style of the day.vol. i. pp. 116, 117.

The letter is dated 14th of October, 1725. The editor, in her usual anxiety to introduce even the most worthless letters with a flourish of trumpets, forgot that there was no Queen at that time, nor until the Princess herself became Queen in June, 1727; and any one who wades through the very dull letter itself (which the editor deems characteristic of ease and enjoyment') will see that there is no question of Lady Pomfret's steering her difficult track between the contending interests of rival courts,' but simply that having been recently appointed lady of the bed-chamber to the Princess, she consulted the older experience of Mrs. Clayton as to some of the ceremonial details of her new office.

There is a considerable number of letters from Robert Clayton, successively Bishop of Killala, Cork, and Cloghera relative of Mr. Clayton, and no doubt placed on the bench in the first instance through the interest of, as the editor says, 'his powerful relation.' Bishop Clayton was a friend of Clarke and Hoadly, and the author of many works of an Arian tendency. He concluded his public career by a motion, in 1744, in the Irish House of Lords, for the abrogation of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds; and it is said that his death was accelerated by the displeasure and threats of censure, and even deprivation, which followed this proposition. The editor tells us that he was a man of remarkable liberality and generosity,' and that his letters afford a valuable insight into the social and political condition of Ireland at that time,' and the Biographies assure us that he was 'a prelate of distinguished worth and probity. For our part, we find little in his letters but a low spirit of jobbing and adulation, and-for once we agree with the consistent editor

' it is with a feeling of something like disgust that we view his endeavours to obtain preferment by the crooked arts of political subserviency, and read his fulsome compliments to his patroness, Mrs. Clayton.'vol. ii. p. 4.

The correspondence is discreditable to the liberal and generous' Bishop, both as to ability and integrity-does no honour to his patrons—and will equally disgust and weary any reader who shall persist in plodding through it.

Dr. Samuel Clarke was of course a favourite with the patroness of the heterodox clergy,' but we do not find any correspondence with him; but there is an extensive one with Dr. Alured Clarke, chaplain to the King, prebendary of Westminster in 1731, clerk of the closet in 1734, and in 1740 dean

of