sidered as the boast of Norfolk. Thus both were in a condition for perpetual squabble. The anecdote to which we have alluded was this:-One evening, at Windsor, on the Queen's asking Walpole and Townshend where they had dined that day, the latter said that he had dined at home with Lord and Lady Trevor; on which Walpole said to her Majesty, smiling, "My lord, Madam, I think, is grown coquet from a long widowhood, and has some design upon my Lady Trevor; for his assiduity of late, in that family, is grown so much beyond common civility, that without this solution I know not how to account for it." The burlesque of this not very decorous observation was obvious, for Lady Trevor was nearly seventy years old, and, besides being a woman of character, was of the "most forbidding countenance that natural ugliness, age, and small-pox, ever compounded."

But Townshend, affecting to take the remark literally, replied with great warmth "No, sir, I am not one of those fine gentlemen who find no time of life, nor any station in the world, preservatives against follies and immoralities that are hardly excusable when youth and idleness make us most liable," &c., &c. In short, his lordship made a speech in which his voice trembled, and every limb shook with passion. But Walpole, always master of his temper, made him no other answer than asking him with a smile, and in a very mild tone of voice, "What, my lord, all this for Lady Trevor!"

The Queen grew uneasy, and, to avoid Townshend's replying, only laughed, and turned the conversation.

An anecdote is told of the Duchess of Queensberry's being forbid the court; which belongs to the literary history of the cleverest opera in our own or any other language-Gay's famous production. Walpole, justly regarding himself as caricatured in the "Beggar's Opera," obtained the Duke of Grafton's authority as Lord Chamberlain to suppress the representation of his next opera, "Polly." Gay resolved to publish it by subscription, and his patroness, the Duchess of Queensberry, put herself

at the head of the undertaking, and solicited every person she met, to subscribe. As the Duchess was handsome, a wit, and of the first fashion, she obtained guineas in all directions, even from those who dreaded to encourage this act of defiance. The Duchess's zeal, however, increased with her success; and she even came to the drawing-room, and under the very eye of majesty solicited subscriptions for a play which the monarch had forbidden to be acted. When the King came into the drawing-room, seeing the Duchess very busy in a corner with three or four persons, he asked her what she was doing. She answered, "What must be agreeable, she was sure, to any body so humane as his Majesty, for it was an act of charity; and a charity to which she did not despair of bringing his Majesty to contribute." This proceeding was so much resented, that Mr Stanhope, vice-chamberlain to the King, was sent in form to the Duchess to forbid her coming to court. The message was verbal; but she desired to send a written answer-wrote it on the spot

and thus furnished a document, whose style certainly exhibited more sincerity than courtiership.

"That the Duchess of Queensberry is surprised and well pleased that the King has given her so agreeable a command as to stay from court, where she never came for diversion, but to bestow a great civility on the King and Queen. She hopes that, by such an unprecedented order as this, the King will see as few as he wishes at his court, particularly such as dare to think or speak truth. I dare not do otherwise, and ought not, nor could have imagined that it would not have been the very highest compliment I could possibly pay the King, to endeavour to support truth and innocence in his house-particularly when the King and Queen both told me that they had not read Mr Gay's play. I have certainly done right, then, to stand by my own words rather than his Grace of Grafton's, who hath neither made use of truth, judgment, nor honour, through this whole affair, either for himself or his friends.

"C. QUEENSBERRY.” When her Grace had finished this

paper, drawn up, as Lord Hervey observes, "with more spirit than accuracy," Stanhope requested of her to think again, and give him a more courtly message to deliver. The Duchess took her pen and wrote another, but it was so much more disrespectful, that he asked for the former one and delivered it.

There was, of course, a prodigious quantity of court gossip on this occasion and, doubtless, though some pretended to be shocked, many were pleased at the sting of royalty, and many more were amused at the dashing oddity of the Duchess. But public opinion, on the whole, blamed the court. It certainly was infinitely childish in the King, to have inquired into what the Duchess was doing among her acquaintances in the drawing-room; it was equally beneath the natural notions of royal dignity that the King should put himself in a state of hostility with a subject, and in so trifling a matter as the subscription to an unpublished play; and it was equally impolitic, for the world was sure to range itself on the side of the woman, especially when that woman was handsome, eccentric, and rich. It produced some inconvenience, however, to the lady's husband, as he, in consequence, gave up the office of Admiral of Scotland.

