Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/220

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Carteret
214
Carteret

his infallibility, still it remains that we should be equally convinced before we can resign our understandings to his direction, or join with him in the measure he proposes' (Ann. Reg. 1761, p. 44). To the last he maintained his keen interest in foreign affairs. Robert Wood, in his 'Essay on the original Genius of Homer' (1769, pp. i, ii), relates that, 'being directed to call upon his lordship a few days before he died with the preliminary articles of the Treaty of Paris, I found him so languid, that I proposed postponing my business for another time; but he insisted that I should stay, observing that it could not prolong his life to neglect his duty, and repeated the following passage out of Sarpedon's speech, with particular emphasis on the third line, by which he alluded to the conspicuous part he had acted in public life (Ώ πέπον, κ.τ.λ. Π. xii. 322-8). His lordship then recovered spirits enough to hear the treaty read, and to declare the warm approbation of a dying statesman (I use his own words) on the most glorious war, and most honourable peace, this nation ever saw.' Lord Granville died at Bath on 2 Jan. 1763, in the seventy-third year of his age, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on the 11th of the same month in General Monck's vault, in Henry VII's chapel. He married twice. His first wife, Frances, the only daughter of Sir Robert Worsley, bart., of Appuldercombe, Isle of Wight, to whom he was married at Longleat on 17 Oct. 1710, died at Hanover on 20 June 1743. On 14 April 1744 he married Lady Sophia Fermor, the second daughter of Thomas, first earl of Pontefract. His second wife, who is described by Lady M. W. Montagu as having 'few equals in beauty or graces' (The Letters and Works of Lady M. W. Montagu, 1837, ii. 376), died of fever on 7 Oct. 1745 in her twenty-fifth year, a few weeks after the birth of her daughter Sophia, who afterwards became the wife of William, second earl of Shelburne. By his first marriage Granville had three sons and five daughters. He was succeeded by his only surviving son Robert, who died without issue in 1776, when the titles became extinct. The barony of Carteret was re-created in 1784 in the person of one of Lord Granville's grandsons, Henry Frederick, the younger son of his daughter Louisa and Thomas, second viscount Weymouth, who had succeeded to the Carteret estates on the death of his uncle Robert. This barony again became extinct upon the death of John Thynne, third lord Carteret, in 1849. The correspondence and papers of the first earl Granville were presented to the British Museum by the late Lord John Thynne in 1858 (Addit. MSS. 22511-45). Though his career was, on the whole, unsuccessful, he possessed the very highest reputation for ability among his contemporaries, and it is from their representations alone that we are able to judge of his character, as we have no authentic record of his speeches, and, with the exception of some despatches, he left no writings behind him. According to Lord Chesterfield, 'Lord Granville had great parts, and a most uncommon share of learning for a man of quality. He was one of the best speakers in the House of Lords, both in the declamatory and the argumentative way. He had a wonderful quickness and precision in seizing the stress of a question, which no art, no sophistry, could disguise to him. In business he was bold, enterprising, and overbearing. He had been bred up in high monarchical, that is, tyrannical principles of government, which his ardent and imperious temper made him think were the only rational and practicable ones. He would have been a great first minister of France-little inferior, perhaps, to Richelieu; in this government, which is yet free, he would have been a dangerous one, little less so, perhaps, than Lord Stafford. He was neither ill-natured nor vindictive, and had a great contempt for money; his ideas were all above it. In social life he was an agreeable, good-humoured, and instructive companion, a great but entertaining talker. He degraded himself by the vice of drinking, which, together with a great stock of Greek and Latin, he brought away with him from Oxford, and retained and practised ever afterwards. By his own industry he had made himself master of all the modern languages, and had acquired a great knowledge of the law. His political knowledge of the interest of princes and of commerce was extensive, and his notions were just and great. His character may be summed up in nice precision, quick decision, and unbounded presumption' (The Letters of the Earl of Chesterfield, 1845, ii. 456). The description which the same writer drew of him in the first number of 'Old England' is not, however, so flattering, but it should be borne in mind that this was written in the heat of political strife (ib. v. 233). Of the five great men who, in Horace Walpole's opinion, lived in his time, 'Lord Granville was most a genius of the five; he conceived, knew, expressed what he pleased' (Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George II, 1846, iii. 85). Chatham himself, in the House of Lords, some seven years after Granville's death, said that 'in the upper departments of government he had not his equal, and I feel a pride in declaring that to his patronage, to his friendship, and instruc-