the charm of
beauty of person lent to some of his companions in public incompetency
and private profligacy. His face and presence were as unattractive as
his manners were stiff and repellent. His grandfather, the first Duke,
was an illegitimate son of Charles the Second by the Duchess of
Cleveland, and the Duke's severest critic declared that he blended the
characteristics of the two Charles Stuarts. Sullen and severe without
religion, and profligate without gayety, he lived like Charles the
Second, without being an amiable companion, and might die as his father
did, without the reputation of a martyr.

Grafton did not die the death of his royal ancestor. He lived through
seventy-six years, of which less than half were passed in the fierce
light of a disgraceful notoriety, and more than half in a retirement
which should be styled obscure rather than decent. The only
conspicuously creditable act of that long career was the patronage he
extended to the poet Bloomfield, a patronage that seems to have been
prompted rather by the fact that the writer was born near Grafton's
country residence than by any intelligent appreciation of literature.
His curious want of taste {36} and feeling allowed him to parade his
mistress, Nancy Parsons, in the presence of the Queen, at the Opera
House, and to marry, when he married the second time, a first cousin of
the man with whom his first wife had eloped, John, Earl of Upper
Ossory. If his example as a father was not admirable, at least he
showed it to a numerous offspring, for by his two marriages he was the
parent of no fewer than sixteen children.

[Sidenote: 1763--Rigby and the Duke of Bedford]

Perhaps the prize for sheer political ruffianism, for the frank
audacity of the freebooter, unshadowed by the darker vices of his
better-born associates, may be awarded to Rigby. Not that Rigby
redeemed by many private virtues the unblushing effrontery of his
public career. It was given to few men to be as bad as Dashwood, and
Rigby was not one of the few. But his gross and brutal disregard of
all decency in his acts of public plunder--for even peculation may be
done with distinction--was accompanied by a gross and brutal disregard
of all decency in his tastes and pleasures with his intimate
associates. Richard Rigby sprang from the trading class. He was the
son of a linen-draper who was sufficiently lucky to make a fortune as a
factor to the South Sea Company, and who was, in c