The English Spy: An Original Work Characteristic, Satirical, And Humorous.: Comprising Scenes And Sketches In Every Rank Of Society, Being Portraits Drawn From The LifeWestmacott, C. M. (Charles Molloy)
General
The English Spy: An Original Work Characteristic, Satirical, And Humorous.: Comprising Scenes And Sketches In Every Rank Of Society, Being Portraits Drawn From The Life
Westmacott, C. M. (Charles Molloy)
England -- Social life and customs; Satire, English; University of Oxford -- Anecdotes
His pamphlet of _Anticipation_, it is said, placed him where he since
was, under the auspices of Lord North; but his abilities were of better
quality, and deserved a better situation for their employment.
Lord Plymouth, then Lord Windsor, had to boast some distinctions, which
kept him aloof from the boys of his time. He was of that inordinate size
that, like Falstaff, four square yards on even ground were so many miles
to him; and the struggles which he underwent to raise himself when
down might have been matter of instruction to a minority member. In the
entrance to his Dame's gate much circumspection was necessary; for, like
some good men out of power, he found it difficult to get in.
When in school, or otherwise, he was not undeserving of praise, either
as to temper or ~84~~ scholarship; and whether out of the excellence
of his Christianity, or that of good humour, he was not very adverse to
good living; and he continued so ever after.
Lord Leicester had the reputation of good scholarship, and not
undeservedly. In regard to poetry, however, he was sometimes apt
to break the eighth commandment, and prove lie read more the Musee
Etonenses than his prayer-book. Inheriting it from Lord Townshend, the
father of caricaturists, he there pursued, with nearly equal ability,
that turn for satiric drawing. The master, the tutors, slender Prior,
and fat Roberts,--all felt in rotation the effects of his pencil.
There too, as well as since, he had a most venerable affection for
heraldry, and the same love of collecting together old titles, and
obsolete mottos. Once in the military, he had, it may be said, a turn
for arms. In a zeal of this kind he once got over the natural mildness
of his temper, and was heard to exclaim--"There are two griffins in my
family that have been missing these three centuries, and by G-, I'll
have iliem back again!"-This passion was afterwards improved into so
perfect a knowledge, that in the creation of peers he was applied to,
that every due ceremonial might be observed; and he never failed in his
recollection on these antiquated subjects.
Tom Plummer gave then a specimen of that quickness and vivacity of parts
for which he was afterwards famed. But not as a scholar, not as a poet,
was he quick alone; he was quick too in the wrong ends of things, as
well as the right, with a plausible account to follow it.
In fact, he was born for the law; clear, discriminating, judicious,
alive, and with a noble impartiality to all sides of questions, and
which none could defend better. This goes, however, only to the powers
of his head; in those of the heart no one, and in the best ~85~~ and
tenderest qualities of it, ever stood better. He was liked universally,
and should be so; for no man was ever more meritorious for being good,
as he who had all the abilities which sometimes make a man otherwise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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