117 



TOWNSHEND, RIGHT HON. CHARLES. 



TOWNSON, THOMAS, D.D. 



118 



leader. "C. T., with all hia cordiality, fixes conditions to his good 

 will : 'confidence and the cabinet' were the words a little while ago; 

 now ho wishes to be useful, and the way in which ho cim be so most is 

 as leader of the House. I closed at once, with the addition that he 



should then be secretary of state too To-day I have privately 



heard that he bos said in a letter that things were changed since he 

 refused." (' The Companion to the Newspaper,' 1835, p. 365, where 

 there are several extracts from Couway's unpublished letters.) Towns- 

 hend, who carried his vacillation into his public conduct, and the 

 effect of whose brilliant talents has been lessened, both for his time 

 and for posterity, by the versatility of his politics, now supported the 

 repeal of the Stamp Act, which he had helped the previous session to 

 introduce. Shortly after the formation of the Rockingham adminis- 

 tration, he had been detained in the country by illness, which many 

 supposed to be a cloak for dissatisfaction with the new arrangements, 

 and with the position in which he found himself. A pleasant news- 

 paper skit upon this circumstance has been preserved by Lord 

 Chesterfield (' Letters,' vol. iv., p, 263) : " We hear that the Right 

 Honourable Charles Townshend is indisposed, at his house, in Oxford- 

 shire, of a pain in his side ; but it is not said in which side." 



The Rockingham administration died in July 1766, "having lasted," 

 as Burke has chronicled it, in his 'Short Account of a late Short 

 Administration,' "just one year and twenty days." In the new admi- 

 nistration formed by Pitt, now created Lord Chatham, Townshend 

 was chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. 

 There had been difficulty, .as before, in prevailing upon him to give up 

 his lucrative post of paymaster : he first said he would do so, and then 

 said he would not ; but the firmness of Lord Chatham kept him to his 

 first statement. The letters which passed on the subject between 

 Lord Chatham, the Duke of Grafton, the king, and Townshend, may 

 be seen in the 'Chatham Correspondence,' vol. iii., pp, 458-63. 



The course of this Chatham administration is well known. Lord 

 Chatham was soon too ill to transact any business or exercise any con- 

 trol over his colleagues, who quarrelled with one another, and among 

 whom Townshend was looked upon as presuming and contumacious. 

 Townshend insisted,- as chancellor of the exchequer, on a tax being 

 laid on the American ports. If this were not done, he declared, the 

 Duke of Graftou wrote to Lord Chatham, March 13, 1767, "he would 

 not remain chancellor of the exchequer." " His behaviour on the 

 whole," adds the duke, " was such as no cabinet will, I am confident, 

 submit to." (' Chatham Correspondence,' vol. iii., p. 232.) And on the 

 eame day Lord Shelburne writes to Lord Chatham, " I was surprised 

 at Mr. Townshend's conduct, which really continues excessive on every 

 occasion, till I afterwards understood in conversation that he declared 

 he knew of Lord North's refusal, and from himself. .... It appears 

 to me quite impossible that Mr. T. can mean to go on in the king's 

 service." (Id., p. 235.) The policy of Townshend prevailed, and on 

 the 2nd of June he introduced into the House of Commons those 

 unfortunate resolutions imposing duties upon glass, paper, tea, and 

 certain other articles imported into America, which rekindled rebel- 

 lion in the colonies, and eventually led to their separation from the 

 mother-country. This was done under the nominal premiership of 

 Lord Chatham, the determined opponent of American taxation, but 

 who was now kept by illness aloof from business, and had not been 

 consulted. Soon the necessity of constructing a new administration 

 with an efficient head was perceived, and a negociation between the 

 Marquis of Rockingham, the Duke of Bedford, and the Duke of New- 

 castle having failed, it was understood that Charles Townshend was 

 to be entrusted with the formation of a ministry. When the highest 

 power in the state was then just within his grasp, he was suddenly 

 carried away by a putrid fever, on the 4th of September 1767. 



The talents and character of Charles Townshend have been embalmed 

 in a splendid passage in Mr. Burke's celebrated speech on American 

 taxation. The orator had already passed in review Mr. Grenville and 

 his Stamp Act, and the repeal of that act during Lord Rockingham's 

 ministry, and having come to Lord Chatham's administration, and the 

 policy of Charles Townsheud, so abhorrent to the tenor of Lord Chat- 

 ham's principles, he proceeds : " For even then, sir, even before this 

 splendid orb was entirely set, and while the western horizon was in a 

 blaze with his descending glory, on the opposite quarter of the 

 heavens arose another luminary, and for his hour became lord of the 

 ascendant. This light too is passed and set for ever. You understand, 

 to be sure, that I speak of Charles Townshend, officially the repro- 

 ducer of the fatal scheme, whom I cannot even now remember without 

 some degree of sensibility. lu truth, sir, he was the delight and orna- 

 ment of this House, and the charm of every private society which he 

 honoured with his presence. Perhaps there never arose in this 

 country, nor in any country, a man of a more pointed and finished 

 wit, and (where his passions were not concerned) of a more refined, 

 exquisite, and penetrating judgment. If he had not so great a stock 

 as some have had, who flourished formerly, of knowledge long 

 treasured up, he knew better by far than any man I ever was 

 acquainted with how to bring together within a short time all that 

 was necessary to establish, to illustrate, and to decorate that side of the 

 question he supported. He stated his matter skilfully and powerfully. 

