Note 9 — LETTER VIII. TO EDWARD FLOYD DELANCEY, ESQ.

Sir Nicholas Wraxall, in his Posthumous Memoirs of his Own Times, has probably given the true version of this tale. A person of the name of Philipps was denied a request to have a carriage-road from the park to his door, and to soften the refusal, Mr. Pitt offered him an Irish peerage, which he accepted. One hears of many grounds for an illustration, but this is the queerest on record; that of ennobling a man “because a carriage-sweep may not be made between St. James’s Park and his door!—Comme vous violà bâti!”