[374] Augustus the Third, a weak and unfortunate monarch, whose reign forms one of the most melancholy epochs in the annals of Saxony. His incapacity was more remarkable from his being opposed to Frederick the Great and Catherine the Second. He died in 1763, and with him ended the independence of Poland--his successor Stanislaus being merely the nominee of Russia.--E. [375] Count Bruhl.--[This worthless courtier, who exercised for many years an arbitrary sway over Saxony and Poland, and inflicted irreparable injuries on both countries, died in October, 1764.--E.] [376] Rezzonico, Pope by the name of Clement the Thirteenth, [filled the Papal Chair from 1758 to 1769, when he died, in his 76th year. His life was decent, and his intentions appear to have been honest, but his policy was unenlightened and vacillating, and is strikingly contrasted by that of his illustrious successor.--E.] [377] Sir Hugh Smithson, who assumed the name of Percy on marrying Lady Elizabeth Seymour, daughter of Algernon Duke of Somerset, and heiress of the house of Percy by her grandmother. They were created Earl and Countess of Northumberland. [378] Thomas Potter--see more of him in the preceding reign. [Memoirs of George II. vol. i. p. 61. He was the second son of Archbishop Potter, whose fortune he inherited, owing to his elder brother having disobliged his father by an imprudent marriage. In 1748 he had been appointed secretary to the Prince of Wales, then the patron of all the talent in the House opposed to the Government, and from that time he took an active part in the political contests of the day. He was a clever and impressive speaker, and, with application and steadiness of conduct, might have become one of the leaders of his party. Unfortunately, he had contracted, in early life, habits of dissipation, under which his constitution sunk, just as his ambitious hopes bade fair to be realized. He died Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, in June, 1759. Some interesting letters from him to Mr. Pitt are given in the Chatham Correspondence, vol. i.--E.] [379] James Douglas, Earl of March and Ruglen, Lord of the Bedchamber to the King, [afterwards the too well-known Duke of Queensberry--an appropriate patron of such a divine.--E.] [380] Lord Despencer said, he never heard the devil preach before. Yet Lord Sandwich had a precedent in a great Reformer of the Church: “Calvin eut par trahison les feuilles d’un ouvrage que Servet faisait imprimer secrètement. Il les envoya à Lyon avec les lettres qu’il avait reçues de lui: action qui servirait pour le deshonorer à jamais dans la Société. Calvin fit accuser Servet par un emissaire. Quel rôle pour un Apôtre!”--Voltaire, Essai sur l’Hist. Générale, chap. 113. [381] A broken wine-merchant, brother of Admiral Cotes, an intimate of Wilkes. [382] Only son of the Duke of Chandos. [He afterwards succeeded to the Dukedom, and died in 1789, when his titles became extinct. His only daughter married the late Duke of Buckingham.--E.]