Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/203

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
LORD JOHN TOWNSHEND
183

named after his father's friend. He took the degree of M.A. at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1816 and died in the following year. Their daughter, Isabella Georgiana Townshend was ill for "three long years" and died on 17 Sept. 1811. Her father wrote some pathetic lines to her memory. They are preserved in BrummeH's notebook, are inscribed on a tablet on the south wall of All Saints church, Hertford, over the pew of the manor of Ball's, and were printed on a fly-sheet which was bound by Archdeacon Wrangham in a volume of poetical and classical effusions now belonging to the British Museum.

Both father and mother were buried in that church at Hertford. The tablet to lord John Townshend contains the words: "For a period little short of thirty years he was the friend and companion of that illustrious patron and statesman, Mr. Fox. A distinction which was the pride of his life and the only one he was anxious might be recorded after his death." Marvellous indeed must have been the fascination of the politician who during long years of exile from office could retain the friendship and the allegiance of nearly every member of the brilliant band which had gathered around him under the brighter auspices of his youth.