Harley may contribute fomething, as old Burleigh did to Camden?

PRIOR.

of our

Your jocularity will never leave you. To the surprise of all the Members of the Club, which you attended pretty conftantly, your genius even furnished you with crambo verses, when you had half the affairs of Europe in your head, which were equal to any extempore productions. If ever I incline my pen to Hiftory, I fhall tell the world you gave me the firft hint. But the moments are too precious for your Lordship to away in being witty upon me. my visit with obferving, that neous reply to the line of Swift,

throw them

Let me finish your inftanta

Time and I 'gainst any two-
Chance and I'gainst Time and you-

is really prophetic.

OXFORD.

In the fame spirit of prophecy, I declare, all will be well again with us both. I am im

patient to answer in my place in the House of Peers, and ready to abide by their refolutions. I am convinced nothing will be made out against Mat nor Oxford. I prognosticate, that Harley, who escaped from the knife of Guifcard, at the Council-Table (which Prior has put upon poetical record), fhall not suffer by the fentence of the axe, for high-treason, on a fcaffold on Tower-Hill.

ΝΟΤΕ.

The aged and well-informed Lord Bathurst might have been confulted, if these Papers could have been obtained fooner for the public perufal, about the justness of this Conference. His intimacy with the Minister and the Plenipotentiary might have recognised this remarkable and familiar converfation. The reply that Oxford makes to Prior, on being made acquainted that Bolingbroke was gone off, was told to the Editor, forty years ago, by a gentleman, whose situation in life enabled him to know the truth, at least the credibility of it. Four lines from Pope's Panegyric on Lord Oxford must be quoted, as they exhibit some praiseworthy parts of his character, in the most beautiful numbers.

A foul

A foul fupreme, in each hard instance try'd,
Above all pain, all anger, and all pride;
The rage of power, the blaft of public breath,
The luft of lucre, and the dread of death!

Oxford was imprisoned two years in the Tower. His friends at laft demanded a trial for him, and his enemies could make nothing out against him. He was not terrified, when the axe was carried before him into Westminster-Hall. A quarrel arose between the two Houses, which checked the proceedings. The King is reported to have difcountenanced the profecution. Harley's courage, or innocence, preferved him. The Duchefs of Marlborough was the most disappointed and enraged person in the nation, on account of his acquittal. Steele, after begging his Lordship's pardon for the virulence of his pen, thus handfomely addreffes him, in his Letter on the Peerage Bill. "I told you, when I refigned the Stamp Office, I wished you all profperity con"fiftent with the public good; fo, I now con"gratulate you upon the pleasure you must "needs have, in looking back upon the true "fortitude with which you have paffed through "the dangers arifing from the rage of the people, " and the envy of the reft of the world. If to "have rightly judged of men's paffions and prejudices, vices and virtues, interefts and incli"nations, and to have waited with fkill and

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"courage

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courage for proper feafons and incidents to "make use of them, for a man's fafety and honour, can administer pleasure to a man of sense " and spirit, your Lordship has abundant cause "of fatisfaction." Poor Prior fuffered a clofe and tedious confinement, in a Meffenger's house, in Brownlow-Street. Whilft the Plenipo was deprived of his perfonal liberty, his free-born Mufe was delivered of the original poem of Alma. His intention, as expreffed on his monument in Westminster-Abbey, of writing the Hiftory of his own Time (towards which fome fragments were published indeed after his death), helps to make this Conference more plaufible.

CONFERENCE X.

SIR ROBERT WALPOLE,

AND

MR. PELHAM.

[Suppofed in Arlington-Street, on the fecond or third of February, 1741.]

WALPOLE.

T is my determined refolution never to enter the House of Commons again. The decifion of the Chippenham Election is the ruin of my power. Such a desertion of one's friends must haften the period of any Adminiftration. I will not venture myself on a more important queftion. The times, perhaps, may require the novelty of another system. The people will not bear a perpetual Minister, any more than a perpetual Parliament. Continual oppofition must prevail at laft. The heir apparent of the Crown declares himself against me. It is not for the welfare

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