other man, might be seen the truth of the words of Scripture, “unstable as water, thou shalt not excel." Inconsistency and want of rectitude were the bane at once of his political conduct and literary compositions. He was so changeable in his partialities, so variable in his declamations, that there is hardly an eminent man, and certainly not a political party of his time, that he has not alternately praised to the skies, and loaded with vituperation. It is scarcely possible to say what his principles were, for at different periods of his life he espoused those of all men. His only steady aversion seemed to have been to Christianity; and Voltaire acquired almost all the arguments which he afterward wielded with so much effect against religion from his conversation and knowledge. Yet he was not an atheist. Pope's "Essay on Man," and many other passages in his own writings, demonstrate that he had exalted but vague and dreamy ideas of natural religion. Horace Walpole said of him, “With the most agreeable talents in the world, and with great parts, he was neither happy nor successful. He wrote against the king who had forgiven him, against Sir Robert Walpole who did forgive him, against the Pretender and the clergy who never will forgive him. He is one of our best writers, though his attacks on all governments and all religions (neither of which he cared directly to own) have necessarily involved his style in a want of perspicuity. One must know the man before we can often guess his meaning."* This inconsistency tainted his private and moral, as well as public and political character. He was ambitious, and unscrupulous as to the means of elevation; vehement in hatred; variable in principle. Capable of profound dissimulation, he occasionally exercised it, and effectually deceived the most penetrating of his opponents. But, in general, the liveliness of his imagination and quickness of his temper caused him to give vent to the desire or feeling of the moment with an ardor which admitted neither of concealment nor moderation. And hence the otherwise inexplicable incon

* Royal and Noble Authors, 74.

sistencies and contradictions both of his public life and private thoughts.

Harley, afterward created Earl of Oxford, brought to the

Character of

21. support of the same party talents of a much infeHarley, earl of rior, but still very serviceable kind. He had not Oxford. the brilliancy of St. John's imagination, his vast stores of erudition, or his power of ready and extempore eloquence; but he was more prudent and sagacious, had more worldly wisdom, and incomparably more of a statesman's tact than his brilliant coadjutor. His wisdom and discretion, like that of Sir Robert Peel in the reconstruction of the same party after its discomfiture by the Revolution of 1832, brought the Tories up from a small minority in the commencement of the War of the Succession, to a decided majority before its close, in the Commons, Lords, and queen's council. He was no common man who, in the face of a large Whig majority at the commencement of the struggle, and despite the luster of Marlborough's victories, could so take advantage of the mutations of fortune, the changes of public opinion, and the still more variable gales of court favor, as, under such circumstances, to accomplish such a success.

22

It was not, however, either in Parliament or the cabinet that the main strength of the party which overSwift and the threw Marlborough, and brought about the peace Tory writers in the press. of Utrecht, was found. It was the vast ability and sarcastic powers of their allies in the press which chiefly produced the result. The Tories were supported by a band of writers who, in the war of pamphlets by which the contests of parties out of Parliament at that period were carried on, never have been exceeded as regards the versatility of their powers, and thorough knowledge they possessed of the means of rousing and inflaming the general mind. SWIFT was the most powerful of that determined band; and never did intellectual gladiator bring to the deadly strife of envenomed rapiers qualities more admirably adapted for success. Able, penetrating, and sagacious; possessed

of great powers of argument; greater still of sarcasm; thoroughly acquainted with human nature, and unfettered by any of the delicacies which, in men of more refined minds, often prevent the stirring of its passions, he knew how to excite the public mind by awakening their jealousy in regard to matters which came home to every understanding. Disregarding all remote considerations adapted only for the thoughtful, drawn from the balance of power, matters of foreign policy, or the ultimate danger of England, he at once fastened on Marlborough the damning charge of pecuniary cupidity; held forth the continuance of the war as entirely owing to his sordid thirst of gain; and all the wealth which flowed into the coffers of the great commander as wrung from the labors of hardwrought Englishmen. Concealing and perverting what he knew was the truth of ancient history, he represented the Roman consul as rewarded for his victories by a triumph which cost less than a thousand pounds, and Marlborough enjoying five hundred thousand as the fruit of his laurels. He forgot to add, that such were the means of amassing a fortune which victory gave to the Roman proconsuls, that Cæsar, before obtaining the province of Gaul, was enabled, on its prospect, to contract £2,500,000 of debt. It may be conceived what effect such misrepresentations had upon a people already groaning under new taxes, terrified at the growth of the national debt, and inflamed with that envy which the rapid rise, even of the most exalted merit, scarce ever fails to produce in the great majority of men. The Whigs had able writers, too, on their side, but they were no match for their adversaries in the power of producing a present effect on the multitude, whatever they might be on the cultivated in future ages; and the elegant papers of Addison and Steele, in the Spectator and Freeholder, were but a poor set-off to the coarse invectives and withering sarcasms of Swift.

