Rowlandson the Caricaturist; a Selection from His Works. Vol. 2Grego, Joseph
History
Rowlandson the Caricaturist; a Selection from His Works. Vol. 2
Grego, Joseph
English wit and humor, Pictorial; Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827
Between the Commander-in-Chief and his brother a jealousy had for
some time subsisted, and Mrs. Clarke did not hesitate to state that
the intrigue to which she had been induced to lend herself as the
most conspicuous figure, was prompted by a desire on the part of the
principal agitator--who remained discreetly in the background--to
humiliate the Duke of York, in the expectation that the office of
Commander-in-Chief, vacated by his brother's dismissal, would descend
on himself in the natural order of things: an expectation which was
not realised. One wild surmise attributed to 'the party' the belief
that the Duke of York, smarting under his disgrace, would commit
suicide, and thus afford the Duke of Kent a chance of being appointed
his successor, as in the event of his brother's decease, there seems
little doubt that the Duke of Kent, in spite of certain prejudices
against which he struggled through his prematurely closed life, would
have filled the office, almost by family right. The character of the
Duke of Kent has been dispassionately reviewed since that date, and
the calumnies of his detractors disallowed; beyond a natural leaning
to discipline pushed to severity, through the fruits of his training,
it is clear that his disposition was remarkably free from the guilty
personal weaknesses which marked his age, and from those unrestrained
self-indulgences which disfigured many of the brightest luminaries of
the last century in nearly every phase of society.
It will perhaps be interesting, after having thus attempted to trace
the involutions of this complicated and scandalous intrigue, which,
however, belongs to history, to add a word on the ultimate careers of
the principal actors. Mrs. Clarke chiefly spent her later years in
Paris, where it is understood she died, leaving a fortune amounting to
some thousands of pounds. It is a redeeming point in her character,
that when a certain nobleman (best known by the fictitious title of
the 'Marquis of Steyne,' under which he figures in a famous novel,
perhaps the finest in the world), presuming on the reputation of
the mother, made princely overtures, with the object of converting
one of her daughters--who, we are informed, were unusually handsome
young ladies--into his mistress, the proposal was treated with the
indignation its nature merited.
Mr. Clarke, who was by no means the sinner, according to another
account which has reached us, that his detractors have painted, became
for a time, as we learn, a Brother of the Charter House. He lived to a
very venerable age; and he, too, from the circumstances of his family,
was able to leave some property at his decease.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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