very doubtfully in the balance after the battle of Beachy Head; and the battle of La Hogue, which re-established it, might have had a different issue had not the French Admiral been unexpectedly confronted with the fleet of Holland as well as the fleet of England. Besides this, it was added, if France could once place herself beyond rivalry on the Continent she might diminish her armies and devote the main energies of the State to securing the empire of the sea.

Fears of this kind have in many periods haunted speculative politicians, who have usually not fully realised the magnitude of the difficulties which any attempt to obtain universal empire must encounter, the extreme complexity of the forces on which in modern society political power depends, and also the very narrow limits within which all sound political prediction is confined. Walpole, however; was steadily in favour of peace. He felt all the antipathy of a great practical statesman to a policy which would expose the country to the imminent dangers, to the inevitable exhaustion of a European war, in order to avert dangers that were far distant, uncertain, and perhaps visionary. He maintained that a war for the succession of Poland was one in which England had no reasonable concern; that if she engaged in it the burden could not fail to produce the most dangerous discontent among the English people; that the diminution of the Imperial influence in Italy in no degree affected English interests, especially as France obtained no territory in that country; that the system, which was becoming chronic, of involving England in every Continental, and especially in every German, complication was fatal to her security and utterly incompatible with her true interests. The French alliance had already produced the greatest benefits to England. The point upon the Continent where French ambition was most dangerous was the Dutch barrier, but Fleury had very judiciously abstained from all hostilities against. the Austrian Netherlands, though they were left almost undefended, and Holland was quite resolved to persist in her neutrality. Under the influence of a long peace the country was steadily advancing in prosperity and wealth, and in all the elements of

real power, and the new dynasty and the parliamentary system were beginning to take root. A foreign war would at once arrest the progress, and Walpole predicted' and the event fully justified his prescience—that it would inevitably lead to a new Jacobite rebellion. Besides this, a strong detestation of war was one of his most honourable characteristics. 'It requires no great art,' he once said, 'in a minister to pursue such measures as might make war inevitable. I have lived long enough in the world to see how destructive the effects even of a successful war have been, and shall I, who see this, when I am admitted to the honour to bear a share in His Majesty's councils, advise him to enter into a war when peace may be had? No, I am proud to own it, I always have been, and I always shall be the advocate of peace.' The statesman who was continually accused by his contemporaries of sacrificing all English interests to the German policy of the Court, and who is now often described as incapable of risking for a moment his position in the interests of his country, was for a considerable time engaged in saving England from a German war in opposition to the strongest wishes both of the King and of the Queen. It is remarkable that his arguments in favour of a peace policy were chiefly conveyed to the King through the medium of the Queen, who was herself an advocate of war, and it is still more remarkable that she discharged her office with such fidelity and force that the arguments she transmitted actually convinced the King while her own judgment remained unchanged. It is true, indeed, that in the latter part of his career Walpole was driven into war with Spain; but not until public excitement, aggravated by an unscrupulous Opposition, had risen to such a frenzy that no Government could resist it, not until the convention he had negotiated between England and Spain had been generally scouted. For many years, however, he succeeded, in spite of constant opposition, in keeping the country in undisturbed peace, and by doing so he conferred both upon his nation and upon his

'Hervey's Memoirs, i. 375.

2 Ibid. i. 397.

party an inestimable benefit. To the long peace of Walpole was mainly due the immense material development which contributed so largely to the success of later wars, and also most probably the firm establishment of parliamentary government and of the Hanoverian dynasty. The greatest danger to the Whig party, and the greatest danger to the country from its supremacy, lay in the traditions of its foreign policy, and those traditions Walpole resolutely cut. He has been much blamed for having, taken no steps during his long ministry to break the power of the Highland chiefs, by whom the rebellion of 1745 was mainly effected. In a country where the clan feeling was still extremely strong, such steps would, it appears to me, have been the most natural means of producing an immediate revolt, and thus stirring up all the elements of discontent that were smouldering throughout the nation. On the other hand, it is scarcely doubtful that if the pacific policy which Walpole desired, had continued, the rebellion would never have broken out; and it was the direct result of the conciliatory measures of his administration that when it did break out it found no sympathy in England, and was in consequence easily suppressed.

