enthusiasm, that neither high birth, nor extended property, nor long parliamentary services, nor talents however eminent, could always secure a seat, unless sustained by opinions favourable to administration. Erskine, who had so recently been brought in by Fox for Portsmouth, disappeared as a member of the house; but being employed in his professional capacity as counsel for Fox on the Westminster election, he soon re-appeared at the bar, where, by the insulting keenness of his observations on the proceedings in Covent Garden, he speedily attracted animadversion. 66 David Hartley, the Dinner-bell" of the house, whose interminable speeches were, if possible, still more dreaded for their dulness than for their length; General Conway, so lately placed at the head of the forces; Mr. Foljambe, the • heir and representative of Sir George Savile, as member for the county of York, were all overwhelmed in the common destruction. Pitt became a candidate for the University of Cambridge; and that learned body, conscious that the spirit of distributing prebends and bishopricks" had been transferred from the coalition, placed him at the head of the poll, giving him Lord Euston as his colleague; thus rejecting both their late representatives, the Hon. John Townsend, and the solicitor-general, Mansfield. 66 Few men held a higher place in Fox's friendship than the former; a place to which he was well entitled by the elegance of his mind, his various accomplishments, and steady adherence throughout life. Though not endowed with eminent parliamentary talents, he possessed an understanding highly cultivated, set off by the most pleasing manners. If party could ever feel regret, it would have been excited by his exclusion from a seat so honourable in itself as that of the University of Cambridge, to which he had attained by unwearied personal exertions. Earl Verney and Mr. Thomas Grenville, members for the county of Buckingham, the latter of whom, unlike his two brothers, remained firmly attached to Fox; Sir Charles Bunbury, who had long represented Suffolk; and various other eminent supporters of the coalition, were swept away by the popular effervescence. Pitt's triumph remained, however, still incomplete while his antagonist continued to represent Westminster; and every effort was made by the court, as well as by the government, to expel Fox from a situation so painfully conspicuous in parliament. All minor election inte rests were swallowed up in this struggle, which held not only the capital, but the nation in suspense; while it rendered Covent Garden and its vicinity, during successive weeks, a scene of outrage, and even of bloodshed, resembling the Polish dietines. Three candidates appeared on the hustings, of whom Lord Hood stood foremost, having been selected for his naval services as a proper person to come forward on the occasion. Those services, though not equally resplendent with Lord Rodney's victory over De Grasse, had nevertheless strongly recommended him to general favour; nor were there wanting persons who considered him as Rodney's superior in maritime science and nautical skill. Sir Cecil Wray had already represented Westminster in the late house of commons, during nearly two years, having succeeded to the vacancy caused in 1782 by Lord Rodney's elevation to the peerage. He united many qualifi cations, which in ordinary times might have rendered him an eligible representative for that city. Descended from an honourable and ancient stock, raised to the baronetage by James the First, nearly at the period when that order of hereditary knighthood was originally instituted, he possessed likewise a considerable landed estate in the county of Lincoln. His moral character stood unblemished; and if he could boast of no superior ability, yet his conciliating manners acquired him many friends. Unfortunately, as contested elections bring out into daylight every defect, his enemies accused Sir Cecil of parsimony; perhaps more inimical to success in an appeal to popular favour than much graver faults. Notwithstanding the popular prejudice thus excited against him, the poll, which had commenced on the first day of April, inclined during he greater part of that month in his the late Duke of Devonshire, I visited favour. As late as the 26th he still the vault in the principal church of maintained a small superiority in num- Derby, where repose the remains of the bers over Fox, and sanguine persons Cavendish family. As I stood contemanticipated with a degree of confidence plating the coffin which contained the his final success. ashes of that admired female, the woman who accompanied me pointed out the relics of a bouquet which lay upon the lid, nearly collapsed into dust. "That nosegay," said she, "was brought here by the Countess of Besborough, who had designed to place it with her own hands on her sister's coffin. But, overcome by her emotions on approaching the spot, she found herself unable to descend the steps conducting to the vault. In an agony of grief she knelt down on the stones, as nearly over the place occupied by the corpse as I could direct, and there deposited the flowers, enjoining me the performance of an office to which she was unequal. I fulfilled her wishes." : May. In so critical a state of the contest, when every hour became precious, a new and powerful ally appeared, who soon changed