Mr. Yorke, out of his turn, next after the King’s counsel:  this irregular pre-audience had lasted above a year, when it was thought more proper and more convenient for the business of the court to give Mr. Yorke that formal patent of precedence, the value and circumstances of which Mr Walpole so much misunderstands.  We have heard from old lawyers, that Mr. Yorke’s business at this period was more extensive and less lucrative than any other man ever possessed in Chancery, and we find no less than four other barristers had at this time patents of precedence.-C.

(712) The reader is requested to look back to p. 272, letter 188, where he will find Mr. Walpole himself stating—­long before Lord Hardwickc’s death, and even before his illness—­that “the old Chancellor was violent against the court, and that Mr. Charles Yorke had resigned, contrary to his own; and Lord Royston’s inclination.”  The fact was in no way true; for it is well known that there never was the slightest difference of opinion between the old Lord Hardwicke and his son Charles upon their political conduct.-C.

(713) Sir Thomas Sewell, Knight.-E.

(714) Evelyn, last Duke of Kingston:  he soon after married Miss Chudleigh, who was supposed to have been already married to Mr. Augustus Hervey, afterwards Earl of Bristol.-C.

(715) An allusion to a loose incident in Voltaire’s Candide.

(716) See ant`e, p. 260, letter 184.

(717) Mr. Legge had, in 1759, while chancellor of the exchequer to George ii. been requested by Lord Bute, in the name of the Prince of Wales, to pledge himself to support a Mr. Stuart at the next election for Hampshire:  this Mr. Legge, for very sufficient reasons, refused to do; and for this refusal (as he thought, and wished to persuade the public) he was turned out of office at the accession of the young King.-C.

(718) Mr. Dunning soon rose into great practice and eminence; in 1767 he was made solicitor-general, which office he held till 1770.  He then made a considerable figure in the opposition, till the accession to the ministry, in 1782, of his friend Lord Shelburne, when he was created Lord Ashburton; he died next year.-C.

(719) Mr. Dunning’s pamphlet was intituled “Inquiry into the Doctrine lately propagated concerning Juries, Libels, etc. upon the principles of the Law and the Constitution.”  Gray, in a letter to Walpole of the 30th, thus characterizes it:—­“Your canonical book I have been reading with great satisfaction.  He speaketh as one having authority.  If Englishmen have any feeling, methinks they must feel now; and if the ministry have any feeling (Whom nobody will suspect of insensibility) they must cut off the author’s ears; for if is in all the forms a most wicked libel.  Is the old man and the lawyer put on, or is it real? or has some real lawyer furnished a good part of the materials, and another person employed them?  This I guess.”  Works, vol. iv. p. 40.-E.