He had a strong inclination to find out the humours of low life, and to make himself master of them.  When he was at Edinburgh, as one of the commissioners on the forfeited estates, he one day made a very splendid feast, and while his servants were surprized at the great preparations, and were expecting every moment to carry out his invitations to the company for whom they imagined it was prepared, he commanded them to go out to the street, and pick up whatever beggars, and poor people they saw, and invite them to his house:  The servants obeyed, and Sir Richard soon saw himself at the head of 40 or 50 beggars, together with some poor decay’d tradesmen.  After dinner he plied them with punch and wine, and when the frolic was ended, he declared, that besides the pleasure of feeding so many hungry persons, he had learned from them humour enough for a good comedy.

Our author was a man of the highest benevolence; he celebrates a generous action with a warmth that is only peculiar to a good heart; and however he may be blamed for want of oeconomy, &c. yet was he the most agreeable, and if we may be allowed the expression, the most innocent rake, that ever trod the rounds of indulgence.

He wrote several poetical pieces, particularly the Englishman’s thanks to the duke of Marlborough, printed in 1711; a letter to Sir Miles Wharton, concerning Occasional Peers, dated March 5th, 1713.  The Guardian of August the 7th, 1713; and the importance of Dunkirk considered, in defence of that Guardian, in a letter to the bailiff of Stockbridge:  The French Faith represented in the present state of Dunkirk:  The Crisis, a Letter to a Member of Parliament, concerning the bill to prevent the present Growth of Schism, dated May 28, 1714; and his Apology for himself and his Writings.

These pieces shew how much he was displeased with the last measures of Queen Anne, and were written to combat the Tory ministry; to oppose which he set about procuring a seat in Parliament; for which purpose he resigned his place of commissioner of the stamp-office, in June 1713, in a letter to the earl of Oxford, lord high treasurer, and was chosen member of the House of Commons, for the Borough of Stockbridge.  But he did not long enjoy his seat in that house before he was expelled, on the 18th of March 1713, for writing the Englishman, being the close of the paper so called; and the Crisis[B].

In 1714 he published the Romish Ecclesiastical History of late years, and a paper intitled The Lover; the first of which appeared Thursday February 25, 1714, and another intitled the Reader, which began on Thursday April 22, the same year.  In the sixth Number of this last paper, he gave an account of his design of writing the History of the Duke of Marlborough, from proper materials in his custody:  the relation to commence from the date of his grace’s commission, as captain-general, and plenipotentiary; and to end with the expiration of these commissions.  But this noble design he lived not to execute, and the materials were afterwards returned to the duchess of Marlborough, who left them to Mr. Mallet, with a handsome gratuity for the execution of Sir Richard’s design.