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Our own history shews, that his spirit was always very high, and his temper very violent. During the time that he was prime minister of Spain, colonel Stanhope, afterwards lord Harrington, the English envoy, carried him a list of the ships of his country that were then before Barcelona, and would act against it, if he persisted in his endeavours to enioroil the peace of Europe, by arming the Porte against the Emperor, and by making the Czar and the king of Sweden go to war with England, in order to establish the Pretender upon the English throne. Alberoni snatched the paper which contained the numbers out of the envoy’s hands, and, according to the continuator of Rapin’s history, threw it on the ground with much passion. Mr. Seward, from whose “Anecdotes of distinguished Persons” we have taken the principal part of this article, says, that he tore it in a thousand pieces. Col. Stanhope, nothing abashed, went on coolly with the thread of his conversation, which may be seen in the continuation of Rapin. That Alberoni wrote with the same spirit he acted, is evinced by three letters of his to lord Melcombe, which Mr. Seward has published.

About the conclusion of the last reign, his nephew, Mr. Cumberland, brought him acquainted with the celebrated Bubb Doddington, afterwards lord Melcombe, and by his means he got some situation under administration, which he does not specify. He adds, however, that there was not a man of literary talents in the kingdom, who stood so high in favour with the premier, lord Bute, as Mr. Bentley, and though, when his lordship went out of office, Mr. Bentley lost every place of profit that could be taken from him, he continued to enjoy a pension of 500 per annum, in which his widow had her life, and received it many years after his decease. It was in consequence of this connection that he wrote in 1765, “Patriotism,” a satirical poem, attacking Wilkes and his friends; reprinted in Dilly’s Repository, vol. IV. Before this he had composed his drama of “The Wishes,” which was privately rehearsed at lord Melcombe’s villa, but was unsuccessful on the stage. Mr. Bentley in 1761 wrote his poetical “Epistle to lord Melcolmbe,” and Mr. Cumberland regrets that, if it be in the hands of any of Mr. Bentley' s family, it should be withheld from the public, not knowing that Mr. Bentley published it himself in the St. James’s Chronicle in April 1763, in consequence of Lloyd, the poet, having printed an incorrect copy in his “St. James’s Magazine.” Mr. Bentley’s other dramas were, “Philodamus,” 1767, which was also unsuccessful; and the “Prophet,” a posthumous comedy, 1788, performed for a few nights. He died in Abingdon-street, Westminster, Oct. 2S, 1782.

, Lord Melcombe, the son of a gentleman of fortune in Dorsetshire, was born in 1691, and appears to have been educated at Oxford. In 1715 he was elected member of parliament for Winchelsea, and was soon after appointed envoy-extraordinary at the court of Spain, in which capacity he signed the treaty of Madrid, and remained there until 1717. In 1720, by the death of his uncle George Dodington of Eastbury in Dorsetshire, he came into possession of a very large estate in that county, on which he built a magnificent seat at the expence of 140,000l. which was often the residence of the first writers of the times, of Thomson, Young, Pitt, Lyttelton, &c. and the beauties of which have been frequently celebrated by them. On this great accession of property, he took the surname of Dodington. In 1721 he was appointed lord lieutenant of the county of Somerset; in 1724 was constituted a lord of the treasury, and obtained the lucrative o trice of clerk of the peils in Ireland. While he was lord of the treasury, Thomson dedicated the first edition of his “Summer” to him, in 1727; but this dedication, of the flattery of which Thomson became probably ashamed, was never reprinted.

