Strange, one of the placemen who opposed the repeal, stated in the clubs that, having mentioned to the King that the ministers had carried their bill entirely by a representation that his Majesty was favourable to it,' his Majesty had thereupon authorised him to contradict that assertion :

So extraordinary a tale soon reached the ear of Lord Rockingham, who immediately asked Lord Strange if it was true what the King was reported to have said to him? The other confirmed it. On that Lord Rockingham desired the other to meet him at court, when they both went into the closet together. Lord Strange began, and repeated the King's words; and asked if he had been mistaken? The King said, "No." Lord Rockingham then pulled out a paper, and begged to know if on such a day (which was minuted down on the paper) his Majesty had not determined for the repeal? Lord Rockingham then stopped. The King replied, "My Lord, this is but half;" and taking out a pencil wrote on the bottom of Lord Rockingham's paper words to this effect: "The question asked me by my ministers was, whether I was for enforcing the act by the sword, or for the repeal of the two extremes I was for the repeal; but most certainly preferred modification to either."'—vol. ii. p. 289.

This story is headed in the Memoirs, Double-dealing of the King. Our readers will, we think, agree that the King's conduct was alike frank and dignified. He avowed what he had said to Lord Strange-he rebuked Lord Rockingham for telling but half the story, and boldly, and we dare say somewhat indignantly, wrote-so as to admit of no misrepresentation-on Lord Rockingham's paper, the important qualification of his opinion, which Lord Rockingham had suppressed. Which was the double-dealer?

But great injustice would be done to George III., and our readers might also complain, if we did not exhibit, in fuller answer to Walpole's imputations, some portraits-out of his own gallery-of the principal statesmen with whom it was the misfortune of that good King and excellent man to have to deal. There were no less than seven administrations imposed by circumstances on the King within his first ten years. Let Walpole tell us how they were composed. We shall distinguish the successive prime ministers by printing their names in capitals.

Of Mr. Pitt himself, the first figure-though only one of the Secretaries of State-in the administration which the King at his accession found and retained, we will postpone Walpole's opinions till we arrive at his second administration.

Of the DUKE OF NEWCASTLE-First Lord of the TreasuryWalpole's contempt is so well known by his Letters and former Memoirs that we need add but a touch or two from this work more especially applicable to the period before us :—

This veteran, so busy, so selfish, and still so fond of power, determined to take a new court-lease of folly.'-vol. i. p. 11.

A ridiculous old dotard. It was absurd in him to stay in place, insolent to attempt to stay there by force, and impudent to pretend patriotism when driven out by contempt.'-i. 168.

"Thus disgraced and disgracing himself, Newcastle resigned.'-ib. The Chancellor, Lord Northington, was

He

'too profligate, in every light, to carry any authority' (ii. 200). made a pretence for quarrelling with the ministers, complaining untruly that he was not consulted, &c.' (p. 333). Whether this meanness was officious or instilled into him was not certainly known' (p. 334). 'The deepest tinge of that dirty vice, avarice and rapaciousness, blotted the Chancellor' (p. 357). A fool void of any colour of merit' (p. 357). Mr. Legge-Chancellor of the Exchequer :—

'With all his abilities, Legge was of a creeping, underhand nature, and aspired to the lion's place by the manœuvre of the mole.'—vol. i. p. 301.

'Winchelsea said Legge had had more masters than any man in England, and had never left one with a character.' *—ib. p. 39.

"This shameless and malignant man worked in the mines of successive factions for near thirty years together. To relate them is writing his life'-(vol. ii. p. 359). Nothing could be more offensive than Lord Temple's conduct, whether considered in a public or private light. Opposition to his factious views seemed to let him loose from all ties, all restraint of principles: and his brother was the object of his jealousy and resentment.'-vol. i. p. 295.

Lord Holderness-Secretary of State :

'Orders were suddenly sent to Lord Holderness to give up the seals of Secretary of State: the King adding, in discourse, that he had two secretaries, one (Mr. Pitt) who would do nothing, and the other (Lord Holderness) who could do nothing; he would have one, who both could and would. This was Lord Bute.... But, however low the talents of Lord Holderness deserved to be estimated, they did not suffer by comparison with those of his successor.'-vol. i. pp. 42, 43.

