sonal, upon Walpole, when Walpole returned to power. But he had two great faults in Walpole's eyes-ability and independence. In fact, there is nothing more remarkable throughout all Walpole's administration, than his extreme jealousy of any colleague who could possibly grow his rival near the throne. Considering the very favourable circumstances under which he became Prime Minister the deaths, in such rapid succession, of all his chief competitors the re-union of the great Whig party the insignificance and division of the Tories in Parliament the readiness of the chief remaining statesmen to act under him we can scarcely doubt, that a liberal encouragement of rising talents, and toleration of high-minded colleagues, would have secured his power through his life, without serious difficulty, and averted that fearful tempest which, during his last years, howled around his head, and at length overthrew, not only him, but, in its violence, almost the monarchy itself. But such liberality did not belong to Walpolehe would be all or nothing. He could be kind to a dependent, or generous to an enemy; not fair to a colleague. He could forgive great faults, but never great talents. We have already seen his conduct to Stanhope, to Sunderland, and to Carteret; we shall hereafter see it to Townshend and to Chesterfield; and it may truly be said that the opposition under which he fell at last, was one raised and fostered by his own inordinate ambition.

With this feeling Walpole, instead of proposing any office to Pulteney, tendered him a peerage, wishing to withdraw him from a House where his talents and in

fluence were already feared. This offer Pulteney, as might have been expected, indignantly declined. He still continued, however, to expect a junction with Walpole, and two years afterwards consented to take (no doubt as a step to a higher) the very subordinate post of Cofferer of the Household. But finding himself disappointed, he silently brooded over his wrongs, and watched a favourable opportunity to attack the Minister in Parliament. Such an opening occurred in the Session of 1725, on a motion for discharging the debts of the Civil List, when Pulteney expressed his wonder how so great a debt could be contracted in three years' time, but added,

that he was not surprised some persons were so eager to have the deficiencies of the Civil List made good, since they and their friends had so great a share in it. After one or two such sallies, he was dismissed from his place as Cofferer; he then openly joined the Opposition, and leagued himself with Bolingbroke. In conjunction between them was planned and penned that celebrated paper, the Craftsman, which first appeared in the ensuing year, and which proved one of the bitterest and most formidable assailants of the Minister.

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The eloquence of Pulteney was of that kind most valued in English Parliaments-ready, clear, and pointed, and always adapted to the temper of the moment. He was often heard to say, that hardly any man ever became a great orator, who began by making a set speech. A most competent judge, and not his friend, Speaker Onslow, assures us, that he knew how, "to animate every subject "of popularity with the spirit and fire that the orators "of the ancient commonwealths governed the people by; was as classical and as elegant in the speeches he did "not prepare, as they were in their most studied compo"sitions, mingling wit and pleasantry, and the application even of little stories so properly, to affect his hearers, "that he would overset the best argumentation in the "world, and win people to his side, often against their own convictions." The same quickness of wit sparkled in his conversation*, and in his writings, nor only in prose, for he had a natural and happy vein for the lighter sort of poetry. But this very vivacity too often unsettled his judgment, and defeated his designs. "His parts," says Lord Chesterfield, were rather above business; and the warmth of his imagination, joined "to the impetuosity and restlessness of his temper, made "him incapable of conducting it long together with "prudence." From the same temper, he has been accused of indiscretion; and he sometimes (as is often seen) attempted to prove that he could keep new secrets,

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* An accomplished acquaintance said of him, “Whenever Lord "Bath desists from Greek and punning, I take it to be just as bad a symptom as if he lost his appetite." This was only a few months before his death. See the Memoirs of Mrs. Carter, by the Rev. M. Pennington, vol. i. p. 394.

by revealing old ones, that is, by boasting of the instances in which he had been already trusted. If we compare him to Chatham, we shall not find the same lofty and commanding spirit; if to Walpole, we shall miss a steady and sagacious application. Unlike both of these, the base passion of avarice had sprung up in his bosom, and grew so high as sometimes to stifle that nobler plant, ambition. His private character, however, was respectable; his public uncorrupt. No stain of treachery, of ingratitude, or of intrigues against the Protestant Succession, rests upon his memory. He could win popularity, but not employ it either for the benefit of those who gave it or for his own. The idol of the nation, as William Pulteney, became their scorn as Earl of Bath; he tried often, but in vain, to recover his lost ground; and he passed his old age in that greatest of all curses that can befall the human mind-to find its aspirations higher than its powers.

