Smollet and Murphy, with Dr. Shebbeare, who was in Newgate for abusing King George the First, King George the Second, King William, and the Revolution, and Dr. Johnson, another known Jacobite, who even in a Dictionary had vented his Jacobite principles, were selected by Lord Bute to defend his cause, and pensioned by him as a patron of learned men. Johnson’s acceptance of a pension was the more ridiculous, as in his Dictionary he had lashed the infamy of pensioners. [Neither Smollet nor Murphy were pensioned by Lord Bute. The bounty of the Crown was never more inexcusably exercised than in favour of Dr. Shebbeare--a pamphleteer who was a disgrace to his party, and had not long before been concerned in some fraudulent practices at Oxford, when employed by the University to arrange the Clarendon papers. He died in 1788, at a very advanced age. Dr. Johnson’s pension was not subjected to any conditions.--Boswell, vol. i. p. 292.--E.] [233] His father was a distiller. [234] Mr. Southey, opposed as he was to the political creed of Churchill, thought more favourably of him. He praises the generosity and straightforwardness of his character, and says of his poems that “manly sense is their characteristic, deriving strength from indignation, and that they contain passages of sound morality and permanent truth.” Cowper had a higher opinion of him than of any other contemporary writer, and even goes so far as to style him “the great Churchill.”--Southey’s Cowper, p. 87.--E. [235] Groom of the Bedchamber to William Duke of Cumberland, and Commander in America. He was afterwards Knight of the Bath, and called Sir Joseph Amherst. He was subsequently made a Peer and Commander-in-Chief, [and lastly Field-Marshal. He had been the favourite aide-de-camp of Lord Ligonier during the German wars, and bore through life the reputation of a very able and zealous officer. He distinguished himself particularly in America. He died in 1797, in his eighty-first year.--E.] [236] Alluding to the defeat of the French near Giessau, by Prince Ferdinand, on the 26th September, when he drove them from all their posts, and obliged them to fly with precipitation behind the Nahn.--Annual Register, 1762, p. 49.--E.