ROBERT, EARL NUGENT.* THE Memoir of Robert, Earl Nugent, was
well worth writing ; but unhappily Mr. Claud Nugent has not thought fit to write it. He has given us, not a biography, but the raw material from which a biography might be compiled. He quotes letters, speeches, poems, extracts from Smollett and many another, and he quotes them all in such admired disorder that only with the utmost difficulty can you drag a connected narrative from his pages or extricate the hero's character. And the failure is the rore to be regretted, because Earl Nugent should be treated with a light hand. Shown up by the heavy method of scissors and paste, he may appear a monster ; and monster he was not, despite his contempt for some of the conventions of life, but a typical man of his age, and not altogether a bad influence.
Born in 1702 of a distinguished Irish family, he spent his youth in Ireland, where he early won an unenviable notoriety by the unscrupulous seduction of his beautiful cousin, Clare Nugent of Donore. Having betrayed her under promise of marriage, he was forced by a duel to promise reparation; but no sooner was the promise exacted, than he fled to London. The poor girl, accompanied by a faithful priest, followed the rascal, whom she confronted after a desperate search. But Nugent refused his aid with absolute cynicism, and the mother of his child saved herself from starvation by pawning
• Memoir of Robert, Sart Nugent : with Iott•rs, Pants. and Appendices. By Oland Nugent. London : W. Heinemann. [165.] her jewels. It is an ugly story, and no single word can be spoken in Nugent's defence. Indeed, he aggravated his crime by the brutal indifference wherewith he presently treated the wretched boy born of the intrigue ; and though The Oppressed Captive, in which Robert Nugent, jun., pilloried his unnatural father, is probably exaggerated, the man cannot avoid the charge of unparalleled blackguardism.
But in the early eighteenth century the pcpular conscience was easily lulled to sleep, and Nugent had hardly escaped from his first entanglement when he married Lord Fingall's daughter. This lady died within a year, and with her last breath bade Nugent do what he could to repair the wrong which he had committed. For the first, and possibly the last, time Nugent's bard heart was softened; he despatched a penitent letter to Clare, and swollen, no doubt, with magnanimity, he set out for Donore, that he might lay his battered heart at the feet of his injured cousin. But poetic justice had already been done, and we are glad to record that he was received only by his uncle's footman, who told him in the dryest and curtest terms that Clare's marriage was arranged with Mr. O'Byrne, a gentleman of estimable character and large fortune.
Henceforth Nugent was free to follow his own bent, and by the marriage of rich widows he became a man of wealth and fashion. The practice is an old one, but Nugent's first experiment inspired Walpole to coin a word, and "to Nngentise," said of the widow, is still intelligible. His alliance with Anne, daughter of James Craggs, brought him a country house, a seat in Parliament, and a handsome fortune. On such terms as these he could easily support the ridicule of the wits, since he had at last found a chance to exercise the gifts which have made him memorable. He entered the House of Commons, and took hie place in the great world. He was courted by politicians, he was flattered by poets, and though his talent for affairs was not much more sincere than his talent for poetry, his wealth made him a personage whom neither statecraft nor literature could despise. Moreover, his wife's purse enabled him to help the Prince of Wales, and it is certain that he made no loan without the sure hope of advancement.
Thus his career was prosperous, even brilliant. He sat in Parliament for half a century, and while his services appear trivial to-day, he was none the less highly honoured in his friendships. Walpole and Pope, Chesterfield and Wyndham, lived with him on terms of intimacy and con- fidence. It was to him that Goldsmith dedicated his "Haunch of Venison." And if he never wholly atoned for his misdeeds, he possessed such qualities as capture society and ensure popularity. He was, in brief, a loquacious, high- spirited, clever, unscrupulous Irishman. His voice was enough (it is said) to raise a laugh ; and though his humour appears boisterous to-day, it was both tireless and good- natured. Untrammelled with any baggage of opinions, he displayed an admirable energy in politics, and his con- stituents at Bristol, for which he deserted his pocket borough of St. Mawe's, believed him an unblemished patriot and a wise statesman. The truth is, be was ready to speak upon any measure, and upon either side. In 1753, for instance, Lord Hardwicke introduced his famous Jew Bill, which appears so righteous to-day that it should have required no discussion. Its purpose was to allow Jews to be naturalised without taking the sacrament of the Lord's Supper; and religion, no less than justice, demanded that it should become law. Before the Commons Nugent supported it in a speech of excellent sense and sound theology, but in less than six months ho is found opposing it without shame or hesitancy. "I could not then think it a bad Bill," said he in a famous speech, " though I thought it of no great import- ance; and as I have still the same opinion of it, I shall with the same indifference agree to its being repealed." Remem- bering that he had made a long and fervid speech in the Bill's favour, we cannot overrate the disingenuous cynicism of this pronouncement. But Nugent must not be taken too seriously, and for him good and bad were separated by so fine a shade that he could turn from one to the other without an awkward conversion. Besides, he was witty enough to support his change of view with the epigram with which Montaigne assailed the introduction of the New Style. "Pope Gregory," wrote the essayist, "has found out an evil which hurt nobody, and he has applied a remedy which does nobody any good."
Nugent, then, was a popular, not a serious, politician. Yet once in his long career (and he retired the Nestor of the House) he harboured a daring and patriotic enterprise. This was nothing less than to promote an alliance between Pitt and Fox. Of course the project failed, but it was magnificent, and its success could only have strengthened the country in a time of crisis. However, it is idle to judge Nugent by the common standards. " He is the most uninformed man of his rank in England," said Lord George Sackville with a certain truth. None the less, he had a singular power of producing an effect, and his shrewdness is undeniable. His second wife had not been dead a year when in the Countess of Berkeley he married a still greater fortune, and he understood the easy manners of his age so well as to cut a respectable figure among the wise and the great. His verses, for instance, are the vainest doggerel ; yet Pope praised them without reserve, and Walpole speaks of Nugent's glorious ode. Chesterfield wrote him long and witty lettere, which never would have been addressed to a dolt or a churl. What, then, was the secret of Nugent's success P Possibly he possessed the genius of companionship, and understood better than his fellows the art of entertain- ment. In every generation you will find half a dozen men who by social adroitness climb a summit too lofty for their gifts or their virtues. Nugent, maybe, was of the number, and it is a conspicuous tribute to his affability that nobody seems to have grudged him his eminence.
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