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In the Eighteenth Century
dramatist, but for some time he held appointments under Government. He was appointed, through the influence of Lord George Germaine, afterwards Lord Sackville, to the office of Secretary to the Board of Trade, and in 1780 was sent on a secret mission to Spain. On his return his office was abolished, and he was pensioned off with half his salary; and to make matters worse Lord North disallowed his claim of £4,500 expended during his mission. He had a large family to bring up, and it became necessary for him to retrench. It was no light thing for a man who had lived in the company of Johnson, Garrick, Dodington, Jenyns, and the wits of the day, to abandon the metropolis; but it was with a stout heart that he decided to give up the delights of town and settled in the country. " Tunbridge Wells, of which I had made choice, and in which I have continued to reside for more than twenty years, had much to recommend it; and very little, that in any degree made against it. It is not altogether a public place, yet it is at no period of the year a solitude.—A reading man may command his hours of study, and a social man will find full gratification for his philanthropy. Its vicinity to the capital h 113 |
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