the aspect of affairs, and succeeded in ultimately placing Fox, though not first, yet second on the list of candidates. This auxiliary was no other than the Duchess of Devonshire, one of the most distinguished females of high rank whom the last century produced. Her personal charms constituted her smallest pretension to universal admiration; nor did her beauty consist, like that of the Gunnings, in regularity of features and faultless formation of limbs and shape it lay in the amenity and graces of her deportment, in her irresistible manners, and the seduction of her society. Her hair was not without a tinge of red; and her face, though pleasing, yet had it not been illuminated by her mind, might have been considered as an ordinary countenance. Descended in the fourth degree lineally from Sarah Jennings, the wife of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, she resembled the portraits of that celebrated woman. In addition to the external advantages which she had received from nature and fortune, she possessed an ardent temper, susceptible of deep as well as strong impressions; a cultivated understanding, illuminated by a taste for poetry and the fine arts; much sensibility, not exempt perhaps from vanity and coquetry. To her mother, the Dowager Countess Spencer, she was attached with more than common filial affection, of which she exhibited pecuniary proofs rarely given by a daughter to her parent. Nor did she display less attachment to her sister Lady Duncannon. Her heart might be considered as the seat of those emotions which sweeten human life, adorn our nature, and diffuse a nameless charm over existence. Lady Duncannon, however inferior to the duchess in elegance of mind and in personal beauty, equalled her in sisterly love. During the month of July, 1811, a very short time before the decease of Such as I have here described her, was Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who, for her beauty, accomplishments, and the decided part which she took against the minister of her day, may be aptly compared to Anne Genevieve de Bourbon, Duchesse de Longueville, in the French annals, immortalized by La Rochefoucault's passion for her, nor less famous for her opposition to Anne of Austria and Mazarin, during the minority of Louis the Fourteenth. This charming person gave her hand, at seventeen years of age, to William, Duke of Devonshire; a nobleman whose constitutional apathy formed his distinguishing characteristic. His figure was tall and manly, though not animated or graceful; his manners always calm and unruffled. He seemed to be incapable of any strong emotion, and destitute of all energy or activity of mind. As play became indispensable in order to rouse him from this lethargic habit, and to awaken his torpid faculties, he passed his evenings usually at Brookes's, engaged at whist or faro. Yet, beneath so quiet an exterior, he possessed a highly improved understanding and on all disputes that occasionally arose among the members of the club, relative to passages of the Roman poets or historians, I know that appeal was commonly made to the duke, and his decision or opinion was regarded as final. Inheriting with his immense by bringing up the voters residing in the fortune the hereditary probity character- outskirts of the town, or in the circumistic of the family of Cavendish; if not jacent villages. a superior man, he was an honourable and respectable member of society. Nor did the somnolent tranquillity of his temper by any means render him insensible to the seduction of female charms. The present Duchess Dowager of Devonshire, after having long constituted the object of his avowed attachment, and long maintained the firmest hold of his tions, as Lady Elizabeth Foster, finished by becoming his second wife. This task, however irksome it might be to a female of so elevated a class, and little consonant as it seemed even to semale delicacy under certain points of view, the Duchess of Devonshire cheerfully undertook in such a cause. Having associated to the execution her sister, Viscountess Duncannon, who particiaffec-pated the duchess's political enthusiasm ; these ladies, being previously furnished with lists of out-lying voters, drove to their respective dwellings. Neither entreaties nor promises were spared. In some instances even personal caresses were said to have been permitted, in order to prevail on the surly or inflexible; and there can be no doubt of common mechanics having been conveyed to the hustings, on more than one occasion, by the duchess, in her own coach. The opposition, if considered as a party, enjoyed at this time some political advantages, which probably never can be again realized in so eminent a degree as they existed in 1784. Three palaces, situate at the west end of the town, the gates of which were constantly thrown open to every parliamentary adherent of the coalition, then formed rallying points of union. The first of these structures, Devonshire House, placed on a commanding eminence in Piccadilly, opposite to the Green Park, seemed to look down on the Queen's House, constructed by Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, in a situation much less favoured by nature. In right of his maternal descent from the Boyles, Earls of Burlington, the magnificent mansion of that name, in the same street, at a very inconsiderable