nothing else" ('Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers', pp. 73, 74). Already well
known in London society, Carlisle was a close friend of George Selwyn, a
familiar figure at White's and Brookes's, an inveterate gambler, an
adorer of Lady Sarah Bunbury, who, as Lady Sarah Lennox, had won the
heart of George III. The flirtation provoked from Lord Holland an
adaptation of 'Lydia, dic per omnes':--

"Sally, Sally, don't deny,
But, for God's sake, tell me why
You have flirted so, to spoil
That once lively youth, Carlisle?
He used to mount while it was dark;
Now he lies in bed till noon,
And, you not meeting in the park,
Thinks that he gets up too soon," etc.

In 1770 Lord Carlisle married Lady Margaret Leveson Gower, a beautiful
and charming woman. "Everybody," writes Lord Holland to George Selwyn
(May 2, 1770), "says it is impossible not to admire Lady Carlisle." But
matrimony did not at once steady his character. For the next few
years--though in 1773 he published a volume of 'Poems'--his pursuits
were mainly those of a young man of fashion, and he impoverished himself
at the gaming-table. From 1777 onwards, however, his life took a more
serious turn. In that year he became Treasurer of the Household, and was
sworn a member of the Privy Council. In 1778 he was the chief of the
three commissioners sent out by Lord North to negotiate with the United
States. There he declined a challenge from Lafayette, provoked by
reflections on the French court and nation, which he had issued with his
fellow-commissioners in their political capacity. In 1779 he was
nominated Lord-Lieutenant of Yorkshire, and First Lord of Trade and