CHAPTER XII.

OF FRANCIS, TENTH EARL OF HUNTINGDON.

FRANCIS, tenth Earl of Huntingdon, the twenty-third in paternal descent from Robert de Hastings, the first person noticed in the family pedigree, was born March 29, 1728, and succeeded to the title on the decease of his father, Theophilus, the ninth Earl. Endowed with excellent natural abilities, developed and improved by the best education, his Lordship set out, in August, 1747, to give a finish to both by travel in foreign countries. Having completed the usual tour of France and Italy, and matured his taste and judgment by observation and experience, he returned home, and sat in Parliament for the first time, on the 15th of November, 1753. In 1756, he was appointed Master of the Horse to the present King (George the Third), then Prince of Wales, who, succeeding to the crown in October, 1760, continued his Lordship in that office; and, in December following, nominated him one of the Privy Council. At his Majesty's Coronation he carried the sword of state; and when the Earl of Bute was appointed Secretary of State, he succeeded that nobleman as Groom of the Stole. He next year took the proper oaths as Lord Lieutenant, and Custos Rotulorum, of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and of the city and county of York. At the baptism of Prince Frederick, the present Duke of York, on the 14th of September, 1763, his Lordship stood proxy for the then Duke of York, the late King's brother, one of the sponsors. In 1770, he re

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signed his situation of Groom of the Stole. He was enrolled among the members of the Royal Society; and to him Akenside the poet, about the time of his Lordship's first departure for the Continent, addressed one of his Odes, which, notwithstanding the sweeping censure of the arch-critic Dr. Johnson, must rank among the finest modern effusions of the lyric muse. From this spirited poem we cannot refuse ourselves the pleasure of selecting a few stanzas, which bear more immediately on the character before us.

"To the Right Honourable Francis Earl of Huntingdon, 1747.

"THE wise and great of every clime,
Through all the spacious walks of time,
Where'er the Muse her power displayed,
With joy have listened and obeyed;
For, taught of Heaven, the sacred Nine
Persuasive numbers, forms divine,

To mortal sense impart :

They best the soul to glory fire,

They noblest counsels, boldest deeds inspire,

And high o'er Fortune's rage inthrone the fixed heart.

"Nor less prevailing is their charm,

The vengeful bosom to disarm,
To melt the proud with human woe,
And prompt unwilling tears to flow.

Can wealth a power like this afford?

Can Cromwell's arts, or Marlborough's sword,
An equal empire claim?

No, Hastings! thou my words wilt own;

Thy breast the gifts of every muse hath known,

Nor shall the giver's love disgrace thy noble name.

"The Muse's awful art,

And the blest function of the poet's tongue,

Ne'er shalt thou blush to honour, to assert,

From all that scorned vice or slavish fear hath sung.
Nor shall the blandishment of Tuscan strings,

Warbling at will in Pleasure's myrtle bower,

Alluding to his Lordship's royal descent from King Edward the Third.

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About the beginning of the year 1789, the Earl settled 20007. a-year, arising out of lands in Pockington and Ashby, on his natural son Sir Charles Hastings, who was Colonel of the 34th Regiment, and attained the rank of Major-General in the army, on the marriage of that gentleman to Parnel, only daughter and heiress of Thomas Abney, Esq. of Wellesley Hall, Derbyshire, son and heir of Sir Thomas Abney, a Judge of the Common Pleas. On the 2d of October following, his Lordship, who never was married, departed this life suddenly, while sitting at table, at the house of his nephew, the present Marquis of Hastings, in his sixty-first year. His remains were interred with great funeral magnificence in the family vault at Ashby de la Zouch, the Marquis attending as chief mourner. " He was a man," says one of the most respectable periodical works of that time, "whose virtues would reflect honouron his ancestors, had they been, if possible, more noble than they were. Those virtues were not, it is true, of the most shining nature: they were more useful than dazzling; they were the virtues of society, and had taken up their residence in a heart which was a credit to human nature."

His Lordship died possessed of very extensive properties in the counties of Leicester and Derby ; all of which, together with all his other lands, tenements, rents, and advowsons, he left by his will, to his nephew, Lord Rawdon, now Marquis of Hastings, for the term of his natural life, and afterwards to the heirs male of his body, charged with the payment of certain specified annuities, viz. 4007. a-year to the Countess of Moira, 2001. a-year to the Honourable John Rawdon, and 2007. a-year to Mrs. Bailey, wife of Captain Thomas Bailey, besides the sums of 1,2001. to the latter, of 1,000l. to Sir Henry Heron, Bart. 1,000l. to Colonel George Hastings, father of Hans Francis, the eleventh and present Earl, and several smaller legacies to servants, &c. By his death the Baronies of Hastings, Hun