Anne, Lord Privy Seal, and Lord President of the Council, as he has told us on the marble tablet in Burton Church, which records the removal of the bones of his ancestors from Owston. The valour and intrepidity of the noble Earl in the famous sea-fight in Sold or Southwold bay, was the first step which led to these distinguished honours, where he served as a volunteer in a ship commanded by the Earl of Ossory. This cannot be related better than in his own words. "Our scouts having been negligent, De Ruyter with his. whole fleet surprised ours in Southwold bay, so that weighing anchor in great haste we had much to do to defend ourselves from their fire-ships. De Ruyter himself was seen to go nobly in a boat from ship to ship to direct and animate his men, ordering all his ships to attack our great ones, which not being much above twenty were hard put to it by so great a number of theirs.

Yet

The Procession of State from his chamber to the place of interment.

Yet the enemy had no success to boast of, except the burning of our royal James, which having on board her not only a thousand of our best men, but the Earl of Sandwich himself, Vice-Admiral of England, was enough almost. to style it a victory on their side, since his merits as to sea affairs was most extraordinary in all kinds. He dined in Mr. Digby's ship the day before the battle, when nobody dreamt of fighting, and showed a gloomy discontent so contrary to his usual cheerful humour, that even then all took notice of it, but much more afterwards.

"The enemy was also once master of the royal Katherine, and had sent away her Captain, Sir John Chicheley, with most of her men, to be kept pri-: soners in the other ships, a few only remaining there, whom they stowed under hatches, with a guard over them; but the boatswain being among them with his whistle encouraged the rest to knock down all the sentinels first, and then to fall on the Dutch above deck, by which brisk action they redeemed that considerable ship. He was a non-conformist, always sober, meek, and quiet, and very often gave me an image of those enthusiastic people who did such brave things in our late civil war; for he seemed rather a shepherd than a soldier, and was a kind of hero in the shape of a saint.

"But the Duke of York himself had the noblest share in this day's action; for when his ship was so maimed as to be incapable of service, he made her lie by to refit, and went on board another which was hotly engaged, where he kept up his standard till she was disabled also, and then left her to renew the fight which lasted from break of day until sun-set. I then found by experience in this engagement how much there is of custom in the matter of courage, which makes old troops so formidable; for in the morning when the enemy's great shot came on both sides of us, I thought it impossible to escape without loosing a limb at least, and was accordingly pretty uneasy; but in the afternoon when the broadsides came only one way, though without interruption, I began to grow a little less sensible of the danger, which yet I was glad to see ended at night. By that time I was very sufficiently tired, but yet had much adó to sleep by reason of the noise still sounding. in my ears, which remained so for some hours, just as if the shooting had still continued.

"As

"As soon as I came to London, I found by my reception every where that my Lord Ossory's kind and partial letters had arrived there before me; for the King made me some particular compliments, and offered me the choice of commanding the Henry or the royal Katherine; and since I had been so fond of a troop of horse, it was no wonder now I was extremely pleased with the command of a royal ship, better in all respects than my Lord Ossory's, and of a rate above what I could have pretended to: for when he who was much more considerable on all accounts had only a third rate ship granted him at first, whereas the Katherine was then the best of all the second rates."

Hume says, in his History of England, that the loss sustained by the fleets of these two maritime powers was nearly equal. When night came on the Dutch retired, and were not followed by the English.

The Earl acquiesced in the revolution of 1688, though he did not promote it. There was once a design of associating him in the invitation of the Prince of Orange; but the Earl of Shrewsbury discouraged the attempt, by declaring that Mulgrave would never concur. This King William afterwards told him; and asked him what he would have done if the proposal had been made; "Sir," said he, "I would have discovered it to the King whom I then served.” To which King William replied, "I cannot blame you." Still, however, owing to the King's distrust or his own discontent he lived some years without employment. He was at last, however, brought to Court by the promise of a Marquis's title, a pension of £3000, a seat at the Council Board, and a participation of the Cabinet. King William kept the three first parts of his promise, but broke the last, that of a seat in the Cabinet. Upon this the Marquis wrote him the following letter, which was found by Sir John Dalrymple, in that Monarch's box after his death. It is too interesting not to be admitted here, because the reader will hardly know which most to admire, the spirit of an English nobleman who durst write such a letter to his Sovereign, or the generosity of the Sovereign who could forgive it,

The

The Marquis of Normanby to King William.

London, June 19th, 1694.

I beg your majesty's pardon once more for troubling you on so trifling a subject as myself, though I must own a sacred promise from a King is of no small importance. But the occasion of my approaching your Majesty again this way, after I held myself obliged to take my leave humbly for ever, is a discourse I had the honour to have with the Queen yesterday, by which I find all my just grievances capable of being redressed in one word from your Majesty, that I should meet with the Keeper, President, Privy Seal, and Secretaries when they were assembled. Now, Sir, this very way of meeting was my own proposal to your Majesty, when you were pleased to advise with me about those methods, and when you were pleased to consider me so much more assiduous than the White Staffs, as to leave them out at the same time, which I neither did nor do desire, but only that I should not suffer on their account by any exclusion plainly contrary to your promise, as well as to the reason and nature of business; for how is it possible to advise the Queen without being acquainted with all things, and with the letters communicated to that meeting? I did take upon me to propose that some more probable attempt should be made immediately on the French, and not to let forty ships and six thousand men lie idle; but when the Queen asked me, how could I answer without being so well informed as others are? For though I believe very good proposals may be made, such as it were a shame to let slip, yet till I have the same knowledge as others, that which may seem to me now reasonable, may for ought I know be ridiculous and impracticable. Thus you see the inconvenience of the present method, which yet I submit to, if not excluded out of it; since it is a real Cabinet without the name, nay, called so generally now, and there was no other in all the late King's time, out of which too the Privy Seal, Lord Anglesea, was ever excluded; so that it does not now go according to places, since he is in without having a right, while I am out to whom your Majesty assured it most solemnly and frequently once I remember with this expression, that we were composed

posed better than formerly, and persons who would at least draw together in your business; whereas now, instead of that, I cannot be thought one who draws, but one who is dragged behind every body else. Your Majesty is and ought to be master to use me as you please: but I beg leave to say, with all due submission, that this usage if continued is not only below so great a King to impose, but is even below me, the meanest of your Majesty's subjects, to acquiese in, further than patience and my duty oblige me. I am, Sir,

Your Majesty's most obedient

Subject and Servant,

NORMANBY.

This distinguished nobleman was not only a great warrior and statesman, but also, if we may credit the account given of him in the General Dictionary, an author of considerable talent, and a great encourager of learning. But Walpole, in his Catalogue of Noble Authors, says, that the pious relict of the Duke was always purchasing places for him, herself, and their son, in every suburb in the temple of fame, a tenure of which against all others quo warrantos are sure to take place; and Dr. Johnson, in the Lives of the Poets, expresses a similar opinion. "If we credit the testimonies of his cotemporaries he is a poet of no vulgar rank. But favour and flattery are now at an end, criticism is now no longer softened by his bounties or awed by his splendour, and being able to take a more steady view, discovers him to be a writer which sometimes glimmers, but rarely shines; feebly laborious, and at the best but pretty. His songs are upon common topics: he hopes and grieves, repents and despairs and rejoices, like any other maker of little stanzas. To be great he hardly tries; to be gay is hardly in his his Essay on Satire he was always supposed to have had the help of Dryden. His Essay on Poetry was the great work for which he was praised by Roscommon, Dryden, and Pope, and doubtless by many more whose eulogies have perished."

power. In

His Grace married three wives, all of them widows;-first, Ursula, daugh

ter