found conjoined with laxity of principle. He was incorruptible by money. In his management of the Treasury he had shown himself scrupulously honest; in his transactions with men of business he was never known to break his word, and he had therefore succeeded in inspiring confidence where confidence is slow to express itself. Though in debate he confined himself as a rule to the mere expression of his opinion, delivered in a few bluff sentences, and set off by no play on his sullen and impassive features, he had more weight with the House than the most accomplished orators of those times. At Court, indeed, and among men of letters he found no favour; for his manners were the manners of a carter, and his tastes not exactly those of Mæcenas or Leo. They were, in truth, such as little became either his age or his position. His awkward gallantries he had had the good sense to abandon; but his addiction to gambling, horse-racing, cock-fighting, and the card-table amounted to a passion. These frivolous pursuits detracted, however, nothing from the respect with which he was regarded by his colleagues, as there was no levity in his conversation, which was, as a rule, confined to monosyllables, or in his demeanour, which was remarkably grave and reserved. Between Marlborough and himself there existed the tie of a singularly close and affectionate friendship, and this tie had recently been drawn closer by a domestic alliance.

The main object of Godolphin's policy was to support his friend, to find the necessary funds for sustaining the war, and to silence those who wished either to control its operations or to change its character. Moderate and cautious even to timidity, he tried at first to govern by a Ministry in which all parties were represented. Though a Tory himself and dependent on the Tories for support, he was unwilling to place himself entirely in their hands, for he knew that he only could look for their co-operation up to a certain point, and that as soon as the war extended its area and assumed an aggressive character he would in all likelihood be obliged to fall back upon the Whigs. Such a step he could not, however, contemplate without terror, for the Queen regarded that party with peculiar aversion. His hope was that he might by skilful parliamentary diplomacy be enabled to form out of the Moderate Tories a body of partisans, who would support his war policy, while he could rely with some confidence on securing the Queen through the influence of the Countess of Marlborough.

The first point in which the two bodies came into violent collision was the Bill against Occasional Conformity. This was introduced by St. John and two other Tory members. He

distinguished

distinguished himself not only by the conspicuous part he took in the stormy debates which attended its progress through the House, but in the Conference held subsequently in the Painted Chamber. In the financial inquisition for incriminating Halifax we find him one of the Commissioners, and in the Disqualification Bill he was for the first time pitted against his future enemy Robert Walpole, who had taken his seat among the Whigs as member for Castle Rising.

He

Godolphin and Marlborough soon clearly saw the necessity of breaking with the High Tories. Though the conduct of the war had not as yet been openly assailed in either of the two Houses, symptoms of discontent had already declared themselves. The resignation of Rochester in 1703 had already relieved them of a troublesome colleague. Nottingham, however, still represented his views, and had on more than one occasion expressed his disapproval at the conduct of the Government. He had, moreover, insisted on the removal of Somerset and Devonshire from the Privy Council. This was refused. His resignation followed, and was eagerly accepted by Godolphin, who hastened to place the seals in the hands of Harley. Next went Jersey and Seymour. Blaithwayte, the Secretary of War, then vacated office, and on the 23rd of April, 1704, St. John was appointed to succeed him. As he had not completed his twenty-sixth year when he was raised to a post which involved a more than usual amount of responsibility, his biographers have concluded that he must have owed his advancement to the personal intercession of either Harley or Marlborough. owed it, we suspect, to Marlborough. Marlborough was in England at the time, and it had been at his suggestion that the changes in the Ministry had been made. In a letter to Godolphin, not long afterwards, he speaks of St. John, as a man would speak of one for whose conduct he had in a measure made himself responsible. St. John did not disappoint the expectations of his friends. Though his private life continued to be marked by the excesses which characterized his earlier days, he discharged his public duties in a way which called forth the admiration even of his enemies. The position of a Secretary of War in the teeth of a powerful Opposition is a position of no ordinary difficulty. It is a position, indeed, to which the tact and experience of veteran statesmen have not always been found to be equal. Never were the labours of that onerous office more exigent and harassing than during the four years of St. John's tenure. A war beyond all precedent, complicated and momentous, was raging. That war had spread itself over the vast area of Europe. Our position in it was undefined.

The

The amount of our contingents, both of men and resources, was variously assessed and angrily disputed. Every step taken in it was submitted to the malignant scrutiny of party jealousy. Every manœuvre had to be accounted for to a captious and discontented Opposition. Whoever is acquainted with Marlborough's correspondence at this period will be at no loss to understand the difficulties with which the young Secretary had to contend. We find him constantly before the House-arguing, explaining, pleading, refuting. Indeed, his energy, decision and zeal were of infinite service both to Godolphin and Marlborough in the troubled and anxious interval between the August of 1704 and the June of 1706. At the beginning of 1707 it became more and more evident that if the war was to be continued, the Ministry must throw itself on the Whigs; for the recent successes of Marlborough in Flanders, of Eugene in Italy, and of Peterborough in Spain, had, according to the Tories, satisfied the ends of the war, and the Tories were resolved to oppose its continuance. Godolphin had therefore acceded to the wishes of the Whigs in removing Hedges, and in placing the seals in the hands of Sunderland. The chiefs of the Tory party were removed from the Privy Council, and from this moment the administration of Godolphin and Marlborough assumed a new character. It was no longer a Tory but a Whig Ministry; though for a time, at least, Harley still continued to hold the seals with Sunderland, and St. John retained the post of Secretary at War. Harley's conduct excited some surprise. The truth is he had seen all along that the Church and the Queen would ultimately triumph; that the only tie which connected Anne with Godolphin and his colleagues was her personal affection for the Duchess of Marlborough; and that her affection was, owing to the overbearing and imperious character of the favourite, daily declining. He saw the annoyance with which she regarded the recent changes in the Cabinet-her intense dislike of Sunderland-her increasing coolness to Godolphin. He saw that the predominance of the Whigs depended mainly on the successful prosecution of the war, on its continuance, on its popularity. He saw that the High Church Party were gaining ground, and how completely the Queen's sympathies were with them. He proceeded, therefore, to open a secret communication with her by means of his cousin Abigail Hill, and while he pretended to be cordially co-operating with the Treasurer, he did all in his power to inflame the Queen against the foreign and domestic policy of the Cabinet. To throw Godolphin off his guard, he redoubled his protestations of fidelity; and with Marlborough he practised the same elaborate duplicity in a