The history of the "Beggar's Opera" is still one of those mysticisms which perplex the chroniclers of the stage. It has been attributed to the joint conception of Swift, Pope, and Gay. The original idea probably belonged to Swift, who, in that fondness for contrasts, and contempt of romance, which belonged to him in every thing, had observed, "What a pretty thing a Newgate pastoral would make!" Pope may have given hints for the epigrammatic pungency of the dialogue; while the general workmanship may have been left to Gay. It is scarcely possible to doubt the sharp and worldly hand of Swift in some of the scenes and songs. Pope may have polished the dialogue, or nerved some of the songs, otherwise it is difficult to account for the total failure of all those characters of sternness, sharpness, and knowledge of the world, in Gay's subsequent and unassisted drama, "Polly." For, as the note on the

subject observes, nothing can be more dull and less sarcastic, or, in fact, less applicable to either public characters or public events than the latter opera, against which a prime minister levelled the hostilities of the Lord Chamberlain, and engaged the indignation of the King.

Gay had been a dependant on Mrs Howard, a matter which, in the scandalous laxity of the time, was by no means disgraceful. He had been solicitor for some place under the court, and had been disappointed. But the "Beggar's Opera" had been written before his disappointment. Of course, it is unlikely that he should have then thought of burlesquing the minister. His disappointment, however, may have given him new intentions, and a few touches from Swift's powerful hand might have transformed Macheath, Peachum, and Lockit into the fac-similes of the premier and his cabinet. It is remarkable that Gay had never attempted any thing of the kind before, nor after. His solitary muse was the very emblem of feebleness, his ambition never soared beyond a salary, and his best authorship was fables.

As ours is the day when rioting is popular, and rebels in every country are modellers of government, it may be amusing to remember how those matters were managed in the last century. The history of the famous Excise scheme, which in its day convulsed England, and finally shook the most powerful of all ministers out of the most powerful of all cabinets, is amongst the curious anecdotes of a time full of eccentricity. Walpole was no more superior to the effects of prosperity than honester men. Long success had confirmed him in a belief of its perpetual power; and the idea that, with a court wholly at his disposal, with a Queen for his agent, a King almost for his subject, the peerage waiting his nod, and the commons in his pay, he could be cast down and shattered like a plaster image, seems never to have entered into his dreams. But in this plenitude of power, whether to exercise his supremacy, or for the mere want of something to do, it occurred to him to relieve the country gentlemen by reducing the land-tax to a shilling in the pound, turning the duty on

tobacco and wine, then payable on importation, into inland duties,—that is, changing customs on those two commodities into excise. By which scheme, and the continuation of the salt-duty, he proposed to improve the revenue half a million a-year, so as to supply the abatement of the shilling in the pound. The plan seemed feasible, and it also appeared likely to attract popularity among the country gentlemen, who had frequently complained of the pressure of the land-tax-two shillings in the pound.

The result, however, showed that a man may govern a court who is unequal to govern a people. The very mention of excise raised a universal storm,-all kinds of exaggerations flew through the land. The subject, at no time popular, was converted into a source of frantic indignation. The orators alleged, that if excise was once to be made a substitute for the land-tax, it might be made a substitute for every tax; that if it was laid on wine and tobacco, it would soon be laid on corn and clothing; that every man's house would be at the mercy of excise-officers, whose numbers would amount to a standing army, and of the most obnoxious kind, an army of taxgatherers; that liberty must perish; Magna Charta be not worth its own parchment; parliament be voted useless; and the monarch, who could extract every shilling from the pockets of his subjects under the pretext of an excise, might soon ride roughshod over the liberties of England. Petition on petition, of course, showered into parliament; the boroughs angrily advised their representatives to vote against the measure; and the towns and cities haughtily commanded their parliamentary delegates to resist all extension of the excise, however qualified, corrected, or modelled by the minister.

