he espoused a wealthy Dowager from the House of Buccleuch the Countess of Dalkeith.

The Bill finally passed, but not without much unseemly recrimination between two official colleagues - the Secretary at War and the Lord High Chancellor. Fox had become so far heated by his own opposition to the measure as to declaim once or twice against the chicanery and jargon of lawyers, and against the pride of their Mufti -- by which term he hinted at Hardwicke. He afterwards showed a willingness to recall or soften these unguarded expressions. But Hardwicke, haughty with conscious merit, and the long possession of power, disdained such tardy repentance. He seized the opportunity when the Bill returned from the Commons with some

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amendments to pour forth- almost by name a bitter philippic against Fox. "For my part," he cried, "I despise the invective, I despise the apology, and I reject "the adulation!"- Fox was not present, having gone that evening with some ladies to Vauxhall. But he was there informed what had passed, when, breaking from his fair companions, and gathering around him a little circle of young Members of Parliament and others, he told them, with great warmth, that he wished the Session had continued only a fortnight longer, as he would then have made ample returns to the Lord Chancellor's speech.*

But the business of the Session was already concluded, and on the very next day (June 7th) the Parliament was prorogued by the King in person. It may deserve notice, as a singularity of these times, that no sooner had His Majesty left the Throne than a female Quaker, who was present to see the show, commenced a sermon on the vanity of dress, and was suffered to preach a full half hour.t

It would be unjust, however, to let pass this Session without commemorating the signal service it afforded to Art, Learning, and Science by the foundation of the BRITISH MUSEUM. Three collections already existing were now blended into one - first the COTTONIAN, which

*Rev. Dr. Birch to the Hon. P. Yorke, June 9. 1753. Hardwicke Papers.

Gentleman's Magazine, July 1753.

1

1753.

THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

had been formed by a laborious antiquary, Sir Robert Cotton, in the reign of Charles the First, and been purchased by the Crown in the reign of Anne-secondly the SLOANE, due to the taste and care of Sir Hans Sloane, an eminent physician, and President of the Royal Society, who, dying in January 1753, bequeathed his rarities of every kind to the nation, on the payment, if agreed to, of 20,000l. to his heirs thirdly, the HARLEIAN, which had amused and dignified the leisure of Lord Treasurer Oxford, and which his grand-daughter, the Duchess of Portland, now offered to the public for 10,0007., a sum like that claimed by Sir Hans, far below the real value of the objects. A suitable repository for these combined collections was found in Montagu House, the Duke of Montagu having died in 1749, without male heirs, and his mansion being offered for sale. Pelham, much to his honour, showed himself zealous in promoting the proposal, while another Member of Parliament — a professed friend of letters - Horace Walpole - deemed it too trifling for even the slightest mention in his ponderous Memoirs. The necessary sums were raised by lotteries under an Act of Parliament, and the Museum thus formed has ever since continued to thrive and grow sometimes by accessions liable to censure, as by the Elgin spoils of Athens - more frequently by well-directed private skill and public munificence. Its administration, according to the original Act, was vested in certain Trustees, partly official, partly representing the families of the founders, and partly elected; a system which still continues, and which, provided due care be always shown in the elections, will probably be found, upon the whole, more satisfactory than any other.

In this year another life—but as it proved, the last — fell a sacrifice to the Stuart cause; it was Lochiel's brother, Dr. Archibald Cameron's. His learning, his humanity, the excellence, in all respects, of his private character, were acknowledged even by his enemies. He had come from the Continent in disguise, to recover a sum of money which Prince Charles had left behind in Moidart at his embarkation. But the Government suspected, and not unreasonably, some deeper motive to his journey-a conspiracy among the Jacobites at home-or

a mission from the King of Prussia. Cameron was discovered, seized, and imprisoned in the Tower; then brought to trial, and condemned to death under his previous attainder. On the 7th of June he was hanged at Tyburn. He met his fate as became the brother of Lochiel-with fortitude and courage, blended with a tender concern and affection for his family. For himself, the ignominy of Tyburn, then usually reserved for the lowest malefactors, seemed to be his only pang: he looked with a steady eye on the other cruel appurtenances of a traitor's doom in that age. on the dresser who stood prepared to rip open his body- on the fire ready kindled to burn his bowels.*

The next Session was the seventh, and of course the last, of this Parliament. Its proceedings were few, and these mainly directed to the approaching Dissolution. Sir John Barnard moved, but without success, to repeal the Act requiring electors to take the Bribery Oath, if demanded, before they are admitted to poll; "for," said Sir John, "experience shows that such oaths are of no "avail; in imposing them, we do not check the guilt of "corruption; we only superadd the guilt of perjury." A further trial of fourscore years has fully confirmed the truth of these remarks; yet an oath against bribery bears an aspect so fair and plausible that it still retains its hold upon the Legislature and its place in the Statute Book.

This calm and languid course of public business was suddenly broken through by an event equally unexpected and important- the death of the Prime Minister. Mr. Pelham was but sixty years of age, and of a florid healthy constitution. But while his office precluded exercise, his habits wanted temperance. Eating immoderately as he used at dinner, he contracted a scorbutic disorder, for which in the preceding summer he had gone to bathe at Scarborough. But the sea-air had sharpened his appetite, and his friends whom he went to visit by the way pampered it. He returned worse than he went, and suffered from a succession of boils and fevers; nevertheless, in the winter he was thought completely recovered. On the 7th of January he wrote to his brother: "I am

* H. Walpole to Sir H. Mann, June 12. 1753.

1754.

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now, thank God, as well as ever I was in my life."* Yet on the 3rd of March he again fell sick, and on the morning of the 6th he was a corpse.

The death of Pelham dissolved the frail and yet effectual tie that had bound together so many restless and jarring spirits. "Now I shall have no more peace!"— exclaimed the old King when he heard the news†—and the events of the next few years fully confirmed His Majesty's prediction.

*Coxe's Pelham, vol. ii. p. 495. See also H. Walpole's letter to Sir H. Mann, March 7. 1754.

† Coxe's Pelham, vol. ii. p. 302.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Ar the tidings of his brother's death a death so sudden and unlooked for-the mind of Newcastle was stirred with the contending emotions of grief, fear, and ambition. The grief soon passed away-but the fear and the ambition long struggled for the mastery. Impelled by the latter, he determined to place himself at the head of the Treasury, and to select for his Chancellor of the Exchequer Henry Legge, son of the Earl of Dartmouth, a good inoffensive man of business, with a taste for quiet humour.* But the lead of the House of Commons was not in like manner to be granted by Court-favour, or enjoyed by unambitious mediocrity. At that time only three men appeared entitled by talent or reputation to claim the prize, Pitt, Fox, and Murray.

The character of Pitt I have elsewhere fully portrayed.† I need only add that his conduct in office as Paymaster of the Forces had deserved and obtained the public admiration by its rare disinterestedness. Until his time it was usual for the Paymaster to retain the floating balance-not less than 100,000l.—at his own disposal, and to convert the yearly interest accruing from it to his own profit. Pitt, on the contrary, placed the balance in the Bank of England for the public service, and declined to receive one farthing beyond his legal salary. In like manner it had been customary for foreign Princes, who formed Subsidiary Treaties with England, to remit a small per-centage, commonly one half per cent., as a fee to the Paymaster. These emoluments also Pitt steadily refused. "As Parliament," said he, "has granted

*This taste is certainly not apparent in any speeches or published letters of Legge. But I observe that Horace Walpole, though no friend of his, terms him the "epigrammatic Chancellor of the Exchequer," and talks of his "arch gravity." (Memoirs, vol. i. p. 336.) † Vol. iii. p. 10-20.