exhibits one of the most disgusting of all the moral diseases the rankling of the arrow of disappointment in the heart of a defeated political schemer. It is not the man of brave and bold designs baffled, or the utopian enthusiast disappointed of the fulfilment of his golden dreams, or the adherent of one absorbing political idea looking at it lying broken to pieces at his feet: in all of these there is a dash of noble and disinterested sentiment, and the politician, defeated in his conflict with the world, has still the consolation of an honest if mistaken heart, into which he can retire without the sting of self-reproach. But all Grange's disappointments were connected with paltry schemes of personal aggrandizement. Fawn and flatter as he might, Sir Robert Walpole, and his Scottish coadjutor Ilay, knew him and dis and his most abject, profligate creatures of both sexes, while the public treasure and trade of the nation is ruined; suffering and encouraging these locusts to get large bribes, and giving considerable employment at their recommendation, while men of merit and service, and of the best families and interest, are neglected or abused, employing insignificant brutes or the greatest rogues, and favoring almost none but such; maltreating and insulting all whom his rascals and jades complain of. But the list is too long to go through with here."* Grange thought at one time that he had great claims on Walpole and Lord Ilay; and he seems to have very diligently performed one class of duties which politicians sometimes think sufficient to establish a claim for reward-he had been an indefatigable petitioner for ministerial favors. We have heard somewhere of a story of a political trusted him, and when he came to court them, economist, who during a long walk is pestered by gave him but fair words, and sometimes not even an Irish beggar, who asks his honor just to give that. With Sir Robert he carried on an unequal him a sixpence, "for the love of God." The war. Believing that he could scourge the minis-economist turns round to argue the matter: “I ter in Parliament, while he was a judge of the deny," says he, "that I would be showing my her, that it would turn anybody mad."* Court of Session, he resolved to obtain a seat, and thereupon the all-powerful minister at once checkmated him, by carrying an act to prohibit judges of the Court of Session from holding seats in the House of Commons-it was a less invidious proceeding than the dismissal of his lordship from the bench would have been, and it had the appearance of being dictated by a desire for the public good. Grange preferred the senate to the bench, and resigned his judgeship; but he never achieved political eminence. In the mean time he acquired Dr. Johnson's desideratum of an honest hatred towards his enemy, and indeed hatred appears to have been the only honest ingredient in his character. He expressed it so well towards Walpole, that we must quote his confidential opinion of that mighty statesman : An insolent and rapacious minister, who has kept us under the expense of war in time of peace, yet hindered us to fight to vindicate our trade, so grossly violated by Spanish robberies, and when we could have put a stop to it, and corrected them without drawing upon us the arms of any other na tion, maintained his hollow and expensive peace by ridiculous contradictory treaties, trying us to take part in all the quarrels of Europe, and sometimes to be on both sides, and at the same time allowing confederacies to go on so powerful, and which we are not of, that now when a war is breaking out we know not where to turn us; laying plots to devour the land by new swarms of officers of the revenue, to put the merchants' stocks in the possession of these vermin, and trade under their power, &c., as by that most damned excise scheme; openly protecting the frauds and villains that plunder the stocks and ruin multitudes, and must sink the king dom; plundering the revenue, and using all his art, and power, and bribes to stop all inquiry into, or the least amendment of these things, either by Parliament or otherwise; openly ridiculing all virtue and uprightness; enhancing all power to himself and his brother, and suffering almost none else to do or know anything; barefaced and avowed bribing of members of Parliament and others, and boasting of it; heaping up immense wealth to himself love to the Deity by giving an idle rascal like you money; if you can state any service you have ever done to me worth the sixpence, you shall have it."