XII. 1723. pension, and appointed one of the Lords Justices CHAP. at the King's departure. Thus it had been in Harcourt's power greatly to promote the pardon of his friend, in May last, and he deserved gratitude, both in the true sense of that word, and in that which Bolingbroke gives it, where he says, in one of his letters, that "what we call gratitude is ge"nerally expectation.” * Bolingbroke also waited on Walpole, and, alluding to Harcourt's accession, told him that Wyndham, Lord Bathurst, and Lord Gower, were beginning to be disgusted with a fruitless opposition. They had, he said, been for some time in communication with Lord Carteret; but now thought themselves deceived by him, and might probably be brought into the measures of the Court, and into a support of Townshend and Walpole. Nothing could have been more advantageous to the country than such a junction: it would have healed many wounds of faction, and broken one great lever of the Jacobites; but it might also have endangered the supremacy of Walpole, and given a strong claim to Bolingbroke. Walpole, therefore, with whom his own power was always the paramount consideration, received these overtures most coldly and ungraciously, and met them with a positive refusal; adding, that as Bolingbroke's restoration depended on a Whig parliament, he ought, in prudence, to shun any fresh *To Sir William Wyndham, January 5. 1736. CHAP. connection with Tories; and that the Ministers XII. would not hazard the King's affairs by proposing this restoration rashly.* 1723. Bolingbroke, seeing that no impression was to be made in this quarter, seemed to acquiesce in the Minister's reasoning, and left England for Aix-laChapelle, in hopes, from thence, to pay a visit at Hanover. But not obtaining the desired permission, he returned to Paris, where a new field was opening to his ambition and abilities. Cardinal Dubois had died in August, and was followed by his patron, the Duke of Orleans, in less than four months. The young King having nominally come of age, no other Regent was appointed; but the new prime minister was the Duke de Bourbon, a weak man, chiefly governed by an aspiring mistress, Madame de Prie. Over this prince, and over this lady, Bolingbroke had great influence; "for these 66 many years," says he, "I have been honoured "with his friendshipt," and his own marriage with the Marquise de Villette, a niece of Madame de Maintenon, was another link of his close connection with the Court of France. There was no variation in the foreign policy of that Court; the scene had not shifted, though the actors were changed. But a struggle for power was now going on in the English cabinet between Lords Townshend and Carteret; and that struggle, as * Walpole to Townshend, July 23. 1723. XII. will presently be seen, was brought to issue on CHAP. French ground, where Bolingbroke had both the means and the inclination to take an active part. The new Secretary of State, John Lord Carteret, (afterwards, on the death of his mother, Earl Granville,) was born in 1690. No one ever combined, in a more eminent degree, the learning of a scholar with the talents of a statesman. The ancient languages he had deeply studied; of the modern, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Swedish, were equally familiar to him. Mr. Harte, in a preface to his "Gustavus Adolphus," after Granville's death, and, therefore, without any interested adulation, celebrates his knowledge of Chemnitz and other recondite writers; and observes, that "he understood the German and "Swedish histories to the highest perfection." He might have lectured upon public law. He might have taken his seat in a synod, and taught the Canonists. Yet in public life no rust of pedantry ever dimmed his keen and brilliant intellect. In debate, his eloquence was always ready, always warm, and has even been blamed for the profusion of ideas which crowded from him. In council, men of letters are, in general, bewildered by too nice a balance of opposite advantages: Carteret, on the contrary, was always daring and decisive. Most remarkable festimonies to his ability might be gathered from the writings even of his strongest political opponents. Chester 1723. 1723. CHAP. field was his enemy; yet Chesterfield writes to XII. his son, "They say Lord Granville is dying. "When he dies, the ablest head in England dies "too, take it for all in all."* Horace Walpole was his enemy; yet when Walpole weighs him in the balance with his own father, with Mansfield, and with Chatham, he declares that none of them had the genius of Granville.+ Yet, with all this, Carteret neither fills, nor deserves to fill, any very high niche in the Temple of Fame. There was a want of consistency, not in his principles, but in his efforts and exertions. He would be all fire to-day, all ice to-morrow. He was ready to attempt any thing, but frequently grew weary of his own projects, and seldom took sufficient means to secure their accomplishment. Ambition generally ruled him, but the mastery was often disputed by wine. Two daily bottles of Burgundy made him happy in himself, and independent of state affairs. Seldom granting a kindness, and as seldom resenting an injury, he was incapable both of firm friendship and settled animosity -not above revenge, but below it. At the most critical period of his life, when, on the fall of Walpole, he had become chief Minister, and was driven from office by a combination formed partly of his own pretended friends, even then, says a contemporary, he showed no anger nor resentment, * Letter, December 13. 1762. Memoirs of George the Second, vol. ii. p. 272. XII. 1723. nor, indeed, any feeling except thirst.* A careless, CHAP. lolling, laughing love of self; a sort of epicurean ease, roused to action by starts and bounds such was his real character. For such a man to be esteemed really great, he must die early! He may dazzle as he passes, but cannot bear a close and continued gaze. Carteret had come forth in public life under the guidance of Stanhope and Sunderland. The former made him Ambassador to Sweden in 1719; the latter, Secretary of State on the death of Craggs. For the memory of both these statesmen he always expressed the highest veneration and attachment, and he considered himself as representing them and their principles in the Cabinet. Like them, he thought, that as time proceeded, the basis of administration might be enlarged, and some moderate Tories brought over to join it. Like them, he maintained, that to shut out all Tories and high Churchmen from employment, had been, at the King's accession, a measure of necessity, but should not be continued ever afterwards from choice. With the King he had ingratiated himself by his German studies, being the only one of his Ministers who could converse with him in that language. It is very strange, I may observe in passing, that though under the two first Georges a knowledge of German was almost a sure road to Royal favourt, it seems to have been much less * Walpole to Mann, March 4. 1745. t "German will, I fear, always be a useful language for an |