instead of being advanced or promoted by a divided allegiance, the frequent threat of invasion or insurrection, and the actual existence of civil war in the heart of the kingdom. To contend that the rising of 1715-1716, or the rebellion of 1745, was a wholesome stimulant to a sluggish people would be much the same as saying that the improved cultivation of the wine, corn, and wool-producing provinces of Spain is owing to the Carlists and the revolutionary proceedings at Madrid. As to the Hanover family throwing themselves into the arms of the Old Whigs, abjuring the rights and manners of Royalty, his Lordship has simply anticipated Mr. Disraeli's theory of the British Constitution when describing it as essentially Venetian under the two first Sovereigns of the dynasty. But it may be shown from this very Autobiography, as well as from all other authentic sources of information, that they were more like Eastern Satraps than Venetian Doges; that, except at rare intervals, no compulsion was put upon them; and that place and power were sought by intrigue and flattery, through male or female favourites, because notoriously dependent on royal inclination and caprice. The prolonged tenure of power by Walpole, who started as a country gentleman of moderate estate, goes far to refute the theory; and as regards the alleged dictation, we need only refer to what took place on the accession of George II., when Walpole waited on the new King to be informed who was to draw up the speech to the Council, in other words, who was to have the chief conduct of affairs. He was referred to Sir Spencer Compton, who was clearly intended for the post, had he possessed the smallest amount of qualification. He broke down. at the outset, being unable to prepare the required form without Walpole's aid, and his inefficiency becoming known, things gradually fell into the old train. Still, Walpole was never strong enough to dispense with female or backstairs influence; and his power, which resisted all attacks, open or underhand, 'King, Lords and Commons, the Venetian Constitution,' exclaimed Sir Joseph. But they were phrases,' said Coningsby, not facts. The King was a Doge: the Cabinet the Council of Ten. Your Parliament, that you call Lords and Commons, was nothing more than the Great Council of Nobles.' The resemblance was complete,' said Millbank, ‘and no wonder, for it was not accidental: the Venetian Constitution was intentionally copied.'-Coningsby. When the excitement of this great event (the Revolution of 1688) had a little subsided, when the rights and liberties of the nation had been secured by its Parliament, the leaders of the Whigs, including many of the most powerful and ancient families of the kingdom, commenced a favourite scheme of that party, which was to reduce the King of England to the situation of a Venetian Doge.- Vindication of the English Constitution in a Letter to a Noble Lord.' By Disraeli the Younger, p. 168. Vol. 138.-No. 276. whilst Queen Caroline lived, was perceptibly weakened by her death. This is stated in so many words by Lord Shelburne; and we shall see as we proceed how utterly powerless the Whig aristocracy, split into petty factions, really were, and how at the most critical period of our annals there was more danger to be apprehended from an absolute monarchy than from a Venetian oligarchy. Next to Walpole, the man who exercised most personal influence was the Great Commoner.' He, backed by the people, in times of public excitement and alarm, did dictate to both King and nobles; and the most powerful of the Whig magnificoes (as Mr. Disraeli calls them), the Duke of Newcastle, was content to act under him. But this is no more than has happened repeatedly, and might happen again, if in any threatening conjuncture of affairs any popular statesman should be imperatively summoned to the helm. Turning to the Continent, his Lordship remarks that in the seventeenth century France was on the whole systematically and wisely governed : 'Louis XIV. was a King in every sense of the word. He identified himself as few Kings do with the public, with whom he was one and the same. Monsieur de Montyon sent me several original letters which passed between Louis and Colbert and his other Minister, which evidently prove his great economy and that he never let go his authority-a great point. He had great qualities if not great talents. Over-devotion and religious prejudice are to be excused in an old man, and are to be attributed more to the monarchy than to the man, at least more to the combination of both than to the man alone.' When we remember to what the over-devotion and religious prejudice of Louis XIV. led, it will be difficult to find even plausible excuses for them, and the condition to which his ambition, vanity, bigotry and extravagance, reduced France is the best answer to all that ever was urged in praise of his system of government or economy. 'England, on the other hand, was left in great measure to nature, for the feebleness, the prejudices, and the total incapacity of the Stewarts, did not deserve to be called an administration, and only served to give the popular party time to form itself. Cromwell has never had justice done him. . . . England was never so much respected abroad, while at home, though Cromwell could not settle the Government, talents of every kind began to show themselves, which were immediately crushed or put to sleep at the restoration.' Since this was written, Cromwell has had ample justice done him. He elevated the English name; he planned many useful reforms; and he encouraged literature so far as was consistent with the prevalent spirit of fanaticism, from which he himself was not exempt. He took Marvel and Milton into his service; he pensioned Usher, although a bishop; and he favoured his relative Waller, who repaid him in genuine poetic coin.* But we are utterly at a loss to know what talents had begun to show themselves which were immediately crushed or put to sleep at the Restoration. Creative genius was not crushed, for Paradise Lost' was published in 1668. Science was not put to sleep, for the Royal Society was founded in 1663. If Dryden, Butler, Cowley, Congreve, Locke, Newton, were not encouraged, at all events they were not persecuted, oppressed, or kept under in any way. Lord Shelburne's estimate of the 'great and good' King William is diametrically opposed to that of Lord Macaulay; indeed, it is enough to make the brilliant historian turn in his grave. 