Boswell relates some of his speeches on this subject.

No. Charles the Second was not such a man

Archbishop King told Lord Carteret | for him. The mention of his name even that Swift was going to avow the author- seems to have put the good doctor in a ship. Lord Carteret's reply is interesting passion. at the present time. "If the boldness of the author should be so great, I am fully determined to summon him before the Council; and though I should not be supported as I wish, yet I shall think it my duty to take him into custody, and to detain him, if I can, by law; for if his offer of bail should be immediately accepted, and he forthwith set at liberty after so daring an insult upon his Majesty's government, it is to be apprehended that riots

and tumults would ensue."

Swift was very fond of the handsome Lady Carteret. He had promised to dine with her. He did not go- he was then getting very nervous and deaf. Lady Carteret, instead, visited the dean, who made an apology in verse :

Can it be strange if I eschew

A scene so glorious, and so new;
Or is he criminal that flies
The living lustre of your eyes?

Carteret and Swift never played the courtier with each other. Swift, kept waiting once at the Castle, while the prosecution of the "Drapier Letters was still a question of public policy, wrote down the complaining

Îines

My very good Dean, there are few who come here But have something to ask, or something to fear. Carteret was always able to hold his own with Swift. Conversing with him once on a political action disapproved by Swift, Carteret replied to Swift's objections with such power that Swift broke out into passionate abuse which conveyed high praise: "What the vengeance brought you among us? Get you back

get you back; pray God Almighty send us over boobies again!" On another occasion, Swift, whose estimate of the Irish people was a very contemptuous one, wrote that Carteret ought to be the governor of a wiser nation than Ireland; for a fool would be the fit manager of fools. Thus the two men thoroughly understood each other, and acted with very characteristic frankness. "When people ask me," wrote Carteret to the Dean, how I governed Ireland, I say that I pleased Dean Swift. Quæsitam meritis sume superbiam."

Lord Carteret remained in Ireland till 1730. George the First died in 1727, and was succeeded by his son, with whom he had always been at feud. George the Second was one of the most extraordinary characters described in the memoirs of his time. Even Dr. Johnson, that champion of monarchy, had not a good word to say

as George the Second. He did not destroy
his father's will. He took money indeed from
France, but he did not betray those over whom
he ruled. He did not let the fleet pass ours.
George the First knew nothing, and desired
to do nothing; and the only good thing told
of him was that he wished to restore the
He roared
throne to its hereditary successor.
with prodigious violence against George the
Second. When he ceased, Moody interjected,
in an Irish tone with a comic look,
"Poor
George the Second!"

The good doctor would have roared louder if he had ever read the wonderful analysis of King George's character by the master hand of Lord Hervey. The Lord Guelphs were a quarrelsome race. Carteret said of them: "This family always have quarrelled, and always will quarrel, from generation to generation." They were proficients in will-burning. George the First had burned two wills made in favor of his son by his mother and grandfather; George the Second, on ascending the throne, returned the com. pliment by burning his father's will, as Thackeray writes, under the astonished nose of the Archbishop of Canterbury. George, with his red face and staring eyes, fancied himself an Adonis and a Don Juan. Charles the Second was profligate, but he had some excuse in having married a Portuguese princess whom he had never seen, and when she arrived she appeared to him the image of a "bat." She was hideous, but the good-natured king married her. Henry the Eighth, who was taken in by Holbein's portrait of Anne of Cleves, on beholding her pronounced her a great Flanders mare, and soon sent his fifth wife packing. George the Second had no excuse for his shameful immorality, for he had married Caroline of Anspach, the most beautiful and clever princess in Europe, who was devoted to him. Yet he made her the confidant of his amours, and actually requested her to assist in the prosecution of them. Mrs. Howard, of the queen's household, was his mistress, but this did not prevent him from making love to the beautiful maid of honor, Mary Bellenden, who treated him with contempt, crossed her arms, and told him to count his money elsewhere. He got tired of the "good Howard," as the queen called her, and complained bitterly that the

The only time Caroline ever showed her real feeling was on her death-bed, when, on advising him to marry again, he said, "Non, j'aurai des maîtresses." Caroline bitterly answered, “Ah! mon Dieu, cela n'empêche pas."

