AND HIS POLITICAL MORALITY.

venture to offer a member of parliament a bank
note must have found venality ripe to his hands;
and the utmost that can fairly be alleged against
him is, that finding corruption, he did not attempt
to repress it, but rather turned it to account. The
emergency was his justification. Those were not
times for a minister to set about reforming public
morals. The noble constitution which had lately
been delineated by matchless wisdom and modera-
tion was neither valued nor understood by an ig-
norant people, given up, for the most part, to the
political doctrines which had been so long and so
sedulously inculcated by a self-seeking Church.
Divine, Indefeasible, Hereditary Right and Passive
Obedience were likely to prevail against the Original
Contract and the responsibility of rulers. Political
purists may
cavil at the means by which the imme-
diate peril was averted; but I leave such politicians
to their paper constitutions and impossible Utopias.
Quieta non movere, Walpole's favourite maxim,—a
wise one at all times,-was especially suited to that
critical period. Thus it was that he sometimes de-
sisted from a sound course of policy both in foreign
and domestic affairs, because he would not risk a
convulsion, which might hazard the safety of good
government. Walpole's mind was not superior to the
age in which he lived; therefore, his character and
conduct are doubtless open to reproach; but no
candid advocate of free institutions will deny that,
in the main, he acted the part of a great statesman
and a true-hearted Englishman.

Ch. 1.

1742

3

4

Ch. 1.

1742

Death of the
Prince of
Wales.

1751

DEATH OF FREDERIC, PRINCE OF WALES.

The chief of the allied opposition, which at last overthrew this brave and honest minister, shrank from the responsibility of placing himself at the head of a new government, and sought an ignoble refuge in the House of Lords. The inferior men to whom the Earl of Bath deputed the administration feebly pursued the same policy which they had so long denounced. The patriots, freed from the coercion of a chief, were soon divided by a fierce contest for office; and they chose the time when the country was menaced with invasion and civil war, to bring their quarrel to a crisis, by leaving the king and the nation without a government.

The Protestant succession had never been in such imminent peril; indeed, the country was saved rather by the fatuity which attended every operation of the Stuarts, and now prevented them from taking the obvious mode of profiting by their first success, than by the energy of its rulers. But the danger happily passed away, and the cause of the Exile was lost for ever.

An event which happened a few years afterwards was alone wanting to consolidate the government. The death of the heir-apparent, instead of being a calamity to his family and to the nation, was, in truth, a relief to both. The prince had, from his earliest years, endured the rancorous hatred of both the king and queen. He reciprocated the animosity of his parents; and, on one occasion, hazarded the life of his consort, and the existence of his yet unborn child, merely for the purpose of wreaking

COURT OF LEICESTER HOUSE.

his filial spite. That he caballed against the King's government, and comforted the avowed enemies of his dynasty, at the time when the stability of the House of Hanover was imperilled, might possibly have been owing to faction or folly, and not to the gratification of a base and reckless malignity. These are shades which it is hardly worth while to discriminate in such a character. But without adopting the extreme virulence of his mother,a there is abundant evidence that the character of the Prince was of the meanest order.

The Court of Leicester House maintained a Party jealousy. rivalry with that of St. James's; and the aspirants to Court favour were perplexed by the necessity of making their election between the present and the future reign. Every man who paid his respects to the Heir was excluded from employment under the Sovereign; in like manner, the service of the King was disqualification for that of the Prince. The demise of the crown had been, of course, expected by the heir-apparent with the greatest impatience. Eleven years before it took place, and at a time when neither the King's age, nor his state of health, offered any hope of its early approach, the Prince of Wales had taken the trouble to arrange the details of his intended administration. His sudden death was a sad reverse to the worshippers of the rising sun; but they showed great promptitude and decision in repairing their misfortune. Of the

a See Addenda, A., p. 54.

b Diary of Bubb Dodington.

6

Ch. 1.

1751

The Opposition dissolved.

Death of
Pelham.

1753

DEATH OF PELHAM.

many great and noble persons who had been devoted to the Prince of Wales, not a single British peer, temporal or spiritual, except those appointed to bear the pall, ventured to attend his remains to the grave. None of the royal family were present at the funeral, and the office of chief mourner was discharged by the Duke of Somerset, although the Duke of Cumberland was in London.

The Opposition, which had been loosely held together by the name of the prince, was dissolved at his death. Parliament ceased for a time to be the arena of party conflict, and the government was jobbed on under the direction of the Duke of Newcastle and his brother, Mr. Pelham.

The death of Pelham, in 1753, disturbed the smooth career of government by corruption. There were at this time three men of high political mark, either of whom was fit for the lead of the House of Commons. These were Fox, Pitt, and Murray. The first may be described as a politician by profession, and he lived in days when public life was a lucrative calling. For many years he had enjoyed one of the richest places in the government, that of Paymaster. He had made money; and now, like all professional men of a certain standing, he looked to position and advancement. Experienced, able, and ready, Fox was the foremost of that class of public men from which ministers of state are ordinarily selected; and if he was distinguished for any quality, it was, that in a corrupt age he exhibited a pre-eminent contempt for public virtue.

EARL OF CHATHAM.

The next was of a different mould.

William Pitt was a genius for brilliant achievements, for extraordinary emergencies, for the salvation of a country. As a statesman, Pitt can endure comparison with the greatest names of modern history -with Ximénes or Sully, Richelieu or De Witt. As an orator he is yet unrivalled; and to find his equal, we must ascend to the great masters of antiquity.

Such panegyrics may seem loose and extravagant. I propose to justify the first by a faithful narrative of the political achievements of Chatham; of his unfinished designs; and, lastly, of his opposition to the rash and shallow policy of the inferior men who supplanted or succeeded him. His fame, indeed, as a master of eloquence I can vindicate but imperfectly. I may quote passages, grand, affecting, and sublime; these, perhaps, can be matched in oratorical essays, which fell flat upon their audience; but who shall attempt to do justice to those qualities which constitute the essence of oratorycountenance, voice, gesture -all that the Greek calls Action? Yet these were carried by Chatham to a transcendant excellence.

Ch. 1.

1753

the Earl of

7

Pitt's character had many faults, and one above Character of all, which is hardly consistent with true greatness. Chatham. A vile affectation pervaded his whole conduct, and marred his real virtues. Contempt of pelf was one of the traits which distinguished him in a corrupt

• See Addenda, B., P. 54.

d See Addenda, C., p. 55.