Men were puzzled to guess at the motive of so improper a choice as this of Sir Francis Dashwood. The banner of religion was displayed at Court, and yet all the centurions were culled from the most profligate societies. Sir Francis had long been known by his singularities and some humour. In his early youth, accoutred like Charles the Twelfth, he had travelled to Russia in hopes of captivating the Czarina; but neither the character nor dress of Charles were well imagined to catch a woman’s heart. In Italy, Sir Francis had given in to the most open profaneness; and, at his return, had assembled a society227 of Young Travellers, to which a taste for the arts and antiquity, or merely having travelled, were the recommendatory ingredients. Their pictures were drawn, ornamented with symbols and devices; and the founder, in the habit of St. Francis, and with a chalice in his hand, was represented at his devotions before a statue of the Venus of Medicis, a stream of glory beaming on him from behind her lower hand. These pictures were long exhibited in their club-room at a tavern in Palace Yard; but of later years Saint Francis had instituted a more select order. He and some chosen friends had hired the ruins of Medmenham Abbey, near Marlow, and refitted it in a conventual style. Thither at stated seasons they adjourned; had each their cell, a proper habit, a monastic name, and a refectory in common—besides a chapel, the decorations of which may well be supposed to have contained the quintessence of their mysteries, since it was impenetrable to any but the initiated. Whatever their doctrines were, their practice was rigorously pagan: Bacchus and Venus were the deities to whom they almost publicly sacrificed. The old Lord Melcomb was one of the brotherhood. Yet their follies would have escaped the eye of the public, if Lord Bute from this seminary of piety and wisdom had not selected a Chancellor of the Exchequer. But politics had no sooner infused themselves amongst these rosy anchorites, than dissensions were kindled, and a false brother arose, who divulged the arcana, and exposed the good Prior, in order to ridicule him as Minister of the Finances. But, of this, more hereafter.
CHAPTER XII.
Honours heaped on Lord Bute.—His first Levée.—Archbishop Secker.—Lord Halifax appointed to the Admiralty.—Lord Melcomb a Cabinet Councillor.—Lord Bute’s Haughtiness.—First appearance of “The North Briton.“—Its excessive Audacity.—Sketch of its Author, John Wilkes.—Churchill, Wilkes’s Associate.—Earl Temple.—Capture and recapture of Newfoundland.—The French camp surprised by Prince Ferdinand.—Propensity of the Court for Peace.—General Conway—Peter the Third.—The Czarina Elizabeth.—The Empress Catherine.—Horrible Conspiracy against Peter.—Catherine raised to the Throne.—Murder of Peter.—Effect of the Russian Revolution on the King of Prussia.
Every honour the Crown could bestow was now to be heaped on the Favourite. He was fond of his own person, and obtained the Garter in company with Prince William.228 His first levée was crowded like a triumph. Archbishop Secker, who waited at it, pretended that, seeing a great concourse as he came from Lambeth,229 he had inquired the occasion, and had gone in. Lincoln’s-inn-fields, where the Duke of Newcastle lived, was not now in the way to Lambeth. About the same time died Lord Anson, and left the Admiralty too at the disposal of the Favourite. He wished to bestow it on Lord Sandwich, to make room for Rigby, as Vice-Treasurer of Ireland; but the shyness of the Duke of Cumberland, whose creature Sandwich was, made that measure impracticable; and the Admiralty was bestowed on Lord Halifax, with permission to retain Ireland for a year. Elliot,230 a chief confident of the Favourite, was appointed Treasurer of the Chambers; and Lord Melcombe a cabinet councillor: but there ended all the ambition of the latter, he dying of a dropsy in his stomach a few weeks afterwards.
These successes and the tide of power swelled the weak bladder of the Favourite’s mind to the highest pitch. His own style was haughty and distant; that of his creatures insolent. Many persons who had absented themselves from his levée were threatened with the loss of their own, or the places of their relations, and were obliged to bow the knee. But this sunshine drew up very malignant vapours. Scarce was the Earl seated but one step below the throne, when a most virulent weekly paper appeared, called the North Briton. Unawed by the prosecution of the Monitor (another opponent periodic satire, the author of which had been taken up for abusing favourites), and though combated by two Court papers called the Briton and the Auditor (the former written by Smollet,231 and the latter by Murphy,232 and both which the new champion fairly silenced in a few weeks), the North Briton proceeded with an acrimony, a spirit, and a licentiousness unheard of before even in this country. The highest names, whether of statesmen or magistrates, were printed at length, and the insinuations went still higher. In general, favouritism was the topic, and the partiality of the Court to the Scots. Every obsolete anecdote, every illiberal invective, was raked up and set forth in strong and witty colours against Scotland. One of the first numbers was one of the most outrageous, the theme taken from the loves of Queen Isabella and Mortimer. No doubt but it lay open enough to prosecution, and the intention was to seize the author. But on reflection it was not thought advisable to enter on the discussion of such a subject in Westminster Hall; and, as the daring audaciousness of the writer promised little decorum, it was held prudent to wait till he should furnish a less delicate handle to vengeance: a circumspection that deceived and fell heavy on the author, who, being advised to more caution in his compositions, replied, he had tried the temper of the Court by the paper on Mortimer, and found they did not dare to touch him.
This author, who must be so often mentioned in the following pages, was John Wilkes, member of Parliament for Ailesbury. He was of a plebeian family,233 but inherited a tolerable fortune in Buckinghamshire, and had been bred at Oxford, where he distinguished himself by humorous attacks on whatever was esteemed most holy and respectable. Unrestrained either in his conduct or conversation, he was allowed to have more wit than in truth he possessed; and, living with rakes and second-rate authors, he had acquired fame such as it was, in the middling sphere of life, before his name was so much as known to the public. His appearance as an orator had by no means conspired to make him more noticed. He spoke coldly and insipidly, though with impertinence; his manner was poor, and his countenance horrid. When his pen, which possessed an easy impudent style, had drawn the attention of mankind towards him, and it was asked, who this saucy writer was? Fame, that had adopted him, could furnish but scurvy anecdotes of his private life. He had married a woman of fortune, used her ill, and at last cruelly, to extort from her the provision he had made for her separate maintenance; he had debauched a maiden