queen would not let him get rid of the | admired his wife more than any other ❝deaf, tiresome old woman.' 29 Caroline woman. "He never saw a woman worthy very well knew if the Howard departed he to buckle her shoe," and requested that would soon seek consolation elsewhere. his remains should be buried with her. At last he got rid of Lady Suffolk, and on One side of each coffin was withdrawn, arriving in Hanover, fell in love with the and so they rest in Westminster Abbey. Countess Walmoden. He gave the queen a detailed account of the whole affair. He drew such a minute description of the countess's person, "that had the queen been a painter she might have drawn her rival's picture at six hundred miles distance, and narrated how he had bought this treasure from her husband for a thousand ducats. "You must love the Walmoden," he wrote to her, "for she loves me. The letters about the Walmoden| consisted of sixty pages, and in one of them he consulted the queen about a suspicious ladder having been found under her window, and asked her to consult Sir Robert Walpole about it.

Sir Robert Walpole, who had governed the king through the queen, had now to seek for another woman to perform the same part. The Duke of Grafton and Newcastle proposed that the Princess Emily should guide him, but Sir Robert would have nothing to do with the daughters. "I'll bring Madame Walmoden over, I'll have nothing to do with your girls. I was for the wife against the mistress, I am now for the mistress against the daughUntil the Walmoden came over, ters." the frail Lady Deloraine might comfort the king (saying in his polite style that must wear old gloves till they could get new ones"); so the Walmoden came over, and was created Countess of Yarmouth.

Among many extraordinary things and expressions these letters contained, there was one in which he desired the Queen to contrive, if she could, that the Prince of Modena, who was to come the latter end of the year to En-"people gland, might bring his wife with him; and the reason he gave for it was, that he had heard Her Highness was pretty free of her person, and that he had the greatest inclination imaginable to pay his addresses to a daughter of the late Regent of France, the Duke of Orun plaisir" (for he always wrote in Jeans, French) "que je suis sûr, ma chère Caroline, vous serez bien aise de me procurer, quand je vous dis combien je le souhaite.'

Such a request to his wife respecting a woman he never saw, and during his connection with Madame Walmoden, speaks much stronger in a bare narrative of the fact than by any comment or reflections; and is as incapable of being heightened as difficult to be

credited.

Hanover in order to enjoy her society that The king had once stayed so long in his subjects got very discontented, and the following advertisement was posted on the gate of St. James's Palace:

Lost or strayed out of the house, a man who has left a wife and six children on the

parish; whoever will give any tidings of him to the Church Wardens of St. James's Parish, so as he may be got again, shall receive FOUR SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE. N.B. This will not be increased, nobody judging him to be worth a CROWN.

Queen Caroline's conduct was highly approved by Blackbourne, Archbishop of At last he sailed for England, but enYork, who told her that he had been talk-countered such a storm that he was obliged ing to the minister about the new mistress, to return to port. He talked of the temand was glad to find that her Majesty was pest, and his bravery in it, to the end of so sensible a woman as to like her husband his life. should divert himself. How different was the conduct of Ken, who refused to countenance the vices of Charles the Second, when in residence at Winchester! and it must be added that the merry monarch honored Dr. Ken for his conduct, and he was promoted to the bishopric of Bath and Wells.

The king had not the slightest sense of shame, nobody told him or preached to him that he was leading an immoral life. He regarded himself as a model husband, and the extraordinary thing is that he

He hated books, and the sight of one in a drawing-room was as a red flag to a bull. The saying "I hate boets and bainters too" is well known. When he went to see Garrick in "Richard the Third" he paid no attention to him, but was delighted with the lord mayor. When," he asked, "is the lord mayor coming on again?"

