Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/237

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Germain
231
Germain

two daughters, who, as their parents died young, were brought up entirely under her guardianship. The elder niece married Lord Vere, the younger became the wife of the wellknown Lord Temple. The disposition of Lady Betty's money is set out in a letter from Vere to Temple (Grenville Papers, iv. 490-3). She left 120,000l. in the funds. Horace Walpole paid a visit to Drayton in 1763, and found the house 'covered with portraits, crammed with old china.' Many of her curiosities were sold after her death, by auction. The cameos and intaglios collected by Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel, were bequeathed to Germain by his first wife, the divorced Duchess of Norfolk. Lady Betty offered the collection to the British Museum for 10,000l., and, as the offer was declined, gave them in 1762 to her great-niece, Lady Mary Beauclerk, who married Lord Charles Spencer, brother of the third Duke of Marlborough. These gems were described in two folio volumes entitled 'Gemmarum antiquarum delectus quse in dactyliothecis Ducis Marlburiensis conservantur,' 1781-90; the engravings were chiefly by Bartolozzi, and the Latin text by Jacob Bryant [q. v.] and William Cole (1753-1806) [q. v.] The gems were part of the Marlborough collection sold in 1875 for 36,750l.

She is acknowledged to have 'outlived the irregularities of her youth, and she was esteemed for her kindness and liberality.' She gave 500l. to the Foundling Hospital in 1746. Her politics were indicated by a present of 100l. to Wilkes during his imprisonment in the Tower. Swift was chaplain to her father, then a lord justice in Ireland. Her name is often mentioned in the 'Journal to Stella,' and Lady Betty often disputed with the dean on political topics. Many letters to and from her are included in Swift's 'Works' and in the 'Suffolk Correspondence.' Her spirited letter in defence of Lady Suffolk against the censure of Swift is especially singled out as doing her 'great honour.' She added a stanza to the dean's ballad on the game of traffic, written at Dublin Castle in 1699, which produced from him in August 1702 a second ballad 'to the tune of the Cutpurse.' Young dedicated to Lady Betty his sixth satire on women, and according to a correspondent in Nichols's 'Literary Anecdotes,' ii. 11, she was credited with having written a satire on Pope. The manuscripts at Drayton, now the property of Mrs. Stopford-Sackville, are described in the Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. pt. iii., and among them are communications to and from Lady Betty. There are at Knole, near Sevenoaks, two rooms still known as her bedroom and dressing-room.

[Suffolk Corresp. i. 71-3, ii. 18-20, 43, 54-7, 159, 171-3, 213-15; Swift's Works (1884 ed.), xiv. 55-8, xvii. and xviii. passim, xix. 531; Pope's Letters, iii. (Works, viii.) 352-3; Lipscomb's Buckinghamshire, ii. 40; Grenville Papers, i. 135-136, iii. lxviii-ix; Walpole's Corresp. (Cunningham), i. cliv, 187, iv. 99-101, 505, v. 290, viii. 142; Wraxall's Memoirs (1884 ed.), iii. 131-3; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ii. 4; Gent. Mag. 1746 p. 439, 1769 p. 609; Bridgman's Sketch of Knole (1817), pp. 36-7; Brady's Knole (1839), pp. 118-121; Life of the Countess of Huntingdon (1844 ed.), ii. 48-9; Bedford's Art Sales, i. 4, ii. 195-198.]

W. P. C.

GERMAIN, GEORGE SACKVILLE, first Viscount Sackville (1716–1785), known from 1720 to 1770 as Lord George Sackville, and from 1770 to 1782 as Lord George Germain, was third and youngest son of Lionel Cranfield Sackville, seventh earl and first duke of Dorset, the friend of George II, who was lord-lieutenant of Ireland, 1731-7 and 1751-6, and died in 1765, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Lieutenant-general Colyear, and niece of the Earl of Portmore. He was born 26 Jan. 1716, and was educated at Westminster School. After residing for some time in Paris with his father, he accompanied him to Ireland, and entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he took his degree as B.A. in 1733, and was created M.A. in 1734. On 23 April 1737 he was appointed clerk of the council in Dublin, with Edward Dering as his deputy, and in July 1737 captain in the present 6th dragoon guards (carabineers), then on the Irish establishment as the 7th or Lord Cathcart's horse. This appears to have been Sackville's first military commission. His next was in 1740, when he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel of the 28th foot (now 1st Gloucester), of which Major-general Bragg [q. v.] was at the time colonel. In 1741 he was returned to parliament as one of the members for Dover, and sat for that borough in each succeeding parliament up to 1761 (his father being at the time lord warden of the Cinque ports). On 20 April 1743 Bragg's regiment was reviewed by the king at Kew, and at once embarked for Flanders. It does not appear to have been at Dettingen, but Sackville was one of the officers appointed king's aides-de-camp, with the brevet of colonel, a few days after the battle, by an order dated 27 June 1743 (Home Office Mil. Entry Book, xvii. 246). Sackville took part in the succeeding campaigns, and at Fontenoy, 11 May 1745, was shot in the breast at the head of his regiment, which penetrated so far into the enemy's camp that Sackville was laid in the French king's tent to have his wound dressed.