FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   >>  
uld ground such a statement, I suppose that something may be found in Dibdin's account; though probably it may be only my mistake or his. As to foreign editions, I always feel very suspicious of their existence; and though I do not remember this book in particular, or know why I supposed it to differ from the edition ascribed to Crowley, yet I feel pretty confident that it bore no mark of "Nornberg." According to my description it had four pairs of [Symbol: pointing hands] on the title, and contained E iv., in eights, which should be thirty _six_ leaves. S.R. MAITLAND. * * * * * REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES. _John Ross Mackay_ (No. 8. p. 125.).--In reply to the Query of your correspondent "D.," I beg to forward the following quotation from Sir N.W. Wraxall's _Historical Memoirs of his Own Time_, 3rd edition. Speaking of the peace of Fontainbleau, he says,-- "John Ross Mackay, who had been private secretary to the Earl of Bute, and afterwards during seventeen years was treasurer of the ordnance, a man with whom I was personally acquainted, frequently avowed the fact. He lived to a very advanced age, sat in several parliaments, and only died, I believe in 1796. A gentleman of high professional rank, and of unimpeached veracity, who is still alive, told me, that dining at the late Earl of Besborough's, in Cavendish Square, in the year 1790, where only four persons were present, including himself, Ross Mackay, who was one of the number, gave them the most ample information upon the subject. Lord Besborough having called after dinner for a bottle of champagne, a wine to which Mackay was partial, and the conversation turning on the means of governing the House of Commons, Mackay said, that, 'money formed, after all, the only effectual and certain method.' 'The peace of 1763,' continued he, 'was carried through and approved by a pecuniary distribution. Nothing else could have surmounted the difficulty. I was myself the channel through which the money passed. With my own hand I secured above one hundred and twenty votes on that most important question to ministers. Eighty thousand pounds were set apart for the purpose. Forty members of the House of Commons received from me a thousand pounds each. To eighty others, I paid five hundred pounds apiece.'" DAVID STEWARD. Godalming, March 19. 185
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   >>  



Top keywords:

Mackay

 

pounds

 
Commons
 

edition

 

Besborough

 

hundred

 

thousand

 
number
 

apiece

 

present


including

 

information

 

called

 
dinner
 
bottle
 

STEWARD

 

subject

 
Godalming
 

veracity

 

unimpeached


professional
 

gentleman

 
Square
 

champagne

 

Cavendish

 

dining

 

persons

 

turning

 

difficulty

 
channel

passed

 

surmounted

 

Nothing

 
important
 

question

 
ministers
 
twenty
 

secured

 

purpose

 
distribution

pecuniary

 
received
 
formed
 

eighty

 

governing

 

partial

 

conversation

 
Eighty
 
effectual
 

carried