were all indebted to him for preferment. Pope, however, holds up Halifax's patronage of men of letters to the bitterest scorn in the 'Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot' (lines 231-248)
Proud as Apollo on his forked hill
Sat full-blown Bufo, puff'd by every quill, &c.,
and Swift declares that the only encouragements which Halifax ever gave to learned men were 'good words and good dinners' (Swift, Works, x. 303). Halifax seems, however, to have made some effort to retain Swift's services on the whig side in 1710. 'He was,' says Swift, 'continually teasing me to go to his house,' He went to see him at Hampton Court in October 1710 (Halifax was then ranger of Bushey Park), and the statesman proposed as a toast 'the resurrection of the whigs,' which, Swift remarks, 'I refused, unless he would add their reformation too ; and I told him he was the only whig in England I loved or had any good opinion of' (Journal to Stella). He was the last of Swift's friends among the prominent whigs. The Duchess of Marlborough, in a most unflattering account of his character, spitefully declares 'he was so great a manager 'that when he dined alone' he eat upon pewter for fear of lessening the value of his plate by cleaning it often,' that 'he was a frightful figure, and yet pretended to be a lover, and followed several beauties, who laughed at him for it,' and that 'he was as renowned for ill-breeding as Sir Robert Walpole is' (Private Corr. of the Duchess of Marlborough, ii. 147-8).
He married, in February 1688 (Luttrell, i. 432), Anne, daughter of Sir Christopher Yelverton, hart., of Easton Maudit, Northamptonshire, and widow of Robert, third earl of Manchester [see under Momtagu, Edward, second Earl], by whom he had no issue. His wife died in July 1698. After her death Halifax formed an extraordinary intimacy with Isaac Newton's niece, 'the gay and witty' Catherine Barton. She was the second daughter of Robert Barton of Brigstock, Northamptonshire, by his second wife, Hannah, daughter of the Rev. Barnabas Smith, rector of North Witham, Lincolnshire. Whether the attachment was purely platonic or not it is now impossible to say. The scandal of the day stigmatised her as his mistress. Professor De Morgan, who minutely investigated the subject in 'Newton, his Friend, and his Niece' (1885), came to the conclusion that she was privately married to Halifax. Colonel Chester gives some cogent reasons to show that she was not his wife (Westminster Abbey Registers, p. 354). That she was his mistress it is difficult to believe, seeing that her uncle, whose character is above reproach, must have connived at such an intimacy had it existed. His earldom and viscounty became extinct upon his death, but the barony of Halifax devolved upon his nephew, George Montagu, who was created Viscount Sunbury and Earl of Halifax on 14 June 1715, died in 1739, and was father of George Montagu Dunk, second earl of Halifax of the second creation [q. v.] Halifax acted as chairman of the committees of the House of Lords appointed from time to time to inquire into the state of the records, and is said to have suggested the purchase of the Cotton. MSS. with a view to the formation of a public library. He appears also to have been one of the principal promoters of Rymer's 'Fœdera,' the origin of which has been erroneously attributed to Harley (Hardy, Syllabus of Hymens Fœdera, 1869, i. vii-xiv). His collection of prints, medals, and coins was sold in 1740, and his collection of manuscripts relating to public affairs in 1760. His poems, which have little merit (in spite of Addison's description of their author as 'the greatest of English poets'), were published in a collected form, under the title of 'The Works and Life of the Right Hon. Charles, late Earl of Halifax, including the History of his Lordship's Times,' London, 1715, 8vo ; second edition (with a slightly altered title), London, 1716, 8vo. They are to be found in Chalmers's 'English Poets ' and similar collections. There is a half-length portrait of Halifax by Sir Godfrey Kneller at Trinity College, Cambridge. It has been engraved by Smith (1693), G. Vertue (1710), Vandergucht (1715), T. Faber (1782), Pierre Brevet, and others.
