42 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2n<i S. No 107., Jan. 16. '58. 



Choi-us, 

 " But she is cooled and cleansed by streams 

 Of flowing and of ebbing Thames." 



" Though Paris may boast a clearer sky. 

 Yet wanting flows and ebbs of Seine 

 To keep her clean, 

 She ever seems choaked, when she is dry." 



No play should conclude without a moral. It 

 would be difficult to extract a moral from the 

 theatre of the era of the Restoration. 



Let us compare, however, the description of 

 London and of Paris in 1656 with their state in 

 1857. None can deny the progress has been 

 great, both morally and materially. Paris, as re- 

 gards material progress — street improvement — has 

 probably not done much more than London ; but 

 what remains to the Londoner of the proud boast 

 — of flowing and of ebbing Thames ? Pope 

 marks in his Dunciad the increasing pollution of 

 its stream. May we hope the minds of the Me- 

 tropolitan Commission may be open to contrition 

 and to compassion ? S. H. 



THOMAS POTTER. 



In addition to the few particulars furnished by 

 youi; able correspondent D. (2"'' S. iv. 41.), re- 

 specting Thomas Potter, the reputed author of 

 the Essay on Woman, the following biographical 

 notices of this gifted but dissolute statesman may 

 be acceptable to your readers. 



Thomas, second son of John Potter, Archbishop 

 of Canterbury, was a barrister-at-law of the Inner 

 Temple, and Recorder of Bath. He came into 

 parliament at the general election in 1747 for St. 

 Germans, and at that time was Secretary to the 

 Princess of Wales. Horace Walpole, writing to 

 Sir Horace Mann, in November of that year, 

 mentions him as a young man of great promise : — 

 " The world is already matclung him against Mr. 

 Pitt." Lady Hervey, also, has the following no- 

 tice of him in her Letters, p. 110. : "Mr. Potter 

 the lawyer is a second Pitt, I hear, for fluency of 

 words : he spoke well and bitterly, bufe with so 

 perfect an assurance, so unconcerned, so much 

 master of himself, though the first session of his 

 bein^ in parliament, and the first time of his 

 opening his mouth there, that it disgusted more 

 than it pleased." His subsequent career, how- 

 ever, did not correspond with these anticipations. 

 He inherited a very large property from his 

 father, amounting, it was said, to at least 70,000Z. 

 {Oreywille Papers, i, 102.) Nichols informs us 

 that the "Archbishop's younger son, the favourite 

 Jacob, whom he thought more worthy of his es- 

 tate, was highly exceptionable in his moral cha- 

 racter, however distinguished by his abilities; and, 

 in particular, his behaviour, both before and after 

 ninrriage to his first lady. Miss Manningham, 

 whom bis father obliged him to marry, is well 



known and remembered." (^Literary Anecdotes^ 

 i. 178.) This lady died on Jan. 4, 1744 ; and on 

 July 14, 1747, he was married the second time 

 to Miss Lowe of Brightwell, Oxfordshire, with 

 50,000^, 



In 1748, Potter was appointed Secretary to 

 Frederick Prince of Wales, which situation he 

 continued to hold until the Prince's death in 

 1751. At this time he took an active part in the 

 political contests of the day. He was successively 

 member for St. Germans, Aylesbury, and Oak- 

 hampton, and distinguished himself in the debates 

 on the interference of the Duke of Newcastle at 

 the Seaford election, where the Duke had ap- 

 peared at the poll, contrary to the resolution of 

 the House of Commons against peers interfering 

 at elections. His speech was printed in the Lon- 

 don Magazine, and old Horace Walpole published 

 a letter to him upon it. Potter also distinguished 

 himself in a speech on the famous bill for re- 

 moving the assizes from Aylesbury to Bucking- 

 ham, on a contest between the Lord Chief Justice 

 Willes and the Grenvilles. 



On March 20, 1751, Potter opened in an able 

 manner his scheme for an additional duty of two 

 shillings on spirits, to be collected by way of 

 excise. Talking upon his plan for suppressing 

 gin, Potter told a near relative of Sir Robert 

 Walpole, that he would imitate that minister, and 

 expose himself to all the unpopularity of the 

 Excise scheme. When Mr. Fox was told of this 

 speech, he said it put him in mind of Sir Godfrey 

 Kneller, who, when his gardener was cursing him- 

 self, said to him, " God d you ! God d 



kings and princes and great men ; God no d 



such poor fellows as you." A few years before his 

 death Potter held the office of Joint Vice-Trea- 

 surer of Ireland, and Paymaster of the Forces. 



William Cole, the Cambridge antiquary, has 

 preserved among his MS. collections the following 

 particulars of the death and funeral of Potter 

 (Addit. MS. 5831. p. 182.). Plis friend, Mr. Wil- 

 liamson, informed him that 



" Abp. Potter left his second sou, Thomas Potter, Esq., 

 100,000/., as it is said. He is a man of great parts, and 

 makes no inconsiderable figure in the Parliament house, 

 and by opposing the Government which raised his father, 

 who raised his estate, has now got some of the best posts 

 under it. He is a sickly man, and does not seem to be in 

 a capacity of enjoying the beauties of his gardens at 

 Ridgmont, near Woburn, in Bedfordshire, where he has 

 planned out as fine walks as any in the kingdom. This 

 place he had by his wife. His father made a purchase of 

 tiie estate of iloughton-Conquest in Bedfordshire; but 

 that being in a very dirty clay soil, he chose to live at 

 Ridgmont, though very much confined both in house and 

 property — the Duke of Bedford coming up close to his 

 garden. On which account he was telling in a pleasant 

 way to some of his friends at his table, ' that he believed 

 his father would have made a purchase in hell, so that he 

 could have done it on good terms.' And when one of the 

 company observed to him, • That that was rather an odd 

 kind of place for an archbishop and primate to purchase 



