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80
Hereditary Genius
Charles Hatton.” Why he was so distinguished there is no information, but it
is reasonable to accept Roger North's estimate of his merits, so far as to
classify him among the gifted members of the Montagu family.
I will mention only four more of the kinsmen of the Norths. The first is
their great-uncle, Sir Henry Montagu, Chief Justice of the King's Bench,
and created Earl of Manchester, who was grandfather to James Montagu,
Ch. B. E. (Geo. III.), and uncle of William, Ch.B. E. (Jas. II.), both of
whom are included in my list. Lord Clarendon says of Sir Henry, that he
was “a man of great industry and sagacity in business, which he delighted in
exceedingly; and preserved so great a vigour of mind, even to his death,
that some who had known him in his younger years did believe him to have
much quicker parts in his age than before.”
The second Earl of Manchester, gN. to the Norths, was the Baron
Kimbolton, of Marston Moor, and, as Lord Campbell says, “one of the most
distinguished men who appeared in the most interesting period of our
history; having, as Lord Kimbolton, vindicated the liberties of his country in
the Senate, as Earl of Manchester in the field, and having afterwards
mainly contributed to the suppression of anarchy by the restoration of the
royal line.”
The first Earl of Sandwich, also gN. to the Norths, was the gallant High
Admiral of England in the time of Charles II. He began life as a soldier,
when only eighteen years of age, with a Parliamentary regiment that he
himself had raised; and he ended it in a naval battle against the Dutch in
Southwold Bay. He also translated a Spanish work on Metallurgy. I do not
know that the book is of any value, but the fact is worthy of notice as
showing that he was more than a mere soldier or sailor.
The last of the eminent relations of the Norths of whom I shall speak at
length, was the great-grandson of the
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