latterly, as Sir Joshua Reynolds told me, an affected insincere man, and a great coxcomb in his dress. He had no literature whatever; and was so ignorant even of English history that, when he was employed in publishing three volumes of Swift’s letters, the Bishop of Salisbury (as he told me) could not make him comprehend the difference between Lord Oxford and Lord Orford.
The Marquis of Halifax left behind him very curlous memoirs of his own time. He kept a register every day of all the conversations he had with Charles II. and other persons. The loss, therefore, of this work by one who appears to have been an accurate observer of character is to be much lamented. He left two copies of it; one of them remained in the hands of [blank], by whom it was destroyed; the other came into the hands of Lady Burlington, who was persuaded by Pope to destroy it.—(From Lord Orford, March 26th, 1793.)
Sir John Germain was a mere soldier of fortune, who came to England from the Low Countries, and made his fortune by wives. He first married the Duchess of Norfolk, and after her death (1705) he married the celebrated Lady Betty Berkeley, sister of Earl Berkeley. He was so extremely ignorant that he thought St. Matthew’s Gospel was written by Sir Matthew Decker. Lord Orford once asked Lady Viscountess Fitzwilliam, who was Sir Matthew’s daughter, whether this strange story was true. She was a very cautious, prudent woman, spoke very slow,
