FN 18 I doubt whether there be extant a sentence of worse English
than that on which the House divided. It is not merely inelegant
and ungrammatical but is evidently the work of a man of puzzled
understanding, probably of Harley. "It is Sir, to your loyal
Commons an unspeakable grief, that any thing should be asked by
Your Majesty's message to which they cannot consent, without
doing violence to that constitution Your Majesty came over to
restore and preserve; and did, at that time, in your gracious
declaration promise, that all those foreign forces which came
over with you should be sent back."

FN 19 It is curious that all Cowper's biographers with whom I am
acquainted, Hayley, Southey, Grimshawe Chalmers, mention the
judge, the common ancestor of the poet, of his first love
Theodora Cowper, and of Lady Hesketh; but that none of those
biographers makes the faintest allusion to the Hertford trial,
the most remarkable event in the history of the family; nor do I
believe that any allusion to that trial can be found in any of
the poet's numerous letters.

FN 20 I give an example of Trenchard's mode of showing his
profound respect for an excellent Sovereign. He speaks thus of
the commencement of the reign of Henry the Third. "The kingdom
was recently delivered from a bitter tyrant, King John, and had
likewise got rid of their perfidious deliverer, the Dauphin of
France, who after the English had accepted him for their King,
had secretly vowed their extirpation."

FN 21 Life of James; St. Simon; Dangeau.