HALIFAX, GEORGE MONTAGU, EARL OF, was the fourth son of George Montagu, Esq., of Horton in Northamptonshire, who was the fifth son (the eldest by his third wife) of Henry, first earl of Manchester. He was born at Horton, on the 16th of April 1661. His education was begun in the country, but he was eventually sent to Westminster School, where he was chosen a king's scholar in 1677, and whence in 1682 he was removed to Trinity College, Cambridge. He had distinguished himself, while a pupil of Busby's at Westminster, by his extemporaneous epigrams; and the same liveliness of talent showed itself in a way to attract wider attention in an effusion of English verse which he produced on the death of Charles II., in February 1685, beginning (not at all in jest or satire) Farewell, great Charles, monarch of blest renown, The best good man that ever filled a throne; and proceeding in the same strain till at last the poet exclaims In Charles, so good a man and king, we sec A double image of the Deity.
This performance, we are told, so charmed the Earl of Dorset that he induced the young poet to come up to town, where he was introduced by his lordship to all the wits of his acquaintance. In 1687 he and Prior brought out in conjunction their burlesque upon Dryden's 'Hind and Panther,' entitled The Hind and the Panther transversed to the Story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse.' It ie for the greater part a dialogue in prose, apparently iu imitation of Bucking ham's 'Rehearsal,' with the parody in verse of portions of Dryden's poem interspersed. The best parts of it are said to be Prior's, as may be very well believed ; it is not however printed in the common collections of his poetry, but it is preserved in the ' Supplement to the Works of the Minor Poeta,' 1750, vol. i. pp. 47-82, under the head of !Additions to the Works of the Earl of Halifax.' Montagu appears to have some time before this entered upon his career as a politician. Johnson, in his ' Lives of the Poets,' merely says that "he signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange, and sat in the convention ; " but his signing the invitation to the prince would seem to imply that he had occupied some public post, and he is there fore, we suppose, the Charles Montagu who is set down as one of the members for the city of Durham in James H.'s parliament which assembled on the 19th of May 1685. In the convention parliament he eat for Malden ; and he was returned for the same place to the next parliament, which met in March. 1690. It is stated to have been about the time of the revolution that he married the Countess Dowager of Manchester ; she was Anne,' widow of Robert, third earl of Manchester, and daughter of Sir Chiistopher Yelverton, Bart.
According to Johnson, it was his intention when he formed this connection to take orders ; but afterwards altering his purpose he purchased for 1500/. the place of one of the clerks of the council. He was also fortunate in his next poetical performance, ' An Epistle to Charles, earl of Dorset, occasioned by his Majesty's Victory in Ireland,' being a celebration of the battle of the Boyne, for which King William, to whom he was introduced upon the occasion by Dorset, is said to have bestowed upon him a pension of 500/. A repartee of his
Majesty's, who when Dorset presented the poet as a mouse is said to have replied that he would make a man of him, is upon good grounds discredited by Johnson. His 'Epistle on the Victory of the Boyne,' which extends to above 200 linos, is Montagu's greatest effort in verse.
The rest of his history is that of a political character, and only a patron of poets. Johnson relates a well-known anecdote of a speech he made in one of the debates on the Trials for Treason Bill, in 1691, in the midst of which he is said to have fallen into confusion, and then, when he recovered. himself, to have ingeniously turned the circumstance into an argument for what he was urging-the allowance of counsel to the prisoner. There is no notice of this speech in the Parliamentary History.' He had already however raised himself by his speaking to great distinction; and on the 21st of March in this year he was taken into office as one of the lords of the Treasury. He became chancellor of the Exchequer on the 1st of November 1695, and to this office on the 1st of May 1697 he conjoined that of first lord of the Treasury. In 1695 and 1696 he obtained great credit by his management of the operation of the general =coinage of the silver money. It was in the latter of these years that, to supply a temporary circulating medium, he contrived what are called Exchequer Bills, the convenience of which species of paper, both for the government and the public, has kept it iu use ever since. Many of Montagu's Exchequer bills however were for sums much lower than any for which such bills are now issued. After ho became first lord of the Treasury he was appointed one of the lords justices on the king going abroad, both in July 1698, and again in May 1699. "In the House of Commons," says Burnet under tho year 1698, "Mr. Montagu had gained such a visible ascendant over all that were zealous for the king's marvice, that he gave the law to the rest, which he did always with Feat spirit, but sometimes with too assuming an air ;" "which," subjoins Mr. Speaker Onslow, in a note, "did him infinite hurt, and lowered at last his credit very much in the House of Commons." Lord Hardwick°, in a note on the same passage, affirms, that for two sessions together Montagu did not exert himself in the House (for what reason Hardwick° does not know). but suffered Mr. Harley and his friends to take the lead, even while he continued in the king's service. He is also asserted to have lost some credit about this time, and to have been thought to have behaved meanly, by stating in the House, in one of the debates on the Irish grants, some information which lied been communicated to him in confidence. On the modification of the ministry in November 1699, Montagu was removed to the anditorship of the Exchequer, and his places of first lord and chancellor were given, the former to Lord Tankerville, the latter to Mr. John Smith.