-" Why then," says the mendicant thus appealed to, "haven't I been keeping your honor in discourse this half hour?" Such seems to have been the character of Grange's claim on the ministry-he kept them in unceasing "discourse” as a petitioner. Not that he did not profess some claims of another kind. "During all this time," he says, "I ran their errands and fought their battles in Scotland." Nor did he fail sometimes to allude to his services as a religious professor, so ill-requited, that he taunts Ilay with having already effectually interposed for Tom (now Baron) Kennedy, who had been queen's advocate, and obnoxious to all the Presbyterian party, which I was not." And how was he rewarded for all this running errands, fighting battles, and being religious enough not to be obnoxious? "Ilay showed me no countenance, and Argyle shunned to see He [Ilay] never speaks nor writes to me of any business, but to shamm me (as you have seen) about my own; and, these three or four years past, has visibly to all the world drawn off by degrees from all familiarity with me, and has dropped me even from his conversation about trifles or mirth. I could give you many strong instances of this." Here is an incident told with a pathos sufficient to move a whole antechamber me. * to tears: * Before I came from London in November last, he bade me wait on Sir Robert at his levee. I told him I had always done so, but was not in the least noticed, or had so much as a smile or a gracious nod from him. But said he, "I promise you I 'H tell him to take particular notice of you, and to assure you of favor, and that he will do for you: which (said his lordship) will make my game more easy when I ask anything for you;" and he bid me come to him that he might carry me to the levee in * Miscellany of the Spalding Club, iii., p. 57. his coach. This was done, and I set myself in Sir had need to be very firmly recovered, for the Robert's eye in the front of the crowd that sur- guardian may at present so vex, tease, and plague rounded him, and Ilay was by and looking on. Sir Robert came and went by me without the least regard. Ilay slipt into another room; and, that I It was believed that if Lady Mar were released might not wait longer in so silly a figure, I made from Lady Mary Wortley Montague's influence, up without being called to the great knight; and means might be taken for so arranging matters told him I came to testify my respect, and ask his that her husband should participate in her jointure. commands for Scotland. His answer, with a very There was another matter, however, in which dry look and odd air, was, "I have nothing to say Grange himself had a more particular prospect of to you, my lord. I wish you a good journey." I saw llay afterwards, and he said there was nothing in it. Sir Robert had only forgot, and I am sure (said he) he will do for you what I desired him.* In the sequel he exclaims, "Can such usage be borne, even by the spirit of a poor mouse!"deeming probably that its endurance by a rat was quite out of the question. It is singular enough to find from these revelations of Lord Grange's character and habits, that while he was plotting the abduction of one mad woman, he was busily engaged in attempting the release of another. Yes, as a first step, he was intending to release her; but there are a few hints, slight in themselves, but wonderfully suggestive when they are associated with his wife's history, pecuniary advantage. Lady Mar appears to have had a beneficiary interest in a lease of a house in Whitehall, forming part of the royal demense. An arrangement seems to have been made by which, during her incapacity from insanity, her own term was conveyed to her brother-in-law, Lord Grange, while he at the same time obtained a reversion of the lease in his own favor. He had. it appears, sold his whole interest in the property both the lease he had obtained from Lady Mar's guardians and his own reversionary interest. He was now, therefore, in endeavoring to procure the release of Lady Mar, on the ground of her restoration to sanity, about to enable her to revoke the transference that had been made to him of her own share in the lease. In his own words, "On Lady showing us that his ultimate intention was to make Mar's being at freedom, the assignment of her a second victim. In this scheme he was defeated lease to Lord Grange becomes void, and so does by a spirit less crafty but more audacious than his the sale he has made of it; and in that sale the own-by no less renowned a person than Lady lease to Lady Mar was valued at £800 sterling, Mary Wortley Montague, whose name has already which will be lost by the avoidance of it." Such been mentioned as "openly blessed" by Lady is the danger; and now, in a very brief continuGrange for her opposition to our friends," mean- ation of the quotation, let us observe the way in ing the Jacobites. We have among the papers the history of the baffled attempt at least one side of the history, and, when shaken free of the dust of Grange's prolix