By the Rev. W. H. Jones. 383 
He left behind him several sons. The eldest,—Joun,—described 
as of Bishops Cannings, was a man of great abilities and was much 
employed in affairs of State. He was one of the Privy Council and 
Lord Chancellor of Ireland in the reigns of King William III. and 
Queen Anne. He was frequently employed in embassies to Portu- 
gal, and, in 1703, concluded, with the Court of Lisbon, a treaty 
which regulated the trade in wine and was ever afterwards called 
by his name, and considered as a great evidence of his skill in 
negotiation. He represented the Borough of Devizes in five Parlia- 
ments. A monument in Westminster Abbey records that ‘he died 
abroad in the service of his country a.p. 1706.” 
The son of this last named John was a diplomatist even more 
highly distinguished than himself. Srr Pavt Meruven, for some 
years, was ambassador at Madrid. He also acted as envoy at various 
times to the Emperor of Morocco, and the Duke of Savoy. In 1706 
he was appointed one of the Lords of the Admiralty: in 1714 he 
became a Lord of the Treasury and a Privy Counsellor. He rose 
at last in 1716 to the high office of a principal Secretary of State, 
and in 1720 was comptroller of the King’s Household. He was 
installed in 1725 as a Knight of the Bath, and the same year be- 
came Treasurer of the Household, an office which he resigned in a 
few years and passed the remainder of his life in a private station." 
Sir Paul Methuen died unmarried, in the 85th year of his age, 
and was interred near the remains of his father in Westminster 
Abbey. In him ended the male line of John the eldest son of 
‘Paul Methwin of Bradford.’ He bequeathed his valuable col- 
lection of pictures, and considerable estates, to Paul, (the son of 
his first cousin, Thomas Methuen) the purchaser of Corsham House. 
Antuony, the second son of Paul, of Bradford, succeeded to his 
1Tt must be Sir Paul Methuen, who did not die till 1757 (30 Geo. IT.), to 
whom Dr. Doran alludes in the following anecdote ;—‘‘ In the reign of George 
II. there lived a Wiltshire Gentleman named Paul Methuen who had a passion 
for reading the weary dreary novels of his time. Queen Caroline loved to rally 
him on his weakness, and one day asked him what he had last been reading, 
‘May it please your Majesty” said Paul, ‘‘I have been reading a poor book on 
a poor subject, the Kingsand Queens of England.” Lives of the Brunswick 
Queens of England, 
