Note 4 — Chapter I
Reading edition
Mr. Hartley was a frequent writer of pamphlets on the side of the Opposition, chiefly on the Revenue. He was attached both to Lord Rockingham and Mr. Pitt, and was the son of a physician, [who was also the most eminent metaphysician of his day. Mr. Hartley had the honour of negotiating and signing the preliminaries of Peace with America in 1783, and of moving the first resolution in the House of Commons against the Slave Trade. He was much respected by all parties, but his speeches seldom found a willing audience. Tickell has parodied him with most ludicrous effect in the “Anticipation;” and he is thus described by another cotemporary—
“Peace to the rest, for Faction now, To shield her sons with poppied brow, Bids Hartley stand before me. Goddess, the potent charm I own; My breath is lost, my voice has flown, And Dulness creeps all o’er me.” New Foundling Hospital for Wit.
He was a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, until his death in 1813, at a very advanced age. Flattering obituaries appear of him in the Annual Register and the Gentleman’s Magazine of that year. A clergyman of his College, now deceased, described him to a friend of the Editor “as an honest, high-principled man, but a dull talker, and a prosy speaker.”—E.]