26 FAMOUS KACmO MEN. 



descendants to be vicious in the extreme, without being degenerate. 

 Those of your grace, for instance, left no distressing examples of 

 virtue even to their legitimate posterity, and you. may look back 

 with pleasure to an illustrious pedigree, in which heraldry has not 

 left a single good quality upon record to insult or upbraid you. You 

 have better proofs of your descent, my lord, than the register of a 

 marriage or any troublesome inheritance of reputation. There are 

 hereditary strokes of character by which a family may be as clearly 

 distinguished as by the blackest features of the human face. 

 Charles I. lived and died a hypocrite ; Charles II. was a hypocrite of 

 another sort, and should have died upon the same scaffold. At the 

 distance of a century we see their different characters happily 

 revived and blended in your grace. Sullen and severe without 

 religion, profligate without gaiety, you live, like Charles II., without 

 being an amiable companion ; and, for aught I know, may die as his 

 father did, without the reputation of a martyr." 



In July, 1769, the duke was installed Chancellor of the University 

 of Cambridge. At the latter end of the same year he caused pro- 

 ceedings to be instituted against a person named Vaughan, who 

 had attempted to corrupt his integrity by an offer of £5,000 for a 

 patent place in Jamaica. The duke's virtue and patriotism on this 

 occasion, in having exposed the bribe and prosecuted the offender, 

 were vaunted and extolled in all quarters by his party and their 

 adherents until, to their deep confusion and the utter dismay of 

 his grace, "Junius" unexpectedly charged him with having some 

 time before sold a patent place in the Customs to a Mr. Hone 

 for the sum of £3,500. There must have been some truth in 

 the charge, for the prosecution against Vaughan was forthwith 

 abandoned. 



Although the duke's administration towards the close of his official 

 career is said to have been exceedingly unpopular, yet the invectives 

 of his anonymous foe were, it is supposed, more instrumental in 

 driving him from power than the angry murmurs of the people, or 

 the coolness displayed towards him by the sovereign, with whom he 

 had ceased to be a favourite. Nor is it surprising that a man even 

 so daring in profligacy, public and private, as the Duke of Grafton is 

 represented — though certainly not proved — to have been by the 

 author of the letters of " Junius," should abandon that conspicuous 

 station which exposed him to the constant repetition of attacks, 

 almost unequalled in severity. The duke passed the remainder of 

 his long life, after his final resignation of office, in comparative re- 

 tirement. He occasionally attended the House of Lords to deliver 

 his sentiments on important questions, and generally voted with the 

 Whigs, but avoided taking any conspicuous part in politics. Early 

 in life he had been suspected of a tendency towards the principles 

 of the Dissenters, and his heterodoxy is said to have become more 

 and more confirmed as he advanced in years. He was fond of field 

 sports and had some relish for literary enjoyment ; but it does not 



