Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, third son of John Hanbury (the son added Williams to his name in compliance with the will of his godfather, Charles Williams, Esq., of Caerleon), was born in 1709, and educated at Eton; married to Lady Frances Coningsby, 1732; M.P. for Monmouth, 1733, and became a hearty supporter of Sir Robert Walpole, aiding him by his lampoons and pasquinades on his enemies as well as by his votes; Paymaster of the Marines, 1739; in 1746 made Knight of the Bath, and soon afterwards appointed Envoy to the Court of Dresden; minister at Berlin from 1749 to 1751, when he returned to Dresden; subsequently minister of St. Petersburg, where his eventual want of success and habits of dissipation reduced him to a wreck both in mind and body; died, it was supposed by his own hand, Nov. 2, 1759. He was the author of No. 3 of The World. 1. “The Odes of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, Knight of the Bath” (edited by J. Ritson), 1755, 1780, 1784. 2. “Poems by C. H. Williams,” 1763. 3. “The Works of the Right Honourable Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, K. B., from the Originals in the Possession of his Grandson, the Earl of Essex, with Notes by Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, London, Ed. Jeffery,” 1822, 3 vols. The falsehoods of the title-page and preface, and subsequent apology of the publisher, are noticed in London Quarterly Review, xxvii.
Personal
I enquired after my old acquaintance Sir Charles Williams, who I hear is much broken, both in his spirits and constitution. How happy might that man have been, if there had been added to his natural and acquired endowments a dash of morality: If he had known how to distinguish between false and true felicity; and, instead of seeking to increase an estate already too large, and hunting after pleasures that have made him rotten and ridiculous, he had bounded his desires of wealth, and followed the dictates of his conscience. His servile ambition has gained him two yards of red ribbon, and an exile into a miserable country, where there is no society and so little taste that I believe he suffers under a dearth of flatterers. This is said for the use of your growing sons, whom I hope no golden temptations will induce to marry women they can not love, or comply with measures they do not approve.
He goes about again: but the world, especially a world of enemies, never care to give up their title to a man’s madness, and will consequently not believe that he is yet in his senses.
General
He spoke contemptuously of our lively and elegant, though too licentious, Lyrick bard, Hanbury Williams, and said, “he had no fame, but from boys who drank with him.”
His verses were highly prized by his contemporaries, and the letters of his friend Mr. Fox (the first Lord Holland), abound with extravagant commendations of his poetical talents; but in perusing those which have been given to the public, and those which are still in manuscript, the greater part are political effusions, or licentious lampoons, abounding with local wit and temporary satire, eagerly read at their appearance, but little interesting to posterity.
It’s with great pleasure I beg your acceptance of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams’ works…. How pious, how canting and insincere people are become! I know it will give you great pleasure in hearing his Majesty has ordered one; three of the Cabinet Ministers have purchased copies; the Earl of Lonsdale six copies; also many great ladies, which shows their great sense. There are much more indecent poems in Pope and Prior.
We … are ready to make some allowances for Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, and although his pieces are, as we have said, the grossest ever published, they probably are not much grosser than many others which were circulated in his day; and his reputation now stands so disgracefully distinguished rather through the indiscretion and effrontery of his publishers than through any superior wickedness of his own. We should have thought a new edition of his works not only pardonable, but laudable and useful, if it had been made the opportunity of separating his better from his worse productions, and consigning the latter to obscurity and oblivion. It may not be even now too late. Some of Sir Charles’ verses must live; they are not merely witty and gay, but they are the best examples of a particular class of poetry, and are not without their importance in the history of social manners and political parties. We wish that they were collected into a volume, which one could open without being shocked by the juxtaposition of the horrors to which we have alluded…. Sir Charles, without any effort on his part, has achieved a lasting fame. He will be always mentioned, and, if a decent edition be published, often read; but of the present work we are obliged to say, notwithstanding the respectable names which the editor has entrapped into his title-page and dedication, that it is a disgrace to good manners, good morals, and literature, and that no man of sense and no woman of delicacy can allow it to be seen on their table.
The lampoons of Sir Charles Williams are now read only by the curious, and, though not without occasional flashes of wit, have always seemed to us, we must own, very poor performances.
His principal importance as an ally to the minister consisted in his power of writing, almost extempore, light pasquinades and tart lampoons on their political opponents, as each passing event prompted either the spirit of malice or the spirit of fun. The greater part of these have lost their interest; for squibs can only sparkle for a time. But some of Sir Charles’s lighter compositions are still popular, and several, which are unconnected with politics, are pleasing for their grace and smartness. His ballad, written in 1740, on Lady Ilchester asking Lord Ilchester how many kisses he would have, is a very successful song.
Of the conversational humour of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, very few traces have survived; but of his facetious talent in literary composition we have abundant evidence. We meet, in Walpole’s correspondence, numerous traces of his popularity as a writer of quizzical verses—most of them were political satires directed against the enemies of his patron Sir Robert Walpole, and some of these are disfigured with allusions, and even with words, that are extremely objectionable; he also sometimes indulged in satirical squibs on ladies, and on persons whose insignificance should have shielded them from such attacks.
Time has robbed his satires of their point, by burying in oblivion the circumstances that gave rise to them. A single specimen of his writings is all that was deemed worthy of place in this volume.
His political squibs are some of the most lively and vigorous in our language.
Witty Excellency Hanbury did not succeed at Berlin on the “Romish-King Question,” or otherwise; and indeed went off rather in a hurry. But for the next six or seven years he puddles about, at a great rate, in those Northern Courts; giving away a great deal of money, hatching many futile expensive intrigues at Petersburg, Warsaw (not much at Berlin, after the first trial there); and will not be altogether avoidable to us in this coming, as one could have wished. Besides, he is Horace Walpole’s friend and select London wit: he contributed a good deal to the English notions about Friedrich; and has left considerable bits of acrid testimony on Friedrich, “clear words of an Eyewitness,” men call them,—which are still read by everybody; the said Walpole, and others, having since printed them, in very dark conditions. Brevity is much due to Hanbury and his testimonies, since silence in the circumstances is not allowable.
Among all these butterflies of song, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams takes the place of a wasp, if not of a veritable hornet. He was the Pasquin of his age, and a master of violent stinging invective in hard verse. In his own age no one dared to collect the savage lyrics of Williams, which were first presented to the world in 1822.
Burke alluded to him as “the polished courtier, the votary of wit and pleasure.” Walpole regarded him as a model for the gilded youth of his day…. His occasional verse forms a not unworthy link between Prior and Gay, and Cowper and Canning. Yet the writings of Hanbury Williams were not thought to come up to the sparkle of his conversation, of which some idea may perhaps be gathered from the earlier letters of his friend Horace Walpole.
