covered until 1778, when it was identified as Fielding's by Garrick (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. iii. 364).
After Eton Williams made the grand tour, and on 1 July 1732 married, at St. James's, Westminster, Frances (1709–1781), youngest daughter and eventually sole heiress of Thomas Coningsby of Hampton Court, Herefordshire (he was created Earl Coningsby on 30 April 1719), by his second wife, Frances, daughter and coheiress of Richard Jones, earl of Ranelagh. Williams was elected M.P. for Monmouthshire upon the death of his father in 1734, and continued to represent the county down to 1747. He seconded the address in 1736, voted for the convention in 1739, and held office under Walpole as paymaster of the marine forces from November 1739 until 1742. He was lord lieutenant of Herefordshire from February 1742 down to July 1747, and was created a knight of the Bath on 20 Oct. 1744. He sat for Leominster from 1754 to 1759, having contested it unsuccessfully in 1747. In the house he was a staunch adherent of Sir Robert Walpole, but he was known less as a politician than as a wit and conversationalist; and he was ‘the soul of the celebrated coterie of which the most conspicuous members were Lord Hervey, Thomas Winnington, Horace Walpole, Stephen Fox, and Henry Fox, Lord Holland, with whom in particular he lived in the strictest habits of intimacy and friendship’ (Coxe).
He was from an early date an assiduous student of Pope, and a story is told of a high compliment that he paid to the potency of his satire. He was rowing down the Thames on 3 June 1744 while Pope's body lay at Twickenham previous to burial two days later. Williams pointed to the house, and said to his companion in the words of Falstaff, ‘I am afraid of the gunpowder, Percy, tho' he be dead.’ He began experiments on his own account in light satirical verse about 1739. During that and the following year were privately circulated his amorous songs to ‘Lovely Peggy,’ ‘To Mrs. Woffington,’ and ‘On Mrs. Woffington,’ and his lines to Sir Hans Sloane, who saved his life. In 1740 also appeared his charming occasional verses, entitled ‘Isabella: or the Morning,’ describing a morning call paid by well-known beaux of the day upon the beautiful Duchess of Manchester, and containing a delightful vignette of the superannuated General Churchill, with his interminable story about Oudenarde. During the next two years appeared the series of satires upon Bubb Dodington, and upon various leaders of the opposition to Walpole, but more especially directed against Pulteney. The coarse ode entitled ‘The Country Girl’ (June 1742) wounded Bath to the quick, and fully avenged, in the opinion of Horace Walpole, the attacks which Pulteney had directed against his father (Sir Robert) through the medium of the ‘Craftsman.’ The two ‘Chapters of the Book of Preferment,’ which appeared in 1742 under the title of ‘Lessons for the Day,’ though included afterwards in Williams's collected works, were most probably written, or at least suggested in outline, by Horace Walpole; but to Williams may safely be ascribed the ribald parody entitled ‘Old England's Te Deum,’ addressed to the king, to whom ‘Carteret and Bath continually do cry,’ and continuing ‘The Holy Bench of Bishops throughout the land doth acknowledge thee. Thine honourable true and steady son. Also my Lady Yarmouth the Comforter.’ The satirist's most productive year was probably 1743. In January appeared the very diverting ‘Letter to Mr. Dodsley, Bookseller in Pall Mall,’ proposing a humorous emendation in Young's ‘Night Thoughts’ (ii. 28) at the expense of Lord Wilmington, a model of elegant badinage. This was followed by ‘The Merry Campaign,’ to the tune of ‘Chevy Chase,’ ‘Plain Thoughts in Plain Language,’ and the exceedingly droll dialogue held in ‘Solomon's Porch’ between Samuel Sandys and Edmund Waller (February), followed by ‘Sandys and Jekyll: a New Ballad’ (April), and ‘Peter and My Lord Quidam’ (August), a trenchant satire on legacy-hunters. During 1743 also was handed about his coarse ‘Ode upon the Marriage of the Duchess of Manchester to Edward Hussey’ (afterwards Lord Beaulieu). This was indiscreetly published in 1746, and, though ‘Mr. Hussey bore the severe attack with great forbearance, the Hibernian spirit was roused by the illiberal satire’ conveyed in the lines:
Nature indeed denies them sense;
But gives them legs and impudence
That beats all understanding.
To avoid a succession of duels, Williams prudently retired into Monmouthshire under a well-directed fire of counter lampoons. Years afterwards, when Lord Beaulieu was on a visit to Strawberry, Horace Walpole was disconcerted by the black looks that he cast upon the portrait of his old friend Hanbury Williams in his black-and-gold frame.
In January 1746 Williams's great friend Thomas Winnington died; and by way of distraction he undertook a mission as envoy to the court of Dresden, a step which his
