Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/59

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Lady Hester Stanhope.
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CHAPTER II.

Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs—The three duchesses—Anecdote of Mr. Rice—How Prime Ministers are employed on first taking office—The Grenville make—P———of W———at Stowe—Mr. Pitt and Mr. Sheridan—Duke of H————Mr. Pitt’s disinterestedness exemplified—His life wasted in the service of his country—Mr. Rose—Mr. Long—Mr.————Grounds at Walmer laid out by Lady Hester—Mr. Pitt’s deportment in retirement—His physiognomy—How he got into debt—Lord Carrington; why made a peer—Extent of Mr. Dundas’s influence over Mr. Pitt—Mr. Pitt averse to ceremony—Mr. Pitt and his sister Harriet—His dislike to the Bourbons—Lady Hester’s activity at Walmer—Lord Chatham’s indolence—Mr. Pitt's opinion of Sir Arthur Wellesley.

On leaving Marseilles, in 1837, I ordered Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs to be sent after me to Syria, thinking that, as relating to Mr. Pitt’s times, and to people and politics with whom and in which both he and she had mixed so largely, these memoirs could not fail to amuse her. I received them soon after my arrival at Jôon, and many rainy days