grumblings, it is infinitely amusing. The intended victim in this instance was Lady Mar, Lady Mary's sister, the wife of Grange's brother. Lady Mar was insane, and in some shape or other committed to the guardianship which it was to be met, for, considering who was the writer, it is really well worthy of observation. "Were Lady Mar in her freedom, in right hands, she would ratify the bargain, but if in her sister's, probably she will not." Such was the plot; she was to be restored to her freedom that she might be put " in right hands"-in hands in which there was no chance of her refusing what might be de of her sister. There were some pecuniary mat- manded. But there was a lion in the way, or ters depending on the question of her detention or rather a lioness, as we shall see. Lord Grange's release, so vaguely hinted at that it is not easy to anticipation of Lady Wortley Montague's operdiscover their nature. It would appear that Lady ations is not the least remarkable of his revelaMar was allowed by the favor of the court, and tions. It is "the power within the guilty breast" probably through the interest of her relatives, a working as in Eugene Aram's dream. What Lady jointure of £500 a year over the estates which Mary suspected it were difficult to say, but he who were forfeited from her husband. Lord Mar was ventured to predict her suspicions spoke from his then living in poverty abroad; and Lord Grange was inclined to think that this sum would be better administered by himself and his friends than by Lady Mary. Looking at the £500 from his own side, he of course saw Lady Mary on the other, and judged that her motives were as parallel to his own as the one jaw of a shark is to the other-so he says, "Lady Mar, they say, is quite well; and so as in common justice she can no longer be detained as a lunatic; but she is obstinately averse to appearing in chancery, that the sentence may be taken off. Her sister probably will oppose her liberty, for thereby she would lose, and Lord Mar in effect gain, £500 yearly; and the poor lady, being in her custody, and under her management, * Miscellany of the Spalding Club, iii., p. 46. own guilty conscience-spoke as the kidnapper and secret imprisoner. We pray attention to the remarkable expressions with which the following quotation closes : May not an artful woman impose on one in such circumstances, and whose mind cannot yet be very firm? And this is the more to be feared, because at the beginning of her illness the sister said loudly, and oftener than once to Lord Grange himself, that her husband's bad usage had turned her [Lady Mar] mad. Supposing, then, the sister tell and persuade her to this purpose: "You see your husband's friends quite neglect you. Lord Erskine, though in the place, seldom comes near you. How easy were it for Lord Grange to have made you a visit on hearing you are so well. Surely it became * Miscellany of the Spalding Club, ii., p. 4. the fellow to pay you that regard, and he would poetic powers went any further, we are unable, have done it had he any kindness for you; and, if and perhaps no one will ever be able, to deterthe husband had, he would have laid such commands mine. on his son and brother which they could not have resisted. Now, you may get your freedom, but We must quote, unmutilated, one of Grange's can you again trust yourself in their hands? Quite conflicts with Avidien's wife. Though the scene separated from your father's and mother's friends, be roughly described, it has an interest, from the and from your country, locked up in Scotland or for- unscrupulous vehemence of the principal actors, her sister's late insult, which, it was visible, gave "in right hands," but had not crossed the border. a shock to her, and disconcerted her; and when This was in 1733, a few months after Lady Grange Lady Murray and I went home with her to Knights- had been safely conveyed to the grim solitudes of bridge, she was so dumpish that she scarcely said eign parts, and wholly in their power, what can you expect? Your friends here could give you no relief, and you should be wholly at the barbarous mercy of those whose sense get not sufficiently the better of their hatred or contempt, as to make them carry with seening respect to you till they get you in their power. What will they not do when they have you?''