210 The Ayliffes of Grittenham. 



On aged Tyburn's triple tree 



A victim I was made ; 

 For fear my tongue should blab such truths 



Would make thy Honours fade. 

 But soft — I scent the morning air. 



Brief let me be — then know, 

 1 came to tell thee whence I came 



You soon must also go. 

 Nor all thy Art or wealth can e'er 



Avert the strict decree ; 

 The same base hand that stretch'd my neck. 



Shall do the same for thee. 

 Britannia's drooping sons once rid 



Of thee, and Scottish Pride, 

 Again with joy shall raise their heads 



And Pitt ^ shall be their guide." 

 Here stop't the shade, and quick as thought. 



Dissolved itself in air. 

 And left the troubled Man of State 



O'erwhelm'd with sad despair. 



Henry Fox, Lord Holland, died in 1774 : but Holland House 

 was not even then purified from the bad odour of the Ayliffe case. 

 A Mrs. Elizabeth Harriet Grieve, calling herself the " Hon. Mrs. 

 Grieve,'* a swindler and impostor, had contrived, about the year 

 1773, to make a fool of Lord Holland's son, the well-known Charles 

 James Fox, persuading him that she could introduce a wealthy 

 heiress to him, by whose help he might get out of debt. Some 

 time after, an extraordinary epistle, addressed to C. J. Pox, appeared 

 in the " Westminster Magazine," in which were these lines :— 

 " Am I to hang for looking o'er the gate 



While you the gelding steal, yet ride in state ? 



O Charles, thou vicious culprit of these times. 



Were we rewarded justly for our crimes. 



Many who thrive about a gentle King 



Would in their ribbons upon Tyburn swing : 



^ Created Earl of Chatham afterthe first publication of these verses. 



I 