Walpole was thunderstruck; but he still relied upon his fortune. His friends crowded round him with entreaties that he would abandon the measure. But his argument was the argument of infatuation-the old absurdity of exposing himself to immediate ruin, through fear of being ruined at some future time, which might never arrive. In fact, his flexibility, which often saves a minister, was sud

denly exchanged for the stubbornness which is the ministerial road to ruin. At last the memorable day came, March 14, 1743, when the bill was to be presented to parliament. It was reported that thousands of the people would block up the House, and there was a general order for constables, peace-officers, and the Guards to be in readiness. The mob, however, were neither so numerous nor so unruly as was expected. The debate was long, and the question was carried for the excise scheme by a majority of 61-the numbers being 204 and 265. The King was so anxious on the subject, that he made Lord Hervey write to him from the House at five o'clock; and, when the debate broke up at one in the morning, and Lord Hervey came to St James's to mention the result, the King carried him into the Queen's bedchamber, and kept him there till three in the morning, (without having dined;) asking him ten thousand questions, not merely about the speeches, but the very looks of the speakers.

The memoirs of persons in high life have a certain use for those who will draw the true moral from them; which is, that the highest rank is by no means the happiest. The exterior glitters to the eye, and doubtless there are few pedestrians who would not rejoice to drive in a gilt coach, with a squadron of hussars prancing round them. But the Memoirs of George II. and his Queen, altogether independently of private character, give formidable evidence of the cares which haunt even thrones. Yet, perhaps, there was no more palmy state of public affairs than that which saw George and Caroline on the throne. The country was in profound peace, commerce was flourishing, there was no impediment to the wheels of society-neither famine nor pestilence, nor rebellion; and yet distress, vexation, aud perplexity seem to be as frequent inmates of the palace as they could have been of the workhouse. Even the great minister himself, though the head and front of the whole immediate disturbance, and likely to suffer more severely than all the rest, bore the crisis with more equanimity than either of their majesties.

"This evening," says Lord Hervey, "Sir Robert Walpole saw the King

in the Queen's apartment, and the final resolution was then taken to drop the bill; but as there was a petition to come from the city of London against it the next day, it was resolved that the bill should not be dropped till that petition was rejected, lest it should be thought to be done by the weight and power of the city." Walpole, on coming from this conference, called on Lord Hervey to let him know what had passed. Sir Robert was extremely disconcerted. Lord Hervey told him that he had been twice that afternoon sent for by the King; but, not knowing in what strain to talk to him, as he was ignorant whether Sir Robert intended to go forward or retreat, and expecting that he should be asked millions of questions relating to what he saw, and what he heard, and what he thought; to avoid the difficulties which this catechism would lay him under, he kept out of the way.

In the mean time, Sir Robert had gone to the Queen, and told her, that the clamour had grown so great, that there were but two ways of trying to appease it, one by dropping the project, and the other by dropping the projector. The Queen chid him extremely "for thinking it possible she could act so cowardly a part." When Lord Hervey went up to the drawingroom, he saw that her Majesty had been weeping very plentifully, and found her so little able to disguise what she felt, that she was forced to pretend headach and vapours, and break up her quadrille party sooner than the usual hour. When the drawing-room was over, the King called Lord Hervey into the Queen's bedchamber, and began with great eagerness to ask him where he had been all day, whom he had seen, what he had heard, and how both friends and foes looked? To some of the replies, referring to the Opposition, the King said with great warmth, "It is a lie; those rascals in the Opposition are the greatest liars that ever spoke." The city petition was presented the next morning, and attended by a train of coaches reaching from Temple Bar to Westminster. The prayer of the petition was, that they might be heard by counsel against the bill. After a debate till

midnight the petition was rejected, but only by a majority of seventeen -214 to 197. Walpole was never more deeply smitten than by this defeat, for so small a majority was a virtual defeat. He stood for some time after the House was up, leaning against the table, with his hat pulled over his eyes, and some few friends, with melancholy countenances, round him. As soon as the whole was over, Pelham went to the King, and Hervey to the Queen, to acquaint them with what had passed. When Hervey, at his first coming into the room, shook his head and told her the numbers, the tears ran down her cheeks, and for some time she could not utter a word. At last she said, “It is over— we must give way; but pray tell me a little how it passed."

