BOOKS.

THE LEXINGTON P.IPERS.• ROBERT Surrox, the second and last Lord Lexington, was born in 1661, and was bred to arms, but on the Revolution abandoned war for diplomacy. Having voted in the Convention Parliament in favour of William and Mary, he was employed by King William through- out his reign on different missions, and was with that prince when he died. During the greater part of Queen Anne's reign, Lord Lexington lived in retirement ; but he was selected by the Harley Ministry to conduct the Spanish part of the treaty of 'Utrecht, and in 1712 embarked as Ambassador for Madrid. This, and some sus- picions that hull..° over him in connexion with intrigues for the succession of the Pretender, doomed him to discredit on the acces- sion of George the First, and the last nine years of his life were passed in privacy. He died in 1723.

Lord Lexington was sent to Vienna in 1694, as British Ambas-

sador to the Imperial Court ; and there he remained till the con- clusion of the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697. The correspondence connected with this mission, as well as that relating to Madrid, was lately discovered in the library at Kelham. "From the ap- pearance of the MSS.," says the editor, "which (although unin- jured) were almost buried in dust, there can be no doubt that they had remained undisturbed for a long series of years in the parti- ally concealed closets in which they were found. Their existence was certainly unsuspected by this generation; and, as far as I can learn, it was also unknown to the last." From the correspondence relating to the mission to Vienna the contents of the present vo- lume have been selected.

The documents are not of remarkable value in an historical

point of view, since they add little or nothing to our knowledge ; but they are a various and readable selection. Either Mr. Man- ners Sutton has drawn freely upon the unofficial letters, or the men of business in those days did not lose all sight of wit, humour, and their native dispositions, in the trammels of office. There are many letters from the once celebrated Prior, and from the now forgotten minor poet Stepney, which though sometimes heartless enough, (as on the death of Queen Mary,) and too obviously forced in their efforts after wit, point, and pleasantry, which was the fashion of the day, are more various, vivacious, and agreeable to read, than the du-11 prosiness of mere red-tapists. Neither are the writers deficient in penetration, sense, or keen observation on the charac- ters of those with whom they come in contact, in spite of their obvious effort and seeming levity • and, notwithstanding their artifices of composition, they are really more natural than those of the state paper school—men and things are estimated with greater truth and at their actual worth. The more eminent statesmen, too, write in a less formal manner than their modern successors. Composition was less taught at school and college with the general run of pupils ; word-spinning was less of a common art than it is now. Men who had nothing to say wrote not at all, or wrote to that effect : at the same time, there is no lameness or stiffness in their composition. The paucity of information relating to the actual business in hand might partly arise from the mode in which King William conducted affairs without any communication with his Secretaries of State, who often knew no more than strangers. Thus, the Duke of Shrewsbury, acknowledging the receipt of six letters which "want an answer," excuses his inability to write any, because the King is so overcome by the death of the Queen as to be unable to attend to business, and the Duke himself cannot give an opinion, from his total ignorance of the subject. "I am so great a stranger to all proceedings, that perhaps you will won- der at it ; having never had the least light or intimation of this treaty front any of the ministers abroad, except what I have received from your Lord- ship, or been acquainted with the particulars of it from anybody at home; 40 that I am very glad you are furnished from other bands with what to answer upon the meeting at 3faestricht. Had you expected any information or to have been helped with an excuse from me I nmst have assured your Lord- ship it is what I am now as much unacquainted with as any gentleman that lives in the country, having never heard otherwise of it than as they may do in news-letters.

"My long knowledge of your Lordship makes me not in the least doubt

you have pursued your instructions with great exactness ; but those you III.' ceived at your parting with his Majesty having not yet been communicated to me, I hope it will nowhere be expected I should say any thing upon what I have not seen.

"As soon as it is possible to obtain so long an audience of the King as will be requisite to lay your letters before him and to instruct my own ignorance, I will give you the best account I can of his Majesty's commands ; but the first being difficult, and the second perhaps invincible, I cannot promise when I shall be able to perform this."

The difficulty of foreign ministers getting payment of their salaries, is a more frequent subject than (what would now be called) the unconstitutional proceedings of the King. To Prior and Step- ney it forms a frequent topic of bitter jests in their letters to Lord Lexington. Lord Lexington himself, when addressing Mr. math- wayt, Secretary at War, but in reality William's Foreign Secretary as well, writes in a sadder and more earnest strain, on the 1st of October 169,3.

"Pray, Sir, give me leave to beg you to represent to the King how lam used

by the Treasury. That which was due to use last December, and directed by his Majesty, before he left England, to be forthwith paid me, was not ordered by them till the latter end of August, and then in tallies, which are not payable till near three years hence, so that you may easily imagine at what loss ; and there is now near three quarters of a year due to me, and all the • The Lexington Papers; or some Account of the Courts of London and Vienna at the Conclusion of the Seventeenth Century. Extracted from the Official and .Pn- vete Correspondence of Robert Sutton, Lord Lexington. British Minister at Vienna, 1694-1698. Selected from the Originals at Kelham, and edited, with Notes, by tip: Hon. H. Manners Sutton. Published by Murray.

