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Lewis Melville. Some Eccentrics & a Woman
Some Eccentrics & a Woman
Table of Contents
Some Eighteenth-Century Men about Town
Some Exquisites of the Regency
A Forgotten Satirist: “Peter Pindar”
Sterne’s Eliza
The Demoniacs
William Beckford of Fonthill Abbey
Charles James Fox
Philip, Duke of Wharton
Index
Footnote
Отрывок из книги
Lewis Melville
Published by Good Press, 2021
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According to Cyrus Redding, who used to meet him at the house of Dr Wolcot (“Peter Pindar”), Hanger had fallen out of favour with the Prince by administering a severe reproof to that personage and to the Duke of York for their use of abominable language, and was no longer invited to Carlton House. This, however, does not ring true, for Hanger’s language was none of the choicest, and if there was any disagreement, this can scarcely have been the cause. Indeed, if at this time there was a quarrel, it must soon have been made up; and undoubtedly the twain were on friendly terms long after, for when Hanger was dealing in coal, the Prince, riding on horseback, stopped and made friendly inquiry: “Well, George, how go coals now?” to which Hanger, who had a pretty wit, replied with a twinkle, “Black as ever, please your Royal Highness.” Certainly Hanger felt no grievance concerning the alleged quarrel, for in his “Memoirs” he spoke in high terms of the heir-apparent in a passage that deserves to be read, as one of the few sincere tributes ever paid to the merits of that deservedly much-abused person.
Whether through the influence of the Prince of Wales or another, Hanger was in 1806 appointed captain commissary of the Royal Artillery Drivers, from which he was allowed to retire on full pay two years later, a proceeding which drew some observations from the Commissioners of Military Inquiry in their seventeenth report, to which Hanger published an answer. As the years passed, however, the free manners and the coarse outspokenness of the Colonel jarred on the Prince, and slowly the men drifted more and more apart, after which the former moved in less distinguished and probably less vicious company.
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