as he, yet may be looked upon as ready to join in his opinion. 2007 (Lord Strafford), if in town, would have answered with more spirit: but he was at a distance.

Upon the whole, it appears that nothing is to be expected from them without a foreign and a very considerable assistance; and it slipt from Jodrell (Lord Orrery), in his conversation with the person sent, that that number should not be much less than 20,000; though this particular he omitted in the memoir, and I mention it only to show their extreme timorousness.

It is plain that the Tories at this turn hoped to get into place, if not into power; and though they resolved to keep their principles and inclinations if they had done so, yet I much question whether they really would; or rather I am satisfied that the bulk of them would not; and therefore it is a happiness to you, Sir, that their aims have hitherto been, and will probably continue to be, defeated.

From the character of Lintall (Duke of Hanover) and his wife given, which is undoubtedly a true one, and from that circumstance of their being not likely long to submit to any man's advice, you have all the reason in the world to expect that their affairs will soon be perplexed, and that the Whigs they employ will grow turbulent and quarrel among themselves. It cannot be otherwise while Olly (Walpole) is at their head, and yet not entirely possessed of all the power and credit he had, and apprehensive of the designs of enemies of the same party, as the case certainly is, to dislodge and disgrace him. This situation will make him naturally cast about how to save himself, either by remaining in power or quitting it: and whether he does the one or the other, confusion will follow.

The war between Walpole and Pulteney is as open and violent as ever; as a proof of which the last Craftsman is sent. But it is a stronger proof that Pulteney himself is not employed; and that the Chetwynds, his friends, and Gumly, his father-in-law, are turned out; and Chesterfield, who has mixed in all his resentments, is to be sent abroad upon an embassy. These things will not extinguish but inflame the quarrel between them; and it cannot be long before it will come to such

a height as will give great advantages to your friends at home and abroad.

Walpole will always fear that he stands upon an insecure foundation; that Lintall (Duke of Hanover) dissembles with him as being necessary to his affairs for a time, and will watch the first opportunity to get rid of him. Under these persuasions, he will not act with zeal and cheerfulness, but will probably look out for some supports against what he apprehends may happen to him.

Sir, I return to, and humbly persist in the opinion of your endeavouring by all manner of ways to fix at Avignon, or somewhere on this side of the Alps. 1165 (Cardinal Fleury), cannot in his heart blame you for it, and hitherto seems in some degree to favour it. And should he do otherwise, and come even to extremities, you will be forced to yield with more honour; and he may perhaps open himself to you a little farther than he has as yet done, before he removes you. If he does, that secret will make amends for all his harsh usage.

Your friends at home are apprehensive of your approaching too near the coast, chiefly on their own account, as they reckon they should feel the effects of it. But they can have no just objection to your quitting Italy, and being, though still at a distance, yet in a greater readiness to lay hold of advantages.

DUKE OF WHARTON TO JAMES.

(Extract.)

Parma, May 21. 1728. THE transport I felt at the sight of your Majesty prevented me from recollecting many things which I had proposed to have humbly laid before you; most of which were rendered useless by your Majesty's gracious manner of receiving me.

Your Majesty's goodness in writing to the King of in and the Duke of Ormond, will I hope, screen me

from the reflections which will be cast upon me by some gentlemen who brand my zeal with the name of madness, and adorn their own indolence with the pompous title of discretion; and who, without your Majesty's gracious interposition, will never comprehend that obedience is true loyalty.

BISHOP ATTERBURY TO JAMES.

Paris, Nov. 12. 1731.

I HAVE been obliged to write and print the Paper enclosed, partly for reasons specified in the Paper itself, and partly at the desire of some friends in England; which I comply with the more readily, as it gave me an occasion of doing some little justice to the memory of that great and good man, the Earl of Clarendon ; equally eminent for his fidelity to the Crown, and his ill usage on that very account.

