558 Notes of the Month on [MAY, 



the thanks of that friend to purity, propriety, and the constitution, his 

 Grace of Wellington, " for his determination to abstain from disturbing 

 pensions, many of which had been well deserved, although a few might 

 have been granted on insufficient grounds." On this the Age justly 

 remarks " As no one doubts his Grace's accuracy of information, or his 

 intimate knowledge of the subject, may we request him to state under 

 which head should the pension granted to Mrs. Harriet Arbuthnot be 

 classed ? Was that pension well deserved ?. or was it granted on insuffi- 

 cient grounds ? We pause for a reply." The sum, as far as we can 

 recollect, was 800 a year ! 800 a year for the services of Mrs. Arbuth- 

 not ! What services, where, to whom ? The pension was given when 

 his Grace was master-general of the Ordnance, and he must be acquainted 

 with the particulars, as a minister ; we say no more. 



Then comes another specimen of the art of pensioning. In a late 

 debate the Duke of Wellington, in order to illustrate his position, that 

 unless a Frst Lord of the Treasury possessed a large private fortune, he 

 must be ruined, in consequence of the heavy expences entailed on him 

 by his situation, stated, amongst other instances, te that the late Mr. Can- 

 ning had been ruined by being in office, and that he (the duke) had 

 proposed a provision for the family of Mr. Canning in consequence." 

 We might, in the first place, dispute the principle. A Secretary of State 

 receives six thousand pounds a year, he has a house rent-free, coals, 

 candles, and a crowd of other matters which make the chief expence of 

 London life. He receives his salary to the hour, and thus has a very 

 great advantage, in point of the power of living within his means, over 

 men even of double his income. But is it not a confession of imbecility 

 to suppose that all the rational, and even shewy expences, to which a man 

 of sense could be compelled in London, might not be defrayed by five 

 hundred pounds a month ? The minister officially gives about four 

 handsome dinners in the year, he may of course give fifty if he likes, 

 and run in debt for them all, or he may choose to flourish and vapour 

 about town in three equipages a day, or keep three establishments, 

 private or notorious, or indulge his favorites with annuities or Opera 

 boxes at the rate of 300 a year each or he may play the fool in any 

 way that vanity or vice tempts him. But what right has he to call upon 

 the public to make up his losses ? However, whether Canning did those 

 things or not, a pension was granted to his widow, whom, of course, we 

 concluded, as thus subsisting on the bounty of the state, to be the 

 " retiring victim of virtuous poverty," as the House of Commons orators 

 say, and to be only anxious to convey her widowhood into some quiet 

 retreat, and there cultivate her virtues. On the contrary, she starts upon 

 us in the following style 



' ' Viscourrtess Canning (who since the death of her distinguished husband has 

 been residing with a branch of her family) has purchased an elegant mansion 

 in Chester-terrace, Regent's park, and took possession of it last week." 



To the lady's purchasing an " elegant mansion," or doing any thing 

 else with her money, we cannot have the least objection ; but we have a 

 very strong objection to our paying for it. And the public have a right 

 to demand from the minister who gave that pension, whether he had 

 ascertained how near the fortune of his predecessor was to ruin when it 

 was given. We cannot comprehend the ruin which allows of the pur- 

 chase of an " elegant mansion" in one of the most expensive parts of 

 London, where such a mansion may cost from twenty to forty thousand 



