MEMOIRS OF CELEBRATED ETONIANS. (VOLUME 1) By John Heneage Jesse CHAPTER I. NICHOLAS HARDINGE. This eminent scholar and accomplished antiquary, poet, and lawyer, was the son of the Rev. Gabriel Hardinge, Vicar of Kingston in Surrey, patris bene merentis, as he is designated by his son. The subject of this memoir was born in 1700. Educated on the foundation at Eton, he was transferred thence to King's College, Cambridge, in 1 71 8-1 9; took his degree as B. A. in 1722, and as M. A. in 1726. "At Eton and Cambridge," writes Nichols, " he had the fame of the most eminent scholar of his time ; and had very singular powers in Latin verse, perhaps inferior to none since the Augustan age." His friends, indeed, are said to have given the preference to his Latin verses even over those of Doctor George, the celebrated Provost of King's College. According to his accomphshed son, Judge Hardinge, Prejudiced, it may be mentioned, as was the great critic, Richard Bentley, against some of the King's College men of his time, he made an exception in favour of Nicholas Hardinge. The King's men, he said, were all puppies, except Hardinge ; and "Hardinge," he added, "is a King's man." On quitting Cambridge, Mr. Hardinge devoted himself to the study of the law, and having in due time been called to the bar, was appointed attorney-general to William, Duke of Cumberland, of Culloden celebrity. In 1731 he was constituted chief clerk of the House of Commons, the duties of which office, owing to his assiduity, tact, and knowledge of precedents, he is said to have discharged with singular advantage to the public service. Horace Walpole, for instance, incidentally speaks of him in this capacity as having the history of England at the ends of his Parliamentary fingers. He was still, it may be mentioned, holding this appointment when, during the fierce Parliamentary debates which preceded the downfall of Sir Robert Walpole from power, that great minister, in applying to himself the well-known line in the epistles of Horace : " Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culp^," — incorrectly made use of the word 7mlli instead of nulld. The faulty grammar naturally offended the classical ear of the then leader of the opposition, the celebrated William Pulteney, afterward Earl of Bath, who had been a Westminster, as Walpole had been an Eton, scholar ; and accordingly, in replying to Walpole's speech, he plainly told him that his logic was as bad as his Latin. The prime minister, however, not only warmly insisted on the correctness of his Latinity, but, with his customary disregard for Parliamentary formalities, offered to lay Pulteney a bet of a guinea, which the other accepted, that the word was nulli. Nicholas Hardinge was much too eminent a scholar, and much too near at hand, not to be sent for to decide the wager ; and accordingly, his decision being adverse to Sir Robert, the minister drew a guinea from his pocket, which he tossed over to the opposition benches, where it was caught by Pulteney, who appears to have thoroughly enjoyed his triumph. Holding up the coin to the view of the House, "This," he said, "is the only money I have received from the treasury for many years, and it shall be the last." Among Pulteney's effects at his death was found this identical guinea, wrapped up in a piece of paper, on which were inscribed the playful circumstances under which it had come into his possession. In February, 1747, Mr, Hardinge resigned his appointment as chief clerk of the House of Commons, on being elected member for Eye, and in 1752 was nominated joint secretary of the treasury. He continued to represent the borough of Eye in ParHament till 1754. Of Mr. Hardinge's English poetical compositions, the two which were held in the highest esteem by his contemporaries appear to have been his " Dialogue in the Senate House at Cambridge," written in 1750, and the " Denhill-Iliad," or " Denhilliad," originating in the trifling circumstance of the hounds running through Lady Grey's garden at Denhill, in East Kent. They are severally to be found in a collection of his " Poems — Latin, Greek, and English," edited by his son, Judge Hardinge. His Latin poems are doubtless far superior to his EngHsh. Of these, the best known is probably his " Sapphic Ode," addressed to Sir Robert Walpole the year after the fall of the latter from power, Archdeacon Coxe having given it notoriety by transcribing it at length in his life of Sir Robert. Mr. Hardinge would seem to have been highly favoured in his married life. In December, 1738, he married Jane, second daughter of Sir John Pratt, of Wilderness, Kent, and sister of the great lawyer. Lord Camden ; a lady who