Note 49 — No. XI.

Line 17.—[Jas. Hare was M.P. for Knaresborough, and one of the most brilliant wits of the Whig Party. At Eton his verses were hung up as specimens of excellence. Great expectations were raised as to his eloquence in the House of Commons. But his timidity was so great that he broke down in his first speech, and this failure, joined with delicate health, prevented a second attempt. Horace Walpole speaks of his “brilliancy and fire,” and of his own inferiority to him. His bons mots were innumerable. He died in 1804. The following is Lord Ossory’s opinion of the social talents of some of the best talkers of his day:—“Horace Walpole was an agreeable, lively man, very affected, always aiming at wit, in which he fell very short of his old friend, George Selwyn, who possessed it in the most genuine but indescribable degree. Hare’s conversation abounded with wit, and perhaps of a more lively kind; so did Burke’s, though with much alloy of bad taste; but, upon the whole, my brother the General [Fitzpatrick] was the most agreeable man in society of any of them.”—MS., R. Vernon Smith.—Ed.]