'Nothing can be more false and absurd than the enthusiasm entertained for his character, on account of his supposed love of liberty. He saw too much of it in Holland, where, by his plans for undermining it and by his ambition, he sowed the seeds of a great deal of the confusion and corruption which put an end to the Government of that ill-used country. When Parliament sent away his Dutch Guards, he said, if he had had children or any posterity, he would not have suffered it. I cannot trace a single act of inferior regulation that we owe to him, which did not immediately gratify his ambition.' By way of comparison, a story (too long to quote) is told of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, which confirms the worst suspicions ever entertained of his Grace's double dealing and meanness. The following is a trait worth preserving: 'Lord Bolingbroke said, when he waited on the Duke of Marlborough sometimes before he was up, he used to be found sitting in the window in a thin linen gown put on carelessly and, without seeming to attend, would hit off a point which had taken them a long time to discuss; but the worst of it was they never heard of anything else the whole day after. The French have always denied the Duke of Marlborough's military talents, though he always beat them.' If Lord Shelburne had lived three or four years longer, he would have seen cause to modify his statement that the French have always denied the military talents of the Duke. Napoleon was one of the Duke's most ardent admirers, and the best Perhaps the happiest repartee on record is Waller's, when Charles II. remarked that the poet's verses on the Restoration were not so good as those addressed to Cromwell: 'We poets, sire, succeed better in fiction than in truth.' 2 c2 account account of his campaigns was written and published under the imperial auspices in 1808.* The position assigned by Lord Shelburne to Lord Sunderland, at the accession of George the First, is higher and more important than has been commonly assigned to that nobleman: 'I have heard old people of good authority say that Lord Sunderland, who was the most intriguing man that ever existed after his father-whether he was as corrupt or quite so bad a man as his father, I cannot tell-first got the Court after the accession, and formed the leading party, consisting of the Craggs, Lord Carteret, the Stanhopes, Lord Macclesfield, and others. Lord Sunderland was not only the most intriguing but the most passionate man of his time. In making up one of his administrations, it was recommended to him to nominate Sir James Lowther one of his Treasury, on account of his great property. He appointed him one morning to come to Marlborough House; the morning was bad; nobody came into Lord Sunderland, who at last rung his bell to know whether Sir James Lowther had been there. The servants answered that nobody had called; upon his repeating the inquiry the servants said that there was an old man, somewhat wet, sitting by the fireside in the hall, who they supposed had some petition to deliver to his Lordship. When he went out, it proved to be Sir James Lowther. Lord Sunderland desired him to be sent about his business, saying that no such mean fellow should sit at his Treasury. Henry, Lord Holland, speaking of those times, said he asked Sir Robert Walpole why he never came to an understanding with Lord Sunderland. He answered, "You little know Lord Sunderland. If I had so much as hinted at it, his temper was so violent, that he would have done his best to throw me out of the window."" In a subsequent passage he states that Lord Sunderland 'always had the Court and the Germans with him.' Lord Stanhope, on the contrary, conveys the impression that his ancestor, General (the first Earl) Stanhope, Walpole, and Lord Townshend, stood highest in the confidence of the Court, and were principally entrusted with the conduct of affairs at the commencement of the reign. That Walpole speedily gained the ascendancy is beyond a doubt; and Horace Walpole says that this was owing to his father's abilities in the House of Commons and his knowledge of finance, of which Lord Sunderland and Craggs had betrayed their ignorance in countenancing the South Sea scheme, and who, though more agreeable to the King, had been forced to give way to Walpole * Histoire de Jean Churchill, Duc de Marlborough, Prince du Saint Empire, &c., &c., &c. A Paris, de l'Imprimerie Impériale, 1808. In three volumes. as as the only man capable of repairing that mischief.'* After pronouncing a deliberate opinion that Sir Robert Walpole was, out of sight, the ablest man of his time, Lord Shelburne proceeds I ought to be partial to one of his rivals, if not his principal rival-the House of Commons apart-Lord Carteret, whose daughter I afterwards married. He was a fine person, of commanding beauty, the best Greek scholar of the age, overflowing with wit, not so much a diseur de bons-mots, like Lord Chesterfield, as a man of true comprehensive ready wit, which at once saw to the bottom, and whose imagination never failed him, and was joined to great natural elegance. He had a species of oratory more calculated for the Senate than the people. He was a bon-vivant and kept a large, plain, hospitable table. He said that such a man was a stupid man, but an admirable hearer. He said his house was the neutral port of the Finchs, who carried on the conversation by each of them addressing him and never each other. He said, when all his other stories failed him, Ireland was a constant resource. During his stay there as Lord Lieutenant, there was no end of the ridicule with which it supplied him.' Lord Carteret (afterwards Earl Granville) was past middle life and suffering from the gout when he married Lady Sophia Fermor, a celebrated beauty in her third or fourth season, upon which this epigram appeared : 'Her beauty like the Scripture feast To which the invited never came; Was given to the old and lame.' Lord Shelburne married Lady Sophia Carteret, a daughter of this couple, in 1765. Lord Carteret's memory, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, is honourably associated with that of Swift. Frequent and sharp as were the encounters of their wits, the noble Lord was never taken at a disadvantage. Thus, when Harding, the printer of the 'Drapier's Letters,' was thrown into prison, the Dean went to the levée, burst through the circle, and in a firm voice demanded of the Lord Lieutenant the meaning of these severities against a poor industrious tradesman, who had published two or three papers designed for the good of his country. Lord Carteret, with admirable tact, evaded the remonstrance by the apt quotation from Virgil: 'Res dura, et regni novitas, me talia cogunt On another occasion, when Lord Carteret had parried, with his usual dexterity, some complaint or request of Swift, the Dean *Reminiscences of the Courts of George the First and Second.' exclaimed: |