XII. CHAP. "lived in the shade.”* Great but ill-regulated genius! Cicero could not write better, -Clodius could not act worse! 1723. When the fallen minister arrived in England, he found that the King had already sailed for Germany, attended by Lords Townshend and Carteret, and the Duchess of Kendal, and was not expected to return for some time; in fact, his Majesty extended his absence to six months, and his journey to Berlin, on a visit to his son-in-law, the King of Prussia. † Bolingbroke, therefore, could only write letters of thanks to the King, to the Duchess, and to Townshend, entreating, at the same time, their further favour; but he availed himself of his stay in England to renew his political connections, especially with his tried. friends, Sir William Wyndham and Lord Harcourt. The former still stood at the head of the Tories in the House of Commons; the latter, who had filled the office of Chancellor in the last years of Anne, was by no means as steady in his public course. Even at that time Swift had called him 66 trimming Harcourt ‡; but now he had entirely left his party, and risen so high in ministerial favour, as to be created a Viscount, gratified with a * Letters to Swift, 1721, 1723. Of the King's journey, Swift writes with much humour, "The next packet will bring us word of the King and Bishop of "Rochester leaving England. A good journey to the one, and 66 a speedy return to the other, is an honest Whig wish!" (To Mr. Cope, June 1. 1723.) The King's visit to Berlin is described in the Mém. de Bareith, vol. i. pp. 84-87. Swift's Works, vol. x. p. 398. XII. 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 1723. 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 generally expectation.” * 66 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 723. this restoration rashly.* 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 many years," says he, "I have been honoured "with his friendship."+ 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 testimonies to his ability might be gathered from the writings even of his strongest political opponents. Chester 1723. XII. 1723. CHAP. field was his enemy; yet Chesterfield writes to 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.t 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. |