residence for many centuries devoted to divine studies, religious retirement, and the extensive exercise of charity and benevolence; I add, in a place where so many of your predecessors have led their lives in such sanctity as has thrown lustre on the pure religion they professed and adorned.

"From the dissatisfaction with which you must perceive I behold these improprieties, not to speak in harsher terms, and on still more pious principles, I trust you will suppress them immediately; so that I may not have occasion to show any further marks of my displeasure, or to interpose in a different manner. May God take your grace into his almighty protection! "I remain, my Lord Primate,

"Your gracious friend,

"G. R." 1

Archbishop Cornwallis expired at Lambeth Palace in the seventieth year of his age, on Tuesday, the 19th of March, 1783, being the corresponding day and month in which, in the year 1758, his last predecessor but one, Archbishop Hutton, had breathed his last. It was further remarkable, that so late as the Friday preceding the death of each, they had severally been present in the discharge of their Parliamentary duties in the House of Lords.2

Since the death of Cardinal Pole, no Primate of England had been interred in the great Cathedral 1 'Life and Times of Selina Countess of Huntingdon,' vol. ii. p. 283. 2 'Gentleman's Magazine' for 1783; vol. liii. p. 273, and note.

Church of the See of Canterbury, and accordingly, in conformity with more recent precedents, the body of Archbishop Cornwallis was interred in the parish church at Lambeth, in a vault under the Communion Table. It may be mentioned that, on breaking the ground for its reception, the workmen met with a leaden coffin, which, on being opened, presented the interesting spectacle of the remains of the amiable and polished Dr. Thomas Thirlby, the deprived Roman Catholic Bishop of Ely, who, more than two centuries previously, while in the hospitable custody of Matthew Parker, the second Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, had breathed his last under the roof of the adjoining episcopal palace. Habited so as to present the appearance of a pilgrim, and having a slouched hat under the left arm, the body was found to be in an excellent state of preservation; the features were perfect; the limbs flexible; and the beard of great length and beautifully white.

252

JOHN EARL OF BUTE, K.G.

THIS celebrated "Favourite," as he has commonly, but somewhat invidiously, been designated, was the son of James Stuart, second Earl of Bute, by Lady Anne Campbell, daughter of Archibald, first Duke of Argyle. He was born in 1713, and consequently when, on the death of his father in 1722, he succeeded as third Earl of Bute, he was only nine years old. As far as we have been enabled to discover, Eton was the only academic institution to which he was indebted for such amount of scholarship as he succeeded in acquiring. On the 24th of August, 1736, at the age of twenty-three, he married Mary, only daughter of the celebrated Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, by her husband, Edward Wortley Montagu, Esq., of Wortley, in Yorkshire; in February the following year he was elected one of the sixteen Representative Peers for Scotland, an honour subsequently reconferred upon him during many successive Parliaments -and lastly, as far as his Scottish preferments were concerned, he was appointed the same year a Lord Commissioner of Police.

The remarkable elevation of Lord Bute, from comparative obscurity to the highest distinction in the State, was notoriously brought to pass by the excellent footing on which he contrived to establish himself at the small court of Frederick Prince of Wales, at Leicester House and Kew, sequent on a mere accident having introduced him to the notice of that Prince. Whether, however, as has been stated, he first attracted the attention of Prince Frederick by his successful performance of the part of Lothario, in Rowe's tragedy of the 'Fair Penitent,' at the Duchess of Queensberry's, or whether, as has been differently alleged, a shower of rain, by interrupting a cricketmatch at Clifton, was the occasion of his being first introduced to the Prince for the purpose of making up a rubber of whist for the amusement of the latter, are questions which it seems unnecessary to agitate. At all events, under whatever circumstances the introduction may have taken place, it was not unnaturally followed by invitations to Leicester House; in due time the Prince nominated Bute to be one of the Lords of his Bedchamber; and lastly, he not only distinguished him by admitting him to terms of the closest intimacy, but is said to have impelled the Princess, his consort, to adopt a line of demeanour towards his new friend, such as could scarcely have failed to magnify his importance in the eyes of the different members of her husband's Court. "Her simple husband," writes Walpole, "when he

took up the character of the Regent's [Orleans] gallantry, had forced an air of intrigue even upon his wife. When he affected to retire into gloomy allées with Lady Middlesex, he used to bid the Princess walk with Lord Bute. As soon as the Prince was dead, they walked more and more, in honour of his memory."

In the mean time, however, so long as the Prince lived, Lord Bute's political influence at Leicester House had probably been but limited. "Bute," once observed the Prince of his friend, "is a fine showy man, and would make an excellent ambassador in a Court where there is no business."1 But with the death of the Prince, on the 20th of March, 1751, the star of Bute not only rose far higher in the ascendant at Leicester House, but, as he must at once have perceived, the event, coupled with the tender impression which he was more than suspected of having created in the heart of the Princess, opened to him a wide and seasonable field for the exercise of those ambitious instincts of which his conduct subsequently afforded ample proof that his nature was susceptible. "The Princess Dowager," writes Lord Waldegrave, "discovered other accomplishments [in him] of which the Prince, her husband, may not perhaps have been the most competent to judge." At all events, he had not only already secured for himself a powerful and lasting hold over the friendship, if not the

1 Lord Waldegrave's 'Memoirs,' p. 38.

2 Ibid., p. 39.