series of letters, which have scarcely a parallel in the annals of political treachery. At what precise period St. John became a party to these infamous intrigues it is by no means easy to decide. It is clear from the correspondence of Marlborough and from the conduct of the Duchess that they both looked upon him as the ally of Harley, and that they regarded him with suspicion, though without being able to satisfy themselves of his guilt. We are, on the whole, inclined to suspect that it was not till the autumn of 1710 that he had any share in these ignoble tactics. For upwards of a year Harley managed with consummate hypocrisy to conceal his machinations. At last all was discovered, and the Whigs, whose difficulties had been increased by the inactivity of the campaign in the Netherlands, by the disastrous defeat at Almanza, and by the failure of the enterprise against Toulon, resolved to get rid of Harley. Anne fought hard for her favourite Minister. She refused to give any credence to the Greg scandal; she refused to see anything which incriminated him in the affair of Vallière and Bara. She dilated at mortifying length on his eminent services, on his great experience, on his sound judgment. Godolphin and Marlborough then plainly told her that, if Harley remained in office, they would at once give in their resignation, and that she must choose between sacrificing Harley and throwing the affairs of Europe into hopeless perplexity. Then, and then only, she yielded. On the 11th of February Harley laid down the seals; and St. John not only followed him out of office, but, on the dissolution in April, resigned his seat.

His premature departure from a scene in which he had so conspicuously distinguished himself not unnaturally excited a good deal of surprise. It is not, we think, difficult to account for. Had he continued in Parliament he must have taken one

of two courses. He must have apostatized and joined the Whigs, or he must have adhered to his party and taken his place in the ranks of the Opposition. Both courses were fraught with embarrassment. The triumph of the Whigs was certainly complete, but it had been won at the price of the Queen's favour, in the teeth of the Church, and in the teeth of the party opposed to the war. A reaction was obviously merely a matter of time, and that reaction would in all probability involve the downfall of the dominant faction. If, on the other hand, he joined the Opposition, he would be compelled to assail a policy which he had for some time zealously supported; he would be compelled to ally himself with men whom he regarded as enemies against men whom he regarded as friends; and he would, moreover, be forced to the indelicate necessity of going all lengths

against

against his patrons Marlborough and Godolphin. From his country house he could watch in security the course of events, and take a definite step when a definite step was prudent. These were, we believe, his real motives in withdrawing at this conjuncture to Bucklersbury. He abandoned himself with characteristic impetuosity to his new whim. He had now, he said, done with politics. He was weary of the world. He would devote himself henceforth to Philosophy and Literature. He would leave affairs of state to meaner men. These remarks-for with these remarks he now began to regale his friends—were received with peals of laughter, and Swift quotes an epigram which was proposed by one of them as an appropriate inscription for the summer house of the young Recluse. It is, we regret to say, quite unfit for repetition here. That he applied himself, however, with assiduity to literary pursuits may well be credited. He had arrived at that period in life when curiosity is keenest, when sensibility is quickest, when the acquisitive faculties are in their greatest perfection. Indeed, he always spoke of these two years as the most profitable he had ever spent.

In the autumn of 1710 fell that great administration which is in some respects the most glorious in our annals-the administration of Godolphin and Marlborough—an administration which had distinguished itself by no ordinary moderation in the midst of no ordinary trial; which had in the intoxication of success been conspicuous for that calm wisdom which it is the lot of most governments to learn only in reverses; which, founded on faction, had endeavoured with rare magnanimity to adopt a policy of concession and reconciliation, which could look back on the victories of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, Malplaquet and Saragossa on the expulsion of the French from Flanders and from Germany-on the capture of Gibraltar and Minorca-as the trophies of its foreign policy; and which could, among many other liberal and salutary measures, point to the union of England and Scotland as one of the glories of its policy at home. The immediate cause of a revolution which altered the course of European history was, as every one knows, the impeachment of Sacheverel-perhaps the only act of imprudence of which Godolphin had ever been guilty. It has been asserted that he took this impolitic step from motives of personal resentment. He took it, we know, in direct opposition to the advice of Somers and of the Solicitor-General; he took it, there is reason to believe, in opposition to the advice of Marlborough and Walpole; but he took it, we suspect, with a deliberate object. The truth is, that the party of which Sacheverel was the mouthpiece was beginning to assume a mischievous activity in

political