2'>'« S. NO 65., Mab. 28. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



2$t 



manding that reparation of Lord Halifax, and he 

 is represented as contemplating it, when she should 

 become less "saucy." He is described as very 

 much attached. 



The slander upon Newton is what might have 

 been expected. I do not attach any force to the 

 expression " parent," applied to Newton, as prov- 

 ing very great ignorance of the circumstances. 

 If the lady had been called Neuticu instead of 

 Bartica, the word would have certainly shown all 

 the ignorance which can be supposed. But Mrs. 

 Manley knew Catherine Barton's name, and could 

 hardly have taken her for Newton's daughter : 

 unless we suppose that the statement of Halifax's 

 biographer, that she was the widow of Colonel 

 Barton, was current so far back as 1709. I suspect 

 that the word " parent " is used in the French 

 sense, of which I have seen instances. There was 

 much Frenchificatlon (Gallicism is too respectable 

 a word) in the light writings of the time ; and 

 there are instances enough of more than was usual 

 in the writings of Mrs. Manley, who was besides 

 educated in Guernsey. A woman who talks of 

 people " rendering themselves " to a place, and 

 the like, is quite capable of making " parent " 

 mean any near relation. 



It is then established that from 1709 to New- 

 ton's death, the story of Catherine Barton being 

 the mistress of Lord Halifax circulated in edition 

 after edition of a scandalous work, which cer- 

 tainly told truth in some of its stories. And it 

 circulated with a stigma of the most insulting 

 kind attached to the venerable relative whom 

 Catherine Barton most respected, and to whom 

 she was indebted for everything. ]\Ioreover, the 

 scandal was reinforced by the admission of her 

 defender and admirer, the biographer of Halifax, 

 that she lived in the house of Lord Halifax as his 

 housekeeper. But neither when she became the 

 wife of Conduitt, nor when she furnished Fonte- 

 velle with materials for the life of Newton, did the 

 niece make any denial of the facts alleged, directly 

 or indirectly. This is very unlikely, on the suppo- 

 sition that she had never lived in the house of Lord 

 Halifax. And the creation of this improbability 

 is the chief bearing which Mrs. Manley's scandal 

 has upon the evidence. It may be added that 

 Newton never protects the niece who lived with 

 him (as we must assume she did, if the connexion 

 with Halifax be altogether fable) from the imputa- 

 tion by any public act or word : while Lord Hali- 

 fax makes a will at the time when the book is in its 

 highest feather, and seems to try to lend force to 

 its insinuations by ambiguity of terms. What a 

 cluster of improbabilities ! The letter of Newton 

 which I produced in August last (2"'' S. ii. 161.) 

 has, as I expected, created a Lady Halifax in the 

 minds of many persons who could not see the 

 force of the previous case (P* S. viii. 429.). Had 

 all the circumstances, fis now known, beqn brought 



together for the first time, affecting persons about 

 whom no prepossession existed, there would never 

 have been a dissenting voice on the matter. Let 

 us put them together and try. 



There is an uncle, and a niece, and her warm 

 admirer : the third word is as much an admitted 

 fact of the case as either of the other two. The uncle 

 is a high public officer, eminent above all living men 

 by his discoveries, and unusually strict in his pri- 

 vate life. The niece is in London with her uncle 

 thirty years, twenty years of which she lived in his 

 house, as testified by the husband she married after 

 her admirer's death, which husband knew the scan- 

 dalous rumour we presently come to, and knew 

 the importance of being accurate on this point of 

 time, if by accuracy an answer would be implied. 

 For ten years the niece did not live with her 

 uncle. At the beginning of a certain ten years 

 out of the thirty she comes into possession of a 

 very handsome annuity which is held in trust for 

 her by her admirer, and she is put down in her 

 admirer's will for a legacy. Six years afterwards 

 this legacy is cancelled, and a very handsome join- 

 ture, or allowance fully equivalent to a jointure, is 

 substituted ; which allowance is left her in token 

 of the admirer's love for her person and happiness 

 in her conversation ; the admirer being also cog- 

 nisant of the scandalous rumour. The assertion 

 that she is her admirer's mistress, and that her 

 uncle's connivance was purchased by a place under 

 government, is circulated in a profligate work of 

 the time, which is several times printed and much 

 read. On her admirer's death, which takes place at 

 the end of the ten years, a friendly biographer of 

 his meets the scandal by a declaration that she was 

 a virtuous woman, but admits that she lived in his 

 house as " superintendent of his domestic affairs." 

 And on her admirer's "death, the uncle keeps the 

 house till the funeraK, alleging as reasons, first, 

 his concern for the loss of his friend, secondly, the 

 circumstances which related him to the family of 

 that friend. No answer is ever given to the 

 scandal, neither by the uncle nor the admirer on 

 behalf of the lady, nor by the lady herself in de- 

 fence of her uncle when she communicated the 

 facts of his life to a biographer, nor by her ac- 

 knowledged husband of after days, not even in 

 the memoranda which he left on his family history. 

 What conclusion would be drawn from all this, 

 except that there was a private marriage between 

 the niece and her admirer, if the facts now ap- 

 peared for the first time ? The matter, however, 

 is not yet exhausted : more evidence will be found, 

 as the number of those who know the existing 

 facts, and are able to understand allusions, is in- 

 creased by discussion. 



I end this subject with a query. Halifax, in 

 his will, speaks of the happiness he had had in 

 Mrs. C. I3arton's conversation. The original 

 meaning of this word is, as defined by Edward. 



