risings of 1715 and of 1745. He was innocent of the blood of Derwentwater and Kilmarnock, of Balmerino and Cameron. Born fifty years after the old line had been expelled, fourth in descent and third in succession of the Hanoverian dynasty, he might plead some show of hereditary right, His age, his appearance, and all that was known of his character, conciliated public favour. He was in the bloom of youth; his person and address were pleasing. Scandal imputed to him no vice; and flattery might, without any glaring absurdity, ascribe to him many princely virtues.

scriptions, which perfidy, oppression, ingratitude, could not weary out, was now transferred entire to the House of Brunswick. If George the Third would but accept the homage of the Cavaliers and High Churchmen, he should be to them all that Charles the First and Charles the Second had been.

The Prince, whose accession was thus hailed by a great party long estranged from his house, had received from nature a strong will, a firmness of temper to which a harsher name might perhaps be given, and an understanding not, indeed, acute or enlarged, but such as qualified him to be a good It is not strange, therefore, that man of business. But his character the sentiment of loyalty, a sentiment had not yet fully developed itself. He which had lately seemed to be as had been brought up in strict seclusion. much out of date as the belief in The detractors of the Princess Dowager witches or the practice of pilgrimage, of Wales affirmed that she had kept should, from the day of his accession, her children from commerce with sohave begun to revive. The Tories in ciety, in order that she might hold an particular, who had always been in- undivided empire over their minds. clined to Kingworship, and who had She gave a very different explanation long felt with pain the want of an idol of her conduct. She would gladly, she before whom they could bow themselves said, see her sons and daughters mix down, were as joyful as the priests of in the world, if they could do so withApis, when, after a long interval, they out risk to their morals. But the prohad found a new calf to adore. It was fligacy of the people of quality alarmed soon clear that George the Third was her. The young men were all rakes: regarded by a portion of the nation the young women made love, instead with a very different feeling from that of waiting till it was made to them. She which his two predecessors had in- could not bear to expose those whom spired. They had been merely First she loved best to the contaminating inMagistrates, Doges, Stadtholders; he fluence of such society. The moral was emphatically a King, the anointed advantages of the system of education of heaven, the breath of his people's which formed the Duke of York, the nostrils. The years of the widowhood Duke of Cumberland, and the Queen and mourning of the Tory party were of Denmark, may perhaps be quesover. Dido had kept faith long enough tioned. George the Third was indeed to the cold ashes of a former lord; she no libertine; but he brought to the had at last found a comforter, and re- throne a mind only half opened, and cognised the vestiges of the old flame. was for some time entirely under the The golden days of Harley would re-influence of his mother and of his turn. The Somersets, the Lees, and Groom of the Stole, John Stuart, Earl the Wyndhams would again surround of Bute. the throne. The latitudinarian Prelates, who had not been ashamed to correspond with Doddridge and to shake hands with Whiston, would be succeeded by divines of the temper of South and Atterbury. The devotion which had been so signally shown to the House of Stuart, which had been proof against defeats, confiscations, and pro

The Earl of Bute was scarcely known, even by name, to the country which he was soon to govern. He had indeed, a short time after he came of age, been chosen to fill a vacancy, which, in the middle of a parliament, had taken place among the Scotch representative peers. He had disobliged the Whig ministers by giving some silent votes

proud German court where there is nothing to do."

with the Tories, had consequently lost his seat at the next dissolution, and had never been reelected. Near twenty Scandal represented the Groom of years had elapsed since he had borne the Stole as the favoured lover of the any part in politics. He had passed Princess Dowager. He was undoubtsome of those years at his seat in one of edly her confidential friend. The inthe Hebrides, and from that retirement fluence which the two united exercised he had emerged as one of the house- over the mind of the King was for a hold of Prince Frederic. Lord Bute, time unbounded. The Princess, a woexcluded from public life, had found man and a foreigner, was not likely to out many ways of amusing his leisure. be a judicious adviser about affairs of He was a tolerable actor in private state. The Earl could scarcely be said theatricals, and was particularly suc- to have served even a noviciate in cessful in the part of Lothario. A hand-politics. His notions of government some leg, to which both painters and had been acquired in the society which satirists took care to give prominence, had been in the habit of assembling was among his chief qualifications for the stage. He devised quaint dresses for masquerades. He dabbled in geometry, mechanics, and botany. He paid some attention to antiquities and works of art, and was considered in his own circle as a judge of painting, architecture, and poetry. It is said that his spelling was incorrect. But though, in our time, incorrect spelling is justly considered as a proof of sordid ignorance, it would be unjust to apply the same rule to people who lived a century ago. The novel of Sir Charles Grandison was published about the time at which Lord Bute made his appearance at Leicester House. Our readers may perhaps remember the account which Charlotte Grandison gives of her two lovers. One of them, a fashionable baronet who talks French and Italian fluently, cannot write a line in his own language without some sin against orthography; the other, who is represented as a most respectable specimen of the young aristocracy, and something of a virtuoso, is described as spelling pretty well for a lord. On the whole, the Earl of Bute might fairly be called a man of cultivated mind. He was also a man of undoubted honour. But his understanding was narrow, and his manners cold and haughty. His qualifications for the part of a statesman were best described by Frederic, who often indulged in the unprincely luxury of sneering at his dependents. Bute," said his Royal Highness, "you are the very man to be envoy at some small VOL. II.

