and'--a good maxim. The Duke of Richmond in 1763 or 1764,
after an audience of the King in his closet, told him that 'he
had said that to him which if he was a subject he should not
scruple to call an untruth.' The King never forgave it, and the
Duke had had the imprudence to make a young king his enemy for
life. This Duke of Richmond, when Lord-Lieutenant of Sussex,
during the American war, sailed in a yacht through the fleet,
when the King was there, with American colours at his mast-head.
He never forgave Fox for putting the Duke of Portland instead of
himself at the head of the Government in 1782. During the riots
in 1780 on account of Admiral Keppel, Tom Grenville burst open
the door of the Admiralty, and assisted at the pillage and
destruction of papers. Lord Grey a little while ago attacked him
about it, and he did not deny it. Such things could not be done
now. During the Windsor election they hired a mob to go down and
throw Lord Mornington (Lord Wellesley) over Windsor Bridge, and
Fitzpatrick said it would be so fine to see St. Patrick's blue
riband floating down the stream. They first sent to Piper to know
if Lord Mornington could swim. The plan was defeated by his
having a still stronger mob. After dinner they discussed women's
works: few _chefs-d'oeuvres_; Madame de Sevigne the best; the
only three of a high class are Madame de Sevigne, Madame de
Stael, and (Bobus Smith said) Sappho, but of her not above forty
lines are extant: these, however, are unrivalled; Mrs Somerville
is very great in the exact sciences. Lady Holland would not hear
of Madame de Stael. They agreed as to Miss Austen that her novels
are excellent. Quintus Curtius is confirmed by Burnes' travels in
Bokhara, but was reckoned no authority by the greatest scholars;
Lord Melbourne said Mitford had expressed his confidence in him.
Of the early English kings there is no reason to believe that any
king before Edward III. understood the English language; the
quarrel between Beckett and King Henry II. was attributed (by
some writers) to the hostile feeling between Normans and Saxons,
and this was the principal motive of the quarrel and the murder
of the Archbishop. Klopstock had a _sect_ of admirers in Germany;
some young students made a pilgrimage from Gottingen to Hamburg,
where Klopstock lived in his old age, to ask him the meaning of a
passage in one of his works which they could not understand. He
looked at it, and then said that he could no