 He particularly excelled in a most luminous explanation and display 

 of his subject. His style of argument was neither trite and vulgar nor 

 subtle and abstruse. He hit the House just between wind and water; 



and not being troubled with too anxious a zeal for any matter in 

 question, he was never more tedious or more earnest than the precon- 

 ceived opinions and present temper of his hearers required, to whom 

 he was always in perfect unison. He conformed exactly to the 

 temper of the House ; and he seemed to guide, because he was always 



sure to follow it There are many young members in the House 



(such of lato has been the rapid succession of public men) who never 

 saw that prodigy Charles Townshend, nor of course know what a 

 ferment he was able to excite in everything by the violent ebullition of 

 his mixed viitues and failings, for failings he had undoubtedly ; many 

 of us remember them ; we are this day considering the effect of them. 

 But lie had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause ; to an 

 ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame ; a passion 

 which is the instinct of all great souls. He worshipped that goddess 

 wheresoever she appeared ; but he paid his particular devotions to her 

 in her favourite habitation, in her chosen temple, the House of Com- 

 mons He was truly the child of the House. He never thought, 



did, or said anything, but with a view to you. He every day adapted 

 himself to your disposition, and adjusted himself before it as at a 

 looking-glass." 



Townshend had married Caroline, the daughter and heiress of John, 

 second Duke of Argyll and Greenwich, and widow of the Earl of Dal- 

 keith, eldest son of the Duke of Buccleuch. Just before his death, 

 while his Influence was in the ascendant, he obtained for his wife the 

 title of Baroness Greenwich. Townshend selected Adam Smith as 

 tutor and travelling companion for his step-sou the young Duke of 

 Buccleuch [SMITH, ADAM], having been first led to this choice, we 

 are informed by a letter of Mr. Hume's, by his admiration of the 

 ' Theory of Moral Sentiments.' 



TOWNSON, THOMAS, D.D., was the eldest son of the Rev. John 

 Townson, rector of Much Lees, in Eesex, where he was born in 1715. 

 After the usual preparatory education, conducted partly at home, 

 partly at school, he was sent to the University of Oxford, where he 

 was entered a commoner of Christchurch in March 1733. In July 

 1735 he was elected a demy (or scholar) of Magdalen College; in 1736 

 he was admitted to the degree of B.A. ; in 1737 he was elected a 

 Fellow of Magdalen; and in June 1739 he commenced M.A. In 

 December 1741 he was ordained deacon, and in September 1742, 

 priest, by Dr. Seeker, bishop of Oxford. Immediately after this lie 

 set out, accompanied by Mr. Dawkins, Mr. Drake, and Mr. Houlds- 

 worth, on a tour through Italy, Germany, and Holland, from which he 

 did not return till 1745. Having resumed his residence at the uni- 

 versity, he was in 1746 presented by his college to the living of 

 Hatfield Peverell, in Essex, which he retained till 1749, when he 

 resigned it on being presented by Sir Walter Wagstaffe Bagot, Bart., 

 to the rectory of Blithfield in Staffordshire. This year he was senior 

 proctor of the university ; soon after his quitting which office he was 

 admitted to the degree of B.D. He resigned his fellowship in January 

 1751, on being instituted to the living of the lower mediety of Malpas, 

 in Cheshire, to which he was presented by his friend Mr. Drake, but 

 which he did not accept without some reluctance, arising principally 

 from his unwillingness to leave Oxford. 



In 1758, having received, under the will of the Rev. William Bar- 

 croft, rector of Fairsted and vicar of Kelvedon in Essex, a bequest of 

 above 8000, together with his library, he resigned Blithfield, and 

 having now more leisure, he began to apply himself with greater assi- 

 duity to literary pursuits in connection with his profession. The first 

 work which he finished was an Exposition of the Apocalypse, which 

 however was never printed. His first publication was an anonymous 

 pamphlet, entitled ' Doubts concerning the Authenticity of the last 

 Publication of the Confessional, addressed to [Dr. Blackburne] the 

 author of that learned Work,' 8vo, 1767. This was followed in 176S 

 by 'A Defence' of the 'Doubts,' and by another pamphlet entitled 

 ' A Dialogue between Izaac Walton and Homologistes ; in which the 

 Character of Bishop Sanderson is defended against the Author of the 

 Confessional.' 



In 1768 he made a second tour to the Continent with Mr. Drake's 

 eldest son, Mr. William Drake, of Brasenose College. In 1778 he pub- 

 lished his principal work, his ' Discourses on the Four Gospels,' 4 to, 

 which immediately attracted great attention ; and in testimony of the 

 merit of which the University of Oxford conferred upon the author in 

 February 1779 the degree of D.D. by diploma. A German translation 

 of this work appeared at Leipzig, in 2 vols. Svo, in 1783. lu 17^0 

 Dr. Porteus, then bishop of Chester, bestowed upon Dr. Towuson the 

 archdeaconry of Richmond. In 1783 the divinity chair at Oxford was 

 offered to him by Lord North, the chancellor, but his advanced time 

 of life induced him to decline accepting it. He died April 15, 1792. 



Dr. Townson's collected works were published in 2 vols. Svo in 

 1810, under the care of Mr. (afterwards Archdeacon) Chmrton, together 

 with a Memoir of the author, from which the above facts arc extracted. 

 In addition to the productions that have been mentioned above, this 

 collection contains some single sermons, and a portion of a treatise on 

 the Resurrection, entitled ' A Discourse on the Evangelical Histories 

 of the Resurrection and First Appearance of our Lord and Saviour 

 Jesus Christ,' a few copies of which, in 4to, had been printed by the 

 author in 1784, and distributed among his friends. Dr. Townson was 

 as highly distinguished by the virtues of his private character as for 

 his professional learning and ability. 