• extraordinaries since I came hither. I need not tell you that the dream- -stances of a Peer in England and an Envoy abroad are much the same, for neither will be trusted but with ready money. The place where I am is so very chargeable that I protest before God that in the ten months that I have been here I have spent very near 20,000 crowns, and I can safely say not

• one shilling that I could possibly avoid. His Majesty's allowance does not -come to quite 2500/. a year, extraordinaries and all; by which you may -See I have not spared my own estate, nor hoarded up much in the service, nor do I desire it. I only beg that what his Majesty is pleased to allow me may be regularly paid ; for if my merchant should withdraw the credit he has given me I shall not know how to subsist, and may receive some affront for want of money, which his Majesty may be sorry for, and to the discredit of the kingdom. I beg you to lay this most humbly before his Majesty."

The money matters of the Grand Monarque were not in better plight : an agent whose name is unknown, as his numerous and observing letters are without signature, writes as follows from Paris, in February 1696.

"The royal treasury is empty. M. de Pontchartrain states without dis- guise, to all who ask for money, that he has none ; and a great number of persons are reduced to the deepest distress, especially the naval and military officers, most of whom are without a sou. The keepers of the treasury, who are accustomed to pay regularly, and with ready money, the claims on the civil list, now owe more than 500,000 crowns. They hope, however, soon to obtain 12,000,000 on the security of the new tax on postage, but the decree for imposing this tax is not yet published ; and although the rate of interest will be very advantageous to those .who advance the money, it is asserted by many who are well informed on the subject, that the King will find it diffi- cult to procure the loan. His credit is weakened as his debts increase, and private individuals can now invest their money in trade at ten per cent."

At Vienna affairs were still worse, if that could be any satisfac- tion to the straitened Ambassador. In May of the same year Lord Lexington writes—

"Prince Eugene went away the day before yesterday, and all he could get for the payment of the whole army, which is near two years behind hand, was an assignation for 100,000 florins upon a fund of money to be bor- rowed at Genoa when they can get it."

. The less balanced and artificial style of the writers gives a good deal of earnestness to the letters, especially as their ignorance of the real state of the negotiations seems to drive them upon topics which we should now call news, though of a public kind and indicative of opinion. This imparts an interest to the book, and often of a more lifelike kind than diplomatic matter. This is a picture of recruiting or kidnapping, and of a row thereanent

"Sin. YRILNON TO LORD LEXINGTON.

" Whitehall, Aptil 12, 1693.

"The chief news here is the disturbance the rabble have made these two or three nights past. The two provosts-marshal to the regiments of Foot Guards have their houses—or rather had them—in Holborn, not far one from the other, where they not only kept the soldiers committed to them when they had offended, but of late they have driven a trade to secure new listed men that were designed for recruits to the regiments in Flanders ; and they have added another trade to it, which has been undertaking to fur- nish officers with recruits, as they could agree on the price; which naturally brings such sort of factors under a suspicion of kidnapping, and I believe there might have been some indirect practices among them. Tooley, an Irishman' provost-marshal to my Lord Cutes regiment of Guards, lay under the worst reputation of the two. He was before the House of Commons last year, upon some complaint against him for pressing, and the civil magis- trate has since been obliged to require him to discharge sonic persons he had got into his clutches, which he did not always readily comply with, and that at last has drawn upon him the fury of the people ; for th3 Under-Sheriff being affronted at his house on Tuesday last in the execution of a warrant, he called to his assistance the posse of Lincoln's Inn Fields from their wrestling-ring ; who went farther than their leader would have them, and (lid not stop where they began, but having gutted that house, they went to the other marshal's, where they found a greater resistance, he being longer forewarned ; so they left the enterprise that night, but finished it the next. There were soldiers drawn out, but had orders to avoid bloodshed as much as might be ; and the rabble, having wreaked their revenge on that house like- wise, retired. There was little appearance of them last night, but they say they attacked a small prison in Finsbury where some listed men had been kept, but they were removed beforehand. I hope they have done now, though 'twas said they threatened to set open all prisons ; and if they did so, those that are in them would show them the way to open all other houses."

From many other passages descriptive of contemporary manners, we take a story that strikingly illustrates the insolence of the old noblesse, which was at last so fearfully avenged. The perpetrator of this brutal plaisanterie was the son of the celebrated. President Harlai.

"M. DE I3RUYNISE TO LORD LEXINGTON.

• "-(Translation.) "Hague June 13, 1697. "M. de Harlai would do well to punish his son, who, with the openly de- clared intention of breaking the remaining arm of a gentleman who had already lost the other, seated himself with him in a carriage, then threw the reins on the neck of the horse, and giving it five or six blows with the whip, jumped out. The gentleman, who is attached to the French Embassy, broke his leg ; but young M. de Harlai openly Laments the failure, as he calls it, of his scheme, for he had hoped, he says, to have had the satisfaction of seeing him unable to eat his soup without assistance. You may from this speci- men form a judgment of the character of this gallant, and of the manner in which some of the French youth amuse themselves at Delft."

The volume reflects credit on Mr. H. Manners Sutton, the editor. He has chosen his selections with judgment, and illustrated the texts with a variety of notes, into which he has infused a large amount of historical, diplomatic, and genealogical knowledge, con- densed into a small compass.