éven a superficial observer of his regulations in commerce, finance, and jurisprudence must confess, that his entire system was a system of cautious and gradual improvement. 66 6 He was, in short, if we may trust Mr. Burke, an honourable man, and a sound Whig." He was not, as the Jacobites and discontented Whigs of his own time have represented him, and as ill-informed men still represent him, a prodigal and corrupt minister. They charged him in their libels and seditious conversations, as having first reduced corruption to a system.' Such was their cant. But he was far from governing by corruption. He governed by party-attachments. The charge of systematic corruption is less applicable to him, perhaps, than to any one who ever served the crown for so great a length of time. He gained over very few from the opposition. Without being a genius of the first class, he was an intelligent, prudent, and safe minister. He loved peace; and he helped to communicate the same disposition to nations at least as warlike and restless as that, in which he had the chief direction of affairs. Though he served a master, who was fond of martial fame, he kept all the establishments very low. The land-tax continued at two shillings in the pound for the greater part of his administration. The other impositions were moderate. The profound repose, the equal liberty, the firm protection of just laws, during the long period of his power, were the principal sources of that prosperity, which took such rapid strides toward perfection, and which furnished to this nation ability to acquire the military glory which it has since obtained, as well as to bear the burthens, the cause and the consequence of that warlike reputa tion. With many virtues, public and private, he had his faults: but his faults were superficial. A careless, coarse, and over-familiar stile of discourse, without sufficient regard to persons or occasions, and an almost total want of political decorum, were the errors by which he was most hurt in the public opinion, and those through which his enemies obtained the greatest advantage over him. But justice must be done. The prudence, steadiness, and vigilance of that man, joined to the greatest possible lenity in his character and his politics, preserved the crown to this royal family; and, with it, their laws and liberties to this country. In his person tall and well proportioned, he was in his youth and opening manhood so comely, that he and his wife were called the handsome couple;' and in the procession at the installation of the Knights of the Garter, in 1725, he was, next to the Duke of Grafton and Lord Townshend, most distinguished for his appearance. But, in advanced life, he became corpulent and unwieldy. His stile of dress was usually plain and simple, his address frank and open, and his manner so fascinating that while he was all but adored by his friends, even by his most virulent opponents he was not hated.* His generous rival, Pulteney, pronounced him of a temper so calm and equal, and so hard to be provoked, that he was very * Pope, his political adversary, and the intimate of his prineipal foes, has eulogised his private qualities in lines, which compensate all the bitterness of his satire : • Seen him I have, but in his happier hour * sure he never felt the bitterest invectives against him. for half an hour.' Affable and gay in his deportment, and in his conversation animated and facetious (occasionally, to an unpardonable degree of ribaldry) he was liberal, even to prodigality, in his expenditure and his passion for the diversions of the field was only allayed by the infirmities of age. † It must be recorded, to his discredit, that he was very sparing in his patronage of science and literature. An almost solitary exception to this remark is furnished in the instance of Young, for whom he procured a pension from George I., increased on his suggestion by George II. to 2001. per ann. often, indeed, heard to say, that Poets were fitter for speculation than for action;' and he could appeal to the negotiations of Prior, and the secretaryship of Addison, in justification of his opinion. He was On the whole, though he cannot rank among the great and exalted characters of his nation, he will always be conspicuous as an able minister, in which quality his reputation seems rather to have gained *Sir Charles Hanbury Williams says of him, that 'he laughed the heart's laugh;' and N. Hardinge notices it's peculiarity in his, proprioque vincit seria risu. His levity, however, in his conversation with the sex, with whom (like Richelieu) he affected to be extremely popular, was too often boisterous or licentious. His reputed axiom, All men have their price,' changes it's character, if it is to be corrected (as Mr. Coxe contends) All those men, the pretended patriots, have their price: and that it should be so corrected, may perhaps be inferred by the terms of affection and respect in which he always named the Duke of Devonshire, his unqualified assertion of the incorruptness of Shippen, and his own consistent and uniform conduct. Of his daily packet of letters, he usually opened his game. keeper's the first, than lost by being committed to the estimate of impartial history. Mr. Horace Walpole, his son, has given him a place in his Catalogue of Noble Authors;' but it is proper to observe, that his Lordship's literary abilities seem to have been confined to the sphere of life in which he moved: for all, that he is known to have written or published, are political tracts on temporary and local subjects. The list of them, confessedly defective and inaccurate, which Mr. Walpole introduces with saying, "Sixteen unfortunate and inglorious years since his removal have already written his elogium!" contains the following articles: 1. The Sovereign's (Duke of Somerset, so called by the Whigs) Answer to a Gloucestershire Address.' 2. Answer to the Representation of the House of Lords on the State of the Navy,' 1709. 6 3. The Debts of the Nation stated and considered, in four Letters,' 1710; printed in the Somers' Tracts. 6 6 4. The Thirty Five Millions accounted for,' 1710. 5. Four Letters to a Friend in Scotland, upon Sacheverell's Trial.' 6. A pamphlet upon the Vote of the House of Commons, with relation to the Allies not furnishing their Quotas. 7. A short History of the Parliament;' republished by Almon from party-motives, 1763. 8. The South Sea Scheme considered.' 9. The Report of the Secret Committee, June 9, 1715.' 10. A private Letter to General Churchill, after Lord Orford's Retirement.' |