distance to the east, constituted likewise a part of the Duke of Devonshire's patrimonial property. It was then occupied by his brother-in-law, the Duke of Portland; who, as the acknowledged leader of the Whigs since the Marquis of Rockingham's decease, could not shut his doors, even had he been so inclined, against his followers. Carlton House itself, newly become the residence of the Prince of Wales, might be considered as the asylum of all Fox's friends; where perpetual entertainments of every description cheered them under the heavy reverse of fortune which they had recently experienced, and held out the prospect of a more prosperous futurity. Meanwhile, the month of April verging to its close, and almost all the inhabitants of the metropolis who possessed votes for Westminster having been already polled, there remained no resource equal to the emergency, except The effect of so powerful an intervention soon manifested itself. During the first days of May, Fox, who a month earlier had fallen above a hundred votes behind Sir Cecil, passed him by at least that number. Conscious, nevertheless, that the least relaxation in their efforts might probably enable the adversary to resume his superiority, and aware of the exertions which government would make to insure the success of their candidate; the duchess, sacrificing her time wholly to the object, never intermitted for a single day her laborious toils. In fact, ministers did not fail to bring forward an opponent of no ordinary description in the person of the Countess of Salisbury, whose husband had been recently appointed to the office of lord chamberlain. In graces of person and demeanour, no less than in mental attainments, Lady Salisbury yielded to few females of the court of George the Third. But she wanted, nevertheless, two qualities eminently contributing to success in such a struggle, both which met in her political rival. The first of these was youth; the duchess numbering scarcely twentysix years, while the countess had nearly completed thirty-four. The Duchess of Devonshire never seemed to be conscious of her rank; Lady Salisbury ceased not for an instant to remember, and to compel others to a horseman in the cavalcade. The equipages of the Dukes of Devonshire and Portland, drawn each by six horses, attracted less attention than Fox's own carriage; on the box of which, or mount recollect it. Nor did the effects fail to correspond with the moral causes thus put into action. Every day augmenting Fox's majority, it appeared that on the 16th of May, to which period the contest was protracted, he stood two hun-ed on the braces and other parts, were dred and thirty-five votes above Sir Cecil on the books of the poll. 17th May.. Under those circumstances it became unquestionably the duty of the returning officer to declare that Lord Hood and Fox possessed an ostensible plurality of votes. The high bailiff, Corbett, being in the interests of the administration, chose nevertheless rather to violate all the rules laid down for governing elections, and even to leave Westminster wholly unrepresented in parliament, than to return Fox as one of the members. Yielding to the demands for a scrutiny made by the friends of Sir Cecil, Corbett thus contrived to elude and to postpone all decision on the main point; but he could not prevent the popular triumph of " the Man of the People," as he was denominated by his own adherents. seen the Hon. Colonel North, Lord North's eldest son, afterwards Earl of Guildford; Mr. Adam, who, only a few years before, had wounded the member for Westminster in a duel; and various other friends or followers of Lord North, now intermingled with their former adversaries. Burke was not, however, to be found among this motley group. The procession finally terminated at Devonshire House; where, on its entering the great court in front of the edifice, the Prince of Wales, who had already saluted the successful candidate from the garden wall on the side of Berkeleystreet, appeared within the balustrade before the mansion, accompanied by the most eminent individuals of both sexes, attached to the coalition. Fox then dismissed the assembled mob, with a brief harangue; but their intemperate joy was manifested at night by illuminations, to which succeeded some acts of brutal violence and insult, principally levelled against Lord Temple's house in Pall Mall, who had become obnoxious to the party, from the early and conspicuous share that he had taken in producing a change of ministers. The procession in honour of Fox's election instantly took place. After having carried the successful candidate, elevated in a chair adorned with laurel, through the principal streets at the west end of the town; the gates of Carlton House being thrown open expressly for the purpose, Fox, followed by the populace, passed through the court in front of 18th May. These demonstrations the palace. The ostrich plumes, which of the exultation inspired by Fox's transport us to the field of Cressy, and triumph, appearing, nevertheless, still which during more than four centuries inadequate to the magnitude and importhave constituted the crest of the succes-ance of the occasion, the Prince detersive heirs apparent to the English throne, mined to celebrate it by giving an apwere openly borne before the newly-propriate entertainment at Carlton elected