It is worthy of notice that the long ascendency of Walpole was in no degree owing to any extraordinary brilliancy of eloquence. He was a clear and forcible reasoner, ready in reply, and peculiarly successful in financial exposition, but he had little or nothing of the temperament or the talent of an orator. It is the custom of some writers to decry parliamentary institutions as being simply government by talking, and to assert that when they exist mere rhetorical skill will always be more valued than judgment, knowledge, or character. The enormous exaggeration of such charges may be easily established. It is, no doubt, inevitable that where business is transacted chiefly by debate, the talent of a debater should be highly prized; but it is perfectly untrue that British legislatures have shown less skill than ordinary sovereigns in distinguishing solid talent from mere showy accomplishments, or that parliamentary weight has in England been usually proportioned to oratorical power.

St. John was a far greater orator than Harley; Pulteney was probably a greater orator than Walpole; Stanley in mere rhetorical skill was undoubtedly the superior of Peel. Godolphin, Pelham, Castlereagh, Liverpool, Melbourne, Althorp, Wellington, Lord J. Russell, and Lord Palmerston are all examples of men who, either as statesmen or as successful leaders of the House of Commons, have taken a foremost place in English politics without any oratorical brilliancy. Sheridan, Plunket, and Brougham, though orators of almost the highest class, left no deep impression on English public life; the ascendency of Grey and Canning was very transient, and no Opposition since the early Hanoverian period sank so low as that which was guided by Fox. The two Pitts and Mr. Gladstone are the three examples of speakers of transcendent power exercising for a considerable time a commanding influence over English politics. The younger Pitt is, I believe, a real instance of a man whose solid ability bore no kind of proportion to his oratorical skill, and who, by an almost preternatural dexterity in debate, accompanied by great decision of character, and assisted by the favour of the King, by the magic of an illustrious name, and by a great national panic, maintained an authority immensely greater than his deserts. But in this respect he stands alone. The pinnacle of glory to which the elder Pitt raised his country is a sufficient proof of the almost unequalled administrative genius which he displayed in the conduct of a war; and in the sphere of domestic policy it may be questioned whether any other English minister since the accession of the House of Brunswick has carried so many measures of magnitude and difficulty, or exhibited so perfect a mastery over the financial system of the country as the great living statesman.

The qualities of Walpole were very different, but it is impossible, I think, to consider his career with adequate attention without recognising in him a great minister, although the merits of his administration were often rather negative than positive, and although it exhibits few of those dramatic incidents, and is but little susceptible of that rhetorical colouring,

on which the reputation of statesmen largely depends. Without 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. He was eminently true to the character of his countrymen. He discerned with a rare sagacity the lines of policy most suited to their genius and to their needs, and he had a sufficient ascendency in English politics to form its traditions, to give a character and a bias to its institutions. The Whig party, under his guidance, retained, though with diminished. energy, its old love of civil and of religious liberty, but it lost its foreign sympathies, its tendency to extravagance, its military restlessness. The landed gentry, and in a great degree the Church, were reconciled to the new dynasty. The dangerous fissures which divided the English nation were filled up. Parliamentary government lost its old violence, it entered into a period of normal and pacific action, and the habits of compromise, of moderation, and of practical good sense, which are most essential to its success, were greatly strengthened.

These were the great merits of Walpole. His faults were very manifest, and are to be attributed in part to his own character, but in a great degree to the moral atmosphere of his time. He was an honest man in the sense of desiring sincerely the welfare of his country and serving his sovereign with fidelity; but he was intensely wedded to power, exceedingly unscrupulous about the means of grasping or retaining it, and entirely destitute of that delicacy of honour which marks a high-minded man. In the opinion of most of his contemporaries, Townshend and Walpole had good reason to complain of the intrigues by which Sunderland and Stanhope obtained the supreme power in 1717; but this does not justify the factious manner in which Walpole opposed every measure the new ministry brought forward-even the Mutiny Act, which was plainly necessary to keep the army in discipline; even the