428 Notes of the Month on [Oct, 



Lords Charles and Robert Manners, Lord Forrester, and the Messrs. 

 Norman, her grace's grandsons. The jointure of her grace, amounting 

 to £7,000 per annum, reverts to the present duke." 



The duchess, fifty years ago, was confessedly the handsomest woman 

 in England, which is equivalent to sa3nng that she was the handsomest 

 woman in the world. She lost her husband, while she was in the bloom 

 of life, and she yet remained a widow ; with a character unstained, with 

 the respect of the world following her to the last hour, and with the 

 more singular female distinction, of beauty, scarcely touched by time. 



Another instance of prosperous years, though in the hazards of a 

 peculiarly hazardous profession, has lately been brought into public 

 notice by the peerage of Sir James Saumarez : — " Baron de Sau- 

 marez, whose important naval services and general unostentatious merits 

 fairly entitle him to the honours of the peerage, which it has been un- 

 derstood is the spontaneous gift of the king, was passed over at the 

 coronation of his late majesty. His lordship was made a baronet in 

 1801, on the occasion of his celebrated victory over the Spanish fleet. 

 The noble lord has since obtained the highest honours of his profession, 

 having been rewarded with the distinguished appointment of Vice- 

 Admiral of Great Britain, and the Grand Cross of the Bath, with which 

 he was invested in 1C02. The venerable peer is far advanced in years, 

 having completed his seventy-fourth year. The Honourable and Rev. 

 James Saumarez, the incumbent of a living in Devonshire, is the noble 

 lord's eldest son and heir apparent." 



His being passed over at the late king's coronation, was understood 

 to arise from no intentional neglect, but from some difficulty as to the 

 pension usually given to the naval peers. He had proudly earned his 

 rank. He was one of the pillars of the naval throne of England, and 

 late as the honour has arrived, long may the great warrior wear the 

 coronet that he has so long deserved ! 



What is life, even the life of a licenser, but vanity ? as the wisest of 

 kings said. What is it but the subsidence from the saddle into the easy 

 chair, from the flask of Champagne into the pint of old Port, from 

 the wit into the story-teller, from the poet into the proser, from the 

 graces into the gout, from the man into the " slippered pantaloon," 

 from the playwright into the licenser, from the jovial denizen of the 

 King's Bench into the ultra-prim prig of the king's ultra-pay, from 

 the spruce manager of the play-house into the lieutenant of the band 

 of gentlemen-pensioners, and from the lieutenant into nothing ! The 

 licenser has just disposed of the commission which entitled him to draw 

 some hundreds a year, for the laborious and heroic duty of wearing a 

 coat with ten pounds' v/eight of tinsel on it, half a dozen times a year. 

 Report says, that somebody has been found generous enough, or by 

 whatever other name such transactions designate the payer, to give 

 him £6000 for the honour of wearing the coat — a bargain with which 

 old George is understood to be peculiarly well pleased. 



Then he has got rid of his licenser-ship too, though we have not 

 heard the terms. So thus old George is now completely sinecured to all 

 intents and purposes, and left to cultivate his virtues undisturbed by 

 the cai-es of this world. Which of the biographers is to have the 

 honour of delivering him down to posterity .'' Why not make the ex- 

 periment himself .'' His " Random Recollections," were, we must ac- 