Whilst I was justifying his History, I own myself to have been tempted to say somewhat likewise in defence of his character and conduct, particularly as to the aspersion with which he has been loaded of advising King Charles II. to gain his enemies and neglect his friends. A fatal advice! which he certainly never gave, though he smarted under the effects of it, and was sacrificed by his Master to please those who were not afterwards found to be of any great importance to his service. But I considered the ill use that might be made of such an apology, and therefore declined it.

You may perhaps not have heard, Sir, that what happened to my Lord Clarendon, was the first instance in the English story of banishing any person by an Act of Parliament wherein a clause was expressly inserted, to make all correspondence with him penal, even to death. Permit me to add, that I am the second instance of a subject so treated; and may perhaps be the last, since even the inflictors of such cruelties seem now to be a-weary and ashamed of them.

Having the honour to be like him, as I am, in my sufferings, I wish I could have been like him too in my services: but that has not been in my power. I can indeed die in exile, asserting the Royal cause as he did; but I see not what other way is now left me of contributing to the support of it.

May wisdom govern and success attend all your counsels!

I am, &c.

F. ROFFEN.

BISHOP ATTERBURY TO MR. HAY (LORD INVERNESS) ON HIS ABJURATION OF THE PROTESTANT FAITH. [This letter has no date, but is endorsed "March 3. 1732," the day it was received, and must have been written very shortly before Atterbury's death (Feb. 15.), so that, in all probability, it was the last letter composed by that highly-gifted man. In the first edition of my second volume, I merely alluded to this letter, but I found that it was quite unknown to many of my readers, it being only printed in a fly-leaf prefixed to the third volume of Atterbury's Correspondence, and not inserted in all the copies of that publication. I was therefore induced to reprint it.]

MY LORD,

ABOUT the beginning of December last I wrote to your Lordship, and sent you a paper which I had lately printed here.* To that letter, though your Lordship used to answer all mine without delay, I had no manner of return. I heard, indeed, soon after I had written to you, of what had happened on St. Andrew's day last at Avignon †, but I did not think a change of religion made any change in the forms of civility; and therefore I still wondered at your silence. Perhaps a reflection on your not having consulted me in that great affair, though I was the only Bishop of the Church of England on this side the water, might make you very shy of writing to

* Vindication of Lord Clarendon's Editors.

† Lord Inverness renouncing the Protestant, and embracing the Roman Catholic religion.

me on any other account, and willing to drop the correspondence. You may remember, my Lord, that when you first retired from the King at Pisa, and when you afterwards left Rome and went to Avignon; on both these occasions you opened to me by letter the reason of your conduct, and gave me an opportunity by that means of expressing my thoughts to you, in the manner I used always to do, that is, frankly and without reserve. In this last step, my Lord, you have acted far otherwise; and yet in this I had most reason to expect that you would not merely have informed me of what had passed, but even consulted me before you took your full and final resolution. My character and course of studies qualified me much better for such an application, than for passing my judgment in matters of state and political managements. If your Lordship entertained any doubts concerning your safety in that religion wherein you had been bred, I might, perhaps, upon your proposing them, have been so happy as to have solved them, and shown you that whatever reason you might have, as to this world, for quitting the communion you were of, you had none, you could have none, as to another.

Since you were not pleased to give me an occasion of writing to you at this time, I have determined to take it, and to pursue my former method of telling you with such plainness as perhaps nobody else will, what the world says of your late conduct.

My Lord, they who speak of it most softly, and with greatest regard to your Lordship, say that it is a coup de desespoir; and that your Lordship, perceiving the prejudices of the King's Protestant subjects to run high against you, so that you would never be suffered to be about his person and in the secret of his affairs with their consent, was resolved to try what could be done by changing sides, and whether you might not, at the long run, be able to gain by one party what you had lost by another. They represent you as thinking the King's restoration not soon likely to happen; and therefore as resolved, since you were obliged to live in exile in Roman Catholic countries, to make the best of your circumstances, and recommend yourself, as much as you could, to the natives: that so, if his cause should prove desperate for a time,