for a few hours' postponement after the noon, which appears to have been, in Temple's time, the hour of the principal meal. Among the acquaintances which Temple had made when abroad, was Wicquefort, the author of "The Ambassador and his Functions." To him the ex-ambassador thus describes his situation in the autumn of 1672: :-"Since his majesty has thought fit to change the course of his counsels, in the pursuit of which I was so long and so sincerely engaged, as ever believing them equally necessary to the repose of Christendom and the good of both our nations, I have had no share at all in public affairs, but, on the contrary, am wholly sunk in my gardening, and the quiet of a private life.... I will not tell you that I have succeeded so well in my small country designs as I have sometimes done in great ones; but, if ever any favourable accident (and this age produces strange ones enough) should bring you hither, I would let you see that our buildings are not altogether without pleasantness; at least, I would make you confess that the fruits of my garden have another taste than those of my closet, and will preserve better than those of my embassies."* For those who are versed in chymical enquiries, it is added, that Temple, in the year 1670, submitted to the King a project of a new method of making salt, which, it was hoped, "would have supplied the occasion of the foreign bay salt." Like * London, Oct. 10. 1672; ii. 185. other projects submitted to the government, this turned out to be nothing new. "It is the same as commonly made and used in England; it can only render our home salt more cheap, which, you know, is not very dear; and yet those who have tried it say, they are not sure it is so good for all purposes." * June 7. and 28. Arl. 435. 437. CHAPTER XVI. TEMPLE'S WORKS. ON IRELAND. ION POLITICAL INTERESTS OF EUROPE. ON THE UNITED PROVINCES. ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS DURING his temporarary retirement, Temple composed many of the treatises which are included in the collection of his works. We will endeavour to notice these in the order of composition rather than according to the priority of publication. A tract must, in the first place, be noticed, which was written previously to Temple's embassy to the Hague. "Before I go," he writes to Lord Arlington, “I take the liberty to trouble you with a succession of my follies, since you have so long been contented to bear them, and send you that discourse upon the Irish business which I spoke of before you left town, but could never see you at leisure enough for such an amusement; and therefore I adventured to show it to my Lord Keeper first, at my going to Tunbridge, who professed to be pleased with many hints it gave him."* This pamphlet, which was published together with the select letters in 1701, but has not been * To Lord Arlington, London, July 28. 1668. Sel. Let., 60. included in Temple's works, is entitled "An Essay upon the present State and Settlement of Ireland."* The first position put forward in this essay is, that the late settlement of Ireland was managed without skill, judgment, or equity. It was "a mere scramble." "The golden shower fell without any well-directed order or design, and was gathered up in greatest measures by the strongest or the nearest hands...." "The whole business was laid by the King upon one of his ministers, who, consulting sometimes, perhaps, with his advantages, and often with his ease, received information and proposals from such persons of all parties in that kingdom as were most presuming and forward to advise him, or most concerned to abuse him, or most artificial to cover their own or their party's interests with those of the crown, or to join them with those of the ministers themselves...." "The chief directors... not being resolute enough from their own good consciences or good conduct (which can make the bold and happy counsels, they durst not shake the hopes or pretensions of any of the parties, but rather offered at expedients, or at least appearances of pleasing all, and in some seeming equal degree; and not only those that had pretensions in that kingdom, but many in this who had no other besides the plea of some merit, the want of reward, or the particular grace of his Majesty, or some persons near him; and, following *It occupies 21 octavo pages. this uncertain course, they succeeded, as such counsels must ever do: instead of pleasing all, they pleased none; and, aiming to leave no enemies to their settlement of Ireland, they left it no friends." Still, Temple wisely abstained from proposing to alter this settlement, however unsatisfactory. With a view, however, to supporting the charge of the army in Ireland, his main propositions are, to subject all grantees of land to a quit-rent of one fourth of the annual value, and to impose a general land-tax." Then he suggests that it might be advisable to "call to the King's privy council two of the Lords' and four of the Commons' house, out of four to be named by the Lords and eight by the Commons to that purpose, on the last day of this session, who shall be of the council till the next session of parliament, and there both witness and share in the good conduct of affairs, according to the true interests of the nation, as well as the application of the monies to the ends for which they are given." These ends he explains to be, not only the maintenance of the troops, but the improvement of the fisheries, and advancement of trade, which he proposes to effect by regulating the exportation of beef; or, perhaps, by setting up manufactories of linen. Except inasmuch as he was always a stickler for minute regulations of trade, Temple, with a loyal and even deyoted attachment to the monarchy, was assuredly a liberal in politics. Some of the suggestions now cited, and others hereafter to be |