Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/22

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Howard
16
Howard

strictions of the Prince of Wales's authority, and continued to act in opposition to Pitt's ministry until the outbreak of the French revolution. On 26 Dec. 1792, 'though not accustomed to agree with the present administration,' he supported the third reading of the Alien Bill (ib. xxx. 164), and in February 1793 declared that he entertained no doubt 'of the necessity and justice of the war with France' (ib. xxx. 324). On 12 June 1793 he was invested with the order of the Garter, and in May 1794 defended the Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill 'as being essential to the safety of the constitution' (ib.xxxi. 597). On 26 Feb. 1799 he was reappointed lord-lieutenant of the East Riding (London Gazettes, p.191), and in March of that year spoke in favour of the union with Ireland (Parl. Hist. xxxiv. 710-11). In January 1811 he supported Lord Lansdowne's amendment to the first regency resolution, contending that by imposing any limitation and restriction 'the country could only draw the conclusion that there was a suspicion that the Prince of Wales would make an improper use of the power' (Parl. Debates, xviii. 692-3, 747). In March 1815 he both spoke and voted against the third reading of the Corn Bill, and with Grenville and nine other peers entered a protest on the journals against it (ib. xxx. 261, 263-5). From this date Carlisle appears to have retired from public life and to have taken no further part in the debates of the House of Lords. He died at Castle Howard on 4 Sept. 1825 in his seventy-eighth year.

Carlisle married, on 22 March 1770, Lady Margaret Caroline Leveson-Gower, daughter of Granville, first marquis of Stafford, by whom he had four sons and three daughters. His wife died on 27 Jan. 1824, and he was succeeded in his honours by his eldest son, George Howard (1773-1848) [q. v.] At Castle Howard there are three portraits of Carlisle by Sir Joshua Reynolds, as well as others by Hoppner and Jackson. In the first volume of Cadell's ' British Gallery of Contemporary Portraits there is an engraving by H. Meyer after the portrait by Hoppner. Two other engravings are referred to in Bromley's 'Catalogue.'

In 1798 Carlisle was appointed by the court of chancery guardian of Lord Byron, who was his first cousin once removed. He undertook the charge with much reluctance, and interfered little in the management of his ward. The second edition of Byron's 'Hours of Idleness' was dedicated to Carlisle 'by his obliged ward and affectionate kinsman, the author.' Enraged, however, by Carlisle's refusal to take any trouble in introducing him to the House of Lords, Byron erased from his 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' which was then going through the press, the complimentary couplet

On one alone Apollo deigns to smile,
And crowns a new Roscommon in Carlisle,

and substituted the bitter attack commencing with the lines,

No muse will cheer with renovating smile
The paralytic puling of Carlisle.

Though no formal reconciliation ever took place between them, Byron afterwards made a handsome apology while referring to the death of Carlisle's third son, Frederick, at Waterloo, in the third canto of 'Childs Harold' (stanzas xxix. xxx.) Carlisle was a liberal patron of the fine arts, with a cultivated mind, polished manners, and a taste for writing poetry. He purchased a large part of the Orleans gallery, and was one of the pall-bearers at Sir Joshua Reynolds' funeral. His literary work was praised both by Johnson and Horace Walpole. The former in a letter to Mrs. Chapone, dated 28 Nov 1783, declares, in reference to 'The Father's Revenge,' that 'of the sentiments I remember not one that I wished omitted … with the characters, either as conceived or preserved I have no fault to find' (Boswell, Johnson iv. 247-8); while the latter, in a letter to the Countess of Ossory, dated 4 Aug. 1788 says of the same tragedy that ' it has great merit; the language and imagery are beautiful, and the two capital scenes are very fine (Walpole, Letters, viii. 394). Several of Carlisle's letters are printed in Jesse's 'George Selwyn and his Contemporaries,' and in Lord Auckland's 'Journal and Correspondence.' Those to George Selwyn, with whom he was very intimate, are bright and lively, and 'rouse a regret that the writer did not devote himself to a province of literature in which he might have been mentioned with Walpole, instead of manufacturing poetry which it was flattery to compare with Roscommon's' (Sir G. O. Trevelyan, Early History of Charles James Fox, p.59). Several of Carlisle's poetical pieces appeared in 'The New Foundling Hospital for Wit,' 1784 (i. 7-22), 'The Asylum for Fugitive Pieces,' 1785 (i. 28-9, iv. 17-21), and in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' (1804, pt. ii. p.954, 1821. pt. ii. pp. 457-8), all of which, with the exception of the last piece, were included in one or other of his collections.

Carlisle was the author of the following:

  1. 'Poems, consisting of the following pieces viz.: i. Ode … upon the Death of Mr. Gray. ii. For the Monument of a favourite Spaniel,' &c., London, 1773, 4to; 2nd edition, London,