pectation, only said,-Then, Sir, I envy you the pleasure of reading Don Quixote in the original.'

- Was not that cruel ?" Spence, who records Pope's version of the story, considers the cruelty to have been unintentional, and merely origi nating in the oddness of Lord Oxford's manner.

Of the circumstances which drove Harley from power, of the treachery of the Queen's minion, Mrs. Masham, and the intrigues by which St. John accomplished the downfal of his former friend, there is no necessity to introduce any further details. As long as the interests of Harley and St. John were the same, as long as they continued mutually engaged in opposition to an adverse and triumphant party, they remained the models of political friendship. But their united exertions had no sooner elevated Harley to the pinnacle of power, than the restless spirit and towering ambition of St. John induced him to plot against his colleague and his friend. He knew his talents to be superior to those of Harley; his pride shrunk from conducting the mere subordinate details of a Secretary of State's office; and while there existed a chance of his becoming the leader, he was naturally unwilling to play the part of an underling. Thus, partly from St. John's inordinate ambition, and partly from the effects of Harley's perpetual jealousy of his aspiring disposition, which led him, on more than one occasion, to provoke and irritate, without effectually curbing, his refractory colleague,—we may trace the secret source of those notorious intrigues

and discreditable squabbles, which distinguished the last years of the reign of Queen Anne, and embittered, if they did not hasten to a close, the life of that Princess.

We have the authority of the Earl of Oxford himself, that the seeds of dissension were sown between him and St. John as early as February 1710, when, according to the Treasurer's statement, St. John displayed an evident spirit of restlessness and opposition, and an inclination to raise a party for himself. This spirit of rivalship was still further excited between them the following year, in consequence of the attempt of Guiscard on the Treasurer's life. Though it must have been clear, both to Harley and St. John, that the attack was entirely prompted by feelings of sonal revenge, yet as it was no less evident that, in the then feverish state of the public mind, a minister who had the good fortune to be marked out for destruction by a Papist and an accredited agent of the French government, must for a time become the popular idol, both parties were naturally desirous of being regarded as the Frenchman's intended victim; and, indeed, courted the distinction with feelings of almost puerile jealousy.

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There were other grievances which especially rankled in the mind of St. John. Harley, when forced by circumstances to raise his colleague to the peerage, had displayed an unworthy jealousy of exalting him to the same rank with himself, and invidiously conferred on him the Viscountcy,

instead of the Earldom, of Bolingbroke, which latter title might almost be considered as the property of the St. Johns, having recently expired in the person of Paulet St. John, the third Earl.*

Another cause of annoyance to St. John was, the circumstance of Harley refusing to confer on him the order of the Garter, on several ribands becoming vacant in 1712, with one of which Harley chose to decorate himself. It is, indeed, from this period, that we more clearly trace St. John's thorough dislike to his former friend. He became a constant attendant at Mrs. Masham's evening assemblies; he aided her, in spite of the determined opposition of Oxford, to realize a large sum of money at the public expense; and from being regarded by that lady and her royal mistress as a firebrand and a debauchee, he contrived to insinuate himself into the highest favour at court: by degrees he won over Lord Harcourt, Sir William Wyndham, and some of the most influential men of the Tory party, to

* This invidious and unwise distinction was unquestionably deeply felt by St. John. In a letter, written in the year of his elevation, he writes ;-" To make me a peer was no great com. pliment, when so many others were forced to be made, to gain a strength in Parliament; and since the Queen wanted me below stairs in the last session, she could do no less than make me a Viscount, or I must have come in the rear of several whom I was not born to follow. I own to you, that I felt more indignation than ever in my life I had done; and the only consideration which kept me from running to extremities, was that which should have inclined somebody to use me better."-Letter to the Earl of Strafford, 23rd July, 1712.

his own interests; and from the insidious foe, he became the open opponent of his political chieftain.

At length Mrs. Masham was induced to declare herself openly against Oxford; and from this moment the fate of the minister was sealed. The Queen, on her part, broken as she was in health and spirits, seems to have listened, in the early stages of these intrigues, with no slight uneasiness, to the projects for removing her once favoured minister and friend. She could not but remember, with a feeling of gratitude, those clandestine interviews and social meetings, when, cemented by a bond of common interest, they had so successfully plotted against their mutual enemies, the Whigs; she could not but feel grateful to Oxford for the moderation of his administration, and the quiet which it had procured her; but unfortunately that quiet, and its consequent exemption from the fatigues of sovereignty, it was no longer in the power of the minister to insure. The poor Queen had again become the centre of political intrigue; Mrs. Masham was daily instilling into her the necessity of a great ministerial change; and consequently, from her ruling passion, the love of peace, Anne, with the usual weakness, and perhaps selfishness, of her character, seems to have listened, at first with an unwilling, and afterwards with a willing ear, to the insidious representations advanced against Oxford by his enemies.

The same secret advisers who prevailed upon

the Queen to part with her minister, had no sooner induced her to enter fully into their views, than they seem to have carefully supplied her with such arguments as were requisite to defend the step which she was determined on adopting. Accordingly, to the friends of the proscribed minister, and to such persons as she admitted to her confidence, she complained that Oxford had long neglected his official duties; that his language was confused and unintelligible; that his word was not to be depended upon; that his manners had long been personally disrespectful to her; and that he wanted even the common decency to keep the appointments which she made with him.

As regards a portion of these charges, we may infer, from our knowledge of Oxford's character and eccentric manners, that they were not altogether without foundation. On the other hand, however, the very vague and indefinite nature of these accusations, the echo, probably, of the malicious and insidious representations of his enemies, and unsupported by any tangible evidence,— affords indirect testimony that Bolingbroke and Mrs. Masham had, in fact, no substantial charges to bring against him. Oxford, it is true, was a finished dissembler, and among the webs of chicanery which he was in the habit of weaving, it may be questioned whether he did not occasionally overstep the confines of strict veracity; but that he was ever guilty of a deliberate falsehood for the purpose of advancing his own interests, there is certainly no evidence to prove. It may