At this period Dodington closely connected himself with sir Robert Walpole, and in 1726 published a poetical epistle addressed to that minister, which is remarkable only for its servility, and which he afterwards, changing the name, addressed to lord Bute. In 1734 he was elected member for Weymouth, and in 1737 he took a very decided part in the contest between George II. and the prince of Wales, in the question about the augmentation of his allowance, and a jointure for the princess. This transaction forms one of the best parts of his “Diary,” lately published. At this time he appears to have acted with some coolness towards sir Robert Walpole, in consequence of which he was, in 1740, dismissed from his seat in the treasury, and joined the ranks of opposition; but although his new friends succeeded in procuring the dismissal of the Walpole administration, Dodington was probably disappointed, since he became principally concerned in that opposition which brought about the downfall of this new administration. On their succession to power in 1745, he was made treasurer of the navy, and sworn of the privycouncil, but his versatility would not permit him to remain steady to this party. In March 1749, the prince of Wales offered him a full return to his favour, and the principal direction of his affairs, to which Dodington agreed, and resigned his office of treasurer of the navy. He now fancied himself at the head of a formidable band, whom he was about to muster and train, when almost immediately an opposition was formed against him in the prince’s household, and, as he informs us, he foresaw there was no prospect of “doing any good.” He continued, however, in the household until the prince’s death, which put an end to the hopes of all his highness’s dependents. For some time, Mr. Dodington, although desirous of regaining his influence at court, found all his efforts unsuccessful but at length, on the sudden change which took place in 1755, he accepted his former post of treasurer of the navy under the duke of Newcastle, which he retained until, another change taking place the following year, he was again left alone, and gave up all hopes of establishing himself at court during that reign. On the accession of his present majesty he was very early received into the confidence of lord Bute, and in 1761 was advanced to the peerage by the title of lord Melcombe, yet he attained no ostensible post, nor indeed did he long survive his baronial honours, as he died at his house at Hammersmith, July 28, 1762.

Lord Melcombe is allowed to have been generous, magnificent, and convivial, but more respected as a private gentleman than as a politician. In the one character he was free, easy, and engaging; in the other intriguing, close, and reserved. His reigning passion was to be well at court, and to this object he sacrificed every circumstance of his life. Lord Orford says of him that he was “ostentatious in his person, houses, and furniture, and wanted in his expences the taste he never wanted in his conversation. Pope and Churchill treated him more severely than he deserved, a fate that may attend a man of the greatest wit, when his parts are more suited to society than to composition. The verse remains, the bon-mots and sallies are forgotten.” He was handsome, and of a striking figure, but in his latter days was probably singular in his dress. Churchill ridicules his wig, and Hogarth has introduced it in one of his “orders of periwigs.” His patronage of learned men descended from Young, Thomson, and Glover, to the meaner political hirelings who frequented the prince’s court. And among his intimate friends, besides Young, Thomson, and Glover, were Fielding, Bentley, Voltaire, Lyttelton, lord Chesterfield, lord Peterborough, Dr. Gregory Sharpe, &c. and among his lower associates, Ralph, Paul Whitehead, and a Dr. Thomson, a physician without practice or manners, served to add to the hilarity of his table. Most of his biographers have reported that he was a single man, but he certainly was married, as in his letters he frequently speaks of Mrs. Dodington, whose heart was placed in an urn at the top of an obelisk which he erected at Hammersmith. When she died we know not, but as she left no family, he is reported to have used some singular expedients for procuring an heir, which were as unsuccessful as immoral and foolish. He bequeathed his whole property, a few legacies excepted, to the late Thomas Wyndham, esq. of Hammersmith. The mansion which he built at Eastbury came, as already observed in the note, to the marquis of Buckingham, and was taken down a few years ago. Part of the offices were left standing, and have been converted into a very convenient house by J. Wedgewood, esq. who purchased the estate of the marquis of Buckingham. His villa at Hammersmith became a few years ago the property of the margrave of Anspach.

Lord Melcombe has some literary claims. Two of his Memorials to the court of Spain may be seen in the Historical Register for 1716, p. 205 207, &c. He was concerned in writing the “Remembrancer,” an anti-ministerial paper, published in 1744; and was the avowed Author of “Occasional observations on a double- titled paper about the clear produceof the Civil List Revenue, from Midsummer 1727 to Midsummer 1761.” A pamphlet on the “Expedition to Rochefort” has also been ascribed to him. His poetical efforts, some of which have been admired, were, “An Epistle to sir Robert Walpole, written on his birth-day, Aug. 26,” printed in Dodsley’s Collection, and afterwards, as we have mentioned, addressed, mutatis mutandis, to lord Bute; “An Epistle from John More, apothecary in Abchurch lane, to lord Carteret, upon the treaty of Worms;” “Verses in his eating-room at Hammersmith;” “Verses to Mrs. Stubbs;” “Verses written a little before his death to Dr. Young;” some “Love Verses,” and other poetry unpublished, and most of which, it is said, is too indelicate for publication; “An Elegy on the Death of queen Caroline” is printed in Coxe’s Life of Walpole. But he will long be best known by his celebrated “Diary,” published in 1784 by Henry Penruddock Wyndham, esq. On a publication so generally read, our remarks may be spared. The public owe much to the editor for thus “unveiling the mysterious intrigues of a court, and for exposing the latent causes of opposition.” The whole proves, that while this publication reflects “some degree of honour on lord Melcombe’s abilities, it shows his political conduct to have been wholly directed by the base motives of avarice, vanity, and selfishness.”