round Frederic at Kew and Leicester House. That society consisted principally of Tories, who had been reconciled to the House of Hanover by the civility with which the Prince had treated them, and by the hope of obtaining high preferment when he should come to the throne. Their political creed was a peculiar modification of Toryism. It was the creed neither of the Tories of the seventeenth nor of the Tories of the nineteenth century. It was the creed, not of Filmer and Sacheverell, not of Perceval and Eldon, but of the sect of which Bolingbroke may be considered as the chief doctor. This sect deserves commendation for having pointed out and justly reprobated some great abuses which sprang up during the long domination of the Whigs. But it is far easier to point out and reprobate abuses than to propose beneficial reforms: and the reforms which Bolingbroke proposed would either have been utterly inefficient, or would have produced much more mischief than they would have removed.

The Revolution had saved the nation from one class of evils, but had at the same time-such is the imperfection of all things human-engendered or aggravated another class of evils which required new remedies. Liberty and property were secure from the attacks of prerogative. Conscience was respected. No government ventured to infringe any of the rights solemnly recognised by the instrument which had called William and Mary to the throne.

BB

But it cannot be denied that, under the | to cure bad by worse. The proper re

medy evidently was, to make the House of Commons responsible to the nation; and this was to be effected in two ways; first, by giving publicity to parliamentary proceedings, and thus placing every member on his trial before the tribunal of public opinion; and secondly, by so reforming the constitution of the House that no man should be able to sit in it who had not been returned by a respectable and independent body of constituents.

Bolingbroke and Bolingbroke's disciples recommended a very different mode of treating the diseases of the state. Their doctrine was that a vigorous use of the prerogative by a pa

new system, the public interests and the public morals were seriously endangered by corruption and faction. During the long struggle against the Stuarts, the chief object of the most enlightened statesmen had been to strengthen the House of Commons. The struggle was over; the victory was won; the House of Commons was supreme in the state; and all the vices which had till then been latent in the representative system were rapidly developed by prosperity and power. Scarcely had the executive government become really responsible to the House of Commons, when it began to appear that the House of Commons was not really responsible to the na-triot King would at once break all tion. Many of the constituent bodies were under the absolute control of individuals; many were notoriously at the command of the highest bidder. The debates were not published. It was very seldom known out of doors how a gentleman had voted. Thus, while the ministry was accountable to the Parliament, the majority of the Parliament was accountable to nobody. In such circumstances, nothing could be more natural than that the members should insist on being paid for their votes, should form themselves into combinations for the purpose of raising the price of their votes, and should at critical conjunctures extort large wages by threatening a strike. Thus the Whig ministers of George the First and George the Second were compelled to reduce corruption to a system, and to practise it on a gigantic scale.

factious combinations, and supersede the pretended necessity of bribing members of Parliament. The King had only to resolve that he would be master, that he would not be held in thraldom by any set of men, that he would take for ministers any persons in whom he had confidence, without distinction of party, and that he would restrain his servants from influencing by immoral means either the constituent bodies or the representative body. This childish scheme proved that those who proposed it knew nothing of the nature of the evil with which they pretended to deal. The real cause of the prevalence of corruption and faction was that a House of Commons, not accountable to the people, was more powerful than the King. Bolingbroke's remedy could be applied only by a King more powerful than the House of Commons. How was the patriot Prince to govern If we are right as to the cause of in defiance of the body without whose these abuses, we can scarcely be wrong consent he could not equip a sloop, as to the remedy. The remedy was keep a battalion under arms, send an surely not to deprive the House of embassy, or defray even the charges of Commons of its weight in the state. his own household? Was he to disSuch a course would undoubtedly have solve the Parliament? And what was put an end to parliamentary corruption he likely to gain by appealing to Sudand to parliamentary factions: for, bury and Old Sarum against the vewhen votes cease to be of importance, nality of their representatives? Was they will cease to be bought; and, he to send out privy seals? Was he when knaves can get nothing by com- to levy ship-money? If so, this boasted bining, they will cease to combine. But reform must commence in all probato destroy corruption and faction by bility by civil war, and, if consummated, introducing despotism would have been | must be consummated by the establish

