The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-14 00:00:00

MR. PEREGRINE COURTENAY.

Within these two days, a report arrived in
London that the Right Honourable Thomas
Peregrine Courtenay, younger brother of the
Earl of Devon, had met with his death by
drowning, while he bathed at Torquay, which
lies on the sea-coast, about twelve miles distant
from Powderham Castle, the local residence of
the Devon and Courtenay family . The report
proves too true.
Mr. Peregrine Courtenay was the second son
of William Courtenay, Esq., Assistant Clerk of
the Parliaments, and Patentee of the Subpcena-
bffice, Court of Chancery. His mother was the
Lady Henrietta Leslie, the daughter of Sir
Lucas Pepys, Bart. His brother, William
Reginald Courtenay, married, in 1830, into the
Fortescue flintily. His sister, Elizabeth, was
ibrmerly Maid of Honour to Queen Charlotte.
Mr. Courtenay himself was for several years
M.P. for Totnes, and was Vice-President of
the Committee for Trade, and a Commissioner of
the Board of Control. He was born May 31,
1782, and on the sth of April, 1805, married
Anne, daughter of the late Mayow Wynell
Mayow, Esq., by whom he has left a family of
thirteen children (eight sons and five daughters),
all of whom, with his lady, survive their melan-
choly loss.
In 1818, Mr. Peregrine Courtenay first ap-
peared before the world in a literary point of
view by the production of " A Treatise on the
Poor-laws," published by Mr. Murray. It was
dedicated to the Hon. Sturges Bourne, and was
expressive of the writer's repugnance to many of
the measures laid down in the Report of the
then Committee on the Poor-laws. It was lau-
datory of the moderate reform which Mr.Sturger
Bourne had already commenced in this line, and
was also propositive of certain stronger measures
which, with becoming modesty, the writer advo-
cated.
The pamphlet forms a thick octavo, of up-
wards of 160 pages, and contains a great quantity
of condensed reasoning and cogent argument.
He does not profess to point out a course of fun-
damental reformation for relieving the country
from the entire burden of the Poors'-rate, or of
correcting those solecisms in political economy
by which it is occasioned, but expresses himself
as believing that, with a nicer adjustment, the
burthen may be made tolerable. He shows that
if the Poor-laws are necessary, they are neces-
sary evils ; that,• though the principle is benevo-
lent, it does not generate benevolence in indivi-
duals,—for nothing can be less like charity than
an order by a Justice, or an allowance by an
overseer, and that it depends as much upon the
temper of the overseer as upon the spirit of the
pauper, whether the right of relief shall be esta-
blished by audacity or 'fraud. Much misery, he
declares, is alleviated by the Poor-laws, which
we must not be prepared to disregard, and that
the principle, therefore, of reform should be
that of preserving all we can of the beneficence
of the law, exercising munificence rather than
stint. His treatise must be referred to for an
adequate conception of its value.
Mr. Courtenay's second literary production
was " A Letter to Lord Grenville, on the Sink-
ing Fund," also published by Murray. It pro-
ceeded from him while he held his respon-
sible office under Government in 1828, and
expressed only the sentiments of himself as an
individual writer. He entered the field un-
biassed, and totally ignorant of the opinions en-
tertained by the then Cabinet, or the Finance
Minister, on the great qyestion which at that
moment was at issue. In the outset he gives a
full and historical explanation of the system of
finance established by Mr. Pitt, the author of
the Sinking Fund, and pursues Lord Grenville's
argument, point by point. The Letter itself is
dedicated to this Nobleman, and the foundation
on which the true principle of the Sinking Fund
is based, is distinctly stated by Mr. Courtenay to be
" That the Legislature ought not to impose a
perpetual burden upon the resources of the
country." This talented Letter forms an octavo
of nearly 140 pages, and is lucidly and lumin-
ously written.