According to Lord Hervey he bored his daughters terribly, and they were not slow in giving signs of their dissatisfaction. When the queen was in her last illness

The

The King, turning towards Princess Emily, Hervey's manuscript, but it had been and seeing her eyes shut, cried, "Poor good erased. It is as great a secret as the auchild! her duty, affection, and attendance on thorship of Junius. The prince took the her mother have quite exhausted her spirits." Black Prince for his model; but, as Horace And soon after he went into the Queen's room. Walpole writes, he resembled him in nothAs soon as his back was turned, Princess Emily started up and said, "Is he gone? How ing but dying before his father. tiresome he is!" Lord Hervey, who had no prince's house became the headquarters mind to trust Her Royal Highness with his of the opposition. Lords Carteret and singing her father's praises in duetto with her, Chesterfield were constantly there; also replied only, "I thought Your Royal Highness Swift and Gay. The prince posed as a had been asleep." " No," said the Princess patron of literature. His character is cuEmily; "I only shut my eyes that I might not riously described in the funeral sermon join in the ennuyant conversation, and wish I preached in his honor. "He had no great could have shut my ears too. In the first place I am sick to death of hearing of his they degenerated into vices. He was parts, but he had great virtues; indeed great courage every day of my life; in the next place, one thinks now of Mama, and not of very generous, but I hear his generosity him. Who cares for his old storm? I be- has ruined a great many people; and then lieve, too, it is a great lie, and that he was as his condescension was such that he kept much afraid as I should have been, for all very bad company.' what he says now; and as to his not being afraid when he was ill, I know that is a lie, for I saw him, and I heard all his sighs and his groans, when he was in no more danger than I am at this moment. He was talking, too, forever of dying, and that he was sure he

should not recover.

The Princess Royal was of the same opinion as the Princess Emily with regard to the merits of her father's conversation. The princess married the hideous Prince of Orange, and the wonderful details of the nuptials are one of the most amusing features of Lord Hervey's memoirs.

The night the news came to England that Philipsburg was taken, the Princess Royal, as Lord Hervey was leading her to her own apartment after the drawing-room, shrugged up her shoulders and said, "Was there ever anything so unaccountable as the temper of papa? He has been snapping and snubbing every mortal for this week, because he began to think Philipsburg would be taken; and this

very day that he hears it actually is taken, he
is in as good humor as ever I saw him in my
life. Mais, pour vous dire la vérité, je trouve
cela si bizarre, et (entre nous) si sot, que j'enrage
de sa bonne humeur encore plus que je ne faisais
de sa mauvaise." 66
"Perhaps," answered Lord
Hervey, "he may be about Philipsburg as
David was about the child, who, whilst it was
sick, fasted, lay upon the earth, and covered
himself with ashes; but the moment it was
dead, got up, shaved his beard, and drank
"It may be like David" (replied the
Princess Royal), "but I am sure it is not like

wine."

Solomon."

Both the king and the queen detested their son the Prince of Wales. His sisters called him "a nauseous beast," and the father and mother wished him dead every day of their lives. The cause of this unnatural hatred is unknown. The true account was doubtless given in Lord

Sir Robert Walpole must have been the shrewdest of mankind to govern a family like this. The king not only thought himself a model husband, but a great general; and Mr. Ballantyne tells us that Walpole, entering the royal presence full of business, was not listened to, whilst nothing but military harangues, battles, sieges, was dwelt lingeringly upon by a royal Othello to a listener who was not seriously inclined to hear these things! Sir Robert was the greatest peace minister who ever ruled England. "I told the queen this morning," he said one day in 1734. "Madam, fifty thousand men slain in Europe, and not one Englishman." At last, in 1739, he was forced into a war with Spain. There were great rejoicings. The Prince of Wales was the chief of the warlike revellers. "They are ringing their bells," said Sir Robert; "they will soon be wringing their hands." prophecy was fulfilled. A war cannot be who directs it is opposed to it. The minsuccessfully conducted when the minister istry became weaker every day, and in 1741 was finally driven from office.

The

A new ministry was formed. It was very disagreeable to the king to receive statesmen whom he so vituperated. He had been accustomed to use very strong language. He had called Carteret and Bolingbroke liars, the bishops "black canting hypocritical rascals." Lord Ches terfield, in addition to being a liar, was "a dwarf baboon." Lord Chesterfield had made a speech in the House of Lords in which he said it would be a good thing if the Pretender was made elector of Hanover, for nobody would ever again choose a king from that quarter.