the Whig aristocracy, combined with the genius, the virtue, and the fame of Pitt, would have been irresistible. But there had been in the cabinet of George the Second latent jealousies and enmities, which now began to show themselves. Pitt had been estranged from his old ally Legge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Some of the ministers were envious of Pitt's popularity. Absurd as this theory was, it had Others were, not altogether without many admirers, particularly among men cause, disgusted by his imperious and of letters. It was now to be reduced haughty demeanour. Others, again, to practice; and the result was, as any were honestly opposed to some parts of man of sagacity must have foreseen, his policy. They admitted that he the most piteous and ridiculous of had found the country in the depths of failures.

of the realm. Already had we bor- | Temple into official and parliamentary rowed, in four years of war, more than life. He was supposed to be intimately the most skilful and economical go- acquainted with the whole fiscal sysvernment would pay in forty years of tem of the country. He had paid peace. But the prospect of peace was especial attention to the law of Paras remote as ever. It could not be liament, and was so learned in all doubted that France, smarting and things relating to the privileges and prostrate, would consent to fair terms orders of the House of Commons that of accommodation; but this was not those who loved him least pronounced what Pitt wanted. War had made him the only person competent to suchim powerful and popular; with war, ceed Onslow in the Chair. His speeches all that was brightest in his life was were generally instructive, and someassociated for war his talents were times, from the gravity and earnestpeculiarly fitted. He had at length be-ness with which he spoke, even imgun to love war for its own sake, and was more disposed to quarrel with neutrals than to make peace with enemies.

pressive, but never brilliant, and generally tedious. Indeed, even when he was at the head of affairs, he sometimes found it difficult to obtain the ear Such were the views of the Duke of of the House. In disposition as well Bedford and of the Earl of Hardwicke ; as in intellect, he differed widely from but no member of the government held his brother-in-law. Pitt was utterly rethese opinions so strongly as George gardless of money. He would scarcely Grenville, the treasurer of the navy. stretch out his hand to take it; and, George Grenville was brother-in-law of when it came, he threw it away with Pitt, and had always been reckoned childish profusion. Grenville, though one of Pitt's personal and political strictly upright, was grasping and parfriends. But it is difficult to conceive simonious. Pitt was a man of excitable two men of talents and integrity more nerves, sanguine in hope, easily elated utterly unlike each other. Pitt, as his by success and popularity, keenly sensister often said, knew nothing accu-sible of injury, but prompt to forgive; rately except Spenser's Fairy Queen. Grenville's character was stern, melanHe had never applied himself steadily choly, and pertinacious. Nothing was to any branch of knowledge. He was more remarkable in him than his ina wretched financier. He never be- clination always to look on the dark came familiar even with the rules of side of things. He was the raven of that House of which he was the brightest the House of Commons, always croakornament. He had never studied pub-ing defeat in the midst of triumphs, lic law as a system; and was, indeed, and bankruptcy with an overflowing so ignorant of the whole subject, that exchequer. Burke, with general apGeorge the Second, on one occasion, plause, compared him, in a time of complained bitterly that a man who quiet and plenty, to the evil spirit had never read Vattel should presume whom Ovid described looking down to undertake the direction of foreign on the stately temples and wealthy affairs. But these defects were more haven of Athens, and scarce able to than redeemed by high and rare gifts, refrain from weeping because she could by a strange power of inspiring great find nothing at which to weep. Such masses of men with confidence and a man was not likely to be popular. affection, by an eloquence which not But to unpopularity Grenville opposed only delighted the ear, but stirred the a dogged determination, which someblood, and brought tears into the eyes, times forced even those who hated him by originality in devising plans, by to respect him. vigour in executing them. Grenville, on the other hand, was by nature and habit a man of details. He had been bred a lawyer; and he had brought the industry and acuteness of the

It was natural that Pitt and Grenville, being such as they were, should take very different views of the situa tion of affairs. Pitt could see nothing but the trophies; Grenville could see