(141) Mr, Onslow held the office of Speaker of the House of Commons for above thirty-three years, and during part of that time enjoyed the lucrative employment of treasurer of the navy:  “notwithstanding which,” says Mr Hatsell, “it is an anecdote perfectly well known, that on his quitting the Chair, his income from his private fortune, which had always been inconsiderable, Was rather less than it had been in 1727, when he was first elected into it.  Superadded to his great and accurate knowledge of the history of this country, and of the minuter forms and proceedings of Parliament, the distinguishing features of his character were a regard and veneration for the British constitution, as it was declared at and established at the Revolution."-E.

letter 69 To George Montagu, Esq.  Houghton, March 25, 1761. (page 115)

Here I am at Houghton! and alone! in this spot, where (except two hours last month) I have not been in sixteen years!  Think what a crowd of reflections!  No; Gray, and forty churchyards, could not furnish so many:  nay, I know one must feel them with greater indifference than I possess, to have the patience to put them into verse.  Here I am, probably for the last time of my life, though not for the time:  every clock that strikes tells me I am an hour nearer to yonder church—­that church, into which I have not yet had courage to enter, where lies that mother on whom I doated, and who doated on me!  There are the two rival mistresses of Houghton, neither of whom ever wished to enjoy it!  There too lies he who founded its greatness; to contribute to whose fall Europe was embroiled; there he sleeps in quiet and dignity, while his friend and his foe, rather his false ally and real enemy, Newcastle and Bath, are exhausting the dregs of their pitiful lives in squabbles and pamphlets.

The surprise the pictures(142) gave me is again renewed; accustomed for many years to see nothing but wretched daubs and varnished copies at auctions, I look at these as enchantment.  My own description of them seems poor; but shall I tell you truly, the majesty of Italian ideas almost sinks before the warm nature of Flemish colouring.  Alas! don’t I grow old?  My young imagination was fired with Guido’s ideas; must they be plump and prominent as Abishag to warm me now?  Does great youth feel with poetic limbs, as well as see with poetic eyes?  In one respect I am very young, I cannot satiate myself with looking:  an incident contributed to make me feel this more strongly.  A party arrived just as I did, to see the house, a man and three women In riding dresses, and they rode post through the apartments.  I could not hurry before them fast enough; they were not so long in seeing for the first time, as I could have been in one room, to examine what I knew by heart.  I remember formerly being often diverted with this kind of seers; they come, ask what such a room is called, in which Sir Robert lay, write it down, admire a lobster on a cabbage in a market-piece, dispute whether the last room was green or purple, and then hurry to the inn for fear the fish should be over-dressed.  How different my sensations! not a picture here but recalls a history; not one, but I remember in Downing-street or Chelsea, where queens and crowds admired them, though seeing them as little as these travellers!