On the next day, Walpole proposed the postponement of the tobacco bill for two months. On coming out of the House, the mob, who had increased in numbers, continued to insult the members. Walpole, though warned of the reception which he was likely to get, determined to face the mob, as he boldly said, "there was no end of flying from their menaces, and that meeting dangers of this kind was the only way to put an end to them." With some friends, and to a certain degree protected by the constables, who made a passage for the members to go out, he at last worked his way through the mob; though there was a great deal of jostling, and the constables were obliged to make large use of their staves. Three of his friends (among whom was Lord Hervey) were hurt. The city had been filled with illuminations and bonfires the night before, when Sir Robert Walpole, with a fat woman, (meant for the Queen,) was burnt in effigy. is singular that this triumph was carried as far as Oxford, where for three nights together, round the bonfires in the streets, the healths of Ormond, Bolingbroke, and James III. were publicly drunk!

It

Lord Hervey's sketches of character are among the best specimens of his writing, and the most interesting portions of his book. They are always acute and forcible, natural though epigrammatic, and remorseless though polished. As the lives of Chancellors

have been, of late, so frequently brought before the public, we give his sketch of Lord Chancellor King. Speaking of King as having risen from obscurity to the woolsack, without an obstruction in his career, and with the general approbation of all judges of legal merit, he observes that, from the moment of his presiding in Chancery, his reputation began to sink. But this is explained, hot by any newly discovered deficiency of talent, but by deficiency of decision. "Expedition," says Lord Hervey, was never reckoned among the merits of the Court of Chancery; but while Lord King presided there, its delays became insupportable. He had such a diffidence of himself, that he dared not do right for fear of doing wrong. Decrees were always extorted from him; and, had he been left alone, he would never have given any suitor his due, for fear of giving him what was not so; never reflecting that the suspension of justice was almost as bad as the total privation of it. His understanding was of that balancing irregular kind, which gives people just light enough to see difficulties and form doubts, yet not enough to surmount the one, or remove the other. This sort of understanding, which was of use to him as a pleader, was a trouble to him as a judge, and made him make a great figure at the bar, but an indifferent one upon the bench. The Queen once said of him, very truly, as well as agreeably, that he was just in the law, what he had formerly been in the gospel-making creeds of the one, without any steady belief, and judgments in the other, without any settled opinion. But the misfortune,' said she, for the public is, that though they can reject his silly creeds, they are forced to submit to his silly judgments.' (Lord King had dabbled in divinity, and published a history of the Apostles' Creed.) Complaints soon arose, that all the equity of the nation was at a stand. afterwards nearly lost his senses by repeated attacks of apoplexy. He was at last induced to retire on a pension of £3000. He died in the next year, "little regretted by any body, but least of all by his Majesty, who saved £3000 a-year by it."

He

The condition of the court seems to have been perpetual conflict. The King's personal conduct was inexcusable; the Queen's great object was the possession of power; and the Prince was an object of suspicion to both, as both were objects of vexation to the Prince. His case in short was this: "He had a father that abhorred him, a mother that despised him, sisters that betrayed him, a brother set up against him, and a set of servants that neglected him, and were neither of use to him, nor capable of being of use, nor desirous of being of use."

The Opposition were in pretty much the same condition: they, too, were in a state of civil war. Lord Carteret and Bolingbroke had no correspondence at all; Pulteney and Bolingbroke hated each other; Carteret and Pulteney were jealous of each other; Sir William Wyndham and Pulteney the same; while Chesterfield had a little correspondence with them all, but was confided in by none.

The Princess's marriage to the Prince of Orange had long engrossed the consideration of the court. The Princess was not ill-looking, but her figure was short, and inclined to be fat. She seems to have resembled both the King and the Queen in their better, and in their worst, qualities. She was quick, intelligent, and passionate; yet could be cool, callous, and ready to sacrifice every thing to power. The Prince of Orange was poor, having but £12,000 a-year, and he was deformed, having a humpback, and altogether exhibiting the least attractive object possible in the eyes of a princess as haughty as any in Christendom. The marriage was solemnised at seven in the evening: the chapel was splendidly fitted up; but the Queen and the Princesses exhibited so much undisguised concern, that the procession to the chapel, and the aspect of matters there, looked more like a sacrifice than a marriage. We cannot go any further into details which, however suitable to foreign manners, can only disgust the fortunate delicacy of the English mind. But Lord Hervey's manner of consoling the philosophic Queen in her disdain and disgust, is capital, as a specimen at once of the man of the world

and of the courtier.