Note 10 — Chapter II

Anthony Hammond, Esq., a Commissioner of the Navy, and some time representative in Parliament for the county of Huntingdon, and also for the University of Cambridge, was very frequently at Lord Huntingdon’s at that period. With him was his son, James Hammond, the elegiac poet, whose fame and fortune were raised by the influence of Lady Huntingdon, and Lady Fanny Shirley, to whose hand it was believed he vainly aspired—to whom some of his elegies are supposed to be addressed. He died at Lord Cobham’s house, Stowe, while member for Truro, in Cornwall. This gentleman, the “silver-tongued” Hammond of Lord Bolingbroke, who had, says Lord Chesterfield, all the senses but common sense, was a relative of the Shirley family; he married the eldest daughter of Sir W. Clarges, Bart., whose family made a triple alliance with that of Lady Huntingdon by marriage. At the same time, Somervile, the author of the “Chace,” was introduced to Lady Huntingdon by the eccentric Lady Luxborough, the sister of Lord Bolingbroke.