* Such are Lord Grange's "imaginary conversations" of Lady Mary Wortley-like many others, a more accurate reflection of the thoughts habitually dwelling within the writer's own mind, than of those of the person in whose name they are uttered. And then, in continuation, he paints the formidable effect of the imaginary pleading "Such things to a woman so lately of a disturbed brain, constantly inculcated by so near a relation whom she only sees, and her creatures, and depends on her entirely for the time-what may they not produce? And if they have their effect, then the consequences are these: the lady being at freedom legally, but de facto still under her sister's absolute government, the bargain about her jointure becomes void, and thereby she (or rather the sister) gets more than £500 sterling yearly, and our friend has nothing at all." Then follows the statement about the lease; and the meaning of the whole is, that Lady Mar, as a free woman, would be entitled to live with her sister, and dispose of her own property, unless she were put in the "right hands" to make her " ratify" any desired bargain. The interchange of compliments between the parties, when they came to actual conflict, is extremely instructive. "She concluded with rage," says the judge, "that we were both rascals, with many other ridiculous things." But, perhaps, more people will think her ladyship's penetration was not more ridiculously at fault on this than on other occasions. Horace Walpole left an unfavorable testimony to her treatment of her sister, when he alluded to "the unfortunate Lady Mar, whom she treated 80 hardly when out of her senses." Pope caught up the same charge in the insinuation Who starves a sister, or denies a debt. Lord Grange, for his own part, has the merit, when characterizing his opponent, of a coincidence with the illustrious poet-at least in the bestowal of an epithet. Every one remembers Pope's Avidien and his wife, no matter which; and the eminence of the little group, who cluster round it like a circle of casual passengers round the centre of disturbance, where the wife and the brother-bacchanalian compete, on the pavement, for the possession of some jovial reveller, whose halfclouded mind remains vibrating between the quiet comforts of home and the fierce joys of the tavern. There is something affecting in the vacillating miseries of the poor invalid-we wonder how much of the cruel contest can be true; for, that it is all true, it is impossible to believe-yet Lady Mary could be violent, and she could be hard, when she was attacked or baffled; and she had a rough and unscrupulous nature to combat with, in the historian of their warfare. Lady Mary, perceiving how things were like to go, did what I was always afraid of, and could not possibly prevent: she went in rage to her poor sister, and so swaggered and frightened her, that she relapsed. While she was about that fine piece of work, Lord Erskine happened to go to Lady Mar's; and in his presence Lady Mary continued to this purpose with her sister: "Can you pretend to be well? Don't you know you are still mad? You shan't get out of my custody; and if Lord Grange and his confederates bring you before lord chancellor, I'll make you, in open court, in presence of the world, lay your hand on the gospel, and swear by Almighty God, whether you can say you are yet well. Your salvation shall be at stake; for, remember, perjury infers damnation-your eternal damnation." So soon as I was informed of this, I assured my lady, (and so did others,) that in law no such oath could be put to her, and that Lady Mary had only said so to fright her. But so strong was the fright, that nothing we could say was able to set her right again. And Lady Mary, having thus dismounted her, came again and coaxed her, and (as I found by diverse instances) strove to give her bad impressions of her family, and everybody but Lady Mary's sweet self. Yet next day Lady Mar went and dined at Mr. Baillie's, in town, and there saw a deal of company, and behaved very well. And Dr. Arbuthnot, who, among others, saw her there, said he thought her very well; and had not the turn happened you will presently hear of, he and Dr. Monro, (son to Mr. Monro who, at the Revolution, was Principal of Edinburgh College, and is now physician to Bedlam,) and Dr. Mead, were to have gone to her with me next day and afterwards, that they might have vouched her condition before the chancellor. I believed it best for me not to be at Mr. Baillie's, that all might appear as it was, free and natural, and not conducted by any art of mine; only I went thither about seven at night, and found her in a room with Ladies Harvey, Binning, Murray, Lady Griz zel Baillie, and others. She was behaving decently, but with the gravity of one that is wearied and tired. Mr. Baillie himself, and the other gentlemen and ladies, (a great many being in the next room,) now and then joined us, and she seemed not in anything discomposed, till the conversation turned on one word. When I went to her next day, I saw Hesker. Surely some bird of the air had whis how strongly Lady Mary's physic wrought, and pered the matter to Lady Mary; for her measures dissipated her poor returning senses. She had be- were