member: - an exhibition that House. Having selected for that purinspired many beholders with sentiments pose the following morning, when all such as were felt by numbers among the the rank, beauty, and talents of the oppoRoman people, when Antony displayed sition party were assembled by invitathe deities of Egypt, mingled with the tion on the lawn of his palace, the weaeagles of the republic; ther being uncommonly fine, a splendid fête took place, precisely at the time when his majesty was proceeding in state down St. James's Park, in order to open the new parliament. The wall of Carlton gardens, and that barrier only, formed the separation between them. Here, while the younger part of the company were more actively engaged might be contemplated, under the um "Interque signa, turpe, militaria, Sol adspicit canopeum." Nor were the eminent election services rendered by the Duchess of Devonshire and other distinguished females forgotten, when celebrating so joyful an event; a flag, on which was inscribed "Sacred to Female Patriotism," being waved by brage of trees, an exhibition such as fancy places in the Elysian Fields, the "sedes discretas piorum," where all mortal recollections or enmities are supposed to be obliterated. Lord North, dressed, like every other individual invited, in his new livery of blue and buff, beheld himself surrounded by those very persons who, scarcely fifteen months earlier, affected to regard him as an object of national execration, deserving capital punishment. They now crowded round him, to admire the sallies of his writ, or to applaud the playful charms of his conversation. Lord Derby and Lord Beauchamp, two noblemen long opposed to each other; Colonel North and George Byng, enemies lately the most inveterate; Fitzpatrick and Adam, depositing their animosities at the Prince's feet, or rather at the altar of ambition and of interest, - were here seen to join in perfect harmony. The scene of festivity became transferred on the same night to Lower Grosvenor-street, where Mrs. Crewe, the lady of Mr. Crewe (then member for the county of Chester, since raised by Fox to the peerage in 1806), gave a splendid entertainment, in commemoration of the victory obtained over ministers in Covent Garden. Though necessarily conducted on a more limited scale than that of the morning, it exhibited not less its own appropriate features, and was composed of nearly the same company. Mrs. Crewe, the intimate friend of Fox, one of the most accomplished and charming women of her time, had exerted herself in securing his election, if not as efficaciously, yet as enthusiastically, as the Duchess of Devonshire. On this occasion the ladies, no less than the men, were all habited in blue and buff. The Prince of Wales was present in that dress. After supper a toast having been given by his royal highness, consisting of the words "True Blue, and Mrs. Crewe," which was received with rapture; she rose, and proposed another health, expressive of her gratitude, and not less laconic, namely, "True Blue, and all of you." Nor did the exhibitions of party joy terminate here. Under the auspices of the heir-apparent, his residence presented, some days later, a second fête of the most expensive, magnificent, and varied description; prolonged in defiance of usage, and almost of human nature, from the noon of one day to the following morning. Every production that taste and luxury could assemble, was exhausted; the foreign ministers resident in London assisting at its celebration. A splendid banquet was served up to the ladies; on whom, in the spirit of chivalry, his royal highness and the gentlemen present waited while they were seated at table. It must be owned that on these occasions, for which he seemed peculiarly formed, he appeared to great advantage. Louis the Fourteenth himself could scarcely have eclipsed the son of George the Third in a ball-room, or when doing the honours of his palace surrounded by the pomp and attributes of luxury and royal state. While the opposition thus indulged their intemperate joy on the election victory won with so much difficulty, Pitt, more judiciously employed in cementing the foundations of his political elevation, distributed peerages among his adherents. He had early secured the powerful co-operation of the Duke of Northumberland, who, from his vast property, when added to his local and official influence throughout the county of Middlesex, possessed a commanding interest in Westminster. This nobleman, from the condition of a Yorkshire baronet of the name of Smithson, had, in consequence of his marriage with the heiress of the Percys, been successively raised to the dignities of Earl and Duke of Northumberland. His eldest son, Earl Percy, having formed a matrimonial alliance with Lady Anne Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Bute, which proved equally unhappy and destitute of issue; the duchess, his mother, turned her eyes toward Lord Algernon, her second and only remaining son, as the best chance for perpetuating the line. Being of a delicate and feeble constitution, he had, by order of his physicians, visited the South of France, in which country he passed the winter of the year 1774 at the city of Aix in Provence. During an excursion which he made to Marseilles, Lord Algernon accidentally met, in private company, the second daughter of Mr. Bur |