Lord Carteret had really the chief place in the new ministry as secretary of state.

days men marry at seventy, and nobody is The life which others pay, let as bestow, And give to fame what we to nature owe. surprised, or writes epigrams. We have heard that at Bournemouth - we suppose His lordship repeated the last word several owing to the friskiness of the air- digni- times with a calm and determined resignation; fied ecclesiastics of eighty proudly lead and after a serious pause of some minutes, he up young and blushing brides to the altar. desired to hear the treaty read, to which he Lady Sophia died in her first confine-spirits enough to declare the approbation of a listened with great attention, and recovered ment, leaving a daughter who was mar- dying statesman (I use his own words) on ried to Lord Shelburne. Owing to the the most glorious war and most honorable intrigues of the Duke of Newcastle and peace this nation ever saw. Mr. Pelham, Lord Carteret, now Lord Granville, had to resign his office. But in June, 1751, he again became a colleague of the duke, becoming president of the Council, an office he retained to his death. The Duke of Newcastle, in a fright, once offered to give up his office of first lord of the treasury to Carteret. "No," said the lord president, "I'd rather be hanged a little before taking your place, than hanged a little after." He had immense influence in the Cabinet with respect to foreign affairs, and when Pitt took office his advice and influence still prevailed. When Pitt left the Cabinet because it was too peaceful, Lord Granville remained, and was the chief instrument in forwarding the glorious peace of 1763.

Robert Wood, author of an essay on "The Original Genius of Homer," which interested Goethe in his younger days, was Under-Secretary of State in the closing period of the Seven Years' War, and frequently had interviews on business with Granville. "The occasions were few," says Wood, "on which Granville, after giving his commands on State affairs, did not turn the conversation to Greece and Homer." A few days before Granville died, Wood was ordered to wait upon him with the preliminary articles of the Peace of Paris. "I found him," writes Wood in the introduc tion to his essay, "so languid that I proposed postponing my business for another time; but he insisted that I should stay, saying it could not prolong his life to neglect his duty; and repeating the following passage out of Sarpedon's speech, he dwelled with particular emphasis on the third line, which recalled to his mind the distinguished part he had taken in public affairs:

Could all our care elude the gloomy grave
Which claims no less the fearful than the brave,
For lust of fame I should not vainly dare
In fighting fields, nor urge thy soul to war:
But since, alas! ignoble age must come,
Disease, and death's inexorable doom;

We have given the translation by Pope instead of the original Greek, but the following prose rendering by Mr. Ballantyne gives us the last word:

"For if, escaping the present combat, we might be forever undecaying and immortal, neither would I myself fight among the foremost nor would I urge you on to the glorious battle; but now - for a thousand fates of death stand close to us always, and no mortal can escape or evade them-let us go.' Iouev, "Let us go," was the word repeated by Lord Carteret.

Mr. Matthew Arnold quotes this episode of Lord Granville's life as exhibiting the English aristocracy at its very height of culture, lofty spirit, and greatness. It was the glorious end of a grand career. He had much in common with Pitt, but he was far superior in abilities. We have seen an unpublished letter of Lord George Germaine, a shrewd observer, which stated that Pitt had neither wisdom or intelligence; but by energy alone he became the greatest of war ministers. It has been said that all his knowledge of history was taken from the plays of Shakespeare. Chief Justice Willes went once to Lord Carteret for help to make his friend Clive a king's counsel. Carteret answered: "What is it to me who is a judge or who is a bishop? It is my business to make kings and emperors, and to maintain the balance of Europe.' chief justice, "those who want to be bish"Then," said the ops and judges will go elsewhere." They did go elsewhere. Pitt had the same lofty contempt for patronage, and so the jobbing Duke of Newcastle's levée was well attended by lawyers and ecclesiastics who wanted to be bishops and judges.

dent of the Council, to Pitt during the Lord Carteret's assistance, when presi Seven Years' War was invaluable, for no one knew so well the characters of the princes and statesmen of the Continent. Pitt, when Lord Chatham, acknowledged this in a speech made in the year 1770, when he spoke of Lord Carteret as "that great man," and added, “I feel a pride in declaring that to his patronage, to his friendship and instruction, I owe whatever I am." They were two of the great. est statesmen England ever possessed. They thought not of themselves but their country. To use the language of Macaulay, they loved England as an Athenian loved the city of the violet crown, as a Roman loved the city of the seven hills.

We must write a few words about Lord Carteret's temper, which was unexampled in its serenity. We had always thought the Duke of Marlborough's temper mar vellous, but Lord Carteret surpassed him.