Another result of this Session which must not be omitted, was the passing of the "City Act." The object was to curb the Common Council of London, and restrain that opposition which they frequently manifested against every government; the means were to vest in the Mayor and Court of Aldermen, a negative on their proceedings. The Bill was not carried without a violent outcry in London, and a strong opposition in the House of Lords; and the negative it granted was so unpopular, that it appears to have remained dormant and disused for nearly fourteen years.*

Immediately at the close of the Session, in June 1725, the King revived the Order of the Bath, which had been dropped since the coronation of Charles the Second. The number of Knights was now fixed at thirty-eight, amongst whom neither Walpole nor his son were forgotten. Next year, Sir Robert had the further distinction of being installed Knight of the Garter, being the only commoner in modern times, except Admiral Montagu, or the eldest sons of peers,

* Duke of Wharton to James, May 1. 1725. Appendix. Coxe's Pelham, vol. i. p. 221.

who ever enjoyed that honour. I have been assured that the Garter was in like manner warmly pressed upon Mr. Pitt by George the Third, but respectfully declined by the Minister, and that the King then insisted on transferring it to his brother, Lord Chatham.

It was with great difficulty that, in the foregoing year, the remonstrances of Townshend had withheld the King from returning to Hanover; but scarcely had this Session ended, than he began his journey, accompanied as usual by Townshend and the Duchess of Kendal. The state of his foreign relations was now again becoming critical, and needed his utmost attention. Philip the Fifth at this time was once more King of Spain; he had, early in 1724, under the influence of a hypochondriac melancholy, resigned in favour of his son, Don Luis, and retired to St. Ildefonso; but the young Prince dying after a reign of only seven months, Philip was induced, by the ambition of his Queen, to re-ascend the throne. His differences with the Emperor were not yet finally adjusted. We have seen that the treaties at the fall of Alberoni being concluded in haste for the cessation of hostilities could not at once wholly reconcile so many jarring and complicated interests, and reserved some. points (amongst others Gibraltar) for a future Congress at Cambray. That Congress, from various petty difficulties and delays, did not meet till January 1724, and even then its proceedings were languid and without result. In fact the Spanish Court had begun to think that a private and separate negotiation with the Emperor would best attain its objects; and with this hope it had despatched, as ambassador to Vienna, Baron Ripperda, an intriguing Dutch adventurer, who had been a tool of Alberoni, and who now, from the want of able statesmen, was considered so himself.

It is probable, however, that these slow negotiations might have lingered on for many months, or even years, had they not received an impulse from a new and unforeseen event. One chief inducement with Philip, in acceding to the Quadruple Alliance, had been a double mar

* Lord Townshend to the King, April, 1724. Coxe's Walpole. † See vol. i. p. 352.

riage between the branches of the House of Bourbon. His son, Don Luis, espoused a daughter of the Regent Duke of Orleans, while his daughter, the Infanta Mary Anne, was betrothed to the young King of France. In pursuance of this compact, the Infanta, then only four years of age, had been sent to Paris to be educated according to the French manners, and was treated as the future Queen, The French nation, however, viewed with much distaste an alliance which afforded only such distant hopes of issue; and when the Duke de Bourbon came to the helm of affairs, he had a peculiar motive for aversion to it. Should Louis the Fifteenth die childless, the next heir would be the son of the late Regent, the young Duke of Orleans, between whom and Bourbon there had sprung up a personal and rancorous hatred. Bourbon had, therefore, the strongest reason to dread the accession of that Prince; an illness of Louis, about this time, quickened his apprehensions*, and he determined, at all hazards, to dismiss the Infanta, and find the King another bride of maturer years. At one time he thought of Princess Anne of England; but King George, when sounded on this subject, declared, much to his honour, that the obstacle of religion (for the bride must have become a Roman Catholic) was insuperable. The Duke de Bourbon and Madame de Prie next turned their eyes to Mary Leczinska, daughter of Stanislaus, the exiled King of Poland. The cradle of Mary had been rocked amidst the storms of civil war; on one occasion, for example, when still a child in arms, she was forgotten and lost in a hurried retreat; and at length, after an anxious search, was found by her father lying in the trough of a village stable. She was now twenty-one years of age, and not deficient in beauty or accomplishments; while her state of exile and obscurity would, Madame de Prie expected, render her more grateful for her elevation, and more pliant to control.

This alliance being finally fixed, and the consent of Louis obtained, the Duke de Bourbon, in March, 1725, sent back the Infanta. Such an insult, which would

• Duclos, Mém. vol. ii. p. 299.

† Voltaire, Hist. de Charles XII. livre iii. He heard this anecdote from Stanislaus himself.