Bolingbroke and Harley were Tory and monarchical in their ideas they belonged to the High-Church party in religion; and in secret, they dreamed of the restoration of the ex

K K

23.

It was these

general causes which over

turned Marl

iled dynasty. Being actuated by such principles, it is not surprising that they viewed with jealousy, and at last with open and undisguised aversion, borough. the course of Marlborough's victories, and lent all the weight of their talents and influence to aid in the propagation of the libels calculated to destroy him. Those triumphs, however glorious to England, however vital to its existence as an independent state, were all adverse to their political principles. They threatened to extinguish the monarchical and Roman Catholic principles in the person of Louis XIV., and erect in supremacy, in their stead, the morose doctrines of the Covenanters, the solemn league and covenant, the principles of the Dutch Republicans. Queen Anne, with the usual instinct of crowned heads, when in secure possession power, inclined to the same opinions. She felt the same repugnance to the Whigs, who had placed her after William on the throne, that Louis Philippe, in after times, did to Lafayette and the patriots of 1830, who had erected the throne of the Barricades. The warmest partisans of royalty in Great Britain and Ireland were to be found in the French ranks; they embraced many of the most generous and exalted, because disinterested, persons in the British dominions. Their appearance excited profound sympathy and admiration wherever they appeared on the Continent.* The Pretender him

of

* "Leurs aventures furent dignes des beaux jours de Sparte et d'Athènes. Ils étaient tous d'une naissance honorable; attachés à leurs chefs, et affectionnés les uns aux autres; irréprochables en tout. Ils se formaient en une compagnie de soldats au service de France. Ils furent passés en révue par le Roi à St. Germain en Laye: le roi salua les troupes par une inclination de la tête et le chapeau bas. Il révint, salua de nouveau, et fondit en larmes. Ils se mirent à genoux, baissants la tête contre la terre, puis se rélevants tout à la fois, ils lui firent le salut militaire. Ils furent envoyés delà à les frontières d'Espagne, ce que formait un marché de 900 milles. Partout où ils passaient ils tiraient des larmes des yeux des femmes, obtenaient le respect de quelques hommes, et en faisant rire d'autres par moquerie qui s'attache au malheur. Ils étaient toujours les premiers dans une bataille, et les derniers dans une retraite. Ils manquerent souvent des choses les plus necessaires à la vie, cependant on ne les entendit jamais se plaindre, excepté des souffrances de celui qu'ils regardaient comme leur

self combated at Malplaquet against Marlborough in the midst of the chivalry of France. It would be erroneous, therefore, to consider the intrigues and animosity which at length effected the downfall of Marlborough and brought about the peace of Utrecht as entirely the result of a revolution du Palais-a bed-chamber affair, in which the interests and glo ry of nations were sacrificed to the spite or the jealousies of women; and still more unjust would it be to stigmatize Bolingbroke and Harley as worthless adventurers, who were actuated in their opposition to the great hero of the age by mere personal envy or political hostility. Mrs. Masham's bed-chamber intrigue and Bolingbroke's cabinet measures were merely the form which a great principle, at all times strong in English society, and then peculiarly active, took in order to avert a danger with which, in their estimation, English institutions were threatened. And that principle is expressed in the words, "Fear God and honor the King."

Great violations

of moral recti

tude in the mode

of

It is evident, from what has been said, that the Tory party had much argument on their side in this great 24. controversy; and that though we, instructed by the event, may now see very clearly that they their attack on erred on the occasion, yet there is much to be said Marlborough. on their behalf; and the strongest judgment, as well as the purest patriotism, might at the time have found it difficult to say to which side the scales of reason preponderated. But there is one point for which no apology can be made, and for which all the heat of party and all the reality of impending danger can afford no excuse. This was the manner in which they prosecuted their hostility against Marlborough and the war. They did not dispossess the one and terminate the other, as they might have done, by a simple vote of the House of Commons. They did not venture for long on any open attack on either. They were afraid to measure their strength open combat with the conqueror of Blenheim. They presouverain."-CHATEAUBRIAND, Mémoires sur le Duc de Berry, Œuvres,

in

ii., 68.