prompt and stern, and they drew from the fore urged me earnestly to proceed faster than was baffled plotter many hard expressions and insinuafit, to get her before the chancellor, and do every- tions. "But on the road, she [Lady Mar] was thing needful for her liberation, that she might go seized by lord chief-justice's warrant, procured on to her husband and family. But now she told me she would not for the world appear before the chanfalse affidavit of her sister Lady Mary, &c., and cellor, and that neither she nor any other must make brought back to London-declared lunatic, and by oath as to her recovery, (at this time, indeed, it had lord chancellor (whose crony is Mr. Wortley, been a very bold oath;) and that she preferred her Lady Mary's husband) delivered into the custody soul's salvation to all things. And, among other of Lady Mary, to the astonishment and offence things, she said, what a dismal condition shall I be in if, after all, the chancellor send me back under Mary's government; how shall I pass my time after such an attempt? In short, she was bambouzled, and frighted quite. But that her head was really turned by Lady Mary's threats of damnation, further appeared by this instance: Lady Grizzel Baillie and even of all the English, (Sir Robert among the rest;) and Ilay pretended to be angry at it, yet refused to give me that relief by the king in council, which by law was undoubtedly competent." * The people with whom his London connection brought the judge in contact, display a gathering Lady Murray having gone to take leave of her, of dazzling names in the firmament of fashion and (their whole family is gone to Spa,) when I saw her wit. Bolingbroke, Windham, and "the courtly next day, she gravely told me that Lady Murray was no more her friend, having endeavored, when taking leave, to deprive her of all the comfort left her-the hope of heaven. And though (said she) I was bred to the Church of England, and she to that of Scotland, yet merely the difference is not so Talbot" are casually mentioned. Grange says in passing, "I am acquainted with Chesterfield." He has something to say of sweet Lepel," the "wife of that Lord Hervey who last winter wrote the pamphlet against Mr. Pulteney, and on Mr. great that she must pronounce me in a state of dam- Pulteney's answer, fought with him and was nation; and she asked me seriously, what Lady wounded." Arbuthnot, and the prince of classiMurray had said to me about her being damned? cal collectors, Richard Mead, mix with the ordiNever in my life, madam, answered I, did she or nary actors of the scene. Young Murray, not any London lady speak to me about salvation or damnation; but I'm sure my Lady Murray loves then a crown lawyer-but sufficiently distinyou as her sister, and heartily wishes your happi- guished for wit, eloquence, and fashionable celebness here and hereafter. Then she gave me a sealed rity, to have called forth the next to immortal letter to Lady Murray, begging me to deliver it and compliments of Pope-must have been one of the bring an answer. I read it with Lady Murray. It brilliant circle; and in the early period of his inwas long, and all expostulatory why she pronounced tercourse with his brother's sister-in-law, accident her to be damned; and said many odd things. Lady would be strangely against him, if he did not Murray's answer was the proper one-short and general, but very kind, which I also delivered; and sometimes meet in the ordinary circle the pale Lady Mar said no more to me on that head. Before distorted youth, with noble intellectual features she took this turn, perceiving her so vaporish and and an eye of fire, whose war of wit and rancor easily disconcerted, I would not venture to put the with "furious Sappho" left the world uncertain case wholly on perfect recovery, but stated it also whether to laugh with their fierce wit, or lament as I really thought it-viz., recovered from all that the melancholy picture of perverted genius, excould properly be called lunacy, yet exceeding hibited by weak, and apt to be overturned. And I had prehatred so paltry yet so unquenchable. pared a memorial in law on that supposition, which In his autobiographical revelations, the economI was to have laid before Mr. Talbot, solicitor-gen-ical old judge leaves some traces of his consciouseral, and other counsel, the very day she took this ness that his journeys from Merlyn's Wynd to wrong turn; but thereupon stopt altogether. At Whitehall were a decided transition from the parting, she appeared to me as one who, fearing to provoke a worse fate by attempting to be better, sat down in a sort of sullen despairing, content with her present condition, which she (justly) called misery. Thus seemed she to be as to any sense that remained with her; but all her sense