And again, when he reappeared as Governor to the Prince of Wales in 1771:

'Lord Holderness owed his preferment to his insignificance and to his wife, a lady of the bedchamber to the Queen, as she did hers to her daughter's governess, whom the Queen had seduced from her, to the great vexation of Lady Holderness. The governess, a French Protestant, ingratiated her late mistress with the Queen, and her mistress soon became a favourite next to the German women.'-vol. iv. p. 314.

* To which the Editor adds, 'None could deny his eminent qualifications as a man of business-his political integrity was less commendable. Doddington says, "his thoughts were tout pour la tripe,'-all for Quarter-day;" and has, in common with Walpole, reproached him with perfidy.'—vol. i. p. 39.

Such,

Such, Walpole thinks, were the claims and qualifications of one who had been Secretary of State in Mr. Pitt's 'glorious' adminis

tration.

Of LORD BUTE, who succeeded Lord Holderness, and soon became First Lord of the Treasury, we need not repeat any of Walpole's general opinions, but we extract the following summary of his character while minister::

'Success and the tide of power swelled up the weak bladder of the Favourite's mind' (vol. i. p. 177). His countenance of Fox was but consonant to the folly of his character' (p. 249). 'His intrigues to preserve power the confusion he helped to throw into each succeeding system-his impotent and dark attempts to hang on the wheels of government, which he only clogged-all proved that neither virtue nor philosophy, but fear-and fear only-was the immediate and precipitate cause of his retreat. Yet let me not be thought to lament this weak man's pusillanimity; had he been firm to himself, there was an end of the Constitution! The hearts of Englishmen were corrupt and sold, and the best heads amongst them toiled in the cause of despotism (p. 256).

And this imminent danger from despotism, all England being corrupted and sold to the Crown, is predicated of the licentious days of Wilkes and Liberty,' when the triumph of demagogues insulted the dignity and even menaced the stability of the throne.

Of Mr. Fox, his general vituperation in both sets of Memoirs is too frequent and too diffuse for extracting; but as regards our present object, it is enough to quote Walpole's observations on his accepting the leadership of the House of Commons from Lord Bute:

'Abandoned by his highest and most showy friends, Fox felt the mortification of discredit with his patron [the Duke of Cumberland] and the public. Detested by the public, he never could recover from the stain contracted at this period.'-vol. i. p. 197.

'Fox had boldness and wickedness enough to undertake whatever the Court was led to compass.'-ib. 249.

Lord Holland was cruel, revengeful, daring, and subtle' (vol. iv. p. 126); and established universal corruption and revenge' (ib. 239). And all this was written of a man whom at the same period Walpole was supporting by his vote in Parliament, and for whom, in 1767-still while he was writing these libels-he tells us that he laboured earnestly to obtain an Earldom' (iii. 95).

Of the Duke of Bedford, Lord President in that administration, and of his party, he says:—

'Lord Bute lost the Bedford faction-not from their usual perfidy; he had lost them before they suspected the smallest diminution of his omnipotence; but he had not gratified the ambition of the Duchess of Bedford. She had marked out for herself the first post in the Queen's

family;

family; but with more attention to her pride than her interest had forborne to ask it, concluding it must be offered to her. The Princess and Lord Bute, either not suspecting, or glad to be ignorant of, her views, were far enough from seeking to place so dangerous a woman in the very heart of the palace. This neglect the Duchess deeply resented, and never forgave.'-vol. i. p. 261.

'The Bedford faction was called in the satires of the day the Bloomsbury Gang-Bedford House standing in Bloomsbury Square.* Of these the chief were Earl Gower, Lord Sandwich, and Rigby' (vol. ii. p. 441). Lords Gower (Lord Chamberlain, afterwards Lord President), Weymouth (Secretary of State), and Sandwich (First Lord of the Admiralty), all had parts, and never used them to any good or creditable purpose. The first had spirit enough to attempt any crime; the other two, though notorious cowards, were equally fitted to serve a prosperous court. And Sandwich had a predilection to guilt, if he could couple it with artifice and treachery (ib.). Weymouth (Secretary of State) neither had nor affected any solid virtue. He was too proud to court the people, and too mean not to choose to owe his preferments to the favour of the Court or the cabals of faction. He wasted the whole night in drinking, and the morning in sleep, even when Secretary of State. No kind of principle entered into his plan or practice, nor shame for want of it. His vanity made him trust that his abilities, by making him necessary, could reconcile intrigue and inactivity. His timidity was womanish, and the only thing he did not fear was the ill opinion of mankind.'-vol. iv. p. 240.