In 1753, a most injurious attack was made upon Mr. Murray’s character on the following occasion: It had been said, that Dr. Johnson, a person then thought of for considerable preferment, and afterwards bishop of Worcester, a very intimate friend of Mr. Murray, was of Jacobitical principles, and had even drank the pretender’s health in a company near twenty years before. This story was thought of sufficient importance to induce Mr. Pelham, then minister, to write down to Newcastle to Mr. Fawcett, the recorder, who was the author of the story, to learn the truth. Mr. Fawcett answered this inquiry in an evasive manner; but, in a subsequent conversation with lord Ravensworth, added, that Mr. Murray and Mr. Stone had done the same several times. Lord Ravensworth thought, that, Mr. Stone holding an office about the prince, such a suggestion as to his loyalty and principles ought not to be slighted; and he made it so much a matter of conversation, that the ministry advised the king to have the whole information examined; and a proceeding was had in the council, and afterwards in, the House of Lords, for that purpose. When Mr. Murray heard of the committee being appointed to examine this idle affair, he sent a message to the king, humbly to acquaint him, that, if he should be called before such a tribunal on so scandalous and injurious account, he would resign his office, and would refuse to answer. It came, however, before the House of Lords, on the motion of the duke of Bedford, on Jan. 22, 1753, who divided the house upon it, but the house was not told; and thus ended a transaction, which, according to lord Melcombe, was “the worst judged, the worst executed, and the worst supported point, he ever saw of such expectation.”

At length he became an attendant on the “levees of great men,” and luckily applied himself to political writing, for which he was well qualified. When the duchess of Marlborough, about 1742, published memoirs of her life, Ralph was employed to write an answer, which he called “The other side of the question.” This, says Davies, was written with so much art, and made so interesting, by the author’s management, that it sold very well. His pamphlets and political papers at length appeared of so much importance^ that towards the latter end of the Walpole administration, it was thought proper to buy him off with an income. Whether his paper called “The Remembrancer,” recommended him to Doddington, lord Melcombe, or was written in consequence of his acquaintance with that statesman, does not appear but from Doddington’s celebrated (< Diary,“we learn that he was much in the confidence of the party assembled round the prince of Wales, and was not only constantly employed to carry messages and propositions to the leaders of the party, but was frequently, consulted as to the subject of such messages. Nor indeed do his talents as a politician seem much inferior to those who employed him. He had like-r wise before this acquired considerable fame by his” Use and Abuse of Parliaments,“174-4, 2 vols. 8vo, and still more by his” History of England, during the reign of William III.; with an introductory review of the reigns of Charles II. and James II.“1744 6, 2 vols. folio, written upon principles avowed by his party. This was always considered as an useful work. Ralph had read a great deal, and was very conversant in the history and politics of this country. He applied himself, with great assiduity, to the study of all writings upon party matters: and had collected a prodigious number of pamphlets relating to the contests of whig and tory, the essence of which he incorporated in his work so as to make it a fund of curious information and opinions, of which more regular historians might afterwards avail themselves. Mr. Fox, in his late” Historical Work,“pronounces him” an historian of great acuteness, as well as diligence, but who falls sometimes into the common error of judging too much from the event."

In 1755 he published “An Epistle to Dr. Thomson.” This physician was one of the persons who shared in the conviv.al hours of Mr. Dodington, afterwards lord Melcombe, although it is not easy to discover what use he could make of a physician out of practice, a man of most slovenl) habits, and who had neither taste nor talents. It was at his lordship’s house where Whitehead became acquainted with this man, ancUooked up to him as an oracle both in politics and physic; and here too he associated very cordially with Ralph, whom he had abused with so much contempt in the “State Dunces.” From his Diary lately published, and from some of his unpublished letters in our possession, it appears that Dodington had no great respect for Thomson, and merely used him, Whitehead, Ralph, and others, as convenient tools in his various political intrigues. Whitehead’s epistle is an extravagant encomium on Thomson, of whose medical talents he could be no judge, and which, if his “Treatise on the Small- pox” be a specimen, were likely to be more formidable to his patients than to his brethren.