was clouded, and, indeed, fancies which now perplexed her brain were, like the clouds, fleeting, inconstant, and sometimes in monstrous shapes. a humble to the great world. He thus describes one of these journeys, in the letter already cited, in which he gratified his humor by talking of himself in the third person. Lord G. is now pretty well acquainted with the ways there; his personal charges, he is sure, will be small in comparison; he will not be in expensive companies or houses, but when business requires it; nor at any diversion but what he finds necessary for keeping up the cheerfulness of his own spirit, and the health of his body. He wears plain and not fine clothes. When there last he kept not a servant, but had a fellow at call, to whom he gave We have no more of this affair until the lapse of several months, when the judge, at the very moment of apparent victory, is routed by his watchful antagonist. He had obtained possession of Lady Mar-she was on her way to Scotland, a shilling a-day such days as he was to be at court * Miscellany of the Spalding Club, pp. 17-20 * Houston's Memoirs, p. 31. or among the great, and must have a footman as necessarily as a coat on his back or a sword by his side. He never was nice and expensive in his own eating, and less now than ever; for this winter he has quite lost the relish of French claret, the most expensive article in London. He is to travel without a servant, for whom he knows not any sort of use on the road, and only has a post-boy, whom he must have, had he twenty servants of his own; and so he travelled last year.* Strange indeed were the social extremes between which this journey lay. At the one end we see the brilliant assemblages of the most brilliant age of English fashion. The rays of the wax-lights glitter back from stars and sword-hilts, diamond buttons and spangles. Velvet coats, huge laced waistcoats, abundant hoops, spread forth their luxurious wealth-the air is rich and thick with perfumed powder-the highest in rank, and wealth, and influence are there, so are the first in genius and learning. Reverse the picture, and take the northern end of the journey. In an old dark stone house, at the end of a dismal alley, Lovat's ragged banditti throttle a shrieking woman-a guilty cavalcade passes hurriedly at night across the dark heath-next opens a dreary dungeon in a deserted feudal fortalice-a boat tosses on the bosom of the restless Atlantic-and the victim is consigned to the dreary rock, where year follows year, bringing no change with it but increasing age. The contrast is startling. Yet, when we read Lady Grange's diary and Lady Mary Wortley's letters together, they leave one doubtful whether most to shudder at the savage lawlessness of one end of the island, or the artificial vices that were growing out of a putrid civilization in the other. LAMENT OF A ROMAN PATRIOT. 1. He that hath poured a filial woe, II. Oh, Rome! from thy maternal breast My infant mind her nurture drew ; Alas! can tears alone attest The debt to thee, my parent, due? Flow on, my tears still freely flow, Ye cannot drain the depths of woe. III. Oh, Rome! in childhood thou to me Wert all a mother could supply; Still, when in youth I turned to thee, I viewed thee with a lover's eye. Flow on, my tears, I vainly mourn The hopes that from my soul are torn. IV. Oh, Rome! I feel within me here The tide of sorrow darkly flow; For thou who wert so doubly dear, My dream of youth art laid so low. * Houston's Memoirs, p. 8. Flow on, my tears, but flow in vain, The depths of woe ye cannot drain. v. It is not that a Vandal horde Has burst within thy shattered wall, That Brennus waives his reeking sword, Exulting in thy second fall. Oh! 't is not this extreme of woe That bids the streams of sorrow flow. VI. It is not that a vulture crew Of bigots, hovering in the rear, Their purpled talons now imbrue In all to me that once was dearWho, while they tear each mangled part, Must rend the life-strings of my heart. VII. 'T is not for this my tears are shed- VIII. For though, to Gallic Brennus bowed, And sheds an Iris bright and clear, IX. Then why these tears? Ah! ask not why And wring with doubt the sickening heart. x. Thou canst not die; thy very name Must live while earth's foundations stand. But thou mayest linger on in shame, And stamped with slavery's searing brand. 'T is this my scalding eyeball laves With tears, that Rome should cherish slaves. XI. Let bigot tyrants fetter thee Rome yet shall mock their mad control; Like Xerxes, they but lash the sea. The onward billows of the soul Shall, heaving with a people's hate, O'erwhelm them in a Pharaoh's fate. XII. Flow on, my tears !-I may not see HUNGARY. Away! would you own the dread rapture of war Seek the host-rolling plain of the mighty Magyar, |