combined with great strength of mind, and a deep sense of her religious duties, a singularly cheerful disposition and the liveliest conversational talents. After having borne him nine sons and three daughters, this "angel-mother," as her son the judge designates her, expired on the 1 7th of May, 1 807, having survived her husband forty-nine years. Mr. Hardinge's own death took place on the 9th of April, 1758. His remains were interred in the vault of his family at Kingston. Prefixed to Mr. Hardinge's " Poems," as well as in Nichols's ' Illustrations of the Literature of the Eighteenth Century," will be found a portrait oiE him, engraved from the original picture by Ramsay. It should be mentioned that the late esteemed soldier and statesman, Henry, Viscount Hardinge, was the grandson of the scholar. CHAPTER II. THE RIGHT HON. EDWARD WESTON. Apparently no less beloved for his virtues by the wise and good than he was admired by them for his literary abilities, it cannot but be regretted that so little should be known of this accomplished Etonian. The son of Dr. Stephen Weston, Bishop of Exeter, he was born at Eton in the year 1701 ; was admitted to King's College in 17 19, a year after the admission of his friend, Nicholas Hardinge; took his degree as B. A. in 1723, and as M. A. in 1727. Adopting the state as his profession, Mr. Weston was at an early age appointed secretary to Charles, second Viscount Townshend, when secretary of state, and in that capacity was in attendance on George II. during his visit to Hanover in 1729. He subsequently served for some years as under-secretary of State, under the secretaryship of William, first Earl of Harrington, and, on the appointment of that nobleman to be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was employed under him in that kingdom, of which he became a Privy Councillor. As a man of letters and learning, the merit of Mr. Weston's literary productions would scarcely seem to bear out the considerable literary reputation which he enjoyed in his lifetime. The only printed works of which he would appear to have been the author are a pamphlet on the Jew Bill,, published in 1755; "The Country Gentleman's Advice to his Son on his coming of Age;" "A Letter to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of London, on the Earthquake at Lisbon ; " and, lastly, " Family Discourses," republished after his death by his son, the Rev. Charles Weston, Rector of Therfield, in Hertfordshire, with an affectionate record of his father's virtues. Bishop Warburton, it may be observed, in referring to him in one of his letters as one of his literary antagonists, speaks but slightingly of him as " by inclination a Methodist, connected with Sherlock." "I am afraid," adds the bishop, " he will be a sharer in that silent contempt with which I treat my answerers." The object of Mr. Weston's affections, to whom he was afterward married, was Miss Penelope Patrick, granddaughter of the learned and pious Dr. Simon Patrick, Bishop of Ely, and niece of Mrs. Sherlock, wife of Dr. Thomas Sherlock, Bishop of London. Respecting this young lady, it is related that her lover, at least on one, if not on more than one, occasion of her having been a " toast " of the evening, drank her health in as many glasses of wine as there were letters in the word Penelopea ; this apparently being the name conferred upon her by his classical friends. The circumstance is introduced by Nicholas Hardinge into one of the happiest of his Latin odes : " Ipse Westonus calices, relictis Imperi rebus, petet, ebriusque Ter bibet ternis facilem culuUis Peiielopeamr Mr. Weston's second wife was Miss Anne Fountaine, who was also a niece of Mrs. Sherlock. It may be mentioned that the long inscription on the tomb of Bishop Sherleck in Fulham churchyard has been supposed to be the composition of Mr. Weston. Conjecture points to December, 1775, as the probable date of Mr. Weston's decease. At all events, at the close of 1776 he was no longer living. CHAPTER III. THE HON. THOMAS TOWNSHEND. Thomas, second son of Charles, second Viscount Townshend, and father of Thomas, first Viscount Sydney, was born on the 2d of June, 1 70 1, and, after having quitted Eton, was educated at King's College, Cambridge. " To name this gentleman," writes Judge Hardinge of his father's friend, "is to add that he was the most amiable and respectable gentleman of his age ; that a more highly cultivated understanding, more engaging manners, a higher sense of honour, and of public as well as private virtue, or a more benevolent heart, never blessed the world." To this panegyric it may be further added, that of the accomplished knot of scholars who were Mr.