ENTERS PARLIAMENTARY LIFE.

II

way to the natural indolence of his disposition, and abandoned his literary studies. The future prime minister and most powerful statesman of his age was content to superintend the "improvements" on his father's estate, and sell cattle at the neighbouring markets. His evenings were given up to the riotous festivities in which the English squire was then prone to indulge; and his father was frequently careful to supply him with a double portion of wine. "Come, Robert," he would say, "you shall drink twice while I drink once; for I will not permit the son, in his sober senses, to be witness to the intoxication of his father."

was a

One of the first duties of the heir to a good estate is to marry; and this duty Walpole fulfilled on the 30th of July, 1700, taking to himself as wife, Catherine, daughter of Sir John Shorter, Lord Mayor of London. By the common consent of her contemporaries, she woman of considerable personal charms and of unusual intellectual gifts. A few months later, and through the death of his father, Walpole succeeded to the family inheritance, valued at £2000 a year, a fair income in those days of cheap living. He succeeded also to his father's seat as member for Castle Rising, and represented that borough in the two short parliaments which assembled in the closing years of the reign of William the 3rd.

He entered upon parliamentary life with few of those advantages which a succession of cultivated and accomplished statesmen has taught us nowadays to consider almost indispensable to political renown. Macaulay has summed up his deficiencies with his accustomed skill: "He was not," he says, " a brilliant orator. He was

12

HIS MERITS AND DEFECTS.

not a wit, like Chesterfield, nor a profound scholar, like Carteret. It may be added that he had not, like Somers, a thorough knowledge of constitutional principles. His literature consisted of some reminiscences of his schooling in Latin and Greek; though he could not have translated Homer, like the late Earl of Derby, or written Latin verses, like Mr. Gladstone. His acquaintance with history was so limited, that in an important debate he showed his ignorance of Empson and Dudley. Then we must own that his manners had acquired under the paternal roof at Houghton, a coarseness and a riotousness which drew attention in a coarse and riotous age. When he ceased to talk of politics, his favourite theme was woman; a theme which he discussed with even more than the license of a Wilkes."

But having said thus much, we have said almost all that requires to be said to his disadvantage. It is more than Coxe has said, but less than Smollett. And, in fact, his faults, however deplorable, were the faults of his time, his breeding, and of the social influences around him, rather than of his natural disposition. He shared them with his contemporaries; whereas his admirable qualities were almost all his own. None of the statesmen of his day were so kind of heart, so tolerant of attack, so generous to forgive; just as none were so keenly alive to the best interests of England, or so convinced of the benefits of a pacific policy. In the hottest hours of debate he alone preserved his equanimity, his coolness, his suavity of temper. Fond of power, he was never arrogant. With tastes which inclined him to extravagance of living, his integrity was unimpeachable. He

AS A STATESMAN AND DEBATER.

13

never forgot a friend, and he never took advantage of an enemy. And, be it said to his credit, of cruelty he was incapable. It was he, as even his censors admit, who gave to our Government that character of lenity which it has since generally preserved. The lives of his opponents were frequently in his power; but he had no love of blood, and he invariably spared them.

With few ex

But

We have said that he was no orator. ceptions,* our orators never make any profound or lasting impression on the House of Commons; a practical matter-of-fact body, which always asks for results, and has no attention to spare for mere rhetoric. Walpole was all that the House best appreciates; a thorough man-of-business; a ready, clear, and intelligent speaker, with a great faculty of exposition; intimately versed in the forms and traditions of the House; and a most methodical administrator. His statesmanship was the perfection of good sense. He had no imagination, and was never troubled with ideals; but his sagacity was never at fault. He was not a man who saw very far, but what he did see he saw most clearly; and if his policy never touched the probabilities of the future, it was always sufficient for the needs of the present. He did not understand, or at least he could not sympathize with any exalted and enthusiastic motives of action; he laughed at them as "schoolboy flights." Self-possessed, utilitarian, good-humoured, he was not a Richelieu or an Alberoni, much less a Strafford; but he was the man above all men fitted to govern England

* Mr. Lecky admits only three exceptions; the two Pitts and Mr. Gladstone,

14

THE DIFFICULTIES OF HIS POSITION.

under the first kings of a new and unpopular dynasty, and at a time when the commercial classes were attaining a novel influence in the State.

Mr. Lecky, in his able and dispassionate review of English History in the Eighteenth Century, does full justice to the merits of the great Minister. "Without," he says, any remarkable originality of thought or creative genius, he possessed in a high degree one quality of a great statesman-the power of judging new and startling events in the moments of excitement or of panic, as they would be judged by ordinary men when the excitement, the novelty, and the panic had passed." To appreciate his merits we must remember the extraordinary character of the conditions under which he had to act. Throughout the period of his ascendancy the nation was undergoing a silent but absolute transformation; and it is surely to his credit that he recognised this fact, and skilfully adapted his government to the exigencies of each novel situation. He had everything against him. The dynasty was neither loved nor respected; his own policy was misunderstood; the Parliamentary opposition, though numerically weak, was formidable from the talents of its leaders; the chasms between classes were painfully wide; religious prejudices were intensely bitter; and on most great questions his opinions were in advance of those of his contemporaries. Yet how much he accomplished! To quote Mr. Lecky again :"Finding England with a disputed succession and an unpopular sovereign, with a corrupt and factious Parliament, and an intolerant, ignorant, and warlike people, he succeeded in giving it twenty years of unbroken

PEEL'S JUDGMENT OF WALPOLE,

15

peace and uniform prosperity, in establishing on an impregnable basis a dynasty which seemed tottering to its fall, in rendering the House of Commons the most powerful body in the State, in moderating permanently the ferocity of political factions and the intolerance of ecclesiastical legislation. A simple country squire, with neither large fortune nor great connections, he won the highest post in politics from rivals of brilliant talent, and he maintained himself in it for a longer period than any of his predecessors."

The late Sir Robert Peel, who was certainly wellfitted to pronounce judgment in a question of this kind, uses very similar language in reference to Walpole. "There must surely," he says, "have been something very extraordinary in the character and powers of that man who, being the son of a private gentleman, without any advantage from a distinguished name, or services. of illustrious ancestors, was Prime Minister of England amid great public difficulties for a period of twenty years,-who, mainly by his personal exertions, contributed to establish and confirm without severity, without bloodshed, a new and unpopular dynasty,—who tolerated no competitor for power, was emphatically power,—was the Minister of England, and who seems to have rebutted the genius of every adversary; having had for his adversaries men of the greatest talents, and of the highest attainments. Of what public man," he continues, "can it be said, with any assurance of certainty that, placed in the situation of Walpole, he would in the course of an administration of twenty years have committed so few errors, and would have left at the close of it the

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