Most of Mr. Courtenay's literary productions
bear imprint as coming from Powderham, the
ancient seat of the Courtenay family. The late
lamented gentleman was an ardent and enthusi-
astic lover of literature, and the quietness attend-
ant on its pursuit. Politician though he was,
nothing delighted him more than to emerge out
of the dusty arena of strife and contention, and
to bury himself in the classic bowers which
Devon bountifully offered. His virtues fitted
him for the shade. Glare and publicity oppressed
the quiet nature of his spirit, and Powderham
served as an Elysium to his soul, enfolding him
in the tranquillity of its scenes, and the
repose of its arcades. This lovely spot,
in which he so much delighted, is situate
in the manor of Kenton, and its situation, though
low, is extremely beautiful, upon the banks of
the river Exe, which is a mile-and-a-half broad
at high water, being within three miles of its
confluence with the British Channel; the win-
dows of the Castle command a view of Topsham,
and all the shipping that come up there, with
many adjacent seats. The grounds are extensive;
the park well-stored with deer, and the shrub-
beries and plantations of exotics, with lawns and
pleasure-grounds, occupy a circumference of
nearly ten miles. It has a full command of the
ocean to the west. The rugged brow of the an-
cient fortress has been much smoothed and
adorned by modern taste, and furnished in the
most sumptuous manner. It has several fine ori-
ginal Vandykes, Teniers, a Wilson, and Rubens,
with many cabinet paintings, and a number of
drawings by Lord Courtenay.
Within a short distance of this Castle are a
multitude of sea-bathing places, such as Daw-
lish, Exmouth, Teignmouth, and Torquay, which,
on account of their recent origin, present a fine
contrast, says Neale, to the proud and haughty
aspect of Powderham, still glorying in its
strength and antiquity. It was at the last of these
bathing-places, that the lamented subject of this
memoir, Mr. Courtenay, met with his death.
The third and more important work which
Mr. Courtenay produced to the world, consisted
of his " Memoirs of the Life, Works, and Cor-
respondence of Sir William Temple," published
by Longman, in 1836. This was a work admi-
rably calculated to bring out to advantage the
powers of Mr. Courtenay, and call forth his poli-
tical talent, for Sir William Temple was one
whose diplomacy continental as well as English
politicians have celebrated, and lauded his poli-
tical maxims. Notwithstanding the frequency
and the intensity, as also the singularity of the
commendations bestowed upon Sir William
Temple, his printed letters had before this time
been but imperfectly before the world, and in a
multitude of cases unpublished; considering him,
therefore, only as a writer, whose elegance and
harmony of language alone was admired by all
as a master-piece of style, he assuredly deserved
that his name should be well recorded. What
had been said of him before thistime was chiefly to
be found in Abel Boyer's "French Memoirs,"some
papers of Swift, the published letters of Lord
Arlington, and the letters of D'Estrades. These
were for the most part poor and meagre, and
Mr. Courtenay, pressed by a sense of this, ap-
plied himseil to reap, from other and recondite
sources, such biographic or literary treasures as
the kingdom possessed. Accordingly, we find
that the Bacons of Suffolk, who were supposed
to have some valuable papers in their possession,
were applied to, and from the Rev. John Londe,
Vicar of Coddenham, in that county, Mr. Cour-
tenay obtained courteous permission to examine
these precious remains. From the rare archives
of the British Museum Mr. Courtenay also ob-
tained many unpublished parts of Sir William
Temples diplomatic correspondence, and in the
State Paper-office he found a great deal that had
never been published ; indeed, from these last
he confessed himself to have derived many of his
most curious particulars, that had hitherto been
totally neglected. The Ormond papers, collected
by Carte, in the Bodleian Library, also afforded
him much assistance. In his researches, too,
upon this history, he was further indebted to
Mr. Smith, the Duke of Buckingham's librarian,
who furnished him with transcripts of the Essex
papers in the MS. library at Stowe; as also to
Mr. Amyot, the treasurer of the Antiquarian
Society; Dr. Sadleir, of Dublin, and several
memliers of the Athenwum Club, who, in the
end, as he pleasantly expresses himself, taught
him " the superiority of literature to politics for
developing the kindlier feelings, and conducing
to an agreeable life."
This remark, indeed, made by Mr. Cour-
tenay, shows the placid disposition of his mind ;
but, truth to say, his work, in spite of this asser-
tion, is leavened with politics in a far greater
degree than perhaps even he desired to suppose.
In fact, it is the only drawback on his book. He
introduces the politics of the day, so far as to
indulge in the dramatic license of calling up Sir
William Temple to hold forth, in his proper
person, through a length of three pages, against
the Whig Reform Bill. His soberness of Judg-
ment was certainly at fault in this instance. The
shades of the illustrious dead should never be
called up to inflame the violence of the living.
Mr. Courtenay had nevertheless good reason
to be every way proud of his new work, forming
as it did a new and valuable accession to
sterlino. English biography. It was his first book
too : he had long been a pamphleteer, but
his labours on this occasion, took a larger and