Grafton did not die the death of his royal ancestor. He lived through seventy-six years, of which less than half were passed in the fierce light of a disgraceful notoriety, and more than half in a retirement which should be styled obscure rather than decent. The only conspicuously creditable act of that long career was the patronage he extended to the poet Bloomfield, a patronage that seems to have been prompted rather by the fact that the writer was born near Grafton's country residence than by any intelligent appreciation of literature. His curious want of taste {36} and feeling allowed him to parade his mistress, Nancy Parsons, in the presence of the Queen, at the Opera House, and to marry, when he married the second time, a first cousin of the man with whom his first wife had eloped, John, Earl of Upper Ossory. If his example as a father was not admirable, at least he showed it to a numerous offspring, for by his two marriages he was the parent of no fewer than sixteen children. [Sidenote: 1763--Rigby and the Duke of Bedford] Perhaps the prize for sheer political ruffianism, for the frank audacity of the freebooter, unshadowed by the darker vices of his better-born associates, may be awarded to Rigby. Not that Rigby redeemed by many private virtues the unblushing effrontery of his public career. It was given to few men to be as bad as Dashwood, and Rigby was not one of the few. But his gross and brutal disregard of all decency in his acts of public plunder--for even peculation may be done with distinction--was accompanied by a gross and brutal disregard of all decency in his tastes and pleasures with his intimate associates. Richard Rigby sprang from the trading class. He was the son of a linen-draper who was sufficiently lucky to make a fortune as a factor to the South Sea Company, and who was, in consequence, able to afford his son the opportunity of a good education, and to launch him on the grand tour of Europe with every aptitude for the costly vices that men in those days seemed to think it the chief object of travel to cultivate, and with plenty of money in his pocket to gratify all his inclinations. Rigby did not take much advantage of his educational opportunities. His Latinity laid him open to derision in the House of Commons, and there were times when his spelling would have reflected little credit upon a seamstress. But he was quite capable of learning abroad all the evil that the great school of evil was able to teach a willing student. He returned to England, and began his life there with three pronounced tastes: for gambling, for wine, and for the baser uses of politics. His ambitions prompted him to adhere to the party of the Prince of Wales, and his ready purse won him a welcome among the courtiers of Leicester House. The Prince of {37} Wales did little to gratify his hopes, and Rigby would have found it difficult to escape from the straits into which his debts had carried him if his gift of