* Lord Tavistock, only son of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, a very amiable young man, whom even Walpole praises (though, as usual, from a partial motive), was killed in 1767 by a fall from his horse. As our readers know, the vile libel of Junius on this subject has been refuted fifty times. Well, hear Walpole:

"The indecent indifference with which such a catastrophe was felt by the faction of that family, spoke too plainly that Lord Tavistock lived a reproach and terror to them. The Duke, his father, for a few days almost lost his senses-and recovered them too soon The Duchess was less blameable, and retained the compassion longer. While all mankind who ever heard the name of Lord Tavistock were profuse in lamenting such a national calamity, it gave universal scandal when, in a little fortnight after his death, they beheld his father, the Duke, carried by his creatures to the India House to vote on a factious question.

This unexampled insensibility was bitterly pressed home on the Duke two years after in a public libel [Junius]. Yet it surely was savage wantonness to taunt a parent with such a misfortune: and of flint must have been that head that could think such a domestic stroke a proper subject for insult, however inadequate to the world the anguish appeared: how steeled must have been that nature that could wish to recall the feelings of a father on such a misfortune!'-Mem. ii. 440.

Very true-very just; but why then did the 'tender heart' of Walpole record the savage slander, with the additional venom of attesting its historical truth? The cruelty of Junius may be-not palliated, but at least-accounted for, by the temporary madness of party or some such motive of personal injustice; but what can be said for Walpole, who, with his eyes open to the infamy of such conduct, and with his pen flowing with indignation against it, takes the especial trouble of transplanting it from what he must have thought an ephemeral libel into the recording pages of his own Memoirs? And then he crowns his inconsistency with

'In Borgia's age they stabbed with daggers—in ours with the pen.' (!!)

He being himself the most general and savage 'stabber with the pen' that the age produced.

The

The other members of that Cabinet will appear in subsequent ministries.

Next came Mr. Grenville's administration.

'Mr. GRENVILLE had hitherto been known but as a fatiguing orator and indefatigable drudge, more likely to disgust than to offend. Beneath this useful unpromising outside lay lurking great abilities: courage so confounded with obstinacy that there was no drawing a line between them-good intentions to the public without one great view-much economy for that public, which, in truth, was the whole amount of his good intentions-excessive rapaciousness and parsimony in himself-infinite self-conceit, implacability of temper, and a total want of principle... His ingratitude to his benefactor, Bute, and his reproaching Mr. Pitt were but too often paralleled by the crimes of other men; but scarce any man ever wore in his face such outward and visible marks of the hollow, cruel, and rotten heart within.'-vol. iv. p. 271.

'The reversion of Lord Temple's estate could make even the inflexible Grenville stoop; and if his acrimonious heart was obliged to pardon his brother [Lord Temple], it was indemnified by revenge on his sister's husband [Mr. Pitt].'-vol. ii. p. 174.

Lord Egremont-Secretary of State

'was a composition of pride, ill-nature, avarice, and strict good breeding, with such infirmity in his frame that he could not speak truth on the most trivial occasion. He had humour, and did not want sense; but he had neither knowledge of business nor the smallest share of parliamentary abilities.'-p. 272.

Lord Halifax-Secretary of State

'was the weakest, but at the same time most amiable of the three. His pride, like Lord Egremont's, taught him much civility: he spoke readily and agreeably; and only wanted matter and argument. His profusion in building, planting, and on a favourite mistress, had brought him into great straits, from which he sought to extricate himself by discreditable means.'-ib.

Then came the first Rockingham administration.

"The nomination of LORD ROCKINGHAM for minister at any season would have sounded preposterous-in the present, sufficient alone to defeat the system.'-vol. ii. p. 100.

'He had so weak a frame of person and nerves that no exigences could surmount his timidity of speaking in public: and having been only known to the public for his passion for race horses, men could not be cured of their surprise in seeing him First Minister.'-ii. 19.

'He was more childish in his deportment than in his age. He was totally void of all information. Ambitious, with excessive indolence; fond of talking of business, but dilatory in the execution; his single talent lay in attracting dependents; yet, though proud and self-sufficient, he had almost as many governors as dependents.'-vol. ii. p. 197.

'Lord